wickeddarkman

Okay, I've evolved the deck far enough to state that it only needs 22 lands to work, and might go down to 21.
Compared with the other scapeshif decks they usually have 36 lands, and go down as low as 28 lands with bring to light and down to 26 lands with GR versions.

I wonder how my version got down to such a low count.
Is explore + Treefolk harbinger really that powerfull ?

I think I will start digging a little around to see what the other people use as keycards.
I might be able to create room enough in the deck for a serious amount of eldrazi.

Human societies are built upon social hierarchy where status opens the gates for you while being nothing opens no gates at all.

In magic, if you lose enough games in a tournament you end up in the loser bracket, and most pro players just drop out rather than hanging out with "lesser players" they then either go home or hang out near the winners to study from what happens there.

I don't mind hanging out in the lower bracket myself because I like to teach magic to those with less skills.
The majority of players in the loser bracket have been spoon feed with the concept that winning isn't everything.
Anyone in the loser bracket can pack up and go back to their ordinary lives.

You can't do that in real life.

If you do not fight for a higher status, you will be in lifes loser bracket, and theres no way out of that except climbing the ladder or kill yourself. It's a harsh truth, and I do understand the need to mother and comfort those on the bottom by saying that winning doesn't matters, but what you do then, is strangling their initiative to strive towards greatness and become someone out of the ordinary.

Tribute to hunger was actually a long time favorite for evolution before I presented it with far//away.
The cards is less effective in some matchups, but it's efficiency is also based on the rest of your removal.
It's a highly specialised card that can be extremely good.

You take out the small stuff with other removal and then you take out the big stuff with it.
It also shines in games where the opponent have untargetables. (Like in bogles or infect)

My decks usually contained one or two so it wouldn't be crippling against decks that it wasn't good against.

Search for the decktag: wdm shrieker

That's my tag for the deck that I've evolved the most with evolution.
I think shrieker update v3 might be most detailed.

2 [[shriekmaw]]
1 [[angrath's rampage]]
1 [[dreadbore]]
1 [[kefnet's last word]]
1 [[Pyroclasm]]
2 [[Dead // gone]]
1 [[far // away]]
2 [[izzet charm]]
3 [[kolaghan's command]]
1 [[wrecking ball]]
2 [[seal of fire]]
1 [[the akroan war]]

That's all the removal in that deck.
As you can see the only card evolution really have a fix on is kolaghan's command, but all spells are in the deck with very definite purposes, nothing is really in excess.

One of the more astonishing things is that it can take out 18 weenie creatures, which is the exact recommend number of wotc to beginners. Might be a coincidence though.

Dead // gone was introduced at a time when the deck was tested a lot against grissel-shoal (reanomator deck) but doesn't leave the deck because it still buys some time in some games against big creatures.

When testplaying all cards shine against specific targets and are mediocre against other decks.

Notice how few cards are truly dead against a creature les deck
(Also note that some of the cards are good on my own creatures)

Since I've been a programmer too and one with radical thoughts, I've always believed in AI.
At the time when people were trying to break manacurves I actually went head to head against a new generation of programmers and defeated their algorithms time after time. I was so good at it that someone hacked into my account to change the numbers that I wrote during contest. (At that time I printed out everything I wrote and put in in archives at my home, so I could see what had been altered)

I had plenty of theories on how to build the way the AI could work, and I still have some.
I even cracked how to create colored manacurves (most curves back then was just monocolored for the ease) and still remember how I would set it up.

I also had plenty of plans on how to set things up so the simulator would be able to start playing blindly and then become better after millions of generations. I even wanted to give it an attention span so it would try to end infinite loops if it got into one.

If you have any background with programming I could take you through some of it.


Regarding competitiveness.
Since I've got a friend who is at champion I can tell that the training towards a tournament can be really intense.
I've usually had to proxy every deck in the format he wanted to take on, and then we would simulate tournaments based on the statistical rates until we identified the bad matchups, and then we would focus on them until his brew beat them well enough, and we'd start over with the tournaments.

This guy is in it to win, because he knows he can win. He's good enough to know that the training we go through is basically a confidence boost and a way to cover any surprises that might become suddenly popular.

The training is mentally at Olympics level, and he also covers the diet making sure his brain doesn't go cold.

He prepares his body too, because after all, the brain is sort of stuck in a body with chemicals that flow between the body and the brain. When one unit doesn't work well, the other follows it into ruin, so he trains intensely before tournaments to be in shape, and he does it with the same intent of winning.

So it's more like this, magic is an Olympic event where anyone can participate for a small fee, but it's still those with an extreme winning mentality that gets to the high tables.

