First of all, great Article, hated the fact the cards weren't up, but whatever.
Second of all, I repeat, MY OPINIONS ARE NOT THAT EXPRESSED OF IN THIS ARTICLE! (just as a heads up).
I'd also like to clear up some things, first of all, thanks for the compliment John (even though it was used against Hamtastic). Secondly, the article I wrote actually took me about 12 hours of editing, and was written shortly after the finalization of the colorshifted list, and while the date reflects some date in Febuary, I had actually changed the date of the article when I went back to do some price revisions and other things (like a certain editor deleting my article... But I digress *Hint, there was a server glitch back then*)...
In terms of the autocarding, I can understand you were under stress of time, but I wonder, is timing really valued over quality..? This is really the question I think John Kwan is trying to make a point, is speed worth more than quality? I think that's something all writers should think to themselves...
So yeah, don't sue me!
-Seb (Who by the way, is rarely on runeliger nowadays as a result of that 1 account per computer restriction)
Thank you so much for your feed back, it's very helpful to know what certain people like or dislike in my articles.
I don't believe in making excuses and I won't. I would like to state a few facts though.
First, you're absolutely correct about the lack of anchors to jump from one part of the article to the next. That's pretty poor, and I've added some in already to help those who may happen upon it in the future.
Secondly, the links. Links are generally handled via automagic code that turns "(Cardname)" into a linked href to the card. The process to get that automagical ability is unknown to me but I know that somewhere along the way someone from PureMTGO has to do the gruntwork of making them show up. Thus, the lack of links to the cards. I mention this in the opening section of the article. I feel that once that is resolved
However, this article was written, edited and proofread by myself in less than 24 hours of the Masters Edition card list being released. I spent most of that evening and a large chunk of the following morning writing, prepping proofreading it. For reference of size: Mark Rosewater's columns are about 4,000 words a week. This one is over 6,000. That's a lot of writing to smoosh in so quickly. My desire to get this article and list out to the masses may have been too great, especially due to the delay in getting the cards linked as they should be.
3) runeliger's article is very nice, and it was done quite a bit after the Planar Chaos set was released in Paper (PLC's card list and autocards were up about 6 weeks before the article was written). It also covered 45 cards compared to 180.
I'm not knocking runeliger at all as I think his article was very vibrant and attention grabbing, and there's likely quite a bit that I can use from his efforts there. But it's hard to compare coverage of 45 cards known for about 6 weeks to coverage of 180 cards known for about 12 hours.
So, thank you very much for taking the time to critique my article. The fact that anyone cares enough to do so is fantastic, and I'll try to incorporate more of your suggestions in any lists I make in the future, if you'd be so kind enough to keep reading them!
However, I believe this article fails in terms of quality and effort put in by Hamtastic, although I do like Hamtastic as a writer, I feel as though he could have done a lot MORE with this article.
The entire article is LACKING IMAGES! So let's see all the excuses that could be handled by this. Also, I don't blame only you Hamtastic, but the PureMTGO editorial staff may be to blame. The only excuse hamtastic has is that autocard isn't working, and that this task may be such a huge task that in fact, it would be wrong to ask of him to card all of these.
So in order to address this potential argument, I scoured every article the site has ever posted for anything that resembles a similar set review.
The three articles that I found, two of which were Mr. Jahn's (who didn't reall do what you did), and one belonged to a writer named "runeliger" or Sebastian Park. (Here's the reference link http://www.puremtgo.com/articledisplay.asp?AID=181). Now I'm not going to judge you or Mr. Park in terms of writing ability, since I believe you almost triple his article count 3 to 1, but the quality of the his article is breath-taking compared to yours. First of all let's address images. Mr. Park has them! The argument then can be made that he just autocarded it, but he refers in this article to the card from which they were timeshifted, most of which were not on Magic Online, and thus cannot be autocarded (the pictures appeared from the gatherer database) I don't know if it was his editor, or Mr. Park himself who did it, but the article itself was in my opinion of a much greater quality than this article even attempts to touch as a result of this. If it was his editor, then I must say, the editorial levels of this site are falling a great deal. However, if it was in fact Mr. Park who took the time and effort to locate each card's location and embed them into the article, then I must say, Mr. Friborg, you did not put nearly enough effort into this article.
