I have mostly all the same art lands. Only because I got halfway through buying identical zendikar lands for my decks and couldn't find all the same pics from the same place.
My urzatron lands are like that too. At least none of them are white bordered (gross)!
And Rtfc is one of my leaks. .. lost a game just now because i didn't read a card right.
If I only have 1 or 2 decklists in the article, I'll take the time to change it. This one just had a few too many for me to double check through. I was pasting the lists from a few different sources; it was effort to make sure that the lists had 75 cards. :)
Yeah the power and early game combos are everywhere since they are relatively cheap right now. Kids -- Candy Store. I guess. I have found that I want to play with power even if I don't have it so I identify with those who do. But I have been trying to find decks that aren't 100% broken while still have some competitive edge. It isn't easy without going the full route.
A person who gets Time Vault/key early is saying "Hey look I can beat you in one-two turns." aka "Watch me play solitaire." Strangely while that combo should be a tourney worthy one it doesn't seem to show up very often. I guess there is enough post sideboard hate (Chalice set to 1, Gorilla Shaman, etc) that it isn't worth it.
Anyway I am hoping that eventually Juff will settle down a bit as VMA prices rise again and people will play more reasonable decks. But for now grin and bear it I guess :(
Yeah v4 is something to get used to alright :( I am hopeful that things will get ironed out. Technically it is only 3.4x...so room for improvement right??Right?? Well anyway the graveyards are collapsed to start with in multi so blech but not the end of the world :( But if you really couldn't see it at all...now that's a game crushing bug.
The other thing I found out with Multi is if you are playing 2HG only one head of your opponent's board will show unless you hit the tiny tab to the right of the screen. (I thought someone schooled the v3 designers about collapsing stuff...) Ack! and I agree, totally frustrating & exciting experience.
Your lady likes squirrels? How about Squirrel Wrangler? Unfortunately not too much in that flavor vein in MTG but there is Acorn Catapult which made my day when I got one for commander and played it. Everyone was like "Oh how cute!" until I started using it :p
Thanks, Paul!
I purposely avoided to go back and re-read your AJ interview before my own, not to be influenced one way or another. I'll do it now to see how I fared in comparison. :)
I can't say I'm a fan of playing the deck either, but it was all I could afford at the time, since MTGO was still new to me. I also feel like it is competitive, and a good deck to write about. I don't usually have problems with Miracles to be honest, but it is a tough matchup. I've been playing Elves lately as well as Painter decks, but yeah. It's definitely a cheap option and I hate playing against it.. Oh well.
You can do some F6 trickery by hitting it then hovering on 'remove auto yields' and release it as they start tapping lands for a spell or begin combat - if they had a creature they otherwise likely wouldn't be attacking with in fear of a trick.
Cool stuff - just build a squirrel deck myself to get my Lady a bit more excited in the Game:
Surprisingly, Not going the prison Avenue here...
But V4? After pete's 'the Sky is Not falling' Statement I decided to believe, draft and bought into
Power and enjoyed really great times. Today i spend hours After hours to find a way
Into the new client: it was simply pain. My personal highlight is the missing yard of my
Opponent (happens on both machines I use)- the info from the orcs on Solving it was
"File a Bug request".
Great- no clue, whether a game has ever excited and frustrated me more.
At times in my Modern Simic Aether Vial deck, I will play an island first over the probably proper forest (Strangeroot Geist is in the deck) to make the opponent think it is a merfolk deck and wrap their thinking along those lines.
Appreciate the pull ups Pete. Everyone makes leaks. This is something I learned the hard way watching great players. The thing is, the leaks of great players are very subtle. The leaks here are what I like to call pet peeves. Especially the thoughtseize leak and the art leak. Limited is a pain to provide correct lands for because as you said the client autochooses the most recent ones. And I don't play limited often but I see the same thing in constructed formats. Basic lands with 3-4 different arts for each type! I've told people in the past about getting full playsets (24-30 lands of each basic type) and sticking with them but eventually you see enough people doing it and you stop telling them.
As for the Creature/F6 leak...well I can't say I have never done this but it is usually when I know my opponent can't use the opportunity and speed is of the essence. F4 is much more useful even if you have no response possible since it will auto-pause as soon as your opponent goes to do something and it will train them to be wary of what they think is a pass.
