[Article] Eternal Europe: That Time of the Year

[RainbowPenguin]

Sorry to derail the discussion here, but about the actual article..

Regarding the Standard Pod deck: "Assuming your opponent understands what's going on, the Ooze surviving should mean they're unable to kill a creature right now."
Should more likely be:
"Assuming your opponent understands what's going on, the Ooze surviving won't happen, because they'll kill it right now. Unless that Incinerate could be used to bring you to 0."
I don't want to be the Dies to Removal Guy, but I think that a lot of other Pod decks are more viable, just because they can pick up 3/3 tokens along the chain with Blade Splicer or can pod Skinrender into Morkrut Banshee (or both). If someone has the temerity to kill your 3, 4 or 5 cc dude, you generally won't have gained that much value, and could definitely just die to aggro. The list is sexy, though.

@ The Modern deck: Again, you really like to set up slow, multi-card semi-combos, that don't actually win right away, don't you? ;-)
To me, it seems that putting Grove + Fire in you deck would do a lot of the same work here. Alternatively, Seismic assault allows you to do a lot of the same stuff, if you want an actual engine, and on top, you get to cut the loose retrace cards as well as a colour, making the RRR cost less oppressive and the deck generally more consistent, I would think. That doesn't mean that would be an actual good deck, but I think that would likely be a more viable approach.

@ The Legacy deck: "[T]urn four is definitely a bit slow". Yep. I was going to ask how this was any better than cephalid breakfast, but then I realised that you don't actually use the graveyard, so there's that. I don't really see this deck happening, but props for trying.

@ Vintage: Intuition is unrestricted? Damn!
I don't play vintage, so that's about all I can say about that..

I realise that much of the above might seem rather cranky, but it's hard to sound nice while criticizing everything. :/
For whatever it may be worth, I generally like your articles.

[bruizar]

Oh, and I do not agree that single color decks are not viable.
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...eath-and-Taxes
It specifically picks on decks full of fetchlands. And there are plenty of single-colored tribal decks as well. Fetchlands are not ubiquitous or infallible.

Exactly how does D&T pick on fetch lands? It doesn't run Stifle, Trickbind, Dingus Egg or Terravore that could potentially benefit from your opponent playing fetch-lands. I have played several hundreds of games against D&T and I know that your statement is simply not true. Even Phyrexian Revoker can't name lands! About the only positive interaction I can see with fetchlands is that your opponent will be able to pay his cumulative upkeep for Jotun Grunt 1 extra turn, but really, that card is only playable because of flicker wisp resetting his upkeep.

If you would argue for single-color non-tribal decks I would name Hive Mind, Spiral Tide and mono-colored versions of 12post-Eldrazi first.

[Finn]

It specifically picks on decks full of fetchlands.

Not the lands. The decks. Port and Wasteland together can be very disruptive to 3-color decks.

Zilla, you should have seen that I gave examples to the contrary of the ubiquitous claim. But they are certainly very common - hence the strategy of punishing them.

Also, joemauer, thanks for the shout. I think a lot of decks of that sort are about to get a boost from Misstep's ouster.

And yeah, it was an entertaining read. I don't know how you guys for whom English is the second language have a better grasp on style than pretty much all native English speakers. I'm thinking Eldariel and Nihil also.

[RainbowPenguin]

@ Bruizar: Some D&T decks pack Leonin Arbiter and Aven Mindcensor, which can potentially hurt the mana development of fetchland-based decks, especially if they stumble and/or the D&T deck gets to combine a censor effect with wasteland or port.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

@Penguin: Don't worry about it. You made good arguments why the decks might not be good. As said in the article, I was brewing and as we all know a lot of brews won't work out for a multitude of reasons.

Ooze-Pod: The deck might have a problem with removal-heavy beatdown decks. I think the basic engine has a lot of potential, though, even if the list itself might need more tweaking. As for just dieing, if you start churning out fast 5/6es, I suspect a lot of beatdown draws will fail to apply enough pressure to actually kill you.

Burning Revenge: Yep, I like to set up complicated weird engines :p Red actually feels like the worst color in the deck (Burning Vengeance might actually be too cute, a non-red version might be more consistent and similarly powerful), so Seismic Assault doesn't seem that impressive considering you need to retool the manabase to easily support it.

Legacy: Well, the decks fast draws win on turn three at least, it doesn't use the yard and I think there is room for more disruption than there is in Breakfast (too lazy to check for a list, Breakfast usually has only FoWs and Therapies I think, right?). You admittedly sacrifice a lot of speed, so I'm not sure it'll be good enough. Witch is actually a pretty sweet enabler, though, as it represents both halves of the combo - probably the deck's biggest strength.

Happy you enjoy the articles anyway :)

@Finn: Thanks for the props, trying my best :)

[Dark Ritual]

DnT is hard on the fetchlands. Most SBs pack leonin arbiter and some builds pack aven mindcensor. I watched David Winsauer pick apart NO RUG with a turn 2 leonin arbiter sticking and the NO RUG player laid fetch after fetch, with only one mana producing land in play so obviously DnT won that game pretty handily. DnT also punishes with port and waste as was already stated above.

I agree with MM getting banned. It made control overly dominating; with misstep legal, I see zero reason to take a deck other than stoneblade or NO RUG or something in that vein to a tournament since MM fills the holes in those decks' strategies pretty handily when it comes to aether vial and other turn 1 plays that give those decks trouble.

Nice brews though overall and good article overall. Most brews turn out to be not viable but I'm slightly interested in the legacy brew and wonder how well that deck will perform in testing. It seems interesting overall from a design standpoint though.