another detailed and inspiriring Article, thx Xaos!
By reading this, i just realize how fast an event passes by! Missing all the other decks, u don`t fight with, is a shame. Really looking forward for the next part of this series! I remember really creative decks for the last events! The most fun for me is to discover those new decks u have never seen before in a competetive Event. It can be fun to lose against a Horde of Tokens supported with Hour of Reckoning. Or beeing locked down withe eon hub and Ritual of Subdual...just good to see creative deckbuilding instead of netdecking!
One quick note for the videos on youtube: Here in europe I can`t watch them when commercial music is added.
I think there is room for more Godfathers here, so come and enjoy Heirloom on MTGO on this weeks event :-)
Being an Heirloom Godfather is meant to be a tribute not a burden lol.
For now it's still just once per weekend. This weekend will be Sunday then Saturday for two weeks then Sunday again so no more per week than before just toggled around a bit =P.
In general the format is very nice and challenging. The biggest challenge of the format is to come up with "replacements" for "bigger spells". In that Solar Flare deck of mine for example, my replacement for Wrath of God is Culling Sun. I replaced Baneslayer Angel with Battlegrace Angel. Akroma, Angel of Wrath has become Sphinx Sovereign.
I will try to attend as many tournaments as I can. Two tournaments per weekend can be a little bit exhausting (as I have to prepare decks, test them, tweak them etc..), but I'll try my best.
Stonebrow-Pathcutter doesn't work, at least not unless you have multiple attack phases. Stonebrow triggers off creatures with trample attacking, Pathcutter triggers off Pathcutter attacking. By the time cards recieve trample from Pathcutter, including itself, it is too late for Stonebrow to trigger for them. They can benefit from Stonebrow from the second attack phase. However, on the whole I recommend replacing Pathcutter with Roughshod Mentor.
As far as Stonebrow and the Pathcutter go it all depends on how you stack them...i think. I have actually never had the combination be on the field at the same time...lol
I did have Bear Umbra at one point but I honestly dont remember what happened to him. I think he got taken out for something big like the titan
And yes the reki deck is not complete yet...
I was thinking of taking like a typical Uril build and making it affordable lol. Hence the enchantments. Its also a good way to examine enchantments in general.
If someone pulled the first deck on me, even if it took forever, I would applaud. It is amusing and requires a silly amount of cards in hand/play to work. If they can get to that point alive, and pull it off. Bravo.
The second deck is annoying because it is uninteresting, not because it is powerful or even infinite. The Storm Mechanic has so many more interesting things you can do with it than you have tried to do. A Mind's desire chain that has multiple emrakul's in it, that are all then cast is amusing. There are other cards that interesting also. Sphinx-Bone Wand is my favourite way of abusing high tide, as the best kind of deck uses cards like Vision Skeins, Words of Wisdom and Time Spiral. Giving your opponent an opportunity to disrupt you, or just win, by giving them lots of cards is amusing. Not so much in 1v1... but in 2hg it is good. Combo decks must try to play quickly with an interesting win con, or right click concede gets the win every time.
The measure, imho, of such a decks annoyingness is not the combo win, but it is in all the clicking. A win which requires a single action to be repeated MANY times drives an opponent spare quicker than a normal combo deck. High Tide CAN be really annoying if built and played so the win takes too long, but it doesn't have to be.
Puremtgo is in desperate need of a roll-over function like on ChannelFireball and StarCityGames, where you can just hover your cursor over the card name and the card pops up (starcity's even links to where you can buy it so mtgotraders could still get in their advertising).
Always good to point out the ridiculousness of players who go for these sorts of decks in casual. One of the reasons I don't play casual much is because it's so hard to find the right balance. You want a decent deck but to one guy that deck is uberbrokenomguresuchajerkpleasedienow! and to another guy the same deck is wowyousuckatmagicandmustbedevelopmentallydelayedIlaughinyourfacerofl! Really the only way to play casual successfully on MTGO is to have a consistent playgroup so you can balance out in context.
Your graphics make me jealous, its a very pretty article you present. Ya Glimmerpost seems pretty busted in pauper. I guess only time will tell and I suppose its not as if pauper has the best high mana cards to ramp into but hey 8 locus's = pretty obnoxious amounts of mana.
I like the rules you are laying out. They are rules that I've always sort of had in the back of my head, but never laid out or even consciously thought about. Very nice.
I didn't even know that Fangren Pathcutter existed, that's pretty sweet. But does he really work with Stonebrow? Meaning do all your critters get the Stonebrow bonus when they attack? I just don't know enough about the rules to know the answer.
