The standings are after the top8. So it is normal that the guy played the same opponenet twice. Once at the last round before top8 and once in the first round of top8
By winning your last round, you pushed up Phaedrus' tiebreakers, and earned a 2-3 opponent to lower your own. I guess you can lose for winning. Also, it looks like the 3rd place guy played the same opp twice: osmanozguney, unless there was another osmanoz-something that dropped and isn't appearing on the standings.
By FAR your best article! And that means much as all your articles have been top notch!
Great aproach to the whole "luck" factor in magic, it's rewarding seeing this dept and to understand a little more about what is, in it's core, Magic as a "trading-card game" opposite to Magic as "Skill game".
If they can do RGD as ticket only, why cant they just do that for all of them...
Say at least for as long as the packs are sold in the store, and the after the packs are no longer sold in the store, switch those drafts over to pack-only.
Is it that they are trying to avoid the appearance of gambling? Because if so, I don’t see how having some ticket-only drafts fits in to that.
And I don’t see why it couldn’t be 3 packs+2 tix or 15 tix, to still allow people to use their prize packs.
Yes, the explanations are helpful. I still disagree with some of your choices, but that is the nature of 100 singleton, there isn't one true optimal build.
I like the interaction between Wirewood Symbiote, Earthcraft, and Caller of the Claw. The fact that it can be tutored from a dying Wirewood Herald to give you an army back is just gravy.
What's nice about Coat and Overrun is that they can be tutored for at the end of your opponent's turn with Enlightened Tutor or Mystic Tutor. If you've got 3-4 elves out and your opponent taps out without destroying them, it's an easy, oops I win scenario. I'm not sure Garruk fills that same role.
I guess my real concern about this deck is how you have so many tutors and so few options to choose from. If your opponent puts out a Moat, which shuts down both of your main combos, then Enlightened Tutor, Mystical Tutor, and Idyllic Tutor can't search for much of anything to help you. When I first saw this deck it seemed very untested because of some of your choices. I can see now that you have tested it effectively and have just made deckbuilding choices that are different from the ones I would have made.
Not really true. You CAN work backwards and find the optimum solution (and figure out if it is better to be black or white or that a draw is optimal assuming both players play perfectly). The computers of today are just not powerful enough to do so within a meaningful deadline.
But chance is expensive in game theory. Here I mean that you CAN model Chess as a Deterministic Graphical Games (you can also model it using simpler systems but it will not be much faster to solve), but you will need the added power of Simple Stochcastic Games (which is nodes allowing randomness) for Magic. We can solve any Deterministic Graphical Games in time O(n logn + m) where n is the number of nodes (positions) and m is the number of edges (ways to move).
I think the strongest published result for SSGs with ralative few random nodes is O(r!mn) (By Florian and Horn) where m and n is like before and r is the number of random nodes. It is often expected that it is a polynomial but none have actually shown it (the usual solution for this kind of games is using Hoffman-Karp but it got exponentiel worst case - atleast U(2^(n^(1/2))).
Furtheremore I expect that m and n is alot larger in Magic than in Chess. I mean just think of how many ways you can manaburn your self (in your upkeep, drawstep or any other)...
i just don't get it. is it so difficult to make a server scalable and able to handle 2-3000 people? i don't think so. mtgo programmers are pretty incompetent i think. they should just outsource get a good consultant or both...
I agree that the Kamigawa basic land arts are good. Especially mountain and island. And the best thing is that when you put four Kamigawa plains for example with different art next to each other, you get the full art (which is also true for other basic lands of that set). An excellent idea!
But to me, Ravnica's basic lands are the best of the best. Until the release of that set, I was only playing with Mirage's basic lands, because they are simply awesome. But Ravnica changed all of that.
Today, unless I'm playing block (which I only play with the basic lands of that block), I ONLY play with Ravnica basic lands.
@ blandestk :i only hope you dont consider all comments in the same way. An article without any comments (especially about draft) is uninteresting to me : the aim of a draft article is to share opinions with the writer to get multiple points of view (nobody is perfect, neither the reader nor the writer). It is the basis to improve skill & experience, especially if you dont agree with the writer on some choices.
About respect, firstly you have to remeber that all the players are not perfect english speaker (for example, my english skills are pretty weak, and i am never sure if what i wrote is correctly done or not). It could have an influence on way to write comments also.
