1. knobbodi - You Dirty Rat.dec
Darkslick Shores / Chrome Mox / Nezumi Shortfang / Evil Presence / Echoing Truth I expected a bunch of all-in decks, and just as I thought, my deck did reasonably well against them. But the decks that weren't all-in I did not do extremely well against, mainly smallpox.
2. Draco9 - Pact your bags and go home!
Pact of Negation / Pact of the Titan / Pact of the Titan / Angel's Grace / Plains Your clock was really fast, and that's what contributed to most of your wins, but it didn't really compare to the speed of the various all-in poison decks. Besides that, you performed pretty well.
3. WhammWhamme - Inky Death
Inkmoth Nexus / Calciform Pools / Pact of Negation / Blazing Shoal / Progenitus Nice deck! You are definitely getting a free PotM point for innovation. Your all-in poison deck was the least vulnerable, and also the most elegant (to me, at least, but that's the only person who matters in this case.)
4. thenightsshadow - Cut one head off...
Forest / Leyline of Vitality / Nature's Claim / Forest / Protean Hydra Your deck was pretty much nature's claim and 4 blanks. This round, artifact/enchantment destruction was pretty strong, but your win condition was sorta weak because you required two cards for it. Very creative though! I'm definitely giving you a point, now that I understand how your deck actually works, haha! Good try for your very first CB, though, and I hope you continue playing!
5. Reyemile - All-in Ornithopter
Ornithopter / Blazing Shoal / Blazing Shoal / Progenitus / Progenitus Your turn 2 win was pretty strong, but there were a decent number of answers to your combo, and the fact that you had to spend all 5 cards pulling it off meant that you couldn't put in any cards to defend your creature with.
6. Heart of Draco - Saw this in 6CB.dec
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre / Smallpox / Dreadship Reef / Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth / Mental Misstep Your deck was pretty awesome. Turn 2 smallpox took care of most of your problems, and mental misstep wasn't stellar, but it did win you 2 games by itself, which is why you performed better than the other smallpox deck. You just might be able to pull off PotM this month after all, if you have 2 more finishes like this.
7. Shogun17 - Form of the Dagron
Mountain / Rite of Flame / Rite of Flame / Rite of Flame / Form of the Dragon Turn 1 form of the dragon was pretty great, but there was a smidgen of removal that took care of your enchantment. Pretty solid finish, though, and you're still looking to finish pretty strong for PotM.
8. Hinotama - Zoo!!
Wild Nacatl / Stomping Ground / Plains / Path to Exile / Qasali Pridemage Fast creatures are pretty decent, but you didn't really have the disruption to beat the various all-in decks, and the times qasali pridemage would have been useful it was too slow.
9. Thundersnow - Glistening
Forest / Glistener Elf / Blazing Shoal / Progenitus / Autumn's Veil The fact that your turn 1 dude didn't fly hurt you a lot. Autumn's veil was also pretty clever, but it didn't really help you a great deal.
10. Feyd_Ruin - That's a big monster to be inside such a tiny vial
Swamp / Swamp / Smallpox / Aether Vial / Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre Aether vial to put ulamog into play wasn't as good as charging up your land to cast him, so your lack of a removal spell hurt you. However, turn 2 smallpox was still quite powerful.
11. XScorpion - Ha-token!
Chancellor of the Forge / Chancellor of the Forge / Chancellor of the Forge / Leyline of the Meek / Leyline of the Meek It looked like you were going to do terribly until I got to the very end, but winning against the last 3 decks pulled you into a strong finish. Looks like this deck is always going to be a player in the metagame.
We had a pretty great turnout this week! Hopefully we can keep this up! Congratulations to Heart of Draco for winning this round! Whammwhamme and thenightsshadow each get a point for innovation and creativity, and shogun is currently taking this round by storm, but it's a pretty tight race! Next round is going to be Blind Peasant week. No rares in your deck. If a card is printed at multiple rarities in modern, you can use the least rare rarity. Entries are going to be due by next sunday.
