Hmmm... An interesting set of synergies to be sure. But I think that it'll have to lose black or at least drop it back to a splash in the post RTR meta. With no 1B kill a dude spell, it just doesn't seem worth it.
My lizard-brain says that this shouldn't be a deck that's trying to combo, but one that's trying to win through tempo and just being annoying as hell to play against, and we even got given Soulbound and mist raven last block to make things much much more interesting. I'd be thinking UGw, with wing crafters, nightshade peddlers trusted force mages, grif vanguards maybe some lumberknots. That's your beat down crew, who are all solid value targets to benefit from being flickered (changing which creatures have flying, death touch, and +1/+1, and drawing cards ofc). Then a package of Archaeomancer, Ghostly Flicker, Mist Raven, Cloudshift, Unsummon and Stonehorn Dignitary.
Hold down the board with your dudes who are really really hard to attack into (would you attack with anything when any creature might have flying and deathtouch at instant speed ?), bounce any problem creatures, stonehorn shenanignas buys you time while you keep drawing cards. Once they are out of gas, you pair up a lumberknot and a wingcrafter (or possibly a pathbreaker worm) and go to town with flying 5/5 beat sticks that if they ever try to block profitably you can just flicker.
Great article, Kumagoro! I've got some tech for tomorrow's event, and I'll be aiming for 4 new achievements. Here are some Youtube videos from this event, in case anyone would like to see my deck operate:
In the first match, I played against Romellos's Merfolk and played most of my deck, earning the Community and Miracles Happen achievements. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmQpF-Dinvo
I am not surprised how cheap the top decks were, minus land. (And I mean cheap relative to legacy.) When you think about it, alot of the expensive legacy staples aren't that hot in tribal, and alot of the cards that would make certain popular tribal decks expensive are banned. Other than my esper spirit deck with the Vindicates and Geists, I'd wager most everything I've played has been under $50 not counting lands. Unless your tribe has a must-include mythic rare thats in Standard, like werewolves with Huntmaster, your creature base isn't going to be that expensive. And most of the best support cards are cheap, and you can buy them over time and use them in many lists. The staples of this format are StP, Bolt, and Brainstorm, judging from the card popularity chart.
IMO, a great way to get into this format is to buy the common/uncommon staples, then invest in one "engine" or archetype that you could use in multiple decks, like Entombs for reanimator, or Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors for Dragons and other big tribes. I think that's about what most of us do, we gradually acquire some archetype staples and find ourselves building decks around them. One of the things I love about this PRE is that as you grow your collection you can use it as a place to experiment an have fun with some of your new purchases. But you can just as easy play without resorting to ANY of those archetypes, and just play the best guys in your tribe, with some removal and other ways to interact, and give it a go.
Ya I'll admit the deck prices had thrown me for a loop as well. I guess our manabases have grown quite a bit over time eh? ( I remember picking up alot of the lands for 5-15 each,most closer to 5 then 15)
I'm slightly surprised at the deck cost, although most of that is slow investment in staples over time, and getting in with the legendary AVR angels at the ground floor. Admittedly that deck had a deliberately all-mythic creature base, but I dare say this Saturday's deck will be somewhat cheaper.
I did not stream last week because i wasn't feeling well in combination with the world cup pro tour being streamed.
I WANT to stream this weekend however am currently still not feeling well and may have to go to the hospital if I cannot get whatever is going on under control.
Keep forgetting to talk about Ranth's channel that broadcasts his games during Tribal Apocalypse (unfortunately, I can't embed the replays of those): http://www.twitch.tv/wicked_intent
An interesting variation on a deck type Ive been writing about and tinkering with for a while. I am surprised you don't run some number of Blasphemous Acts since it interacts well tokens as a forced cheap sweeper. Particularly nice of course are the blood artist/aristocrat interactions with it but even without running those its a handy reset button.
The next DCI B&R announcement is scheduled for Sept 20th. Any changes to the TA B&R list will happen at the same time. I will entertain the idea of restricting the "Trifecta of Doom" to their appropriate tribes.
