yeah tapped out does work for it, likely where I saw some folks do it in the past. I'll transition it over to tappedout after I get enough interest and I'm done building it, although it is close. CubeTutor is a lot better for building them so it made sense to start it there.
Linked here: CSM 28 JAN 17; is a video tournament report with varied accuracy in commentating (reference Sidisi's Whip), but decent fun all around. I'm hoping to see Massacre, Dread of Night, Blood Knight, and Sulfur Elemental in people's boards next week Great games to every one and I hope to see you all back for the next run. Take care and take it easy.
Today I encountered for the first time the card Skin Invasion. I had to zoom in on the card to see what it does.
In summary, I do not fear this card from my RDW opponents. There are so many times when this card will perform horribly (bounce, swords to P, Path to Exile, Faith's Fetters, Oblivion Ring, and removal in general in response to it being cast etc etc...). I fear Shard Volley more than I fear Skin Invasion.
However, I got rekd by this card today! Frycek, I am now out to seek revenge next time...
One might be apt in saying that RDW got under your skin . The card is actually better than you give it credit for; it works well as a trick on opposing critters as well. It either allows the RDW to remove a pesky blocker through combat blocks (although this is the least likely as red critters stink at fighting most other critters) or forces unfavorable attacks by the opponent(i.e. the courser you just played has to attack and I can now attack past it with my 2/1's, etc). So, while it's not the first card I'd think to use for all these effects, it is decently flexible and definitely not terrible. I'll agree Shard Volley is a better card in and of itself, but this card has a different effect that a RDW will likely need/want for their deck to win, and it's ultimately quite flexible. I do not personally run it (I tend to build RDW very linearly though, i.e. focused and curve based), but I think it's a fine T2-3 play on a high toughness low CMC opposing critter.
P.S. Michelle, I like the work you do every week on the trophy, but I saw this art someone had done for an altered Armageddon, and since I cast it three times this tourney I figured it was fitting. Plus that art is gorgeous.
I've put the 100CS Cube on TappedOut, which does allow draft sims...the bad news is this, the cube is simply too large, TappedOut will only support 6 packs in an 8 player cube event. What makes the most sense given this restriction is two things, one we only go with 6 players @ 6 packs (gives each player 90 cards to work with); or I cut the cube back which would reduce it by about 500 cards. If we wanted to draft this thing how it was intended I'd likely have to do that because folks would pickup one half of a combo and the other may never appear in the cube at all due to its depth. Let me know what you think. But in the mean time while it's still under development sign up for an account on TappedOut if you do not already have one and give drafting it a shot (the bots are really bad on it though to for-warn you, but playable decks can be made). 100 CS Cube Link
Below is the pile I drafted, definitely not optimal, but there's definitely a playable combo control deck in there with outs to reanimation and the hex/stage/depths combo.
Take it easy
--KB
P.S. The bots are quite bad, their color pie distribution was about even across the board, generally not a good sign of a playable cube deck, with me being the exception (mostly grixis) and taking the preponderance of land cards available. So, I expect even on 90 cards total with actual humans drafting decks are likely to be better than the one I made against the hamster wheel randomizer of the bots, but it depends on how well folks draft and follow the basics, etc.
Was pondering a card: Tower of the Magistrate. I've been looking for a while for a good means for D&T to disrupt artifact synergy, equipment, and generally problem cards like Wurmcoil Engine. I set out with the criteria that I wanted the card to either provide a threat (a general theme in the deck) or have repeatable utility outside of its "hate function" (getting artifacts). This card definitely provides utility outside of its "hate function" in that it provides mana (albeit colorless). But, the utility on this card seems quite expansive to me: I can "kill" a batterskull (germs with protection from their shell tend to die), I can stifle an equip of a sword, and I can fog attacks from Wurmcoil Engine or Torrential Gearhulk, a more subtle I idea, but I think powerful interaction, is inhibiting pod targets by giving specific CMC critters on the opponent's board protection from artifacts (this unfortunately does not work, technically it's written the same way force field was written and technically does not target so it get's around this interaction) thus disabling their ability to pod it into another critter (but this is deep, and fairly techy). But, I'm curious what do you all think, am I going to deep on this idea/card, would it be okay in a 36 land deck (I tend to think so, for the upside it has in random cases which tend to imply I'm losing). I've tried kataki, the war's wage and considered the 3CMC discard/disenchant bear, but neither have ever come out of board, plus I still like one SB disenchant for humility. So, due to never having seen this card played in 100CS (and it being very old); I'm curious what you all think, has anyone tried this card and if so, how did it work out?
