[Fedoras of Salvation] - White Knights ITT

[hamfactorial]

That's tierist, shaming language. Check your spike privilege, cismana scum.

[zemanjaski]

Hey Z. In your opinion, is Mono Red at all viable in this Standard?

Good question! Honestly I've not tried in some time. However, Swiftspear, Rabblemaster, that new Phoenix, Stoke the Flames and Shaman of the Great Hunt are all very exciting.

I don't think there is sufficient incentive to be mono-colour right now as card quality drops off pretty hard after these cards when we consider the metagame (eg: new Dash guy and Eidolon of Revels are poorly positioned but good cards) so you might want to look at RW or even RB to compliment your beatdown and create a tempo advantage.

[zemanjaski]

Maybe you could do something cool with Tymaret, Hordeling Outburst, Murderous Cut and the new RB Dragon?

[Self Medicated]

Maybe you could do something cool with Tymaret, Hordeling Outburst, Murderous Cut and the new RB Dragon?

I've actually been thinking a lot about BR. I would love to see Tymaret find a spot in a deck this season. Also, already pre-ordered the RB dragon.

[Valdarith]

Just play something similar to Sam Black's Mardu list.

[zemanjaski]

I think his RW list was very competitive.

[LP, of the Fires]

Mono-red is so bad I don't acknowledge it as an option.

Me and a bunch of people have been brainstorming standard for the last couple PTQs and RW is our front runner for best deck to play.

Brad nelson and BBD's Constellation/frontier ramp deck, and Jeskai are also up there but the constellation deck needs a little work diversifying the top end. As is, deck is really soft to doomwake giant. Jeskai tokens is really promising but there's a lot of tech that needs to be figured out. UB control's in the same boat.

Abzan agro is the best plan B. Mardu is meh.

[Kaitscralt]

in zem's opinion, there is no tournament that means anything in regards to how good a deck is

only zem can decide that, in zem's upside down world

[zemanjaski]

Abzan Aggro is just the best deck. You can justify playing many other decks if your plan and prep is on point, but if you're short of time / not a deck construction wizard that should be the default.

[zemanjaski]

in zem's opinion, there is no tournament that means anything in regards to how good a deck is

only zem can decide that, in zem's upside down world

It's about frequency and consistency of results over a short period of time, rather than looking at any single event.

[Jamie]

Results are misleading. The opinions of the players with the most game knowledge can say what the best deck is, and results can not. I say this unironically and with sincerity.

In starcraft there are strategies that are bad, and only win because the opponent made a mistake or didn't account for the tiniest of things. These strategies win tournaments sometimes, against the highest echelon of players. It does not change the fact that they are bad. This is a common sense truth in starcraft, and I have a suspicion that mtg players would have a problem with this line of thinking.

[Jamie]

Well nowadays there's a lot of overlap in comeptitive communtiies from game to game and genre to genre but you'll always find how people's games of choice give people distinct differences in thinking and I love exploring those differences.

[Jamie]

I'd like if someone more awareness of mtg's neckbeards could shut down or confirm my suspicion though

[zemanjaski]

I think opinions are more misleading than results. Players are capable of pride, bias or simply being incorrect - they're human.

Results over time are more informative. I agree that one off results (single data points) are not very instructive, but enough if them demonstrate trends that are useful.

To address your specific Starcraft example, a strategy might be innovative enough for one off success, but it'll be immediately explored afterwards and exploited if possible. So specific cheeses rarely last the test of repeated tournament play.

Jeskai Tokens followed a similar trajectory; it was the most powerful thing you could do for a shirt while but people figured out strategies to play better against it and cards to improve their matchup for it and it's been in decline ever since.

[Self Medicated]

Brutal Hordechief is screaming at me to put him in a deck.

[Kaitscralt]

his name is my name too

[Kaitscralt]

Brutal Hordechief is screaming at me to put him in a deck.

and your deck is screaming at you to take him back out

[hamfactorial]

Don't play RB, Kait will make fun of you

[hamfactorial]

Oh shoot, you guys were a page ahead.

My prediction was right though.

[LP, of the Fires]

Saying abzan agro is clearly the best deck is a pretty absurd statement following your post.

The deck had EXACTLY 1 good tournament and did absolutely nothing before that. PT top 4, noooooooooooothing, SCG Players championship top 4(which means something and nothing since the tourney was small and resultantly inbred) and a strong GP showing in Denver.

