I figured those of us doing sealed could post them here.
I opened a completely terrible pool. With Angelic Overseer, a total of 8 white cards, only 3 of which were human (counting Gather the Townsfolk as a human card).
I also opened Skirksday Flayer and the 2 evolving Wilds to splash him (saving grace) in a UG deck that was forced to play Delver of Secrets just to have 4 humans to justify splashing the flayer.
Bombs: Dungeon Geists, Increasing Savagery.
I did get the mulch for creatures card and Splinterfright, however I drew Splinterfright in 4 games and played him in 0 of them. He's not good. At all. Wrong deck to try to play him.
Best moment: Turn 1 delver, turn 2, deranged assistant. Turn 3, flip Delver off of Increasing Savagery.
Delver single-handedly kills my opponent that game.
Did I mention my only removal was 1 blazing torch and 1 claustrophobia. I was going to count Dungeon Geists, except he got Traitorous Blood(ed) in one game, which caused his effect to end.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Asking people to remove quotes in their signatures is tyranny! If I can't say something just because someone's feelings are hurt then no one would ever be able to say anything! Political correctness is stupid.
I chose black over blue as the second color for a more synergistic aggro gameplan (plus the efficient removal didn't hurt).
Ended up 3-1, losing in the finals to a deck with two Lingering Souls. Somewhat surprising LVP overall was Blood Feud. Six mana is a *lot*, especially in this kind of deck, and my other removal was quite good anyway.
Also, I managed the legendary turn 4 kill in match 3, game 3: Waif -> flip, attack for 3, Interloper -> Erdwal Ripper, attack for 7 -> attack for 8, Fling. The entire game took about forty seconds.
Wild Hunger won me at least 2 games, giving that extra power and reach to finish games. Both the white Niblis' were good as well, particularly Niblis of the Urn. Tapping down a defender every turn when you're running an aggressive deck is excellent, and its cheap enough that it doesn't hurt the curve with its weak 1/1 body. My 1 Crushing Vines mainboard nearly always had a target, and I think I boarded in my second in more than half my games.
Including the last game, which I should have lost. You see, my opponent timed out. While in the middle of attacking for lethal. All of our games were very close, and game 3 had been particularly intense (This was the game my Huntmaster got popped by Slayer of the Wicked), and he had the clear board position. My 8/8 Gravetiller Wurm was Bonds'ed, and my Somberwald Dryad was being tapped by his Niblis of the Urn. He only had seconds left however, and was going through his last turns quickly. On the final attack, he had already swung with all his guys and tapped my dryad with about 2 seconds left. He says he was mashing f4 at this point (Note: NOT f6). I had no cards in hand, but thought what the hell and flashbacked my Wild Hunger on his creature. For whatever reason, it was enough to time him out.
I ended up talking to him for about 10 minutes straight afterwords, during which he essentially just continuously called me a jackass. Note that I did give him 3 packs (So it was essentially a 7-7 split between us), since I knew it was a dick move, but he felt this was not enough. Felt that he had deserved the complete win, and my stalling for the timeout was a lack of class.
Personally I believe getting him to timeout is a legitimate strategy. I did nothing beforehand to stall, only the last Wild Hunger when I saw I was dead and his clock was almost out. Had he also been f6'ed rather than f4'ed, I don't think it would have mattered at all. He did mention lag, but that's hardly my fault. Then there's also the fact that my clock was still comfortably at ~3 min. It is a somewhat shadier avenue of victory, but the clock is there for a reason. There's no doubt it was a dick move, but I feel it was justified, and my conscience feels clear in splitting the prize with him.
I'm curious what others think of the situation. Would you have given him the whole win (Him with 10 packs, you on 4), kept all 10 for yourself, or split it?
Regardless, definitely an interesting end to my first Sealed in ages.
It's perfectly fine to time someone out like that. The clock exists for a reason and if you play at a reasonable pace you will never lose to the clock. I would have told him to shut it and kept the packs, if he doesn't like it he can play quicker next time. He is solely responsible for his loss.
