Yay for Mono-Green Midrange!
Although these cards are starting to feel a little overplayed, aren't they? We really need new stuff.
Also, can I suggest to always include a definition of "budget deck" in these articles? Either as a fixed introduction or footnote. Because for instance, now Thragtusk is next to 2 tix, so you could add a playset to the deck and still remain within 20 tix. Isn't that still budget-friendly enough?
For a semi-budget version, I'd like to try a Kalonian Hydra+Predator Ooze+Scavenging Ooze deck. (Maybe even a Golgari version to include Desecration Demon, but that would probably become less and less budget, as you would need duals. And at that point, a couple Garruk Relentless and a couple Vraska would be nice too).
I'm not all that excited about Polukranos, but maybe that's just me. Another big mana Green guy. Oh well.
Melira is about getting a persist guy (preferably Woodfall Primus) with a free sacrifice outlet. The toughest part is finding the sac outlet, but it isn't all that hard with some card draw. She was everywhere when she first came out, before she got hated out I think. Here's an example: http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/multiplayer/22073_You_Lika_The_Juice_...
Glissa... I understand what you're saying with regard to artifacts, but that's purely situational. If you're going up against Esper and mono-Red, then yeah, Glissa is gonna be great. If you are going up against Selesnya and 5 color, she's not going to have nearly the same effect. What I'm really looking for is consistency, and she doesn't have enough for me. But as you say, the evaluations are pointless and more things to talk about than anything.
You're right, things are really based on our own experiences. Ezuri is a must kill Commander for me, because that's what I see. However I still think Kamahl is great, even if I haven't seen him in years, precisely because of what you mention. Good times!
I didn't mean for this to be a series (it really came to me when I was looking for variants of my Kamahl deck, that's the only one almost entirely rebuilt after my collection reset). But who knows.
Multicolored creatures seem hard to do, given that they're probably a good half of the 500 commanders in existence.
Noncreature permanents might be feasible, though. (Checking... Yeah, there's just 80 of them).
But I want to focus on the Dragonpedia now, given that people keep asking for it for some reason (despite the fact that Dragons don't have a great lot of variety. Plus, I think the real fun of these lists is in reviewing the really bad entries, and there's not too many genuinely terrible Dragons).
And I still might end up doing a Walkerpedia first, because Planeswalkers are fun to evaluate, and there's a lot to say about them.
Oh, I'm fully aware that Kamigawa and P3K are The Legendary Sets - I think I said it somewhere even. Still weird that this means for the majority of legends in Magic to have a Far East flavor. (Theros might actually change that a bit.)
In regard of the single entries (and while considering that grading in these things is always going to be subjective and imprecise, not to mention ultimately pointless):
Iname: I've been probably harsher than needed on him, possibly because I was pissed off by the awful long time it took me to acquire him and test his goddamn ability in solitaire (and it still shouldn't work they way it works in MTGO, with the returning to the Command Zone being clearly stated as a replacement effect). Still, I don't see the fun in setting that overcomplicated recursion to end with a bunch of mono-green Spirits. Timmy would be disappointed by the result, and Johnny would soon devote his mental energy to something that would make more sense. (I'll have 1 year to think about it and change the grade anyway!)
Bounteous Kirin: In the world of mono-green, a flyer has a particular "wow" factor. It's a forbidden fruit.
Thriss: I was way more severe with him. Then occurred to me that it's a way to make that 1/1 token that slips through do always 6 damage. It has to count for something.
Seton: I don't underestimate Seton in other formats. I just don't see the point of going with him in CMD, since all that he does is pushing you to include a bunch of Druids, most of which already gave mana, and he's making them giving mana slightly better. That's vastly unexciting, and borderline a bad strategy, both because creature ramp is bad in CMD, and because you can do creature ramp and supports it with a commander that puts it to fruition, rather than having the ramp and then needing your deck to come with something else to win.
