Time to be unfair on the trivia question. Classic was announced as part of the 'casual constructed care package', because the Open format (later renamed freeform) allowed more than 4 of a card, and minimum 40-card decks (after some bright spark worked out how to adjust saved draft decks, necessitating either patching or opening up the functionality). This was the same package that gave us the 'Anything Goes' room to solve the 'What is casual?' debate.
This occurred a few months before my interregnum from the game. As a pretty much strictly casual player, any fillip from Wizards was a big deal, and damned rare to boot.
In that time, 37 draftable sets have been released on Magic Online. (38 if you include Mirrodin Besieged.)
Sprout swarm is definitely not the best out for infinite combos. It has better uses as card advantage -- if people are building combo, they know their center pieces. If they are building something with green and need a misc 1 of or a win condition, bringing attention to a card like this can be useful.
Guardian of the Guildpact is good with Pestilence, and you are right -- I probably could have touched on it. I know the pestilence deck was viable for a while, but unless we find ourselves in an extremely creature heavy meta, I think the pestilence alone is too slow for almost all classic metas.
Train of thought and oona's grace do not deserve comparison. Oona's Grace is in a deck where you want to save mana for an instant and you do not care if you lose a land. Train of thought requires you to tap out on your turn -- so your deck must be ok with this (ie: not MUC) -- and it allows you to thrive on your lands. Instead of discarding them, you want as many in play as often as you can because you know that, once you hit train, you'll be thrilled to have them. Furthermore, you can use oona's all game and end game find yourself in a tight spot looking for mana. Train of thought does not encourage late game missing of land drops.
That said, the two cards have different functionality, belong in different decks, and therefore do not warrant a real comparison.
My purpose is not to sophisticate the format of pauper. I am trying to show people who play pauper that there are other cards out there begging to be played -- and they can be in winning decks. By showing more diversity, we show the format is not shallow.
Lastly, anybody whipping up a competitive deck in no time is not true. Anyone who has played knows this to be evident. The dynamic of pauper that is most appealing to me is that any -play style- can be created. Just because a deck that does not fit your tastes is not always in the top 8 does not mean it is not viable, it just means nobody has built it and won with it yet. With some testing, tweaking, and good card selection any style can be played well and be successful. I do not want everyone who logs in here or any site to see a bunch of decklists, cut/paste, and play it into the ground. I want to encourage people to play cards they may have overlooked.
Sprout swarm is overlooked because people playing green, right now, play greenpost, infect, or MGA. Guardian of the Guildpact is being overlooked because he costs 4 so people underestimate him and forget that your opponents cannot attack past, block, or remove him in many cases. Train of thought is overlooked because people playing blue feel the need to play MUC or some counter variant. None of these have to be the case, each of these cards is a viable contender for being a tier 1 deck, and I want people to be exposed to them. If you do not like my approach, fair enough, but I hope you understand the purpose.
I haven't tested Tutelage yet. My gut tells me that in this version it may not be that good. In a more traditional goblin build it will probably do better. I'll find out soon enough.
I was surprised looking at the list at the lack of brainstorm. From playing caw-go in standard I feel using jace to brainstorm with sqaudron hawk is about the most powerful thing you can do with the deck and one of the most powerful in standard. So I was wondering with this deck is there just no requirement at all for the huge card advantage engine delivered by the hawk, brainstorm package?
I disagree quite a lot. Leaden Myr is decent, the poison deck wants to curve out at maximum speed and it really needs to drop a 2 drop. The 4 drops + Engine make me wanna have a solid mana fixing, especially if I want to drop some creatures + Grasp of Darkness in the same turn. Untamed Might is very good as a 1 of in almost every infect deck but here I felt like I needed the myr the most.
We've chatted in game some, didn't realize you wrote for this site. I've played a lot of pauper and tend to comment on all the pauper articles here, so I've got to jump in here :)
So for starters, you picked a few interesting cards, but there's no coherent theme to the article. Why these 3 cards? And in what seems to be a recurring theme with Pauper articles, your analysis is quite cursory. Your discussion of Sprout Swarm fails to mention the most important thing: infinite combo. There's not a lot of truly infinite combos in Pauper, but Sprout Swarm is the key to one of them. For Guardian of the Guildpact, you only mention Armadillo Cloak in passing, and didn't mention Pestilence at all. For Train of Thought, where' the compare/contrast with Oona's Grace?
