Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Scramble City

The nice thing about monochrome decks is that I don't have to run them through analysis to find out where the mana ratios might be off. It's all black, all the time for Trypticon, so I just went straight to the first round of cuts and additions:

Subtract
1 Bojuka Bog
4 Dark Ritual
1 Mindslaver
2 Promise of Power

Add
2 Beseech the Queen
3 Read the Bones
1 Swamp
2 Languish

I began to goldfish with this.

The upside: I draw a lot of cards. The downside: I would still have dead cards.

I didn't want to cut Sorin Markov because planeswalkers are powerful effects and create problems for opponents. They almost always evoke the Hexdrinker rule. But at six mana, Sorin just didn't have enough support for the effect. Setting an opponent's life to 10 doesn't mean much when your goal is to attack with a 20/20.

I also cut the Skull Fractures and two Mire's Toll for four Duress. Duress is the stronger spell, especially on turn one, and is going to be far more useful than a flashbacked Skull Fracture. Mire's Toll can show up anytime after turn 2 and be pretty useful so cutting down to two is alright. 

In addition, I found I was drawing too many Aether Snaps. At five mana, it's a necessary evil since it can duplicate the effect of Vampire Hexmage. But I don't want to see it in my opening hand, so I'll need to cut that, too.

This part is frustrating, creatively. I need to add three cards and the first place I look is at Planeswalkers. There's no reason not to: as I said, they almost always evoke the Hexdrinker rule (my opponents hate it, so I should definitely run it).

Why even look into instants, enchantments or creatures that might support the deck?

I settled on Davriel, Rouge Shadowmage and it just feels lazy. Yes, it plays into the discard control element. Yes, it comes down well on the curve. Yes, it chips away at an opponent's life total.

But is having a card that should just automatically go in engaging to me as a deckbuilder? No, not much. There's nothing really innovative happening, no choices to really make, and that's a bummer to me.

Thursday, December 26, 2019

Trypticon

Trypticon, named after the giant Decepticon, was built years ago when making a 20/20 wasn't as easy as playing a Vesuva while Dark Depths was in play and saying 'go'.

My angle at the time was to make it a mono-B control deck, with some heavy hitters to fill in if a 20/20 didn't show up, but let's take a look:
1 Mindslaver

4 Vampire Hexmage

4 Dark Ritual

4 Dark Depths
4 Bojuka Bog
19 Swamp

2 Sorin Markov

4 Distress
4 Sign in Blood
2 Promise of Power
2 Skull Fracture
2 Mutilate
4 Mire's Toll
4 Aether Snap
While the hand control elements are strong, I don't think I've got enough to follow that up with threats, and Mindslaver and Sorin Markov are just 'goodstuff' cards. Promise of Power has no reason to be in this deck and without those cards, Dark Ritual seems unnecessary.

I'm going to make some adjustments and play the deck but I have a feeling this might join The Retired. There's a reason why Dark Depths decks have migrated to Green/Blue. You can search for the land you need easier and then protect the creature a little better. Still, if this is fun then I don't mind keeping it around, since it's a new slant on the deck idea.

Thursday, December 19, 2019

Light 'Em Up


Red Alert vs GW Enchantress
I like where this ended. While Red Alert isn't a multiplayer deck by any means, it still performed well in those circumstances.

Similarly, I played against Fuz's GW Dinos and GW Enchantress decks and Red Alert did well there, too.

My favorite play got to happen: with two Auratogs on his side and a Satyr Firedancer on mine, I was able to use a Searing Blaze to bin both of them. 3 targets, 9 damage total? That's pretty good.

One curiosity was that I frequently found myself with too many lands-Chandra's +1 trigger often revealed a land, and in games when I lost, 10+ lands were involved-in exile, in play, in hand.

23 lands is not and overabundance of lands, though.

Cards on the table (so to speak) I'm worried about cutting a land for even something as cheap as another Mogg Fanatic because of the powerful four-drops in Red Alert.

On turn four, I really want to drop a Chandra, Torch of Defiance or Torbran and that means reliably having enough mana to do so, every time. It's fine to hit a land on the first activation of Chandra, since I'm frequently tapped out. But to do that when I have mana untapped feels like I'm missing an opportunity.

However. In matches against Noah, playing a reanimator deck, (yay, Worldgorger Dragon!) the mana flooding continued and I told him I what I was concerned about. He countered that I seemed to have enough card draw to make it work.

So here goes: a full four copies of Bonecrusher Giant, because the value on this card is bananas, and cut one Smoldering Crater.

3 Guttersnipe
3 Dire Fleet Daredevil
3 Bedlam Reveler
2 Mogg Fanatic
1 Torbran, Thane of Red Fell
4 Satyr Firedancer
4 Bonecrusher Giant

2 Burst Lightning
3 Chandra's Pyrohelix
3 Searing Blaze

19 Mountain
3 Smoldering Crater

4 Chandra, Torch of Defiance

2 Chain Lightning
4 Light Up the Stage

15 Sideboard
4 Abbot of Keral Keep
2 Blood Moon
3 Pyroblast
3 Smash to Smithereens
3 Skullcrack

Monday, December 16, 2019

Return To Posts

After the last few tweaks, I feel as though Red Alert is in a good position. I used the sideboard a little but I think I need more practice sideboarding. That's understandable, since I just started doing it, so sideboarding will be a new skill.

The maindeck, though, that's in a pretty good spot. Satyr Firedancer keeps shining, and the uses of Dire Fleet Daredevil have continued to surprise me.

The big weak link? Seems to be Samut's Sprint. I wanted to use this card for the creature boost and the scry but...well, I'm sure everyone knew that a change was needed here. I need something that does damage: Damage is always better than not-damage, right? If it drew a card, that might be useful but I've started poking around with something that might be just as good: Bonecrusher Giant.

The converted mana cost for Stomp is just two and the spell can be cast as an instant, which means that I can almost certainly cover that cost if I reveal it off a Light Up The Stage. The added value of getting a cheap creature I can cast to increase my threat count when I have the mana up-if, say, Chandra or Light Up The Stage fail to forward my board state-is a big deal.

The testing so far? It's working. In multiplayer games (where is not, admittedly, where Red Alert shines) both Matt and Caitlin agreed that Bonecrusher Giant was an improvement. Plus, the effect of Stomp gives me an out against certain protection strategies, which wasn't something I foresaw but was very glad to note when Swans of Bryn Argoll hit the table.

Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Lessons From The Sideboard

Red Alert vs Zombies
Because I didn't want to give up on Satyr Firedancer, it went into the sideboard. You may remember my dreams and hopes from last week.

Fortunately, testing seemed to bear me out! I played against Fuz's zombie deck-which is always a good barometer for how solid a deck I play is, as his zombie deck is quite resilient-and I felt good about the performance.

In games 2 and 3, I swapped out Dire Fleet Daredevil for the Firedancers, not having seen any instants or sorceries.

That was a mistake, because he had Nameless Inversion to take my creatures out, and the Daredevil would've given me the opportunity to exile that spell.

The card that really didn't do anything? Abbot of Keral Keep.

Which highlights a specific problem I'm having: Curving out appropriately. The Abbot can get me a land, but it can also just whiff. Either way, I can't play it until turn three. So now that card is questionable.

You know what totally hit the Hexdrinker Rule? Satyr Firedancer. It drew a kill spell as soon as Fuz could find one to play. Because you know what's awesome? Using a Searing Blaze to kill two creatures and do three damage to your opponent. I have to admit, after my first rounds of testing, I wasn't sure that the Firedancer was all I thought it to be but the latest matches really worked!

So maybe the Abbot should be in the sideboard and come in for the control matchups? I can use the extra card advantage and damage in those matches, as needed. Since matches with creatures are more common than those without, that's my plan for the future.

Thursday, December 5, 2019

Bad Ban, No Donut

Multi-Mission Gear was banned this week, as a result of the oppressive effect of the Daring Escape combo deck.