If you follow the trends of this season, you'll see that this is almost what I'd call a tier 2 format because metagaming is much more important then it normally is. This is demonstrated by the diversity of top 8s across tournaments throughout the season. Last year, Mono-black, mono-blue and UW where the clear basic decks for basically the entire year and this was shown through Top 8/16 frequency. Sometimes it would be a derivative of one of those decks, but you'd usually see half to 80% of top 8s being comprised of those decks.

This season, we've seen GR monsters, boss sligh, UW heroic, and UB control all have significant success at one point or another and non of those decks ever made up more then 5% of a given field and even the "big players" which are all the non-temur wedges have gone through periods of utter dominance to being completely absent. Abzan across the different archetypes within the wedge is the one that's seen the most play throughout the season solely on the soldiers of siege rhino, but again, it's different builds from tourney to tourney.

Nothing(or at least nothing so far, new format may be different) has been powerful enough to where you can jam it every event and see it be solidly 15-20% of a field and top 8 events over time. This is not a bad, thing, just something we've been used to seeing for the last several years(delver, caw-blade, jund, mono-black, uw, etc.).

[Self Medicated]

Brutal Hordechief is screaming at me to put him in a deck.

and your deck is screaming at you to take him back out

I'm being nostalgic about Hellrider.

[nme]

Don't play RB, Kait will make fun of you

what if you add green to it?

[nme]

Speaking of which this deck from Chapin's recent article looks like a blast to play.

[deck]
Creatures:
4 Hornet Queen
4 Satyr Wayfinder
2 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Courser of Kruphix
1 Doomwake Giant
4 Eidolon of Blossoms
4 Alesha, Who Smiles at Death
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang

Spells:
4 Murderous Cut
2 Whip of Erebos
3 Commune with the Gods
3 Thoughtseize

Land:
3 Forest
2 Mountain
2 Swamp
3 Bloodstained Mire
1 Evolving Wilds
2 Llanowar Wastes
1 Mana Confluence
1 Temple of Abandon
4 Temple of Malady
1 Temple of Malice
4 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard:
2 Reclamation Sage
1 Soul of Innistrad
2 Doomwake Giant
1 Hero's Downfall
2 Chandra, Pyromaster
1 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker
4 Xenagos, the Reveler
1 Drown in Sorrow
1 Thoughtseize
[/deck]

[LP, of the Fires]

For anyone that really wants to play mono-red, there's a small chance that Goblin heelcutter is playable in that deck as a repeatable way of getting your team through coursers or rhinos.

[Kaitscralt]

will you take your dick out of goblin heelcutter for a god damned second

[LP, of the Fires]

Came up in discussion when someone posted Boss Sligh in convo. Nobody really was considering playing the deck, but it was relevant to talk about for PTQing purposes and knowing the deck exists.

[rcwraspy]

i'm sure it's hard for him to pry that thing out of tight spaces

[Christen]

Tasigur is a real card.

[Jamie]

goblin heelcutter is just a siege rhino that doesn't even trample

[LP, of the Fires]

3 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
3 Doomwake Giant
3 Hornet Queen
4 Eidolon of Blossom
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Courser of Kruphix
4 Satyr Wayfinder


2 Whip of Erebos
3 Frontier Siege
3 Commune with the Gods
4 Murderous Cut

4 Temple of Malady
4 Llanowar Waste
4 Windswept Heath
2 Evolving Wilds
5 Forest
4 Swamp

[Kaitscralt]

congrats, you've now made the same deck as everyone else

[LP, of the Fires]

Was more worth posting as an attempt to blend elements from the different deck.

The brad deck is more all in and susceptible to both enchantment hate and doomwake giant. This gives you a small whip package, and tasigur which give gives you a combination of new angles of attack, more nutdraws, and more consistent use of extra frontier mana.

[Kaitscralt]

ya just gotta ignore me

[LP, of the Fires]

I posted that more for everyone else since the general audience here needs shit explained to the simplest point most of the time.

[hamfactorial]

goblin heelcutter is just a siege rhino that doesn't even trample

bro do you even trample

[LP, of the Fires]

How do you change your PW on facebook.

Somehow I've been hacked. I'm talking with people about PTQs, then a window pops up and "I'm" talking some chick not on my friends list about Guatemala.

[Kaitscralt]

sounds like GR hacked you

[Kaitscralt]

trying to do chintzy things

[hamfactorial]

Do any of you guys play chess? I downloaded Chess With Friends and I've enjoyed it, even though I mostly play against randoms.

[Kaitscralt]

nah, we're non-stupid people with non-stupid things to do