Secondly, he has a table of contents at the beginning! On top of which is color-coded, and even anchored into the the site! My major gripe about your article sir, was that navigating your article was terrible! I had to scroll and scroll and scroll to find anything, whereas in his article I simply had a list of cards and colors I could choose from. I'm personally a black mage, and wanted to see the black cards before I saw anything. Unforunately with your article Mr. Friborg, it was in the middle of the colors, and took me a long time (control F doesn't work quite well on my mac), to find it.
Third, he gives us a basic price estimation, which I found really useful, but then again, I don't blame Mr. Friborg, as the these cards yet to have anything that resembles a price.... HOWEVER, in the article he also refers to real life prices taken from I believe TrollandToad when referring to cards not on MTGO.
Lastly, I must say that this article, even with its flaws was decent. I just feel that there was so much more room for things to be done. I'm not sure if this was the fault of the editor or the author however. If in fact it was mtgotraders who had actually edited all of Mr. Park's articles to make it look like that, then I ask why didn't he put the effort into this article? This rather bland article. However, if it was in fact Mr. Friborg, then I find this article to be at most a 1-2 hour task, not deserving of publication.
What do I recommend? Get someone else to write set reviews, or step up the editorial staff. For Mr. Friborg, please for future articles put more effort into them. Learn from previous examples, and adopt those methods.
I would like to call the author out on this one, but first would like to say that I love this site, and all it does for the community, so thank you mtgotraders for funding a great site!!!
You are right, I do not know very much about how Saps wins. However, I believe Pallid Mycoderm's ability to pump creatures counts as an instant Crusade.
I am really excited to see the deck perform so well, considering that I basically scrapped this version for a much more controlling build (with Foresees, Cancels, and Ghor-Clan Savage[?]). However, this recent result may prove that my first instint was a good one.
I haven't played PDC in quite some time actually. The last decks I knew of being good were Orzhov, MUC and G/R aggro. None of which should have any trouble getting around the wall. Artifact desctruction (main decked at the time) comes out turn 2 which usually will make the way for a bask.rootwalla or an elf to get through anway.
Orzhov will incapacitate or destroy it in any number of ways.
MUC can fly over and still ninjutsu out a Ninja of the Deep Hours and replay the spire golem for free...
Although it's very possible that the deck archtypes are different now I don't really think this card will really impact the meta. Not as much as Exile, and the Orders will anyway... but as I'm not PDC expert I could be wrong. :)
But I will agree that many of the cards I give the 'competitive' nod to wouldn't see the time of day in todays environment. However, environments change. We're getting a slew of new cards and hopefully some restrictions soon. That should allow for some decks and decktypes previously unseen to make an appearance, if only during the shifting meta.
Will quirion-orb make the cut? I dunno. I think it has a chance at doing something.
Will Kabal Ghoul make the cut? Highly doubtful. So doubtful in fact that I didn't give him the nod for competitive play. Same for a lot of cards actually. But looking at some baseline information some of these seemingly weak cards could see play. I wouldn't rule it out anyway. :)
ok why do you not mention sheild sphere as a crazy card that could mark the END of agro in pdc. it fits in almost any deck id even run 4x in agro sb for the mirror.
IIRC some of my bizarre history correctly, they are part of an Old Winter Orb deck (that uses quirions to untap your own creatures). While there are stronger cards now, I can see them being used for sure in the casual room and highly unlikely in an actual tourney. But as 'goyf keeps climbing a 3/3 for 2 with "no drawback" isn't too bad. Especially in a deck that can't guarantee threshold.
Will that deck make a splash? Doubtful. But I'm trying to not rule anything out. It's a very solid casual card, and possibly, maybe, although unlikely, tourney worthy.
