Yeah, I know what you're saying - TSE is not bouncing back to the point it was at.
As far as ZZW is concerned, the fallout is happening now. Cobra, Avenger, Ravine (and all manlands) are all dropping. Some cards are rising (guide, mystic). Some cards will stay stable (fetchlands). Regardless, the EV will continue to be amazing.
Dunkle "hater's gonna hate" Stille was great, but as Menace said, we needed more. I think it's kind of hard when you have 4 people to give people a chance to speak and Dunkle seemed like he didn't really take initiative to speak up and only replied when questions were directed at him (which is also a good thing to a degree so that you don't have 4 people talking over each other!).
Re: Noble Fish... one thing people need to do when brewing – and it didn't seem like you guys did it – is compare it to other similar decks and find why the build is stronger/a better choice. In this case, I wonder what this deck offers in superiority over something like GW Hateraide. On paper it seems like they have consistency (being 2 colours) and an alt win con with Vault/Key and 3 Tutors. Also, with Vial they seem better positioned in a field of Sphere effects, even on the draw with Elvish Spirit Guide (compared to Petal, which on the draw under a sphere effect leaves you unable to use it).
I totally get what you are saying but it doesn't jibe with my experience in commander. Commander may be the least comfortable format for Spikes as the goal isn't necessarily winning quickly and efficiently. It isn't quite a carebear format but it is a little in that vein. Or at least that's how it seems from playing with aficionados of the format.
Yeah I think TSE has lost some steam with the devaluation of the cards from all the nix tix events, and the fact that alot of the cards dont see as much play as they used to, cards like manabond, volraith stronghold, recurring nightmare, reflecting pool, and survival used to be worth alot more than they are now and it has been a negative trend long enough that i am becoming skeptical that the cards will bounce back much...A bigger and impossible to answer question is when will the bottom fall out of ZZW, i looked recently at the tier one standard decks i was playing and realized that most standard decks run very few zendikar/wwk cards if you take out jace, and once jace starts dropping it might be like the stock market crash as people try to unload him...anyhow another solid article.
That makes perfect sense actually. In which case you won't see any more support for the formats, and they won't spend time trying to code the cards and gameplay. Either way, it means they won't be coming online.
Although I think these formats would be fun to play, I just can't imagine them being properly ported online essentially for the reasons you list out. Like you said, we haven't seen any new product for these two formats for a while, and it seems like right now the focus of WotC is on Commander. Who knows, maybe next summer they will back off Commander and give Planechase and Archenemy the shot in the arm they need, but that doesn't seem to be how they operate. My guess is that they made the money that they wanted and we probably aren't going to be seeing any more support for either of these formats.
I tried to avoid giving an opinion about whether Combo is bad for the format. Instead I was hoping just to give people the ability to recognize what they are playing against and come up with ways to include answers in their decks. Sometimes you are going to lose even if you have an answer in your deck, but there are a lot of times where things like Relic of Progenitus come in very handy. Unfortunately people don't like including those types of cards in their decks, instead just focusing on their theme and threats and relying upon others to have answers. And that isn't the best recipe for success.
Thanks for the shout out. It looks like you are getting some nice new toys with the new set. Consecrated Sphinx is going to be bonkers, but I think everyone knows that already like you pointed out. In your deck, though, it is even more scary.
Two things impressed me about your deck that I didn't mention the first time. You play with some underused cards, like Web of Inertia, Pongify and Plagiarize. You aren't playing with every high powered Blue spell available yet you still have an extremely effective deck.
Along with that, the deck is pretty cheap. I think the most expensive card you have in it is Vedalken Shackles, which comes in at around 4 tix. It just goes to show that you don't need to invest tons of money to be competitive in the format. You just need to spend some time learning the format and trying things out. Good stuff.
Needs moar Dunkle. "Hahaha. Meddling Mage?, I play those kind of cards in Limited." Dunk should be on every cast. and lest we forget the classic. "We have this saying in Germany. Haters gonna Hate."
14 Classic events on the year. Most placing.
22 Shop decks, 11 Dredge, 9 Oath, 8 Trygon Jace, 6 GW Hate.(Full count and lists on ClassicQuarter.com)
Storm has to pack 3 Hurks in the main just as Shop should play Leyine Void.
Serum Powder into Leyine is a solid line of play against Dredge and Shop can randomly Follow with Waste/Sphere/Golem. Both Koby and I lost 0-2 to Greyes with Leyline+Sphere,etc turn 1.
With the current meta of Shop and Dredge, Main deck answers would be foolish not to run in every deck.
I'm actually kind of starting to hate TSE, but I opened Wasteland and got passed Reflecting Pool before my computer crashed this morning, so that rekindled things a bit.
