Wait now deck thinning is NOT useless in a monocolored deck. The principle is the same no matter what kind of land you run as long as you can fetch it out. The less cards in your deck the more like it is to draw a given card. Hence Thawing Glaciers works nicely in monocolored decks. The practice is that people dislike thinning and avoid it unless it is crucial. That doesn't make it bad.
Yes to everything! This is what I told my friends who were just starting MTGO. I also showed them the marketplace and the classifieds a little more and I got them hooked on mtgotraders. I said that for the 8 ticket cards, post "human buying (8 ticket card) 7", for the .25-2 cards, don't waste time trying to save 15 cents, just buy them from mtgotraders.
It's sad that "don't draft" is the truth, but it's so right. Digital drafts range from $11-$14 and that is steep. I've seen paper drafts of standard sets go from $8-10 as well. That seems to be the normal price. And if you live somewhere that taxes your MTGO payments, forget it. Fortunately, there are lots of addicted drafters are out there. Someone has to lose value when cracking a pack, and as long as it's not me, I'm happy. (Uh-oh! Heath doesn't want to crack packs of Exodus for his store either? You don't say.)
Most competitive decks don't even use 4x of dual lands! This is important for people who may be too intimidated to play Legacy. Me, I own 4x Savannah and 4x Taiga. So I'm building zoo, right? I built my own list first with 10 dual lands, 2 basics, and 9 fetches. Then I looked at the best zoo lists out there. They run 4x Kird Ape (I thought he was cut, heh) and 4x Wild Nacatl. Therefore Taiga and Savannah are extremely important with all those type-matters creatures, right? Yes, and no. Yes, you need those lands on the board every single game. The correct manabase? 3x Taiga, 2x Savannah, 2x Plateau, 10 fetches, 2-3 basics. And it works every single time! The fetches were just 3-6 last time I looked. I can't stress this enough: get fetches. You can play any 3 color deck you want with nothing but fetchlands and basics. Going up to 4 or 5 colors sort of requires shocklands or real duals with fetches, but the fetches are still the most important and most affordable piece.
EDIT: The dual land most often played as a 4-of is Underground Sea. The other 9 duals you might never put your 4th into any deck ever. And you didn't provide enough information about the deck thinning aspect. The deck thinning *is* useless in a mono-colored deck or a deck with 22+ lands. But outside of those parameters, well, someone wrote an article about it.
In the last game when you had 3 earthquakes, you mentioned that only a lightning bolt or an "untap" land will win you the game, however a burst lightning would as well after you earthquake for X=1.
Hooray I can post again! I couldn't for over a week because for some reason I was being flagged as spam. On to responses:
The 4 missing cards are Journey to Nowhere. It's one of the best removal cards in the format. Leonin Squire was cut after testing, as I mentioned in the paragraph right before "Off to the queues".
Deft Duelist competes with Lone Missionary spots. Duelist is stronger against removal-heavy control and against WW though the latter isn't signficant, and Missionary gives the deck more game against Burn and Storm. It's a meta choice.
Guardian of the Guildpact competes with Hulk slots. Both are rather difficult to kill, but Hulk is a way faster clock and can even cycle.
I tried Aether Spellbomb but it was less impressive than I thought it'd be. Leonin Squire got axed too, so there was even less incentive to run it. Longbow is useless in some matches like Storm, but in others it's a game winner.
The deck has so much card draw that it always finds itself tapped out, though if you can squeeze Counterspells in somehow I would recommend it.
Holy Light instead of Echoing Truth because Light is far stronger against Goblins and it can even help against other random matchups like Elves.
you'll never please everyone... they keep events running at all hours of the day and you cant avoid the fact that night time for some is day time for others.. hell I'd love to get in on some events as listed on the schedule, but in reality its a 3 hour difference and those ones that would be perfect to play early afternoon are evening/night for me and thus I can't
I'm pretty sure I sold that rareland for 2tix. Not bad I think. Yes, the air elemental is a bomb, but I got greedy. I don't think the answer is so black and white.
You're right, should've had another plains in there.
The last match is very clearly a mistake. I pointed out how horrible it was, and how my mentality going out of the first game really hampered my following actions. I picked this draft because of that, but also the more subtle error of Harm's Way that also costed me the game.
I mentioned that I picked Aluring Siren because people have recommended it in the past and I merely wanted to test it. You can see the conclusion I reached about it.
