I'd like to hear the argument for Arcane Denial in MUC.
From my perspective, it's hard to justify it's inclusion. It counters, replaces it's self, then replaces you're opponents spell and gives him or her another card.
Don't get me wrong, I want to like this card as it's another hard counter for two. I'd really like you to convince me that it should be used.
DarkDragon, thanks for all the thought and effort you put into judging the contest and writing this article. Thanks also for the high praise for my cards!
I don't think that any of my cards would see play in tournament-level Constructed -- and, as runeliger pointed out, most cards don't -- but I think that all of them could see play in Limited or casual Constructed.
In retrospect, Timorousness could probably go down to a single mana and still be fair.
My biggest regret about my entries is that the art for Enthusiasm really isn't appropriate for a blue card. It would be just fine on, say, a red card with the same name and effect, although giving red that mechanic would be a bit out of flavor. I also considered making the card white, and this art would have fit a little better in that case. If I could have found something like a picture of a scientist working late into the night on an experiment, that would have been a better fit for blue.
My favorite card from this month is probably jinx_talaris' "Urza Decimal System". Triggering on a library being shuffled is an interesting and largely unexplored area of design space, and the effect is certain to be useful at the time. It may not affect the board, but it's subtly powerful, with increasing returns as the game lasts longer. But I'm not big on the idea of a colorless enchantment, which is mechanically hardly any different from an artifact. I might have preferred it as either a blue or white enchantment, or else as an artifact that only affects its controller and their library.
Just as an FYI, on Waning Lich... the ability says to only play that ability as a Sorcery... so you couldn't just pay [4] to draw 8 cards... you pay [1] draw 2 cards... and then it flips... before you can activate it again... seriously dropping its power level... and it DOES say, "that player gains control of it"... other than that, I don't have any disputes with anything :)
I'd like to hear the argument for Arcane Denial in MUC.
From my perspective, it's hard to justify it's inclusion. It counters, replaces it's self, then replaces you're opponents spell and gives him or her another card.
Don't get me wrong, I want to like this card as it's another hard counter for two. I'd really like you to convince me that it should be used.
I'd like to hear the argument for Arcane Denial in MUC.
From my perspective, it's hard to justify it's inclusion. It counters, replaces it's self, then replaces you're opponents spell and gives him or her another card.
Don't get me wrong, I want to like this card as it's another hard counter for two. I'd really like you to convince me that it should be used.
I'd like to hear the argument for Arcane Denial in MUC.
From my perspective, it's hard to justify it's inclusion. It counters, replaces it's self, then replaces you're opponents spell and gives him or her another card.
Don't get me wrong, I want to like this card as it's another hard counter for two. I'd really like you to convince me that it should be used.
I don't think he's necessarily referring to competitive constructed alone. I wouldn't play the card even in a casual game, it just isn't very good for what it does.
Overall, an excellent article. It was interesting to hear the judges' opinions, so thank you.
Remember that cards were judged for these five criterions: Originality, Spelling/Templeting/Grammer, Playability, Flavor, and Appeal. For the card in question, Timorousness, it is noted that it is not very usable in constructed. This counts against the card in terms of appeal in that people may not like a card that has such a limited range of uses; the score for playability was minimally affected. This is to say that Timorousness could be improved by making it somewhat more viable in other formats. It is not absolutely wrong to make a card targetted for a specific format, but it will be more popular if it has other applications. For a recent example, refer to Dread from Lorwyn previews, which is for those unfamiliar with it a 6/6 creature with fear costing 3BBB with this ability: “Whenever a creature deals damage to you, destroy it.” This is obviously ideal for free-for-all matches, but can still be used outside of that format. This is objectively a superior design than one that is only usable by those who play in free-for-all formats, but by no one else so far as designing a more popular card is concerned, and so would be something to consider for future improvement.
A nice read, a lot of those cards cannot be played simply on a few basis, but I just wanted to point out one thing, "This card is not really playable in constructed. While all cards don’t necessarily need to be constructed-usable, this is something that must be considered when designing a card." That's what you said was needed to be approved for Timorous. That's a completely wrong statement, and if that's really the only thing that needs to improve, it's fine the way it is. The majority of cards you ever seen in magic will not be constructed playable, something you admit to as well, therefore this card not being constructed playable shouldn't be labeled as an area for improvement.
