As I stated in the first comment, 4cc fills the blank Top4. It's the second time we so much Control in the meta and, with just 1 tournament before Worlds I wonder if we'll see some powerful aggro (*cough* Boros Landfall *cough*) again.
A little preview: since I've covered so little about the dominant decks I plan to talk about them before Season 11 Worlds happen. Stay tuned! ;)
I should have mentioned that, I feel silly now! The pauper 2-man queues cost 2 tickets to enter, and pay out a pack of m11 to the winner. Currently m11 packs sell for 3.67ea, so you need to be winning roughly 60% of your matches to make a profit.
I hope I can start playing in a daily event (pays out 6 packs for a 3-1 finish, and 11 packs for 4-0, while only costing 6 tickets to enter) and make a better profit that way. There just aren't enough daily events for pauper compared to other formats, which is why I've been playing in the 2mans.
...in this case. This specific deck has a bunch of low toughness infecters and none of them have evasion. Might is at its "worst" in this type of poison deck as you are usually "only" trading it (and your turn) for an opponent's guy. This wins by being able clear the way *and* keep dropping guys (at least when it isn't contagion engining) and in this case the Myr aids that cause better than the Might.
PS - This was supposed to be a response to the first comment.
Thanks for *most of* the feedback. I absolutely agree on the amount of content related to the "old classic", and I specifically mentioned that to the guys directly after we wrapped recording. I'll take the blame for not expanding on the huge huge oversights we had in regards to the meta. for some reason when we began discussing two things stuck out: Flash & Necro.
Smother? Really?
Some trivia for you: How many clasic decks have run smother?
Answer: Since 2010, 1 (in the first week of 2010) according to cq.com
FULLY agreed on the crush and shattering spree comparison, that is something we overlooked. Platinum has really been phased out in the classic meta, the last time it was run was 10/2010, and that was before the massive amounts of stax and artifact hate in the format.
I do appreciate the criticism, even though I might not agree with all of it. Thanks for listening dude.
I think Gust Skimmer is pretty good, but it does only have one toughness. The more and more I play with Steel Sabotage the more and more I like it. For a card that can look like something good only in marginal situations at first glance, playtesting shows it to have so much utility. Everytime I get someone to run a 6 mana artefact into my one mana counterspell or I ambush someone in combat by bouncing their equipment I feel a little bit dirty and that's just the tip of the iceberg
Hi Richie, Many thanks for the feedback. This is much more useful to us then somebody chipping in and saying they enjoy it. We really are dedicated to bringing a useful podcast to the community and are ready to listen to the audience and adapt what doesn't work. Some of your points on the beseiged card discussion are on the money and the suggestions will be implemented when we get to the next set release. The in-depth view of the classic format is something which we felt would not have wide appeal to everyone and so we tried to give the major points. Like you say most people are intersted in the here and now or the future not necessarily reflecting on what has been for a long period of time. But you are right we do need to ensure we strike the correct balance. I think we will phase out the trivia question it adds little to the show, we want people to listen because there is great content, not because they might be able to win a foil card from knowing or figuring out an oddball trivia questions and it is not like we need fillers with the length of the first two casts. I feel we may be better picking 4-5 classic playables and discussing those indepth at the expence of the marginals. I am going to defend the interactive part, asking for listeners views and feedback is very important too us and also important to the evolutional direction of the cast. We hope to have guests on the show once we have tweaked the format a little and we would be delighted if you can join us for a slot at the mic. The views of a bluegoblin are always worth listening to. Hopefully episode 3 will hit the GLIB 5 score. Till next time.
...and 20 mins. after I hit the submit button, the missing data wasn't missing no more. I've already done updated graphs, I'll post them as soon as I get home. :)
A little preview: the missing deck was a 4CC so the overall lead is still the same. The only relevant change is the Control Archetype Usage, that reach its second peak of the season.
