I recently played a mirror match of Zoo where a rules dispute over how Phyrexian Metamorph's selection of which creature or artifact to copy works. The other player had a Grim Lavamancer and a Gaddock Teeg in play. Since I was on the beat-down and wanted to keep my advantage I chose to play my metamorph to copy his Teeg and oust a chump blocker. Partly because they had confusion over the legendary rule, the other player chose to shock their Teeg with the lavamancer, claiming this would force the metamorph in as a 0/0. Naturally, the mootness of it all cleared things up quickly, but it did make me realize that it is rather ambiguous exactly how the selection of the copy works with the card. It obviously does not target, but it's not worded like Iona, Shield of Emeria's ability. Does anyone know exactly what goes on with this card? Does it copy something as it comes into play, or does the intended copy need to be announced while it is on the stack, thus giving a sort of fizzle option for the other player? My read of the text definitely give me the impression that on resolution I may copy any given creature in play, but the text is not clear enough for me to feel certain about this.
W,w,w,what? That's her? I might consider the troll prognosis confirmed. I hardly pick and choose myself, but I wouldn't have looked twice, hell even once, at her on the street. im not gay, but I might even rather schtup Finkel. Her strike one is 20/20 vision.
I would be put off if my date wanted to take me to a play about Jeffrey Dahmer too. I support her quest for female empowerment, even if she's exposing Jon Finkel as a creeper in the process.
Excuse me..........what? So Finkel takes this empty ice queen out for a good meal at a restaurant (presumably, she wasn't too into details) - certainly on his dollar - and a unique performance (what would you suggest he have done, take the bint to f'in Cats like every other empty-minded lamesauce in existence?). In return, poor guy not only doesn't get laid, he gets publicly besmirched on the internet because his conversation didn't center around " Mah daddy owns a dealahship!" and the date didn't end in rohypnol-enabled rape? And somehow you conclude that venting your disappointment that your date might have challenged your inane concept or "normalcy" and in such concluding that what you learned is that you ought to stereotype and judge everyone else you might date in future even more heavily is somehow about female empowerment? Get gone. Finkel took this girl out, fed her and entertained her, and gets slandered in return. Sounds like she's assumed a whole lot of power already, homie.
I don't think the maindeck needs so many Moons. It's better to just play 4 Magi and 2 or 3 Blood Moons in the board. This is good because against the decks it matters they'll have more ways to get rid off your Magus or Moon, so drawing multiples isn't terrible.
I also really like one maindeck Koth as well. This guy poses a serious threat and is difficult to deal with for some decks.
Jaya is good, she is a good answer to Chalices. You can Recruit her and use the ability to destroy the Chalice (once you have a Painter in play). One is enough though.
The addition of Mental Misstep in this deck makes it more powerful. It now has more ways to interact with the opponent, while being able to play around MM to establish the Painter is excellent. It doesn't matter much that MM can hit your Blasts because once Painter is online, this deck's counters are just so much better.
I started playing this deck with a "classic" decklist and it lead me to agree with what you're saying. Excess or irrelevant Moon cards just piled up in my hand and Pyro/Hydroblast utterly dogged it up and either ate Missteps or sat around as opponents removed or countered the Painter. I decided to lean towards blue rather than red for the backbone, toolkit off Recruiter and Trinket Mage, and trim down on accel for cards that I thought held up better in contested, control-heavy games.
Sideboard is shoddy. Metamorph is in as potential tech against NO, which whooped my earlier builds pretty effectively. Obviously not as heavy on Moon effects as most but I've found it to suit my preferences, if not simply play better when you trim some of that fat.
bout 3 weeks ago, at a local legacy tournament (40 ish players, prize was a cool 80 bucks).
semi finals: me vs. a zoo player.
dude looks kind of young (i estimated 13), and was extremely arrogant about how awesome his deck was (i think he probably had only played it in clubs at school or something). Dude gets super lucky matchups (merfolk and the like, all the sorts of things that zoo dominates), and goes around bragging about his "unbeatable deck" and talking about the decks of others in a condenscending tone/ insulting their decks.
my friend (merfolk, lost, kid a head shorter than him starts talking down at his "weak ass deck") turns to me; "dude, wreck him". Im playing dredge 8D
i win g1 on turn 3. i win g2 on turn 2. (my friend is laughing at the kid after the first breakthrough i cast in g1, and making snide comments, kinda uncalled for) The kid is throwing a hissy fit (yelling things like "no skill" "stupid deck" "cheater's deck"), almost crying, believe it or not, he actually reaches across the table and grabs my grave (this is after g2 is over, and he didnt exactly ask permission, just a snatch), at which point my buddy (merfolk one) grabs his arm and performs what i thought was some sort of wrist lock (not a martial artist, so i had no idea). He looked like he was enjoying it (i was sort of enjoying the sight too tbh, no one touches my bridges from below >:[). I pick up my graveyard from the floor.
kid was banned from the store for a month ("and no second chances"). My friend recieved a warning about being snide during the games of others. (though from the looks of it, owner didnt really care, he is a "you'd better be able to take what you dish-out" sort of guy)
edit, by snide comments from my friend, they were along the lines of: "if only you had mental misstep", "man, cursecatcher sure would be nice", "no force of will? to bad mate", and various repetitions of insults the kid had thrown out (singsong)"your deck is too slow loser", etc.
