When we all started learning the game of Magic, however long ago it may be for you, we were all quite bad. Often times it's funny to look back on all of the ridiculous Magical plans we put into our decks, and how distorted our visions of the game were based on who we played with and what they played as well. We all eventually ended up in the place we are today. Some people reading this may still be in a learning stage of Magic, and I say great for you. Why? Because that stage of Magic is the most fun. Wasn't it the most fun? I remember bashing with Blastoderms and Balduvian Hordes coupled with Burn and Llanowar elves. I remember that U/G Madness deck I built with Cursed Scrolls, Masticore, and Quiet speculation for Roar of the Wurm. That learning stage of the game is important in your development as a player. My point is, that if true learners of the game simply pluck the decklists off of this website and play them as is, they miss out on the fundamental lessons of deckbuilding that you need to understand to become a great player. You can know what cards are good, and that they are strong, but if you don't know why they're good, what growth can you expect to have when playing them? Game theory is something you can't fake. It's easy to spot an imposter. I mean no offense by these comments, but I can recall so many N&D Decklists where people seem to completely misunderstand the game. Many hybrid decklists in the N&D fall guilty of this. I can recall things like "Survival Goblins" or "Discard Burn", where some players seem to think that mushing the best pieces of two decks together can make a good deck. Survival is incompatible with goblins because Survival can’t help an agro deck like Goblins. Discard Burn doesn’t work, because without card draw, you need creatures to provide a source of recursive damage to finish an opponent. Simply playing halfburn/halfdiscard, in colors that provide little draw, leaves you with no way to bring your opponent down from 20. Burn decks alone have trouble getting some1 from 20 to 0. Imagine taking out half of the burn. There you have an inferior idea. These problems are easy for someone experienced to detect. For a learner, if Hymn to Tourach and Lightning bolt go together in Red Death, 20 Burnspells/20 Discardspells/20 Lands appears to be a winning combination. There are many unsaid principles of the game that are understood amongst this community, and that's great, but if we don’t highlight them from time to time, the newer members won’t ever hear them. These principles come out most often when suggesting inclusions and cuts in decklists. Suggestions for decklists always go over a certain criteria in your head before you throw them out there. For me, it must pass three requirements.
1) Has it been said and discussed already?
2) Is what I'm suggesting beneficial for the deck?
3) Does the current format support these changes?
Unfortunately, it is very hard to fake that you understand these principles.
#1 is easier to bypass, although tripped up on sometimes still. Sometimes people don't want to read through 50 pages of discussion, which is understandable, but for someone experienced to comment on why Burning Tree Shaman or Wee Dragonauts isn't in UGr Thresh for the 6th time, it has to be a bit annoying.
#2 is almost unfakable. You have to have a complete understanding of a deck and it's workings before you can suggest something that noone has thought of before, and that makes the deck better. It's quite easy to ignore this principle and just shout out suggestions such as, "Have you considered running Stifle?", "Why not run Jotun Grunt in the board?", and of course , "No Tarmogoyf?". These one line suggestions can grow tiresome for a deckbuilder defending and evolving their creation, or for the expert on an established deck educating the masses.
#3 has alot to do with local metagame and things like that. If I had based all of my suggestions for decks on my local metagame, I would have suggested that everyone played Chill or Pulse of the Fields in their sideboards. My metagame was largely red. I can understand how other metagames could be dominated by different decks that require hating and other things like that, and so understanding that there was a bigger world out there than my local card shop was impossible for awhile. When I first came to these boards, I saw dozens of decklists that I didn't even understand. Noone had played anything like the things I was seeing, so obviously I couldn't offer any educated discussion, because I had no idea where to come from. Goblin Trenches looks like a crazy deck when you've never played against anything but Mono Blue Control with Morphlings. Overall, it's just important to realize how much farther away the "Legacy" metagame must seem to a newer player.