I totally disagree about Illusionary Servant. It's a 3/4 flyer. It usually trades for a card unless it gets hit by Sparkmage, Prodigal, or Blinding Mage. I've drafted them numerous times and they rock.
That makes a lot of sense. Hows your matchup with Fish? It seems to me like that would be a toughy. Shutting down your Vial T1 on the draw with FOW or cursecatcher on the play. How often do you find yourself tapping out and running into a Daze? Personally, I think merfolk is the best eternal deck, but with a playset of FOW covering my rent for the month and Daze and mutavalt i cant so much afford it.
If you think the events are easy for US players just try to play a Legacy event online. 12 midnight and 1 AM really!!! It would be nice to see Legacy DEs fire more often. It might even improve the sales of the non-redeemable card sets.
You bring up some good points on match ups that I can reply on. The Grunts are a hard one to let go. They are fun to play and totally tear up a gy. But the are limited as to when they can target the GY. Because of this I found that Grunts (while they have the potential to mess up a reanimator player that is dumb enough to not put the creature in the gy at the end of your turn) simply can be played around. Now with that said they are more useful in the Dredge match up in game one. On the play they are best since Dredge start dropping 2/2s into play turn 2. As for them being in the main deck I found they have all the same problems vs standstill and tarmo does while being very situational. With the cow in the deck list it starts to make even less sense to include the Grunts. But I love those 2 drop 4/4s.
The one of cannonist in the sb actually ends up being a 2 of with E. Tutor. So, I dropped the 1 I had in the main deck for a 3rd Teeg since I can bounce and replace into play teeg at instant speed provided I have a Karakas and a Vial set at 2 untapped. It makes it very hard for ANT to storm off on you. But I might figure out a way to bring one more cannonist into the main deck in place of the COW if I am not pleased with the way it works out with the current cards online. Not having ports limits the usefulness of the COW.
Loam lion seems to be the card that is putting players on tilt the most. It is simply there for one thing...provide a blocker/attacker in the standstill match up. It is also not bad to have vs Goblins and zoo. In the DnT match up Lion is a beast. Turn 2 I can be setting the tempo of the match attacking with a 3/4 provided I get a Pridemage out. That 4 toughness keeps they DnT player from dropping a Serra to block even if they have a bodyguard out.
As for Mother of runes, I think that is the card that will go in the place of the Loam Lions when we get them online. She makes to much sense in the deck. She represents one of the stronger creatures for this deck list.
Finally, the cost vs reward of splashing green. Costs are that it opens the list up to stifle, some additional clunkiness in the mana base (it happens) and wastelands are more effective against you (kinda) To fight off these "-"s the deck has COW in it so stifle and wasteland are not as painfully effective as they could be. Plus, having a dual land out there makes for a nice target for them to wasteland over your Karakas. One forest helps prevent wasteland lock and as for the clunkiness...it is not hard to pull the mana together. Now lets think of the positive of splashing green. First there is the thinning of the deck's mana. It makes for some really great late game draws. Since the deck has no draw producing cards (canopies are not in my collection currently but I like the card for this deck) the thinning is very much needed. In addition to that, green adds the versatility needed to deal with so many problem match up for the deck. Teeg stops Dredge and ANT while keeping Jace and FOWs from being played out of standstill. Pridemages help in the occasional stack match up, standstill, and the various mirror match variants. So I have to say the rewards seem to outweigh the costs.
I hope this clears up some of the reasoning I used or better yet seemed to gather from the guys in our play groups.
But if you're still interested in working with this idea, I've had this list built for a LONG time now haha. Silex, myself and a bunch of other guys went over all forms of allies on MTG Salvation and this was my baby. My list is a little different, however. You should get back to me if you want to talk, the link to my new thread based on the deck is as follows: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=244772
I proposed a three color build with 4 red cards. You could even cut them and run those 2 Scorpions and 2 Last Kiss (terrible IMO) if desired. I'm not sold on the 'greatness' of scorpion yet. He's a solid card for killing spawn tokens, but I haven't actually killed a real, potential threat with him yet. I've ran him quite a few times, and Scorp hasn't even killed anything that would have changed the game. I would certainly side him in against Tuskcaller or the Looting Leveller.
As for his blue being bad, sure it's not broken or anything, but he has Halimar Wavewatch x2 (the best blue common creature) and a Lay Bare to stop random dot bomb. If he doesn't run blue and they play Drana, he dies to it. With blue, he can at least hope for Lay Bare.
