How do you play Hoogak in turn 2 without involving high Dredge cards? Sounds as plausible as playing 4 Hollow Ones off a Burning Inquiry. Even with dregdge cards, I doubt it is anywhere close to Dread Return in power level.
I saw a video of the allegedly broken Hoogak Bridgevine deck and it was disappointing, the new Hollow One. It's probably more consistent, but most of the time it is way too slow to be threat to many Modern decks. It is resilient enough to break into the defenses of the poor Jund-Jeskai piles that people love to bring to tournament tables, but so do many other decks. Does it beat Humans? Looks to me that the Meddling mage - Reflector Mage shenanigans would prevail.
Personally I would get rid of Grave Troll, Stinkweed Imp and Golgari Thug in the sense that the three of them are a engine too powerful to fill a graveyard quickly, as in "instead of drawing a card, draw 6" for the proper deck. As long as those are in the format, the graveyard is a single card from being too broken.
Anyway, it's interesting to see some changes on the landscape.
Gotta say I'm also disappointed by MH, looks like 60% draft fodder, 20% Commander and 20% Modern maybes. Laughed at the Commander Masters meme.
My idea of a MH draft is to pick some Fatal Pushes or Accumulated Knowledge at common, Sinkholes and Berserks at uncommon and Armageddons or Back to Basics at rare. I'm surprised that even in the set for Spikes they didn't dare to put land destruction that actually cuts people of mana.
But whatever, at least my Life from the Loam deck will lose by having different cards uncast in the hand this time.
Hell yes. After several times of having my Selesnya aggro creatures deafened, contempted, cast down, countered, etc. I finally built a Gruul deck with Rythm of the Wild and 4 Vine Mares, 4 Gruul Spellbreaker in the MD and some proper company and went undefeated. Monoblack recursion, Grixis control, Jeskai control and Sultai midrange were ran over by hasty uncounterable hexproof mares.
*yeah there were other shenanigans in play, but whatevs, control had to learn its place (yes, I was salty).
On topic, yeah a reign of 3-color goodstuff was my first thought when Ravnica was announced. I would ask for the return of Blood Moon but by now even a significant portion of the players get mad when they lose to the card and consider it unfair. I hope the third set brings at least something akin to Anathemancer but don't hold my breath.
The main point that I agree with is that cheap 1-for-1 removal is plenty and dime a dozen. Granted, the ability to hit an Inkmoth nexus or a man land is good but overall this isn't a game changer.
RW is the king combination of sweepers and prison cards, it has much more potential than what it is given.
Well it doesn't amount much but at least it beats Standard-Modern-Legacy Team Constructed. Nothing more disappointing that wanting to see your favorite format only to watch the same two top tier decks of any Standard format or the umpteenth flavor of Delver.
But yeah let's hope viewership sinks so they stop this Team idea.
I'm bracing myself for the coming of the Surveil Variant of Treasure Cruise or Dig Through Time...
And man, poor RW can't stop getting crap mechanics. Mentor, Radiance, Batallion... add Battle Cry since Mirrans were RW. I wish for the day the color pair is not seen as the weenie - burn color but the Armageddon and Stone Rain colors.
No matter how people want to cut it, modern is stable for now despite people not necessarily getting their favorite deck. I'm more so bothered by the blogatog posts from Maro because I thought we were past this whole "we are designing for standard and not giving a crap about modern" BFZ / OGW days. I agree with him fundamentally on humans being impossible to avoid, but the way he is phrasing things makes me think that they have no qualms about running head first into stuff that potentially breaks modern.
Regarding humans: nobody has ever said "stop printing humans at all", just "stop making the low mana cost creatures that are obvious format staples all humans". No body bothers if the majority of the jank limited commons are all humans, it's the one in a set cards like Kitesail Freebooter or Direfleet Daredevil the ones that make everyone rolls their eyes since they could have been easily been turned to inconsequential types like Orc, Bat, devil or whatever. All humans they want save the two-drop chase rare of the set is all we ask.
About bans: damn, my Groves and Punishing Fires are still going to sit in my binder next to each other :sad. But well, so far the format is still good.