They explain it all here.

What they got right: not banning Daring Escape. Going into depth about what their thought process was.

What they got wrong: the card they banned and the reason for it.

The Specialist Combo deck (one I have a version of and love) works by gradually creating an overwhelming advantage of resources over your opponent.You always have options and you can chain together multiple actions/upgrades for free, in order to slowly overwhelm your opponent.

And this happens for two reasons: 1) You get stuff for free and 2) There's nothing your opponent can do to stop it. The resources that players have to impact their opponent's actions is limited to sideboard cards at best or "well timed" (read: lucky) actions. That's not a bad thing, as I believe that getting to take your turn largely unimpeded is a strength of this game, the downside is that it does little to mitigate the two strengths of a specialists deck. That strength is not an issue so long as it takes time to get to where it's going.

The first point is why the deck is powerful but the second point is why combo decks that have alternative win conditions are and will always, inevitably, be broken. Maybe not at first, but eventually, someone will figure it out, because the opponent has a limited ability to shape what I do on a turn and nobody's cutting the fuel line. 

So long as Upgrades work the way they do, triggering whenever they re-equipped, this will be an issue. It's why they banned Swap Parts: it allowed for so many re-triggers it locked people out of the game so early (sometimes by turn 2!), which meant that aggressive decks didn't have a chance and control never got to step in.

At the time, I thought banning Swap Parts was bad and they should've banned I Still Function. I was wrong: Swap Parts was the thing that enabled the gamebreaking actions by fueling too many triggers, making the deck incredibly consistent. It was too much, too quickly.

So I understand not wanting to ban Sergeant Cog or Private Red Heat: they went for that effect that already and it didn't exactly work. But let's be clear: It worked just fine until an effect was given to the deck to quickly lock an opponent out of the game by turn two or three, in this case by just winning it outright, instead of taking infinite turns. 

I also get why they have decided to move to effects like Anticipation Engine instead. This will also work-until the cards come along to break it again, because of point #1: You get stuff for free.

Free is a very good price.

What this means to me is: as high as they are on alternative win conditions, they are going to need to be a lot more clever and a lot less "play this, you win", IF they want to keep combo as a deck style.

That's very different than Overwhelming Advantage, which can end the game but doesn't outright win it, since there are multiple scenarios where one might get that card to work and the opponent will have a chance to take another turn.

That doesn't happen with Daring Escape, and if it was a slow deck, people wouldn't blink an eye at.

But here's the issue: combo decks, by default, have to be as fast as they can be, because they are trying to win on an axis that nobody else is prepared for, and that often means that they themselves aren't as equipped to deal the standard win method. If they don't rush to the endgame, they frequently cannot win at all. Keeping the speed that they race to that endgame in check is important. It needs to be potentially fast enough to work before an Aggro deck can beat them, but not so fast that a Control deck can't step in a monkeywrench the whole thing.

Heck, one of the designers of the problematic deck replied to me at Reddit that the card that was the problem was Equipment Enthusiast, because of the sheer number of cards that EE gets you: "double digits" was what they said. That card draw is no longer the incremental advantage of Specialist decks, that's a turbo boost. And card draw is the most powerful thing you can do in a game like this.

So, what to do?

Errata the Upgrade cards.
This is a bad idea, for reasons they go into in the article. Adding to this: having upgrades re-trigger is something they've said they want to happen. It's fun and makes the game more interesting. I worry that it will become necessary because so long as one can get something for nothing, then broken things are likely to happen. I've seen this play out in Magic for over twenty five years. For now, however, it's OK.

Ban the Specialist Engines. 
That would certainly do it for a time and it's clearly worked in this situation. The lessons they learned from the Specialist Upgrades have been beneficial but it's still likely that if it isn't one of the other two cards (Multi-Tool or Field Communicator), Anticipation Engine or Brainstorm will be cards players break, because free is a good price. However, it's not inevitable just highly likely. The other downside is that Specialists no longer have an "identity" in the game (Melee characters want to flip a LOT more cards, Ranged characters want to have 'passive' attacks/defenses outside of combat, Specialists now...do what?). That is a pretty big issue.

Slow everything down.
This would mean banning Equipment Enthusiast, at least in this instance, and keeping a tight hold on any effect that let you draw and keep more than two cards for a card played. It tracks, because the last time they had to ban a card from an oppressive deck, Equipment Enthusiast was in that one too.

Drawing cards without any penalty for doing so will inevitably break a card game like this because, I repeat: drawing cards is the most powerful thing you can do in a card game.

Stop making "I win" cards.
No more Daring Escapes. This is a tough one, because the additional design space makes for a more interesting game-but this is a design that I don't think the Transformers TCG is currently equipped to handle. Maybe it won't ever be, but I have trouble believing that.

However, we know they like doing these cards, plus there's going to be players who love alternative win conditions, too. Having a little something for everyone helps games like this thrive.

So: If they want to keep making alternate win conditions AND they don't want to errata cards AND they want to prevent future issues from happening, then what is their best option?

I think the best move is the 'slow everything down' one, honestly. It allows for the most decks, while having the smallest downside. The Specialist deck would still exist, have multiple iterations, but could be beaten. Cards work as they are read. Strange win conditions can continue to be made and maybe even pull out victories from time to time.

But keeping the speed of the game down to prevent combo (or really, any) decks from locking people out by turn two or three is critical and if they don't do that, we'll be looking at bans again.

Which is what bothers me: They went for the smallest option, and while that seems like a good thing, I know that the next problem is lurking right around the corner because they didn't rein in the strongest action you do in these games. Combo decks might be the most likely ones to break the game, but card draw is good for every style of deck, threatening the health of the game.

Their argument against banning Equipment Enthusiast-
If we introduced that constraint on something as ubiquitous and fundamental as card draw, that would prevent us from making dozens, if not hundreds of future cards.
-is terrible, because it suggests that we either have zero card draw or double digit card draw. Which is completely silly, since we already have card draw (Pep Talk, Testify, Pocket Processor), filter card draw (Incoming Transmission, Inspiring Leadership, Repurpose) and card draw + cards (Swindled, Confidence, Secret Dealings) in the game.

So it looks like their argument is that there is no middle ground between getting two cards with zero drawback and ten cards with zero drawback? I don't buy that and no one should: there are clearly ways to have card draw in this game that would give decks a reasonable chance without allowing people to draw and keep 1/4th of their entire deck. 

And I think they should've taken that path, to keep us from having to have this discussion again, when the next cool alternative win condition appears.

Monday, December 2, 2019

Sideboard Options

Whoa! Sorry everyone; in my hurry to get to the Thanksgiving holiday, I forgot to mention there wouldn't be posts for a little bit. Sorry about that: Let's get back to the normal stuff, getting back to the Magic decks and I hope everyone had a safe holiday!

In the playtests, Red Alert has generally been doing what red decks do; come from behind surprise burn is not uncommon! But being overwhelmed is not unexpected, either.

Removing a Dire Fleet Daredevil became something that was necessary: I want that card on turn three at the soonest, since I cannot cast a spell without the mana to do so. Four clogs up my hand, three seems right-but there's a space now. What to do?

It turns out there is another Chandra that fits the theme: Chandra, Fire Artisan and this was suggested to me by by buddy Tyler. I do not own any copies of that Chandra so...what to do until I get some?

Enter: Torbran, Thane of Red Fell. It's costed for a mono-red deck and it takes everything I have and makes it better. That will totally do until I get some Fire Artisans!

Except...the testing showed Torbran is pretty dang good. Since it boosts any red source I have, that means that my creatures get this impact immediately. If Torbran sticks for a turn, every spell I have does more damage, too. I loved seeing it and opponents did not. He's only appeared in two games, but each game he arrived, I was happy.

I may have to make an rule for cards like this-the Hexdrinker rule. "If my opponents hate seeing the card, I should keep running that card."

