I played against a deck last month that just had swans, polymorph, and progenitus. Get into play, play polymorph on turn 4 to grab the "next creature in deck" which will be progenitus every time, and then it's pretty much over.
Not that Progenitus is a cheap card, but just confirming from painful personal experience that polymorph is insanely underpriced.
You mentioned Knight of the White Orchid's potential with landfall, and Knight of the Reliquary for older formats - but what about Reliquary in Zendikar standard? It lets you put two land into play each turn, essentially.
Thanks for all the comments everybody. I agree w.r.t. the formatting. I had the game reports displayed in a smaller font on my computer, and hadn't realised quite how grotesque they look in their full text-block glory. I'm also not sure why all of the card images are aligned to the left rather than the centre, so I will try to fix that before the next time.
Impromptu raid does look fun to try here, but I'd have to disagree about sapling of colfenor. The sapster wants low-power high-toughness creatures while cream wants high power, and I think trying to fit the two into a deck together might be a bit of a push, and would lead to a much slower deck than this.
w.r.t. the deck using a lot of the standard jund creatures, I don't really see why being casual should forbid the use of good cards, and i did try to explain where the synergy lies with each one. The exception is Boggart Ram-Gang, which I admit, is more just a random good card that I enjoy turning sideways. It's a shame they never made a card with evoke and unearth, otherwise I could just stick that in and go OMG SYNERGIEZ! (Actually, that's a design masterstroke! Will we have to wait for the next Time Spiral block to see these two keywords meet?)
Hmmm you know what else works nicely with Cream of the Crop? One of my pet cards: Crystal Shard. Oh and Desolation Giant. Try a version of Desolation Row (cf my old articles) with copies of Cotc in place of some of the tool box creatures. Nice effort though as everyone mentioned your formatting needs work. Also as I pointed to Splendid Belt this site is made for decklists: http://jamuraa.com/pure/deck_new.php
People have already commented on the formatting and I agree that it needs work but that's not to say I didn't like the content.
As far as your mini-poll at the end goes I think the answer is different depending on the deck you are writing about. If it's Casual then I think match reports from the casual (or possibly TP room, you decide based on the deck) are the way forward. If it's competative (or trying to be) then I'd prefer to see some analysis of how it fares against the current meta-game decks in that format. Which decks it has a good game against and which decks need work and how the sideboard is used etc.
As a personal prefference I'd rather read more about a single deck even if you include some iterations in it's development than read a brief description of multiple decks.
Format was yucky, but I love Cream of the Crop. My favorite combo is Cream of the Crop plus Masked Admirers I'm going to really miss that combo. Second favorite combo is Cream of the Crop plus Dragon Broodmother which equals at minimum re-arrange the top 3 cards of my library on my opponents turn each turn.
Lookin at interaction with top of library, i came upon sapling of colfenor and impromptu raid (raid with enough mana and high power creatures seems pretty nasty, especially if u use critters with come into play abilities like shriekmaw).
I concur that you should break-up your match reports with one-turn-per-paragraph formatting. You might also skip on details and get to the important turns. Keep the full details for the one cool match, if any.
I personally don't mind the usage of the good cards: in this case the synergy with the main card is evident and justifies playing them. It's not like they're random inclusion used solely for their power level. I cringe much more when people include cryptic commands, baneslayer angels or figure of destiny in their "casual" deck articles as it limit the accessibility of the decks.
Sry, didn't mean to be so discouraging, the enthusiasm is great and of course you're going to use some of the best creatures in standard , there's no reason to use runeclaw bears just to make it more casual. Just... wanted to see more synergy than just cream of the crop and good creatures, that's all. And of course if you use creatures, persist, unearth and cascade are alwayhs nice. But it's certainly an underrated and underused rare and merits an article. :) And it's not like i'm writing better articles myself is it? So gl with it
Dude, what's with the giant wall of texts for the match descriptions? Just looking at them makes my eyes tired, I can't imagine reading them :) Just a formatting issue, the idea itself isnt bad, though I'm not sure using a library manipulation card just to draw more "good stuff" is very innovative. I mean every new deck idea uses persist cause u get 2 critters, cascade cause u get 2 cards, etc etc. I get it, bloodbraid elf and kitchen finks are "good" :) If you're manipulating the top of the library, then perhaps you could use stuff like clashing, or maybe lurking predators, or djinn of wishes, or...you know, something that uses cream of the crop for more than just drawing more good creatures, not that there's anyth wrong with that. :)
I played against a deck last month that just had swans, polymorph, and progenitus. Get into play, play polymorph on turn 4 to grab the "next creature in deck" which will be progenitus every time, and then it's pretty much over.
Not that Progenitus is a cheap card, but just confirming from painful personal experience that polymorph is insanely underpriced.
Well it could have been made by an anonatroll. So that would be more wrong imho. :P
and youre annon so who cares what you think and/or say..
lolol. how wrong can one comment get??
Absolutely man, that makes a ton of sense. Knight of the Reliquary could be a lot better once Zendikar hits.
