This is an exploration article I can really get behind. Too bad Mr. Jim Davis couldn't give a review worth 5 cents as he does seem to be an accomplished practitioner. I am of the opinion that if there is going to be a "consistent" Goblins deck pre-Lackey it's going to have access to Patriarch's Bidding. With the rise of Zoo in our meta, Goblins just doesn't have the tools to compete otherwise. Goblins can build a hateful sideboard against combo and already has a decent shot vs. blue decks, but Bidding is the only spell that has a prayer of resolving stalemates in their favor.
OK so I'm biased as I've been putting together a goblin list as my starting point into playing Classic. I've gone in a slightly different direction to you but it was very interesting reading what you have to say. I'll be reading a fewe more times just to make sure I've not missed any real gems. I do agree that on the face of it goblins seem quite simple but there are some really nice interactions that I'm still stumbling across as I learn to play them.
They may not be properly Tier-1 but they are fun to play. If only they were not pretty much an auto loss to ANT and any deck that can tutor up multiple Engineered Plagues which I think is becoming popular as an anti-Merfolk inclusion.
Vlassic having a high initial ceiling is good. We get the players that want to play this format. They tend to be better players and more mature. I used to play standard rather extensively and I can not tell you the amount of times I have played someone that disconnected when they were losing, yelled at me when they were losing, or were being a tool when they were winning. I made the switch to classic about 7 months ago. I sold all my standard stuff and laid out about $1000 in tix and money for a dreadstill deck. I loved it. The playing experience was amazing. Classic players make the playing experience so enjoyable. When they are getting beat they dont cry or complain. They do not disconnect. They are the true gamers in my estimate....In that they enjoy the format and enjoy seeing different interactions. I lost to a rogue deck last night. But I enjoyed it. I enjoyed seeing what the fellow player brewed up to beat counter top. Plus classic has the best clan ever....Magic Eternal!!!!!
That's the thing though. In standard you may need to pay $80-100 for a new set for the chase rares, but there's a big difference between $80-100 every 3 months and $550 up front for one of the cheaper "modular" decks in the format.
I kind of understand where you're coming from, but disagree. With each Standard set, there are typically double-digits in cards you have to pick up. With Classic, if you have a particular deck, or even 2-3 decks, there are only so many cards that fit into a given deck.
As your collection builds, you have less and less of a buy-in each set. Owning FoW/random other rares, I have to buy what cards in a given set? Mostly stuff that helps a control or aggro/control deck. The other thing is I pretty much have not enjoyed Standard since Ravnica rotated out, so that kind of adds to the situation.
great article about the countertop
a powerful strategy but to me countertop aggro/control is also a deck where fun & originality are often missing (less for the pilot than for the opponent though) . I consider it as a waiting deck most of the time : i much prefer aggro blue for example (which is also often less effective) or landstill (which integrate countetop engine too but in a more control way i like), but each of us should have a different mind.
As mentioned, countertop is an highway to top8 in PE in our current meta too. Firstly because it is powerful, preventing many decks from working normaly (an good average MU rate), but also maybe because it is not so hard to understand how to play it. That being said, to know how it is working doent mean how to well pilot it ... it is often piloted by good players.
I understand where you were coming from with the "Budget" angle since it is a nice 300 bucks short cause of lack of dual lands but this is still a staggering amount. I mean i only payed aproximatly 280 dollars for the whole deck but ive been around since fow was 17 tix.
I highly doubt that. If you decided to buy in to faeries right now youd spend about 300 dollars poof there goes over half your budget.
Or lets say that you wait till rotation and your in the same boat as buying in from scratch. You could very possibly by the entire block as a playset but it would cost you very close to the buy in of this one deck that you would be able to play for the life of classic. Not to mention that there would still be 2 years full of 3 set blocks and core sets.
No the smart money is in classic, pay your 1000 dollars up front and have access to 1-2 top decks in the format that you can play forever on that thousand dollars. as opposed to getting a little of short term variety.
good stuff and thank you for the chl/fbl link. countertop is just really good at what it does it is an ineluctable trigger.. .."worse than kismet/stasis in that it allows you to belive that you will be ABLE TO cast a spell for the rest of the game".. not my quote some pros anyhow.
i am really looking forward to reading future articles on deck analysis,match ups, builds, and etc.
i think that this is a rather underexplored format where we are missing a great deal of cards wether those are slated for urzas/masques or are from older sets in the guise of med,ftv,dds. we also have diffirent restrictions or unrestricted use of cards that are not so in classics closest rl kin.
