Imho your commentary here is more about your mood than how bad/good Cotton's article is.
For the record I felt it was funny if clearly not ready for prime time. Cotton's sense of humor might have escaped you. This doesn't make his article bad. Just didn't hit the right spot for YOU.
I am surprised really at the vehemence of your reaction as in the past you have shown a sense of humor on par with this as far as I can remember. Maybe my memory has degraded a bit, but really what is over top here is your commentary.
I'm not sure what to say. There's power increase and then there's power increase. Gain control of target library? are you mad? The only way that'd fly on a magic card is if it was an ultimate ability of a planeswalker, that took shenanigans to achieve.
Lady Caldera is terrible. They would never allow white and green to do damage outright. They might allow a Brigid type thing of 3 to each attacking or blocking. I know that perhaps you intended this to be a joke article, but your intentional overabused unfairness of mythic-ness is lost by the fog of anger for how you completely, and without any nod to the color pie, go over the top.
The only thing you could have "updated" a textbox with that could cranky up magic players even more is if you had one that said T: Start playing Yu-Gi-Oh.
I try to never, ever be negative in my life. I try to never give negative criticism, and I've never found a huge issue with any other article on PureMTGO, your artcles inclusive... except this one is just terrible. I feel like you spent twelve whole minutes making the article, and after reading it all I feel is anger for how ridiculous it is and jaded that you got paid for it and I wasted my time reading it.
Now that the original spam si gone my comment is pointless. Also time with your son is way more important than, well, anything, says the father of a one year old. Kudos for whatever vigilance you can muster despite needing a personal life to combat the ne'erdo'ells.
We do not tolerate the spam, I've been talking with jam about other options for comment settings without going full blown facebook because of the resistance that some have to it. I do my best to delete the spam, but some days my son is hanging out with me and I am not in front of the computer as often.
Tangle Wire strikes me as a card worth considering for restriction since it's the one that seems to thwart playing soft answers to Stax and Affinity like Porcelain Legionnaire and other sorcery-speed tech. It basically shuts down the opposition for two the three turns if it comes out quickly, and it does next to no damage to the player who cast it. It feels like 2 Time Walks.
Also, I've been looking at some unconventional options for beating these two decks, but it's hard to find anything -- as you guys note in the podcast -- that doesn't nerf your deck in other matchups. Weird part is, though, that most people don't play the Tier 1 decks in the format still, so it's not quite worth doing so. (For instance, I only played vs. Shop once in the last QT.) So in other words, it's probably not worth heavily metagaming against Affinity and Stax; if even more people piloted those decks, it would be worth doing so. Cards I have in mind include things like Sunscour, which is relatively cheap in terms of mana cost even with a couple of sphere effects out, and it can seriously ruin Affinity's day if they belch out their hand, even if it means pitching a ton of cards to it. Also, Pithing Needle and Phyrexian Revoker and Engineered Explosives are good against both decks because they're artifacts (not getting cost-reduced by Lodestone), and also have the potential to 'kill' a number of permanents. Needle and Revoker make Ravager and Skullclamp and Steel Overseer pretty bad, and Revoker can deal with Metalworker pretty well. EExplosives doesn't really get cost-disrupted very easily because it's an X-casting cost (also very good against Thalia for the same reason).
I don't mind the new Slivers necessarily- they're not really Slivers. I didn't expect them to print Crystalline Sliver, which is the best one of them all. The decision was likely made in light of standard being a "new player" format. This means that new cards aren't going to test the mental range of players who just bought their first event deck to play at an FNM.
I think I can easily say that I hate this reasoning.
Additionally, while M14 keeps getting spoiled, Modern Masters has had no spoilers at all. It's set to release in three weeks. Does Wizards want people to forget about this set, or do they want to create enough excitement around it to make people lay down two hundred dollars for a box at a store?
I dunno that getting 3 copies of a chase mythic is impressive - I only play online so once packs were available online I bought about thirty packs for fun, and opened 3 Rals :-D No Voices, though - that's the only card I didn't get, actually, so all in all not a bad hit - lots of double rares / rare mythics - I love when that happens, not sure why/how it does tho...
