Can we PLEASE talk about On Nixilis, Unshackled...better have that removal spell before you play pod (did it have to be 10 life?)
"Whenever an opponent searches his or her library, that player sacrifices a creature (and oh BTW thought we would sneak this in at the end) loses 10 life"
And he gets bigger
"Whenever a creature dies put a +1/+1 counter on ob nixilis, unshackled"
4/4 with flying and trample
...I mean I play faeries, which has no search so its a trample threat, and I think this card is unfair lol
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Decks I have in my bag of tricks- Needless to say, someone who wants to play will probably have a deck UB/x Faeries UR Storm XURWB Affinity G Elves UW control
Can we PLEASE talk about On Nixilis, Unshackled...better have that removal spell before you play pod (did it have to be 10 life?)
"Whenever an opponent searches his or her library, that player sacrifices a creature (and oh BTW thought we would sneak this in at the end) loses 10 life"
And he gets bigger
"Whenever a creature dies put a +1/+1 counter on ob nixilis, unshackled"
4/4 with flying and trample
...I mean I play faeries, which has no search so its a trample threat, and I think this card is unfair lol
Pfft, he's just a 6drop, he'll never be relevant.
At least he's getting some recognition. How many people even remember original Ob Nixilis?
I'd rather stick Elesh Norn against Pod because she outright kills stuff, then prevents them from comboing. For 1 more mana and in white, she also doesn't die to Dismember or Fiery Justice (although not dying to Shriekmaw is something in Ob Nixilis 2.0's favour).
Is there any way to break Aggressive Mining? Being unable to play lands blows, but saccing lands to draw cards is great! ...And only being able to sac one land per turn blows again (or I'd gladly lose my mana base to draw 6-8 cards in UR Storm). Ramp would fuel it, but doesn't sticking Primeval Titan mean you're winning?
Return to the Ranks is underpowered. The main issue with cards like it (Proc, Immortal Servitude) is that returning a bunch of 1 or 2 CMC creatures in the third or fourth turn is really underwhelming, in that they can't attack or block anything. Well, not unless they can suddenly turn into 6/6 flying lifelinkers.
I guess the question is "what combo involving 2 cheap creatures can you assemble?" And "are you not better off playing Proc or Reveillark in that situation?" The gold standard is Martyr of Sands + Serra Ascendant, is there a better one assuming you could also use 2CMC creatures? I can't think of any.
Ob Nixilis barely raises eyebrows. It costs 6 mana. If you're playing control, you don't have any pressure on your opponent's life total until Ob Nixilis resolves (you'll be spending removal and stuff on their threats instead of playing threats of your own), so they can take one tax and kill you if they really need to. If you're not playing control, you will never live long enough to cast it.
Against Pod he is like playing Splinter with a body attached. Does it insta-win against Pod? No, because they can just go the beatdown route - using Gavony Township to pump their guys - and beat you in a fair fight. Ob Nixilis can't even beat a boosted Finks or Angel. No-one plays Splinter against Pod (and no-one would, even if you didn't need a target for it and could just name the card instead), so that kind of tells you how effective a 6-mana Splinter is, even if it comes with a body.
Aggressive Mining would have been good...if you could activate it more than once per turn. As it stands, it has Colfenor's Plans written all over it.
Can we PLEASE talk about On Nixilis, Unshackled...better have that removal spell before you play pod (did it have to be 10 life?)
"Whenever an opponent searches his or her library, that player sacrifices a creature (and oh BTW thought we would sneak this in at the end) loses 10 life"
And he gets bigger
"Whenever a creature dies put a +1/+1 counter on ob nixilis, unshackled"
4/4 with flying and trample
...I mean I play faeries, which has no search so its a trample threat, and I think this card is unfair lol
Pfft, he's just a 6drop, he'll never be relevant.
At least he's getting some recognition. How many people even remember original Ob Nixilis?
I remember the original one as I loved it (not for its playability obviously). That's why I'm pissed off his new version is worse than the first one...
Well, worse isn't quite the word I'd use. I mean, for all the hoops you jump through for Ob2.0, a triggered ability like that is actually quite hilarious.
Some format probably exists that makes his search-punisher worthwhile, but it definitely won't be Modern.
Can we PLEASE talk about On Nixilis, Unshackled...better have that removal spell before you play pod (did it have to be 10 life?)
