Sucks to lose to a wrong move , like the last step you made
when im low on life i genraly choose the safer option
the worst option is play the knight then keep mana open, the best option is keep the mana open for cycling since its an effect and it can't be countered ,even if he has a counter ready.. (i might be mistaken here with the cycling but thats the move i would make)
Every time I read one of these - it feels like the recurring thing said is "all the esper cards are being passed, and it feels like there should be an awesome esper deck in there"
Why does nobody take them then? is it because esper seems to need more to come to be solid, unlike, say, naya decks which need big things that swing? Though if the cards appear repeatedly, what's the problem?
paul- tarmogoyf may indeed have a green border but ruckus is right, its the best blue creature ever printed as it finds more success in blue decks then any other color.
as for lacky and welder- someone beat me to the punch here but basically you can play 4x tarmogoyf in any deck capabale of making g mana and it makes the deck better, lacky needs about 31 other goblins and welder needs your deck to have around 10 artifacts with some costing around 6 mana to hard cast, also welder is only playable in vintage and lacky is only playable in legacy, while goyf is playable in both and extended and was a std power house, something the 2 red 1 drops cant mirror.
as for dark confidant- while goyf may start out -1/-1 the argument for just dropping him in a deck can still be made, whereas dark con requires a little build around me to make it not kill you.
psychatog- it dethroned superman as the beater of choice, didnt stop it from being excelent though, m10 did that
For the love of god, don't write your articles in hip-hop speak.
Evincar's Justice should probably be in the sideboard. For the matchups you stated - Slivers and Affinity - it seems like Terminate would in general be better. Or you can go with a snow lands manabase and run Skred. Killing Enforcers and pump Slivers when they have Plated on the board seems better than hoping for a 2 for 1 or more. Also better against things like Spire Golem, Ephemeron, etc, etc.
And Wild Mongrel without Basking Rootwalla? Heresy.
I couldn't pass Algae Gharial Pack 1 Pick 2, and while the Battlemage is awesome I probably would have been tempted to pick up a 2nd Algae Gharial on Pack 1 Pick 3, and then lost both to a Volcanic Fallout but thats just my luck usually when trying 8-4.
You can link to the M10 images but have to write the html in source to point to the card.
For the Baneslayer Angel Image use the below, I've tested and it works. You may have to play if you want it in a certain place or pop it in a table but take out the style='vertical-align: top; width: 200px'> part
So what did you do with yours? Did you just buy it for the Demonic Tutor and leave the other cards to gather virtual dust.
Sadly...my answer is YES. I bought the duel deck on mtgo just because I wanted to play 4 necropotence and 4 demonic consultation before they got banned/restricted, so I bought it just for the demonic tutor and that was the only card I've played with out of this duel deck so far.
I also bought the paper version of this duel deck, because I collect angels and need the alternate art Akroma and Luminous Angel for my collection. I've never played with any of the cards from this duel deck in paper so they're all collecting real dust. But damn that Akroma and Luminous Angel are pretty!
I'd just like to say.. not all of us have card stores within a reasonable driving distance (the closest one to me is 67.4 miles from my house)so playing any kind of competitive Magic in the paper world is basically 4 or 5 times a year at best.
Not all of us have great paper play groups. Some of us are blessed with play groups that can consistently bring in 6-8 players. I'm lucky if we get up 4.. Not nearly enough for a "real" draft, and even then, we have to rely on each other to purchase enough cards to draft with. On MTGO, I can log on and draft within a half hour and pay a reasonable amount (15 dollars isn't that much for a draft IMO)
While some of you still live at home with your parents, I have a modest apartment with barely enough room for the stuff I actually need day to day. I don't have a magic closet that I can hold thousands of magic cards in. My Paper cards pretty much live at my parents house. But it is time consuming to say the least to go through that mess and build decks out of cards. The price factors in when you see singles on MTGOtraders.com vs other sites for paper cards. for example if I needed a Tarmogoyf for my extended/legacy deck I go to MTGOtraders it costs 60 dollars for a playset. That is a fair and reasonable price for one of the best creatures in the format. I go to coolstuffinc and look for the same one for the paper world it costs $160 dollars for a playset (which really is a pretty decent price for it). But it is close to 100 dollars more just for one card for the deck. Not only that, in the online world, it is perpetually organized. I know where it is always going to be. In the paper world, theft and misplacement is common, I had a paper playset of Jittes that I couldn't find for months until i found them recently. I NEVER have that problem in MTGO.