I also made a sideboard for Red Alert:
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Blood Moon
4 Satyr Firedrinker
3 Pyroblast
3 Smash to Smithereens

I relegated the Firedrinker to the sideboard because I still think it's worth testing. The Crypt might help with any graveyard focused decks-and there are a lot of those, and Blood Moon should help stall anything that wants to use more than two colors.

Pyroblast is just good against blue and Smash to Smithereens fits in theme by doing damage and destroying an artifact. Abrade was suggested and while the card is more versatile, it doesn't mesh with the themes as well.

So here we go!

Thursday, November 21, 2019

Newbie Issues

I present: two articles on draft picks for the Transformers TCG.

Character cards.

Battle cards.

Let's go through these really fast because there's some unhelpful stuff here and that's a real shame-but it also comes out of a) a new format being new and b) possibly someone who hasn't done a lot of drafting.

First, mentioning rare cards isn't extremely helpful. In a TCG, rare cards are supposed to be good, better than the common ones. That's why they're rare. So informing your audience that Private Hot Rod is good isn't exactly guidance-because of course your top picks should be powerful cards. This is like telling us that Lord Megatron or Pocket Processor is good: Yes, we know, that's why you pick those as soon as you can.

What we need to evaluate, especially with Battle Cards, are the common rarities because that's what we end up using to execute our strategies. 

So are there enough actions in the format for us to build around Private Hot Rod? Is the ability actually worth something? No case is made.

Contrast this with the argument for Raider Spinster-at Uncommon, you're pretty likely to see one and while there are only four Battle Masters in the set, you have a decent shot at snagging one of those too, as they are also Uncommon.

This happens a couple times: Mirage is sold as a top pick but if you contrast that with the Battle Cards list, 3 of the 8 have the black Pierce icon, which Mirage does nothing for and zero Secret Actions on that list, of the mere two secret actions at common, only one of which has a blue icon. So where is Mirage getting any of it's power from? Heck, there are only three cards with blue icons in the entire set! With all those black icons, why isn't Raider Nova Storm getting more attention?

And it's important to look at this as a whole: of the battle cards suggested there isn't a single blue icon on them. So how does that mesh with the character recommendation of Mirage? Showing Off is sold as a high pick, but not a single recommended character has a great flip ability! Why would you pick that card unless you had a character like Sergeant Springer or Raider Chop Shop?

Another example: Kinetic Converter and Kinetic Whip need to flip to be really great-where are the Characters that mesh with this, since everyone's going to get a chance to pick those commons?

Where is the analysis of the format at large? It doesn't look like there's much Upgrade removal in this set and this seems incredibly relevant when Captain Astrotrain-at common-is available.

There seem to be some important, overlooked themes from Siege II and I'm not saying that these articles are easy to write. Clearly the author is going of his own experience-same as me. However, it isn't my experience that says there are only three common cards with blue icons: That's just me looking at the set and telling you a fact. Compare that to ten common cards with black icons, three of which have double black! I think you can see how the set is tilted.

And I chalk all of this up to the game being really new, and people still trying to get a grip on how drafting works. Because it's different in this game than in Magic. Character cards and battle cards have to work together, so generating a plan is extremely challenging-as I learned a couple weeks ago.

Hopefully, as more experience is gained, articles with sharper focus will emerge.


Tuesday, November 19, 2019

Klaxions

Red Alert vs BU reanimator
I took out the Kari Zev cards because the creature didn't seem aggressive enough and the Expertise would, in the case of the Abbot and the Daredevil, leave me with needing mana to pay for whatever they do, after already paying 3 mana.

It's possible I'm wrong about Kari Zev as a creature: Menace is a relevant ability and could mean getting a point of damage in on attacks that otherwise wouldn't happen, allowing me to take advantage of Light Up The Stage. However, I wanted to try another card to help clear pathways to my opponent, Satyr Firedancer.

This didn't work out as much as I wanted it too and a couple days after the fact, I'm thinking it was because of the matchups: Jason decided to treat me to a night of "all mill, no creature" decks, which, yes: Satyr Firedancer isn't going to do much against, and a RB reanimator deck and again, direct damage isn't as helpful as I'd like it to be against Griselbrand.

While Jason's decks are part of my metagame, though, they are not all of the metagame and most of my opponents use smaller creatures to get where they're going. At the very least, Satyr Firedancer seems like excellent sideboard material. I'd like to try them against some other opponents though, to see if they'll be useful in non-reanimator/mill matches.

Thursday, November 14, 2019

Siege II Impressions

After a weekend of drafting cards and starting to poke at decks I can rebuild or explore, here are some first impressions.

The heavy black element means games will inevitably grind to their conclusion. That's good, because it means games continually work to the end, but it also renders blue meaningless. Likewise, what orange there is becomes incredibly powerful because you can guarantee hits-Fight For Position is a rockstar and by that same notion, Stable Cover might become one of the more important cards in the set. Tough, unfortunately, is frequently rendered meaningless by this set and I'm not sure what to do with that.

In the bigger picture, I like this: we didn't have enough black pip density to make that something decks could really use. Now that we do, I am hoping for some developments in different decks-people have been talking Blue/Black since Siege I but they never really materialized, even with the Soundwave deck giving people a template.

However, with that black pip density comes a better question: Can Orange/Black decks be a thing now? Because if they are, then what does defense have to offer anyone? Deck diversity is a good thing and what I appreciate is that at least the answers aren't clear to me, yet. I have some concerns, but I'm hopeful that the environment will be an interesting one.

The correct way to do combiner characters: Omega Supreme. The incorrect way: Brunt and Six-Gun. Half-characters are awful and should not be there. Nobody should open half a character: as an adult I can say that's a bummer but for a child? How disappointing is that? Deliberate feel-bads are not good looks.

Trypticon-specific cards scattered in the set are awful. Not the cards themselves, but the manner of distribution. Battlefield Incursion and Relentless Invasion coming in packs mean that you automatically have dead cards in Limited. I hope they don't do that again and wish they'd learned that lesson from Rise of the Combiners.

Because RotC was unplayable in 'Turbo Sealed' and didn't get reasonable until you opened four packs! I wouldn't want to try and draft that, ever. While Siege II doesn't have the same number of dead cards, it still repeats this mistake. I don't mind getting a card that says "If you have this theme, I'm playable but if not, I'm weak or not good" but I definitely mind cards that say "I can't be played at all" and the Trypticon cards are constructed only.

Either set up limited environments or don't, but doing it halfway leads to a poor experience.

Trypticon itself, though, invites a different take on deckbuilding since you need Battlefield Incursion to get another character out. Unlike Metroplex, Trypticon wants to get out those characters and then eat them for an edge in the game, which is fascinating to me, because it's a different play perspective while still using the fundamentals of the game to execute its plan.

Mercenaries add an interesting twist on battle card selection: So far, I think those have been really cool and they play well with a challenging risk/reward on their character flips. They're worth considering adding to teams but I'm still not sure if they can stand on their own. I'm interested in giving it a try, though, just to get a better sense of what the Mercenaries can do.

Upgrade removal is extremely lacking. In the bigger metagame this isn't a problem, but in limited it can be a headache. I was definitely surprised by the absence of said removal, when the previous three sets had a lot of it-but again, this is not an issue in the bigger metagame since there's plenty of upgrade removal. It's something to keep in mind for limited, however and it made for some interesting games last weekend. Going forward, I think it's a viable strategy-certainly Captain Astrotrain could be a sleeper hit.

Repair effects are better than you might think! I was surprised by both Safeguard as an ability and any repair card, from Chop Shop to Reprocess, and Medic's Protective Field or Special Delivery and how they helped push the tempo of the game in a way other than untapping a character. The downside: None of these are blue pipped cards, which leads me back to: Will blue or abilities like Tough matter after this set?

I have two major criticisms, however. The upside is that I think they're very easy to address.