"Whenever an opponent searches his or her library, that player sacrifices a creature (and oh BTW thought we would sneak this in at the end) loses 10 life"
And he gets bigger
"Whenever a creature dies put a +1/+1 counter on ob nixilis, unshackled"
4/4 with flying and trample
...I mean I play faeries, which has no search so its a trample threat, and I think this card is unfair lol
Honestly I thought about it in Faeries for Pod too. I know a couple of daily lists have been using Wurmcoil as a big beater but think about it. We can disrupt and roughly control the game up until he drops and while his second abilitymay just become an overpriced Grafdiggers the fact that when ANY creature dies he gets bigger makes him more appealing. Go for the beatdown route, your non tramplers will get chumped by tokens and used Faeries and Ob will just get bigger and bigger. Wishful thinking? Most likely, but doesnt mean I won't give him a shot.
Red should be burn, Goblins, Dragons, draw/discard, and Standard-unplayable 5CMC cards with insane, lengthy effects that take 10 minutes to figure out what they do and another 20 to actually make their effects work on the field.
OB 2.0... turning Path to Exiles into better swords to plowshares and ghost quarters into strip mines all while punishing chords, pods and fetches. Potentially turning off a scapeshift win if they are low enough. I wish he cost 5.
Return to the Ranks however is actually pretty interesting. Anyone saying 1-2 drops aren't worth anything at that stage in the game are forgetting the power of Dark Confidant, Tarmogoyf, Voice of Resurgeance and Scavenging Ooze. I could actually see a reason to play junk again just to play this card.
Not saying either of these two cards is going to see high level play, but to claim that they aren't interesting nor worth consideration seems a bit naive.
OB 2.0... turning Path to Exiles into better swords to plowshares and ghost quarters into strip mines all while punishing chords, pods and fetches. Potentially turning off a scapeshift win if they are low enough. I wish he cost 5.
Return to the Ranks however is actually pretty interesting. Anyone saying 1-2 drops aren't worth anything at that stage in the game are forgetting the power of Dark Confidant, Tarmogoyf, Voice of Resurgeance and Scavenging Ooze. I could actually see a reason to play junk again just to play this card.
Not saying either of these two cards is going to see high level play, but to claim that they aren't interesting nor worth consideration seems a bit naive.
Tempted to try him out in the SB of my 4C gifts deck as well. Probably plenty of better choices out there, and I'm guessing he will be less practical than many other options, but seems really good in certain match-ups still. If only there were a good and efficient way to flash him into play reliably.
Surely it's a way to recover from an aggro v aggro match that isn't going your way, or a board wipe? Perhaps this card doesn't lend itself to the current top tier, so maybe that makes it unworthy of discussion. There are a lot of tribal decks etc with lords or similar where bringing out 4+ 2-3 drops will cause a lot of fat creatures to hit the board. I could see this card undoing a lot of card advantage and mana used to destroy your creatures.
Aggro mirrors are won by bigger creatures. They play a Kird Ape, you play a 3/4 Goyf or 4/4 Loxodon Smiter and wall their creature. They can't attack into your guy, so all they can do is sit there until you draw removal for their creatures and take over the game with yours.
Manlands handle board wipes better than recursion. Say they tap out to wipe your board on turn 4, but you have a manland. You can immediately animate the manland and get in for guaranteed damage, instead of reanimating and waiting one turn for summoning sickness to clear (and risking even more removal).
In addition to that, manlands are good whether your opponent plays board wipes or not, whereas recursion is totally useless if your opponent doesn't play removal (e.g. combo decks).
As for tribal decks...the only one with a critical mass of 2CMC lords is Merfolk. Merfolk is not going to play Return to the Ranks any time soon. Practically all other lords cost 3 (Wizened Cenn being one exception, but it's the only 2CMC lord for Kithkin. Merfolk on the other hand has two 2CMC lords), meaning you can't reanimate them with Return to the Ranks.
Return to the Ranks however is actually pretty interesting. Anyone saying 1-2 drops aren't worth anything at that stage in the game are forgetting the power of Dark Confidant, Tarmogoyf, Voice of Resurgeance and Scavenging Ooze. I could actually see a reason to play junk again just to play this card.
Not saying either of these two cards is going to see high level play, but to claim that they aren't interesting nor worth consideration seems a bit naive.
If you are playing Bob, what do you need Return to the Ranks for? You already have a source of CA. And decks with Bob also have Liliana, yet another source of CA.
