I cover the competitive decks because I feel that aspect of PDC has alot of depth. The casual/fun decks sort of come together naturally. As far as watching a deck develop, I have an idea for my upcoming articles that might prove interesting. Please head over to www.paupermagic.com to read more about that.
Ehi man, unfortunately that is not the correct link, it has a "www.puremtgo.com" before the right link.
However, i don't know the situation, but nobody can force you to concede. The fact that the server crashed is not your fault, so, i cannot understand why you should be blamed for that thing. Maybe you should have conceded, but maybe your opponent should have simply be faster to finish you. It was his decision to play a control deck, not yours....
By the way, if the situation was really that bad for you, i think that the judge should have announced a draw, the fairest thing in my opinion.
About the Pdc and the articles, i have an advice: why don't you "advertise" even some fun pdc decks with these articles? You know, Pdc is fun to be played, but always talking about the same 5 or 6 decks is quite boring: when you hit the program and try to have a common game, you always find people playing the same pdc net-decks, while there are a lot of good ideas (just think to kamigawa commons, or to some fabolous decks you can make with good multicoloured IPA cards - not only recoil :) ).
I've begun playing pdc to find some fun games in which trying to use all commons cards and to flee net decks played by the 65 % of the causal room, and what have i found? 10 games against the SAME affinity deck, 10 games against the SAME golems and counters deck, 10 games only the SAME man-o war deck, and about 3650 games against the SAME rootwalla/mongrel decks.... Maybe showing even other possibilities (and in pdc there are lots of them) to make good and enjoyable decks would be a great thing, after all i think that originality and fun are much more important that winning at all costs.
However, good job.
(sorry for the eventual errors, but i'm not english)
I I had outs that bought me time, it would have given me the time to find more outs. And yes, that is the correct link.
Conceding there could also be seen as disrespecting the community in the same way. The host made the decision for us to play game 4- not playing it would have been a sign of disrespect to him IMO.
I'd like to know what outs you had (Psst provide me a decklist). I'm not one to judge, but I usually let a person play the extra game if needed, but I know the feeling of me about to win and teh server crashing.
You really should of conceded the game. You, a so called expert in PDC, know that any deck with lethal damage coming up, 0 cards in hand, against a deck with a full hand has almost no chance to win. This is even more so in STD. What were your outs? I'd like to know.
You said it yourself. You had outs that would of bought you time. Did you have outs that would win? This isn't a PTQ or 8 man here, its PDC.
I read the thread, which you linked incorrectly btw, and there are arguments for morality and this and that. To me that doesn't matter. PDC is a very friendly community were most players have loads of respect for each other and the event. Your conduct tarnishes that.
First pick blaze, I'm thinking "awesome!" Second pick blaze, I'm thinking "Go Green!" Green has almost all the accelerants in this format, in addition to the mana fixing that makes it easier to splash should you need to. You would have had a stronger deck if it had been G/B splash R, since even without cutting green there were some very strong Green cards in pack 3.
You underestimate Coercion. The ability to pull your opponent's strongest card from their hand or randomly mana screw them is pretty good, certainly a higher pick than an off-color scaled wurm.
I would love to know what common was picked over the $5 bill that is Phyrexian Arena.
In terms of those 2 blazes, you could have probably splashed the red in to play it. Even drafting blaze the first 2 picks was right, blaze is an insanely powerful card in limited, so strong some people even hate draft it.
You really can't ignore your signals. Red was clearly getting cut off towards the beginning of pack one (as a general rule, I consider four consecutive packs anywhere between P2-P8 without playables in a particular color as an indication of cutting-off). At that point, you HAVE TO JUMP SHIP! There's always the temptation to deny the reality and force yourself into red, but you can't do that. 2x Blaze does not necessarily translate to red being one of your main-deck colors. While black was clearly a good choice, you also should have concentrated on establishing another color.
Good article - however I think some big mistakes were made.