...going through your list Hammy, but I'll just say that you give some things to much constructed credit. For example, spectral bears. It's fighting with Wild Mongrel, Tarmogoyf, Quirion Dryad and Werebear for the same CC. Show me a player who picks Spectral Bears over all of those and I'll show you a player who needs to go back to the the casual room...
I agree that the drafting in this one was a step backwards. Sudden Death is definately one of the best, if not the best removal spells in the format. Embrace is really cool IF you can get it to stick, but there is way too much removal and bounce in this format you spend your turn 5 trying to pants up a dork only to get it Snapbacked. That's no good. If you'd gone Death, Butcher, Withering then you have 2 good removal spells and a decent-good one, and are primed to snag the castle raptors 4th and go for what I can presume would have been a pretty boss WB deck.
Also, I whole heartedly agree with the poster who said signals mean nothing in 4-3-2-2, again, this is one of the reasons I have been prodding you this whole time to start doing 8-4s. You may be a bad drafter, but all you will learn in 4-3-2-2 is how to beat bad drafters, and worst case is you'll pick up bad drafting habits and get eaten alive when facing good drafters. Long point short, the longer you spend in 4-3-2-2, the longer it will take you to shake the bad drafting habits in 8-4, and the more money you will end up spending to get good. Try doing an 8-4 in XXX, core set is notoriously easier to draft all around, it's easier to learn when you're processing less complex information.
Hi Spike, that was a nice article. It's the first time I read you, I'll have to make sure to do it again in the future.
There are a couple mistakes with your assessment of Saps, though. Like Poly mentionned, they were neither hated out nor have dissapeared. Some tournaments see less of them, some see more.
Also, although the "instant crusade" effects are decent alternate win condition, saproling decks revolve around Sprout Swarm and Pallid Mycoderm as their main victory conditions. The deck is not "simply making a bunch of tokens and casting warcry". That's simply not strong enough.
---
That UGAC deck was crazy. I don't know why or how (yet), but it was. Nice design.
Everyone knows the best cycles are the ones where the cards have very little to do with eachother :). Fun stuff, perhaps I shall try it again someday.
On another note, I found a way to break vision of delusion if it only cost one life; thought I cannot recall what now(It was just some crazy dude watching over my shoulder that pointed it out).
Good read Spike, as always. I hope to see more Standard PDC content in your future articles.
I piloted your version of UGAC to 2nd at SPDC 3.12 last night. The deck performed very well against Orzhov and Teachings, which accounted for 5 of my 7 matches. My losses came to Burnt Fish in the Swiss and Suicide Pact (4-color Martyrs) in the Finals. I think red-based decks can pos a bit of a problem for this build, whether that comes in the form of Incinerate and Skred or Martyr of Ashes. Without Errant Epehemeron, the Martyr is pretty destructive to your offense. I understand the choice of Infiltrator over Ephemeron, and it helped me to win the games that I did win (it just puts more pressure on earlier in the game), but that choice hinders the deck's performance against mass removal.
Overall, however, the deck performed well and was fun to play. I'd be more than willing to answer any questions you have about the deck's tournament debut.
Good read Spike, as always. I hope to see more on Standard PDC in your future articles.
Last night I piloted your version of UGAC to 2nd at SPDC 3.12, losing to Suicide Pact (4-color Martyrs) in the Finals. The deck handles Orzhov and Uber Teachings very well (and those decks accounted for 5 of my 7 matches last night). I lost to Burnt Fish and, of course, Suicide Pact, so red-based decks seem to be a bit of a problem. But, overall, it is a fine list that could use a bit of tuning. I'd be glad to answer any questions you have about the deck's tournament performance.
You're right, my chart assumes people can figure out what would happen if they sacrificed a swamp to feed the Lake. Hopefully that's not too much credit being given.
And how does Magus of the Moon hurt Lake that much more than Coffers + Urborg? They seem mighty similar to me. Urborg and Coffers become Mountains, or Lakes become Mountains. And? If MBC can't kill a 2/2 in any configuration it deserves to lose.
