I started with one of those mini-booster-games they used to stick on the front of magazines. Does anybody remember them? There was one stuck on the front of Games-Master one month (which means it must've been ~PSX launch time), and my brother and I had a look at it. It was like 2 decks of ~10-15 cards, and a short rules insert. We quite liked it, and went out and bought starter decks. Mine was green, his red. For probably the first 2-3 years we played (with a couple of our friends), we just used to buy 1-2 precons every so often, halving the cost and taking the cards in our colours. i.e. we'd buy a R/G precon and dave would take the red stuff and i'd take the green.
There were 4 of us, and nobody wanted blue, so I noticed lots of my green stuff helped me with coloured mana and took up some blue stuff too. My deck was ~150 cards, featuring the "swoop" theme deck mashed into some odyssey U/G threshold theme deck.
Who has the daftest rules mistakes from early play? I remember we always though that spuitting earth could target players, and feared dave getting to 10 mountains, at which point he could just double spitting earth our faces....
I can't help but feel a little bad for some of the artists out there. Their art has been used to replace iconic pieces of work, and the feedback has been harsh. "The art on this card is so bad I refuse to play with it, why they didn’t use the original I don’t know." So many of these new pieces aren't necessarily 'bad' art, but simply don't evoke the same feelings the original pieces would. I'm not disagreeing with the comment, just saying many of these artists are being short-changed due to being comisssioned to redo some classic pieces.
I was sent a promotional CD with hundreds of game demos on it, one of which happened to be a two-deck demo of what would become Shandalar. I was intrigued, got the full game, imported all the add-ons at considerable expense, and switched to M:TG Interactive Encyclopedia when it came out. I effectively quit when support was withdrawn for MTGIE in favour of the beta for MTGO, but my interest resurged a couple of years later and I sought out Apprentice. It gave me enough momentum to tilt me back towards MTGO, and I joined at around the time of Legions, building up elf and dragon tribal decks and involving myself as a flanker in the old 1/1/all Emperor games. I persevered, tightened up my deckbuilding, and the rest is history.
"My pool isn't spectacular on first look"??? seriously? i think this is why i suck so bad at magic. this is better than anything i have ever opened. excuse me, this pool has 4 amazing & 2 OK red cards including a dragon, at least one of which is totally splashable (bolt), & there is no question of playing red at all b/c the other colors are so strong. I'd be happy with the RED...
it's funny because this is pretty much what i experience: like NightAngel said, "The first MOCS attempt the usable rares in my pool were reduced to kalonian behemoth..." if i had your pool i'd be jumping up and down for joy. i think some people really are playing a different game than i am, if in their opinion this pool is not spectacular.
because there is 3 very commonly played creatures that destroy it, plus equipment. No point in maindecking a card that half the decks will just destroy for free
ok i havent read the article but this is more of a functional request... if at all possible when you have long rows of small cards like at the beginning is there anyway to have them enlarge or at least show a name tag when they are scrolled over? im only wondering because i have a)bad eyesight and b) am just starting to get into m10 and would love to see actual names to go with chaff for when i do play limited formats and try to help give myself an edge.
I'd like to thank all those who read and even commented on my article. I was pretty nervous to see if my feedback (if I even got any, since people need to read it) would be any good. I was surprised from the amount of response, especially since people actually did tell the stories of how they started. Thank you so much for taking the time to write them down and being comfortable with posting them. I will continue to write as long as people keep reading.
I think the elves + Rampant + 17 lands are in there because of the 3-color build. You have five GG casting guys plus a number of WW guys and the Armored Ascention. I think the lands are about right for that.
I would have strongly considered a White base with BU splashes. You can run Snapping + 2x Wind Drake, Essence Scatter, and possibly Negate in Blue and the 2xDoomblade, Gravedigger in black.
However, I think the green build is probably stronger. I never really thought of the Acidic Slimes as such a good card in certain matchups (but they seemed to win games all by themselves) and clearly the Cudgel Trol and Great Sable Stag were all-stars.