As for playing stuff in the main phase, sometimes you want your opponent to think you have nothing to do but play stuff in the first main phase so that they commit their forces/tricks and you then hit them with the cheap trick in your hand that you left mana up for. (That doesn't happen often.) Sometimes playing a creature first subtly enhances the attack potential you have, or greatly enhances it in the case of a haster, or lord but typically there is no other good reason for doing this. Ever. Particularly in limited. In constructed different play rhythms happen.
The which land to play first/second is still something I consider to this day in any deck where land color matters. Because imho it is a primary strategic consideration. It may seem small but tempo is everything in the early/mid game. If you wait long enough with neither side doing anything but playing lands then it goes away but an early beater or mana dude or what have you can set the tone for the entire game.
Not just setting up how to play out your hand but also how to play with what is in your deck and what is likely to happen on your opponent's turn.
I have 3 green lands in hand, 1 tropical island and 2 savannahs. I know on turn 3 I want to be able to pay 2U to get my guy out and if I start with tropical my opponent will have the opportunity to stripmine or wasteland or in the case of a LD deck stone rain/sinkhole my tropical thus possibly setting back my game plan permanently or at least for a long time. It is a good thing to know what your opponent is playing but it is also good to not give them gifts.
Bravissimo! What an excellent read! :D Thanks for topping my interview of AJ and bringing us this delightful bit of insight into the man. As a long time friend, I can say I learned a few new things. Also cool pix. :D Now I am going to have to refer people to both articles when I tell them about AJ. :D
To touch on a few things: I've been Enjoying AJ's return to writing again and his articles compliment your own in setting pure as the home for Tribal Wars online. I agree that players in the format have a temptation to resist when it comes to going against its grain. It is no matter for someone with deep pockets and or a deep collection to just shoehorn say Charbelcher or Dream Halls legacy style decks on to a tribe and call it a day. The tribe becomes irrelevant to winning (except in the most trivial way) and people have a hard time dealing with this because there are no sideboards and few good natural answers to quick combo.
On the other hand it is easy to build really bad decks adhering to the spirit of the format and difficult to tune those decks into competitive lists. This is where AJ really shines. He takes tribes that one should never win with because they are just horrible and he finds a way to make them stars. He may use some non-tribal cards to do that but it is the tribe members themselves that do the heavy lifting usually in his decks.
As for changelings being broken. I have mixed feelings on this: 1) Changelings enable all those 3-5 member tribes with really poor synergy to be playable and even possibly good. 2. Changelings enable a far greater number of tribes to compete in singleton. 3. Changelings have some all stars which might be preferable to any given tribal member. 4. Some of those all-stars are far too ubiquitous imho. I don't like seeing Colossus and Mauler in every green and red deck where the tribes are nowhere near on par. I also don't like seeing Mirror Entity abused as a finisher even though I have done this multiple times myself.
That said I do hope they fix changelings in the client. It would be egregious if they ignored this bug after we lobbied so hard for them to bring TWL back.
You're absolutely right. I don't play Vintage, but in Legacy, I sometimes try hard to press 'ok' as soon as I can to try to give the impression of having F6ed. It's obviously difficult to tell if it's successful in any way unless you talk to your opponent about it, but when the client lags a little, there is very little difference between a quick click and a proper F6.
Great article (as usual) Pete, while we are on the subject I'd like to add another (big) mistake I have been seeing lot lately. I'm guessing this comes from players new to Vintage/eternal, but there is almost never a good time to push F6 during a Vintage turn. Over the last few weeks I have had my opponents F6 at the beginning of my turn much more often than it should occur (which is almost never). Clicking F6 gives your opponent an insane amount of information in Vintage and also completely changes their lines of play and decision trees. If I cast my mox turn 1 or 2 and notice that you have F6'd me, it completely changes the calculus of what to do that turn: I no longer have to weigh the risk/reward of various lines of play, I no longer have to worry about keeping counter mana up to protect my spells, I no longer have to worry about keeping blue cards in my hand to pitch to force, I no longer have to try and bait out the Mental Misstep/Flusterstorm or get a Thoughtseize before going all-in. Vintage decision trees are extremely complex, and executing a hand perfectly is nearly impossible to do... hitting F6 basically makes the decisions for your opponent (always do the most broken thing you can with the cards in your hand) instead of making them do the thinking (and giving THEM the opportunity to make suboptimal choices).