Getting a land blown up in either case hurts. Losing a coffers is really bad, losing a Lake is really bad (especially on turn 2, yikes!). I don't know of much LD being run in the format though. Although I've worked on a red deck in the past that did but I've not seen much of it in any tourney.
All this talk about Lakes or Coffers is largely irrelevant though. Until the meta post MED and the Sept 1 B&R happen it's not easy to say what decks will be able to compete and what is expected to be run in the meta. I know that I'll be working on an MBC build though, and whichever is better (Coffers or Lakes, or neither) is what I'll run. But to dismiss one or the other out of hand is foolish is all. There may be a killer deck out there with Lake, but we'll never know if we just say that "Coffers exist, so whatever".
I beleive that an MBC deck can exist in the meta (but I'm biased as I like MBC a lot). Although I don't know what lands it will run or what it's exact focus will be, but I will try all of the option.
Run more Urborgs. Turn 1 swamp, t2 Urborg, t3 coffers= BBB. Also your chart doesn't take into account you ever going for extra mana with LotD which reduces your output in future turns.
Also I expect more aggro in the metagame and having a coffers blown up hurts less then a LotD. Magus of the Moon also hurts Lake more.
That said not sure if there is a place for ether one in compeditive classic decks.
Having played Coffers in Classic, I'm not sure that Lake is all that bad. Coffers don't do ANYTHING until turn 5. Turn. 5. in. Classic. However, once they get rolling you're going to get more out of them than Lake, for sure.
Turn 1 Swamp: B Turn 2 Lake: BB Turn 3 Swamp: BB or BBBBB Turn 4 Swamp: BBB or BBBBBB Turn 5 Swamp: BBBB or BBBBBBB Turn 6 Swamp: BBBBB or BBBBBBBB
The only turn with less potential mana in the Lakes scenario is turn 3, but that's only if you need 3 mana exactly. You can still hit 2 or 4 mana without a problem. Also, in order to hit all 6 land drops by turn 6 you have to run a lot, lot, lot of swamps. Classic, as you know, is a very tight meta. Drawing an excess swamp is death (I know as I've been there done that in my coffers control deck), as is drawing not enough lands (also been there, done that). Lake is more flexible as it produces mana on its own. I've been at 2 lands and a coffers in a match more than I'd like to admit. At least with Lake I can still power out something to save my bacon.
At least that's the theory I'm going with right now. It may prove to be false, but I'm not going to discount it based on the existance of Coffers. Coffers are good but kind of slow for Classic. Hopefully Contagion will make give MBC a bit more power...
My only problem that I don't see addressed was that I would have taken the sudden shock 2nd pick IF you pass the black removall first pick, so you signal to him black is open, and have set yourself up in r/g, a strong combination.
You are absolutely right about black dealing damage in life draining situations. I should have been more clear; I'm looking for a flavor justification for these cards' effects. Why does the black mage drain your life when he roars? Why does his library have to be singleton in order for it to work?
It was certainly an original mechanic! I hope you'll consider submitting to this month's contest as well.
I had forgotten about Journeyer's Kite. See, the others require that the card be used to get the one land, so they don't represent a way to accumulate mana and thin all the lands out of your deck. This card is much more like the Scourge stable One with Nature, which if you remember ONS limited was a pretty darn good aura, even with the potential for disadvantage. You make a good point about the Kite, though.
I agree with Evu about the Solitary Cycle not being a good thing for limited. I totally forgot about that angle when I designed these.
I do feel that these cards are overpowered, but they need to be because the deck that they would be played in are really lacking in power as compared to other decks featuring 4 x power cards. They are also only 3 cards in a 60 card deck, which reduces their overall effect.
The comments also asked when does black ever deal damage ... consume spirit, corrupt, and soul burn come to my mind.
Thanks for running the contest. It was a fun exercise.
First of all, great Article, hated the fact the cards weren't up, but whatever.
Second of all, I repeat, MY OPINIONS ARE NOT THAT EXPRESSED OF IN THIS ARTICLE! (just as a heads up).
