Thanks for your responses, guys! Or should I say essays?
Paul: Yeah, chunking is different from playing on intuition. They are both forms of playing on autopilot, but chunking is like what I described Brad Nelson as doing. I didn't make that distinction as concretely as you did, and I should have.
I've found that habits are much easier to break if you can rewrite them rather than simply just deleting them. Doing nothing is often harder than doing something productive, at least for me.
Stsung: I definitely agree that playing on autopilot is helpful with regard to saving energy/avoiding fatigue. I think that only really applies to "chunking," as Paul described it, rather than playing with blind intuition.
In general, I define playing on blind intuition as playing based on abstract pattern recognition rather than concrete analysis. This often manifests for me in two ways: blindly maximizing my mana usage and grouping cards based on functional fixedness. For the former, I will simply figure out how to best utilize all my mana rather than figuring out how to best further my game plan even if that means leaving some mana unused. I think this is a fairly common mistake PPTQ-players make. As far as functional fixedness goes, in Pauper, if I have a Glint Hawk in hand and a 2-CMC artifact in play and three lands, if I am playing by intuition, I will almost always play Hawk, bounce the artifact, and then replay the artifact, because it's the Hawk's job to draw me a card combined with the artifact. If I am analyzing concretely, I will find those situations where it is correct to bounce the artifact and then play other spells to the board (usually two removal spells or a removal spell plus a Thraben Inspector).
My overall focus was on why the practice is useful and how to get into the habit of it rather than on the specific factors to talk yourself through. A large part of that is because different people approach situations differently, and I don't think a certain approach (a certain ordering of the factors or having different factors on the list, for example) is necessarily better than any other. I mainly wanted to give readers the tools to implement the practice of an internal monologue and let them apply it to their personal approach to the game. I do agree that there are some universal factors that everyone should consider, and I'll probably do another article on those soon.
note: I'm not someone using intuition. I'm someone who sees a decision tree and tries to decide what is the right play at the right moment with having a goal in mind. I'm saying this because my flatmate is the right opposite and his thought processes are totally different but he comes to the same conclusions as me often.
I think that playing on auto-pilot is fine sometimes^_^, saves energy. The definition of playing on auto-pilot might come handy as well. I know this is something that should be clear but what does that mean? For me it does not necessarily mean that one does not think about what he's doing, usually the player just does what seems to be the best play under similar conditions. But what if you play a deck you don't know? can you play on auto-pilot?
I think the internal dialogue or rather monologue needs to address few more things. It's more about knowing when to stop and think and when it is not necessary and also take your opponent in that equation (and all the relevant information. (I'll ignore Paul's part about visualizing the win for now). When I was playing 100CS I used to think very hard during my first turn. It usually took me about 1-2 minutes to actually play my first land. Many players just played a land and said go. I couldn't since I was running a 4 or 5 color deck and I needed to figure out which is the right combination of lands and possibilities how to fetch the lands. Because this also had to line up with my ideal or possible game plan. Many trying to play my deck usually ended up color screwed and deemed the mana base bad, but it was their decision to fetch those lands that resulted in their loss. Often the deck required to play two fetchlands and simply wait for a third land so I could make the right decision. Cracking those fetches and playing a card that was susceptible to die anyway wasn't the best play because it could have easily 'bricked' me for the rest of the game.
Lately when I played in few PPTQs I also had to stop and think on turn 1. I did not need that at local FNMs since I just 4-0ed without even much thinking (Emrakul was good enough to ruin everyone's day), and I was rather observing what my deck can do since I wasn't the one who came up with it. (I was too preocuppied by reading what all the cards do). At the PPTQ it was different, sitting across a former pro. It was me who had to navigate through the game and if possible win. Seeing my opener I thought my brain would burst. I was on BG Delirium and my hand featured a fetchland (erm Evolving Wilds), Hissing Quagmire, Forest, Tireless Tracker and Vessel of Nascency. There were several things I started to wonder about. How important is Vessel of Nascency? Should I play it turn 1 and possibly crack it turn 2? What land should I play first? Quagmire? Evolving Wilds? I decided to ignore Vessel of Nascency because I usually can have 3 different card types in my graveyard the missing ones usually land that I had in my hand and Enchantment that I had there as well. If I would play Wilds I could possibly get it back with Grapple with the Past if I were in need of land which was most probably going to happen. If I would keep it I could get two clues from Tracker. But still I would have to wait till turn 4 and draw additional land. I have seen many scenarios but I couldn't decide which was better. No internal dialogue could have helped me with it. Only experience could have given me the answer but I was too lazy to pay attention to such situations in the previous tournaments.
