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Deckbox Forum » Posts by elpablo
I drew several sample hands using deckbox's utility and the curve seems off somewhere, but i'm not sure exactly where. It got more playable hands than unplayable ones though.
The 1 drops look bad if you can't play them turn 1 and with all the lands that come into play tapped IDK how that's going to work out. Turn 2 heral/mystic isn't nearly as good as turn 1. You'll have to play it and see.
I think i'd make getting the right lands a priority if you want to play the deck seriously.
I think armament corps is a half decent 5 drop. It's a 6/6 for 5 on an empty board which isn't bad.
I think herald fits your plan better, but in my opinion with the direction you're taking the deck, i'd look into including some ramp... turn 1 elvish mystic, turn 2 captain, into turn 3 4 drop plus drop from your captain. Otherwise you could play a tap land on turn 1 2 drop 3 drop and so on, to curve out.
If you got more pain lands (mana confluence, llanowar wastes) you could even drop anafenza on turn 3. In short start your curve at 2/3 with ramp in your 1/2 slots. I think the dragon is a good idea, it would also work if you had a little ramp to go with it.
You're fine, i get where you're coming from you want your theme to work and be cohesive, and I'm suggesting things out side of that theme. Sometimes the best cards and decks in magic don't follow a theme and i tend to recommend the best options available even if they're outside of someones theme.
My reasons for being adamant though are not because I think you're theme is flawed, but the underlying strategy behind it.
I'll respond a little more to make my case.
but I dont plan on paying 5 mana to drop anything ever in this deck.
Outside of standard this is possible, but you _cannot_ plan on always cheating a creature into play in this format. People will interrupt your plan and make life difficult for you. If you have a 5/6/7 mana card in your deck you better be able to cast it at a late point in the game and it better make impact. At some point you will spend 5 mana to cast a 5 mana spell, or you will hold it in your hand way past the point of it having a meaningful impact on the game. I don't know any MTG player worth their salt that would disagree with my statement here.
Another reason why this particular card is out of place in this deck. At 5 mana you're paying for a 2/3 body, yes it has a bolster effect, but that's irrelevant at the moment. Your 5 mana gets beat by 2 mana (lightning strike), 3 mana (savage knuckle blade) and 4 mana (polukranos) and many many more spells. if the scalegaurd is targeting itself then you could lose the creature and the effect. Bolster as a mechanic is bad... for a number of reasons, but mainly because the board state dictates the target of the ability and your opponent can manipulate that board state to their favor.
The strategy for a mid-range deck that plays removal is to play large impactful value oriented creatures, because your deck slots can only hold so many threats and you plan to manage the board in your favor. As long as your dude beats their dude you can hold removal for larger threats. It's a very simple strategy but very effective, but in order to work you _have_ to play the best cards available to you.
Incremental card advantage plays a huge part. Which is why lots of abzan decks also play mana ramp, and plenty of scry effects. Ramping into a turn 3 seige rhino is a big play. Caryatids also gum up the board against small dorks and tokens letting you save your removal for bigger fish or more value in the case of bile blight.
By comparison, your deck is on the removal plan and powerful midrange drops, anafenza, sorin... but the soldier plan is really not jiving with that strategy. 3 mana for 2/2 first strike barely pays for itself. Unlike rabblemaster that immediately puts dudes on the board, you have to attack with yours to get additional value.
edit:
Also, 5/8 of your creatures just immediately die to drown in sorrow/anger of the gods, which is part of the meta in a big way right now. If that's all you drew that game then it's a board wipe against you.
to add the benefit of blue with soldiers is battlewise hoplite which is good, but also ordeal of thassa and aqueous form. Those two cards alone push card advantage and evasiveness the deck needs. The synergy literally pays for it self. Putting in preeminent captain into this deck means it can go wide like the RW launch the fleet deck from the PT a while back. The strength of that deck was going so wide the opponent couldn't stop all the damage and being fast.
Small creatures have to be fast because you cannot compete with the big drops that the GR decks are putting down right now. They're running more creatures than you have removal and they will trade more efficiently. Which again, is why midrange removal decks like the one you're currently build, also, play value oriented creatures with healthy sized butts. They can trade up in value with some/most of the big GR creatures and save removal for the things they can't handle with their own dudes.
on the other side, you're not coming out of the gate fast enough against control. They will be able to 1-1 you or better in the early game, and in the mid-late game you will not be able to get your midrange plan past counter magic and the large win conditions they play.
Looks like you're playing casually, so I'll just remark about your manabase.
