MTG Salvation

Quote from Joban8 »

Quote from ed06288 »

soooooo is there gonna be some kind of big summer product coming out this year? another masters set? something for commander?

All has been quiet on the Masters front. Core sets are making their return this Summer. New commander product will drop sometime in the Fall. I remember hearing about some sort of new product that's essentially a successor to Conspiracy, but that's about all I know about it.

be nice to see a return to some "regularly scheduled programing" from wizards.

3-4 sets a year with precon decks intermitenly for new players to get into the game.

-----------------------------------

Personally though I want them to drop this "prime time masters series products" its devaluing everything after its first two seasons and its later releases (2016/2017 masters) are a far cry from the quality we saw in original 2013 masters sets. 2015 masters we could feel it slipping, should of been the end for a while but it wasn't. it was followed by quick low quality successors.

like you said its a first draft, but it looks like its very collected company friendly. which might be better than bloodbraid elf.

why is genesis hydra in your side?

BBE into a mana dork is just a risk we have to take. its not like they printed evoke or suspend farseeks to give us acceleration that would by pass the CC of the cascade.

Quote from CurdBros »

Quote from Rendroc »

Genesis Hydra is a Planeswalker tutor of sorts, but I don't like it as much as CurdBros.

I do have to confess...It’s kind of a pet card of mine...I try to force it in everything :).

But in truth; Superfriends decks is one place where it actually may be worth it. While Genesis Wave would be better in many scenarios; I prefer Genesis Hydra here because:

1. Oath of Nissa can dig for it (where it cannot for Wave).

2. If countered you still get to search for a walker (and control can be tough on Superfriends but Hydra really does flip it).

3. It leaves you with a very large body to both attack and block with.

4. The Walker enters first; and you can do things like giving them haste, drawing a million off Garruk Primal Hunter, etc. The day they print a walker with a fling ability will break this thing

5. Hydra goes a lot further than you would think in terms of fixing. Obviously Birds, Sylvan Caryatid, Utopia Sprawl, Fetch/Shocks, and importantly Oath of Nissa....but Genesis Hydra allows you to play things like Nicol Bolas with little worry. I do think we could take advantage of this in other ways with really tough casting costs on permanents. Superfriends in particular is great though because of ALL of the fixing combined (dorks, Oath AND Hydra).

While I’ve tried to jam Hydra in a lot of decks...thus far Superfriends and Counters Matter have been the two where I think Genesis Hydra is truly the best option available.

I'm retooling Garruks deck with the genesis Hydras for the threat of counters alone.
the original against the odds deck is a negate and stubborn denial shooting gallery.

a card i put into the deck is Oran-Rief, the Vastwood, since 70% all the tokens are green this will cheaply make them bigger when entering the battlefield, plus with wildspeaker you might get additional pumps with it. also it has a combo with kitchen finks.

the way i'm playing it the deck with Garruks and blood moons I almost wanna title the deck Garruk on the Moon.

still haunted my lingering souls garruks can handle and block most of modern's popular non-flying creatures. but the second a flyer gets introduced then we start losing garruks. I think arashi, the sky asunder is the silver bullet for such situations. main deck if flyers are not a threat then, a 5/5 on the ground can compete with a lot of common modern creatures.
one other deck that goes wide that I think i'm a bit slow to handle game 1 is the bushwhacker zoo, but it doesn't fly.

the reduction in fulminator mage has me confused.
are we really cutting down on this staple for increased creature count and speed?

Quote from Varyag »

So vs Ad Nauseam stock list that doesn't run Lab Maniac I guess a chalice on 0 and a single hard counter to Lightning Storm are basically game over? I don't see any way for them to go around it. A second counter if they run Wear//Tear.

Alternative seems to be Jester's Cap, but I don't know if I dare tap out for it apart from turn 3 on the play if I have tron (when they shouldn't be able to pay Pact the following upkeep unless they played pentad prism T2?

jester's cap is solid against them. turn 3 tron for it is usually good enough to cripple them.

chalice on 1 is will mess them up hard, if you can land it. they want to thoughtsieze us, cantrip ([serum vision) and other 1cc, ontop of angel's grace.

looking at the numbers the strategy is still the same. you hoping to dig what you need when you need it to chain a dredge in 5,4,3 instead of 6,5,3.
6 always had less chance of flopping and not chaining into another dredge card, but could still flop from time to time on its own.
I suppose your best hedging might be to sqeeze in an additional dredge cards.