First: black pips are still difficult to identify. In a set that wants to emphasize the power of black pips and has them on a ton of cards, asking that they pop out is a necessity.

Second: Star cards do not provide enough signal for Limited. The stars on the Transformers cards is in the lower left corner.

But the things you want to know about a card? Those are the name at the top, pips in the upper right corner, and the text box in middle. There were times in both drafts that I took star cards not knowing I was taking star cards. Talking to people afterwards, I found out I wasn't alone.

With the margin of error being only five cards, I found myself in positions where I either a) didn't have to make any decisions about my deck, because the remaining cards were all starred or Trypticon cards, or b) had to re-evaluate my entire starting character team, because I had too many stared and Trypticon cards.

These are problematic design issues and I hope they address them soon.

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

3-0 vs 1-2

This was the draft set that took me to to a 3-0 record (5-0-1 in games) on Saturday at the Siege II release event.

24 hours later, I was to go 1-2 (2-5) with another draft, same set.

Wins/losses-these are only the result of chance. But those chances shift if you focus on the process. Did I play to the best of my ability or not? 

So I choose to focus on the process. Saturday, I saw a good plan executed well. I had characters that cared about black pips with a smattering of green, so I tried to make sure I got those. Then, with a little luck and a little skill, I was able to make this deck work.

Sunday I had to adapt more and learn from mistakes on the fly. I had drafted battle cards poorly and not paid enough attention to the star value of them, which lead to me revamping my original character set in a big way, leaving me with a deck that didn't mesh as well with those characters. Still, by the end, I was starting to pick up the tricks that I had, utilize the cards given to me, and play better.

Was it perfect? No; having a clearer vision to start would've helped. Also; stopping to fully read every character I had to rebuild with so I knew what I was (re)doing would've been a good choice-one I will make next time. But I got better and that's what matters.

Thursday, November 7, 2019

Feels Bad, Man

I've been alive long enough to have learned that not everything is for me. That's OK: There should be something for just about everyone (except Nazis...well, I guess prison for them) but since I am not the center of the universe, it should not cater to me.

And this is a case where something is not for me: Transformers: Energon Edition.

There are multiple issues for me here: first, at $200, that is a lot of money. For someone like myself, who has been playing the game since it debuted, here are the items from this set that matter to me:

Characters:
Cliffjumper, Renegade Warrior
Slipstream, Strategic Seeker

That's it. That's the list. Bumblebee, the other super rare character I don't have, I could purchase if I needed it: It's retailing for around $30 on the secondary market. Nemesis Prime is going for about $44. With both those cards, however, I have a chance to just open them in a booster pack-that's how I got Nemesis Prime.

But Cliffjumper and Slipstream, combined, are going for around $200. This is because they were exclusive cards to the San Diego Comic Con last year and never made available for purchase anywhere else. They are good cards, and the artificial scarcity of them has driven prices up, conveniently making it possible for WotC to market this product as if it was priced at a reasonable level. It is not; but people compare the prices (and trust me, marketing researchers know that this is what we do) and we think: but we're getting such a deal!

This is the part where I remind people that WotC "does not" (and maybe for legal reasons cannot admit to?) recognize the secondary market and its prices. I repeat: the marketing department knows that we are looking at the secondary market and justifying this $200 price tag based off of two cards.

Now for anyone who missed out on Wave 1 and cannot get it or hasn't invested: this is pretty dang cool. You get a box of Wave 1 boosters, plus a guaranteed six useful, awesome character cards (seriously, there isn't a bad one there) with new art and on plastic instead of paper. That's slick.

If you are in that rare group of people who cannot get Wave 1: awesome, I think this is still overpriced but you could justify it without too much difficulty. A box of boosters is going for around $90.00, so that's a chunk of your costs already.

There are also 18 reprinted battle cards with new art and of those, Start Your Engines is the most useful-but there is a sharp decline from there. I'm not even going to dignify the dice with the notion of being cool: there is nothing interesting or thematic about them.They're colored dice-you can literally find them at any game store in this country. But it's all very weird, because instead of bringing us copies of the San Diego Comic Con battle cards (All Out Attack and Tandem Targeting System) they go with the "thematic" battle cards, yet give us dice we could find in the seat cushion of a gaming store.

Then there's the display box. Because that's what people who play a game want: to put things on display instead of playing with them.

Which is where the rubber meets the road: the display box tells you everything you really need to know. If you've been supporting this game already, then Energon Edition is the glory of cool things. It's to separate you from your money for a "cool" product, but not one that makes the game more accessible or improves our experience as players.

This isn't something to thank people who've been playing and promoting the game, it's priced such that it is not an on-ramp product for people who missed out. It's just expensive, and it feels very much like a treat being waved in front of me that I cannot have. It is for what the industry calls "the whales": people who will spend a lot of money on a game, especially for "premium" product.

I don't object to this per se, what I object to is being manipulated-as whales often are-to spend money. You can see it in the reactions to this product too: everyone is talking about how cool it is, but not how useful or helpful. People talking about how they want to put it on display-to show it off! It's a trophy, not a game. That's what is being sold.

If this product cost $150, then it starts to sound reasonable. If they were just going to sell me the characters, battle cards and dice for $50, I'd be on this in a heartbeat! Hell, why haven't they tiered this product? Why not give people who have been playing since 2018 the opportunity to get characters they were denied for a reasonable price? Why aren't the SDCC battle cards in there to give us more accessible things?

Because it isn't for us. It's for people who want to look cool, not people who want to play a game. That leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Finally: if you are new to the game, $200 will get you not only a box of Wave 1, but a Rise of the Combiners box (Wave 2) and leave you with enough money left over to get the Metroplex box set.

It's up to you if you want this, but it's a hard pass for me.

Tuesday, November 5, 2019

Red Alert

Red has been an issue for WotC for a while; the color was either too narrow at what it did (direct damage), or unfun (land destruction, randomized cards).

One way they appear to be looking to solve Red's place in Magic is by having players get effects 'blind'. That is: sure, you can draw three cards if you're willing to discard two, but you won't know what you're going to get. Want to play the top card of your library? Fine-but we're not going to help you figure out if that's a good thing before you do it.

It is out of this concept, Red Alert was created, named after the Transformer.
3 Guttersnipe
4 Dire Fleet Daredevil
3 Bedlam Reveler
4 Abbot of Keral Keep
1 Kari Zev, Skyship Raider

3 Samut's Sprint
3 Searing Spear
2 Burst Lightning
3 Chandra's Pyrohelix

19 Mountain
4 Smoldering Crater

4 Chandra, Torch of Defiance

1 Kari Zev's Expertise
2 Chain Lightning
4 Light Up the Stage
I've been pretty excited about this concept! Trying to play free things off the top of the deck to gain card advantage may not seem like much but the randomization of the effect interests me, plus it's a chance to use Bedlam Reveler and who can resist that?

After that, there's a suite of cheap burn spells to help me use Light Up The Stage's Spectacle ability, with the bonus of possibly being able to play them off of a Chandra, Torch of Defiance activation or Abbot of Keral Keep's enter the battlefield trigger. The Prowess on Bedlam Reveler and Abbot encourage me to play my spells, so my hand might empty pretty fast. Getting to use the top of my library as an added "card in hand" could be powerful.

Guttersnipe is just a solid card in a deck with eighteen instants and sorceries and should steal wins for me.

Dire Fleet Daredevil might look weird and it does only fit the theme in a roundabout way. I am getting to play with the instants and sorceries my opponent has used! But who knows what they'll play? I think it's a powerful card and an opportunity to use my opponent's resources against them. I expect Path to Exile, Brainstorm, and Fatal Push, cards Red generally does not have access to. So why not take my opponent's? Still, it's a risk.

I'm looking forward to where this one takes me; I don't know that this part of Red's color pie has been explored much.

Thursday, October 31, 2019

The Retired: I Hold Grudges

A new series!

I have a LOT of Magic decks. Too many, to be honest, because I cannot dismantle a deck.

