Heya! Incredible! Being a poison sliver maniac, I really like the idea of poisonous 6 on my slivers :P I'm gonna get the cards for this really soon, Thx for sharing =D
Cool article man, I like the TE deck but I'm having a very hard time believing it's as good against Goblins as you say it is. Where were the Sparksmiths and Lightning Bolts/Chain Lightnings?
Steamworks is sweet too but why 3x Remove Soul when there are so many better counterspells? The 1x Skred seems out of place too since you have no way to fetch it.
If you have additional methods to pull cards from the GY, more dredge works. I was using Stinkweed Imps for a while, but found their utility to be somewhat lacking unless Tortured Existence was on the field. I usually found myself going for Brownscales, anyways, since they bring life and can be used for the same purpse as the imp.
The elders in my list are currently my flex spots. I haven't really tried Gorgons too extensively, so perhaps I'll give them a try.
If you go mono black, you might also consider Trespasser il-Vec as an outlet. They have same fragility as the imps, have evasion if you need it, but do more damage and have the bonus of being able to block once you're past threshold.
I think the golgari rot farm is really a waste in this deck, you might be better off with some cycling lands, at least they can help by adding more dredge opportunities. I was also surprised that not even 1-2 tuskers made it in the deck, the card advantage can really tip the scales in your favor- not to mention the ability to dredge from cycling it.
Amar - My beef with the ninja is you're jumping through so many hoops to just make him playable. If you want him to hit T3 from an unblocked 1/1 you're basically planning to remove every creature that can block it -- which is every creature. Against goblins this is simply not an option, so already he's immediately a poor meta choice. Then if you want to make the card actually worth the effort, he has to stay in play and keep hitting. Now inevitably you need counters to keep him alive and additional removal to keep to board clear for him. This is an unrealistic expectation. Sure, sometimes you'll be able to have a ninja on the board pinging away and you'll win off it, but it's far more likely to just fall flat. Instead of all that, you could simply play far more powerful draw spells and save your counters / removals for the spells that really effect the game state.
I will say however that your trick with blastoderm and the ninja is a unique twist and actually the first of its kind that cannot be done better by simply using momentary blink. A 5/5 shroud creature is likely to get hits in, and refreshing his fade counters isn't half bad.
Force - Well we've been discussing in the forums so I won't repeat what I said here.
PDXOR - Interesting list. The draggers are good, I liked running them in my TE control decks. I'll try them out, maybe in a raider / leech spot. I've actually been testing a monoB list with a full set of gorgon recluse (which I love), gorgers, 3 rotting rats, putrid imp as my mongrel replacement, more dredge and more GY fetch with 3of call to the netherworld. I really like brain gorgers, but my only beef is they're a bit lackluster against goblins. They work fine in all the other matchups however.
Rites does look good too. You'll be getting usually one, maybe two (free rootwallas) madness creatures in play and extra lands.
I've found the Draggers to be quite useful. They can be pitched and unearthed for an alpha strike, or cycled then returned with something later, etc. Another possibility in this vein are Rotting Rats. Pitch it, unearth, force your opponent to discard and use it as a madness outlet yourself.
Likewise, the Gorgers serve a couple of purposes. They have a beefy front end. At worst, they work as a Diabolic Edict and forces your opponent to sac a creature. I've found most people will sac once, maybe twice until they figure out they'll keep coming back.
If you're thinking of using Mulch, you might consider using Rite of Spring in its stead. It has more synergy with the concept of the deck, and you can choose what goes to the graveyard. I'm not sure about the strength of either, as I haven't tested them yet, but Rite would appear to be the better fit.
RDW was one of my original choices but with the prevalance of Iona and Oath decks running mono seems like its asking to be blown out...unless oath just is over-represented by the amount of coverage it has gotten.
I know I am talking alot, but I'm bored. Further exploring the realm of classic online (I know it's not legacy), we can find RDW is a really cheap deck to venture into for a new player
Take this list ran by eddie112 in a classic DE on 1-16-10
It's not just 200 for additional thresh, like I said, not including sideboard cards, plus you have to have spend the original 750+ in order to play those color combinations. Once you get the deck skeleton you can venture into Bant for right around another 90 I am assuming, add Nobles (32), add Progenitus (9), add Natural Order (33), Meddling Mage (12), Pridemage (less than 1?). Once you get that shell venturing into other decks isn't that costly.......it's getting the original shell of 750 that is a huge hill to climb.