Secondly, your comment sounds pretty disrespectful by putting in the same boat all comments writer, and i see no reasons, no interest, no constructive approach by doing that. If you are angry about a comment writer, just reply to him directly (click on "reply"). If you are angry about all comment writer, i dont understand why you are coming on a forum place.
Really sorry in advance if i didnt well understand what you meant (you would tell me). I am a mtg player, but i am also administrator in one of the biggest french community which is promoting online games. I am used to moderate forum and by the way, i always hate guys who are providing respect advice by spitting on others....
Your rating system is really out of four; I mean, I GUESS there are cards that you would give a five, but only those of Mulldrifter-esque quality; that is to say, ridiculous commons.
Additionally, your rating system only describes how usable a card is, so technically Vectis Agents (for example) would be more playable than, say, Naturalize. Granted, I'm being nit-picky, but it seems that your rating system bears re-view.
ive just finished download everything, v.3.0.73.2 , when i click the 'creat new account' it will try to connect and then discnnct.. what seems to be causing this? what should i do?
Platipus - that's correct.
Sideboarding patterns will be generally the same as in singleton.
the strength of the wishes are less here. (I'm writing the same thing for next week.. ack) Indeed, most decks won't play them. Probably decks with blue or rock decks will probably the main users this time.
singleton 100 maindecks will change because of this change and games 2,3 will be very very different from what we have today. card evaluation will change significantly too. (ranger of eos for burreton forge tender!)
burning wish is much weaker too(I would think because of the lack of LED in the format and how storm is not played as much (i haven't actually tried making one yet.. I'll try soon))
Arch - Ok. Let me try tackling this card for card:
Congregation at Dawn but no Eladamri's Call - Eladamri's call will probably find 3 basic targets, ranger of eos, regal force or progenitus (if i have dramatic entrance in hand) congregation at dawn can let me set up a chain of creatures or find a few difficult creatures to draw consecutively.
No Elvish Piper in an ELF deck with Progenitus - I have 2 creatures I actually want to piper out so I don't need the piper (regal force n progenitus). dramatic entrance is used here because I can summoner's pact and dramatic entrance immediately and not get whiffed out by burn.
No Caller of the Claw - I usually don't have mana up to cast it when I play and I tend not to lose many creatures in a turn.
No Coat of Arms & No Overrun - I have garruk for that and most decks interact enough to keep me from being non-interactive enough to win with an overrun. They let me win only when I am not losing. Many of the spells played in the deck let me win from a bad position. =)
No Sword of Fire and Ice in an green weenie deck - This card should go in. I was thinking that I didn't need to be afraid of swords because i'm playing the most sword resistant color. Never occured to me that I should have swords myself but I try not to use equipments when i don't have to so that I don't get out-tempoed into my opponent's pace.
Allosaurus Rider in a deck with 31 land, Armageddon and Ravages of War? - allosaurus rider is not a really strong card but it does allow very strong starts against most decks. it's purpose there is to get slightly more milleage from glimpse of nature or use more cards from a weird harvest.
It's not really about dis-synergy with the deck. A mere 1/1 after armageddon is ok since it is very likely that ur opponent has nothing in play and every land makes it bigger and more threatening.
No Tooth or Nail - I tried it already as I wanted to tooth out win conditions but I never managed to play it because I'd get mana elves wrathed and I don't naturally get to 9 mana easily.
Hope the explanations help.
Yeah.. The client lag was horrible. I took more than 5 mins to sign up and another 5 to drop to update the deck.
I'm experiencing in game lags the past few days and I can't play proper magic!!!
Thanks for the comments. I haven't tested out the 5cc archetype in a couple months so I have to admit it could be coincidence that it suddenly surges now as the metagame moves towards more controlling decks. The shift is not unusual and as the format matures it almost always does shift in this exact same fashion. You are also correct that even a few cards can make the difference to win or loss.
As to your specific comments I will concede that even if you are running a singleton of anything then it adds to the deck so the Conflux cards do have effect. Is a major effect? If you believe that 5cc decks are better against midrange and control decks since they allow the time needed to get running then the metagame shift to more controlling decks is a benefit to the 5cc. I think that shift has started to happen and is of greater effect than any cards that Conflux may have added to mix. The possible exception being Exotic Orchard since its drawback isn't much of a drawback to the archetype although unreliable.
I like the idea especially if the 5CC decks continue to be a large player in the metagame. I don't know if removing Infest is the proper choice since it has value versus both the Boros and Mono-White decks which are still pretty prevalent. It would likely work for the same reason that Rotting Rats works. Your discard cards will often get another chance to kick the can.
