Glaze Fiend. Dec Draft Experiment

[MakoEyesX]

Let me preface this by saying that I don’t recommend trying to draft this deck in normal circumstances. It’s very swingy, it’s very fragile, but on the other hand, if they can’t interrupt your plan, you usually win by turn 6. Also, I know this deck is “known” but I couldn’t really find any accounts of one doing well.
I usually dont post stuff like this, but this lack of reporting on this kind of deck inspired me to write SOMETHING on it.
(EDIT: someone else posted a glaze fiend deck on here about 3 weeks ago that went 4-0. Guess i'm blind)
Look at it this way, you don't have to draft this deck yourself to see if it can do anything. . .
---------------------------------------------------------------
Okay, so I’ve been drafting online a lot lately, and I’ve had a good amount of success in Esper but I always have a hard time jumping into it unless I get something nutty, and when I don’t draft it I find out that the person to my left got a crazy Esper deck and won the whole thing.
I went to my local draft Monday night expecting to force Esper, just giving it a shot. I had a few free drafts from my recent success and my rating is in the mid 1800’s so I’m not worried about winning or losing a few drafts for the sake of an experiment.

Let me also warn you, my draft table was of 10 people, which I recognize had a tremendous effect the way this draft turned out.

Also remember, I am planning on forcing Esper going into this.

First pack had a Glaze fiend, Metallurgen (sp?) and a Naya charm. I don’t remember the rest of the cards, as these were really all I considered. I picked the Metallurgen, as glaze fiend isn’t exactly a signal, noone outside of esper is picking it, and even then not often. The Naya charm also sent a signal to my next opponent. (who did end up in Naya)

My next pack also had nothing esperish except for a glaze fiend, but the resounding thunder in my pack drew me away from it, and I picked it instead. Now I know pack two is pretty early to recognize this as a signal, but the card missing was a common. I assume they either took an oblivion ring or an agony warp, both of which would have been nice in Esper. I figured I may get cut off and have to abandon the Esper plan, and so I could pick up the thunder and leave the red-escape-plan as a option.

Pick 3 was an agony warp, renewing my faith in esper.

After this the picks were kind of a mess. Not necessarily that they were bad, but that I kinda just grabbed random artifacts, had an awful curve, etc. The glaze fiends from my first two packs came back, and when I looked over my picks after pack 1, I realized I had 3 of them. At this point I figured I would go for broke and play the Glaze Fiend deck that I’ve always wanted to attempt. By the end my deck looks like this: Try not to cringe.


5 Glaze Fiend
3 Tidehollow Strix
3 Onyx Goblet
2 Metallurgen
2 Sanctum Gargoyle
2 Filigree Sages (combined with onyx goblet )
1 Windwright Mage
1 Etherium Astrolabe
1 Etherium Sculptor
1 Agony Warp
1 Relic of Progenitis
1 Kathari Screecher
1 Esper Charm
2 Bant Panorama
1 Grixis Panorama
1 Arcane Sanctum
3 plains
4 Island
5 Swamp

(i tried to tag all of these but it didnt work)

Other than the lands, Kathari Screecher, Agony warp and Esper Charm, everything is an artifact. At this point I am very skeptical of my own deck. It plays like a combo deck, IE you just ignore whatever your opponent does and swing all out every turn.

Match 1:
Game 1 I play against Naya. I stall with Strix, Metallurgeon, but by the time I start to make a comeback I am down to about 5 life, with my opponent around 15. I draw an esper charm which draws me 2 Glaze fiends, who kill my opponent when I draw an artifact each turn for the next 4 turns.

Game 2 I have an opening 7 of 3 Glaze fiends, 1 Strix, Swamp, Island, Fetchland. It’s over almost too fast. (GF turn 2/ GF Turn 3, swing for 2/ Gf + Strix Turn 4, Swing for 8/ Random Artifact turn 5, swing for 8, kill turn 6)

(1-0)

Match 2: against Jund
Game 1, Island, Swamp, Swamp, Glaze Fiend, Glaze Fiend, Strix, Agony Warp is the opening 7.
I draw a relic of prog. Early and play it on turn 4 getting through for an extra 4 damage. He plays a stinger, which I agony warp, then relic away.
I love this deck.

