A thing of beauty is a joy forever. Comprehensive and useful, especially to someone new to pauper. Keep crediting the artists, they deserve it. As do you for your painstaking work with this article. Good job.
I hate to be negative. No, let me rephrase that. I hate to be negative over here on puremtgo. It just comes naturally once I plod through the hurdles to get on the community boards.
But anyway, I got the Customer Appreciation Week email and the thing is, I don't even understand how I'm supposed to get excited about any of that. I did get a chuckle out of the August promos, so comedy is worth something I guess. But the CAW just makes me feel "wow, no thank you." And subsequently it's making me think that if this is supposed to be the peak of enjoyment, and I couldn't care less, then maybe I just don't like Magic.
... Maybe I don't. Which is no big deal really. I'm just struck by the irony of Customer Appreciation Week urging me to quit.
If you use both Terramorphic Expanse and Evolving Wilds, but keep the total land count at 24, the percentage of keepable hands by these rules jumps from 59.3 to 64.7. I, however, think for a control deck that needs to accumulate lands in play, that running 8 non-mana producing searchers is unlikely to work out.
Most Blue/Black control decks seem to run some combination of Swamps, Islands, Terramorphics, Dimir Acqueducts, and Esper Panorama. The Panorama is less efficient as a searcher, but its mana production makes it better mid-game (and then it can be used for search on the end of a turn when you have mana open).
Hell's Thunder and Sovereigns of Lost Alara probably should be included in the dropping price section. Both are down ~30% from their $5.00 highs. The decline has been over 2-4 weeks though so maybe that doesn't trigger whatever you have mining the weekly price data. Still, they're pretty key cards in a couple of decks so its worth mentioning.
And I've got to say the August rewards cards BLOW. Hmm, let me spend lots o' cash on M11 product/sealed/drafts so I can get a foil curse of wizardy! That sounds awesome, I haven't 15th picked a play set yet.
I tested 3 Unburden instead of 3 Distress. I want to deny my initial proposal - Distress is better choice because it's turn 2 plug-n-play and it allows you to choose a card (even creature, which is extremely helpful against guys like Guardian of the Guildpact).
Both articles were ready on Thursday afternoon, one got published four days later and one got published the next day. My goal is to have one submitted every Thursday.
I rather dislike clicking extraneous links, which is why I keep the full archetype descriptions in the article, but I can those blurbs being annoying to repeat readers or readers well versed in the Pauper metagame. If I hide the descriptions with a show/hide link, would this alleviate the redundancy?
I like the idea of the art discussion, though I am by no means an expert concerning artistic style or composition.
Funny too, "and a hand with only multiple copies of Terramorphic Expanse is rated as keepable." - this percentage gets BETTER than mono if you add EVOLUTIONARY WILDS bringing fetches to 8 within the vacuum arguement posed...great job.
While providing tournament information is nice, I find myself skipping through most of your article to find the new information.
I think your article is perfectly geared toward the first time reader who might want to get into the varying degrees of tournament pauper, but a significant portion of it seems to be a copy/paste from the prior week.
The issue I want to address occurred to me today, when this article was posted. I thought I had already read your weekly wrap-up for this week. I looked back and saw that your last week’s article was ready for readers for just four days ago. They looked so similar that I thought it may be a waste to read your articles going forward. As an avid reader of pauper articles, I wanted to share my opinion as one of your readers.
Here is a breakdown of this article by number of words (please forgive the formatting):
Description____________Number of Words________Percentage
Article Total________________5278_________________100%
Pauper Explanation__________272___________________5%
Meta Decklists_____________1826__________________35%
Artist Recognition____________266___________________5%
Remaining Balance__________2914__________________55%
By these numbers, 40% of the article (Pauper Explanation and Meta Decklists) is the same every week barring a new deck-type surfacing and updated dates.
Your recognition of artists is a 5% that I, by only assumption, believe is skipped by most readers. I read the article for tournament information and insight, so this section doesn’t appeal to me. It’s just a list.
So, 45% of the article is either something that a returning reader has already seen or has a decent chance to be completely skipped.
--
My suggestions, versus just complaining, would be:
1. Link your most current article to a master article/source for metagame deck descriptions instead of pasting it back in every week. When a next archetype comes forward, bring it up specifically.
2. I understand giving recognition to the artists, especially when you are altering their work. If the banners stay the same, why not talk about a specific choice each week and why you chose it. It would give us something interesting to read and maybe a discussion would arise. I believe there are people who would enjoy that segment.
