Wow. That sucks, but I appreciate you keeping accurate notes, and really jumping on that grenade for the rest of us. I went 4-1 in a league that I thought had bomb red cards (both X burn spells, incinerate, etc.) but got torched in game 3 of my last match with a torch in hand myself. My other league I went GR for Savage Twist, but that didn't really do much...Thundermare was a bomb, and really what got me 5-0 was a seemingly unending supply for 3/3s and 3/4s (and said 5/4) at 4cc.
You seem to be down on the cinder wall, but in the format, a 3/3 will often trade with something useful (critter or removal) or stall the weenies. Did you have it played against you? Pretty frustrating to get stalled by a 1cc wall, it takes some balls to throw one of your guys into it (always a bad deal) for the sake of the rest of your ground game.
WW didn't answer 'yes' to the question about all 10 duals in Med II. That combined with him mentioning in his podcast interview at worlds that the duals might get released in the next fw Masters editions.
I'd love to see them all in Med II...but i doubt it.
It's great to hear that the articles are helping people out in deck matchups. It's one of the main goals of the column. Good luck with that Doran Rock list. I expect the hate will come eventually. :)
They are taking out threats to bring in hate. You're taking out parts of your combo to bring in answers. The other thing is combo decks are hurt more by siding out cards. Aggro decks can side out their burn spells and loose maybe a turn off the clock. If you side out dredge enablers you might never go off if your draws are poor. Combo decks are built on consistancy, siding out spells hurts this. Aggro decks are built on cards being interchangable so they are hurt less. This favors them.
They draw hate, you don't draw answer, +them They don't draw hate you draw an answer, +them They draw hate, you draw answer, even They don't draw hate you don't draw an answer, even
So when combo sides in answers to hate on average it looses. You can also side in the wrong answers before seeing which hate they run versus your combo deck. You bring in Needle vs their crypt and they play turn 0 Leyline. Or if they have two hate cards and you draw wrong answer (same as above)
I think that starting next week I'll make the hide list it's own article and update it accordingly, then just link it. It's taking up a lot of article space that it doesn't really need to.
Liked this article quite a bit. Sometimes it feels a bit short on content for someone who follows all the news anyways. The WW interview and Prismatic coverage was good (even if you missed the Wishes ;).
What happened to card price drops, always nice to see what is dropping too.
Last comment is there any way to hide the public hide list? Click to see it or something. Pretty long for something people are not really gonna read just gonna copy&paste.
Ooof. Didn't know anyone else took over the project, forgive me for not going past the first couple pages of the forum.
The original thread in question predates the move to gleemax and the author, I forget who, said they were no longer interested in updating the thread.
Btw, if anyone read far enough to see the Phelddagrif deck, it works a lot better to pull all the non-basic lands, add in 4 thawing glaciers, then fill it with basics, remove the kodama's reach and replace with stone-seeder heirophant, actually won a few games.
A great summary of the metagame as always. Hopefully you'll see me in one of those top 8s very soon with the Worlds Doran Rock list! I've been using your analysis of the meta to test against specific matchups and it has been helping immensely.
That is the thing with the other decks. They are taking out good cards to keep you from winning while you are bringing in answers that woudl beat you outright. When Zoo is sideing out Men, and taking pressure off of you, the percentages will increase.
I find you pre/post board numbers very odd. I've not played much Extended recently but dredge should NOT improve post board. Most decks bring in 4-8 hosers, sure you bring in some answers but you should be aiming to win g1 and then hope to get g2 or 3. Being 40% vs most of the feild g1 is just awful with a deck like dredge.
Also vs PT junk what are you worried about Vindicate hitting that you therapy it?
I've thought about main decking some copies of Chain of Vapor for some time now, and have in the past, I think right now, it is better off in the board. Thankfully there is a small amount of flexibility in the deck so I can make that change later without disrupting it too much.
From what your chart indicates you side in darkblast and chain vapor in almost every game rather that have such a low pre-board only to side in darkblast and chain each time why not just simply mainboard chains and darkblasts? I think it is far more reasonable, no?
