Nice draft -- I love furnace celebration decks. I don't have any major quibbles with your picks, although in hindsight it would have been sweet to have some of those fume spitters in pack 1! The only really clear mistake I think was taking the carapace forger over wall of tanglecord in p3p8. Wall is a nice blocker that creates solid virtual card advantage, which is really synergistic with all the reusable removal that you have. You have so much inevitability in this deck that you just need to survive to the lategame.
Unfortunately, I think you made 3 critical mispicks in the drafting portion.
1) There is no way that you take Turn to Slag over Embersmith - you were metalcraft, you already had a turn, and embersmith is one of the best uncommons in the format. Lots of times, infect concedes to t2 embersmith, or he slows their tempo down enough that they might as well concede to him. He also forces through combat damage, screws up your opponent's blocks, and kills a good many of creatures. You screw their myr draw on the play as well. Bad pick, take the smith in the future.
2) The Origin Spellbomb is the best of the spellbombs and needs to be taken over the flameborn hellion. It fixes hands early and leaves a fact around for your metalcraft.
3) Why take the sylvok over a glint hawk when you're not in green? Glint Hawk wouldn't have turned out to be particularly effective, but it triggers your smiths again and you can always pick up a trick to go with it. Adding a third colour for a pick that close is in all likelihood a bad decision.
I remember opening those dual lands and thinking what a waste of a booster where's my Nightmare or Shivan Dragon.
My second favourite card game to Magic was Rage that game was so fun, but I also dabbled in lots of others at the time (VTES, Battletech, Star Trek and Mythos) but Magic remained the best game out there and still is today.
-xaos im not the most computer savoy, but as the story continues and we get into my spikeier days of paper magic there will at least be some decklists breaking up the txt. ill see if in i cant find some ay to inject images.
-paul. mirage cycle may have hooked me on magic with its deep storylines and high fantasy settings but rath cycle hooked me on tourny play.
I love different people's experience with the game. Reading them is a Joy. It's cool that your Journey begins when my "enchantment" with the game began to dwindle. Mirage was actually when I started to strongly dislike the themes of magic, and pined for the "good old says". Arabians was just about OOP when I really got fully into the game. I dabbled with some friends during beta, but playing with one draw deck, and discard pile, for X players, since the original rulebook never seemed to state clearly that each player was supposed to have one of their own. I loved the 1001 arabian nights stories, and easily Arabian Nights expansion was the one that hooked me. This was made even more intense by the unbelievable difficulty to get ANY of these cards. It was well into the release of Ice Age before I even saw the bulk of the cards from the Arabians expansion. There was nothing like playing an early King Suleiman, against your friend who had packed his deck with Mahamoti's. and eventually I landed a copy of my favorite card ever made. Shahrazad is the most intensely thematic card EVER made. It does EXACTLY what she did in the tale. She told the King a new story every night, and the card makes you play subgames of MTG, constantly distracting with "new tales" which play out as the subgames.
Anyway, a great read, and great fun to see your take on the early years of the game. Amusingly I was (am?) in the process of writing an article much like this.
Everyone has a story like this, and I don't mind reading them.
Of particular interest is card evaluation ("why do I keep getting crappy Force of Will when I want a Lord of Tresserhorn") and what were considered "cool cards" by your playgroup or you personally.
Looking forward to reading about your first tournament, if you decide to write that article. How about deckbuilding foibles? That would make an interesting article. I personally made a BG Spiritcraft deck that wasn't working, found out after 4 or 5 test draws I neglected to add Swamps. Durp!
Lol *Thanks* for the constructive crit. I'll make sure I spew out more stuff. The quote at the end is the flavor text for punish ignorance, my favorite card :-)
I don't usually like the wall of text articles very much, I guess even though I was totally immersed in book reading as a youngster the television age and comic books rotted my brain a bit toward wanting to see pictures floating in the text.
I'd love to see some funny pics relevant to the subject matter here and there.
I can appreciate the coming to magic story. It's a nice narrative and certianly the kind of thing I can get into as someone who appreciates story and the personal.