I give my opinion only to provide constructive criticism as a reader. Take it for what you will.
I just played what i owned and could get for the 3 creds i earned the previous week :), But yes the deck could be made MUCH more lethal.
However i find it odd that once again my deck caused controversy when it even used its tribe but the combo vamps deck that didn't use its tribe got no fanfare at all. (i seem to recall another combo vamps deck recently that got tore into for that)
Also i fail to see how the vamps deck was legal with 18 listed vampires?
And regardless of a player goes 3-0 with a combo deck or not doesn't take away from what it is/can do especially when the top deck for the week was a counter/control deck ,thus of course it would tear apart any combo decks. So once again it's a matter of do we wish to allow such things or not.
All round my collection is increasing over time. My drafts help with increasing the collection and also showing me new cards, I would never think about it.
The incidence of cats being stalked on the internet to date is ...0? So he's probably safe but to be sure you want to photoshop bunny ears on him so they don't know who to look for.
I would suggest if you havn't already, is to invest in dual purpose lands. They will never get old and can be used in virtually every deck. Whether it's a land like Mikokoro, the center sea to help draw cards or some of the more inexpensive dual lands or lands that produce multiple colors. Having a good manabase to build the better decks is key.
I understand what you mean by wanting more spells in a deck. I come from oldschool magic where 20 lands was enough, sometimes too much, and I still have issues with trying to get it in my head that 24 is the new 20.
I suggested keeping O-ring over the Disenchants because they hit multiple targets and not just Enchantments and Artifacts. Reaching out to creatures and planeswalkers as well.
that's deep, but im not sure they could remain competitive
A thing of beauty is a joy forever. Comprehensive and useful, especially to someone new to pauper. Keep crediting the artists, they deserve it. As do you for your painstaking work with this article. Good job.
ooooh, it being modal hadn't occurred to me--thx for the clarification!
By those rules, yes, but in playing no. Super smooth
I hate to be negative. No, let me rephrase that. I hate to be negative over here on puremtgo. It just comes naturally once I plod through the hurdles to get on the community boards.
But anyway, I got the Customer Appreciation Week email and the thing is, I don't even understand how I'm supposed to get excited about any of that. I did get a chuckle out of the August promos, so comedy is worth something I guess. But the CAW just makes me feel "wow, no thank you." And subsequently it's making me think that if this is supposed to be the peak of enjoyment, and I couldn't care less, then maybe I just don't like Magic.
... Maybe I don't. Which is no big deal really. I'm just struck by the irony of Customer Appreciation Week urging me to quit.
p.s. Chart links aren't working at the moment.
Two joraga treespeakers, drana, sarkhan, emrakul, jeez your opponent drafted a bomby deck.
Thanks for taking it well. I definitely didn't want to appear rude.
I think using show/hide is a great idea.
I'm no expect in art, but I can tell you why I like something. It was a random thought, however I think it would be an interesting idea.
If you use both Terramorphic Expanse and Evolving Wilds, but keep the total land count at 24, the percentage of keepable hands by these rules jumps from 59.3 to 64.7. I, however, think for a control deck that needs to accumulate lands in play, that running 8 non-mana producing searchers is unlikely to work out.
Most Blue/Black control decks seem to run some combination of Swamps, Islands, Terramorphics, Dimir Acqueducts, and Esper Panorama. The Panorama is less efficient as a searcher, but its mana production makes it better mid-game (and then it can be used for search on the end of a turn when you have mana open).
Hell's Thunder and Sovereigns of Lost Alara probably should be included in the dropping price section. Both are down ~30% from their $5.00 highs. The decline has been over 2-4 weeks though so maybe that doesn't trigger whatever you have mining the weekly price data. Still, they're pretty key cards in a couple of decks so its worth mentioning.
And I've got to say the August rewards cards BLOW. Hmm, let me spend lots o' cash on M11 product/sealed/drafts so I can get a foil curse of wizardy! That sounds awesome, I haven't 15th picked a play set yet.
I tested 3 Unburden instead of 3 Distress. I want to deny my initial proposal - Distress is better choice because it's turn 2 plug-n-play and it allows you to choose a card (even creature, which is extremely helpful against guys like Guardian of the Guildpact).
I enjoy constructice criticism, so thanks.
Both articles were ready on Thursday afternoon, one got published four days later and one got published the next day. My goal is to have one submitted every Thursday.
