with jaces, brainstorms, and scrollrack it shouldnt be a problem to get it back in the library if u draw it, and i think the odds r acceptable to hit it if u have one (maybe even 2) when u hit the titan...
I understand this a lot, during the summer time I go with almost no MTGO for a couple of months due to fishing. I'd also be interested to hear about how the chase goes, as my goals are only to qualify most months, (not enough time, focus, and to many holes in my game I need to work on before I would do anything more seriously,) but hearing updates on someone going for the big prize at the end of the year would make for a very interesting read.
I don't think the Myrs help much beyond achieving Metalcraft. The trouble with achieving that threshold via artifact creatures is that creatures are easier to remove; people generally don't include as much dedicated artifact hate as they do creature removal. A savvy opponent will catch on to your plan quickly.
Also, I like the Allies strategy because what Ondu Cleric does is help you stay alive quite a bit. This is important when using a non-creature based win condition because you'll usually be taking damage. And this proposed list has zero life gain capability.
I think Golden Urn would solve this problem. I'll have to pick some up to test it of course, because it was one of those cards I thumbed my nose out when Scars was released.
For counterspells, because the game goes long and your opponent can probably afford the extra cost, I wouldn't rely on Mana Leak. And Dispel seems a bit situational. It's creatures that I'd really want to counter, and for this I'd run Deprive, which won't set you back when all sorts of Islands are on the board and can bounce the Halimar Depths to help you find your all-important milling cards.
Life is more important than a random card game, or even winning a MOCS. Sure, winning would be cool, as would a Pro Tour win, let alone an invitation and attendance. But winning isn't just a self-contained event, as you pretty much covered. It involves all the preparation and hours of your life just to stay at the top of your game. And let's face it, there are a lot of people at the top of their game and there are a lot of people at the top of their game whose luck ran out on one day, or one round and had bad mulls and bad draws. Stuff like that happens all the time. The people who are consistently good are so because of the ungodly hours they pour into grinding. Sure, Pro Tours are a geek's idea of glamorous, but I don't think needing to grind all day and night on MTGO is glamorous in the least. When the game goes from fun past time to chore, that's when things start becoming bleh. So I think you and anyone else interested in winning these big events has to do is ask yourself a) why you truly want it; b) what would you rather want or be doing; c) with the realization of how much work it is, is it still worth it?
It sucks in this case, but with the M10 rules changes came with the fact that lifegain was not a static trigger for each instance of lifegain on a card. Lifegain is now just a static ability that triggers when damage is dealt by a creature. I remember beating face with Rhox War Monk with a behemoth sledge and ruining several blightning deck wins player's days.
Expanding it to Classic might work, and would certainly open up a few strategies, but the format got stale. Very stale, especially with a shrinking cardpool and little support from new sets. Are there enough classic cards to keep it fresh, or will it degrade again? Innovation helps keep formats alive, and even I was running out of steam towards the end there.
It's worth testing in PREs, but I wouldn't get my hopes up as to deck variation.
You do graphs just as well as you do trophies. I've been feeling down about not following up and continuing my own series that covered both the MPDC and SPDC series, but that's my own fault. This stuff will be most helpful if I ever get back in gear...which you may have just inspired me to do. Keep up the good work!
Paul, you're right, Kiyomaro doesn't attract much attention at first. But as you said, mono-White control has a lot of things going for it, and with the amount of card advantage this deck can generate you are usually pretty good to go.
I haven't noticed an increase in discard recently, but Nath is a common general to run into. And as this deck uses a Maro as a general, it will automatically be on the radar of any decent Nath player. Myojin of Night's Reach is pretty common in any sort of Black deck you may run into, but I don't think you need anything more than the draw that is already in the deck to recover.
Monkey, I finally did get to use Sunblast the other day, and it was very satisfying :) I did consider True Conviction, but I just didn't feel that I had enough offensive creatures to justify its inclusion. Sort of the same reason why I took out Ajani. But it is definitely worth considering, especially if you beef up the firepower in the deck by including a few more angels or something.
It's too bad you haven't gotten the chance to try our the Sunblast Angel, she's a blast! Ha, ha..
True Conviction would also fit really well into this deck, giving an offensive boost as well a life gain. Plus it would turn those two hit commander kills into one hit kills. And the lifegain would stack.
While the idea sounds good in theory, the problem is that dragon breath is a useless card to have to play from your hand, and if u don't mill it in the first activation of oath its completely garbage. Id rather play a thought seize or spell pierce, which is what i would have to cut to fit it in the deck.
