Your attitutde: Absolutly fantastic to see you picking it up and giving it another go - way to go.
Midrange: PV also had a very interesting analysis about midrange. He said Faeries is not midrange. It can play aggro or control and switch form aggro to midrange when needed. Midrange must always play the role assigned to it. Jund is a lot like Faeries in that it can outrace mono red or can generate more card advantage than the blue control decks.
Junk: Junk was one of the worst performing decks at Worlds (see Paul Jordan's metagame analysis). I gave it a whirl before these results came out and I was disappointed because it was actually true midrange - unlike Jund (cascade being the differentiator). The deck is full of cool things (I played Baneslayer and Ob Nixilis, I love playing splashy cards too) but eventually it falls prey to all the metagame moves that are aiming straight at Jund's heart - call it 'splash damage' if you will. Don't let me discourage you, but I honestly feel that if you want to be a top PT player you must be equally comfortable and enthusiastic about any/and all play styles. I know there are a lot who disagree but, look at results when formats change - Wafo Tapa couldn't lose a game when the format was all about control - now its all about tempo he doesn't make day two (and he is an absolutly brilliant player - just watch him play if you get the chance).
The "Oblivion Ring Angel" is potentially broken. Oblivion Ring can't target itself or target lands. But we don't have the exact wording on that card yet.
lol great podcast. Congratulations AJ on second. I was 4th so its all good. And very nice Sebastian, I actually just posted an article about my version of the Hive Mind combo. Josh published it yesterday shockingly enough. And I agree its awesomely fun. And i do win turn 3/4 consistently though i splash black for spoils of the vault.
I also decided to sac a bit of speed by replacing simian spirit guide with Street Wraith. I have peer throught depths to find accel or the pact and the draw from the street wraith really helps as well. All i need is pact of negation though im thinking that will certainly be a sideboard card.
Great to see you writing here regularly Todd! It was awesome to meet you in Austin (I was the other guy in the PureMTGO t-shirt). You are a very strong player and you add a great tournament point of view to the roster. I loved the article and look forward to next week's!
Lol sorry blau...feel free to cover a non-Pact deck. It certainly wont hurt my feelings or anything. Not to mention the multiplayer aspect would separate it enough i owuld think. Though you may get comments of needz moar pacts or something. Cant wait to read your article though.
not near impossible...it is impossible, check the decklist. Though I may just go 61 cards for the second swamp. With all 8 black fetches i dont see that ruining the deck...heck jamie wakefield did it
Good article, but I must admit that I HATE you!!! Hive Mind was going to be my annoying deck of the week. No pacts in my deck. It was more about just doing odd things with copying spells. It is for a multiplayer game. Imagine my surprise Monday morning when I found out I had to write a new article. lol Guess I will put Hive Mind off for a few weeks.
I'm still getting used to the formatting for articles here. I'll work in some pictures and whatnot in my next article. For this one, I mostly just tried to get something down that I really wanted to talk about. Thanks for reading and keep the comments coming!
I originally had Bloodwitch, but getting BB is very hard, and actually impossible in the current list without Lotus Cobra. She is really good, and I've considered playing more Swamps to fit her in, but I don't think it makes the mana base any better, and usually infinitely worse.
As far as Zealous Persecution is concerned, it deals with Boros's creatures. Most lists are cutting Skyfisher for Hellspark Elemental, which makes it even more potent against their deck, seeing as almost all of their creatures have 1 toughness. They will generally tap out every turn against you, leaving them vulnerable to a mainphased Zealous to kill their Steppe Lynxes and Geopedes.
"Speaking of Emeria Angel, the 4-drop slot is full of incredible threats that are very hard to deal with."
4 Emeria Angel
2 Master of the Wild Hunt
3 Elspeth, Knight Errant
Elspeth is the only one of those cards that is "hard to deal with". Angel and Master are VERY powerful, they also die to everything. If they don't die they usually win the game but to call them hard to deal with is completely false. Not sure if you've noticed but there is a lot of removal being played in standard.
I just don't see this deck consistently beating Jund. I just started playing Standard on MTGO again but in my first 16 matches with Jund I have yet to lose to a Baneslayer. If a Jund deck does heavy on the removal package GW decks relying on big men can not keep up. The number of times I've had an opponent tap out for Baneslayer to have me Deathmark it on my turn is getting up there. Pledge I think is a stronger card versus Jund (though not overall) as very little removal in the deck effects it as opposed to most removal.
