i only played one match against abzan this weekend, and while the game where he flattened me with triple guides was pretty bleh, i didn't feel too wrecked by the card even as a mardu deck with unexciting creatures
a 4/4 morpher is in a pretty decent spot for the person trying to remove it, at least, allowing suspension field and smite the monstrous, and falling back into heart piercer/morph-trade range after a debilitating injury
i didn't draft the snot out of theros, but i feel a little less threatened by lifelink now than i did then
Lifelink was a huge deal in Theros because you could plop a Hopeful Eidolon onto any huge creature, or make a lifelinker into a huge creature. Khans seems much lighter on ways to enhance your creatures, other than Outlast. There aren't many auras or equipment worth playing in limited, while Theros was packed with them.
Yeah lifelink seems generally toned down here as opposed to what I know of THS limited or even M15 (where people were throwing Marks or Inferno Fists on Peggy all day long)
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astrobstrdSo full of mercy...Registered Userregular
Giving your abzan team lifelink and flying and/or first strike is still a pretty big game on Tarkir.
Theodore Flooseveltproud parent of eight beautiful girls and shalmelodorne (which is currently being ruled by a woman (awesome role model for my daughters)) #dornedadRegistered Userregular
Also good against the Jeskai - for some reason their many fliers take me by surprise. I don't know why; they're the blue clan. Should be ready for that mantis bullpoop.
Also good against the Jeskai - for some reason their many fliers take me by surprise. I don't know why; they're the blue clan. Should be ready for that mantis bullpoop.
One of the Loading Ready Run guys got leveled, apparently more than once, during the pre-release when he tried to swing for the win with Flying Crane Technique and the other guy happened to have Windstorm in hand.
Giving your abzan team lifelink and flying and/or first strike is still a pretty big game on Tarkir.
which is pretty dang powerful, but it's all creature-based and tarkir's got removal for days to handle it
This is true compared to recent sets, but this is still a format defined by creatures. I also found at the pre-release that folks really didn't expect stuff like incremental growth or abzan ascendency to turn all of my stuff on and let me attack. Related note, Abzan Ascendency is absolutely bonkers.
I would be too. FCT is essentially Jeskai Ultimatum. Getting it countered by a (maindecked) sideboard card is just disheartening.
I main decked it at the.....M14 prerelease? I knew blue had lots of good fliers and almost everyone was running it, so I maindecked one and kept the other in the side.
One guy actually accused me of cheating because I blew him out game one with it because "it's only a sideboard card."
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
Windstorm and Plummet were totally maindeckable in M14. Decent fliers were everywhere except green; even red could pound on you with Shiv's Embrace.
This set is a lot of fun. It's got a lot of weird cube implications, as well. We're not sure how we want to address the gold section of our cube at all, which seems like a good place to be!
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
Yeah I've been wondering about that too. Right now I've only got a couple three-color cards in my cube - Nicol Bolas (walker) and Sphinx of the Steel Wind. I can probably trim a few double-color cards to make room for some wedge trial cards, but I'd probably restrict it to really weird or bomby ones- Villainous Wealth and Surrak come to mind, maybe Abzan Ascendancy to go with the white/black token theme.
Mardu Ascendancy is actually a really good splash card in RB or RW, too. We're debating putting in a Jeskai Ascendancy for the Kiln Fiend/Wee Dragonauts bullshit we've got in here, as well. But then we can't really justify Lightning Angel or Mantis Rider, even though both of those cards are so cool. It's actually quite a pickle, but it's one of the things I love to figure out. Maybe 2 or 3 of each shard/wedge is the correct move now. Reward color diversification and splashes a little bit better than previously. Also solves the conundrum between Abrupt Decay, Pernicious Deed and Rakshasa Deathdealer if we can run all 3.
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
What's your fixing situation? Right now I've got a set of dual lands (proxy, obv), another dual land per color pair (mostly shocks but some checks as well), the Vivid lands, and a few signets and a Chromatic Lantern. I'm going to slowly add fetches as they become available, and hopefully round out the shocks.
they completed two dual cycles at common and uncommon, so my modern peasant cube is dumping both sets of gates and replacing them with the three-color uncommons and the new refuges.
if the card quality at uncommon is enough to support the shards and wedges, i may add one of each shard/wedge in, but i'm guessing one combination will get the (very) short end of the stick there.
also, since i have no morph cards in my cube, i'm sort of loath to start adding them... which means maybe not, on the wedges? and it's unfair to do the shards without the wedges, so... hmmm.
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
I've been avoiding morph cards just because it's such a complicated mechanic, and since most of the people I play with have only been playing for a couple years, they've got enough old mechanics and cards to learn without something like morph. Now that it's in standard I don't have to worry about that so much, but I forgot about needing a critical mass of them. I'll take another look at the older morphs I was considering, maybe I'll confine them to just one or two colors to keep it interesting.
