Ham, are the pricelists you're working from publicly available, or are you working of something Heath provides you? I'd love to have access to that data, because there's tons of useful information I could get off that.
I also like Black Knight highly. Not in this pack but in general it rates very highly among picks for me as does its counterpart White Knight. But the BB/WW cost is a definite commitment and means you can't really run another color heavily unless you have multiple fixers.
it will be fun to play with and i will land up cracking a few dozen packs in hopes of getting that duel string, med2 i missedit completely m10 i cracked silence 7 times, so maybe ill luck out and get a playset of bayous. or not....
(Love the sarcasm btw :P) the Significant Other question is something that should solve itself outside of the MTG/MTGO arena. Who gets involved with someone with no comprehension of your basic personality? You play magic regularly enough to play in tourneys you are by definition a gamer. If your SO can't deal with that then there is a significant problem in your relationship that has nothing to do with the game. Now it is possible for someone to be inconsiderate and to jump into a tourney when they inadvertently agreed to other plans etc but again the communication aspect of an adult relationship if it is healthy should cover this. If scheduling is consistently an issue you might want to rethink your relationship ground rules. That's my 2.0 cents from being in a monogamous relationship for over 21 years.
Why not run Progenitus in Dakkon deck I know it only has a 2/5 chance to produce white or become a forest but in a dedicated U/W list like your last one it shouldn't be a problem to blink him
I have been a part of the beta, and there is some fun cards in the set, but unfortunately most are not even lpayable for casual games. Where this set is going to shine is for commander/singleton. Tons of fun cards in here-the blue legend that gives all your creatures horsemanship would be a great general along with some of the others.
Look, I'm sry, but winning is fun. Winning in different, odd, unexpected ways? Sure, that's what casual, vanguard and weird formats is all about. But please don't separate the two things as if they're opposites. A deck that rarely wins is NOT going to make their pilot happy. Just my two cents, I confess I don't play vanguard nor evaluated the decks, just wanted to say that after I started reading. You should always strive to be effective, even if you're trying to be original.
I could care less about the B.S. Legends, and fodder that I will NEVER play with. Not to say that there aren't some pretty neat classics in the mix.
With that said, I am an exclusive Classic player. I have been waiting for the rest of the duals to come out since MED2 ended. The day is near and I can't wait.
And Welcome back "Blood Lust"! Sweet card, awesome art.
illusions of grandeur for $40, are you high?
the abyss is only that high because of nostalgia. it wont come remotely close online.
nethervoid is most likely too slow for online.
most of those duals are not $40, only the trops and bayous.
you really dont have much of a clue.
this set is going to be full of tons of useless garbage in addition to the few chase rares.
I'd love live in a world where I thought everything obvious wasn't worth saying.
Hey anonymous, Ingsoc would like to have a word with you.
The Significant Other question is an obvious one to anticipate, but not to solve. Without opening up Pandora's box... this one is huge and getting it wrong can really suck the fun out of the whole expereince.
(I am sure Pandora's significant other wishes he was paying her more attention, and not playing MTGO when she did open that box.)
I agree with the second Anonymous post in this little mini thread. And whilst I respect the first Anonymous person's right to voice an obvious opionion... trails off here...
Nothing is perfect, nothing can make everyone happy... Can everyone say "White is, at best, a support colour, it is completely nerfed... etc." How long ago was that the song we were singing? 2 years? Now White is a powerhouse. Things change. Blue mages are unhappy now etc.
This set represents LOTS of opportunities for Tier 1 brokenness, BUT it also represents MANY MORE opportunities for Tier 15 silliness - casual games are going to be rich and diverse when this product hits casual games. Halfdane Beatdown FTW.
And why anonymous - it just makes it easier to conduct a conversation if you give yourself a tag...
Using Island on the two Blue mana sources is good - as island/sea seem to be the default natural geological source for U mana - from there the design space moves away from this to less and less powerful? or ... 'generic' in a good all-encompasing way words. (Underground Sea > Underground River for example)...
Expansions and such can/do use more flavourful, regional names for their multi-mana names.
Good post man, totally agree. I think there's a place in the casual room for good decks, bad decks, good players, bad players, creative lists, netdecks - it's all good
Sorry I didn’t mean to offend the extended players out there, that’s the last thing I wanted to do.
