Speaking of doing something right, what's up with Tahn's recent resurgence? This weekend he almost took down GP Prague, and he's already crushed some tournaments earlier this year. It's pretty sweet to see.
I loaded up the GP Prague page completely at random just after the T8 was announced. That was a nice surprise.
So, I'm not really around on Salvation anymore. This is basically a side effect of not playing Magic anymore. I still like the game, but WotC and I seem to have a difference of opinion concerning what it should be. Who knows, maybe one day I'll return to it?
Thought I might as well say goodbye properly (I considered writing an article about where I feel Magic's gone wrong, but I suspect it wouldn't serve any purpose). In the meantime, if anyone ever wants to get in touch for whatever reason I can be reached on email (dom@heffalumps.org), FaceBook (Dom Camus) or G+ (Dom Camus).
Thanks for the good times. Magic players are awesome people.
Well, I've only played one draft of the format and got bored.
I suppose part of it is that I'm completely lost faith in WotC's ability to design for Limited. It was Gatecrash that did it, really. RtR was a great set, so Gatecrash and Dragon's Maze ought to have been like shooting fish in a barrel.
Oh well, I gave up after Ice Age thinking I wouldn't play again, which turned out to be very wrong, so who knows what the future may hold?
I realized that based upon how my opponent played out the rest of the match, he probably wouldn't have blocked and been blindsided by a Defiant Strike, Trumpet Blast, Temur Battlerage, prowess trigger lethal attack. I think that has been my problem piloting Jeskai decks in the past, is that with prowess, I can bluff a lot to get in more early damage and then swing big and catch my opponents off guard.
From my perspective it would be somewhat ridiculous if your opponent was "off guard" in such a situation. Jeskai decks almost always have War Flare or Trumpet Blast because if they draw one it's unlikely to be useful early, so it will sit in their hand. As such, any time either of those cards could mean lethal you need a very good reason to not block!
Congrats on the T8! Is there a correct way to play around Yasova? I always assumed it was a remove-this-or-die card.
If he had stayed open just a little bit longer (for example by taking Scion of Glaciers over Jungle Hollow P2P1, and Glacial Stalker over Tuskguard Captain P2P2) he might have been able to pick up on the white signals and moved into Jeskai.
Yup, perfect analysis. This was exactly where it all went wrong and I did indeed end up with a weak deck. Largely inexperience on my part - enemy coloured lands are good and so is Captain, but apparently not quite good enough to motivate a commitment.
Match 3 vs zlate Game 1
Starts off fairly slowly. He's showing GUR so I decline to block his morph with my untapped Longbow Squad. He adds a second, then a Bear's Companion. I've got what looks like a good late game after Throttling the Bear (sorry bear)... but then the second morph turns out to be Mystic of the Hidden Way and suddenly the life I've lost already puts me on an unrealistically fast clock needing to draw either a second black source and Rite or my Charm. I don't. 0-1. Game 2
This one goes bad right from the start as he has T2 Smoke Teller and then Singing Bell Strikes my Jeskai Windscout. I trade a morph (Witness) with the Teller, mindful of what happened in the first game. Whirlwind Adept provides my only other board presence. I guess that his second morph is Mystic... but I'm wrong and as a result trade Adept with a Monastery Flock. My own Monastery Flock holds off his Riverwheel Aerialists, but not only am I drawing more land than him but his card quality is (unsurprisingly) higher. He resolves Companion again and then stops my Rite on his Aerialists with Cancel. I concede. 0-2.
Overall this deck felt very weak and with all my matches I felt I needed good luck to win games. I'm pretty sure where I went wrong is in misreading signals in pack one - Sultai was not open - but I'm still not sure what I should have been in. I suppose I'll find out soon!
Duplicate was fun as always, though. Thanks for running it!
I dunno, I think that sets a pretty bad precedent. Moderators check decks in good faith and errors will always happen. I had just as much fun with the round as if the deck was legal and my relatively flat scoreline means removing the deck won't have a huge impact anyway.
There have occasionally been rules in the past along the lines of "replace the illegal card with a basic land" or similar, but that doesn't really make sense here and in any case should be in the rules in advance if it's going ot happen.
Which I'd noticed that before I spent 20 minutes calculating my line! Though as it's turns out the deck's not very good. Does a pretty solid job of not winning, but is absolutely terrible at losing!
