There is a very valid reason that aluren decks containing fow are flat out better then those with out. your right that its card disadvantage, but the fact that your gonna lose to t1 duress/thoughtseize or t1 combo every single time should make you get those wily free counterspells. board them out vs everything if you have to, but if you want a more consistent deck across the ENTIRE legacy metagme, those fows will help ya.
Nice read and explanation of a Legacy deck i gave up on a long time ago lol. I see your point with Thoughtseize and while it does prevent you from surprised while going for the combo, it doesn't always help when they are playing spells for the win. Each to their own I suppose.
One of our clanmates was on an aluren kick awhile back and did very well in several DE's.
Never been a huge combo guy, but I did enjoy the Dream Halls combo much more than Aluren.
Nice to see another Legacy article on here, nicely done.
I can't say I'm too great with technology. I think I've managed to resolve my issues now and so hopefully the audio quality will be improved in future videos.
I've just finished my article covering last week's event, which will discuss the Mirrodin Beseiged cards that have come in to the Heirloom cardpool. Thanks for your comments on the website, I added them in to my article.
"So what do you do to help inforce the social contract? Play casual decks, and there is no need to define casual because we can all spot a casual deck versus a tournament/dickish deck"
No, you DO have to define Specifically what casual means. To one person, casual means no deck with any card that has ever beat them or they think is too powerful. To some it means no cards over $5, to some it means nothing that is used in "tourney" decks. Guess what? Casual is one of those bland terms people use to ignore people who play cards they don't like.
I find that many players use "We're just casual players" as an excuse to not follow the rules or as an excuse for why their decks are unfocused and generally pathetic. This is a game, we play to have fun and to win. If a card is bothering you, list that card as something you don't want to play against. Personally I hate only 1 card- roil elemental. I state it in any commander game I don't want to play against it, so I don't see it. When you start making a huge list of cards that are "unfair" and "unfun" you might as well play at your kitchen table and make your own rules because you obviously don't want to be challenged in this game. You want opponents to play only the decks you like to beat on, and not anything that gives you a fair fight.
When I see a list of 30 cards someone doesn't like in a game, I see someone who is a beautiful and unique snowflake and who thinks everyone should bend to their whims instead of learning to cope with the fact that someone, somewhere will be able to beat you with some card. Learn to live with it.
Actually I had three empty slots at the end, and my candidates were Wall of Omens, Preordain and Spreading Seas. It was Preordain for a long time but as I was expecting a lot of nonbasics, I switched to Spreading Seas. Which at the end turned out to be the right decision.
I was expecting Hypergenesis (which I played against) with nothing but nonbasics, I was expecting a lot of Ravnica duals and other duals (which were there), manlands (which is the weakest point of any WU Control deck), Time Spiral storage lands (the one player who plays them didn't show up) and hideway lands (Ranth didn't play his Kithkin deck). So yes, it was the right decision.
The tournament by the way was an invitation-only tournament. That could be a reason why we had less players than usual.
#1 - Godot is an awesome name. If you don't get why, it is because you are an uncultured, illiterate barbarian.
#2 - All evidence shows that Godot is an awesome dad that puts in a lot of time with his kids.
#3 - You didn't drop out of college and start a hedge fund. That is obvious, because you are a moron. Or maybe you did, which shows us why the economy is in the crapper right now. Thanks for your wise insight.
#4 - Ryan is completely capable of making equally impressive statements, and he wouldn't even have to lie.
#5 - On top of that, you are completely incapable of communicating in a way that other people can understand. That and the fact that you have incorrect information was probably the reason why your article didn't get published.
#6 - Only a moron makes ad hominem attacks against a member of the community that is generally well liked, on top of being talented, intelligent, and prolific. Also, he has a pretty big fan base.
