It was fun watching and testing this with you. The deck had a rocky start and I admit I was a little skeptical but you showed us how to do it with style. I am glad you chose to include praetor's grasp which as I said is a real beating for black in commander. Sangromancer is a true roleplayer for this deck as it keeps you alive when you are dealing with your enemies creatures. And obviously the new Demon tutor guy is insanely good for a cheap rare. (.08 on traders I think?) Great to have you back in the saddle again. I look forward to your next adventure in the format! :D
Zoo has had no problems competing with misstep, it adjusted just fine. And seriously, who cares about goblins, it wasn't much of a threat before misstep.
I am of the opinion that banning misstep won't have a huge impact on Legacy events increasing. I'm pretty sure the only reason they are on the decline was due to Modern, which is exactly the way WOTC intended things to happen.
As usual, this seems intentional on their part. For the people who say, "WOTC doesn't make money on the secondary market." Please keep being naive, there are reprints coming, you can count on that.
If SCG replaces Legacy with Modern next year for their events, you can kiss the Legacy format goodbye. I hope things don't come to that and hopefully I'm over reacting, but seriously WOTC, leave Legacy alone!
Funny to think of the collective heads at WOTC thinking outloud......."Hummmm, Legacy decks are getting expensive, how can we lower the prices of this format?" "Oh, I know, let's make a new format, call it Modern and have the best creature in Legacy also be legal in our new format." Then let's ban the old duals to make new duals playable and then later on reprint them as a way to lower the price jumps that we created in the first place.
I'm usually not a WOTC basher. Usually, I feel it is their company and they have a history of doing what they think is best for the long run of their product. This time I totally disagree. Why in the heck would they help neuter one of the strongest formats for paper and online........
UGH.................now banning misstep means Counterbalance decks move to the top and seriously which would you rather have, a format with misstep or a format dominated by Counterbalance. I can tell you which one will attract newer players!
Draft: There were points where I was about to throw it away that I didn't mention in the comments. Like when I saw the first Marauder, then the second one. I had to force myself to stay on track, especially after my previous loss being infect (with slightly better infecters, or at least I thought before hitting the hydra, the imp, the stinger and the angler).
Deck: I think actually the high curve is what saved me from mana screws because all my double color costed cards, with the exception of the Corrupter, were high in the curve and by the time I could cast them I was likely to have GG or WW on the table.
Also, for the first 4/5 turns I had cards I could play in all colors so if it wasn't an Imp it was a Shrike or a Blightwidow.
That allowed me to play something possibly with any color combination of lands I had in play at the moment (except maybe mono-colored)
ROTFL, lo stesso vale per me X'D ( Transl: It's the same for me as well.)
What's even more weird is that I actually write in English when I'm typing you a message in a MODO chatbox. Then I switch back, after a few words...X°D
Quit whining. If writing is such a chore, stop. Don't blame the editors if you are unable to write what you want. It is to your capability to convey your thoughts into writing and reach out to people. Accepting criticism is the most important factor to improve and not able to take it gives a negative feeling. Ask a friend to view your draft article before submitting it and improve what is lacking. We have more than capable writers here to help but you were so defensive about it which is a hinder to help. I received help on where to improve on my articles and try to improve on grammatical mistakes. Try to read articles on various websites and learn from them. Which author intrigues you? How does he portray himself to readers? What materials he use for his articles? You can start off by copying a favorite writer of yours and slowly blend in your personality to make it your own in time to come. Have less rage man, what good does it do??
No, people shouldn't know to sell everything they get during a pre-release this article is called Speculation 101 not Speculation 301.
That is exactly the sort of thing you should be trying to help your reader base with.
Not random rankings that have no rhyme or reason behind them other then some supposed pre sale price that you never share with the readers.
Honestly like many other readers the only Reasons i clicked on the article in the first place was
#1 This guy seriously got another article up after having the last one removed?
and #2 Lets go see the train wreck we know that's going to be the comments.
I'll close this comment with saying that yes the article is marginally better then your last two but just like the last two it delivered more entertainment value in the comments then the actual article.
My advice you to come up with a single focal point for your article elaborate on it the whole "who,what,where,why" and back up what you say in some way or another. adding a bit a fluff here or there is fine but make sure that it's all in some way relevant to the main body of the article.
