all good info, but i think you might be reaching. next, you'll be trying to tell us kenny rogers can predict the future or obamacare is really good for us. lol thanks again master teacher for your breakdown and analysis.
I have to agree. I googled about zendikar block drafting and stumbled upon your page. Fun article- but you completely lost me with your charts. I see familiar names of cards I've seen- but I have no idea what the abbreviations are and what the charts are saying. If this blog is meant for Magic players who have been playing forever and understand this language- I guess it's fine.
I used to play with Bequeathal all the time when it was new. And I was bad at card selection back then, but I loved that card. I also more than once called it the original Skullclamp, too. Nowadays I like Harmonize better, but since you're playing pauper and neither card is an option, then maybe! In addition to (Lightning Bolt) also try playing it with (Tinder Wall) and (Blood Lust). That's what I used to do.
Well, it's on the mothership. I mean the officially produced one.
The rest of my story news I get from MTGS. Someone will post something like "Gideon did this this and this in the book, and that's why I think he'll appear in RoE as a card!" (Then the Orb of Insight confirms it.)
"But wait, you say - there's a another use for him! If you read the card closely, you'll notice that he doesn't say, "two blocked attacking creatures." So that means he can make one of your own unblocked creatures become blocked. Unfortunately, if you read the rulings... Yeah, your creature who was originally blocked? Still blocked. And now another creature of yours is blocked too. Wow. His uselessness has more depth than I thought."
"Wait! He can also switch your own blocking creatures, if you misclick and block the wrong creature because you're legally blind! He totally sucks in so many ways, it's astounding!"
You bring up both of these separately, but don't bother mentioning that you can block the wrong creature on purpose (rather than because of your blindness) and then switch it to the creature you want to be blocking, thus fogging their biggest guy without having to throw any chump blockers under the bus.
Still not very good, but still definitely not the worst. (Taniwah, Zhou Yu, Chief Commander and Ishi-Ishi, Akki Crackshot probably make the list over him, at the very least.)
You know, in that deck I was ready to hate the Desecrator Hag from day 1 but it hasn't disappointed me at all. It's conceivable that I want to bring back something else, but in practice the biggest creature there is what I want. And a swamp would make it 4 colors, so that's out.
Plus there's the advantage of playing cards opponents have to read. I once had someone kill it with it's trigger on the stack. Since the Hag's ability doesn't target, I used it to bring itself back.
Wrench Mind has been on my "try to use this" list, and I think it's a great choice if you want volume over selection. I just fear the random opponent with a non-essential artifact in hand.
Soltari Visionary is a good solid card, but the problem is Artifacts are somewhat more uncommon that Enchantments so you can't afford hate that only gets the latter.
Rhystic Study though ... I'd forgotten about that. Might have to try it.
Yeah, I understand what you mean, but the Spell Pierce is actually EXTREMELY good vs HyperGenesis both games 2 & 3. Every game I've played on MTGO vs them, maybe I was lucky, but I always got Spell Pierce in the first couple of turns in the game.
About Ancient Grudge and Leyline of the Void, I haven't personally seen them too often, but I'll look out for them. Thanks for pointing it out.
Oh, also, the DDT matchup is really difficult, and I did test against them quite a bit, since that's all people are playing on MTGO nowadays, and it does feel like its 40/60 in their favor. When they go turn 1: Thoughtseize off Urborg, its going to be tough if they play the DD turn 2, and the Hexmage. It gets even harder because you want to kill their guy, they just sac it in response to you targetting their creature. Its over the turn after.
Hey, glad you found the idea interesting! What I usually do, is I go for the black mana first, then the red, then blue, then green, that way, you have access to your right mana when needed. But, yeah, getting manascrewed isn't the funnest thing in the world.
Well the three elf deck event was not enjoyed. I agree its no fun when a certain tribe shows up in those numbers. But apparently Flippers is bringing elders this week thanks to aj...ugh lol and i have another random tribe so that is covered. We may start doing theme weeks once a month just to see how it goes.
To be honest at the beginning the plan was "one sin-one deck", but things developed differently and I ended up writing articles with lots of decks. And yes, these articles consume a lot of my time. As a matter of fact, they consume almost all the time I spend on MTGO.
But at least people comment and say that they're fun to read and that's worth all the effort.
Fun series. I like that you are providing a bunch of decks each article now. that must take a lot of time to playtest though.
I remember seeing Dragon Appeasement and thinking it was horrible. Glad it found a place. My problem with the devour decks I've had in the past is I'll either draw all my Mycoloth's without food for them, or I would get a bunch of little dudes that weren't big enough to do anything. Seems like you struck the right balance there.
For the Herald my idea was to find non-elf applications for the tutor ability, but I couldn’t find anything worthwhile in Pauper other than Nameless Inversion.
Since Woodreaders means we’re in green (more than Mulldrifter puts us in blue), I would rather the other cards in the deck (like Tribe-Elder) handle the ground for a turn or two. Heck, that Tribe-Elder is already like drawing two cards: Warning and Rampant Growth. I’ve just got no love for the Woodreaders.