#7 - You smell bad too. I only know that because of a cool new iPad app that finds out how everyone smells and makes a complete registry that you can look through instantly. So... You smell bad. :P
You tred on murky ground with sudden pitfalls when you start discussing what is and isn't fun and what is and isn't healthy. Particularly online. I am more of the carebear type of player than the griefer (though I do own 8 armageddon cards (4x ravages) and I am not afraid to use them. I just usually leave those cards out of my commander decks.)
Also, I think it is possible to become so uptight and fascistic (ie: everything you don't like violates the contract) that you no longer are any fun to play with. So with that said, play what you like, concede when you like. Invite people you like to play with you and screw the rest.
I don't have a problem with a particular strategy as much as I do an attitude. It's pretty hard to summarize an attitude in a 20 character game description, and usually there isn't a need to anyway. For the most part, people online get what (I think) EDH is about. It is rare that you'll see a deck that does nothing all game then combos out in a turn or locks everyone down. I've seen it, but it's rare. What people more often do is violate the spirit of the format in ways that serve no purpose other than to make the game shorter, more frustrating, and less interesting. There are a few ways to do this: five-color good stuff decks that never cast their commanders, combo decks that win instantly, etc. Most of these decks are also packed with tutors, which violates the spirit of the format in my opinion.
I feel I should elaborate on why I feel that way. EDH is a large deck singleton format, the point of which is to increase the randomness of each game. I have no problem with a few tutors. They serve as a fun surprise when you draw one and can enable you to get out of a bad situation. I do have a problem when people use tutors to try to minimize the inherent randomness of the format to an unhealthy degree. There are a variety of tutors available in the commander card pool, and there is no reason to try to remove any or all of them. Isolated, they're fun, as I said. The problem comes when people use them in the wrong way, and that's where the social contract comes in. The social contract attempts to get players to follow the spirit of the law, not just the letter.
Tutors aren't the only thing that violate the spirit of the format, but it was a good example of something I have different opinions about depending on the deck, as well as something you can't really put in a game description.
Also, if you have looked at any of the decks I have talked about, they are certainly far from griefer decks. I just think the responsibility of someone getting the game they want is their own. If someone doesnt want to take the time to list what they dont want to see at their table, then apparently to me it is not a big deal. And if you just join random tables then you have to expect you are opening yourself up to anything. So it's simply easier in than long run to make your own table, include your own description, and then hopefully people will follow over trying to enforce a rather open ended social contract in a world wide program.
Except that cards posted on /auction room usually does not sell. It's populated with people just trying to grab the rares at about XXXXXbot's price *90%. Anything higher it does not sell because there is no competition. It's just a slightly improved spamming system.
What mtgo could use it a persistent auction market saved on the server. You could leave your cards up for awhile and ppl can actually bid for it and price increments smaller than a tix.
Im a little shocked that the final tourney had so few players that you were top-4 with just 3 matches played (1 a loss). That deck looks insane. If I had the cards/money to buy the cards I would certainly build that for any competitive tourney. Looks very solid. However, the LD seems the weakest part of the plan. I know vs posts you really want to kill their accel but it seems like more counters would be better.
Good to see the face behind the deck :D Must dig through my replays as I remember a couple of games but not the outcomes.
I agree with Lythand that how you approach the game is more important than what cards you bring. I enjoy games more where players are chatty and sociable before their Sundering Titan eats my land, I've had entirely miserable games where the only comments are moans like, "LD isn't casual, you're a douche" after their Tabernacle is destroyed.
I suspect the frustration with certain plays and combos is the time taken to set up and play Cmdr online combined with the wildly varied expectations of the players. With paper magic, turns (especially the first few) are faster, it's more sociable and if someone pulls out a combo win then you just shuffle up and go again. Further, "We're not playing if you play that deck again" is a real option. Online it seems it can take half an hour by the time people pick a commander, mulligan, wander away, disconnect, play a few lands, fail to set up yields, etc, etc. For the game to end with an, "I win" combo after that time investment is frustrating. Voicing that frustration almost never helps (I'm tring to stop, honest). Widely different power levels in decks is also frustrating. Hoping for a fun game with your Insect tribe and getting curbstomped by a deck being tested for the weekly PRE is not fun.
