Those bolded words may have actually been links. There was an issue with posting the article, and had to be copy pasted from an email to actually go up with out the system going down.
man arnnaria..you have a lot of time on your hands but a great article for it..it reminded me of harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law. Although i think R/G big mana would exist with control i mean you have to remember it was born out of TSP Block and there were a decent amount of various control decks in that format..i mean UBr Void, Teachings, U/G shifter could be made with a controllish build
Hey... that MGA deck it tier one. I don't know what it's doing in this article... you made a very big mistake that harms your credibility as an expert of "standard" (Thanks for the shout out though.)
Its nice to see one on tier 2 decks for a change. I'm so used to being inundated with top 8 lists...I'm a little bit more interested in these because they are a bit more affordable (not all the time though )
I feel you on the MTGO withdrawls..hopefully in a few hours we'll all be able to get our fix :)
Sorry for being out of context but, after all, this article (as well as the others) is about a service which is currently unavailable and that, considering how it is being managed, looks pretty much doomed.
Tried to post my opinion on the Wizard Community forum few mins ago but, as soon as I pushed the submit button I got:
================ Wizards Community Maintenance The Wizards community website is currently down for daily maintenance. Please check back again later. ================
That really makes you guess if anything works decently, if not properly, under the WOC brand (digital domain).
This was my post:
================== Does anyone knows if the server is currently up?
Reading here and around, it seems that it has been up for a couple of hours and is currently down.
However, the official page about the server status, while announcing that the server is down, it also states that:
Last updated: April 11, 2008 09:21 AM PDT
So, it was never updated to announce the alleged return of the service.
The malfunctioning of the page showing the server status (the simplest, and most essential, of the features) denotes, like many other details, an absolute lack of professionalism.
I know a little bit about developing software and the signals we get from the way this transition has been handled let me think that the more likely future is the following:
After weeks (or more likely months) of terrible service with the v3 (most of the time unavailable), they will have to admit failure and reinstate the version v2.5 that was produced by a team far from perfection but somewhat reliable (something that v3 may never be).
I do hope not to be a Cassandra here... but it's funny that in all this mess nobody every considered (or mentioned) a backup plan. ================
No offense, but you seem to be stuck on taking the "best" card, in terms of playability, in each pack and not signaling. For example, pack one is LOADED with midrange and good green cards, and you chose to pick a one of those, and on top of that a tribal card! You should draft your first few picks as flexable as possible, and Pestermite gives you the most options. Picking the Vanquisher is IMO a wasted pick if you continue drafting green, because you're going to get cut from green so bad. I mean the people to the left of you are going to pick the Primal Command and Lys Alana Huntmaster pretty highly.
this edition is realy a sheat see the card nothing special its no sence......no combo or some card to combine....magic its only a money expend all your money in sheat cards.............also you can make a big colection whit this edition whit your cards in your home ::::the sheat card box.......think that:::beater befor you buy it.
I'm not a great drafter but I do draft Green a lot so I can comment on this one at least somewhat knowledgeably. Here's what I had following along with you:
1: Vanquisher is the best card IMO but keep in mind you may be setting up a few Green drafters to the left with Primal Command, Huntmaster, and even Battlewand. Pestermite is the best "avoid a fight" pick but I agree with Vanquisher, and if you're lucky your left neighbor will pick the Mite.
2: Note rare missing so right neighbor could be green.
3: I'm not sure what's right here. This is early for an Elite but it does cut Green, so that's probably your best pick. Dreamspoiler is fine for G/B though it's suboptimal in that color combo, or Smokebraider for G/R/x (and can cast Briarhorn) are the other good picks.
4: Battlewand or Plover. I agree with cutting Green here, and hope it's not being cut on us.
5: Agreed with Peppersmoke here but Red is really looking open now; Elementals specifically. We have another Elite but don't really want two, so if we had taken it it would be purely for signaling.
6: Agreed with Bonfire here.
7: Red Elementals is wide open (Glarewielder, Bladewhirl), but that Fertile Ground is just too perfect. Agreed with Ground.
8: This is where I finally diverge and officially say I'm going Elementals. Mosswort is cute but Bonfire is the pick.
9: Hurly-Burly over Handservant.
16: What an insane pack to open. Our choices are Lash Out, Ending, Thundercloud, and Soulstoke. Lash Out and Ending are both top removal spells, and Ending even helps Vanquisher. With Fertile Ground G/R/b for removal is fine. Soulstoke helps if we go Elementals, which looked wide open in pack 1 and there are lots of good Elementals in Morningtide. However, Thundercloud Shaman is simply a step above the rest. Even with just a few Giants/Changelings, it's on the Shirekmaw power level, and settles us in G/R.
