I think your analysis of the Teachings decks were fantastic. However, I also feel that you presented sub-optimal Goblins and White Weenie lists. It is no wonder that you win against those. The White Weenie list I've been running is far faster and has not had as large of an issue with Teachings style decks. It is less focused on Soldiers (a bad theme) and more focused on dealing damage through pump creatures.
I think the only cards a good WW list could possibly share with the one you presented are Plains and Soltari Trooper, and that's if the deck isn't running Temporal Isolation.
Good article!
The V shape in the MED2 symbol says "two" to my eye. In the MED3 symbol I see one object stacked on two others, and I naturally count three. For some reason MED2 still looks like just two objects.
MED4 could be 4 wedges/mountains forming the circle/sun. Or two opposing wedges could form the picture from Counterbalance with a sun in the middle. And that would say "four" because it would have four curved surfaces intersecting each other, like the Future Sight symbol.
MED5... hm. Five suns, screw the mountains? Or stick an extra sun on either side of the MED3 symbol.
For MED6+ they'll switch geometry and Mark Rosewater will tell us on Monday about how genius they are for coming up with something new yet familiar.
a real blue mage, i perfectly understand your choice so i think you could like wheel of fortune in red, dont you ?
As for green, something like oath is amazingly nice with blue to me and is a good way to change the hit hit hit... Tyran, where are you ? ;)
Green also does draw very well plus if you remember there was a very nice (or mean) Mono Green Control deck a while back. I am not saying that it isn't usually simple, but there are undertones of interesting stuff going on. Between land destruction, antiflying mechanics, drawing and graveyard recursion green does a lot more besides play Craw Wurms fast. And lets not forget combat trickery.
I am actually a little surprised your favorite all time land isn't Library of Alexandria. It was a huge staple in old style control decks (not so sure about current Vintage.) But Academy was huge back in its day so I can see it placing up there. It gave blue the kind of acceleration it didn't see again until Affinity.
My all time favorite is Morphling. Not becuase it won me God-knows-how-many games, but I also believe that there can't be another creature embodying so well a whole color(and no, the new redling and greenling won't count, they're plain stupid). Morphling is everything about blue.
I also love Counterspell as an iconic card as well as a useful card and also Ertai, Wizard Adept. I'm so anxiously waiting Exodus on MTGO because finally I will have my Ertai back!
Black for its famous Dark Ritual-Hypnotic Specter-Hymn To Tourach opening. That is so cruel! That is so black! I love it! I always loved it.
White for Worship, Wrath of God and Angels. I love Angels. I love Worship. It also won me countless many games. Or rather, saved me from certain death in so many games.
I don't really like red. Of course I'm speaking as a lover of this game now and from the flavour side of it and not as a Spike. As a Spike, I love everything that wins of course. But red and its burn decks is the real nightmare or any blue mages and so I just don't like it. I never liked seeing Lightning Bolt frying my poor Ertai the moment I played him for example!
Green I find very simple. Veeeeery simple. Just bash bash, hit hit, dead? no?, then bash bash, hit hit. Not my style. But if I have to name one card, I would say Rancor because I have some bitter memories with that card (but then, who hasen't?).
My colorless favorite is Nevinyrral's Disk and my land all time favorite is Tolarian Academy (surprised?! I guess not).
Ah well there are cards in every color that I don't like facing lol. In fact most of my favorites are enemies too. What are your favorite specific cards if you don't mind me asking (other than Cryptic Command for blue)?
Hehe I would have guessed 80% Spike, because of the authority of your articles. :D Blue does not surprise me, nor does your antipathy to green but the anti red? that is suprising. No Bolt, Bolt, Bolt, Ball Lightning for you? :p
I don't think that there will be a MED V. Actually looking at the set symbols of MED series, I can say that I'm almost sure about that.
1- MED I's symbol is a rising sun at the left side of a mountain.
2- MED II's symbol is a sun in between two mountains.
3- MED III's symbol is a sun at the top of two different mountains.
4- And looking at this pattern, it's clear that MED IV's symbol will be a sun setting at the right side of a montain.
Looking at this, if there would be a MED V, it's symbol should be the same as MED II's which is not possible. Sun is rising with MED I and it will set with MED IV.
I know that this isn't the most logical way of explaning why I believe there won't be a MED V but it makes sense to me.