Lots of new info out...WW and infect are now quite easy matchups if played correctly. MBC can still be a pain with so many edict style effects about...The below list has won a lot for me recently:
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Quirion Ranger
3 Shinen of Life's Roar
4 Silhana Ledgewalker
4 Skarrgan Pit-Skulk
2 Wild Mongrel
4 Young Wolf
4 Gather Courage
4 Groundswell
3 Hunger of the Howlpack
4 Rancor
3 Vines of Vastwood
Sideboard
4 Sandstorm
4 Scattershot Archer
1 Shield of the Oversoul
4 Spore Frog
2 Viridian Longbow
Shield is great for goblins, affinity and mbc...this sideboard 1x spot sometimes is a relic (very meta dependent) or an additional vines or longbow are also both valid inclusions.
Remember - tripping sporefrog not only timewalks vs. aggro matchups...but triggers your hunger :)
Partnered as in a steady contract that is ongoing? Or partnered as in WOTC needed a streaming service for one event and hired Twitch instead of some other service and now that that event is over are not partnered with them anymore?
WOTC partnered with Twitch already, they are going to be in support of streaming unless it causes serious problems of collusion, as it exists now it isn't a fair play concern. I played against Strong Sad while he was streaming a daily (I asked if I was being recorded) but I didn't feel like it was one vs. one hundred. I've also run across Sam Black in a 2 man while he was streaming, if anything I think it makes people play a bit sloppier than usual.
For drafts, constructed queues and dailies, streamers don't even bother to screen their hands because the stakes are so low. For bigger tournaments my understanding is X-Split makes it very easy to cover up that information. I've watched streamers complain they felt their opponents were watching their stream, only to have them (the opponents) walk into a 3-for-1 and lose the match.
I'm sure WOTC is thrilled at streaming, it means more eyes on their product which will eventually result in more sales, if the rules don't support it now, they'll change the rules.
Congrats on your win and good job to you and Mr Claytor for an enjoyable read. One small nitpick is that the screenies could be a lot larger. 2-3x their size would have been better. You can control this from the image insert item on the rt editor.
In terms of COC violations I am guessing it is somehow linked to 9 since streaming live could be considered an attempt (however obliquely) to alter the outcome of the event. I recognize that this logic is strained but I think it still holds water as far as the ORCs would be concerned because they have a large leeway in interpreting the COC and regards to player actions. They may also have deemed that TALKING about streaming an event falls into that category which seems much more something they can stop/prevent and so they jumped on it. If so they probably should have worded it as "Discussion of streaming events live is not allowed in chat."
An awesome write-up as always and a very informative trio of videos. It looks like Flicker can really get going if the opposing aggressive deck stumbles on mana, but can get stuck very easily if it doesn't draw its two most important combo pieces Archaeomancer and Ghostly Flicker. The combo looks slow and clunky at first, but for an experienced control player like pk23 it's the perfect deck to experiment with and hone. It was particularly interesting to see how long it took for the deck to win the first game and how quickly it lost when White Weenie got a good draw going, so I think your assessment that Flicker has an uphill battle is correct. Still, it's not heavily reliant on Scars block cards at all, so perhaps Return to Ravnica will present even better combo pieces for next season. I say good luck to all Flicker players out there and to gwyned, keep up the good work and keep the articles coming!
Against Iona - Angel reanimator with her would be too powerful imo. With Progenitus, at least you have a reasonable drawback of having to play a weak tribe, you can't reanimate it into play, and if you wanna cheat it into play with Natural Order you also need to add a bunch of mana dorks, which take additional free space. Show and Tell is good with Avatar (but not insane, since all other avatars are easily dealt with), but not with Hydra builds (most good hydras have X in their CC).
It should be noted that those accelerators are very, very good, and that every other support slot was removal, 8 of them one-drop StP effects.
I'm not just trying to build that deck. (Okay, I _may_ already be buying up the components for it, but that's because those components are awesome in many things) It's more a case of having a sudden flash of insight while thinking about the issue. We have precedence, we have people who wish to play with the cards despite their use in degenerate decks. It is a lot harder (though not impossible, Angel reanimator a salient example) to be degenerate and on tribe. Emrakul in Eldrazi is very nasty to face and relatively straightforward to cast or cheat, I used it as my i-win button of choice in my day one Eldrazi deck on the first Tribal Apoc after the RoE prerelease.
The one-of restriction would hurt show-and-tell builds, but letting legitimate decks clog their hands with up to four uncastables doesn't seem too much of a drawback. You say there is scope for interesting Stoneforge Mystic builds provided only Kor and Artificer get her, I say there is scope for interesting Prog builds providing only Hydra and Avatar get it. I'm reserving judgement on the other two.
You have my support.