That changes today. I own too many decks that are trying to fill niche mechanical ideas instead of being interesting or fun or good. Does the world need a G/W vigilance deck? Maybe not, but I've built one.

Is that deck interesting? No, it's pretty linear. Is it good? Maybe. Is it fun? Sure: I get to use older cards and mess with opponent's combat math.

So 1.5 out of 3 isn't bad. But failing that fun factor or engagement is a good reason to leave an idea behind. Plus, I have spread so many good cards out into bad decks, I barely have good decks now.

The point is: here's a deck I don't need around anymore. I'm going to talk about it a little and hold a tiny memorial for it here, then I'll dismantle it for parts, like building a new gun in a videogame.

I Hold Grudges:
4 Cerodon Yearling
3 Bull Cerodon
4 Flame-Kin Zealot
4 Suq'Ata Lancer
4 Duergar Hedge-Mage
4 Flickerwisp

4 Seal of Fire

4 Heal
1 Death Spark

10 Mountain
9 Plains
4 Arid Mesa
1 Drifting Meadow

2 Ajani Vengeant

2 Austere Command
There's the hint of a theme here; hasty creatures with goodstuff but...what exactly was I thinking? How does Flickerwisp assist this deck? What does Death Spark do for me? Why play Heal at all? (For the card draw but...) And this deck has Arid Mesa! A good card.

So, I'm going to put Arid Mesa in a deck that needs it: Flickerwisp, Ajani Vengeant and Austere Command can all find places-Austere Command alone is a rockstar in Commander. Seal of Fire has always been a card I like, since it can just stay out there as a potential threat, so there's bound to be a better deck for that card too. Death Spark is weird and that's interesting to me-but I didn't do anything with Death Spark aside from toss it in the deck.

Others cards just need to spend time in the binder, waiting for an opportunity to shine. Or are draft cards that I just need to let be draft cards.

No central theme, not nearly powered high enough: time to let it go.

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

When In Doubt

Devastator vs Mono G
So I went with the Planeswalker. Why not? Giving my creatures spells flash could be really good against any control deck, and it does allow me to dig into my deck. Card draw is something that I know is important, and in Devastator is especially useful since I have a lot of lands and can hit those 2 land-1 creature or even 3-lands-in-a-row blocks.

Hexdrinker, I'm happy to say, has been doing exactly what I want it to: early turn play, mana sink, card that opponents swing their resources towards dealing with. When one opponent says "fuck that card" I notice. When three oponents say that, I'm allllll in. Nobody likes Hexdrinker but me and that's a good thing.

I have to say, this deck has felt strong when I've been playing it, and one exceptionally useful thing is how it can come from out of nowhere to combo out a win. That win can be done at instant speed if Vivien is out, because I can cast God-Eternal Rhonas in response to blocks.

That's a spicy way to victory, I'll tell you that.

I've also learned a few lessons about where Devastator has issues. Would you believe that green creatures that my opponents control creates problems for a deck that uses Verdant Succession? I bet you would!

So I'm going to add in a sideboard to Devastator. I've been wanting to start doing sideboards for awhile now, both as a good thought exercise and a way to improve my skills as a player and deckbuilder.

The issues I've had with Devastator are: other green creatures, fliers, and Humility.

Gah. Humility sucks but Naturalize exists. Second: Fliers are a problem, which makes Cloudthresher a great target-it can be evoked in for four mana, then sacrificed to Greater Good! If Verdant Succession is out, I can even get another to do four damage to all fliers and have a 7/7 creature with reach. Obstinate Baloth is there to gain life against red-based decks and maybe it's a reach but I'm hoping it'll be enough.

Against the green decks, Nylea, God of the Hunt can work in combination with God-Eternal Rhonas: Trample/Deathtouch should be enough to take out my opponent in the case of ground stalls. This might be good enough to try running maindeck. Finally, Hunt the Hunter. I'm proud of this idea: even with Verdant Succession out, if I'm taking out one of their creatures while keeping mine on the board, then attacking and forcing them to maybe lose another creature, I can still come out ahead.

4 Werebear
3 Blastoderm
2 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
2 Gurzigost
2 God-Eternal Rhonas
3 Fangren Firstborn
3 Caustic Caterpillar
3 Steel Leaf Champion
3 Hexdrinker
1 Rhonas the Indomitable

 4 Greater Good
4 Verdant Succession

 24 Forest

2 Vivien, Champion of the Wilds

Sideboard
3 Nylea, God of the Hunt
3 Obstinate Baloth
2 Cloudthresher
3 Naturalize
4 Hunt the Hunter

Thursday, October 24, 2019

How Many Pips

I've found this really cool (but definitely math-heavy) series on how many white pips one might need for a Transformers battle deck, but also the affect of double-icon or blank cards.

Part one is here, part two, and finally part three. These can be some helpful guidelines for building decks! Battle Cards play such a critical role in deckbuilding, having a better notion of what kind of holes to fill in is going to be important to understanding how to make a better deck.

This is especially true with Siege II coming out soon: new cards tend to open new strategies, so having a grip on the baseline is a great way to know what concepts you want to explore!

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Format, Variance, And Rarity

The design lead for the Transformers TCG posted this article on what the job is for common rarity cards.

No surprise; they're there to make limited (Turbo and Draft) environments work. That's just how TCGs are.

There is good content there, and I really do appreciate the lengths to which Wizards is going to to try and be transparent about how they build the game. Heck, I think there's interesting data there for anyone who plays a trading card game and is fascinated by the process.

However-and you had to know this was coming, right?-there is one big, big questionmark for me. From the article:
We feel Turbo is a strong selling point for our game that we’re starting to build sets towards it. If we can make the Turbo format more varied and fun without sacrificing the Constructed format (I think we can), it gives Transformers TCG an advantage over its competitors on the market. The common slot impacts Turbo the most so any innovations for that format go there.
So, there's just one problem.

Turbo isn't fun. I played two-and-a-half boxes of Turbo from Siege 1 and it wasn't fun. It wasn't fun in Rise of the Combiners, either-it was actually impossible to play, due to the Engima cards.

What was fun? Opening three packs, count stars only for characters, build the decks, go.

The reason Turbo isn't fun is because your battle deck is twelve cards. (Note: the link describing Turbo is incorrect, because the 7th battle card has been replaced by a second character card).

That just is not enough cards! Before your first turn even ends, you will have seen one third of your deck, at minimum, possibly half! That is in a set that has only 64 battle cards to begin with, so it's unlikely that you've got 12 unique cards, and the rarity is dispersed between both the battle cards AND the character cards, so the power levels are going to be wildly off. A rare character is far, far more powerful than a rare battle card and the rare battle card, if you get one, is unlikely to make it to your hand. Instead, it's far more likely you'll see the same common rarity cards flipped over and over.

If those common cards aren't helping you, that's incredibly discouraging, because you're going to see all of them, repeatedly.


By way of contrast, Draft has you making decks of 25 cards, and Constructed 40. Your first turns have you seeing just under 1/6th or 1/10th of your deck, which means there are a lot of surprises and choices left.

There isn't enough variance in your cards in Turbo to make play decisions matter. The power levels have been too flat, and with so few choices to make, games don't feel engaging. It is quite possible to have a bunch of cards in your hand that you cannot play, making your battle deck more and more consistent, meaning players already know the outcomes of the battle. That takes away from the most dynamic element of sealed!

However, at three booster packs, my experience was that games developed tension and my decisions mattered. I couldn't auto-play every character I got, which is good because it meant I was making choices about my game. Plus, the likelihood of my battle deck being blue-dominant and thus useless to me in a game that emphasizes attacking, is mitigated by the presence of those extra 6 cards, or by matching the best characters I could to the cards available to me!

That said, when I read Nagle's statement it's worth nothing he says, "If we can make the Turbo format more varied and fun without sacrificing the Constructed format (I think we can)".

