I've done a couple set reviews... and they're HARD. Not only are they relatively boring as most of the cards aren't going to really see play and don't have a lot to be said for them, and they're very hard to judge based on percieved power since they've yet to be proven in any actual decks...
I'd recommend looking at previous reviewers that you liked and emulate their styles and put a little of a personal twist into the review.
Good first work though, your effort is great and it shows!
Great job on your first time. I love the * stars as utter jank.
I think Knowledge exploitation could have used a few more stars, and Vendilion Clique will also be good, let's not forget you can also use it to cycle your poorest card away.
I like the series of color previews for the new sets. This site just keeps getting better and better.
I think you have covered the meta game very well and represented most if not all of the top decks. I like how the shift in the meta allowed for flash to really shine in the tourny before last. To be honest while i like to be thought of as being smart i preffed my countertop deck to the flash in that tourny. However while testing i put the build of flash i used together during the week before and found that it was performing way too good in the practice room not to use.
However I'd like to point out that Countryside Crusher only triggers on lands hitting YOUR graveyard. So he doesn't quite 'play nice' with LD cards like Molten Rain and Boom/Bust. That said, he's note quite Terravore, but a fine replacement if you can't afford 1GG. Remember, reading is TECH.
Rating cards in a void doesn't help people understand them. The value of cards shift in different formats. From what I see, you are just rating cards that go into a casual deck.
Vendilion Clique is very underrated in your review. I believe this is the best blue card the set can offer. It's a 3/1 flying flash that cycles away the best card from the hand of ur opponent. I believe you don't find this good because the opponent draws a card. If you could choose to change his card into a possibly less powerful card would you? You get to mess up the plans your opponent has made for the past minute.
I hope the next reviews would look at cards from different angles to really appreciate them for what they are. Some of what you say makes great sense. However, (not trying to be offensive but) some cards are just too shallowly analyzed. I've read quite a few good articles on starcitygames and the magic show brought out some cards really well. I would suggest heading there to see how they do it and then continue with the reviews based on what you've come to understand about the cards. Good effort put into this work thou.
well i have to disagree on the fact that gaddock stops jhoira, it surely slows ist down, but when they get gaddock down u just switch from sorceries to instants, which u then play either in their attack step (if they attack) or during their endstep, and there u have a lot of ways to get him off the board, allmost all blue instant critter bounce costs 3 or less, lots of banishing effects cost 3 or less and some burn will on occasion help too (right after he enters play)
No misuse here bud. In retrospect I should have said 8 out of 10 perhaps. The only time I see it being better is if your playing a giant deck casually or your playing limited. which is the reason I left it open the way I did. Also, it was my job to use any term any way I felt to describe the cards reviewed.
I may have overated Kithkin but that's prolly because I like them so much. 11 out of the 28 cards are Kithkin, that could have had something to do with it too.
Man people misuse "strictly better" like it is their job. If Burreton Bombardier was a Changeling it would be strictly better. As it stands it is superior but Changeling is very relevent in Lorwyn/Morningtide limited more-so in sealed than in draft. I know you said "in nine out of ten ways" but that is like saying object A is always better than B nine times out of ten.
As far as the bulk of the review I think you overrate the Kithkin, they were pretty bad as a whole in Lorwyn and I'm not sure if reinforce tricks and some new rares will be enough to save them in Morningtide.
Cards that I think you underrated: Reveillark, Mogg Fanatic, and Body Double is an instant kill combo in Standard. Fuedkiller's Verdict will probably also see play as it can punish painland heavy Doran decks and put the control deck way up on life while making a 5/5.
As far as formating I'm not quite sure why you had all the white cards and just didn't talk about most of them. If the WOTC website was up right now people could see a spoiler there so I don't think there is much need to have cards that you don't talk about.
What about the multiplayer FFA attack left bug? It's existed for awhile and cost me a few games.... spending 2-3 hours in a multiplayer game only to lose to the guy attacking you cus you can't attack back...
Well iceage4life i didn't run Auntie's Hoval due to budget i forgot to add that part and at the time i borrowed 3 profane's from Arnnaria. Right now im running 2 Auntie's Hoval and 3 Profane's of my own :) thanx for the questions i appreciate it since this is my first article and im in process of writing another one.
