Great article that is also timed very well! I was looking at pauper daily results and noticed very interesting 5 color control going 3-1. I am a fan of control decks, but playing Posts feels like cheating :P. I've started playtesting it as it looked exactly as something I would enjoy to play a lot.
Really like the idea of using cycling as a card advantage engine making the deck not to be dependend on blue mana and snow lands + skred is just nuts :).
I was thinking about some other options to include in the deck, but I always get a feeling that there is a disadvantage coming with that option.
For example including Cenn's Enlistment instead make it resilient against almost all counterspells and with the help of cycled Tusker or Kodama's Reach (the version I was looking at contained it) you can easily have lands in hand, but I somehow feel this deck is very mana intensive so we don't want to throw lands away as some other decks (Soul Sisters, MUC, etc) that are using cards with Retrace. Sprout Swarm looks reasonable, but I feel it is more useful in control decks that are low on creatures. With Boar and Elder and Grim Harvest recursion we have blockers available quite early, but I haven't playtested it enough.
What do you think about running Evincar’s Justice in the toolbox? Saw some decks running that, but having 2 swamps out early enough might be a issue.
Also some decks like to run Havenwood Wurm as it is tutorable by teachings and has trample, but that is again a good option in decks that don't have many creatures and cannot afford to get chump blocked indefinitely because they lack lot of removals.
Good luck with the deck and keep us (or at least me! :D) informed about the improvements.
All cards in a deck of cards have identical backs containing anything from a solid color to a complex design. This allows you to see the value of your own cards but not your opponent's cards (most games). This also allows you to play games in which you try to remember the location of face-down cards (Concentration). And this allows you to play games where a participant can look at cards, and then lay them face-down so that others cannot see them.
(Yes I had already commented, but I wanted it through my PureMTGO account and not FaceBook.)
Nice article! I always learn something when reading an opponent's perspective.
I'm all for a SilverBlack filter on MTGO too. It shouldn't be hard to implement a filter that let's us select rarities involved, not just SilverBlack.
I'd like to point out that my Hexproof list (above) is a little different than the more popular Hexproof list in the format. Other lists take more ideas from the real Standard version. I made some changes that I thought would be strong in Silverblack, particularly against the powerful Gruul decks. It worked in this event, but I expect players to be more prepared for Hexproof next time.
Edict effects can ruin Hexproof. I drew very well in our match and my luck kept me a step ahead of Edicts.
Sorry to spam here, but does anyone know how to contact jxclaytor by email? if you could reply here or send to psychobabbleswccg at gmail.com that'd be great. Thanks.
I'm pretty sure the "must" clause on Blaze of Glory is there so you can use it on your opponent's creature to force a kill in combat.
Remove Enchantments is so weird! It allows you to remove the Weakness your opponent played on your dude at the expense of your own Unholy Strength. Or, if it's cast when your opponent is attacking, you can remove the Unholy Strengths on his guys. Why not just "return your auras to hand, destroy your opponent's auras"? Was that too broken?
Marble Priest and the other wall cards from Legends come out of those early days and how things like walls or circles of protection would just shut down the game. Marble Priest allows you to attack with it and your other dudes, and your creatures finally get around those pesky walls!
Next you have to do an article about the opposite effect: early cards with simple, sometimes intuitive, text boxes that become highly complex when translated into modern rules. Like Imprison.
I like that Illusionary Mask explains the sense of the card to you. "It serves to hide the true casting cost of the creature!" All that text feels like a tale. Like if Force of Nature said, "It has trample. It's because it's big! Use it to attack your opponents, it'll hurt them!" (Incidentally, that's what Portal should have been.)
I don't know that Raging River is flavorful. I mean, where's the enchantment in all that? There just happens to be a canyon with a river running through it, and you and your opponent bafflingly decided to do battle around it.
And what about Simulacrum's flavor? Did you just dress one of your creatures as you? (And what a dress that was!) Except, my dear planeswalker (and this was back when they were essentially gods!), if you just crouch behind your simulacrum that way, you're giving it away like a 4-year-old playing hide-and-seek for the first time.
