I am very interested in building an ally deck guys. I'm an old player back in my faerie and kithkin days. Im planning to be active again in playing magic cards and the main reason is the allies,i just love playing white decks. After reading your posts i have built a mono white deck. I don't know the gameplay these days guys please give me feedbacks and criticsms.Thanks. Here's my list:
4 Conqueror's Pledge
3 Join The Ranks
2 Condemn
2 Brave The Elements
4 Tectonic Edge
2 Emeria The Sky Ruin
17 Plains
The theme is an ally token deck. I could go fast for allies in early rounds then go token onwards. Honor the pure and Conqueror's Pledge is just insane,and with join the ranks and other allies its like a platoon of soldiers attacking the battlefield. By the way my build did not include cards that will be done in standard by october and it's kind of a budget deck.I'm wondering if i could get any help with you guys. Thanks
The Alluring Siren / Wall of Frost combo ate my lunch at FNM recently. I was surprised you didn't mention it when you took the Siren, but nice that you were able to get the combo off.
I agree with the first poster than I would have taken a black card in the first pick of pack 1. And I might have taken Assassinate ahead of Scroll Thief there. But hey, I don't normally win my limited tournaments, so I am always looking for new points of view. This deck seemed to work pretty well.
in related news, anyone who has starcitygames premium should check out todays Olie draft. *SPOILER* He has 5 scroll thieves *DOUBLE SPOILER* they get there
Let me start off by saying thank you for putting some time and thought into making your comments and that I'm not going to agree with their premise.
You'll find in the comments similar proposals and assertions made with me countering with explanations that are substantial and precisely relevant to your proposals and assertions. I don't want to be repeating myself too much so I'll try to distill them down and direct you to my other responses if you want more nuance.
Why Heirloom's Price tiered system works better for Heirloom than a simple $1 cap:
1: a $1 cap emphasizes commons and uncommons over the other 2 rarities. (You get the best commons in the format but not the best rares, ie there is an imbalance there that translates into a more warped format)
2: Heirloom is quite powerful as it already is. Some people might not realize this from hearing just about it's rules but that's why I mention it's power and specific decks and cards that are legal before going into the dirty details of the tiered price system for determining legality.
3: I am almost done with the static legal list which will diminish a lot of the woes about price checking and complication. Heck you won't even have to know why a card is legal, just that it's on that list. (the list will change a short time after each new set is released)
4: $20-45 decks are a lot more than $2-6 decks and take away one of the fundamental arguments in favor of Heirloom: it's cheaper than Pauper.
In response to your other points and suggestions:
You say that using a price list at all is nonviable altogether. Yet you suggest that a more complicated case by case system be used.
Which system do you think is easier to defend from criticism? One where a tiny group decide the legality of each card and cycle on whim or one where a simple, clear and consistent rule is applied. Which system do you think is easier to generate a legal/banned list from as far as time goes?
You criticize using just MTGOtraders for price checks to make card legal or illegal.
I am aware of a sense that a private for profit company can't be impartial and reliable for this purpose. I generally mistrust private business myself. Unfortunately this is a format based on attempting to circumvent the market forces that make MTGO ungodly expensive to play constructed in outside of convoluted casual. In order to control the beast(the market) in this case we have to exploit the resources it offers to avoid it's costs. (the search engine, the price monitoring ect)
You seem to think the main goal was being cheaper than Pauper. It wasn't. The main goal of those that conceived this format was an affordable competitive format that mostly reflected the main competitive formats already played. The fact that using a 2.5X the cheapest version of a card rarity still allowed that very well was just an awesome bonus.
I didn't disagree with everything you had to say. (hard to, you said alot =P)
There are plans for an "official" website for Heirloom. As you can probably tell I'm the most motivated member of the Heirloom community and so doing most of this myself takes a bit of time so please be patient.
The legal list is coming within the next few days and I'll make it as easy to navigate as my computer illiterate nature allows and improve it as I can. I like your suggestion for being able to upload decks to check legality, If you or anyone has any knowledge of how to do that on a website I'd love to hear it. If not given enough time I can probably figure it out.
