What about a Void or 2 in the SB against merfolk? It seems to that Void catches alot of the fish in one net if you can cast it quickly enough. Or is it just too slow? (Totally uninformed about how fish looks in classic, I just remember it from years ago when Sean Mckeown introduced a variant at Neutral Ground.) I can imagine a board reset would probably be in your favor if you could make it to 5 mana with the bonus of clearing anything else out of the hand if you succeed in resolving it. Just my uneducated 2.5 cents.
Knells are great late-game cards: If you get to the point where you reach a late-game stalemate, it will win you the game if unanswered. It doesn't do anything on its first turn, however.
Is a common enough deck in extended casual. I made a version myself though I didn't find it particularly fun to play, but it is fun to play against. I like the idea of Enchanted Evening as a board control card. The only big problem is if your op is running enchant hate main deck. Primeval Light is the big combo with that in extended but it is a double edge sword, albeit one your opponent shouldn't be equipped to wield so readily.
Anathemancer did cause a big threat to the whole format in general. The format is like an extended version of what prismatic ended up as. You need a lot of money to compete. If you turn away the people running all the duals then the format would have died early on.
You need the mana base to include the good cards usually covering most colours. I wanted to show that this isn’t the case at this point in time. It's still affordable to play as a casual player you just need to limit your colours.
My only concern is how it’s going to be supported in the future. If the new block is going to be very mono coloured based, from what I've heard so far this may be true. Then there will not be many new cards entering the format for a while. Could this kill it I wonder or would Wizards open the gates to allow classic cards in?
Everyone has the ability to write, but it is a skill that needs exercise like any good muscle group. And reading one's own work for mistakes is ALWAYS harder than reading someone else's work. Anyway I don't know if you should devote enough time to write an article on all possible mono builds but perhaps in the future when doing another such deck tech type article you could run through a synopsis of good mono strategies (if such actually exist.)
You mean everyone felt obliged to play it then it seems so. Given time maybe people would have started not running it but the fact that it was so prevalent on the competing end of things means the card hit the b/r list ...imho there are other cards that would do well on that list (a certain red green elf comes to mind) but what do I know? :)
But lovely all at the same time. I remember vaguely Mulch being a favored card back in its hay day. Though the details are sketchy. The deck seems vulnerable to disruption (disenchant, counterspell, graveyard removal) yet still has an elegant feel to it. Nice job! Id love to have seen more games with it against the various archetypes of the format.
I have played TTS quite a bit and would disagree. Yes Burial is quite good, but Mindripper is even better. 5 mana to recure creatures in late game is decent (quite expensive so you need to be in a postion where your oppoent can't attack, hence late game) and you shouldn't play more then 1-2, but mindripper is scary. You will usually win if they lose 3 cards in that format, since there isn't that much ca.
Futheremore Pit Imp are very good in the format, since there isn't that many good fliers (or creatures for that matter).
Blood Frenzy isn't that good since you will have to chump block. +4 damage is quite a bit out of 20 (you wouldnt use removel on small creatures anyway so I would say you would lose 7 or more life and you would still go 1-1 which is a expensive way to kill).
Coiled Tinviper is indeed very solid.
canyon wildcat is a quite good sb card vs. red and servanth of volrath is unplayable.
Rolling thunder is clearly the best common (and I think allround best card...). That said it can be beaten using blue counters - they are very good in the format - counterspell and that 2UU counter, draw a card and others are very good.
I don't play K-scope mainly because of the expensive mana base. I do wonder however if that particular problem might have been made less painful by the inclusion of Anathemancer.
Some sort of penalty for running non basics might have kept in in check but it's immediate banning means that will not happen.
I guess it being a BR card means that it would have warped the format.
At present K-Scope isn’t very budget friendly at all, most decks will set you back a small fortune and that's just with the lands. I didn’t run a total for my deck maybe it's something I should have included.
Yes there were a few issues in the article where I used the wrong spelling of a word, which has been noted. I'm not naturally a writer so it’s something for me to keep an eye on.
To be honest I didn’t think of writing about the impact the format has on casual. I've been playing since we had the first acknowledgment of the name of the format and the banning of Glittering Wish, before the format was added on MTGO. It doesn’t seem that new to me anymore, if I wrote an article back then I would probably have added a section on this.