UPDATE: Pod of Heaven just ended 1st place in Eurodrive! 74 with a 8-1 score. :)
As usual, Glen Elendra Archmage did most of the work (especially against Scapeshift).
First of all, thank you very much! It's always good to hear that someone is enjoying what I do, definitely makes it worth it. I think the biggest issue with the Jund manabase (in Silverblack at least) is figuring out how many tapped lands you're willing to run. Ideally you'd want to be able to play relevant spells every turn, but asking to have B or R on 1, B/R and/or B/B on 2, and B/R/G and/or B/B/G on 3 is a bit much without the Ravnica shocklands. Personally, I value the early disruption very highly, so I run more basics than other people would, whereas I've seen lists with a higher curve that don't emphasize early disruption, so they're more willing to play tapped lands than I am. I do enjoy the challenge of making the manabase though, it forces you to look at what your deck is trying to do on a turn by turn basis and if your lands aren't able to do that, it makes you either change the order in which you want to play spells, or find similar effects for a different mana cost.
What really happened is that the new trilogy came out, and then the Star Wars franchise has become a joke a la Ed Wood. :)
I could predict the death of paper Magic at some point in the (not so near) future, as every aspect of society will be more and more digitalized — books, newspapers, records/CDs and even DVDs are already experiencing the same thing. Hell, even personal hard disks are bound to become obsolete at some point! (Ted Nelson's Project Xanadu predicted it 50 years ago.) And the more people will distance themselves from the need to own physical objects (and cut down trees), the more digital games will thrive. The beta is just trying to give MTGO a slightly more presentable looks by dressing it up and making it wear a tie, since right now, compared to other digital products, it looks like a barefoot, toothless yokel. (Problem is: the current beta looks like a dressed up yokel wearing a cheap suit found in a dumpster, but they'll get there in the end.)
I usually sell off the cards I don't regularly use to build decks, but occasionally I'm looking through my collection and am stunned that I have a playset of some 5-10 tix card that I never use. I trimmed most of this excess during my big push to get the set of promo Force of Will set. But I totally relate to the "why am I hoarding this thing I never play" feeling.
As for panicking, since the 2008 housing market collapse, all Americans see "bubbles" in anything that increases in price. I'm half-convinced every day that my entire MTG collection in paper and online will be worthless in a year. The only reason I hesitate, is that back in 1997 I predicted it would die, sold off my Power9 and moved into the Star Wars CCG. Star Wars was the #2 CCG back then, and I assumed it would last longer than MTG because it was based on a licensed property with a big fan base, and MTG had no established mythology at the time since Weatherlight had only just been released and the game was only 4 yrs old. What happened was that Decipher lost their Star Wars license to WotC, who ruined it, and Magic somehow kept trucking along. So I already predicted the death of Magic wrongly 16 years ago. But I still worry a lot about the influx of players since DotP came out, that it all will come crashing down and everything except graded Power will be worthless overnight.
Recurring is surely among the first cards I'll buy back (didn't even cost much). It's seriously exciting, in some way, to enter a free bot and be happy that you can find a lot of essential bulk cards for free again, rather than hoarding absurd stuff that you'll never use in your life. :)
(I'm sure a year from now I'll be back to hoarding absurd stuff, though.)
And please, don't jump into any "sky is fallen" bandwagon you too! The thing is: sky never does that. :)
Glad you kept some decks together Kuma, though I'm surprised you didn't hold onto Recurring Nightmares, one of your favorite cards! Glad that Snakes stayed together... as for those Sphinxes, one of my earliest Tribal Apocalypse memories is beating them with my undefeated Samurai deck by Mana Tithe'ing you 3 times in one game, and your article comment that week about "nobody expects a goddamned white counterspell" was hilarious.