The "socal contract" can't exist online as there is (almost) no penalty for breaking it. I've encountered a player who has a habit of leaving the game and joining another,without conceeding, if it's going badly for him - forcing players to eject him to continue. For him to end up on enough block lists that he cannot find a game takes a very long time and a new account starts the cycle again.
I, personally, vacillate on how to build a deck. For example, I put together a Uril deck and included Cataclysm. Float mana, Cataclysm and load up Uril is a practically a game ender, but it felt "wrong" despute being an edict effect away from total disaster. So I try and avoid those sort of effects. Similarly, I have no desire to wait out a twincasted Time Stretch so don't play them myself.
I feel the only time game labels help is when they genuinely help to set expectations. Two favourites I've seen are, "all's fair in magical war" and "don't be afraid to play good cards". Variations on, "anything goes" help. Anything that attempts to restrict decks seems a red flag for griefers.
Do you really think that everyone who doesn't put a game description is OK with anything, or is that just what you say to justify your antagonistic play style? I can't believe that you honestly think that everyone who doesn't put a game description is OK with "anything goes". You start off by saying that descriptions don't matter! You seem to have a catch-22: no matter what people do, you're going to inflict your decks on them.
And even if adding a description saying "no whiners or quitters" doesn't work EVERY time, that doesn't mean it doesn't eliminate some "whiners or quitters". The chance of one less concession isn't worth the three seconds it takes to type "no whiners or quitters" or, better yet, "Anything goes-competitive players only". (I say better yet because the second is more specific and less condescending.)
I can't tell if you're trying to troll me or if you're being genuine and are just a griefer. Since you write articles for this site, you're probably not trying to troll me.
To the above,
Ya you are right, it needs 4x wasteland like every tournament classic deck, which consequently destroy the deck too. It is quite competitive on the kitchen table end of things.
My favorite classic tournament deck is the sphere of resistance decks floating around utilizing mishra's workshop.
Tinker should be in there, somehow it got left out of the list. I do mention tinkering into blightsteel colossus too. Thanks for pointing that out.
I guess I just don't like wasting $$$ all over the place trying to keep up in standard only to have your collection fall out of style every year when stuff rotates. I dont have time to play a million events to "go infinite" so like most people I basically pay to play, trying to make good investments that hold value along the way.
Sorry if I mislead anyone into thinking I was building and writing on tier 1 classic decks.
To be fair, the mgto api is NOT widely tatted about. There are numerous people who bothered to figure it out but that knowledge has become a business. So I don't think there are tutorials or what not that will be easily accessible to you.
However as Mmogg points out there are relatively cheap alternatives to creating bots yourself. MTGOLibrary is one...or one of the other bot purveyors (there are a few though I think less now than there used to be.)
You could also write WotC and ask them for tutorials/faqs on the MTGO api since it is their baby and they can most easily tell you of the pitfalls and problems with creating a 3rd party bot system. I know expecting an answer might seem futile but hey, it never hurts to ask.
I quote " So I know a little bit about economics, and from what I can see, this is a conflict of interest." So his first post go on about how he knows about the econimics of magic, then he makes that statement. He's just some kid trying to look impressive.
Eh game descriptions dont matter...you can put no quitters or complainers as many times as you want and inevitably someone at the table starts bitchin about the deck someone is playing. And then they quit. So i said forget it. if a game isnt labelled it means anything goes in my mind, because clearly it was not important enough to the creator to to clarify. And im not a mind reader.