Yes, they can shut down MTGO whenever they want and I would be out a considerable investment (well, theoretically), but what if my parent's house burns down. I'm out money as well. I think that is more likely that my parent's house burns down then it is for MTGO to go offline.
Good riddance to Pox the card for the deck. This deck still sports 4 Smallpox which is one of the key spells (does it ever get sided out?), and so, it will always be called B/G Pox as long as I'm the naming editor on classicquarter. Very different from Eva Green. The first time I saw this I knew it was a beast. I played Pox to a top 8 (undefeated in 6 rounds of swiss), and tried for the entire previous week to get a Goyf build I liked without success - Dunkle deserves a lot of credit. You too Whiffy for some revolutionary coverage here - perhaps your best article.
the concept. I am just saying it is not a recipe for doing well even in the most casual of settings that is sometimes the casual room. Now if you don't care about winning and just want to throw magic cards on a virtual table with some like-minded players I am with you. In which case why not play more of the Timmy cards like double Reyas. I for one did not buy the Demonic vs Divine as I typically don't have the money for the mini sets.
I'd love of course to own a virtual Demonic Tutor and copies of the Reya and other angels etc just to own them but to me those cards work better in a wider milieu than you provide with the restriction of $5.
More interesting than this I think, would be to see a $5 budget format with perhaps a precon as the basis. That way you could reconstruct the precons to your heart's desire and have them battle each other along with descriptions without the decks being hopeless out of their league.
Classic was a particularly ugly place to start but Extended isn't a lot better for seriously low budget decks. You can do interesting things without money but not many fit into the extended format. Perhaps try pauper next time leaving out the rares?
I've already written the Demonic article with a $5 dollar budget. I am going to look at the Jace and Chandra duel decks as well in a few articles time. I'll increase the budget for those to $10.
I like the idea since I have several divine/demonic dual decks laying around (I bought them to resell tutor to recoup most of the cost and bolster my card inventory).
It's out of your price restriction but I added in 4 Light from Within, its cheaper than Glorius Anthem and when I added in cheap fighters like Knight of Medowgrain, Knight of the White Orchid, Plumeveil, and Wilt-Leaf Cavaliers they all get a very nice boost having 2 or 3 white mana symbols each. I also added in the el cheapo Oblivion Ring and Unmakes.
The deck is pretty fun in EXT but I haven't played it in awhile, I lost all the time to combo/ubercontrol decks so I tore out the EXT cards and made a STD version that I now play sometimes in Multiplayer. I look forward to what you do to the Demonic side, I never even touched those cards.
I could have added Wrath's, Kitchen Finks and many other cards. The reason I didn't and the reason for the $5 dollar budget is that I wanted the deck to remain the Divine dual deck. I didn't want to just run a white.dec in Ext. The main goal was to modifiy a deck that people who are new to the game may have purchased and wonderd where to go next with it.
-
I've seen a lot of players in the casual room as of late that have combined the Divine and Demonic decks as a base for a deck and built up from there.
I was wondering if you have the 5 mana for Dosan's Oldest Chant before burn kills? Maybe Nourish would work as a 2 mana gain 6 instant. Unless you are desperate for the draw of course...
I wasn't to excited with your pick as you pretty much devote yourself to Naya with your 1st pick. At the same time you have the options of Executioner's Capsule, Vithian Stinger, Kathari Screecher which wouldn't commit you to a specific colour. From my view I would've gone with Executioner's Capsule with your 1st pick.
Pack 1 Pick 2:
As I have to base your deck being Naya from the 1st pick I believe Algae Gharial is a much better fit then Resounding Silence as it is very situational and isn't very aggressive at all wheil Algae Gharial can allow you to trade with ease.
Pack 1 Pick 6:
I usually tend to try and base Naya based decks with a GW base followed by a splash of red, and with your pick in this pack it showcases that you aren't afraid to play 3 main colours which in reality I would be scared to in a 8-4 as you must stay consistent. Mosstodon would've allowed a much easier splash of red with no signs of fixing at the moment.
Pack 1 Pick 7:
I believe the Guardians of Akrasa is the correct pick as it stabilizes or limits your opponents attack and allows the same exalted addition to your creature. I much prefer walls then enchantments in a Naya build in general as Angelic Benediction is usually played in Bant rather than Naya.