Man, players like this are the worst. The significance of match-ups and how specific cards fare against each other is just totally lost on them, so they're basically psychologically incapable of separating decks and players. Sounds like you have a legit LGS owner, though, I'd say a temporary ban for any outburst like that is pretty fair. Asking to see the graveyard to read Bridges or w/e is justified, reaching across the table and snatching another player's cards never is.
So would it still be good utility in a mono-black pox? I run through life like DC does with our tax dollars.
Yeah, 7-8 times out of ten I've been paying the life instead of mana. It can get dicey if you have something like Bitterblossom in play too but I think the ability to basically make the card in to what you want it to be at the time should make it worthwhile. It can let you keep up a steady barrage of Poxing, which I don't think could be accomplished as elegantly with any other cards that come to mind.
Has anyone else experimented with Noxious Revival in their Pox builds yet? You might want to if you haven't yet, its utility is phenomenal. It's very underestimated and punishes opponents for making false assumptions. For example they might drop a tasty creature following an Innocent Blood when you have few cards in hand under the presumption that you are very unlikely to hold another Blood. You don't - but you do have a Revival for their end step. You can recur your own cards to keep the right kinds of resource denial flowing or double down on expended hate from the sideboard, not to mention being able to force your opponent to topdeck miserably and being capable of shenanigans like flopping a Reanimate target back onto the library. It's insanely multipurpose and it's never subject to the liabilities of Pox thanks to Phyrexian mana. For your reference:
Maybe Stasis from back in 96/97. That deck was very different from what a casual, newer player would come up with. Pretty boring, too. Now it is the kind of deck I enjoy playing against sometimes for the sake of having to carefully consider how every turn is played.
Same here, albeit with a modernized version. Stasis, Frozen Aether, and Chronatog.....in a "casual" lobby on mws. Gentlemanly conduct indeed, sir. To this day I refuse to play decks to aim to straight up prevent the other player from actively participating in the game. Counter everything? Ok. Ignore me and just burn to the face? Ok. Sac tons of stuff to Pox? Ok. Mill? Ok. Allow me literally no resources? Your mother. I was still getting the hang of how to beat tribal decks reliably at the time. Really kinda set a benchmark for what not to do with my own decks.
While I've never had something horrible happen to me personally (other then getting my playset of Revised Duals and some power stolen in college)
That is insanely wack. I hope the person who took them didn't get off scot-free in the end, even if just in a karmic sense.
I mostly play on MWS, thus I predictably have scads of stories about low-rent opponents. They're mostly people who seem to think the game is about turning as many things sideways as possible as fast as possible and they're basically out to look down on anyone and insult who's doing it differently. IN my experience, the rudest players are always playing the fastest decks and they don't often appreciate you bringing stones anywhere near their precious little glass cannons. Point in case is a wonderful experience with the most brusque Affinity pilot to ever live. This person didn't communicate in anyway or even phase the first game. We were lobbied for Legacy and I was running Pox, which is basically the definition of deck that in no way appreciates seeing 2- maybe 3 creatures being farted out T1 beside a Mox Opal. Obviously, my G1 was a wash. I bring in 3x Krosan Grip to replace some discard and - noticing that they weren't playing any creature with a toughness greater than 2 - 3x Massacre from the board. They both feel overcosted for the mtachup, but they still give me a better shot. G2 doesn't last long at all- Smallpox gets their lone Seat of the Synod and they unceremoniously scoop - no "gg" or even "man, my luck sucks this game, I'll pack it in". Just a new game and a declaration of "screw". Talk about a letdown. I like winning, sure, but I like playing even more so a two turn game with Pox is pretty disappointing. G3 is where the personality really starts to shine through:-/. They get off to a pretty strong start and really show off their mad skillage at turning stuff sideways. It's really beginning to piss in my cornflakes that they aren't phasing at all at his point, so I politiely ask if they could use phases. I get a blunt, instant "no", like they're freaking proud as hell that they wont make an effort to keep actions clear and organized. It's like their badge of honor to show no consideration here. "Haha, I'm playing Affinity, I don't have to respect the structure of the game! I'ma do what I want!" Ugh. By the time the crucial "topdeck or get steamrolled" turn comes about, I have three lands and a Sylvan Library in play. They have Cranial Plating, Springleaf Drum, and a miscellanea of creatures, one suited up with the Plating. Now, my Pox build is not really anything you should rush yourself while playing. It has Noxious Revivals MD, which always deserve careful thought and because it hits so many of its own lands you almost never get to have your cake and eat it too. You're always choosing between plays. Rushing yourself never helps in a turn-based games and all the more less so with the deck I was running, so I'm giving my turns some thought because I know I won't be getting too many here if I don't. Goober, of course, is having none of it at this point. As I my hand face down in the draw step to do my thing with the Library, Goober suddenly opens up about how I'm "playing slow", "wasting time", etc. - classic whining from someone who's never put much thought into what they're doing with their cards and thinks they're the teets for playing aggro basically. My Library lends me these three cards in my draw step: Massacre, K-Grip, and and land. Diggity. I ignore Goober, pay the life to keep the land and the Massacre. I play the land, tap, put Massacre on the table. Their response? "bye". All of this actually goes down pretty quick, there's not more than 5-10 seconds between their whining in my upkeep and me putting the Massacre down, so in retrospect I think the "bye" was an intended as quit due to "slow" play (lolz). From my perspective then , this person is cooked. They have no cards in hand, now no creatures, and K-grip coming up to take the only problem they can still present (Plating). So naturally I give them a gg because I can see the writing on the wall. Goober disagrees, probably thinking they'll topdeck, equip, and win, which is not happening. Cue some moans about me giving a presumptions "gg" and how its not over. I make an effort to explain myself. They quit anyway.
