good point about gob : it should be a large part of the reason of this choice as there is a lots of these nasty greenskined guys currently in the meta. Regarding DnT, main beaters can easly support 2 damages so i guess the tap/cantrip effect is more useful, and the burn to finish opponent or to hunt mangaras
I think you made a good call in the finals... three of my fav cards, pulse, deed, vindicate, are really powerful, but all in the same deck that isn't singleton would have been overkill
I really loved these articles because I think this is a fantastic format, I had wanted to give the event a try, but felt reluctant about jumping in a game at the end of a season, though I'm still a little confused on the start can I get a date for it? I still want to give it a try, though seeing these lists not sure how successful I'll be lol there's some really great ideas, it's always nice to see a format that allows for so much creativity in deck building
I was pretty sure keeper was female, but wasn't sure on Mangara. You do strike me as a black only kind of guy Dunkle lol. Next you are going to tell me you listen to Johnny Cash.
I wish I would look more feminine, sometimes makeup makes the deal. But I wouldn never wear "pink or prada". Just looks gay. But then, I only wear black.
I'll have to leave that for whiffy to answer because tbh I didn't even know where to start with that list lol I tried to make mention of some of it, but I know I can't do it justice
Well at the least I'm probably going to have to skip next week, there's only been two DEs posted and that's hardly an article, maybe I'll try and get the LandStill one together for next week instead
Duplicant really belongs in the Sharuum deck due to its ability to be recurred with the commander's ability. The Sharuum deck definitely subpar compared to some of the other Sharuum decks I've seen. Granted, I know you have to give up some cards due to the split cardpool of the format, but there are many cards that I don't see among the lists that definitely belong in the deck. Off the top of my head...Tolarian Academy, artifact lands, Memnarch, Tawnos's Coffin, Sphinx of Steel Wind, Rings of Brighthearth, Filigree Angel, Sanctum Gargoyle, etc. As another infinite combo in the deck, you can use Academy / Memnarch / Rings of Brighthearth / Minamo, School at Water's Edge. Just have 4 or more artifacts, tap Academy for 4+, Minamo the Academy, and Rings the Minamo ability (targeting Minamo). This will give you infinite blue mana to use Memnarch to steal all of the opponents permanents. Even if you don't get the combo setup, each of the pieces is pretty powerful without the others.
You must be reading my mind. I included a thresh list in the article I just submitted yesterday. It's focus is around New Horizons which in my opinion is just another variation of UGW Thresh.
I agree with everyone, don't stop the series, the events will pick back up.
Also, for the record, I've never been a fan of Clique in UGR thresh. I think most people will agree UGR is the best overall option, but I've always been partial to UGB myself. With Landstill making a stink I would be slightly hesitant in bring thresh to the events as it is a terrible matchup imo.
To better understand the situation, I have to reiterate that games would not be the "sit there, look harmless, backstab people" kind but rather "let's gang on this guy" kind of games. As such, the decks are designed with a lower curve than what a normal commander deck would look like. I expect heavy interaction from all 4 sides unless everyone is going to sit there and do nothing until turn 6. I expect the worst case scenario whereby the opposing side will run cheap removals and this is accounted for. I expect the community team to be able to work with each other rather than "i do my thing and you do yours". As such, I feel that the weakest 2 decks are jhoira and uril which happen to be very strong in commander/edh because they are somewhat "self oriented" decks. 2 decks working together > 1 deck vs 2 decks.
Regarding the child of alara bug, it's not important because I never intended for the commander to come out more than once. The commander is mainly there to remove the card restrictions of the deck and to hardcast if something really goes wrong. The deck has enough reanimation spells to make it work overtime if needed.
And regarding the deck, the deck is designed to throw out a fast combo kill if possible, depending on how much support the teammate can provide. Of the 7 decks, this deck is expected to be the most deadly one because it can end the game right there. This is not a real commander deck but more like a 100c singleton deck with mana restrictions and a little more space to go off thus the commander is ok not to be a broken one.
