Another excellent article Kuma, and a 2 for 1 in this case. I didn't get to watch the grudgematch but as one of AJ's testers I can tell you his singleton Angels deck is insanely hard to play against. The sweepers, and more sweepers! Very difficult partially because even though you know the deck's threats are all one-ofs they come like a torrent one after the other, always threatening mayhem.
That final match with Ayanam and NP was full of tension because I kept screaming at my monitor, "Concede fool!" Thinking NP would need the time to win games 2 and 3. I was a little mad with Ayanam for choosing a stall strategy but it does make sense vs a plodding grinder strategist like NP. Get him caught up in his complex shenanigans, frustrate him a little and watch his time run out. In the long run a brilliant plan. Even so I was wondering if Ayanam would ever start his perpetual life gain engine as he teased NP into thinking he had a chance in that game by foregoing his lifegain cycle for a few extra turns. (Sac wasteland, eat a post, replay post with Crucible, get back wasteland next turn, and repeat ad infinitum, since NP had no way to do massive amounts of damage to keep up.
A correction by the way. The last horseman is Pestilence not Conquest (which means the same thing as War).
Overall I think the Tribal Apocalypse has evolved quite a bit as a weekly event and thanks to Blippy for continuing to help it thrive and thanks to you and Vantar for doing the archival work. That I haven't done well in the events I've attended recently is a tribute not only to my own bad performances but also the brutal and unforgiving nature of this event. It is great to see so much variety and skill brought to bear for so small a prize. People really have done an outstanding job of making TA a competitive tourney.
It should be pointed out that I played a lot of Commander back in the day, and was notorious for doing some utterly ridiculous things in the format. I am no stranger to singleton, despite my preference for consistent decks.
Gbagyt's treefolk that upset the seeding was an excellent aggressive build, using such shenanigans as winning one game with a double-berserked creature to trample over for lethal, and a Dungrove Elder with a Blanchwood armour to outpace any chance of removal in the other.
Those drops happen because the price is artificially inflated, for whatever reason. I don't actually know whether it is bots, speculators or hoarders that cause a card like that to stay unreasonably expensive, but people had commented for a long time that a set that gets drafted shouldn't have an uncommon at that value.
It most likely has to do with the rarity of wasteland offline, which caused people to evaluate it improperly. Once there was a reason to sell, a huge number of wastelands would hit the market since there is a surplus and the price is artificially high. A similar thing happened whenever Tempest block drafts were online, because whenever people were selling instead of buying waste would drop about 20 tickets, although nothing this drastic. Just the market correcting itself.
I know BW Tokens is going to be the first mega-craze, and I can't wait for that either... I'm hoping to put it together running Seance. Those bad boys coming back from the grave are TOKENS, but also only lasting a turn... so not sure if it's going to hit constructed.
And I hope I may be so bold as to suggest/request your next article have a look at one of my ISD favourites, which I haven't seen very much of (so he's cheap): Gutter Grime
I've had a deck for a while that hasn't had to much luck, but once it gets rolling he's heaps of fun... unfortunately a bit slow in the ramp up to beat most JFF/Standard decks around right now.
Tourney Practice can be rough. I recommend you graduate to matches in Juff first and really get your sideboarding down. You will certainly face netdecks of top tier lists in tp so it really helps to know how your sideboard works.
Yeah, that's a much more different list. But it does still seem to win with the same two cards I win with: Turbine and Battlesphere. :D And I REALLY wish I would've checked DoJ. I could've done so much better against those aggro decks.
I'm glad you liked the article and there will be much more to come. You know, I decided to do fewer detailed reports because I was afraid that giving detailed reports for a lot of matches would end up being boring, but I guess it seems my fears were misplaced. I'll add a few more fully detailed reports next go-around.
Also, the comments I have received from both ends of the spectrum lean me to doing JFF and Tournament Practice reports. Maybe 10 of each, and separated into sections so the reader can skip one or the other if they don't prefer to read match reports of that particular style.
All in all, thanks to everyone for the constructive comments! This will really help improve my articles to come!
Yeah, myr token decks are a blast. I have an all white one. It doesn't have thropter assembly, usually I find the battlesphere/turbine combo is enough for the win. I also use DoJ, a couple tempered steel, arrest (I don't have dispatch), shrine of loyal legions, buried ruin, and gold myr and pristine talisman for acceleration.
