Dies to Removal

don't know who is hailing that

guys in articles are harping the same old praise to sell the same old cards

But. Dragons?

don't know who is hailing that

guys in articles are harping the same old praise to sell the same old cards

Then you aren't paying attention or you are being intentionally obtuse. Given your pattern of personality, I'm going with the latter.

just wait til friday when people get excited to do some high-impact standard-format testing against the strongest of players.

Oh look, it's that joke again.

Levy updated his list. He discusses some of the changes here.

http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/cove ... 2015-04-18

I think something like this is probably the answer to Esper.

Although I think 4x Murderous Cut is crazy.

Totes cray.

Classic assassin move.

It's just about there now with Esper taking that #1 spot and a few decks being just below it.

This current Standard is like chess.

If, in chess, you could use random objects as pieces, with whatever movement abilities you wanted.

Player 1: "Pawn to E4."

Player 2: "Monopoly Thimble takes your King, I win all of the games."

Player 1: "Well, I didn't see that coming."

Player 2: "You couldn't have! There's no possible way you could have seen that coming, and literally nothing you did wrong, but you lose anyway! Haha, fun!"

So, you see, the Standard metagame was like industry, in that they were both lost in the woods. And nobody, especially the little boy (society) knew where to find him. Except that the Standard metagame was a dog! But the industry, my friends, that was a revolution.

Although I think 4x Murderous Cut is crazy.

Cut is an awesome spell but not four like that.

I ran removal in my version of Big Red splash Black (deck needs a better name) with this as my spell suite:

[deck]
Spells
3 Wild Slash
2 Draconic Roar
1 Lightning Strike
2 Murderous Cut
2 Stoke the Flames
[/deck]

That configuration let me deal with a variety of threats, and I felt pretty happy with it.

Going forward I may try something like this:

[deck]
Spells
3 Wild Slash
3 Lightning Strike
2 Murderous Cut
2 Stoke the Flames
[/deck]

Wild Slash wasn't quite as useful as the three damage from Draconic Roar and Lightning Strike, but it helped a lot vs. small aggro. Draconic Roar was good when I could kill something and burn to the face, but it was lackluster otherwise. Lightning Strike is unconditional burn when it needs to be, and there was at least one game where it would have won me that match and the round. And if Esper Dragons and its hexproof monstrosities are going to be dominant, then Draconic Roar is fairly well dead in hand.

I added the Stokes since I wanted more spells that could go to the face. Plus, it was unexpected. I could leave my smaller creatures back, let the evasive creatures attack, and then tap the smaller guys to convoke the Stoke.

Scars Innistrad best standard.


This standard is fine playwise. I just think maverick has a good point. The deck you choose to play sometimes is just more important that how well you can play sometimes (yes, i know im a scrub) .

god damn the circlejerking is strong tonight.

Standard is best with three to four clearly tier 1 decks with room for some sideboard tech. That way, technical skill matters more than the deck you decided to sleeve up the night before the tournament.

oh. you post on the sirlin design boards. I get where the tone comes from now.

I copied that to sirlin's boards because I agreed with it. Got a problem?

Heh, I love this "pretend we hate cardboard crack" meme but this one was simply too good not to post!

I copied that to sirlin's boards because I agreed with it. Got a problem?

First off, what is the bolded even supposed to represent in a message board context? It sounds like something a drunk would say right before he takes a swing at you for insulting his favorite sports team.

Second, the reason I mention the tone is because it fits very well over there. For those who have never visited the Sirlin boards, it's very head up own ass on most of the threads. There are some great points (which is why I read them) made by users, but the inherent smugness whenever people start really delving into subjects is impossible to overlook. Sirlin himself is massively guilty of this even when dealing with other people who are very experienced in his field of games. As a result people who want to discuss things, but not necessarily argue with people looking to score sarcasm points end up leaving, which only leaves the ego people (some smart, some not).

And now you're saying you hate my favorite sports team? You wanna take this outside?

And yeah that forum embraces to a fault a "we can change the world" mentality while being nitpicky "um, actually..." spergs.

anyway, I know what this thread is for and I'm being too much of a twat about things, so here's some pictures.

And now you're saying you hate my favorite sports team? You wanna take this outside?

And yeah that forum embraces to a fault a "we can change the world" mentality while being nitpicky "um, actually..." spergs.

I miss Rev/pack rat standard.

This standard is fine, but it doesn't make me FEEL things.

That's, like, your opinion man.

