Eh, the problem with the Elders is that none of those upkeeps is justified. It wasn't back then, it's even less (way less) today. And it keeps from reanimating them (keep in mind I'm not talking only about Commander. If they're bad in Commander, except for Bolas, they're light years away from even the least playability in any other format.)
The worst card art we had to use was Demonic Tutor before ME4, when it was just the Devine vs Demonic version. I mean you can get used to it and not think about it after awhile, but still it stung a little every time played that card.
Good stuff, you took a lot of info and made it useful. Any quibbles I have would be minor, except for your evaluation of Vaevictus Asmadi. I think he's better than you give him credit for, particularly because he's in Green and Black, both of which give him access to tons of mana to abuse his multiple firebreathing abilities. Even still, he has an unwieldy upkeep, so I can't complain too much. Very nice overview!
Dragon Mage is usually my number one target in Zirilan EDH. I fetch him first 90% of the time, because mono-red desperately needs a way to refill its hand about that point in the game, and you're disrupting whatever the blue player was plotting.
Since Vintage Champs coming along here in another week or so, would you guys each choose a deck to play if you were going? Afterwards, breakdown the deck for its strengths and weaknesses, etc. Another great podcast. Your speculation on VM cards prices and reprints are good to hear. Thanks for the shout outs.
Kudos for this great article, the Tolkien quote, and for being the only one who got my header right! :)
I've also talked a lot about the four Dragon cycles (Elders, Primevals, Planeshifted Primevals and Kamigawa Spirits) in the Dragonpedia. We should compare notes.
Actually, I'd like for you and everyone else to tell me if I mis-evaluated a few (or a lot) of the Dragons, because after a while, all those "5/5 for 6 mana with an ability that's not firebreathing" looked kinda the same to me, and I sort of gave all of them an average rating.
True he does, but this is Classic, the land of 4 Wastelands and a Strip Mine for everyone. But I can understand the mana need along with the graveyard depletion.
I think you could print Wasteland and Port both at rare and still come out ok for limited, there will be few drafts where somebody ends up with multiple Ports. Wasteland isn't even going to see play in limited unless there's some powerful uncommon land cycle -- for that reason, I wouldn't print it at uncommon. In terms of the limited environment, Wasteland would be "waste-ing" a slot that should have a build-around uncommon in it.
I HATE the new art and new frames for the P9. I was afraid they'd do this. I suspect that protecting the mystique of the paper P9 may also have something to do with it. I'm excited to have P9 online, but it stinks that we'll have to run a bunch of ugly modern-frame cards in our Vintage decks.
Next Modern PTQ is in February, expect prices to rise about a month before that. I doubt the Vintage Masters will have any impact on Modern, except for a very few select reprints, possibly.
Wow, that Master of the Hunt picture brings back some very fond memories, I'm all tears! And god, were creatures bad back then! By the way, Wizards did explicitly stated they wanted the P9 in MODO for the 20th anniversary, so yeah, they're late. *ensues well known rant about how Wizards is incapable of managing it's digital products*
As always, thanks your article!
It just happened so quickly and I'd forgotten that Oath was an upkeep trigger and he went straight into his draw step. I agree I probably would have Pathed and probably won anyway, although he could have had Misstep in his hand. Thanks for reading and watching!
I like this a lot, because the links provide a ton of info. Good stuff!
One of the things I like about Kamigawa is the different way they depicted dragons. It would be awesome to see something like the Slavic dragons in Magic, but I just can't see that happening.
LED: I actually wrote this a day before the news about VM broke, amusingly enough. I was mostly being cheeky, though. I'll probably pick one up, especially if as I suspect, it is included in Vintage Masters and the price comes down, because I'm a completist. However, I'm not big on playing combo, so it's not a necessity. Goyfs and Forces are definitely more my style.
Daze: I'm actually going to address this in detail in the next article, when I talk about the differences between the Classic and Vintage metas and porting a Vintage deck into Classic, but the short of it is, I probably wouldn't have tried it out if it wasn't in the original decklist and there are times when I've thought about replacing it, but I think out the three realistic options (Daze, Misstep, Pierce) it was both the most versatile and fit the best with my play style. Strangely enough, I actually like it against Shops, because they can't use the Workshop mana to pay the cost.