No Bear Umbra in the Stonebrow deck to help with the extra attacks?
There are some good legendary equipment that you may like that you're missing from the Reki deck. Kaldra stuff, Jitte, etc.
For your next article, are you talking about enchants in Commander, or just in general? I know it's a pain (trust me), but if you show more Commander lists, is there any way you can organize or alphabetize them? They are pretty hard to read. What I do is upload them onto the mymtgo site, then copy that onto jamuraa's decklist creator. Helps a ton. Just a thought.
And mono blue guys get ganked for good reason, usually.
I'd definitely be more of a theme kind of commander player, seems like the good stuff decks are going to cause your cost overruns and cause more of a disgusted reaction by other players anyway.
The problem with Good Stuff.dec in Commander is that a lot of the tier 1 cards beyond creatures/planeswalkers is that they are only good in Commander and not necessarily staples in 1 vs 1 formats. Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile, for example, are far more prevalent in other formats than Wrath of God and similar effects(especially the bigger and splashier they get). Since my collection is geared more towards one-on-one matches, I find multi-player Commander deck building is not so easy as to just cobble together good cards from my collection. Likewise, the Singleton formats mean that even if I owned Wrath of God from a Landstill deck, I would still need to buy other cards like Rout or Catastrophe to make the deck more consistent. This, for me, has been one of the biggest cons to Good Stuff.dec, because theme based cards are notoriously cheap, but Good Stuff.dec Commander cards are not necessarily cheap and are not necessarily playable in other formats.
The itch to play Commander grows... I am too dyed in the wool blue mage to try anything other than mono U... and as I undertand it, the Mono U mage gets ganked... :)
Hey man long time no event. Of course we only had that one Sunday event for our first so I understand that schedules are tough. This week's event is on Sunday though so maybe that'll be another opportunity for you to mix it up with us. After you're sound drubbing of us all I made my own MBC list inspired by yours. I haven't used it in an event but I threw in Grim Discovery, Krovikan Horror, Nether Traitor, Rotting Rats and Plagued Rusalka and that seems to work pretty well with the main cards you were running.
Good article. I really like the format, and encourage anyone who likes deck building to give it a shot.
I don't remember the exact list, but it was pretty much dredge, crypt, drana and consume spirit. There was times in the event where I hit players with consume spirit for 10+ damage.
Sadly I haven't played in any other events due to scheduling conflicts, but hopefully I'll get to play in one soon. I've got a lot of ideas I've been wanting to try.
Well it works like this:
24 players start the tourney, top 16 get prizes
Tourney fires with 24 people, 4 drop immediately because they only joined to fire the event (this is not always the case, and probably will be less and less the case moving forward as more of these fire regularly). Now there are only 20 people left. 12 have a 1-0 record, and 8 have losses. As the tourney progresses, a few die-hard tourney grinders have bad days and post 0-2 records or 1-2 records, and drop. If, say, 2-3 people do this, and from what I have seen usually 3 people drop per week after their second loss because they have bigger and better things to do, then that means that 6-7 people have dropped from a 24 man tourney with top 16 getting prizes. This means that only one person that plays all 5 rounds will not get prizes now. Of the 8 folks that had losses in the first round, somebody generally gets a bye due to drops. Also, of those 8, 4 will by necessity win their next round, leaving at most 4 people with 2 losses that are still playing, then 2 of those HAVE to win in round 3 leaving only 2 folks left, who play each other, and one guy gets a win, the other guy gets a 0-3 record, then probably gets a bye next round. So with 2-3 you are a cinch for top 16, and as you can see it gets pretty convoluted but it is actually possible to top 16 on a 1-4 record. Or even all losses if enough people drop. One week, 9 players dropped from a 24 man tourney...
The week I got loss-loss-bye-bye-win I actually placed TENTH - I ALMOST MADE TOP 8, crazy huh?
Hey guys,
another detailed and inspiriring Article, thx Xaos!
By reading this, i just realize how fast an event passes by! Missing all the other decks, u don`t fight with, is a shame. Really looking forward for the next part of this series! I remember really creative decks for the last events! The most fun for me is to discover those new decks u have never seen before in a competetive Event. It can be fun to lose against a Horde of Tokens supported with Hour of Reckoning. Or beeing locked down withe eon hub and Ritual of Subdual...just good to see creative deckbuilding instead of netdecking!
One quick note for the videos on youtube: Here in europe I can`t watch them when commercial music is added.
