I enjoyed the videos. The game play was mostly quality stuff, despite the mana screw matches (I don't think anyone likes those). Your write up did the deck justice. I was left with one burning question, however: Did you like Garruk at all? (lololol)
I want to build this. About 4 Garruks short, but I am going to shore up on that soon (I hope).
I liked the article, especially the reasoning about certain card choices (Oracle over Research and no maindeck Crusher). The sideboarding advice is very helpful too.
I started playing pauper for similar reasons - the decks are strong, the format is very competitive, and you don't have to spend an arm and a leg to play whatever deck you want. Personally I don't have a lot of time for deck building (and I'd rather use the time to play actual games), so I like being able to pick up interesting decks to try them out. I've had a lot of fun with Cloudposts, so I'll have to give these changes a spin. Thanks.
Even with Snapcaster I feel favored against Burning Vengeance. If they want to spend 5 mana and two cards to counter a spell then so be it. As for the aggro matches, Silent Departure just gives us so much tempo it's a amazing, which is why I'm running them instead of dissipates.
Maybe I'm cocky or maybe Silent Departure is that good (or maybe the shuffler hates my opponents jsut enough) but I'm just not worried about the GW match up... either of them. If it becomes a real issue I've given some thought to adding a couple Sulfur Falls to the main, and a few Blasphemous Acts to the side.
I cut three Lilianas against any aggro deck, and leave them all in against any control or midrange deck. I like her a lot, and she's never a dead card. I might consider going to three, but I find it unlikely.
Hey, i've been playing this deck quite a bit recently. I agree with you that Garruk is awesome and went up to 4 in the mainboard. I also cut Silent Departure, but watching your replays, that was probably a mistake. I also cut the Tree of Redemptions because i likewise found it underwhelming in many matchups or I already wanted to board in too many cards, like against tokens. Instead of them i added dissipate.
I think that, in general, BUG has a good matchup against any of the control decks, like UR Burning Vengeance, though I have played against some that are playing Snapcaster Mage which gives them a lot of redundancy on their dissipates and Naturalizes. The hardest matchups for me have been G/W tokens and Mono-Red. If you don't have an answer to Stromkirk Noble on t1 it can get out of hand pretty fast.
In your match against G/W tokens if you noticed the person kept a no-green hand g1 and couldn't curve out very well. However, in g2 you just straight up beat them. Maybe Silent Departure helps this match-up enough. I always find that I'm too behind when I play them such that the Curse of Death's Hold are almost ineffectual by turn 5.
In your match against G/W Humans your opponent had a bad draw g2 and mulled to 5 game 3. The deck does do that, however, I'm not convinced that it's favorable. Both BUG and G/W can stumble on mana, and I think that an average G/W tokens or humans hand will beat an average BUG hand.
In both the G/W matchups Sever the Bloodline is awesome! How do you feel about Liliana? I am somewhat underwhelmed by her in matchups other than UR Burning Vengeance.
This was one of the first times a sidebaord has ever made absolute perfect sense to me. I know exactly what comes in, and what goes out, and how I need to tweak those decisions per match. I'm still not sold on the trees though...
As for Shimmering Grotto, while I hate the card just as much as the next guy, running a set in this deck wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Still, I'd much rather have allied lands.
As for Burning Vengeance, I still think there's a deck there, but no way as it is. If I were to pilot a deck with Burning Vengeance in it it would almost definitely be URB/g, splashing for Garruk. The deck just needs better threat diversity, using BV as a tool rather than a full on win condition. Of course as more sets release sideboards may not have room for Witchbane Orb, Naturalize and whatnot anymore, so who knows...
Ok, ailments aside, does anyone else think the music sounds just like either the original Mario or Legend of Zelda? I mean they couldn't put an extra $50 in the budget for a guy to make better sounds? Now I know why my computer is always on mute.
But to Westane, nice job walking into an ISD Constructed and not playing Burning Vengeance or GW Humans. Your deck is a classic control deck minus the mass counterspells, but you can't help that in ISD.
To be honest I wish you would have had a better match against the GW Human deck. It seemed like you guys had 1 good game and then the next 2 games were decided by mana problems, which we all know who to thank for that, our lovely shuffler.
The 5 red balls are for jumping into the ISD Con. with a deck probably nobody saw coming since it's rare in the ISD tourny's that I haven't played someone that either played a Island, Mountain, or Sulfur Falls on their first turn.