Shield Sphere only really saw play in Fruity Pebbles (Enduring Renewal/Goblin Bombardment combo) because you wanted more than 4 0 mana artifacts so you could save your E Tutors to find the enchantments, and P Walker + Shield Sphere was better than P Walker + Ornithopter. Actually, I don't even remember if Thopter was legal then, it's been a while since I played that deck... But anyways, that's the only reason he saw play then, he was less dead of a draw than the thopter if you drew multiple 0 cc critters.
I have to say this is probably one of the best articulated articles I have read on MTGO. Very impressive ideas and break downs, I especially appreciate the writers knowledge and ability to provide constructive criticism.
While I was writing this I got all tore into some of the decks from Magic's past. While I was doing this I was also researching the Classic format, and saw Grand Enterance. When I got to Shield Sphere, I was like man, that card saw some playing in Enduring Renewal combo decks, maybe it could here.
GE is not the place for Shield Sphere. Affinity may be a better home.
Artifact blast is just another removal spell. I believe I have overvalued affinity, as I am still you know, making the transition from heavy tournament player to more of a casual tournament player, I remember how much I hated seeing the artifact menance in t2.
Classic Pauper and T2 are not remotely the same format.
In regards to the Thallid, I thought he be nice in the board for GR to deal with the guys.
I still overvalue things, thankfully I said I knew I would be wrong :)
Shatter is not the right metric to compare artifact blast as there are much better options available:
echoing ruin, ancient grudge and fury charm are basically strictly better.
Then you've got things like hearth charm, electrostatic bolt, smash, tin street hooligan, goblin tinkerer, gorilla shaman, builder's bane...
Now Artifact Blast has the advantage of costing one less than most comparable options and going around the usual regen from Welding Jar. It has the huge disadvantage of needing the mana when the spell is cast of course specially in a color that isn't too good at keeping mana for reactive purposes.
The last bit is key, and I'd be surprised to see Artifact Blast see any play.
Thorn Thallid:
Not playable, not even close in my opinion.
Sure it's green direct damage but just because something is new to a color doesn't make it playable.
For it's P/T, it's overcosted by more than G (a 2/2 for 1G is under the curve) and you get a damage every third turn.
Your protection from red comment is kind of weird. IF you're REALLY worried about prot red , I'm assuming you're playing either mono-red or close to, as all the prot red creatures are small enough to not be dangerous to other decks. In that case, why would you want to play Thorn Thallid? In any case, red itself has much better solutions already (see Ghostfire for example).
Ghazaban Ogre:
I can see this guy being played in some decks at least in sideboards. (It's not bad at all vs MUC for example).
Shield Sphere:
I have no idea why Grand entrance (or any deck I can think of ) would play this.
An addition, Scryb Sprites.
It looks very ordinary but it's the first flyer for G (not counting Uktabi) and flyers for 1 mana see play here and there in various decks for various reasons.
Even in MUC it'll be at most a very narrow sideboard card so bad that I'm not even sure there'll be space in it for it.
To expand on this:
Rare is it that a counter does not land properly (shelter, etc..) for a reason or another.
Even rarer is it that you 2 mana laying around at that point.
Even rarer is it that you have the 2 mana laying around and you'd rather have card that draws 3 (by countering your first counter ) rather than countering whatever is causing the problem (shelter in this case).
There are some matchups (specially control, like mirror and Teachings) where I could see it might be good, but not sure if that will warrant inclusion in the sideboard, I'll see.
Here is my take on Shield Sphere that has no pertaining commentary on how it affects PDC..
its a free artifact that clogs the ground.. yeah he may not last a while, but who cares when you're goal is to plop down good affinity stuff or sac things to make things work... I used him in an academy deck because he's a cheap blocker.. I would use him in combo decks that needs to have an artifact that can be sac'd and needs to cheap..
I take this "grand entrance" deck (i have no idea what this deck is..if a deck list or link would have been helpful.. anyways.. I take it its a Ninja deck.. then yeah shield sphere means nothing but a blocker.. I think shield sphere is a very underrated card and should be looked at..
but as usual enjoyed the article.. the series has singlehandly made me care about a format that i never played much before so kudos.
