2cents is greatly appreciated, the point of the meta section was to be open to changes and suggestions from other players in order to provide the most useful competitive Pauper information possible
so despite the fact the chart shows trends on a percent base you'd use showings as inclusion requirement? I was going to amend it to about 5%, even if we kept it as 14, MBC doesn't meet that req... while it might have a decent number of participants playing it this data is focused on showings, of which MBC is averaging only 11 over the past 10 weeks
You can still evaluate this with the data you have. In the showings spread sheet, the total can be the basis for the 14 showing criteria.
To be honest Delver Blue kind of is MUC now. The traditional build doesn't place enough to warrant inclusion, while MBC (which is a very consistent deck and is something you see a lot of in dailies) and teachings (another deck that has been fluctuating recently) need some representation.
I like the idea of the forecast :). Will be interesting to see how it pans out.
Definitely agree with removing MUC, even the control blue decks (ie the ones without faeries, like NewPlan/Paul Denton) play delver now just because it's a perfectly viable win-con and doesn't hurt the deck. iirc, you defined MUC as the non-delver blue decks and they are being increasingly marginalised.
Not surprised to see stompy pickup there. I've been on an absolute tear with it my last 3 dailies, with a match record of 11-1! It matches up well against the top 3 decks there, with good sideboard options for all 3 matches. It doesn't particularly want to see WW, but apart from that basically has an even or better matchup against the field provided MBC doesn't have a resurgance. Interestingly, I'm not sure how common it is, but I ran into a storm player who comboed out on his turn 3 with a bunch of tokens and mogg raider - no bushwhacker though. he had probed to see a sandstorm in my hand, and that seemed like pretty good tech against it (and a lot of the other SB hate like seismic and holy light). Luckily I was able to kill him the following turn with a pumped pit skulk!
You should drop MUC and add MBC and Teachings to the graph. Those are played way more than MUC. At the very least, add those two. It won't look too cluttered.
Thanks olaw, I think I'll post in my next article the exact reason for my choice and better explain my ideas and plans. I'm a novice writer and the criticism help me see what I miss and what I fail to explain to my readers.
I can tell you trading post is awesome. Ive already killed with a bunch of pumped up goat tokens, stalled a game with recurring discard (gain 4 life) tricks until I could win and also won by recurring spine with post. I am not expecting it to hold value for the same reason Satchel didn't hold value despite being an awesome card. Patience control as an archetype seems to be deader than doornails. As such cards like Trading Post just wont appeal except to people like me.
My favorite guilds are Izzet, Orzhov (hate the name though), Golgari, and Simic. Being a gold mage I find them all fun but these 4 are usually the most fun for me.
I have a question about the CQ league. If they do go vintage in the middle of it, aren't the resulting qualifiers to come going to be mostly determined by who manages to convert their decks in time? I mean I'd hate to be doing well (if I was involved in it) and then have my chances knocked out because my ops all had moxen/power 9.
I realize that many of the people who play classic would be the first to get the power when they are reprinted but I imagine there are varying degrees of financial capacity in this regard. This wont likely be a case of $10 fows for the lucky few. I'd imagine unless the product was released en-mass with tons of copies of each card in circulation that the prices will immediately sky rocket beyond normal affordability.
Thanks for the considered reply. I think understand your choice a little better now. I also like the idea of showing and discussing alternative card choices to show the diversity in Modern. Welcome to PureMTGO and good work on your first article!
I think we're talking entirely different languages here, which probably stems from a very different notion of deckbuildind, or even the game itself (which is, in turn, interesting, but not the right subject for a debate here). Basically, you say "innovating", I say (maybe pompously) "telling stories", meaning with that giving a texture and a structure to the deck that goes beyond the technicalities involved in "beating the opponent". It's seeking (and of course mostly failing) for the unexpected, the twist, and at the same time, those elements that better fit together, that "click". It's an entirely different perspective on what we're doing.
Anyway, Punishing Fire in a Spellshaper deck = very good. Punishing Fire in a X deck = very boring. Mind you, not "bad", or "wrong", or "despicable": just boring. That's my perspective. As soon as I'll start playing Bitterblossom in any deck that could accommodate it, feel free to call me on my bullshit. But you know that's not going to happen. (Also: nobody ever played Bitterblossom these past two years. As of Week 77, zero times. Punishing Fire+Grove of the Burnwillows, as of Week 77, was played 82 times. If the inverse was true, rest assured I would have never played Bitterblossom, strong or not, cool or not. I'm just like that.)
