I dislike this idea immensely. I will tell you why. The psychographic tests that tell us what group we are in tend to vary quite a bit in results based on: Our mood, the questions asked, the frame of reference, how much sleep we've had, etc. These intangible things are hard to nail down.
Some days all I want to do is play UU spells and say "no" to anything that can end the game. Other days I feel like wrecking mana. Other days still I am interested in complex interactions between various cards on all sides of the board. Sometimes I am interested in all of these things at once (admittedly rarely.) There are very few non-hybrid players and I think even these will admit if pressed that they do change their styles now and then.
I do like the idea of a visual clue for games. Words are often ignored but an icon can be an instantly recognizable symbol.
Man, we've come a long way since Paladin en Vec, I'll say that. How good do creatures have to be before this power creep ends?
I hope they print more artifact removal that's better than Perilous Myr because that new Infect Knight is hard to kill. I guess it's slow enough to get Mana Leaked, but man.
I don't know how it will fare in constructed though, considering infect needs Green for all the pump spells. Mono-Black infect just doesn't seem that scary outside of Skithryx.
People never seem to mention them, but I think the following cards need to come online eventually:
Nettling Imp
Norritt
Siren's Call
Festival
I had my share of fun killing opponents' creatures with the imps back in the day. The new "must attack if able" cards are way different since they don't kill creatures that don't attack. If you have a deck with Royal Assassins, Nettling Imps, and Icy Manipulators, you can use any two of those three to kill a creature every turn. I had a fun deck that used those plus Magus of the Unseen, Sage of Lat-Nam, Xenic Poltergeist, Ashnod's Transmogrant, and I forget what else. If I built it today I'd probably try Neurok Transmuter and Stronghold Assassin. It has plenty of weaknesses, but it was a fun deck to build.
I started out with monoblack infect in block....It was pretty good and can be competitive but it needs somethingto put it over the top to bring it to tier 1....This knight is in the right direction.
yeah the infect knight is SICK, actually both knights are going to be insane but i do get the feeling that infect is going to become really insane in next set
Instead of avatars, perhaps WOTC should give out Timmy, Johnny, and Spike avatars/badges, and provide a set definition what what it means to be each player/a hybrid, and have players identify themselves accordingly.
Thus a game advertised as "casual" and created by a Timmy would give Spikes the hint that they should join a different game. And it would be understandable if a Spike joining a game with 5 Timmies got booted.
Hybrids could be nuanced to show which side you lean towards, i.e. a Johnny-Spike would be slightly more casual than a Spike-Johnny.
Then instead of advertising a Standard or FFA game as "casual", it would be more matchmaker-esque, i.e. Standard seeking a "Timmy" or "Timmy-Spike" to play with. Players could easily see, and join the corresponding games.
I have been playing the Mono Red deck recently and it has been a lot of fun. It seems like most decks have the six mana problem outside of the tempered steel and infect decks.
I am hoping that Besieged has some good 2 and 3 drop red creatures. I am also pumped to see the new Tezzeret.
Did everyone see the two preview cards from Worlds? One was a 1BB Zombie-Knight, 2/2 infect, first strike, pro red and white. That is a good 3 drop for the infect deck. I am going to pick up Skytherix and Hand of the Praetors soon becuase the infect deck may get a lot better. So far I have not played infect but given the Phyrexian nature of the next set I bet it will get a lot better.
The other preview card was a 1WW Human Knight, 2/2 double strike, pro green and black.
I think the best way to try to solve the Spike vs. Casual issue, not only in multiplayer but to a certain extent in the Casual Games room also, is by making the in-game communication better. Way, WAY better than what it is today; I think it means revamping the chat interface, the buddy system and the clan system (I disagree a little with Hammy here, I think clans could work better as a playgroup feature than a buddy system). That is, I think making MTGO a more social game could incidentally solve a lot of issues involving players' personal (or collective) playing tastes.
I am aware that, to a lot of people, being able to play any time of the day, any day of the week (and, to a minor extent, anyone anywhere in the world) rather than scheduling playing sessions days or weeks in advance is a big part of MTGO's lure. But I also think that the multiplayer crowd, at least from what I see in paper groups, is geared a lot towards the social aspects of the game as well; at least in the multiplayer groups I've been part of when I still had physical cards, we looked forward not only to games themselves, but also to the opportunity of sitting around a large table and trash-talking, facing both the player who brought a new deck every week and the player who played the same deck forever, creating fake blood feuds and rivalries, actually befriending each other... And, most of all, we all knew what was acceptable and what wasn't inside our group, without need for a previously written set of rules. Most of these thing are extremely hard to accomplish in MTGO without a proper social structure.
