Geist has been increasingly poor in the face of go-wide aggro (or really any blocker bigger than a 1/1). And with the resurgence of Lightning Bolt, Queller has become much, much worse. I played Jeskai tempo variants (usually with Geist) almost exclusively since about summer of last year, but have completely switched to Blood Moon variants in the last few months. Somewhat because of Jace, but also because Geists and Quellers were getting wrecked.
At the very least it's faring better than the forgotten Ux Delver decks...
I gotta ask, does modern really need cards like Cavern of Souls, that invalidates counterspells completely? Cavern of Souls decks (Humans, Eldrazi Tron, GR Eldrazi etc.) are at the top of the table now (see SCG Milwaukee) and why the heck would you fill your deck with counterspells facing that...? And the saddest thing is that Wizards told us this is exactly what they want magic to be because they (don't laugh) think magic is unfun when creatures are countered... :
"Still, we know Cavern of Souls will leave its mark on every format. It hates loudly on Force of Will and Spell Snare. It forces Faerie decks to lean far more heavily on Vendilion Clique to manage threats. It helps out every Commander. It does a lot of things. But we firmly believe that Magic tends to be more fun when you're confident, for the most part, that you can resolve your spells."
That's such a gross article. 'its more fun when I can mindlessly jam creatures!'
Just gross.
I am not sure why its surprising...Its long been clear that WOTC loves Tribal and prefers when players smash face with creatures ala Humans then when they combo off with say Storm.
Plus Cavern cannot be stopped because you know Land Destruction is Bad as in the options are Bad and that WOTC views killing your opponents manabase as bad overall. Blue cannot counter effectively. White has to play too fair.
That's such a gross article. 'its more fun when I can mindlessly jam creatures!'
Just gross.
I am not sure why its surprising...Its long been clear that WOTC loves Tribal and prefers when players smash face with creatures ala Humans then when they combo off with say Storm.
Plus Cavern cannot be stopped because you know Land Destruction is Bad as in the options are Bad and that WOTC views killing your opponents manabase as bad overall. Blue cannot counter effectively. White has to play too fair.
Oh I'm not surprised, it's been clear for a long time their preference.
One enters tapped, does not produce colored mana, does not cast spells outside of its limitations, costs 2 life to use each time, and is Legendary.
The other enters untapped, can be used as any other colorless source, and is a pain-free rainbow land with upside.
That's such a gross article. 'its more fun when I can mindlessly jam creatures!'
Just gross.
I am not sure why its surprising...Its long been clear that WOTC loves Tribal and prefers when players smash face with creatures ala Humans then when they combo off with say Storm.
Plus Cavern cannot be stopped because you know Land Destruction is Bad as in the options are Bad and that WOTC views killing your opponents manabase as bad overall. Blue cannot counter effectively. White has to play too fair.
Oh I'm not surprised, it's been clear for a long time their preference.
When it goes unchecked, Standard sucks.
I assume the next frontier for WOTC besides better tribal and maybe a view better Walkers (i am no expert but if Walkers are the face of your franchise you probably want more of them showing up in your Premier Eternal Format kinda how a certain other TCG company goes out its way to try to make Blue Eyes White Dragon Decks Work). Anyway next frontier making it easier to cast higher cost creatures for anyone not playing Tron.
One enters tapped, does not produce colored mana, does not cast spells outside of its limitations, costs 2 life to use each time, and is Legendary.
The other enters untapped, can be used as any other colorless source, and is a pain-free rainbow land with upside.
A creature that is uncounterable can still be killed though. An instant or sorcery that is uncounterable is, while not impossible to interact with, very difficult. Imagine legacy where Show and Tell has an untapped land that can make it uncounterable. Or even modern where Ad Nauseam get an uncounterable Angel's Grace (from split second) and an uncounterable Ad Nauseam (from the land) and then gets to flip its deck into 4 pact of negation. With a cipt land you at least have a turn to Ghost Quarter/Field of Ruin and it being legendary means you can't run 4 and count on it all the time.
That's such a gross article. 'its more fun when I can mindlessly jam creatures!'
Just gross.
