Right now almost every deck is reaching its full power except for blue :(
Tangle wire feels very odd early(turn1) but i believe the optimal turn for it would soon be revealed.
Gush + 1 mana hate might be better when wire comes around.
I suspect we will just have to face the deck as it is with everything now. Petals/tops will be very useful to tap down with. :)
Yawg will has been good but not explosive as with most blue builds. It does lose value with the natural game progression of the deck but it's still needed to push out a few more wins.
Welder isn't very useful unless you specifically run artifacts you want to replay or can hav a chain going with repeated activations. Battlesphere + petals work best with welder.
I was contemplating btwn bolt n fire/ice at 1st but i played the latter cos of merchant scroll which i took out. If it's going to act a reb/shatter/bolt, it's probably worth the spot for synergies with snapcaster mage.
Those were the reasons why i chose to try out clique in classic some time ago.
(if u're very concerned abt running bolts into missteps, u can play incinerate :x)
Yeah, it's a big set so I was bound to miss a couple. Thanks for pointing some out.
As for Divine Reckoning, I guess you're right, it could go well in equipment based and Uril decks. Basically stuff where you put all your eggs into one guy. My main issue is that it basically never gets rid of any opponents' most powerful or annoying creature. So you're banking on the fact that yours is the best critter out there and you can handle the remaining threats. I dunno, I have a hard time buying this one. Of course, some Zur player is going to blow me out of the water with it next time I play now that I say that.
Milling is definitely viable in Innistrad, but I would not go into a draft planning to force the mill strategy, as it has some glaring weaknesses. But it might be an acceptable parachute if your draft gets entirely derailed.
I enjoyed this alot. Ive been playing around with a slightly different build.
are you liking yawgmoths will? i found it to be pretty medocre in most of my games. i am however running a goblin welder so i can return everything but some lands inbetween welder and snapcaster.
I also have a 1 of bolt in there. it kills golems and hate bears as well as jace. it is more open to misstep, but its also obnly 3 mana to flash back with tiago.
I actually lost a game to milling last night in my 5th Innistrad draft game, and I wouldn't be surprised if this is not an unusual way to lose in this format. Neither of us were playing a milling deck, but we both included blue. I had milled myself for 10 or 15 cards or so, the game was going a bit long, my selhoff occultist was milling a lot due to other dudes dying off. I got hit with several activations by my opponents mindshrieker, and it was game over. I was really caught in a vice, since my opponent had Back from the Brink in play, and I didn't particularly want to mill them. So I would agree that generally it is better to mill oneself in this format, but there will be a number of games where you have to start comparing the benefit of extra cards with the rapidly diminishing size of your library. Just one more factor making this an extremly complex limited environment.
I am pretty happy tho, I just bought a couple more packs and actually pulled GrimGrin...so building a workable commander and 100 card singleton with him is in progress. I take back my negativity...although, I did get trounced by a guy with SnapCaster...grumble...Course, not sure if it was the actual card, my deck building, or all around shoddy play that did me in. :)
Thanks for the comments and appreciation, guys!
Yeah, I stand corrected about Replica. I knew I was going to screw up something along the line! :)
Anyway, I see Stony Silence is currently sold at bulk price. The fact that artifact decks are apparently gone means nobody will care to put Silence in their sideboards just to mess with the occasional Pod deck (also because in that case, Torpor Orb is still strictly better: Silence stops just 1 card, Orb turns 90% of the Pod deck into vanilla).
Nice to see a new article from you. You are my favorite writer around here, and it has been awhile.
It looks like you have covered most of the relevant new stuff pretty well, and have given me a few new ideas.
I disagree with you a little in that I really like Divine Reckoning. Sure it is situational, you just have to use it in a deck that really wants that situation. In a mono white equipment voltron deck I think it works really well.
Speaking of equipment voltron, no one seems to be paying much attention to Inquisitors Flail. Sure it does have a little downside, but if you have a hard to block/unblockable general it can be a poor mans Fireshrieker. I plan on giving it a try.
Another card that seems to not be getting attention, that I am glad you hit on is Nevermore. It seems to be getting very little attention from the EDH community at large. The ability to lock out peoples generals can not be underestimated, and this card is going to really burn some decks.
Another personal favorite of mine is Manor Gargoyle. I know it is not amazing, but I do have a deck that likes having relatively cheap indestructible creatures for defense. He fits that role perfectly plus he is just plain cool and flavorful.
This was a really good article! I had no idea you could watch prerelease matches, and sifting through them to figure out what NOT to be doing seems incredibly helpful.
