First of all there are plenty of people who care about modern (anyone who loved Old Extended and hated the new 4 year extended) so don't lose faith in the community in that regard. Secondly don't worry too much about page views (I know you aren't but it should be said for posterity.)
Articles acrue hits over time whether or not they are on the front page. People do look them up. And the page views thing isn't really all that relevant. What is relevant is you getting the word out in as many different ways as possible. Also like you said, as you gain recognition more people will flock to your articles. Keep up the quality of writing and add graphics and all else will fall into place.
I am not taking it personally. If fact, I don't take much of anything personally.
Everyone likes comfort zones and I have 2 things working against me:
1. I am relatively unknown. that is slowly changing. I am patient.
2. No one cares about modern, which is why I am pushing it. It is a fun format, and people will realize it sooner than later. Then I will have questions coming out of my ear-balls about it.
Thanks for at least reassuring me that my article isn't terrible (lol)
If you play 8-4 you will find that you can get Invisible stalker fairly late, somewhere around the 6-7th pick. It's all about getting the right removal and speed to make sure you can deal with all the GW.
Either way, B/G Morbid is the best in Swiss because people are more than willing to pass Spider Spawning, Falkenwrath Noble, and you can get a ton of late Morbid Creatures since black removal gets passed around as everyone tries to force GW.
Swiss can be fun though. It's the only time I will try out new decks. In swiss I have won with Burning Vengeance, Arc of Treason sac decks, and you can force werewolves if you get the right GR cards. There is so much rare drafting in Swiss that you are left with a ton of great cards to choose from, and sometimes I get greedy. Like when I played a deck with 3 spider spawnings.
Oh also I was able to get the UB Zombie deck going. I got 2 endless ranks of the dead, 2 moan of the unhallowed, 6 zombies (non exile zombies), and a ton of black removal + I was passed 2 Undead Alchemists. Nothing better than a mill deck with nothing more than Zombies. I think in one match I had 16 2/2 zombie tokens on the board, haha.
As a very late comment I would like to say that this is a great article and I'm looking forward to the league. I will try to participate. I have a few Modern decks saved (hey I even won one Eurodrive event with one!). I just love Modern and I appreciate your efforts.
Keep up the good work and +1 to everything what Paul said.
this article dosent have a lot of views because of two factors.
1. your not an established persona on the site. I am positive that i get at least 100 or 200 hits because its me, ive been doing it for a long time and i have a small following.
2. your article is not about a standard format draft. I understand that people like to read and watch draft stuff to get better at it. but comon pure audience, there are draft articles everywhere. Unfortunately we see articles like this get about 500 hits on the main page, and a draft video of ISD gets about 800 in the same time.
the best thing about Pure, Heath, and Josh, is that they are willing and wants to publish articles about classic or modern or avatar, etc etc.
Modern having almost zero following right now dosent help either. I for instance would not have opened this article unless it was done by an author that i knew.
I actually think that UW Tempered Steel would be a great choice for a Modern deck. You get to use Ravager and Cranial Plating...and Path to Exile. Moorland Haunt with Cranial Plating seems annoying...(like in a good way)
TOP 5 Counter Spells in Modern in no particular order
Mana Leak- Soft as it is, this is a great card and makes people have to wait 3 turns and play around. It is as format defining as it is in Standard, IMO.
Spell Snare - seems narrow, but when your aggro opponent is on the play you can counter annoying things like: Cranial Plating, Arcbound Ravager, Tarmogoyf, Qasali Pridemage, Dark Confidant...there are loads of useful 2-drops in the format. Spell Snare also counters opposing Mana Leaks, Negates, Remands, and any 2 drop removal spell- Doom Blade, Go for the Throat, Smother (which is huge in Modern), etc...
