I have draft a lot of FKK release and in the first week all my opponents are aggresive type of deck. I won three with an izzet, a temur and a Jeskai deck. But on my last draft I lost to a guy that has an all color deck and have walls as main creatures. I think it is the most controlling deck i have fought. I don't know if it will still be a good deck after the release but people should note that if they are going to go aggresive make sure that the removals that they will pick can take out the 0/5 walls that might suddenly be blocking you. Tnx for the info. Always good to read your article!
Thanks. The deck is a lot of fun, unless you don't enjoy combo decks I guess. Like I say I was big fan of the old Hive Mind deck and this reminds of it a lot. Glad you enjoyed the article.
Council's drawback is not hitting lands: being able to exile a Progenitus, True Name Nemesis or any other hexproof/prot everything threat makes the cost and sorcery speed acceptable.
"...And there's also Chromanticore here, because... I didn't really get why? Any word on that, Paul?"
Because Chromanticore provides all kinds of fun. 5 color Rhinos, with the flying vigilance, trampling, first striking, lifelinker to top it off gives the deck just a little extra reach. I admit it is more fun than good (cf: my round 3 loss to Ugin.dec with dark depths supercombo against which basically none of my cards were going to have any effect except maybe a hard to find plow) but it does have an appeal to me.
In particularly the evasive lifelinking not only fits well against burn based decks (because turn 3 siege into turn 4-5 chromanticore as an aura on it is a beating very few burn decks will come back from) but also chord of calling for 5 to block something big with your first striker is pretty insane.
More questionable probably is the 6 cost rhino which while fun is hard to get going. And even if you do a well timed wrath can still hurt it a lot if you don't have an escort ready.
I would like to point out that two of my opponents were really new to the format (I think) and another (Michelle Wong) had a great Sphinges deck (UW only) that just had trouble against me largely due to our draws and comeuppance not being so hot against my higher toughness guys. I felt quite sure I was going to lose that match at any moment because she had all the makings of a very tight control deck.
The minotaur guy also gave me some scares starting out a game up and game 2 seemed like a squeaker until I was able to take over with a chromanticore laden siege rhino.
Interestingly this deck is one I was going to bring another time and last minute decided against. This time I had another deck ready to go (initially entered into gatherling.com) and thought about this deck and went with it instead.
Were I to run it again I might tighten up the removal a bit. Winds of Rath is really funny when you have a chromanticore on something but that is a pretty narrow situation. Probably better to just have wrath of god. And while we are at it, I am not 100% sold on Council.
It has some applicability against indestructibles and that's an important thing to note, but it is slow and costs 3 which is a heavy handicap.
It's not too late to come on back Joe :) I actually just sold out of standard to focus on Modern and Legacy. I am only a dozen or so cards from having Elves completely built.
Yeah I am feeling that saturation complaint. Wolverine indeed! It seems like a dog with a bone with these characters. I didn't particularly care for the flavor of a lot of these guys to begin with, and they haven't improved in my eyes since Lorwyn. But hey every gimmick gets its shot. These guys have been around too long. I would love to see Urza, Mishra, their assistants, the Weatherlite gang etc get some planeswalker love. Not that I am much of a Vorthos. I'll play whatever is good/interesting to build with but occasionally it does wear thin.
I think Bob has more problems than just missing T8. He is just too slow and too painful. Bob is not what you want against Burn, causes too much pain in Abzan, and I would be nervous tapping out for him turn two or three against Amulet or Infect. He might be okay turn two against Twin, but not turn three. Or maybe I'm just not seeing where he fits - Bob needs a low curve deck - maybe some sort of Bump Burn shell?
Wow, Dark Confidant having no showing in the top 8 really caused him to take a huge hit. I also noted that there used to be an unofficial rule that the bottom prices for rares on traders was five cents, but it would appear that is no longer the case as I've seen two and three cent rares from Kahns.
