Some league stuff and Umewhatever's Jitte

[Margalis]

I was watching some tournament replays and I saw the jitte in action for the first time...WTF is with this card? It's so obviously horribly overpowered. I can understand a card like ravager or even skullclamp getting through, because at least they aren't incredibly straightforward. The Jitte is basically "do some combat damage and you win." It's funny to see people playing Pithing Needle and Kusari-Whatever (+1/+2 and destroy equip) just to counteract it.
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So I reinstalled Magic after some time away, turns out I had quit halfway through a league or 2 so I had some boosters lying around, with pretty good cards in them. (Rude Awakening among other things) I joined a Kamigawa league and basically got my ass kicked. I have NO idea what to do with these cards, other than wait for next week and hope I get something.

White is probably my best color, with some decent Bushido guys, cage of hands and Shining Shoal. It's certainly my deepest. Problem is with white I have no win conditions, no evasion, no real tricks. Green is the next deepest but again no evasion, no tricks, and pretty average as far as cost effeciency. Black, blue and red each have maybe 4 or so playable cards.

I don't have any cards or card combinations that say "win" to me. Not a lot of synergy either, doesn't look like many tricks I can come up with with arcane splicing or spirits or whatever. Unless I get some good suggestions I'm just going to hold off playing for a week or two.


----
1,Æther Shockwave
1,Akki Avalanchers
1,Akki Underling
1,Ashen-Skin Zubera
1,Blessing of Leeches
1,Bushi Tenderfoot
1,Cage of Hands
1,Call to Glory
1,Callous Deceiver
1,Consuming Vortex
1,Cut the Earthly Bond
1,Dampen Thought
1,Deathknell Kami
1,Devoted Retainer
1,Devouring Rage
1,"Erayo, Soratami Ascendant"
1,First Volley
23,Forest
1,Gnarled Mass
1,Goblin Cohort
1,Harbinger of Spring
1,Hearth Kami
1,Honden of Life's Web
1,"Inner Calm, Outer Strength"
2,Inner Fire
6,Island
1,Joyous Respite
1,Junkyo Bell
1,Kagemaro's Clutch
1,Kami of Fire's Roar
1,Kami of Lunacy
1,Kami of Old Stone
1,Kami of the Waning Moon
1,Kami of Twisted Reflection
1,Kashi-Tribe Elite
1,Kitsune Blademaster
1,Kitsune Diviner
1,Kitsune Loreweaver
1,Kodama's Reach
1,Lava Spike
1,Moonwing Moth
6,Mountain
1,Nezumi Cutthroat
1,Oni of Wild Places
1,Order of the Sacred Bell
1,Orochi Eggwatcher
1,Orochi Ranger
1,Pain Kami
1,Phantom Wings
1,Pinecrest Ridge
1,Pious Kitsune
23,Plains
1,Promised Kannushi
1,Psychic Puppetry
1,Psychic Spear
1,Rag Dealer
1,Reach Through Mists
1,Reito Lantern
1,Rend Spirit
1,River Kaijin (premium)
1,Ronin Cliffrider (premium)
1,Sakura-Tribe Elder
1,Sensei Golden-Tail
1,Serpent Skin
1,Shining Shoal
1,Spiritual Visit
1,Stream of Consciousness
6,Swamp
1,Swirl the Mists
1,Takeno's Cavalry
1,Teardrop Kami
1,Terashi's Verdict
1,Thoughtbind
1,Traproot Kami
1,Unnatural Speed
1,Villainous Ogre
1,Waking Nightmare
1,Waxmane Baku
1,Wear Away

[Strazos]

Sigh, I wish I knew how to play in a league or whatever....sounds like fun.

[Margalis]

To play in a league just go to the "Leagues" area off the main page. (From the expert view in M:TGO) There are a bunch of different types you can join, like Kamigawa, 8th, etc. The idea is you start the first week with some cards (which you have to buy) then the next week you get another booster, next week another, final week one last one. Over the course of those 4 weeks yuo play 20 matches (plus tiebreaks) and your final won/loss determines what you win.