10 lands even with alternate manasources isn't enough at all. 20 lands should be a minimum starting point for the most aggressive of aggro decks.
How do you plan to curve out int his deck?
People disagreed because it challenges their assumptions... 
yes it does marginally "thin" your deck, but your talking about fractions of percentage points over many turns. Risk vs reward isn't worth it, unless you need fixing. There's more than one article on the topic. Over many turns it helps, and if you add things like courser and scrylands to fetching then deck thinning draw/smoothing becomes substantial.
http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/print.asp?ID=3096
However, the tempo loss you lose for using evolving wilds is worse than the point of life from real fetches and you don't gain any draw smoothing as from the scry lands. And you're not using your graveyard to delve for anything.
Lands aside for the moment, The main thing I was trying to point out that there are stronger synergies with soldiers in other colors, If you put preeminent captain in the heroic shell and he gets to attack all of a sudden the deck can go wide as well as build up big fatties with heroic pumps. The soldier synergy is built in and it helps cover one of the decks weaknesses. He's probably not a 4 of, though... 2 spots feels about right.
About Anafenza She's good, but only in a shell where she's part of a value oriented aggro package. Heir of the wilds into Anafenza into rhino is a strong play. It works out to be a lot of damage in one turn that can be back breaking. You're missing on that type of play. Following anafenza with citadel siege or high sentinels isn't he same swing you're getting from rhino.
Elite skygaurds is just bad... It could be taken out for almost anything, at 5 mana your spells need to be closing the game, providing card advantage, or changing the board state. This card does none of these. The synergy with the captain is cute, but you have to consider the merits of the card on it's own. If you draw that on turn 12 against UB control does it help you win the game? Abzan typically tops out at 5 with ajani/wingmate rock as deep value plays. One of the new dragons might be a good place to end a curve in this deck.
The last comment I'll make, You're playing hodge podge right now. It's not a midrange deck, it's not an aggro deck and it has a mediocre tribal synergy with the soldiers. you'd serve yourself better if you just chose one path and committed to it.
Don't run bad fetches for "deck thinning" it's a complete waste. The math just doesn't support it. See link below and there are many other analysis done on the topic. if you really need the fixing an evolving wild or two isn't the worst, but I wouldn't run 4. You already have a bunch of tap lands and you're hurting your self by putting more lands into tap that don't provide any benefit.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the- … -is-a-myth
If you are a tempo deck then, siege rhino is a huge tempo gain, it's a life swing and a brick wall and a threat all in one package. it requires an immediate answer. If you're in the colors and not running the rhino you're playing a sub-par list. The soldier theme only works if the best cards in your colors are soldiers, and in abzan colors they're just not. You have several underpowered cards in the deck just for the sake of forcing the soldier synergy.
I'm not saying you can't make a working soldier deck in standard, but there are better colors to do it in.
You completely ignored blue as an option then? one of the strongest aggro decks around is UW heroic (which is full of soldiers), you could easily splash red for things like jeskai charm and blue gives you evasion. The heroic creatures are very difficult to deal with and the colors have built in tools against control.
IMO, bile blight and heroes downfall don't really belong in an aggro deck. Neither do sorin or Ajani. i think you need to get back to the core of what the deck is about and that's putting down sticky threats and applying consistent pressure
also the heroic creatures are individually stronger than the soldier's your playing. You're to deep on making the captain work. If they blow up the captain your hosed.
EdiT: taking a 2nd look you're far closer to a midrange deck than an agro deck, might as well slap in some rhinos and more removal than perusing the captain plan.
last thought, ditch the evolving wilds, you're better off running basics for tempo reasons. You're not delving for anything so there's no reason to force them.
I usually buy a box of a new set because you do get almost all of the commons and a large qty of uncommons. THere will be times you don't get some of the uncommons you want though. I got no arc lightning from my khans box for example.
I usually buy singles/trade to fill in the rest of what i need.
Some will say buy singles all the way, but part of the fun of the game is cracking packs. You can also do fun/practice things with them like draft with friends/sealed pools etc.
for the big pieces you can use Ebay or even sign up for a seller account on deckbox. fOr bulk anything under $10-$5 you can probably just buy list with an outfit like SCG instead of messing with trying to sell it all.
Just remember that there's always risk involved. So take extra care anything around $50 USPS will provide insurance if you ship priority and upping the insurance doesn't cost that much extra. Pictures/etc will help. Document as much as you can.
gynesis hydra and nykthos are about the 2 best cards you have that actually do something together... green stompy is an okay strategy. It's only competitive if you have all the cards though... but a casual version could be put together. Below are some ideas to work with.
http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=8763& … 0&f=ST
http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=8762& … 4&f=ST
exporting my trade list for easy sorting/totalling purposes, but I've noticed that the export does the total number of the card I have in my inventory not what is on my trade list...
posting here will also use the feedback system.
