Roflmao on all counts. Of course since winning IS the point to playing I prefer winning off of a fireball than not at all. In fact that is why I run swords, armageddons, wrath of gods, damnations and anything else that unevens the playing field. Death to bears I say. And long live the jets. Oh wait no forget that last part I hate football and all organized sports(religions) with a passion only a nyer can have. So down with sports and up with Fireballs..yeah! :)
This assumes that labeling a player as "bad" has a tactical disadvantage . . . I'm not entirely sure that is the case, as playing around certain threats/cards (the main component of labeling the other player as 'good') creates new equilibrium points, and probably is not the "proper" play as often as good players assume (since it's hard to do a Bayesian analysis on the fly, and conservative game play should benefit from confirmation bias more than aggressive play). It may affect "reads" but reads are very temporal, and basing a read on a good player/bad player dichotomy rather than a holistic balance of game play, game state and "other" factors sucks.
Additionally, the best players (presumably the ones you have the most trouble beating, hence the most incentive to bluff) will be affected less, both because they're likely less lazy (or "loose" as the kids say) and will implicitly adjust better and stop labeling based on the expanse.
In short: in practice, the tactical advantage seems small to nonexistent. It's probably about the same to say "run the Expanse immediately so you don't forget before your next turn" as the incremental advantage is likely similar.
no offense, but i'm going to say that i think the community would be better off relying on the general wisdom of a long term player/judge, not to mention something everyone has already excepted as a fact in "good play" land, than any bayseian game analysis on statistical finding on why its 74% better with a 90% statistical signifigance to crack your terramorphic exoanse in response to your pet dog farting...
I think Pete's advice on Terramorphic Expanse is valid based on his premises and conforms to the general wisdom on the subject. I greatly appreciate this article, as it encouraged me to challenge my preconceived notions about popping the Expanse on my opponent's end of turn. However, in doing so, I am now forced to conclude that he, myself, and the general consensus are all wrong. We should be sacrificing them immediately. I am writing an article to explain why. Until it comes out in a few days, watch this and try to figure out what the hell I am talking about ;-)
I guess I'm not clear on the rules of Tribal. I have tried putting changelings in my deck and it always comes back as saying the tribe is too small. It won't even let me run an all changeling deck. Have they changed something? Also, I guess this is the purest in me, but I don't count changelings as actual members of a tribe. Speaking as someone who also runs tribal bears, (Paul how have you never seen mine?) if it doesn't say Creature - Bear, it doesn't belong in the deck. In the words of Da Superfans, "Daaaaaa bearsss!"
Also, again personal perspective, with a tribe as blatantly bad as bears, you might as well have fun with it. If I wanted to win, I certainly wouldn't run bears, so go nuts. Make the whole deck scream bears. I'm actually shocked by some of your card choices. Yes, you noticed Petroglyphs and Words of Wilding. Every bear deck should have those. But where is Grizzly Fate? And oh boy, the fun that can be had with Bearscape. Look at all those hidden bears on that card. 10th edition Giant Growth has a giant bear on it! Look at Overrun, why there's a bear in there, too! Granted, I still hold true to my earlier statement that all the creatures should say Creature - Bear, there is one exception, and that is the lovely Miss Caller of the Claw. She simply is a must have for all bear related decks.
What's the point of all this, you're implying that this deck was meant to be casual. If that's the case, don't muck up the deck with savage twisters and fireballs. I don't want to win a TRIBAL game on the back of a fireball. It should be done, as God intended it, with bears ripping open peoples' necks. Let the Bears have their day. If all else fails, run Coat of Arms for a "drop it this turn and win" strategy. Daaaaaaaaaaaa bearsss. Don't forget to do your superbowl shuffler after winning.
I dont actually remember my line of thought during the games, but maybe not great too read too much into it... i just took the deck from someone else's list, may have been richie's not sure, but it was my first time playing with the deck, and so may not have made the optimal choices each turn... sounds dumb i know, i mean i should just be able to play the deck, but it takes me a few games to get the feel of any deck (and then usually make a few changes)
i have now made said changes, for example at one point richie comment "no duress?" after my t1 sea... when i wasnt actually running it. i am now, and have made a few other changes, adding in jace which i like and cutting tinker entirely... maybe a mistake in the opinion of many people, but i found myself too often having no artifacts to sack. thats what i like to do most - take the list of a proven deck, but then tweak it to what suits me best.
and re my voice, yes, imagine a puppy choking on a nail
I like the videos, as always. Experiencing the plays is both much easier and more entertaining than reading the play-by-play.