Against the fireball decks, especially the WR one, I would have gone into the Blue build though. I think the Negate and Cancel with flyers would be superior to the Acidic Slime and Great Sable Stag in that matchup. My deck would have been your white and black cards + Snapping Drake, 2x Wind Drake, Essence Scatter, Negate, Cancel, and Celestial Purge.
"If there is some special decklist command, I don't know it. "
Joshua told me about this site set up for the purpose of making nice Deck tables when I submitted my first article. I am surprised he didn't tell you in the article submission comments: http://jamuraa.com/pure/deck_new.php
Hope that helps :)
Note that you must copy and paste the result into the article in html mode not rich text mode or it will not post properly.
And perhaps mis-usage. "You're" is a contraction used to replace "You are". Your is a possessive pronoun. The interesting thing is most people get the exchange wrong in the opposite direction, replacing "you're" with "your" as in "your welcome" where it should be "you're (or you are) welcome."
I still have a ton of Jyhad cards. I've been kicking around the idea of putting together rules for playing from a common deck, almost boardgame style, to try and get my wife to play on boardgame nights.
One last comment - ive found llanowar elf really underwhelming. Id have played something else instead of them. the two runeclaw bears or griffin sentinels for instance. Id have to take a closer look. As it stands you have 17 lands + rampant growth + 2 elfs. That's a bit excessive. and you were lucky not to get flooded more (then again, the rest of your deck is so good that risk is minimized).
Taking the lesson never to opt out is easy when a) u can afford to spend all day playing magic (afford as in family, wife/gf and other stuff). b) you open such a bah-roken pool. The first MOCS attempt the usable rares in my pool were reduced to kalonian behemoth, and I think I had a grand total of 5 "removal" (that counts entanglin vines, blinding mage etc) spread across all colors. So yeah, I agree with the build and nice playing, but your pool was not exactly challenging :)
5/5 and bookmarked. I've never been much of a netdecker, but this has been eye-opening as far as card choices go. And I probably will build one of these.
Illusionary Mask does lots of awesome things. But I heard that at the moment it doesn't work correctly. (The creature is 2/2, not 0/1, and you can't flip it up at will, among other things.)
That's too bad about Land Tax. I like it too. Not even with 4 Wastelands and Strip Mine is it viable? Oh well.
@Laughinman: Yup, sorry about that. I meant Bant. Really, I did ;) I had the article done but it took a few days to go live. My fault for submitting it so late.
@ Tremor: I was really looking to cover more of the off beat stuff, things people may not have considered. Grim is great but it's a more obvious inclusion if you're playing Black. Ditto with Drain now that we don't have mana burn.
you were right on target about Elder though. I knew it was coming but I completely forgot to include it. Absolutely a great card for Commander.
@Morkje: You caught me on the Horsemanship rules. You're correct that a crit with Horsemanship *can* block one without.
The deal with Xia is that players use to forget his ability functions only Main PreCombat, and may would block and then try to sac him in response to damage on the stack. The M10 rules change actually helps newer players with his functionality by making him a little more intuitive.
Edit: Combos in the Oona deck:
Reito Lantern & Tunnel Vision
Leyline of the Void & Helm of Obedience
Wash Out & Painter's Servant
I agree that red is definitely the right colour for you to be, but Merfolk Looter is the best common and you turned down *two* chances to take him, instead picking Veteran Swordsmith (baffling) and Pacifism (more understandable since by this point you had several white picks and Pacifism isn't leagues worse than the looter).
Congrats on splitting in the finals.
How did the solider theme work out? Usually that seems like a trap to me.
I started with one of those mini-booster-games they used to stick on the front of magazines. Does anybody remember them? There was one stuck on the front of Games-Master one month (which means it must've been ~PSX launch time), and my brother and I had a look at it. It was like 2 decks of ~10-15 cards, and a short rules insert. We quite liked it, and went out and bought starter decks. Mine was green, his red. For probably the first 2-3 years we played (with a couple of our friends), we just used to buy 1-2 precons every so often, halving the cost and taking the cards in our colours. i.e. we'd buy a R/G precon and dave would take the red stuff and i'd take the green.