Pack 2 Pick 1:
This choice totally blew my mind, as you stated you wanted to go Naya and now your attempting to splash flying Hill Giants? Ember Weaver is quite good and would contribute to being consitent rather than all over the place at the current moment.
Pack 2 Pick 4:
I would've easily snagged the Sylvan Bounty with your lack of mana fixing and such rather than a mediocre flier.
Pack 3 Pick 4:
I dislike 'pump' in this format and would've taken Vithian Renegades or Deadshot Minotaur as your removal is lacking quite significantly and you are asking for a 2 for 1 while the 'Twinclaws' assumption shouldn't be judged as you should look at your whole deck rather than specifically talking about how good a card can be with one specific card.
Pack 3 Pick 11:
Consistency is the way to winning .... choosing a card that is likely not to be played is kinda irrelevant in a lot of cases and a Hill Giant is much better.
I wasn't expecting you to make finals with this deck, although I guess you got a decent return for your troubles and that is what matters.
Pack 2 Pick 1 - I would've prolly taken aven trailblazer or ember weaver, while not terribly exciting for a 1st pick, a 3/3 flyer isn't enough of a reason for me to dive into blue at this point either.
Pace 3 Pick 10 - Since your clearly splashing 1 island at this point, I would've fist pumped at such a late Sanctum Plowbeast, i dont see how a 1/5 dork could possibly be taken over such an awesome mana fixer.
Thanks again for the text format recap, keep'em coming!
When was this draft and which season QP's are you going for now? Is this for season 5? I think your QP bandwagon series was for season 2? where you Q'ed for season 3 and season 4? Just a little lost in your chronology and progress now...
Made no sense at all. How does a hobby on a computer correlate to no relationship?? Be clearer if you have a thesis.
Sucks to lose to a wrong move , like the last step you made
when im low on life i genraly choose the safer option
the worst option is play the knight then keep mana open, the best option is keep the mana open for cycling since its an effect and it can't be countered ,even if he has a counter ready.. (i might be mistaken here with the cycling but thats the move i would make)
Every time I read one of these - it feels like the recurring thing said is "all the esper cards are being passed, and it feels like there should be an awesome esper deck in there"
Why does nobody take them then? is it because esper seems to need more to come to be solid, unlike, say, naya decks which need big things that swing? Though if the cards appear repeatedly, what's the problem?
I mean that all blue decks 1st choice of creature is Tarmogoyf. Not all green decks use Tarmogoyf, but all blue decks do.
Hence, Blue's best creature.
What?? None of you people have GIRLFRIENDS!! That's why you stay home and play on your little computers!
It's a "duel" deck. Although I suppose since it packs with two decks, you're sort of also getting "dual" decks.
doh!
but I was responding to his joke by being the straight man. :/ fail I guess.
wow thx for the resposes guys.
paul- tarmogoyf may indeed have a green border but ruckus is right, its the best blue creature ever printed as it finds more success in blue decks then any other color.
as for lacky and welder- someone beat me to the punch here but basically you can play 4x tarmogoyf in any deck capabale of making g mana and it makes the deck better, lacky needs about 31 other goblins and welder needs your deck to have around 10 artifacts with some costing around 6 mana to hard cast, also welder is only playable in vintage and lacky is only playable in legacy, while goyf is playable in both and extended and was a std power house, something the 2 red 1 drops cant mirror.
as for dark confidant- while goyf may start out -1/-1 the argument for just dropping him in a deck can still be made, whereas dark con requires a little build around me to make it not kill you.
psychatog- it dethroned superman as the beater of choice, didnt stop it from being excelent though, m10 did that
bazaar- man thx alot that means a lot to me.
For the love of god, don't write your articles in hip-hop speak.
Evincar's Justice should probably be in the sideboard. For the matchups you stated - Slivers and Affinity - it seems like Terminate would in general be better. Or you can go with a snow lands manabase and run Skred. Killing Enforcers and pump Slivers when they have Plated on the board seems better than hoping for a 2 for 1 or more. Also better against things like Spire Golem, Ephemeron, etc, etc.
And Wild Mongrel without Basking Rootwalla? Heresy.
I couldn't pass Algae Gharial Pack 1 Pick 2, and while the Battlemage is awesome I probably would have been tempted to pick up a 2nd Algae Gharial on Pack 1 Pick 3, and then lost both to a Volcanic Fallout but thats just my luck usually when trying 8-4.
