I understand that many of you will disagree, but I have yet to see a single main deck playable level card spoiled from MH1, excluding the slivers and the canopy land cycle.
I understand that many of you will disagree, but I have yet to see a single main deck playable level card spoiled from MH1, excluding the slivers and the canopy land cycle.
What am I missing with Mox Tantalite? That is one of the few cards so far that seems unplayable.
It's got some synergy with the new welder and a few other ways. But I do agree, it's just eh. And probably way too cute. But some people seem hyped about this card.
Shinobi would see play if Baleful Strix was in modern. Baleful would be excellent already in UBx, and would often go unblocked if attacked with. Would allow Shinobi to swing in, get you extra value, and return Baleful Stix back to hand to replay. Snapcaster is not bad, but more prone to getting blocked, hence leaving Shinobi lose some of its value.
Affinity can also transition to Ghirapur Aether Grid which ignores Stony Silence effects. It's vulnerable to enchantment hate, but Blasts are not the only outs.
Doesn't Kess hurt the Grixis decks? She allows your opponent to just play removal for her, no? Am I missing something here?
Not exactly sure what you mean. The effect is not symmetrical so that's no problem. And if you mean that, because you have a creature, it enables your opponent's removals, whereas otherwise they would be dead cards, that's only partially true. Considering that you can par her with discard, or you can have FoN up when you cast her.
You also don't necessarily have to cast her on curve (i.e. T4). Imho she actually works as a finisher snapcaster. She basically allows you to re-buy cards and, as a result, snapcasters (since you can reuse your K.Commands) much more efficiently than Tasigur which was often the finisher of choice.
In addition, she allows you to play your snapcasters more aggressively in the early game, because you will have a permanent effect later on.
Overall she seems great as a 2-of finisher!
I've played her as a Commander for quite a while, and eventually took the deck apart. She is good when games go late and spells can be cast and recast, but she has the problem of being succeptible to the multitude of GY hate floating around, while being considerably less powerful than the other things abusing the GY. I'll definitely try jamming her and making it happen, because I love her, but I'm not optimistic that she's going to make waves. There's not a shortage of powerful, 4-mana win-more cards.
I get the feeling they tried to push GY based strats in Horizons, because they know the GY gets hated out constantly anyway?
But that's the problem with lower and on-the-border power level stuff. Kess will get inadvertently hated out due to all the GY hate targeted at Dredge and Phoenix. It's the same reason why the Swords and other non-game-breaking artifacts don't see play: there's so much artifact hate around, that what you're doing with them needs to be totally busted to justify the risk of running into the crossfire.
Shinobi would see play if Baleful Strix was in modern. Baleful would be excellent already in UBx, and would often go unblocked if attacked with. Would allow Shinobi to swing in, get you extra value, and return Baleful Stix back to hand to replay. Snapcaster is not bad, but more prone to getting blocked, hence leaving Shinobi lose some of its value.
I'm going to brew with the coatl as a replacement, and the ninja. Maybe too cute cause the requirements of the snow permanent, especially in 3 colour, and the lack of other useful snow permanents. If we get snow duals or something though maybe there's some potential.
I discourage people from thinking about Modern decks this way. Look at something like Affinity, Storm, or Infect, all time-honored Modern decks that have come in and out of top-tier finishes for literal years. A deck with HS's competitive pedigree doesn't simply become irrelevant overnight. It might fall out of mass favor, but it will still be an excellent choice for experienced pilots. Scrappy should be quite happy in its new home.
On Affinity, remember that for as long as this site tracked Tier 1 decks, Affinity was the only deck that was tier 1 at the formats inception that remained T1 for the entire length of that tracking (though just barely at some points), and even after that with various decks like Hardened Scales out there, some version of the deck has always been competitively viable.
It’s popularity rises and falls, but it is very rarely not a viable deck to bring somewhere.
I think that Affinity is probably still playable, but I was talking specifically about Hardened scales. I love moving counters around and doing janky nonsense with animation modules and the like. That style is now demoted from a tier 1.5 "i can main this" to a tier 2.5 "don't bring this to a tournament" strategy after horizons unless I miss my guess.
