Last nite while playing Oath of druids in the classic DE I was matched up with RDW in rd1. While RDW is ussally a match up you sweat like ADN there is always a good chance you can assemble your combo b4 they burn you out. However my opponent had the nutz cards in his sb to help win a bad match up. there were karakas (land tap to bounce a legend) forbbiden orchards ( to give me guys) and greater gargadon to sac his own dudes from my orchards. after a lopng intense g3 where we both had at one point 9 orchard tokens i had to tell him how much i liked his sb. if he hadent of drawn 16 lands in g3 i surely would of lost. and he responeded enthusiasticaly to my compliment making me feel good as well.
Hey now! I ran a great NYC live action World of Darkness game. Sure we got a few "emo" kids but mostly the players were goths, or punks or like me gamers. I object to that characterization. Now I admit that the flavor has changed a bit since then and now adays vampires are all sparkly and ridiculous, but really that experience you had was atypical. Many of the players I knew were fairly happy, fun people who enjoyed the campiness of playing "evil bloodsucking minions of darkness". Now that said I have no excuse for not owning Nocturnus other than I don't own lots of good cards.
On to the sphinx tribal...I saw some smash face games where AJ just rolled his opponents.
By the way...you guys seem like you could use a good sound editor to take out the prerecording recording. (Did you intend to have you conversation at the beginning played back for us before you said hello?)
Thanks for the insight. I like your honesty concerning your skill and place in the game. I'm short on budget too, so I mostly draft swiss.
While I had very enjoyable games in swiss, sometimes swiss goes horribly wrong and you run into decks far better than your own, though you never saw THESE cards.
I had once a draft in my local shop, and the seating was such that two unexperienced drafters, both quite new to the game, passed to the local "pro". I was sure he would get a ridiculous deck due to misevaluations of the poor new players. And guess what - he ended up playing some sort of black red aggro "still had all these" Deck and swept everybody with triple burst lightning, 2 or 3 geopedes and vampire nighthawk (which, he pointed out, got as third pick.)
While I think that often swiss comes down to a perfectly normal draft, I suspect it can go wrong in exactly that way.
Or maybe I'm just a bad player and ranting. Not sure :-)
A fine article as per usual, though you need to work a little on your syntax. The BRW deck seems very self-sufficient. Have you tried it in a larger arena?
It is indeed great fun. One thing that came in particularily useful was Akroma's Memorial, because a flying hasty first striking trampling vigilant protected creature with power greater than the number of lands you control is good times.
I just whipped up a Rosheen deck with all the red/green/colorless X spells in my collection. Got lots of land ramp to help make those X's even bigger. Mage Slayer + big X creatures = ouch, add Sigil of Distinction for a really big ouch. Also put a Valakut and some landfally baloths in there to take advantage of all the lands hitting the table.
This was a great article. I think the popularity percentages match my feelings about decks and the reason why I never ended up venturing into a Standard DE with Valakut despite having all the cards, it just doesn't seem powerful. Looks like I should get over that and sleeve up (digitally that is) the little bastards.
Interesting. I've been playing and advocating Valakut decks in standard for quite some time. Now I can point people in this direction and tell them to look at the precentages :)
Pack 2 pick 3: I would proberly have taken the Mob. It is splashable (so someone WILL pick it) and can be played quite fast. With a (big bit) of luck the baloth would even cycle (since it is not as splashable). Futheremore I havnt played with the mob and would like to try.
Pack 2 pick 4: Oran-rief. You are nearly monogreen (also) at that point and the ability to get your creatures away from two thoughness is very strong.
The crypt ripper pick was just wrong.
Futheremore I would have played grazing over maradur, since 3 lands is not enough to get maradur down in the early game and harrow doesnt matter for a agro creature. Futheremore you knew that most ppl wasnt in blue nor green so the fear wasn't that important.
I would also have played the shampler (or only played the warrior) in that last turn over the turntimber since Marsh Casualties would be a blowout.