Hi Lowman, I use the card Tower of the Magistrates in my Kozilek Commander deck. I have activated its ability, but very rarely. And I think it really surprises people when this happens, because it's easy for them to forget about it.
In my paper s100 group which meets one night a week, the Tower would be even better because our group loves the cards Duplicant, Icy Manipulator, and Grafted Wargear which see more play than Wurmcoil Engine and Batterskull due to price reasons. Makes me wish I own a hard copy one.
I recommend you include the Tower from now on in your D&T, and keep a tally on a piece of paper (with 3 columns, the first being "This card's activated ability helped me", the second "This card was neutral, no better or worse than a basic plains", and the third "This card mana screwed me, either by forcing me to take a mulligan or by drawing it when I needed another white source". After several months, you should get a reasonable idea of whether it is worth including.
You can also use the Tower as a weapon against End Hostilities.
I am just happy that the Tower of Magistrates does not disrupt my Whip of Erebos, because you can't target creatures in my graveyard with it.
Thanks for the input on Tower of the Magistrate, that's sort of my thinking. My guess is that it will randomly mana screw me a lot less than it's valuable, but both percentages I think are fairly low (but I'm at the point with D&T where I feel like I'm just polishing it in the smallest of percentiles for the main deck, and the rest is just SB and 1-2 slots main for meta-call hate). Not really displayed in this last CSM, but in the previous one, I tend to board out land in the aggressive matchup (especially on the draw) to transform the deck into a more WW build to combat RDW and other aggro decks, so it gives me a decent land to toss into the board when I just want to play beat down and don't need to hate out the greedy folks.
If anyone's interested here are some random battles against Stash86 and R0369 where I play (and conduct more Saturday play recruitment operations) with both D&T and Grixis vs 5CPWControl, MBC, and RDW: Random Battles
TappedOut will only support 6 packs in an 8 player cube event. What makes the most sense given this restriction is two things, one we only go with 6 players @ 6 packs (gives each player 90 cards to work with); or I cut the cube back which would reduce it by about 500 cards. If we wanted to draft this thing how it was intended I'd likely have to do that because folks would pickup one half of a combo and the other may never appear in the cube at all due to its depth.
That are bad news! 90 cards(with probably 20% non-basic lands) seems very narrow= not much choice or deckbuilding involved, since we need actually 115 cards for a deck. Even if we disregard the sideboard, I bet we end up putting all cards of our chosen color(s) in the main deck, just to have 100 cards. I could imagine that some players won't even have 100 cards for a 'reasonable' deck.
So, all in all I think this is the worst option. We must pay tribute to the uniqueness of our format, and accept that we can't compare to any other 60 card format and that a 'normal' cubesetting with just 6 packs creates problems for 100 card decks.
I have no instant solutions, obviously we have to sacifice something, but I would like to brainstorm here:
- cutting 500 cards, and then give each player just 90 cards, seems to completely thinning out deck options for a player, especially if he got 'out-drafted' by other player's card choices
- I completely trust your experience, when you say the bots on TappedOut are terrible( for S100 at least), that means we would need there exactly the number of human players the cube is designed for
- If the drafting software is the problem, why not skip the draft? Playing a 'sealed cube event', each player just draws 8-10 booster packs with cube cards( if that is possible with any software) and build a deck out of it.
- I would rather draft vs. 5 'decent' bots and have more cards( the 1st website), than draft with 6 humans and have 90 cards only.
