I think it's a two part answer. Yes the authors should try to fix all the spelling and grammar mistakes they can find. But even the best author's and biggest publications have editors looking out because authors miss stuff too.
I think the key answer is that in order to really have the spelling grammar issues completely disappear is to have the authors trying there best, as well as a full time editor. And the full time copy editor, is just a question on how much money this website makes.
I'm wagering to say the site doesn't make enough to support a full time editor. So it's up to the authors to do the best they can do.
I agree entirely. The point of this being that we are in a casual situation where we are trying to both have fun with our cards and for the most part play with other people. We might not make a lifelong connection or even be friendly with the people we play but acknowledgment is something that happens in real life and in fact is a precursor to actually playing usually because you have to go through the process of inviting someone to play with you or accepting the invitation via social mechanisms. Even in tournament settings opponents often shake hands and introduce themselves. They might wear shades and funny hats and be very rules oriented but there is still the personal connection. Why not engage people online the same way? Courtesy is never overrated.
Actually the lands in Kaleidoscope are an important part of the format. I don't own all the lands either. But even though those expensive lands are nice and make life easier, they are not the first priority to play the format.
You may not play a 5 Color Aggro deck effectively if you don't own them but with a small investment you can still play a 2 color deck that works very well. And I think that Green/White is a good example. Considering you have the cards to play, all you will definately need is 4x Temple Garden ($4,00 each). The rest is up to you. Wooded Bastion ($4,50 each) is nice but not a must. Brushland is also nice ($3,50 each) but not as important as Temple Garden.
So with only 4x Temple Garden, 4x Terramorphic Expanse, 4x Horizon Canopy ($1,50 each) and 4x Wildfield Borderpost, you can make any Green/White deck work.
And that was only an example and I'm not even talking about the possibility to play mono color decks with nothing but basic mountains or plains.
I never *expect* someone to be chatty in the casual rooms, but if they are, great. People who don't acknowledge you in any way, though, are pretty lame. They have autophrases, right-click me a "Hello and good luck," and we can be done. I mean, would you ignore me if we were playing across a table?
That's another potential rule of engagement: extend the same basic courtesy you would if this were a live game.
Yes, you're definitely overvaluing Fleshbag. If Tower Gargoyle isn't in the first pack, Stinger, which you left unmentioned, is the pick.
Trust me, I love sphere just as much, if not 10x more, than the next guy, but Sphinx Summoner is the pick there.
Traumatic Visions over Rupture Spire in 5 color is incredibly wrong.
Slavedriver over Borders in a heartbeat.
"Bloodbraid Elf is best in weenie and aggro decks, which I am not drafting." Control LOVES it a bloodbraif elf. It's efficient as heck and is a great way to catch up after you've spent the first couple turns fixing.
Putrid Leech is obviously nuts if you can play it turn 2, but your deck is 100x more likely to be able to play Lorescale Coatl on 3 than it is a leech on 2.
Since I'm spending most of my energy whining about one small bit in the article, I would also like to throw out a compliment that I've enjoyed your articles and think you've done a great job with them and they've added to my enjoyment of kscope as a format.
I have no issue with cards that cost $, but what I fear when I see some of the decklists is that the format will fast become like classic and have an almost prohibitive cost barrier to entry. The dark bant list in the article is what, over $140 for the mana base alone? In my mind, if you want people to play a format, make it easy to get into it and I just don't see where a decision that has the effect of encouraging high costs does that.
I think the format was/is more wide open than people give it credit for. Although I ran cascade because thats what me/idropshot tested the night before. The most impressive deck in the tourney in my opinion was The Lord Of Atlantis's bant deck. I beat it twice 2-1 in swiss 2-0 in t8 but it was due to questionable mana issues in 2 of the games he lost and me drawing all 4 Ana in a 3rd. Once Ana is gone that deck will be a house. I was shocked at the lack of control decks. had 1x blighting maindeck with 3x sb expecting to see atleast a few but played vs 7 agro decks. Maybe when Ana leaves it will open the format for control.