Runeliger - it was 5 rounds during the PE. so 3-1-1 or better gets in automatic and sorry i forgot to add who i drew to, to be honest i didn't think it was important but due to your awesome feedback now i know it is and i will add that in my future posts also ill probably add in a more in depth play by play in each game thanx for feed back Runeliger :).
Best advice I have for the formating is to do your whole article in a one cell table. I do 800 pixels across so that people can read it on small monitors (suckers). This solves many issues for me and makes the editor much more what you see is what you get.
I've been trying to fix the formatting. I don't want to go into details but it's been very frustrating. Should hopefully be fixed soon.
Thanks for the comments, I like that people actually read the article!!
Anonymous: I see what your saying, and I agree with it too. The deck lst I have is more so for casual since it factors in not only tourny worthy cards but also other fun stuff like flagstones.
largegrandon: That sounds neat, I'll have to try that out!
I totally agree the format is under-explored in terms of combo decks. When I was running Heartbeat Desire I found aggro decks a problem because they goldfished a turn or two slower than me and were more consistant. A poor draw on my part or any disruption from them set my clock back a turn or two and often resulted in a loss.
This is not really a problem of aggro in them metagame so much as the combo decks not being strong enough to consistantly race it.
Hopefully in the future the bans in the format will be rare and some of the good combo cards from Tempest and Urza blocks might open things up.
You can't assume what is true for traditional formats have the exact same implications in this format. Combo decks tend to be more resiliant against control decks in this format simply because control decks tend to have dead cards. The aggro decks are really the main problem for the combo decks because the typical combo decks in singleton could not pull off kills with turn 4 consistency or less. Some combo decks want to get greedy by using shocklands + fetches but they have to choose between setting up earlier or giving 3 life to accomplish that.
That said, people did not dare to play combo against a field where aggro is rampant. No doubt control decks actually dominated the top 8, I would dare say that the control decks just had more say becaused they were more tuned to fighting aggro decks. Maindeck exclude is a proof of this.
Another factor which I believe leads to the lack of combo decks is the fact that there are not many people actually tuning the combo decks till their highest possible potential. Combo decks have only a certain number of cards that have definite slots in the decks. The rest is up to the players themselves. Plus not everyone who actually bothers making "stronger" combo decks play in the PE. There are definitely more than 30 people who play singleton. Combo decks are also tough to tune when you cannot gauge the real threats in the casual rooms where you see all sorts of decks. It is alot more advantageous to play a control deck into the PE than a combo deck. I believe you mentioned playing a heartbeat combo which unfortunately didn't post great results. If you have played against it on the other side of the table using a control deck, you would find that it was possible to actually counter until you have no counters left and they can still go off. You can discard their hands but they can also recover with much ease. The actual problem lies that the combo deck needs a very tight player. When I say this, I do not mean that you are not good but that there are players who can actually pilot these decks to a very high level of accuracy of technical play. If starwarskid did play a heartbeat deck in a 30 man event, he would probably t8ed because he has a very high technical understanding of how the deck works. The little parts of the deck also contribute to how much the deck can do because I have seen many heartbeat decks play some awful cards.
Sadly, singleton is not a format that encourages people to go all out to work for it unlike the more main stream formats that have a larger player base. I write about singleton to try to bring people into actually wanting to play the format and because I want to see the decks evolve more than just the usual decks that have seen little change since 2 years back despite having alot more cards available. I believe that singleton truly is a format of much more potential than what PE results show.
I may never get your understanding by such replies and neither do I expect you to think critically about this small format when you already give players a weekly insight into the current news of the so many of the "lesser" formats. This format is still lurking in its infancy and there are many characteristics of the format which make it so different from others. Hopefully what I present can bring more understanding into the singleton-playing world.
many people seem to be saying that you won't draw more lands once crusher is in play. That's wrong. If you have two land on the top of your deck before his ability you will draw the second land.
It is SHIT..
:O
I've done a couple set reviews... and they're HARD. Not only are they relatively boring as most of the cards aren't going to really see play and don't have a lot to be said for them, and they're very hard to judge based on percieved power since they've yet to be proven in any actual decks...
I'd recommend looking at previous reviewers that you liked and emulate their styles and put a little of a personal twist into the review.
