Huh, this is actually an interesting article. I say actually because I figured it was (yet another) Magic article about Sun Tzu's book and wouldn't have read it if I wasn't linked to it.
Btw Kuma how dare you reproduce the forbidden images.
Cotton Rhetoric recently shared his two most hated pieces of art in Magic history:
I just want to add mine:
(That damn, stupid, unwatchable 17th century Spanish caricature. I couldn't even bring myself to play with Land Tax because of him.
Thank God this sweet promo is finally online!)
I'm hoping to play in this event. I have a few different ideas I'm considering right now. I just won't know until that week if I'll be free at that time. Sadly, I won't be able to play with one of my favorite older art cards - Stasis. I guess I could, but only having Islands and 4 copies of Stasis doesn't seem like an optimal way to go.
Another of my favorite older art pictures is the original version of Evil Eye of Orms-By-Gore. On it's own, it isn't anything overly special, but in multiples they look pretty cool together. I used to keep 2 full pages of them in my trade binder (when I had a trade binder) just to see people's expressions when they turned the page and saw 18 eyes staring back at them. It always got a good reaction and most people agreed with me on how it looked.
yep, as a dredge player i love to see my opponent playing cage only, as long as its not terrible fast i have more then enough time to fill my GY, get rid of the cage and just do my thing. (unlike LotV wehre i have to find a answer first)
If u dont run LotV, some sort of split would be most effectiv, (or just play 7-8 hate cards with 4 cages like everyone else ;/ )
I mostly like the new artists, some of them go beyond the classic fantasy illustration feel. Rigney and Baga are very talented (as are Igor Kieryluk, Eric Deschamps, Zoltan Boros & Gabor Szikszai – the fact that they're all European gives them a different approach to "fantasy stuff"). Whereas there were artists in the old times that didn't even deserve the job.
And I like that the style is more coherent now, and I can see why at some point they felt like it was too all over the place, and as great as Phil Foglio is, if they wanted to create a consistent visual flavor that went along with the back stories, they couldn't put stuff like Show and Tell in there.
This said, I miss the more abstract pieces. It's mostly all hyper-realism now. The things Tucker and McNeill and Nielsen were doing, that was using expressionist techniques to convey, well, what expressionism does. And the result is: what's scarier and conceptually more striking, Spirit of the Night, or Demon of Death's Gate?
There should be still room for this kind of art in Magic cards, especially because some of the subjects are rather dull if not given a surrealist or expressionist treatment. Think of all the Staff of This and Talisman of That. If you just depict a staff and a talisman lying around, that makes for some of the most boring art ever (and yes, that applies to the Moxen as well: at the end of the day, they're just jewels, and not even that elaborate at that). Same goes for the non-permanent spells, that often cheat by using what's more about a peculiar character than the action they were supposed to depict (see: all the counterspells ever). How many wizards casting fireballs and knights charging into battle can you see before they hit a diminishing returns? My personal answer is: about five, but your mileage may vary.
For all the criticism and ridicule it gets, Word of Command has my respect. I'm more likely to remember that, and find that unique, that if it'd just depict some wizard menacingly waving his hand at some guy. What Word of Command depicts is what your mind experiences while being controlled. It's conceptual art, and that's also more noteworthy than Fireball being represented by a giant ball of red fire.
First of all: welcome!
And then, I don't really know what to tell you. I'd say "Don't play Elves or Goblins", but tomorrow they're both banned, so. (If you click in the link at the very top of the article you'll see how every sub-format works, among other things.)
Don't try and use a sideboard because you can't? :)
It's a format, and in particular an event, where most of the players change deck every week, so the meta is hard to guess, which is what makes it so fascinating. So the best piece of advice could be: don't worry too much, build what you like. Tomorrow being Tribal Underdog is also the week where you're most likely to face Weird and Octopus.
I think the reason it's so popular is because some of the cards you can play in Standard, so if you're playing Mono Black in Standard then you can build this deck easy. It's also cheaper than RG/UG and can compete with them (albeit the matchup is not great). It's definitely missing a Ultimate Price/Doom Blade effect. RG has too many threats (Polukranos, Stormbreath, Xenagos, Arbor Colossus, Polis Crusher) and removal for the deathtouch creatures that the Hero's Downfall are spread way too thin. It can still win, and it's not a bad deck to play, but I'd much rather be on the RG side of the match.
I did build a few decks for this with Kev Walker winning out for most likely to be playable but I am not confident enough in the lists I have to take part.
I should note that even I don't always comment on your tribal apoc articles this is one of my weekly must-reads. Curse of the Swine is great tech for Sphinges because the little porcine tokens don't add up to much vs the heftier Flying Cats. Shackles fits nicely because, islands. When AJ told me of his build I could only feel bad for his opposition. :D
The Zombies deck reminds me of the black pod decks I tried playing with a few years ago. Fun times. Interesting to see it win first place.
