Actually after going through the chart again I noticed on big issue.
Whatever coding you used to come up with the mirror matches was applied through the table it looks like. Which is unfortunate in this one aspect. As far as the MUC/Faeries No Mirror numbers go they are correct. However for every other deck, you did not remove the mirror match numbers. You removed the match numbers against faeries. If you are unsure check the differences in the Match W-L and the No Mirror nummbers. Then compare this to the decks record against faeries. The same numbers show up each time.
well at least it didn't take off like a dry squid, seeing as a dry squid would be dead and thus have absolutely no chance of leaving terra firma.
At least the wet squid can try and jump!
For the record I enjoyed your zodiac article. Wasn't much enamoured about the wiki info but the deck building and game playing were an interesting read, as it always is when you write an article.
That said however, this article is pure gold. 5 reasonably competitive deck lists - and play info as well. You really can't ask for more than that. It's spawned some great ideas for me in all formats! I especially love the level-up deck.
But if Affinity play the mirror match, 1 deck will always win and 1 deck will always lose....so when you remove those matches you should be removing the same amount of wins and the same amount of losses.
Example:
Affinity has 64 wins and 65 losses. However when you remove the mirror matches it drops too 43 wins and 54 losses.
How did you remove 21 wins but only remove 11 losses of mirror matches? It should either be 21 wins/21 losses or 11 wins/11 losses removed. This error continues for just about every deck besides MUC/Faeries.
I agree about the point of buying old decks. The old onslaught/Mirrodin w/g slide deck is probably my favourite deck of all time, but is there really any point me buying it? It's not competitive in any format (and even if i pimp it out to be legacy legal, it won't be competitive), but nobody seems to like playing against "real" decks in the casual room, so it's just going to be a deck which I love, but can't really play. Especially annoying as eternal dragons and eternal witnesses are both pricey.
I was thinking i would like to play esp since the ban list is something i like. There are possibly a few other cards that could be on the watch list like: Oath,Entomb(angels like Akroma-both-,Platinum,Empyrial Archangel,Maelstrom,Bane). Buried alive could also be Intuition/Gifts in Reanimator decks. Humility can be built around Manlands,Planeswalkers, and Standstills while playing almost zero counters(like Std). Stiflenought(8 cards in any blue deck),Thopter Foundry(really good). Think of some more when i get back, but i'll run a few lists past you, Shard when i get back online.
Edit: Mind's Desire and Tendrils of Agony can be fit into a Mana Drain+Gush engine with rituals the tribe would be spirits for Kami of the Crescent Moon(Dark Confidant) and Spirit Guides to ramp out early, while Bloodghasts sac to Culling of the Weak. Very low land count 10-12. I have a list without Mana Drains that goldfishes turn 3-6.Drains would only increase the initial turn of critical mass.
So yeah Desire and Tendrils could go to ban/watch list. i think i can pull a totaly blue hi tide combo out with wizards using Desire.
Re-edit: This leaves Dream Halls,Eureka and WGDragon combo as potential abusers, I havent looked into them yet.
Nice Rticle. Stuffy is one of my favorite cards ever, I'd love to see him back in a core set sometime.
But you missed one of my favorite cards to combo with stuffy - shard Phoenix. Recurrable damage plus an alternate win condition, combined with mass removal. What could be better?
@fishhead: I am starting to think the Bramblesnap pick was correct over Mammoth Umbra considering my first pick Artisan, but I disagree that Mammoth umbra is only useful on a flier, or overcosted. That card has won me countless games and I've lost to it a bunch of times on any ol' dude. It makes both attacking and blocking incredibly difficult until the creature can be dealt with. And if they can't deal with it, they just lose. Its like a build-your-own-eldrazi! (now complete with vigilance)
I didn't say it should be banned. I said it should be watched. I just think the amount of tribes it's preventing is way way more than the amount of tribes it's "making viable", which is essentially just white flying creatures.
It's certainly not worth having an argument, I just think it should be watched.
Funny a lot of these decks remind me of OTHER pros like Squirrel Prison by Mikey P (he developed the original deck and did pretty well with it if memory serves.) Also what about Kibler Rith? Was that in the 70? No rock varients made the list? (Rec/Sur doesn't count really.)
Btw I do not believe the reserved list is guaranteed. Just because it seems so does not make it so. The only way to know for sure is to wait and wait and wait and see that it isn't being broken or reversed in some manner.