Pack 1 Pick 10: You have RB up to this point, and picked the Scaled Wurm? Bog Imp (evasion) or Coercion (remove best card in opponent's hand) would have been much better. Most of the time Scaled Wurm never hits the table in 999, and when it does, either the game is pretty much already over or there are enough chumps to make it ineffectual. Evasion is the missing piece of the puzzle...
Pack 1 Pick 12: Again, Tree Monkey probably wouldn't even make the cut in a predominately G deck. Fear is good evasion - drop it on a Hollow Dogs or Serpent Warrior and the clock is ticking!
Pick 19: Okay, by this point you've passed a Kird Ape in favor of the Phyrexian Arena (BB commits you), so G is obviously a splasher if used at all. No sense picking Llanowar elves, since the likelihood of getting them out early enough to accelerate your mana is very low. Needle Storm would be a great splasher, as you are sitting with one flier at this point! But in reality, as you apparently realized soon after, G is not going to make the cut - should have picked one of the R or B cards instead. Contaminated Bond is fundamentally removal, and the Serpent Warrior would even help with the quick beats.
That all being said, Unholy Strength and/or Contaminated Bond should have probably been maindecked here. Contaminated Bond is a good way to hinder the other guy's evasion critters, which is what took you down. Unholy Strength is great to get the game off to a raging start - and on an evasion critter such as Razortooth Rats it can amount to a gamebreaker.
Good call on the Vesuva. I might try that if I ever play WW. Then again, instead of worrying about it maybe the best plan is to try to fizzle the Tendrils.
What about Rebuff the wicked? That'd be great vs. all forms of targeted removal short of Sudden Death. It would also fizzle Acid-Moss and bounce spells.
try using vesuva instead of urborg as your ld vs u/b otherwise the urborg gives your opp the black mana if you play it where vesuva can still be a plains or flagstones if you are running them
Nice article, however it would help if you you listed the cards you aded and removed from the deck in bullets rather than a paragraphical manner. That way skimmers can pull out what they need without having to read the whole article. This is pretty important when writing for the web. Great job though!
Urborg:
I don't think so. You certainly don't want to play it first, and leaving a land stranded in your hand is a problem. Mana is tight. At best, you could hold it, wait for your opponent to drop one, then kill it on your turn. Maybe - but highly situational. Having a Stonecloaker or something that can actually win the game is almost always better.
I even considered Saltblast, to kill Urborgs, but it cost too much.
Clarifying: I took out four Mana Tithes and one other card for 3 Duskriders and two Celestial Crusaders. I do not currently have any Urza's Factories in the deck. I'm not sure what the other card I took out was.
The problem with WW is that a lot've the good players in 8mans and PEs will wanna play what the pros play (control), and so will run the cards that wreck WW. Void, hellkite, tendrils, damnation, maybe even combinations of all of these.
I guess I should clarify: Urborg should be used as a LD spell, not as a land for yourself. Obviously you wouldn't want to setup your opponents for a big Tendrils if they don't have their own Urborg in play. Also, has anyone ever tried running Ivory Giant?
Has anyone tried Urborg as anti-Tendrils tech? As you said with Factory, a mono-white deck should be able to spare a few land spots for non-White.
Also re: Celestial Crusader, I can see that being very good against the Teferi decks. In addition to being uncounterable and able to drop post-Damnation, it's untargeted pump. With people running more bounce, I might sub it in for the Griffin Guides, rather than the Fortifys.
Thanks everyone for the great feedback. Is that font better? I'm not to interested for suggestions on the deck itself, but feel free to anyway incase I decide to revisit it. Any suggestions on the article format? Possible other topics? Anything else? I've open ears.
I cannot comment on the deck as aggro decks/strategies are beyond my knowledge. I just wanted to say that nevertheless I really do liked the article. A VERY good start to be honest. By the way, listen to what DM65 says.
I cover the competitive decks because I feel that aspect of PDC has alot of depth. The casual/fun decks sort of come together naturally. As far as watching a deck develop, I have an idea for my upcoming articles that might prove interesting. Please head over to www.paupermagic.com to read more about that.
sorry for the 2 posts, it had given me "internal server error" so i clicked a second time. Hope that maybe a moderator can erase one of them :)
Ehi man, unfortunately that is not the correct link, it has a "www.puremtgo.com" before the right link.
