I guess Relic of Progenitus isn't much worse then Chromatic Star, or Sunbeam Spellbomb some WW used those a lot for draw in future extended. Still 3 seems a bit much there's other options like Beckon Apparition which can give you a creature at flash speed.
There is no doubt a good deal of graveyard recursion in the format, but the question is, does White Weenie fear this? In my experience, no. WW wants to win through applying constant early pressure and forcing in damage, using its supplemental spells to clear out blockers- Relic does not do any of these things.
Relic is a fine card, but in a deck that values threat density and redundancy, it does nothing to help you win- only stops you from losing.
There is a lot of graveyard recursion in the format in general, and for the WW list with the relics of progenitus, there certainly is rational to running a versatile card like this that also cycles for 2. I personally play deathspark, and that could be pretty solid vs all those 1 toughness critters, there is also think twice, momentary blink, retrace, black cards and any other number of cards that involve the graveyard. I certainly like kami of the ancient law too, but I wouldn't right off maindecking relic of progenitus, at least I don't understand why you had such a big backlash against it :)
Even though I can't block off the time to play in the PE's, as a spectator I'm loving your coverage Alex. This metagame info is useful even if one is just playing the 2-mans.
On the WW Deck. I too think it looks clunky. I've had a lot of success in the 2-mans with a 20 land WW dec that focuses on 1 drops (Martyr, Homunculous, and Mosquito Guard) curving up to Ballyknock and backed up with bonesplitters and Cenn's tokens. You're right about WW needing a quick win. My worst matchup is with Tempo based dex like Cogs or Blink.
Secondly, I was trying to build a 4 color combo deck that incorporated both grindstone+ painter or nest+ earthcraft as a win, but i ran out of time, so i punted, threw together a bunch of cards from my r/g agro my last go around, and had to submit *something* before i ran out of time. I honestly did not expect to top 8 much less top 4 with this list. I appologize to everyone with a better list that didn't make finals/finshed below me.
Intersting side note, Nest was pretty good without the combo ever winning. I drew craft with it once, but they killed my craft in response to me casting the nest. In top 8, I drew my painters played it naming blue out of habit as thats what i do in classic....... then i topdeck sword of fire and ice. Yuck.
I would really like to have it unbanned, but I don't think it makes sense. There are some absolutely devastating piles that you can set-up (particularly in 100-card where there is extra space without as much risk of drawing "bad" cards that are only there to enable Gift piles). If the format was 60-card I think it would be less strong - you get to draw Gifts more often, but you certainly can not afford to run as many Gift packages to suit every situation, and notably the aggro decks would also be tighter (they would get their best creatures more often than they do in 100-card).
I still disagree with your guild lineup, but that may well be due to a difference in the decks we play and the field we experience. The only things I truly question are the mentions of Scourge of the Nobilis and Rain of Gore... Ew... Admittedly both can be blowouts if you have no answers, but you really don't have any excuse not to have answers in a format like this.
Otherwise, great article; I can appreciate your look at Anathemancer, but from what I've seen of it, the zombie wizard may, actually be far stronger than I first thought. I hesitate to say this now, but it may, in fact, be wrong not to play anathemancer; it's that good all too often. Burning for 4 is not terribly uncommon even against the two-color decks...
One final note on the emerging meta: Firespout has just skyrocketed in value. The new aggro decks play many more small creatures and wiping as many as 4 creatures off the board is now happening much more often than it once did.
Sen Triplets is overrated... Usually if it does anything good you were probably winning anyway.
I played in 3 of the pre-release events.... mostly filled with bad players (no offense). I can only hope the same holds true for the release events tomorrow!
The statement that "anything restricted in Vintage should be restricted in Classic" is false. An example: Burning Wish. It was perfectly fine in Standard in its time, it was perfectly fine in Extended, it was and is perfectly fine in Classic. It's restricted in Vintage.
Burning Wish is restricted in Vintage, from what I've heard, because it's broken in combination with other Vintage cards, such as Yawgmoth's Will. Without power 9, without YawgWin, without other such cards, many cards in Classic just aren't broken. For a while, Necropotence just wasn't broken in Classic.
My guess as to when that changed, was when we got Lotus Petal. I would guess that the extra +1 storm +1 mana card pushed the deck over the top.
Meanwhile, cards like Burning Wish and Mind's Desire are restricted in Vintage but not in Classic. Burning Wish is played in one or two decks - Loam and some ANT decks, I think - but is by no means broken. There's nothing to break it with. Mind's Desire is 6. mana. With no Lotus or original moxen, Desire-based decks just aren't good in Classic, and are not played to any significant degree.
