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Post Post #77 (isolation #0) » Mon Apr 02, 2012 7:56 pm

Post by popsofctown »

I play on Cockatrice. It's healthier for my pocketbook.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #150 (isolation #1) » Sat Apr 07, 2012 3:53 pm

Post by popsofctown »

I draft on cockatrice, people randomly open up 8 man rooms and draft using ccgdecks. ccgdecks is easier than netdraft in general, I don't know why it isn't more popular.

If you guys need an eighth for a draft or something I might be in, depending on how much effort it would be for me to download mws sets.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #154 (isolation #2) » Sat Apr 07, 2012 5:46 pm

Post by popsofctown »

If you download Cockatrice I'll teach you for $0.00.

Yaw taught me a large part of the rules on mws. So it would balance my karma.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #196 (isolation #3) » Mon Apr 09, 2012 11:49 pm

Post by popsofctown »

I don't think Miracle will amp up the luck factor that much. The game is already inundated with chance and luck, and it's about managing your probabilities best. It's just another possibility to manage along with what if my deck doesn't draw enough lands, what if I draw Card A and Card B together, what if I don't draw Card A and Card B together, what if I don't draw turn one Goblin Guide, what if I do.

Cascade was mostly a problem because Jund was overpowered, and overcentralization means you have to run the best deck, and you have to run hate for the best deck, so when both you and your opponent know to do that nothing is left but the coin flips. If cascade were part of a balanced format it'd be fine.

That said, if I were going to make a new mechanic, it wouldn't be Miracle (it might be soulbound though, I think that's cool).

I don't think Miracle decks will benefit from instant speed draw, it becomes worse with Miracle, not better. You have to have 4 mana up every time you cast Think Twice, or you risk drawing a totally dead card. In a Miracle deck, you want to have sufficient open mana every time you "draw a first card in a turn". I expect a sorcery speed deck to get the most out of Miracle, Faithless Looting + Noxious Revival seems promising, or just a ramp or control deck that is prepared to hardcast Miracle cards.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #203 (isolation #4) » Tue Apr 10, 2012 8:53 am

Post by popsofctown »

not saying it won't see play Grey, just saying Think Twice isn't how.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #345 (isolation #5) » Fri Apr 13, 2012 4:43 am

Post by popsofctown »

In post 338, chamber wrote:Card advantage > removal.

Mulldrifter should still be in bargain bins, yeah? Crazy good common for a U/W fliers casual deck.

@nath: agreed.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #389 (isolation #6) » Sun Apr 15, 2012 2:41 pm

Post by popsofctown »

I'm around.. that post is timestamped an hour ago. I'll log on pidgin fwiw
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7209 (isolation #7) » Wed Sep 21, 2016 5:26 pm

Post by popsofctown »

In post 7207, Natirasha wrote:My first impressions of Kaladesh limited(after 12 drafts) is that this format is very linear but also hilarious. It's reaally hard to come back from behind, and it has Zendikar-Gatecrash "draft all the two drops" thing, but is waaay more fun overall. All the energy cards are powerful, way more than most would think. Don't bother with lots of do-nothing synergies, just play good creatures and turn them sideways.

Best color is black, worst color is blue by a half-mile. Green, then red, then white is the rest of the order. Which is a bit paradoxical one might think, but white's issue is it's all X/2s that trade the whole time. However, since there are so many 3/Xs as well, blue's defensive drops just don't work out and the whole color is good at Doing Nothing in this set. Die Young is the best common and it gets out of control so easily, one of my favorite removal spells they've printed in a long time.

Also, Panharmonicon is amazing if you go off but it's a trap :(
I was really curious about this. I listened to most of Limited Resources on the set and every time a 2 drop comes up LSV is all like, "2/2 or 2/1 is a weak baseline so we are really looking for the ability to sell us on this here.", but when the entire power level of the set is obviously above average and the vehicle mechanic seems very aggression favored it seems like you expect aggression to dominate and for things to skew that way.

"draft all the two drops" sounds like you're agreeing with my suspicions. I guess I would also ask, does that seem more universal or archetype specific? Does B/x aggro want to draft all the 2 drops and the other colors want to draft a higher curve and pick up one or two ways of dealing with that, or does every deck need to pick up some extra low curve stuff to "keep up" with lots of general ability to do damage quickly in the set.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7213 (isolation #8) » Fri Sep 23, 2016 6:56 am

Post by popsofctown »

The thriving cycle reminds me a lot of plated geopede in terms of having a hidden can't block text that can skew aggro
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7218 (isolation #9) » Sat Sep 24, 2016 5:51 pm

Post by popsofctown »

Bombs seemed pretty strong in sealed, I'm hoping draft is better.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7230 (isolation #10) » Mon Sep 26, 2016 10:30 am

Post by popsofctown »

Why would you run Felidar Sovereign when Reservoir already has its ability
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7611 (isolation #11) » Thu May 16, 2019 7:06 am

Post by popsofctown »

Way too many 2-ofs and 3-ofs. You should figure out which cards you want and which ones you don't. Aggro decks should be jamming duplicates even harder than control.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7613 (isolation #12) » Thu May 16, 2019 9:49 am

Post by popsofctown »

for positive feedback, having the willpower to contain Lira Dawnbringer to the sideboard is a good look
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7616 (isolation #13) » Fri May 17, 2019 12:01 pm

Post by popsofctown »

In post 7614, Inferno390 wrote:Kk.
I guess a good start is to cut Seal Away for Shock and Jaya’s greeting for Lighting Strike. Then I cut Healer’s Hawks for an extra Kwende and Tajic? And Switch the Sigiled Swords for Forebearers?

Now from there:
Sheltering Light I’ve been using to protect Kwende, but now that I’m running 4, should I cut them? What for?
Is there something better than Fresh-Faced Recruit? I was keeping it for Kwende synergy, but it’s not great.
Dire Fleet Daredevil is close to strictly better than Fresh-Faced Recruit.

I didn't see Dauntless Bodyguard in your list if I remember right, and it's a great way to protect Kwende without being a total derp if your opponent isn't actually trying to kill your stuff.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7618 (isolation #14) » Sat May 18, 2019 11:06 am

Post by popsofctown »

If you're dead set on keeping Nahiri, maybe you should run the 1 mana 1/2 tapper for War of the Spark so that she can shoot more things. Or play with Trueheart Captain so you can finish people off with the wombo combo.

If Kwende gets Lightning Striked and you're fighting a green deck with a bunch of untapped creatures that happen to have toughness values that make first strike irrelevant Nahiri can become a blank card and that's scary.

6 Mountains is way too many mountains for running Benalish Marshal, you should just cut all of them.

The Jousting Lances do seem pretty derpy but it looks like you need 2's more than 3's. Maybe Knight of Grace or something.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7620 (isolation #15) » Sat May 18, 2019 12:05 pm

Post by popsofctown »

That one overall looks pretty attractive
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7623 (isolation #16) » Mon May 20, 2019 11:27 am

Post by popsofctown »

Not being a squirrel himself makes him even more of a "Lord". Original "Lords" never had the creature type of the thing they improved. They gained them later by errata.

But yeah I was hoping to see a squirrel or two in modern horizons just for the flavor reasons.


Also, technically Inferno could be referring to the 7 mana colorless Squirrel lord, who is a squirrel himself, and doesn't vanish ;)
But, I think he was talking about the card that's going to get us adorable little squirrel tokens.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7626 (isolation #17) » Mon Jun 03, 2019 6:59 am

Post by popsofctown »

I'm going to a sealed grand prix for Modern Horizons. Excite
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"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7628 (isolation #18) » Mon Jun 03, 2019 9:40 am

Post by popsofctown »

I am excited to play with them in sealed for sure. But it feels natural to be skeptical about many of them keeping up with Modern's blistering speed in constructed play.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7632 (isolation #19) » Tue Jun 04, 2019 3:25 am

Post by popsofctown »

Red deck wins is like 60$ and is tier 1, which is crazy. The eco-system now is red deck wins loses to stuff that is making an honest conscious effort to stop red deck wins, then there's really greedy stuff that goes over the top on the decks making an honest conscious effort to stop red deck wins, and then red deck wins beats the greedy stuff. Gruul aggro is maybe the best deck in that second category (even though it's classified as an aggro deck when you see your opponent is playing red you can use the creatures to block, it's pretty cool how the Riot mechanic works that way), and 4 color dreadhorde is one of the best decks in the third category.

Bant Flash is a really interesting deck from the third category. It has so much card advantage, this crazy oops-I-win angle from Oketra, and you can be playing this creature deck yet make a planeswalker deck feel like it's the one getting "controlled" between the Teferi and the constant potential to cast Frilled Mystic. But strangely this standard format has very few sideboard options for red, even in white, so the deck struggles against red. The Wildgrowth walker package is really good against red, but it is twelve cards so you can't fit the entire thing in your sideboard (if I was playing Bant Flash I might be teeeeempted to).

The red deck in this standard is unbelievable compared to past standard red decks. People don't have room for all the lightning bolts because it's so full of good cards!
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7634 (isolation #20) » Tue Jun 04, 2019 5:29 am

Post by popsofctown »

Card for card the closest tier 1 archetype to what you're playing is monowhite splash blue, I think. It's advantaged against red deck wins because it gets on the board and blocks well and whatnot, so the blue is for anti-control sideboard cards to try to beat the greedy decks, which outclass it.

