Lest you think nothing is happening here, fear not! I have been in communication with the finalists via PM. Right now submissions are being accepted on Monday, so that's our current timetable. I'll be posting the decklists I get publicly.
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Yes, I have been busy, sorry. As I may have mentioned before I work two jobs and occasionally my time is entirely consumed by them.
CC covered most of what I wanted to say. The only thing I'll add is that we actually selected the finalists by looking at the applications with the names removed, that is, we picked the application from each team that we felt was strongest on its own merits and not based on the person behind it. In both cases, we both chose the same application.
That's the process. Not perfect, but that's how it is.
Each time I do these I learn something new about running them. If they happened more often you'd notice faster revisions and a quicker convergence on a great, totally sensible process, but due to the nature of these (and the fact that I try to push the envelope every time with what we do), things don't always happen totally cleanly.
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Hello again! Thanks for waiting. Unlike last time I'll be giving combined feedback, since that is what will be most important for you to have going forward.
The dynamic between the two decks has reached a fairly nice equilibrium. The Parsenus deck is obviously the aggro, and the Vizcon takes the control role well. The high-level summary of what we found in testing is that the Vizcon deck is actually very good at establishing control if it is given time. The Parsenus deck has about a four or five turn window to put heavy pressure on, and if it can't, the lock is established and the game is pretty much over.
First things first, this is PERFECTLY FINE. The decks have very defined roles, and that's great. My opinion is that the decks need to strengthen and refine how they express these roles for this final round.
For Parsenus, that means lowering the curve and making sure that, on average, you'll be curving out every game. We had one game where Parsenus made no plays until turn 3. That game was a blowout in Parsenus's favor. You need to be attacking by turn 3! Games where a quick army rolls out and Vizcon is on the back foot are the most interesting. Vizcon has the tools to get back into the game, but if it has time to leisurely sit around and develop, those tools change from being survival mechanisms to being nukes.
For Vizcon, that means ensuring that you can survive the early game assault from Parsenus, establish control, and win the game. The deck is at this weird place where it spends the entire early game chump blocking but then, if the opposing deck lets up pressure, it suddenly amasses an army and Parsenus can't do anything. Then the game ends up being a massive board stall, which is just so boring. The only real way the deck has to win is the giant Demon, which (while great) isn't exactly reliable.
Parsenus's themes are fairly strong, though I would like to see some refinement in them for this round. Heroic and enchantments scream loud and clear. There's also a +1/+1 counter subtheme that crops up every so often. If you can make it feel more cohesive, you'd be in great shape.
Vizcon's themes are solid as well. In particular, self-milling is super awesome (I gladly spent my entire turn tapping out for a flashed back Increasing Confusion targeting myself in one game). Ionized ended up being a pretty decent mechanic, actually, though we think there are some more interesting avenues to take it (see later on).
Most of the issues we had were with specific cards. Let me do a card-by-card rundown of what we saw (this is all of the good and all of the bad):
Hopeful Eidolon: Let's get this out of the way first. Bestow was a GREAT choice for this deck. It played out as well as you would expect. Lifelink was a good addition, as it helped when racing.
Net Champion: A bit slow, but a good way to get blockers out of the way.
Triumphant Strike: Very good trick. Rebound is powerful.
Wingsteed Rider: Flying is especially powerful since Vizcon doesn't have many fliers. Thus, these draw the little removal that exists, meaning that your ground pounders get to run free.
Fleeting Wisp: A fine trick. Very unexciting when behind, though.
Auramancer: Good include. A bit slow but that's fine just due to the raw power of getting back a bestow guy.
Aura of Awe: We liked this a lot better when it checked whether your man's power was bigger than theirs. This is a better card, yes, but it's also just so… austere. The flavor was fun. You could potentially go up to two of this card.
Godly Ascension: While this card can create a monster, it's slow. Perhaps look into granting some other ability as well?
Training Guide: Ok, here we go. This one is just plain too powerful. It bestows for four mana and creates an abyss. Then when they deal with the abyss, it leaves another abyss behind! The numbers are way too small for what this does. Add counters for 2W or something, not 1W.
Faith Healer: Not really needed. You want the low drops to be powerful attackers, and the life gain is not relevant.
