I agree with your assessment that the signaling is not favorable at all - there's waaaaay too many good black cards in the pack. However, it is a small perk that if you pick the Zenith, the person to your left is assuredly picking Rebirth, then the person two seats down may want a Corrupter if they are forcing poison or have green bombs (though I admit the Corrupter vs GftT pick while wanting to force infect is difficult).
As for the game play values of Rebirth and BSZ, I usually find BSZ to just be better. Rebirth's pluses are that it kills everything (sans Darksteel men) and puts a variable (but usually sizeable) artifact creature into play. But, the Horror is extremely vulnerable to the most common types of removal in the block, which allows your opponent to recover off of something like an Oxidda Scrapmelter sometimes. Another hidden downside is that it is white, which isn't a spectacular color in terms of how many options it has and the relative strength of its un/commons in comparison to other colors.
BSZ actually kills everything (Darksteel men included), but can also be used as more than just a wrath effect, since you can make your own guys smaller while killing theirs to push through a little extra damage. In addition, BSZ can be used multiple times per game if you have enough luck or the game drags on, which is HUGE. Those two things alone make it better than Rebirth, in my eyes. But BSZ is also black, which has tons of support in other colors (only not pairing well with white) as well as just generally stronger cards than white in both MBS and SOM, since I find metalcraft to be less of a factor than it was in triple SOM.
In the end, I can't fault you for either pick, since you're in a great position either way. I just believe that fighting over black or trying to cut it from the players to your left after taking BSZ is a little better than willingly going into white for a comparable Wrath. Because even though the two bombs may be roughly equal, the cards in each of their respective colors that make up the rest of your deck are not, and black generally edges out white in terms of power, even if you expose yourself to getting only a bit of black pack two after passing GftT.
(Also, financial value of cards did not come into play here, since I keep every card I get to redeem complete sets. It would be different if I were more interested in selling everything I draft, but I prefer collecting sets online. )
THats understandable, but plenty of others enjoy casual. Im sure if people wanted to write competitive articles here they would. It's not like Josh is against publishing competitive articles, quite the opposite actually. But he publishes what he gets submmitted. If you enjoy the competitive articles on here support them, the authors might write more. Saying that the casual articles are pointless though is just ignorant seeing how many people enjoy them. Not everyone is a spike. And not everyone wants the competitive. THough again there are plenty of competitive sites out there if you are feeling slighted.
Sadly, my microphone broke recently, and I haven't yet purchased a new one. I'm also not 100% confident in my ability to do entertaining commentary all throughout the game, but I don't mind giving it a shot whenever I pick up a new mic.
Casual content is not as appealing as competitive content. I do enjoy the articles on those other sites. I can't enjoy similar content here as well? I'm not looking to start writing any articles, but I think as a regular reader here I'm entitled to share my thoughts on the issue.
Enjoyed this. I wonder if the very first pick does warrant a bit more discussion though? I guess the financial value of a foil BSZ is much higher, which *may have* influenced your pick, but I'm pretty sure I would have picked the rebirth every time (were it not for any financial value of BSZ).
If you first-pick rebirth, you can safely say that the next picks are likely to go BSZ(B), GFTT(B), Viridian Corruptor (G), Fangren Marauder(G), Skinwing (colourless) - roughly [I would certainly expect these to be the next 5 cards to go, although admittedly not neccesarily in this exact order, corruptor might go before gftt]. There are literally no blue or red cards in the pack, and two of the artifacts are infect (or best in infect), suggesting Black and/or Green.
You're essentially sending 4 players to your right very strong signals that they want to jump into green or black, all while getting a wrath which is very comparable to BSZ? I'm not even convinced that BSZ is better than rebirth in the first place, tbh.
Anyway, interesting article. It's pretty rare to encounter a pick as interesting as your P1P1, in my experience, so it's useful to discuss!
Excellent job sir and welcome to the dark side. Glad to see you playing and writing about Legacy and I can't wait to see your tournament analysis and who better to do it than you!
