Lots of unplayable cards today. A rough guide:
- smaller (but equally unplayable) Colossus of Sardia
- bad Gargoyle Castle
- bad Mind Control on a Boltable body
- reverse, temporary Meadowboon
- Precinct Captain that buffs itself & your team instead of making tokens
- Righteous Charge with 1 less toughness, and spell mastery
- bad Faith's Fetters
- strictly better Time Ebb (but still unplayable)
- 3-mana Mana Leak (or Convolute?), with scry if you have spell mastery. Compare to Dissolve or Condescend.
- 3-mana first striker with renown 1, which is going to be unplayable even if it just ETBed with the +1/+1 counter
- Madcap Skills with the werewolf mechanic, only that it destroys itself instead of flipping
- reverse Peace Strider
- Sigil of the Nayan Gods in equipment form
Tron is rough beats. Karn, Wurmcoil, Ugin, and Eldrazi are all miserable threats to answer, especially with Relic to back them up. 4 GQ is hard on the manabase, but it may be correct.
Still, Relic can be too soft a form of grave hate at times with how fast Loam decks can fill up the yard. The real killer is Rest in Peace. I haven't managed to beat that card yet.
Fortunately for Loam white is pretty much a lost cause in the current metagame. Of the 19 tier one/two decks in the spreadsheet there's maybe one or two at most that could run Rest in Peace. Junk doesn't need it, Collected Company can't run it, and all that leaves is Ad Nauseum and Naya Zoo running white..
Slightly off topic, but what the hell is Wizards doing printing articles saying they don't like 1 CMC cantrips, then probably gives the best one Modern has available to RED? Discarding a land even in eternal formats is a small cost to pay. It's not like your opponent isn't going to recast it and discard another land since he/she is flooded.
I'm really sick of the lack of co-ordination between development and R&D back towards the competitive community. Although this set so far has been amazing, they print Smash to Smithereens... again. Yet can't print Serum Visions once. Instead they give Red a loot effect on Steroids.
Sam Stoddard said in his Modern article: "We print cards like Anticipate, but I don't think we will make another one-mana cantrip with card selection attached to it any time soon. It just doesn't incentivize the kinds of games we want to see play out."
Magmatic Insight doesn't have card selection on it so it is not a violation of what he said.
Slightly off topic, but what the hell is Wizards doing printing articles saying they don't like 1 CMC cantrips, then probably gives the best one Modern has available to RED? Discarding a land even in eternal formats is a small cost to pay. It's not like your opponent isn't going to recast it and discard another land since he/she is flooded.
I'm really sick of the lack of co-ordination between development and R&D back towards the competitive community. Although this set so far has been amazing, they print Smash to Smithereens... again. Yet can't print Serum Visions once. Instead they give Red a loot effect on Steroids.
Sam Stoddard said in his Modern article: "We print cards like Anticipate, but I don't think we will make another one-mana cantrip with card selection attached to it any time soon. It just doesn't incentivize the kinds of games we want to see play out."
Magmatic Insight doesn't have card selection on it so it is not a violation of what he said.
Do you think the new counter is playable in modern? Is the scry two good enough?
Probably not. It's splashable which is a plus but for a 3 mana counterspell to be playable in Modern it basically needs to be a hard counter + draw a card. Dissolve gets close to that bar but isn't quite there, I think this also falls short. Why would you ever play this over Mana Leak?
Do you think the new counter is playable in modern? Is the scry two good enough?
Condescend and Mana Leak are both barely playable in certain decks. I don't think that a card that loses the good parts of both of those (the ability to scale up for Condescend and the cheap and easy cost for Leak) is going to be playable. Standard powerhouse? Maybe, but not going to much in Modern. Especially since Dissolve is a hard counter with unconditional scry that already sees no play.
Anything from Young Pyromancer to Storm to Grixis Control.
I'm not too sure that Storm wants it. Insight isn't that great while you are trying to just find a combo piece as the deck runs very few lands. You don't really just want to run 2-3 due to Pyromancer's Ascension wanting max redundancy. It's really good when you are in the middle of storming off, but I'm not convinced that it'll be that great before then. That being said, a red cantrip has to be tested for storm. I dream of the day when the only blue cantrips in the deck are Visions and Probe.
Speaking of tempo, does anyone else think Honored Hierarch is Greens Delver of Secrets? A proactive turn 1 creature with a huge upside when 'flipped' (2 damage per turn with extra mana for counters/removal/burn)
It lacks evasion. It's condition for flipping is dependent on your opponent's board state as opposed to the top of your library. And it lacks the strong support cards in green that blue has to protect it slash utilize it as a tempo gain.