The main problem I see is that it's unlikely green decks ever cut ouphe out of their side because of how nice it is against tron as well. H-scales was already 8th-10th in the standings even before Jund, UW, and Scapeshift started playing Karn and green forces us to split slots between Nature's Claim and Dismember.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern UWUW ControlUW UGWSpiritsUGW GHardened ScalesG WGRUKiki PodWGRU [RIP]
I think that Affinity is probably still playable, but I was talking specifically about Hardened scales. I love moving counters around and doing janky nonsense with animation modules and the like. That style is now demoted from a tier 1.5 "i can main this" to a tier 2.5 "don't bring this to a tournament" strategy after horizons unless I miss my guess.
The main problem I see is that it's unlikely green decks ever cut ouphe out of their side because of how nice it is against tron as well. H-scales was already 8th-10th in the standings even before Jund, UW, and Scapeshift started playing Karn and green forces us to split slots between Nature's Claim and Dismember.
cmon now, that is just straight up hyperbole. notice how tron easily survived all the hate printed in the last year or so. artifact hate is numerous and plentiful in modern; yet this hasnt stopped vanilla affinity or hardened scales from continuing to be competitive decks/archetypes. people arent just gonna start main decking a narrow hatebear in real numbers, and the green force isnt a free-roll.
if anything curbs the likes of hardened scales in tournament settings it is decks that are good against it, not any one or two cards. its the same for all decks playing on some linear axis
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
This contributed to the string of GPs that put our deck on the map so to speak after being jank for a good while previous. The matchup spread is why I eventually qualified for pro tour.
The current meta is pretty unfriendly, which is why we're 9th or 10th at the moment depending on the day's update. The top8 transitioned to:
Humans (1st) (Very Good)
Tron with 4 Karn (2nd) (Bad)
UW Control (Very Bad)
UR Phoenix (Bad)
Dredge (Even)
Amulet Titan (Favored)
Burn (Good)
Monored Phoenix (Favored)
The card is not narrow, at least not more narrow than stoney silence. The problem is that decks that DIDNT play stony silence get this card, and we don't have an easier time removing it because we have no burn. Additionally, green decks actually particularly like this more than stony because it hurts tron a lot more than other available 2 drops.
Unfortunately, introducing stony silence on a bear means that Amulet titan goes from Favored -> Even or Favored -> Disfavored depending on how many they run (they only have to run 1 because they have pact). Humans gets a much easier to cast hate card which is also not Nature's Claimable, meaning we have to either split our side or dilute our main. Our GB matchup gets substantially worse, because they go from barely playing creeping corrosion to instead playing stony silence, though they're also hovering between 9th and 12th at the moment.
My point is that it's not really hyperbole to say "do not bring this to a tournament". The spread is not good enough. You'd basically have to hope that you luck into matchups against decks 7 and 8 for most of the day. It's like prison. Sure there is like 1 or two good matchups like Arclight, but really you shouldn't bring prison to a big tournament right now.
Kaya's Guile
1WB
Instant
Choose two -
* Each opponent sacrifices a creature.
* Exile all cards from each opponent's graveyard.
* Create a 1/1 white and black Spirit creature token with flying.
* You gain 4 life.
Entwine 3 (Choose all if you pay the entwine cost.)
This contributed to the string of GPs that put our deck on the map so to speak after being jank for a good while previous. The matchup spread is why I eventually qualified for pro tour.
The current meta is pretty unfriendly, which is why we're 9th or 10th at the moment depending on the day's update. The top8 transitioned to:
Humans (1st) (Very Good)
Tron with 4 Karn (2nd) (Bad)
UW Control (Very Bad)
UR Phoenix (Bad)
Dredge (Even)
Amulet Titan (Favored)
Burn (Good)
Monored Phoenix (Favored)
The card is not narrow, at least not more narrow than stoney silence. The problem is that decks that DIDNT play stony silence get this card, and we don't have an easier time removing it because we have no burn. Additionally, green decks actually particularly like this more than stony because it hurts tron a lot more than other available 2 drops.
Unfortunately, introducing stony silence on a bear means that Amulet titan goes from Favored -> Even or Favored -> Disfavored depending on how many they run (they only have to run 1 because they have pact). Humans gets a much easier to cast hate card which is also not Nature's Claimable, meaning we have to either split our side or dilute our main. Our GB matchup gets substantially worse, because they go from barely playing creeping corrosion to instead playing stony silence, though they're also hovering between 9th and 12th at the moment.
My point is that it's not really hyperbole to say "do not bring this to a tournament". The spread is not good enough. You'd basically have to hope that you luck into matchups against decks 7 and 8 for most of the day. It's like prison. Sure there is like 1 or two good matchups like Arclight, but really you shouldn't bring prison to a big tournament right now.
