All right, what about this (as also suggested by Mr. Patryk Kujawski, alias Dawwy): you just have to show up at any time during a Singleton week (even if you didn't play in it), assemble the team, set a time and day for the challenge if there's an opponent (otherwise, you just win the challenge when I end the event with the final salute). You don't need to actually play at that time. As long as the challenge is played at least one week before the next scheduled Singleton.
And you can nominate a willing proxy captain if you want, but you still need to show up to do it.
Okay, essentially, it's like that: as the president with 2 votes, if AJ finds another one that supports the total ban of the Swords, that will be it.
For the secondary tribe to ban in Pure, you need one support vote for Merfolk. But let's just establish this to make it simpler: if only one of the 3 members that need to choose expressed his vote by the time I close voting, I'll use that choice. So Merfolk is first in line to be the 4th ban for Saturday after Human, Berserker and Sliver.
My position regarding the Swords is that they aren't ban-worthy, but that is not relevant. Considering the poll, I vote for ban everywhere except in Regular events. I think that's the fairest compromise for both sides (ie. the side that wants them completely gone, and the side that doesn't want them gone/doesn't want them gone completely).
One thing in the K-scope banned list that isn't/wasn't on mothership list: Destructive Flow
This was added shortly after K-scope changed to the Legacy card pool, and announced in the weekly blog (on 4/20!)(2011), but never changed on the website. http://community.wizards.com/comment/37044456#comment-37044456
Right then, to business. Firstly, I hereby support the banning of the swords and Batterskull. I accede to the will of the majority in this matter, particularly because in this case, they're right. The stronger the equipment, the less relevant the creatures: We saw what happened with Jitte and Skullclamp back in the day, and that remains the case here.
I nominate Sliver as the first recipient of my Pure veto. I will invite suggestions and debate as to future nominees, seeing what people wish to play or not to play against.
"I'm sure AJ will be glad to do it, because he loves challenges. And hates Singleton!"
Sadly, this is not something I can take part in, especially not with four round events as the norm, and the challenge taking place only on singleton weeks, as singleton games have a tendency to take longer. Emperor games take a long time to resolve as well, and my Saturday evenings post Apocalypse are already set aside with family and friends. I do not have the time for this particular solution, but it would be a damp squib to just sit back and let all those singleton events clutter up the calendar. Can you think of a less time intensive option?
Alternately, we can do this grudge match stylee, a separate event coterminous with Singleton weeks.
Black is associated with demons, murder, torture and heinousness. You my find red's burn or blue's counters the most evil but the word EVIL, only appears on black cards, a white card called "spare from evil," black's enemy in the color pie, and a black and blue card.
Its been ages for me since I read the Great Books version of Dante's Comedies. The erudition here is superb. Well done. I did have one quibble in that Id expect Ragemonger or the like to be a better fit flavorwise than Wrath of God which while the epitomy of the idea of Wrath doesn't really fit the Sin of Wrath, since theologically God is infallible and his wrath can't be wrong. At least in the Christian sense.
You all get a cookie for remembering me. Because that's some serious accomplishment.
You get another delicious cookie for coming and saying you remember me. Because that means a lot.
You get another third cookie for... well I can't think of a 3rd reason, so no more cookies for you! You already had two you greedy buggers!!!
Thank you! Red has fine cards, but the problem is it really can't go big. Nessian Asp and Wingsteed Rider are cards that can go big, while Sip of Hemlock and Voyage's End/Griptide can bring things back down. Once Red goes into the late game, it really can't keep up with the threats/answers in the other colors. Red is stuck drawing 1/2s, 3/3s, and 4/3s when everybody else can easily beat those cards. What Red does well is put pressure on early, but sometimes lacks the punch to finish the job, which allows the other colors to just take over
It's just that Minos isn't merely a Hell resident Dante meets (yeah, la Comedìa is a political pamphlet first and foremost, Dante put there a lot of political figures of contemporary Italy and Europe to criticize them – he was in exile at the time. If it was done today, you would see Berlusconi, Renzi, Grillo, Merkel and Obama there). Minos is an engine of damnation, the one that establishes where every soul goes. It's part of the scenery.
As for Lucifer, Dante's Lucifer isn't a revisionist figure, he's a draconian concept, the embodiment of all evil and corruption. Erebos doesn't deserve that! (I always glad when MTG successfully conveys that white doesn't necessarily equal good and black doesn't necessarily equal evil. They're philosophical approaches to the world. For instance, Bin Laden is white, while Picasso is black.) (Of course, evilness thrives more in black because black enables it).