If Lowman gets a "Champion" membership for Cube Tutor, then access to the advanced AI becomes available (called "Castle AI"), which would then require manual tagging of cards into their different archetypes. Drafting solo over and over again like Lowman has done previously does not remove the need for tagging.
I believe, however, that each drafter will need to have a Champion membership to benefit from this Advanced AI. The fact that everyone has access to Lowman's draft does not solve this, because we will need to login with our own accounts and this will not allow the non-Champions to draft with the Castle AI bots.
Which means that those who pay will have their bots using an Advanced AI, and those who don't pay will have regular bots (which have a lower AI than the Advanced AI bots). I think that this means that the bots will only remember previous human choices without knowing anything about archetypes.
So for example, if an Armageddon is a very popular card which humans have previously picked, then the non-advanced bots will prioritize this card even if it has no synergy with the other cards which the bot has previously picked (or will pick).
White does not usually need to care much about equipment and it has the best removal for artifact creatures like Wurmcoil Engine since it usually removes the creatures from the game, or even just artifacts from the game.
In s100, popular cheap white removal found in aggressive decks tends to be Swords, Path, Oust, Journey to Nowhere and Dec in Stone (and a few creatures which can function as removal, and perhaps 1 or 2 cards in the board to fight enchantments/artifacts). In the context of a 100 card deck with almost zero card draw capability, this is not a lot of removal. An extra removal (Tower) against common threats such as Wurmcoil and Batterskull and popular equipments could make a relevant difference in our format, because it is increasing the deck's removal against such cards by a significant percentage (let's say by around 10%, without actually losing a non-land slot). Plus, the Tower can be tutored for on occasion (Weathered Wayfarer), so perhaps the percentage is higher than this.
The question is whether the benefits will outweigh the potential color-screw, which is still not clear in my opinion.
Thank you for the earnest recommendations on Tower of the Magistrate. All of these have been ongoing debates internally for me as a deck builder. So, I've decided to provisionally try it out in the deck. The selling point really ended up being the overall land count which is fairly high imo for a deck of this sort: 36 total (think it could be 35, but the deck relies on the LD lands very heavily to timewalk opponents, plus it runs land tax, Mox diamond, and 4 fetches to thin, which helps to fix when colorless lands are not needed); it does come with some assumed risk in the 2 spot as about 35-40percent require WW in their CMC. So I'm going to try it, so far in the test games I've had its just provided mana...so we'll see, and while white has allot of answers to artifacts, it's actually only got one in the 2 spot (leonin) that's a critter :). Disencant and collective effort are both in the board when needed, but the only other decent bears are ronom uni, kami of a law, and war priest of tune and they only do enchantments.
Michelle, missed this query, but here are my thoughts: it depends. On what: critter count. I personally think the threshold is about 38 critters to make this runnable in RDW. The card is powerful, but at the end of the day it's dead if you can't lock it up on something. I considered it in my D&T build but the 3 spot is very contested in that deck (with about flexibility in one spot, that I prefer a hateful card in over a just a beating), but that deck runs 46 critters. Most RDW tend to be around 30-35 critters to make room for the powerful burn out there. I think if you were to go Goblins the card is actually fairly good, but again in that deck you're looking at a lot of good threes (the lords). But that's just my $.02. Hope it helps.
My opinion is that the Grafted Wargear does not deserve to see play, because there is too much conditionality for it to be good (too many things need to go right, and sometimes it can go horribly wrong). Replacing it with a creature or extra burn seems the better way.
Hope all is well; tossed up a few matches on YT if those strike your fancy; testing with a new Esper Combo Control Deck (running the old helm line/RIP combo) and running back a few D&T matches. We play some fairly interesting games, one involving some significant oversight on tarmogoyf math, but misplays happen. The videos can be found here: vs. Sensei and vs Iniksbane
Just uploaded two videos one of the main tourney and one of the finals Congratulations to Iniksbane for his first tourney play and win, hope to see you back. Unfortunately, I lost audio during the main tourney during a restroom break, so the games are still intact, but you lose any commentating on them, which might be a good thing because I got wrecked in G3 vs. dawts by a top decked Jace the Mindsculpter (just kidding, definitely gg's man).
yeah tapped out does work for it, likely where I saw some folks do it in the past. I'll transition it over to tappedout after I get enough interest and I'm done building it, although it is close. CubeTutor is a lot better for building them so it made sense to start it there.
