I agree, community has everything to do with providing an enviroment that allows what you describe to happen. Great communities find common ground, and discuss things that are not agreed upon without ever losing site of that common ground.
Yes, I am aware that the Mono-Black Rogue deck is mostly out of the meta right now, although you might still see some play of it online because the paper metagame is slow-moving and people are bringing their game online. I can also see it being good or bad based on the appearance of the rest of the meta - against reveillark for example it comes out fast and has answers to the combo (and almost any combo, really). I don't think it's necessarily a bad deck. Also the blue-black Faeries deck is just going insane now, I am considering writing about it next week.
In regards to the Reveillark build, it's the popular build that I have seen being played, so I put it in the list. There is also a decklist out there that is much more blink and control oriented, which your list is a decent example of. It does make the deck much more resilient to combo-hate like Exitrpate which is a good thing.
Honestly, the RG Warriors deck isn't seeing a ton of play anymore either, people are just tooling some of the old Green-Black with some of the new good cards from Morningtide as well. I wanted to present four decks that were fresh and different.
I think you're right that there's a shaman deck waiting to be discovered. Rage Forger can be absolutely nuts in the right circumstances. And in multiples, he's simply brutal. The question is whether or not to try to align race as well -- the mostly mono-Red Elemental Shaman deck seems pretty good, but there are some pretty good Goblin Shamans in Black and Green gives you Wolf-Skull, Bosk Banneret and the Colossus. Decisions, decisions...
It seems to me that the Reveillark deck is so helpless against Extirpate that I'm wondering if the burn decks could benefit from splashing it. They're already running 4 or 7 goblins; change those Shocks into Tarfires and you could probably get away with running a set of Antie's Hovel main and four Extirpates in the side. If you're worried about Tarfire powering up Tarmogoyf, you could always go with Sulfurous Springs instead. Thoughts?
By the way, thanks for writing these articles, jamuraa. I pretty much never play sanctioned Constructed, but I've been thinking about putting together a deck and joining an eight-man or two, so these are a big help.
March of the machine would make infinite tokens with every creature you played with the old version. Lets say you played a 1 mana creature with march in play, you would then get some number of 1 mana equipment (they would be a creature so you would get a new and so on) and then a infinte amount of mantles (which would die as a state based effect just after triggering stonehewer if you didnt have eg. anthem in play or something) which you couldnt stop except by destroying march (it had been funny to make a life style deck (as in old ext deck) with march and idylic soulwarden and the green version of same and some enchantment destruction on legs), but since its always less now you can't do that anymore.
Btw. March was meaned more as a very strong card for late game. Play it the turn after a wrath and you got a new army effectivly with haste.
Um I'm not sure when this article was written but its definitely the first one ive seen mention mono black rogues...at least in a sense that they are still viable. Also I think that Reveillark decklist is a very bad example as nowadays most Reveillark decks have appeared to switch from a combo focus to a more control-oriented build like this one:
4 Adarkar Wastes
8 Island
2 Mutavault
4 Nimbus Maze
6 Plains
3 Aven Riftwatcher
2 Body Double
1 Mirror Entity
4 Mulldrifter
4 Reveillark
4 Riftwing Clodskate
2 Sower of Temptation
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
2 Careful Consideration
4 Mind Stone
2 Momentary Blink
4 Rune Snag
3 Wrath of God
Sideboard
1 Aven Riftwatcher
2 Crovax, Ascendant Hero
2 Pact of Negation
3 Remove Soul
1 Sower of Temptation
3 Teferi's Moat
3 Wispmare
ok i dont why that is the only way this box can do a deck list but oh well
I'd have to echo some sentiments. I prolly would have taken the 2x bosk in the 4322 draft. 84 is a different story (where people pass up thoughtseize).
Kithkin IS NOT A SPLASH TRIBE! It is very important to note that. With Kithkin, you almost always want to go mono white, and you should be in kithkin from pack one with your first pick zephernaut or Swell of courage. In your case, you didn't have much inclination in the first few packs to pick up kithkins, so I probably would have left it as such.
Not taking a Bosk seems ridiculous for a 4-3-2-2, like I don't even see the point of playing MMM in the 4-3-2-2 queues if you aren't going to make some extra rare-drafting. Shipping a Bosk over a Oak also seemed questionable just because you ended up in a color scheme where you can use it as a dual anyway!
