This thread is for the discussion of my latest article, Magic Casualty: Blightning Deck Wins?. We would be grateful if you would let us know what you think, but please keep your comments on topic.
Yes. A thousand times yes. They lured me in with Ivory Tower and Zuran Orb, and I kept telling myself "I can quit whenever I want...just look at that untapped disk". That was ten years ago man.....
How about sceptre of fugue?One of these babies can really ruin a 5cc's day.And its quite cheap right now
I agree with the other points you made Dakonblackblade, but I'll have to disagree with putting sceptre of fugue in an aggro deck. It's useless until the late game because early game you're going to need your mana to play threats. Scepter was really just meant for the 5cc vs 5cc mirror match because of the inevitability of going into the long game. Blightning decks however really can't afford to go into the late game and have to win as fast as possible to avoid running out of gas and being out card-advantaged.
Thanks for the input; there are a lot of other options to test. What I did was take the standard Blightning deck and keep as close to it as I reasonably could.
Wither is something that will certainly help, but in terms of raw efficiency it isn't as fast in some cases. RRR one turn three isn't impossible, but it won't be as probable as I would like. If I twist the mana base around and lean more towards red than black, some exciting options like Boggart Ram-Gang become more enticing (and consistent to use).
Yes. A thousand times yes. They lured me in with Ivory Tower and Zuran Orb, and I kept telling myself "I can quit whenever I want...just look at that untapped disk". That was ten years ago man.....
I don't quite see the point in this article. As far as I could understand it, the only reason you have made any changes from the standard Blightning Aggro deck were because you didn't have the right cards to play it. As a result, we have a rather pointless story about your suboptimal deck and a report of playing at FNM. Also, your arguments for the inclusion of Yoke appeared to show a complete misunderstanding of the principlies of card advantage. In practically every circumstance you listed terror or incinerate would be superior cards.
Can we have some more articles relevant to the format rather than FNM reports which introduce absolutely nothing worth reading about?
I think if you are willing to play 4 of a non basic land, you should at least be willing to play 4 commons if you want to watch your budget (I'd say play 4 uncommons, like hellspark elemental). Blightning is too good to not play 4 of.
Woo hoo for Yoke of the Damned! After some thinking, it seems better than Wretched Banquet in almost every way. The only weakness seems to be 1. protection from black 2. enchantment removal. There are very few opponents who pack either of these, at least in Standard. Once the Yoke comes down, the enchanted creature is living on borrowed time, unless some sort of blink or bounce takes place. Am looking forward to using it against Avatar of Woe (a foe doubly-screwed by this enchantment), and other annoying large-toughness black creatures.
I don't quite see the point in this article. As far as I could understand it, the only reason you have made any changes from the standard Blightning Aggro deck were because you didn't have the right cards to play it. As a result, we have a rather pointless story about your suboptimal deck and a report of playing at FNM. Also, your arguments for the inclusion of Yoke appeared to show a complete misunderstanding of the principlies of card advantage. In practically every circumstance you listed terror or incinerate would be superior cards.
Can we have some more articles relevant to the format rather than FNM reports which introduce absolutely nothing worth reading about?
Not everyone attends PTQs, GP, States, and other higher level events. While I understand that you may not have gotten a lot out of the article, others will. There are dozens of sites, and even a weekly article on this one, devoted to higher level competition.
As for the Yoke, I repeatedly stressed that it isn't likely an optimal card in many circumstances but that I was very concerned about other circumstances where it would be more useful based on my testing (where, incidentally, I fared much better than the actual event).
While I don't believe I can convince you that my article is worthwhile for you (because there's no way for me to truly know that), the other comments here lead me to believe that it has helped some and at least inspired some "think outside the box" critical thinking: something that the best players obviously can do.
Woo hoo for Yoke of the Damned! After some thinking, it seems better than Wretched Banquet in almost every way. The only weakness seems to be 1. protection from black 2. enchantment removal. There are very few opponents who pack either of these, at least in Standard. Once the Yoke comes down, the enchanted creature is living on borrowed time, unless some sort of blink or bounce takes place. Am looking forward to using it against Avatar of Woe (a foe doubly-screwed by this enchantment), and other annoying large-toughness black creatures.