Blegh. Playing aggro has been a complete waste of time on Standard since BOTG was printed, and with U/W Control dead, then is Courser.dec mirrors forever.
I shed no tears at the disappearance of UW Control or Monoblack Devotion.
Courser of Kruphix is still my most-hated card in Standard, though. Courser mirrors = FNM rounds going to time waaaaaaay too often. And the worst part is you basically have to play him if you're tapping for green mana in any way because he is that good.
I shed no tears at the disappearance of UW Control or Monoblack Devotion.
Courser of Kruphix is still my most-hated card in Standard, though. Courser mirrors = FNM rounds going to time waaaaaaay too often. And the worst part is you basically have to play him if you're tapping for green mana in any way because he is that good.
Yup. I talk about control because, according to the usual Aggro > Control > Midrange > Aggro, for aggro to be viable, control needs to be a bigger part of the meta too.
And Courser has gone beyond Thragtusk levels of annoying. At least the 18 month rotations won't make people get sick of some cards so often.
I shed no tears at the disappearance of UW Control or Monoblack Devotion.
Courser of Kruphix is still my most-hated card in Standard, though. Courser mirrors = FNM rounds going to time waaaaaaay too often. And the worst part is you basically have to play him if you're tapping for green mana in any way because he is that good.
Note: Jeskai Storm taps for green and does not run Courser. Play Storm.
I shed no tears at the disappearance of UW Control or Monoblack Devotion.
Courser of Kruphix is still my most-hated card in Standard, though. Courser mirrors = FNM rounds going to time waaaaaaay too often. And the worst part is you basically have to play him if you're tapping for green mana in any way because he is that good.
Note: Jeskai Storm taps for green and does not run Courser. Play Storm.
What's your fixing situation? Right now I've got a set of dual lands (proxy, obv), another dual land per color pair (mostly shocks but some checks as well), the Vivid lands, and a few signets and a Chromatic Lantern. I'm going to slowly add fetches as they become available, and hopefully round out the shocks.
10 duals, 10 fetches, 10 shocklands, 10 ravnica bouncelands, 10 trilands and 10 Shadowmoor/Eventide filterlands. Each color also gets a "utility" land (Yavimaya Hollow, Kher Keep, Lake of the Dead, Academy Ruins and Kor Sanctuary) and 5 colorless utility lands (Vesuva, Thespian Stage, Springjack Pasture, Miren, the Moaning Well and Mysterious Maze).
70 nonbasics seems like a lot for a cube. And it is. We love having good mana accessibility.
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
Eh, it depends on your cube size.
I've also got some utility lands (Kjeldoran Outpost, Heart of Yavimaya), but put them more into the spell category since they don't really advance your mana.
I've taken to shuffling up my fixing lands separately and putting one into each "pack" when cube drafting/ sealed, Dragon-Maze-pack-style.
I keep all dual lands under their associated guilds, each pair gets a Dual, a Shock and then either a manland, painland or scry land depending on the colour combination.
Trilands will go in I think, now that Shards and Wedges are available though.
Each colour gets two utility lands, Karakas/Kjeldoran Outpost, Tolarian Academy/Academy Ruins, Volrath's Stronghold/Phyrexian Tower, Hellion Crucible/Teetering Peaks, Gaea's Cradle/Dryad Arbor.
Vivid lands work well, but tend to get snapped up by people who aren't in that colour since it's two turns of mana fixing. The Mirage cycle fetches aren't horrible if you're looking to fill gaps early on.
it's currently 2 full sets of gates (one full set of each artwork), 5 all-color fixers (terramorphic expanse, evolving wilds, shimmering grotto, unknown shores, transguild promenade),
the vivid lands, and 3 colorless utility (stalking stones, buried ruin, dread statuary).
i'll be swapping out one set of gates for the new refuge cycle, and then the other one for the full cycle of trilands, when i have money to spend on formats other than standard.
Interesting article overall, but the main thing is:
That's just awful.
TryCatcher on
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
Not very surprising, though. Early in the format usually sees a lot of aggro decks, and Caryatid/Courser is probably the best way to stymie aggro. Plus there's a decent amount of variety within the category of "decks that contain the Caryatid/Courser" shell.
Yeah. There's probably a LOT of variation in that category.
Also, pleasantly surprised to see Ascendancy Combo get enough representation for its own little section.
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
Also worth noting that the two weeks of post-Theros events were almost entirely Esper Control, aggro, and G/x midrange decks. They're not exactly the best predictor for what's going to dominate a format.
Also worth noting that the two weeks of post-Theros events were almost entirely Esper Control, aggro, and G/x midrange decks. They're not exactly the best predictor for what's going to dominate a format.
Yeah inertia and card availability are a hell of a combination. If a deck doesn't flat-out rotate away (most devotion decks) it's more likely that some form of the remnants will carry over while people sort out their chase card issues.