4 stinkweed imp
4 golgari thug
4 life from the loam
2/3 dakmoor salvage
add in 2/3 extra dredger

either darkblast or shambling shell

thing that I noticed is why hasn't shape anew taken off with the investigate mechanic. for a long time such a deck needed a dependable source of token artifacts....

that is one use I would use thaben inspector for.

they both go along way.

first and for most simian spirit guide enabled turn 1 chalice of the void on 2 can wreck infect match ups, and kills other combo decks. while also shutting off path to exile.

2nd simian spirit guide enabled turn 5 hard cast primeval titan or turn 4 through the breach.

Quote from Heenock »

Small tournament today : 3-1

2-0 vs RG Tron
2-0 vs RG Tron
2-0 vs Burn
0-2 vs Dredge

Dredge is really hard, even with 2 relic i have lose... Game 1 turn 3 he have 4 prized amalgam + 2 Narco...

what about your anger of the gods? is that not showing up?

I have to admin one thing, I don't like playing a "copy-paste" deck. Also, I liked the dinos theme and some of their abilities, and it was stated in the first line, if you don't like playing the same as everyone, here is a nice change.

Regisaur Alpha has a playset in this deck for some reasons.

1. A nice attack/defense creature for third turn.
2. Gives other dinos haste.
3. Creates an attacker.

Regisaurs most of the times hits the board before any other dino, so when Etali, Ghalta or Carnage hits the battlefield, they came with haste too.

Etali, Primal Storm it's a nice creature too. Keeping opponents cards, or exiling a land that can be crucial to them, it's something I find very interesting.

About Ghalta, I haven't got much trouble playing it. One Regisaur with it's token it mostly all you need to play it, thanks to Arbor Elf and Utopia Sprawl.

Blood Moon is something I want to add to main board, I will have to think what to change so they can enter without altering much the deck.

So Territorial Allosaurus might be a decent addition instead of Polukranos. It can take down something bigger for less mana, although it's not as great a mana sink.

On the bright side, Legacy having $5 staples rather than $250 staples is generally a good thing except to those who desire the format be so exclusive that anytime a newer and resultantly affordable card is having success they need to petition to knock it to banlist to return them to their rightfully bought high horse. But never ban their multi hundred dollar cards, THAT would be unbalancing!

Quote from Dos_Rouge »

you definitely want some fink and thrag.

This could be a figure of speech, I'm going to us that. I need some 'fink and thrag'. You'd look like you could really use some 'fink and thrag'.

So they're reprinting Arbor Elf, Utopia Sprawl, Summoner's Pact, Ruric Thar, and Blood Moon... might decrease the entry cost for some variants of the deck by quite a bit.

If anyone actually cares, I can post my decklist... but I recently took this deck to a FNM-like tournament with a lot of Spikes and went 4-0! I think the deck is very well suited for the new BBE/JTMS meta. Here is my tournament report:

Round 1 - Living End vs U/B Faeries

So I'm paired up against Mr. Suitcase guy to start the night. He is this hippy dude that carries his whole collection with him in a metal locked-up suitcase everywhere he goes. He is the type of guy that brags about playing since the game's inception and flaunts Power 9 in your face just to make you feel like less of a man... which always works on me

Game 1: He wins the die roll and plays an insignificant Faerie to start off. I drop a Turn 2 Blood Moon (That's right, I maindeck that) with the assistance of SSG. He proceeds to flounder with nothing but non-basics and I ruin him with an army of Living Ended fatties.

Game 2: He elects to go first and starts the game with a few basics. I drop another Turn 2 Blood Moon... but he has enough basics to play around it. I proceed to lose to some dinky faerie beatdowns and a Spellstutter that countered what would have been a clutch game-stealing Living End.

