just one of those things I have the next one for Anything But sitting as submitted for weeks now it was about the Snake deck I ran and was written before I ran it in the PRE >< sometimes I get both put up in a week sometimes they alternate, I don't really know how they decide... or how I can get the AB article bumped up or whatever
You're quite welcome, I'm glad someone other than me is benefiting :).
I don't follow the big events much - but some of the price spikes (Talus Paladin & Awakening Zone IIRC) definitely correspond to those. Eventually I'll dig up an event calendar and try and add those dates in too. I'm assuming there must be a yearlong event calendar somewhere?
Any player who drops and swings with an Eldrazi with Annihilator of more then 3 will win the entire match. Whispersilk Cloak and/or Lightning Greaves + Eldrazi is the most current game winner. Kozilek is the best IMO due to the card advantage it gives you and is relatively cheap to cast. Artisan of Kozilek is also decent for its mid to late round recursion + annihilator.
I'm assuming that something like 2x Leonin Squire and 2x Journey are maindeck, since you have four slots open in your list.
Do you think that the longbow is really worth having in the main deck if at all? You sideboard it out in most match-ups anyway. What do you think about AEther Spellbomb there instead? It is not a dead card while it can bounce your in play CIP guys. It can make your extra squires draw cards as well. Also for four mana a turn, they can make squire a recurring blocker every turn.
Great article and in-depth detail gotta love it. Thanks for honor mention!
I'll be dead honest I originally played kithkin because how much fun i had with them during Lor block as a casual deck, however After playing in my first BYOS tourney 1.02 and winning it with them i stuck with them the meta even shifted from aggro to control at a few points and made life hell on me but thats what my sideboard is for right? hehe
Actually to be honest even after the meta shifted i kept at it because the deck was still doing well even if not winning the entire tourney and it was proving that u CAN take 20tics and make a semi competitive deck to have fun with. So i say to anyone that wants to play just build a deck and come out and TRY! I'm sure you'll learn something and have ideas for the next week :)
This spreadsheet has been invaluable to me; it has helped me get a sense of the changes of a release cycle, as well as allowing me to correlate price (Jace the Mindsculptor) with events (PTQ season, which went on hiatus).
So this is basically canadian threshold. its build on the same fountation. However the fact that it can dominate the long game with infinate wastelands, and mishra's really made me want to play it. Alkso having just come off of playing jace in thopter balance for 2 weeks i really wanted to continue playing him.
on red vs white.
In a metagame with more targetable fatty creatures,ie. tombstalker. i would possibly want stp/pte over burn. However the burn hits the important match ups in gobbos and dnt. also the burn suite has historically been good against merfolks too. Lastly using red opens up much more sb space for 3 mana wraths and any other cards like pyroblast or some such nonsence. If the meta changed to moire bg agro style decks ala eva green then white would probably be a better choice. but burn and firespout do a lot vs the current field.
on serendib/trygon.
the list i found ran 3 vendillion clicque instead. Quite simply i didnt have them, and though that they were pretty meh anyways. Ive played just about every kind of thresh and i know that clique dosent agree with me. Going with the long game crawl i see the deck as, i put in the trygons cause they pitch to fow, fly, and they do some thing the rest of the deck cant. kill, enchantress targets, o ring, vial, needle, every thing else.
serendib is interesting. i think in the 4 events i played the deck i cast hime about 5 times. he has never won or lost me the game, but i still like him in here. he pitches to fow, he flys, is fast, and huge. his 4 butt makes him imune to red removal barring pyroblast. and he has 100% sysnergy with firespout. You can wipe the ground and air and hell live.
side board needs to be uptated as this list is about a month old now, but anyone who has the cards should give it a whurl.its good against the top of the field, but it has trouble with the more fringe or teir 2 decks.
lastly for more interested in thresh article i have written two that i like and am sure that you will to as you can see what thresh looked like from years ago in comp classic settings. please forgive them though, they are full of awful spelling and grammer. was way back in the day lol.
