Great article, this was the first mono-blue ive seen that looks fun to play against and not ugh. lol good job.
I don't think phyrexian mana works like that in commander. It's still a black phyrexian mana symbol which might knock it out of contention for mono blue
This was a great article, sir! I reaaly miss those days.
Suggestion: Why don't you write about other old combo legends such ProsBloom, Necro, SandiPoise, etc?
Round1G1 Oath resolved for you after the Drain war. You didn't play Oath on your 2nd mainphase for Drain mana next turn not that it mattered there but it could have and is just wrong to do so with Drains from a technical staindpoint.
Your boarding for R1G2 showed how little you had for the mirror. Oath is the 2nd most winning deck. Grudges seemed a fine choice over Crypt and Sabotage if you did not want to keep Oaths in. Game 3 you went down to 15 blue cards from 17 in game 2.
Game 3 Demonic Tutor was probably better off getting Tinker or Jace to fateseal and not die to tokens depending on if you think he has Sabotage for BSC or Claim for Oath/vault. Clearly Vault into ripping E.Tutor 3 turns later was better but hey who needs planning with sik rips?
R2G1 The anemic Blue count shows up and Annul could be better for this meta than Sabotage, not sure but seems it. Playing out the Top to find a Land and maybe get Vault in 3 turns was your best bet, probably slightly better than playing Key go.
R2G2 sideboarding out Top and Mana Vault on the play might not be optimal, although I wouldn't know what else to board out. Progenitus is also great vs Shops as they do not have the new Metamorph online and no outs in the form of Duplicant.
I thought your opening 7 game 2 was nuts on play. Fetch for Sea, Sabotage turn 1 play, untap play Vamp get Orchard to enable Grudge and play Needle on Wasteland,Worker or Kuldotha depending on what he played.The 5 card hand worked out well until he played Helm and found a Crit before you got to Reveal Grudge or draw Orchard sooner.
R3 I call Shockwave 4-0ing at 2-0.
R3G1 Gains most likely Tutored for Tezz and found FoW off Bstorm or the draw step. Jace would have been better since the Mirror will have Claims/Grudges and he was out of protection, also small chance to draw land and play around Pierce.
R3G1 would Demonic Tutor for Orchard to have the 2nd one in play and 2 Oaths have been a game winning play over Time Vault unless he had 2 Claims or 2Counters or Claim/Grudge+Counter?
R3G2 You Might have played the Demonic and Oath too early knowing Gains doesn't have Drain and your hand could beat Pierces. Why weren't you Shuffling away Emrakul with the 2nd Brainstorm?
You played the Tropical on the 2nd Brainstorm before the Brainstorm resolved missing on the chance to Shuffle away for a new draw that turn.
LOL @ the Sabotage on your own Mana Crypt, You're not playing Storm and not sure what that does for you but deplete hand
R3G3 Why Not Brainstorm EoT instead of playing Key go on play, it could have set up D.Tutor for FoW to push Thru 2 Oaths(or stop Vault+Key from Gains) and shuffle away Emrakul.
Loved this article and also what you're doing with keeping Hammie's State of the Program going!
I was away from Magic from '95-'10 (shame on me) and I really appreciate seeing with "new eyes" more of the historical aspects of the game--from the players' perspective. This article (and hopefully series) really serves that appreciation.
Best of all, you illustrate context clearly.
Thank you very much for the work and I hope you keep it going (for a long time to come)!
"3)Yes, I know. I tried different spellcheckers but there are just a lot of "false positives" in magic-related terms and I end up always missing some typos."
This is why I suggested a proofreader. The missing link is a 2nd person. It is very difficult for anyone to properly proof their own work without some help.
It is doubly important if you are writing in a language you don't innately think in, because you are bound to miss simple things that wouldn't trip up most natives. Even us native speakers miss things.
1)I'll look into that. I tried the auto-yield option but I never noticed there was an auto-yes-I-want one. Thanks for bringing this up, it could save me a lot of clicking!
2)I cannot dislike this guy too much, especially when coupled with a lifegain sub-theme. There are lots of ways to gain life in the current cardpool, so it should be not such a big liability. Furthermore, it doesn't have to be played with 4 life every time. If you see it as a possibility it's just a card that can enter as soon as turn 4 but can also be played without problems in the subsequent turns. It's just a way to optimize resource usage. If it had haste it would have been awesome!
3)Yes, I know. I tried different spellcheckers but there are just a lot of "false positives" in magic-related terms and I end up always missing some typos.