The second thing is the sideboard. You might have put together one of the best block sideboards I have seen. It just worked to perfection and you got to use it, unlike me who will have cards in the sideboard, put them in the deck and they would never show up in the game.
The Tree was insanely perfect against the "Poor Mans RDW", the Curse was perfect against the GW deck which didn't really have an answer for Lilliana/Garruk, it just seems like one of those times where everything worked just the way you imagined it when you put the deck together.
*My only issue is one that is completely unavoidable. I would give up one of my balls rather than be forced to play Shimmering Grotto. I think that is my least favorite card of all time but it needed to be played.
- And for those looking at ISD block, I told y'all, Burning Vengeance is a bad deck overall. It has Nevermind, the Hexproof artifact, Urgent Exorcism and Naturalize to deal with. I would like to see in the future Burning Vengeance being used in a deck like vampires or R/W/G (Kessig Wolf Run and Township) as an add on, and not as a sole win condition.
What happens if you play a transform card face-down using Dakkon? According to the rules, you should get a free face-up transform card, I think. Turn 1 investigator gang (no spells played, flips during your opponent's upkeep?)
Edit: actually, maybe you get a face-up basic mountain? HOW DOES IT WORK?
RE: OP Changes-
I have expressed my opinion about this here, and I won't beat a dead horse. I will say that I truly feel bad for non-US countries with these changes. In addition to not being able to get cost-effective invites, the fact that they States'd Nationals, there is also probably not very many SCG type secondary sales stores that can support a competitive and profitable circuit.
I work for a company where my job status is in a state of "wtf" this year. I literally got the memo that Keya mentioned, which essentially said, "Your job is changing this year. We don't know how, but you are going to be doing different things, your current position is going to be obsolete, etc".
Ultimately, they are funding a Master's degree for me that I might not even use (good use of money and time, I guess). The reason that I might not use it is because, although my old position is becoming obsolete, the new one may not even come to fruition if we can't secure grant funding to pay me once the degree is finished (education was funded through a grant, but the whole program wasn't). The uncertainty is frustrating and I don't even know if I will work for this company when the degree is finished. Now, I have better chances to find a job when it is all said and done, but I don't want that.
Point: You have to put up with this in any career, especially when the economy is taking a dump. My ability to remain level headed is important because I am able to proactively deal instead of reactively. People are willing to listen to me because I am not hyperventilating and making demands.
Basically, just go with the flow. At worst, the death of one thing breathes new life into something else...
Great show again, guys.
Keya: I need to get you back for throttling me with your Goyfs last time we did Modern testing. I'ma lookin for yuh!!
I'm legally blind, so I kind of rely of the audio cues to play effectively. I also can't find a quiet room anymore, so I don't narrate my videos. Finally, I'm lazy, so I don't pull an audio swap on my videos for some decent indie music... So I leave the sounds in!
Wow, I still can't get how this simple chronicle, plus what (in my mind) was a harmless comment about "flavor should be about sorceries and instants too", prompted such a debate.
I get most of what Paul is saying, but I still think Tribal Apocalypse cares about flavor/casual too. (And yeah, I've pushed and will keep pushing for this aspect to be represented).
The Endangered Prize is a 1-tix prize awarded every week to the smallest tribe. It's not about playing or winning, it's just abot deckbuilding. Granted, you can build a small tribe which is also cutthroat (it has been done), but most of the times the award goes to tribes like Noggle, Jellyfish, Aurochs, Pegasus.
vantar6697, which I consider as much a legend and an influential player within the event as Nemesis, won the Endangered Prize 5 times, and keeps coming back every single week with non-cutthroat decks featuring unusual tribes every Spike would consider unplayable. Maybe we should ask him, and the many other players sharing this view, if they're having fun. Maybe I'm wrong here, and they don't, but they have been coming back for months, so I assume they do.
We have given 1 tix to the player putting (and casting) either Screeching Bat or All Hallow's Eve in their deck for Halloween. That's just flavor. We will give 1 tix to the player entering the Christmas event with a full snow deck. Also flavor. And there will be more along the line. That's also a reason I feel entitled to talk about flavor in a Tribal Apocalypse event, even if what triggered the comment was actually a personal discussion with 2 different flavor enthusiasts.