I think the reason I get annoyed with these Pauper articles is because Pauper players and the format in general are much (much) more sophisticated than these articles might lead people to believe. If major websites only publish articles with no real depth, then it might lead people to believe that serious players don't play pauper (not true), that the format is shallow (not true), or the worst, that anybody can whip up a competitive deck in no time (very very not true).
I'm certain that Leaden Myr over Untimed Might is just wrong. I dont really consider myr that playable at all in poison- especially in Triple Scars as the four drop isnt that crowded. Just think about how lazy a top deck that card is late compared to Untamed Might and given that the advantage the myr provides isnt actually that great, its not really close.
Normally i'd give a big thumbs up to Dark tutelage, (especially considering the Cmc on the maindeck)But in this deck a stumble is a fall. If i wanted some lategame outs i'd just go back to koth, especially since no one plays abyssal persecutor anymore.
I am primarily a UW player online, but I like playing goblins at FNM. I just revamped my goblin deck and came up with a list similar to yours. The only place they differ is that I have Lavaclaw Reaches and two Dark Tutelege. I have not been able to test it, but plan on doing so soon.
The only thing going against this deck is how well it did this weekend at the SCG Open. Everyone was buying up goblin guides on Modo so expect a lot of this deck in events. Which will result in a lot of hate for it.
What about this for an additional sac. artifact for rebirth? With a spare R you also get another card on the sacrifice, and it is never a dead card late game.
I have played MTG:T and I can also not recommend it.
I have played FFT: Advance and it was nice.
I have played the Gameboy Advance Tactics Ogre (The Knight of Lodis) and it was the best game of this type I played so far.
I have yet to play several of them though (like the PS1 ports of FFT and TO).
A curious game mixing turn-based tactics and collectible cards is Metal Gear Solid Acid on the PSP.
Don't forget that Hero of Oxid Reach has some rules text!
I would think that Battle Cry in particular must surely be pretty relevent in the kuldotha red deck, as it should mean that he often comes down and effectively swings for ~6-8 damage. The weird blocking condition also helps him (and his battle-cried posse) get past squadron hawks, walls of omens and overgrown battlements.
I can't realistically see him replacing koth at the moment, but if U/B were to become a bit less popular, and Caw-Go style decks improve, I could see him make the cut.
Hehe the point of EDH/Commander is that it is purely for multiplayer. That said I think the way to go with red control is not so much destruction (though that does work) but chaos effects as mentioned above. Your deck will be better prepared for them so it won't just be a gimmee but its more of a fun deck than a competitive one if you build it this way.
On the other hand if you do what you suggest you may find many people quitting or refusing to allow you into their tables once they know what your deck is about (and the Punisher says it very well imho.) There are very few players online who play competitively in this format.
Red control is certainly possible, and probably best shown online by the few Zo-Zu, the Punisher decks around. Ideally you'd want to ramp out with artifact mana and drop cards like Wildfire or Destructive Force, ensuring that you're always that little bit ahead. Winter Orb and tax spells (Sphere of resistance, trinisphere) help enforce the lock.
Not a lot of fun to play against, and probably more suited to competitive 1v1 than full-blown multiplayer.
I started doing this bracket shortly after discovering the new entry options .. option?
in any event just like to mention I drafted a deck that netted me 3 packs it was a blue/green 2nd place is ok with me for this event.
I also ripped a Goblin Welder, a show and tell(passed to me), and a time spiral.