When I played against another former Pro being on BG Delirium, he did not even consider what I describe above and just started with Hissing Quagmire. (he was in the same situation because some spectator decided to comment on his hand). He just continued playing while keeping one thing in mind - greed. This way he got most out of his Tracker and Vessel of Nascency later but it was not necessarily the best what he could have done against some decks. I was about to win the game but then his top decked Emrakul decided the game and all I could do was show a sad face and scoop. Anyway I brought my original thoughts from round 1 up because I really wanted to see what others would tell me about it. I knew I was the least experienced Standard player there. But I also knew that I was hardly the worst player there. The players stared at me in wonder at first and then a heated debate started and no one had an answer.
While I was progressing through the tournament I decided to keep it simple. I tried to envision what my role possibly is in the matchup and hopefully I was right sometimes^_^ This helped me see how I want to win. Often it came down to few things - how much removal is important (side removal out against mirror), how much early drops are important (not much against UW Flash for example, because one needs to have delirium and land Ishkanah), how important is Emrakul in the match up translating into do I want Mindwreck Demons in my deck (yes if Emrakul is needed)?. After figuring this I could envision a path to victory and this made all my decisions way easier. Since I had NO idea about this round 1, I couldn't even see the right line of play. So I just picked one and knew I would have to bear the consequences.
What is needed is to ask the question 'why do I do it'? 'Does it makes sense'? Many players actually struggle with this and often ignore the fact why OPPONENT DID something. I used an example from a Vintage Daily recently somewhere (in my report I think). My opponent Forced my Delver of Secrets. That is something that does not happen often (Delver is not a threat for many blue decks). Even though I asked myself why my opponent did that I did not come up with an answer. Many players do not even ask this question when they see a player do something odd. Often they just think 'that player just made a mistake'. But what if the play wasn't a mistake? If I would have been awake enough to figure out an answer I would have known that I'm facing a deck running Tendrils of Agony. If my Stax opponent from P9C would have thought why I let Ensnaring Bridge resolve or why I played my Mox and not kept it in hand he might have figured what I fear or what cards I have in my hand (or just outright think I'm stupid).
Maybe I wasn't really clear in conveying my thoughts but this is something to consider. Internal dialogue is certainly a good thing but has many ifs. You could describe the factors that actually play a role. I came up with many already and could write an article about every single one of them. You obviously are aware of them too but you should make it clear to the readers of this article and also give some examples people would understand or rather see your thought process. Seeing this is invaluable information. I'm quite stubborn and have my own point of view on things but I knowing how others think is something I've very interested in. I like to observe players play and see where they aim. This way you can also sway them and earn and edge in the game. Give the readers more insight to your thoughts similarly to what I did above (or in some of my reports or other articles).
ugh...um...get my point?
BTW: while I stream I can't even concentrate on what I do in a game of Magic...it certainly is a good exercise and is probably helpful in some way, but it is very different from playing normally. but maybe I'm an exception :-)
I think everyone plateaus at chess at some point. Mostly in that inexorable gap between A level player and Expert. I blame it all on Nimzovich. (OK it's not his fault but I did get stuck on a plateau after digesting Chess Praxis for the 2nd time. I suspect for many players each real ratings jump (+200) is a huge space of not improving for a while. But there is definitely a point where it becomes work to leap to the next level.