Ethereal Guardian: Again, the defensive cards are not what the deck wants.
Legacy of Resistance: Not bad. Again, vigilance isn't the greatest boon here but being able to move it around (say, when the opponent locked your guy down with their tapper) is useful. Try granting flying or maybe first strike.
Crusader of the Lost: While the deck wants to skew lower on the curve, as long as we're talking late game cards, this is the one I want to have. The subtle play with the opposing deck is a good touch. It won't trigger too often just because it is expensive, though.
Enduring Resolve: Yep, good trick.
God-Touched Warrior: This is the kind of two drop we need! Play it early, make it big… you know where this is going.
Spirit Wolf: You guys really need to understand that bestow costs so much because it's so powerful. This ability in particular creates an (essentially) unblockable creature that leaves another unblockable creature behind when it dies. Now, I say unblockable because when you bestow it onto something else that creature gets to be pretty big. Once you hit 4/4 or so, the Vizcon deck is in chump block mode. So they can't block and trade profitably. Rather than just eat their guys, you can choose to power through for a ton of damage. This would be fine if, say, you had the bestow cost at a more reasonable 5 or 6 mana. But not 4.
Unending Conflict: I always groaned when Parsenus played this card (that means it's good).
Heroic Mana Elf: Good job making this one interesting. I like this two drop as well.
Traveling Pilgrim: While he may have lost his faith, this card is still a great deal. It is actually quite impressive how much better this deck gets when you have one of these dudes, if only because the host of enchantments lets you suit them up so they aren't useless past turn three.
Keen Nymph: I mean, Thassa's Emissary is a card. I guess this is fair since it's so much smaller?
Legacy of Aggression: Aha, there's one of these in both colors. I didn't notice until I looked at them side-by-side like this. This one is much better. Give the other one first strike and you have yourself some powerful auras.
Triumph of Ferocity: This one plays out worse than it might seem. In the early game you want to be pushing damage. In the late game, Vizcon's creatures are often comparable to yours, so it isn't that great. Consider replacement.
Elvish Ambushers: Cute. If only his ability triggered heroic, but sadly it is not to be. We liked this one a lot though.
Acid-Quill Baloth: Whatever I said before about artifact destruction, ignore. You want some more. Not a ton more, but enough so that you don't get totally destroyed by the other deck's late game. This is too slow, and 1-for-1ing will get you nowhere.
Centaur Battlemaster: Fine. A bit high on the curve to be useful, honestly. Easily chumped.
Setessan Wildmaster: Too expensive. By the time you can cast him you are in top deck mode and can't trigger at will. The one time Parsenus got this out it was actually irrelevant! Even if it had triggered it wouldn't have broken through for enough. It IS pretty much the only way to force through a board lock, though, so I'm of two minds on it.
Heroic Sanctifier: Yes, this one is also very good. You probably want at least one more effect like this in the deck. Though having to use combat tricks outside of combat to combat Vizcon was a feel-bad moment.
Superiority: Too much overlap with Enduring Resolve. Pick one.
Balancing Mystic: Ugh this one is annoying for the other side. You could keep it I guess even though it isn't strictly an aggro card.
Spiritual Leader: This doesn't really work out well. Unlike Hero's Anthem (which is an actual anthem) this requires something like four different cards before it does ANYTHING, and that anything is just a +1/+1 boost. Also worth noting that it breaks how bestow works as it doesn't provide a static boost.
Living Aegis: Given Eidolon of Countless Battles I have to say that this is probably fine. It was fun and pretty powerful!
Hero's Anthem: I think we agree that this was cute. I like having an anthem in here.
Hero of the People: This one never came up actually, but without the anthem we just discussed, the tokens aren't very relevant. You'd need to be making 4 or 5 before you get anywhere doing it.
Parsenus: Yeah, this guy is still a beating. In one game (which was atypical) he got up to final form but still couldn't do anything, but usually this guy will be quite good. It's satisfying to win with.
Shrine to Parsenus: Vizcon take note, you want this in your deck.
