Yes, I'm really enjoying the 2 card limit rule and recommend it to others who want to mix up any paper pauper tournament that they organize. You need to give players a good amount of lead time to build their decks because of that rule, but you end up with new decks, a lot of excitement to try new ideas and a lot of variance between games in terms of the cards that get played. It feels a bit more like the old days so far. The players have dug into their cards instead of netdecking and brought out a lot of classics as well as strong new commons that are barely subpar for regular pauper. Kind of refreshing!
I've always enjoyed playing burn, and have most of the cards I need already, so I'm putting together a mono red deck below to practice with the players outside of the tournament. Since they've all built decks according to this ruleset, of course I want to play them!
Dang, need to run. That's 52 cards... I figure my sideboard will be a pyroblast, relic of progenitus, gorilla shaman... argh, gotta go! Any suggestions? Comments? Thanks :o)
LOL screw it. I always hear the same thing. Players that use blue mana in their deck telling stories about how they cleverly beat someone when there are scant few game mechanics that allow their opponent to actually respond to their plays. How to respond to the simple act of your opponent passing turn and leaving mana open... The onus of strategy is actually placed on the opponent, not the blue player. Blue players, like clockwork, just sit on mana like a toad and take whatever flies into their mouths with an enormously high rate of success, calling themselves geniuses for waiting for the windows in which to use their cards. You see, that strategy is incredibly predictable, but there are too few punishing mechanics or cards that can be used against it.
Blue players routinely discredit players like myself (see above) or cover their eyes/ears and pretend that blue spells aren't in the vast majority of winning decks. "There is no problem here." In reality the opponent simply has few options (that don;t go along with their game plan) even if they correctly guess or know the blue player's grip. Blue players avoid the issue that I am talking about which is that almost every category of topdeck has the same old blue spells in abundance, because the mechanic has been dominant for over 20 years. Over time, blue gets stronger creatures and the best pw, delve, snapcaster (and thus graveyard has gone to blue as well). The decks are still in abundance because their dominance continues to be accepted and wotc doesn't print new cards that are better than those cards.
I challenge Maro and co to grow a pair and change some of these tired interactions. To many players, Magic is a game about beating other players by "outwitting" them. But just take a look at the top decks to see what "outwitting" someone really means - in older formats it means collecting the same old cards that were out all along. In new formats, it means using less powerful versions of the same spells (or exactly the same spells). Even in the lit, it's just one story after the next about Jace saving the day from inept, naive planeswalkers of various different backgrounds.
Thanks for reading. I hope someone hears me but... I think this is pointless.
Lou, I see your point but you've only posited a theoretical or 1-tournament top 8 from who knows where. Jivan, I hear you too but the evidence is aggregated for everyone to see on mtgtop8. The most often winning decks in almost every archetype include heavy blue splash or uses blue in the combo (show and tell, exarch). Control is de facto owned by blue. Now, modern aggro is shifting to mono-blue which isn't really new, merfolk are simply back after an ebb in popularity. The reason merfolk are strong anyway is because they are a killer tribe and aether vial is strong against countermagic. Aether vial is strong no matter how you slice it but.. not to digress.. Notwithstanding the "other-color crusher" which is spreading seas and "now I own combat too" with vapor snag. It's really just blue, artifacts, and splashes of other colors no matter where you look except standard aggro which will rotate pronto and could easily swing blue in a month as well.
To the point about drafts, drafts are not constructed formats. No one posts aggregated draft results (to my knowledge) and so it can't be proven any which way. Drafts are a completely different beast than constructed. But if you want to talk about other formats, let's talk about Zur in EDH. If you want to go there.
