It's great to see that so many people have similar stories. And it's also interesting that many people are Timmies when they first start playing the game. I don't know if this is true for everyone though (it wasen't true for me for example), but I believe that the sheer power of creatures is very appealing for new players.
I on the other hand, was always a Johhny/Spike and nothing has changed in all those years. I was the one who was playing Forbidden Crypt/Donate at the game shop and I was having some minor success with that deck too. I always liked cool decks that were also winning (while being cool). I cannot explain that mono Blue period of mine though. Maybe I was also a Control player right from the start.
Regarding the "give him/her a superior deck and then try to win" part: Well, I don't think that even LSV can't handle Primeval Titans and Jaces by playing some Grizzly Bears'. Therefore I believe in equal decks. Elves vs. Goblins is always a nice match-up for example. In one game the Elves win and in the other one the Goblins do. Therefore I like those preconstructed decks a lot. Customizing those decks by opening packs and then trading, is also a nice way to continue.
Not containing any dragons, with the exception of the playset of Steel Hellkite in the mass removal role. ;) I had to have something to go with the Dragonspeaker Shamans...
There is this Turn to Slag in your sideboard.
And 2 Tumble Magnet.
And 2 Origin Spellbomb.
And Shatter(really?).
And Iron Myr.
All of which are better than the 2 Ichorclaw Myr you seem to be playing for no other reason than the fact you have Contagion Engine. They are highly unlikely to poison out your opponent on their own and as blockers are only slightly better than the cantripping spellbomb.
How are you sideboarding in True Conviction when it's not included in the decklist sideboard you posted?
Enjoyable article though. A little more in-depth gameplay would be appreciated. Good work, keep it up!
For the first time in a long while with no clear winner on the table I conceded a commander game. All 3 of my opponents were talkative and none said anything particularly rude. The poison dragon legend player was actually fairly humble though his deck seemed quite mean. The reason I quit was the mono white player. He was playing lots of recursion with the white monk that keeps lands tapped down. After killing it 9+ times I gave up and declared the game too boring to continue with. I really feel strongly that conceding there was the right action because in my humble opinion that player was breaking the social contract the same as if they were recurring mindslaver etc. I am sure they were nonplussed when I talked about the social contract. I am to blame for this though because I broke my own rule and joined a wild west game without knowing any of the players. I was fortunate that none were droppers or asshats but it really ended up not mattering. This shows my point up above very clearly. First of all in any game no matter whether it is online or not the key to playing at all is having fun. Without that it becomes a job. And a nonpaying job is a walk out waiting to happen. So I said no thanks and wished the two other players good luck as I walked out.
Great story. It moved me a little, to be honest. Becase I was like your friend, back in the days (some years before your story begins, as I played MTG since 1994). I was the green player. A good friend of mine, who unfortunately left the country long ago and I've not seen anymore, was the nasty blue player. We didn't have just one deck to play with (I assume that part was slightly fictionalized: it would be really boring to play the same game between the same decks over and over again!), but I often would have been playing mono-green against his mono-blue. I could try everything, my Tsunamis would always get countered while his Acid Rains would always get through. Scragnoth's advent was a big day for me.
You know what? I'm going to build a Multani Commander deck to honor your friend and all the true green Timmys out there.
P.S:
Two thing: did you ever tell your friend where the name Maro really comes from? I think he could be amazed.
Also, did you pay attention to Multani's flavor text? "To make peace with the forest, make peace with me." It amazingly does sound just like you and your friend's story, it doesn't?
Actually Dr. My Wort deck is pretty critter lite, it is meant to explore the card advantage of conspire and splice and or spirit/arcane effects, so it has a lot of instants and sorcerys. It's a lot of fun to conspire a Gaze of Adamaro and splice a glacial ray and a kodama onto to it.
If you feel the need to put scare quotes around casual and social, then maybe there's no way we can communicate on this issue. Some people don't evidently take these issues very seriously and almost reflexively try and derail any discussion of them. As a casual player however, its important to me to be able to discuss the casual aspect of the game without being belittled.
Yes, the card pool for EDH is large and full of powerful cards, heck it's the only format that Sol Ring is currently legal in online. And taken individually there's nothing intrinsically wrong with any of the cards detailed here. They all have a place in the game. (Except for Emrakul, he's just stupid...)
But that's not the point, the point of the social contract in EDH, at least for me, is that i'm taking the enjoyment of the other players at the table into account at all stages of the game. Not just being polite and social at the gaming table (or virtual table), but at every step in the process, from deckbuilding to whether or not to concede. EDH more than any other Magic format makes this explicit. In this format you are your brothers keeper to a certain extent. Sure, a good deck builder with access to all the cards could easily put together a 100 card singleton good stuff deck that can combo out on turn 4. What the social contract in EDH says to me is that that player should at least be considering how that deckbuilding decision is affecting the other players.