"Bitterblossom is good in this deck" isn't off at all. I can't see how that could be. In fact, again, Bitterblossom wasn't random in that deck, as it's clear if you look at the other components. It feels right for the deck (or better, given the specific deckbuilding process, the deck felt right for it.) Saying that every strong card plays the same in every deck is outright absurd to me.
But it's not even about strong cards or weak cards. That comes after. Also, I assume every single card everyone chooses to play (tribal base of smaller tribes aside) is strong to him, or at least "cool". Why would someone think of playing a card that he considers bad within the specific deck is building? (Of course, misjudgments happen.)
And you can win with Grizzly Bears and nothing else, too.
I'm sorry I wasn't as clear as I wanted to be olaw, I chosen such a strange deck to modify is to a work because the liner mono white tribal designs of a theme deck such as "Way of the Warrior" is an easy to understand deck with simple straight forward design. Though I'm quite sure it's not going to be competitive meta, but I'm trying to show an interesting way to look at designing a deck for modern that steps away from what people would normally do for modern decks. Its going to be a slow progress so I won't be able to show a lot of different cards for the deck right away since I'm only allowed to make five changes every revision of my deck, I could show alternate choices for my card choices as a good way of showing card diversity. Also I will not be able to focus on more broad themes because how precons are design mostly to fix on themes of the set they were made for, "Way of the Warrior" for example, is fix on the Samurai creature type introduced in Champions of Kamigawa. I focus on these themes picking out what works and what doesn't in the deck, this cuts me off from the large amount of choices that are allow to more traditional designs of modern white weenie. Even with that all said it's an experiment, if it works, cool, if not, oh well.
Oh, and JerkyGunner, this deck is going to be in my next couple articles so yes I plan to further this deck's evolution.
I realise the author didn't build the deck themselves. I just find it to be an unusual starting point. If you can still find this Precon on MTGO cheaply then I suppose that makes a little more sense. However, I still think a Block Precon, even once tweaked, and its themes aren't going to be a good reflection of the Modern format in casual or competitve form.
If Wizards asked me to build a Precon deck for the Modern format I would try and keep the themes broad so as to include cards from across the format. Also, I would want to gear them towards building into competitve play but that's just a personal preference.
I suppose what I want explained by the author is why the cards chosen are good for Modern beginner players and what they are trying to teach them about the format by including it. It's one thing to say a card makes the deck better but why does it make a Modern Precon better.
"Way of the Warrior Precon from Champions of Kamigawa" means this is not something he constructed/designed himself. Instead he took something a person might find cheaply and tried to tweak it a bit. I agree that this approach falls far short of displaying just how viciously cutthroat
(and varied) modern can be (particularly in Juff) but for someone just starting out it seems a good jumping off point. Particularly if the pre con in question is as easy to obtain as I suspect it is.
Soul sisters is indeed another evolution (as is sister quest and sister lark) in competitiveness but lets give him a few more articles to catch up to speed eh?
Hi! Nice article but I'm not sure I fully understand your purpose.
If the Precon deck is designed to introduce players to Modern wouldn't it make more sense for the deck to actually lead into a premier deck? For example, Soul Sisters is probably the best Mono-White deck in Modern right now. Wouldn't it make more sense to have a Mono-White Precon that has a lifegain theme. There are a lot of fun cards you could add to make the deck more casual, such as Divinity of Pride or Felidar Sovereign to name a couple, whilst Soul Warden, Soul's Attendant and Ajani's Pridemate could make the backbone. This means the beginner could have a fun deck that actually builds into a top deck in the format, which sadly a Samurai deck doesn't. I feel a Precon designed to get you into the Modern format, which teaches you to throw away all the creatures in your deck when you want to get competitve is a little lame. Also, the fact that most of the cards in the Samurai deck come from the same Block doesn't really show the beginner how wide a format Modern is.
Another simple but effective Precon would be a Red Burn deck. Again there are a ton of choices for burn spells and quick aggressive creatures across Modern, whilst Red Deck Wins is a premier strategy in the format.
I don't mean to sound overly critical as I enjoyed your article and the idea behind it. I'm just not sure how the deck you chose fits in with your aims.
Great new column! Really interesting subject, too. Can't wait to read some more iterations of this.
