I think Collected Company has a home in GW Soul Sisters as well.
I have been messing around with my wife's soul sisters deck and trying to improve it so she can make it past 2-2 record at the LGS in modern. Main thing that it lacked was Instant speed threats.
She is probably still gonna be weak towards combo, but hopefully we can figure out something to hate out combo. Maybe a few angel's grace in the side to prevent Twin from winning for a turn. That is usually all she needs to get twin.
Additionally with the new rotation cycle I doubt they want to make Standard players feel forced to invest in another full cycle of rare dual lands every six months.
Standard Players don't usually Buy or Collect Full Cycles of stuff.
Most standard players I know will play with bad mana fixing until they win enough credit to get better mana fixing. I am talking about FNMers, not players who doing SCGs TCG Player events, states events, PPTQs and so on. Those people have no problem investing in good cards to win more prizes. But, very few will just get a whole cycle of lands. They get what they need for `1, maybe 2 decks.
Where as I myself, I play eternal formats. Modern, Commander. I want to get into Legacy one day. So whenever stuff rotates from standard (Shocks most recently) I put a notice on my local Magic Facebook page I will pay better than the store for shocks. I snatch up every last one I can. I had over 120 shocks when ravnica rotated. Traded most of them to build 3 modern decks and a commander deck. But I still got playsets of everything. Now I never had more than 2-3 playsets of shocks when they were in standard. But when when I was able to buy them at 5-7$, life was good.
Same for when fetches rotate, and to a lesser extent painlands. I will buy enough to have playsets of them but not more than that.
They never said they would print full cycles. They said that they would make sure there were duals in all 10 color pairs available. I.E. Enemy pains, allied fetches.
They didn't really say that either. They said they wanted mana fixing equal for all color pairs.
Basically they meant they wanted Keystones for all colors, gates for all colors, shocks for all colors. Or at least something equivalent. Your example of Allied fetches and Enemy painlands is valid. And I don't terribly mind. It works. It isn't perfect, but it works better than some times in the past where some color pairs had insane fixing while others had none.
To be clear (as the author of that article), I would put Soul Sisters at tier 3 before anything else. I also don't really believe in .5 tiers, or at least, I don't think there's a good way to identify them consistently. But even as a tier 3 deck, I think Soul Sisters is very well-positioned right now. Burn is rampant, Affinity will never go away, and Grixis Delver is rising. Soul Sisters excels in those matchups, which puts it in a strong position in this metagame.
All of the burn decks I go up against run Skullcrackx4 and Atarka's Commandx4 main board. I don't think burn is as good of a match up as most chalk it up to be.
They are probably maindecking 8 skullcrack effects because of you. There is one Soulsister's Player that bounces between my store and another one. When I see him I switch my deck up for 8 skullcrack mainboard. Hard for me to win otherwise. There are still games where he gains too much life for me to be able to burn him out before taking lethal from squadron hawks.
Why has no one brewed up Collected Company Sisters yet? It seems like it would be a powerful splash.
Here is my quick slap together. I managed to flip Matyr and Squadron Hawk a couple times. Nothing feels better than flipping a matyr and a hawk, putting 3 hawks in your hand, and then gain a crapton of life, dropping an ascendant then archangel of thune.
Been testing it against my burn deck, and unless they kill you before your turn 4. It is basically "I Win".
I think we could probably jam some GW goodstuff and do well. To be honest, the only reason to splash another color is if you wan't play martyrproc.dek
Voice of resurgence could be a very good card here.
Fleecemane Lion is another Card in competition for the 2 drop slot.
Gavony Township - Solid Utility land
Loxodon Smiter - Solid 3 Drop.
Do you think modern will be like legacy in some month/years?
I mean in competive legacy there are "only" Delver decks, stoneblade decks, miracle and combo decks all in 10 variants but not rly different decks. "normal" creature based deck like zoo are not rly playable competive. People say "yeah legacy you have a 1000000 card pool it is so much diverse" but in reality you see only the same 100 cards again and again.
Will we have in modern only bgx, twin and combo decks?
