Pattern Recognition #352 - Momir Vig
Features Pattern Recognition
berryjon
16 January 2025
201 views
16 January 2025
201 views
Hello Everyone! My name is berryjon, and I welcome you all to Pattern Recognition, TappedOut.Net's longest running article series. Also the only one. I am a well deserved Old Fogey having started the game back in 1996. My experience in both Magic and Gaming is quite extensive, and I use this series to try and bring some of that to you. I dabble in deck construction, mechanics design, Magic's story and characters, as well as more abstract concepts. Or whatever happens to catch my fancy that week. Please, feel free to talk about each week's subject in the comments section at the bottom of the page, from corrections to suggested improvements or your own anecdotes. I won't bite. :) Now, on with the show!
Thanks to Bookrook for suggesting the subject matter! I hope you can discern what I'm talking about as I try to play the format! It's hard to talk about a format in general as I play it.
THE VIDEO!
--"https://youtu.be/O8x8O9-foHE"-- Hard link in case the above video doesn't load.
Seriously though, the Momir format is fun because it's so random. You have to either hit the right creatures to swing things in your favor or press your advantage as hard as you can.
Or play the last game I did, right after I turned off the camera where the RNG decided I was playing Mono- Fliers and won the game that way.
But that fun comes at the price of either only playing on Arena due to the options involved, or do a lot of prep work. Best used as a Kitchen table format and or by limiting the creatures you can use to a Cube-like construction rule set.
Thank you all for watching, and let me know how this worked out for you! Maybe I'll do this more often than not.
Until then, please consider donating to my Pattern Recognition Patreon. Yeah, I have a job (now), but more income is always better, and I can use it to buy cards! I still have plans to do a audio Pattern Recognition at some point, or perhaps a Twitch stream. And you can bribe your way to the front of the line to have your questions, comments and observations answered!
berryjon thanks! I swear I’m not a WOTC employee and had no clue that this event was going to start. I played a game where I got pretty much the best stuff possible. I got Dinrova Horror into Toxril, The Corrosive into Griselbrand into Blazing Archon. My opponent just conceded at that point. I was looking for more of the Momir strategy than raw gameplay. Don’t get me wrong, I love that you made an entire article with over a half hour of gameplay just on my request, thank you. Do you know any strategy that helps you win more matches? “I’ll take the murderous rider because I’m a bastard.” That quote will inspire me forever.
January 17, 2025 12:36 a.m.
Honestly, play Momir like you're aggro. Swing hard, swing fast, and only let up when the board state shifts. And play to whatever Planeswalkers you hold dear you get good Evasion. Trample, Flying or just plain Unblockable.
January 17, 2025 8:35 p.m.
That’s interesting, I found that you should usually skip your one drop if your on the draw and both your one drop and three if your on the play. Two drops have the highest odds of getting a mana dork or getting Dark Confidant which pretty much wins you the game. This allows you to make eight drops every turn.
January 17, 2025 9:45 p.m.
berryjon You kind of alluded to why people skip a turn 1 play when they go first when you talked about the extra draw for the second player. By skipping a turn 1 play, the first player can get up to MV 7, but if they play turn 1 (and don't get a mana dork), they cap at MV 6.
With T1 play:
-
T1 Play land, discard for Momir MV 1. Five cards in hand.
-
T2 Draw, play land, discard for Momir MV 2. Four cards in hand.
-
T3 Draw, play land, discard for Momir MV 3. Three cards in hand.
-
T4 Draw, play land, discard for Momir MV 4. Two cards in hand.
-
T5 Draw, play land, discard for Momir MV 5. One cards in hand.
-
T6 Draw, play land, discard for Momir MV 6. No cards in hand, capped at MV 6 unless you skip a play.
Without T1 play:
-
T1 Play land. Six cards in hand.
-
T2 Draw, play land, discard for Momir MV 2. Five cards in hand.
-
T3 Draw, play land, discard for Momir MV 3. Four cards in hand.
-
T4 Draw, play land, discard for Momir MV 4. Three cards in hand.
-
T5 Draw, play land, discard for Momir MV 5. Two cards in hand.
-
T6 Draw, play land, discard for Momir MV 6. One cards in hand.
-
T7 Draw, play land, discard for Momir MV 7. No cards in hand, capped at MV 7 unless you skip a play.
So by skipping the turn 1 play, the first player gets access to MV 7 cards. It's not super unusual for the player on the draw to also skip their first play to get up to 8-drops.
January 18, 2025 2:32 a.m.
I personally skip my three drop on the play so I can hit eight every turn.
January 18, 2025 3:22 p.m.
I prefer the tempo and initiative. I'd rather skip 4/5/6 depending on the way things play out. A reliable source of card draw, or even an incidental single will do good. Or an ETB discard on the opponent.
The worst part about this format, or at least the video, is that you don't know what creatures are in the pool. It could be anything, and you're just taking risks.
January 19, 2025 8:06 p.m.
If you look at the arena card pool, you can see that most of the eight drops are game winners. Meanwhile, unless you hit a mana dork, the one drops aren’t very impactful
berryjon says... #1
If you don't see the video right away, it's because my computer decided to update and reboot overnight while I was uploading and had to start over this morning. It's processing.
January 16, 2025 11:43 a.m.