I have another midrange deck you should try. I absolutely love it, have been dominating 2mans to a 19-4 record and just 4-0'd a daily event with it. If I ever get motivated, I might write an article on it.
And don't give up on New Horizons so easily, it's another favorite of mine and it takes awhile to figure out that deck. You really want to drop your Terravore late in the game and only when you can protect it. In the end, tarmo really can't hang with Terra and the Knight.
Next Level Thresh - This seems right up your ally.
Lands (21)
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Flooded Strand
4 Wasteland
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
2 Island
1 Mountain
Creatures (11)
3 Grim Lavamancer
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Trinket Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
Other Spells (28)
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Fire/Ice
2 Ponder
4 Stifle
1 Basilik Collar
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Spell Snare
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Sideboard (15)
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Krosan Grip
3 Tormod's Crypt
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Spell Pierce
1 Creeping Corrosion
2 Firespout
I'll write an article about the thrills and adventures of writing a 20 page paper on Russian Military Reform after the fall of communism and how it sucks the joy out of everything around you till youre lifeless husk just looking forward to the next time you can sleep. Sounds about as entertaining as the tournament reports everyone is clamoring for.
I still dont understand why you have an issue that there is a site that features casual content. You have already listed great sites for competitive magic. Go enjoy those. Or you know quit complaining and write the type of articles you wish to read. Maybe others will follow.
I think, you can teach old dogs new tricks...but will she remember them in the morning? Also give a dog a bone and he forgets everything else. I agree with most of your commentary here. Where are your articles Shard? Finish school already and do some more writing darnit.
It doesn't have to. If casual articles keep getting published, writers will keep submitting them. If you crack down on publishing them, people won't send them in anymore. There is a reason SCG and CFB have such great website traffic. It's because their tournament quality articles appeal to a bigger audience than the Faerie-Elf tribal ones we keep reading about on here.
(Obviously there are other reasons they generate great traffic but I think the point still stands.)
When i am looking for competetive top flight strategy and deck building articles i usually go to the places where i can read the opinions and thoughts of the best players in the world, channelfireball and starcity both have tons of that content. But at the same time you will never read a article about kalidoscope, or some of these PRE formats, that you will find here. The audiences are different, it seems like to me that you must know that that is not the typical type of content on this site. As i understand it this site operates like an open site where anyone can write an article and submit it to be published, these people who take the time to write the articles are doing so to meet a certain niche that isnt filled on some of the other sites, and the people who read those articles appreciate this fact, so to complain about the budget nature of the decks and the lack of competeiveness seems ridiculous, if you want to read about legacy you can go read some of alexander sheers work or any number of other top flight players, but none of those people are going to write about $20 legacy decks. Like i said i would never play these decks either but to try and denegrate it, as if the person who is playing with a $20 deck isnt competetive is wrong, they can be just as competetive as the person with the $2000 legacy deck, but if you cant afford a 2k deck then you just cant. And frankly anyone who plays in the tourney practice room and complains about the decks is kidding themselves, every competetive player i know that is playing a top flight deck takes it to the two man ques(2 tickets). Everyone has a different idea of tourney practice and casual, maybe the person just wants to get better, to play against the better decks, to learn how the decks play out, to learn how not to make mistakes so that when they get a more competitive deck they arent starting from scratch. If LSV wrote this article then you could feel free to flame him, but if an amatuer writes an article on a heavily casual site and you arent interested you should either pass on it, or provide some kind of encourgement and constructive advice so that he can improve and come back stronger. That is of course just my opinion.
meh competitive content has plenty of sites already. So having a site that skews casually is actually pretty fantastic. Sadin has killed 98% of any casual content on SCG.com so thats dead. The BoaB and FtL articles on the main site are hit or miss and rarely discuss any of the formats on here. As far as people wanting to improve? I dont really have a reason to improve. I have no desires to ever get into competitive play, and I like the people I play with now. Its like an online playgroup. I mean ive played for 17 years now...you cant teach an old dogs new tricks. ut the casual article s are fun and enjoyable. If you want more tournament reports, write them. Otherwise I guess your complaints dont matter that much if you arent willing to offer solutions such as the articles you so want to see
So because people don't come to Pure to read competitive articles means that we should just settle for casual ones?