Omnath: I'm actually thinking Omnath is a bit overrated (by me as well). While Azusa's ramp can't be easily undone, short of an Armageddon effect, Omnath starts accumulating mana and banks everything on him not being killed too soon. Granted, he'll be often able to capitalize on the early turns' boosts, if played correctly, but that's not a given, and can easily ends in nothing. His "10" is more because of how perfectly it embodies mono-green and its basic philosophies.
Kamahl: You don't see him often because you never play against me! :) (But it's true he's not that popular. Good for me, I guess). One thing I forgot to say about Ezuri and Kamahl: they're way less similar than they look. Ezuri is a build-around-me commander, and he strongly needs his deck to perform. Kamahl is a one-man-band. He thrives in ramp, but he's good everywhere. Imagine this scenario, which is fairly common to me.
- late game
- Gaea's Cradle
- 12 other lands
- Mana Reflection
- Caged Sun
- one opponent has Maze of Ith
- one opponent has just resolved a Wrath effect
Guy with Ezuri can't do nothing. Guy with Kamahl is going to win the table.
Glissa: That's where I possibly have to disagree the most. Glissa on the table is the most control-ish green can be. The artifacts are so crucial in this format, and since the early going, that killing one per turn is barely enough. In fact, a Glissa deck where she's just not the commander out of a lack of better ideas (and mind you, there's a big difference between an "Commander X deck" and deck where Commander X is just the "first among equals" within a bunch of good stuff) is a deck that includes anything it can to untap her.
Nemata: A few Nemata decks won events down at SUNCOM. Good stuff decks mostly (possibly with a Saproling subtheme), but it's the only green commander who's able to create permanent tokens. You use your first tutor to take Seedborn Muse, Nemata will become a blast; if you just tutor up Ant Queen instead, you'll end up with way less tokens and way slowly.
Melira: I confess I'm lost here. What's the combo with Melira in mono-green? I briefly thought about it (without researching cards), but I'm probably zoning out something because I'm too used to pair her up with non-mono-green cards.
"Where do you come up with the time to do all this???"
Eh, I wish I had more. I'm not happy with the way the essentials are formatted, where you need to click on the thumbnails to see what they are. I'll probably change that next year when I update this. And you can see that the analysis for the ramp is way more detailed than the rest, because at some point I ran out of time! (Plus, yeah, I forgot a lot of stuff, Squall Line for sure).
It's also all awfully based on my own experiences, of course. I rarely see Elf decks that don't choose Rhys as a commander, for instance (the Redeemed, mostly). On top of beating Ezuri strategically, they have access to white or black that way.
Hope everyone appreciated my great timing with Polukranos, though. I evaluated him before he was even played as a Commander, ever! :)
Holy cow, there's so much I want to say about this awesome article, but I don't have a whole ton of time so I'm just gonna hit the highlights.
You're going to find that if you do this for each of the other colors, the majority are going to be Kamigawa and P3K cards. It's mainly because of the legendary theme for each of these sets, plus the lack of multi-colored cards.
Iname a 2, and Bounteous Kirin a 5??? No, sir, you are incorrect. Bounteous is horrible, while Iname actually has a decent deck you can build around it (self mill, recur most of your yard, dump you hand with something like the Myojin). It saddens me that poor Iname is ranked so much lower than the awful, over priced Kirin.
Poor Iwamori. I wish your assessment of him wasn't so true. He's supposed to be a huge bad ass! But all he can do is help your opponents. Oh well. However, the horribleness of Thriss and Isao is not to be underestimated.
Ayumi's problem is that you have to make sure that your opponents are playing Legendary lands, which means playing with things like Gauntlets of Chaos. At least that's what I did in my Livonya Silone deck a while back.
You vastly underestimate Seton. He basically gives all your mana dudes haste, can spill most of his deck onto the table around turn 5, then Overrun you. I guess this is true of just about any Elf deck, but still...
Azusa should be a 10, she's just too good. Surprisingly I haven't seen Kamahl used in a very long time. Glissa and Nemata just don't do enough really (Glissa doesn't have enough ways to turn things into artifacts, Namata's 3 mana to make 1 token is too expensive). Ezuri should probably be ranked higher, since he's a cheaper Kamahl essentially.
