November Tournament discussion

[Salbei]

I´m not gonna go very far with my deck.Somehow the AI plays it different than i thought it would - pretty much any semi-decent creaturebased deck should beat it without problems.Its just getting dangerous in the long run.
I definatly could have submitted a better one, but wth.

[Cognis]

I made my deck in 5 minutes because I had no inspiration, it's kind of lame but might be decent.

[240sxforever]

I'm a bit bummed, I had a decent deck. But homework pushed it out of my mind and I missed the cutoff.

[aww1979]

Submit it anyway :p As far as I know we haven't started yet.

[Cognis]

We currently have 6 entries, and I'd like at least 2 more to start the tournament. Please submit decks ASAP. I'll keep the entry open until I have 8 entries, or Nov 10th, whichever comes first.

You can still make the deadline

[juzamjedi]

Submitting my entry to Jatill now. I played it a little and it can do some powerful things. I don't know if the AI is good with it though...

[juzamjedi]

Makes me SOOOO happy to see Juzam Jedi, er, Juzam Djinn rocking some people in this tournament.

[aww1979]

I'm about to start Group A. Looking at the decks, my thoughts are:

Cognis: Well, the name fits :p I think I'd have tried to sneak in some plowshares, but overall looks interesting. Moat will be a good hoser, except that AI doesn't like to play it :p The only time I have EVER seen the AI cast Moat was during challenge mode; AI play Moat and then Tinkered for an Inkwell Leviathan. Go figure.

Aww1979: "The Deck" was the best deck of the day, in my opinion, so I modified it to have only 5 artifacts, and made it more AI-friendly with things like Control Magic. Greater Realm of Preservation was a metagame call; hopefully it works out. The one Mishra's Factory was a last minute "oh F# I put in Maze of Ith and The Dark isn't included, what can I sub it with???" choice.

Nicdanger: At first glance, your deck looks a lot like mine, as it shares many cards, but it should play very differently, as the main difference is I used countermagic and you used more creatures. You also added Psionic Blasts, which I'd thought about, but ultimately rejected.

Jatill: I thought we might see a deck like yours :p I remember many years ago having fun with a similar deck, only it had a stronger blue component with Serendib Efreet and Unstable Mutation. (and no p9 sadly)

AswanJaguar: It's been a long time since I've played with Lure or Cockatrice With the berserks and several large creatures, it could pack some good surprises. I'd thought about using Karakas in my deck instead of a Plains, but then I realized that all the legends in Legends sucked balls, so it would probably be better to stick to basics. Of course, I was forgetting Blood Moon was in The Dark, so in this scenario, one Karakas truly is strictly superior. Did you think about using Savannah Lions in the deck? That's one I'd probably have tried to sneak in there.

Shantak: I recognize that decklist; sadly, yes I am that old. I forget who played it, but it was in about 94 or 95, and made worlds top 8 :p The original didn't have the p9, and it had Zuran Orb, and probably 4 Strip Mines, and Brushlands instead of Svannahs, and a few minor changes, but it's close enough that I spotted it right away! The good news is, if memory serves, the control deck won that year

Juzamjedi: This looks like a good, solid fun deck. It might be a bit slow, but hopefully the bolts and plows keep it going. It should do extremely well in the mid to late game. The 4 colour land base may prove tricky, but I see you have 25 mana sources to help make up for that, as well as for the higher curve. It's too bad City of Brass is a dead card in the AIs hand... it would shine here.

Salbei: This reminds me of my brother's favourite deck, monored burn I'd tried to make a deck like this initially, but once I realized The Dark was out (taking away Ball Lightning and Blood Moon) I scrapped it and went with The Deck.

[juzamjedi]

I decided I wanted to build a beatdown deck for this tournament. I tried Kird Ape, Savannah Lions and Erhnam Djinn at first and played it against this deck. Well let me tell you, the AI would put out Juzam Djinn and suddenly Erhnam Djinn isn't even good any more. Pretty easy to do when a single Mox can put Juzam into play on turn 3.

I also tried a BRG version with Ernham, Juzam, and Kird Apes. It was better than the RGW deck, but Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning weren't good enough removal to kill creatures with 5 toughness.

[Nicdanger]

At first I thought this format would be kinda dull, its actually been quite the opposite!

My first thought when putting together a deck for this had alot of purely annoying and defensive cards. Wrath, Swords, Reverse Damage, Eye for an Eye, it was basically a deck a buddy of mine played in high school. Black was an obvious choice to splash, and soon it was almost identical to Aww's deck.

I also made a black/blue aggro deck, but it lacked solid removal and had too many ways to kill itself. I took what I thought was the best of each and threw them together, added Spirit Link, and ended up with what I submitted.

