Do you really need the Royal Assassin to be unblockable? You picked a piece of equipment that says "unblockable plus shroud." With the exception of your pet magpie, wouldn't you always prefer haste + shroud for your pet instead? And even then maybe the magpie would still rather have haste. Put some shoes on! Also, the shoes are cheaper, and equip for free.
so much for all this pricing analysis, looks like the paper version is gonna go for wayyyyy over the $35 suggested retail price with wizards severely limiting the amount of product thats released.
berserk is $40, lackey and lotus petal is $25 and most of the set is $15+, with the entire paper box set is gonna run well over $200.
M/U is a good deck for a skilled player but it's not the best deck or probably even 2nd or 3rd best. It's a viable option if you're good and want to play control, but it's really just another deck in the meta. Saying m/u is overrunning the format is absurd, and if you told someone playing pauper regularly that you thought something from m/u should be banned they'd probably laugh. I'd say slivers, affinity, and mono black are all better than it. Even then, there are a ton of decks that can win vs it. I play goblins all the time and m/u is a very favorable matchup for me. I just want to make sure people reading this understand that m/u is NOT a dominant deck close to anything like faeries was in std or even 5c or anything else.
I'm glad to see that you wrote your elves article after all. Nice job - I also agree that it's nice to see the cards grouped roughly by function. I also agree that it would be helpful to hear how the deck sideboards and plays differently against different decks. And also which matchups are good/bad.
It's great that you included some budget considerations for this deck, because it seems like a really good entry point into the format. I won't be surprised at all if we see a few new players trying out this deck in tournaments in the near future. I hope that happens. It would be cool if other people wrote articles about the less expensive Singleton decks, especially mono-red and non-elves GW aggro.
I enjoyed the podcast, and wanted to give a quick props for the Wizard of Oz reference in the title. My two year old son's favourite film at the moment, so I get to watch it about seventeen times per day.
Is it just me, or is that an unreasonably long migration time? They should wait until the new forums are totally 100% ready to launch, fully tested, and then within less than one day's time (hopefully just a couple hours) 1) shut down the old forums, 2) migrate the old posts data if they're going to do that, and 3) flip the switch to turn on the new forums.
There's no reason data migration should take a week, and they could certainly do some test runs on migrating a copy of the data into the new system before the live, hopefully very quick actual migration. In an ideal world they could potentially pre-migrate all the old posts, then just run an update process to move over the last day's worth or whatever. They could even leave the forums up in "read only" mode during the migration.
What's with this one week downtime? I'd say it seems like spitting in the eye of the community, but I think it's probably more accurate to say it's a lack of professionalism. I'm sure they WANT to make their customers happy. But in what world can they not figure out how to switch forums without a week of downtime? Do they need to fire some more people still?
I too must admit I am one who usually skipped the podcasts as I figured you just went over what was written and was quite surprised to hear a lot of between the lines commentary as well as some genuine enthusiasm for the game. I look forward to more podcasts now.
I often think about adopting a fake accent to increase my cool factor. Sadly I don't think it'd help enough to be worth the trouble.
Plus my accent usually sounds like a cross between "French" and "Punched in the face", so I avoid it when possible.
It's very strange to know that you're being recorded. Especially when you're used to writing and having the ability to re-write and edit communication before you say it.
I thought AJ did a great job and hope to have him on more in the future!
You got much better as the podcast went on. Probably just nerves. You'll be fine after a few more of them. And remember, you have a natural advantage: all us Yanks love the accent.
Box dreams is a common enough combo in casual. I see it once or twice a month at least. The problem with Box of course is it just puts them back in your deck and also it is symmetrical. Which means you might not get all your pieces to complete the puzzle, same with Winds. Wheel of Fate/Fortune however is a good way to do it. As is the new Wheel (Burning Inquiry?)
@ Ragman - Cloak could have been good, but I didn't seem to draw it when I needed it. That seems like a valuable lesson in itself though. One artifact in your deck (as I said, even as a playset) isn't enough if you want to guarantee a creature's survival. Yes, the Adjucator is a stronger card, as evidenced by it's far higher price! Your artifact deck sounds powerful.
@ Paul - glad I've reminded you about the Assassin. He's a good pet and needs a home. I had the Icy + Assassin deck too. Good times.
@m8x115 - Yes I mentioned a few combo possibilities in the comments after my last article. I didn't mention Sleep though, that's a good one.
Thanks for the comment Paul I do need to watch my tenses it is something I am aware of, I notice it when I'm writing but a few mistakes are still getting through here and there.
I'd not thought of using Howling Mine in the deck.
I have a deck that uses Underworld Dreams, Teferi's Puzzle Box and Winds of Change thats quite potent with Dark rituals to help cast them.
Do you really need the Royal Assassin to be unblockable? You picked a piece of equipment that says "unblockable plus shroud." With the exception of your pet magpie, wouldn't you always prefer haste + shroud for your pet instead? And even then maybe the magpie would still rather have haste. Put some shoes on! Also, the shoes are cheaper, and equip for free.
so much for all this pricing analysis, looks like the paper version is gonna go for wayyyyy over the $35 suggested retail price with wizards severely limiting the amount of product thats released.
berserk is $40, lackey and lotus petal is $25 and most of the set is $15+, with the entire paper box set is gonna run well over $200.