I understand that there is a flip side to this discussion, and that is what could be called the "Tyranny of the Timmies" wherein unspoken rules are used to crowd out players in an impolite manner, Tribal apocalypse suffered from just such a problem in its infancy.
I for one am glad we're at least talking about these issues in a civil fashion here, rather than flaming at each other online.
I have a threaten subtheme in most of my decks that feature red, especially my Brion deck. I love it when Bribery is cast on most of my decks however, because usually the most dangerous critter in my deck is the commzander... ;)
My girlfriend and I used to play a lot in diners. What I found was she was into it if she got to play some Timmy cards and Spike cards but didn't like being forced to play with Johnny type decks (ie: complicated combos.) So I built all of our decks. I tuned them (or detuned them) regularly and we played a lot. I was constantly making new decks as the fancy struck me. Now my gf is competant if not good at magic and knows the rules, has no problems with the stack etc...(Though I haven't told her about the changes since m10...I don't think she'd care for them) but given our own designed decks I could probably win 4 out of 5 games against her in any given match sharing the same general pool of cards. Hence I built the decks.
My friend who used to drop by the diner occasionally commented a few times that my decks I used with my gf were very well balanced for each other. So that neither allowed blowout games typically (though occasionally it did happen to both of us.) I won't claim I did this on purpose but I guess what I am saying is: The way to bring a lower skilled player into the game isn't to shove them into it vs a spiky deck and give them timmy cards. Of course you win that way being already ahead of the curve. And of course you have to play lets pretend to make things "fairer". Where as if you simply make the playing field a bit more even it isn't necessary to pretend at all.
I like you LE but this approach seems manipulative and underhanded to me.
I totally agree with you. I didn't realize that I sounded like I was complaining about the prices. I love it when cards I want to get go on blue light special. That's why I brought up the EXT cards price drops. I love stillmoon cavalier, ajani v, and maelstrom pulse, and it makes me happy that they are affordable. The SoM cards were always going to drop as more and more scars gets opened and people are willing to sell out at whatever they can to get their draft fix. I say get while the gettins good.
Only problem with that argument is that nothing has changed drastically. Baneslayer has been on a slow steady decline for 4 months. Elsepth Tirel and Venser have never been more expensive. I just honestly don't get what you all were complaining about.
That's usually my strategy if I want someone Im playing with to enjoy the feeling of victory. Give them a vastly superior deck thats hard to lose with in the matchup.
when I was waiting for the market to bottom out on home prices I was more than happy to see things dipping quite a bit, but then at the same time I worried about my family who were heavily invested in their property already, of course once I had bought into the market the anxiety of things getting worse set in.
MTGO singles prices hopefully are less consequential for people's financial futures but certianly I have sympathy for people that are invested to different degrees in the singles market, both to those who have the barrier to entry and those that have the losses from diminishing value on investments.
When I play Magic with my wife, I play like a noob as well. If I don't let her win once ina while, then she won't play at all. Plus it gives me favor point I can cash in later in the bedroom.
Low card prices are great for people getting into a format/card purchase... not so great for anyone who bought them and now want to change decks. Perspective is a very important thing to keep in mind when anything changes drastically. Often times, one groups gains are at the cost of another group. :/
I can't believe you guys are complaining any card price is TOO LOW! WTF!!! :-)
The Worldwake vampire is big in a list that did well at a SCG event. Its a fun deck, I played a few games with it yesterday since I had all the cards and was looking for something new. The "10 cheap standard decks" article from yesterday also included that build as well as another one that's a little different but shares a lot of the rares. So pretty well known deck(s) at this point.
Other than that card, Abyssal Persecutor and Jace are really the only WWK cards moving much.
I have to say a good article. I want to comment on the "Theft" decks as well.
Although you didn't last long enought to see my deck the other night Leviathan, I was playing a theft deck. I had a brief but to the point conversation with Sheldon menery about theft decks and we came to an agreement that theft decks are nothing more then giving opponents a taste of thier own medicine, and that's what my deck does. It takes opponent's resources, and uses them against them. It's a do onto others as they would do onto you deck.
Also as you know fromt eh conversation we had in-game, that I am in the works of doing a simular artcle, as well, so is Sheldon.
Hey Xaos,
it's good to see how well the Heirloom-community is developing.
The testgames for the limited sealed league were great fun for less than 1 tix for the card pool!!! So I can only advice everybody to join it :-)
I'm also looking forward for this weeks event! For the season final you will payout double amount of prizes, right?
CU
Nagarjuna
It's great to see that so many people have similar stories. And it's also interesting that many people are Timmies when they first start playing the game. I don't know if this is true for everyone though (it wasen't true for me for example), but I believe that the sheer power of creatures is very appealing for new players.
