"Goldfishing" is a term that may be lost on some players who play exclusively online. It means playing solitaire, running sample hands against yourself. Back in my day I'd spend countless hours shuffling up decks and playing a few turns against imaginary opponents, usually my cat. My cat posed several issues, however, and I eventually had to cut him as a playtest partner. He'd insist on playing ProsBloom for every match, and after I caught him sitting on a Cadaverous Bloom, that was it.
I really wish MTGO had better support for playing solitaire. Right now you have to go into the "Anything Goes" room and make a solitaire game with no watchers and kill yourself. I would very much like a "Test" button in the deck editor window where I could play against an empty opponent who either did nothing or used rudimentary DotP-style AI. Either way, I just wish it was easier.
So why am I so hung up on playing with myself? Because today we're talking about Jacerator!
Untap, Draw, Draw, Draw, Draw... Go.
Jacerator
My Take On The Standard Mill Deck By Joel Calafell
After much tweaking and testing this is what I ended up running both online and on paper. A small group of people started holding weekly tournaments at the university next door to me. Sadly, they stopped gathering before I could ever use this deck at an event, so I never got to mill someone out at a table.
But It Doesn't Do Anything!
Me: So, what do you think? Paul: I don't get it, how do you play it? Me: You draw cards. Paul: But how do you win? Me: You draw lots of cards! Paul: ...
First let me introduce Paul. He'll be my unwitting (and probably unwilling) cohort of conversations from here on out. He only started playing Magic recently, which means I have both a newb to relentlessly make fun of, as well as a fresh set of eyes that often point out my over analyzed oversights.
The idea is simple: You draw cards, your opponent draws cards, your opponent runs out of cards to draw. You sit behind a wall of Angelsongs, Safe Passages and, well, walls. The deck is essentially Turbofog, minus the Fog. Rest for the weary and Kabira Crossroads act as damage prevention through life gain, and Wall of Omens can handle several ground threats.
The big issue with decks like these is that you're always giving your opponent more option by having them draw more cards. Silence goes a long way to deadening their draws, but between Negates and man-lands, it's lost some of its effect.
Howling Mine, Font of Mythos and Jace Beleren are all your draw engines, with Jace also acting as a win condition. With Jace you simply +2 until you've hit 11, then -10 for 20 cards off the top of your opponent's deck. Archive Trap is really only there for good measure, and is seldom required for winning. I'll often side it out against anything running Vengevine or Knight of the Reliquary(Read: 2/3 of the format).
Removal has always been a real point of interest with this deck. On one hand, having ways to deal with problem creatures is a good thing to have. On the other, I don't really care whether they have an empty board or an army of 20/20's ready to smash my face in. The damage prevention is enough to deal with any and all threats, and you're almost always going to draw into it. I like running Day of Judgment for those times I can't draw into enough Time Warps to finish the job, but I'm not sold on spot removal. My earlier versions of Jacerator ran Path to Exile, as at that time I didn't have Time Warps and PtE had excellent synergy with Archive Trap, which I was running a full playset of.
Lastly on the list we have Emrakul, The Aeons Torn. He can really save you from a really bad day. Between all the turns you'll be taking and lands you'll be drawing, casting him is not unrealistic, and is almost sure to win you the game. However, his true purpose is to prevent you from decking yourself, an all-too-real issue here. If you have a large enough draw engine and a small enough library, cycling Emrakul and your Time Warps into your deck over and over can essentially give you infinite turns.
We Are The Titans!
Sadly, it was the simple release of Rise of the Eldrazi that put the final nail in the coffin for this deck. The fact was, we were just to slow. We were good at beating Jund and what have you, but these newfangled next level decks just outclassed us. Now enter passive deck replenishment through the Eldrazi Titans and we're shut down with zero effort on our opponent's end. Sure, we could bring in Relic of Progenitus but it really just was not good enough.
Just like Spread 'Em, Jacerator was build to defeat a meta, and that meta just shifted too much, and the deck is no longer viable.
It is, however, fun as hell in a casual environment!
Bad Cards Make Bad Deck Better!