2-2
Show and Tell results in you taking a damage before I do, so even though it's 1-vs-1 I win. Consequently you never play Silos and instead stick to Rainbow Vale, which I can't enchant because I'd take damage first. Game is therefore a draw.
02 Feyd_Ruin :: "Doveclash"
Dovescape / Mana Clash / Calciform Pools / Rainbow Vale / Hall of the Bandit Lord
2-2
Another draw for basically the same reason as (01).
03 WhammeWhamme :: "Go with the Flow"
Mercadian Bazaar / Irrigation Ditch / Irrigation Ditch / Hypergenesis / Flow of Maggots
2-2
Another draw. Irrigation Ditch nullifies my deck's route to victory.
04 Parsley :: "Phantasmal Reality"
Black Lotus / Breeding Pool / Upwelling / Reality Twist / Phobian Phantasm
2-2
Another draw. Black Lotus nullifies my deck's route to victory.
2-2
Another draw. Crystal Vein nullifies my deck's route to victory. (My opponent cannot win because my storage land partially protects me from Barbed Wire, which means enchanting Rainbow Vale is good enough.)
06 yarn :: "Uncle Istvan and Friends"
Awakening Zone / Hickory Woodlot / The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale / Uncle Istvan / Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth 2-2
Another draw. Hickory Woodlot nullifies my deck's route to victory.
07 nerdyjoe :: "Doverecall"
Black Lotus / Black Lotus / Rainbow Vale / Dovescape / Ancestral Recall
2-2
Another draw. Black Lotus nullifies my deck's route to victory.
08 Chrono007 :: "The Race is on!"
Evermind / Evermind / Urza's Bauble / Forbidden Orchard / Funeral Pyre
2-2
Another draw. Urza's Bauble nullifies my deck's route to victory.
09 Heinsun :: "Death by Leeching"
Hollow Trees / Upwelling / Leechridden Swamp / Phyrexian Arena / Tourach's Chant
0-6
Got me. Has nothing safe to play and dies to Cursed Land long before it does anything useful.
0-6
Another win. Lotus Blossom is safe, but can only be cast after first playing an unsafe land.
11 Rush_Clasic :: "Light in the Storm"
Teferi's Isle / Fungal Reaches / Reito Lantern / Typhoon / Storm Seeker
0-6
Another win. An enchanted Teferi's Isle does half a damage per turn, which easily races recurring Storm Seeker.
12 Pingele_Pats :: "Chaos in my head"
Bottomless Vault / Perish the Thought / Praetor's Grasp / Kormus Bell / Gauntlets of Chaos
2-2
A draw, since Gauntlets of Chaos allows my opponent to give me Vault before Cursed Land becomes lethal, but knocks the aura off. Enchanting Gauntlets itself doesn't help, because it sacs on activation.
13 Mogg :: "Landless Desecration"
Desecration Elemental / Gemstone Array / Mana Crypt / Sol Ring / Thorn of Amethyst
0-6
Slightly complicated. I need to cast Vise to force Mogg to do more than nothing. But once I do, I can't cast Show and Tell or he'll kill me with Elemental. However, his only opening play is Mana Crypt, so I don't need to cast anything else and he dies to the Crypt or casts Elemental the hard way and it dies to Show and Tell.
2-2
Another draw. Lotus Bloom nullifies my deck's route to victory.
15 keyboardmash :: "Words for Karma"
Hollow Trees / North Star / Word of Command / Karma / Ancient Runes
0-6
Ancient Runes comes down off Show and Tell, but deals damage only after Cursed Land. Although he can Word of Command me, I cannot make the mana to cast Relic Bane on myself!
0-6
Not close. This deck has no safe plays and Show and Tell does nothing.
17 Personman :: "Pass the Djinn"
Barbarian Ring / Braid of Fire / Hollow Trees / Upwelling / Emberwilde Djinn
6-0
I finally lose one! Emberwild Djinn comes down via Show and Tell. Braid of Fire can be played on turn three, so because my opponent gets a free attack in with the Djinn before I can take it, the mana from Braid takes over and I lose to the life cost of repeatedly stealing the Djinn back.
