Love ur podcast. There is a classic PE this weekend. Hope it fills like the previous one. =)
Engineered explosives in the gush sb is to combat spheres since u can pretty much cast them without being affected by the spheres. x=0, pay colored mana, get sunburst.
Steel sabotage in the md is a concession to blightsteel colossus being in the format since Nature's claim doesn't do anything against it.
I should take out strip mine for island #2.
Blocking with the hawk in the last game seems pretty bad. You're at such a high life total that the only way he can beat you is doing something tricky to kill your guys. The way you played made it possible shrivel + scorpion could bail him out. You were too far ahead at that point for it to matter anyway, but you even remark that that attack seems odd to you.
Good show. I really enjoyed some of the Stax talk, even though I loathe Stax.
Since this week no events fired, how about inviting Menace on the show to go over Dredge in detail. It's a deck that has been around since pre-ME4 and is as strong as ever. It's a deck that is difficult to pilot and difficult to stop pre-board, and even sometimes post-board. I think Classic learners really need to know this deck inside out to know how to combat it.
And/or you guys could do an interview with dangerlinto from CQ as a kind of community spotlight.
Just some ideas to fill the hole left by the lack of meta analysis.
Yeah, it's a trade off and definitely takes some getting used to. You have to click in the play area of the player you want to look at to see their graveyard. I know I made a few targeting mistakes when I first made the switch as well. But the extra space is very nice, especially when there are a ton of permanents out there. I actually made the switch for the articles, but I have stuck with it.
I think you could make much better use of the fetch lands to deck thin at times when you haven't much action or plenty of mana to do what you need to.
Especially before you draw extra cards from prism just to reduce your chances at it drawing just another land.
Effective use of deck thinning can be just as important as raw card draw.
When you have both, thinning first makes the draw a good deal better.
I always enjoy these articles.
Though budget building is something I always skirt the boundaries on.
So much as, I have no additional funding to get new cards.
Any new card I get means I had to sell something, usually many somethings.
But I wouldn't really call my decks 'budget' since many have (now) pricey cards.
Getting them before they are *money* helps.
There are plenty of cards I dream of obtaining some day heh.
But I feel that the middle ground isn't such a bad place to be.
And still manage to win a fair amount of the time, sometimes I even get to be "that guy".
I've always liked running singleton Whiteout and snow lands any time I'm running mongrel, but seeing as how land light stompy is supposed to be I can see why it wouldn't be run.
I was quite impressed with the mongrel/shield tech, I would frequently abuse mongrel for various colors in games and still hadn't considered it.
To modify your play space, when playing a game you need to to go Gameplay Settings. In the Graphics Preferences box change your Game Table Design from Big Card to Compact. To get the display to look like my screenshots you will also have to reduce the chat log also.
lol, wow SB, I never even thought of that..you're absolutely right. Im not entirely sure what his goal was with circu. I didn't see anything that would hinted at a mill strategy I guess he was just playing him for the colors, though there are plenty of better UB creatures for that. Wrexial or Sygg for example.
Great article. Nath was the first commander deck I built for MTGO, though I don't play him much anymore because I felt I was annoying people. Wei Night Raiders was a nice addition to the deck since no one could block him. I didn't build up such a discard-based deck, but putting him out and forcing discard against non-blue players drew me some hate. I should probably have been less aggressive with him.
How did you modify your MTGO play space to remove the user's avatars and shove everything to the top of their playmats? The toughest part for commander on MTGO for me is the screen size and real estate, and that would be so much better for me.
Circu seems like a weird choice for a commander. For his second ability to do anything, you need to exile a card from one player, and then have a different player want to play the same spell. Seems like a pretty narrow case. Surely he can't be intending on milling out the whole table?
Dude, I'm glad you have a nice deck and that you can beat planeswalkers easily and all. But saying Tezzeret is garbage... well, that's not something one would say if he's playing since Beta.
Tezzeret is currently being played at the highest level in all the formats he's legal in, from block to legacy, and even this fact alone shows that he's a little bit(!) more than garbage.
Oh and having Memoricide in the maindeck is no way a guarantee that you will win against any deck; Tezzeret decks or anything else. As I said above, I've lost both Forgemaster AND Tezz in a game to Memoricide, but still managed to win. And there were games in which I hit the opponent's win condition with it but still lost the game. No one is naive enough to build decks that will fall apart if the main engine gets Memoricide-d. There's always a Plan B.
I knew if someone could make a deck that was costed like a preconsted one but could actually win games it would be you. Great job. There's even a lot of cards in here that I should pick up.
I wish I would have been able to read this article when I started playing commander. It would have really lessened the learning curve.
As I said, it is very subjective. No way to gauge how others should or shouldn't behave. No one can fault you for wanting to win and as long as it is legal it is fine. Just some people are picky about how they win.
Hey Gwyned, Welcome back. Looks like you took up right where you left off.
Love ur podcast. There is a classic PE this weekend. Hope it fills like the previous one. =)
Engineered explosives in the gush sb is to combat spheres since u can pretty much cast them without being affected by the spheres. x=0, pay colored mana, get sunburst.
Steel sabotage in the md is a concession to blightsteel colossus being in the format since Nature's claim doesn't do anything against it.
I should take out strip mine for island #2.