The cards are getting harder to sell, they have lost value, and the format is still kind of questionable. I might not slog the queues as hard as I thought I would and try to hit Jace #4 in a week along with the usual Saga drafts.
I'd love to finally play some Planechase online, it's a superb casual format. I bought two paper decks the day they came out but I still have to crack them open. Sigh.
More good stuff... disgusting to see those two Jaces (in one week?) though. I ground through tons of 3x WWK drafts during the release week and never saw one. C'est la vie.
Always good to hear differing viewpoints. And it's awesome to hear from one of the deckbuilders featured in the article! Whether it's written as a stream of consciousness "rant" or as well-composed as possible is beside the point, whether it's straightforward or satirical. I get it. I hope someone gets something out of it, too :-) A couple pithy stream-of-consciousness responses quickly came to mind:
I feel you on the set design, but I wouldn't call it lazy. I'd call it inconsiderate, and coming close to condescending. The sets, I think, are designed to work as a whole. They don't design for Pauper, and especially not for Standard Pauper. By us Paupers going against the mold, we (perhaps) reveal that the major flaw in design is the very idea of rarity itself, and that certain philosophies might be right about everything that is reduced to a financial calculation ends up not working out so well...
Your comment leads me to think that green doesn't have enough share of the exiling portion of the color pie, currently administered by white. I guess that would make sense since the cycle of life includes the aspect of extinction...
...then again, that's pretty lazy of me ;-) Back to work!
I made that UB deck last night and played a couple matches with it. I liked it a lot. I think it could be a player with some besieged updates to it in the near future.
I never object to people playing whatever they want.
Part of the fun for me is when you see them trying to pull of the win all cheaty-faced and smile from having exactly the perfect answer for it.
Such as any green/black(+) deck that runs no basic lands with hermit druid for a combo kill from the graveyard.
You can't help but chuckle when you have the crop rotation in hand and a bog in the deck, or just a ravenous trap.
There really isn't a shortage of degenerate things to do, so banning a handful of them seems like a wasted effort.
I still find myself building a deck to have answers to the now banned Emrakul.
And then find myself cutting those answers for other cards since they are no longer needed.
The current UB list is definitely not the base of the future version of UB. I just can't think of a UB Block deck that doesn't play Tezz.
So UB will change and it will be a more heavy artifact deck with Tumble Magnets, Sphere of the Suns and of course Ichor Wellsprings. Carnifex Demon will become Black Sun's Zenith, there will be Go for the Throats somewhere in there etc...
Of course some may try to "mimic" the deck Matignon played; meaning they may add a little bit of Red to the deck for Galvanic Blasts and maybe even for Slagstorms.
Golftas Ervaren golfers weten als geen ander dat het handig is om over een kwalitatief hoogwaardige golftas met voldoende opbergmogelijkheid te beschikken. U kunt hierin namelijk al uw golf benodigdheden kwijt.
I've won a lot recently playing stompy in the 4 round pauper tourneys...usually 4-0ing at least 60%...at worst 3-1ing. It has game against everything except infect and WW, even then, it can win. I've played it straight for almost 4 months, and see no place for Nissa's Chosen. For my money, Silhana Ledgewalker is insane currently, single handily winning vs. Izzed post style decks and the rise of MBC. Additionally, I've never needed artifact hate to beat Affinity, 3 fogs in the board are enough to win vs. it and goblins the majority of the time. I find the above to be flooded often, and recommend 17 forests and all 4 rangers, as they are always good to see for tricks and such :)
The disappointing thing is if more players would learn how to adapt to certain cards and different archetypes instead of just complaining about them, great cards like Emrakul wouldn't have to get banned. I hardly consided him format-killing, but I know I'm in the minority here.
Well...yes and no. Winning is the bonus. If it was impossible to win (and I have seen this first hand) then no one would play. When someone brings a deck known to be unfun and a sure bet to win vs anything but the best the other players tend to quit in short order. What is generally desirable/desired is a sporting chance. Hence Emrakul was banned, along with other format-killing cards.
I totally agree with you. Combo decks are my least favorite to play against. That's because they are more concerned about playing with themselves then with other players. I'm usually one of the more aggressive players because of combo. Just because you're sitting there not bothering anyone doesn't mean I'm not going to attack you if I get the chance. You never know when that little bit of extra damage will make a difference.
I also agree with you about Commander being a broken format. Everyone seems to not talk about it, but it's not hard to win a Commander game. There are plenty of decks out there that should win most if not all the time. The fun in Commander isn't from winning, it's from interacting. This is why the social contract exists.
Hey Matt,
Yeah, I know what you're saying - TSE is not bouncing back to the point it was at.