It's a pretty long-lasting, cheap way to have some fun.

[Merusk]

You're running into the same problem I did in both Kami leagues I played.   I noticed, though, that a lot of folks in them just quit half way through and every single person i played (and I'm not exaggerating here) had a jitte or that damned dragon/ sword artifact.  They just kept shuffling through their decks until they got it out, and bam, they won.   I'm beginning to suspect it's just the set itself that sucks so hard.  Or maybe I'm just rationalizing my suckage.

Either way, I'd say just avoid the Kami leagues. They're pure ass.

[Xilren's Twin]

You're running into the same problem I did in both Kami leagues I played.   I noticed, though, that a lot of folks in them just quit half way through and every single person i played (and I'm not exaggerating here) had a jitte or that damned dragon/ sword artifact.  They just kept shuffling through their decks until they got it out, and bam, they won.   I'm beginning to suspect it's just the set itself that sucks so hard.  Or maybe I'm just rationalizing my suckage.

Either way, I'd say just avoid the Kami leagues. They're pure ass.

Personally, I can't wait for the 9th leagues.  If I see you online Margalis ill play with some of my Kami Leagues deck for kicks.  It not a great block.

Xilren

[Margalis]

One thing I will say is that I think I got spoiled by Mirrodin since there are so many artifacts, your card pool is deeper. In Kami I have 5 colors, only 2 of which are deep and they don't work well together or have any bombs. In Mirrodin where half the cards are artifacts making a deck to take advantage of your good stuff is a lot easier.

A lot of Kami games seem to be a stalemate of creatures without many win conditions.

Edit: When I'm online I am usually on after 9 EST. I pretty much only play leagues, I don't have to cards to do much else or th knowledge to do drafts. (Although I did win the only draft I did)

[eldaec]

Jitte escaped the ban because it's fine in standard; it can't really have an effect till turn 4 and MDF contains tonnes of artifact hate. Of course, in kami block that doesn't help any. And in 9th/Kami/Ravnica standard its also likely to play merry hell.

Side note : according to the article on the official site yesterday, every single kami block PTQ winner so far has run at least 3 copies of Jitte. If analysis competed by some guy on the boards is correct,the first 144 top 8 decks in block PTQs contained 427 Jittes. The next most popular card was STE, with only 168 copies.

Conclusion, just suck it up, in kami constructed you must main deck 4x jitte hate (wear away, hearth kami, or terashi's grasp) unless you have a reliable win by turn 3, and preferably a few jitte yourself. In limited... /shrug

Mirrodin, which does suck all kinds off ass in constructed, actually makes a better league environment than Kami imo. And it's easier to win prizes in mirrodin because of the smaller number of entrants.

[Margalis]

I found Mirrodin leagues pretty fun, because there were a lot of different decks you could end up with - lots of different cards and strategies to build around and often the games didn't just turn into a stalemate. You might have the guy who had Beacon of Creation, a guy with some nice equipment, a guy with white flyers, a Molder Slug artifact hating deck, aggro + removal, etc. Most Kami games just feel the same to me, like there aren't enough different bomb cards or strats to take advantage of.

I think one issue is that aggro in Kami is really weak in limited play. Bushido doesn't help aggro because it doesn't add to the actual damage you do when you get through, and sprits with soulshift are all overcosted as far as power/toughness. If you compare Mirrodin the good aggro cards were a lot more cost efficient. (Sliths, white flyers, things like Karstoderm, etc)

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The Jitte is just silly. I really how the playtest these cards. It gets TWO counters a turn, on any kind of combat damage, and can pump a guy up or kill a guy and prevent them from regererating, and it can be moved onto different creatures. It's seriously broken. How in the world these things could sneak through is beyond me. Ravager at least was a combination of artifact lands, affinity and other things. I understand missing good card combinations, as Ravager itself is just OK. But Jitte doesn't require a deck built around it or any card combination. If you have creatures, it's always great. Just like Skullclamp. There shouldn't be any card that you add to ANY deck to just make that deck better without fail.