Italians also live to insult me. From what translation the internets would do for me, I got called something very similar to a "pig's hunt" after g3 once. I also got the classic "pizzo de merde" for knowing rules that didn't help my opponent. At least I get to play Germans sometimes, I guess.
.....Really? I'm gonna go out on limb and guess you've never worked as a cook in any capacity or worked a job that late before? Not only do online orders get redirected to the appropriate store, as others have said, at five-of-closing things are getting packed in, I guarantee. To make your pizza probably would have involved reversing clean-up in progress and created redundant work for people who already worked constantly for eight-some hours in a room probably ninety degrees or above. Just don't order anything, anywhere after quarter-to-close. Believe me, no one appreciates it at all - one place I worked at was open until 3AM. I'll let you guess how I felt about people who placed orders at 2:50-something. Sure, it sucks you couldn't get a pizza, but a protest? Walk a mile in their shoes, dude.
After some time has passed to think about the card - doesn't it do something you always want from a two-drop creature? It makes an opponent want (and maybe need) to answer it but simultaneously punishes them for throwing valuable removal at such a dispensable target, right? It might not have the raw strength of Tarmo in eternal, but for T2 and casual, I see the same valuable Catch-22 quality in it. I think pros are very uninterested in making a mana investment beyond the casting cost and thus they may not be interested in the card at the moment just like they (rightly) weren't interested in levelers. But the more I think about it the more this card feels like one to watch.
Channelfireball has their whole team testing future sets long before they are released to the general public
Woah, how do you know this? I don't follow this stuff too closely, but isn't LSV a tournament regular? It seems like that would be the definition of an unfair advantage if a third party crew is somehow testing sets before they become public knowledge and close associate or even member is a tourney grinder. Or do you just mean that they start testing a card as soon as it gets spoiled?
I'll second the inclusion of Lashwrithe and more-so of Hymns - they are one of black's best cards, period, and are very potent against counters for the "use it or lose it" factor. I can't imagine playing mono-black without them. I think bringing Gatekeepers out of the sideboard is advisable. They're hyper-efficient and if nothing else give you a bear for a two-drop, a mana curve space that is too strategically valuable to go unfilled in my opinion. I realize you're working on a budget and can't swing Confidant's, but maybe consider Sign in Blood over the Arenas. I know it sounds off, but I have personally always found Arenas awkwardly costed. I don't know if it's what you would like to tap out for on turn three in this format and the alternative is to wait much longer than you want to generate card advantage. Sign in Blood is a bit more flexible, less tempting for an opponent to shoot down, and nets you cards then and there which could be all the difference. You might consider Dismember in some capacity since Geth's Verdict will not always be so appealing versus decks like Merfolk and Goblins as they like to bring out a fair number of creatures and Verdicts will only net you the worst one they have. Don't leave home without them, though, as the can very effectively punk on a cheat-out and that's worth sb slots at least. As you continue working on the deck you should consider Tombstalker. You play enough instants and sorceries to fuel a decent delve and its combination of flying and discounted cost give it a lot of appeal against aggro decks with minimal removal. Probably better than Korlash.
You're sideboard raises my eyebrows at a few points. Smallpox? It seems like more backlash than a control deck would like on turn two. A lot more actually. I'd suggest maindecking the inquisitions over duress and replacing their sb slots with Cabal Therapy. You'll see familiar faces time and time again and the cards power scales with your knowledge of your opponent's cards. Could also be flashbacked off the titan's tokens. Also consider Faerie Macabre for graveyard hate - uncounterable, sneaky, and available before your first turn.
