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Magic: the Gathering - Battle for Zendikar |OT| Lands matter (but nothing else does)

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A

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Familienoberhauptvogel said:
That's just your interpretation. Maybe it's bad but you can't tell me it isn't entertaining to watch.
Click to expand...

How is that just my interpretation? It has virtually no tournament results. Which is because the entire deck's idea is "do nothing for 5-7 turns then play Ugin or Ulamog and hopefully my opponent has no way to interact with me."

I don't think its particularly entertaining either. It does nothing for 5 turns. It's like Scapeshift except not clever and Scapeshift actually interacts with the opponent.
 
A

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Familienoberhauptvogel said:
It just top 8'd GP Quebec. It can play Ugin as fast as turn 5 with 1 mana up
Click to expand...

Okay, I stand corrected on that one result. But, again, who cares if it plays Ugin turn 5? Having your first play that impacts your opponent in any way on Turn 5 isn't exactly exciting, and I've never actually come close to losing a match to it. The only time I've lost a game was keeping a hand with nothing in it and I don't know what my opponent is playing.
 
F

Familienoberhauptvogel

Banned
Angry Grimace said:
Okay, if that's true I'll give it that one tournament result. But who cares if it plays Ugin turn 5? Having your first play that impacts your opponent in any way on Turn 5 isn't exactly exciting.
Click to expand...

Have you watched it, Mike Sigrist cast 3 Ulamogs in succession and while the deck isn't doing much early on the turns are quick so what does it matter.

I find Yore Tiller entirely unexciting to watch and that deck doesn't stop doing anything ever.
 
A

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Familienoberhauptvogel said:
Have you watched it, Mike Sigrist cast 3 Ulamogs in succession and while the deck isn't doing much early on the turns are quick so what does it matter.

I find Yore Tiller entirely unexciting to watch and that deck doesn't stop doing anything ever.
Click to expand...

I have no idea who that is or where I would have watched him do that. So no. But sure, if you have 3 Ulamogs, I guess you can cast 3 Ulamogs, although it doesn't sound good if you NEED to cast 3 Ulamogs.
 
A

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
See, now Bant Tokens is an interesting deck. I'm just a miserable pilot with it.
 
A

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";183312950]...player of the year Mike Sigrist.[/QUOTE]

I play Magic for fun, not to hero worship other nerds, sorry.

The number of players who I actually know who they are: LSV, Travis Woo (I've never read any of his content), Paul Cheon (I know nothing of his content other than he gets a lot of hero worship for some reason), Kibler (who I've met in passing), the guy with the hair on the Pro Tour (I forget his name I think he's European, he won a pro tour with aggro recently), I'm struggling to think of any others I would say I know off the top of my head.
 
G

"God's Beard!"

Member
Angry Grimace said:
I play Magic for fun, not to hero worship other nerds, sorry.
Click to expand...

I just find it funny that you care enough about constructed to make tons of negative comments about other people's deck choices, but you don't know who the most successful magic player this year is.

You said that Elvish Mystic in Abzan was bad, then Elvish Mystic in Abzan won the Pro Tour.
You made a bunch of negative remarks about Lantern Control, then it won the next Modern GP.
You said Jeskai splashing Crackling Doom had an unplayable "90% tapland" manabase, then two copies t8'd the Pro Tour.
You said GR ramp was a terrible deck that had no results when it t8'd the most recent GP and was good enough for this year's best player to run it.

I'm not trying to bag on you too much, but you do seem to be generally pretty vocally negative for someone bragging about not following the scene while also having the highest number of posts in this thread.
 
A

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";183315440]I just find it funny that you care enough about constructed to make tons of negative comments about other people's deck choices, but you don't know who the most successful magic player this year is.

You said that Elvish Mystic in Abzan was bad, then Elvish Mystic in Abzan won the Pro Tour.
You made a bunch of negative remarks about Lantern Control, then it won the next Modern GP.
You said Jeskai splashing Crackling Doom had an unplayable "90% tapland" manabase, then two copies t8'd the Pro Tour.
You said GR ramp was a terrible deck that had no results when it t8'd the most recent GP and was good enough for this year's best player to run it.

I'm not trying to bag on you too much, but you do seem to be generally pretty vocally negative for someone bragging about not following the scene while also having the highest number of posts in this thread.[/QUOTE]

Wow, I'm wrong sometimes, congratulations. "I'm not trying to bag on you too much, but I'm going to bag on the fact you said Elvish Mystic isn't good in Abzan literally over a year ago because that one guy who won the PT had 2 copies of it despite the fact that Mystic was not commonly played in the deck the entire year." In fact, you and I were both building the same deck and it was 90% identical. Gimme a break dude.

