I originally thought the color coding would be funny, using the colors the match the cards. I will fix the coloring for my next article, thanks for the input.
@Anon Thanks, I spent many hours gathering the data from all the decklists
A number of people in your last format report requested a breakdown of the classic metagame and I am very pleased that you listened to the request of your readers. The data you put together is accessible and will certainly be a valuable tool in the future. Thanks again.
The decklist tournament numbers themselves are not hotlinked. You need to go to the section where I provide the links and click on the appropriate tournament number.
I used to direct link everything. It took hours and I would occasionally make mistakes which lead to frustrated readers.
This way is far easier and less prone to mistakes. It unfortunetly means that my readers need to do a very minimal amount of searching to find the tournament link.
Good read Fragoel2. My next two articles are also about the future of ZEN Block and these days I read as many articles about this subject as I can and yours wasen't disappointing at all.
One thing: Valakut can't and won't play Omnath. It can't and won't play Wolfbriar Elemental either. Those two cards require heavy commitment to Green and Valakut only splashes Green for a few key cards such as Harrow and Khalni Heart Expedition.
Valakut indeed has to adapt itself to the new meta and there are cards in the new set that will help it but not those two.
Just my thoughts.
LE
PS: You should really upload a picture of yours. The anonymous picture next to your name doesn't look nice.
Find a way to squeeze in more Islands with Watery Graves or something, and go the Threads route, not only is it less fragile than Sower, it's cheaper, and is just as effective, if not more, in all matchups except Hypergenesis (Especially the ones Sower is bad in). Stealing Marit is nice, but isn't stealing Tarmogoyf/Nacatl/Geopede/Bob just going to happen more frequently? I would think the only guys this couldn't steal (frequently) that would be meaningful are Mistbind Clique, Tombstalker, Baneslayer Angel, Cloudthresher, and the random Loxodon Hierarch. And most of the time when you want a control magic effect, you're only trying to buy a turn or two to draw out and/or stabilize anyways.
Awesome! being able to play together with your kid is simply awesome. I still need to wait a year or 5, but he (Paul) will surely follow me in my footsteps. Who knows, magic may be all in VR by then, haha.
and THAT is what the game is all about. playing some fun games, and winning a few packs here and there. The hungry money wolves made it a lot less entertaining over the years...sadly..
I can't wait to see the look on my son's face when he sends his creatures in the red zone to finish me off for the first time.. ahhh..
Thanks for the response! Yeah, the arrows were a hard sell for me, but they REALLY rock the meta. The reason they come out is I can usually substitute holylight for them via instant speed suprise. The logic is quite sound as 90% of the creatures have a 1 or 2 backside...often unless the first play, the Icatian Javeleneers get countered via faerie, whereas the aarows only lose to a hard counter.
I have no fear of the graveyard, if the game gets to that point, I've lost anyways...don't have any loses to TE so far, some very close ones, but no losses (Fingers crossed)
The standard Bearers do have to be targeted by storm, but only once, and if you save them via bodyguard, well then...they just shift the rest of the damage towards you. SB's are great on goblins and W/G enchant decks, as the goblins have to give your dude +1/+1 - and they usually don't notice this till they sac a goblin :) I know they have their place...and would love a 30 card sideboard!...but I just didn't like seeing them, really...ever.
If control is what you want, the tithe and memorylapse (in white) are two solid options - most folks cast whatever they can as soon as they can, so forcespikes are almost always a counterspell...and your opp will slow WAY down after seeing those maindecked! Yikes :)
TE loses due to lack of air power and WW's exile abilities. If (from what I read) they add the Stinkweed Imps...they lose valuable space to other ideas (which is always true) but I like to push through via milling if that happens, a bodyguard or three help obviously...or strands :)
yeah unfortunately i can't make this weekend's PE due to speech sectionals as Bubblewrap mentioned. BUT THERE ARE GOING TO BE AT LEAST 20 SCHOOLS THERE AND I DON'T GET SLOPS IF I DON'T WIN! :)
also glad you liked it Doctor Anime, i hope i gave you enough credit for your invention of the deck.