I rather dislike clicking extraneous links, which is why I keep the full archetype descriptions in the article, but I can those blurbs being annoying to repeat readers or readers well versed in the Pauper metagame. If I hide the descriptions with a show/hide link, would this alleviate the redundancy?
I like the idea of the art discussion, though I am by no means an expert concerning artistic style or composition.
Funny too, "and a hand with only multiple copies of Terramorphic Expanse is rated as keepable." - this percentage gets BETTER than mono if you add EVOLUTIONARY WILDS bringing fetches to 8 within the vacuum arguement posed...great job.
While providing tournament information is nice, I find myself skipping through most of your article to find the new information.
I think your article is perfectly geared toward the first time reader who might want to get into the varying degrees of tournament pauper, but a significant portion of it seems to be a copy/paste from the prior week.
The issue I want to address occurred to me today, when this article was posted. I thought I had already read your weekly wrap-up for this week. I looked back and saw that your last week’s article was ready for readers for just four days ago. They looked so similar that I thought it may be a waste to read your articles going forward. As an avid reader of pauper articles, I wanted to share my opinion as one of your readers.
Here is a breakdown of this article by number of words (please forgive the formatting):
Description____________Number of Words________Percentage
Article Total________________5278_________________100%
Pauper Explanation__________272___________________5%
Meta Decklists_____________1826__________________35%
Artist Recognition____________266___________________5%
Remaining Balance__________2914__________________55%
By these numbers, 40% of the article (Pauper Explanation and Meta Decklists) is the same every week barring a new deck-type surfacing and updated dates.
Your recognition of artists is a 5% that I, by only assumption, believe is skipped by most readers. I read the article for tournament information and insight, so this section doesn’t appeal to me. It’s just a list.
So, 45% of the article is either something that a returning reader has already seen or has a decent chance to be completely skipped.
--
My suggestions, versus just complaining, would be:
1. Link your most current article to a master article/source for metagame deck descriptions instead of pasting it back in every week. When a next archetype comes forward, bring it up specifically.
2. I understand giving recognition to the artists, especially when you are altering their work. If the banners stay the same, why not talk about a specific choice each week and why you chose it. It would give us something interesting to read and maybe a discussion would arise. I believe there are people who would enjoy that segment.
I give my opinion only to provide constructive criticism as a reader. Take it for what you will.
Seems the consensus is there is no controversy.
I just played what i owned and could get for the 3 creds i earned the previous week :), But yes the deck could be made MUCH more lethal.
However i find it odd that once again my deck caused controversy when it even used its tribe but the combo vamps deck that didn't use its tribe got no fanfare at all. (i seem to recall another combo vamps deck recently that got tore into for that)
Also i fail to see how the vamps deck was legal with 18 listed vampires?
And regardless of a player goes 3-0 with a combo deck or not doesn't take away from what it is/can do especially when the top deck for the week was a counter/control deck ,thus of course it would tear apart any combo decks. So once again it's a matter of do we wish to allow such things or not.
I've just started playing again in the last couple of weeks - I might write articles again if people want to read them
As always an exquisitely formatted article with various sections of interest. :) Nice job again. :D
All round my collection is increasing over time. My drafts help with increasing the collection and also showing me new cards, I would never think about it.
Yeah lands are something I'm working on, using these articles as a reason to pick up the Ravnica duals now they are coming down in price.
The incidence of cats being stalked on the internet to date is ...0? So he's probably safe but to be sure you want to photoshop bunny ears on him so they don't know who to look for.
Nothing new about it. Ive been running 24/60 since 94.
Sheldon is a great guy and defenitly interesting to talk to. I love sitting in the card shop and just picking his brain before the tournament starts.
On a side note does anyone think it not safe for me to have a picture with my cat?
I would suggest if you havn't already, is to invest in dual purpose lands. They will never get old and can be used in virtually every deck. Whether it's a land like Mikokoro, the center sea to help draw cards or some of the more inexpensive dual lands or lands that produce multiple colors. Having a good manabase to build the better decks is key.
I understand what you mean by wanting more spells in a deck. I come from oldschool magic where 20 lands was enough, sometimes too much, and I still have issues with trying to get it in my head that 24 is the new 20.
I suggested keeping O-ring over the Disenchants because they hit multiple targets and not just Enchantments and Artifacts. Reaching out to creatures and planeswalkers as well.
Yea I guess thats what I meant. LOL