I'd also like to clear up some things, first of all, thanks for the compliment John (even though it was used against Hamtastic). Secondly, the article I wrote actually took me about 12 hours of editing, and was written shortly after the finalization of the colorshifted list, and while the date reflects some date in Febuary, I had actually changed the date of the article when I went back to do some price revisions and other things (like a certain editor deleting my article... But I digress *Hint, there was a server glitch back then*)...
In terms of the autocarding, I can understand you were under stress of time, but I wonder, is timing really valued over quality..? This is really the question I think John Kwan is trying to make a point, is speed worth more than quality? I think that's something all writers should think to themselves...
So yeah, don't sue me!
-Seb (Who by the way, is rarely on runeliger nowadays as a result of that 1 account per computer restriction)
Thank you so much for your feed back, it's very helpful to know what certain people like or dislike in my articles.
I don't believe in making excuses and I won't. I would like to state a few facts though.
First, you're absolutely correct about the lack of anchors to jump from one part of the article to the next. That's pretty poor, and I've added some in already to help those who may happen upon it in the future.
Secondly, the links. Links are generally handled via automagic code that turns "(Cardname)" into a linked href to the card. The process to get that automagical ability is unknown to me but I know that somewhere along the way someone from PureMTGO has to do the gruntwork of making them show up. Thus, the lack of links to the cards. I mention this in the opening section of the article. I feel that once that is resolved
However, this article was written, edited and proofread by myself in less than 24 hours of the Masters Edition card list being released. I spent most of that evening and a large chunk of the following morning writing, prepping proofreading it. For reference of size: Mark Rosewater's columns are about 4,000 words a week. This one is over 6,000. That's a lot of writing to smoosh in so quickly. My desire to get this article and list out to the masses may have been too great, especially due to the delay in getting the cards linked as they should be.
3) runeliger's article is very nice, and it was done quite a bit after the Planar Chaos set was released in Paper (PLC's card list and autocards were up about 6 weeks before the article was written). It also covered 45 cards compared to 180.
I'm not knocking runeliger at all as I think his article was very vibrant and attention grabbing, and there's likely quite a bit that I can use from his efforts there. But it's hard to compare coverage of 45 cards known for about 6 weeks to coverage of 180 cards known for about 12 hours.
So, thank you very much for taking the time to critique my article. The fact that anyone cares enough to do so is fantastic, and I'll try to incorporate more of your suggestions in any lists I make in the future, if you'd be so kind enough to keep reading them!
-Erik aka hamtastic
However, I believe this article fails in terms of quality and effort put in by Hamtastic, although I do like Hamtastic as a writer, I feel as though he could have done a lot MORE with this article.
The entire article is LACKING IMAGES! So let's see all the excuses that could be handled by this. Also, I don't blame only you Hamtastic, but the PureMTGO editorial staff may be to blame. The only excuse hamtastic has is that autocard isn't working, and that this task may be such a huge task that in fact, it would be wrong to ask of him to card all of these.
So in order to address this potential argument, I scoured every article the site has ever posted for anything that resembles a similar set review.
The three articles that I found, two of which were Mr. Jahn's (who didn't reall do what you did), and one belonged to a writer named "runeliger" or Sebastian Park. (Here's the reference link http://www.puremtgo.com/articledisplay.asp?AID=181). Now I'm not going to judge you or Mr. Park in terms of writing ability, since I believe you almost triple his article count 3 to 1, but the quality of the his article is breath-taking compared to yours. First of all let's address images. Mr. Park has them! The argument then can be made that he just autocarded it, but he refers in this article to the card from which they were timeshifted, most of which were not on Magic Online, and thus cannot be autocarded (the pictures appeared from the gatherer database) I don't know if it was his editor, or Mr. Park himself who did it, but the article itself was in my opinion of a much greater quality than this article even attempts to touch as a result of this. If it was his editor, then I must say, the editorial levels of this site are falling a great deal. However, if it was in fact Mr. Park who took the time and effort to locate each card's location and embed them into the article, then I must say, Mr. Friborg, you did not put nearly enough effort into this article.
