I realize these are free, but 2-1-0 payout? These may not even fire after the initial few hours, as no one will have any Darksteel.
EDIT: After thinking about it a bit more, I would be surprised if ANY of these fire. I'll certainly be either saving my packs for MR Nix Tix Week or just selling them. These drafts are essentially just cracking packs. Even winning one of these is likely to be less worthwhile than just selling your packs.
For anyone keeping up on this style, the card drawing elements are now 4x Compulsive Research, 4x Milldrifter and 1x Oona's Grace and 2 Think Twice, the land count is now a whopping 25 for super consistency...the thinning still helps with quality draws, just not at the expense of mulligan-ing
"paul, while im not super excited to read your stuff, you do put a good effort into your articles and i respect the effort much more then the content on most peoples articles."
The point of Lethal is to give your ops the way out then do it again. Very tricky to get going. I used it once to good effect when my op double timewalked for me but otherwise it was a fail. The point of trying such a card was to find a way to make the drawback work for me. Obviously it was a fail.
The only comment I have an issue with was "the multiplayer people have been waiting a long time and needed these changes", which is a real slap in the face to us leaguers. Multiplayer exists. Leagues do not. We are the most screwed and have been forever. Swept under the rug yet again, and I'm sticking with my prediction that we will NEVER see leagues at this rate, they'll always think something else is more important. I'm just about done.
Same thing happened to me when I tried to take it this morning. It pissed me off because I spent about 10 minutes doing it up until that point and like you, am not going to go back and start the whole thing over again.
Is it too much to ask to have a survey be Firefox-compatible these days? I spent about 15 minutes participating in the survey, and then got to the section where they load all of the M11 cards and ask you to pic a few of your favorites. I could not interact with this page at all. I'm not going back through this with IE or whatever.
Early game I also have problems casting searing blaze as an instant just because I like laying at least one threat down and getting in for early damage so having the extra fetches to power it normally doesnt happen til turn 4-6. Which reinforces me seeing the blaze as only a sorcery as well.
In the bonus match, imo, you just boarded wrong. -4 Staggershock, -4 Zektar, +4 Missionary, +2 Grim, +2 Digger would have been far more efficient against UR, although, to your credit, it sounded like you didn't even see that he was in red until game 2.
Eh, I'm slooooowly breaking into Legacy, currently getting the cards for the deck Whiffy wrote about the other week (Thanks Whiffy! Loved that article!!!!) so I still haven't done a whole lot of Legacy in the Casual Room playing. Are there really more "sharks" in Legacy casual then say, Standard?
Also, I don't really consider the Gro deck to be "competitive" anyway, and is something I'd expect to see in casual. Casual != Budget, so I think it's more than acceptable to have Psychatog decks packed with FoW's and what have you in the Casual room.
Everyone is being a bit harsh on this writer, but they have a valid point. honestly, Legacy decklists are so tuned to the meta that pretty much any random pile can beat them. You also seem to not understand the value of tempo. FoW is not an awesome card simply because it counters a spell, its an awesome card because it counters a spell without forcing you to use your mana to do so. It uses a different resource instead (life and cards in hand). So, on turn 2 I can cast Tarmogoyf AND counter your STP, rather than wait till turn 4 to be able to do that with counterspell (the diff between turn 2 and turn 4 here being about 8 damage). Also in the early game a well timed FoW time walk's your opponent's development, allowing you to gain tempo, which in legacy is generally much more important than traditional card advantage.
On the other hand, the ass-hat(s) playing DeedStill in the casual room deserve to be owned by a random pile and I thoroughly endorse you calling them out on their asshattery here. Also, I notice you cut off their names in their title, but not in their RFG piles, so we know who they are anyway =).
I see your point about the karoos vs. Panoramas. I guess you have to take into account consistency vs. explosiveness. The karoos add some consistency to your landfall triggers by returning a land for use next turn. The Panoramas on the other hand, offer the explosiveness of multiple landfall triggers in a single turn. As far as turning on Searing Blaze on your opponents turn, Ill admit I never really factor that in. Im so used to basically using it as a sorcery. But the point remains that it is an instant and Panoramas help it.