We really need the communities help to grow the wiki and to support the forums so please come and visit us and register. We will be linking to all the great classic content here on PureMTGO there is also a wiki containing details for all of the episodes of the podcast todate (we are in the process of hyperlinking all of the episodes to create a functional index).
Does anyone know when ISD block constructed begins? I didn't play SOM block constructed, so don't know the MTGO schedule for these things, but the idea of ISD block is pretty intriguing.
Mm... constructed without Dismember...
Also, I have a random question for you Pete - why do you capitalize 'BOT'? Usually words are only printed in block capitals if they are acronyms, and I wasn't aware that 'bot' stood for anything. Just curious, thanks for the weekly summary as always.
Holy cow, this article is packed with awesome tech to the brim! :O
Great work Kuma! Also, your Accidental Player psychographic profile hits me right on the mark. I'm already looking forward to read this series so keep up the good work!!!
P.S. I'm currently in a state of Commander-n00biness and this article alone is a gold mine. You should consider my rating as 7 fireballs, not just 5.
Yeah you can tell the Timmy in me influenced my Esper deck. :) 1 ofs all over the place (and no Ascendant??). I was a little surprised to this article, but Im glad you posted it. Nicely done Kuma.
@menace i hope it does get a place in every format.. That means i get to play blue in all of them!
@zach :) thanks! Was fun to be on the other side for once. I sure sounded different from usual lol..
@gainsbanding thnx for the info. Never knew about varying replay speeds. It was quite tough to manage the recording on that speed, esp at the mulligans
@mmogg i'll be there! :x i dun like the show all decklist part of the tournament.. Makes me not wanna try to tech out my opp :(
Right now almost every deck is reaching its full power except for blue :(
Tangle wire feels very odd early(turn1) but i believe the optimal turn for it would soon be revealed.
Gush + 1 mana hate might be better when wire comes around.
I suspect we will just have to face the deck as it is with everything now. Petals/tops will be very useful to tap down with. :)
Yawg will has been good but not explosive as with most blue builds. It does lose value with the natural game progression of the deck but it's still needed to push out a few more wins.
Welder isn't very useful unless you specifically run artifacts you want to replay or can hav a chain going with repeated activations. Battlesphere + petals work best with welder.
I was contemplating btwn bolt n fire/ice at 1st but i played the latter cos of merchant scroll which i took out. If it's going to act a reb/shatter/bolt, it's probably worth the spot for synergies with snapcaster mage.
Those were the reasons why i chose to try out clique in classic some time ago.
(if u're very concerned abt running bolts into missteps, u can play incinerate :x)
Yeah, it's a big set so I was bound to miss a couple. Thanks for pointing some out.
As for Divine Reckoning, I guess you're right, it could go well in equipment based and Uril decks. Basically stuff where you put all your eggs into one guy. My main issue is that it basically never gets rid of any opponents' most powerful or annoying creature. So you're banking on the fact that yours is the best critter out there and you can handle the remaining threats. I dunno, I have a hard time buying this one. Of course, some Zur player is going to blow me out of the water with it next time I play now that I say that.
Well written with lots of deck lists. Really good article.
Milling is definitely viable in Innistrad, but I would not go into a draft planning to force the mill strategy, as it has some glaring weaknesses. But it might be an acceptable parachute if your draft gets entirely derailed.
I enjoyed this alot. Ive been playing around with a slightly different build.
are you liking yawgmoths will? i found it to be pretty medocre in most of my games. i am however running a goblin welder so i can return everything but some lands inbetween welder and snapcaster.
I also have a 1 of bolt in there. it kills golems and hate bears as well as jace. it is more open to misstep, but its also obnly 3 mana to flash back with tiago.
This really is a great Deck Building article, I added it to my list of Deck Building resources: http://blog.manatalks.com/2011/10/101-deck-building-resources-magic-the-...
Cause he's yelling "BOT" at you.
I actually lost a game to milling last night in my 5th Innistrad draft game, and I wouldn't be surprised if this is not an unusual way to lose in this format. Neither of us were playing a milling deck, but we both included blue. I had milled myself for 10 or 15 cards or so, the game was going a bit long, my selhoff occultist was milling a lot due to other dudes dying off. I got hit with several activations by my opponents mindshrieker, and it was game over. I was really caught in a vice, since my opponent had Back from the Brink in play, and I didn't particularly want to mill them. So I would agree that generally it is better to mill oneself in this format, but there will be a number of games where you have to start comparing the benefit of extra cards with the rapidly diminishing size of your library. Just one more factor making this an extremly complex limited environment.
