Which is why I suggested mymtgo. At least until Jamuraa fixes some of the more glaring errors. In my own article I just referenced gatherer for my pic links, because I found it easier to do that while testing the html outside of the editor.
That is an interesting perspective. The problem is, defining what Tier 1 in 100s IS. Not all top 8 decks qualify and rogue builds with a few minor but significant changes can also be not tier 1 yet not quite casual either. Imho the ability to just win the first few turns makes a deck slightly more than casual. That is my opinion but I think it is shared by many. Now of all of us you might have a better insight into what is what because you did those spreadsheets for the CC but does that mean anything you didn't consider for them isn't playable in a tourney? (A waste of time?) I played against 2 of those decks by the way with a decidedly casual red deck and rolled over them. One of the decks was Crosis which I understand was scratched but the other was WW which in theory should just win vs red. My point is how does one figure out whether their deck is tier 1, 2, x? Not even thinkable as a tier? I mean common sense will rule out some cards as being completely bad but even with the obvious chaff out of the way there are plenty of cards that are situationally awesome and otherwise not so much.
Actually, my worries were more about loading the decklist into the PureMTGO article editor. It sometimes hiccups when fed card names with apostrophes and the like.
It's getting better, and I only had to manually link a few cards - and I had to go through some contortions to get the Painter's Servant in as a picture.
I don't play my Tier 1 100CS decks in Casual anymore, it has gotten reasonable enough to find testing games in TP for that purpose.
I find that mis-clasification of Tier 1 decks is probably the largest culprit of people complaining about Tier 1 decks in Casual. That is to say that people claim a deck is Tier 1 when it is in reality not. This may happen for any number of reasons, losing badly to a deck, seeing several high priced rares in a row without knowing the rest of the deck contents, having the opponents deck seem like your one unwinnable matchup, or some other skewed perspective. Many times this will happen with decks like MBC or Mono Blue all counter decks, which are far and away not Tier 1 decks, but can eat other casual decks for breakfast at times. Where should people play those decks? The Casual Room is the only appropriate place, since they are likely not practicing for tournaments with those decks and it will just waste the time of players that are.
It runs Hellspark Elemental over Plated Geopede...that's a pretty ballsy play imo. You're essentially guaranteeing 6 points of dmg because of trample and most people won't waste a bolt or burst on it cause it goes away after each use anyway. But wouldn't the standard Geopede still be better cause it has the potential to deal more dmg? Just thinking out loud here and curious on others thoughts.
i hope ur article makes people interested in making standard singleton fire - seeing as it only fired once thus far. if it does start firing i attribute it to you. wotc owes you big ;)
I only use the casual room for solotaire games. For some reason they don't have the option of a solotaire game in the tournament practice room. If you end up watching me play a series of solotaire games to test the mana of one of my decks, I apologize. I'm not trying to scare people away......
I agree that tournament decks should be tested against other tournament decks in the tournament practice room. It's not much fun for either side to face unfair practice games.
Sphinx of Jwar Isle is currently going on mtgo for 1.3 tickets which seems likely to rise to me. Other than that, valakut seems a decent buy at ~0.4, but the scapeshift deck hasn't really showed up yet, and may never do so. I think I just like the card..
I agree that warren instigator is likely to rise in price at some point, but probably not before some mad goblin gets printed, so it might be worth waiting a few months until at least wwk spoiler season to pick them up?
I think Warren Instigator will go up, but probably even sooner than Mr. TopDecker would suggest. I can think of at least one mythic tribal card that got a massive boost in price when the the set following its own came out, Vampire Nocturnus. I think it's fairly probable that the card or cards required to take the Instigator from potentially insane to actually insane could very well come in Worldwake.
Wizards has tricked us many times with cards that seem too narrow to be very good until all the complimentary cards come along to make it great. So, when I'm looking at cards to go up in value, I'm looking for the ones that would be playable in standard if a complimentary card were to come along and bolster it because as often as not that card does come along.