Let me say I am not a real Kaleidoscope player yet. I have a few decks but they are very untried piles so far. I do love the extended format and that Kaleidoscope format works off of that is an incentive to learn it. I think that Anathemancer deals such a swing against a deck that requires multicolored mana that banning it IS common sense. Not that people can not use basics to avoid the damage but that really is not a viable solution to be competitive. I would have liked to see perhaps a Wasteland type of card or 2 instead because that would punish the use of multi-lands without being a heinous game winner.
I hope the silent ones do get wind of this and think about it. I don't think they necessarily do it with ill intent. (Though I have read that some do despise chatting so perhaps those just simply have an opposing point of view about the purpose of the casual rooms.) Thank you for commenting.
But probably true. However I think it is possible those who are interested in spreading this might link to it for those who need to read it, or to those who might be interested but unaware. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt but it is not an easy road. Thank you for reading it and for your comments.
Thanks guys for the comments. Apparently our viewpoints are different but the decision has been made and Anathemancer has been banned. It doesn't mean that I'm right but as I also said in the article, it only means that the decision makers are thinking like me (or that I think like they do).
By the way do not forget that the card pool is Extended card pool and the fetchlands that have been mentioned above, will be gone in a short time leaving us only with Terramorphic Expanse and its much worse Alara versions.
Great article! I watched a few matches of that tourney in replay. (Sadly real life got in the way of my participation, as it is likely to next week...)
I too, though must disagree about banning anathemancer. It was a limiting factor in a format with virtually none. I will miss the zombie wizard as well as the 3 or 4 basic lands he forced you to run. The other thing that happened with him was the arrival of basic + fetchland mana bases, which would occasionally turn him off entirely. I can definitely understand the rationale for banning him, however, since not playing at least 2 copies maindeck was probably wrong.
One last thing, let me know when you're looking for a game of kaleidoscope. If I'm on I'd be glad to run a few matches 90% of the time.
Anathemancer is a Price of Progress type effect, not Blood Moon. While both are nonbasic land hate, the distinction is significant.
Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon completely stop mana-greedy decks from playing most spells, period. If you can't play spells, you will lose easily. Now in 100 singleton you can get around this using artifact mana and what not, but it is much more of a lock card than Anathemancer.
I'm not sure how punishing greedy 5-color standard or even 5-color Alara block decks is fine, while doing the same thing to Kaleidoscope is somehow poisoning the well.
Alara block has plenty of 2-3 color decks that DON'T roll over and die to Anathemancer. Many of these decks have easy translations into Kaleidoscope decks. Why is it so wrong to punish 5-color decks that play with 24 nonbasic lands and have no concern about which mana symbols happen to be on the spells they play? Based just on your tournament report the Kaleidoscope format seems diverse and not completely degenerate due to Anathemancer.
The graph showing the retail value of packs in tickets makes zero sense as a line graph. A line graph implies that there is some relation between the columns and that you can track points between the peaks and valleys to arrive at intermittent values, which will give you potentially useful information. What you are graphing does not work this way. There is no reason that you would need any point on the line between the peaks and valleys and showing the line leads to confusion in reading the graph.
A bar graph shows what it seems you are trying to show much better. In the future it may be that you want to track each block of packs as multiple lines on the same graph to show their rise and fall in value over a time period, but with only one point in time this does not work nearly as well.
Another t8 - you're tearing it up! After perusing your pool, I immediately went g/w/r and after another thought, confirmed that choice. Glorious anthem is just a nightmare to opponents - but, that said, if this pool was AFTER the rule changes for m10, white would not be as good (I like samite that much) and would have generally agreed with your build. I would have maindecked cryoclasm and pithing needle (there is always something for the needle to do) instead of the ranger and either a land or (more likely) the rampant.
I am really hoping to get in the m10 beta (I've been in the last several) but I otherwise will not be playing until they are implemented, I don't want to further reinforce my (newly bad, formerly good) habits.
If only everyone knew these rules of conduct. There is nothing more hated than joining a game and not getting any response from your opponent not even a response from your "hello". Nice article!
While I understand what you mean, I have to say that I don't think the decisions are made based on $$ value of cards.
Kaleidoscope, due to its nature and the basic rules, cannot afford to have a Blood Moon-esque card. This isn't Standard or Classic. In those formats, you may choose to play with nonbasics or gold cards. You do so if you want to do so. In Kaleidoscope there are no other options. You just have to play with multicolor cards.