Also consider this: Endangered Prize is 1 tix. Ending 3-1 is about 2 tix (ending 2-1 back when we had mostly 3-turn events was even less, I ended 3rd place and got 1.68 tix once). Ending 4-0 is a little more, but I'm not sure it ever reached the value of a single booster. There're usually two players ending 4-0, and they get on average half the 40% of the prize pool, which is 1 tix per registered player, usually 20 tix-1 tix for the Endangered Prize. That means (19*40%)/2=3.8.
So, it's not about the tix.
The satisfaction of winning, yeah, that's a very real thing. For Johnnies and Timmies and everyone too. I would think ending 3-1 is enough of a "win" for most of the players, since you're awarded the same way regardless of your final ranking position, meaning you are being recognized as a "winner" in the final assessment of the tournament (I will start to list everyone getting that in my future chronicles). Every week, about one third of the participants gets that.
Facts about Tribal Apocalypse: we had 24 different 1st place players over 44 events in the Blippy Era (which is this whole past year since January). And I see 62 different players listed in the Hall of Fame, meaning that 62 different players ended Top 4 at least once during these 44 weeks. I don't know how many players registered, but I'm sure many more players ended 3-1 without getting a Top 4 ranking. I would say the odds of getting a "win" feeling are high in Tribal Apocalypse.
I'm also sure Nemesis being our current Michael Phelps is getting tiresome for some players. Nemesis ended 1st place 7 times, including 4 times in the last 2 months, and 2 times in a row now in the last 2 events. And it's not only about Walldrazi (or Plantdrazi, which, I'm sure, will be banned for Endangered events now), he won with Foundry in the past (then it got banned), and he won with Vampires 2 weeks ago. You ban Walldrazi, he will just brew something else, and I'm sure he will win again, because he's just that good. What we want to do, ban him for being too good? :)
games are meant to be fun,and if ur not having fun, you should not play the game. I had a childhood friend that would take the football home when things didn't go his way. just sayin.
The Mets have been the Yankees too at times. One reason (amongst many) I don't bother with professional sports much :) And I agree your accomplishments with walls/plants certainly are smile worthy for the sheer feat of doing it. Glad to see the format not dominated by Hellementals or Goblins (even budget Goblins).
Harsh indeed. My sentiments exactly. And while what you say is partly True, (even if the innuendo isn't) "fun" is ill defined at best. I find the tournament just fine competition wise.
I do think it is fun for those who are winning. Winning is usually a kind of euphoric experience which translate to fun I think. It just isn't fun for the person who comes in casually expecting a carefree tourney and finding grinders and super aggro decks exploiting the many huge holes in the format created by the lack of a sideboard.
I mean obviously given 15,000 or so cards available (minus the 9 and a few handfuls of other cards) broken decks can be shoehorned. It is a lot easier if you have a great mana base (I am getting there with that by the way) and it helps if you have $ cards to throw in the gaps to ensure the extra brokenness needed. But that isn't a guarantee of course. 2x Obliterator didn't stop me from losing miserably (though in close game 3s). And I am guilty of doing the same thing. (Sphinges + Living Death vs budget Samurai a few weeks ago. And that wasn't the first time either.
No matter what I feel about my own decks/performance (abysmal/poor) there are some creative builders and some great players who attend, yourself included. So what I said was somewhat hyperbolic if in essence true as an observation, harsh though it might be; And more about the feeling of it than the facts of it.
The feelings engendered by seeing the same pricy decks win each week are pretty much what I said.
We play this tournament for many reasons. Some of us like to play to win. Some of us like to play something new and unique each week. Some of us like to play in a casual tournament, whatever that is. Personally I like to go against the crowd and champion unique tribes. However I don't think that a single good performance of an underused tribe really proves much other than that I can afford to make a weaker tribe stronger with money cards. Now helping to get two underused tribes into the top 10 and getting Walls to surpass Goblins, THAT is something that makes me smile. I don't criticize others for what they play, but I can understand why people criticize my decks. I've started out playing as the Mets and ended up becoming the Yankees.
That seems a bit harsh. Just because the tournament has become more competitive than you like it to be doesn't mean that players aren't having fun at the tournament.
You ended up winning so I will change the rating to 5 red balls.
But I wasn't saying hate draft the card, just have a naturalize or Urgent Exorcism in the off chance you run into it, or that Galvanic Juggernaut you passed. Enchantment and Artifact destruction is so important.
And it wouldn't have worked if I did it, but you took feeling of dread which is a good card, and then I saw the Invisible Stalker. Knowing my history, I would have went U/W, but I always get screwed over. Hey, at least the Invisible stalker puts your opponent on a 20 turn clock, which sounds scary.
