Looks interesting. I can't see why you wouldn't play mud instead though. This gets a bunch of cantrips which is cool, but going into an additional color instead of playing more colorless lands means that sundering titan hits you harder. You also look access to the powerful lock pieces that mud gets to play.
Hey, thanks for doing this Pseudofate. I tend to think of 'good' as being better than 'solid', but that's neither here nor there. Here's my nitpicks with your rankings:
Demolish
3r
Sorcery
Destroy target artifact or land. Filler
Oh hello Demolish, I won't be playing you in this set either.
Trash?
Keep in mind Chained To Rocks is in this set. Land destruction is sideboard playable against white decks. Also, LD could be good against multicolor decks due to the generally weak fixing in this set. That said, I would never advocate maindecking demolish or any other LD.
Why would you write an article about two decks that are virtually identical? Limiting the card pool to standard essentially limits it to one set because the tribe only appears in that set. 20 of the nonland cards, and 8 of hte lands are identical between decks, in the initial list, and a whoping 25 non-land cards are identical in the final list, with the primary difference being galerider sliver versus striking and blur slivers.
Secondly, this line just confuses me: "In: 3 Mutavault
Apparently this manland is really good. I thought an ordinary 2/2 that doubled as a Sliver would be underwhelming, but just a free extra creature made a huge difference. "
Why would the best manland from legacy not be good enough for block constructed? And why is this not a four of in both decks?
As for your questions at the end of the article, pick whatever card pool you want to talk about. The only issue with standard is that playing two decks of the same archetype against each other isn't going to be very interesting because the mirror will be so similar. I would have liked to have seen this as time spiral slivers versus M14 slivers or something like that but unfortunately the mirror would be stupid with the timespiral slivers buffing the m14 slivers and not the other way around. That said, a comparison of standard decks from different blocks would be kinda cool. at my local shop there's some people that have been doing that with an eternal standard format.
I just started playing magic not to long ago and the guys I play with have fairly expensive control decks that wipe pretty much anything I have out before I can get any momentum. They use control decks focused on keeping themselves alive long enough to use door to nothingness or darksteel reactor or even one friend has a combo where he brings his health to one and wins the game... long story short I want to male them suffer lol. I don't really care about winning I just want to make a beefy anti control deck to keep them from doing all these ccombos I don't understand.. ideas?
hm, how targeted do you want to go? You have a few options depending on what kind of control cards they're using.
1. Their decks look slow. You can run a faster combo and try to win before they do. This is only good if they aren't packing heavy counter magic.
2. Again, if they're slow, a straight up burn or aggro deck can work, especially burn. If someone sets hit life to 1, lightning bolt seems good. Against life gain decks burn will be weaker, but aggro will be stronger.
3. Hate. They're dependent on specific cards. Anything that trades 1-for-1 will be awesome. Counterspells, artifact removal (especially instant speed or exiling), or even just static effects that mess them up like pithing needle will make them rage. To add insult to injury, run red with lava dart for the guy who is trolling with the life total at 1 thing.
Tempo decks will be good, but I didn't want to shoehorn you into one strategy. There's many kinds of tempo, not just delver. Hell even land destruction could be fun against them.
And apart from that if by paying UU1R I can play Artful Dodge, Flash it back, atack for 7 unblocked, cast fling and throw him for 10, hence a 17 damage move for 4 mana.
I should warn you that this doesn't work how you think it does. the sacrifice is part of casting fling, not the resolution, so casting fling will destroy the cyclops before its on cast ability can trigger.
hm, thats an interesting challenge. You need sets that are designed to be drafted (Onslaught block onwards) but that are weak over all and not designed heavily around block mechanics. Fifth dawn and saviors are good suggestions, but won't draft well. Maybe planar chaos with planeshift and something else with a color or land theme? They're both pretty middle of the road as sets go, but could draft decently together. Probably something from alara for fixing as the final set. Not sure which is the worst of those. Also, dragons maze is an option as the third set.
Masques seems the opposite of what you want. Decent cards and a bad draft environment.
Yeah, the idea is that only running one makes it more likely to be drawn for Miracle than be in your opening 7. The reality, however, is that Burn relies too much on the first four turns to really want to try to apply that strategy. In Burn it's a bad card that is randomly, occasionally really good. But the price you pay in opening hand consistency isn't worth it.
The thing is that the number of thunderous wraths has no effect on the fact that you are more likely to draw it in your opening hand than during the game. I really like the card (enough to play it as a four of since I don't play burn in tournaments any more) but it needs magma jet to even break even.
Removal is almost never dead against Burn. Every list runs Goblin Guide, most run additional creatures as well.
This is true, but other creatures in burn have to be reacted to at instant speed. goblin guide can come out and swing turn 1, murarders deals 2 damage no matter what the opponent does. Even the mediorce hellspark elemental has haste. The opponent can afford to let devil resolve and then deal with it the following turn. Nothing else in burn does that.
