Thanks for the articles. I don't play a lot of the formats you write about and being a budget player a lot of your tech is out of my price range, but I still find myself reading your articles every week. They are very well written and I always enjoy them. And despite my limitations I always manage to learn a thing or two.
Keep up the good work and I'm looking forward to the commander article series.
Let's hope you beat your record comment number with this thread.
I could easily see taking Corrupted Conscience over the Myr Turbine, it's a killer card. But in some of LSV's drafts, he suggest that when you're learning a format, take the rare you don't know exactly how to value. That way in your future drafts, maybe even in a big tournament, if that rare comes up again you'll know how it performs relative to the top uncommons and commons. You get less chances to find out about each rare, so good to take them when you're in a low stakes event and learn.
This draft overall wasn't one of my most perfect, for people looking for the best choices to emulate. But I'm satisfied with the 2-1 result and even put up a good fight in the final. My finals opponent actually said "I love your deck!", a nice unexpected compliment.
I think with only its myr-generating ability, the Turbine would be an unexciting if playable generator of chump blockers (or occasionally a fatal swarm if your opponent doesn't have much out). But the myr tutoring ability makes it interesting, and the game with a double galvanizer win was a blast to play. I would say the Corrupted Conscience is stronger, but I'm happy I tried the experiment.
Spin Engine can be great in an aggro deck, when unanswered. However this set has a lot of ways to deal 1 damage to a creature, so it's a risky strategy. Blisterstick Shaman, Fumespitter, Mortarpod, Gore Vassal, etc. Accorder Paladin has the same glass jaw, but I like him a little more because he sometimes has a bigger upside with his alpha strike potential. I do want to play with Spin Engine sometime though, to date I've only played against it.
I enjoyed this, despite knowing next to nothing about block, so that's definitely a good sign!
P.S. Just so you know, Conley Woods has just started calling his CFB articles "Rogue Gallery" as well. In fact the first one went up today, in a weird simultaneous titling event!
If there was one card I was critical of before sleeving up the sixty it was Imperious Perfect. Like you, I thought the card was too bulky. However after playing with the deck I've been rather impressed by Imperious Perfect. If I were to shave any of the lords it would be Elvish Champion.
As was said what is in front of you is not a Glimpse of Nature combo Elves list. Rather it has more in common with a deck like Goblins or Merfolk which is pushing tribal synergies as a beatdown deck.
You can run Fetches and Savannah it just makes your manabase a bit fragile. It's another land that is vulnerable to Wasteland and to reliably have access to white you'd need the Savannah plus 6+ green fetches which makes your deck quite thin on actual Forests.
All of that just so you have the possibility of casting a singleton sideboard card you might bring in and then have to draw. Personally I don't think it's worth it. The only reason I could see for the white splash would be if you decided to sideboard Ethersworn Canonist over Thorn of Amethyst.
"you would need some way to produce W to eliminate the Teeg/Escort situation"
Maybe I'm missing something: there's a reason you can't just put some Savannah in there? Also, fetch lands are judged bad here because of the low land count? Because otherwise I always like to fetch a sacrifical Dryad Arbor in my Natural Order decks, especially after an enemy sweep. Good deck, anyway!
I would also sart this draft with the Turbine. After that I would have turned into a completely other direction (RW metalcraft with multiple Rusted Slashers, Concussive Bolts and Auriok Sunchasers, mmm), but the turbine is fine in any deck, while the Conscience for first pick decides one of your colors.
Thanks fatone. I've actually been playing this as a GW deck for a while. The Red Sun's Zenith is a recent addition, but I've been pretty happy with it. It helps fix two problems with the original GW build, namely an inability to kill certain problematic creatures like Hand of the Praetors and Hero of Bladehold, and a lack of reach. It has definitely been instrumental to some of my wins. I've used it many times to win the race against aggro decks.
I have not tried splashing other red cards yet. I also considered Burn the Impure because of the difficult mono-black infect match-up, but Red Sun's Zenith kills most creatures just as well (if not better), and gives the deck great reach. Plus, it's a nice mana sink for all of the lands you fish out with the Viridian Emissaries.
I just missed playing that stupid Rat...:-) The infect deck wasn't fun at all so I deleted it directly after Round 1, sorry for not posting the deck list because of that. (It was close to the list you brought up in your last article)
I was just wondering if you tried the straight G/W version of this deck. Have the two red sun's zeniths been that instrumental to your wins? Have you tried splashing any other red cards? Thanks in advance and I really enjoyed this article.
"Reliquary Monk (right): In an enchantment-heavy set, how could this be bad?"
Your sarcasm is thick and ill-supported.
