As someone who pulled Necropotence out of a Drana deck, I think this argument is bogus. My playgroup was to the point of pre-emptively Mindslavering me every game, hoping I'd be holding Necro, or a way to get Necro, and thereby kill myself. What good card should I be running that will stop someone with from auto-killing me just because he can?
Necropotence should be in literally every black deck that isn't intentionally playing to a lower power level. (And it's not even an expensive card, so no excuse there.) Sorry, Green and Blue don't have better card draw than Black (not to mention tutors). Necro is a big part of that, it's the best draw engine in the format (possibly ever) as evidenced by its only two analogs (Griselbrand and Bargain) both being banned. No other draw spell, that isn't symmetrical, is a 100% guaranteed hand refill and then some.
I personally think it's better than Bargain and should be the one banned between the two. While that isn't the popular opinion, I feel Necro's drawbacks are worth the massive drop in CMC. It's much faster than Bargain if you're not cheating them into play off a Rector.
And while it's better than Arena, most black decks should use both anyway. Arena can be a better early drop since it's easier to cast in multicolor decks and doesn't cut off your natural draw for the turn. *shrug*
We do know remand won't be in a standard legal set. It's not because of price. It's because of power level:
After all, there are all kinds of spells that we would never print nowadays that ran rampant in old environments, such as Compulsive Research, Force Spike, Remand, 'Signets,' etc."
That article never fails to make me laugh. Mana Leak is too good, not the 2/1 flash creature who enables it to be reused... or any other spell in your graveyard. Not the 3/2 flier for either. They're creatures so it's ok for them to be overpowered I guess.
Not to mention they have printed signets (two-drop mana rocks) fairly recently, not since the article was published but Everflowing Chalice was as recent as Worldwake, Sphere of the Suns in Mirrodin Besieged, not to mention Mox Opal's potential. I doubt they came to the conclusion "signets are too powerful" between Sphere of the Suns' printing and that article being written.
And I don't think Wizards is putting cards in Standard simply to alleviate prices on the secondary market, not without making a special new set (ala Modern Masters) they can gouge us for that isn't Standard-legal. "Hmm, Tarmogoyf is pretty expensive. Let's put it in Theros, guys!"
Raven's Crime, particularly if you have ways to fill up on land cards to keep recasting it, can dump a big chunk of hand to eat lands if that's your thing.
You guys should really post in the tezzerator thread. Essentially the same thread but, has been around much longerand has a lot of valuable information. Also why green? I really don't see abrupt decay being the biggest game changer.
I'd like to add that the best card any tezz deck can run right now is blood moon. You can main deck it. Fetch basics and have a Ton of signets / talismans for all your fixing. It hoses half the deck is the format, if not more than half.
To me it seemed the Tezzerator thread was more focused on Tezzeret the Seeker-based decks. I see more recently people have started posting AoB lists but that's why I started posting in this thread instead, at least.
I weighed the pros and cons of splashing. Green seems to be a splash to me simply to answer Artifacts/Enchants, which :symu::symb: has trouble handling. Abrupt Decay answers most everything you'd want in that regard, can't be countered (e.g. eats Pestermite/Exarch in the Twin matchup), also removes dudes if you need it. I'm not sure Decay is the best card for the job but it's definitely one of the finalists, so to speak. Ancient Stirrings is the only other thing you get out of it.
I'd almost rather splash White for Esper Charm and perhaps Tidehollow Sculler. Esper Charm only answering Enchants is fine by me, since Tezz can always animate Artifacts for you to kill with creature removal (which Black has plenty of) if they ever become too big a problem, the draw/discard modes basically make it Stirrings stapled onto an answer card. Sculler is gravy on top. I don't think it's worth running red just to splash Blood Moon but that's just my opinion. Also any splash can get you 3+ on Engineered Explosives but if you run Citadel in a two-color list, Glimmervoid is a pretty safe tag-along and can net you colors if you want. Ratchet Bomb is almost equally good anyway.
Even so, I kinda feel keeping it two colors is probably correct because that allows for more colorless lands, lands which have to serve as the source of your third color when you splash. There really aren't that many things you can't answer in UB anyway. Stony Silence is the big one, being Enchantment rather than Artifact, as Tezz can at least animate Damping Matrix for removal. (It also costs 1 more and doesn't turn off signets.) Kataki dies to removal, Artifact sweepers can only be answered by counterspells which are already in-color, and EE/RB beat everything else.
