Many Magic The Gathering players are saying they found the Might deck to overwhelm the Mind deck. While, obviously, I disagree, I do want to offer one question for you to contemplate: Is my overall assessment that the decks are not balanced still valid, even if we disagree as to which of the two decks is more powerful? An interesting thought exercise, as I have seen almost no one state that after significant testing they found the decks well balanced.
Having played over 10 matches with them with my beginner girlfriend: They seem equally powered in the sense of winning equal amount of times. I feel the might deck is quite solid. Often one of the two decks seems to be winning clearly. My GF plays mind since she likes blue, but yes that deck is quite complex. I see this both as pro and con. It is too complex to begin with but she can learn from this over time.
Tolarian Community College in a fair experiment, the outcome should be affected by what changes. This leads me to believe that the decks balance belongs to the players using them, rather than the decks themselves. If that were taken to be true, i would have to say the decks are somewhere close to being balanced, or at least are only slightly unbalanced.
Tolarian Community College I believe that even though the individual cards of the might deck have seen far more play over the history of Magic a storm deck must be streamlined to be competitive and the lack of fast mana in the storm deck makes it awful
I've only played three games of Mind vs. Might so far, in the LGS on release day, and I found myself winning (against my brother) all three of them. The first two games I played Might, and the last one I was playing Mind. I obviously need more data, but from my perspective it seems like both decks are solid and fun to play so far. I have no idea if my brother's losses were due to him keeping poor starting hands or any other relevant factor.
I have to respectfully disagree on this one Professor. Balance - The Mind deck is easily outrun by the Might deck. I played an opponent that literally could have closed the game out three turns earlier and I still couldn't catch up playing with the Mind deck. The spells are expensive to cast, and you can't chump anything to stay in the game unless you have the Young Pyromancer and a grip of instant or sorceries. Red removal is usually a turn too late from suspend, and Empty the Warrens maximum output so far has only been 4 goblins. If you get Jhoira on turn 3 and suspend the Unspeakable or the kraken, you can pull out a win (though I lost with a turn 4 suspended Unspeakable), but Mind has very little keeping you in the game. The draw spells basically keep you from playing blockers, which the deck is short on, you often draw more draw spells, and there isn't a single counterspell in the deck. Rewind, treachery, and frantic search would have helped the deck alot. I'm still playing these decks, because Mind can win, it's just a challenge. And they're very FUN to play in my opinion. Value - You're right in that the decks don't have many cards that are good for tournament formats, but that isn't the purpose of this product, and I think in general, people are too judgmental of this product, and for the wrong reasons. The rares in these decks might be bulk, but many of them were constructed staples in their day. THIS SET HAS 22 RARES!!! That excited me! You get two call of the herd in this pack! Mind's desire and the storm mechanic is busted, but here, it isn't an autowin. You have to find the opportunity. Kamahl is awesome, in lore, art, and design. You get the powerful turn two burning tree emissary into Talaria's Battalion, or even rampant growth. It feels good playing turns like that, knowing that its indeed powerful because of the limitations of each deck. The throwback theme is great, and you can open this up and play it anytime. The product is designed as a set, not to break it apart. Sure, you can do what you want with your cards, their yours, but the intent of this product is to play them casually, and I like getting cool cards to play with that otherwise won't ever see a tabletop. If they put a $50 dollar card like Ancestral Vision in a set like this, it will be cool, but it would cheapen the product in that you couldn't get your hands on it. It would sell out immediately, and people that love duel decks would miss out. My Jace Chandra decks are shuffle worn and still have every card in them, including the visions. I dont WANT to break them up. If I ever quit playing Magic, I'll keep my duel decks. They're the MOST casual game experience you can get, and I really feel like the players are missing out on that. Sorry to be so long winded. I'm a mark for duel decks, I wish brewers would design some homemade Vs., and I can't express enough just how blind I believe people are to the fun these decks offer BECAUSE of their jank picks. I hope you'll reevaluate the angle you grade these products from. They're so much more than the sum of their cards. Love your work, Professor!
Richard Oaks Hey, I know a youtube creator who makes their own decks, which you can play against an other of his creation. check this youtube channel: Budget mtg decks.
The decks play better if you put the face card in the command zone and play it with a 59 deck. They become two really intricate explosive decks that can each find creative ways to gain advantage over each other that cause a lot of fun interactions you dont usually see in magic and get to experience often.
The Storm deck was laughably weak against Lovisa's deck. Might had a good number of "non-green" mechanics like card draw in Harmonize and even a counter-spell in Guttural Response which allow it much more consistency over Mind. Jhoira won maybe 1 out of the 10 games a friend and I sat and had with it. The lack of removal in mind make it pretty weak unless you can get both of your Goblin Electromancers to stick. Otherwise you're dead before you can even think to cast the ridiculously high number of 6+ cmc cards running through the deck.
James Hudman i agree mind seems ham fisted at best you have to get jhoria or an electromancer+young pyromancer to do much the mind deck has more poweful cards in a vacuum but it isnt that great all together
Saint Jahn agreed... the deck feels like a Jhiora EDH deck that was Jerry rigged into a casual 60 card deck... in a deck like that, you NEED 4 Jhioras... amd mana rocks...
Emmanuel The Homemaker xD i think the main problem is that the premise just doesnt work well in a 60 card deck many of the suspend cards are too slow amd even jhora ability is a little slow without a heavy control element but this deck isnt that heavy on the control so suspend usually just holds alot back from it.
Professor, besides your great content I have to praise you because of the way you speak. Not everybody is a native English speaker, we all have different levels of proficiency and this is an issue, but you manage to address it the best way possible by finding a way to make yourself very understandable and speaking slowly and very clearly. That's a huge +1 from me and, I guess, from my fellow foreign viewers. Thank you.
Hey Professor, there is something i'd like to add for general criticism: Language Barrier. You see, I am from germany and ive been playing with german and english cards no problem. BUT i recently got two friends learning magic. They wanted to buy one of the past duel decks, i believe zendikar vs. eldrazi. And i told them, that these decks come only in english. That was a big problem,because learning a new game complex as magic, its better you learn it in your language (in my case german). so what ends up happening was they couldnt buy a duel deck, or even a clash pack and not even a deckbuilders toolkit, because they are only in english. so instead we build some basic decks with the cards i had from my past draft pools. and so wizards just lost 2 potential buyers for their products. Maybe its not a big deal but it got me thinking about spreading the products in other languages as well.
I don't know whats the cost associated with printing these products in other languages, i guess it depends on how well they actually sell, but it might be the issue here. Simply not enough demand. On the other hand, playing with english cards might help your friends to improve on their english skills. It worked for me at least :)
I'm surprised that the Deck Builder's Toolkit isn't available in German. That seems like a huge oversight. Anyway, I don't think that Duel Decks are good for initially learning the game. But the German market is still large enough that it seems odd not to print them in German.
Please note: I just wanted to add, that i did some research and to correct my comment: Deckbuilders toolkits and clash packs are avaiable in german! i just couldnt find them in local stores :( and they are more expensive than the english ones.
This may sound awful, but I would love to get this duel deck, mostly for Rampant growth and empty the Warren's. I shall explain why. Rampant growth - I got a Garruk vs. Liliana duel deck, and I modified Garruks deck to contain some creatures that belong to garruk, mostly beast, some at high cost. So rampant Growth is needed, and I like the rampant growth art that is shown in the might deck. Empty the Warren's - The card is perfect for a Goblin deck, especially with maybe 1 or 2 goblin electromancers to help cheapen the spell and some other spells that make goblin tokens, and with some cheap goblins you can make alot of Goblin tokens, so coat of arms also works
I actually bought this and played it with a friend today. I took the mind deck because I really like Jhoira as a card, and my friend enjoys a good old beatdown deck. I found that in most games that the might deck ran over the mind deck before I could mount a defense to deal with it. Out of the 5 we played I only won one game, but in the last game we allowed my deck one more turn after it was dead, and I was able to mind's desire into a win if I hadn't died already. I felt like the might deck was able to use flashback to keep it competitive even after I had started to turn the game in my favor. I will admit though that I am not a very experienced control player. I'm more of a midrange aggro player. In my opinion this duel deck has the most value for experienced magic players who enjoy picking up a deck and just playing with it, which is something I enjoy. And I also think that the complexity of the mind deck offers a great experience for someone looking for a challenging deck to play.
Jhoira is a nostalgia card for me! I needed her new art! I grew up reading that timespiral block! it might not be the best duel deck, but it's my first!
The best duel decks...? Elspeth vs Kiora I'd say, because it was the first MTG item I ever bought. Elspeth was my girl for about 3 months of practice and learning the game. She got me into MTG, so I'd recommend her to anyone looking to try it. Espeth's deck has a great soldier tribe built into it, with a few odd reprints like Gempalm Avenger included. Sunlance and Raise The Alarm give you early control pretty easy. And Elspeth herself is one of the best late game answers possible for Kiora's giant sea monsters, or really any threats with power greater than 4. However Kiora has really hardy creatures like Inkwell Leviathan, along with spells like Whelming Wave and AEtherize to wipe the board as needed. Her deck ramps really ramps hard, running towards the late game full speed. Going green and blue even gives her Plasm Capture, among other things. Not to mention it's Elspeth & Kiora. Everybody loves Elspeth so having a reprint of one of her best cards didn't hurt at all. As for Kiora, well, I like her. She's not as amazing as Elspeth, but she's certainly nothing to sneeze at.
