I enjoyed this, those all looked like very fun decks, especially the BW one. I regret never getting the chance to play with Noble Hierarch or Knight of the Reliquary in Stnadard, but I'm hoping the price will drop enough to let me play Bant in Extended after October.
Also, I just noticed we both use the same avatar on MTGO. That makes us BFF...F's.
I have mixed emotions about this article. First, I liked it because I don't have access to wizards boards at work due to firewall (for some reason pure isn't a problem). On the other hand I come here to learn information about the game relating to gameplay. When I used to have access to the boards it seemed full of whiney people just looking to put their name in a blog for the sake of getting lots of posts.
So while I am torn, it was something different to read. I doubt I'd read it all the time if this became an ongoing series.
Did you even talk about the solution proposed for the influx of stolen tickets issue? NO! You covered the issue badly, since you failed to mention making 'join date public as opt-in.' That would certainly stop scammers from opening new accounts and dumping tons of tix, since other players could ask to see their join date. People arguing about this made up about 1/3 of that entire thread. You manage to mention join date, but talk about arguments rather than framing the issue itself.
"By the end of the argument, I was arguing that Wizards had given serious marketing thought to the issue of ThNMO's times and number of events."
Wizards is following a copypasta weekly dealie like when Scott Larabie was in charge of the event schedule. Wizards doesn't need 'serious marketing thought' with regards to magic online. The game sells itself. Look at the state of the program. Look at the frequency of major updates. Lost's point was that they could slap any old event schedule up and still events would fire, so therefore, why not schedule more events which are classic/legacy, which wizards isn't supporting well?
I didn't like this article because you are putting up your opinions as factual statements. While you love doing this in the forums, an article is a more legit place of sharing information, so I'll call you on some obvious BS.
Do you know everyone in MTGO has marketing training? NO! You don't work for wizards. Also, they have a tendency of promoting customer support staff into bigger roles after 6 months or so, and those people have never impressed me with their competence. If marketing training was required, I think they could post a release event schedule that didn't need a public edit. They have not managed this for over a year.
Do you know fewer tournaments bring more success? NO! You don't have wizard's profit numbers. (I'd argue their servers can't handle more events then they current run, which is the real bottleneck. Otherwise maybe we'd have more 64 man premier drafts during releases.)
Do you know the dev team is looking to implement splitting again? NO! We had it, but they took it away. They can't even give the community a good standardized procedure to split at our own risk, without risking a 30 day ban for collusion.
If you are going to write a useful round-up article, cover all the information, don't sculpt your own strong opinions and selective facts into an editorial and present it as an unbiased summary.
Another solid article. I agree with the TP thing. I have made mention to it before in some of my articles. It even bothers me more when people write articles here using test results from the TP room.
@ Paul, he was clearly being sarcastic. Stop trolling!
I don't know what's sadder: the format or the people complaining about it...
C'mon, if you're coming up with a new format, at least create something inventive. Harem format might (emphasis on *might*) be fun as a one-off deck-building exercise but no more than that - it's no different from such crowd-pleasing formats as "cards that contain letter 'z'"/"cards with prime collection numbers"/"cards with art containing a knife".
And feeling offended about the use of a word that simply tries to pass the "lots of women" factor... What next? Complaining about the "White Knight" (left wing fascist), "Torture" (endorsing the use of turture) or "Maniac Vandal" (anarchists destroying valuable objects)?
I am in an office working all day where the official wizards site is blocked but puremtgo is not, so i can catchup on my magic related readings during the day and just go home and game in the evenings. I prefer the recaps much more than goto this link and read this, since the links are usually blocked for me.
I don't think I'm in the minority here so keep writing these, you definitely have a reader base out there!
I just realized this deck is going to be hit pretty hard with the rotation, losing brunwillows/fire combo, harmonize, search for tomorrow and goyf. any ideas where this deck is headed without those cards?