Biggest drawback of dredge decks imo are they are unfun to play or play against. From a card standpoint there can be tons of hate directed their way. Wasteland, Pithing Needle, Leyline of the Void, Extirpate, Wheel of Sun and Moon, Ravenous Trap, Ghostly Prison, Propaganda.........Did I miss any? But the biggest reason is the first I stated. Most people don't only play decks to win, if that were the case I would think dredge would rear its ugly head more often. I will give dredge players some credit though, I don't think its is the easiest deck to pilot, much like storm it requires precise decisions, again imo.
thats when infest becomes amazing....I played against u/w merfolk the other day and it was a tribal build in a non tribal format. They make good decks though they lose out on the power of going monocolored.
out of curiosity as someone wanting to get into the eternal formats, what is the big drawback o dredge decks? I knwo there tends to be a large amount of hate towards them in sideboards, but what changed to make it not the powerhouse it once was?
So you got me thinking about this whole price thing. I have a buddy who just started playing the game. He has initially started playing pauper mostly because he is just learning the game. He has a huge interest in playing classic since that is what I play and he likes the card interactions from the tourney room games he has watched. He has seemed to take a liking towards thresh type decks (trust me I didn't convince him in anyway lol).
So I decided to take the time today and breakdown these three decks UGB, UGR and UGW Thresh.
After my research here is what I found:
The Current UGB List I am running would cost him $796.05 using Heath's prices because he is da man!
I then took the UGR list and subtracted the cards he would already have, this would cost him an additional $100.30
Then I took the UGW list and subtracted what he would already have, this would cost an additional $104.09.
So Grand Total for him to be able to play all 3 version of Thresh is: $1000.44
Oh by the way these were only basic lists and none included sideboard costs (I'm looking at you Leyline).
I know that the cost of online is cheaper than paper, but when I present this list to him tonight he is going to flat out laugh his butt off.
This is exactly why I think prices need to be lessened. I am not saying giving cards away is necessary, but seriously 1000 bucks to only play 3 version of thresh without sideboards.
I also know dredge is cheap, but seriously dredge SUCKS, plus he doesn't like that mechanic.
My point is this........prices like these do NOT encourage new players to go out and buy cards with the sole purpose of becoming competitive in an already established format. It is extremely intimidating for him to even fathom spending all that money when he has a wife and kids to support.
I guess my next project will be to do price comparing on RDW since it seems to have reared its ugly head again. Maybe even pox, that should cost less than 400 I'd think, then again it doesn't have the merit of thresh nor does it make my heart tingle!
I think you are missing another important part of why standard cards sync up with their paper counterparts (price wise) much better than eternal ones: You can turn std. cards into paper ones, you cannot turn eternal cards into paper ones. This makes a HUGE difference in the price of cards on the secondary market.
something along the lines of "don't know how many people out thiere will be selling paper to play online or will be spending $400 to get in. I can name 4... and thats just here. Online is so much cheaper and as we age as magic players, getting together reg for tournaments becomes less realistic, where if i have a few free hours at home and get the itch... then im instantly playing magic..
I posted the same on PDC forums, but I thought I'd post here as well.
Well this was certainly a vast improvement, from my perspective and in my opinion, than your last article. On the whole, I have to say that I rather liked it.
Before I get started on what it was that I liked, I thought I would sandwich in some of the things that I didn’t like or disagreed with.
First and this is just to nitpick here, when you select a screen shot, it would probably be best to include one that doesn’t have your entire side of the field blocked. In your third screen shot, the one where you are playing in your first 2-man tourney with dead dog, you have a screen shot where WW scooped to you, and I can’t see any reason why he would, from the screen shot that is. The screen shot that you posted doesn’t help display anything or help make your point because you can’t see anything. But that is just a nitpick.