If you're really bent on playing a deck that uses kwende I suspect black/white would be better than red/white. Because then you could at least beat red by abusing Sorin, and playing 8 two drops that can trade with Goblin Chainwhirler (malice/grace).
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7636 (isolation #21) » Tue Jun 04, 2019 5:50 am

Post by popsofctown »

Actually there's a really cute synergy in the red matchup if you have a black white first strike themed deck.

They usually sideboard in Tybalt against people who have lifegain so that you can't gain life. So if you play Sorin and attack with 20 dudes and kill Tybalt that turn you deal a jillion damage and gain no life.

But with kwende you could kill Tybalt with the first strike damage, then start to gain life with the second double strike damage. Tybalt dies before the normal speed damage resolves so you'd gain life the second time.

Kwende and Sorin are both 4 drops so that's a little tricky. It also work if you send a first strike knight at Tybalt and a History of Benalia token at face while you control a Sorin.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7637 (isolation #22) » Tue Jun 04, 2019 5:53 am

Post by popsofctown »

At fnm where people tend to play cheaper decks being able to beat rdw is really important.

At higher levels it stays prominent but it's closer to that 20% so you might actually dodge it and that's where decks like Bant do better.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7639 (isolation #23) » Tue Jun 04, 2019 7:53 am

Post by popsofctown »

Oooh Benalish Marshal is a knight.
You could play with Unclaimed Territory.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7642 (isolation #24) » Tue Jun 04, 2019 9:25 am

Post by popsofctown »

Jousting lance is pretty slow. It's frustrating that History of Benalia Tokens and Benalish Marshal and whatnot don't have first strike but it's probably not worth playing clunky cards. Nahiri seems like it's largely the only tournament viable card that gives creatures first strike, and even she is iffy. But since this deck is less aggressive than your other one she's much less iffy.
If you do run Nahiri you probably want 3-4 copies of the 1/2 white guy who taps a creature. That makes Nahiri able to kill blockers. It turns her from being a dead card against Sultai to being useful.
You'll want the manabase of 4 Isolated Chapel 4 Unclaimed Territory 4 Godless Shrine 11ish plains so you can cast Benalish Marshal reliably. There used to be a deck that did the same thing, but with Warriors and red/green so it could cast Benalish Marshal. 1 Swamp would be the max.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7644 (isolation #25) » Wed Jun 05, 2019 10:32 am

Post by popsofctown »

That maindeck looks pretty good. I'd rather play that at a tournament than your boros version. Some of the 3's I'd move up to 4 and some of them I'd move down to 2 but it can be fun to discover some of that stuff through playtesting.

The sideboard looks a little guessy. Oath of Kaya is a really good sideboard card that you could maybe even play maindeck that is really nasty for red decks to get hit by. Gideon could be nice for ducking Kaya's Wrath.
There's that creature that says, creatures entering the battlefield doesn't cause abilities to trigger. Monowhite splash blue doesn't run it because they are using Venerated Loxodon (which may or many not be good for your list too, not sure) but your list as written right now doesn't have a single ETB trigger so you could hose Sultai with it without hitting yourself.
For sideboard it's often more important to think about what you are removing from the maindeck and how to replace that rather than what the sweet cards are. I'm trying to figure out what you want to be putting in when you sideboard out Law-Rune enforcer. Maybe Snubhorn Sentry to survive the -2/-2 spell people play in the same decks that don't have stuff to tap.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7648 (isolation #26) » Wed Jun 05, 2019 1:50 pm

Post by popsofctown »

Conclave Tribunal for Gruul makes sense.
I don't think you can maindeck citywide bust, red deck wins is enough of the field right now that nobody is playing cards that are blank against red deck wins. But I think you could sideboard it. It's good against... drakes? I wouldn't run a ton but it definitely doesn't look like it hits your own guys.

Settle the Wreckage is a scary card to play right now not as much because it's a bad card and not as much because it doesn't combat what certain archetypes are trying to do but because it randomly gets accidentally countered by certain cards. Blue White should probably not keep Teferi, Time Raveler in against you but if you're going to an FNM they probably will cause he's fun and he says "Settle the Wreckage does nothing". Gruul Spellbreaker also says "Settle the Wreckage does nothing" so it's bad in that matchup too. Then red is too fast for it.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7649 (isolation #27) » Wed Jun 05, 2019 1:52 pm

Post by popsofctown »

Monowhite splash blue actually has absolutely nothing in the 75 that can interact with a Knight of Malice outside of combat.

Maybe you could run Militia Bugler to find it and then voltron cards to exploit it.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7654 (isolation #28) » Wed Jun 05, 2019 8:23 pm

Post by popsofctown »

You actually don't need maindeck spot removal. Period. Yes it's weird. Say thanks to New World Order (a phrase people use to reference the time Wizards said they would make all uncommons and commons simpler but also neatly coincided with when they started making removal bad and creatures really good).

Because so many creatures in standard are either 50% meaningful body 50% immediate effect removal is not that good. Monowhite splash blue has absolutely no removal in the maindeck and that's the most similar archetype to yours. One list I'm looking at has 4 Baffling End in the side, so maybe by side you need it. But it's not essential to Standard magic to be able to remove creatures. There's a lot of decks where removal cards will be dead. Control has to run removal because a control deck can't function without them, but every other deck is avoiding maindeck removal cards that can't be reused for a different purpose right now. Gruul's removal spells can all go face. Red deck win's removal spells can all go face, they don't let any of their Lava Coils touch the maindeck. First Sultai list I pulled up has 2 Cast Down and 3 Assassin's Trophy, Assassin's trophy is way better than the 4 mana white kill-anything stuff and it's still not well-positioned enough that the green-black people want to play the full 4. Cast down is better than any of white's removal. But if you wanted to play 2 Seal Away as a mirror image to a Sultai deck's 2 Cast down's that might be roundabouts right. That'd be less balls-deep than 3-4 cost sorcery speed mass removal spells.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7655 (isolation #29) » Wed Jun 05, 2019 8:28 pm

Post by popsofctown »

I almost suggested Massacre Girl as your sideboard mass removal.
But I was worried about the double black.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7658 (isolation #30) » Thu Jun 06, 2019 9:12 am

Post by popsofctown »

Cool!
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7672 (isolation #31) » Tue Jun 25, 2019 8:00 am

Post by popsofctown »

Monored doesn't really use its sideboard right now, so it wouldn't be that hard to swap out all the cards that get hosed by Leyline of Sanctity. There's lots of playable alternatives to directly targetting like Ghitu Lavamage, Guttersnipe, Risk Factor.

The 1/1 Drake is going to be more of a problem because even if you sideboard around it it will basically pacifism one of your creatures. Leyline of Sanctity can go to blank if you sideboard around it hard enough.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7676 (isolation #32) » Wed Jun 26, 2019 7:49 am

Post by popsofctown »

I am disappointed to learn Risk Factor doesn't honor Browbeat the way I want it to.

Mono red really does not do much with it's sideboard. Mono red players physically exchange a lot of cards from the deckbox for cards in the maindeck, yes, but the new cards that come in are not that much different from the ones that came out.
Lava Coil is really good against Green and Tybalt has a really meaningful text line, then aside from those 7 slots you could put 8 red cards that threaten your opponent's life total without targeting your opponent in your sideboard if you wanted to. Looking at some sideboards that's already what those 8 red cards tend to be, aside from if people are ever casting the backside of Fight with Fire.

There's some variants of mono-red the stay very very small, generally aren't running Chandra or Rekindling Phoenix in the 75, are cutting 1-2 mountains from the standard amount. Those ones admittedly would have a really hard time dealing with a Leyline of Sanctity. I don't really like playing that flavor of it anyway though.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7679 (isolation #33) » Thu Jun 27, 2019 6:46 am

Post by popsofctown »

That's a cool deck DeathNote
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7680 (isolation #34) » Thu Jun 27, 2019 8:34 am

Post by popsofctown »

I'm spending a lot of time trying to figure out what post M20 red does to account for Cerulean Drake, but I can't decide. There's Chamber Sentry, Kraul Harpooner on a warrior/green splash, or maybe Fungal Infection on a black splash. Or maybe you should just ignore it and stay fast and red and lean and mean.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7681 (isolation #35) » Tue Jul 02, 2019 10:02 am

Post by popsofctown »

Super boring core set. I miss Magic Origins.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7683 (isolation #36) » Tue Jul 02, 2019 10:45 am

Post by popsofctown »

I like limited a lot, and this set is a snore at common and uncommon. There's somewhat more interesting things going on at higher rarities.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7685 (isolation #37) » Wed Jul 03, 2019 8:46 am

Post by popsofctown »

Krenko is already used in Boros feather decks, which are ~ tier 1.5.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/2000677#paper

How far you can push probably is a function of how similar to the Boros feather decks you go.

If you go 4 Krenko and 2 Feather instead of 4 Feather 2 Krenko you get to shift the mana base redder and run fewer duals so that's a little bit of upside. You could get the deck to where Militia Bugler is good, that could be good.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7687 (isolation #38) » Wed Jul 03, 2019 9:59 am

Post by popsofctown »

When the card becomes legal in 10 days almost certainly
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7689 (isolation #39) » Thu Jul 04, 2019 5:14 am

Post by popsofctown »

Every single card you want to cut provides card advantage.