In regards to other decks I did build a mono white deck but never played it, I was going to use it for another article but decided not to as it would be similar to this one. If anyone would like me to write an article for mono white let me now I could try a mono deck for the other four colours in one article. It's not something I had planned, but plans are made to be broken.
I agree that Disturbed Burial is great but Mindripper has it's place. Especially if you are certain your op isn't running a lot of shadow. If it hits for 3 cards it can just win.
One of the reasons I play casual instead of tourney besides not wanting to risk tickets on a maybe is that I hate sideboard decisions. You would think after years of playing against good players irl Id know all the ins and outs of the art of sideboarding but I admit I am largely clueless. The obvious ones are easy (hose a particular color? OK) but how do you build a sideboard against a metagame where the decks are often 4-5 color and lack an apparent theme?
It is not that sideboarding is always difficult but it is hard often enough in tourney situations that it is easy to make a crucial mistake. Particularly if you get nervous about playing after going 0-1 or worse. I like your ideas but I think a more indepth study of this could benefit all.
What situations is it right to not sideboard at all? For example, if you have 4 dodecapods and your op sides his discard out, then they are just average costed creatures you took something else out for. If you sideboard in Gaea's Blessing against mill but he sides in Extirpate is that the right move? Does the fact that your opponent can side in the answer to your answer hinder your ability to judge correctly when it is a correct move? Just some food for thought.
I like the pie charts but I'd like them more if they were graphically bigger. Us old folks (44 in a few days) need to be able to read them clearly. Also Maybe a bit more of a description of what you mean by each deck name since the names do not entirely seem self-explanatory. This from someone completely unfamiliar with the Alara block metagame.
Also I wonder, is Sedraxis Specter really that good in block to be splashing it? I hear conflicting things and my own tests in casual determine that it is mostly just bolt/path bait. Of course I play Extended Format which has a lot more in the way of removal and casual means I am often facing potluck (no metagame) but I wonder if it is really playable particularly in a nongrixis deck. I see people did play with it but I have to ask why?
One of the other things that has kept me out of constructed tourneys online is the lack of cards because it seems the good cards shoot through the roof often before the average player has a chance to see them in action. Sure some are surprise sleepers (remember Tradewind Riders/Cursed Scroll back in Tempest the first time around?) but often they are just immediately unaffordable. I appreciate the inclusion of the "budget" deck but even at 4tx apiece the more expensive cards in the deck may prohibit some of those interested in tourneys from bothering. Which leaves me with thinking this article is geared really towards those who already know these things you are so kind as to espouse or those who have lots of free cash lying around.
Don't get me wrong, I think your effort is very nicely done. Charts and mulligan reviews, etc...but I wonder if you are just preaching to the choir. In any event thanks for sharing.
Hag Hedge-Mage is a nice card, If I was running a Black/Green Golgari deck it would have been an auto include. Just for the discrad from the swamps though I dont think its worth it.
p1p3 canyon wildcat! (been mentioned)
p2p1 I like Puppet Strings a lot, Icy is too good, plus that way you'll table one of the black cards out of this pack
p2p2 Gravedigger is amazing, but you can't pass fireslinger pretty much ever
p2p7 manakin! Maybe i shouldn't mention this, but man I love getting this guy late. accel that chumps, perfect.
p3p1 I like the flunkies a lot, that shade is real weak. Definitely first pickable because then you can just get more!
p3p7 I definitely would've gone with flowstown shambler, decent guy.
Is how I would've gone, but for 2nd draft that went swell, I could see myself valuing the cards that way early for sure.