Game 2: I get a slow draw and mull, 1 Lander and mull, Keep a subpar hand and die to a single vithan stinger, which is nuts against my deck.

Game 3 I get another Nuts draw, he doesnt get a stinger and it ends around turn 6 or 7

(2-0)

Match 3:
Game 1:
I play against the Naya deck I passed to and the game ended on turn 5. . . .when he Caldera Helioned my whole team away

Game 2:
I get a turn 2 glaze fiend, turn 3 WW mage. He branching Bolts them. I cry.
I told you this deck was fragile.

(2-1)

Match 4: Against Bant
Game 1: Nuts Draw, win on turn 6

Game 2; My opponent forgets he cant resounding roar his Deft Duelist giving me just enough time to kill him with the filigree sage and onyx goblet combo hitting him for 3 each turn (plus some attackers obv) .
Had he not misplayed, he would have had the game.

(3-1)
Match 5:
I play against one of the best players in the Area playing RBgu
Game 1: I get a nuts draw and win pretty quick. He Jund charmed when he was at about 4 life, but I drew a Strix on the next turn and got there.

Game 2: This is the most epic match of the night. He gets a slow draw, while I start swinging for 4 in the air each turn. He doesn’t have red source yet, which is good cause I’m pretty sure he’s got a Jund charm again. We start racing, him with some nasty ground men, me with some tiny fliers and an onyx goblet/filigree combo. He gets the Jund charm off, kills my filigree with a branching bolt and im about to die unless i win on my turn. He’s at 3 life, I’ve got 6 lands in play, so a filigree isn’t an out. EOT I hit him with the Goblet.

Windmill Slam draw= ONYX GOBLET

Looks of disbelief abound, as this piece of crap wins the match.
I end up going 4-1 for the night, which isn’t too bad considering I forced a deck consisting of bad cards.

Final thoughts: I probably wouldn’t have gotten so many copies of the necessary cheap artifacts had I not been sitting at a table of 10. The deck is not the kind of thing I’d want to play over a long day, as aside from being pretty inconsistent, it’s a really stressful deck to play, too many highs and lows.

If your local draft often has more than 8 people per table, and Esper is even the slightest bit undervalued you should give this deck a shot

At least it’s fun to get those nuts draws.

[ArcanePie]

This is why you dont' do 10 man tables in PACK-PACK-PACK format, especially a smaller than usual base set =\

3 strix is what got me...3 strix!?

Kudos though, I've never had luck with glaze fiends, mine always do a few damage and then poop out in the mid game.

[dcartist]

call to heel and tidehollow sculler can really make this deck hum... You haven't lived until you've combo'd that two turns in a row, stole two cards permanently, and drawn 2 extra, while swinging with your fat glaze fiend...

turn 2: Glaze fiend,
turn 3: glaze fiend, swing for 2.
turn 4: tidehollow sculler respond with call to heel swing for 4.
turn 5: replay tidehollow sculler, bounce it again with call to heel or some other bounce. swing for 4.

At that point, you have so much card advantage, that usually doesn't matter what's on the board.

[messels]

Originally Posted by dcartist

call to heel and tidehollow sculler can really make this deck hum... You haven't lived until you've combo'd that two turns in a row, stole two cards permanently, and drawn 2 extra, while swinging with your fat glaze fiend...

At that point, you have so much card advantage, that usually doesn't matter what's on the board.

?? how did you remove to cards permanently? you bounced your tidehollow, you should have returnd the removed card...

i dunno man...glaze fiend.dec looks like total crap. i'm really glad you won. i'll have to check out that other guy's deck.