Legolas...or wait no, I guess Skyshroud Poacher? Wait no, that guy is human disguised to look like an elf. I guess Coiling Oracle, because Snake Druid Elf is awesome, also free draw/land in play is excellent.
Great Job as always Leviathan! Long time reader, first time poster. I would love to see some Black/White in action. I know you had a Selenia, Dark Angel deck from several years ago.
On the topic of our Top8 matchup... albertodalv's Leylines did prevent me from chumping with something to get rid of his bridges, but I don't assume that was their purpose.
My problem with just going all in on Cage is that against Dredge, once they remove it -- and they will, since I can't Spell Pierce Ingot Chewer, so FoW is my only protection for Cage -- they can just go off then. It doesn't punish them for continuing to fill up the 'yard, and once they break the cage, they can go off. I don't have a quick combo kill to where stalling them a turn or two is all I need. I didn't care too much about Oath, it isn't a terrible matchup for me in my limited experience, and it's not performing well anyhow. I'm going to talk about dredge hate a bit in my next mtgoacademy article, but the short version is that I think you should run a mix of permanent-based solutions like Cage and one-shotters like Crypt or Ravenous Trap. RIP does both, of course, which is what makes it the best, but I can't really run it with KotR and Goyf. I also prefer to mix up my hate to avoid Cabal Therapy, which I think you allude to -- in Legacy I run 5 dredge hate slots in most sideboards, and use 5 different cards for those slots, which I vary week to week at the local tournament.
If I run the Bant deck again, I will be making some more major changes. The Selkies are likely out, but my blue count for FoW is the problem, and I didn't have time to test a replacement and make sure the blue count was still high enough. In Legacy, I could just run GoST or TNN, but in Classic you can't run a 3-drop pure beater, it needs to be disruptive or draw cards or some kind of bonus.
I forgot to mention, if you guys like this sort of thing I can do it for a couple more color combinations. Or if you just want to see specific old decks in action, let me know!
I'll definitely be playing in this btw. Love the concept!
That Wit's End is so terrible. God that's awful!!
Who won the jar challenge? Who should get credit for doing what was deemed impossible a few eposides back? hmph...
Huh, this is actually an interesting article. I say actually because I figured it was (yet another) Magic article about Sun Tzu's book and wouldn't have read it if I wasn't linked to it.
Btw Kuma how dare you reproduce the forbidden images.
Hideous Art Thread.
Cotton Rhetoric recently shared his two most hated pieces of art in Magic history:
I just want to add mine:
(That damn, stupid, unwatchable 17th century Spanish caricature. I couldn't even bring myself to play with Land Tax because of him.
Thank God this sweet promo is finally online!)
Have at you.
I'm hoping to play in this event. I have a few different ideas I'm considering right now. I just won't know until that week if I'll be free at that time. Sadly, I won't be able to play with one of my favorite older art cards - Stasis. I guess I could, but only having Islands and 4 copies of Stasis doesn't seem like an optimal way to go.
Another of my favorite older art pictures is the original version of Evil Eye of Orms-By-Gore. On it's own, it isn't anything overly special, but in multiples they look pretty cool together. I used to keep 2 full pages of them in my trade binder (when I had a trade binder) just to see people's expressions when they turned the page and saw 18 eyes staring back at them. It always got a good reaction and most people agreed with me on how it looked.
How did i not see that...
yep, as a dredge player i love to see my opponent playing cage only, as long as its not terrible fast i have more then enough time to fill my GY, get rid of the cage and just do my thing. (unlike LotV wehre i have to find a answer first)
If u dont run LotV, some sort of split would be most effectiv, (or just play 7-8 hate cards with 4 cages like everyone else ;/ )
3 Mountains only produce 3 Mana, Duplicant costs 6 ,)
duplicant magus, swing to win not good enough?
I mostly like the new artists, some of them go beyond the classic fantasy illustration feel. Rigney and Baga are very talented (as are Igor Kieryluk, Eric Deschamps, Zoltan Boros & Gabor Szikszai – the fact that they're all European gives them a different approach to "fantasy stuff"). Whereas there were artists in the old times that didn't even deserve the job.
And I like that the style is more coherent now, and I can see why at some point they felt like it was too all over the place, and as great as Phil Foglio is, if they wanted to create a consistent visual flavor that went along with the back stories, they couldn't put stuff like Show and Tell in there.
This said, I miss the more abstract pieces. It's mostly all hyper-realism now. The things Tucker and McNeill and Nielsen were doing, that was using expressionist techniques to convey, well, what expressionism does. And the result is: what's scarier and conceptually more striking, Spirit of the Night, or Demon of Death's Gate?
