I like this view of not saying good game if you don't feel it was good. Its pretty amusing.I guess I shouldn't expect there to be many magic players to have played sports before (that's not a veiled insult, just to be clear), so that's why I'm not just raging at some of the comments in here.
What it comes down is sportsmanship. It's just the right thing to do. And if you really feel like you have to knit-pick, and refuse to say 'good game' because you don't feel it is, then just say something else. If you're going to lose, lose with class.
I mean we like to think of ourselves as smarter than the average jock, so why can't we grasp this concept?
Exactly, I see the point about not liking that phrase both for what it's evolved into, as well as if it's just not true. But unfortunately many people just to not be courteous and sportsmanlike at all in defeat. It's not their fault if variance made the game no fun so don't take it out on them.
Interesting to see different interpretations on this. I see it more as the decision of the loser to extend the hand after a match is over. I know personally that unless there is some sort of actual personal animosity between me and my opponent that went way beyond the game, or if I was 99% confident he was cheating me and a judge had done nothing, I will always at least extend my hand after being defeated in a match.
Saying good game is a bit different since if I believe I got really mana screwed/flooded, heavily mulliganed multiple games or some other weird variance caused me to lose a game I'll just say something like "you got it" since it certainly wasn't actually a good game. But none of that is on my opponent so there's no reason to not still shake their hand. Any normal game I will pretty much say good game as I offer my hand, or once they offer theirs.
The most awkward are when they don't extend the hand. When it's because of mulligans/mana I try to sympathize but give them their space. Otherwise it can be kind of weird if they seem pretty upset or tilted about a loss when the reason why isn't obvious to me. I generally just keep my distance and don't initiate much unless they seem up for talking about the match etc. While I think it's respectful to pretty much always at least extend the hand, not everyone thinks that way so I try not to judge.
This youtube channel has the top 8 matches in their entirety, if you're looking for deck tech's/daily wrap up's I know those are on the official Wizards channel with the highlights
I wouldn't get too excited, the Vikings punter, Chris Kluwe, actually does play and he got AD to pose for the pic. Still cool that it happened and there is a Vikings player that plays MTG.
Conley's version of the deck isn't the same one that LSV, PV and Wrapter played for their top 8's. Their version had Tribal Flame and I think more Snapcaster's. Uncertain until decklists go up tomorrow, but I definitely think they have more than the 1 Conley and the Kibler version had.
Iyanaga might actually be the favorite here and I think he has the worst deck in the top 8. But that deck has to be the only thing Tempered Steel is really afraid of, but with Slagstorm, Ancient GrudgeGalvanic Blast etc. he's really well positioned. Still a brilliant call by the CFB guys to go with Tempered Steel, but in the deck tech they admitted the old-school Wolf-Run lists that are truly R/G were there one bad matchup and here it is in the top 8...
So Grixis lost? All that hype... Rofl! Suck it Olivia fan boys.
It was a metagame deck more than anything. But you also have to remember that it had very few pilots and that World's top 8 is decided by 18 rounds, only 6 of which are standard.
Hate to see my favorite archetypes piloted by one of my least favorite players, Craig Wescoe. I guess I'm going to have to go for LSV or PVDDR piloting one of my least favorite archetypes.
I actually like Wescoe. What he did to Levin was pretty unnecessary and very sad (although Levin is a bit full of himself which might make me feel less bad for him), but other than one misguided judge call he seems to be a good enough guy and has done well for himself testing alone for a year and a half now. His articles are also decent, although I wish there was a bit less white weenie in all his articles.
Top 8 tomorrow is Conley Woods (Tempered Steel), Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa (Tempered Steel), Luis Scott-Vargas (Tempered Steel), Jun'Ya Iyanaga (Wolf-Run), Josh Utter-Leyton (Tempered Steel), Richard Bland (G/W) , David Caplan (Mono-Red), and Craig Wescoe (U/W Geist Aggro).
Pairings are done by seeding so it'll be the ChannelFireball team and Tempered Steel against each of the remaining decks for all four Quarterfinals. Live webcast is 1:45 eastern tomorrow, according to Wizards. As bad as it'd be to watch after the quarter's, I'm pulling for the CFB guys to all get the win and make it a clean 1-4 finish.