Your evaluation of these cards honestly made me want to turn the podcast off. I found it boring, however, thats me and only because some of your evaluations seemed very void of any discussion or though process. Go for the Throat should be compared to Smother as well, and Shattering Spree compared to Crush. Beside Pithing Needle, what does phyrexian revoker actually replace?. Is leonin better than Quasali Pridemage in the same slot? No mention of Platinum Angel as a viable tinker target was also very much so :-(. I prefer to see your evaluations done by some one and then discussed, rather than all three of you saying which is good and which isn't, why and why not. Personally, I'd prefer if you rate cards, compare them to another and say, wait just a minute, is this better and that card in the giant picture? I feel there is that undertone lacking. Also, it is nice your trying to be interactive and asking what we want, however, I know the majority of eternal plays want results, discussion of topics, and a dip into whats happening in the big picture. Contests are nice and trivia questions are okay, just don't ask for people to give them to you in the comments section or some one can look up the answer. Finally, your quick synopsis of classic's history was lacking, there are giant evolutions that happened, and you guys seemed to almost ignore them, and neglect them. If your going to do a board history of classic, dedicate it to a show, not just to a segment of the podcast and get in depth and detailed. Your first podcast, I realllly enjoyed, 5/5 this one is 3.5/5.
Hi, thanks for the article. I have no idea of the cost to play the 2 man queue, or what boosters are paid out, so how much profit did you make from 2 match wins?
I've just held my UL and UZ commons and every so often MTGOTraders will list on their hotlist, and then I sell em in one fast ticket-making swoop. It's not for the fast flipper, but for someone who doesn't want to lowball themselves like me, it always seems to work.
As an aside, I'm really liking these articles and I've almost convinced myself to try to draft. I never have, don't really know the concept at all, but I do know enough to know that extra tickets are always good :-D
Great articles, please, keep them coming!!!
Also, I'm living the dream lately, my last "payed" draft was a ME4 4 Booster sealed (last saturday) where I was lucky enough to open a foil bayou and a tropical island. I am currently entering 1-2 queues a day since then, mostly UZUZUL with just one unsuccesful try @ MVW and one more ME4 4 booster sealed where I opened another bayou (normal this time) and I have yet to buy even a single tix; I'm still runninng with the tixes/packs I win/raredraft!!! (got out at first round very rarely and even won a couple of tournaments)
UZUZUL has really bonkers EV, during this week I was able to open an argothian enchantress and a grim monolith (plus some random 2-3 tix card) and I was passed one more enchantress and one more monolith(!!!)
The big bot houses do so much volume that their buybots are not-buying one thing at 12:05 and then they're buying it at 12:10, you just have to keep trying.
seeing as your opponent will only be killing raker when it best suites him, the discard clause seems more likely to be a liability than the other way around. also, blue's best common may be glinkt hawk wasp (or dustwasp of the golden cricket) : )
With the MTGOTraders buybot, I find it is constantly buying different cards. I visit it a few times whenever I'm logged on and it buys different cards each time. You just have to keep going back and saving up your credit.
Commander has that Bling Appeal. People like alternative art and shiney versions of cards they already have for thier commander decks. I already have Rith the Awakener, but I want the FTV: Dragons one for a deck.
Just for being alternative artwork is what I am basing my perdiction on.
Considering that msot constructed casual players get their cards off the cheap sales of Drafted cards I say: "More power to the drafters!" as well. Even though I never have the tix/packs available for drafts on a regular basis. (Though occasionally I do and now that the entry options feature is live I may end up drafting more often.)
Im glad someone mentioned the entry fee and the price of packs going down. As a constructed player it sucks... but I do like to draft 10-12 in a month so this is good. especially since I like older formats. Now that wizards is doubling up on DE's there is going to be even more packs in the system. With bots paying less and less one each pack.
As for GB...you can thank Detroit and the Bucs for allowing them in.
I am a little bummed about not being able to talk about what bots are good to buy/sell from but I understand. I too have no issues at all with MTGO Traders - it's the first place I ever did business with and I still use them.