Also it's all about getting Rolling thunder/Fanning the flames. Pretty much every finals, one of the decks will have 1 or more of those cards (my record is 2 rolling, 1 Fanning. deck can't lose really)
really bad draft, servanth of volrath over canyon wildcat? not taking pupeteer strings?? What about gravedigger? Also the mogg bombers is SO bad, you are basically paing 4 for doing 4 damage to an opp... the shade is the best card there, maybe if your curve is bad the flowstone is the other pick.
i like the little tell me if you mully this hand or not business
but it'd be nice if they were right under the hands themselves - didn't like scrolling up and down..
and i dont wanna open up notepad and write what i think about each hand, etc.
that might just be me. other than that good article.
btw, i'm a huge advocate of when you should mulligan and when you shouldn't - i think it's a huge factor in the game that people often overlook.. my thoughts
WG hand 8 - mulligan unless you are on the draw. 1 land + noble isn't gonna cut it on the play - you can drop a 2-drop next turn, but then if no land, you're done =p
i agree = this is one of the more researched/developed articles i've read on mtgotraders.com. perhaps i should start spending a little more of my time reading here rather than just checking card prices. i especially like that you focused on alara block constructed as it is very much still alive on mtgo - even though a lot of pros have since stopped talking/writing about it because it is no longer in season. So thanks for that especially!
The one problem I see is that when you play Open the Vaults and all those borderposts return your going to bounce all your lands to your hand if you can even pay for the posts to begin with. Maybe you could play Overbeing of Myth since you'll have a ton of cards in hand then, or Knight of the Reliquary since you'll be discarding lands if your opponent isn't dead.
The first combo for Standard that came to mind with Open the Vaults to me was with Enchanted Evening.
Blue/White, Cycle and Evoke creatures, islandcycling plainscycling for lands, idyllic tutor incase you don't have Enchanted Evening, play Enchanted Evening, play Open the Vaults.
You could even run some weenies that blow up enchantments like Elvish Hexhunter, Wispermare, Kithkin spellduster, Aven Cloudchaser, Duergar Hedge-Mage, or add Green and toss in Qasali.
Its not gonna T8 any STD tourney but it sure would be fun to mess around with IMO. I have an EXT deck that I cycle stuff to then cascade into the only possible card, Living End, and then swing for the fence which is fun too.
What about a Void or 2 in the SB against merfolk? It seems to that Void catches alot of the fish in one net if you can cast it quickly enough. Or is it just too slow? (Totally uninformed about how fish looks in classic, I just remember it from years ago when Sean Mckeown introduced a variant at Neutral Ground.) I can imagine a board reset would probably be in your favor if you could make it to 5 mana with the bonus of clearing anything else out of the hand if you succeed in resolving it. Just my uneducated 2.5 cents.
Knells are great late-game cards: If you get to the point where you reach a late-game stalemate, it will win you the game if unanswered. It doesn't do anything on its first turn, however.
Is a common enough deck in extended casual. I made a version myself though I didn't find it particularly fun to play, but it is fun to play against. I like the idea of Enchanted Evening as a board control card. The only big problem is if your op is running enchant hate main deck. Primeval Light is the big combo with that in extended but it is a double edge sword, albeit one your opponent shouldn't be equipped to wield so readily.
Anathemancer did cause a big threat to the whole format in general. The format is like an extended version of what prismatic ended up as. You need a lot of money to compete. If you turn away the people running all the duals then the format would have died early on.
You need the mana base to include the good cards usually covering most colours. I wanted to show that this isn’t the case at this point in time. It's still affordable to play as a casual player you just need to limit your colours.
My only concern is how it’s going to be supported in the future. If the new block is going to be very mono coloured based, from what I've heard so far this may be true. Then there will not be many new cards entering the format for a while. Could this kill it I wonder or would Wizards open the gates to allow classic cards in?
Everyone has the ability to write, but it is a skill that needs exercise like any good muscle group. And reading one's own work for mistakes is ALWAYS harder than reading someone else's work. Anyway I don't know if you should devote enough time to write an article on all possible mono builds but perhaps in the future when doing another such deck tech type article you could run through a synopsis of good mono strategies (if such actually exist.)
You mean everyone felt obliged to play it then it seems so. Given time maybe people would have started not running it but the fact that it was so prevalent on the competing end of things means the card hit the b/r list ...imho there are other cards that would do well on that list (a certain red green elf comes to mind) but what do I know? :)
But lovely all at the same time. I remember vaguely Mulch being a favored card back in its hay day. Though the details are sketchy. The deck seems vulnerable to disruption (disenchant, counterspell, graveyard removal) yet still has an elegant feel to it. Nice job! Id love to have seen more games with it against the various archetypes of the format.
