The issues with bots aren't really caused by the bot owners themselves, but by the way MTGO is handled.
Card prices would be closer to what supply and demand dictate if cards were more 'liquid'( it was easier to turn cards into tix, and tix into cards). As it is, what bots do is provide liquidity: They let you sell pretty much every card you have, and buy any card you want in minutes. Therefore, they act like market makers in the stock market. And, just like in the market, they do this because they get some profit in the spread: the difference between the buy price and sell price. The more liquid the market for a particular item, the smaller the spread.
So why do we see large spreads? Because the market is not very liquid: There aren't that many bots, and without said bots, trading anything other than the top 40 items in the game with other players is extremely time consuming. Getting the best price possible for any other item is very time consuming, as there's no single location that lists the stock of every bot and the price of every item. Thus, we have to pay a higher premium so that someone like MTGOTraders will get us all the cards at once without hassle.
The spreads are also increased by the fact that our currency, the ticket, is relatively high value. Negotiating prices up and down with someone that isn't a bot has to be done at relatively large intervals, especially for cheap items, like pauper cards: If a single person sells the card I want for .1, while a large bot sells it for .5, buying a 4x from the single seller is not anywhere as profitable as the difference indicates, because while I'd pay the bot 2 tix, I'd have to use secondary items to get a bit more value from the random seller minimum price of 1 tix. This is the reason many of us miss a certain bot chain that got banned for interacting with the MTGO servers directly: They dealt only in bulk at common, so they had prices that were far lower than those of the bigger bots, while still providing credit, making a 4 cent purchase + .96 credit far better than that of a lower quality reseller that isn't all all the time and doesn't get new cards regularly.
Given how important the bots are for liquidity, of course their price lists become more important than they'd be in a more efficient market. The inability to grab prices for the entire market also makes sure we can't easily compile our own price lists. Relying on a store's price list as gospel is of course a mistake, as stores want to sell their inventory of cards that they feel will become less important in the near future, and stock up on cards that will be great breakthroughs. If I were running a bot chain, I'd offer big teams some money in exchange for market tips, as they are the ones that, ultimately, affect the demand of cards.
So really, the bot owners are not to blame for any of this: Blame wizards for setting up an economic system that makes bots necessary. Give us an auction house and a global credit system and you'd see the differences between buy and sell prices drop a whole lot, all while current store owners have to start relying mostly on their predictive skills to increase their profits.
I mostly agree with jbk. its pathetic how mtg has gotten today. I wont play tournements because it is sooo boring to see the same exact decks over and over. I skip every article about cawblade, because they are all the same (added red for lightning bolts, how original...)
The majority of people playing magic today dont seem to know how to make a deck on their own, or without shoving 15 mythics in a deck.
I dont blame the bots. I do blame articles on puremtgo and other sites constantly pushing the same decks and same mythics over and over. And mostly I blame the idiots who are to braindead to make their own decks, so they have to copy what they have been told to play.
I have been playing since 1994. There has been widely playd decks since necropotence became big. There has never been a time in magic where the avg deck costs as much as it does today, and never beeen a time in magic where so few original decks have been played (in tourneys and in casual).
I would love to see a moratorium on articles about decks that are not original. No more Squadron hawk decks, no more tez decks, no more koth. Force the writers here to write about original decks and stop rehashing the same decks everyone sees all the time.
I liked when your articles (and all of the other fresh submissions) went up on the site in the morning instead of way after lunch (US eastern time).
:-)
As for the bot programming, this is something I've been wondering about for a while. As a professional C# guy, I'm curious as to what kind of effort this would actually take. My unscientific conclusion is that I'd rather spend my free time playing Magic than programming a bot to trade magical cards.
Yeah, there are definitely overused cards in commander. The big one for me is Solemn Simulacrum. It's in EVERY deck, I just want to scream when I see one. It's why I haven't purchased one myself. (Although Leviathan's deck doesn't have one in it, good job).
My problem with the format is tutors. With so many tutors available you lose the randomness that a 100 card singleton format is supposed to be about. All decks wind up playing the same because the same power cards are just tutored up. One Primeval Titan isn't bad, but when you have one titan and 10 ways to find it... (Not that this deck does that, just using 10 as an example.)
I'm pretty stoked that you mostly agree with my picks. Looking at the draft again I definitely agree with your few suggestions so I'll keep them in mind for future drafts. I think I was swayed by the Piston Sledge when I picked the Invisomancer over the Gold Myr. But after grabbing the Galvanizer earlier in the pack the Myr should have been the easy pick. Cutting Scudder is also a great call, Disperse is okay but a Scudder turn 3 is a pain to deal with so I agree 100%. Yeah the Slasher is not great but in MMM he could be annoying when paired with Ichor Wellspring but outside of that he's pretty mediocre at best.