I just picked this up today and I love the mind deck. I've always enjoyed control style decks and this being my first experience with storm and suspend were great intros into the power of those mechanics for me
Going all the way back to Elves vs Goblins.. ultra basic, but always seemed quite balanced (though admittedly it was played by less experienced versions of ourselves vs now... still). Great article man!
Well, you got your Snow-Covered Mountain wish. Thanks for including the Ultra-Pro deckboxes at 10:05, I've been looking at the product and kept noticing cardboard deckboxes yet eBay was selling what looked to be Ultra-Pro's typical plastic. Found out they're separate products! Was looking for a deckbox for my heavily Dominica-exlusive Wizard deck and was tempted just to get the Duel Deck in its entirety.
I bought them when they came out and I'm getting good, fun games out of it. It really works well if the person piloting the aggro deck is aggressively minded and is used to playing that type of deck
The decks are likely very balanced. Storm cards are only as good as the spells around them. The storm deck here is unlikely to be able to play more than a few spells a turn. Being able to do 3-4 damage for 2 mana with Grapeshot, or make 4-5 Goblins on turn 8 with Empty the Warrens isn't going to be gamebreaking or that complicated. Storm decks in legacy and vintage can be complicated due to the math required to know whether or not you can 'go off' in a single turn. The Mind deck only requires the players be able to count up a few spells. It's not the simplest deck, but I think anyone who is even slightly familiar with the game would be able to pilot the deck with no issues. Your argument is analogous to someone complaining that Brainstorm is reprinted in a deck that doesn't have any shuffle effects, or Force of Will in a deck that has very few blue cards. So I must ask, did you actually test these decks? It seems like you just looked at the list, saw some cards banned in older formats, and decided immediately that the deck with those cards is going to be overpowered. This helps nobody. The decks are also worth more than MSRP, and yet you're complaining that they didn't include a $40+ dollar reprint. It would have been nice for it to include the power 9 as well, but not including them doesn't make it a bad product. I think the value in these decks is there.
The list of duel decks you showed suggested strict alternation between planeswalker- and preview decks, however Blessed vs. Cursed followed directly after Zendikar vs. Eldrazi, with Nissa vs. Ob Nixilis coming after Blessed vs. Cursed. I remember that because it allowed WotC to skip having to reprint any planeswalkers from Tarkir block (Ugin, anyone?) and I was pretty pissed about that 🙄.
You are overestimating the storm deck. Storm is only good because of mana neutral/generation spells and Past in Flames. This allows for generation of considerable storm count. The Mind deck's storm count is hard limited by mana from land sources. This is what Storm was originally designed to be, not a win condition shitstorm (heh) but a way to get a couple extra spell casts. Mind is designed to gain incremental advantages by using Storm and Splice to generate efficient plays and board control. It is not designed to Desperate Ritual splice Desperate Ritual into Manamorphose into Past in Flames into Grapeshot into Empty the Warrens.
Considering that Tendrils of Agony, Hunting Pack, Brain Freeze, and Dragonstorm were among the original Storm cards, I think it's safe to assume that the notion of using it as a big finishing blow was there from the beginning. Of course, there were even more Storm cards that didn't lend themselves to a game-winning spell chain, so I'd agree that the "couple of extra spell casts" usage was also part of the plan. Other than Mind's Desire, which was largely a problem because of the potential for the card as a four-of to hit additional copies of itself, none of the original Storm cards are really degenerate.
Storm wasn't meant to work with a count of 20 or something though. Hunting Pack and Dragonstorm are odd cards to go for a ritual manamorphose cantrip deck. They are meant to be devastating at lower storm counts as well. I would be pretty happy with a Dragonstorm count 3 personally. Hunting Pack would be a (questionable) way to hose control decks. Maybe your mono green ramp has a ton of mana, but enemy has a ton of counters? Hunting Pack for 3 beasts. Brain Freeze was probably meant to go in a Mono U Mill (or UB Mill) as a large mill card. At a storm count of 4 it would be a perfectly respectable mill effect, and mill decks can play lots of cheap stuff. If Tendrils of Agony was capped at a reasonable level, I would see a pretty balanced card. Mono black is supposed to set up the battlefield for big drain effects, with cards like Exsanguinate and Grey Merchant. Wizards probably noted the existence of the black ritual spells when setting the mana cost and power of Tendrils. They didn't expect people to throw in a massive mana acceleration turn 0 flashback engine. In fact, Storm was designed to work, at best, at a level of 5 or so. The mechanic was designed as "added utility if you jump some hoops" not "make a card that enables a specifically designed deck to win automatically, and 90% of blue disruption magic doesn't affect it in the slightest". If Wizards had planned for what happened with ritual abuse, they would have added a number. Ex: Storm X (Copy this spell number of other spells you cast this turn, up to X times) The biggest reason storm broke down is because of cards like Past in Flames, Pyromancer's Ascension, and Yawgmoth's Will. Pyromancer's is meant to give Izzet decks a little more oomph and craziness. Yawgmoth's is meant for mass creature recursion with enough mana. Past is meant to give certain decks a kick in the late game. What Wizards failed to anticipate is what happens when you double storm counts. All of a sudden, your count of 5 becomes a count of 10. Tendrils goes from life gain bomb to game end. Grapeshot goes from efficient removal and damage to instant game ender. Empty the Warrens goes from a battalion of goblins to MTGO token limit of goblins. Throw in mana neutral cards and mana creation cards, which actually feed off the spell doubler mechanic, and you have a major issue. Storm is the result of an R&D team doing insufficient playtesting basically.
Storm doesn't need to hit a count of 20 to close out a game. I'm not sure where you're getting that from. Nor "Tendrils of Vampirism." Trying to guess what the intent was based on the name of the card seems like a stretch in that case. The fact is, those cards were fully capable of closing out games and their power to do so was clear enough that the developers in the early 00's must have been aware of it. I'm not sure how much you're aware of the history of Storm decks, given that you mention "ritual manamorphose cantrip deck" and Manamorphose didn't exist yet and wouldn't for several years, so of course Hunting Pack and Dragonstorm weren't designed with it in mind. But I don't want to assume that you DON'T know, as you may have simply been generalizing. Anyway, there were several different attempts at using Storm, with varying degrees of success. My gripe is that we have people like Mark Rosewater writing the whole mechanic off as "bah-roken" or whatever, but really the only one that was demonstrably a competitive problem was Mind's Desire. In Vintage, with a ton of cards that generate free mana and efficient card advantage, Storm has to be kept in check (and it is, thanks to numerous restrictions), but in other formats? Tendrils decks are tier 2 in Legacy. They've been tier 2 in Legacy for a long time. Storm doesn't dominate Modern. Even in No Banned List Modern, it seems to mostly show up as tier 2, maybe better, but not dominant. Now, it was one of the top decks in Standard after Time Spiral Block brought the mechanic back (Dragonstorm decks used Storm spells in combination with Suspend spells to sculpt big direct damage turns), but not dominant. It also ran rampant in Extended, but that was with Mind's Desire, which I admit actually is a problem. Storm cards have been available in multiple Standard environments, in the old Type 1.5, in multiple Extended rotations, in Legacy, in Modern, and in Vintage. Across all those formats, with what I think are reasonable exceptions in cases of Mind's Desire decks or old Vintage (when Lion's Eye Diamond was unrestricted), the mechanic has not dominated. It has sometimes been competitive enough to be part of a metagame, but it hasn't taken over. And sometimes, other things have taken over. And yet, despite that track record, the entire mechanic is cast as inherently broken. Well, the numbers are there. And they don't support that. So I don't think it is a mechanic that needs to be capped. It has been a very interesting part of the game the way it is.
I kind of feel you're both stating the same thing... What he meant with the "ritual ritual cantrip" line was exactly that they didn't exist when strom was first created, and that WotC probably didn't thought of storm cards being played with a count of 20 to end the game, like grapeshot is right now in Modern ,but they thought of it as "play a few spells and get 5 or 6 dmg for 2 mana". About the other storm cards that work as finishers, those are cards that work as finisher with a way lower storm count, like hunting pack or dragonstorm, being meant to be played with a... maybe maximum of 5 in storm count? Which could make it pretty lethal. There's no much difference between a 10 and 15 storm counts with those cards because they are menat to finish off a game with lower storms numbers, wheras the difference between a 10-15 grapeshot could be game deciding.
I mean, Grapeshot wasn't one of the original Storm cards. It came later. So I suppose that the developers of Scourge probably weren't much accounting for a storm counts as high as 20, but there also weren't any storm cards that actually needed to hit 20 storm count to kill. Tendrils of Agony only needs 10 to kill a player by itself. You could try to assume that the developers at the time erroneously failed account for the possibility of a single, lethal Tendrils of Agony, but I'm inclined to give them a bit more credit than that. By the time Grapeshot was printed, there were more cards available to keep a spell chain going. But historically, 20-point Grapeshots weren't the norm anyway. It was more common to combine it with Ignite Memories, Rift Bolt, and other burn spells, or to use it to clear blockers for an army of goblin tokens or for Greader Gargadon. Sure, 20-point Grapeshots are possible, but the card is flexible enough to have other uses with lower storm counts. And since WotC could already have seen combo decks generating very high storm count in the days of Scourge (albeit mostly in Vintage), I assume that they were aware of the possibility of a Grapeshot kill before they released the card.