Thanks for writing these articles, Joshua. It's too bad there wasn't more material in the set for you to write about. From an editorial perspective, I'd say they could have been combined into one article.
For the most part I think you've correctly identified and assessed the noteworthy cards. A few comments:
- Artifact Blast is cheap, but you're right that there are better choices for the purpose. Hard to imagine choosing it over Electrostatic Bolt or Echoing Ruin. Maybe if there were relevant artifacts with comes-into-play abilities.
- Shield Sphere doesn't make sense in Grand Entrance, because it can't attack (Phyrexian Walker can and does). I thought six toughness for zero mana would be good at first, but then I realized how quickly it dies -- you get three, maybe four blocks out of it if you're lucky. As a zero-mana artifact I thought there might be a use for it in Affinity, but there are actually enough zero-mana artifacts already, and they all perform more useful functions.
- Even having read the comments on the previous article, I still can't see ever playing Arcane Denial. The situations in which it can be good are too narrow, and will come up too infrequently, to justify the space it occupies. And in Classic, there are several other playable counterspells with the same mana cost. But I agree with the other four cards on your Top Five list.
This was meant as a short look at some fringe decks before this format rotated. I don't believe any of these decks really have what it takes to be great, but they are fun to play, like I said, to kill some time in the TP room. I mean, I suppose I could write up in-dpeth analysis for these decks, but really what would be the point? Dutch Chord is a very strong deck. The point I was trying to make there, was that this rogue deck crushed me; I felt like I had no chance. And yeah, I brought in the Harmonic Sliver, and got a Grave Pact, and he still ran me over. I was simply trying to illustrate that this rogue deck DEMOLISHED what I feel to be one of the top decks in standard, so it might be something to keep an eye on in the next few weeks.
The Token deck winning the 4x WAS a fluke. Just look at the data. How many PEs has it top 8d since its win? I've done the research, the answer is 0. The deck is cute, and fun, but not powerful enough to compete. The pilot got very lucky with matchups/draws/whatever. Feel free to disagree, but its the way I feel.
Lastly, I'd just like to say that this article was meant to be short. This isn't the beginning of a pattern, only a little look at some neat decks before they vanished into obscurity.
As someone who has been out of MTG for several years (played lots from IA/4E-Odyssey block), these articles have been *very* useful. Do you plan to cover lands and artifacts? I assume signets and both sets of duals (common and rare) are key. What else would you recommend?
If you have similar suggestions for Time Spiral block, I'm all ears -- like I said, I'm just getting back to playing...
As someone, who used to write articles for PureMTGO about rogue decks, I am glad that someone finally at least attempts to do it again. As others have said, a little bit more detail would have been better, but that's all. Good luck in your future articles.
oh also, you forgot Boreal Druids (G for 1/1 that generates mana = good in deck)and pendelhaven (synergetic) in that decklist (I saw them, reviewing the game 1 of the matches the deck won).
I don't share the same opinion as that of khirareq. I for one, believe given the length of this article, a mere 650 words (including your name and AIM and modo information, but not the lists), I wonder why there are 3 cards that aren't autocarded.. Not sure if this is your fault or that of the editor's. However, I find the content of this article extremely lacking. I am a player of the standard game (although to be honest, it's a pretty dead format at this point, so I'm playtesting Ext. to help my friends who qualified for PT Valencia), and your analysis was quite lacking. Please try to take this constructively, but... for instance, your gravepact analysis was simply, "I was playing a version of Omnichord made by dutch people, and it lost to this deck, therefore I think this deck is definitely viable as a rogue deck". That's not really analysis, that just means either it's a tier 2 deck that is specifically designed and works to beat your deck, or you simply misplayed. Also, Chord of Calling does have Irik Stomphowler for enchantment removal, but I'm sure everyone would agree that running such a card just for the sake of combating that rogue deck would be pointless.