Which other cards could be the next Vampire Nocturnus or Knight of the Reliquary? Nissa Ravine is already seeing play and only needs one or two more elf related tools to become the cornerstone of a top tier deck. The same could be said about Chandra Ablaze. As the format gets bigger and there are more and more red instants and sorceries she will get better.
We will also be due for a "good" counter spell, and if we get it, all those awesome control cards that are on the cusp now will go up. Things like Luminarch Ascension, Day of Judgement, Sphinxs, etc.
Basically, I think you can look at a format and ask yourself what holes in the Standard format does it seem likely Wizard's is going to fill in the coming set or sets, and what cards become better or worse when that happens. The cards with the potential to be better are the ones you want.
And as a darkhorse pick I would say pick up some junk rare merfolk like Cosi's Trickster, Lullmage Mentor and Seagate Loremaster. They range from 10 to 12 cents on MTGO Traders right now and with a good counterspell and some other highpowered and synergistic merfolk they could easily go up in value ten fold (to a whopping dollar)! And if not you can make a casual deck to play some zen block with.
You caught another one of my mistakes. I mixed up the prices for merfolk and Charbelcher. Charbelcher is only $287 and Merfolk with dual lands and a full set of Force of Wills is $673
You touched upon a very important subject actually.
The situation is this: The tournament practice room is now the place to test Tier-1 decks for mainstream formats. Such as Standard, Classic, Pauper etc... Most of the players there only test those formats and it is almost impossible to start a game for, say, Core Set Constructed there.
On the other hand, Casual Room is always very crowded and it is a lot easier to start a game for any format. And that's the reason why people use the Casual Room to test Tier-1 decks for those "exotic" formats. And I won't lie; I'm doing that too.
Time is generally scarce for most of us and no one wants to wait forever just to start a game. And that's the main reason why people use the Casual Room to test decks.
I'm not saying it's right by the way. If Casual Room will be the place to test Tier-1 decks, where then people will test their casual decks for those exotic formats?
I think that people should first try the TP Room and if that fails, they may come to the Casual Room but they should advertise their game as "Tier-1" or "Serious" or something. If they say nothing and play their Tier-1 decks, then it's wrong.
That valakut hellkite deck is very very similar to the deck I've been testing with. I must admit, I didn't think of it as remotely competitive until I randomly took it for a few games in the tp room. The problem is, people keep conceding when you drop a panorama, saying "i don't want to test against budget decks", or the like. There's something very satisfying about being dead next turn, then randomly topdecking harrow and burning them out for 18!
I find that people with tournament level 100 card singleton decks are using the causal room a lot. In the long run this will keep more players from entering the format. I know that it can be difficult to find games in the tourney practice room, but that's because I just played three guys in a row in the casual room with tourney level decks.
my 2cents worth,
mullaccm
I have to admit, you've made a tempting case for 60 card Standard singleton! I can definitely see a couple of decks I'd love to put together for the format, and I'll have to poke around and see what comes together.
One small note I feel like I have to correct: Double Negative and Mindbreak Trap are essentially never card advantage; what they do, and what's relevant, is that they keep your opponent from gaining card advantage on you in turn. Double Negative countering Bloodbraid Elf and a cascaded-into spell isn't actually a 2-for-1 in that you haven't spent one card from your hand to counter two cards from their hand; instead, you've spent one card to keep them from functionally turning one card from their hand into two cards. Still important, but different (IMHO) than you portrayed it. (And in my experience, I've *never* actually countered two non-cascade spells on the stack with Double Negative where I couldn't have just countered one instead.)
