Heartily agree on your card selections. When I think about some of the price changes over time in MtG, it always behooves one to get playsets of the underrated rares. Necropotence was a junk rare in Ice Age at one point. While Invasion Block was fresh you could get 4 Reya Dawnbringers for a Skizzik or a Pyre Zombie and folks would have told you that you had been burned. Going back even further, there was a time that you could get 4 Juzams for a Guardian Beast, Singing Tree was worth as much as a Mox, and a Shivan Dragon was worth 4 Dual Lands. Imp's Mischief and Trickbind have a lot of potential...
I liked the article; especially the pricing section. I tend to agree with you on all of those, especially Imp's mischief. I have already picked up my playsets of all of these cards, however.
The buiding was good. I like the concept for a budget competitive deck for block. Block is one of the most difficult formats to build for, and all I've really seen so far is a lot of slivers and a Mono-blue control deck. Keep the block concept going. I like it!
Having such a big "source of inspiration" here is absolutely big pleasure. I know that there are many players who are just waiting for your next article so they can have a deck idea. Welcome again to PureMTGO. The second part of the video/article is excellent. There you mentioned many great cards/mechanics from the Future Sight set but I don't know near as much about Future Sight as you do, so perhaps these days you can make another video/article to share those information with us. Other than a few cards I saw on mtg.com, I know nothing about the set and I'm sure there are others like me. Just a thought.
After watching Evans video's on SCG's I knew I had to get him on puremtgo so I hope you all enjoy his video and please leave feedback and tell him what you would like him to cover next in the world of MTGO.
Maybe i have not explained myself, i have not said that the dimir mill deck is useless, it is pretty powerful and can be a deadly and fast mill deck, it simply doesn't control much the board. With a simple artifact or enchantment lockdown the game for a blu/black is finished, while white total control is just amazing, cause it lets you play mass removal on every permanent type, not only on critters (with green enchantments decks or heavy artifact decks, for example, you will never have enough mana or enough cards to extirpate everything, or to counter everything, while a magus of the disk or a tempest of light clean the board). Personally, i've found out that dimir decks without circu and dimir critters become weak after the first game (you have a sideboard with tormod's crypt, but even your opponent has one, maybe with feldon's cane or extirpate...). But, after all, this is just an opinion, simply stating that a really expensive deck as "house of dimir" is not so invincible and its "milling power" is just the same of a simple dimir deck played in a clever way. On the other hand, it's a deck easy to play, and this is important too. and these opinions have nothing to do with the good quality of the article :)
First off let me say that I am a fan of your articles. I love the rogue style and have played many (with not much success though) rogue decks in FNM.
A few things I want to point out. First its not the milling that wins you the game, although that is the key engine in winning. Its forcing your opponant to draw a card from the library that he does not have to draw. That wins you the game. With a lot of mana one could very easily brain geyser an opponant to force them to draw more cards then they have.
As far as the card "The cheese stands alone" , well one of the future sight rumors going around is this card.
Barren Glory 4ww
Enchantment (TS) R
At the beginning of your upkeep,if you control no permanents other than Barren Glory and have no cards in hand, you win the game.
Pretty much the same card but more realistic in naturla playing settings.
A few cards I would consider in this deck, since I play an extended mill deck online. Mesmiric orb comboed with gaea's blessing and vulturous zombie. And maybe a vampiric link to make sure your life total stays up because lord only knows how much players hate it when I play the zombie or the orb. (yes I play this deck a lot).
In responce to eirogos's coment on graveyard shufflers, I have two words. Tormods Crypt. Remember, even if the gaea's blessing does go from the library to the graveyard, the ability is triggered and goes on the stack, meaning you can respond with extirpate or tormods crypt. Granted the extipate will only remove the copies but it wont be happeneing again.
Anyways great article. Its nice to see puremtgo picking up in activities.
