Thanks for the input guys. I've tweaked my sideboard and main deck a little to account for this matchup. I haven't had much opportunity to test against valakut since then, but my last FNM did go a lot better for me!
I'm still playing with the manabase, the last 2 slots are up in the air... My meta is a bunch of jank creature based decks, a few control, a bit more ramp.
I'm pretty noob when it comes to two headed giant or other team rules, so this was actually news to me...
Is the rule essentially that you're allowed to give a global enchantment to a teammate, but the enchantment will only affect one teammate at a time (whoever 'owns' it at that point in time)?
How often are you able to change ownership of said enchantment?
Does this work for anything other than global enchantments?
Thanks!
P.S. the bit about rebound helped me a lot, I had been doing this at the prerelease / release events in my area and will definitely break the habit immediately!
Thanks HendrikHaese that does help some. My only lingering question is regarding what happens if the man-land is currently a creature, and is killed somehow. Whether it be a terminate or just combat damage assigned, does it go into the graveyard?
Can somebody break down for me exactly how man lands work? I've never played with them before and I don't want to be clueless come pre-release time! thanks
I've run MODO on my netbook, an Asus eeePC 1002HA which isn't exactly the most gutsy thing around, though I didn't look at your specs.
Screen-size wise, it's pretty brutal to figure out what is going on unless you basically already know what every card does. Overall I wouldn't recommend it as your primary means of playing MODO, but it'll do in a pinch if you're really desperate to get your fix!
I agree that the turbofog could be a viable choice, though I've not got much experience with that deck. There's definitely some advantage to not running the same deck as everyone else at your fnm.
On the other hand, you mentioned you are most experienced with your vamps deck. Given that a lot of other folks are just running semi-budget vamps or black hate, your list looks fine. I think you could swap out the child of nights (which I'm guessing are just budget bloodghasts) for black knights either maindeck or sideboard, and maybe even include the fourth bloodwitch maindeck. That would give you plenty of game against the black hate as you'd be packing only 4 less hate cards than they will.
I like the one-of consume, my girlfriend runs non-budget vamps and we've even been considering it for her deck as it has tons of tech in long-game type situations. We've been loving tendrils for the way it digs vamps out of seemingly un-winnable situations and I'd venture consume would do the same in addition to providing some awesome reach.
Let us know what you decide I'm still learning to react to metagame as well, being a fairly new player that got pretty serious about magic pretty fast!
Counting the success rate of a deck by putting how many pilot into 5-1 does not work very well for the dominate deck because of amount of "mirror matches" that knock themselves out.
I think the best way to do the statistics is count the representation of deck at 5-1 and the total representation of the deck. At least that makes more sense if there is a large number.
QFT. These are the first reasonable statistics I've read in any analysis of what decks are actually performing well relative to the field. I think the jund numbers are pretty striking...
Thanks all for the input! It seems that the discussion is centered primarily around the stuff I was considering as well. I had some of the same thoughts:
I could splash the Journey
Black is good but not amazing
Green looked like a must play
Blue looks good with all the removal and fliers (but is a little short on cards)
I ended up running BG, with what I feel were a few mistakes in the list:
I don't remember the green/black mana distribution I used, but it was based on the usual rough math of (green mana symbols / (green mana symbols + black mana symbols)) * number of land (17 in this case).
Quest for the Gemblades proved useful against aggro decks lacking in removal, but that was me getting lucky. I started siding it out sometime after round 3 of the tournament when I realized I was 2-for-1ing myself. It did have its moments though in the first game of each match when I was forced to put it back in to comply with my decklist.
I don't know what I was thinking running the Primal Bellow over the third Vines of Vastwood as the latter proved amazing in almost every single game while the former was almost never cool (Especially considering I ran 2 green sources that weren't 'forests').
I often wished I had more targeted removal than I did, which made me wonder if I should've run blue instead. Or even running the second Khalni Heart Expedition and a blue source or two and just splashing for the Paralyzing Grasps and maybe the raptor.
I was a bit wary of trying to 'splash' 10% of a 40 card deck in though... Although round 9 at the good-record tables I saw a guy running a WGU deck where none of them was a splash. Does that crap work if you just cut cards like Malakir Bloodwitch, Crypt Ripper, or other color-intensive cards that are otherwise solid to play? Is that even a good idea?
Hi all, I'm a relatively new player (an M10 baby, more or less). I played in PTQ San Diego this past weekend finishing 64th of the field of 260ish, which I guess was okay considering it was my first major tournament. Looking back on my pool, I started wondering about what the best way to have built my deck was.
I won't bias you guys with the choices I did make just yet, here is the pool! Thanks for your input!
I feel like if you are playing red and green sources, you might as well run Bloodbraid Elf, at the very worst it hits a counterspell but it hits ALMOST everything else. Also Mind Spring seems bad. It seems like Banefire fits better if you want to run an X spell. Also, why Naya charm? It seems good but I feel like it adds a color you don't need. My suggestion is to make this deck more mid-range. Use a few more creatures at the very least.
