Serra Ascendant is bonkers in any format in which you start w/ 40 life. Every Commander deck involving white has one, and it's seeing a lot of 2hg play, not to mention, as Undeadgod said, there has been a crazy surge of white weenie lifegain in the casual rooms.
I checked the price on Linvala earlier today to possibly include in an Commander build and she is up to 10 tickets. Though for some reason I don't think this deck will be around too terribly long.
If you have played STD in the last 3-5 days you will probably have seen a massive shift to white weenie. I have seen tons of the deck that I assume are the cause of the price rise of ascendant.
It runs:
4 Soul Warden
4 Souls' Attendant
4 Serra Ascendant
4 Ajani's Pridemate (gets VERY big VERY fast)
2-4 Sun Titan
Many of the STD decks I played over the last weekend had the above or similar at their core. Also the deck had morphed a bit by sunday to include a few Linvala which would also explain her dissapearing act on the bots as well.
Great article. Although I'm not a tournament player I like the lists of the decks along with concise descriptions.
One place the old extended was alive and well was in the casual multiplayer room. Extended was a good in-between format. It had a much larger card pool then standard, but not as much craziness as classic. But since the change it's gone from roughly 1/3 of the games to maybe one at a time. I hope it comes back once Shards and M2010 rotate out of standard. If not Extended might be dead for the casual player.
No problems with M11 drafts, it's much more interesting that M10 was. Awesome win with the stampede on only one bear. Like you said, probably the most underwhelming Overwhelming Stampede ever, but it still got the job done.
@Paul-I am being a bit extreme there, since I am a 2hg idiot as well, but you cant play 2hg eternal, it's just too broken. Even more so with the 2hg set up we have online.
Std 2hg is veryyy fun with tourny decks and all. The games usually go for an hour and playing against WW,UGramp,UW,Jund,Vamps is silly fun.
I have never played any eternal format before coming online(3years ago) when i heard MED2(Duals!!!!) was to be released, not even so much as a single Std/Ext event before paper or mtgo.
But, when I saw I can play Duals and FOWS all night on my couch, I relapsed into my magic addiction and promptly went about pestering Heath for every staple that wasnt easy to find(LEDS,U.Sea,Noughts). All the old cards I had from playing in my early Teens.
Danger is so right about how certain cards are "bridges".
I started MTG with a few buddies where i lived(casual) on Revised/3rd edition. Having had about half the duals it was cards like that and; Balance,Demonic Tutor and Sol Ring, that i loved and seeing them again I couldnt fight the urge to get them and play. Fast-forward to today and all I do is check sites for articles and read deck lists all day...damm you,Richard Garfield..dam you to hell....
Great articles about drafting M11. Your articles actually got me into drafting and have done 4 drafts now. I have not gone 3-0 in the swiss but have gone 2-1 for all except 1. I have drafted G/W with a black splash for my first 3 and went 2-1. And than went U/B and only won a pack for the bye. My last draft I did I went U/W and opened up a Frost Titan P1P1 and a Sun Titan P3P1 and went 2-1, could of went 3-0 but made stupid errors in my second match. I have it on the rare draft website if you want to check it out and let me know what you think of my decisions. Same user name as this site.
I am fairly certain counters are not target-able and are not permanents but symbolic keepers of data about a creature. Same with Emblems. Which is why they go in the "Command" area. Since nothing in that area can be targeted.
The news on wither is insane. er I mean Infect -end edit-
There is so much going on right now that I am wishing I had tons of liquid tickets/credits. Now is a great time to start reinvesting or rearranging your collection to obtain all these new goods. (FTV and EvsT as well as the upcoming new set and there are still lots of M11 cards that are undervalued or bargain priced.)
Rofl 2hg idiots. You mean the combo lovin, emrakul cheating, lifegaining idiots? I never play 2hg for that reason. Oh and I don't own any Ascendants much less, Serras.
So Pauper is a format that exists in both paper and and online, but the versions are different. Outside of the limitations of what cards are online, I cannot think of a format other than Pauper where the paper rules differ from the online rules.
Kird Ape, Hymn to Tourach, and numerous other cards exist in paper as commons, but they do not exist online as commons. Pauper in MTGO-world is limited to cards released online as commons.
I have seen this distinction throw off more than a few paper players transitioning to MTGO initially. Now that the client has a filter for Pauper cards, however, I do not see it as a big deal.
BTW, Peasant, an unofficial format (one that has been discussed on the mothership multiple times) similar to Pauper where a deck may contain up to five uncommons, has similar issues since Force of Will is an Uncommon in Alliances and every card in Arabian Nights (e.g., Library of Alexandria) and The Dark (e.g., Maze of Ith) were common or uncommon.
I am a little surprised at the kird ape exclusion as it was a common in Arabian Nights if I remember rightly. Though the earliest expansions were a bit funky with C3s and C1s and U3s and U1s.