There is a very valid reason that aluren decks containing fow are flat out better then those with out. your right that its card disadvantage, but the fact that your gonna lose to t1 duress/thoughtseize or t1 combo every single time should make you get those wily free counterspells. board them out vs everything if you have to, but if you want a more consistent deck across the ENTIRE legacy metagme, those fows will help ya.
big fan of aluren decks too.
whiffy
Nice read and explanation of a Legacy deck i gave up on a long time ago lol. I see your point with Thoughtseize and while it does prevent you from surprised while going for the combo, it doesn't always help when they are playing spells for the win. Each to their own I suppose.
One of our clanmates was on an aluren kick awhile back and did very well in several DE's.
Never been a huge combo guy, but I did enjoy the Dream Halls combo much more than Aluren.
Nice to see another Legacy article on here, nicely done.
Thanks for the advice.
I can't say I'm too great with technology. I think I've managed to resolve my issues now and so hopefully the audio quality will be improved in future videos.
Thanks souhei.
I've just finished my article covering last week's event, which will discuss the Mirrodin Beseiged cards that have come in to the Heirloom cardpool. Thanks for your comments on the website, I added them in to my article.
Also, congrats on winning this tournament too!
Would be nice to see your Jund list.
At least you see their unique beauty :p
"So what do you do to help inforce the social contract? Play casual decks, and there is no need to define casual because we can all spot a casual deck versus a tournament/dickish deck"
No, you DO have to define Specifically what casual means. To one person, casual means no deck with any card that has ever beat them or they think is too powerful. To some it means no cards over $5, to some it means nothing that is used in "tourney" decks. Guess what? Casual is one of those bland terms people use to ignore people who play cards they don't like.
I find that many players use "We're just casual players" as an excuse to not follow the rules or as an excuse for why their decks are unfocused and generally pathetic. This is a game, we play to have fun and to win. If a card is bothering you, list that card as something you don't want to play against. Personally I hate only 1 card- roil elemental. I state it in any commander game I don't want to play against it, so I don't see it. When you start making a huge list of cards that are "unfair" and "unfun" you might as well play at your kitchen table and make your own rules because you obviously don't want to be challenged in this game. You want opponents to play only the decks you like to beat on, and not anything that gives you a fair fight.
When I see a list of 30 cards someone doesn't like in a game, I see someone who is a beautiful and unique snowflake and who thinks everyone should bend to their whims instead of learning to cope with the fact that someone, somewhere will be able to beat you with some card. Learn to live with it.
its the exact same as the What is Casual debate...if that tells you anything. I know you've seen one or two of those on the mtgo forums...
Wow, these comments make this sounds confusing. Another reason to avoid commander online.
Actually I had three empty slots at the end, and my candidates were Wall of Omens, Preordain and Spreading Seas. It was Preordain for a long time but as I was expecting a lot of nonbasics, I switched to Spreading Seas. Which at the end turned out to be the right decision.
I was expecting Hypergenesis (which I played against) with nothing but nonbasics, I was expecting a lot of Ravnica duals and other duals (which were there), manlands (which is the weakest point of any WU Control deck), Time Spiral storage lands (the one player who plays them didn't show up) and hideway lands (Ranth didn't play his Kithkin deck). So yes, it was the right decision.
The tournament by the way was an invitation-only tournament. That could be a reason why we had less players than usual.
LE
#1 - Godot is an awesome name. If you don't get why, it is because you are an uncultured, illiterate barbarian.
#2 - All evidence shows that Godot is an awesome dad that puts in a lot of time with his kids.
#3 - You didn't drop out of college and start a hedge fund. That is obvious, because you are a moron. Or maybe you did, which shows us why the economy is in the crapper right now. Thanks for your wise insight.
#4 - Ryan is completely capable of making equally impressive statements, and he wouldn't even have to lie.
#5 - On top of that, you are completely incapable of communicating in a way that other people can understand. That and the fact that you have incorrect information was probably the reason why your article didn't get published.
#6 - Only a moron makes ad hominem attacks against a member of the community that is generally well liked, on top of being talented, intelligent, and prolific. Also, he has a pretty big fan base.