I like that Vesuvan Doppleganger stays blue. Even if I can't tell exactly what being of a color of mana entails — does it show that you're blue? If it's an inherent quality, then every clone should stay blue, as it's created by blue mana and blue magic.
A weaponsmith is a smith that exclusively forge weapons? As opposed to, I don't know, horseshoes?
By the way, by your own calculations, Bottle of Suleiman is wordier than Tempest Efreet.
You know, what drives me crazy about all this stuff is: if they were so loose at the time, why in the hell they didn't take advantage of it? Like, they would use "discard" the way you mentioned. Okay, so since they didn't have the sacrifice concept yet, why bother with all that hyper-verbose "You must destroy one of your cards in play. Creatures destroyed this way cannot be regenerated"? Better version: "Just freaking discard those cards. You know what I mean."
Glad I could help out AJ, maybe next time I get more time to prepare seeing I was asked right before we made this. :)
Standard pauper! come get some. pdcmagic.com
Not that I am a glory hound or anything, but I do believe that you incorrectly gave credit to Mihahitlor for one of my decks here. The Goblin Fecundity deck you are showing was played by yours truly at SilverBlack Nemesis 1.02 and SilverBlack Nemesis 1.05, as well the match you describe playing your MBC deck was against me as well (it occurred at SilverBlack Nemesis 1.05).
Love the series. I am always waiting for the next set of videos. I have noticed when you play red you always play heavy artifact. Now, a deck I would love to see you play and build is a Halfdane deck that is tribal shapeshifters. It's not my favorite tribe, but one I always wanted to see a tribal deck built around and would love to see your take on it.
Yeah, cohesion is a very big thing for me, a focus and clear paths to victory. Commander, the extra lifetotal and extra opponents add time and a political dimension, as well as reduced pressure to start with. The different dynamics and larger pile of cards benefit the deck.
I also play commander sometimes. Having access to the commander at any point in the game seems to give me the theme and deckbuilding focus I need. I want my commander to be the deck's primary plan, and I never play 5-color goodstuff with commanders I never intend to cast. I want clear plans for victory, and the commander brings that to a singleton format that would otherwise be too chaotic for me.
For me, singleton without the commander is just all of the randomness, and the deckbuilding is not my style at all. It just isn't very cohesive. You can see by how I cover those decks that I'm trying to assign everything a category or role in the deck, and the decks I like in singleton (relative to the others) tend to be easily digested that way.
Might also be worthwhile clamping down on the very best generic goodstuff human decks. It's no fun if someone just ports in a top class deck and crushes everyone that actually put effort in.
It's very nearly possible to build a human deck where every single tribe member destroys an artifact on entering the battlefield. And that's without taking into account repeatable effects, death triggers or even Meltdown on two legs. Man Vs Machines is an interesting idea, but the humans have a massive advantage.
A lot of great ideas!
Man, I think we're gonna keep at least 2 Duel Week per year. :)
I particularly like Plants vs. Zombies, because I'm a fan of tower defense and played that game for ages. And they're both tribes players may like to build.
Science vs. Faith is interesting too, but I think I'll stick with Men vs. Machines for the next one, since it's easy for everyone to build Human (with a reason for once) and Construct, Golem and Myr are popular too (I'd left Scarecrow out, they're more enchanted puppets than "machines". Plus I like to have a trio like for Dogs).
Great article that is also timed very well! I was looking at pauper daily results and noticed very interesting 5 color control going 3-1. I am a fan of control decks, but playing Posts feels like cheating :P. I've started playtesting it as it looked exactly as something I would enjoy to play a lot.
Really like the idea of using cycling as a card advantage engine making the deck not to be dependend on blue mana and snow lands + skred is just nuts :).
I was thinking about some other options to include in the deck, but I always get a feeling that there is a disadvantage coming with that option.