When I looked at the perks of splashing versus :symr:, I do think there are overall more potentially viable Black options but everyone else is already doing it, so I just wanted to try going the other way just to see maybe if it didn't turn out better after all. Helix and Stronghold have proven quite strong but Ajani has been surprisingly mediocre and Boros Charm is mostly a big Lava Spike. Occasionally it's a combat trick at 29 life to turn Ascendant on for the second swing. ;[ Better than Black? Well I haven't played the Black splash, just as most probably haven't tried Red, but probably not. Stronghold is way better than Vault, though.
Buy hey, you're not going to "control" a Tron deck. Sorry man, ain't happening. Sometimes you gotta play the beatdown and being able to burn face is pretty helpful at speeding up a game.
Dimir Signet also filters colorless mana in general. Gives you a little more freedom with the manabase, if you want, and it absolutely laughs at Blood Moon.
Mana rock preferences? I think the only requirement is that they cost so as to enable T3 Tezz. I was always partial to Everflowing Chalice because I loved it with Proliferate through Standard, doesn't hurt either that you can cast it for 2-3 midgame either to accelerate into bombs. It's fetchable with Trinket Mage if you're already using that. Mind Stone cycles itself out lategame. Dimir Signet seems to obsolete all other colored options, though. Mox Opal is too sketchy early and mana cyclers don't actually accelerate.
Everyone else seems to be running some number of Ensnaring Bridge. I really don't like that card since it basically shuts off Tezz's -1. Incidentally, forcing him to +1 all the time should keep your hand well-stocked and thus Bridge ineffective.
I dunno, lots of other modern decks opt for ghost quarter instead of tec edge. One thing i like is that it is free to activate. Sometimes this can be relevant when you need your mana for other stuff early game. Also, the interaction with citadel is better than you'd think. With so many colorless lands sometimes fetching a basic like that can save you. With crucible, it becomes a way to expand your mana base, not only fix it. In one game i only had those 2 lands + another colorless (and no mana fixing cantrips). Crucible allowed me to fetch a basic each turn. I ended up with +4 basics 4 turns later while not having drawn another land in the entire game. And citadel can be sac fodder. With crucible you get a recurring free artifact to feed your engines.
Yeah, the lack of additional mana cost to activate Ghost Quarter is probably the biggest (almost only) advantage over Tec Edge. It's a bias of mine but I really just don't like the card unless you're abusing White's anti-search hatebears. Breaking up a natural Tron is cool but otherwise GQ tends to do more harm than good since the user is the one losing mana, not the target. Otherwise it's only good lategame for taking out man/utility lands, which Tec Edge still does just as well.
As far as colorfixing is concerned, UB has a gajillion duals and Green splash gets both on-color fetches. Half of our spells are colorless. Dimir Signet as mentioned. There's just not really a need for the GQ-Citadel trick unless like you're still gonna run Inkmoth/Ruin[s] too and have a majority colorless manabase... Actually, that's kind of a cool idea but I'd rather keep Tar Pit viable than have an excuse to run GQ alongside my Inkmoth.
Ruin never let me down, it puts the card in your hand rather than on top. This is a huge difference. It becomes card advantage with crucible. This was initially a way to compensate flooding and it turned out quite good.
Oh I can appreciate the going-to-hand part. But you have to sacrifice the land to do it, so both are neutral-value plays. Both tap for colorless, both activate for two mana. The difference is that Academy Ruins can be used repeatedly when necessary, Buried Ruin can't without jumping through hoops. Crucible is a pretty meh card when you're playing fair with it.
I do not like Bonfire of the Damned... because I think it is highly overrated. While the Miracle is strong, it's pretty bad as a hardcast. (Unlike say Terminus which is only slightly overpriced as a hardcast.) I too think Mizzium Mortars is also a better card, since the Overload is roughly equivalent to Bonfire's Miracle but it's also perfectly good targeted removal for :1mana::symr:.
Before Scars rotation, I tried out Bonfire originally and largely went back to playing Slagstorm. Because sweeping for 1 on Turn 3 isn't cool.