Thanks again for the comments dude!
I'm going to try and finish up another article here pretty soon and I think some people will get a kick out of it.
The thing to note about Moromete's success in the format is not the particular deck he chooses to play, but the TYPE of deck. If you're paying attention you notice that he almost always chooses not to play any of the current tier 1 decks. Instead he is likely to be playing an out of favour tier 1 deck that nobody has a sideboard against, or a breakout new tier 1 deck, or like in this case a pure rogue deck. In all cases Moromete's deck choice is a metagame call to put him in a favourable position against the expected field. This works very well mainly because the majority of pauper players are very conservative about what decks they will play, either because they want to play proven decklists, or they have some attachment to a particular deck. I don't imagine we'll be seeing much more of this Spiders! since the metagame may not be as favourable in future.
One of the great crimes of MtG is the quantity of unused cardboard that accumulates. I see the potential of Commander to create a useful home for much of my mountain of cool cards. Looking at the rising price of commander staples though it is apparent that many players prefer to buy ever more tier 1 cards. In it's own way that's a good thing, because it's creating a demand for old cards I might want to sell. I guess what I'm saying is I'm still excited about a format that's growing and can for the time being accomodate everyone. Long may it continue.
I dont mind decks playing a bunch of the same cards too much, but it does make things predictable. Its not hard to make a cheap commaneder deck either. I bought the rubinia commander precon, changed out the crap and have won over 50% of the games ive played with it. Total deck cost under 30 tix, has won 4 of last 5 games, no infinite combos, only 1 counterspell, and only one player has gotten mad at me in all the games ive played with it (for having too many answers to his threats).
Most expensive 3 cards in the deck are rhystic study, solemn simulacrum and sol ring.
Budget decks can be unique and good, even without expensive staple and mythics. It just takes more work.
"The way I look at it is, this isn't a creativity contest. You make decks that you hope are fun to play and fun to play against. (Though of course this leads to the whole what is fun? and what is casual topics which are perennial favorites.) Playing bad cards just to avoid having the same toolbox in every deck is stupid."
Let me try to give a counter argument. There are no sanctioned Commander tournaments and no reason to play the format other than what you said: fun. The problem is that it's not clever or unique to break a format as easy to break as Commander. Erayo is an asshole Commander, straight up. I don't know anyone who would disagree. The other day watching Commander, I saw someone Tutor for an Earthcraft and pulled off an amazing *yawn* Squirrel Nest combo. Wow, never saw that before. I saw the same player ramp into Mind Over Matter and Temple Bell. Zzz
I know there is a line between being THAT guy and playing a pile of M11 commons you had sitting around, but I do think the last sentence I quoted is dead wrong. It isn't stupid to put together a casual Commander deck where you choose to play, I don't know, a Brion Stoutarm giant tribal deck (on my "to build" list =D ) as opposed to a Stoutarm "good stuff" deck. You can be darn sure that when I make the deck that Frost Giant will be in there despite being an over-costed pile... he's just so cool! He has amazing art and flavour text, and if he could be my commander, he would.
Yeah, that is one approach, but the problem with that is that tier one and ubiquity aren't always one and the same, AND you can build over time. For example, let's say you're running a black deck. Demonic Tutor is only 3 tix you have to invest once. then you have Diabolic Tutor, Imperial Seal, Grim Tutor, Beseech the Queen, etc. that are all quite affordable tutors that can go into any black deck. Even if you can't afford Demonic Tutor and Imperial Seal in the same build, for instance, over time, you can first buy one and then the other, and henceforth all your decks may pack the same tutor package.
Not to toot my own horn in any magnificient way but I found the perfect way to avoid this. I am trying to do it now with every deck I build. I limit myself to my commander decks being no more between 20-30 tickets in price. So while I will never throwdown a Jace or a Primeval Titan Im still able to build semi-competitive to good decks.
Respectfully, I disagree that Brainstorm is a card that needs to be run unequivocally in sets of 4. If anything, I am planning on reducing the number of Brainstorm. In Vintage, I do not run Brainstorm at all, and it is a restricted card that I would definitely run in any other Vintage control deck.
The reason is because this build of Landstill wins extremely small, and does not have any real bombs to dig into. It has a high amount of redundancy, so finding a specific card is generally not an issue. There is an opportunity cost to running 4 Brainstorm, that being that you have less answers to threats.
I understand that Classic is not Vintage or Legacy, which is why I am not 100% set on the build of the deck. That being said, the deck flows almost exactly the way it does in Vintage and Legacy, so a lot of the principles involved in the card selection process are identical.
