Lurking is pretty good but you really need the mana ramp like Elvish Archdruid and other elves to get it out early. I've been working on a few versions of a Lurking deck to cheat fatties or other multi talented creature cards out, I just havent found the right mix yet. Of course Lurking is even better in 2gh and other mutiplayer games.
You forgot Lurking Predators as as way to put fatties into play. Works well with cream of the crop as well. Of course, at 6 mana it costs nearly as much as Kalonian Behemoth...
For the quiz - put another tally behind Essence Scatter for me. This pick not only blocks out blue, hopefully setting us up for a nice second pack, but it also gives us the luxury of just letting us listen to P1 signals in order to determine our second color. Rise from the Grave can be decent, but I've found it to often be underwhelming. It thrives in removal heavy decks and right now, we have no way of knowing if we're going to end up with something like that.
Basically, if this were P3P2 and we were in U/B, the pick is very likely Rise from the Grave. In this situation at P1P2, though, I think its Essence Scatter.
Just a little constructive criticism that I hope you don't take the wrong way. This article would have been still been nicely written and informative without the "Backstage with the Assassin" skit. I know you're a comedy writer but it just always seems forced, and irrelevant.
You forgot Warren Weirding the poor mans efficient untouchable removal. I really hope the next set has a spell like this because such a spell is really needed for all the protection, indestructable, and shroud creatures.
These two cards seem to be the semi-consensus picks among people posting, and I think that is right. Of all the comments, I tend to most agree with MConstant as to why I would tend to prefer Essense Scatter (consistency; on a color you know you are going to be able to run; and Rise is no near-bomb, often being a worthless card in hand).
I would also add one final knock on Rise is that it is not cheap. It is the same mana cost as true rare bombs (Baneslayer, Chandra, Ant Queen, etc.), uncommon bombs (Overrun and Serra Angel) and it is even 1-color/4 colorless costed like a true near bomb like Stampeding Rhino. And the idea of spending 5 mana to resurrect a Viashino Spearhunter because there is nothing else in the graveyard and you are surrering a beatdown is not attractive.
But following up MConstant's idea of assured consistency versus situaltional bombiness, let me make a poker comparison that will actually show where Rise from the Grave would be a better choice for some instances. Most tournament poker players know that how aggressively you play perceived coin-flip situations (say you have big overs vs what you believe is a smaller pocket pair)is determined by your assessment of your ability vis-a-vis the rest of the players in the tournament. If I am sitting down at a table of pros at a high buy-in event, I will aggressively roll the dice in those situations. Why? I need luck (winning those coin-flips) to overcome to some degree my comparative lack of skill.
Now lets move to a charity poker event where 1/2 or more of the players have just learned the game in a thirty minute tutorial. In that case if someone shoves in front of me early in a tourney and I look down and find AQs, I am laying that hand down every time, eben though I expect as a newbie they might be shoving with a piece of cheese. Why? I want to AVOID a coin-flip hand, hoping that my superior play will allow me to overcome the super-high variance situations where I may be giving up EV so as to avoid getting knocked out of a tourney with fish.
Now let's consider the Essense Scatter versus Rise. If I am drafting at a shop with casual players I know are pretty clueless because I play with them all the time and am consistently successful, Rise is a terrible pick at this point. It is precisely because I am adding unwanted variance to my play. Essence Scatter, while having less upside, will be a card I know I use at some point to neutralize at least a semi-threat, and in some instances an outright bomb. But I know if I draw it, it will get played with some effect.
Conversely, if I am sitting down at a Premier Online Event as a relative newbie, even though I do not know the specific players I will be drafting against, I can imagine I will be taking the worst of it from a pure skill vs skill matchup. Here Rise seems like the pick. Yes, it may be a dead card, but if that is the case, I am more likely than not losing those match-up anyway. But there will be those instances where it can be used to fetch a game-salvaging bomb. So I will be wanting to INCREASE the variance in my game when I perceive that I am a less-than-average player in terms of the aggregate skill level of my competitors.
Just a thought. And great another great article Godot (even if I would have taken Doom Blade over Air Elemental)
Back in the days we used to play royal togheter with nettling imp. Today we have a siren in blue that does the same thing. (Dont think its as good as it was in our beginers meta though)
Having worked through a migration on a much smaller site, I can attest there is more work than it would seem to make sure everything goes through properly. The Wizards boards are huge: Dozens of fora and subfora, and as Hammy said, the extras they are planning to add in are no small thing. Things go wrong: Taking a week gives you time for them to go wrong and get fixed. Essentially, they're doing a good half-dozen forum migrations in one, with the D&D, MTG and MTGO forums very high traffic.
