I would hire someone to get me back on the tour. I lucked into my only appearance, and have fallen short at dozens of ptq's sense then. It pains me to get so close in the top eight to not get there at all.
So in short, I know I am a good player, but I know there are plenty of players better than me, that would like to make a quick dollar.
1. Comes down turn 2, with cards coming your way turn 5 (as a baseline, excluding fetch land shenanigans).
2. Thus... eats your turn 2 mana, no longer open for counters. Given the efficciency of creatures nowaday, I don't think it's a good move.
3. We've been given 3 mana sorcery card drawer (like draw 3, discard 2 or variation of such) in most past sets. You'd usually play your draw later with mana still open for counters. So there is no real gain of having it costs only two but with a long delay built-in.
4. Provides a target for naturalize cards, Given o0rin and the new o-ring (and the efficient naturalize with a body in Alara and Zendikar), you're likely to not even draw cards.
All in all, me no likey. Then I'll be proven wrong when Zendikar comes out and I'll have to eat my words. :)
My main beef with Zendikar though is the sheer number of constructed playable mythics and constructed-required mythics. There's already about 6 mythics that are surely playable and a few other that may turn out playable too. Add to this the fetch lands, Zendikar looks to be the most expensive set in a long long time.
Hiring a PTQ Consultant. Look I kow Chapin is a great player, and by and large the best pro players are out there playing paper magic and making chump change doing it - but there is a dark side hint of "Online players are inferior to paper players" in that, which I think might still persist.
I, for one would be very happy to see a MO player wipe the floor on the PT - and do it without Chapin's help.
A long time ago...I used to play paper magic, I had amassed a lot of cards I liked, and then my backpack with my trading binders was stolen in a mall. It was crushing. Years of playing magic, organizing my binders, filling them up with goodies. I did buy new binders but it was never the same after that. I mean, the joy of collecting was gone, what's the pt, if they might all vanish. It's like a boy discovering mortality, lol. Eventually joined Magic Online and haven't looked back ever since. There was also a distinct lack of limited events, which were too rare for my tastes.
Interesting perspective, and logical reasoning as far as the pricing of the MED3 fetch-rares.
One question. Why the dramatic spike in the price of Vampire Nocturnus?
Im looking forward to trying the 60 card standard singleton format but I know that standard can be very exacting too. I wonder what will fly and what will be terrible.
Thanks for the comments Tarmo. I didn't know if you were sponsoring it or what so thanks for the clarification. I assumed because you run the group over at mymtgo.com you were in charge of this too. :) I am finding the casual room play much much different from the games vs Tourney decks. Interestingly I built a tighter version of my bant deck (with some replacements and removing white entirely in favor of UG tricks) and got some nasty comments about it (not me though) being a counter deck in a noncounter environment. Go figure.
I am going to try and pull an elves deck together but I don't have the optimal elf cards so that might still be a while off yet.
Nice article as per usual hammy. I am astounded by some of the price increases. Well astounded might be overstating but Vampire Nocturnus at 10 because of the vamps in Zendikar?? Slightly insane imho.
I love the new landfall cards that have been spoiled (officially now) but I don't think the Cobra is better thna say a Hierarch which is still a great card but not a bomb. As I said in BDM's post on FB about it, its a fantastic enabler but it's still an enabler. On the other hand it might be incredibly broken in Zendikar because of the many cards that trigger off of landfall.
Journey to nowhere does seem lame compared to O-ring but think of this: O-ring is widely hated by those it hoses. So Journey will be narrowly hated. But still hated.
RE the modo ptqs...well all I can say is "PTQ online 30 tickets(Im guessing), breakfast $5, Playing in PTQ at home in your pjs instead of standing in a dozen lines to get to play in a hot crowded room: Priceless!"