Blocking with the hawk in the last game seems pretty bad. You're at such a high life total that the only way he can beat you is doing something tricky to kill your guys. The way you played made it possible shrivel + scorpion could bail him out. You were too far ahead at that point for it to matter anyway, but you even remark that that attack seems odd to you.
Good show. I really enjoyed some of the Stax talk, even though I loathe Stax.
Since this week no events fired, how about inviting Menace on the show to go over Dredge in detail. It's a deck that has been around since pre-ME4 and is as strong as ever. It's a deck that is difficult to pilot and difficult to stop pre-board, and even sometimes post-board. I think Classic learners really need to know this deck inside out to know how to combat it.
And/or you guys could do an interview with dangerlinto from CQ as a kind of community spotlight.
Just some ideas to fill the hole left by the lack of meta analysis.
Memnarch tech!!!! I was only kidding about Amulet.
Yeah, it's a trade off and definitely takes some getting used to. You have to click in the play area of the player you want to look at to see their graveyard. I know I made a few targeting mistakes when I first made the switch as well. But the extra space is very nice, especially when there are a ton of permanents out there. I actually made the switch for the articles, but I have stuck with it.
I tried using the compact myself and not a big fan of it. I like to see everyone's graveyard since it's so vital in Commander.
I think you could make much better use of the fetch lands to deck thin at times when you haven't much action or plenty of mana to do what you need to.
Especially before you draw extra cards from prism just to reduce your chances at it drawing just another land.
Effective use of deck thinning can be just as important as raw card draw.
When you have both, thinning first makes the draw a good deal better.
I always enjoy these articles.
Though budget building is something I always skirt the boundaries on.
So much as, I have no additional funding to get new cards.
Any new card I get means I had to sell something, usually many somethings.
But I wouldn't really call my decks 'budget' since many have (now) pricey cards.
Getting them before they are *money* helps.
There are plenty of cards I dream of obtaining some day heh.
But I feel that the middle ground isn't such a bad place to be.
And still manage to win a fair amount of the time, sometimes I even get to be "that guy".
I liked your article alot. As others have mentioned the pictures are great and I also liked the videos. Good job!
I've always liked running singleton Whiteout and snow lands any time I'm running mongrel, but seeing as how land light stompy is supposed to be I can see why it wouldn't be run.
I was quite impressed with the mongrel/shield tech, I would frequently abuse mongrel for various colors in games and still hadn't considered it.
To modify your play space, when playing a game you need to to go Gameplay Settings. In the Graphics Preferences box change your Game Table Design from Big Card to Compact. To get the display to look like my screenshots you will also have to reduce the chat log also.
Thanks for the comments guys!
Except that when a commander is exiled it goes to the command zone instead and can be replayed at will (+2 mana cost) so the lock wouldn't stick.
In game 3, you held up red mana instead of playing a fetchland, I think I would've just played out the fetch and not bluffed a trick.
Depends if they have cards like Time Ebb I can see this being a really strong play to lock their general out of the game.
lol, wow SB, I never even thought of that..you're absolutely right. Im not entirely sure what his goal was with circu. I didn't see anything that would hinted at a mill strategy I guess he was just playing him for the colors, though there are plenty of better UB creatures for that. Wrexial or Sygg for example.
Great article. Nath was the first commander deck I built for MTGO, though I don't play him much anymore because I felt I was annoying people. Wei Night Raiders was a nice addition to the deck since no one could block him. I didn't build up such a discard-based deck, but putting him out and forcing discard against non-blue players drew me some hate. I should probably have been less aggressive with him.
How did you modify your MTGO play space to remove the user's avatars and shove everything to the top of their playmats? The toughest part for commander on MTGO for me is the screen size and real estate, and that would be so much better for me.
The headers to two games are missing. I wrote them, but funny things happen when you cut and paste in the program. Sorry. Very annoying.
Circu seems like a weird choice for a commander. For his second ability to do anything, you need to exile a card from one player, and then have a different player want to play the same spell. Seems like a pretty narrow case. Surely he can't be intending on milling out the whole table?
Am I missing something obvious?
nice report,
but isn't there something missing from a couple of spots?
t :)
Dude, I'm glad you have a nice deck and that you can beat planeswalkers easily and all. But saying Tezzeret is garbage... well, that's not something one would say if he's playing since Beta.
Tezzeret is currently being played at the highest level in all the formats he's legal in, from block to legacy, and even this fact alone shows that he's a little bit(!) more than garbage.
Oh and having Memoricide in the maindeck is no way a guarantee that you will win against any deck; Tezzeret decks or anything else. As I said above, I've lost both Forgemaster AND Tezz in a game to Memoricide, but still managed to win. And there were games in which I hit the opponent's win condition with it but still lost the game. No one is naive enough to build decks that will fall apart if the main engine gets Memoricide-d. There's always a Plan B.
LE
I knew if someone could make a deck that was costed like a preconsted one but could actually win games it would be you. Great job. There's even a lot of cards in here that I should pick up.
I wish I would have been able to read this article when I started playing commander. It would have really lessened the learning curve.
As I said, it is very subjective. No way to gauge how others should or shouldn't behave. No one can fault you for wanting to win and as long as it is legal it is fine. Just some people are picky about how they win.
Thanks
Great article, as usual.
One note: in round 6, Sakashima cannot be bounced in response as the ability only triggers EOT.