sure, but the bad part is that he was actually playing constructed playable cards (charm, command, burial...) and not behemoth or entrance that are casual calls. So, if you have want to play powerful cards at least learn how to play them :-)
This is a terrible set. Shame on Wizards for making a terrible set with a ton of unplayable chaff, throwing 5 dualies, mana drain, bazaar, mind twist, and a couple of other fringy slightly playable cards into a set and packaging it up for people who are desperate to play classic with the real duals and a few other cards. Instead of printing a set that is as blatant as this, they should just print up sets like From the Vault, and sell the duals and chase rares like that, save a bunch of people time, money, and headaches of collecting rather than having to sift through this junk.
My first impression was to take Black Knight, which most of you are severely underrating. I think it is a notch above Rise from the Grave in overall quality. Of course Rise does more when it resolves... that's why it costs two-and-a-half times as much mana. But on turn 2, what other creature *in the whole format* would you rather have?
Manuel Bucher recently ranked all the commons and uncommons in each color, and he put Black Knight 5th for black (behind Doom Blade, Tendrils, Banshee, then Consume Spirit). Rise is 7th. That's not a big drop in ranking, and in fact, I think Rise is a better pick in the scenario we have here. I just wanted to make the case that Black Knight is pretty close. I think Rise is a better pick because it will be at its best in the deck we are drafting, where the games go long and most bomb creatures will hit the graveyard from counterspells as well as removal.
Essence Scatter puts too much faith in Air Elemental. People who are writing that Essence Scatter "is 100% likely to be played" are correct but missing the point. Once you take 2 blue cards, you're committed. You have to play both. That's not necessarily a good thing. If you take a card of a different color, you can play either or neither, depending on the rest of the picks.
One final comment, and I hope Godot reads this. I really enjoy these in-game walkthroughs. Your style is crisp and detailed, and your logic is just sound enough to follow along and nod my head :) However, I disagreed with your play in R2G1T4. You gave yourself the options of casting your Stampeding Rhino or killing an incoming 3/2 with Tendrils. In poker, that's raising or folding. You "raise" by casting the Rhino, as this puts you far ahead if he doesn't have Scatter (but buries you in lost tempo and value if he does). You "fold" by casting Tendrils, as this is basically a concession of value (Tendrils trading for Swordsmith + 1 attack) in order to avoid a high-risk scenario. Both plays have merits.
However, I'm sure the best play is to "call," by casting the Aristocrat. If he has the Scatter, he has to use it now, which is better for you than losing your Rhino. You take another 3 damage but you shouldn't care about that when your hand has 2 Tendrils and a board-dominating 4/4. If he lets the Aristocrat resolve, there's no way he's going to attack into it with the Swordsmith when you can trade your Llanowar Elves for it (by blocking with Aristocrat and activating it).
Had you chosen to cast the Aristocrat, your Rhino would be in play on the very next turn. You save 3 damage from the Swordsmith (since it can't attack into the Rhino), and perhaps deter the Pikemaster too. With 2 Tendrils in hand, you should have plenty of time from that point to draw into more spells. You might even set up a sweet 2-for-1 by killing the Swordsmith while the Pikemaster is trying to take out the Rhino.
thank for this Hamtastic
these old arts with old texts make always me nostalgical ... funny to see all these oldies : tap symbol with the T, white symbol with ... hm ... i dont know what, continuous/poly/mono artifact, interrupt, buried ... and sentences like "Lengend do not untap AS NORMAL", "this card is red when cast and kobolds are red creatures", "target land is NOW a swamp", "destroy any card in play" ^^
It reminds me how the mtg vocabular was different 15 years ago
btw, some text cards changed a lot since the original version. This is especialy true for Illusionary Mask.
Is art above confirmed? I had hoped that since the set has a Legends theme, that for Force Spike, Remove Soul and Boomerang would feature the art from the Legends set.
Also does anyone know what basic lands will be in the set? With the Alpha lands out of the way, and snow-lands already done, there is not much out there that would add to the set other than unglued/unhinged lands, but I doubt that will happen. Maybe the Portal Three Kingdoms lands to keep them in theme?
There are going to be about 350-500 textless Dorans entering the system on Sunday.... I sold mine off at 10 each as soon as that announcement went up... same thing I did with Mutavault (well I sold my regular mutavaults for 12 each then bought textless versions for 10 each a month later)
I'd recommend splitting the list for future spoilers. If making it several different pages is not a good idea because of the way puremtgo's article system works, you could use Javascript+CSS to make it work.
"Magic 2010 has been drafted like a baby boomer in the 70's."
Wasn't the Vietnam war in the 60s?
"My only real 'What?' moment of this list is Arboria."