*And Rebuke is definitely a top 3 pick, easily regardless of color. That is exactly what I would have done. If you would have gotten the red creature that brings back instants and sorceries from the graveyard, you could have done some really nasty things to your opponent. Like if you would have brought back Act of Heroism every turn? If I was playing you I would have quit.
I wouldn't take LE's comments too much to heart as I am sure he didn't mean them to be insulting.
But he is right. Flavor has absolutely NO meaning in the PRE. Not when people treat it like high level tourneys and bring $ to the games. It is nice to build a deck that people find to be fun but that does not win any games or points towards awards etc.
In fact there may be no purpose other than leeching tickets off of MTGOtraders to ever play those tourneys.
I'm very sorry, I got Cattavorus and Nagarjuna's decks confused, I was convinced Naga ended 4th place. I will make amend in the next installment for sure, publishing the right decklist. My apologies to Cattavorus.
And yes, my goal is to publish the Top 4 decks every time. But in previous installments I have published other decklists too, including Endangered Prize lists. I don't feel like publishing all the 3-1 decklists (which are usually a lot; besides, they are still linked from here since I link the forum where they are published after all). If there will be a high request for that, I'll do it.
Also, I don't get your "beauty pageant" comment. I think there's a misunderstanding here. Did I say that flavor decks are better or worse than non-flavor decks? (And there's no a single Johnny mention in the whole article).
I was just expressing (badly, I guess) my take on what does or doesn't make a deck flavorful, that's all. It has nothing to do with winning or losing. I said so clearly when I wrote that "the actual effectiveness of a deck isn't the issue" here. That whole aside was just the result of some (totally friendly) private conversations I had about building flavorwise with some players at the event.
I've the feeling you read something else into it, like I was hinting at something or someone, but I can't really tell what, and trust me, I wasn't being allusive or anything.
So please, if this article seems bad to you, just say it, but also tell me why (except for having published the wrong 4th place deck). You know I look up to you greatly as a writer, deckbuilder and player, so just say what you think it was so bad and I'll try to do better next time.
Oh my, I was under the impression that we were talking about doing TWO different articles/series (in order to have more talking about the Tribal format, and more articles linked from the Hall of Fame page), not one article written together. I want to keep doing these kind of chronicles, with just occasional comments, covering what the events were about and who ended Top 4.
Hope this is fine with everyone, the original reboot of these articles was KaraZolEl's idea, I just expanded on that after I asked Kara for permission, then started an ongoing series (this is the 4th installment indeed).
I gotta somewhat agree with the Travel Preparations sentiment. At the time I recorded this, I hadn't yet grasped just how good they are. Still, I don't think there is reason to take them over good in-color cards, and I didn't really want to stretch my mana base to support them - I think I just didn't need them that bad.
I don't think it would be right to pick the Curse, though. In my opinion it is better to just pick a card that will fit nicely into our deck than hate something that early, on the off chance that we would have to face it - especially with the amount of common white cards that can deal with the Curse.
I have a feeling the deck I faced in the last match had the Curse in it, because it was playing a Bitterheart Witch. They never got to play it, though, to my luck. :)
There are a lot of things I can say but I won't; at least not while everyone is watching. I just want to remind everyone (politely) that this player run event is a tournament. It's not a beauty pageant. Players don't win or lose depending on the Johnny-ness level of their decks or how flavorful they are, but they do win by:
a) Building a good and powerful deck.
b) Playing it well.
Also if you only cover the top four decks from the event (which I don't understand as you had lots of other decks posted on the forums (but then again, this is your article, so what do I know)), then you should have at least mentioned Cattavorus' Horror deck as he finished the event at 4th spot. Nagarjuna's deck, which you posted here, finished the event at the 16th place according to the tournament document.
I respect you Kumagoro (I truly do), you're a good pal and a good player but this report was... uhm... well, nevermind.
Good work!!
I enjoyed the videos. The game play was mostly quality stuff, despite the mana screw matches (I don't think anyone likes those). Your write up did the deck justice. I was left with one burning question, however: Did you like Garruk at all? (lololol)
I want to build this. About 4 Garruks short, but I am going to shore up on that soon (I hope).
I liked the article, especially the reasoning about certain card choices (Oracle over Research and no maindeck Crusher). The sideboarding advice is very helpful too.