From technical side:
-Don't use that much emoticons and avoid text speak as also said above-> it's article not chat/forum.
-Too much colours and effects. Makes the article harder to read. Use max 2-3 colours and bold the things you want a reader, who isn't going to read the whole article, to notice.
-The Lightning Bolt image should be big. The little images inside the text don't look good. Make them at the end/beginning (all in one place) or don't use them at all (I would preffer the second)
-Work on the text placement. It's ok, but could be better.
From topic side:
Make it longer. You basically gave an example and said what you would do and ask us what do we think bout it. My idea would be to make it not so simple case scenario, and say he has some cards at hand you don't know and look at the possible outcomes - it would be quite interesting to see in which scenario wich play would be the best. Maybe do 2 or 3 examples like this and some conclusion. I think it would be really educative then.
Hey PF welcome as a writer to puremtgo. A couple comments and criticisms if you will. 1) Not sure what that quote at the end is supposed to imply but lose it. It does not do your article justice. 2) don't use grey on white writing unless you are deliberately trying to hide text from the reader. 3) Try and find more to say. The article has a point (and a good one) but it is rather short and lacks meat. Each part of your lesson could be expounded on a little more.
Also try to avoid text speak where possible ("tnx", etc.) As a writer you want to appeal to as many people as possible and that means using as much legible English as you can fit in without boring your readers to death.
I agree that C is the generic right choice lacking further information as you are holding ultimatum and damnation so you don't have to hurry to use bolt and with WOG effects you usually want to draw out your opponent's hand as long as you can so as to maximize the benefit. The cost in life should not be worrisome assuming your land draws are perfect. Not knowing that 3 lands are coming would make the decision a bit harder.
All in all a good idea needing a bit more to make it really outstanding. Hope to see more from you soon.
Welcome back Whiffy. It has been far too long since you published. I enjoyed reading your reminisces. They sounded somewhat familiar as I have read many other stories about how people started playing. But each story is personal. It is good to see what brought you in and shaped your thinking.
Sacred Mesa was an awesome card for me as well though I was probably a little further along than you at the time having been playing a few years already. It really changed how things worked in my mind. Before that breeding pit was the token generator of choice and not a great one. Combo enabler that it was it wasn't really what people wanted. Sacred Mesa stepped it up a notch.
Though for me the first really great cycle (and is still the best imho) is the Rath cycle. My whole m:tg perspective changed with Rath. Glad to see you writing again. I encourage you to continue your story and don't worry about going overlong. 5k words would be just fine by me. :D
good old days....a sideboard for me and my buddies in 1994 was a 15 card pile you could exchange a card from your hand with at any time during a game :-)
This was a good focused draft, I agree with most of the picks you made. The two Turn to Slag you passed are debatable though. When you said you picked the copper my because you had so many 5 drops - creatures are "drops". Golem Artisan is a 5 drop for curving out with creatures, Turn to Slag isn't a "5 drop" it's a "removal spell". Killing a creature is just as good on turn 12 as it is on turn 4-5. As evidenced by the game where you saved yourself by casting back to back Turn to Slags two turns in a row.
Having 4 removal is a reasonable goal because that's a solid amount & some drafts you won't be able to find more than 4. But how many is too many? When I have a deck with 9-10 removal, I call myself "happy". I wouldn't turn down running 3 Turn to Slag in a deck, though if I had 4 I'd sure be wishing one or two was a Galvanic Blast instead (or that I had more mana myr).
I think you can definitely consider the Embersmith over the Turn to Slag, also. Either one is a solid pick there.
Enjoyed watching the draft and reading the comments. You did a really good job of steering the draft on course after a few experimental early picks. Golem Foundry is not really playable, considering that to get a value out of it you really need to turn out at least 2 golems from the thing. There are very few decks in which that'll be at all possible.
The deck build looks sound, but 18 lands seems like overkill in a deck where you top out at 1 6 drop. Personally I always play 17 lands in this format, almost regardless of how many myr I'm playing.