Interesting article. In general I do not read Star City articles much because a) some articles are unavailable to non-premium members and b) the site is still hideous after all these years, and c) The Ferret no longer edits for the site. So I missed any mention of this prior to this article. I am curious what spurred you to do it and what is the eventual purpose? Just for fun? Is there some study going on?
I agree with a small child, second pick Bramblesnap over Mammoth Umbra every time. Not only do I really really not want to be white, but I would actually argue that Bramblesnap is even more of a game-winning bomb than the Umbra. It comes down on turn two and combos with all the token-generating cards that your green deck wants to be playing anyway. Mammoth Umbra is a fine card, but it's overcosted for what it does and it's really only useful if you stick it on a flier. For that amount of mana you could add another creature to your board or level up an existing creature. Umbras in general are not nearly as good as people initially thought.
I would have ended up green, with Pelakka Wurm and all the ramp cards. Probably splashing for Gideon "Must Be Nice" Jura.
@psymunn: Even in pack three, if I have to choose between weak playables or splash enablers I generally go for the enablers, although you could certainly be correct, especially considering that I ended up a little short on playables.
@Odindusk, Shaterri: I have experimented with UG a little bit and I do like it(certainly more than BW). I think it works best as a tempo oriented deck that drops midrange creatures as well as evasion while gaining tempo with Regress and pump spells. It of course loses to the same utility creatures that UW does, but it can splash much easier for black or red removal.
@a small child: I agree that white is the worst color in the format, but not by as much as everyone seems to think. For me, personally at least, I've drafted ROE 68 times and white remains my color with the highest win percentage, although only be 3% in front of blue. That being said, white really does want to be paired with blue in this format and WB is an especially awkward color combination, I'm certainly not defending it. I do, however, think it has the tools to form a good control deck as long as you pick up the right conditions. I'm not a huge fan of looking at what might have been since hindsight is 20/20, but yes its certainly possible I should have moved into BG. I'll have to consider the possibility that I overvalue Dawnglare Invoker, I guess its just won me so many games I have a hard time passing it up with white cards already in my stack.
Thanks for the insightful comments, keep them coming!
Ummm...are you calling my decks junk? LOL All my decks are budget, but I would not say they are bad. Im just careful with what I buy. Normally nothing over 2.5-3 tickets or so unless it's for EDH.
I think you got derailed by the mammoth umbra. It's a good card and all but it's quite splashable and shouldn't really pull you into white, which is by far the worst color in the format. I'm pretty sure that B/W is not a viable archetype. I mean, if you get an insane draft then I'm sure you can win with it -- but its not something that is replicable on anything resembling a regular basis. Personally I would have picked the Bramblesnap p1p2, but even if you do take the mammoth umbra I think the third pick corpsehatch pushes you toward either B/G or R/B tokens. The really key pick of the draft was P1P5 where you took dawnglare invoker over growth spasm and ulamog's crusher. If you want to keep your options more open you go with the crusher, but if you just decide to draft G/B at this point you take the growth spasm and consider splashing the mammoth umbra. Next pack you probably take the boar umbra or the essence feed, although I think the hartebeest is vaguely defensible even as a splash. The 7th pick predator or drone is a huge sign that B/G tokens is open, so you snap up the predator there. That said, if you had decided to force yourself into B/R tokens you're also happy with the traitorous instinct over the dread drone probably. You round out pack 1 with pennon blade either way.
I won't really comment on the rest of the draft as it's impossible to tell how the packs would be different if you had taken different cards in pack 1 -- but suffice to say I think I'd take that gideon and probably even play it in the B/G deck as you already have a growth spasm and can probably pick up more fixing later.
But if you're curious, this is what I would have done:
Gideon
Pelakka Wurm (yus)
Prophetic Prism
Wildheart Invoker
Ondu Giant
Nest Invader
Wrap in Flames (I guess?)
Aura Gnarlid or Ogre's Cleaver depending on the boar umbra pick. Guard duty also defensible.
Snake Umbra
Sporecap Spider
Raid Bombardment
the rest dont matter in pack 2
Beastbreaker
Ondu Giant
Ulamog's Crusher
Cadaver Imp
Broodwarden
Bloodthrone Vampire (naturalize also defensible)
Stomper Cub
and that late leaf arrow.