TL:DR - cards get played in decks.
its hyperbole because you are talking about percentage points in 3-4 decks that comprise 20% or less of the meta at any one point making another deck unplayable (as in not even an option in tournament settings). it also assumes that you make zero adjustments of your own. which isnt to say that metas cant become unfriendly to whatever decks, because they can, but you are conflating that with a deck no longer being 'viable'.
its no more 'deleting' hardened scales from modern (your words from a previous post) than damping sphere did to tron or storm. do you honestly believe it will be so bad for hardened scales your deck will be in the same league where decks such as elves, merfolk, mono-u tron, 8-rack, blue moon, etc reside; because that is actually tier 2+.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
Kaya's Guile also looks to the playable side to me; I tried getting Foul-Tongue Invocation to work for a while, and when I could gain 4 life from it, it was quite good. Kaya's Guile is like a better Foul-Tongue Invocation with added graveyard hate and threat creating as options, except it's BW.
Any way we can make Valiant Changeling as cheap as possible as efficiently as possible? I want my 3/3 with Double Strike to ideally cost only WW, and I'm willing to pay only 3 mana max. This guy is 7 cmc, so we have our work cut out for us.
There's the obvious combo with Changelings, but I'd rather not play 2 Mirror Entity, and tapping a Mutavault for this guy already costs 1 mana.
Death and Taxes's creatures tend to have 1-2 creature types each, so unless I overextend with 3 other creatures, I'm getting a 3-mana Valiant Changeling with such combinations of 2 cards as Kor Cleric, Human Soldier, Cat Cleric, and maybe Vedalken Wizard.
Kaya's Guile also looks to the playable side to me; I tried getting Foul-Tongue Invocation to work for a while, and when I could gain 4 life from it, it was quite good. Kaya's Guile is like a better Foul-Tongue Invocation with added graveyard hate and threat creating as options, except it's BW.
Any way we can make Valiant Changeling as cheap as possible as efficiently as possible? I want my 3/3 with Double Strike to ideally cost only WW, and I'm willing to pay only 3 mana max. This guy is 7 cmc, so we have our work cut out for us.
There's the obvious combo with Changelings, but I'd rather not play 2 Mirror Entity, and tapping a Mutavault for this guy already costs 1 mana.
Death and Taxes's creatures tend to have 1-2 creature types each, so unless I overextend with 3 other creatures, I'm getting a 3-mana Valiant Changeling with such combinations of 2 cards as Kor Cleric, Human Soldier, Cat Cleric, and maybe Vedalken Wizard.
Guile is sweet. Sac plus exile graveyard is excellent, as it removes the binned creature permanently with everything else. I wish this card had a relevant mode against big mana, but I guess we can't have everything in one card. Speaking of which...
More importantly, WB charm fits the Talisman cycle colors, Kaya fits the Talisman flavor text, and all the other planeswalkers in those flavor texts also fit the number crunch for their respective commands. Super pumped to see all four of the remaining ones, especially BG.
Kaya's guile is the only card that has been spoiled that I really think I could play due to the flexibility. Archmage charm is flexible but way more prohibitive to cast.
Kaya's guile is the only card that has been spoiled that I really think I could play due to the flexibility. Archmage charm is flexible but way more prohibitive to cast.
Is it though? I've cast Cryptic on Turn 4 a billion (yes, billion) times.
Kaya's guile is the only card that has been spoiled that I really think I could play due to the flexibility. Archmage charm is flexible but way more prohibitive to cast.
Is it though? I've cast Cryptic on Turn 4 a billion (yes, billion) times.
I think he means having 3 blues source on turn 3 is harder than 1BW on turn 3.
3 blues source on turn 3 is also harder than 3 blues source on turn 4.
I understand that many of you will disagree, but I have yet to see a single main deck playable level card spoiled from MH1, excluding the slivers and the canopy land cycle.
"To keep things 100, anything I state is an opinion and not intended to be a fact. Any and all suggestions I give are a 100% opinion. If you need further clarification take the conversation to a PM. I am not in the business of assuming things. I'm only interested in 1 business and that business serves 2 things, Cold L's and Hot Dub's."