And WotC can't say "Hey guys, we would like you to play gold cards" and then deliver us Blood Moon. That was wrong in the first place and actually Anathemancer should have been banned right on sight.
It is a nice card for sideboards against todays greedy 5 Color Standard decks, so I can definately understand the purpose of it being printed, but it definately doesn't belongs to Kaleidoscope.
And like it or not, to be competitive in any format (other than Pauper maybe), $$'s are required. That's a fact. Do I like it? Of course not. Who likes it? But as I said, that's the fact. And unless they start printing cards like Maelstrom Pulse or Ajani Vengeant as Common, that fact will not change.
I wish the people who need to read this the most would, sadly it's probably mostly people who are already on board with these things who would click a link and read an article like this. Thanks though as I enjoyed it! :)
Thank you for a really in depth comment. It was respectful and gave a clear picture on your opinion.
I agree with alot of things you say, I just don't think I could leave a Troll Ascetic and Siege-Gang Commander on the side-lines with enough half-way decent playables to back them up. Troll Ascetic is immune to most of the removal in the format. I think that it was just a great pool to open and either way, it would have been a solid build. The Skyshroud Ranger is bad, as well as the Stun, but I didn't have too many other playables. At least I included the Hill Giant this time. Thanks again for the comment.
Oh what a horrible decision to ban anathemancer!! What a wonderful leveler of the playing field that card is. Many the game I sat across from some multiple hundred dollar manabase and for 3 mana I would just ruin their day. It's a wonderful card for the format BECAUSE it presents such a challenge in deck design. Do you run the monster mana bases and run the risk of anathemancer killing you or slow the deck down a bit by using the fetchlands to fix your mana. The other big plus (in my mind at least) is this dynamic helps the folks who might not have the $$ to invest the mana bases that will now probably end up being required to be competitive in kscope.
First of all, gratz on another top8 and qualifying for the Block-Champs (though I realize this is almost a month ago). As for you deck, I have remarks on both your deck, and what I would have built with the pool
Regarding YOUR build: You play 18 lands and Skyshroud Ranger...After counting, and then double-checking, I see that there are really no other options other than various goblins and random colour-hosers, none of them are truly playable (main). I think the consistency you get for playing just 2 colours and 18 lands is outclassed by the sheer power you get in 2 removal/heavy CA-spells. Why is 18 lands and/or Skyshroud Ranger bad? Ranger is a 1/1, stats that are famous for being outclassed by absolutly eeeverything. Sure, he might trade with a Dross Crocodile or swing for some points on an otherwise empty board. Most of the time though, he will just sit there, eventually taken out by a Pyromancer or for the Craw Wurm cheerleader-team. But, of-course, you don`t run him for being a 1/1, in that case, Goblin Rager had been strictly superior barring colour-issues. Problem is, that other than when he comes out turn 1 or 2, you need to be either severly flooded (meaning you could need some actual cards to win) or plain lucky to get any use of him. You play 4 2-drops in your deck, youre not dependent on ramping to 3 mana on turn 2. The chanse that Ranger is in your opening hand is far to low to justify playing pretty much a vanilla 1/1. Lastly, regarding this particular Elf, I`d like to draw a comparison to (Lush Growth). While you might think youre ramping/fixing your mana, youre using a card to do so, not a fair trade. Rampant Growth for excample will give you a replacement, and in the late-game thin your deck.
Your curve stops at 5, meaning that any land after the 5th will soon be a dead card. You also run Rampant Growth. While 1 of the lands is a man-land, 18 is simply more than you need, and the extra business-spell you would play will more often save you than an extra land.
If I was to play GR, I would make a small splash, most likely black with Rager, Gravedigger and Assasinate (cutting Stun, the 18th land and Ranger). Both blue (Sift and Counsel)and white(Cloudchaser and/or Wild Griffin + Pacifism) are possebileties too. The black splash seems like the strongest to me,as it`s the most synergistic with the decks game-plan.