I think decks need to run either cascade or counterspells, but not both. I definitely agree on Mind Spring being bad here; early game it is just a worse Divination and late game you should be copying it, in which case you don't really need an X spell to refill your hand.
He's running Naya Charm for the forking graveyard recursion that lets Lucky Charms decks take infinite turns.
I think the ramp creatures included will end up getting eaten alive by removal and should be dropped. The alternative of adding more creatures into what should be a Pyro deck strays from the notion of turning the Ascension on in the first place.
Otherwise, my only input would be to nix the less-than-four-ofs, and cut down to 60 cards from the 63 currently in the deck. If you want to recurse time warps, I'd probably run a full complement of them. I haven't tested these versions at all, so this is all from a philosophical standpoint - your mileage may vary!
I run straight U/R but don't run counters. They are just not effective enough once the pyro is online if it gets online, yet the best purpose they serve is allowing pyros TO get online. Just throw all the burn you have at them, burn everything even if you lose card advantage doing so. Only take damage to allow them to extend or if you need some crucial card draw.
Then I'd say your best bet is to sit on the Ascension like you have been. The quadcasting is either being done by:
People playing recklessly because spectacular wins are cool. or
U/R guys who aren't as in-your-face as you are, who use the extra ascensions to get more gas out of something like a kicked Burst Lightning to damage their opponent instead of a Banefire or whatever.
Either way, I'd say your original thought process of sandbagging the second ascension is the right play given your list. Maybe play the second one if you draw a third?
Good to know! I may throw in a 4-of one of the bigger spells if my test results end up similar. I don't mind it failing us now and again, but I definitely am questing for the solution that fails us least often
Question on playing the deck: against Jund, do you lay out multiple Ascensions, or do you hold them back in fear of Maelstrom Pulse?
I've been holding them back, but I keep seeing people say 'I quadruple-copied Time Warp, and then I won the game yay!' or etc.
Imo, if you're grixis or lucky charms then you hold it back, because you don't have the counterspell luxury. If you're U/R you'll almost always have the Negate or Double Negative that you need to protect yourself.
I think I mentioned it a day or two ago (then again, it may have just been in my head...), but counterspell discipline is probably going to be the biggest skill test for the U/R version. They're wasted sitting in our hand, but we don't want to over-extend ourselves and get smacked with a Pride/Hexmage or a Pulse. So I guess we probably just sit on a Double Negative at all times? (Or a single Negate / Scatter once we know what they can throw at us - the Naya deck obviously isn't going to Pulse us).
This is actually very similar to an app I made the other day for Google Android phones. (Probably the same formula too... though I did cook it up independently)
For those who do have phones running Android, or those who get them in the future, feel free to search the market for 'ManaMath' as that is probably the name I'll release it under in a week or two
(It'll be free when I finally get around to prettifying the interface a little bit - right now I'm running a scrubby version that I wrote from my own personal use).
It is pretty handy for approximating sealed deck manabases and such, though I'd much prefer the web-based version of this application if I were at home!
Though, that config definitely worries me about the lack of actual win conditions.
It definitely shouldn't! I agree with Guayre on that part and with what he said about picking either the Banefire or the Time Warp and running with it. As has been mentioned, this deck doesn't like anything less than a 4-of. (The Grixis guys do less because they actually have something like a mana curve, afaik)
I disagree on control needing back-breaking sorcery to close the game out. Again I could be wrong, and my girlfriend has agreed to relentlessly use my own Jund deck against me later this week for testing, so I may come back to you guys crying, but it seems so far like an online Pyro's is all the 'back breaking sorcery' you need. Between the damage you did to them (and yourself) already with fallouts, double casting your spare bolts/bursts and then drawing/waiting for more hasn't failed me so far!
Thanks again for the help
Currently my list is:
2 Primeval Titan
2 Frost Titan
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Explore
4 Mana Leak
2 Pyroclasm
2 Into the Roil
4 Preordain
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Forest
4 Island
1 Mystifying Maze
1 Tectonic Edge
4 Raging Ravine
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Copperline Gorge
I'm still playing with the manabase, the last 2 slots are up in the air... My meta is a bunch of jank creature based decks, a few control, a bit more ramp.
Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks
I'm pretty noob when it comes to two headed giant or other team rules, so this was actually news to me...
Is the rule essentially that you're allowed to give a global enchantment to a teammate, but the enchantment will only affect one teammate at a time (whoever 'owns' it at that point in time)?
How often are you able to change ownership of said enchantment?
Does this work for anything other than global enchantments?
Thanks!
P.S. the bit about rebound helped me a lot, I had been doing this at the prerelease / release events in my area and will definitely break the habit immediately!
Thanks for all the help!
Screen-size wise, it's pretty brutal to figure out what is going on unless you basically already know what every card does. Overall I wouldn't recommend it as your primary means of playing MODO, but it'll do in a pinch if you're really desperate to get your fix!