Au contraire, Mr. Anonymous... Darkness may be countered, and Sudden Spoiling is much more versatile. Instantly and without recourse the opponent's critters lose all abilities as well as becoming 0/2 with Sudden Spoiling. You don't have to worry about Spell Burst, Cancel, Dismal Failure, Mana Tithe or a Voidmage preventing the effect. They can't sacrifice themselves, or tap if they have vigilance and were attacking untapped. In the Time Spiral Block meta right now, there is a good chance of dealing with a U, W, or UW deck that would do just that and screw up your plans. My current TSB build is a RGB deck with a bunch of slivers, 4 Sulfur Elementals, and 14 split second spells. Uncounterable is hard to beat.
love the what i did wrong perspective as
its much closer to how i tend to draft (poorly) then draft guides. two comments though 1: on your hindsight picks be careful not to be influenced by the fact you know what you'll be getting passed. 2: i think you left out a very important card type. you neglected to include mana fixers in your list. not sure what priority it should be given but the distinction should be made.
I believe that accepting your mistakes that you made while drafting and sharing them with us here and being brave enough to say that you made mistakes is not something that anyone can do. I therefore salute you and then salute you again for a second time for proving that for writing about drafts one doesn't have to be 1900+ rating but someone with less experience can write about it too as long as those articles are informative(and fun to read). Keep up the good work.
Thanks Lance! I just realized how much I force colors that I am comfortable with! Its a miracle I'm not down to 0 yet. Your first article helped a lot and I made it to the middle match and won a couple of packs (even after picking Blood Moon) oy!~ I'm excited to try and pick without forcing and see what I get :) I like the 5 types and order you listed... "must know the bombs" and leave the unplayables alone! Keep up the good work, I look forward to seeing more drafting articles from you!
Thanks for the comments guys. And I would also like to thank to those who contact me when I'm online and share their ideas with me about my articles. You must know that I really do appreciate it. Of course no deck is perfect, at least not my decks, and there is always room for improvement. The reason I completely ignored cards like Ivory Mask is that I never saw them played. There are no tier1 burn decks around these days and discards decks with The Rack are not heavily played so players nowadays don't consider Ivory Mask as a sideboard option. I have 2 Repeals in deck in case I encounter some troublesome artifacts and/or enchantments. But Elrogos, it is absolutely true that an Ivory Mask could be a real threat. And Jinx: my Forbidden Crypt deck was horrible because I was horrible at deck building back those days and I was also a student back then which caused some major finance problems :))). Anyway, I thank you all again for reading my articles and sharing your thoughts with me. By the way: Before challenging me for a game, please send a pm first. I might be in the middle of some important playtest and I hate to simply reject challenges. Thanks!
Hi man, nice article, just a thing about the mill deck, if i can. It is quite powerful, and maybe with the right use of counters it can be deadly, but it has no way to deal with enchantments and geas's blessing, so an ivory mask or some graveyard shuffler will ruin your game. Being a great fun of milling decks, i really think that blu/black milling is only effective in a total dimir deck, while a control/mill deck has many more changes to win with a blu/white combination (in standard even red blu is quite useful with tsp draw and discard cards). Life gaining + creatures removal and mass destruction (of everything, critters, enchantments and artifacts) of white decks are really the best way to protect a good milling deck against people able to "defend" their library :). After this the Jester's Scepter, as i discovered with many losses, are not that wonderful cards. Yeah, repeatable counters, but useful only in decks the recurs them to mill the opponent, or in heavy counter decks, while a good card in standard against most red decks is the marvellous Commandeer, killer of blazes, demonfires and seething songs.
However, i like your articles, i really think that with more original people like you we would see no more silhana/moldervine or Tron/teferi decks! keep up the good work!
Fun stuff man. I like the tone of your articles. Gives them an enjoyable personality and keeps me interested. More great deck ideas and play styles. I'm a little disappointed to hear about your Forbidden Crypt/Donate deck's poor record. I also have that same combo (tormod's crypt rather than thran foundry though) and it led me to many victories :D. Good stuff, keep it up.
I dont think sudden spoiling is good unless you combine it with rough/tumble to wipe out their board.
If you use it as a darkness, it's just basicly that.. a darkness, which really isnt great.
And I really think Urborg shouldnt be in here, cause the chance that it helps your opponent is too big.
Merhaba Nafiz! (I think I got that right...)
I really liked this article. It was very well written and had some great ideas. The decks were really innovative and seem like they will work well. Keep up the good work and I look forward to the next one!
