All got started during some war when Americans throwed bombs at Europe and Japan. 60 years later we got some cool game named Magic: The Gathering. Then later Team America was build, the Deck which bombs all land ( with Wasteland and Sinhole ).
Also a little quote
"The history behind the creation of this deck is quite interesting, as it sort of started out as a joke deck of Dave Gearhart's, referred to as "Europe". It was blue and black only, played confidants and stalkers as the only creatures, combined with the same LD package as Team America. Also, it played 4 maindeck extirpates and no removal. To say the least it was pretty bad (although pretty fun to play). The name was a reference to the vast differences between European and American legacy meta games, and was a homage to alot of cards that rarely see play in America."
Except that I find the infinitently recursive Black decks that can tutor like crazy just as irritating as the "usual" blue decks. Blue is probably a little more fair due to not having access to the quality of removal that black does.
Personally, I think green is the best color in EDH. Green decks are often the fastest to the kill and create a hard to overcome advantage. Of course, part of this comes from the sacredness of mana online. I've played a few games with hokori as general (with a warning in the description), and Azusa rolled over and died when I faced her. But Omnath and Azusa and even Kamahl are some of the strongest generals. I've played Azusa a few times, and one game I killed two players on turn 4. The last player wrathed on his turn, and I still killed him. It's games like that one that convinced me to stop playing Azusa. Getting all that mana is a lot of fun, but it's not worth ruining other people's day. Another strong deck I've played is RG Wort, which is mostly green and kills pretty consistently (and one I also don't play anymore).
All that said, UBG, UG, and BG are the strongest color combinations. Green needs card draw, tutors, and creature kill, which those colors supply. With coffers, black can make almost as much mana as green, and green is great at getting coffers and urborg into play.
You say blue is more powerful, but I'd actually rather play against a mono blue deck instead of a mono black deck. I think it's because there are so many black tutors that almost all decks wind up playing the same. Even with very different builds you wind up seeing the same handful of cards all the time. Although that's a problem with all the tutors. They cut down on the variability and you feel like you are just playing the same game over and over. Black is just the worst culprit.
Also, I think there is a bug with Springjack Pasture. It's colorless and doesn't have any colored mana symbols so it should fit in any deck. It mentions white, but I couldn't even play it in my white/red deck.
Lion's Eye Diamond is also used in Legacy decks using Tendrils of Agony and Ill Gotten Gains. It has also been used with Auriock Salvagers, but that combo is not that viable anymore.
That is not the list(s) I play. All My lists always use Firestorm in the sb for Jailers/Fish and uncounterable discard outlet. While another distinction is my use of Sun Titan as DReturn target(something Koby has tested and made me switch over to)
I missed the comments before they were deleted, so I'm a little in the dark here. For the record, I didn't actually name the deck, but instead stole the name from the person who placed with it in a paper event.
Dunkle sort of hit the nail on the head in regards to naming it.
When people get offended about deck names, I just laugh.
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Team America named to poke fun at Americans? I suppose I should be outraged that a deck was named to make fun of my country.
I called the deck PatriotBlade because the originator chose that name and because I wanted to show pride in my country. If people want to call it Landstill or UWR Blade or BlackGreenlessBlade I could care less.
believe it or not you may have just saved yourself some work - I was going to private message you with a plea for help - I've been going through my paper collection and was going to off-load some cards that have become valuable since back in the day when I began playing (mid-90s). I know duals and force and all that by myself even with something like a 5-10 year hiatus - my questions were going to be about "which common deck types use Lion's Eye Diamond? Just dredge because I'll don't plan on playing that as I don't have the Bazaars" [I've tried using Google, article archives here, etc. but was hoping you'd be willing to take a few questions more 'interactively'] - now I'll just look over these first to get an idea ...
Yea it is hard for me to record vidoes with sound because of what you mentioned. I have 3 young boys who are constantly making tons of noise in and out of the house lol. I also need to find a mic if I am going to record audio. Is there an easy way to just plug in music background into the vids?
