EPTIts definitely risky, though. We end up having to deal with Zur and Uril before they go critical, which is usually also difficult. The guy with Zur will wait and have a bunch of counterspells ready to go before casting him, and Uril has Trollshroud.
Magic: The Gathering - Page 24
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HyruleanTubist
United States189 Posts
Its definitely risky, though. We end up having to deal with Zur and Uril before they go critical, which is usually also difficult. The guy with Zur will wait and have a bunch of counterspells ready to go before casting him, and Uril has Trollshroud. | ||
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Orome
Switzerland11984 Posts
On December 01 2010 10:39 Cel.erity wrote: Revised and 4th ed cards probably not worth much. =\ You could look through them, but unfortunately all the expensive cards are from Alpha-Unlimited and expansions. k =( thanks! | ||
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Glull
Germany404 Posts
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bobbob
United States368 Posts
EDH is an entirely different format than standard, because most decks are built around a single card. I play mostly using magic workstation, but I imagine that most decks that run white have multiple Wrath of god like spells, and other players better have some form of enchantment removal. If you ever run into something like aura shards in a Hanna deck, things go crazy. If it's really bad, maybe look to pick up an aura flux. But yeah, EDH is fun, just so long as you don't end up in a life from the loam+strip mine lock or something similar. Splinter Twin is the only other notable aura, since it combos with Pestermite, and can be used as a win condition in some control decks, but it was never really popular to begin with. | ||
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dcberkeley
Canada844 Posts
12th pick shatter? Kuldotha phoenix + 2 graps + 2 galvanics + hoard smelter + 2 shatter + decent cards (stuff like instill infection, myrs, solitons) ? Die in 20 turns each game drawing 14 lands and seeing no bombs vs. half infect deck. Fucking rage. I know luck evens out but this happens every. single. draft. and I swear 17 lands is right. My picks are decent goddamnit, they're decent! Before anyone says mulligan, I had to in all three games because there were no lands in game 1,3 and in game 2 no bombs. Mulliganed into Bleak Coven Vamps in game 2 and beat his stupid Ichorclaw Myr and Cystbearer when he was also playing epics like Kemba Skyguards and Golden Urns. Nice synergy there. I'm gonna explode | ||
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HyruleanTubist
United States189 Posts
On December 02 2010 09:12 dcberkeley wrote: I don't care what anyone says, I am the unluckiest person ever. 12th pick shatter? Kuldotha phoenix + 2 graps + 2 galvanics + hoard smelter + 2 shatter + decent cards (stuff like instill infection, myrs, solitons) ? Die in 20 turns each game drawing 14 lands and seeing no bombs vs. half infect deck. Fucking rage. I know luck evens out but this happens every. single. draft. and I swear 17 lands is right. My picks are decent goddamnit, they're decent! Before anyone says mulligan, I had to in all three games because there were no lands in game 1,3 and in game 2 no bombs. Mulliganed into Bleak Coven Vamps in game 2 and beat his stupid Ichorclaw Myr and Cystbearer when he was also playing epics like Kemba Skyguards and Golden Urns. Nice synergy there. I'm gonna explode I definitely have won drafts with less than what you listed in the list. Luck is definitely not on your side it seems. I've been running 16 lands in my Scars draft decks, if you pick up a Myr or two you're more than fine. Maybe its just my luck to see plenty of land anyway, but sounds like you got screwed pretty hard, I feel for you. I had an M11 draft go similarly, I was at a table where the only other person who had a clue was to my left, so I end up with this outrageous Jund deck that should have wiped the floor with pretty much anything. Think of every good removal in M11 Jund colors and I had at least two. Meanwhile the guy to my left is getting every Blue/White card I feed him because I'm not usually a fan of UW Control in draft (though I just did it twice in a row on Saturday, but that was a pair of cube drafts). So I proceed to lose R1 to a Baneslayer that I couldn't get rid of in g1 then this guy apparently splashed red for a pair of Act of Treasons. So instead of a solid defence, I got overrun in two turns by my same big fat thing (I don't recall what it was). Most frustrating draft I've ever played. Put that on top of the sealed event I could have won but was getting bad draws the previous round and I was raging hard. I took the sealed pool back home with me to show the other players I respect, and they were all like "how did you lose with this?" | ||
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Brocket
Australia192 Posts