UG storm is much cheaper than regular storm, it's not even close.
It's about half a turn slower than storm though, and almost auto loses to teachings, since if you give them enough time to teachings for capsize.. yeah.. you lose.
How can I not like this article? Thanks for the praise, and I'm very glad you've found success with the deck! As always, it's nice to see PE writeups to get a feel for what people are currently playing.
I just wana get in here and say props mentioning me in the article. Slops if you dont win sectionals. Finally I cant seem to win with this deck the way I am with u/w blink
First, thanks JMB. For those who don't know, he's a very good limited player (and player in general), so read anything he has to say about the format. Second, I think the key to Naya is to have something to keep you alive until your fat comes online. This can simply be pro: color bears, cards like Dragon Fodder, removal, Ambusher, etc. You can't rely on a Turn 5 play being able to stand up to opponent's bounce/removal/swarms/huge exalted attack and so forth. Curve is really important in drafting in general, but in Naya particularly, which is part of why Whooly Thoctar is such a house for example. Magma Spray and other cheap removal are (obviously, but it bears repeating) super-useful due to low-cost too.
im going to say creatures that dodge all sorcery removal and dont take up deck slots are better than one point of life. That one life point is normally rather insignificant in the long run where as a 4/4 flyer that can never be wrathed/hundreds of other sorcery speed removal options can on occasion win the game by itself.
I originally thought the color coding would be funny, using the colors the match the cards. I will fix the coloring for my next article, thanks for the input.
@Anon Thanks, I spent many hours gathering the data from all the decklists
A number of people in your last format report requested a breakdown of the classic metagame and I am very pleased that you listened to the request of your readers. The data you put together is accessible and will certainly be a valuable tool in the future. Thanks again.
The decklist tournament numbers themselves are not hotlinked. You need to go to the section where I provide the links and click on the appropriate tournament number.
I used to direct link everything. It took hours and I would occasionally make mistakes which lead to frustrated readers.
This way is far easier and less prone to mistakes. It unfortunetly means that my readers need to do a very minimal amount of searching to find the tournament link.
wow! was not expecting that. thanks for the heads up shardfenix!
Good read Fragoel2. My next two articles are also about the future of ZEN Block and these days I read as many articles about this subject as I can and yours wasen't disappointing at all.
One thing: Valakut can't and won't play Omnath. It can't and won't play Wolfbriar Elemental either. Those two cards require heavy commitment to Green and Valakut only splashes Green for a few key cards such as Harrow and Khalni Heart Expedition.
Valakut indeed has to adapt itself to the new meta and there are cards in the new set that will help it but not those two.
Just my thoughts.
LE
PS: You should really upload a picture of yours. The anonymous picture next to your name doesn't look nice.
For some reason I can't see hotlinks on the decklists sections.
Find a way to squeeze in more Islands with Watery Graves or something, and go the Threads route, not only is it less fragile than Sower, it's cheaper, and is just as effective, if not more, in all matchups except Hypergenesis (Especially the ones Sower is bad in). Stealing Marit is nice, but isn't stealing Tarmogoyf/Nacatl/Geopede/Bob just going to happen more frequently? I would think the only guys this couldn't steal (frequently) that would be meaningful are Mistbind Clique, Tombstalker, Baneslayer Angel, Cloudthresher, and the random Loxodon Hierarch. And most of the time when you want a control magic effect, you're only trying to buy a turn or two to draw out and/or stabilize anyways.
Awesome! being able to play together with your kid is simply awesome. I still need to wait a year or 5, but he (Paul) will surely follow me in my footsteps. Who knows, magic may be all in VR by then, haha.
and THAT is what the game is all about. playing some fun games, and winning a few packs here and there. The hungry money wolves made it a lot less entertaining over the years...sadly..
I can't wait to see the look on my son's face when he sends his creatures in the red zone to finish me off for the first time.. ahhh..
Thanks everybody for the comments. I'm glad you enjoyed the article. Thank you once again.
