Great article! I agree with a lot that's said here. I actually ran a crazy good UW leveler deck yesterday, running a staggering amount of great quality common / uncommon levelers topped off with two Hedron-Field Purists and complimented by two Time of Heroes and a Venerated Teacher. You definitely need to juggle between strategies depending on your opponent's list.
I want to highlight the comment about Smite: In M10 drafts I'd automatically ignore it as bad removal, but you're right about it being much better in RRR out of pure necessity for some sort of removal. My deck ended up losing to a GB Ramp deck that wiped the board clean with Consume the Meek into nasties like Artisan of Kozilek. I sure wished that I had Smite then instead of relying solely on a couple Regress.
I can honestly say I have never read a complete tribal article. I am usually consumed with most of my free time spent on Legacy. When I saw you writing about Dream Halls (something near and dear to my heart) I figured I would start to read and see where it went. Great article, I read the entire thing which is not a small feat for me and my attention span.
@ Stealth, while Moat stops the ground game, it is cruel that sets up the card advantage. Cruel is the MVP most times, you draw three, they discard 3 lose 5 life and sac a creature, that is a huge huge swing.
I don't particularly want more, I just want less unconditional removal.
Anyway, Ajani's pretty much confirmed in and therefore elspeth presumably out, for what it's worth. (Ajani's member of the "companion" cycle has been spoiled). I'm happy with this, personally.
I don't think Affinity's stupid either, and was mostly joking. It's as I said, I'd very much love the deck to be better than it is. As for your theory on Scars, I'm inclined to not "not" believe you, as lore-wise it's really a toss up.
Bad beats on losing your collection like that to some greedy turd. I can imagine that must have been heartbreaking. I've had several guitars stolen and I know how that feels. (Awful!) I disagree that Affinity is stupid. I think it is like any popular archetype a little luck based and I mean by that the following: Goblins, Elves, Affinity, Slivers, etc all work great as long as the draw is smooth and your play isn't disrupted. They all fail to mass removal, and each have specific cards that hate them. Also the format is important. I think affinity in pauper for example is far worse than affinity in extended or classic, yet people bring it. Anyway I haven't been a tourney player in almost a decade so perhaps I just have the perspective of the casual player: Affinity can tear up casual since most casual games are preboard and don't go more than one game at a time. Since this is the case people tend to hate it in casual very vocally leaving the impression perhaps that it is better than it is. Same goes for Cascade. Same goes for discard/land destruction focused decks. All have their moments in the sun and forever after only shine in casual play or weird formats. I do think that Affinity could be improved without unbalancing the meta for each format that supports it. BUT I don't think the focus of scars will be on that. I think it will be on repairing the damage done by Affinity to casual. That is my guess. Artifacts will abound no doubt I don't think it will be a "brown" set. On the other hand Artifact Dual Lands would be cool as long as they aren't mythic or even rare. I'm not thrilled with more and more rare duals being put out each year.
I enjoyed the history. It's interesting for me to read about the time heading into Mirrodin, and what Mirrodin was like before the small sets came out, since I got back into Magic during Kamigawa block.
I'd agree that Affinity is a really frustrating deck to play in Legacy or Extended, if that's what you're saying. The hate is SOOOOO strong. One card kills you, and there are several different ones that can do it.
Agreed on the modular creatures - I'd love to see something good come out, even if it's just good in casual games. Most of the ones they made in Darksteel are x/x for x+2 mana, which is just too crappy to stomach.
Well, there'll definitely be a recursion theme. I have a Teneb list that I haven't updated in a while, so I have to break that guy out of retirement. The Morturary combo sounds interesting though.
Did you guys like the hyperlinks? Was I the only one that thought the old twins were scary?
May I suggest a Re-animator theme?
perhaps absurdly redunkulous re-animation combos
like enduring renewal & alluren? or mortuary and call of the wild/lurking predators?
In game one when you were stuck on three mana, there were multiple turns where you could have played a skyfisher, picked up a land, and played another two drop. Did this never cross your mind, or do value the skyfisher's ability to reuse ETB creatures more?