I would love to hear your thoughts on Phyrexia vs The Coalition. it was my first duel deck, and one of my first MTG purchases, so it's got a special place in my nostalgia zone.
if mind vs. might was uppost to bring a spotlight to dominaria then they shoud be commander decks. The face of the decks are both legemdary creatures so why not
This was the first MTG product I bought and you did a great job of articulating why this was frustrating to play. However I do not regret buying this as it was great for my first commander deck.
Another very informative video. also thank you for the picture at the GP San Antonio. Great guy, great videos. keep it up sir. @Tolarian Community College
I wonder if this guy has ever thought of being a professional product reviewer like more than just card game products because his reviews are always amazing and he tells you exactly what you are getting
I bought this last week, I had never played mtg before and they had it in my local comic store. I think for someone like myself it is a really useful, sort of beginners guide of how to play the game. I still don't understand completely wtf is going on but I'm getting there. As mentioned many times in the comment section, I also agree the two decks aren't well balanced. With might winning near enough every time.
I managed to pick one up a couple weeks ago for 19.99 off of card kingdom and honestly I love them. I am primarily an EDH player and the Mind deck helped me get a lot of cards for my Mizzix deck with a bonus of additional Commander pieces for other decks.
I think you missed something with this review. If you (enfranchised player) take mind and give your friend (casual player) might it works out quite nicely. A challenge for you and a simple for them.
Winter John "let me teach you how to play this game. your goal is to play the game. my goal is to stop you from playing the game. you won't understand why but you'll get it." *5 minutes later* okay, so now this card I cheated out for free lets me take another turn, and on my next turn I play these 3 cards and then storm 4 of your lands back to your hand so your resources are set back 4 turns... where are you going?"
My first (and as of yet only) Duel Decks are Zendikar vs Eldrazi, and I find it overall to be really fun, it makes for some gameplay of pretty epic scale at the best of times. Blessed vs Cursed is also really cool to play with
I have found that playing with the featured legends/walkers in the command zone to lead to the most fun and balanced games when playing with dual decks and intro/planeswalker decks. I highly recommend it.
My favorite dual deck is the Elspeth vs. Kiora deck. Typically, when I face a new player and I get the advantage, I find myself letting up, then they come from behind to destroy me. Lots of last minute close shaves in that deck. Also, might pick this up because I'm a monster who wants the feeling of comboing off Storm without needing to play Modern.
Old school beat down has been a fair match for untapped islands since the old days of Sligh Vs Buehler blue. There's a lot of fun to be had with this product.
Thanks prof.! Glad I watched this. I have to admit though, that the big take away for me was that my Mishra's Bobble was actually worth something. I'm not a control player. So, I never used it or saw value in it. Now, I know that it's wanted... For some reason lol. It's still going over my head.
Since they are partly singleton decks and are based off of commander, it is not unlikely that they are using the dual deck to provide tools for build a jhiora or lovisa comander deck. The cards included also see a lot of comander play so it could be made for comander without stating it.
I really love these decks, and I want to note that the mind is not actually so complex as it looks. My little brother, who has only played welcome decks and intro decks so far, got the general idea of lining things up to have higher storm, and just digging for the big haymakers
Not strictly a duel deck, but Armed v Dangerous was pretty well balanced. I also like Elspeth v Kiora. I think the worst-balanced deck pair I've seen was Zendikar v Eldrazi.
In one of our games, both Elspeth and Kiora had all their best cards onboard, and Kiora's deck couldn't do anythying to win. Even huge Leviathans could not break the defense, and all this because of the white enchantment that gave all creatures +2/+2.
I always believe in supporting your local game store, but if they are not carrying it I found a very good price for this product. Amazon has them for $17.00 with free two day shipping if you have prime.
Since you asked for testing, and I'm fairly certain you didn't actually test these duel decks, I went ahead and did some testing. Here are my results of 5, "3 out of 5" game matches with myself and a friend, We each swapped decks upon finishing each match Match 1 - Mind wins with a 3-1 in minds favor Match 2 - Mind wins with a 3-2 in minds favor Match 3 - Might wins with a 3-2 in mights favor Match 4 - Mind wins with a 3-2 in minds favor Match 5 - Might wins with a 3-0 in mights favor All together per game, that is 11 wins for mind and 11 wins for might. Mind did win the overall 5 match set, but it was far from unbalanced. You cant just say a deck is unbalanced because a certain mechanic is in the deck, this isn't modern and the decks aren't built around abusing the mechanics. I am a huge fan of your content, but i feel you are being a bit thick headed over this. That being said these are my results of testing, other results will vary.
Randomly just picked this up at my local card shop for 15 bucks and I'm happy with what I got..I must include I am an EDH player primarily so the reason for buying this was to use it to make new EDH decks and having said that it served its purpose VERY well in my opinion. 15 bucks for this was a steal in my opinion. Yeah I was hoping for more but I'm happy with what I got.
I always appreciate reviews like this. While I am going to get this duel deck set, it's only because I like alternate art and enjoy collecting all the duel decks that come out. I started with the Elspeth and Kiora, and have every one since. I am likely to continue... but it's only cause it fits my enjoyment of collecting. Outside of those itches I love scratching, I am sad to hear about the lack of better includes and non balanced play. Though I will say, I do like the idea of giving newer players at least an easy(ish) chance to have a shot at storm, considering the storm scale and all. Still, not sure how worth it it is... though and off the wall theory: What if storm IS coming back when/if we go back to Dominaria next year? And same with snow lands? It would be... interesting. (unlikely, but an interesting thought)
Jace vs Chandra was the magnum opus of dual decks. The decks were well balanced. The games had a good cross between consistency and variance. There was high financial value, but not too high. If you played either Jace or Chandra against other older dual decks, they each held up well. And replay value was really high.
I played a 2 headed giant with this duel deck vs other standard fun decks. The quick board state of Might was always able to help hold down for Mind to gather up an array of 1/1's that would just get sent right over the power edge when Coat of Arms was played. However, during the 1 vs 1 match, Might tended to overrun Mind between selected trample & the land tax of Zo-Zu. Still a better match up than Nissa vs Ob Nix.
My brother and I played Blessed vs Cursed a few times and it is pretty balanced. Some matches came down to who could outplay the other. Plus, being a thematic humans against zombies is a nice bonus.
As a heavy EDH Commander player it'll be worth it to pick up, if only for some better additions to my B/U Control Deck and any spare reds I can hold onto and give to my buddy who runs R/B burn Commander.
this was perfect for getting my girlfriend better at magic, i had a super fun time playing storm, as she ran a simple warrior deck against me. i onviously went easy and didnt play 9 grapeshots into 18 mores spells which in turn let me cast another slew of grapheshots and allowing me to take another turn which unsuspended all of my 10 cost cards, but i thought about it and how it would give me a lot of drakes and goblins. anyways, this is the most fun ive had playing magic in about a year, standard has been tiring, and i am so happy with my purchase.
Snow Covered Mountains was certainly a massive oversight with Lovisa Coldeyes, not sure why they weren't included. Red Skred is a deck in Modern, possibly more so than Storm even. It's a cute pair of Duel Decks though, it may get a grade D by your standards, Prof, but it's got cards I haven't seen in some time that we played at the cafeteria in high school. Wins my heart for sure.
I think deck box should include a small roll of packages tape. Otherwise the other harder plastic deck box are just fine. You don't need a plus boxes, just used that Stanley hardware container, you buy from home depot.
Welp, I play commander, cube, and some other "casual" ways to play, but my friends and I know the game very well. This set was perfect for me, a lot of very interesting cards from before I started playing. I haven't had the chance to play them against each other yet, but from what I've seen they are better balanced than you seem to think - the Mind cards might have more potential in a more competitive build, but this is not a top tier storm deck, there isn't nearly enough ramp. I'm excited to try them together, and then I'm excited to tear them apart and use almost every card in some silly edh deck or the other, with a few heading for my cube.
My favorite Duel Deck was Elves vs Goblins. My wife and I played them to death in the Lorwyn era. During Time Spiral block my main fnm deck was mono red goblin gargadon storm. The mind deck takes me back so it works for me on a nostalgic level. The might deck seems powerful enough to get "under" the mind deck enough to seem balanced. I'm gonna give this product a B+.
i just wanna give a shotout to card kingdom for their amazing service! Recently i made an order of foils for my edh deck and it included the foil vivid lands. But there was a mistake in my order and i was sent 2 vivid marshes instead of one of each. so naturally i dropped them an email and told them about this error and suggested maybe i could take store credits instead. But they were like hey, keep that 99c foil and we will send you another. Mind you i live in singapore and i ordered my cards with the ups mailing option which was about 17 bucks and they sent it with the same mailing option i picked! Out of principle in buying all my cards from there now
Phyrexia vs. Coalition is very balanced against each other. Also, the answers are more powerful than the threats, which is a nice change of pace from basically every other duel deck.