I was pretty bummed to see it prematurely banned elsewhere then I realized it was probably for the best. I'd love a set of FTV: Relics but 34.99 is outside my range of buying power for magic. Hopefully before it disappears from shelves in 2 weeks I will find some way to pawn my collection to obtain a copy or at least parts of one.
Eh, I like the MED disk WAY more than the FTV version, so I wouldn't feel too bad. Unless you're talking paper magic, in which case I like the Alpha/Beta/Unlimited/Revised version WAY more than the FTV version :p
Every time I see a Danger's article, I know I will find something interesting. This article isnt an exception, and btw, it dives me into the past ... Wasnt the mono W deck the winner in 1995 against a mono B necro/demonic/order/ivory tower.dek ??
Sol was one of my first auto-include-i-all-decks card in the revised edition. To cast T1/T2 juzam or T3 serra was a blast into into the format. I enjoy a lot to see it back online (at least!) !
I'm not very surprised to see serra price increasing. This creature is pretty good for casual, and could probably find nice competitive decks to be ran, even if it is not the case the moment. To hardcast it sounds like a very good deal if it would come into play as a 6/6 flying lifelink guy. It is a pretty solid T1, maybe not as optimized than landfall lynx or guide, but get still a lot of potential in my opinion.
Yea the amount of Serra Ascendant/Ajani's Pridemate versions of the Emeria/Sun Titan deck on mtgo is unreal. I think 25% of games I'm playing are against that deck.
well at least i can enjoy it in Commander. Im kind of bummed DIsk is in the set. If only because I just bought one earlier today. I could have waited and got new art...
I suspect Serra's Ascendant will go up next month on the back of Conley Wood's Soul Sisters deck at US Nationals but may well fall straight after due to several of the key cards in that deck rotating out with Scars. The Nicol Bolas, Plainswalker was in a standard deck which second placed this weekend at a Star City Games Open in Detroit. It was a 4 Colour Aggro/Control deck with things like Bloodbraid Elf, Maelstrom Pulse, Sarkhan the Mad and Sedraxis Specter. So it maybe a casual standard deck thats been brewing around.
Serra Ascendant is bonkers in any format in which you start w/ 40 life. Every Commander deck involving white has one, and it's seeing a lot of 2hg play, not to mention, as Undeadgod said, there has been a crazy surge of white weenie lifegain in the casual rooms.
That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
I checked the price on Linvala earlier today to possibly include in an Commander build and she is up to 10 tickets. Though for some reason I don't think this deck will be around too terribly long.
Best one yet!
As an odd post script to my last post, im nearly 10 games in to playing STD today, and not a glimpse of WW.
If you have played STD in the last 3-5 days you will probably have seen a massive shift to white weenie. I have seen tons of the deck that I assume are the cause of the price rise of ascendant.
It runs:
4 Soul Warden
4 Souls' Attendant
4 Serra Ascendant
4 Ajani's Pridemate (gets VERY big VERY fast)
2-4 Sun Titan
Many of the STD decks I played over the last weekend had the above or similar at their core. Also the deck had morphed a bit by sunday to include a few Linvala which would also explain her dissapearing act on the bots as well.
Great article. Although I'm not a tournament player I like the lists of the decks along with concise descriptions.
One place the old extended was alive and well was in the casual multiplayer room. Extended was a good in-between format. It had a much larger card pool then standard, but not as much craziness as classic. But since the change it's gone from roughly 1/3 of the games to maybe one at a time. I hope it comes back once Shards and M2010 rotate out of standard. If not Extended might be dead for the casual player.
Underwhelming Stampede! Aren't you glad you ran runeclaw bear instead of another mana leak
No problems with M11 drafts, it's much more interesting that M10 was. Awesome win with the stampede on only one bear. Like you said, probably the most underwhelming Overwhelming Stampede ever, but it still got the job done.
Rock on.
I see what you mean by using cave people but I wanted to use black cards since I would consider myself a black mage.
@Paul-I am being a bit extreme there, since I am a 2hg idiot as well, but you cant play 2hg eternal, it's just too broken. Even more so with the 2hg set up we have online.
Std 2hg is veryyy fun with tourny decks and all. The games usually go for an hour and playing against WW,UGramp,UW,Jund,Vamps is silly fun.
I have never played any eternal format before coming online(3years ago) when i heard MED2(Duals!!!!) was to be released, not even so much as a single Std/Ext event before paper or mtgo.
But, when I saw I can play Duals and FOWS all night on my couch, I relapsed into my magic addiction and promptly went about pestering Heath for every staple that wasnt easy to find(LEDS,U.Sea,Noughts). All the old cards I had from playing in my early Teens.
Danger is so right about how certain cards are "bridges".