Augmenting Retriever: This mother****er. We told you to replace that old demon, and replace you did! This is an incredibly powerful finisher for obvious reasons, though it doesn't feel oppressive or unanswerable. I like it quite a bit; it's a great reward for the Vizcon deck if it can survive until endgame, and it will end the game after it hits them even just once. Good card. Oh, one thing though, it's not really a blue card. It doesn't have to be, really. Embrace the darkness.
Corrosion Hound: Strictly worse than Typhoid Rats. Still good against the opposition though (and sacrificing artifacts is relevant!).
Brutal Migraine: I targeted myself with this once to mill myself early game, and targeted Parsenus with it once to snipe the trick he was sandbagging. Good design for this deck.
Thought Battery: Kind of the perfect card for this deck. I wanted to have this in my opener every time. That said, it does compete with the Shock Rock for mind space. You may wish to pick one and have two rather than split them. More on that in the other card's entry.
Dementia Trawler: I never actually got to cast this one but I can see how it would play out. I like that it gives you a reason to mill THEM, so the targeted milling has extra decision points associated with it and the symmetrical milling isn't pointless. You want multiples of this.
Scrap Slasher: Pretty decent. It's destined to chump early, but if you hit Ionized it is a very solid body. Consider giving it +2/+2 and flying instead of +3/+3. This will open up additional paths to victory, which your deck is lacking now.
Repurposing Facility: I still think this is too strong, though the game where I went nuts with it was the Increasing Confusion for 12 game, so that may be an outlier. Exiling 2 artifacts is not a hefty cost to draw a card directly from your graveyard. Boost the cost or scrap it, since this provides too much inevitability.
Control Collar: Very powerful. Didn't get to test too many games with this but this is one of those cards that lets Vizcon pivot from the back foot to the offensive very quickly. I—ok, we've all played with Vedalken Shackles, right? I'd remove it.
Drown in the Lumengrid: Mostly useless on the front end, great when Ionized. But you knew that. This is a fantastic answer to the mid- or late-game bestow guys, though they do get bigger than 5. It's a bit wordy and not really a common.
Quicksilver Guardian: Good early body. The power changing thing never happened to be relevant in the games I had this guy (due to first strike on the other side), but otherwise it's fine.
Underfice Triage: This slot could change. It's not a particularly good trick. Necrobite? Merge this slot with the Bad Rats perhaps.
Chain Forger: Much easier to keep track of now, but it still triggers on itself? Is that intended? Good enabler. This could cost 2U.
Etherium Scofflaw: Much less oppressive, but now I don't really want to draw it! It takes too long to win to be a real win condition, and it's useless as a blocker. Perhaps just replace this slot with an intimidate creature.
Vizcon: Still very powerful. Getting rid of the cost reduction was a good idea. Raising his cost to 3UB was also good (as your hand will necessarily be smaller when you cast him, reducing how crazy you can go). He still enables nutty endgame states but not quite as badly now. The other deck also has more ways to snipe him out of the graveyard, so you can't just aggressively mill yourself and expect to be able to find him + cast him.
Bury Under Scrap: This is a good spot removal spell, though the mana cost is quite restrictive. Consider it at B or 1B.
Reconsider: Strictly worse than Cancel.
Underfice Bauble: A surprisingly important part of the deck. It cycles if you draw it of course. I actually didn't realize that you changed it from milling when it hit the graveyard from wherever to only milling when you sac it. So… I played it incorrectly, but I will say that it played REALLY WELL when I did that. Keep that in mind. Maybe lower from 3 to 2 cards if power level is a concern.
Apprentice Mechromancer: Fine early roadblock. It could maybe be bigger on the back end?
Recycling Drake: Good value, necessary for blocking wingsteed riders (even if it is destined to just chump).
Escape Thopter: This is great. It gives the deck a lot of lines of play and combats the opposing removal (what little of it there is).
Magnetic Mage: Still powerful, but not unbeatable. I MIGHT consider lowering it to be a 1/3, since as is it basically bricks 2 creatures, but that's fine for 4 mana.
Vizcon's Void: Sure. Bad templating though (see voidslime).
Scrapdigger: Still very good. This one lets you go pretty deep with Esperzoa/Retriver/Vizcon, and is just good value normally.
Salvage Sifter: Always just grabs Vizcon IMO. This serves a good role.
