Your PRE section describes exactly what I am trying to do with Modern. I know I have a lot of work left to do, but, even though you didn't say anything about me specifically, I appreciate knowing that someone knows the amount of work involved with this.
I know how hard it must be for you to make articles every week. I appreciate every single one.
I like the article and give you props for taking MBC into the ring of the 2 mans. I must admit, when I saw your part 1 of these articles and that you weren't playing crypt rats. I thought to myself, "should I say something?", but I left it alone. Glad you noticed that crypt rats is correct right now:D.
I will honestly say, I don't like that you only have 3 tendrils. Tendrils is your big removal spell to deal with things like spire golem and the like, also against red decks, the life gain is pretty crucial... I also don't understand why only 3 corrupt, as I have found it to always be the big finisher against my opponents. But to each his own.
I decided to play Solar Flare just to try a different deck. I still prefer UWb Cawblade.
Alternate: one deck that Solar Flare has an easy time beating is Kessig Ramp. It's probably the deck's best match up. But yes, the mana base isn't very good and without Think Twice it misses land drops much more often than other control decks.
I know hence it was chuckle worthy. But I am surprised Bob ever hit below 10. It has been pretty consistent as it is a house in any format it is legal in.
To toot our own horn - I ve been overwhelmed by the number of people who have recently bought into classic and sighted the podcast as a driver. Very cool that we have an outreach and helping to nuture Classic.
ya Ill probably look into some kind of unconventional deck to start, mostly I just don't want to buy things likely to lose value soon, or likely to rise in value, that way I don't fall further and further behind on getting fully into the format some day. A lot of the cheap cards I want to make sure I pick up in case they go up in value and them I'm kicking myself when I could have bought on the cheap.
Well I just opened a Thrun in this next SOM draft so hopefully i make it to round 2 for some real profits I can put toward Bob and duals, maybe a Bob based aggro deck would be a good way to go.
It's not that duals are really that bad other than a couple of them, I'd like to grab them when med drafts are up again at least, to try and get them at some kind of discount.
so there are a few problems with your question. first of all you grabbed all the restricted cards, and getting vamp should be a priority if you want to play with any of the restricted cards you bought.
you say that your going to focus on getting the expensive cards first ie duals and fetches. depending on what your budget looks like you have a lot of decision trees.
If duals and fetches are expensive then im not sure what cards to tell you to buy. The only thing that comes to mind that is not an uncomon or worth more then a couple of tickits is dark confidant.
U have to think in terms of archtypes when you buy
Blue and you will need to buy 4 fow, if you want to compete, its a sad fact.
agro and you will have to decide what you want to play, this would require the purchase of about 6-10 duals and 4-6 fetches to get a g w b mana base. Wastelands are also very important for aggro.
Dredge and you spend about 225-250 for the deck
workshop based decks will run you anywhere from 400-600 but you need wastelands for almost all of them.
You could try and build up a non fow non led combo deck, but it seems like it might be weak.
If you want to play soon and build slowly i would play a wgb agro deck.
if you just want to collect the staples that you should get first and will use the most play are 4 wastelands 4 fow. but they are pricy and you still need to dump 400 tix into a deck after getting those 2 playsets
Well you guys finally got to me, I've been listening for awhile and finally broke down and began the long slog of accumulating classic cards. I went and grabbed all the restricted cards other than vampiric tutor. Don't know if that's the smartest approach since focusing on building a deck that can actually be played in an event is probably a lot better for starting sooner but OCD and casual play interests make grabbing the suite of one ofs fairly attractive.
Any other cards on the cheap side I should grab that aren't a major investment but will probably always have use in the format?
For expensive cards I was going to go after the dual lands, fetches, Jace and any other mythics that seem like a bargain atm.
Probably can't get things that fast, I try to make some value trading and just 2-1'd a 4322 SOM draft opening a Sword of money and famine to bankroll a good part of this buy.
This is hilarious in hindsight! Keldon Marauders "epitomizes the concept of “almost.”" YIKES, literally in EVERY burn list - Stingscourger, "...This may be the biggest impact card in the set..." I had to look it up ;)
I looked at it, and the videos have been showing up fine for me. I'm going to go back over the code to make sure I did not mess something up while I was working on it.