What cards dominate games in this set? Well let's see... by the article Sigil of Sleep, Attrition, Archery Training, Opposition, and Fodder Cannon. Can the monk kill them all? Yes. Is this extremely powerful in triple UD? Yes. Does not being able to use a common 'stop every bomb in the format card' as an instant make it bad? No. Does having not having a 'may' clause make it bad? Only if you are playing badly, because you get to pick the target.
I enjoyed reading this one a lot. They just announced the heirloom constructed trials so I just started playing those today (heirloom constructed league). Lost a match to the winner of this event playing the winning deck lol.
@Paul Leicht
I love that card, but I think there is probably too much artifact hate floating around right now to make a deck revolve around Mimic Vat. Mono-white has 4 Relic-Warders main and more artifact removal in the board, red has Scrapmelters, mono-green has Corrupters and Slice in Twain, and UB is even running Steel Sabotages.
Mimic Vat has seen some play, but mostly in sideboards. I think it's a fine card to play post-board in a UB control deck, after your opponent has sided out all of their artifact removal. It's probably at its best against mono-black infect, where imprinting something like a Skinrender is pretty hard to stop.
I was just curious your opinion of the Wirewood Symbiote/Elvish Visionary drawing engine, especially with the redundancy of GSZ?
Also, I thought the inclusion of some of those lords was odd, I just feel cards like Imperious Perfect are too slow in legacy and make you far too vulnerable to Perish effects.
What is the reasoning behind only 2 Cradles, and Priests of Titania over the Heritage Druid/Nettle Sentinel plan, which seems much stronger with GSZ and gives your mana producers "haste"?
I have been tossing around a vat deck in my mind... I just started playing magic about a month or two ago so noob question... Why is the deck called a Naya deck?... I assume it comes from some other format
I can honestly say, I've read your article, but have never thought about them. Just me. I forget lots.
MTGO: SuperDoomMonkey
I like free boosters. Your articles are alright too. (jk) mtgo: anakinsshadow
Thanks for the articles. I don't play a lot of the formats you write about and being a budget player a lot of your tech is out of my price range, but I still find myself reading your articles every week. They are very well written and I always enjoy them. And despite my limitations I always manage to learn a thing or two.
Keep up the good work and I'm looking forward to the commander article series.
Let's hope you beat your record comment number with this thread.
I hope to see you online. themonkey
All the drafts you write about are just scrubby queues. Are you saying we can expect some big tournaments from you anytime soon?
Congrats on all the success!
SwolyswoND
I could easily see taking Corrupted Conscience over the Myr Turbine, it's a killer card. But in some of LSV's drafts, he suggest that when you're learning a format, take the rare you don't know exactly how to value. That way in your future drafts, maybe even in a big tournament, if that rare comes up again you'll know how it performs relative to the top uncommons and commons. You get less chances to find out about each rare, so good to take them when you're in a low stakes event and learn.
This draft overall wasn't one of my most perfect, for people looking for the best choices to emulate. But I'm satisfied with the 2-1 result and even put up a good fight in the final. My finals opponent actually said "I love your deck!", a nice unexpected compliment.
I think with only its myr-generating ability, the Turbine would be an unexciting if playable generator of chump blockers (or occasionally a fatal swarm if your opponent doesn't have much out). But the myr tutoring ability makes it interesting, and the game with a double galvanizer win was a blast to play. I would say the Corrupted Conscience is stronger, but I'm happy I tried the experiment.
Spin Engine can be great in an aggro deck, when unanswered. However this set has a lot of ways to deal 1 damage to a creature, so it's a risky strategy. Blisterstick Shaman, Fumespitter, Mortarpod, Gore Vassal, etc. Accorder Paladin has the same glass jaw, but I like him a little more because he sometimes has a bigger upside with his alpha strike potential. I do want to play with Spin Engine sometime though, to date I've only played against it.
Congratulations on four years. The RP:AoTW and AoTW:RP paired articles were a great deal of fun to work with you on, and here's to the next for years.
Oh, and Hi. My screen name is my user name, as you know.
thanks for writing. always a fun and interesting read.
mtgo username: utley26
I enjoyed this, despite knowing next to nothing about block, so that's definitely a good sign!
P.S. Just so you know, Conley Woods has just started calling his CFB articles "Rogue Gallery" as well. In fact the first one went up today, in a weird simultaneous titling event!
If there was one card I was critical of before sleeving up the sixty it was Imperious Perfect. Like you, I thought the card was too bulky. However after playing with the deck I've been rather impressed by Imperious Perfect. If I were to shave any of the lords it would be Elvish Champion.
As was said what is in front of you is not a Glimpse of Nature combo Elves list. Rather it has more in common with a deck like Goblins or Merfolk which is pushing tribal synergies as a beatdown deck.
