Yeah it was a risk playing the Blademaster in a tri coloured deck. I was lucky in most of the games I played to have a EBT land followed by a plains. The fetch lands do solve this issue though if you are willing to lose the life and pay the extra cash for them.
R1G2 where you're equipping either blademaster or lynx with a machete, you don't mention disfigure as a possibility? I believe I'd've equipped lynx for this very reason, and am curious about why you don't consider it? Disfigure on blademaster in response to the equip seems like it'd've been a bit of a blowout?
Something I noticed while playing Oathline vs Oathline games. While they weren't mirror, Helm was a very frightening thing to see on the other side of the table, regardless of whether Leyline was in play or not.
Oath v Oath games can be very slow games, where one person might just barely have a slight advantage than the other in terms of life and one spirit token slips through once per round doing 1 damage. In games like that, when I'm trying to do 20 damage with the only 1-2 spirit tokens given to me, we're both low on Oaths, and Whiffy Penguin has Helm out, I am shatting myself each time he uses that thing on me. He eventually did steal Iona from my deck, and might have won if he had gotten it out 2-3 turns earlier (before he was knocked down to 1 life).
Understandably, I don't think many of us could seriously consider Helm alone to be "anti-oath" tech, but when it's in play, it has some serious psychological impact. I would have spent any resource i had (Flash of Insight, tutors, whatever) into destroying the helms (sans leyline) that I faced off against, given the cards and opportunity, instead of using them to secure my position for a counter war.
i have been haveing a good time on modo all day making all sorts of flavors of allies there fun to play as long as you dont mind clicking ok lol v nice article
I'm going to have to come back to this series of articles after Dec 27th and we get a bunch of free avatars. I'm hoping to pickup the Necropotence avatar during that event. *knock on wood*
The blademaster makes your curve really awkward, you're never going to cast it turn two. The game 1 report is exactly what I'm talking about... that hand was an obvious mulligan given a deck with 2 plains and a bunch of EBT lands.
The fact is Allies with only this one set is lacking. Going three colors screws the mana base and going two colors screws the available Ally options. Very powerful when all the cards align perfectly. Pretty weak given even normal draws.
This inspired me to create my first 100 CS deck. I loved the number of truly cheap and interesting cards found in these decks. I hobbled together a list that, after rough calculations, should cost between 7 and 15 ticks. Will it be competitive? Probably not. But it should be a lot of fun.
In regards to shieldmate's blessing, wouldn't Ondu Cleric fit nicely in that slot? I mean, It wouldnt save your creatures and it isnt an Instant, but it is a low cost ally to trigger all your other ones, and it can single handedly beat a 2-lacerator opening provided you drop enough allies. Nobody wants to waste feast of blood on an Ondu cleric.
This article really got me interested in zendikar block constructed!. There are some realy nice cards to build around. Its amazing that day of judgement is availible for block. And so many availible decks, and no jund=)
I think that the best way to handle "classic tribal" is to ban non-creature spells that are not legal in extended. It's silly not to be able to play with all the creatures in the format for your sliver deck, etc, but it's also silly to have game be about Leyline/Helm combos or the amazing Sulemain combo.
You'd still need to have clamp banned. And possibly you'd need to ban Goblin Lackey and Goblin Recruiter. But that should be it for a banned list, and there's plenty of ext legal comboes left (Dark Depths, Hypergenesis).
... and the article is awesome. A lot of work so i cant be online as much as i would like but i still have a look to the articles and this one is probably one of the best i recently rade.
Big up & go on !
I noticed that Freeform is on the list of Specialty Formats you can vote for. What exactly would a Freeform 8-man look like, I wonder? Time to break out my $2 uncounterable win on turn zero deck.
What event are you guys talking about?
Rite of Replication is a good idea, I'll try running the deck with this and see how it plays out.
Yeah it was a risk playing the Blademaster in a tri coloured deck. I was lucky in most of the games I played to have a EBT land followed by a plains. The fetch lands do solve this issue though if you are willing to lose the life and pay the extra cash for them.
I agree I'm sure we will see something in the next set to bring them up to the power level of the Vampires and Kor
R1G2 where you're equipping either blademaster or lynx with a machete, you don't mention disfigure as a possibility? I believe I'd've equipped lynx for this very reason, and am curious about why you don't consider it? Disfigure on blademaster in response to the equip seems like it'd've been a bit of a blowout?