You mentioned Knight of the White Orchid's potential with landfall, and Knight of the Reliquary for older formats - but what about Reliquary in Zendikar standard? It lets you put two land into play each turn, essentially.
If you're going to correct someone's spelling, at least double check your own...
i guess then he is a shidiot....figure out what that is a mix is
Definitely right man I should have been more clear. Will do next time.
OK but then display your math so those of us who don't see it can follow along. :D Otherwise it just looks like an error.
Amuzing is the new amazing and amusing combined. Brilliant Anony! Give the man some props for such an awesome word.
Thanks for all the comments everybody. I agree w.r.t. the formatting. I had the game reports displayed in a smaller font on my computer, and hadn't realised quite how grotesque they look in their full text-block glory. I'm also not sure why all of the card images are aligned to the left rather than the centre, so I will try to fix that before the next time.
Impromptu raid does look fun to try here, but I'd have to disagree about sapling of colfenor. The sapster wants low-power high-toughness creatures while cream wants high power, and I think trying to fit the two into a deck together might be a bit of a push, and would lead to a much slower deck than this.
w.r.t. the deck using a lot of the standard jund creatures, I don't really see why being casual should forbid the use of good cards, and i did try to explain where the synergy lies with each one. The exception is Boggart Ram-Gang, which I admit, is more just a random good card that I enjoy turning sideways. It's a shame they never made a card with evoke and unearth, otherwise I could just stick that in and go OMG SYNERGIEZ! (Actually, that's a design masterstroke! Will we have to wait for the next Time Spiral block to see these two keywords meet?)
Anyway, all feedback is appreciated folks.
You know they re-named a lot of cards for M10 and Plasma Pumpkin seems to fit with the art work...
Yeah but when it comes to manacosts, values don't scale linearly at all.
The jump from 5 mana to 6 mana is WAY more significant than the jump from 0 mana to 1 mana.
Just some basic math. 2 : 5 is 40% not 5%. :) Interesting article.
Hmmm you know what else works nicely with Cream of the Crop? One of my pet cards: Crystal Shard. Oh and Desolation Giant. Try a version of Desolation Row (cf my old articles) with copies of Cotc in place of some of the tool box creatures. Nice effort though as everyone mentioned your formatting needs work. Also as I pointed to Splendid Belt this site is made for decklists: http://jamuraa.com/pure/deck_new.php
for use with puremtgo.com articles.
"amuSing" you cant even spell
Yep, big swing and a miss on that one =(
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/td/54
I liked this article, keep them coming.
People have already commented on the formatting and I agree that it needs work but that's not to say I didn't like the content.
As far as your mini-poll at the end goes I think the answer is different depending on the deck you are writing about. If it's Casual then I think match reports from the casual (or possibly TP room, you decide based on the deck) are the way forward. If it's competative (or trying to be) then I'd prefer to see some analysis of how it fares against the current meta-game decks in that format. Which decks it has a good game against and which decks need work and how the sideboard is used etc.
As a personal prefference I'd rather read more about a single deck even if you include some iterations in it's development than read a brief description of multiple decks.
Anyway, hope that was a little bit helpful.
Format was yucky, but I love Cream of the Crop. My favorite combo is Cream of the Crop plus Masked Admirers I'm going to really miss that combo. Second favorite combo is Cream of the Crop plus Dragon Broodmother which equals at minimum re-arrange the top 3 cards of my library on my opponents turn each turn.
Lookin at interaction with top of library, i came upon sapling of colfenor and impromptu raid (raid with enough mana and high power creatures seems pretty nasty, especially if u use critters with come into play abilities like shriekmaw).
Amuzing that you state that merfolks are not currently hot in standard.
I concur that you should break-up your match reports with one-turn-per-paragraph formatting. You might also skip on details and get to the important turns. Keep the full details for the one cool match, if any.
I personally don't mind the usage of the good cards: in this case the synergy with the main card is evident and justifies playing them. It's not like they're random inclusion used solely for their power level. I cringe much more when people include cryptic commands, baneslayer angels or figure of destiny in their "casual" deck articles as it limit the accessibility of the decks.
Sry, didn't mean to be so discouraging, the enthusiasm is great and of course you're going to use some of the best creatures in standard , there's no reason to use runeclaw bears just to make it more casual. Just... wanted to see more synergy than just cream of the crop and good creatures, that's all. And of course if you use creatures, persist, unearth and cascade are alwayhs nice. But it's certainly an underrated and underused rare and merits an article. :) And it's not like i'm writing better articles myself is it? So gl with it
Dude, what's with the giant wall of texts for the match descriptions? Just looking at them makes my eyes tired, I can't imagine reading them :) Just a formatting issue, the idea itself isnt bad, though I'm not sure using a library manipulation card just to draw more "good stuff" is very innovative. I mean every new deck idea uses persist cause u get 2 critters, cascade cause u get 2 cards, etc etc. I get it, bloodbraid elf and kitchen finks are "good" :) If you're manipulating the top of the library, then perhaps you could use stuff like clashing, or maybe lurking predators, or djinn of wishes, or...you know, something that uses cream of the crop for more than just drawing more good creatures, not that there's anyth wrong with that. :)