Loaming Shaman is also an option. It is a mono green greature that hates the GY, could be an option if you wanted Ooze in a deck with tutors, like Summoner's Pact (in elves, being green is important here), Birthing Pod, Chord of Calling...
Good luck running ghost quarters in those shaky 3 color esper solar flare decks, though.
Really, it's not even that great IMO. The deck just attacks from so many angles... GQ doesn't slow their ramp, and if they naturally draw some inkmoths or Kessigs, you'll still need multiples, and that's assuming you kill the titan in the first place.
Sure, it's a big help in the decks whose mana can afford it, but it's not enough hate per se, you need to build your whole deck with Ramp decks in mind.
It won't stay weenie based for long. This transition is common. Look at the cycle that hit when scars came in:
Standard Metagame October 2010
U/W Control 19%
Valakut 16%
Eldrazi Green 16%
Misc. U/x Control 13%
Mono-R 8%
Elves 7%
Fauna Shaman 7%
RUG 4%
Mono-B 4%
White Weenie 2%
Other 4%
Standard Metagame December 2010
Valakut 32%
U/W Control 17%
U/B Control 14%
Vampires 8%
RUG 6%
Quest 5%
Boros 4%
Genesis Wave 3%
Mono-R 3%
Elves 2%
Eldrazi Green 2%
BUG 2%
Other 1%
You should notice that elves, rdw, and fauna shaman were all a significant portion of the meta. Eventually they disappeared. This will happen again.
I don't think the data you showed actually proves your conclusion.
Look at it this way:
Weenie decks on the first list: RDW - 8%, Elves - 7% Fauna Shaman - 7%, White Weenie 2% = 24% of the field. I don't know if what you called Mono Black was control or vampires, but I am guessing control, since on the other list you classify vampire decks as "Vampires". Also, Fauna Shaman is somewhat different from the others in that it is not so much a swarm aggro deck, but more recursion based.
Anyway, Weenie decks on the second list: Vampires - 8%, Quest - 5%, Boros - 4%, RDW - 3%, White Weenie - 2% = 22%, not that different from 24%, what actualçly happened is that the weenie decks changed to different weenie decks, but still weenie decks.
I just read the first few pages of the thread, and people seem to be going nuts with this land in a UW caw-blade kind of deck, but is it really better than Inkmoth Nexus in a Sword deck?
I mean, Inky doesn't give you card advantage nor an endless stream of fliers (if it dies, it dies), but it also doesn't depend on the graveyard and is cheaper to activate. Since both are colorless lands, I also don't think you can just jam 4 of each in a deck.
Is it the consensus that you just cut inkmoths for this land?
I would really like to see Chrome Mox unbanned. Even if it is good in some combo decks, it really helps control in two important ways:
1) Helps Dark Confidant decks
Have you seen the results from Philly? Poor BoB, (arguably) the best creature ever, shows up only in 10 of the top 89 lists (18 points or better) and most of the time as a SB tech for combo decks. I would like to see Bob more, even if he doesn't fit only control decks
2) Makes Thirst for Knowledge a better draw engine
Just adding 3~4 Moxen to a Thirst deck helps the deck twice: gives it speed and powers their draw engine with late copies, without filling your deck with mediocre artifacts
So, in general, I think Chrome Mox, while giving control decks the important speed boost to get ahead, also kind of fixes another major gap of the format, the lack of a draw engine, by boosting the power Bob and Thirst without having to touch more cards in the ban list.
For this, I believe that, if we were to unban just one card, it would be Chrome Mox, as it helps fix two problems of the format. Since I believa bannings and unbannings should be very controlled, very few cards at a time, in order to keep track of the consequences of each card in the format, I think this would be the way to go.
I also believe Bitterblossom is mostly good, but not opressive, but unbanning it only really helps one major deck, and a hated deck at that, so WotC might not want to do it just yet
I really like all combinations of Esper colors for control (UB, UW, BW and WUB):
White has DoJ, Timely Reinforcements and Gideon for creature control, and an answer to PWs in O-Ring
Black has spot removal and Despise, wich also helps the PW war, and Liliana
Blue has counterspells, Phantasmal Image, the new 2/1 wich gives flashback and, depending on the amount of shuffle, Ponder
All three colors have great finishers and between Allied and Enemy lands, Solemn Simulacrum and even Mycosinth Wellspring, the manabase should be good for any combination.