Also considering pre-release prices it is always helpful to keep in mind that the largest paper sites also tend to have price floors for certain cards. Like new planeswalkers rarely go below 30.00 before the set is released because people will buy them at those prices early just to have them. So a lot of times its better to wait and hold off as to not get burned with paper cards in those instances. Like Garruak Primal Hunter may have been up to 35 and at least 30 before m12 dropped and has already gone down to 22.
These are the pre-release prices of the cards. It's pretty standard across the board, and you should already know that you sell everything you get during the pre-release.
I mean the last card I remember going up right after the pre-release was Tezzeret. But I don't even think Lilliana will go up right after. It will be around 20-30 on MTGO during the pre-release and then drop when it's released.
Now if Lilliana was blue..... Well we all know about people's love of Blue, which is my second least favorite color.
Oh and btw, these are the paper prices. Who knows what MTGO will look like. I do know Innistrad is a massive set, so the cards may not be as available and the prices might be higher than usual, but I don't know.
I don't set the prices.
I do know one thing. If you want to start speculating on Innistrad look for the cards that will be staples. Like how Spellskite was a staple and was selling for $4 at one time. And Consecrated Sphinx was 5.50. I mean those are staples, and that's the best way to do it.
The card that interests me the most is Garruk. Garruk is strange because I don't think it's that great. It will be worth a ton of money, but I would take the M12 Garruk over this double sided one. But the price might be really high on it for it's "new mechanic" look.
So does anyone know how the double sided cards will work yet online? Like will I be seeing cards in my opponents hand?
*Oh and just for fun, I want that 0/3 Blue Roc Egg That can become a 13/13. It's probably as terrible as Blightsteel Colossus was, but would be fun to try to build a deck around. Like proliferate or something.
This is my fav column. I like to see the insane comment count it seems to get.
There are things that can be worked on.
1) numbers on prices
Right now, i can't tell how much the cards are worth by looking at the ranking. That doean't help me plan my innistrad purchases.
2) lack of insight when u say "based on prices"
Based on exp, i can say tt the lands are bad buys early and they will tank significantly after awhile.
If u could bring up why some prices are like they are, it would allow players to choose when to buy for value.
Personally, i find that successful speculation on mtgo is based on understanding formats well.
When i suggest cards to buy, they will bear fruit because i can quickly evaluate what the undervalued cards are with each big change.
It may not be a secret buy (that lets u catch the world off guard) but they will be good buys.
However, good buys don't have the time to turn into articles.
On the draft: I wouldn't have tried to stay on track with the colours, but I couldn't strongly disagree with any particular picks.
On the deck: Very daring going the 3 colours, obviously it was the right decision (you won!) but given the high mana curve and double-colour casting cards and no mana accelerators it seems super risky. You had great picks in all 3 colours, and I really couldn't choose which way to go looking at it, I think my nerves would have matched yours exactly going into each round :)
So congratulations!
(Note: wrote this before reading other's opinions before I could be swayed, which I'm sure I will be!)
they've reprinted most of about half of them actually in some form or another
Avalanche Riders, Voidmage Prodigy, and Shadowmage Infiltrator were all in Time Spiral if I'm not mistaken and Solemn Simulacrum was reprinted in M12. So counting Meddling Mage then thats 5 of them already.
Flashback is actually counter-intuitive to a Pyromancers deck since the enchant needs copies to be in the graveyard to activate it. For a long game card Snap Caster isn't particularly amazing though I do think it is perfectly OK.
Also RE: Media- I am of the opinion that videos are either very good or a waste of time/space. Keep writing. Don't worry about adding video unless you have some amazing games to show us. (Camtasia is highly recommended by those who do video recording for this site. I've never used it but apparently it is fairly easy to use.)
For the record, I didn't think much of the article but it was not by any stretch the worst this site has seen. Keep at it, and as I said before "if it doesn't apply let it fly." Show your NYer heart by rising above the hate.
As for Josh and Heath, while I respect Heath immensely, Josh is the man. He does this weekly and has done it well for quite a few years. I recommend cultivating a relationship with him via email etc where you can discuss with him the things you need to know to write successful articles here.
