There's so much unconscious sexism I'd say. I try to keep cards at it, because they're pieces of paper, and not... people? Maybe that's just me.
But the internal, mechanical usages are one thing, the external cultural ones, are completely different.
And the external, cultural ones are the ones that frustrate me the most, perpetuating myths that simply don't exist. That girls aren't competitive, or smart enough, or some artificial barrier which gives men the privileged to say such things. (not to mention the verbal sexism that occurs all. the. time. moments outside the game that can be extraordinarily wrenching to hear, watch, and socialize with)
Any time a girl is playing, it's always something to note, but, I'd like to see it never be a big deal. Another player, another person to play, and just leave it at that.
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- tadiou
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I'm feeling that the meta is once again shaping up to be a fine matchup for GW Hatebears (or, more importantly, decks that don't despise running 3+ Thalia's). That said in my playtesting lately, the sideboard can really rock a lot of matchups positively.
Worship is a house vs Skullcrack, especially over C:OP Red. If that's your fear, remember: Worship doesn't prevent damage. "Worship does not prevent damage. It causes some damage to be unable to lower your life total. So any damage rendered useless by Worship was still dealt and is counted by effects that track the amount of damage done to a player. In addition, Worship does not prevent loss of life, so loss of life bypasses Worship." JUST A FRIENDLY REMINDER.
With UR Aggro & RDW being huge parts of the meta, being efficient, bigger and better is totally possible. Spellskite has a lot of worth here in just soaking up damage until you can get a decent board put together. I also read a little bit about Spellskite with Scapeshift as being good, but not good enough. With Scapeshift, you just have to remember that you're delaying the inevitable. If you're not aggressive, you won't win. You have to slow them down just enough to get enough damage in. Count, play as if you're the aggro deck. It's also a nice reason to use Aether Vials (Set on 2. or 3) so that even if they bounce your Skite or Mindcensor, you can just replay it, and force them to have a bad line of play, aka: the entire reason to play this deck.
Rhox Faithmender is something I've also been looking at in conjunction with Kitchen Finks as a way to beat Rx (as a 1/5 double lifelink is pretty good) or with Auriok Champion.
I think the Swords of X&Y are in a pretty bad place right now as being too slow. They're much better when UWx is a larger part of the meta, but now? Can't see that they're useful. Basically, channeling a lot of effort into punishing Rx decks is a positive. This makes a lot of overlap possible with other decks (see Auriok Champion vs D.Exarch). Worship falls into those lines as well. I don't know if you want 6 mana dorks though or 4. I keep thinking that more than 4 is right, but without Swords, it's hard to justify Birds of Paradise (which was the previous justification for riding swords, because t1 birds, t2 sword, t3 roll was a thing).
But, the reasons to play vial aren't actually diametrically opposed to the reasons not to play it. There's arguments that make sense in the context that I've been selling people on (and having excellent times with), for the past 2 years. There's a lot of great reasons to play it, it being a bad top deck and we don't play "tricks" are not reasons to not play it. There's a bunch of posts with my name on them which describe counterarguments (namely consistency and aggressive land usage)
As someone who's playing a lot of affinity lately. It's true.
You can sometimes come back from Creeping Corrosion, you can't ever come back from Fracturing Gust. You basically say, Plague Wind + Wildfire + I gain 10 life. That's not gonna work.
If you're opponents are at 3 lands and you've GQ'd them once or twice, usually you're ahead. Your 3 drops are mostly better than any of your opponents 3 drops.
Pretty much yes. Most decks can't beat a G1 worship, Tron is the big one and it's tough for Pod to without losing (because they have to lose a lot of pieces to do it, even though they do run Pridemage main 100% of the time).
Rancor is good against pod, and works well with Arena. Against Jund and Pod, I'd think Rancor is better, but against U/x decks I can't think of a card I want more than Sword of War and Peace. Basically the Blue decks really don't like SoWaP, and that includes Twin, Scapeshift, UW/x, and Blue Moon. Really depends on your meta though, what you expect to metagame against. The lifegain that you get from SoWaP isn't negligible most of the time, and that's what makes it reasonable, and the fact it pushes your creatures either to be Anger of the Gods proof by toughness or protection.
This is primarily why.
It's apparent representation vs actual worth.
http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gpbri13/welcome#1a
It's worse with more countermagic, IMO.
Gitaxian Probe is a bad card in the list. Having perfect information is nice, but most of the time completely irrelevant. This is coming from someone who plays a lot of storm combo in legacy. It's a crutch more often than not (and a very good one at that). There isn't any actual card advantage from Probing someone either. There's actually zero advantage. You're replacing one card with another, and not having any more resources than your opponent in hand. The best form of card advantage in the deck is reducing your opponents ability to gain card advantage and tempo.
Elesh is basically a non-castable card. You'd be better off running Honor of the Pure's over Elesh Norn (and even then, that's a really bad idea). I would just straight up consider cutting it or consider playing UW Tron if you want to play Elesh Norn and Iona (you need at minimum, 25-26 lands to play Elesh Norn).
Loxodon Gatekeeper is a very low-impact card. It's a "cute" card, but in reality, it suffers the same fate as hokori, dust drinker, it doesn't do enough, requires multiple cards for it to work well, and is prone to removal in unsurprising fashion without providing any sort of disruption more than Leonin Arbiter would provide.
God's Willing is still several steps worse than Brave the Elements, and that's still arguably weaker than Sword of X and Y.
There's no reason you should have Elesh Norn or Iona anywhere near the list. You will never, and I really do mean that, never be able to cast it. I think I've had 9 lands in play all of a dozen times out of over eight-hundred games or so. That means: you have 2 dead cards in deck. Elesh Norn... basically you're going to be able to cast it once in a blue moon, and not with any sort of regularity or anything.
I/R/T Apostle's Blessing - Really, Brave the Elements is the only possible card you can play in that slot, anything else is strictly worse.
I/R/T Canopy Numbers - The slower the format, the more you can get away with playing, and the more you want to play.
I also have to say: The reason why your WB Tokens matchup is bad is: Worship turns them off. As long as you keep in a little bit of spot removal for Auriok Champions, you shouldn't have an issue beating them once Worship hits the table. Same with Soul Sisters. Worship allows you to beat a lot of Fair matchups you shouldn't have any chance to beat, like Merfolk. Re: Hibernation. It's a bad beat, but you have 13 white creatures. Just one of them would have locked the game up through hibernation, which is why it's important to run it. It's like losing the Merfolk matchup because you don't have a path or scavenging ooze on the table and they vapor snag one of your creatures. It happens, but it's not a reason not to run the card.