The second situation could have applied to the card being the old dragonstorm print and not the time shifted one.
I joined a random game, I had out of date fertile growths in my deck, and my opponent said "It says you aren't playing Type 2 cards."
My response: Yea I just have a few fertile grounds, not the lorwyn copies though
"Thats not good enough, learn to ****ing play"
System player lost
Birds kind of hurts the aspect of using bones effectively.
Bones works really well with enchantment control.
If you happen to use something like Prison term you can lock people down pretty fast leaving them 1 creature that can't do anything.
Fast accel for the ward could come in the form of Rite of Flame or a mana producer that bounces itself- Grinning Ignus.
Devoted Druid says: "Put a -1/-1 counter on Devoted Druid: Untap Devoted Druid."
The untapping part of the Devoted Druid is not part of the cost; it's behind the ":"). Therefore it does need to resolve before you can tap the druid again. I'm pretty sure that what you're saying is wrong.
Here's what I ment, I realize I phrased it wrong and didn't express what I meant to say.
Tap Devoted Druid to yeild G. They can't respond to this mana ability.
Trigger the Untap ability, Pay the cost of putting a -1/-1 counter on it. This puts the untap on the stack.
If they respond with a burn spell, Use the Quilspike's ability Paying the costs of "Removing a -1/-1 counter, AND paying the G you generated via the Druid's tap ability." Quillspike's ability to get +3/+3 goes on the stack above their response. If they respond again, you can stack the Devoted Druids ability to untap it by paying the cost of putting a -1/-1 counter on it. If you do this and have a spare mana you can then pay a mana to remove the counter and stack Quillspike's ability again, then use the druid's untap cost again and again.
Meaning you can activate the combo equal to the number of times you have mana available to pay for quillspike's ability's mana cost.
Even if they respond with burn enough so you never go infinite, Quillspike gets +3/+3 for each mana you have open, which is pretty powerful
This makes burn ineffective at killing the combo in most situations, because if you have enough mana, you can make quillspike ridiculously huge in response to it or druid being shot. Then you can follow with a rite of consumption. for the win.
The only issue is if they aim an Eyeblight's Ending at quillspike... Evolution Charm?
Talara's is really bad in this situation.
You won't effectively drop it turn 2 unless you played a birds turn 1 and a second birds turn 2 or a wall turn 2, followed by a talara's.
Not to mention it doesn't have any form of evasion. Tarmogoyf as much as I hate to say it has every form of evasion ever printed- Flanking, Banding, Plainswalk, Flying, Trample, All creatures able to block Tarmogoyf must block Tarmogoyf, Unblockable. He also has a few that aren't printed yet: Bad Breath, Speedwalk, Cyclingwalk and Internetwalk.
Slippery Boggle is simply amazing if you have a type of pump to throw on him. Short of that I think he'd need evasion or pump to be good.
G/U liege is a waste here.
Overbeing lacks evasion, it only gives light card advantage and gets BitterBossed around all day.
Snakeform is a great trick that kills almost every creature in standard provided you have a 1 power creature who can block. It also cantrips.
First off, I don't think that Thermopod and Disintergrate are necessary, I think they're going over the top and they hurt the consistency of your deck.
This also removes Fiery Justice from your deck, which is fine.
6 Open Spots
Essence Warden doesn't really help as a singleton. It gives a win condition but only if you have 3 other cards. This gives you a 4 card combo, and three cards of which are creatures. This usually backfires and results in wasted card space in decks
7 Spots open
Vanish Into Memory is a cool card, it works against Kavu Predator and some other cards. It does badly against cards like Grim Poppet and Diety of Scars, but it can help in some situations. You can also tutor for it, so its stays.
Helix Pinnacle isn't that great, especially when you aren't ramping out mana aside from your combo.