M/U is a good deck for a skilled player but it's not the best deck or probably even 2nd or 3rd best. It's a viable option if you're good and want to play control, but it's really just another deck in the meta. Saying m/u is overrunning the format is absurd, and if you told someone playing pauper regularly that you thought something from m/u should be banned they'd probably laugh. I'd say slivers, affinity, and mono black are all better than it. Even then, there are a ton of decks that can win vs it. I play goblins all the time and m/u is a very favorable matchup for me. I just want to make sure people reading this understand that m/u is NOT a dominant deck close to anything like faeries was in std or even 5c or anything else.
The guy with the British accent was difficult to hear and had a lot of awkward pauses. Overall good broadcast though.
Can you post links to the contents of the 100 card commander decks? Thanks.
I agree 100%. It should not take a week of downtime to bring up new forums. WotC is an amateur job all around.
Anyone who has ever played magic before in a format with legal strip mine and CoW knew this was the right choice right off the bat.
I was 100% sure on it's restriction. but even 1 will be nasty.
as per the banned list that I saw on facebook!
Looks like this strip mine argument was for nothing!
* Balance is restricted.
* Channel is restricted.
* Strip Mine is restricted.
* Tinker is restricted.
http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/magiconline/aug...
Enjoyed the draft walkthrough and commentary. Keep the updates coming!
I'm glad to see that you wrote your elves article after all. Nice job - I also agree that it's nice to see the cards grouped roughly by function. I also agree that it would be helpful to hear how the deck sideboards and plays differently against different decks. And also which matchups are good/bad.
It's great that you included some budget considerations for this deck, because it seems like a really good entry point into the format. I won't be surprised at all if we see a few new players trying out this deck in tournaments in the near future. I hope that happens. It would be cool if other people wrote articles about the less expensive Singleton decks, especially mono-red and non-elves GW aggro.
Great job!
Errors in integration plus maybe a hold up on the hosting end.
I enjoyed the podcast, and wanted to give a quick props for the Wizard of Oz reference in the title. My two year old son's favourite film at the moment, so I get to watch it about seventeen times per day.
Is it just me, or is that an unreasonably long migration time? They should wait until the new forums are totally 100% ready to launch, fully tested, and then within less than one day's time (hopefully just a couple hours) 1) shut down the old forums, 2) migrate the old posts data if they're going to do that, and 3) flip the switch to turn on the new forums.
There's no reason data migration should take a week, and they could certainly do some test runs on migrating a copy of the data into the new system before the live, hopefully very quick actual migration. In an ideal world they could potentially pre-migrate all the old posts, then just run an update process to move over the last day's worth or whatever. They could even leave the forums up in "read only" mode during the migration.
What's with this one week downtime? I'd say it seems like spitting in the eye of the community, but I think it's probably more accurate to say it's a lack of professionalism. I'm sure they WANT to make their customers happy. But in what world can they not figure out how to switch forums without a week of downtime? Do they need to fire some more people still?
Shuffling 3ft high cards would be funny to watch but not to try it myself.
I too must admit I am one who usually skipped the podcasts as I figured you just went over what was written and was quite surprised to hear a lot of between the lines commentary as well as some genuine enthusiasm for the game. I look forward to more podcasts now.
RagMan
What can you not read the teaser? you know the stuff underneath the article title that says AJ is in it?
Too true!
I often think about adopting a fake accent to increase my cool factor. Sadly I don't think it'd help enough to be worth the trouble.
Plus my accent usually sounds like a cross between "French" and "Punched in the face", so I avoid it when possible.
It's very strange to know that you're being recorded. Especially when you're used to writing and having the ability to re-write and edit communication before you say it.
I thought AJ did a great job and hope to have him on more in the future!
You got much better as the podcast went on. Probably just nerves. You'll be fine after a few more of them. And remember, you have a natural advantage: all us Yanks love the accent.
It's not in the article (although it certainly should be!) I'll make sure it's in the article itself from now on. :)
Box dreams is a common enough combo in casual. I see it once or twice a month at least. The problem with Box of course is it just puts them back in your deck and also it is symmetrical. Which means you might not get all your pieces to complete the puzzle, same with Winds. Wheel of Fate/Fortune however is a good way to do it. As is the new Wheel (Burning Inquiry?)
Thanks. Was I just blind, or was that not in the article?
Podcast Feed:
http://puremtgo.com/podcast.xml
Thanks all for your comments.
@ Ragman - Cloak could have been good, but I didn't seem to draw it when I needed it. That seems like a valuable lesson in itself though. One artifact in your deck (as I said, even as a playset) isn't enough if you want to guarantee a creature's survival. Yes, the Adjucator is a stronger card, as evidenced by it's far higher price! Your artifact deck sounds powerful.
@ Paul - glad I've reminded you about the Assassin. He's a good pet and needs a home. I had the Icy + Assassin deck too. Good times.
@m8x115 - Yes I mentioned a few combo possibilities in the comments after my last article. I didn't mention Sleep though, that's a good one.
Thanks for the comment Paul I do need to watch my tenses it is something I am aware of, I notice it when I'm writing but a few mistakes are still getting through here and there.
I'd not thought of using Howling Mine in the deck.
I have a deck that uses Underworld Dreams, Teferi's Puzzle Box and Winds of Change thats quite potent with Dark rituals to help cast them.
I was thinking the same as well, I've never downloaded it either and I'm now wondering what I've been missing.