I thought about a land destruction deck as well, but then I realized how much good LD was left out of this format

Lastly, if you don't read any part of my tourney results . . you have to read this:

The AI plays first and does the following all on its first turn: Plains > Mox Pearl > Black Lotus > Disenchant targeting Mox Pearl > sacrifice Black Lotus > Balance! "OMG did that really just happen?" So we're both at 2 cards and nothing else.

[Aswan jaguar]

aww1979 wrote:

Did you think about using Savannah Lions in the deck? That's one I'd probably have tried to sneak in there.

Yes I thought about Savannah Lions,but didn't want to use more plains for 1,in my tests it gave my deck some trouble,and for 2 I wanted somebody to stand against 1hitters like Prodigal Sorceress.I always hated Ghazban Ogre because so easy becomes a traitor and go with the strong one!and moreover AI plays his best against it!I hope in the end that his pros will outcome his cons.
To add Savannah Lions+Ghazban Ogre I thought I wasn't going to have meta-game.

AI is at his best with this tournament too many wins for him.And doesn't quit playing so much.
Too bad some guys didn't enter to have more competition,maybe they thought it was going to be dull,but it is a lot of fun,competitive duels,and decent AI plays.
Maybe some that didn't enter will report matches and have more accurate results in the tournament.
In group A Aww1979_The Deck is too difficult to win,fighting hard each game,and AI is very good with it!

[juzamjedi]

After playing all of the matches I was impressed / surprised at how hard it was for most decks to beat Salbei's deck. Shivan Dragon was actually really good in this environment and the 5 mana flare effects rarely hurt because most opponents don't play X-spells. It was also really amusing to see Fork copy my Braingeyser for 7. I won the game, but probably should have lost.

[Shantak]

Shantak: I recognize that decklist; sadly, yes I am that old. I forget who played it, but it was in about 94 or 95, and made worlds top 8 :p The original didn't have the p9, and it had Zuran Orb, and probably 4 Strip Mines, and Brushlands instead of Svannahs, and a few minor changes, but it's close enough that I spotted it right away! The good news is, if memory serves, the control deck won that year

Yeah, I'll admit that I looked through a few Erniegeddon decklists before making this. I think what you're recalling is Bertrand Lestree's deck from Pro Tour 1996: http://wiki.mtgsalvation.com/article/Erhnamgeddon - that or some other variant. I remember playing something like that in 1995 nationals or something - except that mine wasn't really that effective and used Storm Seekers as well. I didn't make it too far when I lost to an actual Ernhamgeddon

[Salbei]

After playing all of the matches I was impressed / surprised at how hard it was for most decks to beat Salbei's deck. Shivan Dragon was actually really good in this environment and the 5 mana flare effects rarely hurt because most opponents don't play X-spells. It was also really amusing to see Fork copy my Braingeyser for 7. I won the game, but probably should have lost.

It was quite a risky metagame choice since Manaflare can very easily backfire.And the Deck is quite vulnurable against swarm strategies (had Earthquake in there, but that didn´t really help since it grills me aswell and i really couldn´t afford the extra damage).
The Fork in there was mosty in there to copy Mind Twist/Braingeysir or as a finisher with your own X-Spells.

I was expecting more control decks (like Aww´s) and am quite surprised at the ammount of "Creature decks".
Blood Moon would have been sooooo good for this Deck, but unfortunatly not allowed due to the format restrictions.Also a playset of Juggernauts would have been huge,replaced them with Fire Elementals (had Ernhams and Juzams in Mind so i choose that over Earth Elemental).

Shivan Dragon was an obvious choice when you already play Manaflares - even without it they hurt a lot and have to be handled on the spot.

I was certain i would see a few Serendibs + Serra Angels but didn´t expect that many to be honest.Even thought about adding Red Elemental Blasts but they where useless against a couple decks i´ve playtested against (mostly mono decks), replaced them with Chain Lightnings. I was really expecting quite a lot mono black decks (Rituals,Specters,Juzams,Mind Twist,Sengir Vampire,Sinkholes - the deck plays itself and is very strong) and got really surprised when i checked the decklists.

I should have splashed more restricted cards via duals - literally no point not to do so.
The deck itself could have been stronger than the list i´ve submitted.A black splash would have been so good (Tutor,Mind Twist) for the list and i really dunno why i didn´t include that.

[aww1979]

Yeah, I'll admit that I looked through a few Erniegeddon decklists before making this. I think what you're recalling is Bertrand Lestree's deck from Pro Tour 1996: http://wiki.mtgsalvation.com/article/Erhnamgeddon - that or some other variant. I remember playing something like that in 1995 nationals or something - except that mine wasn't really that effective and used Storm Seekers as well. I didn't make it too far when I lost to an actual Ernhamgeddon

Yeah, that's exactly the one I'm thinking of. That's about when us local guys had outgrown our noobishness and pay attention to things like world tourneys. (I just wish I'd outgrown it when dual lands were $6 each and Black Lotus was $300 like when I started)