Maybe you'll need to run experimental frenzy to regain all that card advantage.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7693 (isolation #40) » Mon Jul 08, 2019 9:33 am

Post by popsofctown »

In post 7690, InflatablePie wrote:got back into Arena a few weeks ago, currently jamming RDW (testing 3cmc Chandra and Burning Prophet, they've been pretty good) and whipped up this Dimir Control for Bo1 ladder cuz I was gettin tired of Mono-Red:

Spoiler: list
1 Lasav, the Multifarious
2 Thief of Sanity
2 Nightveil Predator
1 Hostage Taker
2 Doom Whisperer

1 Davriel, Rogue Shadowmage
1 Narset, Parter of Veils
1 Liliana, Dreadhorde General

4 Thought Erasure
2 Duress

2 Cast Down
2 Moment of Craving
1 Murder
1 Vraska's Contempt
1 Enter The God-Eternals

1 Cry of the Carnarium
1 Ritual of Soot

1 Negate
1 Disdainful Stroke
3 Sinister Sabotage

2 Discovery // Dispersal
2 Chemister's Insight

1 The Eldest Reborn

9 Island
6 Swamp
2 Dimir Guildgate
4 Dismal Backwater
2 Watery Grave
1 Drowned Catacomb


the deck could use work tbh (3rd Thief of Sanity, maybe a 2nd Enter the God-Eternals, ~2 Kefnet... lands...), but I'm down to 2 mythic WCs and 1 of the others and wanna save future ones til the meta settles so it's basically a pile of what I had in my collection

seems like a decent start but if anyone has suggestions lmk - so far Narset's been mediocre and I should probs craft a 2nd CotCarnarium over going 1/1 with Ritual of Soot. also a 2nd Vraska's Contempt but I have much higher priorities for rare WCs (ie lands, PWs) and they rotate this fall sooooo
If you can crack some packs I imagine that Disfigure plays close to strictly better Moment of Craving.
Nightveil Predator and 15 basic lands can't be right. The probability your mana doesn't hit UUBB is surely high enough that it's not better than some other 4 drop in your collection. It's already questionable to be utilizing a hexproof creature in a deck that doesn't invalidate the opponent's spot removal.
Blink of an Eye? Ravenous Chupacabra? Maybe you have a rando Karn 1.0? Or just putting in more permission/instant speed draw in the slot is probably plenty good enough.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7695 (isolation #41) » Tue Jul 09, 2019 6:49 am

Post by popsofctown »

I have to begrudgingly admit it works well against mono red while being a game piece in other MUs. It requires me to think about a different format than the one I plan to play, though, in Bo3 I think decks with blue mana are only going to need to make the most minor of concessions to mono red after the release of Cerulean Drake.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7697 (isolation #42) » Wed Jul 10, 2019 4:11 am

Post by popsofctown »

I'm pretty skeptical of that. The one thing even worse than Dies to Removal is Dies to Combat. Chandra dies to combat without getting an opportunity to generate at least 1 card worth of value, unlike Davriel, Narset, Tef3ri, and baby Vivien.
She guarantees a card of value if you play her as a 5 drop but then why not cast Nicol Bolas, Dragon God and have 5 loyalty instead of 2?
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7699 (isolation #43) » Wed Jul 10, 2019 7:39 am

Post by popsofctown »

Acquire Steam Ventses, obviously.
4x Lightning Strike will be better than 2+2 Strike and Coil
The curve looks rough for your odd-numbered turns but I don't know what the best includes are for that.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7701 (isolation #44) » Wed Jul 10, 2019 10:37 am

Post by popsofctown »

I wonder if basing UR around Uncaged Fury could be good. Could get some oops-I-wins.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7704 (isolation #45) » Wed Jul 10, 2019 10:46 am

Post by popsofctown »

If you want to more-win with Ral you should run more copies of Expansion//Explosion to go infinite.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7709 (isolation #46) » Mon Jul 15, 2019 1:31 pm

Post by popsofctown »

oh my god I love it
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7710 (isolation #47) » Mon Jul 15, 2019 1:32 pm

Post by popsofctown »

Oh it's predicated on "untapping with Bolas" so it's godawful more-win.

If Cunning Castaway Ult costed 4 it'd be a real deck
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7712 (isolation #48) » Mon Jul 15, 2019 2:11 pm

Post by popsofctown »

In post 7711, chamber wrote:https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card ... eid=443088

Is normally what I saw used in that deck. Makes it more clunky but wins on the spot.
With 6 or 7 lands in play you are untapping with a walker after resolving a 5 mana enchantment that did little/nothing so you still "deserved to win" and it's still not compelling.
However since Jace is a humble 3 mana you can actually just do this when you get your 8th land and at that point I find it really compelling. Especially if there's a permanent the Oath could have blinked in the first place that would make this 8th land more likely (maybe an explore package or something?). This sounds like it might be a real deck. A key element to it staying competitive would be counter magic and Vraska's contempt staying bad due to the idea that someone might play t3feri
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7721 (isolation #49) » Wed Jul 17, 2019 9:35 am

Post by popsofctown »

I'm pretty sure the deck will remain horrifying. M20 has a good red one drop and the new set is pretty likely to have a replacement. Footlight Fiend probably isn't even tragic, Mogg Fanatic was thing in mono red once. Viashino Pyromancer is pretty replaceable. Wizard's Lightning is only better than Skewer because it is needed to defeat Wildgrowth Walker more effectively, and red not needing to fight that card at all any longer is huge. The card advantage engines would be likely irreplaceable but neither go away, Chandra and Frenzy stay.
Goblin Chainwhirler is a huge loss if you refuse to touch any land cards, but it's a large part of the reason the deck refuses to splash. It will be a loss overall but if the land cycle in the new set is good then the red deck gets to splash a color to get something really useful. I'm not sure which color you splash but 2/2 flying haste seems strong with red giant growth in the format for one. If the land cycle in the new set is NOT good, it's hard to splash, but even more of your opponents are playing clunky tapped lands so they're even easier to run down.
Cerulean Drake seems to be a much larger downgrade for red deck wins than rotation can possibly be but it doesn't affect best of 1.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7723 (isolation #50) » Wed Jul 17, 2019 10:16 am

Post by popsofctown »

I didn't know, there you go, deck should be sick.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7725 (isolation #51) » Wed Jul 17, 2019 11:31 am

Post by popsofctown »

After the ban it doesn't really seem possible for Neoform to not at least be part of the Nash equilibrium deck choices for modern.
Grafdigger's cage is great... if you get to play at least one turn of magic.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7727 (isolation #52) » Thu Jul 18, 2019 3:32 am

Post by popsofctown »

Man it's a pretty cheap deck
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7728 (isolation #53) » Thu Jul 18, 2019 8:02 am

Post by popsofctown »

I'm gonna put 2 Veil of Summer in my dredge sideboard
Spicy or stupid?
Ravenous Trap is black even if colored mana wasn't spent to cast it.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7730 (isolation #54) » Thu Jul 18, 2019 10:19 am

Post by popsofctown »

Ravenous Trap is a little disproportionately popular at my local store meta.
What would be broader? Leyline of Sanctity?
Most decklists I look at online don't seem to have any cards in the 75 targeted at Ravenous Trap because it's totally different than the ones needed for Leyline of the Void which is more popular globally but I feel like given the info that RavTrap is very popular at my store I should pick up some percentage on that somehow.
It doesn't really have to be a 0 or 1 drop really, I notice people are careful to hold back and not cast RavTrap until a later turn.
Wait
Do I run
GRUUL SPELLBREAKER???
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"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7732 (isolation #55) » Thu Jul 18, 2019 3:06 pm

Post by popsofctown »

Cool

The moment I give up looking for the blasting zone I know that I have somewhere and start cracking these war of the spark packs I'd prefer sealed, I will immediately find the misplaced blasting zone
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7733 (isolation #56) » Thu Jul 18, 2019 3:57 pm

Post by popsofctown »

It took 6 of my loose packs and a quarter of the box to hit the first blasting zone
Opening a pack with foil bolas's citadel and T3feri and feeling disappointed was weird

I wanted to keep the box sealed as a memento of doing well at the GP :(
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7734 (isolation #57) » Fri Jul 19, 2019 9:16 am

Post by popsofctown »

Some post Hogaak-ban dredge league results have come out now. People weren't trying Hogaak at all in dredge before the ban probably because if you were playing the inferior graveyard deck it was probably to avoid buying any cards whatsoever.

The card people are cutting to fit him in is Prized Amalgam it looks like. But Prized Amalgam seems SO GOOD. All the cards in dredge seem so good... is the thing.
It seems so wrong to cut a card that can help cast Hogaak itself. There's a part of you that wants to cut a nongreen nonblack Narcomoeba but you definitely don't want to cut Narcomoebas when you still have 4 Prized Amalgams.
I cut one of the Conflagrates instead. Both Conflagrate and Hogaak are dredges that say "how can I get the last 6 damage". But the other thing is adding Forgotten Cave to the deck should mean a lot of change to the LftL a jillion times -> big conflagrate play pattern when it is not competing with the LftL -> Cycle Forgotten Cave and spray both face damage -and- chump blockers play pattern.
I almost want to double down on Forgotten Cave. Such a crazy land cycle.
Then in addition to cutting Conflagrate I cut one of the black dredge 3-4s, can't remember if it was thug or darkblast, for a Dryad Arbor. This I anticipate regretting and doubling back on but I want it to be good.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
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"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7736 (isolation #58) » Tue Jul 30, 2019 2:54 pm

Post by popsofctown »

In post 7735, Micc wrote:I ended up 7-9 (2-4 limited, 5-5 modern). Lots of ups and downs, good plays and bad ones. Pretty happy with the result and real glad to have been lucky enough to have such an awesome opportunity. I'd say I'm hoping for another one, but the future of high level organized play in paper is looking really grim and that makes me sad.
Yeah it is rapidly becoming a concern and since organized play support is 90% of my preference for MtG over other options it is impacting me.