Remand- This card is deceptively good. It is kind of a tempo play most of the time, but it leads to interesting decisions in counter wars. For example, I was playing against a mirror match with UW control last night. Opponent drops a Wurmcoil Engine with 3 mana open. I knew he had a Leak and a Snare from a Vendilion Clique that I had cast earlier, and wanted to get them out of his hand so I could copy his Wurmcoil with a Phantasmal Image. I cast Cryptic Command on - counter;draw, He Mana Leaked, I leaked his leak, and he Spell Snared my Leak. I actually wanted the Wurmcoil top resolve so I remanded my Cryptic and drew a card. I then had a Phantasmal Image copying his Wurmcoil next turn with Cryptic backup. That is why I love Remand.
Spell Pierce- This card is almost main deck-able. I have heard from several pros that the deeper the card pool , the better and more relevant Spell Pierce is. The only reason I wouldn't MD it would be because Zoo doesn't care. If Zoo doesn't care, then the spell shouldn't be MD...
Cryptic Command- This card does what every blue mage should be doing. The down side is the triple blue. You have to be very aware of Mana that you tap for this to work properly, but once this spell comes online it does ridiculous things.
Yeah, I did embed, but then the disappeared. My drafted make-up article shows them, so hopefully that will work out.
I understand what you and others say, but I will continue to play Swiss over 8-4s because that is what I prefer personally. I get a guaranteed 3-4 hours of enjoyment/experience and 80% of the time I go either 2-1 or 3-0, so 6 or 2 tickets for another draft is great for me. I have scrubbed out of every 8-4 I have played, which doesn't surprise me because I don't consider myself the best drafter.
Both stalkers I got P1P1 and P1P2 ... if I had gotten the first one late in pack 1 or in pack 2, I definitely wouldn't have gone for it.
I don't think my article not getting views is not on Josh. I actually think that I could have written it better, and I also think the viewership here sees Modern as a fringe format. Why play it when Legacy and Classic allow you to play better cards?
I am trying to generate genuine interest in the format, but it is a lot like Legacy when it first started. I am not worried about exposure. I have some clan mates that are doing some promoting for me. I also don't expect immediate results. Pushing formats takes work.
Thanks for taking my opinion constructively.
I will check out your YouTube Channel.
I anticipate writing a couple of "check in" articles as the league gets started that I will use as prizes for things other than just winning, like fastest kill, "dark horse", best/most winning budget deck, etc...
I am trying to promote the fun of this format. Although Zoo is strong, it is clear to my clan mates and I that the format is wide open. Zoo does require that you do not ignore it at this point, but it can be hated out.
Goyfs will drop and I will have a set...until then I run really well with the various control decks in the format, including caw blade (lol)
Do you think a Tempered Steel/Counterspell Deck can work in modern? It can keep the pace with Zoo and deal with Storm, unless it has been banned, but I'm not sure.
I'm thinking about making a modern deck, either Black/White or U/W Tempered Steel.
It seems you need pace with aggro, but also need to have the ability to stop combo's. I haven't quite figured it out, but I'll give it a try.
Or what about a deck with Champion of the Parish, Counterspells, Honor the Pure, and other humans. Kind of like the UW Delver deck, but with more violent and useful creatures + stopping things like Splinter Twin if that is also not banned.
Question for Modern players, what is the ranking of counterspells in the format?
I'm thinking Counterspell and Mana Leak are up there, but what is the like top 5?
You have to imbed the videos using wordpress. It's pretty easy once you figure out how to put up the URL. But I think Josh should have helped out with that one before posting it.
Either way, I think Stalker was one of the best cards in the set, but it's certainly not something that you should be building a deck around unless you have a minimum 2 silent departures, 3 equipment's, and a second and third win condition because it can be too slow to be a #1 win condition, and has a lot of ways of getting killed, or sometimes you need it to stay back and block.
Also don't play swiss. It is a losing situation. If you don't open a $2 card and win all 3 matches, you have already lost money. But then again, in Swiss you get passed weird cards. Like I played one yesterday for my youtube and I was passed 3 Brimstone Volley's, 2 Geistflames, 2 Victim of Night, and a Charmbreaker Devil was passed to me P3P2. I think you can figure out how I did, haha.
Wow, I bet you can thank the editor for burying the article and taking it off the first page.