There were 4 of us, and nobody wanted blue, so I noticed lots of my green stuff helped me with coloured mana and took up some blue stuff too. My deck was ~150 cards, featuring the "swoop" theme deck mashed into some odyssey U/G threshold theme deck.
Who has the daftest rules mistakes from early play? I remember we always though that spuitting earth could target players, and feared dave getting to 10 mountains, at which point he could just double spitting earth our faces....
I can't help but feel a little bad for some of the artists out there. Their art has been used to replace iconic pieces of work, and the feedback has been harsh. "The art on this card is so bad I refuse to play with it, why they didn’t use the original I don’t know." So many of these new pieces aren't necessarily 'bad' art, but simply don't evoke the same feelings the original pieces would. I'm not disagreeing with the comment, just saying many of these artists are being short-changed due to being comisssioned to redo some classic pieces.
I was sent a promotional CD with hundreds of game demos on it, one of which happened to be a two-deck demo of what would become Shandalar. I was intrigued, got the full game, imported all the add-ons at considerable expense, and switched to M:TG Interactive Encyclopedia when it came out. I effectively quit when support was withdrawn for MTGIE in favour of the beta for MTGO, but my interest resurged a couple of years later and I sought out Apprentice. It gave me enough momentum to tilt me back towards MTGO, and I joined at around the time of Legions, building up elf and dragon tribal decks and involving myself as a flanker in the old 1/1/all Emperor games. I persevered, tightened up my deckbuilding, and the rest is history.
"My pool isn't spectacular on first look"??? seriously? i think this is why i suck so bad at magic. this is better than anything i have ever opened. excuse me, this pool has 4 amazing & 2 OK red cards including a dragon, at least one of which is totally splashable (bolt), & there is no question of playing red at all b/c the other colors are so strong. I'd be happy with the RED...
it's funny because this is pretty much what i experience: like NightAngel said, "The first MOCS attempt the usable rares in my pool were reduced to kalonian behemoth..." if i had your pool i'd be jumping up and down for joy. i think some people really are playing a different game than i am, if in their opinion this pool is not spectacular.
because there is 3 very commonly played creatures that destroy it, plus equipment. No point in maindecking a card that half the decks will just destroy for free
ok now i have read the article. great read too bad you got stuck on the fireball twins ive had that happen and it is never fun.
ok i havent read the article but this is more of a functional request... if at all possible when you have long rows of small cards like at the beginning is there anyway to have them enlarge or at least show a name tag when they are scrolled over? im only wondering because i have a)bad eyesight and b) am just starting to get into m10 and would love to see actual names to go with chaff for when i do play limited formats and try to help give myself an edge.
Quick question, why are Ice Cages considered sideboard? I have found these to be really good in blue.
I've bookmarked that site, thanks for the information!
We definately needed some articles for budget players and I think that you're (or you are :)) doing a great job filling that hole.
Keep it up!
LE
I'd like to thank all those who read and even commented on my article. I was pretty nervous to see if my feedback (if I even got any, since people need to read it) would be any good. I was surprised from the amount of response, especially since people actually did tell the stories of how they started. Thank you so much for taking the time to write them down and being comfortable with posting them. I will continue to write as long as people keep reading.
I think the elves + Rampant + 17 lands are in there because of the 3-color build. You have five GG casting guys plus a number of WW guys and the Armored Ascention. I think the lands are about right for that.
I would have strongly considered a White base with BU splashes. You can run Snapping + 2x Wind Drake, Essence Scatter, and possibly Negate in Blue and the 2xDoomblade, Gravedigger in black.
However, I think the green build is probably stronger. I never really thought of the Acidic Slimes as such a good card in certain matchups (but they seemed to win games all by themselves) and clearly the Cudgel Trol and Great Sable Stag were all-stars.