A note about the format, as others have pointed out, it was brutally difficult to read the game summaries. I think my head was going to explode.
... but a difficult draft. I thought you did a great job settling into W/R metalcraft, and avoiding the other temptations. Good work!
You're definitely improving in the way you think about drafting a deck rather than a pile of cards, but some "big picture" break-downs are holding you back from getting there ... p2p5 taking Myr over Slag because of curve considerations could be OK (probably shouldn't this early, but it's at least reasonable), but then taking Hellion over Origin Spellbomb when you're clearly W/x metalcraft at this point? Origin Spellbomb is the #1 white metalcraft enabler! You went opposite directions on those two picks, and I would argue they should have been the exact opposite.
Similarly, since color matters so much less in this format, the RR card (Slag) isn't pushing anybody into heavier red than the R noisemaker semi-bomb (Embersmith) - in fact, the Smith is MUCH more likely to push somebody into red. Again, not a bad thought process, just a little bit of holistic breakdown when trying for the bigger picture.
I'm not sure this is an 18-land deck, but bravo for at least trying it - so many people are tied to "16 land/2 myr" in this format, so it's nice to see thinking outside the box here.
Finally, while the writing was great, the formatting is pretty brutal, at least on the latest version of FireFox running NoScript. I'd really prefer another way.
No I never thought of using Echoing Courage. I might have to give it a try, looks like it will be of more benefit than Giant Growth with all the saporlings.
Nice draft -- I love furnace celebration decks. I don't have any major quibbles with your picks, although in hindsight it would have been sweet to have some of those fume spitters in pack 1! The only really clear mistake I think was taking the carapace forger over wall of tanglecord in p3p8. Wall is a nice blocker that creates solid virtual card advantage, which is really synergistic with all the reusable removal that you have. You have so much inevitability in this deck that you just need to survive to the lategame.
Also, I might have run some more swamps.
Still though, very well done!
Unfortunately, I think you made 3 critical mispicks in the drafting portion.
1) There is no way that you take Turn to Slag over Embersmith - you were metalcraft, you already had a turn, and embersmith is one of the best uncommons in the format. Lots of times, infect concedes to t2 embersmith, or he slows their tempo down enough that they might as well concede to him. He also forces through combat damage, screws up your opponent's blocks, and kills a good many of creatures. You screw their myr draw on the play as well. Bad pick, take the smith in the future.
2) The Origin Spellbomb is the best of the spellbombs and needs to be taken over the flameborn hellion. It fixes hands early and leaves a fact around for your metalcraft.
3) Why take the sylvok over a glint hawk when you're not in green? Glint Hawk wouldn't have turned out to be particularly effective, but it triggers your smiths again and you can always pick up a trick to go with it. Adding a third colour for a pick that close is in all likelihood a bad decision.
I hate the Putrefax too!
TRG.
I remember opening those dual lands and thinking what a waste of a booster where's my Nightmare or Shivan Dragon.
My second favourite card game to Magic was Rage that game was so fun, but I also dabbled in lots of others at the time (VTES, Battletech, Star Trek and Mythos) but Magic remained the best game out there and still is today.
Good stuff. I remember that Wildstorm game and tried playing it for a while, but Magic took up more time, because it was more fun.
wow... pack 1 was just horribly weak. i agree with all of your picks but each pack i was hit with this feeling of complete lackluster...
-xaos im not the most computer savoy, but as the story continues and we get into my spikeier days of paper magic there will at least be some decklists breaking up the txt. ill see if in i cant find some ay to inject images.
-paul. mirage cycle may have hooked me on magic with its deep storylines and high fantasy settings but rath cycle hooked me on tourny play.
i guess ill have to get to writing the next part.