Personally, I use the MMM drafts as an opportunity to get cards so I "raredraft" as and when I can. In 8-4 drafts, it becomes really important to get the best deck but in 4-3-2-2 drafts, you can afford to get cards you want. Fortunately, the green changeling and the oak u took over the 2 bosks are shipped rather late (for some reason I have yet to be able to comprehend) so it would have been ok to raredraft in your situation because the cards you picked over them were not really fought over at pick 1.
The deck power don't vary that much when people have a small card pool to work with so even if u would raredraft the $ cards, you probably might not lose out much. Therefore, I would only not take the $ if the card is going to be really really valuable in my deck (like maybe a paragon for example). Because my aim is to get morningtide cards, I would try to put myself in a position to recover (monetary wise) as much as possible without compromising on deck quality. I wouldn't actually be playing to up my skill level for a format that exists only a couple of days which is why I advocate getting the $.
Having played in a few MMM drafts myself, I think that you were stuck too long in your dilema between warriors and soldiers without being able to play more the good changelings from black or red. Unless u were lucky, your kinship creatures wouldn't have gained enough mileage to work well for ur side and your coordinated barrages would be less effective than they would have been otherwise. I go for a more changeling approach when it comes to tribal based decks because warspike changeling and moonglove changeling are so good. For example. If I had a hint of going warriors, I would have picked warspike (or even the early elvish warrior) over the zeph (unless I wanted to just cut it) because playing zeph requires a totally different base to work with and you wanted to keep your warrior part of the deck all the way. Probably u could have just abandoned warriors in favor of kithkin because u detected no interference from the right which would allow you to change ur plan smoothly esp from pack 3. I would say that u would have formed a better deck if you had managed to concentrate on one tribe rather than 2 totally different ones. Green and white are the most power packed colors in MMM but they require some degree of commitment.
Although I disagree with many aspects of the draft, I think that ur walkthrough was well written and allowed us to understand your picks rather easily. Good job.
Ty.. =) U definitely had the advantage for ur game 3 if not for the error.
Sorry bout the mistake thou.. I'll change it immediately. My first records were erased so I tried to reproduce it from memory. I remember prolepsis9 was fighting it out 1-0.
Actually, if it can be played in aggro, control, and combo, and is not warping the environment, that is a reason for it to be in the format. Everybody liking a card and wanting to play with it is an argument [i]for[/i] it being legal, not against.
And it still comes down to not being broken, which is the only justification for telling somebody that they can't play with a card that they opened from a booster pack.
Appreciate the kind words. The deck is really fun, and I think if you put in the requisite practice, you can have plenty of success against in this enviroment.
Gainsay version runs tarmogoyf, dark confidant, and a few other goodies its not an elf deck the name just fits cause of the wardens and Llanowar. Also i beleive he ran Vails too but i dont remember its been a while since i faced him.
MirrorMage: I hope we're not that cutthroat. We do want to win, but I value winning with style more than just playing a known deck.
Reaper: I've always wanted to play with Vedalken Aethermage, but I could nevere figure out a good use. I think it makes a good tutor for singleton wizards, but there aren't many wizards you want just one of. Perhaps for changelings like Mirror Entity or Chameleon Colossus. Probably a good singleton card for Tarmotog to consider.
I doubt the changes to Stonehewer were made due to March of Machines. Unless there's some weird combo I'm not seeing, you need to play at least 3 three-mana creatures to get something out of the March. Stonehewer was just plain good at "equal to."
I don't know what happened in the semifinals, MTGO client suddenly bugged with an "string error (some numbers)" and i couldnt reopen it, even restarting the PC, I think I would have won the third game and go to the finals, I had lots of stuff to hold Alan down.
Just a thing... I was the one paired with prolepsis on round5, and I was probably losing, so when 'so many trolls' defeated Sti I was able to draw...
Gifts rock turned into a mindslaver deck? IMO my favorite version of gifts rock runs bops aswell, make them burn out the bops or they're in for some serious trouble once restraint hits. Its kinda hard to say why the decklist isn't fairing up so well, but I've seen gifts rock take more of a trinket top rock turn in a few of the decks in the PTQ scene, it looks like its maybe missing a good pilot or had one or two bad breaks. I think you'll see a few more trinket rock show up more, I don't have the cardbase at the moment, but It is definately a very very sick deck from what I saw.
