How in the world is there not a home for Phyrexian Obliterator??? Is it purely based on the BBBB mana cost?
Pretty much.
He is the best example of a card that is balanced entirely by the amount of mana symbols.
You can really only play him in straight BG Rock and even there his mana cost can become awkward if you also want to run stuff like Treetop Village or Tectonic Edge. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is definitely his best friend but that land being legendary is also awkward.
Now his stats are obviously great and his ability quite powerful but let's be honest here you can reword his ability to cannot be blocked and as long as he is untapped your opponent cannot attack with non-evasive creatures
and it won't change anything since that is how it will play out pretty much every time. That's good but not back-breaking.
Couple all of this with the fact how much power you gain by including Red or White in your BG deck and it's not surprising that he doesn't really see play.
I think that you are undervaluing the fact that your opponents cannot attack into him with a non evasive threat. In modern the only evasive threats are either: Merfolk, Delver, lingering souls, or fringe Baneslayer Angel/Thundermaw Hellkites. The rest of the creatures are grounded. Idk why but I can see this working in some kind of control deck since Phyrexian Obliterator can stall. Maybe I am crazy...
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I think that you are undervaluing the fact that your opponents cannot attack into him with a non evasive threat. In modern the only evasive threats are either: Merfolk, Delver, lingering souls, or fringe Baneslayer Angel/Thundermaw Hellkites. The rest of the creatures are grounded. Idk why but I can see this working in some kind of control deck since Phyrexian Obliterator can stall. Maybe I am crazy...
The problem is this though. You focus on the purely on the creatures and forget about all the non-creature spells that many if not most are packing. Path to Exile, Dismember, Maelstrom Pulse, Liliana of the Veil, Terminate, Murderous Cut, etc.
This thing sure as hell isn't invincible.
Sure stuff like Huntmaster of the Fells or Siege Rhino die to the same spells too but at least they gave you immediately value and Olivia Voldarens upside is so high and she can take games over so hard that it's worth the risk.
That's why I said to play him in a control deck where you can protect it. (help it help you) Maybe I'm crazy and this thing isn't as good as I think it is but when/if its printed in modern masters II I will be trying it out.
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The problem with Phyrexian Obliterator is that if you're that deep into black you should probably play green as well and if you're BG you should probably just play Abzan, and Siege Rhino is better than Obliterator, since etb value is so important in Modern. If you want to go control with black, you will probably lean more towards UW with a black splash, which makes casting him awkward and probably inferior to Restoration Angel. It is true he is the best ground blocker in existance but most of the time he is a 5/5 unblockable for 4 which is not that great in a control deck.
If you really want to play him however, you could try Rock Obliterator, which was a pretty decent deck before Siege Rhino got printed. You have a more solid manabase than the BGx decks and with 4 tec edges plus some Fulminator Mages you could maybe go for a land disruption strategy.
I love obliterator, but playing him usually means giving up tools you need for other match ups. GB is the most popular version and playing obliterator means giving up stony silence and path. Adding blue to mono black for counters seems okay, but you still have the weakness of mono black midrange where you are trying to play the mid-late game without a decent way to interact with different permanents (enchantments and artifacts). If the metagame was more straight-forward like creature and control decks, I think it would be better, but with how necessary hosers tend to be in 'unfair' match ups, the tools you're giving up are stronger than what you're gaining.
@Galerion I was thinking of posting that list actually. I don't know if that kind of deck is really that great against the field, but it kind of interests me. On the other hand, it might get a lot better with some tuning and pruning.
From a glance though, it mostly seems like a Mono Black build splashing blue for some utility cards.
Yes, I am a local area mod. WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE
Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
I personally enjoy The Rock as my deck of choice in Modern but that statement should come with the caveat that I never play to win in Modern these days. I am there to relax, socialise and enjoy myself in a less complex and competitive environment then that of Legacy. So I just play what I like and it does well. Also having people walk past and stop, realise what I am playing and then ask if I have Obliterator is always fun. Wendsay as I played, one of the guys game me a high five on the subject.
I also do not know how effective The Rock is these days but I have played Junk and found myself liking Obliterator more than Siege Rhino. There is something so much more enjoyable in casting the 5/5 brink wall over gaining 3 life. Also Pit fight and Obliterator means you just win sometimes in the most enjoyable ways. Like against Tron when they drop a Wurmcoil...
