Magic: The Gathering C/D

i normally like mizzium skin quite a bit though since it's almost like a 1 mana split card - it can blow out an expensive removal spell or trade for a guy in combat

its got a ton of utility for the cost is what i'm trying to say

yeah it's def underrated in general and obv great in this build

devour flesh is even better the more removal you have

btw Teysa is as much a bomb as Aetherling, talk about a nightmare

http://i.imgur.com/ZwodaK1.jpg?1

triple DGM draft is dumb; i'm playing it cuz i get to make the stupid "archetypes" like this with relatively unfettered access, and cuz i pulled voice of resurgence last time around.

the other 3xDGM archetype i wanna do is the nivix cyclops one, where you spam nivix cyclops, maybe fluxcharger, then riot piker with hidden strings and other terrible instant/sorceries. it blasted my last gate deck out of the water. but really though, hidden strings on riot piker with nivix cyclops out is actually so nasty. ay

DGR 3-0 draft deck #5:
http://i.imgur.com/l8F5Iqe.jpg

i'm getting better at reading the table in this format, though i also want to try some experiments in forcing colors/archetypes since i suspect the sets are deep enough that you can do that successfully if you plan well

also i still hate the 'bad' 2-drops including all 3 of the ones in that deck but they're really not as bad as i expected them to be at the start of the format

ooof I just had one of *those* games - game 3, turn 18 or so, I have 2 cards left in deck (playing Esper), opponent at 4, me at 12 - among other things I have an Alms Beast, a 5/8 Bane Alley, a Tower Drake with Knightly Valor and Guardian of the Gateless and Inaction Injunction vs the 3/3 reach Mossdog and an Archweaver, he's got an army of Centaurs, blah blah blah, I have Fall of the Gavel and Avenging Arrow in hand, I just know there's a way I can win this before I get decked but it takes me a full 3 minutes to figure it out. Only the solution involves me not playing a land but grabbing a Plains back from the Bane Alley. Sadly I played an Island as soon as I drew it out of habit because I knew I wasn't going to Bane Alley it. Sure enough everything plays out perfect for the other guy and he winds up alpha striking, forcing me to lose the Drake to cover damage and having just enough out to leave himself at 1 when all is said and done thanks to Alms Beast. Frustrating.

had Aetherling that draft too, and yeah he's stupid good

It's cool that they added DGM Phantom Sealed queues, but I'm kind of bummed that there's no more GTC or RTR queues. It's going to be a pain in the butt to accrue GTC and RTR packs for draft now.

yes

well this block structure has been weird but generally the updated block format replaces the old one so this is just standard operating procedure - everything should be paying out in all 3 types of packs though

I'm not really sure what to make of DGM sealed. I got an extremely awkward pool of cards with very little clear theme to build off of. Is that the norm or is it just luck of the packs?

My opponents seemed to be a bit confused too, so I'm guessing this is what sealed will be like at least for a little while.

I finally got to play with Aetherling, and yes, it is completely ridiculous. I'm a little surprised it isn't showing up more in standard.

sounds like the norm for sealed - remember that most MTG formats have 10 or more archetypes in limited and RTR/gatecrash each only really had 5, meaning that you were much more likely to be able to build a cohesive deck in those sealed formats than is normal for sealed

Ah, that's a good point. I haven't played a full block sealed before, so my experience with sealed was mostly colored by RTR and GTC.

Also noticed that Ogre Slumlord's ability might be buggy. I chumped with a rat token and it gave me another token.

he gives the rats deathtouch so you can't 'chump' with them while he's in play - did your opponent's creature die? that would give you another

I thought you only get rats when your own creatures die. Guess he's better than I realized.

so yeah, steep learning curve on ambitions and expectations for dgm sealed. after bombing a couple times i realized that most of the time instead of some fun 3+ colour deck you really want to end up with something that looks more like what you'd have put together for rtr or gtc, i.e. 2 colours and maybe a splash, except it will inevitably be crappier with each guild mechanic much harder to come by. so with my new insight i went from zero to hero, winning with a BW deck splashing green for 2 cards, featuring a grand total of 1 extort card (and 3 populate). i just concentrated on consistency and a good curve, pitched hardly any higher than i would've for an individual set.