I gave serious thought myself to selling my collection recently, because the more I hear about the new MTGO client being a complete disaster, the more I'm fearing that MTGO may be a total wasteland by year's end, or at best filled with only a few dedicated limited players still chugging along just to redeem sets. If that happens, and I'm holding onto a sizeable legacy collection like I have now, I'll be kicking myself for missing the best chance to cash out. But I just play SO MUCH MORE online than in real life, and it's my only way to play legacy at all outside of one or two SCG Opens per year in my area, so I'm invested in hoping it doesn't fail. Not to mention all the effort I made buying/selling and following price trends to incrementally expand my collection with new format staples over the course of three years. I couldn't even imagine trying to rebuild, personally, if I sold my collection I think I'd just be OUT for good.
If you're gonna selloff, your way is likely the best. You kept a few intact decks, plus the manabase to run your most frequest colors, so at least for tribal you can slap together a 5 ticket creature base and the usual spells for those colors and a couple build-around cards and have something new if you really want.
I did see you kept Path to Exile, are those the Rebecca Guay art promos? If I had those, I couldn't part with them either.
I tried playing Primal Surge in Commander with various colors. The amount of triggers I put on the stack after resolving the spell crashed the program. :P
I have always enjoyed your take on card analysis, and have always liked the honest approach you take while writing. I find your humble approach very refreshing. I wanted to comment also about your Jund mana base, I don't know anyone who has ever built and played a Jund deck competitively who thought they got the manabase just right, especially in a budget format. Part of that is subjective as people simply have different ideas and familiarities with their card selection. And the other part is that, especially in budget formats, the selection of lands available doesn't always match the needs of every deck list. I blame this on the mediocre performance Jund has had in Legacy SilverBlack thus far. That being said I think that you have an interesting build that I know has gotten a lot of attention. Good job going 3-1 in the event!
Imho your commentary here is more about your mood than how bad/good Cotton's article is.
For the record I felt it was funny if clearly not ready for prime time. Cotton's sense of humor might have escaped you. This doesn't make his article bad. Just didn't hit the right spot for YOU.
I am surprised really at the vehemence of your reaction as in the past you have shown a sense of humor on par with this as far as I can remember. Maybe my memory has degraded a bit, but really what is over top here is your commentary.
I'm not sure what to say. There's power increase and then there's power increase. Gain control of target library? are you mad? The only way that'd fly on a magic card is if it was an ultimate ability of a planeswalker, that took shenanigans to achieve.
Lady Caldera is terrible. They would never allow white and green to do damage outright. They might allow a Brigid type thing of 3 to each attacking or blocking. I know that perhaps you intended this to be a joke article, but your intentional overabused unfairness of mythic-ness is lost by the fog of anger for how you completely, and without any nod to the color pie, go over the top.
The only thing you could have "updated" a textbox with that could cranky up magic players even more is if you had one that said T: Start playing Yu-Gi-Oh.
I try to never, ever be negative in my life. I try to never give negative criticism, and I've never found a huge issue with any other article on PureMTGO, your artcles inclusive... except this one is just terrible. I feel like you spent twelve whole minutes making the article, and after reading it all I feel is anger for how ridiculous it is and jaded that you got paid for it and I wasted my time reading it.
Now that the original spam si gone my comment is pointless. Also time with your son is way more important than, well, anything, says the father of a one year old. Kudos for whatever vigilance you can muster despite needing a personal life to combat the ne'erdo'ells.
I realize that I deleted your comment to report the spam to mollom. Sorry. :/
We do not tolerate the spam, I've been talking with jam about other options for comment settings without going full blown facebook because of the resistance that some have to it. I do my best to delete the spam, but some days my son is hanging out with me and I am not in front of the computer as often.
Tangle Wire strikes me as a card worth considering for restriction since it's the one that seems to thwart playing soft answers to Stax and Affinity like Porcelain Legionnaire and other sorcery-speed tech. It basically shuts down the opposition for two the three turns if it comes out quickly, and it does next to no damage to the player who cast it. It feels like 2 Time Walks.