I had a feeling at the end of that bonus game that using the burn spells in the other order would have been correct and would have won me the game. Thanks for confirming that for me.
Yeah I would not recommend any Karoo lands. A good part of the deck's synergy is around Landfall, and a Fetchland is the most powerful way to make use of that synergy. Particularly, you need the ability to 1) get two lands into play in a single turn 2) bring a land into play when it's not your turn, typically to protect a Lynx/Geopede but possibly to power up a Searing Blaze.
I'm not well versed in the Classic Pauper scene, but unlike a lot of Standard Pauper decks, I think this has the power to be decent.
My main reason for thinking that Inferno Titan may see play is because of the existance of the Basilisk Collar/Cunning Sparkmage combo. Inferno Titan with a collar on it is about as broken as you can get....
It seems like you used Staggershock and Burst Lightning in reverse order. While they can both go 4 to the dome, Staggershock takes an extra turn to do it. Using Burst Lightning early is often correct, but in this case using the Staggershock would have killed the guy and still domed your opponent, leaving the Burst Lightning in your hand at the end of the game. The extra 2 damage early plus having the Burst Lightning for 4 instead of Staggershock would have won the game.
It's hard to know early in the game though, and I'm sure recording commentary live while playing makes it harder. Thanks for sharing, I really like this deck.
I think you need to Staggershock his second stinger immediately. It slows his clock down considerably, and it (sort-of) turns on your creatures when/if you draw them. It at least forces him to unearth and use a nonrenewable resource to kill them, and if you have fetches sitting around, one unearth won't do it.
I also think you're a little too quick to drop out lands when you haven't got landfall triggers to work with. It didn't affect you this game (never drew the guys), but it would in many games.
I realize these are free, but 2-1-0 payout? These may not even fire after the initial few hours, as no one will have any Darksteel.
EDIT: After thinking about it a bit more, I would be surprised if ANY of these fire. I'll certainly be either saving my packs for MR Nix Tix Week or just selling them. These drafts are essentially just cracking packs. Even winning one of these is likely to be less worthwhile than just selling your packs.
no the packs should be handed out during the downtime today
Hmmm I didn't get mine. Guess they blew it again. (==edit==) Or this article is predated and posted before it should be.
I used to always draft UG in MD5 to decent results. Sometimes splashing red for pyrite spellbombs and sunburst
For anyone keeping up on this style, the card drawing elements are now 4x Compulsive Research, 4x Milldrifter and 1x Oona's Grace and 2 Think Twice, the land count is now a whopping 25 for super consistency...the thinning still helps with quality draws, just not at the expense of mulligan-ing
"paul, while im not super excited to read your stuff, you do put a good effort into your articles and i respect the effort much more then the content on most peoples articles."
I may have to frame this quote :D
The point of Lethal is to give your ops the way out then do it again. Very tricky to get going. I used it once to good effect when my op double timewalked for me but otherwise it was a fail. The point of trying such a card was to find a way to make the drawback work for me. Obviously it was a fail.
If you really want to play in a league there is a player run event that is in it's first season at the moment.
If there is to be a second season I need as many willing players as possible to kick it off.
The Coalition League
Bah, nevermind, someone already covered my comment. Gotta learn to read better. :P
if you're sole reason to play mtgo is leagues then yeah...get patient
The only comment I have an issue with was "the multiplayer people have been waiting a long time and needed these changes", which is a real slap in the face to us leaguers. Multiplayer exists. Leagues do not. We are the most screwed and have been forever. Swept under the rug yet again, and I'm sticking with my prediction that we will NEVER see leagues at this rate, they'll always think something else is more important. I'm just about done.
Same thing happened to me when I tried to take it this morning. It pissed me off because I spent about 10 minutes doing it up until that point and like you, am not going to go back and start the whole thing over again.
Is it too much to ask to have a survey be Firefox-compatible these days? I spent about 15 minutes participating in the survey, and then got to the section where they load all of the M11 cards and ask you to pic a few of your favorites. I could not interact with this page at all. I'm not going back through this with IE or whatever.
Early game I also have problems casting searing blaze as an instant just because I like laying at least one threat down and getting in for early damage so having the extra fetches to power it normally doesnt happen til turn 4-6. Which reinforces me seeing the blaze as only a sorcery as well.