Your description of the procedure with new sets is close to my thinking on the subject. Which was Once per week just for the new cards then at one month for the new cards and all old ones until the next set release.
I would love to see interest in playing all sorts of different formats of Heirloom. Right now I think it's important to focus on classic to unify the small community we have until the community gets large enough to get bored with just one format and support fragmentation.
Again thanks for all your comments, it looks like you took a long time to write them and so I tried to take a long time to create my response.
I hope you'll give Heirloom a chance as it has been conceived and if not I hope you the best in whatever magic playing you spend your time with.
@Scroll Thief: You are awesome, and still underrated. What Psymunn said.
@rpitcher: I actually think people exaggerate the skill level in 8-4s in general. Yes it can be a little intimidating when you first start, but you see a surprising number of great cards late, misplays, and other types of mistakes. There isn't as much of a skill differential between 4-3-2-2, Swiss, and 8-4 as you'd imagine...
I really love the wish deck, I tried playing a classic deck with it when we first got TSP and it was really hit or miss, now I really want to go back to playing with it
fantastic stuff, I've been quietly reading your stuff and I'm a big fan, I was so excited to see that Dimir = Wrexial because I've made a couple versions that haven't been great and I def grabbed some ideas from this, keep it up
Your picks seem reasonable to me, with your explanations, even if some picks don't look the best in hindsight.
I don't have the credentials to be critical of anyone's drafting, but I sense this draft pod was a little less skilled than many other 8-4's. I mean some of the other players, not Dylan. I say that based on some of the juicy cards that were passed mid-late, as well as some of the plays made during the games.
@Helper Monkey:
thief wheeling? thief is NOT an 11th pick. thief wheeled in pack 2 but that's weird. it's a premium common. you'll find it stops your opponent tapping creatures which is not dismiliar to assasinate. then you draw the bounce and wreck them
blinding mage is better than thief and, if he was blue/white would have been the pick. cloud elemental in blue white is also more defensible as blue/white is more aggressive than blue black. in an earlier pack, elemental or sickness over thief is right, but right now his deck is taylor made to abuse the thief. i think the only commons worth taking over thief by pack 3 are adept and doomblade.
@Dylan:
"two balls seems a little unfair" actually that's the usual amount. nice deck is nice
P1P1 I am all for forcing blue in this format, but Mana Leak feels like a weak start over some of the black cards.
P1P3 Scroll Thief over Asassinate, how close is this for you? Any hope that Thief wheels?
P3P4 Scroll Thief over Q. Sickness/Cloud E/second Blinding Mage. As above
More than anything, people hopefully realize how Crystal Ball can turn a rather pedestrian deck into a tournament winner by utilizing some sick card selection.
However, and I read my article over again just to double check, I never really said anything bad about the current meta. Standard is wide open right now, with combo, control and aggro all being viable options. The format is for all intents and purposes healthy and accessible... I just don't like it XD. There's no comparison to the diversity between Standard now and Standard 9 months ago. It's a good format, but as you said, when you cut your teeth on eternal formats, it's hard to shake that vintage monkey on your back.
So welcome (back) to eternal format ! It is always enjoyable to see a player entering (back) into these crazy format. I think that eternal formats generate something extremly addictive in a way if you played them competitively once, you would keep something in you that will push you to play it more/again : so many possibilities/interactions/rogue build/competitive decks/powerful cards ... Personnal view anyway.
That said, I wont agree so much about your opinion of standard. The current meta doesnt sound that bad to me, and at least, much more enjoyable than the jund format we knew since reborn : there is definitly a larger number of competitive decks than it was (at the moment anyway).
But the fact is that once you begin to play constructed eternal formats (or when come back into it) and especialy if you like to build decks/explore concept or even if you enjoy to play famous decklist (netdecking far from being bad to me), it is difficult to come back to a littler card pool format as the number of competitive decks available isnt even close to compete. Standard is still interesting... but compared to eternal formats, you have the impression to be limited in your possibilities much much faster (I am not talking here about any playing skill as well because skills are required to win a competition whatever the format, I'm only speaking about variety of cards/strategies/decks ... ).
Only my opinion though.
