Thanks for all the hard work getting this patch up and running so quickly. Memnarch, I found a small bug in your patch that was causing it to crash when I tried generating sealed decks. You had every other land listed as an artifact. Here is the corrected patch. This one installed just fine on my system.
I am an atheist who gets into friendly discussions with people about religion.
I cannot speak for everyone, but here is my reason for feeling the urge to debate: It's hard for me to ignore it when other people misrepresent my position. I'm not out there to convert people. I'm out to explain my own stance on the issue, and make people realize that there are plenty of friendly, morally normal atheists in the world.
I cannot sit idly by and listen to misinformation about a demographic group of which I am a part. It is frustrating to hear a coworker say something like "yeah, but those scientists, they don't believe in god!" in a condemning tone. I might ask: "why should that be a bad thing?" and then people have a debate on their hands.
It's not about conversion, it's about understanding. I don't need to convert my debating partner in order to 'win'. All I'm trying to do is get them to understand why I've reached this conclusion, and acknowledge my position as neither insane nor depraved. And maybe then they'll understand me a little better, too.
Armada Wurm looks like an amazing finisher for this. I had two Angel of Serenity, and they've been incredible, so I would be sorry to cut them. Exiling two of their creatures from play and one of my own Thragtusks from the graveyard for insurance has been amazing. but 10 power in tramplers for 1 less mana might be the superior choice.
Plus the synergy with Restoration Angel is so good it's embarrassing.
Too bad there's no additional 2cc ramp card. Keyrune is solid, but we already had Chromatic Lantern, and neither really fits the curve as I would have liked. Ranger's Path is a tempting suggestion, but I worry it might be the Timmy of all ramp spells. Still, it would allow turn 4 Armada Wurm.
Meanwhile, I have to report the scandalous suggestion that Underworld Connections has not been as great for me as I thought. Arbor Elf into turn two Connections is a 3 card combo requiring Elf, Connections, and Overgrown Tomb in your opening hand. It's not going to happen very often.
Even if you get that crazy play, it requires taking 2 damage upfront and letting your guard down for the first two turns, then having only two mana open on turn three to defend yourself with (assuming you need the draw). Aggro has a tight clock that can kill by turn four, and here we are tying up 1-2 mana sources and pinging ourselves closer to zero. This is a simplified and exaggerated description of the situation, but it's not unrealistic. This deck needs help stabilizing against zombies/jund. I'm not sure Connections is right here.
I've had great experiences using big garruk instead. Early on, you're busy ramping and you don't need to worry about card advantage so much. By the time you need more fuel you can drop a Garruk and almost always draw 5 cards off of him.
All of that adds up to this deck being less Roxodon and more "Selesnya Ramp splash black for removal".
Thanks for all the feedback. Some good suggestions there. I have been toying with Arbor Elf. He seems a little frail, but the potential interaction with Underworld Connections demands attention.
To fuel the discussion, Here's a list I tossed together:
Please excuse any naivete in my card selection. As I said earlier, my understanding of the current format is somewhat limited. That said, here's my reasoning on card choices:
I currently prefer Primal Garruk over Zombie Garruk. The potential card draw off a Desecration Demon is pretty rich. But I also haven't played flippy Garruk much yet, so you may all know better than me which is more appropriate. The correct answer could be Vraska. Right now I'm toying with her vs Acidic Slime. Vraska's ability to answer creatures may give her an edge over the blinkable Slime.
I need to test the Demon more to get a better idea of the thing, but I've definitely enjoyed blinking it untapped with an angel more than once.
The manabase is intentionally forest-heavy for Arbor Elf in this build. 15 forests and 17 green sources total. Vault of the Archangel has been really solid for me, ensuring I can stablize my way out of those teetering 8-12 life totals. Being able to alpha strike and gain 7-10 life at the same time can really reverse the board dynamic.