When Delver of Secrets is in ANY decklist - it needs to be THE creature...MAYBE one more 4x. Diluting the pool just turns it into an unplayable Fugitive Wizard - something I often see in regular pauper as well...attempts to fix this outside of the %'s just dumbs down the focus and overall strategy of said deck.
The editor/uploading thing is a pretty consistent bug here. I compiled a bunch of stuff for new writers, unfortunately it's hard to find so here's the link if you need:
...And shame on you ADMIN@puremtgo - a two-second glance at this is all that's required to know something went wrong. Do you just 'auto include' any submission now without even looking at it?
Gush and Thwart do NOT work with Root Maze. Trust me, I tried. I tried a lot. I failed a lot. The problem is that Root Maze is so much better than Kismet and Frozen Aether. Keep the faith, Whiffy! we can do this!.
I read this article because I love Modern and like seeing people support it. I don't comment much, but I did read this and you were not forgotten. I hope this endeavor succeed. I would join the clan myself if 1) I wasn't already in a clan with my local card players and 2) it wasn't wrapped so closely with MTG Salvation. For personal reasons, I don't like MTGSalvation, but it's a good place to aggregate support regardless.
I'm looking forward to, if not participating actively in these events due to time constraints, at least keeping you entertained in-between rounds by battling you, Andrew.
Best of luck!
ps: Also, I'd appreciate it if my name was left out on any sort of discussion of grudges or what have-you. Talking about it as a means to 'prove' that a person is out to get me or others isn't particularly helpful to anything. Don't feel like anyone reading this little post script has to respond to any of it; I won't respond if you do. I just trust that you get what I'm saying. :)
I have been playing a lot more STD since I got bored of running into the same decks over and over in ISD Block, and every time I have played Solar Flare, I have beaten it like a guy who hasn't gotten any action in a few years.
The problem with it is that most people sideboard against it. I know in my Uw Delver deck I run a Surgical Extraction Main deck, and 1 in the sideboard along with a nihil spellbomb. It wrecks the deck completely.
It is also a little too slow to beat Ramp Run, whether it is RG, GW, or RGW, RDW (Which I find to be a little too hit and miss for my liking), Wu and Uw, and UB Control.
I mean Solar Flare was getting everyone excited when ISD was coming out, but after a few tries, it has failed to agriculture (aggro is agriculture right?), and the mana has some issues. I think it lacks good counterspells. If they release a good counterspell, which I doubt, but if they do in the next set, then it might be a good deck.
And for a control deck, it's more a luck of the draw than a 20 mana Uw Delver deck.
*Oh and btw, Wizards has said the new 1 mana draw 2 discard 2 card is going to be a common. So that might also help, but once again, it's too slow. I would rather be running a control deck with Birthing Pod than Solar Flare.
Swiss all the way! I agree... I have now tried 5 (iirc) 4-3-2-2 drafts across M12 and SOM and only ever once gotten to the 2nd round. In Swiss I would say I'm averaging 2 wins a draft now, and card value is often in the 4-6 tix range with occasional big money and occasional drafts with a single 1 tix value.
In 4-3-2-2 I would have to win that first round more than 50% of the time to be more profitable, and in Swiss it's often the first round I loose.
You aren't a known commodity on this website? To be honest there are articles written by people who can't write, and there are editing problems coming out the @$$.
To be honest, they need a better system for articles on the site. Now just some inside info. If you had made it so your article was published on a Friday instead of during the week, Josh takes the weekend off usually and your article might be up all weekend leading to a much larger viewership.
Also the fact that you put out your article the same time WotC announced their "Holiday" (Just say christmas, I won't be offended, and I speak for all Jews), was going to be a "Celebration of Classis" didn't help.
I think Modern has it's place if it can somehow become more affordable and more available. I mean STD is the #1 format because you have 90& of the cards from draft.
I think Legacy, the weakest of the formats, will slowly die out, but Modern would really benefit from having less sets in it. I think if they cycled more sets out, and kept it to 4 blocks and 3 core sets, it would be more available for people.
Also having a winning deck that is 75% standard would be nice. But overall the main issue is that people look at Tarmoygodhdskk, see that you would need more than $200 for a playset, then you would need to buy at least $20-40 worth of lands, and buy cards they might not be familiar with, they get turned off.