Looking at that it's quite the different deck for still being a myr token deck. I don't have as much problem against aggro because of the DoJ, a couple perilous myr, and pristine talisman. The talisman actually works great, most aggro and burn decks can't deal with the one life per turn you get from the talisman.
As I budget casual (or should I say Just for Fun?) standard player I hope I see more articles from you. My preference would be keep the JFF game reports, but do fewer more detailed reports. It's interesting seeing what other people are playing in the casual room. Sometimes I get inspiration as much as from decks writers play against as much as from the decks they are playing.
I would guess that Legacy players are shifting to Modern, and fewer of the Legacy decks tat remain are running Wasteland. A significant drop in demand would bring the price back into line. Wasteland is an uncommon, after all.
I'm kind of agree with you on this one Paul. This article did come out stage one negative criticism in tone.
What isn't talked about, as far as the design of sets go, is how this is the 2nd of ISD Block. I won't pretend I know much about game (let along Magic) design, but this fact seems extremely important to me.
It's the 2nd act and is by purpose, kind of boring. It needs to add, support and re-enforce act 1 - so we can be spun around and bought to rethink once act 3 is finished.
Upon final reveal of DKA my reaction is a bit "oh... that's it?", but I think every set has some real interesting sleepers and I get a feeling we aren't going to know where DKA's strengths lie for a couple months yet.
I remember in my area, The Dark had several layers to it, after Legends it seemed underpowered - all the obviously powerful stuff sucked to use (such as Leviathan) but it took a while until people picked up on how awesome Maze of Ith and Witch Hunter were. It still sticks out as one of my favourite sets.
But the feel of magic then was entirely different, in hindsight it really did seem like a different game (I just got back into it online 6 months ago).
My comment is on only one card suggested to have undying: hellrider. Really disagree it wouldnt be broken. Add simian shaman and hellrider in the signal pest/memnite/mox deck and you have a 3/3 undying, haste + memnite and pest in second turn dealing 3+4+2= 9 damage. Third round end the game. Except for mono red, only blue and/or white can deal with that. Even in that case you must have spell pierce or path to exile in the starting hand or be dead if your oponent starts the game. Hellrider would have to be banned in modern as soon as released. Thought they were cautious with modern format in many cards, that's why they are not so powerful within the block.
Moment of heroism is good, I know but you tend to find them later. I didn't want to pick it so early as I would certainly have a chance to pick it later. I guess I should have taken village-bell ringer but it's also a card I hate taking so early.
Sure, in abstract Doomed Traveler isn't very good but the way this format is, it ends up being pretty good most of the time. That makes it a solid playable.
I understand you. I guess I was still a bit down after losing a game I could do nothing about.
Love it... Love playing Myrs and have had a Battlesphere deck for a while, being used with Turbine - somehow I didn't think to match it up with Intangible Virtue (had the deck prior to ISD release).
I had all but the Phyrexian Rebirth and 2 Thopter Assemblies, have the Tempered Steel playset (which is much cheaper now than in 2011, in 1 - 1.5 tix range) had some one-off costly cards I also added (1 of each standard Garruk, 2 x Inkmoth Nexus because of Tempered Steel) as well as 4 x Razorverge Thicket (it's back up to 2 tix but a few weeks ago I found a bunch sitting under 1, they are the cheapest SOM block dual-lands). So I might take others advice above about dropping Steel... but what to replace, there's so much good to run with...
Contemplating Avacyn's Pilgrim, first turn him, 2nd turn Palladium Myr and if they survive you've got your Turbine in 3rd turn (schaweeet!). Also I felt "exposed" not having an answer for other peoples artifacts and enchantments... maybe forget the Pilgrim and replace with O-Ring...
Going to have to strongly disagree with Milegyenanevum and TwoHands. There are some valid criticisms of your picks, but deriding the Grim-Grin pass or the Doomed Traveler picks aren't one of them. Grim-grin, as a gold card, makes you heavily committed and is extremely narrowly focused. Besides that, he didn't have any solid picks in those colors thus far. Additionally, grim-grin isn't THAT good. It's far from being a guaranteed game-winner.
As for doomed traveler, I find amazing that people still underestimate this card. A 1/1 flier for 1 is good, and this card gets you that plus a 1/1 human that helps trigger various human-related effects. The flier triggers morbid as well. It's also a 1-drop, which is a big part of why it's so good. There aren't that many great one-drops in this format so a turn 1 doomed traveler is often a great way to get ahead in board presence early. The card is just insane value.
