I get a lot of heat from random people for playing with good cards in classic casual.
It has, so far, never bothered me. Of course since the average person has 0 idea what constitutes a tournament-level classic deck, it usually difficult to argue with them. I point them to CQ but usually they've done me a favour and blocked me before I can point out that if I was playing a tourney deck, I'd use Force of Will and Daze and not a single playset of couterspell. But that distinction is lost on most people.
Then again, some of them just conceed when I play the Engineered Plagues I've taken to playing a couple of maindeck. I can only assume their deck-making skill do not stretch far beyond the text to the right of "Creature".
Or they complain that my deck is too "money". It's getting harder to resist the urge to respond with: "Yes, I've paid for the right to pwn j00". Nevermind that the reason I won the game was with a .50 Duress, a well timed $1 Swords to Plowshares and all the times you attacked into an untapped Foil Aether Vials that I think cost me $2 for a playset...
So Hammy, if it's the verbal abuse of your opponent you are worried about, play your old tournament decks in casual...
Just don't add Thoughtseize/Counterspell, dual lands or indeed any cards worth more than say, 10 tix and you'll be fine.
The reason ANT is winning has very little to do with the absense of Pox. Pox wasn't ever all that great against ANT - it's not like a deck that runs 4 Petals and 4 Chrome Mox and 4 LEDs and no creatures would ever care about Smallpox, and when you go first, beating Pox out (and the 7 life you lose) wasn't too hard.
Where ANT comes in is when the format starts moving away from 7/8 decks having FoW, Daze. and 4-8 more counters in them. Fighting through that wall of counters is difficult, since those decks will often drop a single threat (ually a goyf) and bring your life total to an unmanageable amount in ANT.
When the counterspell count moves toward 8 and you can run 8x Duressseize + SB Pacts, suddenly your game against control elements increases.
Also, it seems the RDW decks have gone down, and the Ankh version doesn't have a lot of game against ANT for the same reason - lands? What lands? With RDW you were mulling hoping to see the perfect turn 1 hand, because by turn 2 you were down to 11 life.
Some of these decks will be old tourney decks which for various reasons, are just not viable anymore. Pros-Bloom is one of them. It's a blast to play and does some amazing things but couldn't hold water in a real Classic tournament. In the Casual room however, they're going to be pretty solid.
There will be some decks that just aren't necessary to revisit. U/G Madness, Affinity, etc, all are still just as powerful and just as potent as they were in the day and I don't really see the need to dust those off right yet. I'm looking into mostly block decks though, as they have a very strange lifespan and often times aren't fully explored before they're put away. Take a deck like Gifts Ungiven from Kami Block. It was a strong deck in its day, but what would it do in Extended? What can be added to it? There's a lot of unexplored room in the blocks we have access to that really is unfortunately never delved into before the next block comes out. I hope to fix that, at least a little!
You forgot to describe the secret tech of keeping a Prosperous Bloom in your lap for when you really need it the most... Oh wait, can't do that on MTGO!
Yes, you are right about that... I think the best thing to do in this situation is to probably add some sort of notification along the lines of, "Hey man, you can't cast your WW spell".
suggests 1-4-11-2-6 which would mean I would be unable to cast the WW spell. Why I would be playing such a terrible mix is another question but 0 or 2 plains seems definitely better than 1 for that combination.
If anyone knows, that info would be great... I tried to mess around with it, but I couldn't even find the function - then I was told that you can only use it while building decks for limited? I never play limited, which explains why I couldn't find it.
Personally, I don't like the top 8 decks from any of the 3 pes not because they are not good. I believe that I have the capacity to work on a "general archetype" deck and win on a normal day after some amount of testing so if I really wanted to play one of those, it would definitely not be a real issue.
However, I want to drive across the idea that decks out of "color + aggro/control/aggro-control" exist as seen from a couple of them.
As such, my aim in these tournaments are primarilly to prove that more deliberate decks (over broad strategy decks) can be successful and I hope to see people move out of those decks and explore the format more aggressively because I believe that the format can be much more than what the results claim it to be.
I am probably the wrong person to try to push a deck into top 8 because I have troubles playing well past 2am (round 2) and I really don't like that fact because the mistakes I make really insult the capabilities of the decks I've played thus far.
That said, it is somewhat disheartening to see a writer of a format not put up good numbers in the PE of the format he writes about and I recognize that as well but I really want to change the mindsets of those playing the format so that they can show me what I don't see in the format unless 100 card singleton is actually the simple format it is shown to be and I really hope that that is, in fact, far from the truth.
