Great presentation of the grand ol' event Olaw. I like following the top tier of the game and Channelfireball is one of my favorite sources for videos. LSV is the paragon of the game in my opinion. Really a professional looking write up.
After much inquiring I have been unable to donate tix directly to the Erik Friborg family charity as I said I would do in the article. Both Heath at puremtgo and One_Million_Words suggested I buy cards from Hammybot with the credits I recieve.
I know Erik loved the MTGO community and I think he would enjoy knowing that cads bought from his collection would go to supporting community events. So I will be donating about 20 tix worth of cards bought from Hammybot for the prizes for the 2nd Ravnica Block Heirloom event that takes place on the 8th of September. That should give everyone a good chance to build decks and get an idea of the metagame from the first event. MTGO is offline right now and I just redeemed my credits so I should know in less than 24 hours what cards will be in the prize package.
Good luck and thanks for being into this game and the community that enjoys it as much as you.
I really do love these articles man. I don't usually read a lot of articles online, but you are one of the people I take time to read content from. Good job man.
@ Psycho: yea I read the first article in that series and right away disliked it... it has zero use for Pauper meta... he had like featured two lists from Pauper that went 4-0 and that was all it said really about Pauper and I don't see how that is helpful at all... while not all of my information may not be valuable (ie predictions) I think its kind of a fun addition.. I'm always willing to modify and add more based on what readers want to see in order to provide the best information possible... I think the problem with that "meta" article series is that it focuses on like all the metas and being so non-specific you can't really obtain any type of read on any specific meta
Yeah, that new column there which looks at the MTGO meta is a real disappointment for only tracking the 4-0 lists. That drastically reduces the sample size of decks each week and imo doesn't give a good picture of the overall meta.
I have to say you are putting an awful lot of work in to these and even though I do not play Pauper other than an occasional dabble or foray into standard pauper I appreciate it. Valuable service is value. This is how the mothership should show us what's happening each week. Keep it up.
My thanks to you for the list and letting me share it! At the end I wished I could say more on it, but what it came down to is that same love-hate relationship with the Hindering Lights and I really had no better suggestion :( sometimes it was awesome to have and sometimes it was useless
Thanks so much for featuring the deck :). I thought you gave it a really good treatment, identifying the same issues that I had and giving it a good shot. I really like the trinket mage idea, it had never even crossed my mind. Definitely helps with both mana fixing and getting the aggro on, it's a good option which I will be sure to try out. Just to answer a few questions that you raised in the vids. Yes, this was intended to be a casual deck, although I have given it a board, I don't intend on taking it to a daily any time soon, it's just for fun. The lawkeepers were there primarily to up my one-drop count to 10 - I really feel that's the minimum number of one drops you want in an agressive deck. It also has some synergy with the exalted plan, of being a guy who doesn't mind staying back while someone else goes out an attacks, and can also remove a pesky blocker. Seismic shudder actually doesn't hurt the deck that much - only hitting the lawkeepers and squires because most of the low-toughness guys are flyers. The hindering light's - although I run into the same mana-related issues with it as you do - I felt were really important given that every exalted attack requires you to go all in with a single creature, making instant speed removal particularly annoying. If I have a few creatures on the ground but want to keep developing my board while I'm stuck on 3 mana or something, what I tend to do is just leave the mana open during the attack phase and then play out a creature post-combat. Sure, they can use removal after that, but I still have the counter if they get more removal - and if they don't, then they're usually in trouble anyway!
Anyway, I do enjoy the deck, it can get some sick draws (falcon - knight, attack for 3, bonesplitter/squire, attack for 6) but the mana issues in particular are really frustrating and I think basically fundamental to the format. It does obviously need the two colours if it's going to go with this theme though (it'd be even better if it could do the full bant!) so basically that's stopping the deck from ever being really competitive.
Thanks for the look over anyway and I'll try that trinket mage out for sure.
Enjoyed the videos quite a bit, though I almost had to stop listening due to the poker chips or whatever that was. The commentary was actually very good. You guys didn't feel the need to talk the whole time and were measured in your additions. When people post videos on this site and the audio is filled from start to finish with talking it turns into a huge detriment. But you two did very well here.
The third game of the second match was fascinating for a variety of reasons.
I think streaming live MTGO events is a great idea. I know some people complain that it isn't fair since other players can give advice as to what play to make. There is an equalizer built in to the system. Sure players can get feedback from the people watching them as to what to play next. But really how helpful is that? I think it would be more of a distraction since you would have to keep reading what people are saying while you are trying to decide what to do. And there is the added problem that, what if your opponent is watching? How much better could you play if you knew what your opponent was holding? Now that is a real advantage.