Also, this memo of times I was mean and wrong seems highly colored - I said splashing for Crackling Doom was a bad idea in a Bring to Light deck, which who knows because the deck hasn't shown up much, particularly not splashing a spell two colors off of the base deck, and Lantern Control still has only that one specific guy who has put up serious results with it. In fact, I'm positive on Magic and decks all the time, you just specifically remember the times I specifically didn't like something you liked. Let's just say I don't think its a coincidence your laundry list of "times Angry Grimace was wrong" is either something that occurred an hour ago or involve very specific disagreements about decks which are being designed or played by God's Beard.
 
A

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Bandini said:
Jace, Vryn's Prodigy: F
Click to expand...
I was talking about how many people (myself included) missed on that card and someone on SA had a really good writeup on why so many people missed it that I agreed with:

Well, let's see...

1). It was in a cycle with cards with much higher apparent power. Whenever we get cycles, we're not especially used to most of them being good--I imagine if that you looked at cycles over the history of the game, you'd see pretty consistently that 1-3 of the cards in a 5-card cycle will see play--the Commands, for example, have Cryptic Command, which is amazing, into probably Austere Command, which is clunky but functional, all the way down to the mess that is the red command. So when we're presented with a cycle, we're conditioned to assume that at least two of them aren't good. Gideon got to be a 2/1 for 1 with upside even before he flips, which is very powerful looking (even if Kytheon's made no appearances), Nissa got to have the walker side with the 'biggest' effects--draw a card, make a 4/4, and a strong ult. Liliana had her zombie, although she wasn't as impressive to most as Nissa or Gideon. Jace was hard to evaluate, so people assumed that he would naturally just slot in to the bottom of the cycle and keep Chandra company.

2) Planeswalkers have been finishers lately. Ugin and Elspeth are both strong control finishers that quicly take over a board state. It'd been a while since Stormbreath Sarkhan had really seen play, but he filled a similar curve-topping niche. Xenagos was a value factory, but spitting out 2/2s is very different from what Jace does in terms of how it puts you ahead in the game. Ashiok was a control finisher. Really, it's not until you go back to Jace, Architect of Thought that you really have an incremental value planeswalker, and even that is mroe of a finisher that Vryn's Prodigy. We were evaluating him with the wrong set of tools, and we had been burned on Narset not too long ago.

3). We had forgotten how strong Merfolk Looter was. It's been a long time since we've been able to play with Actual Merfolk Looter. We've had a lot of three-mana looters in limited, and a lot of looters that you have to pay mana for, and they have all turned out pretty bad. So that's the context that most people were familiar with looting in. While I do think that Merfolk Looter itself, with no additional upside, would be questionable today, Jace does bring that upside (except this, too, got horribly misevaluated). Plus, if you discount the walker side, as so many people did, it even compares unfavorably to Merfolk Looter, if only slightly--it can't attack, and eventually you stop being able to loot with this. There were a lot of people saying that they'd rather just have the looter than have the flipped Jace.

4) His +1 reads very poorly. It's been beaten into our heads that a planeswalker has to protect itself. Shrinking a single creature slightly looks like a miserable attempt at that. It's not Vraska-tier nothingness, but it still looks like you're basically doing nothing when you plus him. The truth is that shrinking a creature is actually really strong when it's free (just like how much stronger looting is when you aren't spending mana on it). It's not precisely the same, but I've been getting late Dampening Pulses in BFZ draft, Creatures are very carefully priced, stat-wise, and taking even a single point of power off a creature makes it look a lot worse than you'd expect. What would we think of Siege Rhino if it was always a 3/5? What about 2/5 Wingmate Rocs? 2/3 Mantis Rider? -2/-0 goes a lot further than we expected.

5) His -3's easiest comparison is to Snapcaster Mage . Snapcaster is probably the best blue creature ever printed (although Jace is up there too now). We'd become accustomed to seeing Snapcaster in action, and particularly seeing the plays made with it at instant speed. Snapcaster, block your guy, bolt your other guy. Snapcaster Mana Leak. Snapcaster Cryptic Command, if you're feeling really saucy. Compared to that, you've got an ability that you have to pay a big - on, and you'll only be able to activate it on your turn. That is, indeed, worse than Snapcaster, who also comes with a 2/1. The tradeoff, of course, is that Snapcaster costs you two mana before you flashback the spell, whereas Jace costs you none. Like looting, this is an effect that is much stronger when it's free, and we estimated the tradeoff poorly.

6) His Ult is Bad. Now, people do say to evaluate Walkers without looking at the ultimate, but we can't help but look--especially when we're in the mindset of using it as a control finisher. Now, Jace's ult actually is pretty poor by ult standards--it'll win you the game, but it takes you a lot of turns of 'only' shrinking creatures to get there, and even then it's pretty slow to actually deliver the win. Because the ult looks so bad, it led us to try and find a play pattern that maximized his one useful-looking ability, his -. People imagined a pattern of -3, +1, -3 being the most typical (because shrinking is worthless, right?), and the last planeswalker with that particular pattern was Vraska, who is hot garbage, and Jace got tainted by the mental association.