Obliteraotr certainly has homes. The real problem here is his ridiculous cost, and even more so, I doubt there is a single Obliterator deck that shouldn't be running some number of Liliana. And now you are talking absurd amount of $. For the amount of $ for 4x Obliterator and 4 x Liliana you might as well just buy a deck you know is T1 and successful already like Twin instead of experimenting with a potentially awful idea/card/deck.
Well Liliana has been a Modern staple for quite some time now. There is a very real possibility that you own her already and she sees plenty of play in competitive events and decks.
I give you Obliterator though. $25 per card means you are down $100 for a playset of a card that definitely isn't a Modern staple at all.
It's unclear how much cost is an issue here. I know several players who have been drawn to obliterator decks in the past also enjoyed other decks that played the expensive cards like Liliana so if you don't already own them, you'd likely want to in the future anyways. Obliterator himself is only about $25, so compared to other modern staples, he's cheap enough for players who like the card to justify buying a set.
For me, money is not a driving factor, what I love about Obliterator Rock is the lines of play it creates and changes. I have sat behind an Obliterator only to have the UWR control player draw a Dismember, I have cast Pit Fight targeting a Wurmcoil the turn before I was set to lose, I have been Cliqued while my opponent did not know what I was playing only to show them two Obliterator's in hand and the mana I needed to cast it the next turn. Some people will just be drawn to the card, to the deck. Sure, not everyone has the money to buy the card but for those who are really drawn to it that really is unlikely to be a driving factor.
Win, lose or draw, Obliterator always lets me leave with a story to tell. That is priceless.
It's kind of funny, but this is one of the main cards I'm really hoping gets a reprint in MM2. Even funnier, the top three cards I hope get MM2 printings are all black. Go figure. Anyway, kind of OT, but fingers crossed. As has been pointed out, he's too expensive for brewing, though I'm sure everyone wants to.
I had fun with this as an alt wincon in an AoB deck a while back. Spellskite and revoker are also Horrors and I was using Expedition map to fish out Urborg or Cavern of souls. Much too slow. But fun.
Unlike the other 4 drops, Obliterator provides no immediate value if killed or answered. But unlike the bad 4 drops Oblit competes with, it does have a semi-immediate effect on the boardstate. You can't attack into Oblit unless the attack wins you the game, which makes Oblit similar to Batterskull, which can gain you life even before you attack with it. So in that sense, Oblit is better than something like Hero of Bladehold or Desecration Demon.
On the one hand, Oblit isn't going to save you if you are dead on turn 4-5 anyway. Decks like AFfinity, Infect, and Burn are going to take advantage of this. But on the other hand, Oblit will save you if you are just a little behind and the opponent is pressing an advantage. For instance, against Abzan Liege, if the opponent powered out a turn 2 Smiter and turn 3 Rhino off Hierarch, you aren't going to be dead by turn 5 but you are probably going to be in big trouble. That's where Oblit stops that next attack cold (assuming it wasn't lethal, which it shouldn't be). By comparison, a Rhino/Goyf/Tas would not have stopped that next attack and would have put you to an unrecoverable life total.
A second problem with Oblit is how it works on offense. Wurmcoil and Batterskull generate value for you whether they are attacking or defending. Oblit is just an unblockable 5/5. That's good for clocking an opponent if you are ahead, but not good at getting back ahead if you are behind and an opponent is just waiting to swing for lethal or draw removal. The solution for this is to make Oblit good even when it's sitting on defense. Setessan Tactics solves that issue, but suffers from the problem of being too dependent on your boardstate to be useful. The card doesn't actually DO anything on its own.
Dromoka's Command is a much, much better option. That is, except for that stupid W in the casting cost. So then the question becomes, do you want to screw with your manabase by going BGw just for Command? Or do you want to try to run Oblit with Tactics or nothing at all? Either way, the end result is probably a bit worse than Abzan, which leaves Oblit in the same position we started with.
I'm not necessarily saying that the $ will prevent people who absolutely want to, or already own the card from playing it. The issue is it means that that very small subset of Modern players will be using it. Like I said, it certainly has homes (mono-black devotion for example), I think the real question was why they aren't tier one and/or taking down Modern tournaments. And potential power level aside, it is simply because not enough people play with it. A decent amount of cards in Modern fall victim to this quality. Where the cards screams "brew with me" by the price tag says no. I would conject that if Liliana of the Veil and Phyrexian Obliterator were reprinted and under $10 each in MM2 (hypothetically) that mono-black devotion would even become a permanent Modern staple.