I love different people's experience with the game. Reading them is a Joy. It's cool that your Journey begins when my "enchantment" with the game began to dwindle. Mirage was actually when I started to strongly dislike the themes of magic, and pined for the "good old says". Arabians was just about OOP when I really got fully into the game. I dabbled with some friends during beta, but playing with one draw deck, and discard pile, for X players, since the original rulebook never seemed to state clearly that each player was supposed to have one of their own. I loved the 1001 arabian nights stories, and easily Arabian Nights expansion was the one that hooked me. This was made even more intense by the unbelievable difficulty to get ANY of these cards. It was well into the release of Ice Age before I even saw the bulk of the cards from the Arabians expansion. There was nothing like playing an early King Suleiman, against your friend who had packed his deck with Mahamoti's. and eventually I landed a copy of my favorite card ever made. Shahrazad is the most intensely thematic card EVER made. It does EXACTLY what she did in the tale. She told the King a new story every night, and the card makes you play subgames of MTG, constantly distracting with "new tales" which play out as the subgames.
Anyway, a great read, and great fun to see your take on the early years of the game. Amusingly I was (am?) in the process of writing an article much like this.
I tend to jump on Rafiq faster, but its a close race.
Everyone has a story like this, and I don't mind reading them.
Of particular interest is card evaluation ("why do I keep getting crappy Force of Will when I want a Lord of Tresserhorn") and what were considered "cool cards" by your playgroup or you personally.
Looking forward to reading about your first tournament, if you decide to write that article. How about deckbuilding foibles? That would make an interesting article. I personally made a BG Spiritcraft deck that wasn't working, found out after 4 or 5 test draws I neglected to add Swamps. Durp!
can do :-)
Lol *Thanks* for the constructive crit. I'll make sure I spew out more stuff. The quote at the end is the flavor text for punish ignorance, my favorite card :-)
I don't usually like the wall of text articles very much, I guess even though I was totally immersed in book reading as a youngster the television age and comic books rotted my brain a bit toward wanting to see pictures floating in the text.
I'd love to see some funny pics relevant to the subject matter here and there.
I can appreciate the coming to magic story. It's a nice narrative and certianly the kind of thing I can get into as someone who appreciates story and the personal.
Mike-
As said above nice idea.
From technical side:
-Don't use that much emoticons and avoid text speak as also said above-> it's article not chat/forum.
-Too much colours and effects. Makes the article harder to read. Use max 2-3 colours and bold the things you want a reader, who isn't going to read the whole article, to notice.
-The Lightning Bolt image should be big. The little images inside the text don't look good. Make them at the end/beginning (all in one place) or don't use them at all (I would preffer the second)
-Work on the text placement. It's ok, but could be better.
From topic side:
Make it longer. You basically gave an example and said what you would do and ask us what do we think bout it. My idea would be to make it not so simple case scenario, and say he has some cards at hand you don't know and look at the possible outcomes - it would be quite interesting to see in which scenario wich play would be the best. Maybe do 2 or 3 examples like this and some conclusion. I think it would be really educative then.
Hope to see more of it coming :).
Hey PF welcome as a writer to puremtgo. A couple comments and criticisms if you will. 1) Not sure what that quote at the end is supposed to imply but lose it. It does not do your article justice. 2) don't use grey on white writing unless you are deliberately trying to hide text from the reader. 3) Try and find more to say. The article has a point (and a good one) but it is rather short and lacks meat. Each part of your lesson could be expounded on a little more.
Also try to avoid text speak where possible ("tnx", etc.) As a writer you want to appeal to as many people as possible and that means using as much legible English as you can fit in without boring your readers to death.
I agree that C is the generic right choice lacking further information as you are holding ultimatum and damnation so you don't have to hurry to use bolt and with WOG effects you usually want to draw out your opponent's hand as long as you can so as to maximize the benefit. The cost in life should not be worrisome assuming your land draws are perfect. Not knowing that 3 lands are coming would make the decision a bit harder.
All in all a good idea needing a bit more to make it really outstanding. Hope to see more from you soon.
Welcome back Whiffy. It has been far too long since you published. I enjoyed reading your reminisces. They sounded somewhat familiar as I have read many other stories about how people started playing. But each story is personal. It is good to see what brought you in and shaped your thinking.