While I agree on the part that everyone has its own style and that reflects on somewhat even picks, I can't agree that it should be the reason not to write these articles.
If people disagree with my picks and explain why, at the very least I'll read it, consider it and than disagree. But most likely I'll understand his point of view but still prefer my pick as it's just a different style. Or I can even learn something new and become a better player/drafter.
I think I explainned the picks enough. Some of them I didn't feel it was important as they were pretty obvious and those that I had an harder time or that I felt I needed to explain, I tried to explain the best I could.
The decklist was really a mistake as I had uploaded the image and than forgot to put it in the article. Once again sorry about that.
Thats kind of my point.There are lots of details and minor plays that always separate the best players from the average. Stuff like:
Don't break ur fetchlands vs storm to get away from a gigadrowse or the Life from the Loam + Vendilion Trick. Or even what land to play for ur turn.
I agree. I think the poker analogy is the best. It's a mixture of luck and skill, but in the long run, the best players will rise to the top.
On a sidenote, recently I played a game of pauper with a white/blue/black blink deck and had my opponent, playing mono-black control, on the ropes. He had no cards in hand and at one life. These were his draws in a row:
Corrupt for 7.
Crypt Rats clears the board.
Crypt Rats clears my new board.
Crypt Rats clears my new board.
Corrupt for 7.
Each time the guy writes in-game some sort of "wow" comment and I had to do the same. It's one thing to optimally play for the one out you can have. That is skill. But to draw those five cards in a row when you're in full topdeck mode is not playing optimally, it's pure luck.
But sometimes in poker you draw runner-runner and luck out too.
In the long run, though, great players rise above small-scale luck because they are prepared and they know the odds.
All this commentary is really not about the article, which I enjoyed. Just going on about the subject.
Completely agree on Wasteland, it's totally true. Good write up.
Really enjoyed this one man.
Oh and its all about the Guru Equinox lands!
I prefer the feedback the way it is and agree with the above poster
The standings are after the top8. So it is normal that the guy played the same opponenet twice. Once at the last round before top8 and once in the first round of top8
By winning your last round, you pushed up Phaedrus' tiebreakers, and earned a 2-3 opponent to lower your own. I guess you can lose for winning. Also, it looks like the 3rd place guy played the same opp twice: osmanozguney, unless there was another osmanoz-something that dropped and isn't appearing on the standings.
WOW
By FAR your best article! And that means much as all your articles have been top notch!
Great aproach to the whole "luck" factor in magic, it's rewarding seeing this dept and to understand a little more about what is, in it's core, Magic as a "trading-card game" opposite to Magic as "Skill game".
Congratulations
If they can do RGD as ticket only, why cant they just do that for all of them...
Say at least for as long as the packs are sold in the store, and the after the packs are no longer sold in the store, switch those drafts over to pack-only.
Is it that they are trying to avoid the appearance of gambling? Because if so, I don’t see how having some ticket-only drafts fits in to that.
And I don’t see why it couldn’t be 3 packs+2 tix or 15 tix, to still allow people to use their prize packs.
liked the article very much. it has been sometime since i've seen an article discuss these issues online.
way to go!
yeah Randel Flag's belchar build is pretty nice and devastating
Yes, the explanations are helpful. I still disagree with some of your choices, but that is the nature of 100 singleton, there isn't one true optimal build.
I like the interaction between Wirewood Symbiote, Earthcraft, and Caller of the Claw. The fact that it can be tutored from a dying Wirewood Herald to give you an army back is just gravy.
What's nice about Coat and Overrun is that they can be tutored for at the end of your opponent's turn with Enlightened Tutor or Mystic Tutor. If you've got 3-4 elves out and your opponent taps out without destroying them, it's an easy, oops I win scenario. I'm not sure Garruk fills that same role.
I guess my real concern about this deck is how you have so many tutors and so few options to choose from. If your opponent puts out a Moat, which shuts down both of your main combos, then Enlightened Tutor, Mystical Tutor, and Idyllic Tutor can't search for much of anything to help you. When I first saw this deck it seemed very untested because of some of your choices. I can see now that you have tested it effectively and have just made deckbuilding choices that are different from the ones I would have made.
Somewhere in April.. to be confirmed at a later point in time.
Not really true. You CAN work backwards and find the optimum solution (and figure out if it is better to be black or white or that a draw is optimal assuming both players play perfectly). The computers of today are just not powerful enough to do so within a meaningful deadline.
