the face on the new juggernaut

According to the stats page, 8155, then.

I was an admin briefly! For, like, a weekend. The only thing I did though was manually change my postcount and then forget what it originally was so now no one knows.

On Monday, I missed out on buying vodka in a crystal skull from Dan Ackroyd. 

One time, I opened a seven card hand with swamp/emerald/sol ring (this was back in the keeper/tnt/monoblue days). I said "keep," but upon further inspection it turns out that the swamp was actually my one basic forest, in a mostly-black deck.

Is it something like this?

http://www.nextag.com/Trademark-3-Pc-Aluminum-681281151/prices-html

Link to this? I might want such a thing.

Yeah, a hole through the floor, on its way to the bottom. 

Eh, not really. If every good deck was doing some intricate thing and simple creature combat was not viable, I'd be just as upset.

I don't think my objections fall anywhere on the johnny/spike/timmy axis.

You're also more afraid of sweepers than spot removal.

Pssh, you were still in school this time last year, you don't count.

So I hate standard. It is SUCH a boring format to me, but I was having a little trouble articulating why.

And I remember that guy on BD who wanted to write a computer program that would evolve a Magic deck, by introducing random changes to it and keeping the successful ones, and so on. I believe he was working with a Stompy deck at the time. And I remember Arena League. You had your deck, and when you win, you get to bust a pack, and add cards to your deck.

And I was talking with some friends about the Texas textbook controversy, and how they wanted to include "intelligent design" as a possible explanation for life on earth (don't get me started). Now the thing about things that have evolved versus things that are designed is that the evolved thing makes sense every step along the way. There is no such thing as an "intermediate form" - or to put it another way, EVERY form is an intermediate form between what was prior, and what comes later. The evolution of life is not guided, and every link in the chain from one form to another has to make sense as a viable organism in its own right.

And then it hit me: this is what I don't like about standard, at least not these days. Imagine taking a limited deck (draft or sealed) and playing some Arena-style games with it. You win, and bust a pack, and maybe add a few cards that augment your deck. If you did this enough, you could eventually lead up to the sorts of decks that populate standard: Boss Naya, Jund, U/W control, and so on. Every card you add, every change from that first draft deck to Boss Naya would be an improvement. You could trace back the evolved history of your deck, and see a monotonic strengthening.

So what? Well, I realized that not every deck could be similarly reconstructed! Try to imagine generating a Tendrils or 2-land belcher deck, iteratively, one or two cards at a time, from a draft deck (remember, you only get new cards if you win!). You could never do it. Ritual effects are SO BAD as 1-ofs (I guess I'll make a Black Lotus exception), that you could never make that leap to where you have enough that they (and Tendrils) become good. Same with Dredge, or Enchantress decks, or even some exotic flavors of control or aggro.

So, all decks are designed, we know this. But some decks are evolve-able, by processes like the one described above. And there are some decks that are un-evolve-able, and the fact is that standard right now is almost exclusively evolve-able decks. That is what I dislike about it! I like a format with decks that could ONLY have been designed, that could never arise from similar but weaker decks. They haven't printed very many cards in this vein lately, and they certainly haven't pushed them the way they have pushed mechanics like simple removal spells. I miss seeing cards and thinking, "What am I supposed to DO with this?" and then going to work figuring it out. These cards haven't gone away entirely (Hive Mind! Open the Vaults!) but they just don't make up a respectable slice of standard, and I dislike that.

I only have one card, a Copy Artifact I used in an EDH deck. I left it as-is.

I remember that being a big hit between high school and college...summer 2001.

Now I feel old. Thanks.  

Bought my first dual, a revised Volcanic, for $6 on this very site in like 2004. *pumps fist* *throws a pie*

Well, the ability to sacrifice for mana is only given to the tokens by the spell or effect that created them. It's not a game rule, and it's not part of the Eldrazi card itself (like convoke), so I disagree with you on that point.

I actually expect less reanimation than cheating guys into play. Mayael is probably getting a good boost, and stuff like Sneak Attack or Call of the Wild (or Djinn of Wishes which even lets you get Kozilek's draw4!).

People tend to hate on the guy playing geddon-effects...just sayin'.

Land Tax, Tithe?

Yes, if he doesn't get his...turn 4...being able to untap a land...THEN it will be slow. Yup.

If you make a mistake with your deckbuilding, you get manascrewed more often...?

Yeah, we have the same definitions (there's also color screw, where your number of mana sources is fine but the colors are off), I just disagree that mana issues are a bad thing for the game. It's an unpleasant feeling to be screwed, but unpleasant is not the same as bad. Punishing people who make mistakes is exactly what a strategy game SHOULD do.

Also (and I know this sounds paradoxical with my previous point but really it isn't), the existence of mana screw/flood means that even worse players have some chance at beating better ones that they wouldn't have otherwise. Psychologically, there's a big difference between "small but nonzero" and "zero". Even fi the other guy has a better deck, you can always hope for flood!


Just because there are still strategic deckbuilding decisions to make, doesn't mean that you haven't taken some of the strategic decisions away. The fact that players still have to draft, mulligan, and play correctly doesn't mean you aren't doing a decent bit of deckbuilding hand-holding for them.

(I am reminded of the old joke - Juggernaut's ability is actually a BONUS, not a drawback, because it doesn't let you forget to attack!)

I also play tons of limited, and I have to say that I like the option to build a manabase incorrectly. It's an area where I can gain an edge on bad players (or even better players who are worse at building). Zendikar draft is maybe too far in that direction, but a format like S/C/A was much much better for having mana screw as part of the game.

Karakas is banned.

Purelace and Lifelace were the worst. Deathlace combos with Reap, and the other two could pull off the awesome Lace/Elemental Blast combo!!!1

omg ur Dr. Klep

Reading Sam Black's Lands! report from GP Madrid, the deck seems to fold to specific cards. Maybe it should use black over white (Nomad Stadium and Ray of Revelation are not irreplaceable) and use Cranial Extractions. Would help with Extirpate, Price of Progress, etc.

LSV's draft videos were very helpful to me. Here's the first video of one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Xpt_iR-VrY

With Worldwake now online, look for more on the Channel-Fireball youtube channel.

Windbrisk Heights & co. are probably better than any of those options.

Is 'soul torn' some kind of emo vampire Twilight slang the kids these days use? I have literally never heard that phrase before.