I miss Rev/pack rat standard.

This standard is fine, but it doesn't make me FEEL things.

Quick runthrough of Standards I actually remember:
Tempest Block + Urza's Block + 6th = Wow, I can play Oath? Masticore Blue with 4 Counterspell, Mana Leak and Treachery? Wildifre? As it turned out anything involving the broken stuff was the best, but hey we played Stompy and liked it!

Urza's Block + Mercadian Block + 6th = Everything did fucked up things. This is pretty fun. Except Tangle Wire. Fuck Tangle Wire and fuck Plow Under. Losing on turn three to Rofellos powered mana screw into Deranged Hermit was not fun. Also Tinker was legal, though the best things we could get were Mishra's Helix, Phyrexian Processor and Phyrexian Colossus. Still that deck was pretty messed up and could always t3 Morphling as a backup sideboard plan. Though Replenish put Tinker decks to shame in terms of comboing out, since you could Parallax away lands and creatures, buy them back on turn 5/6 with Replenish and kill them in one swing.

Masques + Invasion + 6th = Rebels was way too good at grinding out the fair decks with all the combo shit gone. If people dislike creatures now, at least the games end some time this year. Back in the day you just died miserably to Ramosian Sergeant finding Lin-Sivvi and then dying to a dozen random 2/2's. Also the control decks had 4 FoF, 4 Counterspell and 4 Accumulated Knowledge and still had to maindeck Massacre because they couldn't win a fucking game. The win condition for those decks until Psychatog saved America was Air Elemental and Nether Spirit. Yes, Air Elemental, for serious.

Eventually the Japanese figured out the end game of the format was Nether Spirit + Jokulhaups / Obliterate. The internet was a new and scary thing though, so the odds you ever saw this deck locally were basically non-existent.

Invasion Block + Mercadian Block + 7th = Opposition + Static Orb was legal. Let us never speak of this format again. Fires of Yavimaya + Blastoderm + FTK + Saproling Burst also dominated, but that was in part because of how bad we were at building strategies to counter creatures without insanely broken spells to bail us out and FTK killed every non-green creature in the format.

more tom.

We were visited by the Ghost of Standards Past this night.

As someone who learned how to play in 04, why was 6th ed legal for so long?

I started playing tournament MTG during Kamigawa Rav Standard, and enjoyed almost every season more than Khans Standard. Just a preference I guess.

All the dragons are cool, though.

GW Devotion is an example of why Standard sucks now. It was not a deck at all, then for like the last two weeks of its season was discovered and became the best deck, and then was almost completely obsolete a week later. That's not metagaming, it's just too many cards in the pool.

Abzan Aggro vs Abzan Whip vs Abzan Midrange vs Abzan Control vs Atarka Abzan?

In haymaker days you shuffled up Doran and fought the good fight. One deck per archetype.

Back in my day there was only 3 archetypes and we had to walk uphill both ways in knee deep snow just to get a starter deck!

DTK has helped things become more cohesive, but not by much. If every match was literally Atarka Red vs Esper Dragons vs Abzan Midrange I'd be happier.

I like my Standard unfun and streamlined. I like GR Aggro vs UW Delver every round. I like Rev vs Thrags. I like Pack Rat vs Thassa vs Elspeth. I like Faeries vs Doran vs RDW. I like Jund vs Bant vs JTMS. I loved fighting off Primeval Titan for four years.

As someone who learned how to play in 04, why was 6th ed legal for so long?

Core sets only came out about every couple of years back then.

And they mostly came out at night. Mostly.

the sideboard is now a guessing game, the main deck is an extended sideboard just because you don't know what might appear. i prefer toppling goliath after training with my sling, not only facing him once every two tournaments.

the fact that half this thread thinks BR is viable is why standard sucks

two years ago we'd have just given you raw data and you'd feel like a fool and maybe play a good deck

now it's like, fuck it, go play BR and give someone free wins, everyone else is doing it with other decks too

I thought the format was pretty fun until Dragons came out. I mean, I still have fun and Dragons is a great set, but I'm not crazy excited like i was back in February

fun is not permitted

if you're not having it then things are improving

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

GW Devotion is an example of why Standard sucks now. It was not a deck at all, then for like the last two weeks of its season was discovered and became the best deck, and then was almost completely obsolete a week later. That's not metagaming, it's just too many cards in the pool.

That's a fair criticism.

I saw 2 big, fat naked bikers having sex in the woods. That's not metagaming !

you sure aren't funny this morning