There are (as oppoesed to most formats) real auto lose matchups in vanguard. Heartwood can't win (as in 99% of the time) vs. Mirri or Ashling and stuff like that (I would assume that Jhoria vs Oni would be annother). Most matchups are alot deppended on play skill and experince with the format - eg. if you play Jhoria vs. Mirri and they got Gaddock in play you should play instants over soceries because there are 1 most decent cheap cards are instants and 2 most single creature destruction spells are instants. This is oppeosit the normal rule - always play sorceries with Jhoria because they are the most powerfull. That kind of knowlegde requires some experince with this specifik format.
I would agree with the assertion about both loxodon (it had a decent macthup vs oni back in the day - Oni had more cards back then so it should have a better matchup now - I had a plan of building that deck since before the prerelease of Morning tide - I would have incl. Flagstones - they are still very nice with magus and maybe red for Kher keep and mogg fanatic (you could then make a kill with the revilark combo in the turn you got it instead of beating down with it) and considered Vedalken Æthermage - fetch magus or venser) and Oni. The problem with Loxodon is that there is alot of graveyard hate in vanguard because of Jhoria mainly (Squee, Goblin Nabob is very nasty if running unchecked).
Btw. the combo can be done oppoesit - having revilark in gy and bodydouble in play (copying revilark) - which proberly would be the prefared option because since you would proberly prefar to have saced the revilark first.
Ohh I am nearly sure the change to Stonehewer was done since March of the machines is in std. Its proberly still a decent combo but its not that great anymore. I could see a 4/5 color Stonehewer deck running March, Doran, Treefolk harbinger (0/3 birds are nice with Doran), Saffi, Gaddock, bitterblossom, Mirror eternity and so on (greater gargadon would be nice I think). Ive played vs. a few Stonehewer decks but wasnt really impressed but then again they were mostly weenie decks with no real power cards (as Squee is in Jhoria or gaddock in Mirri).
Great Article Meuslix!
I agree, community has everything to do with providing an enviroment that allows what you describe to happen. Great communities find common ground, and discuss things that are not agreed upon without ever losing site of that common ground.
Yes, I am aware that the Mono-Black Rogue deck is mostly out of the meta right now, although you might still see some play of it online because the paper metagame is slow-moving and people are bringing their game online. I can also see it being good or bad based on the appearance of the rest of the meta - against reveillark for example it comes out fast and has answers to the combo (and almost any combo, really). I don't think it's necessarily a bad deck. Also the blue-black Faeries deck is just going insane now, I am considering writing about it next week.
In regards to the Reveillark build, it's the popular build that I have seen being played, so I put it in the list. There is also a decklist out there that is much more blink and control oriented, which your list is a decent example of. It does make the deck much more resilient to combo-hate like Exitrpate which is a good thing.
Honestly, the RG Warriors deck isn't seeing a ton of play anymore either, people are just tooling some of the old Green-Black with some of the new good cards from Morningtide as well. I wanted to present four decks that were fresh and different.
Yeah, I could not find a list of UW tron that I was happy with. To me it seems very clunky, but I will put up a sample list
I think you're right that there's a shaman deck waiting to be discovered. Rage Forger can be absolutely nuts in the right circumstances. And in multiples, he's simply brutal. The question is whether or not to try to align race as well -- the mostly mono-Red Elemental Shaman deck seems pretty good, but there are some pretty good Goblin Shamans in Black and Green gives you Wolf-Skull, Bosk Banneret and the Colossus. Decisions, decisions...
It seems to me that the Reveillark deck is so helpless against Extirpate that I'm wondering if the burn decks could benefit from splashing it. They're already running 4 or 7 goblins; change those Shocks into Tarfires and you could probably get away with running a set of Antie's Hovel main and four Extirpates in the side. If you're worried about Tarfire powering up Tarmogoyf, you could always go with Sulfurous Springs instead. Thoughts?
By the way, thanks for writing these articles, jamuraa. I pretty much never play sanctioned Constructed, but I've been thinking about putting together a deck and joining an eight-man or two, so these are a big help.
March of the machine would make infinite tokens with every creature you played with the old version. Lets say you played a 1 mana creature with march in play, you would then get some number of 1 mana equipment (they would be a creature so you would get a new and so on) and then a infinte amount of mantles (which would die as a state based effect just after triggering stonehewer if you didnt have eg. anthem in play or something) which you couldnt stop except by destroying march (it had been funny to make a life style deck (as in old ext deck) with march and idylic soulwarden and the green version of same and some enchantment destruction on legs), but since its always less now you can't do that anymore.
Btw. March was meaned more as a very strong card for late game. Play it the turn after a wrath and you got a new army effectivly with haste.
