well thanks for mentioning the tribal event this weekend paul. I have the event article from the week you ran zombies still sitting as 'submitted' in the My Articles section. So I havent even bothered with writing this lst week yet. But yes everyone it is spirit tribal. Your deck must be spirit-tribal legal in order to play. as long as it meets the normal standards and has spirits for the tribe then we are good.
So it seems that your hatred for Eldrazis gave you the push to create a very creative and reasonably winning deck (not only against Eldrazis), after all. You have to thank the Allmighty Annihilators for that! :P
Nice article and I mostly agree on the points you wrote about. A deck playtest is the basis of any comptetive building attempt. This is not a random fact : you put your deck in every possible situations and see how it works. And, by far, the most important matchup analyzis are the loss analysis. Just because doing that, you will know how to optimize answers to your worst MU. Once again, to loose is the basis of the competitive spirit. If you never tasted the loose, you will never appreciate the win as it should be.
Firstly, a question : you said "Here are the win percentages of six of those players"
That is pretty interesting but could you precise if these pourcentages are based on 'round wins' or 'match wins' ? This is important because match wins pourcentages are strongly more interesting than round wins as it takes count of the SBing skills (a dredge player in a heavy "hatedredge" meta could get a nice round wins pourcentage as the 1st round is often an auto-win although he also could get a bad match wins pourcentage ... Pretty important for the analysis.
Secondly I would add something to your article : to identify good & bad decisions is the key of the analyzis. That seems simple when written, but it is much more difficult than we could expect it to be. A bad decision is a bad analyzis of the current situation involving a bad card play/a bad block ... ok. But to be sure that it was a bad decision, you also need to know what impact would have provided the other spell at your disposal at this moment AND which answers your opponent could have provided. That is why it is pretty important to share informations with the opponents : to be sure to well read the situation.
Just a comment about this article : for the next time, I would prefer to read articles with a bit more pictures ... 4 balls anyway
Yeah, you just specifically said that they were doing ACR, not Alara block boosters, which got me excited. I liked ACR, but not so much the random boosters.
Thanks for the sincere comment, I really appriciate it.
First of all: Do not worry. I didn't abandon the Seven Deadly Sins articles and the last two parts of the series will be published. I have Anger and Envy to go. Envy will be a lot of fun with different decks each better than the other, but I still have to work on Anger.
But...!
Please do understand that I'm also a person who has his own interests. My interest shifted from semi-casual Magic (aka Seven Deadly Sins) to competitive BYOS recently. And as a writer I have to follow my interests and write about the things I care; otherwise my articles would be very "artificial". They would be colorless, toneless, weak and above all they would be fake.
I cannot pretend that I'm thinking and testing 24/7 semi-casual decks whereas I DON'T. A such "Seven Deadly Sins, Part VI" article would be, just as I said above, soulless, dry and weak.
Please be patient. After I'm done with BYOS, the first article I will write will be that "Seven Deadly Sins, Part VI". And that will be about envy. And that will be a lot of fun, trust me.
Until then, all I can hope is that you at least enjoy these BYOS ones.
I could have made them 4 ofs instead but there is no real difference between them. They are fetches that can tap for mana which makes a small difference late game.
Yeah the Ascension deck was real hit or miss. The number of instants/sorceries isn't that big a deal since much of the deck is about draw. You merely need to get a couple copies of a given spell going on and the Pyromancer is active. The real trouble was surviving 6 turns without winning to get Archmage active. On the whole it is a fun deck to play but is sad vs anything good. Vs mediocre decks it does fairly well. lol.
PS: I look forward to seeing your entry. Don't forget the deadline is Thursday night/friday morning (12:00am).
People are impatient. I was about to buy some when FTV was announced. I waited a week or so for them to go down but they didn't. Finally I gave up and bought them. I wanted to play with them now, not wait till August.
I have wondered the same thing myself in regards to Mox Diamond, the only thing I can think of is people dont read the mothership or the only people with them are the ones using them for their Legacy decks / events.
Why are people still buying Mox Diamond above 30? FtV: Relics is going to be released in 3 months and it will have a foil Mox Diamond in it! As soon as I heard the news (two hours after WotC announced it) I rushed to sell both my diamonds for 33 tix, and I immediately resolved to purchase 4 copies of FtV: Relics. I know ST wasn't a widely opened set, and the Diamond should otherwise be worth 30+, but why is it still so high? ANT uses it, lands uses a few, and...?
I can't say I'd ever noticed that pure mtgo had forums! I may design a stunning legend based around my favourite common of all time; Sakura-tribe elder. Unfortunately, I can't think of a way to make it not insanely overpowered.
Pyromancer's ascenscion in tribal is a bold bold choice! Running a card which needs a lot of instants/sorceries in a format specifying >20 creatures is too rich for me! Out of interest though, am I missing something with all of the panoramas in that list? Do they interact somehow that I haven't noticed?