8 Spots open.
Elvish Harbinger is good mana accel, but it doesn't really help as much since I cut the wardens. It still tutors the Devoted Druid. I'd say cut 2, but keep the other 2 so you can get Gilt-Leaf activations+the card I'm adding for its other 2 cut slots
10 Splots open.
Now for cards to add: You need wrath, you need protection.
You're running white/green/black.
You have really 3 good options for wrath: Wrath of God, Damnation, or Hallowed Burial.
*** is White, a main color in your deck, it effectively is used in most situations. It however doesn't stop indestructable or persist.
Given that certain decks use persist a lot I'll go with Hallowed Burial over God//Damn. Damnation is also the colors of your splash.
You're in colors for Dawn Charm and Rite of Consumption. You have Rite, you should add in Dawn Charm.
Charm stops aggro, it stops discard, it stops any targetted effect at you. It also can be used to regenerate your creatures provided damage spells are shot at them. It can't do anything for RFG type effects or mercy Killings.
Next is more protection. I would say you can add in Unmake.
Unmake removes threats. It can't solve Colossus. It can solve a sufficient amount of other creatures.
The next removal I'd add would be Eyeblight's Ending. Its an elf, meaning it can activate Gilt-Leaf Palace AND it can be tutor'd by the Harbingers.
This is a last thought. You may want general card advantage OVER specified tutoring power because you'll run out of steam sometime.
Take out a Wish and a Beseech
You may also want to send your singleton Gaea's Blessing away for a 3rd harmonize.
Vanish Into Memory might do a little bad since birds is your only blue source. Could drop it for another removal/card advantage/tutor
Yawgmoth for the Beseech fixing.
This is how I would change the deck.
I've tried to run multiple win conditions, but it never worked out using an interesting infinite engine. I transformed the deck into a removal and card advantage deck that will win either earlygame before people defend themselves or late game after it wore out its opponents.
Well you have 3 mana assuming its a combination of green and black, you can kill people instantly and gain infinite life.
Rite of Consumption and Black wisps are great ways to ensure your win.
Then just run b/g aggro on the side to make the combo something you can pop out lategame and endgame.
Drop Druid... they don't kill a manaproducer
Drop quillspike... They die unless they burn an instant kill spell, or burn the druid in response to Quillspike.
Removing the counter from druid is part of its cost, meaning you can remove it then tap it to generate another mana, it doesn't even need to resolve yet, meaning that as long as you have mana, you can respond to problem spells.
I got Hallowed Burial at the prerelease, played it 3 times against the same person. Everytime I netted at least 4-5 card benefit.
He continually overextended and I responded by making him lose out.
I got horrible luck.
I really like Heartlash Cinder.
Whoever said Creakwood isn't good didn't notice how he gives each of the tokens +2/+2....
Evershrike + Spirit Loop- Loop comes into play attached as part of the ability, so you can't shoot shrike in response to send loop to GY...
B/W B/W 2: Put a 4/4 flying lifelink creature into play.
Thats a pretty nasty thing for u/w control...
Don't forget that Gouger and Ram Gang are 3 R symbols.... Fiery Bombardment, Heartlash Cinder....
I really like the ram gang personally
I think Moon hurts alot of people who run the Quick N Toast decks most of the time. So its worth running.
Inner Flame Acolyte is good for giving other creatures haste, thats the only reason you'd play it more then Ram Gang.
Gang also takes out finks.
I think more potential is to be had using Stonewood Invocation in conjunction with Needle Spectre.
Having an untargetable 6/6 swinging that forces discard per point of damage doesn't really require another pump spell after that. You then have to follow up with other cards that like to hit people, and you have a pretty solid deck:
T1: Birds
T2: Needle Spectre
T3: Stonewood for empty opp hand.
You could Haze of Rage possibly....
Dormant is amazing
I honestly think its the best current sliver.
I have a deck, a combo deck. It relies on using slivers, cheap easy slivers to gain massive draw +haste and gemhide to yeild a powerful Psionic Sliver army or a milling frenzy.
I have to update the deck at some point.
Has anyone else noticed how great the G/B liege is.