The pick I would criticize that hasn't been mentioned is taking think twice when you had 3 other fine picks in your most likely colors. Moment of heroism is quite good, and is probably what I would have picked since it's invaluable in aggro decks that are lacking in the late-game. While I don't think rally the peasants was the pick, I'm amazed you didn't include it in your deck. The card has insane value, and *the* finisher in a r/w deck. You play it, forcing them to chump, and then brimstone volley for the win. Other than that though, it's hard to disagree much with your picks.
I actually agree with you about not hating Grim-Grin just to hate it - we'll just have to disagree with your view on Traveler in the abstract. In the dark, he just isn't strong. (It's also interesting that you cut one of the better DT enablers: Rally the Peasants)
What would have to happen to make that hand a "clear" mulligan, then? Seriously, you can play one card, and without drawing a mountain (seriously, 27% chance), you can only play three other cards in your deck with any profit (five if you get lucky and catch opponent off-guard with Moment). That's a rough hand.
And even if you get help, it's still tenuous - you need to draw perfectly for that hand to actually win: draw one mountain, then a profitable mix of gas after that. You're drawing very thin. Mull the hand.
What actually happened that game was not BAD LUCK - it was a fairly likely and easily predictable scenario!
Shrine of Loyal Legions was definitely a card I looked at, but I ended up passing on it to streamline the deck. I can see where it would be a game winner on its own though.
I ran Origin Spellbomb as well but it was also cut for streamlining. I did miss the cycling while still producing tokens though.
You know, I never even checked the price on DoJ. I just assumed they were still 2 tix each. I'll be sure to check all my options a little better next time.
As for matches/sideboard: I intend to switch gears to those soon. But seeing as I just returned to the game and have no idea what the current meta looks like, I was afraid I'd get torn apart over and over again. But I agree matches are more interesting.
Another excellent article Kuma, and a 2 for 1 in this case. I didn't get to watch the grudgematch but as one of AJ's testers I can tell you his singleton Angels deck is insanely hard to play against. The sweepers, and more sweepers! Very difficult partially because even though you know the deck's threats are all one-ofs they come like a torrent one after the other, always threatening mayhem.
That final match with Ayanam and NP was full of tension because I kept screaming at my monitor, "Concede fool!" Thinking NP would need the time to win games 2 and 3. I was a little mad with Ayanam for choosing a stall strategy but it does make sense vs a plodding grinder strategist like NP. Get him caught up in his complex shenanigans, frustrate him a little and watch his time run out. In the long run a brilliant plan. Even so I was wondering if Ayanam would ever start his perpetual life gain engine as he teased NP into thinking he had a chance in that game by foregoing his lifegain cycle for a few extra turns. (Sac wasteland, eat a post, replay post with Crucible, get back wasteland next turn, and repeat ad infinitum, since NP had no way to do massive amounts of damage to keep up.
A correction by the way. The last horseman is Pestilence not Conquest (which means the same thing as War).
Overall I think the Tribal Apocalypse has evolved quite a bit as a weekly event and thanks to Blippy for continuing to help it thrive and thanks to you and Vantar for doing the archival work. That I haven't done well in the events I've attended recently is a tribute not only to my own bad performances but also the brutal and unforgiving nature of this event. It is great to see so much variety and skill brought to bear for so small a prize. People really have done an outstanding job of making TA a competitive tourney.
It should be pointed out that I played a lot of Commander back in the day, and was notorious for doing some utterly ridiculous things in the format. I am no stranger to singleton, despite my preference for consistent decks.
Gbagyt's treefolk that upset the seeding was an excellent aggressive build, using such shenanigans as winning one game with a double-berserked creature to trample over for lethal, and a Dungrove Elder with a Blanchwood armour to outpace any chance of removal in the other.
Those drops happen because the price is artificially inflated, for whatever reason. I don't actually know whether it is bots, speculators or hoarders that cause a card like that to stay unreasonably expensive, but people had commented for a long time that a set that gets drafted shouldn't have an uncommon at that value.
It most likely has to do with the rarity of wasteland offline, which caused people to evaluate it improperly. Once there was a reason to sell, a huge number of wastelands would hit the market since there is a surplus and the price is artificially high. A similar thing happened whenever Tempest block drafts were online, because whenever people were selling instead of buying waste would drop about 20 tickets, although nothing this drastic. Just the market correcting itself.
