Switched to wishboard this week. Previously was maindeck +1 Nicol Bolas, +1 Genesis Hydra, +1 Rings of Brighthearth, -3 Glittering wish.
Thoughts on single cards:
1)Not playing right now Doubling season - does nothing by itself, makes us play more bad cards. Will never register this one. Blood moon - It is good, and gave me a lot of free wins, but it is only good when they don't know about it(i.e. at some big events). In LGS they know about it after 2-3 FNM's, and start to fetch basics, so i pulled back on this one. Rings of Brighthearth - It is really good when it is good, but sometimes it is a blank. Maybe worth it in a very grindy meta, but then again a lot of grindy decks play K-command (Jund, Grixis), so i'm not sure. Oath of Liliana - Want to try one in 75. Maybe next week Vraska the Unseen - slow, 1st ability does literally nothing. Maybe a necessary evil in a certain meta. Chandra, Torch of Defiance - May be worth giving a shot, but she's pretty average. Gets better in game 2, where they attack your manabase. I dont own one right now, but maybe slip in a singleton in near future. Emrakul, the Aeons Torn - a win more card. 90% of the time Hornet Queen gets it done, and she is castable. Can't say the same about Emrakul
Other mana dorks - we are already vulnerable enough to sweepers. No reason to become more vulnerable here. The ones i play can make 2+ mana per turn, so the are clearly worth it.
Token-making Walkers (Gideon AoZ, Xenagos, Sorin SV, Nissa VoZ(yuck!)) - we are not a dedicated token deck, even though a lot of our wins are made via tokens.
Blue walkers - I'm not playing Blue, but if would, +1 Ral Zarek and +1 Jace AoT seems good. Tamiyo is straight unplayable.
And a lot of other cards, i tested a bunch of on-color stuff.
2)Cards i'm playing right now:
4x Arbor Elf, 4x Utopia sprawl, 3x Garruk Wildspeaker - this is the best ramp engine. A bit reluctant on 3rd Garruk, but he's one of our main wincons, so he stays for now.
2x Lotus Cobra, 1x explore, 1x Overgrowth - these are my "ramp flex slots". Currently testing this combination. Chandra, Pyromaster - she is better than ToD - can play lands and repeatedly kills with plus ability. Liliana, the Last Hope - she is THE reason we are playing the black splash. Kills with plus, and she is really your last hope in some matchups (Infect) and simply good in other (Affinity, Jund) Ajani Vengeant is not stellar, but we need some anti-burn cards. Gideon Jura and Nahiri, the Harbinger are our "midrange" walkers. They kill stuff, they win the game, they are stone cold good. Primal Command + Eternal Witness is why we win the long game and don't run out of gas. Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker is my pet card. I will never remove him from the deck, and he does win games. Glittering wish is the new addition, can't really say much about it, except that it is stellar vs. Affinity Crumble to Dust is our only way to beat Tron. You have it - you win. You don't have it - you lose. Genesis Hydra comes in against blue control decks (which is for some reason popular in our LGS), and is a great way to utilize mana. One maindeck copy is good for finding your noncreature wincons via Primal Command
That was a relatively long post, so i'll save thoughts on specific matchups for later post. Dredge is the nightmare, though.
Hi everybody! I wanted to share my decklist, which has similar core, but it doesn't play any doubling season (because it is 5 cmc do-nothing enchantment) and no blood moons (local metagame call). So, is it a right place, or it would be better to create a separate thread?
But getting back to Theros and Born of the Gods, I am just going to go ahead and say that if you think they are bad, you obviously haven't been doing many flashback drafts on MTGO. Theros limited is INCREDIBLY good compared to some of the lemons I have drafted in the past few months (like Masques block and Urza's block).
Yes, Theros limited is actually quite good and I enjoy it. But it has so little for constructed..
Snapcaster actually saw little standard play outside of delver decks. Way less than Resto, and even Huntmaster. Cmon, it is not really good even in Legacy, where we have lots of cheap spells. But it allowed decks based on "spells" (not creatures) to exist, and I think it makes Magic only better.
