iceage4life's picture
By: iceage4life, Timothy Pskowski
Nov 28 2007 9:50pm
4
Login to post comments
3001 views


 

The Oddball Roundup #2

Index
Intro
Standard with Vanguard
Singleton
Tribal Wars Standard
Classic
Outro

Intro

Well Lorwyn release events are over and and think we can all relax.  Don't want to say too much about them beyond the fact that while lag was awful crashes were rare and Wizards did their best to make things run smoothly.  Release events ending means that constructed PEs are back on the menu. Sorta, both of Saturday's events did not fire meaning I'll only be covering two events from Sunday.  Another side effect from release events is that match replays are still disabled.  This means that I rely on asking people what they and their opponent's played to find out what made the top eight.  This means that I will not always be able to list what everyone played in the top eight.  One last thing, this article does not have links to decklists, I'm working on how to best provide them.  Look for them to return next week.  If you or a friend/clanmate makes a top eight I would love to hear from you on your deck and any you played against.  Enough ramblings from me time for the events.

Standard with Vanguard

Did not fire and this is not uncommon.  A few Vanguards dominating the format scared alot of players off and they have yet to return.  Dakkon Blackblade made a very strong showing in the one event he was legal in but we can't tell if that was a fluke or he really is a powerhouse.  Hope to see this fire next week, we have a new set to work with and two new vanguards.  Hope to see this format and its weekly event will get back on their feet.

Singleton

 

Well people are certainly making my job easy.  The Singleton event didn't fire for the first time in quite a while.  I was one of seventeen people who joined the queue which left us seven short of an event.  I don't know why the Singleton event didn't fire, it almost always does.  There was a Lorwyn 4x Championship event one hour after the start time, that could have drawn some people.  The timing so soon after release events could be an issue.  I talked to one player who usually plays and he said that he didn't know events were back on this weekend and thought it was still release events.  I think this is partly Wizard's fault.  They didn't put up a post release events schedule until recently and I can understand thinking release events were still going on.  It seemed like the took forever.  If you're looking for a deck for this Saturday I recommend checking out my last article here.  That was pre-Lorwyn so feel free to add Thoughtseize, Shriekmaw, and Ponder to your decks.

 


Tribal Wars Standard

Tribal Wars Standard 2x 11-18-07
Placing Tribe           Color(s)        Notes
1 Faries UB decklist below
2 Humans UW  
4 Humans UWB  
4 Goblins BR decklist below
8 Faeries UB Makeshift Mannequin
8 Elves GB Tarmogoyf
8 Elves G  
8 Unknown    

Without access to replays I was not able to find out what one of the quarterfinal decks was. 

Stalking Tiger's BR Goblins 4th
Land - 23
7 Mountain
4 Sulfurous Springs
3 Swamp
4 Auntie's Hovel
Keldon Megaliths
Molten Slagheap
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Graven Cairns
Creatures - 25
Goblin King
4 Mogg Fanatic
2 Siege-Gang Commander
3 Greater Gargadon
4 Knucklebone Witch
3 Mad Auntie
4 Mogg War Marshal
2 Shriekmaw
2 Wort, Boggart Auntie
Spells - 12
4 Incinerate
2 Profane Command
4 Rift Bolt
2 Tarfire
Drakenlord's UB Faeries 1st
Land - 23
2 Island
2 Swamp
4 Desert
3 River of Tears
4 Secluded Glen
4 Underground River
4 Gemstone Mine
Creatures - 25
4 Nightshade Stinger
4 Cloud Sprite
4 Oona's Powler
3 Mistbind Clique
4 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Scion of Oona
2 Sower of Temptation
Spells - 12
4 Nameless Inversion
4 Rune Snag
4 Familiar's Ruse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Lorwyn, Magic's most recent set is tribal focused.  As one might expect this has had a large effect on the Standard Tribal format.  Five of the seven decks known were a Lorwyn tribe.  Humans however showed why they have dominated Tribal for a long time with two decks in the top four.  We see two Lorwyn tribes making the top eight.  The first, Blue Black Faeries relies on small evasive creatures that disrupt the opponent.  Room in the mana base has been found for Desert a very good card when every deck in the format is packing at least twenty creatures.  We then see BR Goblins.  This takes goblins we know and love like Mogg Fanatic and Siege-Gang Commander and pairs them up with their brothers from another mother, the black Lorwyn goblins.  Shriekmaw makes an apperance as we can assume he is nuts in a creature-based format.  Greater Gargadon and Profane Command both offer some minor syngery and a late game powerhouse to finish off your opponent.  I have not tested the deck but it seems to me that Fodder Launch could be useful in this same regard.

A benefit (depending on your point of view) of Lowryn's tribal focus is that Standard decks and Tribal decks are more simliar than every before.  The three tribes seen in this top eight are the ones that have had the most success in Standard as well.  Faeries, Elves, and Goblins were all extensively played at States/Champs and one Faerie deck made top eight at GP Karkow.   I expect to see a pretty fluid season of Tribal Wars as new sets are released and some tribes gain and loose value.  Kithkin possibly the most hyped Lorwyn tribe has failed to become a force in Standard or Tribal Wars.  I'm looking forward to if that changes ether with Morningtide or without.