Secondly, he has a table of contents at the beginning! On top of which is color-coded, and even anchored into the the site! My major gripe about your article sir, was that navigating your article was terrible! I had to scroll and scroll and scroll to find anything, whereas in his article I simply had a list of cards and colors I could choose from. I'm personally a black mage, and wanted to see the black cards before I saw anything. Unforunately with your article Mr. Friborg, it was in the middle of the colors, and took me a long time (control F doesn't work quite well on my mac), to find it.
Third, he gives us a basic price estimation, which I found really useful, but then again, I don't blame Mr. Friborg, as the these cards yet to have anything that resembles a price.... HOWEVER, in the article he also refers to real life prices taken from I believe TrollandToad when referring to cards not on MTGO.
Lastly, I must say that this article, even with its flaws was decent. I just feel that there was so much more room for things to be done. I'm not sure if this was the fault of the editor or the author however. If in fact it was mtgotraders who had actually edited all of Mr. Park's articles to make it look like that, then I ask why didn't he put the effort into this article? This rather bland article. However, if it was in fact Mr. Friborg, then I find this article to be at most a 1-2 hour task, not deserving of publication.
What do I recommend? Get someone else to write set reviews, or step up the editorial staff. For Mr. Friborg, please for future articles put more effort into them. Learn from previous examples, and adopt those methods.
-John_Kwan
I would like to call the author out on this one, but first would like to say that I love this site, and all it does for the community, so thank you mtgotraders for funding a great site!!!
You are right, I do not know very much about how Saps wins. However, I believe Pallid Mycoderm's ability to pump creatures counts as an instant Crusade.
I am really excited to see the deck perform so well, considering that I basically scrapped this version for a much more controlling build (with Foresees, Cancels, and Ghor-Clan Savage[?]). However, this recent result may prove that my first instint was a good one.
-Alex
I haven't played PDC in quite some time actually. The last decks I knew of being good were Orzhov, MUC and G/R aggro. None of which should have any trouble getting around the wall. Artifact desctruction (main decked at the time) comes out turn 2 which usually will make the way for a bask.rootwalla or an elf to get through anway.
Orzhov will incapacitate or destroy it in any number of ways.
MUC can fly over and still ninjutsu out a Ninja of the Deep Hours and replay the spire golem for free...
Although it's very possible that the deck archtypes are different now I don't really think this card will really impact the meta. Not as much as Exile, and the Orders will anyway... but as I'm not PDC expert I could be wrong. :)
But I will agree that many of the cards I give the 'competitive' nod to wouldn't see the time of day in todays environment. However, environments change. We're getting a slew of new cards and hopefully some restrictions soon. That should allow for some decks and decktypes previously unseen to make an appearance, if only during the shifting meta.
Will quirion-orb make the cut? I dunno. I think it has a chance at doing something.
Will Kabal Ghoul make the cut? Highly doubtful. So doubtful in fact that I didn't give him the nod for competitive play. Same for a lot of cards actually. But looking at some baseline information some of these seemingly weak cards could see play. I wouldn't rule it out anyway. :)
ok why do you not mention sheild sphere as a crazy card that could mark the END of agro in pdc. it fits in almost any deck id even run 4x in agro sb for the mirror.
IIRC some of my bizarre history correctly, they are part of an Old Winter Orb deck (that uses quirions to untap your own creatures). While there are stronger cards now, I can see them being used for sure in the casual room and highly unlikely in an actual tourney. But as 'goyf keeps climbing a 3/3 for 2 with "no drawback" isn't too bad. Especially in a deck that can't guarantee threshold.
Will that deck make a splash? Doubtful. But I'm trying to not rule anything out. It's a very solid casual card, and possibly, maybe, although unlikely, tourney worthy.
Maybe...
But probably not...
...going through your list Hammy, but I'll just say that you give some things to much constructed credit. For example, spectral bears. It's fighting with Wild Mongrel, Tarmogoyf, Quirion Dryad and Werebear for the same CC. Show me a player who picks Spectral Bears over all of those and I'll show you a player who needs to go back to the the casual room...
