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Total Votes : 8
mojo
Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2007 8:08 pm
Joined: 09 Aug 2006 Posts: 32 Location: your mom
Cobra wrote:


Is Skeletal Vampire really the best option for 6 mana? Think


i think it is cause the good ole boy comes into play with tokens and he can make more tokens and it pretty miuch makes him unkillable unless the good ole sudden shock is put on himafter he blocks a weenie guy, but its the best option i see.
La_Sin_Grail
Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2007 8:15 pm
Joined: 14 Aug 2005 Posts: 806 Location: Maryland
@ Cobra, I love skelly vamp! He’s a beast because if you topdeck a land, you can always just make more bats. He can crowd control and doesn’t die to spot most spot removal.

@Mojo, first off, I don’t think it’s obvious to board in bliss and here’s why. Who plays ignorant bliss? And here’s the cause: Who plays mono black discard? The whole reason this deck could beat D-storm and surprise people is because it’s rogue! People don’t see everything coming, like they do against power archtypes.

I didn’t say there’s no synergy, I said there’s a lack of consistancy, and if you’ve ever tested decks that only run two cards in full playsets, you’d know I was right.

If you use factory to chump late, I laugh in your general direction. 7 mana to block every turn? I think not. And that doesn’t even include flyers or trample.

As for nightmare void... think of it like this.

Player 1: I play nightmare void.

Player 2: Mana leak. It’s discarded. End of turn think twice because I have equal mana.

Player 1: I dredge and play nightmare void. (-1 cards because of lost draw)

Player 2: I do some other counter and flash back think twice.

Player 1: I dredge it back again and... (-2 cards)

P2: cards in hand remain equal assuming land plus spell each turn because of the extra mana.

You forget that playing a 4 mana spell to trade with a two is bad whether or not they’re "burning counters." You’re burning your library and missing a draw while they trade for mana advantage.
mojo
Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2007 8:26 pm
Joined: 09 Aug 2006 Posts: 32 Location: your mom
but what makes the deck consistent is arena...two cards or 3 cards a turn makes a huge difference dude and ignorant bliss is used in most d-storm decks as an sb if the meta is black heavy, also they have their counter spells. as for nightmare void, its underrated and why would u dredge it every turn? its there if u need a discard and u don’t have it. so its a good 2 of in the deck as a reccuring threat.
physcosick
Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2007 8:37 pm
Joined: 18 Oct 2005 Posts: 229 Location:
You fail to realize decks do not need 4 ofs to make decks consistant. The thing I am trying to help you understand is decks don’t need 4 ofs. Yes it’s good, but 3ofs and 2ofs are good when needed. Whenever a pro player comes up with a list that has cuts, 3ofs and 2ofs, they think "oh he did a lot of testing to figure out exactly how many of each card he needed" but a deck here lacks some 4ofs and you automatically think it’s a bad thing.

The main deck has a balance of both anti control, anti combo, and anti aggro. So, no matter what it faces first game, it has a lot of outs for that situation. After sideboarding, it takes out the useless cards and puts in more cards that help out in the match up, you know what that means? It mean’s 4ofs and less 2 ofs!

Would you have any other way? If you build it to go strictly against aggro main deck, and you play against control, you lose without a doubt (and vice versa). But this way, you have a good game against everything first game and you dont have to play catch up and win the next two games. It gives you a better first game against everything. You may lose some consistency, but in this case, consistency means enough variety to help you win game one against anything! And game two, it gets easier. Plus, it’s "rogue" so that helps it’s success even more.

There is no point in me arguing about Nightmare Void. If you don’t like it then so be it, but there is a reason why it’s in the deck, in the new GB deck, and why it’s my favorite discard... well... atleast in type 2... cabal therapy ftw!
Felipe Musco
Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2007 9:00 pm
Joined: 18 May 2006 Posts: 2434 Location: Florianópolis, SC, Brasil
Physcosick is undoubtly right on the idea behind this, IMO. Check my BW Control build (which is finally complete, except for 2 Flagstones of Trokair, and the fact that now I wanta Damnation over WoG, but anyways, thanks a lot physcosick, for making it happen!), for instance, it’s pretty solid (and original, yay! Laughing ), and it plays 3 House Guards, 2 Persecutes, 2 Diabolic Tutors, 2 Debtors’ Knell, 2 Faith’s Fetters, 3 Gemstone Mine, 3 Bouncelands, 3 Arenas, 2 Angels of Despair, 2 Adarkar Valkyries, etc (on the maindeck, there is). And if you play it, you’ll see it’s not THAT inconsistent... I’m actually considering Nightmare Void in it as a SB one-of, btw, as I can tutor it, and if I dredge out creatures, boo-hoo, Knell gets them back.
I don't like YOU.
physcosick
Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2007 9:55 pm
Joined: 18 Oct 2005 Posts: 229 Location:
Cobra wrote:


