[Fedoras of Salvation] - White Knights ITT

[Christen]

Just played Standard in a long while using RW burn and scrubbed out hard against lifegain. Two GWx Hexproofs landing Unflinching Courage early without an answer in my hand and an Esper control deck landing Vizkopa early game.

Or I could just be rusting.

[Valdarith]

Time for Wear / Tear.

[Lightning_Dolt]

Hexproof, Junk Lifegain and RG Monsters are still very tough for burn.

[zemanjaski]

Went 5-2 after an 1-2 start at a Sealed GPT today. Been my weakest format and opening a very weak pool I expected to do terribly, but I played really well and picked some innovative lines to cash. Now that I am regularly playing with only the best players available, every day, I am really noticing substantial improvement.

[Lightning_Dolt]

Same.my buddy who top 8,d GP Toronto has been helping me get better at sealed. PTQ next weekend. Probably going to go.

[Valdarith]

That's great to hear Zem, especially from someone that claimed Sealed wasn't a real format.

[Wraith223]

Went 3-1 with BW midrange. My pre-orders are still in the mail, thus I had be improvise. There are 3 burn/aggro Red(X) decks, and I have no answers to them. I threw 3 Fiendsayer Pallidon in the side board and 3 Brimaz main board. I ate their lunch. Fought 2 of them (won), a UW control (won), and another fucking UW control for first (lost). Their card draw to way to overpowered in comparison to my discard. He also always gets nut hands.

One guy bought a box and opened a god pack. He was very confused as he knew nothing about the Wizards announcement.

[DarthStabber]

0) I'm testing eidolon not mantle, someone else can test mantle, I don't care enough.
1.) Does this card win you the game?
It can, though very unlikely on its own
2.) Does this card support a strategy that wins the game?
the deck I'm sticking this in has 23 lands at the moment, and in the current eidolonless version I frequently have unused mana in the later turns
3.) Is this card its own win condition?
It can, not likely on it's own, but it can can be legs if there is nothing that I have nothing that can wear him as pants
4.) Does this card stop my opponent from winning the game?
dead
opponents don't win games
5.) Does this deck fill a weak slot in my deck?
yes it does, it survives a board wipe, and turns around gets retribution for the other creatures that died in the cataclysm

Stonewright… It could be argued that it was better that Stromkirk Noble.
I thought I was the one on drugs

My commentary in red.

[zemanjaski]

That's great to hear Zem, especially from someone that claimed Sealed wasn't a real format.

I still don't think the format itself is any good. It is a total lottery what you open and that sucks.

[windstrider]

And you may ask yourself
What is that beautiful house?
And you may ask yourself
Where does that highway go to?
And you may ask yourself
Am I right?...Am I wrong?
And you may say to yourself yourself
My God!...What have I done?!

[DroppinSuga]

That's great to hear Zem, especially from someone that claimed Sealed wasn't a real format.

I still don't think the format itself is any good. It is a total lottery what you open and that sucks.

I agree with this completely.

[Valdarith]

That's great to hear Zem, especially from someone that claimed Sealed wasn't a real format.

I still don't think the format itself is any good. It is a total lottery what you open and that sucks.

You definitely have some lucksack moments, but the best Sealed players consistently do well with mediocre pools so there's something to be said about discipline in the format.

I had a pretty bad run of luck at my prerelease. At one point I got turn three Xenawalker into turn four Hero's
Bane, then next game got Eidolon of Blossomed into Dragon Mantle into Karametra's Blessing into Hero's Bane. Thems the breaks.

[zemanjaski]

If your point is that good players can out play bad players, then yes, that much is obvious and doesn't need to be repeated

[Wraith223]

That's great to hear Zem, especially from someone that claimed Sealed wasn't a real format.

I still don't think the format itself is any good. It is a total lottery what you open and that sucks.

I agree with this completely.

My trade binder reflects this as a strong majority of cards are worth
less than $1. This set just not worth opening unless you just want to play sealed for shits and giggles.

[Valdarith]

If your point is that good players can out play bad players, then yes, that much is obvious and doesn't need to be repeated

Well, "good" in the sense that they understand the format and can build a deck properly. There are plenty of overall good players that simply can't build a cohesive 40-card Sealed deck to save their lives. It's probably the most skill intensive part of the format. In that regard, the metric for a good player is a lot different than constructed. It's an entirely different skillset.

[hamfactorial]

Holy fuck I'm so salty, just got knocked out of the daily after playing 3 trash decks right in a row (Elf Ramp, followed by mono-white pillow fort, followed by mono-G Genesis Wave). Having trouble keeping my cool.

[Valdarith]

Ew.

[DroppinSuga]

Elf ramp and mono white pillowfort are awesome.

[hamfactorial]

[LP, of the Fires]

3-0 a win a box draft last night forcing Rw Heroic in block draft. First pick harness by force, 2-4th pick satyr hoplite you say? It's like they're giving the box away.

Harness by force is the most blowout fucking card. Was legitametely dead in two turns, topdecked it, won the game and induced SO MUCH SALT.

[Alex]

If your point is that good players can out play bad players, then yes, that much is obvious and doesn't need to be repeated

I mean, I consistently do well in Sealed and I am shit tier at everything else.