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Affinity has had to choose between red or blue for Galvanic Blast vs Thoughtcast. With Magmatic Insight they can abandon the blue plan, plus it makes them less reliant on the Affinity mechanic (though they would still have to find deck slots).
Also, I'm wondering how well it could function as an enabler for Knight of the Reliquary as a Naya deck.
Affinity has had to choose between red or blue for Galvanic Blast vs Thoughtcast. With Magmatic Insight they can abandon the blue plan, plus it makes them less reliant on the Affinity mechanic (though they would still have to find deck slots).
Also, I'm wondering how well it could function as an enabler for Knight of the Reliquary as a Naya deck.
They won't abandon Blue, not for this. The deck barely runs lands although it runs 8 artifact mana sources. Affinity is a deck that will not run this card.
Affinity has had to choose between red or blue for Galvanic Blast vs Thoughtcast. With Magmatic Insight they can abandon the blue plan, plus it makes them less reliant on the Affinity mechanic (though they would still have to find deck slots).
I think you'll have more chance to wiff waiting a land than powering up affinity for Thoughtcast.
- L
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"The problem isn't when Scissors says Rock is overpowered, it's when Paper says it is."
-Mark Rosewater
I can see Magmatic Insight going in almost any red deck that doesn't want Faithless Looting, like UR Delver. All four or just a couple?
Speaking of tempo, does anyone else think Honored Hierarch is Greens Delver of Secrets? A proactive turn 1 creature with a huge upside when 'flipped' (2 damage per turn with extra mana for counters/removal/burn)
Isn't Treasure Cruise better because it's cheaper? Which one would you play of they had the same cost?
Which one is better depends on your deck design and the format. If you are playing a highly redundant aggro deck or in a format like vintage treasure cruise is what you want. If you need to dig for combo pieces or control pieces dig through time is what you want. So burn likes cruise but twin or grixis control would want dig.
I'm interested on seeing if Abbot of Keral Keep is as good as I think it is.
I'm 1-1 for my "called it" cards, so I'm really intersted if I'm going to be 2-1 or 1-2.
I think it's too slow. It's a T3 play at the earliest (T4 if you don't want it to whiff) and that's when 2/1 is too small and when Prowess becomes less good. I guess that Snappy is a 2/1 too but it's more centered around its ETB ability than its body. You can't play it with too many counters either (not that UR or Grixis Delver play a ton of those). I'm not convinced, but I could be wrong.
Your curve needs to be incredibly low to make it turn 3 play. A more realistic scenario is turn 4 but then it is just a bad snapcaster mage. Not saying a bad snapcaster mage won't see play but far less than people think. Even at turn 4 if he flips a cmc 3 card it is just bad. Also, decks with that low a curve play too few lands to make use of him.
I'm interested on seeing if Abbot of Keral Keep is as good as I think it is.
I'm 1-1 for my "called it" cards, so I'm really intersted if I'm going to be 2-1 or 1-2.
I think it's too slow. It's a T3 play at the earliest (T4 if you don't want it to whiff) and that's when 2/1 is too small and when Prowess becomes less good. I guess that Snappy is a 2/1 too but it's more centered around its ETB ability than its body. You can't play it with too many counters either (not that UR or Grixis Delver play a ton of those). I'm not convinced, but I could be wrong.
We shall see.
I'm mostly concerned because the card I called right last time was Kolagahn's Command, to which everyone in my playgroup all said it was "Too slow" and a "Bad Blightning". I'm the one who got the last laugh and I want to see how this one turns out
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Oath of the Gatewatch; the set that caused the competitive community to freak out over Basic Lands.
I'm interested on seeing if Abbot of Keral Keep is as good as I think it is.
I'm 1-1 for my "called it" cards, so I'm really intersted if I'm going to be 2-1 or 1-2.
I think it's too slow. It's a T3 play at the earliest (T4 if you don't want it to whiff) and that's when 2/1 is too small and when Prowess becomes less good. I guess that Snappy is a 2/1 too but it's more centered around its ETB ability than its body. You can't play it with too many counters either (not that UR or Grixis Delver play a ton of those). I'm not convinced, but I could be wrong.
We shall see.
I'm mostly concerned because the card I called right last time was Kolagahn's Command, to which everyone in my playgroup all said it was "Too slow" and a "Bad Blightning". I'm the one who got the last laugh and I want to see how this one turns out
Swift Reckoning: it's a cheap Assassinate, but the problem with white is that Path is your best removal, but it sucks against mana dorks. This doesn't solve the mana dork issue.
Psychic Rebuttal: another trap card that is too limited in what it does, with bells and whistles added on to make you want to play it. Play Negate.