One question, though, is the plan to further tweak this deck next week or is it to take on a new precon? And if not next week, will you ever be revisiting previously tweaked decks or does each one get a one-article-treatment?
Grim Lavamancer at least should be super available since it was not only reprinted in 12th, it is also part of the Fire & Lightning premium deck that many players got as a present from WOTC this June.
Prices of some major SOM cards are quite stunning right now, Oxid Ridge I remember selling of for 9 tix and I never had the funds to even consider a Tempered Steel deck until I got a bunch from a short burst of drafting when it was worth 2 tix. And I can finally justify getting playsets of Chandra's Phoenix and Grim Lavamancer!
Hey Paul, thanks for the welcome. I'm probably going to add a sweeper aided by Oathkeeper, Takeno's Daisho for the deck. Also I noticed how horrible Reprocate is when I'm vs. a creature with Sword of Body and Mind. Emeria is a great idea since my deck relies more on actual creatures then tokens like most White weenie I have seen.
Hey MCM, Welcome to pure! Honor the pure is pretty natural for white samurai but I feel like that slot could be better used as some sort of sweeper. Day of Judgment for example. Wrath of God is even better but I don't know your budget. Reciprocate is pretty terrible in a format with Path to Exile, Journey to Nowhere and Oblivion Ring.
Emeria itself is a great land for mono white. You should consider 4x in your own deck.
Yeah, a whole $0.78 at the moment, seems like a bargain to me! I suppose he's about to rotate, and won't see a whole lot of play outside of Standard, but I remember the time when he was regularly showing up in competitive Standard builds as tech for getting around pesky Squadron Hawks.
I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with for your articles as well!
Well, I'm in the process of gathering playtest materials for my first article in like half a year, so be on the lookout for my return to Pure soon. :)
Great article as always and very interesting lists. I am quite surprised that Hero of Oxid Ridge isn't $5 on his own right now, but I guess I haven't been checking prices on SOM cards lately.
2cents is greatly appreciated, the point of the meta section was to be open to changes and suggestions from other players in order to provide the most useful competitive Pauper information possible
so despite the fact the chart shows trends on a percent base you'd use showings as inclusion requirement? I was going to amend it to about 5%, even if we kept it as 14, MBC doesn't meet that req... while it might have a decent number of participants playing it this data is focused on showings, of which MBC is averaging only 11 over the past 10 weeks
You can still evaluate this with the data you have. In the showings spread sheet, the total can be the basis for the 14 showing criteria.
To be honest Delver Blue kind of is MUC now. The traditional build doesn't place enough to warrant inclusion, while MBC (which is a very consistent deck and is something you see a lot of in dailies) and teachings (another deck that has been fluctuating recently) need some representation.
Just my two cents.
you know I went back to read past articles and found I actually had criteria for this chart...
"In order to appear on this chart decks must maintain an average of at least 14 showings."
guess I need to fix this! and I guess the criteria will have to be altered now that I changed it to percentages?
I like the idea of the forecast :). Will be interesting to see how it pans out.
Definitely agree with removing MUC, even the control blue decks (ie the ones without faeries, like NewPlan/Paul Denton) play delver now just because it's a perfectly viable win-con and doesn't hurt the deck. iirc, you defined MUC as the non-delver blue decks and they are being increasingly marginalised.
Not surprised to see stompy pickup there. I've been on an absolute tear with it my last 3 dailies, with a match record of 11-1! It matches up well against the top 3 decks there, with good sideboard options for all 3 matches. It doesn't particularly want to see WW, but apart from that basically has an even or better matchup against the field provided MBC doesn't have a resurgance. Interestingly, I'm not sure how common it is, but I ran into a storm player who comboed out on his turn 3 with a bunch of tokens and mogg raider - no bushwhacker though. he had probed to see a sandstorm in my hand, and that seemed like pretty good tech against it (and a lot of the other SB hate like seismic and holy light). Luckily I was able to kill him the following turn with a pumped pit skulk!
The decks bring back a ton of fond memories, but I do not know who this 'abstract66' characted you cite several times is.....
<3 - Zach
great point, it probably is about time I re-evaluate the decks on there beyond just removing
You should drop MUC and add MBC and Teachings to the graph. Those are played way more than MUC. At the very least, add those two. It won't look too cluttered.
Thanks olaw, I think I'll post in my next article the exact reason for my choice and better explain my ideas and plans. I'm a novice writer and the criticism help me see what I miss and what I fail to explain to my readers.
