Braingeyser, Fork, and Sedge Troll have all been online as promos only, never released in a drafted set online or in paper (or maybe people were drafting Revised, what do I know?), but will soon be drafted like crazy in ME4.
I've seen UR control once in a DE, going 3-1, but that was some time ago. I've also since seen RWU Control 3-1'ing an event. The deck really isn't particularly good at the moment though, so I'd be surprised to see it.
4-Color Control, though, has seen play, and that list was in fact from a DE, going 4-0. However, being inconsistent compared to UW and WBu Control, it doesn't see nearly as much play.
i have done so many DEs and countless number of 2 mans and i never seen the UR control or the 4 color control mentioned. UR i would think is pointless since mono R is alot faster and more constant.
Perhaps you should have also had a special note about Cruel Bargain as it's a key card in the Legacy deck Spanish Inquisition. Sure, it's not a tier 1 deck, but leaving it out of MED4 is really dumbfounding.
I think good examples of rogue decks in current Standard is stuff like R/G Land Destruction, or WW, non-quest, with stuff like Tempered Steel or Honor the Pure.
I agree somewhat that this is pretty much U/W Control. Maybe it's rogue in the sense that U/W/R was played last season but fell out of favor this season.
The rogue cards seem to be Revoke Existence and Venser. Depending on your U/W Control list, you will run a good percentage of the following cards: Baneslayer, Leyline, Elspeth, Gideon, Luminarch, etc. You just won't run all of them, but you will run some of them.
Also, another strike against "rogue" is that the deck is built to hose a pure aggro metagame rather than looking at the total metagame. The deck has 0 permission in the main deck. Looks like Valakut and Eldrazi Ramp get free Game 1s. As previously stated, this is a good 30-40% of the metagame that you will be handing out free games too. Also, the lack of permission in combination with dead draws against Control, i.e. Pyroclasm, is another huge liability against another 30-40% of the metagame.
The current metagame is at least 60-70% control, so I think a good rogue deck tries to shore up these match ups, and still has a decent plan against aggro.
Also, if you really want to beat them, you could do what one writer at SSG.com did, and morph into a R/B Goblins deck if you really want to win the WW match up. 4 Doom Blade will solve a lot of your problems, not only Kor Firewalker, but you can remove whatever creature they decide to equip with AA since they obviously don't run any Black creatures.
For a while I was running into Sharuum deck after Sharuum deck, and each of them was packing Mindslaver Lock or ways to take infinite turns. They sort of left a bad taste in my mouth because they all seemed so similar. I haven't seen one in a while though, so maybe it's my own personal bias. If you dropped Petra Sphinx or Belltower Sphinx, you obviously go way down in perceived threat level. Of course, they are going to go up in threat level online once they get rid of the superlegendary rule and people can start packing Sculpting Steel and Disciple of the Vault to perform infinite damage.
I am definitely sure about Azusa. Since ROE came out, the main focus of Azusa decks have been to tutor up and drop Emrakul as fast as possible. Most of the players on my personal Spike list have brought Azusa to a game at one point or another, and even people I have never played against use her for this purpose. It doesn't help that Sam Black wrote that article a while back at Starcitygames basically giving people an extremely powerful Azusa list.
Zur and Jhoira don't get played as much because people generally know what they are capable of and don't want to face the heat if they bring them to the table. So if you do see them, they fall into one of two camps: 1. Newbie who had no idea what he was getting himself into and get crushed by all opponents, or 2. Spike who knows excatly what he is doing and expects to take on the whole table. More often it is the later.
Everyone has their list of hated commanders though, although I personally don't consider most others broken.
I generally don't concede. The main reason I do concede is due to real life issues like kids or work. Otherwise, I try not to concede unless it is only me and one other opponent and I know I have no way to stop them. And oftentimes I make them go through the motions to complete the win. Of course, I'm sure that I have conceded in other instances, but generally I try not to. Like I said, I'm a little more lenient as to Spikey decks.
Of course, in a situation like yours, it's understandable. You thought you could fit in a quick game and it obviously wasn't going to happen. I try to allot at least an hour for each game, but that is honestly on the low end, with most going about 1.5 hours, with the occasional 2 hour marathon thrown in.
