The problem isn't that it is always a turn 1-2 format but that it often is. Games end ridiculously quickly and there is almost no interaction past the countering of x combo card. I am not saying it isn't interesting. Ive seen some amazing vintage games with 30 duals on the table every imaginable combo card out and everything locked down etc. But that is the exception. The rule is, come to a vintage tournament, spend most of your time watching/playing side games or trading or what not.
Online Classic is not quite as brutal as that but it does have the turn 1-2 combos. They aren't as common but they exist. I think there are as you say interesting decks that vie for top billing but the fact is they are all expensive, tight very well metagamed decks. No surprises. All that differs is the pilot and maybe a few changes to try and slip under the meta.
Oh, sorry, caught one more thing in the writeup that I missed. In Game 2 of Match 3 you played Ior Rune Expedition on T2 instead of Kor Skyfisher. Typically Id run the creature out first. This holds especially true in a situation where you have something like a Khalni-Expedition and a 2-drop creature. You should always drop the 2-drop creature and then the landfall enchantment on T3 before dropping land T3. This format will punish you for missing plays like that.
Additionally, the Kor is much more important than the Expedition. If he was running Cancel then youve opened the Kor up for being countered since he would have 3 mana. With it being your only action spell at the moment you need to protect it from that and drop it T2.
A minor thing, and totally didnt matter due to mana screw, but always good to make the best plays possible.
I was responding to the very first poster who made a sarcastic comment about the weakness of the drafters. He got flamed pretty bad. Those comments have all been removed so my rant is put out of context.
I still stand by comments about drafts where the author gets an amazing deck though, much like a submission on draftbetter's site where the guy got TRIPLE Marsh Casualities. That deck should win as should this pretty nutso UW deck.
The draft reports where you have to make tough choices and probably could have done something differently are much better reads.
Im not saying that these type of reports shouldnt be posted and I still enjoy reading them. Just that they are significantly less useful than ones that present challenging picks and not-so-good results where the writer and readers/commentators can learn from it.
just as modo users assume that classic is a 2 turn format most people assume that vintage is a 2 turn format. truth of the matter is that yes both formats are fast but not nearly as fast as your putting it out to be.
vintage right this moment is dominated by a control deck. yes it has a combo finish but the fact of the matter is that tezz/vault is a really really slow win until you hit the signature combo. also because of how absurdly good the deck is the hate decks or meta game as evolved to let decks like workshop and noble fish exist. yes workshop can get that quick win in but it is still a slow grinding war of attrition and noble fish aims to win the game via beatdown with 2/2's and tarmogoyfs. then there is also dredge.
at any rate power will absolutlly speed up the foirmat but nowhere close to what your thinking.
I have no problem with him playing swiss (im rated 1800+ and i still do swiss sometimes) but there is no point doing an article on it, especially m10 swiss. Like another comment said, all it shows is how to stick to colors. If a 4322 had been done there would have been at least a few good drafters at the pod.
I dont have a problem with wotc releasing a set like you described with one caveat-limit purchases to one per account and dont set a limited time to sell the set. Otherwise the only way to get the cards from it later on would be through dealers at exorbitant prices.
On the other hand, I dont feel that power cards that warp formats are needed either. BoB should not have been printed, and lotus is a similiar thing. It pushes people to play combo, and less interactive more solitaire decks. The more people play solitaire decks the less people will want to play that format. Overall I think that the more power a format has the less fun it becomes for those involved.
Yes I know some people feel otherwise and enjoy playing their solitaire decks.
Very tough deck to build. Ill agree with you there.
Ive grown to hate the Khalni Heart Expedition and Green in general. Just that you get run over by evasion from a Marauder or Intimidate guy. I always try to play some other color combination unless my Green is the nuts. In this case your having to run stuff like 1/2 3-cost allies. Phew, something in here stinks.
Id go for the lucky draws and run BRu. Your Black is so thin but the power level of the Nighthawks makes up for it. Just go for the "win in one attack" deck:
I can see this playing dead for a number of turns, pinking away with Bloodseeker and Marauder, and then dropping Croc, land #6, Goblin Bushwacker, attack for 11-13. Prolly force your opponent to play defensive which gets you to your Nighthawks.
Another option is to not splash Blue and run the second Bloodseeker and Vampires Bite.