More than writing in stone what is casual and what isn't, I think it would be better to make it easier to players to find people who think alike and start a group of people who all like to play the game the same, or almost the same, way.
I like mono red. Going t the face is fun. The bad matchup for monored is RB and Monoblue. The monoblue can power out some crazy things with the right draw...but what makes it a bad match up is really one card: Volition Reins. That is so tough to beat. If mono blue doesnt draw an architect then I feel i can win handily.
I didn't cover mono blue because that deck, for all intents and porpoises, is aggro. Unless you're not talking about the Architect decks running rampant right now in which case I'll need to do some more research.
mono R and mono B are the decks to go with. lately i changed up the mono B list that i wrote a article for (which will get posted soon i hope) and has been doing great. I ran Mono U control and it seems wayyyy slow, which im surprised you didn't cover the deck. but i wrote a article on that too it was a DE report, but mono U is horrible because if you do not have the disperse or the counters to buy you some time your kinda screwed. i feel the main decks are WBu, mono B, mono R, WBu has so many anwsers for aggro and fattier and meanier beaters than the other control decks.
Greath Article, the only comment i would add is that when searching in gatherer, you can save some time by selecting NOT and the Color you don't want instead of the color you want, so now you get artifacts in the same search, and you avoid hybrid cards that are not in your colors.
Also about the crusaders, while double strike is powerfull, i think the black one has more aplications, for constructed at least... since most of the standard removal is White/Red besides First strike plus infect is just unfair....
I don't like to concede in commander if I can avoid it for a couple of reasons.
First of all, my life total is a barrier to the bad guy winning. Even if the broken deck has me locked down, making him kill me gives the other 2 players time to find an answer, or maybe the other 2 guys give me time to find an answer. If you make the villain do 120 pts of damage you increase your chances of pulling things out. So if I concede i'm just making the villains job easier and that's no fun for the folks who didn't bring broken decks.
Secondly, if the villain is really a jerk then he may see a concession as a validation of his actions. Some of these bad actors consider it an extra victory point if they piss people off. I say don't give them the satisfaction. Playing the game out gives you a chance to see if you can get thru to him.
Third, maybe this is his first EDH game? Every once in awhile I play a guy who has essentially ported his 100cs good stuff tourney deck over, slapped Karona or Hoard of Notions on top of it, swapped in a Sol Ring and had at it. These guys usually aren't playing "broken" decks, but they are often playing "really really good" decks against folks who are playing really silly casual decks. A lot of these guys can be brought into the casual fold if you talk with them and encourage the development of a social bond at the table. Once you've buddied someone, it gets a little harder to intentionally ruin their afternoon.
I thought about mentioning it, but to be honest I don't know the deck very well. I could definitely see Cruel Bargain getting some actual Legacy play along with the two Ruins. I mean, it doubles your ability to Draw 4 in black for Dark Ritual mana! That seems good.
I looked up the decklist... interesting... Green/Black Charbelcher & Storm double combo. I like how it uses Culling the Weak along with Phyrexian Walker and Shield Sphere for a 3rd black ritual. Definitely the kind of deck I'd play, and yeah, I wish Cruel Bargain was online. It could have been an "actual rare" instead of Sinkhole, Gloom, or Deathgrip.
Hey love the block article. I am i the same boat I had no collection and decided to play block to build it up and get ready for standard next year. I have been hitting the 2mans hard and the DE's about 3-4 times a week. SO here is my insight:
UW is actually in a downturn in popularity (too man decks just have significant advantages over it). I think I have only played one UW deck in the last seven days. That is alot of matches. It can be too slow.
WBu can be good but it suffers mana issues from time to time.
UR is just silly right now, Go complete aggro with R. That is what Koth is all about.
4 color control is not viable. The player may of went 4-0 in that tourney but in the long run he will have more 2-2's than 3-1's because of mana issues.
The best deck in the format. Well it's the deck that I have placed in packs in every DE I have played in. It's just bananas at the draws it can get.
Planeswalkers: Venser will prolly climb. Elspeth is prolly stuck where its at. The real under priced planeswalker is Koth. At 17 tix he is super cheap. Koth is THE planeswalker right now in block. And I dare say it is number 2 behind Jace. Koth will not drop any further and will only climb. That is why I am using my winnings to pick up as many koths as possible.