18: I had Lash Out over Incremental Growth here. Growth is strong but you don't have many weenies which is where Growth shines. Lash Out will always be excellent.
19: Grotto is pretty bad as manafixing goes, and there's strong on-color picks here. Oaf if you had Thundercloud, but since you don't my pick would be Glarewielder. Lignify is fine too just to have an out versus Incarnations and other creatures out of Lash Out / Bonfire range.
22: Thorntooth Witch is the pick here. It might not make the deck but if you get enough Treefolk/Changelings it will be great. You already want to splash Black for the Ending you just took and have a Fertile Ground to help.
23: This is a deceptively important pick here, and depends precisely on what you have actually drafted and where you want to go or be able to go. Out of what you have actually drafted, the only card that currently demands more than a splash of Red is Bonfire, and all your Black cards are splashable. Fire-Belly is mediocre but it is a Changeling, which would help us greatly. The problem is that to cast it in a timely manner (to champion with Packmaster for instance) commits us to Red as a full second color. Daggerdare while not tribally helpful is a solid Green creature, and keeps us flexible to still go G/r/b, G/R/b, or G/B/r. Fire-Belly "forces" you into G/R/b. Despite our constant languishing for changelings, here I would have gone Daggerdare.
32: Tough pick. Pall is fantastic and Rhys would have been very handy, but agreed with Axe.
34: Poplar over Bombardier. Our mana doesn't look to be good enough to splash two colors into G/R, and we already have Eyeblight's Ending demanding the black splash.
37: Fertilid over Pack's Disdain. Fendeep Summoner is a very strong card too, but Fertilid along with Fertile Ground makes our mana considerably better. Pack's Disdain would be great if you had tons of Leaf Gilders, Woodland Changelings, and Huntmasters, but in this deck even though you're almost mono-Warrior you'll have trouble getting it to even hit for 2.
My guess is your upstream neighbor opened a Green rare pack 1, switched into Red pack 2 for Thundercloud, and took Bramblewood Paragon over the Axe.
you left yourself too closed off in pack one....if you draft a color, draft a tribe. Only take the off color cards that hurt you (defensive draft). you are a little cost heavy on spells. never pass a smoke braider, whether you are playing red or not....should have went green red
man i hate trying to critique drafts because we as readers have soo much more knowledge after the fact...but there seemed to be a good tide of red elementals in there at least in my opinion i mean there was a second lashout, the 2 bladewhirls, acolyte, soulbright, 2 pathblazer plus you had the few others...now i am by no means saying this may have been the build to go with if i picked pack by pack but i do have a soft spot for them. Though without drifters, maws, and braiders elementals may be a bad choice. Though i would have taken the command P1p1.
If the servers are up, we will be playing. I'm waiting to post the official thread until we have a bit more certainty. But with drafts and multiplayer and all sorts of other stuff not working, what else will there be to do but play in PREs? :)
So you improve against flow but it is worse against Tron and tooth. Also you need a slot for this card, when before you were only using lands to get the domain. In early game you lose a turn of agression to put this enchantment in play. In late game when you are looking for a finisher you get a not answer card. I will give it a try but I am not very optimistic.
Walkerdog, thanks once again for playing in the tournament and writing about it. Back-to-back second places is not bad for being relatively new to the format. Keep it up! Fourth in the points race is pretty good too; remember we have prizes for the top 5 points earners at the end of the season. :)
Deep Dog used to be big back when I first started playing Pauper, then it disappeared for a while. I'm glad to see it doing well again.
Nice breakdown. As far as developing the list for Deep Dog, I was presented with a UG Madness list a long long time ago (almost three years) and gamed with that. Over time, I tweaked the list to the one you saw me win iwth earlier this season (not without some egregious errors; Gathan Raiders, what was I thinking?). Lost is a lovely woman and she is one of the best deck pilots I have seen for decks she has not designed herself.
brett blackman LOL
I give this article the "Gonna Fly Now" seal of approval.
You rock sir.
Those bolded words may have actually been links. There was an issue with posting the article, and had to be copy pasted from an email to actually go up with out the system going down.
if no one else will claim it ill take credit for the Mono-blue deck just in case it gets good..lol
WHAT is the point of bolding completely random words? If you put them all together is there a secret message to unscramble?
man arnnaria..you have a lot of time on your hands but a great article for it..it reminded me of harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law. Although i think R/G big mana would exist with control i mean you have to remember it was born out of TSP Block and there were a decent amount of various control decks in that format..i mean UBr Void, Teachings, U/G shifter could be made with a controllish build
Control doesn't mean "a deck full of counterspells"
Hey... that MGA deck it tier one. I don't know what it's doing in this article... you made a very big mistake that harms your credibility as an expert of "standard" (Thanks for the shout out though.)
