I agree with your assessment of the U/W build perfectly. The main reason I wanted to go with the green build is because I actually thought it had more synergy. My plan with both of the decks: Win with fliers. While green doesn't actually provide any fliers, it provides beef on the ground to let the fliers have time to get there. If mitotic slime doesn't get pacified or ice caged, it can buy like 5 turns by itself usually. People don't like to attack into an acidic slime either. There was another major thing about the W/g build. What was my plan? Win with fliers. How does G help with this plan? Double Plummet. The only card that I would be concerned with that the green deck couldn't kill would be giant spider. That was my thinking with the green version. However, once I opened the pack for week 2 there was no going back.
The double tutor and gravedigger does seem like a good reason to run black. However, I just don't think black is good enough overall to run over blue. Mind control is one of the very best cards in the set, and just wins games on it's own sometimes. Azure drake is an extremely important card, because it stops the beats from cards such as barony vampire and canyon minotaur. Playing blue also allows me to play jace's ingenuity over strongbox which is such a huge upgrade.
I actually agree with you on the manic vandal thing. However, there was one major problem. We were doing this as a freeform in the anything goes room, and I didn't have any mountains in my sideboard. I never anticipated having to side in my absolutely terrible red. I think switching to green might have been the best idea. If I can recall correctly, I was tilted a bit after game 1 when he literally played 3 spells and beat me, with one of them being a runeclaw bear. I remember checking my green to see if I had any naturalizes and when I saw I didn't, I just submitted my w/u deck again completely forgetting about acidic slime and double plummet. My hope was that I'd get an opportunity to mind control his baneslayer. He actually did give me 1 turn to do it but I didn't have the mind control in hand game 2. The u/w deck is a stronger deck and I just hoped he wouldn't draw 2 exact cards out of 40 in his deck for a second time. I knew my deck was stronger overall.
About the bell, I disagree. The bell is strictly card disadvantage, which isn't something you want. You are playing a card that only draws you and your opponent a card at the same time. It is certainly better than howling mine was but still not good. The strongbox is nice, but because I was playing jace's ingenuity, I decided to not risk the box. Since my deck has like a billion 4 and 5 drops, I don't see myself having time to cast the strongbox. It might have been stronger in the g/w build, and I actually had it in that build in preliminary tests, but it just wasn't performing well enough.
Wow, great pack you opened for week two. The force is evidently with you.
Nice article. I was screaming (metaphorically, I'm at work after all) for you to go W/U and you eventually did. Much better than W/G I think, and not just because of Mind Control (although it's a good enough reason in itself). Having said that, Xaos makes a good point that you get to tutor up and recur your Baneslayer if you go W/B, but I still prefer the blue. Partly because graveyard recursion doesn't help when your creature's Pacified, and partly because of the card draw, Drake and possibility of hooking Scroll Thief up with the Ascension. Good times.
I think your mono-green build is going to have a little trouble casting the Ichor rats :) Perhaps you meant the regenerating Blight Mamba?
The mothership posted a daily decklist from Zac Hill that was mono-green. It used more pump and no equipment. It preferred Groundswell to vines of the vastwood. Not sure that deck is better than your suggestions; I think I like the adventuring gear but the oran-riefs look difficult.
The blue-black version though seems really scary!!
It seems like the overall power level of the creatures in Scars is down from M2011, Zendikar block, and Alara block. This may be a conscious decision by WotC as a way to step back from creature power creep, but it also means that the Infect deck is going to have some difficulties dealing with relatively stronger creatures that are left in standard, such as the titans.
I think Infect and poison will be huge in block constructed, and it will probably show up in other formats after the rest of the Scars block is released, but for now, I think Infect/Poison will be limited to block constructed and of course any Scars of Mirrodin draft and sealed deck formats.
In both the original and redux lists, the Lava Axe is the second most important card. In the original deck the Goblin Piker was pretty important because of my lack of early drops. In the redux, the point was I needed more speed to make the deck legit, adding more black makes it more aggressive, while red can finish. With only 4 islands, early blue cards become akward.
'A good series to take note of now and again'! It should be required reading every week!
I remember reading your heirloom article at the time, I'm looking at your Dimir list again now. At first glance it looks possibly a little slow / inconsistent, although I must admit I've never played the format. I'll try to suggest something when I get a chance (at work at present, so bit tricky to do now).
I had a pretty decent infect pool for the sealed, which gave me a few ideas for the infect constructed deck (which I'm not convinced will be good enough, but seems fun).
Firstly mimic vat is really good with infectors (as they tend to be rather small), especially if you can get an ichor rat on it.
Secondly, if they started getting out big blockers, i had ascetism, which keeps your tiny infecters alive, and would gradually grind out the win.