7) We didn't understand what flipping a planeswalker implied for gameplay. Part of the reason Planeswalkers defending themselves is so critical is because you're frequently tapping out for them. But when Jace actually becomes vulnerable to attacks, you have all of your mana untapped on your turn, and you're completely free to set up the defenses for him, and it's easy for his contribution to push that over the edge. So that's another way we just had the wrong context.

8) Ojutai's Command wasn't really on the radar. Other frequent Jace flashback targets, like Dig Through Time had seen play (but were I think a little out of favor in the face of ABZAN), but we didn't understand what kind of toolbox in one card his -3 would give you access to. We especially didn't consider how with Jace it has the secret mode of "Get Back Your Planeswalker From The Graveyard". It gives Jace an added level of resilience that we just didn't expect. It lets you trade him for their removal and be fine with it, because hey you'll just have him back in a couple turns.

There's probably more than this, but I am tired now. Enjoy the words.
Click to expand...
 
J

Jhriad

Member
Angry Grimace said:
I was talking about how many people (myself included) missed on that card and someone on SA had a really good writeup on why so many people missed it that I agreed with:
Click to expand...

It's crazy how widely everyone missed on Jace, even if it's understandable in hindsight. I love how his -3 plays nicely with Remand in Modern.
 
K

kirblar

Member
I nailed all of them except for Jace. Who I was confused on

Jace- Maybe he might be ok in some deck? He just seems like he doesn't do enough.
Click to expand...
Missing the Ojutai's Command interaction was the big thing for sure. Also, I don't think people expected cheap removal to get THIS bad.
 
A

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I was just as wrong about Kytheon as Jace, I figured he was really good, but he actually is the suckiest one because his flip is so difficult to trigger.

Trying to judge an individual card is really hard in reality.
 
A

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
kirblar said:
He's a 2/1 with Raid.

2/1 Vanillas have not been good in forever, unless they're Gravecrawler.
Click to expand...

But he has indestructable. If you pay for it. =V

...

Finally got my last Auriok Champ on Pucatrade!

Creatures:

3 Auriok Champion

Planeswalkers:

3 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
2 ??????

Spells:

3 Thoughtseize
4 Intangible Virtue
1 Dismember
1 Murderous Cut
4 Path to Exile
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Lingering Souls
4 Spectral Procession
4 Bitterblossom

Land:

3 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Caves of Koilos
1 Ghost Quarter
4 Godless Shrine
2 Isolated Chapel
4 Marsh Flats
1 Shambling Vent
1 Vault of the Archangel
3 Windbrisk Heights
2 Windswept Heath

Mainboard is pretty set except I'm torn on whether to go with maybe Gideon or Liliana? Or just another token producer (Timely Reinforcements?) I feel like Gideon has a lot of Synergy, but I also don't know how much I care for another 4 mana duder.

(Yes, Fetid Heath is better than Caves of Koilos, I'm just cheap because in this one circumstance it doesn't really matter, if anything I'd probably make it a second Vault of the Archangel)
 
C

charlequin

Banned
Angry Grimace said:
I was talking about how many people (myself included) missed on that card and someone on SA had a really good writeup on why so many people missed it that I agreed with:
Click to expand...

This is a good writeup in terms of actual reasons why people undervalued him, but only some of these are really forgivable. It's been ages since "every cycle has at least two bad cards" was a remotely useful rule of thumb, and people who forgot that looting is good or thought PWs could only work as finishers are not good at Magic.

Ojutai's Command and the tap-out aspect are both really great points tho.
 
A

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
(Today's troll deck)

3 Fathom Feeder
3 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
4 Oblivion Sower
3 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger

4 Spell Shrivel
4 Complete Disregard
1 Clash of Wills
1 Planar Outburst
2 Hedron Archive
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
3 Titan's Presence
2 Utter End
3 Ojutai's Command
1 Secure the Wastes

2 Blighted Fen
3 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
2 Prairie Stream
3 Plains
4 Flooded Strand
1 Sunken Hollow
6 Island

SB:

3 Duress
1 Transgress the Mind
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 Negate
2 Despise
2 Dispel
3 Languish

I took out all the Silkwraps and Snares plus the Blight Herders. Herder is fun, but it just didn't do enough. My heart says "put Part the Waterveil in" but my brain says no.
 
C

Crocodile

Member
Seeing Jace is a good card is obvious if you play a lot of Cube. I made sure not to leave the Magic Origins Pre-Release without trading for one. Of course, since I rarely play Standard, I didn't go out of my way to get a playset or anything. That was clearly a mistake on my part but I never expected the card to reach $80 or whatever nonsense. Just that it was a good card that would see play.
 