Thopter Engineer: this thing grants haste to all artifact creatures, so it could be a combo piece. What combo exactly, I'm not sure. It also dies to Bolt, so that combo deck is gonna be pretty damn fragile.
Aerial Volley: Oh look, strictly better Leaf Arrow! Now with the option to shoot down 2 Spirits! This kills Olivia Voldaren, how about that? I like this card, but I know it's going to see very little play - the problem is that decks do have targets for it, but very few.
Caustic Caterpillar: Elvish Scrapper + Elvish Lyrist, or a smaller, cheaper Viridian Zealot. People only played Zealot in Elf decks, and as an Insect, Caustic Caterpillar doesn't have a home. Play Qasali Pridemage if you want maindeckable A/E hate.
Gather the Pack: Grisly Salvage that can't get lands. This is a pretty big deal; all the good cantrips (SV, Sleight, Stirrings) can get lands. Spell mastery is the ultimate irony, since more creatures in deck = fewer I/S and vice versa.
Prism Ring: Half Tablet of the Guilds. It seems like crap since the only life gain artifact that people play is Dragon's Claw which triggers off the opponent's spells, but keep in mind that this is a Soul Sister that doesn't die to removal. However, it only triggers off Spectral Procession once and doesn't count as white for Martyr. Which means, well, it's probably crap, as much as I want it to be good.
Throwing Knife: LOL JITTE
Mage-Ring Network: this has two differences from the Time Spiral storage lands: 1) it only produces colorless, and 2) the cost for removing the counters is a instead of 1. This makes it strictly worse than the storage lands, since " , remove counters" is equivalent to "tap for 1, then spend it immediately on the remove counter ability".
Playable:
Dwynen's Elite (Elves)
Day's Undoing (Burn, Affinity, SB of combo decks against discard)
Reprints: Negate, Smash to Smithereens, Elvish Visionary, Shivan Reef
Close, but I'm calling unplayable:
Swift Reckoning
Artificer's Epiphany
Hydrolash
Dark Petition
Demonic Pact
Tainted Remedy
Exquisite Firecraft
Magmatic Insight
Aerial Volley
Herald of the Pantheon
Woodland Bellower
Bounding Krasis
Prism Ring
Only one deck wants it, but that deck will not become > tier 2:
Starfield of Nyx (white prison)
Thornbow Archer, Shaman of the Pack (BG aggro Elves)
Goblin Glory Chaser, Goblin Piledriver (aggro Goblins)
Sylvan Messenger (a different Elves build, one that doesn't have CC)
Unplayable:
Archangel of Tithes
Gideon's Phalanx
Relic Seeker
Tragic Arrogance
Vryn Wingmare
Calculated Dismissal
Disciple of the Ring
Harbinger of the Tides
Jace's Sanctum
Mizzium Meddler
Psychic Rebuttal
Talent of the Telepath
Thopter Spy Network
Willbreaker
Erebos's Titan
Despoiler of Souls
Gilt-Leaf Winnower
Graveblade Marauder
Kothoped, Soul Hoarder
Priest of the Blood Rite
Abbot of Keral Keep
Avaricious Dragon
Embermaw Hellion
Molten Vortex
Pia and Kiran Nalaar
Scab-Clan Berserker
Animist's Awakening
Dwynen, Gilt-Leaf Daen
Elemental Bond
Evolutionary Leap
Honored Hierarch
The Great Aurora
Zendikar's Roil
Chief of the Foundry
Helm of the Gods
Pyromancer's Goggles
Throwing Knife
War Horn
Foundry of the Consuls
Mage-Ring Network
All "same name" creatures
All flip walkers
All multicolored creatures other than Bounding Krasis
Things that I feel are overrated:
- Hallowed Moonlight (but people will still play it)
- Magmatic Insight
- flip walkers
- intro pack rares (i.e. P&K and Dwynen)
- BG Elves
- Goblin Piledriver
So Elves got their own Whipflare. One more reason to splash black. Or do they need it? They do have trample....
What's the verdict on Tormented Thoughts? My gut tells me it's unplayable but my inner Timmy (or is it Johnny?) tells me that there's some kind of sweet interaction I'm missing
Affinity has had to choose between red or blue for Galvanic Blast vs Thoughtcast. With Magmatic Insight they can abandon the blue plan, plus it makes them less reliant on the Affinity mechanic (though they would still have to find deck slots).
Also, I'm wondering how well it could function as an enabler for Knight of the Reliquary as a Naya deck.
It cant. Its win more. Staple it to a enter the battle field effect on a dude and youd be talking.
Isn't Treasure Cruise better because it's cheaper? Which one would you play of they had the same cost?