There are some errors in the Elves! list. the Wren's Run Packmaster should be Wren's Run Vanquisher and the missing sideboard card is a Loxodon Warhammer.
You know it did not occur to me to untap the Brigid with Angler, although I'm not real sure their was every the chance to abuse it. Brigid tends to draw all kinds of hate. I agree with your views on the Nap, I ended up boarding it out alot of times. Thanks for all your suggestions
1) Splash the Perfect. The vivid land, drum, tideshaper, and mulldrifter make this relatively easy. If ever there was a "this wins you the game on it's own" card, Perfect is it.
2) Dunno if you saw this or not, but Angler + Brigid is a win condition. Untapping her = 4 damage to all attackers or blockers, which is usually enough to swing a game.
3) I'm not a fan of Glimmerdust Nap. I'd be tempted to put Familiar's Ruse in over it. Returning a Shriek or Drifter? Savage beats.
4) Veteran of the Depths is also a strong win condition. I've seen them get up to 11/11 size.
The pool is ok, but hard to centralize and you do not have teh fixers to maximize the power available. I built a similar deck to yours with the following changes:
-1 Surge of Thoughtwelt
-1 Wizened Cenn (with just 3 other Kithkin in the deck this just does not do enough for me)
-1 Tideshaper (not a big fan of 1/1's for 1)
+1 Aquitects Will(esentially the same function as Tideshaper, but a cantrip with 8 possible merfolk)
+1 Warren Pilferers(recursion is good for your deck)
+1 Peppersmoke(is ok removal even if not a cantrip)
also I would change the manabase to teh following:
1 Vivid Grove(yeah you are not playing green, but yoyu are still playing 3 colors, can be switched out later if deck becomes more focused)
3 Swamp (I upped the black so I upped the black sources)
7 Islands
7 Plains
Giving me the the following deck:
1cc: Springleaf Drum, Peppersmoke, Aquitects Will
2cc: Judge of Currents, Stonybrook Angler, Silvergill Dowser, Nameless Inversion
3cc: O. Ring, Streambed Aquitects, Merrow Reejery, Glimmerdust Nap
4cc: Vetern of the Depths, Brigid, Summon the School, Hillcomber Giant
The pool is indeed quite strong. It seems to have a very definite colour/tribal preference. Your assessment was spot on, both pre- and postgame. You only missed two more game winning cards next to plover knights and the hero: Inkfathom divers and summon the school. Both are very conditional but they are winners when the conditions are met.
Probably the only thing I would have done differently is to include footbottom feast and aquitect's will, Even if that would push the pool to 42 cards, since I'm a great believer in cantrips. Aquitect makes the islandwalk win that much more certain and doesn't take up a lot of space in the deck. The feast is probably more important in your deck than it is in most others: you can't afford to lose certain creatures and feasting them gives em a second lease, when you have both the feast and the command you can decide to completely wipe the board with relative impunity, usually and lastly it can fill up your library in the very rare case that the game might outlast your deck. At the very least the feast could grant you card advantage by replaying the drifter.
There are a few sideboard creatures which you haven't mentioned, I take it you replaced some cards after seeing some of the decks. For instance the wispmare for an excellent anti-oblivion with added evasion. Soaring hope for landlocked decks or extreme flying decks or replacing surge with triclopean sight in those rare cases that size really matters.
Wow. That sucks, but I appreciate you keeping accurate notes, and really jumping on that grenade for the rest of us. I went 4-1 in a league that I thought had bomb red cards (both X burn spells, incinerate, etc.) but got torched in game 3 of my last match with a torch in hand myself. My other league I went GR for Savage Twist, but that didn't really do much...Thundermare was a bomb, and really what got me 5-0 was a seemingly unending supply for 3/3s and 3/4s (and said 5/4) at 4cc.
You seem to be down on the cinder wall, but in the format, a 3/3 will often trade with something useful (critter or removal) or stall the weenies. Did you have it played against you? Pretty frustrating to get stalled by a 1cc wall, it takes some balls to throw one of your guys into it (always a bad deal) for the sake of the rest of your ground game.
