I also have an affinity for the "Eye tribe" for some reason. I used to run a (should have been awful) Evil Eye deck back around the time of Ice Age, mainly because it took me that long to track down 4X Legends Evil Eyes. The deck did ok, mainly on the backs of the better cards in the deck, but there was a certain satisfaction to killing someone with an "Evil Eye of Orms-by-Gor". Sadly my online version is missing a lot of cards that made it good (not online yet, C'mon ME4!), and runs clone, etc. instead of changelings, so won't work for the event.
Back on topic, good calls all around for me on the vial, FoW, theme events, etc.. Sounds sweet, hopefully I can play in one again soon, Saturdays seem to be getting packed/difficult at the moment.
You probably already know where I'm going with this, but here it is anyway. Your first deck is morphing into red/blue control and losing it's card drawing theme. Take off your Spike hat and put on your Vorthos/Melvin hat.
Your deck is about card drawing, which is how you should win. Right now it wins really slowly with Niv or by playing so much control that your opponent concedes. If you're going to be drawing A LOT of cards. There's only one card that should be on your mind, and in your deck in the amount of 4X, and that is (Spiraling Embers). Now if you REALLY wanted to get into the whole card drawing theme you would add Pyromancer's Ascension or Eye of the Storm. Most people might concede to blue/red ascension control, thus denying the fun of the deck, so I would recommend Eye of the Storm. With Invoke, Niv Mizzit, and Spiraling Embers you should get a fair amount of satisfaction using card advantage for the win.
I actually have that deck for multiplayer. Seething Songs, Spiraling Embers, card draw and Eye of the Storm. Makes for good times when you can go infinite.
AEther Vial is also one of those cards that defines tribal decks in regular classic. Just because every deck can use it, that doesn't make it okay. Jitte and Skullclamp could also be used by every tribe and they would also break the format if they were legal, and also kill creativity as most players would use those cards in every deck.
Banning AEther Vial means that deckbuilders have a harder time transferring decks directly from classic/Legacy to Tribal. It can still be done, but it's not quite as easy.
I think one of the reason AEther Vial is not being played as much as its power level indicates is because there are a lot of deckbuilders who specifically avoid it.
I was having a similar conversation with blau the other day, I personally don't see Tribal as a format that is or should be as competitive as byos it's much more casual... when I sit down and play tribal I'm just having a good time showing off an interesting tribe, when I play byos I'm very competitive
i am realy competative by nature and lol i did go get the best decks form previous weeks i just didnt think any of them were better than gobs i gues tbh thats kinda untrue i just pick things on a whim moments before i play i figure i should win withmost things :P unless the contest involves grammar/typing i guess anyway still lts of fun i might miss on sunday which will make me sad but i will tr and make it even tho i am sure i will lose all rounds(i am not a very good player)
Ah sorry about that, I forgot that the list I worked from for the article had your name misspelled, I'm always forgetting what I already know. I'm glad we can still be best friends...
Ya I was looking for video of you playing but just didn't see much, I suppose I should have remembered the Tolsimir negotiating in any case.
I recalled someone running a lando deck, wasn't sure who though.
I'm afraid for the moment moving the time of the event back would make it impossible for a lot of European players to participate in the event. I chose the 11AM time to try to include as many MTGO players from around the world as possible. I would certianly like to see events run at different times and days in the future but for now I think this is the way we have to halve the infant format. Sorry man.
We hope to see you as often as we can, but understand the conflict with other PREs and whatnot.
It's always great to see what someone brings to their first HeirloomPRE. A few times already that person has also won the event including the last event with goblins. I played vs a pretty strong blue black teachings deck yesterday that showed that blue black control can be very effective.
The first SOM card only minor revision will be up between the 24th-26th (I have 12 hours clinical on the 25th so it may not get posted that night as I fall asleep afterward exhausted) It will be legal for the next event after this next one so it's looking like the 31st event which I'll need to get someone to run that one for me since my wife is scheduled for c-section the day before and I have clinical that day and even if I moved it to Sunday it would probably still be a bit too tough for me to find the time for
In regards to the no restraints part of your comment. I'm not really changing anything here as this is how the event is currently played.
