Sorry about that I usually pick up on any mistakes in prices, it's not easy going through all the cards in this many sets in a day. I tend to want to remove my eyes afterwards.
This is a problem for me as I go by MTGOTraders for prices and they have them for 4.35 which I expect is due to to the value when purchased from the store.
Going by the value in classifieds is not really possible as the prices are so inconsistent due to bots and drafters selling packs at different values.
I just looked and some are buying at 3 and selling at 4 while others are selling at 3.
Your reasons for expanse over borderpost makes a lot of sense. I'll switch out the borderposts for expanses in my build. A death denied could be a nice card against Fae if they think they're safe tapping out on your EOT. The fiend was there for more Storm hate, but it's in such a huge decline these days (a mere 3 last PE).
my advice is to buy oop boosters 3-4 weeks before they are anticipated to run, i bought two gdp for 5 each i think, people are nutso wanting 12-16 for each of them
When I first saw Phylactery Lich, I immediately went in a different direction.
There are two main problems with the Lich, first its indestructibility is useless against much of white's removal and second there is an apparent possibility of card disadvantage.
You can easily get over the card disadvantage problem with Prophetic Prism and Kaleidostone. Prophetic Prism also helps you get BBB and splash another color. I also like the idea of adding blue for Thopter Foundry and Mask of Riddles to work with the cantrip artifacts. Of course, that's just me...
Getting over white's removal is a bit trickier. My current solution is to add Grave Titan and Everflowing Chalice to the deck and hope to have more must remove creatures and mana leaks than my opponent has white spot removal.
Awesome article, I really enjoyed it. Also extremely informative, something that I am always interested in finding, and I am happy I came across it. How often do you post this article?
Meditate, btw, is a rare. Kinda takes away from the surprising factor in its value.
"The card I least expected to see near the top was Steel Overseer"
Don't be so suprised, as you used the price of the Foil version in your survey.
The non-foil version is only at $5.95 (which shows, by the way, that the card may be overestimated, even with the forthcoming - supposed - artifact block).
Saw a person playing a UG poly deck recently. It seemed to be having a rough time of it. Basically it was Turbo Land with Polymorphs. Not being a standard player I couldn't quite tell how suboptimal it was but it seemed to be just housed by his opponent. (who was on Jund afaik)
Fork - the red counterspell. You can also Fork your original spell to get around effects like Counterbalance and "counter target sorcery spell" which can't be turned against themselves. Path, Pulse, any ultimatum, Earthquake, Blightning, and Destructive Force are also awesome to Fork. I mean, all coming from your opponent. But you might want to Fork your own DF sometimes.
Me vs you, the turn order is: C (Catastrophe) E (Lord Erman) C E [C E ...]
When I cast Time Warp it would become: C |C| E [C E ...]
But if you cast Reverberate that that resolves before my original spell. So first we add your addition turn to get C |E| E [...]. Then my extra turn effect resolves: C |C| |E| E [...]. The result is that I still take the next turn, but then you take a double turn.
If you count up the losses in the Stompy column, it comes to 86 which is the number of wins Stompy has in the totals. If you count the number of wins on the Stompy row, it comes to 86. I am pretty sure that you read matchups by rows and then the bottom row is a summary of the performance for the deck of that column.
Stompy should have a 64% win rate over MUC and a losing rate vs. Goblins.
Looking at the graph, what I find really interesting, is the fact that Burn only has less than a 50% win rate against Teachings. It even has a winning record against Pestilence for crying out loud. Just something folks may want to look at. It has a winning record against all the top decks but Goblins, and thats 50/50.
Just looked at the graph again, I think the win/loss record for Burn is incorrect at the bottom. The way it reads, its 22 wins 35 losses. But if you count things up, its the opposite.
I think 22 is the right number of lands. I only have 6 3cc cards in my build, 1 Nantuko Husk 1 Phyrexian Ghoul and 4 Blightning. I really like to get to 3 land though. Once you hit that mark, you can start doing multiple things a turn i.e. playing dudes + removal, removal + Unearth, dude + Unearth, etc., etc. This is crucial against MUC Fae. I tested for a long time with 4 Borderpost 2 Carnarium and the mana just never seemed to work consistently. It was very clunky. I played 4 Expanse 2 Carnarium in the TPDC event and things were a little better but still way too inconsistent. 16 basics + 6 fetches seems to be giving the number of lands I need to play stuff while also giving me enough color fixing. Ill be honest, I never tested fetches + Borderposts. That would help the color fixing a bit. I see 2 problems with that setup though. The first and foremost, is MUC Fae. It would make me want to put my fist through my monitor after I watched my Borderpost get Hydroblasted and be stuck with 1 land in hand. Second, the number of hands youre going to have to mull because you drew multiple Borderposts or all Borderposts.