I have played TTS quite a bit and would disagree. Yes Burial is quite good, but Mindripper is even better. 5 mana to recure creatures in late game is decent (quite expensive so you need to be in a postion where your oppoent can't attack, hence late game) and you shouldn't play more then 1-2, but mindripper is scary. You will usually win if they lose 3 cards in that format, since there isn't that much ca.
Futheremore Pit Imp are very good in the format, since there isn't that many good fliers (or creatures for that matter).
Blood Frenzy isn't that good since you will have to chump block. +4 damage is quite a bit out of 20 (you wouldnt use removel on small creatures anyway so I would say you would lose 7 or more life and you would still go 1-1 which is a expensive way to kill).
Coiled Tinviper is indeed very solid.
canyon wildcat is a quite good sb card vs. red and servanth of volrath is unplayable.
Rolling thunder is clearly the best common (and I think allround best card...). That said it can be beaten using blue counters - they are very good in the format - counterspell and that 2UU counter, draw a card and others are very good.
I don't play K-scope mainly because of the expensive mana base. I do wonder however if that particular problem might have been made less painful by the inclusion of Anathemancer.
Some sort of penalty for running non basics might have kept in in check but it's immediate banning means that will not happen.
I guess it being a BR card means that it would have warped the format.
At present K-Scope isn’t very budget friendly at all, most decks will set you back a small fortune and that's just with the lands. I didn’t run a total for my deck maybe it's something I should have included.
Yes there were a few issues in the article where I used the wrong spelling of a word, which has been noted. I'm not naturally a writer so it’s something for me to keep an eye on.
To be honest I didn’t think of writing about the impact the format has on casual. I've been playing since we had the first acknowledgment of the name of the format and the banning of Glittering Wish, before the format was added on MTGO. It doesn’t seem that new to me anymore, if I wrote an article back then I would probably have added a section on this.
In regards to other decks I did build a mono white deck but never played it, I was going to use it for another article but decided not to as it would be similar to this one. If anyone would like me to write an article for mono white let me now I could try a mono deck for the other four colours in one article. It's not something I had planned, but plans are made to be broken.
I agree that Disturbed Burial is great but Mindripper has it's place. Especially if you are certain your op isn't running a lot of shadow. If it hits for 3 cards it can just win.
One of the reasons I play casual instead of tourney besides not wanting to risk tickets on a maybe is that I hate sideboard decisions. You would think after years of playing against good players irl Id know all the ins and outs of the art of sideboarding but I admit I am largely clueless. The obvious ones are easy (hose a particular color? OK) but how do you build a sideboard against a metagame where the decks are often 4-5 color and lack an apparent theme?
It is not that sideboarding is always difficult but it is hard often enough in tourney situations that it is easy to make a crucial mistake. Particularly if you get nervous about playing after going 0-1 or worse. I like your ideas but I think a more indepth study of this could benefit all.
What situations is it right to not sideboard at all? For example, if you have 4 dodecapods and your op sides his discard out, then they are just average costed creatures you took something else out for. If you sideboard in Gaea's Blessing against mill but he sides in Extirpate is that the right move? Does the fact that your opponent can side in the answer to your answer hinder your ability to judge correctly when it is a correct move? Just some food for thought.
I like the pie charts but I'd like them more if they were graphically bigger. Us old folks (44 in a few days) need to be able to read them clearly. Also Maybe a bit more of a description of what you mean by each deck name since the names do not entirely seem self-explanatory. This from someone completely unfamiliar with the Alara block metagame.
Also I wonder, is Sedraxis Specter really that good in block to be splashing it? I hear conflicting things and my own tests in casual determine that it is mostly just bolt/path bait. Of course I play Extended Format which has a lot more in the way of removal and casual means I am often facing potluck (no metagame) but I wonder if it is really playable particularly in a nongrixis deck. I see people did play with it but I have to ask why?
One of the other things that has kept me out of constructed tourneys online is the lack of cards because it seems the good cards shoot through the roof often before the average player has a chance to see them in action. Sure some are surprise sleepers (remember Tradewind Riders/Cursed Scroll back in Tempest the first time around?) but often they are just immediately unaffordable. I appreciate the inclusion of the "budget" deck but even at 4tx apiece the more expensive cards in the deck may prohibit some of those interested in tourneys from bothering. Which leaves me with thinking this article is geared really towards those who already know these things you are so kind as to espouse or those who have lots of free cash lying around.