However, i don't know the situation, but nobody can force you to concede. The fact that the server crashed is not your fault, so, i cannot understand why you should be blamed for that thing. Maybe you should have conceded, but maybe your opponent should have simply be faster to finish you. It was his decision to play a control deck, not yours....
By the way, if the situation was really that bad for you, i think that the judge should have announced a draw, the fairest thing in my opinion.
About the Pdc and the articles, i have an advice: why don't you "advertise" even some fun pdc decks with these articles? You know, Pdc is fun to be played, but always talking about the same 5 or 6 decks is quite boring: when you hit the program and try to have a common game, you always find people playing the same pdc net-decks, while there are a lot of good ideas (just think to kamigawa commons, or to some fabolous decks you can make with good multicoloured IPA cards - not only recoil :) ).
I've begun playing pdc to find some fun games in which trying to use all commons cards and to flee net decks played by the 65 % of the causal room, and what have i found? 10 games against the SAME affinity deck, 10 games against the SAME golems and counters deck, 10 games only the SAME man-o war deck, and about 3650 games against the SAME rootwalla/mongrel decks.... Maybe showing even other possibilities (and in pdc there are lots of them) to make good and enjoyable decks would be a great thing, after all i think that originality and fun are much more important that winning at all costs.
However, good job.
(sorry for the eventual errors, but i'm not english)
I I had outs that bought me time, it would have given me the time to find more outs. And yes, that is the correct link.
Conceding there could also be seen as disrespecting the community in the same way. The host made the decision for us to play game 4- not playing it would have been a sign of disrespect to him IMO.
I'd like to know what outs you had (Psst provide me a decklist). I'm not one to judge, but I usually let a person play the extra game if needed, but I know the feeling of me about to win and teh server crashing.
Overall cool article though.
You really should of conceded the game. You, a so called expert in PDC, know that any deck with lethal damage coming up, 0 cards in hand, against a deck with a full hand has almost no chance to win. This is even more so in STD. What were your outs? I'd like to know.
You said it yourself. You had outs that would of bought you time. Did you have outs that would win? This isn't a PTQ or 8 man here, its PDC.
I read the thread, which you linked incorrectly btw, and there are arguments for morality and this and that. To me that doesn't matter. PDC is a very friendly community were most players have loads of respect for each other and the event. Your conduct tarnishes that.
First pick blaze, I'm thinking "awesome!" Second pick blaze, I'm thinking "Go Green!" Green has almost all the accelerants in this format, in addition to the mana fixing that makes it easier to splash should you need to. You would have had a stronger deck if it had been G/B splash R, since even without cutting green there were some very strong Green cards in pack 3.
You underestimate Coercion. The ability to pull your opponent's strongest card from their hand or randomly mana screw them is pretty good, certainly a higher pick than an off-color scaled wurm.
I would love to know what common was picked over the $5 bill that is Phyrexian Arena.
I love this series, btw.
In terms of those 2 blazes, you could have probably splashed the red in to play it. Even drafting blaze the first 2 picks was right, blaze is an insanely powerful card in limited, so strong some people even hate draft it.
You really can't ignore your signals. Red was clearly getting cut off towards the beginning of pack one (as a general rule, I consider four consecutive packs anywhere between P2-P8 without playables in a particular color as an indication of cutting-off). At that point, you HAVE TO JUMP SHIP! There's always the temptation to deny the reality and force yourself into red, but you can't do that. 2x Blaze does not necessarily translate to red being one of your main-deck colors. While black was clearly a good choice, you also should have concentrated on establishing another color.
Good article - however I think some big mistakes were made.
Pack 1 Pick 10: You have RB up to this point, and picked the Scaled Wurm? Bog Imp (evasion) or Coercion (remove best card in opponent's hand) would have been much better. Most of the time Scaled Wurm never hits the table in 999, and when it does, either the game is pretty much already over or there are enough chumps to make it ineffectual. Evasion is the missing piece of the puzzle...
