But even then, it's mitigated by the fact that you can only have one card of each, so it's not like you're going to mulligan down until SM shows up in your hand.
That reminds me, I need to put together an EDH deck.
Imagine Elbrus in a world where you can play Stoneforge Mystic.
Like EDH?
While true, there are much, MUCH worse ways to abuse Elbrus in that format. Like Godo. Or, heavens forbid, Stonehewer Giant. True, Mystic is much cheaper but those other two skip a lot of intermediary steps.
Vyolynce on
AC:NH Chris from Glosta SW-5173-3598-2899 DA-4749-1014-4697 @vyolynce@mastodon.social
While true, there are much, MUCH worse ways to abuse Elbrus in that format. Like Godo. Or, heavens forbid, Stonehewer Giant. True, Mystic is much cheaper but those other two skip a lot of intermediary steps.
That is very true.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
Zombie Nation took 3rd tonight it one of the weirdest tiebreak situations I've ever seen. But I had to tell you all about the best finish of the night.
I'm at 1-1 with this guy running WW. I had the zombie engine going and Jace out and a Nephalia Drownyard. I'm at 1 life. I've milled him down to the teens in cards left. He's got a Swiftfoot Boots on the board, and five lands. I have two lands untapped and a couple of zombie tokens. He casts an Elite Inquisitor. I Mana Leak it, which taps him out so he can't equip the boots and kill me immediately, but he gets to keep it so I have one turn to beat him or he romps right through zombies . He swings with his other stuff, I block and he passes the turn. I have ten mana and one card in my hand. I use Jace to mill him for 10. He still has cards. I use Nephalia Drownyard to mill him for another 3. No good, he has 3 cards left, and that Inquisitor staring me in the face. Then I used my very last option: Life's Finale. The board is gone, and I search and remove the 1 remaining creature in his library.
It was a good first run, but I was pretty herpy-derpy with it. One lesson I did learn: When you get the chance to exile Elesh Norn from a Solar Flare deck, you take it.
Ties. All night, ties. I may never play pure draw-go control again.
Obviously you need to build a deck around Karn Liberated that focuses on restarting the game as many times as possible.
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TurksonNear the mountains of ColoradoRegistered Userregular
I got 2nd tonight with WU Humans!
The two people playing UB Control decks did pretty bad. One dropped, and the other went 1-2-1. I almost played my UB Control deck, but decided against it at the last minute. I really didn't want every game to go to time.
I had a fantastic time playing my clunky Puresteel deck last night, because I kept playing Grand Abolishers and the entire store was full of people playing blue.
One guy was like "That card makes all of my cards useless!" and I replied that he should play not boring cards. Turns out hexproof hasted two drops are pretty good.
we got more for our lgs draft tonight 12! store was actually 1 pack short so there was a random zendikar booster thrown in which was interesting never seen zendikar before
went win loss win, one of the games from my lost round i got 11land 1 creature (of 15) but what can you do
I mentioned your zendikar anecdote to my friend and he said, "Last night we drafted one Innistrad and 2 core boosters. I was really happy to pull a Burning Vengeance and then realized right after I passed it..." and then he made a sad face.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
3-1-1 with my RWB control, which runs hot and cold. I think I need to find room in the sideboard for Hex Parasite; opposing PWs make me miserable, even with O-Ring. Putting Elesh Norn maindeck certainly paid off, though.
Current list, for those interested:
"Kaalia Kontrol"
4 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
2 Sphere of the Suns
1 Batterskull
4 Desperate Ravings
3 Tribute to Hunger
3 Timely Reinforcements
3 Day of Judgement
2 Black Sun's Zenith
1 Life's Finale
2 Devil's Play
3 Oblivion Ring
1 Curse of Death's Hold
2 Chandra, the Firebrand
1 Elspeth Tirel
1 Sorin Markov
They very much make me want to make a UR flashbacky deck with Burning Vengeance and that new Blue Burning Vengeance.
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TurksonNear the mountains of ColoradoRegistered Userregular
Went 3-2 at SMM (Saturday Morning Magic). Lost to RDW and a GW Wolfrun deck. I went 2-1 in both my losses, I felt like I was still competitive and viable in all games. Really liking my WU Humans deck.
They're all good cards. I wouldn't compare any of them to Brainstorm, but I love them all.