And speaking of bummed - I agree with your take on the prerelease sealed events. The last one (SOM) was not as bad as others because Wurmcoil Engine is a pretty darn good card. But 30 tix is only worth it if you will be able to sell that prerelease card for 6 tix - almost impossible. I really wish they would change this.
Thanks again for the time you put into this and I look forward to next week.
I enjoyed drafting urzas, but a stretch of 4 drafts lost to the shuffler combined with bots not buying cards they sell for more than 2 tickets cut the run short.
And I do mean it on the shuffler bit.
Each one had a VERY solid deck, and then the shuffler chewed it up and spat out nothing xD
Now I find myself waiting for either the bots to start buying again or more excess $$ to kick-start the process over.
I managed a 5th pick Library of Alexandria earlier this week. Yes 5th pick. Had to check my eyes before taking it. I can understand sometimes off-color rares getting passed, but Library can be played in every single deck of every single draft format ever and be the game if it's dropped T1 or T2.
Will only pick up cards that are needed ... so if MTGOTraders already has 10 Rancors and hasn't moved any recently, you won't get an offer at all.
With the influx of cards from this article series (readers of this site are markedly more likely to use MTGOT), MTGOTraders might have to wait for a legacy event to move a few of them before supply dips again.
What a great follow up to last week's article. The only thing I'll say that I was disappointed in (and none of this is in your control) is that you touted the high-value commons from Legacy last week - Rancor, Snap, Cloud of Faeries, and Frantic Search. I picked up a few of these in a draft I did last week (along with the Goblin Welder I was passed :) ) and I went to sell them to the MTGOTraders Buy Bot, but it didn't buy them. I was a tad disappointed when I couldn't flip those right away.
Here we go:
As I stated in the first comment, 4cc fills the blank Top4. It's the second time we so much Control in the meta and, with just 1 tournament before Worlds I wonder if we'll see some powerful aggro (*cough* Boros Landfall *cough*) again.
A little preview: since I've covered so little about the dominant decks I plan to talk about them before Season 11 Worlds happen. Stay tuned! ;)
Hi! Thanks for reading :)
I should have mentioned that, I feel silly now! The pauper 2-man queues cost 2 tickets to enter, and pay out a pack of m11 to the winner. Currently m11 packs sell for 3.67ea, so you need to be winning roughly 60% of your matches to make a profit.
I hope I can start playing in a daily event (pays out 6 packs for a 3-1 finish, and 11 packs for 4-0, while only costing 6 tickets to enter) and make a better profit that way. There just aren't enough daily events for pauper compared to other formats, which is why I've been playing in the 2mans.
...in this case. This specific deck has a bunch of low toughness infecters and none of them have evasion. Might is at its "worst" in this type of poison deck as you are usually "only" trading it (and your turn) for an opponent's guy. This wins by being able clear the way *and* keep dropping guys (at least when it isn't contagion engining) and in this case the Myr aids that cause better than the Might.
PS - This was supposed to be a response to the first comment.
Hey Richie,
Thanks for *most of* the feedback. I absolutely agree on the amount of content related to the "old classic", and I specifically mentioned that to the guys directly after we wrapped recording. I'll take the blame for not expanding on the huge huge oversights we had in regards to the meta. for some reason when we began discussing two things stuck out: Flash & Necro.
Smother? Really?
Some trivia for you: How many clasic decks have run smother?
Answer: Since 2010, 1 (in the first week of 2010) according to cq.com
FULLY agreed on the crush and shattering spree comparison, that is something we overlooked. Platinum has really been phased out in the classic meta, the last time it was run was 10/2010, and that was before the massive amounts of stax and artifact hate in the format.
I do appreciate the criticism, even though I might not agree with all of it. Thanks for listening dude.