If I get a weak pool then I try to not play the same game as a normal deck would. I run the uber aggressive or really greedy deck. The deck you went with is just a bad version of the type of decks you will face. At least with the Nighthawk x2 you will get some wins just cause that guy is so freaking good in this format.
I think, the trading concept has to be taken from a totally different perspective altogether. Today, trading on MTGO is built on a very poor architecture. For example: I want to buy an Extirpate. Today it is bothering to figure out where I can get the cheapest one (or even where I can get one). The advertisements aren't compulsorily bound to real trading and searching in them is exceptionally difficult.
If instead there was an open marketplace for each individual card - a system similar to a stock exchange and then everyone could throw in their ask and/or bid price, you could allow any kind of bots to the marketplace and players would be able to get the cards they desire for the best available price (at each price there would also be a volume so that you could buy an amount of your choice). In addition the trading in a single card would be set up as soon as somebody would place his offer to the market and the price given would be obligatory (your cards would be withheld until you pull your offer of the market).
The idea could certainly be improved as this is just something that comes into my head and possible flaws would have to be taken care of. But it would allow you for easy and transparent trading and Wizards could create an open API for any kind of bots. Also the nice thing about such a setup is that it already exists in many of the security markets of the world.
While Exodus will bring new toys, it will only complete competitive 2 decks exactly:
* Prison (with the addition of City of Traitors and Sphere of Resistance)
* Oath (namesake)
The other archetypes are not strong enough to make a dent on the competitive metagame at all. Lands.dec is actually only good because you have Maze of Ith and Rishadan Port. Neither of these are legal on MODO, and thus makes the land deck suboptimal.
RecSur will definitely be fun to build/play, but it can't compete with Drains, Dredge, or Burn.
I do see Recurring Nightmare being included into a reanimator strategy that may surface soon.
I don't understand not to play nighthawk when you have 2 (!) in your pool. Those win you games by their own. So I definitly would haved black, and probably black-red aggro.
Something like:
1 mana: Torch, Scope, Machete, 2 bushwackers, burst lightning, disfigure
2 mana: 2 Zektar shrine, 2 bloodseekers, goblin shortcutter, Surakar Maurader
3 mana: 2 Vampire Nighthawk, Mindless null, Goblin Ruinblaster, Mark of Mutiny, Electropotence
4 mana: Hagra crocodile, Heartstabber Mosquito
5 mana: Tuktuk Grunts, Spire Barrage
6 mana: Pyromancer
In this case you play 14 creatures, 2 shrines (2 creatures), and the Mark, and this should seal the deal fast.
Also in this build the electropotence and spirebarrage will be much better. The electropotence can kill blockers later in the game, as a lot of your creatures are cheap, so you have mana available, let stay alone the 2 times 7 damage with the zektarshrines. I really don't understand your choice of playing electropotence, but not the zektar shrines...electropotence in a heave green deck with fatties might look nice, but you often don't have the mana available to use it, as you saw in your games.
Against a deck which has a marsh casualties for example, you might consider siding out red and some black, and get some green and or blue in there. (kracken hatchling and the green/blue ally synergie)
But also your first round opponent played very bad imo (as you made some mistakes that definitely would have punished you against a good player, for example, I would never play river boa against a red deck with no green mana left open).
So all in all I think you underestimated the aggresiveness of Zendikar.
totally agree with rpitcher, a very nice article (a little light) but a good attempt. 2/3 not bad but i do believe goliath > sparkmage isnt the right choice, and never hate draft on your first booster.
3.5/5 always transcribe matches, the bit most people care about
I got screamed at the other day for "mechanics abuse", because I sacced my tidehollow sculler to Thopter foundry before the trigger resolved so that the card would never return from the removed from play zone. I had never heard that particular complaint before. The funny thing was the guy was playing a control deck using Jace, Sorin, Counters and discard. And he was complaining about the casualness of an open the vaults deck with a neat little minicombo (I took his Sorin which was probably his real issue)
I have no problem if someone concedes because they don't like playing against my deck, and I don't complain. But I also reserve the right to concede when I am not having any fun because I am in the casual room to have fun. I told a guy that was playing an infinite turn combo deck that I wasn't going to play the last 2 games of the match because to be completely honest his deck was not fun to play against. While it might be fun for him (is goldfishing fun?) It wasn't really fun for the opponent, since you just stand there doing nothing. Obivously in alot of cases I think those are the types of decks people don't like. L/D, Discard, counters to a lesser extent, some combo decks and even burn decks in some ways are all archtypes that discourage your opponent from either doing anything or interacting in anyway.