I vaguely remember that my testing found Phryrexia with an edge, but it wasn't egregious. Some of the other entries in the series were more imbalanced.
I was actually pleased with the Mind vs. Might decks. It seemed like someone was really trying to explore space that Duel Decks haven't done before. Most previous Duel Decks are various versions of Beatdown with some thematic skinning. The Mind deck is the closest to a traditional blue "all spells" type deck than any other Duel Deck I've seen. If I had any complaints it was how boringly beatdown the Might deck is. In fact, a lot of the deck looked to me like the Mosters deck from Heroes and Monsters Duel deck. While I wasn't happy with the bump in MSRP that put it nearly out of my budget, I did get to pick up some fun cards that I've wanted to buy in the past. Overall, I'd rate this as a C+ for me--not amazing, but a welcome purchase, and some creative risk-taking on Wizards' part that I'd like to encourage.
I think this might hit the sweetspot between casual and the next step-- Playing storm (a super fun looking deck type) and having the smashy things deck satisfies both me and even someone less versed in magic.
After playing roughly 10 games, I feel they are roughly the same power. Yes, storm is op, but the Might deck gives trample, which overpowers the chump blockers.
I am from Portugal and i ebayed the dual deck witht he siege rhino from Italy (Origins Clash Pack). None left here. Not regreted. I still have the value and the decks are g8. In zendikar vs eldrazi the decks where not balanced. The Black/Red deck had a huge flavour with those huge eldrazi, and fun strategy, but was very week against the G/W boring deck. However, by far the best decks from these 3 where the FATE REFORGED CLASH PACK. Good value and most fun decks.
I think bulk card's values shouldn't really be included. Realistically you aren't going to be able to sell them for the "value" they have, and if you aren't ordering online odds are pretty good you can get multiple bulk cards for less than any one's list price. If it isn't at least worth $1 it's not really worth counting towards the total value.
As a Jhoira EDH player, this set is a must-have for the new art, but the decks themselves aren't good for pick-up-and-play, it seems. Most of my non-EDH MTG with my friends is usually through putting all of the Duel Decks I have on a table and picking them at random to play against one another. I've found Sorin vs. Tibalt is actually pretty well balanced (though not for Tibalt himself, who DESPERATELY needs a new Walker that isn't entirely focused around Madness).
At least from the ones I've played, the best duel deck set I ever touched was Blessed VS Cursed. The theme was good, the decks were hella straight forward and fun, and just awesome IMO. I actually really learned to play the game with that set, cause the only other pre-made deck I owned then was Eldrazi Assault, and I didn't know how to brew yet (I also personally refuse to go online to look up popular decks, cause for me, the fun of the whole game is buying blind cards and making something work from them).
The biggest advantage of the optional plastic deckboxes is that the whole package stays together, so you can stash it with the other board games to pull down off the shelf and play with no prep. Regarding the Mind deck, I still hate after all these years that The Unspeakable's combo can fizzle if you're unfortunate enough to draw him while performing it, because the combo only allows you to find him in your library and not in your hand.
How about doing a list of good dueldecks in video form. Apart from being helpful for the lads out there, I'm sure such a "top five duel decks" would attract quite a lot attention, which would be a nice bonus! ;)
Having played several games with these decks I disagree they are not balanced against each other. The Mind Deck needs a good pilot to beat the Might deck. Might can take games easily if it gets rolling however if the Mind Deck can slow or stop them for a few turn the game swing heavily in it's favor. I play with my girlfriend more often than not and we are on 2 different skill levels (I have played for 10+ years she just learned the game a year and a half ago) and this is a great duel deck for us. Might fits her style of play and is straight forward and easy to pilot, getting her several wins against me, while Mind is complex enough to be a challenge for me, keeping us both entertained.
Could I pursuade you, Prof, to think of this duel deck release another way? You said that an unskilled player with the Mind deck would get stomped by the Might deck, but a skilled player would overwhelm them with complex mechanical synergy. Perhaps this product is to teach a new player that the skills of the mind can be used to overcome an opponent just as well as a horde of bashy beatstick creatures. A low level wizard is the ultimate noob, but at higher levels he makes the fighter look like an ant. Such is the difference between those that sling spells and those that use brute force.
I actually liked this. It was the thing that brought me into magic. I'm still using some cards like beacon of Tomorrows and gruteal response in a combo deck.
My favorite was KvV but my biggest concern is how many new players will try the storm deck, like it, and lose interest due to the high cost of RU staples for modern decks. Scalding tarn's price is going up after all.
Yeah seconding the chime in here. The Mind deck seems powerful when it can line up everything it wants, but the Might deck has way, way more overall consistency. Turn creatures sideways is always a clock. Storm is a clock only if you can cantrip into infinity.
Before the Review: YES!!! Jhoria was one of my first EDH decks before it became Commander. I love the new art and having reprints of cards useful in modern and EDH is amazing for 20$ Post Review: They are pretty balanced if Might has the right hand it can put on enough pressure against Mind. Honestly, this is the most fun duel/theme deck I have played in a while and my roommates and I are still playing around with them before I take them a part for parts. I would give these a B.
Thanks for the comprehensive review! I was kind of looking forward to this deck to play with my GF, but the fact that it seems to be highly unbalanced makes it a bummer for me. Maybe i'll buy a different duel deck for the money. Any recommendations aside from "Blessed vs. Cursed"?
Hi Prof. Great video as always.I have one thing I slightly disagree on though and that is that these decks are not designed well for new players. While this is certainly true for VERY new players, I think the idea that most new players will be too confused by the complexity of the card interactions to enjoy them is perhaps a little condescending. I personally loved the almost overwhelming combo potential in the newer sets that I saw when I started magic again nearly two years ago. When I had quit magic years ago, the only real combo around was Cadaverous-Bloom! Cards with the storm and splice onto arcane mechanics feel almost like they are mini-combos on a card and I personally would have loved the Mind deck as a new player.
its true that in the (very) old days there werent that many combos, but of those that existed many were fairly powerful. prosperbloom, icyorb lock, elfball, channeltorch, tolaria, chronatog.... nowadays there more combos but the vast majority are johnny in nature, as in, they have been carefully concocted so you'll never win anything competitively with them.
I'll still get these and tune them a bit to hopefully balance them more. Blessed vs Cursed is still a favourite of mine, either deck is able to pull a win out of nowhere.
Joe Morris I agree with blessed vs cursed being an amazing duel deck, but I think heroes vs monsters is better, because it comes with some value cards and balanced power for a duel deck.
Kason Zechiel Yeah there's not a whole lot of value in either decks, if blessed had Thraben inspector as a preview card I think it would have done better. A favourite 'combo' of mine is Doomed Traveller + Butcher's Cleaver. Terrible everywhere else but it's a game winner in a duel deck haha
I was tempted to get the duel deck, just for Jhoira and the storm mechanic cards. Then I decided if I wanted to cast stuff for free, I'd just put Show and Tell, Sneak Attack and Omniscience in a deck and watch them be one big, happy family. Though I'll have to save more money.
i thank you professer, i was considering picking up these cards to simply play and challenge one another, but you do make it sound like they are very mismatched
Many Magic The Gathering players are saying they found the Might deck to overwhelm the Mind deck. While, obviously, I disagree, I do want to offer one question for you to contemplate: Is my overall assessment that the decks are not balanced still valid, even if we disagree as to which of the two decks is more powerful? An interesting thought exercise, as I have seen almost no one state that after significant testing they found the decks well balanced.
Having played over 10 matches with them with my beginner girlfriend:
They seem equally powered in the sense of winning equal amount of times. I feel the might deck is quite solid. Often one of the two decks seems to be winning clearly.
My GF plays mind since she likes blue, but yes that deck is quite complex. I see this both as pro and con. It is too complex to begin with but she can learn from this over time.
Tolarian Community College in a fair experiment, the outcome should be affected by what changes. This leads me to believe that the decks balance belongs to the players using them, rather than the decks themselves. If that were taken to be true, i would have to say the decks are somewhere close to being balanced, or at least are only slightly unbalanced.
Tolarian Community College I believe that even though the individual cards of the might deck have seen far more play over the history of Magic a storm deck must be streamlined to be competitive and the lack of fast mana in the storm deck makes it awful
Tolarian Community College I still liked Speed vs Cunning when that came out. I liked playing BOTH decks.
I've only played three games of Mind vs. Might so far, in the LGS on release day, and I found myself winning (against my brother) all three of them. The first two games I played Might, and the last one I was playing Mind.
I obviously need more data, but from my perspective it seems like both decks are solid and fun to play so far. I have no idea if my brother's losses were due to him keeping poor starting hands or any other relevant factor.
HE SAID "KHANS OVER TARKIR!" At 2:12 great video.
Glad someone caught that. Khans over Tarkir has become an inside joke in my playgroup.
Why is khans a joke?
Austen Khans OVER(?) Tarkir or Khans of Tarkir?
"Khans over, Tarkir" are what the dragons said.
I have to respectfully disagree on this one Professor.