Vizcon's Lancer: Slow, but necessary. It shuts the door on your opponent in the late game, and is usually one of the best ways to start turning the tide to actually winning (as opposed to not losing). The best friend of the various recursion cards in this deck.
Yawning Abyss: VERY powerful. One of the biggest reasons to be milling yourself (though you don't actually want to mill THIS, you would rather draw it). Flashback 6BB is steep but appropriate.
Nightwater Stone: Mana fixing is very important for this deck. If there aren't two of these in here I suggest you add a second. The fixing is honestly more important than the milling, which you can get from elsewhere. I'd go with this over the other rock.
Conduit Grid: Cut this for the second Nightwater Stone please. Or anything else. All it does is enable degeneracy.
Etherium Sculptor: Great two drop. Keep it.
Esperzoa: Very powerful now. There's enough ETB abilities that I actively want to draw this now.
Wayfarer's Bauble: Fine, (since fixing is desperately needed), but I'd still add a dual or two. Replace this if you add another shock rock.
Silent Departure: Still a fantastic answer to the other deck's stuff.
Fabricate: Not bad. Consider something like Thirst for Knowledge instead, though, as that serves your deck better.
Increasing Confusion: The first game I was like "Why would I ever do this?" Then I did it. Now I know why you would do it.
First and foremost, let me announce the finalists. Congratulations to Zoomba from team A and Doomfish from team B. You have done well so far, and your "applications" to the finals struck us as being very astute. I feel you both have an understanding of what needs to happen at this stage of the game, as well as the skill to execute it. Don't let us down!
To everybody else, congratulations on making it to the finals! I hope you had fun. But don't go away yet, your former team mates will need you soon.
Now, what needs to happen with these decks is (as both finalists correctly assessed) development. The decks have themes. They have cleverly-designed cards that work well with those themes. What we need to do now is tweak them and make them perfect matches for each other. That's hard to do when the two decks are being designed by two different teams. So, as you might have guessed, you as finalists are responsible for working on BOTH decks and giving to me your final, polished version of the set.
Use what I've given you as a guideline. If you have a different vision, that's fine, but don't go too crazy. The decks are at a pretty good spot right now. Just make sure that the things in one deck line up well with the other and we'll be good. The key here is interaction. More fliers from Vizcon so that it gets to be more proactive. More early game attackers for Parsenus so that it doesn't just lose to itself. You figure out what else you want.
Also, remember that duel decks are about fun first! Submitting two cutthroat constructed decks (I admit that I may skew toward this in my review, so be warned) is going to be worse than submitting two FUN decks that are a little looser.
I STRONGLY recommend that you playtest these decks as you go. While you're working solo now, you still have an entire team of people that used to be helping you. Reach out to them! Or just your friends. Or, hey, I'll even playtest with you. Just ask. Work on your own, in your threads, or whatever.
Our process for testing has been to use Cockatrice with the deck lists handy. It's not clean, but it works. If you don't use Cockatrice or are having trouble using custom cards (hint: "load deck list from clipboard" will allow you to use cards that aren't in the database), feel free to PM me.
The way I want to do this is to give 1 week to start and have a check-in period at that time. If more time is needed, we will see about extending the round time. But the maximum cap is 2 weeks!
Thus, the 1-week check in will be 11:59 PM on Friday, February 14th
Let me know your progress at that point.
Good luck, and congratulations on making it this far.
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Due to illness/scheduling mismatches/other business this has been unfortunately delayed. I hope that I can get the final round going Friday morning, but we'll see. I have not abandoned this!
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Of course, I haven't been paying attention to things, so it will take me a while to compile the qualified player list. But when that's all said and done, we'll get started.
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CC covered most of what I wanted to say. The only thing I'll add is that we actually selected the finalists by looking at the applications with the names removed, that is, we picked the application from each team that we felt was strongest on its own merits and not based on the person behind it. In both cases, we both chose the same application.
That's the process. Not perfect, but that's how it is.
Each time I do these I learn something new about running them. If they happened more often you'd notice faster revisions and a quicker convergence on a great, totally sensible process, but due to the nature of these (and the fact that I try to push the envelope every time with what we do), things don't always happen totally cleanly.