I believe Blippy (who still has to give us his thoughs on the subject) wants to synchronize our banning changes with DCI's, so we might have to wait until their next announcement anyway (how often they do that? Every third month or so?).
What about putting the whole Trifecta back on those terms?
Emrakul won't be in Wall-Drazi nor Elfball. Are Eldrazi decks scarier with him in there? They don't have much built-in stuff to help him, if not the system designed by ROE (the Eldrazi spawn) which is nothing really worrying.
Now, Iona in Angel decks might enable Angel reanimator, which is definitely a thing. But she'll be just one-tribe weapon, and mostly an anti-monocolored weapon (and since monocolored have Blood Moon/Magus of the Moon to hose multicolored, it may be fair to hose them back? Always considering that monocolored = budget decks, and multicolored = money decks, though).
They might be also all restricted to 1 copy as well (unlike Stoneforge Mystic).
I never said NO-Prog would be a (particular) problem. I said it would be the go-to solution, and I prefer to make people Sweat & Think, rather than giving them prepackaged easy stuff.
This said, I approve AJ's idea (even if he's just trying to put himself in the position of playing that Avatar deck he mentioned :P).
On a side note, Rex, it occurred to me that you really are a man of the low end of the curve (I'm almost entirely a midrange guy, instead, that's probably why sometimes we take very different paths in deckbuilding). Like, while I was writing the article for the latest event, I was reminded of what you wrote elsewhere about Sigarda being barely playable in Legacy as a 5 CMC creature. That feels very strange to think to me. I mean, maybe that's true in *Legacy*, but again, we're in Legacy Tribal Wars here. AJ smashed a lot of opponents with a 5-color deck where 14 of his creatures were 5 CMC or higher, and 6 of them were 7 CMC. And he hardcasted them all, no tricks, no cheats, and just 4 accelerators. That looks like something very far from your conception of the format (or just your style of play), am I wrong?
Chamales deck looks like a lot of fun. Good article as always, interesting to see the twists in tribal over the summer.
Hmmm... An interesting set of synergies to be sure. But I think that it'll have to lose black or at least drop it back to a splash in the post RTR meta. With no 1B kill a dude spell, it just doesn't seem worth it.
My lizard-brain says that this shouldn't be a deck that's trying to combo, but one that's trying to win through tempo and just being annoying as hell to play against, and we even got given Soulbound and mist raven last block to make things much much more interesting. I'd be thinking UGw, with wing crafters, nightshade peddlers trusted force mages, grif vanguards maybe some lumberknots. That's your beat down crew, who are all solid value targets to benefit from being flickered (changing which creatures have flying, death touch, and +1/+1, and drawing cards ofc). Then a package of Archaeomancer, Ghostly Flicker, Mist Raven, Cloudshift, Unsummon and Stonehorn Dignitary.
Hold down the board with your dudes who are really really hard to attack into (would you attack with anything when any creature might have flying and deathtouch at instant speed ?), bounce any problem creatures, stonehorn shenanignas buys you time while you keep drawing cards. Once they are out of gas, you pair up a lumberknot and a wingcrafter (or possibly a pathbreaker worm) and go to town with flying 5/5 beat sticks that if they ever try to block profitably you can just flicker.
Be well and do not hesitate to go if your condition worsens.
Great article, Kumagoro! I've got some tech for tomorrow's event, and I'll be aiming for 4 new achievements. Here are some Youtube videos from this event, in case anyone would like to see my deck operate:
In the first match, I played against Romellos's Merfolk and played most of my deck, earning the Community and Miracles Happen achievements. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmQpF-Dinvo
In my third match, AJ_Impy's Angels managed to disrupt some of my combo, forcing me to improvise a new win condition. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YcBDEL4NHA
I am not surprised how cheap the top decks were, minus land. (And I mean cheap relative to legacy.) When you think about it, alot of the expensive legacy staples aren't that hot in tribal, and alot of the cards that would make certain popular tribal decks expensive are banned. Other than my esper spirit deck with the Vindicates and Geists, I'd wager most everything I've played has been under $50 not counting lands. Unless your tribe has a must-include mythic rare thats in Standard, like werewolves with Huntmaster, your creature base isn't going to be that expensive. And most of the best support cards are cheap, and you can buy them over time and use them in many lists. The staples of this format are StP, Bolt, and Brainstorm, judging from the card popularity chart.
