its not optimal, obviously the UW Merfolk land replaces Adarkar Wastes and Venser + Wipe Away come out for Cryptic Command x4, everything else in the maindeck is fine. The sideboard was there just to give me 15 cards to look at in between games. Fix that to suit your meta.
T8: Brian Breedwell, Elves
T8: Michael Eskridge, U/B Madness
T8: Adam LeGear, Mono-Green Dourbark
T8: Blair Simpson, U/W/R control
T4: Todd Anderson, U/G Tempo
T4: Jay Owen, R/G aggro
T2: Zack Kitchens, U/B control
T1: Greg Wilder, Merfolk
I played WW Kithkin and scrubbed out and I should have played Predator instead, I think. I play at the same store as Adam, Jay and Greg so it was a nice outing by my friends.
NOTE: I didn't see deck listings and didn't watch every match all the way through so my archetype listings above are approximate.
todd was playing UWG blink. seemed reasonable, i mean, merfolk is apparently a bad matchup for that.
in the two on two moneydrafts i've been a part of, its been that each team provides the packs for themselves, and the winners get all the cards, plus $20 from each losing opponent....(so $40)
the problem with that example (as well as having a stuffy doll choosing yourself in play, pariah's shield attached (or pariah, if you will) and a furnace of rath in play) is that you have to autoyield through the steps, at that point you will never receive priority again and the game will enter a boundless loop
I’m going to begin and end this article with the same question, “Why is Hallowed Fountain rare?” The cycle of 10 duel lands from the Ravnica Block like Hallowed Fountain and Steam Vents are great, everyone wants 4 of them. The only problem is that they are rare, and are the highest priced cards in the whole set. They are so powerful that they are even used in Extended. If Wizards of the Coast is trying give the majority of players use the best cards, why isn’t this cycle of rare lands common?
Wizards has admitted that the casual player is the lifeblood of Magic. Wizards doesn’t control or gain money from the secondary market. They don’t make any money if you buy Temple Garden for $14, its current value. Wizards would be encouraging thousands (millions?) of players if they would have made these lands common or at least uncommon. I know they are really cool cards, and really cool cards automatically become rare, but printing a few cards like these as common would really help the community. My question to Wizards is this, “Why is Hallowed Fountain rare?”
Someone did mention that Wizards sells more packs if good cards are rare, because people buy cards just for those rares. This idea actually makes alot of sense. So maybe Wizards does make good money on chase rares?
1) its dual lands not duel lands. Duel is what you're doing when you're playing a game; the term "dual" lets you know by the name what the land does-- producing one of two colors of mana
2) wizards has a long standing tradition of making anything that is signifigantly better than its predecessorat the same rarity or lower. this is why dual lands have always been uncommon or greater...note the "lag lands" from tempest and CHK block, the CIPT duals in invasion and the tainted lands in Torment. another example of this is the upgrade of the fetch lands from Mirage to Onslaught. by replacing CIPT with paying 1 life to use and not coming into play tapped the rarity went up because it obsoletes the previous versions. (Take a look at how many Rocky Tar pits are being used over Bloodstained Mires) This is true of the Ravnica block duals over the invasion CIPT ones. Sure you can have your Watery Grave come into play tapped on turn 1 or turn 2. however in the lategame, drawing whatever the CIPT u/b land is called versus drawing a watery grave is immensely in the favor of the grave.
3) some cards always have to be rare. and, in a sense, making a certain cycle of cards rare encourages players to use analogues that are uncommon or common or at least purchase more product in hopes of obtaining the most efficient version. it also ensures that the common and uncommon versions (and in the case of uncommons, ensures that the common version) will be a bit more useful. A good example of this is Rampant Growth versus Sakura-Tribe Elder. They were both legal in standard for the entirety of STE's time and while they perform the same task of getting you a basic land, the elder was a significantly better card and thus relegated Rampant Growth to watching from the bleachers.