If you wanna generalize. You have junk, jund, junk company and little kid junk and sultai, 4 variants of twin, 2-4 delver variants and the rest are mostly combo decks.
No. Burn is always gonna be around. Merfolk too. Both of those are in legacy as well. So I don't see how you say that its just fast combo.
They should just ban them outright. This format is meant to be an eternal format without the impact of the reserve list. If they continue to allow stuff that they haven't really reprinted since 8th edition because of various reasons, they either need to stick them in Modern Masters (Which they didn't and should have. Blood moon, Boil, and Choke would have been great in the set. Better than a lot of the crap they did include) or just ban them. Otherwise, we have a reserve list in principle rather than fact and that sucks.
I just don't think there is really a point to intro packs. Unless there is really no comic or card shop with the giveaway starter decks in your area.
We seem to give away a lot of them. I can't remember the last time we sold an intro deck. We still have ravnica intro decks on the shelf. Haven't ordered any since m14.
Does anyone feel as I do in that the current event decks should be sold as the primary pre-con, the Intro Packs should part of the deck builder's toolkit and that the we should get Tournament decks from wizards that are actually viable.
Currently to make anything that resembles a FNM viable deck (I know there some casual fnms out there, they are few and far in between) you need to buy 2 event decks and put them together to make complete sets of all but the most powerful cards in them.
I mean we have the free decks you can get to learn to play magic with. And duels of the planeswalkers. Do we really need yet another tier of janky stuff no one should buy if they want to play magic anywhere but on their kitchen table?
Isn't the event deck simple enough for that?
Wouldn't making a budget tournament deck that can be upgraded into a full blow tournament deck be something worthwhile to get players into constructed right away?
Sounds like a 2/2-2/3 or 3/3 its the rare that comes in the intro packs for beginners dont gonna be a good card LOL
Because we didn't get Chandra's Phoenix in m14 intro packs? It was one of the best creatures in standard at the time. No red based list was complete without a playset both times Chandra's list was in standard.
This format has been exponentially better than infinite mono black mirror.meta. WoTC did a really fine job.
Unless you like Black decks like I do.
But nah who I am kidding. The mirrors did became tiresome. Especially before the printing of Bile Blight.
The guy who got the Pack Rat rolling first just stomped the other player and there wasn't much you could do about it.
Even at that point, A Sphinx Rev Control player could still beat mono black.
I also didn't have much of a problem playing RDW with chained to the rocks and skull crack in that meta. If it wasn't for chained and skullcrack I couldn't have beaten either deck.
I have been messing around with my wife's soul sisters deck and trying to improve it so she can make it past 2-2 record at the LGS in modern. Main thing that it lacked was Instant speed threats.
She is probably still gonna be weak towards combo, but hopefully we can figure out something to hate out combo. Maybe a few angel's grace in the side to prevent Twin from winning for a turn. That is usually all she needs to get twin.
Standard Players don't usually Buy or Collect Full Cycles of stuff.
Most standard players I know will play with bad mana fixing until they win enough credit to get better mana fixing. I am talking about FNMers, not players who doing SCGs TCG Player events, states events, PPTQs and so on. Those people have no problem investing in good cards to win more prizes. But, very few will just get a whole cycle of lands. They get what they need for `1, maybe 2 decks.
Where as I myself, I play eternal formats. Modern, Commander. I want to get into Legacy one day. So whenever stuff rotates from standard (Shocks most recently) I put a notice on my local Magic Facebook page I will pay better than the store for shocks. I snatch up every last one I can. I had over 120 shocks when ravnica rotated. Traded most of them to build 3 modern decks and a commander deck. But I still got playsets of everything. Now I never had more than 2-3 playsets of shocks when they were in standard. But when when I was able to buy them at 5-7$, life was good.
Same for when fetches rotate, and to a lesser extent painlands. I will buy enough to have playsets of them but not more than that.
They didn't really say that either. They said they wanted mana fixing equal for all color pairs.
Basically they meant they wanted Keystones for all colors, gates for all colors, shocks for all colors. Or at least something equivalent. Your example of Allied fetches and Enemy painlands is valid. And I don't terribly mind. It works. It isn't perfect, but it works better than some times in the past where some color pairs had insane fixing while others had none.