It depends on the situation. If the guy was slowplaying the entire match then I would feel fine timing him out on purpose and keeping all of the packs. If he is going to be a dick playing slow for his full 25 minutes then I feel fine being one back.
If he was playing at a reasonable pace the whole match and his clock ran out because your decks were about even or that's just how the games came out (you stalled, slow creature progression on both sides, etc.) then you should have let him have his win.
Knowing players on MTGO, though, I'd say he was probably playing slowly until he saw he was in his last couple of minutes. I had someone get incredibly angry at me because I turtled game 3 against him to time him out. He was playing a Spider Spawning/Gnaw to the Bone flashback deck that made my killing him very difficult; game 1 I crushed him, game 2 I dealt over 80 damage to him but he was able to cast Gnaw at least 7 times. The entire time he was playing extremely slowly. Two minutes to decide blockers, 30 seconds to do end step, etc. Going into game three I had 12 minutes on my clock and he had just under 3 so I sided in every defensive card I had and played to not lose. I didn't do any unnecessary triggers I just made it so he couldn't kill me quickly.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Getting into Modern if you have any commons/uncommons you want to unload for cheap (everything before Zendikar needed). My trade list.
My pool was bad. I had no removal, literally. My DKA rares were 2x Geralf's Messenger and 1x Gravecrawler with no other zombies or incentive to go heavy black. I started out 2-0 somehow with my pile then faced some real decks and ended 2-2.
I had Sorin! And Lingering Souls! And only about 3-4 good white and black cards apart from that - so I had to splash some so-so red to make my 23. Went 2-2. But Sorin payed for the entry and a bit more Had almost not a single 1 or 2 drop in any colors, which made building a deck quite awkward.
My first pool had aristocrat, marauders, blademaster, and stromkirk noble, but it's curve was a little high, and it went 2-2. My second pool however, was absolutely insane, and I should have gone 4-0 if I had built it correctly.
I opened Sorin, TWO bloodlines keepers (one foil :D), sever the bloodline, skirsdag high priest, and geralf's mindcrusher....
My white was pretty bad so I built UB splashing white for sorin and burden of guilt, with no fixing unfortunately. I somehow managed to only 3-1, losing to very good draws from a strong UW deck (snapcaster --> midnight haunting one game), but it was close.
I think I should have splashed red for double fires of undeath and geistflame, as I boarded into 3 out of 4 matches. I was probably blinded by the awesomeness of sorin :), but maybe my initial build was still correct. Overall the event was very fun and the pool was one of the best I've ever opened.
It's perfectly fine to time someone out like that. The clock exists for a reason
~snip~
Yep. To echo everyone else: I have *once* used three consecutive equipment activations to burn my opponent's last 3 seconds. I would have won anyway, since I was sitting above 12 minutes, but I was doing it to make a point to an admitted double-queuing, trash-talking bastard. You don't get close to zero with the other fellow still in double digits without agonizingly slow play.
If you're a slow player and you lose to the clock, I'm going to cheerfully cash in my win. You'll starve before you see a sympathy prize split from me, and I wouldn't expect one in return.
/end rant.
Let's hear some more of those MTGO pre-release stories! I told myself I wasn't going to pay the exhorbitant ticket price this time, since I'm still going infinite and I don't want to deplete my resources...but if your stories are good enough, you'll entice me to play!
I opened Huntmaster, so I was going to be RG. And I also had 2 Lingering Souls, so I was going to be W/B. You know what that means? Yes, another 4-color monstrosity!
Ended up 3-1, with the match I lost going: G1 - Only time I was Green color screwed. Ended the game with 6 plains and my Mountain and 5 Green cards (including Huntmastrer) sitting in my hand. G2, crushed him. G3, took a risk keeping a 1 lander with a Traveller's Amulet + some cheap creatures. Got off to an early fast start, knocking him down to 7 with me still at 20, but then he stabilized with multiple fliers, including Murder of Crows, for which I had Bonds of Faith, but it still drew him a bazzilion cards as I had to make multiple trades just to stay alive, and I drew all land and lost.