Not sure what the art has to do with the card. Dude just looks like an angry guy covered in leaves.
Well, it is a Magic card. The only smiles around here I can think of are the fat dude on Prosperity and everyone on Festival of the Guildpact all of whom are almost certainly tanked. Admit it, in a multiverse where you would run into things like Bone Shredder on a regular basis, you'd probably have to get drunk in order to smile, too. Just be glad they didn't ask Raymond Swanland for more, lame, generic art. Happy, happy, happy on this card. Who doesn't love a 2cmc Swiss Army Knife - in green! Probably won't be staple or anything but it has plenty of potential.
So, playing a Linear Mill deck is different than playing a linear deck of any kind... how? If you are claiming such a deck is simply "Just flop 'em and see if you win", you could say the same for any deck that plays with Creatures or spells effects. Again, you are not really making the correct comparisons between Mill and other win conditions and are using excessively incorrect analogies to try and prove an incorrect point. If you want to use Chess, here is the best analogy to explain the difference between winning by damage and winning by Milling:
1) Winning by damage is like winning Chess by a check mate. You spend your efforts to either clear or avoid the enemy pieces enough to be able to put a "lethal" move against the king which they can't avoid.
2) Winning by milling is like winning Chess by a stale mate. You spend your efforts to either clear or avoid the enemy pieces enough to be able to corner the king and leave them with no more moves available with it being the only piece left to actually move.
Primarily, a linear mill deck is discernibly different from other decks which are for the most part unarguably composed of cards which could be considered linear because they have incentives for you to play them together, but don't offer much outside of their combination. Tribal decks like Goblins and Elves are often a pretty good example of that, with the difference that they must engage with the board to even pursue their ends. This means that their game play is inevitably influenced by the state of the board and has no choice. This prevents a "flop 'em" type scenario because when engaged with situations on the board, players need to make make some "best choice" decisions about things such as swinging in for trades, holding removal, combat tricks, and depending on your card mix, choosing between possible plays for tempo and control. Unless you're opponent is feeling the mana screw or simply isn't playing cards up to the task, straight forward deployment of your resources according to your curve with other strategies is usually walking on thin ice as an opponent would find you very predictable and the essence of strategy is seemingly lacking.
Mill in no way produces a full stalemate. Although according to the game's rules, a player does lose if they must draw a card but have none to draw, if we were to suspend that rule, how could I have no moves available so long as I control a single creature without defender and as much as 1 power? Blockers would be a somewhat valid counterpoint here, but any competent deck should contend with them and mill cannot prevent you from acquiring cards to do that and cannot run so many blockers to make your removal irrelevant or it will sink its own ship. Although I never directly used chess as a a detailed parallel for anything (heck, you might as well have gone for the billiards reference, they're equally relevant to mill). That statement was only meant to highlight what I see as absurd about being able to achieve victory through indirect competition with the opponent in a duel situation. Win cons of any two games would suffice in that example, but those too are well known to most people. It's worth nothing that the structure of chess forces a player to move every turn in order to avoid a stalemate which could very well develop if players could opt to do nothing with their turn. What you're suggesting justifies mill as a stalemate victory is no such thing in this game - mill does not accomplish any stalemate by any means. It doesn't so much achieve a victory condition for itself but a loss condition for its opponent, and even in that case it is unlikely to have deprived its rival of the means to continue pursuing and accomplish their goal in the absence of that rule. I don't at all see how that is a stalemate. Your definition of a stalemate reads a lot like a checkmate - which mill, I think you would agree, really isn't.
You can't say that a Burn deck requires more thinking and strategy than a Mill deck, since Burn can work on taking care of threats and working on the enemy Life with the same set of spells. The decision must still be made whether to Bolt the other player or Bolt the X/3 they just played, but in the end, Bolt can do both and that's the limit of the choice/problem. With Milling, you have two different sets of cards: one set that Mills and another set that takes care of threats. Be that through counters, destruction, creature walls, or whatever else you chose. The fact is, having all cards of one type is a major weakness and you have to generally have a balanced mix. Since your resources are more limited, you have a heavier risk with what to use when.
I wouldn't say that Burn requires much more time in the think tank than mill, some, but not much more. You're perfectly correct that the creature/face call is really the only one to make while playing, to say that Burn doesn't require that little bit more consideration than because its cards can be appropriated for two different purposes doesn't make sense to me. That is exactly why it does demand more than mill - you have to make decisions about the best play, estimate both your tempo as a human inferno and your opponents tempo with creatures, bearing in mind the contents of both your decks, and what you can read or at least should presume about your opponents hand and remaining deck to decide if burning the x/3 is worth your mos efficient card if you believe your opponent has a fatty waiting in hand it would make the difference in racing. Burn interfaces with basic card game skills and needs a player capable of good judgment. Mill's situation boils down to whether to mill the deck.....or mill the deck. Both mill and burn play limited, technically unbalanced sets of cards. It's the trade they both make for the speed and consistency they need to have a shot at winning by those methods and its the best way to construct both decks to obtain the needed cards in a frequency that gels with the necessary goldfishing times to be worthwhile.