I know BW Tokens is going to be the first mega-craze, and I can't wait for that either... I'm hoping to put it together running Seance. Those bad boys coming back from the grave are TOKENS, but also only lasting a turn... so not sure if it's going to hit constructed.
Ya I'm glad I liquidated my foray into classic before the real drops happened, too many downward pressures on wasteland to be sure.
Duly noted. Thanks Paul.
And I hope I may be so bold as to suggest/request your next article have a look at one of my ISD favourites, which I haven't seen very much of (so he's cheap): Gutter Grime
I've had a deck for a while that hasn't had to much luck, but once it gets rolling he's heaps of fun... unfortunately a bit slow in the ramp up to beat most JFF/Standard decks around right now.
Tourney Practice can be rough. I recommend you graduate to matches in Juff first and really get your sideboarding down. You will certainly face netdecks of top tier lists in tp so it really helps to know how your sideboard works.
Yeah, that's a much more different list. But it does still seem to win with the same two cards I win with: Turbine and Battlesphere. :D And I REALLY wish I would've checked DoJ. I could've done so much better against those aggro decks.
I'm glad you liked the article and there will be much more to come. You know, I decided to do fewer detailed reports because I was afraid that giving detailed reports for a lot of matches would end up being boring, but I guess it seems my fears were misplaced. I'll add a few more fully detailed reports next go-around.
Also, the comments I have received from both ends of the spectrum lean me to doing JFF and Tournament Practice reports. Maybe 10 of each, and separated into sections so the reader can skip one or the other if they don't prefer to read match reports of that particular style.
All in all, thanks to everyone for the constructive comments! This will really help improve my articles to come!
Yeah, myr token decks are a blast. I have an all white one. It doesn't have thropter assembly, usually I find the battlesphere/turbine combo is enough for the win. I also use DoJ, a couple tempered steel, arrest (I don't have dispatch), shrine of loyal legions, buried ruin, and gold myr and pristine talisman for acceleration.
Looking at that it's quite the different deck for still being a myr token deck. I don't have as much problem against aggro because of the DoJ, a couple perilous myr, and pristine talisman. The talisman actually works great, most aggro and burn decks can't deal with the one life per turn you get from the talisman.
As I budget casual (or should I say Just for Fun?) standard player I hope I see more articles from you. My preference would be keep the JFF game reports, but do fewer more detailed reports. It's interesting seeing what other people are playing in the casual room. Sometimes I get inspiration as much as from decks writers play against as much as from the decks they are playing.
wow I do apologize I did miss that.. I read these fast at work so as to not get caught not working and guess I overlooked it lol
I would guess that Legacy players are shifting to Modern, and fewer of the Legacy decks tat remain are running Wasteland. A significant drop in demand would bring the price back into line. Wasteland is an uncommon, after all.
Moar fights on your show!!! Hahahahaahah this was awesome! You're all crazy about the restricted list though in your own ways.
Someone should at least make some videos playing some freeform decks abusing the restricted list.
Glad to see I'm not the only one, Phroggie! Thanks for the comment and suggestions.
I'm kind of agree with you on this one Paul. This article did come out stage one negative criticism in tone.
What isn't talked about, as far as the design of sets go, is how this is the 2nd of ISD Block. I won't pretend I know much about game (let along Magic) design, but this fact seems extremely important to me.
It's the 2nd act and is by purpose, kind of boring. It needs to add, support and re-enforce act 1 - so we can be spun around and bought to rethink once act 3 is finished.
Upon final reveal of DKA my reaction is a bit "oh... that's it?", but I think every set has some real interesting sleepers and I get a feeling we aren't going to know where DKA's strengths lie for a couple months yet.
I remember in my area, The Dark had several layers to it, after Legends it seemed underpowered - all the obviously powerful stuff sucked to use (such as Leviathan) but it took a while until people picked up on how awesome Maze of Ith and Witch Hunter were. It still sticks out as one of my favourite sets.
But the feel of magic then was entirely different, in hindsight it really did seem like a different game (I just got back into it online 6 months ago).
My comment is on only one card suggested to have undying: hellrider. Really disagree it wouldnt be broken. Add simian shaman and hellrider in the signal pest/memnite/mox deck and you have a 3/3 undying, haste + memnite and pest in second turn dealing 3+4+2= 9 damage. Third round end the game. Except for mono red, only blue and/or white can deal with that. Even in that case you must have spell pierce or path to exile in the starting hand or be dead if your oponent starts the game. Hellrider would have to be banned in modern as soon as released. Thought they were cautious with modern format in many cards, that's why they are not so powerful within the block.