Personally, in my opinion, the only viable price-list oriented format is one based, in principle, off of $1. The biggest problem Pauper has gaining more popularity is the perceived lack of power. People think it's boring (without actually trying it mostly). You can't cut below $1, or you will suffer the same fate, but worse. $1 is simple, easy to remember, and shouldn't make people assume it sucks. But really, it needs to be $1-ish, and you have to make exceptions for cycles. Cycles have to be all in or all out. For cycles, if 3/5 (assuming a color cycle) are legal, they're all legal, unless one of them is more than say $5, in which case they're all illegal. But you don't want to be in the business of choosing colors for people--this is especially important with lands.
Ultimately, you can't use a price list as an arbiter. You can't do it. Prices fluctuate too much between bots, somebody is going to buy a card for a legal price, only to later find that the "official" price is higher, and be pissed. And trying to maintain symmetry with cycles, and other corner rounding, you just can't use a price list, period. What you can do, is behind the scenes, refer to a price list to guide you, and make the official good/bad list. But for the cards that are close to the cutoff, you should do a quick search of other bots, and see if those cards are readily available for less than $1. If so, make 'em legal. By making an Official good/bad list, you can have it be reality based, rather than arbitrarily based on one vendor.
The good/bad list can only be updated upon the release of a new set. Update the list 2 weeks after a new set releases online, so the prices have a chance to stabilize. So you can't play new cards for 2 weeks; this fits ok with a budget oriented concept. After the good/bad list is updated, you have like a 2 week period where either list is ok; since you can't predict the changes to the list, you have to have a period where you can use either list (but discourage mixing them). Then you just add a provision for emergency bannings. If a card balloons to say $5 during the interim between sets, it gets an emergency banning.
Finally, make an "official" website for the list, with a decent search function. Add the ability to upload at least .TXT versions of decks to check legality. When new sets are released, do an article on the cards added and removed from the good/bad list. Advertise it as a budget format, explain that "most" cards cost less than $1, and don't explain how the list is made, just refer people to it. Since it cycles only as often as Standard, and will probably have fewer cards added/removed per cycle than standard, then you should actually have a chance. People will be able to do most of their deck building without referring to any list, since $1 is easy to remember, and you'll only have to check corner cases. Make a special page for the corner cases, just for easy reference. After playing the format for a month or so, you'll start to remember them.
As to your concerns about "expensive" commons still being legal, I say phooey. $1 cuts out Rancor, Crypt Rats, Fireblast, Lotus Petal, Diabolic Edict, Exclude, Gush, and many more. The commons in the < $1 aren't likely to break anything, not with all the uncommons and rares available. You might even un-ban Cranial Plating, there's plenty more viable artifact hate at uncommon and rare.
Now, most decks will cost $20 or less (depending on how aggressively you price shop really), and you can make an awful heck-of-a-lot of fun decks for less than $5. Yes, the most expensive ones may creep to $45. But if you want to make even more budget offerings, you just have to follow the Pauper example, and make your new budget format come in Classic, Legacy, Extended, Standard, Tribal, Singleton, etc varieties. Just like with any other format, the top competitive decks will vary in price, some cheap, some expensive; buying the most expensive deck will in no way guarantee victory. Anyway, I don't think your goal should be "Cheaper than Pauper!" but instead, "More viable strategies and more cards playable than Pauper, for about the same price!" Pauper is already quite popular, so if you can manage a similar budget level, but introduce a more varied and interesting Metagame, then I think you win.
I was wondering whether it was legendary so that it wasn't too nuts in vintage, where there're probably going to be enough mana-artifacts lying around to satisfy metalcraft pretty much all the time?
I still think metalcraft is about the lamest keyword yet.
Seriously? Workshop might be his most expensive collectable but Mishra's Factory (Fat Trees to those who know) has got to be his #1 most well known card.
It seems made for using one at a time. Not sure about not needing 4. Certainly you want to draw one in the first few turns as it's purpose is still acceleration. With ds art lands and such it should not be hard to meet the requirement quickly.
The list is really good but I still prefer Executioner's Capsule with Mishra (plus Bolt for those with pro Black). It may not kill everything but that's what the sideboard is for (Damnation, on the other hand, kills everything!). In the Casual Room the sideboard surely doesn't matter and yes, I admit that the capsule is dead against some decks (especially Mono Black), but I'm taking that risk.
