I label isaiascantub's deck as MBCu because it's focusing much more on black than blue. It's not just Tendrils, but also Crypt Rats and even Chittering that pushes the focus to black. Blue is just a splash.
I lump hippi_imbiziL's list as MBCu because it's a little more slanted to black than blue. It's really UB because there's a more even focus on both colors, but eventually you need to draw the line on how many categories you want there to be. I think there's way too many categories already so I simplify a bit in order to make the information more manageable to viewers.
Sweet bluff. Sadly the blue in my sealed pools wasn't good enough at either the Pre or the Release.
Air Servant seems somewhat similar to Zendikar's Merfolk Seastalkers - it has evasion and ties up multiple of their guys so yours can bash through, the difference being Air Servant beats a lot harder but can't deal with fat/removal quite as well.
Comparing Gaea's Revenge and Stormtide, can we say 7 mana is the upper maximum of high pickability in this format?
Any interesting stories from the event in which you went "undefeated"? I can't be the only one who experienced Crystal Ball + Diminish + Skies mirror hell...
Yea it is hard at times to get him to stick. I always run Lightning grieves along side of him in the decks I play him. Usually some combo with Gaea's Blessing and Mesmeric Orb with a lot of recursion to keep him comming back.
Good article. I use to play a deck with Wild Ricochet, what a fun card. In the same deck I also played Mirari, its not in your list but made for some times. One of my favorite ricochet moments is when I had two in hand and my opponent played 2 Beacon of Immortality on seperate turns and they both got the Wild Ricochet.
Paul, if they're among your favourites, that means they're your pets!
Lythand, thanks for the rating, I wished I could think of a better limerick. Vulturous Zombie nearly made it to pet status, but back in the day I could never get the darn thing to stick however much I tried. The Mummy was a removal magnet too (and what beautiful removal we had in those days - Putrefy and Mortify. Hmmm, maybe I have more pets than I realised...), but somehow I did at least occasionally manage to get him active. I don't recall one occasion when the flying Zombie lived for an entire turn.
So one thing I always have trouble with is reasonably categorizing decks into archetypes in my Pauper Recap.
Of course, we have slightly different archtypes between our two articles, but I was very curious as to why you identified both isaiascantub and hippi_imbiziL as MBCu? I would describe both of these as UB Control, but your archtypes are MBCu and Teachings. I can easily see isaiascantub as MBCu, mainly because he maximizes Swamps for Tendrils of Corruption even if 11 of 36 spells requiring blue mana seems more than a splash. hippi_imbiziL, however, seems a much more even split between blue and black spells and even runs two copies of Mystical Teachings.
Just curious - I only noticed it because I have been crunching numbers from middleman's table trying to break down some stuff for my Recap.
I recall Hinder seeing a fair amount of play as well. You what you can with the cardpool available. I also completely agree with permission in casual. I LOVE playing it in competitive settings, but I'd never pull it out for a casual game... that's what I have my budget Naya deck for XD
I completely agree about the cancels. I've always felt (as a non tourney player) that Cancel was unfairly treated. It can be enormous against a huge variety of threats and it is at least on par with Deprive. (Costs 3 mana but it doesn't bounce a land to cast.) I think people were SO spoiled with Counterspell and even then there were detractors of that fine spell main deck. They see a higher cost spell that does the same thing and think "scrub card". The fact of the matter is most of the time you aren't going to want to counter their turn 2 play anyway (assuming you are on the play). Well that's how I see it. Unfortunately permission is so frowned upon in casual play that I wouldn't even consider bringing anything like true control there. I want to enjoy my matches not be abused for "Net Decking" etc.
Yeah, so strong in fact I think about 75% of my games have been the mirror XD I think our styles are different enough our articles will be able to coexist though. Supplementing rather than competing... /grouphug
Thanks a lot! I stopped doing live recordings after YouTube implemented the 10 minute video length limit. I can't realistically finish a control match with a clear head in <10 minutes, and I hate having to split videos. I also don't like it when commentary breaks the pace of the video too much either, though I am considering slowing it down a tad. It looks better ascetically, and it can give me the opportunity to smoothly implement commentary without having to pause too often.
Videos are awesome. I like them just the way they are - as long as you comment on any key decisions or misplays in the writeup. The speed of a replay is actually pretty nice compared to recording live with commentary. I think I watched your whole daily event in less time than the first round actually took, which is pretty sweet.