Also, I've been looking at some unconventional options for beating these two decks, but it's hard to find anything -- as you guys note in the podcast -- that doesn't nerf your deck in other matchups. Weird part is, though, that most people don't play the Tier 1 decks in the format still, so it's not quite worth doing so. (For instance, I only played vs. Shop once in the last QT.) So in other words, it's probably not worth heavily metagaming against Affinity and Stax; if even more people piloted those decks, it would be worth doing so. Cards I have in mind include things like Sunscour, which is relatively cheap in terms of mana cost even with a couple of sphere effects out, and it can seriously ruin Affinity's day if they belch out their hand, even if it means pitching a ton of cards to it. Also, Pithing Needle and Phyrexian Revoker and Engineered Explosives are good against both decks because they're artifacts (not getting cost-reduced by Lodestone), and also have the potential to 'kill' a number of permanents. Needle and Revoker make Ravager and Skullclamp and Steel Overseer pretty bad, and Revoker can deal with Metalworker pretty well. EExplosives doesn't really get cost-disrupted very easily because it's an X-casting cost (also very good against Thalia for the same reason).
What do you guys think about these options?
I don't mind the new Slivers necessarily- they're not really Slivers. I didn't expect them to print Crystalline Sliver, which is the best one of them all. The decision was likely made in light of standard being a "new player" format. This means that new cards aren't going to test the mental range of players who just bought their first event deck to play at an FNM.
I think I can easily say that I hate this reasoning.
Additionally, while M14 keeps getting spoiled, Modern Masters has had no spoilers at all. It's set to release in three weeks. Does Wizards want people to forget about this set, or do they want to create enough excitement around it to make people lay down two hundred dollars for a box at a store?
Disappointment all around this summer.
I dunno that getting 3 copies of a chase mythic is impressive - I only play online so once packs were available online I bought about thirty packs for fun, and opened 3 Rals :-D No Voices, though - that's the only card I didn't get, actually, so all in all not a bad hit - lots of double rares / rare mythics - I love when that happens, not sure why/how it does tho...
This is really nice and exciting. Good thing I saw this one. - James Stuckey
This is a good draft.I think it is effective though. Good job on this. - James Stuckey
This edition is really good. I have tried this, thanks for my friend by the way. I really enjoyed this one. - James Stuckey
UPDATE: Pod of Heaven just ended 1st place in Eurodrive! 74 with a 8-1 score. :)
As usual, Glen Elendra Archmage did most of the work (especially against Scapeshift).
First of all, thank you very much! It's always good to hear that someone is enjoying what I do, definitely makes it worth it. I think the biggest issue with the Jund manabase (in Silverblack at least) is figuring out how many tapped lands you're willing to run. Ideally you'd want to be able to play relevant spells every turn, but asking to have B or R on 1, B/R and/or B/B on 2, and B/R/G and/or B/B/G on 3 is a bit much without the Ravnica shocklands. Personally, I value the early disruption very highly, so I run more basics than other people would, whereas I've seen lists with a higher curve that don't emphasize early disruption, so they're more willing to play tapped lands than I am. I do enjoy the challenge of making the manabase though, it forces you to look at what your deck is trying to do on a turn by turn basis and if your lands aren't able to do that, it makes you either change the order in which you want to play spells, or find similar effects for a different mana cost.
What really happened is that the new trilogy came out, and then the Star Wars franchise has become a joke a la Ed Wood. :)
I could predict the death of paper Magic at some point in the (not so near) future, as every aspect of society will be more and more digitalized — books, newspapers, records/CDs and even DVDs are already experiencing the same thing. Hell, even personal hard disks are bound to become obsolete at some point! (Ted Nelson's Project Xanadu predicted it 50 years ago.) And the more people will distance themselves from the need to own physical objects (and cut down trees), the more digital games will thrive. The beta is just trying to give MTGO a slightly more presentable looks by dressing it up and making it wear a tie, since right now, compared to other digital products, it looks like a barefoot, toothless yokel. (Problem is: the current beta looks like a dressed up yokel wearing a cheap suit found in a dumpster, but they'll get there in the end.)
Problem is not whether new art is "better", but rather with the lost identity of a beloved tribe.
I love this spell so much, thinking about making a sliver EDH deck and putting Primal Surge in.