I'm not necessarily saying that the $ will prevent people who absolutely want to, or already own the card from playing it. The issue is it means that that very small subset of Modern players will be using it. Like I said, it certainly has homes (mono-black devotion for example), I think the real question was why they aren't tier one and/or taking down Modern tournaments. And potential power level aside, it is simply because not enough people play with it. A decent amount of cards in Modern fall victim to this quality. Where the cards screams "brew with me" by the price tag says no. I would conject that if Liliana of the Veil and Phyrexian Obliterator were reprinted and under $10 each in MM2 (hypothetically) that mono-black devotion would even become a permanent Modern staple.
No, the problem with Monoblack Devotion is the question of why in the world you'd bother with it. What do you get from remaining Monoblack that outweighs the stuff you'll get in Junk? Or even Rock?
Monoblack Devotion lets you play Gray Merchant of Asphodel, cast Phyrexian Oblitator a little more reliably than Rock, and... that's pretty much it. That's a whole lot less than Siege Rhino, Lingering Souls, Tarmogoyf, Scavenging Ooze, Abrupt Decay, and Path to Exile.
I'm not necessarily saying that the $ will prevent people who absolutely want to, or already own the card from playing it. The issue is it means that that very small subset of Modern players will be using it. Like I said, it certainly has homes (mono-black devotion for example), I think the real question was why they aren't tier one and/or taking down Modern tournaments. And potential power level aside, it is simply because not enough people play with it. A decent amount of cards in Modern fall victim to this quality. Where the cards screams "brew with me" by the price tag says no. I would conject that if Liliana of the Veil and Phyrexian Obliterator were reprinted and under $10 each in MM2 (hypothetically) that mono-black devotion would even become a permanent Modern staple.
No, the problem with Monoblack Devotion is the question of why in the world you'd bother with it. What do you get from remaining Monoblack that outweighs the stuff you'll get in Junk? Or even Rock?
Monoblack Devotion lets you play Gray Merchant of Asphodel, cast Phyrexian Oblitator a little more reliably than Rock, and... that's pretty much it. That's a whole lot less than Siege Rhino, Lingering Souls, Tarmogoyf, Scavenging Ooze, Abrupt Decay, and Path to Exile.
I think you are missing a point in a very bad way. The difference between mono black and Junk is several hundred dollars. My point was that Oblitertor and LoTV are the only two cards standing in the way of mono black being a solid entry level deck for players in Modern, in the same way burn is. That mono black would be played very much so if it was reasonably affordable. That mono black's power level is solid-entry while it's price tag is not. That tiers and usage have other factors than viability in the format, like price. Because the original question was why Obliterator is not seeing major play.
It is a very solid card, but every deck has some way around it. I have personally never liked the card ever since Standard when a card that everyone was "in love with" (Dismember) answered it too easily and for too much tempo.
In Modern, any deck has a way to easily win through it. Burn - stop attacking and burn you out before 5 damage points per turn kill you. Scapeshift - counter it and sling 18 points of damage at you, Twin - counter it and make infinite 1/4s, Infect - swing evasively, and nearly every other deck has Path to Exile or some other way around it. I've played Bogles and Obliterator is pretty good here; in fact damn good. However, I have 3 ways around it - Path to Exile, Spirit Mantle, or Rancor (obviously with a large lethal attack or close to).
Now I realize that in Modern, there is almost always a way around almost anything, but my point is that Obliterator needs a LOT of support to do well. I will say that a year ago when most people were running GB with Tectonic Edge, a player at my LGS won 1st place at nearly every Modern tournament with GB Obliterator. This was at a time when most people ran Jund, GB Tectonic Edge, and Junk was just starting too. Now he is a really good player, but that is only part of the equation in a pretty competitive FNM.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
It is a very solid card, but every deck has some way around it. I have personally never liked the card ever since Standard when a card that everyone was "in love with" (Dismember) answered it too easily and for too much tempo.
