I can only echo what most people have already said: interesting idea and I'm eager to read more. Similarly, I also sold off my collection a while back, but was able to build back up again within six months or so. Now my collection is way more valuable than it ever was, although I still miss my playset of Kokopuffs. My first collection was built partly through league play, now it's mostly drafting. Good luck.
Sorry, I've been away the past week.
Shard, I just sent you the list, since I already knew your email address (hoping it's still the same where I used to sent my Tribal Apocalypse decklists). Is anyone else interested? Flippers? (My email is kumagoro (at) kumagoro.com, feel free to write and ask)
I missed this series, glad to see you pushing to try and finish before MED4 comes out. So many strange old cards out there. I remember playing with cards like Leshrac's Sigil and trying to make them work. Good times.
Very nice article, and very interesting. I found myself in exactly the same situation, and am basically doing the same thing. An emergency expense arose and the only solution was selling off my entire collection (Jace et all)
My solution was to change up my article structure, since everything I get out of this site goes right back in. Having a content schedule has helped immensely.
Great work as ever. I don't want to be a 'fanboy' giving you 5 big red ones every week, but every article deserves them on its own merit ;)
I love the Rakdos Bloodfest deck, and am happy to see it also appears to be the most potent. Although oddly, I still think I prefer the mono-black poison deck, even though I don't think it's as powerful.
Although isn't the mana slightly awkward in the Rakdos deck? You want lots of mountains for Koth, but you're black cards all require BB (not counting the Replica as a black card). Was mana an issue in any games? Also, could a land be cut for an extra Trigon or is that just asking for trouble?
Nice article I look forward to seeing your progress.
One point in regards to the pre table (which is great) is that you havent said which time zones you have based it in. I know it's based in the EST/EDT time zone but others may not be aware of this.
Nice article. Really looking forward to reading more. As someone just getting back into MTGO after a long time away and with a minimal account, I shall be following your exploits closely. Especially as someone who loves to draft so much.
There are several things wrong with the way you built the pool. First I'll talk about the RW version of the deck.
You really need to be playing Myr Battlesphere and Golem Artisan. There is no sealed pool that doesn't play the Artisan and I doubt there's an aggressive enough deck that won't want the Battlesphere. I'd play it even in infect! Chrome Steed should also be played and maybe one copper myr but that I'm not really sure because it's hard to make cuts in your deck.
Kemba's Skyguard would be the first cut. It's a nice card and usually I play it but the double white and not being an artifact clearly make you not want it in this deck. This way you can also cut a Plains for a Mountain as I think the 8/8 division is wrong anyway because you have a gold myr and need more red than white.
The next cut would be Glint Hawk. I really love the guy but on your deck it's just a 2/2 flier that enters the battlefield most likely on turn 3 or 4 and you have nothing to reset.
To find space for Chrome Steed I'd probably take out Myr Propagator. In some games it will be good but I think it's too slow. Unlike the Battlesphere which has to be dealt with fast, this guy can either be ignored if they have a bunch of fliers that can race you, or if it actually needs to be dealt with, every removal in the format works. It's only excellent when you have Barrage Ogre to go with it and if they can deal with a 3/3 they'll choose to kill the Ogre making the Myr much worse.
Now you have to more artifacts, lowered the number of white cards and play a better 7/9 manabase. There's also a second Bloodshot Trainee. I think if you're going to play one, you play both. It would be better if you had 1 more way to pump it like a red trigon but I can't see myself playing only one.
This version leaves us with 5 white cards. The black version could be better, although I'm not sure. You only have 3 black cards you want to play (2 Skinrender and 1 Instill Infection, which isn't slow at all, it's actually great). In this version you would probably play 1 or 2 Copper Myr. If 2 you'd also play the Sylvok Replica.
In any case I would save both versions so I could switch them. If you choose the RW and face an Infect deck you probably want to switch the to RB.
Good article and interesting project. I am looking forward to you next posts.
You might focus also on casual play. It is free and often the playground for beginners. You can't gain tix but you sure can gain experience and meet intersting people with funny deck ideas.