Now, to the meat and taders. If you are a developing player, and you are trying to play the part of an expert, think twice. You are not benefitting yourself by doing so... and we can probably tell. Of course, everyone deserves to look and use decklists that are on the internet and comment on them and ask questions. Netdecking is fine to do, but only when you understand card choices and strategy, because if you fall short on those principals, Netdecking is the last thing you need in your development and growth as a better player. Creating and Developing your own strategies, Reading important articles such as the “Required reading” at the top of the community board. We never ever want this format to become stagnant and boring, so in a “mouths of babes” sort of way, a newer player can often think of things in different ways. Look at David Gearhart for example. Even a loser like him can discover an old card and create an archetype. He explored a new idea and created his very own Tier 1 deck, and influenced the entire Magic economy in the process by increasing the value of a card by about 1,000%. Not bad for a silly idea, huh?
So to every learner of this game we play, study hard! There is so much information out there on winning strategies, that we often take mental shortcuts into winning before we really know what we’re doing. Winning is great! But nothing is better than truly dominating your opponent on an intellectual level. I can preach this all I want, but I’m still working on the dominating thing. Remember to learn, and play like a champion.
Wow, usually I deserve this kind of shit, but I don't know about now. I don't think I sacrificed any babies recently. Maybe it was the kitten armor. Why doesn't my kitten armor reflect insults. Damn. I'll go work on that.
All i can say is Tarmogoyf...
WHY PEOPLE WHY!
It dosn't belong in every deck, in fact it's only good in a few, grow a pair, and go against the crowd and help prove how over rated it is...
Hello,
I am called a line break. Please feel free to use me in any and all of the remarkably conceited rants you may post in the future. Your readers will appreciate it.
Originally Posted by nitewolf9
Although this is completely off-topic, I really think you're wrong on this one. The Goyf actually belongs in every non-combo.dec that can sufficiently support green mana.
Best Creature Ever.
Just my 2 cents
I have to agree here. Tarmogoyf, next to spiritmonger, is one of the best creatures ever printed. You'd be stupid not to run them both when you can support the mana.
they haunt minds...
Off-Topic: goyf is no where NEAR Monger, or even tog. It is WAY worse, WAY WAY WAY worse, don't even TRY and compair it. All it is is a strong creature for little mana, not making it even CLOSE to the best creature ever. No where CLOSE.
Last edited by Peter_Rotten; 10-24-2007 at 09:25 PM. Reason: snarkiness removed
I think another point that needs to be stressed to promote this format is helping the younger players out. Teaching them the basics of deck building and directing them to popular internet sites goes a long way in order to bring them from casual tabletop legacy noobs to decent players and deck builders.
The Firebrothers
Scrubbing out of tournements since 2005.
"Large in the margin
my drama unfolds behind closed doors...."
Along tuning lines, something Feldman wrote awhile back resonated with me. He said that you should be greedy when testing options in a deck, otherwise you won't know whether you could have say, supported 4 Chrome Mox instead of the 3 you were running because you thought it was overkill without actually being greedy and testing it.
I'm pretty sure that as offensive options go, Tarmogoyf is one of the strongest. He's almost categorically replaced Psychatog in Extended and lines up alongside Arcbound Ravager in that format.
In Legacy, he's the best reason that Threshold has assumed the top spot of the post-Future Sight metagame. Now that the best control deck can straight up race any aggressive deck and have an inviolate blocker, why wouldn't you play four of them?
With the marginal cost of playing Tarmogoyf being so low in a format with painless dual lands, a real argument has to be constructed as to why Tarmogoyf is not in any deck that seeks to win via the attack phase. Extended players are willing to pay inordinate amounts of life to shove Tarmogoyf into their attack decks. Why wouldn't Legacy players be willing to pay much less life to do the same?
Enough already. The Goyf loves you too.
QFMFT.
I don't understand what this has to do with goyf. I don't understand this thread at all, maybe it's because I didn't read that great wall of text.
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