Interesting, try out my list for sure. There are real synergies with the sphere effects that I really liked. I do think the dark depths combo was obviously not consistent but I am not sure that is a real problem. Expedition Map is interesting idea maybe I will try replacing the smokestacks with 2... I would also put in 2-3 more dredge hate.
Nice article! I recently got into modern, and have been having a blast with that, but legacy also seems very fun.
When I started playing MTG/MTGO again, I jumped into standard because that's what you're supposed to do. And dreams of playing ptq's or higher level tournaments popped into my head. Standard is the most common format in paper, etc.
I have since realized that with a family,job, and other responsibilities, playing in a Grand Prix is probably not going to happen any time soon.
And If I'm playing exclusively online, i can play modern or legacy every day if i want to.
I can't decide if that falls under the "cruel and unusual punishment" category. At least Emrakul ends the game quickly. Canonist seems less cruel until you relaize what is actually happening...
Did the deck have other wincons, or did it just beat for 2?
I've been testing a similar deck for a few weeks now. Instead of a Stax shell, I am playing with a more aggressive version that retains Kuldotha Forgemaster, has more Wurmcoil Engines, a full set of Expedition Maps and a couple of Phyrexian Revokers. I ended up cutting a few sphere effects and putting them in the SB to make room (I am still not sure if this is the way to go), but I really don't miss them that much.
I have tried playing it, once, in a DE, and the result wasn't pretty. I ended up dropping in frustration after I started 0-2 as both my opponents had multiple Wastelands in their opening hands. I really like my deck, but I think I might try your version for a few days since I already have the pieces for it.
I have mostly all the same art lands. Only because I got halfway through buying identical zendikar lands for my decks and couldn't find all the same pics from the same place.
My urzatron lands are like that too. At least none of them are white bordered (gross)!
And Rtfc is one of my leaks. .. lost a game just now because i didn't read a card right.
If I only have 1 or 2 decklists in the article, I'll take the time to change it. This one just had a few too many for me to double check through. I was pasting the lists from a few different sources; it was effort to make sure that the lists had 75 cards. :)
Yeah the power and early game combos are everywhere since they are relatively cheap right now. Kids -- Candy Store. I guess. I have found that I want to play with power even if I don't have it so I identify with those who do. But I have been trying to find decks that aren't 100% broken while still have some competitive edge. It isn't easy without going the full route.
A person who gets Time Vault/key early is saying "Hey look I can beat you in one-two turns." aka "Watch me play solitaire." Strangely while that combo should be a tourney worthy one it doesn't seem to show up very often. I guess there is enough post sideboard hate (Chalice set to 1, Gorilla Shaman, etc) that it isn't worth it.
Anyway I am hoping that eventually Juff will settle down a bit as VMA prices rise again and people will play more reasonable decks. But for now grin and bear it I guess :(
Precisely and thanks for the explanation Mister. :)
Yeah v4 is something to get used to alright :( I am hopeful that things will get ironed out. Technically it is only 3.4x...so room for improvement right??Right?? Well anyway the graveyards are collapsed to start with in multi so blech but not the end of the world :( But if you really couldn't see it at all...now that's a game crushing bug.
The other thing I found out with Multi is if you are playing 2HG only one head of your opponent's board will show unless you hit the tiny tab to the right of the screen. (I thought someone schooled the v3 designers about collapsing stuff...) Ack! and I agree, totally frustrating & exciting experience.
Your lady likes squirrels? How about Squirrel Wrangler? Unfortunately not too much in that flavor vein in MTG but there is Acorn Catapult which made my day when I got one for commander and played it. Everyone was like "Oh how cute!" until I started using it :p
Thanks, Paul!
I purposely avoided to go back and re-read your AJ interview before my own, not to be influenced one way or another. I'll do it now to see how I fared in comparison. :)
I can't say I'm a fan of playing the deck either, but it was all I could afford at the time, since MTGO was still new to me. I also feel like it is competitive, and a good deck to write about. I don't usually have problems with Miracles to be honest, but it is a tough matchup. I've been playing Elves lately as well as Painter decks, but yeah. It's definitely a cheap option and I hate playing against it.. Oh well.
You can do some F6 trickery by hitting it then hovering on 'remove auto yields' and release it as they start tapping lands for a spell or begin combat - if they had a creature they otherwise likely wouldn't be attacking with in fear of a trick.