Maybe you misread the card? If you didn't play a land or creature, you can't BE attacked. In a format that's all about creatures, it can give a combo player a lot of time to set up I guess. Although it's generally worse than moat, and Moat is legal, so it's still a WTF choice.
Why is Strip Mine banned in 100-card singleton? I thought CoW and LftL were banned in the format, and without recursion I don't see how a singleton mine would warp the format...
Excellent as always... I have had the same thoughts, but have got caught in no mans land with my thinking... even though I play casual classic, I like to be able to play any/all of the card interactions. Deciding to limit my choices by noy purchasing cards, feels a little bit like going back to extended... I like the limitless options of classic... (other than restrictions obviously)... need good minds to keep speculating so I can keep my thoughts spinning around.
I am waiting for the day you become a DBA and provide historical price graphs of every card. As that would be truely amazing. TBH I dont think it would be that hard since the data is provided easily. It just a matter of automating it.
We must admit that the UBW esper control deck played quite bad against you. With that amount of mass removal why
1) did he play essence scatter???
2) why did he play essence scatter on civic wayfinders?
3) why did he hallowed burial 1 turn before planar cleansing?
That was a great proof of the low level of casual players on modo.
Agreed, and it is slowly changing my mind toward the Scatter for this pick. Not 100% yet, but I'm not actually considering Scatter for this pick, which wasn't happening before this post.
Llanowar/Farhaven/Archdruid are the mana ramps but Thorning and Colossus being shapeshifters also help with Archdruid. Terra to thin the deck to make Lurking work faster and the Spirals are there to rescue any early keys that hit the gy (lurking/archdruid). With 32 of 60 being creatures gives you great chances with Lurking, the only real problem is not being able to tutor a lurking which is why I kept it mono green as you could still cast everything and not have a dead hand, you just need a ton of mana lol.
So then I made a GW STD version with Idyllic to hasten Lurking out.
Gone are the Regal Force since drawing a bunch of high cc creatures kinda went against the point of Lurking and once with multiple Lurkings out I almost decked myself when 2 Regals hit the scene at one time. I also added Mirror Entity another friend to Archdruid both to generate more mana and a place to put mana in the late game.
Awesome article. I already abide by all of it when playing for points. An additional note regarding Musing V: I've found that it's not the significant other being upset that ends up being a problem, but the guilt you may pick up from such an occurrance can cloud your thoughts and make it difficult to play to the best of your ability. As for Musing VI, if you are using a wireless router it's good to remember you can always hard connect to your laptop through the router or bypassing it all together by connecting directly to the modem. I've even gone so far as to drive to a local cafe with a hot spot to keep from losing a match to a lost connection.
Fair enough, you as well as the others I've talked with on MODO and seen in other articles, have led me to completely rearrange my draft preferences. Hopefully, I can get more experienced and start drafting to win, rather than for randomness.
Thanks Night Angel for the Swiss advice. I would say for the purposes of QPs this is the way to go. However, from my season 2 experiences, the larger events, provided you have the time are really the way to go. I clearly was all over the place in this draft. Thanks for the comment.
So AJ, do you live across the pond? And if so do american accents work on your women or is it just american women who are gaga for accents?
Good job guys i enjoyed that even if there was a missing segment from the podcast, namely which is the fav articles of the week. It may be a bit vain but one of my goals each week is to be that article. cheers and I hope to hear more from ya Mr. Impy.
Not too long ago Dramatic Entrance was a bargain at $1.10. I would only occasionally see it at bots that sold cards for 1 tix. Now MTGOTraders has it for just 60 cents? And they only have 4 left. Well, 8 before me. And your article just launched. They'll probably sell the last 4 pretty quick.
I'm going to play a slightly different classic-legal list, but I will still use the Behemoth. He needs trample, but he has shroud. Hmm. Be right back.
I think the list is incredible:
grim tutor *
mind twist
nether void *
the abyss *
old man of the sea *
strategic planning *
mana drain *
reset
chain lightning
land tax
black vise
illusion of grandeur *
bazaar of baghdad *
5 duals *
*= over 40$ in paper
sure, but the bad part is that he was actually playing constructed playable cards (charm, command, burial...) and not behemoth or entrance that are casual calls. So, if you have want to play powerful cards at least learn how to play them :-)
This is a terrible set. Shame on Wizards for making a terrible set with a ton of unplayable chaff, throwing 5 dualies, mana drain, bazaar, mind twist, and a couple of other fringy slightly playable cards into a set and packaging it up for people who are desperate to play classic with the real duals and a few other cards. Instead of printing a set that is as blatant as this, they should just print up sets like From the Vault, and sell the duals and chase rares like that, save a bunch of people time, money, and headaches of collecting rather than having to sift through this junk.
