I'm definately not surprised. Graveyard manipulation is another shortcut to victory. Especially when there is no or very little main deck hate against it. Good idea, congrats to the winner.
lol yes yes, info as it comes. Im working on that article as we speak..but the trend has continued...the winner was a dredge deck with wizards as a tribe.
Unfortunately I couldn't make it this weekend due to a very tempting barbeque offer from a friend of mine. Kids played, wifes chatted about the latest shoes and bags(as they always do) and we ate all the meat! So I got a good excuse.
By the way, what happened in week 3? Who played what? Who won?
Much better article than last time as your tone was much more positive, which is more appealing to read.
I find it odd that you are cutting things like Lightning Bolt, StP, and Path to Exile when those are the first cards I add for decks that support them. Cheap removal just seems necessary to me to have a shot against the faster decks. Then against slower decks the 2 white spells are often just a cheaper instant speed wrath, as vs. control I find that often I have to blow a wrath on a single large threat.
just out of curiousity i am trying to build a deck around Quirion Dryad, Lorescale Coatl, counters, and Winds of Change...any chances to making this at least semi competitive on a small budget? (5-20 tix) a week?
Overall, i loved the article. The Sorin/Chandra combo was nice and I never noticed that before. I may build around it actually. Though for some odd reason in your megrim decklist, i think hellfire mongrel was somehow replaced with wild mongrel. Now i got all the love in the world for the little 2/2/ pup that could...but i dont think he really fits in there lol. Though i was wondering what is your opinion of the card Quest for the Gemblades?
We have only played a couple casual games thus far, but I like what you have built.
My last opponent hasn't logged on since 9-21... so chances are I am not going to get a chance to get another 5 points to make it to top 8.
I def have some good suggestions for the next mymtgo.com league tourney. When the tourney is over it will prob be healthy for there to be a topic on what we liked/disliked about how the leagues were ran. Things like prize structure. How to deal with people who decide to stop playing.... ect.
I have suggested this to Tweaker already, but I think the next league should be 60 Card Standard Singleton. Would help bring in new players to the format.
I love that you covered budget decks for classic as the barrier to entry into classic is continually increasing. Do you think that some sort of suicide black would be viable? All the cards are pretty cheap as nothing is over about 3tix and the tutors (Demonic and Vampiric) are optional as the deck runs mostly 4x everything. It seems like it has game versus combo and could hold its own versus dredge and eva green variants as well as the smattering of thresh and merfolk that is often seen.
I know from having played RDW as my go to cheap classic deck that it is definitely not the choice for someone trying to get into classic now. If this were 3-4 months ago then yes it was a fine deck but it is such an uphill battle against dredge that I am not sure it is worth considering. While playing 12 creatures that can remove bridges is great, dredge often has leyline out which nullifies that plan. RDW has very little going for it other than its consistency at burning face which is weakened quite a bit by bringing in all the hate necessary to fight dredge which gives them time to get back into the game. If however, more aggro pops up then it might be a nice consideration, especially looking at how merfolk has been placing in the past couple of DE's.
As someone else mentioned to me over at classic quarter, it is probably worth breaking down and buying dredge as it is so consistent and not that expensive compared to other options (Not sure how much it costs now with its popularity but the deck cost about $60-70 prior to Med3). Personally, I have decided to play block constructed till I can bankroll enough tix to invest in the cards that I am missing to complete a proper classic deck.
well written , Magic is a complex game, there is more then simple math on that game, and you made some good points.
i think Gdot style (screen shot with whats the play will be very helpful for players.)
thanks
Of course, you can also intentionally misplay when the chance of it mattering is low enough, in order to get your opponent to underestimate you - I'm in the habit of re-submitting my deck for that very purpose, for example, as well as cracking expanses early (and if possible, off my main colour/s) though any actual effect I've seen is probably just my imagination.
That draft idea is pretty cool. Even having the tooltips come up whenever you are building a deck within a particular format would be cool. Effective usage stats maybe?
The trading bundles are good for more than just trading. In real life I have a 5000ct box under my bed. I check it once a year to make sure it's not growing mold. I don't care about those cards*. I keep my playables and tradables in a safer and more accessible place. Sifting though thousands of cards to make a deck is impractical. I only want to look at the non-bulk parts of my collection.