[saintskeith]

Originally Posted by messels

?? how did you remove to cards permanently? you bounced your tidehollow, you should have returnd the removed card...

i dunno man...glaze fiend.dec looks like total crap. i'm really glad you won. i'll have to check out that other guy's deck.

you bounce it while the remove from play trigger is on the stack, so that the return to play trigger goes on top, it resolves, since there isnt anything to return, it doesnt do anything, and then the rfg triggers, and their card is gone

other then that, this is rather interesting
maybe ill try it some time

[dcartist]

Originally Posted by messels

?? how did you remove to cards permanently? you bounced your tidehollow, you should have returnd the removed card...

i dunno man...glaze fiend.dec looks like total crap. i'm really glad you won. i'll have to check out that other guy's deck.

It's a cute trick.

tidehollow sculler comes into play
Put on the stack: Remove a card from opponent's hand of your choice

Respond (and resolves, drawing you a card) with call to heel to return tidehollow sculler from play...
Tidehollow sculler leaves play to go to your hand...
Put on the stack:
Stack, top to bottom reads:

Top: Return card that was RFG'd to the opponent's hand.
Bottom: Remove a card from opponent's hand of your choice.

Top ability resolves first... this non existent card is returned to his hand.
Bottom ability of stack then resolves... remove a card from opponent's hand.

Thus the card never comes back.

[PatrickMTG]

Wow that sucks so much its good.

Realistically though, I don't see how that deck could stand up to some of the draft decks out there. Too slow for aggro and too fragile for control. I don't know man. Looks fun tho.

[messels]

Originally Posted by dcartist

It's a cute trick.

tidehollow sculler comes into play
Put on the stack: Remove a card from opponent's hand of your choice

Respond (and resolves, drawing you a card) with call to heel to return tidehollow sculler from play...
Tidehollow sculler leaves play to go to your hand...
Put on the stack:
Stack, top to bottom reads:

Top: Return card that was RFG'd to the opponent's hand.
Bottom: Remove a card from opponent's hand of your choice.

Top ability resolves first... this non existent card is returned to his hand.
Bottom ability of stack then resolves... remove a card from opponent's hand.

Thus the card never comes back.

lol. i got you now. i wasn't reading the combo correctly. i'd looked at it as the tidehollow resolving completely.

...still seems a bit odd to me that you can remove a creature IN play while it's still "coming into" play. seems the same as giving a guy a ticket for driving 20 over the speed limit while he's in the process of accelerating to that speed.

[FlyingSpaghettiMonster]

You can't apply magic rules to real life lol

I can never draft this combo... but every week it get played against me -__-;;; for some reason my pods are cursed with excessive Tidehollow Scullers. Anyway, I really like the deck, although as you observed, it gets raped by any pingers.

[messels]

Originally Posted by FlyingSpaghettiMonster

You can't apply magic rules to real life lol

i think the simple example potenitally illustrates that the rules in this case are flawed. it's actually not logical.

[theeguy]

Originally Posted by messels

i think the simple example potenitally illustrates that the rules in this case are flawed. it's actually not logical.

The rules work just fine. Just because something doesn't make sense flavorfully doesn't mean it's not logical or that the rules are flawed. Does it make sense for a tiny bird to carry a giant hammer? Does it make sense that you can use a soulless one to create a soul's fire?

[Thallid Ice Cream Man]

Terror kills Wall of Stone.

[messels]

Originally Posted by theeguy

The rules work just fine. Just because something doesn't make sense flavorfully doesn't mean it's not logical or that the rules are flawed. Does it make sense for a tiny bird to carry a giant hammer? Does it make sense that you can use a soulless one to create a soul's fire?

lol. that's not what i meant exactly. but i think a BoP caring a Warhammer is fine. a warhammer is merely a creatuer equipment and the rules for carying creature equipments is that you have to be a creature to do so. which BoP is. Ajani would love to have hte warhammer but alas he's not a creature. like i said that's not what i meant though.

to clarify. if something is "coming into play" (we can easily read that as "coming into existence") then it's not IN play (it's not existing...yet). it's entering play; it's entering existence. the trigger affect of it "CIP take card from opponent" would go on the stack but for someone to target something in play, it has to be in play (not "coming into play").