I started playing pauper for similar reasons - the decks are strong, the format is very competitive, and you don't have to spend an arm and a leg to play whatever deck you want. Personally I don't have a lot of time for deck building (and I'd rather use the time to play actual games), so I like being able to pick up interesting decks to try them out. I've had a lot of fun with Cloudposts, so I'll have to give these changes a spin. Thanks.
Even with Snapcaster I feel favored against Burning Vengeance. If they want to spend 5 mana and two cards to counter a spell then so be it. As for the aggro matches, Silent Departure just gives us so much tempo it's a amazing, which is why I'm running them instead of dissipates.
Maybe I'm cocky or maybe Silent Departure is that good (or maybe the shuffler hates my opponents jsut enough) but I'm just not worried about the GW match up... either of them. If it becomes a real issue I've given some thought to adding a couple Sulfur Falls to the main, and a few Blasphemous Acts to the side.
I cut three Lilianas against any aggro deck, and leave them all in against any control or midrange deck. I like her a lot, and she's never a dead card. I might consider going to three, but I find it unlikely.
Hey, i've been playing this deck quite a bit recently. I agree with you that Garruk is awesome and went up to 4 in the mainboard. I also cut Silent Departure, but watching your replays, that was probably a mistake. I also cut the Tree of Redemptions because i likewise found it underwhelming in many matchups or I already wanted to board in too many cards, like against tokens. Instead of them i added dissipate.
I think that, in general, BUG has a good matchup against any of the control decks, like UR Burning Vengeance, though I have played against some that are playing Snapcaster Mage which gives them a lot of redundancy on their dissipates and Naturalizes. The hardest matchups for me have been G/W tokens and Mono-Red. If you don't have an answer to Stromkirk Noble on t1 it can get out of hand pretty fast.
In your match against G/W tokens if you noticed the person kept a no-green hand g1 and couldn't curve out very well. However, in g2 you just straight up beat them. Maybe Silent Departure helps this match-up enough. I always find that I'm too behind when I play them such that the Curse of Death's Hold are almost ineffectual by turn 5.
In your match against G/W Humans your opponent had a bad draw g2 and mulled to 5 game 3. The deck does do that, however, I'm not convinced that it's favorable. Both BUG and G/W can stumble on mana, and I think that an average G/W tokens or humans hand will beat an average BUG hand.
In both the G/W matchups Sever the Bloodline is awesome! How do you feel about Liliana? I am somewhat underwhelmed by her in matchups other than UR Burning Vengeance.
Thanks for the compliments :)
This was one of the first times a sidebaord has ever made absolute perfect sense to me. I know exactly what comes in, and what goes out, and how I need to tweak those decisions per match. I'm still not sold on the trees though...
As for Shimmering Grotto, while I hate the card just as much as the next guy, running a set in this deck wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Still, I'd much rather have allied lands.
As for Burning Vengeance, I still think there's a deck there, but no way as it is. If I were to pilot a deck with Burning Vengeance in it it would almost definitely be URB/g, splashing for Garruk. The deck just needs better threat diversity, using BV as a tool rather than a full on win condition. Of course as more sets release sideboards may not have room for Witchbane Orb, Naturalize and whatnot anymore, so who knows...
Ok, ailments aside, does anyone else think the music sounds just like either the original Mario or Legend of Zelda? I mean they couldn't put an extra $50 in the budget for a guy to make better sounds? Now I know why my computer is always on mute.
But to Westane, nice job walking into an ISD Constructed and not playing Burning Vengeance or GW Humans. Your deck is a classic control deck minus the mass counterspells, but you can't help that in ISD.
To be honest I wish you would have had a better match against the GW Human deck. It seemed like you guys had 1 good game and then the next 2 games were decided by mana problems, which we all know who to thank for that, our lovely shuffler.
The 5 red balls are for jumping into the ISD Con. with a deck probably nobody saw coming since it's rare in the ISD tourny's that I haven't played someone that either played a Island, Mountain, or Sulfur Falls on their first turn.
The second thing is the sideboard. You might have put together one of the best block sideboards I have seen. It just worked to perfection and you got to use it, unlike me who will have cards in the sideboard, put them in the deck and they would never show up in the game.
The Tree was insanely perfect against the "Poor Mans RDW", the Curse was perfect against the GW deck which didn't really have an answer for Lilliana/Garruk, it just seems like one of those times where everything worked just the way you imagined it when you put the deck together.