Any Green Commander that has a trigger for when lands enter play, or based on the number of lands in play, is generally pretty good. There's just so many ways to get lands into play with Green.
The list of essentials is really good, and brings up a bunch of cards I haven't thought about in a while. Probably the only other card I would have included would be Squall Line.
Maybe a list of top 5 (or so) threats when you see them at the table? Like kill on sight guys? Dunno if that's redundant with your ratings though. (Mine are Azusa, Vorinclex, Omnath, Ezuri, Melira [saw the combos too many times when she first game out].)
Excellent stuff. Where do you come up with the time to do all this???
I'm a big fan of Legendary type permanents for flavor matters and I hope that you will continue this series with other Colors & Multicolors too (and maybe Artifacts & Enchantments & Lands as a closure).
(Of Baru) "But what's his deal of being the shifted version of Kamahl?"
He isn't. He's the descendant of Kamahl, either literally or through taking up his mantle. We see the same thing with Rorix Bladewing -> Tarox Bladewing, Alexi Zephyr Mage -> Linessa Zephyr Mage, Orim, Samite Healer (and Cho-Manno) -> Oriss, Samite Guardian, and most blatantly with Dakkon Blackblade -> Korlash, heir to Blackblade. It was the defining flavour trait of the future-shifted Grandeur cycle.
MOJO is in its 4th year but there were 2 tourneys each year hence that last one was 7th and the upcoming will be 8th tournament.
The recording is real bad quality, can't hear anything sometimes
There is overhead of a sort. They need to record for what they handle. Assuming that they are paying out packs then that adjusts against what they are taking in. Regardless of the fact that the assembling expenses are irrelevant.
Taking a hit in place of a benefit is bad business. Regardless of the fact that you can advocate it, wipe it away with a tax benefit. Click Here
Constructed event payouts are already suffering from pack price depression (possibly thanks to the recent redemption price increase), WoTC is unlikely to want another essentially $0-entry cost constructed format flooding the market with more packs.* Last time they updated the daily event schedule they slashed the number of pauper and momir events on offer (by about 50% and 65% respectively), it seems fairly unlikely they're going to add std pauper as a supported event format which those who play regular constructed formats will/should be thankful for.
* daily events directly convert tix into packs and, further, payout more packs than they take in if you take a pack price @4tix which is what WoTC sells them for so they're the biggest source of net pack supply into the online economy.
Thanks for the read .
I was happy to hear about this event that Zack and the guys are running and I signed up for it. Big thanks for having this.
Just to note I pointed Wotc at this event when it started just so they can see yet another readson why mtgo need events for std pauper.
I cant say this enough, Email wotc and tell them you want events for Std pauper. This worked for us in getting a mtgo filter for casual play for std pauper. It will go along ways in getting events too.
Seeing events like this one at 150+ players cant only show Wotc we the players want in game events for it.
Thanks to everyone who plays and supports any and all PREs. Heath and Mtgotraders are the best and big thanks to them for supporting not only MPDC each week but all the other formats they support too.
E-mail Chris Kiritz, who is the business manager for Magic Online and runs the day to day operations, at chris.kiritz@wizards.com.
◾You can also E-mail Magic Online's Customer Service at this link: http://wizards.custhelp.com/app/ask. You will need to be logged into your WotC forums account to use this link.
-Joe
The number of people who signed up for this event is just astounding. It's the biggest event in Standard Pauper history! Am kicking myself for not joining up and I'm not missing the next one.
Good overview of the major decks available in the format, too. I would say that White Weenie and Dimir Mill kind of warrant a mention as well. I'm sure we'll see some innovation come out of the Hipsters event, too.
The prizes for cube drafts the last few times I've checked them out have payed out in cube tickets + 1 QP for first. There have been no booster packs, and the changing of the guard into 'phantom points' has no indication of changing that.
