I <3 Horde of Notions. Great fun but maybe too slow for 1v1? Signets surely help a little though. Forgot to say congrats on 1 decade+. Here's to another one in the making!
deluxeicoff - Thanks again, I'm glad you liked it!
Paul Leicht - I appreciate your time and your opinions. Yes, my intention is for readers to consider applying these ideas in an ethical manner. While there is certainly a level of subjectivity as to what is ethical and what isn't, I did not write this piece to encourage players to blatantly cross boundaries and/or disrespect others. Thanks for sharing your concern!
AJ_Impy - Great to hear from you. That's a fantastic quote! I like how you've implemented it as well. Thanks to you for the response.
An excellent read. I have a fondness for applying great works of strategy to my gameplay (Sun Tzu's "The pinnacle of military deployment approaches the formless: if it is formless, then even the deepest spy cannot discern it nor the wise make plans against it." is one of the reasons why I run a different deck nearly every week at my favourite player run event, for example) and I found this enlightening and informative. Thank you.
While I agree that being jerkish to your opponent may be efficacious, it is certainly not very ethical. All is NOT fair in (love &) war. That's just a saying used as an excuse for atrocities. That said, my assumption is what you mean is to demoralize your opponent without being a jerk about it. Which is not only OK but certainly should be expected. In particular I am not fond of the "Jedi Mind Trick" method as it indicates a level of dishonesty that sullies the game (ala George Baxter who wrote at some length about the uses of it.) But I think we mean different things so I am going to assume you mean in an ethical manner, causing the lack of full information to deceive your opponent (such as the clever if desperate Atog trick above.) rather than out and out lying to them.
Every card but like two originally made it in to the deck. I had a close to 200 card pile of what I wanted to play, and they did not make a lot of sense to me, or what I wanted the deck to do.
I think I was trying to make a hate deck in colors that could not really support it. I mean yeah the hate is there, but the deck went in to so many different directions, and it lacked focus.
When I read this article the first time I didn't actually look at the decklist. After ehm seeing certain Horde of Notions deck I decided to actually see what kind of a deck you played and my brain started to think. That's dangerous sometimes. Especially when talking about EDH and deckbuilding. So um take what follows easy, ok?
Radha is not really good in a format which is practically unfair and broken. I know that this is probably something you didn't want to hear but even in paper where the banlist is quite extensive being on a fair side of things doesn't really work. I encountered few Radhas during my period of literally grinding EDH events and I always liked to see them since I knew those decks were incapable of actually beating my deck. They were not fast enough and they did not have any kind of efficient answer to my combos. On the other hand I admire those players and the deck in general looked very fast and lethal.
I probably like doing broken things or at least powerful ones and that is why I tried that in EDH. I usually started with something good but in the end ended up with something broken and unfair. The format will always be like that unless WotC bans all the relevant generals. The thing is...that the general itself is one of the reasons why the format tends to be broken. (speaking about general....in general, not a particular general)
As for aggro decks Bruse is broken as heck. Zurgo can do possibly fine, Titania is also probably more on the 'aggro' side than ramp (aggressive ramp? lol). The deck to beat is Bruse partner aggro if you want to be testing something fair.
As for your deck I'd cut cards that slow you down like Worldly Tutor, Chord of Calling, Oracle of Mul Daya. I wouldn't play Hall of Gemstone or Utopia Sprawl either. Not sure about the Crucible on legs :-/ If you want to stick with Radha you should either be very aggressive or LDish tempo.
Play more land (Grove of the Burnwillows? and Punishing Fire)..like 38ish.
How about cards like Huntmaster of the Fells, Boon Satyr, Boartust Liege, Vengevine, Rhonas the Indomitable, Hellrider? I'd play more hasty costly creatures instead of cards like World Breaker and Inferno Titan. You shouldn't in theory need those but Thudermaw Hellkite/Stormbreath Dragon/Glorybringer/Wolfir Silverheart come to mind and do a better job at killing an opponent but are already ver costly. Play anything that can attack well... (no Wall of Blossoms or BoP) and possibly something that can use Radha's mana.
Instead of mana dorks you could play Burning Tree Emissary and Lotus Cobra. As attackers using the mana from Radha - Basking Rootwalla (and the new one from HOU), Wolfbitten Captive. Even one mana 'saved' is good (not that awesome but still ok). Flinthoof Boar! My pet card. Or Boggart Ram-Gang.