I like what youve done with the removal suite and sideboard. Having access to 8 bolts (12 with flashback) and 4 Terminates is butter smooth against aggro. Way better than boarding in Martyr, which in a 2 color deck can be inconsistent at best. Hurly-Burly is awesome funny tech against Fae. Im sure its primary purpose is mowing down Empty the Warrens tokens, but its awesome to see it somewhere than my sideboard from Standard a few years ago. Going to update my list to include those changes. Since I run the set of Fiends main, Im thinking a Death Denied might be sweet for the 1 of spot in the board, as another way to punish stoopid Faerie players. ;-)
If I'm reading the situation correctly the Putrid Leech block is really smart, actually. Smarter than I dare say I would make in this situation.
I think you had him on it but just in case the final card in his hand must be Vines of Vastwood.
So, I imagine his line of thinking is somewhere along these lines:
You probably don't have removal because you would have played it already.
If he doesn't block or blocks a Nacatl then next turn he dies to any creature getting through so even if he draws a creature he still dies if you top deck any removal spell and probably dies eventually anyway as he would be in chump block mode.
His damage potential next turn if not blocking is Aura Gnarlid(2) + 2 exalted creatures(2) + Vines(4) = 8 Damage + the card he draws for the turn(?).
With only 3 forest his only out is Sigil Blessing. Another exalted creature pushes through 9 damage.
So instead, he proposes a gambit to you: Either, A) increase his outs by pumping your Leech or, B) don't pump and leave him at 7 life with only 6 on the board giving him an extra turn to draw out of it.
You chose A and put yourself at 8.
In his mind (no removal), by forcing you to take that 2 life you are now dead to Sigil Blessing or any exalted creature.
Valakut has always seemed to be very good as a threat rather than a win con. It makes people want to play their land destruction and removal. I would never put it in a deck expecting to ride a ramp trail to a win with it. Expedition map, fetchlands, various spells all of it is not enough to guarantee the continuous flow of land needed. Which is why cards like Admonition Angel (fun fun fun!!!) also fail.
I'm looking at the results by columns. So if you look at the Stompy column, vs. MUC it has a 36% win ratio, then if you follow it all the way to the bottom it has a 59.29% win ratio overall (excluding mirror). I could be mistaken however. I'll ask middleman to clarify.
YrdBrd, you might be right about the land count. Blightning is the only real 3drop so maybe 20-21 lands is better. The deck may also want 1-2 Husks in the mix as well, not sure on the cannibal/lamb ratio yet. I'm wondering though, any reason for expanses over borderposts in your build?
Ive been working with the Husk list since I played it in TPDC a few weeks ago. My manabase right now is 16 basics + 6 fetches and it has been running much more smoothly than when I had Borderposts and Carnariums in there. With only 6-9 spells costing 3 or more mana, youre on the low end of needing 22 land.
Let me emphasize how painful cutting Spreading Seas is for me. However, as we gravitate towards more blue in the format, and if not then more stable mana bases, as well as having access to Tectonic Edge, Wall of Omens just has a bit more value to it.
This is also from the permission player's (my) standpoint of not wanting to tap out on turn 2 anyway. I would frequently find myself holding on to Wall of Omens and in some cases even Spreading Seas until turn 4 as it was, so, I guess on time and testing will tell.
Sorry about that I usually pick up on any mistakes in prices, it's not easy going through all the cards in this many sets in a day. I tend to want to remove my eyes afterwards.
This is a problem for me as I go by MTGOTraders for prices and they have them for 4.35 which I expect is due to to the value when purchased from the store.
Going by the value in classifieds is not really possible as the prices are so inconsistent due to bots and drafters selling packs at different values.
I just looked and some are buying at 3 and selling at 4 while others are selling at 3.
Thanks for that I dont know where I picked Meditate up as a common.
The article comes out once a month usually around the 25th.
