Very interesting deck. Im not a huge fan of 2hg but seeing decks like this are encouraging especially considering half the time the decks well arent so fun lol. Though I still want to live the dream of magister sphinx into breath just once.
I'm late to chime in, mainly because I feel I said mostly what I had to say about the usefulness of this data back when you did it for Zendikar, but I have to speak up. You are doing more harm than good by banging a "removal is overrated" drum as a conclusion from this data. The latest MTGO newsletter provided the top 10 first picks from 8-4 M11 draft winners:
1. Doom Blade
2. Mind Control
3. Fireball
4. Lightning Bolt
5. Pacifism
6. Serra Angel
7. Air Servant
8. Blinding Mage
9. Obstinate Baloth
10. Conundrum Sphinx
While the bolt and ball fall into your "removal that can go to the face is not overrated" theory, recognize that more people have won 8-4s by first picking Doom Blade than any other card, and you are here telling people that removal is overrated, and that a deck full of it won't get you very far.
I think the reason that removal doesn't score huge % win numbers in your system is that everyone runs all the on-color removal they have, and casts all of it that they draw, win or lose. The player who resolves four removal spells is probably going to beat the player who resolved three, but then those three are going to show up in your loss column, making the 4-3 win-loss rate for removal look marginal. You seem to be concluding, though, that removal is overrated because hey, you don't win some large percentage of games in which you resolve a removal spell.
As I said in the last series, the data is interesting, but interpreting it in an actionable way when it comes to drafting or building a sealed pool is hazy at best, and calling removal "overrated" in Limited is dangerously incorrect advice to be doling out on a Magic strategy website where readers are looking to improve their Limited games. It's the wrong conclusion to be drawing from your data, and Doom Blade sitting in the number one slot for M11 Draft victory reinforces that. If one of your readers passes up a Doom Blade (51.7%) for a Siege Mastodon (57.1%) because of your conclusions here, you've done your community a great disservice.
Wizards has done this top ten for Zendikar and Rise drafting as well, and the top ten is *consistently* packed with the best removal and the most powerful uncommon creatures in the format. Removal is NOT overrated, and it IS a key to victory in every limited format.
I totally agree with your line of thinking, especially what you said in the first paragraph. I too love multi-player and constructing your decks is so much fun! But it needs to be done wisely.
I like your choices of Serra Ascendant (one my favorite cards) as well as Chain reaction (what can be better than that??). Since Im not much of a pro I dont think I would stand a chance against you. But Im learning and articles like this always help...
I would agree with you there, that I stuck to the creature type too much for the Chorus of the Conclave, I have learnt my lesson on that matter, and a couple of the future decks will be using a Guild Legend with a tribe which is better suited to its use. I shall probably do a final article in the Ravnica series going over a group of decks if not in a PRE environment than a casual environment, so I can do reports on decks like the Wolves.
I like the idea of using the phantom critters/spikes or trolls with the Conclave, and I will probably be using that idea in a deck some how.
Yeah it definitely makes a lot of sense from a flavour perspective, red having to blow up its own permanents. I actually wish the Priest was the same to create tension in deck building and playing.
You know I think you got caught up trying too to hard to stick to the Conclave's creature type. I think it would have been perfectly acceptable to try a different creature type and just tried to fit the Conclave's ability instead. Personally, I think I would have preferred Spirits as a type with the phantom critters (phantom tiger, phantom centaur, phantom nantuko, and phantom nomad) and Twilight drover. But you could have tried Elementals (Shinewind, Fertilid, Cytoplast rootkin, Forgotten Ancient among others), or Spikes, or Mutants (with the graft mechanic and the Experiment Kraj - although I admit that probably goes against the spirit of your challenge) or even trolls! (troll asectic, golgari grave troll, sporeback troll all like counters). Hey you could even just go beat down with Elves if you really wanted to, joraga warcaller and Bramblewood Paragon all like +1/+1 counters too. You know with that last one if you could stretch to three colours you could try adding Ion Storm for some direct damage as well. Anyway, I guess when I saw you were doing Selesnya I just hoped you'd do the Conclave rather than Tolsimir. Oh well...
That all said above, your bonus deck list is really interesting. It's novel, uses one of my favourite creature types, and is really flavourful to boot! I really look forward to hearing how it performs when, if?, you use it at the PRE.
Finally, despite my disappointment your article was still good to read. It's much better than your first (though that wasn't bad by any means). Reckon you've come a long way in a short time. Just thought you'd like to know...
They are the default prices that Mtgotraders set for each card based on rarity ($4 for each mythic) before the set was released. No one bought or sold those cards for that price, it's just the default starting point.
I want to know where you found baneslayer angels for $4. OR grave titan for $4 for that matter.
I really never see anything remotely close to that. Are you parsing Ebay prices or something? If there are some available for that price, it can't be too many.