I am scheduled to skip FNM to play a board game I like this Friday even though I just updated my dredge deck.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7739 (isolation #59) » Mon Aug 26, 2019 8:54 am

Post by popsofctown »

I'd omit the blue mana until you have access 8 shocks and a few additional nonbasics. The blue splash is barely worth for people who own all the lands so I have trouble believing it's worth it for 7 spells. Especially if you're in the lower brackets because the 3/2 elemental who gains life (the apparent risen reef replacement) will steal you extra wins against the people who are going smaller and more aggressive than this deck.

The spells in the deck look mostly like pretty good midrangey elementals deck with Chandras to attack from that other angle pretty good stuff
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
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Post Post #7740 (isolation #60) » Mon Aug 26, 2019 12:52 pm

Post by popsofctown »

SDAIFJSDPOFKAJSPFDK THEY BANNED FAITHLESS LOOTING

I agree with the ban but it has a huge financial cost for me.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
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"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7743 (isolation #61) » Thu Aug 29, 2019 2:17 pm

Post by popsofctown »

It doesn't seem possible for Cavalier of Gales to be correct, it's not a full tier of power beyond other cards of its cost like Niv Mizzet but constitutes the only triple blue card in your deck - the only double blue card in your deck, even! - and therefore it's either making you play more blue nonbasics than you otherwise would have to, or it's not consistently being castable, I don't know which without playing the deck.
Edit: Oh looks like you're already planning to nix it, man what a wasted mini-essay
It is indeed plausible that you need a wildcard to replace it, if you don't have the 3rd cavalier of thorns right on hand. It is obviously not so silly to be running it that you should just put Boreal Elemental in or something terrible.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7744 (isolation #62) » Thu Aug 29, 2019 2:19 pm

Post by popsofctown »

I love Temur but hate tribal so this archetype is such a lovehate struggle for me
The blues and reds and greens are so pretty.

I'm trying to not buy a rotation proof deck, core sets are not my favorite and Ravnica I dislike too. I'm trying to save up money and buy a lot of whatever the new fairy tale set is about.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7747 (isolation #63) » Fri Aug 30, 2019 4:17 am

Post by popsofctown »

So actually when I fell in love with Temur is when I played the Elder Dragon Highlander tournament we did on mafiascum, and I won first place with Intet, the Dreamer :)
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7748 (isolation #64) » Fri Aug 30, 2019 4:20 am

Post by popsofctown »

When I bought a bunch of matching basics to go play the limited GP in Seattle a couple months ago one of the sets I picked was Shards of Alara.
Can't remember which one, I think it was the Swamps?

They were probably out of Shards forests, the site I bought the basics from was out of stock of tons of basics.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7750 (isolation #65) » Fri Aug 30, 2019 5:01 am

Post by popsofctown »

I'm like 90% of the time too lazy to pick out the best basics. But when I do, I care more about liking the art than the size of the art, and on average I dislike the art on full-art basics compared to standard ones. Guess the artists WotC thinks need the biggest moment happen to be the same ones I'm not into.

Well some of it is about the themes of the sets that provide full-arts being wonky, I don't like the weird zendikar stuff going on zendi lands.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7753 (isolation #66) » Fri Aug 30, 2019 5:57 am

Post by popsofctown »

In a way Leafkin Druid is an MvP there too (though having some way of converting it to longterm advantage was important)
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"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7756 (isolation #67) » Wed Sep 04, 2019 6:35 am

Post by popsofctown »

Food tokens is not something I expected to see in this set. Some critics of Kaladesh meta insisted that energy, with the design approach to energy used in Kaladesh, was flawed, because it had you combine cards that overly generously pay you the alternate currency with no way of spending it (the banned cards, Attune with the Aether and Rogue Refiner), and cards that give you a good way of spending it. That hurts deck diversity because there is less flexibility within the archetypes, the strongest pays-currency cards are must plays, and the spend-currency cards would have to be very evenly balanced against eachother to each see equal use (which didn't appear to even be a design goal of Kaladesh, so there was always a best energy sink). There's other cards that are meant to play with eachother and affect deck diversity this way, like tribal, which gives me
some
skepticism to this argument (this argument is categorically different from, Energy is a fine mechanic they just costed all the cards wrong), but concern that you would leave some of your alternate currency unspent led to a lot of extra redundancy on the energy sinks which perhaps isn't mirrored the same way for other synergistic decks. If you cut a vampire lord for Duress or a 5/5 pro green zombie, your 2/2 Vampire doesn't get to be a 3/3 if you don't draw any other vampires matters cards, it hurts just a little. But if you cast 3 Rogue Refiners then draw no on theme cards besides a meta card that you put in place of a mana sink, the 6 energy is a 0/0 creature with "can't attack or block".

Food is only trivially different from energy. Clues and Treasures both have inherent uses, you can let players redeem them for effects that are even more valuable just to have fun with the design space, but it's clearly just useful to have a clue or a treasure. Food is worthless. Good players know that gaining life is close to worthless. So right away from the first cards they're showing us ways to "spend the energy", playing a 3 mana walker and getting five loyalty and a 3/3 the first turn is an outsized result if you can "spend" a food token.

We probably won't literally see "Search your library for a basic land card, reveal it to your opponent, put it into your hand, then shuffle your library. Create a Food token." But I'm anticipating a figurative one, and good payoffs, and then being disappointed with how flexible deckbuilding is(n't).
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7762 (isolation #68) » Wed Sep 04, 2019 9:20 am

Post by popsofctown »

In post 7758, McMenno wrote:I already like it 10x better than energy because food tokens are artifacts and can thus be interacted with
You can't actually meaningfully interact with something that took virtually no resources to create, though. There's a reason Deathrite Shaman was banned rather than a meta full of removal to removes Deathrite Shaman for tempo brought him in check: there's no such removal, he's too cheap to get interacted for actual profit.
If they give us strong AoE artifact destruction and the Food designs are so clunky that the food tokens stay out very frequently before they're cashed it's possible there's counterplay but I'm not holding my breath.
In post 7761, chamber wrote:
In post 7756, popsofctown wrote:Good players know that gaining life is close to worthless.
And great players know that it's not always worthless. As a sole effect, it needs to give much more life than cards tend to to be worth the card, but as a rider effect it can be worth a lot. And even then, sole life gain effects can be worth it. They published win rates for cards on MODO back in the day and Dawnglow Infusion had one of the highest win rates for cards from shadowmoore.
It's close to worthless, not worthless.

You agree that it is always better to have a card than it is to have something that is purely lifegain. We agree on that. You are trolling me a little bit about some edge case in Shadowmoor but you seem to acknowledge that is the exception.

This new planeswalker can make your food token into a 3/3. By some rules of thumb 1/1 doesn't count as a card, but a 3/3 definitely counts as a "card."

That makes me presume there will be other trade in offers that also convert your food token to some form of a "card". That is obviously a huge trade up. So unconverted Food tokens will feel bad. They won't feel as bad as unspent energy, that is true, I agree, there is still something you can do with the Food token. But the same overall pattern is here, the pattern of I -really- need to convert this, I better run lots of enablers.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7765 (isolation #69) » Wed Sep 04, 2019 9:32 am

Post by popsofctown »

In post 7763, Inferno390 wrote:Food tokens could be good ways for control deck to close out games too
That's probably the healthiest scenario and I'm hoping for that, that could actually be a fun meta. If you're always the slower deck and food tokens help you stall into topdecks of huge spells like Command the Dreadhorde you can run fewer enablers and be more flexible. And those are the decks that can run deck manipulation too.

In the case of energy the main reason we didn't see that is because the only aggressively costed energy cards had midrange or aggro effects attached to them, so control just wasn't an option. That won't automatically be the case here, it will depend what they print.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
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Post Post #7766 (isolation #70) » Wed Sep 04, 2019 9:57 am

Post by popsofctown »

In post 7764, chamber wrote:My point isn't that pure life gain isn't worth a card, its that it's normally not printed at a rate that makes it worth a card. If you printed a w cost card that gained you 20 life, it would be so powerful it destroyed all aggro as an archetype. Short-cutting all lifegain is bad is a very simplistic way to look at things.
Well it would be worth 3 cards against aggro (which is playing Risk Factor and getting 3-for-1'd, or more indirectly trading cards for damage in other ways, like spreading out with creatures that can be swept together) and worth 0 cards against control and maybe on average you play it. Pure lifegain cards are hate cards that are not worth a card if they don't get to cancel out the effect they need to cancel out.

"20 life" is actually the amount Patrick Chapin said offhand that he would happily have his opponent gain if he could draw an eight card playing Blue-White control.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
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Post Post #7768 (isolation #71) » Thu Sep 05, 2019 4:40 am

Post by popsofctown »

In post 7767, McMenno wrote:maybe I should've said, less parasitic since it can interaact with artifact stuff from other blocks

so far all foodcards have been either incidental (bake into a pie) or have a built-in use for food (savvy hunter). I guess that part kind of is like energy
Yes. Saheeli already looks like it might be neat.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
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Post Post #7769 (isolation #72) » Thu Sep 05, 2019 8:14 am

Post by popsofctown »

Man, the cards for the new Brawl format are pretty formulaically "cost at exactly one more mana than this effect should cost".