I considered erayo vs vendilion clique vs arcum as the mono blue deck and decided that erayo would be the best choice given the fact that there are 2 players who are working hand in hand. Unless everything goes well, it would be very unlikely for the latter two to do what they are meant to do properly. I am expecting the players to hog the top 2 slots and not just randomly lose a player to removals so erayo stood out there.
Single cards:
Vampiric tutor is in the child of alara list.
Liliana Vess could be put into the mono black deck. I made a conscious effort to not play the 4-5 mana tutors like diabolic tutor or the buyback one so that the deck would not blank out at the crucial points in time. I might be expecting the format to move faster than it would.
Grim discovery looks good. I didn't think that cabal coffers would be going down (since the opp share 1x wasteland and 1x strip mine). If you have more reason to think that the land would be destroyed, do let me know.
Beseech the queen is in the list.
Mind Twist is in the list. The list is not in alphabetical order.
Duplicant looks good... Mono blue or black or sharuum?
Thawing glaciers needs to go somewhere. Would mono black be good?
Mind's eye should go into somewhere with fast mana... would sharuum be good?
Phyrexian portal is in the jhoira deck. Maybe it should be swapped with the liar's pendulum from the sharuum deck.
4 of the 7 decks have some way to get graveyard hate out. Jhoira, uril and child of alara are the lacking ones but jhoira might be able to time spiral the graveyard away.
Deed is in the child of alara deck cos zur is there.
Jhoira has the eldrazi (they are the cards in black)
Sharuum has open the vaults
I didn't put in the artifact mass removal because I have no idea where they should go into.
Temporal extortion is a good choice. Looks evil.
While I expect cheap removals to be there, I think the threats in the format would escape engineered explosives.
As it stands, punishment can only go into the child of alara list. I'm not sure if it needs it there.
Inquisition of kozilek is meant to weed out removals which I don't expect to go out of 3 mana. Hopefully that would give more edge to jhoira, erayo and child of alara deck.
:) np shardfenix, i had daze mainboarded before but sometimes i didnt get what i want so frantic search helped me a lot and i need 3 mana to play it. This is much more stable, but i still see you are also right with your comment if i come across some fearie controll or discard (duress ouch:) )
I wish I had an hour to build the deck, I had 20 mins and no time to play test it.
I follow the same rules as LE where I never play the same deck twice.
I had only played two BYOS events before this and had leant LE my Leyline's from the first deck and wasnt going to go back on my word. My second deck I knew wasn't up to the level of winning vs burn decks.
So I made a new deck at the last moment with LE's help as the one I had been play testing all weekend wasnt legal as it was heavy with RoE cards.
All Arcum needs is a ton of cheap artifact creatures (including every one of 'em that makes mana), a Mycosynth Lattice, Summoning Station, and Blasting Station. Infinite damage very reliably by turn 5-6 if not disrupted. Since you're blue, some things to counter disruption and/or protect Arcum fit in nicely. Also Darksteel Forge belongs in there - first Arcum activation you fetch Mycosynth Lattice, then if he's in danger you can fetch Forge second instead of fetching the second combo piece right away.
Really no Tutors in the Xiahou Dun List? That cant be right even if you want to put the 3 in the Deathkeeper build that still leaves Beseech the Queen and Vampiric Tutor +Liliana Vess and possible some transmute. You also want to protect your coffers with grim discovery and crucible (if not needed in another deck). Corpse Dance will be really hard to stop as well. You also want to run deserted temple + rings of brightearth for infinite mana with coffers.
Your first five are good choices but your last two are way off. Both Sek and CoA are probably not broken enough on their own.
While you nailed one of the "unholy trinity" of Commander (consisting of Zur, Arcum and Jhoira), you missed the other two. Arcum is probably a shoe in considering how broken he is with his effect.
The other possible Commanders, as it stands now are:
Molimo, Adamaro, Rafiq, Azami, Niv, Hokori, Scion, Momir, Questing Hippo, and Sliver Queen, in addition to the first five mentioned in your article.
Each Commander has a specific archetype associated with it, and it's really finding out which ones have the least bleed into the others that I'm working on now.
Of course there is no rule about bringing a new deck to each event and most of the regulars already play the same deck every week. Then there are some who play 3 or 4 different decks and each time they select one for that week.