In my experience playing Teysa, the Duel format is fast enough that I needed to add Damnation to my list rather than relying on sixers like Terminus and Merciless Eviction to sweep the board. Not because I don't have six mana to cast the latter cards but because I don't have 8-9 to cast them after tutoring them up, heh.
The best part of staying two colors is that you get to run more colorless lands. Ultimately, I figure it more effective than splashing just for the sake of having answers to SB Stony Silence, the only hate card worth worrying about. Even its cousin Damping Matrix can be animated by Tezz and killed with creature removal. (And it's slightly less harsh to begin with, costing more and leaving mana rocks on.) Ratchet Bomb / Engineered Explosives answer everything else short of Shatterstorm and friends, where a third color won't help anyway.
But Ghost Quarter is a rather lame use of colorless land slots, no? The interaction with Citadel is cute but entirely unnecessary for colorfixing, whether you're splashing or not, and it isn't that good against Tron. At least be a man and use Tectonic Edge, which still sometimes sucks against Tron but doesn't leave you -1 against anybody smart enough to run basics. Buried Ruin is a little better but redundant with and arguably worse than Academy Ruins. Why do you guys hate Inkmoth again? Sometimes it's the safest way to grind out control decks. It's the fastest clock available against ol' non-interactive Tron, for all the whining in here done about that deck. It's also a flying (infect) blocker for and ignores lifegain when swinging for victory.
Thragtusk makes me want to punch babies with its leaves-the-battlefield trigger. No, not a dies trigger, a LTB one. I can't break even with it like I can VoR with exile effects or particular GY hate (e.g. Rest in Peace), it's fairly difficult to block with things not named Aetherling (which costs more). Meanwhile you also can't bounce it and it's getting blinked by Resto Angel and reuwrhjsdlfsffhdsfhdsfksfu WHY
All the while making it that much more of a PITA to actually kill the opponent with direct damage, or swarming, because oh hey it has ETB lifegain too.
You know, I was thinking... If Block performance was such a factor in pushing Shaman to two toughness, why didn't they make it an 0/2 critter? At least then I could kill it with Inside Out for profit.
The thing about Fetches into Shocks is that gives you access to every color, untapped. It's that level of versatility that makes them the crux of most manabases and also what makes otherwise "greedy" manabases extremely workable (if not punishable by land hate).
Reflecting Pool is severely underplayed, though generally not necessary in two-color decks since there's so many kinds of dual lands you could use instead. City of Brass too, really. It accesses all five colors at all times, rather than simply before you crack that Fetch (after which it only provides the two colors you grabbed), and hell it's four uses before it even surpasses Fetch into untapped Shock in terms of self-damage. Interestingly, Gemstone Mine sees plenty of play (for good reason) but it's about the only one of its type that does.
Pithing Needle, Null Rod, Damping Matrix, etc.
And, well, obviously if you're playing other colors...
I personally think it's better than Bargain and should be the one banned between the two. While that isn't the popular opinion, I feel Necro's drawbacks are worth the massive drop in CMC. It's much faster than Bargain if you're not cheating them into play off a Rector.
And while it's better than Arena, most black decks should use both anyway. Arena can be a better early drop since it's easier to cast in multicolor decks and doesn't cut off your natural draw for the turn. *shrug*
That article never fails to make me laugh. Mana Leak is too good, not the 2/1 flash creature who enables it to be reused... or any other spell in your graveyard. Not the 3/2 flier for
Not to mention they have printed signets (two-drop mana rocks) fairly recently, not since the article was published but Everflowing Chalice was as recent as Worldwake, Sphere of the Suns in Mirrodin Besieged, not to mention Mox Opal's potential. I doubt they came to the conclusion "signets are too powerful" between Sphere of the Suns' printing and that article being written.
And I don't think Wizards is putting cards in Standard simply to alleviate prices on the secondary market, not without making a special new set (ala Modern Masters) they can gouge us for that isn't Standard-legal. "Hmm, Tarmogoyf is pretty expensive. Let's put it in Theros, guys!"
To me it seemed the Tezzerator thread was more focused on Tezzeret the Seeker-based decks. I see more recently people have started posting AoB lists but that's why I started posting in this thread instead, at least.
I weighed the pros and cons of splashing. Green seems to be a splash to me simply to answer Artifacts/Enchants, which :symu::symb: has trouble handling. Abrupt Decay answers most everything you'd want in that regard, can't be countered (e.g. eats Pestermite/Exarch in the Twin matchup), also removes dudes if you need it. I'm not sure Decay is the best card for the job but it's definitely one of the finalists, so to speak. Ancient Stirrings is the only other thing you get out of it.