Just saw the two Crusaders. The white one is pretty sick. Pro Green is not something to be underestimated. And I guess we are going to be seeing more infect cards as well.
Re: concessions. To paraphrase AJ "Play what you want, concede when you want." Yeah the time factor is greater in commander but it is still not really hard to start anew.
RE: the dropout on disconnect. That seems like some kind of quick fix for a serious problem. I can't think of a reason other than it clears your ram and (should) deallocate memory leaks. Or maybe it resets the client's session which helps them. (But not you really.) Or maybe both. But it does seem rather unfortunate as solutions go.
RE: Casual debate. Well yeah the interactions are at the heart of this discussion. Timmy Powergamer playing with his big flashy spells is not a fan of unfun efficient cards run by mr Spike. And Johnny wants to just get his new engine online to win after everything thinks he's down and out. Pretty stereotypical. The problem online is we are mostly hybrids. It is not easy to shoehorn people into groups and make them stay there. (Herd cats much?) The bottom line here is adopting an attitude like the one I stole from AJ is the only really sane way to do things. Because anything else is begging for contention and arguments and stress.
RE: Fixing clans. I think if we could join any number of "clans" (or groups) at will without worrying about having to leave any others we are in this would facilitate groupings. As it stands Clans are very minimally functional, kind of like wearing a badge but not as pretty. (Or visual.)
RE: Buddy Lists. I like what someone said on the forums or here. Add in note taking functionality and do away with the buddy list entirely. If you make a note about someone (they can be offline) they end up on a list of your notes instead. The functionality of the Buddy list is often ignored (though it has it's uses as a quick filter in the larger rooms.) The blocked list should simply be extended to unlimited blocks.
RE: Trading with bots and in classifieds. (Yes I know this wasn't included in the OP but it is part and parcel with the subject at hand.) I think Classifieds would simply rock if we were able to rate up and down people we want to trade with. So that those we trade with most or rate high end up on the top of the list and those we downrate end up on the bottom of the list. In addition those we block should disappear entirely until we unblock them.
Wow, is it Sharuum really a broken, "look out for that guy!" type of commander? I've a Sharuum deck I consider pretty casual, no way to lock the game or bring more threats than maybe a Turn-6 Sphinx of Steel Wind (which is promptly exiled in, like, a zillion different ways). There's probably some broken combo with Sharuum I'm not aware of, but my point is: do I have to expect my deck will be looked at as a broken deck just because of Sharuum? To me it's just a Commander Tribal Sphinx Deck, since I like Sphinges very much, and Sharuum is clearly the perfect commander for them. I now will fear to be considered "that guy" every time I'll start a game. :(
I totally buy that Erayo is not a commander saying "fun casual deck here". But are you so sure about Sharuum and some of the other ones you mentioned? (Including Azusa herself, I think).
Here is a question for you Leviathan. Do you ever concede when you see that someone is playing a really broken deck, or a lock deck?
I was in a game today, limited for time, and only had enough time for one game. I even played a fast deck to make sure it was done in time. one of my opponants was playing Kami of the Creacent Moon. I figured it was going to be a fun deck until he starts countering everything that gets played. I end up conceding out of frustration for wasting my time.
So you want to play Commander online, but you don't want to get blown out by Spikes consistently dropping Emrakul on turn 5 or flipping Erayo on turn 3. There are a few options before even starting a game, with pros and cons.
1. Start a table with "Casual Fun" in the game line.
Pro: Basically says you just want to have a good time.
Con: Some people don't read the game line, and every one's definition of "fun" is different.
2. Only play with people you know.
Pro: Just like in real life, once you get an established playgroup, you have a better idea of what is acceptable or not.
Con: It is tough to get 3 other like minded people online that you know at the same time to play this format.
Let's say you start a game, and someone prison locks the table on turn 4.
1. Concede and move on to the next game.
Pro: You don't have to play it out, and you can hopefully get another fun game started quickly.
Con: Sort of leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Like when the bad guy wins in the movies.
2. Once someone drops Emrakul on turn 5, BOOT THEM FROM THE GAME.
Pro: You are conceding that they won, but you get to finish the game by playing for second place. You haven't really wasted your time, and can hopefully still have fun.
