I think the reason they have not done that is they don't want such a meta to exist. Planeswalkers are a powerful yet not all powerful type. There are myriad of ways to win against them already. Adding in specific hosers would tip the scales against people playing with them. Note they did not reprint any hate for planeswalkers in M11 either. I believe this was a deliberate decision to make this era of magic about planeswalkers. Have no fear eventually such cards will fade from use either because the meta is no longer friendly to them or the inprint versions aren't as up to snuff as they have been previously. Obvious this isn't true for now but down the road I expect this to change. If it doesn't I expect there to be a lot more loudness and noise being made by disgruntled players.
Nice article! I'm curious about what exactly you mean by winning appearances, however. Does any appearance in which a deck wins prize count as a winning appearance? Or are you talking about tournament wins?
If you feel like doing some serious legwork you could try to capture the whole metagame by looking at tournament replays. Since you'll be doing this week to week it might even be feasible. I wouldn't expect you to look at all tournaments, of course, but if you could get a sample size of a few hundred decks you could probably get a reasonable sense of what the metagame breakdown is for all decks, not just winning ones. Perhaps the most valuable information we can get is to compare the overall metagame presence vs. the winning deck presence. That tells us what is being over and underplayed.
I'm kind of inclined to agree with alot of pros that unless some truelly busted interactions with venser appear he isn't going to be very good. Though I rarely hear mention of using him to bounce himself then using new elspeth's board wipe ability to keep him as he comes back around or avoiding wrath for one of your guys ect so I dunno, but five mana seems at the almost not good enough end usually for PWs. There are some failry good infecters but their toughness tends to be low and theyre often a bit clunky, I dunno if it's gonna make the grade but then are there any ways to remove poison counters in the set?
As I've said before I've always loved vanguard. Searing wind was still a big deal when I started the game, more feared in casual than plague wind was. Someday if things go well I'd love to promote some Heirloom vanguard games. Probably just make all the vanguards legal since you only need one. In any case this was a pretty good exploration of what one can do with lots of mana in a format where access to it is more available than in most.
I'm also a fairly new writer to the site so let me say welcome and congratulations on your first one. This is a pretty cool article for newish players to get some of the large concepts about the game turning in their heads. The flow was nice and metered. See you around my friend.
Collecting the data each month is a bit daunting as I check the price of every card, but I'm used to it now. Creating the tables is a lot easier than you may think if you use the right browser.
Love that pic at the intro, reminds of of on of Lobo's girlfriends.
I mess around with Commander from time to time, it's a great format. I'll have to use that (buy this deck now) feature in some of my upcoming articles, convenient for players and good for the site for sure.
I'm always excited to see the new cards being released. Not sure about this set though, other than some bombs the mechanics seem fairly weak. Kind of reminds me of kamigawa tbh. Maybe I'm just not seeing the forest for the trees here.
I certianly think infect is a sweet mechanic, I kind of wish metalcraft had a number so it could be adjusted for more flexible design, like metalcraft 2 metalcraft 10 ect.
What They really need to do is print answers to planeswalkers that are easy and fast so that there is some meta between how much planeswalker hate you run vs how many walkers you run. Something like a putrify type cycle. eg 1G instant prevent all combat damage this turn or counter target activated ability of a planeswalker, put that planeswalker on the bottom of it's owner's lirary. 1B instant destroy target nonblack creature or nonblack planeswalker. 1U instant counter target planeswalker card or planeswalker activated ability, if an ability is countered this way return it's source to it's owner's hand. 1W instant prevent all damage to you, a planeswalker or creature until eot or counter target activated ability of a planeswalker and remove target planeswalker from the game. 1R instant deal 4 damage to target creature or deal 8 damage to target planeswalker. Sorry for all the examples but as you can tell I'm not a big fan of the power and what I consider the asymmetry of walkers in the game.
In any case I don't want to come off as a curmudgeon, I think walkers are a good idea and interesting just very badly implemented so far.
Thanks for publishing your podcasts and articles guys. I always check them out when I get a breather.
Given the amount of money rares, uncommons and even lotus petal at common, I wondered if any of the math whizzes out there can figure at what price it becomes profitable to just buy packs and start cracking them. Right now MTGOtraders has them listed as 6 tickets each.