Finally, jivan you must be kidding about counterspells. Also, briefly, I am not talking about discard - you are. It is not too powerful, and neither is black. Back to blue... I'm not even singling out counterspells, although I would posit that there is almost always nothing that other colors can do about them. Passing turn and saving mana for counterspells is not an advanced startegy - it is an obvious strategy that blue players congratulate themselves for. Consider that the logical burden on someone playing against counterspells is much more difficult. Do you play, or not? Therein lies the problem, both options are terrible. The only way to avoid a known or suspected counterspell by a non-blue player is to do nothing on their turn, in which case both players just did nothing on consecutive turns except draw a card. As everyone knows, this can then be followed at the end step by the blue player casting ponder, thought scour, etc. So a blue player often loses very little even if the opponent plays around a counterspell, just one more turn toward control hell. This is one of many ways in which the game mechanics favor blue.
Now, if other cards existed that upset this simple disruption strategy, there would be the opportunity for more advanced play. For example, if player 1 casts a spell and player 2 counters it, what are the only possible responses that can happen? Another counterspell? Maybe a clever graveyard trick? Option 1 here is only usable by other colors in the form of REB, pyroblast, dash hopes, a few others. Talking about restrictions, those spells are far more restrictive and less reliable than spell snare. LOL! So, it's on to maybe doing a graveyard trick and the other colors are already grasping for straws.
But anyway... it's not just counterspells. It's also card advantage, combo and now aggro too, like I'm saying.
jwf, it sounds like your friend is also put off by not having any options to deal with things like spell snare - unless they also play blue. Obviously, you know from playing spell snare (which is banned in Modern and flat out mean in casual) that blue has a near-monopoly on the all important stack. A black, green, red or white deck has no recourse against your Spell Snare simply because they can't target the creature that they have cast until it resolves, which it won't.
What I'm hearing is that other players don't like blue dominance and blue players like it very much and don't want to hear "complaining".... any other thoughts?
123fosh what are you talking about? Spell snare is not banned in Modern. If you're going to make absurd (and outright false) claims like that it becomes difficult to have a realistic conversation.
Do you also believe white is overpowered because it can prevent red from doing damage? Are enchantress decks overpowered because red cannot kill enchantments? Each color has strengths and weaknesses. You'll need to show some real data to prove that Blue is overpowered/oppressive in magic.
It's also known that newer/poor players tend to not like countermagic versus removal even though people like MaRo have said there is little difference at the end of the day. But counterspells (and discard) feel worse without actually being any more unfair. Similarly you feel like blue is overpowered when in reality, it's pretty much the same as the other colors these days.
jwf, it sounds like your friend is also put off by not having any options to deal with things like spell snare - unless they also play blue. Obviously, you know from playing spell snare (which is banned in Modern and flat out mean in casual) that blue has a near-monopoly on the all important stack. A black, green, red or white deck has no recourse against your Spell Snare simply because they can't target the creature that they have cast until it resolves, which it won't.
What I'm hearing is that other players don't like blue dominance and blue players like it very much and don't want to hear "complaining".... any other thoughts?
Abzan Standard is a flash in the pan by definition - it's Standard - and will be replaced with a different deck in no time. I give it one month until BFZ comes out. Exactly what I was saying above - the other colors have no staying power and all those Abzan decks are about to plummet in value, either before or after rotation. It's inevitable because the cards are not strong enough for older formats.
Again, respect your opinion and just stating my own.
You have a right to your opinion, sir. Tally one for blue dominance being OK in all formats. I don't agree with the idea that blue should be the de facto ultimate control color (why should that be exactly?), but respect your opinion.
It's no secret to my friends that I refuse to use blue cards. I have a bias toward the underdog colors (all of the other colors) and want to be able to play those colors in a constructed setting with a decent chance of winning. I love Magic and enjoy rooting for underdogs. To me, it's boring to see the same predictable outcomes in sports, cards, or otherwise. It's good to see an unlikely hero, etc.
Without flaming too heavily about it, the only frustrating aspect of Magic over the years IMO has been the continual domination of blue with only brief interruptions of other decks/colors.. decks which invariably get nerfed through bans or outrun by the printing of stronger and stronger blue cards. As of August 2015, once again, blue is dominating nearly every single archetype across all formats except vintage aggro and standard aggro. That's 10/12 deck types/formats (and letting it slide that Tolarian Academy and a few blue cards often infiltrate MUD which would make it 11 out of 12). If your response is "just put blue in your deck" - you are not hearing me. That's what everyone says. I just don't want to play blue.
