What does a typical RG trophy deck look like in #ONE Limited?
Aggregating across 2,308 trophy-winning decks, it looks something like this ๐. Oil up, proliferate, and repeat.
A ๐งต, with a "typical" trophy-winning build for each color pair โฌ๏ธ
For each of these, I'm looking at all trophy-winning decks with a copy of the relevant #2CUDS. Cards are sorted by number of copies in those trophy-winning decks (I put lands at the end, though). The @karsten_frank-inspired methodology is described here: strategy.channelfireball.com/all-strategy/hโฆ
The next-most-prolific trophy winner is Bladehold War-Whip in RW. Barbed Batterfist loves the War-Whip, and Bladegraft Aspirant fits right in. Then just look for the stronger Equipment more generally, and quality removal.
WB is next: This is mainly trying to get to corrupted, which levels-up your Vivisection Chupacabra, rather than going for 10-poison wins. Everything should be have toxic or have a corrupted bonus.
WU and Cephalopod Sentry want artifacts, but equipment isn't really part of this plan, and the trophying decks aren't going big on Mites.
UR really just wants you to cast noncreature spells, so cheap instants and sorceries are a big part of winning decks, and your creatures either have oil or come in the form of Rebel tokens. Trawler Drake is sweet.
GW is a go-wide Toxic-matters deck. You're looking for creatures with Toxic, or Contagious Vorrac. For those with more experience playing this -- does it mostly win on life or poison?
Red is very strong, so the aggregate trophy-winning RB deck is very red-heavy, with some black removal and Stinging Hivemaster.
BG likes the evasion of Pestilent Syphoner, and is probably trying to get a 10-poison win. Lots of creatures that boost toxicity or proliferate. Vorrac!
UB would be pretty happy to land a Prologue to Phyresis, or get in with Voidwing Hybrid, then cast spells that proliferate (or sneak in a Thrummingbird) while chumping with the Hybrid over and over.
Finally, GU's Tainted Observed has the lowest trophy count among the #2CUDS, at just 249. I speculate that it's just a bit too diffuse and unfocused, which is a shame, because I love the idea of creaturefall-proliferation. Maybe just a bit too expensive to activate.
If seeing these decks gives you other ideas, or if you would push back against these aggregates as aspirational models, please share!
And if you think this is cool, and want to see it again, let me know with โค๏ธ&๐ -- it's the best way for me to know what's resonating.
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๐งตA thread about human ingenuity, civic virtue, and the public good!
You're probably familiar with the Phyrexian-language variants of several Praetors and other Phyrexian-aligned cards, including some full-art lands in the upcoming set, Phyrexia: All Will Be One...
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You can actually see all of these by searching for
Each of those cards' Scryfall page actually has the Phyrexian name, type, and Oracle text of the card -- but if you inspect it closely, you'll see that those characters are actually text, not an image!
LEGO seems like a reasonable analogue to Magic -- ostensibly a toy/game, but with many adult fans, a system that allows interoperability across time, lots of room for creativity, etc
I was going to observe that "you don't hear LEGO fans complaining about product fatigue", but๐งต
I actually looked around, and there is at least some of that! For example, "Is LEGO releasing too many new parts?" reddit.com/r/lego/commentโฆ
"Has LEGO released too many direct-to-consumer sets?" brickset.com/article/53640/โฆ (the comments on this are eerily familiar๐)
๐ ๐๐ต๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ฎ๐ฑ ๐ฎ๐ฏ๐ผ๐๐ ๐ข๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ผ๐
Most Oreo purchases are made by Casual Oreo Consumers; walking down the cookies/snacks aisle at the grocery store and more or less spontaneously deciding to buy them.
There are a huge number of varieties and flavors of Oreos...
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...and part of the reason for this is that Nabisco wants each shopper to have some kind of Oreo that appeals directly to them. Some prefer peanut butter, some like ridiculously sweet things, some are on a diet, some are ๐บ๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐โ๐๐๐๐๐ fans...
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Regardless of your predilections, there exists a perfect Oreo for you. If the "classic" Oreo was the only option, I suspect many shoppers might move on down the aisle to the Pepperidge Farm section.
The ๐๐ข๐จ๐ช๐ค ๐๐ข๐ต๐ข ๐๐ค๐ช๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ค๐ฆ
๐ง๐ฃ๐ผ๐ฑ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐๐ ๐๐ฎ๐น๐น ๐ผ๐ณ ๐๐ฎ๐บ๐ฒ๐
I listen to a lot of podcasts. This thread recognizes my favorites -- those I've listened to the longest, those I most eagerly anticipate, and those I most readily recommend to others.
The first, and most obvious member of the PHoF is @maro254's ๐๐ฟ๐ถ๐๐ฒ ๐๐ผ ๐ช๐ผ๐ฟ๐ธ. It's an entire game design education in 30-60 minute chunks, and is nearing its 1000th episode!
DtW is what got me hooked on Magic. I devour(ed) every episode, and have listened to many of them twice. If you are one of the few people following me who hasn't listened Mark's enthusiastic-yet-informative discourse on a huge range of subjects, fix that.
Another cool thing in this article -- and something I've never seen elsewhere: I used @karsten_frank's deck aggregation method to make archetype-average Limited decks for each two-color pair and every #2CUDS in the set.
How is this possible without the @17Lands public data? Well, they *do* post trophy decklists, so I just made "typical trophying decklists" by looking at the bundles of cards that most often appear in winning decks. For example...
I recommend using @archidekt's playtest functionality to goldfish with these -- it's a fun way to see how the cards interact and get used to the play patterns.
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If there was any doubt that the most interesting card in DMU Limited is Wingmantle Chaplain, here's some more evidence:
In a model that disentangles card and archetype strength, the Wing Chap stands out as the single card that's most central to decks in which it appears.
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This model is the focus of my latest article at @ChannelFireball, in which I dig deep to learn as much as we can learn from @17Lands early in the format.
Specifically, I estimate that decks built with Wingmantle Chaplain would win over 5% less frequently if the Chaplain was removed. The article lists similar values for each card in the set, plus indicates the color archetypes in which each card has performed the best.