My deck featured Glaivemasters, Bladewardens, Steelshapers, Sky Hunters, Den Guards, and cheap equipment like bonesplitters, leonin scimitars, cranial plating, among other cards…everything in the deck cost no more than 2 mana.
To MaxTheVool, just let me say that I have no idea what I’ve done to offend you, but if you need to insult and badmouth to get your thrills, I guess more power to you. Just don’t expect me to respond unless you keep things somewhat civil.
On the subject of cheap cards vs expensive cards, I stand by my statement. The single most important factor to winning is a well constructed deck, one where every card works well with all the others. This statement becomes less useful if you are playing for the world championship, but in general, a well built deck played correctly should beat a deck full of expensive cards hands down.
?? Sure, a well tuned deck of commons playd by a pro will beat a pile of rares piloted by a noob. However, when playskill and deck construction skills are roughly equivalent, I think you’ll find that the most siccessful deck in the field will be quite expensive.
The cheapest decks to build are usually weenie decks, right? Take a look at the Flores red decks that did pretty well last Type II season. 4 each of Chrome Mox, Blinkmoth Nexus, Sword of Fire and Ice, and Arc-Slogger. Right there, you’re looking at around 150 bucks.
A basic fact of Magic design is that you can put more punch in any given card if you up it’s rarity, or you can make it cost less mana for the same effect. This has been true since Alpha; just look at Gray Ogre versus Granite Gargoyle. Given that, it’s only natural that if there are two similar cards to consider for a deck, the rare of the two is likely the one that brings more to the synergy of your deck. If you need a big finishing creature for your red deck, do you choose Frost Ogre or Arc-Slogger?
Dude, grow a bit of a thick skin. If my using the word “skeptical” makes you think I’m flaming you, well, I’m not. Seriously, one of the easiest traps to fall in in magic is to see the optimal performance of your deck and think it’s the average performance. Sure a white weenie deck will sometimes go turn to glaivemaster, turn 2 splitter equip attack. But sometimes it won’t. Sometimes a madness deck will go turn 1 careful study rootwalla wonder, turn 2 mongrel, turn 3 arrogant wurm, turn 4 roar of the wurm. And sometimes it won’t.
Sorry if I seemed harsh, but this is the SDMB, where precision and accuracy are valued.
Agreed. No one is arguing that. However, there are VERY few decks in any format ever which could not be improved with the addition of some number of rares/uncommons. Not rares for the sake of rares. Not every burn deck back when Hammer of Bogardan was legal played 4xHammer. But many rare cards are just damn good, and many (various types of dual lands, in particular) fit into many, many decks. Also, as far as cheap vs. expensive spells, the pendulum has swung WAY back towards expensive spells, of late. Many huge (frequently legendary) creatures have been stomping across the table of late, along with Tooth and Nail and bewildering variety of other extremely expensive spells.
The number might surprise you, actually, between cards that specifically hose counterspells (red blast, city of solitude, xantid swarm, boseju), cards that recurse so that countering them is pointless (hammer, shard phoenix), cards that aren’t spells (blinkmouth nexus), cards that come out faster than counterspell (savannah lions, jackal pup, hound of konda), cards that just plain can’t be countered (obliterate, urza’s rage), and various things that enable any or all of the above (aether vial).
Oh, I agree completely that Counterspell won’t fix every problem; its most obvious weakness is that it does nothing about what’s already in play. That said, I think you’ll agree that the cards that counterspell can’t touch at all make up a pretty small fraction of the 7692 cards out there. The fraction of the card base that no common can hose is even smaller.
are cantrips still in use? thats one way to speed up any deck, strip it to the barest essentials, fill up on cantrips and start casting. I had a type 1.5 deck that would eat type 1’s alive due to sheer speed. (yes I am ooooooooooooooooooold school, stopped playing around 4th edition.
barring that green was never a strong tourney deck back in the day. the focus on critters was to limiting. I dont know if that holds true still.
Not anymore. They refocused the whole game around creatures, foten more expensive ones (mana-wise), too. I think they just got tired of having the combat sections of the game totally unused in tournament play. So now, creatures are more useful and more flexible. It’s a rare creature card that doesn’t have some neat special ability, and those that don’t usually have nice bonus elsewhere.
Regarding Green’s tourney-worthiness, it’s worth noting that artifact and enchantment destruction is now a Green ability (eg. Naturalize), which gives Green the control element it had been sorely lacking.
If the Wizards fora are to believed, White—particularly the White Weenie archetype—is the “new Green” in terms of suckitude. I play Type 1 and haven’t read a tournament report since The Dojo was online, so I’m not in a position to comment.
They’ll get my Disenchants and Swords to Plowshares when they Unhinge them from my cold dead hand!
I hate to be a wet blanket, but this program appears legally iffy due to trade dress issues. From what I’ve gathered by reading Wizards’ fora, you can freely reproduce the text of cards, but you can’t duplicate the appearance of Magic cards. I’m uncertain of whether this restriction includes only the artwork on the card or if it includes the templating as well.