WNotC made you look pretty silly. "Yeah, she's playing one of my builds, and I'm not above losing to my own deck. Oh wait, not true, she's playing her own thing." Then you ragged on the maindeck Layline before admitting it was awesome. And there was this one time you cast Thoughtseize, she cast Brainstorm obviously to hide something, and then she presented you an Oath and a Helm to choose from. And even then I was thinking to myself, man, if she's letting you strip an Oath or Helm, what did she protect? Oh wait. Uh-oh. Haha. Yup. The same games from her point of view would be entertaining. "Haha! I have triple Spell Pierce! This Oath will surely resolve..."
You're playing two different artworks for Ponder in the same deck! *head explodes*
How come we do not get to hear momma speak?
I would buy a premium subscription to you richie if i could hear Miss.V.
Great article awesome vids and towels
See now that is a nuance that probably doesn't matter to most weak players. What does matter is, if you are playing with the land and you know you are doing nothing turn 1 then playing a etbt land first makes sense.
In a deck like yours with higher end drops (5 5cc cards that could be very important to cast on time) Turntimber Grove seems really bad. If you need lands off the top drawing a EtBT land is horrible. I've watched a friend loose in the quarter finals of a PTQ to playing Turntimber Grove in a similar deck (Turn 6 Turntimber Grove off the top keeping him off Woodcrasher Baloth and his opponent low on life.) I think it is difficult to figure out when to play Turntimber Grove, but it seems more likely that Turntimber grove will cost you tempo than benefit you in most green decks.
As a self-proclaimed scrub (1750 limited), I know bad players can trick themselves into playing worse. I have on more than one occasion tapped mana wrong to represent a threat I didn't have when I actually had a play that proved relevant.
I say this because I think it's important for the audience to realize who they are and where they stand. Some of your tips in this article just revolve around sound play (lead with a Plains if you have a WW costed creature in your deck that will not be playable if you lead with a Forest). However, there is a lot of information in here that is beyond what most players need to think about in order to play better. My guess is the information gained or lost in the first turn of a limited game is not where most players start to win or lose. If you're an 1800+, go ahead and think about that stuff, but if you're a low-level like most of us you can probably benefit more by paying attention to what's actually in front of you than by trying to analyze things that may or may not be true. (I'm sure eveyone has had a game where, "if I had been playing against a better player I would have won.")
This little rant/advice was more to myself than for others. I read articles like this, love them, and then I start to play bad because I miss the obvious trying to go deeper than I effectively can at the moment. Great article and having Godot as a writer here should not deter you from adding your own information. It's wonderful to have multiple articles of this quality available to read all on one site.
if common sense were really so common we wouldn't need articles like this lol it was a great read, I know myself I tend to be click happy and it has cost me big in drafts, its nice to hear some advice on little things like these that u can do to clean up your play
I agree that expanse should be cracked at eot not right away, but i think extremely rarely does that info actually help if its cracked too early. Sometimes I will even purposefully crack it early, get my splash color, just to make them think im playing a color im not for a couple turns.
1800+ rating for a while here though, I think the worse you are as a player the more relevant it becomes to hold back info.
He's ballin if you get him down long enough. He's my favorite planeswalker so far because he's balanced. He's not over the top powerful, but he's indeed strong. If Lilianna was 4, I'd be much happier, her discard effect would mean something that late in the game. He's very much up dependable. He's slow as hell in classic against combo, but extremely effective in an oath vs oath matchup.
I like your walkthroughs, and I especially appreciate the game analysis, it's always good to see exactly how much that stuff can matter. There is one thing I've noticed in this and previous articles that annoys me a bit, though: I wish you wouldn't foreshadow or give away the results of a game/match while you're describing it. It's not like you do it all the time, but I have seen you do it before, and it's kind of a bummer for me to already know the result before I finish reading about it. I like that element of surprise, and I also like to do my own analysis of the game states, which is tarnished a bit when you know the results. I would be interested to know if this is just me, though, maybe others don't mind it. But in any case, keep up the good work with the articles.
Also, in round 2, game 3, why are your creatures underneath your lands in the screenshot? I didn't know MTGO could do that.
should point out though, in our first match although you asked me to play oath, you didnt tell me it was a to be a mirror match... probably wouldnt haven't thrown out that early oath if i'd known lol. these were actually my first matches with the deck, so my play probably wasn't as clever as it should have been.
great article, specially as im in it lol
my latest incarnation of this deck is running a couple of jaces to help keep gas mid-game. generally had positive results from it, but interested in your thoughts on it.
