Would a zendikar Blood Seeker be a useful sideboard deterrent if Empty the Warrens Storm decks remain popular? Or is it just too slow against other decks, let alone grapeshots?
yeah....unfortunately the only cards you picked that i could afford would be prison or propaganda. The myojin was for the wrath effect though Austere Command would work fine and i could replace the other myojin with a beater of some sort if i needed to
surprisingly, i checked the banned list on WotC while doing this and saw neither Vamp or flash on there. Maybe my link is old, but they were missing. And LED got the axe mainly because, shouckingly its sick. Humans + LED = Bomberman..i don't know who has or hasn't played against bomberman but its not fun. LED also allows for another turn 2ish combo win with kobold-nauseam.
Could you clairfy? "benevolent bodyguard can target ANY creature." or it can give protection of the colour of your choice to any creature ie: "Sac this: chose a creature, it gains protection from the colour of your choice until end of turn"? (notice the lack of targeting in my phrasing)
(note to inneutral, no... just fyi) RoninX seems to have the right idea as always.
... I have to agree with the first commenter. I keep seeing the same tourney decks talked about over and over again without exploring any of the fringe or rogue decklists out there. Frankly, just posting an article on decklists that win the majority of the time, unless played badly, really need only one article on how to play it right. And MBC is really hard to play wrongly. Anyhow, keep up the good work, I like your Pauper articles, but just felt like this one was mailed in, and no more informative than previous ones that discussed MBC.
Assuming the bodyguard can do so, it looks like the solution only takes 17 mana. It's fairly odd to have *more* lands than you need on one of these puzzles. Was that intentional?
I have to admit that I've done the "sharking the swiss queues" a bunch of times trying to chase down QPs (my limited rating is around 1860).
I've also talked to other players, some, like a couple of my teammates that are even better than me in limited, said they've done the same thing, joining swiss queues to chase down QPs.
So I'm pretty sure it's just not us doing it, but rather, there are more people out there doing it too. So I agree completely that swiss queues are not as easy as people think they are.
I think it is a safe bet to ban Earthlink, Goblin Lackey and Survival. I agree that LEO doesn't make as much sense except as a replacement for Bazaar in dredge so maybe that is why...
Well in the case of Dredge it wins 2nd turn...That is broken. Winning turn 4-5? not so much. To me Flash into Primus just doesn't rise to the level of total game enders like Sulieman+AE particularly in tribal where you won't have many nontribal creatures.
The statistic is the likelihood of YOU winning the tournament, not that archetype in general. So, the answer to your question is yes and no. Yes, I am taking into account how frequently each deck is being played. No, this isn't describing how frequently we should see UWR, Jund, etc. winning tournaments.
Just a note on your banned list. Flash and Vampiric Tutor are already banned in Tribal Classic.
I can understand why Bazaar of Baghdad is banned due to dredge.
Earthcraft and Goblin Lackey are very powerful but havent been played yet in the format by anyone, it seems sad to ban cards that havent shown themselves to be ban worthy. For one more mana you can have Warren Instigator which is the same if not better than lackey.
I've no idea why Lion's Eye Diamond is banned I know its powerful in classic but thats when you dont have to have 20 creatures backing it and then a combo on top. Also the price is so high I doubt it would be played anyway.
The last card I can understand Survival of the Fittest but as per Earthcraft and Lackey why ban a card before it wins an event. I'd rather wait to see if its played and to what effect it warps the format before applying the ban hammer.
I believe the top winning deck is still Elves though without Earthcraft and yet there is no bannings to slow the deck down.
To sum up my post out of the seven cards your banning two are already banned and only one has been played to the extent it needs banning to slow down a deck, which isnt the deck/tribe with the most wins so far.
Thanks for the people who commented about my deck, it would certainly run alot smooth with some ravinca block shock lands or master editions duals but sadly I don't have those at present.
I've got a number of decks in the pipeline for the coming weeks so hope to bring even more off the wall decks as shard put to either do well or fail horribly whilst laughing.
It really depends on your definition of broken and how "great" you want plays to be. It's not as broken as Dark Ritual into Necropotence, but I'd say it's probably more broken than the Suleiman's Legacy/Artificial Evolution combo that is mentioned quite a bit when talking about bannings in the format.