heidegger writes at length how existence (being) is dependent on time. (Sein und Zeit). i know that most people lack the backgrounds to have this information just lying about in their heads but it's crucial.

if we look at a comp-sci exmaple (because this may be more familiar for many of you), let's say we're filling a DB w/ some information. and that when ever we start to insert something into the db there's a script that triggers causing something else to happen that has to access the new db information. if we have any type of scrubbing on our data (like, did they input a correct email address? yes? do xyz. no? do abc--there's a dummy script below illustrating this). if we set the trigger to be "if the data is good, then begin insert process, when insert process is iniated--but before the query is complete--start new script." in this situation we won't get the correct information from the db query. we'll get partial information. the new stuff we were looking to access simply woudln't be in the DB when we made the "triggered query" (CIP trigger) because the new information was in the process of being inserted.

a real life example might be an admin person inserting a new user to a db. that new user, beliving everythign is setup trying to login while the insert is "resolving" would get a false-positive of "your information does not match our records".

this is a really difficult thing to discuss using the CS example simply because of hte time frames that computers process information. but that being said, we're talking about an Instant card. using old skool terminology, it interupts the stack and inserts a new action (query/spell) before the intial action (query/spell) resolves.

i think understanding how an improperly structured query would return false infroamtoin (or NO information) is key to get the concept of "being and time" at which point you'll more clearly seem my perspective in how this particular play is flawed.


___here's the dummy code that is destined to fail but it uses the stack in the same way that we're suing tidehollow skuller and call to heel

PHP Code:

<?php
//variables, set those variables, etc
if ($data = $okay)
{ 
//initiate db connection
$insert = "INSERT INTO db information WHERE information = '$data'";
$trigger_ability = "SELECT * FROM db WHERE information ='$data'";
$trigger_abiltiy = mysql_query($trigger_ability);
$num_results = mysql_num_rows ($trigger_ability);
//returns 0 (our false-positive)
$insert_query = mysql_query($insert);

//rest of [flawed] code
//end db connection
}
?>

[ouallada]

@Messels:

Without denying the dependence of being on time, I would like to present a better illustration of the "real world" or "fantasy wizard-casting-spells world" mechanics of CiP abilities.

When the CiP ability goes on the stack, the creature is already in play. It's just an unfortunate naming convention to call this the "comes" into play.... you should rather think of it as the "ability which manifests upon the newly created existence of this creature."

Tidehollow Sculler, merely by his arrival upon the scene, will blast energy outward towards the opponent, and contact with this energy will cause him to forget something which was on his mind... however, just as this blast of energy reaches its own critical mass, and is past the point of no return, you hit the sculler with your own spell, returning him to your hand, i.e., phasing him out of existence, and re-creating the spell which can summon a tidehollow sculler within your wizardly head.

Now, the nature of tidehollow scullers is also such that when the presence of one is suddenly eliminated, a negative blast occurs, restoring the forgotten spell.

And this is where "the stack" messes with "logic".

The LIFO (Last In First Out) nature of the stack is fairly illogical in the sense that it seems to break the cause and effect flow... unless you interpret it as the wizard seeing the sculler forming, and reacting to that with impeccable timing such that as the initial ability is reaching the point of no return, the second ability is already coming to pass... yeah, it's a stretch.

So anyway, the initial effect becomes a disembodied effect which preceeds the normal linear progression of CiP --> Leaves Play...

How does this possibly work?

Magic!

I mean, the game's called "Magic" right?! Doesn't that entail suspending some amount of disbelief?

In short, I think the arguments that "such-and-such feature of the game is illogical" or "unrealistic" are kind of... sophomoric.

I want to say, "dude, it's called Magic for a reason."

So...

Dude, it's called Magic for a reason.

[jokalhaups]

If there weren't so many pingers, Glaze Fiend would be better. Add in removal and flyers or reach creatures at common with 3+ butts and Glaze Fiends just get pwned. I agree with you, I wouldn't suggest pushing this deck, but if you get a couple late Glaze Fiends first pack, be on the look out... especially take Puppet Conjurers VERY early because they're nutz in Glaze Fiend.deck!