I think this would have been a good opportunity for the site/bot to promote Modern and sell some modern cards.
I guess you should thank Josh for that. I mean do they need another person with another ISD Draft Video?
Your post would have hit the 1k views (which is my record btw for an article not named "State of the Program".
But the Metallica album is great. It's only 4 songs, but for the first time in a long time, Lars allows them to have great guitar solos.
And if it wasn't for Metallica suing Napster, music downloading wouldn't have gotten to the point it is today. It was fringe at the time, and that put it in the spotlight.
And I have grudges with Gardevi because his articles are terrible. You want to see good drafts, (And I'm not promoting it), just check out my Youtube site. It's TERROl2BradCarter (Lower Case L). It shows real draft vids that show how to win. Like he writes a stereotypical deck that either doesn't take place in the real world or we already know. Like how GW is the best color combo in drafts.
But my videos, which I only put up for fun, show that Black Green is actually the best color combo. If I get the right B/G cards, I haven't lost yet.
And my issue with Whiffy isn't personal. It's the game itself. He said he made his collection with "Blood Sweat and Tears". His actual quote. My problem with MTG is that people take it too seriously, and forget that it is, in essence, a game that is supposed to be played for fun. I think people forgot somewhere along the line that this is about fun and enjoying yourself.
And if you want, I know the top limited players in the game. You help me out (ie promote my youtube because I want to think I put up the vids for some reason, and I will use my clan to help promote your clan. I mean I have access to over 1500 people, so that would help.
You scratch my back, I scratch yours. And since Josh figured he would bury your article before the weekend which is when it would get the most views, it is sad because I think there are enough articles out there about people playing "cawblade" and more ISD Draft Vids.
But hey, with Modern, if you write 2 more articles, you can get 1 Tarmogoyf, haha.
i never played stasis in paper. i didnt think of thwart. one reason i didnt try the gush daze route was that its a finite amount of untaps. as bad as they are, garruk, bop/instill, forsaken keep stasis infinite.
I didn't consider the Fire as a tool against life gain...that has merit. Grove is an awkward land too.
I was going actually try to figure out how to contact Mmog to see how he runs it. I have an issue with having people in sporadic time zones, which is why it is difficult for us to make a clan DE fire.
I almost have that whole red deck. I think I need 2 Chains, the Rifts, Price of Progress, and Factorys (small order, right?).
I agree, I think this was a huge wall of text that needed more graphics. It was also everything that I have been doing for the past three months to try to get it off of my chest.
Thanks for the feedback.
I want to practice some 2HG this week with you and my birthday is tomorrow, so I am going to try to stay up all night and play Blippy's Eurodrive.
Wow .... what an impressive amount of work behind this article. It's almost an habit from you, but each time very informative & interesting contents, detailled and all.
You deserve the award of Hammer of the year ! ;)
Just go on with that, it's just ... passionating !
Thanks for the namecheck. Wish I could be right about things more often :) This series continues to be the go-to source for standard pauper metagamers.
Haven't had time to listen to the podcast, but a comment on the Stasis build - NO GUSH?!? Gush, Daze and Thwart all pick up Islands, allowing you to replay them and tap them one more time. That version was much stronger than the Birds / Instill plan. Undiscovered Paradise is another option for ongoing Stasis upkeep.
Just my $0.02 - but I did play a lot of Extended Stasis, back when it was a major PTQ deck.
First of all there are plenty of people who care about modern (anyone who loved Old Extended and hated the new 4 year extended) so don't lose faith in the community in that regard. Secondly don't worry too much about page views (I know you aren't but it should be said for posterity.)
Articles acrue hits over time whether or not they are on the front page. People do look them up. And the page views thing isn't really all that relevant. What is relevant is you getting the word out in as many different ways as possible. Also like you said, as you gain recognition more people will flock to your articles. Keep up the quality of writing and add graphics and all else will fall into place.
Dispatch is good. I don't think they are mutually exclusive. Plus Ancient Grudge is a card that nullifies metalcraft pretty consistently...