Next, I disagree on sideboarding form. and as I say this I have to make clear that I am saying this from a strictly theoretical perspective, because I have no way to test any of this, but when you describe your match up with Storm, you make the decision, without little explanation, on taking out 2 putrid leeches from the MD. This is something that I don’t understand, because it would be in this match up where I feel that they would shine the brightest. In the classic forum, you made the argument that the whole purpose of the leeches in the deck was to provide an effectively early beater, especially when paired with rancor. Well in a match up where an effective early beater is perhaps needed most, in order to get storm on an effective clock, you board him out. While I do not argue the need for the discard you bring in, I would think that the 2 gorgon recluse that and perhaps 2 brownscales would be a better formula in order to maximize results.
From my experience playing/playing against storm, if they go off and have the time and resources to kill you, it really won’t matter what your life total is, or how many blockers you can produce. They could easily drop 60 goblin tokens or deal 40+ damage with 2 grapeshots, if they have it; gaining 8-10 life during the game will not help you much. Granted it isn’t bad to do as a last result but I feel that you would yield better results is you let your life lapse and try and put them on a quicker clock, a clock that would vastly improve with leech in the deck. Your plan for playing against storm should be, and I believe is, hit them hard and make them discard, and force them into a position where they are more likely to fizzle then reach critical mass, and I believe that leech fits into that theme far more than brownscale or gorgon.
The argument over gorgon over leech should be a short and quick one. Leech come out quicker, can hit harder, and really has no down side against storm. Gorgon’s ability is rather pointless, and if you are trying to abuse his madness with TE, then you more than likely have the game in hand anyway. If your discard spells run thin for whatever reason, you will be far gladder for the clock that leech can provide rather than holding either a brownscale, gorgon in your hand hoping for a TE.
Finally, I strongly disagree with your premise that mono color aggro deck, in particular that of Blue aggro, namely Dark Skies, would roll over in the face of heavy control. I can provide case and point in the form of a deck that I personally ran, and provided below.
DARK SKIES
Classic • Aggro
1st by x_Force_of_Will_x in Classic PDC 8.15 (5-1)
MAINDECK
Creatures
4 Faerie Squadron
4 Latchkey Faerie
4 Pestermite
3 Briarberry Cohort
3 Cloud Sprite
3 Looter il-Kor
3 Ninja of the Deep Hours
2 Spire Golem
2 Wormfang Drake
MATCHUPS
R1: Win vs. White Feather MBC
R2: Win vs. walkerdog Burn Range
R3: Win vs. Boin MBC
R4: Loss vs. Grozathia MUC
T4: Win vs. kehmesis Angelic Evocation
T2: Win vs. Grozathia MUC
MANA SYMBOLS
:u: 38
Total: 38
CASTING COSTS
:1: 11
:2: 14
:3: 6
:4: 7
:6: 2
Avg CMC: 2.42
COMMENTS
No comments have been recorded for this deck.
This deck not only beat went up against 5 control decks in the 6 rounds that were played and lost once, to a bad draw game three if I recall correctly. and these were not scrub players either, but some of the game's best at the time, and I would argue present. boin, kehm, walker and grozathia were all experienced skillful pilots of their control decks but the combination of beats, counters and card advantage was simply too much for them. when played correctly, the deck posted overwhelming results against both MBC and MUC and even beat the tricky decks, like parlor tricks and angelic evocation, which were floating around at the time. Although I am unsure how a skillful pilot would place dark skies today, if the deck had one weakness, it was that of red based decks, at the time decks like goblins burn range, and goblin storm gave the deck some matchup problems. I would further say that it would require some tweaking in order to defeat storm in both main deck and board. but in an age that was dominated by MBC, Dark Skies flew above it. the list above was brilliantly designed by spike, and slightly modified by me, but would be, most likely till this day, my go to deck against a field of MBC/x
The final clarification I would like to point out that kehm's deck was name "steam machine", not "steamworks".
However I agree with your deck list that you posted, I feel that they provide a great cross section of flavor and competitiveness. As someone who enjoys large articles, I found it was on target, in most parts, and informative. your insights to in game situations, in particular with dead dog, where very helpful. I didn’t feel talked down to, as I did the first article, although I understand your reasoning for doing it last article, was a big concern for me, and you effectively remedied that.
Although you leaked the answer in the board ahead of time, I enjoyed the "you make the play" section and look forward to more of the same in the future, especially those where I don’t know the answer already.
Understanding the reserve list, and why it was created, is effectively the same as understanding why WoTC reprints cards. That link explains it very well.