 

Classic

Classic 2x 11-18-07

Placing Deck
1 GBUW Landstill
2 GBUW Landstill
4 Flash
4 Salavager's Combo
8 RDW
8 Zoo
8 Dragon
8 Affinity

This was quite an exciting top eight.  We see the top two slots taken by what has been a fringe deck, 4 Color Landstill.  Slots three and four go to combo with Flash and Salvagers taking those slots.  The top eight is rounded out by three aggro decks and Dragon combo.  This top eight broke down to have three combo decks, three aggro decks, and two control deck.  No Threshold or Fish to be seen...  So time to get to the decklists.  The other big news is that two of the top eight decks used and "infinite" combo.  Combos like Animate Dead and Worldgorger Dragon don't work very well online because you have to manually click through the combo consuming valuable clock time.  In paper Magic you can't preform something like that an infinite number of times but you can pick as large a number as you'd like.  Both Dragon and Salavagers made top eight showing that with a good internet connection and a fast hand you can click your way to victory.

Mornel's 4 Color Landstill

Lands - 24
Academy Ruins
2 Breeding Pool
3 Faerie Conclave
4 Flooded Strand
Ghost Quarter
3 Hallowed Fountain
4 (Mirshra's Factory)
3 Polluted Delta
Urza's Factory
2 Watery Grave
Instants & Sorceries - 25
4 Brainstorm
2 Spell Snare
4 Stifle
3 Swords to Plowshares
4 Counterspell
2 Fact or Fiction
4 Force of Will
2 Decree of Justice
Artifacts & Enchantments - 11
4 Standstill
3 (Perncious Deed)
2 Crucible of Worlds
Nevinyrral's Disk
Engineered Explosives
Sideboard - 15
3 Hydroblast
3 Engineered Plague
2 Ghostly Prison
2 Circle of Protection: Red
4 Sun Droplet
1 Engineered Explosives

Based off the Legacy decks of the same name Landstill attempts to "break" the card Standstill by using lands that can turn into creatures.  A large array of counterspells and a few board sweepers let it gain control of the game then generally win by attacking with it's lands or Decree of Justice tokens.  Older Landstill builds were three color but the addition of black for Pernicious Deed has given the deck a very potent board sweeper.  This deck has a sideboard clearly geared to beat aggro decks with all fifteen cards being good versus some or all aggressive decks.  Personally I might cut a few in favor of a playset of Leyline of the Void which is powerful against most of the format's combo decks and some other decks as well.

Javasci's Flash

Lands - 12
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Gemstone Caverns
Spells - 35
2 Brainstorm
4 Chrome Mox
Cunning Wish
Echoing Truth
Flash
4 Force of Will
3 Lim-Dul's Vault
3 Merchant Scroll
4 Mystical Tutor
2 Reclaim
2 Stifle
Vampiric Tutor
Krosan Grip
4 Pact of Negation
2 Summoner's Pact
Creatures - 13
4 Disciple of the Vault
3 Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 Phyrexian Marauder
2 Protean Hulk
Sideboard - 15
Brainstorm
Echoing Truth
Lim-Dul's Vault
Merchant Scroll
2
Chain of Vapor
4 Orim's Chant
1 Pyroclasm
4 Thoughtseize

This is the latest build of Flash to make a Classic top eight.  For those who have just recently started following the format Flash is nothing new.  Over this past summer the unerrata of the card Flash combined with Protean Hulk and Disciple of the Vault made for a very potent combo deck.  For every event in which your deck could run four Flash and four Vampiric Tutor at least one player made top eight with it.  Some events saw as many as five top eight slots taken by Flash decks.  This is more impressive as few had the cards for it and most events would only see 6 to 8 people play it.  In September Wizards announced the restriction of Flash and Vampiric Tutor and the Classic community breathed a sigh of relief.  Flash however is not dead, while the most powerful tutor and the deck's namesake are restricted the deck is still very powerful.  I don't agree with the numbers of some cards in this deck but you can't argue with success.  This version is heavily focused on tutors running fourteen in the maindeck.  It also has answers to almost anything an opponent might do to stop their combo.  Javasci told me that he has replaced the Orim's Chants in the sideboard with Xantid Swarms.  A turn two win is not uncommon with this deck with a turn one tutor sometimes fueled by a  Chrome Mox setting up the turn two kill.

 

Outro

I first want to thank Rozia, Javasci, Stalking Tiger, Drakenlord, and Mornel for their help in getting me infor on both their decks and other decks in the top 8.  At first I felt this column might be impossible without replays but thanks to the work of those people I was able to get it.  Having only two events fire this weekend made that easier though I still hope to see all four fire next weekend.  Remember folks, Saturday has Vanguard at noon, Singleton at 3pm and Sunday has Tribal at noon and Classic at 3pm (EST time).  I missed out on playing in any this weekend but hope to get some play in next weekend.  Feel free to hit me up on MODO or post in comments here with any questions of sujestions.  Including... a new name.  "Oddball Roundup" is something I came up in about five seconds and I'm not too fond of it.  What should this column be called?  Post ideas below and hopefully we'll get something good.