Zach
I think Gust Skimmer is pretty good, but it does only have one toughness. The more and more I play with Steel Sabotage the more and more I like it. For a card that can look like something good only in marginal situations at first glance, playtesting shows it to have so much utility. Everytime I get someone to run a 6 mana artefact into my one mana counterspell or I ambush someone in combat by bouncing their equipment I feel a little bit dirty and that's just the tip of the iceberg
Hi Richie, Many thanks for the feedback. This is much more useful to us then somebody chipping in and saying they enjoy it. We really are dedicated to bringing a useful podcast to the community and are ready to listen to the audience and adapt what doesn't work. Some of your points on the beseiged card discussion are on the money and the suggestions will be implemented when we get to the next set release. The in-depth view of the classic format is something which we felt would not have wide appeal to everyone and so we tried to give the major points. Like you say most people are intersted in the here and now or the future not necessarily reflecting on what has been for a long period of time. But you are right we do need to ensure we strike the correct balance. I think we will phase out the trivia question it adds little to the show, we want people to listen because there is great content, not because they might be able to win a foil card from knowing or figuring out an oddball trivia questions and it is not like we need fillers with the length of the first two casts. I feel we may be better picking 4-5 classic playables and discussing those indepth at the expence of the marginals. I am going to defend the interactive part, asking for listeners views and feedback is very important too us and also important to the evolutional direction of the cast. We hope to have guests on the show once we have tweaked the format a little and we would be delighted if you can join us for a slot at the mic. The views of a bluegoblin are always worth listening to. Hopefully episode 3 will hit the GLIB 5 score. Till next time.
...and 20 mins. after I hit the submit button, the missing data wasn't missing no more. I've already done updated graphs, I'll post them as soon as I get home. :)
A little preview: the missing deck was a 4CC so the overall lead is still the same. The only relevant change is the Control Archetype Usage, that reach its second peak of the season.
See ya later! :)
Dave
it happens, getting passed money, just not enough for my liking
Your evaluation of these cards honestly made me want to turn the podcast off. I found it boring, however, thats me and only because some of your evaluations seemed very void of any discussion or though process. Go for the Throat should be compared to Smother as well, and Shattering Spree compared to Crush. Beside Pithing Needle, what does phyrexian revoker actually replace?. Is leonin better than Quasali Pridemage in the same slot? No mention of Platinum Angel as a viable tinker target was also very much so :-(. I prefer to see your evaluations done by some one and then discussed, rather than all three of you saying which is good and which isn't, why and why not. Personally, I'd prefer if you rate cards, compare them to another and say, wait just a minute, is this better and that card in the giant picture? I feel there is that undertone lacking. Also, it is nice your trying to be interactive and asking what we want, however, I know the majority of eternal plays want results, discussion of topics, and a dip into whats happening in the big picture. Contests are nice and trivia questions are okay, just don't ask for people to give them to you in the comments section or some one can look up the answer. Finally, your quick synopsis of classic's history was lacking, there are giant evolutions that happened, and you guys seemed to almost ignore them, and neglect them. If your going to do a board history of classic, dedicate it to a show, not just to a segment of the podcast and get in depth and detailed. Your first podcast, I realllly enjoyed, 5/5 this one is 3.5/5.
Hi, thanks for the article. I have no idea of the cost to play the 2 man queue, or what boosters are paid out, so how much profit did you make from 2 match wins?
I've just held my UL and UZ commons and every so often MTGOTraders will list on their hotlist, and then I sell em in one fast ticket-making swoop. It's not for the fast flipper, but for someone who doesn't want to lowball themselves like me, it always seems to work.
As an aside, I'm really liking these articles and I've almost convinced myself to try to draft. I never have, don't really know the concept at all, but I do know enough to know that extra tickets are always good :-D
Great articles, please, keep them coming!!!
Also, I'm living the dream lately, my last "payed" draft was a ME4 4 Booster sealed (last saturday) where I was lucky enough to open a foil bayou and a tropical island. I am currently entering 1-2 queues a day since then, mostly UZUZUL with just one unsuccesful try @ MVW and one more ME4 4 booster sealed where I opened another bayou (normal this time) and I have yet to buy even a single tix; I'm still runninng with the tixes/packs I win/raredraft!!! (got out at first round very rarely and even won a couple of tournaments)
UZUZUL has really bonkers EV, during this week I was able to open an argothian enchantress and a grim monolith (plus some random 2-3 tix card) and I was passed one more enchantress and one more monolith(!!!)