So one of two things could be meant here: Either he knows that the format needs improvement and believes that they are making those improvements with Siege II, or he believes Turbo is fine as a format and they will continue to keep it 'varied and fun' as he groks those concepts.

I am really, really hoping for the former, not the latter. The Transformers TCG is a great deal of fun and I really do appreciate their attempt to keep the "on ramp" format as cheap as they can. As someone who is acutely aware of the costs of TCGs, I think they'd just do themselves a solid by recommending three packs to build the sealed deck instead of two. If I pay $8 and am miserable, or $12 and am entertained, then it's worth the four bucks to be happier. 

Thursday, October 17, 2019

The Planeswalker Problem

I have been saying it for years, but Planeswalkers are a problem for Magic. One of the things I've been clamoring for is common rarity removal for the card type. There is common rarity removal for every other card type in Magic.

The argument against has always boiled down to two points:

1) Planeswalkers are mythic and cool and common removal would spoil that!

and

2) Common removal for Planeswalkers would mess up draft environments since they're mythic rarity means that common removal gives drafters useless cards!

Well, since point two isn't true anymore and point one wants to sacrifice good gameplay for "coolness", I think we should disregard both of them. Because Planeswalkers are a problem.

Finally, people are catching on to that. Oko is just the latest in a line of problematic cards that have had people unhappy with Standard and had an impact on formats with much deeper card pools that shouldn't (but do) have severe difficulties with Planeswalkers. The thing that those cards have in common? They're cheap.

I don't think that Planeswalkers shouldn't be good! I just believe that players are not given enough tools to deal with them, which leads me back to the article I linked to and some of the solutions at the end.

While I like some of the concepts at the end of the article, of the ten sketches nine of them are creatures. I feel as though they missed opportunities to make enchantments, instants, sorceries, or even lands that would help deal with the problem. Note, however, that most of those solutions cost 2, in order to come down soon enough to make an impact.

The fact that people can come up with that variety of ideas just for an article suggests that the people at WotC can do something to help balance the game again, too. I hope they decide to do that.

Tuesday, October 15, 2019

The Bottleneck

Devastator vs GB
First thing's first: I made some changes.

Caustic Caterpillar came in to replace Druid Lyrist and Scavenger Folk. It's a more efficient card on both sides: It does more by itself and it doesn't tap to do what it does. That was an easy include.

Because I wanted to have turn one plays, I put in copies of Hexdrinker for both an early threat and a mana sink. Protean Hulk was removed to add in God-Eternal Rhonas, and one Gurzigost and the Brooding Saurians came out for three copies of Fangren Firstborn. (I have an admitted weakness for the Firstborn: it's big, it makes the whole team bigger, what else can someone ask for?)

Finally, I got to the three mana spot and this is where I have gotten stuck. Having read Emma Handy's recent article on Modern, I really want to make sure I have some power coming early, to give me time to get to the late game.

The Leatherback Baloths were taken out for Steel Leaf Champion. A gimmie, right? There's a form of evasion and if sacrificed to Greater Good, I get an extra card over the Leatherbacks.

But...It just doesn't feel like my strongest play. I've been poking around at the planeswalkers because they always create problems, however nothing is screaming out at me. Maybe I'm just being stubborn and Vivien, Champion of the Wilds would be perfect?

The card that really would solve a lot of my problems is Thragtusk, but the five mana spot is already crowded, so I'm reluctant to go down that road. Plus, it is expensive and Devastator already skews high on the mana costs. I'm looking into creatures that gain me life but it's a thin list of help.

Still, the initial tests are getting positive reviews from opponents, who are digging on how it interacts. That's always a good sign.

Thursday, October 10, 2019

Devastator

Sometimes, inspiration hits you.

I had purchased copies of God-Eternal Rhonas, and they were sitting on my desk waiting for me to take some time to put them away. Then it struck me: if I had a way to play that card, then play a second copy, I could attack for a lot of damage. But getting two copies of a card in your hand is hard enough; having ten mana to play them? Just not going to happen. I'd need a way to cheat them in.

However, I have a deck that wants to cheat creatures in, don't I? 

I present Devastator v 1.0.
4 Verdant Succession
4 Greater Good
3 Leatherback Baloth
2 Protean Hulk
2 Brooding Saurian
4 Werebear
3 Gigapede
3 Druid Lyrist
3 Blastoderm
3 Scavenger Folk
2 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
3 Gurzigost

24 Forest
Named after the gestalt Constructicon, (and I am going to have to start finding new naming conventions with the Transformers TCG I'm playing...), the premise behind this deck is: Use Greater Good to get whatever card you want, and Verdant Succession to replace the creatures you sacrificed to Greater Good and keep the pressure on.

The priorities then become: creatures with 4 or more power, so I can keep at least one card, and ramp to ensure that I can play both Verdant Succession and those large creatures. Werebears have the opportunity to do both, so they were an auto-include. Scavenger Folk and Druid Lyricist take care of some non-creature permanents while replacing themselves under the Succession, and also give this deck one drops. Gigapede allows me to both sacrifice it for a bunch of cards, then re-cast it for a continual threat!

So into this mix that I want to put in God-Eternal Rhonas. If I sacrifice Rhonas to Greater Good, then it comes back, right? Which should allow me to stack the trigger to find the very Rhonas I sacrificed.

And when Rhonas enters play, everything I control gets vigilance and has their power doubled. Even better, I can stack the triggers, putting Rhonas back into my library and retrieving the same one via the Succession, then drawing cards with Greater Good. It sounds bonkers just writing it out, which is a good sign.

So: there's going to be some updates to this list and then I'm taking it on the road!

Tuesday, October 8, 2019

The Mercs

There's a lot of cool news coming around about the next Transformers TCG set: Siege 2, but by my reckoning, the biggest surprise so far is the introduction of a new faction: The Mercenaries.

There is a lot to get into here, so let's start talking.

First: the keyword for these characters in this set is Bounty, a triggered ability that goes off when one of the Mercenaries KOs another character. That means this group wants to be aggressive. The star counts are still fair but it's pretty easy to see this faction pairing up with Weaponizers and orange pips to really get the most out of their abilities.

Second: there's the shakeup to the metagame. There are three new battle cards (so far) that specifically mention the Bounty keyword, so it looks like WotC really wants to give this faction some legs to stand on against their Autobot and Decepticon counterparts. That's a good thing: players need a reason to engage in the mechanics they are given and support for that helps give us that reason.

However, the new faction means that there's one more deckbuilding consideration to take, because cards like Soldier's Blaster could be huge...or they could be meaningless, depending on that meta. The Mercenaries are strong enough to earn a place in a deck, and so far they appear to be more helpful to the Decepticon faction than the Autobot one, based on the comparison between Opportune Offense and Opportune Repairs alone. Can they be their own faction? I don't think so, yet but they've gotten more support than the Firecons did so the groundwork is there.

The flipside of this is that there seems to be a push for blue/black decks: tanky, defense oriented decks that want to chip away at their opponent's team. I've already seen a rise in build that do this, pushing cards with double black pips especially. The aggressive quality of the Mercs suggests there's a counterweight to this, which, again, keeps things interesting.

Third: none of the revealed battle cards here have any star cost to them, even Wedge Formation, which is a 3 color pip card, and none relating to the Mercenary faction specifically. The message I take from this is: WotC wants to push this group. The opportunity cost of adding in strong Merc cards is zero, so they can get the benefit of some very strong cards. This all suggests to me that they will be able to hold their own without support from the original factions very, very soon.

It's a strong showing of characters and cards, so I'm hopeful that this will provide more depth to the game without overcomplicating things. I like what I'm seeing so far, so bring on the Siege!

Thursday, October 3, 2019

Throne of Eldraine Overview

Here we go, the new set is on display! Let's talk about it.