Your English writing is more than adequate for public consumption. No one writes perfectly in this language because it is so annoyingly ambiguous, with multiple contradictory syntax & grammar rules (not to mention punctuation vagaries). Also the nature of informal writing lends itself to poetic license and slang and idiom. Which means you are allowed to be a little sloppy and none but the most pedantic will nitpick.
The thing is that I'm still not sure about the mechanics about the cards. I was just posting the top 10 based on price.
But if this card gives your cards flashback, that means that you can add it to a splinter twin deck and you don't have to worry about having your opponent kill your Exarch when you cast it, since you can use flashback to regain the counter spells you have used which means that your counter spell count goes from, lets say, 4, to 8. Also think of it's applications in a U/B control deck. You can get back your discard spells, your creature kill, or get back some counter spells.
And if added to Pyromancer Ascension, you now have the ability to activate it's ability with just one card to get counters on it faster and not have to worry about card draw as much.
There is also a card that allows you to draw and puts the rest of the cards seen in your graveyard, which means you can cast instants and sorceries without the worry of them being countered.
My decklist wasn't the best, but I definitely think the first deck you will see is U/B/W control, followed by B/G infect, U/R (which will take over for mono-red), and then maybe Mono-Black.
You didn't butcher the phrase at all, the construction is perfect, the verb is where it should be and all the other pieces are in the right places, there is only an error in the second part, it should read like this:
"perché il tuo inglese è quasi perfetto" or "perché il tuo inglese è vicino alla perfezione".
However the article between perché and tuo is a very common mistake as there are hardly any in the english language.
Anyway, thank you very much, you almost made a guy blush XD
I find writing for puremtgo a very powerful way to improve more and more and I'm looking forward to get some certifications as I actually only passed the "PET" or "Preliminary English Test" (because I had to for university) and I'm kinda embarassed to present it around even if it says it was passed with merit... It's a test that primary school natively english speaking kids should pass too.
It was fun watching and testing this with you. The deck had a rocky start and I admit I was a little skeptical but you showed us how to do it with style. I am glad you chose to include praetor's grasp which as I said is a real beating for black in commander. Sangromancer is a true roleplayer for this deck as it keeps you alive when you are dealing with your enemies creatures. And obviously the new Demon tutor guy is insanely good for a cheap rare. (.08 on traders I think?) Great to have you back in the saddle again. I look forward to your next adventure in the format! :D
Zoo has had no problems competing with misstep, it adjusted just fine. And seriously, who cares about goblins, it wasn't much of a threat before misstep.
I did not know Jace, the Mind Sculptor was also printed in Dissension.
id rather have counterbalance then misstep. At least zoo and gobblins can compete with counterblance.....
I am of the opinion that banning misstep won't have a huge impact on Legacy events increasing. I'm pretty sure the only reason they are on the decline was due to Modern, which is exactly the way WOTC intended things to happen.
As usual, this seems intentional on their part. For the people who say, "WOTC doesn't make money on the secondary market." Please keep being naive, there are reprints coming, you can count on that.
If SCG replaces Legacy with Modern next year for their events, you can kiss the Legacy format goodbye. I hope things don't come to that and hopefully I'm over reacting, but seriously WOTC, leave Legacy alone!
Funny to think of the collective heads at WOTC thinking outloud......."Hummmm, Legacy decks are getting expensive, how can we lower the prices of this format?" "Oh, I know, let's make a new format, call it Modern and have the best creature in Legacy also be legal in our new format." Then let's ban the old duals to make new duals playable and then later on reprint them as a way to lower the price jumps that we created in the first place.
I'm usually not a WOTC basher. Usually, I feel it is their company and they have a history of doing what they think is best for the long run of their product. This time I totally disagree. Why in the heck would they help neuter one of the strongest formats for paper and online........
UGH.................now banning misstep means Counterbalance decks move to the top and seriously which would you rather have, a format with misstep or a format dominated by Counterbalance. I can tell you which one will attract newer players!
- End Rant -
Draft: There were points where I was about to throw it away that I didn't mention in the comments. Like when I saw the first Marauder, then the second one. I had to force myself to stay on track, especially after my previous loss being infect (with slightly better infecters, or at least I thought before hitting the hydra, the imp, the stinger and the angler).
Deck: I think actually the high curve is what saved me from mana screws because all my double color costed cards, with the exception of the Corrupter, were high in the curve and by the time I could cast them I was likely to have GG or WW on the table.
