Cmon, Im the only one who thinks that the deck was a total crap? Sorry, but how does rhis deck stands any chance against any average player in the field?
led is not a staple in legacy ichorid the deck is also divided into led and ledless lists [ref:mtgthesource].
crypt is not better than leyline as chalice shuts down crypt and null rod too, also while not being able to defend your own bridges
aside from the mirror which is as fast as you are. also stops wasteland recursion and tombstalker a tad bit.
crypt/relics are not in the 50 most played cards in either vintage or legacy ichorid where as leyline shows up in both formats top 50 most played cards in the archtype.
I think the rotation for pauper stanards will produce some very interesting decks. I expect an increase of aggro control over the current 70%+ aggro environment
You can't bring rogue decks to TP and expect to do well at first. Such decks will need a lot of tuning as the typical player there only brings netdecks. At least that is what I have seen. Though that second to last deck sounds like a casual enough deck. Countryside Crusher is one of those cards that begs for a combo deck to be in, and as such is hard to tune up. Also building on a budget is really not an easy task if you intend to play seriously. $39 isn't much by the standards of tourney deck building but it is a lot for a casual deck. So are you entirely focusing on TP now because that shifts the focus you had before.
not sure why you removed battlefield forge..the painlands are going for maybe .70 a piece nowadays which is fairly good budget price. Or you could have kept in the finks and just run jungle shrines...
i went 5-1 going into the 7th rd., but according to my standing/tie-breaks, I couldn't make t8 so i just punted the match to the guy and he went 6-1 and missed t8 at 9th =)
so long Faeries, you will be missed :(
i wanted to write an article about MOCS, but this standard's rotating out so no one would care about the matchups and in-depth key plays
but 2 pieces of advice:
1) Mulligans aren't as bad as you think. it's one of the toughest decisions to make.
2) Never concede, you might rip a game-winning card you didn't think about or opponent might mis-click or "f2" too fast, etc.
First, let me say my preparation for the tournament went really, really badly. I had been testing Kowal Zoo and all other variations of Naya Zoo and I could not get consistent wins with any of them. I'm sort of uncomfortable with aggro and I've realized that the discomfort comes from not drawing enough cards. Some cascades and digging for wild nacatl's isn't enough for me. So, I did some back reading (since most of the current articles aren't relevant to the pre zen format) and I settled on a 5 colour blood deck that Chapin advocated as his second choice after 5 colour control. It had all your normal jund stuff but a sygg river cut throat for card draw and cryptic commands because chapin has a huge hardon for that card.
I could not win with that deck. The mana killed me. It was basically a jund deck with a three blue cc 4-of card in it. How other people can tolerate the kind of draws this deck gets are beyond me. So I started looking for something else. Then, I liked the look of a deck that ranked high at a recent star city games tourney which was another 5 colour blood but less jund based and had cryptics and baneslayers. I had most of the cards so i figured what the hell.
Side note: Chapin makes the argument that "good" 5 colour control players know that Broodmate Dragon is actually better for their deck than Baneslayer. He says Baneslayer is better more often, but that Broodmate is better in the matchups when you need the big monster for the win. He says Baneslayer is a crutch for reasonable players as it is very forgiving, but broodmate is better for tight players. In the forums discussing this article, Kibler chimed in saying the theory is nice but chapin is flat wrong and baneslayer is just better, full stop. Basically, Chapin has a big crush on cryptics, broodmate, and bloodraid elf, it seems.
So I ran some games with my five colour blood/baneslayer and just could not consistently win. I tried good oldfashioned jund and it's still too aggro for my style of play. After a few games testing in the tournament practice rooms I test all these decks in 8-man ques where I lost in the first round every single time. I started to believe that having not played much lowryn era standard (got into mtgo during Alara block)that the meta was just too deep and mysterious for me to understand like top players who've been playing it for a while and I was going to get smoked no matter what, best deck or not.
Then the morning of the tournament I put together yet another deck. A 5 colour control that I net decked from the latest standard decks of the week that ran 4 of uber crutch Baneslayer. Props go out to FakeShaver as it was his top eight finishing deck that I copied. I tested it a bit, it worked well. It had a lot of counter magic and cruel ultimatums. I like those. It basically looked like the kind of deck I would build myself, but I would have no idea where to even start making a manabase for it. Since this one had the manabase built for me I went with it.
So, I go into the online championship thinking I'll 0-2 and drop. Then I win my first match. It was a mirror match, but he played broodmates which was obviously bad against my baneslayers, and he timed out when I had him on the ropes in game three. My second match was 5 colour blood like the one I was going to play with the cryptics. It was not fast enough to beat me before my deck could start going off and I won in three games.
My third match was a loss to jund aggro. It's just a rough matchup for me and the bightnings and haste can kill me before I cast a spell. still, the match goes three games.