I want to comment on two of the cards mentioned as possible investments from Zendikar and then mention a third investment card of my own. Let's start with Warren Instigator. I see this card as future "Dark Depths" in extended. Sometime in the next seven years Wizards is going to print a game-winning goblin card that will turn Instigator into the cornerstone of a tier 1 deck. In addition, I think people have overlooked the synergy of cheap double-strikers with Blood Lust effects. Right now Warren Instigator is the only reliable cheap double-striker, but this could change and we might see double-strike.dec in the near future. 4x Warren Instigator might even be playable as the only goblins in such a deck.
Another card mentioned was Ob Nixilis. I do not share Hamtastic's positive outlook on this card. Ob Nix compares very unfavorably to Ms. 48 Tickets herself as a beatdown creature. A turn 5 Baneslayer is a huge threat that must be answered, but a turn 5 Ob Nix requires a turn 6 land (preferably fetch) to be effective. Even with cards to trigger landfall, Ob Nix is more easily chump blocked and can often be killed with a Lightning Bolt. Is Ob Nix even better than Malakir Bloodwitch? Definitely not if the field is full of Path to Exile and O-Ring. Hamtastic mentioned using Ob Nix as part of a landfall combo, but any combo that relies on a five drop creature followed by playing seven lands just doesn't seem viable.
Now I want to mention by own personal pick for "Zendikar Card Most Likely to Rise in Value": Iona, Shield of Emeria. As the Zendikar constructed PE events have shown, you can build a deck around cheating her into play and be very successful. Locking opponents out of an entire color is extremely powerful, and Iona is sure to be abused. The Vintage guys are already talking about running her in Oath, so she will definitely make an appearance in Classic once we get Exodus. Also she's a pretty good Dread Return target in Dredge against many decks.
To summarize, I recommend stocking up on Warren Instigator, holding off on Ob Nixilis, and buying every Iona you can get your hands on. Consider this post my entry for the big foil reward of the week.
Actually let me clear up alot, Millibot is locked right now do to a report of malware. Second there was no reverse enginering. He simply just wrote his own client. All the client checks for is version. Not authenticate. Also now to catch everyone up to speed AF (Aaron Forsyth) called for us to make mods for MTGO. Which easly could be intrupted that gave milli the right todo this. Now I would be more concerned as to why was there a big loop were everything trade wise was be able to get along with chat by anouther client not WoTC. Also the point of the Reverse Engineering thing not hard to get the IP of were it connects. If all it takes is a user name and password to log into the server. And there is enough software to find the IP address of were your computer connects. Anouther thing is yes the report came right before the release of zendikar. I wont say that traders had a hand in it and dont think I did as they are not in direct compition for what he did. I would reather point at the old CBS "MLbot" as a more then likely suspect.
good article. i think jund and vampires are clearly the best two decks in standard, but if you're going to play mono white, then you're going to need the fourth copy of Path to Exile, even when playing serious board sweepers like Day of Judgement or Martial Coupe. They need to be in hand when Vampire Nocturnous hits the board and there's very few threats in standard that can't be solved with it. Also, Soul Warden and that exalted one drop solider are both good tutor targets for Ranger of Eos, i'm surprised they don't see more play- even as one of's in a toolbox.
2 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
2 Gargoyle Castle
20 Plains
4 Baneslayer Angel
4 Knight of the White Orchid
4 White Knight
1 Ajani Goldmane
2 Conqueror's Pledge
3 Day of Judgment
3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
3 Harm's Way
4 Honor of the Pure
2 Martial Coup
3 Oblivion Ring
3 Path to Exile
2 Brave the Elements
4 Celestial Purge
4 Devout Lightcaster
4 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Harm's Way
Which is why I suggested mymtgo. At least until Jamuraa fixes some of the more glaring errors. In my own article I just referenced gatherer for my pic links, because I found it easier to do that while testing the html outside of the editor.