One thing about Arbor Elf. This deck historically dodges the 1-drop, preferring instead to play a turn one shockland tapped. Arbor Elf ideally wants to come down turn one, followed by a turn two connections. That will often require shocking twice, usually a bad idea when you're then going to pain for card draw. On the other hand, turn one Arbor Elf, turn two shockland tapped can be a nice play when you've got a surprise Selesnya Charm or Abrupt Decay to untap into. Also: Arbor Elf into Farseek into turn three Garruk/Thragtusk/etc is the best possible way this deck could curve out.
I typically dislike tapping creatures for my mana. This kind of deck is about stablizing and building incremental card advantage, while having a toolkit of answers and substantial threats. It's annoying when your ramp is so easily disrupted by sweeping removal. The Elf/Underworld interaction could be well worth it, or it might be just a little too cute. Testing and understanding the format will tell.
Meanwhile: Do I need Terminus (or some sweeper like it) maindeck? It would be nice to have more permenant solutions to zombies. Maybe Sever the Bloodline in the sideboard. I'd love to get Martial Law up and running here, but I kinda feel it's too slow, and no Faith's Fetters.
Anyway, those are my thoughts so far. Suggestions?
Let me start by saying yes, I know it's foolish to try to relive old deck archetypes in new formats.
That said, the Ravnica/Kamigawa era GWB deck with Loxodon Hierarch and Phyrexian Area was a joy to play. Between M13 and RtR, it would appear we have similar cards coming in. There's almost a 1 for 1 analog for every card in the original deck. Thragtusk for Hierarch, Underworld Connections for Phyrexian Arena, etc. Selesnya Charm and Abrupt Decay also offer extremely appealing versatility in removal and tricks.
In testing I've found I really wish we had another 2cc ramp card to assist farseek in ensuring a turn three 4cc play. I also find that the really appealing cards (thragtusk, etc) tend to cost 5 mana, making my curve somewhat inelegant. The lifegain from something like a Faith's Fetters is also dearly missed.
I've been out of standard for a while, and the field looks really aggressive. Does anybody think this could be viable, or am I just asking to get kicked in the stomach by delvers and geists?
I mistakenly posted this earlier in the wrong thread. Hopefully it's okay to post it here. Any suggestions would be great.
Let me start by saying yes, I know it's foolish to try to relive old deck archetypes in new formats.
That said, the Ravnica/Kamigawa era GWB deck with Loxodon Hierarch and Phyrexian Area was a joy to play. Between M13 and RtR, it would appear we have similar cards coming in. There's almost a 1 for 1 analog for every card in the original deck. Thragtusk for Hierarch, Underworld Connections for Phyrexian Arena, etc. Selesnya Charm and Abrupt Decay also offer extremely appealing versatility in removal and tricks.
In testing I've found I really wish we had another 2cc ramp card to assist farseek in ensuring a turn three 4cc play. I also find that the really appealing cards (thragtusk, etc) tend to cost 5 mana, making my curve somewhat inelegant. The lifegain from something like a Faith's Fetters is also dearly missed.
I've been out of standard for a while, and the field looks really aggressive. Does anybody think this could be viable, or am I just asking to get kicked in the stomach by delvers and geists?
Memnarch, once again you are awesome. A few years back, I wrote a patch for Coldsnap as it was being revealed. It took a ton of time and effort, so I can really appreciate your making this available for us every spoiler season.
Just wanted to thank you once again for providing this patch for us all.
I've written patches myself in past rumor seasons, so I understand all the hard work you put into these. Getting your patch is a fundamental part of my rumor season, and I really appreciate that someone is taking the time to keep making these.
Anybody have a version of this that could be used for artwork in Workstation?
Some kind of downloadable zip or at least versions of the art that have the names of the cards as their filenames (so my webcrawler would be relevant) would be deeply appreciated!
I'd been working on this myself, but couldn't keep up with it.
Do you know how to get the hybrid mana to show up properly in workstation? In my own spoiler, I had been going with the (G/W) option, but that's messy and doesn't do the job properly. Is there a theme i need to use to get %L or %A to work? Or are the symbols you're using now just stand ins?
