Does anyone else have a problem with a precon being more than two colors?
It just doesn't give that feeling of a precon, that includes some semi-bad cards as fillers that actually work from game to game.
Can I tell you? I tried this deck last week, and got run over by variations on goblin tokens 3 matches in a row. It does ok against slower stuff. But Swirling Sandstorm is just not fast enough.
Also I think you're underplaying how much trouble Relic can be. I've played Blink, Teachings, Parlor Tricks, and even Tortured Existence against opponents who bring in Relics and mostly shrugged them off. In those cases I could dump cards I didn't care about fast enough to outpace the singular removal and force them to pop, at which point the graveyard was free again. With this deck though, it's often the same card going back and forth from gy to hand. If it's gone, now it's a deck of green Scathe Zombies. And Relic means Swirling Sandstorm is a blank.
But really the main issue I have is that this is what I call a "column A and column B" deck, making it in some ways similar to combo. One such example was the Jund Mana Ramp deck that saw some play around 7-10 months ago in Standard. That deck needs acceleration and it needs big spells. If you draw only dragons and Ultimatums, you can't cast anything. If you draw only Rampant Growths and Fertile Grounds, Ramp does nothing. It needed some cards from column A and some from column B in order to make the deck run.
And while Tilling Thunder is in some ways more resiliant, it really does suffer the same issue. It's really lousy to have 4 basic lands, 2 cartographers, 2 tilling treefolk, swirling sandstorm, firebolt, Dragger as your first 3-4 turns. Or needing to play your only cycling land and finding yourself in the same situation. It happens and because it's a 3-color deck you can't necessarily mulligan aggressively either.
I'm sure there was room for improvement in the matches I played. When you're racing to sandstorm, there's a fine gamble to take between dumping fast to ensure you have threshold (but hoping to draw the 4th mana) and playing lands properly to get to 4 mana (but taking risks to hit threshold). I lost the bet in both directions, and with experience could hopefully make the call better. And against an opponet who can give you time to set up, this deck offers a lot of long-term card advantage. But I just feel it's way too risky for the aggro out there now.
Brilliant plan is the best common in the set and it's not even close. Also, lesser werewolves are actually really strong. They basically have first strike and wither...
I'd check out every common in the set. Green is easily the weakest colour, and second shallowest (red is the shallowest, but it has lightning bolt AND incenerate, so you can forgive the 0/1s a tiny bit)>
Greens best common is a 5 mana, 4/5 (which is actually quite strong in this format). It is the most aggressive colour, for usre... but i'm pretty sure aggro just isn't viable. Every time my opponent gets the turn 1 jungle lion i smile.
Im not sure I would move to drafting so soon while huge payouts are ripe for the taking in sealed. I was having the same problem as you where I was doing terribly in my sealed events for the first three or four, winning either three packs or none. After that however I caught on to archetypes and cards that matter in the format and since then have gone 3-1 in my past four sealed events (can't quite make it over the hump to 4-0 an event) winning a bunch of packs. Now if I could only draft some freakin money rares!
Oh and and if you open or draft any of these cards, build a deck around it: Cinderstorm, Mindtwist, Karakas.
Also watch replays they are so helpful for finding out what makes a decent deck or what cards to watch out for in upcoming rounds. For example, in the last sealed event I played in, I saw that my next round opponent had mind twist in his deck and destroyed his last two opponents with it. Because of that I knew to not try and hold anything back but to play out my hand as soon as possible and to board in lower cc cards. This is of course nothing new but worth mentioning.
I guess it depends on what your pool looks like, but 15 lands sounds pretty sketchy as does a maximum of 17 mana sources. Are you including the 3 mana sources in that count? Very few pools I've played with can reasonably expect to compete until they reach 5 mana. I rarely consider a 2 land hand (without felwar stone) to be a keepable starting 7, and because of the need to hit land drops, this isn't a format that leads to decks that mulligan well.
My mana base usually looks something like 16 lands if i have at least 1 fellwar stone + 2-3 sol grail/spoils of victory. Otherwise 17-18 lands depending on how many 3 mana sources I have.
Strategic planning and ideally brilliant plan can both help with the flood problem. But even when I'm not lucky enough to be running those, I find just strictly limiting the number of low impact early game cards and defensive 1/4 and 2/4s is important when running so much mana. I try to make up for the possibly lower than average spell density by playing better spells overall.
...and that includes facing off against these decks now and again.
Thought I would de-lurk to comment about this, as it is a subject dear to my heart. Hi everyone!
