Remebering your decklist is very important and that's the reason why I always use the deck builder screen while I'm in a tournament. Especially the lands can cause a problem. There's no bigger humiliation than to crack a Verdant Catacombs only to see that you already have all your Forests and Swamps on table (unless of course you did it for shuffling purposes).
Use the deck builder screen, open your deck and check frequently.
Remember all your cards, remember all your opponents cards, remember any card that may be relevant, think through your next 5 plays, think through their next 5 plays, pay attention to the board, pay attention to their body language, pay attention to your mind state, don't pay attention to anything outside the game, have fun, want to win, remember to eat... wow! it's like playing with a multidimensional slinky - just when you think you've got it all in your hand it spills out in another direction! Sometimes I despair...
All sound advice though. I'll keep trying till I die or my brain dribbles out of my ears (which considering the list above may be sooner rather than later).
On the subject of remembering your deck list, I couldn't agree more. Particularly important when trying to remember if you put 3 or 4 of a particular spell in a deck and can you afford to lose one of them now. Online this is especially important as games and formats can come and go a lot faster. I remember in one long weekend playing a sealed deck tournie, followed by block constructed, singleton 2-man, and then extended constructed, finishing with a nix-tix draft in an eternal format. 5 different decks, 5 different formats. If that was offline you'd need a microchip in your head. Online though I've found that opening the deck in the deck editor just before you play helps enormously. If you're in sealed/draft save your deck before you submit, then you can reload it in the deck editor. Really takes the pressure off, which incidentally helps you to remember as well.
Again nice pod cast but really Sebastian you need a better mic. Half the time you sound like you are underwater. Not sure even if that is a function of the mic itself or how you use it, but it makes it hard to gather the gems you give us. I recommend you do some practice with it pre pod cast and listen to the results until you are happy with it (Assuming you aren't.)
NO in fact I don't have cable/satellite. I too started collecting the game in 1993 and my finances were much better off then. I think you are taking offense where none was intended. I honestly don't care how you prioritize YOUR finances as long as you are ok. It is NOT a possibility for me to do anything with MTG and money. At least not in the near future.
==EDIT== Also I think it is you who did not see what I was saying. Yes I know Money has no personality. (What fucking idiot ever said otherwise???) To imply that I think so is the very insult you took from me. And I DO get your point concerning ways/means but you are wrong. Sometimes life hands you crap. What you do with it is your business. Yes everything in life is a choice but sometimes the choices are either bad or worse.
I don't presume to know much about you aside from what you've said here and elsewhere. You are a professional Exterminator and I applaud you for that. Vermin needs killing. I am an unemployed musician/webguy/whatever and yes I do know that magic is a money game and I am not complaining about that. I am EXPLAINING why some formats are too hard to compete in. I don't have a proposed change, I don't think MTG would be better if it was free.
I am just saying that owning dual lands makes a humongous difference in whether or you can compete. This was the case in Type 1 back in the day and it is now in Classic/Legacy online. I missed my opportunity for the $5 duals and if I had that opportunity I might not have been able to grab it because of my personal situation (which is no one's fault but my own, I admit.)
If you have not one ounce of compassion why even bother commenting? Just keep your lack of sympathy to yourself, since you are obviously fine with the status quo. I am too really, I don't think there is anything that CAN be done. But to put the difficulty on the table is better than hiding it and saying "Well if you really really wanted to..." There really is no need to make a personal attack out of this thread.
Didn't the previous prerelease cards only exist in the prerelease too? (for standard sets)
prerelease: non-foil for entry, foil for 9/12 pts.
release: non foil from the store (the draft/sealed set), foil from champs..?
Hi, I have been following your Cruel Decks, and I enjoy them very much. I would like to note that another SB package may be better for vs RDW. I have tried the suggested SB option vs them, however have not been very successful with it. I understand the thought behind it, however it just hasn't panned out for me yet. I look forward to possibly more iterations of this in the future. Great Article Mate!