Many of the cards have slightly different spellings than we have on the unofficial patches, so if something still shows up without art, it's likely to be your patch that needs changing, not the name of the image.
That said, let me know if you find any image names that are actually typos.
just a comment or two, hopefully i'm not mistakenly looking at an old patch...
There are a couple of spelling things. When using the joined AE symbol for Aethersnipe, the card doesn't list properly on the generated card art, instead of an AE it shows a C with an accent on top. I suggest using the normal 'Ae' letters instead.
I believe 'Amebold Changeling' should actually be 'Ameboid Changeling'.
Also, there seem to be some rarities mixed up, if compared to the mtgsalvation spoiler:
Kithkin Greatheart should be common
Fallowsage should be uncommon
Squeaking Pie Sneak should be uncommon
Ethereal Whiskergill should be uncommon
Silvergill Adept should be Uncommon
I haven't done a thorough comparison, so there may be more.
So I've collected images from the spoilers and other sources. I've renamed, rotated, cropped, and cleaned most of them up so that they'll go decently into workstation.
The current count is at 139 images, with most of them being for the full card. Where the card wasn't in English, I cropped the art so it will be seen with MWS generated text instead. A couple of image only pieces i've guessed at, like Brigit, hero of kinsbaile, and lignify. Hopefully these guesses are accurate.
Most of the source materials have lots of glare, and many are small and blurry. Please bear with the quality we have here. All the same, it's great for sorting and deckbuilding purposes to be able to go to a prerelease and recognize cards at a glance. Hopefully that's what these images well let you do. It certainly makes that 30 minutes they give you seem a bit bigger.
I can't post the images as an attachment 'cause they come to 11 megs as a zip file, so here's a rapidshare link:
obviously all the images are copyright wizards of the coast and all that jazz.
I may or may not bother with updates to this, since we have only a week now until the actual release, after which we can just get nice images from the wizards site.
Thanks for all the hard work getting this patch up and running so quickly. Memnarch, I found a small bug in your patch that was causing it to crash when I tried generating sealed decks. You had every other land listed as an artifact. Here is the corrected patch. This one installed just fine on my system.
I cannot speak for everyone, but here is my reason for feeling the urge to debate: It's hard for me to ignore it when other people misrepresent my position. I'm not out there to convert people. I'm out to explain my own stance on the issue, and make people realize that there are plenty of friendly, morally normal atheists in the world.
I cannot sit idly by and listen to misinformation about a demographic group of which I am a part. It is frustrating to hear a coworker say something like "yeah, but those scientists, they don't believe in god!" in a condemning tone. I might ask: "why should that be a bad thing?" and then people have a debate on their hands.
It's not about conversion, it's about understanding. I don't need to convert my debating partner in order to 'win'. All I'm trying to do is get them to understand why I've reached this conclusion, and acknowledge my position as neither insane nor depraved. And maybe then they'll understand me a little better, too.
Plus the synergy with Restoration Angel is so good it's embarrassing.
Too bad there's no additional 2cc ramp card. Keyrune is solid, but we already had Chromatic Lantern, and neither really fits the curve as I would have liked. Ranger's Path is a tempting suggestion, but I worry it might be the Timmy of all ramp spells. Still, it would allow turn 4 Armada Wurm.
Meanwhile, I have to report the scandalous suggestion that Underworld Connections has not been as great for me as I thought. Arbor Elf into turn two Connections is a 3 card combo requiring Elf, Connections, and Overgrown Tomb in your opening hand. It's not going to happen very often.
Even if you get that crazy play, it requires taking 2 damage upfront and letting your guard down for the first two turns, then having only two mana open on turn three to defend yourself with (assuming you need the draw). Aggro has a tight clock that can kill by turn four, and here we are tying up 1-2 mana sources and pinging ourselves closer to zero. This is a simplified and exaggerated description of the situation, but it's not unrealistic. This deck needs help stabilizing against zombies/jund. I'm not sure Connections is right here.