How often can one expect to open lotus petal, propoganda, reanimate, ancient tomb and wasteland.
And among the rares I wouldn't mind banking some reflective pools as well, since they are bound to go up when extended ptq season rolls around.
This is the most useful article to plan your playing in the near future with all the schedules available. I probably will keep it open if I'm in a $ draft of the older sets to scan through my picks. I should print this out lol.
Nice article.
As you mention in the beginning, theres a lot of draft walkthroughs and aswell as you, im of the kind who does read them. Just to find out what other people do in certain situations.
Anyways, I carefully scrolled down as I read, deciding for myself what I would take and I am very close to take the exact same cards.
I would take the troll over the wurm as mentioned above. Very few cards in this set can handle a 4/3 regenerater. Tough call on the first troll, but I think I agree with you looking at the deck.
Good job again!
I apologize, I got the information wrong for States which does not happen this weekend. I really thought I read that somewhere.
Also, somehow I forgot to put down Mono Green Beastmaster which had 5 results and there were 2 observed results for G/U with Shared Discovery, Overrun, etc.
Word of Command does not work that way. The mana you tap stays in your pool so unless you have something else to spend it on first it will be spent on a spell in your hand with your opponent controlling it and it's target(s). Obviously it is still not awesome but it could be worse. I am not certain I buy that it is that hard to code considering they managed Mind Slaver.
IMO crystal ball is too slow for most decks in this format. It's absolutely outstanding in sealed, but M11 draft is a much much faster format than M11 sealed (which always seems to get bogged down with the ridiculous range of 4-5 toughness dudes).
I can't imagine myself often cutting crystal ball from a draft deck, but I don't think it's anywhere near first-pick material.
Well i still think taking wurm over troll is clearly wrong. I'd also take at least one of the gravediggers: you have cultivates, shouldn't be an issue to splash it for mitotic slime or platinum angel.
A few interesting choices to my taste.
Thanks for sharing
Xaos, don't worry, I'll break Heirloom as well :). Sooner or later I'll do that too. I went 2-1 in both of the tournaments I participated so far but as you can guess, nothing but 3-0 will satisfy me.
MMogg, I hope you're right about the favorite block part; as a matter of fact I want you to be right! Zendikar really is not my favorite block even though it has some very powerful cards/possibilities. So I think I can continue naming Urza's Saga and Ravnica as my favorite blocks.
JustSin, pm me anytime in game if you need some testing. I can't participate in every BYOS tournament during the season (obviously life > MTGO), but I would be glad to help during weekdays.
Bluedragon123, thanks for the comment but more importantly thanks for supporting this beautiful format. Oh and while I have your attention: Would you please talk to Owen again? My problem still exists :(.
Can't say I'm not one of the wailing woe-sayers about mythics, especially with the way it interacts with mtgo supply/demand. Of course I'm content with Heirloom as my adaptation to these troubling times in any case. I've got to respect your efforts here. I'm not sure how efficient or not your methods of creating these tables and filling them with the cards and their prices and the changes and whatnot, but if it's anything like how I would go about it it would be pretty daunting. I'm all for this kind of illuminating analysis so keep it up.
Pretty cool format here. I've been mildly aware of it for awhile but usually only check out articles of formats I already know and/or play a bit. (a little hipocritical considering...) Anyhow congratulations. You really seem to have got this format's number and you're a superior article writer to boot. Hopefully someday here I'll have the time and means to try this format out as I really like the dynamics of it.
Interesting theory about the rules updates and Masters Editions. I'm fine with most of those. They're not chase by any means, but usable. Except Chaos Lord - yuck. However, LaPille said here - http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/ld/106 - that Word of Command is difficult to program. And really that card sucks - especially after the removal of mana burn. All you will accomplish is seeing your opponent's hand and getting them to tap out in response. Well, maybe that's not so bad actually.
I think the reason they have not done that is they don't want such a meta to exist. Planeswalkers are a powerful yet not all powerful type. There are myriad of ways to win against them already. Adding in specific hosers would tip the scales against people playing with them. Note they did not reprint any hate for planeswalkers in M11 either. I believe this was a deliberate decision to make this era of magic about planeswalkers. Have no fear eventually such cards will fade from use either because the meta is no longer friendly to them or the inprint versions aren't as up to snuff as they have been previously. Obvious this isn't true for now but down the road I expect this to change. If it doesn't I expect there to be a lot more loudness and noise being made by disgruntled players.