Personally I wouldn't play the deck without Rancor, I'd just play UW at that point. But as Amar says, feel free to try different things.
The article was done quite a while ago and I was holding back until Rancor was reprinted for the cost reason. As usual, I post it in PDCforums first to "test the waters" and see what questions should be addressed in the article. But with bigmb and Illpalazzo representing it already, I figured might as well put it out there now.
When June rolls around, pick up those Rancors and start testing 'em... everywhere. :)
Sigh... I was willing to save up for buying FoW. A few weeks of plasma was all I needed. Now it just seems to be rising faster than I can make extra money.
Maybe I'll just switch to saving for entomb instead and hope for a Duel deck gift.
Standard card valuation holds that trample=evasion, or is a close analogue. And if you trade for 4 of their power, you lay another, and another, and another. As for the speed, it’s Mulldrifter turn +1. And playing it already puts you in green for acceleration like Tribe Elder and Ondu giant. SOMETHING has to be the top of your curve.
Unless the other drafters are stupid (or they open a lucky foil), "money" drafting ME123 rarely involves missing more than one pick per pack. There's only a small number of rares per set that are worth picking without intending to use them in your deck. On the infrequent occasion that they all get passed to you and your deck sucks, you could spend the time selling them for a profit rather than playing out the draft. When I rare draft I always play it out. It can be quite fun to make it to the finals after having drafted 12 rares. Doing so really stretches your deck construction skills.
I'm not convinced Rancor belongs in the deck at all. It's best use is turning Mulldrifter into a faster clock or a guy who trades with 2/3s. Occasionally it lets a ninja trample over for card draw too. But the creature you'd most want to use it on, Blastoderm, is of course invalid. So don't sweat lack of Rancors YrdBrd, and feel free to try something completely different. Temporal Springs is a fun card, for example.
Duress stops Manabarbs, clears out searing blaze / bolt. Echoes on a reasonable life total usually wins the game as it removes all Hell's Thunder / Hellspark Elemental and makes their deck threat light
You missed the point as usual. Money is amoral because it has no feeling, no emotion. When put in the hands of a good person the money takes the form of positive actions. Put in the hands of someone evil the money takes an entirely different approach. I personally am beginning to think you like to argue just to argue. Maybe you just caught me on a bad day, who knows.
If you really and I mean really wanted to invest money into this game and your life depended on it you would find a way. Do you have cable/satellite? Cutting this expense alone would easily give you the needed $30 per month I illustrated. If you think TV is more important then by all means it supercedes this game. If this the case for example then stop complaining about pricing and start focusing your negative energy in a means for improving your financial position.
Far to often people want to cry wolf and spend more time doing so than actually trying to improve their position.
Your post assumes I know your financial situation which I do not. Your post also assumes you know my financial position which you do not. For all you know I scrap together every last penny to invest into this game because it is a priority for me.
I keep hearing everyone complain about mtgo pricing and it honestly is starting to make me sick. This game isn't cheap, it never will be, hasn't been since I started playing in 1993. It is time to face the music. If this game were free people would still be complaining.
heh I guess no matter what you do have to hope to win first round at least half the time if you want to make your money back :) Still ok to raredraft as the good rares are all really good value.
i think your sideboarding against red is very wrong. you need all the creatures plus duress/echoes dont do anything. i would just replace quakes with claws
+1 for the "These weren't always expensive, I didn't pay $50 for them, I earned them by playing the game" crowd. I refuse to feel guilty for playing my duals which I earned by "farming". Although in my case I mostly played the trading game rather than the dueling game. Of course, finding the game pieces was always intended to be part of the game itself. So I'm still playing Magic, sort of.
Planet Earth, I believe, holds X potential Legacy and EDH (eternal) players. Between the paper cards and the digital cards there are more than enough duals and Goyfs for everyone. Demand itself is a limited quantity. There are more Magic cards in existence than can be demanded. If Karakas, Tabernacle, and Moat go up then Grindstone probably went down. Or if all four + Vampiric Tutor are going up then Doubling Season is dropping. Or if all 6 of those are going up then Bitterblossom is is dropping. And so on until you've listed every significant Magic card.
