MTG Salvation

Burning Inquiry is not a good card. Its a very much a circle discussion on this guy. It always seems like cool tech, people try it, it blows out some games for them, they think its amazing, then slowly but surely cut all copies due to being insanely inconstant.

Don't run it.

I'm pretty much waiting on 2 things to reeeealllllyy pick dredge back up:

1. A good graveyard thing to bump our powerlevel, or
2. Redeption codes for arena in packs.

2 will make me grind for codes weekly, so Id be back into the thick of meta gaming like I used to, and 1 would make me what to pick it back up again. Like IVG said, despair just doesnt do it for fast combo like storm or elves, and is 50-50 vs stuff like valakut. Its pretty close, but not perfect... now gimmie cabal theory, I'll show combo a thing or two.

Thanks for all the well wishes guys. I'm not leaving Mtgsal completely. You'll still see me posting at times, and I'm going to keep my EDH primer, the zoo primer, and dredge primer updated as it needs to... I just might be a little slower on it...

Ohhh. We get to pick my replacement on halloween. How fitting. Best mod team ever.

I know this is a totally weird brew, but it comes from a reliable source. thought yall might like it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ModernMagic/comments/743z4o/vengevine_zoo_recent_mtgo_and_fnm_data/

Formal and official announcement, I won't be a Mod here in 2 weeks time. I'll be here long enough to find someone to replace me, which you can apply here!

So with that formal announcement out of the way I get my 15 minutes of being sappy and sentimental. I'm sure some have you have noticed that I've been much less active lately on the forums. It has everything to do with jobs. I've been at MTGsal for 7 years and I've loved every second of it. I started here in college, and really did a lot of growing up.

So much so if you dive into the code... you'll find my user name is actually KidLantern... but I dropped the Kid part because I started to joke about becoming an all grown up Lantern. I've watched my user name go from Green Lantern jokes, to pumpkin, to a completely new archetype that people think I play now. Also.. I don't play Lantern.

I'm getting off track, but I am really attached to this place, so saying my semi goodbye got me a little emotional. The point I want to make is, ya'll helped me grow. In really real life I'm a movie and television producer, so no joke, even trying to manage uncooperative users has helped me in gain the tools to advance in my career.

And thats why I've had to step down. Its hard to move on from something so rooted in me as a person. Don't get me wrong, I'll still be around sometimes. And in a weird way, ya'll are likely still going to see my work a lot more now that I've been promoted to Executive Producer. I know the staff I've helped make here are the best people to help grow the modern community to reach ever greater heights. I'm thankful for them too, because I can rest assured that my leaving won't cause major disruptions.

At the end of the day, the community was the main draw for me. When I started, if you can believe it or not, Modern wasn't even what the format was called, and most of the player base thought it would die. It actually had quite a small following AND most stores refused to run the format. I started out here running tournaments online for Modern because people who wanted to play the format didn't have a store. I was genuinely worried the format would die.

But wow! Its an FMN format, has pros playing, and is one of the most popular things to do in magic. With huge scores of you all talking about it. I don't really think anything I did was that impressive. A drop in the bucket, but I still couldn't be prouder of the format, and the people who made it possible. So this is just a huge thank you to all of you for giving me a place to play and talk about the thing I love, and helping me get to where I am as a person.

Well... I guess thats really it! Anyone who reads my posts knows I'm always wordy as hell. So this isn't goodbye, Its just a see ya later and a thank you.

Quote from KeitMacheen »

Small Zoo/Burn Zoo 5-0'd a competitive league on the 10th pretty neat. Running the old Boros Charm Ghor-Clan combo.

Dat wombo combo can just destory the game at 4 mana if they are tapped out.

Goyfs you can play outside of zoo, which is worth mentioning.

Then thats spam, because rhis isnt the place for wizards of the coast management bashing.

This isnt the place.

Welp, that enough of format bashing. Its agasint the rules in this thread anyways. So back on track:


Is there any tier lists left? It seems like all of the user maintained ones were just abandoned.

I doubt it does much. Its 3/3 for 3 (already worse than most things) Evasion is nice. The ability doesnt get us there vs decks with few creatures, one big finisher, or no creatures.

Closest card in this set to being playable is Old-Growth Dryads. It doesnt matter if you give them a land if you kill them on the next turn, so it might be useable in bushwacker lists. Not so great if its a long game, so normal small or bigger zoos wont love it.

Deathgorge Scavenger Was almost perfect for us, if it did counters. A 4/3, attack for 5/4 would be extremely playable, while also having a valid life gain option.

Its a great answer to storm, but only storm. It wins the storm matchup

Quote from izzetmage »

5
None

4
Opt

3
Chart a Course (combo decks, not aggro decks)
Kopala, Warden of Waves (it's a 4 in Merfolk, but Merfolk is like a 2.5 in the meta)
Carnage Tyrant (SB for Valakut decks)

2
Ashes of the Abhorrent
Tocatli Honor Guard
Dive Down (beats spot removal and Anger)
Deathgorge Scavenger
Old-Growth Dryads
Growing Rites of Itlimoc
Sentinel Totem (worse than Relic/Spellbomb)
Sorcerous Spyglass (worse than Needle)
Field of Ruin
Unclaimed Territory

1
The rest

Reprints: Spell Pierce, Duress, checklands

This set is pretty lackluster. The first thought that went through my mind after reading the full spoiler was "wait, is this a small set? Why are there so few playable cards?"

This set has a bunch of cards that were quite literally created by the following process:
1) Take a random, existing card.
2) Bump its mana cost up by 1 or 2.
3) Make it create Treasure tokens equal to (or less than!) the mana increase.
The end result is an unexciting spell that you cast 1 turn late. It's like if Serra Avenger was a 2/2 without flying and vigilance. Eww.

Fact or Fiction section
UG Merfolk is a thing now - Fiction, adding green strains your mana too much. Lords cost double blue and Mutavault doesn't provide colored mana. The epitome of this mana screwery is a hand containing Cavern of Souls, Mutavault, