How is this "telling us how/what to think?" Obnoxious phrasing is obnoxious. Dr Cat isn't telling is how WE should think. He is telling WOTC how he thinks as a professional in their field of interest here. Also while I agree about the CEO thing, it is not an apt analogy. That would be akin to trusting a fox in a hen house. What stake does Dr Cat here have other than telling it how he sees it (backed by his years of experience) and hoping his advice improves a game he OBVIOUSLY loves. (I put that in caps because if you are any kind of regular reader here you will see that he has spent countless hours producing content here.)
Be careful to remember that to the extent you water down the format, the stronger Depths/Stage combo becomes. Something to keep in the back of your mind.
My argument to Kuma when we were discussing this in chat Saturday was basically this: pull out the Knights and you would see much greater diversity. There are plenty of viable midrange decks, but right now they're all just worse than casting Wilt-Leaf Liege and a bunch of G/W Knights with protection from almost everything.
Like many people, I initially played the Human/Knight thing because it was fairly obvious and I had less time to come up with something else. Since the first event, I've brewed up about a half-dozen decks for K-Scope Tribal, ranging from control to combo to aggro, and I think plenty of decks would be competitive. My midrange Cleric deck this week would have been pretty well positioned against aggro, with its copious volume of lifegain and solid bodies, and felt competitive -- but really it couldn't compete with the fact that my Knights opponent casting Wilt-Leaf Liege is just way better than my casting a Loxodon Hierarch.
Every midrange deck that isn't Knights is just a worse version of Knights. Likely every aggro deck that isn't Goblins is just a worse version of Goblins.
I believe this format has a ton of potential that just isn't being seen right now because those two decks are crowding everything else out. One solution would just be to ban Knights entirely, which I would be fine with.
The alternative solution I would propose is to ban all creatures with color protections. This would go straight to the core of the one problem that keeps popping up to make K-Scope less fun and interactive. Some format old-timers would consider the power of color protections to be the central feature of K-Scope, but I would call it the central failure, and the one thing the format would most benefit from having removed.
Hmm. The "traditional" way to use Smallpox would be a Death Cloud type thing, with ramp. I wonder...
Again, something to think about. Since I had to liquidate my collection (again!), and am starting from scratch (again!), I'ma build a Bloodcrank deck first (it's cheap and fun). Since Bloodghast is in Bloodcrank, and most of the cards in pox (except the fetches and shocks) are cheap... Hmmm... I could revive the ol' "Monster Garage" segment, which lasted from http://puremtgo.com/articles/overdriven-39
until http://puremtgo.com/articles/modern-mayhem-towel-snapping-locker-room
Hmmm...
I certainly wouldn't call it an upgrade either, but I'm pretty sure that should be the goal.
As for the phase bar, eh, maybe I'm in the minority on that one. I don't see how it's better though, other than in terms of aesthetics, especially on a wide screen monitor.
The phase bar looks great- that's probably why they changed it. Makes for a worse user experience though, in my opinion. Especially on a wide screen monitor. I check it constantly and instinctively when playing and instead of being able to look in one place I have to essentially scan the entire width of my monitor. Doesn't sound like a big deal but I'd wager that it slows people down more than they realize.
The phase bar is fine given the new layout. I don't have a bad problem with the layout, but rather the functionality. I am not a fan of "the red zone" but I see the reasoning. My biggest complaint is the lack of of a collection binder like V3. I also dislike the whole trade setup.
The program looks cool and has potential, but I hope they focus on ease of use and functionality.
is that I just can't play as fast on it, by which I mean I use more of my match timer than on V3. I was on the closed beta so I've played hundreds of matches on V4 by now. I've gotten as used to it as I can I think, and I still use significantly more clock.
So just making the duel scene smoother and more intuitive is the thing I'd like to see most. A lot goes into that - making interactions more fluid and less laggy, positioning things (stack/triggers/etc) better initially so the user doesn't have to, removing/shortening useless animations, using screen space more intelligently (WHY THE HELL DID YOU MAKE THE PHASE BAR HORIZONTAL?!?!?!!1111).
Hopefully they can do that, but for now I think Wizard's decision to extend the match timer from 25 minutes per person to 30 is pretty telling. Despite them saying that this is just to get people used to things, they might have to keep it there if too many people are running out of time in matches. And if that happens V4 can simply not be seen as an upgrade in my opinion - above all other things there is just no way it should be more tedious and more time consuming to actually play magic.
It could be. I say try it out for maybe 6-8 matches and report on what happens. I would love to read about a deck going from casual to competitive. Might could teach people like me how better players think and why you make whatever changes you make.
Picking the brain of a better player is how those of us who are not so good get better. That may not be in line with the articles you make, though. Maybe see if it is possible to take a card like smallpox, build around it, and make it a thing in such a tough enviroment.