The only Magic cards in your collection you should never sell are the ABUR duals, the original Moxen, Black Lotus, Sol Ring, Time Walk, and Ancestral Recall. You'll want to play those cards in pretty much everything. Everyone figured this out around 95/96, and that was kind of late. So in 2009, Tropical Island for $14? Hell yes! And for that price I can ignore the cycle of new duals in every new block? And use my Scalding Tarn to search for a Forest? The duals are in a class by themselves. Imagine if Black Lotus is in ME4. In 2012 it will be probably somewhat expensive. But no duh! Are you going to say that you did see that one coming?
trust me treasure hunt is bad. i have played extensively with manuel's version and i sided them out all the time. one card you may want to think is bloodwitch. pro white is extremely valuable these days and works very good with gatekeeper
sorry to nitpick but it is fate seal. like the mirage card sealed fate and the sliver ability from future sight. fate seal not steal. thanks, keep up the great work.
Why stop there? That mountain isn't the most valuable basic land ever printed, is it? What about those APAC lands, P3K lands, "Summer Magic" basics, or maybe something else? Also, compare the same artwork + frame.
Online everyone who logs in 5 times in a month, even if they immediately log out, is given a free P3K, APAC, European, or some other extremely rare basic land. How much would my sunflower Plains cost in paper?
Remebering your decklist is very important and that's the reason why I always use the deck builder screen while I'm in a tournament. Especially the lands can cause a problem. There's no bigger humiliation than to crack a Verdant Catacombs only to see that you already have all your Forests and Swamps on table (unless of course you did it for shuffling purposes).
Use the deck builder screen, open your deck and check frequently.
LE
Remember all your cards, remember all your opponents cards, remember any card that may be relevant, think through your next 5 plays, think through their next 5 plays, pay attention to the board, pay attention to their body language, pay attention to your mind state, don't pay attention to anything outside the game, have fun, want to win, remember to eat... wow! it's like playing with a multidimensional slinky - just when you think you've got it all in your hand it spills out in another direction! Sometimes I despair...
All sound advice though. I'll keep trying till I die or my brain dribbles out of my ears (which considering the list above may be sooner rather than later).
On the subject of remembering your deck list, I couldn't agree more. Particularly important when trying to remember if you put 3 or 4 of a particular spell in a deck and can you afford to lose one of them now. Online this is especially important as games and formats can come and go a lot faster. I remember in one long weekend playing a sealed deck tournie, followed by block constructed, singleton 2-man, and then extended constructed, finishing with a nix-tix draft in an eternal format. 5 different decks, 5 different formats. If that was offline you'd need a microchip in your head. Online though I've found that opening the deck in the deck editor just before you play helps enormously. If you're in sealed/draft save your deck before you submit, then you can reload it in the deck editor. Really takes the pressure off, which incidentally helps you to remember as well.
Just saying, tools are there, best use them.
Again nice pod cast but really Sebastian you need a better mic. Half the time you sound like you are underwater. Not sure even if that is a function of the mic itself or how you use it, but it makes it hard to gather the gems you give us. I recommend you do some practice with it pre pod cast and listen to the results until you are happy with it (Assuming you aren't.)
Aurochs are not good. They really really suck. They have some unusual uses that can make them suck less but the fact is they do.
NO in fact I don't have cable/satellite. I too started collecting the game in 1993 and my finances were much better off then. I think you are taking offense where none was intended. I honestly don't care how you prioritize YOUR finances as long as you are ok. It is NOT a possibility for me to do anything with MTG and money. At least not in the near future.
==EDIT== Also I think it is you who did not see what I was saying. Yes I know Money has no personality. (What fucking idiot ever said otherwise???) To imply that I think so is the very insult you took from me. And I DO get your point concerning ways/means but you are wrong. Sometimes life hands you crap. What you do with it is your business. Yes everything in life is a choice but sometimes the choices are either bad or worse.