And blau's point was essentially that WoTC doesn't care about the secondary market. That's a very left-handed comment, and I challenge anyone to get a WoTC person to admit that at face value. For example, to say they don't care would mean that if mythic rares were only put in in every 40 packs instead of every 8 and Banesalyer Angel sold for $250 they wouldn't really care, so long as they sold the same (or more) packs. That's ludicrous, of course, because the very notion of doing so would affect their pack sales, but even if it were possible to make that scenario happen, I guarantee you that's not how Wizards works.
The disconnect here is that people somehow think that just because a card is no longer in print that it's value is meaningless to Wizards. The price itself isn't nearly so important as the participation. Even people who play Legacy *still buy new cards* - and that's where it connects. If a huger number of overpriced cards are keeping people from playing the format at all, then it's WoTC's problem - a community of people wanting to play a format but can't because they are too expensive = bad. Wizards is very much into community building because it very much affects their sales - even if that community isn't primarily concerned with playing Standard/Block/Limited.
But if the price of The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale is keeping a lot of people from playing Land.dec, that is NOT a problem for WoTC - either go find another competitive deck to play (of which there are many) or good for you for having a $250 card.
In other words - big community = good. Small community = bad. Individual prices of certain cards are not nearly as important as how many people can afford to play the format in an enjoyable manner.
For me the key to loving ninja is enjoying it's card return feature and treading the Ophidian feature as a bonus. I don't get to play as much as I'd like, and I deckbuild even less. But I have been enamored for months with the appeal of just recasting the efficient 2-for-1 creatures. And that's what T2 Rats-> T3 Ninja does, gaining some nice fast card advantage.
The risk is that this isn't a super-consistent play. Not in Teachings, being light on creatures and non-beatdown focused. However, the ability to demolish midrange by landing T3 Ninja and clearing the way with removal or counters ... that's strong enough to justify the risk.
Oh? cool. I no longer have Access, Excel and Word so I have to work in Open Office when I use files for those programs but that is something I rarely find a need for. Mainly just db manipulation on occasion. I am guessing that is a feature of the newer Excel. I don't remember graphics like that with the old one. Cool feature.
And by tantamount you mean paramount I assume. :D. But I think he was saying that the casual person looking at WotC's reprint policy may get the wrong idea about based on what they have done with paper, particularly without being into mtgo at all. Or maybe not. Just my guess. If I am not mistaken cards have been reprinted off the reserved list a few times since it was made. Essentially they can move cards off of it any time they want. They choose not to for the most part because after Chronicles there was a huge outcry. (Well this is MY limited understanding of the history any way.)
Thanks guys for the comments. LE: It can be very brutal (and fun)...thanks to AJ for the Storm Familiars idea it gets some pretty quick cascades going and even a little mana hose does not stop it. Kalandine Ok cool. Meanwhile I encountered yet another variation on WhiteBlue Merfolk using all the funky tap a merfolk or tap two merfolk to do x. Guy won with 30 or so 1/1s on the board without a lord in sight. Removing the special monsters wasn't sufficient as he kept bringing more out.
Heya! Incredible! Being a poison sliver maniac, I really like the idea of poisonous 6 on my slivers :P I'm gonna get the cards for this really soon, Thx for sharing =D
Really enjoyed the article. Would love to read more of the same... Play test results were a worthy inclusion...
Cool article man, I like the TE deck but I'm having a very hard time believing it's as good against Goblins as you say it is. Where were the Sparksmiths and Lightning Bolts/Chain Lightnings?
Steamworks is sweet too but why 3x Remove Soul when there are so many better counterspells? The 1x Skred seems out of place too since you have no way to fetch it.
Hope to see more of this.
If you have additional methods to pull cards from the GY, more dredge works. I was using Stinkweed Imps for a while, but found their utility to be somewhat lacking unless Tortured Existence was on the field. I usually found myself going for Brownscales, anyways, since they bring life and can be used for the same purpse as the imp.
The elders in my list are currently my flex spots. I haven't really tried Gorgons too extensively, so perhaps I'll give them a try.
If you go mono black, you might also consider Trespasser il-Vec as an outlet. They have same fragility as the imps, have evasion if you need it, but do more damage and have the bonus of being able to block once you're past threshold.