That said I think you are correct to not run Purge. Versus most white decks post-board the only things it can target of mine are dragons and elves. Having my opponents Purge a Bloodbraid Elf gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling inside.
Not sure what the Zealous Persecutions in the SB are for. Most token focused decks have Anthem effects. Most aggro decks based around 1/1s are decks you'd want to cast this against on turn two. I don't think this mana base is always going to be consistent on t2 WB.
Thornling is a card that I'd have in the sideboard. It can make it very hard for Jund to pull off the "kill all your creatures" plan as Jund can't really kill a Thornling.
Lastly I'd add a couple of Bloodwitches to the side for facing other GW decks. Very few cards in these decks can interact with the Bloodwitch.
All they need to do is make Tempest Block Constructed part of an MOCS. There - problem solved.
If anything gets treated second rate around MTGO (other than multiplayer, maybe) look no further than the "Legacy" sets themselves and the fact there isn't a format for the blcok they are in. There is ALA Block and ZEN block, right? But no Tempest block....
However, I think you are all starting from a false premise. Which is that there is a problem to solve. If no one buys into Exodus, so what? I'm sure they'll sell some. And 5 years down the road when you even all your current cards aren't even Extended legal and you get that Magic bite again you'll be paying ungodly sums of money just to play with Oath or anything else that might inadvertently become super-amazing in the meantime (Hi Flash). Hell Oath itself wasn't even great shakes until Forbidden Orchard came out like 5 years later.
I don't think the people upstairs will have any sympathy for the masses if they cry out later on because Oath of Druids or some other undersold card is scarce because the people at the time avoided playing it.
As Lashoff wryly comments above you could stand to use some graphics in your next article. The way to do this is type (pic=Card Name as spelled) for example (pic=Bloodbraid Elf) and you can link to external images using the RTF img tag (or html if you know how to do that) for further breaking up of the wall of text. You can also include mana symbols with (mana=(symbol letter)) such as (mana=W) or (mana=G) etc.
Welcome (back?) to Puremtgo. I like the GWB junk idea. it looks solid but I wonder at the techy numbers. why 1 path in the sideboard? Are you finding that spot removal is being hindered by shroud? Or is the drawback really bad for you? Also why Wall of Reverence instead of the more deadly Day of Judgment (aka WOG)? Zealous Persecution while an interesting answer to tiny tokens and creatures seems rather a poor idea. Why not a 4th Pulse? Just my thoughts. Also noticeably absent the other strong planeswalker in your colors: Garruk. Not good enough to fit?
Oh and to show thumbnails (for example to to display your opening hand) use (tmb=Card Name)
Hope my comments are helpful to you in the future.
I posted this in Giraffe's article but again for those interested:
1pm Saturday is the END time for registering and the room is /join Tribal (type that in any chat to get there.) the Play area is Menu >> Play >> Casual >> anything goes. I usually show up around 12 and chat/test with other players there.
But when Chris said that, I got the feeling there was frustration there. Just a feeling though - that's hard to discern through type.
I think anyone who has been around this WoTC digital team long enough knows they obviously have their own frustrations with the status quo as well.
I honestly don't think they view MTG as a stepchild, but it seems there are still a lot of growing pains as to how to run with it as a platform. The team in place now has done WAY more for MTGO than any of the teams in place previous - you need look no further than Master's Editions, MOCS, Pro Tour places, and numerous other promotions that never happened (even if conceived) under previous regimes. Even with that, there are so many more places to go. I am sure they every bit as impatient to get new features and correct problems as we are. 100% sure.
It's obvious that the first incarnations of MTGO are a beast, slow to get going and much harder to steer a course with, but lumbering on through pretty much every obstacle in it's way. Short of starting all over (which is probably not an option when you are raking in millions with your current version) we're just going to have to deal with the fact all we can do is nudge it little by little.
Random Thoughts:
Thank you for the nod :) I am enjoying Tribal Wars a lot. I do hope more people come down saturdays and play. I did have one out which I didn't mention in the article. Cryptic Command and then counter it on the way down again if I timed it right...but I don't think I would have had enough time to pull that off. So if the legacy had been augmented on the stack it probably would have been game over.
My pick was DangerLinto's article on what WOTC should do about waning queues. I felt it was the best of the 4 articles released Sunday Night/Monday morning.
Funniest quote: "...but put a goatee counter on it." had me giggling.
RE: Hivemind, ShardFenix is the one who showed me that. He's written an article about it. I lost to it turn 2 and then wanted to punch a wall. It is ridiculous as are most wacky combos.
