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- knto
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Member for 11 years, 7 months, and 18 days
Last active Sun, Nov, 6 2022 21:21:28
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Oct 2, 2015
knto posted a message on The Magic Street Journal: Wizards Always Hurts The Ones They LoveWhile I agree with most of the article, specifically the part about speculation, I think you were a bit off the mark on pucatrade. Obviously it is a business that is intended to make money, but from what I have seen they do so by providing a service. The value of pucapoints is held relatively constant despite new users joining. The reason they offer rewards for inviting is 2 fold: 1 it brings in new players which not only means more people to potentially spend money but also a larger trading pool for all of the users, and 2 It allows for the introduction of more points into the system which is vital to keep it from failing as a micro economy (if there aren't enough points no one can afford cards and so no trading happens. This is a direct result of the price controlling but it is preferable in my mind than opening the market up to speculation). The point that "Pucatrade claims that pucapoints 'are not a virtual currency'" but that it is in fact one is much more accurate. I suspect it mas more to do with the legal implication of a currency than actively deceiving the user base. I regularly trade online and pucatrade has worked out fine for me. If you are looking for rare cards then you're going to have trouble finding them just like a regular trade system, but pucapoints make it a little easier since you don't have to have cards off their wants list. I have used the service to get rid of cards I wasn't using and to get cards that I wanted or needed plenty of times and am satisfied with the service but it is slower than a store and it takes forever to get someone to send you older cards. You can argue that it is run poorly and you could even argue that the service actually hurts the users instead of heloing them but comparing it to bit coin or saying it is a ponzi scheme is just wrong. The only people I know who are even dissatisfied with the service are people who had ridiculous expectation or who felt that trading moderators handled situations badly.Posted in: Articles - To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
4 copies of blood artist plus a good range of removal helps you stall out aggro(also forced adaptation on gravecrawler for a fat suprise blocker). At the point you drop seer a 4/4 blocker is very relavant for stabalizing and usually only hits you for 0-2. While he certainly should be sided out after the first match as he is one of your worse cards against aggro seer is not so bad that you shouldn't maindeck 3 if it's your only 4 drop. I am ofcourse only refering to zombies, In tempo seer is awful versus aggro.
I think you are better off with boardwipes than sphere of saftey. Honestly i think the place for assemble the legions is in the sideboard of american control or Naya midrange for the control matchup. It is very slow so if you want to use it against aggro you are going to have to be very heavy on aggro hate. I would honestly Just take american control and modify it to maindeck legion and be heavier on aggro hate mainboard. The upside of legion is that it's very inevitable so if you get it down with enough health and a mostly clear board, you win.
I think Curse of Misfortunes is a better finisher for sphere of safety decks. geting another enchantment every turn ensures they will never swing through.
He is good in standard but mostly see's sideboard play. Other than that i mostly agree with you. What is really driving the prices up are the eternal formats which means he will grow over time. I would say he will probably settle around $30-40 in the long run because he is only a rare and from a set that so many cards were opened in.
Raptor is great in a threat dense deck such as a bant aggro deck (Still brewing on that one) but useless in tempo.
now back on topic
zombies was always pretty good versus delver and the current meta is certainly no exception because most zombie lists run 4 of cavern of souls and you cant stabilize with a supreme verdict. Seer is definitely bad in the aggro matchup in general if you're on the draw though if you're on the play and they aren't running cavern you don't take too much damage early game so the large body gives you a good blocker and a reasonable lifelinker with azorious charm if you happen to be running it. Also you mentioned you're running GoST so you have access to restoration angel which saves GoST. Honeslty seer should only be a sideboard card when you can play restoration angel.