Or, alternatively, Restoration Angels, Snapcasters, and Huntmasters were all blatant examples of power creep considering that they were all broken enough to still see heavy play in eternal formats. If you want creatures that are comparable to those (or better) imagine where this game is going to be in a few years.
Why do you call them broken? They were actually interactive and fun to play. And if you want power level to decrease, you can imagine your world of hill giants and grizzly bears in a few years
This is the point of standard ...
Standard have a small card pool than legacy or even Modern soo draw go strategies usualy don't do well in T2 . Agro and Midrange strategies alway gets more space than pure control ones... The fact that Esper is still a Tier 1 deck just negate your complain.
And Junk Aristocrats started being played with DGM release after a year and a half of Thargtusk to be competittve soo my argument is still valid.
Year and a half? but Thragtusk was standard-legal only for 14-ish months
Also, on Aristocrats you are wrong anyway - Tom Martell won Pro Tour Gatecrash with it - i dont know why you are counting only the latest version of this deck.
The fact that Esper is tier1 says only this: its engine (rev, verdict, d-sphere) is from RTR, and RTR has obviously higher power level than Theros. So it is viable. And year before it was the same - junk rares like Nightveil Specter and Desecration Demon couldnt compete with Resto Angels, Snapcasters, Huntmasters etc. But now they shine. Because Theros is *THAT* bad.
P.S. Point of standard is to play with rotating card pool. It have nothing to do with power level, and actually a lot of type2 decks were stronger than current Modern because of their engine banned.
Yep ...
See that half all decks playing 4 Thragtusk is dumb.
But there were at least 3 completely different archetypes that played Thargtusk - Jund, Junk Reanimator and Bant control/Wolfrun - and that is only tier1 decks. Also, there were many decks without Thragtusk, which won big tournaments - all variants of Aristocrats for example, and they are very different. You say that "Play card X or lose is dumb", but other people have different understanding of "dumb", and for instance mine is "uninteractive sorcery-speed games a-la Hearthstone." Just like Theros-based type2.
Wizards arent just putting cycles into sets without thinking. For example, mistcutter hydra and master of waves were once part of the cycle, but this cycle has been scrapped.
Being from 3rd small set that was drafted alone (and was popular as draft format) actually made a larger supply compared to sets drafted as a part of a block.
Really, Mtgsalvation?
We come here to read and write about our favorite game, not to discuss some internet drama between boy and girl.
Please don't be like those in the internets and don't spread the fire. Thank you.
2x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
2x Overgrown Tomb
1x Sacred Foundry
1x Stomping Ground
1x Temple Garden
4x Windswept Heath
4x Wooded Foothills
Creatures (10)
2x Eternal Witness
4x Arbor Elf
2x Lotus Cobra
1x Hornet Queen
1x World Breaker
4x Oath of Nissa
4x Utopia Sprawl
1x Overgrowth
1x Explore
3x Glittering Wish
2x Primal Command
2x Liliana, the Last Hope
2x Ajani Vengeant
1x Chandra, Pyromaster
3x Garruk Wildspeaker
2x Nahiri, the Harbinger
2x Gideon Jura
1x Fracturing Gust
1x Fulminator Mage
2x Genesis Hydra
1x Maelstrom Pulse
1x Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
1x Obstinate Baloth
2x Primal Command
1x Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
1x Sigarda, Host of Herons
1x Slaughter Games
1x Wheel of Sun and Moon
Switched to wishboard this week. Previously was maindeck +1 Nicol Bolas, +1 Genesis Hydra, +1 Rings of Brighthearth, -3 Glittering wish.
Thoughts on single cards:
1)Not playing right now
Doubling season - does nothing by itself, makes us play more bad cards. Will never register this one.
Blood moon - It is good, and gave me a lot of free wins, but it is only good when they don't know about it(i.e. at some big events). In LGS they know about it after 2-3 FNM's, and start to fetch basics, so i pulled back on this one.
Rings of Brighthearth - It is really good when it is good, but sometimes it is a blank. Maybe worth it in a very grindy meta, but then again a lot of grindy decks play K-command (Jund, Grixis), so i'm not sure.
