The amount of people who cannot seem to grasp what the OP is asking is one of the funniest things I've seen all week. He doesn't wanna know if Bone Picker is good, he doesn't wanna know if Dark Rit would see play in Modern, he doesn't want to know what decks would be broken by Dark Rit
He just wants to know, if you could spend two cards from your hand and one mana, to resolve a 3 mana creature on T1, would you do it?
You'd expect a bunch of competitive Magic players to have better reading comprehension than this
Talrand, Sky Summoner can be done for like twenty bucks honestly, and it's a good way to play control with sorta training wheels because he backs you up when it's time to actually win
Krenko, Mob Boss would be stupidly cheap and have a ton of room for improvements if you totally fall in love. Get a Purphoros though.
Mono green Elf decks are another super cheap setup. Just pick whoever, literally any mono green Elf creature that's legendary. Maybe not Glissa Sunseeker.
Uril, the Miststalker is a deck I've put together for about fifteen dollars (if your bring your own Uril) because I was offended by people saying I pay to win, and that works fine
Pretty much any of the Eldrazi Titans are playable in a super budget setup where you just puke acceleration on the table. Obviously tying up half your budget in a Kozilek, Butcher of Truth would be immature when you could be using that money on important things like Thran Dynamo and Urza's Incubator but the cheapness of makes for funny board states where cards like Planar Bridge are useable.
Bruna, Light of Alabaster comes together pretty cheap nowadays and leaves lots of room to get ridiculous when your budget expands, same with Rakdos, Lord of Riots - I've had 50 and 1500 dollar builds of each
Play Talrand, Sky Summoner - he's great for control builds because you can just do your counters and your combos and then your win con just sorta shows up while you're doing it - my set up runs two creatures (Sphinx of the Final World and Stormtide Leviathan so I can be a degenerate with Polymorph effects) and never has a hard time closing out games because evasive little tokens chip damage in just fine, especially if you're not letting them play cards
It's a mistake to assume EDH is "Magic Lite" and I sense you're going to get thoroughly thrashed for the majority of your first few games if you go in thinking you're just too street for Commander.
The resurrection is a crazy good ability and really should not be ignored - don't forget that it's instant speed and can be done multiple times. Digging up a Sheoldred, Whispering One on your opponent's end step and grabbing another fatty you buried off her ability is really spicy tempo and literally the only card you need to see in order to get that combo off is an Entomb or a Buried Alive. Keep in mind you're actually playing Magic the Gathering, a game with other players. Not even my cat would let you park up with your general online and twenty zombies so you can swap around 20% of your deck lmao
That said if you actually really aren't going to use the resurrect then just copy a Grimgrin build because those tend to lean towards big boards and expendable/recur-able Zombies in order to feed his ability. Lords aren't actually hugely important because it's number of Zombies and not their P/T that feeds your ability so the mana would be better spent on cards that give you more board presence (I mean it wouldn't, you're going to eat board wipes more than hot meals but twenty zombies is what we're doing so you're going to have to play all twenty of them somewhere) just run Zombie Master and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and then that twenty zombies equals four hundred unblockable damage
Answer's gonna change from person to person. I hate Sensei's Divining Top - I think it's probably my least favourite card in the game whether it's on my board or yours (although I refuse to own a copy so it's probably on yours) and I will waste a tutor to kill it as opposed to grab my win con just to not have to deal with it - because I'm busy and I think it's really really rude to expect me to sit around while you fiddle with your top deck for sometimes ENTIRE MINUTES every turn. You seem cool with it and there's a prime example of how different things are going to be perceived by different people.
I'm a very competitive (and impatient) person so I play degenerate aggression builds most of the time and some people don't dig it and to myself I figure "well they're bad" and it's my personal opinion that outside of total turn one locks and cheese wins, nothing should be banned because we're grown-ups and Leovold, Emissary of Trest has no protection so it's your fault for building and playing so badly that he actually sticks, but I know I'm taking the game too seriously so I keep that to myself and try to have fun at the tables' pace. My enjoyment of the game isn't so important that I *need* to have fun at the expense of everyone else!