Your reasons for expanse over borderpost makes a lot of sense. I'll switch out the borderposts for expanses in my build. A death denied could be a nice card against Fae if they think they're safe tapping out on your EOT. The fiend was there for more Storm hate, but it's in such a huge decline these days (a mere 3 last PE).
Thanks for the advice!
my advice is to buy oop boosters 3-4 weeks before they are anticipated to run, i bought two gdp for 5 each i think, people are nutso wanting 12-16 for each of them
just saying
When I first saw Phylactery Lich, I immediately went in a different direction.
There are two main problems with the Lich, first its indestructibility is useless against much of white's removal and second there is an apparent possibility of card disadvantage.
You can easily get over the card disadvantage problem with Prophetic Prism and Kaleidostone. Prophetic Prism also helps you get BBB and splash another color. I also like the idea of adding blue for Thopter Foundry and Mask of Riddles to work with the cantrip artifacts. Of course, that's just me...
Getting over white's removal is a bit trickier. My current solution is to add Grave Titan and Everflowing Chalice to the deck and hope to have more must remove creatures and mana leaks than my opponent has white spot removal.
I just noticed that Urza's legacy is listed at 4.35.... Pretty sure they are readily availabe at 2.5 or lower.
I asked Brian E about his decklist, he only played it because it was all foil...so my guess is that he doesn't have a foil Exclude :)
Awesome article, I really enjoyed it. Also extremely informative, something that I am always interested in finding, and I am happy I came across it. How often do you post this article?
Meditate, btw, is a rare. Kinda takes away from the surprising factor in its value.
"The card I least expected to see near the top was Steel Overseer"
Don't be so suprised, as you used the price of the Foil version in your survey.
The non-foil version is only at $5.95 (which shows, by the way, that the card may be overestimated, even with the forthcoming - supposed - artifact block).
Saw a person playing a UG poly deck recently. It seemed to be having a rough time of it. Basically it was Turbo Land with Polymorphs. Not being a standard player I couldn't quite tell how suboptimal it was but it seemed to be just housed by his opponent. (who was on Jund afaik)
Ah, okay thanks. I guess I can never be a judge. Thankfully we have Magic Online and we don't have such rules problems there.
LE
Nice analysis.
Fork - the red counterspell. You can also Fork your original spell to get around effects like Counterbalance and "counter target sorcery spell" which can't be turned against themselves. Path, Pulse, any ultimatum, Earthquake, Blightning, and Destructive Force are also awesome to Fork. I mean, all coming from your opponent. But you might want to Fork your own DF sometimes.
Me vs you, the turn order is: C (Catastrophe) E (Lord Erman) C E [C E ...]
When I cast Time Warp it would become: C |C| E [C E ...]
But if you cast Reverberate that that resolves before my original spell. So first we add your addition turn to get C |E| E [...]. Then my extra turn effect resolves: C |C| |E| E [...]. The result is that I still take the next turn, but then you take a double turn.
Talking of prices and availability.. anyone else noticed that you can't buy a guildpact booster for love nor money?
Another good episode, peeps.
If you count up the losses in the Stompy column, it comes to 86 which is the number of wins Stompy has in the totals. If you count the number of wins on the Stompy row, it comes to 86. I am pretty sure that you read matchups by rows and then the bottom row is a summary of the performance for the deck of that column.
Stompy should have a 64% win rate over MUC and a losing rate vs. Goblins.
Looking at the graph, what I find really interesting, is the fact that Burn only has less than a 50% win rate against Teachings. It even has a winning record against Pestilence for crying out loud. Just something folks may want to look at. It has a winning record against all the top decks but Goblins, and thats 50/50.
Just looked at the graph again, I think the win/loss record for Burn is incorrect at the bottom. The way it reads, its 22 wins 35 losses. But if you count things up, its the opposite.
I think 22 is the right number of lands. I only have 6 3cc cards in my build, 1 Nantuko Husk 1 Phyrexian Ghoul and 4 Blightning. I really like to get to 3 land though. Once you hit that mark, you can start doing multiple things a turn i.e. playing dudes + removal, removal + Unearth, dude + Unearth, etc., etc. This is crucial against MUC Fae. I tested for a long time with 4 Borderpost 2 Carnarium and the mana just never seemed to work consistently. It was very clunky. I played 4 Expanse 2 Carnarium in the TPDC event and things were a little better but still way too inconsistent. 16 basics + 6 fetches seems to be giving the number of lands I need to play stuff while also giving me enough color fixing. Ill be honest, I never tested fetches + Borderposts. That would help the color fixing a bit. I see 2 problems with that setup though. The first and foremost, is MUC Fae. It would make me want to put my fist through my monitor after I watched my Borderpost get Hydroblasted and be stuck with 1 land in hand. Second, the number of hands youre going to have to mull because you drew multiple Borderposts or all Borderposts.