The mechanics:

Adventure: I think this one is a win. It's a spell you can bank into a creature later; it's auto value, unless the spell is countered. Some of them are exceptionally well tied together from a mechanic/thematic perspective, too, and I like to appreciate that when I can.

Adamant: I'm not sure how to evaluate this one. In Limited, when you pull it off it'll feel amazing...sort of. Silverflame Ritual? Yes, that's really cool. It might even be a constructed worthy card for a heavy or mono white deck. Turn Into A Pumpkin? Not so much.

Maybe this is one of those mechanics that is a test, especially in Limited. The Adamant is just a bonus, the card has to be accepted at it's baseline value. This doesn't read so well for me, but I'm also used to a conventional wisdom that says that limited decks are usually 2 colors, not monochrome.

Food: So is Wizards telling us that 3 life = 1 card? Because these aren't Investigate tokens. That mechanic was incredibly well received, since it helped smooth out draws in limited formats, and even had use in constructed formats.

But this isn't that. Investigate gave you a resource you always needed: a card. By default, that gives you more of everything be it time, mana, or spells, because card games run on cards. Food wants to give you time but historically lifegain just doesn't give players the boost that they need or want. 

Worse, it feels like they didn't do anything interesting with this mechanic. Giant Opportunity seems to be as unusual as it gets. Now; one possibility is that lifegain or a lifegain mechanic becomes something in the next block: Theros: Beyond Death. In which case, we have a foundation and some possible cross-pollination. But for now: meh.

Knights vs Non-Human tribes: here's something that might be a bit more dynamic for the larger Constructed format, since there are plenty of non-humans in Standard and 62 knights...at least some of which won't rotate out in two weeks!

Colored Artifacts: this isn't a mechanic so much as a thing that is now officially happening, as opposed to the "cool" thing they did in Kaladesh. Which was, of course, a riff off the "cool" thing they did in Mirrodin.

Sarcasm aside; artifacts have always been problematic, blue and to a lesser extent, white, have always had a strong alliance with them and that's shored up or in some cases overpowered the color, and having a way to rein in the card type is a good thing.

One thing I really like: Obvious cycles. I just do.

Let's get into the colors!

White
So what is up with Flutterfox? The flavor text says white. That fox is clearly not white.

What...is going on with the art for Hushbringer? Heck, give us more weirdness like it, I say. Very cool card, too.

People are down on the legendary white noble, Linden, the Steadfast Queen but I think she's pretty good! 3/3, vigilant, gains life for three mana? What, exactly, is the problem?

Blue
People seem to be really high on Brazen Borrower and while it's good is it THAT good?

Charmed Sleep is winning my award for favorite art so far.

I see that WotC is making a push in Blue/Red again for 'second card drawn each turn' triggers. These always seem like wish fulfillment-the payoff isn't that great for the work you have to do, and drawing a card is already its own reward. There's an 'insult to injury' element (you're just drawing a card AND getting to punch me for four damage?) that feels awful if you're on one side, and excessive on the other. However, this is the second time that they've promoted this mechanic, so perhaps there are enough cards to build around it. (Note to self, check that out).

The blue legendary knight is oddly weak, but maybe I'm not counting the card draw effects enough. Vantress Gargoyle, though: That's a weird card with cool art.

Black

Blacklance Paragon seems like the weakest rare I have seen in a long time. I am not sure what's to be excited about.

I appreciate the mechanical and thematic tie in of Cauldron Familiar, as someone who lives with a black cat. At the same time, they missed a lot of opportunities to add more warlocks to the game. I know knights are one of the tribes Black needs to support in this set, but witches are referenced more than seen here and that's a disappointment, especially considering how central to lore they are.

Maybe it's just me, but Malevolent Nobel is a missed opportunity, or maybe just misnamed. Why is he malevolent, if he's killing witches-who clearly want children's bones? That doesn't seem so bad.

I could've used a little more of Ayara's weirdness; I don't recall seeing "black widow" style characters in Magic often-and as an elf, that makes her very unusual. I like that.

Red
I feel as if Red is where they're starting to throw a lot of experimental and weird mechanical ideas in. I'm not objecting but I don't see Irencrag Feat in any other color, even though there's no reason why one couldn't put it in Black or Green, even White, with a little color pie hoodoo.The color needs some weirdness though, to give it more dimension so I'm not unhappy.

The Burning-Yard Trainer and Redcap Melee storyline seems odd, but maybe it just means that BYT isn't as awesome as he thinks he is.

I wish Robber of the Rich had some kind of evasion. Shouldn't thieves be stealthy? It might be overpowered with evasion and I'm not sure if there's a way to represent evasion that is thematically fitting. Still, looks like a fun card as is.

Thrill of Possibility might be one of the more powerful draw spells Red has seen since Faithless Looting. Previous effects (Wild Guess and Tormenting Voice) have been sorceries: being an instant is an important add on.

Green
Where the food (mechanic) mostly is, has been covered.

The Great Henge is probably the oddest of the legendary artifact cycle, mostly because the others do what I would expect them to do. The cost is crazy, but the benefits? Probably not worth it. Sigh.

Rosethorn Halberd seemed good on first glance, but the equip cost is (understandably) too high. It's a bad Giant Growth for Constructed but may be a Limited all star.

Once Upon A Time seemed exciting when I thought it read "first spell this turn". That said the cycle of Chancellors in New Phyrexia had something going on and I think this effect is stronger overall. Maybe not hype worthy but still useful.

Multi
Doom Foretold! That's a neat card, even though it is totally a 'glory of cool things'.

The rest are OK: which makes sense, this isn't the set for flashy multicolored cards, buuuuuuut then why include ten hybrid mana cards? All of which are the OK-est? Limited, I suppose but I'm not seeing much that is exciting or odd. Even if those cards are there to buttress a theme in Theros, why are they so weak?

Artifact/Land
I don't see much in the way of interesting artifacts, though the artwork for Sorcerer's Broom is pretty sweet.

The Castles have expensive abilities that will be fine in Commander, and the "lower houses" have weaksauce abilities that will be OK in Commander. Not really much to get exited about, except that the "lower houses" all have their respective basic land type. I haven't seen that since Shadowmoor and while that may not be powerful, it IS interesting.

Now, all in all I think there's some really solid design. I don't think this set is full of deep cuts, but I do believe that it'll be plenty of fun!

Tuesday, October 1, 2019

Suffer More

Wasting Away vs GW beasts
It was in the last few games that I recognized that Wasting Away is a control deck and control decks need control cards.

To that end, Kitesail Freebooter has been great! I was a little surprised by how useful it's been, and even midway through the game, it has been a handy card to have.

And although Gideon, Champion of Justice had done some work for me, it was never a card that I felt my opponents hated to see. When you're operating on the power margins, you definitely want to play cards your opponents wish you hadn't.

Enter, Utter End.

This card is really solid: on the curve, an instant, and takes care of things that the soft lock won't or can't. I don't need a second win condition: I just need to make sure the first one survives and Utter End helps with that.

So, I'm happy with this!
3 Basilisk Collar

2 Order of Leitbur
1 Order of the White Shield
4 Plague Spitter
3 Thrashing Wumpus
4 Kitesail Freebooter

3 Death Pits of Rath
3 Soul Link
4 Lashknife Barrier
1 Noxious Field

2 Utter End

11 Swamp
9 Plains
4 Shambling Vent

3 The Wanderer

3 Command the Dreadhorde

Thursday, September 26, 2019

0-7

I participated in a Soundwave v Blaster tournament at Red Castle Games last Saturday.

The concept was simple: everyone gets the Soundwave v Blaster product, and then players randomly determine which deck they use, one person playing Soundwave's deck the other Blaster's and then in the next round, you'd switch decks. You play the decks right out of the box, so it's a level playing field.

If your opponent played the same deck as you did last round, you randomly determine who gets which deck, again. Simple enough right?

I got Blaster's deck the first round, lost and then randomly got Blaster the second round and lost.

Bad beats, right? Nope!