I don't expect to see any changes in the power of the decks being brought to the event. Some will bring their best and some will try to bring something different.
BYOS runs under the same rules and there have not been any issues with people bringing tier one decks each week there.
Certianly a casual focused event at some point is not out of the question. I think you're right to some extent that it is becoming more competitive, but still a bit of a jumble. Nothing has really settled yet and no two events have looked at all like one another so far. We'll have to see if tribal dominates this event again or if people adjust and it gets hated out. I suppose we'll see.
A limited version would work in this way I imagine. Whoever were to run the event would set up the pack pool on a draft simulator off the site, then everyone would draft and the person running the event would give people their cards to play having bought all the cards while the players were drafting. It would take a bit more effort than a constructed event but certianly still feasible. Clearly drafting an Heirloom version of the current set would be enjoyable for a lot of people.
Be interesting as always to see what you concoct. The next event will be on Sunday since we've had the two Saturday events in the cycle the last two events so that will be 10/24/10 and 11AM pacific standard time as usual(LA,CA,USA)
I used Cool Stuff Inc prices to measure all trades. No matter if I agreed with the price or not, it gave me a standard to measure the value of a trade. There were many times during the process where I stated, that I didn't agree with the pricing of Cool Stuff Inc.
Sometimes their pricing had me win in a trade when I didn't and sometimes they had me lose in a trade when I didn't. The prices were for people to get a feel for the trade, they were not gospel.
Also I didn't intend to trade them for the prices listed, instead I only wanted to get more than I gave for them. I didn't have a "buyer" at those prices, so I very well could have (and probably would have) traded them at 6,4, and 3.
I know that people are going to perceive me as all kinds of things. I would be stupid to fight this notion, but I think it's important the explain the merits of trading for profit and value that it brings to the community to have access to people who are in the middle of dealer and player.
"Your card reviews are interesting to read, because you're fairly open minded and willing to consider possibilities that might be decent but also might be bad. That's a good thing, because otherwise all we get are the obvious ideas that we could have come up with ourselves."
This is exactly right. Taking a creative look at the cards makes deck building in 100cs interesting and fun. Reading your article and making us think, provides a more value-added submission.
I have to disagree on behalf of proliferate, I personally see great potential for it if it is a mechanic that Wizards continues in the rest of the block, sure the current card choices for it aren't great, but there is potential there
I think one of the reasons that Scars feels under-powered for the 100 singleton is because the three main keyworded mechanics proliferate, metalcraft, and infect do not really have any good uses in 100 singleton.
Metalcraft and Infect are sort of like Allies, you need to have a certain ammount of those cards in your deck to make them effective and the singleton rule really prevents you from doing that consistently.
Proliferate has a lot of interactions with other cards, but does absolutely nothing without another card. It's sort of like Grindstone except the 2-card combo isn't an instant-win combo, it just does some nifty things.
Still, there are about 6-8 solid playable cards from the set that will migrate into 100 singleton relatively quickly. Tarmotog has mentioned most of them.
Necrotic Slime does for Survival of the Fittest what Valakut did for Scapeshift.
About the only card I would add to the discussion is Argentum Armor. That card and Necrotic Slime greatly boosts the playability of Stonehewer Giant.
I guess what I take away is that lying to people and trying to mislead them into making an unfair trade while believing it to be even is ethically wrong. I'm not sure many people would argue against that.
Beyond that, the article spent a lot of time describing how value can be added to something. Then the author concluded that people who trade for value are unethical because he can't see where any value is added. I guess I don't understand the distinction the article is making between dealers and individual traders for value. If a dealer will give you $2 for an old Ravnica dual and a trader will give you $3 in trade value which one is the better offer depends on the individual making the trade and is not black and white. Perhaps part of the confusion is combining the online and offline worlds which just have to be discussed totally separately.