My first impression was to take Black Knight, which most of you are severely underrating. I think it is a notch above Rise from the Grave in overall quality. Of course Rise does more when it resolves... that's why it costs two-and-a-half times as much mana. But on turn 2, what other creature *in the whole format* would you rather have?
Manuel Bucher recently ranked all the commons and uncommons in each color, and he put Black Knight 5th for black (behind Doom Blade, Tendrils, Banshee, then Consume Spirit). Rise is 7th. That's not a big drop in ranking, and in fact, I think Rise is a better pick in the scenario we have here. I just wanted to make the case that Black Knight is pretty close. I think Rise is a better pick because it will be at its best in the deck we are drafting, where the games go long and most bomb creatures will hit the graveyard from counterspells as well as removal.
Essence Scatter puts too much faith in Air Elemental. People who are writing that Essence Scatter "is 100% likely to be played" are correct but missing the point. Once you take 2 blue cards, you're committed. You have to play both. That's not necessarily a good thing. If you take a card of a different color, you can play either or neither, depending on the rest of the picks.
One final comment, and I hope Godot reads this. I really enjoy these in-game walkthroughs. Your style is crisp and detailed, and your logic is just sound enough to follow along and nod my head :) However, I disagreed with your play in R2G1T4. You gave yourself the options of casting your Stampeding Rhino or killing an incoming 3/2 with Tendrils. In poker, that's raising or folding. You "raise" by casting the Rhino, as this puts you far ahead if he doesn't have Scatter (but buries you in lost tempo and value if he does). You "fold" by casting Tendrils, as this is basically a concession of value (Tendrils trading for Swordsmith + 1 attack) in order to avoid a high-risk scenario. Both plays have merits.
However, I'm sure the best play is to "call," by casting the Aristocrat. If he has the Scatter, he has to use it now, which is better for you than losing your Rhino. You take another 3 damage but you shouldn't care about that when your hand has 2 Tendrils and a board-dominating 4/4. If he lets the Aristocrat resolve, there's no way he's going to attack into it with the Swordsmith when you can trade your Llanowar Elves for it (by blocking with Aristocrat and activating it).
Had you chosen to cast the Aristocrat, your Rhino would be in play on the very next turn. You save 3 damage from the Swordsmith (since it can't attack into the Rhino), and perhaps deter the Pikemaster too. With 2 Tendrils in hand, you should have plenty of time from that point to draw into more spells. You might even set up a sweet 2-for-1 by killing the Swordsmith while the Pikemaster is trying to take out the Rhino.
thank for this Hamtastic
these old arts with old texts make always me nostalgical ... funny to see all these oldies : tap symbol with the T, white symbol with ... hm ... i dont know what, continuous/poly/mono artifact, interrupt, buried ... and sentences like "Lengend do not untap AS NORMAL", "this card is red when cast and kobolds are red creatures", "target land is NOW a swamp", "destroy any card in play" ^^
It reminds me how the mtg vocabular was different 15 years ago
btw, some text cards changed a lot since the original version. This is especialy true for Illusionary Mask.
Art is not confirmed, this is just an easy way to view all the cards by color, all at once, if you haven't been invited to the Beta. :)
Also, the rarities of some cards are different as well. Once the forums come back up I'll post a link to a breakdown of the cards by rarity->color.
Is art above confirmed? I had hoped that since the set has a Legends theme, that for Force Spike, Remove Soul and Boomerang would feature the art from the Legends set.
Also does anyone know what basic lands will be in the set? With the Alpha lands out of the way, and snow-lands already done, there is not much out there that would add to the set other than unglued/unhinged lands, but I doubt that will happen. Maybe the Portal Three Kingdoms lands to keep them in theme?
Nobody would confuse that match with the finals of a pro tour, that's for sure.
Here is a hint on Doran...
There are going to be about 350-500 textless Dorans entering the system on Sunday.... I sold mine off at 10 each as soon as that announcement went up... same thing I did with Mutavault (well I sold my regular mutavaults for 12 each then bought textless versions for 10 each a month later)
I'd recommend splitting the list for future spoilers. If making it several different pages is not a good idea because of the way puremtgo's article system works, you could use Javascript+CSS to make it work.
"Magic 2010 has been drafted like a baby boomer in the 70's."
Wasn't the Vietnam war in the 60s?
"My only real 'What?' moment of this list is Arboria."
Maybe you misread the card? If you didn't play a land or creature, you can't BE attacked. In a format that's all about creatures, it can give a combo player a lot of time to set up I guess. Although it's generally worse than moat, and Moat is legal, so it's still a WTF choice.
Why is Strip Mine banned in 100-card singleton? I thought CoW and LftL were banned in the format, and without recursion I don't see how a singleton mine would warp the format...