Was fun. The EV is terrible, I know. The fact I lucked out and opened a Hunsmaster which paid for it all, doesn't really excuse it. But you don't do these for value, you do them because they are fun and you just want to play.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Quote from Bateleur »
Ambush Krotiq makes me laugh so much. I keep rereading the card and it keeps not having Flash. In what sense is this an ambush again? I just have visions of this huge Krotiq poorly concealed in some bushes, feeling slightly sad that his carefully planned ambushes never seem to work.
Including the last game, which I should have lost. You see, my opponent timed out. While in the middle of attacking for lethal. All of our games were very close, and game 3 had been particularly intense (This was the game my Huntmaster got popped by Slayer of the Wicked), and he had the clear board position. My 8/8 Gravetiller Wurm was Bonds'ed, and my Somberwald Dryad was being tapped by his Niblis of the Urn. He only had seconds left however, and was going through his last turns quickly. On the final attack, he had already swung with all his guys and tapped my dryad with about 2 seconds left. He says he was mashing f4 at this point (Note: NOT f6). I had no cards in hand, but thought what the hell and flashbacked my Wild Hunger on his creature. For whatever reason, it was enough to time him out.
FYI, this is technically against the rules and you can be suspended for this. If you had a lot of time on your clock, and he f4'd instead of f6ing I have little Sympathy for him but just fyi, you might not want to do that because he can report you.
I actually won a game at 0:00 on my clock earlier this year and my opponent was stalling me out with useless triggers. Had I lost, I would have reported him in a heart-beat.
I actually got compensation for a RGD draft in which both my opponent and I were close to timing out but I was the one who did so (My argument was that the reduction from 30 to 25 minutes per round is unreasonable for Ravnica block limited).
Why do so many people play these crappy online prereleases... format is not that much different from straight IST, and in 3 days you could be playing sealed for +100% EV.
FYI, this is technically against the rules and you can be suspended for this. If you had a lot of time on your clock, and he f4'd instead of f6ing I have little Sympathy for him but just fyi, you might not want to do that because he can report you.
I actually won a game at 0:00 on my clock earlier this year and my opponent was stalling me out with useless triggers. Had I lost, I would have reported him in a heart-beat.
It is not against the rules to cast a spell. I agree that putting multiple activations of a useless ability on the stack over and over again in an attempt to disrupt your opponent is griefing and may be punishable by WotC but that's not what this guy did. He cast a spell. One spell.
It is not against the rules to cast a spell. I agree that putting multiple activations of a useless ability on the stack over and over again in an attempt to disrupt your opponent is griefing and may be punishable by WotC but that's not what this guy did. He cast a spell. One spell.
Casting a Spell with no relevance to the board state of outcome of the game is stalling which is a violation of rule 9 of the MTGO code of conduct.
Casting a Spell with no relevance to the board state of outcome of the game is stalling which is a violation of rule 9 of the MTGO code of conduct.
Where does it say that casting a spell that has no relevance to the board state stalling. The rule is poorly defined and unclear. I'd also argue that casting a spell that changes the board state is always relevant in one way or another. People keep playing all the time when they know they are dead on board just in case their opponent makes a mistake. Show me any case where WotC has taken action over someone casting a single spell.
9. Do not attempt to artificially alter the outcome of a league, sanctioned event, or organized game. For example:
Bribe or offer compensation in order to change the game outcome
Stall, spam, harass, or behave in any unsportsmanlike manner that affects the game
What's the word from you pre-release players on Undying Evil? It remains my theoretical favorite common, and I'm eager to hear about its practical applications.
What's the word from you pre-release players on Undying Evil? It remains my theoretical favorite common, and I'm eager to hear about its practical applications.
~M
Yes, it's completely amazing and totally worth taking early in draft. It combines so well with so many cards (slayer, morkrut banshee, the list goes on)..depending on synergy, it might even be something to splash along with a few dead weights or whatever.
It was a card that I highly underrated until I played with it -- it makes so many cards so much better!