And of course after I write this, I end up going 5-1 in an M10 Sealed Premier, getting 3/4 in top 8 netting 15 packs, a bunch of rares and invite to the M10 Champs on Saturday.
Of course, this was on Wednesday, after the downtime, so the QPs go toward MOCS 6. And th 4 QPs I earned would have been exactly enough to put me in the MOCS 5 tourney with a total of 15. Cest La Vie.
Nice jump start toward MOCS 6 though.
My Sealed deck wasn't bomb laden, but had solid cards. With the artifact trio of Plat Angel, Flail, and Cloak, there was always an artifact threat on the board. GUr w/ my only two red cards being pyromancer and fireball. The pyromancer got suited up with the flail quite a few times. Never got the cloak on the Angel, but did get one on a 6/6 Centaur with Oakenform on it. Ok, I also had Ant Queen which helped me outlive overrun in two seperate games...
In the finals, I was basically passed monoblack.dek with 2 blades, 2 sign in blood, tendrils, consume spirit, mind rot, duress, black knight, warlock, child of night, 2 unholy strength, a few othe beaters, and splash red for fireball. Oh, and another Plat Angel. Rolled over my first round opponent, barely lost to my 2nd round opp due to his crazy UR deck with 2 ponder, 2 divination, 2 scatter, 2 cancels, and other red removal and threats.
I agree completely, that guy really needs to be more audible and less hesitant.
With the boards down I'm not sue that we can link to them at the moment, but if you set your 'Cards owned' to 0 in the collection screen of the client, there should be a page immediately after M10 with all the commander deck cards.
If they did put it up in a single day, and it was anything less than perfect, we would sink the boot in for not testing enough and rushing it.
I think we have a stronger history of 'not enough testing' with wizo's than we have of over-testing... so... really.. let's sink the boot in coz that's what we do, but lets not pretend, as we take a swing, that we are doing anything surprising, insightful, or overly construtive.
Thanks again everybody for the comments and especially Volkan Baga for commenting. It's great to see so many people enjoyed this interview as much as I did.
If this had been an extended article, then yes, Greaves are way better. Since I'm writing about Standard here, they weren't an option. To be fair I made that point myself - if you're going to use cloak, use it on a creature that benefits from it fully. I gave a few examples of appropriate creatures.
I suck at drafting, even in M10 but this is my thought process on the little quiz at the end.
Red and green are out of contention immediately. Nothing there that I'm going to take second pick and the balls casting cost is horrible unless I'm thinking of going very heavy red. Tried it once and it ended in tears.
Nothing in White that I find appealing either. The vet is ok but a little early to be jumping on the 'soldier' tribal build.
Of the blue I like scatter the best. In my mind it's just better than the ice cage and I'm sure I'll see another turtle before the draft is over. I'm not really a defensive player so second picking a turtle just doesn't 'feel' right.
Of the black I like both the Warlock and the knight. I've found the knight quite handy when playing against M10Soldier.dec and the Warlock's evasion has been good to me. Soul bleed is a card I quite like but I like it when I'm picking it up very late not second pick. When M10 first came out I would have grabbed the Rise but in all the games I've had it in my deck it has never lived up to it's billing. For it to be great you need (1) 5 mana available (2) Something good in a graveyard (3) the card in your hand and not your library. So far I've either not had it when it would be useful or had it clogging up my hand when just playing another, cheaper, creature would have been just as effective. In games where there has been a good target for it I've found those games to be pretty much lost or won that turn or a turn or two after so there hasn't been either the time or the need to draw it.
Of the three cards I'm considering (Scatter, Warlock, Knight) I'm probably going to take the Warlock and hope that commiting to UB by the second pick of the first pack isn't going to end in disaster.
Ya there have been multiple articles exiled BUT so... Awesome, bring it. I expect/hope for lots more after it hits the collections. This needs/deserves speculation and discussion.
Good call on Warren Weirding... If it's good enough for Classic/Legacy, then it's good enough for casual Standard!
Cool man, mind posting your list? I never even thought of Elvish Archdruid - sounds like a cool deck.
Lurking is pretty good but you really need the mana ramp like Elvish Archdruid and other elves to get it out early. I've been working on a few versions of a Lurking deck to cheat fatties or other multi talented creature cards out, I just havent found the right mix yet. Of course Lurking is even better in 2gh and other mutiplayer games.
I just saw that and felt pretty dumb. Oh well!