I think the golgari rot farm is really a waste in this deck, you might be better off with some cycling lands, at least they can help by adding more dredge opportunities. I was also surprised that not even 1-2 tuskers made it in the deck, the card advantage can really tip the scales in your favor- not to mention the ability to dredge from cycling it.
Amar - My beef with the ninja is you're jumping through so many hoops to just make him playable. If you want him to hit T3 from an unblocked 1/1 you're basically planning to remove every creature that can block it -- which is every creature. Against goblins this is simply not an option, so already he's immediately a poor meta choice. Then if you want to make the card actually worth the effort, he has to stay in play and keep hitting. Now inevitably you need counters to keep him alive and additional removal to keep to board clear for him. This is an unrealistic expectation. Sure, sometimes you'll be able to have a ninja on the board pinging away and you'll win off it, but it's far more likely to just fall flat. Instead of all that, you could simply play far more powerful draw spells and save your counters / removals for the spells that really effect the game state.
I will say however that your trick with blastoderm and the ninja is a unique twist and actually the first of its kind that cannot be done better by simply using momentary blink. A 5/5 shroud creature is likely to get hits in, and refreshing his fade counters isn't half bad.
Force - Well we've been discussing in the forums so I won't repeat what I said here.
PDXOR - Interesting list. The draggers are good, I liked running them in my TE control decks. I'll try them out, maybe in a raider / leech spot. I've actually been testing a monoB list with a full set of gorgon recluse (which I love), gorgers, 3 rotting rats, putrid imp as my mongrel replacement, more dredge and more GY fetch with 3of call to the netherworld. I really like brain gorgers, but my only beef is they're a bit lackluster against goblins. They work fine in all the other matchups however.
Rites does look good too. You'll be getting usually one, maybe two (free rootwallas) madness creatures in play and extra lands.
I've been playing around with a similar Madness deck for a little over a week now. My current list:
Land:
10 Swamp
4 Forest
4 Golgari Rot Farm
Creatures:
4 Vampire Hounds
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Grave Scrabblers
4 Brain Gorgers
4 Golgari Brownscale
4 Viscera Dragger
2 Wickerbough Elder
Other:
4 Tortured Existence
4 Echoing Decay
4 Ichor Slick
-------------------------------
I've found the Draggers to be quite useful. They can be pitched and unearthed for an alpha strike, or cycled then returned with something later, etc. Another possibility in this vein are Rotting Rats. Pitch it, unearth, force your opponent to discard and use it as a madness outlet yourself.
Likewise, the Gorgers serve a couple of purposes. They have a beefy front end. At worst, they work as a Diabolic Edict and forces your opponent to sac a creature. I've found most people will sac once, maybe twice until they figure out they'll keep coming back.
If you're thinking of using Mulch, you might consider using Rite of Spring in its stead. It has more synergy with the concept of the deck, and you can choose what goes to the graveyard. I'm not sure about the strength of either, as I haven't tested them yet, but Rite would appear to be the better fit.
You can get that information at CQ. OAth is the most represented Deck in the format amongst placing decks in DEs and PEs
RDW was one of my original choices but with the prevalance of Iona and Oath decks running mono seems like its asking to be blown out...unless oath just is over-represented by the amount of coverage it has gotten.
I know I am talking alot, but I'm bored. Further exploring the realm of classic online (I know it's not legacy), we can find RDW is a really cheap deck to venture into for a new player
Take this list ran by eddie112 in a classic DE on 1-16-10
17 Mountain (1)
4 Wasteland (40)
1 Strip Mine (10)
4 Keldon Marauders (.50)
4 Chain Lightning (1.60)
4 Fireblast (10.00) - Seriously 10 bucks, dang
4 Flames of the Blood Hand (5.00)
4 Incinerate (.60)
4 Lava Spike (.48)
4 Lightning Bolt (.80)
2 Price of Progress (5.50)
2 Relic of Progenitus (.10)
4 Rift Bolt (.48)
2 Volcanic Fallout (.80)
SB
4 Pithing Needle (3.60)
4 Pyroblast (2.80)
3 Pyrostatic Pillar (1.20)
2 Relic of Progenitus (.10)
3 Smash to Smithereens (.09)
So basically for about 84 bucks you can run RDW, which btw has had some 4-0 and 3-1 showing in the DE.