Lance (MysticLancer)
good work, there are obvious picks that should've been made, but still good work....
anyways, draft some timespiral block and comment on that. would like to hear some perspectives on that.
love the deck. i'm currently running something rather close to it but in std. used it to try and get an inv torney invite and just missed out. was going to write about it to... maybe still will if it wins me something but as always it seams im on base again and don't have time to write. would recommend black discard to any one looking looking for a deck thats fun to play and slightly of the beaten path that when played right can in toe to toe with all the tier ones. as always good writing pete and i hope to read more soon.
You might think about adding Sudden Spoiling the the mono-black version of this. It is almost as good as a Time Walk when facing fast creatures - you attack in face of their horde, knowing that their next attack is worthless (and uncounterable...).
I may have misspoke earlier - the Confidants are clearly 'draw mechanisms'. I was referring to draw spells. The 4 confidants may be enough to find the Damnations, but I would still feel threatened by a world full of 'untargetables' (but that may just be the control player in me!)
Good first article. A few strategy questions: 1) Is the deck fast enough to win before an opponent drops any troublesome enchantments or artifacts? I know Boros Wins and Aggro Green simply ignore that threat and rely on speed alone. Does yours do the same? 2) How do you handle untargetable fat critters? Green will drop that sort of unpleasantness on a regular basis. The Damnations are the only answer I see, but w/ only 3 sideboard and no 'fetch' or 'draw' mechanisms, they may be hard to come by. What’s your experience with that situation? Some tweaking might be necessary, but overall, the deck has potential. Keep going!
I agree with Heath, its a good article and I like it a lot, but the formatting could be worked on a little more to make it more appealing and maybe a bit more content but great start and keep it up.
I enjoy reading these types of articles. They feed my inner Johnny and at least make some use out of Wizards' junk rares. I say keep up the good work and Johnny says, "Feed me, Javasci!"
Heartily agree on your card selections. When I think about some of the price changes over time in MtG, it always behooves one to get playsets of the underrated rares. Necropotence was a junk rare in Ice Age at one point. While Invasion Block was fresh you could get 4 Reya Dawnbringers for a Skizzik or a Pyre Zombie and folks would have told you that you had been burned. Going back even further, there was a time that you could get 4 Juzams for a Guardian Beast, Singing Tree was worth as much as a Mox, and a Shivan Dragon was worth 4 Dual Lands. Imp's Mischief and Trickbind have a lot of potential...
I liked the article; especially the pricing section. I tend to agree with you on all of those, especially Imp's mischief. I have already picked up my playsets of all of these cards, however.
The buiding was good. I like the concept for a budget competitive deck for block. Block is one of the most difficult formats to build for, and all I've really seen so far is a lot of slivers and a Mono-blue control deck. Keep the block concept going. I like it!
Having such a big "source of inspiration" here is absolutely big pleasure. I know that there are many players who are just waiting for your next article so they can have a deck idea. Welcome again to PureMTGO. The second part of the video/article is excellent. There you mentioned many great cards/mechanics from the Future Sight set but I don't know near as much about Future Sight as you do, so perhaps these days you can make another video/article to share those information with us. Other than a few cards I saw on mtg.com, I know nothing about the set and I'm sure there are others like me. Just a thought.
After watching Evans video's on SCG's I knew I had to get him on puremtgo so I hope you all enjoy his video and please leave feedback and tell him what you would like him to cover next in the world of MTGO.
Maybe i have not explained myself, i have not said that the dimir mill deck is useless, it is pretty powerful and can be a deadly and fast mill deck, it simply doesn't control much the board. With a simple artifact or enchantment lockdown the game for a blu/black is finished, while white total control is just amazing, cause it lets you play mass removal on every permanent type, not only on critters (with green enchantments decks or heavy artifact decks, for example, you will never have enough mana or enough cards to extirpate everything, or to counter everything, while a magus of the disk or a tempest of light clean the board). Personally, i've found out that dimir decks without circu and dimir critters become weak after the first game (you have a sideboard with tormod's crypt, but even your opponent has one, maybe with feldon's cane or extirpate...). But, after all, this is just an opinion, simply stating that a really expensive deck as "house of dimir" is not so invincible and its "milling power" is just the same of a simple dimir deck played in a clever way. On the other hand, it's a deck easy to play, and this is important too. and these opinions have nothing to do with the good quality of the article :)
Interesting name..Buttwhiskers :)
Another good job peter. I like your articles both here and SCG. Keep up the great work
Question. WOuld it be worth putting a termoral extortion in the deck?