My honest outside opinion though and my stance when I actually get pointed out and told "you're ruining my night because your deck isn't fun to play against" is that losing makes everybody better at the game! If you're actually outright willing to look at a challenge and something that will make you better at Magic and say "NO GET RID OF IT" then you're probably not actually interested in playing MTG long-term. I'm not learning anything new playing against a deck that apparently can't keep up and you're not interested in cracking my build or trying something new so it's a zero sum game and neither of us are gonna get any fun out of it.
Between the Ixalan spoilers hinting at some Merfolk support upcoming in Standard, the Merfolk/Goblin duel deck, a doubling up on Masters sets and a tribal Commander product run it seems likely that some needed cards for this deck are going to get reprinted - and seeing as I'm slowly getting the pieces together (Commander fan who just wants a box to open when strangers say they don't play EDH) I was wondering if more seasoned players have any opinions on what's safe to buy now and what would be worth holding off on.
I'm already set for the cheapo Merfolk like Harbinger of the Tides, Master of Waves, Silvergill Adept and a bunch of the little tech and sideboard pieces like Spreading Seas and Mutavault. I honestly don't expect Merfolk in C17 and my money is on two Cursecatchers in the deck for DD MVG and a promo of either of the Lords (preferably Lord of Atlantis with new art!) I think it's reasonable to expect Aether Vial to be in one of the two Masters sets at least, but Cavern of Souls is probably going to be benched considering WotC apparently views it as Mythic now, right? I've heard Spirits mentioned on and off for C17 because of that Taigam guy so I guess it's possible Kira, Great Glass-Spinner could be in that list.
Opinions? Thoughts? Inb4 "no one could possibly know yet dont ask" don't be that guy, I just wanna hear what people are thinking
Merged with the "Modern Prices Discussion" thread. This is an specific post that falls into this thread better than others, and in a way directly deals with the prices of these cards.
- Torpf
For fun every now and then I buy a paper Pauper deck to play around the house or with friends and this time I'm picking up Affinity, kind of working off of the suggested MTG Goldfish list:
But I wanted to know how typical the last I'm looking at is, and in particular;
Are 16 lands enough? I assumed it would be 24 (4x of the colored artifact lands and 4x Darksteel Citadel)
Also, why are Ancient Dens included when they're head and shoulders above the others pricewise? Is it just the need to consistently cast Journey to Nowhere and Ray of Revelation out of the sideboard? How much of a mistake would it be to swap those for maybe Vault of Whispers and run different sideboard cards? Like I said, this is just for around the table
Sometimes it's for flavour reasons (Lichenthrope might not be native to Amonkhet and they wanted us to know that Colossapedes were a thing without using a bomb slot), sometimes it's for marketing reasons (as said above, if they just sell the same stuff each set then it doesn't provide as much incentive to purchase as having "new cards" would), sometimes it's balancing (for example if you had a set with a lot of instant cost reducers, maybe Frost Breath would come across as too OP in testing so they tack on a mana and make Decision Paralysis, maybe Insect tribal is heavily supported so you want Colossapede because he'll get access to that) and some of it might even be weird meta reasons we don't know about (maybe they have a quota of "new cards" they need to introduce each year or something, maybe they need to provide artists with X amount of commissions to keep them on retainer or something)
Regardless I'm confident that where applicable they probably reuse as opposed to just make more stuff because that's the easier way, but it's probably just less often applicable than we think
Personal opinion, skip Standard and fire up EDH, if you're in it for the love of the game that will be what makes you happiest, but Standard is kind of an organ grinder and has been for a few years. I started MTG by playing Standard about six years ago and it was insane then, so I imagine someone trying to start up Standard now would probably get all the enjoyment sucked out of them in a matter of days
Like I said, personal opinion! But I witness what I described often
While the theory would make for interesting discussion, this thread is absolutely moot because you're unfortunately not ever going to organize any kind of band-together strike that would actually make WOTC take notice
Maybe a petition would be easier to corral together but it'd get completely ignored as well
To be fair you wrote the deck a week before posting this and had only played ten games - when a new deck enters the meta it will take time for players to familiarize and adapt. Everything's fine, I'm sure you'll simmer down to your fair share of wins and losses again soon
Beyond that, your friends are sore losers if their response to seeing a friend develop at the game is to give up on playing with that friend so I wouldn't worry about that too much. I've probably responded to some variant of the "I'm too good for my friends" question a hundred times and I always say the same thing.
