i will try to play more in the tourneys if possible. i still find it the most interesting format even though for many decks there are now upwards of 200 seriously eligible cards.
i feel a few more M11 cards that you didn't list deserve at least a mention (apologies if I missed something but I don't think you mentioned these):
- Viscera Seer, another husk for the husk decks
- Leyline of Anticipation, which someone can probably break in a generally Flash- and/or Enchantment based deck
- Leyline of Vitality, for GW lifegain deck you mention otherwise
- Fire Servant: more expensive, but potentially more game-breaking than Chandra's Spitfire
- Combust: color-specific sb hate
- Knight Exemplar: knights can be very important in WW and equipment based decks
- Serra Ascendant, more lifegain fun
- Mighty Leap, not a bad trick for WW if it runs tricks
- Steel Overseer, definite candidate for affinity and/or +1/+1 counter (& maybe proliferate?) decks
also:
- several new vampires + new lord = still casual, but a vampire deck now more buildable/playable
it seems to me that the Seer, Knight Exemplar, & Serra Ascendant are pretty close to must-includes in the decks they fit into.
The B/G deck sure looks interesting, but it seems completely unprotected against the Storm Grapeshot kill (or am I missing something?) Otherwise, it looks quite solid, if it manages to protect itself against Grapeshot, it definitely could be strong.
The problem is it's not just that the individual decks gain or lose some cards; it's that the entire meta will be shaken up. The loss of things like Tarmogoyf, Mystical Teachings, Flagstones, and the Punishing Fires combo, all open up new and unexplored deck design space. The loss of Flagstones, for example, means the Steppe Lynx clock is much less explosive and consistent; the loss of Teachings means that control has to be completely reworked (especially also the loss of Damnation) to perhaps a UW Control; the loss of the Punishing Fires combo AND Tarmo has a huge impact on the playability of particular creatures. That doesn't even take into consideration what Scars will add. So, looking at a deck like Doran, it's hard to say what the deck will look like post rotation without knowing what its strengths and weaknesses are in the new meta. I dare say it will be remain a strong deck, though.
I cut my teeth on Vintage Belcher, so I don't know if I can play anything but XD I've been working on a "real" Dark Times deck so I'll see how that plays out I think. It's been doing fairly well in the paper Vintage game.
You're absolutly correct in saying that fish was first merfolk, my first post wasnt accurate enough about that. Nowadays anyway, "fish" & "merfolk" usualy refer to 2 distincts build. That's why I point the difference, to avoid any confusion because usual fish decks run removals although merfolk mostly doesnt. But yea, origin of fish are merfolk, that's absolutly true.
About your second point, there are several points. The usual build of merfolk is designed to win in specific environment, especialy good when the meta is mostly blue (islandwalk), very efficient vs combos (cursecatcher+counters). In this environment counter>removal mostly. This version is very effective as the tribal part of the game frequently provides 2 or 3 3/3 creatures unblockable. The mana denial stuff (waste/Stifle) are extremly effective in early game. So the plan is : permanent & growing pression, counter 2/3 first threats, finish the job turn 5/7. Without having a consistent part of creautres in the deck, your pressure becomes much less effective, and it often doesnt work. It could anyway. The fact is that the version without removal is designed to deal with a specific expected meta : if you couldnt win without removals, it is maybe because merfolk wasnt the good choice of deck to deal with that meta.
NO! Diverging from the net deck formula will have catastrophic consequences! Even just saying it out loud could- /actionmoviesoundeffects
Anyway. Point 1: Yes Merfolk = Fish = Merfolk, at least in my mind. Yes, Classic/Vintage's version of Fish doesn't have any Merfolk in it, but that's not a real deck anyway.
Point 2: Early world domination is everything to this deck, and if you're not playing this deck, well, you're not playing this deck. Adding Trinket Mage effectively gives you a deck beater, as part of what makes the deck good is the support its creatures get from Lords. What you're saying is actually leaning to another established (though not very popular) deck, in UW Tempo.
TL;DR - If we're playing Merfolk we should stick to its strengths, unless we want to play another deck. No matter how I swing it, I think non one-sided mass removal will hurt us more than help.
