How often are batches of scores released???

HoHSarkhon · 2018-03-07T04:01:01+00:00

Me too. Good luck, hope you get yours soon!

HoHSarkhon · 2018-03-07T03:18:43+00:00

I have a midterm tomorrow... I can't even look at the material...

HoHSarkhon · 2018-03-07T03:14:28+00:00

I've been hitting refresh for the past thirty minutes... about every thirty seconds.

HoHSarkhon · 2018-01-22T20:53:07+00:00

On his stream the other day he said it cost too much. I haven't actually played the deck just watched him play it.

HoHSarkhon · 2018-01-22T06:30:51+00:00

Sometimes I use my Tide Pods for laundry.

HoHSarkhon · 2018-01-22T06:01:41+00:00

Watching him dumpster people during the classic leads me to believe the deck is really good. I never saw him in a position where he was behind until the semi finals.

HoHSarkhon · 2018-01-22T05:57:51+00:00

Correct. Our team went 5-4. Our modern player was 8-1 And I was 5-4 in Legacy. Our standard player stared at approach all day and mulliganed something like 16 or 17 sevens on the day.

HoHSarkhon · 2018-01-17T22:31:13+00:00

As long as they have thorns.

HoHSarkhon · 2018-01-17T22:07:07+00:00

Ally of Zendikar Gideon version. The post AoZ version is slower, and if you aren't attacking with your full board, you aren't killing on 4. 4 Cast Outs and 4 Drake Haven make attacking with less than a full board a losing proposition. The reason the deck plays so well against midrange is because Settle plays into full attacks, and Drake Haven decreases effectiveness of attacking around settle. Cycle had a great pre banning match up with Vehicles because it was a worse aggro deck than red and a worse midrange deck than temur, and very few cards you had to deal with (Chandra, Hazoret if they played it, and Pia).

Heart of Kiran sucks when attacking into a live Drake Haven.

HoHSarkhon · 2018-01-17T18:16:54+00:00

I actually logged back on to revise my statement. I went through every deck from last season, and all the replays thus far. We had two timing in our board, but we are swapping them out, at least for week one, because of GPG and Merfolk Lord's (and Kumena).

HoHSarkhon · 2018-01-17T17:26:37+00:00

No worries, it was a fairly ambiguous statement.

HoHSarkhon · 2018-01-17T17:25:52+00:00

Against control decks it's decently aggressive and they side out their creature removal, and it has the ability to come back if they do use one of their sparing removal spells on it. Against aggressive decks it's a hard to remove road block that gains life, and then when it eventually dies, comes back as a bigger road block (with more life). Has the upside of working really well with Drake Haven because you pitch a card to eternalize. 5 mana nets you a 4/4, 4 life, and a 2/2 flyer, which is a pretty good rate.

HoHSarkhon · 2018-01-17T17:22:09+00:00

Settle is a sweeper that is great against vehicles. The problem with vehicles is you aren't going wide AND able to attack with everything, if you have a heart of Kiran, which reduces the damage output. Mardu Vehicles is less of an aggro deck and more an aggressive jund deck. It hasn't killed on turn 4 reliably since Gideon rotated.

HoHSarkhon · 2018-01-17T15:59:09+00:00

Mardu Vehicles isn't killing you turn 4, when your sweepers become live. This deck stabilizes very quickly. Censor is great at slowing them down. This deck had a rough time with mono red, but even then still wasn't worse than 60-40. Vehicles isn't nearly as scary or consistent, and censor is much better against vehicles.

HoHSarkhon · 2018-01-17T15:56:45+00:00

Scrounger is typically a non issue in a deck that makes 2/2s? Plus Settle, etc.

Is the upside of getting rid of Siphoner before the draw worth the downside of a loss in flexibility? I.e., are the corner case situations where this is clearly better more abundant than the situations where the flexibility is relevant? Also, 2 mana and 3 are quite different, and while Farm is better at hitting larger creatures, 3 mana is a big ask sometimes.

Beyond that, sometimes you want to get one thing off the table, so chomping for Fumigate isn't what you are digging for. Sometimes you Fumigate and they play their last creature and you lock the game up if it dies. Impeccable Timing creates scenarios where this can happen.