Dedwards:
I've just become aware that an alternate version of my paperstrip method has managed to spread out through the magic community since 2017 and have had a rekindling in 2020.

I know that you tried your hand at it around 2017 or earlier.

Someone started using the concept of the deck core and changed the name of blank cards into flex cards, and it seems that since 2017 the idea has spread out and mutated. User: theswarmer described to me how he used a notepad to note down possible cards to replace his flex cards (blank cards)

Did any of your friends join you in your own evolution projects ?

I've tried to track down the article that must have gotten deck cores to become a mainstream building tool.

Do you know anything ?

The thing is, I've been trying to get people to evolve decks almost forever, and then I hear you use a different phrase
Than I would have used, google it and discover that my project is suddenly everywhere :)

It's great news :)

I stumbled on someone named fluffywolf2 which describes a similar process than yours and mine, but using prison moon as the example.

I think that means that whoever started to spread a similar evolutionary tool got their inspiration from my two tags:
Wdm core build
Wdm prison

Except there are articles about deck cores and flex cards back to 2017, which is where I talked most about deck cores all the time. Dedwards tried out my paperstrips at that point, so someone might have seen him do it.

There seems to be so many articles out there now, which might lead to the final fall of copycats.
I did not see this comming.

Sure I've dreamed of it.

Now I just want to track down the article that is mainstreaming the process, so I can see what words I should have used :)

So far the only change in words about the technique is the change of "blank cards" into "flex cards". Flex is more positive as a word, so the person who did this probably flavoured it all in positive words.
It's a proven marketing trick :)

Also, theswarmer,
Where did you come across the concept of flex spot cards ?
It's a variation of my paperstrip method, but from what I've been able to google, it ties in with my deck core system.

That means that whoever has copied me, have started copying after I began describing deck cores.

Also, do you know how widespread the concept is, and do you have any links to a general outline?

I'd like to see what the others have innovated, because I got into all of this around 2006 where I started using "blank cards"

Having spent so much time on this, I'm pretty sure I can use some of their materials and my own to create a new more efficient shell.

I was in the middle of evolving an eldrazi ingest deck to test my evolution tool (paperstrips) when I got sidetracked by all the cool ramp cards from eldrazi :)

If you use scryfall as your card search engine you write either scion or spawn in the text field before hitting search.
Have a notepad ready there is a lot of them.

Theswarmer:
Flex spot cards is a nice name for how you do your stuff :)

The biggest edge I've gained from playing with my own paperstrips is the power to measure several cards through one.

If you made sure to have several different flex cards in your deck, like 1 dimir aqueduct, 1 watery grave and 1 downed catacombs you'd be able to measure a lot more accurate and in multiple directions. (One land could cover creatures, another could cover removal and the third could cover support type cards)

I like your version, it's simple and elegant, but can be expanded upon.

I've been wondering a lot recently about how I would run my own evolution project in arena where I wouldn't be able to slip paperstrips down any sleeves :)

The solution is to sort of build EDH style decks. A sheet of paper with 60 cardnames on it would make everything into a paperstrip/flexcard.

The fact that there is currently a lutri deck being played in arena would be a nice starting point for someone who would like to evolve their entire deck while having fun at playing at the same time. I know user alfred might give it a try as he plays in arena. The same process could be done in ordinary paper.

I started on building the scapeshift variant because I'm trying to revive focus on the ramp tech that the eldrazi offered. They were created as a ramp tribe but some unexpected choices gained all the focus instead, so I'm showing what could have been :)

Since dungrove is treefolk and ramp, and I knew eldrazi was ramp I'm trying to tie our two themes together.
[[Growth spasm]]

I've always wondered if slivers end up becoming the eldrazi.
Just like the phyrexians they cross a timeline with temporal distortions creating rifts to everywhere.
Both slivers and eldrazi share head plates and tentacles as a trait, and both are able to mimic other species.

Maybe 2 of the blue sliver that brings unblockable to the hive ?

Making a new format means you have to out think the format breakers.
Someone will always try to "cheat the system" so you have to start by being your own worst enemy.
Try breaking it in all possible ways.

From your perspective you probably want a fun and fair format with interesting tribes, but as soon as any format gains traction the "breakers" move in. They want to design that tribe which is so powerfull that it breaks down the format.

So to set up your rules you must try to crush your own format.
What if someone decides to play eldrazi ? They will have no problem building a deck with both eye of ugin and eldrazi temple, and the eldrazi were an absolute degenerate race even without those manaboosters.

How about the relentless rats + thrumming stone decks.

Or combo decks with about 38 relentless rats, surgical extraction and a killer combo.