--KB
Linked here: CSM 28 JAN 17; is a video tournament report with varied accuracy in commentating (reference Sidisi's Whip), but decent fun all around. I'm hoping to see Massacre, Dread of Night, Blood Knight, and Sulfur Elemental in people's boards next week Great games to every one and I hope to see you all back for the next run. Take care and take it easy.
--KB
In summary, I do not fear this card from my RDW opponents. There are so many times when this card will perform horribly (bounce, swords to P, Path to Exile, Faith's Fetters, Oblivion Ring, and removal in general in response to it being cast etc etc...). I fear Shard Volley more than I fear Skin Invasion.
However, I got rekd by this card today! Frycek, I am now out to seek revenge next time...
One might be apt in saying that RDW got under your skin . The card is actually better than you give it credit for; it works well as a trick on opposing critters as well. It either allows the RDW to remove a pesky blocker through combat blocks (although this is the least likely as red critters stink at fighting most other critters) or forces unfavorable attacks by the opponent(i.e. the courser you just played has to attack and I can now attack past it with my 2/1's, etc). So, while it's not the first card I'd think to use for all these effects, it is decently flexible and definitely not terrible. I'll agree Shard Volley is a better card in and of itself, but this card has a different effect that a RDW will likely need/want for their deck to win, and it's ultimately quite flexible. I do not personally run it (I tend to build RDW very linearly though, i.e. focused and curve based), but I think it's a fine T2-3 play on a high toughness low CMC opposing critter.
Apply that Soothing Balm and build that Madcap Experiment SB for the extreme lolz and value next week
Take it easy.
--KB
P.S. Michelle, I like the work you do every week on the trophy, but I saw this art someone had done for an altered Armageddon, and since I cast it three times this tourney I figured it was fitting. Plus that art is gorgeous.
I've put the 100CS Cube on TappedOut, which does allow draft sims...the bad news is this, the cube is simply too large, TappedOut will only support 6 packs in an 8 player cube event. What makes the most sense given this restriction is two things, one we only go with 6 players @ 6 packs (gives each player 90 cards to work with); or I cut the cube back which would reduce it by about 500 cards. If we wanted to draft this thing how it was intended I'd likely have to do that because folks would pickup one half of a combo and the other may never appear in the cube at all due to its depth. Let me know what you think. But in the mean time while it's still under development sign up for an account on TappedOut if you do not already have one and give drafting it a shot (the bots are really bad on it though to for-warn you, but playable decks can be made). 100 CS Cube Link
Below is the pile I drafted, definitely not optimal, but there's definitely a playable combo control deck in there with outs to reanimation and the hex/stage/depths combo.
Take it easy
--KB
P.S. The bots are quite bad, their color pie distribution was about even across the board, generally not a good sign of a playable cube deck, with me being the exception (mostly grixis) and taking the preponderance of land cards available. So, I expect even on 90 cards total with actual humans drafting decks are likely to be better than the one I made against the hamster wheel randomizer of the bots, but it depends on how well folks draft and follow the basics, etc.
Was pondering a card: Tower of the Magistrate. I've been looking for a while for a good means for D&T to disrupt artifact synergy, equipment, and generally problem cards like Wurmcoil Engine. I set out with the criteria that I wanted the card to either provide a threat (a general theme in the deck) or have repeatable utility outside of its "hate function" (getting artifacts). This card definitely provides utility outside of its "hate function" in that it provides mana (albeit colorless). But, the utility on this card seems quite expansive to me: I can "kill" a batterskull (germs with protection from their shell tend to die), I can stifle an equip of a sword, and I can fog attacks from Wurmcoil Engine or Torrential Gearhulk, a more subtle I idea, but I think powerful interaction, is inhibiting pod targets by giving specific CMC critters on the opponent's board protection from artifacts (this unfortunately does not work, technically it's written the same way force field was written and technically does not target so it get's around this interaction) thus disabling their ability to pod it into another critter (but this is deep, and fairly techy). But, I'm curious what do you all think, am I going to deep on this idea/card, would it be okay in a 36 land deck (I tend to think so, for the upside it has in random cases which tend to imply I'm losing). I've tried kataki, the war's wage and considered the 3CMC discard/disenchant bear, but neither have ever come out of board, plus I still like one SB disenchant for humility. So, due to never having seen this card played in 100CS (and it being very old); I'm curious what you all think, has anyone tried this card and if so, how did it work out?