As nearly all of my play is in the casual room, I get to deal with this a lot, on both sides of the fence. Out of personal preference, I don't play the "money" cards, but I do play small amounts of counterspell and discard and very occasional LD (for example, creeping mold). I don't play dedicated LD or "draw-go". I also prefer to play Classic, even if I'm playing a Standard Pauper deck build. Part of the fun of Classic casual for me is that you never know what you are going to see next. One minute it's a funky 1400 card deck, next it's planeswalker control.
(And for what it's worth, the only time I got seriously chewed out by an opponent was for playing a "boring" burn deck with goblins in it. I think he must have had a bad day in the office.)
Thing is, I don't expect anyone else to play the same way - this is just my own preference and it may change over time. However casual appears to have a small, but *very* vocal minority who expect others to play to their own preferences. I think that in the longer term, this is a bad thing. If we change the rules of the game to something other than they are, we learn bad habits and become worse magic players as a result.
Having said that, I will concede a game if I see absolutely no hope of turning the situation around. For example, if my deck has no way of beating that Platinum Angel or Worship, i'll tell the opponent that, say "Good Game" and then concede. That's saving maybe 5-10 minutes of pointless play. One habit I have got into which I now realise is bad, is to occasionally do the same thing the turn before my opponent is going to swing in for the win. From now on, I will let them, it's not going to cost me any more time, is it?
There are only a few things that I don't like in game. First is not saying anything at the beginning or end of a game. You don't even have to type "Hello and good luck" or "Good Game", it's available from a right click in the chat box, for goodness sake.
Second is when someone can finish you off, but chooses not to do so. However, there is an easy answer to that ("Good Game") so it's not a big deal.
Last isn't to do with an individual game, but when I find myself playing several highly competitive and expensive decks in a row. But that's more an issue with me than anything else. If everyone played those decks, then it might be an issue - but they don't. As it is, it's a small price to pay for the enjoyable variety that is there in casual.
With the last issue, I think what colours my perception of this is that people where bringing the same hypercompetitive decks to the New Player Room, where they weren't appropriate. However, this has now been dealt with (hello Planeswalker room) and I do believe there shouldn't be any restrictions on the casual room. Even if I get tired of seeing Jitte sometimes.
Joshua Claytor is the editor here and it is up to him to decide when to publish. First he has to read through it and edit it and he might even send it back to you for changes with comments.
Interesting article, seemed a little biased towards certain builds but as I don't play classic or pauper, who knows? Meantime advice is both plural and singular in English. Confusing I know. Also I noted you typoed your with you at least once. As a writer, I know how hard it is to edit yourself so it isn't a knock just a note for improvement.
Also you state the deck isn't good enough to top 8, so I wonder why you posted it at all, unless like I often do with decks, you are really just posting it for casual players. In which case cool deck.
Well first off welcome to MTGO! You've come to the right place, you'll find lots of people here willing to help and point you in the right directions. Not to mention the excellence of some of the Pauper-centric writing on this website, look back through the recent article history for lots of deck ideas and meta advice.
Personally I think Pauper is a little different, and I've always found T1 pauper to be acceptable in the casual room. I've played it there, and played against it there without a complaint. Others may have different experiences and views, but that's mine. If you can find a pauper game in the Tournament Practise room though, and you're playing T1 yourself, there's no reason not to try yourself out against something good.
Good luck! And by the way, you can put together a very efficient and respectable Standard deck on a tight budget too, so don't feel obliged to stick to Pauper. Again, lots of articles on budget decks on this very site.
You should try playing the deck before dismissing any of the card choices. Fireblast specifically is more than pulling its own weight in my experience. Skred and bolt and incinerate aren't nearly as good as Magma Burst in this deck. Both of these facts can only really be seen after you've played a few games with Cartographer, Tilling Treefolk and Harvest Wurm.
And if you want to play with Kodama's Reach and Sakura-Tribe Elder you're better off playing Kodama's Thunder which is a deck with a bit different idea behind it.
I remember the first time someone played that against me in a ME3 draft. I glanced over it and shrugged, thinking it wasn't anything special. Next turn, he swings again and I realize the pump doesn't go away. I was much more impressed then.
Personally, I like going in trying force G/U, splash black, while getting as much removal as I can. Like you noticed in the draft back there, people don't seem to respect Forced Retreat. By my count, you would have had 4 copies in your deck, more if there were others around that got taken from the blue signals. The card is effectively time walk every time you play it and your early drops can keep dealing damage in 3 point increments. I also am more than happy to take Trip Wire, since everyone plays some guy with horsemanship, so the card is rarely dead. Between Trip wire and Forced Retreat, you can often win with just 2/2's and no beef, though its always helpful.
