I understand where your coming from, thought honestly, your don't get much explanation out of my articles if you don't watch the videos. Also lol at the rip off comment
Sundial in the 2nd elk deck is simply to make Glimmerpoint's trigger permanent by negating the return trigger. (I also built an Elk variant and some other tribal decks with sundial in them.) In addition to the obvious, the Sundial by itself hoses instant speed removal,draw, and activated abilities attempted on your turn. This means your opponent tends to tap out more on their turn thus making your plays that much safer.
The thing about having the decklist is that if I decided to rip off your list
(excuse me, I meant to say, "be inspired by your hard work"), I'd have to scribble
the names and numbers instead of printing them.
It's a moot point when I'm at work; I can't get past the firewall to view videos.
I generally like to read these articles on my lunch break and I was very interested
in seeing the composition of the deck.
Having a goofy name has turned me into a big stickler for pronunciation, which is tough when you live in Texas. You have no idea how many times people asked me if I had any ooh-muh-ZOW-uh's Jit's for trade :)
The gold queues were around for quite some time, but I just feel like if WotC was gonna McRib them, a little warning would've been nice.
Makes sense. Most MBC decks I see don't run more than 2 echoing decay, and choose to use them early on my river boa's etc... So I never really thought about it.
Something else for consideration, is splitting 2 Borderland Ranger and 2 Civic Wayfinder. I dont know about the B/x control decks in the qeues, but Echoing Decay is becoming more and more common with the popularity of Empty the Warrens. The split would give you some small amount of protection and they do exactly the same thing. The same is true of Llanowar Elves and Fyndhorn Elves.
@Fred1160: Sorry about that, I don't usually do it, since its in the decktech.
@YrdBrd420: All good points honestly, I have another version of the deck with wild nacatl and serrated arrows, etc... While recording pauper to the people last night, chris (the main host) has the same build you suggest and helped me tweak mine. Thank you for the advice though.
Good cast this week :) I always think of Lich as Litch not Leesh because of my last name which while pronounced like Lite or Light looks like Litch. I am disappointed a little that the prices of DKA seem to be staying a bit higher than expected. I probably won't bother with World Cup stuff unless something unusual happens. No idea who the contenders are and frankly don't really care. Go GB!??
Oh in regards to the Gold Queues and WOTC's reticence keep in mind two things. One they were around for over a year. Two they did say they would be coming back.
Well I had been struggling to get my next article put together and finally decided to cover this deck only to find I've been beaten to the punch.. time to scrap that idea lol
The list Im playing runs 3 Serrated Arrows main along with sets of Firebolt and Flame Slash. Youre relying more on your creatures to do the heavy lifting getting your opponent down to 0, but you should have an easier time vs. aggro. And as you showed in the 2 matches against control decks, the threats this deck presents are pretty hard to answer.
Also, replaces River Boa with Wild Nacatl. This probably actually hurts against aggro a little while giving you a solid turn 1 drop and a 3/3 later with the addition of fecthces and a single Plains. It lowers your curve a bit which is better against control but you dont have a 2 power regenerator to hold the fort down.
Hows Spore Frog been working? Ive been looking your list over as compared to others and yours is the only 1 I see running Frog anywhere not to mention sporting a full set of Young Wolf. I think weve drawn the same conclusing about Wolf, that its an auto 4 of. Is there something Im missing as to why most others are only running 3?
Never before has a card fit so perfectly into an existing stragegy than faithless looting is in Deluxe Red, and Young Wolf is in Stompy. Spore frog is also a deluxe addition in Stompy...lowering the curve, while simultaniously giving game to other 'hard-to-win' matchups.
I personally think Beguiler of Wills has a home in EDH, at least in creature-centric decks. Yes, she's fragile and yes, she needs others to help her get going. But you just can't doubt the power to steal a creature every single one of your turns. Oh, and Beguiler of Wills + Seedborn Muse. Just saying. ;) Great article as always though, Leviathan. :D
I have had some success with lords, but I got kinda traumatized after one draft where I had the nuts zombie deck (Geralf's Messenger, three lords, Zombie apocalypse, lots of zombies) and had the misfortune to lose round 1. I think the lord that has helped me the most so far is Drogskol Captain - the fact that it has evasion is pretty nutty.
Damn, I just lost the chance to an encore with Melira this week, due to stupid real life.
As for the new PRE (are you trying to break some record as the busiest PRE runner? :P), I'm with Apaulogy: Swiss does it better. Even WoTC knows that people don't like single elimination. Then again, it's less time-consuming, even for the player: you bring a half-baked deck, you lose 1st round, you realize that you have to improve/change, and you just wasted 20 minutes of your time. With a Swiss, you do the same thing in 3 hours. But all in all, the happiness vs. frustration factor is the most relevant.