I like this article! So, as an American, I feel the need to throw around my 2-ton opinion, and eat Wendy's burger, and @#$% up my taxes... Anyway, I do have some opinions on the matters, and just so as to confuse the majority of the MTGO community, I'll probably end up using a good bit of MMO jargon. In the TP room I type "LF3m Standard Daily - Plz Have Deck and link Achiev." Not a single chuckle, /sigh
Prize Splitting "Clarification"
I don't really like this, but to be honest, I'm not a fan of MTGO costumer support either. I wanted a name change, and I tried everything, talked to everyone I could, even offered to pay them the $10 new account fee. They wouldn't go for it. So I asked, if I open a new account, could they delete the Planeswalkers Gold Bordered cards forced onto the account? They said no, of course. "Why can't you delete an entry off my account? I'm consenting to it, in writing!" "We just can't"... Fine. I opened my account in 2004 when you got a $10 gift card and nothing else. I'm a little CDO (It's like OCD, only alphabetical, THE WAY IT SHOULD BE!) so having those damn, non-tradeable, non-usable crap cards on my account would drive me nuts!
How does this relate? I think the whole dancing around the logistics deal is stupid, and it's almost like they're trying to trap people into losing their support. In WoW players can a GDKP raid. This is completely of the players' design and not endorsed or supported by Blizzard in any way. It does, however, involve the trade of large amounts of in-game currency. How can you feel safe doing this? Because Blizzard's support is good enough that they state "So long as the intent of the activity is clearly stated IN TEXT before the event, we can and will moderate it.". Perhaps I'm just missing the reason as to why WotC can't support consensual concession.
Stolen Ticket:
See above. Of course, here I may be missing the point a little. If WotC isn't "fixing" the rip-offs that's one thing, if this is just a way to prevent them that's another. I've always thought ratings should just be optionally shown, if only to allow people to stroke their e-peens. As for account creation dates, I can't agree with that if only for how many special circumstances there'd be.
TNMO == FMNO:
I agree 110% with the author here. How many times do you go to an FNM where there's not a handful of people playing tier 1 decks? Some people just have more fun playing those decks and they have no obligation to sacrifice said fun to "promote" a casual environment. At the first TNMO I played your standard UW Control, JMS and all, while my buddy brought his Mono Green kinda-elf budget deck. I went 2-1 while he went 3-0. I think that alone shows the event was a success.
I think I've rambled enough for today, hope you enjoyed my second article for the week lol.
Correct. If I could run them I would, as I like them very much. However I already have 8 lands that WILL come into play tapped, 4 that might, and 4 colorless lands. I think running the Depths would disrupt the mana a bit too much.
I was looking to make an article like this this week, but I think I will go in another direction now. I don't have any Elseth's which hurt, but since they will be rotating shortly I will pick them up later. I have many similar decks running a single or double Sun Titan and they are extremely effective card advantage engines. Bringing back tectonic edge over and over is just plain mean too.
The B/W Deck looks wonderfull, i would probably add Abyssal persecutor (Wich i think is very underplayed, its a card you really don't want to see on the other side of the table), i'd prefer Malakir bloodwich against control than the blac knight, i know its cheaper, and a posible target for sun titan but it doesn't stop a baneslayer angel like a Bloodwich does (Most times they'll just stare at each other), and finaly i'd prefer celestial purge over devout lightcaster in side, its a lot stronger against jund and RDW, and easier to cast in a 2 color deck
The R/W looks cool too, i'd use exploration map instead of pilgrim's eye but thats just me
I love this deck, I am looking at possibly swapping the tarmogoyfs for something that either regenerates or has 3 toughness. One card I am eager to try is llanowar sentinal. flipping that bad boy off of a bloodbraid elf and then getting a 3rd creature for another 2 mana is amazing. It also survives the fallout, which is important.
I love that G/W control deck. Very nice indeed though i personally would try to find a spot for Momentous fall in that deck for the card advantage and the heal. Imagine blocking a Vengevine with a brindle boar, gaining 4 life then using momentous on the boar, gaining another 2 life then drawing two cards, could b very usefull.
Really? Sounds counter-intuitive to me. I've never tried those cards against it, will have to check it out. That means Emrakul's nowhere near as good as I'd thought...