Another deck I want to try is UGx Birthing Pod. There are already some versions that run few creatures from Zen / M11. The core of Ponder, Birds of Paradise, Viridian Emissary, Phantasmal Image, Acidic Slime is all legal, it's just a matter of finding the right build.
I definetly understand your concern, and I also didn't like the dual faced cards at first, but I have grown to actually not mind them (from a logistic perspective) and even like them (from a flavor perspective).
In my mind, if you are playing competitively, you gotta have sleeves, so it's moot point here.
If you are casual and don't like having to play with sleeves or the proxy card, you can always choose not to play them in your deck. Not every card is for everyone, if you liked the cards, you would just grab some proxies / sleeves and go on with it.
If someone in your playgroup does want to play with them, it's their trouble to proxy/sleeve, so you don't have to bother with it too. No one who wants to play with DFCs should ever just shuffle them unshielded in their deck, so it won't really hurt the game. Once sleeved or proxied, they will play mechanically just like a flip card (with better art), so I don't think the gameplay with DFC should really bother you.
In the end, while some people may not like them aesthetically, or for nostalgic reasons, I don't think their gameplay hurts anyone outside limited. You either would already play sleeves competitively or you don't have to bother with them casually if you don't like.
This leaves draft, wich I will admit bothers me more, but in the end it doesn't really ruin the experience, and also adds another layer of strategy to the draft.
I am planning on organizing a Standard Rotisserie draft with my playgroup, with 8 players. Having never done a Rotisserie draft before, I have some problems figuring out the numbers. My two issues are:
- Should we build cards with how many cards? At first I would prefer 60 cards so that we make more picks, but I don't know how deep is the standard pool. With 60 cards, an average deck would have about 36 spells, plus up to 6 or 7 non-basics (there are 52 available, if everyone would pick all of them), making it about 40 played cards per player, 320 total, plus the sideboard. Is the 320th best card still interesting enough, or do you feel that with 60 cards we will make a lot of picks on bad cards? Here I think 60-cards decks would be okay, given the size of the card pool.
- This one is a little harder for me. How many cards do we draft, total (for the chosen deck size)? I am inclined to make about 50~55 picks at most (if we indeed do 60-card decks). Again, I believe most decks will play about 40 cards from the pool, all the other picks will be for sideboard, mistakes (if you picked something you will end up not playing) or wasted.
How much breathing room should I give? I am worried with making lots of wasted picks, that won't get playing, and also with having too much room for sideboard cards. If everybody has a lot of breathign room, the sideboard cards will be too easy to pick. I don't want people to have a ton of hate, especially if the hate didn't have to be picked over meaningful cards for the main deck. So how much extra room do I give?
Opinions are welcome. I realise this is a 4fun format, so maybe I shouldn't worry too much, but I just enjoy thinking about these designs issues for the format, and with no prior experience I would like some insight.
I went to SCG today and saw that Pat Chapins article is about some combo that, acording to him, has the potential to change standard.
I don`t have premium, and I usually wait a month for the premium articles that I want to read to become public, but from what I read on his Twitter, it seems to be about Birthing Pod, possibly with bloodghasts, trinket mages and voltaic key.
Seeing how I love incremental engines like Birthing Pod, I got really curious about the deck. I dont know if people are allowed to pot premium content from other sites here, but if someone can do it, I would like to see the decklist, or at least the main idea (what is he ramping Birthing Pod into? what are the colors?).
If this is forbidden, please forgive me and disregard this post.
We saw the same talk when Path to Exile was spoiled: "giving free rampant growths to your opponent is bad". Turns out it wasn't.
This card is very powerful because Standard isn't dominated by attriction decks like last season. Sure, if all you were expecting were Jund mirrors, this card probably wouldn't be that good. But this is a format where, if your opponent resolves a titan, he wins. If your opponent connects with equipment, he most likely wins. If he untaps with Gideon, he wins. There are a lot of cards that just don't care how many cards or random dudes they have.