Agreed, it is also important to point out how important the exile features on STP can be. It is because of this reason that I've always hated UGR. I don't know how many times I was playing UGR and wished I had STP in hand instead of burn. Having said that, I guess UGR is better in the current meta. I also wonder somtimes if UGB wouldn't be more competitive with access to cards like Engineered Plague. Plague could shut down the recurring ability of mangara and it has obvious placement vs goblins, merfolk and even dredge to a certain point. I dunno, always found it kinda meh too. This is why I love thresh, so many options to think about, always makes the deck interesting.
I know there are books describing many magic characters, but I have just enough free time to play the game let alone read about it. One of the bigger issues I have about MTGO is sometimes it is harder to see the artwork unlike real cards. One thing I found helpful is that you can zoom in on MTGO and make the card quite large for viewing.
When in doubt about some MTG character's gender (I know, it's something you may want to tell your shrink about), I check for it on MTG Salvation Wiki (http://wiki.mtgsalvation.com/). You know, mostly all of these guys we are used to see on cards above the all-important "trample", "indestructible" or "players can't draw cards" little wording, actually have books where some other guy tell their stories. Not that I have ever read one single MTG novelization, mainly because I don't read heroic fantasy at all. But sometimes got the curiosity to know what Mishra, Karn or Jaya Ballard really sound like in a real drama context.
Thanks, I'm definitely hoping to find time to start making these, I've sat in watching it quite a few times, but you can't always make the reg time, think your articles have brought about great interest to the format
In a tempo view, a 2 for 1 with Fire/Ice is pretty efficient, but a 1 for 1 with it involves that F/I remains a control tool. In that case, StP is strictly better (2 damages for 2cc spell is usualy pretty terrible regarding tempo). As the deck is mostly build on tempo winning, I guess it is optimized to cook goblins more than to punish DnT anyway ...
The problem with merfolk is almost the same : Fire is pretty good to remove 2 */1 guys (as adept + curse), but if you use it to remove only lords, StP would be at least as efficient, at best much better because it cost only W.
Your point is pretty good I think : the choice of R over W here is mostly due to gob heavy presence.
I actually knew that the field was going to be mainly Aggro and picked up a deck to fight it. I seriously missed ZEN block's enemy fetchlands but one cannot have'em all in BYOS and that's the beauty of the format.
The format is really fantastic as you say and there is absolutely no limit in deck building. The power level of decks are kept in balance due to the rules of the format. So yes, there are decks with Force of Wills around but they lack other good components.
By the way season two starts this Sunday. The official announcement for each week's tournament is being made by the host of the tournament during the week on the official boards. There you will find lots of other useful info as well.
Wow, this is nearly identical to a deck I was working on! Glassdusks and Court Homunculus as well! Great article...my only "huh? is the lack of Deft Duelists and 2/3 Guildpact dudes. When I play anything blink, I just LOVE drawing those guys...despite being invisible to said blink
Yea mangara is a 1/1, flickerwisp is a 3/1, bodyguard is a 1/1. Mystic is a 1/2, serra a 3/3, canonist 2/2. The only thing not with in range is Jotun Grunt. The ice part can really help when they have a jitte equipped creature. Personally I've always loved UGW and UGB over UGR, but I can see why it is needed in this meta. Also don't forget about merfolk, tapping a islandwalker or better yet killing a lord is extrememly important.
Are you guys working on separate lists? I'm interested in your Molimo list, I'm working on one myself. Even though mine is probably not nearly as streamlined as the one you guys are putting together, it's still surprisingly resilient.
just one of those things I have the next one for Anything But sitting as submitted for weeks now it was about the Snake deck I ran and was written before I ran it in the PRE >< sometimes I get both put up in a week sometimes they alternate, I don't really know how they decide... or how I can get the AB article bumped up or whatever
thanks whiffy for all the extra info I couldn't provide :)
You're quite welcome, I'm glad someone other than me is benefiting :).
I don't follow the big events much - but some of the price spikes (Talus Paladin & Awakening Zone IIRC) definitely correspond to those. Eventually I'll dig up an event calendar and try and add those dates in too. I'm assuming there must be a yearlong event calendar somewhere?
Yeah, I am actually writing an article about losing that specifically talks about luck versus responsibility.