IMO, a great way to get into this format is to buy the common/uncommon staples, then invest in one "engine" or archetype that you could use in multiple decks, like Entombs for reanimator, or Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors for Dragons and other big tribes. I think that's about what most of us do, we gradually acquire some archetype staples and find ourselves building decks around them. One of the things I love about this PRE is that as you grow your collection you can use it as a place to experiment an have fun with some of your new purchases. But you can just as easy play without resorting to ANY of those archetypes, and just play the best guys in your tribe, with some removal and other ways to interact, and give it a go.
Ya I'll admit the deck prices had thrown me for a loop as well. I guess our manabases have grown quite a bit over time eh? ( I remember picking up alot of the lands for 5-15 each,most closer to 5 then 15)
I'm slightly surprised at the deck cost, although most of that is slow investment in staples over time, and getting in with the legendary AVR angels at the ground floor. Admittedly that deck had a deliberately all-mythic creature base, but I dare say this Saturday's deck will be somewhat cheaper.
Hope you get better soon, man.
I did not stream last week because i wasn't feeling well in combination with the world cup pro tour being streamed.
I WANT to stream this weekend however am currently still not feeling well and may have to go to the hospital if I cannot get whatever is going on under control.
Congrats on the finish and I hope you're not to upset with me for cleaning things up. You should be happy with your finish!
Keep forgetting to talk about Ranth's channel that broadcasts his games during Tribal Apocalypse (unfortunately, I can't embed the replays of those): http://www.twitch.tv/wicked_intent
An interesting variation on a deck type Ive been writing about and tinkering with for a while. I am surprised you don't run some number of Blasphemous Acts since it interacts well tokens as a forced cheap sweeper. Particularly nice of course are the blood artist/aristocrat interactions with it but even without running those its a handy reset button.
The next DCI B&R announcement is scheduled for Sept 20th. Any changes to the TA B&R list will happen at the same time. I will entertain the idea of restricting the "Trifecta of Doom" to their appropriate tribes.
I'm just glad Doc Anime is back :)
Stompy Update 8/24/12
Lots of new info out...WW and infect are now quite easy matchups if played correctly. MBC can still be a pain with so many edict style effects about...The below list has won a lot for me recently:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
17 Forest
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Quirion Ranger
3 Shinen of Life's Roar
4 Silhana Ledgewalker
4 Skarrgan Pit-Skulk
2 Wild Mongrel
4 Young Wolf
4 Gather Courage
4 Groundswell
3 Hunger of the Howlpack
4 Rancor
3 Vines of Vastwood
Sideboard
4 Sandstorm
4 Scattershot Archer
1 Shield of the Oversoul
4 Spore Frog
2 Viridian Longbow
Shield is great for goblins, affinity and mbc...this sideboard 1x spot sometimes is a relic (very meta dependent) or an additional vines or longbow are also both valid inclusions.
Remember - tripping sporefrog not only timewalks vs. aggro matchups...but triggers your hunger :)
Partnered as in a steady contract that is ongoing? Or partnered as in WOTC needed a streaming service for one event and hired Twitch instead of some other service and now that that event is over are not partnered with them anymore?
WOTC partnered with Twitch already, they are going to be in support of streaming unless it causes serious problems of collusion, as it exists now it isn't a fair play concern. I played against Strong Sad while he was streaming a daily (I asked if I was being recorded) but I didn't feel like it was one vs. one hundred. I've also run across Sam Black in a 2 man while he was streaming, if anything I think it makes people play a bit sloppier than usual.
For drafts, constructed queues and dailies, streamers don't even bother to screen their hands because the stakes are so low. For bigger tournaments my understanding is X-Split makes it very easy to cover up that information. I've watched streamers complain they felt their opponents were watching their stream, only to have them (the opponents) walk into a 3-for-1 and lose the match.
I'm sure WOTC is thrilled at streaming, it means more eyes on their product which will eventually result in more sales, if the rules don't support it now, they'll change the rules.
Congrats on your win and good job to you and Mr Claytor for an enjoyable read. One small nitpick is that the screenies could be a lot larger. 2-3x their size would have been better. You can control this from the image insert item on the rt editor.
In terms of COC violations I am guessing it is somehow linked to 9 since streaming live could be considered an attempt (however obliquely) to alter the outcome of the event. I recognize that this logic is strained but I think it still holds water as far as the ORCs would be concerned because they have a large leeway in interpreting the COC and regards to player actions. They may also have deemed that TALKING about streaming an event falls into that category which seems much more something they can stop/prevent and so they jumped on it. If so they probably should have worded it as "Discussion of streaming events live is not allowed in chat."
