Based on your comment, I think you misread the card. It gains +4/+4 and trample, which means no chump blocking for you. I got this in my pool on Saturday and everytime it landed I won. The card is insane
Oops! I told you I was still reading the cards. ;)
I just missed the trample part. That makes the woodcrasher insanely good, as if my opinion of green landfall wasn't high enough already, let's send the power of one of its uncommons even higher!
[Baloth Woodcrasher: Where Territorial Baloth pays 1 to get +2/+2 landfall, the woodcrasher doubles up both the payment and the effect. I don't know if it's that much better than the Territorial Baloth, though, since both hit hard with a landfall trigger when there aren't blockers, and both will prompt chumping when there are.]
Woodcrasher over Territorial anyday... one word. TRAMPLE. Having +4/+4 and TRAMPLE off a land is great because blockers aren't going to be as much of a problem against an 8/8.
Ok, even if everyone else is afraid to admit it, I will: that's pretty darn heartwarming. An excellent write-up, as usual. I look forward to using your vastly superior card evaluating prowess to unfairly dominate some Zendikar events.
i think vindicate is the weatherlight blasting through the null moon in an attempt to destroy yawgmoth...im a nerd but thats the closest i can get. And yes the ugly little tie fighter thing is the weatherlight of that im sure.
They should include useful but not really vintage cards that would be nice to have in classic like Land Grant and other cards we know we won't be seeing for quite a while and are definitely aren't going to be in a ME.
Hi. I may certainly be wrong here, but why not play brainfreeze over tedrils? with infinite doomsday piles, this should lighten the mana requirements, which seems huge, especially aginst matchups which come down to racing. Is being able to play tendrils off of ritual mana that important? led and lotus petalshould get you that single blue fairly easily. I'm pretty sure that would have worked in the example posted. How often do you function as a typical storm deck (playing for 10 tendrils) without doomsday?
also, with leylines, you eliviate some of the shenanigans that could occur when you mill the other dudes library.
Just a thought.
also, drain isnt showing up cause it gets wrecked by dredge. Drain is best with jewelry, ancestral, and other broken stuff to make it fast, which dredge doent need, so until power exists on mtgo, or dredge is hosed, drain will be hindered.
Breakfast cereals should probably stay in the pantry. That fad has long since passed, and naming a deck with a name that doesn't explain what it does, or is pervasive enough in the constructed circles is a bad idea. I will continue to call it Helm-Line/Painter because that is a succinct way of describing what's going on. Yes, jarund's deck is the same one that was featured in Whiffy's article earlier this week.
Mana Drain decks are still behind on the metagame as they cannot inherently stop Dredge decks without being more sophisticated.
That is my name for the Black/Green aggro deck with discard, Nantuko Shades, Tarmogoyf, Hypnotic Specter, and Tombstalker. There are some versions that are splashing white for Balance, and hence - Balanced Eva Green.
Honestly I thought they were a bit stretched but I do appreciate the effort. I am not one to criticize word play normally as I think it should be encouraged but a little work goes a long way in this sort of thing. :)
Disclaimer: I know absolutly nothing about classic.
Wouldn't Glacial Chasm be a good anti-dredge card? 3 double time walk (assume you are on 7 life or above) or 4 (if you got 13 or more) sounds quite strong AND they got 0 ways to deal with it at all (no stripmine afaik) AND you can do some unfair stuff with CoW (CoW + Trokai + Chasm = 2 lost life each second turn and a additional land and you cant be damaged)...
It sounds better than Propaganda or Ghostly Prison (since they are quite easily hated) to me anyway...
I think you mis-appraised land tax. It's best used with Scroll Rack, not Seismic assault, and is a viable "build-around-me" card for far better than a mediocre RW deck.
common oran-rief recluse 2g kicker 2g 1/3 reach with kicker paid when orr enters the battlefield if it was kicked destroy target creature with flying
turn 5 baneslayer angel turn 6 bye bye nasty flier maybe even turn three turn 4 with the mana excel in zen im going to be splashing them in any dual green deck even if its only in my side board but i think they will be hitting my main deck black blue white fliers beware the puaper
Wow, thanks for the praise, guys! I'll be brief since I'm using most of my spare time on this stuff :)
Anonymous, good call on Mangara - I should have my head reexamined, especially since I've played with her, though long ago. I fixed it in my master article that has all the colors.
Lord Erman, I hear ya, and am glad you mentioned the combo.
spg, I won't defend the color scheme one iota except to say it's far more readable than all-white. I'll try to vary it for the next installment.
