The whole point of this article was to choose between tricks and kitty, testing the waters to see which one I like the most, to do that i thought single matches with no sideboard would be enough to get a general feel for them. Next step will be putting together the sideboard (for Tricks) and test full matches or who knows some 8-man queues with it.
If you check the other Pauper challenge articles I made, you can see I actually go through full matches with sideboard and some details.
Tricks is a bigger deck than Delver. Both decks are Aggro-Control decks, with Delver/Faeries leaning much heavier on the "control" side of things. Tricks leans heavier on the aggro side of things - your guys aren't blanked by a Spire Golem and they can get ridiculously big. You lose Spellstutter and Ninja and gain the potential for a Shivan Dragon sized army.
First of all I like the article, taking screenshots of hands and games is a great way to show the reader how the deck performs in a game. That being said, single games with no sideboards doesn't really do a lot to show the power of a deck. If it can't win post board that's an important thing to know! Legacy Dredge has a great game 1 performance but is generally in an abysmal position games 2/3 after sideboard. I'd recommend going over sideboards and playing full matches in the future. Also wanted to ask, what are some advantages to playing the illusion deck over the already proven Mono U Delver?
Hey Cweaver, thanks for stopping by! It makes sense, actually Delver kind of feels out of place in this deck. Even though I was able to have games where Delver flipped in the second turn with counterspell and vapor snag backup... but that's a different deck right there!
I will definitely try Phantasmal Bear, seems like the right choice for this.
Bava and I have actually cut Delver of Secrets entirely from the Tricks deck. We've added some Phantasmal Bears to pump up the Krovikan Mists and put 2x Dazes in the deck. We've also added some Deprives to the main. Both of us have made various cuts to accomodate this and we're running slightly different numbers.
Glad to have inspired you. Do you have any thoughts on what I can improve in the Pauper Gauntlet for next year? If you do, please comment on my article from yesterday. What did you like best about the Gauntlet?
Hey Bava, glad you enjoyed the article. I'm definetely picking up the deck seriously now, I was really impressed with it.
I'm thinking something in the lines of Daze will improve the deck, but that remains to be seen.
Thanks for the comment, and maybe in the future we can share some ideas!
Hey, this is Bava. Illusory Tricks is my one and only brew that has ever been mildly successful. Glad you liked it! I think it's still well positioned in the current meta. Cweaver and I have been playing it with good success. There are updates, which I am happy to share, but I'd also be curious how you'd adapt the deck to better battle the current meta.
Depending on the inclusion of Lifebane Zombie I have 10 cards coming in and 11 coming out. Without lifebane zombie coming in I would only take out 1 decay, due to stuff like D Sphere.
With the new sideboarding boarding rules, 12 in 11 out would make my deck 61 cards, and while far from ideal it would be a legal deck.
Given Wizards history on promises of MTGO features coming back, what confidence would that really provide?
Wizards promised that leagues would return when the introduction of the current client led to their removal. That new client is now almost ready to be *retired*. Do you see any leagues yet? It's been five and a half years.
A simple suggestion I saw in the MTGO forums... if WotC aren't planning to cut Daily event prizes/EV, they should just announce that they promise to bring back these events or something similar with the same (or better) prize structure. Assuming this is true it would certainly help a lot of people (myself included) feel much more comfortable with the actions WotC is taking. I think this would lead to greater confidence and less people abandoning MTGO.
Without such a "good PR" statement, it really feels a lot like their shady behaviour with respect to 4 booster sealed (where they got rid of them on tenuous grounds, and returned them later with worse prizes).
For a while after one of the updates, any attempt to put a leyline effect in to play from your hand would reset the match completely and restart it. I have no idea what that would do in a tournament rather than one off event. I've also seen bugs that caused the match to reset, then fast forward through all the actions in the game to get back to the point of the crash then loop again.
Given how bugs have been able to completely crash or reset an entire match, I can see how this could potentially crash an event expecting valid results returned from all those matches.
Ashiok potentially being the source of the crash at least makes a little sense. (Very little sense though. I can see how it would crash a client, but not the server.)
I remember when MOX DIAMOND was crashing Tempest / Tempest / Exodus events. MOX DIAMOND. How does that even happen? The best part was the 'fix' they did. Rather than cancel all TTE events until the Mox was fixed, they simply refunded the entry fees for any draft which crashed. And just allowed it to happen. So whenever anyone at your table opened a Mox, not only was it a money rare, but everyone at the table got a free draft! LOL! Bad for getting in there with slivers and shadow guys, but great for getting paid if that's your goal.
I have written Wizards about this, but I would be happy to allow Gatherling.com to be used to run by Wizards to offer competitive play to help fill the void until the issues with MTGO could be ironed out. That could help with their PR problems, especially if they decide to offer prizes.
Nice article, and thanks for getting the facts straight!
Thanks for the article. I read all of your content and appreciate your perspective. (And not only because I get mentioned.:))
I'll check out your article as soon as I arrive home ;)
Hey RWHope, thanks for the words.
The whole point of this article was to choose between tricks and kitty, testing the waters to see which one I like the most, to do that i thought single matches with no sideboard would be enough to get a general feel for them. Next step will be putting together the sideboard (for Tricks) and test full matches or who knows some 8-man queues with it.
If you check the other Pauper challenge articles I made, you can see I actually go through full matches with sideboard and some details.