Thanks and take care
--KB
In my paper s100 group which meets one night a week, the Tower would be even better because our group loves the cards Duplicant, Icy Manipulator, and Grafted Wargear which see more play than Wurmcoil Engine and Batterskull due to price reasons. Makes me wish I own a hard copy one.
I recommend you include the Tower from now on in your D&T, and keep a tally on a piece of paper (with 3 columns, the first being "This card's activated ability helped me", the second "This card was neutral, no better or worse than a basic plains", and the third "This card mana screwed me, either by forcing me to take a mulligan or by drawing it when I needed another white source". After several months, you should get a reasonable idea of whether it is worth including.
You can also use the Tower as a weapon against End Hostilities.
I am just happy that the Tower of Magistrates does not disrupt my Whip of Erebos, because you can't target creatures in my graveyard with it.
Thanks for the input on Tower of the Magistrate, that's sort of my thinking. My guess is that it will randomly mana screw me a lot less than it's valuable, but both percentages I think are fairly low (but I'm at the point with D&T where I feel like I'm just polishing it in the smallest of percentiles for the main deck, and the rest is just SB and 1-2 slots main for meta-call hate). Not really displayed in this last CSM, but in the previous one, I tend to board out land in the aggressive matchup (especially on the draw) to transform the deck into a more WW build to combat RDW and other aggro decks, so it gives me a decent land to toss into the board when I just want to play beat down and don't need to hate out the greedy folks.
If anyone's interested here are some random battles against Stash86 and R0369 where I play (and conduct more Saturday play recruitment operations) with both D&T and Grixis vs 5CPWControl, MBC, and RDW: Random Battles
Enjoy and take it easy all
--KB
Do you support the card Grafted Wargear in RDW?
That are bad news! 90 cards(with probably 20% non-basic lands) seems very narrow= not much choice or deckbuilding involved, since we need actually 115 cards for a deck. Even if we disregard the sideboard, I bet we end up putting all cards of our chosen color(s) in the main deck, just to have 100 cards. I could imagine that some players won't even have 100 cards for a 'reasonable' deck.
So, all in all I think this is the worst option. We must pay tribute to the uniqueness of our format, and accept that we can't compare to any other 60 card format and that a 'normal' cubesetting with just 6 packs creates problems for 100 card decks.
I have no instant solutions, obviously we have to sacifice something, but I would like to brainstorm here:
- cutting 500 cards, and then give each player just 90 cards, seems to completely thinning out deck options for a player, especially if he got 'out-drafted' by other player's card choices
- I completely trust your experience, when you say the bots on TappedOut are terrible( for S100 at least), that means we would need there exactly the number of human players the cube is designed for
- If the drafting software is the problem, why not skip the draft? Playing a 'sealed cube event', each player just draws 8-10 booster packs with cube cards( if that is possible with any software) and build a deck out of it.
- I would rather draft vs. 5 'decent' bots and have more cards( the 1st website), than draft with 6 humans and have 90 cards only.
I believe, however, that each drafter will need to have a Champion membership to benefit from this Advanced AI. The fact that everyone has access to Lowman's draft does not solve this, because we will need to login with our own accounts and this will not allow the non-Champions to draft with the Castle AI bots.
Which means that those who pay will have their bots using an Advanced AI, and those who don't pay will have regular bots (which have a lower AI than the Advanced AI bots). I think that this means that the bots will only remember previous human choices without knowing anything about archetypes.
