Evu

@Evu@mtgzone.com

I’ve been playing Magic off and on since the mid-'90s, though some of the “off” periods have been pretty long.

I used to help run Pauper events on MTGO, before Pauper became an officially sanctioned format.

Check out this Magic-related web site I made: housedraft.games

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

Evu,

When they started doing borderless cards and showcase art, I thought they were going to use those things as an excuse to stop printing foils. “Let’s face it, we’ve never been able to figure out how to make foils that last, but it’s okay because we’ve got multiple other cool, popular premium treatments to take their place.” But here we are years later and they’re just… still printing foils? Even though they don’t have to?

If I were in a draft and got passed a foil and non-foil version of the same card, I would most likely take the non-foil.

Evu,

It’s worth mentioning that at the time Cranial Plating was first banned, Ornithopter was not legal in Pauper (it was on MTGO but only at uncommon). As Alex says, [[Somber Hoverguard]] was the best Plating-bearer, and you couldn’t realistically be swinging with it sooner than turn 4, although you could easily hit for a third or more of the opponent’s life total when you did. Now Ornithopter is legal and you could do the equivalent with a Cranial Ram on turn 3.

I think between the mana cost and the equip cost(s), Ram is slower than Plating by enough that it’s worth a trial. I won’t be shocked or sorry if it gets banned, but I also won’t be surprised if it turns out to be safe.

Evu,

This set looks powerful … will we see Historic bans on day one?
Most Modern Horizons 3 cards will be legal in Historic and fewer than 20 will be pre-banned. We’ll let players know what ones before the set releases.

“Fewer than 20”?? They are trying to make that sound like it’s not a big deal, and failing. Any number of pre-banned cards is a big deal. The fact that there is a double-digit number of cards in MH3 that are so powerful Wizards doesn’t dare let them see the light of day in Arena’s second most powerful format is jaw-dropping.

Evu,

As someone who rarely plays older formats, the only reward I value in here is the draft token. Drafts normally cost 1,500 gems. Unlocking the Horizon Hideaway costs 2,300 gems. Are a bunch of cosmetics, mostly for cards I won’t play often, worth 800 gems to me? When I put it that way, it doesn’t sound like they should be. I guess we’ll see what they look like?

The Ashling avatar looks pretty cool, although I prefer my avatar not to be a named character (currently using the Dreadhorde one).

Evu,

There are some things you don’t put in error messages; guess the Arena developers just learned that the hard way.

I’m actually glad that they try to do some kind of weighting, although as the Reddit threads say, there are apparently a lot of mis-weighted cards. I’m wondering if I can use this to build a deck full of draft chaff and get myself matched against similar things.

Evu, (edited )

I’ve been experimenting with building low-weight decks for Standard Brawl. Some observations (which may not necessarily apply to Historic Brawl):

  • As far as the maindeck goes, it looks like the lowest (non-zero) weight is 6 and the highest is 45. All weights are multiples of 3 and most are multiples of 9.
  • I don’t think the card pool is deep enough to build a coherent deck of all sixes, but I’d love for someone to show me I’m wrong.
  • It seems like 0 is the minimum weight for the deck to “validate”. This is an issue because some commanders have negative weights. (No cards have negative weights when they’re in the maindeck.)
    • Honestly, it’s poor planning that exposed the weighting system; it was entirely foreseeable that sooner or later someone would submit a deck with a negative total weight, if only for laughs.
  • If a card weighs less than you think it should, there’s no incentive not to use it. Building a low-weight deck is not the same as building, say, a Pauper or Peasant deck; there are definitely some rare cards with splashy effects that can be had for cheap under the weighting system.
  • This Zur, Eternal Schemer list that I posted a while back has a weight of 729 (ish; I might have tweaked it some in the interim). More recently I built (and have been doing well with) a Ghired, Mirror of the Wilds deck that weighs in at 1,152.
  • Evolving Wilds has a weight of 9. Terramorphic Expanse has a weight of 0.

I assume there’s little or no human intervention in assigning weights. More likely they’re determined programmatically by observing the win ratios of decks containing the card.

Evu,

Commander
1 The Mycotyrant

Deck
1 Blightreaper Thallid
4 Swamp
4 Forest
1 Deathcap Marionette
1 Skullcap Snail
1 Synapse Necromage
1 Soul Enervation
1 Deathbonnet Sprout
1 Placid Rottentail
1 Cankerbloom
1 Tendril of the Mycotyrant
1 Spore Crawler
1 The Skullspore Nexus
1 Akawalli, the Seething Tower
1 Bortuk Bonerattle
1 Nemata, Primeval Warden
1 Insidious Roots
1 Chalk Outline
1 Rubblebelt Maverick
1 Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler
1 Lively Dirge
1 Plaza of Heroes
1 Underground Mortuary
1 Faerie Dreamthief
1 Ichor Drinker
1 Snarling Gorehound
1 Bitter Triumph
1 Riveteers Overlook
1 Argoth, Sanctum of Nature
1 Screaming Phantom
1 Crawling Infestation
1 Tear Asunder
1 Command Tower
1 Uurg, Spawn of Turg
1 Blooming Marsh
1 Deathcap Glade
1 Festering Gulch
1 Haunted Mire
1 Jungle Hollow
1 Llanowar Wastes
1 Archpriest of Shadows
1 Coati Scavenger
1 Badlands Revival
1 Eerie Soultender
1 Fell Horseman
1 Terror of Towashi
1 Bringer of the Last Gift
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
1 Boseiju, Who Endures
1 Arcane Signet
1 Poison Dart Frog
1 Orochi Merge-Keeper

Total deck weight: 0
Maindeck weight: 360
Rares: 13
Mythics: 2

No card in this deck has a greater weight than 9. I had to cut lands just to get the deck weight up to 0 (would rather be running 24, replaced a couple with mana-producing two-drops).

