I dunno, kids today. In my day, we walked to PTs through the snow, and we liked it. Uphill both ways, of course. That was when we had proper PTs, of course, held inside the cold-store of a Target somewhere in Bismark, North Dakota. 400 of us there were, in that cold-store. Including Steven OMS.
And we didn't have none of your fancy-dancy RSS updates either. We had to carry typewriters, yes, typewriters, with us, so we could submit copy for the Duelist, to be published three months later. *And* we expected our article to be pulled for another crappy Mark Rosewater "Puzzling"....
Tell that to people nowadays and they won't believe you.
Whispersilk Cloak is not an auto-include just because the format is M10 Sealed and the deck has Forests. It is the kind of card you must be VERY sure you want, because if it isn't outright winning the game for you, it is a mulligan (and thus helping you lose).
I promise I don't have any bias against Whispersilk Cloak. I play it quite often. I would not *actively* want it here, though. Guys like Child of Night, Lightning Elemental, and Berserkers of Blood Ridge *actively* make me want Whispersilk Cloak, because they are decent but often blank, so equipping them is like drawing an extra card.
In this deck, only five creatures have power greater than 2, of which one flies, one tramples, and one regenerates. Those are all win-more scenarios. I only really want to equip Enormous Baloth, and even in his case, it's a bit of a win-more.
So if I don't want it, is it possible that I need it? I'd rather make that decision after Game 1. For example, I would side in Whispersilk Cloak *against* this deck, because it is a very decent way to play around (double) Blinding Mage and Divine Verdict. I can be fairly sure that Cloak won't be a mulligan.
The inevitable point about breaking ground stalls is somewhat spurious because, ostensibly, any card will help your position. Cloak just does it in a very literal way, which is no implication of efficiency or efficacy. Again, I'd rather make that decision after Game 1. In the meantime, this deck's removal suite and game-breakers are certainly not below average.
"[Cloak] is far more likely to lead to a win in this build than Glorious Charge."
Well, sure, but it's also more likely to lead to a loss. That's how high-variance cards work. Glorious Charge is the middle road, and will be a solid contribution to almost any game this particular deck plays. I don't like Charge in general, but it is pretty good here.
Wow, you really got wound up by this. To be honest you've set yourself up for plenty of flames with this post, not least:
"As for being sexist, no, it's not unnecessarily picky, you're discriminating against nearly half of the human population. They is ridiculous, and to use her or him you'd have to ask each opponent *his* sex."
as the other poster mentioned. An idiom regarding pots and kettles comes to mind!
And you are quite right, I do consider my view as a reader to be just as valid as your "professional translator" opinion.
Anyway, my comments were intended for Godot and I appreciate the fact that, in his statement below, they were taken as intended (constructive criticism) and I respect his decision to stick to his style. Due to the quality of his articles I imagine that I would get used to these terms eventually, but I felt it important to raise the issue as it would be a shame for Godot to put off other new readers. And yes I do consider myself a new reader after 4 articles, and no i'm not lying....
You could just arbitrarily assign each opponent the name of a random film/book villain! Would probably be funny for the first 2, then grating, then infuriating beyond words?
I'm fine with going with the UW build, it's also strong, but you are underrating the cloak for the GW build. The build has limited ways to win if plan A of "make creatures that live and pacify/tap theirs" fails, pretty much coming down to Garruk, Armored Ascension, and the cloak.
Anything with three or more power and a cloak is going to get there fairly quickly in creature stalls, and anything but the troll is going to have trouble breaking through a creature stall without it. The troll is pretty great at banging away against opponents without a five-toughness creature or a regenerator, but even the baloth can be tapped, blocked with a regenerator, blocked with a deathtoucher, or gang blocked in a creature stall.
I think cloak is pretty slow and clunky for draft, but in sealed it's an easy play in almost any green deck, and is far more likely to lead to a win in this build than Glorious Charge.
Thanks, DeckWizard--or should I say...VILLAIN! That was you in round five, yes? I recall Marsh playing a Deck_Wizard. How did you fare in round six? Did you make the second shootout?
Hero and villian serve their purpose: naming the opponent without having to type out Sicksicksicksicksicksick or Spike14396920503 every time. Why anyone would have a qualm with this is beyond me. To argue picks in a draft or plays in a game makes sense, but squabbling over semantics is pointless and unnecessary.