On the other hand the paranoia about collusion should be entertaining to read about in the coming weeks. I seriously doubt it will be a huge factor despite the fact that some people have proven willing to cheat to win in the past. The very good MODO players will have the edge. In my opinion anyway. (This won't include me though as I have no intention of playing in PTQs ever again, much less flying off to where-ever to play magic. (EDIT: and on rereading the last sentence I realized that implied something I do not mean. Reason 2: Im a horrible player.) I do wish those who do lots of luck and may the servers remain stable if you win and crash when you lose. :D)
As for a budget replacement for Obsidian Acolyte in WW I have to recommend Shelter as a better replacement against MBC as it prevents life gain and draws you a card. You really are fast enough you generally don't need repeated use (stop the first tendrils and win). That belief is based on a build using Bonesplitter instead of the giant which just slows you down against almost everything in my testing. Against any MBCu type deck with Agony Warps I agree with the CoP: Black, but for the most part those are tough games regardless of what you bring in.
Just another cheap alternative to try out for those interested.
i have to disagree with your veiw of the power"9". yes they are from the very first set of magic and design was not even there in terms of modern thought process, however if they were such a huge mistake they could have made vintage revised and up. they have banned alpha becase of corners even though 100% of vintage magic is played with sleeves hiding the corner. if it were truly a mistake then they could remove them from the game and the format. also did you know thet the power 9 rarely even considers time twister a power card? most lists have library and twister share that spot or call it the power 10. it is also all in context of what you feel is blatenly overpowerful.
obviously black lotus and recall are insane sources of card advantage, but ya know what? time spiral and yawgmoths will are actually more broken then these "power 9" You don't see anyone making heated forumn debates about urzas block because of the price of these cards compared to the price of power.
If beta and unl were printed in the quantitys of urzas block we would be seeing base line prices of 100-200 dollars across the board for all the p9 instead of 250-1000.
also one has to remember that modo is not tied to the same constraints of paper magic and should not be veiwed as the same game. examples.
no draw in swiss rds
printing of mana drain and bazaar at the very least
this is a digital game and any cards that are not redeemable are only worth what people will pay for them
the last point is what really gets me about people saying no to online power to preserve the sanctity of these "power" cards or to preserve the fairness of eternal online magic.
Being unable to play paper magic with out power will drive up interest in modo which will in turn drive up interest in vintage as people will travle to more proxie tournaments and will in turn endover to get there own paper power. this will also not affect the prices of power in the long run, sure they may take a small dip when online power is new but eventually the added interest in the format will push them back up to or over there previous price tag.
@ seahorse - Apologies, this article was written prior to the decision on a new name for the format. I had to remove everything i originally had in there regarding Vanguard because of the format dying (i had originally intended to write both about vanguard and singleton).
@ Ste - As Adhuin stated, pauper is only officially supported on MTGO, making it a mtgo format in my eyes.
@Paul - Elves is actually one of the more consistant decks in the format, its individual card power is not as high as the majority of decks, but its raw speed, synergy and that it attacks expensive mana bases (via forestwalk and armageddon style effects) allows it to be competitive in the current environment. Budget elves was an attempt to see how low i could go cost wise and still be competitive. People hate being beat by decks that run into the hundreds of dollars when they have to work with a more down to earth budget. I just want to show that you can be play, have fun and most of all be competitive(because winning, as we all know, is fun) without investing hundreds of tixs.
Ok.. I need to clarify: the tournament is sponsored by tweaker (only) out of his own pocket.
Somehow, tutors are the cards that I end up removing from my decks most of the time. From my view point, if you are not searching for enchantments/artifacts/creatures, tutors might not be worth playing.
Personally, cards themselves don't matter much because most cards I play aren't used by people anyway.
The only cards that I would recommend getting aggressively are lands. These affect your games in the long run.
The rest (non-lands) just alter games in the short run.
"No force of will/ pact of negation" didn't stop a mono blue deck from making t8 a while back. The difference is marginal because the odds of them showing up are low.
$ cards are way too overrated in the format. Even though I own a majority of the good cards of the format, you can find me currently playing loxo warhammer over sword of fire and ice/ sword of light and shadow (for a variety of reasons).