Any player who drops and swings with an Eldrazi with Annihilator of more then 3 will win the entire match. Whispersilk Cloak and/or Lightning Greaves + Eldrazi is the most current game winner. Kozilek is the best IMO due to the card advantage it gives you and is relatively cheap to cast. Artisan of Kozilek is also decent for its mid to late round recursion + annihilator.
Don't forget Academy Ruins for more recursion antics.
I think you are missing something in your decklist for "Trinket Blink". I believe you are missing a mist of Journey to Nowhere and Leonin Squire?
Can't wait to try out the list.
I'm assuming that something like 2x Leonin Squire and 2x Journey are maindeck, since you have four slots open in your list.
Do you think that the longbow is really worth having in the main deck if at all? You sideboard it out in most match-ups anyway. What do you think about AEther Spellbomb there instead? It is not a dead card while it can bounce your in play CIP guys. It can make your extra squires draw cards as well. Also for four mana a turn, they can make squire a recurring blocker every turn.
Great article and in-depth detail gotta love it. Thanks for honor mention!
I'll be dead honest I originally played kithkin because how much fun i had with them during Lor block as a casual deck, however After playing in my first BYOS tourney 1.02 and winning it with them i stuck with them the meta even shifted from aggro to control at a few points and made life hell on me but thats what my sideboard is for right? hehe
Actually to be honest even after the meta shifted i kept at it because the deck was still doing well even if not winning the entire tourney and it was proving that u CAN take 20tics and make a semi competitive deck to have fun with. So i say to anyone that wants to play just build a deck and come out and TRY! I'm sure you'll learn something and have ideas for the next week :)
Good ideas and helpful card interactions.
This spreadsheet has been invaluable to me; it has helped me get a sense of the changes of a release cycle, as well as allowing me to correlate price (Jace the Mindsculptor) with events (PTQ season, which went on hiatus).
Thanks for sharing.
I'm still tracking prices as well ... continuing the spreadsheet from WWK (go to the ROE tab for current #s):
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AtCjGKYHoqwXdDNVcEVmblF0ZnUzQTZP...
Maybe I'm just morbidly fascinating with watching the rares all driven down to bulk (<.20 in my terminology) prices.
So this is basically canadian threshold. its build on the same fountation. However the fact that it can dominate the long game with infinate wastelands, and mishra's really made me want to play it. Alkso having just come off of playing jace in thopter balance for 2 weeks i really wanted to continue playing him.
on red vs white.
In a metagame with more targetable fatty creatures,ie. tombstalker. i would possibly want stp/pte over burn. However the burn hits the important match ups in gobbos and dnt. also the burn suite has historically been good against merfolks too. Lastly using red opens up much more sb space for 3 mana wraths and any other cards like pyroblast or some such nonsence. If the meta changed to moire bg agro style decks ala eva green then white would probably be a better choice. but burn and firespout do a lot vs the current field.
on serendib/trygon.
the list i found ran 3 vendillion clicque instead. Quite simply i didnt have them, and though that they were pretty meh anyways. Ive played just about every kind of thresh and i know that clique dosent agree with me. Going with the long game crawl i see the deck as, i put in the trygons cause they pitch to fow, fly, and they do some thing the rest of the deck cant. kill, enchantress targets, o ring, vial, needle, every thing else.
serendib is interesting. i think in the 4 events i played the deck i cast hime about 5 times. he has never won or lost me the game, but i still like him in here. he pitches to fow, he flys, is fast, and huge. his 4 butt makes him imune to red removal barring pyroblast. and he has 100% sysnergy with firespout. You can wipe the ground and air and hell live.
side board needs to be uptated as this list is about a month old now, but anyone who has the cards should give it a whurl.its good against the top of the field, but it has trouble with the more fringe or teir 2 decks.
lastly for more interested in thresh article i have written two that i like and am sure that you will to as you can see what thresh looked like from years ago in comp classic settings. please forgive them though, they are full of awful spelling and grammer. was way back in the day lol.
my 2nd article. The house that thresh built. http://puremtgo.com/node/1037
4th article. Moon lighting
http://puremtgo.com/node/1081
and 6th. Whiffy wonka and the ticket factory.
http://puremtgo.com/node/1206
happy to answer any other questions too.