Good first work though, your effort is great and it shows!
the main deck is missing one card. May be a [card]Marsh Flitter[/card]?
CC doesn't play as nicely with Molten Rain as I was thinking/brainfarting, but his synergy with B/B is still fine. Thanks for the kind words everyone.
I think you have covered the meta game very well and represented most if not all of the top decks. I like how the shift in the meta allowed for flash to really shine in the tourny before last. To be honest while i like to be thought of as being smart i preffed my countertop deck to the flash in that tourny. However while testing i put the build of flash i used together during the week before and found that it was performing way too good in the practice room not to use.
However I'd like to point out that Countryside Crusher only triggers on lands hitting YOUR graveyard. So he doesn't quite 'play nice' with LD cards like Molten Rain and Boom/Bust. That said, he's note quite Terravore, but a fine replacement if you can't afford 1GG. Remember, reading is TECH.
Rating cards in a void doesn't help people understand them. The value of cards shift in different formats. From what I see, you are just rating cards that go into a casual deck.
Vendilion Clique is very underrated in your review. I believe this is the best blue card the set can offer. It's a 3/1 flying flash that cycles away the best card from the hand of ur opponent. I believe you don't find this good because the opponent draws a card. If you could choose to change his card into a possibly less powerful card would you? You get to mess up the plans your opponent has made for the past minute.
I hope the next reviews would look at cards from different angles to really appreciate them for what they are. Some of what you say makes great sense. However, (not trying to be offensive but) some cards are just too shallowly analyzed. I've read quite a few good articles on starcitygames and the magic show brought out some cards really well. I would suggest heading there to see how they do it and then continue with the reviews based on what you've come to understand about the cards. Good effort put into this work thou.
well i have to disagree on the fact that gaddock stops jhoira, it surely slows ist down, but when they get gaddock down u just switch from sorceries to instants, which u then play either in their attack step (if they attack) or during their endstep, and there u have a lot of ways to get him off the board, allmost all blue instant critter bounce costs 3 or less, lots of banishing effects cost 3 or less and some burn will on occasion help too (right after he enters play)
HOw can you not say Reveillark in the top 3? that card rediculous
No misuse here bud. In retrospect I should have said 8 out of 10 perhaps. The only time I see it being better is if your playing a giant deck casually or your playing limited. which is the reason I left it open the way I did. Also, it was my job to use any term any way I felt to describe the cards reviewed.
I may have overated Kithkin but that's prolly because I like them so much. 11 out of the 28 cards are Kithkin, that could have had something to do with it too.
I totally missed Reveilark.
Thanks for your continuing love for the Classic format :D Nice overview... Good to have the metagame in perspective.
great article. I enjoyed it.
Err forgot to mention you also need a sac outlet for combo Gargadon or Husk works.
Man people misuse "strictly better" like it is their job. If Burreton Bombardier was a Changeling it would be strictly better. As it stands it is superior but Changeling is very relevent in Lorwyn/Morningtide limited more-so in sealed than in draft. I know you said "in nine out of ten ways" but that is like saying object A is always better than B nine times out of ten.
As far as the bulk of the review I think you overrate the Kithkin, they were pretty bad as a whole in Lorwyn and I'm not sure if reinforce tricks and some new rares will be enough to save them in Morningtide.
Cards that I think you underrated:
Reveillark, Mogg Fanatic, and Body Double is an instant kill combo in Standard.
Fuedkiller's Verdict will probably also see play as it can punish painland heavy Doran decks and put the control deck way up on life while making a 5/5.
As far as formating I'm not quite sure why you had all the white cards and just didn't talk about most of them. If the WOTC website was up right now people could see a spoiler there so I don't think there is much need to have cards that you don't talk about.
What about the multiplayer FFA attack left bug? It's existed for awhile and cost me a few games.... spending 2-3 hours in a multiplayer game only to lose to the guy attacking you cus you can't attack back...
Well iceage4life i didn't run Auntie's Hoval due to budget i forgot to add that part and at the time i borrowed 3 profane's from Arnnaria. Right now im running 2 Auntie's Hoval and 3 Profane's of my own :) thanx for the questions i appreciate it since this is my first article and im in process of writing another one.