You see, to me, that is one of the problems with this site. There is so much casual stuff that when we do get a writer willing to put competitive articles up it either doesn't get the views or the comments and that writer seems to go somewhere else to write.
Isn't the point of this game to have fun and while having fun improve our skill level at magic?
So shouldn't we also expect the same from the writers on this site?
Shouldn't we expect them put their best foot forward each time they hit the submit button? And I'm not talking about this article, because for a first one I thought it was pretty good, except for the points I previously made.
As readers, don't we want great content? Again, not necessarily talking about this article, but many comments have been made on other articles in the past regarding this subject.
As readers, if we aren't vocal about what we want then we should just expect to keep getting what we get.
I said in one of my comments that I hope he continues to write about the subject, not because I want to play casual Legacy or read about casual Legacy, but because I hope the more he writes, the more passionate he will be about Legacy thus increasing the Legacy content here, which will hopefully lead to more competitive Legacy players.
When I write an article here, I expect to receive criticism either positive or negative. You see, the criticism he received was warranted when he hit the submit button.
I think pure needs more competitive content.
I think as readers we should want it and expect it.
i normally just read the boards without responding, but i think alot of the complaints on this article are flimsy at best. I am a pretty successful player on mtgo and i dont come to puremtgo for really high level competetive articles, thats not to say that there arent some of those now and again, but anyone could tell from the start this article was not one of those. i dont play casual magic, however i enjoy reading about the various formats and will probably play some at some point. I wouldnt play the discussed deck because I am at the point where i no longer like playing decks that arent competitive in tournements, but everyone started somewhere and most people didnt start playing with an unlimited budget and 4 fow's. If the article isnt for you move on, why waste time complaining about free content without offering anything of value. Their were some things the writer could improve on, but most of this criticism was not constructed or warrented.
Don't confuse "Running good" for "Being good" here though - you won't see too many more 4th-pick Arc Trails, or get away with throwing away your P2P1.
A good draft though, you definitely identified what colors you should be in right away, and your reasoning made sense on the whole. Try not to be results-oriented.
I've been quite impressed with Piston Sledge, but at the time of this draft I hadn't had much experience playing with it, whereas I was much more comfortable with the known quantity of Blisterstick Shaman. But yes, I agree and I should've picked up the Sledge there.
You probably should have picked piston sledge. Not only is it much better than blisterstick shaman, you had just picked up the spine of ish sah and that thing can be sick if you have ways to recur it.
Now that triple UD drafts are running, I have to say this article was very preliminary. In my experience, red can be pretty strong, especially as near mono-red. The 3/3 ogre for 3 is strong, and burn is important to deal with enchanted creatures. I had a bit of bad luck playing UDx3; lots of bombs on the other side, such as Ancient Silverback, Masticore, Treachery, Master Healer. In one particularly painful game, I was playing U/W against mono red, and had stabilized at 13 life and was beginning to turn the game around, when I took 13 direct damage in one turn from scent of cinder, reckless charge (the 4 damage/sac for 1 red), and a fireblast variant doing 1 damage per mountain sacrificed. Given the relatively low value of this set, I think I've taken it on the chin enough to call it quits for triple UD.
I agree with your assessment that the signaling is not favorable at all - there's waaaaay too many good black cards in the pack. However, it is a small perk that if you pick the Zenith, the person to your left is assuredly picking Rebirth, then the person two seats down may want a Corrupter if they are forcing poison or have green bombs (though I admit the Corrupter vs GftT pick while wanting to force infect is difficult).