Godot - another fantastic write up. You do a great job describing deck choices and game decisions and you are one of the few who magic writers who manages to make me feel like I'm actually playing the game myself.
There is only 1 creature that truly benefits from Whispersilk Cloak in your deck, that being Enormous Baloth. Cudgel Troll needs no help (win more). Stampeding Rhino has mild evasion (gets around Drudge Skeletons and chumpers) and is generally difficult to gang-block anyway. Beyond those 3 guys, you have no reason to play Cloak at all. Your deck has 2 flyers plus Armored Ascension, not to mention 2 Blinding Mage and 3 Pacifism to harass blockers. Garruk is a breaker too, of course.
My larger point here is that Whispersilk Cloak should be played only when it is actively good. I suspect you played it out of fear - which, even when warranted, does not make the card good. It is still clunky and potentially irrelevant.
Re: R2G2 Turn 6 (R2G2#3)
Just attack with the Cloaked Spider. You don't want to cast Divine Verdict this turn. It's better to get your Rhino (and Recluse) into play, then kill his Rhino with Verdict when it blocks yours next turn. This plan is more damage anyway, because your Rhino will trample for 4 when his is destroyed.
"My thinking was that it could be a long time before that happened. I had WWWUU on board, and for the next two turns I had plains coming."
Great point, I just thought of it in terms of having seven mana, and totally biffed that you would only have two blue. That makes it a much closer call, but man, when your blue-green opponent in M10 has done nothing all game but cast a BoP and has five mana up and six cards in hand, it is almost certain that you are up against countermagic.
The problem with waiting is that Villain will be able to keep countermagic mana up each turn at this point, so you are really looking for creatures to bait out the counters, not waiting for Villain to tap out.
I definitely play these spots more conservatively in general than you do; I just really didn't want to lose that Air Elemental in the face of fairly clear countermagic.
To me, Godot IS the Hero, and naturally, his opponent (or maybe oponesse?) has to be the Villain then.
I fail to see where those terms could possibly hamper your ability to enjoy the article.
They're just words. Just like the other 4000 or so in the article.
I was really pleased to see that most of our plays and decisions lined up. (I am Marshall btw). I felt like I took the riskier line on a lot of the decisions. I like the idea in sealed of forcing my opponent to have an answer and not getting too cute about playing around stuff. But sometimes I might be a little too aggro with it, and I think I have some room to improve on that front. Best example is me attacking with the Llanowar Elf twice when had I held him back, I could have won a turn earlier. I felt like it was the more aggressive play at the time, but in reality casting a bigger creature would have been.
One point of contention is regarding casting the Air Elemental. I also feared countermagic, but felt like it was Fancy Play Syndrome to not just cast it. You said "With two Plains coming up, we’ll be able to cast Air Elemental with Negate protection fairly soon,". My thinking was that it could be a long time before that happened. I had WWWUU on board, and for the next two turns I had plains coming. I need another Island, and was worried about how long it would take to find it. I really felt like I ran a risk of letting him draw into countermagic/removal by that time frame if he didn't have it already. I might have undervalued the Rod Of Ruin play, I considered it neither a relevant clock nor a good play in that spot. I might have been wrong there, but I decided that I would put the pressure on and force him to have Essence Scatter or Cancel. If my next two draws had been Plains then Island, I probably would have taken your route.
@ghwiess: Good comments as always. One thing I disagreed with was your comment about Wispersilk Cloak when you said "Whispersilk Cloak just isn't very good in either deck. You can see from the game replays that it barely did anything. " It would have been pretty bad in the UW version I agree, but in the GW version it was a legitimate win condition when paired with one of the fatty creatures. You referenced that it wasn't good using the replays as evidence, but remember that there were more games than the ones shown, and also that just because it didn't "go off" in one of those games, that doesn't mean it's not legitimate. I do agree that often I would rather have a less clunky way to punch through, but when your deck has as many defensive creatures as this one did, you need a way to get in for the win.
One other comment about my round 1 opponent: as I was heading into round 6 I checked the standings and he was #1 at that time for the whole event. Running into the guy with the nut pool in the first round is annoying, but I still feel like I had a shot at 5-1, just needed to run really well, and didn't quite pull it off.
I look forward to doing more of these though, both live and on MTGO.