Nice article! I'm curious about what exactly you mean by winning appearances, however. Does any appearance in which a deck wins prize count as a winning appearance? Or are you talking about tournament wins?
If you feel like doing some serious legwork you could try to capture the whole metagame by looking at tournament replays. Since you'll be doing this week to week it might even be feasible. I wouldn't expect you to look at all tournaments, of course, but if you could get a sample size of a few hundred decks you could probably get a reasonable sense of what the metagame breakdown is for all decks, not just winning ones. Perhaps the most valuable information we can get is to compare the overall metagame presence vs. the winning deck presence. That tells us what is being over and underplayed.
Hey Westane,
I'm kind of inclined to agree with alot of pros that unless some truelly busted interactions with venser appear he isn't going to be very good. Though I rarely hear mention of using him to bounce himself then using new elspeth's board wipe ability to keep him as he comes back around or avoiding wrath for one of your guys ect so I dunno, but five mana seems at the almost not good enough end usually for PWs. There are some failry good infecters but their toughness tends to be low and theyre often a bit clunky, I dunno if it's gonna make the grade but then are there any ways to remove poison counters in the set?
Xaoslegend-
Hey Cotton,
As I've said before I've always loved vanguard. Searing wind was still a big deal when I started the game, more feared in casual than plague wind was. Someday if things go well I'd love to promote some Heirloom vanguard games. Probably just make all the vanguards legal since you only need one. In any case this was a pretty good exploration of what one can do with lots of mana in a format where access to it is more available than in most.
Xaoslegend-
Hey there Dotstar,
I'm also a fairly new writer to the site so let me say welcome and congratulations on your first one. This is a pretty cool article for newish players to get some of the large concepts about the game turning in their heads. The flow was nice and metered. See you around my friend.
Xaoslegend-
Collecting the data each month is a bit daunting as I check the price of every card, but I'm used to it now. Creating the tables is a lot easier than you may think if you use the right browser.
Hey there Leviathan,
Love that pic at the intro, reminds of of on of Lobo's girlfriends.
I mess around with Commander from time to time, it's a great format. I'll have to use that (buy this deck now) feature in some of my upcoming articles, convenient for players and good for the site for sure.
Xaoslegend-
Thanks for all the positive comments, it’s good to see that people are interested in the data as it takes ages to compile each month.
Hey guys,
I'm always excited to see the new cards being released. Not sure about this set though, other than some bombs the mechanics seem fairly weak. Kind of reminds me of kamigawa tbh. Maybe I'm just not seeing the forest for the trees here.
I certianly think infect is a sweet mechanic, I kind of wish metalcraft had a number so it could be adjusted for more flexible design, like metalcraft 2 metalcraft 10 ect.
What They really need to do is print answers to planeswalkers that are easy and fast so that there is some meta between how much planeswalker hate you run vs how many walkers you run. Something like a putrify type cycle. eg 1G instant prevent all combat damage this turn or counter target activated ability of a planeswalker, put that planeswalker on the bottom of it's owner's lirary. 1B instant destroy target nonblack creature or nonblack planeswalker. 1U instant counter target planeswalker card or planeswalker activated ability, if an ability is countered this way return it's source to it's owner's hand. 1W instant prevent all damage to you, a planeswalker or creature until eot or counter target activated ability of a planeswalker and remove target planeswalker from the game. 1R instant deal 4 damage to target creature or deal 8 damage to target planeswalker. Sorry for all the examples but as you can tell I'm not a big fan of the power and what I consider the asymmetry of walkers in the game.
In any case I don't want to come off as a curmudgeon, I think walkers are a good idea and interesting just very badly implemented so far.
Thanks for publishing your podcasts and articles guys. I always check them out when I get a breather.
Xaoslegend-
Great article.
Given the amount of money rares, uncommons and even lotus petal at common, I wondered if any of the math whizzes out there can figure at what price it becomes profitable to just buy packs and start cracking them. Right now MTGOtraders has them listed as 6 tickets each.
How often can one expect to open lotus petal, propoganda, reanimate, ancient tomb and wasteland.
