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By: Drbenwayy, Mike Savage
Oct 08 2010 12:01pm
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"You wouldn't like me when I'm angry!"
-The Incredible Hulk

Or: Why do people feel the need to call other people names on MTGO? 

Magic can be a frustrating game.  There are plenty of elements involved in the game which are out of our control.  We can run the most powerful deck in a format and play like a pro but there are elements of randomization and luck involved.  Whoever wins the die roll to go first in a Constructed game usually has the advantage.  I was playing Mythic Conscription against Naya Shaman last week and we both had explosive hands.  My hand contained a turn one mana dork with a Mana Leak, and Knight of the Reliquary.   He won the roll.  He won the game.  If I would've won the roll, I would've had the countermagic available for the 2nd turn Fauna Shaman and would've had a much better chance at winning.   There is randomization in pairings and card draw and opening hands.  We are a competitive species.  We all play this game or have other hobbies for different reasons.  When I play Magic or any other game or sport recreationally, I would like the game to be as close as possible.  A close game is always worth more to me than winning big recreationally.  However, when I play competitively, I want to slaughter.  I want to drive someone into the ground.  I want to score 5 quick ones on the goalie and have the coach replace him.  And then score 5 more on the backup.  And when I lose, I am not very happy.  Maybe I'm a bit jaded lately because my last few hockey teams have been on losing streaks.  Of course, winning big does always gets old.    In World of Warcraft, I got very upset that I lost the Stranglethorn Fishing Tournament by about 10 seconds.  And this was for a digital prize and title.  When there is real money and real prizes up for stakes, people often get very heated.  I know this weekend I was one match and one game short of making top 8 during two separate Premier Events.  The one match felt especially cruel because I won the first game easily and figured I'd only have to win one out of two but had to mulligan to 4 the second game. I had a strong hand the third game with a first turn Steppe Lynx which was killed with a Refraction Trap the first time I got to attack with it.  On my fourth turn my  Crusher Zendikon was beating down with Nimbus Wings and I had my opponent on a short clock but on his turn four he hit just the answer he needed.  Kicked Kor Sanctifiers. I had a great hand.  He had a better one.  I screamed.  I cursed.  I punched my desk repeatedly.  I called him every name in the book. Here.  In front of my computer.   But not through Magic Online. Why do people feel the need to tell other people how horrible or lucky they are?  I could've easily said something disparaging to him.   It honestly gets you nowhere.  You just look like an idiot doing it.  As angry as I get, I have resorted to never type anything into the chat box. 

After the first game of a daily event last week a player was making all kinds of threats to another player in between rounds.  He needed to draw a certain card, didn't draw it for three turns and was very frustrated.  Frustration is a natural part of playing the game.  When we sideboard we put in answers against certain decks.  When we go into game two or three and don't draw any of those answers, you will naturally be frustrated.  One can feel frustrated about playing against a mythic rare in a draft or an opponent getting a turn three Conscripted Lotus Cobra.  Or mana screw.  Or mana flood.  Or any number of different things.  Keep it to yourself.  Or even better is telling the player good luck in the remaining rounds.  Why make a fool of yourself?  Why call someone out and threaten them?  The person in the event kept writing, "I'll 1v1 you right now."  How foolish do you want to make yourself look?  And then there are all the other common disparaging comments. "You're a lucksack."  "You're the worst player I've ever seen."  And then the other ones that I won't write because they contain profanities.  It doesn't make any sense.  It's not getting you anywhere  Not in the MTGO world anyway.  This behavior may be acceptable at certain times in the real world.  Especially in sports.  But I wouldn't advise it in your normal day to day routine.  Because there are consequences for acting like a jerk.  Next time you want to call someone a lucksack or a noob or a jerk, why not just save yourself the energy or congratulate them on a good game.  Learn to be a gentleman. And if you decide to be whine and call people names, just remember that you're only making yourself look like a idiot. 

Since I will be submitting these articles weekly to cover the standard metagame, I figured a small opinion piece from time to time couldn't hurt.  

Results

Here are the results for the Standard Daily Events that took place this week. These are the decks that had winning records at the end of 4 rounds. No surprise with Mythic being on top once again.  Jund follows Mythic with 93 appearances.  The next three decks are the decks to watch going into the new standard as they will be a major competitive force in the new standard environment at least for the first few weeks as they need very little changes to compete. 

Deck Name Appearances Percentage
Mythic Conscription  105  18.2
Jund  93  16.1
Valakut Titan  88  15.2
U/W  62  10.7
Eldrazi Green  59  10.3
Red Deck Wins  49  8.5
Pyromancer's Ascension  22  3.9
Naya Shaman  18  3.1
Boros  16  2.8
Esper  12  2.1
Soul Sisters  11  2
 Superfriends 8  1.4
 Destructive Force 6  1
WURG Fauna 5  .9
 Other Decks  24  4.2
     
 TOTAL  578  

*Results are recorded to the best of the author's ability.  Human error may occur.

Here are the results for the Standard Premier Events which take place during the weekend.  These events cut off at the top 8 so if the event was quite large, there were quite a few decks that could've had winning match records and not qualified for the top 8.  As it stands now, most of these events are getting 40-60 people.  Three events took place during the time period stated.  This is not counting the MOCS Standard event, which took place on 9/25 but I covered in my last article.  