I think the Hero/Villain thing is trivial, but it seems to rile people up. Maybe try ‘The Opponent’. I can see how ‘Villain’ makes it easier to write, as you can use it instead of a name and avoid attention from the grammar police.
I wonder if we're not more likely to see tooth and nail as G/U rather than G/R nowadays, what with misty rainforest showing up. Gifts ungiven is just too nuts not to run, i'd think (gets lftl+tron or tooth+witness+reclaim or something). In fact, I never really understood why u/g tron didn't run tooth as a finisher last season in extended.
Anyway, one last thing; I think i'm correct in saying that if you toothed for iona + paintmeister, your opponent would still have an opportunity to putrefy/terminate/path iona while the two citp abilities were on the stack. Still, Kiki + Pestermite has a similar "weak moment"!
I really dont see how using "him" would be at all offensive. Women might be 51% of the population as a whole, but in my experince they are 5-10% of the magic-playing population, and an even smaller percentage of the tournament-going magic population. I loved the article, but I also found "hero" and "villain" a bit distracting, though not enough to really annoy me.
"As for being sexist, no, it's not unnecessarily picky, you're discriminating against nearly half of the human population. They is ridiculous, and to use her or him you'd have to ask each opponent *his* sex."
lol
To the point, I am not sure that this is the proper way to spend good Magic geekout time. The Hero/Villain thing works for me as I am so used to it from reading/writing down countless poker hands.
I don't think any type of internet flame war is needed though, as the criticism was brought up quite civilly.
Easy does it, no need for flamey tones over what was a politely-stated, legitimate piece of feedback on the article, which I *always* appreciate.
JohnnyB is not alone, others have stated in the comments of other columns that my use of "Villain" bugged them, so it's definitely something I'm aware of. This is the first time I've used "Hero," since I've not critiqued another player's games before, so perhaps JohnnyB has read some villain-only articles and not really noticed, but the combination of the two brought it to the forefront for him.
When I first started reading a lot of poker-hand breakdowns on forums and in poker magazine articles, I actually remember finding the hero/villain designations a little odd at first myself . Pretty quickly, it became normal to me, and now it's just naturally how I think about gaming situations in my head where I am "virtually" playing as someone else, so that's what comes out on the screen.
"I had to stop reading because..." is about the most painful thing an online author can read in the comments of a piece (as I'm sure other Pure writers can attest to), though, so I do take that feedback to heart. I doubt I will change my style--I'm not even sure I *could*, since what grates on JohnnyB and others just feels so natural and "right" to me at this point--but I certainly don't begrudge honest, well-intentioned feedback on my articles.
The flow of this article was a little off due to your friend being the pilot instead of yourself. It was still a fun read. Thanks for this! Also, I too vote for no more heroes and villains.
I liked the blue build better than the green one. Garruk is excellent of course, but is a less reliable "I Win" than Mind Spring. The other card that I think is important, especially for a 6-round tournament, is Negate. If there had been a Safe Passage in the pool, then it'd be less vital, but I really like having answers to bombs in this format. The other blue cards also stack up favorably to the green ones, though it isn't too far off. The double Mold Adder should make siding into green the right choice pretty often anyway.
Whispersilk Cloak just isn't very good in either deck. You can see from the game replays that it barely did anything. I do like Glorious Charge here. The creature count is fairly high, and you have 2 Recluses that will often be saved when trading for a 2/x flyer.
R1G2 I would Armor up the Pegasus and attack. It's the only reasonable way to expect to win this game.
The problem is that you're behind on board and 2 of the 3 spells in your hand are clunky. Casting the Pacifism now effectively gives up your only efficient way to get back into the game, since you are using your whole turn to do it. You will also be at the mercy of any larger threat your opponent plays.
The payoff for casting Pacifism immediately is 4 life from 2 Warlock hits, which is nice but only relevant if you are forced into suboptimal plays in order to stay alive. You also get a chance to cast Armor and protect it with Cloak in the same turn, but you'll have to wait until you have 6 or 7 mana for that. It's a "safe" line of play, but with bleak outlook for actually winning the game.
On the other hand, if you Armor the Pegasus now, your opponent needs to kill it immediately. If he does not, you untap and equip, cast Pacifism, and take over the game. Even if he does kill the Pegasus, you still have a Troll and a Pacifism. This brings me back to my first point: after casting Troll on turn 5, you can follow up on turn 6 with Pacifism PLUS something you drew in the meantime. That level of efficiency can pull you out of a fairly large tempo hole.