I think cube may also have a single-elimantion option with packs for 1st (2)/2nd (1), but if I want to play cube, I want to play all the rounds. If I somehow got extremely 'good' at cube, then I might go for single cube elimination, but they change up the cube each time, and I don't have a paper cube to practice it out with. That's why if I went into the single elim queues on MTGO, I'd be dead money.
I've tried to flesh things out a little with written commentary to go along with each of my vids though! It's just easier for me to give more info via video.
I actually miss reading your stuff - most of your other stuff is video based (I hate the current trend of video vs reading, it's very non-work friendly :-D)
Into The Wilds has three things going for it over Rowen - one, as you stated, non-basics, two, the land goes onto the board not as a land drop, and it's better mana-wise.
Its not that I don't think is Valuable, its that I made my comment before I drank my coffee today. And yes the uncounterable on both is very good, while getting a bit more value on what you were flashing in in the first place. For the low cost of one more green.
At least the practice of pairing cube drafts with a classic draft will continue, so there will at the very least be opportunities to win classic packs with phantom points.
Thanks for the criticisms. This would actually be my first article ever! So the pointer's really do help. The reason Gideon is really strong in this particular match up is the ability to attack consistently. While the massive land destruction is nice it doesn't put the same amount of pressure on the opponent as Gideon does. The other part about my videos is I try to do everything off the cuff to give a more natural progression of how it would go. I have had more instant quitting in the tournament practice room.
It's a prize given every week to the highest-ranked deck whose tribe belongs to most Underdog categories (you can check them here: http://tinyurl.com/TRIBALUNDERDOGS). The deck needs to win at least 1 match in the event.
Yay for Mono-Green Midrange!
Although these cards are starting to feel a little overplayed, aren't they? We really need new stuff.
Also, can I suggest to always include a definition of "budget deck" in these articles? Either as a fixed introduction or footnote. Because for instance, now Thragtusk is next to 2 tix, so you could add a playset to the deck and still remain within 20 tix. Isn't that still budget-friendly enough?
For a semi-budget version, I'd like to try a Kalonian Hydra+Predator Ooze+Scavenging Ooze deck. (Maybe even a Golgari version to include Desecration Demon, but that would probably become less and less budget, as you would need duals. And at that point, a couple Garruk Relentless and a couple Vraska would be nice too).
I'm not all that excited about Polukranos, but maybe that's just me. Another big mana Green guy. Oh well.
Melira is about getting a persist guy (preferably Woodfall Primus) with a free sacrifice outlet. The toughest part is finding the sac outlet, but it isn't all that hard with some card draw. She was everywhere when she first came out, before she got hated out I think. Here's an example: http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/multiplayer/22073_You_Lika_The_Juice_...
Glissa... I understand what you're saying with regard to artifacts, but that's purely situational. If you're going up against Esper and mono-Red, then yeah, Glissa is gonna be great. If you are going up against Selesnya and 5 color, she's not going to have nearly the same effect. What I'm really looking for is consistency, and she doesn't have enough for me. But as you say, the evaluations are pointless and more things to talk about than anything.
You're right, things are really based on our own experiences. Ezuri is a must kill Commander for me, because that's what I see. However I still think Kamahl is great, even if I haven't seen him in years, precisely because of what you mention. Good times!
I didn't mean for this to be a series (it really came to me when I was looking for variants of my Kamahl deck, that's the only one almost entirely rebuilt after my collection reset). But who knows.
Multicolored creatures seem hard to do, given that they're probably a good half of the 500 commanders in existence.
Noncreature permanents might be feasible, though. (Checking... Yeah, there's just 80 of them).
But I want to focus on the Dragonpedia now, given that people keep asking for it for some reason (despite the fact that Dragons don't have a great lot of variety. Plus, I think the real fun of these lists is in reviewing the really bad entries, and there's not too many genuinely terrible Dragons).
And I still might end up doing a Walkerpedia first, because Planeswalkers are fun to evaluate, and there's a lot to say about them.
Oh, got it: Future Sight, future versions. For some reason I was thinking of them as the Planar Chaos "alternate reality" ones.