Well just at a glance I'd make a couple changes on personal preference.. like dropping Greater Auramancy and Mesa Enchantress to 3 ofs.. I'm also not sure on the choice of the Myojins... the deck I played was over 100 cards so the draw off of Seeing Winds isn't great.. I'd also be a little worried about getting land count up high enough, though if you got the lock in early you'd be fine.. I'd def try putting that together looks kinda fun though maybe I might..
You may not want to ban cards to take away a deck, but sometimes it is necessary in order to stop a deck from dominating a format. (IE Necropotence)
Either way I don't think we really need to worry too much about banning cards until there is a real tournament driver for the format. Right now most of the players I've played against aren't trying to break the format in the way that competitive WotC tournament-supported formats are broken.
There really isn't much motivation until there are 2-man queues, daily events, weekend challenges, and stuff like that in order to motivate the greedy nature of deckbuilders.
The artificers deck was fun to play, but I must admit during testing it wasn't going as good. I loved some of the variety of decks that are brought to this tourney
"Whatever is on top will have a 1 next to it—in this case, it is UWR Control. Everything below it will have some number less than 1. This number is the frequency of winning the tournament standardized to the top deck available. For example, Jund says .99; that means for every 100 tournaments UWR Control wins, Jund will win 99. That difference may seem slight initially, but go all the way down to Turbo Fog, and you are looking at something as low as 27 instead of 100. In other words, you are almost four times as likely to win with UWR Control."
the way you describe this algorithm, it does not sound like you are taking into account the quantity of each type of deck entering the tournament. i assume that you are, but are you?
Thanks Godot, I read that article and found it very interesting, I think I will try some swiss drafts. I feel like a lot of times I draft a decent deck (silence aside), but run up against a monster in match one. Losing match one a few times in a row frustrated me out of drafting, maybe getting a chance to win a match or two will lift my spirits.
Would a zendikar Blood Seeker be a useful sideboard deterrent if Empty the Warrens Storm decks remain popular? Or is it just too slow against other decks, let alone grapeshots?
yeah....unfortunately the only cards you picked that i could afford would be prison or propaganda. The myojin was for the wrath effect though Austere Command would work fine and i could replace the other myojin with a beater of some sort if i needed to
surprisingly, i checked the banned list on WotC while doing this and saw neither Vamp or flash on there. Maybe my link is old, but they were missing. And LED got the axe mainly because, shouckingly its sick. Humans + LED = Bomberman..i don't know who has or hasn't played against bomberman but its not fun. LED also allows for another turn 2ish combo win with kobold-nauseam.
i just post what they tell me, unfortunately i am human and do make errors. However seeing as the deck is 61 cards 19 may be right.
Could you clairfy? "benevolent bodyguard can target ANY creature." or it can give protection of the colour of your choice to any creature ie: "Sac this: chose a creature, it gains protection from the colour of your choice until end of turn"? (notice the lack of targeting in my phrasing)
(note to inneutral, no... just fyi) RoninX seems to have the right idea as always.
... I have to agree with the first commenter. I keep seeing the same tourney decks talked about over and over again without exploring any of the fringe or rogue decklists out there. Frankly, just posting an article on decklists that win the majority of the time, unless played badly, really need only one article on how to play it right. And MBC is really hard to play wrongly. Anyhow, keep up the good work, I like your Pauper articles, but just felt like this one was mailed in, and no more informative than previous ones that discussed MBC.
Oops, I got the answer, posted it like a dufus, now deleted. :)
To post below: I left a step out, meant the Skyfisher, got ahead of myself.
Ummm, how exactly does 1 target their Kabira Crossroads with a Momentary Blink?
Assuming the bodyguard can do so, it looks like the solution only takes 17 mana. It's fairly odd to have *more* lands than you need on one of these puzzles. Was that intentional?
I have to admit that I've done the "sharking the swiss queues" a bunch of times trying to chase down QPs (my limited rating is around 1860).
I've also talked to other players, some, like a couple of my teammates that are even better than me in limited, said they've done the same thing, joining swiss queues to chase down QPs.
So I'm pretty sure it's just not us doing it, but rather, there are more people out there doing it too. So I agree completely that swiss queues are not as easy as people think they are.
I think it is a safe bet to ban Earthlink, Goblin Lackey and Survival. I agree that LEO doesn't make as much sense except as a replacement for Bazaar in dredge so maybe that is why...
Yep you also have to blink the skyfisher to get a crossroads back so the 3 life paid of flashback won't kill ya 1st.