In any case, I have been having success with builds that run less Brainstorm as opposed to more, so using success and years of experience as a baseline, I will continue to do so unless I see a compelling reason to deviate from this approach.
Ok I'm doing a separate comment mainly so i can rate the article. But anyways. I thought of this while reading your comment about the decks and the cards. You make a great point. And I have to say I would support you continuing in the current style since the occasionally budget and fun decks are great. Though Im sure you have many many ideas for each individual deck you build. And some just don't pan out. Perhaps a "paths not taken" section where you wouldnt need decklists or anything but maybe like "Well some other thoughts i had for commander X was to build a ______ deck or a deck revolvign around ______ or using these cards for this effect. things that didnt pan out but could get the juices and creativity flowing on the vets side. i know there are cards you probably think of that i have forgotten about and vice versa. Like i think Ayumi(legendary landwalker in kamigawa) could have been fun in here. lol.
First, thanks for the length reply! =D Was not expecting that.
Actually you make a point that I heard from MistveilPlains (at YouTube... he posts deck breakdowns), namely that if you are already at a disadvantage with your commander, you should be given more license to use more of the traditionally frowned upon things. For example, blue has access to card draw and green to ramp, but red hasn't that ability to gain an advantage that way, so LD is acceptable. Similarly, since your commander is so far under today's standards of power to casting cost ratio, you should be able to play the more broken spells in those colours.
I also understand what you mean about not wanting to be written off as scrubby for not including the auto-includes, but still, it does get repetitive. I used to comb through Sheldon Menery's deck list articles, and now I skim them. How many times do I need to read about how great XYZ tier 1 staples are?
I think part of it, for me, is the end of my disillusionment that this format is somehow different from other formats. I truly believe there is a semi-myth about the depth and expansiveness of the card pool, namely that it's vast and deep. For many, though, the same cards appear over and over. I clearly remember last week watching a Commander game and someone casting a Mystical Tutor... I said to myself, I bet he's going for a Tooth and Nail (at that point the player only had played ramp spells)... I was right. Kind of a moment of lost faith in the format, so to speak. It had become predictable. I'm sure I contribute to that as much as others, but I think I need to try to change that while still finding ways to win (or put up a fight). I think the best way is through a highly synergistic build rather than just through raw power. Very, very hard though.
Thanks for the rundown about how you go about writing. Again, impressive. =) Keep up the great work!
i can understand what your saying, but as a piolt for 10 years, you have to see that 2 brainstrom is criminal. please bring her up to 4. Also classic is not vintage, and its not legacy, porting only works to a certain extent. i hope to see you hitting the prizes more.
we submitted on wednesday around 5pm. i checked cq later that nite and saw the new entrants. if its not to much of a problem, we submit in the late afternoon every wednesday. if you could update on tuesdays or early wednesdays, that would be super duper.
As always mike your articles are smashing. However I have a minor request. Do not abbreviate SDT (Sensei's Divining Top for those who are wondering.) This as you said is for both vets and newbs. The newbs and even some of us vets might have a double take moment trying to decipher cryptic abbreviations amidst a game description.
RE: Sameness of deck topic. The way I look at it is, this isn't a creativity contest. You make decks that you hope are fun to play and fun to play against. (Though of course this leads to the whole what is fun? and what is casual topics which are perennial favorites.) Playing bad cards just to avoid having the same toolbox in every deck is stupid. I am glad you include the cards you own that you like to play with even though Survival and its ilk are just a smidge above my collection's average value.
Obviously cards like that are going to hit some envy from other players who can't afford them but if it is sensible to play them, then I say do it if you can. Bring FOW and Jace 2 if you have them and see a good use for them. (I expect a deck containing those two cards in commander will either be shunned or suffer as everyone gangs up, but why not?)
Thanks per usual for another fine article. Nice logo btw :D
Wow, you bring up a few different issues that are interesting to talk about. This may be a long post, so I apologize in advance for spelling issues and lack of brevity :D
The ubiquity issue is something that I have noticed recently, so thanks for pointing that out. I think that it's a tough line to find, let alone straddle. I find that I am writing for 2 sets of people: Long time and first time readers. Long time readers sort of know what to expect from me, my playstyle, the decks I like (beatdown, for the uninitiated). They know that I don't build the most abusive, soul crushing decks but that I like to win. But newer readers don't have that background. And what I want to do is make sure that the newer guys don't look at a decklist, see that it is missing Primeval Titan or Sol Ring or whatever, and automatically dismiss me as some scrub who doesn't know what I'm doing. Therefore when building these decks, I try and go for powerful spells that people should expect to see, as well as play.