So if your opponent wants to concede fine. If you want to concede fine. But please could everyone just be civil about it. There is no reason to insult your opponent, just explain your reason (or don't) and move on.
Don't let the "complainers" worry you. You qualified yourself and your article properly in the first two paragraphs.
Anyone reading should recognize that you're a Magic enthusiast who likes to share his thoughts with other Magic enthusiasts. There's plenty of other articles for people who are looking for the latest tech from Pt Champ.
One of the things I like about PureMTGO is that they DO post some good articles written by Magic enthusiasts rather than all articles from PT Champs and the like. You made your Magic resume clear and presented an entertaining read. That's okay in my book.
The problem isn't that it is always a turn 1-2 format but that it often is. Games end ridiculously quickly and there is almost no interaction past the countering of x combo card. I am not saying it isn't interesting. Ive seen some amazing vintage games with 30 duals on the table every imaginable combo card out and everything locked down etc. But that is the exception. The rule is, come to a vintage tournament, spend most of your time watching/playing side games or trading or what not.
Online Classic is not quite as brutal as that but it does have the turn 1-2 combos. They aren't as common but they exist. I think there are as you say interesting decks that vie for top billing but the fact is they are all expensive, tight very well metagamed decks. No surprises. All that differs is the pilot and maybe a few changes to try and slip under the meta.
Oh, sorry, caught one more thing in the writeup that I missed. In Game 2 of Match 3 you played Ior Rune Expedition on T2 instead of Kor Skyfisher. Typically Id run the creature out first. This holds especially true in a situation where you have something like a Khalni-Expedition and a 2-drop creature. You should always drop the 2-drop creature and then the landfall enchantment on T3 before dropping land T3. This format will punish you for missing plays like that.
Additionally, the Kor is much more important than the Expedition. If he was running Cancel then youve opened the Kor up for being countered since he would have 3 mana. With it being your only action spell at the moment you need to protect it from that and drop it T2.
A minor thing, and totally didnt matter due to mana screw, but always good to make the best plays possible.
-M
Shame you didn't even attempt the "250$ challenge" but I expected as much. There goes my Classic aspirations, I guess. Nice article, though.
I was responding to the very first poster who made a sarcastic comment about the weakness of the drafters. He got flamed pretty bad. Those comments have all been removed so my rant is put out of context.
I still stand by comments about drafts where the author gets an amazing deck though, much like a submission on draftbetter's site where the guy got TRIPLE Marsh Casualities. That deck should win as should this pretty nutso UW deck.
The draft reports where you have to make tough choices and probably could have done something differently are much better reads.
Im not saying that these type of reports shouldnt be posted and I still enjoy reading them. Just that they are significantly less useful than ones that present challenging picks and not-so-good results where the writer and readers/commentators can learn from it.
-M
just as modo users assume that classic is a 2 turn format most people assume that vintage is a 2 turn format. truth of the matter is that yes both formats are fast but not nearly as fast as your putting it out to be.
vintage right this moment is dominated by a control deck. yes it has a combo finish but the fact of the matter is that tezz/vault is a really really slow win until you hit the signature combo. also because of how absurdly good the deck is the hate decks or meta game as evolved to let decks like workshop and noble fish exist. yes workshop can get that quick win in but it is still a slow grinding war of attrition and noble fish aims to win the game via beatdown with 2/2's and tarmogoyfs. then there is also dredge.
at any rate power will absolutlly speed up the foirmat but nowhere close to what your thinking.
I have no problem with him playing swiss (im rated 1800+ and i still do swiss sometimes) but there is no point doing an article on it, especially m10 swiss. Like another comment said, all it shows is how to stick to colors. If a 4322 had been done there would have been at least a few good drafters at the pod.
I dont have a problem with wotc releasing a set like you described with one caveat-limit purchases to one per account and dont set a limited time to sell the set. Otherwise the only way to get the cards from it later on would be through dealers at exorbitant prices.