Regarding MY build and breakdown of the pool:
W: 6/12 (1)
G: 7/11 (1)
R: 6/8 (1)
U: 7/11 (1)
B: 10/13*
C: 2
*Both numbers are dependent on dedication to black (Distress, Bats and Shade)
This is a very basic way of showing how I view the pool obviously not good enough to say everything, but I belive it says alot. "X/Y (Z)", X means the number of solid cards in the colour, Y means the number of playables in the colour and Z means the number of bomby cards in the colour (Anthem, Troll, Commander and Air Elemental). What you want is as many "solids" and "bombs" as possible while still maintaining a solid mana-base and enough playables. Using this is of-course to demanding on the timer when building sealed-decks, but it is a nice tool when dealing with sealed-exercises. As you can see, when youre devoted to it, black has a huge number of "solids", and also the most number of playables. That means it can be easely paired with any other colour, although a splash becomes less attractive. As the non-green fixing is not terribly good, one could say that is not a big problem as you will look to play just 2 colours. Considering the large amount of good cards in the colour, I`d like to start out by adding the "solids" in it, with the assumption I`m going to be playing it heavely:
Festering Goblin
Distress
Dusk Imp, Assasinate, Phyrexian Rager, Severed Legion, Looming Shade
Gravedigger, Diabolic Tutor*
Mass of Ghoulds
*Some would argue this is not a "solid",and I can agree that it`s value is dependent on your deck (a Warhammer for excample would have made the card bomby, considering Hammer would still be retarded in limited if it had costed 5BB. We will be playing with at least 1 bomb, and the removal is shallow, meaning Tutor is IMO "solid")
Looking at the other colours, I quickly see that red, while supplying a recoverable bomb and some more removal, gives a lousy curve and a low number of "solids". White, while giving you Anthem, doesn`t truly bring much else to the table than beaters. While I have often seen B/W weenie do well in sealed, that is mostly due to being backed up by removal and more solid beaters. I personally dislike it because I find the creatures somewhat dissynergistic and bad at defending. Also note that something like a Giant Spider will often stop it cold, especially with your low amount of removal in these 2 colours.
Both blue and green are in my opinion good colours to pair with black, playing green will also make it more reasonable to splash (most likely) red with Pyromancer and Shock. While I can understanding splashing for removal, as it is not so much of it, I think straight 2 colours will make the BB-cards alot more consistent and/or better. As a Spike, I have a thing for blue, with it`s card-advantage and control-elements, meaning I would play UB. The card-filtering and card-drawing means that splashing when youre playing blue is more reasonable (probably for (Cloudchaser and/or Wild Griffin + Pacifism), something I would avoid considering the increased power when playing heavy black. GB is however also decent, as you mention at the end of your article. This is how I would build the pool:
Festering Goblin, Peek, Vampire Bats*
Distress, Merfolk Looter, Sage Owl
Dusk Imp, Assasinate, Phyrexian Rager, Severed Legion, Looming Shade, Phantom Warrior, Counsel the Soratami, Twitch*
Gravedigger, Diabolic Tutor, Icy Manipulator, Sift, Dross Crocodile*
Mass of Ghoulds, Air Elemental, Mantis Engine, Aven Windreader
Unsummon
9 Swamps, 8 Islands
*One of these should be cut, I would personally take the Bats
Take into consideration that most of what I`ve written aren`t facts, just my opinions, backed up by arguments. While I belive I keep a very respectfull tone, I`d like to say that I do not intend to come with any insults nor picking on your choises. I very much enjoy the series, and hope there`s more after this:)
Actually, my statement is doubly relevant now that Anathamancer is banned...
Instead of unbanning a very powerful answer card (Wish) they banned a powerful question card (Anathamancer). Of course, it's possible that Anathamancer would have gotten banned at some point anyway, but the way I see it, is that by not having a strong worthwhile way to preemptively answer A-Mancer, he was far too powerful to stop easily and was warping the format.
Would Glitter Wish have stopped that? I don't know, maybe. But I do believe that removing answers from the format makes big question cards (like A-Man) even more potent. Removing that line of balance from Magic can really skew things.
I think it's a two part answer. Yes the authors should try to fix all the spelling and grammar mistakes they can find. But even the best author's and biggest publications have editors looking out because authors miss stuff too.