On top of all that, by using Livonya I sort of put myself behind most other decks already. First, she is overcosted. Second, her color combination isn't known as the most powerful. With both of those drawbacks in mind I decided that not only did I want to play with a bunch of the shiney new toys from MBS, but that I could use cards like Survival (which I have only used in one previous deck, using Stonebrow). Since the point of the deck was to equip Livonya and swing, it makes sense that I also play with good equpment.
On the other hand, I have a Grixis deck right now that I call my "junk" deck. It has a bunch of random, powerful spells that I haven't really used in any other decks. The deck is a blast to play, but almost never wins because it has no focus whatsoever, despite containing Consecrated Sphinx and various other powerful stuff. While it is fun to play, I'm pretty sure it isn't worth an article. Who wants to read about a bunch of random crap thrown together that doesn't win? I guess if a few of you guys do, I can put something together about it, but I'm guessing demand will be low.
I usually try to put something different or unexpected in most of my decks. This one has the Gauntlets of Chaos trick. It may only be one card, but it's something at least. But I will keep the ubiquity issue in mind. People don't really want to read about the same cards over and over. At least that's my assumption.
As for my writing process, it has changed over time. When I first started (it has been almost exactly a year now, wow) I was playing a lot. Almost 3 games a night. The first 7 or 8 articles were about decks that I had already built, and played for a while. After I ran out of those, though, things had to change. I was still playing a lot, so I was able to throw together a presentable deck in about a week or two. The weeks were I do set reviews or other random stuff ("How I build a deck" "EDH Staples") are those where I don't have the time to playtest a deck. Recently, due to various issues, I haven't been able to play nearly as much as I used to. That's what lead to my 3 week stint covering the various archetypes. I'm at the point now where I might end up writing bi-weekly, instead of weekly, since I just don't have the time to play as much. We will see.
As for the decks, I usually try to get a couple of playtest games in before presenting them, somewhere around 5 or 6 on average. It's rare where I feel like I get things right on the first try, and the first game goes smoothly enough that I think I don't have to do any more and go with it, but it does occasionally happen. Most of the time the deck undergoes several tweaks, whether to the mana base or just adding more destruction/card draw/whatever. And there are other decks, like the Rubinia deck, where I played a ton before I got it to where I liked. I want to make sure that the deck can do well in the hands of another pilot.
Ideally the game I choose either shows what the deck is meant to do (assemble Kaldra, beat down with Rafiq) or has something else interesting happen. I try to avoid using games where people drop or disconnect, although I do use those occasionally because you can have a run of games where they just don't get completed. I also avoid 3 player games which I enjoy occasionally just for the brevity.
When it's all said and done, a short time for an article is about 6 to 8 hours, when considering putting the deck together, playtesting, writing and editing. Kind of a long time for each one, but I have fun doing it.
These decks are obviously far from perfect. Most of the time these decks are built and playtested over a matter of 5 days or less. I do have experience on my side when building them, but so do many of the other players I run into. But they are usually good enough to pass my muster, and presentable to the public. I think they are good for people to use when getting ideas, and most of the time they get adjusted to the individual user.
Anyways, I hope that answers your questions and gives you an idea of what I'm trying to accomplish. I appreciate your comments, as well as those of the other regular contributors. And thanks for the constructive criticism, I definitely plan in keeping it in mind!
I'll chime in and agree this is the best thing on Pure!
IIRC, I was the "4c Blue Deck." It was indeed Jacerator and I am pretty sure that was the day I was totally blown out both games and cast hardly any spells. Which is why you couldn't tell what deck it was.
Indeed. Every once in a while I ask Lee Sharpe when we're going to get colour identity rules implemented online. Those will make it even impossible to play Tri-colour lands in two colour decks. =D That's the way it should be! I don't even like playing off-colour fetches in two colour decks. Trying to find loopholes cheapens the rules.
I am the same way. I didn't realize it till I had to sell the bulk of my collection but I had fallen into the trap of using the same cards in every deck. Titans, equipment, commands, etc. They are great cards though so sometimes it is hard to build decks without them. And you do need a good reason not to run them. That said, I do like the budget articles better simply because you can see cards you never thought of. But like MMogg also said, don't take this the wrong way Mike. Your articles are still fantastic regardless and one of the weekly articles I really look forward too.
As far as the games go, he probably does what I do. Play some games and pick then one that shows off the deck best.
The whole off colour land thing really gets to me every time. I politely tell everyone that it should not be allowed and it's a hind sight of the client. The worst I've seen is a Azusa deck bouncing karoo lands to bounce lands and exile graveyard every turn.
Most of the time, players tell me to piss off and tells me I don't know the rules. shrugs..
The issues with bots aren't really caused by the bot owners themselves, but by the way MTGO is handled.