Eh. If I had to pick between U: scry 2, draw 1 Or U:look at the top 3, draw 1 or UDraw 3, I'd likely pick the draw three. Why deal with selection when you can have all of them.
But thats why cruise was clearly broken. You didnt have to pick selection of a good card or random draw. You got all the good stuff without the bad.
- smaller (but equally unplayable) Colossus of Sardia
- bad Gargoyle Castle
- bad Mind Control on a Boltable body
- reverse, temporary Meadowboon
- Precinct Captain that buffs itself & your team instead of making tokens
- Righteous Charge with 1 less toughness, and spell mastery
- bad Faith's Fetters
- strictly better Time Ebb (but still unplayable)
- 3-mana Mana Leak (or Convolute?), with scry if you have spell mastery. Compare to Dissolve or Condescend.
- 3-mana first striker with renown 1, which is going to be unplayable even if it just ETBed with the +1/+1 counter
- Madcap Skills with the werewolf mechanic, only that it destroys itself instead of flipping
- reverse Peace Strider
- Sigil of the Nayan Gods in equipment form
How many of those did you have to mouse over?
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
Fortunately for Loam white is pretty much a lost cause in the current metagame. Of the 19 tier one/two decks in the spreadsheet there's maybe one or two at most that could run Rest in Peace. Junk doesn't need it, Collected Company can't run it, and all that leaves is Ad Nauseum and Naya Zoo running white..
'78 CB750F, '09 CBR600RR
Quantity over Selection my friend.
Not always true
Besides in which decks do you see Magmatic Insight being used?
Anything from Young Pyromancer to Storm to Grixis Control.
none
Modern
UBG B/U/G control
BBB MBC
WUR Control
WWW Prison
RRR Goblins
Legacy
BBB Pox
UBG B/U/G Control
UWU StoneBlade
UW Miracle Control
Probably not. It's splashable which is a plus but for a 3 mana counterspell to be playable in Modern it basically needs to be a hard counter + draw a card. Dissolve gets close to that bar but isn't quite there, I think this also falls short. Why would you ever play this over Mana Leak?
Condescend and Mana Leak are both barely playable in certain decks. I don't think that a card that loses the good parts of both of those (the ability to scale up for Condescend and the cheap and easy cost for Leak) is going to be playable. Standard powerhouse? Maybe, but not going to much in Modern. Especially since Dissolve is a hard counter with unconditional scry that already sees no play.
I'm not too sure that Storm wants it. Insight isn't that great while you are trying to just find a combo piece as the deck runs very few lands. You don't really just want to run 2-3 due to Pyromancer's Ascension wanting max redundancy. It's really good when you are in the middle of storming off, but I'm not convinced that it'll be that great before then. That being said, a red cantrip has to be tested for storm. I dream of the day when the only blue cantrips in the deck are Visions and Probe.
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It lacks evasion. It's condition for flipping is dependent on your opponent's board state as opposed to the top of your library. And it lacks the strong support cards in green that blue has to protect it slash utilize it as a tempo gain.
I'm 1-1 for my "called it" cards, so I'm really intersted if I'm going to be 2-1 or 1-2.
Affinity has had to choose between red or blue for Galvanic Blast vs Thoughtcast. With Magmatic Insight they can abandon the blue plan, plus it makes them less reliant on the Affinity mechanic (though they would still have to find deck slots).
Also, I'm wondering how well it could function as an enabler for Knight of the Reliquary as a Naya deck.
They won't abandon Blue, not for this. The deck barely runs lands although it runs 8 artifact mana sources. Affinity is a deck that will not run this card.
I think you'll have more chance to wiff waiting a land than powering up affinity for Thoughtcast.
- L
"The problem isn't when Scissors says Rock is overpowered, it's when Paper says it is."
-Mark Rosewater
Which one is better depends on your deck design and the format. If you are playing a highly redundant aggro deck or in a format like vintage treasure cruise is what you want. If you need to dig for combo pieces or control pieces dig through time is what you want. So burn likes cruise but twin or grixis control would want dig.
I think it's too slow. It's a T3 play at the earliest (T4 if you don't want it to whiff) and that's when 2/1 is too small and when Prowess becomes less good. I guess that Snappy is a 2/1 too but it's more centered around its ETB ability than its body. You can't play it with too many counters either (not that UR or Grixis Delver play a ton of those). I'm not convinced, but I could be wrong.
We shall see.
I'm mostly concerned because the card I called right last time was Kolagahn's Command, to which everyone in my playgroup all said it was "Too slow" and a "Bad Blightning". I'm the one who got the last laugh and I want to see how this one turns out
Haha
Psychic Rebuttal: another trap card that is too limited in what it does, with bells and whistles added on to make you want to play it. Play Negate.