I invite you to take a gander at the current population of top8 decks, and add up the % of top8 decks played in vintage/legacy/modern/standard that feature blue. Usually, blue is the dominant color in all of the decks. In many cases blue is not only the top deck in a category, but also represented very heavily in the next 3 or 4 decks down in that category. Mono-blue is now the most winning modern aggro deck (huh?) despite being heavily outnumbered at tournaments by jund and burn, for example. Also, keep in mind that standard is going to change in a month with BFZ, giving blue a chance to climb back up in that format as well. http://www.mtgtop8.com/
Do you think blue is over-represented in Magic? If so, would you rather see other colors brought up or the banhammer brought down in righteous fury to achieve balance?
Lol Fireblast for the "combo"... Come on... combos are decks like Exarch Twin or Sneak and Show. Combo decks use specific cards and usually tutors. Burn doesn't use specific cards or tutors. Fetchlands are not tutors.
But I can see confusion stemming from Infect - considered a combo deck by some players. I disagree since there are no specific cards or tutors in Infect either. But I digress...
The hands weren't terrible and I probably wouldn't get a better 6 but the 4 toughness on the nacatl after eating a creature was a house then goyf to top it off. And the games were coming down to like 1 more draw step wins. Game 3 I had him at 1 but 2 goyfs at 4/5 and a nacatl at 4/4 was too much for me. And burning his nacatl with blaze was a play I made early. It's fight and counter that is was the difficulty
Would a Gut Shot ever have helped you? Curious - obviously not after the creatures were ruling the board.
Just attended my very FNM with this list.
Went 2-2, here's a list of my matchups.
...
Infect (0-2) Ugh, this was gross. Game 1 he Spell Pierced the Boros Charm that would've won me the game, and second game he just gradually flooded the board with weenies and buffed up the unblocked ones, it was quite sad. I really believe I could've handled that game better if I had a better hand and either committed to responding to his threats or straight up went for the kill. I also had absolutely nothing in sideboard for this. Sided in Deflecting Palm, which didn't do much. A Pyroclasm would've been great.
I would greatly appreciate any comments on my list or any of the matchups.
I'm a little surprised that Deflecting Palm didn't help you against infect, but maybe you didn't draw it? It's easy to get 5 or 6 damage which is awesome from 1 card, it also saves your butt for at least a turn obviously (which means draw and play another card as well) - awesome. Gets around Vines of Vastwood and Apostle's Blessing and the unblockable effects that help them inflict the infection. It's handy that the infect damage is un-fected by the Palm too...
Although I haven't faced all of the major deck types in Modern yet, I do have experience against infect and Palm definitely hit the table like a cinderblock. It ruled. Sounds like you just had a bad match that time. Sometimes, one player just has the correct cards, not too many, not too few... 1 Abrupt Decay for your 1 permanent, an Eidolon... 1 Spreading Seas on the play against your 2-land hand that never found a third... whatever. I just throw those games in the garbage
Tipsygiggle: No argument on how awesome Lavamancer can be (as long as you only draw one, having two (or more lol) has never worked so hot for me) - the difference is that he's a brick until the turn after summon and requires mana. Time and mana. Everyone knows speed is king, and yes you trade power for speed. Gut Shot always works, right now, no matter what - yes, only for 1 damage, but it targets players or creatures! Telling you! Also you must be kidding if you think taking down a Hierarch before they can use it is a bad move. Although still a hypothetical situation (haven't piloted Gut Shot yet against those decks). Just saying usually when I see a Noble Hierarch, it's unpleasant. I want to kill them. Doing so, I wot, nets you extra time that can easily mean a whole extra turn, which means drawing a card, which means that GutShot just bought me a drawn card and cut their tempo so badly that they can't catch back up - hypothetically. Again, I just started using the 1x in my deck - but it worked great twice, both times I've drawn it. I can easily see throwing people off their mana base in the Hierarch situation if they mulligan for example and just barely have their strategy together.
