Legacy Naodelver

I have come to a final deck build for a delver deck but the person I lent it to couldn't really get results from it. I suppose a non-veteran won't be able to pilot a highly tailored deck for the legacy format.

Over the course of my designing, I have continued to live by my very odd counts which I managed to learn the truths behind.

To exemplify, say u have a die. You get a score based on your count. You lose if you score 2 or less so the odds of you losing would be 2/6.
Now I let you roll 2 dies and get the average score for your score and you still lose if you have a score of 2 or less.
Would you be winning more or less or the same? Take some time to think about it.

...

...

The distribution of the scores is actually different when you have an average of 2 dies.
1-1, 1-2, 1-3, 1-4, 1-5, 1-6
2-1, 2-2, 2-3....
If you start to count, you will notice that the ave score peaks at 3.5 and becomes lower at the sides compared to an evenly distributed roll of 1-6.

This mathematically describes what I have been doing with my decks when I use different cards for one desired effect.
I reduce my risk of outlier situations while maintaining the desired average effect to the greatest.
This is the effect of diversification.

In the past, this was me playing 1 Diabolic Edict, 1 Smother, 1 Go for the Throat, 1 Doom Blade for 4 slots of creature removal I want to run.

Today, it is me running Tarmogoyf, Quirion Dryad and Scavenging Ooze for the slot of Tarmogoyf.

Anyway, here's the decklist. Not as if I would be running it in any worthwhile places anytime soon.

1 Flooded Strand
3 Force of Will
1 Izzet Charm
2 Underground Sea
2 Divert
1 Snapcaster Mage
3 Deathrite Shaman
4 Delver of Secrets
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Ponder
1 Sylvan Library
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Quirion Dryad
2 Volcanic Island
1 Dismember
3 Tropical Island
4 Wasteland
1 Daze
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Punishing Fire
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 Stifle
1 Dark Confidant
2 Spell Pierce
3 Nimble Mongoose
1 Tarmogoyf
4 Brainstorm
1 Polluted Delta
1 Abrupt Decay

Sideboard
1 Force of Will
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Dismember
2 Sulfur Elemental
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Pyroblast
1 Phyrexian Dreadnought
3 Flusterstorm
1 Dark Confidant

Reborn

I finally managed to get myself unbanned on the JP server of Guardian Cross.
I suspect it has something to do with my stockpile of recover potions if anything.
My last post here was just before my International ver got banned. I went over the the JP server but soon got banned. Had to send e-mails and wait for over a month before I finally got myself unbanned.
Over the course of the 1 month plus of waiting, I tried a bunch of Japanese games (all with the same type of free to play model where u can throw in $ to play properly).
Even with nostalgic games like digimon crusader (excruciating amount of time needed to evolve) and Rockman Xover (unrealistic jump in difficulty) and a handful of different games, I still find that GC is probably one of the more comfortable iphone games to play (which has a degree of nostalgia too with me being a square enix fan).

Well, I missed all the X-mas and New Year promotions but I'm ok with that. I hope not to get banned again. Life has been excessively eventful since my last post but today isn't the time to talk about those.

Gatecrash prerelease is over the weekend so I hope to be able to make some time for one. I like the Orhzhov card. =)

Anyway, here's a Jace the Mind Sculptor card drawn by Jason Chan over GP Singapore (which I had to drop after round 2):

1G1D: Vampire Matron

Today I will be looking at one of my favorite guardians, Vampire Matron.

 

The reason she's one of my favorites is because of her Revive ability which lets her come back to deal a second attack and tank up remnants of MP the opponent's guardian has. I highly value this ability.

Unfortunately, she sometimes is unable to take down the opponent's guardian in one shot with her barely above average stats and that can cause her downfall unless successfully revived. She does has the potential to 2 for 1 but nowadays with the higher quality of guardians, it might be good enough for her to take down just 1 opposing guardian which might not happen in the event that Revive is not successful and if the opponent's guardian survives.

Just last week was the release of her Almighty version which has a higher HP count but having to choose between the fast or intelligent version, I would go for the intelligent type for a higher probability of being able to 1 hit kill the opponent's guardian.