Personally I like the way Mikey K does it. Record a video live, then upload it for viewing later. That gives more people a chance to watch, since you can watch the video at your leisure instead of having to be there at the same time the event is taking place.
In addition many people find it easier to read articles when there are more than just two images interspersed between the paragraphs. In fact in my own articles I try to put something between ever section. (Bolded headings demark such for me.) And sometimes an image on top just to give the read some idea of what they are in for or something I drew to let them know its my article.
Now on to the meat of the article. I like monoblack. Midrange struggles a bit in an environment filled with 1cmc 3/2 fliers but if you can manage wins with it yay. Monoblack is the one monochrome deck I enjoy in general. The other colors suffer much more from lack of allies.
Liliana of the veil and other discard elements are pretty great against some decks and seem less so vs others. I agree with Pete that BSZ is pretty great vs infect as well as delver and zombies. Though there is some antisynergy vs their geralfs it helps your own post +1/+1 counter.
As long as you are in midranged mono black why not run a Massacre Wurm or two in the sideboard? Too slow? maybe but it ends games when it hits the table. That might be more for a blood artist build though. Im also not quite sure why you added in 3 inkmoths to the deck. The flying beats for 10 seem like a long row to hoe unless you happen to play and keep a lashwrithe which is certainly going to be a top priority for removal/vapor snag etc.
"I have been pretty religious about playing TNMO, but after the change, I don’t think I will do so any more. It is not worth it."
Exactly this! I used to play in every Limited TNMO and sometimes the Standard constructed ones, but I haven't even looked at these since they switched over. MAJOR blunder, in my opinion. Numbers seem to be down as well, since I looked at last weeks numbers and they were only between 30-40 people in each event ... same type were getting close to 100 previously.
Also, I want the multiplayer room back :( Sometimes so hard to get a 4-player commander going now, but was so easy before.
Finally got around to watching these. Thanks for posting, it's nice to see some competitive standard content on this site, and I like the hero's in the deck. In match 4 game 2, I was extremely surprised that you didn't play and equip the sword the next turn, would have been game but I guess you were playing around artifact removal and thought you had the win in hand anyway.
It would have been nice to have some live commentary, hope you're able to do so in future vids :).
You guys should move your podcast to Monday since you're going to be covering the league for the foreseeable future. That way if you record over the weekend, you can be taking about the week that just ended. Few people will have played their next matches yet, so the podcast will be current when it's posted.
Sorry for the late reply and thanks for the comments guys.
I think you make a lot of valid points and I reckon there's still a lot of room for tweaks and improvements to the deck. This is far from a definitive build, just a successful build from the dailies. I agree that the 2 Champions is a very strange choice and going to 4 or 0 makes a lot more sense.
I didn't comment on them, but I'm with Rex: they're not that high, considering it's Legacy. It's almost all lands, and you can convert those decks with cheaper lands if you want (of course, in some cases the decks would become way less effective that way).
And yes, like Ranth said below, please don't make any assumption about a player's wealth based on the price of their decks, or something silly like that. Some of those cards were really cheap back in the time, while some other cards that were worth a fortune are now affordable. The prices are in constant flux on MTGO.
Bottom line is: buy lands when you can. I know it's boring, but your decks (all of them) will be better. Especially the fetch lands, as most of the old ones are relatively cheap these days.
Good job, Chamale. Too bad I didn't get these links in time to embed them! I can do it next time (maybe with new videos? Keep up with the good work!)
As a somehow related story, I don't know if it varies from user to user, but my experience with the client's offline message system is that they don't have word wrap, so you can't read anything after 30 characters or so. So it's better NOT to send me important, long messages there. My email is in the article anyway (at the end, in the videos section).
1st of all I wanted to say thanks for helping me with editting and putting this article together I know there was a lot to be done. It looks good and reads good the aim has not been changed, p.s. r11 FoundOmega - it was his nick ( a very good and nice person) gave me the match so we could meet in final not before as we both feared for this match...
Great presentation of the grand ol' event Olaw. I like following the top tier of the game and Channelfireball is one of my favorite sources for videos. LSV is the paragon of the game in my opinion. Really a professional looking write up.
After much inquiring I have been unable to donate tix directly to the Erik Friborg family charity as I said I would do in the article. Both Heath at puremtgo and One_Million_Words suggested I buy cards from Hammybot with the credits I recieve.