It was a seven rounds before top eight and I won my next three matches. A couple highlights were beating a merfolk deck 2 games in a row that was heavily favoured in the matchup and playing doutshiani203 in the mirror. He came in second for player of the year total points by just 2 points and in our match I was frantically clicking for 4 turns of single baneslayer beatdown and finally won the match with 9 seconds left on my clock (pizza was delivered to my apartment during this one, aggravating the time issue). These mirrors are insane because nobody does anything. It's like, the first player to cast anything loses. you cast cruel ultimatum? i cast cryptic command. You cast broken ambitions? I cast negate. I untap. I cast cruel ultimatum. etc etc
Going into round 7 I was 11th. If I won I'd be top eight as my only loss, to the jund deck, was still undefeated in first place. But my 7th round opponent was another Jund deck. I made a really bad mistake game one but not tapping all his guys with cryptic when he was going for an alpha strike, but even without it, I probably couldn't have won the game anyway. I won game two and he won game three.
My final position was 17th of 113 and I got the promo cards and packs out of the deal. Overall, I felt good about my performance, pretty much making the right play choices and only really losing in matchups I was meant to lose. If anything it's helped boost my confidence in playing constructed again as I've been viewing myself as more of a "limited specialist". Just one more lucky break and I was in the top eight. Anyway, good times at my first MOCS.
I think you should have done it. I've said this before that since both players are given equal amounts of time and MTGO uses a chess clock, the players should be able to use that time as a resource and however they want. Doing so in this case is really no different than trying to "Jedi Mind trick" them in real life.
now that you mention it i would like to see faeries vs random jank deck with a decade under the influence by taking back sunday...just because half the song is the line "I Got a Bad Feeling About This"
Cmon, Im the only one who thinks that the deck was a total crap? Sorry, but how does rhis deck stands any chance against any average player in the field?
The deck seemed insane! Nice innovation. A true CLASSIC format article.
I like, good wordiology.
led is not a staple in legacy ichorid the deck is also divided into led and ledless lists [ref:mtgthesource].
crypt is not better than leyline as chalice shuts down crypt and null rod too, also while not being able to defend your own bridges
aside from the mirror which is as fast as you are. also stops wasteland recursion and tombstalker a tad bit.
crypt/relics are not in the 50 most played cards in either vintage or legacy ichorid where as leyline shows up in both formats top 50 most played cards in the archtype.
and you need a bigger coat
im wondering this control part is going to be coming from...
I think the rotation for pauper stanards will produce some very interesting decks. I expect an increase of aggro control over the current 70%+ aggro environment
they are for now...two years of any one deck gets old...i thought faeries was fun two years ago
Zendikar standard is a long way from fleshed dour but I think
the decks already showing up are much more fun than last seasons standard
You can't bring rogue decks to TP and expect to do well at first. Such decks will need a lot of tuning as the typical player there only brings netdecks. At least that is what I have seen. Though that second to last deck sounds like a casual enough deck. Countryside Crusher is one of those cards that begs for a combo deck to be in, and as such is hard to tune up. Also building on a budget is really not an easy task if you intend to play seriously. $39 isn't much by the standards of tourney deck building but it is a lot for a casual deck. So are you entirely focusing on TP now because that shifts the focus you had before.
not sure why you removed battlefield forge..the painlands are going for maybe .70 a piece nowadays which is fairly good budget price. Or you could have kept in the finks and just run jungle shrines...
Oh ok it wasn't clear, so I (wrongly) assumed. 97 sounds like a lot of 2mans and ???
i loved playing faeries =)
sometimess it was just dumb when you t1 thoughtse, t2 bb, t3 vend t4 clique
sit on cryptic
but other times racing great sable or playing just enough to not have volcanic fallout destroy you was a challenge i welcomed =)
new t2 looks like its cast men swing =(
heya bill.
yea it was a good match and really fun. ill mostlikly be there on tuhrsday so we'll have fun storming the castle.
is it just me or do std players really hate the last two years of their lives?
i saw a really interesting planeswalker deck that didnt run any md critters
In my mind, I'm 100% sure that if your decklist does not start with 4x Bloodbraid Elf you're wrong, but that's just my opinion.
i went 5-1 going into the 7th rd., but according to my standing/tie-breaks, I couldn't make t8 so i just punted the match to the guy and he went 6-1 and missed t8 at 9th =)
so long Faeries, you will be missed :(
i wanted to write an article about MOCS, but this standard's rotating out so no one would care about the matchups and in-depth key plays
but 2 pieces of advice:
1) Mulligans aren't as bad as you think. it's one of the toughest decisions to make.
2) Never concede, you might rip a game-winning card you didn't think about or opponent might mis-click or "f2" too fast, etc.
wrong.
yay3 had 213 pts for the season alone.
But can we expect anything else than Ramp Cascade and 4AjaniV4Baneslayer.dec in the new Standard?
