I agree with you one hundred percent...there are less people concerned about the coolness of the cards, or "man, I love zombies, so GrimGrin is my guy," or "hey, should do this and that deck would be awesome". Too many people that are like, let's just lock this game down, run counter spells, and to quote the late Al Davis, "Just win, Baby."
If you ever want to have a low key, fun, non LD match, look me up geo67.
Watched the Innistrad videos, spotted some play mistakes. In particular, round 4 game 2, when you cast your sacrifice guy the turn before you attacked him down to 1 life... You should have cast Screeching Bat. Then next turn instead of Ludevic's Test Subject, you cast and sacrifice your 1/1 guy, and you're attacking with the bat instead of the 1/1 - there's the extra 1 damage that would have won game 2. Luckily you won game 3, but the match could have been won by the Bat play there.
I think your build was definitely trading power for consistency. It worked out this time, but you could have run into color screw a lot more often, especially with some of those opening hands where you only had one of your three colors and drew well enough to have game. I also would have considered running the Selhoff Occultist, as it has synergy with your deck.
The anti-synergy between your Mauler & Goliath vs. the Back From the Brink and Moorland Haunt is a little unfortunate, but power level justifies the first 3. The Moorland Haunt is not nearly as powerful as Back From the Brink AND it's very questionable in a 3 color build since it's going to increase color screw - and how often did you end up using it anyway? Yeah, that shoulda been an island, swamp, or plains instead to up your consistency. With only 14 creatures and it fighting the Mauler, Goliath AND the Back From the Brink for who gets to use them, Haunt should be outa there.
Still, a powerful pool and a good build, congrats on the 3-1!
Regarding the pictures not loading, the only time I can think of where the pics won't load is if you have the WOTC Gatherer site blocked. I know at my job, I can't see the pictures, but at my home, I can. Perhaps that's the same thing you're experiencing? As this is my first time writing on here, I did a lot of what I'm used to - Gatherer references and all - and assuming enough people like my writing, I'm planning to continue on with a bi-monthly series about Commander.
My biggest hope with this article is that more sharks read it and ask themselves that question - because, of all the games of Commander I've played, win or lose, the only ones that really left a sour taste in my mouth was the ones where either ridiculous MassLD caused the games to become watch-my-opponent-play rather than interactive. I wouldn't even care if MassLD was used, if you have a way to kill people in a quick fashion - but expecting two to five people to be okay with watching you play solitaire because you didn't bother adding in a kill condition is just not right.
How do you get to enter 14 sealeds for 105 tix? That's not even an even number!
How do you get the half-pack from a 10.5 pack split?
How do you end up winning 0 packs when above it shows you winning 70.5, and 9 tix when there's no events on MTGO that pay out tix? Is that 9 tix from selling the rares and mythics?
I have played hundreds of commander games on mtgo. None in 6 months though. My decks were very good, and competetive, but they were fair. Fair decks are not going to have a chance vs unfair decks. Win at all costs should not even be a thought when playing commander, yet there is a large group of online commander players who think that the point of commander is to play the most powerful deck possible, regardless of the other players.
After starting multiple games in a row with "no mass ld" in game description, and then having mass ld used every game i just quit playing the format.
Online commander has turned into a game filled with douchebags doing their best to stop the opps from having fun. Commander is a casual format supposed to be all about fun. Unfortunately a large number of people dont care.
I wont be playing commander online again.
A good example of everything thats wrong with commander nowadays can be found on mtgoacademy.
Too bad my horrors (starring Krovikan, Creakwood Liege, and Phyrexian Obliterator) did so poorly in this. Nice presentation. Sadly the event took place this past weekend.
I loved this article. I used to play back in the day, when The Dark had just come out, and I was such a bad player...took an 80 card deck to a tourney. As a fledgling commander, I have struggled with many of the situations out there, and continue to flail in the deep end of the pool. However, as someone with a reasonable level of intelligence, I have learned, and noticed which cards are the main staples of a successful commander deck..i.e. lightning greaves, dual lands, etc.
I have set up numerous, and no doubt very ugly, and horrible, commander decks, have played with all of them, because I really dig the format. Each time I play a new deck, I have a feeling of joy, and hope that this may be the one...lol.
I win maybe once in a blue moon, but if they person beating me is doing it in a fun, creative and respectful way, hell, by all means continue. I want to see what happens when my opponent steals my undead alchemist, duplicates him with a kicker, he attacks, and generates about 50 zombie tokens...that stuff is cool to me, fun, and fun for the person playing.