As for the game play values of Rebirth and BSZ, I usually find BSZ to just be better. Rebirth's pluses are that it kills everything (sans Darksteel men) and puts a variable (but usually sizeable) artifact creature into play. But, the Horror is extremely vulnerable to the most common types of removal in the block, which allows your opponent to recover off of something like an Oxidda Scrapmelter sometimes. Another hidden downside is that it is white, which isn't a spectacular color in terms of how many options it has and the relative strength of its un/commons in comparison to other colors.
BSZ actually kills everything (Darksteel men included), but can also be used as more than just a wrath effect, since you can make your own guys smaller while killing theirs to push through a little extra damage. In addition, BSZ can be used multiple times per game if you have enough luck or the game drags on, which is HUGE. Those two things alone make it better than Rebirth, in my eyes. But BSZ is also black, which has tons of support in other colors (only not pairing well with white) as well as just generally stronger cards than white in both MBS and SOM, since I find metalcraft to be less of a factor than it was in triple SOM.
In the end, I can't fault you for either pick, since you're in a great position either way. I just believe that fighting over black or trying to cut it from the players to your left after taking BSZ is a little better than willingly going into white for a comparable Wrath. Because even though the two bombs may be roughly equal, the cards in each of their respective colors that make up the rest of your deck are not, and black generally edges out white in terms of power, even if you expose yourself to getting only a bit of black pack two after passing GftT.
(Also, financial value of cards did not come into play here, since I keep every card I get to redeem complete sets. It would be different if I were more interested in selling everything I draft, but I prefer collecting sets online. )
THats understandable, but plenty of others enjoy casual. Im sure if people wanted to write competitive articles here they would. It's not like Josh is against publishing competitive articles, quite the opposite actually. But he publishes what he gets submmitted. If you enjoy the competitive articles on here support them, the authors might write more. Saying that the casual articles are pointless though is just ignorant seeing how many people enjoy them. Not everyone is a spike. And not everyone wants the competitive. THough again there are plenty of competitive sites out there if you are feeling slighted.
Sadly, my microphone broke recently, and I haven't yet purchased a new one. I'm also not 100% confident in my ability to do entertaining commentary all throughout the game, but I don't mind giving it a shot whenever I pick up a new mic.
Casual content is not as appealing as competitive content. I do enjoy the articles on those other sites. I can't enjoy similar content here as well? I'm not looking to start writing any articles, but I think as a regular reader here I'm entitled to share my thoughts on the issue.
Enjoyed this. I wonder if the very first pick does warrant a bit more discussion though? I guess the financial value of a foil BSZ is much higher, which *may have* influenced your pick, but I'm pretty sure I would have picked the rebirth every time (were it not for any financial value of BSZ).
If you first-pick rebirth, you can safely say that the next picks are likely to go BSZ(B), GFTT(B), Viridian Corruptor (G), Fangren Marauder(G), Skinwing (colourless) - roughly [I would certainly expect these to be the next 5 cards to go, although admittedly not neccesarily in this exact order, corruptor might go before gftt]. There are literally no blue or red cards in the pack, and two of the artifacts are infect (or best in infect), suggesting Black and/or Green.
You're essentially sending 4 players to your right very strong signals that they want to jump into green or black, all while getting a wrath which is very comparable to BSZ? I'm not even convinced that BSZ is better than rebirth in the first place, tbh.
Anyway, interesting article. It's pretty rare to encounter a pick as interesting as your P1P1, in my experience, so it's useful to discuss!
Yes, Yes YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!
Excellent job sir and welcome to the dark side. Glad to see you playing and writing about Legacy and I can't wait to see your tournament analysis and who better to do it than you!
I have another midrange deck you should try. I absolutely love it, have been dominating 2mans to a 19-4 record and just 4-0'd a daily event with it. If I ever get motivated, I might write an article on it.
And don't give up on New Horizons so easily, it's another favorite of mine and it takes awhile to figure out that deck. You really want to drop your Terravore late in the game and only when you can protect it. In the end, tarmo really can't hang with Terra and the Knight.