I don't presume to know much about you aside from what you've said here and elsewhere. You are a professional Exterminator and I applaud you for that. Vermin needs killing. I am an unemployed musician/webguy/whatever and yes I do know that magic is a money game and I am not complaining about that. I am EXPLAINING why some formats are too hard to compete in. I don't have a proposed change, I don't think MTG would be better if it was free.
I am just saying that owning dual lands makes a humongous difference in whether or you can compete. This was the case in Type 1 back in the day and it is now in Classic/Legacy online. I missed my opportunity for the $5 duals and if I had that opportunity I might not have been able to grab it because of my personal situation (which is no one's fault but my own, I admit.)
If you have not one ounce of compassion why even bother commenting? Just keep your lack of sympathy to yourself, since you are obviously fine with the status quo. I am too really, I don't think there is anything that CAN be done. But to put the difficulty on the table is better than hiding it and saying "Well if you really really wanted to..." There really is no need to make a personal attack out of this thread.
nice article, I vote
SINGLE TRIBE - Human
Didn't the previous prerelease cards only exist in the prerelease too? (for standard sets)
prerelease: non-foil for entry, foil for 9/12 pts.
release: non foil from the store (the draft/sealed set), foil from champs..?
Hi, I have been following your Cruel Decks, and I enjoy them very much. I would like to note that another SB package may be better for vs RDW. I have tried the suggested SB option vs them, however have not been very successful with it. I understand the thought behind it, however it just hasn't panned out for me yet. I look forward to possibly more iterations of this in the future. Great Article Mate!
Personally I wouldn't play the deck without Rancor, I'd just play UW at that point. But as Amar says, feel free to try different things.
The article was done quite a while ago and I was holding back until Rancor was reprinted for the cost reason. As usual, I post it in PDCforums first to "test the waters" and see what questions should be addressed in the article. But with bigmb and Illpalazzo representing it already, I figured might as well put it out there now.
When June rolls around, pick up those Rancors and start testing 'em... everywhere. :)
Sigh... I was willing to save up for buying FoW. A few weeks of plasma was all I needed. Now it just seems to be rising faster than I can make extra money.
Maybe I'll just switch to saving for entomb instead and hope for a Duel deck gift.
Standard card valuation holds that trample=evasion, or is a close analogue. And if you trade for 4 of their power, you lay another, and another, and another. As for the speed, it’s Mulldrifter turn +1. And playing it already puts you in green for acceleration like Tribe Elder and Ondu giant. SOMETHING has to be the top of your curve.
Unless the other drafters are stupid (or they open a lucky foil), "money" drafting ME123 rarely involves missing more than one pick per pack. There's only a small number of rares per set that are worth picking without intending to use them in your deck. On the infrequent occasion that they all get passed to you and your deck sucks, you could spend the time selling them for a profit rather than playing out the draft. When I rare draft I always play it out. It can be quite fun to make it to the finals after having drafted 12 rares. Doing so really stretches your deck construction skills.
I'm not convinced Rancor belongs in the deck at all. It's best use is turning Mulldrifter into a faster clock or a guy who trades with 2/3s. Occasionally it lets a ninja trample over for card draw too. But the creature you'd most want to use it on, Blastoderm, is of course invalid. So don't sweat lack of Rancors YrdBrd, and feel free to try something completely different. Temporal Springs is a fun card, for example.
Nice to see you pick up and evolve the deck, Doc. I'd forgotten about it somewhat, having more recently fallen in love with Stalingrad:
http://pdcmagic.com/gatherling/deck.php?mode=view&id=11480
Duress stops Manabarbs, clears out searing blaze / bolt. Echoes on a reasonable life total usually wins the game as it removes all Hell's Thunder / Hellspark Elemental and makes their deck threat light
You missed the point as usual. Money is amoral because it has no feeling, no emotion. When put in the hands of a good person the money takes the form of positive actions. Put in the hands of someone evil the money takes an entirely different approach. I personally am beginning to think you like to argue just to argue. Maybe you just caught me on a bad day, who knows.