Game 3: I go first on a Mull to 5... and for the third time in a row I windmill slam a Turn 2 Blood Moon! My opponent was noticeably peeved, as the only lands he produced the whole game were non-basic. After slowly killing him with two hardcasted SSGs attacking each turn, I overhear him talking to a friend complaining that I must have cheated. He thought that there was no other way I could plop a Turn 2 Blood Moon every game like that. I couldn't help but laugh at his despair.

Round 2: Living End vs R/G Eldrazi

This time I have to go up against Mr. State Champ. He won the State Championship one time, and he won't let you forget it. This guy plays with the Champ playmat facing towards you every match so that you are fully aware of his Champ status in case you didn't already know. I stroke his ego a bit and pretend to be really impressed by the art on the mat (which he loved to talk about) and we proceed to play out our games

Game 1: He wins the die roll and proceeds to go first. He plays a Turn 2 Matter Reshaper with the help of Eldrazi Temple... I drop a Turn 2 Blood Moon again thanks to SSG! I look around hoping that Mr. Suitcase guy saw it too, but unfortunately he was nowhere to be seen. I proceed to cycle like a madman and overwhelm him with a slew of recurring Fulminator Mages blowing up lands and Cerodons beating his face off my resolved Living End. He revealed a BBE after losing the Reshaper, indicating that he was probably playtesting how well BBE can hang with the Eldrazi

Game 2: I overwhelmed him with Fulminator Mages and an assault of cyclers off LE pretty quickly. He never really got going and don't remember him playing anything relevant other than Ancient Stirrings and a few Noble Heirarchs that he had to sac to the LE. The land destruction really put him down in this one because he kept what looked to be a slower hand.

Round 3: Living End vs. Mardu Pyromancer

Next, I had to play this guy that was visibly older than my Father. I don't have anything against old people, but I find it funny the age range that the game attracts sometimes.

Game 1: I lose the die roll again, but end up winning this game by the skin of my teeth (literally at one life point when I finished him off). He threw a couple of Bolts at my face early in the game, and I was pooping my pants because I thought this meant he was on Burn, which is an auto-loss for the deck (he even started off with Sacred Foundry and Mountain to my chagrin). Never in my life have I been so happy to see someone drop a Blackcleave Cliffs and cast a Turn 3 Lingering Souls in my life. I immediately cycle the two Street Wraiths I was hoarding (didn't want to help my opponent out by losing unnecessary life if he was playing Burn) and used one of his Spirit Tokens as a much needed Demonic Dread Target. He flashbacked the Lingering Souls to stall off for a bit, but the onslaught of my cyclers were too much in the end.

Game 2: I drop a Turn 2 Blood Moon like a champ. He gets a basic Swamp, but I blew it up with Avalanche Rider (Yes, I run that trash). He gets a Pyromancer online and produces some tokens... but the mana denial was too much for him. Old man couldn't eingenner a comeback.

Round 4: Living End vs. Grixis Control

For the Final Match, I had to play this College kid that was obviously ripping adderall before coming to the store. He was super hyper and jittery, yet focused the whole match. He had tunnel vision and was pretty curt with me when I tried to make small talk... As 3-0's fighting for perfection, we prepare for epic battle. I won the die roll.

Game 1: That's right, Turn 2 Blood Moon again. You really can't make this crap up. I thought he was going to weasel his way out when he played a Turn 2 Basic Island and Search for Azcanta to maybe help dig out his other basics... but luckily for me he couldn't do it. I dropped a Turn 3 Fulminator, and a Turn 4 Avalanche Rider blowing up his only basic. He was dead in the water when I returned them again with other beaters off a LE.

Game 2: I literally dropped this Game due to JTMS. He fetched out basics early rendering my Blood Moon useless (which I played much later than Turn 2), and could never deal with Jace when it entered the battlefield. It also didn't help that I drew all 3 Ingot Chewers I sideboarded in since I was expecting Graveyard hate... which I never saw the whole match. So, I had 3 dead cards in hand, and my opponent kept Brainstorming for counterspells and fatesealing me into oblivion with Jace. Every LE attempt I made was soundly countered and I was locked out the whole game.

Game 3: I think going first was the decider in this one. I played a Turn 2 Fulminator blowing up a non-basic, and did a Turn 3 EOT Beast Within on another land he had setting up My Turn 4 Demonic Dread Target for the game winning LE. Afterwards he was complaining that he obviously "had me" if he drew into Damnation. Such is life.