Excess commons are annoying to look at and sift through. When I want to build a Pauper deck, there's Raging Goblin. When I want to build a Classic or Commander deck, there's Stalker Hag. That's not how I used to do it in paper. The problem isn't programming a "jank" filter. The problem is owning cards that I never want to see under any filter. So I'd make bundles named "bulk MED", "bulk Tempest", etc, and open them maybe once a year or as needed. (For example, Baazar of Baghdad is the ultimate under-the-bed card.)
The API doesn't have to be just about trading. It could be playing, posting, watching events, 'neering, store purchases, etc. I like bots, I like the service they provide, and I like the stability they provide the market. MTGO has a thin, dumb (two technical terms) client. This is a good thing. If the API can only perform the actions that the client can then there are no new security concerns. If Wizards wants to ban automatic playing and automatic chatting then fine.
Opening up the client has other advantages besides automation. WoW users have invented a lot of their own crazy features. Imagine a draft buddy that remembered each card you ever drafted along with your W/L records for each draft. Maybe it could also modify the tooltips during the draft portion to say something like "Lightning Bolt - R - Instant [sSET M10 C] - Deal 3 damage [/n]You are 2-1 in drafts with this card." Or card values. Imagine what pcbot is doing right now. Now imagine if I could right click any card in my collection/deck editor and see "ask pcbot" as an option. Actually, no, that'd hose pcbot. Some WoW users download databases every week and add that info to their tooltips, too. You get the idea. Open the client + nerdy users = new features. And then of course every WoW user has a different and complicated UI layout.
I have read interesting insights/articles regarding the statical advantages of running a 41st card as a land. I believe the gist being that the decrease in the chance of drawing a card which you need In a given situation is less than the increase/smoothing of having a 41st card as a land (being that, if you ran 18 lands in a 40 card deck you are more likely to flood versus 41card/18 land where you are less likely to flood and disportionately less likely to not draw the right card in the right situation. It's like a risk/cost analysis. Sort of like running half a land...). And to anyone who is going to ask for the math, I don't really feel like running the numbers myself; if that irks you I appologize but I think the logic presented makes sense-run the numbers if you like.
i believe it is statwise its identical but the ability of: If Nissa's Chosen would be put into a graveyard from the battlefield, put it on the bottom of its owner's library instead. this i think makes it better. I dont know if it really effects the elf deck either way by why not run it unless you need cards in the yard?
Here is a simple game-play suggestion. Every time you have to click "ok" it moves to the other side of the box. It would make double clicking almost impossible. I hate when I accidently click "ok" twice.
Indeed, no need to quarrel. One thing that occurs to me is that you seem to have trouble parsing certain words. For example, I didn't say your points were invalid. I said they weren't ALWAYS valid. I said this because you used the phrasing "W R O N G!" as if there is never a situation in which it doesn't matter that it isn't perfect play. The absoluteness of your statements is what I was referring to. I felt no need to get into details except to point out that a really good player will know whether someone is good enough to not run Fog because in general it is a bad card. So the bluff is meaningless and in a set with Fog you also have Lightning Bolt so why not bluff something meaningful?
I hope you keep writing. Open Office is sufficient I believe, but it does help to have someone proof read for you. And as I said a thesaurus is mighty handy.
One thing I always think about, but I still see people do it is when to fetch with Terramorphic Expanse on the first turn. They start, drop a terramorphic, fetch something and then pass the turn. Whenever I'm forced to play it as my first land, I always wait until the end of THEIR turn to sac it. This way I've waited a full turn to telegraph what I'm playing.
Although sometimes the opposite works, if I'm in RG, I may fetch a mountain right away so they're afraid of lightning bolt.
You are wrong about Braids. It was one of the strongest tournement decks of its time. And it DID NOT use Akroma (Akroma was availble - it just wasnt worth it). Braids was one of the few decks that could kill Mirri, eat dragon storm (well, I had a version that could win most of the time vs. a t4 perfect storm (as in 6 dragons) - and they wasnt that good at getting a t4 perfect storm - I think 60 % or so. If they waited a turn it would be 80% (depending on whatever or not you could survive grozoth -> Archon)) AND slay random decks.
I'm definately not surprised. Graveyard manipulation is another shortcut to victory. Especially when there is no or very little main deck hate against it. Good idea, congrats to the winner.
LE
lol yes yes, info as it comes. Im working on that article as we speak..but the trend has continued...the winner was a dredge deck with wizards as a tribe.
Also, this deck is a bad choice for the current meta because all of your iffy-bad matchups make up like 60% of the decks you're going to play.
My deck was only a metagame choice for TPDC Champs, everyone was playing teachings hate, I played the deck that beat the hate.