In regards to those suggesting 4-3-2-2 is a bad format to draft.. I think thats false. The 4-3-2-2 is for a particular niche of players those who require a little more risk/reward than the swiss game (you can never get ahead in swiss) But who are just not ready for the 8-4 bracket. Alot of folks here don't have huge bankrolls from countless daily or premier event wins and simply. Not to mention that to win or even receive prizes in an 8-4 you need to pray that 2 matchs in a row the magic gods will be kind enough to ditribute you enough lands to actually cast your spells. And even this is only true when your deck is good enough to go the distance.. some people don't have that skill.. so shuffler + skill level is motivation for lots (myself included) to avoid the 8-4. I feel I am skilled enough to play 8-4's I just like that little bit of insurance that 4-3-2-2 offers. I don't care if theres one less pack handed out.. cause theres 2 more people in the prizes which means that the next que should fire 2 people sooner.
Nah man he was referring to people that won't read longer articles. (The too long didn't read crowd TLDR) Generally speaking this site has a lot of intellectual readers, who like to dig into the meat of the articles, and don't mind long articles..
You are always going to get anti-intellectuals who say things like that but I figure they are the minority in the generally "thinking" community of magic players. Keep writing :)
I totally agree, with this article being the first text based one I made for pure. I was looking to avoid "Too long didn't read" syndrome. In hindsight it was a mistake and I look forward to righting this wrong in the future.
Hence 3-4 more paragraphs on each section would have been great. :D Of course people would still want to argue semantics with you since it is a touchy subject and people have vastly differing opinions about what words mean in these contexts.
As someone ready to get into legacy,then hopefully onwards to classic,this is the type of article you need to see to inspire one forward!There is usually nothing worse in Magic than getting into a format and then realizing that no one is playing it. So, I hope that this inspires more Classic deck building, and as a person who has been playing since 1994ish, I have truly seen the progression of Vintage (type one as us old people called it). So, great job, awesome clan, good game!
Time to be unfair on the trivia question. Classic was announced as part of the 'casual constructed care package', because the Open format (later renamed freeform) allowed more than 4 of a card, and minimum 40-card decks (after some bright spark worked out how to adjust saved draft decks, necessitating either patching or opening up the functionality). This was the same package that gave us the 'Anything Goes' room to solve the 'What is casual?' debate.
This occurred a few months before my interregnum from the game. As a pretty much strictly casual player, any fillip from Wizards was a big deal, and damned rare to boot.
In that time, 37 draftable sets have been released on Magic Online. (38 if you include Mirrodin Besieged.)
Sprout swarm is definitely not the best out for infinite combos. It has better uses as card advantage -- if people are building combo, they know their center pieces. If they are building something with green and need a misc 1 of or a win condition, bringing attention to a card like this can be useful.
Guardian of the Guildpact is good with Pestilence, and you are right -- I probably could have touched on it. I know the pestilence deck was viable for a while, but unless we find ourselves in an extremely creature heavy meta, I think the pestilence alone is too slow for almost all classic metas.
Train of thought and oona's grace do not deserve comparison. Oona's Grace is in a deck where you want to save mana for an instant and you do not care if you lose a land. Train of thought requires you to tap out on your turn -- so your deck must be ok with this (ie: not MUC) -- and it allows you to thrive on your lands. Instead of discarding them, you want as many in play as often as you can because you know that, once you hit train, you'll be thrilled to have them. Furthermore, you can use oona's all game and end game find yourself in a tight spot looking for mana. Train of thought does not encourage late game missing of land drops.
That said, the two cards have different functionality, belong in different decks, and therefore do not warrant a real comparison.
My purpose is not to sophisticate the format of pauper. I am trying to show people who play pauper that there are other cards out there begging to be played -- and they can be in winning decks. By showing more diversity, we show the format is not shallow.
Lastly, anybody whipping up a competitive deck in no time is not true. Anyone who has played knows this to be evident. The dynamic of pauper that is most appealing to me is that any -play style- can be created. Just because a deck that does not fit your tastes is not always in the top 8 does not mean it is not viable, it just means nobody has built it and won with it yet. With some testing, tweaking, and good card selection any style can be played well and be successful. I do not want everyone who logs in here or any site to see a bunch of decklists, cut/paste, and play it into the ground. I want to encourage people to play cards they may have overlooked.