Next Level Thresh - This seems right up your ally.
Lands (21)
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Flooded Strand
4 Wasteland
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
2 Island
1 Mountain
Creatures (11)
3 Grim Lavamancer
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Trinket Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
Other Spells (28)
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Fire/Ice
2 Ponder
4 Stifle
1 Basilik Collar
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Spell Snare
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Sideboard (15)
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Krosan Grip
3 Tormod's Crypt
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Spell Pierce
1 Creeping Corrosion
2 Firespout
I'll write an article about the thrills and adventures of writing a 20 page paper on Russian Military Reform after the fall of communism and how it sucks the joy out of everything around you till youre lifeless husk just looking forward to the next time you can sleep. Sounds about as entertaining as the tournament reports everyone is clamoring for.
I still dont understand why you have an issue that there is a site that features casual content. You have already listed great sites for competitive magic. Go enjoy those. Or you know quit complaining and write the type of articles you wish to read. Maybe others will follow.
I think, you can teach old dogs new tricks...but will she remember them in the morning? Also give a dog a bone and he forgets everything else. I agree with most of your commentary here. Where are your articles Shard? Finish school already and do some more writing darnit.
It doesn't have to. If casual articles keep getting published, writers will keep submitting them. If you crack down on publishing them, people won't send them in anymore. There is a reason SCG and CFB have such great website traffic. It's because their tournament quality articles appeal to a bigger audience than the Faerie-Elf tribal ones we keep reading about on here.
(Obviously there are other reasons they generate great traffic but I think the point still stands.)
I enjoyed that but I like audio during the game play. Now maybe that's because I'm used to it but it was weird and took a lot of getting used to.
I also think Sledge would have been the better pick.
Looking forward to more!
When i am looking for competetive top flight strategy and deck building articles i usually go to the places where i can read the opinions and thoughts of the best players in the world, channelfireball and starcity both have tons of that content. But at the same time you will never read a article about kalidoscope, or some of these PRE formats, that you will find here. The audiences are different, it seems like to me that you must know that that is not the typical type of content on this site. As i understand it this site operates like an open site where anyone can write an article and submit it to be published, these people who take the time to write the articles are doing so to meet a certain niche that isnt filled on some of the other sites, and the people who read those articles appreciate this fact, so to complain about the budget nature of the decks and the lack of competeiveness seems ridiculous, if you want to read about legacy you can go read some of alexander sheers work or any number of other top flight players, but none of those people are going to write about $20 legacy decks. Like i said i would never play these decks either but to try and denegrate it, as if the person who is playing with a $20 deck isnt competetive is wrong, they can be just as competetive as the person with the $2000 legacy deck, but if you cant afford a 2k deck then you just cant. And frankly anyone who plays in the tourney practice room and complains about the decks is kidding themselves, every competetive player i know that is playing a top flight deck takes it to the two man ques(2 tickets). Everyone has a different idea of tourney practice and casual, maybe the person just wants to get better, to play against the better decks, to learn how the decks play out, to learn how not to make mistakes so that when they get a more competitive deck they arent starting from scratch. If LSV wrote this article then you could feel free to flame him, but if an amatuer writes an article on a heavily casual site and you arent interested you should either pass on it, or provide some kind of encourgement and constructive advice so that he can improve and come back stronger. That is of course just my opinion.
meh competitive content has plenty of sites already. So having a site that skews casually is actually pretty fantastic. Sadin has killed 98% of any casual content on SCG.com so thats dead. The BoaB and FtL articles on the main site are hit or miss and rarely discuss any of the formats on here. As far as people wanting to improve? I dont really have a reason to improve. I have no desires to ever get into competitive play, and I like the people I play with now. Its like an online playgroup. I mean ive played for 17 years now...you cant teach an old dogs new tricks. ut the casual article s are fun and enjoyable. If you want more tournament reports, write them. Otherwise I guess your complaints dont matter that much if you arent willing to offer solutions such as the articles you so want to see
1 competitive based article that is submitted we get 10 casual article. The site skews heavily towards the casual side.