I think the key answer is that in order to really have the spelling grammar issues completely disappear is to have the authors trying there best, as well as a full time editor. And the full time copy editor, is just a question on how much money this website makes.
I'm wagering to say the site doesn't make enough to support a full time editor. So it's up to the authors to do the best they can do.
I agree entirely. The point of this being that we are in a casual situation where we are trying to both have fun with our cards and for the most part play with other people. We might not make a lifelong connection or even be friendly with the people we play but acknowledgment is something that happens in real life and in fact is a precursor to actually playing usually because you have to go through the process of inviting someone to play with you or accepting the invitation via social mechanisms. Even in tournament settings opponents often shake hands and introduce themselves. They might wear shades and funny hats and be very rules oriented but there is still the personal connection. Why not engage people online the same way? Courtesy is never overrated.
Actually the lands in Kaleidoscope are an important part of the format. I don't own all the lands either. But even though those expensive lands are nice and make life easier, they are not the first priority to play the format.
You may not play a 5 Color Aggro deck effectively if you don't own them but with a small investment you can still play a 2 color deck that works very well. And I think that Green/White is a good example. Considering you have the cards to play, all you will definately need is 4x Temple Garden ($4,00 each). The rest is up to you. Wooded Bastion ($4,50 each) is nice but not a must. Brushland is also nice ($3,50 each) but not as important as Temple Garden.
So with only 4x Temple Garden, 4x Terramorphic Expanse, 4x Horizon Canopy ($1,50 each) and 4x Wildfield Borderpost, you can make any Green/White deck work.
And that was only an example and I'm not even talking about the possibility to play mono color decks with nothing but basic mountains or plains.
LE
I never *expect* someone to be chatty in the casual rooms, but if they are, great. People who don't acknowledge you in any way, though, are pretty lame. They have autophrases, right-click me a "Hello and good luck," and we can be done. I mean, would you ignore me if we were playing across a table?
That's another potential rule of engagement: extend the same basic courtesy you would if this were a live game.
Yes, you're definitely overvaluing Fleshbag. If Tower Gargoyle isn't in the first pack, Stinger, which you left unmentioned, is the pick.
Trust me, I love sphere just as much, if not 10x more, than the next guy, but Sphinx Summoner is the pick there.
Traumatic Visions over Rupture Spire in 5 color is incredibly wrong.
Slavedriver over Borders in a heartbeat.
"Bloodbraid Elf is best in weenie and aggro decks, which I am not drafting." Control LOVES it a bloodbraif elf. It's efficient as heck and is a great way to catch up after you've spent the first couple turns fixing.
Putrid Leech is obviously nuts if you can play it turn 2, but your deck is 100x more likely to be able to play Lorescale Coatl on 3 than it is a leech on 2.
Since I'm spending most of my energy whining about one small bit in the article, I would also like to throw out a compliment that I've enjoyed your articles and think you've done a great job with them and they've added to my enjoyment of kscope as a format.
I have no issue with cards that cost $, but what I fear when I see some of the decklists is that the format will fast become like classic and have an almost prohibitive cost barrier to entry. The dark bant list in the article is what, over $140 for the mana base alone? In my mind, if you want people to play a format, make it easy to get into it and I just don't see where a decision that has the effect of encouraging high costs does that.
I think the format was/is more wide open than people give it credit for. Although I ran cascade because thats what me/idropshot tested the night before. The most impressive deck in the tourney in my opinion was The Lord Of Atlantis's bant deck. I beat it twice 2-1 in swiss 2-0 in t8 but it was due to questionable mana issues in 2 of the games he lost and me drawing all 4 Ana in a 3rd. Once Ana is gone that deck will be a house. I was shocked at the lack of control decks. had 1x blighting maindeck with 3x sb expecting to see atleast a few but played vs 7 agro decks. Maybe when Ana leaves it will open the format for control.
Let me say I am not a real Kaleidoscope player yet. I have a few decks but they are very untried piles so far. I do love the extended format and that Kaleidoscope format works off of that is an incentive to learn it. I think that Anathemancer deals such a swing against a deck that requires multicolored mana that banning it IS common sense. Not that people can not use basics to avoid the damage but that really is not a viable solution to be competitive. I would have liked to see perhaps a Wasteland type of card or 2 instead because that would punish the use of multi-lands without being a heinous game winner.