I prefer swiss to 4-3-2-2 to 8-4 since I figure that I will end up with more packs in the long run even with a winrate of about 2/3 in either swiss or 4-3-2-2 and I am not sure that I am good enough for 8-4. I do have a rating of around 1830 though, mainly on the back of Tempest, Lorwyn and sealed.
i can't watch that rd2 last game match - it makes me too sad :( you shoulda used ur turn 3 mana - suspend ancestral, cast jitte. if he has hellspark, so be it. by not doing that - you pretty much blanked ur hand of jitte/ancestral/repeal, etc.
I really don't like all the complaining in round 2. As Fragoel2 said, you lost it because you waited too long for the mistbind. If you play it during upkeep or after attackers you eat some burn at worst, clique his mana down, and have 4 lands with you jitte swinging. Don't whine about people being lucksacks when the game was yours to win and you blew it.
I've never thought to do this type of analysis with a new set, that's a really good way of looking at things. Hope you don't let it go to your head, but your articles are consistently among the best Limited content on the web. And the podcast is great, too. Just want you to know your efforts are appreciated!
Oh, and keep the Ollie stories coming! My son is 5 right now, still a bit young to actually get the rules, but he loves to look at the cards and find the pictures that he likes. And he loves any X spell like Fireball, because "the X beats everything!" Looking forward to when I can start teaching him to play for real.
I'm also a player that has started Magic Online after playing the card game in the mid-'90's. Recently I've put together a deck for Classic Tribal Format using Horrors. Because of (Nemesis of Reason)and (Guiltfeeder) it's got a major mill component. I have so say that I haven't had any complaints about playing a mill deck. It could be because it's a lot easier to stop mill coming from a creature then a spell, or maybe because it's something different than the usual tribes that dominate the format. Or maybe it's because it almost never wins. :P
I'd much rather play the occasional mill deck as something different rather then facing vampires or goblins or soldiers or (flavor of the week) decks over and over again.
I'd probably only play the zendikons on fetch lands or the does something when it comes into pl...ugh, enters the battlefield lands. And the former is not really a factor in limited.
... if it was me, to be exact. I had someone burn over 40 cards from my deck by turn 4, and so it was far easier to quit when I know I have no way to win than to play out a losing game. Anyhow, I usually quit when a deck archetype in the casual room obviously belongs in the tournament practice room. The best analogy I can put this to is, "You brought a knife to a gun fight." I just concede such games, because I can, and the result would have been no different and I don't waste my time playing it out. That said, I don't think a mill deck is inappropriate or deserving of any hate in the casual room, there are no such tourney archetypes that fit your homebrew deck, but if I was one of the one's the quit early, I did so because it was a game that was pretty much over at that point. Also, I don't abuse other players, that's just stupid. It's just a game, you get no significant lifetime advantages or disadvantages from winning or losing a single game in the casual room.
The aim of my argument is not (and far from that) to disclude any respectful player. As MTG enthusiast, I hope many players will join MTGO. And even I am much more often in TP room than in casual room, i think the casual room is a strategic & important area we have to support.
The casual room should stay open to the largest variety of player. As everybody, I have been a noob (I still am with some decks/formats), I have had very few cards, I did numerous mistakes and I reached success also.
I only think that to stay open to the largest part of the community, the casual room should allow any kind of strategy, colors & kind of deck. If you know that the deck you want to play is unable to win vs discard/mill/combo (or any other strategy), the simpliest way to keep your game fun is to tell it in the comment area you can fill when you create your game (like "no mill, no counter"). I respect that, no judgement in any way about that. Everybody is free to have fun in the manner he(she) wants while he(she) stays respectful & fair play. The same case is possible also about intermediate deck as mill seems to be with a comment like "intermediate/strong deck".
All that being said, if a player insists or doesnt read your comment, then either he did a mistake (it could happen) or he's simply harmful and should be bloked as you mention. It happens to me in multiplayer room where i played with a buddy, writing "competitive & team play" as comment. We did numerous of good & enjoyable matches. But once some guys joined and some turns later, just said "you are too stupid, team play really sucks" and *lost connection* leaving 3 players waiting ... Even the spectators said "wow, what's the guy ?". We blocked him as well.