I say that it's not worth consideration because I trust my own card evaluation skills. I can see that it's unplayable without having to do any tests. The same thing happened in the Prophetic Flamespeaker thread: I told people it sucked, they didn't agree and got rather temperamental about it. Turns out I was right and they were wrong, and it didn't take me 10 hours of playtesting to come to that conclusion. Whatever, if you don't believe me, go do your own testing. You'll only be wasting your own time. Treat it as valuable time spent in learning a lesson.
Honor of the Pure is not a creature and cannot be returned using Return to the Ranks.
Here we go again...you know, I really don't have any issue with people disagreeing with me, but I do take offense to them calling me "closed and uncreative" (quoted from the Flamespeaker thread) or "naive". If I come off as an ********, I'm only returning the favor to another person who acts like one.
And lastly, no matter how rude my opponents are, I provide objective counterarguments. If they say "hey, this card looks good, because of reasons X, Y and Z" and I disagree, I actually take the time to write down WHY I think it isn't that cracked up to be. Maybe reason X doesn't happen often enough for the card to be worth playing. Maybe reason Y looks good, but falls apart at the slightest disruption. Maybe reason Z is legitimate but there's another card that provides the same function and more.
I can hold a civilized discussion like this, but for some reason, some people choose to resort to name-calling to get their point across. At this point I really don't think they're worth talking to any further, so I tell them, if you think it's so good, then spend your own time "testing" it and come back when you have a killer deck. They never do.
P.S. My mind is still open on Return to the Ranks. If you want to convince me, just set up a scenario and tell me which cards you'd like to be returning from the graveyard.
P.S. My mind is still open on Return to the Ranks. If you want to convince me, just set up a scenario and tell me which cards you'd like to be returning from the graveyard.
Literally any situation I can think of where its cool requires far too much set up for it to be worth it.
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Currently Playing:
Modern: UWUW TronUW
Legacy: WDeath N TaxesW CEldrazi C
If you couldn't tell I hate greedy blue decks.
Dat Sliver land doh. Mayhaps it will enable a decent modern sliver deck tribal to become sort of viableish? Aether vial, cavern of souls and sliver hive make for some really good mana fixing.
Return to the ranks seems like a midrange card to me. Junk midrange would welcome this kind of effect. It has many creatures to take advantage of return to the ranks: Bob, Goyf, Qasali Pridemage, Voice, Ooze and I'm sure I'm missing something. Casting it for X=2 or greater creates card advantage. I can also see this card being tried as a 1-of in Kiki-Control. Getting back wall of omens and snapcaster mage is a very powerful effect.
Edit: @Imovefasteronmyown I too am a big fan of slivers! This land really helps are control and midrange matchup. I'm really looking forward to MaRo's "Slivers that are good on their own" cycle. I think if we can get a hex proof sliver and a decent card drawing sliver, Slivers may be equipped to become an "established" modern deck.
Return to the Ranks cannot reanimate a creature with CMC greater than 2. Field Marshal isn't a valid target for it.
Well, never mind that, let's say you just want to get back, say, 1 Hada Freeblade and 2 Kazandu Blademaster - well, guess what my Athreos deck was about? The reason I dropped it was Anger of the Gods; that card doesn't leave you with anything and your creatures can't grow to 4 quickly enough.
Also, at 4 mana, I played Ranger of Eos, which is a guaranteed 2 Freeblades. Yes, the payoff is lower, but you don't need a graveyard for Ranger to function, which makes it preferable to Return to the Ranks.
Dat Soul of Innistrad. Beyond disappointing, but as someone warned me earlier, it's exactly what I should have expected. I guess with Mono Black Devotion so strong in Standard right now, they couldn't risk printing something too crazy in black. Hence the unconfirmed but probable Liliana Vess reprint instead of a better Lilly.
Sliver Hive is interesting because it increases the critical mass of 5C lands needed for the hypothetical Slivers deck. The problem is that the hypothetical Slivers deck just isn't very good itself, at least not with the cards available. Maybe there will be some more boundary pushing Slivers in M15, because without those the land isn't going to matter.
Slivers have a long way to go before they reach competitive playability. Sliver Hive theoretically makes your mana better, but only for the maindeck. Unless your sideboard consists of nothing but Slivers and artifacts, you need to choose a main color or two wisely.
Decks I have in my bag of tricks- Needless to say, someone who wants to play will probably have a deck UB/x Faeries UR Storm XURWB Affinity G Elves UW control
It sorta makes more sense with a Restore Balance strategy.