Honestly, every color combo is draftable, some are just harder to pull off consistently than others. B/W and U/G, for example, are both extremely good if you can get the right pieces for them but since a lot of those pieces are uncommon or rare, it can't be done as often as drafting a solid G/W beatdown, U/B control or U/W fliers deck. If I had to do a quick rundown of what each color combo offers...
G/W: The best deck but also the most popular because of it and the number of commons in it. Just draft all the 1-4 drop, aggressive guys. The more Butcher's Cleavers the better.
U/B: The self-mill deck. Sometimes hard to find the right balance between enablers and cards to take advantage of them, but it's still a great archetype.
U/W: Probably the most diverse color combo, you can draft a standard fliers deck or a beatdown, Stalker and Equipment type of deck as well. As good as in any limited format.
U/R: Often overlooked as a strong archetype but it's often a better version of the U/B deck if you can pull it off. I never try to go too deep with Burning Vengeance but plenty have and love it. Probably the best spells in the format.
U/G: Definitely the swingiest deck. If you can get the nuts with Boneyard Wurm, Kessig Cagebreakers, Spider Spawning, Splinterfright, Cagebreakers etc. to go with the standard blue zombie guys, you can have an insane deck. But again, you're relying on opening uncommons and rares and you have the least removal of any color combo.
G/B: I think the most underrated color combo because there's no incentive to be in it. But oftentimes you can just get the best value cards in these colors and win by playing large dudes, backed up by some black removal. I would definitely splash a 3rd color in this and U/G the most in case you don't get enough removal.
G/R: These decks are also really inconsistent. You can get some really nice creature decks with good removal to back them but more often than not you just get clunky hands that lose out to board stalls or two-for-one's. Prioritize picking early-drops or removal since the 5+ mana guys are easy to come by.
R/W: I have the least experience with this archetype. It basically seems like a hybrid of G/W and R/B but loses out and the best aspects of either two decks. It doesn't have the inevitability and resilience of G/W, or the lightning fast starts of R/B.
R/B: Unheralded until recently, probably the 2nd best beatdown deck after G/W, although U/W is often better if it has a cleaver and/or stalker. This deck makes the most out of "bad" cards since other decks are often too slow to deal with a stream of 1-3 drop creatures backed with spells to push through the last points of damage.
B/W: This is another inconsistent deck that can be powerful if you get the right pieces. Get all of the guys with death triggers, get some Demonmail Hauberk's and swing in for a million with your tokens and guys with a ton of counters on them. Plenty of removal. Another thing to note is the mana can be bad since both colors have a fair amount of double color spells.
Right now blue decks have lots of things to do at instant speed such as Think Twice, Forbidden Alchemy, Snapcaster Mage, and Desperate Ravings among other things. Not to mention having things like Nephalia Drownyard to be able to use mana on and all the flashback costs of the aforementioned cards. Because of that, you really can't afford to just play draw-go against the blue decks and have to run threats out to force them to either use counters or removal spells instead of just outpacing you with card advantage. Obviously, if you absolutely need a certain one of your cards to resolve then play it after you've used others to bait out the rest of their permission and removal, but you really can't afford to just wait for Mana Leak to be dead or they'll just sculpt the perfect hand, hit all their landrops etc.
For my cube I rock all matching Unlimited basics. It's so great that when you are done playing you just have to take out the white bordered cards from your deck.
Yup, also makes searching for Rampant Growth effects much easier
Batterskull will more than likely not rise past $12. With cards that are destroying artifacts like ancient grudge and decks playing mirran crusader and sword of feast and famine, there's enough hate to keep it no more than a 2-of. It sees play in Legacy because of the strong play of a turn 3 batterskull with Stoneforge Mystic.
