practice/playtesting/training with the deck that you take to the tourney? psshh who needs that.
you gonna be @ FNM? I gots to pick up my DvD tomorrow! Gawd I can't wait lol
edit:
Actually D-storm (teds, w/e) was crushing zoo during testing.
I'll be there, Chris, and congrats again on the win! Christopholoph won the PTQ with a deck that he chose the night before. Turns out Doran isn't too bad.
As for the speed of TEDS vs. Zoo, Naya Zoo is a turn four kill at best. Domain Zoo could pull of a turn three kill with a total God-hand (turn one Cat, turn two Cat and Ape, turn three Tribal Flames and Might). TEDS was quite consistantly a turn four combo. That meant, on the play, it could outrace Zoo. On the draw, a timely Gigadrowse to tap down their dudes would buy you the time to beat them as well. Post-board, it really started to suck, with Firespouts setting the Zoo player so far back. And remember, Zoo loves hurting themselves with land, so a D-storm for 2 really was lethal, barring any Overlords in hand.
It's worst matchups were Bant, TEPS, and Elves. Bant, turns out, has all the tools that TEDS hates, like the Jitte, the Stifles, life gain, worship. TEPS and Elves are just combo decks that are faster, but that's why TEDS ran the Chalices in the board. Chalice for one vs. Elves is pretty good. Set for two against TEPS wasn't bad, either. Both of those are numbers that TEDS can live without.
When next season comes around, I'm sure we'll mess around more with TEDS. Plus, with Onslaught block leaving next season, it'll be one of the few viable combo decks in Extended.
This thread is for the discussion of my latest article, Good Game: Another Trip to the Zoo. We would be grateful if you would let us know what you think, but please keep your comments on topic.
i'm inclined to call real on this simply because of the art and artist. That is definitely Wayne Reynolds' style. If it is fake, my hat is off to the forger for such a convincing fake.
Uuuuhm, are you sure he got a Forest? 'Cause, you know, if that was his first green source in that game, how did he play his Nacatl? And why was his Ape 2/3? I think someone got something wrong here
Ha, good call. He must not have got a forest then, though I could have sworn he had a regular forest in play...Maybe he already had full domain when I played the path, and I just missed it...
Any particular reason you played into Might of Alara? I think the Hellspark Elementals need to go. They're not that good when you're jockeying for on board position anyway, which is exactly what this deck does. I would suggest a build closer to Saitos, Tarfire over Incinerates and Isamaru, and a sideboard like this:
4 Pillar
3 Fallout
2 Ranger
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Kataki or Finks
Congrats on the top eight.
nope, no reason I played into it. good call, though. I'll have to be more careful... :S
I've been messing with the list, and i've took some advice from Saito. The Hellsparks are out, as are the Canonists. In are 3 Teegs, 1 Isamaru, the fourth Vortex, and the fourth Path. What do you think of the Vortex over the Thoctar? To me, preventing the life gain seems bigger. Yeah, the Vortex can sometimes bury me if the opponent manages to swing the game around, and doesn't really help me come back from behind, but Kitchen Finks + Lightning Helix from the opponent really sucks...what do you think?
also, what would you think to -4 Mogg Fanatics, +2 Isamaru, +2 Shock-variants (which would bring me to 4 seals, 4 tarfires)?
This thread is for the discussion of my latest article, Good Game: Can Zoo Q for Honolulu. We would be grateful if you would let us know what you think, but please keep your comments on topic.
This thread is for the discussion of my latest article, Good Game: In a Bigger Pond. We would be grateful if you would let us know what you think, but please keep your comments on topic.
When that new kid opens Black Knight and says, "Wow, cool!" And that shopkeeper says "Big whoop," that veteran player in the corner is going to say to the shopkeeper, "Are you nuts?"
Black Knight and White Knight were both great iconic creatures when I started the game back in Revised. They will still be iconic, I think, and their flavor/mechanics relationship is easy to, in the words of MaRo, grok. It's exactly the kind of thing you want for new players.
As for the playability of said cards, Black Knight is solid. His brother, Hand of Cruelty, saw play in Standard, and with Path to Exile, Rhox War Monk, and Wall of Reverance seeing play, Black Knight is going to be totally playable.
I really like the throwback feel WotC is going for with M10 (terrible name)--I remember starting Magic up and thinking, at first, that it was based off of D&D. I think that's huge for new players, who don't know the Magic-specific fantasy settings.
thanks for the positive feedback guys. this wasn't my typical tourney report, so it's nice to see that some people enjoyed it.
a couple of things that have come to my attention since i finished writing the article (almost a week ago, now). r/w Lark is a really good deck--totally legit in the metagame. That's something to look out for. Faeries is still awesome, probably #1. Fallout is still sick, but so is Vendilion Clique. :/
as far as my merfolk deck goes, it's been getting tweaked slowly over the past week. most of it has been to the board. like, celestial purge...Obviously, after the Pro Tour is done, i'll write up my report and show everyone the decklist I ran, and I can even mention the reasoning behind some of my selections and omissions, if you guys are interested.