After watching near 50 of Blazelix's D&T games I would have to say that I am most fond of his list, I do like your list but I feel like the inclusion of Green is unnecessary. I do have to agree with you on one thing. Tarmogoyf, while an excellent card, is over rated.
I have a few concerns:
Personally, I like Jotun Grunts. It is a pretty fat creature at 4/4 that keeps an ever growing Tarmogoyf from getting to out of hand by recycling the cards that make it so big. It also helps against reanimator and, if you catch someone off thier game, can recycle the Bridges in Dredge.
Ethersworn Cannonist should be a 2 of IMO. If anything it is a roadblock storm has to get through.
I wouldn't LoL at your Loam Lion, seeing as how it is ALMOST identical to kird ape, which sees/has seen a lot play. But it still think that the Bodygaurd is better. It provides awesome combat tricks with the Vial.
Aside from that I like you list.
Things I like a lot:
Your sideboard is pretty much perfect IMO.
You made a good use of the Green splash without taking away from the White Skeleton that is D&T
Obviously I like Flickerwisp. For those of you who don't see the full potential of this creature read this http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=50057
it is a good representation of the D&T deck with an excellent explanation of how to play it.
What I would do:
I would run 2 Horizon Canopy
I would also replace the loam lions with either A: Bodyguards or B: Elvish spirit guide.
spirit guide isn't so good as a creature, but it is nice to excel to a T1 2 drop. or a T2 Mangara(which is awesome with Karakas or Flickerwisp)
Final points:
Are you going to run Mother of Runes when it gets released? Personally, I think it is too good not to run as at least a 3 of.
I am considering making this deck so Blaze, You, and I can run a little D&T Juggs playtest group.
Good luck to you, I look forward to watching your replays.
Snake Umbra is a great splash in a deck with low-cost fliers. Glad to hear my advice helped out! I'm beginning to suspect that a 3 color deck with a small splash is a little more "correct" in most drafts than a 2 color one, but that's just a theory & I'm not sure yet.
I have had two paper drafts that were blue/white splashing red. In one it was just for Lord of Shatterskull Pass because he's such a bomb. The other had two Staggershock 'cause hey, it's Staggershock. Also I had Echo Mage in there. I did get to live the dream once of double-copying Staggershock with him, with rebound on the stack set up for three more shocks the next turn. Pretty sick! This set has a lot of fun card interactions like that.
I can see people outside the USA complaining about the scheduling of events, at times that are in the wee hours of the night for them or whenever.
But things like the Player Rewards program, it's simple enough to just lie and click whatever checkboxes say you're eligible for prizes. I think Wizards expects people to, they just obviously can't SAY "Feel free to go ahead and break the law and we won't check".
Every time you put one of these up with all the card values I just love seeing how the prices track over time. Congrats on the judgeship. I hope you never have to toss me out of an event if I should happen into one your preside over. I suspect the new ruling on collusion will only be a heavier punishment for those caught. I certainly cant see them allowing it to happen again. It's just not like WOTC to go back on themselves like that.
Well as usual I am never satified with a deck. Event the best player's deck lists get me thinking of what can change. With that said I have gone back to my list and tweeked it a little more. Thanks to about 100 play test matches against my buddy MilkShake's dredge deck the sb is now modified for that match up and the reanimator match up. We tried it all too. From a play set of Leylines just chillin' in the sb to the original package in the deck list above to a non-trap using gy hate set of cards. After it all was said and done it seemed to be a tie between the Leyline package with a 1 of tormod's and 1 of relic (I added E. Tutor to the main deck with a COW so the one of's really tricked out nicely) and the all artifact list of 3 tormod's and 3 relics. For now the sb is staying with the artifacts simply because the early chain of vapors does make leyline a dead card. However, with that said, the leyline package was undefeated while the artifact based package did loose a match. The trap package, while effective, is to easy to play around for reanimator and thresh. In addition to the gy hate the dredge match up pulls in the 3 of BFTs for the sac ability. So, currently the deck list is looking like this:
TAXMAN
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Qasali Pridemage
3 Loam Lion
1 Enlightened Tutor
4 Savannah
1 Swords to Plowshares
4 Flickerwisp
1 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Karakas
4 Serra Avenger
4 Wasteland
3 Mishra's Factory
1 Forest
3 Swords to Plowshares
4 Windswept Heath
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Plains
2 Oblivion Ring
3 Gaddock Teeg
4 Æther Vial
1 Plains
3 Mangara of Corondor
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
Sideboard
1 Tivadar of Thorn
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Aura of Silence
2 Pithing Needle
1 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Burrenton Forge-Tender
2 Silence
Thanks for the article. I just won my first swiss draft ever and the advice you (and the other pureMTGO writers) gave helped me with the win.