Nice article LE, I really want some copies of Sun Titan now. Whilst I've never tried it, I'm pretty sure Executioner's Capsule doesn't get rid of Emrakul. The only non-sweeper to do that (as far as I know) is Brittle Effigy.
I watched AJ's final game which included Silvos Der Benny (Who won the whole game), Arthur(forget the rest of the name) and ColtonPower. It was very much anyone's game with each player showing real potential to just end the game. AJ's LD was instrumental in shutting down Art's monored goblin machine. Silvos' play of Keeper of Progenitus brought Art back into play but by then AJ's deck totalled him and Colton's tokens cleaned it up. Little did the two other survivors realize Silvos was plotting their downfall with a collective unconscious fueled creature drive involving the land stealer druid and lots of untap everything effects. Great game imho.
By the way I don't think the button for splitting not being included in v3 had anything to do with program-ability. I think they simply didn't like people splitting prizes in the finals and decided to make it a gray area with penalties.
ChardOne, I played a lot more games with the deck than I wrote about here. Some of the best were after I'd submitted the article - I wished I could've added them retrospectively. Anyway Tutelage is a lot better than Sign in a low cc deck. Sign nets you +1 card advantage in total. In games where I drew it early, Tutelage won for me. You can't say that so often for Sign.
In the games described above, I didn't see Tutelage often, but even where I did it was at worst equal to Sign. I'll bring Tutelage up to a full playset next time I amend the list.
lenney, nice idea, but I don't like Elixir of Immortality, it doesn't do enough. Perhaps as a sideboard card against mill.
Hornedfish, many thanks, and you're totally right about Brittle Effigy - I didn't know the card well before testing this deck, but now I love it. I won a game against Eldrazi ramp off the back of it, it's one of the few cards that can deal with Emrakul. I considered Sigil, but couldn't see what to remove. I don't want too much equipment given my creature count, and the Collar definitely takes first slot. But yes, I can see the benefit of sticking it on a Nighthawk.
Excellent recaps and While I don't necessarily agree with your views I respect your courage in putting them out there. Hopefully this won't be too bloody. :)
Two things here. I don't mean to imply that this site is all about free speech. Obviously it isn't, as anonymous posters are no longer even allowed, after having been censored quite heavily on overly negative posts. Free thinking on the other hand is a corner stone of the magic community's ability to be creative and interesting. I think Pure supports this. I am glad they do.
Second, I don't think that Blau's article series on Harem decks is particularly appropriate for anyone but teen males but I understand it. It is kind of an adolescent guy thing that has no more to do with oppressing females than you do with oppressing the enslaved peoples of the world with your facetious list. (Thanks for the correct spelling by the way :))
Is it objectionable? Very. Same as a foulmouthed rant or poorly edited article that rambles. It seems to me to be in poor taste but taste is subjective. Does it infringe on anyone's rights? No. The article is labeled clearly for what it is. You did not have to read it or even remark on it. I get that you dislike the idea of it, so do I. Does it harm Pure? I think the content manager knows best here and decided it doesn't.
As for the author, he covered this in previous articles. He really does not see it in the same light we do. He views it as harmless and fun and having nothing to do with sexism or bigotry and imho it is his right to feel that way. He may find people avoid his articles if they don't get them but that is the consequence he has to deal with for being controversial and at least appearing sexist. (Imho while it is objectifying females it would be equally bad if it was an article by a lady on stud farm decks. In fact I remember a certain dark lady commenting something about that the last time this came up.)
I assume you have tested them and decided against them, but I was wondering why you don't run any halimar depths. I assume the reason is that you don't want any more come into play tapped lands. Still, they are quite strong in a deck like this.
I enjoyed this, those all looked like very fun decks, especially the BW one. I regret never getting the chance to play with Noble Hierarch or Knight of the Reliquary in Stnadard, but I'm hoping the price will drop enough to let me play Bant in Extended after October.
Also, I just noticed we both use the same avatar on MTGO. That makes us BFF...F's.