I doubt Brawl takes off.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
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Post Post #7771 (isolation #73) » Sat Sep 07, 2019 4:20 pm

Post by popsofctown »

People will just play EDH. Why would they play Brawl instead of EDH?

Because they want power to be tampered down and smoothed out? These are not the people that want that. These are the people that laugh at the idea of banning Sol Ring amongst themselves.

I am not seeing it. I recognize that multiplayer is wildly popular. But I see a more popular multiplayer format that won't ever let this one rise for breath.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
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Post Post #7778 (isolation #74) » Mon Sep 09, 2019 2:50 pm

Post by popsofctown »

I enjoyed the MtGArena brawl event. The Jund deck was the strongest as far as I could tell. I don't see any reason I couldn't enjoy playing 1v1 brawls. But converting Standard players to 1v1 Brawl players loses them money, and converting EDH players to 1v1 Brawl players seems impossible, so I'm skeptical.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
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Post Post #7783 (isolation #75) » Tue Sep 10, 2019 9:33 am

Post by popsofctown »

WB(R?) seems like a definite for tier one or tier 2. Midnight Reaper is such a card. The previous environment had some unusual ways it was being hostile to such a powerful standard card, but "Rogue Refiner that synergizes with Creatures instead of energies" seems like it ought to be a big deal most of the time.
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"Well, I..."
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Post Post #7785 (isolation #76) » Tue Sep 10, 2019 11:30 am

Post by popsofctown »

You don't need to go over the top of that which you can get underneath. Trade two Smitten Swordmasters into infinite zombie tokens,
cast Find, return Smitten Swordmaster and Smitten Swordmaster, Curry Favor, Curry Favor. Maybe that's optimistic.
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Post Post #7788 (isolation #77) » Tue Sep 10, 2019 2:36 pm

Post by popsofctown »

Maybe Wishing Well??
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7792 (isolation #78) » Fri Sep 13, 2019 11:57 am

Post by popsofctown »

In post 7791, Micc wrote:
In post 7789, Inferno390 wrote:Notes:Wtf is Field of Dead in this deck.
Never underestimate the power of lands that have spells tacked onto them. Field of the dead is at the very least a pillar of the format, and might just be the most powerful card in standard right now.
CMC 0 cards can be powerful in magic wtf get out of the thread
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
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Post Post #7793 (isolation #79) » Fri Sep 13, 2019 11:58 am

Post by popsofctown »

Seriously though Field of the Dead is like, super Celestial Colonnade in terms of slotlessly adding a wincon to a deck and definitely should be format sculpting at minimum.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7798 (isolation #80) » Thu Sep 19, 2019 10:43 am

Post by popsofctown »

I was hoping a deck based around adventures would be viable tier 1, but now that the spoilers are almost over it seems like there's not enough good adventure cards for that to be true :(
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7802 (isolation #81) » Thu Sep 19, 2019 12:57 pm

Post by popsofctown »

They tend to avoid doing renamed reprints with expensive cards, but I really agree this should be a thing.

It'd be nice if you could play refuges as your gainlands to customize the art in your deck (so long as you did not also use the versions just printed into Standard)
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7805 (isolation #82) » Thu Sep 19, 2019 3:06 pm

Post by popsofctown »

In post 7803, chamber wrote:It seems obvious from a rules perspective why it would be disallowed. How would it interact with cards like meddling mage? How would it interact with the card limit rule if there were multiples in the format at once.
You just have to change the rules slightly. Of course you do so, since this is itself a rules change.

Rule: you can't have 5 or more cards that are functionally identical in Standard (actually, probably it's ok for Modern and Legacy too, they don't actually run copies 5-8 of anything. Even in burn.)
Rule: "name a card" will correspond to the card you named and also will correspond to any card that is functionally identical. If you Meddling Mage someone and name Blink of an Eye, you must be thinking about "Man, I really just don't want this guy bouncing my permanents," so when he shows you Into the Roil it's not going to escape your notice that it's the same card.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7807 (isolation #83) » Fri Sep 20, 2019 12:10 pm

Post by popsofctown »

In post 7806, Psyche wrote:I've been trying to get into this game as a way to make irl amigos and have even started to play arena (I found a way to do it on my phone, too!). Feels kind of tough to engage due to the mix of a money barrier and ignorance about exactly what I should buy in order to enjoy the game. Guess I'll just keep playing games on Arena until everything clicks? It's too bad that even there I have to gradually win booster packs or happen to encounter people playing new cards to learn more about the kinds of cards and mechanics in the game.
I owned no Standard legal cards when Ravnica Allegiance came out but wanted to play some constructed even though I had somewhat poor awareness of what was being played.

My process was, I looked up decks on mtggoldfish, and sifted through them keeping in mind their prices vs. my preferences, until I found some Gates decks that had performed well.

I'm much better at limited than constructed, but feel the urge to be creative and customize, so looked at a few of the cards in the Gates deck that seemed not too important, and used gatherer.com + price listing to identify alternatives.

Then I ordered the singles online and went and played with them. I would have won more if I had picked one of the decks with more data on mtggoldfish suggesting they are good (I had two choices around the same cost: monored and monoblue), but it was important to me to indulge some of my preferences, and I was still able to win and have fun plenty with an ~80$ deck.

If you manage to befriend one of the crazy people who builds multiple Standard decks (or the even crazier ones, who build multiple Modern decks) you can ask to borrow since they can't play both their decks at the same event, and you can just return the deck immediately after the adept. This is what I did in college.

If your local store fires drafts consistently enough and you enjoy drafts, you can also focus on that, which is this recurring 15$ cost instead of a lump investment.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7811 (isolation #84) » Fri Sep 20, 2019 12:46 pm

Post by popsofctown »

As far as I can tell there's a decline in formatless magic, because those types of players are hooked on Commander. You probably get a lot more potential opponents by playing Commander, now. There are pricey ways to build a Commander deck, but I think it's pretty inexpensive, especially when you take into account that free-for-all Commander tends to have a political component that can handicap a more powerful deck. I hear you can take the preconstructed decks to a table with no changes and still do okay, really.

Attending a pre-release is a great way to acquire lots of random cards that would be cute to put in a Commander deck, if Commander is the format for you, going to the prerelease to have fun and then ordering a precon Commander deck on your favorite colors and customizing it with some of the stuff you got from the prerelease is a good way to go. They put cards that seem like Commander "plants" in every set now. It's a very social format and the GP Vegas numbers for it were so high for such low prize support there's a strong argument it's the most overall popular format.

I just dislike free-for-alls. Likely I'm missing the social skills.

If you can ascertain that I'm wrong or your store is different and there's a lot of casual magic going on, it's a fine way to go.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7813 (isolation #85) » Fri Sep 20, 2019 6:16 pm

Post by popsofctown »

Don't be afraid to ask for a takeback now and then in pickup games, within reason. It can help give your opponent a closer game.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7815 (isolation #86) » Wed Sep 25, 2019 5:20 am

Post by popsofctown »

I'm too excited and want to pre-order a deck too early

Monoblack knights looks like it wouldn't want any mythics and would be really cheap.

Spoiler: cards
4 Knight of the Ebon Legion
4 Foulmire Knight (1/1 deathtouch knight, quest: pay 3 lose 1 draw 1)
4 Gutterbones
4 Order of Midnight (2 mana 2/2 flier knight, quest: 2 mana disentomb)
4 Blacklance Paragon (3/1 flash knight, target knight gets deathtouch lifelink)
4 Smitten Swordmaster (2 mana 2/1 lifelink knight quest: 1 mana to drain opponent for each knight you control)
4 Murderous Rider (2/3 lifelink knight, quest: 3 mana kill a walker or creature and lose 2)
4 Oathsworn Knight (3 mana 4/4 knight like Ugin's Construct but only loses 1 counter per hit)
4 Deathless Knight (4 mana 4/2 haste knight, when you gain life it jumps out of graveyard into hand)

3 Castle Lochtwain
3 Witch's Cottage
14 Swamps

The card advantage monoblack gets incidentally in this set is crazy

My biggest concern is reach. Smitten Swordmaster is a reach spell and Witch's Cottage and Order of Midnight both loop it. And Order of Midnight is in the air. But that still might not be reachy enough? Deathless Knight works as reach against the people who want to stabilize by having 12 board wipes in their deck and never putting up blockers, but not of people that think Cavalier of Thorns is good after rotation, which it probably is.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7817 (isolation #87) » Wed Sep 25, 2019 8:39 am

Post by popsofctown »

No idea which or what one that is, but I am plenty happy with upgrading dredge with Merchant of the Veil and Once Upon a Time.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7822 (isolation #88) » Thu Sep 26, 2019 7:50 pm

Post by popsofctown »

I played against Garruk in a sealed in MtGarena limited.
Why can't they remove Pack Rat tier cards from limited somehow :/
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7827 (isolation #89) » Fri Sep 27, 2019 11:44 am

Post by popsofctown »