Roflmao on all counts. Of course since winning IS the point to playing I prefer winning off of a fireball than not at all. In fact that is why I run swords, armageddons, wrath of gods, damnations and anything else that unevens the playing field. Death to bears I say. And long live the jets. Oh wait no forget that last part I hate football and all organized sports(religions) with a passion only a nyer can have. So down with sports and up with Fireballs..yeah! :)
This assumes that labeling a player as "bad" has a tactical disadvantage . . . I'm not entirely sure that is the case, as playing around certain threats/cards (the main component of labeling the other player as 'good') creates new equilibrium points, and probably is not the "proper" play as often as good players assume (since it's hard to do a Bayesian analysis on the fly, and conservative game play should benefit from confirmation bias more than aggressive play). It may affect "reads" but reads are very temporal, and basing a read on a good player/bad player dichotomy rather than a holistic balance of game play, game state and "other" factors sucks.
Additionally, the best players (presumably the ones you have the most trouble beating, hence the most incentive to bluff) will be affected less, both because they're likely less lazy (or "loose" as the kids say) and will implicitly adjust better and stop labeling based on the expanse.
In short: in practice, the tactical advantage seems small to nonexistent. It's probably about the same to say "run the Expanse immediately so you don't forget before your next turn" as the incremental advantage is likely similar.
you call yourself a bears player? you totally missed Kamahl's Summons...
no offense, but i'm going to say that i think the community would be better off relying on the general wisdom of a long term player/judge, not to mention something everyone has already excepted as a fact in "good play" land, than any bayseian game analysis on statistical finding on why its 74% better with a 90% statistical signifigance to crack your terramorphic exoanse in response to your pet dog farting...
I think Pete's advice on Terramorphic Expanse is valid based on his premises and conforms to the general wisdom on the subject. I greatly appreciate this article, as it encouraged me to challenge my preconceived notions about popping the Expanse on my opponent's end of turn. However, in doing so, I am now forced to conclude that he, myself, and the general consensus are all wrong. We should be sacrificing them immediately. I am writing an article to explain why. Until it comes out in a few days, watch this and try to figure out what the hell I am talking about ;-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWmJ3VpgiEo
I guess I'm not clear on the rules of Tribal. I have tried putting changelings in my deck and it always comes back as saying the tribe is too small. It won't even let me run an all changeling deck. Have they changed something? Also, I guess this is the purest in me, but I don't count changelings as actual members of a tribe. Speaking as someone who also runs tribal bears, (Paul how have you never seen mine?) if it doesn't say Creature - Bear, it doesn't belong in the deck. In the words of Da Superfans, "Daaaaaa bearsss!"
Also, again personal perspective, with a tribe as blatantly bad as bears, you might as well have fun with it. If I wanted to win, I certainly wouldn't run bears, so go nuts. Make the whole deck scream bears. I'm actually shocked by some of your card choices. Yes, you noticed Petroglyphs and Words of Wilding. Every bear deck should have those. But where is Grizzly Fate? And oh boy, the fun that can be had with Bearscape. Look at all those hidden bears on that card. 10th edition Giant Growth has a giant bear on it! Look at Overrun, why there's a bear in there, too! Granted, I still hold true to my earlier statement that all the creatures should say Creature - Bear, there is one exception, and that is the lovely Miss Caller of the Claw. She simply is a must have for all bear related decks.
What's the point of all this, you're implying that this deck was meant to be casual. If that's the case, don't muck up the deck with savage twisters and fireballs. I don't want to win a TRIBAL game on the back of a fireball. It should be done, as God intended it, with bears ripping open peoples' necks. Let the Bears have their day. If all else fails, run Coat of Arms for a "drop it this turn and win" strategy. Daaaaaaaaaaaa bearsss. Don't forget to do your superbowl shuffler after winning.
You are right, seeing is better then reading. Love the videos.
Man is that what you're dreamning about at night...
I dont actually remember my line of thought during the games, but maybe not great too read too much into it... i just took the deck from someone else's list, may have been richie's not sure, but it was my first time playing with the deck, and so may not have made the optimal choices each turn... sounds dumb i know, i mean i should just be able to play the deck, but it takes me a few games to get the feel of any deck (and then usually make a few changes)
i have now made said changes, for example at one point richie comment "no duress?" after my t1 sea... when i wasnt actually running it. i am now, and have made a few other changes, adding in jace which i like and cutting tinker entirely... maybe a mistake in the opinion of many people, but i found myself too often having no artifacts to sack. thats what i like to do most - take the list of a proven deck, but then tweak it to what suits me best.
and re my voice, yes, imagine a puppy choking on a nail
I like the videos, as always. Experiencing the plays is both much easier and more entertaining than reading the play-by-play.
WNotC made you look pretty silly. "Yeah, she's playing one of my builds, and I'm not above losing to my own deck. Oh wait, not true, she's playing her own thing." Then you ragged on the maindeck Layline before admitting it was awesome. And there was this one time you cast Thoughtseize, she cast Brainstorm obviously to hide something, and then she presented you an Oath and a Helm to choose from. And even then I was thinking to myself, man, if she's letting you strip an Oath or Helm, what did she protect? Oh wait. Uh-oh. Haha. Yup. The same games from her point of view would be entertaining. "Haha! I have triple Spell Pierce! This Oath will surely resolve..."
