Yes, a fun article. My experience with the Lava Zombie is that it can be very hard to keep one on the battlefield; the number of times my other red or black creature is removed in response is ridiculous.
Example, if blightning was 1RB deal 3 to opponent and destroy target land it would make jund that much more dominant. That would be a crazy good spell that would see extended play where blightning as is (being discard) does not.
Also pros don't play competitive pauper either from what I can tell so who cards. Discard is powerful in pauper because card draw is much weaker overall. Outside blue it's hard to gain card advantage. Discard and ld are disruption which can make you the contrl player when you are the one also touting creature kill. You are controling the board thru many avenues. Blue often has been paired with white in control because blue has counter but little way to recover against resolved threats. So white controls the board via mass removal, and targeted hate while the blue controls what resolves and creates card advantage. It's a lot the same except you aren't as reactive
Not to mention Guttural Response, Brown Ouphe/Bind/Ouphe Vandals and instant speed shroud generators like skyshroud blessing, stonewood invocation and vines of vastwood.
Pros eschew ld? Hardly. Pros eschew any bad cards for good cards and unfortunatly for ld there have been very few good ld printed in a while and few that were standard legal (or extended for that matter) in a long time. Remember wildfires? Bounce plus decent ld spells created a decent deck that many pros played for a while. In the days of sinkhole, dark rit, and stripmine ld was a very common part of decks. Heck today we still see a lot of wastelanding in legacy. In standard we use the spreading seas (which is like killing 1/2 a land)
If you want match reports just toss the deck together since it's a dirt cheap deck and play it. My experience with ula's temple are that it's not even good enough for casual due to how disruptable and non interactve it plays.
Good article and ld is great o. The play. It should be a sb strategy vrs the maindeck strategy though. Then again you just lose to mono black on the draw everytime.
This is an article is amazingly accurate and wotc needs to get on each one of these. The supporte for clans and PRE's is abysmal. I would go one further with PRE prizes and allow the host to "trade" prizes to the event allowing the event to hold these items and award them at the end of the event. I guess this could cause some problems with ante but so long as there's no entry fee it shouldn't and obviously not any more than current PRE's do.
Except for the awkward art:article layout...I really liked this. One of the few decklists where I personally wouldn't change anything. If my opinion matters, well then I think you really nailed it. Lava Zombie is some standout tech!
Yeah that's really stretching the definition of the term. Board control and denial are two different things. Often they go hand in hand but serve different functions. Discard limits your opponent's resources but does not affect the board. Land Destruction deals with lands which are on the board but does not generally affect anything else on the board. In fact most of the good players I've known (Pros for example) eschew LD entirely unless it is super efficient (armageddon) and or has some other benefit/mode (pillage, lay waste etc).
Some would even go so far as to count LD as anticontrol, since you are really trying to stop the nonaggro strategies with LD. Aggro just shrugs off land destruction and beats you down. Combo and Control are the types that need their land and in large amounts. Midranged fits more towards Control in this area as well. This is why Ponza is a mono red ld strategy. I understand the confusion since sometimes control strategies also include some land/mana denial. (Annex, Spreading Seas, etc) But that is still really not control.
Now tempo is an entirely different concept than what kind of deck you are playing. Though there are types that are centered around building up lots of tempo they are not in themselves control, aggro or combo but any of the above. (Amulet of Vigor + bounce lands = an example of tempo building.) Land destruction is definitely anti tempo. Hopefully more so for your opponent than you.
First of all these enchantment series were great and they were definately fun to read. Secondly, I'm also looking forward to your tribal articles.
But beware! There are a lot of readers here on puremtgo that are interested in the format so the expectations will be high. Shard already covers the tournament decks and AJ did a lot of creative decks in the past. What I am personally expecting is something in between.
Elves and Goblins I read from Shard, and AJ already did the landless.dec. So what I would like to read is some tribes that not many are thinking of playing but it would be great if you can show us how to turn them into something powerful and scary.
Let's see if you can really "broaden my tribal horizons" :).
I'm not sure I agree with that... I've always thought of control as a deck that "controls" the tempo of the game and that can be done with LD and discard as well as counters and creature kill
personally i find Izzo while a good coach to also be somewhat of a douche. I remember watching at the beginning of this season when MSU played my team the Florida Gators. During halftime MSU was losing and when they interviewed Izzo he made rather disparaging comments of his own team. Maybe thats just how he is, but I would like some decorum when talking of his own players.
you seriously use the worst arguments of all time...i mean you make palin look intelligent
Justin: In that case, Aggro is Control because it “controls” your opponent’s life total.
I play a very similar deck and last night I had a player ask me if I was playing the deck from PureMTGO.
Nice article.
Yes, a fun article. My experience with the Lava Zombie is that it can be very hard to keep one on the battlefield; the number of times my other red or black creature is removed in response is ridiculous.
Example, if blightning was 1RB deal 3 to opponent and destroy target land it would make jund that much more dominant. That would be a crazy good spell that would see extended play where blightning as is (being discard) does not.