The article was fine but wording of the summary sounds very elitist. Calling all the readers "You kids" is a bit pompous. Don't get me wrong. It's always interesting to revisit old decks/mechanics, but starting out with how it was so much harder "back in the day" drives a chasm between players. I find that it's a pitfall for any gaming hobbyist to build a wall around themselves. It makes new players to get into a new hobby much harder. I would prefer to see something like "For those of you who did not play back in ****,".
would be a challenging matchup for a deck with explosive mana and insane draw, but no creature kill and fairly limited counters. Which I suppose illustrates how Magic has changed over the years.
This was a great article I haven't even watched the videos yet, but will do so tonight. I loved playing academy! Another great article would be necro and the decks designed to beat it. ie: Prison, turbostasis, and sligh.
Don't forget one of the most broken combo decks ever of that era: Replenish.
I should mention that while there was not a lot of internet buzz at the time of Academy, the idea of it was spread by internet and a lot of people (Myself included) made variants of it with varying degrees of success. That year Elaine Chase won NY States with Academy while her Husband (Keiran) took 2nd and my friend running my deck took 5th all with Mirrors of that deck.
As you said boring to sit through, the mirrors though were at least slightly interesting since the sideboarding brought in all kinds of fun stuff. For instance we ran a "techy" card called Rebound in the sideboard to change the target of the Stroke at the last moment. Elaine showed us why that wasn't such a good plan by hard countering it.
A couple comments.
1) Soul Sisters and the like should not lose you a lot of time with the Always Yes optional yield. So Suture Priest won't be any slower.
2)4 life for a 5/4 body? Great except it dies to a good deal of removal. Card disadvantage is one thing but losing life + card seems too much of a risk for maindeck. If it had haste it might be consideration worthy.
3) The Treefolk emulating beast you mentioned has 6 toughness not power. Along with various other typos you could stand to enlist a proofreader.
4) I really like the 5cmc 2/3 flier because it not only holds the skies but threatens to steal the game with a well timed combat trick and the potential enemy attackers have to worry about withering defense.
5) You talked about Glistening Elf but only alluded to the combo Shardfenix mentioned last week. The combo being turn 1 elf, turn 2 groundswell + Assault Strobe ftw (10 points of infect on turn 2.) Seems like a meta game changing combo to me. I see a turn 1 elf I am going to be looking to kill it fast quick.
6) Apostle's Blessing is another piece of said combo if you need to sideboard in a way to protect it. I was wishing Brave the Elements was around when I started tinkering with Pauper Standard but this card trumps that easily.
7) Not sure Furnace Scamp is actually play worthy in Kuldotha Red. So many great options exist already and it is as conditional as any card of it's ilk. You hope to get one through for 4 damage. If you are on the play and your op isn't running any low cost removal then maybe.
8)I like the Snake at the top. It isn't all that fast but I think that it is designed to be functionally versatile. It can be offensively good and defensively great. Caw? No. Big fat stomper? No, No, No. It almost demands removal be aimed at it. On the other hand green seems to be pretty hapless in a meta with such a huge amount of removal that Vines does not really help much.
I did treat it as a Wasteland / Strip Mine. In a couple games - games that did not make the cut - I killed lands, then "failed" to find the basic land.
Too bad there is no good proxy for Vampiric Tutor or Force of Will.
A truly busted Flash article / video sounds good. It will be GP Columbus all over again. :)
"Tap Academy, untap Academy" Rinse, repeat. I was never a competitive player back then, and for that matter, had stopped playing shortly after Exodus anyway, but I am sure glad that I didn't have to sit through that nonsense! thought Necro decks were bad, but that's just ridiculous.
Yes, I loved this. Yes, I'd like to see more of this kind: I missed too many years of Magic history between Homelands and Lorwyn. I want - better - I need to learn from the past.
Great article, this was the first mono-blue ive seen that looks fun to play against and not ugh. lol good job.
I don't think phyrexian mana works like that in commander. It's still a black phyrexian mana symbol which might knock it out of contention for mono blue
Basandra is a definite addition to my Razia deck. So many Boros commanders getting added these days.
Don't forget Taniwha!
Nothing like wiping the board with Worldslayer.
r4 is actually just r1 again anyway!
This was a great article, sir! I reaaly miss those days.
Suggestion: Why don't you write about other old combo legends such ProsBloom, Necro, SandiPoise, etc?
Keep it going MR. Jahn
Round1G1 Oath resolved for you after the Drain war. You didn't play Oath on your 2nd mainphase for Drain mana next turn not that it mattered there but it could have and is just wrong to do so with Drains from a technical staindpoint.