People tend to just play $ cards because they are good but just good cards don't make the deck. Sure you need some but in time you will realize that what is more important is card interaction and deck interactions. As mentioned, elves is a fine proof of that.
I am glad you are understanding the format more by playing it... but don't give up just yet. =)
Nice article again, and I'm glad to see a few more decks I haven't seen before.
I would also like to add that once you buy some of these cards, like Mulldrifter, Aven Riftwatcher, the dual lands etc that you can use them in any number of decks. That cuts the cost down significantly. I currently have most of these made except a few and a lot of them share cards. Most of the time I can build an entirely new deck just with the 0.98 "change" I have left on a bot. Occasionally, you'll have to dole out for more expensive cards, but I love the cheapness of Pauper.
As often as I switch up decks, I can't imagine trying to play Standard or Classic where each deck is 200 bucks or more.
Erman, just wanted to give you aheads up for the fun match we played. It was a close match!
For the Tunnel Vision deck, a Vendilion Clique would work so well in there, allowing you to put a named card on the bottom then play Visions. It's also a great control card in its own right.
While I love a good sarcastic comment this wasn't one of them. I guess it just seems weak to me compared to other decks Ive face. But then as you said I haven't seen top 8 lists much. That doesn't change what I said about this though. I assume this is close to the optimal build for the WG deck.
For your "half a land less" issue, would 1 terramorphic expanse or white panorama work? Expanse might mess your curve a bit, but a panorama shouldn't, except for razor golem. Then again, turn 3 razor golem is the nuts.
I would hire someone to get me back on the tour. I lucked into my only appearance, and have fallen short at dozens of ptq's sense then. It pains me to get so close in the top eight to not get there at all.
So in short, I know I am a good player, but I know there are plenty of players better than me, that would like to make a quick dollar.
I don't like the blue drawer for mutiple reasons:
1. Comes down turn 2, with cards coming your way turn 5 (as a baseline, excluding fetch land shenanigans).
2. Thus... eats your turn 2 mana, no longer open for counters. Given the efficciency of creatures nowaday, I don't think it's a good move.
3. We've been given 3 mana sorcery card drawer (like draw 3, discard 2 or variation of such) in most past sets. You'd usually play your draw later with mana still open for counters. So there is no real gain of having it costs only two but with a long delay built-in.
4. Provides a target for naturalize cards, Given o0rin and the new o-ring (and the efficient naturalize with a body in Alara and Zendikar), you're likely to not even draw cards.
All in all, me no likey. Then I'll be proven wrong when Zendikar comes out and I'll have to eat my words. :)
My main beef with Zendikar though is the sheer number of constructed playable mythics and constructed-required mythics. There's already about 6 mythics that are surely playable and a few other that may turn out playable too. Add to this the fetch lands, Zendikar looks to be the most expensive set in a long long time.
Hiring a PTQ Consultant. Look I kow Chapin is a great player, and by and large the best pro players are out there playing paper magic and making chump change doing it - but there is a dark side hint of "Online players are inferior to paper players" in that, which I think might still persist.
I, for one would be very happy to see a MO player wipe the floor on the PT - and do it without Chapin's help.
A long time ago...I used to play paper magic, I had amassed a lot of cards I liked, and then my backpack with my trading binders was stolen in a mall. It was crushing. Years of playing magic, organizing my binders, filling them up with goodies. I did buy new binders but it was never the same after that. I mean, the joy of collecting was gone, what's the pt, if they might all vanish. It's like a boy discovering mortality, lol. Eventually joined Magic Online and haven't looked back ever since. There was also a distinct lack of limited events, which were too rare for my tastes.
That sounds like a worthy goal. I have a goal to make my own version of Elves though I don't own the Armageddons to run as land destruction.
Interesting perspective, and logical reasoning as far as the pricing of the MED3 fetch-rares.
One question. Why the dramatic spike in the price of Vampire Nocturnus?
Im looking forward to trying the 60 card standard singleton format but I know that standard can be very exacting too. I wonder what will fly and what will be terrible.