BTW constructed rating is now 1820. I started at 1620 just two months ago.
By "coming online in a draftable set soon" I meant coming online after Master's Edition 4. Though that's not what I actually said. :)
If you're interested, the complete list of cards that Master's Edition 4 is going to put into a draftable set for the first time (and are already online in some form) is:
Balance
Blue Elemental Blast
Braingeyser
Channel
Demonic Tutor
Ebon Dragon
Fork
Maze of Ith
Sedge Troll
Sol Ring
Strip Mine
Temple Acolyte
Thunder Dragon
Basically, every "good" card, leaving us with the 3 Vanillas and the 9 Ice Age cards.
Correct me if I am mistaken (often happens) but isn't the Phoenix really an aggro strategy creature? At the very least it lends it self to long range aggro (AggroControl/Midrange) more than straight control. The 4/4 hasty flier body at 5cmc is a bit steep imho but it just does not seem like a creature that wants to be kept on D. That might be partially what is wrong with the deck. Also 1 battlemyr seems strange. You have no tutor sources for it and very few myr in the deck. Sure Palladium gives you 2 colorless when it sticks for a turn but it seems to me this deck is very confused about its purpose.
Without being a SOM block fanatic I'd say you either add more aggro (and cut the control elements.) Or add more control (and perhaps myr) and cut the Phoenix and other aggro cards. I know you don't want to play a deck that isn't control but strictly speaking this one just seems bad if it is intended to be a control deck.
Yeah some of us drafted revised...very little of it. Mostly it was something we called Mini-Masters which was opening one pack and making a 30 card deck out of it + lands. Fun times but not so good with revised. 4th was better. And believe it or not Chronicles was even better.
Are they making those suckers Legendary like Kemba?
Or there better be a lotta creature hate in artifacts coming in SOM as some colours are really gonna lack any kinda response.
edit: Just checked - nope - ouch!
I dislike this idea immensely. I will tell you why. The psychographic tests that tell us what group we are in tend to vary quite a bit in results based on: Our mood, the questions asked, the frame of reference, how much sleep we've had, etc. These intangible things are hard to nail down.
Some days all I want to do is play UU spells and say "no" to anything that can end the game. Other days I feel like wrecking mana. Other days still I am interested in complex interactions between various cards on all sides of the board. Sometimes I am interested in all of these things at once (admittedly rarely.) There are very few non-hybrid players and I think even these will admit if pressed that they do change their styles now and then.
I do like the idea of a visual clue for games. Words are often ignored but an icon can be an instantly recognizable symbol.
This is block...monoblack can swarm. You need to just get a few points on him than clasp, throne of geth, hand, skittles can end the game.
Man, we've come a long way since Paladin en Vec, I'll say that. How good do creatures have to be before this power creep ends?
I hope they print more artifact removal that's better than Perilous Myr because that new Infect Knight is hard to kill. I guess it's slow enough to get Mana Leaked, but man.
I don't know how it will fare in constructed though, considering infect needs Green for all the pump spells. Mono-Black infect just doesn't seem that scary outside of Skithryx.
People never seem to mention them, but I think the following cards need to come online eventually:
Nettling Imp
Norritt
Siren's Call
Festival
I had my share of fun killing opponents' creatures with the imps back in the day. The new "must attack if able" cards are way different since they don't kill creatures that don't attack. If you have a deck with Royal Assassins, Nettling Imps, and Icy Manipulators, you can use any two of those three to kill a creature every turn. I had a fun deck that used those plus Magus of the Unseen, Sage of Lat-Nam, Xenic Poltergeist, Ashnod's Transmogrant, and I forget what else. If I built it today I'd probably try Neurok Transmuter and Stronghold Assassin. It has plenty of weaknesses, but it was a fun deck to build.
I started out with monoblack infect in block....It was pretty good and can be competitive but it needs somethingto put it over the top to bring it to tier 1....This knight is in the right direction.
I also think we need a black planeswalker....
yeah the infect knight is SICK, actually both knights are going to be insane but i do get the feeling that infect is going to become really insane in next set
oh sorry. monored.....just good. i iwill leave more explanation to westane since hes doing the research....he just 4-0'd a DE with monored
Instead of avatars, perhaps WOTC should give out Timmy, Johnny, and Spike avatars/badges, and provide a set definition what what it means to be each player/a hybrid, and have players identify themselves accordingly.