Yeah in retrospective turbo-fog was a natural fit for Teferi. Like, instead of trying to have all kinds of permission and removal at the ready to protect, to the question of "how do we ensure Teferi survives on turn 5?" somebody finally mentioned "FOG!!". I wonder why R/B goes for the Insult which is kind of awkward if the opponent goes for the -2/-0 spell. IMO Sorcerous Spyglass on Teferi s also a beating since it forces them to topdeck fogs and Turns in the right order and screws them the moment they don't.
Question: How scarce are the Nexus of Fate compared to any other mythic? Given that not all mythics appear in boxes, it appears that Nexus would actually be more abundant than any one. Not that I defend the card, just that if it is abundant enough maybe there's not the risk of preparing for a deck whose chances to face are lower, which would make it the best deck by default.
Back in the day, Extended was the way people would get extra mileage of Standard favorites. It was mostly a "season" format but still awesome.
They could revive the format so existing Standard players don't get burned out of having their cards rendered useless. Modern-Extended-Standard should be the sanctioned competitive formats while dumping Legacy once and for all. As a still rotating format, Extended doesn't compete with Modern so it would be a far better idea than the damned Frontier proposal from MTGoldfish.
Man if thread posting is any indication, Standard really is a dead format...
Anyway gonna ask: is the fog-turns deck legit? I can see the allure of getting instant value out of a Nexus of Fate instead of having to wait some turns after casting Approach of the Second Sun but Nexus of fate seems to demand more space. That said, can the deck withstand fast aggro openings? Will suck a lot for the red zone if it does, although it opens a wild format where everyone durdles and cares little about attacking. I can dig a relief from the usual but it's hard to imagine this was intended.
Here I hope they say "to hell with it" and reprint Vindicate for the Orzhov. As long as land destruction is reduced to a single 3 CMC spell in the format, their dreaded Ponza deck can't exist in Standard.
To the non-reserve list people, should I just not sink 7-8k of my money into magic?
If my spending 7-8k of cash into the magic market is just going to raise card prices, then it makes it less financially accessible for the rest of you right?
Let's look at my spending when it comes to modern staples, because some of you have complained about that too? This is the logic I see. 1. Wizards reprints have not kept up with Modern demand and prices of entry still remains high. 2. If I'm not going to play, then I shouldn't buy staples because it's just going to jack up prices for everyone.
That's the absolute bottom line. End of story. Non-players shouldn't buy magic. Period.
It makes the game more expensive for who magic was really meant for, the players.
That's the argument right? I used to a be a player. But now I'm in my 30s I dont have as much time to play.
It sounds like, I have no business buying magic cards, holding onto cards that I'm not playing with.
Nah, you're free to expend your money into the cards, regardless of what you do with them.
Just don't expect Wizards to have any obligation to you and the money you have spent buying them from the secondary market. They reprint the cards and they lose their value, your loss and yours alone.
Expect being called on it if you start saying that the reprints that are bad for your finances are bad for the majority of the players, the format or the game. Magic is a primarily a game to be played, seeing it as an investment is a perception created by some people, that wasn't ever intended or expressed as such by the creators of the game.
This is what should have been told to the people that god mad over Chronicles, but whatever, let's keep that on the past so long as it doesn't happen again regarding any other cards.
Although I'm against the RL, I can accept keeping it forever as long the following issues are resolved.
Stop having Legacy's sanctioned tournaments at all. Look at the current Pro Tour. Even professional players bring subpar decks to Legacy because getting the cards is really hard and impossible on some countries. It makes no sense to make players play a format for which the cards aren't available anymore and haven't been available for more than a decade. Let people run their unofficial tournaments if they want it but do not force people to go through them for official competitive ones.
Do not extend the logic of the RL to any other cards of formats. The RL is a set policy on certain cards. Any other cards are off its grasp and there's not a need to enforce any no reprint policy on them. Let people who want collectibility or price assurance feast on the RL cards while keeping on the reprints of Modern-Pauper-Commander cards to keep the supply since there has never been neither a promise or a contractual obligation to print those only once.
Personally I would get rid of Grave Troll, Stinkweed Imp and Golgari Thug in the sense that the three of them are a engine too powerful to fill a graveyard quickly, as in "instead of drawing a card, draw 6" for the proper deck. As long as those are in the format, the graveyard is a single card from being too broken.
Anyway, it's interesting to see some changes on the landscape.