As far as ZZW is concerned, the fallout is happening now. Cobra, Avenger, Ravine (and all manlands) are all dropping. Some cards are rising (guide, mystic). Some cards will stay stable (fetchlands). Regardless, the EV will continue to be amazing.
Dunkle "hater's gonna hate" Stille was great, but as Menace said, we needed more. I think it's kind of hard when you have 4 people to give people a chance to speak and Dunkle seemed like he didn't really take initiative to speak up and only replied when questions were directed at him (which is also a good thing to a degree so that you don't have 4 people talking over each other!).
Re: Noble Fish... one thing people need to do when brewing – and it didn't seem like you guys did it – is compare it to other similar decks and find why the build is stronger/a better choice. In this case, I wonder what this deck offers in superiority over something like GW Hateraide. On paper it seems like they have consistency (being 2 colours) and an alt win con with Vault/Key and 3 Tutors. Also, with Vial they seem better positioned in a field of Sphere effects, even on the draw with Elvish Spirit Guide (compared to Petal, which on the draw under a sphere effect leaves you unable to use it).
I totally get what you are saying but it doesn't jibe with my experience in commander. Commander may be the least comfortable format for Spikes as the goal isn't necessarily winning quickly and efficiently. It isn't quite a carebear format but it is a little in that vein. Or at least that's how it seems from playing with aficionados of the format.
Yeah I think TSE has lost some steam with the devaluation of the cards from all the nix tix events, and the fact that alot of the cards dont see as much play as they used to, cards like manabond, volraith stronghold, recurring nightmare, reflecting pool, and survival used to be worth alot more than they are now and it has been a negative trend long enough that i am becoming skeptical that the cards will bounce back much...A bigger and impossible to answer question is when will the bottom fall out of ZZW, i looked recently at the tier one standard decks i was playing and realized that most standard decks run very few zendikar/wwk cards if you take out jace, and once jace starts dropping it might be like the stock market crash as people try to unload him...anyhow another solid article.
That makes perfect sense actually. In which case you won't see any more support for the formats, and they won't spend time trying to code the cards and gameplay. Either way, it means they won't be coming online.
Actually I expect they did not make the money they wanted to make. The pattern seems to be they support the money makers and kill the dogs.
Although I think these formats would be fun to play, I just can't imagine them being properly ported online essentially for the reasons you list out. Like you said, we haven't seen any new product for these two formats for a while, and it seems like right now the focus of WotC is on Commander. Who knows, maybe next summer they will back off Commander and give Planechase and Archenemy the shot in the arm they need, but that doesn't seem to be how they operate. My guess is that they made the money that they wanted and we probably aren't going to be seeing any more support for either of these formats.
I tried to avoid giving an opinion about whether Combo is bad for the format. Instead I was hoping just to give people the ability to recognize what they are playing against and come up with ways to include answers in their decks. Sometimes you are going to lose even if you have an answer in your deck, but there are a lot of times where things like Relic of Progenitus come in very handy. Unfortunately people don't like including those types of cards in their decks, instead just focusing on their theme and threats and relying upon others to have answers. And that isn't the best recipe for success.
Thanks for the shout out. It looks like you are getting some nice new toys with the new set. Consecrated Sphinx is going to be bonkers, but I think everyone knows that already like you pointed out. In your deck, though, it is even more scary.
Two things impressed me about your deck that I didn't mention the first time. You play with some underused cards, like Web of Inertia, Pongify and Plagiarize. You aren't playing with every high powered Blue spell available yet you still have an extremely effective deck.
Along with that, the deck is pretty cheap. I think the most expensive card you have in it is Vedalken Shackles, which comes in at around 4 tix. It just goes to show that you don't need to invest tons of money to be competitive in the format. You just need to spend some time learning the format and trying things out. Good stuff.
Needs moar Dunkle. "Hahaha. Meddling Mage?, I play those kind of cards in Limited." Dunk should be on every cast. and lest we forget the classic. "We have this saying in Germany. Haters gonna Hate."
14 Classic events on the year. Most placing.
22 Shop decks, 11 Dredge, 9 Oath, 8 Trygon Jace, 6 GW Hate.(Full count and lists on ClassicQuarter.com)
Storm has to pack 3 Hurks in the main just as Shop should play Leyine Void.
Serum Powder into Leyine is a solid line of play against Dredge and Shop can randomly Follow with Waste/Sphere/Golem. Both Koby and I lost 0-2 to Greyes with Leyline+Sphere,etc turn 1.
With the current meta of Shop and Dredge, Main deck answers would be foolish not to run in every deck.
I'm actually kind of starting to hate TSE, but I opened Wasteland and got passed Reflecting Pool before my computer crashed this morning, so that rekindled things a bit.
The cards are getting harder to sell, they have lost value, and the format is still kind of questionable. I might not slog the queues as hard as I thought I would and try to hit Jace #4 in a week along with the usual Saga drafts.