Modern 5CB is identical to vintage 5CB, except for the following:
-The cardpool is limited to cards that have been printed since 8th edition and mirrodin (counting both of those), ie anything printed in the new card frame (but also including timeshifted cards, and not including cards printed in duel decks or the from the vault series)
-No one may submit a deck that can cause their opponent to move a card in their hand to a different zone before that player's first turn. That is, no turn 1 discard. Also, no one can submit a deck that can win on its first turn
-The banned list is:
Ghost Quarter
Meddling Mage
Vampire Hexmage
Chancellor of the Annex
Against XScorpion, you're right. On the play, you draw against him. But against feyd_ruin, he just waits until he redraws ulamog, his land, and smallpox, and then casts smallpox again, so you sacrifice your only land, and can't cast nature's claim.
Because I can ramp up to Smallpox-Ulamog in the same turn, getting rid of both of his lands, I never cast Smallpox against him. Because Mental Misstep kills Aether Vial, he has to keep trying to get it back with Smallpox. However, when he casts Smallpox, the shuffles aren't symmetrical. His shuffled library is (from top to bottom): Ulamog, Smallpox, Aether Vial, Swamp. Mine is: Ulamog, Mental Misstep, Urborg. Each time it goes through this cycle, I lose 3 life (2 from MM, one from Smallpox) and he loses one. However, because I get to draw first after his Smallpox, I get 2 counters on Dreadship Reef each time. I eventually let Aether Vial resolve and use Ulamog to get rid of his land, preventing him from poxing me. He loses Vial on the swing, and I win. This happens play or draw, I just end up at lower life on the draw. (about 7 on the Play, about 4 on the draw).
Ugh, I should really stick to my semi-competitive but clever decks and stay away from good archetypes because I always submit them sub-optimally.
Another choice is to increase my metagaming ability.
I'm not exactly sure how to metagame. What I do is think of what the most popular cards/decks that I've seen lately, and just make sure my deck beats most of them. The only great metagame decision I've made in 5CB is the double Meddling Mage deck when I knew everyone was going to be spending time suspending spells.
In terms of optimal builds, just always do a gatherer/MWS search or two to make sure there isn't any card out there that does the same job, but better (like Inkmoth vs. Glistener Elf: one gets countered by Misstep, the other has flying...)
May I reccomend http://magiccards.info/search.html? For me, at least, it is so much better than the alternatives that the thought of using them makes me cringe. It's also worth putting in the time to learn the in-search-bar commands; for instance, to find all the cards that singlehandedly met the 3-week criteria, I typed "(o:3 or o:three) (pow=3 or tou=3) cmc=3" into the normal search bar and bam, all 48 of 'em (and one un-card).
May I reccomend http://magiccards.info/search.html? For me, at least, it is so much better than the alternatives that the thought of using them makes me cringe. It's also worth putting in the time to learn the in-search-bar commands; for instance, to find all the cards that singlehandedly met the 3-week criteria, I typed "(o:3 or o:three) (pow=3 or tou=3) cmc=3" into the normal search bar and bam, all 48 of 'em (and one un-card).
Just FYI, this is prettymuch exactly how the MWS search engine works, only you can do searches on top of other searches (like look for creatures that have Forest in their rules text, then creatures without Elf in their type line, searching only for green or white creatures). Good find for non-MWS users though.
Just FYI, this is prettymuch exactly how the MWS search engine works, only you can do searches on top of other searches (like look for creatures that have Forest in their rules text, then creatures without Elf in their type line, searching only for green or white creatures). Good find for non-MWS users though.
I've used MWS.
I'm at all trying to turn this into a software-choice holy war, but I do want to make sure people get the facts. You can refine searches just fine with magiccards.info by adding or removing criteria from the search bar. I do it constantly, and at least for me it is infinitely more convenient than fiddling with an interface. I never actually use the 'advanced search' page I linked to unless I've forgotten the syntax for something.
To be clear, to do the exact search refinements you described:
o:Forest (171 matches)
press right arrow, type not t:Elf
o:Forest not t:Elf (157 matches)
press right arrow, type c:wg (or c!wg if you wish to exclude multicolor cards that include other colors)
o:Forest not t:Elf c:wg (116 matches)
I'm at all trying to turn this into a software-choice holy war, but I do want to make sure people get the facts. You can refine searches just fine with magiccards.info by adding or removing criteria from the search bar. I do it constantly, and at least for me it is infinitely more convenient than fiddling with an interface. I never actually use the 'advanced search' page I linked to unless I've forgotten the syntax for something.