Good RG creatures are Wild Nacatl, Voltaic Brawler, Kird Ape if playing Rootwallas seems too sweet or inefficient.
Very annoying planeswalkers are Arlinn Kord, Sarkhan Vol. Chandra, Torch of Defiance is very powerful even though she doesn't really help the deck that much like the previous two.
Play burn spells or something that can deal damage. If you have nothing to do with Radha mana...than you can just burn something or target your opponent. (Char, Flame Javelin, Lightning Bolt, Atarka's Command at least). In this deck it is reasonable to even play Incinerate/Lightning Strike/Searing Spear etc. Not sure if sweepers are needed...seems not so far.
If you like LD Ravenous Baboons, Ravaging Horder, Goblin Ruinblaster. Then you'd have to play cards like Molten Rain/Pillage/Winter's Grasp or how it is called etc. and it would be a different deck but possibly one that works too. I'd rather be on the aggressive side of things though, in the style of Leeroy Jenkins...
Thanks for your feedback Marcus, I do appreciate it.
I do however challenge you to something. In future, whenever you draw your Scavenging Ooze or randomly hit it off Company, ask yourself "Would I prefer that to have been a Viscera Seer"? I bet you that it will be overwhelmingly in favor of Viscera Seer.
Then keep note also of the times when you have tutored up an Ooze with Chord of Calling, and count that as a goal for the Scavenging Ooze.
I bet you that the second copy of Viscera Seer will defeat the Ooze hands down.
"...a new player, with less skill, less experience and a poorly tuned deck is going to get beaten – a lot. That makes for a lot of feel-bads, and it also means that a lot of players do not return after going 0-4 in an event. That is a problem. (If you disagree, just remember all the changes and problems in the casual rooms on MTGO.)" - Pete.
This is not a problem at all, it is a natural thing, and it is good.
Or rather; there arent feel-bads, and a lot of players do not not return because of going 0-4 in an event. (As a mirror it can be said that a lot of people who do a thing for the first time do not continue with it unless certain planets align in private/social life, iows; there is a vast plethora of reasons for people to not continue with certain things/activities even if/also when they do not dislike them.)
Imagine the opposite, that you are new in a game but start winning most from the beginning. Would you believe there are much thrills to get in this game ? Do you feel the need to invest money into it to have things to exercise with ?
What do you think of the players in this game that has played for long, is it because they are mentally reduced that you as a new player win a lot against them ?
Everybody expects to loose a lot when entering a new game and its' social circle(s). Those who whine because they loose when new are likely to be narcissistic / egocentric persons. Those people exist, also in this game, but they are few and far between. The more people write about mtg-beginners like this, even if just about part of them, the more negativity will eat its' way into this game (and it has happened a lot already, on wotc' previous forum/web and etc).
Treat people as sick people and they will eventually turn sick.
Or rather; ...treat mtg as a game for sick people, then eventually that is what it is going to be.
The ban list is not great right now, and for some reason R&D who created it, saw fit to ignore the work of the DC people and well, that's kinda going against them now.
Eventually the list will be better, but that is the price we pay as early adapters I guess.
It was tougher before when we had interrupts, combat damage on-the-stack and damage prevention pockets. You could say there were more John Waynes in mtg before.
I would give the format a try, but the banlist seems like a joke. I even stopped playing multiplayer Commander until they brought back the old banlist. Here's hoping they see the light.
It's the price combined with the 1 match rounds that I have an issue with. I play a lot of 1 match drafts whenever the new set comes out. It works great when you have kids.
I would just prefer 7 wins or 4 loses kind of structure.
Team Europe would be frightening. ML_Berlin, Generalissimo and myself make up three of the current top four, plus if they return from absence, the likes of Kasparadi, Mihahitlor and Romellos, covering half the seasonal championships.
Single game matches are the best and I love them so much. If they were to change that I would probably stop playing the format. That's part of the appeal to me. It's the closest thing on MTGO to a hearthstone or pokemon experience and I just dig it.
I do like the community that players, I've gotten used to a lot of the same people, but the format could be growing. I see a lot of people upset on twitter because 1v1 is not commander, and they are letting their love of EDH cloud a great play experience.
