arch: I think there are more people who jump into the Singleton 100 format in the PE than in the 2 man queues which is why u see that slight variation. U'd probably see names of players u never knew played Singleton 100 there.
necro: I prolly misunderstood the faerie trickery portion but u've clarified it anyway.
abt the archetype, further discussion wouldn't be helpful since categorizing it very ambiguous since it is essentially a control deck as well by not being an aggro deck nor a combo deck.. but it certainly plays slightly differently from a normal control deck with braids and many early drops. As mentioned by the creator, it's geared towards beating early drops which is probably why it has so many creatures. It has its special characteristics which would take long to describes so forget it.
beating aggro takes a shape in control decks (like the one i have now) which makes it try to go more active in fighting threats because it is probably more efficient than staying back all the time.
about hypergenesis, it definitely works.. but it's quite risky to run it in my opinion although it would be very unfair if things went well. It's probably an "all or nothing" deck. I've played against a player with a hypergenesis deck when i was running my 83 land deck but he has only 1 hypergenesis to use.. which is probably one of the main banes of such a deck. reanimation seems more stable for a "mega fatties" strategy but who knows?
I'm curious to see how ur artifact deck would turn out. It's going to be a tough one. =)
I can't say anything about not being able to play something in the casual room but from my experience, singleton is not that popular a format to be able to get enough games in the tournament practice room.
If u want to avoid good decks, I suggest not playing in matches but single games. That's my yardstick for differentiating a person who wants competitive play vs casual play.
Competitive play and casual play have a thin line in the singleton format because most "casual" decks are quite good anyway. Sure there are people who don't like counterspells (i dun think discard but i hate facing land destruction) and would scoop to you if you showed 2 in a game but other than that, I don't really see why someone would want to make a deck of 60 different cards that don't do much.
I mean.. wouldn't someone want to play with his best cards?
Abt the PE, fret not, there is going to be 4 consecutive weeks of singleton 100 PEs if I didn't read wrongly starting from the 4th wk of the season. =)
Xed is a format tt pple don't have much information about because a majority of the pple care only about the current sets. It plays by many different rules than a normal set would and those who know those rules can do well in it. It is a format that needs great understanding in for one to do well in it because you can't simply rely on card power when it is so scarce. Some people are just driven away because they think it's a format solely based on what bombs you pull which is often not the case.
For example, the grizzly bear in alara is good but I claim it to be horrible in Xed. You can't simply take a good ala sealed player, dump him in Xed sealed and hope he does as well. People many bad choices because they don't see the significance in many of the "lousy" cards but how could one know unless they play more of the format or read about it somewhere?
Anyone is free to play in any of the daily events and it is not true that only new players play Xed. Same goes for many other sealed formats that are not in the main stream. There are players who understand those formats and do well in them.
I seriously doubt no "new players" play in any daily events other than Xed.
and if credentials in the format don't help to credify my statements, I really can't guess what else would because it is so difficult for people to understand odd choices based on reasoning alone unless they know about Xed more thoroughly and if they did, they wouldn't need any advise anyway. How many people can actually be convinced that verdant force which is on color and can potentially win you the game by staying on the board for awhile is not good in this deck which is main green?
If it's not for this deck then what kind of deck?
Every format is different. I'd rather learn about a format from someone who's good at that and not just any good player in general, even if he were a well known pro.
This article was written prior to Pro Tour Honolulu, which I was pleasantly suprised to see had such a diversity of decks. I completely understand that GW is not new tech, but I dont feel like a large amount of block players were aware of how strong it was in the format. I havent played in a daily event after the pro tour yet. But one reader commented that he had played a diversity of decks in a daily event yesterday which I am happy to hear. Thanks again for all your feedback.
Nice job your first time out. I have been watching the Block decks preparing for my first tourney. Jund, GW and Esper Aggro seem powerful. I do love tha rogue however. You have given me much to think about. Looking forward to your next one.