Vial Smasher is typically best in a Rakdos, Lord of Riots deck, where Rakdos' cost reduction can let you cast a big creature for cheap, crack the opponent for the CMC and then have that life loss add to Rakdos' cost reduction effect
Aside from that, there's plenty of single card synergies already being discussed in this thread
As others have said, there isn't going to be a catch-all answer here at all. Baral, Chief of Compliance control is going to have waaay more than my Talrand, Sky Summoner aggro deck will. I'll check back to see if you provide some more details and hash out numbers then
Yeah I don't like hateplay so props to you for being the bigger guy
That said as others have said, enchantment removal should become more of a focus if this guy is folding you in half with Pact this often. Consider the amount of impact. Consider how much impact typical creatures have in EDH (Baleful Strix, Sun Titan) and similarly costed enchantments/artifacts (Skullclamp, Doubling Season) and you'll notice that typically noncreature permanents have waaaaay more impact on the game than creatures do, so if you're losing the arm wrestle of board control then it's probably because you're not handling those noncreatures. I typically run just as much Naturalize type stuff as I do creature kill spells.
As others have said you can have whatever you want as far as deck quantity, nobody cares - 20 EDH decks in my house
That said, if new sets and products are coming out with for example Zombie cards and you're not combing them for your Zombie EDH, that in my opinion is a good sign that you've got too many decks going. You should be consistently updating everything you have without it feeling overwhelming, or like a chore.
He just wants to know, if you could spend two cards from your hand and one mana, to resolve a 3 mana creature on T1, would you do it?
You'd expect a bunch of competitive Magic players to have better reading comprehension than this
Talrand, Sky Summoner can be done for like twenty bucks honestly, and it's a good way to play control with sorta training wheels because he backs you up when it's time to actually win
Krenko, Mob Boss would be stupidly cheap and have a ton of room for improvements if you totally fall in love. Get a Purphoros though.
Mono green Elf decks are another super cheap setup. Just pick whoever, literally any mono green Elf creature that's legendary. Maybe not Glissa Sunseeker.
Uril, the Miststalker is a deck I've put together for about fifteen dollars (if your bring your own Uril) because I was offended by people saying I pay to win, and that works fine
Pretty much any of the Eldrazi Titans are playable in a super budget setup where you just puke acceleration on the table. Obviously tying up half your budget in a Kozilek, Butcher of Truth would be immature when you could be using that money on important things like Thran Dynamo and Urza's Incubator but the cheapness of
Bruna, Light of Alabaster comes together pretty cheap nowadays and leaves lots of room to get ridiculous when your budget expands, same with Rakdos, Lord of Riots - I've had 50 and 1500 dollar builds of each
It's a mistake to assume EDH is "Magic Lite" and I sense you're going to get thoroughly thrashed for the majority of your first few games if you go in thinking you're just too street for Commander.