2 things, call me old fashioned but to me Fish IS merfolk. I know I know. As the game has matured people started replacing the weak merfolk with stronger 2 drops but I thought the point of fish was also fast deployment + control via vial etc. Anyway 2nd thing...I understand not liking explosives because it interferes with your plan of early world domination but it is tinkerable via trinket mage etc and you can fix your mana accordingly if you need it to be cast for more than the 2 counters. I know this changes the deck a lot and your plan but isn't the whole point of sideboarding to do just that when facing a weakness you can't otherwise get around? I am not saying completely rebuild the deck (well maybe I am) but if a deck doesn't work as is, sometimes rethinking it leads to innovation and victory. I guess though what I was really saying is your commentary on WHY you gave up on it needed a more thorough discussion for my (newbish to the format's) sake. Thanks for filling in some of the info gap.
Just been testing Damp Dictatorship some more. Turns out transmuting for Cloak to throw on a Guardian wins games.
@laughinman - Yeah Oversoul can be horrifically good when it works. Still, there are quite a few cards that can quite happily deal with it, I prefer one sided shroud for real safety.
@ Westane - I play mono blue in pauper too, really fun to pilot and really not fun to play against!
The Rock list looks really solid (Get it? Get it? Bah!) but I wonder how strong it's going to be post rotation, or should I say, post Tarmogoyf. Sure do like the list though.
hey thanks for the grats, it was a good event for me, played against lots of dredge, its hard to not place when your deck is built to beat a matchup u play 3 times. when will u be joining? throw some white mana in that merfolk deck with stp and sower of temptation and or aether spellbomb and u have a deck that can place as well.
gawd was i sick of bloodbraid elf, now im playing the 4c dredge uh vine deck that gerry t got 2nd with in a scg 5 k. It was the most abusive non interactive deck i wanted to build since the vengvines in it also see legacy play(double investment). So yea im playing this pile which feels like a legacy deck sometimes and i still hate std. If your not losing to retarted bloodbraid chains your losing to match ups. Why on earth did i pick a deck that cant beat the two most popular budget decks in burn and soul sisters. And what the hell is with everyone ripping better then me, example 6 std 8 mans and i have won one rd. and that was against u/w control. Otherwise my opponents always use the last card in there hand to fetch primeval titan or summinoning trap into titan with like 17 valakuts on the table, and win from 3 life with me holding the stone blade.
I'm at work (Um... working...) so I can't reference the actual file, but, there is a why to removal foils. There's an art file in the MTGO directory that is the foil overlay. The remove foils from your client, you need to erase the data in that file. To do that, you'll need Photoshop ($600) or The Gimp (Free) and actually ERASE whatever is in the image, leaving only a transparent background behind. Voila!
Fun article! I've been dipping more and more into the Pauper world, though I can't seem to do it casually XD. Due to my general dislike of people I've been playing Mono Blue Control, and it's quite enjoyable (for me), despite the 20 ling games. Never considered Aura Gnarlid in a Pauper Enchantress deck. Very cool, may have to try that one. Gratz on the new kid!
In a triumph of nice timing I've just started playing Classic myself, and am loving it. I don't know why I didn't jump in sooner - been waiting for so long to see favoured cards reprinted, and now I don't need to wait, I can just create a Classic game and play em. Strictly casual only so far though, but as you said, it's all about the fun!
Four sealed pools in one article is just sick value. Nice.
I would agree that you rate Azure Drake too low. Defense in this format can actually be a solid form of virtual card advantage, because when you drop that 2/4 flier, you're trumping pretty much every creature that hit the table before it (assuming you have it on turn 4). You are absolutely correct that defense won't win you games, but the fact that it's a flier makes up for that in my book as it's not too hard to start hitting with it when it's time.
In the second list, you had the combo of Viscera Seer/Reassembling Skeleton. Not a bomb by any means, but it does help with card selection and it's nothing to dismiss if you're going to play your black.
In the fourth pool, I would definitely have played blue. The Sphinx is quite good, and while the rest of the blue cards aren't that exciting, I think as a whole they're good enough. Maybe I just like blue too much. :)
Pretty much what LOurs said. I mentioned the black splash for Perish, but honestly didn't think it was that good. The next best thing is splashing white for Swords to Plowshares, but even then it doesn't solve issues like Pernicious Deed, EE and Disk. Playing EE is very counterproductive for us. Mono U with EE at 1 kill sour Vials. EE at 2 wiht a splash kills half our deck. Disk does the same thing. Bounce like Capsize and whatnot are too mana intensive, considering we run very mana light.