Card prices would be closer to what supply and demand dictate if cards were more 'liquid'( it was easier to turn cards into tix, and tix into cards). As it is, what bots do is provide liquidity: They let you sell pretty much every card you have, and buy any card you want in minutes. Therefore, they act like market makers in the stock market. And, just like in the market, they do this because they get some profit in the spread: the difference between the buy price and sell price. The more liquid the market for a particular item, the smaller the spread.
So why do we see large spreads? Because the market is not very liquid: There aren't that many bots, and without said bots, trading anything other than the top 40 items in the game with other players is extremely time consuming. Getting the best price possible for any other item is very time consuming, as there's no single location that lists the stock of every bot and the price of every item. Thus, we have to pay a higher premium so that someone like MTGOTraders will get us all the cards at once without hassle.
The spreads are also increased by the fact that our currency, the ticket, is relatively high value. Negotiating prices up and down with someone that isn't a bot has to be done at relatively large intervals, especially for cheap items, like pauper cards: If a single person sells the card I want for .1, while a large bot sells it for .5, buying a 4x from the single seller is not anywhere as profitable as the difference indicates, because while I'd pay the bot 2 tix, I'd have to use secondary items to get a bit more value from the random seller minimum price of 1 tix. This is the reason many of us miss a certain bot chain that got banned for interacting with the MTGO servers directly: They dealt only in bulk at common, so they had prices that were far lower than those of the bigger bots, while still providing credit, making a 4 cent purchase + .96 credit far better than that of a lower quality reseller that isn't all all the time and doesn't get new cards regularly.
Given how important the bots are for liquidity, of course their price lists become more important than they'd be in a more efficient market. The inability to grab prices for the entire market also makes sure we can't easily compile our own price lists. Relying on a store's price list as gospel is of course a mistake, as stores want to sell their inventory of cards that they feel will become less important in the near future, and stock up on cards that will be great breakthroughs. If I were running a bot chain, I'd offer big teams some money in exchange for market tips, as they are the ones that, ultimately, affect the demand of cards.
So really, the bot owners are not to blame for any of this: Blame wizards for setting up an economic system that makes bots necessary. Give us an auction house and a global credit system and you'd see the differences between buy and sell prices drop a whole lot, all while current store owners have to start relying mostly on their predictive skills to increase their profits.
I mostly agree with jbk. its pathetic how mtg has gotten today. I wont play tournements because it is sooo boring to see the same exact decks over and over. I skip every article about cawblade, because they are all the same (added red for lightning bolts, how original...)
The majority of people playing magic today dont seem to know how to make a deck on their own, or without shoving 15 mythics in a deck.
I dont blame the bots. I do blame articles on puremtgo and other sites constantly pushing the same decks and same mythics over and over. And mostly I blame the idiots who are to braindead to make their own decks, so they have to copy what they have been told to play.
I have been playing since 1994. There has been widely playd decks since necropotence became big. There has never been a time in magic where the avg deck costs as much as it does today, and never beeen a time in magic where so few original decks have been played (in tourneys and in casual).
I would love to see a moratorium on articles about decks that are not original. No more Squadron hawk decks, no more tez decks, no more koth. Force the writers here to write about original decks and stop rehashing the same decks everyone sees all the time.
I started the argument, I'm just trying to get my ideas out there. I guess some people are scared of that.
Hola
I liked when your articles (and all of the other fresh submissions) went up on the site in the morning instead of way after lunch (US eastern time).
:-)
As for the bot programming, this is something I've been wondering about for a while. As a professional C# guy, I'm curious as to what kind of effort this would actually take. My unscientific conclusion is that I'd rather spend my free time playing Magic than programming a bot to trade magical cards.
Yeah, there are definitely overused cards in commander. The big one for me is Solemn Simulacrum. It's in EVERY deck, I just want to scream when I see one. It's why I haven't purchased one myself. (Although Leviathan's deck doesn't have one in it, good job).
My problem with the format is tutors. With so many tutors available you lose the randomness that a 100 card singleton format is supposed to be about. All decks wind up playing the same because the same power cards are just tutored up. One Primeval Titan isn't bad, but when you have one titan and 10 ways to find it... (Not that this deck does that, just using 10 as an example.)
I'm pretty stoked that you mostly agree with my picks. Looking at the draft again I definitely agree with your few suggestions so I'll keep them in mind for future drafts. I think I was swayed by the Piston Sledge when I picked the Invisomancer over the Gold Myr. But after grabbing the Galvanizer earlier in the pack the Myr should have been the easy pick. Cutting Scudder is also a great call, Disperse is okay but a Scudder turn 3 is a pain to deal with so I agree 100%. Yeah the Slasher is not great but in MMM he could be annoying when paired with Ichor Wellspring but outside of that he's pretty mediocre at best.
