First of all, I really liked your article, but I am still going to nitpick. Mentor is quadratic, not exponential. I.e. the k'th spell gives you only additive k+1 more power over k spells (and 0 gives 2 power), which is k^2/2 + 3k/2 + 2 power for the first k spells in 1 turn - this is quadratic because the highest dependency on k is in k^2. Exponential would be something like 2^k power for the first k spells. It could be achieved if each spell cast doublet the power (or some other factor). Concretely, the following card would do that: 1/1 with "whenever you play a spell put a copy of this into play". Exponential is a lot faster growing than quadratic, i.e. 20 spells would net you over a million power with the suggested card while it would only net you 232 power with mentor.
I bet there are still a few decks that can be viable if not very good. (I am trying to work on some) And yes this is supposed to be the final core set.. and it looks like it will be quite the Standard format when Origins joins in.
I'll help in any way I can. I like to see new Vintage players on MTGO! The community of players online and at the Mana Drain have been very helpful to me in general, so I like to pay it forward.
Good luck! And I know that I for one look forward to your next article. If you have any questions, I can help with that too. It took me a while to get good at making my articles look nice, and I had a lot of help from other writers here on puremtgo. Linking your card names like so is helpfull: (Black Lotus) typed like that becomes a link as long as spelling and capitalization are correct.
Yea I wish I had 8 more hours in a day to practice, play and write about Magic. I'm enjoying your articles as well. Its good to get other perspectives, especially in such a wide open format like we have. I'm willing to bet that with all the attention on the Dragons that there is an as of yet undiscovered deck that's very different than what we are seeing. Kinda like how GW with Mastery of the Unseen popped up before DTK.
This should be fun over the next few months. Imagine this final summer with the new core set... jeez. (I'm pretty sure they are doing one last corse set this year, right?)
Wow! Such an outpouring of support. Seriously, I didn't know if anyone read this or just skimmed it, or enjoyed. Glad to know folks really do get some fun and entertainment out of it.
As an online Pauper advocate, but a paper Standard player, I love your articles.
They've provided entertainment while I'm at work (need distractions from the boss) as well as insights on how to play certain matchups/decks. Your videos are good and your content is great.
I'm at work right now, so I haven't had time to read this entire article yet. I liked what I have read so far. In fact, I like it so much that I feel the need to tell you now, and to save the rest of the article for a time where I can give it my entire attention!
This article reminds me of a post on the mana drain. Are you the one who wrote about mentor recently on tmd?
I have more kind words about this, I'll post later. Good job!
There is so much you can do in this Standard Format! I am actually having a lot of fun with it. I actually got back into it on MTGO because of your articles and to help me better prepare in the paper world.
I suspect your lack of commentary is a matter of not being as overtly controversial rather than not being interesting. In my own articles my experience has been that something I thought would be innocuous is what set off a chain of commentary where when I thought Id hit a nail on the head: Crickets. Yeah writing is like that. Keep going and don't stop dude.
Standard is wide open. I think Standard right now has right now is more diverse and interesting than Modern. And that's not saying Modern is stale, just that Standard is so good right now. I honestly believe you can pick 3 colors or 2 colors, put in the best cards from those colors, or at least cards that work well together, and you've got a chance to win against a top Tier deck. Not a guaranteed great chance, but a chance.
Very much appreciated! I don't get as many comments as most writers do so sometimes I'm tapping the mic and asking"Is this ting on?" As long as one or two people get a chuckle I'm always going to keep going.
It's good to see a deck with Impact Tremors do well because I predicted that it would do good in standard pauper and love seeing this deck prove me right All though I am guessing rush of battle and warflare is the one that makes this deck really work.
p1p2: Yes, at the time I didn't see how powerful the Cobra was but even knowing that, I still prefer staying in green here.
p1p4: It's a playable card but I looked at the rare and it just seemed like it wouldn't be good enough.
p1p7: I think it's M2G1, it should how powerful Beastbreaker is.
p2p6: Yeah but it did end up making the deck and it was actually decent. The Mage is obviously a better card no doubt about that.
p3p1: Because there wasn't anything I would play.
p3p3: Is it? I know it's a powerful card in Standard and drawing 2 cards a turn is very good but I think a basically monogreen deck would prefer something that kills creatures and impacts the board the turn it is played. Also, red would be a splash and that means I wouldn't get to play Siege on turn 4 every time.
I know I don't have much experience with the format but the goal of this wasn't showing a perfectly draft done by a master of the format. It was to show that sometimes it is very good to draft the considered worst color in the format because it is very open.
Thanks for your reply. I prefer using the text for the drafting part.
First of all, I really liked your article, but I am still going to nitpick. Mentor is quadratic, not exponential. I.e. the k'th spell gives you only additive k+1 more power over k spells (and 0 gives 2 power), which is k^2/2 + 3k/2 + 2 power for the first k spells in 1 turn - this is quadratic because the highest dependency on k is in k^2. Exponential would be something like 2^k power for the first k spells. It could be achieved if each spell cast doublet the power (or some other factor). Concretely, the following card would do that: 1/1 with "whenever you play a spell put a copy of this into play". Exponential is a lot faster growing than quadratic, i.e. 20 spells would net you over a million power with the suggested card while it would only net you 232 power with mentor.
This is a MONSTER of an article/effort! Bravo! Bookmarking this gem...wonderful & unbiased throughout...
Very nice article. Once I'm done with GP Providence, I will be exploring Vintage. This seems like a great place to start. Thanks.