What HyruleanTubist said is right, you can get away with myrs as mana sources. My rule of thumb is that 2 myrs count as 1 land slot. So if you stick with the 17 lands, 23 non land composition, you may have 2 myrs, 16 land and then 22 non land cards. My reasoning is that myrs are cheap, reliable mana producers but are also easily removed or often used to chump block so if you base your mana completely on them then you'll fall behind. Also for drafting Scars, I definitely think poison is overrated (unless you open skithiryx). I mean sure cards like untamed might win games but you can always hate pick it or use it in your own deck. I think metalcraft is actually pretty sweet since even if many players in ur 8 pod choose that path, everybody can make a working deck which isn't true for picking poison cards. A corollary to that is that I tend to go for as many artifacts as possible and as few coloured cards to rev up metalcraft asap. This is just speaking from experience at my store, the metagame for modo might be more evolved/refined. Otherwise I just collect cards for my cube which has been hella expensive, it works out to be about 1.5k AUD ignoring slips/commons/lands. My advice for cube is stick with the no rares rule or even commons only: it'll save you a lot of money and maybe even have the same amount of fun since it's so restricted. Whoaa that's enough from me. | ||
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Brocket
Australia192 Posts
The EDH decks that revolve around auras/equipment are called Voltron decks where I'm from. I personally use Isamaru, the Hound of Konda for that type of deck. It's quite practical and thematically hilarious to imagine a dog with a dozen attached whirling bolas of doom wielding a jitte in his teeth. I just need to find a card that lets him shoot bees out of his mouth then I'll feel complete. | ||
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SirKibbleX
United States479 Posts
And without extremely swingy, powerful individual cards, winning in Pauper may very well take more skill than Standard, Legacy, or many other formats. A common pauper saying is that if playing Pauper is like taking karate lessons, playing Standard is like buying a gun. I'd be willing to say that for any type of deck in any other format there is probably a deck that does something similar in Pauper. The card pool is huge (all commons) so there are some pretty cool decks out there and even still there is a lot of innovation in the meta. And there is only one card on the banned list: Cranial Plating. If you're interested in finding out more about the format formerly called the Pauper Deckbuilding Challenge, head over to PDCMagic.com. | ||
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kuresuti
1393 Posts
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Tomken
Norway1144 Posts
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Jyvblamo
Canada13788 Posts
On December 01 2010 10:59 HyruleanTubist wrote: Anyone play EDH? There are whole decks built around auras, a pair of my friends have a Zur, the Enchanter deck and an Uril, the Miststalker deck that rape everything else in the playgroup 1v1. Zur will fetch up Diplomatic Immunity, and then Vanishing. After that, its all over. Things like Armadillo Cloak and Daybreak Coronet pop up after that and its just gg. Its definitely risky, though. We end up having to deal with Zur and Uril before they go critical, which is usually also difficult. The guy with Zur will wait and have a bunch of counterspells ready to go before casting him, and Uril has Trollshroud. EDH is fun times. I play a Jhoira deck, and the things you can do with suspending spells for 2 mana is game-breaking. Suspending Decree of Annihilation plus Dragonstorm on turn 4 = gg. | ||
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UniversalSnip
9871 Posts
On December 08 2010 15:23 SirKibbleX wrote: If you like playing constructed Magic the Gathering but don't like paying lots of money, you should look into Pauper format. Only common cards are allowed. That doesn't mean there aren't very powerful effects in pauper, but usually its the interactions between cards that make for exceptional effects. You can usually throw a competitive (or not) deck together for like $5, then play with it anytime online with tons of people. And without extremely swingy, powerful individual cards, winning in Pauper may very well take more skill than Standard, Legacy, or many other formats. A common pauper saying is that if playing Pauper is like taking karate lessons, playing Standard is like buying a gun. I'd be willing to say that for any type of deck in any other format there is probably a deck that does something similar in Pauper. The card pool is huge (all commons) so there are some pretty cool decks out there and even still there is a lot of innovation in the meta. And there is only one card on the banned list: Cranial Plating. If you're interested in finding out more about the format formerly called the Pauper Deckbuilding Challenge, head over to PDCMagic.com. Meh, pauper tends to be a rock-paper-scissors format. It is a lot of fun though. | ||
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jeebuzzx
Canada365 Posts
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BlueBird.