You can run Fetches and Savannah it just makes your manabase a bit fragile. It's another land that is vulnerable to Wasteland and to reliably have access to white you'd need the Savannah plus 6+ green fetches which makes your deck quite thin on actual Forests.
All of that just so you have the possibility of casting a singleton sideboard card you might bring in and then have to draw. Personally I don't think it's worth it. The only reason I could see for the white splash would be if you decided to sideboard Ethersworn Canonist over Thorn of Amethyst.
"you would need some way to produce W to eliminate the Teeg/Escort situation"
Maybe I'm missing something: there's a reason you can't just put some Savannah in there? Also, fetch lands are judged bad here because of the low land count? Because otherwise I always like to fetch a sacrifical Dryad Arbor in my Natural Order decks, especially after an enemy sweep. Good deck, anyway!
The idea here was beatdown elves not the typical run of the mill combo deck
I would also sart this draft with the Turbine. After that I would have turned into a completely other direction (RW metalcraft with multiple Rusted Slashers, Concussive Bolts and Auriok Sunchasers, mmm), but the turbine is fine in any deck, while the Conscience for first pick decides one of your colors.
Great article! (I don't know how to create those fancy symbols)
If I knew you would post my whole comment, I wouldn't have spoiled the winner :)
Unfortunately I still can't make it to the weekly tournaments, but I can at least play in the counstructed league.
I don't understand Chris's comments about the close games. Two of his matches were against me, and those four games weren't close at all :).
Hope that drafting Urza block gets you started on an eternal collection so that you can start playing Legacy :-)
Nice article, Paul
-Andy
Thanks fatone. I've actually been playing this as a GW deck for a while. The Red Sun's Zenith is a recent addition, but I've been pretty happy with it. It helps fix two problems with the original GW build, namely an inability to kill certain problematic creatures like Hand of the Praetors and Hero of Bladehold, and a lack of reach. It has definitely been instrumental to some of my wins. I've used it many times to win the race against aggro decks.
I have not tried splashing other red cards yet. I also considered Burn the Impure because of the difficult mono-black infect match-up, but Red Sun's Zenith kills most creatures just as well (if not better), and gives the deck great reach. Plus, it's a nice mana sink for all of the lands you fish out with the Viridian Emissaries.
Thanks Olaw, great as always!
I just missed playing that stupid Rat...:-) The infect deck wasn't fun at all so I deleted it directly after Round 1, sorry for not posting the deck list because of that. (It was close to the list you brought up in your last article)
I was just wondering if you tried the straight G/W version of this deck. Have the two red sun's zeniths been that instrumental to your wins? Have you tried splashing any other red cards? Thanks in advance and I really enjoyed this article.
"Reliquary Monk (right): In an enchantment-heavy set, how could this be bad?"
Your sarcasm is thick and ill-supported.
What cards dominate games in this set? Well let's see... by the article Sigil of Sleep, Attrition, Archery Training, Opposition, and Fodder Cannon. Can the monk kill them all? Yes. Is this extremely powerful in triple UD? Yes. Does not being able to use a common 'stop every bomb in the format card' as an instant make it bad? No. Does having not having a 'may' clause make it bad? Only if you are playing badly, because you get to pick the target.
Analysis: I play Monk.
I enjoyed reading this one a lot. They just announced the heirloom constructed trials so I just started playing those today (heirloom constructed league). Lost a match to the winner of this event playing the winning deck lol.
@Paul Leicht
I love that card, but I think there is probably too much artifact hate floating around right now to make a deck revolve around Mimic Vat. Mono-white has 4 Relic-Warders main and more artifact removal in the board, red has Scrapmelters, mono-green has Corrupters and Slice in Twain, and UB is even running Steel Sabotages.
Mimic Vat has seen some play, but mostly in sideboards. I think it's a fine card to play post-board in a UB control deck, after your opponent has sided out all of their artifact removal. It's probably at its best against mono-black infect, where imprinting something like a Skinrender is pretty hard to stop.
I was just curious your opinion of the Wirewood Symbiote/Elvish Visionary drawing engine, especially with the redundancy of GSZ?
Also, I thought the inclusion of some of those lords was odd, I just feel cards like Imperious Perfect are too slow in legacy and make you far too vulnerable to Perish effects.
What is the reasoning behind only 2 Cradles, and Priests of Titania over the Heritage Druid/Nettle Sentinel plan, which seems much stronger with GSZ and gives your mana producers "haste"?
in shards of alara the set was divided into color shards. The Naya shard included Red, white and green
I have been tossing around a vat deck in my mind... I just started playing magic about a month or two ago so noob question... Why is the deck called a Naya deck?... I assume it comes from some other format