Animar is just so combotastic. In the end I have a feeling he will prove to be the most powerful new general. I think well tuned combo centered Animar decks will just prove to be super fast and super consistent. Riku is good but I think Animar will best him with raw speed and resiliency . Animar scares me..... a lot.
Ruhan is the guy i really want to make shine. I just have a thing for the underdog, plus he just looks cool. I have come up with a plan for him that I think would be pretty effective. Basically get him out as soon as you can then play scorched earth and proceed wipe the lands repeatedly, control the board and let Ruhan grind them out. I have built the deck, but I am just a bit scared to use it. It is just plain mean, and would probably piss most people off.
Soul Snare is a card that probably wasn't going to crack the spot removal lineup in my mono white deck. Then I saw someone point out that it can be recurred by Sun Titan. That sold me on swapping it in.
As far as Stranglehold goes, I guess you could call it a griefer card. Personally, I don't see it that way. The card stops, or at least makes a speed bump for some of the most abusive and abused strategies in the format. Multiple tutors, multiple turns, and crazy land ramp are all super powerful and heavily played. I don't think using Stranglehold to hamper them should get you stamped as a griefer any more then playing the strategies it is designed to contain. The only grief I think it might cause are for some mana bases that are heavily reliant on fetches that might get caught in the crossfire. Although, I do wish that they had printed it to effect all players, not just opponents.
Homeward Path is now in almost every deck I have. It might stretch the mana base a little. In the end though, the opportunity cost is just to low to not use it in almost every case. It just blanks so many cards and strategies that it is a must play for me.
Hydra Omnivore might be my favorite new card based on pure awesomeness alone. I have been struggling to find a mono green deck that I find interesting and fun. Building One entirely around finding and abusing the Hydra may just be what the doctor ordered.
Mana-Charged dragon is giving me fits, but only because it is the only new card I really want that I have been unable to acquire.
For Zedruu, I already built a deck around Jinxed items and land swaps. With cards like Risky Move, Gilded Drake and sac outlet, that minotaur is scarier than it looks.
"Eternity Vessel was Exsanguinate for a very long time. But then I made a decision. I decided not to add any "frustrating" cards to my deck."
But you're happy to run a Nev's Disk combo and gloat about wiping the board every turn? It's not quite Lattice+Forge+Disk but it is certainly frustrating.
Whiffy you were saying that you thought that the Oath vs. Blue Fish matchup was slightly in Oath's favor except that your experience had actually been 60-40 in Fish's favor. My experience has been that the matchup is at least 60-40 in Fish's favor all the time. The reason imo is because basically the two decks run similar counter packages, but Fish also runs mana disruption and has diversified threats, while Oath must either Tinker, Oath, or Jace for the win. Oath has to try to go off and use its counters to resolve and protect Oath, while Fish just sits there disrupting Oath, defensively countering spells that would lose it the game, meanwhile slowly building up threats and board position from which it can take control of the game.
By the way, the main reason Leyline of Sanctity is in the sideboard is for the Oath matchup, since I have been seeing so much Oath lately I thought it would be nice to improve the MU even more.
Mental Misstep was pretty good for me in the last event.
Leyline of the Void has actually stuck around because of Hermit Druid, I haven't seen enough dredge lately otherwise. Leyline + countermagic can randomly win both the dredge and Druid MUs, so it seems worthwhile.
Great review. The decks are fun to play out of the box. They have some weaknesses, but do okay. The main thing is they are a bit slow for online commander. They need more acceleration and lower cost creatures and removal.
The Mimeoplasm is a very scary commander once there are creatures in graveyards. He gets big really quickly and usually has some form of evasion or protection. He's also cheap enough and in the right colors that you will see him over and over again. Also, he's not subject to the legendary rule as long as the creature he copies isn't legendary.
Don't underestimate Zedruu. She's great at building alliances by giving away stuff you doesn't need, like extra land. And her card draw and life gain abilities can get out of hand quickly. It's not uncommon for her to let you draw 5 or more extra cards every turn.
The vows are a lot of fun. Like one guy I played with, I'd usually rather put in removal. But everyone should try them out if they have them. There's nothing like putting a vow on a really scary creature and knowing that you don't have to worry about it coming your way.
Hydra Omnivore with Grafted Exoskeleton is an instant win as long as there is one opponent without blockers.
Dangit, I hate screwing up the cards during these reviews. Martyr's Bond would be a lot rougher if it hit lands, so I'm glad that it doesn't.
I haven't had a chance to get online since these guys came out, but I'm hoping to get some play time in soon. Ideally I'm going to do a review of each of the decks as they come "out of the box" as well, then try and fix up one or two of them. They seem pretty decent already.