The issue with "budget" decks like that is that they are incredibly expensive no matter what. The biggest problem with classic, in my opinion, is the ridiculous "buy-in" needed to play most of the format's top deck. I mean, the deck already costs around $550 to play, and while EE and the fetches/stifles will get cheaper, the duals are going to go up in price with MED2 leaving. I could buy 3 years worth of standard decks for those prices, and that's why classic is suffering. I like the format (a lot) but unless wizards does something to fix the player population, it's going to suffer.
I got Nought on the relatively cheap; 17 each, FoW at 17.5, and when I say budget, I mean you don't need other duals, and you're getting the core of most good classic decks with this deck (Blue cards and fetchs) that will allow you to branch into other decks. In my mind, you can wait on EE (they'll come down to the teens at least again), and Stifles too (already dropped from 15+ becase of the end of Ext).
It's not free, it's not Standard-cheap, but it IS a good way to get into the format with some cards you might have already (I kind of counted EE in that category in my head too). Daze can be skipped in favor of Counterspell, Duress, or Spell Snare, slightly inferior options in general, but more or even MUCH more powerful in a lot of situations.
I might be off though, but I tend to dislike recommending people buy a cheap deck that doesn't really branch out very well, Goblins and FoW-less Mer for example are solid choices, but I wouldn't really recommend them.
"The other cool thing about this list is that it is slightly budget-friendly. If you have Force of Will (which you should, if you're wanting to play Classic in the long-term), you don't need duals many other high-cost rares aside from Phyrexian Dreadnought."
Force, eek. Dreadnought? You admitted it. I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that a deck is budget friendly minus this 80*4 and this 32*4. That's $448 for just those 8 cards!
Okay okay okay. So the rest of the deck is cheap, right? After all, you did say it was budget except for that. Brainstorm? Trinket Mage and Counterbalance? Yeah actually I think you might be right. Oh wait. $22.75 for Engineered Explosives. $10 per Stifle. $13 per Wasteland. I'll ignore the fetchlands because people 'should' own those. What is "slightly budget friendly" about this list? Are you mad?
$9.50 for each Daze, too. It's obvious that you got this stuff cheap and let it appreciate, or that you forgot how much you spent on it. But then again Dreadnaughts and Dazes were never cheap.
Still 5/5 though because I liked the history of the Top.
They should generalize these event queues. I know for a fact that almost all Magic players in all card shops have their own rules for drafting, sealed, or constructed. MTGO should just make a special "Custom queue". Someone sets up a draft queue with special rules like "winner of draft queue gets all foils and picks 4 rares" or "winner takes all" or "winner gets 8 packs, second place gets 4 packs, and semi-finalists get 2 packs if everyone agrees to put in an extra tix" etc etc etc. This is how the game is played in shops across the world. Wizards just forcing their draft/constructed/sealed queues on us isn't what we really want. Every locality is different. People even have different ways of drafting like "you get 2 picks from each pack you open" etc etc. MTGO really does restrict us in this way.
I enjoyed the history reminder, and the prolepsis starter build (which may be best overall anyways). I would remind other readers to explore the engine in Tez and anything that can run Trinket Mage, as well. Maybe I'll have to write the article - how to beat CounterTop. I think my Zoo deck has like an 80% win rate against countertop recently; your last decklist has just one anti-zoo sideboard card at the moment. Maybe I should shut up and collect my victories. :)
That makes a lot of sense - I've just been trying to think of outs, but never considered timing them out. I guess it's only bad when blink boards it in and you can't exactly kill their threats without a ton of rats
I love these but was wondering if you can put timestamps next to the summary so that it was easier for listeners to cherrypick parts which are of most interest etc?
This deck is labled as baseruption in my library.
Very awsome article and I fully appreciate the back history on the combo. I really do think that this is your best option for winning a pe intodays meta.
This is an exploration article I can really get behind. Too bad Mr. Jim Davis couldn't give a review worth 5 cents as he does seem to be an accomplished practitioner. I am of the opinion that if there is going to be a "consistent" Goblins deck pre-Lackey it's going to have access to Patriarch's Bidding. With the rise of Zoo in our meta, Goblins just doesn't have the tools to compete otherwise. Goblins can build a hateful sideboard against combo and already has a decent shot vs. blue decks, but Bidding is the only spell that has a prayer of resolving stalemates in their favor.