I started looking at the low-weight commanders and The Mycotyrant caught my eye. Friends, it is low for a reason. There are not a lot of Fungi or Saprolings in the format. I decided to mash it up with the Insidious Roots combo deck that never really took off in Standard. Just try to keep things moving in and out of your graveyard. The list probably still needs some tweaking. I would have liked more removal, but didn’t want to run too many non-permanents, since we’re trying to Descend and then recur them.

One of the most interesting lines: cast Lively Dirge, burying a Coati Scavenger, get back the Scavenger and a random one-drop, then get back something else with the Scavenger’s ability.

I won a few games so I guess I can’t complain too loudly, but this didn’t really get me into the kind of match-ups I was hoping for. Still plenty of power on the opponent’s side of the board. But it’s not WotC’s fault if nobody else is out there playing decks like this; I’m sure the algorithm did the best it could. I feel like I had to wait a little longer than usual to find opponents, but still less than a minute.

Evu,

When they announced Pioneer I assumed it was going to be the revival of Extended. I couldn’t, and still can’t, fathom why they chose to make another non-rotating format. It’s just Modern Jr., and with every passing year the difference between them becomes smaller. I’d be much more interested in a six- or eight-year rotating format. It could target newer players who have smaller collections but are turned off by the churn of Standard.

Evu,

Yeah, there’s been an Affinity deck in Pauper for as long as the format has existed. I have no concerns that banning All That Glitters, a relatively recent addition, might change that.

Evu,

You might be on to something there. Expanding into white would also let us replace Scorching Shot with better removal, like Get Lost. I’ll give it a try…

Evu,

I mean, I didn’t remember them until this article reminded me. Looks like the Noggles were all blue/red hybrid – this was the block where hybrid mana was introduced, IIRC.

There may have been a very brief period where people experimented with [[Noggle Bandit]] in some Pauper decks? Or I might be making that up.

Evu,

No need to explain it to me, Mark; please feel free to do as many original classical fantasy settings as you want.

Evu,

Blows my mind that Reid’s deck runs zero copies of either [[Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor]] or [[Sentinel of the Nameless City]], which are both busted cards that can saddle [[Caustic Bronco]]. That’s how overpowered the format is.

Evu,

I played Pirates in On The Edge and did well, lost to Dinosaurs but then won the next three.

It’s not OTE-legal, but here’s my Slimes deck:

Deck
4 Forest (MKM) 286
6 Island (MKM) 279
2 Boseiju, Who Endures (NEO) 266
1 Otawara, Soaring City (NEO) 271
1 Hedge Maze (MKM) 262
4 Restless Vinestalk (WOE) 261
2 Field of Ruin (THB) 242
4 Consider (MID) 44
4 Otherworldly Gaze (MID) 67
4 Founding the Third Path (DMU) 50
4 Picklock Prankster (WOE) 64
24 Slime Against Humanity (MKM) 177

You’re right that the lack of removal hurts. Sometimes just having huge creatures isn’t enough.

Evu,

Looking at the upcoming Midweek Magic events, I see they’ve taken my complaints about Omniscience Draft to heart. Not sure a three-card opening hand will make enough of a difference, but as long as it’s free, I’ll try it out.

Evu,

I think this is what I’ll be playing in On the Edge this week:

About
Name OTE Pirates

Deck
7 Island
6 Mountain
4 Spirebluff Canal
4 Cavern of Souls
2 Conduit Pylons
1 Tarnation Vista
4 Shock
1 Lost Jitte
3 Diamond Pick-Axe
4 Spyglass Siren
4 Staunch Crewmate
4 Malcolm, Alluring Scoundrel
2 Malcolm, the Eyes
4 Captain Storm, Cosmium Raider
3 Kitesail Larcenist
3 Breeches, Eager Pillager
4 Roaming Throne

Evu,

Always nice to see a variety of countries represented in the Top 8.

My sole Pro Tour prediction (which I didn’t actually say out loud, but take my word for it) was that Boros Convoke would put 1 - 2 decks in the Top 8 but would not win. So I was right about that. I would not have guessed Domain Ramp would be the winner, though. It’s a strong deck for sure but I feel like it’s been on the wane recently. Probably would have predicted Esper Midrange as the overall winner.

Evu,

It’s interesting to me that this article, written for a general audience, doesn’t mention what the card does. On the one hand it doesn’t really matter, the point of the story is “man has odd hobby of collecting many copies of cheap card”. On the other hand, it wouldn’t take more than a sentence to say “In Magic you use lands to pay for your other spells, and Stone Rain sets your opponent back by removing one of their lands.” Arguably one of the simplest cards for an outside audience to understand.

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