It's not just 200 for additional thresh, like I said, not including sideboard cards, plus you have to have spend the original 750+ in order to play those color combinations. Once you get the deck skeleton you can venture into Bant for right around another 90 I am assuming, add Nobles (32), add Progenitus (9), add Natural Order (33), Meddling Mage (12), Pridemage (less than 1?). Once you get that shell venturing into other decks isn't that costly.......it's getting the original shell of 750 that is a huge hill to climb.
Biggest drawback of dredge decks imo are they are unfun to play or play against. From a card standpoint there can be tons of hate directed their way. Wasteland, Pithing Needle, Leyline of the Void, Extirpate, Wheel of Sun and Moon, Ravenous Trap, Ghostly Prison, Propaganda.........Did I miss any? But the biggest reason is the first I stated. Most people don't only play decks to win, if that were the case I would think dredge would rear its ugly head more often. I will give dredge players some credit though, I don't think its is the easiest deck to pilot, much like storm it requires precise decisions, again imo.
No successful modo bot is going to have prices more that slightly above the prices of other bots. SCG are quite a lot above e-bays prices.
thats when infest becomes amazing....I played against u/w merfolk the other day and it was a tribal build in a non tribal format. They make good decks though they lose out on the power of going monocolored.
out of curiosity as someone wanting to get into the eternal formats, what is the big drawback o dredge decks? I knwo there tends to be a large amount of hate towards them in sideboards, but what changed to make it not the powerhouse it once was?
Still 200$ to play both red and white tresh sounds good
So you got me thinking about this whole price thing. I have a buddy who just started playing the game. He has initially started playing pauper mostly because he is just learning the game. He has a huge interest in playing classic since that is what I play and he likes the card interactions from the tourney room games he has watched. He has seemed to take a liking towards thresh type decks (trust me I didn't convince him in anyway lol).
So I decided to take the time today and breakdown these three decks UGB, UGR and UGW Thresh.
After my research here is what I found:
The Current UGB List I am running would cost him $796.05 using Heath's prices because he is da man!
I then took the UGR list and subtracted the cards he would already have, this would cost him an additional $100.30
Then I took the UGW list and subtracted what he would already have, this would cost an additional $104.09.
So Grand Total for him to be able to play all 3 version of Thresh is: $1000.44
Oh by the way these were only basic lists and none included sideboard costs (I'm looking at you Leyline).
I know that the cost of online is cheaper than paper, but when I present this list to him tonight he is going to flat out laugh his butt off.
This is exactly why I think prices need to be lessened. I am not saying giving cards away is necessary, but seriously 1000 bucks to only play 3 version of thresh without sideboards.
I also know dredge is cheap, but seriously dredge SUCKS, plus he doesn't like that mechanic.
My point is this........prices like these do NOT encourage new players to go out and buy cards with the sole purpose of becoming competitive in an already established format. It is extremely intimidating for him to even fathom spending all that money when he has a wife and kids to support.
I guess my next project will be to do price comparing on RDW since it seems to have reared its ugly head again. Maybe even pox, that should cost less than 400 I'd think, then again it doesn't have the merit of thresh nor does it make my heart tingle!
I think you are missing another important part of why standard cards sync up with their paper counterparts (price wise) much better than eternal ones: You can turn std. cards into paper ones, you cannot turn eternal cards into paper ones. This makes a HUGE difference in the price of cards on the secondary market.
something along the lines of "don't know how many people out thiere will be selling paper to play online or will be spending $400 to get in. I can name 4... and thats just here. Online is so much cheaper and as we age as magic players, getting together reg for tournaments becomes less realistic, where if i have a few free hours at home and get the itch... then im instantly playing magic..
I posted the same on PDC forums, but I thought I'd post here as well.
Well this was certainly a vast improvement, from my perspective and in my opinion, than your last article. On the whole, I have to say that I rather liked it.
Before I get started on what it was that I liked, I thought I would sandwich in some of the things that I didn’t like or disagreed with.
First and this is just to nitpick here, when you select a screen shot, it would probably be best to include one that doesn’t have your entire side of the field blocked. In your third screen shot, the one where you are playing in your first 2-man tourney with dead dog, you have a screen shot where WW scooped to you, and I can’t see any reason why he would, from the screen shot that is. The screen shot that you posted doesn’t help display anything or help make your point because you can’t see anything. But that is just a nitpick.