First, let me say my preparation for the tournament went really, really badly. I had been testing Kowal Zoo and all other variations of Naya Zoo and I could not get consistent wins with any of them. I'm sort of uncomfortable with aggro and I've realized that the discomfort comes from not drawing enough cards. Some cascades and digging for wild nacatl's isn't enough for me. So, I did some back reading (since most of the current articles aren't relevant to the pre zen format) and I settled on a 5 colour blood deck that Chapin advocated as his second choice after 5 colour control. It had all your normal jund stuff but a sygg river cut throat for card draw and cryptic commands because chapin has a huge hardon for that card.
I could not win with that deck. The mana killed me. It was basically a jund deck with a three blue cc 4-of card in it. How other people can tolerate the kind of draws this deck gets are beyond me. So I started looking for something else. Then, I liked the look of a deck that ranked high at a recent star city games tourney which was another 5 colour blood but less jund based and had cryptics and baneslayers. I had most of the cards so i figured what the hell.
Side note: Chapin makes the argument that "good" 5 colour control players know that Broodmate Dragon is actually better for their deck than Baneslayer. He says Baneslayer is better more often, but that Broodmate is better in the matchups when you need the big monster for the win. He says Baneslayer is a crutch for reasonable players as it is very forgiving, but broodmate is better for tight players. In the forums discussing this article, Kibler chimed in saying the theory is nice but chapin is flat wrong and baneslayer is just better, full stop. Basically, Chapin has a big crush on cryptics, broodmate, and bloodraid elf, it seems.
So I ran some games with my five colour blood/baneslayer and just could not consistently win. I tried good oldfashioned jund and it's still too aggro for my style of play. After a few games testing in the tournament practice rooms I test all these decks in 8-man ques where I lost in the first round every single time. I started to believe that having not played much lowryn era standard (got into mtgo during Alara block)that the meta was just too deep and mysterious for me to understand like top players who've been playing it for a while and I was going to get smoked no matter what, best deck or not.
Then the morning of the tournament I put together yet another deck. A 5 colour control that I net decked from the latest standard decks of the week that ran 4 of uber crutch Baneslayer. Props go out to FakeShaver as it was his top eight finishing deck that I copied. I tested it a bit, it worked well. It had a lot of counter magic and cruel ultimatums. I like those. It basically looked like the kind of deck I would build myself, but I would have no idea where to even start making a manabase for it. Since this one had the manabase built for me I went with it.
So, I go into the online championship thinking I'll 0-2 and drop. Then I win my first match. It was a mirror match, but he played broodmates which was obviously bad against my baneslayers, and he timed out when I had him on the ropes in game three. My second match was 5 colour blood like the one I was going to play with the cryptics. It was not fast enough to beat me before my deck could start going off and I won in three games.
My third match was a loss to jund aggro. It's just a rough matchup for me and the bightnings and haste can kill me before I cast a spell. still, the match goes three games.
It was a seven rounds before top eight and I won my next three matches. A couple highlights were beating a merfolk deck 2 games in a row that was heavily favoured in the matchup and playing doutshiani203 in the mirror. He came in second for player of the year total points by just 2 points and in our match I was frantically clicking for 4 turns of single baneslayer beatdown and finally won the match with 9 seconds left on my clock (pizza was delivered to my apartment during this one, aggravating the time issue). These mirrors are insane because nobody does anything. It's like, the first player to cast anything loses. you cast cruel ultimatum? i cast cryptic command. You cast broken ambitions? I cast negate. I untap. I cast cruel ultimatum. etc etc
Going into round 7 I was 11th. If I won I'd be top eight as my only loss, to the jund deck, was still undefeated in first place. But my 7th round opponent was another Jund deck. I made a really bad mistake game one but not tapping all his guys with cryptic when he was going for an alpha strike, but even without it, I probably couldn't have won the game anyway. I won game two and he won game three.
My final position was 17th of 113 and I got the promo cards and packs out of the deal. Overall, I felt good about my performance, pretty much making the right play choices and only really losing in matchups I was meant to lose. If anything it's helped boost my confidence in playing constructed again as I've been viewing myself as more of a "limited specialist". Just one more lucky break and I was in the top eight. Anyway, good times at my first MOCS.
About time-tagging...
I think you should have done it. I've said this before that since both players are given equal amounts of time and MTGO uses a chess clock, the players should be able to use that time as a resource and however they want. Doing so in this case is really no different than trying to "Jedi Mind trick" them in real life.
My opinion, however, is not shared by many.
most stupid comment award for you kid
awesome article
Very good article, as usual for this author. I have to confess I'm a big fan of Damping Engine, the classic rogue hero.
and I loved the music btw.
now that you mention it i would like to see faeries vs random jank deck with a decade under the influence by taking back sunday...just because half the song is the line "I Got a Bad Feeling About This"