Perhaps the use of the limited forms would be to give you access to one more copy although it is generally correct to say that the Ace types are better overall as the limited forms force you to choose the right attribute you want to work with.

I'm now in the midst of reevaluating Vampire Matron but I am still very fond of her so I find it extra difficult to truly give a value to the Revive ability.

Anti Jace TMS?

I had come to the conclusion that Cavern of Souls + Sigarda, Host of Herons is the ultimate trumph against Jace, the Mind Sculptor decks. This is to the point where I suspect, upon resolution, I no longer have to do much and the game would come to an inevitable closure.

In excitment of that revelation, I tried to make a Uwbg Gush deck to try that theory out but I did not seem to get to that point during the games I managed to play in. I did, however, find out that 3x Jace is much better than 2x Jace.

White is a tough color to work with because its cards are only good to specific threats and are not as flexible as the other colors. I'll see how things go. For now I have Stoneforge Mystic and Swords to Plowshares for my white.

I wonder if the 4th Jace would be good or whether or not the marginal utility of it would drop...

1G1D: Titan

Today, I'll be discussing the GC 5 star card, Titan.

 

 

Titan itself contains some decent stats, with its strength being in its physical attack which at lvl 60 Ace full stoned can go up to 3477 and he comes with a Greater Might (+20% Attack) would bring the attack power up even more. Not great under current standards but not too shabby for a card.

Just as an estimate, stats above 3200 in my opinion are considered good as most so-so stats are around 3000. Close to 4000 stats are really powerful.

The Almighty version has cool Titan stats but with boosted HP which was, at that time (after the 2nd colisuem), hailed to be the highest HP in the game which people believed would allow it to tank 2 hits for sure. The Chaotic Almighty Titan was very well known for that particular trait.

After that came the Almighty/Mighty /Great Pumpkin Chunkin' Titan with Halloween.

It boasted an even greater amount of HP for the Chaotic version but as of today, there are a couple of cards that can 1 hit KO it although that is still not an easy feat for many cards. Unfortunately, it can only count on its physical damage to make full use of its durability and so you need it to be paired up against lower hp/defense cards for its true value to shine.

I find the Halloween version a very cute card to look at but I don't usually consider it as one of my team. My "max revive" deck does not seem to be going as well as I hoped for it to be so I think I would try to shuffle cards around to see what may or may not work and I am interested to think whether or not the Almighty Pumpkin Chunkin' Titan might make the cut.

1G1D: Leviathan

I've been in a long writing slump for quite some time as one can tell. I've had a huge drop in drive for MTG ever since I couldn't get proper Classic games to test for Classic followed by a failed attempt to get back into 100card Singleton.

 

To keep myself slightly more active in terms of writing, I shall try to update my blog with the Square Enix iphone game, Guardian Cross as I am currently playing it more than I get to play MTGO.

 

So today, I shall write in my 1 Guardian 1 Day about the 5 star card, Leviathan.

 



 

As one of the original five 5 star cards, Leviathan has left a very great impression on me ever since the start of the game with the first Coliseum card being the Almighty Leviathan.

 

It was indeed interesting to see as Leviathan is one of the well known mythical creatures (that you can occasionally summon in Final Fantasy).

 

Unfortunately, it has very subpar stats that make it very weak in today's context and when I did get one, it was already obsceleted.

It holds one of the lowest agility stats which is one of the more important stats for a card because of the possible disparity of hitting or getting hit twice. 

 

I like the art though.

On Borrowed Strength

Last night, I made my way to a local place that had a weekly legacy tournament.
I originally wanted to get a storm deck but couldn't really get the key components. I ended up borrowing Merfolk from the organizer, slightly tweaked with more borrowed cards.

I made 3-0 and split at the last round, with my opponent getting $60 and I gave $20 to the organizer and had $50 of store credits which I got some basic storm components and left $10 in for next time.

I didn't know I could get a dual land if I didn't split. :( I'd take the dual for sure but it's ok for my first try. :)