Thanks PiDave! Please do the same with your continuing weekly coverage of the MPDC. It was also quite the inspiration for me to bring this series back in a way that (I hope) didn't step over your work.
This article was actually composed just after your first one appeared, which is why only the first piece in yours is linked to; future editions should probably compile your work chronologically so first-time readers who become interested can find even more information with ease. Whatever gets more players into the room :-)
Nothing much more needed to be added since then because, well, Esper and 4CC are still dominating Pauper Standard. Some players are just fine with this; some of them find it irritating. Me? I find it a fun challenge whether the field is narrow or wide open.
Now that everything is caught up and current, next month will feature less catch-up. The Worlds tournaments will be covered, as well as the impact of Mirrodin Besieged and the current hot topics among the Paupers. Stay tuned!
Exactly :D - The big thing about it is that they are so heavily used in the sideboard as I showed in the deck tech vid. Most faerie lists are the same when it comes to main deck, the sideboards are what set them apart from each other.
Prerelease for MBS - Sealed is 30 tix and you get a (crappy) Glissa the Traitor card in addition to a faction war mark for each side (whatever that is).
Triple-MBS drafts are 20 tix with the same free stuff.
Man this sucks. Guess I'll be waiting for the release events!
Love the fatties. Good to see some fun, not just ruthlessness. Just shows, if you can back it up with solid play, you can get away with a bit more than usual.
Between the time it took to submit this and publish it, Cleomar won a fifth tournament with the same list at SPDC 15.12. That's five wins with the same list in a single season. I don't think anything like that has happened in quite some time. Most impressive!
Great job Copperfield! This is exactly the kind of article I was missing: some deeper deck strategy and tactical analisys. I especially like how you pointed out the chronological development of the decks, it's a very interesting read. :)
4 swamps, 3 islands in your deck for a blue and black replica? Makes no sense to splash 4 lands for one very mediocre card. Even worse when that card is a replica that doesnt even need the colored mana to be cast. 2 islands 2 swamps would have sufficed.
golden urn is horrible maindeck with poison so prevalent, and its rarely going to be a good sb choice either. Trigon of mending might not be as bad maindeck but is also a terrible card, especially in a deck with fattys that dont need protection.
The problem with that concept is that Memoricide dominates the format currently. And why shouldn't it? It kills planeswalkers. Look at the block results. It's almost necessary to play 4 mainboard. The once dominant Blue/White deck now adds Black JUST so it can take out an opponent's Vensers. Combo is going to be difficult in both block and standard with Memoricide running around. Plus as a personal opinion, any deck that runs "expensive" Jace, means that the win condition is Jace and the rest of the cards really don't matter.
Yes. The only parts that will be expensive to get is a Jace and probably two Tezzeret's. You would be screwed for sure if someone memoricided your anvils, but you've got 3 solid win cons and one mediocre one. If successful, it will probably be like Seismic Swans and just dominate an unprepared tournament once.
I am one of those urza draft sharks. I love the format. I almost never pick cloud of fairies, rancors and other 1 tix commons when there is a card left in the pack that makes my main deck. There are also many SB cards as the sets are fulll of color hosers. I pick those over money commons. I win (won) a lot, at some time I think I won 7 out of 10 drafts. I noticed it is getting harder in the past week or two. I found myself buying new urza packs lately. The payout still sucks as you end up with a lot of extra UL packs.
Strategies.. Black is powerful, but not overpowered. I usually win with blue decks, blue white, blue red, or blue black. Green-red is also very good
cycling is very good. Maindeck those runes of protections (not all, but figure out which colors on your own)
money rares.
There are a lot, but stories in this article and in the comments are a bit on the exaggerating side. People tend to remember the good times. It's quite possible to never see a rare worth more than 1 tix, 3 drafts in a row. But late pick money cards do happen. And eternal foils are sweet as for some reason vintage players are big pimps.
random bits:
think of ways to beat echo cards.. the set has some nifty cards to combat echo
cycle cycle cycle
it's all about the enchantments
don't be afraid of playing 3 colours with cycling it's often possible
LOL, as if someone would ever find your post mixed in among all the bot ads in classifieds...you should know better. Trading is impossible without a bot as one half of the transaction anymore.