I guess you talk about Merfolk and not fish (fish & merfolk being different decks in legacy anyway)as fish already ran removals in most common builds.
When you’re playing merfolk, all is about quickness (entire deck < 3cmc spells) & tempo (vial, wasteland, stifle mainly): you need to win as fast as possible with the tribal pumped creatures (many lords effect),usually supported by an islandwalk ability provided by lords of atlantis. To keep the board safe, you’re usually using free mana counters (fow, daze and cursecatcher) as you need your mana to fill the board with more & more merfolk. If you mana isn’t dedicated to cast merfolks, then you will have a gap in your deployment… It is extremely annoying knowing that many other decks will ever be better than you at removal’s game (take a look to zoo in exemple, or the rock …). So usually, you just don’t use any removals … because you just can win faster & more efficiently without playing them. About mass removal cards (read EE, wrath …), they are almost always worse for your board than for the opponent board (killing all creatures is killing you, EE isn’t that great in mono U and even with several colors it will crush either vial/cursecatcher or lords/silvergil adept or sovereign/reejerey … not exactly helping you), except colors hate removal a la perish at most. Plus these spell are often very mana pricy which is at the opposite of your game plan : fast & furious… So with that in mind, you can observe nice average results without removals but also a severe weakness to some permanents (as could be moat, ensnaring bridge …). But you usually counter the first one casted, and win before the second came… And remember that one strength of merfolk is also to be safe regarding Mana Denial strategies (basics & a few fetchs) so to get a good removal strategy implies also to support other colors (usually W or B) which isn’t exactly helping that point.
I know this is completely without any experience behind it but can't Fish run Explosives or Disk or Capsize etc to deal with resolved perms? Why is it an autoloss?
Just wanted to say thanks for the detailed reply to my question.
Another great article. I love the Perspective section.
i will try to play more in the tourneys if possible. i still find it the most interesting format even though for many decks there are now upwards of 200 seriously eligible cards.
i feel a few more M11 cards that you didn't list deserve at least a mention (apologies if I missed something but I don't think you mentioned these):
- Viscera Seer, another husk for the husk decks
- Leyline of Anticipation, which someone can probably break in a generally Flash- and/or Enchantment based deck
- Leyline of Vitality, for GW lifegain deck you mention otherwise
- Fire Servant: more expensive, but potentially more game-breaking than Chandra's Spitfire
- Combust: color-specific sb hate
- Knight Exemplar: knights can be very important in WW and equipment based decks
- Serra Ascendant, more lifegain fun
- Mighty Leap, not a bad trick for WW if it runs tricks
- Steel Overseer, definite candidate for affinity and/or +1/+1 counter (& maybe proliferate?) decks
also:
- several new vampires + new lord = still casual, but a vampire deck now more buildable/playable
it seems to me that the Seer, Knight Exemplar, & Serra Ascendant are pretty close to must-includes in the decks they fit into.
The B/G deck sure looks interesting, but it seems completely unprotected against the Storm Grapeshot kill (or am I missing something?) Otherwise, it looks quite solid, if it manages to protect itself against Grapeshot, it definitely could be strong.
The problem is it's not just that the individual decks gain or lose some cards; it's that the entire meta will be shaken up. The loss of things like Tarmogoyf, Mystical Teachings, Flagstones, and the Punishing Fires combo, all open up new and unexplored deck design space. The loss of Flagstones, for example, means the Steppe Lynx clock is much less explosive and consistent; the loss of Teachings means that control has to be completely reworked (especially also the loss of Damnation) to perhaps a UW Control; the loss of the Punishing Fires combo AND Tarmo has a huge impact on the playability of particular creatures. That doesn't even take into consideration what Scars will add. So, looking at a deck like Doran, it's hard to say what the deck will look like post rotation without knowing what its strengths and weaknesses are in the new meta. I dare say it will be remain a strong deck, though.
I cut my teeth on Vintage Belcher, so I don't know if I can play anything but XD I've been working on a "real" Dark Times deck so I'll see how that plays out I think. It's been doing fairly well in the paper Vintage game.