I agree that the drafting in this one was a step backwards. Sudden Death is definately one of the best, if not the best removal spells in the format. Embrace is really cool IF you can get it to stick, but there is way too much removal and bounce in this format you spend your turn 5 trying to pants up a dork only to get it Snapbacked. That's no good. If you'd gone Death, Butcher, Withering then you have 2 good removal spells and a decent-good one, and are primed to snag the castle raptors 4th and go for what I can presume would have been a pretty boss WB deck.
Also, I whole heartedly agree with the poster who said signals mean nothing in 4-3-2-2, again, this is one of the reasons I have been prodding you this whole time to start doing 8-4s. You may be a bad drafter, but all you will learn in 4-3-2-2 is how to beat bad drafters, and worst case is you'll pick up bad drafting habits and get eaten alive when facing good drafters. Long point short, the longer you spend in 4-3-2-2, the longer it will take you to shake the bad drafting habits in 8-4, and the more money you will end up spending to get good. Try doing an 8-4 in XXX, core set is notoriously easier to draft all around, it's easier to learn when you're processing less complex information.
Hi Spike, that was a nice article. It's the first time I read you, I'll have to make sure to do it again in the future.
There are a couple mistakes with your assessment of Saps, though. Like Poly mentionned, they were neither hated out nor have dissapeared. Some tournaments see less of them, some see more.
Also, although the "instant crusade" effects are decent alternate win condition, saproling decks revolve around Sprout Swarm and Pallid Mycoderm as their main victory conditions. The deck is not "simply making a bunch of tokens and casting warcry". That's simply not strong enough.
---
That UGAC deck was crazy. I don't know why or how (yet), but it was. Nice design.
Everyone knows the best cycles are the ones where the cards have very little to do with eachother :). Fun stuff, perhaps I shall try it again someday.
On another note, I found a way to break vision of delusion if it only cost one life; thought I cannot recall what now(It was just some crazy dude watching over my shoulder that pointed it out).
Looks like you get two drafts of the same post. Weird :).
Good read Spike, as always. I hope to see more Standard PDC content in your future articles.
I piloted your version of UGAC to 2nd at SPDC 3.12 last night. The deck performed very well against Orzhov and Teachings, which accounted for 5 of my 7 matches. My losses came to Burnt Fish in the Swiss and Suicide Pact (4-color Martyrs) in the Finals. I think red-based decks can pos a bit of a problem for this build, whether that comes in the form of Incinerate and Skred or Martyr of Ashes. Without Errant Epehemeron, the Martyr is pretty destructive to your offense. I understand the choice of Infiltrator over Ephemeron, and it helped me to win the games that I did win (it just puts more pressure on earlier in the game), but that choice hinders the deck's performance against mass removal.
Overall, however, the deck performed well and was fun to play. I'd be more than willing to answer any questions you have about the deck's tournament debut.
Good read Spike, as always. I hope to see more on Standard PDC in your future articles.
Last night I piloted your version of UGAC to 2nd at SPDC 3.12, losing to Suicide Pact (4-color Martyrs) in the Finals. The deck handles Orzhov and Uber Teachings very well (and those decks accounted for 5 of my 7 matches last night). I lost to Burnt Fish and, of course, Suicide Pact, so red-based decks seem to be a bit of a problem. But, overall, it is a fine list that could use a bit of tuning. I'd be glad to answer any questions you have about the deck's tournament performance.
You're right, my chart assumes people can figure out what would happen if they sacrificed a swamp to feed the Lake. Hopefully that's not too much credit being given.
And how does Magus of the Moon hurt Lake that much more than Coffers + Urborg? They seem mighty similar to me. Urborg and Coffers become Mountains, or Lakes become Mountains. And? If MBC can't kill a 2/2 in any configuration it deserves to lose.
Getting a land blown up in either case hurts. Losing a coffers is really bad, losing a Lake is really bad (especially on turn 2, yikes!). I don't know of much LD being run in the format though. Although I've worked on a red deck in the past that did but I've not seen much of it in any tourney.