Yeah if I were a smarter player of the Trade market I'd manage my credits/tickets better and actually have the commander decks that are still on sale but as Erik mentioned it is difficult to not buy stuff when able.
RE: Tribal, and sanctioning it, I agree the B/R list really needs to be reconsidered and I hope whomever is doing that for MTGO is reading this. The B/R is not only antiquated it is just wrong. (Same for 100 singleton).
Re: Your clan, if I was a more competitive player with the ability to hit tournaments I'd love to join but even so I would not feel right abandoning my current clan members who I invited because they are friends. Sadly none of them are active at the moment but meh.
I think the prizes based on wins solves a number of issues one of which is the time issue. If for instance I knew I only had 3 hours and a PE was firing I would have to option to enter and play my 3 rounds and then drop and still hope to get something. I would be paying a higher entry fee for my potential prize by knowing that I would drop after round 3, but that is the option of the player and would potentially get additional people to join and fire events. I often will have time to play the swiss of an event, but don't enter because I know I can't play the T8. This would allow me to still have a shot at a decent prize by doing well in the swiss.
One statement I found intriguing is this:
"Promos seem like a good way to reward people without having to rely solely on the booster as a prize, but after discussing better promos with the Merchandising Man Chris Kiritz, apparently MTGO would have to jump through hoops just to get cards that were no promos in Paper."
This basically proves that WotC still views MTG:O as a stepchild of MTG:P. They obviously don't have to jump through all kinds of hoops to do a promo for paper that has not been done online. I believe that internally they may have to straighten things out in this type of area, but there is certainly vast room for improvement.
It's nice to read an article about Standard that isn't about Jund. :)
This looks like a really solid deck for the current metagame, and seems like a lot of fun to play too. Turn 3 Baneslayer? Nice. Too bad those things are so expensive.
More sideboarding info would be nice in the match descriptions.
Your attitutde: Absolutly fantastic to see you picking it up and giving it another go - way to go.
Midrange: PV also had a very interesting analysis about midrange. He said Faeries is not midrange. It can play aggro or control and switch form aggro to midrange when needed. Midrange must always play the role assigned to it. Jund is a lot like Faeries in that it can outrace mono red or can generate more card advantage than the blue control decks.
Junk: Junk was one of the worst performing decks at Worlds (see Paul Jordan's metagame analysis). I gave it a whirl before these results came out and I was disappointed because it was actually true midrange - unlike Jund (cascade being the differentiator). The deck is full of cool things (I played Baneslayer and Ob Nixilis, I love playing splashy cards too) but eventually it falls prey to all the metagame moves that are aiming straight at Jund's heart - call it 'splash damage' if you will. Don't let me discourage you, but I honestly feel that if you want to be a top PT player you must be equally comfortable and enthusiastic about any/and all play styles. I know there are a lot who disagree but, look at results when formats change - Wafo Tapa couldn't lose a game when the format was all about control - now its all about tempo he doesn't make day two (and he is an absolutly brilliant player - just watch him play if you get the chance).
i would guess game one might be tough, but after sideboarding in the proper counters, Negate>Essence Scatter here, it would be more playable.
how does this do against storm??
The goatee counter is a fantastic idea. Do it!
The "Oblivion Ring Angel" is potentially broken. Oblivion Ring can't target itself or target lands. But we don't have the exact wording on that card yet.
lol great podcast. Congratulations AJ on second. I was 4th so its all good. And very nice Sebastian, I actually just posted an article about my version of the Hive Mind combo. Josh published it yesterday shockingly enough. And I agree its awesomely fun. And i do win turn 3/4 consistently though i splash black for spoils of the vault.
I also decided to sac a bit of speed by replacing simian spirit guide with Street Wraith. I have peer throught depths to find accel or the pact and the draw from the street wraith really helps as well. All i need is pact of negation though im thinking that will certainly be a sideboard card.
Great to see you writing here regularly Todd! It was awesome to meet you in Austin (I was the other guy in the PureMTGO t-shirt). You are a very strong player and you add a great tournament point of view to the roster. I loved the article and look forward to next week's!
~hammy
Lol sorry blau...feel free to cover a non-Pact deck. It certainly wont hurt my feelings or anything. Not to mention the multiplayer aspect would separate it enough i owuld think. Though you may get comments of needz moar pacts or something. Cant wait to read your article though.
not near impossible...it is impossible, check the decklist. Though I may just go 61 cards for the second swamp. With all 8 black fetches i dont see that ruining the deck...heck jamie wakefield did it
Good article, but I must admit that I HATE you!!! Hive Mind was going to be my annoying deck of the week. No pacts in my deck. It was more about just doing odd things with copying spells. It is for a multiplayer game. Imagine my surprise Monday morning when I found out I had to write a new article. lol Guess I will put Hive Mind off for a few weeks.