*My only issue is one that is completely unavoidable. I would give up one of my balls rather than be forced to play Shimmering Grotto. I think that is my least favorite card of all time but it needed to be played.
- And for those looking at ISD block, I told y'all, Burning Vengeance is a bad deck overall. It has Nevermind, the Hexproof artifact, Urgent Exorcism and Naturalize to deal with. I would like to see in the future Burning Vengeance being used in a deck like vampires or R/W/G (Kessig Wolf Run and Township) as an add on, and not as a sole win condition.
I've tested it! The answer is... it just becomes a regular old basic mountain. And if you flip it, it returns as the non-transformed version.
Fun fact. I am not even on the HOF listing :D
What happens if you play a transform card face-down using Dakkon? According to the rules, you should get a free face-up transform card, I think. Turn 1 investigator gang (no spells played, flips during your opponent's upkeep?)
Edit: actually, maybe you get a face-up basic mountain? HOW DOES IT WORK?
RE: OP Changes-
I have expressed my opinion about this here, and I won't beat a dead horse. I will say that I truly feel bad for non-US countries with these changes. In addition to not being able to get cost-effective invites, the fact that they States'd Nationals, there is also probably not very many SCG type secondary sales stores that can support a competitive and profitable circuit.
I work for a company where my job status is in a state of "wtf" this year. I literally got the memo that Keya mentioned, which essentially said, "Your job is changing this year. We don't know how, but you are going to be doing different things, your current position is going to be obsolete, etc".
Ultimately, they are funding a Master's degree for me that I might not even use (good use of money and time, I guess). The reason that I might not use it is because, although my old position is becoming obsolete, the new one may not even come to fruition if we can't secure grant funding to pay me once the degree is finished (education was funded through a grant, but the whole program wasn't). The uncertainty is frustrating and I don't even know if I will work for this company when the degree is finished. Now, I have better chances to find a job when it is all said and done, but I don't want that.
Point: You have to put up with this in any career, especially when the economy is taking a dump. My ability to remain level headed is important because I am able to proactively deal instead of reactively. People are willing to listen to me because I am not hyperventilating and making demands.
Basically, just go with the flow. At worst, the death of one thing breathes new life into something else...
Great show again, guys.
Keya: I need to get you back for throttling me with your Goyfs last time we did Modern testing. I'ma lookin for yuh!!
I'm legally blind, so I kind of rely of the audio cues to play effectively. I also can't find a quiet room anymore, so I don't narrate my videos. Finally, I'm lazy, so I don't pull an audio swap on my videos for some decent indie music... So I leave the sounds in!
Man, I thought I was the only one who played with those sound effects! :)
I remove them before recording my videos because they kinda get in the way of the narration, but I still feel they convey so much flavor.
The deck looks pretty good. I am probably gonna try it soon - my experiences in block so far, playing UR Vengeance, have been less than optimal.
Wow, I still can't get how this simple chronicle, plus what (in my mind) was a harmless comment about "flavor should be about sorceries and instants too", prompted such a debate.
I get most of what Paul is saying, but I still think Tribal Apocalypse cares about flavor/casual too. (And yeah, I've pushed and will keep pushing for this aspect to be represented).
The Endangered Prize is a 1-tix prize awarded every week to the smallest tribe. It's not about playing or winning, it's just abot deckbuilding. Granted, you can build a small tribe which is also cutthroat (it has been done), but most of the times the award goes to tribes like Noggle, Jellyfish, Aurochs, Pegasus.
vantar6697, which I consider as much a legend and an influential player within the event as Nemesis, won the Endangered Prize 5 times, and keeps coming back every single week with non-cutthroat decks featuring unusual tribes every Spike would consider unplayable. Maybe we should ask him, and the many other players sharing this view, if they're having fun. Maybe I'm wrong here, and they don't, but they have been coming back for months, so I assume they do.
We have given 1 tix to the player putting (and casting) either Screeching Bat or All Hallow's Eve in their deck for Halloween. That's just flavor. We will give 1 tix to the player entering the Christmas event with a full snow deck. Also flavor. And there will be more along the line. That's also a reason I feel entitled to talk about flavor in a Tribal Apocalypse event, even if what triggered the comment was actually a personal discussion with 2 different flavor enthusiasts.