But it's all good, I get the need for a functional deck. I'd like to organize a Commander table with all thematic decks!
If you want to write stuff for the Theme Week you only have to ask, Paul (to Joshua, I mean, he's the boss). The more, the merrier. Next month we'll do Land Week!
AJ did the opening article in Robot Week, too. He'll be our Herald of Theme from now on. :)
Sorry it took so long for me to comment on this. An article by AJ_Impy! On Tribal Wars! Double woot! And something you know quite well Tribal Angels, and Demons. How appropriate. I wish I had been asked to join this fest but perhaps it is best that my own upcoming article pertain to something less fun and yet more absurd. Glad to see you posting articles again aside from your weekly podcast AJ. :D
Kumagoro: There's like, so much to mention about Dante's work here that I felt I had to omit some stuff. Minosse if I am not mistaken, is actually Minos of greek legend, mythos and antiquity. He is in Hell as are many prominent figures from classical history and from greek and roman legend. In fact Dante meets numerous real-life personas who are trapped in the three afterlives, and he also meets fictional chracters! If you notice I really didn't mention any of them by name, except in the last circle of hell where I name off some of the betrayers. My goal was to make a functioning deck that also heavily referenced and was inspired by this famous work. I felt trying to find card representations of everyone he encounters, from Semiramis, Dido, Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, Achilles, Paris, Tristan to the Furies (consisting of Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone) and Medusa to Betran de Born to Henry II to Pope Boniface VIII and Pope Clement V----- I mean he just meets so many people. I chose to omit them all, Minos included, thought I understand as a scholar of the work for 5 years you may take offense to some of the stuff I glazed over.
I am sure the english translation is no where near as in depth as the Italian version.
It's sort of like Camus' The Stranger. It's epic in English but even more Epic in french. translating always makes a work lose a certain amount of flow.
AJ: I totally should have included Maga
Greyes3: I'm a news reporter by trade and people do get offended off the darnedest things. I mean I'm not trying to get socio-political here but I'm an atheist. I know plenty of atheists who take offense to the mere mention of Jesus or God, though I am not counted among them.
Also Abhorrent Overlord totally drops harpies onto the field :) As for the centuars-- not enough green in the deck! I totally wanted to include door to nothingness but color restrictions say no dice.
I also know the heaven/hell theme week was meant to be geared toward angels and demons, but Hell as a concept is often literally translated just to "underworld" which is why I made reference to Erebos also being a representation potentially of Hades and so forth. The main crux of this article is a Dante allegory, but it contains elements of other heaven/hell references as well. As for Erebos potentially not being Lucifer: while Dante's 3-faced devil by no means points to Erebos-- Erebos requires life and mana for card advantage, a very translatable version of a deal with the devil. Lucifer was at one point an angel, not all depictions of him are all Malbolgea from Spawn comics -- just look at Preacher comics and so on.. He's got a whip for flaying underworld subordinates, he's got horns.. he's in the most evil magic color. just my justifications... Thanks for thoroughly digesting the article and providing feedback!!
Welcome back, Erman!
We share the love for the same planeswalkers!
I'm confident Kiora is high-priced only because BNG is just arrived. I think she'll be down to a reasonable price a la Vraska soon enough. (Then again, she's 4 mana, so you never know. Plus, trends change fast these days, Jace, Architect of Thought was 12-15-ish for almost a year, then doubled his price in a few months.)
I might play this very deck (with some minor tweaks, like Farseek for Lay of the Land) in the Modern league that has recently started on Gatherling (organized by ellmaris), which is casual enough.
I'd also be delighted to see you back on the tribal scene, Erman! We miss you!
Excellent article! The deck looks like a lot of fun and I might have to go to my first Standard event since.... well, since I was inspired to go thanks to a certain Mono White Control deck featuring Spine of Ish Sah. I played versions of that until rotation. :)
Hope to see more articles like this one in the future.
Interesting about Mono Blue. I know of both a SCG IQ and a PTQ from the paper world last weekend, and Mono Blue didn't account for a single spot in the Top 8 of either tournament. Mono Black was all over the place though. It'll be interesting to see how things shake out over the next couple of weeks, particularly in the online meta.
Too bad that, due to Kaalia's colors, you couldn't use Deadeye Navigator as Caronte.
I also don't agree on Erebos as Lucifer, since Erebos is just a caretaker (he should have been Minosse, the infernal judge, that you omitted, but is kind of important), and both him and Hades are actually kind of good guys in their mythologies, while Lucifer in both the Comedìa and the Christian belief is the Enemy, the father of sin, the opposite of holiness. There's not a single figure like that in Magic, but I would have gone with a big kahuna Demon, like maybe Griselbrand. I also miss Hell's Caretaker.