This thread is for the discussion of my latest article, The (Con)Flux of the New Standard. We would be grateful if you would let us know what you think, but please keep your comments on topic.
stop wasting time on extended and test for tokyo. You certainly are not going to audible out of playing merfolk, so you shouldnt even worry about your standard deck either. You needs MOAR ala ala cfx testing. turn on modo right now. you should be drafting nonstop until the PT. The only bant charm vs. o-ring argument is whether to play it safe on o-ring or to just raw-dog the charm when you see them both pack 1 pick 1.
ah mike, you always tell it to me straight. In all fairness, this article had been done for some time, but the Conflux-related articles bumped it back. Truthfully, I have been focusing on Standard, playtesting against what seems like some of the core decks (though their may be some holes). So don't fret too much. To those out there who are curious, that article is going up this friday.
AJ, thanks for the disertation. Lots of good stuff there. When I focus on Extended again, I'll reread what you said--especially the part about going to 6 other decks before touching Zoo....
Yamikiri - What do you want to know about? I talked about Jitte a tiny bit in my Berlin report but could definitely go further in depth. Bant Charm just makes no sense, but I can talk about that too if you want.
The Bant Charm doesn't do nothing, as you said in an earlier post, though it may be a bad card to include in something like zoo. I ran it because it can get rid of Goyf, it can hit artifacts (Jitte's, anything in Affinity, even Chalices if I needed to), and can occasionally do something cute do instants. All that said, it is loose. It's expensive for Zoo, and hard to play. I've been messing around with the deck a bit (and I will admit, I am no expert with this deck, or with extended), and I've been thinking of pulling it. But AJ, what would you run in its place?
As for the Jitte, it angers me. It's slow and clunky, and can sometimes win games, but can sometimes be a dead draw, too. Again, what would you replace it with?
I've been trying to work Scullers into the deck since LA, but have been having problems. Really, I would like to see what kind of Zoo list you would run, if you ran Zoo at a PTQ.
Side Note: We played at the Grand Prix. I was your first opponent, playing the Zoo deck. I'm not sure if you remember the match at all, but any advice you could give on it would be awesome.
This thread is for the discussion of my latest article, Good Game: Is it Wise to Go to the Zoo?. We would be grateful if you would let us know what you think, but please keep your comments on topic.
Not being an Extended player myself I have a question: what is Bant Charm good for? I mean obviously it's a good card in some abstract sense, but in which matchups is it properly good? This article made it sound a bit irrelevant!
It's great in the mirror as it takes out Goyf and they can't save it with a Hedge-Mage (which they can if you run O-Ring, instead), it's good against Affinity (as is any artifact hate), it's good against faeries, as it can force a burn spell through (your own counter magic) as well as pop annoying artifacts (see Affinity), and it turns out it's good against TEPS, something I didn't find out until I actually played in the PTQ (it counters mana ramp). It's also good against All-In Red (barring Blood Moon, of course) because it can send their giant 5-drop to the bottom. The one matchup where I really didn't like it and boarded it out was Death Cloud. Nothing in there really cares about the CHarm, and as the aggro deck, you don't have time (or the space) to be messing around with utility cards--you need to rush and burn burn burn.
I'll be there, Chris, and congrats again on the win! Christopholoph won the PTQ with a deck that he chose the night before. Turns out Doran isn't too bad.
As for the speed of TEDS vs. Zoo, Naya Zoo is a turn four kill at best. Domain Zoo could pull of a turn three kill with a total God-hand (turn one Cat, turn two Cat and Ape, turn three Tribal Flames and Might). TEDS was quite consistantly a turn four combo. That meant, on the play, it could outrace Zoo. On the draw, a timely Gigadrowse to tap down their dudes would buy you the time to beat them as well. Post-board, it really started to suck, with Firespouts setting the Zoo player so far back. And remember, Zoo loves hurting themselves with land, so a D-storm for 2 really was lethal, barring any Overlords in hand.
It's worst matchups were Bant, TEPS, and Elves. Bant, turns out, has all the tools that TEDS hates, like the Jitte, the Stifles, life gain, worship. TEPS and Elves are just combo decks that are faster, but that's why TEDS ran the Chalices in the board. Chalice for one vs. Elves is pretty good. Set for two against TEPS wasn't bad, either. Both of those are numbers that TEDS can live without.
