Watch Owen Turtenwald go for back-to-back Grand Prix wins against Sam Pardee at Grand Prix Albuquerque 2013. Format: Standard Complete coverage: www.wizards.com/magic/magazine...
Guy on the left just constantly shuffles and reshuffles his hand, almost praying that the cards will magically change into 'super yu-gi-oh insta-win hand'.
A little confused at the 24:08 mark and how the cloudfins got 2 1/1 counters. Did the stack go something like (from the bottom up): trigger from one elemental > trigger from Master > Pharika's Cure? So then the Cure pops the Master, but the two triggers from the elementals and Master both still resolve?
TCGPreacher In Yu-Gi-Oh!, you literally only see one to 2 decks different deck types in top 16 at events. They're usually all exact copies of one another.
ErrrmagerdItsCermran Isn't that exactly what we're seeing here? It's either Mono Black or Mono Blue with a few knick-knack differences in, it's pathetic!
ernilmenegil The thing is, Yugioh doesn't have rotation. So when I mention that a deck in Yugioh consistently tops(Dragon Rulers, since they've done way too much), it's quite sad because it's about the only thing the majority of the community that people would play it. It gets hit by their banlist, and yet, it still tops. In Magic Standard, most decks get their fifteen minutes of fame, and that's it.
UUUDevo is a lot of fun to play. It's certainly not impossible to beat - though people apparently don't do much to practice against it. I guess all their extra time is taken up whining about it. ;)
No deck is invincible, including Mono Black and Blue Devotion. Problem is, if you build a deck to counter either Mono Black or Mono Blue, you'll have a lot of weaknesses with other decks. Boros is great against Black, Shrivel needs to be at hand to have a chance against it and fast. Mono Blue is harder to beat, Thasa was poorly designed, so cheap to cast and her abilities are insane, but again, it's not invincible.
Standard is rock, paper, scissors right now. The reason we see the mono decks win so much is they don't have to burn themselves with shocklands which is a "free" spell to any Aggro deck.
In my Local FNM the four or so players who play devotion get destroyed. We've all built decks to beat them. I run a sodding Deffender deck for gods sake that beats mono blue by milling. You jsut need to build decks that don't fit into the Meta.
Do you know the text on Mutavault? When activated, it is every creature type, including rats. That means there are 4 rats out there, pumping both the pack rats on the board.
Game one, around the 4 minute mark, why doesn't Sam Pardee make Thassa and one of his Specters unblockable, swing with everything and win? If he's afraid of a Hero's Downfall on Master of Waves (which does happen), Owen still has to worry about 7 unbolckable. I'm interested in "playing properly" in these situations, even if it's clear he could win the next turn or two out.
At 16 min mark Owen plays a pack rat with 2 land open, sam has rapid hydrid. Then Owen quickly plays a third land so he can make a guy. Could sam have killed the rat before Owen played the land and therefore no copies? Nub here , could be wrong.
No, as after Pack Rat resolves, Owen maintains priority. As you cannot respond to the playing of a land, there would be no point when Sam could cast a spell and Owen had 2 mana.
It's the same with planeswalkers. You can't Hero's Downfall a 'walker after it's just entered unless the player has passed priority (and most planeswalkers abilities still work even if they're off the board, so they'll get 1 activation, unless they're silly and activate something else before the walker...)
There are decks that exist that beat these decks. Here is the problem. When these pro players plan for the tournament they must decide whether or not the meta will shift to decks designed to beat these. That means making your matchups against other deck types weaker. They are always playing the field and not the individual matchup, and with all of their "buddies", who are also pros testing with them, no one wants to get off the more powerful deck on a chance they can beat these two.