That said if you actually really aren't going to use the resurrect then just copy a Grimgrin build because those tend to lean towards big boards and expendable/recur-able Zombies in order to feed his ability. Lords aren't actually hugely important because it's number of Zombies and not their P/T that feeds your ability so the mana would be better spent on cards that give you more board presence (I mean it wouldn't, you're going to eat board wipes more than hot meals but twenty zombies is what we're doing so you're going to have to play all twenty of them somewhere) just run Zombie Master and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and then that twenty zombies equals four hundred unblockable damage
I'm a very competitive (and impatient) person so I play degenerate aggression builds most of the time and some people don't dig it and to myself I figure "well they're bad" and it's my personal opinion that outside of total turn one locks and cheese wins, nothing should be banned because we're grown-ups and Leovold, Emissary of Trest has no protection so it's your fault for building and playing so badly that he actually sticks, but I know I'm taking the game too seriously so I keep that to myself and try to have fun at the tables' pace. My enjoyment of the game isn't so important that I *need* to have fun at the expense of everyone else!
My honest outside opinion though and my stance when I actually get pointed out and told "you're ruining my night because your deck isn't fun to play against" is that losing makes everybody better at the game! If you're actually outright willing to look at a challenge and something that will make you better at Magic and say "NO GET RID OF IT" then you're probably not actually interested in playing MTG long-term. I'm not learning anything new playing against a deck that apparently can't keep up and you're not interested in cracking my build or trying something new so it's a zero sum game and neither of us are gonna get any fun out of it.
I'm already set for the cheapo Merfolk like Harbinger of the Tides, Master of Waves, Silvergill Adept and a bunch of the little tech and sideboard pieces like Spreading Seas and Mutavault. I honestly don't expect Merfolk in C17 and my money is on two Cursecatchers in the deck for DD MVG and a promo of either of the Lords (preferably Lord of Atlantis with new art!) I think it's reasonable to expect Aether Vial to be in one of the two Masters sets at least, but Cavern of Souls is probably going to be benched considering WotC apparently views it as Mythic now, right? I've heard Spirits mentioned on and off for C17 because of that Taigam guy so I guess it's possible Kira, Great Glass-Spinner could be in that list.
Opinions? Thoughts? Inb4 "no one could possibly know yet dont ask" don't be that guy, I just wanna hear what people are thinking
Merged with the "Modern Prices Discussion" thread. This is an specific post that falls into this thread better than others, and in a way directly deals with the prices of these cards.
- Torpf
MTG Goldfish
But I wanted to know how typical the last I'm looking at is, and in particular;
Are 16 lands enough? I assumed it would be 24 (4x of the colored artifact lands and 4x Darksteel Citadel)
Also, why are Ancient Dens included when they're head and shoulders above the others pricewise? Is it just the need to consistently cast Journey to Nowhere and Ray of Revelation out of the sideboard? How much of a mistake would it be to swap those for maybe Vault of Whispers and run different sideboard cards? Like I said, this is just for around the table
Regardless I'm confident that where applicable they probably reuse as opposed to just make more stuff because that's the easier way, but it's probably just less often applicable than we think
Like I said, personal opinion! But I witness what I described often
Maybe a petition would be easier to corral together but it'd get completely ignored as well
Beyond that, your friends are sore losers if their response to seeing a friend develop at the game is to give up on playing with that friend so I wouldn't worry about that too much. I've probably responded to some variant of the "I'm too good for my friends" question a hundred times and I always say the same thing.
Aside from that, there's plenty of single card synergies already being discussed in this thread
That said as others have said, enchantment removal should become more of a focus if this guy is folding you in half with Pact this often. Consider the amount of impact. Consider how much impact typical creatures have in EDH (Baleful Strix, Sun Titan) and similarly costed enchantments/artifacts (Skullclamp, Doubling Season) and you'll notice that typically noncreature permanents have waaaaay more impact on the game than creatures do, so if you're losing the arm wrestle of board control then it's probably because you're not handling those noncreatures. I typically run just as much Naturalize type stuff as I do creature kill spells.
That said, if new sets and products are coming out with for example Zombie cards and you're not combing them for your Zombie EDH, that in my opinion is a good sign that you've got too many decks going. You should be consistently updating everything you have without it feeling overwhelming, or like a chore.