First off let me say that I am a fan of your articles. I love the rogue style and have played many (with not much success though) rogue decks in FNM.
A few things I want to point out. First its not the milling that wins you the game, although that is the key engine in winning. Its forcing your opponant to draw a card from the library that he does not have to draw. That wins you the game. With a lot of mana one could very easily brain geyser an opponant to force them to draw more cards then they have.
As far as the card "The cheese stands alone" , well one of the future sight rumors going around is this card.
Barren Glory 4ww
Enchantment (TS) R
At the beginning of your upkeep,if you control no permanents other than Barren Glory and have no cards in hand, you win the game.
Pretty much the same card but more realistic in naturla playing settings.
A few cards I would consider in this deck, since I play an extended mill deck online. Mesmiric orb comboed with gaea's blessing and vulturous zombie. And maybe a vampiric link to make sure your life total stays up because lord only knows how much players hate it when I play the zombie or the orb. (yes I play this deck a lot).
In responce to eirogos's coment on graveyard shufflers, I have two words. Tormods Crypt. Remember, even if the gaea's blessing does go from the library to the graveyard, the ability is triggered and goes on the stack, meaning you can respond with extirpate or tormods crypt. Granted the extipate will only remove the copies but it wont be happeneing again.
Anyways great article. Its nice to see puremtgo picking up in activities.
Au contraire, Mr. Anonymous... Darkness may be countered, and Sudden Spoiling is much more versatile. Instantly and without recourse the opponent's critters lose all abilities as well as becoming 0/2 with Sudden Spoiling. You don't have to worry about Spell Burst, Cancel, Dismal Failure, Mana Tithe or a Voidmage preventing the effect. They can't sacrifice themselves, or tap if they have vigilance and were attacking untapped. In the Time Spiral Block meta right now, there is a good chance of dealing with a U, W, or UW deck that would do just that and screw up your plans. My current TSB build is a RGB deck with a bunch of slivers, 4 Sulfur Elementals, and 14 split second spells. Uncounterable is hard to beat.
I like them both so far. Keep going at it and this will be a nice regular column that many will probably look forward to reading.
love the what i did wrong perspective as
its much closer to how i tend to draft (poorly) then draft guides. two comments though 1: on your hindsight picks be careful not to be influenced by the fact you know what you'll be getting passed. 2: i think you left out a very important card type. you neglected to include mana fixers in your list. not sure what priority it should be given but the distinction should be made.
I believe that accepting your mistakes that you made while drafting and sharing them with us here and being brave enough to say that you made mistakes is not something that anyone can do. I therefore salute you and then salute you again for a second time for proving that for writing about drafts one doesn't have to be 1900+ rating but someone with less experience can write about it too as long as those articles are informative(and fun to read). Keep up the good work.
Thanks Lance! I just realized how much I force colors that I am comfortable with! Its a miracle I'm not down to 0 yet. Your first article helped a lot and I made it to the middle match and won a couple of packs (even after picking Blood Moon) oy!~ I'm excited to try and pick without forcing and see what I get :) I like the 5 types and order you listed... "must know the bombs" and leave the unplayables alone! Keep up the good work, I look forward to seeing more drafting articles from you!
Thanks for the comments guys. And I would also like to thank to those who contact me when I'm online and share their ideas with me about my articles. You must know that I really do appreciate it. Of course no deck is perfect, at least not my decks, and there is always room for improvement. The reason I completely ignored cards like Ivory Mask is that I never saw them played. There are no tier1 burn decks around these days and discards decks with The Rack are not heavily played so players nowadays don't consider Ivory Mask as a sideboard option. I have 2 Repeals in deck in case I encounter some troublesome artifacts and/or enchantments. But Elrogos, it is absolutely true that an Ivory Mask could be a real threat. And Jinx: my Forbidden Crypt deck was horrible because I was horrible at deck building back those days and I was also a student back then which caused some major finance problems :))). Anyway, I thank you all again for reading my articles and sharing your thoughts with me. By the way: Before challenging me for a game, please send a pm first. I might be in the middle of some important playtest and I hate to simply reject challenges. Thanks!
