MTG Salvation

Quote from Lord_Kaos »

Forever Seeking - BBB
Enchantment
Pay 1 life, Name a card: Exile the top card of your library face up, if it is the named card, until the end of turn, you may play that card as if it was in your hand.

Best Necropotence redesign I've seen yet. I particularly like this card because when Sensei's Divining Top was banned in Legacy, it no longer had a home (very little Vintage play). This would pretty much create a formidable "Forever Top" deck in Vintage. It's almost "1, Pay 3 Life: Draw 3 cards". Also makes Brainstorm even more nuts than before.

I have no card idea right now, just wanted to comment on that one because I really like it, so I guess the next person gets a freebie.

That's an amazing card, and I don't know how else you would word it. The only thing that I see that would keep it from working... would this ability go on the stack? If so, it would suggest mana can then be added in response... and then would that mana also be emptied? The problem is that you aren't supposed to be able to do things in between the mana emptying from the pool at the end of a phase and the next phase beginning. But if this triggered ability uses the stack, then that would become possible, and there are probably game-breaking interactions I haven't even thought of that would result from that.

My other main criticism of this card is that it would enable some pretty heinous slow-play. If a player adds mana during every phase, you're looking at his hand every phase. Perhaps limit it to main phases?

This next one probably breaks combo decks in Legacy and Vintage, I dunno.
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Veil of the Sun GW
Enchantment (R)
When Veil of the Sun enters the battlefield, name a spell. Spells you cast with that name can't be countered.
Whenever a spell you control is countered, put a charge counter on Veil of the Sun. Then, if it has three or more charge counters, sacrifice Veil of the Sun.

I'm a little unsure about the wording "whenever enchanted creature destroys a creature". Creatures blocking in combat cause combat damage, which is added to any other damage the creature takes, and it's a state-based effect that causes a creature that has taken damage equal or greater than its toughness to be destroyed. Very cool card, though.

So I noticed that the digital-only cards from the old Microprose "Shandalar" game are not in the Gatherer, which I assume means that cards could be created that share the same name as those cards. WotC effectively is pretending those Shandalar cards never existed. I thought about the one card that really sums up those cards as far as what they do differently from normal cards, and how it could be best recreated in a functional playable card.

For reference, the original card was this:
Whimsy XUU
Sorcery
Play X random fast effects

To actually resolve this card, the game would look through a list of all of the instant spells and all of the activated abilities on permanents, and pick a random one, and do so X times. Targets were also chosen at random. It was common for it to generate a sequence of useless effects (Lifelace, regenerate a creature that isn't about to die, etc.) and then use the Nevinyrral's Disk ability.

My suggestion on how to remake this card as close to the original:
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Whimsy XUU
Sorcery
Do the following X times:
Reveal cards from your library until you reveal an instant or a permanent with an activated ability, which can legally be activated now. Put a copy of that instant or ability on the stack. If this is the first iteration of X, you control the copy. Otherwise, control of the copy switches to the player to the left of the one who controlled the previous copy. Put all cards revealed on the bottom of your library in a random order.

If you reveal the last card in your library without finding an instant or playable activated ability, nothing goes on the stack and further iterations through X are ignored.
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That seems potentially broken in the right deck (for example, allowing Urza-tron to cast things like Progenitus). But hey, lots of cards are broken in the right context. Sounds good to me.

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Purity of Design W
Enchantment (R)
Players can't cast artifact spells that aren't colorless.

Just exploring unused design space. I actually think this is not that useful, only affects affinity marginally and you'd rather just play Stony Silence.

Quote from h0lydiva »

Second, the bans lead to more bans is just false no matter how you slice it. The last bans in Standard left a format that is fine and doesn't need any more bans.

In the context of this discussion, "needs bans" is a subjective observation. I believe his point would be better stated as: banning cards leads to further calls to ban more cards by people who support banning cards as a solution.

As an example, in Modern, when it came to Birthing Pod, there were those who supported banning it and those who did not. In general, you will find correlation among those who supported or did not support the bannings of Birthing Pod and Splinter Twin, and likely among those who will support or not support a future ban as a solution to a perceived problem in the Modern metagame. I'll put it this way. Let's go back in time to when Birthing Pod was still legal. Those who were okay with it might have made an argument similar to gkourou's, which is that we don't need to ban Birthing Pod, and that banning it will just lead to another deck rising to become oppressive in its place, and then another ban. But the views of those players were disregarded and Birthing Pod was banned, and Splinter Twin eventually took up the mantle as the oppressive deck of the format. Then came calls to ban Splinter Twin, and another subset of players (which, I venture, overlap considerably with the previous subset) made the argument that banning it would just be a continuation of the cycle of knocking off the top deck leading to another deck becoming oppressive in its place. Then we had the banning of Summer Bloom to kill the Amulet Bloom deck that became oppressive, then Gitaxian Probe (although that's less to do with a specific oppressive deck), and now you hear new calls for things like Chalice of the Void, Eldrazi Temple, Death's Shadow, Street Wraith, etc...

Gkourou's position is consistent because he is describing the desires of the group of players who frequently call for bans as a solution, not the actual state of whether or not the ban happens. He, perhaps (I don't want to speak for him), has been opposed to previous bans as well.

Quote from Ember_Twilight »

The last time Affinity won a Grand Prix was back in June of this year, so not that long ago at all: https://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gplv17-modern/top-8-decklists-2017-06-18

Somehow I missed that one. I stand corrected.

Quote from h0lydiva »

For the sake of argument I would say we go full NUKE: Death's Shadow, Eldrazi Temple, Grapeshot and Valakut. This assuming Affinity can be reasonably controlled.