In the bonus match, imo, you just boarded wrong. -4 Staggershock, -4 Zektar, +4 Missionary, +2 Grim, +2 Digger would have been far more efficient against UR, although, to your credit, it sounded like you didn't even see that he was in red until game 2.
Eh, I'm slooooowly breaking into Legacy, currently getting the cards for the deck Whiffy wrote about the other week (Thanks Whiffy! Loved that article!!!!) so I still haven't done a whole lot of Legacy in the Casual Room playing. Are there really more "sharks" in Legacy casual then say, Standard?
Also, I don't really consider the Gro deck to be "competitive" anyway, and is something I'd expect to see in casual. Casual != Budget, so I think it's more than acceptable to have Psychatog decks packed with FoW's and what have you in the Casual room.
Just my very incoherent 2c
Everyone is being a bit harsh on this writer, but they have a valid point. honestly, Legacy decklists are so tuned to the meta that pretty much any random pile can beat them. You also seem to not understand the value of tempo. FoW is not an awesome card simply because it counters a spell, its an awesome card because it counters a spell without forcing you to use your mana to do so. It uses a different resource instead (life and cards in hand). So, on turn 2 I can cast Tarmogoyf AND counter your STP, rather than wait till turn 4 to be able to do that with counterspell (the diff between turn 2 and turn 4 here being about 8 damage). Also in the early game a well timed FoW time walk's your opponent's development, allowing you to gain tempo, which in legacy is generally much more important than traditional card advantage.
On the other hand, the ass-hat(s) playing DeedStill in the casual room deserve to be owned by a random pile and I thoroughly endorse you calling them out on their asshattery here. Also, I notice you cut off their names in their title, but not in their RFG piles, so we know who they are anyway =).
I see your point about the karoos vs. Panoramas. I guess you have to take into account consistency vs. explosiveness. The karoos add some consistency to your landfall triggers by returning a land for use next turn. The Panoramas on the other hand, offer the explosiveness of multiple landfall triggers in a single turn. As far as turning on Searing Blaze on your opponents turn, Ill admit I never really factor that in. Im so used to basically using it as a sorcery. But the point remains that it is an instant and Panoramas help it.
I had a feeling at the end of that bonus game that using the burn spells in the other order would have been correct and would have won me the game. Thanks for confirming that for me.
Yeah I would not recommend any Karoo lands. A good part of the deck's synergy is around Landfall, and a Fetchland is the most powerful way to make use of that synergy. Particularly, you need the ability to 1) get two lands into play in a single turn 2) bring a land into play when it's not your turn, typically to protect a Lynx/Geopede but possibly to power up a Searing Blaze.
I'm not well versed in the Classic Pauper scene, but unlike a lot of Standard Pauper decks, I think this has the power to be decent.
My main reason for thinking that Inferno Titan may see play is because of the existance of the Basilisk Collar/Cunning Sparkmage combo. Inferno Titan with a collar on it is about as broken as you can get....
It seems like you used Staggershock and Burst Lightning in reverse order. While they can both go 4 to the dome, Staggershock takes an extra turn to do it. Using Burst Lightning early is often correct, but in this case using the Staggershock would have killed the guy and still domed your opponent, leaving the Burst Lightning in your hand at the end of the game. The extra 2 damage early plus having the Burst Lightning for 4 instead of Staggershock would have won the game.
It's hard to know early in the game though, and I'm sure recording commentary live while playing makes it harder. Thanks for sharing, I really like this deck.
I think you need to Staggershock his second stinger immediately. It slows his clock down considerably, and it (sort-of) turns on your creatures when/if you draw them. It at least forces him to unearth and use a nonrenewable resource to kill them, and if you have fetches sitting around, one unearth won't do it.
I also think you're a little too quick to drop out lands when you haven't got landfall triggers to work with. It didn't affect you this game (never drew the guys), but it would in many games.
I know a RGW planeswalker/D. Force deck top 4'd a ptq recently. Not sure if it has staying power, but it looked exciting.
http://www.professional-events.com/Magic/PTQAmsterdam10/Pit071810.php4
It's a 500 card deck! It plays any good card that ever got printed!!!1