I hope the silent ones do get wind of this and think about it. I don't think they necessarily do it with ill intent. (Though I have read that some do despise chatting so perhaps those just simply have an opposing point of view about the purpose of the casual rooms.) Thank you for commenting.
But probably true. However I think it is possible those who are interested in spreading this might link to it for those who need to read it, or to those who might be interested but unaware. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt but it is not an easy road. Thank you for reading it and for your comments.
Any and all errors, typos and misconceptions are my responsibility and no one else. Please feel free to go into detail if you like.
the oversoul does not need to be targeted by the cytoshape. you just slap it on a hydropon and convert the hydropon into another crature
Thanks guys for the comments. Apparently our viewpoints are different but the decision has been made and Anathemancer has been banned. It doesn't mean that I'm right but as I also said in the article, it only means that the decision makers are thinking like me (or that I think like they do).
By the way do not forget that the card pool is Extended card pool and the fetchlands that have been mentioned above, will be gone in a short time leaving us only with Terramorphic Expanse and its much worse Alara versions.
LE
Great article! I watched a few matches of that tourney in replay. (Sadly real life got in the way of my participation, as it is likely to next week...)
I too, though must disagree about banning anathemancer. It was a limiting factor in a format with virtually none. I will miss the zombie wizard as well as the 3 or 4 basic lands he forced you to run. The other thing that happened with him was the arrival of basic + fetchland mana bases, which would occasionally turn him off entirely. I can definitely understand the rationale for banning him, however, since not playing at least 2 copies maindeck was probably wrong.
One last thing, let me know when you're looking for a game of kaleidoscope. If I'm on I'd be glad to run a few matches 90% of the time.
Anathemancer is a Price of Progress type effect, not Blood Moon. While both are nonbasic land hate, the distinction is significant.
Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon completely stop mana-greedy decks from playing most spells, period. If you can't play spells, you will lose easily. Now in 100 singleton you can get around this using artifact mana and what not, but it is much more of a lock card than Anathemancer.
I'm not sure how punishing greedy 5-color standard or even 5-color Alara block decks is fine, while doing the same thing to Kaleidoscope is somehow poisoning the well.
Alara block has plenty of 2-3 color decks that DON'T roll over and die to Anathemancer. Many of these decks have easy translations into Kaleidoscope decks. Why is it so wrong to punish 5-color decks that play with 24 nonbasic lands and have no concern about which mana symbols happen to be on the spells they play? Based just on your tournament report the Kaleidoscope format seems diverse and not completely degenerate due to Anathemancer.
The graph showing the retail value of packs in tickets makes zero sense as a line graph. A line graph implies that there is some relation between the columns and that you can track points between the peaks and valleys to arrive at intermittent values, which will give you potentially useful information. What you are graphing does not work this way. There is no reason that you would need any point on the line between the peaks and valleys and showing the line leads to confusion in reading the graph.
A bar graph shows what it seems you are trying to show much better. In the future it may be that you want to track each block of packs as multiple lines on the same graph to show their rise and fall in value over a time period, but with only one point in time this does not work nearly as well.
Another t8 - you're tearing it up! After perusing your pool, I immediately went g/w/r and after another thought, confirmed that choice. Glorious anthem is just a nightmare to opponents - but, that said, if this pool was AFTER the rule changes for m10, white would not be as good (I like samite that much) and would have generally agreed with your build. I would have maindecked cryoclasm and pithing needle (there is always something for the needle to do) instead of the ranger and either a land or (more likely) the rampant.
I am really hoping to get in the m10 beta (I've been in the last several) but I otherwise will not be playing until they are implemented, I don't want to further reinforce my (newly bad, formerly good) habits.
How you doing on season 3's points?
If only everyone knew these rules of conduct. There is nothing more hated than joining a game and not getting any response from your opponent not even a response from your "hello". Nice article!
While I understand what you mean, I have to say that I don't think the decisions are made based on $$ value of cards.
