You might want to give Rakdos aggro a try, actually. Reggie here works well alongside SOI block's madness cards, so you can negate its downside by turning its discard into Alms of the Vein or Fiery Temper. Other explosive options include Incorrigible Youths into swinging for at least 11 (plus whatever else you had out) on turn 4 and the powerful Voldaren Pariah.
Those are pretty fun ideas. I was pondering: would i still main board Thoughtseize or side board it.
Depends on your approach. If you want to run a midrange-style strategy, then Seize is essential. If you want to take a more aggressive tactic, then you're better off with a strong 1 CMC creature like Knight of the Ebon Legion.
You might want to give Rakdos aggro a try, actually. Reggie here works well alongside SOI block's madness cards, so you can negate its downside by turning its discard into Alms of the Vein or Fiery Temper. Other explosive options include Incorrigible Youths into swinging for at least 11 (plus whatever else you had out) on turn 4 and the powerful Voldaren Pariah.
For a deck that is ostensibly dinosaur tribal, you have an awful lot of non-dinosaur creatures. Modern tribal spirits sometimes gets mocked for running a lot of creatures from other tribes, but even that rarely goes as high as a dozen.
But, seriously, this deck does need some focus. You have a lot of singletons for cards that probably deserve to have more copies even if they're legendary, and what I see here is a blend of ramp, enrage, and general midrange strategies.
Reckless Rage is a cool card, but it needs a durable creature in play if you don't want it to be a red Bone Splinters. In that regard, Thrash // Threat is going to be better option outside of enrage even with the higher cost because it hits planeswalkrs. Going heavy into enrage, Savage Stomp is also really excellent.
Your ramp creatures sadly step on each other's toes. Ideally, you want to curve elf into raptor, but sometimes you'll drop a raptor and render eleven cards in your deck unusable. The elves die, and having a second raptor kills your 4-toughness creatures. If you want raptor to be your marquee dork, you want support that complements it. Sylvan Caryatid survives the damage and produces red mana, while Arboreal Grazer is relevant when it comes down before or after raptor. Domri, Anarch of Bolas deserves a special mention because it fills both your ramp and removal slots in your deck while providing a nice power buff. Ranging Raptors is probably only worthwhile for its creature type.
Lastly, you want to focus your top end. If you really love Goreclaw and Questing, you might want to drop your dinsosaur tribal theme altogether and just call it Gruul midrange. You might also want to be wary about anything that Marauding puts into Shock range. Are you trying to just do solid things like turning Ripjaw into a 3-drop that replaces itself, or are you going straight for your top end? Speaking of which, while Ghalta and Carnage are great, Etali isn't. It's a 6/6 for 6 that may or may not generate value once it attacks. Value is great for 4 drops, but your top end should threaten to end the game in short order.
What are you going to do about the rules that prevent instant and sorcery cards from being put on the battlefield?
110.4. There are five permanent types: artifact, creature, enchantment, land, and planeswalker. Instant and sorcery cards can’t enter the battlefield and thus can’t be permanents. Some tribal cards can enter the battlefield and some can’t, depending on their other card types. See section 3, “Card Types.”
304.4. Instants can’t enter the battlefield. If an instant would enter the battlefield, it remains in its previous zone instead.
307.4. Sorceries can’t enter the battlefield. If a sorcery would enter the battlefield, it remains in its previous zone instead.
Clemency of Flames needs to have the order of its two lines of text switched because instants and sorceries resolve their effects sequentially from the top down. As written, you could Blaze your opponent to zero life, then apply the reverse Angel's Grace, which would of course just cause the player to lose as soon as the turn ends.
I like the tap-for-indestructible idea. It makes these cards more interactive than previous iterations on the mechanic. I'm a little concerned with how wildly the 'animation' requirements and activated abilities vary amongst these cards, though.
The green one looks like the most complete of the bunch, as it has an easy activation requirement that synergizes well with both the activated ability and means of protection. It's also huge and unstoppable.
The white one has a much less sensible design. The requirement to attack and block is incredibly winmore, so much so that you will rarely attack or block at all. The activated ability, by contrast, is incredibly oppressive. Who need to block when all opposing creatures are dead? It doesn't so much synergize with the animation as cause the game to grind to a halt.
The blue one is just weak. Attacking and blocking requires specific support, and it has a non-synergistic activated ability that pales in comparison with the rest of the abilities you gave.
The black one is probably where you want this cycle to be. The animation is difficult, but it enables itself with an appropriately powerful activated ability. Five mana is probably high enough to dodge the usual sorcery requirement for this type of ability.
The red one is in the same category as white, as it has a difficult animation and a grotesque activated ability. Precombat life loss/damage is an even narrower category than what the blue one has, and the red one will more frequently cost you a card to use. The activated ability probably shouldn't exist on any card of this cost in any form. You drop this on turn 3 and curve into destroying a land every turn for the rest of the game. Awful.