The dynamic between the two decks has reached a fairly nice equilibrium. The Parsenus deck is obviously the aggro, and the Vizcon takes the control role well. The high-level summary of what we found in testing is that the Vizcon deck is actually very good at establishing control if it is given time. The Parsenus deck has about a four or five turn window to put heavy pressure on, and if it can't, the lock is established and the game is pretty much over.
First things first, this is PERFECTLY FINE. The decks have very defined roles, and that's great. My opinion is that the decks need to strengthen and refine how they express these roles for this final round.
For Parsenus, that means lowering the curve and making sure that, on average, you'll be curving out every game. We had one game where Parsenus made no plays until turn 3. That game was a blowout in Parsenus's favor. You need to be attacking by turn 3! Games where a quick army rolls out and Vizcon is on the back foot are the most interesting. Vizcon has the tools to get back into the game, but if it has time to leisurely sit around and develop, those tools change from being survival mechanisms to being nukes.
For Vizcon, that means ensuring that you can survive the early game assault from Parsenus, establish control, and win the game. The deck is at this weird place where it spends the entire early game chump blocking but then, if the opposing deck lets up pressure, it suddenly amasses an army and Parsenus can't do anything. Then the game ends up being a massive board stall, which is just so boring. The only real way the deck has to win is the giant Demon, which (while great) isn't exactly reliable.
Parsenus's themes are fairly strong, though I would like to see some refinement in them for this round. Heroic and enchantments scream loud and clear. There's also a +1/+1 counter subtheme that crops up every so often. If you can make it feel more cohesive, you'd be in great shape.
Vizcon's themes are solid as well. In particular, self-milling is super awesome (I gladly spent my entire turn tapping out for a flashed back Increasing Confusion targeting myself in one game). Ionized ended up being a pretty decent mechanic, actually, though we think there are some more interesting avenues to take it (see later on).
Most of the issues we had were with specific cards. Let me do a card-by-card rundown of what we saw (this is all of the good and all of the bad):
Hopeful Eidolon: Let's get this out of the way first. Bestow was a GREAT choice for this deck. It played out as well as you would expect. Lifelink was a good addition, as it helped when racing.
Net Champion: A bit slow, but a good way to get blockers out of the way.
Triumphant Strike: Very good trick. Rebound is powerful.
Wingsteed Rider: Flying is especially powerful since Vizcon doesn't have many fliers. Thus, these draw the little removal that exists, meaning that your ground pounders get to run free.
Fleeting Wisp: A fine trick. Very unexciting when behind, though.
Auramancer: Good include. A bit slow but that's fine just due to the raw power of getting back a bestow guy.
Aura of Awe: We liked this a lot better when it checked whether your man's power was bigger than theirs. This is a better card, yes, but it's also just so… austere. The flavor was fun. You could potentially go up to two of this card.
Godly Ascension: While this card can create a monster, it's slow. Perhaps look into granting some other ability as well?
Training Guide: Ok, here we go. This one is just plain too powerful. It bestows for four mana and creates an abyss. Then when they deal with the abyss, it leaves another abyss behind! The numbers are way too small for what this does. Add counters for 2W or something, not 1W.
Faith Healer: Not really needed. You want the low drops to be powerful attackers, and the life gain is not relevant.
Ethereal Guardian: Again, the defensive cards are not what the deck wants.
Legacy of Resistance: Not bad. Again, vigilance isn't the greatest boon here but being able to move it around (say, when the opponent locked your guy down with their tapper) is useful. Try granting flying or maybe first strike.
Crusader of the Lost: While the deck wants to skew lower on the curve, as long as we're talking late game cards, this is the one I want to have. The subtle play with the opposing deck is a good touch. It won't trigger too often just because it is expensive, though.
Enduring Resolve: Yep, good trick.
God-Touched Warrior: This is the kind of two drop we need! Play it early, make it big… you know where this is going.
Spirit Wolf: You guys really need to understand that bestow costs so much because it's so powerful. This ability in particular creates an (essentially) unblockable creature that leaves another unblockable creature behind when it dies. Now, I say unblockable because when you bestow it onto something else that creature gets to be pretty big. Once you hit 4/4 or so, the Vizcon deck is in chump block mode. So they can't block and trade profitably. Rather than just eat their guys, you can choose to power through for a ton of damage. This would be fine if, say, you had the bestow cost at a more reasonable 5 or 6 mana. But not 4.