Of course, neither scenario actually beats Mind Control. I think it is quite appropriate to side in 1 Naturalize :) Apparently he had Gorgon Flail too. Incidentally, G3 is an example of why I think Llanowar Elves is overrated. You can play turn 2 Courser, turn 3 Recluse + Recluse, and it just doesn't matter most of the time.
So you've read 4 of his 5 articles, and never came across Hero and Villain before? That's a simple, straightforward LIE. As for being sexist, no, it's not unnecessarily picky, you're discriminating against nearly half of the human population. They is ridiculous, and to use her or him you'd have to ask each opponent his sex. Not to mention it wasn't even the author playing himself. You can stuff your PC high horse. YOU are the one who raised the issue of "impropriety", which I find ridiculous. I'm perfectly fine with him using any term he wants.
And "they're not used anywhere..." and what are you, a language and statistics expert? Please, spare me the biased judgment disguised as "facts". And who the hell are you to judge readability? A reader, you'll say. Yeah so am I. I also work as a professional translator, reading, typing and reviewing thousands of words every single day. And I say it's fine. So shush. :)
If if your gripe was legitimate (which I really disagree with) why does it invalidate the rest of the article? Can't you like Shard, ignore what you don't care for and enjoy the rest?
Well i'll admit that I've only read 4 of 5 of his articles, they have mostly been on the topic of limited card evaluations so perhaps this is why I haven't come across these terms before. As for being sexist, you're just being unecessarily picky, it's pretty easy to swap out 'him' for 'them' or 'her', no need to get on your PC high horse.
On the point of it being a poker reference, I have come across these terms in other contexts before, but they're not used anywhere near as frequently. It just needs a bit of toning down and the whole thing would be a lot more readable.
I dunno, kids today. In my day, we walked to PTs through the snow, and we liked it. Uphill both ways, of course. That was when we had proper PTs, of course, held inside the cold-store of a Target somewhere in Bismark, North Dakota. 400 of us there were, in that cold-store. Including Steven OMS.
And we didn't have none of your fancy-dancy RSS updates either. We had to carry typewriters, yes, typewriters, with us, so we could submit copy for the Duelist, to be published three months later. *And* we expected our article to be pulled for another crappy Mark Rosewater "Puzzling"....
Tell that to people nowadays and they won't believe you.
Let me try again...
Whispersilk Cloak is not an auto-include just because the format is M10 Sealed and the deck has Forests. It is the kind of card you must be VERY sure you want, because if it isn't outright winning the game for you, it is a mulligan (and thus helping you lose).
I promise I don't have any bias against Whispersilk Cloak. I play it quite often. I would not *actively* want it here, though. Guys like Child of Night, Lightning Elemental, and Berserkers of Blood Ridge *actively* make me want Whispersilk Cloak, because they are decent but often blank, so equipping them is like drawing an extra card.
In this deck, only five creatures have power greater than 2, of which one flies, one tramples, and one regenerates. Those are all win-more scenarios. I only really want to equip Enormous Baloth, and even in his case, it's a bit of a win-more.
So if I don't want it, is it possible that I need it? I'd rather make that decision after Game 1. For example, I would side in Whispersilk Cloak *against* this deck, because it is a very decent way to play around (double) Blinding Mage and Divine Verdict. I can be fairly sure that Cloak won't be a mulligan.
The inevitable point about breaking ground stalls is somewhat spurious because, ostensibly, any card will help your position. Cloak just does it in a very literal way, which is no implication of efficiency or efficacy. Again, I'd rather make that decision after Game 1. In the meantime, this deck's removal suite and game-breakers are certainly not below average.
"[Cloak] is far more likely to lead to a win in this build than Glorious Charge."
Well, sure, but it's also more likely to lead to a loss. That's how high-variance cards work. Glorious Charge is the middle road, and will be a solid contribution to almost any game this particular deck plays. I don't like Charge in general, but it is pretty good here.
Wow, you really got wound up by this. To be honest you've set yourself up for plenty of flames with this post, not least:
"As for being sexist, no, it's not unnecessarily picky, you're discriminating against nearly half of the human population. They is ridiculous, and to use her or him you'd have to ask each opponent *his* sex."
as the other poster mentioned. An idiom regarding pots and kettles comes to mind!
