Table of contents:
Announcements
MTGO Discussion Items
Editorial Section
Server Log In Availability
MTGO Price Movers and Shakers
Public Hide List
Outstanding Issues
Bug Complaints
Conclusion
Rules at a glance:
02-29-08:
MTGO Discussion Items:
Interview with Worth on V3 Migration Plans:
02-22-08 - Current:
Worth spares some time to answer questions regarding V3 and the migration of 2.x accounts, located here.
New MTGO Community Liaison:
02-22-08 - Current:
Solice is now our CM (taking over from the overburdened Gamer_Zer0). The announcement can be located here.
V3 Beta is back up
02-22-08 - Current:
V3 beta is up again and running quite well. There have been reports of 4500+ monkey bots slamming the system and people still being able to play games and so on. Promising progress to be sure.
Magic Releated game?
02-22-08 - Current:
As mentioned here, there's are games coming from Stainless and Microsoft that involve Magic Intellectual Property. There's not much information about it yet, but certainly something to keep your eye on.
Report Collusion
02-22-08 - Current:
If you suspect someone or a group of someone's of collusion in your league, please report it to Magic Conduct via http://wizards.custhelp.com, as done here
Morningtide Release Events, soon!
02-15-08 - Current:
The list of release events has been posted and there are some important changes to the lineup! Be sure to check the announcement here
March Bannings?
02-15-08 - Current:
It's about time for a new wave of bannings and restrictions for the MTG/MTGO worlds. We have a couple threads to discuss the disires for changes, here and here.
UI Communication Discussion
02-08-08 - Current:
The community has provided a lot of details and feedback on the UI but we've never really received a hard answer for what they're willing to work on. This prompted the following discussion wherein Worth states that nothing in the current UI is set in stone. Details.
V3 Modifications 02-08-08 - Current:
With all the focus on V3, the crafty community has started to make their own modifications to the V3 Client. Changes include duel scene colors and the deck editor. See the editorial section for information on how to make changes to your UI as well as a couple modifications that are in progress. UI Modifications.
New V3 Landing Page - 02-08-08 - Current:
V3 is getting some attention from WotC it seems, as it now has it's own dedicated launch page that includes the countdown timer, a tutorial and a link to the download. V3 Landing Page
Editorial Section:
Building a Collection out of Nothing!: aka BaCooN!
Deck issues and concerns :
As usual it seems, I'm weak to Enchantments and Artifacts, and I don't have any disruption like Duress, Distress or Hymn to Tourach. My deck is also lacking true evasion except for the two fliers. I have some removal
Deck Synergies:
The deck has some very fun synergies when playing.
Diamond Valley + Faceless Butcher. Readers from last month's BaCooN know that I love this interaction. It's so sleazy it's banned in 38 of the lower 48 states. Thankfully it's MTGO and I'm playing in international waters. I've actually run into a few players who thought the interaction was a bug of some sort so I thought I'd take a moment to explain what's happening. When Faceless Butcher comes into play his first ability triggers. You're asked to target another creature in play to remove. Then, in response to that ability (meaning before it resolves) you sacrifice the Butcher which puts his second ability on the stack, above the first. This ability tries to return a creature from the RFG zone. However, there's no creature there yet so it does nothing. Next the 'remove target creature' resolves and removes the creature from play forever. Not a bug, just a wacky MTG loophole.
Also, we have Nightmare Lash + Diamond Valley. Paying three life is easy when it means getting back six or more life when you sacrifice the creature.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth + Diamond Valley/Tendrils of Corruption/Korlash/Nightmare Lash. Urborg makes a lot of things happen for the deck, but it functions fine without it.
Game Logs:
Game 1: Budget Mono Black Pox Control
He has a solid deck with the often overlooked Kiku, Night's Flower. His board is developing faster than mine (missing a land drop on turn three really stings), especially against a Dunerider Outlaw. However I start to stabilize once I Tendrils the Outlaw on turn seven. But now he has a Kiku and a Black Knight but he's not pushing the attack with Kiku even though I don't play any creature until turn eight (Solemn). Solemn chump blocks, goes to the Diamond Valley and digs a card down. I'm starting to pull back into the game as I topdeck a Keening Banshee. Using my killer spirit and Gravedigger recursion I wipe out his board and follow it up with Lashed up creatures.