This alone makes you seem like you are seeing "Mill" and simply ignoring everything said, either with never having built/played a "decent" Mill deck or only played against people that never built/played a "decent" one. If you think building a Mill deck is nothing put picking the best few cards for each incremental cost and throwing them together, then you don't have the knowledge to be able to even discuss the style of play. If I said that same statement for red with Burn decks, people would laugh and I'd look unintelligent and ignorant. The only deck that really would work that way is a Birthing Pod deck, and that hinges on a single card as a MAJOR point of weakness.
So you don't pick Shriekhorn over Tome Scour because it offers a 6:1 ratio over a 5:1? You don't play cards like Glimpse the Unthinkable because it offers a 5:1 at its cost over cards like Dampen Thought that offer 2:1 or even Psychic Drain which costs more mana than it will mill? Burn doesn't thrive on Lightning Bolt, Lava Spike, and Chain Lightning because they offer a 3:1 ratio, and play cards like Fireblast and Reverberate for very favorable ratios? If either of these decks drags their feet, they're likely to roll on that fact alone. Ignoring the need for mana efficiency, especially early on as you aren't very likely to win if you start in turn three even, will doom these decks, and I am very well aware of that. Inventiveness is pragmatically superseded by efficiency in these archetypes (I'll reiterate that I don't really think of something like Painter as a "mill" deck but as combo). That's their ethos and its how they win.
Actually, again, you don't really compare the proper pieces to your examples or analogies. Please see the example in the start of the post. Milling in a control shell, following your example above, would be stripping you of all your metal resources, taking away your sword, and then stopping you from making any more swords, while at the same time building shackles and successfully binding you in them. Should you, someone that doesn't have a weapon anymore, no means to make more and basically no options left, win because I didn't swing my fist or swing a weapon?
Sounds a lot less like a mill deck with a control shell than a control deck that absorbed a few loose mill cards from the kitchen table. That deck has a lot to accomplish there and it's going to need many cards - many different cards - to pull all that off. The only removal spell that comes to mind which also mills is Reweave and I'm sure you can see a few things wrong with that one. I don't see how you're working around the fact that you will have at minimum sixty cards to work with here and definitely will not see all of them. Producing a balance in a deck that could actually accomplish all of those tasks and mill at a viable pace while continuing to control the opponent? You'd need to draw plenty of cards to even maintain that state vis-a-vis your opponents draws, and each card you use to get those draws flowing is card that doesn't mill, all the cards that control aren't mill (9/10 times anyway), and going above sixty cards to accommodate it will begin to damage the strategy severely. A deck capable of accomplishing what you suggest (neutralizing everything an opponent is capable of deploying) in this game won't be much of a mill deck at all by its cards. It would indeed for trying to be two decks at once, almost certainly fail to be successful as either. One could suggest that the example you offer isn't even a model of victory, just survival.
If you have done one but not the other of successfully depriving your opponent of everything that might possibly apply towards victory or striking not a blow of your own and ignoring the opponent in pursuit of another objective, and it is unrealistic to suggest that deck in this game be able to accomplish both of these in an efficient manner (your sixty cards is either going to play removal on everything or mill like a demon and your 80/100-card deck will be pretty maladjusted), indeed, why should you win under either such circumstances? I think I have made an airtight argument that decking cannot be equated with full deprivation, and compulsive removal is full defense and your opponent essentially provides all the actions and you nothing but reactions. In a boxing match, which I guess could be a pretty good example of dueling that people still do in modern times, I believe spending the entire match as cagy sop who just blocks will see the match called for your opponent, and rightly so. Even in games where a player is a designated defender and must play as such or inevitably lose, such passive play as I think one would use in this game to accomplish what you suggest is a route to failure.
On a side note, maybe this discussion should be separated into it's own thread. I'm enjoying some good debate here, but we also haven't discussed the card itself in probably too many posts. Any mods willing to lend a hand?
W,w,w,what? That's her? I might consider the troll prognosis confirmed. I hardly pick and choose myself, but I wouldn't have looked twice, hell even once, at her on the street. im not gay, but I might even rather schtup Finkel. Her strike one is 20/20 vision.
Excuse me..........what? So Finkel takes this empty ice queen out for a good meal at a restaurant (presumably, she wasn't too into details) - certainly on his dollar - and a unique performance (what would you suggest he have done, take the bint to f'in Cats like every other empty-minded lamesauce in existence?). In return, poor guy not only doesn't get laid, he gets publicly besmirched on the internet because his conversation didn't center around " Mah daddy owns a dealahship!" and the date didn't end in rohypnol-enabled rape? And somehow you conclude that venting your disappointment that your date might have challenged your inane concept or "normalcy" and in such concluding that what you learned is that you ought to stereotype and judge everyone else you might date in future even more heavily is somehow about female empowerment? Get gone. Finkel took this girl out, fed her and entertained her, and gets slandered in return. Sounds like she's assumed a whole lot of power already, homie.