I am quiet new to magic and consider myself a fast learner. Your article was able to give me some good hints i didn't know yet. Keep on the good work.
I would also like to see more of the basic explanations that are common knowledge for experienced players. It took my quiet a while to find out what PRE means when starting with MTG. Youre article would have helped a lot back then.
@WW: Ack yes you're right there is a mistake in my math.. unbelievable! what can I say I'm no math major, I'm glad I didn't submit my next article of this series I'll have to make sure I didn't carry over that mistake there, hopefully people don't see that mistake, discredit the article, and stop reading
@Nagarjuna: I'll make sure to add a note related to that for heirloom, and yea there is some debate on the new system, I prefer it because a new player won't necessarily understand what to do with those tickets and getting those cards gets you a head start into playing that 2 packs wouldn't
@Shard: unfortunately there won't be decklists for a few weeks until I've built up some collection and can play test a bit lol and yes I was rounding down on the titan to save myself from actually looking up to see where the price was :P I hope you do read on, get to see my misadventures with limited, next week's article talks about the importance of reading articles, week 3 is going to be about the precons, and week 4 is going to be related to Pauper
also my grading rubric got cut off it goes to 5, I'll have the correct picture in next week, thanks for the comments all
I also noticed this, he made a mistake in one place which then translated to all other calculatrions in article.
So, draft price is actually around $14 ($4x3 + $1x2), not $16.
As per usual an enjoyable read and while I am not at all tempted to make my own block decks it is enjoyable to think about them with your help. :) I do believe I watched several of the games you were involved in including the Heirloom game at the end.
Good start JustSin, Glad you have decided to go through with this series. One minor quible or query. Since when have tickets cost $2 each? Last I heard they were $1. Or are you buying them with a huge fee topping them off?
I started myself with no budget on mtgo and didnt really need some up to now. Playing drafts and M11 4 packs sealed is fine for me to not dry out my tix/packs value.
@ Heirloom: It runs Sa, Sa, Su and is easy to enter (with a competetive deck for 1-3 tix) and the payout is really good! For more infos and rules check the forums and the heirloom website: mtgoheirloom.webs.com
@new account: quote: (If you haven't had the opportunity to buy a new account I do have to say this is a much nicer start than they use to offer in the form of 10 tickets. With this introduction package you can actually do something as opposed to having 10 useless tickets. Now the 1 booster pack and 2 tickets will remain in "storage" for next week and can be used in drafting later on. With these my first draft will only require two packs ($3.99 x 2 = $7.98) saving me about $6.)
Actually you lose money here! With the 10 tix u could have bought 2 packs (even SOM and M11 for less than 4 tix) and still have 2 tix to enter a draft. If a completely new player starts on mtgo and doesnt know how to buy packs on the secondary market with tix, the new account may be interesting, but in general 10 tix were much more value for what u payed!
Ok, the whole thumbnail idea to highlight what I thought were the best cards in every color wasn't so great, noted.
Also, the "mistake" I made in M1G2 it was not a mistake at all because if you count the lands I had only 3 red sources so I HAD to use them all, sorry about that I realized it only when I looked at the screenshot I made later in the article.
Sorry about that, I'll get better with the next articles, promise.
Quote: (it'll be much more then this I'm sure as a set of Primeval Titans alone will run you about $100)
I thought was kind of cute. About $40.00 too low but cute.
Great article though man I was looking more for budget decklists, but with only the freebies and starter cards I can understand the lack of having any this week. I'm really interested to see where this goes.
Being able to nuke an Acadmey Ruins or Gaea's Cradle with Numot is awesome and not excessive or 'wrong' in any way so I agree with your stance. I actually tried to build an LD deck based around numot running all sorts of craziness like armageddon, ravages of war, wildfire, destructive Force, sunder, land equilibirum, etc. with affects like hokori, winter orb, frozen aether, and others. It doesnt work that well in the end.