Also pros don't play competitive pauper either from what I can tell so who cards. Discard is powerful in pauper because card draw is much weaker overall. Outside blue it's hard to gain card advantage. Discard and ld are disruption which can make you the contrl player when you are the one also touting creature kill. You are controling the board thru many avenues. Blue often has been paired with white in control because blue has counter but little way to recover against resolved threats. So white controls the board via mass removal, and targeted hate while the blue controls what resolves and creates card advantage. It's a lot the same except you aren't as reactive
Not to mention Guttural Response, Brown Ouphe/Bind/Ouphe Vandals and instant speed shroud generators like skyshroud blessing, stonewood invocation and vines of vastwood.
Pros eschew ld? Hardly. Pros eschew any bad cards for good cards and unfortunatly for ld there have been very few good ld printed in a while and few that were standard legal (or extended for that matter) in a long time. Remember wildfires? Bounce plus decent ld spells created a decent deck that many pros played for a while. In the days of sinkhole, dark rit, and stripmine ld was a very common part of decks. Heck today we still see a lot of wastelanding in legacy. In standard we use the spreading seas (which is like killing 1/2 a land)
There's also Avoid Fate too.
green has a counterspell (although it's a ]counterenchantment).
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=3993
But it is a card I want to make work and I want to play with. Just don't expect much.
If you want match reports just toss the deck together since it's a dirt cheap deck and play it. My experience with ula's temple are that it's not even good enough for casual due to how disruptable and non interactve it plays.
Good article and ld is great o. The play. It should be a sb strategy vrs the maindeck strategy though. Then again you just lose to mono black on the draw everytime.
Do you mind posting sideboard plans for the major decks: storm, goblins, rdw, ub teachings, mono blue, mono black? thanks. great article btw!
This is an article is amazingly accurate and wotc needs to get on each one of these. The supporte for clans and PRE's is abysmal. I would go one further with PRE prizes and allow the host to "trade" prizes to the event allowing the event to hold these items and award them at the end of the event. I guess this could cause some problems with ante but so long as there's no entry fee it shouldn't and obviously not any more than current PRE's do.
Can I trade you my shuffler for yours? I wish I could start every game with at least three lands in hand. Nice article by the way.
Except for the awkward art:article layout...I really liked this. One of the few decklists where I personally wouldn't change anything. If my opinion matters, well then I think you really nailed it. Lava Zombie is some standout tech!
The Stasis thing was quite funny
Yeah that's really stretching the definition of the term. Board control and denial are two different things. Often they go hand in hand but serve different functions. Discard limits your opponent's resources but does not affect the board. Land Destruction deals with lands which are on the board but does not generally affect anything else on the board. In fact most of the good players I've known (Pros for example) eschew LD entirely unless it is super efficient (armageddon) and or has some other benefit/mode (pillage, lay waste etc).
Some would even go so far as to count LD as anticontrol, since you are really trying to stop the nonaggro strategies with LD. Aggro just shrugs off land destruction and beats you down. Combo and Control are the types that need their land and in large amounts. Midranged fits more towards Control in this area as well. This is why Ponza is a mono red ld strategy. I understand the confusion since sometimes control strategies also include some land/mana denial. (Annex, Spreading Seas, etc) But that is still really not control.
Now tempo is an entirely different concept than what kind of deck you are playing. Though there are types that are centered around building up lots of tempo they are not in themselves control, aggro or combo but any of the above. (Amulet of Vigor + bounce lands = an example of tempo building.) Land destruction is definitely anti tempo. Hopefully more so for your opponent than you.
Hmmmm....Stasis, Filagree Sages, Candelabra....
Another fine article.....
Good read, very funny comments on the art.
Never thought about Ashnod's Altar, but it looks like the Machine from Bride indeed!!
just stay away from centaurs..lol they are mine!......eventually
lol man maybe I should change from tribal to something else :P jk I always enjoy a challenge and can only hope I can meet such expectations :P
and thank you for the compliment I had a lot of fun with the enchantment series and will probably revisit a deck or two in later series
First of all these enchantment series were great and they were definately fun to read. Secondly, I'm also looking forward to your tribal articles.
But beware! There are a lot of readers here on puremtgo that are interested in the format so the expectations will be high. Shard already covers the tournament decks and AJ did a lot of creative decks in the past. What I am personally expecting is something in between.
Elves and Goblins I read from Shard, and AJ already did the landless.dec. So what I would like to read is some tribes that not many are thinking of playing but it would be great if you can show us how to turn them into something powerful and scary.
Let's see if you can really "broaden my tribal horizons" :).
LE
I'm not sure I agree with that... I've always thought of control as a deck that "controls" the tempo of the game and that can be done with LD and discard as well as counters and creature kill
personally i find Izzo while a good coach to also be somewhat of a douche. I remember watching at the beginning of this season when MSU played my team the Florida Gators. During halftime MSU was losing and when they interviewed Izzo he made rather disparaging comments of his own team. Maybe thats just how he is, but I would like some decorum when talking of his own players.