Agreed about Undying Evil. Remember how good Ranger's Guile ended up being? Evil is pretty similar in most of the ways that count, plus it can lead to combat blowouts and protect against Blasphemous Act. Probably a pretty high pick in black (5th-7th feels right), and definitely something to keep in mind if your opponent leaves open a lot.
I rolled face in a prerelease with what was basically a preconstructed deck. 18 aggressive white cards (champion of the parish, 2 loyal cathar, gather the townsfolk, double hollowhenge spirit, slayer, 14 humans in total), three removal spells, Avacyn's Collar, Silver-Inlaid Dagger, and a Skirsdag Flayer, 12 plains 2 swamps 1 evolving wilds and a traveler's amulet. It helped that my first two opponents made several misplays.
So I did prerelease with my pool, which I was really happy about, but then I started playing and for some reason (for that day only), I kept getting mana screwed. First hand was all lands, so I mulled to 6 getting all nonlands. This situation happened each game during each match.
By the third match, I just dropped because it wasn't worth fighting over for one pack and realized I should have waited until the queues fired next week.
Opened 0 playable rares, ended with G/U splashing W for removal, went 4-0, deck was all solid ground guys or fliers and i had great luck getting all mana i needed.
Obviously, nothign amazing, went 2-2, sold garruk for 15.
But! In my final match, I lost in good part to the client freezing at the end of game 1, preventing me from sideboarding my anti-spirit and anti-enchantment against a UW opponent with the ever annoying Soul Seizer. (I did misplay one play, but no SB really hurt me.) Asked Wizards if no sideboarding was worthy of some compensations and got 28tix back! Thanks Wizards, that's top notch support! (And you know I'll be squandering those tix on more release events, so not much lost to you uh? )
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I opened a completely terrible pool. With Angelic Overseer, a total of 8 white cards, only 3 of which were human (counting Gather the Townsfolk as a human card).
I also opened Skirksday Flayer and the 2 evolving Wilds to splash him (saving grace) in a UG deck that was forced to play Delver of Secrets just to have 4 humans to justify splashing the flayer.
Bombs: Dungeon Geists, Increasing Savagery.
I did get the mulch for creatures card and Splinterfright, however I drew Splinterfright in 4 games and played him in 0 of them. He's not good. At all. Wrong deck to try to play him.
Best moment: Turn 1 delver, turn 2, deranged assistant. Turn 3, flip Delver off of Increasing Savagery.
Delver single-handedly kills my opponent that game.
Did I mention my only removal was 1 blazing torch and 1 claustrophobia. I was going to count Dungeon Geists, except he got Traitorous Blood(ed) in one game, which caused his effect to end.
Ended up 3-1, losing in the finals to a deck with two Lingering Souls. Somewhat surprising LVP overall was Blood Feud. Six mana is a *lot*, especially in this kind of deck, and my other removal was quite good anyway.
Also, I managed the legendary turn 4 kill in match 3, game 3: Waif -> flip, attack for 3, Interloper -> Erdwal Ripper, attack for 7 -> attack for 8, Fling. The entire game took about forty seconds.
I technically went 4-0, though I should have lost the last match. I'll get to that.
I went G/W/r, splashing for Wrack With Madness, Huntmaster of the Fells, and flashback on Wild Hunger off 1 mountain, 1 Terramorphic Expanse, and 1 Traveler's Amulet. I didn't have much trouble hitting the mountain, and drew WwM and WH multiple times, but only got the Huntmaster once unfortunately. And he immediately died to a Slayer of the Wicked:-/.
Other notable cards: Kessig Cagebreakers, Burden of Guilt, Wolfbitten Captive
Wild Hunger won me at least 2 games, giving that extra power and reach to finish games. Both the white Niblis' were good as well, particularly Niblis of the Urn. Tapping down a defender every turn when you're running an aggressive deck is excellent, and its cheap enough that it doesn't hurt the curve with its weak 1/1 body. My 1 Crushing Vines mainboard nearly always had a target, and I think I boarded in my second in more than half my games.