Balance - The Mind deck is easily outrun by the Might deck. I played an opponent that literally could have closed the game out three turns earlier and I still couldn't catch up playing with the Mind deck. The spells are expensive to cast, and you can't chump anything to stay in the game unless you have the Young Pyromancer and a grip of instant or sorceries. Red removal is usually a turn too late from suspend, and Empty the Warrens maximum output so far has only been 4 goblins. If you get Jhoira on turn 3 and suspend the Unspeakable or the kraken, you can pull out a win (though I lost with a turn 4 suspended Unspeakable), but Mind has very little keeping you in the game. The draw spells basically keep you from playing blockers, which the deck is short on, you often draw more draw spells, and there isn't a single counterspell in the deck. Rewind, treachery, and frantic search would have helped the deck alot. I'm still playing these decks, because Mind can win, it's just a challenge. And they're very FUN to play in my opinion.
Value - You're right in that the decks don't have many cards that are good for tournament formats, but that isn't the purpose of this product, and I think in general, people are too judgmental of this product, and for the wrong reasons. The rares in these decks might be bulk, but many of them were constructed staples in their day. THIS SET HAS 22 RARES!!! That excited me! You get two call of the herd in this pack! Mind's desire and the storm mechanic is busted, but here, it isn't an autowin. You have to find the opportunity. Kamahl is awesome, in lore, art, and design. You get the powerful turn two burning tree emissary into Talaria's Battalion, or even rampant growth. It feels good playing turns like that, knowing that its indeed powerful because of the limitations of each deck. The throwback theme is great, and you can open this up and play it anytime. The product is designed as a set, not to break it apart. Sure, you can do what you want with your cards, their yours, but the intent of this product is to play them casually, and I like getting cool cards to play with that otherwise won't ever see a tabletop.
If they put a $50 dollar card like Ancestral Vision in a set like this, it will be cool, but it would cheapen the product in that you couldn't get your hands on it. It would sell out immediately, and people that love duel decks would miss out. My Jace Chandra decks are shuffle worn and still have every card in them, including the visions. I dont WANT to break them up. If I ever quit playing Magic, I'll keep my duel decks. They're the MOST casual game experience you can get, and I really feel like the players are missing out on that. Sorry to be so long winded. I'm a mark for duel decks, I wish brewers would design some homemade Vs., and I can't express enough just how blind I believe people are to the fun these decks offer BECAUSE of their jank picks. I hope you'll reevaluate the angle you grade these products from. They're so much more than the sum of their cards.
Love your work, Professor!
Richard Oaks Treachery is on the reserved list.
I want aware:) thanks for letting me know
Richard Oaks Hey, I know a youtube creator who makes their own decks, which you can play against an other of his creation. check this youtube channel: Budget mtg decks.
Richard Oaks TL;DR
I agree that the Prof was a bit too hard on this collection.
The decks play better if you put the face card in the command zone and play it with a 59 deck. They become two really intricate explosive decks that can each find creative ways to gain advantage over each other that cause a lot of fun interactions you dont usually see in magic and get to experience often.
The Storm deck was laughably weak against Lovisa's deck. Might had a good number of "non-green" mechanics like card draw in Harmonize and even a counter-spell in Guttural Response which allow it much more consistency over Mind. Jhoira won maybe 1 out of the 10 games a friend and I sat and had with it. The lack of removal in mind make it pretty weak unless you can get both of your Goblin Electromancers to stick. Otherwise you're dead before you can even think to cast the ridiculously high number of 6+ cmc cards running through the deck.
James Hudman i agree mind seems ham fisted at best you have to get jhoria or an electromancer+young pyromancer to do much the mind deck has more poweful cards in a vacuum but it isnt that great all together
Saint Jahn agreed... the deck feels like a Jhiora EDH deck that was Jerry rigged into a casual 60 card deck... in a deck like that, you NEED 4 Jhioras... amd mana rocks...
Emmanuel The Homemaker xD i think the main problem is that the premise just doesnt work well in a 60 card deck many of the suspend cards are too slow amd even jhora ability is a little slow without a heavy control element but this deck isnt that heavy on the control so suspend usually just holds alot back from it.
Professor, besides your great content I have to praise you because of the way you speak. Not everybody is a native English speaker, we all have different levels of proficiency and this is an issue, but you manage to address it the best way possible by finding a way to make yourself very understandable and speaking slowly and very clearly. That's a huge +1 from me and, I guess, from my fellow foreign viewers. Thank you.
Hey Professor, there is something i'd like to add for general criticism: Language Barrier.
You see, I am from germany and ive been playing with german and english cards no problem. BUT i recently got two friends learning magic. They wanted to buy one of the past duel decks, i believe zendikar vs. eldrazi. And i told them, that these decks come only in english. That was a big problem,because learning a new game complex as magic, its better you learn it in your language (in my case german). so what ends up happening was they couldnt buy a duel deck, or even a clash pack and not even a deckbuilders toolkit, because they are only in english.
so instead we build some basic decks with the cards i had from my past draft pools. and so wizards just lost 2 potential buyers for their products.
Maybe its not a big deal but it got me thinking about spreading the products in other languages as well.
LastBladewing I'm an English speaker myself but im all for this. The more people playing the game the better
Exactly :)
I don't know whats the cost associated with printing these products in other languages, i guess it depends on how well they actually sell, but it might be the issue here. Simply not enough demand. On the other hand, playing with english cards might help your friends to improve on their english skills. It worked for me at least :)
I'm surprised that the Deck Builder's Toolkit isn't available in German. That seems like a huge oversight. Anyway, I don't think that Duel Decks are good for initially learning the game. But the German market is still large enough that it seems odd not to print them in German.
Please note: I just wanted to add, that i did some research and to correct my comment: Deckbuilders toolkits and clash packs are avaiable in german! i just couldnt find them in local stores :( and they are more expensive than the english ones.
This may sound awful, but I would love to get this duel deck, mostly for Rampant growth and empty the Warren's. I shall explain why.
Rampant growth - I got a Garruk vs. Liliana duel deck, and I modified Garruks deck to contain some creatures that belong to garruk, mostly beast, some at high cost. So rampant Growth is needed, and I like the rampant growth art that is shown in the might deck.
Empty the Warren's - The card is perfect for a Goblin deck, especially with maybe 1 or 2 goblin electromancers to help cheapen the spell and some other spells that make goblin tokens, and with some cheap goblins you can make alot of Goblin tokens, so coat of arms also works
that would be a cool video where you rated from leat to most balanced duel decks
I actually bought this and played it with a friend today. I took the mind deck because I really like Jhoira as a card, and my friend enjoys a good old beatdown deck. I found that in most games that the might deck ran over the mind deck before I could mount a defense to deal with it. Out of the 5 we played I only won one game, but in the last game we allowed my deck one more turn after it was dead, and I was able to mind's desire into a win if I hadn't died already. I felt like the might deck was able to use flashback to keep it competitive even after I had started to turn the game in my favor. I will admit though that I am not a very experienced control player. I'm more of a midrange aggro player. In my opinion this duel deck has the most value for experienced magic players who enjoy picking up a deck and just playing with it, which is something I enjoy. And I also think that the complexity of the mind deck offers a great experience for someone looking for a challenging deck to play.
Jhoira is a nostalgia card for me! I needed her new art! I grew up reading that timespiral block!
it might not be the best duel deck, but it's my first!
The best duel decks...? Elspeth vs Kiora I'd say, because it was the first MTG item I ever bought. Elspeth was my girl for about 3 months of practice and learning the game. She got me into MTG, so I'd recommend her to anyone looking to try it.
Espeth's deck has a great soldier tribe built into it, with a few odd reprints like Gempalm Avenger included. Sunlance and Raise The Alarm give you early control pretty easy. And Elspeth herself is one of the best late game answers possible for Kiora's giant sea monsters, or really any threats with power greater than 4.
However Kiora has really hardy creatures like Inkwell Leviathan, along with spells like Whelming Wave and AEtherize to wipe the board as needed. Her deck ramps really ramps hard, running towards the late game full speed. Going green and blue even gives her Plasm Capture, among other things.
Not to mention it's Elspeth & Kiora. Everybody loves Elspeth so having a reprint of one of her best cards didn't hurt at all. As for Kiora, well, I like her. She's not as amazing as Elspeth, but she's certainly nothing to sneeze at.
I just picked this up today and I love the mind deck. I've always enjoyed control style decks and this being my first experience with storm and suspend were great intros into the power of those mechanics for me
Going all the way back to Elves vs Goblins.. ultra basic, but always seemed quite balanced (though admittedly it was played by less experienced versions of ourselves vs now... still). Great article man!
Well, you got your Snow-Covered Mountain wish.
Thanks for including the Ultra-Pro deckboxes at 10:05, I've been looking at the product and kept noticing cardboard deckboxes yet eBay was selling what looked to be Ultra-Pro's typical plastic. Found out they're separate products! Was looking for a deckbox for my heavily Dominica-exlusive Wizard deck and was tempted just to get the Duel Deck in its entirety.