Am I the only one who, when looking at this set, think "man, I really wish this was a Standard set"?
not really. it has a lot of cool stuff going on, and the complexity with all the mechanics showing up is nice. however gotta remember that we see these things as long-time enfranchised players. people playing standard, many of which are new and or are from arena, wouldnt get the references or the same sense of nostalgia. the set is very time spiral-esque, but there is a reason that wizards considered time spiral a failure on their part.
i do wish it costed as much as a standard set. the arbitrary price hike was absurd from the start, and nothing ive seen spoiled has changed that opinion.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
Crashing Footfalls is green Ancestral Rhinos, complete with 1-mana Suspend 4. Once it's finally cast, you get 2 4/4 green Rhino creature tokens with Trample. Will people want to Cascade this out early? Or will people Suspend it the fair way?
I understand that many of you will disagree, but I have yet to see a single main deck playable level card spoiled from MH1, excluding the slivers and the canopy land cycle.
Yes, I meant that none of those seem maindeckable in today's modern metagame.
I may be wrong, as some of them seem borderline playable (maybe as a 1-2 of), but that's my initial assessment.
Your assessments are bad then. Lava dart is a big upgrade for phoenix decks, Scale up is a nice upgrade for infect at a minimum.
From my testing, the only Phoenix deck Lava Dart is a big upgrade for is Mono-Red Phoenix, which plays 8 Prowess creatures, really appreciates the ability to enable Spectacle (on Light Up the Stage) on two separate turns, and often plays at least 1 Bedlam Reveler that can discard it. As much as Thought Scour can mill Lava Dart in UR Phoenix, as much as Lava Dart flips Thing in the Ice faster, and as much as casting and flashing back Lava Dart when another Lava Dart is in the yard turns on Pyromancer Ascension by itself, Lava Dart didn't feel that much more powerful than any other burn spell in UR Phoenix.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
What am I missing with Mox Tantalite? That is one of the few cards so far that seems unplayable.
It's got some synergy with the new welder and a few other ways. But I do agree, it's just eh. And probably way too cute. But some people seem hyped about this card.
That said, I like the new ninja, and I like Yawg
Spirits
I've played her as a Commander for quite a while, and eventually took the deck apart. She is good when games go late and spells can be cast and recast, but she has the problem of being succeptible to the multitude of GY hate floating around, while being considerably less powerful than the other things abusing the GY. I'll definitely try jamming her and making it happen, because I love her, but I'm not optimistic that she's going to make waves. There's not a shortage of powerful, 4-mana win-more cards.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Spirits
But that's the problem with lower and on-the-border power level stuff. Kess will get inadvertently hated out due to all the GY hate targeted at Dredge and Phoenix. It's the same reason why the Swords and other non-game-breaking artifacts don't see play: there's so much artifact hate around, that what you're doing with them needs to be totally busted to justify the risk of running into the crossfire.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I'm going to brew with the coatl as a replacement, and the ninja. Maybe too cute cause the requirements of the snow permanent, especially in 3 colour, and the lack of other useful snow permanents. If we get snow duals or something though maybe there's some potential.
Spirits
On Affinity, remember that for as long as this site tracked Tier 1 decks, Affinity was the only deck that was tier 1 at the formats inception that remained T1 for the entire length of that tracking (though just barely at some points), and even after that with various decks like Hardened Scales out there, some version of the deck has always been competitively viable.
It’s popularity rises and falls, but it is very rarely not a viable deck to bring somewhere.
The main problem I see is that it's unlikely green decks ever cut ouphe out of their side because of how nice it is against tron as well. H-scales was already 8th-10th in the standings even before Jund, UW, and Scapeshift started playing Karn and green forces us to split slots between Nature's Claim and Dismember.
UWUW ControlUW
UGWSpiritsUGW
GHardened ScalesG
WGRUKiki PodWGRU [RIP]
if anything curbs the likes of hardened scales in tournament settings it is decks that are good against it, not any one or two cards. its the same for all decks playing on some linear axis
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Humans (1st) (Very good)
Spirits (2nd) (Very Good)
Tron (3rd) (Favored)
KCI (4th) (Bad)
Hscales (5th) (Even)
GB (6th) (Very Good)
Burn (7th) (Good) (High variance though)
UW Control (8th)(Very Bad)
This contributed to the string of GPs that put our deck on the map so to speak after being jank for a good while previous. The matchup spread is why I eventually qualified for pro tour.
The current meta is pretty unfriendly, which is why we're 9th or 10th at the moment depending on the day's update. The top8 transitioned to:
Humans (1st) (Very Good)
Tron with 4 Karn (2nd) (Bad)
UW Control (Very Bad)
UR Phoenix (Bad)
Dredge (Even)
Amulet Titan (Favored)
Burn (Good)
Monored Phoenix (Favored)
The card is not narrow, at least not more narrow than stoney silence. The problem is that decks that DIDNT play stony silence get this card, and we don't have an easier time removing it because we have no burn. Additionally, green decks actually particularly like this more than stony because it hurts tron a lot more than other available 2 drops.