Your boarding for R1G2 showed how little you had for the mirror. Oath is the 2nd most winning deck. Grudges seemed a fine choice over Crypt and Sabotage if you did not want to keep Oaths in. Game 3 you went down to 15 blue cards from 17 in game 2.
Game 3 Demonic Tutor was probably better off getting Tinker or Jace to fateseal and not die to tokens depending on if you think he has Sabotage for BSC or Claim for Oath/vault. Clearly Vault into ripping E.Tutor 3 turns later was better but hey who needs planning with sik rips?
R2G1 The anemic Blue count shows up and Annul could be better for this meta than Sabotage, not sure but seems it. Playing out the Top to find a Land and maybe get Vault in 3 turns was your best bet, probably slightly better than playing Key go.
R2G2 sideboarding out Top and Mana Vault on the play might not be optimal, although I wouldn't know what else to board out. Progenitus is also great vs Shops as they do not have the new Metamorph online and no outs in the form of Duplicant.
I thought your opening 7 game 2 was nuts on play. Fetch for Sea, Sabotage turn 1 play, untap play Vamp get Orchard to enable Grudge and play Needle on Wasteland,Worker or Kuldotha depending on what he played.The 5 card hand worked out well until he played Helm and found a Crit before you got to Reveal Grudge or draw Orchard sooner.
R3 I call Shockwave 4-0ing at 2-0.
R3G1 Gains most likely Tutored for Tezz and found FoW off Bstorm or the draw step. Jace would have been better since the Mirror will have Claims/Grudges and he was out of protection, also small chance to draw land and play around Pierce.
R3G1 would Demonic Tutor for Orchard to have the 2nd one in play and 2 Oaths have been a game winning play over Time Vault unless he had 2 Claims or 2Counters or Claim/Grudge+Counter?
R3G2 You Might have played the Demonic and Oath too early knowing Gains doesn't have Drain and your hand could beat Pierces. Why weren't you Shuffling away Emrakul with the 2nd Brainstorm?
You played the Tropical on the 2nd Brainstorm before the Brainstorm resolved missing on the chance to Shuffle away for a new draw that turn.
LOL @ the Sabotage on your own Mana Crypt, You're not playing Storm and not sure what that does for you but deplete hand
R3G3 Why Not Brainstorm EoT instead of playing Key go on play, it could have set up D.Tutor for FoW to push Thru 2 Oaths(or stop Vault+Key from Gains) and shuffle away Emrakul.
R4 didn't watch it.
that would make sense. The summary from the main page was so different in tone from the main article. I will forward my comment to the editor.
Loved this article and also what you're doing with keeping Hammie's State of the Program going!
I was away from Magic from '95-'10 (shame on me) and I really appreciate seeing with "new eyes" more of the historical aspects of the game--from the players' perspective. This article (and hopefully series) really serves that appreciation.
Best of all, you illustrate context clearly.
Thank you very much for the work and I hope you keep it going (for a long time to come)!
"3)Yes, I know. I tried different spellcheckers but there are just a lot of "false positives" in magic-related terms and I end up always missing some typos."
This is why I suggested a proofreader. The missing link is a 2nd person. It is very difficult for anyone to properly proof their own work without some help.
It is doubly important if you are writing in a language you don't innately think in, because you are bound to miss simple things that wouldn't trip up most natives. Even us native speakers miss things.
Thanks for the feedback! :-)
1)I'll look into that. I tried the auto-yield option but I never noticed there was an auto-yes-I-want one. Thanks for bringing this up, it could save me a lot of clicking!
2)I cannot dislike this guy too much, especially when coupled with a lifegain sub-theme. There are lots of ways to gain life in the current cardpool, so it should be not such a big liability. Furthermore, it doesn't have to be played with 4 life every time. If you see it as a possibility it's just a card that can enter as soon as turn 4 but can also be played without problems in the subsequent turns. It's just a way to optimize resource usage. If it had haste it would have been awesome!
3)Yes, I know. I tried different spellcheckers but there are just a lot of "false positives" in magic-related terms and I end up always missing some typos.
I second the other comments. :-)
I think comment that appears on main page is added by editor. I never noticed PRJ using such lexicon.
I ran Suicide back then and I did well -overall- but unless I had busted draws it lost to pretty much anything against a competent opponent.