Unending Conflict: I always groaned when Parsenus played this card (that means it's good).
Heroic Mana Elf: Good job making this one interesting. I like this two drop as well.
Traveling Pilgrim: While he may have lost his faith, this card is still a great deal. It is actually quite impressive how much better this deck gets when you have one of these dudes, if only because the host of enchantments lets you suit them up so they aren't useless past turn three.
Keen Nymph: I mean, Thassa's Emissary is a card. I guess this is fair since it's so much smaller?
Legacy of Aggression: Aha, there's one of these in both colors. I didn't notice until I looked at them side-by-side like this. This one is much better. Give the other one first strike and you have yourself some powerful auras.
Triumph of Ferocity: This one plays out worse than it might seem. In the early game you want to be pushing damage. In the late game, Vizcon's creatures are often comparable to yours, so it isn't that great. Consider replacement.
Elvish Ambushers: Cute. If only his ability triggered heroic, but sadly it is not to be. We liked this one a lot though.
Acid-Quill Baloth: Whatever I said before about artifact destruction, ignore. You want some more. Not a ton more, but enough so that you don't get totally destroyed by the other deck's late game. This is too slow, and 1-for-1ing will get you nowhere.
Centaur Battlemaster: Fine. A bit high on the curve to be useful, honestly. Easily chumped.
Setessan Wildmaster: Too expensive. By the time you can cast him you are in top deck mode and can't trigger at will. The one time Parsenus got this out it was actually irrelevant! Even if it had triggered it wouldn't have broken through for enough. It IS pretty much the only way to force through a board lock, though, so I'm of two minds on it.
Heroic Sanctifier: Yes, this one is also very good. You probably want at least one more effect like this in the deck. Though having to use combat tricks outside of combat to combat Vizcon was a feel-bad moment.
Superiority: Too much overlap with Enduring Resolve. Pick one.
Balancing Mystic: Ugh this one is annoying for the other side. You could keep it I guess even though it isn't strictly an aggro card.
Spiritual Leader: This doesn't really work out well. Unlike Hero's Anthem (which is an actual anthem) this requires something like four different cards before it does ANYTHING, and that anything is just a +1/+1 boost. Also worth noting that it breaks how bestow works as it doesn't provide a static boost.
Living Aegis: Given Eidolon of Countless Battles I have to say that this is probably fine. It was fun and pretty powerful!
Hero's Anthem: I think we agree that this was cute. I like having an anthem in here.
Hero of the People: This one never came up actually, but without the anthem we just discussed, the tokens aren't very relevant. You'd need to be making 4 or 5 before you get anywhere doing it.
Parsenus: Yeah, this guy is still a beating. In one game (which was atypical) he got up to final form but still couldn't do anything, but usually this guy will be quite good. It's satisfying to win with.
Shrine to Parsenus: Vizcon take note, you want this in your deck.
Augmenting Retriever: This mother****er. We told you to replace that old demon, and replace you did! This is an incredibly powerful finisher for obvious reasons, though it doesn't feel oppressive or unanswerable. I like it quite a bit; it's a great reward for the Vizcon deck if it can survive until endgame, and it will end the game after it hits them even just once. Good card. Oh, one thing though, it's not really a blue card. It doesn't have to be, really. Embrace the darkness.
Corrosion Hound: Strictly worse than Typhoid Rats. Still good against the opposition though (and sacrificing artifacts is relevant!).
Brutal Migraine: I targeted myself with this once to mill myself early game, and targeted Parsenus with it once to snipe the trick he was sandbagging. Good design for this deck.
Thought Battery: Kind of the perfect card for this deck. I wanted to have this in my opener every time. That said, it does compete with the Shock Rock for mind space. You may wish to pick one and have two rather than split them. More on that in the other card's entry.
Dementia Trawler: I never actually got to cast this one but I can see how it would play out. I like that it gives you a reason to mill THEM, so the targeted milling has extra decision points associated with it and the symmetrical milling isn't pointless. You want multiples of this.