Don't get me wrong, I think your effort is very nicely done. Charts and mulligan reviews, etc...but I wonder if you are just preaching to the choir. In any event thanks for sharing.
Hag Hedge-Mage is a nice card, If I was running a Black/Green Golgari deck it would have been an auto include. Just for the discrad from the swamps though I dont think its worth it.
That's a very nice build, I would give this ago. I'm lacking the main cards at present though, the Liege and the Stillmoon's.
Out of interest do you get much play out of Debtor's Knell, I did look at using it but the mana cost put me off.
Crib Swap felt pretty awful after a few games with it, that 1/1 will be costing you another card like every time it's incredible.
p1p3 canyon wildcat! (been mentioned)
p2p1 I like Puppet Strings a lot, Icy is too good, plus that way you'll table one of the black cards out of this pack
p2p2 Gravedigger is amazing, but you can't pass fireslinger pretty much ever
p2p7 manakin! Maybe i shouldn't mention this, but man I love getting this guy late. accel that chumps, perfect.
p3p1 I like the flunkies a lot, that shade is real weak. Definitely first pickable because then you can just get more!
p3p7 I definitely would've gone with flowstown shambler, decent guy.
Is how I would've gone, but for 2nd draft that went swell, I could see myself valuing the cards that way early for sure.
Also it's all about getting Rolling thunder/Fanning the flames. Pretty much every finals, one of the decks will have 1 or more of those cards (my record is 2 rolling, 1 Fanning. deck can't lose really)
You really undervalue disturbed burial.
Have you EVER seen this card in action??? You got lucky getting 1 back for your deck, I cringed at mindripper over burial.
really bad draft, servanth of volrath over canyon wildcat? not taking pupeteer strings?? What about gravedigger? Also the mogg bombers is SO bad, you are basically paing 4 for doing 4 damage to an opp... the shade is the best card there, maybe if your curve is bad the flowstone is the other pick.
i like the little tell me if you mully this hand or not business
but it'd be nice if they were right under the hands themselves - didn't like scrolling up and down..
and i dont wanna open up notepad and write what i think about each hand, etc.
that might just be me. other than that good article.
btw, i'm a huge advocate of when you should mulligan and when you shouldn't - i think it's a huge factor in the game that people often overlook.. my thoughts
WG hand 8 - mulligan unless you are on the draw. 1 land + noble isn't gonna cut it on the play - you can drop a 2-drop next turn, but then if no land, you're done =p
no time to look at the others, but i like it.
i agree = this is one of the more researched/developed articles i've read on mtgotraders.com. perhaps i should start spending a little more of my time reading here rather than just checking card prices. i especially like that you focused on alara block constructed as it is very much still alive on mtgo - even though a lot of pros have since stopped talking/writing about it because it is no longer in season. So thanks for that especially!
When the borderposts come into play, your lands don't get bounced back to hand. So it works.
LE
The one problem I see is that when you play Open the Vaults and all those borderposts return your going to bounce all your lands to your hand if you can even pay for the posts to begin with. Maybe you could play Overbeing of Myth since you'll have a ton of cards in hand then, or Knight of the Reliquary since you'll be discarding lands if your opponent isn't dead.
The first combo for Standard that came to mind with Open the Vaults to me was with Enchanted Evening.
Blue/White, Cycle and Evoke creatures, islandcycling plainscycling for lands, idyllic tutor incase you don't have Enchanted Evening, play Enchanted Evening, play Open the Vaults.
You could even run some weenies that blow up enchantments like Elvish Hexhunter, Wispermare, Kithkin spellduster, Aven Cloudchaser, Duergar Hedge-Mage, or add Green and toss in Qasali.
Its not gonna T8 any STD tourney but it sure would be fun to mess around with IMO. I have an EXT deck that I cycle stuff to then cascade into the only possible card, Living End, and then swing for the fence which is fun too.
I'm guilty of not taking a mulligan when I probably should, so I learned a bit from this article.
hunter, time ebb, wind drake, hunter, fighting drake, Turtle
Yup, that would have been awesome
Solid analysis and a useful reference chart. Thanks.