That is an interesting perspective. The problem is, defining what Tier 1 in 100s IS. Not all top 8 decks qualify and rogue builds with a few minor but significant changes can also be not tier 1 yet not quite casual either. Imho the ability to just win the first few turns makes a deck slightly more than casual. That is my opinion but I think it is shared by many. Now of all of us you might have a better insight into what is what because you did those spreadsheets for the CC but does that mean anything you didn't consider for them isn't playable in a tourney? (A waste of time?) I played against 2 of those decks by the way with a decidedly casual red deck and rolled over them. One of the decks was Crosis which I understand was scratched but the other was WW which in theory should just win vs red. My point is how does one figure out whether their deck is tier 1, 2, x? Not even thinkable as a tier? I mean common sense will rule out some cards as being completely bad but even with the obvious chaff out of the way there are plenty of cards that are situationally awesome and otherwise not so much.
Allow me to clear up some more, if you will....
Forsythe's "MODS" comments has been horribly, horribly, horribly taken out of context. But I will gladly provide it.
John Loucks asked for data access in a channelfireball article.
AaFo puts out a Call to Mods:
http://twitter.com/mtgaaron/status/3712350129
I, and others, call a "lolwhut?" on AaFo.
AaFo clarifies:
http://twitter.com/mtgaaron/status/3716262512
That last one is often ignored by people defending millibot's actions.
Actually, my worries were more about loading the decklist into the PureMTGO article editor. It sometimes hiccups when fed card names with apostrophes and the like.
It's getting better, and I only had to manually link a few cards - and I had to go through some contortions to get the Painter's Servant in as a picture.
Thanks for the scouting report. I'll pass it on.
I don't play my Tier 1 100CS decks in Casual anymore, it has gotten reasonable enough to find testing games in TP for that purpose.
I find that mis-clasification of Tier 1 decks is probably the largest culprit of people complaining about Tier 1 decks in Casual. That is to say that people claim a deck is Tier 1 when it is in reality not. This may happen for any number of reasons, losing badly to a deck, seeing several high priced rares in a row without knowing the rest of the deck contents, having the opponents deck seem like your one unwinnable matchup, or some other skewed perspective. Many times this will happen with decks like MBC or Mono Blue all counter decks, which are far and away not Tier 1 decks, but can eat other casual decks for breakfast at times. Where should people play those decks? The Casual Room is the only appropriate place, since they are likely not practicing for tournaments with those decks and it will just waste the time of players that are.
It runs Hellspark Elemental over Plated Geopede...that's a pretty ballsy play imo. You're essentially guaranteeing 6 points of dmg because of trample and most people won't waste a bolt or burst on it cause it goes away after each use anyway. But wouldn't the standard Geopede still be better cause it has the potential to deal more dmg? Just thinking out loud here and curious on others thoughts.
I have been refusing to play the wizards guys in 100cs. They can practice against themselves. Go team CC!
i hope ur article makes people interested in making standard singleton fire - seeing as it only fired once thus far. if it does start firing i attribute it to you. wotc owes you big ;)
I only use the casual room for solotaire games. For some reason they don't have the option of a solotaire game in the tournament practice room. If you end up watching me play a series of solotaire games to test the mana of one of my decks, I apologize. I'm not trying to scare people away......
I agree that tournament decks should be tested against other tournament decks in the tournament practice room. It's not much fun for either side to face unfair practice games.
Sphinx of Jwar Isle is currently going on mtgo for 1.3 tickets which seems likely to rise to me. Other than that, valakut seems a decent buy at ~0.4, but the scapeshift deck hasn't really showed up yet, and may never do so. I think I just like the card..
I agree that warren instigator is likely to rise in price at some point, but probably not before some mad goblin gets printed, so it might be worth waiting a few months until at least wwk spoiler season to pick them up?
I think Warren Instigator will go up, but probably even sooner than Mr. TopDecker would suggest. I can think of at least one mythic tribal card that got a massive boost in price when the the set following its own came out, Vampire Nocturnus. I think it's fairly probable that the card or cards required to take the Instigator from potentially insane to actually insane could very well come in Worldwake.