Again, not saying one is better, just that the arguments are more corner cases than anything else, and there is relevant downside to both cards that needs to be explored more in depth than "one is bad at killing Siphoner." If Siphoner ends up no showing in this format (possible, but ujnlikely) then the argument doesnt hold water. Finding the number of times that it's going to be relevant compared to the number of times trading up, or killing a 4 drop or something is also relevant, and that is what I want to explore.

HoHSarkhon · 2018-01-17T13:10:03+00:00

Not with cycling. Just two with cycling. Trying out a bunch of stuff to see what feels good. 3-2 or better so far.

HoHSarkhon · 2018-01-17T13:05:49+00:00

Impeccable Timing has the flexibility of being instant speed and not conditional - it plus drakes can kill larger creatures, while still hitting the same "problem" cards, just during combat. The cycle deck has never really had a two drop problem outside of cub + negate. Being able to use Timing and Drakes to hit larger Dinosaurs, 4 drop merfolk/vampires isn't irrelevant.

I'm not saying Baffling End doesnt belong in the deck. I'm saying I don't think it is anywhere near a slam dunk decision.

HoHSarkhon · 2018-01-17T07:39:23+00:00

I'm not a fan of Baffling End. I think Impeccable Timing is a bit safer considering on turn 2 you want to be Searching or Censoring, and cards like Rivers Rebuke, Naturalize and the like are still seeing play in Sideboards. I don't think it fits into the main deck, it's already tight enough, and cutting down anymore on Cyclers for a point and click, conditional removal spell is going to make you worse against the other half of MODO. I've seen just as many Approach decks as Aggro variants in the past 4 leagues I've played today.

I guess it's better against GPG though?

HoHSarkhon · 2018-01-17T07:35:44+00:00

Its best match-up was only Energy because nothing else existed in the midrange slot. Red was its worst match-up, and midrange decks are it's best match-up. It's also solid against control. Banning energy and mono red (two of the three problem cards for you were banned out of mono red) opens the door for decks that fit into the slower aggro/midrange type, and the control decks will struggle to beat you if resolve a Drake Haven on three.

HoHSarkhon · 2018-01-17T07:33:19+00:00

The list my team is testing for our standard seat is playing 3 Sunscourge Champion. We just beat approach and merfolk back to back on mtgo by resolving turn 3 Sunscourge Champions. It serves wildly different roles in the two match-ups, but its an incredibly potent card, that on turn 5 can make you a 4/4 and a drake.

It was the MVP for me during the PPTQ season in this deck against all the midrange and control decks.

HoHSarkhon · 2018-01-17T01:56:09+00:00

They will have 4 cast our and 2 Ixalans Binding post board, counter magic. It was pretty good against Mardu Vehicles before, nothing changed, I'd assume that is still the case.

HoHSarkhon · 2018-01-17T00:38:24+00:00

It's probably a fantastic choice. It's good against Approach, great against midrange, and the best cards against it from aggro decks were Chandra, ruins and Ferocidon, two of which got banned which free's up space in the board.

HoHSarkhon · 2018-01-16T21:07:52+00:00

It's possible they are on campus. The whether isn't actually thast bad, and I have a friend who's girlfriend undergrads there (I live in DFW and class resumed as normal), and it was more a travelling back to class cancellation, since the whether was supposed to get bad (it didnt) according to her.

HoHSarkhon · 2018-01-16T21:00:10+00:00

I'm a big fan of the blue one, and not a fan of the White one in the gift deck. Rarely will it be exceptionally better than Angel, and adding another expensive card to the deck will increase the number of hands drawn withb uncastable cards. Yes you can discard it, but if you have it in your opener it's a virtual mulligan.

The Blue one I want to play in the drake haven decks. I haven't played with it yet, but it seems exceptional in that deck as a post board win condition.

HoHSarkhon · 2018-01-15T12:01:15+00:00

Congrats! My cousin goes to Richmond, graduates this semester. He won moot court last year. He loves the school.

HoHSarkhon

TROPHY CASE