In Modern, any deck has a way to easily win through it. Burn - stop attacking and burn you out before 5 damage points per turn kill you. Scapeshift - counter it and sling 18 points of damage at you, Twin - counter it and make infinite 1/4s, Infect - swing evasively, and nearly every other deck has Path to Exile or some other way around it. I've played Bogles and Obliterator is pretty good here; in fact damn good. However, I have 3 ways around it - Path to Exile, Spirit Mantle, or Rancor (obviously with a large lethal attack or close to).
Now I realize that in Modern, there is almost always a way around almost anything, but my point is that Obliterator needs a LOT of support to do well. I will say that a year ago when most people were running GB with Tectonic Edge, a player at my LGS won 1st place at nearly every Modern tournament with GB Obliterator. This was at a time when most people ran Jund, GB Tectonic Edge, and Junk was just starting too. Now he is a really good player, but that is only part of the equation in a pretty competitive FNM.
I'm confused. Why does this card need a lot of support to do well when his only problem is casting him. Based on your comments, it seems like this card either stops decks right in their tracks, or it becomes an annoying roadblock.
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On mtgsalvation people don't want to discuss ideas, so I give people something else to discuss: my controversial opinions.
Decks I'm playing in Modern right now:
URB Grixis Reveler (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-grixis-reveler/)
UB Faeries (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/ub-fae-2/)
UW Azorious Control (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-ojutai-control-2/)
Pretty much.
He is the best example of a card that is balanced entirely by the amount of mana symbols.
You can really only play him in straight BG Rock and even there his mana cost can become awkward if you also want to run stuff like Treetop Village or Tectonic Edge.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is definitely his best friend but that land being legendary is also awkward.
Now his stats are obviously great and his ability quite powerful but let's be honest here you can reword his ability to cannot be blocked and as long as he is untapped your opponent cannot attack with non-evasive creatures
and it won't change anything since that is how it will play out pretty much every time. That's good but not back-breaking.
Couple all of this with the fact how much power you gain by including Red or White in your BG deck and it's not surprising that he doesn't really see play.
Decks I'm playing in Modern right now:
URB Grixis Reveler (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-grixis-reveler/)
UB Faeries (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/ub-fae-2/)
UW Azorious Control (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-ojutai-control-2/)
The problem is this though. You focus on the purely on the creatures and forget about all the non-creature spells that many if not most are packing.
Path to Exile, Dismember, Maelstrom Pulse, Liliana of the Veil, Terminate, Murderous Cut, etc.
This thing sure as hell isn't invincible.
Sure stuff like Huntmaster of the Fells or Siege Rhino die to the same spells too but at least they gave you immediately value and Olivia Voldarens upside is so high and she can take games over so hard that it's worth the risk.
Decks I'm playing in Modern right now:
URB Grixis Reveler (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-grixis-reveler/)
UB Faeries (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/ub-fae-2/)
UW Azorious Control (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-ojutai-control-2/)
If you really want to play him however, you could try Rock Obliterator, which was a pretty decent deck before Siege Rhino got printed. You have a more solid manabase than the BGx decks and with 4 tec edges plus some Fulminator Mages you could maybe go for a land disruption strategy.
http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/282473#online
4 Geralf's Messenger
4 Phyrexian Obliterator
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Tombstalker
Spells (26)
1 Damnation
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Liliana of the Veil
4 Serum Visions
2 Thoughtseize
3 Disfigure
1 Dispel
1 Shadow of Doubt
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
4 Victim of Night
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Darkslick Shores
2 Drowned Catacomb
4 Polluted Delta
5 Swamp
4 Watery Grave
1 Disfigure
2 Shadow of Doubt
2 Countersquall
2 Dragon's Claw
1 Drown in Sorrow
3 Fulminator Mage
1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Spellskite
WURMiraclesRWU
UBRCruel ControlRBU
If you're having fun, I'm not.
Cheeri0sXWU
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From a glance though, it mostly seems like a Mono Black build splashing blue for some utility cards.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
I personally enjoy The Rock as my deck of choice in Modern but that statement should come with the caveat that I never play to win in Modern these days. I am there to relax, socialise and enjoy myself in a less complex and competitive environment then that of Legacy. So I just play what I like and it does well. Also having people walk past and stop, realise what I am playing and then ask if I have Obliterator is always fun. Wendsay as I played, one of the guys game me a high five on the subject.
I also do not know how effective The Rock is these days but I have played Junk and found myself liking Obliterator more than Siege Rhino. There is something so much more enjoyable in casting the 5/5 brink wall over gaining 3 life. Also Pit fight and Obliterator means you just win sometimes in the most enjoyable ways. Like against Tron when they drop a Wurmcoil...