United States3889 Posts
On December 08 2010 17:18 UniversalSnip wrote: Meh, pauper tends to be a rock-paper-scissors format. It is a lot of fun though. I think the real problem with pauper is that commons tend to be the most basic cards, and also the cards you use are just obvious(The best creatures, are just the best creatures... Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning have no good replacements), so there is very little variation. So except for a few exceptions, you end up with decks with really really basic interactions, that are generally not fun(Wizards tends to print complicated cards in uncommon or rare). You win games not based off of skills, but either A. matchup, or B. Luck. Other than that, I did tap in to pauper a little. I enjoyed the free tournaments at http://pdcmagic.com/, I actually won a little credit from the free tournaments offered over the time I played in them. I prefer the Standard/Extended tournaments since I have the cards, and Its fun to make a new deck , play in a tournament, and then not even worry about losing(unlike daily MTGO events, where Im pressured to make profit, so i don't play rogue decks ever, when I play) Classic pauper interests me very little, I played for a while back before combat rules changed, I enjoyed playing a pretty abusive deck based around momentary blink, and I'm going to be honest, the format really does feel like rock paper scissors, and even though I used lots of tricks with blink(like locking people in their draw step using chittering rats), I feel my play left very little for diversity in decisions, all the decisions are basically straight forward.., and plus, the format doesn't feel very much like pauper, most of the decks are actually 20$(some cards like crypt rats, daze, etc are very expensive) +, so... kind of silly to play an all common format just to be play against 20-30 dollar decks. | ||
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HyruleanTubist
United States189 Posts
On December 08 2010 18:32 jeebuzzx wrote: limited is prob takes the most skill out of all the formats Agreed, limited is what keeps me playing Magic. Constructed formats are first about how big your wallet is. Not all of us can afford a playset of Big Jace, so I've basically decided to not play blue in standard while Jace is in the format. I know I'll never have an optimal deck while he's around. Meanwhile, drafting and sealed is mostly skill. You have a little luck involved with the card pool, but if you can't deal with luck you shouldn't be playing a card game. The skill involved in a draft probably my favorite thing about Magic in general. | ||
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Judicator
United States7270 Posts
On December 10 2010 07:14 HyruleanTubist wrote: Agreed, limited is what keeps me playing Magic. Constructed formats are first about how big your wallet is. Not all of us can afford a playset of Big Jace, so I've basically decided to not play blue in standard while Jace is in the format. I know I'll never have an optimal deck while he's around. Meanwhile, drafting and sealed is mostly skill. You have a little luck involved with the card pool, but if you can't deal with luck you shouldn't be playing a card game. The skill involved in a draft probably my favorite thing about Magic in general. A little luck huh? Let's just say limited is probably the format that is most affected by luck, especially draft. There are plenty of decks that will give Jace decks fits in T2. Don't get me wrong, I love the format because T2 gets stale for me really fast since I tend to mass game. Extended is only fresh right now because I wasn't around for the sets. I am also curious to what people are referring to when they mention the word "skill"... | ||
Hot_Bid
Braavos36362 Posts
On December 02 2010 09:12 dcberkeley wrote: I don't care what anyone says, I am the unluckiest person ever. 12th pick shatter? Kuldotha phoenix + 2 graps + 2 galvanics + hoard smelter + 2 shatter + decent cards (stuff like instill infection, myrs, solitons) ? Die in 20 turns each game drawing 14 lands and seeing no bombs vs. half infect deck. Fucking rage. I know luck evens out but this happens every. single. draft. and I swear 17 lands is right. My picks are decent goddamnit, they're decent! Before anyone says mulligan, I had to in all three games because there were no lands in game 1,3 and in game 2 no bombs. Mulliganed into Bleak Coven Vamps in game 2 and beat his stupid Ichorclaw Myr and Cystbearer when he was also playing epics like Kemba Skyguards and Golden Urns. Nice synergy there. I'm gonna explode haha. you need arc trail against infect, drawing it basically wins you the game against infect every time. from my experience the best type of deck is the fast white fliers with good equipment. like draft as many of those glint hawks and glint hawk idols as you can, get darksteel axe and as many cheap modifiers, myrsmith, and then get any artifact or white bomb and you can make finals like every time because the deck draws super consistently and you can play very few mana sources and still win. white spells like revoke and arrest are good cheap offensive spells too, just keep taking out their shit and attacking and its GG. weirdest (but good) deck i drafted ever was mono-blue proliferate, it had like 5 steady progress, 3 thrummingbirds, throne of geth, contagion clasp, and a bunch of the white+black censers, it was lol. | ||