I started playing this deck with a "classic" decklist and it lead me to agree with what you're saying. Excess or irrelevant Moon cards just piled up in my hand and Pyro/Hydroblast utterly dogged it up and either ate Missteps or sat around as opponents removed or countered the Painter. I decided to lean towards blue rather than red for the backbone, toolkit off Recruiter and Trinket Mage, and trim down on accel for cards that I thought held up better in contested, control-heavy games.
4x Imperial Recruiter
3x Trinket Mage
4x Painter's Servant
2x Spellskite
1x Vexing Shusher
1x Llawan, Cephalid Emperess
1x Phyrexian Revoker
1x Magus of the Moon
Non-Creature Spells - 17
3x Brainstorm
1x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Engineered Explosives
3x Grindstone
2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3x Force of Will
4x Mental Misstep
4x Volcanic Island
4x Scalding Tarn
1x Great Furnace
1x Seat of the Synod
3x Ancient Tomb
1x Academy Ruins
4x Mountain
4x Island
1x Pyroclasm
2x Phyrexian Metamorph
1x Silent Arbiter
1x Viashino Heretic
3x Null Rod
2x Mindbreak Trap
4x Tormod's Crypt
1x Relic of Progenitus
Sideboard is shoddy. Metamorph is in as potential tech against NO, which whooped my earlier builds pretty effectively. Obviously not as heavy on Moon effects as most but I've found it to suit my preferences, if not simply play better when you trim some of that fat.
Man, players like this are the worst. The significance of match-ups and how specific cards fare against each other is just totally lost on them, so they're basically psychologically incapable of separating decks and players. Sounds like you have a legit LGS owner, though, I'd say a temporary ban for any outburst like that is pretty fair. Asking to see the graveyard to read Bridges or w/e is justified, reaching across the table and snatching another player's cards never is.
Yeah, 7-8 times out of ten I've been paying the life instead of mana. It can get dicey if you have something like Bitterblossom in play too but I think the ability to basically make the card in to what you want it to be at the time should make it worthwhile. It can let you keep up a steady barrage of Poxing, which I don't think could be accomplished as elegantly with any other cards that come to mind.
4x Nether Spirit
1x Tombstalker
4x Pox
4x Smallpox
4x Thoughtseize
4x Hymn to Tourach
3x Sylvan Library
3x Bitterblossom
4x Noxious Revival
4x Innocent Blood
2x Umezawa's Jitte
2x Crucible of Worlds
4x Verdant Catacombs
3x Sheltered Valley
1x Mishra's Factory
9x Swamp
1x Pithing Needle
1x Dismember
4x Tormod's Crypt
3x Extirpate
2x Krosan Grip
3x Massacre
The 'Nox makes lots of stuff happen for Pox.
Same here, albeit with a modernized version. Stasis, Frozen Aether, and Chronatog.....in a "casual" lobby on mws. Gentlemanly conduct indeed, sir. To this day I refuse to play decks to aim to straight up prevent the other player from actively participating in the game. Counter everything? Ok. Ignore me and just burn to the face? Ok. Sac tons of stuff to Pox? Ok. Mill? Ok. Allow me literally no resources? Your mother. I was still getting the hang of how to beat tribal decks reliably at the time. Really kinda set a benchmark for what not to do with my own decks.
That is insanely wack. I hope the person who took them didn't get off scot-free in the end, even if just in a karmic sense.