I've had great experiences using big garruk instead. Early on, you're busy ramping and you don't need to worry about card advantage so much. By the time you need more fuel you can drop a Garruk and almost always draw 5 cards off of him.
All of that adds up to this deck being less Roxodon and more "Selesnya Ramp splash black for removal".
Fun to play all the same.
Thoughts?
To fuel the discussion, Here's a list I tossed together:
2 Plains
2 Swamp
4 Temple Garden
4 Overgrown Tomb
2 Vault of the Archangel
1 Gavony Township
2 Woodland Cemetery
3 Restoration Angel
3 Arbor Elf
2 Acidic Slime
3 Desecration Demon
4 Loxodon Smiter
4 Farseek
2 Garruk, Primal Hunter
3 Underworld Connections
4 Selesnya Charm
4 Abrupt Decay
I currently prefer Primal Garruk over Zombie Garruk. The potential card draw off a Desecration Demon is pretty rich. But I also haven't played flippy Garruk much yet, so you may all know better than me which is more appropriate. The correct answer could be Vraska. Right now I'm toying with her vs Acidic Slime. Vraska's ability to answer creatures may give her an edge over the blinkable Slime.
I need to test the Demon more to get a better idea of the thing, but I've definitely enjoyed blinking it untapped with an angel more than once.
The manabase is intentionally forest-heavy for Arbor Elf in this build. 15 forests and 17 green sources total. Vault of the Archangel has been really solid for me, ensuring I can stablize my way out of those teetering 8-12 life totals. Being able to alpha strike and gain 7-10 life at the same time can really reverse the board dynamic.
One thing about Arbor Elf. This deck historically dodges the 1-drop, preferring instead to play a turn one shockland tapped. Arbor Elf ideally wants to come down turn one, followed by a turn two connections. That will often require shocking twice, usually a bad idea when you're then going to pain for card draw. On the other hand, turn one Arbor Elf, turn two shockland tapped can be a nice play when you've got a surprise Selesnya Charm or Abrupt Decay to untap into. Also: Arbor Elf into Farseek into turn three Garruk/Thragtusk/etc is the best possible way this deck could curve out.
I typically dislike tapping creatures for my mana. This kind of deck is about stablizing and building incremental card advantage, while having a toolkit of answers and substantial threats. It's annoying when your ramp is so easily disrupted by sweeping removal. The Elf/Underworld interaction could be well worth it, or it might be just a little too cute. Testing and understanding the format will tell.
Meanwhile: Do I need Terminus (or some sweeper like it) maindeck? It would be nice to have more permenant solutions to zombies. Maybe Sever the Bloodline in the sideboard. I'd love to get Martial Law up and running here, but I kinda feel it's too slow, and no Faith's Fetters.
Anyway, those are my thoughts so far. Suggestions?
Thanks!
Let me start by saying yes, I know it's foolish to try to relive old deck archetypes in new formats.
That said, the Ravnica/Kamigawa era GWB deck with Loxodon Hierarch and Phyrexian Area was a joy to play. Between M13 and RtR, it would appear we have similar cards coming in. There's almost a 1 for 1 analog for every card in the original deck. Thragtusk for Hierarch, Underworld Connections for Phyrexian Arena, etc. Selesnya Charm and Abrupt Decay also offer extremely appealing versatility in removal and tricks.
In testing I've found I really wish we had another 2cc ramp card to assist farseek in ensuring a turn three 4cc play. I also find that the really appealing cards (thragtusk, etc) tend to cost 5 mana, making my curve somewhat inelegant. The lifegain from something like a Faith's Fetters is also dearly missed.
I've been out of standard for a while, and the field looks really aggressive. Does anybody think this could be viable, or am I just asking to get kicked in the stomach by delvers and geists?
I mistakenly posted this earlier in the wrong thread. Hopefully it's okay to post it here. Any suggestions would be great.
Thanks!