On the other hand, I dont feel that power cards that warp formats are needed either. BoB should not have been printed, and lotus is a similiar thing. It pushes people to play combo, and less interactive more solitaire decks. The more people play solitaire decks the less people will want to play that format. Overall I think that the more power a format has the less fun it becomes for those involved.
Yes I know some people feel otherwise and enjoy playing their solitaire decks.
Very tough deck to build. Ill agree with you there.
Ive grown to hate the Khalni Heart Expedition and Green in general. Just that you get run over by evasion from a Marauder or Intimidate guy. I always try to play some other color combination unless my Green is the nuts. In this case your having to run stuff like 1/2 3-cost allies. Phew, something in here stinks.
Id go for the lucky draws and run BRu. Your Black is so thin but the power level of the Nighthawks makes up for it. Just go for the "win in one attack" deck:
Torch, Machete, Burst Lighting, Disfigure
Zetkar Shrine x2, Goblin Bushwacker x2, Shortcutter, Marauder, Bloodseeker
Nighthawk x2, Ruinblaster, Mark of Mutiny, Electropotence, Umara Raptor x2
Hagra Croc, Heartstabber Mosquito
Tuktuk Grunts, Spire Barrage
Pyromancer
Marsh Flats, 2 Island, 7 Mountain/7 Swamp
I can see this playing dead for a number of turns, pinking away with Bloodseeker and Marauder, and then dropping Croc, land #6, Goblin Bushwacker, attack for 11-13. Prolly force your opponent to play defensive which gets you to your Nighthawks.
Another option is to not splash Blue and run the second Bloodseeker and Vampires Bite.
If I get a weak pool then I try to not play the same game as a normal deck would. I run the uber aggressive or really greedy deck. The deck you went with is just a bad version of the type of decks you will face. At least with the Nighthawk x2 you will get some wins just cause that guy is so freaking good in this format.
-M
I think, the trading concept has to be taken from a totally different perspective altogether. Today, trading on MTGO is built on a very poor architecture. For example: I want to buy an Extirpate. Today it is bothering to figure out where I can get the cheapest one (or even where I can get one). The advertisements aren't compulsorily bound to real trading and searching in them is exceptionally difficult.
If instead there was an open marketplace for each individual card - a system similar to a stock exchange and then everyone could throw in their ask and/or bid price, you could allow any kind of bots to the marketplace and players would be able to get the cards they desire for the best available price (at each price there would also be a volume so that you could buy an amount of your choice). In addition the trading in a single card would be set up as soon as somebody would place his offer to the market and the price given would be obligatory (your cards would be withheld until you pull your offer of the market).
The idea could certainly be improved as this is just something that comes into my head and possible flaws would have to be taken care of. But it would allow you for easy and transparent trading and Wizards could create an open API for any kind of bots. Also the nice thing about such a setup is that it already exists in many of the security markets of the world.
Have a nice day Jan Sindelar
42 land needs both imo
42-land really needs Exploration as redundancy for Manabond, which doesn't come out until Urza's.
I'm definitely looking forward to having the full eight 'tap for 2 mana'-lands
While Exodus will bring new toys, it will only complete competitive 2 decks exactly:
* Prison (with the addition of City of Traitors and Sphere of Resistance)
* Oath (namesake)
The other archetypes are not strong enough to make a dent on the competitive metagame at all. Lands.dec is actually only good because you have Maze of Ith and Rishadan Port. Neither of these are legal on MODO, and thus makes the land deck suboptimal.
RecSur will definitely be fun to build/play, but it can't compete with Drains, Dredge, or Burn.
I do see Recurring Nightmare being included into a reanimator strategy that may surface soon.
Man, Exodus completes a bunch of archetypes to modo: Oath, RecSur, Hatred, 42-land (Manabond), Dragon Stompy... good times.
Yeah I reread the rules for Noble Vestige and realized 1) I misunderstood its ability 2) it's even worse than I thought.
Whoops. Meant to just black-out the name for privacy issues. I'll be more careful next time. Nice catch.
just a suggestion: it's a little hard to follow screenshots and deduce the proper play when you also black out the opponent's life total.