Tricks is a bigger deck than Delver. Both decks are Aggro-Control decks, with Delver/Faeries leaning much heavier on the "control" side of things. Tricks leans heavier on the aggro side of things - your guys aren't blanked by a Spire Golem and they can get ridiculously big. You lose Spellstutter and Ninja and gain the potential for a Shivan Dragon sized army.
First of all I like the article, taking screenshots of hands and games is a great way to show the reader how the deck performs in a game. That being said, single games with no sideboards doesn't really do a lot to show the power of a deck. If it can't win post board that's an important thing to know! Legacy Dredge has a great game 1 performance but is generally in an abysmal position games 2/3 after sideboard. I'd recommend going over sideboards and playing full matches in the future. Also wanted to ask, what are some advantages to playing the illusion deck over the already proven Mono U Delver?
Hey Cweaver, thanks for stopping by! It makes sense, actually Delver kind of feels out of place in this deck. Even though I was able to have games where Delver flipped in the second turn with counterspell and vapor snag backup... but that's a different deck right there!
I will definitely try Phantasmal Bear, seems like the right choice for this.
Thanks once again!
Bava and I have actually cut Delver of Secrets entirely from the Tricks deck. We've added some Phantasmal Bears to pump up the Krovikan Mists and put 2x Dazes in the deck. We've also added some Deprives to the main. Both of us have made various cuts to accomodate this and we're running slightly different numbers.
Glad to have inspired you. Do you have any thoughts on what I can improve in the Pauper Gauntlet for next year? If you do, please comment on my article from yesterday. What did you like best about the Gauntlet?
Thanks a lot Dan, it's pretty clear that for this article I was inspired in the Pauper Gauntlet results, so thanks for the inspiration!
Hey Bava, glad you enjoyed the article. I'm definetely picking up the deck seriously now, I was really impressed with it.
I'm thinking something in the lines of Daze will improve the deck, but that remains to be seen.
Thanks for the comment, and maybe in the future we can share some ideas!
Welcome to the Monday crew on pure, Chris! Looking forward to start the week by reading about your exploits :)
/D
I enjoyed seeing these two decks in action again! Keep up the good work. /D
Hey, this is Bava. Illusory Tricks is my one and only brew that has ever been mildly successful. Glad you liked it! I think it's still well positioned in the current meta. Cweaver and I have been playing it with good success. There are updates, which I am happy to share, but I'd also be curious how you'd adapt the deck to better battle the current meta.
Thanks for the article!
Depending on the inclusion of Lifebane Zombie I have 10 cards coming in and 11 coming out. Without lifebane zombie coming in I would only take out 1 decay, due to stuff like D Sphere.
With the new sideboarding boarding rules, 12 in 11 out would make my deck 61 cards, and while far from ideal it would be a legal deck.
Control Sideboard: You have 12 cards coming in and 11 cards coming out.
Given Wizards history on promises of MTGO features coming back, what confidence would that really provide?
Wizards promised that leagues would return when the introduction of the current client led to their removal. That new client is now almost ready to be *retired*. Do you see any leagues yet? It's been five and a half years.
A simple suggestion I saw in the MTGO forums... if WotC aren't planning to cut Daily event prizes/EV, they should just announce that they promise to bring back these events or something similar with the same (or better) prize structure. Assuming this is true it would certainly help a lot of people (myself included) feel much more comfortable with the actions WotC is taking. I think this would lead to greater confidence and less people abandoning MTGO.
Without such a "good PR" statement, it really feels a lot like their shady behaviour with respect to 4 booster sealed (where they got rid of them on tenuous grounds, and returned them later with worse prizes).
Anyway, great article as always!
For a while after one of the updates, any attempt to put a leyline effect in to play from your hand would reset the match completely and restart it. I have no idea what that would do in a tournament rather than one off event. I've also seen bugs that caused the match to reset, then fast forward through all the actions in the game to get back to the point of the crash then loop again.
Given how bugs have been able to completely crash or reset an entire match, I can see how this could potentially crash an event expecting valid results returned from all those matches.
Ashiok potentially being the source of the crash at least makes a little sense. (Very little sense though. I can see how it would crash a client, but not the server.)
I remember when MOX DIAMOND was crashing Tempest / Tempest / Exodus events. MOX DIAMOND. How does that even happen? The best part was the 'fix' they did. Rather than cancel all TTE events until the Mox was fixed, they simply refunded the entry fees for any draft which crashed. And just allowed it to happen. So whenever anyone at your table opened a Mox, not only was it a money rare, but everyone at the table got a free draft! LOL! Bad for getting in there with slivers and shadow guys, but great for getting paid if that's your goal.
Hey Mikey! Glad to have you back, and thanks for the shoutout. Hopefully we can get you back on P2P?
I think that if Lazav Rited the Disciple he would get to 50 sth life and with that he could have had enough time to finish you off
I totally agree great program and helps the community. What about having the ORC's run the events using your program?
dabil - I love your program; and that was a generous offer for the community. I hope WotC takes you up on that.
I find it amazing, that they didn't just make
Aladdin's Lamp
10
X,T: Draw X cards.
So easy, so clean, almost the same flavor, and you actually get what you paid for.
I have written Wizards about this, but I would be happy to allow Gatherling.com to be used to run by Wizards to offer competitive play to help fill the void until the issues with MTGO could be ironed out. That could help with their PR problems, especially if they decide to offer prizes.
Nice article, and thanks for getting the facts straight!