Faithless Looting is Brainstorm minus a card, and instead of being on top of your library, they go into your graveyard.
Faithless Looting is indirect card disadvantage, but probably the sickest filtering and graveyard enabling you'll find for a while.
it's interesting to compare them, maybe not productive. how much is good filtering worth? that probably depends on what archetype you're playing.
control and combo get a lot more out of filtering (to the point where brainstorm reads "draw two and a half cards, maybe"), aggro not so much.
i predict that modern U/R combo just got filthy degenerate and wizards might have to fix it again.
For that matter, what's so great about those zendikar fetchlands? Why is it that so many decks have them when they're completely unnecessary? As in, having the U/G one in a deck without forests or even green spells.
Faithless Looting is Brainstorm minus a card, and instead of being on top of your library, they go into your graveyard.
Faithless Looting is indirect card disadvantage, but probably the sickest filtering and graveyard enabling you'll find for a while.
The fact that FL is a sorcery is also fairly important in this comparison, IMO.
AC:NH Chris from Glosta SW-5173-3598-2899 DA-4749-1014-4697 @vyolynce@mastodon.social
For that matter, what's so great about those zendikar fetchlands? Why is it that so many decks have them when they're completely unnecessary? As in, having the U/G one in a deck without forests or even green spells.
Let's say you're running UB control in Modern or Extended and your dual lands include Watery Grave. Since the UB fetchlands are old and therefore not legal in Modern or Extended, your options for fetching a Watery Grave are limited to the ZEN fetchlands (UR, UG, BG, BW), all of which include a color you're not playing. It looks a little awkward running a Misty Rainforest in a deck with no forests, but 4x Misty means you can consistently play an untapped Watery Grave on the first turn.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
MaRo is terrible about "plot hints." Yes, we know that
Lili busts open the Helvault to kill the demon and free Avacyn.
You don't have to be so "HEY GUYS PAY ATTENTION" about it.
Also, almost all of the cards spoiled now seem pretty bad. Some exceptions:
Curse of Exhaustion (one-sided Rule of Law).
Midnight Guard (with Village Bell-Ringer, you could run BOROS SPLINTER TWIN, wtf)
Dungeon Geists (limited beast, like a worse Flametongue Kavu in blue)
Mystic Retrieval (complements desperate ravings)
Niblis of the Breath (blue tapper)
Increasing Ambition (UB control might really want this)
Increasing Vengeance (seems like it might do something? storm? ascension?)
Tracker's Instincts (Lead the Stampede / Forbidden Alchemy. Looks a little busted.)
Young Wolf (never thought a 1/1 would actually be okay to play.)
i think there's going to be disappointment that there wasn't a 'set' of cards like vault of the archangel for each enemy colour combo
They won't even give me a crappy ability on a land!
Unsurprisingly, they gave nothing to Delver and burn decks. Nothing to control either it looks like. Rare counterspells (except Cryptic Command, Absorb and Undermine) are always so bad. I thought they reprinted Dismiss at common, but then I noticed the creature clause. D'oh!
As for limited, I think they did a good job as it looks pretty varied. Every colour combination got something out of it. Spirits are actually a viable tribe now, especially with the lord that gives everything hexproof. That's at least more fair than Invisible Stalker (unless you get two of them in play somehow), which hopefully U/W won't devolve into now that it has one less Innistrad pack. Saving Grasp + Slayer of the Wicked is going to be so unfair though. As if Silent Departure wasn't enough. Stormbound Geist is really good at common and Niblis of the Breath, Tower Geist and Soul Seizer are solid at uncommon. Most importantly, yay Evolving Wilds! Go, go, four-colour Burning Vengeance.
I wonder if Curses are a viable constructed deck now that it has a tutor that puts a curse into play for free every turn. Curse of Thirst is a pretty fast clock if you manage to get the engine running. No one has Witchbane Orb in their sideboard, right?
I wonder if Avacyn's Collar and Grafdigger's Cage will make Trinket Mage playable in Puresteel again. I thought Puresteel was a little underrated as it is, and the collar seems really good in that deck.
yeah i dunno about this set. the only mythic like mythic is sorin?
I'd definitely consider Elbrus to be "mythic". Mikaeus and Vorrapede are fine, Beguiler of Wills and Moonveil Dragon borderline. The four "monster" mythics are ok. Helvault gets a flavor pass (along with Mikaeus). Really the only truly horrible one is that white sorcery. But yeah: Sorin's the only one that will be worth ANYTHING in about 6 weeks. Maybe Huntmaster.