I wouldn't expect ascetism to be more than a possible sideboard card for the deck, but the mimic vat was great throughout. You can even use it to keep yourself alive by making an ichor rat to block with, gradually adding poison counters to your opponent.
Ya I really like the Infect mechanic, not sure they put enough in the format to make it real for constructed but I suppose time will tell. Also its seems to me that wall of omens just gets owned by infect without the new skullclamp since it withers it. (maybe too slow still though). Proliferate seems like one of those abilities that as far as constructed is concerned didnt need to be a keyword since only one or two cards with it are ever going to be viable, if that.
I can empathize with the emotional roller coaster that is MTG. I've tried the zen path myself, which has basically involved not playing any competitive events of personal consequence for the last couple months. I can say I like magic more right now than I really ever have, and that only because I'm not giving myself the opportunity to get angry about event results. Anyhow that's enough background.
I'm not a big fan of assassinate and though I personally hate playing with wrath effects in limited (since I suck at it utterly and am more likely to lose with a wrath effect in hand than not in limited) I still think that for most people you have to go with wrath early there. I like giant spider alot. I dont really like ice cage at all, though LSV clearly doesnt agree. Also I would have liked to see a Nightwing Shade in your main since you were light on flyers/reachers.
Anyhow keep at it, limited is a tough format to beat,
Ah Dimir, maybe the most loved mana combo in magic? When I initially tried to build a good Dimir deck for Heirloom it ended up being horrible, but maybe thats just because I'm horrible, or because dimir cards are banned in heirloom more than any other color combo, I called the deck "Dimir Conundrum" for a reason when I posted it in my first traders article here: http://puremtgo.com/articles/heirloom-constructed anyhow the decks certianly seem like fun. I was wondering what your suggestions would be for improving my Dimir deckbuilding in the silly Heirloom format I've been playing a little...
I've seen your articles for awhile, always been a good series to take note of now and again,
Finding synergies in draft is often what seperates the good from great players or in my case the ok from good since if it wasnt for my strength with synergy in limited I'd probably just be average as a drafter.
In regard to " Redux this and that"I'm not a fan of lava axe or goblin piker in here at all, id rather have scroll theif, augury owl and preordain.
Gotta love leagues, just like PREs if wizards isnt going to support what people want then just circumvent them and manage the details yourself or with others. Baneslayer, wow. I like the black white build just because hey that gives you 3 Baneslayers + gravedigger and card draw and quag sickness. With all the lifegain in your white it seems perfectly doable to stall until you can get baneslayer active and/or beatdown with white flyers. Just my 2 cents.
I think knowing he was running the cloak I would have transformed my deck games 2 and 3 vs cloakbaneslayer.dec. You do have artifact hate though it is in off colors. Acidic slime makes switching to green from blue attractive but perhaps just splashing red for the 2 Vandals is good enough? Not sure. I haven't played a league since I played at Neutral Ground (more than a decade past) so it is possible I am not seeing this correctly. As far as black goes the double duress is somewhat attractive too, but overall it seems like a weak showing for what black CAN be. I noticed you avoided playing Sorceror's and the Bell. Both are very good cards in limited. Perhaps you might consider making room for them.
The coalition league idea is gone when M10 and M11 are a notch above the other core sets.. =(
Other than that, nice packs =) U're set up for one of the best archetypes. Gl.
Thanks for the article, this was really informative reading.
In regards to one of the comment on opening the Tempest packs, a quick calculation tells me the expected values for each pack: Tempest 2.63, Stronghold 0.68 and Exodus 4.26.They don't consider Foils so EV would be a bit higher but it's not worth opening packs for money if my figures are correct. Having said that, EV is better than current drafts so Tempest Block would be the cheapest to participate.
My deck would probably be -1 land -1 unsummon and -1 alluring siren. Alluring siren and unsummon are nice tech but a little bit narrow in my opinion. And -1 cancel. All of these can come out of the sideboard if the situation calls for it.
+1 Silvercoat lion (this deck can be speedy, more opportunity to get early damage in)
+1 Palace guard (hold the ground for your flyers, good against alpha strikes)
+1 Harbor Serpent (extra finisher and good at holding the ground)
+1 Negate (since I would be up to 19 creatures, it is more important to protect them, then to have the extra versatility cancel offers)
I agree with your assessment of the U/W build perfectly. The main reason I wanted to go with the green build is because I actually thought it had more synergy. My plan with both of the decks: Win with fliers. While green doesn't actually provide any fliers, it provides beef on the ground to let the fliers have time to get there. If mitotic slime doesn't get pacified or ice caged, it can buy like 5 turns by itself usually. People don't like to attack into an acidic slime either. There was another major thing about the W/g build. What was my plan? Win with fliers. How does G help with this plan? Double Plummet. The only card that I would be concerned with that the green deck couldn't kill would be giant spider. That was my thinking with the green version. However, once I opened the pack for week 2 there was no going back.