Its a 2/2 for 4 that spits out 3/3s every turn. If you keep this creature alive for a few turns, it gives you a gross and powerful army to smack people with.
Being that the card is both green and black, it makes it very hard to hit with most removal such as shriekmaw or terror or death rattle like effects.
The thing is Stigma Lasher needs to get through creatures that are normally in lifegain decks, such as Aven Riftwatcher and Kitchen Finks. Simply the fear of the "You can't gain life for the rest of the game" is going to drive players to killing it or being ready for it on a consistent basis.
I doubt it will affect the meta beyond a spot in a few decks.
Just for reference, there is no boros, there is WR midrange or WR aggro, but it doesn't contain 'Boros' cards.
I think WR has a good bit of power... I've been testing some and its meeting expectations
Usually whenever blocks shift or new cards get added a brilliant deck comes out of nowhere and beats up the current meta. Look at mannequin and quick 'n toast. I don't expect that all the current decks will die instantly, but with what we're seeing so far I don't expect more then a good deck or two to sprout it
Zvi Midrange is what btw?
I think you missed the fact that there is no "until end of turn" clause on its abilities.
Once you pay for it to be bigger, it STAYS bigger.
Well that would explain it... That makes it much better and worth it.
Now looking at it and thinking, its like spending mana on a creature thats as big as you want it to be. If your opponent wants to remove it, then you don't spend a lot of mana, so you haven't lost mana getting a big creature out.
Also I think something that helps is how you can manipulate its stats- If you Nameless Inversion it when its a 4/4, you get a 7/1 and then you can spend 4 mana and make it a 4/4 after combat damage is on the stack.
Thank you for pointing out the obvious to the oblivious ^.^
I'm really trying to wrap my mind around why everyone likes Figure of Destiny.
Its a 1/1 for 1
Its not consistently a larger creature, you have to spend mana for it everytime you want it to be bigger.
You need to spend 1 mana for a 2/2, 4 mana for a 4/4 or 10 mana for an 8/8 Flying First Strike.
I don't understand why you would want this over a card that you could pay for once, and then repeatedly inflict head injuries with.
In response to them targetting it, you pump it.
Drop birds turn 1
Empty their hand turn 4.
The only problem is bitterblossom
I joined a random game, I had out of date fertile growths in my deck, and my opponent said "It says you aren't playing Type 2 cards."
My response: Yea I just have a few fertile grounds, not the lorwyn copies though
"Thats not good enough, learn to ****ing play"
System player lost
Bones works really well with enchantment control.
If you happen to use something like Prison term you can lock people down pretty fast leaving them 1 creature that can't do anything.
Fast accel for the ward could come in the form of Rite of Flame or a mana producer that bounces itself- Grinning Ignus.
Here's what I ment, I realize I phrased it wrong and didn't express what I meant to say.
Tap Devoted Druid to yeild G. They can't respond to this mana ability.
Trigger the Untap ability, Pay the cost of putting a -1/-1 counter on it. This puts the untap on the stack.
If they respond with a burn spell, Use the Quilspike's ability Paying the costs of "Removing a -1/-1 counter, AND paying the G you generated via the Druid's tap ability." Quillspike's ability to get +3/+3 goes on the stack above their response. If they respond again, you can stack the Devoted Druids ability to untap it by paying the cost of putting a -1/-1 counter on it. If you do this and have a spare mana you can then pay a mana to remove the counter and stack Quillspike's ability again, then use the druid's untap cost again and again.
Meaning you can activate the combo equal to the number of times you have mana available to pay for quillspike's ability's mana cost.
Even if they respond with burn enough so you never go infinite, Quillspike gets +3/+3 for each mana you have open, which is pretty powerful
This makes burn ineffective at killing the combo in most situations, because if you have enough mana, you can make quillspike ridiculously huge in response to it or druid being shot. Then you can follow with a rite of consumption. for the win.
