I'm trying to figure out if there's potential in adding some sort of channel-type spells where I can use the extra lifegain to cause damage to my opponent or a target. I haven't really investigated, though.
I wonder how much a Shasowspear would work in the deck, maybe as a 1-2 quantity. It would certainly help with being chump blocked when I've got a 13-power Pridemate or Aerialist.
I use 2 Shadowspear in my lifegain deck, and wouldn't dream of taking them out at this point. 3 would probably be too many since it's legendary, but 2 feels just right to me.
The decklist I started with has 2 Kurunos in it and I'm not sure how useful they ultimately are; even though the person who wrote the article about the deck swears they're part of the engine of it. I can see the value in the card because it fully shuts down any sort of graveyard shenanigans, but I've either not had them show up against an opponent that is using the graveyard, or had them show up when the opponent didn't care.
I'm a little disappointed because I wasted wildcards to get them. (blah blah sunk cost fallacy; it still hurts a little)
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
I'm trying to figure out if there's potential in adding some sort of channel-type spells where I can use the extra lifegain to cause damage to my opponent or a target. I haven't really investigated, though.
The decklist I started with has 2 Kurunos in it and I'm not sure how useful they ultimately are; even though the person who wrote the article about the deck swears they're part of the engine of it. I can see the value in the card because it fully shuts down any sort of graveyard shenanigans, but I've either not had them show up against an opponent that is using the graveyard, or had them show up when the opponent didn't care.
I'm a little disappointed because I wasted wildcards to get them. (blah blah sunk cost fallacy; it still hurts a little)
I like the idea of Kuronos a lot more than how it works out in practice. I think cards that have more utility in more matches just make more sense, as nice as it can be when Kuronos shuts down something annoying.
The decklist I started with has 2 Kurunos in it and I'm not sure how useful they ultimately are; even though the person who wrote the article about the deck swears they're part of the engine of it. I can see the value in the card because it fully shuts down any sort of graveyard shenanigans, but I've either not had them show up against an opponent that is using the graveyard, or had them show up when the opponent didn't care.
I'm a little disappointed because I wasted wildcards to get them. (blah blah sunk cost fallacy; it still hurts a little)
I like the idea of Kuronos a lot more than how it works out in practice. I think cards that have more utility in more matches just make more sense, as nice as it can be when Kuronos shuts down something annoying.
Kuronos seems good when you need to apply pressure early, or need to block mono-red.
The graveyard bit didn't seem to ever matter when I was playing BW Control (Kaya+Ashiok), but again, I was playing Ashiok and exiling their graveyard most games.
But yeah, dropping a 3/3 for three seemed good when you're mostly focused on killing their board, and don't have a board yourself.
I'm convinced that Heliod would probably put this deck over the top. Just waiting for gold drafts to come back so I can play the lottery.
I've played 3 mirror matches in the last hour (essentially, anyway; not exactly the same but all flavors of Orzhov life gain) in ranked play and Shadowspear won 2 of the three for me. Including one where my opponent got Heliod out, and I didn't.
I also had 2 different red decks quit by turn 3 when I had Shadowspear on a Pridemate that was already too big to kill with a single spell.
Heliod is fantastic, and does amazing things for the deck. You don't even care if you get a Pridemate or similar out if you can get Heliod on to the board. I won a match the other day where I never played a creature that cost more than one mana (other than Heliod I suppose, but he never became a creature). Just a Healer's Hawk and enough Alseids to keep that hawk alive while Heliod made it keep getting bigger and bigger. But that said, Shadowspear wins just as many matches for me.
heliod is def good when i play against lifegain, i run revival in my bw deck as others point out if you lose your pridemate sometimes it's just a concede, so i found the dog to be not really that good
Well I just got back into MTG after a 8 year hiatus. I bought the starter pack and crafted an setesan champion / aura deck.
It's a bit hit and mis it always goes of eventually, unless I draw into lands lots of lands....
Arena is fun and much more streamlined than mtgo, shame it doesn't have edh.
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21stCenturyCall me Pixel, or Pix for short![They/Them]Registered Userregular
Well I just got back into MTG after a 8 year hiatus. I bought the starter pack and crafted an setesan champion / aura deck.
It's a bit hit and mis it always goes of eventually, unless I draw into lands lots of lands....
Arena is fun and much more streamlined than mtgo, shame it doesn't have edh.
ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
So since Brawl is free due to covid I played a few games. It's kind of fun! It's a nice diversion. It kind of makes me wish I had a playgroup for commander.
I've been playing some izzet phoenix in historic, that deck is a solid T2 and still one of my favorite decks of all time. It does decently against the field decks with fliers + burn and it runs 12 shock effects which helps with the aggro match ups. It preforms poorly against the combo decks of the format like Kethis/Nexus/Underworld breach but it seems that people are unwilling to play those decks.