If you mean getting two rares means ripping squire and some other stuff then I must say that I am not very excited
Putting jokes aside though, 1 rare per pack is the 'normal' way for Magic and TS and PC where more like exceptions rather than the rule. I'd be happy to see more rares in pack, though I am more of a limited player than a collector.
actually, opening TSP packs it was not at all unheard of of opening 3 rare packs, including your timeshifted.
in fact this has happened to me on more than a few occasions, including at a couple of 2HG events
first was Foil Magus of the Disk, Shadowmage Infiltrator and Akroma, AOW
and the other was Greater Gargadon, Claws of Gix and a foil Evangelize....but hey, they can't all be winners
I don't have to "talk like a big shot" to provide facts.
That's exactly what you'll find under Suzuki's name (and Mori's, when they get round to updating the list), and exactly the reason I was given for the banning at the time when I enquired. You want to argue further, take it up with Andy Heckt or Jaap Brouwer.
so how are you refuting what i said? by saying exactly what i said?
Please give me some credit for knowing why players were DQed at Worlds last year - not only was I there, I was judging. Take a look at the suspended players list; Bracht's previous is listed as a factor in the banning.
Quote from WOTC »
Max Bracht (German National Team)
Infraction: Cheating - Stalling
During Max's final match of Day One, he was found guilty of intentionally playing in such a way as to ensure that the game could not finish by abusing the time limit. The key for this one was intent. Among several other things, Bracht clearly made decisions like taking several mulligans strictly for the purpose of running out the clock. This one caused some confusion initially, as players were mixing up the infraction with slow play, which is different. To be clear, a "slow play" infraction is when a player is inappropriately causing the match to go too slowly, but unintentionally. Stalling, on the other hand, is when a player is found to be intentionally abusing the clock. Over the course of the final game of this match, the judges observed many instances of intentional abuse of the clock, which is why the infraction was Cheating - Stalling as opposed to just Slow Play.
Believe me, if the DCI thought that Mori did what he did deliberately to "test them" as opposed to simply failing to heed warnings, he would have been suspended for a damn sight longer than six months.
Mori would also have to be a complete cretin to do it, as he wasn't even the second person to be suspended for repeated unsuitable play. That was his countryman Takahiro Suzuki, who got his suspension at Worlds for the exact same reason as Ruel: he continued to shuffle in a suspicious manner after having been told to alter his method at past events.
EDIT: Or the third, either - that was Max Bracht. It really was not in doubt that this is policy by the time Mori got suspended.
actually bracht got busted for stalling and general douchebaggery
The card was given errata to make it work the way it is worded in Oracle. I believe this happened shortly after the printing of stifle.
actually the change to the current oracle wording was well before the printing of stifle, mainly due to the dreadnaught's interaction (now lackthereof) with Pandemonium
(this is also how Lotus Vale and Scorched Ruins work as well)
chess will eventually be solved, although currently most chess engines are more focused on just finding the best possible move at any given time than with solving the game.
it is, however, interesting that chess seems to be being solved from the ends and working towards the middlegame. between opening books that are 20+ moves deep and endgame tablebases that are several gigabytes in size, even the top grandmasters are having trouble beating the top engines under match settings.
last year, World Champion Kramnik lost to Deep Fritz 4 to 2. and yes, Kasparov lost to Deep Blue way back in 1996 (or was that 1997), but that was to a specifically designed super computer.
Deep Fritz being a commercially available program makes this outlook a little more grim for the world of human competitors.
here's the list I won Alabama States with.
4 Adarkar Wastes
14 Island
2 Wipe Away
4 Rune Snag
4 Psionic Blast
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merrow Reejerey
2 Venser, Shaper Savant
4 Tidespout Mystic
3 Riptide Pilferer
3 Coral Trickster
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Aquedect's Will
3 Teferi's Moat
4 Oblivion Ring
4 Condemn
4 Remove Soul
its not optimal, obviously the UW Merfolk land replaces Adarkar Wastes and Venser + Wipe Away come out for Cryptic Command x4, everything else in the maindeck is fine. The sideboard was there just to give me 15 cards to look at in between games. Fix that to suit your meta.
todd was playing UWG blink. seemed reasonable, i mean, merfolk is apparently a bad matchup for that.
