Tough pick here between the Shock and the Tusker - good arguments both ways. I'm inclined to take the Shock, as it's a safer pick and I like the potential of our Condor boosting some high power/low toughness Red guys into the air. I also think that there's often incentives in M14 to have an unbalanced manabase (10/7 or even 11/6), and I'd rather keep open the possibility of playing Ur over trying to make a Gu deck (which the Tusker tempts us to do). And I think it's too early to read the good green cards we've been passed as a signal.
UR is a deck, as far as I've seen. Tusker is powerful, but only if we're willing to potentially make Claustrophobia a dead card with a 11/6 manabase, and I'm confident we're not seeing any G pack two... I agree that worrying about sending signals is generally wrong, but not when you throw three very good cards of a color to your left. You can be pretty confident that G is gonna dry up fast.
A dry pack 2 wouldn't be the end of the world for some colors, but G is so color-intensive, I wouldn't want to skip a pack.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
My helpy helpdesk of helpfulness.
My Decks: EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn Modern: Polytokes IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Shock. I'll be equally happy to see a firecat or maulhorn riding a condor as a tusker.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: 1. Could I put it more shortly? 2. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?"
Kalonian Tusker. Green is extremely potent color to pair with a Condor, and a Tusker this late (with two commons taken over it) seems to imply that green is somewhat open. You can send a pretty clear signal that both green and blue are closed off, while not committing yourself to either.
Shock. Tusker has never impressed me. Shock kills things, and is probably a stronger signal then Tusker. We've also passed a ton of better green then this guy, but really only 2 red cards. We ought to be getting passed some good red pack 2.
Shock seems very good in this deck and this format.
Shock actually isn't that insane in this format, as there are a lot of x/3 and x/4s. But its still really good, far better than anything else in the pack. We can hope the Drake tables, but the pack is pretty weak, so probably not. Getting passed two Shocks in a row makes it seem like red is insanely open though so thats good.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
... proceed to crawl up the wall in crab position with your head hanging backwards until you reach the ceiling. Once you are there, start screaming "For the Glory of Satan" while blood seeps out of your eye sockets (bonus points if they land on her desk).
Generally works for me in those kinds of situations.
Shock. We seem to be looking for Archaeomancers, Messenger Drake, and maybe a Wall of Frost. Or is there a UR deck youse like more?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
My helpy helpdesk of helpfulness.
My Decks: EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn Modern: Polytokes IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
No consideration at all for Liturgy of Blood? I'm fairly certain that it's the best card in the pack (for this format).
But yeah, Shock. It's probably the second-best card (though Trollhide has been surprising me), we have another red card already, and, while I don't believe we've seen any truly reliable signals, red may be more open than black.
No consideration at all for Liturgy of Blood? I'm fairly certain that it's the best card in the pack (for this format).
But yeah, Shock. It's probably the second-best card (though Trollhide has been surprising me), we have another red card already, and, while I don't believe we've seen any truly reliable signals, red may be more open than black.
Oh, I pretty much did the same thing you did: looked at Liturgy, saw it was the best card, and went for the Shock because of what we already have.
Shock. We seem to be looking for Archaeomancers, Messenger Drake, and maybe a Wall of Frost. Or is there a UR deck youse like more?
I'd prefer UR tempo, similar to RW aggro but with Claustrophobia and Trained Condor instead of Pacifism and Master of Diversion. The general game plan goes something like:
1 - Dump a ton of power on the board with Regathan Firecat and Marauding Maulhorn. (I think the most noteworthy thing about red in this format is that thanks to both those creatures being common, the amount of on-board damage it can reliably present is very unusually high. This makes anything that prevents or punishes (Thunder Strike) blocking significantly more powerful than usual).
2 - Prevent blocking with Disperse, Time Ebb, Act of Treason, Seismic Stomp, Goblin Shortcutter, Trained Condor, and removal. People are still really caught off-guard by how quickly a safe-looking position (high life total, a couple blockers held back) can fall apart in this format. Between M14 and Gatecrash, Act of Treason is really having its day in the sun lately.
3 - Burn and fliers for additional reach.
Some sort of UR control seems possible if you get the right cards, but I don't really want my UR decks to be grinding out card advantage with Archaeomancer in M14. I want them to hit people in the face with giant unblockable monsters.
You can't really splash in this format at all, though.
UR is a deck, as far as I've seen. Tusker is powerful, but only if we're willing to potentially make Claustrophobia a dead card with a 11/6 manabase, and I'm confident we're not seeing any G pack two... I agree that worrying about sending signals is generally wrong, but not when you throw three very good cards of a color to your left. You can be pretty confident that G is gonna dry up fast.
A dry pack 2 wouldn't be the end of the world for some colors, but G is so color-intensive, I wouldn't want to skip a pack.
My Decks:
EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn
Modern: Polytokes
IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Just a friendly reminder that I will drive this car off a bridge
Taking a sliver that isn't Battle Sliver or the rare ones early, or over removal, is the fast train to disappointment town.
Cubetutor Link
Wut?
Lots of good 1 color splash cards. Off the top of my head, Mark and Hunt the Weak.
How you should approach every game of Magic.
Mod Helpdesk (defunct)
My Flawless Score MCC Card | My Other One | # Three!
1 Trained Condor
1 Shock
P1P4:
Mark your pick by either bolding it or putting it in Quote tags.
Next pick will be tomorrow (unless there is clear consensus, in which case I might post the next pick earlier). Have fun!
We're going to need good creatures eventually. Fortunately, this pack doesn't have any other than the Sliver, which isn't us.
Shock actually isn't that insane in this format, as there are a lot of x/3 and x/4s. But its still really good, far better than anything else in the pack. We can hope the Drake tables, but the pack is pretty weak, so probably not. Getting passed two Shocks in a row makes it seem like red is insanely open though so thats good.
Generally works for me in those kinds of situations.
My Decks:
EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn
Modern: Polytokes
IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Just a friendly reminder that I will drive this car off a bridge
Mogis, God of Slaughter
Daxos of Meletis
Or, you know, the second Shock. Either one.
~M
But yeah, Shock. It's probably the second-best card (though Trollhide has been surprising me), we have another red card already, and, while I don't believe we've seen any truly reliable signals, red may be more open than black.
Oh, I pretty much did the same thing you did: looked at Liturgy, saw it was the best card, and went for the Shock because of what we already have.
https://twitch.tv/annorax10 (classic retro speedruns & occasional MTGO/MTGA screwaround streams)
https://twitch.tv/SwiftorCasino (yes, my team and I run live dealer games for the baldman using his channel points as chips)
I'd prefer UR tempo, similar to RW aggro but with Claustrophobia and Trained Condor instead of Pacifism and Master of Diversion. The general game plan goes something like:
1 - Dump a ton of power on the board with Regathan Firecat and Marauding Maulhorn. (I think the most noteworthy thing about red in this format is that thanks to both those creatures being common, the amount of on-board damage it can reliably present is very unusually high. This makes anything that prevents or punishes (Thunder Strike) blocking significantly more powerful than usual).
2 - Prevent blocking with Disperse, Time Ebb, Act of Treason, Seismic Stomp, Goblin Shortcutter, Trained Condor, and removal. People are still really caught off-guard by how quickly a safe-looking position (high life total, a couple blockers held back) can fall apart in this format. Between M14 and Gatecrash, Act of Treason is really having its day in the sun lately.
3 - Burn and fliers for additional reach.
Some sort of UR control seems possible if you get the right cards, but I don't really want my UR decks to be grinding out card advantage with Archaeomancer in M14. I want them to hit people in the face with giant unblockable monsters.