That was my theory and, in testing, it seemed to work fairly well. However, since it is more conditional in other ways than the aforementioned Terror you will run into the same situations that made it seem very anemic. Ultimately, I believe that my deck needed more mana, Eyeblight's Ending instead of the Yoke, and needed to lose the Ashenmoor Gougers altogether to have had better answers for my match ups.
I'll be reviewing more feedback and switching things up for the next article which, based on the queue I see, will not be for awhile.
Yes. A thousand times yes. They lured me in with Ivory Tower and Zuran Orb, and I kept telling myself "I can quit whenever I want...just look at that untapped disk". That was ten years ago man.....
It answers Doran, Rafiq, Rhox and many others at the same speed and not requiring another card.
Further Gouger is still good, in fact Blightning is excellent against 5CC I have no idea why you think it isn't.
scepter of fugue is an excellent card to use. Not useful in aggro decks? It shuts down opposition control decks and puts them into top-deck mode. You'll make them play their spells at your pace.
I know one thing from running my control deck, I hate playing against blightning and scepter because there is virtually nothing I can do to beat them.
I don't really get the point of this article. You take a netdeck, make it bad (yes, playing only three of your good cards counts as "making it bad") to fit the cards you own, without even making it particularly more budget other than removing the Figure of Destiny (Graven Cairns is more expensive than Siege-Gang). You do a teeny bit of testing in which you lose a lot. You suggest cards that indicate that you don't really understand how the deck works (Resounding Thunder?).
I understand that there is room for articles about FNM-level competition, but you're just playing a bad version of a deck that seems somewhat tailored for, um, your collection and your friends I guess? The information is helpful to nobody else. If you're going to build a deck at the FNM level, it's not going to be interesting to read about unless it's at the very least an original idea, not just a pile of cards thrown together that vaguely resemble a netdeck. We all make decks that lose. Why would we want to read about yours, unless it loses in a fascinating way?
I, for one, loved a lot of this article! While the deck seemed to have some major flaws I thought it was an incredibly interesting approach as to, "what makes a card good in a deck". It's true that the Blightning build listed here is sub-par but it's a refreshing look at a lot of unquestioned card choices. I Did more than one double take as I was scrolling down the list of card choices. Yoke of the Damned?!? Not everyone tore that card up after their drafts? Goblin Deathraiders onthewhatnow?!? But you made some very compelling arguments about why these seemingly terrible cards have value over many of their counterparts.
I think the main reason you got so many negative comments is because of your title. The first thing I thought clicking on the article was that this would be an intensely Spike, uber-competitive article. The introduction also seemed to hint at this, just spike building in an unusual manner. Then the article veers off where it always wanted to go, into casual and theoretical territory for people without deep pockets or huge collections that need to find a substitute for bitterblossom or evaluate a new card no one's ever thought of.
When this happened, it seemed to throw a lot of us for a loop and prompted all those, "not getting the point of the article" comments.
In your article, you mention your 'theory' regarding running only 3-ofs and point to a previous article, but I can't find anywhere you actually go into a proof of concept - do you have one?
Also, your sidebar on Auntie's Hovel is a bit uh... - you mention that it's a terrible topdeck when your hand is empty and you're trying to power up a banefire - if you have a banefire in your hand, it ain't empty, etc.
Loved your article possibly because I'm currently running a Blightgro deck myself. I agree with bahaumat. Deathmark is an amazing card and worth a look at for a side board position depending on the meta at your FNM. It laughs at dark bant and Burrenton Forge-Tender which gets sideboarded in game 2 assuming its not already main'd.
I don't really get the point of this article. You take a netdeck, make it bad (yes, playing only three of your good cards counts as "making it bad") to fit the cards you own, without even making it particularly more budget other than removing the Figure of Destiny (Graven Cairns is more expensive than Siege-Gang). You do a teeny bit of testing in which you lose a lot. You suggest cards that indicate that you don't really understand how the deck works (Resounding Thunder?).