So for example, if an Armageddon is a very popular card which humans have previously picked, then the non-advanced bots will prioritize this card even if it has no synergy with the other cards which the bot has previously picked (or will pick).
In s100, popular cheap white removal found in aggressive decks tends to be Swords, Path, Oust, Journey to Nowhere and Dec in Stone (and a few creatures which can function as removal, and perhaps 1 or 2 cards in the board to fight enchantments/artifacts). In the context of a 100 card deck with almost zero card draw capability, this is not a lot of removal. An extra removal (Tower) against common threats such as Wurmcoil and Batterskull and popular equipments could make a relevant difference in our format, because it is increasing the deck's removal against such cards by a significant percentage (let's say by around 10%, without actually losing a non-land slot). Plus, the Tower can be tutored for on occasion (Weathered Wayfarer), so perhaps the percentage is higher than this.
The question is whether the benefits will outweigh the potential color-screw, which is still not clear in my opinion.
Thank you for the earnest recommendations on Tower of the Magistrate. All of these have been ongoing debates internally for me as a deck builder. So, I've decided to provisionally try it out in the deck. The selling point really ended up being the overall land count which is fairly high imo for a deck of this sort: 36 total (think it could be 35, but the deck relies on the LD lands very heavily to timewalk opponents, plus it runs land tax, Mox diamond, and 4 fetches to thin, which helps to fix when colorless lands are not needed); it does come with some assumed risk in the 2 spot as about 35-40percent require WW in their CMC. So I'm going to try it, so far in the test games I've had its just provided mana...so we'll see, and while white has allot of answers to artifacts, it's actually only got one in the 2 spot (leonin) that's a critter :). Disencant and collective effort are both in the board when needed, but the only other decent bears are ronom uni, kami of a law, and war priest of tune and they only do enchantments.
Thanks and appreciate the input.
KB
Michelle, missed this query, but here are my thoughts: it depends. On what: critter count. I personally think the threshold is about 38 critters to make this runnable in RDW. The card is powerful, but at the end of the day it's dead if you can't lock it up on something. I considered it in my D&T build but the 3 spot is very contested in that deck (with about flexibility in one spot, that I prefer a hateful card in over a just a beating), but that deck runs 46 critters. Most RDW tend to be around 30-35 critters to make room for the powerful burn out there. I think if you were to go Goblins the card is actually fairly good, but again in that deck you're looking at a lot of good threes (the lords). But that's just my $.02. Hope it helps.
--KB
My opinion is that the Grafted Wargear does not deserve to see play, because there is too much conditionality for it to be good (too many things need to go right, and sometimes it can go horribly wrong). Replacing it with a creature or extra burn seems the better way.
Hope all is well; tossed up a few matches on YT if those strike your fancy; testing with a new Esper Combo Control Deck (running the old helm line/RIP combo) and running back a few D&T matches. We play some fairly interesting games, one involving some significant oversight on tarmogoyf math, but misplays happen. The videos can be found here: vs. Sensei and vs Iniksbane
Enjoy and take it easy
--KB
lowman02 donated his 4 tix to newcomer DrPringles
Undefeated: lowman02 -0
Lost once:
reaper9889 -2
frycek -2
ML_Berlin -2
Doorprize: DrPringles -5
I even don't know this till Berlin tell me today .. I'll use your prise to buy S100 stuff only really thank you ~
Just uploaded two videos one of the main tourney and one of the finals Congratulations to Iniksbane for his first tourney play and win, hope to see you back. Unfortunately, I lost audio during the main tourney during a restroom break, so the games are still intact, but you lose any commentating on them, which might be a good thing because I got wrecked in G3 vs. dawts by a top decked Jace the Mindsculpter (just kidding, definitely gg's man).
Tournament Matches
Finals
Enjoy and take it easy.
--KB
Undefeated and final winner: iniksbane -4
Undefeated in rounds: dawts -3
Lost once:
lowman02 -0 ( lowman02 donated his 1 tix to newcomer C4R1S)
ML_Berlin -1
C4R1S -1
Michelle_Wong -1
RobertZdar -1
Doorprize: Golden_Lin -1