For example including Cenn's Enlistment instead make it resilient against almost all counterspells and with the help of cycled Tusker or Kodama's Reach (the version I was looking at contained it) you can easily have lands in hand, but I somehow feel this deck is very mana intensive so we don't want to throw lands away as some other decks (Soul Sisters, MUC, etc) that are using cards with Retrace. Sprout Swarm looks reasonable, but I feel it is more useful in control decks that are low on creatures. With Boar and Elder and Grim Harvest recursion we have blockers available quite early, but I haven't playtested it enough.
What do you think about running Evincar’s Justice in the toolbox? Saw some decks running that, but having 2 swamps out early enough might be a issue.
Also some decks like to run Havenwood Wurm as it is tutorable by teachings and has trample, but that is again a good option in decks that don't have many creatures and cannot afford to get chump blocked indefinitely because they lack lot of removals.
Good luck with the deck and keep us (or at least me! :D) informed about the improvements.
All cards in a deck of cards have identical backs containing anything from a solid color to a complex design. This allows you to see the value of your own cards but not your opponent's cards (most games). This also allows you to play games in which you try to remember the location of face-down cards (Concentration). And this allows you to play games where a participant can look at cards, and then lay them face-down so that others cannot see them.
business storage
(Yes I had already commented, but I wanted it through my PureMTGO account and not FaceBook.)
Nice article! I always learn something when reading an opponent's perspective.
I'm all for a SilverBlack filter on MTGO too. It shouldn't be hard to implement a filter that let's us select rarities involved, not just SilverBlack.
I'd like to point out that my Hexproof list (above) is a little different than the more popular Hexproof list in the format. Other lists take more ideas from the real Standard version. I made some changes that I thought would be strong in Silverblack, particularly against the powerful Gruul decks. It worked in this event, but I expect players to be more prepared for Hexproof next time.
Edict effects can ruin Hexproof. I drew very well in our match and my luck kept me a step ahead of Edicts.
I deleted the comment with my email, and have emailed you at your address!
Sorry to spam here, but does anyone know how to contact jxclaytor by email? if you could reply here or send to psychobabbleswccg at gmail.com that'd be great. Thanks.
The Halfdane idea sounds interesting. I'll take a look at it.
Great fun article!
I'm pretty sure the "must" clause on Blaze of Glory is there so you can use it on your opponent's creature to force a kill in combat.
Remove Enchantments is so weird! It allows you to remove the Weakness your opponent played on your dude at the expense of your own Unholy Strength. Or, if it's cast when your opponent is attacking, you can remove the Unholy Strengths on his guys. Why not just "return your auras to hand, destroy your opponent's auras"? Was that too broken?
Marble Priest and the other wall cards from Legends come out of those early days and how things like walls or circles of protection would just shut down the game. Marble Priest allows you to attack with it and your other dudes, and your creatures finally get around those pesky walls!
Next you have to do an article about the opposite effect: early cards with simple, sometimes intuitive, text boxes that become highly complex when translated into modern rules. Like Imprison.
I like that Illusionary Mask explains the sense of the card to you. "It serves to hide the true casting cost of the creature!" All that text feels like a tale. Like if Force of Nature said, "It has trample. It's because it's big! Use it to attack your opponents, it'll hurt them!" (Incidentally, that's what Portal should have been.)
I don't know that Raging River is flavorful. I mean, where's the enchantment in all that? There just happens to be a canyon with a river running through it, and you and your opponent bafflingly decided to do battle around it.
And what about Simulacrum's flavor? Did you just dress one of your creatures as you? (And what a dress that was!) Except, my dear planeswalker (and this was back when they were essentially gods!), if you just crouch behind your simulacrum that way, you're giving it away like a 4-year-old playing hide-and-seek for the first time.
I like that Vesuvan Doppleganger stays blue. Even if I can't tell exactly what being of a color of mana entails — does it show that you're blue? If it's an inherent quality, then every clone should stay blue, as it's created by blue mana and blue magic.
A weaponsmith is a smith that exclusively forge weapons? As opposed to, I don't know, horseshoes?