I didn't think of using Mishra together with The Rack. But what's funny is that The Rack itself is a creation of Mishra (check The Rack's flavor text if you want proof!). And now that you mentioned it, I realize that I skipped a huge opportunity to build a nice Vorthos Mishra deck. Maybe some other time!
Mishra's possessions of course are not only the ones I listed. As you mentioned, there is his famous workshop and then he also has a helix etc... I just named the ones that I recalled at that moment. But yeah, his workshop is definately his most fameous creation.
At first I was kinda bummed it was Mythic, but the more I thought about the card the less I cared. In Standard, the card's hardly playable in most deck (Lack of complete spoiler notwithstanding) so I'd hardly call it a staple utility card. Even in Legacy/Classic I can't see myself wanting more than 1-2 of these in very select decks, but again not everywhere. Between giving it the Metalcraft requirement which not all decks can pull off, and making it Legendary... Sure, make it Mythic, whatever. I just hope there's some good lore attached to it to validate it being Legendary.
I have been playing a mishra deck since the day new ext started. I went more aggro route, but I have a very very high win percentage with the deck (especially vs people who have not played vs mishra decks before).
I rarely post my lists, but its rotating out soon, so copy away:
I am very interested in building an ally deck guys. I'm an old player back in my faerie and kithkin days. Im planning to be active again in playing magic cards and the main reason is the allies,i just love playing white decks. After reading your posts i have built a mono white deck. I don't know the gameplay these days guys please give me feedbacks and criticsms.Thanks. Here's my list:
4 Hada Freeblade
4 Kazandu Blademaster
4 Talus Paladin
4 Kabira Evangel
2 Ondu Cleric
4 Honor The Pure
4 Journey To Nowhere
4 Conqueror's Pledge
3 Join The Ranks
2 Condemn
2 Brave The Elements
4 Tectonic Edge
2 Emeria The Sky Ruin
17 Plains
The theme is an ally token deck. I could go fast for allies in early rounds then go token onwards. Honor the pure and Conqueror's Pledge is just insane,and with join the ranks and other allies its like a platoon of soldiers attacking the battlefield. By the way my build did not include cards that will be done in standard by october and it's kind of a budget deck.I'm wondering if i could get any help with you guys. Thanks
The Alluring Siren / Wall of Frost combo ate my lunch at FNM recently. I was surprised you didn't mention it when you took the Siren, but nice that you were able to get the combo off.
I agree with the first poster than I would have taken a black card in the first pick of pack 1. And I might have taken Assassinate ahead of Scroll Thief there. But hey, I don't normally win my limited tournaments, so I am always looking for new points of view. This deck seemed to work pretty well.
in related news, anyone who has starcitygames premium should check out todays Olie draft. *SPOILER* He has 5 scroll thieves *DOUBLE SPOILER* they get there
Hello Grandpoobah,
Let me start off by saying thank you for putting some time and thought into making your comments and that I'm not going to agree with their premise.
You'll find in the comments similar proposals and assertions made with me countering with explanations that are substantial and precisely relevant to your proposals and assertions. I don't want to be repeating myself too much so I'll try to distill them down and direct you to my other responses if you want more nuance.
Why Heirloom's Price tiered system works better for Heirloom than a simple $1 cap:
1: a $1 cap emphasizes commons and uncommons over the other 2 rarities. (You get the best commons in the format but not the best rares, ie there is an imbalance there that translates into a more warped format)
2: Heirloom is quite powerful as it already is. Some people might not realize this from hearing just about it's rules but that's why I mention it's power and specific decks and cards that are legal before going into the dirty details of the tiered price system for determining legality.
3: I am almost done with the static legal list which will diminish a lot of the woes about price checking and complication. Heck you won't even have to know why a card is legal, just that it's on that list. (the list will change a short time after each new set is released)
4: $20-45 decks are a lot more than $2-6 decks and take away one of the fundamental arguments in favor of Heirloom: it's cheaper than Pauper.