I am not sure why its surprising...Its long been clear that WOTC loves Tribal and prefers when players smash face with creatures ala Humans then when they combo off with say Storm.
Plus Cavern cannot be stopped because you know Land Destruction is Bad as in the options are Bad and that WOTC views killing your opponents manabase as bad overall. Blue cannot counter effectively. White has to play too fair.
Oh I'm not surprised, it's been clear for a long time their preference.
When it goes unchecked, Standard sucks.
I assume the next frontier for WOTC besides better tribal and maybe a view better Walkers (i am no expert but if Walkers are the face of your franchise you probably want more of them showing up in your Premier Eternal Format kinda how a certain other TCG company goes out its way to try to make Blue Eyes White Dragon Decks Work). Anyway next frontier making it easier to cast higher cost creatures for anyone not playing Tron.
Honestly, with Brawl, I bet we are good 5 years away from another 'eternal' format.
There is simply no need.
Making even more pushed walkers/creatures? I doubt it, not until the taste of the last SEVERAL standard formats has left our collective mouths.
One enters tapped, does not produce colored mana, does not cast spells outside of its limitations, costs 2 life to use each time, and is Legendary.
The other enters untapped, can be used as any other colorless source, and is a pain-free rainbow land with upside.
A creature that is uncounterable can still be killed though. An instant or sorcery that is uncounterable is, while not impossible to interact with, very difficult. Imagine legacy where Show and Tell has an untapped land that can make it uncounterable. Or even modern where Ad Nauseam get an uncounterable Angel's Grace (from split second) and an uncounterable Ad Nauseam (from the land) and then gets to flip its deck into 4 pact of negation. With a cipt land you at least have a turn to Ghost Quarter/Field of Ruin and it being legendary means you can't run 4 and count on it all the time.
I'm not using the example to show that spells should have an uncounterable, pain-free, untapped rainbow land. Just that having an uncounterable, pain-free, untapped rainbow land is kind of ridiculous. Especially in Modern when there are multiple other versions of pain-free, untapped rainbow lands for creatures, and decks like Humans can play effectively 12 copies.
Honestly, with Brawl, I bet we are good 5 years away from another 'eternal' format.
Brawl is completely unsustainable as a format. Two commander options for each 2 color combination is 20 2 color legendary creatures every 2 years that have commander type synergies. They're not going to be able to do it. The format doesn't work in multicolor because the card pool is too small, it maxes out at 264 cards per color and at some points has even less than that depending on rotation. Not counting artifacts a mono colored deck has to play too much of the card pool.
The commander availability is going to force them to also offer 3 color commanders, and proper mana fixing to make that type of deck work. Which means they're likely going to have another 3 color multicolor block within the next 2 years. So that's 1.5ish years for Dominaria, 2 years for a multicolor set. That format has about 4 years before the enabler gimmicks are used and it rotates out.
I think you missed my point idSurge. My point was Modern is the most popular competitive Eternal Format. Ergo if I am WOTC and Planeswalkers tend to make up most of my Mythics and are the faces of the Franchise then I would push for more Walkers to be good enough for Modern and certainly Standard. From a pure marketing prospective I want the Faces of Company showing up as strong options in my two most important competitive formats. That is just me though I don't run WOTC.
As for Brawl vs Commander. The first problem is the charm of EDH is a wide card pool that greatly helps with making themes. Rarely does Standard produce enough good cards in one theme to make strong decks or a strong enough mana base to support such decks. This is especially made worse if we shift from 2 or 3 set blocks to more one offs where themes won't necessarily be maintained. The other problem for Brawl is most of the strongest and most popular commanders are made for Commander specifically. A quick look at EDHREC will show most of the top 21 commanders in popularity come from Commander Products or Conspiracy funnily enough. Not actual Standard. Of those 21, only 5 have two colors. 3 of them are 4 color and the other 13 are triple color. The same holds true if one goes to cEDH and looks at the supposed most powerful commander options around. Even more so 36 of those decks feature 3 or more colors out of 59.
