Exactly. The card sucks, its just a measly bad pick for limited, and seeing god knows how many pages of "blue is dead boohoo" and "suck it up, blue needs to be crap" is retarded.
This is an example of "you can't evaluate cards in a vacuum". You're right, "Dude Recall" (god can we get the real name soon) would be poor in many limited formats, ZZW included.
However, Rise of the Eldrazi looks to be a very slow format where board stalls will be fairly common. Add in the ubiquitous-ness of the Eldrazi Spawn tokens and I don't think it will be too hard to cast this at all. Plus it's only U to cast, so if you draw into your game changing spell, you can probably toss it right onto the board (as opposed to most draw 3 spells which generally spend most of your mana for the turn). Also note that the Eldrazi Spawn can still be sacced for mana after you tapped them for Dude Recall!
Also, even outside of limited, cards like these have utility. "Jump through a hoop, get a powerful effect" cards like this are often favorites among casual deckbuilders. It doesn't have to be tournament-playable to be useful.
Blue is the best color in every other major format, and has often been the best color in standard in the past. Stop being so whiny, it's high time other colors got a chance to shine.
And seriously, did people just expect Wizards to reprint Ancestral Recall? Possibly the most undercosted spell in the game's history, of course it needs to have a very significant additional cost associated with it. This is esp. true due to their track record of trying to print "fixed" versions of previously broken cards, e.g. Yawgmoth's Bargain, Lion's Eye Diamond.
however, mono-white is not unwinnable, or even a problem matchup. sledge on knight of the reliquary should do the trick. you can use tectonic edge to kill emeria, and when he wraths you, just fetch sejiri steppe.
Haha, Allies are not like Faeries in any way. They should be one of your better matchups, I think if you played out a bunch of matchups you'd have the better record unless you're playing poorly. Any deck that just seeks to dump a bunch of creatures is Boss Naya's prey, especially post-sideboard.
Also, you need the 4th Knight of the Reliquary. She makes the deck tick. With 4 Baneslayers I'm sure you can find a way to trade for one.
Just a thought though this might sound like a terrible idea but there are only 9 red cards in the whole deck 5 are simple to replace.
3 bolts = 3 more paths
2 ajani vengeant = 2 garruk
4 BBE = 4 Baneslayer Angel
Any ideas?
A) As others have said, naya is R/G/W. If you aren't playing those colors, you aren't playing Naya. Nothing wrong with straight G/W, but this is not the forum for it.
B) Path does not replace Bolt. Path is better with dealing with big threats late game (e.g. opposing Baneslayer or KotR), Bolt is better for nuking early drops and burning them out. It's rarely good to path any deck in the early game, since you are ramping them and/or fixing their mana, whereas bolt shines in the early game.
C) Vengeant and Garruk are only similar in that they are planeswalkers. Garruk is fundamentally aggressive, Vengeant is more controllish.
D) Baneslayer and BBE are only similar in that they are powerful cards. Baneslayer is a super powerful threat that provides superior value if it sticks. Bloodbraid is powerful as well, but it's much harder for the opponent to mitigate the card advantage you get from a Bloodbraid. They also fit on different parts of the curve.
Finally, you lose the Sparkmage/Collar combo, which gives you such an advantage post-board against other green-white creature decks.
Again, it's fine to play straight green/white, but you're playing a different deck, so the discussion should go somewhere else.
People are getting smart. They'll harms way that ***** onto your threats.
And then you Sejiri Steppe whatever they hit with Harm's Way. Even if Harm's Way gets through, it's just a one-for-one trade (either they kill your Sparkmage or something else). No reason to stop playing Sparkmage because of one card that barely gets played and isn't that great against the combo anyway.
yes, but hes a TERRIBLE cascade.
If you have a Collar out there's not much more I would want to cascade into. Naya across the board doesn't have great cascades anyway.
A deck that plays 3 lightning bolts wants Knight over Thoctar. There's also not much to cut. If you cut Birds, t2 Thoctar becomes tough. Cutting Hierarch makes this a completely different deck. There's nothing else you can afford to cut without severely hurting the mid-game card advantage this deck can produce.
Ok i kinda agree with you there, though the main reasoning with the KotR attacking is the Hypothetical "Your Opponent is at 4 life, you have a 4/4 and a mageslayer, and your opponent has a Baneslayer". I think you might be right about it being a dead card too often, though I think I might do some testing to see if as a singleton it can have any impact against RUW control or any other decks with Wall.
Boss Naya is not really a deck that looks to force through damage quickly. Sometimes you do get a quick aggro draw, but you are much more concerned about establishing board position. Mage Slayer does nothing against Wall of Denial decks that Collar can't.
People who rage against net-decking seem to have this twisted view that winning Magic is a matter of having a good deck, sitting it down on the table, and watching it play itself. Of course while deck selection is critical for any event including FNM, you won't go very far without a thorough knowledge of your deck, it's strengths and weaknesses in your local metagame, how to sideboard against certain matchups, and generally how to manipulate the game state in your favor.
Not to mention that standard is a very small format relatively speaking. The current standard format is fairly well developed, and even if you are the Albert Einstein of deckbuilding, it's unlikely that you're going to find a viable archetype that hasn't already been discovered.
Personally, I would rather spend that time preparing with a deck I already know is viable. Since you know, some of us have jobs and/or school and can't spend 16 hours a day trying to be Conley Woods Jr.
Or, just play draft and it's not an issue! ("You netdecked that aggressive B/R build with Trusty Machete!")
Every mono-red Goblins deck in the link you posted plays Barbarian Ring, a card that depends on Threshold.