I am brand new to MTG, well almost as my only background was family Magic many years ago, and having picked up MTGO recently, played the free trial then bought an account I am really at the beginner stages. So I play a few games in the New Players Room, get to grips with the rules etc and decide to explore other avenues.
Not wanting to invest to much I pick on Pauper and not having any experience I pick some Net Decks to look at, the idea being they will teach me mechanics, strategies etc. Even though they are Pauper I guess they could be described as T1 Pauper now where am I expected to play them?
I don't have a lot of time to play at the moment but when I do eventually get the time together I will want to expand my knowledge and play those decks somewhere :)
From my experince in sealed 17 is the maximum you want to play. for every fellware stone you cut a land no less then 15 though. the reason for this is that as you said the format is very slow and card filtering is pretty weak, the majority of games i lost before figuring out the mana counts were to drawing gluts of land in the mid game. if you have stones you need less mana. i cant tell you the number of times i have lost with my opponent at 1-3 life and staring at a board of 12 lands and 2 stones.
Hey there i realized after i submitted that riding the dilu horse is an uncommon and not a common, small mistake.
klmezo,
after submitting the editor will look over it and if he thinks it is a right fit for the site will clean it up and que it in line. this could take a couple of days or weeks depending on the amount of articles standing in line b4 yours.
hope that helps
skred or bolt or incinerate > magma burst...you should be playing kodama's reach amd sakura tribe elder. Harrow seems to be an invitation to get blon out by counterspells. Fireblast just seems really, really bad in a deck that isnt mono-burn or very aggressive. You want to hit 8 mana...this isn't a way to do this.
however, terrific article...most pauper articles are quite bad (spikeboy and the guy that suggested gush excepted), and yours has really upped the bar. The first guy was right, tho...you need to be a little more objective when dealing with what should be hard data.
there is no bolt or incenerate in med3
Does anyone else have a problem with a precon being more than two colors?
It just doesn't give that feeling of a precon, that includes some semi-bad cards as fillers that actually work from game to game.
Can I tell you? I tried this deck last week, and got run over by variations on goblin tokens 3 matches in a row. It does ok against slower stuff. But Swirling Sandstorm is just not fast enough.
Also I think you're underplaying how much trouble Relic can be. I've played Blink, Teachings, Parlor Tricks, and even Tortured Existence against opponents who bring in Relics and mostly shrugged them off. In those cases I could dump cards I didn't care about fast enough to outpace the singular removal and force them to pop, at which point the graveyard was free again. With this deck though, it's often the same card going back and forth from gy to hand. If it's gone, now it's a deck of green Scathe Zombies. And Relic means Swirling Sandstorm is a blank.
But really the main issue I have is that this is what I call a "column A and column B" deck, making it in some ways similar to combo. One such example was the Jund Mana Ramp deck that saw some play around 7-10 months ago in Standard. That deck needs acceleration and it needs big spells. If you draw only dragons and Ultimatums, you can't cast anything. If you draw only Rampant Growths and Fertile Grounds, Ramp does nothing. It needed some cards from column A and some from column B in order to make the deck run.
And while Tilling Thunder is in some ways more resiliant, it really does suffer the same issue. It's really lousy to have 4 basic lands, 2 cartographers, 2 tilling treefolk, swirling sandstorm, firebolt, Dragger as your first 3-4 turns. Or needing to play your only cycling land and finding yourself in the same situation. It happens and because it's a 3-color deck you can't necessarily mulligan aggressively either.
I'm sure there was room for improvement in the matches I played. When you're racing to sandstorm, there's a fine gamble to take between dumping fast to ensure you have threshold (but hoping to draw the 4th mana) and playing lands properly to get to 4 mana (but taking risks to hit threshold). I lost the bet in both directions, and with experience could hopefully make the call better. And against an opponet who can give you time to set up, this deck offers a lot of long-term card advantage. But I just feel it's way too risky for the aggro out there now.
I am no master of pauper, but does Wild Mongrel really not make the cut? It looks like it'd be pretty good here?
Brilliant plan is the best common in the set and it's not even close. Also, lesser werewolves are actually really strong. They basically have first strike and wither...
I'd check out every common in the set. Green is easily the weakest colour, and second shallowest (red is the shallowest, but it has lightning bolt AND incenerate, so you can forgive the 0/1s a tiny bit)>
Greens best common is a 5 mana, 4/5 (which is actually quite strong in this format). It is the most aggressive colour, for usre... but i'm pretty sure aggro just isn't viable. Every time my opponent gets the turn 1 jungle lion i smile.
