I'm just gonna keep quietly dreaming about the Banlist update Never to COme where they simultaneously ban everything and unban everything
Can't even complain really, my main deck (UWx Control) is probably the strongest it has ever been. Turns out that if half the format exploits busted graveyard stuff it actually becomes fairly easy to control. Fake diversity best diversity.
I think you're going too high on Negate effects, but Commit to Memory seems like awesome tech. I like cards that synergize with Narset without being entirely dead on their own
I think the days of Search for Azcanta are over with the printing of Narset. Maybe as a one of, but the floor on Narset is just so much better than SFA
I wouldn't go too ballistic with the mainboard hate for a single breakout deck. If you really want to beat Hogaak, going back on Terminus can be a good plan without immediately mainboarding RIP.
Arena could be the environment where WotC is quicker in terms of bans and unbans since the economic and logistic repercusions are diminished or almost gone. I know, crafting new cards requires game resources but you can get them for free in a reasonable amount of time so players don't suffer too much if a card gets banned like Nexus of Fate did.
Even stronger, when Nexus of Fate got banned, everyone who had them got mythic wildcards for free.
And I will never forget K0no, for defending Eldrazi winter a month into it being ~50% of the meta, saying people just had to adapt
A broken clock is right twice a day. The fact that you just had to resort to hyperbole from a period that happened three years ago (because I'm not even sure he defended it) and had no other examples to show off really drives your point home.
No hyperbole, he defended eldrazi winter to the bitter end.
It comes from two sides, you know. You can be too careful in banning things. With how slow the tiny amount of data we get from events comes in, it is VERY easy to say that, according to the stats, we are fine. That is called a type 2 error.
And although there are indeed people that jump on every deck demanding a ban, I don't think that's the case for most ban proponents. Using myself as an example, I have been talking about the same single ban for a long time; Faithless Looting. If it seems like people jump on every new deck demanding a ban, it might be because every time something dumb and unfair is powerful in modern, it involves Looting breaking the resource system. Really makes you think.
If you go through my post history, you can see that when Neoform was the talk of the town, I was not on the ban train. I express frustration that the first thing that breaks out of WAR is yet another combo deck, but also say I want to see more data. I didn't really talk about newKarn at all, mostly because tron has always been obnoxious with or without two tutors and a softlock. Other than that, I have always been consistent in claiming that the format would be much better off without Faithless Looting.
What I've done with Jeskai before is run a tiny black splash just to play Nihil Spellbomb. Gives you access to the Exile effect even if you don't have black yet, and you can go fetch black later when necessary. In Jeskai I did this with 8 fetchlands and a single Watery Grave, UW runs less fetches so it'd require a little more effort. Maybe get to 12 black sources and run some Fatal Push when we're at it anyways
Even if this deck is the real deal, it just goes on the pile of dumb things powered by Faithless Looting IMO. So bring it on, get the London Mulligan active to make grave combo tier 0 and we can finally ban Looting.
Those decks only attack with one creature at a time.
Let's talk about Collected Conjuring then. Collected Company decks, IMO, are brilliantly constructed. The basic line of logic goes like this:
You want to play a lot of 3-drops to maximize your EV from Company. However, that would leave your curve in a mess.
You get around this by playing mana dorks. T1 mana dork ramps you into T2 3-drop. Mana dorks don't discriminate against Company either, casting it on T3.
Those mana dorks are also a consolation prize when Company doesn't hit anything else of value. Company decks need a lot of hits; 28+ creatures is common.
With that in mind, the important questions to ask when assessing Collected Conjuring decks are:
How many <=3 CMC sorceries are there in the deck? As with Company, I would put 28 as the safe minimum.
What is the distribution of 0, 1, 2 and 3 CMC sorceries? If it is heavier on 3CMC, how does the deck deal with drawing a hand full of 3 CMC spells? (It doesn't have to be mana dorks; some of those 3CMC cards could cycle for less than 3 mana, for example.) If it's closer to 1CMC, are you sure the average Conjuring is going to flip over more than 4 mana worth of sorceries? (Maybe some kind of combo?)
This is also a good time to bring up the suspend spells, since they have a CMC of zero, but their effects are worth...well, what are they worth? Conjuring into Ancestral Vision is basically casting Concentrate, a 4 mana spell. Conjuring into Living End is just Wrath of God, another 4 mana spell, if you don't have any creatures to reanimate (see question #1 for a possible reason). Conjuring into Crashing Footfalls is worth maybe 5 mana, if you consider Verdurous Gearhulk giving you 8 power for 5 mana and Armada Wurm costing 6. While all this seems like a fairly costed deal, undercosted even (if you count the chance to flip over another instant/sorcery), remember that flipping over AV/LE/CF itself is a crapshoot.