The only issue is if they aim an Eyeblight's Ending at quillspike... Evolution Charm?
You won't effectively drop it turn 2 unless you played a birds turn 1 and a second birds turn 2 or a wall turn 2, followed by a talara's.
Not to mention it doesn't have any form of evasion. Tarmogoyf as much as I hate to say it has every form of evasion ever printed- Flanking, Banding, Plainswalk, Flying, Trample, All creatures able to block Tarmogoyf must block Tarmogoyf, Unblockable. He also has a few that aren't printed yet: Bad Breath, Speedwalk, Cyclingwalk and Internetwalk.
Slippery Boggle is simply amazing if you have a type of pump to throw on him. Short of that I think he'd need evasion or pump to be good.
G/U liege is a waste here.
Overbeing lacks evasion, it only gives light card advantage and gets BitterBossed around all day.
Snakeform is a great trick that kills almost every creature in standard provided you have a 1 power creature who can block. It also cantrips.
This also removes Fiery Justice from your deck, which is fine.
6 Open Spots
Essence Warden doesn't really help as a singleton. It gives a win condition but only if you have 3 other cards. This gives you a 4 card combo, and three cards of which are creatures. This usually backfires and results in wasted card space in decks
7 Spots open
Vanish Into Memory is a cool card, it works against Kavu Predator and some other cards. It does badly against cards like Grim Poppet and Diety of Scars, but it can help in some situations. You can also tutor for it, so its stays.
Helix Pinnacle isn't that great, especially when you aren't ramping out mana aside from your combo.
8 Spots open.
Elvish Harbinger is good mana accel, but it doesn't really help as much since I cut the wardens. It still tutors the Devoted Druid. I'd say cut 2, but keep the other 2 so you can get Gilt-Leaf activations+the card I'm adding for its other 2 cut slots
10 Splots open.
Now for cards to add: You need wrath, you need protection.
You're running white/green/black.
You have really 3 good options for wrath: Wrath of God, Damnation, or Hallowed Burial.
*** is White, a main color in your deck, it effectively is used in most situations. It however doesn't stop indestructable or persist.
Given that certain decks use persist a lot I'll go with Hallowed Burial over God//Damn. Damnation is also the colors of your splash.
You're in colors for Dawn Charm and Rite of Consumption. You have Rite, you should add in Dawn Charm.
Charm stops aggro, it stops discard, it stops any targetted effect at you. It also can be used to regenerate your creatures provided damage spells are shot at them. It can't do anything for RFG type effects or mercy Killings.
Next is more protection. I would say you can add in Unmake.
Unmake removes threats. It can't solve Colossus. It can solve a sufficient amount of other creatures.
The next removal I'd add would be Eyeblight's Ending. Its an elf, meaning it can activate Gilt-Leaf Palace AND it can be tutor'd by the Harbingers.
This is a last thought. You may want general card advantage OVER specified tutoring power because you'll run out of steam sometime.
Take out a Wish and a Beseech
You may also want to send your singleton Gaea's Blessing away for a 3rd harmonize.
Vanish Into Memory might do a little bad since birds is your only blue source. Could drop it for another removal/card advantage/tutor
Yawgmoth for the Beseech fixing.
-4 Fiery Justice
-1 Thermopod
-1 Disintergrate
-1 Essence Warden
-1 Helix Pinnacle
-1 Glittering Wish
-1 Beseech the Queen
-2 Elvish Harbinger
+3 Hallowed Burial
+3 Dawn Charm
+2 Unmake
+2 Harmonize
+2 Eyeblight's Ending
4x Llanowar Wastes
4x Brushland
3x <Dual-Land of Mana-Fixing +4>
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4x Gilt-Leaf Palace
4x Flooded Grove
2x Wooded Bastion
Creatures (17):
3x Quillspike
4x Devoted Druid
2x Elvish Harbinger
4x Birds of Paradise
Instants/Sorceries (20):
3x Rite of Consumption
3x Beseech the Queen
3x Glittering Wish
3x Harmonize
2x Unmake
2x Mercy Killing
2x Eyeblight's Ending
3x Dawn Charm
3x Hallowed Burial
1x Vanish Into Memory
This is how I would change the deck.