Also, your argument that the 4x winner was a fluke made me laugh... until I realized you were probably serious. You basically state a paradoxical statement, "Although it won the 4x, I'm thinking it's a fluke", makes no sense whatsoever. Standard 4x with an attendence of 128 players, that's 7 rounds of swiss and 3 rounds of top 8 play. He only lost one match in 9 rounds of player (he drew in the finals obviously), and beyond that had a 76% game win percentage. How you can simply call it a fluke, and basically state the obvious about how to play that game play makes me wonder.
Also, in terms of the deck's actual power. It's viability lies in the metagame. The current meta game if you've noticed revolve around a few decks: Angelfire, UB Teferi control, Aggro decks (sorry guys, grouping all of the goyf decks together), and some control decks. Angelfire, and UB Teferi control, many variants thereof don't run Wrath effects due to the inherent syngeries of having creatures alive (momentary blink and CIP effect creatures of angelfire) and the power spot removal of UB teferi control (although many variants do run Damnation nowdays). Thus this deck, given the heavily aggro meta, was perfect. This is what Flores (I suppose you know him, considering you listen to his podcasts) would probably call a good deck (and then ridicule the fact it only runs 3 overruns, and argue that you should probably have run 4).
Good attempt, but next time, try giving indepth analysis, or at least bother to make the article a bit longer.
Firstly, I'd like to point out that the author managed to get all but 3 cards autocarded correctly. This is nearly unheard of. I, for instance, have not figured out how to autocard correctly at all. My hat's off to you sir!
The Jhoria deck is almost TSP legal. Switch the remand for delay, the compulsive for foresee or careful consideration, change the martyr to sulfur and switch the land package and viola! Time Spiral goodness.
Dutch Omnichord has nothing that kills enchantments? Is this "Chord" as in "of Calling", as in the color green which has a love/kill relationship with enchantments?
I would have liked to seen some more analysis on why the card choices would be good against the current standard metagame... but right now its the waning days of std as lorwyn looms..so maybe this should have waited a month for how to beat the next class of standard.
"This card is very similar to Second Wind."
Actually this card is far better, you can untap it on your turn and on your opponent turn. :)
I'd like to hear the argument for Arcane Denial in MUC.
From my perspective, it's hard to justify it's inclusion. It counters, replaces it's self, then replaces you're opponents spell and gives him or her another card.
Don't get me wrong, I want to like this card as it's another hard counter for two. I'd really like you to convince me that it should be used.
DarkDragon, thanks for all the thought and effort you put into judging the contest and writing this article. Thanks also for the high praise for my cards!
I don't think that any of my cards would see play in tournament-level Constructed -- and, as runeliger pointed out, most cards don't -- but I think that all of them could see play in Limited or casual Constructed.
In retrospect, Timorousness could probably go down to a single mana and still be fair.
My biggest regret about my entries is that the art for Enthusiasm really isn't appropriate for a blue card. It would be just fine on, say, a red card with the same name and effect, although giving red that mechanic would be a bit out of flavor. I also considered making the card white, and this art would have fit a little better in that case. If I could have found something like a picture of a scientist working late into the night on an experiment, that would have been a better fit for blue.
My favorite card from this month is probably jinx_talaris' "Urza Decimal System". Triggering on a library being shuffled is an interesting and largely unexplored area of design space, and the effect is certain to be useful at the time. It may not affect the board, but it's subtly powerful, with increasing returns as the game lasts longer. But I'm not big on the idea of a colorless enchantment, which is mechanically hardly any different from an artifact. I might have preferred it as either a blue or white enchantment, or else as an artifact that only affects its controller and their library.
Just as an FYI, on Waning Lich... the ability says to only play that ability as a Sorcery... so you couldn't just pay [4] to draw 8 cards... you pay [1] draw 2 cards... and then it flips... before you can activate it again... seriously dropping its power level... and it DOES say, "that player gains control of it"... other than that, I don't have any disputes with anything :)
As always, a learning experience :D
I'd like to hear the argument for Arcane Denial in MUC.
From my perspective, it's hard to justify it's inclusion. It counters, replaces it's self, then replaces you're opponents spell and gives him or her another card.
Don't get me wrong, I want to like this card as it's another hard counter for two. I'd really like you to convince me that it should be used.
I'd like to hear the argument for Arcane Denial in MUC.
From my perspective, it's hard to justify it's inclusion. It counters, replaces it's self, then replaces you're opponents spell and gives him or her another card.