The double tutor and gravedigger does seem like a good reason to run black. However, I just don't think black is good enough overall to run over blue. Mind control is one of the very best cards in the set, and just wins games on it's own sometimes. Azure drake is an extremely important card, because it stops the beats from cards such as barony vampire and canyon minotaur. Playing blue also allows me to play jace's ingenuity over strongbox which is such a huge upgrade.
I actually agree with you on the manic vandal thing. However, there was one major problem. We were doing this as a freeform in the anything goes room, and I didn't have any mountains in my sideboard. I never anticipated having to side in my absolutely terrible red. I think switching to green might have been the best idea. If I can recall correctly, I was tilted a bit after game 1 when he literally played 3 spells and beat me, with one of them being a runeclaw bear. I remember checking my green to see if I had any naturalizes and when I saw I didn't, I just submitted my w/u deck again completely forgetting about acidic slime and double plummet. My hope was that I'd get an opportunity to mind control his baneslayer. He actually did give me 1 turn to do it but I didn't have the mind control in hand game 2. The u/w deck is a stronger deck and I just hoped he wouldn't draw 2 exact cards out of 40 in his deck for a second time. I knew my deck was stronger overall.
About the bell, I disagree. The bell is strictly card disadvantage, which isn't something you want. You are playing a card that only draws you and your opponent a card at the same time. It is certainly better than howling mine was but still not good. The strongbox is nice, but because I was playing jace's ingenuity, I decided to not risk the box. Since my deck has like a billion 4 and 5 drops, I don't see myself having time to cast the strongbox. It might have been stronger in the g/w build, and I actually had it in that build in preliminary tests, but it just wasn't performing well enough.
There's a typo in your header, it should read "Out of the Blue - Dimir, the Colour of AWESOME"
Wow, great pack you opened for week two. The force is evidently with you.
Nice article. I was screaming (metaphorically, I'm at work after all) for you to go W/U and you eventually did. Much better than W/G I think, and not just because of Mind Control (although it's a good enough reason in itself). Having said that, Xaos makes a good point that you get to tutor up and recur your Baneslayer if you go W/B, but I still prefer the blue. Partly because graveyard recursion doesn't help when your creature's Pacified, and partly because of the card draw, Drake and possibility of hooking Scroll Thief up with the Ascension. Good times.
I think your mono-green build is going to have a little trouble casting the Ichor rats :) Perhaps you meant the regenerating Blight Mamba?
The mothership posted a daily decklist from Zac Hill that was mono-green. It used more pump and no equipment. It preferred Groundswell to vines of the vastwood. Not sure that deck is better than your suggestions; I think I like the adventuring gear but the oran-riefs look difficult.
The blue-black version though seems really scary!!
Great first article, I'm looking forward to seeing how you made your choices for the additional weeks.
It seems like the overall power level of the creatures in Scars is down from M2011, Zendikar block, and Alara block. This may be a conscious decision by WotC as a way to step back from creature power creep, but it also means that the Infect deck is going to have some difficulties dealing with relatively stronger creatures that are left in standard, such as the titans.
I think Infect and poison will be huge in block constructed, and it will probably show up in other formats after the rest of the Scars block is released, but for now, I think Infect/Poison will be limited to block constructed and of course any Scars of Mirrodin draft and sealed deck formats.
Yeah, there's magic, and also my wife's pregnant, I'm trying to buy a house, that "job" thing... Damn you "real life"!!! XD
In both the original and redux lists, the Lava Axe is the second most important card. In the original deck the Goblin Piker was pretty important because of my lack of early drops. In the redux, the point was I needed more speed to make the deck legit, adding more black makes it more aggressive, while red can finish. With only 4 islands, early blue cards become akward.
'A good series to take note of now and again'! It should be required reading every week!
I remember reading your heirloom article at the time, I'm looking at your Dimir list again now. At first glance it looks possibly a little slow / inconsistent, although I must admit I've never played the format. I'll try to suggest something when I get a chance (at work at present, so bit tricky to do now).
I had a pretty decent infect pool for the sealed, which gave me a few ideas for the infect constructed deck (which I'm not convinced will be good enough, but seems fun).
Firstly mimic vat is really good with infectors (as they tend to be rather small), especially if you can get an ichor rat on it.
Secondly, if they started getting out big blockers, i had ascetism, which keeps your tiny infecters alive, and would gradually grind out the win.
I wouldn't expect ascetism to be more than a possible sideboard card for the deck, but the mimic vat was great throughout. You can even use it to keep yourself alive by making an ichor rat to block with, gradually adding poison counters to your opponent.