Depends on the build. If you are creature heavy, I think Zegana is a better maindeck card just to pull away a little bit. Four extra cards can do a lot more than an Aethering sometimes. Just puts a nail in the coffin. If you're more spell based, I'm guessing this is better.
Possibly you play both even in a creature heavy deck. Either way, I don't think you ever play more than 1 main deck Aethering. They're not great in multiples, and you shouldn't ever need more than one. You might sideboard a 2nd for the control mirrors though to be sure you draw it.
EDIT:
Completely unrelated. If you are playing Armadillo Cloak in your deck, and you are using it as what is essentially a Pacifism, aren't you already dead?
Your forgetting the stacking action of armadillo cloak, its seperate from lifelink, and therefore plays much nicer with it than the new card does.
I have to applaud wizards for coming up with a replacement for the lucky charms that is even worse. Didn't think it could be done but there you have it.
um legacy. A shop in my area regularly pulls in 20-40 people for monthly legacy tournaments, and has been know to have to turn people away because of lack of seats (they're able to accommodate 62 max).
There actually are cross tribe synergistic cards. The problem is that the powerlevel has to be quite pushed for them to be good. They work best in limited, and fairly poorly in constructed.
o.O a magic article about 60 card with legacy card pool and awesome card interactions? I'm sold. I do wish there was a little more about the testing though.
He means that they run r/w lands in what would otherwise be a mono-red deck.
Keep in mind Chained To Rocks is in this set. Land destruction is sideboard playable against white decks. Also, LD could be good against multicolor decks due to the generally weak fixing in this set. That said, I would never advocate maindecking demolish or any other LD.
Secondly, this line just confuses me: "In: 3 Mutavault
Apparently this manland is really good. I thought an ordinary 2/2 that doubled as a Sliver would be underwhelming, but just a free extra creature made a huge difference. "
Why would the best manland from legacy not be good enough for block constructed? And why is this not a four of in both decks?
As for your questions at the end of the article, pick whatever card pool you want to talk about. The only issue with standard is that playing two decks of the same archetype against each other isn't going to be very interesting because the mirror will be so similar. I would have liked to have seen this as time spiral slivers versus M14 slivers or something like that but unfortunately the mirror would be stupid with the timespiral slivers buffing the m14 slivers and not the other way around. That said, a comparison of standard decks from different blocks would be kinda cool. at my local shop there's some people that have been doing that with an eternal standard format.
SB: 1 Altar's Reap
SB: 1 Blood Bairn
SB: 2 Shadowborn Apostle
SB: 2 Undead Minotaur
SB: 1 Vampire Warlord
SB: 2 Vile Rebirth
SB: 1 Demolish
SB: 1 Goblin Diplomats
SB: 1 Seismic Stomp
SB: 2 Brave the Elements
SB: 2 Siege Mastodon
SB: 1 Plummet
SB: 1 Millstone
SB: 1 Pay No Heed
3 Dark Favor
1 Mark of the Vampire
1 Quag Sickness
2 Angelic Accord
3 Auramancer
1 Banisher Priest
2 Capashen Knight
1 Celestial Flare
2 Dawnstrike Paladin
1 Master of Diversion
1 Pillarfield Ox
2 Stonehorn Chanter
1 Suntail Hawk
2 Staff of the Sun Magus
7 Swamp
10 Plains
hm, how targeted do you want to go? You have a few options depending on what kind of control cards they're using.
1. Their decks look slow. You can run a faster combo and try to win before they do. This is only good if they aren't packing heavy counter magic.
2. Again, if they're slow, a straight up burn or aggro deck can work, especially burn. If someone sets hit life to 1, lightning bolt seems good. Against life gain decks burn will be weaker, but aggro will be stronger.
3. Hate. They're dependent on specific cards. Anything that trades 1-for-1 will be awesome. Counterspells, artifact removal (especially instant speed or exiling), or even just static effects that mess them up like pithing needle will make them rage. To add insult to injury, run red with lava dart for the guy who is trolling with the life total at 1 thing.
Tempo decks will be good, but I didn't want to shoehorn you into one strategy. There's many kinds of tempo, not just delver. Hell even land destruction could be fun against them.
I should warn you that this doesn't work how you think it does. the sacrifice is part of casting fling, not the resolution, so casting fling will destroy the cyclops before its on cast ability can trigger.
Masques seems the opposite of what you want. Decent cards and a bad draft environment.
The thing is that the number of thunderous wraths has no effect on the fact that you are more likely to draw it in your opening hand than during the game. I really like the card (enough to play it as a four of since I don't play burn in tournaments any more) but it needs magma jet to even break even.
This is true, but other creatures in burn have to be reacted to at instant speed. goblin guide can come out and swing turn 1, murarders deals 2 damage no matter what the opponent does. Even the mediorce hellspark elemental has haste. The opponent can afford to let devil resolve and then deal with it the following turn. Nothing else in burn does that.
Your forgetting the stacking action of armadillo cloak, its seperate from lifelink, and therefore plays much nicer with it than the new card does.
Wow, that's going in my sig, I totally agree.