my previous time out i'd built a deck around trying to get some bigger creatures out quickly. i dropped that 7/5 gruul beastie that makes lands give 2 mana in 2 games - followed in the first by my opponent playing a 15/15 slime molding and in the second dying immediately to debt to the deathless

yeah i've still never seen that guy played but word on the street is avoid

I think w/ block limited you also have to accept that there is so much variance in what you're opening that you don't need to think of a hard and fast rule. 4c fun might be the right choice in one situation, 2 color boring creatures in another.

that recognition - understanding what i have in my pool of cards and how i can cobble that into something effective - is obviously going to be far harder than the relative hand-holding of the rtr and gtc sealeds. still, i am glad i had a little time to get used to those more forgiving formats, even if i have to unlearn some of my assumptions.

i don't mind building around cards or interactions in this sealed format but i'm not sure that's right, there are just lots of fun things to do that are fairly powerful. i vastly prefer drafting to sealed in this format tho, so i haven't really been doing much of it

first 5 picks in DGM are two Fluxchargers, two Nivix Cyclopses, and a Turn/Burn, this deck is incredible. btw Nivix Guildmage always seems to go until like the 12th pick in RTR.

I'm starting to think that 2-color strategies are generally best. I tend to go 2-1 a lot with 3 colors because I can never get enough gates and always end up losing one match to missing a color. Most of my 3-0s thus far have been straight Boros or Gruul. Surprisingly both times I think I wound up playing more cards out of RTR than GTC. It's not as risky as I thought...

yeah nivix guildmage is way better now that the format is slower

also particularly good in that deck

last night I had a super solid 2 color speed dimir deck and I still lost a match to a noob playing 4c w/ horrible fixing because of bad luck w/ lands. otoh I managed to beat someone else w/ that deck while stuck on 3 lands.

I think 'two colors is a successful strategy' is misleading though - two color decks are going to be 3-0ing a lot because someone who had their two colors open is going to have a v. strong deck regardless, not necessarily because 2 color decks are the better strategy in any given circumstance. sometimes they are. but other times they're not.

quick question: which is more effective against UW control in standard, Aetherling in particular, Slaughter Games or Pithing Needle?

burning-tree emissary?

yeah lamp otm, they can beat any or all of those cards but they can't beat fast starts where you out-tempo them by playing free creatures and creatures with haste

lol this ptq

what about it?

frozen @ the end of round 7

btw i added you on my main mtgo account not sure what the etiquette is there

I drafted again tonight and had a pretty sunk draft because it took me way too long to figure out I was esper not grixis but I did manage to win a bunch of games with whispering madness and place 3rd (out of 6)

whispering madness...kinda playable?? sometimes.

more than in gatecrash at least

standard update: 4-0ed two daily events in a row with this:
http://i.imgur.com/VWaaIdo.jpg

i think it's pretty good, though not exactly the pinnacle of innovation

whats the split card?

turn // burn presumably?

i tried a rug walkers list that had mostly the same creature base at fnm two weeks ago, went 3-1 but played some p loose opponents. i can't even remember exactly what was in it except i didn't have statiscaster main and had tamiyo.

how is the caster used?

that was what I was guessing. I like that card a ton and I'm hoping it sees some play

staticaster is maindeck because there's a ton of lingering souls decks on modo right now, or at least there were last weekend. in matchups where its 'dead' you can still use it to stretch your burn spells an extra point of damage on bigger creatures game 1, or combo it with turn so you can send the burn half elsewhere, or use it with ral zarek to kill 2-toughness creatures

did you get many ral ultimates?

haha yeah i did the ultimate for the first time today

5 heads

i'm sort of annoyed with myself for wanting to buy some ral zareks on mtgo now, i wanna try the deck out. i'm assuming it has a p solid junk aristos match-up with statiscaster and bonfire main?

yeah it should, so far i've mainly played vs aggro and jund though which both go fine. turns out the way to break the jund mirror is to play an aetherling, not too surprising

i'm in the market for a new modern deck now, with voices pushing 50 tix and thoughtseizes spiking after their absence from modern masters was confirmed, i want to sell high on those and play something without them until they come back down

i'm still playing u/w/r control which is fine on mtgo but probably not great irl - i like the idea of scapeshift but have never played it so certainly can't recommend it. also there's kibler's deck from gp portland or maybe san diego - the one that eggs won - with knight of the reliquary

i like the idea of kibler's decks but there's so much combo on mtgo right now that i'm not sure a midrange deck without thoughtseize is playable