Con: Be prepared for some serious name calling and flaming. People are usually ok when you concede to their lock, but they don't usually expect it when you boot them. And that leads to some hurt feelings.
There are some other things to keep in mind. As I play only Commander, I know the players that are really Spikey, and can avoid games they are in if I want to, but that takes experience. More importantly, look at their Commanders. If the are playing Azusa or Erayo they are going to try to do something broken. Feel free to target these players first, and to get other players on your side. Some people may just be playing a "fun" Erayo deck, but I've never seen one. The other top tier legends are Zur, Sharuum, Jhoira. I'm sure other people have guys they hate too.
Hopefully this gives people some ideas on how to handle the situation. I admittedly am a little more lenient when it comes to Spikes, but I know plenty of people that don't like it when they start crushing a game early. And thank you to those of you who put "Anything Goes" in the game line. At least you go into that game with your eyes wide open.
Yes, that works. You can also use the armor to destroy the creature it's on if they have way less than 6 mana. Or you can just bash them if they have no blockers, though, I think that's pretty rare.
Multiplayer is something that I think should be better online versus paper because of all the possibilities of playing with different play groups, players, and decks. However, it only works in theory. In paper, you never have to worry about starting up a 6-player game, and then having one person suddenly disconnect 20 minutes into the game, ruining it for everyone else. Turns also happen a lot faster in paper, as people are sooooo slow with computers, and the ones that are fast are often distracted by other games, internet, music, etc. I used to love multiplayer on 2.0 for a little while, but yeah, the 5-minute turns got really boring after awhile.
Never actually played with it, but I was under the impression you could use Mark to attack with the armored creature then destroy the armor with it's own trigger, is that not the case?
You're math's a bit off on the chances of drawing a 0 CMC artifact in the opening hand. Not sure how you came up with (8*7)/60 as the probability, but you just need to add in an extra 0 CMC artifact and do the same calculation to realize that it won't work the way you've calculated (63/60 is obviously not possible). The easiest thing to do is calculate the joint probability of not drawing a 0 CMC artifact and then subtracting that from 1.
For 8 0 CMC artifacts you compute [1-(52/60)*(51/59)...*(46/54)]=.65 so roughly 2 out of 3 (65%) opening hands will have a 0 CMC artifact in them. With 10 0 CMC artifacts the odds go up to roughly 3 out of 4 opening hands (74%).
Never played the deck so I'm not sure how much of a difference this makes in terms of overall win percentage.
The whole point about furnace celebration is that all of your excess fetchland becomes damage. This can really improve your lategame. I realize it's mana intensive, but what else are you going to do late game? It's not like your manacurve requires you to tap out lategame:D
Teetering peaks enables a stolen Primeval Titan to become 11/7 trample, you shouldn't leave out that option.
About the devastating summons/furnace celebration interaction. that's totally irrelevant as you'll never have both in your deck.
I'd really like to know in what matchups Koth shines for you. I think it will be the same matchups where Koth shines, unless i'm mistake ofcourse
Glad you guys liked it. I went with a mono colored deck just for the sake of simplicity. Who knows, I may do this again in the future with a multi colored legend. Pheldagriff is fun just for the political aspect.
I remembered the super legendary issue after I submitted this article. Clone is definitely going to get better online.
The idea behind Perilous Myr is that in needs to combo with Kuldotha Rebirth, which unfortunately slows down the deck considerably.
In the early turns, I either hope to draw my engine and beat them quickly or play defensive. I like Arc Trail the match-up. I think Searing Blaze is equally strong against them. It gives you free CA + an extra way to take down Kor Skyfisher, which is also a big problem, like you said. This usually gives you enough time to stick a Koth with enough ground defense to hold that. I usually don't see too many Hawks with Swords in the games I've played against them. The 1 damage they do to Koth doesn't hurt that much, since it pads your life total, while they lose CA to 4/4s.
My strategy for beating them so far is 12 burn spells + Goblin core + 3 Koth + Firewalker defense. I feel like the match-up is no worse than 50-50 for me with this plan.
Braingeyser, Fork, and Sedge Troll have all been online as promos only, never released in a drafted set online or in paper (or maybe people were drafting Revised, what do I know?), but will soon be drafted like crazy in ME4.