Razorfin Hunter is cheap for what it does, but I mainly wanted to highlight how broken the Horseshoe Crab interaction is. For a Pauper combo I’d say “Pay U to draw a card and ping your opponent” compares somewhat favorably to “Pay 1 to gain a life and a 1/1 flyer”.
1. You could do things like blue creatures only/white creatures only/etc., block tribal, std tribal (or BYOS tribal), female/male only tribes, pauper tribal (but ban gobos that week), combo tribal (for those big powerful decks), noncombo tribal, nonfiction tribes (ie creatures that are real... hounds/apes/slugs instead of illusions/avatars/elves), mammals, evil tribes (zombies, vamps, etc), good tribes (angels, clerics, etc), artifact tribes, 5+ letter words (first letter of each creature's name has to spell a word), singleton tribal.... I don't know some of these are probably bad, just throwing some stuff out there
2. I don't think tribes should be restricted like saying "no goblins/elves/slivers", but I do think you could do something like banning the top tribes from the previous week, but this has to note two things.. the first is that you may have two decks (like this past week) where multiple decks in the top were the same tribe.. the second thing is that it will have to be noted in a regular post or whatever so that people could know before hand... this may or may not work... I still think my idea had some viability... having tribes as first come first serve to prevent at least seeing those weeks with 3+ ally decks, but I maybe the only one :P
I can agree 100% that in a PE/queue enviroment where is much more prevalent, Chitter is better.
My suggestion of Rager comes from playing TPDC where Storm only appears once in a blue moon.
I like Hobble too. I used to run it in my UWblink deck. Ended up cutting it because of no space.
Wrench Mind sees play. It's a superb discard spell that's run in many MBC SBs, including my own. It's bad against Storm and that's about it.
Wirewood Herald is in every ELVES! deck I've seen.
The difference between Citanul Woodreaders and your other choices is it's better against aggro, since it has the option to be played for 3cc in a pinch. I personally love this card.
Overall, good article, you highlighted some of the better underplayed cards. If you like Quicksilver Dagger though I should point you toward Razorfin Hunter.
all good info, but i think you might be reaching. next, you'll be trying to tell us kenny rogers can predict the future or obamacare is really good for us. lol thanks again master teacher for your breakdown and analysis.
Thanks for this analysis, useful information.
I have to agree. I googled about zendikar block drafting and stumbled upon your page. Fun article- but you completely lost me with your charts. I see familiar names of cards I've seen- but I have no idea what the abbreviations are and what the charts are saying. If this blog is meant for Magic players who have been playing forever and understand this language- I guess it's fine.
I used to play with Bequeathal all the time when it was new. And I was bad at card selection back then, but I loved that card. I also more than once called it the original Skullclamp, too. Nowadays I like Harmonize better, but since you're playing pauper and neither card is an option, then maybe! In addition to (Lightning Bolt) also try playing it with (Tinder Wall) and (Blood Lust). That's what I used to do.
Well, it's on the mothership. I mean the officially produced one.
The rest of my story news I get from MTGS. Someone will post something like "Gideon did this this and this in the book, and that's why I think he'll appear in RoE as a card!" (Then the Orb of Insight confirms it.)
"But wait, you say - there's a another use for him! If you read the card closely, you'll notice that he doesn't say, "two blocked attacking creatures." So that means he can make one of your own unblocked creatures become blocked. Unfortunately, if you read the rulings... Yeah, your creature who was originally blocked? Still blocked. And now another creature of yours is blocked too. Wow. His uselessness has more depth than I thought."
"Wait! He can also switch your own blocking creatures, if you misclick and block the wrong creature because you're legally blind! He totally sucks in so many ways, it's astounding!"
You bring up both of these separately, but don't bother mentioning that you can block the wrong creature on purpose (rather than because of your blindness) and then switch it to the creature you want to be blocking, thus fogging their biggest guy without having to throw any chump blockers under the bus.
Still not very good, but still definitely not the worst. (Taniwah, Zhou Yu, Chief Commander and Ishi-Ishi, Akki Crackshot probably make the list over him, at the very least.)
You know, in that deck I was ready to hate the Desecrator Hag from day 1 but it hasn't disappointed me at all. It's conceivable that I want to bring back something else, but in practice the biggest creature there is what I want. And a swamp would make it 4 colors, so that's out.
Plus there's the advantage of playing cards opponents have to read. I once had someone kill it with it's trigger on the stack. Since the Hag's ability doesn't target, I used it to bring itself back.
Wrench Mind has been on my "try to use this" list, and I think it's a great choice if you want volume over selection. I just fear the random opponent with a non-essential artifact in hand.
Soltari Visionary is a good solid card, but the problem is Artifacts are somewhat more uncommon that Enchantments so you can't afford hate that only gets the latter.
Rhystic Study though ... I'd forgotten about that. Might have to try it.