5 balls for the uncared squirrels in a world of dragons, demons & angels - Leaving Alone Nest combo
Cool stuff - just build a squirrel deck myself to get my Lady a bit more excited in the Game:
Surprisingly, Not going the prison Avenue here...
But V4? After pete's 'the Sky is Not falling' Statement I decided to believe, draft and bought into
Power and enjoyed really great times. Today i spend hours After hours to find a way
Into the new client: it was simply pain. My personal highlight is the missing yard of my
Opponent (happens on both machines I use)- the info from the orcs on Solving it was
"File a Bug request".
Great- no clue, whether a game has ever excited and frustrated me more.
With O-Ring, the spell doesn't target Emrakul - the triggered effect does. Emrakul doesn't have protection from effects, just from spells.
How can O-ring deal with Emrakul. He has protection from colored spells?
The other thing I noticed is that post VMA, there is a lot of power in the JFF room, and even more decks with Vault/key combo.
At times in my Modern Simic Aether Vial deck, I will play an island first over the probably proper forest (Strangeroot Geist is in the deck) to make the opponent think it is a merfolk deck and wrap their thinking along those lines.
Not me. I take the time to unsort them. :) But I think that is a matter of preference.
Appreciate the pull ups Pete. Everyone makes leaks. This is something I learned the hard way watching great players. The thing is, the leaks of great players are very subtle. The leaks here are what I like to call pet peeves. Especially the thoughtseize leak and the art leak. Limited is a pain to provide correct lands for because as you said the client autochooses the most recent ones. And I don't play limited often but I see the same thing in constructed formats. Basic lands with 3-4 different arts for each type! I've told people in the past about getting full playsets (24-30 lands of each basic type) and sticking with them but eventually you see enough people doing it and you stop telling them.
As for the Creature/F6 leak...well I can't say I have never done this but it is usually when I know my opponent can't use the opportunity and speed is of the essence. F4 is much more useful even if you have no response possible since it will auto-pause as soon as your opponent goes to do something and it will train them to be wary of what they think is a pass.
As for playing stuff in the main phase, sometimes you want your opponent to think you have nothing to do but play stuff in the first main phase so that they commit their forces/tricks and you then hit them with the cheap trick in your hand that you left mana up for. (That doesn't happen often.) Sometimes playing a creature first subtly enhances the attack potential you have, or greatly enhances it in the case of a haster, or lord but typically there is no other good reason for doing this. Ever. Particularly in limited. In constructed different play rhythms happen.
The which land to play first/second is still something I consider to this day in any deck where land color matters. Because imho it is a primary strategic consideration. It may seem small but tempo is everything in the early/mid game. If you wait long enough with neither side doing anything but playing lands then it goes away but an early beater or mana dude or what have you can set the tone for the entire game.
Not just setting up how to play out your hand but also how to play with what is in your deck and what is likely to happen on your opponent's turn.
I have 3 green lands in hand, 1 tropical island and 2 savannahs. I know on turn 3 I want to be able to pay 2U to get my guy out and if I start with tropical my opponent will have the opportunity to stripmine or wasteland or in the case of a LD deck stone rain/sinkhole my tropical thus possibly setting back my game plan permanently or at least for a long time. It is a good thing to know what your opponent is playing but it is also good to not give them gifts.
Bravissimo! What an excellent read! :D Thanks for topping my interview of AJ and bringing us this delightful bit of insight into the man. As a long time friend, I can say I learned a few new things. Also cool pix. :D Now I am going to have to refer people to both articles when I tell them about AJ. :D
To touch on a few things: I've been Enjoying AJ's return to writing again and his articles compliment your own in setting pure as the home for Tribal Wars online. I agree that players in the format have a temptation to resist when it comes to going against its grain. It is no matter for someone with deep pockets and or a deep collection to just shoehorn say Charbelcher or Dream Halls legacy style decks on to a tribe and call it a day. The tribe becomes irrelevant to winning (except in the most trivial way) and people have a hard time dealing with this because there are no sideboards and few good natural answers to quick combo.
On the other hand it is easy to build really bad decks adhering to the spirit of the format and difficult to tune those decks into competitive lists. This is where AJ really shines. He takes tribes that one should never win with because they are just horrible and he finds a way to make them stars. He may use some non-tribal cards to do that but it is the tribe members themselves that do the heavy lifting usually in his decks.