I used to refuse to play with a P'Walker in my deck or day of judgement, or greaves, sensei's top, and a few others, but in order for the game to remain fun for me, I've had to adjust, and maybe put some of the necessary cards in my deck. I have learned that just because a card is in my hand, doesn't mean I need to play it ASAP, commander has taught a lot of strategy and patience.
I have a buddy online that created three artifact control commander decks and all they did was shut me down, let him play pretty much solo, and win each game. I let him know that if he ever brought those to a multi game, he'd probably be knocked out first.
The quote from Jurassic Park is right on the money, especially with the ease it is to get cards online.
The problem being, not enough people care to understand...winning is too important.
All I know is that if I have to watch one more player cast Primeval Titan followed by Rite of Replication with kicker and then cry cry cry when I cast Wrath followed by Armageddon, I'm going to puke.
Unfortunately none of your card images loaded, so it's hard to know what you're talking about. The writing is good though and I'd love to read a corrected version.
Thanks RGP2373 I am glad you liked the commentary. It is a balancing act between having the replays set to fast (and trying to keep up with the action) or slowing down the replays to include more analysis but have the videos run much longer in length. It can be hard to spot the action and articulate it at the same time your tongue trips over your brain trying to process everything. I know I missed things but I hope I captured most of the essential plays and hope my enthusiasm for the format shines through. I guess the back and fro and the various "players" (ie different card) and the layers of strategy help to convery that classic is a highly interactive and intense format. Yet at the same time is insanely powerful were a fast two card combo or the ability to disrupt that play can, and often does, directly impact on the outcome of the game.
I plan to do some analysis of this video series for inclusion in the next Classic Podcast if anyone wants to suggest analysis I am more than willing to listen to suggestions. I realise that this is a small sample size about 25 matches of magic over the course of this one event.
it is very time consuming to commentate/record all the matches and then to render the videos. I would like to pick 3-4 Matches within the event for further disection and analysis. Slow down the replay for the selected case games and look at every line of play.
One reason for capturing this data is that I currently feel replays are left in the system for too short a timeframe and do not give people enough chance to study and learn from tournament data.
I really wish there was a way to view the replays with both players hands revealed as this would make understanding decisions and analysis so much more powerful. I hope one day that replays will be stored for a longer time, will be viewable via a web based interface and have the ability to toggle whether you see the players hands and other aspects of the game (such as cards viewed via brainstorming etc).
we would be puremtg.com if we did not care about the mtgo only stuff. We recognize that a well written piece on a mtgo only format is better for us than a not so good (Written by me) piece on a paper thing :D
Thanks LE it is good to find that as a non-classic player you are able to enjoy the content we produce. Classic has been gaining in popularity (for numerous reasons) and gaining in popularity so much so that it is able to continue to Fire Daily Events during set Prereleases and releases. Exposure of our format and debunking so of the myths is our goal and more people that we can engage in classic the more players we can hopefully recruit to play the format. Once people have bought into and start enjoying classic they tend to stick with the format. If you ever fancy taking your first steps into classic it is reletively cheap to upgrade certain legacy decks (let me know if you ever fancy playing a game or two). Thanks again for the support in our continued promotion of classic.
Finally you hit on a very important point about the content here on PUREMTGO I personally feel the site is at its best when promoting MTGO only formats - like you say there are numerous places to discuss limited, and the established paper constructed formats. I am probably biased as I love the classic format and think it is truely awesome that there are three classic videos article updated on this site today.
In my opinion, these kinds of non-mainstream formats are the ones that need to get the most advertisement and articles. Standard already has its player base but it's Classic or Tribal Wars or Commander or even Modern that need to get to "see the sunshine".
I personally know that after reading countless many articles by Leviathan, I started playing Commander. AJ_Impy most definitely influenced me with his Tribal articles back when he was writing them and got me into the format. PiDave's articles seriously made me think about Standard Pauper lately. And I know I convinced others to play some other niche formats in the past.
So in my opinion it's a good thing we have Puremtgo and that we can read about these different formats here. You cannot find anything about Classic over at SCG (Vintage maybe but not Classic). Channelfireball won't publish anything about Standard Pauper. This place is the (almost) only gathering point for people who like to play those non-mainstream formats. Therefore I believe that we should be a little bit more respectful to them and their community.
I may not say this every time Andrew (and George and Zach), but you should know that I do love your work and follow you as much as I can. You still didn't convince me to get into Classic but with every article, every podcast and every tournament report such as this one, you guys get me one step closer to it.
@Cronin - Thanks glad you like
@Who12345 - So you make an account 2 hours ago specifically to make a personal attack on me and the classic community without grounded evidence. I know you are Bosh_the_Ironman and people will see you for the troll that you are.