The last third of the article is about Lurking Predators =)
You forgot Lurking Predators as as way to put fatties into play. Works well with cream of the crop as well. Of course, at 6 mana it costs nearly as much as Kalonian Behemoth...
Fantastic article as always, Godot.
For the quiz - put another tally behind Essence Scatter for me. This pick not only blocks out blue, hopefully setting us up for a nice second pack, but it also gives us the luxury of just letting us listen to P1 signals in order to determine our second color. Rise from the Grave can be decent, but I've found it to often be underwhelming. It thrives in removal heavy decks and right now, we have no way of knowing if we're going to end up with something like that.
Basically, if this were P3P2 and we were in U/B, the pick is very likely Rise from the Grave. In this situation at P1P2, though, I think its Essence Scatter.
Good read. Now I wanna build a green fatty deck as well and take to the casual room on modo :P
Just a little constructive criticism that I hope you don't take the wrong way. This article would have been still been nicely written and informative without the "Backstage with the Assassin" skit. I know you're a comedy writer but it just always seems forced, and irrelevant.
Not trying to be a jerk, just my two cents.
You forgot Warren Weirding the poor mans efficient untouchable removal. I really hope the next set has a spell like this because such a spell is really needed for all the protection, indestructable, and shroud creatures.
These two cards seem to be the semi-consensus picks among people posting, and I think that is right. Of all the comments, I tend to most agree with MConstant as to why I would tend to prefer Essense Scatter (consistency; on a color you know you are going to be able to run; and Rise is no near-bomb, often being a worthless card in hand).
I would also add one final knock on Rise is that it is not cheap. It is the same mana cost as true rare bombs (Baneslayer, Chandra, Ant Queen, etc.), uncommon bombs (Overrun and Serra Angel) and it is even 1-color/4 colorless costed like a true near bomb like Stampeding Rhino. And the idea of spending 5 mana to resurrect a Viashino Spearhunter because there is nothing else in the graveyard and you are surrering a beatdown is not attractive.
But following up MConstant's idea of assured consistency versus situaltional bombiness, let me make a poker comparison that will actually show where Rise from the Grave would be a better choice for some instances. Most tournament poker players know that how aggressively you play perceived coin-flip situations (say you have big overs vs what you believe is a smaller pocket pair)is determined by your assessment of your ability vis-a-vis the rest of the players in the tournament. If I am sitting down at a table of pros at a high buy-in event, I will aggressively roll the dice in those situations. Why? I need luck (winning those coin-flips) to overcome to some degree my comparative lack of skill.
Now lets move to a charity poker event where 1/2 or more of the players have just learned the game in a thirty minute tutorial. In that case if someone shoves in front of me early in a tourney and I look down and find AQs, I am laying that hand down every time, eben though I expect as a newbie they might be shoving with a piece of cheese. Why? I want to AVOID a coin-flip hand, hoping that my superior play will allow me to overcome the super-high variance situations where I may be giving up EV so as to avoid getting knocked out of a tourney with fish.
Now let's consider the Essense Scatter versus Rise. If I am drafting at a shop with casual players I know are pretty clueless because I play with them all the time and am consistently successful, Rise is a terrible pick at this point. It is precisely because I am adding unwanted variance to my play. Essence Scatter, while having less upside, will be a card I know I use at some point to neutralize at least a semi-threat, and in some instances an outright bomb. But I know if I draw it, it will get played with some effect.
Conversely, if I am sitting down at a Premier Online Event as a relative newbie, even though I do not know the specific players I will be drafting against, I can imagine I will be taking the worst of it from a pure skill vs skill matchup. Here Rise seems like the pick. Yes, it may be a dead card, but if that is the case, I am more likely than not losing those match-up anyway. But there will be those instances where it can be used to fetch a game-salvaging bomb. So I will be wanting to INCREASE the variance in my game when I perceive that I am a less-than-average player in terms of the aggregate skill level of my competitors.
Just a thought. And great another great article Godot (even if I would have taken Doom Blade over Air Elemental)
Back in the days we used to play royal togheter with nettling imp. Today we have a siren in blue that does the same thing. (Dont think its as good as it was in our beginers meta though)
Having worked through a migration on a much smaller site, I can attest there is more work than it would seem to make sure everything goes through properly. The Wizards boards are huge: Dozens of fora and subfora, and as Hammy said, the extras they are planning to add in are no small thing. Things go wrong: Taking a week gives you time for them to go wrong and get fixed. Essentially, they're doing a good half-dozen forum migrations in one, with the D&D, MTG and MTGO forums very high traffic.