Oh, I'm fully aware that Kamigawa and P3K are The Legendary Sets - I think I said it somewhere even. Still weird that this means for the majority of legends in Magic to have a Far East flavor. (Theros might actually change that a bit.)
In regard of the single entries (and while considering that grading in these things is always going to be subjective and imprecise, not to mention ultimately pointless):
Iname: I've been probably harsher than needed on him, possibly because I was pissed off by the awful long time it took me to acquire him and test his goddamn ability in solitaire (and it still shouldn't work they way it works in MTGO, with the returning to the Command Zone being clearly stated as a replacement effect). Still, I don't see the fun in setting that overcomplicated recursion to end with a bunch of mono-green Spirits. Timmy would be disappointed by the result, and Johnny would soon devote his mental energy to something that would make more sense. (I'll have 1 year to think about it and change the grade anyway!)
Bounteous Kirin: In the world of mono-green, a flyer has a particular "wow" factor. It's a forbidden fruit.
Thriss: I was way more severe with him. Then occurred to me that it's a way to make that 1/1 token that slips through do always 6 damage. It has to count for something.
Seton: I don't underestimate Seton in other formats. I just don't see the point of going with him in CMD, since all that he does is pushing you to include a bunch of Druids, most of which already gave mana, and he's making them giving mana slightly better. That's vastly unexciting, and borderline a bad strategy, both because creature ramp is bad in CMD, and because you can do creature ramp and supports it with a commander that puts it to fruition, rather than having the ramp and then needing your deck to come with something else to win.
Omnath: I'm actually thinking Omnath is a bit overrated (by me as well). While Azusa's ramp can't be easily undone, short of an Armageddon effect, Omnath starts accumulating mana and banks everything on him not being killed too soon. Granted, he'll be often able to capitalize on the early turns' boosts, if played correctly, but that's not a given, and can easily ends in nothing. His "10" is more because of how perfectly it embodies mono-green and its basic philosophies.
Kamahl: You don't see him often because you never play against me! :) (But it's true he's not that popular. Good for me, I guess). One thing I forgot to say about Ezuri and Kamahl: they're way less similar than they look. Ezuri is a build-around-me commander, and he strongly needs his deck to perform. Kamahl is a one-man-band. He thrives in ramp, but he's good everywhere. Imagine this scenario, which is fairly common to me.
- late game
- Gaea's Cradle
- 12 other lands
- Mana Reflection
- Caged Sun
- one opponent has Maze of Ith
- one opponent has just resolved a Wrath effect
Guy with Ezuri can't do nothing. Guy with Kamahl is going to win the table.
Glissa: That's where I possibly have to disagree the most. Glissa on the table is the most control-ish green can be. The artifacts are so crucial in this format, and since the early going, that killing one per turn is barely enough. In fact, a Glissa deck where she's just not the commander out of a lack of better ideas (and mind you, there's a big difference between an "Commander X deck" and deck where Commander X is just the "first among equals" within a bunch of good stuff) is a deck that includes anything it can to untap her.
Nemata: A few Nemata decks won events down at SUNCOM. Good stuff decks mostly (possibly with a Saproling subtheme), but it's the only green commander who's able to create permanent tokens. You use your first tutor to take Seedborn Muse, Nemata will become a blast; if you just tutor up Ant Queen instead, you'll end up with way less tokens and way slowly.
Melira: I confess I'm lost here. What's the combo with Melira in mono-green? I briefly thought about it (without researching cards), but I'm probably zoning out something because I'm too used to pair her up with non-mono-green cards.
"Where do you come up with the time to do all this???"
Eh, I wish I had more. I'm not happy with the way the essentials are formatted, where you need to click on the thumbnails to see what they are. I'll probably change that next year when I update this. And you can see that the analysis for the ramp is way more detailed than the rest, because at some point I ran out of time! (Plus, yeah, I forgot a lot of stuff, Squall Line for sure).
