MTGsalvation provides a vastly superior quality of discussion and is a better forum for pro input.
Most of the upper level grinders and lower level pros that I know on the west coast (myself included) would say the exact opposite. MTGsal is pretty well regarded as having a remarkably low quality of competitive discussion, and most only read on here to find out what's going to be getting played in rounds 1-3. The only place I know of that's held in lower esteem is the general forums on Tappedout.
Contrast that with r/magictcg, where truly terrible posts get downvoted to the point of being unseen, and name pros actually chime in and contribute to discussion, not to mention official WoTC and store reps. Contrast that with a site that's amazingly slow and is blocked on many business and professional firewalls, and that's pretty much that. Obviously there's issues in other places too, but MTGSal views many of its deficiencies as strengths and has remained static or regressed since getting sold to Curse.
Just cuz the people in this thread might be interested... I posted an album on imgur of my 94ish/100 foiled Norin deck, and posted it on the foils subreddit. I am sure there's some rule somewhere that linking to it or whatever would break, and I'm tired of the moderation around here, so I'll just tell you it's out there and hopefully a search or two will get you to it if you're interested.
Finished 5th at a 22 person GameDay going 3-1-1, the loss being to a super fast white humans deck.
Is anyone else becoming more and more unimpressed with Sorin, Grim Nemesis ? On paper and in goldfish he seems good but in actual games... Not so much?
I think it's worth discussing the core of the deck. I have opted not to go with the Lingering Souls package and shoot for the high end finishers. For me, Kozilek has been a serious workhorse for the deck, and the maindeck Surgical Extraction does an amazing amount of work. Obviously, my version is more grindy midrange than aggro midrange.
***Disclaimer*** I checked the last page or two and found no discussion of this, and none in decklists, so here goes:
I started running 1-of Cavern of Souls in my Grixis Delver build.
Delver, Snapcaster, Young Pyromancer, Tasigur, even Bob if you run him are all humans. I had been running a Lighthouse, and while that has great utility, in my meta there's a decent amount of Delver and Twin decks, so it was productive. It can also make the manabase easier on occasion, dropping one T1 for Delver and using it again T2 for Tasigur makes for decent flexibility.
Also, if you're a little crazy and don't run Tasigur and do run Clique, you can name Wizard and cover a lot of it except for Young Pyro...
I have to question if you have any kind of competitive drive at all. If you're competitive, losing at anything, even a game of chess is going to make you upset. If it doesn't, then you don't have any real drive to win and you shouldn't be playing at a large scale tournament of any kind. You're just wasting everyone's time.
Ugh, you were doing so well until you said "upset", then you let it dribble down your leg... and then when you talked about wasting people's time you completely flew into the side of the mountain. If you're competitive, losing may bother you. Some competitive people have perspective, and sometimes even analytical ability to let them determine if the loss was unavoidable, and they work on what needs to be improved to enhance their performance.
However, who the hell are you to tell someone why they should or shouldn't be playing in a tournament?
I don't offer handshakes, because lots of people in the MTG community are pretty damn gross.
I never say "good game" unless it really actually was a hell of a game.
When I whip someones ass, I shake my head and say "thank you for the games".
And when I've received that kind of beating and had someone laugh, grin, and say "hey, good game!", I've told them to go **** themselves with a rusty pole, and explained to them that they're an ******** for doing that when they know it wasn't a good game.
Congrats on the win, Dakhwon! I wasn't able to attend Game Day--it being on Valentine's Day was quite unfortunate--but I'm glad to see someone having success.
How was playing Frontier Siege alongside Whip of Erebos? My biggest hesitation with that would be that it would bring your total of 4 mana spells to 14, which could be a little awkward. Your build seems to trade the consistency and speed of the normal BG version for some more resiliency. Does the Whip of Erebos/Siege Rhino duo help this deck's aggro matchup enough?
23 lands also feels like it's pretty precarious in a deck with 14 4-drops, 3 5-drops, and 5 spells 7 mana and over.
Excellent questions. I actually don't fully recommend my build. It was a meta decision to shore up the aggro matchup. Really, this is an Abzan whip deck with a VERY large Constellation package. The Frontier Siege --> Hornet Queen --> Whip of Erebos synergy added an extra dimension. Later in the game, if you're blind dropping a Siege, you can get even more mileage off of Dragons mode, since casting or whipping a Hornet Queen is a one-sided board wipe most of the time.
When I ran the straight BG Constellation build, 2 Ugins were better, and honestly I was tempted to run 3. The mana isn't quite as bad as it looks, with the 4 Wayfinders, 4 Frontier Siege and 4 Caryatids. 2 lands and a Wayfinder get you where you want to be most of the time. As you guessed, the Siege Rhinos were specifically added to help with what I feel is a weak aggro matchup. They did enough for me, buying the extra turn or two needed to stablize and get a whip down.
With BGx in Standard right now, I think it's better to look at aspects of decks as packages, and they can be interchangeable if you like what it brings to your deck.
Won Gameday this evening going 5-0 with a BGw Constellation build that splashed white for Siege Rhino and Abzan Charm. I had been playing the BG list that BBD started, and really liked the Frontier Siege into Ugin action, but it was just a step slow against faster aggro. I did not face Boros Burn tonight, which is probably the deck I'm most scared of.
I don't play Norin as much as I used to, it put a few people off EDH in my community. But I still have the deck whole and hearty and ready to run (literally) at a moment's notice. But then, back in October, opportunity struck. So after a year and a half of looking for one, and finding one in St. Petersberg...and 2 months of it sitting in customs in NYC, gentlement (and ladies), I give you the foil Russian Norin the Wary.