Everyone who played Blaster lost that day. Not a single game was won by a player navigating the Blaster deck amounting to a total of 7 game losses. So I don't feel that bad about losing, since everyone at the event rapidly came to the same conclusion: the Soundwave deck is clearly overpowered.

Now according to the internet, Blaster decks, once modified to heavy orange, have been making the top tables as one of the better aggro decks in the format. Meanwhile, Soundwave has been languishing competitively, probably in need of a boost from Siege II cards.

That isn't the point, however. Because WotC blew a huge opportunity here.

Soundwave is one of the biggest characters in the franchise so it makes sense to give Soundwave its own deck and matching it up against an iconic nemesis is perfect-every kid worth their salt knew that Blaster was supposed to fight Soundwave.
Why does that fight suck so bad? Let's look at the deck lists. The way I see it, there are a three reasons:

First: Card quality. Soundwave gets the very first double black pip card, Intercept Communications, guaranteeing at least two damage every time an attacking character reveals it.  Scoundrel's Blaster is a fantastic card and the Blaster deck has no way to fairly deal with it. Every game I played or saw, Scoundrel's Blaster was equipped to an opposing character. In my first game, I cast Vaporize three times to destroy Blasters, only to see them come back within a shuffle, because the green pips allowed my opponent to reduce randomness and re-acquire those cards easily.

There is not a similar effect for the opposing deck-Backup Beam doesn't even come close, given the mechanical themes. The card that should've been in there: Enforcement Batons, or even better, Press the Advantage.

Second: Card draw. Buzzsaw, Ravage, Frenzy, Attack!, Pep Talk and Intercept Communications do not have a comparable cards in Blaster's deck. Yes, Pep Talk is in Blaster's deck-and that's exactly the problem. Blue cards in Blaster's deck do not help, because Soundwave's deck and characters concentrate on pierce damage. In the meantime, Soundwave's pilot gets to draw more cards and recur Scoundrel's Blaster-or any other card they need. Something that might've given Blaster a chance: Point-Defense System.

Third and most importantly: poor focus. Handheld Blaster is awful, because it doesn't have an impact against what the Soundwave deck does and there isn't enough orange in the Blaster deck to make the bold worthwhile, where Blast Shield is great in Soundwave's deck because it effectively nullifies an attack, since the Blaster deck is so scattershot. Look at Obstructive Rhythm providing Tough, a mechanic that doesn't help against pierce at all!

You can see how the first and second points arise because of this, and it makes cards that could've been interesting or created dynamic play decisions, such as Interpret the Airwaves, bad, or Daring Counterattack feel desperate and pointless instead of daring and hopeful.

On the other side, there isn't an orange pip to be found in the Soundwave deck! It knows exactly what it wants to do: create defense and chip away at opponents via pierce damage.

This is a set that should have been a gateway to new players, with opportunities for epic plays, close victories and narrow defeats. Instead that gateway is so skewed that nobody can actually walk through it. You either completely dominate or feel as if nothing you did mattered.

That is poor execution on Wizards' part.

I hope that gets fixed with the next vs product, because it's a pretty neat idea that bellyflopped on execution.

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

A Small Suite Of Things

Danny West has been doing an interesting series at CoolStuff and I think this article is a fine example of that.


And, I've notice I've been going 0-X in a lot of my limited formats, so I really appreciated what this article had to offer.

Thursday, September 19, 2019

Always Thinking

Wasting Away vs BU Planeswalkers
There was a last minute change.

I did some goldfishing with Wasting Away and the glut at the three CMC spot really stood out.

Also, it became clear to me that Basilisk Collar on a Plague Spitter was a Death Pits of Rath, without having Death Pits out. So cards like the Wanderer and Lashknife Barrier really couldn't be taken out.

However, a Soul Link and a Death Pits could both be cut. The issue was: What to add in?

I opted for a Gideon, Champion of Justice for a few reasons. First, at four mana there isn't a lot of competition for that spot. Second, as a creature with indestructible, any activations of Thrashing Wumpus or Noxious Field wouldn't be a problem. Third, Gideon could represent a win condition that would survive many forms of removal.

Then the testing began.

Some games against Noah were interesting and very, very grindy. Gideon did some work but wasn't as threatening as I'd hoped. The High Priest, though, had some challenges.

The High Priest of Penance issues continued as testing continued. Even coming out on turn two, it just wasn't making much of an impact. Which makes sense: This is a deck that wants to prevent damage and the High Priest only works if it takes damage. Sadly, the axis this deck wants to win on isn't harmonious with the High Priest's ability.

Effectively, I think I have two options: run Kitesail Freebooter or find different board control elements.

I've been reluctant to put in the Freebooter because that was what was done in the deck tech that inspired this deck's elevation to the spotlight. But that's just pride getting in the way: the Freebooter does plenty of what I would ask for a card in that slot; It's cheap, disruptive, and as a flier it can get in for early damage, while also carrying a Soul Link and surviving a hit from Plague Spitter.

That should be worth testing, so I'm going to test it..

Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Least Powerful Favorite

This is a fun Twitter thread. (Which I realize goes against how most things from Twitter work but trust me on this one!)

I think Force of Nature might be mine. It's big, dumb, only costs six, and it has trample...what could go wrong?

Weeeellll...if we look at rare green creatures costing six mana and compare the creatures with the modern boarders to Force of Nature, it becomes pretty clear that creature design has gotten much more powerful.

Still, fun times from way back when.

Friday, September 13, 2019

Build It Up High

Wasting away vs Dreadnought deck
So far, Wasting Away has been performing like you might expect: If I can get a Death Pits of Rath in play and any source of damage, I'm set.

If I can't, I'm in trouble. So, the goal going forward is going to be twofold:

1) Ensure I can get the combo set up.

and/or

2) Command the Dreadhorde if that fails.

The games have been engaging so far, which means I'll be looking to improve instead of dismantle this deck.

Now that the prelim is done, let's talk changes.

Out
4 Dark Ritual
2 Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant
2 Disenchant
3 Spirit Link
1 Terashi's Grasp

In
3 Command the Dreadhorde
3 The Wanderer
2 Basilisk Collar
4 High Priest of Penance

High Priest of Penance. Now, more copies of Basilisk Collar because I have some! And it's a better card than Spirit Link, able to enchant the Knights (which Soul Link can't) as well as continuing to exist if my creatures die.

With The Wanderer and Command the Dreadhorde additions, the cost of doing business goes up, so I wanted to find something inexpensive and cheap to help me get to the mid-to-late game. Enter, the High Priest.

Now, are there other cards that might fit in thematically? Sure. Am I using this good card effectively? Maybe not. Is it just a good card to stuff in a 2 CMC sized hole in this deck? Hell yes it is.

Let's see what happens!

Tuesday, September 10, 2019

Heuristics

I thought this was a fantastic article about decision making and you should definitely check it out.

Thursday, September 5, 2019

Trying In Vain To Figure It Out

As always, I like to start by running the deck through deckstats.net.

What I learned; the manabase is divvied up evenly but I have more black cards. That there is nothing at the four drop spot, but 16 at the three.

While I have eight one drops, none of them are useful on their own; Spirit Link and Basilisk Collar need creatures to go on, Dark Ritual needs something to accelerate out.

As always, numbers don't quite tell the whole story.

The trouble is; how should I tweak this deck now?

Dark Ritual is better suited for fast combo decks. But taking out a one-drop and replacing it with four Command the Dreadhorde seems extremely unwise, because six mana is a lot to get to. I don't think I want four copies of Command anyway; three should probably do the trick.

Rune-Tail, Kistune Ascendant is definitely a "Living the dream" card. I don't want to cut all my creatures but The Wanderer just does what that does better.

So those are on the chopping block, but first a few games with Wasting Away: theorycrafting is fine but I still have to get some games in!

The planned changes will almost certainly mean mana base tweaks, so I'll need to keep that in mind as we go.