To testify my thinking, it can be seen that the cheap combos that I get free wins out of are hardly even played when they can otherwise without much compromising.
The Transmuter deck doesn't port well to block. The main combo piece (besides Transmuter) is the Thousand Year Elixir, and without that, it really leaves the Transmuter open. I've played some games in the casual room with a ported deck. I run 4 countersquall, 4 hindering light, and 4 cancel to try to keep him safe. The other thing, is that you're only going to get to use the transmuter once each turn, so two magma sprays means one is going to hit.
If you can get into it and keep him on turn 5, and drop your inkwell leviathan, then you still got it out 4 turns early, so that can be good.
Besides that, I don't think it's a viable block deck.
I was putzing around on PureMTGO and skimmed through my article again - I have no idea what I was thinking calling Dragonsoul Knight a 1st-3rd that's just way off. He's a 3rd-5th. Sorry about that.
I have spent a very long time in the game learning how to do what this "simple land calc" does. I take pride in making solid mana bases, especially for limited pools (because I've learnt how to run many colors from the time of ravnica block thru tons of trial and error). I think those "new players", who are the main audience for this article, should really make use of this to make better mana bases.
I saw a "suggest" function in the client (in limited) the other day which I didn't use so I wonder if that that might be similar to this. I don't think it actually exists as a tool for making constructed decks so trying this out can be a very good learning platform to get out of the extreme case of half forest/half plains type of "really simple" mana base which does not take into account the cards in the deck. People neglect the mana base thinking that it's not important but it accounts for half your games really.
Thanks for the point, I actually took the ratings right after the draft fired - before any matches were completed and rating changes occurred. This is also the only way you can see if an AAC draft was 4-3-2-2, sealed swiss, etc since the description in "Completed Games" usually just tells you which sets were draft.
One thing I find noteworthy is seeing the averages well over 1600 in every format, even a significant amount over in the swiss. Of course that means the people who stay are "feeding" on some ratings points from people who get below average results in one or more drafts, and then quit drafting with a sub-1600 rating, leaving the points they lost "in the pool" amongst drafters who are staying around.
I think it's inevitable to see some amount of this phenomenon, given basic human nature. But I'd also say, the closer the averages get to 1600 the more Wizards is succeeding at making the overall experience feel satisfying and worth the money spent to most of the playerbase, rather than just the better skilled players. That's a sign of both a healthier business for them, and for us players a more varied range of opponent skills, rather than just mostly "shark infested waters".
I am curious how hard it would be to try and do some followup analysis to estimate how many drafts someone plays before they quit, what quitting rates are like at different points along the rating spectrum, etc.
Steve, nice article. I don't see the reason for all the silverlight hate; i didnt have it, but it was a 0.5 second install to see the nifty calc app. Nice work
I didn't think Silverlight was going to be such a big deal, the install is completely painless... but here's why I used it:
1. I wanted to try out some new-ish technology.
2. I'm glad I did, since as a programmer/developer it's about 1,000,000 times better to work with than Flash. It is really night and day.
3. Paying $700 for Flash just doesn't seem like money well spent, and I'm not really into using "lite" versions.. If I'm going to be working with something I want it to be the full thing.
Unfortunately it's a bummer that you guys seem to be so against it, so I guess I'll rethink before I do something like this again. Which is kind of disappointing, since I thought it was a really cool framework for an article!
I may have missed something re: the "Placement Ranges for AAC Limited" but are the ratings based on pre- or post-tournament values? For example, if you looked at who finished 1st in a swiss draft and then took their rating you'd be inflating the starting rating (since of course it went up over the course of the draft). Unless you discounted by K-value to estimate the starting value of the players, I'm not sure how much explanatory value the chart has.
I started testing for this format as soon as I heard about it (some of you early testers ahve probably already played me). Aggro will be tough to deal with in this format unless Alara Reborn gives some sort of (playable) sweeper. Unless you have an early answer for a turn 3 Wooly Thoctar you are going to have a rough day. Also Oversoul of Dusk may be a fantastic finisher. It evades almost all removal and so far I have only seen it dealt with via Glare of Subdual. Look for RGW to be a powerful archetype.
I get a lot of heat from random people for playing with good cards in classic casual.
It has, so far, never bothered me. Of course since the average person has 0 idea what constitutes a tournament-level classic deck, it usually difficult to argue with them. I point them to CQ but usually they've done me a favour and blocked me before I can point out that if I was playing a tourney deck, I'd use Force of Will and Daze and not a single playset of couterspell. But that distinction is lost on most people.