Interestingly I didn't have anyone complain or target me for playing Numot. I think that as long as you don't rush him out there and start denying people certain colors, then your opponents won't try to gang up on you. In addition, most people know that he is the only legend in these colors. In just under half the games, people outright asked me how much land destruction I had in my deck or if I was just using him for his colors, and I would honestly tell them none and my basic strategy about using Numot: Only specialty lands. But even when I didn't explicitly outline how I would use him, most people weren't afraid to play against him. And his ability does come in handy.
I did a T&L with the copy/redirect theme and never really got it to work for me. Like the slant you've put on it.
I wanted to comment on the "jerk card" comment. I really don't mind what decks people bring to the table, but I won't hesitate to walk away when it no longer becomes fun. Fun being entirely subjective and changable. Trying to find an answer to the Momir Vig player with Teferi and Seedborn Muse on the table can be fun, facing a leyline/helm combo on turn three isn't, rebuilding from a Dimensional Breach depends on my mood.
I started taking out anything out of my deck I wouldn't want to face, so Sneak Attack and Survival now powers out dragons rather than Eldrazi and its just as fun. Nobody's complained about Hellkite Overlord yet but hiding Emrakul under a Mosswort Bridge just feels icky.
The only cards I really dislike are those that deny you the ability to play. Bouncing Winter Orbs, pickles lock, recurring time stretch. If you want to play solitaire don't expect me to watch.
I've been enjoying your articles but I'm not a fan of Numot. I don't mind generals that I can't let hit me (e.g. Skittles or Uril) but land destruction when he hits anyone puts a target on your head and he's not doin' anything for you other than providing the colours. Would love a general in those colours with a cool ability to build but I'll have to wait.
A less obnoxious general powering out Kaldra might let you fly under the radar, just not Sisay as she's usually first target for a Jester's Cap.
I'd say it's as true as saying anything on the internet. There are always people willing to concede at the drop of a hat. Many times it is because they are losing but stuff does happen. Also some people will sit through a beating.
I can only echo what most people have already said: interesting idea and I'm eager to read more. Similarly, I also sold off my collection a while back, but was able to build back up again within six months or so. Now my collection is way more valuable than it ever was, although I still miss my playset of Kokopuffs. My first collection was built partly through league play, now it's mostly drafting. Good luck.
Sorry, I've been away the past week.
Shard, I just sent you the list, since I already knew your email address (hoping it's still the same where I used to sent my Tribal Apocalypse decklists). Is anyone else interested? Flippers? (My email is kumagoro (at) kumagoro.com, feel free to write and ask)
I missed this series, glad to see you pushing to try and finish before MED4 comes out. So many strange old cards out there. I remember playing with cards like Leshrac's Sigil and trying to make them work. Good times.
Very nice article, and very interesting. I found myself in exactly the same situation, and am basically doing the same thing. An emergency expense arose and the only solution was selling off my entire collection (Jace et all)
My solution was to change up my article structure, since everything I get out of this site goes right back in. Having a content schedule has helped immensely.
Great work as ever. I don't want to be a 'fanboy' giving you 5 big red ones every week, but every article deserves them on its own merit ;)
I love the Rakdos Bloodfest deck, and am happy to see it also appears to be the most potent. Although oddly, I still think I prefer the mono-black poison deck, even though I don't think it's as powerful.
Although isn't the mana slightly awkward in the Rakdos deck? You want lots of mountains for Koth, but you're black cards all require BB (not counting the Replica as a black card). Was mana an issue in any games? Also, could a land be cut for an extra Trigon or is that just asking for trouble?
Great article as usual. I haven't had the time to do much deckbuilding in Scars Block, but I've had a lot of fun playing around with ideas.
Have you tried out Liquimetal Coating yet? I'm thinking it would be very good in a few decks with Hoard-Smelter Dragon and Oxidda Scrapmelter.
Nice article I look forward to seeing your progress.
One point in regards to the pre table (which is great) is that you havent said which time zones you have based it in. I know it's based in the EST/EDT time zone but others may not be aware of this.
Nice article. Really looking forward to reading more. As someone just getting back into MTGO after a long time away and with a minimal account, I shall be following your exploits closely. Especially as someone who loves to draft so much.