I mostly play on MWS, thus I predictably have scads of stories about low-rent opponents. They're mostly people who seem to think the game is about turning as many things sideways as possible as fast as possible and they're basically out to look down on anyone and insult who's doing it differently. IN my experience, the rudest players are always playing the fastest decks and they don't often appreciate you bringing stones anywhere near their precious little glass cannons. Point in case is a wonderful experience with the most brusque Affinity pilot to ever live. This person didn't communicate in anyway or even phase the first game. We were lobbied for Legacy and I was running Pox, which is basically the definition of deck that in no way appreciates seeing 2- maybe 3 creatures being farted out T1 beside a Mox Opal. Obviously, my G1 was a wash. I bring in 3x Krosan Grip to replace some discard and - noticing that they weren't playing any creature with a toughness greater than 2 - 3x Massacre from the board. They both feel overcosted for the mtachup, but they still give me a better shot. G2 doesn't last long at all- Smallpox gets their lone Seat of the Synod and they unceremoniously scoop - no "gg" or even "man, my luck sucks this game, I'll pack it in". Just a new game and a declaration of "screw". Talk about a letdown. I like winning, sure, but I like playing even more so a two turn game with Pox is pretty disappointing. G3 is where the personality really starts to shine through:-/. They get off to a pretty strong start and really show off their mad skillage at turning stuff sideways. It's really beginning to piss in my cornflakes that they aren't phasing at all at his point, so I politiely ask if they could use phases. I get a blunt, instant "no", like they're freaking proud as hell that they wont make an effort to keep actions clear and organized. It's like their badge of honor to show no consideration here. "Haha, I'm playing Affinity, I don't have to respect the structure of the game! I'ma do what I want!" Ugh. By the time the crucial "topdeck or get steamrolled" turn comes about, I have three lands and a Sylvan Library in play. They have Cranial Plating, Springleaf Drum, and a miscellanea of creatures, one suited up with the Plating. Now, my Pox build is not really anything you should rush yourself while playing. It has Noxious Revivals MD, which always deserve careful thought and because it hits so many of its own lands you almost never get to have your cake and eat it too. You're always choosing between plays. Rushing yourself never helps in a turn-based games and all the more less so with the deck I was running, so I'm giving my turns some thought because I know I won't be getting too many here if I don't. Goober, of course, is having none of it at this point. As I my hand face down in the draw step to do my thing with the Library, Goober suddenly opens up about how I'm "playing slow", "wasting time", etc. - classic whining from someone who's never put much thought into what they're doing with their cards and thinks they're the teets for playing aggro basically. My Library lends me these three cards in my draw step: Massacre, K-Grip, and and land. Diggity. I ignore Goober, pay the life to keep the land and the Massacre. I play the land, tap, put Massacre on the table. Their response? "bye". All of this actually goes down pretty quick, there's not more than 5-10 seconds between their whining in my upkeep and me putting the Massacre down, so in retrospect I think the "bye" was an intended as quit due to "slow" play (lolz). From my perspective then , this person is cooked. They have no cards in hand, now no creatures, and K-grip coming up to take the only problem they can still present (Plating). So naturally I give them a gg because I can see the writing on the wall. Goober disagrees, probably thinking they'll topdeck, equip, and win, which is not happening. Cue some moans about me giving a presumptions "gg" and how its not over. I make an effort to explain myself. They quit anyway.
Italians also live to insult me. From what translation the internets would do for me, I got called something very similar to a "pig's hunt" after g3 once. I also got the classic "pizzo de merde" for knowing rules that didn't help my opponent. At least I get to play Germans sometimes, I guess.
Woah, how do you know this? I don't follow this stuff too closely, but isn't LSV a tournament regular? It seems like that would be the definition of an unfair advantage if a third party crew is somehow testing sets before they become public knowledge and close associate or even member is a tourney grinder. Or do you just mean that they start testing a card as soon as it gets spoiled?
You're sideboard raises my eyebrows at a few points. Smallpox? It seems like more backlash than a control deck would like on turn two. A lot more actually. I'd suggest maindecking the inquisitions over duress and replacing their sb slots with Cabal Therapy. You'll see familiar faces time and time again and the cards power scales with your knowledge of your opponent's cards. Could also be flashbacked off the titan's tokens. Also consider Faerie Macabre for graveyard hate - uncounterable, sneaky, and available before your first turn.
Well, it is a Magic card. The only smiles around here I can think of are the fat dude on Prosperity and everyone on Festival of the Guildpact all of whom are almost certainly tanked. Admit it, in a multiverse where you would run into things like Bone Shredder on a regular basis, you'd probably have to get drunk in order to smile, too. Just be glad they didn't ask Raymond Swanland for more, lame, generic art. Happy, happy, happy on this card. Who doesn't love a 2cmc Swiss Army Knife - in green! Probably won't be staple or anything but it has plenty of potential.
Primarily, a linear mill deck is discernibly different from other decks which are for the most part unarguably composed of cards which could be considered linear because they have incentives for you to play them together, but don't offer much outside of their combination. Tribal decks like Goblins and Elves are often a pretty good example of that, with the difference that they must engage with the board to even pursue their ends. This means that their game play is inevitably influenced by the state of the board and has no choice. This prevents a "flop 'em" type scenario because when engaged with situations on the board, players need to make make some "best choice" decisions about things such as swinging in for trades, holding removal, combat tricks, and depending on your card mix, choosing between possible plays for tempo and control. Unless you're opponent is feeling the mana screw or simply isn't playing cards up to the task, straight forward deployment of your resources according to your curve with other strategies is usually walking on thin ice as an opponent would find you very predictable and the essence of strategy is seemingly lacking.