There should be still room for this kind of art in Magic cards, especially because some of the subjects are rather dull if not given a surrealist or expressionist treatment. Think of all the Staff of This and Talisman of That. If you just depict a staff and a talisman lying around, that makes for some of the most boring art ever (and yes, that applies to the Moxen as well: at the end of the day, they're just jewels, and not even that elaborate at that). Same goes for the non-permanent spells, that often cheat by using what's more about a peculiar character than the action they were supposed to depict (see: all the counterspells ever). How many wizards casting fireballs and knights charging into battle can you see before they hit a diminishing returns? My personal answer is: about five, but your mileage may vary.
For all the criticism and ridicule it gets, Word of Command has my respect. I'm more likely to remember that, and find that unique, that if it'd just depict some wizard menacingly waving his hand at some guy. What Word of Command depicts is what your mind experiences while being controlled. It's conceptual art, and that's also more noteworthy than Fireball being represented by a giant ball of red fire.
First of all: welcome!
And then, I don't really know what to tell you. I'd say "Don't play Elves or Goblins", but tomorrow they're both banned, so. (If you click in the link at the very top of the article you'll see how every sub-format works, among other things.)
Don't try and use a sideboard because you can't? :)
It's a format, and in particular an event, where most of the players change deck every week, so the meta is hard to guess, which is what makes it so fascinating. So the best piece of advice could be: don't worry too much, build what you like. Tomorrow being Tribal Underdog is also the week where you're most likely to face Weird and Octopus.
Pete, I've always wondered why you capitalize TIX and BOTS.
Drew Tucker FTW.
I think the reason it's so popular is because some of the cards you can play in Standard, so if you're playing Mono Black in Standard then you can build this deck easy. It's also cheaper than RG/UG and can compete with them (albeit the matchup is not great). It's definitely missing a Ultimate Price/Doom Blade effect. RG has too many threats (Polukranos, Stormbreath, Xenagos, Arbor Colossus, Polis Crusher) and removal for the deathtouch creatures that the Hero's Downfall are spread way too thin. It can still win, and it's not a bad deck to play, but I'd much rather be on the RG side of the match.
I'm thinking about picking up a deck and joining tomorrow.
Any advice on what to do/ what not to do?
I did build a few decks for this with Kev Walker winning out for most likely to be playable but I am not confident enough in the lists I have to take part.
I should note that even I don't always comment on your tribal apoc articles this is one of my weekly must-reads. Curse of the Swine is great tech for Sphinges because the little porcine tokens don't add up to much vs the heftier Flying Cats. Shackles fits nicely because, islands. When AJ told me of his build I could only feel bad for his opposition. :D
The Zombies deck reminds me of the black pod decks I tried playing with a few years ago. Fun times. Interesting to see it win first place.
Legolas...or wait no, I guess Skyshroud Poacher? Wait no, that guy is human disguised to look like an elf. I guess Coiling Oracle, because Snake Druid Elf is awesome, also free draw/land in play is excellent.
Great Job as always Leviathan! Long time reader, first time poster. I would love to see some Black/White in action. I know you had a Selenia, Dark Angel deck from several years ago.
Finding cuts will be quite difficult. Maybe starting from scratch with the combo in mind would be best.
On the topic of our Top8 matchup... albertodalv's Leylines did prevent me from chumping with something to get rid of his bridges, but I don't assume that was their purpose.
My problem with just going all in on Cage is that against Dredge, once they remove it -- and they will, since I can't Spell Pierce Ingot Chewer, so FoW is my only protection for Cage -- they can just go off then. It doesn't punish them for continuing to fill up the 'yard, and once they break the cage, they can go off. I don't have a quick combo kill to where stalling them a turn or two is all I need. I didn't care too much about Oath, it isn't a terrible matchup for me in my limited experience, and it's not performing well anyhow. I'm going to talk about dredge hate a bit in my next mtgoacademy article, but the short version is that I think you should run a mix of permanent-based solutions like Cage and one-shotters like Crypt or Ravenous Trap. RIP does both, of course, which is what makes it the best, but I can't really run it with KotR and Goyf. I also prefer to mix up my hate to avoid Cabal Therapy, which I think you allude to -- in Legacy I run 5 dredge hate slots in most sideboards, and use 5 different cards for those slots, which I vary week to week at the local tournament.
If I run the Bant deck again, I will be making some more major changes. The Selkies are likely out, but my blue count for FoW is the problem, and I didn't have time to test a replacement and make sure the blue count was still high enough. In Legacy, I could just run GoST or TNN, but in Classic you can't run a 3-drop pure beater, it needs to be disruptive or draw cards or some kind of bonus.
Who was your last favorite elf?
I forgot to mention, if you guys like this sort of thing I can do it for a couple more color combinations. Or if you just want to see specific old decks in action, let me know!
Agreed. My last favorite elf died years ago...since then they've all been bastards! :p