I like what youve done with the removal suite and sideboard. Having access to 8 bolts (12 with flashback) and 4 Terminates is butter smooth against aggro. Way better than boarding in Martyr, which in a 2 color deck can be inconsistent at best. Hurly-Burly is awesome funny tech against Fae. Im sure its primary purpose is mowing down Empty the Warrens tokens, but its awesome to see it somewhere than my sideboard from Standard a few years ago. Going to update my list to include those changes. Since I run the set of Fiends main, Im thinking a Death Denied might be sweet for the 1 of spot in the board, as another way to punish stoopid Faerie players. ;-)
Yeah, and that's how these new ramp decks are using Valakut, which I find very acceptable.
If I'm reading the situation correctly the Putrid Leech block is really smart, actually. Smarter than I dare say I would make in this situation.
I think you had him on it but just in case the final card in his hand must be Vines of Vastwood.
So, I imagine his line of thinking is somewhere along these lines:
You probably don't have removal because you would have played it already.
If he doesn't block or blocks a Nacatl then next turn he dies to any creature getting through so even if he draws a creature he still dies if you top deck any removal spell and probably dies eventually anyway as he would be in chump block mode.
His damage potential next turn if not blocking is Aura Gnarlid(2) + 2 exalted creatures(2) + Vines(4) = 8 Damage + the card he draws for the turn(?).
With only 3 forest his only out is Sigil Blessing. Another exalted creature pushes through 9 damage.
So instead, he proposes a gambit to you: Either, A) increase his outs by pumping your Leech or, B) don't pump and leave him at 7 life with only 6 on the board giving him an extra turn to draw out of it.
You chose A and put yourself at 8.
In his mind (no removal), by forcing you to take that 2 life you are now dead to Sigil Blessing or any exalted creature.
Vines(4) + 3 Exalted triggers(3) + 1/x creature(1) = 8 damage
He draws the exalted creature!
Now as long you don't kill the newly summoned creature pre-combat or have a way to kill 2 creatures he has you dead.
As it turns out you had the exact card you needed. Making Akrasan Squire a dead draw.
However, you still would have been dead to Court Archers, Aven Squire, Qasali Pridemage and Sigil Blessing.
I could be wrong in all this he might not have had the Vines at all but it looks 100% correct.
Valakut has always seemed to be very good as a threat rather than a win con. It makes people want to play their land destruction and removal. I would never put it in a deck expecting to ride a ramp trail to a win with it. Expedition map, fetchlands, various spells all of it is not enough to guarantee the continuous flow of land needed. Which is why cards like Admonition Angel (fun fun fun!!!) also fail.
it's worth noting that as soon as M11 comes out, that list gets a substantial bonus from -2 Firebolt, +2 Act of Treason
I'm looking at the results by columns. So if you look at the Stompy column, vs. MUC it has a 36% win ratio, then if you follow it all the way to the bottom it has a 59.29% win ratio overall (excluding mirror). I could be mistaken however. I'll ask middleman to clarify.
YrdBrd, you might be right about the land count. Blightning is the only real 3drop so maybe 20-21 lands is better. The deck may also want 1-2 Husks in the mix as well, not sure on the cannibal/lamb ratio yet. I'm wondering though, any reason for expanses over borderposts in your build?
Ive been working with the Husk list since I played it in TPDC a few weeks ago. My manabase right now is 16 basics + 6 fetches and it has been running much more smoothly than when I had Borderposts and Carnariums in there. With only 6-9 spells costing 3 or more mana, youre on the low end of needing 22 land.
All good points.
Let me emphasize how painful cutting Spreading Seas is for me. However, as we gravitate towards more blue in the format, and if not then more stable mana bases, as well as having access to Tectonic Edge, Wall of Omens just has a bit more value to it.
This is also from the permission player's (my) standpoint of not wanting to tap out on turn 2 anyway. I would frequently find myself holding on to Wall of Omens and in some cases even Spreading Seas until turn 4 as it was, so, I guess on time and testing will tell.