So far from "anything restricted in P9-format is broken anywhere else", it's the opposite - many cards are restricted in Vintage because of the Power 9 and other such cards, that would be just fine anywhere else.
By the way, another such example: Mystical Tutor. In Vintage, it's broken because of the tons of restricted cards it can fetch. In Classic, it can fetch four out of the five restricted cards, but three of those are tutors themselves - meaning you're set back another turn - while the fourth is Flash, which restricted is good but not broken. Mainly because restricted, you only have one chance to cast Flash no matter how many tutors you have, Reclaim excepted.
i agree the skulls and tutors are far too powerful to be allowed to roam free.
while this is not vintage or legacy , it is a guage of sorts and any card tat is restricted in vintage should be in classic. you have to be really good to be restricted in the home of the p9
By the way I just had a few casual games with my Spellbound Dragon+Clout of the Dominus+Autochthon Wurm deck I briefly mentioned in my previous article and it works!!! God I'm so happy! Izzet rocks!!! (at least in the casual room).
What happens if someone thought hemmorages your hypergenesis and you cascade with no hypergeneses in your deck? Do you lose by decking yourself? I thought this up when thinking of ornithopter + maelstrom nexus. Also, maybe scourglass/time sieve in a version with artifacts?
Anyone ever tried out Ardent Plea? Had one in my sealed deck with five 1 and 2 drop Exalted guys and it was pretty nuts each time, attacking for 5 on Turn 3. Sealed good, constructed terrible thou? Dunno...
I kind of like the concept of having a card that puts an Exalted creature into play that sticks around with a decent ability after the creature gets killed.
with RRR??
go for the blades? shoot for ur and hope for the clouts! do tell
Thanks for this gnawph- it's awesome.
Interesting to note that the most frequently played card did not even crack the top 8.
-Alex
I did some data crunching and came up with a nice list of card appearances in frequency by decks and aggregate total. Swamps FTW?
http://www.thejitte.com/pauper-premier-event-3-crunching-card-frequency-...
I guess Relic of Progenitus isn't much worse then Chromatic Star, or Sunbeam Spellbomb some WW used those a lot for draw in future extended. Still 3 seems a bit much there's other options like Beckon Apparition which can give you a creature at flash speed.
There is no doubt a good deal of graveyard recursion in the format, but the question is, does White Weenie fear this? In my experience, no. WW wants to win through applying constant early pressure and forcing in damage, using its supplemental spells to clear out blockers- Relic does not do any of these things.
Relic is a fine card, but in a deck that values threat density and redundancy, it does nothing to help you win- only stops you from losing.
-Alex
There is a lot of graveyard recursion in the format in general, and for the WW list with the relics of progenitus, there certainly is rational to running a versatile card like this that also cycles for 2. I personally play deathspark, and that could be pretty solid vs all those 1 toughness critters, there is also think twice, momentary blink, retrace, black cards and any other number of cards that involve the graveyard. I certainly like kami of the ancient law too, but I wouldn't right off maindecking relic of progenitus, at least I don't understand why you had such a big backlash against it :)
Even though I can't block off the time to play in the PE's, as a spectator I'm loving your coverage Alex. This metagame info is useful even if one is just playing the 2-mans.
On the WW Deck. I too think it looks clunky. I've had a lot of success in the 2-mans with a 20 land WW dec that focuses on 1 drops (Martyr, Homunculous, and Mosquito Guard) curving up to Ballyknock and backed up with bonesplitters and Cenn's tokens. You're right about WW needing a quick win. My worst matchup is with Tempo based dex like Cogs or Blink.
First of all good job.
Secondly, I was trying to build a 4 color combo deck that incorporated both grindstone+ painter or nest+ earthcraft as a win, but i ran out of time, so i punted, threw together a bunch of cards from my r/g agro my last go around, and had to submit *something* before i ran out of time. I honestly did not expect to top 8 much less top 4 with this list. I appologize to everyone with a better list that didn't make finals/finshed below me.
Intersting side note, Nest was pretty good without the combo ever winning. I drew craft with it once, but they killed my craft in response to me casting the nest. In top 8, I drew my painters played it naming blue out of habit as thats what i do in classic....... then i topdeck sword of fire and ice. Yuck.
u made 2 mistakes when summing up the tallowwisp package, it only searches enchant creatures, so it cant fetch faiths fetters and oblivion ring
To whom are you speaking? Erik, Sebastian, Michael, all of us?
We can only improve if we know what you're actually criticizing, and providing details helps us more.