In response to your other points and suggestions:
You say that using a price list at all is nonviable altogether. Yet you suggest that a more complicated case by case system be used.
Which system do you think is easier to defend from criticism? One where a tiny group decide the legality of each card and cycle on whim or one where a simple, clear and consistent rule is applied. Which system do you think is easier to generate a legal/banned list from as far as time goes?
You criticize using just MTGOtraders for price checks to make card legal or illegal.
I am aware of a sense that a private for profit company can't be impartial and reliable for this purpose. I generally mistrust private business myself. Unfortunately this is a format based on attempting to circumvent the market forces that make MTGO ungodly expensive to play constructed in outside of convoluted casual. In order to control the beast(the market) in this case we have to exploit the resources it offers to avoid it's costs. (the search engine, the price monitoring ect)
You seem to think the main goal was being cheaper than Pauper. It wasn't. The main goal of those that conceived this format was an affordable competitive format that mostly reflected the main competitive formats already played. The fact that using a 2.5X the cheapest version of a card rarity still allowed that very well was just an awesome bonus.
I didn't disagree with everything you had to say. (hard to, you said alot =P)
There are plans for an "official" website for Heirloom. As you can probably tell I'm the most motivated member of the Heirloom community and so doing most of this myself takes a bit of time so please be patient.
The legal list is coming within the next few days and I'll make it as easy to navigate as my computer illiterate nature allows and improve it as I can. I like your suggestion for being able to upload decks to check legality, If you or anyone has any knowledge of how to do that on a website I'd love to hear it. If not given enough time I can probably figure it out.
Your description of the procedure with new sets is close to my thinking on the subject. Which was Once per week just for the new cards then at one month for the new cards and all old ones until the next set release.
I would love to see interest in playing all sorts of different formats of Heirloom. Right now I think it's important to focus on classic to unify the small community we have until the community gets large enough to get bored with just one format and support fragmentation.
Again thanks for all your comments, it looks like you took a long time to write them and so I tried to take a long time to create my response.
I hope you'll give Heirloom a chance as it has been conceived and if not I hope you the best in whatever magic playing you spend your time with.
Xaoslegend-
Gotta love Wrexial
Hey,
Nice musing about the Vanguard format. I always had a soft spot for it. (I have most of them).
Xaoslegend-
@Scroll Thief: You are awesome, and still underrated. What Psymunn said.
@rpitcher: I actually think people exaggerate the skill level in 8-4s in general. Yes it can be a little intimidating when you first start, but you see a surprising number of great cards late, misplays, and other types of mistakes. There isn't as much of a skill differential between 4-3-2-2, Swiss, and 8-4 as you'd imagine...
I really love the wish deck, I tried playing a classic deck with it when we first got TSP and it was really hit or miss, now I really want to go back to playing with it
fantastic stuff, I've been quietly reading your stuff and I'm a big fan, I was so excited to see that Dimir = Wrexial because I've made a couple versions that haven't been great and I def grabbed some ideas from this, keep it up
Your picks seem reasonable to me, with your explanations, even if some picks don't look the best in hindsight.
I don't have the credentials to be critical of anyone's drafting, but I sense this draft pod was a little less skilled than many other 8-4's. I mean some of the other players, not Dylan. I say that based on some of the juicy cards that were passed mid-late, as well as some of the plays made during the games.
@Helper Monkey:
thief wheeling? thief is NOT an 11th pick. thief wheeled in pack 2 but that's weird. it's a premium common. you'll find it stops your opponent tapping creatures which is not dismiliar to assasinate. then you draw the bounce and wreck them
blinding mage is better than thief and, if he was blue/white would have been the pick. cloud elemental in blue white is also more defensible as blue/white is more aggressive than blue black. in an earlier pack, elemental or sickness over thief is right, but right now his deck is taylor made to abuse the thief. i think the only commons worth taking over thief by pack 3 are adept and doomblade.
@Dylan:
"two balls seems a little unfair" actually that's the usual amount. nice deck is nice
P1P1 I am all for forcing blue in this format, but Mana Leak feels like a weak start over some of the black cards.
P1P3 Scroll Thief over Asassinate, how close is this for you? Any hope that Thief wheels?