"Because I'm not bright enough for the more involved sets, I only draft and do analysis of M10. If you want more high-brow reading, look elsewhere."
I've never been so interested to read an article -_-
Hi,
I don't understand not to play nighthawk when you have 2 (!) in your pool. Those win you games by their own. So I definitly would haved black, and probably black-red aggro.
Something like:
1 mana: Torch, Scope, Machete, 2 bushwackers, burst lightning, disfigure
2 mana: 2 Zektar shrine, 2 bloodseekers, goblin shortcutter, Surakar Maurader
3 mana: 2 Vampire Nighthawk, Mindless null, Goblin Ruinblaster, Mark of Mutiny, Electropotence
4 mana: Hagra crocodile, Heartstabber Mosquito
5 mana: Tuktuk Grunts, Spire Barrage
6 mana: Pyromancer
In this case you play 14 creatures, 2 shrines (2 creatures), and the Mark, and this should seal the deal fast.
Also in this build the electropotence and spirebarrage will be much better. The electropotence can kill blockers later in the game, as a lot of your creatures are cheap, so you have mana available, let stay alone the 2 times 7 damage with the zektarshrines. I really don't understand your choice of playing electropotence, but not the zektar shrines...electropotence in a heave green deck with fatties might look nice, but you often don't have the mana available to use it, as you saw in your games.
Against a deck which has a marsh casualties for example, you might consider siding out red and some black, and get some green and or blue in there. (kracken hatchling and the green/blue ally synergie)
But also your first round opponent played very bad imo (as you made some mistakes that definitely would have punished you against a good player, for example, I would never play river boa against a red deck with no green mana left open).
So all in all I think you underestimated the aggresiveness of Zendikar.
I'm from the Minneapolis area...
I'm not much of a Battlestar Galatica Fan though. I watched off and on for the 1st season, and it never really held my interest.
totally agree with rpitcher, a very nice article (a little light) but a good attempt. 2/3 not bad but i do believe goliath > sparkmage isnt the right choice, and never hate draft on your first booster.
3.5/5 always transcribe matches, the bit most people care about
I got screamed at the other day for "mechanics abuse", because I sacced my tidehollow sculler to Thopter foundry before the trigger resolved so that the card would never return from the removed from play zone. I had never heard that particular complaint before. The funny thing was the guy was playing a control deck using Jace, Sorin, Counters and discard. And he was complaining about the casualness of an open the vaults deck with a neat little minicombo (I took his Sorin which was probably his real issue)
I have no problem if someone concedes because they don't like playing against my deck, and I don't complain. But I also reserve the right to concede when I am not having any fun because I am in the casual room to have fun. I told a guy that was playing an infinite turn combo deck that I wasn't going to play the last 2 games of the match because to be completely honest his deck was not fun to play against. While it might be fun for him (is goldfishing fun?) It wasn't really fun for the opponent, since you just stand there doing nothing. Obivously in alot of cases I think those are the types of decks people don't like. L/D, Discard, counters to a lesser extent, some combo decks and even burn decks in some ways are all archtypes that discourage your opponent from either doing anything or interacting in anyway.
So if your opponent wants to concede fine. If you want to concede fine. But please could everyone just be civil about it. There is no reason to insult your opponent, just explain your reason (or don't) and move on.
Yeah! to budget decks in the casual rooms!
I admit, I whine too much about serious decks showing up in the casual rooms. So I'm happy to see other people write about "true" casual decks.
You'll often find me in the casual rooms with my qeue labelled "Beat up my Rareless deck."
I'll be joining you with some Zen block budget decks as soon as I gather some more cards.
Thanks for the ideas :)
Don't let the "complainers" worry you. You qualified yourself and your article properly in the first two paragraphs.
Anyone reading should recognize that you're a Magic enthusiast who likes to share his thoughts with other Magic enthusiasts. There's plenty of other articles for people who are looking for the latest tech from Pt Champ.
One of the things I like about PureMTGO is that they DO post some good articles written by Magic enthusiasts rather than all articles from PT Champs and the like. You made your Magic resume clear and presented an entertaining read. That's okay in my book.
Very nice catch! Didn't think about planeswalkers... =)
Looks like that hippo is going to be a nice card to play.
About Mold Shambler... Don't forget this one destroys Planeswalkers, something the other two don't do.