For me, tactical was mostly the easier part of the game if not easy. The harder part was visualizing the win. Not so much about thinking ahead but seeing how the board should eventually look if I am achieving my strategic goals. I think that's not as easy to translate in Magic whereas tactical thinking is. As to intuitiveness, I see that as different than playing "by rote". If you know a line thoroughly, you might skip some steps mentally in an intuitive like way but you are still playing by rote. That's called "chunking" if I recall correctly. But to be intuitive you need to make a leap without complete information (a constant tension in MTG) and that I think is only learned by playing and experiencing the possibilities. Your Rote knowledge helps a lot with that but it is an underpinning to the leap rather than the muscle. What powers you forward is your imagination and discipline.
The most interesting thing I got from this article is the idea of breaking your routine by developing a counter-routine, internally. I definitely think to surpass your limitations controlling your mindset is key. Being positive is part of it of course but being able to instruct yourself on how to properly pilot without letting it go to automation is a bigger part. I think you could really flesh this out with examples and getting inside that thought process for your readers to witness what you mean in detail.
Also I think where your use of intuition might come into play more than any other part of the game is the use of time, as you mentioned with Brad Nelson. That *knowing* when to slow down/speed up can't be taught. It must be intuited through experience. Just as Blitz players know how to play the clock, so too, magic players need to even if there is no timer in front of you waiting to be hit.
Nice work guys! I'm sort of a newbie with the article creation on-site. My question is would it be possible to write an article offline using notepad and submit it by e-mail? Considering of course everything written at home offline follows the same specifications listed in this article?
I have limited access to internet and my phone would probably be a bad idea to write from. I sometimes travel a lot and have no net access but I'm always thinking magic online and magic the gathering In general. So if a quality article was created I would think an editor could simply upload the piece onto the site.
Just a thought...perhaps create a downloadable offline editor for use only for PureMTGO site articles.
Hi,nice article. Can somebody help me? I want to write for the site but when I use the forums link all I see are Russian like words and everything there seems the same. Thank you.
"As I’ve mentioned far too often, my main time-sinks / addictions are Magic and Guild Wars II. Right now, GW2 is winning the battle for what free time I have."
Replace 'Guild Wars II' with 'console gaming', and that's me in a nutshell. I haven't spent an extended period of time on Magic online for a couple of weeks now - and I was on vacation, meaning that would be the prime time for me to draft all the time. I'm just on a low period with the program right now - I dislike standard, I dislike the Kaladesh draft environment, and they have failed to offer any type of flashback draft queue that's truly enticing for me (say, Tempest, or Urza's Saga, or Mercadia).
As for holiday rewards, I remember one year they gave a random Premium Deck Series product for everyone going 4-0 in a daily event during december. That was pretty great, and I wish they'd do something like that again.
I did show the temur energy with Whirler Virtuoso, I think the green is needed because there are so many good green energy cards, the bulk of them I think, to where it would be much harder to do in a straight UR build.
yeah Standard is very affordable, especially now since you can buyin in with a really cheap competitive deck, and build up over the weeks. The cheaper mana bases and Mythics that are played in only certain archetypes works out well for that I think.
I think it's because in the case of Nissa, what you're doing on turn five in green decks is tapping a marvel and putting Emrakul into play ideally. There is just no room for it.
For Chandra, I'm not sure why that version sees play, other then the deck that she was in just fell out of favor, which was a UR eldrazi control deck, and with the rise of UR spells, Dynavolt Tower is a "walker" that can't be ruinous pathed.