Thanks again for the comments dude!
I'm going to try and finish up another article here pretty soon and I think some people will get a kick out of it.
The thing to note about Moromete's success in the format is not the particular deck he chooses to play, but the TYPE of deck. If you're paying attention you notice that he almost always chooses not to play any of the current tier 1 decks. Instead he is likely to be playing an out of favour tier 1 deck that nobody has a sideboard against, or a breakout new tier 1 deck, or like in this case a pure rogue deck. In all cases Moromete's deck choice is a metagame call to put him in a favourable position against the expected field. This works very well mainly because the majority of pauper players are very conservative about what decks they will play, either because they want to play proven decklists, or they have some attachment to a particular deck. I don't imagine we'll be seeing much more of this Spiders! since the metagame may not be as favourable in future.
One of the great crimes of MtG is the quantity of unused cardboard that accumulates. I see the potential of Commander to create a useful home for much of my mountain of cool cards. Looking at the rising price of commander staples though it is apparent that many players prefer to buy ever more tier 1 cards. In it's own way that's a good thing, because it's creating a demand for old cards I might want to sell. I guess what I'm saying is I'm still excited about a format that's growing and can for the time being accomodate everyone. Long may it continue.
Nice article btw.
I dont mind decks playing a bunch of the same cards too much, but it does make things predictable. Its not hard to make a cheap commaneder deck either. I bought the rubinia commander precon, changed out the crap and have won over 50% of the games ive played with it. Total deck cost under 30 tix, has won 4 of last 5 games, no infinite combos, only 1 counterspell, and only one player has gotten mad at me in all the games ive played with it (for having too many answers to his threats).
Most expensive 3 cards in the deck are rhystic study, solemn simulacrum and sol ring.
Budget decks can be unique and good, even without expensive staple and mythics. It just takes more work.
"The way I look at it is, this isn't a creativity contest. You make decks that you hope are fun to play and fun to play against. (Though of course this leads to the whole what is fun? and what is casual topics which are perennial favorites.) Playing bad cards just to avoid having the same toolbox in every deck is stupid."
Let me try to give a counter argument. There are no sanctioned Commander tournaments and no reason to play the format other than what you said: fun. The problem is that it's not clever or unique to break a format as easy to break as Commander. Erayo is an asshole Commander, straight up. I don't know anyone who would disagree. The other day watching Commander, I saw someone Tutor for an Earthcraft and pulled off an amazing *yawn* Squirrel Nest combo. Wow, never saw that before. I saw the same player ramp into Mind Over Matter and Temple Bell. Zzz
I know there is a line between being THAT guy and playing a pile of M11 commons you had sitting around, but I do think the last sentence I quoted is dead wrong. It isn't stupid to put together a casual Commander deck where you choose to play, I don't know, a Brion Stoutarm giant tribal deck (on my "to build" list =D ) as opposed to a Stoutarm "good stuff" deck. You can be darn sure that when I make the deck that Frost Giant will be in there despite being an over-costed pile... he's just so cool! He has amazing art and flavour text, and if he could be my commander, he would.
Yeah, that is one approach, but the problem with that is that tier one and ubiquity aren't always one and the same, AND you can build over time. For example, let's say you're running a black deck. Demonic Tutor is only 3 tix you have to invest once. then you have Diabolic Tutor, Imperial Seal, Grim Tutor, Beseech the Queen, etc. that are all quite affordable tutors that can go into any black deck. Even if you can't afford Demonic Tutor and Imperial Seal in the same build, for instance, over time, you can first buy one and then the other, and henceforth all your decks may pack the same tutor package.
Not to toot my own horn in any magnificient way but I found the perfect way to avoid this. I am trying to do it now with every deck I build. I limit myself to my commander decks being no more between 20-30 tickets in price. So while I will never throwdown a Jace or a Primeval Titan Im still able to build semi-competitive to good decks.
too'che
Respectfully, I disagree that Brainstorm is a card that needs to be run unequivocally in sets of 4. If anything, I am planning on reducing the number of Brainstorm. In Vintage, I do not run Brainstorm at all, and it is a restricted card that I would definitely run in any other Vintage control deck.
The reason is because this build of Landstill wins extremely small, and does not have any real bombs to dig into. It has a high amount of redundancy, so finding a specific card is generally not an issue. There is an opportunity cost to running 4 Brainstorm, that being that you have less answers to threats.
I understand that Classic is not Vintage or Legacy, which is why I am not 100% set on the build of the deck. That being said, the deck flows almost exactly the way it does in Vintage and Legacy, so a lot of the principles involved in the card selection process are identical.