From a financial and obvious perspective, in 3 or so years, and yes that is years, Legacy will go away and Modern will become the format played by people who played ZEN, SOM, ISD as long as it's cycled correctly.
I think the game will move more towards online, and that means that more people would start playing around the same time, or a little after I did, which was around SOM coming out. So if people have the cards on hand, it would be played by more people as a way to play STD, Block, and Modern.
Classic will still have it's place, but seriously, if you only add 1 card from each set (Snapcaster was the card from ISD), and it still is based upon the same old duals, fetch lands, and FOW-style cards, the same people will continue to play it.
That's why I think modern has a place, and who knows, you may become an innovator if you eventually get your own website and more people switch to online only play.
**Although according to the beta testing, they are looking to add a new STD 2-Headed Giant format. I am not a beta tester, but they are looking for people who play a lot of DE's and play a lot of 2-HG, so that might push Modern back a bit. I think that would be the most badass format ever created btw. I mean 2-HG, random players, random opponents, teamwork, no teamwork, conflicting decks (Imagine playing an aggro deck and your partner is playing control with DOJ's or Black Sun. That would make it interesting. But they would have to ban infect which would be odd.
I do have faith that people will play more. Otherwise I would be knowingly wasting my time.
I also think that ban list announcements make people wary of investing? Why would I spend 70+ tix on Goyf (or whatever) if they just get the ban hammer in three months. I admit, this aspect of it is kind of off putting, but I think the Ban Sledge hammer needed to come down to see what the decks are doing when the format is "fair"...I have faith that people will come out of the woodwork eventually.
I am going to write another check-in after the holidays to push the league once more, then game on!!!
Your PRE section describes exactly what I am trying to do with Modern. I know I have a lot of work left to do, but, even though you didn't say anything about me specifically, I appreciate knowing that someone knows the amount of work involved with this.
I know how hard it must be for you to make articles every week. I appreciate every single one.
Thanks, Pete. Happy Holidays.
A Phyrexian Walker with a Bone splitter equiped to it is a 2/3 not a 2/4.
I like the article and give you props for taking MBC into the ring of the 2 mans. I must admit, when I saw your part 1 of these articles and that you weren't playing crypt rats. I thought to myself, "should I say something?", but I left it alone. Glad you noticed that crypt rats is correct right now:D.
I will honestly say, I don't like that you only have 3 tendrils. Tendrils is your big removal spell to deal with things like spire golem and the like, also against red decks, the life gain is pretty crucial... I also don't understand why only 3 corrupt, as I have found it to always be the big finisher against my opponents. But to each his own.
.
I decided to play Solar Flare just to try a different deck. I still prefer UWb Cawblade.
Alternate: one deck that Solar Flare has an easy time beating is Kessig Ramp. It's probably the deck's best match up. But yes, the mana base isn't very good and without Think Twice it misses land drops much more often than other control decks.
I know hence it was chuckle worthy. But I am surprised Bob ever hit below 10. It has been pretty consistent as it is a house in any format it is legal in.
they were 8 last week.
and i said worth more then a couple of tickits
5 and below is a couple on my scale btw
*Chuckles at Dark Confidant being a "couple of tickets"* At $12 it is more expensive than most of the duals.
To toot our own horn - I ve been overwhelmed by the number of people who have recently bought into classic and sighted the podcast as a driver. Very cool that we have an outreach and helping to nuture Classic.
ya Ill probably look into some kind of unconventional deck to start, mostly I just don't want to buy things likely to lose value soon, or likely to rise in value, that way I don't fall further and further behind on getting fully into the format some day. A lot of the cheap cards I want to make sure I pick up in case they go up in value and them I'm kicking myself when I could have bought on the cheap.
Well I just opened a Thrun in this next SOM draft so hopefully i make it to round 2 for some real profits I can put toward Bob and duals, maybe a Bob based aggro deck would be a good way to go.
It's not that duals are really that bad other than a couple of them, I'd like to grab them when med drafts are up again at least, to try and get them at some kind of discount.
huzzah, glad we could ensnare you.
so there are a few problems with your question. first of all you grabbed all the restricted cards, and getting vamp should be a priority if you want to play with any of the restricted cards you bought.
you say that your going to focus on getting the expensive cards first ie duals and fetches. depending on what your budget looks like you have a lot of decision trees.