EDIT: I don't know jack about what is tier 1,2,etc...I just thought the deck looks cool to pilot.
I just feel like it should be a bit more like the Magic Online clock. If you are allotted 50 minutes for your match, and one player uses 30 of those minutes for their turns, why shouldn't there be a penalty? I ended up playing fast in that match and had him dead on board when he stalled the game with effects and thinking. If that match was on modo, he would have lost.
To be honest, I feel almost as if it's a super scumbag move to try and get a win any way possible. You're going to lose. You're dead, and you know you're dead, but you can manage to scrape out a draw which does nothing but hurt the player who should have rightfully won. Just like that PT match between Paul and Jon, where Jon is literally just straight up dead but won't concede.
The same stuff happens online as well. I was in a VMA finals about a week ago, and my opponent and I went to game 3 and he had about a minute on the clock and I was down to around 30 seconds or so and had an absolutely commanding board position. I drew the land I needed to make Kaervek's Torch lethal, but for the past 4 or 5 turns, he was just tapping all of his plains to use the shadow ability on his Soltari Emissary, and I couldn't just F6 because if he had a removal spell, I was holding a Shelter to counter it, and I needed my creature to survive so I could hit him low enough that Torch + Combat was lethal. I ended up timing out with Torch on the stack for lethal since I couldn't hit F6 fast enough and he used the ability again in response.
I can see where your deck is a little much for casual play. In the comments, i would maybe say how your deck is like a tier 2 or something. Something to give the casual guy the heads up. I played a casual commander game yesterday and the guy's first 2 spells were land destruction of my basics. I conceded turn 3 as I was not playing competitive.
With that said, your casual deck is perfect against green's ramp. I wouldn't have minded playing against it, though I can see where it may come across as unfun. You could always try the tourney room just to see how it actually stacks up. You should not run into any complaining in a competitive room. I usually pull out a jank deck to try in a casual enviroment, but if I know my OP was testing a tough/mean deck, I would bear with him trying it out. I might would make that a match play just in case one of us gets off to a rocky start.
Is that free software?
Are filmed videos good for uploading to YouTube, or do they need compression? (What I had to do before was use VirtualDub to convert recordings on Fraps to a smaller sized format since the files were absolutely huge, then change the resolutions so they didn't look horrible)
Now we have to wait for someone with 33 years of experience to tell us what to think ;-)
I guess it is a cultural difference. I like the way the publishing process at an academic/scientific journal works with a double blinded review. Authors and reviewers are not able to identify each other, specifically to avoid a situation where the arguments carry weight only because someone is a field expert.
If you are a field expert it should be easy for you to make your argumentation without evoking your position as an expert. Personally, I do not discriminate between something written by a field expert, a student or an unemployed person if the argumentation is good. But you like the argumentation and as such you didn't really need to know that the writer was a field expert.
Don't trust the bank CEO with 32 years of experience when he tells you to borrow money and invest in his bank :-)
That is a very true point. However, if you'll notice from the article itself, I only won a single game with the combo all tournament. Dodging Bolt is nice, yes, but having a 2 power flyer is going to be much better when you're going to the backup plan.
RUG Twin is just a deck full of powerful cards that threaten your opponent from many different angles and has the ability to generate free wins. If I were playing UR Twin, I'd probably be playing a 3-3 split of Twiddle dorks, and that's what I played at the GP, but Exarchs are better suited for the all-in versions with maindeck Spellskite, etc. The deck that focuses on the combo specifically.
It's probably just my play style as well, I don't like playing narrow strategies.
Also, with zoo falling off the radar, you don't really need to use Exarch to block anymore. Between Anger, Goyf, Bolt, and Slash, you have plenty of removal and they can almost never block a Pestermite. Pester also shines against Pod since they pay a ton of life and usually only have 2-3 creatures with flying in their entire deck.
Shouldn't you switch the Pestermite and Deceivers? I'd figure in an environment where lightning bolt is one of the most played cards, you'd want more of the guy that can survive a bolt.
I've decided that I'll "like" v4 as long as I get to play magic. That's the only important thing to me so far. Keep letting me do that and improve as we go on.
How is this "telling us how/what to think?" Obnoxious phrasing is obnoxious. Dr Cat isn't telling is how WE should think. He is telling WOTC how he thinks as a professional in their field of interest here. Also while I agree about the CEO thing, it is not an apt analogy. That would be akin to trusting a fox in a hen house. What stake does Dr Cat here have other than telling it how he sees it (backed by his years of experience) and hoping his advice improves a game he OBVIOUSLY loves. (I put that in caps because if you are any kind of regular reader here you will see that he has spent countless hours producing content here.)