X
19 psymunn42 :: "Need red mana plz"
Sand Silos / Flash Flood / Temporal Cascade / Grinning Totem / Glitterfang
0-6
Silos never actually leaves play and the Cursed Land damage is much faster than Glitterfang.
Match 2 vs Dorvan Game 1
He trades an early morph with my turn two Smoke Teller. I follow with a Jeskai Windscout, then play Force Away and then Throttle on his Alabaster Kirin and take an early life lead. He plays a face up War Behemoth, which I elect not to hit with Rite of the Serpent since I can probably race if he only has one blocker for my Windscout. Instead I play Witness face up. I'm immediately sorry as he plays Kin-Tree Invocation for a 6/6, then attacks and plays Mardu Hordechief with Raid. I kill the 6/6 and he sensibly chumps with the 1/1. He then plays Ainok Bond-Kin and I draw Sultai Charm and follow with Riverwheel Aerialists. I feel like I'm quite far ahead, but he clears the board with End Hostilities. My followup Tusked Colossodon would be held off my his Mardu Hateblade except it's monocoloured so I Charm it for the win. Game 2
1-0 up is all very well, but I drew all my best cards there. This could be interesting... but turns out not to be as he mulligans twice and ends up stuck on 1 land for ages. I keep a dubious 5 lander and draw 4 lands of the top (!), but he draws 4 non-lands (!) which is still worse. Although he manages to cast a couple of small things and I have to think carefully about how much to commit, it never turns into a real game. 2-0.
Match 1 vs ExpiredRascals Game 1
I draw a 1 land hand on the draw and mulligan to 6. My 6 is OK, if a bit slow. Unfortunately I stall on 4 mana for a while, which is a problem since I need to unmorph my two Glacial Stalkers to apply any pressure. My Jeskai Windscout is held off by his Alabaster Kirin, which is in turn held off my my Monastery Flock. However, in due course he finds a Sage of the Inward Eye (his manabase is incredible quality with lots of duals) and I start taking damage. I reach six mana and resolve Aerialist and start to threaten unmorphs, but a Suppression Field makes things awkward and then Smite the Monstrous after my Dragonscale Boon resolves mid-combat leaves me in deep trouble. My Disdainful Stroke gets used rather disappointingly on a hardcast Shambling Attendants. Neither deck seems impressive. 0-1 Game 2
I side in Naturalize and take out Whirlwind Adept, since he's not attacking with ground creatures much. I keep a very sketchy hand of Island, Swamp, Swamp, Naturalize, Dragonscale Boon, Tusked Collosodon and Riverwheel Aerialists. When he opens on Ainok Bond-Kin I think I've lost, but his turn three is Goblinslide gets Naturalized EOT and I find Tuskguard Captain for turn five, then the Colossodon resolves on turn six and is not immediately killed! My opponent's Bond Kin has been growing. He attacks with it and uses Arrow Storm to kill the Colossodon, with Suppression Field again eating my Aerialists. However, although he's ahead on cards he is low on life. A second Arrow Storm tries to take out my 3/4 Captain, but a timely Dragonscale Boon in response leaves him dead on the board. Phew! 1-1 Game 3
I side in my second Naturalize in place of Crippling Chill. A zero lander forces a mulligan and I keep Forest, Forest, Swamp, Force Away, Glacial Stalker, Tusked Colossodon. He has Goblinslide again, which I'm fine with since it's rather slow, but then a huge beating ensues as he kills every creature I cast, making a Goblin each time, then casts Dig Through Time, at which point I've basically lost, then untaps and casts Flying Crane Technique on his army of Goblins and Ainok Bond-Kin. Ouuuch! Under the circumstances I'm quite satisfied with 1-2.
Fun games. Even though I suspect my deck of being somewhat terrible! Once the games are over I'll have to get some people who know what they're doing to critique my draft...
There are a lot of strong contenders for different reasons, but I think the overall winner is probably Warp World. At first glance it looks like a typical overpriced Red random-stuff-happens card, but actually it's a powerful and subtle weapon that has led to a lot of fun games as well as a lot of fun deckbuilding.
G+: https://plus.google.com/108436424977797620609/posts (most stuff goes here)
Twitter: @fastramdesign (mostly work stuff, as the username implies)
FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/bateleur (mostly non-games stuff, pictures of my cat, that sort of thing)
I don't keep a blog at the moment. Might get back to it at some point...