I haven't tried the UW version yet, but I would imagine it to be as powerful if not more so. Splashing red does give you access to Grim Lavamancer which can be pretty important as well as Lightning Bolt, although this original list didn't run them.
If you are going to play the UW version I'd try to sneak in 3 Cliques and see how that test out, the interaction with Karakas is nuts.
As far as the sword of the meek goes, I wouldn't be the best person to comment on that because personally I can't stand countertop builds and have never really played with the Meek combo either. I'm sure you could pull it off, but to be honest, with the stoneforge toolbox in a controlling shell, I'm not sure it is even necessary.
you being pretty much a control player would probably like the UW version much more than say the esper version or the UWR version.
Hit me up in game if you want to test a few games.
Great Resource for Newcomers to the Format. Subscribing to your youtube channel I watched most of the video's in advance of the article series coming up and I really like the content and the style of delivery. The MTGO deckeditor is a great tool for discussing magic decks as cards can be found and decks swapped over effortlessly - I am impressed with the folder of organsied decks that you have generated both in terms of organisation and in terms of depth. I like the intro sequence to say what you are all about and it is good advertisement for the sponsor too. I dont know if this is possible but I would have loved a download link to each of the decks in MTGO/.txt format so that I could load up interesting decks that you present in my own client and be able to disect them, build them or playtest them for myself some of the builds you showed seemed very innovative. What this article does is dispels the myths that Classic is 1)Stale 2) confined to only 4 decks 3) that Christmas Beatz is a real and viable deck.
I have submitted a Gush/Storm decklist for MMOGG's Player Run Classic League - www.classicquarter.com for more info. So I would be very interested to see the Penguin pilot the trickiness of Gush and especially like to see the Shop matchup which preboard is brutal.
- Nice job sir a good resource for newcomers to the format which will stay relevant for months ahead.
Hammer
Not that YOU guys are stale, but rather the subject matter as it pretains to events and Play.
Text interview would be easier for non-native speakers(like xkorpio for example). Not that you should not talk about Classic, but there isn't a lot of Classic relevant topic discussion in terms of Match ups, Sideboarding, Lines of play, Card choices and sample hand keeps against different archetypes. Something that relates directly to tournament play, which with the lack of events would give a lot of room for open debate and garner more comments/views.
I agree with everything and with some comments from other readers.
'wait patiently and draft....' that's exactly what I have been doing for years. (well except for the 'patiently bit' ) I won't spend a dime on this game until at least the majority of the sensible features presented here are working. May it means I have to wait till V6. Meanwhile I'll play better online games for fun and draft a bit to get my magic fix.
ahhh ok that makes sense. The only other reference was from pauper decks getting called team america. Lightning angel makes perfect sense. Numot came out in Planar Chaos so no one had a name for it other than Captain America. I'm betting no other deck made top 8 afterwards using RWU cards. Since only cards I can think of are Numot, Lightning angel and that enchantment (split card from dissension kinda counts I guess). Well new commander is RWU too now. So, Lightning angel made the wedge's name. It fits that image of kicking arse fast and vigilant. Got it.
I feel there is absolutely nothing wrong with someone naming their decks Team America. Please just don't call every other deck played by others Team America because they use white red and blue. That's just egotistical. I never said I had a problem with his name schemes.
So back to the original question can anyone answer my question? Not just haphazard guesses. I'm seriously curious. Because I absolutely do not get the logic how American own the wedge colour now. Why does no one call it Numot wedge colour? Should we have a block named Team America etc because RWU is somehow intrinsically American? Should every Boros deck be called Team Canada or Team Japan? Probably not. How about mono green being called Team Libya.
I don't think I'm the one being offended since I didn't start swearing to a stranger on the internet. I think you need help from having a tantrum for non American asking why RWU is so strictly American. I just want a simple answer how RWU became trademarked by a country. I guess some time along the development of magic, RWU was annexed by a country O.O You don't see other countries claiming colours to be somehow brand of their own. I just want to know. My guess this was due to the fact that first RWU played in a tourney was called Team America. But was that before Numot came out? Does anyone know?