Some uses for it that show how card disadvantage isn't necessairily bad:
- Cutting them off a green mana against valakut. Valakut won't beat you with random beats from a 3/3 and manlands, most likely (except maybe for some versions that side in an aggressive deck). All that really matters is stopping the Titan
- Preventing a Sword of FaF Hit, while playing any deck. Swords generate card advantage anyway, so instead of discarding, you kill their sword and possibly block their dude. You are on the same number of cards as if Sword had connected, except they didn't get to untap and now have a 3/3 instead of the sword (wich is probably worse)
- Forcing them to leave an extra U open every turn while playing valakut. Again, your titan just wins regardless of how many random dudes they have. I assure you they won't go "hey, thanks for the 3/3, dude" if they ever tap too low and you get them off counter mana end resolve a titan.
- Kill anything, untap, wrath.
- Kill anything while playing against infect.
- Kill a land when the opponent obviously got manascrewed.
- Kill something you don't need EOT (extra lands, Contagion Clasp, empty Tumble Magnets, even the new Wellspring that could see play, since the mana fixing in SoM block is just awful) to push some extra damage and kill them or a PW.
Is no one playing the deck? Or just couldn't read my wall of text?
tl;dr: Why does an aggro deck want a 2-drop that doesn't kill them, and will only give you a 2 for 1 or ramp when the opponent chooses to trade/kill it? Just for being a good wall versus swarm aggro and a minor threat against planeswalkers?
Most of them are pretty similar, with the exact same creature base (except for sometimes a 1-of Thrun MD to Zenith for), and slightly different removal/utillity suite.
I haven't been able to play a lot lately, so my testing is very limited, but anyway what I was wondering is: Why do they all play 4 Viridian Emissary main deck?
It doesn't really put any pressure on the board, except when atacking Planeswalkers, wich it admitelly does better than other 2-drops. It will never really accel in the early game (wich is where you really want the land) unless the opponent allows for it. Getting a land latter on, while not irrelevant, isn't reeeeeally that good, even if you get a 2 for 1.
Against the aggressive decks, I can see he doing a good job letting you race if you cast it on turn 2 on the play. Either they skip a critical turn of atacking until they can squeeze more damage, or if they kill it or trade, risk giving you an accel that might result in you overwhelming them.
So my question to someone who has actually played the deck is: why is he good? Is what the deck wants really a 2 power 2-drop that can put some (slight) pressure on PWs against control and a roadblock against aggro? Even if that card is awful as a topdeck and doesn't actually help you kill them? Is this what an aggro deck want?
I ask this because every single list runs him as a 4-of, so I couldn't just dismiss it. I might be missing something here or just not have played enough. But in my eyes, playing an additional threat on the 2-drop spot (like Ichorclaw Myr) or even Rot Wolf, (wich can 2 for 1 most creatures that the Emissary can, even if it gets removed more easily) look better options
Really, it's not even that great IMO. The deck just attacks from so many angles... GQ doesn't slow their ramp, and if they naturally draw some inkmoths or Kessigs, you'll still need multiples, and that's assuming you kill the titan in the first place.
Sure, it's a big help in the decks whose mana can afford it, but it's not enough hate per se, you need to build your whole deck with Ramp decks in mind.
I don't think the data you showed actually proves your conclusion.
Look at it this way:
Weenie decks on the first list: RDW - 8%, Elves - 7% Fauna Shaman - 7%, White Weenie 2% = 24% of the field. I don't know if what you called Mono Black was control or vampires, but I am guessing control, since on the other list you classify vampire decks as "Vampires". Also, Fauna Shaman is somewhat different from the others in that it is not so much a swarm aggro deck, but more recursion based.
Anyway, Weenie decks on the second list: Vampires - 8%, Quest - 5%, Boros - 4%, RDW - 3%, White Weenie - 2% = 22%, not that different from 24%, what actualçly happened is that the weenie decks changed to different weenie decks, but still weenie decks.
Right now that there's been only one tournament, it's fine. Some weeks from now, people will like to know who /where / when each deck is from.
Thank you for the suggestion, but there is a stickied thread for this kind of talk. Thread moved.
I mean, Inky doesn't give you card advantage nor an endless stream of fliers (if it dies, it dies), but it also doesn't depend on the graveyard and is cheaper to activate. Since both are colorless lands, I also don't think you can just jam 4 of each in a deck.