This sounds like what I was saying back when we were voting on dropping some singleton events for Kaleidoscope.
When you take 2 restrictive formats and mash those restrictions together, how much room is really left for a healthy meta?
Be careful to remember that to the extent you water down the format, the stronger Depths/Stage combo becomes. Something to keep in the back of your mind.
My argument to Kuma when we were discussing this in chat Saturday was basically this: pull out the Knights and you would see much greater diversity. There are plenty of viable midrange decks, but right now they're all just worse than casting Wilt-Leaf Liege and a bunch of G/W Knights with protection from almost everything.
Like many people, I initially played the Human/Knight thing because it was fairly obvious and I had less time to come up with something else. Since the first event, I've brewed up about a half-dozen decks for K-Scope Tribal, ranging from control to combo to aggro, and I think plenty of decks would be competitive. My midrange Cleric deck this week would have been pretty well positioned against aggro, with its copious volume of lifegain and solid bodies, and felt competitive -- but really it couldn't compete with the fact that my Knights opponent casting Wilt-Leaf Liege is just way better than my casting a Loxodon Hierarch.
Every midrange deck that isn't Knights is just a worse version of Knights. Likely every aggro deck that isn't Goblins is just a worse version of Goblins.
I believe this format has a ton of potential that just isn't being seen right now because those two decks are crowding everything else out. One solution would just be to ban Knights entirely, which I would be fine with.
The alternative solution I would propose is to ban all creatures with color protections. This would go straight to the core of the one problem that keeps popping up to make K-Scope less fun and interactive. Some format old-timers would consider the power of color protections to be the central feature of K-Scope, but I would call it the central failure, and the one thing the format would most benefit from having removed.
Hmm. The "traditional" way to use Smallpox would be a Death Cloud type thing, with ramp. I wonder...
Again, something to think about. Since I had to liquidate my collection (again!), and am starting from scratch (again!), I'ma build a Bloodcrank deck first (it's cheap and fun). Since Bloodghast is in Bloodcrank, and most of the cards in pox (except the fetches and shocks) are cheap... Hmmm... I could revive the ol' "Monster Garage" segment, which lasted from
http://puremtgo.com/articles/overdriven-39
until
http://puremtgo.com/articles/modern-mayhem-towel-snapping-locker-room
Hmmm...
THAT, my friend, is a very good call. And perhaps a Ghost Quarter or two. Hmm.
Any pox build splashing green without having at the very least a singleton Life from the Loam just seems wrong to me.
I certainly wouldn't call it an upgrade either, but I'm pretty sure that should be the goal.
As for the phase bar, eh, maybe I'm in the minority on that one. I don't see how it's better though, other than in terms of aesthetics, especially on a wide screen monitor.
The phase bar looks great- that's probably why they changed it. Makes for a worse user experience though, in my opinion. Especially on a wide screen monitor. I check it constantly and instinctively when playing and instead of being able to look in one place I have to essentially scan the entire width of my monitor. Doesn't sound like a big deal but I'd wager that it slows people down more than they realize.
I wouldn't call V4 an upgrade. It's some ways it's better, and in other ways it's worse. Just different.
I consider the horizontal phase bar to be one of the places that it's better (just personal opinion).
The phase bar is fine given the new layout. I don't have a bad problem with the layout, but rather the functionality. I am not a fan of "the red zone" but I see the reasoning. My biggest complaint is the lack of of a collection binder like V3. I also dislike the whole trade setup.
The program looks cool and has potential, but I hope they focus on ease of use and functionality.
is that I just can't play as fast on it, by which I mean I use more of my match timer than on V3. I was on the closed beta so I've played hundreds of matches on V4 by now. I've gotten as used to it as I can I think, and I still use significantly more clock.
So just making the duel scene smoother and more intuitive is the thing I'd like to see most. A lot goes into that - making interactions more fluid and less laggy, positioning things (stack/triggers/etc) better initially so the user doesn't have to, removing/shortening useless animations, using screen space more intelligently (WHY THE HELL DID YOU MAKE THE PHASE BAR HORIZONTAL?!?!?!!1111).
Hopefully they can do that, but for now I think Wizard's decision to extend the match timer from 25 minutes per person to 30 is pretty telling. Despite them saying that this is just to get people used to things, they might have to keep it there if too many people are running out of time in matches. And if that happens V4 can simply not be seen as an upgrade in my opinion - above all other things there is just no way it should be more tedious and more time consuming to actually play magic.
It could be. I say try it out for maybe 6-8 matches and report on what happens. I would love to read about a deck going from casual to competitive. Might could teach people like me how better players think and why you make whatever changes you make.