"UW Tempered Steel would be a great choice for a Modern deck. You get to use Ravager and Cranial Plating...and Path to Exile"
Don't you mean Dispatch, since most likely you'll have metalcraft? Why give them a land?
Please sign up at my website if you want to join the league. I will be getting it off the ground after the holidays.
website is :modernsalvation.guildportal.com
The article is an open invitation to anyone who wants to join.
I am not taking it personally. If fact, I don't take much of anything personally.
Everyone likes comfort zones and I have 2 things working against me:
1. I am relatively unknown. that is slowly changing. I am patient.
2. No one cares about modern, which is why I am pushing it. It is a fun format, and people will realize it sooner than later. Then I will have questions coming out of my ear-balls about it.
Thanks for at least reassuring me that my article isn't terrible (lol)
If you play 8-4 you will find that you can get Invisible stalker fairly late, somewhere around the 6-7th pick. It's all about getting the right removal and speed to make sure you can deal with all the GW.
Either way, B/G Morbid is the best in Swiss because people are more than willing to pass Spider Spawning, Falkenwrath Noble, and you can get a ton of late Morbid Creatures since black removal gets passed around as everyone tries to force GW.
Swiss can be fun though. It's the only time I will try out new decks. In swiss I have won with Burning Vengeance, Arc of Treason sac decks, and you can force werewolves if you get the right GR cards. There is so much rare drafting in Swiss that you are left with a ton of great cards to choose from, and sometimes I get greedy. Like when I played a deck with 3 spider spawnings.
Oh also I was able to get the UB Zombie deck going. I got 2 endless ranks of the dead, 2 moan of the unhallowed, 6 zombies (non exile zombies), and a ton of black removal + I was passed 2 Undead Alchemists. Nothing better than a mill deck with nothing more than Zombies. I think in one match I had 16 2/2 zombie tokens on the board, haha.
As a very late comment I would like to say that this is a great article and I'm looking forward to the league. I will try to participate. I have a few Modern decks saved (hey I even won one Eurodrive event with one!). I just love Modern and I appreciate your efforts.
Keep up the good work and +1 to everything what Paul said.
LE
this article dosent have a lot of views because of two factors.
1. your not an established persona on the site. I am positive that i get at least 100 or 200 hits because its me, ive been doing it for a long time and i have a small following.
2. your article is not about a standard format draft. I understand that people like to read and watch draft stuff to get better at it. but comon pure audience, there are draft articles everywhere. Unfortunately we see articles like this get about 500 hits on the main page, and a draft video of ISD gets about 800 in the same time.
the best thing about Pure, Heath, and Josh, is that they are willing and wants to publish articles about classic or modern or avatar, etc etc.
Modern having almost zero following right now dosent help either. I for instance would not have opened this article unless it was done by an author that i knew.
I actually think that UW Tempered Steel would be a great choice for a Modern deck. You get to use Ravager and Cranial Plating...and Path to Exile. Moorland Haunt with Cranial Plating seems annoying...(like in a good way)
TOP 5 Counter Spells in Modern in no particular order
Mana Leak- Soft as it is, this is a great card and makes people have to wait 3 turns and play around. It is as format defining as it is in Standard, IMO.
Spell Snare - seems narrow, but when your aggro opponent is on the play you can counter annoying things like: Cranial Plating, Arcbound Ravager, Tarmogoyf, Qasali Pridemage, Dark Confidant...there are loads of useful 2-drops in the format. Spell Snare also counters opposing Mana Leaks, Negates, Remands, and any 2 drop removal spell- Doom Blade, Go for the Throat, Smother (which is huge in Modern), etc...
Remand- This card is deceptively good. It is kind of a tempo play most of the time, but it leads to interesting decisions in counter wars. For example, I was playing against a mirror match with UW control last night. Opponent drops a Wurmcoil Engine with 3 mana open. I knew he had a Leak and a Snare from a Vendilion Clique that I had cast earlier, and wanted to get them out of his hand so I could copy his Wurmcoil with a Phantasmal Image. I cast Cryptic Command on - counter;draw, He Mana Leaked, I leaked his leak, and he Spell Snared my Leak. I actually wanted the Wurmcoil top resolve so I remanded my Cryptic and drew a card. I then had a Phantasmal Image copying his Wurmcoil next turn with Cryptic backup. That is why I love Remand.