I've tried to run multiple win conditions, but it never worked out using an interesting infinite engine. I transformed the deck into a removal and card advantage deck that will win either earlygame before people defend themselves or late game after it wore out its opponents.
Rite of Consumption and Black wisps are great ways to ensure your win.
Then just run b/g aggro on the side to make the combo something you can pop out lategame and endgame.
Drop Druid... they don't kill a manaproducer
Drop quillspike... They die unless they burn an instant kill spell, or burn the druid in response to Quillspike.
Removing the counter from druid is part of its cost, meaning you can remove it then tap it to generate another mana, it doesn't even need to resolve yet, meaning that as long as you have mana, you can respond to problem spells.
He continually overextended and I responded by making him lose out.
I got horrible luck.
I really like Heartlash Cinder.
Whoever said Creakwood isn't good didn't notice how he gives each of the tokens +2/+2....
Evershrike + Spirit Loop- Loop comes into play attached as part of the ability, so you can't shoot shrike in response to send loop to GY...
B/W B/W 2: Put a 4/4 flying lifelink creature into play.
Thats a pretty nasty thing for u/w control...
I really like the ram gang personally
I think Moon hurts alot of people who run the Quick N Toast decks most of the time. So its worth running.
Inner Flame Acolyte is good for giving other creatures haste, thats the only reason you'd play it more then Ram Gang.
Gang also takes out finks.
Having an untargetable 6/6 swinging that forces discard per point of damage doesn't really require another pump spell after that. You then have to follow up with other cards that like to hit people, and you have a pretty solid deck:
T1: Birds
T2: Needle Spectre
T3: Stonewood for empty opp hand.
You could Haze of Rage possibly....
I honestly think its the best current sliver.
I have a deck, a combo deck. It relies on using slivers, cheap easy slivers to gain massive draw +haste and gemhide to yeild a powerful Psionic Sliver army or a milling frenzy.
I have to update the deck at some point.
Its a 2/2 for 4 that spits out 3/3s every turn. If you keep this creature alive for a few turns, it gives you a gross and powerful army to smack people with.
Being that the card is both green and black, it makes it very hard to hit with most removal such as shriekmaw or terror or death rattle like effects.
The thing is Stigma Lasher needs to get through creatures that are normally in lifegain decks, such as Aven Riftwatcher and Kitchen Finks. Simply the fear of the "You can't gain life for the rest of the game" is going to drive players to killing it or being ready for it on a consistent basis.
I doubt it will affect the meta beyond a spot in a few decks.
I think WR has a good bit of power... I've been testing some and its meeting expectations
Usually whenever blocks shift or new cards get added a brilliant deck comes out of nowhere and beats up the current meta. Look at mannequin and quick 'n toast. I don't expect that all the current decks will die instantly, but with what we're seeing so far I don't expect more then a good deck or two to sprout it
Zvi Midrange is what btw?
Well that would explain it... That makes it much better and worth it.
Now looking at it and thinking, its like spending mana on a creature thats as big as you want it to be. If your opponent wants to remove it, then you don't spend a lot of mana, so you haven't lost mana getting a big creature out.
Also I think something that helps is how you can manipulate its stats- If you Nameless Inversion it when its a 4/4, you get a 7/1 and then you can spend 4 mana and make it a 4/4 after combat damage is on the stack.
Thank you for pointing out the obvious to the oblivious ^.^
Its a 1/1 for 1
Its not consistently a larger creature, you have to spend mana for it everytime you want it to be bigger.
You need to spend 1 mana for a 2/2, 4 mana for a 4/4 or 10 mana for an 8/8 Flying First Strike.
I don't understand why you would want this over a card that you could pay for once, and then repeatedly inflict head injuries with.