I on the other hand, was always a Johhny/Spike and nothing has changed in all those years. I was the one who was playing Forbidden Crypt/Donate at the game shop and I was having some minor success with that deck too. I always liked cool decks that were also winning (while being cool). I cannot explain that mono Blue period of mine though. Maybe I was also a Control player right from the start.
Regarding the "give him/her a superior deck and then try to win" part: Well, I don't think that even LSV can't handle Primeval Titans and Jaces by playing some Grizzly Bears'. Therefore I believe in equal decks. Elves vs. Goblins is always a nice match-up for example. In one game the Elves win and in the other one the Goblins do. Therefore I like those preconstructed decks a lot. Customizing those decks by opening packs and then trading, is also a nice way to continue.
Thanks for the comments.
LE
Not containing any dragons, with the exception of the playset of Steel Hellkite in the mass removal role. ;) I had to have something to go with the Dragonspeaker Shamans...
There is this Turn to Slag in your sideboard.
And 2 Tumble Magnet.
And 2 Origin Spellbomb.
And Shatter(really?).
And Iron Myr.
All of which are better than the 2 Ichorclaw Myr you seem to be playing for no other reason than the fact you have Contagion Engine. They are highly unlikely to poison out your opponent on their own and as blockers are only slightly better than the cantripping spellbomb.
How are you sideboarding in True Conviction when it's not included in the decklist sideboard you posted?
Enjoyable article though. A little more in-depth gameplay would be appreciated. Good work, keep it up!
I hardly find it pointless to let my wife win when I wanna get some bedroom action.
For the first time in a long while with no clear winner on the table I conceded a commander game. All 3 of my opponents were talkative and none said anything particularly rude. The poison dragon legend player was actually fairly humble though his deck seemed quite mean. The reason I quit was the mono white player. He was playing lots of recursion with the white monk that keeps lands tapped down. After killing it 9+ times I gave up and declared the game too boring to continue with. I really feel strongly that conceding there was the right action because in my humble opinion that player was breaking the social contract the same as if they were recurring mindslaver etc. I am sure they were nonplussed when I talked about the social contract. I am to blame for this though because I broke my own rule and joined a wild west game without knowing any of the players. I was fortunate that none were droppers or asshats but it really ended up not mattering. This shows my point up above very clearly. First of all in any game no matter whether it is online or not the key to playing at all is having fun. Without that it becomes a job. And a nonpaying job is a walk out waiting to happen. So I said no thanks and wished the two other players good luck as I walked out.
Great story. It moved me a little, to be honest. Becase I was like your friend, back in the days (some years before your story begins, as I played MTG since 1994). I was the green player. A good friend of mine, who unfortunately left the country long ago and I've not seen anymore, was the nasty blue player. We didn't have just one deck to play with (I assume that part was slightly fictionalized: it would be really boring to play the same game between the same decks over and over again!), but I often would have been playing mono-green against his mono-blue. I could try everything, my Tsunamis would always get countered while his Acid Rains would always get through. Scragnoth's advent was a big day for me.
You know what? I'm going to build a Multani Commander deck to honor your friend and all the true green Timmys out there.
P.S:
Two thing: did you ever tell your friend where the name Maro really comes from? I think he could be amazed.
Also, did you pay attention to Multani's flavor text? "To make peace with the forest, make peace with me." It amazingly does sound just like you and your friend's story, it doesn't?
Actually Dr. My Wort deck is pretty critter lite, it is meant to explore the card advantage of conspire and splice and or spirit/arcane effects, so it has a lot of instants and sorcerys. It's a lot of fun to conspire a Gaze of Adamaro and splice a glacial ray and a kodama onto to it.
If you feel the need to put scare quotes around casual and social, then maybe there's no way we can communicate on this issue. Some people don't evidently take these issues very seriously and almost reflexively try and derail any discussion of them. As a casual player however, its important to me to be able to discuss the casual aspect of the game without being belittled.
Yes, the card pool for EDH is large and full of powerful cards, heck it's the only format that Sol Ring is currently legal in online. And taken individually there's nothing intrinsically wrong with any of the cards detailed here. They all have a place in the game. (Except for Emrakul, he's just stupid...)
But that's not the point, the point of the social contract in EDH, at least for me, is that i'm taking the enjoyment of the other players at the table into account at all stages of the game. Not just being polite and social at the gaming table (or virtual table), but at every step in the process, from deckbuilding to whether or not to concede. EDH more than any other Magic format makes this explicit. In this format you are your brothers keeper to a certain extent. Sure, a good deck builder with access to all the cards could easily put together a 100 card singleton good stuff deck that can combo out on turn 4. What the social contract in EDH says to me is that that player should at least be considering how that deckbuilding decision is affecting the other players.