When next season comes around, I'm sure we'll mess around more with TEDS. Plus, with Onslaught block leaving next season, it'll be one of the few viable combo decks in Extended.
Ha, good call. He must not have got a forest then, though I could have sworn he had a regular forest in play...Maybe he already had full domain when I played the path, and I just missed it...
nope, no reason I played into it. good call, though. I'll have to be more careful... :S
I've been messing with the list, and i've took some advice from Saito. The Hellsparks are out, as are the Canonists. In are 3 Teegs, 1 Isamaru, the fourth Vortex, and the fourth Path. What do you think of the Vortex over the Thoctar? To me, preventing the life gain seems bigger. Yeah, the Vortex can sometimes bury me if the opponent manages to swing the game around, and doesn't really help me come back from behind, but Kitchen Finks + Lightning Helix from the opponent really sucks...what do you think?
also, what would you think to -4 Mogg Fanatics, +2 Isamaru, +2 Shock-variants (which would bring me to 4 seals, 4 tarfires)?
I'll take the neck snap, i mean resounding silence, under advice. one PTQ left. Phoenix is Apr 4. hopefully, i can go to honolulu with you.
Black Knight and White Knight were both great iconic creatures when I started the game back in Revised. They will still be iconic, I think, and their flavor/mechanics relationship is easy to, in the words of MaRo, grok. It's exactly the kind of thing you want for new players.
As for the playability of said cards, Black Knight is solid. His brother, Hand of Cruelty, saw play in Standard, and with Path to Exile, Rhox War Monk, and Wall of Reverance seeing play, Black Knight is going to be totally playable.
I really like the throwback feel WotC is going for with M10 (terrible name)--I remember starting Magic up and thinking, at first, that it was based off of D&D. I think that's huge for new players, who don't know the Magic-specific fantasy settings.
a couple of things that have come to my attention since i finished writing the article (almost a week ago, now). r/w Lark is a really good deck--totally legit in the metagame. That's something to look out for. Faeries is still awesome, probably #1. Fallout is still sick, but so is Vendilion Clique. :/
as far as my merfolk deck goes, it's been getting tweaked slowly over the past week. most of it has been to the board. like, celestial purge...Obviously, after the Pro Tour is done, i'll write up my report and show everyone the decklist I ran, and I can even mention the reasoning behind some of my selections and omissions, if you guys are interested.
and for calling the Forge-Tender a "he", oops...
maybe those are man-boobs...doubtful, huh?
ah mike, you always tell it to me straight. In all fairness, this article had been done for some time, but the Conflux-related articles bumped it back. Truthfully, I have been focusing on Standard, playtesting against what seems like some of the core decks (though their may be some holes). So don't fret too much. To those out there who are curious, that article is going up this friday.
AJ, thanks for the disertation. Lots of good stuff there. When I focus on Extended again, I'll reread what you said--especially the part about going to 6 other decks before touching Zoo....
The Bant Charm doesn't do nothing, as you said in an earlier post, though it may be a bad card to include in something like zoo. I ran it because it can get rid of Goyf, it can hit artifacts (Jitte's, anything in Affinity, even Chalices if I needed to), and can occasionally do something cute do instants. All that said, it is loose. It's expensive for Zoo, and hard to play. I've been messing around with the deck a bit (and I will admit, I am no expert with this deck, or with extended), and I've been thinking of pulling it. But AJ, what would you run in its place?
As for the Jitte, it angers me. It's slow and clunky, and can sometimes win games, but can sometimes be a dead draw, too. Again, what would you replace it with?
I've been trying to work Scullers into the deck since LA, but have been having problems. Really, I would like to see what kind of Zoo list you would run, if you ran Zoo at a PTQ.
Side Note: We played at the Grand Prix. I was your first opponent, playing the Zoo deck. I'm not sure if you remember the match at all, but any advice you could give on it would be awesome.
It's great in the mirror as it takes out Goyf and they can't save it with a Hedge-Mage (which they can if you run O-Ring, instead), it's good against Affinity (as is any artifact hate), it's good against faeries, as it can force a burn spell through (your own counter magic) as well as pop annoying artifacts (see Affinity), and it turns out it's good against TEPS, something I didn't find out until I actually played in the PTQ (it counters mana ramp). It's also good against All-In Red (barring Blood Moon, of course) because it can send their giant 5-drop to the bottom. The one matchup where I really didn't like it and boarded it out was Death Cloud. Nothing in there really cares about the CHarm, and as the aggro deck, you don't have time (or the space) to be messing around with utility cards--you need to rush and burn burn burn.