Lovely report mate, I always look forward to your posts and once more I enjoyed it :)
Its always fun to read the drafts and see new decks, specially cause I never win on drafts, since I'm just not good at making decks with so limited "luck based" cards... or I'm just not a good picker :P
P.S.
I just posted my 1st Article ever here on PureMTGO few minutes ago and it still didn't submit (didn't showed on Home page of PureMTGO)... So I'm wondering (probably that's so) does it take some time for admins to look over it? And how long usually? :)
Thx~
Did you actually read the article, or did you find something you wanted to bitch about and write it down asap? If you had read it you might have noticed that the draft convertor has not been updated for med3 yet.
First thanks for the comment, but I'm really passionate person, so this is just the way I think,live and write. I don't think that my prediction are really that inaccurate and just keep in mind that :
These match-ups and my advices are relative and apply to my build and play style. Your mileage may vary !
Please take the time to post pictures of your drafts with a separate text-only section for phone users. Following a draft without these is rather difficult, especially for a new set (albeit with old cards)
Less emotion please. It is so all over the place I can't even read it all. Also, Pay less attention to stating where a matchup favors one deck or another, because in a situation like this, where you obviously have a gigantic hard on for the deck you are writing about, you are going to be wrong in some cases, and it ultimately just makes you look like you have no idea what you are talking about.
That is correct Katastrophe, zero 4x, three 3x, and any number of 2x.
The main requirements are you must have Blue and be at least 2 colors. Three, four, and five color decks are all acceptable, if you can make them work.
Card legality is based off of the rarities in the Rath Cycle, so no Cartographer.
Finally, I know that the timeline is short. I have a meeting Monday to discuss extending the deadline until the end of the week. I will let you all know.
I love the price history graphs and am glad that you now show all of the top 10's! Could you please change them so that their vertical axis always starts at zero? Otherwise it makes some of the cards look like their price has changed much more than it actually has.
The graphs are nice but your data source is faulty. I happen to know that Tundra has fallen, not risen in price in the past week. 21.5 was the going rate several days ago and currently a certain bot chain has several for same at 20.5.
As I said the problem is your data source. MTGO Traders may raise or lower their prices for any reason, but in some cases (like Tundra) the price activity does not accurately reflect the market. I suggest you add an additional data source for your charts (at least one is readily available). I mean it's pretty embarrassing to claim that Tundra has risen by the greatest %age when it's fallen in price. It just makes you look bad.
"I hate the idea that Wizards is building my deck for me, and when it comes to the deck building process I don't get much out of deciding to play Elves and then adding all of the good elves to my list. I understand that on some level Wizards is always building my decks for me, but I just don't like when it's that explicit. [...]
Just to be clear, the above are just my opinions. I fully realize how much skill, ability, and effort goes into templating and tweaking decks like "Elves", "Kithkin", or "Faeries". That just isn't something that I personally enjoy very much."
I cannot express how i fully agree with that.... hmm .... in fact, i could : i totaly agree with that ! Please, no more tribal invasion like these. Mtg isnt a rpg where you first choose a race then build a deck around. Mtg is much more than that.
So far I haven't seen any allies that make me think they will be remotely viable in competitive 100CS. I doubt there are enough playable ones to even make them worth it. Throwing 5-10 allies in a deck is not going to get you much other than a few over-costed creatures with mediocre CIP abilities.
If you are talking casual they are more viable in virtually every other format just because you will need to run quite a few of them and 100CS doesn't allow that.
I'm looking forward to it though, current standard is a load of %@#%#!@, so singleton will necessarily make it more diverse, as well as lower the power level (which tends to make the games more fun). You can't get Cryptic'd out of the game 3 turns in a row, or auto-lose to double/triple blightning etc.
The second bonus is that it doesn't have the relatively large cash commitment that regular singleton requires since you mostly don't have to shell out for expensive OOP duals just to cast spells you want.
We'll never get to play changelings alongside allies, so unless allies get some sort of flash man-o-war or some sort of ninja of the deep hours ally, this card will not have a high constructed value.
I'll admit, it's hard not to feel a twinge of annoyance when I see someone playing Mythics.dek in the casual room. But by the same token, it's futile to try to restrict deck choices. Some people may only own a few decks, and don't want to buy cards/construct new ones. Maybe that Faeries player isn't actually preparing for a tournament, he just likes Fae and is sick of playing against 5CC and Lark all the time in TP.