I bet there are still a few decks that can be viable if not very good. (I am trying to work on some) And yes this is supposed to be the final core set.. and it looks like it will be quite the Standard format when Origins joins in.
I'll help in any way I can. I like to see new Vintage players on MTGO! The community of players online and at the Mana Drain have been very helpful to me in general, so I like to pay it forward.
Good luck! And I know that I for one look forward to your next article. If you have any questions, I can help with that too. It took me a while to get good at making my articles look nice, and I had a lot of help from other writers here on puremtgo. Linking your card names like so is helpfull: (Black Lotus) typed like that becomes a link as long as spelling and capitalization are correct.
will do. I just very recently got MTGO and am trying to scrape together the cheap parts of a list.
thanks! I'll probably be writing more about this topic in the future
Yea I wish I had 8 more hours in a day to practice, play and write about Magic. I'm enjoying your articles as well. Its good to get other perspectives, especially in such a wide open format like we have. I'm willing to bet that with all the attention on the Dragons that there is an as of yet undiscovered deck that's very different than what we are seeing. Kinda like how GW with Mastery of the Unseen popped up before DTK.
This should be fun over the next few months. Imagine this final summer with the new core set... jeez. (I'm pretty sure they are doing one last corse set this year, right?)
You should definitely post a link to this on The Mana Drain as well. If you'd like to play some Vintage on MTGO sometime, look me up.
Well, I think that it was very thoughtfully written. I'd love to read more of your work in the future!
Wow! Such an outpouring of support. Seriously, I didn't know if anyone read this or just skimmed it, or enjoyed. Glad to know folks really do get some fun and entertainment out of it.
Thanks!
Bravissimo! Brilliant exposition of an archetype I've been toying with. Thank you for writing and keep it up!
yeah, I expanded it a bit and decided to post it here. Much of the content is the same.
As an online Pauper advocate, but a paper Standard player, I love your articles.
They've provided entertainment while I'm at work (need distractions from the boss) as well as insights on how to play certain matchups/decks. Your videos are good and your content is great.
Keep it up and we'll keep enjoying it.
Thanks for writing and good luck in Providence.
I'm at work right now, so I haven't had time to read this entire article yet. I liked what I have read so far. In fact, I like it so much that I feel the need to tell you now, and to save the rest of the article for a time where I can give it my entire attention!
This article reminds me of a post on the mana drain. Are you the one who wrote about mentor recently on tmd?
I have more kind words about this, I'll post later. Good job!
There is so much you can do in this Standard Format! I am actually having a lot of fun with it. I actually got back into it on MTGO because of your articles and to help me better prepare in the paper world.
I suspect your lack of commentary is a matter of not being as overtly controversial rather than not being interesting. In my own articles my experience has been that something I thought would be innocuous is what set off a chain of commentary where when I thought Id hit a nail on the head: Crickets. Yeah writing is like that. Keep going and don't stop dude.
Standard is wide open. I think Standard right now has right now is more diverse and interesting than Modern. And that's not saying Modern is stale, just that Standard is so good right now. I honestly believe you can pick 3 colors or 2 colors, put in the best cards from those colors, or at least cards that work well together, and you've got a chance to win against a top Tier deck. Not a guaranteed great chance, but a chance.
Very much appreciated! I don't get as many comments as most writers do so sometimes I'm tapping the mic and asking"Is this ting on?" As long as one or two people get a chuckle I'm always going to keep going.
It's good to see a deck with Impact Tremors do well because I predicted that it would do good in standard pauper and love seeing this deck prove me right All though I am guessing rush of battle and warflare is the one that makes this deck really work.
I hope you do keep them coming CLB because your articles are among the funniest, most entertaining in the magic scene. Good luck in Providence.
p1p2: Yes, at the time I didn't see how powerful the Cobra was but even knowing that, I still prefer staying in green here.
p1p4: It's a playable card but I looked at the rare and it just seemed like it wouldn't be good enough.
p1p7: I think it's M2G1, it should how powerful Beastbreaker is.
p2p6: Yeah but it did end up making the deck and it was actually decent. The Mage is obviously a better card no doubt about that.
p3p1: Because there wasn't anything I would play.
p3p3: Is it? I know it's a powerful card in Standard and drawing 2 cards a turn is very good but I think a basically monogreen deck would prefer something that kills creatures and impacts the board the turn it is played. Also, red would be a splash and that means I wouldn't get to play Siege on turn 4 every time.
I know I don't have much experience with the format but the goal of this wasn't showing a perfectly draft done by a master of the format. It was to show that sometimes it is very good to draft the considered worst color in the format because it is very open.
Thanks for your reply. I prefer using the text for the drafting part.
I like seeing the text-format for drafts once in a while.
Some thoughts:
Pack 1 pick 2: Best card is Ukud Cobra, but staying in green with Epic Confrontation is fine.
Pack 1 pick 4: Aven Tactician is not a good card. A filler at best. I would take the rare and stay in color. It may end up being great in the deck.
Pack 1 pick 7: Atarka Beastbreaker is usually better than Guardian Shield-Bearer.
Pack 2 pick 6: Sandsteppe Scavenger doesn't make the deck 90% of the time. I would take Sandcrafter Mage.
Pack 3 pick 1: Why a black card?
Pack 3 pick 3: Outpost Siege is probably better.
Your third pack was incredibly empty. But that's life :)
Burn is almost the last deck I'd expect to use gut shot (except maybe as a sideboard card vs. Delver); it's much more of a tempo or control card.
Yeah, sorry about that.