To be clear, to do the exact search refinements you described:
o:Forest (171 matches)
press right arrow, type not t:Elf
o:Forest not t:Elf (157 matches)
press right arrow, type c:wg (or c!wg if you wish to exclude multicolor cards that include other colors)
o:Forest not t:Elf c:wg (116 matches)
Seems very convenient. Like I said, it seems like a good alternative for those that don't like MWS. IMHO MWS is only more convenient because I can build the deck with only a few clicks while doing it, then fishbowl it, then playtest it, all from the same screen.
Alright! I updated PotM, and my blurb a little bit to reflect my understanding of how thenightsshadow's deck actually works. PotM is looking to be a super close race this month! Someone might actually dethrone Heart of Draco.
I thought I had heart of draco on the play, but it turns out that his deck is just superior to mine. I do get him down to 2 life though, and hold on for over 50 turns
F Swamp - Vial - Misstep H18
H Urborg
F Land - Smallpox F19 H17
H Reef Draw Ulamog
F Draw Ulamog
H Draw Misstep
F Draw Vial. Vial (Misstep H15)
H Draw Urborg. Urborg. Counter (R1)
F Draw Swamp. Swamp.
H Counter (R2)
F Draw Smallpox - Smallpox F18 H14
H Draw Ulamog
F Draw Ulamog
H Draw Misstep
F Draw Vial. Vial (Misstep H12)
H Draw Urborg. Urborg. Counter (R3)
F Draw Swamp. Swamp.
H Counter (R4)
F Draw Smallpox - Smallpox F17 H11
H Draw Ulamog
F Draw Ulamog
H Draw Misstep
F Draw Vial. Vial (Misstep H09)
H Draw Urborg. Urborg. Counter (R5)
F Draw Swamp. Swamp.
H Counter (R6)
F Draw Smallpox - Smallpox F16 H8
H Draw Ulamog
F Draw Ulamog
H Draw Misstep
F Draw Vial. Vial (Misstep H6)
H Draw Urborg. Urborg. Counter (R7)
F Draw Swamp. Swamp.
H Counter (R8)
F Draw Smallpox - Smallpox F15 H5
H Draw Ulamog
F Draw Ulamog
H Draw Misstep
F Draw Vial. Vial (Misstep H3)
H Draw Urborg. Urborg. Counter (R9)
F Draw Swamp. Swamp.
H Counter (R10)
F Draw Smallpox - Smallpox F14 H4
H Draw Ulamog
F Draw Ulamog
H Draw Misstep
F Draw Vial. Vial (Misstep H2)
H Draw Urborg. Urborg. Counter (R11)
F Draw Swamp. Swamp.
H Cast Ulamog. Destroy Swamp.
F Draw Smallpox. Only 1 swamp. Sadpanda.
I love peasant decks. So blind peasant could be very fun.
I used to be an avid Pauper player, but have never played peasant, so I figured it would be both more interesting and less me-picking-an-obscure-format-I-know. I'm now convinced I can't win next week. Last month I won the week before my idea round, and didn't during my week. : P
Boring, Silly Technicality you don't need to read
To be fair Feyd, I can stop countering your Vial at a certain point, when it won't get to enough counters before I can annihilate it, so I actually end at like 6 life. Luckily, Vial was among the cards I was anticipating when I built my deck, which is why I have Misstep (that and Rite of Flame, making me very happy when both showed up along with other 1 drops).
I'm glad you ended up picking a format that people seem to be interested in. If we continued having 10 or 11 people a week I'd be pretty happy, considering for a while it was the same 7 plus me.
Also, Personman, it seems like you've been commenting on 5CB modern the last couple of weeks. You should consider actually playing!
Yeah, when this round gets posted that guy is going straight to the banned list. I don't think that he's fair enough to even get a single round unbanned.
Also, since the set's been spoiled in its entirety, if you guys want, you can use Innistrad commons and uncommons in your deck this week.
Yeah, when this round gets posted that guy is going straight to the banned list. I don't think that he's fair enough to even get a single round unbanned.