Against the fireball decks, especially the WR one, I would have gone into the Blue build though. I think the Negate and Cancel with flyers would be superior to the Acidic Slime and Great Sable Stag in that matchup. My deck would have been your white and black cards + Snapping Drake, 2x Wind Drake, Essence Scatter, Negate, Cancel, and Celestial Purge.
-M
"If there is some special decklist command, I don't know it. "
Joshua told me about this site set up for the purpose of making nice Deck tables when I submitted my first article. I am surprised he didn't tell you in the article submission comments: http://jamuraa.com/pure/deck_new.php
Hope that helps :)
Note that you must copy and paste the result into the article in html mode not rich text mode or it will not post properly.
And perhaps mis-usage. "You're" is a contraction used to replace "You are". Your is a possessive pronoun. The interesting thing is most people get the exchange wrong in the opposite direction, replacing "you're" with "your" as in "your welcome" where it should be "you're (or you are) welcome."
I still have a ton of Jyhad cards. I've been kicking around the idea of putting together rules for playing from a common deck, almost boardgame style, to try and get my wife to play on boardgame nights.
One last comment - ive found llanowar elf really underwhelming. Id have played something else instead of them. the two runeclaw bears or griffin sentinels for instance. Id have to take a closer look. As it stands you have 17 lands + rampant growth + 2 elfs. That's a bit excessive. and you were lucky not to get flooded more (then again, the rest of your deck is so good that risk is minimized).
Taking the lesson never to opt out is easy when a) u can afford to spend all day playing magic (afford as in family, wife/gf and other stuff). b) you open such a bah-roken pool. The first MOCS attempt the usable rares in my pool were reduced to kalonian behemoth, and I think I had a grand total of 5 "removal" (that counts entanglin vines, blinding mage etc) spread across all colors. So yeah, I agree with the build and nice playing, but your pool was not exactly challenging :)
I loved the article. The easiest improvement you can make to your writing is to learn the correct usage of the apostrophe.
the problems with land tax and a 5 pack of ld is that it cant search them up.
Very nice article. The only suggestion I have is to more fully discuss playing vs. other archetypes. The video commentary was well done.
5/5 and bookmarked. I've never been much of a netdecker, but this has been eye-opening as far as card choices go. And I probably will build one of these.
Illusionary Mask does lots of awesome things. But I heard that at the moment it doesn't work correctly. (The creature is 2/2, not 0/1, and you can't flip it up at will, among other things.)
That's too bad about Land Tax. I like it too. Not even with 4 Wastelands and Strip Mine is it viable? Oh well.
I want to see Channel-Banefire in there! But then I am a casual player.
@Laughinman: Yup, sorry about that. I meant Bant. Really, I did ;) I had the article done but it took a few days to go live. My fault for submitting it so late.
@ Tremor: I was really looking to cover more of the off beat stuff, things people may not have considered. Grim is great but it's a more obvious inclusion if you're playing Black. Ditto with Drain now that we don't have mana burn.
you were right on target about Elder though. I knew it was coming but I completely forgot to include it. Absolutely a great card for Commander.
@Morkje: You caught me on the Horsemanship rules. You're correct that a crit with Horsemanship *can* block one without.
The deal with Xia is that players use to forget his ability functions only Main PreCombat, and may would block and then try to sac him in response to damage on the stack. The M10 rules change actually helps newer players with his functionality by making him a little more intuitive.
Edit: Combos in the Oona deck:
Reito Lantern & Tunnel Vision
Leyline of the Void & Helm of Obedience
Wash Out & Painter's Servant
I agree that red is definitely the right colour for you to be, but Merfolk Looter is the best common and you turned down *two* chances to take him, instead picking Veteran Swordsmith (baffling) and Pacifism (more understandable since by this point you had several white picks and Pacifism isn't leagues worse than the looter).
Congrats on splitting in the finals.
How did the solider theme work out? Usually that seems like a trap to me.