I have mixed emotions about this article. First, I liked it because I don't have access to wizards boards at work due to firewall (for some reason pure isn't a problem). On the other hand I come here to learn information about the game relating to gameplay. When I used to have access to the boards it seemed full of whiney people just looking to put their name in a blog for the sake of getting lots of posts.
So while I am torn, it was something different to read. I doubt I'd read it all the time if this became an ongoing series.
i like the BW deck, Grave Titan seems like at least equally as good if not better than Sun Titan, maybe try out some grave titans over elspeth.
Did you even talk about the solution proposed for the influx of stolen tickets issue? NO! You covered the issue badly, since you failed to mention making 'join date public as opt-in.' That would certainly stop scammers from opening new accounts and dumping tons of tix, since other players could ask to see their join date. People arguing about this made up about 1/3 of that entire thread. You manage to mention join date, but talk about arguments rather than framing the issue itself.
"By the end of the argument, I was arguing that Wizards had given serious marketing thought to the issue of ThNMO's times and number of events."
Wizards is following a copypasta weekly dealie like when Scott Larabie was in charge of the event schedule. Wizards doesn't need 'serious marketing thought' with regards to magic online. The game sells itself. Look at the state of the program. Look at the frequency of major updates. Lost's point was that they could slap any old event schedule up and still events would fire, so therefore, why not schedule more events which are classic/legacy, which wizards isn't supporting well?
I didn't like this article because you are putting up your opinions as factual statements. While you love doing this in the forums, an article is a more legit place of sharing information, so I'll call you on some obvious BS.
Do you know everyone in MTGO has marketing training? NO! You don't work for wizards. Also, they have a tendency of promoting customer support staff into bigger roles after 6 months or so, and those people have never impressed me with their competence. If marketing training was required, I think they could post a release event schedule that didn't need a public edit. They have not managed this for over a year.
Do you know fewer tournaments bring more success? NO! You don't have wizard's profit numbers. (I'd argue their servers can't handle more events then they current run, which is the real bottleneck. Otherwise maybe we'd have more 64 man premier drafts during releases.)
Do you know the dev team is looking to implement splitting again? NO! We had it, but they took it away. They can't even give the community a good standardized procedure to split at our own risk, without risking a 30 day ban for collusion.
If you are going to write a useful round-up article, cover all the information, don't sculpt your own strong opinions and selective facts into an editorial and present it as an unbiased summary.
Another solid article. I agree with the TP thing. I have made mention to it before in some of my articles. It even bothers me more when people write articles here using test results from the TP room.
@ Paul, he was clearly being sarcastic. Stop trolling!
I don't know what's sadder: the format or the people complaining about it...
C'mon, if you're coming up with a new format, at least create something inventive. Harem format might (emphasis on *might*) be fun as a one-off deck-building exercise but no more than that - it's no different from such crowd-pleasing formats as "cards that contain letter 'z'"/"cards with prime collection numbers"/"cards with art containing a knife".
And feeling offended about the use of a word that simply tries to pass the "lots of women" factor... What next? Complaining about the "White Knight" (left wing fascist), "Torture" (endorsing the use of turture) or "Maniac Vandal" (anarchists destroying valuable objects)?
Thanks, I appreciate the recap very much!!
I am in an office working all day where the official wizards site is blocked but puremtgo is not, so i can catchup on my magic related readings during the day and just go home and game in the evenings. I prefer the recaps much more than goto this link and read this, since the links are usually blocked for me.
I don't think I'm in the minority here so keep writing these, you definitely have a reader base out there!
I just realized this deck is going to be hit pretty hard with the rotation, losing brunwillows/fire combo, harmonize, search for tomorrow and goyf. any ideas where this deck is headed without those cards?