I play most formats and I do have a number of Extended decks, when I was writing an article a few weeks ago that used the extended pool I didn’t feel there was a great many choices to pull from, maybe it’s because I play classic and the range of cards has spoilt me.
As hamtastic says maybe we do need someone to show us what is available in the format. I feel Extended has been neglected from an article point of view, people do touch on decks that can be used in relation to other articles but we don’t have a dedicated writer to show the love for the format that you have.
I admit I don’t have a grasp on the Extended format as I do the other formats it’s probably my weakest to be honest so I shouldn’t really have judged a format I know nothing about.
What the banning of Arboria represents is a line in the sand. They were updating every format in relation to the new cards: they still haven't rebalanced the tribal format to deal with the old inconsistencies. Nonetheless, I'd rather they addressed new problems as they emerged than added them to the stockpile.
I like the last couple of ideas under Dakkon. The One thing you missed in the UW deck is crystal shard which just is an awesome card. It can bounce your wurmfangs and also keep your op from tapping too many lands thus slowing a rush. Oh and it can save your flipped over creatures from targeted or mass removal.
I don't entirely agree with all of your points. Perhaps because I view things from the casual end of the pool and I see a lot of broken combo and other degenerate deck archetypes in extended. For example, while Affinity may be underrepresented in the serious play arena, it shows up far too often in casual play. Not that it isn't beatable but you have to metagame your deck builds no matter how rogue to be able to take care of some of the worst offenders in Affinity or just consider yourself a bye. The nice thing about casual play is you can just move on if a deck offends you but that isn't really the desired outcome.
To exacerbate the problem most extended casual games never involve a sideboard as they are rarely more than 1 game per opponent. Many people will not join 2 out of 3 match setups unless the time is severely restricted (15 mins for 3 games?). So while serious play avoids Affinity because everyone hates for it in the sideboard, in casual it is rampant. NuAffinity too. (Use of the jank from Ala/Arb that combo well with older affinity, etc.) Faeries on the other hand doesn't even show up. I think I've seen one true fae deck in the last month or so. Elves is very popular in casual and often that is the most netdecky list you will see as it somewhat builds itself.
I also think that while Lorwyn has a lot of obvious hangups it has some interesting cards (look at some of the other articles on this site to see what I mean) that interact with the older extended pool better than within the sterile environment of standard. Not that I hate standard but it gets stale quickly when everyone wants to run janky Swans decks etc.
I agree that Extended is a great format and I second Hammy's remarks that you should post an article with some of your ideas for good extended decks. Give us something to live for :p
As I have written a couple articles based on extended and received little response I haven't as yet ventured back to the topic. I personally love extended and spend most of my time playing it with the exception of trying to play in the seriously broken 100s format recently. Extended has many possible deck archetypes and that is what makes it interesting without being too costly. In casual that is.
Classic is really hard for even a veteran player without a ton of tickets. Force of Will? Duals? Ouch is all I can say to that. But Rav Duals cost between 2 and 6 bucks (Stomping Grounds and the UG being the inexplicably overpriced ones.) And a lot of the other good cards in extended are fairly cheap with the most expensive being things like Reflecting Pool.
As far as playing serious extended tournaments...well from what I understand it is a much narrowed field with few innovations. Id be happy to see myself proved wrong in that but I really don't think I will be. The usual suspects: Elves, Fish, Zoo, etc are par for the course but there is little else that is really competitive. Certainly none of my Desolation Row builds are tournament worthy. Elementals could be interesting as the basis of the deck certainly has some resilience against a wide selection of decks.
"Integration errors" aren't something that cause you to post a message at the start saying "we plan to be down a week". Integration errors cause you to predict one time, and then during the move say "Oops it's taking longer here's the new estimate".
As far as testing the new forums, in what way is it required to shut the old ones down to have a testing period for the new ones before the move? I had heard, actually, that they'd been testing the new forums for some time already before they initiated the one week shutdown.