And then there is me of course who is, as you perfectly summed, someone who loves building decks. I think I can build above average decks and I also think that I can play above average. I already have like 6 finished decks for season two which I will play during the first 6 weeks and I'm currently working on the rest!
Regarding Flippers: To be perfectly honest I wasen't expecting vampires to be that successful. I was expecting vampires surely but their success really surprised me. 2 of the top 4 decks are vampires and this fact may tell us a few things. But apart from that, I know that Flippers is a very good player so his success didn't surprise me a bit. Give his deck to a mediocre player and the results will dramatically change.
@bingobongo: Next week's article will not be too late because season two starts this weekend and it will once again last 16 weeks. So actually yes, it will be too late for the very first tournament of the season but I think it will still be very useful for the other 15 weeks. And yes, you may find more info about the tournament on the official forums.
Colorless wraths! Where are Nevinyrral's Disk, All is Dust and Oblivion Stone? No engineered explosives, no Punishment, no Pernicious Deed? You need to be able to clear the board, to get in your opponent's faces, foil their plans. No-one plays in a vacuum. Think less Inquisition of Kozilek and more Myojin of Night's Reach: Life gives you time to develop, and two nefarious opponents trying to wreck you quickly give you a reason to. It's a totally different pace of game, and a format where it can be spike to be timmy, with massive, gamewrenching, player destroying effects. Curse of the Cabal and Temporal Extortion get that much more powerful because no-one wants to 'take one for the team' in a free for all.
I'm not seeing Duplicant, Mind's Eye, Thawing Glaciers, Phyrexian Portal or much graveyard control. You're not making the most of the card pool: you have Mind Shatter but not Mind Twist.
Aside from that, beautiful work, Tarmo! :D I'm delighted to see these decks come together, and it's up to our participants to tweak, test and triumph.
So, at the end of the day, Flippers_Giraffe won it with a deck that he had to throw together in the last hour? What does that say about the field? Everyone brings their best and/or most practiced deck, and Flippers just disrespects them all, basically? Is there a rule against bringing a deck twice or something? (Obviously not.) Why not just bring an old deck?
You dominated 5 of these events with 5 different decks! All 6 of your decks were awesome, really. I can tell how much you love building decks. "Yay, I win again! Now that I've established a deck in just one week it's time to adjust it for next week's meta start all over again with a completely new deck!" Hardcore!
... and the whiffy's deck is a pretty nice build. To me, it seems to be somewhere between baseruption and thresh. I would be glad to have an explanation of the cards choice & strategy about this deck : the alternate tool crucible/mishra is interesting as the unusual creatures choice. Without having playing it, this build seems less tempo oriented and maybe more controlish than Thresh builds usualy are, even if it keeps a solid clock with 3 wasteland & 3 stifle. Also with the exception of tarmos, creatures are less powerful regarding combat damage than the usual nimble/vendi choice but each of them bring something that creates an easier situation allowing to the player to control the board : trygon is a house vs cb, jitte and many other threats ... sower is pretty handy vs any deck running targetable fatties, so I guess that Effreet takes the role of an the evasive attacker/finisher. Pretty interesting. The question I have is : why red over white color in that build ? Meta choice ? W will bring stronger removals (StP, PtE), meddling (one of the best sb control tool imo)and possible alternate evasive killer in Enforcer, but that said, to cut R will leave the deck without any burn which is pretty ueful to finish matches...
Go on with this excellent articles series, 5 fireball as well
good point about gob : it should be a large part of the reason of this choice as there is a lots of these nasty greenskined guys currently in the meta. Regarding DnT, main beaters can easly support 2 damages so i guess the tap/cantrip effect is more useful, and the burn to finish opponent or to hunt mangaras
I think you made a good call in the finals... three of my fav cards, pulse, deed, vindicate, are really powerful, but all in the same deck that isn't singleton would have been overkill
I really loved these articles because I think this is a fantastic format, I had wanted to give the event a try, but felt reluctant about jumping in a game at the end of a season, though I'm still a little confused on the start can I get a date for it? I still want to give it a try, though seeing these lists not sure how successful I'll be lol there's some really great ideas, it's always nice to see a format that allows for so much creativity in deck building
I was pretty sure keeper was female, but wasn't sure on Mangara. You do strike me as a black only kind of guy Dunkle lol. Next you are going to tell me you listen to Johnny Cash.