Yo protocol 7, it's not Team America it's Captain America. Team America is BUG Aggro-Control Rock. UWR got the Captain America during Invasion Block, when some deck was running 4 Lightning Angel. If I remember right the deck was build by americans and they called it Captain America. Since then UWR references to America.
I played in the planeswalker event and managed to 4-0 with 1 basic pack of cards, you can make a decent elves deck out of that which usually kills on turn 4 or 5, especially since most people were playing green and your elvish got forest walk most of the time, i am not really sure why the format exists but that is another topic. What i found strange is that people kept saying we gotta get 3 packs of planeshift if we go 4-0, and then after the event was over they had a special chat room to request your packs and you got them right then which was very cool, and alot of people requested planeshift, i tried to tell them that they were delusional, but no one listened, now i see where they got the info. I realize that you are just pulling the information off what the site says, but there is no chance planeshift packs are the most valuable, first of all ipa drafts payout pa, ipa, ipaa, so there is never anyone sitting around needing a planescape pack, second of all the packs arent crackable like me1 because they have no money cards to speak of, the best cards are in apo. No one i can find will buy planeshift for anywhere near that, most bots wont take it at all, the upside is that a few well placed classified ads netted me 6 draft sets of ipa after piecing them together. the only correct things to take in circumstances like this is me1 if your going to crack the packs or ipa as a draft set, which when the drafts are firing sells in the low to mid 20's. Just my two cents, the articles are great though and extremely informative, i know they have to be very time consuming so thanks for what you do, i read them every week.
nifty deck even if it was gimped out. I think this was your first video? but if you do more in the future maybe some commentary? I generally hate watching replays but sometimes people with kids cant record live, music or commenting on the replays would at least help a little.
and even if your not american, every country has patriots, and most carry blades.....
The only thing more idiotic than most deck names is caring about them.
UWR decks have also been named Star Spangled Slaughter and This Girl (Flores blah).
So,how did Team America got it' name?
All got started during some war when Americans throwed bombs at Europe and Japan. 60 years later we got some cool game named Magic: The Gathering. Then later Team America was build, the Deck which bombs all land ( with Wasteland and Sinhole ).
Also a little quote
"The history behind the creation of this deck is quite interesting, as it sort of started out as a joke deck of Dave Gearhart's, referred to as "Europe". It was blue and black only, played confidants and stalkers as the only creatures, combined with the same LD package as Team America. Also, it played 4 maindeck extirpates and no removal. To say the least it was pretty bad (although pretty fun to play). The name was a reference to the vast differences between European and American legacy meta games, and was a homage to alot of cards that rarely see play in America."
Except that I find the infinitently recursive Black decks that can tutor like crazy just as irritating as the "usual" blue decks. Blue is probably a little more fair due to not having access to the quality of removal that black does.
I use CamStudio, maybe I can hit you up in Clan chat to discuss later.
Personally, I think green is the best color in EDH. Green decks are often the fastest to the kill and create a hard to overcome advantage. Of course, part of this comes from the sacredness of mana online. I've played a few games with hokori as general (with a warning in the description), and Azusa rolled over and died when I faced her. But Omnath and Azusa and even Kamahl are some of the strongest generals. I've played Azusa a few times, and one game I killed two players on turn 4. The last player wrathed on his turn, and I still killed him. It's games like that one that convinced me to stop playing Azusa. Getting all that mana is a lot of fun, but it's not worth ruining other people's day. Another strong deck I've played is RG Wort, which is mostly green and kills pretty consistently (and one I also don't play anymore).
All that said, UBG, UG, and BG are the strongest color combinations. Green needs card draw, tutors, and creature kill, which those colors supply. With coffers, black can make almost as much mana as green, and green is great at getting coffers and urborg into play.
Great article as always!
You say blue is more powerful, but I'd actually rather play against a mono blue deck instead of a mono black deck. I think it's because there are so many black tutors that almost all decks wind up playing the same. Even with very different builds you wind up seeing the same handful of cards all the time. Although that's a problem with all the tutors. They cut down on the variability and you feel like you are just playing the same game over and over. Black is just the worst culprit.