P3P4 Scroll Thief over Q. Sickness/Cloud E/second Blinding Mage. As above
More than anything, people hopefully realize how Crystal Ball can turn a rather pedestrian deck into a tournament winner by utilizing some sick card selection.
Regards
I am sure you are right about that. The concept seems tailor made for 3 moxes (or 2 and a lotus) and the opal.
Thanks for the reply!
However, and I read my article over again just to double check, I never really said anything bad about the current meta. Standard is wide open right now, with combo, control and aggro all being viable options. The format is for all intents and purposes healthy and accessible... I just don't like it XD. There's no comparison to the diversity between Standard now and Standard 9 months ago. It's a good format, but as you said, when you cut your teeth on eternal formats, it's hard to shake that vintage monkey on your back.
So welcome (back) to eternal format ! It is always enjoyable to see a player entering (back) into these crazy format. I think that eternal formats generate something extremly addictive in a way if you played them competitively once, you would keep something in you that will push you to play it more/again : so many possibilities/interactions/rogue build/competitive decks/powerful cards ... Personnal view anyway.
That said, I wont agree so much about your opinion of standard. The current meta doesnt sound that bad to me, and at least, much more enjoyable than the jund format we knew since reborn : there is definitly a larger number of competitive decks than it was (at the moment anyway).
But the fact is that once you begin to play constructed eternal formats (or when come back into it) and especialy if you like to build decks/explore concept or even if you enjoy to play famous decklist (netdecking far from being bad to me), it is difficult to come back to a littler card pool format as the number of competitive decks available isnt even close to compete. Standard is still interesting... but compared to eternal formats, you have the impression to be limited in your possibilities much much faster (I am not talking here about any playing skill as well because skills are required to win a competition whatever the format, I'm only speaking about variety of cards/strategies/decks ... ).
Only my opinion though.
Personally, in my opinion, the only viable price-list oriented format is one based, in principle, off of $1. The biggest problem Pauper has gaining more popularity is the perceived lack of power. People think it's boring (without actually trying it mostly). You can't cut below $1, or you will suffer the same fate, but worse. $1 is simple, easy to remember, and shouldn't make people assume it sucks. But really, it needs to be $1-ish, and you have to make exceptions for cycles. Cycles have to be all in or all out. For cycles, if 3/5 (assuming a color cycle) are legal, they're all legal, unless one of them is more than say $5, in which case they're all illegal. But you don't want to be in the business of choosing colors for people--this is especially important with lands.
Ultimately, you can't use a price list as an arbiter. You can't do it. Prices fluctuate too much between bots, somebody is going to buy a card for a legal price, only to later find that the "official" price is higher, and be pissed. And trying to maintain symmetry with cycles, and other corner rounding, you just can't use a price list, period. What you can do, is behind the scenes, refer to a price list to guide you, and make the official good/bad list. But for the cards that are close to the cutoff, you should do a quick search of other bots, and see if those cards are readily available for less than $1. If so, make 'em legal. By making an Official good/bad list, you can have it be reality based, rather than arbitrarily based on one vendor.
The good/bad list can only be updated upon the release of a new set. Update the list 2 weeks after a new set releases online, so the prices have a chance to stabilize. So you can't play new cards for 2 weeks; this fits ok with a budget oriented concept. After the good/bad list is updated, you have like a 2 week period where either list is ok; since you can't predict the changes to the list, you have to have a period where you can use either list (but discourage mixing them). Then you just add a provision for emergency bannings. If a card balloons to say $5 during the interim between sets, it gets an emergency banning.
Finally, make an "official" website for the list, with a decent search function. Add the ability to upload at least .TXT versions of decks to check legality. When new sets are released, do an article on the cards added and removed from the good/bad list. Advertise it as a budget format, explain that "most" cards cost less than $1, and don't explain how the list is made, just refer people to it. Since it cycles only as often as Standard, and will probably have fewer cards added/removed per cycle than standard, then you should actually have a chance. People will be able to do most of their deck building without referring to any list, since $1 is easy to remember, and you'll only have to check corner cases. Make a special page for the corner cases, just for easy reference. After playing the format for a month or so, you'll start to remember them.