Great scott!! I forgot about Tribe Elder. I, usually, am just like you. When I design a deck with green in it, the first 4 cards I put in are Tribe Elder. He should totally be in this deck. He works with Pando AND he fetches land AND he blocks. How did I miss that?!! Actually I know how. I was originally trying to force this deck into extended. The last card I added was Pandemonium, not realizing that Timespiral had already rotated. When I couldn't get it into extended I made some changes, like adding some dual lands, rhox, and tornado elemental. I just missed the Tribe Elder aspect. So, yes, you are very correct. Tribe Elder really belongs in this deck. I shall make that change post-haste.
Wow, I think there’s just so much information in there. I’m obviously going to have to go through the read yet again to fully grasp what I need to know. This is superb. casino online australia
I find the idea of a MTGO stalker truly hilarious, but I still sympathize with you due to all the annoyance it caused to you.
Random question triggered by your list: what's with Rampant Growth appearing in so many lists over Sakura-Tribe Elder? And I mean, lists where the presence of a creature over a sorcery isn't inherently wrong (like it would be for some special archetypes like Polymorph.dek). With the Elder you get the same effect in the same color for the same cost at the same speed (if you want so), PLUS a chump-blocker or anything else you can do with a 1/1 creature (like recurse it a lot more efficiently), especially in the late game. In your case, it also triggers Pandemonium. But it's not just you, I always see Rampant Growth as a first choice in decklists where Sakura-Tribe Elder would be both perfectly legal and perfectly fit. Is Rampant Growh really so primeval in everyone's mind? Yet the Elder has been around for more than 6 years now, it's not just "one of those cards young people happen to use these days". :)
That I will totally agree with. At the time, the Rav duals were still expensive and I owned none of them. I looked at the price of Pillar, Reflecting Pool, and Rav duals and said, "Nope. I don't believe in formats where my lands make up 80% of the cost of my deck or cost more than $100 to buy just lands."
Fun game. I have often found monowhite control to be underestimated in commander and the power of sweepers + recursion + life gain + deterrents is usually enough to keep you in the game against strong decks. I have been thinking about Kiyomaro, since it is a maro that actually seems both solid and yet inoffensive at first glance. I was wondering why you didn't include Venser's right off the bat but your summary explained it satisfactorily. Sometimes we learn by trial and error.
Is discard becoming more prevalent of late? There are answers of course but they involve cards you wouldn't ordinarily play. And in monowhite you lose the Wilt-leaf Liege answer. Dodecapod is merely not horrible vs discard (where it is normally horrible). I think the only true answer to discard.dec is to kill them hard and fast and make sure everyone else does as well. (I have seen a Nath, the gilt-leaf deck take down the entire game in one swoop with a series of combos based on discard triggers.)
wouldnt dragon breath be a good addition to the deck? it lets u attack immediatly (or doesnt it work with oath, not sure on the wording there), thus having 2 titan triggers the turn it enters play and u could immediatly assemble the vault/key combo....
Although it would probably suck, I am dying to try a blue black control deck with 4 Punish Ignorance and 4 Undermine. I used to love Undermine back in Standard. I haven't bothered making the deck because a) cas/cas hates counters and b) Undermine is expensive for a casual deck that will get rage quitters. Kaleidoscope would be a perfect place to try some form of Esper control, even if it sucked, at least I'd get to play it. =)
A consistent mana base was actually the easiest thing in Kaleidoscope. Even only with Pillar of the Paruns, Reflecting Pool and Exotic Orchard, it was enough to play all 5-Color goodness you had in mind.
Oh and many also added City of Brass to their mana bases to be 100% sure about not getting color screwed.
Aggro decks were very dominant in the format during the early days. Tatermunge Maniac + Figure of Destiny were very good turn one plays, Putrid Leech and Qasali Pridemage were also perfect turn two plays, and as I said, the first weeks were totally dominated by Aggro.
Then the meta shifted to more midrange. The deck I have in the article for example won me countless many packs in weekend challenges and in 2mans. That deck shows you what the meta turned into in time.
Opening the doors of Classic to Kaleidoscope will surely make those Aggro and midrange deck even more powerful, but the best thing it'll do is to make Control FINALLY playable in the format. With the old card base, it was sadly impossible (in theory it was possible; but it never worked out in practice).
Thanks copperfield, I'll try my best. :)
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with jaces, brainstorms, and scrollrack it shouldnt be a problem to get it back in the library if u draw it, and i think the odds r acceptable to hit it if u have one (maybe even 2) when u hit the titan...