I loaded up the GP Prague page completely at random just after the T8 was announced. That was a nice surprise.
So, I'm not really around on Salvation anymore. This is basically a side effect of not playing Magic anymore. I still like the game, but WotC and I seem to have a difference of opinion concerning what it should be. Who knows, maybe one day I'll return to it?
Thought I might as well say goodbye properly (I considered writing an article about where I feel Magic's gone wrong, but I suspect it wouldn't serve any purpose). In the meantime, if anyone ever wants to get in touch for whatever reason I can be reached on email (dom@heffalumps.org), FaceBook (Dom Camus) or G+ (Dom Camus).
Thanks for the good times. Magic players are awesome people.
Cheers,
Dom.
I suppose part of it is that I'm completely lost faith in WotC's ability to design for Limited. It was Gatecrash that did it, really. RtR was a great set, so Gatecrash and Dragon's Maze ought to have been like shooting fish in a barrel.
Oh well, I gave up after Ice Age thinking I wouldn't play again, which turned out to be very wrong, so who knows what the future may hold?
Congrats on the T8! Is there a correct way to play around Yasova? I always assumed it was a remove-this-or-die card.
Game 1
Starts off fairly slowly. He's showing GUR so I decline to block his morph with my untapped Longbow Squad. He adds a second, then a Bear's Companion. I've got what looks like a good late game after Throttling the Bear (sorry bear)... but then the second morph turns out to be Mystic of the Hidden Way and suddenly the life I've lost already puts me on an unrealistically fast clock needing to draw either a second black source and Rite or my Charm. I don't. 0-1.
Game 2
This one goes bad right from the start as he has T2 Smoke Teller and then Singing Bell Strikes my Jeskai Windscout. I trade a morph (Witness) with the Teller, mindful of what happened in the first game. Whirlwind Adept provides my only other board presence. I guess that his second morph is Mystic... but I'm wrong and as a result trade Adept with a Monastery Flock. My own Monastery Flock holds off his Riverwheel Aerialists, but not only am I drawing more land than him but his card quality is (unsurprisingly) higher. He resolves Companion again and then stops my Rite on his Aerialists with Cancel. I concede. 0-2.
Overall this deck felt very weak and with all my matches I felt I needed good luck to win games. I'm pretty sure where I went wrong is in misreading signals in pack one - Sultai was not open - but I'm still not sure what I should have been in. I suppose I'll find out soon!
Duplicate was fun as always, though. Thanks for running it!
There have occasionally been rules in the past along the lines of "replace the illegal card with a basic land" or similar, but that doesn't really make sense here and in any case should be in the rules in advance if it's going ot happen.
Which I'd noticed that before I spent 20 minutes calculating my line! Though as it's turns out the deck's not very good. Does a pretty solid job of not winning, but is absolutely terrible at losing!
18| 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 0 0 0 2 0 2 0 0 6 X 0 | 26 | 137
18 bateleur :: "Vise City"
Saprazzan Cove / Black Vise / Show and Tell / Relic Bane / Cursed Land
vs
01 Madmanquail :: "Dovescout"
Dovescape / Scout's Warning / Sand Silos / Rainbow Vale / Adventurers' Guildhouse
2-2
Show and Tell results in you taking a damage before I do, so even though it's 1-vs-1 I win. Consequently you never play Silos and instead stick to Rainbow Vale, which I can't enchant because I'd take damage first. Game is therefore a draw.
02 Feyd_Ruin :: "Doveclash"
Dovescape / Mana Clash / Calciform Pools / Rainbow Vale / Hall of the Bandit Lord
2-2
Another draw for basically the same reason as (01).
03 WhammeWhamme :: "Go with the Flow"
Mercadian Bazaar / Irrigation Ditch / Irrigation Ditch / Hypergenesis / Flow of Maggots
2-2
Another draw. Irrigation Ditch nullifies my deck's route to victory.
04 Parsley :: "Phantasmal Reality"
Black Lotus / Breeding Pool / Upwelling / Reality Twist / Phobian Phantasm
2-2
Another draw. Black Lotus nullifies my deck's route to victory.