All this talk about Lakes or Coffers is largely irrelevant though. Until the meta post MED and the Sept 1 B&R happen it's not easy to say what decks will be able to compete and what is expected to be run in the meta. I know that I'll be working on an MBC build though, and whichever is better (Coffers or Lakes, or neither) is what I'll run. But to dismiss one or the other out of hand is foolish is all. There may be a killer deck out there with Lake, but we'll never know if we just say that "Coffers exist, so whatever".
I beleive that an MBC deck can exist in the meta (but I'm biased as I like MBC a lot). Although I don't know what lands it will run or what it's exact focus will be, but I will try all of the option.
Run more Urborgs. Turn 1 swamp, t2 Urborg, t3 coffers= BBB. Also your chart doesn't take into account you ever going for extra mana with LotD which reduces your output in future turns.
Also I expect more aggro in the metagame and having a coffers blown up hurts less then a LotD. Magus of the Moon also hurts Lake more.
That said not sure if there is a place for ether one in compeditive classic decks.
Having played Coffers in Classic, I'm not sure that Lake is all that bad. Coffers don't do ANYTHING until turn 5. Turn. 5. in. Classic. However, once they get rolling you're going to get more out of them than Lake, for sure.
Coffers:
Turn 1 Swamp: B
Turn 2 Swamp: BB
Turn 3 Swamp: BBB
Turn 4 Coffers: BBBB
Turn 5 Swamp: BBBBBB
Turn 6 Swamp: BBBBBBBB
Turn 1 Swamp: B
Turn 2 Lake: BB
Turn 3 Swamp: BB or BBBBB
Turn 4 Swamp: BBB or BBBBBB
Turn 5 Swamp: BBBB or BBBBBBB
Turn 6 Swamp: BBBBB or BBBBBBBB
The only turn with less potential mana in the Lakes scenario is turn 3, but that's only if you need 3 mana exactly. You can still hit 2 or 4 mana without a problem. Also, in order to hit all 6 land drops by turn 6 you have to run a lot, lot, lot of swamps. Classic, as you know, is a very tight meta. Drawing an excess swamp is death (I know as I've been there done that in my coffers control deck), as is drawing not enough lands (also been there, done that). Lake is more flexible as it produces mana on its own. I've been at 2 lands and a coffers in a match more than I'd like to admit. At least with Lake I can still power out something to save my bacon.
At least that's the theory I'm going with right now. It may prove to be false, but I'm not going to discount it based on the existance of Coffers. Coffers are good but kind of slow for Classic. Hopefully Contagion will make give MBC a bit more power...
You know they made a better Lake of the Dead right? Urborg just pushes the Coffers further ahead.
My only problem that I don't see addressed was that I would have taken the sudden shock 2nd pick IF you pass the black removall first pick, so you signal to him black is open, and have set yourself up in r/g, a strong combination.
You are absolutely right about black dealing damage in life draining situations. I should have been more clear; I'm looking for a flavor justification for these cards' effects. Why does the black mage drain your life when he roars? Why does his library have to be singleton in order for it to work?
It was certainly an original mechanic! I hope you'll consider submitting to this month's contest as well.
I had forgotten about Journeyer's Kite. See, the others require that the card be used to get the one land, so they don't represent a way to accumulate mana and thin all the lands out of your deck. This card is much more like the Scourge stable One with Nature, which if you remember ONS limited was a pretty darn good aura, even with the potential for disadvantage. You make a good point about the Kite, though.
I agree with Evu about the Solitary Cycle not being a good thing for limited. I totally forgot about that angle when I designed these.
I do feel that these cards are overpowered, but they need to be because the deck that they would be played in are really lacking in power as compared to other decks featuring 4 x power cards. They are also only 3 cards in a 60 card deck, which reduces their overall effect.
The comments also asked when does black ever deal damage ... consume spirit, corrupt, and soul burn come to my mind.
Thanks for running the contest. It was a fun exercise.