I hit a TSE queue this morning to rare draft, then I was like "where are all the money cards??!?!" I looked up and you were in the queue. No wonder.
I'd love to finally play some Planechase online, it's a superb casual format. I bought two paper decks the day they came out but I still have to crack them open. Sigh.
I enjoyed the read very much so. Can't wait to read what comes next. :)
More good stuff... disgusting to see those two Jaces (in one week?) though. I ground through tons of 3x WWK drafts during the release week and never saw one. C'est la vie.
Always good to hear differing viewpoints. And it's awesome to hear from one of the deckbuilders featured in the article! Whether it's written as a stream of consciousness "rant" or as well-composed as possible is beside the point, whether it's straightforward or satirical. I get it. I hope someone gets something out of it, too :-) A couple pithy stream-of-consciousness responses quickly came to mind:
I feel you on the set design, but I wouldn't call it lazy. I'd call it inconsiderate, and coming close to condescending. The sets, I think, are designed to work as a whole. They don't design for Pauper, and especially not for Standard Pauper. By us Paupers going against the mold, we (perhaps) reveal that the major flaw in design is the very idea of rarity itself, and that certain philosophies might be right about everything that is reduced to a financial calculation ends up not working out so well...
Your comment leads me to think that green doesn't have enough share of the exiling portion of the color pie, currently administered by white. I guess that would make sense since the cycle of life includes the aspect of extinction...
...then again, that's pretty lazy of me ;-) Back to work!
I made that UB deck last night and played a couple matches with it. I liked it a lot. I think it could be a player with some besieged updates to it in the near future.
I never object to people playing whatever they want.
Part of the fun for me is when you see them trying to pull of the win all cheaty-faced and smile from having exactly the perfect answer for it.
Such as any green/black(+) deck that runs no basic lands with hermit druid for a combo kill from the graveyard.
You can't help but chuckle when you have the crop rotation in hand and a bog in the deck, or just a ravenous trap.
There really isn't a shortage of degenerate things to do, so banning a handful of them seems like a wasted effort.
I still find myself building a deck to have answers to the now banned Emrakul.
And then find myself cutting those answers for other cards since they are no longer needed.
Nice work guys. Sorry I couldn't make it, but V-day was a little out of my control scheduling-wise.
The current UB list is definitely not the base of the future version of UB. I just can't think of a UB Block deck that doesn't play Tezz.
So UB will change and it will be a more heavy artifact deck with Tumble Magnets, Sphere of the Suns and of course Ichor Wellsprings. Carnifex Demon will become Black Sun's Zenith, there will be Go for the Throats somewhere in there etc...
Of course some may try to "mimic" the deck Matignon played; meaning they may add a little bit of Red to the deck for Galvanic Blasts and maybe even for Slagstorms.
LE
Golftas Ervaren golfers weten als geen ander dat het handig is om over een kwalitatief hoogwaardige golftas met voldoende opbergmogelijkheid te beschikken. U kunt hierin namelijk al uw golf benodigdheden kwijt.
I've won a lot recently playing stompy in the 4 round pauper tourneys...usually 4-0ing at least 60%...at worst 3-1ing. It has game against everything except infect and WW, even then, it can win. I've played it straight for almost 4 months, and see no place for Nissa's Chosen. For my money, Silhana Ledgewalker is insane currently, single handily winning vs. Izzed post style decks and the rise of MBC. Additionally, I've never needed artifact hate to beat Affinity, 3 fogs in the board are enough to win vs. it and goblins the majority of the time. I find the above to be flooded often, and recommend 17 forests and all 4 rangers, as they are always good to see for tricks and such :)
The disappointing thing is if more players would learn how to adapt to certain cards and different archetypes instead of just complaining about them, great cards like Emrakul wouldn't have to get banned. I hardly consided him format-killing, but I know I'm in the minority here.
Well...yes and no. Winning is the bonus. If it was impossible to win (and I have seen this first hand) then no one would play. When someone brings a deck known to be unfun and a sure bet to win vs anything but the best the other players tend to quit in short order. What is generally desirable/desired is a sporting chance. Hence Emrakul was banned, along with other format-killing cards.
I totally agree with you. Combo decks are my least favorite to play against. That's because they are more concerned about playing with themselves then with other players. I'm usually one of the more aggressive players because of combo. Just because you're sitting there not bothering anyone doesn't mean I'm not going to attack you if I get the chance. You never know when that little bit of extra damage will make a difference.
I also agree with you about Commander being a broken format. Everyone seems to not talk about it, but it's not hard to win a Commander game. There are plenty of decks out there that should win most if not all the time. The fun in Commander isn't from winning, it's from interacting. This is why the social contract exists.