This is going to be fun. Can't play them yet though, hopefully some on Thursday.

I played 4 decks yesterday for 5 games each and the best performer was the fog energy burn which despite lacking any sweeper did very well at ticking down the oppos life while blocking combat damage. It would fold instantly to life gain decks though and a full on burn deck might win the race.

The Willbreaker control also worked better than expected, and although a bit too slow overall the flameshadowed red hulk was awesome

Fixed with Barney's names, hope they are fine now.

Thanks!! I started building them last night. Ugh it takes forever to build. 15 minutes each

My strategy with the deck builder is to only select one color at a time and then add all the cards that have that color then move to the next, should only take 5 mins per deck

There must be a balance when using the filter.

My 1st strategy was this;
I would filter only the colours I was using, and then the casting costs. I'd then go from left to right and add the cards as they came up. This takes 15 minutes.

My next strategy was this:
I would use ALL the filters for each card that comes up. If the next card is telling time, I would filter to blue, instant, casting cost 1-2. This works really well for non-creature spells. But this still takes way too long and goes about 15 minutes.

My latest strategy is this:
I still do my 2nd strategy but if the next two-three cards have something in common, I adapt the filters to include both. Like if the next two cards are telling time and harnessed lightning, i set filters to blue, red, instant, 1-2 casting cost. This is slightly faster.

Darkshoque, I think your strategy is probably best. The problem is that often I don't know what many of the cards are (especially for contests like this. Aether Poisoner?!? Wtf is that?). So i end up missing a ton of cards by the end and notice that i'm at 53 cards or something.

Also, If anyone has built a deck with over 60 cards, I'm very likely to miss it cuz typically once I hit 60 cards, I assume I'm done.

anyway, i need to find the right balance of using the filter. It takes SO long to make decks.

If a deck is ever 3+ colors, I do the Gem route, which is searching for each specific card with the filters individually.

Like Rec Sage, "okay, green, uncommon, 2-3, creature" and then next. It's surprisingly effective to make sure you don't skip past anything and never need to double back.

yeah the doubling back is frustrating.

One good thing about these contests is that many decks are same-y so I can duplicate the builds and then just tweak

I have a "trick" that saves me some time, especially when I missed a card. I just remove the card already in the deck with the closest cc and then add it back, the editor jumps close to what I'm looking for. Especially useful for switching colors.
It's really dumb that you can't choose just 2cc or 3cc in the filter...

lol, yeah why wouldn't they make individual filters for each card cost?! It's extremely simple and makes it much easier to filter.

Why wouldn't they just add a f*cking text search? It's 2017! If a third party app for deck building can manage it, you'd think an actual game developer could manage it.

But then you remember the developer is Stainless

Yeah, basic Builder Foo haha...I seriously use all the little tricks, I almost build more than play, after all

How many years away are we from being able to voice search for cards you think?

"Chandra, find me Thopter Engineer"

"one moment.... looking for Whopper Manageer...

"No, No... Chandra, cancel. Find me Stainless Headquarters address, then find me homemade explosive components"

You do realize you have just been flagged by the NSA, CIA, FBI, MOSSAD and Canadian secret service (or whatever they're called) for that Last line right?

It's the C.I.Eh, obviously.

To whom it may concern, I hear Barney hides his ill gotten materials in his rectum. Elbow deep

Built all last night (took about an hour ), and started my round 1 of testing - single game goldfish vs AI. Was hoping to get a game in with all 7, but they all play pretty slow and I was only able to game decks #1-4.

G1: Classic Bant Flicker. Pretty much only drew elvish visionaries, rec sages, Aether Harvester, and blink spells. And land. Boatloads of land. That was enough to cruise to a fairly easy victory. No real surprises, except perhaps that it handled business with so little power on the board (basically harvester did all the offensive work).

G2: Revolting Esper. Got stuck on 3 lands for much of the game, but that was enough to buy a lot of time until I could finally draw my 4th and start playing some of the 4cmc cards I had been holding the whole time. Didn't draw any flicker spells, but did a lot of Revolt. Trinketeer, Stockpiles, and servo tokens did much of the offensive work, and when I was finally able to play Tezzeret, his -2 removed obstacles to victory. Was impressed by how much I was able to do with only 3 Land.

G3: Grixis Gearhulks. Kept a questionable hand with 2 Gearhulks and 3 land rather than mull to 6, then drew the 3rd Gearhulk a few turns later. Was able to squeak out survival with instant speed removals and chump blockers until I hit 6 mana and started dropping Gearhulks. I drew several blink spells, and flickering Gearhulks allowed me to stabilize at 5 life then bounce back to victory with close to 20 life thanks to an oft flickered Gearhulk. Struggled in the early game, but the raw power of flickering Gearhulks was fun and impressive.