I am assuming he used red because of Goblins and Death and Taxes. Fire/Ice can often be a 2 for 1 in that situation.
Mangara is a guy Keeper is a girl.
I wish I would look more feminine, sometimes makeup makes the deal. But I wouldn never wear "pink or prada". Just looks gay. But then, I only wear black.
I'll have to leave that for whiffy to answer because tbh I didn't even know where to start with that list lol I tried to make mention of some of it, but I know I can't do it justice
oh man, I read this comment and was like "there's no way I made that mistake".... but I guess I did lol oops ><
Well at the least I'm probably going to have to skip next week, there's only been two DEs posted and that's hardly an article, maybe I'll try and get the LandStill one together for next week instead
some good ideas, I for one am of a mind that Sek is underrated as a commander, there are a lot of fun interactions with him
Duplicant really belongs in the Sharuum deck due to its ability to be recurred with the commander's ability. The Sharuum deck definitely subpar compared to some of the other Sharuum decks I've seen. Granted, I know you have to give up some cards due to the split cardpool of the format, but there are many cards that I don't see among the lists that definitely belong in the deck. Off the top of my head...Tolarian Academy, artifact lands, Memnarch, Tawnos's Coffin, Sphinx of Steel Wind, Rings of Brighthearth, Filigree Angel, Sanctum Gargoyle, etc. As another infinite combo in the deck, you can use Academy / Memnarch / Rings of Brighthearth / Minamo, School at Water's Edge. Just have 4 or more artifacts, tap Academy for 4+, Minamo the Academy, and Rings the Minamo ability (targeting Minamo). This will give you infinite blue mana to use Memnarch to steal all of the opponents permanents. Even if you don't get the combo setup, each of the pieces is pretty powerful without the others.
You must be reading my mind. I included a thresh list in the article I just submitted yesterday. It's focus is around New Horizons which in my opinion is just another variation of UGW Thresh.
I agree with everyone, don't stop the series, the events will pick back up.
Also, for the record, I've never been a fan of Clique in UGR thresh. I think most people will agree UGR is the best overall option, but I've always been partial to UGB myself. With Landstill making a stink I would be slightly hesitant in bring thresh to the events as it is a terrible matchup imo.
Ok.. Q&A time.
To better understand the situation, I have to reiterate that games would not be the "sit there, look harmless, backstab people" kind but rather "let's gang on this guy" kind of games. As such, the decks are designed with a lower curve than what a normal commander deck would look like. I expect heavy interaction from all 4 sides unless everyone is going to sit there and do nothing until turn 6. I expect the worst case scenario whereby the opposing side will run cheap removals and this is accounted for. I expect the community team to be able to work with each other rather than "i do my thing and you do yours". As such, I feel that the weakest 2 decks are jhoira and uril which happen to be very strong in commander/edh because they are somewhat "self oriented" decks. 2 decks working together > 1 deck vs 2 decks.
Regarding the child of alara bug, it's not important because I never intended for the commander to come out more than once. The commander is mainly there to remove the card restrictions of the deck and to hardcast if something really goes wrong. The deck has enough reanimation spells to make it work overtime if needed.
And regarding the deck, the deck is designed to throw out a fast combo kill if possible, depending on how much support the teammate can provide. Of the 7 decks, this deck is expected to be the most deadly one because it can end the game right there. This is not a real commander deck but more like a 100c singleton deck with mana restrictions and a little more space to go off thus the commander is ok not to be a broken one.
I considered erayo vs vendilion clique vs arcum as the mono blue deck and decided that erayo would be the best choice given the fact that there are 2 players who are working hand in hand. Unless everything goes well, it would be very unlikely for the latter two to do what they are meant to do properly. I am expecting the players to hog the top 2 slots and not just randomly lose a player to removals so erayo stood out there.
Single cards:
Vampiric tutor is in the child of alara list.