Deathrite: Pretty much echoing what RexDart said. In Legacy, where you have a lot of grindy creature battles, you could definitely say that Deathrite's third ability is the most important, but in Classic, it's most important to have the extra mana to get over the Sphere effects of Workshop decks. Obviously, the versatility puts him over the top, but let me put this way, I'd probably at least considers a creature that only had the mana effect, but I don't think I'd play a creature that had only the other two effects. That being said, I think the 3 Shamans in the original is too many. (Plus, he's running two fewer fetches!)
Deck looks sweet. The mana's pretty bad with only the one scry land, but if it works then you've got a lot of spells which are really well positioned in the meta. Gl brewing :)
tbh, I can't see why you'd run it over agent. I mean sure it has nice late game upside, but how often is it literally uncastable on turn 3 when all you want to do is get black mana symbols out there to set up your disciple and gary? Agent of the fates seems far better to me even if you never trigger heroic, and if you do bestow an eidolon on him at some point then that's pure value.
He has six fetches that can grab that Underground Sea, plus the Sea itself, plus the KotR. I think 8 ways to grab it is enough to make the ability relevant. His deck wants the mana production off DRS more than it wants anything else.
Thanks!
Eh, the problem with the Elders is that none of those upkeeps is justified. It wasn't back then, it's even less (way less) today. And it keeps from reanimating them (keep in mind I'm not talking only about Commander. If they're bad in Commander, except for Bolas, they're light years away from even the least playability in any other format.)
The worst card art we had to use was Demonic Tutor before ME4, when it was just the Devine vs Demonic version. I mean you can get used to it and not think about it after awhile, but still it stung a little every time played that card.
Good stuff, you took a lot of info and made it useful. Any quibbles I have would be minor, except for your evaluation of Vaevictus Asmadi. I think he's better than you give him credit for, particularly because he's in Green and Black, both of which give him access to tons of mana to abuse his multiple firebreathing abilities. Even still, he has an unwieldy upkeep, so I can't complain too much. Very nice overview!
[Writes down "Fix the missing Avatar type from Scion of the Ur-Dragon in the next revision"]
Yeah, as someone correctly told me, Dragons are terrifying, not spooky.
"what the hell you were thinking when you put Scion of the Ur-Dragon in a deck without Dragons."
I was thinking, 'Oh hey, it also has the Avatar type, making it the perfect 4th 5-colour avatar for my landless hardcast progenitus deck'. :D
A pity Dragons aren't spooky, else we could cap the week with one in the Halloween special.
Dragon Mage is usually my number one target in Zirilan EDH. I fetch him first 90% of the time, because mono-red desperately needs a way to refill its hand about that point in the game, and you're disrupting whatever the blue player was plotting.
Since Vintage Champs coming along here in another week or so, would you guys each choose a deck to play if you were going? Afterwards, breakdown the deck for its strengths and weaknesses, etc. Another great podcast. Your speculation on VM cards prices and reprints are good to hear. Thanks for the shout outs.
Kudos for this great article, the Tolkien quote, and for being the only one who got my header right! :)
I've also talked a lot about the four Dragon cycles (Elders, Primevals, Planeshifted Primevals and Kamigawa Spirits) in the Dragonpedia. We should compare notes.
Actually, I'd like for you and everyone else to tell me if I mis-evaluated a few (or a lot) of the Dragons, because after a while, all those "5/5 for 6 mana with an ability that's not firebreathing" looked kinda the same to me, and I sort of gave all of them an average rating.
Also:
"Rampage on a flying creature???"
I'll correct this for you.
"Rampage???"
There.
True he does, but this is Classic, the land of 4 Wastelands and a Strip Mine for everyone. But I can understand the mana need along with the graveyard depletion.
Thx! I dont know how I got Modern PTQ moved to the wrong month.