I understand this a lot, during the summer time I go with almost no MTGO for a couple of months due to fishing. I'd also be interested to hear about how the chase goes, as my goals are only to qualify most months, (not enough time, focus, and to many holes in my game I need to work on before I would do anything more seriously,) but hearing updates on someone going for the big prize at the end of the year would make for a very interesting read.
I don't think the Myrs help much beyond achieving Metalcraft. The trouble with achieving that threshold via artifact creatures is that creatures are easier to remove; people generally don't include as much dedicated artifact hate as they do creature removal. A savvy opponent will catch on to your plan quickly.
Also, I like the Allies strategy because what Ondu Cleric does is help you stay alive quite a bit. This is important when using a non-creature based win condition because you'll usually be taking damage. And this proposed list has zero life gain capability.
I think Golden Urn would solve this problem. I'll have to pick some up to test it of course, because it was one of those cards I thumbed my nose out when Scars was released.
For counterspells, because the game goes long and your opponent can probably afford the extra cost, I wouldn't rely on Mana Leak. And Dispel seems a bit situational. It's creatures that I'd really want to counter, and for this I'd run Deprive, which won't set you back when all sorts of Islands are on the board and can bounce the Halimar Depths to help you find your all-important milling cards.
Life is more important than a random card game, or even winning a MOCS. Sure, winning would be cool, as would a Pro Tour win, let alone an invitation and attendance. But winning isn't just a self-contained event, as you pretty much covered. It involves all the preparation and hours of your life just to stay at the top of your game. And let's face it, there are a lot of people at the top of their game and there are a lot of people at the top of their game whose luck ran out on one day, or one round and had bad mulls and bad draws. Stuff like that happens all the time. The people who are consistently good are so because of the ungodly hours they pour into grinding. Sure, Pro Tours are a geek's idea of glamorous, but I don't think needing to grind all day and night on MTGO is glamorous in the least. When the game goes from fun past time to chore, that's when things start becoming bleh. So I think you and anyone else interested in winning these big events has to do is ask yourself a) why you truly want it; b) what would you rather want or be doing; c) with the realization of how much work it is, is it still worth it?
I should have been clearer. Lifelink doesn't stack, but Kiyomaro's life gain ability isn't lifelink. Therefore they could work at the same time.
It sucks in this case, but with the M10 rules changes came with the fact that lifegain was not a static trigger for each instance of lifegain on a card. Lifegain is now just a static ability that triggers when damage is dealt by a creature. I remember beating face with Rhox War Monk with a behemoth sledge and ruining several blightning deck wins player's days.
Good old Kaleidoscope. I loved it back in the day: Of every format I've written about, it comes in second only to tribal:
http://puremtgo.com/articles/recent?uid=AJ_Impy&title=kaleidoscope&field...
Expanding it to Classic might work, and would certainly open up a few strategies, but the format got stale. Very stale, especially with a shrinking cardpool and little support from new sets. Are there enough classic cards to keep it fresh, or will it degrade again? Innovation helps keep formats alive, and even I was running out of steam towards the end there.
It's worth testing in PREs, but I wouldn't get my hopes up as to deck variation.
You do graphs just as well as you do trophies. I've been feeling down about not following up and continuing my own series that covered both the MPDC and SPDC series, but that's my own fault. This stuff will be most helpful if I ever get back in gear...which you may have just inspired me to do. Keep up the good work!
Paul, you're right, Kiyomaro doesn't attract much attention at first. But as you said, mono-White control has a lot of things going for it, and with the amount of card advantage this deck can generate you are usually pretty good to go.
I haven't noticed an increase in discard recently, but Nath is a common general to run into. And as this deck uses a Maro as a general, it will automatically be on the radar of any decent Nath player. Myojin of Night's Reach is pretty common in any sort of Black deck you may run into, but I don't think you need anything more than the draw that is already in the deck to recover.
Monkey, I finally did get to use Sunblast the other day, and it was very satisfying :) I did consider True Conviction, but I just didn't feel that I had enough offensive creatures to justify its inclusion. Sort of the same reason why I took out Ajani. But it is definitely worth considering, especially if you beef up the firepower in the deck by including a few more angels or something.
It's too bad you haven't gotten the chance to try our the Sunblast Angel, she's a blast! Ha, ha..
True Conviction would also fit really well into this deck, giving an offensive boost as well a life gain. Plus it would turn those two hit commander kills into one hit kills. And the lifegain would stack.
While the idea sounds good in theory, the problem is that dragon breath is a useless card to have to play from your hand, and if u don't mill it in the first activation of oath its completely garbage. Id rather play a thought seize or spell pierce, which is what i would have to cut to fit it in the deck.