Also, for the first 4/5 turns I had cards I could play in all colors so if it wasn't an Imp it was a Shrike or a Blightwidow.
That allowed me to play something possibly with any color combination of lands I had in play at the moment (except maybe mono-colored)
Thank you very much sir!!!
ROTFL, lo stesso vale per me X'D ( Transl: It's the same for me as well.)
What's even more weird is that I actually write in English when I'm typing you a message in a MODO chatbox. Then I switch back, after a few words...X°D
Quit whining. If writing is such a chore, stop. Don't blame the editors if you are unable to write what you want. It is to your capability to convey your thoughts into writing and reach out to people. Accepting criticism is the most important factor to improve and not able to take it gives a negative feeling. Ask a friend to view your draft article before submitting it and improve what is lacking. We have more than capable writers here to help but you were so defensive about it which is a hinder to help. I received help on where to improve on my articles and try to improve on grammatical mistakes. Try to read articles on various websites and learn from them. Which author intrigues you? How does he portray himself to readers? What materials he use for his articles? You can start off by copying a favorite writer of yours and slowly blend in your personality to make it your own in time to come. Have less rage man, what good does it do??
Sebastian.
Or you could just ramble like I do and hope it comes together at the end. :d
No, people shouldn't know to sell everything they get during a pre-release this article is called Speculation 101 not Speculation 301.
That is exactly the sort of thing you should be trying to help your reader base with.
Not random rankings that have no rhyme or reason behind them other then some supposed pre sale price that you never share with the readers.
Honestly like many other readers the only Reasons i clicked on the article in the first place was
#1 This guy seriously got another article up after having the last one removed?
and #2 Lets go see the train wreck we know that's going to be the comments.
I'll close this comment with saying that yes the article is marginally better then your last two but just like the last two it delivered more entertainment value in the comments then the actual article.
My advice you to come up with a single focal point for your article elaborate on it the whole "who,what,where,why" and back up what you say in some way or another. adding a bit a fluff here or there is fine but make sure that it's all in some way relevant to the main body of the article.
Also considering pre-release prices it is always helpful to keep in mind that the largest paper sites also tend to have price floors for certain cards. Like new planeswalkers rarely go below 30.00 before the set is released because people will buy them at those prices early just to have them. So a lot of times its better to wait and hold off as to not get burned with paper cards in those instances. Like Garruak Primal Hunter may have been up to 35 and at least 30 before m12 dropped and has already gone down to 22.
These are the pre-release prices of the cards. It's pretty standard across the board, and you should already know that you sell everything you get during the pre-release.
I mean the last card I remember going up right after the pre-release was Tezzeret. But I don't even think Lilliana will go up right after. It will be around 20-30 on MTGO during the pre-release and then drop when it's released.
Now if Lilliana was blue..... Well we all know about people's love of Blue, which is my second least favorite color.
Oh and btw, these are the paper prices. Who knows what MTGO will look like. I do know Innistrad is a massive set, so the cards may not be as available and the prices might be higher than usual, but I don't know.
I don't set the prices.
I do know one thing. If you want to start speculating on Innistrad look for the cards that will be staples. Like how Spellskite was a staple and was selling for $4 at one time. And Consecrated Sphinx was 5.50. I mean those are staples, and that's the best way to do it.
The card that interests me the most is Garruk. Garruk is strange because I don't think it's that great. It will be worth a ton of money, but I would take the M12 Garruk over this double sided one. But the price might be really high on it for it's "new mechanic" look.
So does anyone know how the double sided cards will work yet online? Like will I be seeing cards in my opponents hand?
*Oh and just for fun, I want that 0/3 Blue Roc Egg That can become a 13/13. It's probably as terrible as Blightsteel Colossus was, but would be fun to try to build a deck around. Like proliferate or something.
This is my fav column. I like to see the insane comment count it seems to get.
There are things that can be worked on.
1) numbers on prices
Right now, i can't tell how much the cards are worth by looking at the ranking. That doean't help me plan my innistrad purchases.
2) lack of insight when u say "based on prices"
Based on exp, i can say tt the lands are bad buys early and they will tank significantly after awhile.
If u could bring up why some prices are like they are, it would allow players to choose when to buy for value.