LE
Please make the colorcoding less... vibrant.
Please make the colorcoding less... vibrant.
Congrats Doctor!
You and Doctor Anime both need to go have a look at the dailymtg.com deck of the day. Great job you guys.
I really appreciate the work that you put into this. I'm looking forward to the next two installments.
Thanks for the response! Yeah, the arrows were a hard sell for me, but they REALLY rock the meta. The reason they come out is I can usually substitute holylight for them via instant speed suprise. The logic is quite sound as 90% of the creatures have a 1 or 2 backside...often unless the first play, the Icatian Javeleneers get countered via faerie, whereas the aarows only lose to a hard counter.
I have no fear of the graveyard, if the game gets to that point, I've lost anyways...don't have any loses to TE so far, some very close ones, but no losses (Fingers crossed)
The standard Bearers do have to be targeted by storm, but only once, and if you save them via bodyguard, well then...they just shift the rest of the damage towards you. SB's are great on goblins and W/G enchant decks, as the goblins have to give your dude +1/+1 - and they usually don't notice this till they sac a goblin :) I know they have their place...and would love a 30 card sideboard!...but I just didn't like seeing them, really...ever.
If control is what you want, the tithe and memorylapse (in white) are two solid options - most folks cast whatever they can as soon as they can, so forcespikes are almost always a counterspell...and your opp will slow WAY down after seeing those maindecked! Yikes :)
TE loses due to lack of air power and WW's exile abilities. If (from what I read) they add the Stinkweed Imps...they lose valuable space to other ideas (which is always true) but I like to push through via milling if that happens, a bodyguard or three help obviously...or strands :)
yeah unfortunately i can't make this weekend's PE due to speech sectionals as Bubblewrap mentioned. BUT THERE ARE GOING TO BE AT LEAST 20 SCHOOLS THERE AND I DON'T GET SLOPS IF I DON'T WIN! :)
also glad you liked it Doctor Anime, i hope i gave you enough credit for your invention of the deck.
UG storm is much cheaper than regular storm, it's not even close.
It's about half a turn slower than storm though, and almost auto loses to teachings, since if you give them enough time to teachings for capsize.. yeah.. you lose.
This Saturday, 8am - PST everyone!
Great articles LE.
My thoughts about trader are: 1) a way to get rid of Abyssal Persecutor; 2) keep all the goodies from Roil Elemental.
How can I not like this article? Thanks for the praise, and I'm very glad you've found success with the deck! As always, it's nice to see PE writeups to get a feel for what people are currently playing.
onlyverynoob actually wasn't playing Dead Dog, but the BGTempo build that I posted in the same article as Dead Dog over here: http://puremtgo.com/articles/pauper-times-2-how-i-learned-stop-worrying-...
I only know that because he left a comment saying so in that article. Putrid Leech instead of STE was a strong substitute.
Anyways, good stuffs, keep writing!
I just wana get in here and say props mentioning me in the article. Slops if you dont win sectionals. Finally I cant seem to win with this deck the way I am with u/w blink
First, thanks JMB. For those who don't know, he's a very good limited player (and player in general), so read anything he has to say about the format. Second, I think the key to Naya is to have something to keep you alive until your fat comes online. This can simply be pro: color bears, cards like Dragon Fodder, removal, Ambusher, etc. You can't rely on a Turn 5 play being able to stand up to opponent's bounce/removal/swarms/huge exalted attack and so forth. Curve is really important in drafting in general, but in Naya particularly, which is part of why Whooly Thoctar is such a house for example. Magma Spray and other cheap removal are (obviously, but it bears repeating) super-useful due to low-cost too.
they say the 22nd of february
May sound silly, but Paralyze is a great card for ONE black - or just play ostracize for a better curve
im going to say creatures that dodge all sorcery removal and dont take up deck slots are better than one point of life. That one life point is normally rather insignificant in the long run where as a 4/4 flyer that can never be wrathed/hundreds of other sorcery speed removal options can on occasion win the game by itself.