The fact that both Clamp and Jitte are equipment makes me think they have to be a bit more careful with that.

[schild]

I grabbed a Beckett's Magic Guide at work (1st issue was just released). Had some neat articles. BUt more interestingly, it had the top cards in MTGO priced inbetween Market and Auction and was fairly accurate. Anyway - the only thing more expensive than Jitte was Pithing Needle. Which, ironically, is the only card that cheaply and efficiently ruins their existance.

Fucking Wizards. Someone on their staff is a munchkin. Old-skool style.

[Strazos]

Someone wanna explain "aggro" to the newb? 

[Margalis]

Aggro is just aggressive. Typically an aggro deck tries to outrace the opponent. Hit them early and often.

The problem with aggro decks is they tend to run small creatures and can lose steam after a while. For example you might play the Legendary 2/2 dog for 1 cc and get in a few hits, but then they get some blockers out.

A good aggro deck will get some damage done up front then have some sort of win condition. It may be a lot of evasion, a card that makes guys unblockable, something like Devouring Greed, etc. Aggro decks typically have some removal so they can get rid of the first blocker or two you put down.

Aggro is good in Kami because the Jitte is so good, among other reasons. It can act as removal, or shorten the game by puping up creatures considerably.

Some aggro deck will have some neat tricks to shorten the game, like playing Jinxed Choker that effectively cuts down the life totalts of both players. Some will also run disruption. Discard, Dusk Drinker, Armageddon, etc are all good examples of disruption. Basically you want to get the hits in fast then win the game by either conitinuing the hits via disruption, removal and evasion, or by pulling an ace out of your sleeve to get in that last bit of damage.

Aggro is different than "beats" because beats decks usually are slower and have larger creatures. In aggro decks you will see guys like Savanah Lion, the Legendary Hounds, Hand of Honor and Hand of Cruelty, Nezmi Cutthroat, etc.

[Strazos]

Then what's the difference between that and something like one of those little red haste decks, speed decks, or burn decks? (pretty sure burn is a lot of DD, right?)

[eldaec]

Red haste is an example of aggro - meaning you cast low cost red creatures (which the colour pie tells us are likely to have haste - and so can attack on the turn they are cast) to kill off your opponent before they get enough mana to cast their more powerful spells.

Burn is a deck based around spells to do direct damage to creatures and the opposing player.

[Raging Turtle]

I think understanding the basic rock-paper scissors dynamic of magic is crucial to improving your (nonspecific your) game. 

In tournment level constructed, there are three fundamental kinds of decks:  Aggro, Control, and Combo. 

Aggro is generally creature-based beatdown, with the occasional Direct Damage decks.  You can think of Mono-red Goblin decks from OLS as a fairly typical "Aggro" aggro deck - lots of small, fast, power-efficient creatures:  Gobling Piledriver, Goblin Warchief, Savannah Lions.  Even cards like Raging Goblin and Goblin sledder become good in this kind of deck.  Jackal Pup, a card that many new players think is horrible ("It does damage to me?  WTF?"), is considered a big mistake by Wizards because it is so damn good in a red deck with a little bit of burn to clear any blockers.

There's also 'beatdown' aggro, which uses larger creatures, and often some other way to get damage through, such as repeatable damage like Pulse of the Forge.  Arc-slogger is a great example of a beatdown card.

Combo is combo.  These decks usually ignore the other player until they can 'go off'.  Mind's Desire decks and other storm decks are combo decks.  Tooth and Nail is considered a combo deck, even if the combo comes from just one card.  And I'm having trouble trying to think of anything else to say about combo decks.