I understand that there is room for articles about FNM-level competition, but you're just playing a bad version of a deck that seems somewhat tailored for, um, your collection and your friends I guess? The information is helpful to nobody else. If you're going to build a deck at the FNM level, it's not going to be interesting to read about unless it's at the very least an original idea, not just a pile of cards thrown together that vaguely resemble a netdeck. We all make decks that lose. Why would we want to read about yours, unless it loses in a fascinating way?
This explains my feelings about this pretty well. Reading about cool but clearly not great decks is definitely fun. Reading about crappy versions of competitive decks is just boring as hell.
I agree with the other points you made Dakonblackblade, but I'll have to disagree with putting sceptre of fugue in an aggro deck. It's useless until the late game because early game you're going to need your mana to play threats. Scepter was really just meant for the 5cc vs 5cc mirror match because of the inevitability of going into the long game. Blightning decks however really can't afford to go into the late game and have to win as fast as possible to avoid running out of gas and being out card-advantaged.
Not true. You play a threat. You Fugue them till they answer it. Play the next. Repeat.
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In your article, you mention your 'theory' regarding running only 3-ofs and point to a previous article, but I can't find anywhere you actually go into a proof of concept - do you have one?
Also, your sidebar on Auntie's Hovel is a bit uh... - you mention that it's a terrible topdeck when your hand is empty and you're trying to power up a banefire - if you have a banefire in your hand, it ain't empty, etc.
This deck is the "proof-of-concept" deck that I built around both a budget (something that is important to some and completely laughable to others; both sides meaning well) and the additional design constraint. My last article spoke towards looking at deck building in this constrained way: http://mtgsalvation.com/985-magic-casualty-zen-and-the-art-of-deck-design.html
As for the Auntie's Hovel sidebar, what I meant was that if my hand is basically empty (and Banefire with less mana than an X=5 against a control deck is basically a blank card), not having any Goblin to reveal for the Hovel puts an additional turn on using it. The deck wants mana now and nothing less than that works. That's all I was getting at.
Yes. A thousand times yes. They lured me in with Ivory Tower and Zuran Orb, and I kept telling myself "I can quit whenever I want...just look at that untapped disk". That was ten years ago man.....
WHy did you board in Shunt against 5CC? You can't shunt a cruel ultimatum, it has to be an opponent, and he isn't his own opponent so its an illegal move.
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Currently playing
UBW Faeries
turn 1: land, springleaf drum turn 2: land, sculptor, glaze fiend turn 3: chromatic star x 4 + sculptor + elsewhere flask x 4 + any artifact, attack for 21
it works.
In what universe? If you build a deck like that, and ever draw that hand, I will personally come to wherever you live, perform complicated acts of awestruck ☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺, then disembowel myself to escape the world that allowed something like that to occur and validate you. {Elysium}
I was told today that this kid on my team called 911 twice this morning and hung up both times. They called back and his dad answered. The reason the kid called 911? He got an erection and didn't know what to do. I wish I was making this up.
Scepter was really just meant for the 5cc vs 5cc mirror match because of the inevitability of going into the long game. Blightning decks however really can't afford to go into the late game and have to win as fast as possible to avoid running out of gas and being out card-advantaged.
it's being run in fae.dec too. saw LSV (and some of his play group) running fae @ a 5k standard (san jose) w/ scepter.
I run Red Deck Wins often at my local standard. Your build is better than mine, but I disagree with the sideboard. I would run 1-2 Everlasting Torment in the board as a hedge against life gain/Story Circle Kithkin. An encahntment is much harder to deal with than Stigma Lasher, especially since Path to Exile entered standard. I would also run Smash to Smithereens over Shard Volley in the board. Shard Volley slows a deck like this down, and prevents you from unearthing Hell's Thunder and Shambling Remains as quickly as you could otherwise. Smash to Smithereens allows you to deal with a number of tough threats, like Sharuum the Hedgemon or master of Etherium while still putting pressure on your opponent's life total and saving precious burn spells for your opponent themself. Smash to Smithereens is Terror for Esper. Also, I would consider running Tattermunge Maniac maindeck instead of Stigma Lasher. Tattermunge Maniac is essentally a one-drop Grizzly Bears that combos well with Yoke of the Damned. Trust me when I say that a three land opening hand with the Maniac, Hell's Thunder, Incinerate, and Spark Elemental will win you games, especially against decks running Rupture Spire.