Could be a rogue deck. WILL win many Cas Cas games.
Hey Pete,
Ya I really like the Infect mechanic, not sure they put enough in the format to make it real for constructed but I suppose time will tell. Also its seems to me that wall of omens just gets owned by infect without the new skullclamp since it withers it. (maybe too slow still though). Proliferate seems like one of those abilities that as far as constructed is concerned didnt need to be a keyword since only one or two cards with it are ever going to be viable, if that.
A good intro to the new set,
Have a good one,
Xaoslegend-
Hey man,
I can empathize with the emotional roller coaster that is MTG. I've tried the zen path myself, which has basically involved not playing any competitive events of personal consequence for the last couple months. I can say I like magic more right now than I really ever have, and that only because I'm not giving myself the opportunity to get angry about event results. Anyhow that's enough background.
I'm not a big fan of assassinate and though I personally hate playing with wrath effects in limited (since I suck at it utterly and am more likely to lose with a wrath effect in hand than not in limited) I still think that for most people you have to go with wrath early there. I like giant spider alot. I dont really like ice cage at all, though LSV clearly doesnt agree. Also I would have liked to see a Nightwing Shade in your main since you were light on flyers/reachers.
Anyhow keep at it, limited is a tough format to beat,
Xaoslegend-
Splendid Belt,
Ah Dimir, maybe the most loved mana combo in magic? When I initially tried to build a good Dimir deck for Heirloom it ended up being horrible, but maybe thats just because I'm horrible, or because dimir cards are banned in heirloom more than any other color combo, I called the deck "Dimir Conundrum" for a reason when I posted it in my first traders article here: http://puremtgo.com/articles/heirloom-constructed anyhow the decks certianly seem like fun. I was wondering what your suggestions would be for improving my Dimir deckbuilding in the silly Heirloom format I've been playing a little...
I've seen your articles for awhile, always been a good series to take note of now and again,
Xaoslegend-
Hey there,
Finding synergies in draft is often what seperates the good from great players or in my case the ok from good since if it wasnt for my strength with synergy in limited I'd probably just be average as a drafter.
In regard to " Redux this and that"I'm not a fan of lava axe or goblin piker in here at all, id rather have scroll theif, augury owl and preordain.
Have a good one,
Xaoslegend-
Leagues!
Gotta love leagues, just like PREs if wizards isnt going to support what people want then just circumvent them and manage the details yourself or with others. Baneslayer, wow. I like the black white build just because hey that gives you 3 Baneslayers + gravedigger and card draw and quag sickness. With all the lifegain in your white it seems perfectly doable to stall until you can get baneslayer active and/or beatdown with white flyers. Just my 2 cents.
Xaoslegend-
And the bonus points go to Winter Wolf! I should've made the question harder...
That cat that "poops out" more cats is a legendary 2/4 for 3cmc. Not quite so much a bear as a turtle.
Apes of Rath and Lorthos, Tidemaker. :)
I think knowing he was running the cloak I would have transformed my deck games 2 and 3 vs cloakbaneslayer.dec. You do have artifact hate though it is in off colors. Acidic slime makes switching to green from blue attractive but perhaps just splashing red for the 2 Vandals is good enough? Not sure. I haven't played a league since I played at Neutral Ground (more than a decade past) so it is possible I am not seeing this correctly. As far as black goes the double duress is somewhat attractive too, but overall it seems like a weak showing for what black CAN be. I noticed you avoided playing Sorceror's and the Bell. Both are very good cards in limited. Perhaps you might consider making room for them.
Nice to meet you today, and welcome to Pure.
The coalition league idea is gone when M10 and M11 are a notch above the other core sets.. =(
Other than that, nice packs =) U're set up for one of the best archetypes. Gl.
Thanks for the article, this was really informative reading.
In regards to one of the comment on opening the Tempest packs, a quick calculation tells me the expected values for each pack: Tempest 2.63, Stronghold 0.68 and Exodus 4.26.They don't consider Foils so EV would be a bit higher but it's not worth opening packs for money if my figures are correct. Having said that, EV is better than current drafts so Tempest Block would be the cheapest to participate.
My deck would probably be -1 land -1 unsummon and -1 alluring siren. Alluring siren and unsummon are nice tech but a little bit narrow in my opinion. And -1 cancel. All of these can come out of the sideboard if the situation calls for it.
+1 Silvercoat lion (this deck can be speedy, more opportunity to get early damage in)
+1 Palace guard (hold the ground for your flyers, good against alpha strikes)
+1 Harbor Serpent (extra finisher and good at holding the ground)
+1 Negate (since I would be up to 19 creatures, it is more important to protect them, then to have the extra versatility cancel offers)
Just my opinion