I played a blue-white leveler deck. I splashed green to put in Snake Umbra. I got that idea from this article. Normally I would have overlooked a card that directly helped me pull out a couple wins.
It's a little reassuring to see a strong drafter making a few mistakes while learning a new set. I've made some myself, but tightened up my play with each draft & learned more of the interactions of the set to keep a watch for during games. I think it speaks very well of the set design that it's got so many tricks and nuances to learn. Goblin Tunneler alone seems like he has 837 different tricks up his sleeve you didn't expect him to have. I finally drafted the Kiln Fiend deck in paper, and had two Tunnelers in it. Love that guy!
I think my favorite match of the three was your first round. So far I've not played in nor watched a matchup of two "ramp + fatties" decks, so it was really interesting to see how that plays out. Plus it looks like a ton of fun to be racing Eldrazi vs. Eldrazi like that!
As a business principle myself, I don't deal with the EU market simply because there is too much variation. Germany, this is legal, France its not, etc etc... Much much simpler to just say, sorry no can do. If a EU player really wants it, there are ways around the system to get it. Find an IT pro.
PS> Not plugging my co. here but might be able to help with the loop around :-)
Smite is a great spell by any stretch of the imagination, and I fell in love with it at my prerelease. Kill your huge Eldrazi for 1 mana? Yes please! I haven't been playing Magic long enough to have seen it the first time around, so it wasn't till later I learned it's a reprint from an old set.
Since then, however, I've been in a draft with two Smites where I faced an opponent playing one of the evasion-based archetypes. Against some decks, Smite can be weak, 'cause the guys you need to kill, you never get to block! I now value Guard Duty higher than Smite. (I'll still grab Smites when I'm in white, though!)
Wait now deck thinning is NOT useless in a monocolored deck. The principle is the same no matter what kind of land you run as long as you can fetch it out. The less cards in your deck the more like it is to draw a given card. Hence Thawing Glaciers works nicely in monocolored decks. The practice is that people dislike thinning and avoid it unless it is crucial. That doesn't make it bad.
Yes to everything! This is what I told my friends who were just starting MTGO. I also showed them the marketplace and the classifieds a little more and I got them hooked on mtgotraders. I said that for the 8 ticket cards, post "human buying (8 ticket card) 7", for the .25-2 cards, don't waste time trying to save 15 cents, just buy them from mtgotraders.
It's sad that "don't draft" is the truth, but it's so right. Digital drafts range from $11-$14 and that is steep. I've seen paper drafts of standard sets go from $8-10 as well. That seems to be the normal price. And if you live somewhere that taxes your MTGO payments, forget it. Fortunately, there are lots of addicted drafters are out there. Someone has to lose value when cracking a pack, and as long as it's not me, I'm happy. (Uh-oh! Heath doesn't want to crack packs of Exodus for his store either? You don't say.)
Most competitive decks don't even use 4x of dual lands! This is important for people who may be too intimidated to play Legacy. Me, I own 4x Savannah and 4x Taiga. So I'm building zoo, right? I built my own list first with 10 dual lands, 2 basics, and 9 fetches. Then I looked at the best zoo lists out there. They run 4x Kird Ape (I thought he was cut, heh) and 4x Wild Nacatl. Therefore Taiga and Savannah are extremely important with all those type-matters creatures, right? Yes, and no. Yes, you need those lands on the board every single game. The correct manabase? 3x Taiga, 2x Savannah, 2x Plateau, 10 fetches, 2-3 basics. And it works every single time! The fetches were just 3-6 last time I looked. I can't stress this enough: get fetches. You can play any 3 color deck you want with nothing but fetchlands and basics. Going up to 4 or 5 colors sort of requires shocklands or real duals with fetches, but the fetches are still the most important and most affordable piece.
EDIT: The dual land most often played as a 4-of is Underground Sea. The other 9 duals you might never put your 4th into any deck ever. And you didn't provide enough information about the deck thinning aspect. The deck thinning *is* useless in a mono-colored deck or a deck with 22+ lands. But outside of those parameters, well, someone wrote an article about it.