Or how about combo decks that otherwise try to play around the creatures in weird ways, like some of the many cycle creatures must share some creature types. Control could use the same cheat, by playing lots of removal, not really playing creatures and winning some other way.

There will be lots of decks that try to break free from being creature decks, and there will be a lot of creative builds that tries to do it. You must test the limits you set by trying to see how far your can break them.

If I tell you that 18 creatures is the recommended number wotc tells new players to use, would that make you change
The number of creatures you are forced to play with ?

Pcf was an obvious decktag because tags use up to 11 characters, so pure creature format was too long.
I've spent long time building up my own tags for the purpose of easy reference. At any time where I'm talking with someone I can refer to many of my deck groupings by throwing up a tag.

Instead of opt, you could use [[overwhelmed apprentice]]

It is one thing to draw cards in magic, but an entirely different thing is WHAT you draw.
Card advantage is based on drawing so many cards that your opponent can't compete.
Card quality (known as generating value in arena) is about drawing enough good cards that your opponent can't compete.

Since winning with card advantage is inherently based on your overall card quality, the simple solution is to bet card quality alone.

Scry is a mechanic that increases card quality and overwhelmed apprentice is capeable of that, and more.

1: it's a decent blocker against aggro.
2: if your opponent scry on their turn, you can play apprentice and stop them from gaining card quality.
3: if you play it at turn 1 you may disable a combo deck by just being lucky.
4: if you play it at turn 1 you get information on what your opponent is playing so you get to plan ahead early.

I'm currently evolving an eldrazi scapeshift deck.
My aim has been to deliver a turn 4 kill as much as possible and I've been using treefolk harbinger and [[explore]] with
great success. When I got hands with many lands explore can be exceptionally explosive, having 8 lands open at turn 4 is actually possible.

Since treefolk harbinger can also search for treefolks it's very plausible that you can play a cc7 treefolk at turn 4.
It's more frequent to just have 6 mana at turn 4, meaning you could play harbinger and a 5cc treefolk at turn 4.

My current setup is based on killing primarily with scapeshift at turn 4, and if that fails to play huge eldrazi instead.
The prototype is still being adjusted and I'll post it once it's done, but I can recommend a setup with dryad of the elysium grove, explore, sakura tribe elder, search for tomorrow and treefolk harbinger.

Playstyle is one of magics most interesting aspects.

At some point in time I started analysing decklist on the web, and though almost all decklists can be pretty much the same builds over and over again I observed that people in general changed the mana of the decks, but not the rest of the decklists.

I remember being very puzzled by that peculiarity, until I realized that each player had been adjusting the deck to their own personal game style.

If a decklist would be rakdos with burn and discard, one player would put the importance on being able to play thoughtseize as early as possible, while another player would prefer to apply pressure with monastery swiftspear, and depending on how their gameplan is set up, the mana of the exactly same decklist would vary a lot.

So when you say there is a lot of ways to view it, I can only smile and agree.

For years I've been brewing with so many different tools, simulations and paperstrips, to make my decks better because I want to see them being played, but the downside is that my decks are then developed to fit the precise pattern that I would play them in, making them absolutely unplayable by others.

In around the 2018's I was playing a very versatile deck that caught the interest of some pro's and I sat down with them guiding them through how to play with a proxy of the exact same decklist.

None of them were able to imitate my playstyle despite me being guiding them through it.

One of the funniest moments were at the opening of a game, the deck was grixis colored and played a number of fetchlands, and one of the pro's cracked a fetchland at turn one, searched through the deck and then said "is there no watery graves in this ???"

The deck was adapted to playing bloodmoon, and one of my innovations had been design the deck as if it had turn 0 bloodmoon in play, and still be playable. That meant that all duals were red because then I'd only lose 1 color if moon was played. Watery graves was excluded from the deck because they lost two colors.

So yeah, I smile and agree :)

Thought scour is a proven card, he can run both strategies.
Think of it like this.
When cast, it "mills" two and put itself in the grave, totalling 3 cards in the grave. The card you drew will potentially be something that goes to the graveyard the next turn totalling 4 cards in the grave. So gurmag angler is usually a turn 3 happening with it.

Then theres the interaction with brainstorm. You brainstorm, putting the useless cards on top, then you thought scour them away, gaining card value.

[[Tribute to hunger]]

Since you do have two eldrazi builds, I'd like to remind you that there are two "eldrazi vampires" that can ramp.
[[Pawn of ulamog]] and [[carrier thrall]]

They play well with [[sifter of skulls]]

You might want to consider [[storm herald]] to abuse eldrazi conscription.