I started MTG with a few buddies where i lived(casual) on Revised/3rd edition. Having had about half the duals it was cards like that and; Balance,Demonic Tutor and Sol Ring, that i loved and seeing them again I couldnt fight the urge to get them and play. Fast-forward to today and all I do is check sites for articles and read deck lists all day...damm you,Richard Garfield..dam you to hell....
Great articles about drafting M11. Your articles actually got me into drafting and have done 4 drafts now. I have not gone 3-0 in the swiss but have gone 2-1 for all except 1. I have drafted G/W with a black splash for my first 3 and went 2-1. And than went U/B and only won a pack for the bye. My last draft I did I went U/W and opened up a Frost Titan P1P1 and a Sun Titan P3P1 and went 2-1, could of went 3-0 but made stupid errors in my second match. I have it on the rare draft website if you want to check it out and let me know what you think of my decisions. Same user name as this site.
I am fairly certain counters are not target-able and are not permanents but symbolic keepers of data about a creature. Same with Emblems. Which is why they go in the "Command" area. Since nothing in that area can be targeted.
The news on wither is insane. er I mean Infect -end edit-
There is so much going on right now that I am wishing I had tons of liquid tickets/credits. Now is a great time to start reinvesting or rearranging your collection to obtain all these new goods. (FTV and EvsT as well as the upcoming new set and there are still lots of M11 cards that are undervalued or bargain priced.)
Rofl 2hg idiots. You mean the combo lovin, emrakul cheating, lifegaining idiots? I never play 2hg for that reason. Oh and I don't own any Ascendants much less, Serras.
So Pauper is a format that exists in both paper and and online, but the versions are different. Outside of the limitations of what cards are online, I cannot think of a format other than Pauper where the paper rules differ from the online rules.
Kird Ape, Hymn to Tourach, and numerous other cards exist in paper as commons, but they do not exist online as commons. Pauper in MTGO-world is limited to cards released online as commons.
I have seen this distinction throw off more than a few paper players transitioning to MTGO initially. Now that the client has a filter for Pauper cards, however, I do not see it as a big deal.
BTW, Peasant, an unofficial format (one that has been discussed on the mothership multiple times) similar to Pauper where a deck may contain up to five uncommons, has similar issues since Force of Will is an Uncommon in Alliances and every card in Arabian Nights (e.g., Library of Alexandria) and The Dark (e.g., Maze of Ith) were common or uncommon.
Certainly a useful resource, and very detailed indeed.
I'm not sure where you find the time for such thoroughness, but keep up the great work!
Interesting info about the whole Kird Ape / BeB issue.
The 2hg idiots also love Serra and aside from being in Wood's life.deck, they are in every casual player's deck.
I am a little surprised at the kird ape exclusion as it was a common in Arabian Nights if I remember rightly. Though the earliest expansions were a bit funky with C3s and C1s and U3s and U1s.
I was pretty bummed to see it prematurely banned elsewhere then I realized it was probably for the best. I'd love a set of FTV: Relics but 34.99 is outside my range of buying power for magic. Hopefully before it disappears from shelves in 2 weeks I will find some way to pawn my collection to obtain a copy or at least parts of one.
Eh, I like the MED disk WAY more than the FTV version, so I wouldn't feel too bad. Unless you're talking paper magic, in which case I like the Alpha/Beta/Unlimited/Revised version WAY more than the FTV version :p
Every time I see a Danger's article, I know I will find something interesting. This article isnt an exception, and btw, it dives me into the past ... Wasnt the mono W deck the winner in 1995 against a mono B necro/demonic/order/ivory tower.dek ??
Sol was one of my first auto-include-i-all-decks card in the revised edition. To cast T1/T2 juzam or T3 serra was a blast into into the format. I enjoy a lot to see it back online (at least!) !
I'm not very surprised to see serra price increasing. This creature is pretty good for casual, and could probably find nice competitive decks to be ran, even if it is not the case the moment. To hardcast it sounds like a very good deal if it would come into play as a 6/6 flying lifelink guy. It is a pretty solid T1, maybe not as optimized than landfall lynx or guide, but get still a lot of potential in my opinion.
Yea the amount of Serra Ascendant/Ajani's Pridemate versions of the Emeria/Sun Titan deck on mtgo is unreal. I think 25% of games I'm playing are against that deck.
well at least i can enjoy it in Commander. Im kind of bummed DIsk is in the set. If only because I just bought one earlier today. I could have waited and got new art...
I suspect Serra's Ascendant will go up next month on the back of Conley Wood's Soul Sisters deck at US Nationals but may well fall straight after due to several of the key cards in that deck rotating out with Scars. The Nicol Bolas, Plainswalker was in a standard deck which second placed this weekend at a Star City Games Open in Detroit. It was a 4 Colour Aggro/Control deck with things like Bloodbraid Elf, Maelstrom Pulse, Sarkhan the Mad and Sedraxis Specter. So it maybe a casual standard deck thats been brewing around.