OK so I'm biased as I've been putting together a goblin list as my starting point into playing Classic. I've gone in a slightly different direction to you but it was very interesting reading what you have to say. I'll be reading a fewe more times just to make sure I've not missed any real gems. I do agree that on the face of it goblins seem quite simple but there are some really nice interactions that I'm still stumbling across as I learn to play them.
They may not be properly Tier-1 but they are fun to play. If only they were not pretty much an auto loss to ANT and any deck that can tutor up multiple Engineered Plagues which I think is becoming popular as an anti-Merfolk inclusion.
Vlassic having a high initial ceiling is good. We get the players that want to play this format. They tend to be better players and more mature. I used to play standard rather extensively and I can not tell you the amount of times I have played someone that disconnected when they were losing, yelled at me when they were losing, or were being a tool when they were winning. I made the switch to classic about 7 months ago. I sold all my standard stuff and laid out about $1000 in tix and money for a dreadstill deck. I loved it. The playing experience was amazing. Classic players make the playing experience so enjoyable. When they are getting beat they dont cry or complain. They do not disconnect. They are the true gamers in my estimate....In that they enjoy the format and enjoy seeing different interactions. I lost to a rogue deck last night. But I enjoyed it. I enjoyed seeing what the fellow player brewed up to beat counter top. Plus classic has the best clan ever....Magic Eternal!!!!!
That's the thing though. In standard you may need to pay $80-100 for a new set for the chase rares, but there's a big difference between $80-100 every 3 months and $550 up front for one of the cheaper "modular" decks in the format.
Wrong.
Dreadnaughts used to be 3 tix.
I kind of understand where you're coming from, but disagree. With each Standard set, there are typically double-digits in cards you have to pick up. With Classic, if you have a particular deck, or even 2-3 decks, there are only so many cards that fit into a given deck.
As your collection builds, you have less and less of a buy-in each set. Owning FoW/random other rares, I have to buy what cards in a given set? Mostly stuff that helps a control or aggro/control deck. The other thing is I pretty much have not enjoyed Standard since Ravnica rotated out, so that kind of adds to the situation.
great article about the countertop
a powerful strategy but to me countertop aggro/control is also a deck where fun & originality are often missing (less for the pilot than for the opponent though) . I consider it as a waiting deck most of the time : i much prefer aggro blue for example (which is also often less effective) or landstill (which integrate countetop engine too but in a more control way i like), but each of us should have a different mind.
As mentioned, countertop is an highway to top8 in PE in our current meta too. Firstly because it is powerful, preventing many decks from working normaly (an good average MU rate), but also maybe because it is not so hard to understand how to play it. That being said, to know how it is working doent mean how to well pilot it ... it is often piloted by good players.
I understand where you were coming from with the "Budget" angle since it is a nice 300 bucks short cause of lack of dual lands but this is still a staggering amount. I mean i only payed aproximatly 280 dollars for the whole deck but ive been around since fow was 17 tix.
I highly doubt that. If you decided to buy in to faeries right now youd spend about 300 dollars poof there goes over half your budget.
Or lets say that you wait till rotation and your in the same boat as buying in from scratch. You could very possibly by the entire block as a playset but it would cost you very close to the buy in of this one deck that you would be able to play for the life of classic. Not to mention that there would still be 2 years full of 3 set blocks and core sets.
No the smart money is in classic, pay your 1000 dollars up front and have access to 1-2 top decks in the format that you can play forever on that thousand dollars. as opposed to getting a little of short term variety.
good stuff and thank you for the chl/fbl link. countertop is just really good at what it does it is an ineluctable trigger.. .."worse than kismet/stasis in that it allows you to belive that you will be ABLE TO cast a spell for the rest of the game".. not my quote some pros anyhow.
i am really looking forward to reading future articles on deck analysis,match ups, builds, and etc.
i think that this is a rather underexplored format where we are missing a great deal of cards wether those are slated for urzas/masques or are from older sets in the guise of med,ftv,dds. we also have diffirent restrictions or unrestricted use of cards that are not so in classics closest rl kin.