Including the last game, which I should have lost. You see, my opponent timed out. While in the middle of attacking for lethal. All of our games were very close, and game 3 had been particularly intense (This was the game my Huntmaster got popped by Slayer of the Wicked), and he had the clear board position. My 8/8 Gravetiller Wurm was Bonds'ed, and my Somberwald Dryad was being tapped by his Niblis of the Urn. He only had seconds left however, and was going through his last turns quickly. On the final attack, he had already swung with all his guys and tapped my dryad with about 2 seconds left. He says he was mashing f4 at this point (Note: NOT f6). I had no cards in hand, but thought what the hell and flashbacked my Wild Hunger on his creature. For whatever reason, it was enough to time him out.
I ended up talking to him for about 10 minutes straight afterwords, during which he essentially just continuously called me a jackass. Note that I did give him 3 packs (So it was essentially a 7-7 split between us), since I knew it was a dick move, but he felt this was not enough. Felt that he had deserved the complete win, and my stalling for the timeout was a lack of class.
Personally I believe getting him to timeout is a legitimate strategy. I did nothing beforehand to stall, only the last Wild Hunger when I saw I was dead and his clock was almost out. Had he also been f6'ed rather than f4'ed, I don't think it would have mattered at all. He did mention lag, but that's hardly my fault. Then there's also the fact that my clock was still comfortably at ~3 min. It is a somewhat shadier avenue of victory, but the clock is there for a reason. There's no doubt it was a dick move, but I feel it was justified, and my conscience feels clear in splitting the prize with him.
I'm curious what others think of the situation. Would you have given him the whole win (Him with 10 packs, you on 4), kept all 10 for yourself, or split it?
Regardless, definitely an interesting end to my first Sealed in ages.
This. Your opponent can only blame himself.
If he was playing at a reasonable pace the whole match and his clock ran out because your decks were about even or that's just how the games came out (you stalled, slow creature progression on both sides, etc.) then you should have let him have his win.
Knowing players on MTGO, though, I'd say he was probably playing slowly until he saw he was in his last couple of minutes. I had someone get incredibly angry at me because I turtled game 3 against him to time him out. He was playing a Spider Spawning/Gnaw to the Bone flashback deck that made my killing him very difficult; game 1 I crushed him, game 2 I dealt over 80 damage to him but he was able to cast Gnaw at least 7 times. The entire time he was playing extremely slowly. Two minutes to decide blockers, 30 seconds to do end step, etc. Going into game three I had 12 minutes on my clock and he had just under 3 so I sided in every defensive card I had and played to not lose. I didn't do any unnecessary triggers I just made it so he couldn't kill me quickly.
My pool was bad. I had no removal, literally. My DKA rares were 2x Geralf's Messenger and 1x Gravecrawler with no other zombies or incentive to go heavy black. I started out 2-0 somehow with my pile then faced some real decks and ended 2-2.
I opened Sorin, TWO bloodlines keepers (one foil :D), sever the bloodline, skirsdag high priest, and geralf's mindcrusher....
My white was pretty bad so I built UB splashing white for sorin and burden of guilt, with no fixing unfortunately. I somehow managed to only 3-1, losing to very good draws from a strong UW deck (snapcaster --> midnight haunting one game), but it was close.
I think I should have splashed red for double fires of undeath and geistflame, as I boarded into 3 out of 4 matches. I was probably blinded by the awesomeness of sorin :), but maybe my initial build was still correct. Overall the event was very fun and the pool was one of the best I've ever opened.
~snip~
Yep. To echo everyone else: I have *once* used three consecutive equipment activations to burn my opponent's last 3 seconds. I would have won anyway, since I was sitting above 12 minutes, but I was doing it to make a point to an admitted double-queuing, trash-talking bastard. You don't get close to zero with the other fellow still in double digits without agonizingly slow play.
If you're a slow player and you lose to the clock, I'm going to cheerfully cash in my win. You'll starve before you see a sympathy prize split from me, and I wouldn't expect one in return.
/end rant.