As a note: that's 12 mythics in this set, instead of the usual 10, thanks to two being DFCs.
AC:NH Chris from Glosta SW-5173-3598-2899 DA-4749-1014-4697 @vyolynce@mastodon.social
Man, there may or may not be a lot of 'money' cards or standard bombs, but my shopping list is like 40 individual cards long (plus duplicates of some), and that's before I go cheap foil hunting for cards with incredible artwork. Really, really love the artwork in this set.
On one hand, I don't mind possibly not spending a lot on the cards I want for a variety of decks. On the other hand, I would like a Sorin, and I suspect that like other lower value distribution sets, this means that everyone will act to push Sorin up to eight hundred dollars (massive hyperbole folks, put the pitchforks down.. and equip them to a human) apiece.
Notably pondering trying to turn my pure black Zombie deck to Black/Blue, and mono black Vampires to Black/Red, but am not quite convinced it's worth doing compared to the advantages mono black brings. Doing so to either would involve adding a good dozen cards to that shopping list, and more to cover Innistrad red/blue creatures I skipped over the first time around.
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
Increasing Vengeance (seems like it might do something? storm? ascension?)
Sadly, because it just says "copy target spell" and not "you may cast the copy" it doesn't trigger Storm or Ascension.
A few other cards that jumped out at me:
Drogskol Captain - Two of these on the battlefield gets scary. Especially in combination with token generators. Having trouble fishing for the second one? Maybe that's where Call to the Kindred comes in. (Or even Mitotic Manipulation, which I still think is an underrated card.) Speaking of which...
Call to the Kindred - Anything that lets you put a creature directly on the battlefield without paying its mana cost has potential for abuse. I'm not seeing it yet but I'm sure something will come up.
Break of Day and Faith's Shield - These will make Fateful Hour very relevant in limited. Still not sure about constructed, though.
Artful Dodge - Reminds me of Distortion Strike, which is a good thing.
Black Cat - lol
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
Call to the Kindred - Anything that lets you put a creature directly on the battlefield without paying its mana cost has potential for abuse. I'm not seeing it yet but I'm sure something will come up
Not in Standard, but using it with changelings could get pretty silly.
Call to the Kindred - Anything that lets you put a creature directly on the battlefield without paying its mana cost has potential for abuse. I'm not seeing it yet but I'm sure something will come up
Not in Standard, but using it with changelings could get pretty silly.
A cheap creature with hexproof seems like the best use of it.
Slippery Bogle, maybe? He becomes a Beast factory if you don't have a board-wiping effect.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
so sun titan can put enchantment auras onto hexproof?
Yes. Auras only target when cast. Note that this is a weird but valid way to get, say, Spectral Flight on Phantasmal Bears.
I once had to explain that to an opponent (at Regionals...) after I used Enduring Ideal to Confiscate his Kodama of the North Tree.
Bear in mind that it actually has to be an Aura, not Oblivion Ring. :P
if you chain fiend hunter's trigger effect to kill him on the chain, the monster is exiled forever?
Effectively. His leaves-play trigger will go on the stack (STACK. "Chain" is a YGO term and it makes me ill) on top of his ETB trigger. They resolve in reverse order, so first it returns whatever it exiled (i.e., nothing) and then it exiles it.
Vyolynce on
AC:NH Chris from Glosta SW-5173-3598-2899 DA-4749-1014-4697 @vyolynce@mastodon.social
Sooo I guess I don't understand something. I thought if you stack something and "kill" a lower card in the stack, when the stack reaches it, it doesn't find the card, so the effect doesn't happen. That's what I thought. Can someone explain how that works in magic?
Posts
Like EDH?
My first thought was a Sharuum the Hegemon deck with Stoneforge and other white 'equipment matters' cards.
Alternatively, Ghave, because you can exploit the +1/+1 counters that the demon generates.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Touche.
But even then, it's mitigated by the fact that you can only have one card of each, so it's not like you're going to mulligan down until SM shows up in your hand.
That reminds me, I need to put together an EDH deck.
While true, there are much, MUCH worse ways to abuse Elbrus in that format. Like Godo. Or, heavens forbid, Stonehewer Giant. True, Mystic is much cheaper but those other two skip a lot of intermediary steps.