One last note before I go on events that do not fire.  Take your average 2x constructed event, you pay six tickets to get in, that means 144 tickets are going in.  84 boosters come out.  That means that each person gets 3 and a half boosters on average.  Or if you perfear that means 84 boosters are payed out at 1.71 tix each.  Now that means on average each person is making (and this is just a rought estimate) a crazy profit.  In conclusion, please join events that are less than 24 people.  You will make other people happy and have a 1/3 chance of making top 8.  Also for a little while longer 24 non foil and 8 foil guru lands are paid out.  Hope to see you guys in the next 24 person 2x.

Thats all folks, see you back here next week same time, same place.  Well maybe I'll try and finish this a little sooner.  I make no promises.

9 Comments

by urzishra14 at Thu, 11/29/2007 - 22:35
urzishra14's picture

name idea.. hmm.. try something thats a little more magic related like "Final Fortunes".. since the article is about T8 decks and event tech... or like "Final Reveals" I don't know..

Name Suggestions by hamtastic at Fri, 11/30/2007 - 13:56
hamtastic's picture

Zero or Won (Since you're covering Digital Formats winners, badumbum-ching!)

"The O stands for Awesome" - Just something that made me laugh when I thought of it.  Referring to the 'O' in MTGO, and the silliness that springs from playing online.

Umm..

 

That's all I have for now.  Maybe more later. 

Great Article by hamtastic at Thu, 11/29/2007 - 16:53
hamtastic's picture

Loved it!

Good content and coverage.  Keep on keepin' on!

Wrong Week by iceage4life at Thu, 11/29/2007 - 17:46
iceage4life's picture

Thanks for the advice and comments. 

RE: Dragon The Dragon decks was Dragon not Dragons, that's next week.  Hopefully can get that up soon to get back on track.

RE: The Long Tail, a little too obscure I think but good idea. 

RE: Link to last article.  You can click my name at top for list of all of them not sure if link is needed in addition to that.  I am planning on doing a breakdown of what was played over a 4-5 week period every 4-5 weeks. Basically a composite list of all t8s for each format.  Not sure if I'll do that based around months (ie first article of each month) or just do it every4 or 5 articles.  We'll see. 

Feel free to post any aditional comments or find me in game.  #3 should be done soon, moved this week so very busy (well busy for me). 

Possible title by moonkhan at Thu, 11/29/2007 - 12:23
moonkhan's picture

Thanks for another great article. Lately I find myself looking forward to the goodies delivered to me by PureMTGO's RSS feed.

How's this for a possible article name: The Long Tail of MTGO (or something similar involving the Long Tail). Long Tail http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Tail is used to describe distributing things that are definitely not mainstream to the people who are in to those often obscure things. For example, there are podcasts about virtually everything nowadays and because of the Internet and distribution sources like iTunes people can get to that obscure content more easily and thus the Long Tail content thrives. People playing "oddball" formats on MTGO are definitely not the mainstream Standard/Extended/Limited players but having a site dedicated to all formats on MTGO, popular or not, is a great distribution point for long tail content such as singleton, tribal wars, etc.

Thanks again for what promises to be a great article series,

-Paul

classic t-8 by dillonkbase (Unregistered) 67.183.134.229 (not verified) at Thu, 11/29/2007 - 00:29
dillonkbase (Unregistered) 67.183.134.229's picture

the dragon deck in the t8 was not infact dragon combo but dragon aggro

by rozia (Unregistered) 192.55.37.194 (not verified) at Thu, 11/29/2007 - 07:22
rozia (Unregistered) 192.55.37.194's picture

I think it would be helpful to have a link to previous article at the very beginning of each one.

by urzishra (Unregistered) 74.214.249.213 (not verified) at Wed, 11/28/2007 - 22:53
urzishra (Unregistered) 74.214.249.213's picture

thats the kind of t8 i'm talking about.. I will now eat my crow..  I would like to see more aggressive restrictions just to shake up the classic format (similar to what happened years ago in vintage, things got shifted around.. just to "stimulate" the metagame)..but anyways, thats definately the kind of "metagame" that i could find myself enjoying to play against..

 I really do enjoy these formats.. its just too bad I can't play in the PEs every week.. I wish they had some of these events on Weeknights.. usually these are on like alternating weekends.. and the classic is on sunday if I remember right..

anyways.. good article.. too bad the other events didn't fire.

majorsite by dungdung at Fri, 01/14/2022 - 01:25
dungdung's picture

I always want to come see this on a special day. On a really good day, I feel better and have a happy day with this. Thank you for giving me a good influence. 메이저놀이터추천