WW didn't answer 'yes' to the question about all 10 duals in Med II. That combined with him mentioning in his podcast interview at worlds that the duals might get released in the next fw Masters editions.
I'd love to see them all in Med II...but i doubt it.
It's great to hear that the articles are helping people out in deck matchups. It's one of the main goals of the column. Good luck with that Doran Rock list. I expect the hate will come eventually. :)
The beard is real. It's getting pretty long though, I need to trim it down to a manageable size before I go for Yule celebrations.
They are taking out threats to bring in hate. You're taking out parts of your combo to bring in answers. The other thing is combo decks are hurt more by siding out cards. Aggro decks can side out their burn spells and loose maybe a turn off the clock. If you side out dredge enablers you might never go off if your draws are poor. Combo decks are built on consistancy, siding out spells hurts this. Aggro decks are built on cards being interchangable so they are hurt less. This favors them.
They draw hate, you don't draw answer, +them
They don't draw hate you draw an answer, +them
They draw hate, you draw answer, even
They don't draw hate you don't draw an answer, even
So when combo sides in answers to hate on average it looses. You can also side in the wrong answers before seeing which hate they run versus your combo deck. You bring in Needle vs their crypt and they play turn 0 Leyline. Or if they have two hate cards and you draw wrong answer (same as above)
Please tell me that the beard is a prop you sellotape on purely for fun.
I fear the answer to this may be no it's real.
At which point I will run in fear, for it surely is the work of Stephen King.
The Pink Floyd approves of your extremely fast growing new barnet.
I think they're talking about banning Riftsweeper.
I think that starting next week I'll make the hide list it's own article and update it accordingly, then just link it. It's taking up a lot of article space that it doesn't really need to.
Thanks!
great article as usual..
firm comitment on the duals.. that set is going to be one of the most saught after sets on MODO.. moreso then MED1..
Liked this article quite a bit. Sometimes it feels a bit short on content for someone who follows all the news anyways. The WW interview and Prismatic coverage was good (even if you missed the Wishes ;).
What happened to card price drops, always nice to see what is dropping too.
Last comment is there any way to hide the public hide list? Click to see it or something. Pretty long for something people are not really gonna read just gonna copy&paste.
Ooof. Didn't know anyone else took over the project, forgive me for not going past the first couple pages of the forum.
The original thread in question predates the move to gleemax and the author, I forget who, said they were no longer interested in updating the thread.
Btw, if anyone read far enough to see the Phelddagrif deck, it works a lot better to pull all the non-basic lands, add in 4 thawing glaciers, then fill it with basics, remove the kodama's reach and replace with stone-seeder heirophant, actually won a few games.
A great summary of the metagame as always. Hopefully you'll see me in one of those top 8s very soon with the Worlds Doran Rock list! I've been using your analysis of the meta to test against specific matchups and it has been helping immensely.
That is the thing with the other decks. They are taking out good cards to keep you from winning while you are bringing in answers that woudl beat you outright. When Zoo is sideing out Men, and taking pressure off of you, the percentages will increase.
Hey, you might be thinking of the thread (on the Wizards BBS) that I update with every release:
State of the Union for Online Tribal
I haven't been able to update it yet for the Weatherlight release but it will be current when Morningtide goes live.
I find you pre/post board numbers very odd. I've not played much Extended recently but dredge should NOT improve post board. Most decks bring in 4-8 hosers, sure you bring in some answers but you should be aiming to win g1 and then hope to get g2 or 3. Being 40% vs most of the feild g1 is just awful with a deck like dredge.
Also vs PT junk what are you worried about Vindicate hitting that you therapy it?
I've thought about main decking some copies of Chain of Vapor for some time now, and have in the past, I think right now, it is better off in the board. Thankfully there is a small amount of flexibility in the deck so I can make that change later without disrupting it too much.