Unfortunately I couldn't make it this weekend due to a very tempting barbeque offer from a friend of mine. Kids played, wifes chatted about the latest shoes and bags(as they always do) and we ate all the meat! So I got a good excuse.
By the way, what happened in week 3? Who played what? Who won?
Info? Please?
LE
I really enjoyed reading this. I get a lot out of reading other peoples' opinions about new cards, as it helps to advance my own thoughts on them.
The podiums were fun. =)
Much better article than last time as your tone was much more positive, which is more appealing to read.
I find it odd that you are cutting things like Lightning Bolt, StP, and Path to Exile when those are the first cards I add for decks that support them. Cheap removal just seems necessary to me to have a shot against the faster decks. Then against slower decks the 2 white spells are often just a cheaper instant speed wrath, as vs. control I find that often I have to blow a wrath on a single large threat.
I doubt Nissa's Chosen will be played. Someone already mentioned Elvish Warrior and that doesn't see play.
Nissa's ability is great if you are the playing the planeswalker because it allows you to search for it to play it again.
There aren't any pauper mill decks so that's not an issue either.
Great card for constructed no doubt, but useless for Pauper.
just out of curiousity i am trying to build a deck around Quirion Dryad, Lorescale Coatl, counters, and Winds of Change...any chances to making this at least semi competitive on a small budget? (5-20 tix) a week?
Overall, i loved the article. The Sorin/Chandra combo was nice and I never noticed that before. I may build around it actually. Though for some odd reason in your megrim decklist, i think hellfire mongrel was somehow replaced with wild mongrel. Now i got all the love in the world for the little 2/2/ pup that could...but i dont think he really fits in there lol. Though i was wondering what is your opinion of the card Quest for the Gemblades?
Good article. The tourney has been fun thus far.
We have only played a couple casual games thus far, but I like what you have built.
My last opponent hasn't logged on since 9-21... so chances are I am not going to get a chance to get another 5 points to make it to top 8.
I def have some good suggestions for the next mymtgo.com league tourney. When the tourney is over it will prob be healthy for there to be a topic on what we liked/disliked about how the leagues were ran. Things like prize structure. How to deal with people who decide to stop playing.... ect.
I have suggested this to Tweaker already, but I think the next league should be 60 Card Standard Singleton. Would help bring in new players to the format.
I love that you covered budget decks for classic as the barrier to entry into classic is continually increasing. Do you think that some sort of suicide black would be viable? All the cards are pretty cheap as nothing is over about 3tix and the tutors (Demonic and Vampiric) are optional as the deck runs mostly 4x everything. It seems like it has game versus combo and could hold its own versus dredge and eva green variants as well as the smattering of thresh and merfolk that is often seen.
I know from having played RDW as my go to cheap classic deck that it is definitely not the choice for someone trying to get into classic now. If this were 3-4 months ago then yes it was a fine deck but it is such an uphill battle against dredge that I am not sure it is worth considering. While playing 12 creatures that can remove bridges is great, dredge often has leyline out which nullifies that plan. RDW has very little going for it other than its consistency at burning face which is weakened quite a bit by bringing in all the hate necessary to fight dredge which gives them time to get back into the game. If however, more aggro pops up then it might be a nice consideration, especially looking at how merfolk has been placing in the past couple of DE's.
As someone else mentioned to me over at classic quarter, it is probably worth breaking down and buying dredge as it is so consistent and not that expensive compared to other options (Not sure how much it costs now with its popularity but the deck cost about $60-70 prior to Med3). Personally, I have decided to play block constructed till I can bankroll enough tix to invest in the cards that I am missing to complete a proper classic deck.
well written , Magic is a complex game, there is more then simple math on that game, and you made some good points.
i think Gdot style (screen shot with whats the play will be very helpful for players.)
thanks
Of course, you can also intentionally misplay when the chance of it mattering is low enough, in order to get your opponent to underestimate you - I'm in the habit of re-submitting my deck for that very purpose, for example, as well as cracking expanses early (and if possible, off my main colour/s) though any actual effect I've seen is probably just my imagination.
That draft idea is pretty cool. Even having the tooltips come up whenever you are building a deck within a particular format would be cool. Effective usage stats maybe?
The trading bundles are good for more than just trading. In real life I have a 5000ct box under my bed. I check it once a year to make sure it's not growing mold. I don't care about those cards*. I keep my playables and tradables in a safer and more accessible place. Sifting though thousands of cards to make a deck is impractical. I only want to look at the non-bulk parts of my collection.
