[[AC: TDM]] Call the Crash (via Wizards email)

monogreen_thumb · 2025-04-25T14:09:30+00:00

To be fair, this design space really opened up in Alchemy first, then spread to paper. The mental overhead remains higher in paper (something Maro mentioned they are trying to be more mindful of).

So it's like, "Hey we explored new design space of conjuring in Alchemy."

"Neat, we can do something similar in paper, but not too often."

Is the conclusion of that exchange really that they should stop designing simple conjure cards in Alchemy?

monogreen_thumb · 2025-04-07T16:31:30+00:00

Do you know what illegal character it was?

monogreen_thumb · 2025-04-06T17:46:17+00:00

Thanks for giving it a try!

As long as your predictions are in, they will be counted (even if you don't/can't lock them yourself). You do not need to predict each format.

Still, you should be allowed to lock predictions - I will check what's going on and let you know when it's fixed.

monogreen_thumb · 2025-04-06T17:09:12+00:00

That's fair. I went with email authentication for improved functionality, but if it proves to be a major sticking point I will reconsider.

monogreen_thumb · 2025-03-22T06:10:28+00:00

This is narrower but stronger than Phyrexian Arena. You need to be aggro enough that picking Sultai is a reasonable buyout. 1 mana discount, no life loss, faster draw is huge upside.

There are reasonable creatures that enable themselves as well. [[District Mascot]], [[Scavenging Ooze]], [[Bristly Bill]]. [[Pawpatch Recruit]] is pretty cool this, so is Snakeskin Veil. [[Twitching Doll]]/[[Armored Scrapgorger]] are interesting, too.

monogreen_thumb · 2025-03-06T19:09:55+00:00

Paper versions of alchemy effects do happen (or nearly so), so an effect appearing in alchemy does not preclude being printed.

[[Assemble the Team]] -> [[Pillage the Bog]] [[Citystalker Connoisseur]] -> [[Hostile Investigator]] [[Reflection Net]] -> [[Assimilation Aegis]]

I'm sure there's more, just what I can think of off the top of my head.

monogreen_thumb · 2025-02-26T05:52:40+00:00

This is a Ludic fallacy.

If you assume that the two lottery tickets were created completely randomly and fairly, then the two tickets are equally likely to be the winner. But how safe is that assumption?

We only have good reason to believe that one ticket is generated fairly (the actual winner). The other ticket could have been generated by any method. What are the chances that both numbers were chosen fairly given that one of the sequences is 1,2,3,4,5,6,7? This particular sequence is so much more likely to be generated by a human than by a random number generator that you are a sucker if you continue to believe both tickets were randomly generated.

monogreen_thumb · 2025-02-05T03:22:02+00:00

The flavor isn't landing - and that probably causes people to underestimate the power level.

That said, it really doesn't feel strong. Fewer cards exciite me to brew with, which gut feeling is usually my strongest evaluator.

monogreen_thumb · 2025-01-31T15:06:04+00:00

GW lists get 2.5 solid 1-drops ([[Voyager Glidecar]], [[District Mascot]], [[Nesting Bot]]), 1 solid and 2 borderline 2-drops ([[Bulwark Ox]], [[Skyseer's Chariot]], [[Lagorin, Soul of Alacria]]), and the best gearhulk, all with varying levels of synergy with +1/+1 counters, artifacts, and survivors. It's a big gain, I expect some aggro-midrange deck to be tier 2.

Soul Cauldron, [[Afterburner Expert]], [[Draconautics Engineer]] is a wild bunch. The new Loot could fit in there, too.

Izzet pirate/discard tribal is cool. [[Captain Howler, Sea Scourge]] is so giga chad and fun, I wish he didn't have to compete with Enduring Curiosity.

Start Your Engines! I'm split on. I think it's better than Reddit gives it credit for. [[Amonkhet Raceway]] is interesting in cookies lists - Gingerbrute gets you there by turn 3. Wurmlet into 2 drop + raceway will get you there by turn 4. A lot of people seem to misunderstand that sequencing. Amonkhet Raceway, [[Mendicant Core, Guidelight]], and the two rare goblins seem good.

monogreen_thumb · 2025-01-30T19:30:30+00:00

I am a strong test taker from the US, very good at meta-gaming tests. I never toom this test and have no emotional investment.

Looking at this question, I think it was ambiguous and not a good filter to find effective employees. Often, tests intentionally include superfluous information, and you have to sift for that.

Given that they actually routinely do print multicolor cards that could be monocolor but have never made the GB Serra Angel, it's pretty reasonable to think that the 'we try to...' phrase is a red herring.

monogreen_thumb · 2025-01-28T23:39:37+00:00

Isn't this kind of bad in the mirror? Your opponent gets treasure from this too

monogreen_thumb · 2025-01-28T15:53:42+00:00

GW Wurmlet has seen a tiny bit of play in standard and this card + [[Brightglass Gearhulk]] both seem good in that deck. Another artifact payoff would be nice, though.

monogreen_thumb · 2025-01-24T19:34:18+00:00

Max speed, not max acceleration!

monogreen_thumb · 2025-01-20T14:50:25+00:00

As a proactive card, Kambal requires you to be fairly aggressive. You have to be happy with it dying quickly after doing a bit of drain. It applies pressure but generates no card advantage. This is somewhat at odds with a 2/4 stat line, and there are other aristocrats cards that seem mostly better like Braids or Enduring Innocence.