I bought them when they came out and I'm getting good, fun games out of it. It really works well if the person piloting the aggro deck is aggressively minded and is used to playing that type of deck
The decks are likely very balanced. Storm cards are only as good as the spells around them. The storm deck here is unlikely to be able to play more than a few spells a turn. Being able to do 3-4 damage for 2 mana with Grapeshot, or make 4-5 Goblins on turn 8 with Empty the Warrens isn't going to be gamebreaking or that complicated. Storm decks in legacy and vintage can be complicated due to the math required to know whether or not you can 'go off' in a single turn. The Mind deck only requires the players be able to count up a few spells. It's not the simplest deck, but I think anyone who is even slightly familiar with the game would be able to pilot the deck with no issues.
Your argument is analogous to someone complaining that Brainstorm is reprinted in a deck that doesn't have any shuffle effects, or Force of Will in a deck that has very few blue cards.
So I must ask, did you actually test these decks? It seems like you just looked at the list, saw some cards banned in older formats, and decided immediately that the deck with those cards is going to be overpowered. This helps nobody.
The decks are also worth more than MSRP, and yet you're complaining that they didn't include a $40+ dollar reprint. It would have been nice for it to include the power 9 as well, but not including them doesn't make it a bad product. I think the value in these decks is there.
The list of duel decks you showed suggested strict alternation between planeswalker- and preview decks, however Blessed vs. Cursed followed directly after Zendikar vs. Eldrazi, with Nissa vs. Ob Nixilis coming after Blessed vs. Cursed.
I remember that because it allowed WotC to skip having to reprint any planeswalkers from Tarkir block (Ugin, anyone?) and I was pretty pissed about that 🙄.
You are overestimating the storm deck.
Storm is only good because of mana neutral/generation spells and Past in Flames. This allows for generation of considerable storm count. The Mind deck's storm count is hard limited by mana from land sources. This is what Storm was originally designed to be, not a win condition shitstorm (heh) but a way to get a couple extra spell casts.
Mind is designed to gain incremental advantages by using Storm and Splice to generate efficient plays and board control. It is not designed to Desperate Ritual splice Desperate Ritual into Manamorphose into Past in Flames into Grapeshot into Empty the Warrens.
Considering that Tendrils of Agony, Hunting Pack, Brain Freeze, and Dragonstorm were among the original Storm cards, I think it's safe to assume that the notion of using it as a big finishing blow was there from the beginning. Of course, there were even more Storm cards that didn't lend themselves to a game-winning spell chain, so I'd agree that the "couple of extra spell casts" usage was also part of the plan. Other than Mind's Desire, which was largely a problem because of the potential for the card as a four-of to hit additional copies of itself, none of the original Storm cards are really degenerate.
Storm wasn't meant to work with a count of 20 or something though.
Hunting Pack and Dragonstorm are odd cards to go for a ritual manamorphose cantrip deck. They are meant to be devastating at lower storm counts as well. I would be pretty happy with a Dragonstorm count 3 personally. Hunting Pack would be a (questionable) way to hose control decks. Maybe your mono green ramp has a ton of mana, but enemy has a ton of counters? Hunting Pack for 3 beasts.
Brain Freeze was probably meant to go in a Mono U Mill (or UB Mill) as a large mill card. At a storm count of 4 it would be a perfectly respectable mill effect, and mill decks can play lots of cheap stuff.
If Tendrils of Agony was capped at a reasonable level, I would see a pretty balanced card. Mono black is supposed to set up the battlefield for big drain effects, with cards like Exsanguinate and Grey Merchant. Wizards probably noted the existence of the black ritual spells when setting the mana cost and power of Tendrils. They didn't expect people to throw in a massive mana acceleration turn 0 flashback engine.
In fact, Storm was designed to work, at best, at a level of 5 or so. The mechanic was designed as "added utility if you jump some hoops" not "make a card that enables a specifically designed deck to win automatically, and 90% of blue disruption magic doesn't affect it in the slightest". If Wizards had planned for what happened with ritual abuse, they would have added a number. Ex: Storm X (Copy this spell number of other spells you cast this turn, up to X times)
The biggest reason storm broke down is because of cards like Past in Flames, Pyromancer's Ascension, and Yawgmoth's Will. Pyromancer's is meant to give Izzet decks a little more oomph and craziness. Yawgmoth's is meant for mass creature recursion with enough mana. Past is meant to give certain decks a kick in the late game. What Wizards failed to anticipate is what happens when you double storm counts. All of a sudden, your count of 5 becomes a count of 10. Tendrils goes from life gain bomb to game end. Grapeshot goes from efficient removal and damage to instant game ender. Empty the Warrens goes from a battalion of goblins to MTGO token limit of goblins. Throw in mana neutral cards and mana creation cards, which actually feed off the spell doubler mechanic, and you have a major issue. Storm is the result of an R&D team doing insufficient playtesting basically.
Storm doesn't need to hit a count of 20 to close out a game. I'm not sure where you're getting that from. Nor "Tendrils of Vampirism." Trying to guess what the intent was based on the name of the card seems like a stretch in that case. The fact is, those cards were fully capable of closing out games and their power to do so was clear enough that the developers in the early 00's must have been aware of it.
I'm not sure how much you're aware of the history of Storm decks, given that you mention "ritual manamorphose cantrip deck" and Manamorphose didn't exist yet and wouldn't for several years, so of course Hunting Pack and Dragonstorm weren't designed with it in mind. But I don't want to assume that you DON'T know, as you may have simply been generalizing. Anyway, there were several different attempts at using Storm, with varying degrees of success. My gripe is that we have people like Mark Rosewater writing the whole mechanic off as "bah-roken" or whatever, but really the only one that was demonstrably a competitive problem was Mind's Desire. In Vintage, with a ton of cards that generate free mana and efficient card advantage, Storm has to be kept in check (and it is, thanks to numerous restrictions), but in other formats? Tendrils decks are tier 2 in Legacy. They've been tier 2 in Legacy for a long time. Storm doesn't dominate Modern. Even in No Banned List Modern, it seems to mostly show up as tier 2, maybe better, but not dominant. Now, it was one of the top decks in Standard after Time Spiral Block brought the mechanic back (Dragonstorm decks used Storm spells in combination with Suspend spells to sculpt big direct damage turns), but not dominant. It also ran rampant in Extended, but that was with Mind's Desire, which I admit actually is a problem. Storm cards have been available in multiple Standard environments, in the old Type 1.5, in multiple Extended rotations, in Legacy, in Modern, and in Vintage. Across all those formats, with what I think are reasonable exceptions in cases of Mind's Desire decks or old Vintage (when Lion's Eye Diamond was unrestricted), the mechanic has not dominated. It has sometimes been competitive enough to be part of a metagame, but it hasn't taken over. And sometimes, other things have taken over. And yet, despite that track record, the entire mechanic is cast as inherently broken. Well, the numbers are there. And they don't support that.
So I don't think it is a mechanic that needs to be capped. It has been a very interesting part of the game the way it is.
I kind of feel you're both stating the same thing... What he meant with the "ritual ritual cantrip" line was exactly that they didn't exist when strom was first created, and that WotC probably didn't thought of storm cards being played with a count of 20 to end the game, like grapeshot is right now in Modern ,but they thought of it as "play a few spells and get 5 or 6 dmg for 2 mana".
About the other storm cards that work as finishers, those are cards that work as finisher with a way lower storm count, like hunting pack or dragonstorm, being meant to be played with a... maybe maximum of 5 in storm count? Which could make it pretty lethal. There's no much difference between a 10 and 15 storm counts with those cards because they are menat to finish off a game with lower storms numbers, wheras the difference between a 10-15 grapeshot could be game deciding.
I mean, Grapeshot wasn't one of the original Storm cards. It came later. So I suppose that the developers of Scourge probably weren't much accounting for a storm counts as high as 20, but there also weren't any storm cards that actually needed to hit 20 storm count to kill. Tendrils of Agony only needs 10 to kill a player by itself. You could try to assume that the developers at the time erroneously failed account for the possibility of a single, lethal Tendrils of Agony, but I'm inclined to give them a bit more credit than that.
By the time Grapeshot was printed, there were more cards available to keep a spell chain going. But historically, 20-point Grapeshots weren't the norm anyway. It was more common to combine it with Ignite Memories, Rift Bolt, and other burn spells, or to use it to clear blockers for an army of goblin tokens or for Greader Gargadon. Sure, 20-point Grapeshots are possible, but the card is flexible enough to have other uses with lower storm counts. And since WotC could already have seen combo decks generating very high storm count in the days of Scourge (albeit mostly in Vintage), I assume that they were aware of the possibility of a Grapeshot kill before they released the card.
I would love to hear your thoughts on Phyrexia vs The Coalition. it was my first duel deck, and one of my first MTG purchases, so it's got a special place in my nostalgia zone.
if mind vs. might was uppost to bring a spotlight to dominaria then they shoud be commander decks. The face of the decks are both legemdary creatures so why not
The duel deck I keep going back to is Jace vs. Vraska. Seems quite balanced and provides interesting, interactive gameplay most games.
This was the first MTG product I bought and you did a great job of articulating why this was frustrating to play. However I do not regret buying this as it was great for my first commander deck.