My idea of a MH draft is to pick some Fatal Pushes or Accumulated Knowledge at common, Sinkholes and Berserks at uncommon and Armageddons or Back to Basics at rare. I'm surprised that even in the set for Spikes they didn't dare to put land destruction that actually cuts people of mana.
But whatever, at least my Life from the Loam deck will lose by having different cards uncast in the hand this time.
Hell yes. After several times of having my Selesnya aggro creatures deafened, contempted, cast down, countered, etc. I finally built a Gruul deck with Rythm of the Wild and 4 Vine Mares, 4 Gruul Spellbreaker in the MD and some proper company and went undefeated. Monoblack recursion, Grixis control, Jeskai control and Sultai midrange were ran over by hasty uncounterable hexproof mares.
*yeah there were other shenanigans in play, but whatevs, control had to learn its place (yes, I was salty).
On topic, yeah a reign of 3-color goodstuff was my first thought when Ravnica was announced. I would ask for the return of Blood Moon but by now even a significant portion of the players get mad when they lose to the card and consider it unfair. I hope the third set brings at least something akin to Anathemancer but don't hold my breath.
RW is the king combination of sweepers and prison cards, it has much more potential than what it is given.
But yeah let's hope viewership sinks so they stop this Team idea.
And man, poor RW can't stop getting crap mechanics. Mentor, Radiance, Batallion... add Battle Cry since Mirrans were RW. I wish for the day the color pair is not seen as the weenie - burn color but the Armageddon and Stone Rain colors.
Regarding humans: nobody has ever said "stop printing humans at all", just "stop making the low mana cost creatures that are obvious format staples all humans". No body bothers if the majority of the jank limited commons are all humans, it's the one in a set cards like Kitesail Freebooter or Direfleet Daredevil the ones that make everyone rolls their eyes since they could have been easily been turned to inconsequential types like Orc, Bat, devil or whatever. All humans they want save the two-drop chase rare of the set is all we ask.
About bans: damn, my Groves and Punishing Fires are still going to sit in my binder next to each other :sad. But well, so far the format is still good.
Question: How scarce are the Nexus of Fate compared to any other mythic? Given that not all mythics appear in boxes, it appears that Nexus would actually be more abundant than any one. Not that I defend the card, just that if it is abundant enough maybe there's not the risk of preparing for a deck whose chances to face are lower, which would make it the best deck by default.
They could revive the format so existing Standard players don't get burned out of having their cards rendered useless. Modern-Extended-Standard should be the sanctioned competitive formats while dumping Legacy once and for all. As a still rotating format, Extended doesn't compete with Modern so it would be a far better idea than the damned Frontier proposal from MTGoldfish.
Anyway gonna ask: is the fog-turns deck legit? I can see the allure of getting instant value out of a Nexus of Fate instead of having to wait some turns after casting Approach of the Second Sun but Nexus of fate seems to demand more space. That said, can the deck withstand fast aggro openings? Will suck a lot for the red zone if it does, although it opens a wild format where everyone durdles and cares little about attacking. I can dig a relief from the usual but it's hard to imagine this was intended.
Nah, you're free to expend your money into the cards, regardless of what you do with them.
Just don't expect Wizards to have any obligation to you and the money you have spent buying them from the secondary market. They reprint the cards and they lose their value, your loss and yours alone.
Expect being called on it if you start saying that the reprints that are bad for your finances are bad for the majority of the players, the format or the game. Magic is a primarily a game to be played, seeing it as an investment is a perception created by some people, that wasn't ever intended or expressed as such by the creators of the game.
This is what should have been told to the people that god mad over Chronicles, but whatever, let's keep that on the past so long as it doesn't happen again regarding any other cards.
Stop having Legacy's sanctioned tournaments at all. Look at the current Pro Tour. Even professional players bring subpar decks to Legacy because getting the cards is really hard and impossible on some countries. It makes no sense to make players play a format for which the cards aren't available anymore and haven't been available for more than a decade. Let people run their unofficial tournaments if they want it but do not force people to go through them for official competitive ones.
Do not extend the logic of the RL to any other cards of formats. The RL is a set policy on certain cards. Any other cards are off its grasp and there's not a need to enforce any no reprint policy on them. Let people who want collectibility or price assurance feast on the RL cards while keeping on the reprints of Modern-Pauper-Commander cards to keep the supply since there has never been neither a promise or a contractual obligation to print those only once.