#7 - You smell bad too. I only know that because of a cool new iPad app that finds out how everyone smells and makes a complete registry that you can look through instantly. So... You smell bad. :P
You tred on murky ground with sudden pitfalls when you start discussing what is and isn't fun and what is and isn't healthy. Particularly online. I am more of the carebear type of player than the griefer (though I do own 8 armageddon cards (4x ravages) and I am not afraid to use them. I just usually leave those cards out of my commander decks.)
Also, I think it is possible to become so uptight and fascistic (ie: everything you don't like violates the contract) that you no longer are any fun to play with. So with that said, play what you like, concede when you like. Invite people you like to play with you and screw the rest.
I don't have a problem with a particular strategy as much as I do an attitude. It's pretty hard to summarize an attitude in a 20 character game description, and usually there isn't a need to anyway. For the most part, people online get what (I think) EDH is about. It is rare that you'll see a deck that does nothing all game then combos out in a turn or locks everyone down. I've seen it, but it's rare. What people more often do is violate the spirit of the format in ways that serve no purpose other than to make the game shorter, more frustrating, and less interesting. There are a few ways to do this: five-color good stuff decks that never cast their commanders, combo decks that win instantly, etc. Most of these decks are also packed with tutors, which violates the spirit of the format in my opinion.
I feel I should elaborate on why I feel that way. EDH is a large deck singleton format, the point of which is to increase the randomness of each game. I have no problem with a few tutors. They serve as a fun surprise when you draw one and can enable you to get out of a bad situation. I do have a problem when people use tutors to try to minimize the inherent randomness of the format to an unhealthy degree. There are a variety of tutors available in the commander card pool, and there is no reason to try to remove any or all of them. Isolated, they're fun, as I said. The problem comes when people use them in the wrong way, and that's where the social contract comes in. The social contract attempts to get players to follow the spirit of the law, not just the letter.
Tutors aren't the only thing that violate the spirit of the format, but it was a good example of something I have different opinions about depending on the deck, as well as something you can't really put in a game description.
Also, if you have looked at any of the decks I have talked about, they are certainly far from griefer decks. I just think the responsibility of someone getting the game they want is their own. If someone doesnt want to take the time to list what they dont want to see at their table, then apparently to me it is not a big deal. And if you just join random tables then you have to expect you are opening yourself up to anything. So it's simply easier in than long run to make your own table, include your own description, and then hopefully people will follow over trying to enforce a rather open ended social contract in a world wide program.
Except that cards posted on /auction room usually does not sell. It's populated with people just trying to grab the rares at about XXXXXbot's price *90%. Anything higher it does not sell because there is no competition. It's just a slightly improved spamming system.
What mtgo could use it a persistent auction market saved on the server. You could leave your cards up for awhile and ppl can actually bid for it and price increments smaller than a tix.
Im a little shocked that the final tourney had so few players that you were top-4 with just 3 matches played (1 a loss). That deck looks insane. If I had the cards/money to buy the cards I would certainly build that for any competitive tourney. Looks very solid. However, the LD seems the weakest part of the plan. I know vs posts you really want to kill their accel but it seems like more counters would be better.
Good to see the face behind the deck :D Must dig through my replays as I remember a couple of games but not the outcomes.
I agree with Lythand that how you approach the game is more important than what cards you bring. I enjoy games more where players are chatty and sociable before their Sundering Titan eats my land, I've had entirely miserable games where the only comments are moans like, "LD isn't casual, you're a douche" after their Tabernacle is destroyed.
I suspect the frustration with certain plays and combos is the time taken to set up and play Cmdr online combined with the wildly varied expectations of the players. With paper magic, turns (especially the first few) are faster, it's more sociable and if someone pulls out a combo win then you just shuffle up and go again. Further, "We're not playing if you play that deck again" is a real option. Online it seems it can take half an hour by the time people pick a commander, mulligan, wander away, disconnect, play a few lands, fail to set up yields, etc, etc. For the game to end with an, "I win" combo after that time investment is frustrating. Voicing that frustration almost never helps (I'm tring to stop, honest). Widely different power levels in decks is also frustrating. Hoping for a fun game with your Insect tribe and getting curbstomped by a deck being tested for the weekly PRE is not fun.