Also consider this: Endangered Prize is 1 tix. Ending 3-1 is about 2 tix (ending 2-1 back when we had mostly 3-turn events was even less, I ended 3rd place and got 1.68 tix once). Ending 4-0 is a little more, but I'm not sure it ever reached the value of a single booster. There're usually two players ending 4-0, and they get on average half the 40% of the prize pool, which is 1 tix per registered player, usually 20 tix-1 tix for the Endangered Prize. That means (19*40%)/2=3.8.
So, it's not about the tix.
The satisfaction of winning, yeah, that's a very real thing. For Johnnies and Timmies and everyone too. I would think ending 3-1 is enough of a "win" for most of the players, since you're awarded the same way regardless of your final ranking position, meaning you are being recognized as a "winner" in the final assessment of the tournament (I will start to list everyone getting that in my future chronicles). Every week, about one third of the participants gets that.
Facts about Tribal Apocalypse: we had 24 different 1st place players over 44 events in the Blippy Era (which is this whole past year since January). And I see 62 different players listed in the Hall of Fame, meaning that 62 different players ended Top 4 at least once during these 44 weeks. I don't know how many players registered, but I'm sure many more players ended 3-1 without getting a Top 4 ranking. I would say the odds of getting a "win" feeling are high in Tribal Apocalypse.
I'm also sure Nemesis being our current Michael Phelps is getting tiresome for some players. Nemesis ended 1st place 7 times, including 4 times in the last 2 months, and 2 times in a row now in the last 2 events. And it's not only about Walldrazi (or Plantdrazi, which, I'm sure, will be banned for Endangered events now), he won with Foundry in the past (then it got banned), and he won with Vampires 2 weeks ago. You ban Walldrazi, he will just brew something else, and I'm sure he will win again, because he's just that good. What we want to do, ban him for being too good? :)
games are meant to be fun,and if ur not having fun, you should not play the game. I had a childhood friend that would take the football home when things didn't go his way. just sayin.
The Mets have been the Yankees too at times. One reason (amongst many) I don't bother with professional sports much :) And I agree your accomplishments with walls/plants certainly are smile worthy for the sheer feat of doing it. Glad to see the format not dominated by Hellementals or Goblins (even budget Goblins).
Harsh indeed. My sentiments exactly. And while what you say is partly True, (even if the innuendo isn't) "fun" is ill defined at best. I find the tournament just fine competition wise.
I do think it is fun for those who are winning. Winning is usually a kind of euphoric experience which translate to fun I think. It just isn't fun for the person who comes in casually expecting a carefree tourney and finding grinders and super aggro decks exploiting the many huge holes in the format created by the lack of a sideboard.
I mean obviously given 15,000 or so cards available (minus the 9 and a few handfuls of other cards) broken decks can be shoehorned. It is a lot easier if you have a great mana base (I am getting there with that by the way) and it helps if you have $ cards to throw in the gaps to ensure the extra brokenness needed. But that isn't a guarantee of course. 2x Obliterator didn't stop me from losing miserably (though in close game 3s). And I am guilty of doing the same thing. (Sphinges + Living Death vs budget Samurai a few weeks ago. And that wasn't the first time either.
No matter what I feel about my own decks/performance (abysmal/poor) there are some creative builders and some great players who attend, yourself included. So what I said was somewhat hyperbolic if in essence true as an observation, harsh though it might be; And more about the feeling of it than the facts of it.
The feelings engendered by seeing the same pricy decks win each week are pretty much what I said.
We play this tournament for many reasons. Some of us like to play to win. Some of us like to play something new and unique each week. Some of us like to play in a casual tournament, whatever that is. Personally I like to go against the crowd and champion unique tribes. However I don't think that a single good performance of an underused tribe really proves much other than that I can afford to make a weaker tribe stronger with money cards. Now helping to get two underused tribes into the top 10 and getting Walls to surpass Goblins, THAT is something that makes me smile. I don't criticize others for what they play, but I can understand why people criticize my decks. I've started out playing as the Mets and ended up becoming the Yankees.
That seems a bit harsh. Just because the tournament has become more competitive than you like it to be doesn't mean that players aren't having fun at the tournament.
You ended up winning so I will change the rating to 5 red balls.
But I wasn't saying hate draft the card, just have a naturalize or Urgent Exorcism in the off chance you run into it, or that Galvanic Juggernaut you passed. Enchantment and Artifact destruction is so important.
And it wouldn't have worked if I did it, but you took feeling of dread which is a good card, and then I saw the Invisible Stalker. Knowing my history, I would have went U/W, but I always get screwed over. Hey, at least the Invisible stalker puts your opponent on a 20 turn clock, which sounds scary.