Mill in no way produces a full stalemate. Although according to the game's rules, a player does lose if they must draw a card but have none to draw, if we were to suspend that rule, how could I have no moves available so long as I control a single creature without defender and as much as 1 power? Blockers would be a somewhat valid counterpoint here, but any competent deck should contend with them and mill cannot prevent you from acquiring cards to do that and cannot run so many blockers to make your removal irrelevant or it will sink its own ship. Although I never directly used chess as a a detailed parallel for anything (heck, you might as well have gone for the billiards reference, they're equally relevant to mill). That statement was only meant to highlight what I see as absurd about being able to achieve victory through indirect competition with the opponent in a duel situation. Win cons of any two games would suffice in that example, but those too are well known to most people. It's worth nothing that the structure of chess forces a player to move every turn in order to avoid a stalemate which could very well develop if players could opt to do nothing with their turn. What you're suggesting justifies mill as a stalemate victory is no such thing in this game - mill does not accomplish any stalemate by any means. It doesn't so much achieve a victory condition for itself but a loss condition for its opponent, and even in that case it is unlikely to have deprived its rival of the means to continue pursuing and accomplish their goal in the absence of that rule. I don't at all see how that is a stalemate. Your definition of a stalemate reads a lot like a checkmate - which mill, I think you would agree, really isn't.
I wouldn't say that Burn requires much more time in the think tank than mill, some, but not much more. You're perfectly correct that the creature/face call is really the only one to make while playing, to say that Burn doesn't require that little bit more consideration than because its cards can be appropriated for two different purposes doesn't make sense to me. That is exactly why it does demand more than mill - you have to make decisions about the best play, estimate both your tempo as a human inferno and your opponents tempo with creatures, bearing in mind the contents of both your decks, and what you can read or at least should presume about your opponents hand and remaining deck to decide if burning the x/3 is worth your mos efficient card if you believe your opponent has a fatty waiting in hand it would make the difference in racing. Burn interfaces with basic card game skills and needs a player capable of good judgment. Mill's situation boils down to whether to mill the deck.....or mill the deck. Both mill and burn play limited, technically unbalanced sets of cards. It's the trade they both make for the speed and consistency they need to have a shot at winning by those methods and its the best way to construct both decks to obtain the needed cards in a frequency that gels with the necessary goldfishing times to be worthwhile.
So you don't pick Shriekhorn over Tome Scour because it offers a 6:1 ratio over a 5:1? You don't play cards like Glimpse the Unthinkable because it offers a 5:1 at its cost over cards like Dampen Thought that offer 2:1 or even Psychic Drain which costs more mana than it will mill? Burn doesn't thrive on Lightning Bolt, Lava Spike, and Chain Lightning because they offer a 3:1 ratio, and play cards like Fireblast and Reverberate for very favorable ratios? If either of these decks drags their feet, they're likely to roll on that fact alone. Ignoring the need for mana efficiency, especially early on as you aren't very likely to win if you start in turn three even, will doom these decks, and I am very well aware of that. Inventiveness is pragmatically superseded by efficiency in these archetypes (I'll reiterate that I don't really think of something like Painter as a "mill" deck but as combo). That's their ethos and its how they win.
Sounds a lot less like a mill deck with a control shell than a control deck that absorbed a few loose mill cards from the kitchen table. That deck has a lot to accomplish there and it's going to need many cards - many different cards - to pull all that off. The only removal spell that comes to mind which also mills is Reweave and I'm sure you can see a few things wrong with that one. I don't see how you're working around the fact that you will have at minimum sixty cards to work with here and definitely will not see all of them. Producing a balance in a deck that could actually accomplish all of those tasks and mill at a viable pace while continuing to control the opponent? You'd need to draw plenty of cards to even maintain that state vis-a-vis your opponents draws, and each card you use to get those draws flowing is card that doesn't mill, all the cards that control aren't mill (9/10 times anyway), and going above sixty cards to accommodate it will begin to damage the strategy severely. A deck capable of accomplishing what you suggest (neutralizing everything an opponent is capable of deploying) in this game won't be much of a mill deck at all by its cards. It would indeed for trying to be two decks at once, almost certainly fail to be successful as either. One could suggest that the example you offer isn't even a model of victory, just survival.
If you have done one but not the other of successfully depriving your opponent of everything that might possibly apply towards victory or striking not a blow of your own and ignoring the opponent in pursuit of another objective, and it is unrealistic to suggest that deck in this game be able to accomplish both of these in an efficient manner (your sixty cards is either going to play removal on everything or mill like a demon and your 80/100-card deck will be pretty maladjusted), indeed, why should you win under either such circumstances? I think I have made an airtight argument that decking cannot be equated with full deprivation, and compulsive removal is full defense and your opponent essentially provides all the actions and you nothing but reactions. In a boxing match, which I guess could be a pretty good example of dueling that people still do in modern times, I believe spending the entire match as cagy sop who just blocks will see the match called for your opponent, and rightly so. Even in games where a player is a designated defender and must play as such or inevitably lose, such passive play as I think one would use in this game to accomplish what you suggest is a route to failure.
On a side note, maybe this discussion should be separated into it's own thread. I'm enjoying some good debate here, but we also haven't discussed the card itself in probably too many posts. Any mods willing to lend a hand?