The GW deck that you described has been played by a number of Japanese in Honolulu, to pretty good success AFAIK. Anyways, I can confirm that the deck is extremely hard to beat using Jund - I had to play 2 times against it in the queues, and never had the feeling like my cascade card advantage is getting me anywhere. Maybe this is the deck that crushes Jund - even though I currently like to play my Sedraxis Jund deck, I would really hope that the GW deck is good against me, because I think this would lighten up the format quite a bit. If the format stays like it is currently (75% Jund mirror, approx.) I will stop playing Block Const. really soon. However, besides the GW deck and the 5C Control version that Chapin was working on (check Zack Hills Honolulu deck) I think Jund is currently the only viable deck (I know there are a couple of versions, but they are similar enough to be considered the same to me). The various Esper beatdown decks from Honolulu seemed more like a fluke to me - I did some testing, and they did not really perform all too well.
hey guys. copy the deck box and then paste it in to note pad and delete all the arbitrary stuff such as creatures and what not. the only thing you chould leave that isnt a number or a card name is the word side board. it should look something like this.
4 Chrome Mox
2 Manamorphose
1 Mana Crypt
4 Tinder Wall
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Dark Ritual
1 Badlands
4 Lotus Petal
4 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Stomping Ground
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Burning Wish
4 Seething Song
3 Empty the Warrens
4 Street Wraith
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
once it looks like that save it to your desk top and then load it using local text decks in the deck editor. once you have it saved to your desk top you can go to mtgo traders and under the search function you can first load the deck in question and then search for it and it will have a price for buying the whole deck. hope this helps.
All of these decks performed relatively well in the format. There were several Jund decks in the top eight, but Esper Stoneblade managed two top 8s, and Sphinx Control managed one.
Also, the GW Aggro deck looks a lot like the list you mentioned above.
I think the most interesting part of this article comes from this quote.
"...The build I used for the big event varies from the build I use when playing in the constructed room. When playing in the constructed room, most players play expensive control decks which my deck can do very well against if it's built correctly."
The comments seems to focus exclusively on the cost and match-up differences of aggro and control, but I think there is more to it than that. 100 singleton is versatile enough that you can build your deck to have good match-ups and bad match-ups against whatever you think the environment will handle. A lot of the card choices are really good in some matches and really bad in other matches. Here's a couple of examples
Sulfuric Vortex/Zo-Zo the Punisher - These are really good at punishing control decks, but against mono-red, it's too often close to a dead card because it will hurt you as much as your opponent.
Armageddon/Ravages of War - For a long time I played a RWG armageddon style deck in the queues, but I would keep running into decks that also featured Armageddon, a plethora of artifact mana producers in addition to Pendrell Mist, and Magus of the Tabernacle. Against those decks mana elves and Armageddons are a bad choice.
Hellkite Overlord/Bogarden Hellkite - Turn 1 Entomb one of these, Turn 2 play Animate Dead on one of these guys. It's a really great strategy against burn decks, but less than a great strategy against a control deck that can counter your animate dead and play Bribery to use your monster against you.
Exalted Angel/Battlegrace Angel - They can win a damage race against a red burn deck easily but both are fairly slow against control decks with counterspells and sweepers. And they are a perfect target to be stolen by a control deck.
One of the problems I've had with the format is precisely that the metagame is different between the premier events and the 2-man queues. And I don't believe that the queues have a weaker metagame than the premier events. If anything, I think the opposite is true because the decks I faced in the queue seemed to be more tuned than some of the top 8 decks in the premier events. Therefore, it's kind of weird for me to see all these arguments saying the aggro decks are too powerful and control is non-existant, and we need to change the banned and restricted list to balance the format. I think the format is balanced. There are ways to make your deck to combat any strategy, and I believe that sideboards are only going to further this balance.
You can also try Confound or any card that bounces a permanent to remove Cloak for a little while until you can draw into Counters.
Ghostfire, Fire at Will both can stop a Guardian. Don't forget Hybrid Creatures, like Scuzzback Marauders (which seems playable) in a deck like this.