Theros contributes a lot to this theme anyway, due to the Greek-Roman undercurrent in Dante's work (you might have mentioned that Virgil is the Roman poet of the Aeneid, but maybe everybody knows that). You could have even put Harpies in there, and Centaurs, and whatnot.
It's weird to me to see Dante discussed in English, but nice, too. In Italy we don't just study the entire Comedìa in literary classes. In high school we have a class that's outright called "Dante" (usually held by your literature teacher, but getting a separate schedule). That's right, it's a topic of its own. For 5 years we make our way through Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso week by week. We even have to memorize selected parts of the poem. And it's still one of the best learning experiences you get to do in high school, then in human studies. It's part poetry, part theological debate, part conspiracy theory (there still are so many mysteries in those pages! And mysticism and numerology), part cultural identity. And the technical feat is just majestic: almost 5,000 "terzine dantesche", enchained tercets in hendecasyllabic verses with structure ABA, BCB, CDC, and so on, for more than 14,000 times. It's seriously super-human. Also the reason it can't really translate in other languages, it loses rhythm, cadence.
From memory (so probably not entirely accurate, it's been 25 years!), one of my favorite passages, the famous warning on the door of the Gate of Hell (Door to Nothingness?), where it's the gate itself that talks:
Per me si va ne la città dolente,
per me si va ne l'etterno dolore,
per me si va tra la perduta gente.
Giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore,
fecemi la divina potestate,
la somma sapienza e il primo amore.
Dinanzi a me non fuor cose create
se non etterne, e io etterna duro:
Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate.
All right, what about this (as also suggested by Mr. Patryk Kujawski, alias Dawwy): you just have to show up at any time during a Singleton week (even if you didn't play in it), assemble the team, set a time and day for the challenge if there's an opponent (otherwise, you just win the challenge when I end the event with the final salute). You don't need to actually play at that time. As long as the challenge is played at least one week before the next scheduled Singleton.
And you can nominate a willing proxy captain if you want, but you still need to show up to do it.
Sliver banned for Saturday.
Okay, essentially, it's like that: as the president with 2 votes, if AJ finds another one that supports the total ban of the Swords, that will be it.
For the secondary tribe to ban in Pure, you need one support vote for Merfolk. But let's just establish this to make it simpler: if only one of the 3 members that need to choose expressed his vote by the time I close voting, I'll use that choice. So Merfolk is first in line to be the 4th ban for Saturday after Human, Berserker and Sliver.
Noted. Anathemancer and Destructive Flow.
(Boy, the fringe formats' banned/restricted list on the mothership is really untrustworthy).
I agree. Thats why I think Mono Blue still stands as a one of the top decks, despite not getting anything substantial from Born of the Gods.
It's future as a deck depends on where the meta shifts within the next few weeks.
My position regarding the Swords is that they aren't ban-worthy, but that is not relevant. Considering the poll, I vote for ban everywhere except in Regular events. I think that's the fairest compromise for both sides (ie. the side that wants them completely gone, and the side that doesn't want them gone/doesn't want them gone completely).
The nomination is Merfolk.
One thing in the K-scope banned list that isn't/wasn't on mothership list: Destructive Flow
This was added shortly after K-scope changed to the Legacy card pool, and announced in the weekly blog (on 4/20!)(2011), but never changed on the website.
http://community.wizards.com/comment/37044456#comment-37044456
Right then, to business. Firstly, I hereby support the banning of the swords and Batterskull. I accede to the will of the majority in this matter, particularly because in this case, they're right. The stronger the equipment, the less relevant the creatures: We saw what happened with Jitte and Skullclamp back in the day, and that remains the case here.
I nominate Sliver as the first recipient of my Pure veto. I will invite suggestions and debate as to future nominees, seeing what people wish to play or not to play against.
"I'm sure AJ will be glad to do it, because he loves challenges. And hates Singleton!"
Sadly, this is not something I can take part in, especially not with four round events as the norm, and the challenge taking place only on singleton weeks, as singleton games have a tendency to take longer. Emperor games take a long time to resolve as well, and my Saturday evenings post Apocalypse are already set aside with family and friends. I do not have the time for this particular solution, but it would be a damp squib to just sit back and let all those singleton events clutter up the calendar. Can you think of a less time intensive option?
Alternately, we can do this grudge match stylee, a separate event coterminous with Singleton weeks.