Thanks for the comments Tarmo. I didn't know if you were sponsoring it or what so thanks for the clarification. I assumed because you run the group over at mymtgo.com you were in charge of this too. :) I am finding the casual room play much much different from the games vs Tourney decks. Interestingly I built a tighter version of my bant deck (with some replacements and removing white entirely in favor of UG tricks) and got some nasty comments about it (not me though) being a counter deck in a noncounter environment. Go figure.
I am going to try and pull an elves deck together but I don't have the optimal elf cards so that might still be a while off yet.
Nice article as per usual hammy. I am astounded by some of the price increases. Well astounded might be overstating but Vampire Nocturnus at 10 because of the vamps in Zendikar?? Slightly insane imho.
I love the new landfall cards that have been spoiled (officially now) but I don't think the Cobra is better thna say a Hierarch which is still a great card but not a bomb. As I said in BDM's post on FB about it, its a fantastic enabler but it's still an enabler. On the other hand it might be incredibly broken in Zendikar because of the many cards that trigger off of landfall.
Journey to nowhere does seem lame compared to O-ring but think of this: O-ring is widely hated by those it hoses. So Journey will be narrowly hated. But still hated.
RE the modo ptqs...well all I can say is "PTQ online 30 tickets(Im guessing), breakfast $5, Playing in PTQ at home in your pjs instead of standing in a dozen lines to get to play in a hot crowded room: Priceless!"
On the other hand the paranoia about collusion should be entertaining to read about in the coming weeks. I seriously doubt it will be a huge factor despite the fact that some people have proven willing to cheat to win in the past. The very good MODO players will have the edge. In my opinion anyway. (This won't include me though as I have no intention of playing in PTQs ever again, much less flying off to where-ever to play magic. (EDIT: and on rereading the last sentence I realized that implied something I do not mean. Reason 2: Im a horrible player.) I do wish those who do lots of luck and may the servers remain stable if you win and crash when you lose. :D)
As for a budget replacement for Obsidian Acolyte in WW I have to recommend Shelter as a better replacement against MBC as it prevents life gain and draws you a card. You really are fast enough you generally don't need repeated use (stop the first tendrils and win). That belief is based on a build using Bonesplitter instead of the giant which just slows you down against almost everything in my testing. Against any MBCu type deck with Agony Warps I agree with the CoP: Black, but for the most part those are tough games regardless of what you bring in.
Just another cheap alternative to try out for those interested.
i have to disagree with your veiw of the power"9". yes they are from the very first set of magic and design was not even there in terms of modern thought process, however if they were such a huge mistake they could have made vintage revised and up. they have banned alpha becase of corners even though 100% of vintage magic is played with sleeves hiding the corner. if it were truly a mistake then they could remove them from the game and the format. also did you know thet the power 9 rarely even considers time twister a power card? most lists have library and twister share that spot or call it the power 10. it is also all in context of what you feel is blatenly overpowerful.
obviously black lotus and recall are insane sources of card advantage, but ya know what? time spiral and yawgmoths will are actually more broken then these "power 9" You don't see anyone making heated forumn debates about urzas block because of the price of these cards compared to the price of power.
If beta and unl were printed in the quantitys of urzas block we would be seeing base line prices of 100-200 dollars across the board for all the p9 instead of 250-1000.
also one has to remember that modo is not tied to the same constraints of paper magic and should not be veiwed as the same game. examples.
no draw in swiss rds
printing of mana drain and bazaar at the very least
this is a digital game and any cards that are not redeemable are only worth what people will pay for them
the last point is what really gets me about people saying no to online power to preserve the sanctity of these "power" cards or to preserve the fairness of eternal online magic.
Being unable to play paper magic with out power will drive up interest in modo which will in turn drive up interest in vintage as people will travle to more proxie tournaments and will in turn endover to get there own paper power. this will also not affect the prices of power in the long run, sure they may take a small dip when online power is new but eventually the added interest in the format will push them back up to or over there previous price tag.
my thoughts take them as you will.