Let me start by saying yes, I know it's foolish to try to relive old deck archetypes in new formats.
That said, the Ravnica/Kamigawa era GWB deck with Loxodon Hierarch and Phyrexian Area was a joy to play. Between M13 and RtR, it would appear we have similar cards coming in. There's almost a 1 for 1 analog for every card in the original deck. Thragtusk for Hierarch, Underworld Connections for Phyrexian Arena, etc. Selesnya Charm and Abrupt Decay also offer extremely appealing versatility in removal and tricks.
In testing I've found I really wish we had another 2cc ramp card to assist farseek in ensuring a turn three 4cc play. I also find that the really appealing cards (thragtusk, etc) tend to cost 5 mana, making my curve somewhat inelegant. The lifegain from something like a Faith's Fetters is also dearly missed.
I've been out of standard for a while, and the field looks really aggressive. Does anybody think this could be viable, or am I just asking to get kicked in the stomach by delvers and geists?
Just wanted to thank you once again for providing this patch for us all.
I've written patches myself in past rumor seasons, so I understand all the hard work you put into these. Getting your patch is a fundamental part of my rumor season, and I really appreciate that someone is taking the time to keep making these.
Keep up the good work!
Chitsujo
Some kind of downloadable zip or at least versions of the art that have the names of the cards as their filenames (so my webcrawler would be relevant) would be deeply appreciated!
Thanks for all the work there!
I'd been working on this myself, but couldn't keep up with it.
Do you know how to get the hybrid mana to show up properly in workstation? In my own spoiler, I had been going with the (G/W) option, but that's messy and doesn't do the job properly. Is there a theme i need to use to get %L or %A to work? Or are the symbols you're using now just stand ins?
So on the Rumor Mill thread they posted a link to download all the images, but they were named 001, 002, etc.
Since nobody should go through the work I just did, here's the same archive but with the cards renamed so that they'll work with MWS.
http://rapidshare.com/files/58905648/LorwynVisualSpoiler_Renamed.zip
Many of the cards have slightly different spellings than we have on the unofficial patches, so if something still shows up without art, it's likely to be your patch that needs changing, not the name of the image.
That said, let me know if you find any image names that are actually typos.
Enjoy!
just a comment or two, hopefully i'm not mistakenly looking at an old patch...
There are a couple of spelling things. When using the joined AE symbol for Aethersnipe, the card doesn't list properly on the generated card art, instead of an AE it shows a C with an accent on top. I suggest using the normal 'Ae' letters instead.
I believe 'Amebold Changeling' should actually be 'Ameboid Changeling'.
Also, there seem to be some rarities mixed up, if compared to the mtgsalvation spoiler:
Kithkin Greatheart should be common
Fallowsage should be uncommon
Squeaking Pie Sneak should be uncommon
Ethereal Whiskergill should be uncommon
Silvergill Adept should be Uncommon
I haven't done a thorough comparison, so there may be more.
Anyway, thanks for all the good work!
So I've collected images from the spoilers and other sources. I've renamed, rotated, cropped, and cleaned most of them up so that they'll go decently into workstation.
The current count is at 139 images, with most of them being for the full card. Where the card wasn't in English, I cropped the art so it will be seen with MWS generated text instead. A couple of image only pieces i've guessed at, like Brigit, hero of kinsbaile, and lignify. Hopefully these guesses are accurate.
Most of the source materials have lots of glare, and many are small and blurry. Please bear with the quality we have here. All the same, it's great for sorting and deckbuilding purposes to be able to go to a prerelease and recognize cards at a glance. Hopefully that's what these images well let you do. It certainly makes that 30 minutes they give you seem a bit bigger.
I can't post the images as an attachment 'cause they come to 11 megs as a zip file, so here's a rapidshare link:
http://rapidshare.com/files/57849313/LOR.zip
obviously all the images are copyright wizards of the coast and all that jazz.
I may or may not bother with updates to this, since we have only a week now until the actual release, after which we can just get nice images from the wizards site.