Sen triplets is not gonna make it. Not not not! ^^
I would really like to have it unbanned, but I don't think it makes sense. There are some absolutely devastating piles that you can set-up (particularly in 100-card where there is extra space without as much risk of drawing "bad" cards that are only there to enable Gift piles). If the format was 60-card I think it would be less strong - you get to draw Gifts more often, but you certainly can not afford to run as many Gift packages to suit every situation, and notably the aggro decks would also be tighter (they would get their best creatures more often than they do in 100-card).
I still disagree with your guild lineup, but that may well be due to a difference in the decks we play and the field we experience. The only things I truly question are the mentions of Scourge of the Nobilis and Rain of Gore... Ew... Admittedly both can be blowouts if you have no answers, but you really don't have any excuse not to have answers in a format like this.
Otherwise, great article; I can appreciate your look at Anathemancer, but from what I've seen of it, the zombie wizard may, actually be far stronger than I first thought. I hesitate to say this now, but it may, in fact, be wrong not to play anathemancer; it's that good all too often. Burning for 4 is not terribly uncommon even against the two-color decks...
One final note on the emerging meta: Firespout has just skyrocketed in value. The new aggro decks play many more small creatures and wiping as many as 4 creatures off the board is now happening much more often than it once did.
Yeah... if your doing an audio podcast... you probably shouldn't have difficulty speaking. Kinda ruins it.
Sen Triplets is overrated... Usually if it does anything good you were probably winning anyway.
I played in 3 of the pre-release events.... mostly filled with bad players (no offense). I can only hope the same holds true for the release events tomorrow!
The statement that "anything restricted in Vintage should be restricted in Classic" is false. An example: Burning Wish. It was perfectly fine in Standard in its time, it was perfectly fine in Extended, it was and is perfectly fine in Classic. It's restricted in Vintage.
Burning Wish is restricted in Vintage, from what I've heard, because it's broken in combination with other Vintage cards, such as Yawgmoth's Will. Without power 9, without YawgWin, without other such cards, many cards in Classic just aren't broken. For a while, Necropotence just wasn't broken in Classic.
My guess as to when that changed, was when we got Lotus Petal. I would guess that the extra +1 storm +1 mana card pushed the deck over the top.
Meanwhile, cards like Burning Wish and Mind's Desire are restricted in Vintage but not in Classic. Burning Wish is played in one or two decks - Loam and some ANT decks, I think - but is by no means broken. There's nothing to break it with. Mind's Desire is 6. mana. With no Lotus or original moxen, Desire-based decks just aren't good in Classic, and are not played to any significant degree.
So far from "anything restricted in P9-format is broken anywhere else", it's the opposite - many cards are restricted in Vintage because of the Power 9 and other such cards, that would be just fine anywhere else.
By the way, another such example: Mystical Tutor. In Vintage, it's broken because of the tons of restricted cards it can fetch. In Classic, it can fetch four out of the five restricted cards, but three of those are tutors themselves - meaning you're set back another turn - while the fourth is Flash, which restricted is good but not broken. Mainly because restricted, you only have one chance to cast Flash no matter how many tutors you have, Reclaim excepted.
i agree the skulls and tutors are far too powerful to be allowed to roam free.
while this is not vintage or legacy , it is a guage of sorts and any card tat is restricted in vintage should be in classic. you have to be really good to be restricted in the home of the p9
I dont think you can deck yourself with cascade. You just wont find a card, so everything will be shuffled back in.
I'm looking forward to combining it with a Mindslaver lock. It should be great fun in casual (well, for me, at least).
Yeah, Triplets is just an insane card and is one that really gets the 'how do I break this' juices flowing.
I fully expect that it will get broken. Somehow. :D
sen triplets.dek? I'm interested :o
By the way I just had a few casual games with my Spellbound Dragon+Clout of the Dominus+Autochthon Wurm deck I briefly mentioned in my previous article and it works!!! God I'm so happy! Izzet rocks!!! (at least in the casual room).
LE
What happens if someone thought hemmorages your hypergenesis and you cascade with no hypergeneses in your deck? Do you lose by decking yourself? I thought this up when thinking of ornithopter + maelstrom nexus. Also, maybe scourglass/time sieve in a version with artifacts?
Anyone ever tried out Ardent Plea? Had one in my sealed deck with five 1 and 2 drop Exalted guys and it was pretty nuts each time, attacking for 5 on Turn 3. Sealed good, constructed terrible thou? Dunno...
I kind of like the concept of having a card that puts an Exalted creature into play that sticks around with a decent ability after the creature gets killed.
That's your opinion and even though my personal experience tells me otherwise, of course I respect that.
LE