I agree, Paul, that Might of Oaks can have some brutal win potential. After reflection, I can see where when you have no possible way to expect it, Might of Oaks is deadly. I was aware of Might of Oaks' role in Stompy decks, but I've rarely seen it applied elsewhere, let alone recently.
I guess, overall, I did down the Might of Oaks a bit much. But I still feel the fact remains that I had a sure win, and my overconfidence dropped my guard to allow a lethal blow.
I have to take exception with one concept. Might of Oaks while a chaff card for sure DOES have win potential without any unforced errors on your part. Apart from the mistake of not knowing what your opponent is playing which is not a mistake but merely a matter of skill and effort. Might of Oaks was at one time used in Stompy and Senior Stompy decks to steal wins from conceited control players (myself included) who assumed monogreen was an easy win to play against. Given a situation where you can't block everything and your opponent has tramplers/evasion that +7 bolt can kill you for a mere 4 mana. Knowing this you will want to cover your bases etc but it is possible to lose to it without any play errors on your part. (At least not without going really deep into the heuristics.) In fact any instant speed card can in theory be deadly given the right situation. (Well no that's not true... fogs and healing instants tend to be purely unusable for victory conditions generally speaking but even draw can be deadly if you have Niv Mizzet out for instance.) This goes to show, the broader view isn't to look at Might of Oaks as a card you shouldn't lose to but to figure out and memorize HOW you can lose to it to avoid setting those situations up. And I will reiterate here, with certain builds/match ups it is unavoidable.
This is shaping up to be quite a list. I am not sure what good this data will do but it is nice to have it nonetheless. It gives a different view of things than Hammy's weekly SotP articles.
The first article I ever read on this site was your first Seven Deadly Sins, Gluttony. I loved the article, made the deck and have had a blast playing it ever since (of course tweeking it). The last couple weeks you have left the seven deadly sins articles to die and I really miss them, they are what got me on puremtgo. I understand the BYOS is important to you and it is obvious you have dedicated a lot of time to it, but as a big fan of your ways to play rogue in standard I would like to see you finish what you started with the seven deadly sins articles, as well as your takes on the new rogue deck you made, Big Bug. From testing Big Bug I have had problems with the mana base, not getting the colors I need. I know when you put up the deck you said it was untested, so I don't expect it to be perfect but I can see so much potential.
I know you already spend a lot of time on these articles and I was really hopeing to know what you think about your new rogue standard deck.
For some reason back when I played paper I never really noticed much of a price whenever a new season started. Not nearly as much as there is online. But then I think some of that stems from buying all my cards in a local store owned by a friend of mine.
A commander deck, in black, not running hero's demise? Missing an obvious trick there. Also if you wanted a support to the pure combo deck, I would have gone with teferi personally, just his existence stops the other guys interfering.
Well, at least you note when Pre-re, Release events start and end, which will be very helpful in looking back at this data.
(I am fascinated by data!)
Unfortunately, I don't know of a central calendar. I think hamtastic actually had one on one of those sites he was promoting a few months back, but it's actually very hard to maintain. I think WotC actually keeps it sort of decentralized on purpose, to keep people visiting their sites for the latest data.
I went looking when the price of Jace skyrocketed from 40 to 60 basically overnight, and I discovered that Online PTQ Standard season had started up. It would also be interesting to note when the format shifts from Standard to Extended... or even when formats shift in the PTQ seasons in paper.
That would get messy and hard to track after a while, I'd imagine.
well thanks for mentioning the tribal event this weekend paul. I have the event article from the week you ran zombies still sitting as 'submitted' in the My Articles section. So I havent even bothered with writing this lst week yet. But yes everyone it is spirit tribal. Your deck must be spirit-tribal legal in order to play. as long as it meets the normal standards and has spirits for the tribe then we are good.
So it seems that your hatred for Eldrazis gave you the push to create a very creative and reasonably winning deck (not only against Eldrazis), after all. You have to thank the Allmighty Annihilators for that! :P
Nice article and I mostly agree on the points you wrote about. A deck playtest is the basis of any comptetive building attempt. This is not a random fact : you put your deck in every possible situations and see how it works. And, by far, the most important matchup analyzis are the loss analysis. Just because doing that, you will know how to optimize answers to your worst MU. Once again, to loose is the basis of the competitive spirit. If you never tasted the loose, you will never appreciate the win as it should be.
Firstly, a question : you said "Here are the win percentages of six of those players"
That is pretty interesting but could you precise if these pourcentages are based on 'round wins' or 'match wins' ? This is important because match wins pourcentages are strongly more interesting than round wins as it takes count of the SBing skills (a dredge player in a heavy "hatedredge" meta could get a nice round wins pourcentage as the 1st round is often an auto-win although he also could get a bad match wins pourcentage ... Pretty important for the analysis.
