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Dime a Dozen #2: First Day of Class
Posted on August 2, 2012 by Jason Moore
Jason Moore Jason Moore (BambooRush on Magic Online) is a Pauper Constructed aficionado who writes for Blackborder.com and Star City Games in addition to MTGO Academy.
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When you pitched the mountain M4 G3 I screamed lol but in the end it didn’t matter because you didn’t draw the stone rain. Hope to see more vids and yes cloudpost decks are time intensive.
This deck has a lot of flexibility and plenty of neat interactions, especially for the Pauper format. I’m curious, though: could it benefit from one more kill condition?
One more question: I’m no expert in Pauper, but why doesn’t anyone play Tumble Magnet? Perhaps this deck, is just too slow to take advantage of the tempo swing from the card, but Tumble Magnet seems to be preferable much of the time over cards like Serrated Arrows whose effect is less immediate and only targets creatures. Also, you can reset Tumble Magnet with Ghostly Flicker (like the Arrows), and additionally, you can occasionally use it to tap down mana sources or mana fixers (given the artifact clause) to ‘Port’ them (Rishadan Port). This gives you something to do with the card slot against decks that don’t run so many guys.
I admire anyone trying anything new on camera. Please take this as constructive praise.
I feel your deck is woefully threat-short. It’s unfathomable to me that in a deck full of posts and Ghostly Flicker, you would only play 2 Mulldrifter, for instance.
I still feel Mnemonic Wall is strongly better than Archaeomancer, and nothing in these vids convinced me otherwise. 4U is at least as achievable in 2UU in post; surely you’re aware that you want to avoid 2cc stuff when possible. Plus 0/4 is a more significant body than 1/2 for lots of matchups. Plus if you topdeck it, you want that extra U to be casting the spell you pick up, or for an additional cycle of GF.
Have you considered Faithless Looting over Preordain? It is massively stronger late game. Consider that most games you have 4 land in hand late game. Also it needs to get countered twice, and can be tossed to Rav Rats (etc) for an overall gain.
PW: Serrated Arrows is played for its ability to 3 for 1 against the many must-remove X-1′s in the format. Particularly poison creatures, faeries, goblins, unflipped delvers. It’s also a limited solution against Guildpact. It’s particularly critical against poison.
The difference is SA will remove things for good; Tumble Magnet will just tap them down.
Also there’s a tempo problem you’d need to play Post for a while to appreciate. Post needs to stay open on 3 to mana fix or counter.
It’s probably worth a try, though.
Thanks for the note, Buddha. That’s helpful. Tumble Magnet is just such a strong card that I want to play it in something.
Wooterman – I’m glad you were so invested in the game! Thanks for only pointing out one of my mistakes @_@
PlanetWalls – An added win condition could help, perhaps Ulamog’s Crusher if you can protect it? I think the deck will still be naturally slow.
Buddha – Thanks for the comments. I’ve found Archaeomancer to be impressive, and the main drawback it had in the videos was not being able to block very often. For now I’m willing to accept that for the 2UU price tag, though on paper there is nothing flawed about the suggestions you’ve made. To put it another way, Archaeomancer was never a contributing factor to any of my losses, in fact it was quite the opposite.
Good videos, good audio quality. I still don’t really see what makes this a better UR 8post deck then what we had pre m13 though.
I really liked the videos, as I love pauper, but as UR post player there are a couple card choices I dont understand. Why is the deprive not a counterspell? I get that there are some interactions like bouncing a glimmerpost to gain life, but most of the time you wont want to return a land to your hand, especially early on in the game. Also I think its right to have a 2-1 split of teachings to flicker, and not the other way around, since you have so many ways to get the flicker back from the graveyard, and mystical is SOOOO important in so many matchups (Storm, delver, the mirror).
Also if you keeping tinkering with this list I suggest switching over some of the sorceries to instants. There are so many decks that you never want to tap out against in this format, like infect, or any deck running ninja of the deep hours or rancor. For that reason Ive been running only 3 flame slash + 1 arrows and then 3 e bolt, 1 lightning bolt, staggerschock and an echoing truth. It didnt really come up in any of your matches, but there is no worse feeling that staring at a flame slash in your hand as your opponent returns a spellstutter to flash in ninja. For the same reason Ive also cut down on compulsives in favor of mystical teachings and a forbidden alchemy.
Just some thoughts, and Im genuinely curious if archaeomancer is good enough over izzet chronarch or mem. wall, so I hope you continue the testing. I hope this comment didnt come off as overly critical as i’m very appreciative of the videos.
Also mulldrifter is just sooo good in so many matchups, I’d like to see if you can find room for the full set in this decklist. Being able to block delvers, and ledgewalkers is so important, and they can always beat down too.
tehdhole – Thanks! I don’t know that it’s a better deck, but I do know that hardly anyone was playing Ghostly Flicker in Post for a while. That is criminal!
Donzo – Your comment did not seem overly critical at all. I like Deprive for its “downside” as you’ve already recognized, and I agree with you that it’s a late game card, hence being a one-of. I also prefer playing this deck in a “tap-out” style (as I mentioned in the first article). If I continue testing the deck, I’ll consider some of your card choices though. Thanks for the input!