Article on RoE limited.
In the last game when you had 3 earthquakes, you mentioned that only a lightning bolt or an "untap" land will win you the game, however a burst lightning would as well after you earthquake for X=1.
Hooray I can post again! I couldn't for over a week because for some reason I was being flagged as spam. On to responses:
The 4 missing cards are Journey to Nowhere. It's one of the best removal cards in the format. Leonin Squire was cut after testing, as I mentioned in the paragraph right before "Off to the queues".
Deft Duelist competes with Lone Missionary spots. Duelist is stronger against removal-heavy control and against WW though the latter isn't signficant, and Missionary gives the deck more game against Burn and Storm. It's a meta choice.
Guardian of the Guildpact competes with Hulk slots. Both are rather difficult to kill, but Hulk is a way faster clock and can even cycle.
I tried Aether Spellbomb but it was less impressive than I thought it'd be. Leonin Squire got axed too, so there was even less incentive to run it. Longbow is useless in some matches like Storm, but in others it's a game winner.
The deck has so much card draw that it always finds itself tapped out, though if you can squeeze Counterspells in somehow I would recommend it.
Holy Light instead of Echoing Truth because Light is far stronger against Goblins and it can even help against other random matchups like Elves.
you'll never please everyone... they keep events running at all hours of the day and you cant avoid the fact that night time for some is day time for others.. hell I'd love to get in on some events as listed on the schedule, but in reality its a 3 hour difference and those ones that would be perfect to play early afternoon are evening/night for me and thus I can't
I'm pretty sure I sold that rareland for 2tix. Not bad I think. Yes, the air elemental is a bomb, but I got greedy. I don't think the answer is so black and white.
You're right, should've had another plains in there.
The last match is very clearly a mistake. I pointed out how horrible it was, and how my mentality going out of the first game really hampered my following actions. I picked this draft because of that, but also the more subtle error of Harm's Way that also costed me the game.
I mentioned that I picked Aluring Siren because people have recommended it in the past and I merely wanted to test it. You can see the conclusion I reached about it.
I totally disagree about Illusionary Servant. It's a 3/4 flyer. It usually trades for a card unless it gets hit by Sparkmage, Prodigal, or Blinding Mage. I've drafted them numerous times and they rock.
That makes a lot of sense. Hows your matchup with Fish? It seems to me like that would be a toughy. Shutting down your Vial T1 on the draw with FOW or cursecatcher on the play. How often do you find yourself tapping out and running into a Daze? Personally, I think merfolk is the best eternal deck, but with a playset of FOW covering my rent for the month and Daze and mutavalt i cant so much afford it.
If you think the events are easy for US players just try to play a Legacy event online. 12 midnight and 1 AM really!!! It would be nice to see Legacy DEs fire more often. It might even improve the sales of the non-redeemable card sets.
You bring up some good points on match ups that I can reply on. The Grunts are a hard one to let go. They are fun to play and totally tear up a gy. But the are limited as to when they can target the GY. Because of this I found that Grunts (while they have the potential to mess up a reanimator player that is dumb enough to not put the creature in the gy at the end of your turn) simply can be played around. Now with that said they are more useful in the Dredge match up in game one. On the play they are best since Dredge start dropping 2/2s into play turn 2. As for them being in the main deck I found they have all the same problems vs standstill and tarmo does while being very situational. With the cow in the deck list it starts to make even less sense to include the Grunts. But I love those 2 drop 4/4s.
The one of cannonist in the sb actually ends up being a 2 of with E. Tutor. So, I dropped the 1 I had in the main deck for a 3rd Teeg since I can bounce and replace into play teeg at instant speed provided I have a Karakas and a Vial set at 2 untapped. It makes it very hard for ANT to storm off on you. But I might figure out a way to bring one more cannonist into the main deck in place of the COW if I am not pleased with the way it works out with the current cards online. Not having ports limits the usefulness of the COW.
Loam lion seems to be the card that is putting players on tilt the most. It is simply there for one thing...provide a blocker/attacker in the standstill match up. It is also not bad to have vs Goblins and zoo. In the DnT match up Lion is a beast. Turn 2 I can be setting the tempo of the match attacking with a 3/4 provided I get a Pridemage out. That 4 toughness keeps they DnT player from dropping a Serra to block even if they have a bodyguard out.