Secondly I would add something to your article : to identify good & bad decisions is the key of the analyzis. That seems simple when written, but it is much more difficult than we could expect it to be. A bad decision is a bad analyzis of the current situation involving a bad card play/a bad block ... ok. But to be sure that it was a bad decision, you also need to know what impact would have provided the other spell at your disposal at this moment AND which answers your opponent could have provided. That is why it is pretty important to share informations with the opponents : to be sure to well read the situation.
Just a comment about this article : for the next time, I would prefer to read articles with a bit more pictures ... 4 balls anyway
Yeah, you just specifically said that they were doing ACR, not Alara block boosters, which got me excited. I liked ACR, but not so much the random boosters.
Thanks for the sincere comment, I really appriciate it.
First of all: Do not worry. I didn't abandon the Seven Deadly Sins articles and the last two parts of the series will be published. I have Anger and Envy to go. Envy will be a lot of fun with different decks each better than the other, but I still have to work on Anger.
But...!
Please do understand that I'm also a person who has his own interests. My interest shifted from semi-casual Magic (aka Seven Deadly Sins) to competitive BYOS recently. And as a writer I have to follow my interests and write about the things I care; otherwise my articles would be very "artificial". They would be colorless, toneless, weak and above all they would be fake.
I cannot pretend that I'm thinking and testing 24/7 semi-casual decks whereas I DON'T. A such "Seven Deadly Sins, Part VI" article would be, just as I said above, soulless, dry and weak.
Please be patient. After I'm done with BYOS, the first article I will write will be that "Seven Deadly Sins, Part VI". And that will be about envy. And that will be a lot of fun, trust me.
Until then, all I can hope is that you at least enjoy these BYOS ones.
Thanks again for the comment.
LE
I could have made them 4 ofs instead but there is no real difference between them. They are fetches that can tap for mana which makes a small difference late game.
Yeah the Ascension deck was real hit or miss. The number of instants/sorceries isn't that big a deal since much of the deck is about draw. You merely need to get a couple copies of a given spell going on and the Pyromancer is active. The real trouble was surviving 6 turns without winning to get Archmage active. On the whole it is a fun deck to play but is sad vs anything good. Vs mediocre decks it does fairly well. lol.
PS: I look forward to seeing your entry. Don't forget the deadline is Thursday night/friday morning (12:00am).
People are impatient. I was about to buy some when FTV was announced. I waited a week or so for them to go down but they didn't. Finally I gave up and bought them. I wanted to play with them now, not wait till August.
I have wondered the same thing myself in regards to Mox Diamond, the only thing I can think of is people dont read the mothership or the only people with them are the ones using them for their Legacy decks / events.
Here is the updated Nix Ticket event list up to October.
Product(s) Week*
MVW* Apr 28 – May 5
M10 May 5 – 12
ME3 May 12 – 19
Shards of Alara block boosters May 19 – 26
TSE May 26 – Jun 2
LRW/MOR Jun 2 – 9
ME-ME2-ME3* Jun 9 – 16
CSP Jun 16 – 23
Shards of Alara block boosters Jun 23 – 30
IPA Jun 30 - Jul 7
TPF Jul 7 – 14
RGD Jul 14 – 21
M10 Jul 21 – 28
LRW/MOR Jul 28 – Aug 4
SHM/EVE Aug 4 – 11
Shards of Alara block boosters Aug 11 – 18
ME-ME2-ME3* Aug 18 – 25
CBS Aug 25 – Sep 1
MD5 Sep 1 - 8
OLS Sep 8 – 15
OTJ Sep 15 - 22
IPA Sep 22 - 29
7E Sep 29 – Oct 6
I have a feeling they are only taking the Shards of Alara block boosters but I'd ask an ORC in game to confirm this.
Why are people still buying Mox Diamond above 30? FtV: Relics is going to be released in 3 months and it will have a foil Mox Diamond in it! As soon as I heard the news (two hours after WotC announced it) I rushed to sell both my diamonds for 33 tix, and I immediately resolved to purchase 4 copies of FtV: Relics. I know ST wasn't a widely opened set, and the Diamond should otherwise be worth 30+, but why is it still so high? ANT uses it, lands uses a few, and...?
FtV Relics
Nevinyrral's Disk - 8
Mox Diamond - 34
Masticore - 2
Karn, Silver Golem - .5
Mystery 5
Mystery 6
Mystery 7
Mystery 8
Mystery 9
Mystery 10
Mystery 11
Mystery 12
Mystery 13
Mystery 14
Scars of Mirrodin Preview - 4 (guessing)
Right? Something has to give. Online we never sell out of those famous Kamigawa "Rat precons" if you know what I mean.
