Magic: The Gathering,GO TEAM MS!

[Isis]

When I think about tapping a land to put a +1/+1 counter and being allowed to do it most turns that seems exciting, but when I think about playing a wastes that says "your instants and sorceries have kicker(1): put a +1/+1 counter on target creature" then my mind instead says that's not good enough. The shimmering grotto mama filter is not much better than nothing, lands that require you to go down aana to get the correct color generally haven't performed well.

I don't expect it to be playable but I might be wrong.

[Isis]

It's a shame they couldn't make it "activate this ability only outside of combat when the stack is empty" so that it could be used with instants better. But there's the cardinal rule against acknowledging the stack exists on a card.

[Isis]

I kiA deck manlands with cheap activations makes it a lot more attractive since it erodes the tension between having creatures and having instants and sorceries both to make the card good. And some manlands are kind of unfair if you augment them and they keep ducking sorcery speed removal.

[Infinity 324]

When I think about tapping a land to put a +1/+1 counter and being allowed to do it most turns that seems exciting, but when I think about playing a wastes that says "your instants and sorceries have kicker(1): put a +1/+1 counter on target creature" then my mind instead says that's not good enough.

I can see this, I guess I'm envisioning it being good when you have to use a removal spell in your aggressive/midrange deck and it forces you to play off-curve, the more I think about it the narrower its applications are though. The types of decks it's good in probably tend to lose to emergent ultimatum (although if there's a good humiliate deck this card probably goes in it)

What format where cheap-activation manlands are legal in are you envisioning for this card

[Isis]

It's way too low power for anything but standard so I'm hoping standard has one I don't know of or one gets printed into the format.

If you just removed your opponent's biggest creature in an aggressive deck how likely are you to need the +1/+1 to be favorable against blocks D:

[Infinity 324]

Faceless haven is pretty widely played but it's expensive to activate

In my aggressive deck making my creatures bigger so I can kill my opponent is pretty much good enough, they also get to dodge heartless act now. It just needs to be an aggressive deck that plays a bunch of instant/sorceries and is < 3 colors which isn't really a thing

[Isis]

Dropping a mana for the shimmering grotto ability isn't very aggressive. This might actually be at its best in monocolor aggro so that you don't have to use the second ability at all.

[Infinity 324]

Playing a colorless land in 2 color aggro is probably fine? You could up your land count for it too.

I was thinking the mono color aggro decks don't play enough instant/sorceries, but it looks like most mono red decks play rimrock knight (and frost bite and bonecrusher) so maybe? Playing boulder rush at sorcery speed is unexciting, but if you have embercleave maybe you don't care

[Isis]

Yes, a colorless land can be fine in 2 color aggro as well. The fewer the colors the better is the point.

I actually expect monocolor decker to play slightly more instants and sorceries absent incentives is what I was thinking about, like the red stuff. I didn't think about it hard enough because when monoblie plays counter spells those don't work so it's more specifically just mono red. Maybe monoblack with more available instants and sorceries than usual.

You don't have to play boulder rush at sorcery speed! The play pattern can be attack with two goblin tokens, wait to see which one gets blocked, boulder rush the blocked one to make a trade (assuming trading is preferred on the board) go to second main phase, put a plus one counter on the other goblin.

If you have just one goblin tokens against a 4/4 you do have to pump and pump and make your opponent say "oh well ok I won't block then" but you haven't tied down the boulder rush at all, that's only the land getting tied down.

[Infinity 324]

I was thinking about mono white which is the other mono color aggro deck in standard (which only has 2-3 giant killer). Generally I'd expect mono green decks to not have many instants/sorceries either but maybe mono black ones would yeah.

Wrt boulder rush: you're right, you're giving up something no matter what but at least you can choose.

[Infinity 324]

My friend was arguing with me that it's not worth cutting snow lands for faceless haven in order to play hall of oracles though, which doesn't seem right to me but she's much better at magic than me so idk.

[Isis]

If your opponent has lots of removal you'll wish you had the faceless haven since it increases the number of questions your opponent has to answer. Manlands have always been a huge deal for that reason

[Infinity 324]

When the best "control" deck in the format kills me when they get to 7 lands I'm ok accepting that I'm just gonna lose if I run out of cards

[Isis]

Paying one mana for one power doesn't really help you win by turn six either.

[Isis]

I guess it can a smidge if you would have left the mana unspent.

I just doubt the double or nothing is worth it overall I guess

[Infinity 324]

This helps against aggro/midrange too whereas faceless haven doesn't really

[Isis]

Nah. Midrange decks that accidentally draw the removal half of their deck are control decks.

[Infinity 324]

Not really anymore

Tbf faceless haven seems very good against rogues but the above decks are the closest things there are to midrange, and in those matchups I'd much rather be able to pump my creatures and get through blockers/kill them faster with embercleave. There's no "pile of threats and removal spells" deck.

[Isis]

I guess it's hard to draw only the "removal" part of your deck when bonecrisher giant is a silly ubiquitous magic card

[Infinity 324]

Yeah I guess, the other thing is that you can't afford to have games where you only draw the removal half of your deck when the ultimatum deck is in the format and will kill you on 7 lands if that happens. Standard is really about building your engine or killing your opponent before they get theirs online.

[Infinity 324]

Playing in the strixhaven champ qualifiers and I'm scareddd

1-0 atm wish me luck

[shiki]

Playing in the strixhaven champ qualifiers and I'm scareddd

1-0 atm wish me luck

good luck!! hope it continues to go well

[Infinity 324]

I went 3-3 :/

[Ythan]

Good job though.

[Ythan]

Last time I played in an organized setting I only beat one person (it was Nuwen heheh)