Probably worth running a single island if you have Grixis Charm. The Grixis Panorama can fetch it for you if you need it, and the Necropilis gives 3 draws to get blue mana. Splashing a colour is risky with anything less then that, and I certainly wouldn't try to splash with only 1 source of mana in a certain colour.
I wouldn't call Sigil the #1 bomb, seeing as there's enough artifact removal in the set (especially so in ALA-CON), and most sensible players will maindeck some of it in.
Elspeth, Sarkhan, or Flameblast Dragon are all, IMHO, much better bombs, because they win the game on their own.
I'm also going to say that Grixis Charm > Lightning Talons because: 1. Lightening Talons loses to enchantment removal; 2. Lightning Talons gets 2-for-1'ed by creature removal; 3. Grixas Charm only loses to counterspells, and -4/-4 is a lot to give a creature.
Really? the #1 card? Perhaps I am undervaluing it since it can go into any deck at all. Still the #1 non-creature rare? Better than the three main Planeswalkers?
I used my secondary account (KO) to achieve a T4 finish with MBC, quite some support by Ivo (thanks again;) and not much practice.
The irony was that I chose MBC the day before the PE to easily beat Burn and Storm decks and have a positive matchup against Slivers, knowing that it is quite an underdog to Blink and Ux-Control decks. So guess what I played: Slivers, Zoo, Blink, Blink, UBr Control, Blink, UB Control, MBC | Slivers, MBC..
p.s.
What is up with Wizards purging the PEs that fast in V3 ?!
Ty and the combo is grindstone+painter servant to deck your opponent out completely in 1 turn. By lock I mean alot of these classic decks are running all nonbasic lands and most of those decks do not run red as one of their colors so turning all their lands to basic mountains pretty much says I time walk you the rest of the game.
thanks for the kind words; i'll leave the next article on the tourney to you (and i look forward to it).
i happened to watch the replay of your third game in that round when i noticed you mention it. as a spectator i was shocked he somehow didn't timeout on that last turn, so i can't imagine how it would feel as the player. i know for a fact my connection would not have allowed me to play that quickly. i liked your deck, by the way.
Hi. um, congrats on your win, but it would have greatly helped my ability to enjoy this article if you had written just a few sentences explaining HOW your deck 'combos out' and 'locks people out' of games for those who are not thoroughly familiar with all Classic Decks.. such as myself.
If you could give that brief explanation, I would appreciate it. Thanks
Excellent work on the quick turnaround - both to you and the editor. Great to see this fly up!
I piloted White Weenie. I was 3-0 going into round 4 and faced Ivan_Kulbich_aka_Striped's Orzhov Blink. Midrange Control is a very rough matchup for WW as the deck pushes damage slower than other aggressive archetypes. I expected a very rough matchup, and was most pleased to win game 1 and see him at only 7 minutes left on his clock for the next 2 games. He wins game 2 in 4 minutes or so, and with 3 minutes on his clock for game 3 he squeezes out the win with ONE SECOND left on his clock when he quickly F6's through his turn while activating his Blind Hunter for the attack and the win. I really didn't expect to win the matchup, but I thought it was sealed. It was a rough blow. :-) I ended up finishing 5-3.
Easier to search for in MTGO? If you just type "swamp" then you get all sorts of cards like Twisted Abomination. If you type "snow covered" then you get a more focused result. I suppose you could always search for "basic land - swamp" instead.
In truth, I found I took out the Grixis Charm every round. I replaced it with the Lightning Talon most of the time since it helped with getting overrun by bigger creatures. Thx for the comment
Its not that i dont think a hoarder can, i am sure there are some out there that think MTGO is a sound investment. How ever if you have that kind of money and are out to invest why invest in something you do not actually own. All you are hording is digital rights. If you have that kind of money lying around you would be better served else where.
My point was although we may look at the speculators as small time, if you add up all those who maybe seculated they honestly probally did more damage than a few hoarders. I am guilty of speculating on FOW but it was out there everyone was saying fifteen was way too low, so i bit. Really hoarding unless you have the means to do so is pointless and very risky unless you are doing it to a classic set. With the amount of drafts for std sets that launch it would just be a futile attempt to manipulate price.
The only ones who would be capable of doing hoarding for std sets would be those with the abiltiy, network, and means to do so. By this i mean dealers and not the small shops but larger ones for give me heath like you. You have already made it clear you dont, and I beleive you cause so far as long as i and many other have dealt with you have done nothing but been there for the community. It does not mean that other larger chains are not practicing this.
Time wise I agree its not worth it, you have find buyers or cut profits by selling to shops.
I'm in agreement with jvs. You seemed to go for the creatures in lots of cases. What happened to BREAD (Bombs - Removal - Evasion - Agro - Dregs)?