I've seen UR control once in a DE, going 3-1, but that was some time ago. I've also since seen RWU Control 3-1'ing an event. The deck really isn't particularly good at the moment though, so I'd be surprised to see it.
4-Color Control, though, has seen play, and that list was in fact from a DE, going 4-0. However, being inconsistent compared to UW and WBu Control, it doesn't see nearly as much play.
i have done so many DEs and countless number of 2 mans and i never seen the UR control or the 4 color control mentioned. UR i would think is pointless since mono R is alot faster and more constant.
Perhaps you should have also had a special note about Cruel Bargain as it's a key card in the Legacy deck Spanish Inquisition. Sure, it's not a tier 1 deck, but leaving it out of MED4 is really dumbfounding.
I wish you were the lead developer of MTGO. (to Paul Leicht)
I think good examples of rogue decks in current Standard is stuff like R/G Land Destruction, or WW, non-quest, with stuff like Tempered Steel or Honor the Pure.
I agree somewhat that this is pretty much U/W Control. Maybe it's rogue in the sense that U/W/R was played last season but fell out of favor this season.
The rogue cards seem to be Revoke Existence and Venser. Depending on your U/W Control list, you will run a good percentage of the following cards: Baneslayer, Leyline, Elspeth, Gideon, Luminarch, etc. You just won't run all of them, but you will run some of them.
Also, another strike against "rogue" is that the deck is built to hose a pure aggro metagame rather than looking at the total metagame. The deck has 0 permission in the main deck. Looks like Valakut and Eldrazi Ramp get free Game 1s. As previously stated, this is a good 30-40% of the metagame that you will be handing out free games too. Also, the lack of permission in combination with dead draws against Control, i.e. Pyroclasm, is another huge liability against another 30-40% of the metagame.
The current metagame is at least 60-70% control, so I think a good rogue deck tries to shore up these match ups, and still has a decent plan against aggro.
Also, if you really want to beat them, you could do what one writer at SSG.com did, and morph into a R/B Goblins deck if you really want to win the WW match up. 4 Doom Blade will solve a lot of your problems, not only Kor Firewalker, but you can remove whatever creature they decide to equip with AA since they obviously don't run any Black creatures.
For a while I was running into Sharuum deck after Sharuum deck, and each of them was packing Mindslaver Lock or ways to take infinite turns. They sort of left a bad taste in my mouth because they all seemed so similar. I haven't seen one in a while though, so maybe it's my own personal bias. If you dropped Petra Sphinx or Belltower Sphinx, you obviously go way down in perceived threat level. Of course, they are going to go up in threat level online once they get rid of the superlegendary rule and people can start packing Sculpting Steel and Disciple of the Vault to perform infinite damage.
I am definitely sure about Azusa. Since ROE came out, the main focus of Azusa decks have been to tutor up and drop Emrakul as fast as possible. Most of the players on my personal Spike list have brought Azusa to a game at one point or another, and even people I have never played against use her for this purpose. It doesn't help that Sam Black wrote that article a while back at Starcitygames basically giving people an extremely powerful Azusa list.
Zur and Jhoira don't get played as much because people generally know what they are capable of and don't want to face the heat if they bring them to the table. So if you do see them, they fall into one of two camps: 1. Newbie who had no idea what he was getting himself into and get crushed by all opponents, or 2. Spike who knows excatly what he is doing and expects to take on the whole table. More often it is the later.
Everyone has their list of hated commanders though, although I personally don't consider most others broken.
I generally don't concede. The main reason I do concede is due to real life issues like kids or work. Otherwise, I try not to concede unless it is only me and one other opponent and I know I have no way to stop them. And oftentimes I make them go through the motions to complete the win. Of course, I'm sure that I have conceded in other instances, but generally I try not to. Like I said, I'm a little more lenient as to Spikey decks.
Of course, in a situation like yours, it's understandable. You thought you could fit in a quick game and it obviously wasn't going to happen. I try to allot at least an hour for each game, but that is honestly on the low end, with most going about 1.5 hours, with the occasional 2 hour marathon thrown in.
Just saw the two Crusaders. The white one is pretty sick. Pro Green is not something to be underestimated. And I guess we are going to be seeing more infect cards as well.
lol he needed a reality check
you're in charge of the commander articles, indeed.
seen the new spoiled MBS cards? i need them!
