Gem or jank: Ulamog stompy

Ok, also I thought you were going to yell at me for plugging my youtube account. Tbh I'm still very new on my youtube journey and I always leave a link to the site in my descriptions.

Using the tag system as a secondary option will reinforce your odds in other ways.

Links are a cool way of doing it and some users in here does so in very neat looking ways, usually they add 5-6 links at the bottom of a deck description.

Both systems are very similar, but I think the use of tags is somehow attracting people who wants to make a difference. People that copy/paste a link to visit it, are slightly more lazy than someone who does the effort of typing in a tag, so I believe that those attracted with tags are willing to do more than just clicking a button.

I've been creating content on forums forever.
I remember reading the dojo.com, but the first site I joined was bdominia.com, which was also closed, so I joined phyrexia.com and when that closed I moved here.

I mainly posted about computersimulations and evolution on phyrexia.com

In here my focus is still evolution, but I write up articles about things I discover during the process, which often gives me the basis for writing a lot of stuff.

It's usually pretty complicated, but I try to back it up with statistics whenever I can.

I also exploit that I'm ancient and ornamental by writing about which parts of the past players should try out with some of their new stuff.

I'm pretty sure that I could provide you with a couple of gem or jank episodes.

One idea I like to spread is halfdecks.

If you build 10 half decks (30 cards) with the intent of shuffling two random halves together, then you will be able to shuffle them together in 49 different combinations.

search for the decktag: a-half
I've prepared 10 absolute starter decks for arena players there.

Back when I invented the concept I began to split pro decks with the intent of being able to play an extreme number of hybrid decks.

Maybe you could use this concept as well.

In the past a lot more users used the decktag: halfdeck

That's a good idea ill look into that more.

There are many ways to do it.
I started out selecting the strongest ideas for a few decks and will try to equal the power level of each deck some day. The overall goal is to increase the synergy between all deck halves.

Part of the original idea was to create a fun package of decks that could be sold at larger tournaments.
I'd demonstrate the way it worked, and had written decklists to help out the first time user.

I would also advice them to use the same color/motive of sleeves to make shuffling a lot easier.

You could also remove all the lands, shuffle everything together and play it as a cube deck.

Saw the video on this one, nice 5-0

What is your take on "in search of greatness" ?
Most of the other tubers seem to dislike it, but since you've played with it, what can you say about it ?

I love the card myself, I think it’s under rated. They stack so if you had 4 on the field your scrying 4 every turn, you can build a midrange deck around it because it allows you to play for free something from your had (spell or creature) for one more then you have in play. I think it will get its due soon enough once people realize how busted the card is.

Over the years I've had the same thoughts "one day they will see the power" but in general people only see the most popular tricks and respond to them.

I've thought about how "isog" could be played as a superior scry engine in a deck almost without permanents. The power of scrying each turn could be extremely powerfull.

I've been waiting for a long time to see it pop up in some ultimatum decks, but no ones figured that out yet :)

True, most people (and myself before) usually just play other people’s decks. There’s nothing wrong with that, myself I just got bored with playing meta decks so in yugioh terms I started looking for rouge decks. Decks that no one sees coming and can compete or beat the meta decks. I want to be one of the people who finds the broken synergies but I know I’m a long way off right now lol.

I can help you at that. I've trained at least two people to become pro level, and though I usually do this face to face, I see no reason why it couldn't be done by text.

The brain is amazingly good at being trained in whatever you want it to be good at, and training it to see what cards become the best cards in magic is actually quite easy, but it demands time and concentration.

You also have to learn how R&D creates cards with the very purpose of giving you cards that are very hard to break.
They constantly have to flirt with creating what becomes overpowering and what becomes just a small craze.

My own skill in reading them is high enough that I can discover what cards are "set-walking" you see sometimes when they create a set, they work on a lot of cards, and if something turns out to be broken within their own testers, they sound the alarm, and put the card on a halt. They can then either try to rush the design, which usually mean the card can become a broken one, or they can switch it out with an interesting card from the next set, which has been fixed early. That means two cards sort of switches place in the set, and if you develope a sense of feeling the flavor of sets you can actually spot those.

Then there are the cards that R&D prints on purpose to manipulate you into buying lots of cards from the next set.
They take a card and create a theme for it, like toski, from kaldheim, then by having made it close to broken they know people have it in mind for a few sets, then they cast the hook, line and sinker by abusing that you have the card stored in mind. Two sets later we got squirrel tribes.

The entire system built up to lure you into buying can be hacked when you are aware of it.

You can train yourself to see the "natural" rhythm they use and see beyond the hype.

You just have to know what to train for.

First during spoiler season, make as many observations as you can, track down everybody else's oppinion and try to see the whole picture. The cards that everyone spots are the hype. R&D will have invested a serious amount in making these as close to broken as possible. Hype cards will be hyped, then forgotten, your chances of breaking these are low. Your energy is best spent on the cards that very few people notice and hype just a little, these cards are the most valuable to spot, because someone within R&D has spent enough energy in them to sneak them below the radar. They are likely to be cards they want to play for themselves or that they've made for a friend.

Search for the decktag: flame rift
Click on my deck "things just got neo-retro"
You will find some of my speculations on future sets there.

As well as a conspiracy that someone in R&D is following my posts and printing cards based on my work...

I agree you need to have the sense of what’s pack filler and what’s worth investing in. I usually try and look at things in a vacuum, what’s the cards floor and it’s ceiling.

I try to guess what decks the cards are assigned to.
Also for each powerfull mechanic R&D prints an anti card, so I always keep my eyes out on those.

I may have forgotten to tell one thing about mtgvault, there are a couple of trolls in here, one of them made my reputation -800, and they frequently post trash decks to block everyone from finding each others posts.
It's usually those that doesn't answer, put on tags or add descriptions.

Rather than trying to guess who's a troll or not, the easy way to teach people about how to be a good community is to add it at the end of the description.

User: muktol has written a nice article.
Search for the deckname: why you should add description

You can then copypaste the link and keep it somewhere to add it to your decks.

I'm tracking down a number of old articles to do this myself.

Ok will do