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kuresuti
1393 Posts
On December 10 2010 08:07 Judicator wrote: A little luck huh? Let's just say limited is probably the format that is most affected by luck, especially draft. There are plenty of decks that will give Jace decks fits in T2. Don't get me wrong, I love the format because T2 gets stale for me really fast since I tend to mass game. Extended is only fresh right now because I wasn't around for the sets. I am also curious to what people are referring to when they mention the word "skill"... Personally I think the skill element lies in building the decks. The actual playing is not that hard to be honest. If you are slightly above average you will probably not be missing any good plays, and will make few mistakes during your game, this is if you are fairly well versed in the format you are playing. A couple of archetype decks in legacy take some serious "skill" when playing, ANT for example. There are many ways to get the combo up with ANT and from what I've seen, some players conjure up a huge storm from seemingly nothing. Decks like Counter-Top, tribal decks and most others are pretty easy to play though, in my opinion. Merfolk decks see lots and lots of tournament play, but are they really that hard to play? Just make sure you get your vial up and running, and save your counterspells for real threats and you're basically playing pretty darn good. As I said earlier, mistakes such as forgetting to get a couple more damage with a Mutavault, or losing a random Merfolk to something stupid rarely happens if you aren't new. Sometimes when I play Stax it really feels futile. If I didn't get to put down a Trinisphere on turn 1 or maybe 2, it's extremely difficult to come back sometimes, more often than I'd like. Since Legacy is at a quite high level of "figured out" your opponents will know exactly what you want to do, and what they need to do to capitalize on the first few turns. This to me feels more like luck than skill. Don't get me wrong though, there are crazy good plays to be played in all decks, but I'm talking about your default game where crazy situations don't come up. Sidenote: I just noticed Stax is a cheese deck, if I fail to get an advantage early game I will probably lose  T2 is even worse imo, since the decks aren't that complicated. I've not played any serious Vintage, but every deck seems so strong I reckon it takes the most skill OR luck of the constructed formats. It's kinda like poker. I know poker takes skill, but if you know the game and don't do stupid mistakes you have a legit shot at winning. IIRC there was an amateur who didn't even regularly play poker at the final table of this years WSOP. Also, like I said in the first paragraph, I think the skill lies in building rather than playing, so drafting and such has a larger skill element than constructed more times than it does not. EDIT: Knowing the meta, and building accordingly is also very important in tournament play, but that's true for most games. | ||
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HyruleanTubist
United States189 Posts
The "skill" is building and crafting a deck on the fly. Analyzing what is passed to you, seeing what open, and what you can do with the cards you already have. Has anyone else noticed Scars is insanely hard to draft? I've never felt more uncomfortable with a set this far along in its lifespan. I feel like analyzing the card pool and figuring out what your options are is a lot tougher for some reason. I guess because there are two grander archetypes (poison and metalcraft) but I've won drafts by simply building a "good stuff" deck. Heck, I won my prerelease draft with a burn deck (but that was before ANYONE knew what was going on, so it worked). Sealed is similar. Since its so artifact heavy, you can usually have a full color or two you can sideboard in and out, as the need arises. But knowing what to run and what to switch for what is really hard for some reason. Insight, anyone? | ||
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