As for the format, if 100CS was even an option, I'd say: go with Commander 1v1. It's new, it's fresh, it's popular, it's sexy. And it doesn't have all the issues of multiplayer Commander (like infernal management of the tables, tournament structure impossible for Swiss, necessity to force the players to concede before they clock out due to time contrivance). It's also a whole new terrain to explore for a PRE event I believe.
I have managed to be pretty successful in this format, with the following caveat. 4 of my 5 drafts i picked up an early lord and committed to it, eventually getting a second one later. Being uncommons, it is not unlikely to be able to pick up multiple lords if you cut the color well and maybe get a little lucky. Other than that I think green can be quite good because the good commons go around later and you can ramp quickly to higher drops. Your thoughts on black and red are spot on, although i haven't really had the same problem with wrack of madness, since there aren't THAT many creatures with higher toughness than power that you just need to get rid of. White seems to be the weakest color to me since the commons are mostly of average power level and most of the uncommons aren't that exciting either.
there is great removal in black, but from the drafts I've done so far everyone is grabbing it up, I've found it much easier to grab the red removal.. and green I think has some great 'tricks' with Ulvenwald Bear and Briarpack Alpha (though the Huntsman and Ghoultree def helped lol)... one mistake I made was passing an Alpha Brawl because I misread it, great bomb
You first? lol. Come on man, does a person saying they don't like something always equate to crying or other "unmanly" qualities? (As if crying were reserved for people allowed to show emotions lol.)
To me it seems like a legitimate concern for a casual player. How to play the game and enjoy it without being overwhelmed by strategies that suck to play against? Even the more competitive player may choose to not play a game that is unfun.
As a good player who enjoys niche formats (Prismatic) I'd think you'd be a little more sympathetic.
They do have removal for it, but I suppose a combination of spiders and flame slash would help a lot.
I understand where your coming from, thought honestly, your don't get much explanation out of my articles if you don't watch the videos. Also lol at the rip off comment
Sundial in the 2nd elk deck is simply to make Glimmerpoint's trigger permanent by negating the return trigger. (I also built an Elk variant and some other tribal decks with sundial in them.) In addition to the obvious, the Sundial by itself hoses instant speed removal,draw, and activated abilities attempted on your turn. This means your opponent tends to tap out more on their turn thus making your plays that much safer.
The thing about having the decklist is that if I decided to rip off your list
(excuse me, I meant to say, "be inspired by your hard work"), I'd have to scribble
the names and numbers instead of printing them.
It's a moot point when I'm at work; I can't get past the firewall to view videos.
I generally like to read these articles on my lunch break and I was very interested
in seeing the composition of the deck.
would some number of penumbra spiders in the board help against WW? I haven't tested it, I just like cramming spiders in wherever possible..
Thanks Paul!
Having a goofy name has turned me into a big stickler for pronunciation, which is tough when you live in Texas. You have no idea how many times people asked me if I had any ooh-muh-ZOW-uh's Jit's for trade :)
The gold queues were around for quite some time, but I just feel like if WotC was gonna McRib them, a little warning would've been nice.
Makes sense. Most MBC decks I see don't run more than 2 echoing decay, and choose to use them early on my river boa's etc... So I never really thought about it.
Something else for consideration, is splitting 2 Borderland Ranger and 2 Civic Wayfinder. I dont know about the B/x control decks in the qeues, but Echoing Decay is becoming more and more common with the popularity of Empty the Warrens. The split would give you some small amount of protection and they do exactly the same thing. The same is true of Llanowar Elves and Fyndhorn Elves.
@Fred1160: Sorry about that, I don't usually do it, since its in the decktech.
@YrdBrd420: All good points honestly, I have another version of the deck with wild nacatl and serrated arrows, etc... While recording pauper to the people last night, chris (the main host) has the same build you suggest and helped me tweak mine. Thank you for the advice though.
@justsin: Sorry man, we still cool?:D.
Good cast this week :) I always think of Lich as Litch not Leesh because of my last name which while pronounced like Lite or Light looks like Litch. I am disappointed a little that the prices of DKA seem to be staying a bit higher than expected. I probably won't bother with World Cup stuff unless something unusual happens. No idea who the contenders are and frankly don't really care. Go GB!??
Oh in regards to the Gold Queues and WOTC's reticence keep in mind two things. One they were around for over a year. Two they did say they would be coming back.
Well I had been struggling to get my next article put together and finally decided to cover this deck only to find I've been beaten to the punch.. time to scrap that idea lol
I would have liked to see a decklist in the article.