Blister Beatle is a great limited pick, because it not only hits their 1 toughness creatures, but it gives you a nice little chump blocker into the bargain, or a sacrifice for bone splinters, often giving you a two permanent swing on the board. I'd argue similarly for Skeletonize, which is certainly worth it if you hit 5 mana (Naya has a lot of 5 mana, 5 power creatures with 3 toughness!) and gives you regenerating chump blocker too! Bargain.
As for Bone Splinters: having a few of those is well worth it purely for being able to remove any bomb your opponent plays.
Finally, in Grixis I often find its worth having as many 2/3 evasive deathtouchers as I can get. Multiple copies of Kederekt Creeper is insanely difficult to deal with.
you don't think a hoarder can come close to the buying power of 160 copies of a 40 ticket card? You must grossly underestimate the amount of money that some people use as their investment money. That would cost only $6400 to buy every single copy that you had in question at $40 per copy. The current market value is over 50, making a profit of over $1000 on your $6400. Granted, most sane people do not look at FOW as an investment vehicle, due to the demand being pretty low, as well as the time it will take to move all of them out of your inventory. But to assume that a group of speculators who want an extra playset can somehow block the purchases of someone who has real buying power, you are naive in that respect. A few extra hundred as an "investment" in this situation would net you about an extra 50 bucks profit on the additional playset, not to mention the time you have to wait to move the cards, other than the fact that it is free money, it is basically not even worth the time and effort required to purchase the cards and find buyers for them at that amount of profit. Now I know that we are probably talking about some really small time operations when we are talking about MTGO "hoarders", but if someone with some actual money really wanted to, they could easily buy over 300 copies of FOW without even batting an eyelash. Granted, most people that have that kind of investment money would be better served putting it somewhere else, unless they enjoy the satisfaction of running up the price on MTGO cards, which I guess if that is your thing, well then, the market is there for it on some of these chase rares.
But sigil is 100% the biggest bomb. Colorless, makes every creature a threat, it's just great.
But sigil is 100% the biggest bomb. Colorless, makes every creature a threat, it's just great.
Probably worth running a single island if you have Grixis Charm. The Grixis Panorama can fetch it for you if you need it, and the Necropilis gives 3 draws to get blue mana. Splashing a colour is risky with anything less then that, and I certainly wouldn't try to splash with only 1 source of mana in a certain colour.
I wouldn't call Sigil the #1 bomb, seeing as there's enough artifact removal in the set (especially so in ALA-CON), and most sensible players will maindeck some of it in.
Elspeth, Sarkhan, or Flameblast Dragon are all, IMHO, much better bombs, because they win the game on their own.
I'm also going to say that Grixis Charm > Lightning Talons because: 1. Lightening Talons loses to enchantment removal; 2. Lightning Talons gets 2-for-1'ed by creature removal; 3. Grixas Charm only loses to counterspells, and -4/-4 is a lot to give a creature.
I disagree with JVS about the Esper Battlemage pick. Esper Battlemage in UB is just great, and Kiss is overrated.
Really? the #1 card? Perhaps I am undervaluing it since it can go into any deck at all. Still the #1 non-creature rare? Better than the three main Planeswalkers?
I used my secondary account (KO) to achieve a T4 finish with MBC, quite some support by Ivo (thanks again;) and not much practice.
The irony was that I chose MBC the day before the PE to easily beat Burn and Storm decks and have a positive matchup against Slivers, knowing that it is quite an underdog to Blink and Ux-Control decks. So guess what I played: Slivers, Zoo, Blink, Blink, UBr Control, Blink, UB Control, MBC | Slivers, MBC..
p.s.
What is up with Wizards purging the PEs that fast in V3 ?!
Sigil of Distinction is the format's #1 bomb...
Ty and the combo is grindstone+painter servant to deck your opponent out completely in 1 turn. By lock I mean alot of these classic decks are running all nonbasic lands and most of those decks do not run red as one of their colors so turning all their lands to basic mountains pretty much says I time walk you the rest of the game.
thanks for the kind words; i'll leave the next article on the tourney to you (and i look forward to it).
i happened to watch the replay of your third game in that round when i noticed you mention it. as a spectator i was shocked he somehow didn't timeout on that last turn, so i can't imagine how it would feel as the player. i know for a fact my connection would not have allowed me to play that quickly. i liked your deck, by the way.
Hi. um, congrats on your win, but it would have greatly helped my ability to enjoy this article if you had written just a few sentences explaining HOW your deck 'combos out' and 'locks people out' of games for those who are not thoroughly familiar with all Classic Decks.. such as myself.
If you could give that brief explanation, I would appreciate it. Thanks
Excellent work on the quick turnaround - both to you and the editor. Great to see this fly up!