Well, let's face it, trading is controlled by bots and you'll be lucky if you get 50% of their value from a bot. We have had this discussion here before, but I think it's interesting that if I post in the trade section that I am willing to buy a card at a value which is the SAME as a bot would buy it, I get lectured that I am trying to con someone out of value. Because I am a person I am expected to pay higher than a computer.... which is controlled by a person. Conversely, even when I post that I am willing to pay MORE than a bot, I still can't get people to sell me their cards. For instance, this weekend I posted that I was looking to buy Venser at 10 (that's 85% of value), where bots were paying 9. I left that post up for 14 hours and not a single person wanted to sell. Basically, the trading system is totally messed up, so you are kind of correct to complain about card prices. It's nice to have these prices here, but good luck finding someone to buy them at that price or a price near that.
I almost wish that Hammy would post the BUY prices and not the sell prices. Sell prices mean almost nothing on MTGO. Or at least post a link to the software they use to track prices.
I wouldn't say you are eating your words. You made a speculation based on the cards at the current time. There is no way for you to know whats going to happen when the next set comes out. Any card can change in value when a new set comes out or when the rules change. Remember the craze around the card Flash?
You could play the Mistbind Clique after the titan attacked and put the damage on the stack , then triple block and kill him with the Mistbind Clique and 2 tokens ,
you might win this way..
No foil yawgmoth stuff for me so far unfortunately but I am member of the Happy 4th Pick Welder Club.
Also I used to win a very high percentage of the urza drafts I played, but that was two weeks ago, and the competiton has increased with a lot more experienced urza drafters. It's getting tougher!
Im pretty sure the prerelease starts on the 17th....I have been so busy with work and home that I havent had any MTGO time.
Thanks PiDave! Please do the same with your continuing weekly coverage of the MPDC. It was also quite the inspiration for me to bring this series back in a way that (I hope) didn't step over your work.
This article was actually composed just after your first one appeared, which is why only the first piece in yours is linked to; future editions should probably compile your work chronologically so first-time readers who become interested can find even more information with ease. Whatever gets more players into the room :-)
Nothing much more needed to be added since then because, well, Esper and 4CC are still dominating Pauper Standard. Some players are just fine with this; some of them find it irritating. Me? I find it a fun challenge whether the field is narrow or wide open.
Now that everything is caught up and current, next month will feature less catch-up. The Worlds tournaments will be covered, as well as the impact of Mirrodin Besieged and the current hot topics among the Paupers. Stay tuned!
Exactly :D - The big thing about it is that they are so heavily used in the sideboard as I showed in the deck tech vid. Most faerie lists are the same when it comes to main deck, the sideboards are what set them apart from each other.
Thanks for the comment :D
When is the prerelease?
Your opinons are sound. I'm looking forward to building a tezz deck myself :)
done ty
The image not appearing :
http://img510.imageshack.us/i/rockpaperscissors.jpg
take out the / at the end would be an obvious help
Prerelease for MBS - Sealed is 30 tix and you get a (crappy) Glissa the Traitor card in addition to a faction war mark for each side (whatever that is).
Triple-MBS drafts are 20 tix with the same free stuff.
Man this sucks. Guess I'll be waiting for the release events!
Love the fatties. Good to see some fun, not just ruthlessness. Just shows, if you can back it up with solid play, you can get away with a bit more than usual.
Between the time it took to submit this and publish it, Cleomar won a fifth tournament with the same list at SPDC 15.12. That's five wins with the same list in a single season. I don't think anything like that has happened in quite some time. Most impressive!
Great job Copperfield! This is exactly the kind of article I was missing: some deeper deck strategy and tactical analisys. I especially like how you pointed out the chronological development of the decks, it's a very interesting read. :)
Keep 'em coming!
4 swamps, 3 islands in your deck for a blue and black replica? Makes no sense to splash 4 lands for one very mediocre card. Even worse when that card is a replica that doesnt even need the colored mana to be cast. 2 islands 2 swamps would have sufficed.
golden urn is horrible maindeck with poison so prevalent, and its rarely going to be a good sb choice either. Trigon of mending might not be as bad maindeck but is also a terrible card, especially in a deck with fattys that dont need protection.