I give Pete credit for generating this discussion in the comments though. He called out "pack to power" writers in general without calling anyone out specifically. Clearly he was hoping for some "pack to power" trolls to respond, but instead the article has generated a fairly level-headed discussion, which has been an interesting read.
Bingo, I've wrestled with the Changeling question quite a bit. Back when they first came out, I did a few articles on the new coolness you could do by running any tribe, no matter how few members... only to find they were all just changeling.dec if you didn't draw your 4 or 8 out of the 60. Three tribe members is about the threshold I'm comfortable with for changeling-mandated tribes, which opens up a solid, playable chunk of the field.
On the issue of 'No restraints, no limitations, bring what you like', if this degenerates into legacy-potent 'ported lists of Fish, Goblins, Elfball, Zoo, RDW etc, there's no place for changeling-reliant decks using below-par cards for the sake of awesome, especially not in the money. If that's the rule, then that's the rule, and I'll bring in decks accordingly, uninteractive t3 win machines with whatever tribe fits, such as my 'Houston, we have a problem' burn deck masquerading as elementals.
Mind you, that's an important 'If'. There's no guarantee that it will degenerate, and I await further developments with open eyes and an open mind. If people can keep producing brilliant stuff, then no problem. As ever, the PRE has my support.
I also agree that the set is a bit meh as far as improving our current decks. But what this set does manage to do is have us come up with some new deck ideas.
Been making some slow and steady progress on a RUW Wildfire/Metalcraft deck. Utilizes Mox Opal, Kuldotha Phoenix, and Galvanic Blast with some very consistent results.
Has anyone even tried to put together an Infect deck? Haha… Not sure if you guy/gals have face book, but Wotc posted a question “What will you do to beat Infect decks” and most of the people posted things… play something good.
Knee jerk reaction, but Infect needs to be fleshed out a bit more.
Overall this is a very nice report on the format and Scars of Mirrodin.
One of the reason goblins and mono-red decks are going away is because of the Survival decks. Survival decks have been getting a boatload of good cards in the past couple of sets. M2011 alone brought the Titans, Fauna Shaman, and Obstinate Baloth.
The truly dedicated control decks also have a good match-up against Survival Decks. I faced a clone of the U/W Control with a black splash and couldn't beat it in the 2-man queues in 4 matches.
this is the same problem I ran into, too many good choices haha yea cycling is a great addition unfortunately I just used the lands, as I kind of elluded to I would probably end up cutting 4x Spreading Seas and 2x Ascension and I like your idea of switching Prop to earthquake or maybe even starstorm since it burns out creatures as well as provides cycling, brainstorm/jace + niv is a great combo like I said I wish I owned more Jace for the deck. And I have to disagree with browbeat, I know its unusual, but it is basically a 5 dmg burn for 3 and with Niv its lightningbolt + draw three... While Erasure was a fun addition perhaps it is better dropped because you'll never deck your opponent with this deck so perhaps its better served to switch it out in order to focus the deck more, I guess I'd do something like this given the cards
-2 Jace Beleren
+2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
-4 Jace's Erasure
+4 Brainstorm
-2 Propaganda
+2 Starstorm
-4 Spreading Seas
+1 Invoke the Firemind
+3 Complicate (maybe switched to miscalc, but I'm partial to complicate)
-3 Reflecting Pool
-1 Island
+2 Volcanic Island
+1 Lonely Sandbar
+1 Forgotten Cave
Nothing bad about Cairn Wanderer and Moonglove and Skeletal are very utility oriented cards. Not bad at all just not highly efficient or suicidal as black's "bombs" tend to be. But then changelings are not supposed to be bombs.
I also have an affinity for the "Eye tribe" for some reason. I used to run a (should have been awful) Evil Eye deck back around the time of Ice Age, mainly because it took me that long to track down 4X Legends Evil Eyes. The deck did ok, mainly on the backs of the better cards in the deck, but there was a certain satisfaction to killing someone with an "Evil Eye of Orms-by-Gor". Sadly my online version is missing a lot of cards that made it good (not online yet, C'mon ME4!), and runs clone, etc. instead of changelings, so won't work for the event.