On conceding: I won't auto-concede against expensive dual lands, counters, or LD (not that I've seen any), but I do reserve the right to concede at any time. If I mull twice into a one-lander and draw three spells in a row, I'll probably concede, regardless of my opponent's board position. It doesn't matter that in some hypothetical alternate universe where I am a Magic playing god, I might be able to squeak out the win. I'm not having fun. Simple. My opponent wants to be butthurt and block me, fine. We'll both just find another game rather than waste our time, because in my experience playing against an opponent who never plays anything isn't very fun either. By the same token, though, if the game has been entertaining and I'm about to die, I'll let my opponent take their last turn, fire off their degenerate infinite combo or alpha strike me to -17, because IMO it's more fun to properly kill your opponent, know that you earned that win.
Once I played against a U/G Time Warp deck that had both planeswalkers, Commands, Vivids, etc. About halfway through the game, he sent me a message in chat: "you can't win." To which I replied "ok."
I proceeded to drop a brick on the F6 key and take notes while he played Magic by himself for 20 minutes.
(Okay, to be fair, I finally conceded when he cast Primal Command with no cards left in his library.)
What will make or break this card is having allies with flash, or having a blink effect in block, or other means of instant triggering. (Ally tokens?) Aside from that, it is possible to create a game-ending loop of ally triggers using any three 'champion a creature' changelings, depending on the allies in play.
Lovely report mate, I always look forward to your posts and once more I enjoyed it :)
Its always fun to read the drafts and see new decks, specially cause I never win on drafts, since I'm just not good at making decks with so limited "luck based" cards... or I'm just not a good picker :P
P.S.
I just posted my 1st Article ever here on PureMTGO few minutes ago and it still didn't submit (didn't showed on Home page of PureMTGO)... So I'm wondering (probably that's so) does it take some time for admins to look over it? And how long usually? :)
Thx~
Did you actually read the article, or did you find something you wanted to bitch about and write it down asap? If you had read it you might have noticed that the draft convertor has not been updated for med3 yet.
But who takes the time to actually read anything?
Yep I have consider it :) But I just don't have the time right now, because of a big project at work :( Next Time I'll try to add some videos.
First thanks for the comment, but I'm really passionate person, so this is just the way I think,live and write. I don't think that my prediction are really that inaccurate and just keep in mind that :
These match-ups and my advices are relative and apply to my build and play style. Your mileage may vary !
:)
I like these articles very much :) They are fun to read and you give a deep analysis of the Meta too.
Have you considered showing some match replays to illustrate how it works?
Please take the time to post pictures of your drafts with a separate text-only section for phone users. Following a draft without these is rather difficult, especially for a new set (albeit with old cards)
Less emotion please. It is so all over the place I can't even read it all. Also, Pay less attention to stating where a matchup favors one deck or another, because in a situation like this, where you obviously have a gigantic hard on for the deck you are writing about, you are going to be wrong in some cases, and it ultimately just makes you look like you have no idea what you are talking about.
At LEAST 2 colors? too bad the rules didn't actually state that.
That is correct Katastrophe, zero 4x, three 3x, and any number of 2x.
The main requirements are you must have Blue and be at least 2 colors. Three, four, and five color decks are all acceptable, if you can make them work.
Card legality is based off of the rarities in the Rath Cycle, so no Cartographer.
Finally, I know that the timeline is short. I have a meeting Monday to discuss extending the deadline until the end of the week. I will let you all know.
Have fun,
Chris
I love the price history graphs and am glad that you now show all of the top 10's! Could you please change them so that their vertical axis always starts at zero? Otherwise it makes some of the cards look like their price has changed much more than it actually has.
That's what happens to 1cc creatures. Unfortunately, 0cc creatures do not get any equipment.
The graphs are nice but your data source is faulty. I happen to know that Tundra has fallen, not risen in price in the past week. 21.5 was the going rate several days ago and currently a certain bot chain has several for same at 20.5.