And I promise to give Tribute to the Wild a shot as well.
I like the deck, and I especially like the Guardian Beast combo and the use of Attrition. And I think that I may have actually watched part of that game! The big Commander gets no love, so it's good to see him beat down the way he should.
One question: You only have 20 Swamps in the deck. Did you ever find that you didn't have enough? You do have a significant amount of tutors that can find Urborg, though, so maybe it worked out all right.
Sorry was trying to be respectful to you. Your advice is much appreciative I love classic I started when ice age came out but I played 1.5 and classic. I will take ur advice and grind some block and std to slowly build a solid classic deck. U and the Hoff are awesome and has allowed me to up my game even more so Ty to u and ur clan.
I bought the Mimeoplasm deck and have been tinkering with it on the edges without changing it too much and I'm having a lot of fun with it. Out of the box it felt almost like a deck I might have built myself, ie. on a budget and meant for fun, not domination. But oddly enough its winning... whaddayaknow?
I agree with almost everyting you wrote. I played in the beta so I do know how ridiculous Riku is. So a friendly warning to everyone: Take him out the moment you see him or you may not have a second chance. No one is playing Riku to copy their Rampant Growths or Grizzly Bears. Keep this in mind.
On the other hand, my personal favorite is Damia. She fits my playstyle perfectly and I'm currently building an incredibly powerful deck around her. That deck, when truly finished, will be my pet deck.
Skullbriar, Hydra Omnivore and Command Tower are nuts. Nin with Stuffy Doll is nuts (especially when you have Caged Sun-like cards on table (tons of damage, tons of cards)). Chaos Warp and Flusterstorm are Legacy worthy cards so expect to see them at very high prices. Homeward Path is perfect, it should be an auto-include to any and all decks (other than decks that like to steal stuff of course). Tariel is fun. Soul Snare will most definitely be printed in a future normal set. Tribute to the Wild is much better than you think. Just use it and you'll also see its true value.
And these were my thoughts.
LE
PS: No biggie but you said graveyard when talking about Stranglehold whereas it should be library.
I mentioned this in the comments for the last constructed video:
Please make sure that the recording uses the entire frame. I'm not sure if the issue arose from your recording or your uploading, but there's a large black 'border' around what we're actually watching.
It makes it much more difficult to comfortably view your videos.
As the title of the comment says... Martir's bond hits non land permanets instead of non-creatures... so yes its pretty much an improved gravepact for white.
The thing about Hawkward and Tempered Steel decks in general is that they just don't work very well if you're not dropping your Tempered Steel. Memnite, Ornithopter, Vault Skirge and Signal Pest are all pretty dependent on the Tempered Steel, so if it gets countered or you never draw it you're sort of SOL with that deck. Steel Overseer might help, but he's pretty slow and vulnerable. If there were a reliable way to tutor up the Tempered Steel it would be a lot better.
"Of course, part of this comes from the sacredness of mana online."
The problem we have in dealing with green big mana decks is that land destruction is either spot removal for dealing with single troubling lands (which no deck running Valakut or one of the broken Urza's lands has any right to complain about) or it's a global Armageddon style effect which ruins everyone's afternoon.
On the subject of Tutors, the Classic card pool simply has to many of them and they are too damn efficient. I don't mind tutoring, but I think they have done a much better job in the "Modern" era of designing them to be fun and fair, either by limiting their efficacy (targeted tutoring for specific card types or cmc like transmute) or drawbacks like higher mana costs. Cards like the Visions cycle of tutors or Demonic Tutor are simply tooo efficient.
It's WU (U is the second one here) and then UB (U is the first one this time). This is true for every color. So UB and then BR. RG and then GW but not WG (W was the first letter in the WU combination, so it's the second letter in the GW one).
For 3 allied color combinations (such as Esper), you write WUB (U being the center color with its two allies). It's not BUW however! When you come to G, which is the last letter in the WUBRG combination, you put it into the middle and end up with RGW.
In case of wedge colors, you first put the two allied colors next to each other; in Numot's case first you start with WU. Then add the enemy color at the beginning and end up with RWU. Same is true for Vorosh, Riku and Teneb.
on your second point even as far back as the invasion block the order of the mana symbols has been RWU on printed cards such as Lightning Angel and continued that way on Numot, Zedruu, and Ruhan. Which is probably the way most would say it. Though that brings up another point...why is it BUG for some decks but UB for others...yet on all card with those three colors its GUB?
first of all
team america was named in refernce to the matt stone and trey parker puppt movie called team america world police, with a catchy quote of "america efff yea!"