I don't really see Collected Conjuring as high tier playable, but as long as we're brewing, Rampant Growth effects could be used in a similar way to manadorks for Collected Conjuring. We just got Regrowth, which I think can get the Conjuring back you cast it off. Your payoff would then be Suspend spells like AV and Footfalls, played together with As Foretold as a secondary suspend cheat engine. Living End off Conjuring is a little awkward if you plan to use Footfalls, but Anger of the Gods makes your Rhinos survive and gets hit by Conjuring
Biggest constraints are that you play a lot of ramp but are restricted to cheap spells, demanding that you draw a boatload of cards to keep the big wheel turning (which to be fair Regrowth, AV and Conjuring already facilitate a bit) and that your payoff isn't an instant win but "just" a value engine, which often doesn't cut it in Modern. I guess the real question of the deck I'm describing here is "why are you not casting Scapeshift instead?"
I really don't think current UW needs any kind of lock wincon. UW's endgame has such absurd card advantage currently that it might just as well be a lock, and you don't need to run any cards that are awful on their own like Knowledge Pool or Puzzle Box.
I think it's much more profitable right now to first see whether Archmage's Charm fits into the deck or not and then adjust to a meta that is first being shook by Modern Horizons and then the Lodnon Mulligan not short after.
What does the mulligan fix, and why is it better than the old way? The point of playing a card game is dealing with what life gives you, for better or worse. The more something detracts from that aspect, the less card game like the game gets. To me, it sounds like wizards is giving in to the idea of letting people pick the starting hand with minimal repercussions.
The change isn't going to discourage cheating on the competitive circuit, so I'm really wondering what the long term plan is.
This is silly. There is nothing pure and noble about staring at your no land 5-er and considerig if you go to 4 or just scoop once you identify their deck.
Izzetmage can make only one more post before mtgs closes so he ends on 6666. Either that or he has to go on a spamming constructive posting spree to make 6969
Can't even complain really, my main deck (UWx Control) is probably the strongest it has ever been. Turns out that if half the format exploits busted graveyard stuff it actually becomes fairly easy to control. Fake diversity best diversity.
Even stronger, when Nexus of Fate got banned, everyone who had them got mythic wildcards for free.
No hyperbole, he defended eldrazi winter to the bitter end.
It comes from two sides, you know. You can be too careful in banning things. With how slow the tiny amount of data we get from events comes in, it is VERY easy to say that, according to the stats, we are fine. That is called a type 2 error.
And although there are indeed people that jump on every deck demanding a ban, I don't think that's the case for most ban proponents. Using myself as an example, I have been talking about the same single ban for a long time; Faithless Looting. If it seems like people jump on every new deck demanding a ban, it might be because every time something dumb and unfair is powerful in modern, it involves Looting breaking the resource system. Really makes you think.
If you go through my post history, you can see that when Neoform was the talk of the town, I was not on the ban train. I express frustration that the first thing that breaks out of WAR is yet another combo deck, but also say I want to see more data. I didn't really talk about newKarn at all, mostly because tron has always been obnoxious with or without two tutors and a softlock. Other than that, I have always been consistent in claiming that the format would be much better off without Faithless Looting.
Realistically it'll be Bridge though and if we keep seeing these Hoogark numbers I really hope they don't shy away from banning in July.
I don't really see Collected Conjuring as high tier playable, but as long as we're brewing, Rampant Growth effects could be used in a similar way to manadorks for Collected Conjuring. We just got Regrowth, which I think can get the Conjuring back you cast it off. Your payoff would then be Suspend spells like AV and Footfalls, played together with As Foretold as a secondary suspend cheat engine. Living End off Conjuring is a little awkward if you plan to use Footfalls, but Anger of the Gods makes your Rhinos survive and gets hit by Conjuring
Biggest constraints are that you play a lot of ramp but are restricted to cheap spells, demanding that you draw a boatload of cards to keep the big wheel turning (which to be fair Regrowth, AV and Conjuring already facilitate a bit) and that your payoff isn't an instant win but "just" a value engine, which often doesn't cut it in Modern. I guess the real question of the deck I'm describing here is "why are you not casting Scapeshift instead?"
I think it's much more profitable right now to first see whether Archmage's Charm fits into the deck or not and then adjust to a meta that is first being shook by Modern Horizons and then the Lodnon Mulligan not short after.
This is silly. There is nothing pure and noble about staring at your no land 5-er and considerig if you go to 4 or just scoop once you identify their deck.
spammingconstructive posting spree to make 6969