How many three color legends can one rely upon in Standard? Assuming the mana base is 40% of 60 as is typical in commander, How many strong on theme cards can one expect with theme being the ability to maximize your commander? 36 cards seems like a high bar for standard to push creature, spell and artifact wise to support any given theme.
jeez you guys are so pessimistic. brawl isnt meant to compete with edh. its just a framework so people can tinker and play with draft chaff casually, but with some semblance of order.
i applaud wotc for trying to add some mileage to cards that would otherwise be cast aside. sustainable or not it shows they are willing to try new things to see what generates interest.
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jeez you guys are so pessimistic. brawl isnt meant to compete with edh. its just a framework so people can tinker and play with draft chaff casually, but with some semblance of order.
i applaud wotc for trying to add some mileage to cards that would otherwise be cast aside. sustainable or not it shows they are willing to try new things to see what generates interest.
Meh that is actually part of the problem. WOTC putting too much effort into making Draft good which necessitates much of the aforementioned chaff.
Which I guess is a larger problem WOTC is juggling a few too many formats if you ask me. Unlike most other TCGs.
I think you missed my point idSurge. My point was Modern is the most popular competitive Eternal Format. Ergo if I am WOTC and Planeswalkers tend to make up most of my Mythics and are the faces of the Franchise then I would push for more Walkers to be good enough for Modern and certainly Standard. From a pure marketing prospective I want the Faces of Company showing up as strong options in my two most important competitive formats. That is just me though I don't run WOTC.
Oh, I dont think Wizards gives 2 ****'s about walkers getting 'face time' in Modern. Modern is a far far far secondary concern at best.
That is my point you cannot make Brawl good while also making Draft and Standard good. I don't know how good Draft has been of late, I don't care for it but Standard oh boy. They don't need more work on the table.
I argue they don't much care about making Walkers good in Standard. They screwed up on Huatli 3x in a row that is impressive. You going talk up diversity least you can bother to do is make one out of three tries on the same face walker for a block actually good in Standard.
That is my point you cannot make Brawl good while also making Draft and Standard good. I don't know how good Draft has been of late, I don't care for it but Standard oh boy. They don't need more work on the table.
I argue they don't much care about making Walkers good in Standard. They screwed up on Huatli 3x in a row that is impressive. You going talk up diversity least you can bother to do is make one out of three tries on the same face walker for a block actually good in Standard.
Yeah I think thats the one that every single one cared about creatures, to the point of being near useless without a board? Great design /s
That is my point you cannot make Brawl good while also making Draft and Standard good. I don't know how good Draft has been of late, I don't care for it but Standard oh boy. They don't need more work on the table.
I argue they don't much care about making Walkers good in Standard. They screwed up on Huatli 3x in a row that is impressive. You going talk up diversity least you can bother to do is make one out of three tries on the same face walker for a block actually good in Standard.
Yeah I think thats the one that every single one cared about creatures, to the point of being near useless without a board? Great design /s
Yeah Dinos are expensive that doesn't help but if you are going to make cards that creature focused probably want something that generates free mana to cast Dinos or lets you slam one from your hand for your abilities. Cause you know you actually have to tick up to your ult. Or you know make sure your Dino tribe is actually strong and viable in the first place. WOTC loves trying with tribal but honestly they usually fall quite a bit short outside of Commander.
Has draft being good anyway? Haven't followed recent sets in a while, but now I see a bigger amount of vanilla creatures, eerily resembling of core sets, activated abilities with extremely clunky mana costs (3G to give +1/+1 to a creature), removals mostly shifted to uncommon or rare or costing 5 mana, creatures mostly designed to excel at attacking and suck at blocking etc. That can't possible be welcome by good draft players, who wants to have his turn options reduced to one and his cards played by themselves and being clunky at that?
Ixalan was deemed godawful for limited at least. Maybe if they don't focus on draft the sets become more pleasurable to play on Limited.
Well that is just Ixalan in general right, it was deemed terrible on pretty much every front play wise. The only positive was the good Jace and Vraska Storyline and that is only half the storyline...the Huatli Half? Well what was worse her character in the story or the walker cards they printed for her? Its a real debate.