Great scott!! I forgot about Tribe Elder. I, usually, am just like you. When I design a deck with green in it, the first 4 cards I put in are Tribe Elder. He should totally be in this deck. He works with Pando AND he fetches land AND he blocks. How did I miss that?!! Actually I know how. I was originally trying to force this deck into extended. The last card I added was Pandemonium, not realizing that Timespiral had already rotated. When I couldn't get it into extended I made some changes, like adding some dual lands, rhox, and tornado elemental. I just missed the Tribe Elder aspect. So, yes, you are very correct. Tribe Elder really belongs in this deck. I shall make that change post-haste.
Wow, I think there’s just so much information in there. I’m obviously going to have to go through the read yet again to fully grasp what I need to know. This is superb. casino online australia
I find the idea of a MTGO stalker truly hilarious, but I still sympathize with you due to all the annoyance it caused to you.
Random question triggered by your list: what's with Rampant Growth appearing in so many lists over Sakura-Tribe Elder? And I mean, lists where the presence of a creature over a sorcery isn't inherently wrong (like it would be for some special archetypes like Polymorph.dek). With the Elder you get the same effect in the same color for the same cost at the same speed (if you want so), PLUS a chump-blocker or anything else you can do with a 1/1 creature (like recurse it a lot more efficiently), especially in the late game. In your case, it also triggers Pandemonium. But it's not just you, I always see Rampant Growth as a first choice in decklists where Sakura-Tribe Elder would be both perfectly legal and perfectly fit. Is Rampant Growh really so primeval in everyone's mind? Yet the Elder has been around for more than 6 years now, it's not just "one of those cards young people happen to use these days". :)
I just played with bounce lands :D It was fun if harder.
You have a stalker??? Wow. Go figure, attacking Maro is how to get a stalker.
That I will totally agree with. At the time, the Rav duals were still expensive and I owned none of them. I looked at the price of Pillar, Reflecting Pool, and Rav duals and said, "Nope. I don't believe in formats where my lands make up 80% of the cost of my deck or cost more than $100 to buy just lands."
Fun game. I have often found monowhite control to be underestimated in commander and the power of sweepers + recursion + life gain + deterrents is usually enough to keep you in the game against strong decks. I have been thinking about Kiyomaro, since it is a maro that actually seems both solid and yet inoffensive at first glance. I was wondering why you didn't include Venser's right off the bat but your summary explained it satisfactorily. Sometimes we learn by trial and error.
Is discard becoming more prevalent of late? There are answers of course but they involve cards you wouldn't ordinarily play. And in monowhite you lose the Wilt-leaf Liege answer. Dodecapod is merely not horrible vs discard (where it is normally horrible). I think the only true answer to discard.dec is to kill them hard and fast and make sure everyone else does as well. (I have seen a Nath, the gilt-leaf deck take down the entire game in one swoop with a series of combos based on discard triggers.)
wouldnt dragon breath be a good addition to the deck? it lets u attack immediatly (or doesnt it work with oath, not sure on the wording there), thus having 2 titan triggers the turn it enters play and u could immediatly assemble the vault/key combo....
Although it would probably suck, I am dying to try a blue black control deck with 4 Punish Ignorance and 4 Undermine. I used to love Undermine back in Standard. I haven't bothered making the deck because a) cas/cas hates counters and b) Undermine is expensive for a casual deck that will get rage quitters. Kaleidoscope would be a perfect place to try some form of Esper control, even if it sucked, at least I'd get to play it. =)
A consistent mana base was actually the easiest thing in Kaleidoscope. Even only with Pillar of the Paruns, Reflecting Pool and Exotic Orchard, it was enough to play all 5-Color goodness you had in mind.
Oh and many also added City of Brass to their mana bases to be 100% sure about not getting color screwed.
Aggro decks were very dominant in the format during the early days. Tatermunge Maniac + Figure of Destiny were very good turn one plays, Putrid Leech and Qasali Pridemage were also perfect turn two plays, and as I said, the first weeks were totally dominated by Aggro.
Then the meta shifted to more midrange. The deck I have in the article for example won me countless many packs in weekend challenges and in 2mans. That deck shows you what the meta turned into in time.
Opening the doors of Classic to Kaleidoscope will surely make those Aggro and midrange deck even more powerful, but the best thing it'll do is to make Control FINALLY playable in the format. With the old card base, it was sadly impossible (in theory it was possible; but it never worked out in practice).
LE
I never played much kaleidoscope just because the mana bases were insanely expensive for such a casual format.
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