G4: Temur Fog Tower. I was behind in most of this game, but battled hard and was able to cast and recur enough Fog effects (thanks to Gearhulk) that I was able to eventually stabilize and win with 2-3 life (something dangerously low like that). This game was a lot of fun in that I really had to work hard to pull it off, but the deck had what I needed when I needed it. Maybe the most entertaining match of the play session. Misplayed a time or two thanks to getting tilted by poor UI (at one point I was trying to view an exiled card to re-read its effect and the damn game kept pulling my cursor away when something would happen on the board - then later I was trying to tap Hubs for colorless to cast a spell so I wouldn't be forced to spend energy to cast a follow up blink spell, but I got antsy with how long it was taking to cycle away from burning energy on Hubs and accidentally tapped all the blue mana I needed for the blink follow up...), but the AI repaid the favor by making a terrible choice on its last play to allow me victory (prob would still have won a turn later tho).

Of the 4 games, the one that won most comfortably was Classic Bant Flicker. The game that was most fun for me was also the most challenging (why it was fun): Temur Fog Tower. My game with Grixis Gearhulk had the most spectacular finish, and my game with Revolting Esper had the biggest change of impression when watching replay - really impressed by how much I was able to do with 3 land, tho at the time of play I was annoyed by the land issue and not feeling great about it (not drawing any flicker spells).

Twitch of play session:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/125424350

With regards to the deck building/searches: Most folks post their lists by cost so I tend to use that to sort by. Sort by cost, color and then just swap the remaining filters as necessary (creature, instant etc) until that cost is done and then move onto the next cost. I agree though, there's no reason to lump 2 and 3 together any more especially when (I believe?) it is one of the larger card counts for our pool (I could be mistaken but I'm also not going to take the time to count either to confirm). When they took the time to create a new filter system, they should have separated those two costs.


elk

Awww...and all got another Medal for Participation and an ice cream...



No, no, no...if we all are gonna transmit live our impression, let's try to add some salt to the concoction

Tried already 2 decks, several games each...I prefer to go one by one, so building them isn't so boring, and also that let's me get a better feel

Grixis Flameshadow

Loved the idea, excited to play it...but the build is a little mess, imo.

Flameshadow decks are, in my experience, as good/powerful as their cheap creatures are, with a focus on ETB effects.

This deck hasn't any cheap ETB/powerful creature...the first one remotely that are just 3 Weaponcrafts, at 3 CC
There isn't even enough cheap artifacts to make Fireweavers and Kingpins useful in the early game, which is particularly painful with the Kingpins, whom main function should be early scry

So this deck needs its 4, 5, 6 drops to start doing anything (well, except if you draw the Copters...because not even Harversters are there) the mana curve is quite high with 6 x 4 CC and another 4 x 5 CC ones + 2 x 6 CC more...but at the same time if you have the FC on the field, you need to hold 1 mana reserved...

All this is made even worse by the mana...you need in this build to cast Whirlers or P&K on t4, to start doing something...but you have only 14 U and R sources, when the optimal for that would be 18, and the bare minimum 16
24 lands is really low for a FC deck heavy on bombs, I'd say...more so with those color demands

The build has nice things like B.EXp into Whirler or P&K, or the potentially hasted/flickered Hulks...but overall, it felt way too ambitious to me...slow, mana starved and without the tools to allow itself those luxuries

Negative record against both AI and in the ladder, doesn't pass to semis, which is a pity cause I liked the idea a lot

Temur Fog Burn

This one worked better than expected...it's true that you need to focus the Towers into creature control for a bunch of turns, but once you start to draw your cheap ETB critters, you somehow stabilize...and if you draw the big guns then...well, Towers and even the Turret proved to be faster in burning the opponent than what I though, nice

Tends to go quite low on life before taking control, but manages it.
Some minor problems, like way to many Mages for the (good) 3 CC artifact count, no Harversters in a build with Energy and low power critters ( why??!!) no Sage playing a Bellower...

Refiners and the Whale totally overperformed, MVP of the deck

Now, my favourite part...the Red splash for...2 x Fall of the Titans, of all things!!...it's some kind of weird meta joke, isn't it? You did that to laugh at your own poor Torrential, admit it...the first spooky mystery of the contest, which I hope gets resolved, because I find a tad hard to really like a build that splashes a color, no less, for something tiny and absurd...in this case, it would be a relief to be corrected, and explained the awesomeness of FotT in this build...pretty please?

Slightly positive record against AI, late slight win against humans, facing horribles match-ups...could pass to semis, let's see how the others perform...btw, I'll play and try to give a fair evaluation my own build, without saying it is it, obviously

Good games. In the last game, I think you should've attacked with the Whale on the second last turn, bounce it with the 4 energy, and then replay it to get 6 energy back. Then you have a blocker up in case he was able to tutor up a haste creature.