Back on topic, good calls all around for me on the vial, FoW, theme events, etc.. Sounds sweet, hopefully I can play in one again soon, Saturdays seem to be getting packed/difficult at the moment.
You probably already know where I'm going with this, but here it is anyway. Your first deck is morphing into red/blue control and losing it's card drawing theme. Take off your Spike hat and put on your Vorthos/Melvin hat.
Your deck is about card drawing, which is how you should win. Right now it wins really slowly with Niv or by playing so much control that your opponent concedes. If you're going to be drawing A LOT of cards. There's only one card that should be on your mind, and in your deck in the amount of 4X, and that is (Spiraling Embers). Now if you REALLY wanted to get into the whole card drawing theme you would add Pyromancer's Ascension or Eye of the Storm. Most people might concede to blue/red ascension control, thus denying the fun of the deck, so I would recommend Eye of the Storm. With Invoke, Niv Mizzit, and Spiraling Embers you should get a fair amount of satisfaction using card advantage for the win.
I actually have that deck for multiplayer. Seething Songs, Spiraling Embers, card draw and Eye of the Storm. Makes for good times when you can go infinite.
AEther Vial is also one of those cards that defines tribal decks in regular classic. Just because every deck can use it, that doesn't make it okay. Jitte and Skullclamp could also be used by every tribe and they would also break the format if they were legal, and also kill creativity as most players would use those cards in every deck.
Banning AEther Vial means that deckbuilders have a harder time transferring decks directly from classic/Legacy to Tribal. It can still be done, but it's not quite as easy.
I think one of the reason AEther Vial is not being played as much as its power level indicates is because there are a lot of deckbuilders who specifically avoid it.
I was having a similar conversation with blau the other day, I personally don't see Tribal as a format that is or should be as competitive as byos it's much more casual... when I sit down and play tribal I'm just having a good time showing off an interesting tribe, when I play byos I'm very competitive
i am realy competative by nature and lol i did go get the best decks form previous weeks i just didnt think any of them were better than gobs i gues tbh thats kinda untrue i just pick things on a whim moments before i play i figure i should win withmost things :P unless the contest involves grammar/typing i guess anyway still lts of fun i might miss on sunday which will make me sad but i will tr and make it even tho i am sure i will lose all rounds(i am not a very good player)
Amatlamittha,
Ah sorry about that, I forgot that the list I worked from for the article had your name misspelled, I'm always forgetting what I already know. I'm glad we can still be best friends...
Ya I was looking for video of you playing but just didn't see much, I suppose I should have remembered the Tolsimir negotiating in any case.
X-
Winter.Wolf,
I recalled someone running a lando deck, wasn't sure who though.
I'm afraid for the moment moving the time of the event back would make it impossible for a lot of European players to participate in the event. I chose the 11AM time to try to include as many MTGO players from around the world as possible. I would certianly like to see events run at different times and days in the future but for now I think this is the way we have to halve the infant format. Sorry man.
We hope to see you as often as we can, but understand the conflict with other PREs and whatnot.
X-
Hey midi2304,
It's always great to see what someone brings to their first HeirloomPRE. A few times already that person has also won the event including the last event with goblins. I played vs a pretty strong blue black teachings deck yesterday that showed that blue black control can be very effective.
The first SOM card only minor revision will be up between the 24th-26th (I have 12 hours clinical on the 25th so it may not get posted that night as I fall asleep afterward exhausted) It will be legal for the next event after this next one so it's looking like the 31st event which I'll need to get someone to run that one for me since my wife is scheduled for c-section the day before and I have clinical that day and even if I moved it to Sunday it would probably still be a bit too tough for me to find the time for
X-
In regards to the no restraints part of your comment. I'm not really changing anything here as this is how the event is currently played.