As I said the problem is your data source. MTGO Traders may raise or lower their prices for any reason, but in some cases (like Tundra) the price activity does not accurately reflect the market. I suggest you add an additional data source for your charts (at least one is readily available). I mean it's pretty embarrassing to claim that Tundra has risen by the greatest %age when it's fallen in price. It just makes you look bad.
"I hate the idea that Wizards is building my deck for me, and when it comes to the deck building process I don't get much out of deciding to play Elves and then adding all of the good elves to my list. I understand that on some level Wizards is always building my decks for me, but I just don't like when it's that explicit. [...]
Just to be clear, the above are just my opinions. I fully realize how much skill, ability, and effort goes into templating and tweaking decks like "Elves", "Kithkin", or "Faeries". That just isn't something that I personally enjoy very much."
I cannot express how i fully agree with that.... hmm .... in fact, i could : i totaly agree with that ! Please, no more tribal invasion like these. Mtg isnt a rpg where you first choose a race then build a deck around. Mtg is much more than that.
nice article
Can't you use zero casting cost guys? Won't they just come into play equipped with bonesaw or paradise mantle?
Kazanda Blademaster looks decent. The other ones look meh... but if there are a couple more like that, I might give them a try...
So far I haven't seen any allies that make me think they will be remotely viable in competitive 100CS. I doubt there are enough playable ones to even make them worth it. Throwing 5-10 allies in a deck is not going to get you much other than a few over-costed creatures with mediocre CIP abilities.
If you are talking casual they are more viable in virtually every other format just because you will need to run quite a few of them and 100CS doesn't allow that.
Of course they'll be posted.
I'm looking forward to it though, current standard is a load of %@#%#!@, so singleton will necessarily make it more diverse, as well as lower the power level (which tends to make the games more fun). You can't get Cryptic'd out of the game 3 turns in a row, or auto-lose to double/triple blightning etc.
The second bonus is that it doesn't have the relatively large cash commitment that regular singleton requires since you mostly don't have to shell out for expensive OOP duals just to cast spells you want.
I'm looking forward to this format.
And as long as the winning decklists aren't posted it will allow diversity in the format.
Only in standard... There are other formats, such as 100 singleton that might try to make use of allies, if they are worth it.
We'll never get to play changelings alongside allies, so unless allies get some sort of flash man-o-war or some sort of ninja of the deep hours ally, this card will not have a high constructed value.
I agree but that solution is totally Johnny and easy to disrupt. A pure spike wouldn't touch it.
I'll admit, it's hard not to feel a twinge of annoyance when I see someone playing Mythics.dek in the casual room. But by the same token, it's futile to try to restrict deck choices. Some people may only own a few decks, and don't want to buy cards/construct new ones. Maybe that Faeries player isn't actually preparing for a tournament, he just likes Fae and is sick of playing against 5CC and Lark all the time in TP.
On conceding: I won't auto-concede against expensive dual lands, counters, or LD (not that I've seen any), but I do reserve the right to concede at any time. If I mull twice into a one-lander and draw three spells in a row, I'll probably concede, regardless of my opponent's board position. It doesn't matter that in some hypothetical alternate universe where I am a Magic playing god, I might be able to squeak out the win. I'm not having fun. Simple. My opponent wants to be butthurt and block me, fine. We'll both just find another game rather than waste our time, because in my experience playing against an opponent who never plays anything isn't very fun either. By the same token, though, if the game has been entertaining and I'm about to die, I'll let my opponent take their last turn, fire off their degenerate infinite combo or alpha strike me to -17, because IMO it's more fun to properly kill your opponent, know that you earned that win.
Once I played against a U/G Time Warp deck that had both planeswalkers, Commands, Vivids, etc. About halfway through the game, he sent me a message in chat: "you can't win." To which I replied "ok."
I proceeded to drop a brick on the F6 key and take notes while he played Magic by himself for 20 minutes.
(Okay, to be fair, I finally conceded when he cast Primal Command with no cards left in his library.)
What will make or break this card is having allies with flash, or having a blink effect in block, or other means of instant triggering. (Ally tokens?) Aside from that, it is possible to create a game-ending loop of ally triggers using any three 'champion a creature' changelings, depending on the allies in play.
right now this card doesnt exist-when this card is released, changelings will be allies
I will withhold that judgment until we see all the non changeling allies that are actually relevant when this card is in print. :)