Wizards has tricked us many times with cards that seem too narrow to be very good until all the complimentary cards come along to make it great. So, when I'm looking at cards to go up in value, I'm looking for the ones that would be playable in standard if a complimentary card were to come along and bolster it because as often as not that card does come along.
Which other cards could be the next Vampire Nocturnus or Knight of the Reliquary? Nissa Ravine is already seeing play and only needs one or two more elf related tools to become the cornerstone of a top tier deck. The same could be said about Chandra Ablaze. As the format gets bigger and there are more and more red instants and sorceries she will get better.
We will also be due for a "good" counter spell, and if we get it, all those awesome control cards that are on the cusp now will go up. Things like Luminarch Ascension, Day of Judgement, Sphinxs, etc.
Basically, I think you can look at a format and ask yourself what holes in the Standard format does it seem likely Wizard's is going to fill in the coming set or sets, and what cards become better or worse when that happens. The cards with the potential to be better are the ones you want.
And as a darkhorse pick I would say pick up some junk rare merfolk like Cosi's Trickster, Lullmage Mentor and Seagate Loremaster. They range from 10 to 12 cents on MTGO Traders right now and with a good counterspell and some other highpowered and synergistic merfolk they could easily go up in value ten fold (to a whopping dollar)! And if not you can make a casual deck to play some zen block with.
Warren Instigator is one of three 'cheap, reliable, double strikers', the other two being Boros Swiftblade and Viashino Slaughtermaster.
You caught another one of my mistakes. I mixed up the prices for merfolk and Charbelcher. Charbelcher is only $287 and Merfolk with dual lands and a full set of Force of Wills is $673
You touched upon a very important subject actually.
The situation is this: The tournament practice room is now the place to test Tier-1 decks for mainstream formats. Such as Standard, Classic, Pauper etc... Most of the players there only test those formats and it is almost impossible to start a game for, say, Core Set Constructed there.
On the other hand, Casual Room is always very crowded and it is a lot easier to start a game for any format. And that's the reason why people use the Casual Room to test Tier-1 decks for those "exotic" formats. And I won't lie; I'm doing that too.
Time is generally scarce for most of us and no one wants to wait forever just to start a game. And that's the main reason why people use the Casual Room to test decks.
I'm not saying it's right by the way. If Casual Room will be the place to test Tier-1 decks, where then people will test their casual decks for those exotic formats?
I think that people should first try the TP Room and if that fails, they may come to the Casual Room but they should advertise their game as "Tier-1" or "Serious" or something. If they say nothing and play their Tier-1 decks, then it's wrong.
LE
That valakut hellkite deck is very very similar to the deck I've been testing with. I must admit, I didn't think of it as remotely competitive until I randomly took it for a few games in the tp room. The problem is, people keep conceding when you drop a panorama, saying "i don't want to test against budget decks", or the like. There's something very satisfying about being dead next turn, then randomly topdecking harrow and burning them out for 18!
I find that people with tournament level 100 card singleton decks are using the causal room a lot. In the long run this will keep more players from entering the format. I know that it can be difficult to find games in the tourney practice room, but that's because I just played three guys in a row in the casual room with tourney level decks.
my 2cents worth,
mullaccm
Does belcher really costs 670 or is it a typo?
I have to admit, you've made a tempting case for 60 card Standard singleton! I can definitely see a couple of decks I'd love to put together for the format, and I'll have to poke around and see what comes together.
One small note I feel like I have to correct: Double Negative and Mindbreak Trap are essentially never card advantage; what they do, and what's relevant, is that they keep your opponent from gaining card advantage on you in turn. Double Negative countering Bloodbraid Elf and a cascaded-into spell isn't actually a 2-for-1 in that you haven't spent one card from your hand to counter two cards from their hand; instead, you've spent one card to keep them from functionally turning one card from their hand into two cards. Still important, but different (IMHO) than you portrayed it. (And in my experience, I've *never* actually countered two non-cascade spells on the stack with Double Negative where I couldn't have just countered one instead.)