I think you could print Wasteland and Port both at rare and still come out ok for limited, there will be few drafts where somebody ends up with multiple Ports. Wasteland isn't even going to see play in limited unless there's some powerful uncommon land cycle -- for that reason, I wouldn't print it at uncommon. In terms of the limited environment, Wasteland would be "waste-ing" a slot that should have a build-around uncommon in it.
I HATE the new art and new frames for the P9. I was afraid they'd do this. I suspect that protecting the mystique of the paper P9 may also have something to do with it. I'm excited to have P9 online, but it stinks that we'll have to run a bunch of ugly modern-frame cards in our Vintage decks.
Next Modern PTQ is in February, expect prices to rise about a month before that. I doubt the Vintage Masters will have any impact on Modern, except for a very few select reprints, possibly.
Wow, that Master of the Hunt picture brings back some very fond memories, I'm all tears! And god, were creatures bad back then! By the way, Wizards did explicitly stated they wanted the P9 in MODO for the 20th anniversary, so yeah, they're late. *ensues well known rant about how Wizards is incapable of managing it's digital products*
As always, thanks your article!
I am not very into the MTG seasons.
Moden prices are said to increase again with the PTQ modern season? Which starts in june next year? So will prices keep on dropping till then?
Vintage Masters is in june next year as well? Will that affect the popularity of the online stuff for PTQ modern?
Can someone enlighten me and set me right? Even if it is just speculation. Thx.
It just happened so quickly and I'd forgotten that Oath was an upkeep trigger and he went straight into his draw step. I agree I probably would have Pathed and probably won anyway, although he could have had Misstep in his hand. Thanks for reading and watching!
I like this a lot, because the links provide a ton of info. Good stuff!
One of the things I like about Kamigawa is the different way they depicted dragons. It would be awesome to see something like the Slavic dragons in Magic, but I just can't see that happening.
That game against Oath, the Blightsteel was the last card in his deck. So he lost during his draw step. But you could have Path'ed his guy anyway.
Nice article!
LED: I actually wrote this a day before the news about VM broke, amusingly enough. I was mostly being cheeky, though. I'll probably pick one up, especially if as I suspect, it is included in Vintage Masters and the price comes down, because I'm a completist. However, I'm not big on playing combo, so it's not a necessity. Goyfs and Forces are definitely more my style.
Daze: I'm actually going to address this in detail in the next article, when I talk about the differences between the Classic and Vintage metas and porting a Vintage deck into Classic, but the short of it is, I probably wouldn't have tried it out if it wasn't in the original decklist and there are times when I've thought about replacing it, but I think out the three realistic options (Daze, Misstep, Pierce) it was both the most versatile and fit the best with my play style. Strangely enough, I actually like it against Shops, because they can't use the Workshop mana to pay the cost.
Deathrite: Pretty much echoing what RexDart said. In Legacy, where you have a lot of grindy creature battles, you could definitely say that Deathrite's third ability is the most important, but in Classic, it's most important to have the extra mana to get over the Sphere effects of Workshop decks. Obviously, the versatility puts him over the top, but let me put this way, I'd probably at least considers a creature that only had the mana effect, but I don't think I'd play a creature that had only the other two effects. That being said, I think the 3 Shamans in the original is too many. (Plus, he's running two fewer fetches!)
The Traveler's Amulets are deceptively good here - I knew it already, since I used them to brew back in Innistrad block as well! :)
Deck looks sweet. The mana's pretty bad with only the one scry land, but if it works then you've got a lot of spells which are really well positioned in the meta. Gl brewing :)
tbh, I can't see why you'd run it over agent. I mean sure it has nice late game upside, but how often is it literally uncastable on turn 3 when all you want to do is get black mana symbols out there to set up your disciple and gary? Agent of the fates seems far better to me even if you never trigger heroic, and if you do bestow an eidolon on him at some point then that's pure value.
He has six fetches that can grab that Underground Sea, plus the Sea itself, plus the KotR. I think 8 ways to grab it is enough to make the ability relevant. His deck wants the mana production off DRS more than it wants anything else.
Glad to see some new faces in the Classic scene!