Hi man, nice article, just a thing about the mill deck, if i can. It is quite powerful, and maybe with the right use of counters it can be deadly, but it has no way to deal with enchantments and geas's blessing, so an ivory mask or some graveyard shuffler will ruin your game. Being a great fun of milling decks, i really think that blu/black milling is only effective in a total dimir deck, while a control/mill deck has many more changes to win with a blu/white combination (in standard even red blu is quite useful with tsp draw and discard cards). Life gaining + creatures removal and mass destruction (of everything, critters, enchantments and artifacts) of white decks are really the best way to protect a good milling deck against people able to "defend" their library :). After this the Jester's Scepter, as i discovered with many losses, are not that wonderful cards. Yeah, repeatable counters, but useful only in decks the recurs them to mill the opponent, or in heavy counter decks, while a good card in standard against most red decks is the marvellous Commandeer, killer of blazes, demonfires and seething songs.
However, i like your articles, i really think that with more original people like you we would see no more silhana/moldervine or Tron/teferi decks! keep up the good work!
Fun stuff man. I like the tone of your articles. Gives them an enjoyable personality and keeps me interested. More great deck ideas and play styles. I'm a little disappointed to hear about your Forbidden Crypt/Donate deck's poor record. I also have that same combo (tormod's crypt rather than thran foundry though) and it led me to many victories :D. Good stuff, keep it up.
I dont think sudden spoiling is good unless you combine it with rough/tumble to wipe out their board.
If you use it as a darkness, it's just basicly that.. a darkness, which really isnt great.
And I really think Urborg shouldnt be in here, cause the chance that it helps your opponent is too big.
Merhaba Nafiz! (I think I got that right...)
I really liked this article. It was very well written and had some great ideas. The decks were really innovative and seem like they will work well. Keep up the good work and I look forward to the next one!
Lance (MysticLancer)
hey,
good work, there are obvious picks that should've been made, but still good work....
anyways, draft some timespiral block and comment on that. would like to hear some perspectives on that.
lata,
jdog
love the deck. i'm currently running something rather close to it but in std. used it to try and get an inv torney invite and just missed out. was going to write about it to... maybe still will if it wins me something but as always it seams im on base again and don't have time to write. would recommend black discard to any one looking looking for a deck thats fun to play and slightly of the beaten path that when played right can in toe to toe with all the tier ones. as always good writing pete and i hope to read more soon.
You might think about adding Sudden Spoiling the the mono-black version of this. It is almost as good as a Time Walk when facing fast creatures - you attack in face of their horde, knowing that their next attack is worthless (and uncounterable...).
I may have misspoke earlier - the Confidants are clearly 'draw mechanisms'. I was referring to draw spells. The 4 confidants may be enough to find the Damnations, but I would still feel threatened by a world full of 'untargetables' (but that may just be the control player in me!)
Good first article. A few strategy questions: 1) Is the deck fast enough to win before an opponent drops any troublesome enchantments or artifacts? I know Boros Wins and Aggro Green simply ignore that threat and rely on speed alone. Does yours do the same? 2) How do you handle untargetable fat critters? Green will drop that sort of unpleasantness on a regular basis. The Damnations are the only answer I see, but w/ only 3 sideboard and no 'fetch' or 'draw' mechanisms, they may be hard to come by. What’s your experience with that situation? Some tweaking might be necessary, but overall, the deck has potential. Keep going!
I agree with Heath, its a good article and I like it a lot, but the formatting could be worked on a little more to make it more appealing and maybe a bit more content but great start and keep it up.
Good first article but could use some polishing. Hope to see more articles from you!
I enjoy reading these types of articles. They feed my inner Johnny and at least make some use out of Wizards' junk rares. I say keep up the good work and Johnny says, "Feed me, Javasci!"