U/W Tron has made top 8's, its not here?
Um I'm not sure when this article was written but its definitely the first one ive seen mention mono black rogues...at least in a sense that they are still viable. Also I think that Reveillark decklist is a very bad example as nowadays most Reveillark decks have appeared to switch from a combo focus to a more control-oriented build like this one:
4 Adarkar Wastes
8 Island
2 Mutavault
4 Nimbus Maze
6 Plains
3 Aven Riftwatcher
2 Body Double
1 Mirror Entity
4 Mulldrifter
4 Reveillark
4 Riftwing Clodskate
2 Sower of Temptation
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
2 Careful Consideration
4 Mind Stone
2 Momentary Blink
4 Rune Snag
3 Wrath of God
Sideboard
1 Aven Riftwatcher
2 Crovax, Ascendant Hero
2 Pact of Negation
3 Remove Soul
1 Sower of Temptation
3 Teferi's Moat
3 Wispmare
ok i dont why that is the only way this box can do a deck list but oh well
I'd have to echo some sentiments. I prolly would have taken the 2x bosk in the 4322 draft. 84 is a different story (where people pass up thoughtseize).
Kithkin IS NOT A SPLASH TRIBE! It is very important to note that. With Kithkin, you almost always want to go mono white, and you should be in kithkin from pack one with your first pick zephernaut or Swell of courage. In your case, you didn't have much inclination in the first few packs to pick up kithkins, so I probably would have left it as such.
I whole heartedly agree that choosing Bosk would have been a better choice overall..
The key to being successful on MODO draft is knowing when to sacrifice a small amount of power to reap the monetary benefits.
Besides from that and a few sub-optimal picks, overall, good job.
-Seb
Wishing he was sitting next to you in one of those drafts.
Not taking a Bosk seems ridiculous for a 4-3-2-2, like I don't even see the point of playing MMM in the 4-3-2-2 queues if you aren't going to make some extra rare-drafting. Shipping a Bosk over a Oak also seemed questionable just because you ended up in a color scheme where you can use it as a dual anyway!
Personally, I use the MMM drafts as an opportunity to get cards so I "raredraft" as and when I can. In 8-4 drafts, it becomes really important to get the best deck but in 4-3-2-2 drafts, you can afford to get cards you want. Fortunately, the green changeling and the oak u took over the 2 bosks are shipped rather late (for some reason I have yet to be able to comprehend) so it would have been ok to raredraft in your situation because the cards you picked over them were not really fought over at pick 1.
The deck power don't vary that much when people have a small card pool to work with so even if u would raredraft the $ cards, you probably might not lose out much.
Therefore, I would only not take the $ if the card is going to be really really valuable in my deck (like maybe a paragon for example).
Because my aim is to get morningtide cards, I would try to put myself in a position to recover (monetary wise) as much as possible without compromising on deck quality. I wouldn't actually be playing to up my skill level for a format that exists only a couple of days which is why I advocate getting the $.
Having played in a few MMM drafts myself, I think that you were stuck too long in your dilema between warriors and soldiers without being able to play more the good changelings from black or red. Unless u were lucky, your kinship creatures wouldn't have gained enough mileage to work well for ur side and your coordinated barrages would be less effective than they would have been otherwise. I go for a more changeling approach when it comes to tribal based decks because warspike changeling and moonglove changeling are so good. For example. If I had a hint of going warriors, I would have picked warspike (or even the early elvish warrior) over the zeph (unless I wanted to just cut it) because playing zeph requires a totally different base to work with and you wanted to keep your warrior part of the deck all the way. Probably u could have just abandoned warriors in favor of kithkin because u detected no interference from the right which would allow you to change ur plan smoothly esp from pack 3. I would say that u would have formed a better deck if you had managed to concentrate on one tribe rather than 2 totally different ones. Green and white are the most power packed colors in MMM but they require some degree of commitment.
Although I disagree with many aspects of the draft, I think that ur walkthrough was well written and allowed us to understand your picks rather easily. Good job.
Ty.. =) U definitely had the advantage for ur game 3 if not for the error.
Sorry bout the mistake thou.. I'll change it immediately. My first records were erased so I tried to reproduce it from memory. I remember prolepsis9 was fighting it out 1-0.
Actually, if it can be played in aggro, control, and combo, and is not warping the environment, that is a reason for it to be in the format. Everybody liking a card and wanting to play with it is an argument [i]for[/i] it being legal, not against.