Try using her with Desecrated Tomb. You'll get a 1/1 flying bat token with every snake you make for yourself.
A goofier accomplice to Pharika would be Toshiro Umezawa. You give your opponents small, easy to kill creatures, and then you get to cast instants from your graveyard when they inevitably die.
A while ago someone made a red card that did exactly this.
I remember that. It was super cheap to cast and worked on any player's creature for that player's commander. I didn't particularly like the gameplay implications.
I like this version a lot more because it's more about wacky versatility than, well, locking your opponent out of their commander for the rest of the game. Restricting the ability to cards that could otherwise be commanders makes sense, even if it does lessen possibilities.
If I had one suggestion, it would be to have the ability ignore color identity. I know that rules changes have since removed the mana production restriction, but explicitly calling it out could skirt some potential confusion.
Yep, I know weird picks. But this format is quickly pricing me out of it.
Odd that you'd criticize the banning of non-threats and proceed to put Supreme Verdict and Thoughtseize on your personal ban-wishlist. Targeted discard and powerful sweepers are far more important to maintaining a healthy format than any protective spell.
Actually, I'd argue that Veil of Summer isn't really an answer at all, at least not in the classical sense of the two cards I mentioned above. If I were to set definitions for threats as cards that win games and answers as cards that stop threats (the two are obviously not mutually exclusive), then protective spells are more threat than answer precisely because they exist primarily to stop answers. Modern Infect sure as heck doesn't run Vines of Vastwood to stop threats, and neither do decks that run Veil. I mean, how many times in pioneer has Veil been cast to stop an actual threat instead of an answer?
I made Top 8 in the 72-player MCQ, going 5-1 over the first six rounds into an ID in round 7. Unfortunately, I scrubbed out in the first round of the single elimination due to some incredible mana flood.
I faced a lot of Oko in the tournament, including the middle four rounds that I played, and I went 3-1 against them. Those Oko matches were bookended by an Azorius deck that never really interacted with me in a meaningful way and a Golgari adventure deck that sputtered in games 2 and 3 after beating me in game 1.
I ended up playing a playset of Noxious Grasp for the tournament alone, though I'd never get away with that in my LGS meta. I was highly relevant and useful every time I drew it, except when my opponent had Summer Veil.
Overall, Corpse Knight was an absolute all-star. It forced through life loss in situations where I could not attack, tore through opposing life totals in conjunction with Worthy Knight, and acted as a valuable source of reach to enable Knight of the Ebon Legion. Sorin and Archon were decidedly less than impressive in the Oko matchup, unfortunately.
You would probably better off swapping Witch's Oven and Cauldron Familiar out for something like Pitiless Pontiff, Plaguecrafter, or Priest of Forgotten Gods. The combo, with two pieces, is decent, but it needs other combo pieces present to really get rolling. The cat, by itself, is a pretty underwhelming 1-drop, and the oven is, quite frankly, a lousy sac outlet when you're not doing something busted with the food tokens. With only four cards that make food and two cards that use food in a profitable manner, that just doesn't seem enough.
@ haloreaper117- Your uninformed. Standard has only ever had fetches in them three times in M:tG’s history. The only time they caused a problem was when WotC, after saying for years fetches are fine in Standard without fetchable dual lands, included them in a Standard with fetchable duals.
And the shuffling taking up to much streaming time is a hollow excuse because not enough people watch streams of players playing games with real cards because there boring to watch. The heavy stream watchings are from Arena where shuffling time isn’t an issue.
Of all of the standards with fetch lands, wouldn't that make the ugly Khans-BFZ format the most salient to pioneer precisely because the format has fetchable duals?
Mairsil's reappearance in card form absolutely can be a coincidence because Commander products are a dumping ground for neglected legendary figures, the vast majority of whom are irrelevant to contemporary sets.
While its value probably won't spike, I disagree with your assessment of Bygone Bishop. It has applications outside of clue-based decks; for example, it makes every creature that Collected Company decks hardcast replace themselves. If any sort of white weenie crops up (human or spirit tribal?), Bishop would give the deck crucial staying power in the mid and late games.
Depends on your approach. If you want to run a midrange-style strategy, then Seize is essential. If you want to take a more aggressive tactic, then you're better off with a strong 1 CMC creature like Knight of the Ebon Legion.
But, seriously, this deck does need some focus. You have a lot of singletons for cards that probably deserve to have more copies even if they're legendary, and what I see here is a blend of ramp, enrage, and general midrange strategies.
Reckless Rage is a cool card, but it needs a durable creature in play if you don't want it to be a red Bone Splinters. In that regard, Thrash // Threat is going to be better option outside of enrage even with the higher cost because it hits planeswalkrs. Going heavy into enrage, Savage Stomp is also really excellent.