Don't get me wrong, I want to like this card as it's another hard counter for two. I'd really like you to convince me that it should be used.
I'd like to hear the argument for Arcane Denial in MUC.
From my perspective, it's hard to justify it's inclusion. It counters, replaces it's self, then replaces you're opponents spell and gives him or her another card.
Don't get me wrong, I want to like this card as it's another hard counter for two. I'd really like you to convince me that it should be used.
I don't think he's necessarily referring to competitive constructed alone. I wouldn't play the card even in a casual game, it just isn't very good for what it does.
Overall, an excellent article. It was interesting to hear the judges' opinions, so thank you.
Remember that cards were judged for these five criterions: Originality, Spelling/Templeting/Grammer, Playability, Flavor, and Appeal. For the card in question, Timorousness, it is noted that it is not very usable in constructed. This counts against the card in terms of appeal in that people may not like a card that has such a limited range of uses; the score for playability was minimally affected. This is to say that Timorousness could be improved by making it somewhat more viable in other formats. It is not absolutely wrong to make a card targetted for a specific format, but it will be more popular if it has other applications. For a recent example, refer to Dread from Lorwyn previews, which is for those unfamiliar with it a 6/6 creature with fear costing 3BBB with this ability: “Whenever a creature deals damage to you, destroy it.” This is obviously ideal for free-for-all matches, but can still be used outside of that format. This is objectively a superior design than one that is only usable by those who play in free-for-all formats, but by no one else so far as designing a more popular card is concerned, and so would be something to consider for future improvement.
A nice read, a lot of those cards cannot be played simply on a few basis, but I just wanted to point out one thing, "This card is not really playable in constructed. While all cards don’t necessarily need to be constructed-usable, this is something that must be considered when designing a card." That's what you said was needed to be approved for Timorous. That's a completely wrong statement, and if that's really the only thing that needs to improve, it's fine the way it is. The majority of cards you ever seen in magic will not be constructed playable, something you admit to as well, therefore this card not being constructed playable shouldn't be labeled as an area for improvement.
Shield Sphere only really saw play in Fruity Pebbles (Enduring Renewal/Goblin Bombardment combo) because you wanted more than 4 0 mana artifacts so you could save your E Tutors to find the enchantments, and P Walker + Shield Sphere was better than P Walker + Ornithopter. Actually, I don't even remember if Thopter was legal then, it's been a while since I played that deck... But anyways, that's the only reason he saw play then, he was less dead of a draw than the thopter if you drew multiple 0 cc critters.
I have to say this is probably one of the best articulated articles I have read on MTGO. Very impressive ideas and break downs, I especially appreciate the writers knowledge and ability to provide constructive criticism.
While I was writing this I got all tore into some of the decks from Magic's past. While I was doing this I was also researching the Classic format, and saw Grand Enterance. When I got to Shield Sphere, I was like man, that card saw some playing in Enduring Renewal combo decks, maybe it could here.
GE is not the place for Shield Sphere. Affinity may be a better home.
Artifact blast is just another removal spell. I believe I have overvalued affinity, as I am still you know, making the transition from heavy tournament player to more of a casual tournament player, I remember how much I hated seeing the artifact menance in t2.
Classic Pauper and T2 are not remotely the same format.
In regards to the Thallid, I thought he be nice in the board for GR to deal with the guys.
I still overvalue things, thankfully I said I knew I would be wrong :)
To add to what's been said:
Artifact Blast:
Shatter is not the right metric to compare artifact blast as there are much better options available:
echoing ruin, ancient grudge and fury charm are basically strictly better.
Then you've got things like hearth charm, electrostatic bolt, smash, tin street hooligan, goblin tinkerer, gorilla shaman, builder's bane...
Now Artifact Blast has the advantage of costing one less than most comparable options and going around the usual regen from Welding Jar. It has the huge disadvantage of needing the mana when the spell is cast of course specially in a color that isn't too good at keeping mana for reactive purposes.
The last bit is key, and I'd be surprised to see Artifact Blast see any play.
Thorn Thallid:
Not playable, not even close in my opinion.
Sure it's green direct damage but just because something is new to a color doesn't make it playable.