In the section where you say "The rest of the cards are fairly straight-forward" I think you may be underestimating some of the cards.
Sign in Blood is not just great card advantage, it's a way of delivering that final 2 points of damage to your opponent. Crypt Ripper is the finisher, but it's not just the ability to go head-to-head with any creature in Standard Pauper, it (like putrid leech) can dodge most forms of damage based removal making it a real problem to remove. In a deck that isn't over worried by tempo like this, Bojuka Bog is having a profound effect on the metagame, it pretty much allows you to negate the opponents graveyard strategy with hardly any effect on your own gameplan.
The Bizzar - Yeah, I like Awakening Zone. It actually made me dust off and update my old Asmira deck I'm writing about next article. As for the links and pics:
(CARDNAME) creates the hyperlink to the card on mtgotraders.
(pic=CARDNAME) creates the full sized card picture.
(tmb=CARDNAME) creates the smaller thumbnail picture.
Adam - I liked the Mayael deck. I would suggest adding Warp World though. It has been a beating when I used it in my Mayael deck. As for Tuktuk, I guess he can go in random gobbo decks. But I'm not a huge gobbo guy, so what do I know?
JustSin - I'm glad someone is championing Drana. Like I told you in game the other day, you're the only person I've seen using her as a General. But she's awesome! Goth girls FTW!
Also, there's (at least) one error in the article. If you rebound an X spell with Cast Through Time, X=0. So no rebounding Mind Spring or Mind Shatter for you!
Sure it does... Mothdust Changeling is an "Eldrazi Spawn" among all other creature types (eg, "Spawn Drone", "Eldrazi Antelope", etc.). That's why you can sac it to pay the alternative cost on Hand of Emrakul. Brood Birthing also counts it as an "Eldrazi Spawn", so the "if you control an Eldrazi Spawn" condition succeeds and you get three 0/1 tokens.
I hadn't actually noticed that the original author was talking about standard, so while you can get a turn-2 Hand of Emrakul, you can't do it like this in standard because Mothdust Changeling isn't in the format any more.
Way back, in the day where I played paper exclusively, A buddy of mine won one of the first big events in Charleston. The staple of the deck was Abyss. He played Jade Statue and M. Factories as his creature base and it put everyone on tilt. Now this is back in the day of the 3rd and 4th edition core set so the card pool was nothing like it is now. The banned cards were limited. Chaos Orb was still flipping around. It was good fun. But ever since that deck I have loved The Abyss. I think the deck was UWB if I remember correctly. We are talking 13+ years ago so I am a little foggy. Some call that normal for me
1 - never suggested Pyroblasts, I agree with you and you'll see a lack of them in the decklist...I playtested them at the suggestion of a friend for only a game or two
2 - Understand all your points, and I have 4x Searing Blaze main for weeks now. The main point for the inclusion is that I'd really feel silly not playing fiend in burn, as you can win the next turn after you draw it.
3 - I have had horrible luck with the deck, and luck isn't something I usually admit to having bad/or good amounts of...but for 3 weeks, I've drawn only lands, or no lands in my opening tourney match...incredibly frustrating. But I do have 3 weeks worth of tourney notes, and 71% of the wins, the word "KILN FIEND" is circled - noting that it was the reason for victory. The most valid point for KF is the amount of life gain out there, this acts as a nullifyer since it can swing for upwards of 10-20 life. I haven't used forgotten caves and/or needledrop for weeks either, just glance at above posts, my list has changed quite often.
Great article! I agree with a lot that's said here. I actually ran a crazy good UW leveler deck yesterday, running a staggering amount of great quality common / uncommon levelers topped off with two Hedron-Field Purists and complimented by two Time of Heroes and a Venerated Teacher. You definitely need to juggle between strategies depending on your opponent's list.
I want to highlight the comment about Smite: In M10 drafts I'd automatically ignore it as bad removal, but you're right about it being much better in RRR out of pure necessity for some sort of removal. My deck ended up losing to a GB Ramp deck that wiped the board clean with Consume the Meek into nasties like Artisan of Kozilek. I sure wished that I had Smite then instead of relying solely on a couple Regress.
