[Article] Unlocking Legacy - A New Era

[Nihil Credo]

Clicky. (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/14654.html)

Essentially two tournament reports with some interesting observations thrown in. I thought it was pretty good, not least because of the positive attitude adopted.

[goobafish]

Very good article. It was a pleasure meeting you and discussing the format.

[zulander]

Great report, looking back now do you wish you had played thresh in the championships as opposed to a deck that you weren't as familiar with?

[FoolofaTook]

Nice article.

Tarmogoyf is going to be in more decks than Flash was come December. Probably twice as many, or 40%+.

[Machinus]

Great report, looking back now do you wish you had played thresh in the championships as opposed to a deck that you weren't as familiar with?

Due to the my familiarity with Threshold in Legacy and it's strong mid-game, I would say yes. But that doesn't necessarily mean Threhsold is the better deck.

[Bardo]

When I was part of the 1.5 writers group, I felt a need to keep my negative comments to myself or to PM. Not being in the writing racket anymore let's me finally speak my mind. :)

Chris,

I thought this article was better than nothing, but that's true of most things. For one, and this is a criticism I have about most of your articles, it doesn't read with any soul. I don't mind bland declarative sentence after sentence--I write and review legal contracts for a living after all--but your writing rarely conveys excitement or enthusiasm for your subject. It's more like, "this is what happened and then that" and so on.

Your real stregth as a 1.5 writer is for your precision and technical work--so I don't mind overlooking the soulless aspect of most of your articles. But even on the technical front, I thought this one was hastily written and shallow.

It seemed like most of this article broke down to:

1. Counterbalance is awesome; and,

2. Tarmogoyf is amazing because it's so damn good at what it does: beating your face bloody.

Both of these points should be fairly obvious to even the most casual onlooker.

Structurally, this was nothing get excited about either. You played in three tournaments consecutively, and couldn't remember the details of the only one that most people are interested in.

In conclusion: meh.

[Machinus]

I don't have a soul, so I don't see why that is a big concern :)

If anyone can give a comprehensible version of that idea I'd like to hear about it :) :)

Counterbalance being good is certainly not obvious. The details of the two tournaments are not self-evident either. As a reader I would consider this information very valuable.

[frogboy]

Counterbalance being good is certainly not obvious.

Seriously? Are there people who actually think this? (I'm not taking shots at your writing, I'm just astounded.)

[Machinus]

After sufficient testing and experimentation with the card, I think people do figure it out. But it's not obvious.

The card has been legal for like 14 months. Go look up tournament records and try to find this card. It was "under the radar" at the biggest Legacy event in a year.

[MattH]

This was definitely a step in the right direction.

[hi-val]

Soul = a writer's voice. It's the tone that tells you that you're reading an entertainment article and not a textbook. If I say Hemingway or Vonnegut or Pynchon, you'd be able to tell me how their sentences sound, what they make important, their writing style, etc.

[Bane of the Living]

Slops for giving table scraps to Ichorid.

I dont expect you to know much about it anyways.

[Machinus]

Was I supposed to write about Ichorid this week?

[Bane of the Living]

When the title of your article is "A New Era" Id expect some more insight on the new decks being played. Especially when they top eight Gen Con.

[Machinus]

There are a lot of new decks being played. This article is about the ones I worked on, but mostly Threshold because that was the best deck at the tournaments. I didn't write about Landstill and that made twice as many top8 slots! You should be complaining about something else.

Besides, the match was over in about 15 minutes. There was nothing to write about.

[Bardo]

I don't have a soul, so I don't see why that is a big concern :)

If anyone can give a comprehensible version of that idea I'd like to hear about it :) :)


...Your writing rarely conveys excitement or enthusiasm for your subject.

That was the nut of my comment. I will admit that creating the right mixture of wit, tone and enthusiasm while being technically accurate and relevant is a difficult art.


There are a lot of new decks being played. This article is about the ones I worked on, but mostly Threshold because that was the best deck at the tournaments. I didn't write about Landstill and that made twice as many top8 slots! You should be complaining about something else.

I do agree with this, however. The new era I see, and this was beginning to be true in the pre-Flash days before that monkey wrench threw everything off, is that Goblins smelly hands are beginning to lose their grip on the format. I generally see this as a good thing--though it did speak to the health of the format that aggressive creature-based strategies were so good. I'd rather get monkey-stomped by Warchief and friends then want to puke after staring at a tabletop of 14 ETW tokens on turn 1.

[URABAHN]

When the title of your article is "A New Era" Id expect some more insight on the new decks being played. Especially when they top eight Gen Con.

Y'know, I'm glad you really like Ichorid, but I think your criticism about Machinus' article might be better when you actually criticize the content of the article, not what's absent.

I'm fine with Chris not writing much about the GenCon Legacy World Championships, because in a weird way I don't think the days' matchups are worth discussing. If Chris' first few rounds were anything like mine

White Weenie
Black LD
Goblins
Dreadnaught/Stifle

...then discussing how you put the hammer down on Black LD (or vice versa) may not be particularly relevant.

[Bane of the Living]

Y'know, I'm glad you really like Ichorid, but I think your criticism about Machinus' article might be better when you actually criticize the content of the article, not what's absent.

This article needs more Gearhart.

[Zilla]

I think the article was pretty good, and the overall tone was quite an improvement. I do agree with Dan that it would be nice to see more enthusiasm for the subject matter... a bit more humor and light-heartedness would do a lot to make your subject matter more appealing to your readers, but I understand, as Dan said, that merging jocularity and technical accuracy is no simple task.

I was also disappointed at the lack of a report for the main event at Gencon; less because it's the biggest event of the three, and more because I already know a lot about Thresh and I know only the basics about Breakfast. The deck is obviously a powerhouse, but it's still very much under the radar.

I'd really like to see an article dedicated to Breakfast alone in the near future. Details about the evolution of its development, why specific cards were chosen, and of course most importantly, details from specific games against various matchups, including sideboarding strategies would make for some very compelling, relevant reading right now.

[noobslayer]

You missed your lightning bolts in that second thresh list.

[TheAardvark]

Soul = a writer's voice. It's the tone that tells you that you're reading an entertainment article and not a textbook. If I say Fitzgerald or Vonnegut or Pynchon, you'd be able to tell me how their sentences sound, what they make important, their writing style, etc.

Fixed that for you, Doug.

Anyway, I agree with Bardo. The article had no real flow to it, and I was a little bored because of hearing about pretty much nothing but Thresh. I understand that it made up half of the T8 in the main event, but goddamn, if I have to read another article that says "Threshold is good", I'll stab myself in my non-lazy eye with a salad fork.

Still better than pretty much any of Anusien's stuff, though, because it actually had tournament testing/experience involved.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

I don't think we need yet another thread to get into that discussion.

Anyway, solid article, but I felt a lot of the match-ups were brushed over, and so didn't have that much info to glean.