I don't expect to see any changes in the power of the decks being brought to the event. Some will bring their best and some will try to bring something different.
BYOS runs under the same rules and there have not been any issues with people bringing tier one decks each week there.
Thuh-Nagarjuna,
Certianly a casual focused event at some point is not out of the question. I think you're right to some extent that it is becoming more competitive, but still a bit of a jumble. Nothing has really settled yet and no two events have looked at all like one another so far. We'll have to see if tribal dominates this event again or if people adjust and it gets hated out. I suppose we'll see.
A limited version would work in this way I imagine. Whoever were to run the event would set up the pack pool on a draft simulator off the site, then everyone would draft and the person running the event would give people their cards to play having bought all the cards while the players were drafting. It would take a bit more effort than a constructed event but certianly still feasible. Clearly drafting an Heirloom version of the current set would be enjoyable for a lot of people.
Yeah the banner came together nicely.
X-
My-Lord-Erman,
Be interesting as always to see what you concoct. The next event will be on Sunday since we've had the two Saturday events in the cycle the last two events so that will be 10/24/10 and 11AM pacific standard time as usual(LA,CA,USA)
X-
Yeah, I was talking about how the keywords were represented in only Scars of Mirrodin cards. I can't say how they will do in the rest of the block.
I used Cool Stuff Inc prices to measure all trades. No matter if I agreed with the price or not, it gave me a standard to measure the value of a trade. There were many times during the process where I stated, that I didn't agree with the pricing of Cool Stuff Inc.
Sometimes their pricing had me win in a trade when I didn't and sometimes they had me lose in a trade when I didn't. The prices were for people to get a feel for the trade, they were not gospel.
Also I didn't intend to trade them for the prices listed, instead I only wanted to get more than I gave for them. I didn't have a "buyer" at those prices, so I very well could have (and probably would have) traded them at 6,4, and 3.
I know that people are going to perceive me as all kinds of things. I would be stupid to fight this notion, but I think it's important the explain the merits of trading for profit and value that it brings to the community to have access to people who are in the middle of dealer and player.
I have an Eye deck. It only has 2 members in the tribe. The rest are the changelings.
"Your card reviews are interesting to read, because you're fairly open minded and willing to consider possibilities that might be decent but also might be bad. That's a good thing, because otherwise all we get are the obvious ideas that we could have come up with ourselves."
This is exactly right. Taking a creative look at the cards makes deck building in 100cs interesting and fun. Reading your article and making us think, provides a more value-added submission.
personally it seems a little more understandable here because you're looking at 3/5 non-changeling, it could be much worse
I have to disagree on behalf of proliferate, I personally see great potential for it if it is a mechanic that Wizards continues in the rest of the block, sure the current card choices for it aren't great, but there is potential there
I think one of the reasons that Scars feels under-powered for the 100 singleton is because the three main keyworded mechanics proliferate, metalcraft, and infect do not really have any good uses in 100 singleton.
Metalcraft and Infect are sort of like Allies, you need to have a certain ammount of those cards in your deck to make them effective and the singleton rule really prevents you from doing that consistently.
Proliferate has a lot of interactions with other cards, but does absolutely nothing without another card. It's sort of like Grindstone except the 2-card combo isn't an instant-win combo, it just does some nifty things.
Still, there are about 6-8 solid playable cards from the set that will migrate into 100 singleton relatively quickly. Tarmotog has mentioned most of them.
Necrotic Slime does for Survival of the Fittest what Valakut did for Scapeshift.
About the only card I would add to the discussion is Argentum Armor. That card and Necrotic Slime greatly boosts the playability of Stonehewer Giant.
I guess what I take away is that lying to people and trying to mislead them into making an unfair trade while believing it to be even is ethically wrong. I'm not sure many people would argue against that.