The list Im playing runs 3 Serrated Arrows main along with sets of Firebolt and Flame Slash. Youre relying more on your creatures to do the heavy lifting getting your opponent down to 0, but you should have an easier time vs. aggro. And as you showed in the 2 matches against control decks, the threats this deck presents are pretty hard to answer.
Also, replaces River Boa with Wild Nacatl. This probably actually hurts against aggro a little while giving you a solid turn 1 drop and a 3/3 later with the addition of fecthces and a single Plains. It lowers your curve a bit which is better against control but you dont have a 2 power regenerator to hold the fort down.
Hows Spore Frog been working? Ive been looking your list over as compared to others and yours is the only 1 I see running Frog anywhere not to mention sporting a full set of Young Wolf. I think weve drawn the same conclusing about Wolf, that its an auto 4 of. Is there something Im missing as to why most others are only running 3?
Never before has a card fit so perfectly into an existing stragegy than faithless looting is in Deluxe Red, and Young Wolf is in Stompy. Spore frog is also a deluxe addition in Stompy...lowering the curve, while simultaniously giving game to other 'hard-to-win' matchups.
I don't know what decks Elspeth made it into to become over $2000, but I don't think she can sustain that price :P
Seriously though Pete, you SotP is one of the most valuable MTGO articles on the whole interwebz and I love it!
Thanks!
I personally think Beguiler of Wills has a home in EDH, at least in creature-centric decks. Yes, she's fragile and yes, she needs others to help her get going. But you just can't doubt the power to steal a creature every single one of your turns. Oh, and Beguiler of Wills + Seedborn Muse. Just saying. ;) Great article as always though, Leviathan. :D
I'd say 1v1 commander is probably 2-3x more brutal than 100cs given serious decks. Skullclamp for one. There are other examples.
I have had some success with lords, but I got kinda traumatized after one draft where I had the nuts zombie deck (Geralf's Messenger, three lords, Zombie apocalypse, lots of zombies) and had the misfortune to lose round 1. I think the lord that has helped me the most so far is Drogskol Captain - the fact that it has evasion is pretty nutty.
Damn, I just lost the chance to an encore with Melira this week, due to stupid real life.
As for the new PRE (are you trying to break some record as the busiest PRE runner? :P), I'm with Apaulogy: Swiss does it better. Even WoTC knows that people don't like single elimination. Then again, it's less time-consuming, even for the player: you bring a half-baked deck, you lose 1st round, you realize that you have to improve/change, and you just wasted 20 minutes of your time. With a Swiss, you do the same thing in 3 hours. But all in all, the happiness vs. frustration factor is the most relevant.
As for the format, if 100CS was even an option, I'd say: go with Commander 1v1. It's new, it's fresh, it's popular, it's sexy. And it doesn't have all the issues of multiplayer Commander (like infernal management of the tables, tournament structure impossible for Swiss, necessity to force the players to concede before they clock out due to time contrivance). It's also a whole new terrain to explore for a PRE event I believe.
I have managed to be pretty successful in this format, with the following caveat. 4 of my 5 drafts i picked up an early lord and committed to it, eventually getting a second one later. Being uncommons, it is not unlikely to be able to pick up multiple lords if you cut the color well and maybe get a little lucky. Other than that I think green can be quite good because the good commons go around later and you can ramp quickly to higher drops. Your thoughts on black and red are spot on, although i haven't really had the same problem with wrack of madness, since there aren't THAT many creatures with higher toughness than power that you just need to get rid of. White seems to be the weakest color to me since the commons are mostly of average power level and most of the uncommons aren't that exciting either.
As in a playset + 1 in the legacy deck. Any corrections available? I assume the maindeck is supposed to be 3 only, as that would lead to 60 cards.
there is great removal in black, but from the drafts I've done so far everyone is grabbing it up, I've found it much easier to grab the red removal.. and green I think has some great 'tricks' with Ulvenwald Bear and Briarpack Alpha (though the Huntsman and Ghoultree def helped lol)... one mistake I made was passing an Alpha Brawl because I misread it, great bomb
You first? lol. Come on man, does a person saying they don't like something always equate to crying or other "unmanly" qualities? (As if crying were reserved for people allowed to show emotions lol.)
To me it seems like a legitimate concern for a casual player. How to play the game and enjoy it without being overwhelmed by strategies that suck to play against? Even the more competitive player may choose to not play a game that is unfun.
As a good player who enjoys niche formats (Prismatic) I'd think you'd be a little more sympathetic.
Let's all cry about the cards we don't like playing against.