At 30 life losing that much life to a tomb is not a huge drawback. At 20 I'd say, sure keep tomb, please.
Yeah I didn't want the elf matters part, I was looking to go more midrange with it.
Kiki Jiki is a huge miss, that one stings a bit.
Sneak Attack. I've never actually cast the card. But it's a heck of an idea.
See this I'd somehow manage to get up for if I was teamed with friends. Of course if it is done by leaderboard points then I'd be out since I have none. :)
I think one of the biggest problems with 1 vs 1 Commander is that the only way to play it is single match games. That creates an incredible advantage for whoever wins the die roll and goes first. Most of my league results are usually pretty close to a representation of how many times I won the die roll, unless I'm paired against a casual deck.
WotC bills 1 vs 1 Commander as a more casual format, but single match games mean you can finish your matches quicker, which means the time*money to prize ratio is much greater for grinders.
I think the moxen are a bit over powered and probably should go. They help multi-color commanders so much and offset the go-second disadvantage quite a bit. Ancient Tomb is powerful, but not quite as powerful, because an early Tomb will usually mean that the play is going to lose 6-10 life to it in a match. That's not insignificant.
And yes, your deck doesn't seem to be taking advantage of all of the brokenness it could be.
You have an Elf Commander, but none of the Elf matters cards (Priest of Titania, Heritage Druid, etc.)
You have Birthing Pod, Zealous Conscripts, but NO Kiki-Jiki?
You have Emrakul, and no Sneak Attack?
I think ooze is usually good as a 1 of in the main deck because of how good it can be against other matchups as well. Sometimes just gaining the extra life can be good enough against burn or aggro. I know what you mean about the combo though. It never hurts to text the extra sculler or seer :)
I thought the deck looked interesting enough, and has to be better than whatever Breya, baral stuff the format is limping along with.
Thank you, I'm not sure how much longer this will last, but I am going to enjoy it every day.
I <3 Horde of Notions. Great fun but maybe too slow for 1v1? Signets surely help a little though. Forgot to say congrats on 1 decade+. Here's to another one in the making!
deluxeicoff - Thanks again, I'm glad you liked it!
Paul Leicht - I appreciate your time and your opinions. Yes, my intention is for readers to consider applying these ideas in an ethical manner. While there is certainly a level of subjectivity as to what is ethical and what isn't, I did not write this piece to encourage players to blatantly cross boundaries and/or disrespect others. Thanks for sharing your concern!
AJ_Impy - Great to hear from you. That's a fantastic quote! I like how you've implemented it as well. Thanks to you for the response.
An excellent read. I have a fondness for applying great works of strategy to my gameplay (Sun Tzu's "The pinnacle of military deployment approaches the formless: if it is formless, then even the deepest spy cannot discern it nor the wise make plans against it." is one of the reasons why I run a different deck nearly every week at my favourite player run event, for example) and I found this enlightening and informative. Thank you.
While I agree that being jerkish to your opponent may be efficacious, it is certainly not very ethical. All is NOT fair in (love &) war. That's just a saying used as an excuse for atrocities. That said, my assumption is what you mean is to demoralize your opponent without being a jerk about it. Which is not only OK but certainly should be expected. In particular I am not fond of the "Jedi Mind Trick" method as it indicates a level of dishonesty that sullies the game (ala George Baxter who wrote at some length about the uses of it.) But I think we mean different things so I am going to assume you mean in an ethical manner, causing the lack of full information to deceive your opponent (such as the clever if desperate Atog trick above.) rather than out and out lying to them.
A gem.
Oh, one more thing (Im feeling like Columbo now=)) ;
People like this sometimes talk about a divide between casual and competitive in order to give their lies "context".
That context is nonexistent, there is no divide between casual and competitive in magic other than in wotcs' description of rules enforcement levels.
Every card but like two originally made it in to the deck. I had a close to 200 card pile of what I wanted to play, and they did not make a lot of sense to me, or what I wanted the deck to do.
I think I was trying to make a hate deck in colors that could not really support it. I mean yeah the hate is there, but the deck went in to so many different directions, and it lacked focus.