If duals and fetches are expensive then im not sure what cards to tell you to buy. The only thing that comes to mind that is not an uncomon or worth more then a couple of tickits is dark confidant.
U have to think in terms of archtypes when you buy
Blue and you will need to buy 4 fow, if you want to compete, its a sad fact.
agro and you will have to decide what you want to play, this would require the purchase of about 6-10 duals and 4-6 fetches to get a g w b mana base. Wastelands are also very important for aggro.
Dredge and you spend about 225-250 for the deck
workshop based decks will run you anywhere from 400-600 but you need wastelands for almost all of them.
You could try and build up a non fow non led combo deck, but it seems like it might be weak.
If you want to play soon and build slowly i would play a wgb agro deck.
if you just want to collect the staples that you should get first and will use the most play are 4 wastelands 4 fow. but they are pricy and you still need to dump 400 tix into a deck after getting those 2 playsets
Well you guys finally got to me, I've been listening for awhile and finally broke down and began the long slog of accumulating classic cards. I went and grabbed all the restricted cards other than vampiric tutor. Don't know if that's the smartest approach since focusing on building a deck that can actually be played in an event is probably a lot better for starting sooner but OCD and casual play interests make grabbing the suite of one ofs fairly attractive.
Any other cards on the cheap side I should grab that aren't a major investment but will probably always have use in the format?
For expensive cards I was going to go after the dual lands, fetches, Jace and any other mythics that seem like a bargain atm.
Probably can't get things that fast, I try to make some value trading and just 2-1'd a 4322 SOM draft opening a Sword of money and famine to bankroll a good part of this buy.
This is hilarious in hindsight! Keldon Marauders "epitomizes the concept of “almost.”" YIKES, literally in EVERY burn list - Stingscourger, "...This may be the biggest impact card in the set..." I had to look it up ;)
is this the VERY first article on PureMtgo?
Still showing up just fine when I view the article in edit mode, have no idea why they are not showing up when it is published.
I looked at it, and the videos have been showing up fine for me. I'm going to go back over the code to make sure I did not mess something up while I was working on it.
When Delver of Secrets is in ANY decklist - it needs to be THE creature...MAYBE one more 4x. Diluting the pool just turns it into an unplayable Fugitive Wizard - something I often see in regular pauper as well...attempts to fix this outside of the %'s just dumbs down the focus and overall strategy of said deck.
The editor/uploading thing is a pretty consistent bug here. I compiled a bunch of stuff for new writers, unfortunately it's hard to find so here's the link if you need:
http://puremtgo.com/articles/playwright
...And shame on you ADMIN@puremtgo - a two-second glance at this is all that's required to know something went wrong. Do you just 'auto include' any submission now without even looking at it?
Gush and Thwart do NOT work with Root Maze. Trust me, I tried. I tried a lot. I failed a lot. The problem is that Root Maze is so much better than Kismet and Frozen Aether. Keep the faith, Whiffy! we can do this!.
Just thought I'd throw in some words.
I read this article because I love Modern and like seeing people support it. I don't comment much, but I did read this and you were not forgotten. I hope this endeavor succeed. I would join the clan myself if 1) I wasn't already in a clan with my local card players and 2) it wasn't wrapped so closely with MTG Salvation. For personal reasons, I don't like MTGSalvation, but it's a good place to aggregate support regardless.
I'm looking forward to, if not participating actively in these events due to time constraints, at least keeping you entertained in-between rounds by battling you, Andrew.
Best of luck!
ps: Also, I'd appreciate it if my name was left out on any sort of discussion of grudges or what have-you. Talking about it as a means to 'prove' that a person is out to get me or others isn't particularly helpful to anything. Don't feel like anyone reading this little post script has to respond to any of it; I won't respond if you do. I just trust that you get what I'm saying. :)
I have been playing a lot more STD since I got bored of running into the same decks over and over in ISD Block, and every time I have played Solar Flare, I have beaten it like a guy who hasn't gotten any action in a few years.