Next, I disagree on sideboarding form. and as I say this I have to make clear that I am saying this from a strictly theoretical perspective, because I have no way to test any of this, but when you describe your match up with Storm, you make the decision, without little explanation, on taking out 2 putrid leeches from the MD. This is something that I don’t understand, because it would be in this match up where I feel that they would shine the brightest. In the classic forum, you made the argument that the whole purpose of the leeches in the deck was to provide an effectively early beater, especially when paired with rancor. Well in a match up where an effective early beater is perhaps needed most, in order to get storm on an effective clock, you board him out. While I do not argue the need for the discard you bring in, I would think that the 2 gorgon recluse that and perhaps 2 brownscales would be a better formula in order to maximize results.
From my experience playing/playing against storm, if they go off and have the time and resources to kill you, it really won’t matter what your life total is, or how many blockers you can produce. They could easily drop 60 goblin tokens or deal 40+ damage with 2 grapeshots, if they have it; gaining 8-10 life during the game will not help you much. Granted it isn’t bad to do as a last result but I feel that you would yield better results is you let your life lapse and try and put them on a quicker clock, a clock that would vastly improve with leech in the deck. Your plan for playing against storm should be, and I believe is, hit them hard and make them discard, and force them into a position where they are more likely to fizzle then reach critical mass, and I believe that leech fits into that theme far more than brownscale or gorgon.
The argument over gorgon over leech should be a short and quick one. Leech come out quicker, can hit harder, and really has no down side against storm. Gorgon’s ability is rather pointless, and if you are trying to abuse his madness with TE, then you more than likely have the game in hand anyway. If your discard spells run thin for whatever reason, you will be far gladder for the clock that leech can provide rather than holding either a brownscale, gorgon in your hand hoping for a TE.
Finally, I strongly disagree with your premise that mono color aggro deck, in particular that of Blue aggro, namely Dark Skies, would roll over in the face of heavy control. I can provide case and point in the form of a deck that I personally ran, and provided below.
DARK SKIES
Classic • Aggro
1st by x_Force_of_Will_x in Classic PDC 8.15 (5-1)
MAINDECK
Creatures
4 Faerie Squadron
4 Latchkey Faerie
4 Pestermite
3 Briarberry Cohort
3 Cloud Sprite
3 Looter il-Kor
3 Ninja of the Deep Hours
2 Spire Golem
2 Wormfang Drake
Spells
4 Counterspell
4 Memory Lapse
4 Unsummon
Lands
15 Island
3 Dimir Aqueduct
2 Lonely Sandbar
SIDEBOARD
4 Probe
4 Echoing Truth
4 Rootwater Commando
3 Faerie Trickery
MATCHUPS
R1: Win vs. White Feather MBC
R2: Win vs. walkerdog Burn Range
R3: Win vs. Boin MBC
R4: Loss vs. Grozathia MUC
T4: Win vs. kehmesis Angelic Evocation
T2: Win vs. Grozathia MUC
MANA SYMBOLS
:u: 38
Total: 38
CASTING COSTS
:1: 11
:2: 14
:3: 6
:4: 7
:6: 2
Avg CMC: 2.42
COMMENTS
No comments have been recorded for this deck.
This deck not only beat went up against 5 control decks in the 6 rounds that were played and lost once, to a bad draw game three if I recall correctly. and these were not scrub players either, but some of the game's best at the time, and I would argue present. boin, kehm, walker and grozathia were all experienced skillful pilots of their control decks but the combination of beats, counters and card advantage was simply too much for them. when played correctly, the deck posted overwhelming results against both MBC and MUC and even beat the tricky decks, like parlor tricks and angelic evocation, which were floating around at the time. Although I am unsure how a skillful pilot would place dark skies today, if the deck had one weakness, it was that of red based decks, at the time decks like goblins burn range, and goblin storm gave the deck some matchup problems. I would further say that it would require some tweaking in order to defeat storm in both main deck and board. but in an age that was dominated by MBC, Dark Skies flew above it. the list above was brilliantly designed by spike, and slightly modified by me, but would be, most likely till this day, my go to deck against a field of MBC/x
The final clarification I would like to point out that kehm's deck was name "steam machine", not "steamworks".