If you do go for commentary, I think live is better than replay. It keeps the explanations short and sweet. I've seen some videos with commentary over replay where they pause the replay and talk about something for like five minutes. While that's nice occasionally for really complex decisions, it can also be a real snoozer. If you write it, then people just skip the detailed analysis if they want to.
Uh oh :P I'll warn you I have another UW article coming up for next week, as an analysis on the post M11 changes to permission control. UW Titan Permission has since gotten me 2.5 4-0's since Friday o.O The 2.5 is because I ran UW control in the M11 sealed, so I'm counting it lol.
Nice article! I am actually about halfway done with writing up my take on U/W control so I was a little disheartened to see yours, but mine is different enough that I feel it still has a place. Besides it is a fun deck to play!
Wow that is pretty awesome. Reminds me of two of my favorite psych outs... Andy Wulf dead on the board playing white weenie rubs his two cards together and says "scars of the veteran is sooo good" and his opponent scoops. Scars of the veteran is not good in constructed and wasn't in his deck :) And one of my favorites because it involves me... I was playing rochester draft so everyone knows every single card in your deck... I built my deck next to my friend and the whole time I'm telling him... "man this deck would be perfect if I had a remedy" well we get to the finals and he has gallowbraid or one of the other upkeep guys... all my critters are tapped and I and am at 2 life or something. he just needs to attack and I die... but he would die on the counterattack.. I jsut start singing the remedy and he spends like 5 minutes deciding whether to attack or not.. he fails to call my bluff and keeps his dude back. then he can't pay the upkeep and I live. Yeah for bluffing! :)
I label isaiascantub's deck as MBCu because it's focusing much more on black than blue. It's not just Tendrils, but also Crypt Rats and even Chittering that pushes the focus to black. Blue is just a splash.
I lump hippi_imbiziL's list as MBCu because it's a little more slanted to black than blue. It's really UB because there's a more even focus on both colors, but eventually you need to draw the line on how many categories you want there to be. I think there's way too many categories already so I simplify a bit in order to make the information more manageable to viewers.
Ghastly Demise for Doom Blade could work.
Sweet bluff. Sadly the blue in my sealed pools wasn't good enough at either the Pre or the Release.
Air Servant seems somewhat similar to Zendikar's Merfolk Seastalkers - it has evasion and ties up multiple of their guys so yours can bash through, the difference being Air Servant beats a lot harder but can't deal with fat/removal quite as well.
Comparing Gaea's Revenge and Stormtide, can we say 7 mana is the upper maximum of high pickability in this format?
Any interesting stories from the event in which you went "undefeated"? I can't be the only one who experienced Crystal Ball + Diminish + Skies mirror hell...
Or when you remember actually cracking them out of packs and selling them for more packs? And I mean alot more.
you remember Royal Assassin being more of an "amazingly awesome" card than a "pet" card
and i bet that i could write an even worse limerick.
my pet cards also evolve around card advantage (seems a recurring theme to love)
Fecundity (cards for everyone! My EDH group worship me when i play this card)
Natural Order
Oath of Druids
Future Sight
Wargate
Yea it is hard at times to get him to stick. I always run Lightning grieves along side of him in the decks I play him. Usually some combo with Gaea's Blessing and Mesmeric Orb with a lot of recursion to keep him comming back.
Good article. I use to play a deck with Wild Ricochet, what a fun card. In the same deck I also played Mirari, its not in your list but made for some times. One of my favorite ricochet moments is when I had two in hand and my opponent played 2 Beacon of Immortality on seperate turns and they both got the Wild Ricochet.
Thanks for the comments.
Paul, if they're among your favourites, that means they're your pets!
Lythand, thanks for the rating, I wished I could think of a better limerick. Vulturous Zombie nearly made it to pet status, but back in the day I could never get the darn thing to stick however much I tried. The Mummy was a removal magnet too (and what beautiful removal we had in those days - Putrefy and Mortify. Hmmm, maybe I have more pets than I realised...), but somehow I did at least occasionally manage to get him active. I don't recall one occasion when the flying Zombie lived for an entire turn.
So one thing I always have trouble with is reasonably categorizing decks into archetypes in my Pauper Recap.
Of course, we have slightly different archtypes between our two articles, but I was very curious as to why you identified both isaiascantub and hippi_imbiziL as MBCu? I would describe both of these as UB Control, but your archtypes are MBCu and Teachings. I can easily see isaiascantub as MBCu, mainly because he maximizes Swamps for Tendrils of Corruption even if 11 of 36 spells requiring blue mana seems more than a splash. hippi_imbiziL, however, seems a much more even split between blue and black spells and even runs two copies of Mystical Teachings.