Posts
I've met Cynthia Sheppard a couple of times and she seems cool like that.
I demand a new photoshop.
Yeah lifelink seems generally toned down here as opposed to what I know of THS limited or even M15 (where people were throwing Marks or Inferno Fists on Peggy all day long)
which is pretty dang powerful, but it's all creature-based and tarkir's got removal for days to handle it
ineedmayo.com Eidolon Journal Updated
One of the Loading Ready Run guys got leveled, apparently more than once, during the pre-release when he tried to swing for the win with Flying Crane Technique and the other guy happened to have Windstorm in hand.
twitch.tv/Taramoor
@TaramoorPlays
Taramoor on Youtube
ineedmayo.com Eidolon Journal Updated
Story starts around 41:30
I just love how utterly defeated he sounds.
twitch.tv/Taramoor
@TaramoorPlays
Taramoor on Youtube
This is true compared to recent sets, but this is still a format defined by creatures. I also found at the pre-release that folks really didn't expect stuff like incremental growth or abzan ascendency to turn all of my stuff on and let me attack. Related note, Abzan Ascendency is absolutely bonkers.
I main decked it at the.....M14 prerelease? I knew blue had lots of good fliers and almost everyone was running it, so I maindecked one and kept the other in the side.
One guy actually accused me of cheating because I blew him out game one with it because "it's only a sideboard card."
if the card quality at uncommon is enough to support the shards and wedges, i may add one of each shard/wedge in, but i'm guessing one combination will get the (very) short end of the stick there.
also, since i have no morph cards in my cube, i'm sort of loath to start adding them... which means maybe not, on the wedges? and it's unfair to do the shards without the wedges, so... hmmm.
I will always be waiting for a deck where every nonland card enters face down.
I should make an EDH deck like that.
twitch.tv/Taramoor
@TaramoorPlays
Taramoor on Youtube
Blegh. Playing aggro has been a complete waste of time on Standard since BOTG was printed, and with U/W Control dead, then is Courser.dec mirrors forever.
Those Jeskai tempo lists look interesting though.
Er, GW aggro took second in the last protour and Goblin Rabblemaster was putting up insane numbers in the months before the end of the season.
Courser of Kruphix is still my most-hated card in Standard, though. Courser mirrors = FNM rounds going to time waaaaaaay too often. And the worst part is you basically have to play him if you're tapping for green mana in any way because he is that good.
Yup. I talk about control because, according to the usual Aggro > Control > Midrange > Aggro, for aggro to be viable, control needs to be a bigger part of the meta too.
And Courser has gone beyond Thragtusk levels of annoying. At least the 18 month rotations won't make people get sick of some cards so often.
Note: Jeskai Storm taps for green and does not run Courser. Play Storm.
Does not run Courser yet. :P
10 duals, 10 fetches, 10 shocklands, 10 ravnica bouncelands, 10 trilands and 10 Shadowmoor/Eventide filterlands. Each color also gets a "utility" land (Yavimaya Hollow, Kher Keep, Lake of the Dead, Academy Ruins and Kor Sanctuary) and 5 colorless utility lands (Vesuva, Thespian Stage, Springjack Pasture, Miren, the Moaning Well and Mysterious Maze).
70 nonbasics seems like a lot for a cube. And it is. We love having good mana accessibility.
I've also got some utility lands (Kjeldoran Outpost, Heart of Yavimaya), but put them more into the spell category since they don't really advance your mana.
I've taken to shuffling up my fixing lands separately and putting one into each "pack" when cube drafting/ sealed, Dragon-Maze-pack-style.
Trilands will go in I think, now that Shards and Wedges are available though.
Each colour gets two utility lands, Karakas/Kjeldoran Outpost, Tolarian Academy/Academy Ruins, Volrath's Stronghold/Phyrexian Tower, Hellion Crucible/Teetering Peaks, Gaea's Cradle/Dryad Arbor.
Vivid lands work well, but tend to get snapped up by people who aren't in that colour since it's two turns of mana fixing. The Mirage cycle fetches aren't horrible if you're looking to fill gaps early on.
it's currently 2 full sets of gates (one full set of each artwork), 5 all-color fixers (terramorphic expanse, evolving wilds, shimmering grotto, unknown shores, transguild promenade),
the vivid lands, and 3 colorless utility (stalking stones, buried ruin, dread statuary).
i'll be swapping out one set of gates for the new refuge cycle, and then the other one for the full cycle of trilands, when i have money to spend on formats other than standard.
http://themeadery.org/articles/dig-through-standard-data
Interesting article overall, but the main thing is:
That's just awful.
Also, pleasantly surprised to see Ascendancy Combo get enough representation for its own little section.
Yeah inertia and card availability are a hell of a combination. If a deck doesn't flat-out rotate away (most devotion decks) it's more likely that some form of the remnants will carry over while people sort out their chase card issues.