Vs. Melville's moby dick? :P
Black is associated with demons, murder, torture and heinousness. You my find red's burn or blue's counters the most evil but the word EVIL, only appears on black cards, a white card called "spare from evil," black's enemy in the color pie, and a black and blue card.
Black thematically is the most evil. :)
Its been ages for me since I read the Great Books version of Dante's Comedies. The erudition here is superb. Well done. I did have one quibble in that Id expect Ragemonger or the like to be a better fit flavorwise than Wrath of God which while the epitomy of the idea of Wrath doesn't really fit the Sin of Wrath, since theologically God is infallible and his wrath can't be wrong. At least in the Christian sense.
There´s a shift going on right now towards G/R and monored chasing out mono black and UW control.
When that continues to happen, it's a feast for monoblue.
Hey all,
You all get a cookie for remembering me. Because that's some serious accomplishment.
You get another delicious cookie for coming and saying you remember me. Because that means a lot.
You get another third cookie for... well I can't think of a 3rd reason, so no more cookies for you! You already had two you greedy buggers!!!
And no I'm not drunk. Why did you ask?!
Thank you! Red has fine cards, but the problem is it really can't go big. Nessian Asp and Wingsteed Rider are cards that can go big, while Sip of Hemlock and Voyage's End/Griptide can bring things back down. Once Red goes into the late game, it really can't keep up with the threats/answers in the other colors. Red is stuck drawing 1/2s, 3/3s, and 4/3s when everybody else can easily beat those cards. What Red does well is put pressure on early, but sometimes lacks the punch to finish the job, which allows the other colors to just take over
That Commander table would be amazing. Maybe la Comedia versus Milton's Paradise Lost versus John of Patmos' Revelations?
It's just that Minos isn't merely a Hell resident Dante meets (yeah, la Comedìa is a political pamphlet first and foremost, Dante put there a lot of political figures of contemporary Italy and Europe to criticize them – he was in exile at the time. If it was done today, you would see Berlusconi, Renzi, Grillo, Merkel and Obama there). Minos is an engine of damnation, the one that establishes where every soul goes. It's part of the scenery.
As for Lucifer, Dante's Lucifer isn't a revisionist figure, he's a draconian concept, the embodiment of all evil and corruption. Erebos doesn't deserve that! (I always glad when MTG successfully conveys that white doesn't necessarily equal good and black doesn't necessarily equal evil. They're philosophical approaches to the world. For instance, Bin Laden is white, while Picasso is black.) (Of course, evilness thrives more in black because black enables it).
But it's all good, I get the need for a functional deck. I'd like to organize a Commander table with all thematic decks!
If you want to write stuff for the Theme Week you only have to ask, Paul (to Joshua, I mean, he's the boss). The more, the merrier. Next month we'll do Land Week!
AJ did the opening article in Robot Week, too. He'll be our Herald of Theme from now on. :)
Oh how I have awaited your return and you did not dissapoint me!!
Welcome back!
2of1
An awesome idea with an even awesomer execution.
And black is by no means the most evil colour.
And now i wonder, since for me, a decklist is only a static list of cards, how does it play?
Sorry it took so long for me to comment on this. An article by AJ_Impy! On Tribal Wars! Double woot! And something you know quite well Tribal Angels, and Demons. How appropriate. I wish I had been asked to join this fest but perhaps it is best that my own upcoming article pertain to something less fun and yet more absurd. Glad to see you posting articles again aside from your weekly podcast AJ. :D
Kumagoro: There's like, so much to mention about Dante's work here that I felt I had to omit some stuff. Minosse if I am not mistaken, is actually Minos of greek legend, mythos and antiquity. He is in Hell as are many prominent figures from classical history and from greek and roman legend. In fact Dante meets numerous real-life personas who are trapped in the three afterlives, and he also meets fictional chracters! If you notice I really didn't mention any of them by name, except in the last circle of hell where I name off some of the betrayers. My goal was to make a functioning deck that also heavily referenced and was inspired by this famous work. I felt trying to find card representations of everyone he encounters, from Semiramis, Dido, Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, Achilles, Paris, Tristan to the Furies (consisting of Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone) and Medusa to Betran de Born to Henry II to Pope Boniface VIII and Pope Clement V----- I mean he just meets so many people. I chose to omit them all, Minos included, thought I understand as a scholar of the work for 5 years you may take offense to some of the stuff I glazed over.
I am sure the english translation is no where near as in depth as the Italian version.
It's sort of like Camus' The Stranger. It's epic in English but even more Epic in french. translating always makes a work lose a certain amount of flow.