Beyond that, the article spent a lot of time describing how value can be added to something. Then the author concluded that people who trade for value are unethical because he can't see where any value is added. I guess I don't understand the distinction the article is making between dealers and individual traders for value. If a dealer will give you $2 for an old Ravnica dual and a trader will give you $3 in trade value which one is the better offer depends on the individual making the trade and is not black and white. Perhaps part of the confusion is combining the online and offline worlds which just have to be discussed totally separately.
I give Pete credit for generating this discussion in the comments though. He called out "pack to power" writers in general without calling anyone out specifically. Clearly he was hoping for some "pack to power" trolls to respond, but instead the article has generated a fairly level-headed discussion, which has been an interesting read.
Bingo, I've wrestled with the Changeling question quite a bit. Back when they first came out, I did a few articles on the new coolness you could do by running any tribe, no matter how few members... only to find they were all just changeling.dec if you didn't draw your 4 or 8 out of the 60. Three tribe members is about the threshold I'm comfortable with for changeling-mandated tribes, which opens up a solid, playable chunk of the field.
On the issue of 'No restraints, no limitations, bring what you like', if this degenerates into legacy-potent 'ported lists of Fish, Goblins, Elfball, Zoo, RDW etc, there's no place for changeling-reliant decks using below-par cards for the sake of awesome, especially not in the money. If that's the rule, then that's the rule, and I'll bring in decks accordingly, uninteractive t3 win machines with whatever tribe fits, such as my 'Houston, we have a problem' burn deck masquerading as elementals.
Mind you, that's an important 'If'. There's no guarantee that it will degenerate, and I await further developments with open eyes and an open mind. If people can keep producing brilliant stuff, then no problem. As ever, the PRE has my support.
I also agree that the set is a bit meh as far as improving our current decks. But what this set does manage to do is have us come up with some new deck ideas.
Been making some slow and steady progress on a RUW Wildfire/Metalcraft deck. Utilizes Mox Opal, Kuldotha Phoenix, and Galvanic Blast with some very consistent results.
Has anyone even tried to put together an Infect deck? Haha… Not sure if you guy/gals have face book, but Wotc posted a question “What will you do to beat Infect decks” and most of the people posted things… play something good.
Knee jerk reaction, but Infect needs to be fleshed out a bit more.
-Phil
So basically Rock - Paper - Scissors?
Overall this is a very nice report on the format and Scars of Mirrodin.
One of the reason goblins and mono-red decks are going away is because of the Survival decks. Survival decks have been getting a boatload of good cards in the past couple of sets. M2011 alone brought the Titans, Fauna Shaman, and Obstinate Baloth.
The truly dedicated control decks also have a good match-up against Survival Decks. I faced a clone of the U/W Control with a black splash and couldn't beat it in the 2-man queues in 4 matches.
this is the same problem I ran into, too many good choices haha yea cycling is a great addition unfortunately I just used the lands, as I kind of elluded to I would probably end up cutting 4x Spreading Seas and 2x Ascension and I like your idea of switching Prop to earthquake or maybe even starstorm since it burns out creatures as well as provides cycling, brainstorm/jace + niv is a great combo like I said I wish I owned more Jace for the deck. And I have to disagree with browbeat, I know its unusual, but it is basically a 5 dmg burn for 3 and with Niv its lightningbolt + draw three... While Erasure was a fun addition perhaps it is better dropped because you'll never deck your opponent with this deck so perhaps its better served to switch it out in order to focus the deck more, I guess I'd do something like this given the cards
-2 Jace Beleren
+2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
-4 Jace's Erasure
+4 Brainstorm
-2 Propaganda
+2 Starstorm
-4 Spreading Seas
+1 Invoke the Firemind
+3 Complicate (maybe switched to miscalc, but I'm partial to complicate)
-3 Reflecting Pool
-1 Island
+2 Volcanic Island
+1 Lonely Sandbar
+1 Forgotten Cave
Nothing bad about Cairn Wanderer and Moonglove and Skeletal are very utility oriented cards. Not bad at all just not highly efficient or suicidal as black's "bombs" tend to be. But then changelings are not supposed to be bombs.