Game 2: G/W Enchantress
This is why I run so many removal in my decks. I kill off two Mesa Enchantress's and one Verduran Enchantress by turn six. Despite one of them being enchanted by a Regeneration. This leaves his board empty when he plays a Noble Purpose and my 187 creatures make short work of him. He reveals his hand to show me a handfull of 6CC monster enchantments like: Shape of the Wiitigo, Wurmweaver Coil and others. Glad I killed me some of them Enchantresses!
Game 3: B/G Thallids
This one I got my 'aggro' draw and kill him on turn seven. My removal creatures start the party and Tendrils of Corruption clear the way for Lashed up devastation.
Game 4: Slivers
This was the least agressive sliver deck I've ever faced. Perhaps he just got a subpar draw, or perhaps there was something I hand't seen in the deck, but whatever it was it was over by turn eight even with a removal light draw from my deck. The most dangerous sliver I saw was Brood Sliver, which met a faceless deach.
Game 5: WW/Pro:Black
Much like an unprepared metagame matchup I ran into an unwinnable game. Lifegain, recurring threats and a slew of Protection from Black creatures made this pretty much a bye for my opponent. The only threats I had were my two lone fliers which were dispatched with ease. I had him down to eight or so at one point, however a couple of Auriok Champions and an Umezawa's Jitte and the game was sealed pretty easily. Ah well, you can't win them all.
Cost altogether: $29.31
Cost for just the new cards: $7.09
Cards added:
Card Choices:
I went back to Black/Green. In no small part because it was already built upon in the first BaCooN selection. Utilizing previous cards is a big part of the project so hopefully no one is too surprised to see that happening here. Although it's in the same colors as one of my previous decks, it feels extremely different as you play it. I also got to add in one of my first 'timmy' creatures: Reiver Demon. Sure he barely costs less than Plague Wind, but I don't hold that against him... just look at those eyes! Of all the cards in the deck (including Eternal Witness and Solemn Simalacrum), this is the only card I've played that got a 'nice card' macro from an opponent. Tune in next week to see how!
Conclusion:
Week 1 was a solid showing from the Mono black version of Korlash. I've started playing the week two deck already, and I love it. It's power lever feels about perfect for the casual room so far. Lots of close matches and if I choose to I can slow roll the game whenever I want to. Sometimes it's a lot of fun to see what dastardly designs an opponent has, and this deck lets you do that while still feeling in control of the situation if anything should need to be done to seal the deal. I've put in 20+ games with the week two deck which is a lot for me.
So here we are, just a few short days from Morningtide on MTGO. Metagames are in stasis and many players are in their own pre-release holding patterns and preparing for the events of the upcoming weeks. Whether it be stockpiling funds for events or making a checklist of cards that they want, it makes for the slowest week MTGO discussion wise. The community conversations fall back to the old standards of Casual Decks, Stability, Complaints, and their ilk. So what's a metawriter to do? I could make up news, but that has the nasty habit of backfiring. I could do some in depth analysis of card prices, but I've done that recently, and don't want to be a broken record. So what then, can I do? Quite simple really... I turn to the alternate formats. Formats like PDC, Prismatic Singleton, and Pauper Prismatic Singleton, Rainbow Stairwell, etc. Formats that don't have a filter in the deck editor, but have a lot of restrictions on deck building. I generally check in on these formats every few months, usually about two weeks before the next Standard set comes out. Although I'm not a PDC regular anymore, I still have a soft spot for the format. There's just something about a cutthroat budget format that makes me giddy. I'm always surprised to see how much the meta changes in such a restrictive format. For example, there's a storm deck in Standard PDC that's really shaking things up. Last time I checked in it was a G/W Fungus/Saproling deck that was a force in Standard PDC.
A good place to start with PDC information is Tharion_Wind's blog, located here: http://mtgopdc.blogspot.com/. Tharion has done a lot to make PDC what it is today. I remember when I first started poting on the WotC boards I saw TW posting about PDC at every chance he had to do so. He brought a lot of attention to the format while it was growing and he helped focus the format as well. It's definitely good to have him back posting, as he brings a passion for fun to the table that's rivaled by few others. Other good sites for PDC are: http://www.pdcmagic.com/ and http://www.paupermagic.com/. (My apologies if I missed your site, it's not intentional, these are the ones that I'm aware of). The pdcmagic.com site has a very good tourney structure with decklists, matchups and articles. I'd strongly suggest checking out their website if you're interested in getting into PDC. Also, there are a few different 'flavors' of PDC, depending on your tastes. There's Standard PDC, Future Extended PDC (only cards that will be extended legal after the 2008 rotation) and Classic PDC. Most nights have some sort of PDC event, and the competition is fierce. If you're interested in finding players online, check out the PDC channel in /join pdc.