When I read this article the first time I didn't actually look at the decklist. After ehm seeing certain Horde of Notions deck I decided to actually see what kind of a deck you played and my brain started to think. That's dangerous sometimes. Especially when talking about EDH and deckbuilding. So um take what follows easy, ok?
Radha is not really good in a format which is practically unfair and broken. I know that this is probably something you didn't want to hear but even in paper where the banlist is quite extensive being on a fair side of things doesn't really work. I encountered few Radhas during my period of literally grinding EDH events and I always liked to see them since I knew those decks were incapable of actually beating my deck. They were not fast enough and they did not have any kind of efficient answer to my combos. On the other hand I admire those players and the deck in general looked very fast and lethal.
I probably like doing broken things or at least powerful ones and that is why I tried that in EDH. I usually started with something good but in the end ended up with something broken and unfair. The format will always be like that unless WotC bans all the relevant generals. The thing is...that the general itself is one of the reasons why the format tends to be broken. (speaking about general....in general, not a particular general)
As for aggro decks Bruse is broken as heck. Zurgo can do possibly fine, Titania is also probably more on the 'aggro' side than ramp (aggressive ramp? lol). The deck to beat is Bruse partner aggro if you want to be testing something fair.
As for your deck I'd cut cards that slow you down like Worldly Tutor, Chord of Calling, Oracle of Mul Daya. I wouldn't play Hall of Gemstone or Utopia Sprawl either. Not sure about the Crucible on legs :-/ If you want to stick with Radha you should either be very aggressive or LDish tempo.
Play more land (Grove of the Burnwillows? and Punishing Fire)..like 38ish.
How about cards like Huntmaster of the Fells, Boon Satyr, Boartust Liege, Vengevine, Rhonas the Indomitable, Hellrider? I'd play more hasty costly creatures instead of cards like World Breaker and Inferno Titan. You shouldn't in theory need those but Thudermaw Hellkite/Stormbreath Dragon/Glorybringer/Wolfir Silverheart come to mind and do a better job at killing an opponent but are already ver costly. Play anything that can attack well... (no Wall of Blossoms or BoP) and possibly something that can use Radha's mana.
Instead of mana dorks you could play Burning Tree Emissary and Lotus Cobra. As attackers using the mana from Radha - Basking Rootwalla (and the new one from HOU), Wolfbitten Captive. Even one mana 'saved' is good (not that awesome but still ok). Flinthoof Boar! My pet card. Or Boggart Ram-Gang.
Good RG creatures are Wild Nacatl, Voltaic Brawler, Kird Ape if playing Rootwallas seems too sweet or inefficient.
Very annoying planeswalkers are Arlinn Kord, Sarkhan Vol. Chandra, Torch of Defiance is very powerful even though she doesn't really help the deck that much like the previous two.
Play burn spells or something that can deal damage. If you have nothing to do with Radha mana...than you can just burn something or target your opponent. (Char, Flame Javelin, Lightning Bolt, Atarka's Command at least). In this deck it is reasonable to even play Incinerate/Lightning Strike/Searing Spear etc. Not sure if sweepers are needed...seems not so far.
If you like LD Ravenous Baboons, Ravaging Horder, Goblin Ruinblaster. Then you'd have to play cards like Molten Rain/Pillage/Winter's Grasp or how it is called etc. and it would be a different deck but possibly one that works too. I'd rather be on the aggressive side of things though, in the style of Leeroy Jenkins...
Thanks for your feedback Marcus, I do appreciate it.
I do however challenge you to something. In future, whenever you draw your Scavenging Ooze or randomly hit it off Company, ask yourself "Would I prefer that to have been a Viscera Seer"? I bet you that it will be overwhelmingly in favor of Viscera Seer.
Then keep note also of the times when you have tutored up an Ooze with Chord of Calling, and count that as a goal for the Scavenging Ooze.
I bet you that the second copy of Viscera Seer will defeat the Ooze hands down.
there is nothing wrong with that.
I actually just started playing that mono black list :( I have an unnatural love for painter.
One more thing;
"...a new player, with less skill, less experience and a poorly tuned deck is going to get beaten – a lot. That makes for a lot of feel-bads, and it also means that a lot of players do not return after going 0-4 in an event. That is a problem. (If you disagree, just remember all the changes and problems in the casual rooms on MTGO.)" - Pete.
This is not a problem at all, it is a natural thing, and it is good.