Is it the consensus that you just cut inkmoths for this land?
1) Helps Dark Confidant decks
Have you seen the results from Philly? Poor BoB, (arguably) the best creature ever, shows up only in 10 of the top 89 lists (18 points or better) and most of the time as a SB tech for combo decks. I would like to see Bob more, even if he doesn't fit only control decks
2) Makes Thirst for Knowledge a better draw engine
Just adding 3~4 Moxen to a Thirst deck helps the deck twice: gives it speed and powers their draw engine with late copies, without filling your deck with mediocre artifacts
So, in general, I think Chrome Mox, while giving control decks the important speed boost to get ahead, also kind of fixes another major gap of the format, the lack of a draw engine, by boosting the power Bob and Thirst without having to touch more cards in the ban list.
For this, I believe that, if we were to unban just one card, it would be Chrome Mox, as it helps fix two problems of the format. Since I believa bannings and unbannings should be very controlled, very few cards at a time, in order to keep track of the consequences of each card in the format, I think this would be the way to go.
I also believe Bitterblossom is mostly good, but not opressive, but unbanning it only really helps one major deck, and a hated deck at that, so WotC might not want to do it just yet
White has DoJ, Timely Reinforcements and Gideon for creature control, and an answer to PWs in O-Ring
Black has spot removal and Despise, wich also helps the PW war, and Liliana
Blue has counterspells, Phantasmal Image, the new 2/1 wich gives flashback and, depending on the amount of shuffle, Ponder
All three colors have great finishers and between Allied and Enemy lands, Solemn Simulacrum and even Mycosinth Wellspring, the manabase should be good for any combination.
Another deck I want to try is UGx Birthing Pod. There are already some versions that run few creatures from Zen / M11. The core of Ponder, Birds of Paradise, Viridian Emissary, Phantasmal Image, Acidic Slime is all legal, it's just a matter of finding the right build.
In my mind, if you are playing competitively, you gotta have sleeves, so it's moot point here.
If you are casual and don't like having to play with sleeves or the proxy card, you can always choose not to play them in your deck. Not every card is for everyone, if you liked the cards, you would just grab some proxies / sleeves and go on with it.
If someone in your playgroup does want to play with them, it's their trouble to proxy/sleeve, so you don't have to bother with it too. No one who wants to play with DFCs should ever just shuffle them unshielded in their deck, so it won't really hurt the game. Once sleeved or proxied, they will play mechanically just like a flip card (with better art), so I don't think the gameplay with DFC should really bother you.
In the end, while some people may not like them aesthetically, or for nostalgic reasons, I don't think their gameplay hurts anyone outside limited. You either would already play sleeves competitively or you don't have to bother with them casually if you don't like.
This leaves draft, wich I will admit bothers me more, but in the end it doesn't really ruin the experience, and also adds another layer of strategy to the draft.
"I've been all over these pants. I even remember some of those places."
Darksteel Relic
"It's the last pair of pants we can call our own."
—Minhu, Mirran resistance
I am planning on organizing a Standard Rotisserie draft with my playgroup, with 8 players. Having never done a Rotisserie draft before, I have some problems figuring out the numbers. My two issues are:
- Should we build cards with how many cards? At first I would prefer 60 cards so that we make more picks, but I don't know how deep is the standard pool. With 60 cards, an average deck would have about 36 spells, plus up to 6 or 7 non-basics (there are 52 available, if everyone would pick all of them), making it about 40 played cards per player, 320 total, plus the sideboard. Is the 320th best card still interesting enough, or do you feel that with 60 cards we will make a lot of picks on bad cards? Here I think 60-cards decks would be okay, given the size of the card pool.
- This one is a little harder for me. How many cards do we draft, total (for the chosen deck size)? I am inclined to make about 50~55 picks at most (if we indeed do 60-card decks). Again, I believe most decks will play about 40 cards from the pool, all the other picks will be for sideboard, mistakes (if you picked something you will end up not playing) or wasted.
How much breathing room should I give? I am worried with making lots of wasted picks, that won't get playing, and also with having too much room for sideboard cards. If everybody has a lot of breathign room, the sideboard cards will be too easy to pick. I don't want people to have a ton of hate, especially if the hate didn't have to be picked over meaningful cards for the main deck. So how much extra room do I give?