All is a question of respect, fun & fair play, whatever the strategy, the value of the cards or the playstyle. That my view of mtg and what i wanted to express in my argument.
Edit : Andy, welcome back, and enjoy your mill deck !!
Hi Godot - thanks for this article which I found to be loaded with useful material. I am about to go to my first pre-release this weekend and have never played Draft or Sealed before so any material like this that offers a sensible way of making evaluations on the relative merits of new cards is invaluable - great job.
Keep up the good work on the 'Limited Resources' podcast - I've never played Limited either(!) and yet I have learned so much that has helped me find my feet in Standard by listening to your show that I am already a dedicated listener!
Yeah I think it is a tactic for some players. I played one guy in the Momir tourney who would have probably been banned if I reported his behavior. But my own (admittedly twisted) pov is that he is the one that suffers more from his bad attitude. I was annoyed and he did win, but that is momir, you never know what is going to happen. I don't credit his tactics for him winning but I do think at some point in the future he may pay for that. My personal response to such is to ignore the person and move on. Thankfully this is very easy to do in casual but sadly a bit harder in tourney. Still, victory is the best revenge so if they are being abusive as long as it does not disrupt your ability to win why should you care? And if you are more by the book you can report them for added benefit.
Ryan, great as always, If I liven in Seattle as opposed to Pennsylvania I'd so be there. Ollie's progression as a magic player is a heart warming story, and your pride as a father is very apparent. Keep up with the good work on both Waiting for Godot, and Limited Resources. Both I found are great for beginners who I have pointed your way and those who are more experienced. Keep up fantastic work!
-Jason
I whole heartedly agree.
Last nite while playing Oath of druids in the classic DE I was matched up with RDW in rd1. While RDW is ussally a match up you sweat like ADN there is always a good chance you can assemble your combo b4 they burn you out. However my opponent had the nutz cards in his sb to help win a bad match up. there were karakas (land tap to bounce a legend) forbbiden orchards ( to give me guys) and greater gargadon to sac his own dudes from my orchards. after a lopng intense g3 where we both had at one point 9 orchard tokens i had to tell him how much i liked his sb. if he hadent of drawn 16 lands in g3 i surely would of lost. and he responeded enthusiasticaly to my compliment making me feel good as well.
Hey now! I ran a great NYC live action World of Darkness game. Sure we got a few "emo" kids but mostly the players were goths, or punks or like me gamers. I object to that characterization. Now I admit that the flavor has changed a bit since then and now adays vampires are all sparkly and ridiculous, but really that experience you had was atypical. Many of the players I knew were fairly happy, fun people who enjoyed the campiness of playing "evil bloodsucking minions of darkness". Now that said I have no excuse for not owning Nocturnus other than I don't own lots of good cards.
On to the sphinx tribal...I saw some smash face games where AJ just rolled his opponents.
By the way...you guys seem like you could use a good sound editor to take out the prerecording recording. (Did you intend to have you conversation at the beginning played back for us before you said hello?)
Thanks for the insight. I like your honesty concerning your skill and place in the game. I'm short on budget too, so I mostly draft swiss.
While I had very enjoyable games in swiss, sometimes swiss goes horribly wrong and you run into decks far better than your own, though you never saw THESE cards.
I had once a draft in my local shop, and the seating was such that two unexperienced drafters, both quite new to the game, passed to the local "pro". I was sure he would get a ridiculous deck due to misevaluations of the poor new players. And guess what - he ended up playing some sort of black red aggro "still had all these" Deck and swept everybody with triple burst lightning, 2 or 3 geopedes and vampire nighthawk (which, he pointed out, got as third pick.)
While I think that often swiss comes down to a perfectly normal draft, I suspect it can go wrong in exactly that way.
Or maybe I'm just a bad player and ranting. Not sure :-)
A fine article as per usual, though you need to work a little on your syntax. The BRW deck seems very self-sufficient. Have you tried it in a larger arena?