Yeah, I understand what you mean, but the Spell Pierce is actually EXTREMELY good vs HyperGenesis both games 2 & 3. Every game I've played on MTGO vs them, maybe I was lucky, but I always got Spell Pierce in the first couple of turns in the game.
About Ancient Grudge and Leyline of the Void, I haven't personally seen them too often, but I'll look out for them. Thanks for pointing it out.
Oh, also, the DDT matchup is really difficult, and I did test against them quite a bit, since that's all people are playing on MTGO nowadays, and it does feel like its 40/60 in their favor. When they go turn 1: Thoughtseize off Urborg, its going to be tough if they play the DD turn 2, and the Hexmage. It gets even harder because you want to kill their guy, they just sac it in response to you targetting their creature. Its over the turn after.
Hey, glad you found the idea interesting! What I usually do, is I go for the black mana first, then the red, then blue, then green, that way, you have access to your right mana when needed. But, yeah, getting manascrewed isn't the funnest thing in the world.
Oh that's janktastic. I love it.
Well the three elf deck event was not enjoyed. I agree its no fun when a certain tribe shows up in those numbers. But apparently Flippers is bringing elders this week thanks to aj...ugh lol and i have another random tribe so that is covered. We may start doing theme weeks once a month just to see how it goes.
Quicksilver dagger + oblivion crown + devoted druid = infinite ping.
There's your untap ftw combo :p
with green to fix it? Rangers and tribe elders. You'd use Bolt over terminate and side out blightning against fast aggro like goblins.
Deconstruct? anybody play this? hows it do, to narrow compared to naturalize?
To be honest at the beginning the plan was "one sin-one deck", but things developed differently and I ended up writing articles with lots of decks. And yes, these articles consume a lot of my time. As a matter of fact, they consume almost all the time I spend on MTGO.
But at least people comment and say that they're fun to read and that's worth all the effort.
LE
Fun series. I like that you are providing a bunch of decks each article now. that must take a lot of time to playtest though.
I remember seeing Dragon Appeasement and thinking it was horrible. Glad it found a place. My problem with the devour decks I've had in the past is I'll either draw all my Mycoloth's without food for them, or I would get a bunch of little dudes that weren't big enough to do anything. Seems like you struck the right balance there.
your kavu deck is missing Invigorate :)
That sounds pretty damning.
For the Herald my idea was to find non-elf applications for the tutor ability, but I couldn’t find anything worthwhile in Pauper other than Nameless Inversion.
Since Woodreaders means we’re in green (more than Mulldrifter puts us in blue), I would rather the other cards in the deck (like Tribe-Elder) handle the ground for a turn or two. Heck, that Tribe-Elder is already like drawing two cards: Warning and Rampant Growth. I’ve just got no love for the Woodreaders.
Razorfin Hunter is cheap for what it does, but I mainly wanted to highlight how broken the Horseshoe Crab interaction is. For a Pauper combo I’d say “Pay U to draw a card and ping your opponent” compares somewhat favorably to “Pay 1 to gain a life and a 1/1 flyer”.
1. You could do things like blue creatures only/white creatures only/etc., block tribal, std tribal (or BYOS tribal), female/male only tribes, pauper tribal (but ban gobos that week), combo tribal (for those big powerful decks), noncombo tribal, nonfiction tribes (ie creatures that are real... hounds/apes/slugs instead of illusions/avatars/elves), mammals, evil tribes (zombies, vamps, etc), good tribes (angels, clerics, etc), artifact tribes, 5+ letter words (first letter of each creature's name has to spell a word), singleton tribal.... I don't know some of these are probably bad, just throwing some stuff out there
2. I don't think tribes should be restricted like saying "no goblins/elves/slivers", but I do think you could do something like banning the top tribes from the previous week, but this has to note two things.. the first is that you may have two decks (like this past week) where multiple decks in the top were the same tribe.. the second thing is that it will have to be noted in a regular post or whatever so that people could know before hand... this may or may not work... I still think my idea had some viability... having tribes as first come first serve to prevent at least seeing those weeks with 3+ ally decks, but I maybe the only one :P
I can agree 100% that in a PE/queue enviroment where is much more prevalent, Chitter is better.
My suggestion of Rager comes from playing TPDC where Storm only appears once in a blue moon.
I like Hobble too. I used to run it in my UWblink deck. Ended up cutting it because of no space.
Wrench Mind sees play. It's a superb discard spell that's run in many MBC SBs, including my own. It's bad against Storm and that's about it.
Wirewood Herald is in every ELVES! deck I've seen.
The difference between Citanul Woodreaders and your other choices is it's better against aggro, since it has the option to be played for 3cc in a pinch. I personally love this card.
Overall, good article, you highlighted some of the better underplayed cards. If you like Quicksilver Dagger though I should point you toward Razorfin Hunter.
What is your sideboard plan for all your match-ups?
top is banned in extended bro
Well lets all through in a little bit.
1. What are some interesting themes...
2. Should tribes be restricted?