As to your concerns about "expensive" commons still being legal, I say phooey. $1 cuts out Rancor, Crypt Rats, Fireblast, Lotus Petal, Diabolic Edict, Exclude, Gush, and many more. The commons in the < $1 aren't likely to break anything, not with all the uncommons and rares available. You might even un-ban Cranial Plating, there's plenty more viable artifact hate at uncommon and rare.
Now, most decks will cost $20 or less (depending on how aggressively you price shop really), and you can make an awful heck-of-a-lot of fun decks for less than $5. Yes, the most expensive ones may creep to $45. But if you want to make even more budget offerings, you just have to follow the Pauper example, and make your new budget format come in Classic, Legacy, Extended, Standard, Tribal, Singleton, etc varieties. Just like with any other format, the top competitive decks will vary in price, some cheap, some expensive; buying the most expensive deck will in no way guarantee victory. Anyway, I don't think your goal should be "Cheaper than Pauper!" but instead, "More viable strategies and more cards playable than Pauper, for about the same price!" Pauper is already quite popular, so if you can manage a similar budget level, but introduce a more varied and interesting Metagame, then I think you win.
I was wondering whether it was legendary so that it wasn't too nuts in vintage, where there're probably going to be enough mana-artifacts lying around to satisfy metalcraft pretty much all the time?
I still think metalcraft is about the lamest keyword yet.
Though the vast majority of the time mtgotraders has the worst prise.
The main advantage of mtgotraders is the biggest cardpool.
Seriously? Workshop might be his most expensive collectable but Mishra's Factory (Fat Trees to those who know) has got to be his #1 most well known card.
It seems made for using one at a time. Not sure about not needing 4. Certainly you want to draw one in the first few turns as it's purpose is still acceleration. With ds art lands and such it should not be hard to meet the requirement quickly.
Thanks for the comments.
The list is really good but I still prefer Executioner's Capsule with Mishra (plus Bolt for those with pro Black). It may not kill everything but that's what the sideboard is for (Damnation, on the other hand, kills everything!). In the Casual Room the sideboard surely doesn't matter and yes, I admit that the capsule is dead against some decks (especially Mono Black), but I'm taking that risk.
I didn't think of using Mishra together with The Rack. But what's funny is that The Rack itself is a creation of Mishra (check The Rack's flavor text if you want proof!). And now that you mentioned it, I realize that I skipped a huge opportunity to build a nice Vorthos Mishra deck. Maybe some other time!
Mishra's possessions of course are not only the ones I listed. As you mentioned, there is his famous workshop and then he also has a helix etc... I just named the ones that I recalled at that moment. But yeah, his workshop is definately his most fameous creation.
Thanks again for the comments.
LE
Mox Opal... :/
At first I was kinda bummed it was Mythic, but the more I thought about the card the less I cared. In Standard, the card's hardly playable in most deck (Lack of complete spoiler notwithstanding) so I'd hardly call it a staple utility card. Even in Legacy/Classic I can't see myself wanting more than 1-2 of these in very select decks, but again not everywhere. Between giving it the Metalcraft requirement which not all decks can pull off, and making it Legendary... Sure, make it Mythic, whatever. I just hope there's some good lore attached to it to validate it being Legendary.
Cute list, Seems about right, with some tech in Terminate. What's with the commas instead of spaces?
I have been playing a mishra deck since the day new ext started. I went more aggro route, but I have a very very high win percentage with the deck (especially vs people who have not played vs mishra decks before).
I rarely post my lists, but its rotating out soon, so copy away:
1,Academy Ruins
4,Ancestral Vision
4,Coalition Relic
2,Creeping Tar Pit
4,Crumbling Necropolis
4,Epochrasite
2,Graven Cairns
3,Island
2,Lavaclaw Reaches
4,Lodestone Golem
4,Master of Etherium
4,Mind Stone
4,"Mishra, Artificer Prodigy"
2,Mountain
3,Scalding Tarn
4,Smother
3,Swamp
4,Terminate
2,Triskelion
Great article. I know mishra's workshop isn't on mtgo, but I am pretty sure it trumps his factory as his most important possession :-)