No love or hate for the corny puns at the end end of (practically) every paragraph? If I do all that work, I at least want a reaction :)
Yeah, I think the strongest opponents are usually to be found in the 8-4 queues, since once your winning percentage goes over a certain level you have higher expectation value for average number of packs won in there. Core sets are one of my strongest formats (I once even won a 256 man league in 9th edition), so I might do ok in 8-4, but I really like Swiss. It has less variance in wins, so I can reliably keep my costs pretty low to keep drafting. I generally at least 2-1, which means just buying one booster to draft again. During a Nix Tix week I think you have a higher ratio of ordinary players to sharks, too - which is another reason I wanted to get in an M10 draft.
I agree about the late white. Looking back, there's at least one pack where I think it might have been viable to grab a Pacifism myself, and throw in one plains for the 3 Rampant Growths to find. I think that's not ideal, as you can get that draw with Assassinate, Pacifism, and only 1 Rampant Growth or something. But slightly plausible. The openness of blue I attribute to 6 of the players getting picks that drew them strongly into other colors, occasionally one of the five colors is only being drafted by two people and you really get hooked up. I was attentive enough to spot that opening. I think there were maybe three white drafters at that table, but the one I played clearly didn't know how highly to value Pacifism, Blinding Mage, and Stormfront Pegasus. I think he got a Rhox Pikemaster early and went soldier-crazy, picking them over anything else.
This did, however, increase the deck quality of the red/white drafter. I think he was one of three strong players out of the eight, along with me and the other green/blue guy. In a slightly different universe, I have to play one of those two in the second round, and face the other in the final, for two challenging matches out of three. As it was I got lucky & they were matched with each other round 2. I'd say my round 1 opponent was about average in difficulty, round 2 was a virtual bye, and round 3 was the good challenge that makes Magic fun and stretches your brain a little. Though I was happy I got better draws than him, that match easily could have gone to three games or even been his win. I think even with my better draws and 4 for 1, game 2 would have been his if I'd allowed Mind Control on my Sphinx.
I agree with restructuring classic entry fee and # of entrants. I currently play mainly 100CS, but plan to start playing Classic once I have a little more time and finish fleshing out my decks. That said I really love the 6tix fee and 24 player min that 100CS enjoys. The payout that they offer is also great for the price, it would be nice if classic had the same.
Based on your comment, I think you misread the card. It gains +4/+4 and trample, which means no chump blocking for you. I got this in my pool on Saturday and everytime it landed I won. The card is insane
Oops! I told you I was still reading the cards. ;)
I just missed the trample part. That makes the woodcrasher insanely good, as if my opinion of green landfall wasn't high enough already, let's send the power of one of its uncommons even higher!
[Baloth Woodcrasher: Where Territorial Baloth pays 1 to get +2/+2 landfall, the woodcrasher doubles up both the payment and the effect. I don't know if it's that much better than the Territorial Baloth, though, since both hit hard with a landfall trigger when there aren't blockers, and both will prompt chumping when there are.]
Woodcrasher over Territorial anyday... one word. TRAMPLE. Having +4/+4 and TRAMPLE off a land is great because blockers aren't going to be as much of a problem against an 8/8.
Ok, even if everyone else is afraid to admit it, I will: that's pretty darn heartwarming. An excellent write-up, as usual. I look forward to using your vastly superior card evaluating prowess to unfairly dominate some Zendikar events.
i think vindicate is the weatherlight blasting through the null moon in an attempt to destroy yawgmoth...im a nerd but thats the closest i can get. And yes the ugly little tie fighter thing is the weatherlight of that im sure.
They should include useful but not really vintage cards that would be nice to have in classic like Land Grant and other cards we know we won't be seeing for quite a while and are definitely aren't going to be in a ME.
Hi. I may certainly be wrong here, but why not play brainfreeze over tedrils? with infinite doomsday piles, this should lighten the mana requirements, which seems huge, especially aginst matchups which come down to racing. Is being able to play tendrils off of ritual mana that important? led and lotus petalshould get you that single blue fairly easily. I'm pretty sure that would have worked in the example posted. How often do you function as a typical storm deck (playing for 10 tendrils) without doomsday?
also, with leylines, you eliviate some of the shenanigans that could occur when you mill the other dudes library.
Just a thought.
also, drain isnt showing up cause it gets wrecked by dredge. Drain is best with jewelry, ancestral, and other broken stuff to make it fast, which dredge doent need, so until power exists on mtgo, or dredge is hosed, drain will be hindered.
Breakfast cereals should probably stay in the pantry. That fad has long since passed, and naming a deck with a name that doesn't explain what it does, or is pervasive enough in the constructed circles is a bad idea. I will continue to call it Helm-Line/Painter because that is a succinct way of describing what's going on. Yes, jarund's deck is the same one that was featured in Whiffy's article earlier this week.
Mana Drain decks are still behind on the metagame as they cannot inherently stop Dredge decks without being more sophisticated.
Thanks for the great article!