Kaleidoscope, due to its nature and the basic rules, cannot afford to have a Blood Moon-esque card. This isn't Standard or Classic. In those formats, you may choose to play with nonbasics or gold cards. You do so if you want to do so. In Kaleidoscope there are no other options. You just have to play with multicolor cards.
And WotC can't say "Hey guys, we would like you to play gold cards" and then deliver us Blood Moon. That was wrong in the first place and actually Anathemancer should have been banned right on sight.
It is a nice card for sideboards against todays greedy 5 Color Standard decks, so I can definately understand the purpose of it being printed, but it definately doesn't belongs to Kaleidoscope.
And like it or not, to be competitive in any format (other than Pauper maybe), $$'s are required. That's a fact. Do I like it? Of course not. Who likes it? But as I said, that's the fact. And unless they start printing cards like Maelstrom Pulse or Ajani Vengeant as Common, that fact will not change.
LE
I wish the people who need to read this the most would, sadly it's probably mostly people who are already on board with these things who would click a link and read an article like this. Thanks though as I enjoyed it! :)
Thank you for a really in depth comment. It was respectful and gave a clear picture on your opinion.
I agree with alot of things you say, I just don't think I could leave a Troll Ascetic and Siege-Gang Commander on the side-lines with enough half-way decent playables to back them up. Troll Ascetic is immune to most of the removal in the format. I think that it was just a great pool to open and either way, it would have been a solid build. The Skyshroud Ranger is bad, as well as the Stun, but I didn't have too many other playables. At least I included the Hill Giant this time. Thanks again for the comment.
Oh what a horrible decision to ban anathemancer!! What a wonderful leveler of the playing field that card is. Many the game I sat across from some multiple hundred dollar manabase and for 3 mana I would just ruin their day. It's a wonderful card for the format BECAUSE it presents such a challenge in deck design. Do you run the monster mana bases and run the risk of anathemancer killing you or slow the deck down a bit by using the fetchlands to fix your mana. The other big plus (in my mind at least) is this dynamic helps the folks who might not have the $$ to invest the mana bases that will now probably end up being required to be competitive in kscope.
C'est la vie.
First of all, gratz on another top8 and qualifying for the Block-Champs (though I realize this is almost a month ago). As for you deck, I have remarks on both your deck, and what I would have built with the pool
Regarding YOUR build: You play 18 lands and Skyshroud Ranger...After counting, and then double-checking, I see that there are really no other options other than various goblins and random colour-hosers, none of them are truly playable (main). I think the consistency you get for playing just 2 colours and 18 lands is outclassed by the sheer power you get in 2 removal/heavy CA-spells. Why is 18 lands and/or Skyshroud Ranger bad? Ranger is a 1/1, stats that are famous for being outclassed by absolutly eeeverything. Sure, he might trade with a Dross Crocodile or swing for some points on an otherwise empty board. Most of the time though, he will just sit there, eventually taken out by a Pyromancer or for the Craw Wurm cheerleader-team. But, of-course, you don`t run him for being a 1/1, in that case, Goblin Rager had been strictly superior barring colour-issues. Problem is, that other than when he comes out turn 1 or 2, you need to be either severly flooded (meaning you could need some actual cards to win) or plain lucky to get any use of him. You play 4 2-drops in your deck, youre not dependent on ramping to 3 mana on turn 2. The chanse that Ranger is in your opening hand is far to low to justify playing pretty much a vanilla 1/1. Lastly, regarding this particular Elf, I`d like to draw a comparison to (Lush Growth). While you might think youre ramping/fixing your mana, youre using a card to do so, not a fair trade. Rampant Growth for excample will give you a replacement, and in the late-game thin your deck.
Your curve stops at 5, meaning that any land after the 5th will soon be a dead card. You also run Rampant Growth. While 1 of the lands is a man-land, 18 is simply more than you need, and the extra business-spell you would play will more often save you than an extra land.
If I was to play GR, I would make a small splash, most likely black with Rager, Gravedigger and Assasinate (cutting Stun, the 18th land and Ranger). Both blue (Sift and Counsel)and white(Cloudchaser and/or Wild Griffin + Pacifism) are possebileties too. The black splash seems like the strongest to me,as it`s the most synergistic with the decks game-plan.