And you are quite right, I do consider my view as a reader to be just as valid as your "professional translator" opinion.
Anyway, my comments were intended for Godot and I appreciate the fact that, in his statement below, they were taken as intended (constructive criticism) and I respect his decision to stick to his style. Due to the quality of his articles I imagine that I would get used to these terms eventually, but I felt it important to raise the issue as it would be a shame for Godot to put off other new readers. And yes I do consider myself a new reader after 4 articles, and no i'm not lying....
You could just arbitrarily assign each opponent the name of a random film/book villain! Would probably be funny for the first 2, then grating, then infuriating beyond words?
Hero/Villain is clearly fine, although I highly doubt anybody would infer sexism from putting "he" anyway.
I wasn't aware that it was poker-speak though. You learn something new every day, eh?
I'm fine with going with the UW build, it's also strong, but you are underrating the cloak for the GW build. The build has limited ways to win if plan A of "make creatures that live and pacify/tap theirs" fails, pretty much coming down to Garruk, Armored Ascension, and the cloak.
Anything with three or more power and a cloak is going to get there fairly quickly in creature stalls, and anything but the troll is going to have trouble breaking through a creature stall without it. The troll is pretty great at banging away against opponents without a five-toughness creature or a regenerator, but even the baloth can be tapped, blocked with a regenerator, blocked with a deathtoucher, or gang blocked in a creature stall.
I think cloak is pretty slow and clunky for draft, but in sealed it's an easy play in almost any green deck, and is far more likely to lead to a win in this build than Glorious Charge.
Hero/Villain is widely used and accepted poker terminology.
check the boards here: www.twoplustwo.com ... they use it to describe every hand.
Thanks, DeckWizard--or should I say...VILLAIN! That was you in round five, yes? I recall Marsh playing a Deck_Wizard. How did you fare in round six? Did you make the second shootout?
Hero and villian serve their purpose: naming the opponent without having to type out Sicksicksicksicksicksick or Spike14396920503 every time. Why anyone would have a qualm with this is beyond me. To argue picks in a draft or plays in a game makes sense, but squabbling over semantics is pointless and unnecessary.
Godot - another fantastic write up. You do a great job describing deck choices and game decisions and you are one of the few who magic writers who manages to make me feel like I'm actually playing the game myself.
My hat's off to you, sir.
Re: Whispersilk Cloak
There is only 1 creature that truly benefits from Whispersilk Cloak in your deck, that being Enormous Baloth. Cudgel Troll needs no help (win more). Stampeding Rhino has mild evasion (gets around Drudge Skeletons and chumpers) and is generally difficult to gang-block anyway. Beyond those 3 guys, you have no reason to play Cloak at all. Your deck has 2 flyers plus Armored Ascension, not to mention 2 Blinding Mage and 3 Pacifism to harass blockers. Garruk is a breaker too, of course.
My larger point here is that Whispersilk Cloak should be played only when it is actively good. I suspect you played it out of fear - which, even when warranted, does not make the card good. It is still clunky and potentially irrelevant.
Re: R2G2 Turn 6 (R2G2#3)
Just attack with the Cloaked Spider. You don't want to cast Divine Verdict this turn. It's better to get your Rhino (and Recluse) into play, then kill his Rhino with Verdict when it blocks yours next turn. This plan is more damage anyway, because your Rhino will trample for 4 when his is destroyed.
"My thinking was that it could be a long time before that happened. I had WWWUU on board, and for the next two turns I had plains coming."
Great point, I just thought of it in terms of having seven mana, and totally biffed that you would only have two blue. That makes it a much closer call, but man, when your blue-green opponent in M10 has done nothing all game but cast a BoP and has five mana up and six cards in hand, it is almost certain that you are up against countermagic.
The problem with waiting is that Villain will be able to keep countermagic mana up each turn at this point, so you are really looking for creatures to bait out the counters, not waiting for Villain to tap out.
I definitely play these spots more conservatively in general than you do; I just really didn't want to lose that Air Elemental in the face of fairly clear countermagic.
To me, Godot IS the Hero, and naturally, his opponent (or maybe oponesse?) has to be the Villain then.
I fail to see where those terms could possibly hamper your ability to enjoy the article.
They're just words. Just like the other 4000 or so in the article.