Ham, are the pricelists you're working from publicly available, or are you working of something Heath provides you? I'd love to have access to that data, because there's tons of useful information I could get off that.
why are these cards going up so drastically? ive seen no decks on any sites utilizing them
I also like Black Knight highly. Not in this pack but in general it rates very highly among picks for me as does its counterpart White Knight. But the BB/WW cost is a definite commitment and means you can't really run another color heavily unless you have multiple fixers.
it will be fun to play with and i will land up cracking a few dozen packs in hopes of getting that duel string, med2 i missedit completely m10 i cracked silence 7 times, so maybe ill luck out and get a playset of bayous. or not....
so whats the strategy you thinks?
(Love the sarcasm btw :P) the Significant Other question is something that should solve itself outside of the MTG/MTGO arena. Who gets involved with someone with no comprehension of your basic personality? You play magic regularly enough to play in tourneys you are by definition a gamer. If your SO can't deal with that then there is a significant problem in your relationship that has nothing to do with the game. Now it is possible for someone to be inconsiderate and to jump into a tourney when they inadvertently agreed to other plans etc but again the communication aspect of an adult relationship if it is healthy should cover this. If scheduling is consistently an issue you might want to rethink your relationship ground rules. That's my 2.0 cents from being in a monogamous relationship for over 21 years.
Why not run Progenitus in Dakkon deck I know it only has a 2/5 chance to produce white or become a forest but in a dedicated U/W list like your last one it shouldn't be a problem to blink him
I have been a part of the beta, and there is some fun cards in the set, but unfortunately most are not even lpayable for casual games. Where this set is going to shine is for commander/singleton. Tons of fun cards in here-the blue legend that gives all your creatures horsemanship would be a great general along with some of the others.
But... should it really matter...
Whilst some of the speculative statements in the article deserve a critical "Wha?"
"You really don't have much of a clue" is going to have the net affect of making all the words in your anonymous effort less than relevant.
Look, I'm sry, but winning is fun. Winning in different, odd, unexpected ways? Sure, that's what casual, vanguard and weird formats is all about. But please don't separate the two things as if they're opposites. A deck that rarely wins is NOT going to make their pilot happy. Just my two cents, I confess I don't play vanguard nor evaluated the decks, just wanted to say that after I started reading. You should always strive to be effective, even if you're trying to be original.
I could care less about the B.S. Legends, and fodder that I will NEVER play with. Not to say that there aren't some pretty neat classics in the mix.
With that said, I am an exclusive Classic player. I have been waiting for the rest of the duals to come out since MED2 ended. The day is near and I can't wait.
And Welcome back "Blood Lust"! Sweet card, awesome art.
illusions of grandeur for $40, are you high?
the abyss is only that high because of nostalgia. it wont come remotely close online.
nethervoid is most likely too slow for online.
most of those duals are not $40, only the trops and bayous.
you really dont have much of a clue.
this set is going to be full of tons of useless garbage in addition to the few chase rares.
I'd love live in a world where I thought everything obvious wasn't worth saying.
Hey anonymous, Ingsoc would like to have a word with you.
The Significant Other question is an obvious one to anticipate, but not to solve. Without opening up Pandora's box... this one is huge and getting it wrong can really suck the fun out of the whole expereince.
(I am sure Pandora's significant other wishes he was paying her more attention, and not playing MTGO when she did open that box.)
I agree with the second Anonymous post in this little mini thread. And whilst I respect the first Anonymous person's right to voice an obvious opionion... trails off here...
Nothing is perfect, nothing can make everyone happy... Can everyone say "White is, at best, a support colour, it is completely nerfed... etc." How long ago was that the song we were singing? 2 years? Now White is a powerhouse. Things change. Blue mages are unhappy now etc.
This set represents LOTS of opportunities for Tier 1 brokenness, BUT it also represents MANY MORE opportunities for Tier 15 silliness - casual games are going to be rich and diverse when this product hits casual games. Halfdane Beatdown FTW.
And why anonymous - it just makes it easier to conduct a conversation if you give yourself a tag...
Using Island on the two Blue mana sources is good - as island/sea seem to be the default natural geological source for U mana - from there the design space moves away from this to less and less powerful? or ... 'generic' in a good all-encompasing way words. (Underground Sea > Underground River for example)...
Expansions and such can/do use more flavourful, regional names for their multi-mana names.
Now you know
CQ is what exactly? I'd like to see that article.
Good post man, totally agree. I think there's a place in the casual room for good decks, bad decks, good players, bad players, creative lists, netdecks - it's all good
Sorry I didn’t mean to offend the extended players out there, that’s the last thing I wanted to do.