Liliana Vess could be put into the mono black deck. I made a conscious effort to not play the 4-5 mana tutors like diabolic tutor or the buyback one so that the deck would not blank out at the crucial points in time. I might be expecting the format to move faster than it would.
Grim discovery looks good. I didn't think that cabal coffers would be going down (since the opp share 1x wasteland and 1x strip mine). If you have more reason to think that the land would be destroyed, do let me know.
Beseech the queen is in the list.
Mind Twist is in the list. The list is not in alphabetical order.
Duplicant looks good... Mono blue or black or sharuum?
Thawing glaciers needs to go somewhere. Would mono black be good?
Mind's eye should go into somewhere with fast mana... would sharuum be good?
Phyrexian portal is in the jhoira deck. Maybe it should be swapped with the liar's pendulum from the sharuum deck.
4 of the 7 decks have some way to get graveyard hate out. Jhoira, uril and child of alara are the lacking ones but jhoira might be able to time spiral the graveyard away.
Deed is in the child of alara deck cos zur is there.
Jhoira has the eldrazi (they are the cards in black)
Sharuum has open the vaults
I didn't put in the artifact mass removal because I have no idea where they should go into.
Temporal extortion is a good choice. Looks evil.
While I expect cheap removals to be there, I think the threats in the format would escape engineered explosives.
As it stands, punishment can only go into the child of alara list. I'm not sure if it needs it there.
Inquisition of kozilek is meant to weed out removals which I don't expect to go out of 3 mana. Hopefully that would give more edge to jhoira, erayo and child of alara deck.
:) np shardfenix, i had daze mainboarded before but sometimes i didnt get what i want so frantic search helped me a lot and i need 3 mana to play it. This is much more stable, but i still see you are also right with your comment if i come across some fearie controll or discard (duress ouch:) )
Nice article LE a nice run down of your journey through the first BYOS season.
I look forward to the next article and season I have been busy building new decks as well.
Thanks again for your help with the Vampire deck I wouldnt have thought to use Tempest block if you had not of mentioned it.
Hatred for the win in the final was amazing, I was left on one life point after pulling that off.
I wish I had an hour to build the deck, I had 20 mins and no time to play test it.
I follow the same rules as LE where I never play the same deck twice.
I had only played two BYOS events before this and had leant LE my Leyline's from the first deck and wasnt going to go back on my word. My second deck I knew wasn't up to the level of winning vs burn decks.
So I made a new deck at the last moment with LE's help as the one I had been play testing all weekend wasnt legal as it was heavy with RoE cards.
Didn't they say they were going to fix the Child of Alara exiled/graveyard bug, and they would have had it in the last build but it hadn't passed QA?
All Arcum needs is a ton of cheap artifact creatures (including every one of 'em that makes mana), a Mycosynth Lattice, Summoning Station, and Blasting Station. Infinite damage very reliably by turn 5-6 if not disrupted. Since you're blue, some things to counter disruption and/or protect Arcum fit in nicely. Also Darksteel Forge belongs in there - first Arcum activation you fetch Mycosynth Lattice, then if he's in danger you can fetch Forge second instead of fetching the second combo piece right away.
Really no Tutors in the Xiahou Dun List? That cant be right even if you want to put the 3 in the Deathkeeper build that still leaves Beseech the Queen and Vampiric Tutor +Liliana Vess and possible some transmute. You also want to protect your coffers with grim discovery and crucible (if not needed in another deck). Corpse Dance will be really hard to stop as well. You also want to run deserted temple + rings of brightearth for infinite mana with coffers.
Your first five are good choices but your last two are way off. Both Sek and CoA are probably not broken enough on their own.
While you nailed one of the "unholy trinity" of Commander (consisting of Zur, Arcum and Jhoira), you missed the other two. Arcum is probably a shoe in considering how broken he is with his effect.
The other possible Commanders, as it stands now are:
Molimo, Adamaro, Rafiq, Azami, Niv, Hokori, Scion, Momir, Questing Hippo, and Sliver Queen, in addition to the first five mentioned in your article.
Each Commander has a specific archetype associated with it, and it's really finding out which ones have the least bleed into the others that I'm working on now.