I think there is room for more Godfathers here, so come and enjoy Heirloom on MTGO on this weeks event :-)
Nagarjuna
Our-Lord-Erman,
Being an Heirloom Godfather is meant to be a tribute not a burden lol.
For now it's still just once per weekend. This weekend will be Sunday then Saturday for two weeks then Sunday again so no more per week than before just toggled around a bit =P.
Xaoslegend-
Wow, so I'm a godfather then, eh? Nice :).
In general the format is very nice and challenging. The biggest challenge of the format is to come up with "replacements" for "bigger spells". In that Solar Flare deck of mine for example, my replacement for Wrath of God is Culling Sun. I replaced Baneslayer Angel with Battlegrace Angel. Akroma, Angel of Wrath has become Sphinx Sovereign.
I will try to attend as many tournaments as I can. Two tournaments per weekend can be a little bit exhausting (as I have to prepare decks, test them, tweak them etc..), but I'll try my best.
LE (the godfather?... still getting used to it.)
Stonebrow-Pathcutter doesn't work, at least not unless you have multiple attack phases. Stonebrow triggers off creatures with trample attacking, Pathcutter triggers off Pathcutter attacking. By the time cards recieve trample from Pathcutter, including itself, it is too late for Stonebrow to trigger for them. They can benefit from Stonebrow from the second attack phase. However, on the whole I recommend replacing Pathcutter with Roughshod Mentor.
As far as Stonebrow and the Pathcutter go it all depends on how you stack them...i think. I have actually never had the combination be on the field at the same time...lol
I did have Bear Umbra at one point but I honestly dont remember what happened to him. I think he got taken out for something big like the titan
And yes the reki deck is not complete yet...
I was thinking of taking like a typical Uril build and making it affordable lol. Hence the enchantments. Its also a good way to examine enchantments in general.
I will guess:
Exsanguinate
Necrotic Ooze
Ratchet Bomb
If someone pulled the first deck on me, even if it took forever, I would applaud. It is amusing and requires a silly amount of cards in hand/play to work. If they can get to that point alive, and pull it off. Bravo.
The second deck is annoying because it is uninteresting, not because it is powerful or even infinite. The Storm Mechanic has so many more interesting things you can do with it than you have tried to do. A Mind's desire chain that has multiple emrakul's in it, that are all then cast is amusing. There are other cards that interesting also. Sphinx-Bone Wand is my favourite way of abusing high tide, as the best kind of deck uses cards like Vision Skeins, Words of Wisdom and Time Spiral. Giving your opponent an opportunity to disrupt you, or just win, by giving them lots of cards is amusing. Not so much in 1v1... but in 2hg it is good. Combo decks must try to play quickly with an interesting win con, or right click concede gets the win every time.
The measure, imho, of such a decks annoyingness is not the combo win, but it is in all the clicking. A win which requires a single action to be repeated MANY times drives an opponent spare quicker than a normal combo deck. High Tide CAN be really annoying if built and played so the win takes too long, but it doesn't have to be.
Puremtgo is in desperate need of a roll-over function like on ChannelFireball and StarCityGames, where you can just hover your cursor over the card name and the card pops up (starcity's even links to where you can buy it so mtgotraders could still get in their advertising).
Blau,
Always good to point out the ridiculousness of players who go for these sorts of decks in casual. One of the reasons I don't play casual much is because it's so hard to find the right balance. You want a decent deck but to one guy that deck is uberbrokenomguresuchajerkpleasedienow! and to another guy the same deck is wowyousuckatmagicandmustbedevelopmentallydelayedIlaughinyourfacerofl! Really the only way to play casual successfully on MTGO is to have a consistent playgroup so you can balance out in context.
Have a good one mate,
Xaoslegend-
Keladine,
Your graphics make me jealous, its a very pretty article you present. Ya Glimmerpost seems pretty busted in pauper. I guess only time will tell and I suppose its not as if pauper has the best high mana cards to ramp into but hey 8 locus's = pretty obnoxious amounts of mana.
Xaoslegend-
I like the rules you are laying out. They are rules that I've always sort of had in the back of my head, but never laid out or even consciously thought about. Very nice.
I didn't even know that Fangren Pathcutter existed, that's pretty sweet. But does he really work with Stonebrow? Meaning do all your critters get the Stonebrow bonus when they attack? I just don't know enough about the rules to know the answer.
No Bear Umbra in the Stonebrow deck to help with the extra attacks?
There are some good legendary equipment that you may like that you're missing from the Reki deck. Kaldra stuff, Jitte, etc.