I was really excited about the Magic: Origins announcement, but then I looked at the details and I am no longer interested. I was expecting a retrospective of the cool old Pre-Lorwyn Planeswalkers, characters that never really got to shine because PW cards weren't invented yet (and I was heartened by the new commander product going in that direction). I wanted to see Urza, Teferi and company, but instead I get MORE Jace, liliana, and the other over saturated (and in my opinion uninteresting) characters. How is this different from every other set the last few years? Jace and company are getting like Wolverine in the movies...they are cool and all, but enough already!
Also: Bob's deck for the VSL reminds me so much of playing Vintage pre-2000s...meaning that it is both cool and AWFUL at the same time.
where's the KMFDM? Rammstein is cool though. I've like them since I was really young, hearing a song of theirs on one of the mortal kombat soundtracks.
Congrats on turnin' 50! Your articles are always rock solid and enjoyable. I'm happy when you talk about a decks that don't get as much attention as the known players.
Curious if you tested Accumulated Knowledge or Thought Scour? I tinkered with a similar deck a while ago trying to abuse Barrow Ghoul and Gurmag Angler looks like a superior replacement.
i had a comment about getting my butt kicked at least once in a legacy match by monastery mentor. the card is really good in the right shell. but it got deleted. here's another. card is good. a bit expensive, but better than yp once in play.
Gerry Thompson does these daily deck articles on SCG Free side. Even though it's free, and the guy has to crank one out each day, people keep complaining about the articles (it was much worse at first).
There is a phenomenon of people who can't add anything, by which I mean play professionally, write article, and so on, but instead choose to pick apart anything anyone else does.
It's kind of like armchair quarterbacks, or air guitarists talking about how "metallica has gone soft" or whatever.
I've lost to this deck before. I've also had a guy ragequit from playing slaughter games naming Ad nauseam.
Sadly it will still be a while because I need all of the Cradles, Natural Orders, and Glimpses. Though once I have those I am all done.
I have draft a lot of FKK release and in the first week all my opponents are aggresive type of deck. I won three with an izzet, a temur and a Jeskai deck. But on my last draft I lost to a guy that has an all color deck and have walls as main creatures. I think it is the most controlling deck i have fought. I don't know if it will still be a good deck after the release but people should note that if they are going to go aggresive make sure that the removals that they will pick can take out the 0/5 walls that might suddenly be blocking you. Tnx for the info. Always good to read your article!
Thanks. The deck is a lot of fun, unless you don't enjoy combo decks I guess. Like I say I was big fan of the old Hive Mind deck and this reminds of it a lot. Glad you enjoyed the article.
Thanks a lot Gio. Yeah, I do enjoy covering fringe decks. It's just a balance of finding something that is both fun and reasonably competitive.
I've got a lot more ideas for articles so I'm sure the series will continue onward.
Council's drawback is not hitting lands: being able to exile a Progenitus, True Name Nemesis or any other hexproof/prot everything threat makes the cost and sorcery speed acceptable.
NICE! I'd love to play. Elves isn't a good match for me, so I could use the practice.
"...And there's also Chromanticore here, because... I didn't really get why? Any word on that, Paul?"
Because Chromanticore provides all kinds of fun. 5 color Rhinos, with the flying vigilance, trampling, first striking, lifelinker to top it off gives the deck just a little extra reach. I admit it is more fun than good (cf: my round 3 loss to Ugin.dec with dark depths supercombo against which basically none of my cards were going to have any effect except maybe a hard to find plow) but it does have an appeal to me.
In particularly the evasive lifelinking not only fits well against burn based decks (because turn 3 siege into turn 4-5 chromanticore as an aura on it is a beating very few burn decks will come back from) but also chord of calling for 5 to block something big with your first striker is pretty insane.
More questionable probably is the 6 cost rhino which while fun is hard to get going. And even if you do a well timed wrath can still hurt it a lot if you don't have an escort ready.
I would like to point out that two of my opponents were really new to the format (I think) and another (Michelle Wong) had a great Sphinges deck (UW only) that just had trouble against me largely due to our draws and comeuppance not being so hot against my higher toughness guys. I felt quite sure I was going to lose that match at any moment because she had all the makings of a very tight control deck.
The minotaur guy also gave me some scares starting out a game up and game 2 seemed like a squeaker until I was able to take over with a chromanticore laden siege rhino.