From what your chart indicates you side in darkblast and chain vapor in almost every game rather that have such a low pre-board only to side in darkblast and chain each time why not just simply mainboard chains and darkblasts? I think it is far more reasonable, no?
Fixed
Nice articel. Keep them comming!
There are some errors in the Elves! list. the Wren's Run Packmaster should be Wren's Run Vanquisher and the missing sideboard card is a Loxodon Warhammer.
You know it did not occur to me to untap the Brigid with Angler, although I'm not real sure their was every the chance to abuse it. Brigid tends to draw all kinds of hate. I agree with your views on the Nap, I ended up boarding it out alot of times. Thanks for all your suggestions
Few things:
1) Splash the Perfect. The vivid land, drum, tideshaper, and mulldrifter make this relatively easy. If ever there was a "this wins you the game on it's own" card, Perfect is it.
2) Dunno if you saw this or not, but Angler + Brigid is a win condition. Untapping her = 4 damage to all attackers or blockers, which is usually enough to swing a game.
3) I'm not a fan of Glimmerdust Nap. I'd be tempted to put Familiar's Ruse in over it. Returning a Shriek or Drifter? Savage beats.
4) Veteran of the Depths is also a strong win condition. I've seen them get up to 11/11 size.
Anyway, better luck next week.
-Mike
The pool is ok, but hard to centralize and you do not have teh fixers to maximize the power available. I built a similar deck to yours with the following changes:
-1 Surge of Thoughtwelt
-1 Wizened Cenn (with just 3 other Kithkin in the deck this just does not do enough for me)
-1 Tideshaper (not a big fan of 1/1's for 1)
+1 Aquitects Will(esentially the same function as Tideshaper, but a cantrip with 8 possible merfolk)
+1 Warren Pilferers(recursion is good for your deck)
+1 Peppersmoke(is ok removal even if not a cantrip)
also I would change the manabase to teh following:
1 Vivid Grove(yeah you are not playing green, but yoyu are still playing 3 colors, can be switched out later if deck becomes more focused)
3 Swamp (I upped the black so I upped the black sources)
7 Islands
7 Plains
Giving me the the following deck:
1cc: Springleaf Drum, Peppersmoke, Aquitects Will
2cc: Judge of Currents, Stonybrook Angler, Silvergill Dowser, Nameless Inversion
3cc: O. Ring, Streambed Aquitects, Merrow Reejery, Glimmerdust Nap
4cc: Vetern of the Depths, Brigid, Summon the School, Hillcomber Giant
5cc: Plover Knights, Changling Hero, Mulldrifter, Warren Pilferers, Shriekmaw
6+cc: Austere Command, Broken Ambitions
1 Vivid Grove
3 Swamp
7 Islands
7 Plains
Regards
___helper_monkey on MTGO
Hiya Rasparthe,
The pool is indeed quite strong. It seems to have a very definite colour/tribal preference. Your assessment was spot on, both pre- and postgame. You only missed two more game winning cards next to plover knights and the hero: Inkfathom divers and summon the school. Both are very conditional but they are winners when the conditions are met.
Probably the only thing I would have done differently is to include footbottom feast and aquitect's will, Even if that would push the pool to 42 cards, since I'm a great believer in cantrips. Aquitect makes the islandwalk win that much more certain and doesn't take up a lot of space in the deck. The feast is probably more important in your deck than it is in most others: you can't afford to lose certain creatures and feasting them gives em a second lease, when you have both the feast and the command you can decide to completely wipe the board with relative impunity, usually and lastly it can fill up your library in the very rare case that the game might outlast your deck. At the very least the feast could grant you card advantage by replaying the drifter.
There are a few sideboard creatures which you haven't mentioned, I take it you replaced some cards after seeing some of the decks. For instance the wispmare for an excellent anti-oblivion with added evasion. Soaring hope for landlocked decks or extreme flying decks or replacing surge with triclopean sight in those rare cases that size really matters.
Good luck on that booster,
Wu-Lan
Good writeup! I would've taken the third Inversion. ;)