This is exactly the kind of article I expected. It looks like tons of fun for that price that almost equals to yesterday's price tag of my BG Delirium deck (340tix) which honestly is not really a fun deck (reminds me of Jund/Junk in modern but in the deck's defense I actually think it is more fun than the Modern decks). I really wanted to see an energy deck with Whirler Virtuoso though (and dynavolt tower). I was very sad not to see blue control decks or more combo decks based in UR, but it seems that such decks are totally possible to build and play (just bought the cards so I can play anything in Jeskai/Grixis colors). Since I don't really play Standard nor limited since the introduction of Draft Leagues I did not really follow what cards were printed but this article sparked my interest in Standard because I see many nice cards and even ways how a deck can win. Honestly that's awesome and it is a pity I failed to see that because all I know is Delirium/Marvel/Flash metagame :-(
After my accident of entering a Friendly Standard League I can see that Standard can be tons of fun. There are many decks that work and are actually pretty enjoyable to play. Not only that, they can compete with BG Delirium, Marvel and UW Flash (the meta game might have shifted already, but that's pretty much all the decks I encounter at events except that Friendly League). It is a pity that the current Standard does not really look diverse. IRL many players stopped playing Standard because it seemed pretty boring with more or less just two dominant decks and Emrakul everywhere. I thought that the main reason was Emrakul but I'm not really sure anymore. I wonder how to show those people here that they can play something else and it does not need to be expensive.
(btw I played against Paradoxical Outcome deck and after controlling my opponent's turn in which I drew 11 cards and left him with 7 lands in hand g1, and in g2 I killed him with his own Reservoir, I have the urge to put it together as well^_^ - it just needs a plan B against control decks)
Chandra, Flamecaller at 3.6 and Nissa, Vital Force at 2 are very cheap buyins for good planeswalkers. I'm still surprised that they're that cheap on MTGO.
I really enjoyed this article. I think you did a great job of breaking down how a player can invest in Standard, have a variety of competitive decks, and not break the bank.
Kataki usually sees more play in Chord of Calling type decks because they can tutor for him. Also some aggressive decks can run it because you don't really want to side out creatures for Stony Silence.
Want more Mtg after the tribal event? The 100 cs tourney pays to the Entire Top 8.
Thanks for your responses, guys! Or should I say essays?
Paul: Yeah, chunking is different from playing on intuition. They are both forms of playing on autopilot, but chunking is like what I described Brad Nelson as doing. I didn't make that distinction as concretely as you did, and I should have.
I've found that habits are much easier to break if you can rewrite them rather than simply just deleting them. Doing nothing is often harder than doing something productive, at least for me.
Stsung: I definitely agree that playing on autopilot is helpful with regard to saving energy/avoiding fatigue. I think that only really applies to "chunking," as Paul described it, rather than playing with blind intuition.
In general, I define playing on blind intuition as playing based on abstract pattern recognition rather than concrete analysis. This often manifests for me in two ways: blindly maximizing my mana usage and grouping cards based on functional fixedness. For the former, I will simply figure out how to best utilize all my mana rather than figuring out how to best further my game plan even if that means leaving some mana unused. I think this is a fairly common mistake PPTQ-players make. As far as functional fixedness goes, in Pauper, if I have a Glint Hawk in hand and a 2-CMC artifact in play and three lands, if I am playing by intuition, I will almost always play Hawk, bounce the artifact, and then replay the artifact, because it's the Hawk's job to draw me a card combined with the artifact. If I am analyzing concretely, I will find those situations where it is correct to bounce the artifact and then play other spells to the board (usually two removal spells or a removal spell plus a Thraben Inspector).
My overall focus was on why the practice is useful and how to get into the habit of it rather than on the specific factors to talk yourself through. A large part of that is because different people approach situations differently, and I don't think a certain approach (a certain ordering of the factors or having different factors on the list, for example) is necessarily better than any other. I mainly wanted to give readers the tools to implement the practice of an internal monologue and let them apply it to their personal approach to the game. I do agree that there are some universal factors that everyone should consider, and I'll probably do another article on those soon.
note: I'm not someone using intuition. I'm someone who sees a decision tree and tries to decide what is the right play at the right moment with having a goal in mind. I'm saying this because my flatmate is the right opposite and his thought processes are totally different but he comes to the same conclusions as me often.
I think that playing on auto-pilot is fine sometimes^_^, saves energy. The definition of playing on auto-pilot might come handy as well. I know this is something that should be clear but what does that mean? For me it does not necessarily mean that one does not think about what he's doing, usually the player just does what seems to be the best play under similar conditions. But what if you play a deck you don't know? can you play on auto-pilot?