I'm not even going to talk about all the games I've experienced where I lost by one, holding a Bolt or some such and tapped out. You've been there or you haven't played burn! Gut shot would work, right there.
But I think the big value is dropping mana dorks on T2 or infect guys, blockers in your way, etc.
Hey RPS, that is extremely close to my list. I've been experimenting with Gutshot and do feel that in my short experience, it has helped. A) Surprise factor B) the little something that puts your T2 over the top, letting you lay an Eidolon without possibly losing the game right there by letting them ramp or what have you C) it will be your only 0 mana spell, unlocking that potential is huge not just for you but perhaps you can get into your opponents' head if you drop an early game 1 Gutshot. The thing about burn is that everyone knows we can't do anything while tapped out! NOTHING
I have seen people running 2 Grim Lavas and I myself was running 2 Shard Volley until recently. Take 1 of those out and add a Gutshot would be my crazy recommendation. I see you are running Spellskite in the board which is a little outside the norm already for Burn. Maybe swap with Spellskite, although no one is going to tell you that Spellskite is a bad card.
Gut Shot has been fun as a singleton mainboard and useful twice so far in the past couple days. Hasn't hurt me yet (although I'm sure it will).
Maybe it's dumb to run it, but after experimenting with 19-20 lands, I went back to 19 and included this instead of a mountain (12 fetch, 3 Foundry, 2 Stomp, 2 Mountains). The first time I used it, it took out a Silvergill Adept to let a Swiftspear through on the draw T2 (pump Swift for 1!) followed by me being able to play an Eidolon - put to decent use, no? I took over that board big time - I was actually mad at myself when I drew my opening hand, realizing that I'd left all my Eidolons in on the draw against Merfolk (again), which I've come to find out doesn't work out so great. Because they get ahead of you and gum up the board, and often get around it anyway with Aether Vial. But not that time! Haha - Eidolon away, to great effect! The other time it handily dispatched a Glistener Elf. I maybe could have waited for a turn to try and kill the elf on the pump and swing, but I went ahead with it right after they summoned it on their T1. It's funny either way, I decided. It was really quite enjoyable. The part that I like the most about it is dealing with threats while developing the board at my regular speed... just saying! It made my Turn 2 much easier in both of those games, and I won those games. It worked in the early game, but I also think it has potential mid to late-game and in emergencies, like trying to kill a Deceiver Exarch without a Rending Volley, a rending volley not just in your deck, BUT IN YOUR HAND - that's one example I can think of. Run it and the Rending Volleys against Exarch and seems like better odds of breaking that combo. Kills Noble Hierarchs - those guys get on my nerves... Taking that sucker down ASAP will bend the whole game in your favor methinks...
Yes, I'm really enjoying the 2 card limit rule and recommend it to others who want to mix up any paper pauper tournament that they organize. You need to give players a good amount of lead time to build their decks because of that rule, but you end up with new decks, a lot of excitement to try new ideas and a lot of variance between games in terms of the cards that get played. It feels a bit more like the old days so far. The players have dug into their cards instead of netdecking and brought out a lot of classics as well as strong new commons that are barely subpar for regular pauper. Kind of refreshing!
Just organized my second pauper tournament recently and thought you might be interested to hear a twist on pauper rules that we're using.
So, the tournament is paper pauper with the big twist being that only 2 copies of any card are allowed in a deck, outside of basic lands. Also, the sideboard is only 5 cards, not 15. There is a banned list of 14 cards (pretty typical) which are: Cloud of Faeries, Cloudpost, Cranial Plating, Empty the Warrens, Frantic Search, Grapeshot, Invigorate, Temporal Fissure, Treasure Cruise, Sinkhole, Merchant Scroll, Hymn to Tourach, High Tide, and Goblin Grenade.