I'm mostly seeing field of the dead decks of widely different stripes with the most common being the golos/dryad of the ilysian grove/dread presence/yarok/field of the dead type. I don't agree with unsuspending field of the dead as it's doing the same thing as it did last time it was in standard, it drives out midrange and control as it goes over the top of all midrange decks and lands are difficult to interact with for control. Wizards seems to think that introducing sideboard cards that can deal with field is enough to deal with the problem which is a bit misguided. These cards aren't good enough to be run main deck and the field of the dead decks are capable of running alternate win conditions and dealing with hate in post sideboard games.
With that 'FNM at home' things that's coming up, I was wondering if any of you know of a participating store that *doesn't* use Facebook as their social media channel?
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KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
Switched my deck from Orzhov lifegain to monowhite lifegain just to see how it would compare, and that ended up being huge. Flew through diamond to hit Mythic on Arena for the first time.
I was worried about losing instant speed removal in the form of Murderous Rider and Mortify, but it seems like sorcery speed removal works just fine most of the time. The little bit of scrying from Prison Realm can be nice, and all the extra lifegain from Linden goes a long way in just overpowering some decks. The biggest difference might just be not having to wait for lands that enter tapped though. The deck just plays faster by enough to make a bigger difference than I expected.
KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
80-90% of the decks I've played today have been the exact same RDW deck. I'm guessing because there are 4 days left and people are trying to boost their rankings?
It might be time to take a few days off.
+1
DemonStaceyTTODewback's DaughterIn love with the TaySwayRegistered Userregular
80-90% of the decks I've played today have been the exact same RDW deck. I'm guessing because there are 4 days left and people are trying to boost their rankings?
It might be time to take a few days off.
Yea it comes in waves.
Beginning of season where people just want to get to their bracket quickly.
End of season where people want to get the best rewards.
And then also whenever there is a particular powerful RDW then you will see butt tons anyway.
I am currently all in play queue now because ranked queue has been so much RDW for awhile.
Play queue is kinda dumb though so it's kinda meh but better then the same incredibly boring non-interactive match 8/10 games.
I didn't try it, but would someone more knowledgeable than I tell me how the heck that Fires deck is supposed to win? Tokens maybe? Turn your planeswalkers into dragons?
The fires deck destroys the red deck, because it's got like seven board wipes and a ton of incidental lifegain. The simic deck destroys the fires deck, because it's heavily reactive and punishes tapping out for engine cards, which is all the fires deck does. The adventures deck just feels really weak compared to all three.
E: Also, you can just mulligan super, super heavily since you know what deck you're fighting.
I didn't try it, but would someone more knowledgeable than I tell me how the heck that Fires deck is supposed to win? Tokens maybe? Turn your planeswalkers into dragons?
I played the red deck 3 times. Beat Simic Flash twice and lost to Fires thanks to the wipes milski mentioned and then Sarkhan sending Narset and Saheeli at my head.
AC:NH Chris from Glosta SW-5173-3598-2899 DA-4749-1014-4697 @vyolynce@mastodon.social
The fires deck destroys the red deck, because it's got like seven board wipes and a ton of incidental lifegain. The simic deck destroys the fires deck, because it's heavily reactive and punishes tapping out for engine cards, which is all the fires deck does. The adventures deck just feels really weak compared to all three.
E: Also, you can just mulligan super, super heavily since you know what deck you're fighting.
I was using the simic deck, and jesus christ could I not draw a land to save my life. It could hang with the red deck, but honestly I got so regularly mana screwed that I'm not even sure.
Then I swapped to red to just get the last win, and yeah, push button collect win. Lord.
Edit: But like seriously, what's the fires deck do to win? Spam tokens off the walkers? I don't get it.
dporowski on
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PiptheFairFrequently not in boats.Registered Userregular
the fires deck being the only one with enchantment removal and also board wipes and access to sideboard via wish is some grade A+ design
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
I didn't try it, but would someone more knowledgeable than I tell me how the heck that Fires deck is supposed to win? Tokens maybe? Turn your planeswalkers into dragons?
Sarkhan, Ugin, Saheeli, Kenrith. It runs more finishers than most control decks.
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I use 2 Shadowspear in my lifegain deck, and wouldn't dream of taking them out at this point. 3 would probably be too many since it's legendary, but 2 feels just right to me.
I'm a little disappointed because I wasted wildcards to get them. (blah blah sunk cost fallacy; it still hurts a little)
well, Standard-Channel is Bolas's Citadel
Nintendo ID: Pastalonius
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I like the idea of Kuronos a lot more than how it works out in practice. I think cards that have more utility in more matches just make more sense, as nice as it can be when Kuronos shuts down something annoying.