I think the internal dialogue or rather monologue needs to address few more things. It's more about knowing when to stop and think and when it is not necessary and also take your opponent in that equation (and all the relevant information. (I'll ignore Paul's part about visualizing the win for now). When I was playing 100CS I used to think very hard during my first turn. It usually took me about 1-2 minutes to actually play my first land. Many players just played a land and said go. I couldn't since I was running a 4 or 5 color deck and I needed to figure out which is the right combination of lands and possibilities how to fetch the lands. Because this also had to line up with my ideal or possible game plan. Many trying to play my deck usually ended up color screwed and deemed the mana base bad, but it was their decision to fetch those lands that resulted in their loss. Often the deck required to play two fetchlands and simply wait for a third land so I could make the right decision. Cracking those fetches and playing a card that was susceptible to die anyway wasn't the best play because it could have easily 'bricked' me for the rest of the game.
Lately when I played in few PPTQs I also had to stop and think on turn 1. I did not need that at local FNMs since I just 4-0ed without even much thinking (Emrakul was good enough to ruin everyone's day), and I was rather observing what my deck can do since I wasn't the one who came up with it. (I was too preocuppied by reading what all the cards do). At the PPTQ it was different, sitting across a former pro. It was me who had to navigate through the game and if possible win. Seeing my opener I thought my brain would burst. I was on BG Delirium and my hand featured a fetchland (erm Evolving Wilds), Hissing Quagmire, Forest, Tireless Tracker and Vessel of Nascency. There were several things I started to wonder about. How important is Vessel of Nascency? Should I play it turn 1 and possibly crack it turn 2? What land should I play first? Quagmire? Evolving Wilds? I decided to ignore Vessel of Nascency because I usually can have 3 different card types in my graveyard the missing ones usually land that I had in my hand and Enchantment that I had there as well. If I would play Wilds I could possibly get it back with Grapple with the Past if I were in need of land which was most probably going to happen. If I would keep it I could get two clues from Tracker. But still I would have to wait till turn 4 and draw additional land. I have seen many scenarios but I couldn't decide which was better. No internal dialogue could have helped me with it. Only experience could have given me the answer but I was too lazy to pay attention to such situations in the previous tournaments.
When I played against another former Pro being on BG Delirium, he did not even consider what I describe above and just started with Hissing Quagmire. (he was in the same situation because some spectator decided to comment on his hand). He just continued playing while keeping one thing in mind - greed. This way he got most out of his Tracker and Vessel of Nascency later but it was not necessarily the best what he could have done against some decks. I was about to win the game but then his top decked Emrakul decided the game and all I could do was show a sad face and scoop. Anyway I brought my original thoughts from round 1 up because I really wanted to see what others would tell me about it. I knew I was the least experienced Standard player there. But I also knew that I was hardly the worst player there. The players stared at me in wonder at first and then a heated debate started and no one had an answer.
While I was progressing through the tournament I decided to keep it simple. I tried to envision what my role possibly is in the matchup and hopefully I was right sometimes^_^ This helped me see how I want to win. Often it came down to few things - how much removal is important (side removal out against mirror), how much early drops are important (not much against UW Flash for example, because one needs to have delirium and land Ishkanah), how important is Emrakul in the match up translating into do I want Mindwreck Demons in my deck (yes if Emrakul is needed)?. After figuring this I could envision a path to victory and this made all my decisions way easier. Since I had NO idea about this round 1, I couldn't even see the right line of play. So I just picked one and knew I would have to bear the consequences.
What is needed is to ask the question 'why do I do it'? 'Does it makes sense'? Many players actually struggle with this and often ignore the fact why OPPONENT DID something. I used an example from a Vintage Daily recently somewhere (in my report I think). My opponent Forced my Delver of Secrets. That is something that does not happen often (Delver is not a threat for many blue decks). Even though I asked myself why my opponent did that I did not come up with an answer. Many players do not even ask this question when they see a player do something odd. Often they just think 'that player just made a mistake'. But what if the play wasn't a mistake? If I would have been awake enough to figure out an answer I would have known that I'm facing a deck running Tendrils of Agony. If my Stax opponent from P9C would have thought why I let Ensnaring Bridge resolve or why I played my Mox and not kept it in hand he might have figured what I fear or what cards I have in my hand (or just outright think I'm stupid).