Various sections will need to be changed also to reflect the fact we won't have BTRs but private Trade Dispute Cases, Ill be posting a new suggested version when I'm closer to finishing the new dispute system.
i think this is a fine change to keep some of the BTR private (we don't really need to see the bickering or vulgarity that comes out of these sometimes.) However, I think visibility on the issues serves as both an educator and warning.
I would strongly recommend posting some kind of summary of what happened after the BTR is completed, especially if a user was overtly rude, racist or threatening (which I've seen happen before). People have a right to know who they're dealing with in trades.
If you're making it into a ticketed system almost like for help-desk issues then this could also help you categorize BTR disputes. You could develop searchable key words to get a matrix on what the big BTR issues are. Some are obvious, but as a reporting analyst, i can tell you that sometimes comprehensive data can tell you things you don't expect.
Example summary could look something like:
User A, did not receive cards. Cards sent without tracking.
User B, accused User A of not reporting "received" correctly, proceeded to call User A racists names and use derogatory terms.
Resolution: User B, re-sent user A cards with tracking. User A received cards and was allowed to leave negative feedback.
Abazan is a good deck against RDW they often can't beat the removal plust life gains. Seige rhino, courser, caryatid, wingmate rock, heros downfall, drown in sorrow, bile blight... they just can't deal.
I've also beaten rdw rw tokens with my temur midrange.
trade proposed
List of Haves. Wants
Count Name Edition Foil Price
1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor Khans of Tarkir $17.71
1 Sorin, emblem $1.00
3 Temple of Malady Journey into Nyx $10.60
1 Courser of Kruphix Born of the Gods $10.23
1 Jeskai Ascendancy Khans of Tarkir foil $9.55
1 Stoke the Flames Friday Night Magic $9.02
2 Battlefield Forge Magic 2015 Core Set $8.96
1 Jace Beleren Magic 2011 $7.15
1 Thran Dynamo From the Vault: Twenty $6.99
3 Llanowar Wastes Magic 2015 Core Set $6.86
1 Hymn to Tourach From the Vault: Twenty $6.29
1 Dark Ritual From the Vault: Twenty $5.49
1 Nylea, God of the Hunt Theros $5.46
1 Scourge of Valkas Magic 2014 Core Set foil $4.64
2 Jace, the Living Guildpact Magic 2015 Core Set $4.61
1 Pharika, God of Affliction Journey into Nyx $4.41
2 Erebos, God of the Dead Theros $4.38
1 Balefire Dragon Innistrad $4.27
2 Hero of Iroas Born of the Gods $4.00
1 Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni From the Vault: Twenty $3.99
1 Vampire Nocturnus Magic 2013 $3.90
2 Whip of Erebos Theros $3.89
1 Galerider Sliver Magic 2014 Core Set $3.74
1 Chromatic Lantern Return to Ravnica $3.71
1 Mystic Monastery Khans of Tarkir foil $3.65
2 Jeskai Ascendancy Khans of Tarkir $3.15
2 Plains Prerelease Events foil $2.91
1 Fated Conflagration Media Inserts foil $2.78
1 Sun Titan Magic 2012 $2.73
1 Tangle Wire From the Vault: Twenty $2.69
2 Vraska the Unseen Return to Ravnica $2.69
1 Boros Reckoner Gatecrash $2.67
2 Supreme Verdict Return to Ravnica $2.60
1 Lord of the Void Gatecrash $2.50
2 Jace, Architect of Thought Return to Ravnica $2.36
4 Predator Ooze Dark Ascension $2.28
2 Soul of Innistrad Magic 2015 Core Set $2.26
3 Spell Pierce Zendikar $2.12
1 Butcher of the Horde Khans of Tarkir $2.03
1 Akroma's Vengeance From the Vault: Twenty $2.00
1 Bloodsoaked Champion Khans of Tarkir $2.00
1 Mantis Rider Khans of Tarkir $2.00
1 Glacial Fortress Magic 2013 $1.97
1 Runechanter's Pike Innistrad foil $1.96
1 Kessig Wolf Run From the Vault: Twenty $1.94
1 Fanatic of Xenagos Friday Night Magic foil $1.92
3 Lifebane Zombie Magic 2014 Core Set $1.92
2 Waste Not Magic 2015 Core Set $1.92
4 Desecration Demon Return to Ravnica $1.91
1 Necromancer's Stockpile Magic 2015 Core Set foil $1.90
3 Doomwake Giant Journey into Nyx $1.87
1 Doomwake Giant Prerelease Events $1.49
1 Rattleclaw Mystic Khans of Tarkir $1.87
1 Rattleclaw Mystic Prerelease Events $3.60
1 Narset, Enlightened Master Khans of Tarkir $1.85
1 Cruel Ultimatum From the Vault: Twenty $1.79
1 Hushwing Gryff Magic 2015 Core Set $1.79
Sounds like the biggest issues is Sebi can't do this on his own. I think that is problem number one. Forget anything else until there are more volunteers or something.