Legacy articles=fantastic reading and very important for building the meta
Anything but articles=fantastic reading and relevant to formats/casual appraoches that I may actually play.
One is not better than the other, but if you had the time it would be nice to see an occasional return to anything but
as a sidenote all the keepers in that cycle were female, but she could definitely use some eyeshadow or something.
Agreed, it is also important to point out how important the exile features on STP can be. It is because of this reason that I've always hated UGR. I don't know how many times I was playing UGR and wished I had STP in hand instead of burn. Having said that, I guess UGR is better in the current meta. I also wonder somtimes if UGB wouldn't be more competitive with access to cards like Engineered Plague. Plague could shut down the recurring ability of mangara and it has obvious placement vs goblins, merfolk and even dredge to a certain point. I dunno, always found it kinda meh too. This is why I love thresh, so many options to think about, always makes the deck interesting.
I know there are books describing many magic characters, but I have just enough free time to play the game let alone read about it. One of the bigger issues I have about MTGO is sometimes it is harder to see the artwork unlike real cards. One thing I found helpful is that you can zoom in on MTGO and make the card quite large for viewing.
When in doubt about some MTG character's gender (I know, it's something you may want to tell your shrink about), I check for it on MTG Salvation Wiki (http://wiki.mtgsalvation.com/). You know, mostly all of these guys we are used to see on cards above the all-important "trample", "indestructible" or "players can't draw cards" little wording, actually have books where some other guy tell their stories. Not that I have ever read one single MTG novelization, mainly because I don't read heroic fantasy at all. But sometimes got the curiosity to know what Mishra, Karn or Jaya Ballard really sound like in a real drama context.
Thanks, I'm definitely hoping to find time to start making these, I've sat in watching it quite a few times, but you can't always make the reg time, think your articles have brought about great interest to the format
In a tempo view, a 2 for 1 with Fire/Ice is pretty efficient, but a 1 for 1 with it involves that F/I remains a control tool. In that case, StP is strictly better (2 damages for 2cc spell is usualy pretty terrible regarding tempo). As the deck is mostly build on tempo winning, I guess it is optimized to cook goblins more than to punish DnT anyway ...
The problem with merfolk is almost the same : Fire is pretty good to remove 2 */1 guys (as adept + curse), but if you use it to remove only lords, StP would be at least as efficient, at best much better because it cost only W.
Your point is pretty good I think : the choice of R over W here is mostly due to gob heavy presence.
I actually knew that the field was going to be mainly Aggro and picked up a deck to fight it. I seriously missed ZEN block's enemy fetchlands but one cannot have'em all in BYOS and that's the beauty of the format.
The format is really fantastic as you say and there is absolutely no limit in deck building. The power level of decks are kept in balance due to the rules of the format. So yes, there are decks with Force of Wills around but they lack other good components.
By the way season two starts this Sunday. The official announcement for each week's tournament is being made by the host of the tournament during the week on the official boards. There you will find lots of other useful info as well.
LE
Wow, this is nearly identical to a deck I was working on! Glassdusks and Court Homunculus as well! Great article...my only "huh? is the lack of Deft Duelists and 2/3 Guildpact dudes. When I play anything blink, I just LOVE drawing those guys...despite being invisible to said blink
Yea mangara is a 1/1, flickerwisp is a 3/1, bodyguard is a 1/1. Mystic is a 1/2, serra a 3/3, canonist 2/2. The only thing not with in range is Jotun Grunt. The ice part can really help when they have a jitte equipped creature. Personally I've always loved UGW and UGB over UGR, but I can see why it is needed in this meta. Also don't forget about merfolk, tapping a islandwalker or better yet killing a lord is extrememly important.
Are you guys working on separate lists? I'm interested in your Molimo list, I'm working on one myself. Even though mine is probably not nearly as streamlined as the one you guys are putting together, it's still surprisingly resilient.
Oblation and Bant Charm are other good ways to get rid of Commanders. A couple more cards to consider that I don't see anywhere:
Aven Mindcensor
Felidar Soveriegn
Linvala
Reverse the Sands
Acquire
Time Stop
Vesuva
Sakashima the Impostor