The next format I like to dabble in is Pauper Prismatic Singleton. And it's a blast. I've talked about PPS before, and felt that it could use another bump. PPS follows the rules of PDC (all commons), Prismatic (20 cards of each color, minimum 250 cards) and singleton (only 1x of any card, except basic lands). And again, despite the restrive nature of the format, there's a lot of power and synergy that can be accomplished. The PPS forums still exist here:http://www.atfreeforum.com/pps/index.php?mforum=pps and free for all to hang out and discuss the format. Even though I'm not a perfectionist, I spend a lot of time tweaking my couple PPS decks each month, just to try and optimize them as much as possible. When I'm in a rut, or looking for inspiration I turn to one of those decks and play a couple of games. They're zany, wacky, and fantastic each time I dust them off for a few duels.
Last up is Rainbow Stairwell. I haven't played this format in a while, mostly because it's third in line of my alternate format dulldrum breaking routine. Rainbow Stairwell is an interesting format, and I'll give the high level overview: you get one card at each Converted Mana Cost for each color and artifact, but no X spells and no hybrid/gold cards. For example you must have one 1CMC for White, Blue, Black, Red, Green and Artifact, so you might choose Swords to Plowshares, Ponder, Deathmark, Lightning Bolt, Birds of Paradise and lastly Wayfarer's Bauble. Repeat that process for CMC's two through six, then add four basic lands of each color. Lastly you get to choose four non-basics. Some RS players say you have to choose four cards from a cycle (like, say, four fetchlands or four duals or four painlands), but others say any four non-basics are okay. Wow, that's a lot of restrictions when you type it all out. Unfortunately for my RS decks, I generally become so enthralled with my PPS decks that the new set is out by the time I'm done tweaking them. However, when I do get to the point of loading up my RS decks I'm shocked at how much my preferences in cards change from time to time. Card that I've included in the deck last time seem horribly out of place (He Who Hungers? Really? Why hammy? WHY??? *shakes head*). I found the following couple of articles on RS: http://www.mtgotraders.com/articles/rainbow stairwell.html and http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/9497.html, but haven't found a community that actively discusses the format.
Never the less, it's a fun format and very addictive. It seems that every time I play a game of RS I see a new card I want in the deck, or think of a replacement for one of my cards that would be more synergistic in my deck for next time.
Hopefully some of you folks who are also feeling the pre set duldrums can get a bit of enjoyment from one of those formats. Or at the very least, a temporary distraction from the wait.
Server Log In Availability:
As far as base lines go, this is a good one. High availability and a weekly downtime. This will be interesting to contrast this week compared to the next two weeks where we have a new set crush.
Ham Jones Industrial Average:
New Chart!
Here we have a dual axis chart with sum of cards on the left and total cards in the system on the right. I'll give this new chart a spin for a while to see how it handles the relevant data.
PayPal payments not going through for some users:
10-12-07 through Current:
Overseas Paypal issues have been experiencing many issues trying to order product from the Magic Online store via PayPal. Since WotC has no control over what PayPal does they're stuck until PayPal gets it fixed.
PayPal issues
Retether Randomly Working:
Retether has been bugged since day one, in one way or another. Right now it appears to randomly work and randomly do a steaming pile of nothing. Use at your own risk.
Thieves' Auction only returning one permanent:
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?p=15148181#post15148181
Graveyard Choice Cards Crashing the game:
Play any card that targets cards in a graveyard from the game. Note that it must be optional to target them, like with Shred Memory or Decompose. Then don't choose any targets, and just hit OK. Until you concede all you can do for the rest of the game is hit the OK button with the card on the stack. (Quoted from authenticsimpsonian). According to a developer, this should be fixed when V3 goes live. Newest thread located here.
Chains of Mephistopheles + Anvil of Bogardan/Forced Card Draw:
01-25-08 through Current:
Chains is causing entire hands to be emptied due to its own effect when forced to draw from another source. This bug impacted the last Classic tourney and is probably going to happen again if it isn't fixed soon. *update* This card has been banned in Classic until it is resolved.