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"If you ever write anything like that again...don't sign it." -Mark Lowry
Currently playing: Modern: RDW, developing B/G Infect G/W Midrange EDH: Working on Momir Vig and five color Cromat
I've considered all of the feedback (including the blantant "This article is crap; the author isn't giving me what I think everyone wants; since this deck loses this article, therefore, is worthless", etc. commentary) and here is a brief follow up for anyone interested in Blightning Aggro/Red Deck Wins and on a Budget.
First, some important card change choices.
Terror replacing Yoke of the Damned: While my testing still is acceptable with this, I'm going to give the old standby a try. My adjusted sideboard will be ready for Doran decks, but I'll have no true out the first game.
Boggart Ram-Gang replacing Ashenmoor Gouger: Haste and wither feels good against annoying blockers like Wall of Reverence and even holding him back to cripple a Rhox War Monk is more appealing than a 4/4 dude that just dies to the same things anyway. Shambling Remains gets the nod to stay in since the unearth cost is just a meager BR; he's still turn 5 juice even dead.
Banefire and more Basic Lands replacing Goblin Outlander (moved to the board) and Goblin Deathraidersin the main: I want Banefire to work and I needed lands to do that. Even if I use it as overcosted removal I fell that active Banefires will get me the job done.
Goblin Outlander and Deathmark replacing Shunt and Shard Volley in the Sideboard: This gives me access to the tools to beat 4Color Aggro, Bant, and 5Color Control. Shunt is too situational (and basically functioned as a Cancel against counterspells) and I never wanted to play the Volley.
Gutteral Response replacing one Wild Riccochet in the board and the two Banefires that moved to the main from the board: This gives me more power during the 5Color Control matchup as well as Fae (which was good anyway). A one mana spell to stop a Cryptic Command, regardless of mode, is great.
======
I considered other cards but, dependent upon results, I won't bather going into detail unless there is something worthwhile for another article. Thanks to those of you who enjoyed it, and thanks to those of you who found it worthless. I have had a lot to think about and there will be more to think about after tonight when I take the updated version to FNM again. If my results are no better than "1-2; my deck was really far from optimal" I won't bother to bring any details back here.
Again, thanks to everyone who responded: I appreciate the diversity of viewpoints brought to the table here.
Yes. A thousand times yes. They lured me in with Ivory Tower and Zuran Orb, and I kept telling myself "I can quit whenever I want...just look at that untapped disk". That was ten years ago man.....
awesome deck and i really liked the article too!
i have to ask though, are you purposefully staying away from Blackmail or does it not feed your purpose for a budget card in a blightning deck?
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Commander(EDH): To be built
Casual:WG Exalted BR Feeding Vampires B Vampire Beatdown BR Cinders BG Shadowmoor Golgari R Goblin Raidmother Burn BU Zombies(Under construction)
awesome deck and i really liked the article too!
i have to ask though, are you purposefully staying away from Blackmail or does it not feed your purpose for a budget card in a blightning deck?
Blackmail is no longer Standard legal.
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I agree with the other points you made Dakonblackblade, but I'll have to disagree with putting sceptre of fugue in an aggro deck. It's useless until the late game because early game you're going to need your mana to play threats. Scepter was really just meant for the 5cc vs 5cc mirror match because of the inevitability of going into the long game. Blightning decks however really can't afford to go into the late game and have to win as fast as possible to avoid running out of gas and being out card-advantaged.
Wither is something that will certainly help, but in terms of raw efficiency it isn't as fast in some cases. RRR one turn three isn't impossible, but it won't be as probable as I would like. If I twist the mana base around and lean more towards red than black, some exciting options like Boggart Ram-Gang become more enticing (and consistent to use).
Can we have some more articles relevant to the format rather than FNM reports which introduce absolutely nothing worth reading about?
Santiago de Cuba Review: Carpooling Together
Spellfight!