I have visual proof of the last pass:
http://img233.imageshack.us/i/passedgrim.jpg
Also, as you can see during that draft I had just picked a Palinchron before that weird pass (someone took an uncommon...)
The big bot houses do so much volume that their buybots are not-buying one thing at 12:05 and then they're buying it at 12:10, you just have to keep trying.
seeing as your opponent will only be killing raker when it best suites him, the discard clause seems more likely to be a liability than the other way around. also, blue's best common may be glinkt hawk wasp (or dustwasp of the golden cricket) : )
I agree..helps to catch it during a rush though when the price is good and the cards in high demand.
With the MTGOTraders buybot, I find it is constantly buying different cards. I visit it a few times whenever I'm logged on and it buys different cards each time. You just have to keep going back and saving up your credit.
Commander has that Bling Appeal. People like alternative art and shiney versions of cards they already have for thier commander decks. I already have Rith the Awakener, but I want the FTV: Dragons one for a deck.
Just for being alternative artwork is what I am basing my perdiction on.
Considering that msot constructed casual players get their cards off the cheap sales of Drafted cards I say: "More power to the drafters!" as well. Even though I never have the tix/packs available for drafts on a regular basis. (Though occasionally I do and now that the entry options feature is live I may end up drafting more often.)
Im glad someone mentioned the entry fee and the price of packs going down. As a constructed player it sucks... but I do like to draft 10-12 in a month so this is good. especially since I like older formats. Now that wizards is doubling up on DE's there is going to be even more packs in the system. With bots paying less and less one each pack.
As for GB...you can thank Detroit and the Bucs for allowing them in.
I am a little bummed about not being able to talk about what bots are good to buy/sell from but I understand. I too have no issues at all with MTGO Traders - it's the first place I ever did business with and I still use them.
And speaking of bummed - I agree with your take on the prerelease sealed events. The last one (SOM) was not as bad as others because Wurmcoil Engine is a pretty darn good card. But 30 tix is only worth it if you will be able to sell that prerelease card for 6 tix - almost impossible. I really wish they would change this.
Thanks again for the time you put into this and I look forward to next week.
I enjoyed drafting urzas, but a stretch of 4 drafts lost to the shuffler combined with bots not buying cards they sell for more than 2 tickets cut the run short.
And I do mean it on the shuffler bit.
Each one had a VERY solid deck, and then the shuffler chewed it up and spat out nothing xD
Now I find myself waiting for either the bots to start buying again or more excess $$ to kick-start the process over.
I managed a 5th pick Library of Alexandria earlier this week. Yes 5th pick. Had to check my eyes before taking it. I can understand sometimes off-color rares getting passed, but Library can be played in every single deck of every single draft format ever and be the game if it's dropped T1 or T2.
but a 3rd pick foil sac land? thats never happened to me, ever. ive gotten some money passed 2nd, 3rd sure, but that is plain as day money.
since your not writing this, what are the thoughts out there on cardbuyingbot?
Will only pick up cards that are needed ... so if MTGOTraders already has 10 Rancors and hasn't moved any recently, you won't get an offer at all.
With the influx of cards from this article series (readers of this site are markedly more likely to use MTGOT), MTGOTraders might have to wait for a legacy event to move a few of them before supply dips again.
What a great follow up to last week's article. The only thing I'll say that I was disappointed in (and none of this is in your control) is that you touted the high-value commons from Legacy last week - Rancor, Snap, Cloud of Faeries, and Frantic Search. I picked up a few of these in a draft I did last week (along with the Goblin Welder I was passed :) ) and I went to sell them to the MTGOTraders Buy Bot, but it didn't buy them. I was a tad disappointed when I couldn't flip those right away.
Have you had any such issues?