*shrug*
you can draft with 2-3 people and with more than 8, however, certain things change when you get below 4 and above 8
1) its dual lands not duel lands. Duel is what you're doing when you're playing a game; the term "dual" lets you know by the name what the land does-- producing one of two colors of mana
2) wizards has a long standing tradition of making anything that is signifigantly better than its predecessorat the same rarity or lower. this is why dual lands have always been uncommon or greater...note the "lag lands" from tempest and CHK block, the CIPT duals in invasion and the tainted lands in Torment. another example of this is the upgrade of the fetch lands from Mirage to Onslaught. by replacing CIPT with paying 1 life to use and not coming into play tapped the rarity went up because it obsoletes the previous versions. (Take a look at how many Rocky Tar pits are being used over Bloodstained Mires) This is true of the Ravnica block duals over the invasion CIPT ones. Sure you can have your Watery Grave come into play tapped on turn 1 or turn 2. however in the lategame, drawing whatever the CIPT u/b land is called versus drawing a watery grave is immensely in the favor of the grave.
3) some cards always have to be rare. and, in a sense, making a certain cycle of cards rare encourages players to use analogues that are uncommon or common or at least purchase more product in hopes of obtaining the most efficient version. it also ensures that the common and uncommon versions (and in the case of uncommons, ensures that the common version) will be a bit more useful. A good example of this is Rampant Growth versus Sakura-Tribe Elder. They were both legal in standard for the entirety of STE's time and while they perform the same task of getting you a basic land, the elder was a significantly better card and thus relegated Rampant Growth to watching from the bleachers.
actually, opening TSP packs it was not at all unheard of of opening 3 rare packs, including your timeshifted.
in fact this has happened to me on more than a few occasions, including at a couple of 2HG events
first was Foil Magus of the Disk, Shadowmage Infiltrator and Akroma, AOW
and the other was Greater Gargadon, Claws of Gix and a foil Evangelize....but hey, they can't all be winners
so how are you refuting what i said? by saying exactly what i said?
how ingenious
his dq for stalling led to his suspension.
still want to talk like a big shot, jedit?
actually bracht got busted for stalling and general douchebaggery
actually the change to the current oracle wording was well before the printing of stifle, mainly due to the dreadnaught's interaction (now lackthereof) with Pandemonium
(this is also how Lotus Vale and Scorched Ruins work as well)
it is, however, interesting that chess seems to be being solved from the ends and working towards the middlegame. between opening books that are 20+ moves deep and endgame tablebases that are several gigabytes in size, even the top grandmasters are having trouble beating the top engines under match settings.
last year, World Champion Kramnik lost to Deep Fritz 4 to 2. and yes, Kasparov lost to Deep Blue way back in 1996 (or was that 1997), but that was to a specifically designed super computer.
Deep Fritz being a commercially available program makes this outlook a little more grim for the world of human competitors.
Here's the news story
this link also includes a downloadable .pgn file of the 6 games in the match.
umm, the original izzetron deck is this one:
2005 Worlds: 6-0 Standard Day One
Main Deck
60 cards Sideboard 3 Island
1 Watery Grave
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
2 Tendo Ice Bridge
1 Forbidden Orchard
4 Shivan Reef
4 Urza's Tower
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Mine
24 land
4 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
4 Keiga, the Tide Star
8 creatures 4 Pyroclasm
4 Mana Leak
2 Tidings
3 Dimir Signet
3 Hinder
2 Blaze
2 Confiscate
4 Compulsive Research
4 Telling Time
28 other spells 3 Cranial Extraction
3 Pithing Needle
1 Hinder
1 Orochi Hatchery
1 Confiscate
1 Tidings
1 Dimir Signet
4 Ribbons of Night
15 sideboard cards
i'm noticing a distinct lack of replicate spells.
not that i'm saying you're wrong, but
YOU
ARE
WRONG