Sealed is a fine format that uses a different skillset. Luck has nothing to do with it.

[hamfactorial]

My pet theory: the people who are good at sealed like to tell everyone it's not about luck, because CLEARLY skill game brah still had these

[hamfactorial]

Corollary to pet theory above: the people who are bad at sealed like to tell everyone it's about luck, because CLEARLY I played my best there's no way that was my fault brah

[hamfactorial]

Speaking of skill game...

[Tyrael]

Burn player on SCG live stream is playing four copies Eidolon of the Great Revel mainboard

he did just get his butt kicked in round 7 by mono black devotion tho

[zemanjaski]

If your point is that good players can out play bad players, then yes, that much is obvious and doesn't need to be repeated

I mean, I consistently do well in Sealed and I am shit tier at everything else.

Sealed is a fine format that uses a different skillset. Luck has nothing to do with it.

You don't think opening a good sealed pool helps?

In Standard, I would go as far as saying that 30% of games are decided by luck (on account of draws). In Modern, it is
maybe 20%, with Legacy been even lower. Sealed is probably comparable to Standard in terms of swinginess in an individual game (little to no filtering or fixing, "do you draw your rares or your filler" etc) with the added problem of having a completely random pool. To suggest otherwise is just inane. Good players will do well because they're good of course, and obviously there are different skill sets between the different formats (combat maths and individual card analysis skills are more richly rewarded) but it is indisputable that there is a substantial amount of luck in doing well in Sealed. If I had some of the decks I faced I would have gone 5-1 or 6-0; instead I had a deck with four good cards and some filler.

[Valdarith]

3-1 at my win a box, finishing just outside of money with GR Monsters. Lost to Burn. How fitting.

[TBuzzsaw]

Holy fuck I'm so salty, just got knocked out of the daily after playing 3 trash decks right in a row (Elf Ramp, followed by mono-white pillow fort, followed by mono-G Genesis Wave). Having trouble keeping my cool.

I lost to Mono White lifegain with no sideboard last night. I know your pains bro.

A friend borrowed my BW Control to an event and won a fat pack. Unfortunately there was nothing good.

[zemanjaski]

Anyway, here is my current BUG 'Walkers list for Modern. We're only 10 days in to testing and I have another six weeks, but so far it has been performing really well and more importantly, I am enjoying playing with it (no small feat given my relationship with the format).

[deck]Blue Jund[/deck]
Creatures
3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Vendillion Clique

Planeswalkers
1 Garruk Relentless
2 Jace, Architect of Thought
3 Liliana of the Veil

Instants
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Doom Blade
1 Go for the Throat
4 Mana Leak
4 Spell Snare
4 Think Twice

Sorceries
2 Life from the Loam
2 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Raven's Crime
3 Thoughtseize

Lands
1 Breeding Pool
3 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Forest
1 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Overgrown Tomb
2 Swamp
3 Tectonic Edge
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Verdant Catacombs
2
Watery Grave
/deck]

Right now most of the work is in getting the right numbers of spells / land configuration, which is very difficult. The main attraction to the deck is that it does powerful things, while being interactive enough to let me actually leverage play skill over an opponent, something that most modern decks are designed to do the opposite of. I am interested in testing a singleton Thrun, the Last Troll over Vendillion Clique main as a resilient threat and blocker, so there is a lot of work still to go.

[LP, of the Fires]

I don't understand your last statement. Most modern decks are HIGHLY interactive and the two best decks in the format(twin and pod) are certainly doing powerful things.

[zemanjaski]

I have played a lot of UR Twin, it is neither interactive or skill intensive. RUG Twin is like 5% more skill intensive.

[zemanjaski]

The amount of games where you just bait them and then combo off are just sad.

[zemanjaski]

Then there are affinity and storm, which don't want to interact at all.

[zemanjaski]

Turn 3, upkeep tap your land, Turn 4 Splinter Twin. I am a powerful Wizard.

[warwizard87]

im a storm player...im a bad person =[

[Alex]

Affinity interacts with the opponent by killing the shit out of them.

If by "good sealed pool" you mean "sealed pool with playable commons," yeah, you need a good one. But honestly that isn't hard. I had a sealed pool for Journey prerelease where I had an Elspeth in my pool and didn't play it because my UB deck was leaps and bounds better. (Three Lash of the Whip? Seriously?) Elspeth is pretty easy bait to latch onto. Sealed requires that you don't fall into the traps that are your rares, as well as knowing what cards are good in battlecruiser Magic as opposed to using the mindset of constructed playability to measure a card's use in your deck.

[zemanjaski]

That's not interaction.

[zemanjaski]

Well done, you figured out that UB is the best archetype in the format.

[Alex]

Wrong. There is no best archetype in sealed, unless "play the colors with your best coherent strategy" is an archetype.

RW heroic is really good in sealed sometimes. UG is really good in sealed sometimes. UB is really good in sealed sometimes.

It all depends on the direction your pool leads you.

[Pedros]

Turn 3, upkeep tap your land, Turn 4 Splinter Twin. I am a powerful Wizard.

After diving into modern this is most annoying thing I face all the time... I can get behind any other deck as you can interact with them. Most of the time taping land on turn 3 stops you from doing close to anything that turn other than keeping some interaction up, and then they just dont do anything...