In any case, I have been having success with builds that run less Brainstorm as opposed to more, so using success and years of experience as a baseline, I will continue to do so unless I see a compelling reason to deviate from this approach.
Ok I'm doing a separate comment mainly so i can rate the article. But anyways. I thought of this while reading your comment about the decks and the cards. You make a great point. And I have to say I would support you continuing in the current style since the occasionally budget and fun decks are great. Though Im sure you have many many ideas for each individual deck you build. And some just don't pan out. Perhaps a "paths not taken" section where you wouldnt need decklists or anything but maybe like "Well some other thoughts i had for commander X was to build a ______ deck or a deck revolvign around ______ or using these cards for this effect. things that didnt pan out but could get the juices and creativity flowing on the vets side. i know there are cards you probably think of that i have forgotten about and vice versa. Like i think Ayumi(legendary landwalker in kamigawa) could have been fun in here. lol.
First, thanks for the length reply! =D Was not expecting that.
Actually you make a point that I heard from MistveilPlains (at YouTube... he posts deck breakdowns), namely that if you are already at a disadvantage with your commander, you should be given more license to use more of the traditionally frowned upon things. For example, blue has access to card draw and green to ramp, but red hasn't that ability to gain an advantage that way, so LD is acceptable. Similarly, since your commander is so far under today's standards of power to casting cost ratio, you should be able to play the more broken spells in those colours.
I also understand what you mean about not wanting to be written off as scrubby for not including the auto-includes, but still, it does get repetitive. I used to comb through Sheldon Menery's deck list articles, and now I skim them. How many times do I need to read about how great XYZ tier 1 staples are?
I think part of it, for me, is the end of my disillusionment that this format is somehow different from other formats. I truly believe there is a semi-myth about the depth and expansiveness of the card pool, namely that it's vast and deep. For many, though, the same cards appear over and over. I clearly remember last week watching a Commander game and someone casting a Mystical Tutor... I said to myself, I bet he's going for a Tooth and Nail (at that point the player only had played ramp spells)... I was right. Kind of a moment of lost faith in the format, so to speak. It had become predictable. I'm sure I contribute to that as much as others, but I think I need to try to change that while still finding ways to win (or put up a fight). I think the best way is through a highly synergistic build rather than just through raw power. Very, very hard though.
Thanks for the rundown about how you go about writing. Again, impressive. =) Keep up the great work!
i can understand what your saying, but as a piolt for 10 years, you have to see that 2 brainstrom is criminal. please bring her up to 4. Also classic is not vintage, and its not legacy, porting only works to a certain extent. i hope to see you hitting the prizes more.
we submitted on wednesday around 5pm. i checked cq later that nite and saw the new entrants. if its not to much of a problem, we submit in the late afternoon every wednesday. if you could update on tuesdays or early wednesdays, that would be super duper.
As always mike your articles are smashing. However I have a minor request. Do not abbreviate SDT (Sensei's Divining Top for those who are wondering.) This as you said is for both vets and newbs. The newbs and even some of us vets might have a double take moment trying to decipher cryptic abbreviations amidst a game description.
RE: Sameness of deck topic. The way I look at it is, this isn't a creativity contest. You make decks that you hope are fun to play and fun to play against. (Though of course this leads to the whole what is fun? and what is casual topics which are perennial favorites.) Playing bad cards just to avoid having the same toolbox in every deck is stupid. I am glad you include the cards you own that you like to play with even though Survival and its ilk are just a smidge above my collection's average value.
Obviously cards like that are going to hit some envy from other players who can't afford them but if it is sensible to play them, then I say do it if you can. Bring FOW and Jace 2 if you have them and see a good use for them. (I expect a deck containing those two cards in commander will either be shunned or suffer as everyone gangs up, but why not?)
Thanks per usual for another fine article. Nice logo btw :D
Wow, you bring up a few different issues that are interesting to talk about. This may be a long post, so I apologize in advance for spelling issues and lack of brevity :D
The ubiquity issue is something that I have noticed recently, so thanks for pointing that out. I think that it's a tough line to find, let alone straddle. I find that I am writing for 2 sets of people: Long time and first time readers. Long time readers sort of know what to expect from me, my playstyle, the decks I like (beatdown, for the uninitiated). They know that I don't build the most abusive, soul crushing decks but that I like to win. But newer readers don't have that background. And what I want to do is make sure that the newer guys don't look at a decklist, see that it is missing Primeval Titan or Sol Ring or whatever, and automatically dismiss me as some scrub who doesn't know what I'm doing. Therefore when building these decks, I try and go for powerful spells that people should expect to see, as well as play.