I know Erik loved the MTGO community and I think he would enjoy knowing that cads bought from his collection would go to supporting community events. So I will be donating about 20 tix worth of cards bought from Hammybot for the prizes for the 2nd Ravnica Block Heirloom event that takes place on the 8th of September. That should give everyone a good chance to build decks and get an idea of the metagame from the first event. MTGO is offline right now and I just redeemed my credits so I should know in less than 24 hours what cards will be in the prize package.
Good luck and thanks for being into this game and the community that enjoys it as much as you.
I really do love these articles man. I don't usually read a lot of articles online, but you are one of the people I take time to read content from. Good job man.
tyvm Paul
@ Psycho: yea I read the first article in that series and right away disliked it... it has zero use for Pauper meta... he had like featured two lists from Pauper that went 4-0 and that was all it said really about Pauper and I don't see how that is helpful at all... while not all of my information may not be valuable (ie predictions) I think its kind of a fun addition.. I'm always willing to modify and add more based on what readers want to see in order to provide the best information possible... I think the problem with that "meta" article series is that it focuses on like all the metas and being so non-specific you can't really obtain any type of read on any specific meta
Yeah, that new column there which looks at the MTGO meta is a real disappointment for only tracking the 4-0 lists. That drastically reduces the sample size of decks each week and imo doesn't give a good picture of the overall meta.
I have to say you are putting an awful lot of work in to these and even though I do not play Pauper other than an occasional dabble or foray into standard pauper I appreciate it. Valuable service is value. This is how the mothership should show us what's happening each week. Keep it up.
My thanks to you for the list and letting me share it! At the end I wished I could say more on it, but what it came down to is that same love-hate relationship with the Hindering Lights and I really had no better suggestion :( sometimes it was awesome to have and sometimes it was useless
Thanks so much for featuring the deck :). I thought you gave it a really good treatment, identifying the same issues that I had and giving it a good shot. I really like the trinket mage idea, it had never even crossed my mind. Definitely helps with both mana fixing and getting the aggro on, it's a good option which I will be sure to try out. Just to answer a few questions that you raised in the vids. Yes, this was intended to be a casual deck, although I have given it a board, I don't intend on taking it to a daily any time soon, it's just for fun. The lawkeepers were there primarily to up my one-drop count to 10 - I really feel that's the minimum number of one drops you want in an agressive deck. It also has some synergy with the exalted plan, of being a guy who doesn't mind staying back while someone else goes out an attacks, and can also remove a pesky blocker. Seismic shudder actually doesn't hurt the deck that much - only hitting the lawkeepers and squires because most of the low-toughness guys are flyers. The hindering light's - although I run into the same mana-related issues with it as you do - I felt were really important given that every exalted attack requires you to go all in with a single creature, making instant speed removal particularly annoying. If I have a few creatures on the ground but want to keep developing my board while I'm stuck on 3 mana or something, what I tend to do is just leave the mana open during the attack phase and then play out a creature post-combat. Sure, they can use removal after that, but I still have the counter if they get more removal - and if they don't, then they're usually in trouble anyway!
Anyway, I do enjoy the deck, it can get some sick draws (falcon - knight, attack for 3, bonesplitter/squire, attack for 6) but the mana issues in particular are really frustrating and I think basically fundamental to the format. It does obviously need the two colours if it's going to go with this theme though (it'd be even better if it could do the full bant!) so basically that's stopping the deck from ever being really competitive.
Thanks for the look over anyway and I'll try that trinket mage out for sure.
Pasta and Jam - yummy.
is on me. I must have messed up the copy pasta from the jam site to here. I'm not very code at code :(
My apologies.
I agree with the above idea.
Enjoyed the videos quite a bit, though I almost had to stop listening due to the poker chips or whatever that was. The commentary was actually very good. You guys didn't feel the need to talk the whole time and were measured in your additions. When people post videos on this site and the audio is filled from start to finish with talking it turns into a huge detriment. But you two did very well here.
The third game of the second match was fascinating for a variety of reasons.
The game was so much in my favor that I didn't want him having Oblivion Ring on Sword, or worse, Divine Offering. But it would have worked out better.
I think streaming live MTGO events is a great idea. I know some people complain that it isn't fair since other players can give advice as to what play to make. There is an equalizer built in to the system. Sure players can get feedback from the people watching them as to what to play next. But really how helpful is that? I think it would be more of a distraction since you would have to keep reading what people are saying while you are trying to decide what to do. And there is the added problem that, what if your opponent is watching? How much better could you play if you knew what your opponent was holding? Now that is a real advantage.