That is very true.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I'm at 1-1 with this guy running WW. I had the zombie engine going and Jace out and a Nephalia Drownyard. I'm at 1 life. I've milled him down to the teens in cards left. He's got a Swiftfoot Boots on the board, and five lands. I have two lands untapped and a couple of zombie tokens. He casts an Elite Inquisitor. I Mana Leak it, which taps him out so he can't equip the boots and kill me immediately, but he gets to keep it so I have one turn to beat him or he romps right through zombies . He swings with his other stuff, I block and he passes the turn. I have ten mana and one card in my hand. I use Jace to mill him for 10. He still has cards. I use Nephalia Drownyard to mill him for another 3. No good, he has 3 cards left, and that Inquisitor staring me in the face. Then I used my very last option: Life's Finale. The board is gone, and I search and remove the 1 remaining creature in his library.
It was a good first run, but I was pretty herpy-derpy with it. One lesson I did learn: When you get the chance to exile Elesh Norn from a Solar Flare deck, you take it.
Obviously you need to build a deck around Karn Liberated that focuses on restarting the game as many times as possible.
The two people playing UB Control decks did pretty bad. One dropped, and the other went 1-2-1. I almost played my UB Control deck, but decided against it at the last minute. I really didn't want every game to go to time.
One guy was like "That card makes all of my cards useless!" and I replied that he should play not boring cards. Turns out hexproof hasted two drops are pretty good.
Also Flayerhusks. All the flayerhusks.
went win loss win, one of the games from my lost round i got 11land 1 creature (of 15) but what can you do
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
It's so good. Delicious. The best card.
Obviously I should play Grixis, for Desperate Ravings.
Current list, for those interested:
4 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
2 Sphere of the Suns
1 Batterskull
4 Desperate Ravings
3 Tribute to Hunger
3 Timely Reinforcements
3 Day of Judgement
2 Black Sun's Zenith
1 Life's Finale
2 Devil's Play
3 Oblivion Ring
1 Curse of Death's Hold
2 Chandra, the Firebrand
1 Elspeth Tirel
1 Sorin Markov
2 Ghost Quarter
3 Clifftop Retreat
3 Isolated Chapel
3 Dragonskull Summit
4 Mountain
5 Plains
5 Swamp
1 Island
--
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Nevermore
3 Celestial Purge
3 Dismember
2 Revoke Existence
1 Curse of Death's Hold
1 Sever the Bloodline
And the new red Brainstorm with flashback.
You might want to read Desperate Ravings again. Or Brainstorm, I'm not sure which.
They're all good cards. I wouldn't compare any of them to Brainstorm, but I love them all.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Faithless Looting is Brainstorm minus a card, and instead of being on top of your library, they go into your graveyard.
Faithless Looting is indirect card disadvantage, but probably the sickest filtering and graveyard enabling you'll find for a while.
it's interesting to compare them, maybe not productive. how much is good filtering worth? that probably depends on what archetype you're playing.
control and combo get a lot more out of filtering (to the point where brainstorm reads "draw two and a half cards, maybe"), aggro not so much.
i predict that modern U/R combo just got filthy degenerate and wizards might have to fix it again.
For that matter, what's so great about those zendikar fetchlands? Why is it that so many decks have them when they're completely unnecessary? As in, having the U/G one in a deck without forests or even green spells.
Yeah, I got the two red "draw" spells confused. But still.
The fact that FL is a sorcery is also fairly important in this comparison, IMO.
Let's say you're running UB control in Modern or Extended and your dual lands include Watery Grave. Since the UB fetchlands are old and therefore not legal in Modern or Extended, your options for fetching a Watery Grave are limited to the ZEN fetchlands (UR, UG, BG, BW), all of which include a color you're not playing. It looks a little awkward running a Misty Rainforest in a deck with no forests, but 4x Misty means you can consistently play an untapped Watery Grave on the first turn.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
MaRo is terrible about "plot hints." Yes, we know that
Also, almost all of the cards spoiled now seem pretty bad. Some exceptions:
Midnight Guard (with Village Bell-Ringer, you could run BOROS SPLINTER TWIN, wtf)
Dungeon Geists (limited beast, like a worse Flametongue Kavu in blue)
Mystic Retrieval (complements desperate ravings)
Niblis of the Breath (blue tapper)
Increasing Ambition (UB control might really want this)
Increasing Vengeance (seems like it might do something? storm? ascension?)