On the other hand, you mentioned you are most experienced with your vamps deck. Given that a lot of other folks are just running semi-budget vamps or black hate, your list looks fine. I think you could swap out the child of nights (which I'm guessing are just budget bloodghasts) for black knights either maindeck or sideboard, and maybe even include the fourth bloodwitch maindeck. That would give you plenty of game against the black hate as you'd be packing only 4 less hate cards than they will.
I like the one-of consume, my girlfriend runs non-budget vamps and we've even been considering it for her deck as it has tons of tech in long-game type situations. We've been loving tendrils for the way it digs vamps out of seemingly un-winnable situations and I'd venture consume would do the same in addition to providing some awesome reach.
Let us know what you decide
QFT. These are the first reasonable statistics I've read in any analysis of what decks are actually performing well relative to the field. I think the jund numbers are pretty striking...
I ended up running BG, with what I feel were a few mistakes in the list:
1 Crypt Ripper
1 Hideous End
1 Gatekeeper of Malakir
1 Giant Scorpion
2 Nimana Sell-Sword
1 Soul Stair Expedition
1 Surrakar Marauder
2 Vampire Hexmage
1 Khalni Heart Expedition
1 Oracle of Mul Daya
1 Oran-Rief Recluse
1 Primal Bellow
1 Quest for the Gemblades
1 Terra Stomper
1 Turntimber Basilisk
1 Vastwood Gorger
2 Vines of Vastwood
1 Turntimber Grove
I don't remember the green/black mana distribution I used, but it was based on the usual rough math of (green mana symbols / (green mana symbols + black mana symbols)) * number of land (17 in this case).
I was a bit wary of trying to 'splash' 10% of a 40 card deck in though... Although round 9 at the good-record tables I saw a guy running a WGU deck where none of them was a splash. Does that crap work if you just cut cards like Malakir Bloodwitch, Crypt Ripper, or other color-intensive cards that are otherwise solid to play? Is that even a good idea?
I won't bias you guys with the choices I did make just yet, here is the pool! Thanks for your input!
Land
Artifact
White
Blue
Black
Red
Green
I think decks need to run either cascade or counterspells, but not both. I definitely agree on Mind Spring being bad here; early game it is just a worse Divination and late game you should be copying it, in which case you don't really need an X spell to refill your hand.
He's running Naya Charm for the forking graveyard recursion that lets Lucky Charms decks take infinite turns.
I think the ramp creatures included will end up getting eaten alive by removal and should be dropped. The alternative of adding more creatures into what should be a Pyro deck strays from the notion of turning the Ascension on in the first place.
Otherwise, my only input would be to nix the less-than-four-ofs, and cut down to 60 cards from the 63 currently in the deck. If you want to recurse time warps, I'd probably run a full complement of them. I haven't tested these versions at all, so this is all from a philosophical standpoint - your mileage may vary!
Then I'd say your best bet is to sit on the Ascension like you have been. The quadcasting is either being done by:
People playing recklessly because spectacular wins are cool.
or
U/R guys who aren't as in-your-face as you are, who use the extra ascensions to get more gas out of something like a kicked Burst Lightning to damage their opponent instead of a Banefire or whatever.
Either way, I'd say your original thought process of sandbagging the second ascension is the right play given your list. Maybe play the second one if you draw a third?
Good to know! I may throw in a 4-of one of the bigger spells if my test results end up similar. I don't mind it failing us now and again, but I definitely am questing for the solution that fails us least often
Imo, if you're grixis or lucky charms then you hold it back, because you don't have the counterspell luxury. If you're U/R you'll almost always have the Negate or Double Negative that you need to protect yourself.
I think I mentioned it a day or two ago (then again, it may have just been in my head...), but counterspell discipline is probably going to be the biggest skill test for the U/R version. They're wasted sitting in our hand, but we don't want to over-extend ourselves and get smacked with a Pride/Hexmage or a Pulse. So I guess we probably just sit on a Double Negative at all times? (Or a single Negate / Scatter once we know what they can throw at us - the Naya deck obviously isn't going to Pulse us).
This is actually very similar to an app I made the other day for Google Android phones. (Probably the same formula too... though I did cook it up independently)
For those who do have phones running Android, or those who get them in the future, feel free to search the market for 'ManaMath' as that is probably the name I'll release it under in a week or two
(It'll be free when I finally get around to prettifying the interface a little bit - right now I'm running a scrubby version that I wrote from my own personal use).
It is pretty handy for approximating sealed deck manabases and such, though I'd much prefer the web-based version of this application if I were at home!
Necro Warning.
It definitely shouldn't!
I disagree on control needing back-breaking sorcery to close the game out. Again I could be wrong, and my girlfriend has agreed to relentlessly use my own Jund deck against me later this week for testing, so I may come back to you guys crying, but it seems so far like an online Pyro's is all the 'back breaking sorcery' you need. Between the damage you did to them (and yourself) already with fallouts, double casting your spare bolts/bursts and then drawing/waiting for more hasn't failed me so far!