Personally I like the way Mikey K does it. Record a video live, then upload it for viewing later. That gives more people a chance to watch, since you can watch the video at your leisure instead of having to be there at the same time the event is taking place.
Hi Bradford, welcome to puremtgo. You might not be aware of this but there is a tool for creating nice looking deck lists for articles such as this:
http://jamuraa.com/pure/deck_new.php
In addition many people find it easier to read articles when there are more than just two images interspersed between the paragraphs. In fact in my own articles I try to put something between ever section. (Bolded headings demark such for me.) And sometimes an image on top just to give the read some idea of what they are in for or something I drew to let them know its my article.
Now on to the meat of the article. I like monoblack. Midrange struggles a bit in an environment filled with 1cmc 3/2 fliers but if you can manage wins with it yay. Monoblack is the one monochrome deck I enjoy in general. The other colors suffer much more from lack of allies.
Liliana of the veil and other discard elements are pretty great against some decks and seem less so vs others. I agree with Pete that BSZ is pretty great vs infect as well as delver and zombies. Though there is some antisynergy vs their geralfs it helps your own post +1/+1 counter.
As long as you are in midranged mono black why not run a Massacre Wurm or two in the sideboard? Too slow? maybe but it ends games when it hits the table. That might be more for a blood artist build though. Im also not quite sure why you added in 3 inkmoths to the deck. The flying beats for 10 seem like a long row to hoe unless you happen to play and keep a lashwrithe which is certainly going to be a top priority for removal/vapor snag etc.
Why not bring in BSZ against infect? The -1/-1 counters get around hexproof and regenerate and even WIld Defiance pump effects.
"I have been pretty religious about playing TNMO, but after the change, I don’t think I will do so any more. It is not worth it."
Exactly this! I used to play in every Limited TNMO and sometimes the Standard constructed ones, but I haven't even looked at these since they switched over. MAJOR blunder, in my opinion. Numbers seem to be down as well, since I looked at last weeks numbers and they were only between 30-40 people in each event ... same type were getting close to 100 previously.
Also, I want the multiplayer room back :( Sometimes so hard to get a 4-player commander going now, but was so easy before.
Yeah, he was telling me about that. Also, totally agree that FoundOmega is an incredibly nice guy.
Finally got around to watching these. Thanks for posting, it's nice to see some competitive standard content on this site, and I like the hero's in the deck. In match 4 game 2, I was extremely surprised that you didn't play and equip the sword the next turn, would have been game but I guess you were playing around artifact removal and thought you had the win in hand anyway.
It would have been nice to have some live commentary, hope you're able to do so in future vids :).
You guys should move your podcast to Monday since you're going to be covering the league for the foreseeable future. That way if you record over the weekend, you can be taking about the week that just ended. Few people will have played their next matches yet, so the podcast will be current when it's posted.
Sorry for the late reply and thanks for the comments guys.
I think you make a lot of valid points and I reckon there's still a lot of room for tweaks and improvements to the deck. This is far from a definitive build, just a successful build from the dailies. I agree that the 2 Champions is a very strange choice and going to 4 or 0 makes a lot more sense.
I didn't comment on them, but I'm with Rex: they're not that high, considering it's Legacy. It's almost all lands, and you can convert those decks with cheaper lands if you want (of course, in some cases the decks would become way less effective that way).
And yes, like Ranth said below, please don't make any assumption about a player's wealth based on the price of their decks, or something silly like that. Some of those cards were really cheap back in the time, while some other cards that were worth a fortune are now affordable. The prices are in constant flux on MTGO.
Bottom line is: buy lands when you can. I know it's boring, but your decks (all of them) will be better. Especially the fetch lands, as most of the old ones are relatively cheap these days.
Hey, grappling! You'll be back soon? :)
Good job, Chamale. Too bad I didn't get these links in time to embed them! I can do it next time (maybe with new videos? Keep up with the good work!)
As a somehow related story, I don't know if it varies from user to user, but my experience with the client's offline message system is that they don't have word wrap, so you can't read anything after 30 characters or so. So it's better NOT to send me important, long messages there. My email is in the article anyway (at the end, in the videos section).
1st of all I wanted to say thanks for helping me with editting and putting this article together I know there was a lot to be done. It looks good and reads good the aim has not been changed, p.s. r11 FoundOmega - it was his nick ( a very good and nice person) gave me the match so we could meet in final not before as we both feared for this match...
Wizards has streamed a number of major tournaments through twitch.tv now, not just one. Granted, these are paper events, not MTGO events.