You end up switching more to a ramp deck with some great finishers. You are removal light but you do have a spoiler in gideon! Probably a 2-1 deck.
Thanks for the comments guys. It's good to see there isn't any bad blood between us and your event Shard. You are all certainly welcome to this one. Neverloze/Flippers, what time would be better for you guys? If this one goes well and we do another after, I can try and maybe make it a bit more accommodating next go around. And thanks for the thread on CQ danger, it looks great. The more support we can get for this thing the better.
i dont even have to read the article all you had to say was ban hammer and I was excited
that being said im hoping to find time again at some point to rejoin despite my frustrations with the format because im all for supporting the effort you make to keep it going, unfortunately getting a real job cuts back on mtgo time lol
I'm a big fan of prism and greyes knows I'm hoping to participate, but as much as I get along with certain members I don't think it was necessary to make that comment about the other PRE, you're trying to create an issue when there really wasn't one.. you're slighting it that we had a problem because who you were and not for the real reason which was we had a problem with the power level of the decks at the time and that included people who were not even from team rocket, by adding that comment you take away from the point of the article, which was the new PRE
I would have also liked to see a bit of extra content about prism tips, but since I was waiting to put this info into an article for you I've kind of started that so maybe I'll just finish the article (time willing) lol
I often get tired of the idea of "budget" decks because they are a thrown together group of such junk.. decks that are heavy towards pauper or are cheap just to be cheap, I'm waiting for that happy middle where you get a deck that doesnt run 4x jace, but doesn't omit all rares to be "budget"
black/white levelers is pretty weak because it lacks venerated teachers, as well as the two best common levelers (wavewatch and skywatcher). the black levelers are pretty expensive to level without blue cheats. also, induce despair loses a lot of value in a leveler deck. just food for thought
Actually after going through the chart again I noticed on big issue.
Whatever coding you used to come up with the mirror matches was applied through the table it looks like. Which is unfortunate in this one aspect. As far as the MUC/Faeries No Mirror numbers go they are correct. However for every other deck, you did not remove the mirror match numbers. You removed the match numbers against faeries. If you are unsure check the differences in the Match W-L and the No Mirror nummbers. Then compare this to the decks record against faeries. The same numbers show up each time.
well at least it didn't take off like a dry squid, seeing as a dry squid would be dead and thus have absolutely no chance of leaving terra firma.
At least the wet squid can try and jump!
For the record I enjoyed your zodiac article. Wasn't much enamoured about the wiki info but the deck building and game playing were an interesting read, as it always is when you write an article.
That said however, this article is pure gold. 5 reasonably competitive deck lists - and play info as well. You really can't ask for more than that. It's spawned some great ideas for me in all formats! I especially love the level-up deck.
But if Affinity play the mirror match, 1 deck will always win and 1 deck will always lose....so when you remove those matches you should be removing the same amount of wins and the same amount of losses.
Example:
Affinity has 64 wins and 65 losses. However when you remove the mirror matches it drops too 43 wins and 54 losses.
How did you remove 21 wins but only remove 11 losses of mirror matches? It should either be 21 wins/21 losses or 11 wins/11 losses removed. This error continues for just about every deck besides MUC/Faeries.
so I had to hit "edit" but I see no delete so now this really isn't commenting on anything :P
I prefer not to be on the receiving end of my strategy's either :P ... but I appreciate a good combo even if it kills me :)
honestly? prefer not to be combo'd with stuffy doll. Kthxbai
I agree about the point of buying old decks. The old onslaught/Mirrodin w/g slide deck is probably my favourite deck of all time, but is there really any point me buying it? It's not competitive in any format (and even if i pimp it out to be legacy legal, it won't be competitive), but nobody seems to like playing against "real" decks in the casual room, so it's just going to be a deck which I love, but can't really play. Especially annoying as eternal dragons and eternal witnesses are both pricey.
I was thinking i would like to play esp since the ban list is something i like. There are possibly a few other cards that could be on the watch list like: Oath,Entomb(angels like Akroma-both-,Platinum,Empyrial Archangel,Maelstrom,Bane). Buried alive could also be Intuition/Gifts in Reanimator decks. Humility can be built around Manlands,Planeswalkers, and Standstills while playing almost zero counters(like Std). Stiflenought(8 cards in any blue deck),Thopter Foundry(really good). Think of some more when i get back, but i'll run a few lists past you, Shard when i get back online.