Regarding MY build and breakdown of the pool:
W: 6/12 (1)
G: 7/11 (1)
R: 6/8 (1)
U: 7/11 (1)
B: 10/13*
C: 2
*Both numbers are dependent on dedication to black (Distress, Bats and Shade)
This is a very basic way of showing how I view the pool obviously not good enough to say everything, but I belive it says alot. "X/Y (Z)", X means the number of solid cards in the colour, Y means the number of playables in the colour and Z means the number of bomby cards in the colour (Anthem, Troll, Commander and Air Elemental). What you want is as many "solids" and "bombs" as possible while still maintaining a solid mana-base and enough playables. Using this is of-course to demanding on the timer when building sealed-decks, but it is a nice tool when dealing with sealed-exercises. As you can see, when youre devoted to it, black has a huge number of "solids", and also the most number of playables. That means it can be easely paired with any other colour, although a splash becomes less attractive. As the non-green fixing is not terribly good, one could say that is not a big problem as you will look to play just 2 colours. Considering the large amount of good cards in the colour, I`d like to start out by adding the "solids" in it, with the assumption I`m going to be playing it heavely:
Festering Goblin
Distress
Dusk Imp, Assasinate, Phyrexian Rager, Severed Legion, Looming Shade
Gravedigger, Diabolic Tutor*
Mass of Ghoulds
*Some would argue this is not a "solid",and I can agree that it`s value is dependent on your deck (a Warhammer for excample would have made the card bomby, considering Hammer would still be retarded in limited if it had costed 5BB. We will be playing with at least 1 bomb, and the removal is shallow, meaning Tutor is IMO "solid")
Looking at the other colours, I quickly see that red, while supplying a recoverable bomb and some more removal, gives a lousy curve and a low number of "solids". White, while giving you Anthem, doesn`t truly bring much else to the table than beaters. While I have often seen B/W weenie do well in sealed, that is mostly due to being backed up by removal and more solid beaters. I personally dislike it because I find the creatures somewhat dissynergistic and bad at defending. Also note that something like a Giant Spider will often stop it cold, especially with your low amount of removal in these 2 colours.
Both blue and green are in my opinion good colours to pair with black, playing green will also make it more reasonable to splash (most likely) red with Pyromancer and Shock. While I can understanding splashing for removal, as it is not so much of it, I think straight 2 colours will make the BB-cards alot more consistent and/or better. As a Spike, I have a thing for blue, with it`s card-advantage and control-elements, meaning I would play UB. The card-filtering and card-drawing means that splashing when youre playing blue is more reasonable (probably for (Cloudchaser and/or Wild Griffin + Pacifism), something I would avoid considering the increased power when playing heavy black. GB is however also decent, as you mention at the end of your article. This is how I would build the pool:
Festering Goblin, Peek, Vampire Bats*
Distress, Merfolk Looter, Sage Owl
Dusk Imp, Assasinate, Phyrexian Rager, Severed Legion, Looming Shade, Phantom Warrior, Counsel the Soratami, Twitch*
Gravedigger, Diabolic Tutor, Icy Manipulator, Sift, Dross Crocodile*
Mass of Ghoulds, Air Elemental, Mantis Engine, Aven Windreader
Unsummon
9 Swamps, 8 Islands
*One of these should be cut, I would personally take the Bats
Take into consideration that most of what I`ve written aren`t facts, just my opinions, backed up by arguments. While I belive I keep a very respectfull tone, I`d like to say that I do not intend to come with any insults nor picking on your choises. I very much enjoy the series, and hope there`s more after this:)
Actually, my statement is doubly relevant now that Anathamancer is banned...
Instead of unbanning a very powerful answer card (Wish) they banned a powerful question card (Anathamancer). Of course, it's possible that Anathamancer would have gotten banned at some point anyway, but the way I see it, is that by not having a strong worthwhile way to preemptively answer A-Mancer, he was far too powerful to stop easily and was warping the format.
Would Glitter Wish have stopped that? I don't know, maybe. But I do believe that removing answers from the format makes big question cards (like A-Man) even more potent. Removing that line of balance from Magic can really skew things.
Just my thoughts, of course. :)