It is indeed great fun. One thing that came in particularily useful was Akroma's Memorial, because a flying hasty first striking trampling vigilant protected creature with power greater than the number of lands you control is good times.
P1P3 and P1P6 you had a shot at 2 Windrider Eels... aren't 4/4 fliers good any more?
I just whipped up a Rosheen deck with all the red/green/colorless X spells in my collection. Got lots of land ramp to help make those X's even bigger. Mage Slayer + big X creatures = ouch, add Sigil of Distinction for a really big ouch. Also put a Valakut and some landfally baloths in there to take advantage of all the lands hitting the table.
It's pretty fun for a casual deck.
This was a great article. I think the popularity percentages match my feelings about decks and the reason why I never ended up venturing into a Standard DE with Valakut despite having all the cards, it just doesn't seem powerful. Looks like I should get over that and sleeve up (digitally that is) the little bastards.
Interesting. I've been playing and advocating Valakut decks in standard for quite some time. Now I can point people in this direction and tell them to look at the precentages :)
I would have to say Pack 3 Pick 1 was completely wrong, you most definitely should've gone with the tarn there.
Stuff I would have done differently:
Pack 2 pick 3: I would proberly have taken the Mob. It is splashable (so someone WILL pick it) and can be played quite fast. With a (big bit) of luck the baloth would even cycle (since it is not as splashable). Futheremore I havnt played with the mob and would like to try.
Pack 2 pick 4: Oran-rief. You are nearly monogreen (also) at that point and the ability to get your creatures away from two thoughness is very strong.
The crypt ripper pick was just wrong.
Futheremore I would have played grazing over maradur, since 3 lands is not enough to get maradur down in the early game and harrow doesnt matter for a agro creature. Futheremore you knew that most ppl wasnt in blue nor green so the fear wasn't that important.
I would also have played the shampler (or only played the warrior) in that last turn over the turntimber since Marsh Casualties would be a blowout.
I prefer swiss to 4-3-2-2 to 8-4 since I figure that I will end up with more packs in the long run even with a winrate of about 2/3 in either swiss or 4-3-2-2 and I am not sure that I am good enough for 8-4. I do have a rating of around 1830 though, mainly on the back of Tempest, Lorwyn and sealed.
Great article. Move aside Paul Jordan.
Regarding the Scute mob comment, Scute mob can keep growing beyond 5/5. to 9/9 13/13
i can't watch that rd2 last game match - it makes me too sad :( you shoulda used ur turn 3 mana - suspend ancestral, cast jitte. if he has hellspark, so be it. by not doing that - you pretty much blanked ur hand of jitte/ancestral/repeal, etc.
I really don't like all the complaining in round 2. As Fragoel2 said, you lost it because you waited too long for the mistbind. If you play it during upkeep or after attackers you eat some burn at worst, clique his mana down, and have 4 lands with you jitte swinging. Don't whine about people being lucksacks when the game was yours to win and you blew it.
I've never thought to do this type of analysis with a new set, that's a really good way of looking at things. Hope you don't let it go to your head, but your articles are consistently among the best Limited content on the web. And the podcast is great, too. Just want you to know your efforts are appreciated!
Oh, and keep the Ollie stories coming! My son is 5 right now, still a bit young to actually get the rules, but he loves to look at the cards and find the pictures that he likes. And he loves any X spell like Fireball, because "the X beats everything!" Looking forward to when I can start teaching him to play for real.
I'm also a player that has started Magic Online after playing the card game in the mid-'90's. Recently I've put together a deck for Classic Tribal Format using Horrors. Because of (Nemesis of Reason)and (Guiltfeeder) it's got a major mill component. I have so say that I haven't had any complaints about playing a mill deck. It could be because it's a lot easier to stop mill coming from a creature then a spell, or maybe because it's something different than the usual tribes that dominate the format. Or maybe it's because it almost never wins. :P
I'd much rather play the occasional mill deck as something different rather then facing vampires or goblins or soldiers or (flavor of the week) decks over and over again.