The article was fine but wording of the summary sounds very elitist. Calling all the readers "You kids" is a bit pompous. Don't get me wrong. It's always interesting to revisit old decks/mechanics, but starting out with how it was so much harder "back in the day" drives a chasm between players. I find that it's a pitfall for any gaming hobbyist to build a wall around themselves. It makes new players to get into a new hobby much harder. I would prefer to see something like "For those of you who did not play back in ****,".
Something like
24 U/W lands
4x Phyrexian revoker,
4x Leonin Arbiter
4x Leonin Relic-warder
4x Cosi's trickster
4x Surrakar Spellblade
4x Negate
4x Unified Will
4x Mindbreak trap
4x ratchet bomb
would be a challenging matchup for a deck with explosive mana and insane draw, but no creature kill and fairly limited counters. Which I suppose illustrates how Magic has changed over the years.
This was a great article I haven't even watched the videos yet, but will do so tonight. I loved playing academy! Another great article would be necro and the decks designed to beat it. ie: Prison, turbostasis, and sligh.
The fun old days of Replenish, Yawgmoths Bargain, and Tolaran Academy..
Don't forget one of the most broken combo decks ever of that era: Replenish.
I should mention that while there was not a lot of internet buzz at the time of Academy, the idea of it was spread by internet and a lot of people (Myself included) made variants of it with varying degrees of success. That year Elaine Chase won NY States with Academy while her Husband (Keiran) took 2nd and my friend running my deck took 5th all with Mirrors of that deck.
As you said boring to sit through, the mirrors though were at least slightly interesting since the sideboarding brought in all kinds of fun stuff. For instance we ran a "techy" card called Rebound in the sideboard to change the target of the Stroke at the last moment. Elaine showed us why that wasn't such a good plan by hard countering it.
Hey Whiffy, again I fixed your stretched photo to fit (cut it into a 64x64 square and scaled it.)
It's here if you want it: http://outofthebrokensky.com/mtgo/whiffy285x85.jpg
A couple comments.
1) Soul Sisters and the like should not lose you a lot of time with the Always Yes optional yield. So Suture Priest won't be any slower.
2)4 life for a 5/4 body? Great except it dies to a good deal of removal. Card disadvantage is one thing but losing life + card seems too much of a risk for maindeck. If it had haste it might be consideration worthy.
3) The Treefolk emulating beast you mentioned has 6 toughness not power. Along with various other typos you could stand to enlist a proofreader.
4) I really like the 5cmc 2/3 flier because it not only holds the skies but threatens to steal the game with a well timed combat trick and the potential enemy attackers have to worry about withering defense.
5) You talked about Glistening Elf but only alluded to the combo Shardfenix mentioned last week. The combo being turn 1 elf, turn 2 groundswell + Assault Strobe ftw (10 points of infect on turn 2.) Seems like a meta game changing combo to me. I see a turn 1 elf I am going to be looking to kill it fast quick.
6) Apostle's Blessing is another piece of said combo if you need to sideboard in a way to protect it. I was wishing Brave the Elements was around when I started tinkering with Pauper Standard but this card trumps that easily.
7) Not sure Furnace Scamp is actually play worthy in Kuldotha Red. So many great options exist already and it is as conditional as any card of it's ilk. You hope to get one through for 4 damage. If you are on the play and your op isn't running any low cost removal then maybe.
8)I like the Snake at the top. It isn't all that fast but I think that it is designed to be functionally versatile. It can be offensively good and defensively great. Caw? No. Big fat stomper? No, No, No. It almost demands removal be aimed at it. On the other hand green seems to be pretty hapless in a meta with such a huge amount of removal that Vines does not really help much.
Dredge
Most Shop builds
4c Fish
GW Hate
Bant
BRW Vial Fish
Are there any competitive decks in classic that dont run time vault/voltaic key?
Good vids.
Btw needle doesn't work against metalworker, mana ability.
I did treat it as a Wasteland / Strip Mine. In a couple games - games that did not make the cut - I killed lands, then "failed" to find the basic land.
Too bad there is no good proxy for Vampiric Tutor or Force of Will.
A truly busted Flash article / video sounds good. It will be GP Columbus all over again. :)
"Tap Academy, untap Academy" Rinse, repeat. I was never a competitive player back then, and for that matter, had stopped playing shortly after Exodus anyway, but I am sure glad that I didn't have to sit through that nonsense! thought Necro decks were bad, but that's just ridiculous.
Yes, I loved this. Yes, I'd like to see more of this kind: I missed too many years of Magic history between Homelands and Lorwyn. I want - better - I need to learn from the past.