There's lots of smart people on this site that I'm sure could help and some would be willing to do it in their spare time if only because they love the game and use the site frequently.
I'd offer to help, but I'm not a developer. I only know enough SQL/VB to run my reports for work 
Where's a project manager when you need one?
On building the Deckbox brand...
Another idea for making money: sell Deckbox-branded merchandise, e.g. t-shirts, sleeves, playmats, DECKBOXES, scorepads, pens. Maybe only the strongest supporters will buy it, but it will also help get the Deckbox name out there to players at LGSs and kitchen tables.
Give some sort of bonuses for building up user scores. People love "leveling-up"! This could mean free Premium, exclusive subforums, etc.
Communicate better. You don't have the time, so get volunteers to do this for you. Send out the missing newsletter and have a presence on Facebook and the like - especially Reddit!
I'd buy some deckbox sleeves, box and dice. 
These kinds of things can be filled on demand to as long as the customer understands the lead time.
I would totally buy into premium if A) it cost a little less, and B) let me "level up" to some benefit. Maybe, you could get "free" merchandice by making sells/purchases through deck box like game stop does with their power up rewards. Come to think of it... they give you a full magazine and access to lots of discounts for only $10-$15 a month.
I know i know you're only one guy, but other businesses have set a precedent for what's expected from premium memberships. Right now the offerings are not up to par so people aren't sure what to do.
However, one feature decks lack is being able to specify the edition of the card (it defaults to the most resent edition). Does the new edition checklist feature offer a solution to this?
this would be desirable. I have foil, more expensive editions in some of my decks... it'd be nice to get a sense of what my edh deck is really "worth".
Some users are using it, and I intend to make things better there too, don't get me wrong.
It is just that those sites you mentioned have already a number of users many orders of magnitude more than deckbox.
Even deckbox users that seem to like it here still do shop on tcgplayer and other places, and not here. I am not sure why... I suppose it also takes time for it to gain some footing...
time is a factor, but for me it's this.
Deckbox
Do I have any guarantees when I buy cards on the website?
We can guarantee that your money went directly to the seller, and that he has a verified PayPal account. We will provide you with an invoice for the payment, and assist you in opening a fraud case with PayPal should the seller be dishonest. We will contact and discuss with the seller in case of disputes. We will suspend and mark him publicly as a scammer should he cause loss of value to buyers. Please see our Terms and Conditions, Market Rules and Privacy Policy for more details.
TCG Player
IF YOUR ORDER HAS NOT ARRIVED OR IS NOT AS DESCRIBED
Contact the Seller first. Mistakes can happen and many of our Sellers have over a 99.5% feedback ratio that they earned by taking care of their Buyers when these mistakes happen. So give them a chance to make things right for you.
Just visit your Order History, find the order that you have an issue with, and click on the Contact Seller button to send them a message about the problem.
IF THE SELLER DOES NOT RESPOND
After you send a message to the Seller, TCGplayer is directly involved and monitors the message to make sure you are responded to. If they have not responded, we contact the Seller after 24 hours, and after 48 hours without a response we escalate the message to our customer service team. From there we work directly with the Seller, and if they are still not responding, then TCGplayer steps in to resolve the problem on your behalf and issue Full or Partial refunds where your order has not arrived or is not as described.
That refund part has mattered twice on orders from them (before Deckbox opened their market, i haven't bought cards from anyone since). My orders got lost and I got my money back and was able to get my cards from someone else. If i knew i could do that here i would always buy from sellers here.
Okay, i had no idea this existed http://deckbox.org/statistics
Seems like advertising features better might help too... there should be a quick way i can access this from my profile. I mean seriously, wtf mate?
Also, on the set tracking i only have zendikar full art and other premium lands listed, but it's assuming my "forest" is from khans and not paying attention to the edition i have selected.
I did post on the thread there.