Edit: Mind's Desire and Tendrils of Agony can be fit into a Mana Drain+Gush engine with rituals the tribe would be spirits for Kami of the Crescent Moon(Dark Confidant) and Spirit Guides to ramp out early, while Bloodghasts sac to Culling of the Weak. Very low land count 10-12. I have a list without Mana Drains that goldfishes turn 3-6.Drains would only increase the initial turn of critical mass.
So yeah Desire and Tendrils could go to ban/watch list. i think i can pull a totaly blue hi tide combo out with wizards using Desire.
Re-edit: This leaves Dream Halls,Eureka and WGDragon combo as potential abusers, I havent looked into them yet.
A combo that is disrupted by any instant speed removal or bounce, as well as discard or countermagic seems fine to me?
Nice Rticle. Stuffy is one of my favorite cards ever, I'd love to see him back in a core set sometime.
But you missed one of my favorite cards to combo with stuffy - shard Phoenix. Recurrable damage plus an alternate win condition, combined with mass removal. What could be better?
@fishhead: I am starting to think the Bramblesnap pick was correct over Mammoth Umbra considering my first pick Artisan, but I disagree that Mammoth umbra is only useful on a flier, or overcosted. That card has won me countless games and I've lost to it a bunch of times on any ol' dude. It makes both attacking and blocking incredibly difficult until the creature can be dealt with. And if they can't deal with it, they just lose. Its like a build-your-own-eldrazi! (now complete with vigilance)
I didn't say it should be banned. I said it should be watched. I just think the amount of tribes it's preventing is way way more than the amount of tribes it's "making viable", which is essentially just white flying creatures.
It's certainly not worth having an argument, I just think it should be watched.
Funny a lot of these decks remind me of OTHER pros like Squirrel Prison by Mikey P (he developed the original deck and did pretty well with it if memory serves.) Also what about Kibler Rith? Was that in the 70? No rock varients made the list? (Rec/Sur doesn't count really.)
Btw I do not believe the reserved list is guaranteed. Just because it seems so does not make it so. The only way to know for sure is to wait and wait and wait and see that it isn't being broken or reversed in some manner.
Interesting article. In general I do not read Star City articles much because a) some articles are unavailable to non-premium members and b) the site is still hideous after all these years, and c) The Ferret no longer edits for the site. So I missed any mention of this prior to this article. I am curious what spurred you to do it and what is the eventual purpose? Just for fun? Is there some study going on?
lol Squids dont fly, so it didn't go very well.
I agree with a small child, second pick Bramblesnap over Mammoth Umbra every time. Not only do I really really not want to be white, but I would actually argue that Bramblesnap is even more of a game-winning bomb than the Umbra. It comes down on turn two and combos with all the token-generating cards that your green deck wants to be playing anyway. Mammoth Umbra is a fine card, but it's overcosted for what it does and it's really only useful if you stick it on a flier. For that amount of mana you could add another creature to your board or level up an existing creature. Umbras in general are not nearly as good as people initially thought.
I would have ended up green, with Pelakka Wurm and all the ramp cards. Probably splashing for Gideon "Must Be Nice" Jura.
Nice article, keep them coming.
@psymunn: Even in pack three, if I have to choose between weak playables or splash enablers I generally go for the enablers, although you could certainly be correct, especially considering that I ended up a little short on playables.
@Odindusk, Shaterri: I have experimented with UG a little bit and I do like it(certainly more than BW). I think it works best as a tempo oriented deck that drops midrange creatures as well as evasion while gaining tempo with Regress and pump spells. It of course loses to the same utility creatures that UW does, but it can splash much easier for black or red removal.
@a small child: I agree that white is the worst color in the format, but not by as much as everyone seems to think. For me, personally at least, I've drafted ROE 68 times and white remains my color with the highest win percentage, although only be 3% in front of blue. That being said, white really does want to be paired with blue in this format and WB is an especially awkward color combination, I'm certainly not defending it. I do, however, think it has the tools to form a good control deck as long as you pick up the right conditions. I'm not a huge fan of looking at what might have been since hindsight is 20/20, but yes its certainly possible I should have moved into BG. I'll have to consider the possibility that I overvalue Dawnglare Invoker, I guess its just won me so many games I have a hard time passing it up with white cards already in my stack.