Oh, I thought about how Pack Rat was not the right card to name as I was walking away from the computer. Pack Rat is an entire tier above Garruk, next to Jitte. Garruk is a tier below that. Both those tiers shouldn't be in limited.
In post 7823, chamber wrote:They want the game to be winnable by worse players. Losing all of the time isn't fun.
You might be exactly right that this is their -intention-, but data shows that the best way to increase the winrates of weak players is for format speed to be higher. Cards like Elspeth, Sun's Champion and Garruk do the opposite, they encourage a control or slow midrange shell for them to be maximally leveraged. If we're talking about like Hexdrinker though, sure thing, definitely getting exactly what you want, I lost a round at the GP to game 1 turn 1 hexdrinker game 2 turn 1 Hexdrinker and while I have no way of knowing whether that player sucks, sucking would not have inhibited his ability to do that, that's for sure. But there, at the least the bandaid was ripped off very, very quickly, I sure prefer that.
In post 7824, panthaleon wrote:Garruk is also a powerful six Mana mythic that requires you to be in a couple specific colors. Evasion also makes him look very foolish since Mana for two bad wolves isn't a great rate.
"Nobody has any evasion" is actually a hidden theme of the set, that was pointed out in one of my limited podcasts. There's far fewer fliers than an average set and they have pretty low power, no big fat green trampler at common, and no in-set mechanic that gives you pseudo evasion like afflict, too-big-to-block-exert, or even War of the Spark's "make the army hard to block" minigame. I am actually really excited about playing a set that jerks in that direction to see what a format with that kind of texture feels like, even though it naturally made it pretty unlikely that I would be able to address the Garruk I ran into using my board.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7829 (isolation #90) » Fri Sep 27, 2019 12:46 pm

Post by popsofctown »

Yeah, black has no "normal" fliers at common, while they usually do. Reaper of Night is highly controversial, I think it's really good but I might be in the wrong camp. So if you're not supposed to play that, you're not supposed to evade with black at all. Black is usually in the air more than this.
Blue has the fliers they usually have, they're just smaller than they usually are, the equivalent of Steelgaze Griffin and Vantress Paladin in most sets would be more unconditional to reach the same amount of power. So like, the paradigm of evade in the air, defend on the ground, will have to include even more defend on the ground this time around, which could be cool, I think.
White is the one that now that you listed it out that is actually a lot of flying. Prized Griffin has been not good enough in a lot of formats in a row but being the only game in town might be a really big deal for the guy and the others.

You are correct I kind of object to all 6 mana mythics being in limited, they're just pretty silly. I did my fair share of beating people with turn 6 Awakened Inferno but I didn't find it fun; I don't think it's really fun magic. I'm aware it's "normal", and that when they leave "or planeswalker" off of Bake into a Pumpkin the message is that they want that to be "normal".
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7831 (isolation #91) » Fri Sep 27, 2019 2:46 pm

Post by popsofctown »

I haven't played with either card and easily buy that Jitte is far stronger.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7833 (isolation #92) » Fri Sep 27, 2019 3:58 pm

Post by popsofctown »

We did an mafiascum mtg tournament like seven or eight years ago on Magic Workstation, I did pretty well (I may have won, can't remember for sure). Extended still existed back then, and I played a "Let faeries carry Jittes" deck that I netdecked. It was roughly something like,
Spoiler: list
4 Spellstutter Sprite
3 Vendilion Clique
2 Venser, Shaper Savant
4 Spell Snare
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Engineered Explosives
4 Mana Leak
3 Riptide Laboratory
4 Mutavault
1 Steam Vents
1 Breeding Pools
4 Flooded Plains
2 Polluted Delta
some islands
+any cards I forgot


The deck can't exist again because Riptide Laboratory (land, taps for gray, 1U and tap: return target Wizard you control to its owner's hand) is too old for Modern and was really key to making the deck work.
I felt like Jitte was very fun to play with when I played that deck. There are some tough decisions in spite of the card being very powerful. It's 4 mana in total to get it onto something and that might mean letting your opponent do some of what they want to do, and you have to decide if you're ok with that.

It would not be okay for Jitte to be in Modern but I feel a little discouraged that WotC doesn't feel interested in getting an equipment that feels something like Jitte in Modern (at least, it didn't show up in Modern Horizons, we just got sideboard swords).
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7839 (isolation #93) » Fri Sep 27, 2019 6:47 pm

Post by popsofctown »

I don't think Modern is a powerful format in a way that makes Jitte o.k. It's not like Tarmogoyf or Gurmag Angler where it's like, "maybe this should have costed 1 more mana, but what if that's not what this game's about?", because you have to ask that question 3 times. The -1/-1 mode can be maindeck hatred towards unfair creature decks, and the gain 2 life mode can be very relevant against unfair strategies that deal large but finite amounts of damage, and lots of the top modern decks seem to be about dealing large but finite amounts of damage these days.

If you play a deck with no creatures that can get negged and play towards a win condition that's not "Deal 20", I think there are decks powerful enough in the modern cardpool to do that well for sure, but I think it'd be too much pressure to only play those decks and deck diversity would narrow a little bit instead of widening.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7843 (isolation #94) » Fri Sep 27, 2019 8:49 pm

Post by popsofctown »

full disclosure part of why i was mad was that he drew his garruk even tho i hadn't drawn my outlaw's merriment and it was offensive to me he got to do his "i win the game if I draw my sixth land" without me getting to do my even more oppressive "I win the game if I draw my fourth land"
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7847 (isolation #95) » Wed Oct 09, 2019 7:39 am

Post by popsofctown »

In post 7784, Micc wrote:I feel like Field of the Dead based ramp is still going to go so far over the top of linear creature decks that they won't be viable. That's just me theorizing about what I think I know though. I haven't actually played enough standard to have any real idea where things will line up after rotation.
Early results seem to prove this true.

But also even other control strategies don't feel viable.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7852 (isolation #96) » Wed Oct 09, 2019 8:34 am

Post by popsofctown »

I think the way to beat field of the dead is to get under it, but I doubt you're putting board wipes in your aggro deck to do it. Board wipes can only clear the zombies currently on the table, new ones appear immediately and you're back to getting blocked. I think the better approach is going to be playing an aggressive deck that can do a good job making a 2/2 zombie token irrelevant, either by evasion or transitioning to face-burn spells around the time the zombies start rising.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7854 (isolation #97) » Wed Oct 09, 2019 9:20 am

Post by popsofctown »

I was testing Jeskai Fires yesterday and the Field of the dead matchup was depressing me.

Grixis fires having a batter matchup makes plenty of sense to me, it'd just be disappointing because I own more copies of relevant cards for Jeskai Fires IRL.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7857 (isolation #98) » Fri Oct 11, 2019 5:30 pm

Post by popsofctown »

I went 3-1 with dredge it's so fun to have the deck back.

I need to pick a deck to not hate for standard though. I've been playing something similar to Pie's Grixis Fires a bunch online but I'm not getting converted into a believer too easily.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7860 (isolation #99) » Wed Oct 16, 2019 5:43 am

Post by popsofctown »

Mill is not the strongest standard deck, and petitioners is not going to be the strongest way to do mill (especially with Legion's End in the format), but you probably know both these things and just want to see how strong you can get the advisors to be.

Deputy of Detention is a solid standard magic card that you can put in any deck including a mill deck, but saying "revolve it around" makes me think maybe you're misreading the card - you can't use it do a "names matter" wombo combo on your Persistent Petitioners and untap them because Deputy of Detention says to exile a permanent "an opponent controls".

So out of those two options I'd say Tamiyo (who is green, not black).

Tamiyo self mills, and Persistent Petitioners can self target, which makes me think you might actually want to do it as a self-mill deck and win with Jace? Maybe that's weaker because you can get into trouble if people counter or murder Jace. But it is deliciously memey.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7861 (isolation #100) » Wed Oct 16, 2019 11:28 am

Post by popsofctown »

I have a major modern tournament coming up.

Whirza won't be banned (yet?) and I'm wondering whether I should do Collector Ouphe in sideboard in place of some of the Ancient Grudges even though it can't be played from dredgery. Ancient Grudge seems like such a drop in the bucket against the deck.

Or also, Ashiok would be kinda cute? If you can cast it before they have the combo, they can't cast Whir anymore, and if they have a Sword of the Meek that was yarded from Goblin Engineer and are tapped out you might manage to nab it. And of course Ashiok can mill yourself and could be relevant in other matchups. Three mana is a lot though.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7863 (isolation #101) » Wed Oct 16, 2019 11:39 am

Post by popsofctown »

Good job.

I think a lot of current standard is about piloting your deck correctly and you're probably piloting well because you've stuck with the deck.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7865 (isolation #102) » Wed Oct 16, 2019 12:09 pm

Post by popsofctown »

I hadn't heard of that. Found a list. Man, it looks like Ancient Grudge is even worse! It has no artifacts that represent any investment, against Whirza you could at least hit Ensnaring Bridge.

It looks like you could use Runeflare Trap against it for giggles.

I'm not sure whether or not Collector Ouphe would actually be as effective against this Paradoxical Outcome version. There's cards in the deck like Mishra's Bauble where it's like, cool, I can't activate Mishra's Bauble, helps me play correctly because it'd be better to Paradoxical Outcome it twice and get more than one card.

The thing that might make Collector Ouphe good is if the 7 moxes are being included as part of the land count and you can mana screw them. But Ancient Grudge should be just as good for that.

Think I might ought to assume all sideboard cards are pretty ineffective and use sideboard space for different matchups.