And there is no argument that Wurmcoil is better than Batterskull. Batterskull doesn't leave anything behind when it dies and only gains you 4 life compared to 6. Engine will kill a Dungrove elder when they collide and block sworded creatures. Vigilance is nice, but you're more than like going to leave it attached to the germ because a 4/4 non-evasive creature is not a finisher in today's standard. Dropping a titan means you are equipping on turn 7 and using up your mana. One of the beauties of a titan is you are getting CA when it swings in and leaving your mana open for spells to keep board control.
The matchups where cards like Ancient Grudge and Mirran Crusader shine against it aren't the ones where its relevant. The decks that play those cards are mostly mid-range or ramp decks, not the matchups that either artifact is good in. I like Batterskull because of the control mirror more than anything. It's faster, dodges Oblivion Ring and other spot removal, can't be wrathed, can play offense and defense and can be hooked up to Snapcaster Mage. And coming down a turn faster against Mono-red is a huge deal. You are right that it is definitely weaker against red decks splashing green for grudge, but I think those are the exception more than the rule.
Long story short, Mono-Red won the first SCG Weekend of new Standard so as a reaction it shot up since it is perceived as one of the best answers to that deck. It also saw play in Solar Flare and fringe play in Wolf Run when those decks dominated the next week of the new standard. Going into the 3rd and 4th weeks it's been Wolf Run all over and the deck that run it (Flare) and deck that it's good against (Mono-red) both dropping off in results and popularity.
So the price was a result of people wanting the best answer to one of the best decks to play in what they thought was the deck. It turns out, at least it seems right now, that none of those things are true. Mono-red is not one of the best decks and neither is Solar Flare. Because of Mono-red dropping off and the deck becoming more streamlined, Wolf Run also has less need for it. With that in mind and the rise of Infect it seems unlikely the card holds its value that high. I can definitely see it at 10-12 since it still is fair in U/B, as well as Pod and Flare holdouts. But seeing as it's a prerelease foil as well and that it is only a 1-3 of in decks that play it, I don't think it has a home above $15 for much longer.
On a sidenote, I think Batterskull can only go up though. It sees Legacy play, saw a shorter print run, doesn't have a prerelease foil and is arguably better than Wurmcoil in Standard. It is far better in a control mirror because it is much harder to kill, as both an artifact and being a black germ, and it also comes down a turn faster.
It's by no means obviously better; the -2/-2 is a big deal since it makes it die to Dismember, and it has less value if it dies against an aggro deck since you can't dawdle around replaying it like you can in a control mirror. That said, I think it has enough merit that I wouldn't be surprised if it rose back to the $20 range.
Exactly, I see the point about not liking that phrase both for what it's evolved into, as well as if it's just not true. But unfortunately many people just to not be courteous and sportsmanlike at all in defeat. It's not their fault if variance made the game no fun so don't take it out on them.
Saying good game is a bit different since if I believe I got really mana screwed/flooded, heavily mulliganed multiple games or some other weird variance caused me to lose a game I'll just say something like "you got it" since it certainly wasn't actually a good game. But none of that is on my opponent so there's no reason to not still shake their hand. Any normal game I will pretty much say good game as I offer my hand, or once they offer theirs.
The most awkward are when they don't extend the hand. When it's because of mulligans/mana I try to sympathize but give them their space. Otherwise it can be kind of weird if they seem pretty upset or tilted about a loss when the reason why isn't obvious to me. I generally just keep my distance and don't initiate much unless they seem up for talking about the match etc. While I think it's respectful to pretty much always at least extend the hand, not everyone thinks that way so I try not to judge.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Alicabob
It was a metagame deck more than anything. But you also have to remember that it had very few pilots and that World's top 8 is decided by 18 rounds, only 6 of which are standard.
I actually like Wescoe. What he did to Levin was pretty unnecessary and very sad (although Levin is a bit full of himself which might make me feel less bad for him), but other than one misguided judge call he seems to be a good enough guy and has done well for himself testing alone for a year and a half now. His articles are also decent, although I wish there was a bit less white weenie in all his articles.
Pairings are done by seeding so it'll be the ChannelFireball team and Tempered Steel against each of the remaining decks for all four Quarterfinals. Live webcast is 1:45 eastern tomorrow, according to Wizards. As bad as it'd be to watch after the quarter's, I'm pulling for the CFB guys to all get the win and make it a clean 1-4 finish.