To clarify, there is no "deckbox team", it is just me smile
touche, you do the work of a team.
well, the site has done a lot of things right, and I'm personally glad you want to continue to improve it.
In my other post, i wasn't complaining that the features you offered for premium wasn't what I personally would pay for. I just wanted to better understand the features and offer feedback of other things I would look for. TBH, your descriptions on the premium page come off as a little ambiguous (maybe some more detailed explanations there). There are other sites that provide some of what I said, but everything is so spread out. A one stop shop for features like that would be valuable.
On another note, have you thought of selling the site (or a portion of it)? to get the capitol you need to build a team and "do this for a living"?
Nothing is perfect but your website is one of the best that does what it does imo.
Not trying to beat the horse, but I was going to edit my original post before Sebi closed the topic to also ask. the following
https://deckbox.org/forum/viewtopic.php … 13#p103013
BTW thanks for reading my post either way.
I don't know that the offered features are competitive with other "freemium" trading sites IE: puca trade, a lot of the paywall features they have are already included in deckbox free and I can't see using their model without driving people away so....
Sebi said he's working on a response to my inquiries. I'm genuinely confused about the nature of some of the premium features and would like to hear from Sebi/DBteam about why they feel those features are valuable.
Without hearing back from them so take this with a grain a salt. First blush feels a little bit like... "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today..." which would make premium members basically investors in the site and helping fund future projects. To that end, if there was a guarantee that if I signed up now and there was some sort of "points system" (borrowing from puca trade again) that i could use to get cards/merchandise/something physically valuable later down the road other than promises of continued development then, i might be able to buy in.
tldr: how would I convince my wife "investing" in deckbox is a good idea?
I've been using the site for a while now. I post on the forums and read many more posts. I'm what you would call a spike player. I play to win and use the site with that mindset. I look for value on trades when i can, try to trade up.
My .02 about the new features listed...
priority support - What does this even mean? if there's a bug it's probably affecting everyone and you need to fix it anyway right? Can you clarify what this means? Do you mean better support for trading issues? Are you offering a TCG player like guarantee for people that don't receive their orders?
no advertisments - seems okay, but the adds weren't really a bother anyway, unless they start becoming nsfw, if they did. I'd have to leave the site for sure.
emergency collection backup recovery - umm... i guess this is okay... the site really isn't structured in a way that these types of accidents should happen often. Unless you get more requests than we know about.
Built decks - the only built decks that matter are the ones on my shelf at home. Anything on the internet is impermanent by it's very nature. I don't know that this is a valuable feature. You can only ever use 4 of a given card in a deck and you can only play one deck at a time and i just use proxies in the deck i'm not playing atm. I don't know many players that keep multiple copies of cards, especially high dollar ones.
Public and Private notes for each card - what kind of notes? like small text messages? what does this feature mean?
The Scratchpad section - largely useless imo.
Private or password protected decks - this could be somewhat relevant, but if it became relevant for me, i'd just remove my decks from deckbox. There are lots of places that offer deck building/saving that are private. You could be hurting yourself on this one.
Mobile Application (iOS & Android) - This is the thing i might actually pay for. a one time $5 charge for a robust version of deckbox on my phone. the site works fine on mobile, but it's a little cumbersome. It's not really touch intuitive. More development time should spent here.
Collection Tagging & Card Scan Attachments - i don't even know what this is.
Other things I might actually pay for.
Better price comparisons - ebay. amazon, etc... It's a lot better than it was, but i still have to check TCG and SCG to make sure. I'm not sure what kind of deal you could work with TCG to get their prices into a premium feature, but it's still the go to source for pricing.
Market analysis tools - price histories, matrix cross sectioning of cards played in recent tournaments and counts of those cards in top decks.
Tournament reports - lists of cards played in top tournaments and who has those cards for trade.
Meta Data - Lists of cards that are most traded on deck box, and reports on overall trade histories. Does deckbox trading habits mimic real world purchasing habits?
better deck building analysis tools - the current analysis tool doesn't take into consideration dual lands in decks or hybrid mana symbols etc (at least that's the way it looks).
Built in tournament matching tools - especially in a mobile app. I want to draft a box with my friends etc... it'd be nice if deckbox has a built in swiss match maker.
Player performance tracking - Allow import/export of player match histories and allow that player to edit those matches with extra meta date like (type of deck played), specific # of games won so players can get a sense of how they do from game to game and what they're tough matches are. I've read some pros say they might enjoy a feature like this and have been having to track it themselves.
after you have 2 in you inventory, you can "split" them and change the set on the other one. The option is right next to the card count you're just over looking it.
Deckbox Forum » Posts by elpablo