Excellent as always... I have had the same thoughts, but have got caught in no mans land with my thinking... even though I play casual classic, I like to be able to play any/all of the card interactions. Deciding to limit my choices by noy purchasing cards, feels a little bit like going back to extended... I like the limitless options of classic... (other than restrictions obviously)... need good minds to keep speculating so I can keep my thoughts spinning around.
I am waiting for the day you become a DBA and provide historical price graphs of every card. As that would be truely amazing. TBH I dont think it would be that hard since the data is provided easily. It just a matter of automating it.
I look forward to your articles each and every week. Thanks for continuing to post.
We must admit that the UBW esper control deck played quite bad against you. With that amount of mass removal why
1) did he play essence scatter???
2) why did he play essence scatter on civic wayfinders?
3) why did he hallowed burial 1 turn before planar cleansing?
That was a great proof of the low level of casual players on modo.
Agreed, and it is slowly changing my mind toward the Scatter for this pick. Not 100% yet, but I'm not actually considering Scatter for this pick, which wasn't happening before this post.
Good post mwhitmoe
Yea very much ABC..like you said obvious
And you got some credit for this..
Cant wait to write my first short article..
Pick the good cards ..play the right lands..dont pick a good black card if you are W/R....
zzzzzzzzzzz.........
This was one of my first Lurking decks that worked out well.
4x Llanowar Elves
4x Farhaven Elf
4x Elvish Archdruid
4x Chameleon Colossus
4x Thornling
4x Regal Force
2x Woodfall Primus
4x Cloudthresher
2x Kolonian Behemoth
2x Nature's Spiral
4x Lurking Predators
4x Mosswort Bridge
4x Terramorphic Expanse
14x Forest
Llanowar/Farhaven/Archdruid are the mana ramps but Thorning and Colossus being shapeshifters also help with Archdruid. Terra to thin the deck to make Lurking work faster and the Spirals are there to rescue any early keys that hit the gy (lurking/archdruid). With 32 of 60 being creatures gives you great chances with Lurking, the only real problem is not being able to tutor a lurking which is why I kept it mono green as you could still cast everything and not have a dead hand, you just need a ton of mana lol.
So then I made a GW STD version with Idyllic to hasten Lurking out.
4x Llanowar Elves
4x Farhaven Elf
4x Elvish Archdruid
3x Chameleon Colossus
3x Thornling
2x Woodfall Primus
3x Cloudthresher
2x Kolonian Behemoth
4x Mirror Entity
2x Nature's Spiral
4x Lurking Predators
3x Idyllic Tutor
2x Mosswort Bridge
4x Terramorphic Expanse
8x Forest
4x Plains
4x Wooded Bastion
Gone are the Regal Force since drawing a bunch of high cc creatures kinda went against the point of Lurking and once with multiple Lurkings out I almost decked myself when 2 Regals hit the scene at one time. I also added Mirror Entity another friend to Archdruid both to generate more mana and a place to put mana in the late game.
I know this is a long response, sorry.
RagMan
Awesome article. I already abide by all of it when playing for points. An additional note regarding Musing V: I've found that it's not the significant other being upset that ends up being a problem, but the guilt you may pick up from such an occurrance can cloud your thoughts and make it difficult to play to the best of your ability. As for Musing VI, if you are using a wireless router it's good to remember you can always hard connect to your laptop through the router or bypassing it all together by connecting directly to the modem. I've even gone so far as to drive to a local cafe with a hot spot to keep from losing a match to a lost connection.
Fair enough, you as well as the others I've talked with on MODO and seen in other articles, have led me to completely rearrange my draft preferences. Hopefully, I can get more experienced and start drafting to win, rather than for randomness.
Thanks Night Angel for the Swiss advice. I would say for the purposes of QPs this is the way to go. However, from my season 2 experiences, the larger events, provided you have the time are really the way to go. I clearly was all over the place in this draft. Thanks for the comment.
So AJ, do you live across the pond? And if so do american accents work on your women or is it just american women who are gaga for accents?
Good job guys i enjoyed that even if there was a missing segment from the podcast, namely which is the fav articles of the week. It may be a bit vain but one of my goals each week is to be that article. cheers and I hope to hear more from ya Mr. Impy.
Not too long ago Dramatic Entrance was a bargain at $1.10. I would only occasionally see it at bots that sold cards for 1 tix. Now MTGOTraders has it for just 60 cents? And they only have 4 left. Well, 8 before me. And your article just launched. They'll probably sell the last 4 pretty quick.
I'm going to play a slightly different classic-legal list, but I will still use the Behemoth. He needs trample, but he has shroud. Hmm. Be right back.
You're right! Somehow I missed that these decks were standard legal. I think I was thinking of the Dimir Cutpurse still.
That was as cogent an explanation of advanced drafting theory as I've seen in a while.