You'll notice that gkourou didn't even list Affinity in his long post, and there's a reason for that. I believe that the only reason Affinity is still considered Tier 1 is because it's one of the oldest good Modern decks and it feels wrong to demote it. As an Affinity player, I can say that Modern is a pretty treacherous place for the deck these days. Chalice and Stony Silence are basically game over and those two cards are everywhere now. Ultimately, I would say that Affinity has failed the test of Tier 1 for quite a long time. When is the last time Affinity has won a major event (PT, SCG Open, Grand Prix, I'll even give RPTQ as valid for a major event, but not PPTQ)? When is the last time it has had a dominating presence in the top 8 or top 16 of such an event? I thought these were the criteria for determining which decks are Tier 1.

It hasn't happened in a long time. The deck is Tier 2, maybe Tier 1.5. Definitely not Tier 1 anymore.

I think this deck will unquestionably be the top deck at least at the start of the new season, perhaps dominating a second pro tour. Some other thoughts:
1. I think the artifact variant with Inventor's Apprentice is pretty interesting. But I don't like splashing black here, it makes the mana base too unreliable for a deck that needs to play untapped land every turn and needs to avoid colorless mana for the other spells in the deck.
2. I think Rigging Runner is the best 3rd 1-drop. It's ideally played turn 2, but if it's your only 1-drop you can still play it turn-1. A 1/1 first strike on turn 1 is not a disaster.
3. Here's the list I want to test as soon as I have the cards:

Yes, the sideboard is currently only 13 cards, and it's really a very rough draft at the moment. It will be finalized last-minute depending on what the metagame starts to look like. The extra mountain is for circumstances where you want 4x Hazoret, 4x Chandra, and 4x Glorybringer. 24 land isn't enough for that.

It's transparent hard plastic box, sometimes hinged and snaps shut, another variation has two halves that slide together. They are often used for shipping a small stack of cards in the mail (usually in a cardboard box). They usually fit cards snugly and therefore the cards can't be sleeved. I would estimate they hold somewhere between 40-100 cards.

It would be easy if I could post a photo, but since I don't know what they're called, I don't know what to search for, and I don't have any of them at the moment. I need to buy a bunch of them on amazon/ebay/whatever but all my searches for "mtg card box" or similar searches turn up deck boxes.

Thanks for any assistance.

Quote from Elixir99 »

Don't think I'm on board with cutting Blinkmoths.

Believe me, it's not something I'm completely comfortable with either.

How is Bomat Courier working for you?

It's great, amd my opponents think so because it's usually the first creature they try to kill.

As far as the Stony Silence issue, have you tried Hazoret the Fervent? You could also include an additional copy of Aether Grid.

The problem with both of these is that it's extremely hard to cast anything other than a 1-2 cmc colorless spell after Stony Silence has landed. It shuts off all the Darksteel Citadels, Mox Opals, and Springleaf Drums. The solution for Stony Silence, if it exists, must be a plan to prevent it from entering the battlefield to begin with. That solution has to be 1-2 cmc because Stony silence is 2 cmc. And it really should be 1-cmc so you can even stop Stony Silence on the draw. That pretty much leaves Spell Pierce and discard as options.

Also, what's up with Heroic Intervention?

It's proven to be the most effective defense against Supreme Verdict. They'll usually tap out to play it ASAP since it can't be countered. I have tried other alternatives, like Thoughtseize, but that doesn't help if it's not in their hand and then they draw it afterward. It's also pretty nice against Kolaghan's Command which I've been encountering maindecked in about 40% of the matches I've played recently.

And why Hurkyl's if you're already running 2X Ancient Grudge?

It's an absolutely blowout in the mirror, usually you can win on the spot if the board state is clogged.

RR lost both Falkenrath Gorger and Village Messenger. Falkenrath Gorger is replaced with Soul-Scar Mage. As of yet, this is the best replacement available for Village Messenger.

If this is the only 1-drop in your deck, then it's bad. But if you're playing it in a deck with 4x Bomat Courier and 4x Soul-Scar Mage, then it's a very good card. It's a 1-drop meant to be played turn-2 alongside another 1-cmc spell.

Master of Etherium is a lot worse now because of Fatal Push. Too often you're spending your whole turn's mana casting something that your opponent kills at your eot with 1-mana removal.

Actually, I think Fatal Push has really made this deck a lot worse than it used to be. Also the surge in Eldrazi Tron that makes Etched Champion bad. Also Kolaghan's Command is seeing a lot of maindeck play, and Stony Silence is in more than half the sideboards. I'm not really sure this deck should be considered Tier 1 anymore. When is the last time Affinity won a major Modern event, or had significant presence in top 16?

I'm experimenting a bit, challenging a few long-held traditions just to see where it goes. I want 4x Galvanic Blast in the main deck, and I'm running 4x Bomat Courier as well. That's the only colored mana in the main deck, so it's obvious that the basic land is going to be Mountain.

However, the sideboard has 2x Thoughtseize, 2x Heroic Intervention, and 2x Spell Pierce. Being able to get the right mana for these is potentially problematic. So I'm going to experiment cutting 2x Blinkmoth Nexus to bring the total count of Glimmervoid+Spire of Industry to 5. This also gives me a little bit of insurance in being able to cast the colored spells should my opponent land a Stony Silence (although that's usually game over anyway).

Here's what I'm hoping to be testing pretty soon:


I'm considering that Spell Pierce may end up being so essential to stopping Stony Silence and Chalice of the Void (X=1), as these are probably the two cards in Modern that destroy Affinity more than anything else, that I may end up taking out the Spellskites, which have seen almost no play lately and which have been lackluster when I did play them, for Spell Pierce number 3 & 4.

If you're playing Spell Pierce out of the sideboard, is it better on the play or on the draw? I know controlly cards are typically added on the draw, but Spell Pierce is typically used as a tempo play against control.