Current decks of choice:
Vintage: Shops.
Legacy: Lands.
Modern: Lantern.
That isn't a very relevant strength in the current metagame.
He should remain a card to watch though - if future metagame shifts or banned list changes push Twin and Abzan to the fringes, he'll become a force.
I give you Obliterator though. $25 per card means you are down $100 for a playset of a card that definitely isn't a Modern staple at all.
WURMiraclesRWU
UBRCruel ControlRBU
If you're having fun, I'm not.
Win, lose or draw, Obliterator always lets me leave with a story to tell. That is priceless.
Current decks of choice:
Vintage: Shops.
Legacy: Lands.
Modern: Lantern.
On the one hand, Oblit isn't going to save you if you are dead on turn 4-5 anyway. Decks like AFfinity, Infect, and Burn are going to take advantage of this. But on the other hand, Oblit will save you if you are just a little behind and the opponent is pressing an advantage. For instance, against Abzan Liege, if the opponent powered out a turn 2 Smiter and turn 3 Rhino off Hierarch, you aren't going to be dead by turn 5 but you are probably going to be in big trouble. That's where Oblit stops that next attack cold (assuming it wasn't lethal, which it shouldn't be). By comparison, a Rhino/Goyf/Tas would not have stopped that next attack and would have put you to an unrecoverable life total.
A second problem with Oblit is how it works on offense. Wurmcoil and Batterskull generate value for you whether they are attacking or defending. Oblit is just an unblockable 5/5. That's good for clocking an opponent if you are ahead, but not good at getting back ahead if you are behind and an opponent is just waiting to swing for lethal or draw removal. The solution for this is to make Oblit good even when it's sitting on defense. Setessan Tactics solves that issue, but suffers from the problem of being too dependent on your boardstate to be useful. The card doesn't actually DO anything on its own.
Dromoka's Command is a much, much better option. That is, except for that stupid W in the casting cost. So then the question becomes, do you want to screw with your manabase by going BGw just for Command? Or do you want to try to run Oblit with Tactics or nothing at all? Either way, the end result is probably a bit worse than Abzan, which leaves Oblit in the same position we started with.
Monoblack Devotion lets you play Gray Merchant of Asphodel, cast Phyrexian Oblitator a little more reliably than Rock, and... that's pretty much it. That's a whole lot less than Siege Rhino, Lingering Souls, Tarmogoyf, Scavenging Ooze, Abrupt Decay, and Path to Exile.
I think you are missing a point in a very bad way. The difference between mono black and Junk is several hundred dollars. My point was that Oblitertor and LoTV are the only two cards standing in the way of mono black being a solid entry level deck for players in Modern, in the same way burn is. That mono black would be played very much so if it was reasonably affordable. That mono black's power level is solid-entry while it's price tag is not. That tiers and usage have other factors than viability in the format, like price. Because the original question was why Obliterator is not seeing major play.
In Modern, any deck has a way to easily win through it. Burn - stop attacking and burn you out before 5 damage points per turn kill you. Scapeshift - counter it and sling 18 points of damage at you, Twin - counter it and make infinite 1/4s, Infect - swing evasively, and nearly every other deck has Path to Exile or some other way around it. I've played Bogles and Obliterator is pretty good here; in fact damn good. However, I have 3 ways around it - Path to Exile, Spirit Mantle, or Rancor (obviously with a large lethal attack or close to).
Now I realize that in Modern, there is almost always a way around almost anything, but my point is that Obliterator needs a LOT of support to do well. I will say that a year ago when most people were running GB with Tectonic Edge, a player at my LGS won 1st place at nearly every Modern tournament with GB Obliterator. This was at a time when most people ran Jund, GB Tectonic Edge, and Junk was just starting too. Now he is a really good player, but that is only part of the equation in a pretty competitive FNM.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)I'm confused. Why does this card need a lot of support to do well when his only problem is casting him. Based on your comments, it seems like this card either stops decks right in their tracks, or it becomes an annoying roadblock.
Decks I'm playing in Modern right now:
URB Grixis Reveler (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-grixis-reveler/)
UB Faeries (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/ub-fae-2/)
UW Azorious Control (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-ojutai-control-2/)