Eternity Vessel vs. Mindslaver
Tainted Strike vs. Exsanquinate
Not everyone attends PTQs, GP, States, and other higher level events. While I understand that you may not have gotten a lot out of the article, others will. There are dozens of sites, and even a weekly article on this one, devoted to higher level competition.
As for the Yoke, I repeatedly stressed that it isn't likely an optimal card in many circumstances but that I was very concerned about other circumstances where it would be more useful based on my testing (where, incidentally, I fared much better than the actual event).
While I don't believe I can convince you that my article is worthwhile for you (because there's no way for me to truly know that), the other comments here lead me to believe that it has helped some and at least inspired some "think outside the box" critical thinking: something that the best players obviously can do.
That was my theory and, in testing, it seemed to work fairly well. However, since it is more conditional in other ways than the aforementioned Terror you will run into the same situations that made it seem very anemic. Ultimately, I believe that my deck needed more mana, Eyeblight's Ending instead of the Yoke, and needed to lose the Ashenmoor Gougers altogether to have had better answers for my match ups.
I'll be reviewing more feedback and switching things up for the next article which, based on the queue I see, will not be for awhile.
It answers Doran, Rafiq, Rhox and many others at the same speed and not requiring another card.
Further Gouger is still good, in fact Blightning is excellent against 5CC I have no idea why you think it isn't.
scepter of fugue is an excellent card to use. Not useful in aggro decks? It shuts down opposition control decks and puts them into top-deck mode. You'll make them play their spells at your pace.
I know one thing from running my control deck, I hate playing against blightning and scepter because there is virtually nothing I can do to beat them.
I understand that there is room for articles about FNM-level competition, but you're just playing a bad version of a deck that seems somewhat tailored for, um, your collection and your friends I guess? The information is helpful to nobody else. If you're going to build a deck at the FNM level, it's not going to be interesting to read about unless it's at the very least an original idea, not just a pile of cards thrown together that vaguely resemble a netdeck. We all make decks that lose. Why would we want to read about yours, unless it loses in a fascinating way?
I think the main reason you got so many negative comments is because of your title. The first thing I thought clicking on the article was that this would be an intensely Spike, uber-competitive article. The introduction also seemed to hint at this, just spike building in an unusual manner. Then the article veers off where it always wanted to go, into casual and theoretical territory for people without deep pockets or huge collections that need to find a substitute for bitterblossom or evaluate a new card no one's ever thought of.
When this happened, it seemed to throw a lot of us for a loop and prompted all those, "not getting the point of the article" comments.
All in all, cool job. Glad your writing here =)
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Also, your sidebar on Auntie's Hovel is a bit uh... - you mention that it's a terrible topdeck when your hand is empty and you're trying to power up a banefire - if you have a banefire in your hand, it ain't empty, etc.
Cheers
Thanks to Spiderboy4 of High~light Studios for the awesome sig.
A wise man talks when he has something to say. A fool talks because he has to say something.
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This explains my feelings about this pretty well. Reading about cool but clearly not great decks is definitely fun. Reading about crappy versions of competitive decks is just boring as hell.
Not true. You play a threat. You Fugue them till they answer it. Play the next. Repeat.
This deck is the "proof-of-concept" deck that I built around both a budget (something that is important to some and completely laughable to others; both sides meaning well) and the additional design constraint. My last article spoke towards looking at deck building in this constrained way: http://mtgsalvation.com/985-magic-casualty-zen-and-the-art-of-deck-design.html
As for the Auntie's Hovel sidebar, what I meant was that if my hand is basically empty (and Banefire with less mana than an X=5 against a control deck is basically a blank card), not having any Goblin to reveal for the Hovel puts an additional turn on using it. The deck wants mana now and nothing less than that works. That's all I was getting at.
UBW Faeries
turn 1: land, springleaf drum
turn 2: land, sculptor, glaze fiend
turn 3: chromatic star x 4 + sculptor + elsewhere flask x 4 + any artifact, attack for 21
it works.
In what universe? If you build a deck like that, and ever draw that hand, I will personally come to wherever you live, perform complicated acts of awestruck ☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺, then disembowel myself to escape the world that allowed something like that to occur and validate you. {Elysium}
*grins* You remember that time a few years ago when Xen got his mono U article published. Mmmm. good memories.