I can tell you trading post is awesome. Ive already killed with a bunch of pumped up goat tokens, stalled a game with recurring discard (gain 4 life) tricks until I could win and also won by recurring spine with post. I am not expecting it to hold value for the same reason Satchel didn't hold value despite being an awesome card. Patience control as an archetype seems to be deader than doornails. As such cards like Trading Post just wont appeal except to people like me.
My favorite guilds are Izzet, Orzhov (hate the name though), Golgari, and Simic. Being a gold mage I find them all fun but these 4 are usually the most fun for me.
I have a question about the CQ league. If they do go vintage in the middle of it, aren't the resulting qualifiers to come going to be mostly determined by who manages to convert their decks in time? I mean I'd hate to be doing well (if I was involved in it) and then have my chances knocked out because my ops all had moxen/power 9.
I realize that many of the people who play classic would be the first to get the power when they are reprinted but I imagine there are varying degrees of financial capacity in this regard. This wont likely be a case of $10 fows for the lucky few. I'd imagine unless the product was released en-mass with tons of copies of each card in circulation that the prices will immediately sky rocket beyond normal affordability.
Thanks for the considered reply. I think understand your choice a little better now. I also like the idea of showing and discussing alternative card choices to show the diversity in Modern. Welcome to PureMTGO and good work on your first article!
I think we're talking entirely different languages here, which probably stems from a very different notion of deckbuildind, or even the game itself (which is, in turn, interesting, but not the right subject for a debate here). Basically, you say "innovating", I say (maybe pompously) "telling stories", meaning with that giving a texture and a structure to the deck that goes beyond the technicalities involved in "beating the opponent". It's seeking (and of course mostly failing) for the unexpected, the twist, and at the same time, those elements that better fit together, that "click". It's an entirely different perspective on what we're doing.
Anyway, Punishing Fire in a Spellshaper deck = very good. Punishing Fire in a X deck = very boring. Mind you, not "bad", or "wrong", or "despicable": just boring. That's my perspective. As soon as I'll start playing Bitterblossom in any deck that could accommodate it, feel free to call me on my bullshit. But you know that's not going to happen. (Also: nobody ever played Bitterblossom these past two years. As of Week 77, zero times. Punishing Fire+Grove of the Burnwillows, as of Week 77, was played 82 times. If the inverse was true, rest assured I would have never played Bitterblossom, strong or not, cool or not. I'm just like that.)
"Bitterblossom is good in this deck" isn't off at all. I can't see how that could be. In fact, again, Bitterblossom wasn't random in that deck, as it's clear if you look at the other components. It feels right for the deck (or better, given the specific deckbuilding process, the deck felt right for it.) Saying that every strong card plays the same in every deck is outright absurd to me.
But it's not even about strong cards or weak cards. That comes after. Also, I assume every single card everyone chooses to play (tribal base of smaller tribes aside) is strong to him, or at least "cool". Why would someone think of playing a card that he considers bad within the specific deck is building? (Of course, misjudgments happen.)
And you can win with Grizzly Bears and nothing else, too.
I'm sorry I wasn't as clear as I wanted to be olaw, I chosen such a strange deck to modify is to a work because the liner mono white tribal designs of a theme deck such as "Way of the Warrior" is an easy to understand deck with simple straight forward design. Though I'm quite sure it's not going to be competitive meta, but I'm trying to show an interesting way to look at designing a deck for modern that steps away from what people would normally do for modern decks. Its going to be a slow progress so I won't be able to show a lot of different cards for the deck right away since I'm only allowed to make five changes every revision of my deck, I could show alternate choices for my card choices as a good way of showing card diversity. Also I will not be able to focus on more broad themes because how precons are design mostly to fix on themes of the set they were made for, "Way of the Warrior" for example, is fix on the Samurai creature type introduced in Champions of Kamigawa. I focus on these themes picking out what works and what doesn't in the deck, this cuts me off from the large amount of choices that are allow to more traditional designs of modern white weenie. Even with that all said it's an experiment, if it works, cool, if not, oh well.
Oh, and JerkyGunner, this deck is going to be in my next couple articles so yes I plan to further this deck's evolution.
I realise the author didn't build the deck themselves. I just find it to be an unusual starting point. If you can still find this Precon on MTGO cheaply then I suppose that makes a little more sense. However, I still think a Block Precon, even once tweaked, and its themes aren't going to be a good reflection of the Modern format in casual or competitve form.