You're absolutly correct in saying that fish was first merfolk, my first post wasnt accurate enough about that. Nowadays anyway, "fish" & "merfolk" usualy refer to 2 distincts build. That's why I point the difference, to avoid any confusion because usual fish decks run removals although merfolk mostly doesnt. But yea, origin of fish are merfolk, that's absolutly true.
About your second point, there are several points. The usual build of merfolk is designed to win in specific environment, especialy good when the meta is mostly blue (islandwalk), very efficient vs combos (cursecatcher+counters). In this environment counter>removal mostly. This version is very effective as the tribal part of the game frequently provides 2 or 3 3/3 creatures unblockable. The mana denial stuff (waste/Stifle) are extremly effective in early game. So the plan is : permanent & growing pression, counter 2/3 first threats, finish the job turn 5/7. Without having a consistent part of creautres in the deck, your pressure becomes much less effective, and it often doesnt work. It could anyway. The fact is that the version without removal is designed to deal with a specific expected meta : if you couldnt win without removals, it is maybe because merfolk wasnt the good choice of deck to deal with that meta.
NO! Diverging from the net deck formula will have catastrophic consequences! Even just saying it out loud could- /actionmoviesoundeffects
Anyway. Point 1: Yes Merfolk = Fish = Merfolk, at least in my mind. Yes, Classic/Vintage's version of Fish doesn't have any Merfolk in it, but that's not a real deck anyway.
Point 2: Early world domination is everything to this deck, and if you're not playing this deck, well, you're not playing this deck. Adding Trinket Mage effectively gives you a deck beater, as part of what makes the deck good is the support its creatures get from Lords. What you're saying is actually leaning to another established (though not very popular) deck, in UW Tempo.
TL;DR - If we're playing Merfolk we should stick to its strengths, unless we want to play another deck. No matter how I swing it, I think non one-sided mass removal will hurt us more than help.
2 things, call me old fashioned but to me Fish IS merfolk. I know I know. As the game has matured people started replacing the weak merfolk with stronger 2 drops but I thought the point of fish was also fast deployment + control via vial etc. Anyway 2nd thing...I understand not liking explosives because it interferes with your plan of early world domination but it is tinkerable via trinket mage etc and you can fix your mana accordingly if you need it to be cast for more than the 2 counters. I know this changes the deck a lot and your plan but isn't the whole point of sideboarding to do just that when facing a weakness you can't otherwise get around? I am not saying completely rebuild the deck (well maybe I am) but if a deck doesn't work as is, sometimes rethinking it leads to innovation and victory. I guess though what I was really saying is your commentary on WHY you gave up on it needed a more thorough discussion for my (newbish to the format's) sake. Thanks for filling in some of the info gap.
I think there will be more hierarch/birds and a few more copies of elspeth
I've been in a few games where the flying really matters.. ( read mirror)
Thanks for the comments guys.
Just been testing Damp Dictatorship some more. Turns out transmuting for Cloak to throw on a Guardian wins games.
@laughinman - Yeah Oversoul can be horrifically good when it works. Still, there are quite a few cards that can quite happily deal with it, I prefer one sided shroud for real safety.
@ Westane - I play mono blue in pauper too, really fun to pilot and really not fun to play against!
The Rock list looks really solid (Get it? Get it? Bah!) but I wonder how strong it's going to be post rotation, or should I say, post Tarmogoyf. Sure do like the list though.
I was actually just thinking the other day that I hadn't seen the M11 100cs article from you, good stuff as always
Thanks.
After some better searching on the internet, I found a thread that identified the file as v3static_foileffect.png.
I have Corel PhotoPaint, so that should let me erase and resave the png file.
hey thanks for the grats, it was a good event for me, played against lots of dredge, its hard to not place when your deck is built to beat a matchup u play 3 times. when will u be joining? throw some white mana in that merfolk deck with stp and sower of temptation and or aether spellbomb and u have a deck that can place as well.
Yip, my sentiments exactly. Also gratz on your 2nd place finish in the Classic PE. Always enjoy watching those :D
gawd was i sick of bloodbraid elf, now im playing the 4c dredge uh vine deck that gerry t got 2nd with in a scg 5 k. It was the most abusive non interactive deck i wanted to build since the vengvines in it also see legacy play(double investment). So yea im playing this pile which feels like a legacy deck sometimes and i still hate std. If your not losing to retarted bloodbraid chains your losing to match ups. Why on earth did i pick a deck that cant beat the two most popular budget decks in burn and soul sisters. And what the hell is with everyone ripping better then me, example 6 std 8 mans and i have won one rd. and that was against u/w control. Otherwise my opponents always use the last card in there hand to fetch primeval titan or summinoning trap into titan with like 17 valakuts on the table, and win from 3 life with me holding the stone blade.