I can honestly say I have never read a complete tribal article. I am usually consumed with most of my free time spent on Legacy. When I saw you writing about Dream Halls (something near and dear to my heart) I figured I would start to read and see where it went. Great article, I read the entire thing which is not a small feat for me and my attention span.
@ Stealth, while Moat stops the ground game, it is cruel that sets up the card advantage. Cruel is the MVP most times, you draw three, they discard 3 lose 5 life and sac a creature, that is a huge huge swing.
"Now the real power of the deck which was Moat and tutors to get Moat was an excellent idea"!
Fixed that for you!
Seriously though, it's a cool deck, but reading your reports, it's moat that wins you every game?
I don't particularly want more, I just want less unconditional removal.
Anyway, Ajani's pretty much confirmed in and therefore elspeth presumably out, for what it's worth. (Ajani's member of the "companion" cycle has been spoiled). I'm happy with this, personally.
I don't think Affinity's stupid either, and was mostly joking. It's as I said, I'd very much love the deck to be better than it is. As for your theory on Scars, I'm inclined to not "not" believe you, as lore-wise it's really a toss up.
Bad beats on losing your collection like that to some greedy turd. I can imagine that must have been heartbreaking. I've had several guitars stolen and I know how that feels. (Awful!) I disagree that Affinity is stupid. I think it is like any popular archetype a little luck based and I mean by that the following: Goblins, Elves, Affinity, Slivers, etc all work great as long as the draw is smooth and your play isn't disrupted. They all fail to mass removal, and each have specific cards that hate them. Also the format is important. I think affinity in pauper for example is far worse than affinity in extended or classic, yet people bring it. Anyway I haven't been a tourney player in almost a decade so perhaps I just have the perspective of the casual player: Affinity can tear up casual since most casual games are preboard and don't go more than one game at a time. Since this is the case people tend to hate it in casual very vocally leaving the impression perhaps that it is better than it is. Same goes for Cascade. Same goes for discard/land destruction focused decks. All have their moments in the sun and forever after only shine in casual play or weird formats. I do think that Affinity could be improved without unbalancing the meta for each format that supports it. BUT I don't think the focus of scars will be on that. I think it will be on repairing the damage done by Affinity to casual. That is my guess. Artifacts will abound no doubt I don't think it will be a "brown" set. On the other hand Artifact Dual Lands would be cool as long as they aren't mythic or even rare. I'm not thrilled with more and more rare duals being put out each year.
I enjoyed the history. It's interesting for me to read about the time heading into Mirrodin, and what Mirrodin was like before the small sets came out, since I got back into Magic during Kamigawa block.
I'd agree that Affinity is a really frustrating deck to play in Legacy or Extended, if that's what you're saying. The hate is SOOOOO strong. One card kills you, and there are several different ones that can do it.
Agreed on the modular creatures - I'd love to see something good come out, even if it's just good in casual games. Most of the ones they made in Darksteel are x/x for x+2 mana, which is just too crappy to stomach.
Anyway, fun article.
Well, there'll definitely be a recursion theme. I have a Teneb list that I haven't updated in a while, so I have to break that guy out of retirement. The Morturary combo sounds interesting though.
Did you guys like the hyperlinks? Was I the only one that thought the old twins were scary?
May I suggest a Re-animator theme?
perhaps absurdly redunkulous re-animation combos
like enduring renewal & alluren? or mortuary and call of the wild/lurking predators?
thanks for the warp world include idea :D
In game one when you were stuck on three mana, there were multiple turns where you could have played a skyfisher, picked up a land, and played another two drop. Did this never cross your mind, or do value the skyfisher's ability to reuse ETB creatures more?
in celebration of Drana I went out right after reading this and won a Commander game with her :P forget Maga you shoulda used Drana lol
Cool. I'll get a Teneb list going.
Great videos. The bonus section with the chipmunk voice definitely made my son and I laugh.
I'd love to see an article about a GWB Deck, just because i love those colors.