Re: concessions. To paraphrase AJ "Play what you want, concede when you want." Yeah the time factor is greater in commander but it is still not really hard to start anew.
RE: the dropout on disconnect. That seems like some kind of quick fix for a serious problem. I can't think of a reason other than it clears your ram and (should) deallocate memory leaks. Or maybe it resets the client's session which helps them. (But not you really.) Or maybe both. But it does seem rather unfortunate as solutions go.
RE: Casual debate. Well yeah the interactions are at the heart of this discussion. Timmy Powergamer playing with his big flashy spells is not a fan of unfun efficient cards run by mr Spike. And Johnny wants to just get his new engine online to win after everything thinks he's down and out. Pretty stereotypical. The problem online is we are mostly hybrids. It is not easy to shoehorn people into groups and make them stay there. (Herd cats much?) The bottom line here is adopting an attitude like the one I stole from AJ is the only really sane way to do things. Because anything else is begging for contention and arguments and stress.
RE: Fixing clans. I think if we could join any number of "clans" (or groups) at will without worrying about having to leave any others we are in this would facilitate groupings. As it stands Clans are very minimally functional, kind of like wearing a badge but not as pretty. (Or visual.)
RE: Buddy Lists. I like what someone said on the forums or here. Add in note taking functionality and do away with the buddy list entirely. If you make a note about someone (they can be offline) they end up on a list of your notes instead. The functionality of the Buddy list is often ignored (though it has it's uses as a quick filter in the larger rooms.) The blocked list should simply be extended to unlimited blocks.
RE: Trading with bots and in classifieds. (Yes I know this wasn't included in the OP but it is part and parcel with the subject at hand.) I think Classifieds would simply rock if we were able to rate up and down people we want to trade with. So that those we trade with most or rate high end up on the top of the list and those we downrate end up on the bottom of the list. In addition those we block should disappear entirely until we unblock them.
Wow, is it Sharuum really a broken, "look out for that guy!" type of commander? I've a Sharuum deck I consider pretty casual, no way to lock the game or bring more threats than maybe a Turn-6 Sphinx of Steel Wind (which is promptly exiled in, like, a zillion different ways). There's probably some broken combo with Sharuum I'm not aware of, but my point is: do I have to expect my deck will be looked at as a broken deck just because of Sharuum? To me it's just a Commander Tribal Sphinx Deck, since I like Sphinges very much, and Sharuum is clearly the perfect commander for them. I now will fear to be considered "that guy" every time I'll start a game. :(
I totally buy that Erayo is not a commander saying "fun casual deck here". But are you so sure about Sharuum and some of the other ones you mentioned? (Including Azusa herself, I think).
I'm Not saying Katy Perry is the hotest thing around, but if she is out doing rounds with the boys, I'll take a freebie.
Here is a question for you Leviathan. Do you ever concede when you see that someone is playing a really broken deck, or a lock deck?
I was in a game today, limited for time, and only had enough time for one game. I even played a fast deck to make sure it was done in time. one of my opponants was playing Kami of the Creacent Moon. I figured it was going to be a fun deck until he starts countering everything that gets played. I end up conceding out of frustration for wasting my time.
So you want to play Commander online, but you don't want to get blown out by Spikes consistently dropping Emrakul on turn 5 or flipping Erayo on turn 3. There are a few options before even starting a game, with pros and cons.
1. Start a table with "Casual Fun" in the game line.
Pro: Basically says you just want to have a good time.
Con: Some people don't read the game line, and every one's definition of "fun" is different.
2. Only play with people you know.
Pro: Just like in real life, once you get an established playgroup, you have a better idea of what is acceptable or not.
Con: It is tough to get 3 other like minded people online that you know at the same time to play this format.
Let's say you start a game, and someone prison locks the table on turn 4.
1. Concede and move on to the next game.
Pro: You don't have to play it out, and you can hopefully get another fun game started quickly.
Con: Sort of leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Like when the bad guy wins in the movies.
2. Once someone drops Emrakul on turn 5, BOOT THEM FROM THE GAME.
Pro: You are conceding that they won, but you get to finish the game by playing for second place. You haven't really wasted your time, and can hopefully still have fun.