Also, since the set's been spoiled in its entirety, if you guys want, you can use Innistrad commons and uncommons in your deck this week.
Darkslick Shores / Chrome Mox / Nezumi Shortfang / Evil Presence / Echoing Truth
I expected a bunch of all-in decks, and just as I thought, my deck did reasonably well against them. But the decks that weren't all-in I did not do extremely well against, mainly smallpox.
2. Draco9 - Pact your bags and go home!
Pact of Negation / Pact of the Titan / Pact of the Titan / Angel's Grace / Plains
Your clock was really fast, and that's what contributed to most of your wins, but it didn't really compare to the speed of the various all-in poison decks. Besides that, you performed pretty well.
3. WhammWhamme - Inky Death
Inkmoth Nexus / Calciform Pools / Pact of Negation / Blazing Shoal / Progenitus
Nice deck! You are definitely getting a free PotM point for innovation. Your all-in poison deck was the least vulnerable, and also the most elegant (to me, at least, but that's the only person who matters in this case.)
4. thenightsshadow - Cut one head off...
Forest / Leyline of Vitality / Nature's Claim / Forest / Protean Hydra
Your deck was pretty much nature's claim and 4 blanks. This round, artifact/enchantment destruction was pretty strong, but your win condition was sorta weak because you required two cards for it. Very creative though! I'm definitely giving you a point, now that I understand how your deck actually works, haha! Good try for your very first CB, though, and I hope you continue playing!
5. Reyemile - All-in Ornithopter
Ornithopter / Blazing Shoal / Blazing Shoal / Progenitus / Progenitus
Your turn 2 win was pretty strong, but there were a decent number of answers to your combo, and the fact that you had to spend all 5 cards pulling it off meant that you couldn't put in any cards to defend your creature with.
6. Heart of Draco - Saw this in 6CB.dec
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre / Smallpox / Dreadship Reef / Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth / Mental Misstep
Your deck was pretty awesome. Turn 2 smallpox took care of most of your problems, and mental misstep wasn't stellar, but it did win you 2 games by itself, which is why you performed better than the other smallpox deck. You just might be able to pull off PotM this month after all, if you have 2 more finishes like this.
7. Shogun17 - Form of the Dagron
Mountain / Rite of Flame / Rite of Flame / Rite of Flame / Form of the Dragon
Turn 1 form of the dragon was pretty great, but there was a smidgen of removal that took care of your enchantment. Pretty solid finish, though, and you're still looking to finish pretty strong for PotM.
8. Hinotama - Zoo!!
Wild Nacatl / Stomping Ground / Plains / Path to Exile / Qasali Pridemage
Fast creatures are pretty decent, but you didn't really have the disruption to beat the various all-in decks, and the times qasali pridemage would have been useful it was too slow.
9. Thundersnow - Glistening
Forest / Glistener Elf / Blazing Shoal / Progenitus / Autumn's Veil
The fact that your turn 1 dude didn't fly hurt you a lot. Autumn's veil was also pretty clever, but it didn't really help you a great deal.
10. Feyd_Ruin - That's a big monster to be inside such a tiny vial
Swamp / Swamp / Smallpox / Aether Vial / Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
Aether vial to put ulamog into play wasn't as good as charging up your land to cast him, so your lack of a removal spell hurt you. However, turn 2 smallpox was still quite powerful.
11. XScorpion - Ha-token!
Chancellor of the Forge / Chancellor of the Forge / Chancellor of the Forge / Leyline of the Meek / Leyline of the Meek
It looked like you were going to do terribly until I got to the very end, but winning against the last 3 decks pulled you into a strong finish. Looks like this deck is always going to be a player in the metagame.