Great article.
Its nice to see one on tier 2 decks for a change. I'm so used to being inundated with top 8 lists...I'm a little bit more interested in these because they are a bit more affordable (not all the time though )
I feel you on the MTGO withdrawls..hopefully in a few hours we'll all be able to get our fix :)
Still no UG Platinum Control deck thingy :(
Sorry for being out of context but, after all, this article (as well as the others) is about a service which is currently unavailable and that, considering how it is being managed, looks pretty much doomed.
Tried to post my opinion on the Wizard Community forum few mins ago but, as soon as I pushed the submit button I got:
================
Wizards Community Maintenance
The Wizards community website is currently down for daily maintenance. Please check back again later.
================
That really makes you guess if anything works decently, if not properly, under the WOC brand (digital domain).
This was my post:
==================
Does anyone knows if the server is currently up?
Reading here and around, it seems that it has been up for a couple of hours and is currently down.
However, the official page about the server status, while announcing that the server is down, it also states that:
Last updated: April 11, 2008 09:21 AM PDT
So, it was never updated to announce the alleged return of the service.
The malfunctioning of the page showing the server status (the simplest, and most essential, of the features) denotes, like many other details, an absolute lack of professionalism.
Server Status:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/magiconlineserverstatus.asp
I know a little bit about developing software and the signals we get from the way this transition has been handled let me think that the more likely future is the following:
After weeks (or more likely months) of terrible service with the v3 (most of the time unavailable), they will have to admit failure and reinstate the version v2.5 that was produced by a team far from perfection but somewhat reliable
(something that v3 may never be).
I do hope not to be a Cassandra here... but it's funny that in all this mess nobody every considered (or mentioned) a backup plan.
================
Go bother another website please
No offense, but you seem to be stuck on taking the "best" card, in terms of playability, in each pack and not signaling. For example, pack one is LOADED with midrange and good green cards, and you chose to pick a one of those, and on top of that a tribal card! You should draft your first few picks as flexable as possible, and Pestermite gives you the most options. Picking the Vanquisher is IMO a wasted pick if you continue drafting green, because you're going to get cut from green so bad. I mean the people to the left of you are going to pick the Primal Command and Lys Alana Huntmaster pretty highly.
this edition is realy a sheat see the card nothing special its no sence......no combo or some card to combine....magic its only a money expend all your money in sheat cards.............also you can make a big colection whit this edition whit your cards in your home ::::the sheat card box.......think that:::beater befor you buy it.
I'm not a great drafter but I do draft Green a lot so I can comment on this one at least somewhat knowledgeably. Here's what I had following along with you:
1: Vanquisher is the best card IMO but keep in mind you may be setting up a few Green drafters to the left with Primal Command, Huntmaster, and even Battlewand. Pestermite is the best "avoid a fight" pick but I agree with Vanquisher, and if you're lucky your left neighbor will pick the Mite.
2: Note rare missing so right neighbor could be green.
3: I'm not sure what's right here. This is early for an Elite but it does cut Green, so that's probably your best pick. Dreamspoiler is fine for G/B though it's suboptimal in that color combo, or Smokebraider for G/R/x (and can cast Briarhorn) are the other good picks.
4: Battlewand or Plover. I agree with cutting Green here, and hope it's not being cut on us.
5: Agreed with Peppersmoke here but Red is really looking open now; Elementals specifically. We have another Elite but don't really want two, so if we had taken it it would be purely for signaling.
6: Agreed with Bonfire here.
7: Red Elementals is wide open (Glarewielder, Bladewhirl), but that Fertile Ground is just too perfect. Agreed with Ground.
8: This is where I finally diverge and officially say I'm going Elementals. Mosswort is cute but Bonfire is the pick.
9: Hurly-Burly over Handservant.
16: What an insane pack to open. Our choices are Lash Out, Ending, Thundercloud, and Soulstoke. Lash Out and Ending are both top removal spells, and Ending even helps Vanquisher. With Fertile Ground G/R/b for removal is fine. Soulstoke helps if we go Elementals, which looked wide open in pack 1 and there are lots of good Elementals in Morningtide. However, Thundercloud Shaman is simply a step above the rest. Even with just a few Giants/Changelings, it's on the Shirekmaw power level, and settles us in G/R.
18: I had Lash Out over Incremental Growth here. Growth is strong but you don't have many weenies which is where Growth shines. Lash Out will always be excellent.