I understand that there is a flip side to this discussion, and that is what could be called the "Tyranny of the Timmies" wherein unspoken rules are used to crowd out players in an impolite manner, Tribal apocalypse suffered from just such a problem in its infancy.
I for one am glad we're at least talking about these issues in a civil fashion here, rather than flaming at each other online.
loving the article titles : )
I have a threaten subtheme in most of my decks that feature red, especially my Brion deck. I love it when Bribery is cast on most of my decks however, because usually the most dangerous critter in my deck is the commzander... ;)
My girlfriend and I used to play a lot in diners. What I found was she was into it if she got to play some Timmy cards and Spike cards but didn't like being forced to play with Johnny type decks (ie: complicated combos.) So I built all of our decks. I tuned them (or detuned them) regularly and we played a lot. I was constantly making new decks as the fancy struck me. Now my gf is competant if not good at magic and knows the rules, has no problems with the stack etc...(Though I haven't told her about the changes since m10...I don't think she'd care for them) but given our own designed decks I could probably win 4 out of 5 games against her in any given match sharing the same general pool of cards. Hence I built the decks.
My friend who used to drop by the diner occasionally commented a few times that my decks I used with my gf were very well balanced for each other. So that neither allowed blowout games typically (though occasionally it did happen to both of us.) I won't claim I did this on purpose but I guess what I am saying is: The way to bring a lower skilled player into the game isn't to shove them into it vs a spiky deck and give them timmy cards. Of course you win that way being already ahead of the curve. And of course you have to play lets pretend to make things "fairer". Where as if you simply make the playing field a bit more even it isn't necessary to pretend at all.
I like you LE but this approach seems manipulative and underhanded to me.
He's moved his writing over to the competitor website at: www.MTGOAcademy.com
Hello,
I totally agree with you. I didn't realize that I sounded like I was complaining about the prices. I love it when cards I want to get go on blue light special. That's why I brought up the EXT cards price drops. I love stillmoon cavalier, ajani v, and maelstrom pulse, and it makes me happy that they are affordable. The SoM cards were always going to drop as more and more scars gets opened and people are willing to sell out at whatever they can to get their draft fix. I say get while the gettins good.
Only problem with that argument is that nothing has changed drastically. Baneslayer has been on a slow steady decline for 4 months. Elsepth Tirel and Venser have never been more expensive. I just honestly don't get what you all were complaining about.
That's usually my strategy if I want someone Im playing with to enjoy the feeling of victory. Give them a vastly superior deck thats hard to lose with in the matchup.
X-
Letting people win it pointless as i said early,
The Challenage is to give them a superior deck then u don't have to let them win.
4X Vines of Vastwood would be a good addition to that deck, if you can squeeze them in.
Good read LE
aptly put,
when I was waiting for the market to bottom out on home prices I was more than happy to see things dipping quite a bit, but then at the same time I worried about my family who were heavily invested in their property already, of course once I had bought into the market the anxiety of things getting worse set in.
MTGO singles prices hopefully are less consequential for people's financial futures but certianly I have sympathy for people that are invested to different degrees in the singles market, both to those who have the barrier to entry and those that have the losses from diminishing value on investments.
X-
When I play Magic with my wife, I play like a noob as well. If I don't let her win once ina while, then she won't play at all. Plus it gives me favor point I can cash in later in the bedroom.
Don't quote me on this, but if I remember correctly, the next interface of MTGO will be web based, which means in can be played on a Mac
Low card prices are great for people getting into a format/card purchase... not so great for anyone who bought them and now want to change decks. Perspective is a very important thing to keep in mind when anything changes drastically. Often times, one groups gains are at the cost of another group. :/
thx for the explanation. i have lots of tribal decks but due to my work schedule have yet to have had a chance to participate. sounds fun.
I can't believe you guys are complaining any card price is TOO LOW! WTF!!! :-)
The Worldwake vampire is big in a list that did well at a SCG event. Its a fun deck, I played a few games with it yesterday since I had all the cards and was looking for something new. The "10 cheap standard decks" article from yesterday also included that build as well as another one that's a little different but shares a lot of the rares. So pretty well known deck(s) at this point.
Other than that card, Abyssal Persecutor and Jace are really the only WWK cards moving much.
Leviathan,
I have to say a good article. I want to comment on the "Theft" decks as well.
Although you didn't last long enought to see my deck the other night Leviathan, I was playing a theft deck. I had a brief but to the point conversation with Sheldon menery about theft decks and we came to an agreement that theft decks are nothing more then giving opponents a taste of thier own medicine, and that's what my deck does. It takes opponent's resources, and uses them against them. It's a do onto others as they would do onto you deck.
Also as you know fromt eh conversation we had in-game, that I am in the works of doing a simular artcle, as well, so is Sheldon.
See, I'm ok with chaos decks. Especially online. It's easier to keep track of then paper.