And among the rares I wouldn't mind banking some reflective pools as well, since they are bound to go up when extended ptq season rolls around.
This is the most useful article to plan your playing in the near future with all the schedules available. I probably will keep it open if I'm in a $ draft of the older sets to scan through my picks. I should print this out lol.
Great picking! Solid article! How bout a Scars draft video next?
Nice article.
As you mention in the beginning, theres a lot of draft walkthroughs and aswell as you, im of the kind who does read them. Just to find out what other people do in certain situations.
Anyways, I carefully scrolled down as I read, deciding for myself what I would take and I am very close to take the exact same cards.
I would take the troll over the wurm as mentioned above. Very few cards in this set can handle a 4/3 regenerater. Tough call on the first troll, but I think I agree with you looking at the deck.
Good job again!
I fixed it in between comments, but didn't have time to say so.
I apologize, I got the information wrong for States which does not happen this weekend. I really thought I read that somewhere.
Also, somehow I forgot to put down Mono Green Beastmaster which had 5 results and there were 2 observed results for G/U with Shared Discovery, Overrun, etc.
They seem fine to me.
Word of Command does not work that way. The mana you tap stays in your pool so unless you have something else to spend it on first it will be spent on a spell in your hand with your opponent controlling it and it's target(s). Obviously it is still not awesome but it could be worse. I am not certain I buy that it is that hard to code considering they managed Mind Slaver.
excellent article!
this website was seriously lacking something like this, so glad someone finally stepped up to the task of covering standard!
those screenshots are hiliarious, good stuff.
Can anybody see the pictures here? I'm just seeing "upgrade your photobucket account" labels.
IMO crystal ball is too slow for most decks in this format. It's absolutely outstanding in sealed, but M11 draft is a much much faster format than M11 sealed (which always seems to get bogged down with the ridiculous range of 4-5 toughness dudes).
I can't imagine myself often cutting crystal ball from a draft deck, but I don't think it's anywhere near first-pick material.
Well i still think taking wurm over troll is clearly wrong. I'd also take at least one of the gravediggers: you have cultivates, shouldn't be an issue to splash it for mitotic slime or platinum angel.
A few interesting choices to my taste.
Thanks for sharing
Thanks again guys for the comments.
Xaos, don't worry, I'll break Heirloom as well :). Sooner or later I'll do that too. I went 2-1 in both of the tournaments I participated so far but as you can guess, nothing but 3-0 will satisfy me.
MMogg, I hope you're right about the favorite block part; as a matter of fact I want you to be right! Zendikar really is not my favorite block even though it has some very powerful cards/possibilities. So I think I can continue naming Urza's Saga and Ravnica as my favorite blocks.
JustSin, pm me anytime in game if you need some testing. I can't participate in every BYOS tournament during the season (obviously life > MTGO), but I would be glad to help during weekdays.
Bluedragon123, thanks for the comment but more importantly thanks for supporting this beautiful format. Oh and while I have your attention: Would you please talk to Owen again? My problem still exists :(.
Thanks again for the comments.
LE
Hey there Flippers,
Can't say I'm not one of the wailing woe-sayers about mythics, especially with the way it interacts with mtgo supply/demand. Of course I'm content with Heirloom as my adaptation to these troubling times in any case. I've got to respect your efforts here. I'm not sure how efficient or not your methods of creating these tables and filling them with the cards and their prices and the changes and whatnot, but if it's anything like how I would go about it it would be pretty daunting. I'm all for this kind of illuminating analysis so keep it up.
Xaoslegend-
Hey Lord Erman(aka Our-Lord-Erman),
Pretty cool format here. I've been mildly aware of it for awhile but usually only check out articles of formats I already know and/or play a bit. (a little hipocritical considering...) Anyhow congratulations. You really seem to have got this format's number and you're a superior article writer to boot. Hopefully someday here I'll have the time and means to try this format out as I really like the dynamics of it.
Xaoslegend-
Interesting theory about the rules updates and Masters Editions. I'm fine with most of those. They're not chase by any means, but usable. Except Chaos Lord - yuck. However, LaPille said here - http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/ld/106 - that Word of Command is difficult to program. And really that card sucks - especially after the removal of mana burn. All you will accomplish is seeing your opponent's hand and getting them to tap out in response. Well, maybe that's not so bad actually.