Thus a game advertised as "casual" and created by a Timmy would give Spikes the hint that they should join a different game. And it would be understandable if a Spike joining a game with 5 Timmies got booted.
Hybrids could be nuanced to show which side you lean towards, i.e. a Johnny-Spike would be slightly more casual than a Spike-Johnny.
Then instead of advertising a Standard or FFA game as "casual", it would be more matchmaker-esque, i.e. Standard seeking a "Timmy" or "Timmy-Spike" to play with. Players could easily see, and join the corresponding games.
"The best deck in the format. Well it's the deck that I have placed in packs in every DE I have played in."
Well, are you going to leave us in suspense? Or will you tell us what deck that actually is? :)
I have been playing the Mono Red deck recently and it has been a lot of fun. It seems like most decks have the six mana problem outside of the tempered steel and infect decks.
I am hoping that Besieged has some good 2 and 3 drop red creatures. I am also pumped to see the new Tezzeret.
Did everyone see the two preview cards from Worlds? One was a 1BB Zombie-Knight, 2/2 infect, first strike, pro red and white. That is a good 3 drop for the infect deck. I am going to pick up Skytherix and Hand of the Praetors soon becuase the infect deck may get a lot better. So far I have not played infect but given the Phyrexian nature of the next set I bet it will get a lot better.
The other preview card was a 1WW Human Knight, 2/2 double strike, pro green and black.
I think the best way to try to solve the Spike vs. Casual issue, not only in multiplayer but to a certain extent in the Casual Games room also, is by making the in-game communication better. Way, WAY better than what it is today; I think it means revamping the chat interface, the buddy system and the clan system (I disagree a little with Hammy here, I think clans could work better as a playgroup feature than a buddy system). That is, I think making MTGO a more social game could incidentally solve a lot of issues involving players' personal (or collective) playing tastes.
I am aware that, to a lot of people, being able to play any time of the day, any day of the week (and, to a minor extent, anyone anywhere in the world) rather than scheduling playing sessions days or weeks in advance is a big part of MTGO's lure. But I also think that the multiplayer crowd, at least from what I see in paper groups, is geared a lot towards the social aspects of the game as well; at least in the multiplayer groups I've been part of when I still had physical cards, we looked forward not only to games themselves, but also to the opportunity of sitting around a large table and trash-talking, facing both the player who brought a new deck every week and the player who played the same deck forever, creating fake blood feuds and rivalries, actually befriending each other... And, most of all, we all knew what was acceptable and what wasn't inside our group, without need for a previously written set of rules. Most of these thing are extremely hard to accomplish in MTGO without a proper social structure.
More than writing in stone what is casual and what isn't, I think it would be better to make it easier to players to find people who think alike and start a group of people who all like to play the game the same, or almost the same, way.
I like mono red. Going t the face is fun. The bad matchup for monored is RB and Monoblue. The monoblue can power out some crazy things with the right draw...but what makes it a bad match up is really one card: Volition Reins. That is so tough to beat. If mono blue doesnt draw an architect then I feel i can win handily.
Always check your articles, interesting thoughts and a funny read! Hope to see more soon :-)
I didn't cover mono blue because that deck, for all intents and porpoises, is aggro. Unless you're not talking about the Architect decks running rampant right now in which case I'll need to do some more research.
aorry to be nitpicky, but
Spirit of the Night and Ishan's Shade are also mono-black creatures with protection from black
mono R and mono B are the decks to go with. lately i changed up the mono B list that i wrote a article for (which will get posted soon i hope) and has been doing great. I ran Mono U control and it seems wayyyy slow, which im surprised you didn't cover the deck. but i wrote a article on that too it was a DE report, but mono U is horrible because if you do not have the disperse or the counters to buy you some time your kinda screwed. i feel the main decks are WBu, mono B, mono R, WBu has so many anwsers for aggro and fattier and meanier beaters than the other control decks.
Greath Article, the only comment i would add is that when searching in gatherer, you can save some time by selecting NOT and the Color you don't want instead of the color you want, so now you get artifacts in the same search, and you avoid hybrid cards that are not in your colors.
Also about the crusaders, while double strike is powerfull, i think the black one has more aplications, for constructed at least... since most of the standard removal is White/Red besides First strike plus infect is just unfair....
Have a nice day =)
I don't like to concede in commander if I can avoid it for a couple of reasons.