Ok guys, I'll try the cas/cas room. Are you sure it's ok to play counters and discard there, playtesting a deck you want to bring to the PE? Btw, I probably won't be able to play the next PE :( It seems I'll have to wait another couple months :( I hope the PRE really gets organized.
All you can do against pro-red creatures is race or hope you can hit them with Counterspell or Exclude post-board. If they stick an Armadillo Cloak on one, gg. That's why hosers exist -- once again the only viable out I could see running is Snakeform.
I'm not a fan of siding artifact destruction against Relic of Progenitus seeing as you have the following scenarios:
1) You draw artifact destruction and they didn't bring in Relic -- you have 4 dead cards
2) You draw artifact destruction and they don't draw Relic -- you have a dead card
3) You draw artifact destruction, they draw Relic
a. They play relic and you destroy it when they fail to leave 1 up
b. They hold relic until they want to sac it, your artifact destruction is cold
c. You destroy relic, they sac in response
I think you simply have to shrug if they have Relic and play around it the best you can. I'd rather have the 4 Firebolts or whatever else than the artifact destruction I'd be swapping them out for. There aren't any other artifacts that I want to destroy other than say Vedalkan Outlander which I'd need blue artifact destruction for anyway.
That is fair. Again I haven't had a chance to really examine the video or play this deck, so I am going on experience from my old SwSa builds.
That being said, you are running quite a few cards to make SwSa good, rather than have a deck where SwSa slots in nicely...just something to consider.
I really like this article better then the last one. I do caution to have some artifact destruction in the side board to deal w/ Relic of Progenitus which ruins your Swirling Sandstorm, and is in a lot of side boards. I really like the idea of adding Flaring Pain.
in my (short) experience with this deck, there was enough removal to be alive until you cast swerling,if there was not too many discard effect before. However, it is very very difficult to deal with an opponent running protection from red creatures in the early game (the deck has no real solution to that) ... that was the case in one of my matches : the guy was running Vedalken Outlanders which killed me easly with A. cloack ...
I played in a 40+ Daily event yesterday, I was also playing the G/W deck :) Anywho, I played vs the esper beatdown deck twice in the swiss, 5cc twice in the swiss and I believe the other 2 matchups were vs jund, I went 5-1 in the swiss, and lost in the top 8 vs the esper beatdown deck because of a bad mulligan decision game 3. The 5cc matchup is pretty tough, and you have to get a quality beatdown draw, additionally I can't think of any standout board cards :( Although I only played 3 thornling, I would definitely consider a fourth. I would say the format is pretty diverse, although in the past it really hasn't been. The pro tour displayed a wealth of high level innovation that should keep the format interesting until Zenidar or w/e it's called hehe.
Though a playset of demigods is beyond my qualificaion of budget, the rest of that first deck is fairly cheap. I was taken aback a bit to see that as the card featured in the first deck in the list of budget decks.
'I don't know where to start, but i think i should just say that if u want tips from someone who has 15 Qps this season solely based on Xed sealed, tt's urs truly.'
Well it seems as though not only has this site become a flurry on conceited players to some extent yet do realize 10th Sealed is the format for new players, and players who consistently don't want any challenges. So if your bragging about card decisions and success in this format I am sure you have many other worries.
I could in theory say the same about limited in general and winning 50+ DE's or PE's and such.... like I think my brain fried after I read that comment.