Interestingly this deck is one I was going to bring another time and last minute decided against. This time I had another deck ready to go (initially entered into gatherling.com) and thought about this deck and went with it instead.
Were I to run it again I might tighten up the removal a bit. Winds of Rath is really funny when you have a chromanticore on something but that is a pretty narrow situation. Probably better to just have wrath of god. And while we are at it, I am not 100% sold on Council.
It has some applicability against indestructibles and that's an important thing to note, but it is slow and costs 3 which is a heavy handicap.
It's not too late to come on back Joe :) I actually just sold out of standard to focus on Modern and Legacy. I am only a dozen or so cards from having Elves completely built.
No that is Mike Fuelle who moved on to Microsoft after wizards unwisely got rid of him. And Elf was long gone by then.
I thought a coder named Elf programmed commander into mtgo v2.5. Is he Lee Sharpe?
Yeah I am feeling that saturation complaint. Wolverine indeed! It seems like a dog with a bone with these characters. I didn't particularly care for the flavor of a lot of these guys to begin with, and they haven't improved in my eyes since Lorwyn. But hey every gimmick gets its shot. These guys have been around too long. I would love to see Urza, Mishra, their assistants, the Weatherlite gang etc get some planeswalker love. Not that I am much of a Vorthos. I'll play whatever is good/interesting to build with but occasionally it does wear thin.
I think Bob has more problems than just missing T8. He is just too slow and too painful. Bob is not what you want against Burn, causes too much pain in Abzan, and I would be nervous tapping out for him turn two or three against Amulet or Infect. He might be okay turn two against Twin, but not turn three. Or maybe I'm just not seeing where he fits - Bob needs a low curve deck - maybe some sort of Bump Burn shell?
I made a pauper deck. I built one I found on mtggoldfish that is very close to this, and I built this one too. I hope to play in an event soon.
Good work as always. Modern is starting to look better each time I see the decks being played.
Wow, Dark Confidant having no showing in the top 8 really caused him to take a huge hit. I also noted that there used to be an unofficial rule that the bottom prices for rares on traders was five cents, but it would appear that is no longer the case as I've seen two and three cent rares from Kahns.
I was really excited about the Magic: Origins announcement, but then I looked at the details and I am no longer interested. I was expecting a retrospective of the cool old Pre-Lorwyn Planeswalkers, characters that never really got to shine because PW cards weren't invented yet (and I was heartened by the new commander product going in that direction). I wanted to see Urza, Teferi and company, but instead I get MORE Jace, liliana, and the other over saturated (and in my opinion uninteresting) characters. How is this different from every other set the last few years? Jace and company are getting like Wolverine in the movies...they are cool and all, but enough already!
Also: Bob's deck for the VSL reminds me so much of playing Vintage pre-2000s...meaning that it is both cool and AWFUL at the same time.
Sorry for the double post.
where's the KMFDM? Rammstein is cool though. I've like them since I was really young, hearing a song of theirs on one of the mortal kombat soundtracks.
Congrats on turnin' 50! Your articles are always rock solid and enjoyable. I'm happy when you talk about a decks that don't get as much attention as the known players.
Keep up the great work! Here's to the next 50!
- Gio
Curious if you tested Accumulated Knowledge or Thought Scour? I tinkered with a similar deck a while ago trying to abuse Barrow Ghoul and Gurmag Angler looks like a superior replacement.
i had a comment about getting my butt kicked at least once in a legacy match by monastery mentor. the card is really good in the right shell. but it got deleted. here's another. card is good. a bit expensive, but better than yp once in play.
Heinous. There is a reason why the format was abandoned :p.
Gerry Thompson does these daily deck articles on SCG Free side. Even though it's free, and the guy has to crank one out each day, people keep complaining about the articles (it was much worse at first).
There is a phenomenon of people who can't add anything, by which I mean play professionally, write article, and so on, but instead choose to pick apart anything anyone else does.
It's kind of like armchair quarterbacks, or air guitarists talking about how "metallica has gone soft" or whatever.
I take it all with a grain of salt.
double post. Oops