Excess commons are annoying to look at and sift through. When I want to build a Pauper deck, there's Raging Goblin. When I want to build a Classic or Commander deck, there's Stalker Hag. That's not how I used to do it in paper. The problem isn't programming a "jank" filter. The problem is owning cards that I never want to see under any filter. So I'd make bundles named "bulk MED", "bulk Tempest", etc, and open them maybe once a year or as needed. (For example, Baazar of Baghdad is the ultimate under-the-bed card.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The API doesn't have to be just about trading. It could be playing, posting, watching events, 'neering, store purchases, etc. I like bots, I like the service they provide, and I like the stability they provide the market. MTGO has a thin, dumb (two technical terms) client. This is a good thing. If the API can only perform the actions that the client can then there are no new security concerns. If Wizards wants to ban automatic playing and automatic chatting then fine.
Opening up the client has other advantages besides automation. WoW users have invented a lot of their own crazy features. Imagine a draft buddy that remembered each card you ever drafted along with your W/L records for each draft. Maybe it could also modify the tooltips during the draft portion to say something like "Lightning Bolt - R - Instant [sSET M10 C] - Deal 3 damage [/n]You are 2-1 in drafts with this card." Or card values. Imagine what pcbot is doing right now. Now imagine if I could right click any card in my collection/deck editor and see "ask pcbot" as an option. Actually, no, that'd hose pcbot. Some WoW users download databases every week and add that info to their tooltips, too. You get the idea. Open the client + nerdy users = new features. And then of course every WoW user has a different and complicated UI layout.
I have read interesting insights/articles regarding the statical advantages of running a 41st card as a land. I believe the gist being that the decrease in the chance of drawing a card which you need In a given situation is less than the increase/smoothing of having a 41st card as a land (being that, if you ran 18 lands in a 40 card deck you are more likely to flood versus 41card/18 land where you are less likely to flood and disportionately less likely to not draw the right card in the right situation. It's like a risk/cost analysis. Sort of like running half a land...). And to anyone who is going to ask for the math, I don't really feel like running the numbers myself; if that irks you I appologize but I think the logic presented makes sense-run the numbers if you like.
I think you may want more red and blue sources in your elf deck. As someone said, manamorphose would probably be useful.
The elf decks posted really need to run manamorphose
i believe it is statwise its identical but the ability of: If Nissa's Chosen would be put into a graveyard from the battlefield, put it on the bottom of its owner's library instead. this i think makes it better. I dont know if it really effects the elf deck either way by why not run it unless you need cards in the yard?
I'll take 4x Tarmogoyf for 1 tix ...... LOL
Here is a simple game-play suggestion. Every time you have to click "ok" it moves to the other side of the box. It would make double clicking almost impossible. I hate when I accidently click "ok" twice.
Indeed, no need to quarrel. One thing that occurs to me is that you seem to have trouble parsing certain words. For example, I didn't say your points were invalid. I said they weren't ALWAYS valid. I said this because you used the phrasing "W R O N G!" as if there is never a situation in which it doesn't matter that it isn't perfect play. The absoluteness of your statements is what I was referring to. I felt no need to get into details except to point out that a really good player will know whether someone is good enough to not run Fog because in general it is a bad card. So the bluff is meaningless and in a set with Fog you also have Lightning Bolt so why not bluff something meaningful?
I hope you keep writing. Open Office is sufficient I believe, but it does help to have someone proof read for you. And as I said a thesaurus is mighty handy.
One thing I always think about, but I still see people do it is when to fetch with Terramorphic Expanse on the first turn. They start, drop a terramorphic, fetch something and then pass the turn. Whenever I'm forced to play it as my first land, I always wait until the end of THEIR turn to sac it. This way I've waited a full turn to telegraph what I'm playing.
Although sometimes the opposite works, if I'm in RG, I may fetch a mountain right away so they're afraid of lightning bolt.
You are wrong about Braids. It was one of the strongest tournement decks of its time. And it DID NOT use Akroma (Akroma was availble - it just wasnt worth it). Braids was one of the few decks that could kill Mirri, eat dragon storm (well, I had a version that could win most of the time vs. a t4 perfect storm (as in 6 dragons) - and they wasnt that good at getting a t4 perfect storm - I think 60 % or so. If they waited a turn it would be 80% (depending on whatever or not you could survive grozoth -> Archon)) AND slay random decks.
E.g. see http://puremtgo.com/node/530
The later versions were better though.