So because people don't come to Pure to read competitive articles means that we should just settle for casual ones?
You see, to me, that is one of the problems with this site. There is so much casual stuff that when we do get a writer willing to put competitive articles up it either doesn't get the views or the comments and that writer seems to go somewhere else to write.
Isn't the point of this game to have fun and while having fun improve our skill level at magic?
So shouldn't we also expect the same from the writers on this site?
Shouldn't we expect them put their best foot forward each time they hit the submit button? And I'm not talking about this article, because for a first one I thought it was pretty good, except for the points I previously made.
As readers, don't we want great content? Again, not necessarily talking about this article, but many comments have been made on other articles in the past regarding this subject.
As readers, if we aren't vocal about what we want then we should just expect to keep getting what we get.
I said in one of my comments that I hope he continues to write about the subject, not because I want to play casual Legacy or read about casual Legacy, but because I hope the more he writes, the more passionate he will be about Legacy thus increasing the Legacy content here, which will hopefully lead to more competitive Legacy players.
When I write an article here, I expect to receive criticism either positive or negative. You see, the criticism he received was warranted when he hit the submit button.
I think pure needs more competitive content.
I think as readers we should want it and expect it.
i normally just read the boards without responding, but i think alot of the complaints on this article are flimsy at best. I am a pretty successful player on mtgo and i dont come to puremtgo for really high level competetive articles, thats not to say that there arent some of those now and again, but anyone could tell from the start this article was not one of those. i dont play casual magic, however i enjoy reading about the various formats and will probably play some at some point. I wouldnt play the discussed deck because I am at the point where i no longer like playing decks that arent competitive in tournements, but everyone started somewhere and most people didnt start playing with an unlimited budget and 4 fow's. If the article isnt for you move on, why waste time complaining about free content without offering anything of value. Their were some things the writer could improve on, but most of this criticism was not constructed or warrented.
Don't confuse "Running good" for "Being good" here though - you won't see too many more 4th-pick Arc Trails, or get away with throwing away your P2P1.
A good draft though, you definitely identified what colors you should be in right away, and your reasoning made sense on the whole. Try not to be results-oriented.
My favorite parts are the self-deprecating ones. Makes the rest of us idiots not feel so bad about being idiots.
Also, you should have taken Swamp over Phyresis, clearly, as you'll definitely play Swamp.
I've been quite impressed with Piston Sledge, but at the time of this draft I hadn't had much experience playing with it, whereas I was much more comfortable with the known quantity of Blisterstick Shaman. But yes, I agree and I should've picked up the Sledge there.
You probably should have picked piston sledge. Not only is it much better than blisterstick shaman, you had just picked up the spine of ish sah and that thing can be sick if you have ways to recur it.
Thanks
Now that triple UD drafts are running, I have to say this article was very preliminary. In my experience, red can be pretty strong, especially as near mono-red. The 3/3 ogre for 3 is strong, and burn is important to deal with enchanted creatures. I had a bit of bad luck playing UDx3; lots of bombs on the other side, such as Ancient Silverback, Masticore, Treachery, Master Healer. In one particularly painful game, I was playing U/W against mono red, and had stabilized at 13 life and was beginning to turn the game around, when I took 13 direct damage in one turn from scent of cinder, reckless charge (the 4 damage/sac for 1 red), and a fireblast variant doing 1 damage per mountain sacrificed. Given the relatively low value of this set, I think I've taken it on the chin enough to call it quits for triple UD.
Wow, sweet. Must have just been a rumour after all.
Mono green infect budget and no Teetering Peaks?? It adds 4 "free" giant growth's to your deck without costing a card slot.
Infect is back in NPH
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/TCG/Article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/newphyrexia/mech...