Great deck Mitch, I too agree Momentous fall is a very underrated card and underused, im currently running that card in my lich deck which incorporates vengevine as well..so nothing like using momentous fall when vengys about to get pathed..i save him, draw 4 cards, and gain 4 health 3 birds in one stone. I have a very similar build to yours only im not using white its a B/G with the same mana rampers u got, for creatures im running 4 phylacteral lichs 4 vengevines 2 grave titans and 2 eldrazi conscriptions. maelstrom pulse and momentous are 4 of each, as well as consuming vapors, the only draw back is u need artifacts in there to fuel lich, so basilisk collar and sword of vengeance are definately in. If u wanna better matchup against control u might consider using artifacts such as sword of vengeance it turns any weak creature into a threat that needs to be pathed or Oringed right away not to mention it gaves you haste, trample, first strike, and vigilance. Iv forced people to DOJ a 4/2 fauna shamen like this before while holding on to my bigger creatures in hand. Or since u have abyssal persecutor u might wanna throw in jinxed idol that artifact is great against U/W control.
I have a Red Black 2HG deck that uses Breath that was a lot of fun. I had a zombie creature base mainly so I could support Infectious Horror (each opponent loses 2 life when it attacks). Lightning Reaver is a card I didn't think about that would fit right in.
Serra Ascendant is good, but I think Luminarch Ascension is still the better card. As an enchantment Luminarch is harder to deal with, and if you don't, pretty soon you are facing an army of 4/4 fliers. As a creature there are still many turn 2-3 ways to deal with the Ascendant, Doom Blade, Terminate, Journey to Nowhere, Oblivion Ring, Path to Exile. But notice most of those cards are white. Combine that with Day of Judgment and white has become the 2HG power color.
I've noticed the trend of better and better 2HG decks in the casual room too. It used to be that you could do okay if you had a wacky deck and a decent partner. Not anymore. The decks are a lot more competitive.
Both of the green cards that Keldon Vandal was based on have the same nonoptional wording in their text box. Since white is known to use enchantments, WHILE hating on them, the ability is optional. Green/Red + artifacts...not so much.
I don't know what I'm missing, but I don't understand why you conceded M2G1. I don't know what I'm not seeing. I admire your guts in going for the Mill deck though. At 30 card decks it does make more sense.
The price tables are ... well, those are two-weeks-ago prices, aren't they? And two weeks ago prices didn't really exist for M11 because it wasn't trading yet. So the result is that... well, we've been over that before. So rather than harp I'll just add the disclaimer for newer readers that Primeval Titan was in fact not being sold for 4 tickets last week, you didn't miss anything.
Is it worrying that four of the 12 super rare cards were in my starting card pool? (I had the Ulamog, Kargan Dragonlord, Vengevine, and the Grim Monolith, as well as a Beast of Burden - stupidly good starting pool):)
I have very little time to play these days. I'm only on for a short time in the evening and the weekends if the missus allows. So I've obviously found it a little difficult to get games. Despite this though, with 32 players I still managed to complete most of the games I was supposed to. And the Sunday catch-up rule is really useful for this too. I got through 12 games in the last week. Everyone is really friendly and even when losing it's a pleasure to play.
Flippers, the game you took from me was epic. I believe you were my first match too, so it was a great sign of things to come. Despite playing nearly all my bombs, of which I had more than my fair share as I've mentioned already, you played both battle mages that kept my huge creatures locked down, large devour creatures on defense that I couldn't punch through with what I had left, the standard bearer so I couldn't actually remove any of them (now that's an exercise in frustration, knowing you have the removal but being unable to use it!), and finally when I thought I'd managed to get enough board position to take you out in one go, you killed me with Captain's Maneuver, which incidentally is a card I've never seen! It was trully awesome!
I have loved every minute of this league and I'm really looking forward to the next. The only question I have is will there be anyone that doesn't start with 5 M11 packs? I know I'm going to :)
War Priest of Thune reads
"When War Priest of Thune enters the battlefield, you may destroy target enchantment."
I encourage you to make sure you know exactly what the cards in the pack actually do before dismissing them as "not maindeckable in any deck with enchantments."
Very interesting deck. Im not a huge fan of 2hg but seeing decks like this are encouraging especially considering half the time the decks well arent so fun lol. Though I still want to live the dream of magister sphinx into breath just once.
Great look on the presentation of your article. That's what I like seeing, perhaps embed video from your matches. Thanks!
I might try a BG version and I like the idea of equipment. I never thought of Jinxed idol and abyssal like that, could work well with ol' vengy too.