That is my name for the Black/Green aggro deck with discard, Nantuko Shades, Tarmogoyf, Hypnotic Specter, and Tombstalker. There are some versions that are splashing white for Balance, and hence - Balanced Eva Green.
what the hell is "Balanced Eva Green"
MtGO Username: SportsGuyToo
Deck name suggestion: Cheap Solfolk
Cheap: because it's budget
Solfolk: because most of the creatures are Sol*, Soul or Folk
Is the best anti-dredge card ;)
Loved the initiative. Keep up!
Classic definitelly need a entry door / deck for new players. This article is extremally helpfull in that aspect.
Land Tax is really quite good with either of those cards.
Honestly I thought they were a bit stretched but I do appreciate the effort. I am not one to criticize word play normally as I think it should be encouraged but a little work goes a long way in this sort of thing. :)
ben, the levity of the puns is ultra fantastic and help to break up the catlog feel of the article.
you should continue them.
Disclaimer: I know absolutly nothing about classic.
Wouldn't Glacial Chasm be a good anti-dredge card? 3 double time walk (assume you are on 7 life or above) or 4 (if you got 13 or more) sounds quite strong AND they got 0 ways to deal with it at all (no stripmine afaik) AND you can do some unfair stuff with CoW (CoW + Trokai + Chasm = 2 lost life each second turn and a additional land and you cant be damaged)...
It sounds better than Propaganda or Ghostly Prison (since they are quite easily hated) to me anyway...
I think you mis-appraised land tax. It's best used with Scroll Rack, not Seismic assault, and is a viable "build-around-me" card for far better than a mediocre RW deck.
http://www.wizards.com/mtg/images/tcg/products/zendikar/h1bs2y5wfz/EN/01...
common oran-rief recluse 2g kicker 2g 1/3 reach with kicker paid when orr enters the battlefield if it was kicked destroy target creature with flying
turn 5 baneslayer angel turn 6 bye bye nasty flier maybe even turn three turn 4 with the mana excel in zen im going to be splashing them in any dual green deck even if its only in my side board but i think they will be hitting my main deck black blue white fliers beware the puaper
ahh i reread it after you mentioned it..WoG has the best..kudos!
Wow, thanks for the praise, guys! I'll be brief since I'm using most of my spare time on this stuff :)
Anonymous, good call on Mangara - I should have my head reexamined, especially since I've played with her, though long ago. I fixed it in my master article that has all the colors.
Lord Erman, I hear ya, and am glad you mentioned the combo.
spg, I won't defend the color scheme one iota except to say it's far more readable than all-white. I'll try to vary it for the next installment.
No love or hate for the corny puns at the end end of (practically) every paragraph? If I do all that work, I at least want a reaction :)
Ok, back to the drawing board - thanks, again.
The latter. If we're lucky, the podcast starts recording at 1 AM my time, and it had been a long day that day.
Yeah, I think the strongest opponents are usually to be found in the 8-4 queues, since once your winning percentage goes over a certain level you have higher expectation value for average number of packs won in there. Core sets are one of my strongest formats (I once even won a 256 man league in 9th edition), so I might do ok in 8-4, but I really like Swiss. It has less variance in wins, so I can reliably keep my costs pretty low to keep drafting. I generally at least 2-1, which means just buying one booster to draft again. During a Nix Tix week I think you have a higher ratio of ordinary players to sharks, too - which is another reason I wanted to get in an M10 draft.
I agree about the late white. Looking back, there's at least one pack where I think it might have been viable to grab a Pacifism myself, and throw in one plains for the 3 Rampant Growths to find. I think that's not ideal, as you can get that draw with Assassinate, Pacifism, and only 1 Rampant Growth or something. But slightly plausible. The openness of blue I attribute to 6 of the players getting picks that drew them strongly into other colors, occasionally one of the five colors is only being drafted by two people and you really get hooked up. I was attentive enough to spot that opening. I think there were maybe three white drafters at that table, but the one I played clearly didn't know how highly to value Pacifism, Blinding Mage, and Stormfront Pegasus. I think he got a Rhox Pikemaster early and went soldier-crazy, picking them over anything else.
This did, however, increase the deck quality of the red/white drafter. I think he was one of three strong players out of the eight, along with me and the other green/blue guy. In a slightly different universe, I have to play one of those two in the second round, and face the other in the final, for two challenging matches out of three. As it was I got lucky & they were matched with each other round 2. I'd say my round 1 opponent was about average in difficulty, round 2 was a virtual bye, and round 3 was the good challenge that makes Magic fun and stretches your brain a little. Though I was happy I got better draws than him, that match easily could have gone to three games or even been his win. I think even with my better draws and 4 for 1, game 2 would have been his if I'd allowed Mind Control on my Sphinx.
I agree with restructuring classic entry fee and # of entrants. I currently play mainly 100CS, but plan to start playing Classic once I have a little more time and finish fleshing out my decks. That said I really love the 6tix fee and 24 player min that 100CS enjoys. The payout that they offer is also great for the price, it would be nice if classic had the same.