Con: Be prepared for some serious name calling and flaming. People are usually ok when you concede to their lock, but they don't usually expect it when you boot them. And that leads to some hurt feelings.
There are some other things to keep in mind. As I play only Commander, I know the players that are really Spikey, and can avoid games they are in if I want to, but that takes experience. More importantly, look at their Commanders. If the are playing Azusa or Erayo they are going to try to do something broken. Feel free to target these players first, and to get other players on your side. Some people may just be playing a "fun" Erayo deck, but I've never seen one. The other top tier legends are Zur, Sharuum, Jhoira. I'm sure other people have guys they hate too.
Hopefully this gives people some ideas on how to handle the situation. I admittedly am a little more lenient when it comes to Spikes, but I know plenty of people that don't like it when they start crushing a game early. And thank you to those of you who put "Anything Goes" in the game line. At least you go into that game with your eyes wide open.
Yes, that works. You can also use the armor to destroy the creature it's on if they have way less than 6 mana. Or you can just bash them if they have no blockers, though, I think that's pretty rare.
Multiplayer is something that I think should be better online versus paper because of all the possibilities of playing with different play groups, players, and decks. However, it only works in theory. In paper, you never have to worry about starting up a 6-player game, and then having one person suddenly disconnect 20 minutes into the game, ruining it for everyone else. Turns also happen a lot faster in paper, as people are sooooo slow with computers, and the ones that are fast are often distracted by other games, internet, music, etc. I used to love multiplayer on 2.0 for a little while, but yeah, the 5-minute turns got really boring after awhile.
i mean if she threw herself at me sure. but really who is she? not that pretty and her voice wassent that good either. give me kira knightly any time
Never actually played with it, but I was under the impression you could use Mark to attack with the armored creature then destroy the armor with it's own trigger, is that not the case?
You're math's a bit off on the chances of drawing a 0 CMC artifact in the opening hand. Not sure how you came up with (8*7)/60 as the probability, but you just need to add in an extra 0 CMC artifact and do the same calculation to realize that it won't work the way you've calculated (63/60 is obviously not possible). The easiest thing to do is calculate the joint probability of not drawing a 0 CMC artifact and then subtracting that from 1.
For 8 0 CMC artifacts you compute [1-(52/60)*(51/59)...*(46/54)]=.65 so roughly 2 out of 3 (65%) opening hands will have a 0 CMC artifact in them. With 10 0 CMC artifacts the odds go up to roughly 3 out of 4 opening hands (74%).
Never played the deck so I'm not sure how much of a difference this makes in terms of overall win percentage.
The whole point about furnace celebration is that all of your excess fetchland becomes damage. This can really improve your lategame. I realize it's mana intensive, but what else are you going to do late game? It's not like your manacurve requires you to tap out lategame:D
Teetering peaks enables a stolen Primeval Titan to become 11/7 trample, you shouldn't leave out that option.
About the devastating summons/furnace celebration interaction. that's totally irrelevant as you'll never have both in your deck.
I'd really like to know in what matchups Koth shines for you. I think it will be the same matchups where Koth shines, unless i'm mistake ofcourse
Glad you guys liked it. I went with a mono colored deck just for the sake of simplicity. Who knows, I may do this again in the future with a multi colored legend. Pheldagriff is fun just for the political aspect.
I remembered the super legendary issue after I submitted this article. Clone is definitely going to get better online.
The idea behind Perilous Myr is that in needs to combo with Kuldotha Rebirth, which unfortunately slows down the deck considerably.
In the early turns, I either hope to draw my engine and beat them quickly or play defensive. I like Arc Trail the match-up. I think Searing Blaze is equally strong against them. It gives you free CA + an extra way to take down Kor Skyfisher, which is also a big problem, like you said. This usually gives you enough time to stick a Koth with enough ground defense to hold that. I usually don't see too many Hawks with Swords in the games I've played against them. The 1 damage they do to Koth doesn't hurt that much, since it pads your life total, while they lose CA to 4/4s.
My strategy for beating them so far is 12 burn spells + Goblin core + 3 Koth + Firewalker defense. I feel like the match-up is no worse than 50-50 for me with this plan.