There are several things wrong with the way you built the pool. First I'll talk about the RW version of the deck.
You really need to be playing Myr Battlesphere and Golem Artisan. There is no sealed pool that doesn't play the Artisan and I doubt there's an aggressive enough deck that won't want the Battlesphere. I'd play it even in infect! Chrome Steed should also be played and maybe one copper myr but that I'm not really sure because it's hard to make cuts in your deck.
Kemba's Skyguard would be the first cut. It's a nice card and usually I play it but the double white and not being an artifact clearly make you not want it in this deck. This way you can also cut a Plains for a Mountain as I think the 8/8 division is wrong anyway because you have a gold myr and need more red than white.
The next cut would be Glint Hawk. I really love the guy but on your deck it's just a 2/2 flier that enters the battlefield most likely on turn 3 or 4 and you have nothing to reset.
To find space for Chrome Steed I'd probably take out Myr Propagator. In some games it will be good but I think it's too slow. Unlike the Battlesphere which has to be dealt with fast, this guy can either be ignored if they have a bunch of fliers that can race you, or if it actually needs to be dealt with, every removal in the format works. It's only excellent when you have Barrage Ogre to go with it and if they can deal with a 3/3 they'll choose to kill the Ogre making the Myr much worse.
Now you have to more artifacts, lowered the number of white cards and play a better 7/9 manabase. There's also a second Bloodshot Trainee. I think if you're going to play one, you play both. It would be better if you had 1 more way to pump it like a red trigon but I can't see myself playing only one.
This version leaves us with 5 white cards. The black version could be better, although I'm not sure. You only have 3 black cards you want to play (2 Skinrender and 1 Instill Infection, which isn't slow at all, it's actually great). In this version you would probably play 1 or 2 Copper Myr. If 2 you'd also play the Sylvok Replica.
In any case I would save both versions so I could switch them. If you choose the RW and face an Infect deck you probably want to switch the to RB.
Good article and interesting project. I am looking forward to you next posts.
You might focus also on casual play. It is free and often the playground for beginners. You can't gain tix but you sure can gain experience and meet intersting people with funny deck ideas.
I am quiet new to magic and consider myself a fast learner. Your article was able to give me some good hints i didn't know yet. Keep on the good work.
I would also like to see more of the basic explanations that are common knowledge for experienced players. It took my quiet a while to find out what PRE means when starting with MTG. Youre article would have helped a lot back then.
Welcome back!
Really fun and entertaining reading.
@WW: Ack yes you're right there is a mistake in my math.. unbelievable! what can I say I'm no math major, I'm glad I didn't submit my next article of this series I'll have to make sure I didn't carry over that mistake there, hopefully people don't see that mistake, discredit the article, and stop reading
@Nagarjuna: I'll make sure to add a note related to that for heirloom, and yea there is some debate on the new system, I prefer it because a new player won't necessarily understand what to do with those tickets and getting those cards gets you a head start into playing that 2 packs wouldn't
@Shard: unfortunately there won't be decklists for a few weeks until I've built up some collection and can play test a bit lol and yes I was rounding down on the titan to save myself from actually looking up to see where the price was :P I hope you do read on, get to see my misadventures with limited, next week's article talks about the importance of reading articles, week 3 is going to be about the precons, and week 4 is going to be related to Pauper
also my grading rubric got cut off it goes to 5, I'll have the correct picture in next week, thanks for the comments all
I also noticed this, he made a mistake in one place which then translated to all other calculatrions in article.
So, draft price is actually around $14 ($4x3 + $1x2), not $16.
As per usual an enjoyable read and while I am not at all tempted to make my own block decks it is enjoyable to think about them with your help. :) I do believe I watched several of the games you were involved in including the Heirloom game at the end.
Good start JustSin, Glad you have decided to go through with this series. One minor quible or query. Since when have tickets cost $2 each? Last I heard they were $1. Or are you buying them with a huge fee topping them off?
Godd luck for this very interesting experiment!
I started myself with no budget on mtgo and didnt really need some up to now. Playing drafts and M11 4 packs sealed is fine for me to not dry out my tix/packs value.