So BB on turn five is near impossible but WB on turn two is fine?
I'm still getting used to the formatting for articles here. I'll work in some pictures and whatnot in my next article. For this one, I mostly just tried to get something down that I really wanted to talk about. Thanks for reading and keep the comments coming!
I originally had Bloodwitch, but getting BB is very hard, and actually impossible in the current list without Lotus Cobra. She is really good, and I've considered playing more Swamps to fit her in, but I don't think it makes the mana base any better, and usually infinitely worse.
As far as Zealous Persecution is concerned, it deals with Boros's creatures. Most lists are cutting Skyfisher for Hellspark Elemental, which makes it even more potent against their deck, seeing as almost all of their creatures have 1 toughness. They will generally tap out every turn against you, leaving them vulnerable to a mainphased Zealous to kill their Steppe Lynxes and Geopedes.
"Speaking of Emeria Angel, the 4-drop slot is full of incredible threats that are very hard to deal with."
4 Emeria Angel
2 Master of the Wild Hunt
3 Elspeth, Knight Errant
Elspeth is the only one of those cards that is "hard to deal with". Angel and Master are VERY powerful, they also die to everything. If they don't die they usually win the game but to call them hard to deal with is completely false. Not sure if you've noticed but there is a lot of removal being played in standard.
I just don't see this deck consistently beating Jund. I just started playing Standard on MTGO again but in my first 16 matches with Jund I have yet to lose to a Baneslayer. If a Jund deck does heavy on the removal package GW decks relying on big men can not keep up. The number of times I've had an opponent tap out for Baneslayer to have me Deathmark it on my turn is getting up there. Pledge I think is a stronger card versus Jund (though not overall) as very little removal in the deck effects it as opposed to most removal.
That said I think you are correct to not run Purge. Versus most white decks post-board the only things it can target of mine are dragons and elves. Having my opponents Purge a Bloodbraid Elf gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling inside.
Not sure what the Zealous Persecutions in the SB are for. Most token focused decks have Anthem effects. Most aggro decks based around 1/1s are decks you'd want to cast this against on turn two. I don't think this mana base is always going to be consistent on t2 WB.
Thornling is a card that I'd have in the sideboard. It can make it very hard for Jund to pull off the "kill all your creatures" plan as Jund can't really kill a Thornling.
Lastly I'd add a couple of Bloodwitches to the side for facing other GW decks. Very few cards in these decks can interact with the Bloodwitch.
All they need to do is make Tempest Block Constructed part of an MOCS. There - problem solved.
If anything gets treated second rate around MTGO (other than multiplayer, maybe) look no further than the "Legacy" sets themselves and the fact there isn't a format for the blcok they are in. There is ALA Block and ZEN block, right? But no Tempest block....
However, I think you are all starting from a false premise. Which is that there is a problem to solve. If no one buys into Exodus, so what? I'm sure they'll sell some. And 5 years down the road when you even all your current cards aren't even Extended legal and you get that Magic bite again you'll be paying ungodly sums of money just to play with Oath or anything else that might inadvertently become super-amazing in the meantime (Hi Flash). Hell Oath itself wasn't even great shakes until Forbidden Orchard came out like 5 years later.
I don't think the people upstairs will have any sympathy for the masses if they cry out later on because Oath of Druids or some other undersold card is scarce because the people at the time avoided playing it.
I will be drafting Exodus.
As Lashoff wryly comments above you could stand to use some graphics in your next article. The way to do this is type (pic=Card Name as spelled) for example (pic=Bloodbraid Elf) and you can link to external images using the RTF img tag (or html if you know how to do that) for further breaking up of the wall of text. You can also include mana symbols with (mana=(symbol letter)) such as (mana=W) or (mana=G) etc.
Welcome (back?) to Puremtgo. I like the GWB junk idea. it looks solid but I wonder at the techy numbers. why 1 path in the sideboard? Are you finding that spot removal is being hindered by shroud? Or is the drawback really bad for you? Also why Wall of Reverence instead of the more deadly Day of Judgment (aka WOG)? Zealous Persecution while an interesting answer to tiny tokens and creatures seems rather a poor idea. Why not a 4th Pulse? Just my thoughts. Also noticeably absent the other strong planeswalker in your colors: Garruk. Not good enough to fit?