Pack 1 Pick 12: Again, Tree Monkey probably wouldn't even make the cut in a predominately G deck. Fear is good evasion - drop it on a Hollow Dogs or Serpent Warrior and the clock is ticking!
Pick 19: Okay, by this point you've passed a Kird Ape in favor of the Phyrexian Arena (BB commits you), so G is obviously a splasher if used at all. No sense picking Llanowar elves, since the likelihood of getting them out early enough to accelerate your mana is very low. Needle Storm would be a great splasher, as you are sitting with one flier at this point! But in reality, as you apparently realized soon after, G is not going to make the cut - should have picked one of the R or B cards instead. Contaminated Bond is fundamentally removal, and the Serpent Warrior would even help with the quick beats.
That all being said, Unholy Strength and/or Contaminated Bond should have probably been maindecked here. Contaminated Bond is a good way to hinder the other guy's evasion critters, which is what took you down. Unholy Strength is great to get the game off to a raging start - and on an evasion critter such as Razortooth Rats it can amount to a gamebreaker.
All in all, some good reading! Keep it up!
Good call on the Vesuva. I might try that if I ever play WW. Then again, instead of worrying about it maybe the best plan is to try to fizzle the Tendrils.
What about Rebuff the wicked? That'd be great vs. all forms of targeted removal short of Sudden Death. It would also fizzle Acid-Moss and bounce spells.
try using vesuva instead of urborg as your ld vs u/b otherwise the urborg gives your opp the black mana if you play it where vesuva can still be a plains or flagstones if you are running them
Great article! I've been running ww for a while now and I love it's consistency in the first game. A very fun aggro deck to play.
Nice article, however it would help if you you listed the cards you aded and removed from the deck in bullets rather than a paragraphical manner. That way skimmers can pull out what they need without having to read the whole article. This is pretty important when writing for the web. Great job though!
-Bradly
Urborg:
I don't think so. You certainly don't want to play it first, and leaving a land stranded in your hand is a problem. Mana is tight. At best, you could hold it, wait for your opponent to drop one, then kill it on your turn. Maybe - but highly situational. Having a Stonecloaker or something that can actually win the game is almost always better.
I even considered Saltblast, to kill Urborgs, but it cost too much.
Clarifying: I took out four Mana Tithes and one other card for 3 Duskriders and two Celestial Crusaders. I do not currently have any Urza's Factories in the deck. I'm not sure what the other card I took out was.
The problem with WW is that a lot've the good players in 8mans and PEs will wanna play what the pros play (control), and so will run the cards that wreck WW. Void, hellkite, tendrils, damnation, maybe even combinations of all of these.
"Right now, I have three Duskriders in the deck, in place of the Mana Tithes, and two Crusaders. No factories"
Please Clarify this sentence.
I guess I should clarify: Urborg should be used as a LD spell, not as a land for yourself. Obviously you wouldn't want to setup your opponents for a big Tendrils if they don't have their own Urborg in play. Also, has anyone ever tried running Ivory Giant?
Has anyone tried Urborg as anti-Tendrils tech? As you said with Factory, a mono-white deck should be able to spare a few land spots for non-White.
Also re: Celestial Crusader, I can see that being very good against the Teferi decks. In addition to being uncounterable and able to drop post-Damnation, it's untargeted pump. With people running more bounce, I might sub it in for the Griffin Guides, rather than the Fortifys.
Yay! I'm in print. But...and I don't know if you can edit this, I'd rather be listed as 'she' if that's alright. :)
It's not the font, it's the size of it. Please make it bigger.
I'm also looking into the posibilities of a graphic banner for my articles. Where might I get one?
Thanks everyone for the great feedback. Is that font better? I'm not to interested for suggestions on the deck itself, but feel free to anyway incase I decide to revisit it. Any suggestions on the article format? Possible other topics? Anything else? I've open ears.
I cannot comment on the deck as aggro decks/strategies are beyond my knowledge. I just wanted to say that nevertheless I really do liked the article. A VERY good start to be honest. By the way, listen to what DM65 says.
The font is straining my eyes, though, better make it bigger.