Control comes in a few different variations.  Most people think of control as Blue counterspell decks, which try to counter all threats until they have enough mana to drop their kill card - something like Morphling or, more currently, Meloku or Keiga.  There's also Mono-black control, which typically wins with a combination of disruption, mass-creature kill, and some threat FTW - Personally, I like Nantuko Shades with Cabal Coffers for my mono-black control.  There's a few other kinds but that's the general idea - kill/counter everything, drop big threat, win. 

It usually goes that Combo beats Aggro, Aggro beats Control, and Control beats Combo.  But a lot of the tier 1 decks are so good because they combine two of these styles.

 Raffinity with Ravager is a good example two-type deck, Aggro and Combo.  Ravager was a very good Aggro deck, but if you were good, or lucky, it was possible to survive the initial attack.  Problem was that Ravager could then switch into combo mode by dropping a Disciple of the Vault (which the good players always held until they wanted to go off) and then just suck your remaining life away while you sat there helpless.  Very few decks that could survive the initial attack also had the ability to stop the DotV-ravager duo.  If you did design a deck that could stop both, it tended to lose to every other deck in the field.

A Combo-Control example is Psychatog- as a black/blue control deck, it was nasty, with a nice variety of counters and creature kill to keep the board clear of threats until it could safely drop a 'tog.  But if things went badly - not enough counters in hand, etc. - it had the nigh-unstoppable Upheaval-Psychatog combo that usually ended the game the next turn.   

Limited games- sealed and draft- are almost always just creature-based beatdown. 

Ok.  Enough of that.     Anything else I should do an impromptu lecture on?

why he is hitting the horse in the crotch?

[Strazos]

Yeah - Why is Meloku so good? I have a few, and have tried using her...and I don't like it. Sure, she can make nice little flying tokens, but I lose much-needed lands to do so. Hmm...

[Raging Turtle]

Meloku is good because HE fits in perfectly with Control's strategy. 

1.  Only has a single blue in the casting cost.  This makes him easy to use in blue-green decks, which can get a lot of land on the table.
2..  He only costs 5 mana.   For a serious threat, that's good, considering a heavy blue control deck wants to leave as many islands untapped as possible, so it can cast counters or just bluff that it can cast counterspells.  For a blue control deck to tap out completely is very dangerous (Boil, untargetable creatures, etc.).
3.  Makes tokens at instant speed.  This means blockers can be made during the opponent's attack phase, as opposed to during the main turn when they're more vulnerable.  More importantly, it means attackers can be made during the end phase of the opponents turn, which not only lets them avoid sorceries like wrath and that they can avoid 'summoning sickness', but it means that the control player can leave his islands unused for as long as possible to cast that counter/card draw if he needs to.
4.  By the time a player plays Meloku, it should already be turn 7+, and by that point the control player should have control of the game or be dead.  If things are still undetermined, he probably won't cast Meloku.   Losing one land a turn at that point isn't a problem to make a blocker or two.  Later the player can make 5-10 at once to end things quickly. 

Trying to cast and use Meloku in the early game is death, because, as you said, you lose those much-needed lands.  Meloku, and control decks, are designed for the long game.

[Strazos]

AH cool.

Is there anything called a Magitard? You know, like a retard, but MAGIC?

[Kitsune]

Kami has some fun things in it.  I like the ninjas just for the sake of ninjaness, their trick isn't very powerful on its own but it can lead to some really fun dirty tricks if things are done in the right order.  I like the cards that have synergies with spirits and arcane cards, which can also turn out really cool effects.  I didn't expect to like the block at all, I was rather disgusted with the abrupt Japanese theme thrown into the game, but it grew on me.

Ironically, I love Magic for mechanics and combos, but hate single-card 'I win' combos.

[Strazos]

Ironically, I love Magic for mechanics and combos, but hate single-card 'I win' combos.

 

[eldaec]

This...



...seems to suddenly be getting more play than pithing needle as Jitte-hate.

I guess it makes sense, since this can also kill any other equipment to hit the board, including another manriki. And of course it pumps where pithing needle does not.