@ seahorse - Apologies, this article was written prior to the decision on a new name for the format. I had to remove everything i originally had in there regarding Vanguard because of the format dying (i had originally intended to write both about vanguard and singleton).
@ Ste - As Adhuin stated, pauper is only officially supported on MTGO, making it a mtgo format in my eyes.
@Paul - Elves is actually one of the more consistant decks in the format, its individual card power is not as high as the majority of decks, but its raw speed, synergy and that it attacks expensive mana bases (via forestwalk and armageddon style effects) allows it to be competitive in the current environment. Budget elves was an attempt to see how low i could go cost wise and still be competitive. People hate being beat by decks that run into the hundreds of dollars when they have to work with a more down to earth budget. I just want to show that you can be play, have fun and most of all be competitive(because winning, as we all know, is fun) without investing hundreds of tixs.
Ok.. I need to clarify: the tournament is sponsored by tweaker (only) out of his own pocket.
Somehow, tutors are the cards that I end up removing from my decks most of the time. From my view point, if you are not searching for enchantments/artifacts/creatures, tutors might not be worth playing.
Personally, cards themselves don't matter much because most cards I play aren't used by people anyway.
The only cards that I would recommend getting aggressively are lands. These affect your games in the long run.
The rest (non-lands) just alter games in the short run.
"No force of will/ pact of negation" didn't stop a mono blue deck from making t8 a while back. The difference is marginal because the odds of them showing up are low.
$ cards are way too overrated in the format. Even though I own a majority of the good cards of the format, you can find me currently playing loxo warhammer over sword of fire and ice/ sword of light and shadow (for a variety of reasons).
People tend to just play $ cards because they are good but just good cards don't make the deck. Sure you need some but in time you will realize that what is more important is card interaction and deck interactions. As mentioned, elves is a fine proof of that.
I am glad you are understanding the format more by playing it... but don't give up just yet. =)
It was indeed a great match which I too enjoyed a lot. We literally fought to the last card; even the timer had problems catching up with us :)).
LE
Nice article again, and I'm glad to see a few more decks I haven't seen before.
I would also like to add that once you buy some of these cards, like Mulldrifter, Aven Riftwatcher, the dual lands etc that you can use them in any number of decks. That cuts the cost down significantly. I currently have most of these made except a few and a lot of them share cards. Most of the time I can build an entirely new deck just with the 0.98 "change" I have left on a bot. Occasionally, you'll have to dole out for more expensive cards, but I love the cheapness of Pauper.
As often as I switch up decks, I can't imagine trying to play Standard or Classic where each deck is 200 bucks or more.
Erman, just wanted to give you aheads up for the fun match we played. It was a close match!
For the Tunnel Vision deck, a Vendilion Clique would work so well in there, allowing you to put a named card on the bottom then play Visions. It's also a great control card in its own right.
While I love a good sarcastic comment this wasn't one of them. I guess it just seems weak to me compared to other decks Ive face. But then as you said I haven't seen top 8 lists much. That doesn't change what I said about this though. I assume this is close to the optimal build for the WG deck.
you need to correct the shownotes for your podcast!
Should be at yahoo dot com: I don't have a Puremtgo address at this time.
I can't tell if you are being sarcastic or just haven't looked at any T8 results. GW Elves is plenty good in this format.
Check the ban list before you buy tutors. I believe Demonic Tutor is banned.
why do people insist on wasting my time with "i wasted my time, gimme back my minutes" comments ?
For your "half a land less" issue, would 1 terramorphic expanse or white panorama work? Expanse might mess your curve a bit, but a panorama shouldn't, except for razor golem. Then again, turn 3 razor golem is the nuts.
AJ underscore impy at puremtgo dot com bounces
Oh, regarding MBC(u) and Crypt Rats:
Evincar's Justice. At $0.05 instead of $2.50, it can be close enough to make the difference worthwhile.
In Orzhov Mimic, I've tried Chittering Rats there instead of crypt rats and though different, it wasn't bad.