As for Mother of runes, I think that is the card that will go in the place of the Loam Lions when we get them online. She makes to much sense in the deck. She represents one of the stronger creatures for this deck list.
Finally, the cost vs reward of splashing green. Costs are that it opens the list up to stifle, some additional clunkiness in the mana base (it happens) and wastelands are more effective against you (kinda) To fight off these "-"s the deck has COW in it so stifle and wasteland are not as painfully effective as they could be. Plus, having a dual land out there makes for a nice target for them to wasteland over your Karakas. One forest helps prevent wasteland lock and as for the clunkiness...it is not hard to pull the mana together. Now lets think of the positive of splashing green. First there is the thinning of the deck's mana. It makes for some really great late game draws. Since the deck has no draw producing cards (canopies are not in my collection currently but I like the card for this deck) the thinning is very much needed. In addition to that, green adds the versatility needed to deal with so many problem match up for the deck. Teeg stops Dredge and ANT while keeping Jace and FOWs from being played out of standstill. Pridemages help in the occasional stack match up, standstill, and the various mirror match variants. So I have to say the rewards seem to outweigh the costs.
I hope this clears up some of the reasoning I used or better yet seemed to gather from the guys in our play groups.
But if you're still interested in working with this idea, I've had this list built for a LONG time now haha. Silex, myself and a bunch of other guys went over all forms of allies on MTG Salvation and this was my baby. My list is a little different, however. You should get back to me if you want to talk, the link to my new thread based on the deck is as follows: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=244772
I proposed a three color build with 4 red cards. You could even cut them and run those 2 Scorpions and 2 Last Kiss (terrible IMO) if desired. I'm not sold on the 'greatness' of scorpion yet. He's a solid card for killing spawn tokens, but I haven't actually killed a real, potential threat with him yet. I've ran him quite a few times, and Scorp hasn't even killed anything that would have changed the game. I would certainly side him in against Tuskcaller or the Looting Leveller.
As for his blue being bad, sure it's not broken or anything, but he has Halimar Wavewatch x2 (the best blue common creature) and a Lay Bare to stop random dot bomb. If he doesn't run blue and they play Drana, he dies to it. With blue, he can at least hope for Lay Bare.
After watching near 50 of Blazelix's D&T games I would have to say that I am most fond of his list, I do like your list but I feel like the inclusion of Green is unnecessary. I do have to agree with you on one thing. Tarmogoyf, while an excellent card, is over rated.
I have a few concerns:
Personally, I like Jotun Grunts. It is a pretty fat creature at 4/4 that keeps an ever growing Tarmogoyf from getting to out of hand by recycling the cards that make it so big. It also helps against reanimator and, if you catch someone off thier game, can recycle the Bridges in Dredge.
Ethersworn Cannonist should be a 2 of IMO. If anything it is a roadblock storm has to get through.
I wouldn't LoL at your Loam Lion, seeing as how it is ALMOST identical to kird ape, which sees/has seen a lot play. But it still think that the Bodygaurd is better. It provides awesome combat tricks with the Vial.
Aside from that I like you list.
Things I like a lot:
Your sideboard is pretty much perfect IMO.
You made a good use of the Green splash without taking away from the White Skeleton that is D&T
Obviously I like Flickerwisp. For those of you who don't see the full potential of this creature read this
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=50057
it is a good representation of the D&T deck with an excellent explanation of how to play it.
What I would do:
I would run 2 Horizon Canopy
I would also replace the loam lions with either A: Bodyguards or B: Elvish spirit guide.
spirit guide isn't so good as a creature, but it is nice to excel to a T1 2 drop. or a T2 Mangara(which is awesome with Karakas or Flickerwisp)
Final points:
Are you going to run Mother of Runes when it gets released? Personally, I think it is too good not to run as at least a 3 of.
I am considering making this deck so Blaze, You, and I can run a little D&T Juggs playtest group.
Good luck to you, I look forward to watching your replays.
Snake Umbra is a great splash in a deck with low-cost fliers. Glad to hear my advice helped out! I'm beginning to suspect that a 3 color deck with a small splash is a little more "correct" in most drafts than a 2 color one, but that's just a theory & I'm not sure yet.
I have had two paper drafts that were blue/white splashing red. In one it was just for Lord of Shatterskull Pass because he's such a bomb. The other had two Staggershock 'cause hey, it's Staggershock. Also I had Echo Mage in there. I did get to live the dream once of double-copying Staggershock with him, with rebound on the stack set up for three more shocks the next turn. Pretty sick! This set has a lot of fun card interactions like that.