2nd the color combination of rwu would be read in this order wur from the color pie W U b R g.
3rd of all who cares? really seriously, all the crap going on in the world and we pick at this crap about a name from a game??
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
1 Dakmor Salvage
2 Undiscovered Paradise
1 Angel of Despair
3 Bloodghast
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
2 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Breakthrough
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Careful Study
3 Dread Return
3 Nature's Claim
4 Serum Powder
Sideboard
1 Ancient Grudge
3 Firestorm
2 Ingot Chewer
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Mindbreak Trap
2 Wispmare
the problem with this deck is that the cost is a one trick ponie. You will never use the expensive cards in any other classic decks.
for about 350 you could build rwb fish
500-600 gets you gw, rg fish,
600-700 gets you shop decks
900-1000 gets you blue fish decks
1000-1100 gets you otah and jace decks as well as led decks.
I guess the question you have to ask yourself is,"is it worth the initial cost to buy an archtype, and if it is, is it worth selling large chunks of your collection to fund it. If you have the disposable income im all for it, classic is great. if you want to grind your way to profit your better off in std or block and buying pieces slowly as you prize. even if we fired every event, you would have to be therefor all 8 or 9 and have to money at least half per week. std and block are better to grind as there are like 6 events a day.
hope that helps. and mr penguin was my dad, please call me whiff or george <3
I love your videos Mr Penguin and i was wondering if their is a few decks that can compete in classic that doesn't cost a fortune to play. I love classic but i shy away from it because of the cost of the power cards, i really loved your red deck a couple weeks ago with magus but Tarmo is not very cheap creature.
I'd just like to say that I find censorship repulsive with the exception of communities explicitly designed for children. I also think it's a slap in the face of anyone who thinks the 4th is largely about celebrating people that have made the ultimate scarifice with their lives so that the rest of us don't have to sacrifice our freedom to live in a community of integrity. Creating censored community space is just much worse than not creating any at all.
Blue lowers variance through card draw and does a pretty good job of keeping stuff off the board with good counter magic. Plus, Vendilion Clique is a good general to get 21 damage with because of His ETB ability. Not to mention the infinite instant win combos blue has, Such as Vendilion Clique + Tunnel Vision...
A couple of thoughts.
Animar is just so combotastic. In the end I have a feeling he will prove to be the most powerful new general. I think well tuned combo centered Animar decks will just prove to be super fast and super consistent. Riku is good but I think Animar will best him with raw speed and resiliency . Animar scares me..... a lot.
Ruhan is the guy i really want to make shine. I just have a thing for the underdog, plus he just looks cool. I have come up with a plan for him that I think would be pretty effective. Basically get him out as soon as you can then play scorched earth and proceed wipe the lands repeatedly, control the board and let Ruhan grind them out. I have built the deck, but I am just a bit scared to use it. It is just plain mean, and would probably piss most people off.
Soul Snare is a card that probably wasn't going to crack the spot removal lineup in my mono white deck. Then I saw someone point out that it can be recurred by Sun Titan. That sold me on swapping it in.
As far as Stranglehold goes, I guess you could call it a griefer card. Personally, I don't see it that way. The card stops, or at least makes a speed bump for some of the most abusive and abused strategies in the format. Multiple tutors, multiple turns, and crazy land ramp are all super powerful and heavily played. I don't think using Stranglehold to hamper them should get you stamped as a griefer any more then playing the strategies it is designed to contain. The only grief I think it might cause are for some mana bases that are heavily reliant on fetches that might get caught in the crossfire. Although, I do wish that they had printed it to effect all players, not just opponents.
Homeward Path is now in almost every deck I have. It might stretch the mana base a little. In the end though, the opportunity cost is just to low to not use it in almost every case. It just blanks so many cards and strategies that it is a must play for me.
Hydra Omnivore might be my favorite new card based on pure awesomeness alone. I have been struggling to find a mono green deck that I find interesting and fun. Building One entirely around finding and abusing the Hydra may just be what the doctor ordered.
Mana-Charged dragon is giving me fits, but only because it is the only new card I really want that I have been unable to acquire.
For Zedruu, I already built a deck around Jinxed items and land swaps. With cards like Risky Move, Gilded Drake and sac outlet, that minotaur is scarier than it looks.
It works pretty good.
"Eternity Vessel was Exsanguinate for a very long time. But then I made a decision. I decided not to add any "frustrating" cards to my deck."
But you're happy to run a Nev's Disk combo and gloat about wiping the board every turn? It's not quite Lattice+Forge+Disk but it is certainly frustrating.