@Whiffy - yep agre33 with you. This guy is a screw lose for sure - Completed a trade with me taking the agreed cards for the agreed tickets and we both said TY. Then 8 hours later he comes back demanding a refund. He went on a total rant that got my back up so I refused to refund him. He has too accounts OkAndrew and Bosh_The_Ironman and my advice is to stay away from interactions with him.
"Personal Information for Who12345; Full Name Bob; Member for 2 hours 20 min" --not very good troll potential.
Wait, im confused. Is the build atrocious, or fine? you claim that it is both. Sorry that you found so much fault with the build and the play.
At any rate, as I said in the deck build. Red was far too shallow on playable guys. Now I absolutely could have played Red instead of black in my deck, however i felt more comfortable playing with black cards. Cant see how terrible the deck was, since i was able to 3-1, and could have possibly 4-0'ed if i hadent had mana problems in the round i lost.
That sealed build was absolutely atrocious. I know sealed is a bit slower but that thing is just glacial. Including test subject seems like just massive greed as your deck is 3 colors and extremely mana hungry. Throughout many of the games you cast threats first mainphase despite having relevant cards depending how combat goes and at one point mention a trick to play around and then next turn ignore it.
You also completely ignore red as a sideboard option with the ridiculously good rolling temblor, two geistflames, and solid volley vs the r/b super agro 1 toughness deck and the deck with multiple ambush vipers and bears.
The esper GY special is a fine deck, but you went so heavily late game I'm surprised it worked out at all.
The Metamorph into Duplicant was really poor play, too late i realized that it can't remove a non-token. Would have been a lot better to choose Batterskull.
There was a turn when you could've Snapcasted your Tinker and then found your Blightsteel again early on in Game 3. That would've reduced the length of the game dramatically.
I agree with you one hundred percent...there are less people concerned about the coolness of the cards, or "man, I love zombies, so GrimGrin is my guy," or "hey, should do this and that deck would be awesome". Too many people that are like, let's just lock this game down, run counter spells, and to quote the late Al Davis, "Just win, Baby."
If you ever want to have a low key, fun, non LD match, look me up geo67.
Watched the Innistrad videos, spotted some play mistakes. In particular, round 4 game 2, when you cast your sacrifice guy the turn before you attacked him down to 1 life... You should have cast Screeching Bat. Then next turn instead of Ludevic's Test Subject, you cast and sacrifice your 1/1 guy, and you're attacking with the bat instead of the 1/1 - there's the extra 1 damage that would have won game 2. Luckily you won game 3, but the match could have been won by the Bat play there.
I think your build was definitely trading power for consistency. It worked out this time, but you could have run into color screw a lot more often, especially with some of those opening hands where you only had one of your three colors and drew well enough to have game. I also would have considered running the Selhoff Occultist, as it has synergy with your deck.
The anti-synergy between your Mauler & Goliath vs. the Back From the Brink and Moorland Haunt is a little unfortunate, but power level justifies the first 3. The Moorland Haunt is not nearly as powerful as Back From the Brink AND it's very questionable in a 3 color build since it's going to increase color screw - and how often did you end up using it anyway? Yeah, that shoulda been an island, swamp, or plains instead to up your consistency. With only 14 creatures and it fighting the Mauler, Goliath AND the Back From the Brink for who gets to use them, Haunt should be outa there.
Still, a powerful pool and a good build, congrats on the 3-1!
Regarding the pictures not loading, the only time I can think of where the pics won't load is if you have the WOTC Gatherer site blocked. I know at my job, I can't see the pictures, but at my home, I can. Perhaps that's the same thing you're experiencing? As this is my first time writing on here, I did a lot of what I'm used to - Gatherer references and all - and assuming enough people like my writing, I'm planning to continue on with a bi-monthly series about Commander.
My biggest hope with this article is that more sharks read it and ask themselves that question - because, of all the games of Commander I've played, win or lose, the only ones that really left a sour taste in my mouth was the ones where either ridiculous MassLD caused the games to become watch-my-opponent-play rather than interactive. I wouldn't even care if MassLD was used, if you have a way to kill people in a quick fashion - but expecting two to five people to be okay with watching you play solitaire because you didn't bother adding in a kill condition is just not right.
How do you get to enter 14 sealeds for 105 tix? That's not even an even number!
How do you get the half-pack from a 10.5 pack split?
How do you end up winning 0 packs when above it shows you winning 70.5, and 9 tix when there's no events on MTGO that pay out tix? Is that 9 tix from selling the rares and mythics?