I mean seriously, you know how hard these things are to find?
I really like trading at prereleases when people are buying into bad players hyping bad cards. I always trade for fair value, but I love making the smart trade long term.
Most of the upper level grinders and lower level pros that I know on the west coast (myself included) would say the exact opposite. MTGsal is pretty well regarded as having a remarkably low quality of competitive discussion, and most only read on here to find out what's going to be getting played in rounds 1-3. The only place I know of that's held in lower esteem is the general forums on Tappedout.
Contrast that with r/magictcg, where truly terrible posts get downvoted to the point of being unseen, and name pros actually chime in and contribute to discussion, not to mention official WoTC and store reps. Contrast that with a site that's amazingly slow and is blocked on many business and professional firewalls, and that's pretty much that. Obviously there's issues in other places too, but MTGSal views many of its deficiencies as strengths and has remained static or regressed since getting sold to Curse.
Is anyone else becoming more and more unimpressed with Sorin, Grim Nemesis ? On paper and in goldfish he seems good but in actual games... Not so much?
If I'm being really honest, this is one of the main reasons I'm on this deck. There are few things more satisfying than processing an AV.
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Cavern of Souls
4x Caves of Koilos
4x Eldrazi Temple
3x Ghost Quarter
1x Godless Shrine
2x Marsh Flats
1x Plains
2x Shambling Vent
2x Swamp
2x Thespian's Stage
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Vault of the Archangel
2x Conduit of Ruin
2x Eldrazi Displacer
1x Kozilek, the Great Distortion
1x Oblivion Sower
4x Thought-Knot Seer
1x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
4x Wasteland Strangler
1x Anguished Unmaking
4x Path to Exile
3x Surgical Extraction
2x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Relic of Progenitus
1x Damnation
2x Disenchant
1x Ghost Quarter
2x Leyline of Sanctity
2x Lingering Souls
2x Stony Silence
2x Thoughtseize
2x Timely Reinforcements
1x Drown in Sorrow
For me, I'd say the core 4x's of the list are:
Path to Exile
Wasteland Strangler
Relic of Progenitus
Would that be the Dustin Hoffman kind or the full blown Daniel-Day Lewis?
I started running 1-of Cavern of Souls in my Grixis Delver build.
Delver, Snapcaster, Young Pyromancer, Tasigur, even Bob if you run him are all humans. I had been running a Lighthouse, and while that has great utility, in my meta there's a decent amount of Delver and Twin decks, so it was productive. It can also make the manabase easier on occasion, dropping one T1 for Delver and using it again T2 for Tasigur makes for decent flexibility.
Also, if you're a little crazy and don't run Tasigur and do run Clique, you can name Wizard and cover a lot of it except for Young Pyro...
Ugh, you were doing so well until you said "upset", then you let it dribble down your leg... and then when you talked about wasting people's time you completely flew into the side of the mountain. If you're competitive, losing may bother you. Some competitive people have perspective, and sometimes even analytical ability to let them determine if the loss was unavoidable, and they work on what needs to be improved to enhance their performance.
However, who the hell are you to tell someone why they should or shouldn't be playing in a tournament?
I never say "good game" unless it really actually was a hell of a game.
When I whip someones ass, I shake my head and say "thank you for the games".
And when I've received that kind of beating and had someone laugh, grin, and say "hey, good game!", I've told them to go **** themselves with a rusty pole, and explained to them that they're an ******** for doing that when they know it wasn't a good game.
Excellent questions. I actually don't fully recommend my build. It was a meta decision to shore up the aggro matchup. Really, this is an Abzan whip deck with a VERY large Constellation package. The Frontier Siege --> Hornet Queen --> Whip of Erebos synergy added an extra dimension. Later in the game, if you're blind dropping a Siege, you can get even more mileage off of Dragons mode, since casting or whipping a Hornet Queen is a one-sided board wipe most of the time.
When I ran the straight BG Constellation build, 2 Ugins were better, and honestly I was tempted to run 3. The mana isn't quite as bad as it looks, with the 4 Wayfinders, 4 Frontier Siege and 4 Caryatids. 2 lands and a Wayfinder get you where you want to be most of the time. As you guessed, the Siege Rhinos were specifically added to help with what I feel is a weak aggro matchup. They did enough for me, buying the extra turn or two needed to stablize and get a whip down.
With BGx in Standard right now, I think it's better to look at aspects of decks as packages, and they can be interchangeable if you like what it brings to your deck.
2x Caves of Koilos
3x Forest
4x Llanowar Wastes
1x Plains
4x Sandsteppe Citadel
4x Temple of Malady
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4x Windswept Heath
Artifact (3)
3x Whip of Erebos
Creature (24)
3x Doomwake Giant
3x Eidolon of Blossoms
4x Hornet Queen
4x Satyr Wayfinder
4x Siege Rhino
4x Sylvan Caryatid
2x Tasigur, the Golden Fang
3x Abzan Charm
2x Hero's Downfall
Enchantment (4)
4x Frontier Siege
Planeswalker (1)
1x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
2x Anafenza, the Foremost
2x Bile Blight
2x Drown in Sorrow
2x Erase
1x Hero's Downfall
2x Mistcutter Hydra
3x Thoughtseize
1x Utter End
I mean seriously, you know how hard these things are to find?
My: Temporal Mastery
Their: 2x Snapcaster Mages, 1x Solemn Simulacrum
And
My: 2x Top8 Promo Firemane Avenger
Their: Scalding Tarn
Both of those trades were even money at the time.