I'd almost rather splash White for Esper Charm and perhaps Tidehollow Sculler. Esper Charm only answering Enchants is fine by me, since Tezz can always animate Artifacts for you to kill with creature removal (which Black has plenty of) if they ever become too big a problem, the draw/discard modes basically make it Stirrings stapled onto an answer card. Sculler is gravy on top. I don't think it's worth running red just to splash Blood Moon but that's just my opinion. Also any splash can get you 3+ on Engineered Explosives but if you run Citadel in a two-color list, Glimmervoid is a pretty safe tag-along and can net you colors if you want. Ratchet Bomb is almost equally good anyway.
Even so, I kinda feel keeping it two colors is probably correct because that allows for more colorless lands, lands which have to serve as the source of your third color when you splash. There really aren't that many things you can't answer in UB anyway. Stony Silence is the big one, being Enchantment rather than Artifact, as Tezz can at least animate Damping Matrix for removal. (It also costs 1 more and doesn't turn off signets.) Kataki dies to removal, Artifact sweepers can only be answered by counterspells which are already in-color, and EE/RB beat everything else.
Buy hey, you're not going to "control" a Tron deck. Sorry man, ain't happening. Sometimes you gotta play the beatdown and being able to burn face is pretty helpful at speeding up a game.
Mana rock preferences? I think the only requirement is that they cost
Everyone else seems to be running some number of Ensnaring Bridge. I really don't like that card since it basically shuts off Tezz's -1. Incidentally, forcing him to +1 all the time should keep your hand well-stocked and thus Bridge ineffective.
Yeah, the lack of additional mana cost to activate Ghost Quarter is probably the biggest (almost only) advantage over Tec Edge. It's a bias of mine but I really just don't like the card unless you're abusing White's anti-search hatebears. Breaking up a natural Tron is cool but otherwise GQ tends to do more harm than good since the user is the one losing mana, not the target. Otherwise it's only good lategame for taking out man/utility lands, which Tec Edge still does just as well.
As far as colorfixing is concerned, UB has a gajillion duals and Green splash gets both on-color fetches. Half of our spells are colorless. Dimir Signet as mentioned. There's just not really a need for the GQ-Citadel trick unless like you're still gonna run Inkmoth/Ruin[s] too and have a majority colorless manabase... Actually, that's kind of a cool idea but I'd rather keep Tar Pit viable than have an excuse to run GQ alongside my Inkmoth.
Oh I can appreciate the going-to-hand part. But you have to sacrifice the land to do it, so both are neutral-value plays. Both tap for colorless, both activate for two mana. The difference is that Academy Ruins can be used repeatedly when necessary, Buried Ruin can't without jumping through hoops. Crucible is a pretty meh card when you're playing fair with it.
Before Scars rotation, I tried out Bonfire originally and largely went back to playing Slagstorm.
But Ghost Quarter is a rather lame use of colorless land slots, no? The interaction with Citadel is cute but entirely unnecessary for colorfixing, whether you're splashing or not, and it isn't that good against Tron. At least be a man and use Tectonic Edge, which still sometimes sucks against Tron but doesn't leave you -1 against anybody smart enough to run basics. Buried Ruin is a little better but redundant with and arguably worse than Academy Ruins. Why do you guys hate Inkmoth again? Sometimes it's the safest way to grind out control decks. It's the fastest clock available against ol' non-interactive Tron, for all the whining in here done about that deck. It's also a flying (infect) blocker for
Game ended too quickly for me to feel bad about it, we were just like oh well I win play again.
All the while making it that much more of a PITA to actually kill the opponent with direct damage, or swarming, because oh hey it has ETB lifegain too.
Reflecting Pool is severely underplayed, though generally not necessary in two-color decks since there's so many kinds of dual lands you could use instead. City of Brass too, really. It accesses all five colors at all times, rather than simply before you crack that Fetch (after which it only provides the two colors you grabbed), and hell it's four uses before it even surpasses Fetch into untapped Shock in terms of self-damage. Interestingly, Gemstone Mine sees plenty of play (for good reason) but it's about the only one of its type that does.