The issue with "budget" decks like that is that they are incredibly expensive no matter what. The biggest problem with classic, in my opinion, is the ridiculous "buy-in" needed to play most of the format's top deck. I mean, the deck already costs around $550 to play, and while EE and the fetches/stifles will get cheaper, the duals are going to go up in price with MED2 leaving. I could buy 3 years worth of standard decks for those prices, and that's why classic is suffering. I like the format (a lot) but unless wizards does something to fix the player population, it's going to suffer.
Didn't realize that was desirable. I'll add it to my things to do while podcasting list and have it in the shownotes next week.
Very nice article. Thanks for bringing more attention to tribal again. Hopefully there will be more players now that Lorwyn block is done.
I got Nought on the relatively cheap; 17 each, FoW at 17.5, and when I say budget, I mean you don't need other duals, and you're getting the core of most good classic decks with this deck (Blue cards and fetchs) that will allow you to branch into other decks. In my mind, you can wait on EE (they'll come down to the teens at least again), and Stifles too (already dropped from 15+ becase of the end of Ext).
It's not free, it's not Standard-cheap, but it IS a good way to get into the format with some cards you might have already (I kind of counted EE in that category in my head too). Daze can be skipped in favor of Counterspell, Duress, or Spell Snare, slightly inferior options in general, but more or even MUCH more powerful in a lot of situations.
I might be off though, but I tend to dislike recommending people buy a cheap deck that doesn't really branch out very well, Goblins and FoW-less Mer for example are solid choices, but I wouldn't really recommend them.
"The other cool thing about this list is that it is slightly budget-friendly. If you have Force of Will (which you should, if you're wanting to play Classic in the long-term), you don't need duals many other high-cost rares aside from Phyrexian Dreadnought."
Force, eek. Dreadnought? You admitted it. I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that a deck is budget friendly minus this 80*4 and this 32*4. That's $448 for just those 8 cards!
Okay okay okay. So the rest of the deck is cheap, right? After all, you did say it was budget except for that. Brainstorm? Trinket Mage and Counterbalance? Yeah actually I think you might be right. Oh wait. $22.75 for Engineered Explosives. $10 per Stifle. $13 per Wasteland. I'll ignore the fetchlands because people 'should' own those. What is "slightly budget friendly" about this list? Are you mad?
$9.50 for each Daze, too. It's obvious that you got this stuff cheap and let it appreciate, or that you forgot how much you spent on it. But then again Dreadnaughts and Dazes were never cheap.
Still 5/5 though because I liked the history of the Top.
Countertop ftw!!!
wont the white player just stick a pro black guy and win?
Actually that sounds like a load of crap.
They should generalize these event queues. I know for a fact that almost all Magic players in all card shops have their own rules for drafting, sealed, or constructed. MTGO should just make a special "Custom queue". Someone sets up a draft queue with special rules like "winner of draft queue gets all foils and picks 4 rares" or "winner takes all" or "winner gets 8 packs, second place gets 4 packs, and semi-finalists get 2 packs if everyone agrees to put in an extra tix" etc etc etc. This is how the game is played in shops across the world. Wizards just forcing their draft/constructed/sealed queues on us isn't what we really want. Every locality is different. People even have different ways of drafting like "you get 2 picks from each pack you open" etc etc. MTGO really does restrict us in this way.
I enjoyed the history reminder, and the prolepsis starter build (which may be best overall anyways). I would remind other readers to explore the engine in Tez and anything that can run Trinket Mage, as well. Maybe I'll have to write the article - how to beat CounterTop. I think my Zoo deck has like an 80% win rate against countertop recently; your last decklist has just one anti-zoo sideboard card at the moment. Maybe I should shut up and collect my victories. :)
That makes a lot of sense - I've just been trying to think of outs, but never considered timing them out. I guess it's only bad when blink boards it in and you can't exactly kill their threats without a ton of rats
everyone hates a well placed force of will :p
:) great article man, just great
I love these but was wondering if you can put timestamps next to the summary so that it was easier for listeners to cherrypick parts which are of most interest etc?
This deck is labled as baseruption in my library.
Very awsome article and I fully appreciate the back history on the combo. I really do think that this is your best option for winning a pe intodays meta.
Playing and winning with the odd tribes is what I find entertaining and enjoyable. As you say, it is more of a challenge, but that's half the fun.