X 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 total
1 X 4 6 0 4 0 6 2 2 0 6 30
2 1 X 0 6 2 6 0 2 6 4 6 33
3 0 6 X 6 1 3 6 6 3 3 6 37
4 6 0 0 X 6 0 6 0 1 0 1 20
5 1 2 4 0 X 3 3 0 4 3 6 23
6 6 0 3 6 3 X 6 6 6 6 0 40
7 0 6 0 0 3 0 X 6 6 6 6 32
8 2 2 0 6 6 0 0 X 6 0 0 22
9 2 0 3 4 1 0 0 0 X 3 0 11
0 6 1 3 6 3 0 0 6 3 X 0 25
1 0 0 0 4 0 6 0 6 6 6 X 28
We had a pretty great turnout this week! Hopefully we can keep this up! Congratulations to Heart of Draco for winning this round! Whammwhamme and thenightsshadow each get a point for innovation and creativity, and shogun is currently taking this round by storm, but it's a pretty tight race! Next round is going to be Blind Peasant week. No rares in your deck. If a card is printed at multiple rarities in modern, you can use the least rare rarity. Entries are going to be due by next sunday.
Player of the Month Standings:
1. Shogun17 - 9.34
2. XScorpion - 7.08
3. WhammWhamme - 6.98
4. Heart of Draco - 6.85
5. knobbodi - 6.71
6. Reyemile - 5.15
7. Draco9 - 5.01
8. thenightsshadow - 3
9. Feyd_Ruin - 2.5
10. Hinotama - 2.2
11. Thundersnow - 2.1
Modern5CB rules:
-The cardpool is limited to cards that have been printed since 8th edition and mirrodin (counting both of those), ie anything printed in the new card frame (but also including timeshifted cards, and not including cards printed in duel decks or the from the vault series)
-No one may submit a deck that can cause their opponent to move a card in their hand to a different zone before that player's first turn. That is, no turn 1 discard. Also, no one can submit a deck that can win on its first turn
-The banned list is:
Ghost Quarter
Meddling Mage
Vampire Hexmage
Chancellor of the Annex
-Cards to be watched:
Chrome Mox
Vs. X-Scorpion (#11)
If I go first, though:
Turn 1
Forest, Nature's Claim a Leyline
Me (20), X-S (24)
Tokens attack (2/2, 2/2, 2/2)
Me (14), X-S (24)
Turn 2
Forest, Protean Hydra (X=1) (1/2)
Me (15), X-S (24)
Tokens attack, Protean Hydra blocks one and grows. (2/2, 2/2, 2/2)
Me (11), X-S (24)
Turn 3
No attacking (2/3)
Tokens attack, Protean Hydra blocks one and kills it. (2/2, 2/2, 2/2)
Me (7), X-S (24)
Turn 4
No attacking (4/5)
Tokens attack, Protean Hydra blocks one and kills it. (2/2, 2/2)
Me (5), X-S (24)
Turn 5
If he attacks, his token dies, I win the race. I can attack him down to 12 (and me down to 1), but we'd be at a creature stalemate then.
I think it's higher for me than a 0-6 for him.
=============
Also, vs. Feyd_Ruin, it's a 2-2 because Smallpox ruins me, and Aether Vial dies to Nature's Claim. I can hold Leyline to pitch to Smallpox.
=============
I think I 6-0 Feyd_Ruin.
Because I can ramp up to Smallpox-Ulamog in the same turn, getting rid of both of his lands, I never cast Smallpox against him. Because Mental Misstep kills Aether Vial, he has to keep trying to get it back with Smallpox. However, when he casts Smallpox, the shuffles aren't symmetrical. His shuffled library is (from top to bottom): Ulamog, Smallpox, Aether Vial, Swamp. Mine is: Ulamog, Mental Misstep, Urborg. Each time it goes through this cycle, I lose 3 life (2 from MM, one from Smallpox) and he loses one. However, because I get to draw first after his Smallpox, I get 2 counters on Dreadship Reef each time. I eventually let Aether Vial resolve and use Ulamog to get rid of his land, preventing him from poxing me. He loses Vial on the swing, and I win. This happens play or draw, I just end up at lower life on the draw. (about 7 on the Play, about 4 on the draw).
Another choice is to increase my metagaming ability.
I'm not exactly sure how to metagame. What I do is think of what the most popular cards/decks that I've seen lately, and just make sure my deck beats most of them. The only great metagame decision I've made in 5CB is the double Meddling Mage deck when I knew everyone was going to be spending time suspending spells.
In terms of optimal builds, just always do a gatherer/MWS search or two to make sure there isn't any card out there that does the same job, but better (like Inkmoth vs. Glistener Elf: one gets countered by Misstep, the other has flying...)