I piloted White Weenie. I was 3-0 going into round 4 and faced Ivan_Kulbich_aka_Striped's Orzhov Blink. Midrange Control is a very rough matchup for WW as the deck pushes damage slower than other aggressive archetypes. I expected a very rough matchup, and was most pleased to win game 1 and see him at only 7 minutes left on his clock for the next 2 games. He wins game 2 in 4 minutes or so, and with 3 minutes on his clock for game 3 he squeezes out the win with ONE SECOND left on his clock when he quickly F6's through his turn while activating his Blind Hunter for the attack and the win. I really didn't expect to win the matchup, but I thought it was sealed. It was a rough blow. :-) I ended up finishing 5-3.
I was a prerelease and didn't get to attend this, so thanks for the great recap of the last rounds!
@KO, nice work dude, when you say blink do you mean Ohrsov mainly or also like Grand Entrance type stuff?
isnt gifts banned?
Easier to search for in MTGO? If you just type "swamp" then you get all sorts of cards like Twisted Abomination. If you type "snow covered" then you get a more focused result. I suppose you could always search for "basic land - swamp" instead.
In truth, I found I took out the Grixis Charm every round. I replaced it with the Lightning Talon most of the time since it helped with getting overrun by bigger creatures. Thx for the comment
Hi everybody!
where are the decklist?
Great job. Great.
In that last pox deck, why does he use snow covered swamps? Just for skids and giggles?
agree with you dragondung, 100%
Noknife
However, I would like to know what this means:
"Pedro_Alves ran a similar, but distinctly different, deck to the only perfect record during the Swiss portion of the tourney."
What was "distinctly different" about it?
Its not that i dont think a hoarder can, i am sure there are some out there that think MTGO is a sound investment. How ever if you have that kind of money and are out to invest why invest in something you do not actually own. All you are hording is digital rights. If you have that kind of money lying around you would be better served else where.
My point was although we may look at the speculators as small time, if you add up all those who maybe seculated they honestly probally did more damage than a few hoarders. I am guilty of speculating on FOW but it was out there everyone was saying fifteen was way too low, so i bit. Really hoarding unless you have the means to do so is pointless and very risky unless you are doing it to a classic set. With the amount of drafts for std sets that launch it would just be a futile attempt to manipulate price.
The only ones who would be capable of doing hoarding for std sets would be those with the abiltiy, network, and means to do so. By this i mean dealers and not the small shops but larger ones for give me heath like you. You have already made it clear you dont, and I beleive you cause so far as long as i and many other have dealt with you have done nothing but been there for the community. It does not mean that other larger chains are not practicing this.
Time wise I agree its not worth it, you have find buyers or cut profits by selling to shops.
I'm in agreement with jvs. You seemed to go for the creatures in lots of cases. What happened to BREAD (Bombs - Removal - Evasion - Agro - Dregs)?
Blister Beatle is a great limited pick, because it not only hits their 1 toughness creatures, but it gives you a nice little chump blocker into the bargain, or a sacrifice for bone splinters, often giving you a two permanent swing on the board. I'd argue similarly for Skeletonize, which is certainly worth it if you hit 5 mana (Naya has a lot of 5 mana, 5 power creatures with 3 toughness!) and gives you regenerating chump blocker too! Bargain.
As for Bone Splinters: having a few of those is well worth it purely for being able to remove any bomb your opponent plays.
Finally, in Grixis I often find its worth having as many 2/3 evasive deathtouchers as I can get. Multiple copies of Kederekt Creeper is insanely difficult to deal with.
Wow, that is a quick turnaround on the article. Good detail, can't wait to read more about the event. It was a blast to play in.
you don't think a hoarder can come close to the buying power of 160 copies of a 40 ticket card? You must grossly underestimate the amount of money that some people use as their investment money. That would cost only $6400 to buy every single copy that you had in question at $40 per copy. The current market value is over 50, making a profit of over $1000 on your $6400. Granted, most sane people do not look at FOW as an investment vehicle, due to the demand being pretty low, as well as the time it will take to move all of them out of your inventory. But to assume that a group of speculators who want an extra playset can somehow block the purchases of someone who has real buying power, you are naive in that respect. A few extra hundred as an "investment" in this situation would net you about an extra 50 bucks profit on the additional playset, not to mention the time you have to wait to move the cards, other than the fact that it is free money, it is basically not even worth the time and effort required to purchase the cards and find buyers for them at that amount of profit. Now I know that we are probably talking about some really small time operations when we are talking about MTGO "hoarders", but if someone with some actual money really wanted to, they could easily buy over 300 copies of FOW without even batting an eyelash. Granted, most people that have that kind of investment money would be better served putting it somewhere else, unless they enjoy the satisfaction of running up the price on MTGO cards, which I guess if that is your thing, well then, the market is there for it on some of these chase rares.
Really stupidly giving someone my password to someone I trusted. oh well you live and learn and make a nice story when you comeback from nothing.