Opinions are welcome. I realise this is a 4fun format, so maybe I shouldn't worry too much, but I just enjoy thinking about these designs issues for the format, and with no prior experience I would like some insight.
Thx
Thanks then!
I went to SCG today and saw that Pat Chapins article is about some combo that, acording to him, has the potential to change standard.
I don`t have premium, and I usually wait a month for the premium articles that I want to read to become public, but from what I read on his Twitter, it seems to be about Birthing Pod, possibly with bloodghasts, trinket mages and voltaic key.
Seeing how I love incremental engines like Birthing Pod, I got really curious about the deck. I dont know if people are allowed to pot premium content from other sites here, but if someone can do it, I would like to see the decklist, or at least the main idea (what is he ramping Birthing Pod into? what are the colors?).
If this is forbidden, please forgive me and disregard this post.
This card is very powerful because Standard isn't dominated by attriction decks like last season. Sure, if all you were expecting were Jund mirrors, this card probably wouldn't be that good. But this is a format where, if your opponent resolves a titan, he wins. If your opponent connects with equipment, he most likely wins. If he untaps with Gideon, he wins. There are a lot of cards that just don't care how many cards or random dudes they have.
Some uses for it that show how card disadvantage isn't necessairily bad:
- Cutting them off a green mana against valakut. Valakut won't beat you with random beats from a 3/3 and manlands, most likely (except maybe for some versions that side in an aggressive deck). All that really matters is stopping the Titan
- Preventing a Sword of FaF Hit, while playing any deck. Swords generate card advantage anyway, so instead of discarding, you kill their sword and possibly block their dude. You are on the same number of cards as if Sword had connected, except they didn't get to untap and now have a 3/3 instead of the sword (wich is probably worse)
- Forcing them to leave an extra U open every turn while playing valakut. Again, your titan just wins regardless of how many random dudes they have. I assure you they won't go "hey, thanks for the 3/3, dude" if they ever tap too low and you get them off counter mana end resolve a titan.
- Kill anything, untap, wrath.
- Kill anything while playing against infect.
- Kill a land when the opponent obviously got manascrewed.
- Kill something you don't need EOT (extra lands, Contagion Clasp, empty Tumble Magnets, even the new Wellspring that could see play, since the mana fixing in SoM block is just awful) to push some extra damage and kill them or a PW.
- "Save" a creature from removal.
And many more
tl;dr: Why does an aggro deck want a 2-drop that doesn't kill them, and will only give you a 2 for 1 or ramp when the opponent chooses to trade/kill it? Just for being a good wall versus swarm aggro and a minor threat against planeswalkers?
I have been seing many Mono-G infect lists just like the first one on this page:
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Digital/MagicOnlineTourn.aspx?x=mtg/digital/magiconline/tourn/2176524
Most of them are pretty similar, with the exact same creature base (except for sometimes a 1-of Thrun MD to Zenith for), and slightly different removal/utillity suite.
I haven't been able to play a lot lately, so my testing is very limited, but anyway what I was wondering is: Why do they all play 4 Viridian Emissary main deck?
It doesn't really put any pressure on the board, except when atacking Planeswalkers, wich it admitelly does better than other 2-drops. It will never really accel in the early game (wich is where you really want the land) unless the opponent allows for it. Getting a land latter on, while not irrelevant, isn't reeeeeally that good, even if you get a 2 for 1.
Against the aggressive decks, I can see he doing a good job letting you race if you cast it on turn 2 on the play. Either they skip a critical turn of atacking until they can squeeze more damage, or if they kill it or trade, risk giving you an accel that might result in you overwhelming them.
So my question to someone who has actually played the deck is: why is he good? Is what the deck wants really a 2 power 2-drop that can put some (slight) pressure on PWs against control and a roadblock against aggro? Even if that card is awful as a topdeck and doesn't actually help you kill them? Is this what an aggro deck want?
I ask this because every single list runs him as a 4-of, so I couldn't just dismiss it. I might be missing something here or just not have played enough. But in my eyes, playing an additional threat on the 2-drop spot (like Ichorclaw Myr) or even Rot Wolf, (wich can 2 for 1 most creatures that the Emissary can, even if it gets removed more easily) look better options