Just curious - I only noticed it because I have been crunching numbers from middleman's table trying to break down some stuff for my Recap.
Keep up the good work.
Five red mana symbols for you for putting Pet and Mummy in the same sentance and then wrighting a rhyme about him.
I have a few pet cards.
Vulturous Zombie
Volrath's Shapeshifter
Ageless Entity
Serra Avatar.
Niiice. Pete pulled a Mike Long.
I recall Hinder seeing a fair amount of play as well. You what you can with the cardpool available. I also completely agree with permission in casual. I LOVE playing it in competitive settings, but I'd never pull it out for a casual game... that's what I have my budget Naya deck for XD
I completely agree about the cancels. I've always felt (as a non tourney player) that Cancel was unfairly treated. It can be enormous against a huge variety of threats and it is at least on par with Deprive. (Costs 3 mana but it doesn't bounce a land to cast.) I think people were SO spoiled with Counterspell and even then there were detractors of that fine spell main deck. They see a higher cost spell that does the same thing and think "scrub card". The fact of the matter is most of the time you aren't going to want to counter their turn 2 play anyway (assuming you are on the play). Well that's how I see it. Unfortunately permission is so frowned upon in casual play that I wouldn't even consider bringing anything like true control there. I want to enjoy my matches not be abused for "Net Decking" etc.
Yeah Oracle and depths interact nicely. All the cards you mentioned are definitely if not pets among my favorites.
Yeah, so strong in fact I think about 75% of my games have been the mirror XD I think our styles are different enough our articles will be able to coexist though. Supplementing rather than competing... /grouphug
That's what I am currently working on as well! It is such a strong deck with some amazing card interactions.
Thanks a lot! I stopped doing live recordings after YouTube implemented the 10 minute video length limit. I can't realistically finish a control match with a clear head in <10 minutes, and I hate having to split videos. I also don't like it when commentary breaks the pace of the video too much either, though I am considering slowing it down a tad. It looks better ascetically, and it can give me the opportunity to smoothly implement commentary without having to pause too often.
Videos are awesome. I like them just the way they are - as long as you comment on any key decisions or misplays in the writeup. The speed of a replay is actually pretty nice compared to recording live with commentary. I think I watched your whole daily event in less time than the first round actually took, which is pretty sweet.
If you do go for commentary, I think live is better than replay. It keeps the explanations short and sweet. I've seen some videos with commentary over replay where they pause the replay and talk about something for like five minutes. While that's nice occasionally for really complex decisions, it can also be a real snoozer. If you write it, then people just skip the detailed analysis if they want to.
Rock on.
I like to get my articles off to a good start, particularly in the grammar department.
i remember doing that with cursed scroll, end of turn 1 card in hand, activate scroll, naming fireblast.
opponent scoops
"It's like a never learn." lol
Uh oh :P I'll warn you I have another UW article coming up for next week, as an analysis on the post M11 changes to permission control. UW Titan Permission has since gotten me 2.5 4-0's since Friday o.O The 2.5 is because I ran UW control in the M11 sealed, so I'm counting it lol.
Nice article! I am actually about halfway done with writing up my take on U/W control so I was a little disheartened to see yours, but mine is different enough that I feel it still has a place. Besides it is a fun deck to play!
Congratulations on the 3-1!
What Drbenwayy said. Interesting article as always and I enjoy the vidoes - comments or music would be appreciated.
Wow that is pretty awesome. Reminds me of two of my favorite psych outs... Andy Wulf dead on the board playing white weenie rubs his two cards together and says "scars of the veteran is sooo good" and his opponent scoops. Scars of the veteran is not good in constructed and wasn't in his deck :) And one of my favorites because it involves me... I was playing rochester draft so everyone knows every single card in your deck... I built my deck next to my friend and the whole time I'm telling him... "man this deck would be perfect if I had a remedy" well we get to the finals and he has gallowbraid or one of the other upkeep guys... all my critters are tapped and I and am at 2 life or something. he just needs to attack and I die... but he would die on the counterattack.. I jsut start singing the remedy and he spends like 5 minutes deciding whether to attack or not.. he fails to call my bluff and keeps his dude back. then he can't pay the upkeep and I live. Yeah for bluffing! :)