Thopter Engineer: this thing grants haste to all artifact creatures, so it could be a combo piece. What combo exactly, I'm not sure. It also dies to Bolt, so that combo deck is gonna be pretty damn fragile.
Aerial Volley: Oh look, strictly better Leaf Arrow! Now with the option to shoot down 2 Spirits! This kills Olivia Voldaren, how about that? I like this card, but I know it's going to see very little play - the problem is that decks do have targets for it, but very few.
Caustic Caterpillar: Elvish Scrapper + Elvish Lyrist, or a smaller, cheaper Viridian Zealot. People only played Zealot in Elf decks, and as an Insect, Caustic Caterpillar doesn't have a home. Play Qasali Pridemage if you want maindeckable A/E hate.
Gather the Pack: Grisly Salvage that can't get lands. This is a pretty big deal; all the good cantrips (SV, Sleight, Stirrings) can get lands. Spell mastery is the ultimate irony, since more creatures in deck = fewer I/S and vice versa.
Prism Ring: Half Tablet of the Guilds. It seems like crap since the only life gain artifact that people play is Dragon's Claw which triggers off the opponent's spells, but keep in mind that this is a Soul Sister that doesn't die to removal. However, it only triggers off Spectral Procession once and doesn't count as white for Martyr. Which means, well, it's probably crap, as much as I want it to be good.
Throwing Knife: LOL JITTE
Mage-Ring Network: this has two differences from the Time Spiral storage lands: 1) it only produces colorless, and 2) the cost for removing the counters is a instead of 1. This makes it strictly worse than the storage lands, since " , remove counters" is equivalent to "tap for 1, then spend it immediately on the remove counter ability".
Dwynen's Elite (Elves)
Day's Undoing (Burn, Affinity, SB of combo decks against discard)
Reprints: Negate, Smash to Smithereens, Elvish Visionary, Shivan Reef
SB 1-ofs:
Hallowed Moonlight
Infinite Obliteration
Languish
Close, but I'm calling unplayable:
Swift Reckoning
Artificer's Epiphany
Hydrolash
Dark Petition
Demonic Pact
Tainted Remedy
Exquisite Firecraft
Magmatic Insight
Aerial Volley
Herald of the Pantheon
Woodland Bellower
Bounding Krasis
Prism Ring
Only one deck wants it, but that deck will not become > tier 2:
Starfield of Nyx (white prison)
Thornbow Archer, Shaman of the Pack (BG aggro Elves)
Goblin Glory Chaser, Goblin Piledriver (aggro Goblins)
Sylvan Messenger (a different Elves build, one that doesn't have CC)
Unplayable:
Archangel of Tithes
Gideon's Phalanx
Relic Seeker
Tragic Arrogance
Vryn Wingmare
Calculated Dismissal
Disciple of the Ring
Harbinger of the Tides
Jace's Sanctum
Mizzium Meddler
Psychic Rebuttal
Talent of the Telepath
Thopter Spy Network
Willbreaker
Erebos's Titan
Despoiler of Souls
Gilt-Leaf Winnower
Graveblade Marauder
Kothoped, Soul Hoarder
Priest of the Blood Rite
Abbot of Keral Keep
Avaricious Dragon
Embermaw Hellion
Molten Vortex
Pia and Kiran Nalaar
Scab-Clan Berserker
Animist's Awakening
Dwynen, Gilt-Leaf Daen
Elemental Bond
Evolutionary Leap
Honored Hierarch
The Great Aurora
Zendikar's Roil
Chief of the Foundry
Helm of the Gods
Pyromancer's Goggles
Throwing Knife
War Horn
Foundry of the Consuls
Mage-Ring Network
All "same name" creatures
All flip walkers
All multicolored creatures other than Bounding Krasis
- Hallowed Moonlight (but people will still play it)
- Magmatic Insight
- flip walkers
- intro pack rares (i.e. P&K and Dwynen)
- BG Elves
- Goblin Piledriver
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
What's the verdict on Tormented Thoughts? My gut tells me it's unplayable but my inner Timmy (or is it Johnny?) tells me that there's some kind of sweet interaction I'm missing
It cant. Its win more. Staple it to a enter the battle field effect on a dude and youd be talking.
Eh. If I had to pick between U: scry 2, draw 1 Or U:look at the top 3, draw 1 or UDraw 3, I'd likely pick the draw three. Why deal with selection when you can have all of them.
But thats why cruise was clearly broken. You didnt have to pick selection of a good card or random draw. You got all the good stuff without the bad.