For it's P/T, it's overcosted by more than G (a 2/2 for 1G is under the curve) and you get a damage every third turn.
Your protection from red comment is kind of weird. IF you're REALLY worried about prot red , I'm assuming you're playing either mono-red or close to, as all the prot red creatures are small enough to not be dangerous to other decks. In that case, why would you want to play Thorn Thallid? In any case, red itself has much better solutions already (see Ghostfire for example).
Ghazaban Ogre:
I can see this guy being played in some decks at least in sideboards. (It's not bad at all vs MUC for example).
Shield Sphere:
I have no idea why Grand entrance (or any deck I can think of ) would play this.
An addition, Scryb Sprites.
It looks very ordinary but it's the first flyer for G (not counting Uktabi) and flyers for 1 mana see play here and there in various decks for various reasons.
Like Evu, I agree with your T5 commons except Arcane Denial, by far. (We had the same conclusions over a month ago :) http://www.paupermagic.com/Forums/tabid/54/forumid/1/threadid/4159/scope...)
Even in MUC it'll be at most a very narrow sideboard card so bad that I'm not even sure there'll be space in it for it.
To expand on this:
Rare is it that a counter does not land properly (shelter, etc..) for a reason or another.
Even rarer is it that you 2 mana laying around at that point.
Even rarer is it that you have the 2 mana laying around and you'd rather have card that draws 3 (by countering your first counter ) rather than countering whatever is causing the problem (shelter in this case).
There are some matchups (specially control, like mirror and Teachings) where I could see it might be good, but not sure if that will warrant inclusion in the sideboard, I'll see.
Here is my take on Shield Sphere that has no pertaining commentary on how it affects PDC..
its a free artifact that clogs the ground.. yeah he may not last a while, but who cares when you're goal is to plop down good affinity stuff or sac things to make things work... I used him in an academy deck because he's a cheap blocker.. I would use him in combo decks that needs to have an artifact that can be sac'd and needs to cheap..
I take this "grand entrance" deck (i have no idea what this deck is..if a deck list or link would have been helpful.. anyways.. I take it its a Ninja deck.. then yeah shield sphere means nothing but a blocker.. I think shield sphere is a very underrated card and should be looked at..
but as usual enjoyed the article.. the series has singlehandly made me care about a format that i never played much before so kudos.
Thanks for writing these articles, Joshua. It's too bad there wasn't more material in the set for you to write about. From an editorial perspective, I'd say they could have been combined into one article.
For the most part I think you've correctly identified and assessed the noteworthy cards. A few comments:
- Artifact Blast is cheap, but you're right that there are better choices for the purpose. Hard to imagine choosing it over Electrostatic Bolt or Echoing Ruin. Maybe if there were relevant artifacts with comes-into-play abilities.
- Shield Sphere doesn't make sense in Grand Entrance, because it can't attack (Phyrexian Walker can and does). I thought six toughness for zero mana would be good at first, but then I realized how quickly it dies -- you get three, maybe four blocks out of it if you're lucky. As a zero-mana artifact I thought there might be a use for it in Affinity, but there are actually enough zero-mana artifacts already, and they all perform more useful functions.
- Even having read the comments on the previous article, I still can't see ever playing Arcane Denial. The situations in which it can be good are too narrow, and will come up too infrequently, to justify the space it occupies. And in Classic, there are several other playable counterspells with the same mana cost. But I agree with the other four cards on your Top Five list.
I did miss a couple of PEs, it appears the token deck Top 8ed a couple. Never made it past the quarters, however.
runeliger:
This was meant as a short look at some fringe decks before this format rotated. I don't believe any of these decks really have what it takes to be great, but they are fun to play, like I said, to kill some time in the TP room. I mean, I suppose I could write up in-dpeth analysis for these decks, but really what would be the point? Dutch Chord is a very strong deck. The point I was trying to make there, was that this rogue deck crushed me; I felt like I had no chance. And yeah, I brought in the Harmonic Sliver, and got a Grave Pact, and he still ran me over. I was simply trying to illustrate that this rogue deck DEMOLISHED what I feel to be one of the top decks in standard, so it might be something to keep an eye on in the next few weeks.