An awesome write-up as always and a very informative trio of videos. It looks like Flicker can really get going if the opposing aggressive deck stumbles on mana, but can get stuck very easily if it doesn't draw its two most important combo pieces Archaeomancer and Ghostly Flicker. The combo looks slow and clunky at first, but for an experienced control player like pk23 it's the perfect deck to experiment with and hone. It was particularly interesting to see how long it took for the deck to win the first game and how quickly it lost when White Weenie got a good draw going, so I think your assessment that Flicker has an uphill battle is correct. Still, it's not heavily reliant on Scars block cards at all, so perhaps Return to Ravnica will present even better combo pieces for next season. I say good luck to all Flicker players out there and to gwyned, keep up the good work and keep the articles coming!
Nice job. I faced this deck last week with mbc and beat it. You simply cant let it get set uo or your done.
Against Iona - Angel reanimator with her would be too powerful imo. With Progenitus, at least you have a reasonable drawback of having to play a weak tribe, you can't reanimate it into play, and if you wanna cheat it into play with Natural Order you also need to add a bunch of mana dorks, which take additional free space. Show and Tell is good with Avatar (but not insane, since all other avatars are easily dealt with), but not with Hydra builds (most good hydras have X in their CC).
Not sure about Emrakul.
It should be noted that those accelerators are very, very good, and that every other support slot was removal, 8 of them one-drop StP effects.
I'm not just trying to build that deck. (Okay, I _may_ already be buying up the components for it, but that's because those components are awesome in many things) It's more a case of having a sudden flash of insight while thinking about the issue. We have precedence, we have people who wish to play with the cards despite their use in degenerate decks. It is a lot harder (though not impossible, Angel reanimator a salient example) to be degenerate and on tribe. Emrakul in Eldrazi is very nasty to face and relatively straightforward to cast or cheat, I used it as my i-win button of choice in my day one Eldrazi deck on the first Tribal Apoc after the RoE prerelease.
The one-of restriction would hurt show-and-tell builds, but letting legitimate decks clog their hands with up to four uncastables doesn't seem too much of a drawback. You say there is scope for interesting Stoneforge Mystic builds provided only Kor and Artificer get her, I say there is scope for interesting Prog builds providing only Hydra and Avatar get it. I'm reserving judgement on the other two.
You have my support.
I believe Blippy (who still has to give us his thoughs on the subject) wants to synchronize our banning changes with DCI's, so we might have to wait until their next announcement anyway (how often they do that? Every third month or so?).
What about putting the whole Trifecta back on those terms?
Emrakul won't be in Wall-Drazi nor Elfball. Are Eldrazi decks scarier with him in there? They don't have much built-in stuff to help him, if not the system designed by ROE (the Eldrazi spawn) which is nothing really worrying.
Now, Iona in Angel decks might enable Angel reanimator, which is definitely a thing. But she'll be just one-tribe weapon, and mostly an anti-monocolored weapon (and since monocolored have Blood Moon/Magus of the Moon to hose multicolored, it may be fair to hose them back? Always considering that monocolored = budget decks, and multicolored = money decks, though).
They might be also all restricted to 1 copy as well (unlike Stoneforge Mystic).
I never said NO-Prog would be a (particular) problem. I said it would be the go-to solution, and I prefer to make people Sweat & Think, rather than giving them prepackaged easy stuff.
This said, I approve AJ's idea (even if he's just trying to put himself in the position of playing that Avatar deck he mentioned :P).
On a side note, Rex, it occurred to me that you really are a man of the low end of the curve (I'm almost entirely a midrange guy, instead, that's probably why sometimes we take very different paths in deckbuilding). Like, while I was writing the article for the latest event, I was reminded of what you wrote elsewhere about Sigarda being barely playable in Legacy as a 5 CMC creature. That feels very strange to think to me. I mean, maybe that's true in *Legacy*, but again, we're in Legacy Tribal Wars here. AJ smashed a lot of opponents with a 5-color deck where 14 of his creatures were 5 CMC or higher, and 6 of them were 7 CMC. And he hardcasted them all, no tricks, no cheats, and just 4 accelerators. That looks like something very far from your conception of the format (or just your style of play), am I wrong?