Spell Pierce- This card is almost main deck-able. I have heard from several pros that the deeper the card pool , the better and more relevant Spell Pierce is. The only reason I wouldn't MD it would be because Zoo doesn't care. If Zoo doesn't care, then the spell shouldn't be MD...
Cryptic Command- This card does what every blue mage should be doing. The down side is the triple blue. You have to be very aware of Mana that you tap for this to work properly, but once this spell comes online it does ridiculous things.
Yeah, I did embed, but then the disappeared. My drafted make-up article shows them, so hopefully that will work out.
I understand what you and others say, but I will continue to play Swiss over 8-4s because that is what I prefer personally. I get a guaranteed 3-4 hours of enjoyment/experience and 80% of the time I go either 2-1 or 3-0, so 6 or 2 tickets for another draft is great for me. I have scrubbed out of every 8-4 I have played, which doesn't surprise me because I don't consider myself the best drafter.
Both stalkers I got P1P1 and P1P2 ... if I had gotten the first one late in pack 1 or in pack 2, I definitely wouldn't have gone for it.
I don't think my article not getting views is not on Josh. I actually think that I could have written it better, and I also think the viewership here sees Modern as a fringe format. Why play it when Legacy and Classic allow you to play better cards?
I am trying to generate genuine interest in the format, but it is a lot like Legacy when it first started. I am not worried about exposure. I have some clan mates that are doing some promoting for me. I also don't expect immediate results. Pushing formats takes work.
Thanks for taking my opinion constructively.
I will check out your YouTube Channel.
I anticipate writing a couple of "check in" articles as the league gets started that I will use as prizes for things other than just winning, like fastest kill, "dark horse", best/most winning budget deck, etc...
I am trying to promote the fun of this format. Although Zoo is strong, it is clear to my clan mates and I that the format is wide open. Zoo does require that you do not ignore it at this point, but it can be hated out.
Goyfs will drop and I will have a set...until then I run really well with the various control decks in the format, including caw blade (lol)
Do you think a Tempered Steel/Counterspell Deck can work in modern? It can keep the pace with Zoo and deal with Storm, unless it has been banned, but I'm not sure.
I'm thinking about making a modern deck, either Black/White or U/W Tempered Steel.
It seems you need pace with aggro, but also need to have the ability to stop combo's. I haven't quite figured it out, but I'll give it a try.
Or what about a deck with Champion of the Parish, Counterspells, Honor the Pure, and other humans. Kind of like the UW Delver deck, but with more violent and useful creatures + stopping things like Splinter Twin if that is also not banned.
Question for Modern players, what is the ranking of counterspells in the format?
I'm thinking Counterspell and Mana Leak are up there, but what is the like top 5?
You have to imbed the videos using wordpress. It's pretty easy once you figure out how to put up the URL. But I think Josh should have helped out with that one before posting it.
Either way, I think Stalker was one of the best cards in the set, but it's certainly not something that you should be building a deck around unless you have a minimum 2 silent departures, 3 equipment's, and a second and third win condition because it can be too slow to be a #1 win condition, and has a lot of ways of getting killed, or sometimes you need it to stay back and block.
Also don't play swiss. It is a losing situation. If you don't open a $2 card and win all 3 matches, you have already lost money. But then again, in Swiss you get passed weird cards. Like I played one yesterday for my youtube and I was passed 3 Brimstone Volley's, 2 Geistflames, 2 Victim of Night, and a Charmbreaker Devil was passed to me P3P2. I think you can figure out how I did, haha.
Wow, I bet you can thank the editor for burying the article and taking it off the first page.
I think this would have been a good opportunity for the site/bot to promote Modern and sell some modern cards.