Hey guys, thanks for stopping by.
Of course there is no rule about bringing a new deck to each event and most of the regulars already play the same deck every week. Then there are some who play 3 or 4 different decks and each time they select one for that week.
And then there is me of course who is, as you perfectly summed, someone who loves building decks. I think I can build above average decks and I also think that I can play above average. I already have like 6 finished decks for season two which I will play during the first 6 weeks and I'm currently working on the rest!
Regarding Flippers: To be perfectly honest I wasen't expecting vampires to be that successful. I was expecting vampires surely but their success really surprised me. 2 of the top 4 decks are vampires and this fact may tell us a few things. But apart from that, I know that Flippers is a very good player so his success didn't surprise me a bit. Give his deck to a mediocre player and the results will dramatically change.
@bingobongo: Next week's article will not be too late because season two starts this weekend and it will once again last 16 weeks. So actually yes, it will be too late for the very first tournament of the season but I think it will still be very useful for the other 15 weeks. And yes, you may find more info about the tournament on the official forums.
Thanks again for the comments.
LE
Colorless wraths! Where are Nevinyrral's Disk, All is Dust and Oblivion Stone? No engineered explosives, no Punishment, no Pernicious Deed? You need to be able to clear the board, to get in your opponent's faces, foil their plans. No-one plays in a vacuum. Think less Inquisition of Kozilek and more Myojin of Night's Reach: Life gives you time to develop, and two nefarious opponents trying to wreck you quickly give you a reason to. It's a totally different pace of game, and a format where it can be spike to be timmy, with massive, gamewrenching, player destroying effects. Curse of the Cabal and Temporal Extortion get that much more powerful because no-one wants to 'take one for the team' in a free for all.
I'm not seeing Duplicant, Mind's Eye, Thawing Glaciers, Phyrexian Portal or much graveyard control. You're not making the most of the card pool: you have Mind Shatter but not Mind Twist.
Aside from that, beautiful work, Tarmo! :D I'm delighted to see these decks come together, and it's up to our participants to tweak, test and triumph.
So, at the end of the day, Flippers_Giraffe won it with a deck that he had to throw together in the last hour? What does that say about the field? Everyone brings their best and/or most practiced deck, and Flippers just disrespects them all, basically? Is there a rule against bringing a deck twice or something? (Obviously not.) Why not just bring an old deck?
You dominated 5 of these events with 5 different decks! All 6 of your decks were awesome, really. I can tell how much you love building decks. "Yay, I win again! Now that I've established a deck in just one week it's time to
adjust it for next week's metastart all over again with a completely new deck!" Hardcore!I love this article series and hope its continued for the future weeks.
One remark though, tarmogoyf is from Future Sight and not Lorwyn :)
Brilliant article series
... and the whiffy's deck is a pretty nice build. To me, it seems to be somewhere between baseruption and thresh. I would be glad to have an explanation of the cards choice & strategy about this deck : the alternate tool crucible/mishra is interesting as the unusual creatures choice. Without having playing it, this build seems less tempo oriented and maybe more controlish than Thresh builds usualy are, even if it keeps a solid clock with 3 wasteland & 3 stifle. Also with the exception of tarmos, creatures are less powerful regarding combat damage than the usual nimble/vendi choice but each of them bring something that creates an easier situation allowing to the player to control the board : trygon is a house vs cb, jitte and many other threats ... sower is pretty handy vs any deck running targetable fatties, so I guess that Effreet takes the role of an the evasive attacker/finisher. Pretty interesting. The question I have is : why red over white color in that build ? Meta choice ? W will bring stronger removals (StP, PtE), meddling (one of the best sb control tool imo)and possible alternate evasive killer in Enforcer, but that said, to cut R will leave the deck without any burn which is pretty ueful to finish matches...
Go on with this excellent articles series, 5 fireball as well
Once again Lord interesting article with good insight into the format.
Did try this tourney once but was far from prepared but i have to agree it does look a great format.
Not one to disagree with you but if it starts again this weekend would all the useful info you going to give people next week be too late?
Is the tourney info still on the MTGO forum?