Negative, look at my response to Paul.
THERE IS A WAY!
I'm at work (Um... working...) so I can't reference the actual file, but, there is a why to removal foils. There's an art file in the MTGO directory that is the foil overlay. The remove foils from your client, you need to erase the data in that file. To do that, you'll need Photoshop ($600) or The Gimp (Free) and actually ERASE whatever is in the image, leaving only a transparent background behind. Voila!
Fun article! I've been dipping more and more into the Pauper world, though I can't seem to do it casually XD. Due to my general dislike of people I've been playing Mono Blue Control, and it's quite enjoyable (for me), despite the 20 ling games. Never considered Aura Gnarlid in a Pauper Enchantress deck. Very cool, may have to try that one. Gratz on the new kid!
In a triumph of nice timing I've just started playing Classic myself, and am loving it. I don't know why I didn't jump in sooner - been waiting for so long to see favoured cards reprinted, and now I don't need to wait, I can just create a Classic game and play em. Strictly casual only so far though, but as you said, it's all about the fun!
Four sealed pools in one article is just sick value. Nice.
I would agree that you rate Azure Drake too low. Defense in this format can actually be a solid form of virtual card advantage, because when you drop that 2/4 flier, you're trumping pretty much every creature that hit the table before it (assuming you have it on turn 4). You are absolutely correct that defense won't win you games, but the fact that it's a flier makes up for that in my book as it's not too hard to start hitting with it when it's time.
In the second list, you had the combo of Viscera Seer/Reassembling Skeleton. Not a bomb by any means, but it does help with card selection and it's nothing to dismiss if you're going to play your black.
In the fourth pool, I would definitely have played blue. The Sphinx is quite good, and while the rest of the blue cards aren't that exciting, I think as a whole they're good enough. Maybe I just like blue too much. :)
Pretty much what LOurs said. I mentioned the black splash for Perish, but honestly didn't think it was that good. The next best thing is splashing white for Swords to Plowshares, but even then it doesn't solve issues like Pernicious Deed, EE and Disk. Playing EE is very counterproductive for us. Mono U with EE at 1 kill sour Vials. EE at 2 wiht a splash kills half our deck. Disk does the same thing. Bounce like Capsize and whatnot are too mana intensive, considering we run very mana light.
I guess you talk about Merfolk and not fish (fish & merfolk being different decks in legacy anyway)as fish already ran removals in most common builds.
When you’re playing merfolk, all is about quickness (entire deck < 3cmc spells) & tempo (vial, wasteland, stifle mainly): you need to win as fast as possible with the tribal pumped creatures (many lords effect),usually supported by an islandwalk ability provided by lords of atlantis. To keep the board safe, you’re usually using free mana counters (fow, daze and cursecatcher) as you need your mana to fill the board with more & more merfolk. If you mana isn’t dedicated to cast merfolks, then you will have a gap in your deployment… It is extremely annoying knowing that many other decks will ever be better than you at removal’s game (take a look to zoo in exemple, or the rock …). So usually, you just don’t use any removals … because you just can win faster & more efficiently without playing them. About mass removal cards (read EE, wrath …), they are almost always worse for your board than for the opponent board (killing all creatures is killing you, EE isn’t that great in mono U and even with several colors it will crush either vial/cursecatcher or lords/silvergil adept or sovereign/reejerey … not exactly helping you), except colors hate removal a la perish at most. Plus these spell are often very mana pricy which is at the opposite of your game plan : fast & furious… So with that in mind, you can observe nice average results without removals but also a severe weakness to some permanents (as could be moat, ensnaring bridge …). But you usually counter the first one casted, and win before the second came… And remember that one strength of merfolk is also to be safe regarding Mana Denial strategies (basics & a few fetchs) so to get a good removal strategy implies also to support other colors (usually W or B) which isn’t exactly helping that point.
I know this is completely without any experience behind it but can't Fish run Explosives or Disk or Capsize etc to deal with resolved perms? Why is it an autoloss?