Press vs Pros Draft and Jeskai Ascends to Top 8
- Thread starter Encaen
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Most of the set reviews I looked at seemed pretty underwhelmed with Jeskai. Its interesting that its doing so well.
I'm thinking I should build a Jeskai commander deck, it'll go nice with my mono blue one, with Talrand as a general, and Rakdos with Mogis as a commander.RaikuFA said:
There's no Temur in that list! And now I feel sad, cause Bear-Punching Clan is best Clan! Though that last deck says Jeskai Ascendancy combo, though it's got quite the amount of green in it...
I have a modern deck that has Lab maniac and Leveler as a win con, it's so fun when it goes off!RaikuFA said:
Heh... I have an Animar in my Chromanticore deck, which is the deck with all my lovely stuff in it. Stuff like Proginitus (which got traded for over it's value, I kinda miss it) Colossus of Akros, Fleecemane, and all kinds of other goodies.RaikuFA said:
I may as well post deck lists, that ist is only missing 2 decks though, a modern lifegain, and deathtouch deck.
http://tappedout.net/users/Evil_Smurf/
http://tappedout.net/users/Evil_Smurf/
I kind of started magic again with khans and now I wonder: Is there a good 5 colour build for standard? It seems like there are a lot of good cards to make it happen. A lot of 2-3 mana drops like the mantis rider, the deathdealer and savage knuckleblade. But i didn´t see on build in the entire tournament. That might be a silly question but a deck like this brought me to the final in sealed in a local store. I had one rider and a deathdealer in it, a fetchland and seven two-lands and also luck on my side. At the moment I have a (wip) rainbow deck with a lot of 3 mana cards and some morphs and it works ok so far (did not have a lot of worthy opponents lately). Only problem is that you run out of handcards a bit fast, it´s totaly possible to play almost all creatures at turn 4 with a rattleclaw, leaving you with an utter end or/ and an abzan/temur charm.
That is because it is a Temur deck with [mtg_card=Jeskai Ascendancy] added in. The whole thing revolves around the combo play where creature mana sources are tapped for mana, some card that triggers Jeskai Ascendancy is played, this untaps the creature mana sources, repeat. No matter how irrelevant the played cards may be, if only the combo is chained long enough those mana creatures will eventually be pretty big, and there might be a considerable amount of mana left over for boosting an attack further with [mtg_card=Dragon Mantle].JaceArveduin said:
There was one Temur Monsters list that was in the final 21+ points - aka decks that went at least 7-3 in Standard, and some of the Jeskai Ascendancy combo decks were running a heavy sideboard plan of bringing in a bunch of [mtg_card=Savage Knuckleblade] and the like.JaceArveduin said:
It's certainly possible, but the problem often becomes an issue with consistency or speed. You're either playing a lot of tapped lands or cutting into how often you'll have your colors. There's also just a lot of really strong cards in Standard right now. The benefit of going 5 colors in draft or sealed is a pretty noticeable difference in power level, but there's a much larger diminishing returns for Standard. For instance, a card like [mtg_card=Siege Rhino] isn't that much better than say something like [mtg_card=Polukranos, World Eater].El Comandante said:
You are right I did not get the Theros block and have very little knowlege about it. I guess we will see what the next block will bring and the rest of khans. But there is a base set for a five color deck in standard, maybe it will happen next year. I will wait for that, buying into Teros now is to costly for me.Slycne said:
Hello! Eric Levine - the judge of the Press & Pros draft - here. This is what happens when you do what Josh did:Nojh said:
First, for each attacking creature, the attacking player orders the creatures blocking it. This is a pretty normal process - multiple creatures can almost always block a single attacker. The weird part here is that, since all three blockers are blocking both creatures, the order may be different from each creature, so simple physical manipulation of the cards may not actually tell you how the creatures are ordered.
Once that's done and clarified (and probably written down on paper!) the blocking player orders the attacking creatures for each of the three blocking creatures. This is just like the previous process, but in reverse, and with three creatures. (Fellow Level 3 judge Aaron Hamer, who was also at #PTKTK, called this whole thing a "2-by-3 Attacker-Blocker Ordering Matrix." I call it a cluster... well, you know.)
Finally, damage is assigned, starting by assigning each individual attacker's damage, and moving on to each individual blocker's damage. Note that this can play merry hell with how damage can be assigned by the individual creatures - once one creature has lethal damage assigned from one creature, another creature can simply skip it in the order! (From Comprehensive Rule 510.1c: "When checking for assigned lethal damage, take into account damage already marked on the creature and damage from other creatures that's being assigned during the same combat damage step, but not any abilities or effects that might change the amount of damage that's actually dealt. An amount of damage that's greater than a creature's lethal damage may be assigned to it." - so make sure you do things in the order that's most advantageous to you!)
So how the heck does this work in practice? Well, let's say we have two attacking creatures:
Snowhorn Rider (5/5, trample)
Bear token from Bear's Companion (4/4)
Our opponent has a Brave the Sands and three eligible blockers:
Ruthless Ripper (1/1, deathtouch)
Sage-Eye Harrier (1/5 with some irrelevant flying)
Ainok Bond-Kin with a +1/+1 counter on it (3/2, first strike)
Opponent blocks everything with everything, as described. Creatures get ordered as follows: (top to bottom, so top card is first in the order)
Snowhorn Rider:
Ruthless Ripper
Ainok Bond-Kin
Sage-Eye Harrier
Bear token:
Ruthless Ripper
Ainok Bond-Kin
Sage-Eye Harrier
Ruthless Ripper:
Bear Token
Snowhorn Rider
Sage-Eye Harrier:
Bear Token
Snowhorn Rider
Ainok Bond-Kin:
Bear Token
Snowhorn Rider
Ainok Bond-Kin:
Bear Token
Snowhorn Rider
I know, it's not as exciting because all the orders are the same, but believe me, this example showcases the strategic value of this decision. (Other times, it might be different, but I only have so much brainpower right now.)
So first, Ainok Bond-Kin deals its first-strike damage. It has 3 to dish out, so 3 damage is marked on the Bear Token. Now we check state-based actions - all we have is 3 damage on a 4-toughness creature, so we're OK to move onto regular damage. Attackers go first, and we choose to start with the Bear Token, because that is our right (and it's also a good idea.)
Ruthless Ripper is first in the order. We drop one damage there (we could do more, but why?) and then move on to drop two onto the Bond-Kin and one onto Sage-Eye Harrier. The Ripper and the Bond-Kin have lethal damage assigned to them (but not yet marked on them!)
We then move on to our other creature, Snowhorn Rider. The damage assignment order is the same, but we can skip the Ripper and Bond-Kin since they are already being assigned lethal damage. Sage-Eye Harrier has one damage assigned to it, so we put another four on, allowing us to trample over to our opponent for 1 damage. Not great, but it could have been worse - we could have done the Rider's assignment first and lost out on trample!
The two remaining blockers without first strike still have something to say. Our opponent wisely allows Sage-Eye Harrier to go first - it assigns one damage to the Bear Token, which already has three damage marked on it. That's a lethal total, which means that Ruthless Ripper can bypass it entirely and assign its one deadly point of damage to Snowhorn Rider. Good call, opponent - doing things in the other order would have wasted the deathtouch damage and left Snowhorn Rider alive!
Once all the damage has been assigned, it is dealt - this bloodbath ends with no survivors and one point of damage to the blocking player. Yowza.
Hope that helps! Feel free to contact me with more questions at ericlevine AT channelfireball DOT com or check out http://chat.magicjudges.org/mtgrules/ for live rules answers!