Maybe I wasn't really clear in conveying my thoughts but this is something to consider. Internal dialogue is certainly a good thing but has many ifs. You could describe the factors that actually play a role. I came up with many already and could write an article about every single one of them. You obviously are aware of them too but you should make it clear to the readers of this article and also give some examples people would understand or rather see your thought process. Seeing this is invaluable information. I'm quite stubborn and have my own point of view on things but I knowing how others think is something I've very interested in. I like to observe players play and see where they aim. This way you can also sway them and earn and edge in the game. Give the readers more insight to your thoughts similarly to what I did above (or in some of my reports or other articles).
ugh...um...get my point?
BTW: while I stream I can't even concentrate on what I do in a game of Magic...it certainly is a good exercise and is probably helpful in some way, but it is very different from playing normally. but maybe I'm an exception :-)
I think everyone plateaus at chess at some point. Mostly in that inexorable gap between A level player and Expert. I blame it all on Nimzovich. (OK it's not his fault but I did get stuck on a plateau after digesting Chess Praxis for the 2nd time. I suspect for many players each real ratings jump (+200) is a huge space of not improving for a while. But there is definitely a point where it becomes work to leap to the next level.
For me, tactical was mostly the easier part of the game if not easy. The harder part was visualizing the win. Not so much about thinking ahead but seeing how the board should eventually look if I am achieving my strategic goals. I think that's not as easy to translate in Magic whereas tactical thinking is. As to intuitiveness, I see that as different than playing "by rote". If you know a line thoroughly, you might skip some steps mentally in an intuitive like way but you are still playing by rote. That's called "chunking" if I recall correctly. But to be intuitive you need to make a leap without complete information (a constant tension in MTG) and that I think is only learned by playing and experiencing the possibilities. Your Rote knowledge helps a lot with that but it is an underpinning to the leap rather than the muscle. What powers you forward is your imagination and discipline.
The most interesting thing I got from this article is the idea of breaking your routine by developing a counter-routine, internally. I definitely think to surpass your limitations controlling your mindset is key. Being positive is part of it of course but being able to instruct yourself on how to properly pilot without letting it go to automation is a bigger part. I think you could really flesh this out with examples and getting inside that thought process for your readers to witness what you mean in detail.
Also I think where your use of intuition might come into play more than any other part of the game is the use of time, as you mentioned with Brad Nelson. That *knowing* when to slow down/speed up can't be taught. It must be intuited through experience. Just as Blitz players know how to play the clock, so too, magic players need to even if there is no timer in front of you waiting to be hit.
Tyrant of Discord combos with land destruction to wipe your opponent's board. Not just good in commander.
yes, we could for sure work around that.
Just send an email to address in the writer's guideline!
Nice work guys! I'm sort of a newbie with the article creation on-site. My question is would it be possible to write an article offline using notepad and submit it by e-mail? Considering of course everything written at home offline follows the same specifications listed in this article?
I have limited access to internet and my phone would probably be a bad idea to write from. I sometimes travel a lot and have no net access but I'm always thinking magic online and magic the gathering In general. So if a quality article was created I would think an editor could simply upload the piece onto the site.
Just a thought...perhaps create a downloadable offline editor for use only for PureMTGO site articles.
Thanks!
Ok thanks.
Yes, I will gladly help, sadly the forums fell into a state of non use, but we do have an article, our current writer's guide can be found here
http://puremtgo.com/articles/puremtgo-news-update-writers-guide
Thank you for your interest!
Hi,nice article. Can somebody help me? I want to write for the site but when I use the forums link all I see are Russian like words and everything there seems the same. Thank you.
"As I’ve mentioned far too often, my main time-sinks / addictions are Magic and Guild Wars II. Right now, GW2 is winning the battle for what free time I have."