Let's hear some more of those MTGO pre-release stories! I told myself I wasn't going to pay the exhorbitant ticket price this time, since I'm still going infinite and I don't want to deplete my resources...but if your stories are good enough, you'll entice me to play!
~M
Basically I was G/W main, with 1 Mountain and 1 Swamp. I had a Traveller's Amulet, a Shimmering Grotto, and Dawntreader Elk for fixing, which ended up being quite reasonable. And doing those 4 colors meant I could play both my Burning Oil, Rally the Peasants, and Spider Spawning.
Did you know Lingering Souls + Rally the Peasants is very unfair? I crushed multiple opponents with this.
Ended up 3-1, with the match I lost going: G1 - Only time I was Green color screwed. Ended the game with 6 plains and my Mountain and 5 Green cards (including Huntmastrer) sitting in my hand. G2, crushed him. G3, took a risk keeping a 1 lander with a Traveller's Amulet + some cheap creatures. Got off to an early fast start, knocking him down to 7 with me still at 20, but then he stabilized with multiple fliers, including Murder of Crows, for which I had Bonds of Faith, but it still drew him a bazzilion cards as I had to make multiple trades just to stay alive, and I drew all land and lost.
Was fun. The EV is terrible, I know. The fact I lucked out and opened a Hunsmaster which paid for it all, doesn't really excuse it. But you don't do these for value, you do them because they are fun and you just want to play.
FYI, this is technically against the rules and you can be suspended for this. If you had a lot of time on your clock, and he f4'd instead of f6ing I have little Sympathy for him but just fyi, you might not want to do that because he can report you.
I actually won a game at 0:00 on my clock earlier this year and my opponent was stalling me out with useless triggers. Had I lost, I would have reported him in a heart-beat.
Why do so many people play these crappy online prereleases... format is not that much different from straight IST, and in 3 days you could be playing sealed for +100% EV.
It is not against the rules to cast a spell. I agree that putting multiple activations of a useless ability on the stack over and over again in an attempt to disrupt your opponent is griefing and may be punishable by WotC but that's not what this guy did. He cast a spell. One spell.
Casting a Spell with no relevance to the board state of outcome of the game is stalling which is a violation of rule 9 of the MTGO code of conduct.
Where does it say that casting a spell that has no relevance to the board state stalling. The rule is poorly defined and unclear. I'd also argue that casting a spell that changes the board state is always relevant in one way or another. People keep playing all the time when they know they are dead on board just in case their opponent makes a mistake. Show me any case where WotC has taken action over someone casting a single spell.
9. Do not attempt to artificially alter the outcome of a league, sanctioned event, or organized game. For example:
Bribe or offer compensation in order to change the game outcome
Stall, spam, harass, or behave in any unsportsmanlike manner that affects the game
What's the word from you pre-release players on Undying Evil? It remains my theoretical favorite common, and I'm eager to hear about its practical applications.
~M
Yes, it's completely amazing and totally worth taking early in draft. It combines so well with so many cards (slayer, morkrut banshee, the list goes on)..depending on synergy, it might even be something to splash along with a few dead weights or whatever.
It was a card that I highly underrated until I played with it -- it makes so many cards so much better!
*DCI Rules Advisor*
So I did prerelease with my pool, which I was really happy about, but then I started playing and for some reason (for that day only), I kept getting mana screwed. First hand was all lands, so I mulled to 6 getting all nonlands. This situation happened each game during each match.
By the third match, I just dropped because it wasn't worth fighting over for one pack and realized I should have waited until the queues fired next week.
Obviously, nothign amazing, went 2-2, sold garruk for 15.
But! In my final match, I lost in good part to the client freezing at the end of game 1, preventing me from sideboarding my anti-spirit and anti-enchantment against a UW opponent with the ever annoying Soul Seizer. (I did misplay one play, but no SB really hurt me.) Asked Wizards if no sideboarding was worthy of some compensations and got 28tix back! Thanks Wizards, that's top notch support! (And you know I'll be squandering those tix on more release events, so not much lost to you uh? )