I can't say I'd ever noticed that pure mtgo had forums! I may design a stunning legend based around my favourite common of all time; Sakura-tribe elder. Unfortunately, I can't think of a way to make it not insanely overpowered.
Pyromancer's ascenscion in tribal is a bold bold choice! Running a card which needs a lot of instants/sorceries in a format specifying >20 creatures is too rich for me! Out of interest though, am I missing something with all of the panoramas in that list? Do they interact somehow that I haven't noticed?
The Alara drafts starting 5/19 are taking ACR and not the random block boosters?
Wow. That went up faster than I expected. I was expecting it to take at least a week to go through. Better not post my next one too soon.
Good work, just like your article on winning. I agree that losing helps make a better player when you take the time to learn from your mistakes.
I agree, Paul, that Might of Oaks can have some brutal win potential. After reflection, I can see where when you have no possible way to expect it, Might of Oaks is deadly. I was aware of Might of Oaks' role in Stompy decks, but I've rarely seen it applied elsewhere, let alone recently.
I guess, overall, I did down the Might of Oaks a bit much. But I still feel the fact remains that I had a sure win, and my overconfidence dropped my guard to allow a lethal blow.
Thanks for the comment, Paul!
I have to take exception with one concept. Might of Oaks while a chaff card for sure DOES have win potential without any unforced errors on your part. Apart from the mistake of not knowing what your opponent is playing which is not a mistake but merely a matter of skill and effort. Might of Oaks was at one time used in Stompy and Senior Stompy decks to steal wins from conceited control players (myself included) who assumed monogreen was an easy win to play against. Given a situation where you can't block everything and your opponent has tramplers/evasion that +7 bolt can kill you for a mere 4 mana. Knowing this you will want to cover your bases etc but it is possible to lose to it without any play errors on your part. (At least not without going really deep into the heuristics.) In fact any instant speed card can in theory be deadly given the right situation. (Well no that's not true... fogs and healing instants tend to be purely unusable for victory conditions generally speaking but even draw can be deadly if you have Niv Mizzet out for instance.) This goes to show, the broader view isn't to look at Might of Oaks as a card you shouldn't lose to but to figure out and memorize HOW you can lose to it to avoid setting those situations up. And I will reiterate here, with certain builds/match ups it is unavoidable.
Oh by the way welcome to Pure. :)
Funny when I read your last article I was thinking there should be one titled as this one is.
This is shaping up to be quite a list. I am not sure what good this data will do but it is nice to have it nonetheless. It gives a different view of things than Hammy's weekly SotP articles.
Lord Erman,
The first article I ever read on this site was your first Seven Deadly Sins, Gluttony. I loved the article, made the deck and have had a blast playing it ever since (of course tweeking it). The last couple weeks you have left the seven deadly sins articles to die and I really miss them, they are what got me on puremtgo. I understand the BYOS is important to you and it is obvious you have dedicated a lot of time to it, but as a big fan of your ways to play rogue in standard I would like to see you finish what you started with the seven deadly sins articles, as well as your takes on the new rogue deck you made, Big Bug. From testing Big Bug I have had problems with the mana base, not getting the colors I need. I know when you put up the deck you said it was untested, so I don't expect it to be perfect but I can see so much potential.
I know you already spend a lot of time on these articles and I was really hopeing to know what you think about your new rogue standard deck.
Your Fan,
The_Gunslingers
For some reason back when I played paper I never really noticed much of a price whenever a new season started. Not nearly as much as there is online. But then I think some of that stems from buying all my cards in a local store owned by a friend of mine.
Good to hear about the conclusion of the tournament.
As I'm currently in Australia I was unable to attend, but I am happy to hear that my boy Bastow delivered the goods with his GG/Gifts list.
I'll be looking forward to tearing it up with my ICE/TSP/9th SwathStorm list in future seasons.
Nice article and I really dig Whiffy's list. I agree with L'Ours that it isn't a true Thresh deck, but still a very nice list.
Keep up the good work.
A commander deck, in black, not running hero's demise? Missing an obvious trick there. Also if you wanted a support to the pure combo deck, I would have gone with teferi personally, just his existence stops the other guys interfering.
Well, at least you note when Pre-re, Release events start and end, which will be very helpful in looking back at this data.
(I am fascinated by data!)
Unfortunately, I don't know of a central calendar. I think hamtastic actually had one on one of those sites he was promoting a few months back, but it's actually very hard to maintain. I think WotC actually keeps it sort of decentralized on purpose, to keep people visiting their sites for the latest data.
I went looking when the price of Jace skyrocketed from 40 to 60 basically overnight, and I discovered that Online PTQ Standard season had started up. It would also be interesting to note when the format shifts from Standard to Extended... or even when formats shift in the PTQ seasons in paper.
That would get messy and hard to track after a while, I'd imagine.