Scrap Slasher: Pretty decent. It's destined to chump early, but if you hit Ionized it is a very solid body. Consider giving it +2/+2 and flying instead of +3/+3. This will open up additional paths to victory, which your deck is lacking now.
Repurposing Facility: I still think this is too strong, though the game where I went nuts with it was the Increasing Confusion for 12 game, so that may be an outlier. Exiling 2 artifacts is not a hefty cost to draw a card directly from your graveyard. Boost the cost or scrap it, since this provides too much inevitability.
Control Collar: Very powerful. Didn't get to test too many games with this but this is one of those cards that lets Vizcon pivot from the back foot to the offensive very quickly. I—ok, we've all played with Vedalken Shackles, right? I'd remove it.
Drown in the Lumengrid: Mostly useless on the front end, great when Ionized. But you knew that. This is a fantastic answer to the mid- or late-game bestow guys, though they do get bigger than 5. It's a bit wordy and not really a common.
Quicksilver Guardian: Good early body. The power changing thing never happened to be relevant in the games I had this guy (due to first strike on the other side), but otherwise it's fine.
Underfice Triage: This slot could change. It's not a particularly good trick. Necrobite? Merge this slot with the Bad Rats perhaps.
Chain Forger: Much easier to keep track of now, but it still triggers on itself? Is that intended? Good enabler. This could cost 2U.
Etherium Scofflaw: Much less oppressive, but now I don't really want to draw it! It takes too long to win to be a real win condition, and it's useless as a blocker. Perhaps just replace this slot with an intimidate creature.
Vizcon: Still very powerful. Getting rid of the cost reduction was a good idea. Raising his cost to 3UB was also good (as your hand will necessarily be smaller when you cast him, reducing how crazy you can go). He still enables nutty endgame states but not quite as badly now. The other deck also has more ways to snipe him out of the graveyard, so you can't just aggressively mill yourself and expect to be able to find him + cast him.
Bury Under Scrap: This is a good spot removal spell, though the mana cost is quite restrictive. Consider it at B or 1B.
Reconsider: Strictly worse than Cancel.
Underfice Bauble: A surprisingly important part of the deck. It cycles if you draw it of course. I actually didn't realize that you changed it from milling when it hit the graveyard from wherever to only milling when you sac it. So… I played it incorrectly, but I will say that it played REALLY WELL when I did that. Keep that in mind. Maybe lower from 3 to 2 cards if power level is a concern.
Apprentice Mechromancer: Fine early roadblock. It could maybe be bigger on the back end?
Recycling Drake: Good value, necessary for blocking wingsteed riders (even if it is destined to just chump).
Escape Thopter: This is great. It gives the deck a lot of lines of play and combats the opposing removal (what little of it there is).
Magnetic Mage: Still powerful, but not unbeatable. I MIGHT consider lowering it to be a 1/3, since as is it basically bricks 2 creatures, but that's fine for 4 mana.
Vizcon's Void: Sure. Bad templating though (see voidslime).
Scrapdigger: Still very good. This one lets you go pretty deep with Esperzoa/Retriver/Vizcon, and is just good value normally.
Salvage Sifter: Always just grabs Vizcon IMO. This serves a good role.
Vizcon's Lancer: Slow, but necessary. It shuts the door on your opponent in the late game, and is usually one of the best ways to start turning the tide to actually winning (as opposed to not losing). The best friend of the various recursion cards in this deck.
Yawning Abyss: VERY powerful. One of the biggest reasons to be milling yourself (though you don't actually want to mill THIS, you would rather draw it). Flashback 6BB is steep but appropriate.
Nightwater Stone: Mana fixing is very important for this deck. If there aren't two of these in here I suggest you add a second. The fixing is honestly more important than the milling, which you can get from elsewhere. I'd go with this over the other rock.
Conduit Grid: Cut this for the second Nightwater Stone please. Or anything else. All it does is enable degeneracy.
Etherium Sculptor: Great two drop. Keep it.
Esperzoa: Very powerful now. There's enough ETB abilities that I actively want to draw this now.
Wayfarer's Bauble: Fine, (since fixing is desperately needed), but I'd still add a dual or two. Replace this if you add another shock rock.
Silent Departure: Still a fantastic answer to the other deck's stuff.