Another very informative video. also thank you for the picture at the GP San Antonio. Great guy, great videos. keep it up sir. @Tolarian Community College
I wonder if this guy has ever thought of being a professional product reviewer like more than just card game products because his reviews are always amazing and he tells you exactly what you are getting
Daaaaw. Cheers for the kind words.
I bought this last week, I had never played mtg before and they had it in my local comic store. I think for someone like myself it is a really useful, sort of beginners guide of how to play the game. I still don't understand completely wtf is going on but I'm getting there.
As mentioned many times in the comment section, I also agree the two decks aren't well balanced. With might winning near enough every time.
I was just at the store yesterday looking at this product thinking, "I hope the professor makes a video for this one." LOLOLOL Thanks Professor!!
I managed to pick one up a couple weeks ago for 19.99 off of card kingdom and honestly I love them. I am primarily an EDH player and the Mind deck helped me get a lot of cards for my Mizzix deck with a bonus of additional Commander pieces for other decks.
Duel Deck: Storm Crow vs. Chimney Imp
I think you missed something with this review. If you (enfranchised player) take mind and give your friend (casual player) might it works out quite nicely. A challenge for you and a simple for them.
Winter John "let me teach you how to play this game. your goal is to play the game. my goal is to stop you from playing the game. you won't understand why but you'll get it."
*5 minutes later*
okay, so now this card I cheated out for free lets me take another turn, and on my next turn I play these 3 cards and then storm 4 of your lands back to your hand so your resources are set back 4 turns... where are you going?"
My first (and as of yet only) Duel Decks are Zendikar vs Eldrazi, and I find it overall to be really fun, it makes for some gameplay of pretty epic scale at the best of times. Blessed vs Cursed is also really cool to play with
I think this is the earliest I've ever been for one of your videos.
I have found that playing with the featured legends/walkers in the command zone to lead to the most fun and balanced games when playing with dual decks and intro/planeswalker decks. I highly recommend it.
I had been on the fence about this one, thanks professor!
My favorite dual deck is the Elspeth vs. Kiora deck. Typically, when I face a new player and I get the advantage, I find myself letting up, then they come from behind to destroy me. Lots of last minute close shaves in that deck. Also, might pick this up because I'm a monster who wants the feeling of comboing off Storm without needing to play Modern.
Old school beat down has been a fair match for untapped islands since the old days of Sligh Vs Buehler blue. There's a lot of fun to be had with this product.
Thanks prof.! Glad I watched this. I have to admit though, that the big take away for me was that my Mishra's Bobble was actually worth something. I'm not a control player. So, I never used it or saw value in it. Now, I know that it's wanted... For some reason lol. It's still going over my head.
I really appreciate your videos. Keep going!
I personally like this duel deck because of the Legendaries. A nice collect for a semi new player wanting to get into commander.
Since they are partly singleton decks and are based off of commander, it is not unlikely that they are using the dual deck to provide tools for build a jhiora or lovisa comander deck. The cards included also see a lot of comander play so it could be made for comander without stating it.
I personally like the new art for the legendary cards and guttural response. Also rift bolts with exile in the reminder text for suspend is nice.
I really love these decks, and I want to note that the mind is not actually so complex as it looks. My little brother, who has only played welcome decks and intro decks so far, got the general idea of lining things up to have higher storm, and just digging for the big haymakers
Might not play vs. Mind if i change my deck?
Stick to your day job
Not strictly a duel deck, but Armed v Dangerous was pretty well balanced.
I also like Elspeth v Kiora.
I think the worst-balanced deck pair I've seen was Zendikar v Eldrazi.
Duncan Ellis kiora would win all the time though
it was pretty evenly split in my experience.
In one of our games, both Elspeth and Kiora had all their best cards onboard, and Kiora's deck couldn't do anythying to win. Even huge Leviathans could not break the defense, and all this because of the white enchantment that gave all creatures +2/+2.
I always believe in supporting your local game store, but if they are not carrying it I found a very good price for this product. Amazon has them for $17.00 with free two day shipping if you have prime.
Thank you 100 times for these duel deck reviews. I'm looking to help my friends get a good head start for fun decks / edh
I bought the decks, mainly for cards to add to other decks.
I like it, and am happy with $ vs. cards received..
Since you asked for testing, and I'm fairly certain you didn't actually test these duel decks, I went ahead and did some testing. Here are my results of 5, "3 out of 5" game matches with myself and a friend, We each swapped decks upon finishing each match
Match 1 - Mind wins with a 3-1 in minds favor
Match 2 - Mind wins with a 3-2 in minds favor
Match 3 - Might wins with a 3-2 in mights favor
Match 4 - Mind wins with a 3-2 in minds favor
Match 5 - Might wins with a 3-0 in mights favor
All together per game, that is 11 wins for mind and 11 wins for might. Mind did win the overall 5 match set, but it was far from unbalanced. You cant just say a deck is unbalanced because a certain mechanic is in the deck, this isn't modern and the decks aren't built around abusing the mechanics. I am a huge fan of your content, but i feel you are being a bit thick headed over this. That being said these are my results of testing, other results will vary.
Randomly just picked this up at my local card shop for 15 bucks and I'm happy with what I got..I must include I am an EDH player primarily so the reason for buying this was to use it to make new EDH decks and having said that it served its purpose VERY well in my opinion. 15 bucks for this was a steal in my opinion. Yeah I was hoping for more but I'm happy with what I got.
I always appreciate reviews like this. While I am going to get this duel deck set, it's only because I like alternate art and enjoy collecting all the duel decks that come out. I started with the Elspeth and Kiora, and have every one since. I am likely to continue... but it's only cause it fits my enjoyment of collecting. Outside of those itches I love scratching, I am sad to hear about the lack of better includes and non balanced play.
Though I will say, I do like the idea of giving newer players at least an easy(ish) chance to have a shot at storm, considering the storm scale and all. Still, not sure how worth it it is...
though and off the wall theory: What if storm IS coming back when/if we go back to Dominaria next year? And same with snow lands? It would be... interesting. (unlikely, but an interesting thought)
thanks for the review professor
I had plenty of fun with them over the weekend, satisfied! So far, been enjoying the Might a tad bit more.
Cards banned in other formats for being powerful does not necessarily make them powerful in a duel deck.
"Khans over Tarkir" Now I cant stop imagining the khans flying around Tarkir spitting fire over dragonS
Jace vs Chandra was the magnum opus of dual decks. The decks were well balanced. The games had a good cross between consistency and variance. There was high financial value, but not too high. If you played either Jace or Chandra against other older dual decks, they each held up well. And replay value was really high.
I played a 2 headed giant with this duel deck vs other standard fun decks. The quick board state of Might was always able to help hold down for Mind to gather up an array of 1/1's that would just get sent right over the power edge when Coat of Arms was played. However, during the 1 vs 1 match, Might tended to overrun Mind between selected trample & the land tax of Zo-Zu. Still a better match up than Nissa vs Ob Nix.
My brother and I played Blessed vs Cursed a few times and it is pretty balanced. Some matches came down to who could outplay the other. Plus, being a thematic humans against zombies is a nice bonus.
As a heavy EDH Commander player it'll be worth it to pick up, if only for some better additions to my B/U Control Deck and any spare reds I can hold onto and give to my buddy who runs R/B burn Commander.
this was perfect for getting my girlfriend better at magic, i had a super fun time playing storm, as she ran a simple warrior deck against me. i onviously went easy and didnt play 9 grapeshots into 18 mores spells which in turn let me cast another slew of grapheshots and allowing me to take another turn which unsuspended all of my 10 cost cards, but i thought about it and how it would give me a lot of drakes and goblins. anyways, this is the most fun ive had playing magic in about a year, standard has been tiring, and i am so happy with my purchase.
Brilliant analysis like always, Professor. I enjoyed this video a lot.
Snow Covered Mountains was certainly a massive oversight with Lovisa Coldeyes, not sure why they weren't included. Red Skred is a deck in Modern, possibly more so than Storm even.
It's a cute pair of Duel Decks though, it may get a grade D by your standards, Prof, but it's got cards I haven't seen in some time that we played at the cafeteria in high school. Wins my heart for sure.
Cool video Professor, very informative and entertaining. Keep up the good work ☺
I think deck box should include a small roll of packages tape. Otherwise the other harder plastic deck box are just fine. You don't need a plus boxes, just used that Stanley hardware container, you buy from home depot.
Welp, I play commander, cube, and some other "casual" ways to play, but my friends and I know the game very well. This set was perfect for me, a lot of very interesting cards from before I started playing. I haven't had the chance to play them against each other yet, but from what I've seen they are better balanced than you seem to think - the Mind cards might have more potential in a more competitive build, but this is not a top tier storm deck, there isn't nearly enough ramp. I'm excited to try them together, and then I'm excited to tear them apart and use almost every card in some silly edh deck or the other, with a few heading for my cube.
I've always loved Izzet v. Golgari and still have a complete set ready to play somewhere in my collection.
My favorite Duel Deck was Elves vs Goblins. My wife and I played them to death in the Lorwyn era. During Time Spiral block my main fnm deck was mono red goblin gargadon storm. The mind deck takes me back so it works for me on a nostalgic level. The might deck seems powerful enough to get "under" the mind deck enough to seem balanced. I'm gonna give this product a B+.
i just wanna give a shotout to card kingdom for their amazing service!