Oh and to show thumbnails (for example to to display your opening hand) use (tmb=Card Name)
Hope my comments are helpful to you in the future.
I posted this in Giraffe's article but again for those interested:
1pm Saturday is the END time for registering and the room is /join Tribal (type that in any chat to get there.) the Play area is Menu >> Play >> Casual >> anything goes. I usually show up around 12 and chat/test with other players there.
What time on Saturday are they? I've wanted to join up but can't find the info. I've built a pretty nice angels deck I want to try out.
But when Chris said that, I got the feeling there was frustration there. Just a feeling though - that's hard to discern through type.
I think anyone who has been around this WoTC digital team long enough knows they obviously have their own frustrations with the status quo as well.
I honestly don't think they view MTG as a stepchild, but it seems there are still a lot of growing pains as to how to run with it as a platform. The team in place now has done WAY more for MTGO than any of the teams in place previous - you need look no further than Master's Editions, MOCS, Pro Tour places, and numerous other promotions that never happened (even if conceived) under previous regimes. Even with that, there are so many more places to go. I am sure they every bit as impatient to get new features and correct problems as we are. 100% sure.
It's obvious that the first incarnations of MTGO are a beast, slow to get going and much harder to steer a course with, but lumbering on through pretty much every obstacle in it's way. Short of starting all over (which is probably not an option when you are raking in millions with your current version) we're just going to have to deal with the fact all we can do is nudge it little by little.
Random Thoughts:
Thank you for the nod :) I am enjoying Tribal Wars a lot. I do hope more people come down saturdays and play. I did have one out which I didn't mention in the article. Cryptic Command and then counter it on the way down again if I timed it right...but I don't think I would have had enough time to pull that off. So if the legacy had been augmented on the stack it probably would have been game over.
My pick was DangerLinto's article on what WOTC should do about waning queues. I felt it was the best of the 4 articles released Sunday Night/Monday morning.
Funniest quote: "...but put a goatee counter on it." had me giggling.
RE: Hivemind, ShardFenix is the one who showed me that. He's written an article about it. I lost to it turn 2 and then wanted to punch a wall. It is ridiculous as are most wacky combos.
Yeah if I were a smarter player of the Trade market I'd manage my credits/tickets better and actually have the commander decks that are still on sale but as Erik mentioned it is difficult to not buy stuff when able.
RE: Tribal, and sanctioning it, I agree the B/R list really needs to be reconsidered and I hope whomever is doing that for MTGO is reading this. The B/R is not only antiquated it is just wrong. (Same for 100 singleton).
Re: Your clan, if I was a more competitive player with the ability to hit tournaments I'd love to join but even so I would not feel right abandoning my current clan members who I invited because they are friends. Sadly none of them are active at the moment but meh.
Starting to look at the more casual formats on MTGO... might try this out of I get the time (along with core set constructed).
Tier one annoying decks... goblins? Elves?
Is the Player Run event calender dead?
Great Article.
I think the prizes based on wins solves a number of issues one of which is the time issue. If for instance I knew I only had 3 hours and a PE was firing I would have to option to enter and play my 3 rounds and then drop and still hope to get something. I would be paying a higher entry fee for my potential prize by knowing that I would drop after round 3, but that is the option of the player and would potentially get additional people to join and fire events. I often will have time to play the swiss of an event, but don't enter because I know I can't play the T8. This would allow me to still have a shot at a decent prize by doing well in the swiss.
One statement I found intriguing is this:
"Promos seem like a good way to reward people without having to rely solely on the booster as a prize, but after discussing better promos with the Merchandising Man Chris Kiritz, apparently MTGO would have to jump through hoops just to get cards that were no promos in Paper."
This basically proves that WotC still views MTG:O as a stepchild of MTG:P. They obviously don't have to jump through all kinds of hoops to do a promo for paper that has not been done online. I believe that internally they may have to straighten things out in this type of area, but there is certainly vast room for improvement.
[deleted multiple post]
I was getting odd browser issues and didn't think my previous comment posted.
[deleted multiple post]
I was getting odd browser issues and didn't think my previous comment posted.
Some formatting or images or something would be nice, article looks like:
Wall of Text 1WU
Creature - Wall
Wall of Text can't be the target of spells or abilities that readers control
0/8
It's nice to read an article about Standard that isn't about Jund. :)
This looks like a really solid deck for the current metagame, and seems like a lot of fun to play too. Turn 3 Baneslayer? Nice. Too bad those things are so expensive.
More sideboarding info would be nice in the match descriptions.