The total number of Swamps is 15; what’s relevant is how many are actually on the table. Wink]
So I misread what he was saying, so what Evil or Very Mad ...


lol


point stands though, it’s a good card and it’s a type 2 MBC staple.
La_Sin_Grail
Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2007 10:39 pm
Joined: 14 Aug 2005 Posts: 806 Location: Maryland
I’m not saying you need ALL 4-ofs, but most decks play at least 5 playsets..

Reading off the top decklists from today’s official data, not including lands in counts- only spells

1) 6 full playsets
2) 10 playsets!!
3) 9 full playsets
4) 8 playsets
5) 7 playsets

I don’t just make this stuff up, folks. You can’t argue with all the top 5 decks in standard having 3-5x the full playsets as this one.

I understand if you don’t want to run say four skelly vamps or other "bomb" spells, but you need 4-ofs for the basis of the deck as the obvious success has shown.

If you all’d like to check out more of these decks, http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/fk24
is the link.

Instead of two ofs being good against agro or control, how about cards that are just plain good? That does possibly mean another color, but you need high quality cards with high consistancy. That’s what makes a deck.
physcosick
Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2007 10:58 pm
Joined: 18 Oct 2005 Posts: 229 Location:
You can’t base your reasoning behind your argument for this deck on other type 2 decks, they are totally different. This deck has a totally different strategy then any other deck in type 2, so it’s incomparable. It’s doing a completely different thing then Boros or Dralnu... while those decks are doing their things, this deck is busy beating them because of the tech.

My final thought on this is that you had a great idea. MBC is a lot of fun and you put a lot of thought into it. Your matchup analysis was wonderfully written as well as the rest of your article. The deck may not be that great but heck, not all of them are on mtg.com, either! You have a great writing style and the guys here gave you a hard time that you don’t deserve for the work you obviously put into this. I enjoyed your article very much.
inresponse
Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 1:33 am
Joined: 18 Oct 2005 Posts: 162 Location:
ALRIGHT!!!! TIME FOR SOME COMMENTS BECAUSE I WAS MENTIONED ONCE AGAIN HOOOOOOOO!

MBC is definitely going to make a comeback, maybe not as strongly as people have been expecting, but it definitely has an advantage now that Damnation exists.

As to the specific points of this post articles discussion:

@ La_Sin_Grail: Your estimation of Nightmare Void is pretty far off the mark. Nightmare Void singlehandedly wins games vs. Dragonstorm. If they don’t have Remand + the perfect hand to go off, they lose their key card. Against a "counterspell deck" your math is off and they are actually only up by one card. The original copy of think twice trades 1 for 1 with a card from the top, the second copy is the only actual card advantage. The fact is, when you force them to counter your nightmare void, you are doing exactly what the card is supposed to do. You force them to waste a counter, just as you would take a counter from their hand if nightmare void resolved. Eventually, Nightmare Void will resolve because the fastest clock in a U deck is teferi or a morph. When it does, you will steal a win condition or a counter and be able to easily force down skeletal vampire for which they have very few answers. In fact, once nightmare void has removed their counterspells (by being countered or resolving) you can resolve any spell you choose.

One way to increase the consistency of this deck would in fact be to have more playsets of cards, however, the research you have done is not exactly accurate. Those decks all play for an extremely consistent game, with a series of plays that follow sequentially and rarely differ. They practice redundancy with cards like mana leak and rune snag and usually play out the same each match. Not all decks work this way, battle of wits is one example. This deck is not the perfect one to utilize the principle of multiple game plans, but it does so in an efficient fashion by playing less than four copies of cards that do similar things in order to increase effectiveness against different archetypes that may be weak to particular cards.

You say tendrils is bad, as well as consume spirit, because of the lack of swamps. Instead of dissing the cards because of the mana base, it is much more pertinent to offer advice on the mana base that might improve the quality of those cards. Since the deck is PC legal, adding Urborg to make all lands into swamps in addition to their normal types seems very very good. Advice like adding 1 card to improve the quality of others instead of ragging on those same cards is what makes a good forum poster into a great one.