*And Rebuke is definitely a top 3 pick, easily regardless of color. That is exactly what I would have done. If you would have gotten the red creature that brings back instants and sorceries from the graveyard, you could have done some really nasty things to your opponent. Like if you would have brought back Act of Heroism every turn? If I was playing you I would have quit.
I wouldn't take LE's comments too much to heart as I am sure he didn't mean them to be insulting.
But he is right. Flavor has absolutely NO meaning in the PRE. Not when people treat it like high level tourneys and bring $ to the games. It is nice to build a deck that people find to be fun but that does not win any games or points towards awards etc.
In fact there may be no purpose other than leeching tickets off of MTGOtraders to ever play those tourneys.
I'm very sorry, I got Cattavorus and Nagarjuna's decks confused, I was convinced Naga ended 4th place. I will make amend in the next installment for sure, publishing the right decklist. My apologies to Cattavorus.
And yes, my goal is to publish the Top 4 decks every time. But in previous installments I have published other decklists too, including Endangered Prize lists. I don't feel like publishing all the 3-1 decklists (which are usually a lot; besides, they are still linked from here since I link the forum where they are published after all). If there will be a high request for that, I'll do it.
Also, I don't get your "beauty pageant" comment. I think there's a misunderstanding here. Did I say that flavor decks are better or worse than non-flavor decks? (And there's no a single Johnny mention in the whole article).
I was just expressing (badly, I guess) my take on what does or doesn't make a deck flavorful, that's all. It has nothing to do with winning or losing. I said so clearly when I wrote that "the actual effectiveness of a deck isn't the issue" here. That whole aside was just the result of some (totally friendly) private conversations I had about building flavorwise with some players at the event.
I've the feeling you read something else into it, like I was hinting at something or someone, but I can't really tell what, and trust me, I wasn't being allusive or anything.
So please, if this article seems bad to you, just say it, but also tell me why (except for having published the wrong 4th place deck). You know I look up to you greatly as a writer, deckbuilder and player, so just say what you think it was so bad and I'll try to do better next time.
Oh my, I was under the impression that we were talking about doing TWO different articles/series (in order to have more talking about the Tribal format, and more articles linked from the Hall of Fame page), not one article written together. I want to keep doing these kind of chronicles, with just occasional comments, covering what the events were about and who ended Top 4.
Hope this is fine with everyone, the original reboot of these articles was KaraZolEl's idea, I just expanded on that after I asked Kara for permission, then started an ongoing series (this is the 4th installment indeed).
I gotta somewhat agree with the Travel Preparations sentiment. At the time I recorded this, I hadn't yet grasped just how good they are. Still, I don't think there is reason to take them over good in-color cards, and I didn't really want to stretch my mana base to support them - I think I just didn't need them that bad.
I don't think it would be right to pick the Curse, though. In my opinion it is better to just pick a card that will fit nicely into our deck than hate something that early, on the off chance that we would have to face it - especially with the amount of common white cards that can deal with the Curse.
I have a feeling the deck I faced in the last match had the Curse in it, because it was playing a Bitterheart Witch. They never got to play it, though, to my luck. :)
There are a lot of things I can say but I won't; at least not while everyone is watching. I just want to remind everyone (politely) that this player run event is a tournament. It's not a beauty pageant. Players don't win or lose depending on the Johnny-ness level of their decks or how flavorful they are, but they do win by:
a) Building a good and powerful deck.
b) Playing it well.
Also if you only cover the top four decks from the event (which I don't understand as you had lots of other decks posted on the forums (but then again, this is your article, so what do I know)), then you should have at least mentioned Cattavorus' Horror deck as he finished the event at 4th spot. Nagarjuna's deck, which you posted here, finished the event at the 16th place according to the tournament document.
I respect you Kumagoro (I truly do), you're a good pal and a good player but this report was... uhm... well, nevermind.
LE
Oh man, you frustrated me so so so much in this draft. No offense, but you could have had 3 travel preps. That alone wins games + the combat tricks.
I was watching those late Travel Preps go by and I just died a little bit inside, haha.
Also you passed the curse that ruins your deck, and no instant enchantment removal.
And that Galvanic Juggernaut, sigh.
I'll watch the rest to see if you won, but once again, sigh bud.
**Oh and get it in 720p. It isn't hard, and there are a lot of free apps that allow you to record in HD like CMRecorder.