Or do you think that I'm a little bit too much of a Vorthos?
a spades/diamond hybrid
definately a spike/johnny hybrid (but more like 60% spike - 40% johnny)
mainly blue with a splash to white and black with a deep hatred for red and a big dislike for green
and dave with a small splash to aaron
Wow. I'm too many things at the same time! Thanks for this article by the way, which I enjoyed a lot.
NOw if you were basing your purchase entirely on what is going to be the more exciting limited environmen - ME3, M10, or ACA, I think you'll find ME3 is REALLY far down below current sets.
But then, who buys ME3 purely for the limited experience? :)
That being said, they included reprints like Fellwar Stone, Boomerang, Disenchant etc... for a reason - to get the limited game on track.
Indeed Legacy is supported by droves of players and even has it's own forum at mtgthesource; Vintage too has themanadrain but not as popular as. It may very well put classic into a haitus for a time. However printing the only counterspell banned in Legacy and 1 of the 4 banned lands online [which are Vintage staples ]leads me to belive it will not be a long haitus.
As someone with a strong interest (and involvement) in computer game history, I just wanted to clarify that the spades, hearts, clubs, diamonds model of player personality types didn't originate on Kindgom of Loathing. It was first proposed in a paper written by Richard Bartle in 1996. Dr. Bartle was also the co-author of the first text MUD, known simply as MUD.
LOL! Nice post. Yeah the bad cards are cheap (Though Clone sees good use in some singleton decks...Legend??What Legend?). The great thing is that good cards (relative to the set) are also lowered (not including Baneslayers).
i almost qualified but didnt. stuck at 14 for last three days and it was hard man, it was hard but you did it man, you overcame the odds and did it man thats awesome;
I'm (obviously) all for articles about casual decks, but do you need to devote two entire articles to one single casual deck?
What Erman said. Brilliant article!
Double Post, sorry.
I think your analysis of the Teachings decks were fantastic. However, I also feel that you presented sub-optimal Goblins and White Weenie lists. It is no wonder that you win against those. The White Weenie list I've been running is far faster and has not had as large of an issue with Teachings style decks. It is less focused on Soldiers (a bad theme) and more focused on dealing damage through pump creatures.
I think the only cards a good WW list could possibly share with the one you presented are Plains and Soltari Trooper, and that's if the deck isn't running Temporal Isolation.
Good article!
-Alex
i played yesterday 100cs, love the format and i agree with all you say about why its worth saving.
thanks for the compilation list too!
How many lands do these decks usually run?
A very impressive article to be honest. Very clean, very easy to read with lots of useful information. Well done.
LE
Or an upside-down MED2 symbol.
My theory:
One sunset.
Two mountains.
A pyramid.
The V shape in the MED2 symbol says "two" to my eye. In the MED3 symbol I see one object stacked on two others, and I naturally count three. For some reason MED2 still looks like just two objects.
MED4 could be 4 wedges/mountains forming the circle/sun. Or two opposing wedges could form the picture from Counterbalance with a sun in the middle. And that would say "four" because it would have four curved surfaces intersecting each other, like the Future Sight symbol.
MED5... hm. Five suns, screw the mountains? Or stick an extra sun on either side of the MED3 symbol.
For MED6+ they'll switch geometry and Mark Rosewater will tell us on Monday about how genius they are for coming up with something new yet familiar.
a real blue mage, i perfectly understand your choice so i think you could like wheel of fortune in red, dont you ?
As for green, something like oath is amazingly nice with blue to me and is a good way to change the hit hit hit... Tyran, where are you ? ;)
Green also does draw very well plus if you remember there was a very nice (or mean) Mono Green Control deck a while back. I am not saying that it isn't usually simple, but there are undertones of interesting stuff going on. Between land destruction, antiflying mechanics, drawing and graveyard recursion green does a lot more besides play Craw Wurms fast. And lets not forget combat trickery.
I am actually a little surprised your favorite all time land isn't Library of Alexandria. It was a huge staple in old style control decks (not so sure about current Vintage.) But Academy was huge back in its day so I can see it placing up there. It gave blue the kind of acceleration it didn't see again until Affinity.
My all time favorite is Morphling. Not becuase it won me God-knows-how-many games, but I also believe that there can't be another creature embodying so well a whole color(and no, the new redling and greenling won't count, they're plain stupid). Morphling is everything about blue.
I also love Counterspell as an iconic card as well as a useful card and also Ertai, Wizard Adept. I'm so anxiously waiting Exodus on MTGO because finally I will have my Ertai back!