I play most formats and I do have a number of Extended decks, when I was writing an article a few weeks ago that used the extended pool I didn’t feel there was a great many choices to pull from, maybe it’s because I play classic and the range of cards has spoilt me.
As hamtastic says maybe we do need someone to show us what is available in the format. I feel Extended has been neglected from an article point of view, people do touch on decks that can be used in relation to other articles but we don’t have a dedicated writer to show the love for the format that you have.
I admit I don’t have a grasp on the Extended format as I do the other formats it’s probably my weakest to be honest so I shouldn’t really have judged a format I know nothing about.
Many Apologies Flippers_Giraffe
What the banning of Arboria represents is a line in the sand. They were updating every format in relation to the new cards: they still haven't rebalanced the tribal format to deal with the old inconsistencies. Nonetheless, I'd rather they addressed new problems as they emerged than added them to the stockpile.
Yes that is true and I was thinking that the delay was extended. (It seems like it has been well over a week.)
I like the last couple of ideas under Dakkon. The One thing you missed in the UW deck is crystal shard which just is an awesome card. It can bounce your wurmfangs and also keep your op from tapping too many lands thus slowing a rush. Oh and it can save your flipped over creatures from targeted or mass removal.
I don't entirely agree with all of your points. Perhaps because I view things from the casual end of the pool and I see a lot of broken combo and other degenerate deck archetypes in extended. For example, while Affinity may be underrepresented in the serious play arena, it shows up far too often in casual play. Not that it isn't beatable but you have to metagame your deck builds no matter how rogue to be able to take care of some of the worst offenders in Affinity or just consider yourself a bye. The nice thing about casual play is you can just move on if a deck offends you but that isn't really the desired outcome.
To exacerbate the problem most extended casual games never involve a sideboard as they are rarely more than 1 game per opponent. Many people will not join 2 out of 3 match setups unless the time is severely restricted (15 mins for 3 games?). So while serious play avoids Affinity because everyone hates for it in the sideboard, in casual it is rampant. NuAffinity too. (Use of the jank from Ala/Arb that combo well with older affinity, etc.) Faeries on the other hand doesn't even show up. I think I've seen one true fae deck in the last month or so. Elves is very popular in casual and often that is the most netdecky list you will see as it somewhat builds itself.
I also think that while Lorwyn has a lot of obvious hangups it has some interesting cards (look at some of the other articles on this site to see what I mean) that interact with the older extended pool better than within the sterile environment of standard. Not that I hate standard but it gets stale quickly when everyone wants to run janky Swans decks etc.
I agree that Extended is a great format and I second Hammy's remarks that you should post an article with some of your ideas for good extended decks. Give us something to live for :p
As I have written a couple articles based on extended and received little response I haven't as yet ventured back to the topic. I personally love extended and spend most of my time playing it with the exception of trying to play in the seriously broken 100s format recently. Extended has many possible deck archetypes and that is what makes it interesting without being too costly. In casual that is.
Classic is really hard for even a veteran player without a ton of tickets. Force of Will? Duals? Ouch is all I can say to that. But Rav Duals cost between 2 and 6 bucks (Stomping Grounds and the UG being the inexplicably overpriced ones.) And a lot of the other good cards in extended are fairly cheap with the most expensive being things like Reflecting Pool.
As far as playing serious extended tournaments...well from what I understand it is a much narrowed field with few innovations. Id be happy to see myself proved wrong in that but I really don't think I will be. The usual suspects: Elves, Fish, Zoo, etc are par for the course but there is little else that is really competitive. Certainly none of my Desolation Row builds are tournament worthy. Elementals could be interesting as the basis of the deck certainly has some resilience against a wide selection of decks.
"Integration errors" aren't something that cause you to post a message at the start saying "we plan to be down a week". Integration errors cause you to predict one time, and then during the move say "Oops it's taking longer here's the new estimate".
As far as testing the new forums, in what way is it required to shut the old ones down to have a testing period for the new ones before the move? I had heard, actually, that they'd been testing the new forums for some time already before they initiated the one week shutdown.
They really weren't that creative with the names, using Island on both blue lands seems somewhat redundant. How thing change I guess...