It's also all awfully based on my own experiences, of course. I rarely see Elf decks that don't choose Rhys as a commander, for instance (the Redeemed, mostly). On top of beating Ezuri strategically, they have access to white or black that way.
Hope everyone appreciated my great timing with Polukranos, though. I evaluated him before he was even played as a Commander, ever! :)
Holy cow, there's so much I want to say about this awesome article, but I don't have a whole ton of time so I'm just gonna hit the highlights.
You're going to find that if you do this for each of the other colors, the majority are going to be Kamigawa and P3K cards. It's mainly because of the legendary theme for each of these sets, plus the lack of multi-colored cards.
Iname a 2, and Bounteous Kirin a 5??? No, sir, you are incorrect. Bounteous is horrible, while Iname actually has a decent deck you can build around it (self mill, recur most of your yard, dump you hand with something like the Myojin). It saddens me that poor Iname is ranked so much lower than the awful, over priced Kirin.
Poor Iwamori. I wish your assessment of him wasn't so true. He's supposed to be a huge bad ass! But all he can do is help your opponents. Oh well. However, the horribleness of Thriss and Isao is not to be underestimated.
Ayumi's problem is that you have to make sure that your opponents are playing Legendary lands, which means playing with things like Gauntlets of Chaos. At least that's what I did in my Livonya Silone deck a while back.
You vastly underestimate Seton. He basically gives all your mana dudes haste, can spill most of his deck onto the table around turn 5, then Overrun you. I guess this is true of just about any Elf deck, but still...
Azusa should be a 10, she's just too good. Surprisingly I haven't seen Kamahl used in a very long time. Glissa and Nemata just don't do enough really (Glissa doesn't have enough ways to turn things into artifacts, Namata's 3 mana to make 1 token is too expensive). Ezuri should probably be ranked higher, since he's a cheaper Kamahl essentially.
Any Green Commander that has a trigger for when lands enter play, or based on the number of lands in play, is generally pretty good. There's just so many ways to get lands into play with Green.
The list of essentials is really good, and brings up a bunch of cards I haven't thought about in a while. Probably the only other card I would have included would be Squall Line.
Maybe a list of top 5 (or so) threats when you see them at the table? Like kill on sight guys? Dunno if that's redundant with your ratings though. (Mine are Azusa, Vorinclex, Omnath, Ezuri, Melira [saw the combos too many times when she first game out].)
Excellent stuff. Where do you come up with the time to do all this???
Great work Kuma,
I'm a big fan of Legendary type permanents for flavor matters and I hope that you will continue this series with other Colors & Multicolors too (and maybe Artifacts & Enchantments & Lands as a closure).
Yeah, we had some technical issues this week.
(Of Baru) "But what's his deal of being the shifted version of Kamahl?"
He isn't. He's the descendant of Kamahl, either literally or through taking up his mantle. We see the same thing with Rorix Bladewing -> Tarox Bladewing, Alexi Zephyr Mage -> Linessa Zephyr Mage, Orim, Samite Healer (and Cho-Manno) -> Oriss, Samite Guardian, and most blatantly with Dakkon Blackblade -> Korlash, heir to Blackblade. It was the defining flavour trait of the future-shifted Grandeur cycle.
MOJO is in its 4th year but there were 2 tourneys each year hence that last one was 7th and the upcoming will be 8th tournament.
The recording is real bad quality, can't hear anything sometimes
There is overhead of a sort. They need to record for what they handle. Assuming that they are paying out packs then that adjusts against what they are taking in. Regardless of the fact that the assembling expenses are irrelevant.
Taking a hit in place of a benefit is bad business. Regardless of the fact that you can advocate it, wipe it away with a tax benefit. Click Here
Constructed event payouts are already suffering from pack price depression (possibly thanks to the recent redemption price increase), WoTC is unlikely to want another essentially $0-entry cost constructed format flooding the market with more packs.* Last time they updated the daily event schedule they slashed the number of pauper and momir events on offer (by about 50% and 65% respectively), it seems fairly unlikely they're going to add std pauper as a supported event format which those who play regular constructed formats will/should be thankful for.