You guys really got burned by the lag in getting these posted this week. TWO big things announced since you taped: 7th Anniversary Events (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1201007) and the HUGE announcement about M2010 rules: http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/42a
arch: I think there are more people who jump into the Singleton 100 format in the PE than in the 2 man queues which is why u see that slight variation. U'd probably see names of players u never knew played Singleton 100 there.
necro: I prolly misunderstood the faerie trickery portion but u've clarified it anyway.
abt the archetype, further discussion wouldn't be helpful since categorizing it very ambiguous since it is essentially a control deck as well by not being an aggro deck nor a combo deck.. but it certainly plays slightly differently from a normal control deck with braids and many early drops. As mentioned by the creator, it's geared towards beating early drops which is probably why it has so many creatures. It has its special characteristics which would take long to describes so forget it.
beating aggro takes a shape in control decks (like the one i have now) which makes it try to go more active in fighting threats because it is probably more efficient than staying back all the time.
about hypergenesis, it definitely works.. but it's quite risky to run it in my opinion although it would be very unfair if things went well. It's probably an "all or nothing" deck. I've played against a player with a hypergenesis deck when i was running my 83 land deck but he has only 1 hypergenesis to use.. which is probably one of the main banes of such a deck. reanimation seems more stable for a "mega fatties" strategy but who knows?
I'm curious to see how ur artifact deck would turn out. It's going to be a tough one. =)
I can't say anything about not being able to play something in the casual room but from my experience, singleton is not that popular a format to be able to get enough games in the tournament practice room.
If u want to avoid good decks, I suggest not playing in matches but single games. That's my yardstick for differentiating a person who wants competitive play vs casual play.
Competitive play and casual play have a thin line in the singleton format because most "casual" decks are quite good anyway. Sure there are people who don't like counterspells (i dun think discard but i hate facing land destruction) and would scoop to you if you showed 2 in a game but other than that, I don't really see why someone would want to make a deck of 60 different cards that don't do much.
I mean.. wouldn't someone want to play with his best cards?
Abt the PE, fret not, there is going to be 4 consecutive weeks of singleton 100 PEs if I didn't read wrongly starting from the 4th wk of the season. =)
Xed is a format tt pple don't have much information about because a majority of the pple care only about the current sets. It plays by many different rules than a normal set would and those who know those rules can do well in it. It is a format that needs great understanding in for one to do well in it because you can't simply rely on card power when it is so scarce. Some people are just driven away because they think it's a format solely based on what bombs you pull which is often not the case.
For example, the grizzly bear in alara is good but I claim it to be horrible in Xed. You can't simply take a good ala sealed player, dump him in Xed sealed and hope he does as well. People many bad choices because they don't see the significance in many of the "lousy" cards but how could one know unless they play more of the format or read about it somewhere?
Anyone is free to play in any of the daily events and it is not true that only new players play Xed. Same goes for many other sealed formats that are not in the main stream. There are players who understand those formats and do well in them.
I seriously doubt no "new players" play in any daily events other than Xed.
and if credentials in the format don't help to credify my statements, I really can't guess what else would because it is so difficult for people to understand odd choices based on reasoning alone unless they know about Xed more thoroughly and if they did, they wouldn't need any advise anyway. How many people can actually be convinced that verdant force which is on color and can potentially win you the game by staying on the board for awhile is not good in this deck which is main green?
If it's not for this deck then what kind of deck?
Every format is different. I'd rather learn about a format from someone who's good at that and not just any good player in general, even if he were a well known pro.
This article was written prior to Pro Tour Honolulu, which I was pleasantly suprised to see had such a diversity of decks. I completely understand that GW is not new tech, but I dont feel like a large amount of block players were aware of how strong it was in the format. I havent played in a daily event after the pro tour yet. But one reader commented that he had played a diversity of decks in a daily event yesterday which I am happy to hear. Thanks again for all your feedback.
Sounds like you wrote the rules after that draft just happened.
I've been pushing to do this for a very long time (Since before I came on board here) and this is something I think every one would love to see.
Nice job your first time out. I have been watching the Block decks preparing for my first tourney. Jund, GW and Esper Aggro seem powerful. I do love tha rogue however. You have given me much to think about. Looking forward to your next one.