They are probably maindecking 8 skullcrack effects because of you. There is one Soulsister's Player that bounces between my store and another one. When I see him I switch my deck up for 8 skullcrack mainboard. Hard for me to win otherwise. There are still games where he gains too much life for me to be able to burn him out before taking lethal from squadron hawks.
Here is my quick slap together. I managed to flip Matyr and Squadron Hawk a couple times. Nothing feels better than flipping a matyr and a hawk, putting 3 hawks in your hand, and then gain a crapton of life, dropping an ascendant then archangel of thune.
4 Soul Warden
4 Soul's Attendant
4 Matyr of the Sands
4 Serra Ascendant
4 Ajani's Pridesmate
4 Squadron Hawk
2 Auriok Champion
2 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
2 Archangel of Thune
Spells (10)
4 Collected Company
4 Path to Exile
2 Brave The Elements
12 Plains
4 Windswept Heath
4 Temple Garden
4 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
3 Kor Firewalker
2 Kataki, War's Wage
2 Stony Silence
2 Aven Mindcensor
2 Leyline of Sanctity
Been testing it against my burn deck, and unless they kill you before your turn 4. It is basically "I Win".
I think we could probably jam some GW goodstuff and do well. To be honest, the only reason to splash another color is if you wan't play martyrproc.dek
Voice of resurgence could be a very good card here.
Fleecemane Lion is another Card in competition for the 2 drop slot.
Gavony Township - Solid Utility land
Loxodon Smiter - Solid 3 Drop.
No. Burn is always gonna be around. Merfolk too. Both of those are in legacy as well. So I don't see how you say that its just fast combo.
They should just ban them outright. This format is meant to be an eternal format without the impact of the reserve list. If they continue to allow stuff that they haven't really reprinted since 8th edition because of various reasons, they either need to stick them in Modern Masters (Which they didn't and should have. Blood moon, Boil, and Choke would have been great in the set. Better than a lot of the crap they did include) or just ban them. Otherwise, we have a reserve list in principle rather than fact and that sucks.
We seem to give away a lot of them. I can't remember the last time we sold an intro deck. We still have ravnica intro decks on the shelf. Haven't ordered any since m14.
Currently to make anything that resembles a FNM viable deck (I know there some casual fnms out there, they are few and far in between) you need to buy 2 event decks and put them together to make complete sets of all but the most powerful cards in them.
I mean we have the free decks you can get to learn to play magic with. And duels of the planeswalkers. Do we really need yet another tier of janky stuff no one should buy if they want to play magic anywhere but on their kitchen table?
Isn't the event deck simple enough for that?
Wouldn't making a budget tournament deck that can be upgraded into a full blow tournament deck be something worthwhile to get players into constructed right away?
Because we didn't get Chandra's Phoenix in m14 intro packs? It was one of the best creatures in standard at the time. No red based list was complete without a playset both times Chandra's list was in standard.
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Foundry Street Denizen
4 Humble Defector
4 Mardu Scout
4 Goblin Rabble Master
4 Collateral Damage
4 Refocus
3 Disdainful Stroke
3 Stoke the Flames
4 Hordling Outburst
2 Wildslash
4 Shivan Reef
2 Temple of Epiphany
Side board will need brewing, but some number of counterspells would be in the board in addition to hate cards for RDW and Roasts.
I don't think either had any real top 8 results, but they did do some work from time to time.
Mine is Athreos. I tried so hard to make B/W Humans work with Athreos and the Black 2/2 that spit out zombie tokens when humans died.
Even at that point, A Sphinx Rev Control player could still beat mono black.
I also didn't have much of a problem playing RDW with chained to the rocks and skull crack in that meta. If it wasn't for chained and skullcrack I couldn't have beaten either deck.
On a serious note, if you have modern in your area, I suggest skipping standard and going straight to building a modern deck.
Proxy on up and playtest it first, then invest in a good modern deck. Standard is great if you enjoy spending 500$+ on a deck every year.