* daily events directly convert tix into packs and, further, payout more packs than they take in if you take a pack price @4tix which is what WoTC sells them for so they're the biggest source of net pack supply into the online economy.
Thanks for the read .
I was happy to hear about this event that Zack and the guys are running and I signed up for it. Big thanks for having this.
Just to note I pointed Wotc at this event when it started just so they can see yet another readson why mtgo need events for std pauper.
I cant say this enough, Email wotc and tell them you want events for Std pauper. This worked for us in getting a mtgo filter for casual play for std pauper. It will go along ways in getting events too.
Seeing events like this one at 150+ players cant only show Wotc we the players want in game events for it.
Thanks to everyone who plays and supports any and all PREs. Heath and Mtgotraders are the best and big thanks to them for supporting not only MPDC each week but all the other formats they support too.
E-mail Chris Kiritz, who is the business manager for Magic Online and runs the day to day operations, at chris.kiritz@wizards.com.
◾You can also E-mail Magic Online's Customer Service at this link: http://wizards.custhelp.com/app/ask. You will need to be logged into your WotC forums account to use this link.
-Joe
The number of people who signed up for this event is just astounding. It's the biggest event in Standard Pauper history! Am kicking myself for not joining up and I'm not missing the next one.
Good overview of the major decks available in the format, too. I would say that White Weenie and Dimir Mill kind of warrant a mention as well. I'm sure we'll see some innovation come out of the Hipsters event, too.
The prizes for cube drafts the last few times I've checked them out have payed out in cube tickets + 1 QP for first. There have been no booster packs, and the changing of the guard into 'phantom points' has no indication of changing that.
The Magic Online Cube Swiss Draft
Match
Points Prizes QPs
9 16 Cube Tickets 1
6 8 Cube Tickets 0
3 4 Cube Tickets 0
0 2 Cube Tickets 0
I think cube may also have a single-elimantion option with packs for 1st (2)/2nd (1), but if I want to play cube, I want to play all the rounds. If I somehow got extremely 'good' at cube, then I might go for single cube elimination, but they change up the cube each time, and I don't have a paper cube to practice it out with. That's why if I went into the single elim queues on MTGO, I'd be dead money.
I've tried to flesh things out a little with written commentary to go along with each of my vids though! It's just easier for me to give more info via video.
Yeah, Scout's Warning at least replaces itself. Still, forcing through your Angel of Despair or whatever isn't bad.
I think your comment about the cost points to the biggest problem with this.
The cost isn't one green. It's one green plus a card from your hand.
The green is nothing, but the value of a card can't be overlooked.
I actually miss reading your stuff - most of your other stuff is video based (I hate the current trend of video vs reading, it's very non-work friendly :-D)
Into The Wilds has three things going for it over Rowen - one, as you stated, non-basics, two, the land goes onto the board not as a land drop, and it's better mana-wise.
Its not that I don't think is Valuable, its that I made my comment before I drank my coffee today. And yes the uncounterable on both is very good, while getting a bit more value on what you were flashing in in the first place. For the low cost of one more green.
At least the practice of pairing cube drafts with a classic draft will continue, so there will at the very least be opportunities to win classic packs with phantom points.
So being able to flash in a creature that is uncounterable doesn't seem valuable to you in commander?
Summoning can't be countered either, but I don't think it ups its value that much more.
Thanks for the criticisms. This would actually be my first article ever! So the pointer's really do help. The reason Gideon is really strong in this particular match up is the ability to attack consistently. While the massive land destruction is nice it doesn't put the same amount of pressure on the opponent as Gideon does. The other part about my videos is I try to do everything off the cuff to give a more natural progression of how it would go. I have had more instant quitting in the tournament practice room.
It's a prize given every week to the highest-ranked deck whose tribe belongs to most Underdog categories (you can check them here: http://tinyurl.com/TRIBALUNDERDOGS). The deck needs to win at least 1 match in the event.