Whiffy you were saying that you thought that the Oath vs. Blue Fish matchup was slightly in Oath's favor except that your experience had actually been 60-40 in Fish's favor. My experience has been that the matchup is at least 60-40 in Fish's favor all the time. The reason imo is because basically the two decks run similar counter packages, but Fish also runs mana disruption and has diversified threats, while Oath must either Tinker, Oath, or Jace for the win. Oath has to try to go off and use its counters to resolve and protect Oath, while Fish just sits there disrupting Oath, defensively countering spells that would lose it the game, meanwhile slowly building up threats and board position from which it can take control of the game.
By the way, the main reason Leyline of Sanctity is in the sideboard is for the Oath matchup, since I have been seeing so much Oath lately I thought it would be nice to improve the MU even more.
Mental Misstep was pretty good for me in the last event.
Leyline of the Void has actually stuck around because of Hermit Druid, I haven't seen enough dredge lately otherwise. Leyline + countermagic can randomly win both the dredge and Druid MUs, so it seems worthwhile.
Great review. The decks are fun to play out of the box. They have some weaknesses, but do okay. The main thing is they are a bit slow for online commander. They need more acceleration and lower cost creatures and removal.
The Mimeoplasm is a very scary commander once there are creatures in graveyards. He gets big really quickly and usually has some form of evasion or protection. He's also cheap enough and in the right colors that you will see him over and over again. Also, he's not subject to the legendary rule as long as the creature he copies isn't legendary.
Don't underestimate Zedruu. She's great at building alliances by giving away stuff you doesn't need, like extra land. And her card draw and life gain abilities can get out of hand quickly. It's not uncommon for her to let you draw 5 or more extra cards every turn.
The vows are a lot of fun. Like one guy I played with, I'd usually rather put in removal. But everyone should try them out if they have them. There's nothing like putting a vow on a really scary creature and knowing that you don't have to worry about it coming your way.
Hydra Omnivore with Grafted Exoskeleton is an instant win as long as there is one opponent without blockers.
Dangit, I hate screwing up the cards during these reviews. Martyr's Bond would be a lot rougher if it hit lands, so I'm glad that it doesn't.
I haven't had a chance to get online since these guys came out, but I'm hoping to get some play time in soon. Ideally I'm going to do a review of each of the decks as they come "out of the box" as well, then try and fix up one or two of them. They seem pretty decent already.
And I promise to give Tribute to the Wild a shot as well.
I like the deck, and I especially like the Guardian Beast combo and the use of Attrition. And I think that I may have actually watched part of that game! The big Commander gets no love, so it's good to see him beat down the way he should.
One question: You only have 20 Swamps in the deck. Did you ever find that you didn't have enough? You do have a significant amount of tutors that can find Urborg, though, so maybe it worked out all right.
Sorry was trying to be respectful to you. Your advice is much appreciative I love classic I started when ice age came out but I played 1.5 and classic. I will take ur advice and grind some block and std to slowly build a solid classic deck. U and the Hoff are awesome and has allowed me to up my game even more so Ty to u and ur clan.
I bought the Mimeoplasm deck and have been tinkering with it on the edges without changing it too much and I'm having a lot of fun with it. Out of the box it felt almost like a deck I might have built myself, ie. on a budget and meant for fun, not domination. But oddly enough its winning... whaddayaknow?
I agree with almost everyting you wrote. I played in the beta so I do know how ridiculous Riku is. So a friendly warning to everyone: Take him out the moment you see him or you may not have a second chance. No one is playing Riku to copy their Rampant Growths or Grizzly Bears. Keep this in mind.
On the other hand, my personal favorite is Damia. She fits my playstyle perfectly and I'm currently building an incredibly powerful deck around her. That deck, when truly finished, will be my pet deck.
Skullbriar, Hydra Omnivore and Command Tower are nuts. Nin with Stuffy Doll is nuts (especially when you have Caged Sun-like cards on table (tons of damage, tons of cards)). Chaos Warp and Flusterstorm are Legacy worthy cards so expect to see them at very high prices. Homeward Path is perfect, it should be an auto-include to any and all decks (other than decks that like to steal stuff of course). Tariel is fun. Soul Snare will most definitely be printed in a future normal set. Tribute to the Wild is much better than you think. Just use it and you'll also see its true value.
And these were my thoughts.
LE
PS: No biggie but you said graveyard when talking about Stranglehold whereas it should be library.
Dualpost
New videos are full screen next article
I mentioned this in the comments for the last constructed video:
Please make sure that the recording uses the entire frame. I'm not sure if the issue arose from your recording or your uploading, but there's a large black 'border' around what we're actually watching.
It makes it much more difficult to comfortably view your videos.