May I reccomend http://magiccards.info/search.html? For me, at least, it is so much better than the alternatives that the thought of using them makes me cringe. It's also worth putting in the time to learn the in-search-bar commands; for instance, to find all the cards that singlehandedly met the 3-week criteria, I typed "(o:3 or o:three) (pow=3 or tou=3) cmc=3" into the normal search bar and bam, all 48 of 'em (and one un-card).
Just FYI, this is prettymuch exactly how the MWS search engine works, only you can do searches on top of other searches (like look for creatures that have Forest in their rules text, then creatures without Elf in their type line, searching only for green or white creatures). Good find for non-MWS users though.
I've used MWS.
I'm at all trying to turn this into a software-choice holy war, but I do want to make sure people get the facts. You can refine searches just fine with magiccards.info by adding or removing criteria from the search bar. I do it constantly, and at least for me it is infinitely more convenient than fiddling with an interface. I never actually use the 'advanced search' page I linked to unless I've forgotten the syntax for something.
To be clear, to do the exact search refinements you described:
o:Forest (171 matches)
press right arrow, type not t:Elf
o:Forest not t:Elf (157 matches)
press right arrow, type c:wg (or c!wg if you wish to exclude multicolor cards that include other colors)
o:Forest not t:Elf c:wg (116 matches)
Seems very convenient. Like I said, it seems like a good alternative for those that don't like MWS. IMHO MWS is only more convenient because I can build the deck with only a few clicks while doing it, then fishbowl it, then playtest it, all from the same screen.
F Swamp - Vial - Misstep H18
H Urborg
F Land - Smallpox F19 H17
H Reef Draw Ulamog
F Draw Ulamog
H Draw Misstep
F Draw Vial. Vial (Misstep H15)
H Draw Urborg. Urborg. Counter (R1)
F Draw Swamp. Swamp.
H Counter (R2)
F Draw Smallpox - Smallpox F18 H14
H Draw Ulamog
F Draw Ulamog
H Draw Misstep
F Draw Vial. Vial (Misstep H12)
H Draw Urborg. Urborg. Counter (R3)
F Draw Swamp. Swamp.
H Counter (R4)
F Draw Smallpox - Smallpox F17 H11
H Draw Ulamog
F Draw Ulamog
H Draw Misstep
F Draw Vial. Vial (Misstep H09)
H Draw Urborg. Urborg. Counter (R5)
F Draw Swamp. Swamp.
H Counter (R6)
F Draw Smallpox - Smallpox F16 H8
H Draw Ulamog
F Draw Ulamog
H Draw Misstep
F Draw Vial. Vial (Misstep H6)
H Draw Urborg. Urborg. Counter (R7)
F Draw Swamp. Swamp.
H Counter (R8)
F Draw Smallpox - Smallpox F15 H5
H Draw Ulamog
F Draw Ulamog
H Draw Misstep
F Draw Vial. Vial (Misstep H3)
H Draw Urborg. Urborg. Counter (R9)
F Draw Swamp. Swamp.
H Counter (R10)
F Draw Smallpox - Smallpox F14 H4
H Draw Ulamog
F Draw Ulamog
H Draw Misstep
F Draw Vial. Vial (Misstep H2)
H Draw Urborg. Urborg. Counter (R11)
F Draw Swamp. Swamp.
H Cast Ulamog. Destroy Swamp.
F Draw Smallpox. Only 1 swamp. Sadpanda.
I love peasant decks. So blind peasant could be very fun.
No longer staff here.
Boring, Silly Technicality you don't need to read
To be fair Feyd, I can stop countering your Vial at a certain point, when it won't get to enough counters before I can annihilate it, so I actually end at like 6 life. Luckily, Vial was among the cards I was anticipating when I built my deck, which is why I have Misstep (that and Rite of Flame, making me very happy when both showed up along with other 1 drops).
Also, Personman, it seems like you've been commenting on 5CB modern the last couple of weeks. You should consider actually playing!
Also, since the set's been spoiled in its entirety, if you guys want, you can use Innistrad commons and uncommons in your deck this week.
But now I need to find a way to put Forbidden Alchemy in my deck!