I have played hundreds of commander games on mtgo. None in 6 months though. My decks were very good, and competetive, but they were fair. Fair decks are not going to have a chance vs unfair decks. Win at all costs should not even be a thought when playing commander, yet there is a large group of online commander players who think that the point of commander is to play the most powerful deck possible, regardless of the other players.
After starting multiple games in a row with "no mass ld" in game description, and then having mass ld used every game i just quit playing the format.
Online commander has turned into a game filled with douchebags doing their best to stop the opps from having fun. Commander is a casual format supposed to be all about fun. Unfortunately a large number of people dont care.
I wont be playing commander online again.
A good example of everything thats wrong with commander nowadays can be found on mtgoacademy.
Skaabs? The blue version of Frankenstein's Monster, they need other bodies to be put together, and throw in some Undead Alchemists.
Too bad my horrors (starring Krovikan, Creakwood Liege, and Phyrexian Obliterator) did so poorly in this. Nice presentation. Sadly the event took place this past weekend.
I loved this article. I used to play back in the day, when The Dark had just come out, and I was such a bad player...took an 80 card deck to a tourney. As a fledgling commander, I have struggled with many of the situations out there, and continue to flail in the deep end of the pool. However, as someone with a reasonable level of intelligence, I have learned, and noticed which cards are the main staples of a successful commander deck..i.e. lightning greaves, dual lands, etc.
I have set up numerous, and no doubt very ugly, and horrible, commander decks, have played with all of them, because I really dig the format. Each time I play a new deck, I have a feeling of joy, and hope that this may be the one...lol.
I win maybe once in a blue moon, but if they person beating me is doing it in a fun, creative and respectful way, hell, by all means continue. I want to see what happens when my opponent steals my undead alchemist, duplicates him with a kicker, he attacks, and generates about 50 zombie tokens...that stuff is cool to me, fun, and fun for the person playing.
I used to refuse to play with a P'Walker in my deck or day of judgement, or greaves, sensei's top, and a few others, but in order for the game to remain fun for me, I've had to adjust, and maybe put some of the necessary cards in my deck. I have learned that just because a card is in my hand, doesn't mean I need to play it ASAP, commander has taught a lot of strategy and patience.
I have a buddy online that created three artifact control commander decks and all they did was shut me down, let him play pretty much solo, and win each game. I let him know that if he ever brought those to a multi game, he'd probably be knocked out first.
The quote from Jurassic Park is right on the money, especially with the ease it is to get cards online.
The problem being, not enough people care to understand...winning is too important.
All I know is that if I have to watch one more player cast Primeval Titan followed by Rite of Replication with kicker and then cry cry cry when I cast Wrath followed by Armageddon, I'm going to puke.
Unfortunately none of your card images loaded, so it's hard to know what you're talking about. The writing is good though and I'd love to read a corrected version.
Thanks RGP2373 I am glad you liked the commentary. It is a balancing act between having the replays set to fast (and trying to keep up with the action) or slowing down the replays to include more analysis but have the videos run much longer in length. It can be hard to spot the action and articulate it at the same time your tongue trips over your brain trying to process everything. I know I missed things but I hope I captured most of the essential plays and hope my enthusiasm for the format shines through. I guess the back and fro and the various "players" (ie different card) and the layers of strategy help to convery that classic is a highly interactive and intense format. Yet at the same time is insanely powerful were a fast two card combo or the ability to disrupt that play can, and often does, directly impact on the outcome of the game.
I plan to do some analysis of this video series for inclusion in the next Classic Podcast if anyone wants to suggest analysis I am more than willing to listen to suggestions. I realise that this is a small sample size about 25 matches of magic over the course of this one event.
it is very time consuming to commentate/record all the matches and then to render the videos. I would like to pick 3-4 Matches within the event for further disection and analysis. Slow down the replay for the selected case games and look at every line of play.
One reason for capturing this data is that I currently feel replays are left in the system for too short a timeframe and do not give people enough chance to study and learn from tournament data.
I really wish there was a way to view the replays with both players hands revealed as this would make understanding decisions and analysis so much more powerful. I hope one day that replays will be stored for a longer time, will be viewable via a web based interface and have the ability to toggle whether you see the players hands and other aspects of the game (such as cards viewed via brainstorming etc).