As for changelings being broken. I have mixed feelings on this: 1) Changelings enable all those 3-5 member tribes with really poor synergy to be playable and even possibly good. 2. Changelings enable a far greater number of tribes to compete in singleton. 3. Changelings have some all stars which might be preferable to any given tribal member. 4. Some of those all-stars are far too ubiquitous imho. I don't like seeing Colossus and Mauler in every green and red deck where the tribes are nowhere near on par. I also don't like seeing Mirror Entity abused as a finisher even though I have done this multiple times myself.
That said I do hope they fix changelings in the client. It would be egregious if they ignored this bug after we lobbied so hard for them to bring TWL back.
You're absolutely right. I don't play Vintage, but in Legacy, I sometimes try hard to press 'ok' as soon as I can to try to give the impression of having F6ed. It's obviously difficult to tell if it's successful in any way unless you talk to your opponent about it, but when the client lags a little, there is very little difference between a quick click and a proper F6.
Great article (as usual) Pete, while we are on the subject I'd like to add another (big) mistake I have been seeing lot lately. I'm guessing this comes from players new to Vintage/eternal, but there is almost never a good time to push F6 during a Vintage turn. Over the last few weeks I have had my opponents F6 at the beginning of my turn much more often than it should occur (which is almost never). Clicking F6 gives your opponent an insane amount of information in Vintage and also completely changes their lines of play and decision trees. If I cast my mox turn 1 or 2 and notice that you have F6'd me, it completely changes the calculus of what to do that turn: I no longer have to weigh the risk/reward of various lines of play, I no longer have to worry about keeping counter mana up to protect my spells, I no longer have to worry about keeping blue cards in my hand to pitch to force, I no longer have to try and bait out the Mental Misstep/Flusterstorm or get a Thoughtseize before going all-in. Vintage decision trees are extremely complex, and executing a hand perfectly is nearly impossible to do... hitting F6 basically makes the decisions for your opponent (always do the most broken thing you can with the cards in your hand) instead of making them do the thinking (and giving THEM the opportunity to make suboptimal choices).
Interesting, try out my list for sure. There are real synergies with the sphere effects that I really liked. I do think the dark depths combo was obviously not consistent but I am not sure that is a real problem. Expedition Map is interesting idea maybe I will try replacing the smokestacks with 2... I would also put in 2-3 more dredge hate.
Nice article! I recently got into modern, and have been having a blast with that, but legacy also seems very fun.
When I started playing MTG/MTGO again, I jumped into standard because that's what you're supposed to do. And dreams of playing ptq's or higher level tournaments popped into my head. Standard is the most common format in paper, etc.
I have since realized that with a family,job, and other responsibilities, playing in a Grand Prix is probably not going to happen any time soon.
And If I'm playing exclusively online, i can play modern or legacy every day if i want to.
So, Eternal it is, for the forseeable future.
These decks are great ideas, but I'm trying to do for under $100. Thx though!
You're not wrong. The deck generator doesn't sort AVR cards well. I think we have all gotten so used to it that we have learned to ignore it.
I can't decide if that falls under the "cruel and unusual punishment" category. At least Emrakul ends the game quickly. Canonist seems less cruel until you relaize what is actually happening...
Did the deck have other wincons, or did it just beat for 2?
I've been testing a similar deck for a few weeks now. Instead of a Stax shell, I am playing with a more aggressive version that retains Kuldotha Forgemaster, has more Wurmcoil Engines, a full set of Expedition Maps and a couple of Phyrexian Revokers. I ended up cutting a few sphere effects and putting them in the SB to make room (I am still not sure if this is the way to go), but I really don't miss them that much.
I have tried playing it, once, in a DE, and the result wasn't pretty. I ended up dropping in frustration after I started 0-2 as both my opponents had multiple Wastelands in their opening hands. I really like my deck, but I think I might try your version for a few days since I already have the pieces for it.
There's also a host of graveyard-based combo decks that can be built relatively cheaply on MTGO:
Dredge 180 tix
Manaless Dredge 150 tix
Mono Black Reanimator 140 tix
The additional price you pay is being vulnerable to common hate cards. Slightly up from that you have two competitive decks:
Elves 300 tix
12-Post 300 tix
These might not be strictly competive but I've had a lot of fun with them:
Nic Fit 250 tix
Counterslivers 200 tix (including 4 x Force of Will, get'em while they're cheap!)