I'm late to chime in, mainly because I feel I said mostly what I had to say about the usefulness of this data back when you did it for Zendikar, but I have to speak up. You are doing more harm than good by banging a "removal is overrated" drum as a conclusion from this data. The latest MTGO newsletter provided the top 10 first picks from 8-4 M11 draft winners:
1. Doom Blade
2. Mind Control
3. Fireball
4. Lightning Bolt
5. Pacifism
6. Serra Angel
7. Air Servant
8. Blinding Mage
9. Obstinate Baloth
10. Conundrum Sphinx
While the bolt and ball fall into your "removal that can go to the face is not overrated" theory, recognize that more people have won 8-4s by first picking Doom Blade than any other card, and you are here telling people that removal is overrated, and that a deck full of it won't get you very far.
I think the reason that removal doesn't score huge % win numbers in your system is that everyone runs all the on-color removal they have, and casts all of it that they draw, win or lose. The player who resolves four removal spells is probably going to beat the player who resolved three, but then those three are going to show up in your loss column, making the 4-3 win-loss rate for removal look marginal. You seem to be concluding, though, that removal is overrated because hey, you don't win some large percentage of games in which you resolve a removal spell.
As I said in the last series, the data is interesting, but interpreting it in an actionable way when it comes to drafting or building a sealed pool is hazy at best, and calling removal "overrated" in Limited is dangerously incorrect advice to be doling out on a Magic strategy website where readers are looking to improve their Limited games. It's the wrong conclusion to be drawing from your data, and Doom Blade sitting in the number one slot for M11 Draft victory reinforces that. If one of your readers passes up a Doom Blade (51.7%) for a Siege Mastodon (57.1%) because of your conclusions here, you've done your community a great disservice.
Wizards has done this top ten for Zendikar and Rise drafting as well, and the top ten is *consistently* packed with the best removal and the most powerful uncommon creatures in the format. Removal is NOT overrated, and it IS a key to victory in every limited format.
I totally agree with your line of thinking, especially what you said in the first paragraph. I too love multi-player and constructing your decks is so much fun! But it needs to be done wisely.
I like your choices of Serra Ascendant (one my favorite cards) as well as Chain reaction (what can be better than that??). Since Im not much of a pro I dont think I would stand a chance against you. But Im learning and articles like this always help...
After the initial article/announcement I totally forgot about this. I am sure it was fun and grats to EN and co for winning it.
I would agree with you there, that I stuck to the creature type too much for the Chorus of the Conclave, I have learnt my lesson on that matter, and a couple of the future decks will be using a Guild Legend with a tribe which is better suited to its use. I shall probably do a final article in the Ravnica series going over a group of decks if not in a PRE environment than a casual environment, so I can do reports on decks like the Wolves.
I like the idea of using the phantom critters/spikes or trolls with the Conclave, and I will probably be using that idea in a deck some how.
Thanks for the Support
So wait.. he offered you 7 packs or 5? And did you watch any of his replays? What was he playin?
Yeah it definitely makes a lot of sense from a flavour perspective, red having to blow up its own permanents. I actually wish the Priest was the same to create tension in deck building and playing.
You know I think you got caught up trying too to hard to stick to the Conclave's creature type. I think it would have been perfectly acceptable to try a different creature type and just tried to fit the Conclave's ability instead. Personally, I think I would have preferred Spirits as a type with the phantom critters (phantom tiger, phantom centaur, phantom nantuko, and phantom nomad) and Twilight drover. But you could have tried Elementals (Shinewind, Fertilid, Cytoplast rootkin, Forgotten Ancient among others), or Spikes, or Mutants (with the graft mechanic and the Experiment Kraj - although I admit that probably goes against the spirit of your challenge) or even trolls! (troll asectic, golgari grave troll, sporeback troll all like counters). Hey you could even just go beat down with Elves if you really wanted to, joraga warcaller and Bramblewood Paragon all like +1/+1 counters too. You know with that last one if you could stretch to three colours you could try adding Ion Storm for some direct damage as well. Anyway, I guess when I saw you were doing Selesnya I just hoped you'd do the Conclave rather than Tolsimir. Oh well...
That all said above, your bonus deck list is really interesting. It's novel, uses one of my favourite creature types, and is really flavourful to boot! I really look forward to hearing how it performs when, if?, you use it at the PRE.
Finally, despite my disappointment your article was still good to read. It's much better than your first (though that wasn't bad by any means). Reckon you've come a long way in a short time. Just thought you'd like to know...
Total of 8 teams and 16 players.
Not quite as much as I would have liked, but for our first PRE I think it wasn't too bad.
They are the default prices that Mtgotraders set for each card based on rarity ($4 for each mythic) before the set was released. No one bought or sold those cards for that price, it's just the default starting point.
I want to know where you found baneslayer angels for $4. OR grave titan for $4 for that matter.
I really never see anything remotely close to that. Are you parsing Ebay prices or something? If there are some available for that price, it can't be too many.