The GW deck that you described has been played by a number of Japanese in Honolulu, to pretty good success AFAIK. Anyways, I can confirm that the deck is extremely hard to beat using Jund - I had to play 2 times against it in the queues, and never had the feeling like my cascade card advantage is getting me anywhere. Maybe this is the deck that crushes Jund - even though I currently like to play my Sedraxis Jund deck, I would really hope that the GW deck is good against me, because I think this would lighten up the format quite a bit. If the format stays like it is currently (75% Jund mirror, approx.) I will stop playing Block Const. really soon. However, besides the GW deck and the 5C Control version that Chapin was working on (check Zack Hills Honolulu deck) I think Jund is currently the only viable deck (I know there are a couple of versions, but they are similar enough to be considered the same to me). The various Esper beatdown decks from Honolulu seemed more like a fluke to me - I did some testing, and they did not really perform all too well.
hey guys. copy the deck box and then paste it in to note pad and delete all the arbitrary stuff such as creatures and what not. the only thing you chould leave that isnt a number or a card name is the word side board. it should look something like this.
4 Chrome Mox
2 Manamorphose
1 Mana Crypt
4 Tinder Wall
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Dark Ritual
1 Badlands
4 Lotus Petal
4 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Stomping Ground
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Burning Wish
4 Seething Song
3 Empty the Warrens
4 Street Wraith
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
Sideboard
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Pyroclasm
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Shattering Spree
1 Thoughtseize
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Hull Breach
3 Pyroblast
once it looks like that save it to your desk top and then load it using local text decks in the deck editor. once you have it saved to your desk top you can go to mtgo traders and under the search function you can first load the deck in question and then search for it and it will have a price for buying the whole deck. hope this helps.
Have you checked out the coverage on Pro Tour Honolulu? Turns out that there were several interesting decks coming out of that tournament.
1. GW Aggro.
2. Esper Stoneblade.
3. Sedraxis Aggro.
4. Sphinx Control
All of these decks performed relatively well in the format. There were several Jund decks in the top eight, but Esper Stoneblade managed two top 8s, and Sphinx Control managed one.
Also, the GW Aggro deck looks a lot like the list you mentioned above.
I think the most interesting part of this article comes from this quote.
"...The build I used for the big event varies from the build I use when playing in the constructed room. When playing in the constructed room, most players play expensive control decks which my deck can do very well against if it's built correctly."
The comments seems to focus exclusively on the cost and match-up differences of aggro and control, but I think there is more to it than that. 100 singleton is versatile enough that you can build your deck to have good match-ups and bad match-ups against whatever you think the environment will handle. A lot of the card choices are really good in some matches and really bad in other matches. Here's a couple of examples
Sulfuric Vortex/Zo-Zo the Punisher - These are really good at punishing control decks, but against mono-red, it's too often close to a dead card because it will hurt you as much as your opponent.
Armageddon/Ravages of War - For a long time I played a RWG armageddon style deck in the queues, but I would keep running into decks that also featured Armageddon, a plethora of artifact mana producers in addition to Pendrell Mist, and Magus of the Tabernacle. Against those decks mana elves and Armageddons are a bad choice.
Hellkite Overlord/Bogarden Hellkite - Turn 1 Entomb one of these, Turn 2 play Animate Dead on one of these guys. It's a really great strategy against burn decks, but less than a great strategy against a control deck that can counter your animate dead and play Bribery to use your monster against you.
Exalted Angel/Battlegrace Angel - They can win a damage race against a red burn deck easily but both are fairly slow against control decks with counterspells and sweepers. And they are a perfect target to be stolen by a control deck.
One of the problems I've had with the format is precisely that the metagame is different between the premier events and the 2-man queues. And I don't believe that the queues have a weaker metagame than the premier events. If anything, I think the opposite is true because the decks I faced in the queue seemed to be more tuned than some of the top 8 decks in the premier events. Therefore, it's kind of weird for me to see all these arguments saying the aggro decks are too powerful and control is non-existant, and we need to change the banned and restricted list to balance the format. I think the format is balanced. There are ways to make your deck to combat any strategy, and I believe that sideboards are only going to further this balance.