As the title of the comment says... Martir's bond hits non land permanets instead of non-creatures... so yes its pretty much an improved gravepact for white.
The decks remain powerful with great draws, but they often are inconsistent.
The thing about Hawkward and Tempered Steel decks in general is that they just don't work very well if you're not dropping your Tempered Steel. Memnite, Ornithopter, Vault Skirge and Signal Pest are all pretty dependent on the Tempered Steel, so if it gets countered or you never draw it you're sort of SOL with that deck. Steel Overseer might help, but he's pretty slow and vulnerable. If there were a reliable way to tutor up the Tempered Steel it would be a lot better.
"Of course, part of this comes from the sacredness of mana online."
The problem we have in dealing with green big mana decks is that land destruction is either spot removal for dealing with single troubling lands (which no deck running Valakut or one of the broken Urza's lands has any right to complain about) or it's a global Armageddon style effect which ruins everyone's afternoon.
On the subject of Tutors, the Classic card pool simply has to many of them and they are too damn efficient. I don't mind tutoring, but I think they have done a much better job in the "Modern" era of designing them to be fun and fair, either by limiting their efficacy (targeted tutoring for specific card types or cmc like transmute) or drawbacks like higher mana costs. Cards like the Visions cycle of tutors or Demonic Tutor are simply tooo efficient.
It's WU (U is the second one here) and then UB (U is the first one this time). This is true for every color. So UB and then BR. RG and then GW but not WG (W was the first letter in the WU combination, so it's the second letter in the GW one).
For 3 allied color combinations (such as Esper), you write WUB (U being the center color with its two allies). It's not BUW however! When you come to G, which is the last letter in the WUBRG combination, you put it into the middle and end up with RGW.
In case of wedge colors, you first put the two allied colors next to each other; in Numot's case first you start with WU. Then add the enemy color at the beginning and end up with RWU. Same is true for Vorosh, Riku and Teneb.
Hope this helps.
LE
on your second point even as far back as the invasion block the order of the mana symbols has been RWU on printed cards such as Lightning Angel and continued that way on Numot, Zedruu, and Ruhan. Which is probably the way most would say it. Though that brings up another point...why is it BUG for some decks but UB for others...yet on all card with those three colors its GUB?
first of all
team america was named in refernce to the matt stone and trey parker puppt movie called team america world police, with a catchy quote of "america efff yea!"
2nd the color combination of rwu would be read in this order wur from the color pie W U b R g.
3rd of all who cares? really seriously, all the crap going on in the world and we pick at this crap about a name from a game??
Nice deck!
so uhm for about 250 bucks you could build this
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
1 Dakmor Salvage
2 Undiscovered Paradise
1 Angel of Despair
3 Bloodghast
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
2 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Breakthrough
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Careful Study
3 Dread Return
3 Nature's Claim
4 Serum Powder
Sideboard
1 Ancient Grudge
3 Firestorm
2 Ingot Chewer
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Mindbreak Trap
2 Wispmare
the problem with this deck is that the cost is a one trick ponie. You will never use the expensive cards in any other classic decks.
for about 350 you could build rwb fish
500-600 gets you gw, rg fish,
600-700 gets you shop decks
900-1000 gets you blue fish decks
1000-1100 gets you otah and jace decks as well as led decks.
I guess the question you have to ask yourself is,"is it worth the initial cost to buy an archtype, and if it is, is it worth selling large chunks of your collection to fund it. If you have the disposable income im all for it, classic is great. if you want to grind your way to profit your better off in std or block and buying pieces slowly as you prize. even if we fired every event, you would have to be therefor all 8 or 9 and have to money at least half per week. std and block are better to grind as there are like 6 events a day.
hope that helps. and mr penguin was my dad, please call me whiff or george <3
I love your videos Mr Penguin and i was wondering if their is a few decks that can compete in classic that doesn't cost a fortune to play. I love classic but i shy away from it because of the cost of the power cards, i really loved your red deck a couple weeks ago with magus but Tarmo is not very cheap creature.
I'd just like to say that I find censorship repulsive with the exception of communities explicitly designed for children. I also think it's a slap in the face of anyone who thinks the 4th is largely about celebrating people that have made the ultimate scarifice with their lives so that the rest of us don't have to sacrifice our freedom to live in a community of integrity. Creating censored community space is just much worse than not creating any at all.
Blue lowers variance through card draw and does a pretty good job of keeping stuff off the board with good counter magic. Plus, Vendilion Clique is a good general to get 21 damage with because of His ETB ability. Not to mention the infinite instant win combos blue has, Such as Vendilion Clique + Tunnel Vision...