Your ramp creatures sadly step on each other's toes. Ideally, you want to curve elf into raptor, but sometimes you'll drop a raptor and render eleven cards in your deck unusable. The elves die, and having a second raptor kills your 4-toughness creatures. If you want raptor to be your marquee dork, you want support that complements it. Sylvan Caryatid survives the damage and produces red mana, while Arboreal Grazer is relevant when it comes down before or after raptor. Domri, Anarch of Bolas deserves a special mention because it fills both your ramp and removal slots in your deck while providing a nice power buff. Ranging Raptors is probably only worthwhile for its creature type.
Lastly, you want to focus your top end. If you really love Goreclaw and Questing, you might want to drop your dinsosaur tribal theme altogether and just call it Gruul midrange. You might also want to be wary about anything that Marauding puts into Shock range. Are you trying to just do solid things like turning Ripjaw into a 3-drop that replaces itself, or are you going straight for your top end? Speaking of which, while Ghalta and Carnage are great, Etali isn't. It's a 6/6 for 6 that may or may not generate value once it attacks. Value is great for 4 drops, but your top end should threaten to end the game in short order.
110.4. There are five permanent types: artifact, creature, enchantment, land, and planeswalker. Instant and sorcery cards can’t enter the battlefield and thus can’t be permanents. Some tribal cards can enter the battlefield and some can’t, depending on their other card types. See section 3, “Card Types.”
304.4. Instants can’t enter the battlefield. If an instant would enter the battlefield, it remains in its previous zone instead.
307.4. Sorceries can’t enter the battlefield. If a sorcery would enter the battlefield, it remains in its previous zone instead.
The green one looks like the most complete of the bunch, as it has an easy activation requirement that synergizes well with both the activated ability and means of protection. It's also huge and unstoppable.
The white one has a much less sensible design. The requirement to attack and block is incredibly winmore, so much so that you will rarely attack or block at all. The activated ability, by contrast, is incredibly oppressive. Who need to block when all opposing creatures are dead? It doesn't so much synergize with the animation as cause the game to grind to a halt.
The blue one is just weak. Attacking and blocking requires specific support, and it has a non-synergistic activated ability that pales in comparison with the rest of the abilities you gave.
The black one is probably where you want this cycle to be. The animation is difficult, but it enables itself with an appropriately powerful activated ability. Five mana is probably high enough to dodge the usual sorcery requirement for this type of ability.
The red one is in the same category as white, as it has a difficult animation and a grotesque activated ability. Precombat life loss/damage is an even narrower category than what the blue one has, and the red one will more frequently cost you a card to use. The activated ability probably shouldn't exist on any card of this cost in any form. You drop this on turn 3 and curve into destroying a land every turn for the rest of the game. Awful.
A goofier accomplice to Pharika would be Toshiro Umezawa. You give your opponents small, easy to kill creatures, and then you get to cast instants from your graveyard when they inevitably die.
I remember that. It was super cheap to cast and worked on any player's creature for that player's commander. I didn't particularly like the gameplay implications.
I like this version a lot more because it's more about wacky versatility than, well, locking your opponent out of their commander for the rest of the game. Restricting the ability to cards that could otherwise be commanders makes sense, even if it does lessen possibilities.
If I had one suggestion, it would be to have the ability ignore color identity. I know that rules changes have since removed the mana production restriction, but explicitly calling it out could skirt some potential confusion.
Odd that you'd criticize the banning of non-threats and proceed to put Supreme Verdict and Thoughtseize on your personal ban-wishlist. Targeted discard and powerful sweepers are far more important to maintaining a healthy format than any protective spell.
Actually, I'd argue that Veil of Summer isn't really an answer at all, at least not in the classical sense of the two cards I mentioned above. If I were to set definitions for threats as cards that win games and answers as cards that stop threats (the two are obviously not mutually exclusive), then protective spells are more threat than answer precisely because they exist primarily to stop answers. Modern Infect sure as heck doesn't run Vines of Vastwood to stop threats, and neither do decks that run Veil. I mean, how many times in pioneer has Veil been cast to stop an actual threat instead of an answer?
I faced a lot of Oko in the tournament, including the middle four rounds that I played, and I went 3-1 against them. Those Oko matches were bookended by an Azorius deck that never really interacted with me in a meaningful way and a Golgari adventure deck that sputtered in games 2 and 3 after beating me in game 1.
I ended up playing a playset of Noxious Grasp for the tournament alone, though I'd never get away with that in my LGS meta. I was highly relevant and useful every time I drew it, except when my opponent had Summer Veil.
Overall, Corpse Knight was an absolute all-star. It forced through life loss in situations where I could not attack, tore through opposing life totals in conjunction with Worthy Knight, and acted as a valuable source of reach to enable Knight of the Ebon Legion. Sorin and Archon were decidedly less than impressive in the Oko matchup, unfortunately.
Pegasus and Medusa (well, not in MTG, but in many other media) welcome Typhon to the club.
Of all of the standards with fetch lands, wouldn't that make the ugly Khans-BFZ format the most salient to pioneer precisely because the format has fetchable duals?