Also, if these players were running fetchlands for thinning purposes, why would they not run all 8 (R/B and R/G) maindeck to achieve maximum thinning? Not a single mono-colored list, other than your European list, ran more than 4, and that list was Threshold-heavy with 8 cards maindeck relying on the graveyard.
TBH, they are: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/worlds09/sndrdtop8decks
People arguing that decks like RDW should run only mountains as their manabase should go take their deck and go win some tournaments, if it is so clearly better than the alternative (note: the alternative which is what is currently winning, all the time). Or just get together both versions of the decks, one with fetches and one without, and match them up. I guarantee that the number of games the fetchland deck loses because of the 1-2 points lost while fetching will be less than the number of games won due to overall better and more consistent draws.
Every deck in that list that runs non-fixing fetches (Bant, Boros, White Tokens) has some sort of effect that fetches abuse - KotR/Emeria Angel for Bant, Lynx/Geopede for Boros, and Lynx for Tokens.
The only time I would ever consider running fetchlands for thinning only would be if I was playing a super-fast suicide deck that was guaranteed to be much, much faster than the rest of the meta - but then again, if such a deck was competitive, the life loss would certainly hurt you in the mirror match.
I think the title of this thread was a bit misleading, as the thinning is not a myth, it's just irrelevant the vast majority of the time.
This is an example of "you can't evaluate cards in a vacuum". You're right, "Dude Recall" (god can we get the real name soon) would be poor in many limited formats, ZZW included.
However, Rise of the Eldrazi looks to be a very slow format where board stalls will be fairly common. Add in the ubiquitous-ness of the Eldrazi Spawn tokens and I don't think it will be too hard to cast this at all. Plus it's only U to cast, so if you draw into your game changing spell, you can probably toss it right onto the board (as opposed to most draw 3 spells which generally spend most of your mana for the turn). Also note that the Eldrazi Spawn can still be sacced for mana after you tapped them for Dude Recall!
Also, even outside of limited, cards like these have utility. "Jump through a hoop, get a powerful effect" cards like this are often favorites among casual deckbuilders. It doesn't have to be tournament-playable to be useful.
And seriously, did people just expect Wizards to reprint Ancestral Recall? Possibly the most undercosted spell in the game's history, of course it needs to have a very significant additional cost associated with it. This is esp. true due to their track record of trying to print "fixed" versions of previously broken cards, e.g. Yawgmoth's Bargain, Lion's Eye Diamond.
If you have 6 other permanents to sacrifice. Even then, you know, you're down 6 permanents.
Protection from colored spells. Nighthawk is only a spell when it's on the stack, when it's on the battlefield it is considered a permanent.
Protection doesn't stop global destroy effects.
Also, you need the 4th Knight of the Reliquary. She makes the deck tick. With 4 Baneslayers I'm sure you can find a way to trade for one.
A) As others have said, naya is R/G/W. If you aren't playing those colors, you aren't playing Naya. Nothing wrong with straight G/W, but this is not the forum for it.
B) Path does not replace Bolt. Path is better with dealing with big threats late game (e.g. opposing Baneslayer or KotR), Bolt is better for nuking early drops and burning them out. It's rarely good to path any deck in the early game, since you are ramping them and/or fixing their mana, whereas bolt shines in the early game.
C) Vengeant and Garruk are only similar in that they are planeswalkers. Garruk is fundamentally aggressive, Vengeant is more controllish.
D) Baneslayer and BBE are only similar in that they are powerful cards. Baneslayer is a super powerful threat that provides superior value if it sticks. Bloodbraid is powerful as well, but it's much harder for the opponent to mitigate the card advantage you get from a Bloodbraid. They also fit on different parts of the curve.
Finally, you lose the Sparkmage/Collar combo, which gives you such an advantage post-board against other green-white creature decks.
Again, it's fine to play straight green/white, but you're playing a different deck, so the discussion should go somewhere else.
And then you Sejiri Steppe whatever they hit with Harm's Way. Even if Harm's Way gets through, it's just a one-for-one trade (either they kill your Sparkmage or something else). No reason to stop playing Sparkmage because of one card that barely gets played and isn't that great against the combo anyway.
If you have a Collar out there's not much more I would want to cascade into. Naya across the board doesn't have great cascades anyway.
Boss Naya is not really a deck that looks to force through damage quickly. Sometimes you do get a quick aggro draw, but you are much more concerned about establishing board position. Mage Slayer does nothing against Wall of Denial decks that Collar can't.
Not to mention that standard is a very small format relatively speaking. The current standard format is fairly well developed, and even if you are the Albert Einstein of deckbuilding, it's unlikely that you're going to find a viable archetype that hasn't already been discovered.
Personally, I would rather spend that time preparing with a deck I already know is viable. Since you know, some of us have jobs and/or school and can't spend 16 hours a day trying to be Conley Woods Jr.
Or, just play draft and it's not an issue! ("You netdecked that aggressive B/R build with Trusty Machete!")
Also, if these players were running fetchlands for thinning purposes, why would they not run all 8 (R/B and R/G) maindeck to achieve maximum thinning? Not a single mono-colored list, other than your European list, ran more than 4, and that list was Threshold-heavy with 8 cards maindeck relying on the graveyard.
Every deck in that list that runs non-fixing fetches (Bant, Boros, White Tokens) has some sort of effect that fetches abuse - KotR/Emeria Angel for Bant, Lynx/Geopede for Boros, and Lynx for Tokens.
The only time I would ever consider running fetchlands for thinning only would be if I was playing a super-fast suicide deck that was guaranteed to be much, much faster than the rest of the meta - but then again, if such a deck was competitive, the life loss would certainly hurt you in the mirror match.
I think the title of this thread was a bit misleading, as the thinning is not a myth, it's just irrelevant the vast majority of the time.