If Wizards asked me to build a Precon deck for the Modern format I would try and keep the themes broad so as to include cards from across the format. Also, I would want to gear them towards building into competitve play but that's just a personal preference.
I suppose what I want explained by the author is why the cards chosen are good for Modern beginner players and what they are trying to teach them about the format by including it. It's one thing to say a card makes the deck better but why does it make a Modern Precon better.
"Way of the Warrior Precon from Champions of Kamigawa" means this is not something he constructed/designed himself. Instead he took something a person might find cheaply and tried to tweak it a bit. I agree that this approach falls far short of displaying just how viciously cutthroat
(and varied) modern can be (particularly in Juff) but for someone just starting out it seems a good jumping off point. Particularly if the pre con in question is as easy to obtain as I suspect it is.
Soul sisters is indeed another evolution (as is sister quest and sister lark) in competitiveness but lets give him a few more articles to catch up to speed eh?
Hi! Nice article but I'm not sure I fully understand your purpose.
If the Precon deck is designed to introduce players to Modern wouldn't it make more sense for the deck to actually lead into a premier deck? For example, Soul Sisters is probably the best Mono-White deck in Modern right now. Wouldn't it make more sense to have a Mono-White Precon that has a lifegain theme. There are a lot of fun cards you could add to make the deck more casual, such as Divinity of Pride or Felidar Sovereign to name a couple, whilst Soul Warden, Soul's Attendant and Ajani's Pridemate could make the backbone. This means the beginner could have a fun deck that actually builds into a top deck in the format, which sadly a Samurai deck doesn't. I feel a Precon designed to get you into the Modern format, which teaches you to throw away all the creatures in your deck when you want to get competitve is a little lame. Also, the fact that most of the cards in the Samurai deck come from the same Block doesn't really show the beginner how wide a format Modern is.
Another simple but effective Precon would be a Red Burn deck. Again there are a ton of choices for burn spells and quick aggressive creatures across Modern, whilst Red Deck Wins is a premier strategy in the format.
I don't mean to sound overly critical as I enjoyed your article and the idea behind it. I'm just not sure how the deck you chose fits in with your aims.
Great new column! Really interesting subject, too. Can't wait to read some more iterations of this.
One question, though, is the plan to further tweak this deck next week or is it to take on a new precon? And if not next week, will you ever be revisiting previously tweaked decks or does each one get a one-article-treatment?
Grim Lavamancer at least should be super available since it was not only reprinted in 12th, it is also part of the Fire & Lightning premium deck that many players got as a present from WOTC this June.
Prices of some major SOM cards are quite stunning right now, Oxid Ridge I remember selling of for 9 tix and I never had the funds to even consider a Tempered Steel deck until I got a bunch from a short burst of drafting when it was worth 2 tix. And I can finally justify getting playsets of Chandra's Phoenix and Grim Lavamancer!
You've got about 2 hours left to vote if you haven't. After that our input is at an end.
Hey Paul, thanks for the welcome. I'm probably going to add a sweeper aided by Oathkeeper, Takeno's Daisho for the deck. Also I noticed how horrible Reprocate is when I'm vs. a creature with Sword of Body and Mind. Emeria is a great idea since my deck relies more on actual creatures then tokens like most White weenie I have seen.
Great article as always. Really excited to see what you do for M13.
I'm definitely in for Leviathan / Tarasco :-D I'm just hoping they play Commander at the cup :-D
Hey MCM, Welcome to pure! Honor the pure is pretty natural for white samurai but I feel like that slot could be better used as some sort of sweeper. Day of Judgment for example. Wrath of God is even better but I don't know your budget. Reciprocate is pretty terrible in a format with Path to Exile, Journey to Nowhere and Oblivion Ring.
Emeria itself is a great land for mono white. You should consider 4x in your own deck.
Yeah, a whole $0.78 at the moment, seems like a bargain to me! I suppose he's about to rotate, and won't see a whole lot of play outside of Standard, but I remember the time when he was regularly showing up in competitive Standard builds as tech for getting around pesky Squadron Hawks.
I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with for your articles as well!
Can't wait to see what you picked.
Well, I'm in the process of gathering playtest materials for my first article in like half a year, so be on the lookout for my return to Pure soon. :)
Great article as always and very interesting lists. I am quite surprised that Hero of Oxid Ridge isn't $5 on his own right now, but I guess I haven't been checking prices on SOM cards lately.