- Hammer
It's like watching a football match (or soccer game, if you prefer).
we would be puremtg.com if we did not care about the mtgo only stuff. We recognize that a well written piece on a mtgo only format is better for us than a not so good (Written by me) piece on a paper thing :D
Thanks LE it is good to find that as a non-classic player you are able to enjoy the content we produce. Classic has been gaining in popularity (for numerous reasons) and gaining in popularity so much so that it is able to continue to Fire Daily Events during set Prereleases and releases. Exposure of our format and debunking so of the myths is our goal and more people that we can engage in classic the more players we can hopefully recruit to play the format. Once people have bought into and start enjoying classic they tend to stick with the format. If you ever fancy taking your first steps into classic it is reletively cheap to upgrade certain legacy decks (let me know if you ever fancy playing a game or two). Thanks again for the support in our continued promotion of classic.
Finally you hit on a very important point about the content here on PUREMTGO I personally feel the site is at its best when promoting MTGO only formats - like you say there are numerous places to discuss limited, and the established paper constructed formats. I am probably biased as I love the classic format and think it is truely awesome that there are three classic videos article updated on this site today.
Thanks Again
- Hammer
In my opinion, these kinds of non-mainstream formats are the ones that need to get the most advertisement and articles. Standard already has its player base but it's Classic or Tribal Wars or Commander or even Modern that need to get to "see the sunshine".
I personally know that after reading countless many articles by Leviathan, I started playing Commander. AJ_Impy most definitely influenced me with his Tribal articles back when he was writing them and got me into the format. PiDave's articles seriously made me think about Standard Pauper lately. And I know I convinced others to play some other niche formats in the past.
So in my opinion it's a good thing we have Puremtgo and that we can read about these different formats here. You cannot find anything about Classic over at SCG (Vintage maybe but not Classic). Channelfireball won't publish anything about Standard Pauper. This place is the (almost) only gathering point for people who like to play those non-mainstream formats. Therefore I believe that we should be a little bit more respectful to them and their community.
I may not say this every time Andrew (and George and Zach), but you should know that I do love your work and follow you as much as I can. You still didn't convince me to get into Classic but with every article, every podcast and every tournament report such as this one, you guys get me one step closer to it.
Keep up the good work.
LE
@Cronin - Thanks glad you like
@Who12345 - So you make an account 2 hours ago specifically to make a personal attack on me and the classic community without grounded evidence. I know you are Bosh_the_Ironman and people will see you for the troll that you are.
@Whiffy - yep agre33 with you. This guy is a screw lose for sure - Completed a trade with me taking the agreed cards for the agreed tickets and we both said TY. Then 8 hours later he comes back demanding a refund. He went on a total rant that got my back up so I refused to refund him. He has too accounts OkAndrew and Bosh_The_Ironman and my advice is to stay away from interactions with him.
"Personal Information for Who12345; Full Name Bob; Member for 2 hours 20 min" --not very good troll potential.
omg. grow up.
What's the point? Dead format = Who cares. The same 16 guys play an event once in a blue moon with the same 75... Why should we care?
Oh, and heard there was word of you ripping people off in the auction room. Nice play, public figure.
Wait, im confused. Is the build atrocious, or fine? you claim that it is both. Sorry that you found so much fault with the build and the play.
At any rate, as I said in the deck build. Red was far too shallow on playable guys. Now I absolutely could have played Red instead of black in my deck, however i felt more comfortable playing with black cards. Cant see how terrible the deck was, since i was able to 3-1, and could have possibly 4-0'ed if i hadent had mana problems in the round i lost.
That sealed build was absolutely atrocious. I know sealed is a bit slower but that thing is just glacial. Including test subject seems like just massive greed as your deck is 3 colors and extremely mana hungry. Throughout many of the games you cast threats first mainphase despite having relevant cards depending how combat goes and at one point mention a trick to play around and then next turn ignore it.
You also completely ignore red as a sideboard option with the ridiculously good rolling temblor, two geistflames, and solid volley vs the r/b super agro 1 toughness deck and the deck with multiple ambush vipers and bears.
The esper GY special is a fine deck, but you went so heavily late game I'm surprised it worked out at all.
Great Article Andy I loved being able to see the entire event this way.
The Metamorph into Duplicant was really poor play, too late i realized that it can't remove a non-token. Would have been a lot better to choose Batterskull.
I just hadn't set a stop for Upkeep phase. Anyway, thx for pointing out the bug with the video. Did you get refunded for it?
I look forward to seeing you putting up 4-0s.
I'll gladly help you test if you need it.
Good work.
There was a turn when you could've Snapcasted your Tinker and then found your Blightsteel again early on in Game 3. That would've reduced the length of the game dramatically.
Man, classic is such an alien format for me. Which makes these extra enlightening, of course.
Better luck next time. :)