RagMan
err didnt realise it would actually work in the reply lol not sure how I'm going to let you know what it is, pm me in game if youre interested.
You can link to the M10 images but have to write the html in source to point to the card.
For the Baneslayer Angel Image use the below, I've tested and it works. You may have to play if you want it in a certain place or pop it in a table but take out the style='vertical-align: top; width: 200px'> part
To do the word link its
Baneslayer Angel
So what did you do with yours? Did you just buy it for the Demonic Tutor and leave the other cards to gather virtual dust.
Sadly...my answer is YES. I bought the duel deck on mtgo just because I wanted to play 4 necropotence and 4 demonic consultation before they got banned/restricted, so I bought it just for the demonic tutor and that was the only card I've played with out of this duel deck so far.
I also bought the paper version of this duel deck, because I collect angels and need the alternate art Akroma and Luminous Angel for my collection. I've never played with any of the cards from this duel deck in paper so they're all collecting real dust. But damn that Akroma and Luminous Angel are pretty!
I'd just like to say.. not all of us have card stores within a reasonable driving distance (the closest one to me is 67.4 miles from my house)so playing any kind of competitive Magic in the paper world is basically 4 or 5 times a year at best.
Not all of us have great paper play groups. Some of us are blessed with play groups that can consistently bring in 6-8 players. I'm lucky if we get up 4.. Not nearly enough for a "real" draft, and even then, we have to rely on each other to purchase enough cards to draft with. On MTGO, I can log on and draft within a half hour and pay a reasonable amount (15 dollars isn't that much for a draft IMO)
While some of you still live at home with your parents, I have a modest apartment with barely enough room for the stuff I actually need day to day. I don't have a magic closet that I can hold thousands of magic cards in. My Paper cards pretty much live at my parents house. But it is time consuming to say the least to go through that mess and build decks out of cards. The price factors in when you see singles on MTGOtraders.com vs other sites for paper cards. for example if I needed a Tarmogoyf for my extended/legacy deck I go to MTGOtraders it costs 60 dollars for a playset. That is a fair and reasonable price for one of the best creatures in the format. I go to coolstuffinc and look for the same one for the paper world it costs $160 dollars for a playset (which really is a pretty decent price for it). But it is close to 100 dollars more just for one card for the deck. Not only that, in the online world, it is perpetually organized. I know where it is always going to be. In the paper world, theft and misplacement is common, I had a paper playset of Jittes that I couldn't find for months until i found them recently. I NEVER have that problem in MTGO.
Yes, they can shut down MTGO whenever they want and I would be out a considerable investment (well, theoretically), but what if my parent's house burns down. I'm out money as well. I think that is more likely that my parent's house burns down then it is for MTGO to go offline.
Good riddance to Pox the card for the deck. This deck still sports 4 Smallpox which is one of the key spells (does it ever get sided out?), and so, it will always be called B/G Pox as long as I'm the naming editor on classicquarter. Very different from Eva Green. The first time I saw this I knew it was a beast. I played Pox to a top 8 (undefeated in 6 rounds of swiss), and tried for the entire previous week to get a Goyf build I liked without success - Dunkle deserves a lot of credit. You too Whiffy for some revolutionary coverage here - perhaps your best article.
the concept. I am just saying it is not a recipe for doing well even in the most casual of settings that is sometimes the casual room. Now if you don't care about winning and just want to throw magic cards on a virtual table with some like-minded players I am with you. In which case why not play more of the Timmy cards like double Reyas. I for one did not buy the Demonic vs Divine as I typically don't have the money for the mini sets.
I'd love of course to own a virtual Demonic Tutor and copies of the Reya and other angels etc just to own them but to me those cards work better in a wider milieu than you provide with the restriction of $5.
More interesting than this I think, would be to see a $5 budget format with perhaps a precon as the basis. That way you could reconstruct the precons to your heart's desire and have them battle each other along with descriptions without the decks being hopeless out of their league.
Classic was a particularly ugly place to start but Extended isn't a lot better for seriously low budget decks. You can do interesting things without money but not many fit into the extended format. Perhaps try pauper next time leaving out the rares?
I've already written the Demonic article with a $5 dollar budget. I am going to look at the Jace and Chandra duel decks as well in a few articles time. I'll increase the budget for those to $10.