Also, I think there is a bug with Springjack Pasture. It's colorless and doesn't have any colored mana symbols so it should fit in any deck. It mentions white, but I couldn't even play it in my white/red deck.
Lion's Eye Diamond is also used in Legacy decks using Tendrils of Agony and Ill Gotten Gains. It has also been used with Auriock Salvagers, but that combo is not that viable anymore.
it depends on what program your using, but most have little tutorials on how to do exactly that.
90% of the lists or lists close to what i showed can be found and downloaded over at Classicquarter.com
Great Work, Mr.Penguin.
That is not the list(s) I play. All My lists always use Firestorm in the sb for Jailers/Fish and uncounterable discard outlet. While another distinction is my use of Sun Titan as DReturn target(something Koby has tested and made me switch over to)
I missed the comments before they were deleted, so I'm a little in the dark here. For the record, I didn't actually name the deck, but instead stole the name from the person who placed with it in a paper event.
Dunkle sort of hit the nail on the head in regards to naming it.
When people get offended about deck names, I just laugh.
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Team America named to poke fun at Americans? I suppose I should be outraged that a deck was named to make fun of my country.
I called the deck PatriotBlade because the originator chose that name and because I wanted to show pride in my country. If people want to call it Landstill or UWR Blade or BlackGreenlessBlade I could care less.
Thanks for reading!
believe it or not you may have just saved yourself some work - I was going to private message you with a plea for help - I've been going through my paper collection and was going to off-load some cards that have become valuable since back in the day when I began playing (mid-90s). I know duals and force and all that by myself even with something like a 5-10 year hiatus - my questions were going to be about "which common deck types use Lion's Eye Diamond? Just dredge because I'll don't plan on playing that as I don't have the Bazaars" [I've tried using Google, article archives here, etc. but was hoping you'd be willing to take a few questions more 'interactively'] - now I'll just look over these first to get an idea ...
Yea it is hard for me to record vidoes with sound because of what you mentioned. I have 3 young boys who are constantly making tons of noise in and out of the house lol. I also need to find a mic if I am going to record audio. Is there an easy way to just plug in music background into the vids?
I haven't tried the UW version yet, but I would imagine it to be as powerful if not more so. Splashing red does give you access to Grim Lavamancer which can be pretty important as well as Lightning Bolt, although this original list didn't run them.
If you are going to play the UW version I'd try to sneak in 3 Cliques and see how that test out, the interaction with Karakas is nuts.
As far as the sword of the meek goes, I wouldn't be the best person to comment on that because personally I can't stand countertop builds and have never really played with the Meek combo either. I'm sure you could pull it off, but to be honest, with the stoneforge toolbox in a controlling shell, I'm not sure it is even necessary.
you being pretty much a control player would probably like the UW version much more than say the esper version or the UWR version.
Hit me up in game if you want to test a few games.
Great Resource for Newcomers to the Format. Subscribing to your youtube channel I watched most of the video's in advance of the article series coming up and I really like the content and the style of delivery. The MTGO deckeditor is a great tool for discussing magic decks as cards can be found and decks swapped over effortlessly - I am impressed with the folder of organsied decks that you have generated both in terms of organisation and in terms of depth. I like the intro sequence to say what you are all about and it is good advertisement for the sponsor too. I dont know if this is possible but I would have loved a download link to each of the decks in MTGO/.txt format so that I could load up interesting decks that you present in my own client and be able to disect them, build them or playtest them for myself some of the builds you showed seemed very innovative. What this article does is dispels the myths that Classic is 1)Stale 2) confined to only 4 decks 3) that Christmas Beatz is a real and viable deck.
I have submitted a Gush/Storm decklist for MMOGG's Player Run Classic League - www.classicquarter.com for more info. So I would be very interested to see the Penguin pilot the trickiness of Gush and especially like to see the Shop matchup which preboard is brutal.
- Nice job sir a good resource for newcomers to the format which will stay relevant for months ahead.
Hammer
.
Not that YOU guys are stale, but rather the subject matter as it pretains to events and Play.