I've always enjoyed playing burn, and have most of the cards I need already, so I'm putting together a mono red deck below to practice with the players outside of the tournament. Since they've all built decks according to this ruleset, of course I want to play them!
2 Keldon Marauders
2 Thermo-Alchemist
2 Mogg Fanatic
2 Spark Elemental
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Chain Lightning
2 Lava Spike
2 Rift Bolt
2 Needle Drop
2 Searing Blaze
2 Incinerate
2 Flame Rift
2 Molten Rain
2 Staggershock
2 Fireblast
Dang, need to run. That's 52 cards... I figure my sideboard will be a pyroblast, relic of progenitus, gorilla shaman... argh, gotta go! Any suggestions? Comments? Thanks :o)
Blue players routinely discredit players like myself (see above) or cover their eyes/ears and pretend that blue spells aren't in the vast majority of winning decks. "There is no problem here." In reality the opponent simply has few options (that don;t go along with their game plan) even if they correctly guess or know the blue player's grip. Blue players avoid the issue that I am talking about which is that almost every category of topdeck has the same old blue spells in abundance, because the mechanic has been dominant for over 20 years. Over time, blue gets stronger creatures and the best pw, delve, snapcaster (and thus graveyard has gone to blue as well). The decks are still in abundance because their dominance continues to be accepted and wotc doesn't print new cards that are better than those cards.
I challenge Maro and co to grow a pair and change some of these tired interactions. To many players, Magic is a game about beating other players by "outwitting" them. But just take a look at the top decks to see what "outwitting" someone really means - in older formats it means collecting the same old cards that were out all along. In new formats, it means using less powerful versions of the same spells (or exactly the same spells). Even in the lit, it's just one story after the next about Jace saving the day from inept, naive planeswalkers of various different backgrounds.
Thanks for reading. I hope someone hears me but... I think this is pointless.
To the point about drafts, drafts are not constructed formats. No one posts aggregated draft results (to my knowledge) and so it can't be proven any which way. Drafts are a completely different beast than constructed. But if you want to talk about other formats, let's talk about Zur in EDH. If you want to go there.
Finally, jivan you must be kidding about counterspells. Also, briefly, I am not talking about discard - you are. It is not too powerful, and neither is black. Back to blue... I'm not even singling out counterspells, although I would posit that there is almost always nothing that other colors can do about them. Passing turn and saving mana for counterspells is not an advanced startegy - it is an obvious strategy that blue players congratulate themselves for. Consider that the logical burden on someone playing against counterspells is much more difficult. Do you play, or not? Therein lies the problem, both options are terrible. The only way to avoid a known or suspected counterspell by a non-blue player is to do nothing on their turn, in which case both players just did nothing on consecutive turns except draw a card. As everyone knows, this can then be followed at the end step by the blue player casting ponder, thought scour, etc. So a blue player often loses very little even if the opponent plays around a counterspell, just one more turn toward control hell. This is one of many ways in which the game mechanics favor blue.
Now, if other cards existed that upset this simple disruption strategy, there would be the opportunity for more advanced play. For example, if player 1 casts a spell and player 2 counters it, what are the only possible responses that can happen? Another counterspell? Maybe a clever graveyard trick? Option 1 here is only usable by other colors in the form of REB, pyroblast, dash hopes, a few others. Talking about restrictions, those spells are far more restrictive and less reliable than spell snare. LOL! So, it's on to maybe doing a graveyard trick and the other colors are already grasping for straws.
But anyway... it's not just counterspells. It's also card advantage, combo and now aggro too, like I'm saying.
My bad, I was thinking of Mental Misstep.
What I'm hearing is that other players don't like blue dominance and blue players like it very much and don't want to hear "complaining".... any other thoughts?
Again, respect your opinion and just stating my own.
Anyone else want to weigh in with their thoughts?
Going to add "Other - see comment" to the poll.