Still you would probably be better off with two aristocrats. I love seer and all but aristocrat is better. The real reason to run seer is because it is B/U rather than B/R. I play him in B/U zombies to great success but if I had red mana i would drop him in a heartbeat for aristocrat. The big difference is what is better in tempo which is seer. You can't be sacrificing your precious few creatures to defend a 1 toughness beater and seer will help you draw more counters etc to buy you a little more time. After all time is what is important in tempo not card advantage. If you're running esper though It's worth considering restoration angel instead of seer because T4 is often when you need to leave mana open to counter a potential Thragtusk.
2 Ghost Quarter
4 Watery Grave
4 Hallowed Fountain
3 Isolated Chapel
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Drowned Catacomb
1 Island
2 Godless Shrine
Creatures
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Restoration Angel
Enchantments
2 Soul Ransom
4 Azorius Charm
2 Dissipate
3 Syncopate
2 Remove Soul
3 Devour Flesh
1 Dimir Charm
1 Ultimate Price
2 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
4 Sphinx's Revelation
2 Think Twice
Sorcerys
2 Terminus
4 Supreme Verdict
1 Negate
1 Remove Soul
1 Dissipate
3 Geist of Saint Traft
1 Orzhov Charm
2 Dispel
2 Detention Sphere
This is a draw-go variant where almost everything is at instant speed. On the draw azorius charm and dimir charm are our best chance at survival versus aggro. Eventually the plan is to stabalize with a sphinx's revalation. The only way you actually win is by beating your opponent to death with angels and or mages but it tends to work out pretty well. If you get really desperate you can ultimate tamiyo and mill them to death with dimir charm. Finally Your other win condition is soul ransom but honestly I only play it because you can blow out bad players with a resto angel, devour flesh, or an orzov charm in response to them discarding. Orzov charm has the added slap to the face of giving you your soul ransom back so you can do it again. soul ransom is also pretty reasonable against midrange.
The other odd choices are ghost quarter because it can't hurt and I don't like to see cavern of souls naming beast. Seriously cavern ruins my day. And Terminus because it hits undying and can be played at instant speed as a miracle off of one of the 10 instant speed draw spells.
As far as the side detention sphere is for the control match up hitting pesky planeswalkers that they slip in with the help of dispel and such. GoST is also for the control mirror especially if they are very removal heavy as even if we get board control we still have to win. Verdict is obviously for aggro. Sometimes i replace terminus with verdict against control as well if they are running tokens. The rest of the side is instant speed so just side in based on the ratio of stuff your opponent is playing.
this guy has it right. Generally you want to drop him when your opponent is around 7 life. He's a great card to have after your opponent just tapped out to play a board wipe as he gets you back to hitting for large sums of damage without having to drop several threats. If you are playing aggro card advantage isn't important, 20 to 0 is. Against mid range he averages about 5.8 damage with median damage at 7-8(which is why you want to drop ) a turn. This means 50% of the time you will be able to kill an opponent at 7 life with seer alone.
With regards to giving your opponent more cards, your opponent will generally already have spells they want to play and won't have the mana to play the extra stuff coming their way. If all goes according to plan they will be dead before they get a chance to drop their hand. While he does give them the chance to draw into a solution he doesn't die to much of the instant speed removal(victim of the night, ultimate price, dimir charm, tragic slip, selesnya charm) so if you untap with him he generally gets a swing in regardless of what they draw into. This being said he is one of those cards where just because you can drop him doesn't mean you should. If you don't think you have a good chance of finishing them the turn after you play him and you have a strong board presence you should hold him.
Another important note is that he is not very strong in against other aggro decks as his effect will be more symmetric. Still a 4/4 flyer for 4 isn't bad and is definitely main deck worthy though you will often side him out versus aggro.
The deck i have found him most effective in is BU zombies. He has won me a number of games and i find that he generally never bad as blood artist offsets much of the life loss.
T1- land Experiment One
T2- land Gyre Sage/Strangleroot Geist (seriously geist is ridiculous with evolve)
T3- some other aggressive not evolve card.
gyre sage plus increasing savagery is actually a legitimate combo though as you can flash back the savagery onto a better target that same turn.