And it still comes down to not being broken, which is the only justification for telling somebody that they can't play with a card that they opened from a booster pack.
Appreciate the kind words. The deck is really fun, and I think if you put in the requisite practice, you can have plenty of success against in this enviroment.
Gainsay version runs tarmogoyf, dark confidant, and a few other goodies its not an elf deck the name just fits cause of the wardens and Llanowar. Also i beleive he ran Vails too but i dont remember its been a while since i faced him.
MirrorMage: I hope we're not that cutthroat. We do want to win, but I value winning with style more than just playing a known deck.
Reaper: I've always wanted to play with Vedalken Aethermage, but I could nevere figure out a good use. I think it makes a good tutor for singleton wizards, but there aren't many wizards you want just one of. Perhaps for changelings like Mirror Entity or Chameleon Colossus. Probably a good singleton card for Tarmotog to consider.
I doubt the changes to Stonehewer were made due to March of Machines. Unless there's some weird combo I'm not seeing, you need to play at least 3 three-mana creatures to get something out of the March. Stonehewer was just plain good at "equal to."
Nice coverage man... Really nice article.
I don't know what happened in the semifinals, MTGO client suddenly bugged with an "string error (some numbers)" and i couldnt reopen it, even restarting the PC, I think I would have won the third game and go to the finals, I had lots of stuff to hold Alan down.
Just a thing... I was the one paired with prolepsis on round5, and I was probably losing, so when 'so many trolls' defeated Sti I was able to draw...
Gifts rock turned into a mindslaver deck? IMO my favorite version of gifts rock runs bops aswell, make them burn out the bops or they're in for some serious trouble once restraint hits. Its kinda hard to say why the decklist isn't fairing up so well, but I've seen gifts rock take more of a trinket top rock turn in a few of the decks in the PTQ scene, it looks like its maybe missing a good pilot or had one or two bad breaks. I think you'll see a few more trinket rock show up more, I don't have the cardbase at the moment, but It is definately a very very sick deck from what I saw.
Last I checked Elf clamp ducked out with blasto, but priest is so sweeeeet
this list is not even colse to what was played in the classic pes
the classic deck had a much smaller emphisis on elves and more on discard .
There are (as oppoesed to most formats) real auto lose matchups in vanguard. Heartwood can't win (as in 99% of the time) vs. Mirri or Ashling and stuff like that (I would assume that Jhoria vs Oni would be annother). Most matchups are alot deppended on play skill and experince with the format - eg. if you play Jhoria vs. Mirri and they got Gaddock in play you should play instants over soceries because there are 1 most decent cheap cards are instants and 2 most single creature destruction spells are instants. This is oppeosit the normal rule - always play sorceries with Jhoria because they are the most powerfull. That kind of knowlegde requires some experince with this specifik format.
I would agree with the assertion about both loxodon (it had a decent macthup vs oni back in the day - Oni had more cards back then so it should have a better matchup now - I had a plan of building that deck since before the prerelease of Morning tide - I would have incl. Flagstones - they are still very nice with magus and maybe red for Kher keep and mogg fanatic (you could then make a kill with the revilark combo in the turn you got it instead of beating down with it) and considered Vedalken Æthermage - fetch magus or venser) and Oni. The problem with Loxodon is that there is alot of graveyard hate in vanguard because of Jhoria mainly (Squee, Goblin Nabob is very nasty if running unchecked).
Btw. the combo can be done oppoesit - having revilark in gy and bodydouble in play (copying revilark) - which proberly would be the prefared option because since you would proberly prefar to have saced the revilark first.
Ohh I am nearly sure the change to Stonehewer was done since March of the machines is in std. Its proberly still a decent combo but its not that great anymore. I could see a 4/5 color Stonehewer deck running March, Doran, Treefolk harbinger (0/3 birds are nice with Doran), Saffi, Gaddock, bitterblossom, Mirror eternity and so on (greater gargadon would be nice I think). Ive played vs. a few Stonehewer decks but wasnt really impressed but then again they were mostly weenie decks with no real power cards (as Squee is in Jhoria or gaddock in Mirri).
Great article Walker! Dredge is so annoying to play against, because it's so good, especially in the hands of a competent player.
Also MagicStop, will you stop "namedropping" that event everywhere you go -.-
Sideboard
... that Jitte.
An active Jitte against a RDW is brutal. Jitte should get errata to say
Jitte regular text + Text of Leyline of the Void. That's be awesome.