@PlanetWalls @Dime About finishers. The only decent option is Ulamog’s Crusher. Even though, for example, Fragoel doesn’t like to use it, I must vote against that because of the following points.
*First of all, Crusher is a HUGE deal in mirror matches. Namely, if you manage to sneak in a Crusher (which happens especially if you’re ahead on Cloudpost count) there is little opponent can do aside from Capsizing it or comboing it with double Flame Slash. And the tempo hit afterwards is something they cannot recover from.
*Also, he allows snap turnarounds in games against aggro where you cannot seem to stabilize fast enough. Well, Crusher is there to take care of tempo! He can be last resort against GotG. And there is ***NO WAT FOR AGGRO DECK TO REMOVE HIM EFFICIENTLY*** aside from Journey to Nowhere or Snap.
*Obviousy, he is terribad against MBC but, hehe, you do not need Crusher to win against them. Just outdraw them and you’re good. Also, he is weak against Dimir Post but there is a huge chance they will board out their removal spells if you did not show them Ulamog’s Crusher in the first game.
@Buddha About Faithless Looting. That card is out of question. The reason is rather simple – you’re down a card. For a deck that tries to win through card advantage and does not have overwhelming ways of exploiting the graveyard, that is simply unacceptable. I do not know whether it is stronger late game but it simply doesn’t matter. It’s the early game you want to tune Cloudpost for because it’s late game is already unstoppable, literally.
@Govno: I suggest you try it. Seriously, throw 3 in this list and run it through the practice room. Even better if you switch other cadrs to Firebolt and Deep Analysis first (thus often negating the 1 card cost you refer to).
Go back and look at the games he lost here: usually he’s doing so with a full hand of cards. Imagine those 7 cards were all gas instead of 4+ lands, 3- gas. Faithless does that for only 4 mana.
The good point you have there is the one with Deep Analysis, because it’s flashback cost is ridiculously low. That cannot be said for Firebolt because I’d rather 2 for 1 my opponent instead of just paying 5 mana to deal 2 damage. I do not think that you understand the gravity of “down a card” part of Faithless Looting but, on the other hand, I might be overvaluing it.
Oh, now that you mentioned lands, I believe we could discuss it as well. I do believe 25 lands is WAY too much, considering that for of your lands ramp themselves. Twelve islands is especially over the board. I would definitely cut two of them (bringing the land count to 23) or just one if you’re paranoid. And then I would replace two more with either Terramorphic Expanse/Evolving Wilds or Izzet Boilerworks. I have tested both and I will list Izzet Boilerworks’ pros and cons (because I find it better) so you could decide on the pick. Just a note – both of them are going to slow you down early compared to just hitting normal land drops.
Pros:
*It technically draws you a land compared to Terramorphic Expanse and guarantees that you have a land to play on the next turn. I found this to be very important.
*Fixes your mana much better than Terramorphic Expanse because you get both drops instead of just I that you choose.
*Allows you to combo with Glimmerpost, albeit slowly, if situation demands it.
Cons:
*There is only one con I’ve encountered so far – further vulnerability to Land Destruction. If your opponent targets Izzet Boilerworks and successfully resolves LD spell, he just 2 for 1′d you and that hurts A LOT. On the other hand, it might be a good distraction from your Cloudposts so who knows…
Personally, I don’t watch Magic videos for perfection, either in deck lists or play. I watch for their informative and entertainment value, the litmus test for which is whether a video makes me want to play the deck/format, and that was certainly the case for this video. I look forward to watching your other videos in this series.
One small thing, do you think it’s necessary to highlight your mouse’s cursor? Since it isn’t a game about manual dexterity, it seems unimportant and visually distracting/unappealing.
Hey guys, I appreciate your comments and discussion. I was not expecting so much interest in this deck and its card choices!
MMogg – I’m very happy to hear that you’re enjoying the content. I don’t think the highlighted cursor is needed, though I’d be curious to hear what others think.
Well, it deserves that many comments and discussion because you’ve put a lot of work into it and you even showed us how it works! What’s not to like!
I might agree with MMogg about cursor – unless it makes it easier for you to play the game, I do believe it is completely redundant. If it does make it easier – it’s not that big of a deal.
This deck looks awesome, and the presentation was very good. I was slightly disappointed that we didn’t get to see the Flicker combo in action.
Is Compulsive Research really better than extra Mulldrifters? It digs one deeper than an evoked Mulldrifter, but, as we saw, some of the time it doesn’t even result in actual card advantage.
Loved the videos! The only suggestion I have that hasn’t been mentioned yet is to use classic card frame basic lands. :p
Use white-boarded basic lands. Like I always say, “It’s heaven with basic lands from 7(th Edition)!”
Xyx – I was impressed with Research. It was sometimes my favorite thing to Archaeomancer back, which I wasn’t expecting. More Mulldrifters (as suggested by a few people) could be correct though.
Thanks to everyone for your comments!
match 4 demonstrates why i think a 1 of ulamog is needed in the deck,it gives you a fast win condition
eddie – It does, but is also sometimes difficult to protect or not get countered. Playing Crusher could also depend on personal preference. Thank you for the input!