I like the $5 bit. I think it could go a little higher ($10?), but I do love the concept of building on a budget.
I like the idea since I have several divine/demonic dual decks laying around (I bought them to resell tutor to recoup most of the cost and bolster my card inventory).
It's out of your price restriction but I added in 4 Light from Within, its cheaper than Glorius Anthem and when I added in cheap fighters like Knight of Medowgrain, Knight of the White Orchid, Plumeveil, and Wilt-Leaf Cavaliers they all get a very nice boost having 2 or 3 white mana symbols each. I also added in the el cheapo Oblivion Ring and Unmakes.
The deck is pretty fun in EXT but I haven't played it in awhile, I lost all the time to combo/ubercontrol decks so I tore out the EXT cards and made a STD version that I now play sometimes in Multiplayer. I look forward to what you do to the Demonic side, I never even touched those cards.
RagMan
I could have added Wrath's, Kitchen Finks and many other cards. The reason I didn't and the reason for the $5 dollar budget is that I wanted the deck to remain the Divine dual deck. I didn't want to just run a white.dec in Ext. The main goal was to modifiy a deck that people who are new to the game may have purchased and wonderd where to go next with it.
-
I've seen a lot of players in the casual room as of late that have combined the Divine and Demonic decks as a base for a deck and built up from there.
I was wondering if you have the 5 mana for Dosan's Oldest Chant before burn kills? Maybe Nourish would work as a 2 mana gain 6 instant. Unless you are desperate for the draw of course...
Pack 1 Pick 1:
I wasn't to excited with your pick as you pretty much devote yourself to Naya with your 1st pick. At the same time you have the options of Executioner's Capsule, Vithian Stinger, Kathari Screecher which wouldn't commit you to a specific colour. From my view I would've gone with Executioner's Capsule with your 1st pick.
Pack 1 Pick 2:
As I have to base your deck being Naya from the 1st pick I believe Algae Gharial is a much better fit then Resounding Silence as it is very situational and isn't very aggressive at all wheil Algae Gharial can allow you to trade with ease.
Pack 1 Pick 6:
I usually tend to try and base Naya based decks with a GW base followed by a splash of red, and with your pick in this pack it showcases that you aren't afraid to play 3 main colours which in reality I would be scared to in a 8-4 as you must stay consistent. Mosstodon would've allowed a much easier splash of red with no signs of fixing at the moment.
Pack 1 Pick 7:
I believe the Guardians of Akrasa is the correct pick as it stabilizes or limits your opponents attack and allows the same exalted addition to your creature. I much prefer walls then enchantments in a Naya build in general as Angelic Benediction is usually played in Bant rather than Naya.
Pack 2 Pick 1:
This choice totally blew my mind, as you stated you wanted to go Naya and now your attempting to splash flying Hill Giants? Ember Weaver is quite good and would contribute to being consitent rather than all over the place at the current moment.
Pack 2 Pick 4:
I would've easily snagged the Sylvan Bounty with your lack of mana fixing and such rather than a mediocre flier.
Pack 3 Pick 4:
I dislike 'pump' in this format and would've taken Vithian Renegades or Deadshot Minotaur as your removal is lacking quite significantly and you are asking for a 2 for 1 while the 'Twinclaws' assumption shouldn't be judged as you should look at your whole deck rather than specifically talking about how good a card can be with one specific card.
Pack 3 Pick 11:
Consistency is the way to winning .... choosing a card that is likely not to be played is kinda irrelevant in a lot of cases and a Hill Giant is much better.
I wasn't expecting you to make finals with this deck, although I guess you got a decent return for your troubles and that is what matters.
Pack 2 Pick 1 - I would've prolly taken aven trailblazer or ember weaver, while not terribly exciting for a 1st pick, a 3/3 flyer isn't enough of a reason for me to dive into blue at this point either.
Pace 3 Pick 10 - Since your clearly splashing 1 island at this point, I would've fist pumped at such a late Sanctum Plowbeast, i dont see how a 1/5 dork could possibly be taken over such an awesome mana fixer.
Thanks again for the text format recap, keep'em coming!
When was this draft and which season QP's are you going for now? Is this for season 5? I think your QP bandwagon series was for season 2? where you Q'ed for season 3 and season 4? Just a little lost in your chronology and progress now...
Well played!