T

tch

Member
Yeah I was super up for Jace for my cube and traded a Kytheon for one at the prerelease (lol). I really didn't think he'd shine in standard though. But I'm trying to de-proxy my cube and once he hit $80 I couldn't resist trading him off for a Clique and a Bob.
 
O

OnPoint

Member
tch said:
Yeah I was super up for Jace for my cube and traded a Kytheon for one at the prerelease (lol). I really didn't think he'd shine in standard though. But I'm trying to de-proxy my cube and once he hit $80 I couldn't resist trading him off for a Clique and a Bob.
Click to expand...

This is absurd to me haha

I mean, you made the right trade.

I just... $80 still makes no sense to me.
 
S

SigmasonicX

Member
Random thought, we might see some allies in Oath based on Court Hussar and the like. Basically an evolution of Rally to sometimes just turn the creature into a spell effect.

Frenzied Knight - 2W
Creature - Human Knight Ally
Haste
When Frenzied Knight enters the battlefield, sacrifice it unless R was spent to cast it.
Rally - Whenever Frenzied Knight or another Ally enters the battlefield under your control, creatures you control get +0/+2 until end of turn.
3/1

Land Shark - 3U
Creature - Fish Ally
Trample
When Land Shark enters the battlefield, sacrifice it unless G was spent to cast it.
Rally - Whenever Land Shark or another Ally enters the battlefield under your control, you may untap target creature.
4/3

Vampire Guard - 4B
Creature - Vampire Ally
Flying, vigilance
When Vampire Guard enters the battlefield, sacrifice it unless W was spent to cast it.
Rally - Whenever Vampire Guard or another Ally enters the battlefield under your control, target creature an opponent controls gets -1/-1 until end of turn and you gain 1 life.
3/4

Steam Wall - 1R
Creature - Wall Ally
Flying, defender
When Steam Wall enters the battlefield, sacrifice it unless U was spent to cast it.
Rally - Whenever Steam Wall or another Ally enters the battlefield under your control, add R to your mana pool.
0/4

Frightening Beast - 3G
Creature - Beast Ally
Menace
When Frightening Beast enters the battlefield, sacrifice it unless B was spent to cast it.
Rally - Whenever Frightening Beast or another Ally enters the battlefield under your control, reveal the top four cards of your library. You may put a land card from among them into your hand. Put the rest into your graveyard.
3/3
 
A

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
y2dvd said:
Knowing who the player of the year to one of your hobbies = worshiping? Why you always coming off so angry bro?

This feels like deja vu for some reason lol.
Click to expand...
It's God's Beard. I'm being sarcastic because I can already tell where he's going. The fact that his "evidence" of me being negative about various decks are all out of context discussions that (completely coincidentally, I'm sure) all happen to be criticisms of decks he likes or was playing doesn't help my irritation level. And sure, I pay attention to the tournament circuit to see what decks are doing good and what decks look fun. But no, I have no particular interest in the players themselves.

Everyone remembers the stripper. I can say 50 nice things and 1 sarcastic/negative thing and I never hear the end of "why are you so angry and negative!?"
 
R

red13th

Member
I bought Jace for $15, so glad I did. :lol
He was a shoe-in for my cube, I think I replaced something like Omenspeaker, plus I always wanted more looters!
 
S

shrapnelmagnet

Member
Angry Grimace said:
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Click to expand...

Reminded me I wanted to pick one or two of these up fairly soon. I've never played with it and it seems fun (I'm a kitchen table player).

OnPoint said:
Grimace you're fine by me.

I just want some damn Commander 2015 spoilers!
Click to expand...

I hear that.

divisionbyzorro said:
Kenji just started an attempt at a 36-hour stream. The slow descent into madness will be fantastic.
Click to expand...

Hahah, awesome - thanks for the heads up. Love Numot.
 
A

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Ugin is like $30.

Everyone online suddenly figured it makes no sense he cost 6 bucks online and now he's up to $15.
KuGsj.gif
 
A

A Serious Man

Member
People realized ramp might be legitimate after it placed 3rd at the GP last weekend. Ugin (which is a 4x in that deck) and Ulamog started rising at the same time.
 
A

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
A Serious Man said:
People realized ramp might be legitimate after it placed 3rd at the GP last weekend. Ugin (which is a 4x in that deck) and Ulamog started rising at the same time.
Click to expand...

Ugin has been like $30 since he came out. He's played in Tron, so is Ulamog.
 
K

kirblar

Member
I bought 2 at the beginning of the year for 25 each. Picked up 2 more over the weekend...for 25 each. Only going up from here tho.
 
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