I want to comment on two of the cards mentioned as possible investments from Zendikar and then mention a third investment card of my own. Let's start with Warren Instigator. I see this card as future "Dark Depths" in extended. Sometime in the next seven years Wizards is going to print a game-winning goblin card that will turn Instigator into the cornerstone of a tier 1 deck. In addition, I think people have overlooked the synergy of cheap double-strikers with Blood Lust effects. Right now Warren Instigator is the only reliable cheap double-striker, but this could change and we might see double-strike.dec in the near future. 4x Warren Instigator might even be playable as the only goblins in such a deck.
Another card mentioned was Ob Nixilis. I do not share Hamtastic's positive outlook on this card. Ob Nix compares very unfavorably to Ms. 48 Tickets herself as a beatdown creature. A turn 5 Baneslayer is a huge threat that must be answered, but a turn 5 Ob Nix requires a turn 6 land (preferably fetch) to be effective. Even with cards to trigger landfall, Ob Nix is more easily chump blocked and can often be killed with a Lightning Bolt. Is Ob Nix even better than Malakir Bloodwitch? Definitely not if the field is full of Path to Exile and O-Ring. Hamtastic mentioned using Ob Nix as part of a landfall combo, but any combo that relies on a five drop creature followed by playing seven lands just doesn't seem viable.
Now I want to mention by own personal pick for "Zendikar Card Most Likely to Rise in Value": Iona, Shield of Emeria. As the Zendikar constructed PE events have shown, you can build a deck around cheating her into play and be very successful. Locking opponents out of an entire color is extremely powerful, and Iona is sure to be abused. The Vintage guys are already talking about running her in Oath, so she will definitely make an appearance in Classic once we get Exodus. Also she's a pretty good Dread Return target in Dredge against many decks.
To summarize, I recommend stocking up on Warren Instigator, holding off on Ob Nixilis, and buying every Iona you can get your hands on. Consider this post my entry for the big foil reward of the week.
Actually let me clear up alot, Millibot is locked right now do to a report of malware. Second there was no reverse enginering. He simply just wrote his own client. All the client checks for is version. Not authenticate. Also now to catch everyone up to speed AF (Aaron Forsyth) called for us to make mods for MTGO. Which easly could be intrupted that gave milli the right todo this. Now I would be more concerned as to why was there a big loop were everything trade wise was be able to get along with chat by anouther client not WoTC. Also the point of the Reverse Engineering thing not hard to get the IP of were it connects. If all it takes is a user name and password to log into the server. And there is enough software to find the IP address of were your computer connects. Anouther thing is yes the report came right before the release of zendikar. I wont say that traders had a hand in it and dont think I did as they are not in direct compition for what he did. I would reather point at the old CBS "MLbot" as a more then likely suspect.
good article. i think jund and vampires are clearly the best two decks in standard, but if you're going to play mono white, then you're going to need the fourth copy of Path to Exile, even when playing serious board sweepers like Day of Judgement or Martial Coupe. They need to be in hand when Vampire Nocturnous hits the board and there's very few threats in standard that can't be solved with it. Also, Soul Warden and that exalted one drop solider are both good tutor targets for Ranger of Eos, i'm surprised they don't see more play- even as one of's in a toolbox.
You can only play 600 card decks in multiplayer!
You can only play 600 card decks in multiplayer!
Here's the Mono-White Deck
jongsuklee, 4-0
636532
2 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
2 Gargoyle Castle
20 Plains
4 Baneslayer Angel
4 Knight of the White Orchid
4 White Knight
1 Ajani Goldmane
2 Conqueror's Pledge
3 Day of Judgment
3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
3 Harm's Way
4 Honor of the Pure
2 Martial Coup
3 Oblivion Ring
3 Path to Exile
2 Brave the Elements
4 Celestial Purge
4 Devout Lightcaster
4 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Harm's Way