Well in the case of Dredge it wins 2nd turn...That is broken. Winning turn 4-5? not so much. To me Flash into Primus just doesn't rise to the level of total game enders like Sulieman+AE particularly in tribal where you won't have many nontribal creatures.
The statistic is the likelihood of YOU winning the tournament, not that archetype in general. So, the answer to your question is yes and no. Yes, I am taking into account how frequently each deck is being played. No, this isn't describing how frequently we should see UWR, Jund, etc. winning tournaments.
Just a note on your banned list. Flash and Vampiric Tutor are already banned in Tribal Classic.
I can understand why Bazaar of Baghdad is banned due to dredge.
Earthcraft and Goblin Lackey are very powerful but havent been played yet in the format by anyone, it seems sad to ban cards that havent shown themselves to be ban worthy. For one more mana you can have Warren Instigator which is the same if not better than lackey.
I've no idea why Lion's Eye Diamond is banned I know its powerful in classic but thats when you dont have to have 20 creatures backing it and then a combo on top. Also the price is so high I doubt it would be played anyway.
The last card I can understand Survival of the Fittest but as per Earthcraft and Lackey why ban a card before it wins an event. I'd rather wait to see if its played and to what effect it warps the format before applying the ban hammer.
I believe the top winning deck is still Elves though without Earthcraft and yet there is no bannings to slow the deck down.
To sum up my post out of the seven cards your banning two are already banned and only one has been played to the extent it needs banning to slow down a deck, which isnt the deck/tribe with the most wins so far.
Thanks for the people who commented about my deck, it would certainly run alot smooth with some ravinca block shock lands or master editions duals but sadly I don't have those at present.
I've got a number of decks in the pipeline for the coming weeks so hope to bring even more off the wall decks as shard put to either do well or fail horribly whilst laughing.
It really depends on your definition of broken and how "great" you want plays to be. It's not as broken as Dark Ritual into Necropotence, but I'd say it's probably more broken than the Suleiman's Legacy/Artificial Evolution combo that is mentioned quite a bit when talking about bannings in the format.
correct me if im wrong, but in that instance necro wasn't the win con like bridge is, more of a draw engine wasnt it?
Well just at a glance I'd make a couple changes on personal preference.. like dropping Greater Auramancy and Mesa Enchantress to 3 ofs.. I'm also not sure on the choice of the Myojins... the deck I played was over 100 cards so the draw off of Seeing Winds isn't great.. I'd also be a little worried about getting land count up high enough, though if you got the lock in early you'd be fine.. I'd def try putting that together looks kinda fun though maybe I might..
OUT: -1 Mesa Enchantress, -1 Greater Auramancy, -3 MoCF, -1 MoSW
IN: +3 Solemn Simulacrum, +2 WoG, +1 Propaganda/Ghostly Prison
Though I guess it depends on what format I was running in as well :P
You may not want to ban cards to take away a deck, but sometimes it is necessary in order to stop a deck from dominating a format. (IE Necropotence)
Either way I don't think we really need to worry too much about banning cards until there is a real tournament driver for the format. Right now most of the players I've played against aren't trying to break the format in the way that competitive WotC tournament-supported formats are broken.
There really isn't much motivation until there are 2-man queues, daily events, weekend challenges, and stuff like that in order to motivate the greedy nature of deckbuilders.
The artificers deck was fun to play, but I must admit during testing it wasn't going as good. I loved some of the variety of decks that are brought to this tourney
Well if you can bend the rules with targeting, blink his chittering, evoke mulldrifter, deck him with DA also works ;-)
Who needs 22 lands when you run 4x path to exile! ;-)
"Whatever is on top will have a 1 next to it—in this case, it is UWR Control. Everything below it will have some number less than 1. This number is the frequency of winning the tournament standardized to the top deck available. For example, Jund says .99; that means for every 100 tournaments UWR Control wins, Jund will win 99. That difference may seem slight initially, but go all the way down to Turbo Fog, and you are looking at something as low as 27 instead of 100. In other words, you are almost four times as likely to win with UWR Control."
the way you describe this algorithm, it does not sound like you are taking into account the quantity of each type of deck entering the tournament. i assume that you are, but are you?
Thanks Godot, I read that article and found it very interesting, I think I will try some swiss drafts. I feel like a lot of times I draft a decent deck (silence aside), but run up against a monster in match one. Losing match one a few times in a row frustrated me out of drafting, maybe getting a chance to win a match or two will lift my spirits.