Fabricate: Not bad. Consider something like Thirst for Knowledge instead, though, as that serves your deck better.
Increasing Confusion: The first game I was like "Why would I ever do this?" Then I did it. Now I know why you would do it.
To everybody else, congratulations on making it to the finals! I hope you had fun. But don't go away yet, your former team mates will need you soon.
Now, what needs to happen with these decks is (as both finalists correctly assessed) development. The decks have themes. They have cleverly-designed cards that work well with those themes. What we need to do now is tweak them and make them perfect matches for each other. That's hard to do when the two decks are being designed by two different teams. So, as you might have guessed, you as finalists are responsible for working on BOTH decks and giving to me your final, polished version of the set.
Use what I've given you as a guideline. If you have a different vision, that's fine, but don't go too crazy. The decks are at a pretty good spot right now. Just make sure that the things in one deck line up well with the other and we'll be good. The key here is interaction. More fliers from Vizcon so that it gets to be more proactive. More early game attackers for Parsenus so that it doesn't just lose to itself. You figure out what else you want.
Also, remember that duel decks are about fun first! Submitting two cutthroat constructed decks (I admit that I may skew toward this in my review, so be warned) is going to be worse than submitting two FUN decks that are a little looser.
I STRONGLY recommend that you playtest these decks as you go. While you're working solo now, you still have an entire team of people that used to be helping you. Reach out to them! Or just your friends. Or, hey, I'll even playtest with you. Just ask. Work on your own, in your threads, or whatever.
Our process for testing has been to use Cockatrice with the deck lists handy. It's not clean, but it works. If you don't use Cockatrice or are having trouble using custom cards (hint: "load deck list from clipboard" will allow you to use cards that aren't in the database), feel free to PM me.
The way I want to do this is to give 1 week to start and have a check-in period at that time. If more time is needed, we will see about extending the round time. But the maximum cap is 2 weeks!
Thus, the 1-week check in will be 11:59 PM on Friday, February 14th
Let me know your progress at that point.
Good luck, and congratulations on making it this far.
Thanks for the offer! You'll probably want to take advantage of that next round. (sneak preview~)
I'm actually working (like, effort -> dollars) right now, but I'll get everything moving along this evening.
Thanks for your patience, everybody!
I finished my writeup, but I have to run out. I'll be back in a few hours and I will ACTUALLY get the next round up when I return.
Sorry for the delay, this is on me entirely.
I'll get us going later tonight.
The next round will likely go up tomorrow evening.
I've done some preliminary testing so far and hope to get games in either tonight or tomorrow so we can get round 2 started by Monday next week.
Just a status report!
Rudyard 40
aftermarketradio 40
Raikou Rider 38
Gerrard's Mom 34
BlackBull 30
Moss_Elemental 28
(nameless one) 28
Jimmy Groove 28
Zoomba 28
FreshMeat 24
void_nothing 20
Vertain 18
Snow Creature - Penguin 18
doombringer 18
doomfish 18
Koopa 16
Eventide Sojourner 14
Antny223 12
EzraEliot 12
Rush_Clasic 10
fooligan 10
BaconCatBug 10
Sagharri 10
SelesnyaNewLife 10
Egak 8
willows 8
Svennihilator 8
Harbinger 8
palanthas 8
MDenham 8
gorgonic hairspray 8
Tesco(black)lotus 8
ParaSiempre 8
northprophet 8
coletrain 8
coolgriff14 12
Marco 8
spezza19 8
Profani 8
Ryder052 8
Draco9 8
Eskimo_Rage 6
hankroyd 4
Sir Karn 4
Atogaholic 4
Big_Cal 4
Altaurus321 4
Mix Master Mikaeus 4
TacticalCelebrant 4
Question Mark 4
SecretInfiltrator 4
admirableadmiral 4
herbert west 2
eplkewell 2
Prophylaxis 2
person3412 2
Maraga 2
drewdagreek 2
Gyuzen64 2
Link 2
MajoraX 2
Tinfoil Hat 2
The fourth CCC&G Pro Tour will be starting soon!
Of course, I haven't been paying attention to things, so it will take me a while to compile the qualified player list. But when that's all said and done, we'll get started.