I like this article! So, as an American, I feel the need to throw around my 2-ton opinion, and eat Wendy's burger, and @#$% up my taxes... Anyway, I do have some opinions on the matters, and just so as to confuse the majority of the MTGO community, I'll probably end up using a good bit of MMO jargon. In the TP room I type "LF3m Standard Daily - Plz Have Deck and link Achiev." Not a single chuckle, /sigh
Prize Splitting "Clarification"
I don't really like this, but to be honest, I'm not a fan of MTGO costumer support either. I wanted a name change, and I tried everything, talked to everyone I could, even offered to pay them the $10 new account fee. They wouldn't go for it. So I asked, if I open a new account, could they delete the Planeswalkers Gold Bordered cards forced onto the account? They said no, of course. "Why can't you delete an entry off my account? I'm consenting to it, in writing!" "We just can't"... Fine. I opened my account in 2004 when you got a $10 gift card and nothing else. I'm a little CDO (It's like OCD, only alphabetical, THE WAY IT SHOULD BE!) so having those damn, non-tradeable, non-usable crap cards on my account would drive me nuts!
How does this relate? I think the whole dancing around the logistics deal is stupid, and it's almost like they're trying to trap people into losing their support. In WoW players can a GDKP raid. This is completely of the players' design and not endorsed or supported by Blizzard in any way. It does, however, involve the trade of large amounts of in-game currency. How can you feel safe doing this? Because Blizzard's support is good enough that they state "So long as the intent of the activity is clearly stated IN TEXT before the event, we can and will moderate it.". Perhaps I'm just missing the reason as to why WotC can't support consensual concession.
Stolen Ticket:
See above. Of course, here I may be missing the point a little. If WotC isn't "fixing" the rip-offs that's one thing, if this is just a way to prevent them that's another. I've always thought ratings should just be optionally shown, if only to allow people to stroke their e-peens. As for account creation dates, I can't agree with that if only for how many special circumstances there'd be.
TNMO == FMNO:
I agree 110% with the author here. How many times do you go to an FNM where there's not a handful of people playing tier 1 decks? Some people just have more fun playing those decks and they have no obligation to sacrifice said fun to "promote" a casual environment. At the first TNMO I played your standard UW Control, JMS and all, while my buddy brought his Mono Green kinda-elf budget deck. I went 2-1 while he went 3-0. I think that alone shows the event was a success.
I think I've rambled enough for today, hope you enjoyed my second article for the week lol.
Correct. If I could run them I would, as I like them very much. However I already have 8 lands that WILL come into play tapped, 4 that might, and 4 colorless lands. I think running the Depths would disrupt the mana a bit too much.
I was looking to make an article like this this week, but I think I will go in another direction now. I don't have any Elseth's which hurt, but since they will be rotating shortly I will pick them up later. I have many similar decks running a single or double Sun Titan and they are extremely effective card advantage engines. Bringing back tectonic edge over and over is just plain mean too.
The B/W Deck looks wonderfull, i would probably add Abyssal persecutor (Wich i think is very underplayed, its a card you really don't want to see on the other side of the table), i'd prefer Malakir bloodwich against control than the blac knight, i know its cheaper, and a posible target for sun titan but it doesn't stop a baneslayer angel like a Bloodwich does (Most times they'll just stare at each other), and finaly i'd prefer celestial purge over devout lightcaster in side, its a lot stronger against jund and RDW, and easier to cast in a 2 color deck
The R/W looks cool too, i'd use exploration map instead of pilgrim's eye but thats just me
Great article by the way =) keep it up
I love this deck, I am looking at possibly swapping the tarmogoyfs for something that either regenerates or has 3 toughness. One card I am eager to try is llanowar sentinal. flipping that bad boy off of a bloodbraid elf and then getting a 3rd creature for another 2 mana is amazing. It also survives the fallout, which is important.
As if I didn't get enough of MTG:O Gen on the Wiz site ....
I lost to dredge yesterday ahah.
I love that G/W control deck. Very nice indeed though i personally would try to find a spot for Momentous fall in that deck for the card advantage and the heal. Imagine blocking a Vengevine with a brindle boar, gaining 4 life then using momentous on the boar, gaining another 2 life then drawing two cards, could b very usefull.