Moment of heroism is good, I know but you tend to find them later. I didn't want to pick it so early as I would certainly have a chance to pick it later. I guess I should have taken village-bell ringer but it's also a card I hate taking so early.
WOW... what happened to waste!?
Sure, in abstract Doomed Traveler isn't very good but the way this format is, it ends up being pretty good most of the time. That makes it a solid playable.
I understand you. I guess I was still a bit down after losing a game I could do nothing about.
Love it... Love playing Myrs and have had a Battlesphere deck for a while, being used with Turbine - somehow I didn't think to match it up with Intangible Virtue (had the deck prior to ISD release).
I had all but the Phyrexian Rebirth and 2 Thopter Assemblies, have the Tempered Steel playset (which is much cheaper now than in 2011, in 1 - 1.5 tix range) had some one-off costly cards I also added (1 of each standard Garruk, 2 x Inkmoth Nexus because of Tempered Steel) as well as 4 x Razorverge Thicket (it's back up to 2 tix but a few weeks ago I found a bunch sitting under 1, they are the cheapest SOM block dual-lands). So I might take others advice above about dropping Steel... but what to replace, there's so much good to run with...
Contemplating Avacyn's Pilgrim, first turn him, 2nd turn Palladium Myr and if they survive you've got your Turbine in 3rd turn (schaweeet!). Also I felt "exposed" not having an answer for other peoples artifacts and enchantments... maybe forget the Pilgrim and replace with O-Ring...
TOOO MANY GOOD CHOICES :)
Love me some myr!
Going to have to strongly disagree with Milegyenanevum and TwoHands. There are some valid criticisms of your picks, but deriding the Grim-Grin pass or the Doomed Traveler picks aren't one of them. Grim-grin, as a gold card, makes you heavily committed and is extremely narrowly focused. Besides that, he didn't have any solid picks in those colors thus far. Additionally, grim-grin isn't THAT good. It's far from being a guaranteed game-winner.
As for doomed traveler, I find amazing that people still underestimate this card. A 1/1 flier for 1 is good, and this card gets you that plus a 1/1 human that helps trigger various human-related effects. The flier triggers morbid as well. It's also a 1-drop, which is a big part of why it's so good. There aren't that many great one-drops in this format so a turn 1 doomed traveler is often a great way to get ahead in board presence early. The card is just insane value.
The pick I would criticize that hasn't been mentioned is taking think twice when you had 3 other fine picks in your most likely colors. Moment of heroism is quite good, and is probably what I would have picked since it's invaluable in aggro decks that are lacking in the late-game. While I don't think rally the peasants was the pick, I'm amazed you didn't include it in your deck. The card has insane value, and *the* finisher in a r/w deck. You play it, forcing them to chump, and then brimstone volley for the win. Other than that though, it's hard to disagree much with your picks.
I actually agree with you about not hating Grim-Grin just to hate it - we'll just have to disagree with your view on Traveler in the abstract. In the dark, he just isn't strong. (It's also interesting that you cut one of the better DT enablers: Rally the Peasants)
What would have to happen to make that hand a "clear" mulligan, then? Seriously, you can play one card, and without drawing a mountain (seriously, 27% chance), you can only play three other cards in your deck with any profit (five if you get lucky and catch opponent off-guard with Moment). That's a rough hand.
And even if you get help, it's still tenuous - you need to draw perfectly for that hand to actually win: draw one mountain, then a profitable mix of gas after that. You're drawing very thin. Mull the hand.
What actually happened that game was not BAD LUCK - it was a fairly likely and easily predictable scenario!
Shrine of Loyal Legions was definitely a card I looked at, but I ended up passing on it to streamline the deck. I can see where it would be a game winner on its own though.
I ran Origin Spellbomb as well but it was also cut for streamlining. I did miss the cycling while still producing tokens though.
You know, I never even checked the price on DoJ. I just assumed they were still 2 tix each. I'll be sure to check all my options a little better next time.
As for matches/sideboard: I intend to switch gears to those soon. But seeing as I just returned to the game and have no idea what the current meta looks like, I was afraid I'd get torn apart over and over again. But I agree matches are more interesting.