Unfortunately, introducing stony silence on a bear means that Amulet titan goes from Favored -> Even or Favored -> Disfavored depending on how many they run (they only have to run 1 because they have pact). Humans gets a much easier to cast hate card which is also not Nature's Claimable, meaning we have to either split our side or dilute our main. Our GB matchup gets substantially worse, because they go from barely playing creeping corrosion to instead playing stony silence, though they're also hovering between 9th and 12th at the moment.
My point is that it's not really hyperbole to say "do not bring this to a tournament". The spread is not good enough. You'd basically have to hope that you luck into matchups against decks 7 and 8 for most of the day. It's like prison. Sure there is like 1 or two good matchups like Arclight, but really you shouldn't bring prison to a big tournament right now.
TL:DR - cards get played in decks.
UWUW ControlUW
UGWSpiritsUGW
GHardened ScalesG
WGRUKiki PodWGRU [RIP]
1WB
Instant
Choose two -
* Each opponent sacrifices a creature.
* Exile all cards from each opponent's graveyard.
* Create a 1/1 white and black Spirit creature token with flying.
* You gain 4 life.
Entwine 3 (Choose all if you pay the entwine cost.)
this is quite the modular card.
its hyperbole because you are talking about percentage points in 3-4 decks that comprise 20% or less of the meta at any one point making another deck unplayable (as in not even an option in tournament settings). it also assumes that you make zero adjustments of your own. which isnt to say that metas cant become unfriendly to whatever decks, because they can, but you are conflating that with a deck no longer being 'viable'.
its no more 'deleting' hardened scales from modern (your words from a previous post) than damping sphere did to tron or storm. do you honestly believe it will be so bad for hardened scales your deck will be in the same league where decks such as elves, merfolk, mono-u tron, 8-rack, blue moon, etc reside; because that is actually tier 2+.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Any way we can make Valiant Changeling as cheap as possible as efficiently as possible? I want my 3/3 with Double Strike to ideally cost only WW, and I'm willing to pay only 3 mana max. This guy is 7 cmc, so we have our work cut out for us.
There's the obvious combo with Changelings, but I'd rather not play 2 Mirror Entity, and tapping a Mutavault for this guy already costs 1 mana.
Death and Taxes's creatures tend to have 1-2 creature types each, so unless I overextend with 3 other creatures, I'm getting a 3-mana Valiant Changeling with such combinations of 2 cards as Kor Cleric, Human Soldier, Cat Cleric, and maybe Vedalken Wizard.
Guile is sweet. Sac plus exile graveyard is excellent, as it removes the binned creature permanently with everything else. I wish this card had a relevant mode against big mana, but I guess we can't have everything in one card. Speaking of which...
More importantly, WB charm fits the Talisman cycle colors, Kaya fits the Talisman flavor text, and all the other planeswalkers in those flavor texts also fit the number crunch for their respective commands. Super pumped to see all four of the remaining ones, especially BG.
Is it though? I've cast Cryptic on Turn 4 a billion (yes, billion) times.
Spirits
I think he means having 3 blues source on turn 3 is harder than 1BW on turn 3.
3 blues source on turn 3 is also harder than 3 blues source on turn 4.
BGUSultai Shadow
BURGrixis Shadow
BGUSultai midrange
BRWMardu Pyromancer
BGRJund
Your assessments are bad then. Lava dart is a big upgrade for phoenix decks, Scale up is a nice upgrade for infect at a minimum.
-Stay Frosty
i do wish it costed as much as a standard set. the arbitrary price hike was absurd from the start, and nothing ive seen spoiled has changed that opinion.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)From my testing, the only Phoenix deck Lava Dart is a big upgrade for is Mono-Red Phoenix, which plays 8 Prowess creatures, really appreciates the ability to enable Spectacle (on Light Up the Stage) on two separate turns, and often plays at least 1 Bedlam Reveler that can discard it. As much as Thought Scour can mill Lava Dart in UR Phoenix, as much as Lava Dart flips Thing in the Ice faster, and as much as casting and flashing back Lava Dart when another Lava Dart is in the yard turns on Pyromancer Ascension by itself, Lava Dart didn't feel that much more powerful than any other burn spell in UR Phoenix.