For your next article, are you talking about enchants in Commander, or just in general? I know it's a pain (trust me), but if you show more Commander lists, is there any way you can organize or alphabetize them? They are pretty hard to read. What I do is upload them onto the mymtgo site, then copy that onto jamuraa's decklist creator. Helps a ton. Just a thought.
And mono blue guys get ganked for good reason, usually.
Hey ShardFenix,
I'd definitely be more of a theme kind of commander player, seems like the good stuff decks are going to cause your cost overruns and cause more of a disgusted reaction by other players anyway.
Great article man, I enjoyed the read.
Xaoslegend-
Maybe just play 100c Singleton.
The problem with Good Stuff.dec in Commander is that a lot of the tier 1 cards beyond creatures/planeswalkers is that they are only good in Commander and not necessarily staples in 1 vs 1 formats. Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile, for example, are far more prevalent in other formats than Wrath of God and similar effects(especially the bigger and splashier they get). Since my collection is geared more towards one-on-one matches, I find multi-player Commander deck building is not so easy as to just cobble together good cards from my collection. Likewise, the Singleton formats mean that even if I owned Wrath of God from a Landstill deck, I would still need to buy other cards like Rout or Catastrophe to make the deck more consistent. This, for me, has been one of the biggest cons to Good Stuff.dec, because theme based cards are notoriously cheap, but Good Stuff.dec Commander cards are not necessarily cheap and are not necessarily playable in other formats.
Hey guys,
Another great update on card prices. Genesis wave seems like a whole lot of fun or non-fun depending on which side of the resolution youre on.
Xaoslegend-
The itch to play Commander grows... I am too dyed in the wool blue mage to try anything other than mono U... and as I undertand it, the Mono U mage gets ganked... :)
Good work again. Love it every time. Some of the movements are curious. Q4 is gonna see some interesting card prices.
HornedFish,
Hey man long time no event. Of course we only had that one Sunday event for our first so I understand that schedules are tough. This week's event is on Sunday though so maybe that'll be another opportunity for you to mix it up with us. After you're sound drubbing of us all I made my own MBC list inspired by yours. I haven't used it in an event but I threw in Grim Discovery, Krovikan Horror, Nether Traitor, Rotting Rats and Plagued Rusalka and that seems to work pretty well with the main cards you were running.
Xaoslegend-
Good article. I really like the format, and encourage anyone who likes deck building to give it a shot.
I don't remember the exact list, but it was pretty much dredge, crypt, drana and consume spirit. There was times in the event where I hit players with consume spirit for 10+ damage.
Sadly I haven't played in any other events due to scheduling conflicts, but hopefully I'll get to play in one soon. I've got a lot of ideas I've been wanting to try.
I apparently played against the first deck, however I do not remember so I shall not comment on how annoying it may or may not be
So what makes someone a shark exactly? I do think that seperating players by rating is an absolutely awful idea though.
I for 1 am glad to have the analysis now. there are more paper events this weekend. And if you could have part 2 up before then??
thanks and keep up the good work.
Well it works like this:
24 players start the tourney, top 16 get prizes
Tourney fires with 24 people, 4 drop immediately because they only joined to fire the event (this is not always the case, and probably will be less and less the case moving forward as more of these fire regularly). Now there are only 20 people left. 12 have a 1-0 record, and 8 have losses. As the tourney progresses, a few die-hard tourney grinders have bad days and post 0-2 records or 1-2 records, and drop. If, say, 2-3 people do this, and from what I have seen usually 3 people drop per week after their second loss because they have bigger and better things to do, then that means that 6-7 people have dropped from a 24 man tourney with top 16 getting prizes. This means that only one person that plays all 5 rounds will not get prizes now. Of the 8 folks that had losses in the first round, somebody generally gets a bye due to drops. Also, of those 8, 4 will by necessity win their next round, leaving at most 4 people with 2 losses that are still playing, then 2 of those HAVE to win in round 3 leaving only 2 folks left, who play each other, and one guy gets a win, the other guy gets a 0-3 record, then probably gets a bye next round. So with 2-3 you are a cinch for top 16, and as you can see it gets pretty convoluted but it is actually possible to top 16 on a 1-4 record. Or even all losses if enough people drop. One week, 9 players dropped from a 24 man tourney...
The week I got loss-loss-bye-bye-win I actually placed TENTH - I ALMOST MADE TOP 8, crazy huh?
So basically a pack per win?
oh and loss loss bye bye win is 1-2 not 1-4...not sure how it would ever be possible to win anything with 1 win and 4 losses.
You have to see the deck in action before you realize it kind of is a Massive Johnny Combo deck. Sort of.