You can also try Confound or any card that bounces a permanent to remove Cloak for a little while until you can draw into Counters.
Ghostfire, Fire at Will both can stop a Guardian. Don't forget Hybrid Creatures, like Scuzzback Marauders (which seems playable) in a deck like this.
-Alex
the solution is maybe artifacts : spellbomb red & blue are pretty nice to deal damage or to bounce a threat ... something to test
Ok guys, I'll try the cas/cas room. Are you sure it's ok to play counters and discard there, playtesting a deck you want to bring to the PE? Btw, I probably won't be able to play the next PE :( It seems I'll have to wait another couple months :( I hope the PRE really gets organized.
All you can do against pro-red creatures is race or hope you can hit them with Counterspell or Exclude post-board. If they stick an Armadillo Cloak on one, gg. That's why hosers exist -- once again the only viable out I could see running is Snakeform.
I'm not a fan of siding artifact destruction against Relic of Progenitus seeing as you have the following scenarios:
1) You draw artifact destruction and they didn't bring in Relic -- you have 4 dead cards
2) You draw artifact destruction and they don't draw Relic -- you have a dead card
3) You draw artifact destruction, they draw Relic
a. They play relic and you destroy it when they fail to leave 1 up
b. They hold relic until they want to sac it, your artifact destruction is cold
c. You destroy relic, they sac in response
I think you simply have to shrug if they have Relic and play around it the best you can. I'd rather have the 4 Firebolts or whatever else than the artifact destruction I'd be swapping them out for. There aren't any other artifacts that I want to destroy other than say Vedalkan Outlander which I'd need blue artifact destruction for anyway.
I don't think that sparky or mogg fan would fit. Also, I think if you're playing careful study, its worth testing fiery temper.
That is fair. Again I haven't had a chance to really examine the video or play this deck, so I am going on experience from my old SwSa builds.
That being said, you are running quite a few cards to make SwSa good, rather than have a deck where SwSa slots in nicely...just something to consider.
-Alex
I really like this article better then the last one. I do caution to have some artifact destruction in the side board to deal w/ Relic of Progenitus which ruins your Swirling Sandstorm, and is in a lot of side boards. I really like the idea of adding Flaring Pain.
in my (short) experience with this deck, there was enough removal to be alive until you cast swerling,if there was not too many discard effect before. However, it is very very difficult to deal with an opponent running protection from red creatures in the early game (the deck has no real solution to that) ... that was the case in one of my matches : the guy was running Vedalken Outlanders which killed me easly with A. cloack ...
Thoughts on how Spark Elemental and or Mogg Fanatic would or would not fit.
I played in a 40+ Daily event yesterday, I was also playing the G/W deck :) Anywho, I played vs the esper beatdown deck twice in the swiss, 5cc twice in the swiss and I believe the other 2 matchups were vs jund, I went 5-1 in the swiss, and lost in the top 8 vs the esper beatdown deck because of a bad mulligan decision game 3. The 5cc matchup is pretty tough, and you have to get a quality beatdown draw, additionally I can't think of any standout board cards :( Although I only played 3 thornling, I would definitely consider a fourth. I would say the format is pretty diverse, although in the past it really hasn't been. The pro tour displayed a wealth of high level innovation that should keep the format interesting until Zenidar or w/e it's called hehe.
Nice decks!
Though a playset of demigods is beyond my qualificaion of budget, the rest of that first deck is fairly cheap. I was taken aback a bit to see that as the card featured in the first deck in the list of budget decks.
'I don't know where to start, but i think i should just say that if u want tips from someone who has 15 Qps this season solely based on Xed sealed, tt's urs truly.'
Well it seems as though not only has this site become a flurry on conceited players to some extent yet do realize 10th Sealed is the format for new players, and players who consistently don't want any challenges. So if your bragging about card decisions and success in this format I am sure you have many other worries.
I could in theory say the same about limited in general and winning 50+ DE's or PE's and such.... like I think my brain fried after I read that comment.