First of all, my life total is a barrier to the bad guy winning. Even if the broken deck has me locked down, making him kill me gives the other 2 players time to find an answer, or maybe the other 2 guys give me time to find an answer. If you make the villain do 120 pts of damage you increase your chances of pulling things out. So if I concede i'm just making the villains job easier and that's no fun for the folks who didn't bring broken decks.
Secondly, if the villain is really a jerk then he may see a concession as a validation of his actions. Some of these bad actors consider it an extra victory point if they piss people off. I say don't give them the satisfaction. Playing the game out gives you a chance to see if you can get thru to him.
Third, maybe this is his first EDH game? Every once in awhile I play a guy who has essentially ported his 100cs good stuff tourney deck over, slapped Karona or Hoard of Notions on top of it, swapped in a Sol Ring and had at it. These guys usually aren't playing "broken" decks, but they are often playing "really really good" decks against folks who are playing really silly casual decks. A lot of these guys can be brought into the casual fold if you talk with them and encourage the development of a social bond at the table. Once you've buddied someone, it gets a little harder to intentionally ruin their afternoon.
I thought about mentioning it, but to be honest I don't know the deck very well. I could definitely see Cruel Bargain getting some actual Legacy play along with the two Ruins. I mean, it doubles your ability to Draw 4 in black for Dark Ritual mana! That seems good.
I looked up the decklist... interesting... Green/Black Charbelcher & Storm double combo. I like how it uses Culling the Weak along with Phyrexian Walker and Shield Sphere for a 3rd black ritual. Definitely the kind of deck I'd play, and yeah, I wish Cruel Bargain was online. It could have been an "actual rare" instead of Sinkhole, Gloom, or Deathgrip.
Hey love the block article. I am i the same boat I had no collection and decided to play block to build it up and get ready for standard next year. I have been hitting the 2mans hard and the DE's about 3-4 times a week. SO here is my insight:
UW is actually in a downturn in popularity (too man decks just have significant advantages over it). I think I have only played one UW deck in the last seven days. That is alot of matches. It can be too slow.
WBu can be good but it suffers mana issues from time to time.
UR is just silly right now, Go complete aggro with R. That is what Koth is all about.
4 color control is not viable. The player may of went 4-0 in that tourney but in the long run he will have more 2-2's than 3-1's because of mana issues.
The best deck in the format. Well it's the deck that I have placed in packs in every DE I have played in. It's just bananas at the draws it can get.
Planeswalkers: Venser will prolly climb. Elspeth is prolly stuck where its at. The real under priced planeswalker is Koth. At 17 tix he is super cheap. Koth is THE planeswalker right now in block. And I dare say it is number 2 behind Jace. Koth will not drop any further and will only climb. That is why I am using my winnings to pick up as many koths as possible.
BTW constructed rating is now 1820. I started at 1620 just two months ago.
By "coming online in a draftable set soon" I meant coming online after Master's Edition 4. Though that's not what I actually said. :)
If you're interested, the complete list of cards that Master's Edition 4 is going to put into a draftable set for the first time (and are already online in some form) is:
Balance
Blue Elemental Blast
Braingeyser
Channel
Demonic Tutor
Ebon Dragon
Fork
Maze of Ith
Sedge Troll
Sol Ring
Strip Mine
Temple Acolyte
Thunder Dragon
Basically, every "good" card, leaving us with the 3 Vanillas and the 9 Ice Age cards.
Correct me if I am mistaken (often happens) but isn't the Phoenix really an aggro strategy creature? At the very least it lends it self to long range aggro (AggroControl/Midrange) more than straight control. The 4/4 hasty flier body at 5cmc is a bit steep imho but it just does not seem like a creature that wants to be kept on D. That might be partially what is wrong with the deck. Also 1 battlemyr seems strange. You have no tutor sources for it and very few myr in the deck. Sure Palladium gives you 2 colorless when it sticks for a turn but it seems to me this deck is very confused about its purpose.
Without being a SOM block fanatic I'd say you either add more aggro (and cut the control elements.) Or add more control (and perhaps myr) and cut the Phoenix and other aggro cards. I know you don't want to play a deck that isn't control but strictly speaking this one just seems bad if it is intended to be a control deck.
Thank you! :)
I hope I can find the time to do some more (Deep Analysis). ;)
Yeah some of us drafted revised...very little of it. Mostly it was something we called Mini-Masters which was opening one pack and making a 30 card deck out of it + lands. Fun times but not so good with revised. 4th was better. And believe it or not Chronicles was even better.