Has draft being good anyway? Haven't followed recent sets in a while, but now I see a bigger amount of vanilla creatures, eerily resembling of core sets, activated abilities with extremely clunky mana costs (3G to give +1/+1 to a creature), removals mostly shifted to uncommon or rare or costing 5 mana, creatures mostly designed to excel at attacking and suck at blocking etc. That can't possible be welcome by good draft players, who wants to have his turn options reduced to one and his cards played by themselves and being clunky at that?
Ixalan was deemed godawful for limited at least. Maybe if they don't focus on draft the sets become more pleasurable to play on Limited.
Ixalan was terrible, but Rivals of Ixalan was a good format and Hour of Devestation was a great one.
Has draft being good anyway? Haven't followed recent sets in a while, but now I see a bigger amount of vanilla creatures, eerily resembling of core sets, activated abilities with extremely clunky mana costs (3G to give +1/+1 to a creature), removals mostly shifted to uncommon or rare or costing 5 mana, creatures mostly designed to excel at attacking and suck at blocking etc. That can't possible be welcome by good draft players, who wants to have his turn options reduced to one and his cards played by themselves and being clunky at that?
Ixalan was deemed godawful for limited at least. Maybe if they don't focus on draft the sets become more pleasurable to play on Limited.
Ixalan was terrible, but Rivals of Ixalan was a good format and Hour of Devestation was a great one.
Wait aren't we skipping one here. How was Amonkhet?
my impression is that limited has suffered recently for the same reason standard has. too much hand-holding. obvious stuff that screams "play these cards together!" or cards that are so clearly outliers in terms of power. this means that the formats might have decent gameplay, but become stale rather quickly because they are 1-dimensional.
add on top of this there not being good enough answer cards to fight against the obvious stuff if you did want to try something different and we end up having people turning to other formats they can actually sink their teeth into.
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Spirits
At the very least it's faring better than the forgotten Ux Delver decks...
I gotta ask, does modern really need cards like Cavern of Souls, that invalidates counterspells completely? Cavern of Souls decks (Humans, Eldrazi Tron, GR Eldrazi etc.) are at the top of the table now (see SCG Milwaukee) and why the heck would you fill your deck with counterspells facing that...? And the saddest thing is that Wizards told us this is exactly what they want magic to be because they (don't laugh) think magic is unfun when creatures are countered... :
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/latest-developments/gonna-hate-2012-04-20
UWRUWR Delver/Lynx TempoUWR-------UWRUWR Midrange GeistUWR-------UWRUWR Nahiri ControlUWR-------UWRUWR SaheeliUWR
BGRJund / Jund ShadowBGR-------BGWAbzan / Abzan ShadowBGW
Commander (Leviathan/MTGO): UWGeist of Saint TraftUW
Just gross.
Spirits
I am not sure why its surprising...Its long been clear that WOTC loves Tribal and prefers when players smash face with creatures ala Humans then when they combo off with say Storm.
Plus Cavern cannot be stopped because you know Land Destruction is Bad as in the options are Bad and that WOTC views killing your opponents manabase as bad overall. Blue cannot counter effectively. White has to play too fair.
also i miss zac hill. wizards really lost something when he left.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Oh I'm not surprised, it's been clear for a long time their preference.
When it goes unchecked, Standard sucks.
Spirits
One enters tapped, does not produce colored mana, does not cast spells outside of its limitations, costs 2 life to use each time, and is Legendary.
The other enters untapped, can be used as any other colorless source, and is a pain-free rainbow land with upside.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I assume the next frontier for WOTC besides better tribal and maybe a view better Walkers (i am no expert but if Walkers are the face of your franchise you probably want more of them showing up in your Premier Eternal Format kinda how a certain other TCG company goes out its way to try to make Blue Eyes White Dragon Decks Work). Anyway next frontier making it easier to cast higher cost creatures for anyone not playing Tron.
A creature that is uncounterable can still be killed though. An instant or sorcery that is uncounterable is, while not impossible to interact with, very difficult. Imagine legacy where Show and Tell has an untapped land that can make it uncounterable. Or even modern where Ad Nauseam get an uncounterable Angel's Grace (from split second) and an uncounterable Ad Nauseam (from the land) and then gets to flip its deck into 4 pact of negation. With a cipt land you at least have a turn to Ghost Quarter/Field of Ruin and it being legendary means you can't run 4 and count on it all the time.