If you really and I mean really wanted to invest money into this game and your life depended on it you would find a way. Do you have cable/satellite? Cutting this expense alone would easily give you the needed $30 per month I illustrated. If you think TV is more important then by all means it supercedes this game. If this the case for example then stop complaining about pricing and start focusing your negative energy in a means for improving your financial position.
Far to often people want to cry wolf and spend more time doing so than actually trying to improve their position.
Your post assumes I know your financial situation which I do not. Your post also assumes you know my financial position which you do not. For all you know I scrap together every last penny to invest into this game because it is a priority for me.
I keep hearing everyone complain about mtgo pricing and it honestly is starting to make me sick. This game isn't cheap, it never will be, hasn't been since I started playing in 1993. It is time to face the music. If this game were free people would still be complaining.
Also you may get a dual passed to you if the first person cracked a foil dual or FOW as well... :)
heh I guess no matter what you do have to hope to win first round at least half the time if you want to make your money back :) Still ok to raredraft as the good rares are all really good value.
i think your sideboarding against red is very wrong. you need all the creatures plus duress/echoes dont do anything. i would just replace quakes with claws
Since Rancor is over $4 a piece, Im not getting them til Legacys released. Do you think Bonesplitter can fill its role til then?
I wouldn't run Treasure Hunt with the Grim Discovery package but rather in it's place.
-4 Architects of Will, -3 Grim Discovery; +4 Treasure Hunt, +1 Abyssal Persecutor, +1 Earthquake, +1 land.
I'd also then cut the Verdant Catacombs and Terramorphic Expanse for Swamps.
+1 for the "These weren't always expensive, I didn't pay $50 for them, I earned them by playing the game" crowd. I refuse to feel guilty for playing my duals which I earned by "farming". Although in my case I mostly played the trading game rather than the dueling game. Of course, finding the game pieces was always intended to be part of the game itself. So I'm still playing Magic, sort of.
Planet Earth, I believe, holds X potential Legacy and EDH (eternal) players. Between the paper cards and the digital cards there are more than enough duals and Goyfs for everyone. Demand itself is a limited quantity. There are more Magic cards in existence than can be demanded. If Karakas, Tabernacle, and Moat go up then Grindstone probably went down. Or if all four + Vampiric Tutor are going up then Doubling Season is dropping. Or if all 6 of those are going up then Bitterblossom is is dropping. And so on until you've listed every significant Magic card.
The only Magic cards in your collection you should never sell are the ABUR duals, the original Moxen, Black Lotus, Sol Ring, Time Walk, and Ancestral Recall. You'll want to play those cards in pretty much everything. Everyone figured this out around 95/96, and that was kind of late. So in 2009, Tropical Island for $14? Hell yes! And for that price I can ignore the cycle of new duals in every new block? And use my Scalding Tarn to search for a Forest? The duals are in a class by themselves. Imagine if Black Lotus is in ME4. In 2012 it will be probably somewhat expensive. But no duh! Are you going to say that you did see that one coming?
trust me treasure hunt is bad. i have played extensively with manuel's version and i sided them out all the time. one card you may want to think is bloodwitch. pro white is extremely valuable these days and works very good with gatekeeper
sorry to nitpick but it is fate seal. like the mirage card sealed fate and the sliver ability from future sight. fate seal not steal. thanks, keep up the great work.
Why stop there? That mountain isn't the most valuable basic land ever printed, is it? What about those APAC lands, P3K lands, "Summer Magic" basics, or maybe something else? Also, compare the same artwork + frame.
Online everyone who logs in 5 times in a month, even if they immediately log out, is given a free P3K, APAC, European, or some other extremely rare basic land. How much would my sunflower Plains cost in paper?
Good points.