At least in casual anyway. Jace's Erasure is cute, and I love it in casual, but it's probably more of a win-more card if anything. Call to Mind is great for getting your Time Warps back, and if we can just find a way to either splash black or change the deck to UB, Leyline of the Void pretty much solves most of our problems. I don't think this deck can come back to tier 2, but I'll always keep this one around and probably continue working on it for casual Extended.
Fun fact! I was actually making MTGO videos a good while before I started writing for PureMTGO. My first few were all narrated and recorded live! Jacerator was one of my first decks I started playing, so you'll get to listen to my silky smooth (Read: Stuffy, annoying) voice for the first couple videos I'll be showing. As with last time, I'll end the article with a few choice videos of Jacerator!
As a forewarning, if you think I'm a bad player now, wait until you see these!
"I really wish MTGO had better support for playing solitaire. Right now you have to go into the "Anything Goes" room and make a solitaire game with no watchers and kill yourself."
You can play solitaire in casual. In general online goldfishing entails counting the life total as your ops lifetotal even though this gets hairy if you also pay costs with it. But that is something to account for anyway since your opponent will pay unforeseen costs which may sway the outcome. This is a perfectly reasonable method imho, particularly if you are really only drawing cards to see how the probabilities play out. Better yet you can find a sap and play them. Works when bored or you need a bit more interaction. Next step find someone you respect as a player then tell them to bring their meanest decks. That is the true test. All of this can be done in the casual room unless you are trying to play with the Gold Bordered cards.
Hehe Paul No worries with Westane as a mentor I am certain you will not be a scrub long enough to worry about losing your job. He will just have to start respecting you. :p
You're right, and it's probably just old habits. I guess you could say sitting in my room or at a table shuffling up and running random scenarios in my head is something of an old past time, so I'm a little jaded. Also, I haven't had an established playtest group in this side of a decade, so I should probably start working on that...
Use f4 to pass priority until the next trigger or spell is played- it won't stop if he does nothing,so remember that if you need EoT and if he goes right to combat it will stop at declare blockers if you had not any plans to do anything with combat-.
Are those 2 games in the casual room? They aren't what anyone plays in events. The Ascension deck was RoE era so it was recent (which isn't played now)and so was the Conscription-Bant(Also inferioir to the RoE meta Bant lists) as well. Only match that could possibly be older than the past 2 months would be that BG something deck.
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"I really wish MTGO had better support for playing solitaire. Right now you have to go into the "Anything Goes" room and make a solitaire game with no watchers and kill yourself."
You can play solitaire in casual. In general online goldfishing entails counting the life total as your ops lifetotal even though this gets hairy if you also pay costs with it. But that is something to account for anyway since your opponent will pay unforeseen costs which may sway the outcome. This is a perfectly reasonable method imho, particularly if you are really only drawing cards to see how the probabilities play out. Better yet you can find a sap and play them. Works when bored or you need a bit more interaction. Next step find someone you respect as a player then tell them to bring their meanest decks. That is the true test. All of this can be done in the casual room unless you are trying to play with the Gold Bordered cards.
But if he does that I'll be out of a Job! ~Paul
(the ant queen deck was mine :D )
Hehe Paul No worries with Westane as a mentor I am certain you will not be a scrub long enough to worry about losing your job. He will just have to start respecting you. :p
You're right, and it's probably just old habits. I guess you could say sitting in my room or at a table shuffling up and running random scenarios in my head is something of an old past time, so I'm a little jaded. Also, I haven't had an established playtest group in this side of a decade, so I should probably start working on that...
Use f4 to pass priority until the next trigger or spell is played- it won't stop if he does nothing,so remember that if you need EoT and if he goes right to combat it will stop at declare blockers if you had not any plans to do anything with combat-.
Are those 2 games in the casual room? They aren't what anyone plays in events. The Ascension deck was RoE era so it was recent (which isn't played now)and so was the Conscription-Bant(Also inferioir to the RoE meta Bant lists) as well. Only match that could possibly be older than the past 2 months would be that BG something deck.
In order of air date:
Ant Queen (Casual) > RbDW (TP) > Pyromancer Ascension (TP) > Mythic Bant (TP, uploaded 7/12)