Deck Name Appearances Placing
Mythic Conscription 6 4,4,6,7,8,8
Red Deck Wins 4 1,2,2,8
Valakut Titan 3 1,2,3
U/W Control 3 1,4,6
Jund 3 3,5,7
Boros 1 3
Superfriends 1 5
Beastmaster 1 5
BWG 1 7
Goblins 1 7

Decks Of The Week

White Weenie
Played by: YYsapporo (3-1) Standard Daily #1624271 on 09/29/2010
Creatures
4 Elite Vanguard
4 Knight of the White Orchid
4 Kor Firewalker
2 Kor Hookmaster
4 Kor Skyfisher
4 Steppe Lynx
4 Student of Warfare
4 War Priest of Thune
30 cards

Other Spells
4 Brave the Elements
4 Honor of the Pure
4 Path to Exile
12 cards
Lands
4 Arid Mesa
4 Marsh Flats
10 Plains
18 cards

Honor of the Pure
When I started playing Magic again, one of the first decks that I had noticed doing well was White Weenie.  I started just as Worldwake was released and the deck suddenly got a lot less competitive during the next few months.   I had played a Boros deck during the Ravnica days and this seemed to fit my style.  All the cards were fairly reasonable, except for Baneslayer Angel, which was at least 40 tickets at that point in time.  The need for Baneslayer Angel kept me from running the deck, as I focused on playing drafts and slowly gathering some staple standard cards.  This decklist is a more budget friendly list that can be run for quite cheap.  Notable changes in this deck are Knight of the White Orchid and Path to Exile for the rotation.  You can include Ajani Goldmane, the aforementioned Angel, or any aggressive White drop.   There has been plenty of talk about White Weenie being a deck in the new Standard with some of the new cards that were released in Scars of Mirrodin like Memnite, Glint Hawk, and Argentum Armor comboing with cards like Quest for the Holy Relic and Kor Outfitter.  There is speculation about it being the new explosive combo akin to Lost Alara/Eldrazi Conscription.  Actually, the deck was one of the top 16 during a recent Star City Games 5k tournament. 

 

Destructive Force
played by: Waaaaaaaaaagh (3-1) Standard Daily #1624247 on 09/28/2010
Creatures
3 Frost Titan
3 Primeval Titan
6 cards

Other Spells
3 Cultivate
3 Destructive Force
4 Explore
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Mana Leak
4 Spreading Seas
28 cards
Lands
4 Forest
4 Halimar Depths
3 Island
3 Khalni Garden
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Mountain
4 Raging Ravine
2 Scalding Tarn
26 cards

Destructive Force

All cards in this deck are currently new standard legal. I say new standard here because I go by the online legality. I noticed Destructive Force being experimented with right after M11 was released but after those first few weeks the card seemed to have disappeared from tournaments altogether.  I honestly never tested the deck or card out for myself but the deck seemed to be competitive during the few games I watched with a player running it.  The question is "Was it competitive enough for the quick standard environment?" And this is most likely why it disappeared.  We are likely to see some resurgence of the card being played and experimented with once again with the release of Koth.  There is no doubt about the power level of Koth but there are players having a hard time fitting him into a deck.  He just doesn't slide into an existing deck.  Will the thought process be to put the two most powerful planeswalkers together in a deck?  I wouldn't doubt people experimenting with such an idea. RUG was one of the best Zen Block decks towards the end of Zen Block and I wouldn't be surprised to see people experimenting with it in the upcoming weeks. 

Screenshots

Here is a doozy of a loss.  All three games of this match were close.  I had a lethal Celestial Colonnade pumped with Elspeth (Elspeth is under the Game Results Box) but he had a Lightning Bolt and Burst Lightning to kill it before the trigger resolved.  Then on his turn he had to fetch through a chunk of his deck with Ponder, getting the second counter on Ascension so he could Time Warp.  He then had to Foresee and See Beyond, to go through a large chunk of his deck.  He then killed me with two Lightning Bolt and Burst Lightning, copied with the Pryomancer.  You can see that he has a couple of spells in hand that would've made taken up just enough time for him to lose if he had to cast them.  If I would've cast that stupid Lotus Cobra in my hand, it would have taken enough time off as well.  Oh well. A free win is nice but losing to the clock is kind of rubbish.  



This is from this weekend's Standard Singleton Event.  Since Standard Singleton is slower than regular singleton by a few turns, you can afford to cast big creatures and spells that aren't usually utilized in regular Standard.  Spells such as Mind Shatter, Liliana Vess, and Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker are the norm for Grixis builds.  I was running the U/G Eldrazi build and kicked a Rite of Replication on his Siege-Gang Commander.  Not the most impressive screenshot but I still think kind of neat to share.

As always, if you see anything interesting in game and would like to have your screenshot showcased, send it to Drbenwayy at gmail dot com.  

 Closing

I have decided not to cover the decklists for the next week.  I covered these lists for the last few weeks to give players an idea of what decks were on top in the metagame and for qualifier points but with the rotation, there is no need to do it for next week.  I haven't decided if I will go into possible new standard deckslists or wait for the decklists to roll in the week after next.  I believe States is this upcoming weekend and I may showcase some of the decklists.  Good luck everyone in the prereleases if you decide to play in them and have a great week.

1 Comments

Hey Drbenwayy, Its always by Xaoslegend at Sat, 10/09/2010 - 13:04
Xaoslegend's picture

Hey Drbenwayy,

Its always interesting to see what's going on in standard, and I appreciate good data.

X-