I was really pleased to see that most of our plays and decisions lined up. (I am Marshall btw). I felt like I took the riskier line on a lot of the decisions. I like the idea in sealed of forcing my opponent to have an answer and not getting too cute about playing around stuff. But sometimes I might be a little too aggro with it, and I think I have some room to improve on that front. Best example is me attacking with the Llanowar Elf twice when had I held him back, I could have won a turn earlier. I felt like it was the more aggressive play at the time, but in reality casting a bigger creature would have been.
One point of contention is regarding casting the Air Elemental. I also feared countermagic, but felt like it was Fancy Play Syndrome to not just cast it. You said "With two Plains coming up, we’ll be able to cast Air Elemental with Negate protection fairly soon,". My thinking was that it could be a long time before that happened. I had WWWUU on board, and for the next two turns I had plains coming. I need another Island, and was worried about how long it would take to find it. I really felt like I ran a risk of letting him draw into countermagic/removal by that time frame if he didn't have it already. I might have undervalued the Rod Of Ruin play, I considered it neither a relevant clock nor a good play in that spot. I might have been wrong there, but I decided that I would put the pressure on and force him to have Essence Scatter or Cancel. If my next two draws had been Plains then Island, I probably would have taken your route.
@ghwiess: Good comments as always. One thing I disagreed with was your comment about Wispersilk Cloak when you said "Whispersilk Cloak just isn't very good in either deck. You can see from the game replays that it barely did anything. " It would have been pretty bad in the UW version I agree, but in the GW version it was a legitimate win condition when paired with one of the fatty creatures. You referenced that it wasn't good using the replays as evidence, but remember that there were more games than the ones shown, and also that just because it didn't "go off" in one of those games, that doesn't mean it's not legitimate. I do agree that often I would rather have a less clunky way to punch through, but when your deck has as many defensive creatures as this one did, you need a way to get in for the win.
One other comment about my round 1 opponent: as I was heading into round 6 I checked the standings and he was #1 at that time for the whole event. Running into the guy with the nut pool in the first round is annoying, but I still feel like I had a shot at 5-1, just needed to run really well, and didn't quite pull it off.
I look forward to doing more of these though, both live and on MTGO.
I agree that the new one is probably better. I was trying to make a distinction between 'good' and 'exciting'. Swing and a miss I guess?
I liked the article.
I think the Hero/Villain thing is trivial, but it seems to rile people up. Maybe try ‘The Opponent’. I can see how ‘Villain’ makes it easier to write, as you can use it instead of a name and avoid attention from the grammar police.
Oran-Rief is much better than you Novijen. Would you rather your creatures have a kicker of 1UG to get +1/+1 or just G?
I wonder if we're not more likely to see tooth and nail as G/U rather than G/R nowadays, what with misty rainforest showing up. Gifts ungiven is just too nuts not to run, i'd think (gets lftl+tron or tooth+witness+reclaim or something). In fact, I never really understood why u/g tron didn't run tooth as a finisher last season in extended.
Anyway, one last thing; I think i'm correct in saying that if you toothed for iona + paintmeister, your opponent would still have an opportunity to putrefy/terminate/path iona while the two citp abilities were on the stack. Still, Kiki + Pestermite has a similar "weak moment"!
I really dont see how using "him" would be at all offensive. Women might be 51% of the population as a whole, but in my experince they are 5-10% of the magic-playing population, and an even smaller percentage of the tournament-going magic population. I loved the article, but I also found "hero" and "villain" a bit distracting, though not enough to really annoy me.
Anyone else find this hilarious?
"As for being sexist, no, it's not unnecessarily picky, you're discriminating against nearly half of the human population. They is ridiculous, and to use her or him you'd have to ask each opponent *his* sex."
lol
To the point, I am not sure that this is the proper way to spend good Magic geekout time. The Hero/Villain thing works for me as I am so used to it from reading/writing down countless poker hands.
I don't think any type of internet flame war is needed though, as the criticism was brought up quite civilly.
Easy does it, no need for flamey tones over what was a politely-stated, legitimate piece of feedback on the article, which I *always* appreciate.
JohnnyB is not alone, others have stated in the comments of other columns that my use of "Villain" bugged them, so it's definitely something I'm aware of. This is the first time I've used "Hero," since I've not critiqued another player's games before, so perhaps JohnnyB has read some villain-only articles and not really noticed, but the combination of the two brought it to the forefront for him.