On top of all that, by using Livonya I sort of put myself behind most other decks already. First, she is overcosted. Second, her color combination isn't known as the most powerful. With both of those drawbacks in mind I decided that not only did I want to play with a bunch of the shiney new toys from MBS, but that I could use cards like Survival (which I have only used in one previous deck, using Stonebrow). Since the point of the deck was to equip Livonya and swing, it makes sense that I also play with good equpment.
On the other hand, I have a Grixis deck right now that I call my "junk" deck. It has a bunch of random, powerful spells that I haven't really used in any other decks. The deck is a blast to play, but almost never wins because it has no focus whatsoever, despite containing Consecrated Sphinx and various other powerful stuff. While it is fun to play, I'm pretty sure it isn't worth an article. Who wants to read about a bunch of random crap thrown together that doesn't win? I guess if a few of you guys do, I can put something together about it, but I'm guessing demand will be low.
I usually try to put something different or unexpected in most of my decks. This one has the Gauntlets of Chaos trick. It may only be one card, but it's something at least. But I will keep the ubiquity issue in mind. People don't really want to read about the same cards over and over. At least that's my assumption.
As for my writing process, it has changed over time. When I first started (it has been almost exactly a year now, wow) I was playing a lot. Almost 3 games a night. The first 7 or 8 articles were about decks that I had already built, and played for a while. After I ran out of those, though, things had to change. I was still playing a lot, so I was able to throw together a presentable deck in about a week or two. The weeks were I do set reviews or other random stuff ("How I build a deck" "EDH Staples") are those where I don't have the time to playtest a deck. Recently, due to various issues, I haven't been able to play nearly as much as I used to. That's what lead to my 3 week stint covering the various archetypes. I'm at the point now where I might end up writing bi-weekly, instead of weekly, since I just don't have the time to play as much. We will see.
As for the decks, I usually try to get a couple of playtest games in before presenting them, somewhere around 5 or 6 on average. It's rare where I feel like I get things right on the first try, and the first game goes smoothly enough that I think I don't have to do any more and go with it, but it does occasionally happen. Most of the time the deck undergoes several tweaks, whether to the mana base or just adding more destruction/card draw/whatever. And there are other decks, like the Rubinia deck, where I played a ton before I got it to where I liked. I want to make sure that the deck can do well in the hands of another pilot.
Ideally the game I choose either shows what the deck is meant to do (assemble Kaldra, beat down with Rafiq) or has something else interesting happen. I try to avoid using games where people drop or disconnect, although I do use those occasionally because you can have a run of games where they just don't get completed. I also avoid 3 player games which I enjoy occasionally just for the brevity.
When it's all said and done, a short time for an article is about 6 to 8 hours, when considering putting the deck together, playtesting, writing and editing. Kind of a long time for each one, but I have fun doing it.
These decks are obviously far from perfect. Most of the time these decks are built and playtested over a matter of 5 days or less. I do have experience on my side when building them, but so do many of the other players I run into. But they are usually good enough to pass my muster, and presentable to the public. I think they are good for people to use when getting ideas, and most of the time they get adjusted to the individual user.
Anyways, I hope that answers your questions and gives you an idea of what I'm trying to accomplish. I appreciate your comments, as well as those of the other regular contributors. And thanks for the constructive criticism, I definitely plan in keeping it in mind!
I'll chime in and agree this is the best thing on Pure!
IIRC, I was the "4c Blue Deck." It was indeed Jacerator and I am pretty sure that was the day I was totally blown out both games and cast hardly any spells. Which is why you couldn't tell what deck it was.
"Is it the deck or the pilot?" Seriously!
Indeed. Every once in a while I ask Lee Sharpe when we're going to get colour identity rules implemented online. Those will make it even impossible to play Tri-colour lands in two colour decks. =D That's the way it should be! I don't even like playing off-colour fetches in two colour decks. Trying to find loopholes cheapens the rules.
I am the same way. I didn't realize it till I had to sell the bulk of my collection but I had fallen into the trap of using the same cards in every deck. Titans, equipment, commands, etc. They are great cards though so sometimes it is hard to build decks without them. And you do need a good reason not to run them. That said, I do like the budget articles better simply because you can see cards you never thought of. But like MMogg also said, don't take this the wrong way Mike. Your articles are still fantastic regardless and one of the weekly articles I really look forward too.
As far as the games go, he probably does what I do. Play some games and pick then one that shows off the deck best.
The whole off colour land thing really gets to me every time. I politely tell everyone that it should not be allowed and it's a hind sight of the client. The worst I've seen is a Azusa deck bouncing karoo lands to bounce lands and exile graveyard every turn.
Most of the time, players tell me to piss off and tells me I don't know the rules. shrugs..