But chance is expensive in game theory. Here I mean that you CAN model Chess as a Deterministic Graphical Games (you can also model it using simpler systems but it will not be much faster to solve), but you will need the added power of Simple Stochcastic Games (which is nodes allowing randomness) for Magic. We can solve any Deterministic Graphical Games in time O(n logn + m) where n is the number of nodes (positions) and m is the number of edges (ways to move).
I think the strongest published result for SSGs with ralative few random nodes is O(r!mn) (By Florian and Horn) where m and n is like before and r is the number of random nodes. It is often expected that it is a polynomial but none have actually shown it (the usual solution for this kind of games is using Hoffman-Karp but it got exponentiel worst case - atleast U(2^(n^(1/2))).
Furtheremore I expect that m and n is alot larger in Magic than in Chess. I mean just think of how many ways you can manaburn your self (in your upkeep, drawstep or any other)...
i just don't get it. is it so difficult to make a server scalable and able to handle 2-3000 people? i don't think so. mtgo programmers are pretty incompetent i think. they should just outsource get a good consultant or both...
Aaah a fellow Vorthos! Thanks for stopping by.
I agree that the Kamigawa basic land arts are good. Especially mountain and island. And the best thing is that when you put four Kamigawa plains for example with different art next to each other, you get the full art (which is also true for other basic lands of that set). An excellent idea!
But to me, Ravnica's basic lands are the best of the best. Until the release of that set, I was only playing with Mirage's basic lands, because they are simply awesome. But Ravnica changed all of that.
Today, unless I'm playing block (which I only play with the basic lands of that block), I ONLY play with Ravnica basic lands.
LE
@ blandestk :i only hope you dont consider all comments in the same way. An article without any comments (especially about draft) is uninteresting to me : the aim of a draft article is to share opinions with the writer to get multiple points of view (nobody is perfect, neither the reader nor the writer). It is the basis to improve skill & experience, especially if you dont agree with the writer on some choices.
About respect, firstly you have to remeber that all the players are not perfect english speaker (for example, my english skills are pretty weak, and i am never sure if what i wrote is correctly done or not). It could have an influence on way to write comments also.
Secondly, your comment sounds pretty disrespectful by putting in the same boat all comments writer, and i see no reasons, no interest, no constructive approach by doing that. If you are angry about a comment writer, just reply to him directly (click on "reply"). If you are angry about all comment writer, i dont understand why you are coming on a forum place.
Really sorry in advance if i didnt well understand what you meant (you would tell me). I am a mtg player, but i am also administrator in one of the biggest french community which is promoting online games. I am used to moderate forum and by the way, i always hate guys who are providing respect advice by spitting on others....
With all my respect
Thank you for a great article. This, and the article you mentioned in the beginning, is one of the reasons I go to PureMTGO often :)
And yes, land-art matters - which is why I only use Kamigawa lands...best lands ever
When are sideboards starting for 100c?
Your rating system is really out of four; I mean, I GUESS there are cards that you would give a five, but only those of Mulldrifter-esque quality; that is to say, ridiculous commons.
Additionally, your rating system only describes how usable a card is, so technically Vectis Agents (for example) would be more playable than, say, Naturalize. Granted, I'm being nit-picky, but it seems that your rating system bears re-view.
Anyway, it was a pretty good read.
ive just finished download everything, v.3.0.73.2 , when i click the 'creat new account' it will try to connect and then discnnct.. what seems to be causing this? what should i do?
Platipus - that's correct.
Sideboarding patterns will be generally the same as in singleton.
the strength of the wishes are less here. (I'm writing the same thing for next week.. ack) Indeed, most decks won't play them. Probably decks with blue or rock decks will probably the main users this time.
singleton 100 maindecks will change because of this change and games 2,3 will be very very different from what we have today. card evaluation will change significantly too. (ranger of eos for burreton forge tender!)
burning wish is much weaker too(I would think because of the lack of LED in the format and how storm is not played as much (i haven't actually tried making one yet.. I'll try soon))
Arch - Ok. Let me try tackling this card for card:
Congregation at Dawn but no Eladamri's Call - Eladamri's call will probably find 3 basic targets, ranger of eos, regal force or progenitus (if i have dramatic entrance in hand) congregation at dawn can let me set up a chain of creatures or find a few difficult creatures to draw consecutively.