When I first started reading a lot of poker-hand breakdowns on forums and in poker magazine articles, I actually remember finding the hero/villain designations a little odd at first myself . Pretty quickly, it became normal to me, and now it's just naturally how I think about gaming situations in my head where I am "virtually" playing as someone else, so that's what comes out on the screen.
"I had to stop reading because..." is about the most painful thing an online author can read in the comments of a piece (as I'm sure other Pure writers can attest to), though, so I do take that feedback to heart. I doubt I will change my style--I'm not even sure I *could*, since what grates on JohnnyB and others just feels so natural and "right" to me at this point--but I certainly don't begrudge honest, well-intentioned feedback on my articles.
The flow of this article was a little off due to your friend being the pilot instead of yourself. It was still a fun read. Thanks for this! Also, I too vote for no more heroes and villains.
I liked the blue build better than the green one. Garruk is excellent of course, but is a less reliable "I Win" than Mind Spring. The other card that I think is important, especially for a 6-round tournament, is Negate. If there had been a Safe Passage in the pool, then it'd be less vital, but I really like having answers to bombs in this format. The other blue cards also stack up favorably to the green ones, though it isn't too far off. The double Mold Adder should make siding into green the right choice pretty often anyway.
Whispersilk Cloak just isn't very good in either deck. You can see from the game replays that it barely did anything. I do like Glorious Charge here. The creature count is fairly high, and you have 2 Recluses that will often be saved when trading for a 2/x flyer.
R1G2 I would Armor up the Pegasus and attack. It's the only reasonable way to expect to win this game.
The problem is that you're behind on board and 2 of the 3 spells in your hand are clunky. Casting the Pacifism now effectively gives up your only efficient way to get back into the game, since you are using your whole turn to do it. You will also be at the mercy of any larger threat your opponent plays.
The payoff for casting Pacifism immediately is 4 life from 2 Warlock hits, which is nice but only relevant if you are forced into suboptimal plays in order to stay alive. You also get a chance to cast Armor and protect it with Cloak in the same turn, but you'll have to wait until you have 6 or 7 mana for that. It's a "safe" line of play, but with bleak outlook for actually winning the game.
On the other hand, if you Armor the Pegasus now, your opponent needs to kill it immediately. If he does not, you untap and equip, cast Pacifism, and take over the game. Even if he does kill the Pegasus, you still have a Troll and a Pacifism. This brings me back to my first point: after casting Troll on turn 5, you can follow up on turn 6 with Pacifism PLUS something you drew in the meantime. That level of efficiency can pull you out of a fairly large tempo hole.
Of course, neither scenario actually beats Mind Control. I think it is quite appropriate to side in 1 Naturalize :) Apparently he had Gorgon Flail too. Incidentally, G3 is an example of why I think Llanowar Elves is overrated. You can play turn 2 Courser, turn 3 Recluse + Recluse, and it just doesn't matter most of the time.
So you've read 4 of his 5 articles, and never came across Hero and Villain before? That's a simple, straightforward LIE. As for being sexist, no, it's not unnecessarily picky, you're discriminating against nearly half of the human population. They is ridiculous, and to use her or him you'd have to ask each opponent his sex. Not to mention it wasn't even the author playing himself. You can stuff your PC high horse. YOU are the one who raised the issue of "impropriety", which I find ridiculous. I'm perfectly fine with him using any term he wants.
And "they're not used anywhere..." and what are you, a language and statistics expert? Please, spare me the biased judgment disguised as "facts". And who the hell are you to judge readability? A reader, you'll say. Yeah so am I. I also work as a professional translator, reading, typing and reviewing thousands of words every single day. And I say it's fine. So shush. :)
If if your gripe was legitimate (which I really disagree with) why does it invalidate the rest of the article? Can't you like Shard, ignore what you don't care for and enjoy the rest?
Well i'll admit that I've only read 4 of 5 of his articles, they have mostly been on the topic of limited card evaluations so perhaps this is why I haven't come across these terms before. As for being sexist, you're just being unecessarily picky, it's pretty easy to swap out 'him' for 'them' or 'her', no need to get on your PC high horse.
On the point of it being a poker reference, I have come across these terms in other contexts before, but they're not used anywhere near as frequently. It just needs a bit of toning down and the whole thing would be a lot more readable.