Living End is fast, competitive, and super fun. I feel like the new decks that BBE and JTMS usher in put us in a good spot in this meta... especially if you play aggressive

Quote from Dos_Rouge »

but we couldn't figure out if they get shuffled into the library with the graveyard or not?

No, because it's not in the graveyard at the time of the shuffle.

Quote from Dos_Rouge »

where does death's shadows death get processed in resolving this situation of primal command?

The state-based action is processed before the active player gets priority after Primal Command finishes resolving.

704.3. Whenever a player would get priority (see rule 116, “Timing and Priority”), the game checks for any of the listed conditions for state-based actions, then performs all applicable state-based actions simultaneously as a single event. If any state-based actions are performed as a result of a check, the check is repeated; otherwise all triggered abilities that are waiting to be put on the stack are put on the stack, then the check is repeated. Once no more state-based actions have been performed as the result of a check and no triggered abilities are waiting to be put on the stack, the appropriate player gets priority. This process also occurs during the cleanup step (see rule 514), except that if no state-based actions are performed as the result of the step’s first check and no triggered abilities are waiting to be put on the stack, then no player gets priority and the step ends.
704.4. Unlike triggered abilities, state-based actions pay no attention to what happens during the resolution of a spell or ability.
Example: A player controls a creature with the ability “This creature’s power and toughness are each equal to the number of cards in your hand” and casts a spell whose effect is “Discard your hand, then draw seven cards.” The creature will temporarily have toughness 0 in the middle of the spell’s resolution but will be back up to toughness 7 when the spell finishes resolving. Thus the creature will survive when state-based actions are checked. In contrast, an ability that triggers when the player has no cards in hand goes on the stack after the spell resolves, because its trigger event happened during resolution.

704.5. The state-based actions are as follows:

704.5f If a creature has toughness 0 or less, it’s put into its owner’s graveyard. Regeneration can’t replace this event.

Quote from Wildfire393 »

Didn't they try this before with the Event decks, which were terribly received because they were so far from even FNM viability that it was laughable? And the only one of real note was the deck that including two Stoneforge Mystic, which then got banned and forced them to write a loophole for people playing exactly that deck?

I'm just really confused over here. I mean sure, Duel decks have not been fantastically popular either, but they're decent as a boardgamified Magic experience for people who want to play Magic but don't want to spend time collecting cards or building decks.

Gavin has a bit of a tag at the bottom of the article, where he acknowledges that the Event Decks failed because they were built during Future Future League, with decks that were embarrassingly off the mark for FNM. Combine that with MSRP issues (decks either didn't include enough value and were worth nothing, or had way too much value and were impossible to find for their intended audience) and they were canned. They've apparently changed their process to be developing these later on, and to be able to crank something out that is closer to the real world and won't just auto-lose in standard, but still respects the secondary market and has room to grow.

With 4 decks, anyone want to place their bets? I am betting we'll see...

- A Temur Energy deck (unoptimal given its mana base will only have like 3-4 dual lands, but a full playset of Aetherhubs, Servants, and Attunes will do work. .
- A W/b Vampire/Tokens deck. (The monowhite version is close to a real deck already, and it markets Rivals)
- An aggressive B/U tempo Pirates deck (The "Favorable Winds" deck is T2 currently, and this gives some Rivals marketing as well)
- Naya Dinosaurs midrange (The one "miss" of the pool, but one with room to grow and that will sell itself since everyone wants themselves a Carnage Tyrant).

I can see us getting Sultai energy instead as it offers more obvious mythics. If we do, I'd wager we get a R/u aggro deck instead of U/B Pirates, with cheap fliers and Aethersphere Harvester and enough artifacts in it to justify running a Desert package.

For Duel Decks it makes sense; they frequently languish at the market, and the new "Experience Gaming" products (Archenemy, Explorers) occupy a similar space of boardgameified MtG in a self-contained box.

The artifact creature win is soooooo bad. Takes up twice as many slots. Each card is useless on its own. Limited amount of damage. Zero versatility.

There is literally no reason to run it over Mogg-Reveillark-Body Double combo.