The "socal contract" can't exist online as there is (almost) no penalty for breaking it. I've encountered a player who has a habit of leaving the game and joining another,without conceeding, if it's going badly for him - forcing players to eject him to continue. For him to end up on enough block lists that he cannot find a game takes a very long time and a new account starts the cycle again.
I, personally, vacillate on how to build a deck. For example, I put together a Uril deck and included Cataclysm. Float mana, Cataclysm and load up Uril is a practically a game ender, but it felt "wrong" despute being an edict effect away from total disaster. So I try and avoid those sort of effects. Similarly, I have no desire to wait out a twincasted Time Stretch so don't play them myself.
I feel the only time game labels help is when they genuinely help to set expectations. Two favourites I've seen are, "all's fair in magical war" and "don't be afraid to play good cards". Variations on, "anything goes" help. Anything that attempts to restrict decks seems a red flag for griefers.
Do you really think that everyone who doesn't put a game description is OK with anything, or is that just what you say to justify your antagonistic play style? I can't believe that you honestly think that everyone who doesn't put a game description is OK with "anything goes". You start off by saying that descriptions don't matter! You seem to have a catch-22: no matter what people do, you're going to inflict your decks on them.
And even if adding a description saying "no whiners or quitters" doesn't work EVERY time, that doesn't mean it doesn't eliminate some "whiners or quitters". The chance of one less concession isn't worth the three seconds it takes to type "no whiners or quitters" or, better yet, "Anything goes-competitive players only". (I say better yet because the second is more specific and less condescending.)
I can't tell if you're trying to troll me or if you're being genuine and are just a griefer. Since you write articles for this site, you're probably not trying to troll me.
To the above,
Ya you are right, it needs 4x wasteland like every tournament classic deck, which consequently destroy the deck too. It is quite competitive on the kitchen table end of things.
My favorite classic tournament deck is the sphere of resistance decks floating around utilizing mishra's workshop.
Tinker should be in there, somehow it got left out of the list. I do mention tinkering into blightsteel colossus too. Thanks for pointing that out.
I guess I just don't like wasting $$$ all over the place trying to keep up in standard only to have your collection fall out of style every year when stuff rotates. I dont have time to play a million events to "go infinite" so like most people I basically pay to play, trying to make good investments that hold value along the way.
Sorry if I mislead anyone into thinking I was building and writing on tier 1 classic decks.
To be fair, the mgto api is NOT widely tatted about. There are numerous people who bothered to figure it out but that knowledge has become a business. So I don't think there are tutorials or what not that will be easily accessible to you.
However as Mmogg points out there are relatively cheap alternatives to creating bots yourself. MTGOLibrary is one...or one of the other bot purveyors (there are a few though I think less now than there used to be.)
You could also write WotC and ask them for tutorials/faqs on the MTGO api since it is their baby and they can most easily tell you of the pitfalls and problems with creating a 3rd party bot system. I know expecting an answer might seem futile but hey, it never hurts to ask.
Just finished watching the american release of TRPS for the first time, last week. Nice reference. :d
JBK said it all himself.
I quote " So I know a little bit about economics, and from what I can see, this is a conflict of interest." So his first post go on about how he knows about the econimics of magic, then he makes that statement. He's just some kid trying to look impressive.
no tinker? or did it get banned?
Eh game descriptions dont matter...you can put no quitters or complainers as many times as you want and inevitably someone at the table starts bitchin about the deck someone is playing. And then they quit. So i said forget it. if a game isnt labelled it means anything goes in my mind, because clearly it was not important enough to the creator to to clarify. And im not a mind reader.
i was nice. just stating that its not there for tournies