You're playing two different artworks for Ponder in the same deck! *head explodes*
probably has a 2 pack a day voice like me lol,
nah ill bet it's a sexy silky voice like satin on .... satin!
How come we do not get to hear momma speak?
I would buy a premium subscription to you richie if i could hear Miss.V.
Great article awesome vids and towels
See now that is a nuance that probably doesn't matter to most weak players. What does matter is, if you are playing with the land and you know you are doing nothing turn 1 then playing a etbt land first makes sense.
In a deck like yours with higher end drops (5 5cc cards that could be very important to cast on time) Turntimber Grove seems really bad. If you need lands off the top drawing a EtBT land is horrible. I've watched a friend loose in the quarter finals of a PTQ to playing Turntimber Grove in a similar deck (Turn 6 Turntimber Grove off the top keeping him off Woodcrasher Baloth and his opponent low on life.) I think it is difficult to figure out when to play Turntimber Grove, but it seems more likely that Turntimber grove will cost you tempo than benefit you in most green decks.
Whiffy, whiffy, whiffy.... you and your foils, i pity your addiction
nope not jealous at all lol
now give them to me
Pague um bobóóóó!
As a self-proclaimed scrub (1750 limited), I know bad players can trick themselves into playing worse. I have on more than one occasion tapped mana wrong to represent a threat I didn't have when I actually had a play that proved relevant.
I say this because I think it's important for the audience to realize who they are and where they stand. Some of your tips in this article just revolve around sound play (lead with a Plains if you have a WW costed creature in your deck that will not be playable if you lead with a Forest). However, there is a lot of information in here that is beyond what most players need to think about in order to play better. My guess is the information gained or lost in the first turn of a limited game is not where most players start to win or lose. If you're an 1800+, go ahead and think about that stuff, but if you're a low-level like most of us you can probably benefit more by paying attention to what's actually in front of you than by trying to analyze things that may or may not be true. (I'm sure eveyone has had a game where, "if I had been playing against a better player I would have won.")
This little rant/advice was more to myself than for others. I read articles like this, love them, and then I start to play bad because I miss the obvious trying to go deeper than I effectively can at the moment. Great article and having Godot as a writer here should not deter you from adding your own information. It's wonderful to have multiple articles of this quality available to read all on one site.
if common sense were really so common we wouldn't need articles like this lol it was a great read, I know myself I tend to be click happy and it has cost me big in drafts, its nice to hear some advice on little things like these that u can do to clean up your play
I agree that expanse should be cracked at eot not right away, but i think extremely rarely does that info actually help if its cracked too early. Sometimes I will even purposefully crack it early, get my splash color, just to make them think im playing a color im not for a couple turns.
1800+ rating for a while here though, I think the worse you are as a player the more relevant it becomes to hold back info.
He's ballin if you get him down long enough. He's my favorite planeswalker so far because he's balanced. He's not over the top powerful, but he's indeed strong. If Lilianna was 4, I'd be much happier, her discard effect would mean something that late in the game. He's very much up dependable. He's slow as hell in classic against combo, but extremely effective in an oath vs oath matchup.
I dunno if Wnotc is jealous of your oaths but I am. I own 0. :)
I like your walkthroughs, and I especially appreciate the game analysis, it's always good to see exactly how much that stuff can matter. There is one thing I've noticed in this and previous articles that annoys me a bit, though: I wish you wouldn't foreshadow or give away the results of a game/match while you're describing it. It's not like you do it all the time, but I have seen you do it before, and it's kind of a bummer for me to already know the result before I finish reading about it. I like that element of surprise, and I also like to do my own analysis of the game states, which is tarnished a bit when you know the results. I would be interested to know if this is just me, though, maybe others don't mind it. But in any case, keep up the good work with the articles.
Also, in round 2, game 3, why are your creatures underneath your lands in the screenshot? I didn't know MTGO could do that.
lol my oaths are foil vicki, u jealous?
enjoyable as always richie.
Thanks richie, very enjoyable
should point out though, in our first match although you asked me to play oath, you didnt tell me it was a to be a mirror match... probably wouldnt haven't thrown out that early oath if i'd known lol. these were actually my first matches with the deck, so my play probably wasn't as clever as it should have been.
great article, specially as im in it lol
my latest incarnation of this deck is running a couple of jaces to help keep gas mid-game. generally had positive results from it, but interested in your thoughts on it.
now where are my foil oaths? x
Yep, the birds deck was yours. I thought I had a chance once the Titan came into play, but that hope didn't last long. Fun game.