Runeliger - it was 5 rounds during the PE. so 3-1-1 or better gets in automatic and sorry i forgot to add who i drew to, to be honest i didn't think it was important but due to your awesome feedback now i know it is and i will add that in my future posts also ill probably add in a more in depth play by play in each game thanx for feed back Runeliger :).
Best advice I have for the formating is to do your whole article in a one cell table. I do 800 pixels across so that people can read it on small monitors (suckers). This solves many issues for me and makes the editor much more what you see is what you get.
I've been trying to fix the formatting. I don't want to go into details but it's been very frustrating. Should hopefully be fixed soon.
Thanks for the comments, I like that people actually read the article!!
Anonymous: I see what your saying, and I agree with it too. The deck lst I have is more so for casual since it factors in not only tourny worthy cards but also other fun stuff like flagstones.
largegrandon: That sounds neat, I'll have to try that out!
I totally agree the format is under-explored in terms of combo decks. When I was running Heartbeat Desire I found aggro decks a problem because they goldfished a turn or two slower than me and were more consistant. A poor draw on my part or any disruption from them set my clock back a turn or two and often resulted in a loss.
This is not really a problem of aggro in them metagame so much as the combo decks not being strong enough to consistantly race it.
Hopefully in the future the bans in the format will be rare and some of the good combo cards from Tempest and Urza blocks might open things up.
Actually the full text that's relevant is:
At the beginning of your upkeep, reveal the top card of your library. If it's a land card, put it into your graveyard and repeat this process. "
So you won't draw a land through normal means again. That's not so say that can't get them back, or get to them another way though. :)
You can't assume what is true for traditional formats have the exact same implications in this format. Combo decks tend to be more resiliant against control decks in this format simply because control decks tend to have dead cards. The aggro decks are really the main problem for the combo decks because the typical combo decks in singleton could not pull off kills with turn 4 consistency or less. Some combo decks want to get greedy by using shocklands + fetches but they have to choose between setting up earlier or giving 3 life to accomplish that.
That said, people did not dare to play combo against a field where aggro is rampant. No doubt control decks actually dominated the top 8, I would dare say that the control decks just had more say becaused they were more tuned to fighting aggro decks. Maindeck exclude is a proof of this.
Another factor which I believe leads to the lack of combo decks is the fact that there are not many people actually tuning the combo decks till their highest possible potential. Combo decks have only a certain number of cards that have definite slots in the decks. The rest is up to the players themselves. Plus not everyone who actually bothers making "stronger" combo decks play in the PE. There are definitely more than 30 people who play singleton. Combo decks are also tough to tune when you cannot gauge the real threats in the casual rooms where you see all sorts of decks. It is alot more advantageous to play a control deck into the PE than a combo deck. I believe you mentioned playing a heartbeat combo which unfortunately didn't post great results. If you have played against it on the other side of the table using a control deck, you would find that it was possible to actually counter until you have no counters left and they can still go off. You can discard their hands but they can also recover with much ease. The actual problem lies that the combo deck needs a very tight player. When I say this, I do not mean that you are not good but that there are players who can actually pilot these decks to a very high level of accuracy of technical play. If starwarskid did play a heartbeat deck in a 30 man event, he would probably t8ed because he has a very high technical understanding of how the deck works. The little parts of the deck also contribute to how much the deck can do because I have seen many heartbeat decks play some awful cards.
Sadly, singleton is not a format that encourages people to go all out to work for it unlike the more main stream formats that have a larger player base. I write about singleton to try to bring people into actually wanting to play the format and because I want to see the decks evolve more than just the usual decks that have seen little change since 2 years back despite having alot more cards available. I believe that singleton truly is a format of much more potential than what PE results show.
I may never get your understanding by such replies and neither do I expect you to think critically about this small format when you already give players a weekly insight into the current news of the so many of the "lesser" formats. This format is still lurking in its infancy and there are many characteristics of the format which make it so different from others. Hopefully what I present can bring more understanding into the singleton-playing world.
nice article.
many people seem to be saying that you won't draw more lands once crusher is in play. That's wrong. If you have two land on the top of your deck before his ability you will draw the second land.
Ok then, didn't mean to say it that many times...but I guess now you can tell I REALLY enjoyed it.
Oops.
Amidst the recent negativity I thought I'd drop in and say I really enjoyed the recent article(s) on this. Can't wait to see the third in the series.