05 Subtle_Relevance :: "Dual Threat"
Rainbow Vale / Rainbow Vale / Crystal Vein / Desecration Elemental / Barbed Wire
2-2
Another draw. Crystal Vein nullifies my deck's route to victory. (My opponent cannot win because my storage land partially protects me from Barbed Wire, which means enchanting Rainbow Vale is good enough.)
06 yarn :: "Uncle Istvan and Friends"
Awakening Zone / Hickory Woodlot / The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale / Uncle Istvan / Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2-2
Another draw. Hickory Woodlot nullifies my deck's route to victory.
07 nerdyjoe :: "Doverecall"
Black Lotus / Black Lotus / Rainbow Vale / Dovescape / Ancestral Recall
2-2
Another draw. Black Lotus nullifies my deck's route to victory.
08 Chrono007 :: "The Race is on!"
Evermind / Evermind / Urza's Bauble / Forbidden Orchard / Funeral Pyre
2-2
Another draw. Urza's Bauble nullifies my deck's route to victory.
09 Heinsun :: "Death by Leeching"
Hollow Trees / Upwelling / Leechridden Swamp / Phyrexian Arena / Tourach's Chant
0-6
Got me. Has nothing safe to play and dies to Cursed Land long before it does anything useful.
10 notgreat :: "Shuffle Shuffle"
Shivan Gorge / Skyshroud Forest / Lotus Blossom / Mnemonic Nexus / Morality Shift
0-6
Another win. Lotus Blossom is safe, but can only be cast after first playing an unsafe land.
11 Rush_Clasic :: "Light in the Storm"
Teferi's Isle / Fungal Reaches / Reito Lantern / Typhoon / Storm Seeker
0-6
Another win. An enchanted Teferi's Isle does half a damage per turn, which easily races recurring Storm Seeker.
12 Pingele_Pats :: "Chaos in my head"
Bottomless Vault / Perish the Thought / Praetor's Grasp / Kormus Bell / Gauntlets of Chaos
2-2
A draw, since Gauntlets of Chaos allows my opponent to give me Vault before Cursed Land becomes lethal, but knocks the aura off. Enchanting Gauntlets itself doesn't help, because it sacs on activation.
13 Mogg :: "Landless Desecration"
Desecration Elemental / Gemstone Array / Mana Crypt / Sol Ring / Thorn of Amethyst
0-6
Slightly complicated. I need to cast Vise to force Mogg to do more than nothing. But once I do, I can't cast Show and Tell or he'll kill me with Elemental. However, his only opening play is Mana Crypt, so I don't need to cast anything else and he dies to the Crypt or casts Elemental the hard way and it dies to Show and Tell.
14 tomsloger :: "Garden Salvo"
Lotus Bloom / Scrapyard Salvo / Centaur Garden / Serene Remebrance / Evermind
2-2
Another draw. Lotus Bloom nullifies my deck's route to victory.
15 keyboardmash :: "Words for Karma"
Hollow Trees / North Star / Word of Command / Karma / Ancient Runes
0-6
Ancient Runes comes down off Show and Tell, but deals damage only after Cursed Land. Although he can Word of Command me, I cannot make the mana to cast Relic Bane on myself!
16 thatmarkguy :: "Affinity"
Broodstar / Naked Singularity / Teferi's Isle / Calciform Pools / Adventurer's Guildhouse
0-6
Not close. This deck has no safe plays and Show and Tell does nothing.
17 Personman :: "Pass the Djinn"
Barbarian Ring / Braid of Fire / Hollow Trees / Upwelling / Emberwilde Djinn
6-0
I finally lose one! Emberwild Djinn comes down via Show and Tell. Braid of Fire can be played on turn three, so because my opponent gets a free attack in with the Djinn before I can take it, the mana from Braid takes over and I lose to the life cost of repeatedly stealing the Djinn back.
X
19 psymunn42 :: "Need red mana plz"
Sand Silos / Flash Flood / Temporal Cascade / Grinning Totem / Glitterfang
0-6
Silos never actually leaves play and the Cursed Land damage is much faster than Glitterfang.