I think I'm going to bite the bullet and buy dredge on mtgo so I can test and practice.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7867 (isolation #103) » Wed Oct 16, 2019 4:45 pm

Post by popsofctown »

You need split second don't you? Urza and paradoxical in hand, a bunch of 0 cost artifacts on the table, Urza player casts Urza, after it resolves he holds priority and taps 4 blue mana off zero cost artifacts, casts Paradoxical Outcome, you Lightning Axe in response but he likely draws into another Urza.

I thinking maybe you board the Lightning Axes in anyway for Emery which is part of my thinking in saying maybe this matchup shouldn't have additional sideboard slots because it's really hard to remove cards from the maindeck of dredge. And you could use the Lightning Axes on Urza too if the player drew Urza but didn't draw Paradoxical Outcome and is planning to use Urza's activated ability to hunt for it once he untaps. But in that case it's not particularly relevant that Lightning Axe is "instant speed", it would have worked if it was a sorcery. (although, holding up one red mana for either Haggle, Forgotten Cave, or Lightning Axe is a super cool new part of dredge now).

edit: Urza's first ability counts as a mana ability, I think, so split second doesn't actually matter perhaps.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7868 (isolation #104) » Wed Oct 16, 2019 5:38 pm

Post by popsofctown »

I can't start testing because all the bots are sold out of Life from the Loam :(

Either that is the bottleneck card of dredge and dredge is on an uptick or people are doing dumb shenanigans with Wrenn and Six that probably aren't that good?

Life from the Loam is such a cool magic card. I wants.
Last week at FNM:
"Ok, I cast Life from the Loam."
"Counter it. I Spell Pierce it."
"Ok, it's countered."
"Wait, did you have any targets?"
"No, and you Spell Pierced it."
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7869 (isolation #105) » Wed Oct 16, 2019 8:04 pm

Post by popsofctown »

Since Field of the Dead is likely to be banned and change things a lot, I tried to build a deck out of cards I already own and try it out on arena to use for the 2 standard showdowns before the likely ban. I did gates since I played Nexus of Gates when it was tier 1.5 and have some of that stuff.

Weirdly, I always win against Field of the Dead! But I lose to LOTS of other stuff so it's not omg amazing. Also I don't queue against Field of the Dead on MTGA as much as I think it's represented at FNM, the matchup might actually be bad. But it's definitely winnable.

Spoiler: Gates of Lab Maniac
1 Archway Angel (RNA) 3
1 Selesnya Guildgate (GRN) 255
4 Gates Ablaze (RNA) 102
4 Breeding Pool (RNA) 246
4 Gate Colossus (RNA) 232
4 Guild Summit (GRN) 41
4 Izzet Guildgate (GRN) 251
4 Growth Spiral (RNA) 178
4 Circuitous Route (GRN) 125
1 Teferi, Time Raveler (WAR) 221
1 Jace, Wielder of Mysteries (WAR) 54
3 Arboreal Grazer (WAR) 149
1 Forest (ELD) 269
1 Tamiyo, Collector of Tales (WAR) 220
2 Narset, Parter of Veils (WAR) 61
1 Azorius Guildgate (RNA) 243
1 Golgari Guildgate (GRN) 249
4 Gruul Guildgate (RNA) 249
4 Simic Guildgate (RNA) 258
4 Plaza of Harmony (RNA) 254
4 Boros Guildgate (GRN) 243
1 Deafening Clarion (GRN) 165
1 The Great Henge (ELD) 161
1 God-Eternal Bontu (WAR) 92

The deck keeps drawing cards, spreading out lands, and wiping the opponent's board. Gate Colossus is just a blocker. I pulled the Gatebreaker rams out when I realized I wasn't casting them. Eventually the deck wins by using 9 mana to cast Bontu + Jace and self deck. The cool fancy part is since Growth Spiral procs Guild Summit, you can prepare a response to instant speed planeswalker removal that will still make you win. In some standards this would be really foolish because what if someone counters Jace but man this is sure not that format.

I need to take Bontu out because he's unnecessary, I usually seize control of the game by that point or have already died. I can just draw cards by playing more and more gates onto Guild Summits. But I'm definitely keeping the Jace. I win some games against grindy Sultai-ish decks where they could have chumpblocked the Colossuses until I decked but they conceded because they saw Tamiyo requesting Jace. Suggestions on how to tweak are welcome but especially if they are commons/uncommons from Ravnica block. I have dupes of Clarion and Time Raveler but 3s is crowded.

I've been playing best of one, this deck is probably also bad because of bad sideboard dynamics I'm guessing. But the silliness of it is pretty fun.

The time I ran into the Elementals matchup it absolutely wrecked me, because I can't put a Colossus in front of a Risen Reef to answer it, and I can only remove a Risen Reef or Omnath by spending a Gates Ablaze that is equal mana + costs more cards + had more meaningful deckbuilding cost for me so I get wrecked. I'm sure that makes Inferno happy.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7874 (isolation #106) » Thu Oct 17, 2019 7:33 am

Post by popsofctown »

Spoiler: -
I don't own any A-trophies, I'll see if I can find some Prison Realms though.

I'm definitely not cutting a Gate Colossus though! It's really good. I promise. It is so good.

I might play around with Rams some more but they really don't work as well in practice I expect them to. If I draw Ram against a BG or RG aggro board that includes a Questing Beast and have to choose between casting Guild Summit and tapping a bunch of gates, or casting the Ram to block, I always have to cast the Guild Summit and hope for Gates Ablaze because I know the Ram will die, and then fail to solve the other problems unless I am lucky enough to get more rams on my next draws. If I draw Colossus, I can play the Colossus and block because I -know- the Colossus is coming right back and can be replayed to start addressing the other threats.

I think Narset for Prison Realm is probably a really good call though. I felt like I needed more draw for some of my hands that were floody, but spot removal naturally makes you survive for more draw steps and I can Prison Realm opposing Prison Realms to reclaim Guild Summits, the best draw spell, instead of playing a weaker one in Narset.
I didn't really think of Prison Realm being an uncommon. Any card that would be good in UW control must be a rare.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7876 (isolation #107) » Thu Oct 17, 2019 7:57 am

Post by popsofctown »

I could maybe cut Tamiyo since I haven't generated edge off of the static abilities as much as I hoped. I wanted a 4 cost card that doesn't feel totally out of place in the deck, weirdly lots of the cards that cost 4 don't feel at home in Gates.
In previous metas I've done such jank as Sphinx of Foresight, Nicol Bolas the Ravager, and Carnival//Carnage.
But maybe just not having 4's is ok.
Teferi, Time Raveler is a 4 cost planeswalker with a misprint WotC refuses to acknowledge
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7879 (isolation #108) » Thu Oct 17, 2019 8:37 am

Post by popsofctown »

I played a bunch of Fae of Wishes Grixis Fires last week until I got mad enough at Simic Flash that I started playing that instead.
I started with your list and came to some of those changes in parallel 2 Bedeck instead of Angrath's rampage, shaved some Cry of the Carnarium.

I don't care if Fae of Wishes is correct, it's sooooo fun.
Wishing for Role Reversal and trading 1 loyalty Narsets for real planeswalkers is hilarious.
Planewide Celebration against red decks is hilarious.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7883 (isolation #109) » Fri Oct 18, 2019 6:57 am

Post by popsofctown »

bg adventures is probably good.

The format having no dual lands would push you towards monocolor, and then monocolor pushes you towards aggro, I think, but white is the only color with a two power one-drop in Throne of Eldraine (that monster is kind of a one mana 3/2, actually). So I would speculate that monowhite would be one of the better decks in the format. I haven't done any kind of testing to support that.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7885 (isolation #110) » Fri Oct 18, 2019 5:45 pm

Post by popsofctown »

make it cautious hope, went 1-3 at FNM :(
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7890 (isolation #111) » Mon Oct 21, 2019 7:42 am

Post by popsofctown »

In practicing online it has been really hard to pick things to take out so I think I am going to buy 4 Leyline of the Void and put the full four in the sideboard.

If I mess with the original 60 I want it to be a 0 mana unconditional coalition victory for a certain matchup
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7892 (isolation #112) » Mon Oct 21, 2019 8:03 am

Post by popsofctown »

Oh lol I am talking about Modern XD.

That might end up being a perk to owning 4 copies!

I'm going to pick a Standard deck to buy after I'm done with this Modern tournament. I might be the bad guy and play cat oven because Priest of the Forgotten Gods is such a beautiful card.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7894 (isolation #113) » Mon Oct 21, 2019 10:00 am

Post by popsofctown »

Yuck.
New format "Pioneer", announced the same day as a ban update.
It's meant to "fill the gap between Modern and Standard" and "provide a format where you can play your recently rotated out Standard cards".

Yeah, right, no. Modern is already that format, you can play a standard deck with T3feri and when T3feri rotates he'll be a good fit in your modern binder. Will you be able to use 20 of the cards from your Standard deck in Modern, no.

You can play a standard deck with T3feri and when T3feri rotates he'll be a good fit in your pioneer binder. Will you be able to use 20 of the cards from your Standard deck in Pioneer? The format includes flipping Kaladesh man. Kaladesh. Do you remember that format where things were so unstable and sketchy WotC pre-emptively banned a glorified Man of War?