Good article, except for the mistake, spelling, and grammar errors. But I must really be poor if a $26 deck is considered budget. >.<
I personally like Allies, but I don't think they will really become competitive until the next set is released.
Its Kicked not kickered its just very annoying to read kickered
Something I noticed while playing Oathline vs Oathline games. While they weren't mirror, Helm was a very frightening thing to see on the other side of the table, regardless of whether Leyline was in play or not.
Oath v Oath games can be very slow games, where one person might just barely have a slight advantage than the other in terms of life and one spirit token slips through once per round doing 1 damage. In games like that, when I'm trying to do 20 damage with the only 1-2 spirit tokens given to me, we're both low on Oaths, and Whiffy Penguin has Helm out, I am shatting myself each time he uses that thing on me. He eventually did steal Iona from my deck, and might have won if he had gotten it out 2-3 turns earlier (before he was knocked down to 1 life).
Understandably, I don't think many of us could seriously consider Helm alone to be "anti-oath" tech, but when it's in play, it has some serious psychological impact. I would have spent any resource i had (Flash of Insight, tutors, whatever) into destroying the helms (sans leyline) that I faced off against, given the cards and opportunity, instead of using them to secure my position for a counter war.
i have been haveing a good time on modo all day making all sorts of flavors of allies there fun to play as long as you dont mind clicking ok lol v nice article
Yeah! I'm looking forward to that tournament too. I actually wrote my next article in response to it.
The pick for a U/W deck is easily Shepherd. If you were in R/W, it would be a lot closer and may push lynx over the top depending on your curve.
I'm going to have to come back to this series of articles after Dec 27th and we get a bunch of free avatars. I'm hoping to pickup the Necropotence avatar during that event. *knock on wood*
The blademaster makes your curve really awkward, you're never going to cast it turn two. The game 1 report is exactly what I'm talking about... that hand was an obvious mulligan given a deck with 2 plains and a bunch of EBT lands.
The fact is Allies with only this one set is lacking. Going three colors screws the mana base and going two colors screws the available Ally options. Very powerful when all the cards align perfectly. Pretty weak given even normal draws.
Congratulations! really insightful article, must have taken a lot of time and effort to put it together!
This inspired me to create my first 100 CS deck. I loved the number of truly cheap and interesting cards found in these decks. I hobbled together a list that, after rough calculations, should cost between 7 and 15 ticks. Will it be competitive? Probably not. But it should be a lot of fun.
I forgot to mention it, but rite of replication seems like a solid choice for this deck.
In regards to shieldmate's blessing, wouldn't Ondu Cleric fit nicely in that slot? I mean, It wouldnt save your creatures and it isnt an Instant, but it is a low cost ally to trigger all your other ones, and it can single handedly beat a 2-lacerator opening provided you drop enough allies. Nobody wants to waste feast of blood on an Ondu cleric.
I would prefer to see another draft walk through. I love your excellent analysis.
This article really got me interested in zendikar block constructed!. There are some realy nice cards to build around. Its amazing that day of judgement is availible for block. And so many availible decks, and no jund=)
after running 12ish weeks of a classic tribal pre, the banned list is dumb, but not the classic part. Classic is what makes it fun.
I think that the best way to handle "classic tribal" is to ban non-creature spells that are not legal in extended. It's silly not to be able to play with all the creatures in the format for your sliver deck, etc, but it's also silly to have game be about Leyline/Helm combos or the amazing Sulemain combo.
You'd still need to have clamp banned. And possibly you'd need to ban Goblin Lackey and Goblin Recruiter. But that should be it for a banned list, and there's plenty of ext legal comboes left (Dark Depths, Hypergenesis).
... and the article is awesome. A lot of work so i cant be online as much as i would like but i still have a look to the articles and this one is probably one of the best i recently rade.
Big up & go on !
hands down the best part of this article was the summary on the front page
I noticed that Freeform is on the list of Specialty Formats you can vote for. What exactly would a Freeform 8-man look like, I wonder? Time to break out my $2 uncounterable win on turn zero deck.