Text interview would be easier for non-native speakers(like xkorpio for example). Not that you should not talk about Classic, but there isn't a lot of Classic relevant topic discussion in terms of Match ups, Sideboarding, Lines of play, Card choices and sample hand keeps against different archetypes. Something that relates directly to tournament play, which with the lack of events would give a lot of room for open debate and garner more comments/views.
Happy 4th!
excellent article
I agree with everything and with some comments from other readers.
'wait patiently and draft....' that's exactly what I have been doing for years. (well except for the 'patiently bit' ) I won't spend a dime on this game until at least the majority of the sensible features presented here are working. May it means I have to wait till V6. Meanwhile I'll play better online games for fun and draft a bit to get my magic fix.
i deleted some comments that I felt were going to take the comment sections into a bad place. Please enjoy the article.
ahhh ok that makes sense. The only other reference was from pauper decks getting called team america. Lightning angel makes perfect sense. Numot came out in Planar Chaos so no one had a name for it other than Captain America. I'm betting no other deck made top 8 afterwards using RWU cards. Since only cards I can think of are Numot, Lightning angel and that enchantment (split card from dissension kinda counts I guess). Well new commander is RWU too now. So, Lightning angel made the wedge's name. It fits that image of kicking arse fast and vigilant. Got it.
I feel there is absolutely nothing wrong with someone naming their decks Team America. Please just don't call every other deck played by others Team America because they use white red and blue. That's just egotistical. I never said I had a problem with his name schemes.
So back to the original question can anyone answer my question? Not just haphazard guesses. I'm seriously curious. Because I absolutely do not get the logic how American own the wedge colour now. Why does no one call it Numot wedge colour? Should we have a block named Team America etc because RWU is somehow intrinsically American? Should every Boros deck be called Team Canada or Team Japan? Probably not. How about mono green being called Team Libya.
I don't think I'm the one being offended since I didn't start swearing to a stranger on the internet. I think you need help from having a tantrum for non American asking why RWU is so strictly American. I just want a simple answer how RWU became trademarked by a country. I guess some time along the development of magic, RWU was annexed by a country O.O You don't see other countries claiming colours to be somehow brand of their own. I just want to know. My guess this was due to the fact that first RWU played in a tourney was called Team America. But was that before Numot came out? Does anyone know?
Yo protocol 7, it's not Team America it's Captain America. Team America is BUG Aggro-Control Rock. UWR got the Captain America during Invasion Block, when some deck was running 4 Lightning Angel. If I remember right the deck was build by americans and they called it Captain America. Since then UWR references to America.
I played in the planeswalker event and managed to 4-0 with 1 basic pack of cards, you can make a decent elves deck out of that which usually kills on turn 4 or 5, especially since most people were playing green and your elvish got forest walk most of the time, i am not really sure why the format exists but that is another topic. What i found strange is that people kept saying we gotta get 3 packs of planeshift if we go 4-0, and then after the event was over they had a special chat room to request your packs and you got them right then which was very cool, and alot of people requested planeshift, i tried to tell them that they were delusional, but no one listened, now i see where they got the info. I realize that you are just pulling the information off what the site says, but there is no chance planeshift packs are the most valuable, first of all ipa drafts payout pa, ipa, ipaa, so there is never anyone sitting around needing a planescape pack, second of all the packs arent crackable like me1 because they have no money cards to speak of, the best cards are in apo. No one i can find will buy planeshift for anywhere near that, most bots wont take it at all, the upside is that a few well placed classified ads netted me 6 draft sets of ipa after piecing them together. the only correct things to take in circumstances like this is me1 if your going to crack the packs or ipa as a draft set, which when the drafts are firing sells in the low to mid 20's. Just my two cents, the articles are great though and extremely informative, i know they have to be very time consuming so thanks for what you do, i read them every week.
nifty deck even if it was gimped out. I think this was your first video? but if you do more in the future maybe some commentary? I generally hate watching replays but sometimes people with kids cant record live, music or commenting on the replays would at least help a little.
and even if your not american, every country has patriots, and most carry blades.....