Replace 'Guild Wars II' with 'console gaming', and that's me in a nutshell. I haven't spent an extended period of time on Magic online for a couple of weeks now - and I was on vacation, meaning that would be the prime time for me to draft all the time. I'm just on a low period with the program right now - I dislike standard, I dislike the Kaladesh draft environment, and they have failed to offer any type of flashback draft queue that's truly enticing for me (say, Tempest, or Urza's Saga, or Mercadia).
As for holiday rewards, I remember one year they gave a random Premium Deck Series product for everyone going 4-0 in a daily event during december. That was pretty great, and I wish they'd do something like that again.
Nice article.
Do you expect the "Holiday Season" gift from WoTC to be Play Points this December?
I did show the temur energy with Whirler Virtuoso, I think the green is needed because there are so many good green energy cards, the bulk of them I think, to where it would be much harder to do in a straight UR build.
yeah Standard is very affordable, especially now since you can buyin in with a really cheap competitive deck, and build up over the weeks. The cheaper mana bases and Mythics that are played in only certain archetypes works out well for that I think.
I think it's because in the case of Nissa, what you're doing on turn five in green decks is tapping a marvel and putting Emrakul into play ideally. There is just no room for it.
For Chandra, I'm not sure why that version sees play, other then the deck that she was in just fell out of favor, which was a UR eldrazi control deck, and with the rise of UR spells, Dynavolt Tower is a "walker" that can't be ruinous pathed.
This is exactly the kind of article I expected. It looks like tons of fun for that price that almost equals to yesterday's price tag of my BG Delirium deck (340tix) which honestly is not really a fun deck (reminds me of Jund/Junk in modern but in the deck's defense I actually think it is more fun than the Modern decks). I really wanted to see an energy deck with Whirler Virtuoso though (and dynavolt tower). I was very sad not to see blue control decks or more combo decks based in UR, but it seems that such decks are totally possible to build and play (just bought the cards so I can play anything in Jeskai/Grixis colors). Since I don't really play Standard nor limited since the introduction of Draft Leagues I did not really follow what cards were printed but this article sparked my interest in Standard because I see many nice cards and even ways how a deck can win. Honestly that's awesome and it is a pity I failed to see that because all I know is Delirium/Marvel/Flash metagame :-(
After my accident of entering a Friendly Standard League I can see that Standard can be tons of fun. There are many decks that work and are actually pretty enjoyable to play. Not only that, they can compete with BG Delirium, Marvel and UW Flash (the meta game might have shifted already, but that's pretty much all the decks I encounter at events except that Friendly League). It is a pity that the current Standard does not really look diverse. IRL many players stopped playing Standard because it seemed pretty boring with more or less just two dominant decks and Emrakul everywhere. I thought that the main reason was Emrakul but I'm not really sure anymore. I wonder how to show those people here that they can play something else and it does not need to be expensive.
(btw I played against Paradoxical Outcome deck and after controlling my opponent's turn in which I drew 11 cards and left him with 7 lands in hand g1, and in g2 I killed him with his own Reservoir, I have the urge to put it together as well^_^ - it just needs a plan B against control decks)
Chandra, Flamecaller at 3.6 and Nissa, Vital Force at 2 are very cheap buyins for good planeswalkers. I'm still surprised that they're that cheap on MTGO.
I really enjoyed this article. I think you did a great job of breaking down how a player can invest in Standard, have a variety of competitive decks, and not break the bank.
Great article Josh! I too also think Standard is affordable and love the cards that can be shared.
Chalk it up to my unfamiliarity with pauper outside of Izzet Blitz and Turbo Fog decks :D
19 lands is correct. You only ever need two to get going, and then your artifact cantrips draw as many as you need.
They weren't listed, and the land list looked a little low, I'll get that edited right away!
Deck is missing two copies of Firebolt. Sorry for the confusion!
Kataki usually sees more play in Chord of Calling type decks because they can tutor for him. Also some aggressive decks can run it because you don't really want to side out creatures for Stony Silence.
If they did Wacky Drafts that's all I'd do. It's my favorite format!