Sacred Mesa was an awesome card for me as well though I was probably a little further along than you at the time having been playing a few years already. It really changed how things worked in my mind. Before that breeding pit was the token generator of choice and not a great one. Combo enabler that it was it wasn't really what people wanted. Sacred Mesa stepped it up a notch.
Though for me the first really great cycle (and is still the best imho) is the Rath cycle. My whole m:tg perspective changed with Rath. Glad to see you writing again. I encourage you to continue your story and don't worry about going overlong. 5k words would be just fine by me. :D
Great story, keep it going!
good old days....a sideboard for me and my buddies in 1994 was a 15 card pile you could exchange a card from your hand with at any time during a game :-)
I think, that site moved to deckcheck.org
how about an u/b control, leaving white for blue so you can use counters and blue tricks?
If you promis everyone at the table you are playing a casual Zur deck, this might help. Again the defenition of casual magic is not defined.
I personally will give you the benefit of the doubt, but unless you say something, then more then likely I will be beating down on you first.
Zur is my number one hated general and will go out of my way to beat down the zur player
This was a good focused draft, I agree with most of the picks you made. The two Turn to Slag you passed are debatable though. When you said you picked the copper my because you had so many 5 drops - creatures are "drops". Golem Artisan is a 5 drop for curving out with creatures, Turn to Slag isn't a "5 drop" it's a "removal spell". Killing a creature is just as good on turn 12 as it is on turn 4-5. As evidenced by the game where you saved yourself by casting back to back Turn to Slags two turns in a row.
Having 4 removal is a reasonable goal because that's a solid amount & some drafts you won't be able to find more than 4. But how many is too many? When I have a deck with 9-10 removal, I call myself "happy". I wouldn't turn down running 3 Turn to Slag in a deck, though if I had 4 I'd sure be wishing one or two was a Galvanic Blast instead (or that I had more mana myr).
I think you can definitely consider the Embersmith over the Turn to Slag, also. Either one is a solid pick there.
Enjoyed watching the draft and reading the comments. You did a really good job of steering the draft on course after a few experimental early picks. Golem Foundry is not really playable, considering that to get a value out of it you really need to turn out at least 2 golems from the thing. There are very few decks in which that'll be at all possible.
The deck build looks sound, but 18 lands seems like overkill in a deck where you top out at 1 6 drop. Personally I always play 17 lands in this format, almost regardless of how many myr I'm playing.
A note about the format, as others have pointed out, it was brutally difficult to read the game summaries. I think my head was going to explode.
It's amazing how much goodwill you can engender even with a nut commander if you sit back for a bit and let the board develop
... but a difficult draft. I thought you did a great job settling into W/R metalcraft, and avoiding the other temptations. Good work!
You're definitely improving in the way you think about drafting a deck rather than a pile of cards, but some "big picture" break-downs are holding you back from getting there ... p2p5 taking Myr over Slag because of curve considerations could be OK (probably shouldn't this early, but it's at least reasonable), but then taking Hellion over Origin Spellbomb when you're clearly W/x metalcraft at this point? Origin Spellbomb is the #1 white metalcraft enabler! You went opposite directions on those two picks, and I would argue they should have been the exact opposite.
Similarly, since color matters so much less in this format, the RR card (Slag) isn't pushing anybody into heavier red than the R noisemaker semi-bomb (Embersmith) - in fact, the Smith is MUCH more likely to push somebody into red. Again, not a bad thought process, just a little bit of holistic breakdown when trying for the bigger picture.
I'm not sure this is an 18-land deck, but bravo for at least trying it - so many people are tied to "16 land/2 myr" in this format, so it's nice to see thinking outside the box here.
Finally, while the writing was great, the formatting is pretty brutal, at least on the latest version of FireFox running NoScript. I'd really prefer another way.
Thanks again for the article man!
No I never thought of using Echoing Courage. I might have to give it a try, looks like it will be of more benefit than Giant Growth with all the saporlings.
Fun article ...
Was wondering if you tried Echoing Courage over Giant Growth in the Artifact Mutation deck.