Im not sure I would move to drafting so soon while huge payouts are ripe for the taking in sealed. I was having the same problem as you where I was doing terribly in my sealed events for the first three or four, winning either three packs or none. After that however I caught on to archetypes and cards that matter in the format and since then have gone 3-1 in my past four sealed events (can't quite make it over the hump to 4-0 an event) winning a bunch of packs. Now if I could only draft some freakin money rares!
Oh and and if you open or draft any of these cards, build a deck around it: Cinderstorm, Mindtwist, Karakas.
Also watch replays they are so helpful for finding out what makes a decent deck or what cards to watch out for in upcoming rounds. For example, in the last sealed event I played in, I saw that my next round opponent had mind twist in his deck and destroyed his last two opponents with it. Because of that I knew to not try and hold anything back but to play out my hand as soon as possible and to board in lower cc cards. This is of course nothing new but worth mentioning.
I guess it depends on what your pool looks like, but 15 lands sounds pretty sketchy as does a maximum of 17 mana sources. Are you including the 3 mana sources in that count? Very few pools I've played with can reasonably expect to compete until they reach 5 mana. I rarely consider a 2 land hand (without felwar stone) to be a keepable starting 7, and because of the need to hit land drops, this isn't a format that leads to decks that mulligan well.
My mana base usually looks something like 16 lands if i have at least 1 fellwar stone + 2-3 sol grail/spoils of victory. Otherwise 17-18 lands depending on how many 3 mana sources I have.
Strategic planning and ideally brilliant plan can both help with the flood problem. But even when I'm not lucky enough to be running those, I find just strictly limiting the number of low impact early game cards and defensive 1/4 and 2/4s is important when running so much mana. I try to make up for the possibly lower than average spell density by playing better spells overall.
...and that includes facing off against these decks now and again.
Thought I would de-lurk to comment about this, as it is a subject dear to my heart. Hi everyone!
As nearly all of my play is in the casual room, I get to deal with this a lot, on both sides of the fence. Out of personal preference, I don't play the "money" cards, but I do play small amounts of counterspell and discard and very occasional LD (for example, creeping mold). I don't play dedicated LD or "draw-go". I also prefer to play Classic, even if I'm playing a Standard Pauper deck build. Part of the fun of Classic casual for me is that you never know what you are going to see next. One minute it's a funky 1400 card deck, next it's planeswalker control.
(And for what it's worth, the only time I got seriously chewed out by an opponent was for playing a "boring" burn deck with goblins in it. I think he must have had a bad day in the office.)
Thing is, I don't expect anyone else to play the same way - this is just my own preference and it may change over time. However casual appears to have a small, but *very* vocal minority who expect others to play to their own preferences. I think that in the longer term, this is a bad thing. If we change the rules of the game to something other than they are, we learn bad habits and become worse magic players as a result.
Having said that, I will concede a game if I see absolutely no hope of turning the situation around. For example, if my deck has no way of beating that Platinum Angel or Worship, i'll tell the opponent that, say "Good Game" and then concede. That's saving maybe 5-10 minutes of pointless play. One habit I have got into which I now realise is bad, is to occasionally do the same thing the turn before my opponent is going to swing in for the win. From now on, I will let them, it's not going to cost me any more time, is it?
There are only a few things that I don't like in game. First is not saying anything at the beginning or end of a game. You don't even have to type "Hello and good luck" or "Good Game", it's available from a right click in the chat box, for goodness sake.
Second is when someone can finish you off, but chooses not to do so. However, there is an easy answer to that ("Good Game") so it's not a big deal.
Last isn't to do with an individual game, but when I find myself playing several highly competitive and expensive decks in a row. But that's more an issue with me than anything else. If everyone played those decks, then it might be an issue - but they don't. As it is, it's a small price to pay for the enjoyable variety that is there in casual.
With the last issue, I think what colours my perception of this is that people where bringing the same hypercompetitive decks to the New Player Room, where they weren't appropriate. However, this has now been dealt with (hello Planeswalker room) and I do believe there shouldn't be any restrictions on the casual room. Even if I get tired of seeing Jitte sometimes.
No one cares about ratings online. Don't worry so much about it. You will get back up in the saddle again. :)
Guess that explains why you only saw the one. :)
Joshua Claytor is the editor here and it is up to him to decide when to publish. First he has to read through it and edit it and he might even send it back to you for changes with comments.
Interesting article, seemed a little biased towards certain builds but as I don't play classic or pauper, who knows? Meantime advice is both plural and singular in English. Confusing I know. Also I noted you typoed your with you at least once. As a writer, I know how hard it is to edit yourself so it isn't a knock just a note for improvement.