However I agree with your deck list that you posted, I feel that they provide a great cross section of flavor and competitiveness. As someone who enjoys large articles, I found it was on target, in most parts, and informative. your insights to in game situations, in particular with dead dog, where very helpful. I didn’t feel talked down to, as I did the first article, although I understand your reasoning for doing it last article, was a big concern for me, and you effectively remedied that.
Although you leaked the answer in the board ahead of time, I enjoyed the "you make the play" section and look forward to more of the same in the future, especially those where I don’t know the answer already.
All in all, good work. Impressive article.
Understanding the reserve list, and why it was created, is effectively the same as understanding why WoTC reprints cards. That link explains it very well.
Incidentally, you are slightly off. The Reserve list was made in response to Chronicles and to 4th edition. The only cards ever moved off of it since 2002 as far as I know, were the non-rares back here http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/rb29 I don't know of any cards that have ever violated the policy, and that policy seems entrenched now. It did shift around consistently before that. A good article on history is here: http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/misc/16737_Insider_Trading_Should_Wiz...
And blau's point was essentially that WoTC doesn't care about the secondary market. That's a very left-handed comment, and I challenge anyone to get a WoTC person to admit that at face value. For example, to say they don't care would mean that if mythic rares were only put in in every 40 packs instead of every 8 and Banesalyer Angel sold for $250 they wouldn't really care, so long as they sold the same (or more) packs. That's ludicrous, of course, because the very notion of doing so would affect their pack sales, but even if it were possible to make that scenario happen, I guarantee you that's not how Wizards works.
The disconnect here is that people somehow think that just because a card is no longer in print that it's value is meaningless to Wizards. The price itself isn't nearly so important as the participation. Even people who play Legacy *still buy new cards* - and that's where it connects. If a huger number of overpriced cards are keeping people from playing the format at all, then it's WoTC's problem - a community of people wanting to play a format but can't because they are too expensive = bad. Wizards is very much into community building because it very much affects their sales - even if that community isn't primarily concerned with playing Standard/Block/Limited.
But if the price of The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale is keeping a lot of people from playing Land.dec, that is NOT a problem for WoTC - either go find another competitive deck to play (of which there are many) or good for you for having a $250 card.
In other words - big community = good. Small community = bad. Individual prices of certain cards are not nearly as important as how many people can afford to play the format in an enjoyable manner.
For me the key to loving ninja is enjoying it's card return feature and treading the Ophidian feature as a bonus. I don't get to play as much as I'd like, and I deckbuild even less. But I have been enamored for months with the appeal of just recasting the efficient 2-for-1 creatures. And that's what T2 Rats-> T3 Ninja does, gaining some nice fast card advantage.
The risk is that this isn't a super-consistent play. Not in Teachings, being light on creatures and non-beatdown focused. However, the ability to demolish midrange by landing T3 Ninja and clearing the way with removal or counters ... that's strong enough to justify the risk.
Oh? cool. I no longer have Access, Excel and Word so I have to work in Open Office when I use files for those programs but that is something I rarely find a need for. Mainly just db manipulation on occasion. I am guessing that is a feature of the newer Excel. I don't remember graphics like that with the old one. Cool feature.
And by tantamount you mean paramount I assume. :D. But I think he was saying that the casual person looking at WotC's reprint policy may get the wrong idea about based on what they have done with paper, particularly without being into mtgo at all. Or maybe not. Just my guess. If I am not mistaken cards have been reprinted off the reserved list a few times since it was made. Essentially they can move cards off of it any time they want. They choose not to for the most part because after Chronicles there was a huge outcry. (Well this is MY limited understanding of the history any way.)
Thanks guys for the comments. LE: It can be very brutal (and fun)...thanks to AJ for the Storm Familiars idea it gets some pretty quick cascades going and even a little mana hose does not stop it. Kalandine Ok cool. Meanwhile I encountered yet another variation on WhiteBlue Merfolk using all the funky tap a merfolk or tap two merfolk to do x. Guy won with 30 or so 1/1s on the board without a lord in sight. Removing the special monsters wasn't sufficient as he kept bringing more out.