Sprout swarm is overlooked because people playing green, right now, play greenpost, infect, or MGA. Guardian of the Guildpact is being overlooked because he costs 4 so people underestimate him and forget that your opponents cannot attack past, block, or remove him in many cases. Train of thought is overlooked because people playing blue feel the need to play MUC or some counter variant. None of these have to be the case, each of these cards is a viable contender for being a tier 1 deck, and I want people to be exposed to them. If you do not like my approach, fair enough, but I hope you understand the purpose.
I haven't tested Tutelage yet. My gut tells me that in this version it may not be that good. In a more traditional goblin build it will probably do better. I'll find out soon enough.
I was surprised looking at the list at the lack of brainstorm. From playing caw-go in standard I feel using jace to brainstorm with sqaudron hawk is about the most powerful thing you can do with the deck and one of the most powerful in standard. So I was wondering with this deck is there just no requirement at all for the huge card advantage engine delivered by the hawk, brainstorm package?
I disagree quite a lot. Leaden Myr is decent, the poison deck wants to curve out at maximum speed and it really needs to drop a 2 drop. The 4 drops + Engine make me wanna have a solid mana fixing, especially if I want to drop some creatures + Grasp of Darkness in the same turn. Untamed Might is very good as a 1 of in almost every infect deck but here I felt like I needed the myr the most.
We've chatted in game some, didn't realize you wrote for this site. I've played a lot of pauper and tend to comment on all the pauper articles here, so I've got to jump in here :)
So for starters, you picked a few interesting cards, but there's no coherent theme to the article. Why these 3 cards? And in what seems to be a recurring theme with Pauper articles, your analysis is quite cursory. Your discussion of Sprout Swarm fails to mention the most important thing: infinite combo. There's not a lot of truly infinite combos in Pauper, but Sprout Swarm is the key to one of them. For Guardian of the Guildpact, you only mention Armadillo Cloak in passing, and didn't mention Pestilence at all. For Train of Thought, where' the compare/contrast with Oona's Grace?
I think the reason I get annoyed with these Pauper articles is because Pauper players and the format in general are much (much) more sophisticated than these articles might lead people to believe. If major websites only publish articles with no real depth, then it might lead people to believe that serious players don't play pauper (not true), that the format is shallow (not true), or the worst, that anybody can whip up a competitive deck in no time (very very not true).
I'm certain that Leaden Myr over Untimed Might is just wrong. I dont really consider myr that playable at all in poison- especially in Triple Scars as the four drop isnt that crowded. Just think about how lazy a top deck that card is late compared to Untamed Might and given that the advantage the myr provides isnt actually that great, its not really close.
Normally i'd give a big thumbs up to Dark tutelage, (especially considering the Cmc on the maindeck)But in this deck a stumble is a fall. If i wanted some lategame outs i'd just go back to koth, especially since no one plays abyssal persecutor anymore.
Edit: thank you for rating the deck
I am primarily a UW player online, but I like playing goblins at FNM. I just revamped my goblin deck and came up with a list similar to yours. The only place they differ is that I have Lavaclaw Reaches and two Dark Tutelege. I have not been able to test it, but plan on doing so soon.
The only thing going against this deck is how well it did this weekend at the SCG Open. Everyone was buying up goblin guides on Modo so expect a lot of this deck in events. Which will result in a lot of hate for it.
I should point out that TKoL is a port off of TO. Be warned TO can eat into your free time with an expected 100+ hours of game time.
Panic Spellbomb has been cut from many lists due to its awkward timing.
You dont want a t1 spellbomb, t2 kuldotha, T3 finally do your first damage, thats too slow
edit: on the bright side, i had a third turn kill today with a mere 2 goblin guides, 2 signal pests and a goblin bushwhacker... so sick !
What about this for an additional sac. artifact for rebirth? With a spare R you also get another card on the sacrifice, and it is never a dead card late game.
I have played MTG:T and I can also not recommend it.
I have played FFT: Advance and it was nice.
I have played the Gameboy Advance Tactics Ogre (The Knight of Lodis) and it was the best game of this type I played so far.