Without flaming too heavily about it, the only frustrating aspect of Magic over the years IMO has been the continual domination of blue with only brief interruptions of other decks/colors.. decks which invariably get nerfed through bans or outrun by the printing of stronger and stronger blue cards. As of August 2015, once again, blue is dominating nearly every single archetype across all formats except vintage aggro and standard aggro. That's 10/12 deck types/formats (and letting it slide that Tolarian Academy and a few blue cards often infiltrate MUD which would make it 11 out of 12). If your response is "just put blue in your deck" - you are not hearing me. That's what everyone says. I just don't want to play blue.
I invite you to take a gander at the current population of top8 decks, and add up the % of top8 decks played in vintage/legacy/modern/standard that feature blue. Usually, blue is the dominant color in all of the decks. In many cases blue is not only the top deck in a category, but also represented very heavily in the next 3 or 4 decks down in that category. Mono-blue is now the most winning modern aggro deck (huh?) despite being heavily outnumbered at tournaments by jund and burn, for example. Also, keep in mind that standard is going to change in a month with BFZ, giving blue a chance to climb back up in that format as well. http://www.mtgtop8.com/
Do you think blue is over-represented in Magic? If so, would you rather see other colors brought up or the banhammer brought down in righteous fury to achieve balance?
But I can see confusion stemming from Infect - considered a combo deck by some players. I disagree since there are no specific cards or tutors in Infect either. But I digress...
Congrats to recent winners posting here!
Would a Gut Shot ever have helped you? Curious - obviously not after the creatures were ruling the board.
Although I haven't faced all of the major deck types in Modern yet, I do have experience against infect and Palm definitely hit the table like a cinderblock. It ruled. Sounds like you just had a bad match that time. Sometimes, one player just has the correct cards, not too many, not too few... 1 Abrupt Decay for your 1 permanent, an Eidolon... 1 Spreading Seas on the play against your 2-land hand that never found a third... whatever. I just throw those games in the garbage
I'm not even going to talk about all the games I've experienced where I lost by one, holding a Bolt or some such and tapped out. You've been there or you haven't played burn! Gut shot would work, right there.
But I think the big value is dropping mana dorks on T2 or infect guys, blockers in your way, etc.
I have seen people running 2 Grim Lavas and I myself was running 2 Shard Volley until recently. Take 1 of those out and add a Gutshot would be my crazy recommendation. I see you are running Spellskite in the board which is a little outside the norm already for Burn. Maybe swap with Spellskite, although no one is going to tell you that Spellskite is a bad card.
Maybe it's dumb to run it, but after experimenting with 19-20 lands, I went back to 19 and included this instead of a mountain (12 fetch, 3 Foundry, 2 Stomp, 2 Mountains). The first time I used it, it took out a Silvergill Adept to let a Swiftspear through on the draw T2 (pump Swift for 1!) followed by me being able to play an Eidolon - put to decent use, no? I took over that board big time - I was actually mad at myself when I drew my opening hand, realizing that I'd left all my Eidolons in on the draw against Merfolk (again), which I've come to find out doesn't work out so great. Because they get ahead of you and gum up the board, and often get around it anyway with Aether Vial. But not that time! Haha - Eidolon away, to great effect! The other time it handily dispatched a Glistener Elf. I maybe could have waited for a turn to try and kill the elf on the pump and swing, but I went ahead with it right after they summoned it on their T1. It's funny either way, I decided. It was really quite enjoyable. The part that I like the most about it is dealing with threats while developing the board at my regular speed... just saying! It made my Turn 2 much easier in both of those games, and I won those games. It worked in the early game, but I also think it has potential mid to late-game and in emergencies, like trying to kill a Deceiver Exarch without a Rending Volley, a rending volley not just in your deck, BUT IN YOUR HAND - that's one example I can think of. Run it and the Rending Volleys against Exarch and seems like better odds of breaking that combo. Kills Noble Hierarchs - those guys get on my nerves... Taking that sucker down ASAP will bend the whole game in your favor methinks...