The problem with that concept is that Memoricide dominates the format currently. And why shouldn't it? It kills planeswalkers. Look at the block results. It's almost necessary to play 4 mainboard. The once dominant Blue/White deck now adds Black JUST so it can take out an opponent's Vensers. Combo is going to be difficult in both block and standard with Memoricide running around. Plus as a personal opinion, any deck that runs "expensive" Jace, means that the win condition is Jace and the rest of the cards really don't matter.
Hmm, I haven't had that problem. I sold playsets of Snap and Cloud of Faeries easily yesterday via the classifieds.
Yes. The only parts that will be expensive to get is a Jace and probably two Tezzeret's. You would be screwed for sure if someone memoricided your anvils, but you've got 3 solid win cons and one mediocre one. If successful, it will probably be like Seismic Swans and just dominate an unprepared tournament once.
Nighthawk Faeries with 0 Vampire Nighthawk in the deck ? ;-)
I am one of those urza draft sharks. I love the format. I almost never pick cloud of fairies, rancors and other 1 tix commons when there is a card left in the pack that makes my main deck. There are also many SB cards as the sets are fulll of color hosers. I pick those over money commons. I win (won) a lot, at some time I think I won 7 out of 10 drafts. I noticed it is getting harder in the past week or two. I found myself buying new urza packs lately. The payout still sucks as you end up with a lot of extra UL packs.
Strategies.. Black is powerful, but not overpowered. I usually win with blue decks, blue white, blue red, or blue black. Green-red is also very good
cycling is very good. Maindeck those runes of protections (not all, but figure out which colors on your own)
money rares.
There are a lot, but stories in this article and in the comments are a bit on the exaggerating side. People tend to remember the good times. It's quite possible to never see a rare worth more than 1 tix, 3 drafts in a row. But late pick money cards do happen. And eternal foils are sweet as for some reason vintage players are big pimps.
random bits:
think of ways to beat echo cards.. the set has some nifty cards to combat echo
cycle cycle cycle
it's all about the enchantments
don't be afraid of playing 3 colours with cycling it's often possible
Is this the fabled Ichor Wellspring deck?
LOL, as if someone would ever find your post mixed in among all the bot ads in classifieds...you should know better. Trading is impossible without a bot as one half of the transaction anymore.
Well, let's face it, trading is controlled by bots and you'll be lucky if you get 50% of their value from a bot. We have had this discussion here before, but I think it's interesting that if I post in the trade section that I am willing to buy a card at a value which is the SAME as a bot would buy it, I get lectured that I am trying to con someone out of value. Because I am a person I am expected to pay higher than a computer.... which is controlled by a person. Conversely, even when I post that I am willing to pay MORE than a bot, I still can't get people to sell me their cards. For instance, this weekend I posted that I was looking to buy Venser at 10 (that's 85% of value), where bots were paying 9. I left that post up for 14 hours and not a single person wanted to sell. Basically, the trading system is totally messed up, so you are kind of correct to complain about card prices. It's nice to have these prices here, but good luck finding someone to buy them at that price or a price near that.
I almost wish that Hammy would post the BUY prices and not the sell prices. Sell prices mean almost nothing on MTGO. Or at least post a link to the software they use to track prices.
Martin Juza talked about the deck at PT Paris. Matingon was World Champion.
I watched several deck tech videos, and I misremembered who did what. Matingon had a different Tezz deck.
I wouldn't say you are eating your words. You made a speculation based on the cards at the current time. There is no way for you to know whats going to happen when the next set comes out. Any card can change in value when a new set comes out or when the rules change. Remember the craze around the card Flash?
wouldnt that be PT paris and not worlds? still the turn 2 combo was sexy
You could play the Mistbind Clique after the titan attacked and put the damage on the stack , then triple block and kill him with the Mistbind Clique and 2 tokens ,
you might win this way..
Here is another very happy urza drafter
No foil yawgmoth stuff for me so far unfortunately but I am member of the Happy 4th Pick Welder Club.
Also I used to win a very high percentage of the urza drafts I played, but that was two weeks ago, and the competiton has increased with a lot more experienced urza drafters. It's getting tougher!