By the way, by your own calculations, Bottle of Suleiman is wordier than Tempest Efreet.
You know, what drives me crazy about all this stuff is: if they were so loose at the time, why in the hell they didn't take advantage of it? Like, they would use "discard" the way you mentioned. Okay, so since they didn't have the sacrifice concept yet, why bother with all that hyper-verbose "You must destroy one of your cards in play. Creatures destroyed this way cannot be regenerated"? Better version: "Just freaking discard those cards. You know what I mean."
Love the column and a chance to star in extra videos :-) Keep up the good work
I'd probably try Shaleskin Plower main over Titanic Bulvox, but the Post matchup still seems very bad :(
Haven't listened yet but I am a fan of Joe's forum presence so this must be good. Looking forward to it.
Glad I could help out AJ, maybe next time I get more time to prepare seeing I was asked right before we made this. :)
Standard pauper! come get some. pdcmagic.com
I knew I was playing against someone I knew well guess I forgot who... xD
Truly sorry Dabil.
Not that I am a glory hound or anything, but I do believe that you incorrectly gave credit to Mihahitlor for one of my decks here. The Goblin Fecundity deck you are showing was played by yours truly at SilverBlack Nemesis 1.02 and SilverBlack Nemesis 1.05, as well the match you describe playing your MBC deck was against me as well (it occurred at SilverBlack Nemesis 1.05).
If anyone else also likes the deck, I made an article on it here: http://puremtgo.com/articles/silverblack-nemesis-week-2. I think it would be cool to see someone else taking it for a spin.
Love the series. I am always waiting for the next set of videos. I have noticed when you play red you always play heavy artifact. Now, a deck I would love to see you play and build is a Halfdane deck that is tribal shapeshifters. It's not my favorite tribe, but one I always wanted to see a tribal deck built around and would love to see your take on it.
It could be a fun event. I played 5 matches in 2 events and only in 1 game didn't face a planeswalker so it was less fun for me.
Yeah, cohesion is a very big thing for me, a focus and clear paths to victory. Commander, the extra lifetotal and extra opponents add time and a political dimension, as well as reduced pressure to start with. The different dynamics and larger pile of cards benefit the deck.
I also play commander sometimes. Having access to the commander at any point in the game seems to give me the theme and deckbuilding focus I need. I want my commander to be the deck's primary plan, and I never play 5-color goodstuff with commanders I never intend to cast. I want clear plans for victory, and the commander brings that to a singleton format that would otherwise be too chaotic for me.
For me, singleton without the commander is just all of the randomness, and the deckbuilding is not my style at all. It just isn't very cohesive. You can see by how I cover those decks that I'm trying to assign everything a category or role in the deck, and the decks I like in singleton (relative to the others) tend to be easily digested that way.
Yeah, with Humans involved, this will require a bit more thought than with previous cases.
Might also be worthwhile clamping down on the very best generic goodstuff human decks. It's no fun if someone just ports in a top class deck and crushes everyone that actually put effort in.
Bans will happen, of course.
It's very nearly possible to build a human deck where every single tribe member destroys an artifact on entering the battlefield. And that's without taking into account repeatable effects, death triggers or even Meltdown on two legs. Man Vs Machines is an interesting idea, but the humans have a massive advantage.
A lot of great ideas!
Man, I think we're gonna keep at least 2 Duel Week per year. :)
I particularly like Plants vs. Zombies, because I'm a fan of tower defense and played that game for ages. And they're both tribes players may like to build.
Science vs. Faith is interesting too, but I think I'll stick with Men vs. Machines for the next one, since it's easy for everyone to build Human (with a reason for once) and Construct, Golem and Myr are popular too (I'd left Scarecrow out, they're more enchanted puppets than "machines". Plus I like to have a trio like for Dogs).
Science (Artificer) versus Faith (Cleric)
Plants versus Zombies
Civilisation (Advisor) versus Barbarism (Barbarian)
Nephilim versus Avatars
There's always fantastic insights here, always a pleasure to read!