Personally, i find that successful speculation on mtgo is based on understanding formats well.
When i suggest cards to buy, they will bear fruit because i can quickly evaluate what the undervalued cards are with each big change.
It may not be a secret buy (that lets u catch the world off guard) but they will be good buys.
However, good buys don't have the time to turn into articles.
On the draft: I wouldn't have tried to stay on track with the colours, but I couldn't strongly disagree with any particular picks.
On the deck: Very daring going the 3 colours, obviously it was the right decision (you won!) but given the high mana curve and double-colour casting cards and no mana accelerators it seems super risky. You had great picks in all 3 colours, and I really couldn't choose which way to go looking at it, I think my nerves would have matched yours exactly going into each round :)
So congratulations!
(Note: wrote this before reading other's opinions before I could be swayed, which I'm sure I will be!)
and dark confidant as a judge promo as well as a promo meddling mage.
they've reprinted most of about half of them actually in some form or another
Avalanche Riders, Voidmage Prodigy, and Shadowmage Infiltrator were all in Time Spiral if I'm not mistaken and Solemn Simulacrum was reprinted in M12. So counting Meddling Mage then thats 5 of them already.
For the rating.
Flashback is actually counter-intuitive to a Pyromancers deck since the enchant needs copies to be in the graveyard to activate it. For a long game card Snap Caster isn't particularly amazing though I do think it is perfectly OK.
Also RE: Media- I am of the opinion that videos are either very good or a waste of time/space. Keep writing. Don't worry about adding video unless you have some amazing games to show us. (Camtasia is highly recommended by those who do video recording for this site. I've never used it but apparently it is fairly easy to use.)
For the record, I didn't think much of the article but it was not by any stretch the worst this site has seen. Keep at it, and as I said before "if it doesn't apply let it fly." Show your NYer heart by rising above the hate.
As for Josh and Heath, while I respect Heath immensely, Josh is the man. He does this weekly and has done it well for quite a few years. I recommend cultivating a relationship with him via email etc where you can discuss with him the things you need to know to write successful articles here.
Your English writing is more than adequate for public consumption. No one writes perfectly in this language because it is so annoyingly ambiguous, with multiple contradictory syntax & grammar rules (not to mention punctuation vagaries). Also the nature of informal writing lends itself to poetic license and slang and idiom. Which means you are allowed to be a little sloppy and none but the most pedantic will nitpick.
I love that deck. So funny.
Great work, even on your "typo/out of place sentence" week.
I majored in Linguistics for my undergrad....I love languages.
The thing is that I'm still not sure about the mechanics about the cards. I was just posting the top 10 based on price.
But if this card gives your cards flashback, that means that you can add it to a splinter twin deck and you don't have to worry about having your opponent kill your Exarch when you cast it, since you can use flashback to regain the counter spells you have used which means that your counter spell count goes from, lets say, 4, to 8. Also think of it's applications in a U/B control deck. You can get back your discard spells, your creature kill, or get back some counter spells.
And if added to Pyromancer Ascension, you now have the ability to activate it's ability with just one card to get counters on it faster and not have to worry about card draw as much.
There is also a card that allows you to draw and puts the rest of the cards seen in your graveyard, which means you can cast instants and sorceries without the worry of them being countered.
My decklist wasn't the best, but I definitely think the first deck you will see is U/B/W control, followed by B/G infect, U/R (which will take over for mono-red), and then maybe Mono-Black.
You didn't butcher the phrase at all, the construction is perfect, the verb is where it should be and all the other pieces are in the right places, there is only an error in the second part, it should read like this:
"perché il tuo inglese è quasi perfetto" or "perché il tuo inglese è vicino alla perfezione".
However the article between perché and tuo is a very common mistake as there are hardly any in the english language.
Anyway, thank you very much, you almost made a guy blush XD
I find writing for puremtgo a very powerful way to improve more and more and I'm looking forward to get some certifications as I actually only passed the "PET" or "Preliminary English Test" (because I had to for university) and I'm kinda embarassed to present it around even if it says it was passed with merit... It's a test that primary school natively english speaking kids should pass too.
Mi ci è voluto un po 'a capire che eri italiano, perché tuo inglese è vicino alla perfetta.
Pretty sure I butchered this....