But it is not the silver bullet everyone is looking for. Neither Is 'Fae'. Good article, though. Thank you.
I'd probably only play the zendikons on fetch lands or the does something when it comes into pl...ugh, enters the battlefield lands. And the former is not really a factor in limited.
I love your articles man. Awesome!
... if it was me, to be exact. I had someone burn over 40 cards from my deck by turn 4, and so it was far easier to quit when I know I have no way to win than to play out a losing game. Anyhow, I usually quit when a deck archetype in the casual room obviously belongs in the tournament practice room. The best analogy I can put this to is, "You brought a knife to a gun fight." I just concede such games, because I can, and the result would have been no different and I don't waste my time playing it out. That said, I don't think a mill deck is inappropriate or deserving of any hate in the casual room, there are no such tourney archetypes that fit your homebrew deck, but if I was one of the one's the quit early, I did so because it was a game that was pretty much over at that point. Also, I don't abuse other players, that's just stupid. It's just a game, you get no significant lifetime advantages or disadvantages from winning or losing a single game in the casual room.
Seriously, we need to police our own and set a good example...
The aim of my argument is not (and far from that) to disclude any respectful player. As MTG enthusiast, I hope many players will join MTGO. And even I am much more often in TP room than in casual room, i think the casual room is a strategic & important area we have to support.
The casual room should stay open to the largest variety of player. As everybody, I have been a noob (I still am with some decks/formats), I have had very few cards, I did numerous mistakes and I reached success also.
I only think that to stay open to the largest part of the community, the casual room should allow any kind of strategy, colors & kind of deck. If you know that the deck you want to play is unable to win vs discard/mill/combo (or any other strategy), the simpliest way to keep your game fun is to tell it in the comment area you can fill when you create your game (like "no mill, no counter"). I respect that, no judgement in any way about that. Everybody is free to have fun in the manner he(she) wants while he(she) stays respectful & fair play. The same case is possible also about intermediate deck as mill seems to be with a comment like "intermediate/strong deck".
All that being said, if a player insists or doesnt read your comment, then either he did a mistake (it could happen) or he's simply harmful and should be bloked as you mention. It happens to me in multiplayer room where i played with a buddy, writing "competitive & team play" as comment. We did numerous of good & enjoyable matches. But once some guys joined and some turns later, just said "you are too stupid, team play really sucks" and *lost connection* leaving 3 players waiting ... Even the spectators said "wow, what's the guy ?". We blocked him as well.
All is a question of respect, fun & fair play, whatever the strategy, the value of the cards or the playstyle. That my view of mtg and what i wanted to express in my argument.
Edit : Andy, welcome back, and enjoy your mill deck !!
Hi Godot - thanks for this article which I found to be loaded with useful material. I am about to go to my first pre-release this weekend and have never played Draft or Sealed before so any material like this that offers a sensible way of making evaluations on the relative merits of new cards is invaluable - great job.
Keep up the good work on the 'Limited Resources' podcast - I've never played Limited either(!) and yet I have learned so much that has helped me find my feet in Standard by listening to your show that I am already a dedicated listener!
Yeah I think it is a tactic for some players. I played one guy in the Momir tourney who would have probably been banned if I reported his behavior. But my own (admittedly twisted) pov is that he is the one that suffers more from his bad attitude. I was annoyed and he did win, but that is momir, you never know what is going to happen. I don't credit his tactics for him winning but I do think at some point in the future he may pay for that. My personal response to such is to ignore the person and move on. Thankfully this is very easy to do in casual but sadly a bit harder in tourney. Still, victory is the best revenge so if they are being abusive as long as it does not disrupt your ability to win why should you care? And if you are more by the book you can report them for added benefit.
Ryan, great as always, If I liven in Seattle as opposed to Pennsylvania I'd so be there. Ollie's progression as a magic player is a heart warming story, and your pride as a father is very apparent. Keep up with the good work on both Waiting for Godot, and Limited Resources. Both I found are great for beginners who I have pointed your way and those who are more experienced. Keep up fantastic work!
-Jason