@ Heirloom: It runs Sa, Sa, Su and is easy to enter (with a competetive deck for 1-3 tix) and the payout is really good! For more infos and rules check the forums and the heirloom website: mtgoheirloom.webs.com
@new account: quote: (If you haven't had the opportunity to buy a new account I do have to say this is a much nicer start than they use to offer in the form of 10 tickets. With this introduction package you can actually do something as opposed to having 10 useless tickets. Now the 1 booster pack and 2 tickets will remain in "storage" for next week and can be used in drafting later on. With these my first draft will only require two packs ($3.99 x 2 = $7.98) saving me about $6.)
Actually you lose money here! With the 10 tix u could have bought 2 packs (even SOM and M11 for less than 4 tix) and still have 2 tix to enter a draft. If a completely new player starts on mtgo and doesnt know how to buy packs on the secondary market with tix, the new account may be interesting, but in general 10 tix were much more value for what u payed!
Have a nice budget time
Ok, the whole thumbnail idea to highlight what I thought were the best cards in every color wasn't so great, noted.
Also, the "mistake" I made in M1G2 it was not a mistake at all because if you count the lands I had only 3 red sources so I HAD to use them all, sorry about that I realized it only when I looked at the screenshot I made later in the article.
Sorry about that, I'll get better with the next articles, promise.
Quote: (it'll be much more then this I'm sure as a set of Primeval Titans alone will run you about $100)
I thought was kind of cute. About $40.00 too low but cute.
Great article though man I was looking more for budget decklists, but with only the freebies and starter cards I can understand the lack of having any this week. I'm really interested to see where this goes.
Being able to nuke an Acadmey Ruins or Gaea's Cradle with Numot is awesome and not excessive or 'wrong' in any way so I agree with your stance. I actually tried to build an LD deck based around numot running all sorts of craziness like armageddon, ravages of war, wildfire, destructive Force, sunder, land equilibirum, etc. with affects like hokori, winter orb, frozen aether, and others. It doesnt work that well in the end.
Interestingly I didn't have anyone complain or target me for playing Numot. I think that as long as you don't rush him out there and start denying people certain colors, then your opponents won't try to gang up on you. In addition, most people know that he is the only legend in these colors. In just under half the games, people outright asked me how much land destruction I had in my deck or if I was just using him for his colors, and I would honestly tell them none and my basic strategy about using Numot: Only specialty lands. But even when I didn't explicitly outline how I would use him, most people weren't afraid to play against him. And his ability does come in handy.
I did a T&L with the copy/redirect theme and never really got it to work for me. Like the slant you've put on it.
I wanted to comment on the "jerk card" comment. I really don't mind what decks people bring to the table, but I won't hesitate to walk away when it no longer becomes fun. Fun being entirely subjective and changable. Trying to find an answer to the Momir Vig player with Teferi and Seedborn Muse on the table can be fun, facing a leyline/helm combo on turn three isn't, rebuilding from a Dimensional Breach depends on my mood.
I started taking out anything out of my deck I wouldn't want to face, so Sneak Attack and Survival now powers out dragons rather than Eldrazi and its just as fun. Nobody's complained about Hellkite Overlord yet but hiding Emrakul under a Mosswort Bridge just feels icky.
The only cards I really dislike are those that deny you the ability to play. Bouncing Winter Orbs, pickles lock, recurring time stretch. If you want to play solitaire don't expect me to watch.
I've been enjoying your articles but I'm not a fan of Numot. I don't mind generals that I can't let hit me (e.g. Skittles or Uril) but land destruction when he hits anyone puts a target on your head and he's not doin' anything for you other than providing the colours. Would love a general in those colours with a cool ability to build but I'll have to wait.
A less obnoxious general powering out Kaldra might let you fly under the radar, just not Sisay as she's usually first target for a Jester's Cap.
I'd say it's as true as saying anything on the internet. There are always people willing to concede at the drop of a hat. Many times it is because they are losing but stuff does happen. Also some people will sit through a beating.
True story.
Good article.