I usually sell off the cards I don't regularly use to build decks, but occasionally I'm looking through my collection and am stunned that I have a playset of some 5-10 tix card that I never use. I trimmed most of this excess during my big push to get the set of promo Force of Will set. But I totally relate to the "why am I hoarding this thing I never play" feeling.
As for panicking, since the 2008 housing market collapse, all Americans see "bubbles" in anything that increases in price. I'm half-convinced every day that my entire MTG collection in paper and online will be worthless in a year. The only reason I hesitate, is that back in 1997 I predicted it would die, sold off my Power9 and moved into the Star Wars CCG. Star Wars was the #2 CCG back then, and I assumed it would last longer than MTG because it was based on a licensed property with a big fan base, and MTG had no established mythology at the time since Weatherlight had only just been released and the game was only 4 yrs old. What happened was that Decipher lost their Star Wars license to WotC, who ruined it, and Magic somehow kept trucking along. So I already predicted the death of Magic wrongly 16 years ago. But I still worry a lot about the influx of players since DotP came out, that it all will come crashing down and everything except graded Power will be worthless overnight.
Recurring is surely among the first cards I'll buy back (didn't even cost much). It's seriously exciting, in some way, to enter a free bot and be happy that you can find a lot of essential bulk cards for free again, rather than hoarding absurd stuff that you'll never use in your life. :)
(I'm sure a year from now I'll be back to hoarding absurd stuff, though.)
And please, don't jump into any "sky is fallen" bandwagon you too! The thing is: sky never does that. :)
"New art" I should have said :)
Sliver art WAY better - plus...slivers evolve.
Glad you kept some decks together Kuma, though I'm surprised you didn't hold onto Recurring Nightmares, one of your favorite cards! Glad that Snakes stayed together... as for those Sphinxes, one of my earliest Tribal Apocalypse memories is beating them with my undefeated Samurai deck by Mana Tithe'ing you 3 times in one game, and your article comment that week about "nobody expects a goddamned white counterspell" was hilarious.
I gave serious thought myself to selling my collection recently, because the more I hear about the new MTGO client being a complete disaster, the more I'm fearing that MTGO may be a total wasteland by year's end, or at best filled with only a few dedicated limited players still chugging along just to redeem sets. If that happens, and I'm holding onto a sizeable legacy collection like I have now, I'll be kicking myself for missing the best chance to cash out. But I just play SO MUCH MORE online than in real life, and it's my only way to play legacy at all outside of one or two SCG Opens per year in my area, so I'm invested in hoping it doesn't fail. Not to mention all the effort I made buying/selling and following price trends to incrementally expand my collection with new format staples over the course of three years. I couldn't even imagine trying to rebuild, personally, if I sold my collection I think I'd just be OUT for good.
If you're gonna selloff, your way is likely the best. You kept a few intact decks, plus the manabase to run your most frequest colors, so at least for tribal you can slap together a 5 ticket creature base and the usual spells for those colors and a couple build-around cards and have something new if you really want.
I did see you kept Path to Exile, are those the Rebecca Guay art promos? If I had those, I couldn't part with them either.
Here's my favorite editorial on Slivers (and it's still relevant today) http://magiclampoon.com/blog/2009/06/20/photochop-enough-already/
Here's a nice article looking at the new slivers:
http://mixedknuts.wordpress.com/2013/05/14/729/
I tried playing Primal Surge in Commander with various colors. The amount of triggers I put on the stack after resolving the spell crashed the program. :P
I have always enjoyed your take on card analysis, and have always liked the honest approach you take while writing. I find your humble approach very refreshing. I wanted to comment also about your Jund mana base, I don't know anyone who has ever built and played a Jund deck competitively who thought they got the manabase just right, especially in a budget format. Part of that is subjective as people simply have different ideas and familiarities with their card selection. And the other part is that, especially in budget formats, the selection of lands available doesn't always match the needs of every deck list. I blame this on the mediocre performance Jund has had in Legacy SilverBlack thus far. That being said I think that you have an interesting build that I know has gotten a lot of attention. Good job going 3-1 in the event!