Then again, some of them just conceed when I play the Engineered Plagues I've taken to playing a couple of maindeck. I can only assume their deck-making skill do not stretch far beyond the text to the right of "Creature".
Or they complain that my deck is too "money". It's getting harder to resist the urge to respond with: "Yes, I've paid for the right to pwn j00". Nevermind that the reason I won the game was with a .50 Duress, a well timed $1 Swords to Plowshares and all the times you attacked into an untapped Foil Aether Vials that I think cost me $2 for a playset...
So Hammy, if it's the verbal abuse of your opponent you are worried about, play your old tournament decks in casual...
Just don't add Thoughtseize/Counterspell, dual lands or indeed any cards worth more than say, 10 tix and you'll be fine.
ZING!
Nice article, Andrew.
The reason ANT is winning has very little to do with the absense of Pox. Pox wasn't ever all that great against ANT - it's not like a deck that runs 4 Petals and 4 Chrome Mox and 4 LEDs and no creatures would ever care about Smallpox, and when you go first, beating Pox out (and the 7 life you lose) wasn't too hard.
Where ANT comes in is when the format starts moving away from 7/8 decks having FoW, Daze. and 4-8 more counters in them. Fighting through that wall of counters is difficult, since those decks will often drop a single threat (ually a goyf) and bring your life total to an unmanageable amount in ANT.
When the counterspell count moves toward 8 and you can run 8x Duressseize + SB Pacts, suddenly your game against control elements increases.
Also, it seems the RDW decks have gone down, and the Ankh version doesn't have a lot of game against ANT for the same reason - lands? What lands? With RDW you were mulling hoping to see the perfect turn 1 hand, because by turn 2 you were down to 11 life.
Some of these decks will be old tourney decks which for various reasons, are just not viable anymore. Pros-Bloom is one of them. It's a blast to play and does some amazing things but couldn't hold water in a real Classic tournament. In the Casual room however, they're going to be pretty solid.
There will be some decks that just aren't necessary to revisit. U/G Madness, Affinity, etc, all are still just as powerful and just as potent as they were in the day and I don't really see the need to dust those off right yet. I'm looking into mostly block decks though, as they have a very strange lifespan and often times aren't fully explored before they're put away. Take a deck like Gifts Ungiven from Kami Block. It was a strong deck in its day, but what would it do in Extended? What can be added to it? There's a lot of unexplored room in the blocks we have access to that really is unfortunately never delved into before the next block comes out. I hope to fix that, at least a little!
You forgot to describe the secret tech of keeping a Prosperous Bloom in your lap for when you really need it the most... Oh wait, can't do that on MTGO!
Well, if you can't play old tournament decks in the casual room, then where can you play them?
Foil Necropotence maybe? Or maybe they didn't care about the rares so much, and just wanted to do well in the draft?
Yes, you are right about that... I think the best thing to do in this situation is to probably add some sort of notification along the lines of, "Hey man, you can't cast your WW spell".
Nice article and nice app.
I think the app may have a bug though. For:
W 0 1
U 6 0
B 15 1
R 3 0
G 8 0
suggests 1-4-11-2-6 which would mean I would be unable to cast the WW spell. Why I would be playing such a terrible mix is another question but 0 or 2 plains seems definitely better than 1 for that combination.
Thanks for your efforts!
If anyone knows, that info would be great... I tried to mess around with it, but I couldn't even find the function - then I was told that you can only use it while building decks for limited? I never play limited, which explains why I couldn't find it.
This looks like a cool app. Well done. Has anyone compared it to the "Suggest Land" app on MTGO 3.0? Do they calculate the same way?
Personally, I don't like the top 8 decks from any of the 3 pes not because they are not good. I believe that I have the capacity to work on a "general archetype" deck and win on a normal day after some amount of testing so if I really wanted to play one of those, it would definitely not be a real issue.
However, I want to drive across the idea that decks out of "color + aggro/control/aggro-control" exist as seen from a couple of them.
As such, my aim in these tournaments are primarilly to prove that more deliberate decks (over broad strategy decks) can be successful and I hope to see people move out of those decks and explore the format more aggressively because I believe that the format can be much more than what the results claim it to be.
I am probably the wrong person to try to push a deck into top 8 because I have troubles playing well past 2am (round 2) and I really don't like that fact because the mistakes I make really insult the capabilities of the decks I've played thus far.
That said, it is somewhat disheartening to see a writer of a format not put up good numbers in the PE of the format he writes about and I recognize that as well but I really want to change the mindsets of those playing the format so that they can show me what I don't see in the format unless 100 card singleton is actually the simple format it is shown to be and I really hope that that is, in fact, far from the truth.