Honestly, with Brawl, I bet we are good 5 years away from another 'eternal' format.
There is simply no need.
Making even more pushed walkers/creatures? I doubt it, not until the taste of the last SEVERAL standard formats has left our collective mouths.
Spirits
I'm not using the example to show that spells should have an uncounterable, pain-free, untapped rainbow land. Just that having an uncounterable, pain-free, untapped rainbow land is kind of ridiculous. Especially in Modern when there are multiple other versions of pain-free, untapped rainbow lands for creatures, and decks like Humans can play effectively 12 copies.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Brawl is completely unsustainable as a format. Two commander options for each 2 color combination is 20 2 color legendary creatures every 2 years that have commander type synergies. They're not going to be able to do it. The format doesn't work in multicolor because the card pool is too small, it maxes out at 264 cards per color and at some points has even less than that depending on rotation. Not counting artifacts a mono colored deck has to play too much of the card pool.
The commander availability is going to force them to also offer 3 color commanders, and proper mana fixing to make that type of deck work. Which means they're likely going to have another 3 color multicolor block within the next 2 years. So that's 1.5ish years for Dominaria, 2 years for a multicolor set. That format has about 4 years before the enabler gimmicks are used and it rotates out.
As for Brawl vs Commander. The first problem is the charm of EDH is a wide card pool that greatly helps with making themes. Rarely does Standard produce enough good cards in one theme to make strong decks or a strong enough mana base to support such decks. This is especially made worse if we shift from 2 or 3 set blocks to more one offs where themes won't necessarily be maintained. The other problem for Brawl is most of the strongest and most popular commanders are made for Commander specifically. A quick look at EDHREC will show most of the top 21 commanders in popularity come from Commander Products or Conspiracy funnily enough. Not actual Standard. Of those 21, only 5 have two colors. 3 of them are 4 color and the other 13 are triple color. The same holds true if one goes to cEDH and looks at the supposed most powerful commander options around. Even more so 36 of those decks feature 3 or more colors out of 59.
How many three color legends can one rely upon in Standard? Assuming the mana base is 40% of 60 as is typical in commander, How many strong on theme cards can one expect with theme being the ability to maximize your commander? 36 cards seems like a high bar for standard to push creature, spell and artifact wise to support any given theme.
i applaud wotc for trying to add some mileage to cards that would otherwise be cast aside. sustainable or not it shows they are willing to try new things to see what generates interest.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Meh that is actually part of the problem. WOTC putting too much effort into making Draft good which necessitates much of the aforementioned chaff.
Which I guess is a larger problem WOTC is juggling a few too many formats if you ask me. Unlike most other TCGs.
Oh, I dont think Wizards gives 2 ****'s about walkers getting 'face time' in Modern. Modern is a far far far secondary concern at best.
Spirits
part of what problem?
wotc is, or should be, focused on only two things when designing new sets: draft and standard.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)I argue they don't much care about making Walkers good in Standard. They screwed up on Huatli 3x in a row that is impressive. You going talk up diversity least you can bother to do is make one out of three tries on the same face walker for a block actually good in Standard.
Yeah I think thats the one that every single one cared about creatures, to the point of being near useless without a board? Great design /s
Spirits
Yeah Dinos are expensive that doesn't help but if you are going to make cards that creature focused probably want something that generates free mana to cast Dinos or lets you slam one from your hand for your abilities. Cause you know you actually have to tick up to your ult. Or you know make sure your Dino tribe is actually strong and viable in the first place. WOTC loves trying with tribal but honestly they usually fall quite a bit short outside of Commander.
Ixalan was deemed godawful for limited at least. Maybe if they don't focus on draft the sets become more pleasurable to play on Limited.
Ixalan was terrible, but Rivals of Ixalan was a good format and Hour of Devestation was a great one.
Wait aren't we skipping one here. How was Amonkhet?
add on top of this there not being good enough answer cards to fight against the obvious stuff if you did want to try something different and we end up having people turning to other formats they can actually sink their teeth into.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)