Also you state the deck isn't good enough to top 8, so I wonder why you posted it at all, unless like I often do with decks, you are really just posting it for casual players. In which case cool deck.
i concur, the dilu is the bomb, and tis an unc, hence the reason why i never see it!
oh well, 2 bayous and a drain hardly make up for the 150 point drop and 2-7 record in drafts thus far :(
Well first off welcome to MTGO! You've come to the right place, you'll find lots of people here willing to help and point you in the right directions. Not to mention the excellence of some of the Pauper-centric writing on this website, look back through the recent article history for lots of deck ideas and meta advice.
Personally I think Pauper is a little different, and I've always found T1 pauper to be acceptable in the casual room. I've played it there, and played against it there without a complaint. Others may have different experiences and views, but that's mine. If you can find a pauper game in the Tournament Practise room though, and you're playing T1 yourself, there's no reason not to try yourself out against something good.
Good luck! And by the way, you can put together a very efficient and respectable Standard deck on a tight budget too, so don't feel obliged to stick to Pauper. Again, lots of articles on budget decks on this very site.
You should try playing the deck before dismissing any of the card choices. Fireblast specifically is more than pulling its own weight in my experience. Skred and bolt and incinerate aren't nearly as good as Magma Burst in this deck. Both of these facts can only really be seen after you've played a few games with Cartographer, Tilling Treefolk and Harvest Wurm.
And if you want to play with Kodama's Reach and Sakura-Tribe Elder you're better off playing Kodama's Thunder which is a deck with a bit different idea behind it.
This is not true. I have gotten promos eventhough I am from Finland. I just clicked in the client that I am eligible.
I remember the first time someone played that against me in a ME3 draft. I glanced over it and shrugged, thinking it wasn't anything special. Next turn, he swings again and I realize the pump doesn't go away. I was much more impressed then.
Personally, I like going in trying force G/U, splash black, while getting as much removal as I can. Like you noticed in the draft back there, people don't seem to respect Forced Retreat. By my count, you would have had 4 copies in your deck, more if there were others around that got taken from the blue signals. The card is effectively time walk every time you play it and your early drops can keep dealing damage in 3 point increments. I also am more than happy to take Trip Wire, since everyone plays some guy with horsemanship, so the card is rarely dead. Between Trip wire and Forced Retreat, you can often win with just 2/2's and no beef, though its always helpful.
Riding the Dilu Horse is awesome, but it's not common. It's a bomb uncommon. You can't really build a draft archtype around it.
Other than that, great to see ME3 getting some coverage and good article.
Edit: Started reading the article just before you posted, so your fix wasn't in here yet.
I am brand new to MTG, well almost as my only background was family Magic many years ago, and having picked up MTGO recently, played the free trial then bought an account I am really at the beginner stages. So I play a few games in the New Players Room, get to grips with the rules etc and decide to explore other avenues.
Not wanting to invest to much I pick on Pauper and not having any experience I pick some Net Decks to look at, the idea being they will teach me mechanics, strategies etc. Even though they are Pauper I guess they could be described as T1 Pauper now where am I expected to play them?
I don't have a lot of time to play at the moment but when I do eventually get the time together I will want to expand my knowledge and play those decks somewhere :)
Nice article by the way.
From my experince in sealed 17 is the maximum you want to play. for every fellware stone you cut a land no less then 15 though. the reason for this is that as you said the format is very slow and card filtering is pretty weak, the majority of games i lost before figuring out the mana counts were to drawing gluts of land in the mid game. if you have stones you need less mana. i cant tell you the number of times i have lost with my opponent at 1-3 life and staring at a board of 12 lands and 2 stones.
Hey there i realized after i submitted that riding the dilu horse is an uncommon and not a common, small mistake.
klmezo,
after submitting the editor will look over it and if he thinks it is a right fit for the site will clean it up and que it in line. this could take a couple of days or weeks depending on the amount of articles standing in line b4 yours.
hope that helps
skred or bolt or incinerate > magma burst...you should be playing kodama's reach amd sakura tribe elder. Harrow seems to be an invitation to get blon out by counterspells. Fireblast just seems really, really bad in a deck that isnt mono-burn or very aggressive. You want to hit 8 mana...this isn't a way to do this.
however, terrific article...most pauper articles are quite bad (spikeboy and the guy that suggested gush excepted), and yours has really upped the bar. The first guy was right, tho...you need to be a little more objective when dealing with what should be hard data.
Eh it's a good list anyway :)
Wow that is some important information there...two days after I submitted my decklist.
OMG!
the best pauper article i have ever senn!
really:
your list,the meta list and the explain loves me!
great tnx (i add to my firefox favorites ;) )