Recently i made an order of foils for my edh deck and it included the foil vivid lands. But there was a mistake in my order and i was sent 2 vivid marshes instead of one of each. so naturally i dropped them an email and told them about this error and suggested maybe i could take store credits instead. But they were like hey, keep that 99c foil and we will send you another.
Mind you i live in singapore and i ordered my cards with the ups mailing option which was about 17 bucks and they sent it with the same mailing option i picked! Out of principle in buying all my cards from there now
Phyrexia vs. Coalition is very balanced against each other. Also, the answers are more powerful than the threats, which is a nice change of pace from basically every other duel deck.
I vaguely remember that my testing found Phryrexia with an edge, but it wasn't egregious. Some of the other entries in the series were more imbalanced.
I was actually pleased with the Mind vs. Might decks. It seemed like someone was really trying to explore space that Duel Decks haven't done before. Most previous Duel Decks are various versions of Beatdown with some thematic skinning. The Mind deck is the closest to a traditional blue "all spells" type deck than any other Duel Deck I've seen. If I had any complaints it was how boringly beatdown the Might deck is. In fact, a lot of the deck looked to me like the Mosters deck from Heroes and Monsters Duel deck.
While I wasn't happy with the bump in MSRP that put it nearly out of my budget, I did get to pick up some fun cards that I've wanted to buy in the past. Overall, I'd rate this as a C+ for me--not amazing, but a welcome purchase, and some creative risk-taking on Wizards' part that I'd like to encourage.
I think this might hit the sweetspot between casual and the next step-- Playing storm (a super fun looking deck type) and having the smashy things deck satisfies both me and even someone less versed in magic.
After playing roughly 10 games, I feel they are roughly the same power.
Yes, storm is op, but the Might deck gives trample, which overpowers the chump blockers.
I am from Portugal and i ebayed the dual deck witht he siege rhino from Italy (Origins Clash Pack). None left here.
Not regreted. I still have the value and the decks are g8.
In zendikar vs eldrazi the decks where not balanced. The Black/Red deck had a huge flavour with those huge eldrazi, and fun strategy, but was very week against the G/W boring deck.
However, by far the best decks from these 3 where the FATE REFORGED CLASH PACK. Good value and most fun decks.
Btw, i liked how you wrote "Ob Nixilus" instead of "Nixilis"
As always, excellent content. Every couple of months I question whether I should continue being a patreon. The answer is always yes
I think bulk card's values shouldn't really be included. Realistically you aren't going to be able to sell them for the "value" they have, and if you aren't ordering online odds are pretty good you can get multiple bulk cards for less than any one's list price. If it isn't at least worth $1 it's not really worth counting towards the total value.
As a Jhoira EDH player, this set is a must-have for the new art, but the decks themselves aren't good for pick-up-and-play, it seems. Most of my non-EDH MTG with my friends is usually through putting all of the Duel Decks I have on a table and picking them at random to play against one another. I've found Sorin vs. Tibalt is actually pretty well balanced (though not for Tibalt himself, who DESPERATELY needs a new Walker that isn't entirely focused around Madness).
Love your videos and your tie for this episode especially. Not sure about this duel deck still. Maybe I could get a few singles from it sometime.
Bloody hell, the price tag on this thing if they actually reprinted Visions.
Snow Covered Mountains would've been cool though... get it!
At least from the ones I've played, the best duel deck set I ever touched was Blessed VS Cursed. The theme was good, the decks were hella straight forward and fun, and just awesome IMO. I actually really learned to play the game with that set, cause the only other pre-made deck I owned then was Eldrazi Assault, and I didn't know how to brew yet (I also personally refuse to go online to look up popular decks, cause for me, the fun of the whole game is buying blind cards and making something work from them).
The biggest advantage of the optional plastic deckboxes is that the whole package stays together, so you can stash it with the other board games to pull down off the shelf and play with no prep.
Regarding the Mind deck, I still hate after all these years that The Unspeakable's combo can fizzle if you're unfortunate enough to draw him while performing it, because the combo only allows you to find him in your library and not in your hand.
How about doing a list of good dueldecks in video form. Apart from being helpful for the lads out there, I'm sure such a "top five duel decks" would attract quite a lot attention, which would be a nice bonus! ;)
Having played several games with these decks I disagree they are not balanced against each other. The Mind Deck needs a good pilot to beat the Might deck. Might can take games easily if it gets rolling however if the Mind Deck can slow or stop them for a few turn the game swing heavily in it's favor. I play with my girlfriend more often than not and we are on 2 different skill levels (I have played for 10+ years she just learned the game a year and a half ago) and this is a great duel deck for us. Might fits her style of play and is straight forward and easy to pilot, getting her several wins against me, while Mind is complex enough to be a challenge for me, keeping us both entertained.
Could I pursuade you, Prof, to think of this duel deck release another way?
You said that an unskilled player with the Mind deck would get stomped by the Might deck, but a skilled player would overwhelm them with complex mechanical synergy. Perhaps this product is to teach a new player that the skills of the mind can be used to overcome an opponent just as well as a horde of bashy beatstick creatures.
A low level wizard is the ultimate noob, but at higher levels he makes the fighter look like an ant. Such is the difference between those that sling spells and those that use brute force.
I actually liked this. It was the thing that brought me into magic. I'm still using some cards like beacon of Tomorrows and gruteal response in a combo deck.
My favorite was KvV but my biggest concern is how many new players will try the storm deck, like it, and lose interest due to the high cost of RU staples for modern decks. Scalding tarn's price is going up after all.
I really really like Lovisas new artwork. Beautiful
Winter is coming.
This video made me want to buy these decks, and I will! Just a lot of good cards, try getting this value from seven random packs.
Yeah seconding the chime in here. The Mind deck seems powerful when it can line up everything it wants, but the Might deck has way, way more overall consistency. Turn creatures sideways is always a clock. Storm is a clock only if you can cantrip into infinity.
yup, returning to dominaria in 2018
yep
never bought a duel deck for anything but singles i desperately needed and this one is my favorite
One small tidbit Prof: The Storm Scale is about a mechanic's possibility of return in STANDARD. It doesn't include supplemental sets.
Just because a deck has storm cards doesn't make it powerful.
or try to even though your hand is full of seven, eight and nine drops
Wrong. 4 Wing Shards and 56 Snow-Covered Swamps is unbeatable.
Knowledgeabletyrant
...yeah, but does it have Storm Crow?
Knowledgeabletyrant as Maro would say that's how storm tricks you
Before the Review: YES!!! Jhoria was one of my first EDH decks before it became Commander.
I love the new art and having reprints of cards useful in modern and EDH is amazing for 20$
Post Review: They are pretty balanced if Might has the right hand it can put on enough pressure against Mind.
Honestly, this is the most fun duel/theme deck I have played in a while and my roommates and I are still playing around with them before I take them a part for parts. I would give these a B.
Great video, whats the best entry level duel deck?
Thanks for the comprehensive review! I was kind of looking forward to this deck to play with my GF, but the fact that it seems to be highly unbalanced makes it a bummer for me. Maybe i'll buy a different duel deck for the money. Any recommendations aside from "Blessed vs. Cursed"?
So as I understand if I buy the old duel deck or some type of other old cards they cannot play in current 'patch' statement?
Hi Prof. Great video as always.I have one thing I slightly disagree on though and that is that these decks are not designed well for new players. While this is certainly true for VERY new players, I think the idea that most new players will be too confused by the complexity of the card interactions to enjoy them is perhaps a little condescending. I personally loved the almost overwhelming combo potential in the newer sets that I saw when I started magic again nearly two years ago. When I had quit magic years ago, the only real combo around was Cadaverous-Bloom! Cards with the storm and splice onto arcane mechanics feel almost like they are mini-combos on a card and I personally would have loved the Mind deck as a new player.
its true that in the (very) old days there werent that many combos, but of those that existed many were fairly powerful. prosperbloom, icyorb lock, elfball, channeltorch, tolaria, chronatog....
nowadays there more combos but the vast majority are johnny in nature, as in, they have been carefully concocted so you'll never win anything competitively with them.
I'll still get these and tune them a bit to hopefully balance them more. Blessed vs Cursed is still a favourite of mine, either deck is able to pull a win out of nowhere.
Joe Morris I agree with blessed vs cursed being an amazing duel deck, but I think heroes vs monsters is better, because it comes with some value cards and balanced power for a duel deck.
Kason Zechiel Yeah there's not a whole lot of value in either decks, if blessed had Thraben inspector as a preview card I think it would have done better. A favourite 'combo' of mine is Doomed Traveller + Butcher's Cleaver. Terrible everywhere else but it's a game winner in a duel deck haha
I was tempted to get the duel deck, just for Jhoira and the storm mechanic cards.
Then I decided if I wanted to cast stuff for free, I'd just put Show and Tell, Sneak Attack and Omniscience in a deck and watch them be one big, happy family.
Though I'll have to save more money.
i thank you professer, i was considering picking up these cards to simply play and challenge one another, but you do make it sound like they are very mismatched