And of course after I write this, I end up going 5-1 in an M10 Sealed Premier, getting 3/4 in top 8 netting 15 packs, a bunch of rares and invite to the M10 Champs on Saturday.
Of course, this was on Wednesday, after the downtime, so the QPs go toward MOCS 6. And th 4 QPs I earned would have been exactly enough to put me in the MOCS 5 tourney with a total of 15. Cest La Vie.
Nice jump start toward MOCS 6 though.
My Sealed deck wasn't bomb laden, but had solid cards. With the artifact trio of Plat Angel, Flail, and Cloak, there was always an artifact threat on the board. GUr w/ my only two red cards being pyromancer and fireball. The pyromancer got suited up with the flail quite a few times. Never got the cloak on the Angel, but did get one on a 6/6 Centaur with Oakenform on it. Ok, I also had Ant Queen which helped me outlive overrun in two seperate games...
In the finals, I was basically passed monoblack.dek with 2 blades, 2 sign in blood, tendrils, consume spirit, mind rot, duress, black knight, warlock, child of night, 2 unholy strength, a few othe beaters, and splash red for fireball. Oh, and another Plat Angel. Rolled over my first round opponent, barely lost to my 2nd round opp due to his crazy UR deck with 2 ponder, 2 divination, 2 scatter, 2 cancels, and other red removal and threats.
Good times, good times.
I agree completely, that guy really needs to be more audible and less hesitant.
With the boards down I'm not sue that we can link to them at the moment, but if you set your 'Cards owned' to 0 in the collection screen of the client, there should be a page immediately after M10 with all the commander deck cards.
If they did put it up in a single day, and it was anything less than perfect, we would sink the boot in for not testing enough and rushing it.
I think we have a stronger history of 'not enough testing' with wizo's than we have of over-testing... so... really.. let's sink the boot in coz that's what we do, but lets not pretend, as we take a swing, that we are doing anything surprising, insightful, or overly construtive.
"The guy with the British accent" needs a better microphone :)).
LE
Thanks again everybody for the comments and especially Volkan Baga for commenting. It's great to see so many people enjoyed this interview as much as I did.
Thanks again.
LE
If this had been an extended article, then yes, Greaves are way better. Since I'm writing about Standard here, they weren't an option. To be fair I made that point myself - if you're going to use cloak, use it on a creature that benefits from it fully. I gave a few examples of appropriate creatures.
Great read. Thanks to Mr Baga for doing the interview. Don't sell yourself short either Mr Erman, doing an interview is no easy task.
I've always appreciated the art on Magic cards but seldom actually given much thought to the artists.
Task for the day.... Decide on my most favourite card by artwork, actually find out who the artist was and hope they have done enough to build a deck.
Greaves are best.
I suck at drafting, even in M10 but this is my thought process on the little quiz at the end.
Red and green are out of contention immediately. Nothing there that I'm going to take second pick and the balls casting cost is horrible unless I'm thinking of going very heavy red. Tried it once and it ended in tears.
Nothing in White that I find appealing either. The vet is ok but a little early to be jumping on the 'soldier' tribal build.
Of the blue I like scatter the best. In my mind it's just better than the ice cage and I'm sure I'll see another turtle before the draft is over. I'm not really a defensive player so second picking a turtle just doesn't 'feel' right.
Of the black I like both the Warlock and the knight. I've found the knight quite handy when playing against M10Soldier.dec and the Warlock's evasion has been good to me. Soul bleed is a card I quite like but I like it when I'm picking it up very late not second pick. When M10 first came out I would have grabbed the Rise but in all the games I've had it in my deck it has never lived up to it's billing. For it to be great you need (1) 5 mana available (2) Something good in a graveyard (3) the card in your hand and not your library. So far I've either not had it when it would be useful or had it clogging up my hand when just playing another, cheaper, creature would have been just as effective. In games where there has been a good target for it I've found those games to be pretty much lost or won that turn or a turn or two after so there hasn't been either the time or the need to draw it.
Of the three cards I'm considering (Scatter, Warlock, Knight) I'm probably going to take the Warlock and hope that commiting to UB by the second pick of the first pack isn't going to end in disaster.
Ya there have been multiple articles exiled BUT so... Awesome, bring it. I expect/hope for lots more after it hits the collections. This needs/deserves speculation and discussion.
Props to all...
Restricted list announcement = 2 things.
Whiffy et al = correct.
And YAY for being correct 4xStrip Mine = BAD Mmmkay...
The set isn't even out yet, just wait a few weeks after release and it will come down. It will be $70 max soon after release.