Also, you say that the only reason this deck would is a good answer to dragonstorm is because black discard decks are unexpected and rogue. However, you who have claimed to do so much research seemed to have missed the last couple of weeks of Online Tech, where mono black rack was one of the top decks on mtgo. This deck plays cards like cry of contrition and stupor to reduce the opponent’s hand to nothing, and then wins with creatures like Haakon or simply with The Rack. Also, Ignorant Bliss is an extremely popular sideboard card for Dragonstorm, one that has been played since Dragonstorm won Worlds earlier this year. Most lists run 2-4 copies because of the rack deck and other archetypes that run persecute.

Also, I did not leave because of our bear discussion. I still will say that a bear is a 2 power creature for 2 mana. In fact, Rich Hoaen, author of the daily Drafting With Rich and a back to back top 8er in time spiral draft grand prixs, often refers to both pit keeper and goblin sky cutter as "bears" in his articles. Both of these creatures are 2/1s, but the fact that they attack for 2 on turn 3 is what makes them bears.

The reason why I left was because I felt your responses to articles, both mine and others, were unfair and not consistent with your responses in your own article discussions.

@ Mojo: I believe that blackmail is an underappreciated card for the fnm scene, because opponents are often unaware of how to play against one. Some people might not realize how they can be devastated by losing a land, and will reveal 2 lands and their worst card. However, this deck seems to be made for a more competetive level of play, perhaps city championships or just as a stock deck to test against. Either way, the use of blackmail decreases significantly with the increase in skill of the opponent. A truly skilled opponent might even be able to trick the blackmail player by revealing cards he normally wouldn’t.

@Cobra: Skeletal Vampire is one of the most powerful cards available to any black archetype at this point in the standard environment. His resilience versus burn and his abiliity to multiply for less than his mana cost is potent, and he definitely is the best option for this deck.

Overall, I like the deck and would normally give the article a high 4 because there are only a few grammar mistakes and poor word choices, but because of the unusually poor feedback, I am going to rate this a 5. I feel like many of the responses here are unqualified by their support, and said simply to decrease the rating of the article. While my vote can do little to change this, hopefully it will make people realize that this is one of the better articles cobracards has seen, with a wide variety of match ups analyzed and a quality decklist that seems efficient and well thought out.

Remember, if I am called, I will post !!!!! HOOOOOOOO!
The First
Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 5:21 pm
Joined: 07 Oct 2005 Posts: 195 Location: Anderlecht, Belgium
Whoa, this has been some long discussion. I really don’t get why there has to be some namecalling though. LSG has his beliefs while other people have theirs. Some people can take criticism and other can take less.

But all in all we are all Magic players, surfing to Cobracards to have a good time and to take a look at what other people have to say about decks and articles. So let them.

I for one, liked the discussion. And I do believe that even MBC need to have at least some basic play sets. Even if your deck is versatile, you need to get to those cards that can dismantle your opponent’s deck. It is obvious that Damnation has to be a playset. IMO the Arena needs to be a playset as well. But putting in more Tendrils or Cruel Edict would be stupid as they are complementary - even though the Edict costs 2 while the Tendrils cost 4. I’m not really a huge fan of that card either to be honest. Not with Damnation in this deck. At the same mana cost, it is a lot more efficient and the Dimir House Guard can fetch it + other cards so I would replace it. I’d probably drop a Persecute then as well.

About the Nightmare Void; I must say that it is quite powerful. You can in fact kill some of your opponent’s resources with it. But don’t forget that you are both crippling your hand and library each time you use it. Dredge 2... there goes a finisher. We will have to wait a bit longer then... It can be good but it can also backfire. But I would keep 2 md.

Skeletal Vamp is quite good. Not too cost efficient IMO but certainly better token generator than the Factory.

4 Shadow of Doubt is too many IMO. You have Persecute, Nightmare Void, Damnation and Shadows against DS. I’d drop 1 or maybe even 2.

Why not play Grave-Shell Scarabs in this deck? Arena is cool with it and it can be brought back to life as well. I also like the Sengir Nosferatu a lot in more aggressive builds.

In total, a very good article. A very good deck. And you do seem to know what you are talking about. Please don’t lose credibility by shouting at people.

- The First
Great minds bleed alike.
Do not copy media. Support creativity.

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