Thinking of Goth girls, im still missing a copy of Dakmor Sorceress. :(
In the section where you say "The rest of the cards are fairly straight-forward" I think you may be underestimating some of the cards.
Sign in Blood is not just great card advantage, it's a way of delivering that final 2 points of damage to your opponent. Crypt Ripper is the finisher, but it's not just the ability to go head-to-head with any creature in Standard Pauper, it (like putrid leech) can dodge most forms of damage based removal making it a real problem to remove. In a deck that isn't over worried by tempo like this, Bojuka Bog is having a profound effect on the metagame, it pretty much allows you to negate the opponents graveyard strategy with hardly any effect on your own gameplan.
Do you have any thoughts on using Aven Riftwatcher - comment redacted. Didn't see this was only standard, thanks.
Standard guys.. Standard
Thanks guys!
The Bizzar - Yeah, I like Awakening Zone. It actually made me dust off and update my old Asmira deck I'm writing about next article. As for the links and pics:
(CARDNAME) creates the hyperlink to the card on mtgotraders.
(pic=CARDNAME) creates the full sized card picture.
(tmb=CARDNAME) creates the smaller thumbnail picture.
Adam - I liked the Mayael deck. I would suggest adding Warp World though. It has been a beating when I used it in my Mayael deck. As for Tuktuk, I guess he can go in random gobbo decks. But I'm not a huge gobbo guy, so what do I know?
JustSin - I'm glad someone is championing Drana. Like I told you in game the other day, you're the only person I've seen using her as a General. But she's awesome! Goth girls FTW!
Also, there's (at least) one error in the article. If you rebound an X spell with Cast Through Time, X=0. So no rebounding Mind Spring or Mind Shatter for you!
Sure it does... Mothdust Changeling is an "Eldrazi Spawn" among all other creature types (eg, "Spawn Drone", "Eldrazi Antelope", etc.). That's why you can sac it to pay the alternative cost on Hand of Emrakul. Brood Birthing also counts it as an "Eldrazi Spawn", so the "if you control an Eldrazi Spawn" condition succeeds and you get three 0/1 tokens.
I hadn't actually noticed that the original author was talking about standard, so while you can get a turn-2 Hand of Emrakul, you can't do it like this in standard because Mothdust Changeling isn't in the format any more.
Love the videos. Aelopile (sp?) is a valid sb card, for all the orders you may run into/pro black stuff :)
it seem everyone in STD DEs has a full set of Jace 2.0 in their bant decks.
Jace is the only solid sub for Jace
Way back, in the day where I played paper exclusively, A buddy of mine won one of the first big events in Charleston. The staple of the deck was Abyss. He played Jade Statue and M. Factories as his creature base and it put everyone on tilt. Now this is back in the day of the 3rd and 4th edition core set so the card pool was nothing like it is now. The banned cards were limited. Chaos Orb was still flipping around. It was good fun. But ever since that deck I have loved The Abyss. I think the deck was UWB if I remember correctly. We are talking 13+ years ago so I am a little foggy. Some call that normal for me
1 - never suggested Pyroblasts, I agree with you and you'll see a lack of them in the decklist...I playtested them at the suggestion of a friend for only a game or two
2 - Understand all your points, and I have 4x Searing Blaze main for weeks now. The main point for the inclusion is that I'd really feel silly not playing fiend in burn, as you can win the next turn after you draw it.
3 - I have had horrible luck with the deck, and luck isn't something I usually admit to having bad/or good amounts of...but for 3 weeks, I've drawn only lands, or no lands in my opening tourney match...incredibly frustrating. But I do have 3 weeks worth of tourney notes, and 71% of the wins, the word "KILN FIEND" is circled - noting that it was the reason for victory. The most valid point for KF is the amount of life gain out there, this acts as a nullifyer since it can swing for upwards of 10-20 life. I haven't used forgotten caves and/or needledrop for weeks either, just glance at above posts, my list has changed quite often.
I agree that Drana is underrated, but hardly ignored... the only deck im playing this day is Drana and its pretty sweet