The Token deck winning the 4x WAS a fluke. Just look at the data. How many PEs has it top 8d since its win? I've done the research, the answer is 0. The deck is cute, and fun, but not powerful enough to compete. The pilot got very lucky with matchups/draws/whatever. Feel free to disagree, but its the way I feel.
Lastly, I'd just like to say that this article was meant to be short. This isn't the beginning of a pattern, only a little look at some neat decks before they vanished into obscurity.
As someone who has been out of MTG for several years (played lots from IA/4E-Odyssey block), these articles have been *very* useful. Do you plan to cover lands and artifacts? I assume signets and both sets of duals (common and rare) are key. What else would you recommend?
If you have similar suggestions for Time Spiral block, I'm all ears -- like I said, I'm just getting back to playing...
Thanks!
As someone, who used to write articles for PureMTGO about rogue decks, I am glad that someone finally at least attempts to do it again. As others have said, a little bit more detail would have been better, but that's all. Good luck in your future articles.
oh also, you forgot Boreal Druids (G for 1/1 that generates mana = good in deck)and pendelhaven (synergetic) in that decklist (I saw them, reviewing the game 1 of the matches the deck won).
Just saying...
(Azure is my cynical color heh)
I don't share the same opinion as that of khirareq. I for one, believe given the length of this article, a mere 650 words (including your name and AIM and modo information, but not the lists), I wonder why there are 3 cards that aren't autocarded.. Not sure if this is your fault or that of the editor's. However, I find the content of this article extremely lacking. I am a player of the standard game (although to be honest, it's a pretty dead format at this point, so I'm playtesting Ext. to help my friends who qualified for PT Valencia), and your analysis was quite lacking. Please try to take this constructively, but... for instance, your gravepact analysis was simply, "I was playing a version of Omnichord made by dutch people, and it lost to this deck, therefore I think this deck is definitely viable as a rogue deck". That's not really analysis, that just means either it's a tier 2 deck that is specifically designed and works to beat your deck, or you simply misplayed. Also, Chord of Calling does have Irik Stomphowler for enchantment removal, but I'm sure everyone would agree that running such a card just for the sake of combating that rogue deck would be pointless.
Also, your argument that the 4x winner was a fluke made me laugh... until I realized you were probably serious. You basically state a paradoxical statement, "Although it won the 4x, I'm thinking it's a fluke", makes no sense whatsoever. Standard 4x with an attendence of 128 players, that's 7 rounds of swiss and 3 rounds of top 8 play. He only lost one match in 9 rounds of player (he drew in the finals obviously), and beyond that had a 76% game win percentage. How you can simply call it a fluke, and basically state the obvious about how to play that game play makes me wonder.
Also, in terms of the deck's actual power. It's viability lies in the metagame. The current meta game if you've noticed revolve around a few decks: Angelfire, UB Teferi control, Aggro decks (sorry guys, grouping all of the goyf decks together), and some control decks. Angelfire, and UB Teferi control, many variants thereof don't run Wrath effects due to the inherent syngeries of having creatures alive (momentary blink and CIP effect creatures of angelfire) and the power spot removal of UB teferi control (although many variants do run Damnation nowdays). Thus this deck, given the heavily aggro meta, was perfect. This is what Flores (I suppose you know him, considering you listen to his podcasts) would probably call a good deck (and then ridicule the fact it only runs 3 overruns, and argue that you should probably have run 4).
Good attempt, but next time, try giving indepth analysis, or at least bother to make the article a bit longer.
Firstly, I'd like to point out that the author managed to get all but 3 cards autocarded correctly. This is nearly unheard of. I, for instance, have not figured out how to autocard correctly at all. My hat's off to you sir!
The Jhoria deck is almost TSP legal. Switch the remand for delay, the compulsive for foresee or careful consideration, change the martyr to sulfur and switch the land package and viola! Time Spiral goodness.
Dutch Omnichord has nothing that kills enchantments? Is this "Chord" as in "of Calling", as in the color green which has a love/kill relationship with enchantments?
DO teps please :D
I would have liked to seen some more analysis on why the card choices would be good against the current standard metagame... but right now its the waning days of std as lorwyn looms..so maybe this should have waited a month for how to beat the next class of standard.