The problem with it is that most people sideboard against it. I know in my Uw Delver deck I run a Surgical Extraction Main deck, and 1 in the sideboard along with a nihil spellbomb. It wrecks the deck completely.
It is also a little too slow to beat Ramp Run, whether it is RG, GW, or RGW, RDW (Which I find to be a little too hit and miss for my liking), Wu and Uw, and UB Control.
I mean Solar Flare was getting everyone excited when ISD was coming out, but after a few tries, it has failed to agriculture (aggro is agriculture right?), and the mana has some issues. I think it lacks good counterspells. If they release a good counterspell, which I doubt, but if they do in the next set, then it might be a good deck.
And for a control deck, it's more a luck of the draw than a 20 mana Uw Delver deck.
*Oh and btw, Wizards has said the new 1 mana draw 2 discard 2 card is going to be a common. So that might also help, but once again, it's too slow. I would rather be running a control deck with Birthing Pod than Solar Flare.
Swiss all the way! I agree... I have now tried 5 (iirc) 4-3-2-2 drafts across M12 and SOM and only ever once gotten to the 2nd round. In Swiss I would say I'm averaging 2 wins a draft now, and card value is often in the 4-6 tix range with occasional big money and occasional drafts with a single 1 tix value.
In 4-3-2-2 I would have to win that first round more than 50% of the time to be more profitable, and in Swiss it's often the first round I loose.
You aren't a known commodity on this website? To be honest there are articles written by people who can't write, and there are editing problems coming out the @$$.
To be honest, they need a better system for articles on the site. Now just some inside info. If you had made it so your article was published on a Friday instead of during the week, Josh takes the weekend off usually and your article might be up all weekend leading to a much larger viewership.
Also the fact that you put out your article the same time WotC announced their "Holiday" (Just say christmas, I won't be offended, and I speak for all Jews), was going to be a "Celebration of Classis" didn't help.
I think Modern has it's place if it can somehow become more affordable and more available. I mean STD is the #1 format because you have 90& of the cards from draft.
I think Legacy, the weakest of the formats, will slowly die out, but Modern would really benefit from having less sets in it. I think if they cycled more sets out, and kept it to 4 blocks and 3 core sets, it would be more available for people.
Also having a winning deck that is 75% standard would be nice. But overall the main issue is that people look at Tarmoygodhdskk, see that you would need more than $200 for a playset, then you would need to buy at least $20-40 worth of lands, and buy cards they might not be familiar with, they get turned off.
From a financial and obvious perspective, in 3 or so years, and yes that is years, Legacy will go away and Modern will become the format played by people who played ZEN, SOM, ISD as long as it's cycled correctly.
I think the game will move more towards online, and that means that more people would start playing around the same time, or a little after I did, which was around SOM coming out. So if people have the cards on hand, it would be played by more people as a way to play STD, Block, and Modern.
Classic will still have it's place, but seriously, if you only add 1 card from each set (Snapcaster was the card from ISD), and it still is based upon the same old duals, fetch lands, and FOW-style cards, the same people will continue to play it.
That's why I think modern has a place, and who knows, you may become an innovator if you eventually get your own website and more people switch to online only play.
**Although according to the beta testing, they are looking to add a new STD 2-Headed Giant format. I am not a beta tester, but they are looking for people who play a lot of DE's and play a lot of 2-HG, so that might push Modern back a bit. I think that would be the most badass format ever created btw. I mean 2-HG, random players, random opponents, teamwork, no teamwork, conflicting decks (Imagine playing an aggro deck and your partner is playing control with DOJ's or Black Sun. That would make it interesting. But they would have to ban infect which would be odd.
I don't like Solar Flare...it is soft to RDW. I think your deck with Midnight Haunting and Blades is probably better. I would stick with that.
Another good report though.
I do have faith that people will play more. Otherwise I would be knowingly wasting my time.
I also think that ban list announcements make people wary of investing? Why would I spend 70+ tix on Goyf (or whatever) if they just get the ban hammer in three months. I admit, this aspect of it is kind of off putting, but I think the Ban Sledge hammer needed to come down to see what the decks are doing when the format is "fair"...I have faith that people will come out of the woodwork eventually.
I am going to write another check-in after the holidays to push the league once more, then game on!!!
You are invited to Mr. Gando, the winterwolf