Black for its famous Dark Ritual-Hypnotic Specter-Hymn To Tourach opening. That is so cruel! That is so black! I love it! I always loved it.
White for Worship, Wrath of God and Angels. I love Angels. I love Worship. It also won me countless many games. Or rather, saved me from certain death in so many games.
I don't really like red. Of course I'm speaking as a lover of this game now and from the flavour side of it and not as a Spike. As a Spike, I love everything that wins of course. But red and its burn decks is the real nightmare or any blue mages and so I just don't like it. I never liked seeing Lightning Bolt frying my poor Ertai the moment I played him for example!
Green I find very simple. Veeeeery simple. Just bash bash, hit hit, dead? no?, then bash bash, hit hit. Not my style. But if I have to name one card, I would say Rancor because I have some bitter memories with that card (but then, who hasen't?).
My colorless favorite is Nevinyrral's Disk and my land all time favorite is Tolarian Academy (surprised?! I guess not).
LE
Ah well there are cards in every color that I don't like facing lol. In fact most of my favorites are enemies too. What are your favorite specific cards if you don't mind me asking (other than Cryptic Command for blue)?
Red destroys my lands and makes it harder for me to cast my Crpytic Command :).
LE
Hehe I would have guessed 80% Spike, because of the authority of your articles. :D Blue does not surprise me, nor does your antipathy to green but the anti red? that is suprising. No Bolt, Bolt, Bolt, Ball Lightning for you? :p
Glad you enjoyed it.
Yes thanks to Katastrophe this has been clarified. Thanks for chiming in. :D
I don't think that there will be a MED V. Actually looking at the set symbols of MED series, I can say that I'm almost sure about that.
1- MED I's symbol is a rising sun at the left side of a mountain.
2- MED II's symbol is a sun in between two mountains.
3- MED III's symbol is a sun at the top of two different mountains.
4- And looking at this pattern, it's clear that MED IV's symbol will be a sun setting at the right side of a montain.
Looking at this, if there would be a MED V, it's symbol should be the same as MED II's which is not possible. Sun is rising with MED I and it will set with MED IV.
I know that this isn't the most logical way of explaning why I believe there won't be a MED V but it makes sense to me.
Or do you think that I'm a little bit too much of a Vorthos?
LE
I just wanted to say that this version looks much nicer Hammy. And good job as always.
LE
So who am I? Let's see. I think that I'm:
a spades/diamond hybrid
definately a spike/johnny hybrid (but more like 60% spike - 40% johnny)
mainly blue with a splash to white and black with a deep hatred for red and a big dislike for green
and dave with a small splash to aaron
Wow. I'm too many things at the same time! Thanks for this article by the way, which I enjoyed a lot.
LE
You stick a word from a name in (I tried Windswept and Heath) and get 0. I'm pretty sure it does card names, as Harrow has been "verified" like this.
NOw if you were basing your purchase entirely on what is going to be the more exciting limited environmen - ME3, M10, or ACA, I think you'll find ME3 is REALLY far down below current sets.
But then, who buys ME3 purely for the limited experience? :)
That being said, they included reprints like Fellwar Stone, Boomerang, Disenchant etc... for a reason - to get the limited game on track.
That equates to 51 Mana Drains, not including foils.
Not enough, obviously, for the community, but not as bad as 10.
I agree the format was inconsiderate of MTGO.
Indeed Legacy is supported by droves of players and even has it's own forum at mtgthesource; Vintage too has themanadrain but not as popular as. It may very well put classic into a haitus for a time. However printing the only counterspell banned in Legacy and 1 of the 4 banned lands online [which are Vintage staples ]leads me to belive it will not be a long haitus.
As someone with a strong interest (and involvement) in computer game history, I just wanted to clarify that the spades, hearts, clubs, diamonds model of player personality types didn't originate on Kindgom of Loathing. It was first proposed in a paper written by Richard Bartle in 1996. Dr. Bartle was also the co-author of the first text MUD, known simply as MUD.
He also labelled the four categories as Achievers, Socialisers, Explorers, and Killers. You can find his original article at this URL: http://www.brandeis.edu/pubs/jove/HTML/v1/bartle.html
LOL! Nice post. Yeah the bad cards are cheap (Though Clone sees good use in some singleton decks...Legend??What Legend?). The great thing is that good cards (relative to the set) are also lowered (not including Baneslayers).
i almost qualified but didnt. stuck at 14 for last three days and it was hard man, it was hard but you did it man, you overcame the odds and did it man thats awesome;