Game 1
He trades an early morph with my turn two Smoke Teller. I follow with a Jeskai Windscout, then play Force Away and then Throttle on his Alabaster Kirin and take an early life lead. He plays a face up War Behemoth, which I elect not to hit with Rite of the Serpent since I can probably race if he only has one blocker for my Windscout. Instead I play Witness face up. I'm immediately sorry as he plays Kin-Tree Invocation for a 6/6, then attacks and plays Mardu Hordechief with Raid. I kill the 6/6 and he sensibly chumps with the 1/1. He then plays Ainok Bond-Kin and I draw Sultai Charm and follow with Riverwheel Aerialists. I feel like I'm quite far ahead, but he clears the board with End Hostilities. My followup Tusked Colossodon would be held off my his Mardu Hateblade except it's monocoloured so I Charm it for the win.
Game 2
1-0 up is all very well, but I drew all my best cards there. This could be interesting... but turns out not to be as he mulligans twice and ends up stuck on 1 land for ages. I keep a dubious 5 lander and draw 4 lands of the top (!), but he draws 4 non-lands (!) which is still worse. Although he manages to cast a couple of small things and I have to think carefully about how much to commit, it never turns into a real game. 2-0.
Game 1
I draw a 1 land hand on the draw and mulligan to 6. My 6 is OK, if a bit slow. Unfortunately I stall on 4 mana for a while, which is a problem since I need to unmorph my two Glacial Stalkers to apply any pressure. My Jeskai Windscout is held off by his Alabaster Kirin, which is in turn held off my my Monastery Flock. However, in due course he finds a Sage of the Inward Eye (his manabase is incredible quality with lots of duals) and I start taking damage. I reach six mana and resolve Aerialist and start to threaten unmorphs, but a Suppression Field makes things awkward and then Smite the Monstrous after my Dragonscale Boon resolves mid-combat leaves me in deep trouble. My Disdainful Stroke gets used rather disappointingly on a hardcast Shambling Attendants. Neither deck seems impressive. 0-1
Game 2
I side in Naturalize and take out Whirlwind Adept, since he's not attacking with ground creatures much. I keep a very sketchy hand of Island, Swamp, Swamp, Naturalize, Dragonscale Boon, Tusked Collosodon and Riverwheel Aerialists. When he opens on Ainok Bond-Kin I think I've lost, but his turn three is Goblinslide gets Naturalized EOT and I find Tuskguard Captain for turn five, then the Colossodon resolves on turn six and is not immediately killed! My opponent's Bond Kin has been growing. He attacks with it and uses Arrow Storm to kill the Colossodon, with Suppression Field again eating my Aerialists. However, although he's ahead on cards he is low on life. A second Arrow Storm tries to take out my 3/4 Captain, but a timely Dragonscale Boon in response leaves him dead on the board. Phew! 1-1
Game 3
I side in my second Naturalize in place of Crippling Chill. A zero lander forces a mulligan and I keep Forest, Forest, Swamp, Force Away, Glacial Stalker, Tusked Colossodon. He has Goblinslide again, which I'm fine with since it's rather slow, but then a huge beating ensues as he kills every creature I cast, making a Goblin each time, then casts Dig Through Time, at which point I've basically lost, then untaps and casts Flying Crane Technique on his army of Goblins and Ainok Bond-Kin. Ouuuch! Under the circumstances I'm quite satisfied with 1-2.
Fun games. Even though I suspect my deck of being somewhat terrible! Once the games are over I'll have to get some people who know what they're doing to critique my draft...
7 Forest
5 Island
4 Swamp
1 Thornwood Falls
1 Jungle Hollow
Creatures (14)
1 Highland Game
1 Smoke Teller
1 Tuskguard Captain
1 Witness of the Ages
2 Jeskai Windscout
1 Monastery Flock
2 Glacial Stalker
1 Longshot Squad
1 Whirlwind Adept
1 Meandering Towershell
1 Tusked Colossodon
1 Riverwheel Aerialists
1 Disdainful Stroke
1 Force Away
1 Crippling Chill
1 Sultai Charm
1 Dragonscale Boon
1 Bitter Revelation
1 Throttle
1 Rite of the Serpent
2 Scaldkin
1 Briber's Purse
1 Blinding Spray
2 Naturalize
1 Embodiment of Spring
1 Abzan Banner
1 Swamp (foil)
1 Feed the Clan
1 Brave the Sands
1 Abzan Banner
1 Brave the Sands
1 Seek the Horizon
1 Heart-Piercer Bow
1 Talgam's Scheming
1 Temur Banner
1 Lens of Clarity