Mafia Stats
see if you can fit any of these cards in
tarfire
fiery bombardment
thoughtseize
wort, boggart auntie
nameless inversion
it's being run in fae.dec too. saw LSV (and some of his play group) running fae @ a 5k standard (san jose) w/ scepter.
i'd like to make a response post to the article (which is a good read) when i have more time. i'm going to contrast his deck w/ mine. for the time being you can see my recent std blightening beatdown list here (and my recent extd mono-red burn here).
www.power9pro.com
blog: www.power9pro.com/blog
twitter: www.twitter.com/power9pro
office: 415.670.9273
Currently playing:
Modern: RDW, developing B/G Infect
G/W Midrange
EDH: Working on Momir Vig and five color Cromat
3 Spark Elemental
3 Mogg Fanatic
3 Hellspark Elemental
3 Hell's Thunder
3 Boggart Ram-Gang
3 Shambling Remains
Spells:
3 Magma Spray
3 Terror
3 Incinerate
3 Volcanic Fallout
3 Flame Javelin
3 Blightning
2 Banefire
4 Graven Cairns
4 Sulfurous Springs
4 Swamp
10 Mountain
3 Gutteral Response
3 Goblin Outlander
3 Deathmark
3 Smash to Smithereens
2 Wild Riccochet
1 Banefire
I've considered all of the feedback (including the blantant "This article is crap; the author isn't giving me what I think everyone wants; since this deck loses this article, therefore, is worthless", etc. commentary) and here is a brief follow up for anyone interested in Blightning Aggro/Red Deck Wins and on a Budget.
First, some important card change choices.
Terror replacing Yoke of the Damned: While my testing still is acceptable with this, I'm going to give the old standby a try. My adjusted sideboard will be ready for Doran decks, but I'll have no true out the first game.
Boggart Ram-Gang replacing Ashenmoor Gouger: Haste and wither feels good against annoying blockers like Wall of Reverence and even holding him back to cripple a Rhox War Monk is more appealing than a 4/4 dude that just dies to the same things anyway. Shambling Remains gets the nod to stay in since the unearth cost is just a meager BR; he's still turn 5 juice even dead.
Banefire and more Basic Lands replacing Goblin Outlander (moved to the board) and Goblin Deathraidersin the main: I want Banefire to work and I needed lands to do that. Even if I use it as overcosted removal I fell that active Banefires will get me the job done.
Goblin Outlander and Deathmark replacing Shunt and Shard Volley in the Sideboard: This gives me access to the tools to beat 4Color Aggro, Bant, and 5Color Control. Shunt is too situational (and basically functioned as a Cancel against counterspells) and I never wanted to play the Volley.
Smash to Smithereens replacing Infest in the Sideboard: With Esper becoming more popular, and having no outs against things like Sigil of Distinction and Loxodon Warhammer, this makes a great replacement to Terror against decks with lots of artifacts. It also helps against Master Transmuter decks as well.
Gutteral Response replacing one Wild Riccochet in the board and the two Banefires that moved to the main from the board: This gives me more power during the 5Color Control matchup as well as Fae (which was good anyway). A one mana spell to stop a Cryptic Command, regardless of mode, is great.
======
I considered other cards but, dependent upon results, I won't bather going into detail unless there is something worthwhile for another article. Thanks to those of you who enjoyed it, and thanks to those of you who found it worthless. I have had a lot to think about and there will be more to think about after tonight when I take the updated version to FNM again. If my results are no better than "1-2; my deck was really far from optimal" I won't bother to bring any details back here.
Again, thanks to everyone who responded: I appreciate the diversity of viewpoints brought to the table here.
i have to ask though, are you purposefully staying away from Blackmail or does it not feed your purpose for a budget card in a blightning deck?
Casual:WG Exalted
BR Feeding Vampires
B Vampire Beatdown
BR Cinders
BG Shadowmoor Golgari
R Goblin Raidmother Burn
BU Zombies(Under construction)
Blackmail is no longer Standard legal.