Oath of Liliana - Want to try one in 75. Maybe next week
Vraska the Unseen - slow, 1st ability does literally nothing. Maybe a necessary evil in a certain meta.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - May be worth giving a shot, but she's pretty average. Gets better in game 2, where they attack your manabase. I dont own one right now, but maybe slip in a singleton in near future.
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn - a win more card. 90% of the time Hornet Queen gets it done, and she is castable. Can't say the same about Emrakul
Other mana dorks - we are already vulnerable enough to sweepers. No reason to become more vulnerable here. The ones i play can make 2+ mana per turn, so the are clearly worth it.
Token-making Walkers (Gideon AoZ, Xenagos, Sorin SV, Nissa VoZ(yuck!)) - we are not a dedicated token deck, even though a lot of our wins are made via tokens.
Blue walkers - I'm not playing Blue, but if would, +1 Ral Zarek and +1 Jace AoT seems good. Tamiyo is straight unplayable.
And a lot of other cards, i tested a bunch of on-color stuff.
2)Cards i'm playing right now:
4x Arbor Elf, 4x Utopia sprawl, 3x Garruk Wildspeaker - this is the best ramp engine. A bit reluctant on 3rd Garruk, but he's one of our main wincons, so he stays for now.
2x Lotus Cobra, 1x explore, 1x Overgrowth - these are my "ramp flex slots". Currently testing this combination.
Chandra, Pyromaster - she is better than ToD - can play lands and repeatedly kills with plus ability.
Liliana, the Last Hope - she is THE reason we are playing the black splash. Kills with plus, and she is really your last hope in some matchups (Infect) and simply good in other (Affinity, Jund)
Ajani Vengeant is not stellar, but we need some anti-burn cards.
Gideon Jura and Nahiri, the Harbinger are our "midrange" walkers. They kill stuff, they win the game, they are stone cold good.
Primal Command + Eternal Witness is why we win the long game and don't run out of gas.
Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker is my pet card. I will never remove him from the deck, and he does win games.
Glittering wish is the new addition, can't really say much about it, except that it is stellar vs. Affinity
Crumble to Dust is our only way to beat Tron. You have it - you win. You don't have it - you lose.
Genesis Hydra comes in against blue control decks (which is for some reason popular in our LGS), and is a great way to utilize mana. One maindeck copy is good for finding your noncreature wincons via Primal Command
That was a relatively long post, so i'll save thoughts on specific matchups for later post. Dredge is the nightmare, though.
Yes, Theros limited is actually quite good and I enjoy it. But it has so little for constructed..
Why do you call them broken? They were actually interactive and fun to play. And if you want power level to decrease, you can imagine your world of hill giants and grizzly bears in a few years
Year and a half? but Thragtusk was standard-legal only for 14-ish months
Also, on Aristocrats you are wrong anyway - Tom Martell won Pro Tour Gatecrash with it - i dont know why you are counting only the latest version of this deck.
The fact that Esper is tier1 says only this: its engine (rev, verdict, d-sphere) is from RTR, and RTR has obviously higher power level than Theros. So it is viable. And year before it was the same - junk rares like Nightveil Specter and Desecration Demon couldnt compete with Resto Angels, Snapcasters, Huntmasters etc. But now they shine. Because Theros is *THAT* bad.
P.S. Point of standard is to play with rotating card pool. It have nothing to do with power level, and actually a lot of type2 decks were stronger than current Modern because of their engine banned.
But there were at least 3 completely different archetypes that played Thargtusk - Jund, Junk Reanimator and Bant control/Wolfrun - and that is only tier1 decks. Also, there were many decks without Thragtusk, which won big tournaments - all variants of Aristocrats for example, and they are very different. You say that "Play card X or lose is dumb", but other people have different understanding of "dumb", and for instance mine is "uninteractive sorcery-speed games a-la Hearthstone." Just like Theros-based type2.
Yep Delver mirrors was low-skill..
Yep curving creatures with monoU or placing tokens via Pack Rat is manifestation of one's true skill..