Thanks for the insightful comments, keep them coming!
Ummm...are you calling my decks junk? LOL All my decks are budget, but I would not say they are bad. Im just careful with what I buy. Normally nothing over 2.5-3 tickets or so unless it's for EDH.
Sounds like a theme for an article series. Good luck with that.
I think you got derailed by the mammoth umbra. It's a good card and all but it's quite splashable and shouldn't really pull you into white, which is by far the worst color in the format. I'm pretty sure that B/W is not a viable archetype. I mean, if you get an insane draft then I'm sure you can win with it -- but its not something that is replicable on anything resembling a regular basis. Personally I would have picked the Bramblesnap p1p2, but even if you do take the mammoth umbra I think the third pick corpsehatch pushes you toward either B/G or R/B tokens. The really key pick of the draft was P1P5 where you took dawnglare invoker over growth spasm and ulamog's crusher. If you want to keep your options more open you go with the crusher, but if you just decide to draft G/B at this point you take the growth spasm and consider splashing the mammoth umbra. Next pack you probably take the boar umbra or the essence feed, although I think the hartebeest is vaguely defensible even as a splash. The 7th pick predator or drone is a huge sign that B/G tokens is open, so you snap up the predator there. That said, if you had decided to force yourself into B/R tokens you're also happy with the traitorous instinct over the dread drone probably. You round out pack 1 with pennon blade either way.
I won't really comment on the rest of the draft as it's impossible to tell how the packs would be different if you had taken different cards in pack 1 -- but suffice to say I think I'd take that gideon and probably even play it in the B/G deck as you already have a growth spasm and can probably pick up more fixing later.
But if you're curious, this is what I would have done:
Gideon
Pelakka Wurm (yus)
Prophetic Prism
Wildheart Invoker
Ondu Giant
Nest Invader
Wrap in Flames (I guess?)
Aura Gnarlid or Ogre's Cleaver depending on the boar umbra pick. Guard duty also defensible.
Snake Umbra
Sporecap Spider
Raid Bombardment
the rest dont matter in pack 2
Beastbreaker
Ondu Giant
Ulamog's Crusher
Cadaver Imp
Broodwarden
Bloodthrone Vampire (naturalize also defensible)
Stomper Cub
and that late leaf arrow.
You end up switching more to a ramp deck with some great finishers. You are removal light but you do have a spoiler in gideon! Probably a 2-1 deck.
Thanks for the comments guys. It's good to see there isn't any bad blood between us and your event Shard. You are all certainly welcome to this one. Neverloze/Flippers, what time would be better for you guys? If this one goes well and we do another after, I can try and maybe make it a bit more accommodating next go around. And thanks for the thread on CQ danger, it looks great. The more support we can get for this thing the better.
um first off... what exactly does a wet squid take off like?? I couldn't tell if that meant it was good or bad lol
im a huge fan of BYOS thanks to LE and was excited to finally get time to join this past weekend (though comcast screwed me out of playing through)
I love to read through others ideas on the format so thanks for sharing more :D
woot ban hammer!
i dont even have to read the article all you had to say was ban hammer and I was excited
that being said im hoping to find time again at some point to rejoin despite my frustrations with the format because im all for supporting the effort you make to keep it going, unfortunately getting a real job cuts back on mtgo time lol
I'm a big fan of prism and greyes knows I'm hoping to participate, but as much as I get along with certain members I don't think it was necessary to make that comment about the other PRE, you're trying to create an issue when there really wasn't one.. you're slighting it that we had a problem because who you were and not for the real reason which was we had a problem with the power level of the decks at the time and that included people who were not even from team rocket, by adding that comment you take away from the point of the article, which was the new PRE
I would have also liked to see a bit of extra content about prism tips, but since I was waiting to put this info into an article for you I've kind of started that so maybe I'll just finish the article (time willing) lol
I often get tired of the idea of "budget" decks because they are a thrown together group of such junk.. decks that are heavy towards pauper or are cheap just to be cheap, I'm waiting for that happy middle where you get a deck that doesnt run 4x jace, but doesn't omit all rares to be "budget"
black/white levelers is pretty weak because it lacks venerated teachers, as well as the two best common levelers (wavewatch and skywatcher). the black levelers are pretty expensive to level without blue cheats. also, induce despair loses a lot of value in a leveler deck. just food for thought