No Elvish Piper in an ELF deck with Progenitus - I have 2 creatures I actually want to piper out so I don't need the piper (regal force n progenitus). dramatic entrance is used here because I can summoner's pact and dramatic entrance immediately and not get whiffed out by burn.
No Caller of the Claw - I usually don't have mana up to cast it when I play and I tend not to lose many creatures in a turn.
No Coat of Arms & No Overrun - I have garruk for that and most decks interact enough to keep me from being non-interactive enough to win with an overrun. They let me win only when I am not losing. Many of the spells played in the deck let me win from a bad position. =)
No Sword of Fire and Ice in an green weenie deck - This card should go in. I was thinking that I didn't need to be afraid of swords because i'm playing the most sword resistant color. Never occured to me that I should have swords myself but I try not to use equipments when i don't have to so that I don't get out-tempoed into my opponent's pace.
Allosaurus Rider in a deck with 31 land, Armageddon and Ravages of War? - allosaurus rider is not a really strong card but it does allow very strong starts against most decks. it's purpose there is to get slightly more milleage from glimpse of nature or use more cards from a weird harvest.
It's not really about dis-synergy with the deck. A mere 1/1 after armageddon is ok since it is very likely that ur opponent has nothing in play and every land makes it bigger and more threatening.
No Tooth or Nail - I tried it already as I wanted to tooth out win conditions but I never managed to play it because I'd get mana elves wrathed and I don't naturally get to 9 mana easily.
Hope the explanations help.
Yeah.. The client lag was horrible. I took more than 5 mins to sign up and another 5 to drop to update the deck.
I'm experiencing in game lags the past few days and I can't play proper magic!!!
Thanks for the comments. I haven't tested out the 5cc archetype in a couple months so I have to admit it could be coincidence that it suddenly surges now as the metagame moves towards more controlling decks. The shift is not unusual and as the format matures it almost always does shift in this exact same fashion. You are also correct that even a few cards can make the difference to win or loss.
As to your specific comments I will concede that even if you are running a singleton of anything then it adds to the deck so the Conflux cards do have effect. Is a major effect? If you believe that 5cc decks are better against midrange and control decks since they allow the time needed to get running then the metagame shift to more controlling decks is a benefit to the 5cc. I think that shift has started to happen and is of greater effect than any cards that Conflux may have added to mix. The possible exception being Exotic Orchard since its drawback isn't much of a drawback to the archetype although unreliable.
Thanks! I appreciate your comments and insight
I like the idea especially if the 5CC decks continue to be a large player in the metagame. I don't know if removing Infest is the proper choice since it has value versus both the Boros and Mono-White decks which are still pretty prevalent. It would likely work for the same reason that Rotting Rats works. Your discard cards will often get another chance to kick the can.
While I agree on the part that everyone has its own style and that reflects on somewhat even picks, I can't agree that it should be the reason not to write these articles.
If people disagree with my picks and explain why, at the very least I'll read it, consider it and than disagree. But most likely I'll understand his point of view but still prefer my pick as it's just a different style. Or I can even learn something new and become a better player/drafter.
I think I explainned the picks enough. Some of them I didn't feel it was important as they were pretty obvious and those that I had an harder time or that I felt I needed to explain, I tried to explain the best I could.
The decklist was really a mistake as I had uploaded the image and than forgot to put it in the article. Once again sorry about that.
Thats kind of my point.There are lots of details and minor plays that always separate the best players from the average. Stuff like:
Don't break ur fetchlands vs storm to get away from a gigadrowse or the Life from the Loam + Vendilion Trick. Or even what land to play for ur turn.
I agree. I think the poker analogy is the best. It's a mixture of luck and skill, but in the long run, the best players will rise to the top.
On a sidenote, recently I played a game of pauper with a white/blue/black blink deck and had my opponent, playing mono-black control, on the ropes. He had no cards in hand and at one life. These were his draws in a row:
Corrupt for 7.
Crypt Rats clears the board.
Crypt Rats clears my new board.
Crypt Rats clears my new board.
Corrupt for 7.
Each time the guy writes in-game some sort of "wow" comment and I had to do the same. It's one thing to optimally play for the one out you can have. That is skill. But to draw those five cards in a row when you're in full topdeck mode is not playing optimally, it's pure luck.
But sometimes in poker you draw runner-runner and luck out too.
In the long run, though, great players rise above small-scale luck because they are prepared and they know the odds.
All this commentary is really not about the article, which I enjoyed. Just going on about the subject.