AJ: I totally should have included Maga
Greyes3: I'm a news reporter by trade and people do get offended off the darnedest things. I mean I'm not trying to get socio-political here but I'm an atheist. I know plenty of atheists who take offense to the mere mention of Jesus or God, though I am not counted among them.
Also Abhorrent Overlord totally drops harpies onto the field :) As for the centuars-- not enough green in the deck! I totally wanted to include door to nothingness but color restrictions say no dice.
I also know the heaven/hell theme week was meant to be geared toward angels and demons, but Hell as a concept is often literally translated just to "underworld" which is why I made reference to Erebos also being a representation potentially of Hades and so forth. The main crux of this article is a Dante allegory, but it contains elements of other heaven/hell references as well. As for Erebos potentially not being Lucifer: while Dante's 3-faced devil by no means points to Erebos-- Erebos requires life and mana for card advantage, a very translatable version of a deal with the devil. Lucifer was at one point an angel, not all depictions of him are all Malbolgea from Spawn comics -- just look at Preacher comics and so on.. He's got a whip for flaying underworld subordinates, he's got horns.. he's in the most evil magic color. just my justifications... Thanks for thoroughly digesting the article and providing feedback!!
Welcome back, Erman!
We share the love for the same planeswalkers!
I'm confident Kiora is high-priced only because BNG is just arrived. I think she'll be down to a reasonable price a la Vraska soon enough. (Then again, she's 4 mana, so you never know. Plus, trends change fast these days, Jace, Architect of Thought was 12-15-ish for almost a year, then doubled his price in a few months.)
I might play this very deck (with some minor tweaks, like Farseek for Lay of the Land) in the Modern league that has recently started on Gatherling (organized by ellmaris), which is casual enough.
I'd also be delighted to see you back on the tribal scene, Erman! We miss you!
Welcome back Lord Erman. Another great read.
Excellent article! The deck looks like a lot of fun and I might have to go to my first Standard event since.... well, since I was inspired to go thanks to a certain Mono White Control deck featuring Spine of Ish Sah. I played versions of that until rotation. :)
Hope to see more articles like this one in the future.
Interesting about Mono Blue. I know of both a SCG IQ and a PTQ from the paper world last weekend, and Mono Blue didn't account for a single spot in the Top 8 of either tournament. Mono Black was all over the place though. It'll be interesting to see how things shake out over the next couple of weeks, particularly in the online meta.
Too bad that, due to Kaalia's colors, you couldn't use Deadeye Navigator as Caronte.
I also don't agree on Erebos as Lucifer, since Erebos is just a caretaker (he should have been Minosse, the infernal judge, that you omitted, but is kind of important), and both him and Hades are actually kind of good guys in their mythologies, while Lucifer in both the Comedìa and the Christian belief is the Enemy, the father of sin, the opposite of holiness. There's not a single figure like that in Magic, but I would have gone with a big kahuna Demon, like maybe Griselbrand. I also miss Hell's Caretaker.
Theros contributes a lot to this theme anyway, due to the Greek-Roman undercurrent in Dante's work (you might have mentioned that Virgil is the Roman poet of the Aeneid, but maybe everybody knows that). You could have even put Harpies in there, and Centaurs, and whatnot.
It's weird to me to see Dante discussed in English, but nice, too. In Italy we don't just study the entire Comedìa in literary classes. In high school we have a class that's outright called "Dante" (usually held by your literature teacher, but getting a separate schedule). That's right, it's a topic of its own. For 5 years we make our way through Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso week by week. We even have to memorize selected parts of the poem. And it's still one of the best learning experiences you get to do in high school, then in human studies. It's part poetry, part theological debate, part conspiracy theory (there still are so many mysteries in those pages! And mysticism and numerology), part cultural identity. And the technical feat is just majestic: almost 5,000 "terzine dantesche", enchained tercets in hendecasyllabic verses with structure ABA, BCB, CDC, and so on, for more than 14,000 times. It's seriously super-human. Also the reason it can't really translate in other languages, it loses rhythm, cadence.
From memory (so probably not entirely accurate, it's been 25 years!), one of my favorite passages, the famous warning on the door of the Gate of Hell (Door to Nothingness?), where it's the gate itself that talks:
Per me si va ne la città dolente,
per me si va ne l'etterno dolore,
per me si va tra la perduta gente.
Giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore,
fecemi la divina potestate,
la somma sapienza e il primo amore.
Dinanzi a me non fuor cose create
se non etterne, e io etterna duro:
Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate.
Still chilling after all these years.