Except for the part where you normally want to empty your hand out for maximum ReBal punishment, leaving Greater Gargadon as still the best thing to erase lands with in prep for a savage Restore Balance.
Problem I've got with it is
-4cmc, the utility it provides feels awkardly placed relative to its mana cost not to mention at that point you could be playing things that either win you the game, or dig into your wincon with less hassle than turning your lands into card draw.
-can't blow itself up, meaning you need to find a way to play around the inability to play your lands that doesn't amount to high-octane jank
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days since last Eldrazi-related accident.
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"Whenever an opponent searches his or her library, that player sacrifices a creature (and oh BTW thought we would sneak this in at the end) loses 10 life"
And he gets bigger
"Whenever a creature dies put a +1/+1 counter on ob nixilis, unshackled"
4/4 with flying and trample
...I mean I play faeries, which has no search so its a trample threat, and I think this card is unfair lol
UB/x Faeries
UR Storm
XURWB Affinity
G Elves
UW control
Pfft, he's just a 6drop, he'll never be relevant.
At least he's getting some recognition. How many people even remember original Ob Nixilis?
Is there any way to break Aggressive Mining? Being unable to play lands blows, but saccing lands to draw cards is great! ...And only being able to sac one land per turn blows again (or I'd gladly lose my mana base to draw 6-8 cards in UR Storm). Ramp would fuel it, but doesn't sticking Primeval Titan mean you're winning?
I guess the question is "what combo involving 2 cheap creatures can you assemble?" And "are you not better off playing Proc or Reveillark in that situation?" The gold standard is Martyr of Sands + Serra Ascendant, is there a better one assuming you could also use 2CMC creatures? I can't think of any.
Ob Nixilis barely raises eyebrows. It costs 6 mana. If you're playing control, you don't have any pressure on your opponent's life total until Ob Nixilis resolves (you'll be spending removal and stuff on their threats instead of playing threats of your own), so they can take one tax and kill you if they really need to. If you're not playing control, you will never live long enough to cast it.
Against Pod he is like playing Splinter with a body attached. Does it insta-win against Pod? No, because they can just go the beatdown route - using Gavony Township to pump their guys - and beat you in a fair fight. Ob Nixilis can't even beat a boosted Finks or Angel. No-one plays Splinter against Pod (and no-one would, even if you didn't need a target for it and could just name the card instead), so that kind of tells you how effective a 6-mana Splinter is, even if it comes with a body.
Aggressive Mining would have been good...if you could activate it more than once per turn. As it stands, it has Colfenor's Plans written all over it.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
Well, worse isn't quite the word I'd use. I mean, for all the hoops you jump through for Ob2.0, a triggered ability like that is actually quite hilarious.
Some format probably exists that makes his search-punisher worthwhile, but it definitely won't be Modern.
Honestly I thought about it in Faeries for Pod too. I know a couple of daily lists have been using Wurmcoil as a big beater but think about it. We can disrupt and roughly control the game up until he drops and while his second abilitymay just become an overpriced Grafdiggers the fact that when ANY creature dies he gets bigger makes him more appealing. Go for the beatdown route, your non tramplers will get chumped by tokens and used Faeries and Ob will just get bigger and bigger. Wishful thinking? Most likely, but doesnt mean I won't give him a shot.
Return to the Ranks however is actually pretty interesting. Anyone saying 1-2 drops aren't worth anything at that stage in the game are forgetting the power of Dark Confidant, Tarmogoyf, Voice of Resurgeance and Scavenging Ooze. I could actually see a reason to play junk again just to play this card.
Not saying either of these two cards is going to see high level play, but to claim that they aren't interesting nor worth consideration seems a bit naive.
Tempted to try him out in the SB of my 4C gifts deck as well. Probably plenty of better choices out there, and I'm guessing he will be less practical than many other options, but seems really good in certain match-ups still. If only there were a good and efficient way to flash him into play reliably.
Edit: Also new Kird Ape art is awesome.
Modern:
UWUW TronUW
Legacy:
WDeath N TaxesW
CEldrazi C
If you couldn't tell I hate greedy blue decks.
Vintage
WWhite Trash
Aggro mirrors are won by bigger creatures. They play a Kird Ape, you play a 3/4 Goyf or 4/4 Loxodon Smiter and wall their creature. They can't attack into your guy, so all they can do is sit there until you draw removal for their creatures and take over the game with yours.
Manlands handle board wipes better than recursion. Say they tap out to wipe your board on turn 4, but you have a manland. You can immediately animate the manland and get in for guaranteed damage, instead of reanimating and waiting one turn for summoning sickness to clear (and risking even more removal).