I can see people outside the USA complaining about the scheduling of events, at times that are in the wee hours of the night for them or whenever.
But things like the Player Rewards program, it's simple enough to just lie and click whatever checkboxes say you're eligible for prizes. I think Wizards expects people to, they just obviously can't SAY "Feel free to go ahead and break the law and we won't check".
Every time you put one of these up with all the card values I just love seeing how the prices track over time. Congrats on the judgeship. I hope you never have to toss me out of an event if I should happen into one your preside over. I suspect the new ruling on collusion will only be a heavier punishment for those caught. I certainly cant see them allowing it to happen again. It's just not like WOTC to go back on themselves like that.
Well as usual I am never satified with a deck. Event the best player's deck lists get me thinking of what can change. With that said I have gone back to my list and tweeked it a little more. Thanks to about 100 play test matches against my buddy MilkShake's dredge deck the sb is now modified for that match up and the reanimator match up. We tried it all too. From a play set of Leylines just chillin' in the sb to the original package in the deck list above to a non-trap using gy hate set of cards. After it all was said and done it seemed to be a tie between the Leyline package with a 1 of tormod's and 1 of relic (I added E. Tutor to the main deck with a COW so the one of's really tricked out nicely) and the all artifact list of 3 tormod's and 3 relics. For now the sb is staying with the artifacts simply because the early chain of vapors does make leyline a dead card. However, with that said, the leyline package was undefeated while the artifact based package did loose a match. The trap package, while effective, is to easy to play around for reanimator and thresh. In addition to the gy hate the dredge match up pulls in the 3 of BFTs for the sac ability. So, currently the deck list is looking like this:
TAXMAN
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Qasali Pridemage
3 Loam Lion
1 Enlightened Tutor
4 Savannah
1 Swords to Plowshares
4 Flickerwisp
1 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Karakas
4 Serra Avenger
4 Wasteland
3 Mishra's Factory
1 Forest
3 Swords to Plowshares
4 Windswept Heath
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Plains
2 Oblivion Ring
3 Gaddock Teeg
4 Æther Vial
1 Plains
3 Mangara of Corondor
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
Sideboard
1 Tivadar of Thorn
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Aura of Silence
2 Pithing Needle
1 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Burrenton Forge-Tender
2 Silence
there is always the solution of just editing your info to say you are from ohh i dont know somewhere its legal?
Thanks for the article. I just won my first swiss draft ever and the advice you (and the other pureMTGO writers) gave helped me with the win.
I played a blue-white leveler deck. I splashed green to put in Snake Umbra. I got that idea from this article. Normally I would have overlooked a card that directly helped me pull out a couple wins.
Thanks again.
It's a little reassuring to see a strong drafter making a few mistakes while learning a new set. I've made some myself, but tightened up my play with each draft & learned more of the interactions of the set to keep a watch for during games. I think it speaks very well of the set design that it's got so many tricks and nuances to learn. Goblin Tunneler alone seems like he has 837 different tricks up his sleeve you didn't expect him to have. I finally drafted the Kiln Fiend deck in paper, and had two Tunnelers in it. Love that guy!
I think my favorite match of the three was your first round. So far I've not played in nor watched a matchup of two "ramp + fatties" decks, so it was really interesting to see how that plays out. Plus it looks like a ton of fun to be racing Eldrazi vs. Eldrazi like that!
dup post
As a business principle myself, I don't deal with the EU market simply because there is too much variation. Germany, this is legal, France its not, etc etc... Much much simpler to just say, sorry no can do. If a EU player really wants it, there are ways around the system to get it. Find an IT pro.
PS> Not plugging my co. here but might be able to help with the loop around :-)
idk but vid link seems to still not be working to me
Smite is a great spell by any stretch of the imagination, and I fell in love with it at my prerelease. Kill your huge Eldrazi for 1 mana? Yes please! I haven't been playing Magic long enough to have seen it the first time around, so it wasn't till later I learned it's a reprint from an old set.
Since then, however, I've been in a draft with two Smites where I faced an opponent playing one of the evasion-based archetypes. Against some decks, Smite can be weak, 'cause the guys you need to kill, you never get to block! I now value Guard Duty higher than Smite. (I'll still grab Smites when I'm in white, though!)
Or perhaps cost effectiveness plays a part in addition to just plain ole' caution.