Tracker's Instincts (Lead the Stampede / Forbidden Alchemy. Looks a little busted.)
Young Wolf (never thought a 1/1 would actually be okay to play.)
this means there's no point in buying random packs? I should just buy singles?
but it looks good for limited cant wait!
They won't even give me a crappy ability on a land!
Unsurprisingly, they gave nothing to Delver and burn decks. Nothing to control either it looks like. Rare counterspells (except Cryptic Command, Absorb and Undermine) are always so bad. I thought they reprinted Dismiss at common, but then I noticed the creature clause. D'oh!
As for limited, I think they did a good job as it looks pretty varied. Every colour combination got something out of it. Spirits are actually a viable tribe now, especially with the lord that gives everything hexproof. That's at least more fair than Invisible Stalker (unless you get two of them in play somehow), which hopefully U/W won't devolve into now that it has one less Innistrad pack. Saving Grasp + Slayer of the Wicked is going to be so unfair though. As if Silent Departure wasn't enough. Stormbound Geist is really good at common and Niblis of the Breath, Tower Geist and Soul Seizer are solid at uncommon. Most importantly, yay Evolving Wilds! Go, go, four-colour Burning Vengeance.
I wonder if Curses are a viable constructed deck now that it has a tutor that puts a curse into play for free every turn. Curse of Thirst is a pretty fast clock if you manage to get the engine running. No one has Witchbane Orb in their sideboard, right?
The other three are in Avacyn Restored.
I'd definitely consider Elbrus to be "mythic". Mikaeus and Vorrapede are fine, Beguiler of Wills and Moonveil Dragon borderline. The four "monster" mythics are ok. Helvault gets a flavor pass (along with Mikaeus). Really the only truly horrible one is that white sorcery. But yeah: Sorin's the only one that will be worth ANYTHING in about 6 weeks. Maybe Huntmaster.
As a note: that's 12 mythics in this set, instead of the usual 10, thanks to two being DFCs.
that's saying something, right there
On one hand, I don't mind possibly not spending a lot on the cards I want for a variety of decks. On the other hand, I would like a Sorin, and I suspect that like other lower value distribution sets, this means that everyone will act to push Sorin up to eight hundred dollars (massive hyperbole folks, put the pitchforks down.. and equip them to a human) apiece.
Notably pondering trying to turn my pure black Zombie deck to Black/Blue, and mono black Vampires to Black/Red, but am not quite convinced it's worth doing compared to the advantages mono black brings. Doing so to either would involve adding a good dozen cards to that shopping list, and more to cover Innistrad red/blue creatures I skipped over the first time around.
Sadly, because it just says "copy target spell" and not "you may cast the copy" it doesn't trigger Storm or Ascension.
A few other cards that jumped out at me:
Drogskol Captain - Two of these on the battlefield gets scary. Especially in combination with token generators. Having trouble fishing for the second one? Maybe that's where Call to the Kindred comes in. (Or even Mitotic Manipulation, which I still think is an underrated card.) Speaking of which...
Call to the Kindred - Anything that lets you put a creature directly on the battlefield without paying its mana cost has potential for abuse. I'm not seeing it yet but I'm sure something will come up.
Break of Day and Faith's Shield - These will make Fateful Hour very relevant in limited. Still not sure about constructed, though.
Artful Dodge - Reminds me of Distortion Strike, which is a good thing.
Black Cat - lol
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Not in Standard, but using it with changelings could get pretty silly.
A cheap creature with hexproof seems like the best use of it.
Slippery Bogle, maybe? He becomes a Beast factory if you don't have a board-wiping effect.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
if you chain fiend hunter's trigger effect to kill him on the chain, the monster is exiled forever?
Yes. Auras only target when cast. Note that this is a weird but valid way to get, say, Spectral Flight on Phantasmal Bears.
I once had to explain that to an opponent (at Regionals...) after I used Enduring Ideal to Confiscate his Kodama of the North Tree.
Bear in mind that it actually has to be an Aura, not Oblivion Ring. :P
Effectively. His leaves-play trigger will go on the stack (STACK. "Chain" is a YGO term and it makes me ill) on top of his ETB trigger. They resolve in reverse order, so first it returns whatever it exiled (i.e., nothing) and then it exiles it.