Eyes of the Wisent tokens:
12-28-07 to Current:
The tokens from this card say that they have 'Flying', but they actually do not have flying. This is only a textual bug, but has already caused lost games through the confusion.
Collective Restraint Ghostly Prison Crashing games:
12-21-07 through Current:
Game crashing bugs with Collective Restraint and Ghostly Prison. Score! Shielding Plax + Targeting:
11-30-07 through Current:
Shielding Plax is not granting untargetability correctly.
Colfenor's Plans + extra draw:
11-30-07 through Current:
Colfenor's Plans is not handling extra draw actions properly. Link
Lignify + Layers:
11-23-07 through Current:
Lignify + Spirit Loop does not appear to follow the correct rules for timestamps and loss of abilities. More information can be found here. Sutured Ghoul + Tarmogoyf
10-19-07: through Current:
Sutured Ghoul + Tarmogoyf doesn't pump the Ghoul correctly. And before anyone starts to yell about the Ghoul not caring about the Goyf's dynamic power, look up the Future Sight rules update information. Or better yet, you can read about this question here and here.
This interaction is still broken. And based on the latest Pro Tour results, this will be a popular deck in Extended and likely Classic. This is not the first time that an MTG rules update has lagged far behind on MTGO and thereby invalidated a deck type. Phyrexian Dreadnought, Flash and suspend cards like Lotus Bloom have had similar issues in the past year.
Update: this is currently being investigated by the devs for a fix. I don't have any ETA as to when it wil be resolved, but rumor has it that this is in the works as we speak.
As always, thanks for reading and thanks for all the feedback you folks have given! Keeping SotP evolving as it has been is awesome.
~Erik
0 Comments
How is this possible?
Cranial plating $0.60x185%=1.00
How is this possible?
That's a lot of new bugs. I'll also try to verify and add them in as I can!
Thanks for reading and for reporting!
~Erik
When i first started, i got my hand slammed down to empty by the Anvil n' Chains Combo. I didn't think it should work this way.
So, if chains doesn't work right, it is pretty much a useless card,
How are u supposed to use a chains of mephistopholes?
Chain in general locks down card advantage, and turns +n card draw with a gain of nothing by removing the ability to actually get more cards in hand than you would get per turn. So just chains in play means each player gets one new card each turn. Chains + Anvil means that you don't even get that +1 card each turn and will always be locked at a maximum of what you have in hand. When Chains + Anvil are in play you will never end up with more cards in hand than you have when they resolve.
It shouldn't destroy entire hands like it currently is though. Just Chains = one new card in hand per turn. Chains + Anvil = no increase of card per turn.
Morningtide also generated some bugs that I have heard about.
Rhox (and other cards with his ability like Thorn Elemental) no longer deal damage. At all.
Shah of Naar Isle does not trigger when you pay his echo.
Mycosynth Lattice has been working from the hand.
I will post more if I hear about them and can confirm them.
Thank you Hammy, its always great to see our group highlighted. And actually we have added Onslaught Block to our future extended in PDC starting in March with the new season. We did this to keep in line with the new DCI rotations schedule. For dates on our next seasons and other PDC info please go to PDCMagic.com.
Thanks for the PDC plug and great article as always; very informative. www.pdcmagic.com has essentially ursurped www.paupermagic.com as the PDC hangout, so please make your start there if you are interested in participating in our exciting and fun format.
Ham is right, we play a variety of formats with a tournament every day of the week (sometimes 2!). We have two events in Classic, Future Extended and Standard along with an alternate format event and an event for Block Constructed (We are going into Ravnica block soon). Come check us out!
PDC is always going to have a soft spot for me as it was my first Constructed competitive format that I really got in to. It's an amazing format and a great way to get people into competitive events. Hopefully I can spend more time actually playing it instead of just watching it from the sidelines like I do now. :)
Yeah, it feels very strange to only run 1 Korlash... Another Urborg is definitely worth looking into, but for week two I'll have no problem getting my urborg out. :)
Thanks for the feedback!
~Erik
Another great article as usual.
Your deck really needs 4 korlash, and another urborg. Playing with only 1 korlash is blasphemy!
Nice article Hamtastic, I didn't realise that Tharion's blog was that active.
Wish I could play more pdc, but it's difficult in my time zone.