G/W: The best deck but also the most popular because of it and the number of commons in it. Just draft all the 1-4 drop, aggressive guys. The more Butcher's Cleavers the better.
U/B: The self-mill deck. Sometimes hard to find the right balance between enablers and cards to take advantage of them, but it's still a great archetype.
U/W: Probably the most diverse color combo, you can draft a standard fliers deck or a beatdown, Stalker and Equipment type of deck as well. As good as in any limited format.
U/R: Often overlooked as a strong archetype but it's often a better version of the U/B deck if you can pull it off. I never try to go too deep with Burning Vengeance but plenty have and love it. Probably the best spells in the format.
U/G: Definitely the swingiest deck. If you can get the nuts with Boneyard Wurm, Kessig Cagebreakers, Spider Spawning, Splinterfright, Cagebreakers etc. to go with the standard blue zombie guys, you can have an insane deck. But again, you're relying on opening uncommons and rares and you have the least removal of any color combo.
G/B: I think the most underrated color combo because there's no incentive to be in it. But oftentimes you can just get the best value cards in these colors and win by playing large dudes, backed up by some black removal. I would definitely splash a 3rd color in this and U/G the most in case you don't get enough removal.
G/R: These decks are also really inconsistent. You can get some really nice creature decks with good removal to back them but more often than not you just get clunky hands that lose out to board stalls or two-for-one's. Prioritize picking early-drops or removal since the 5+ mana guys are easy to come by.
R/W: I have the least experience with this archetype. It basically seems like a hybrid of G/W and R/B but loses out and the best aspects of either two decks. It doesn't have the inevitability and resilience of G/W, or the lightning fast starts of R/B.
R/B: Unheralded until recently, probably the 2nd best beatdown deck after G/W, although U/W is often better if it has a cleaver and/or stalker. This deck makes the most out of "bad" cards since other decks are often too slow to deal with a stream of 1-3 drop creatures backed with spells to push through the last points of damage.
B/W: This is another inconsistent deck that can be powerful if you get the right pieces. Get all of the guys with death triggers, get some Demonmail Hauberk's and swing in for a million with your tokens and guys with a ton of counters on them. Plenty of removal. Another thing to note is the mana can be bad since both colors have a fair amount of double color spells.
Yup, also makes searching for Rampant Growth effects much easier
The matchups where cards like Ancient Grudge and Mirran Crusader shine against it aren't the ones where its relevant. The decks that play those cards are mostly mid-range or ramp decks, not the matchups that either artifact is good in. I like Batterskull because of the control mirror more than anything. It's faster, dodges Oblivion Ring and other spot removal, can't be wrathed, can play offense and defense and can be hooked up to Snapcaster Mage. And coming down a turn faster against Mono-red is a huge deal. You are right that it is definitely weaker against red decks splashing green for grudge, but I think those are the exception more than the rule.
So the price was a result of people wanting the best answer to one of the best decks to play in what they thought was the deck. It turns out, at least it seems right now, that none of those things are true. Mono-red is not one of the best decks and neither is Solar Flare. Because of Mono-red dropping off and the deck becoming more streamlined, Wolf Run also has less need for it. With that in mind and the rise of Infect it seems unlikely the card holds its value that high. I can definitely see it at 10-12 since it still is fair in U/B, as well as Pod and Flare holdouts. But seeing as it's a prerelease foil as well and that it is only a 1-3 of in decks that play it, I don't think it has a home above $15 for much longer.
On a sidenote, I think Batterskull can only go up though. It sees Legacy play, saw a shorter print run, doesn't have a prerelease foil and is arguably better than Wurmcoil in Standard. It is far better in a control mirror because it is much harder to kill, as both an artifact and being a black germ, and it also comes down a turn faster.
It's by no means obviously better; the -2/-2 is a big deal since it makes it die to Dismember, and it has less value if it dies against an aggro deck since you can't dawdle around replaying it like you can in a control mirror. That said, I think it has enough merit that I wouldn't be surprised if it rose back to the $20 range.