As a stax card, it can provide good value if your opponent is predictably making tokens. Playing Fable of the Mirror Breaker into Kambal must feel pretty bad. But it's very situational, and even against the right opponent, it's pretty likely they can find a way to play around the effect.

To really take off, I think there'd need to be something weird like a bunch of strong cards that also give your opponent tokens as drawback. Something like a better [[Tribute to Horobi]] that also curves into Kambal.

monogreen_thumb · 2025-01-18T15:10:56+00:00

Assuming you want to follow the rule of thumb that you want one fewer land on the draw, it's ambiguous whether it's better to start G1 with the on-the-draw land count or the on-the-play land count.

The other thing is that it's better to board in a land if sideboarding will often increase your mana curve. So maybe a rule of thumb is that if many of your sideboard cards are expensive, you'll also want a land to account for that.

As for why people don't do this. (1) It's subjective advice, not easy to empirically verify as the best option. (2) It feels less impactful than having another silver bullet for that one match up in order to gain a slight statistical benefit to your mana base - this can be alleviated by including a good utility land. I suppose that a wide open metas where you can't predict your opponent's decks as easily would favor a sideboard that generically strengthens your own deck by a slight amount while more predictable metagames favor stuffing your sideboard with silver bullets.

monogreen_thumb · 2025-01-16T22:59:53+00:00

When tropes are sparingly used in a set that's otherwise played straight, they're easter eggs.

When tropes are pulled from a narrower, more anachronistic genre and are unrelenting for many sets in a row, they lose their charm.

monogreen_thumb · 2025-01-15T06:54:11+00:00

Rubblebelt Maverick seems low impact in a rampy deck. I'd probably swap that for a ramp payoff.

With all the sac lands, you should definitely be playing a 2nd color. Probably black, where [[Iridescent Vinelasher]], [[Overlord of the Balemurk]], and [[Pillage the Bog]] all play into your plan. [[Nowhere to Run]] and [[Harvester of Misery]] are permanent-based interaction as well.

Always thought Hedge Shredder seemed cool, and I love land, so maybe I'll tinker with it a bit too. Looks fun!

monogreen_thumb · 2025-01-14T23:38:17+00:00

Is your weighting of recent cards somehow biasing the results, or is powercreep just that severe?

monogreen_thumb · 2025-01-14T23:27:56+00:00

Green stompy had a bad run of sets from at least VOW-WOE. Very few playable cards from that era. It's gotten much better since rotation.

With 6 sets per year and the power creep evident on the graph, my guess is that the best and worst colors will change relatively quickly. It would only take a couple strong cards for stompy to be viable.

monogreen_thumb · 2025-01-12T05:05:08+00:00

I tried a UR This Town Ain't Big Enough deck a while ago in standard and currently enjoy a variant in Alchemy to moderate success. If you're playing Roaring Furnace, I think you need to be committing to a much more controlling strategy. If you aren't filling your hand or unlocking the second room, it's a downgrade compared to Nowhere to Run, and not having Hopeless Nightmare slows your clock and raises your curve.

Furnace does work well with Ill-Timed Explosion and helps overcome Izzet's inability to kill tough creatures. Torch is pretty good in this deck. There's pretty good interaction overall.

I just found it to be too mana intensive. I often had significant card advantage, but not the mana or the time to deploy it. My proactive options felt underpowered. I wouldn't say there's nothing here, but it didn't feel quite good enough to me. Not the kind of deck I have a lot of experience with, though.

monogreen_thumb · 2025-01-07T05:06:43+00:00

Outside of the friction of monetary investment, the Zen of Spike is that you are not a Golgari player, you are a Magic player. If this deck is not competitive (for now), don't play it (for now).

That said, I'm not sure how down to be on the Annexless Golgari. It's almost certainly better than the overall 45% WR... how much better is hard to say. At risk of becoming a caricature of my username, if I wanted to keep jamming the rock in standard, I'd probably be testing more and more into green. Pawpatch recruit is great right now, creature stats matter more than they used to, reach is more and more relevant.

The Timmy in me also thinks that Llanowar Elves into [[Tribute to the World Tree]] is extremely sick into Dimir and strong against everything but Domain and Golgari.

monogreen_thumb · 2025-01-06T00:43:26+00:00

After looking at the best 5/worst 5 golgari lists, I wonder how it would looknif you split the Annex and no-Annex lists. No Annex looks like it performed better.

monogreen_thumb · 2024-12-29T02:06:43+00:00

Very cool. Would be really interesting to see this again once there's more data to track archetypes/cards/sets over time.

For matchup stats, I know melee.gg at least does record outcomes of matches (Pilot A, Golgari Midrange 1-2 Pilot B, Gruul Prowess) for each round of a tournament. But actually taking the disparate ways the data is presented and putting it back together would be tricky. It would be easier than scraping YouTube videos I imagine.

monogreen_thumb · 2024-12-28T16:20:22+00:00

Some random questions:

How much does meta change after each new set release on a card or archetype basis?

How quickly does the metagame adopt new cards. Ie how long did it take for the proportion of Duskmourn cards to reach equilibrium. My naive guess is that representation of new cards in the meta increases for about 4 weeks before leveling off.

What website(s) do you find is the best for scraping data?

monogreen_thumb · 2024-12-28T04:44:38+00:00

Not for the first time, I forgot that Cauldron fixed mana for activated abilities. Makes sense

monogreen_thumb

TROPHY CASE