Picking the brain of a better player is how those of us who are not so good get better. That may not be in line with the articles you make, though. Maybe see if it is possible to take a card like smallpox, build around it, and make it a thing in such a tough enviroment.
EDIT: I don't know jack about what is tier 1,2,etc...I just thought the deck looks cool to pilot.
Noted.
Huh. You really think it's "Tier 2"? I don't see it.
What is your reasoning there?
I just feel like it should be a bit more like the Magic Online clock. If you are allotted 50 minutes for your match, and one player uses 30 of those minutes for their turns, why shouldn't there be a penalty? I ended up playing fast in that match and had him dead on board when he stalled the game with effects and thinking. If that match was on modo, he would have lost.
To be honest, I feel almost as if it's a super scumbag move to try and get a win any way possible. You're going to lose. You're dead, and you know you're dead, but you can manage to scrape out a draw which does nothing but hurt the player who should have rightfully won. Just like that PT match between Paul and Jon, where Jon is literally just straight up dead but won't concede.
The same stuff happens online as well. I was in a VMA finals about a week ago, and my opponent and I went to game 3 and he had about a minute on the clock and I was down to around 30 seconds or so and had an absolutely commanding board position. I drew the land I needed to make Kaervek's Torch lethal, but for the past 4 or 5 turns, he was just tapping all of his plains to use the shadow ability on his Soltari Emissary, and I couldn't just F6 because if he had a removal spell, I was holding a Shelter to counter it, and I needed my creature to survive so I could hit him low enough that Torch + Combat was lethal. I ended up timing out with Torch on the stack for lethal since I couldn't hit F6 fast enough and he used the ability again in response.
I can see where your deck is a little much for casual play. In the comments, i would maybe say how your deck is like a tier 2 or something. Something to give the casual guy the heads up. I played a casual commander game yesterday and the guy's first 2 spells were land destruction of my basics. I conceded turn 3 as I was not playing competitive.
With that said, your casual deck is perfect against green's ramp. I wouldn't have minded playing against it, though I can see where it may come across as unfun. You could always try the tourney room just to see how it actually stacks up. You should not run into any complaining in a competitive room. I usually pull out a jank deck to try in a casual enviroment, but if I know my OP was testing a tough/mean deck, I would bear with him trying it out. I might would make that a match play just in case one of us gets off to a rocky start.
Couple questions..
Is that free software?
Are filmed videos good for uploading to YouTube, or do they need compression? (What I had to do before was use VirtualDub to convert recordings on Fraps to a smaller sized format since the files were absolutely huge, then change the resolutions so they didn't look horrible)
Thanks!
Now we have to wait for someone with 33 years of experience to tell us what to think ;-)
I guess it is a cultural difference. I like the way the publishing process at an academic/scientific journal works with a double blinded review. Authors and reviewers are not able to identify each other, specifically to avoid a situation where the arguments carry weight only because someone is a field expert.
If you are a field expert it should be easy for you to make your argumentation without evoking your position as an expert. Personally, I do not discriminate between something written by a field expert, a student or an unemployed person if the argumentation is good. But you like the argumentation and as such you didn't really need to know that the writer was a field expert.
Don't trust the bank CEO with 32 years of experience when he tells you to borrow money and invest in his bank :-)
I like your formatting, has a good look to it. Also, what did you use to make the extra banners?
I have Camtasia Studio V8 and the video looks good with V4
I do not think it is unsportsmanlike to not concede. That is just me though.
Sorry, what I meant by "all tournament" was at the PTQ. I did play 3 Exarch 3 Mite at the GP, but the meta was a lot different for that tournament.
That is a very true point. However, if you'll notice from the article itself, I only won a single game with the combo all tournament. Dodging Bolt is nice, yes, but having a 2 power flyer is going to be much better when you're going to the backup plan.
RUG Twin is just a deck full of powerful cards that threaten your opponent from many different angles and has the ability to generate free wins. If I were playing UR Twin, I'd probably be playing a 3-3 split of Twiddle dorks, and that's what I played at the GP, but Exarchs are better suited for the all-in versions with maindeck Spellskite, etc. The deck that focuses on the combo specifically.
It's probably just my play style as well, I don't like playing narrow strategies.
Also, with zoo falling off the radar, you don't really need to use Exarch to block anymore. Between Anger, Goyf, Bolt, and Slash, you have plenty of removal and they can almost never block a Pestermite. Pester also shines against Pod since they pay a ton of life and usually only have 2-3 creatures with flying in their entire deck.
Shouldn't you switch the Pestermite and Deceivers? I'd figure in an environment where lightning bolt is one of the most played cards, you'd want more of the guy that can survive a bolt.
I've decided that I'll "like" v4 as long as I get to play magic. That's the only important thing to me so far. Keep letting me do that and improve as we go on.