In addition to that, manlands are good whether your opponent plays board wipes or not, whereas recursion is totally useless if your opponent doesn't play removal (e.g. combo decks).
As for tribal decks...the only one with a critical mass of 2CMC lords is Merfolk. Merfolk is not going to play Return to the Ranks any time soon. Practically all other lords cost 3 (Wizened Cenn being one exception, but it's the only 2CMC lord for Kithkin. Merfolk on the other hand has two 2CMC lords), meaning you can't reanimate them with Return to the Ranks.
If you are playing Bob, what do you need Return to the Ranks for? You already have a source of CA. And decks with Bob also have Liliana, yet another source of CA.
I say that it's not worth consideration because I trust my own card evaluation skills. I can see that it's unplayable without having to do any tests. The same thing happened in the Prophetic Flamespeaker thread: I told people it sucked, they didn't agree and got rather temperamental about it. Turns out I was right and they were wrong, and it didn't take me 10 hours of playtesting to come to that conclusion. Whatever, if you don't believe me, go do your own testing. You'll only be wasting your own time. Treat it as valuable time spent in learning a lesson.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
Here we go again...you know, I really don't have any issue with people disagreeing with me, but I do take offense to them calling me "closed and uncreative" (quoted from the Flamespeaker thread) or "naive". If I come off as an ********, I'm only returning the favor to another person who acts like one.
And lastly, no matter how rude my opponents are, I provide objective counterarguments. If they say "hey, this card looks good, because of reasons X, Y and Z" and I disagree, I actually take the time to write down WHY I think it isn't that cracked up to be. Maybe reason X doesn't happen often enough for the card to be worth playing. Maybe reason Y looks good, but falls apart at the slightest disruption. Maybe reason Z is legitimate but there's another card that provides the same function and more.
I can hold a civilized discussion like this, but for some reason, some people choose to resort to name-calling to get their point across. At this point I really don't think they're worth talking to any further, so I tell them, if you think it's so good, then spend your own time "testing" it and come back when you have a killer deck. They never do.
P.S. My mind is still open on Return to the Ranks. If you want to convince me, just set up a scenario and tell me which cards you'd like to be returning from the graveyard.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
Literally any situation I can think of where its cool requires far too much set up for it to be worth it.
Modern:
UWUW TronUW
Legacy:
WDeath N TaxesW
CEldrazi C
If you couldn't tell I hate greedy blue decks.
Vintage
WWhite Trash
Edit: @Imovefasteronmyown I too am a big fan of slivers! This land really helps are control and midrange matchup. I'm really looking forward to MaRo's "Slivers that are good on their own" cycle. I think if we can get a hex proof sliver and a decent card drawing sliver, Slivers may be equipped to become an "established" modern deck.
UWRUWR MidrangeUWR
BUGSultai MidrangeBUG
BUGRTraverse MidrangeBUGR (currently brewing)
Well, never mind that, let's say you just want to get back, say, 1 Hada Freeblade and 2 Kazandu Blademaster - well, guess what my Athreos deck was about? The reason I dropped it was Anger of the Gods; that card doesn't leave you with anything and your creatures can't grow to 4 quickly enough.
Also, at 4 mana, I played Ranger of Eos, which is a guaranteed 2 Freeblades. Yes, the payoff is lower, but you don't need a graveyard for Ranger to function, which makes it preferable to Return to the Ranks.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
Sliver Hive is interesting because it increases the critical mass of 5C lands needed for the hypothetical Slivers deck. The problem is that the hypothetical Slivers deck just isn't very good itself, at least not with the cards available. Maybe there will be some more boundary pushing Slivers in M15, because without those the land isn't going to matter.
That's what Myr Reservoir should've been, dammit.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
UB/x Faeries
UR Storm
XURWB Affinity
G Elves
UW control
It sorta makes more sense with a Restore Balance strategy.
Except for the part where you normally want to empty your hand out for maximum ReBal punishment, leaving Greater Gargadon as still the best thing to erase lands with in prep for a savage Restore Balance.
Problem I've got with it is
-4cmc, the utility it provides feels awkardly placed relative to its mana cost not to mention at that point you could be playing things that either win you the game, or dig into your wincon with less hassle than turning your lands into card draw.
-can't blow itself up, meaning you need to find a way to play around the inability to play your lands that doesn't amount to high-octane jank