I have yet to play several of them though (like the PS1 ports of FFT and TO).
A curious game mixing turn-based tactics and collectible cards is Metal Gear Solid Acid on the PSP.
Ivo.
Don't forget that Hero of Oxid Reach has some rules text!
I would think that Battle Cry in particular must surely be pretty relevent in the kuldotha red deck, as it should mean that he often comes down and effectively swings for ~6-8 damage. The weird blocking condition also helps him (and his battle-cried posse) get past squadron hawks, walls of omens and overgrown battlements.
I can't realistically see him replacing koth at the moment, but if U/B were to become a bit less popular, and Caw-Go style decks improve, I could see him make the cut.
Hehe the point of EDH/Commander is that it is purely for multiplayer. That said I think the way to go with red control is not so much destruction (though that does work) but chaos effects as mentioned above. Your deck will be better prepared for them so it won't just be a gimmee but its more of a fun deck than a competitive one if you build it this way.
On the other hand if you do what you suggest you may find many people quitting or refusing to allow you into their tables once they know what your deck is about (and the Punisher says it very well imho.) There are very few players online who play competitively in this format.
Red control is certainly possible, and probably best shown online by the few Zo-Zu, the Punisher decks around. Ideally you'd want to ramp out with artifact mana and drop cards like Wildfire or Destructive Force, ensuring that you're always that little bit ahead. Winter Orb and tax spells (Sphere of resistance, trinisphere) help enforce the lock.
Not a lot of fun to play against, and probably more suited to competitive 1v1 than full-blown multiplayer.
Cloud of Faeries is 2 tix? FML I passed two of them during
Event #: 2043510
Time: 2/1/2011
Then again you were in that pod so you probably scooped them up
I started doing this bracket shortly after discovering the new entry options .. option?
in any event just like to mention I drafted a deck that netted me 3 packs it was a blue/green 2nd place is ok with me for this event.
I also ripped a Goblin Welder, a show and tell(passed to me), and a time spiral.
In regards to those suggesting 4-3-2-2 is a bad format to draft.. I think thats false. The 4-3-2-2 is for a particular niche of players those who require a little more risk/reward than the swiss game (you can never get ahead in swiss) But who are just not ready for the 8-4 bracket. Alot of folks here don't have huge bankrolls from countless daily or premier event wins and simply. Not to mention that to win or even receive prizes in an 8-4 you need to pray that 2 matchs in a row the magic gods will be kind enough to ditribute you enough lands to actually cast your spells. And even this is only true when your deck is good enough to go the distance.. some people don't have that skill.. so shuffler + skill level is motivation for lots (myself included) to avoid the 8-4. I feel I am skilled enough to play 8-4's I just like that little bit of insurance that 4-3-2-2 offers. I don't care if theres one less pack handed out.. cause theres 2 more people in the prizes which means that the next que should fire 2 people sooner.
love me a long article.
Nah man he was referring to people that won't read longer articles. (The too long didn't read crowd TLDR) Generally speaking this site has a lot of intellectual readers, who like to dig into the meat of the articles, and don't mind long articles..
Hope that clears it up :D
wait so am i an anti intellectual, cause i didnt agree with luck?
You are always going to get anti-intellectuals who say things like that but I figure they are the minority in the generally "thinking" community of magic players. Keep writing :)
I totally agree, with this article being the first text based one I made for pure. I was looking to avoid "Too long didn't read" syndrome. In hindsight it was a mistake and I look forward to righting this wrong in the future.
Thanks for the comment!
Hence 3-4 more paragraphs on each section would have been great. :D Of course people would still want to argue semantics with you since it is a touchy subject and people have vastly differing opinions about what words mean in these contexts.
As someone ready to get into legacy,then hopefully onwards to classic,this is the type of article you need to see to inspire one forward!There is usually nothing worse in Magic than getting into a format and then realizing that no one is playing it. So, I hope that this inspires more Classic deck building, and as a person who has been playing since 1994ish, I have truly seen the progression of Vintage (type one as us old people called it). So, great job, awesome clan, good game!