I am pretty happy tho, I just bought a couple more packs and actually pulled GrimGrin...so building a workable commander and 100 card singleton with him is in progress. I take back my negativity...although, I did get trounced by a guy with SnapCaster...grumble...Course, not sure if it was the actual card, my deck building, or all around shoddy play that did me in. :)
Thanks for the comments and appreciation, guys!
Yeah, I stand corrected about Replica. I knew I was going to screw up something along the line! :)
Anyway, I see Stony Silence is currently sold at bulk price. The fact that artifact decks are apparently gone means nobody will care to put Silence in their sideboards just to mess with the occasional Pod deck (also because in that case, Torpor Orb is still strictly better: Silence stops just 1 card, Orb turns 90% of the Pod deck into vanilla).
It is amazing how much the Innistrad prices have already dropped since you put this article together.
There are actually some strong values to be had as I write this. Especially on the more casual cards.
Nice to see a new article from you. You are my favorite writer around here, and it has been awhile.
It looks like you have covered most of the relevant new stuff pretty well, and have given me a few new ideas.
I disagree with you a little in that I really like Divine Reckoning. Sure it is situational, you just have to use it in a deck that really wants that situation. In a mono white equipment voltron deck I think it works really well.
Speaking of equipment voltron, no one seems to be paying much attention to Inquisitors Flail. Sure it does have a little downside, but if you have a hard to block/unblockable general it can be a poor mans Fireshrieker. I plan on giving it a try.
Another card that seems to not be getting attention, that I am glad you hit on is Nevermore. It seems to be getting very little attention from the EDH community at large. The ability to lock out peoples generals can not be underestimated, and this card is going to really burn some decks.
Another personal favorite of mine is Manor Gargoyle. I know it is not amazing, but I do have a deck that likes having relatively cheap indestructible creatures for defense. He fits that role perfectly plus he is just plain cool and flavorful.
This was a really good article! I had no idea you could watch prerelease matches, and sifting through them to figure out what NOT to be doing seems incredibly helpful.
MAGIC ETERNAL FORUMS AND WIKI (INCLUDING A YSO DEDICATED WIKI) - Come Join US!
Hi Guys in small print we added the following to the text associated with the podcast this week
Post Recording Announcement : Clan Magic Eternal has opened public forums! http://magic-eternal.com/forums !!!! Wiki as well at http://magic-eternal.com/clanwiki! Come on over check us out and create an account. More info in next weeks cast guys.
We really need the communities help to grow the wiki and to support the forums so please come and visit us and register. We will be linking to all the great classic content here on PureMTGO there is also a wiki containing details for all of the episodes of the podcast todate (we are in the process of hyperlinking all of the episodes to create a functional index).
Regards,
Hammer
Right, Acidic Slime on the other hand deals with Silence.
Did I miss something, or can Sylvok Replica not, in fact, deal with Stony Silence. The Silence turns the Replica off too, no?
Does anyone know when ISD block constructed begins? I didn't play SOM block constructed, so don't know the MTGO schedule for these things, but the idea of ISD block is pretty intriguing.
Mm... constructed without Dismember...
Also, I have a random question for you Pete - why do you capitalize 'BOT'? Usually words are only printed in block capitals if they are acronyms, and I wasn't aware that 'bot' stood for anything. Just curious, thanks for the weekly summary as always.
Price is dropping a lot. It was only high during the prerelease
Holy cow, this article is packed with awesome tech to the brim! :O
Great work Kuma! Also, your Accidental Player psychographic profile hits me right on the mark. I'm already looking forward to read this series so keep up the good work!!!
P.S. I'm currently in a state of Commander-n00biness and this article alone is a gold mine. You should consider my rating as 7 fireballs, not just 5.
Yeah you can tell the Timmy in me influenced my Esper deck. :) 1 ofs all over the place (and no Ascendant??). I was a little surprised to this article, but Im glad you posted it. Nicely done Kuma.
Blasphemy.
See "Composition"....a lost art with many current directors
@menace i hope it does get a place in every format.. That means i get to play blue in all of them!
@zach :) thanks! Was fun to be on the other side for once. I sure sounded different from usual lol..
@gainsbanding thnx for the info. Never knew about varying replay speeds. It was quite tough to manage the recording on that speed, esp at the mulligans
@mmogg i'll be there! :x i dun like the show all decklist part of the tournament.. Makes me not wanna try to tech out my opp :(
Kubrick movies also kind of suck imo... I mean, they're not awful, but they're not very entertaining.
Thanks!