Kuronos seems good when you need to apply pressure early, or need to block mono-red.
The graveyard bit didn't seem to ever matter when I was playing BW Control (Kaya+Ashiok), but again, I was playing Ashiok and exiling their graveyard most games.
But yeah, dropping a 3/3 for three seemed good when you're mostly focused on killing their board, and don't have a board yourself.
I've played 3 mirror matches in the last hour (essentially, anyway; not exactly the same but all flavors of Orzhov life gain) in ranked play and Shadowspear won 2 of the three for me. Including one where my opponent got Heliod out, and I didn't.
I also had 2 different red decks quit by turn 3 when I had Shadowspear on a Pridemate that was already too big to kill with a single spell.
Heliod is fantastic, and does amazing things for the deck. You don't even care if you get a Pridemate or similar out if you can get Heliod on to the board. I won a match the other day where I never played a creature that cost more than one mana (other than Heliod I suppose, but he never became a creature). Just a Healer's Hawk and enough Alseids to keep that hawk alive while Heliod made it keep getting bigger and bigger. But that said, Shadowspear wins just as many matches for me.
Also, I have a traditional draft token and seemingly no traditional drafts exist.
Already? Wow
You only need to hit 90 for Theros and there's like a month to go. Plenty of time.
Traditional drafts are always there. Where are you looking?
...wait.
...oh fuck off! For some reason when it last patched it turned off the "show all modes" toggle! No wonder there seemed to be so few options!
It's a bit hit and mis it always goes of eventually, unless I draw into lands lots of lands....
Arena is fun and much more streamlined than mtgo, shame it doesn't have edh.
it gots brawl... not identical to EDH but.
it's brawl.
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I believe when I asked about it, consensus was also that it's worth it if you get past about 40-50.
It doesn't win matches, opponents concede to it.
It's also pretty bad, but I enjoy playing it.
The black and white one is solid. Got a win right away, very easily.
I'm mostly seeing field of the dead decks of widely different stripes with the most common being the golos/dryad of the ilysian grove/dread presence/yarok/field of the dead type. I don't agree with unsuspending field of the dead as it's doing the same thing as it did last time it was in standard, it drives out midrange and control as it goes over the top of all midrange decks and lands are difficult to interact with for control. Wizards seems to think that introducing sideboard cards that can deal with field is enough to deal with the problem which is a bit misguided. These cards aren't good enough to be run main deck and the field of the dead decks are capable of running alternate win conditions and dealing with hate in post sideboard games.
I was worried about losing instant speed removal in the form of Murderous Rider and Mortify, but it seems like sorcery speed removal works just fine most of the time. The little bit of scrying from Prison Realm can be nice, and all the extra lifegain from Linden goes a long way in just overpowering some decks. The biggest difference might just be not having to wait for lands that enter tapped though. The deck just plays faster by enough to make a bigger difference than I expected.
No problem. It's not hugely different from what I sent you before, but the changes seem to be working really well.
Yep! Some of the spells are new to me so I'll have to mess around with this soon.
It might be time to take a few days off.
Yea it comes in waves.
Beginning of season where people just want to get to their bracket quickly.
End of season where people want to get the best rewards.
And then also whenever there is a particular powerful RDW then you will see butt tons anyway.
I am currently all in play queue now because ranked queue has been so much RDW for awhile.
Play queue is kinda dumb though so it's kinda meh but better then the same incredibly boring non-interactive match 8/10 games.
Edit: Oh hey the red deck works, go figure.
I didn't try it, but would someone more knowledgeable than I tell me how the heck that Fires deck is supposed to win? Tokens maybe? Turn your planeswalkers into dragons?
E: Also, you can just mulligan super, super heavily since you know what deck you're fighting.
I played the red deck 3 times. Beat Simic Flash twice and lost to Fires thanks to the wipes milski mentioned and then Sarkhan sending Narset and Saheeli at my head.
I was using the simic deck, and jesus christ could I not draw a land to save my life. It could hang with the red deck, but honestly I got so regularly mana screwed that I'm not even sure.
Then I swapped to red to just get the last win, and yeah, push button collect win. Lord.
Edit: But like seriously, what's the fires deck do to win? Spam tokens off the walkers? I don't get it.
Sarkhan, Ugin, Saheeli, Kenrith. It runs more finishers than most control decks.
It's a Cavalcade deck, so it wants to just spam hasted 1/1s, Cavalcades, and then Torbran.
Also anecdotally, people aren't as good with it as they think they are all the time, so.