The point of this format is to add reprint equity to mythics that wouldn't otherwise have any reprint equity, like Chandra, Torch of Defiance or whatever. I don't think they actually have an accurate prediction of which cards will get the reprint equity. But it doesn't matter. The point of this format is to tax grinders, I don't think they genuinely believe this will be an FNM format that will fire and benefit players.

If they actually wanted to do what they're pretending they want to do they'd redo extended. By their own logic, they will have to create a new eternal format after X years to fill the gap between Pioneer and Standard. Then what will be the point of Pioneer? Modern is "as old as it gets without needing Reserved List", Pioneer won't have any special qualities. And like, do they think magic is growing so rapidly that it'll be easy to support that many formats at that point?
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7897 (isolation #114) » Mon Oct 21, 2019 7:05 pm

Post by popsofctown »

In post 7896, hasdgfas wrote:Pioneer's great. Modern was getting way too unwieldy, and I'm looking forward to being able to play with some of my favorite cards from previous Standards.
I may turn out to be objectively wrong about this when the meta develops but I'm not optimistic that you'll be able to play favorite cards form previous Standards to the extent that that's different from "play previous cards from Kaladesh standards".
Gatecrash-RTR-Dragon's Maze- M14 - Theros - Born of the Gods - Journey Into Nyx - M15 : Famously weak sets
Khans of Tarkir - Fate Reforged - Dragons of Tarkir : Sets dependent on good mana for their more interesting cards, and with fetches banned we don't quite have that good mana. If you play 12 shocks.dec some combination of Taylor Swiftspear, Ranumap Ruins, Goblin Chainwhirler, Exquisite Fire Craft, Searing Blood, and Eidolon of the Great Revel is going to keep you very very honest I think, and none of these sets feature painfree ways to get ETB untapped color fixing such as filterlands or fastlands. Except for that Kaladesh block has enemy fastlands which kind of speaks to me feeling like this format is a Kaladeshy format.
Battle For Zendikar, Oath of the Gatewatch : Famously weak sets
Shadows over Innistrad, Rise of the Eldrazi: These are stronger but adjacent to Kaladesh so not lots of breadth there.
Kaladesh, Aether Revolt: Mirrodin 2.0 winter
Amonkhet, Hour of Devastation, Ixalan, Rivals over Ixalan, Dominaria, Core Set 2019: weak sets for power resetting from the craziness of Kaladesh. The memorable cards, aside from Ranumap Ruins, are largely slow drops that you don't expect to survive in a large format, like The Scarab God and Glorybringer. TBF. Glorybringer maybe is just barely good enough to be playable in this eternal format and if he is that's so beautiful because he's such an honest magic card. But I am pretty worried he won't actually be playable.
Ixalan, Rivals of Ixalan, Dominaria, Core set 2019: Weak sets with the memorable cards being red-deck-wins cards that won't let interesting sets like Fate Reforged or Rise of Eldrazi do cool slow stuff and not offering cool stuff of their own.
Everything after that: is standard right now.

I will say, aside from the qualifier I might be totally wrong- "a format where we can jam broken kaladesh standard cards" isn't necessarily bad in and of itself. Like I enjoyed broken Kaladesh gameplay. What I -didn't- enjoy was the iterative process of "preorder this card" "WotC banned the card you preordered haha" which kind of seems like it might be around the alley for this format, starting with the question of whether Saheeli/Felidar is going to be considered a pillar of the format or an early ban from it, and then possibly several iterations after that. If I'm supposed to be the excited about the format four banlists from now and fours steps of "the next most broken thing" well, maybe, we'll see, it might be cool. Some formats have trouble finding an equilibrium point where they ban the most broken thing and BAM everything left is diverse. Some don't. I don't know why I should be excited immediately. But since -ptqs- are being -scheduled- -immediately- that's what makes me have a grievance. If the announcement was "we're going to figure this format out for a year on mtgo, then start doing ptqs for it" I would have been cool with it. As it stands it looks really rushed.
hascow wrote: Meanwhile, I heard something about a B&R announcement today? The problem is that when I went to look at it, all I saw was a 3/3 Elk with no abilities.
Lol
Man. I respect pushing with the pongify design space. Because Pongify hasn't ever been tier 1.
But why does Oko's loyalty read like someone threw three d6's and locked in the result as the loyalty of the planeswalker?
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7899 (isolation #115) » Tue Oct 22, 2019 4:16 am

Post by popsofctown »

A format with a fundamental turn of four sounds rather Marvelous
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7902 (isolation #116) » Tue Oct 22, 2019 5:19 am

Post by popsofctown »

Which interactive cards from Pioneer's sets are you most hopeful about?
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7904 (isolation #117) » Tue Oct 22, 2019 6:44 am

Post by popsofctown »

I like Censor a lot it felt like it didn't get enough of the moment it deserved.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7906 (isolation #118) » Tue Oct 22, 2019 7:05 am

Post by popsofctown »

"Which deck are you playing?"
"I'm playing that creatureless combo deck in standard based around a 4 mana enchantment that really costs 0 mana the turn you play it since it takes effect immediately, and what it does is double your mana every turn if you obey its cast timing restriction for your other spells. It tends to wash your mana also, I'm jamming some gold cards with four mana symbols."
"Ok but could you clarify which deck you're playing that's not specific enough."
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7915 (isolation #119) » Tue Oct 22, 2019 4:05 pm

Post by popsofctown »

I want Escape to the Wilds to be good very badly
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7919 (isolation #120) » Tue Oct 22, 2019 4:42 pm

Post by popsofctown »

Mystical Dispute seems like it'd be ok even against Cavalcade red. Trading 3 mana for 4 when you hit Torbran is neglible tempo but you're trading a rando card for a centerpiece
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7921 (isolation #121) » Tue Oct 22, 2019 5:12 pm

Post by popsofctown »

Oko doesn't turn Marvel off, Marvel doesn't need the second spin more than like a quarter of the time and the first spin comes with the Marvel player holding priority after Marvel resolves.

Teferi shuts it down. It is cute that Glint Nest Crane has the "right" amount of power for clearing a Teferi that immediately -3'ed but it is reasonably likely the Teferi is enough disincentive to be doing Marvel things when you can other busted things that don't have an interaction with Teferi's static ability.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7922 (isolation #122) » Tue Oct 22, 2019 5:15 pm

Post by popsofctown »

Nifty, Pithing Needle is -barely- a part of the Pioneer format, there are so many cards from the time period that brought that card to mind again and again, and Sorcerer's Spyglass isn't quite as powerful.
Hm maybe there will be people attacking people with 3/3 Elk creatures named Pithing Needle at some point.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7932 (isolation #123) » Sun Oct 27, 2019 5:49 am

Post by popsofctown »

I scrubbed out.
Leafkin druid and Llanowar elves seem really desirable for that deck. Essence scatter and healer of the glad don't
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7936 (isolation #124) » Mon Nov 04, 2019 8:23 am

Post by popsofctown »

I scraped through with a terrible red deck.
I'm a little mad you didn't show me this before I got my silly 5 wins.
I don't see myself playing the event just for fun.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7939 (isolation #125) » Sun Nov 10, 2019 1:37 pm

Post by popsofctown »

They banned copycat, leyline of abundance, and
green ponder
oath of Nissa.
Copycat was inevitable. The game is probably more fun without oath of Nissa than with. But I feel like I'd rather see Llanowar elves banned instead of leyline.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7942 (isolation #126) » Wed Nov 13, 2019 8:47 am

Post by popsofctown »

Incubation.
The tried and true formula of, "there's a great buildaround card in the format, but not enough playables with the related mechanic, so the empty slots are card selection to draw into the 4-ofs that wish they could be 7-ofs."
Glint Nest crane is special to my heart.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7944 (isolation #127) » Wed Nov 13, 2019 6:09 pm

Post by popsofctown »

Once Upon a Time is itself an example of the dynamic, I just preferred to call out Incubation because it's not an impressively powerful card in a vacuum but it's very useful in this context. Whereas Once Upon A Time is a pushed rare.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7947 (isolation #128) » Sat Nov 16, 2019 9:29 pm

Post by popsofctown »

MAELSTROM WANDERER
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7953 (isolation #129) » Mon Nov 18, 2019 7:56 am

Post by popsofctown »

Oko ban had to happen.
Veil had to happen. I like how they pointed out the similar designs and said they wanted to try to make a playable version of the card. It let me empathize.
OuaT ban is weird and I'm not totally sure how to feel about it. The official reasoning is that they wanted to nerf green, the color green. I get that like, a lot of the standard legal green cards are stronger than a lot of the standard nongreen cards right now.
But OuaT doesn't seem offensive to me, and it's weird for a card to get banned that's not even a little bit offensive (some people at the pro tour played fewer than 4 copies of a 2 drop that doesn't do something too specific to be horrible drawn in multiples). I think it's the first time they've done that? It depends on whether Reflector Mage is offensive to you, maybe.
The notion that magic formats "should" have balance in strength between the five colors makes intuitive sense, but I'm not sure if that's true if there are several truly unique stragies that happen to share a color. And OuaT is an interesting card.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7957 (isolation #130) » Mon Nov 18, 2019 1:27 pm

Post by popsofctown »

In post 7955, hasdgfas wrote:It is a design mistake and they should just remove it from every single format the way they did Gitaxian Probe.
Gitaxian Probe was not removed from every single format, it was never banned from Standard.
Deck manipulation is just not as powerful in Standard formats, see: Ponder being stone cold unplayable in many past Standard formats.
In standard it's just a great card.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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