I guess you should thank Josh for that. I mean do they need another person with another ISD Draft Video?
Your post would have hit the 1k views (which is my record btw for an article not named "State of the Program".
But the Metallica album is great. It's only 4 songs, but for the first time in a long time, Lars allows them to have great guitar solos.
And if it wasn't for Metallica suing Napster, music downloading wouldn't have gotten to the point it is today. It was fringe at the time, and that put it in the spotlight.
And I have grudges with Gardevi because his articles are terrible. You want to see good drafts, (And I'm not promoting it), just check out my Youtube site. It's TERROl2BradCarter (Lower Case L). It shows real draft vids that show how to win. Like he writes a stereotypical deck that either doesn't take place in the real world or we already know. Like how GW is the best color combo in drafts.
But my videos, which I only put up for fun, show that Black Green is actually the best color combo. If I get the right B/G cards, I haven't lost yet.
And my issue with Whiffy isn't personal. It's the game itself. He said he made his collection with "Blood Sweat and Tears". His actual quote. My problem with MTG is that people take it too seriously, and forget that it is, in essence, a game that is supposed to be played for fun. I think people forgot somewhere along the line that this is about fun and enjoying yourself.
And if you want, I know the top limited players in the game. You help me out (ie promote my youtube because I want to think I put up the vids for some reason, and I will use my clan to help promote your clan. I mean I have access to over 1500 people, so that would help.
You scratch my back, I scratch yours. And since Josh figured he would bury your article before the weekend which is when it would get the most views, it is sad because I think there are enough articles out there about people playing "cawblade" and more ISD Draft Vids.
But hey, with Modern, if you write 2 more articles, you can get 1 Tarmogoyf, haha.
i never played stasis in paper. i didnt think of thwart. one reason i didnt try the gush daze route was that its a finite amount of untaps. as bad as they are, garruk, bop/instill, forsaken keep stasis infinite.
In the last two lines I made a typo!!
Until nex time, I'll see you in the queues!
should be
Until next time, I'll see you in the queues!
Sorry!
I didn't consider the Fire as a tool against life gain...that has merit. Grove is an awkward land too.
I was going actually try to figure out how to contact Mmog to see how he runs it. I have an issue with having people in sporadic time zones, which is why it is difficult for us to make a clan DE fire.
I almost have that whole red deck. I think I need 2 Chains, the Rifts, Price of Progress, and Factorys (small order, right?).
I need to figure out what the entry fee is.
I love me some eternal format MTG.
Thanks for reading.
I agree, I think this was a huge wall of text that needed more graphics. It was also everything that I have been doing for the past three months to try to get it off of my chest.
Thanks for the feedback.
I want to practice some 2HG this week with you and my birthday is tomorrow, so I am going to try to stay up all night and play Blippy's Eurodrive.
I appreciate your feedback.
Damn, the links aren't showing .... I have copy/pasted the article, so whomever can delete this, please do so I can resubmit.
For anyone interested until I get this worked out, here is a link to the videos on Youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA5945931B83C1605
or that elf that makes you bounce a forest, bouncing tropical island
Wow .... what an impressive amount of work behind this article. It's almost an habit from you, but each time very informative & interesting contents, detailled and all.
You deserve the award of Hammer of the year ! ;)
Just go on with that, it's just ... passionating !
I'm not seeing them either. Something's wrong here.
Josh, will you look into this please?
LE
"I will provide some closing thoughts at the end, but I will let the videos speak for themselves?"
I dont see any video's in this article is it my web browser settings or is something wrong here...
Thanks for the namecheck. Wish I could be right about things more often :) This series continues to be the go-to source for standard pauper metagamers.
Haven't had time to listen to the podcast, but a comment on the Stasis build - NO GUSH?!? Gush, Daze and Thwart all pick up Islands, allowing you to replay them and tap them one more time. That version was much stronger than the Birds / Instill plan. Undiscovered Paradise is another option for ongoing Stasis upkeep.
Just my $0.02 - but I did play a lot of Extended Stasis, back when it was a major PTQ deck.