Great deck Mitch, I too agree Momentous fall is a very underrated card and underused, im currently running that card in my lich deck which incorporates vengevine as well..so nothing like using momentous fall when vengys about to get pathed..i save him, draw 4 cards, and gain 4 health 3 birds in one stone. I have a very similar build to yours only im not using white its a B/G with the same mana rampers u got, for creatures im running 4 phylacteral lichs 4 vengevines 2 grave titans and 2 eldrazi conscriptions. maelstrom pulse and momentous are 4 of each, as well as consuming vapors, the only draw back is u need artifacts in there to fuel lich, so basilisk collar and sword of vengeance are definately in. If u wanna better matchup against control u might consider using artifacts such as sword of vengeance it turns any weak creature into a threat that needs to be pathed or Oringed right away not to mention it gaves you haste, trample, first strike, and vigilance. Iv forced people to DOJ a 4/2 fauna shamen like this before while holding on to my bigger creatures in hand. Or since u have abyssal persecutor u might wanna throw in jinxed idol that artifact is great against U/W control.
I have a Red Black 2HG deck that uses Breath that was a lot of fun. I had a zombie creature base mainly so I could support Infectious Horror (each opponent loses 2 life when it attacks). Lightning Reaver is a card I didn't think about that would fit right in.
Serra Ascendant is good, but I think Luminarch Ascension is still the better card. As an enchantment Luminarch is harder to deal with, and if you don't, pretty soon you are facing an army of 4/4 fliers. As a creature there are still many turn 2-3 ways to deal with the Ascendant, Doom Blade, Terminate, Journey to Nowhere, Oblivion Ring, Path to Exile. But notice most of those cards are white. Combine that with Day of Judgment and white has become the 2HG power color.
I've noticed the trend of better and better 2HG decks in the casual room too. It used to be that you could do okay if you had a wacky deck and a decent partner. Not anymore. The decks are a lot more competitive.
I'm interested to know
It's a shame you didn't post your card pool, it would have been nice to see what other choices you had.
Both of the green cards that Keldon Vandal was based on have the same nonoptional wording in their text box. Since white is known to use enchantments, WHILE hating on them, the ability is optional. Green/Red + artifacts...not so much.
I will apologise in advance for all the errors in the article *face palm*. Error checking at half ten at night is not recommend :(.
I don't know what I'm missing, but I don't understand why you conceded M2G1. I don't know what I'm not seeing. I admire your guts in going for the Mill deck though. At 30 card decks it does make more sense.
The price tables are ... well, those are two-weeks-ago prices, aren't they? And two weeks ago prices didn't really exist for M11 because it wasn't trading yet. So the result is that... well, we've been over that before. So rather than harp I'll just add the disclaimer for newer readers that Primeval Titan was in fact not being sold for 4 tickets last week, you didn't miss anything.
In fact it's quite awkward that the War Priest is optional and the Vandal is not. Flavor and blablabla but it's confusing...
Anyway, when you decide a strategy and take the right cards for it, any color is a good color. Good job.
Is it worrying that four of the 12 super rare cards were in my starting card pool? (I had the Ulamog, Kargan Dragonlord, Vengevine, and the Grim Monolith, as well as a Beast of Burden - stupidly good starting pool):)
I have very little time to play these days. I'm only on for a short time in the evening and the weekends if the missus allows. So I've obviously found it a little difficult to get games. Despite this though, with 32 players I still managed to complete most of the games I was supposed to. And the Sunday catch-up rule is really useful for this too. I got through 12 games in the last week. Everyone is really friendly and even when losing it's a pleasure to play.
Flippers, the game you took from me was epic. I believe you were my first match too, so it was a great sign of things to come. Despite playing nearly all my bombs, of which I had more than my fair share as I've mentioned already, you played both battle mages that kept my huge creatures locked down, large devour creatures on defense that I couldn't punch through with what I had left, the standard bearer so I couldn't actually remove any of them (now that's an exercise in frustration, knowing you have the removal but being unable to use it!), and finally when I thought I'd managed to get enough board position to take you out in one go, you killed me with Captain's Maneuver, which incidentally is a card I've never seen! It was trully awesome!
I have loved every minute of this league and I'm really looking forward to the next. The only question I have is will there be anyone that doesn't start with 5 M11 packs? I know I'm going to :)
Cheers for running this. It's great!
Oh wow my bad, I must have had it confused with Manic Vandal. Thanks a lot for pointing that out!
4 pack sealed might be the best choice for TNMO. That said I still probably won't be joining any time soon.
War Priest of Thune reads
"When War Priest of Thune enters the battlefield, you may destroy target enchantment."
I encourage you to make sure you know exactly what the cards in the pack actually do before dismissing them as "not maindeckable in any deck with enchantments."