Really? Sounds counter-intuitive to me. I've never tried those cards against it, will have to check it out. That means Emrakul's nowhere near as good as I'd thought...
Emrakul says colored spells. Executioner's is not a spell but a permanent. Also effective: Oblivion Ring, Journey to Nowhere, etc.
Nice article LE, I really want some copies of Sun Titan now. Whilst I've never tried it, I'm pretty sure Executioner's Capsule doesn't get rid of Emrakul. The only non-sweeper to do that (as far as I know) is Brittle Effigy.
I watched AJ's final game which included Silvos Der Benny (Who won the whole game), Arthur(forget the rest of the name) and ColtonPower. It was very much anyone's game with each player showing real potential to just end the game. AJ's LD was instrumental in shutting down Art's monored goblin machine. Silvos' play of Keeper of Progenitus brought Art back into play but by then AJ's deck totalled him and Colton's tokens cleaned it up. Little did the two other survivors realize Silvos was plotting their downfall with a collective unconscious fueled creature drive involving the land stealer druid and lots of untap everything effects. Great game imho.
By the way I don't think the button for splitting not being included in v3 had anything to do with program-ability. I think they simply didn't like people splitting prizes in the finals and decided to make it a gray area with penalties.
Grats again Erik on your TNMO success.
Thanks for the comments.
ChardOne, I played a lot more games with the deck than I wrote about here. Some of the best were after I'd submitted the article - I wished I could've added them retrospectively. Anyway Tutelage is a lot better than Sign in a low cc deck. Sign nets you +1 card advantage in total. In games where I drew it early, Tutelage won for me. You can't say that so often for Sign.
In the games described above, I didn't see Tutelage often, but even where I did it was at worst equal to Sign. I'll bring Tutelage up to a full playset next time I amend the list.
lenney, nice idea, but I don't like Elixir of Immortality, it doesn't do enough. Perhaps as a sideboard card against mill.
Hornedfish, many thanks, and you're totally right about Brittle Effigy - I didn't know the card well before testing this deck, but now I love it. I won a game against Eldrazi ramp off the back of it, it's one of the few cards that can deal with Emrakul. I considered Sigil, but couldn't see what to remove. I don't want too much equipment given my creature count, and the Collar definitely takes first slot. But yes, I can see the benefit of sticking it on a Nighthawk.
Made it to the playoff for third, anyway. An old friend took the bronze.
Excellent recaps and While I don't necessarily agree with your views I respect your courage in putting them out there. Hopefully this won't be too bloody. :)
Two things here. I don't mean to imply that this site is all about free speech. Obviously it isn't, as anonymous posters are no longer even allowed, after having been censored quite heavily on overly negative posts. Free thinking on the other hand is a corner stone of the magic community's ability to be creative and interesting. I think Pure supports this. I am glad they do.
Second, I don't think that Blau's article series on Harem decks is particularly appropriate for anyone but teen males but I understand it. It is kind of an adolescent guy thing that has no more to do with oppressing females than you do with oppressing the enslaved peoples of the world with your facetious list. (Thanks for the correct spelling by the way :))
Is it objectionable? Very. Same as a foulmouthed rant or poorly edited article that rambles. It seems to me to be in poor taste but taste is subjective. Does it infringe on anyone's rights? No. The article is labeled clearly for what it is. You did not have to read it or even remark on it. I get that you dislike the idea of it, so do I. Does it harm Pure? I think the content manager knows best here and decided it doesn't.
As for the author, he covered this in previous articles. He really does not see it in the same light we do. He views it as harmless and fun and having nothing to do with sexism or bigotry and imho it is his right to feel that way. He may find people avoid his articles if they don't get them but that is the consequence he has to deal with for being controversial and at least appearing sexist. (Imho while it is objectifying females it would be equally bad if it was an article by a lady on stud farm decks. In fact I remember a certain dark lady commenting something about that the last time this came up.)
I assume you have tested them and decided against them, but I was wondering why you don't run any halimar depths. I assume the reason is that you don't want any more come into play tapped lands. Still, they are quite strong in a deck like this.