To testify my thinking, it can be seen that the cheap combos that I get free wins out of are hardly even played when they can otherwise without much compromising.
Metalman -
The Transmuter deck doesn't port well to block. The main combo piece (besides Transmuter) is the Thousand Year Elixir, and without that, it really leaves the Transmuter open. I've played some games in the casual room with a ported deck. I run 4 countersquall, 4 hindering light, and 4 cancel to try to keep him safe. The other thing, is that you're only going to get to use the transmuter once each turn, so two magma sprays means one is going to hit.
If you can get into it and keep him on turn 5, and drop your inkwell leviathan, then you still got it out 4 turns early, so that can be good.
Besides that, I don't think it's a viable block deck.
I was putzing around on PureMTGO and skimmed through my article again - I have no idea what I was thinking calling Dragonsoul Knight a 1st-3rd that's just way off. He's a 3rd-5th. Sorry about that.
I have spent a very long time in the game learning how to do what this "simple land calc" does. I take pride in making solid mana bases, especially for limited pools (because I've learnt how to run many colors from the time of ravnica block thru tons of trial and error). I think those "new players", who are the main audience for this article, should really make use of this to make better mana bases.
I saw a "suggest" function in the client (in limited) the other day which I didn't use so I wonder if that that might be similar to this. I don't think it actually exists as a tool for making constructed decks so trying this out can be a very good learning platform to get out of the extreme case of half forest/half plains type of "really simple" mana base which does not take into account the cards in the deck. People neglect the mana base thinking that it's not important but it accounts for half your games really.
Gj Steve.
That is a well-designed script and a nice effot.
Thanks for the point, I actually took the ratings right after the draft fired - before any matches were completed and rating changes occurred. This is also the only way you can see if an AAC draft was 4-3-2-2, sealed swiss, etc since the description in "Completed Games" usually just tells you which sets were draft.
One thing I find noteworthy is seeing the averages well over 1600 in every format, even a significant amount over in the swiss. Of course that means the people who stay are "feeding" on some ratings points from people who get below average results in one or more drafts, and then quit drafting with a sub-1600 rating, leaving the points they lost "in the pool" amongst drafters who are staying around.
I think it's inevitable to see some amount of this phenomenon, given basic human nature. But I'd also say, the closer the averages get to 1600 the more Wizards is succeeding at making the overall experience feel satisfying and worth the money spent to most of the playerbase, rather than just the better skilled players. That's a sign of both a healthier business for them, and for us players a more varied range of opponent skills, rather than just mostly "shark infested waters".
I am curious how hard it would be to try and do some followup analysis to estimate how many drafts someone plays before they quit, what quitting rates are like at different points along the rating spectrum, etc.
Steve, nice article. I don't see the reason for all the silverlight hate; i didnt have it, but it was a 0.5 second install to see the nifty calc app. Nice work
erm MICHAEL = girl name ? I guess not.
EDIT : For some strange reason your answer wasn't displayed when I posted o_O . Nice article btw :]
I didn't think Silverlight was going to be such a big deal, the install is completely painless... but here's why I used it:
1. I wanted to try out some new-ish technology.
2. I'm glad I did, since as a programmer/developer it's about 1,000,000 times better to work with than Flash. It is really night and day.
3. Paying $700 for Flash just doesn't seem like money well spent, and I'm not really into using "lite" versions.. If I'm going to be working with something I want it to be the full thing.
Unfortunately it's a bummer that you guys seem to be so against it, so I guess I'll rethink before I do something like this again. Which is kind of disappointing, since I thought it was a really cool framework for an article!
I may have missed something re: the "Placement Ranges for AAC Limited" but are the ratings based on pre- or post-tournament values? For example, if you looked at who finished 1st in a swiss draft and then took their rating you'd be inflating the starting rating (since of course it went up over the course of the draft). Unless you discounted by K-value to estimate the starting value of the players, I'm not sure how much explanatory value the chart has.
haha im the guy, the girl is my wife who im trying to convince to get her to play on MTGO
Why not adoble Flash ( Flex ) or Simply Javascript with AJAX if you want :)
I started testing for this format as soon as I heard about it (some of you early testers ahve probably already played me). Aggro will be tough to deal with in this format unless Alara Reborn gives some sort of (playable) sweeper. Unless you have an early answer for a turn 3 Wooly Thoctar you are going to have a rough day. Also Oversoul of Dusk may be a fantastic finisher. It evades almost all removal and so far I have only seen it dealt with via Glare of Subdual. Look for RGW to be a powerful archetype.