Or rather; there arent feel-bads, and a lot of players do not not return because of going 0-4 in an event. (As a mirror it can be said that a lot of people who do a thing for the first time do not continue with it unless certain planets align in private/social life, iows; there is a vast plethora of reasons for people to not continue with certain things/activities even if/also when they do not dislike them.)
Imagine the opposite, that you are new in a game but start winning most from the beginning. Would you believe there are much thrills to get in this game ? Do you feel the need to invest money into it to have things to exercise with ?
What do you think of the players in this game that has played for long, is it because they are mentally reduced that you as a new player win a lot against them ?
Everybody expects to loose a lot when entering a new game and its' social circle(s). Those who whine because they loose when new are likely to be narcissistic / egocentric persons. Those people exist, also in this game, but they are few and far between. The more people write about mtg-beginners like this, even if just about part of them, the more negativity will eat its' way into this game (and it has happened a lot already, on wotc' previous forum/web and etc).
Treat people as sick people and they will eventually turn sick.
Or rather; ...treat mtg as a game for sick people, then eventually that is what it is going to be.
The ban list is not great right now, and for some reason R&D who created it, saw fit to ignore the work of the DC people and well, that's kinda going against them now.
Eventually the list will be better, but that is the price we pay as early adapters I guess.
That would be a pretty sweet thing to consider.
"Magic is a tough game..." - Pete
It was tougher before when we had interrupts, combat damage on-the-stack and damage prevention pockets. You could say there were more John Waynes in mtg before.
I would give the format a try, but the banlist seems like a joke. I even stopped playing multiplayer Commander until they brought back the old banlist. Here's hoping they see the light.
Forgot to give you 5 fireballs. Keep up the good work.
It's the price combined with the 1 match rounds that I have an issue with. I play a lot of 1 match drafts whenever the new set comes out. It works great when you have kids.
I would just prefer 7 wins or 4 loses kind of structure.
Team Europe would be frightening. ML_Berlin, Generalissimo and myself make up three of the current top four, plus if they return from absence, the likes of Kasparadi, Mihahitlor and Romellos, covering half the seasonal championships.
Single game matches are the best and I love them so much. If they were to change that I would probably stop playing the format. That's part of the appeal to me. It's the closest thing on MTGO to a hearthstone or pokemon experience and I just dig it.
I do like the community that players, I've gotten used to a lot of the same people, but the format could be growing. I see a lot of people upset on twitter because 1v1 is not commander, and they are letting their love of EDH cloud a great play experience.
At 30 life losing that much life to a tomb is not a huge drawback. At 20 I'd say, sure keep tomb, please.
Yeah I didn't want the elf matters part, I was looking to go more midrange with it.
Kiki Jiki is a huge miss, that one stings a bit.
Sneak Attack. I've never actually cast the card. But it's a heck of an idea.
See this I'd somehow manage to get up for if I was teamed with friends. Of course if it is done by leaderboard points then I'd be out since I have none. :)
I think one of the biggest problems with 1 vs 1 Commander is that the only way to play it is single match games. That creates an incredible advantage for whoever wins the die roll and goes first. Most of my league results are usually pretty close to a representation of how many times I won the die roll, unless I'm paired against a casual deck.
WotC bills 1 vs 1 Commander as a more casual format, but single match games mean you can finish your matches quicker, which means the time*money to prize ratio is much greater for grinders.
I think the moxen are a bit over powered and probably should go. They help multi-color commanders so much and offset the go-second disadvantage quite a bit. Ancient Tomb is powerful, but not quite as powerful, because an early Tomb will usually mean that the play is going to lose 6-10 life to it in a match. That's not insignificant.
And yes, your deck doesn't seem to be taking advantage of all of the brokenness it could be.
You have an Elf Commander, but none of the Elf matters cards (Priest of Titania, Heritage Druid, etc.)
You have Birthing Pod, Zealous Conscripts, but NO Kiki-Jiki?
You have Emrakul, and no Sneak Attack?
I think ooze is usually good as a 1 of in the main deck because of how good it can be against other matchups as well. Sometimes just gaining the extra life can be good enough against burn or aggro. I know what you mean about the combo though. It never hurts to text the extra sculler or seer :)
He is great again :) Which makes me pretty happy!