19: Grotto is pretty bad as manafixing goes, and there's strong on-color picks here. Oaf if you had Thundercloud, but since you don't my pick would be Glarewielder. Lignify is fine too just to have an out versus Incarnations and other creatures out of Lash Out / Bonfire range.
22: Thorntooth Witch is the pick here. It might not make the deck but if you get enough Treefolk/Changelings it will be great. You already want to splash Black for the Ending you just took and have a Fertile Ground to help.
23: This is a deceptively important pick here, and depends precisely on what you have actually drafted and where you want to go or be able to go. Out of what you have actually drafted, the only card that currently demands more than a splash of Red is Bonfire, and all your Black cards are splashable. Fire-Belly is mediocre but it is a Changeling, which would help us greatly. The problem is that to cast it in a timely manner (to champion with Packmaster for instance) commits us to Red as a full second color. Daggerdare while not tribally helpful is a solid Green creature, and keeps us flexible to still go G/r/b, G/R/b, or G/B/r. Fire-Belly "forces" you into G/R/b. Despite our constant languishing for changelings, here I would have gone Daggerdare.
32: Tough pick. Pall is fantastic and Rhys would have been very handy, but agreed with Axe.
34: Poplar over Bombardier. Our mana doesn't look to be good enough to splash two colors into G/R, and we already have Eyeblight's Ending demanding the black splash.
37: Fertilid over Pack's Disdain. Fendeep Summoner is a very strong card too, but Fertilid along with Fertile Ground makes our mana considerably better. Pack's Disdain would be great if you had tons of Leaf Gilders, Woodland Changelings, and Huntmasters, but in this deck even though you're almost mono-Warrior you'll have trouble getting it to even hit for 2.
My guess is your upstream neighbor opened a Green rare pack 1, switched into Red pack 2 for Thundercloud, and took Bramblewood Paragon over the Axe.
Better next time!
p1p1: primal command -> it's a huge bomb. although vanquisher is very nice too.
p1p3: smokebraider -> don't let this go far.
p2p1: thundercloud shaman -> this is too good. 1st pick material. and red was flowing pack 1. and you already have handservant ...
p2p4 is hard ... although i'm sure i'd have picked lowland Oaf or lignify over the grotto... probably the oaf...
p2p7: blind-spot giant if had picked the thundercloud, with your cards i would pick the witch. it's very good.
overall you didn't draft too bad... but ended with an average deck that could have more focus, it's very disperse.
you left yourself too closed off in pack one....if you draft a color, draft a tribe. Only take the off color cards that hurt you (defensive draft). you are a little cost heavy on spells. never pass a smoke braider, whether you are playing red or not....should have went green red
man i hate trying to critique drafts because we as readers have soo much more knowledge after the fact...but there seemed to be a good tide of red elementals in there at least in my opinion i mean there was a second lashout, the 2 bladewhirls, acolyte, soulbright, 2 pathblazer plus you had the few others...now i am by no means saying this may have been the build to go with if i picked pack by pack but i do have a soft spot for them. Though without drifters, maws, and braiders elementals may be a bad choice. Though i would have taken the command P1p1.
If the servers are up, we will be playing. I'm waiting to post the official thread until we have a bit more certainty. But with drafts and multiplayer and all sorts of other stuff not working, what else will there be to do but play in PREs? :)
Glad you all enjoyed DD. Hopefully we'll be able to do another PDC event by Saturday!
Thanks for the explanation. I like your article.
So you improve against flow but it is worse against Tron and tooth. Also you need a slot for this card, when before you were only using lands to get the domain. In early game you lose a turn of agression to put this enchantment in play. In late game when you are looking for a finisher you get a not answer card. I will give it a try but I am not very optimistic.
Walkerdog, thanks once again for playing in the tournament and writing about it. Back-to-back second places is not bad for being relatively new to the format. Keep it up! Fourth in the points race is pretty good too; remember we have prizes for the top 5 points earners at the end of the season. :)
Deep Dog used to be big back when I first started playing Pauper, then it disappeared for a while. I'm glad to see it doing well again.
Nice breakdown. As far as developing the list for Deep Dog, I was presented with a UG Madness list a long long time ago (almost three years) and gamed with that. Over time, I tweaked the list to the one you saw me win iwth earlier this season (not without some egregious errors; Gathan Raiders, what was I thinking?).
Lost is a lovely woman and she is one of the best deck pilots I have seen for decks she has not designed herself.
-Alex
I was considering playing MTGO but is it true every time time they come out with a new client you have to buy all of your cards again?
rumors has it red will get a big beater for little mana, you can even use the pandemonium to untap it :) sounds like a plan to me :)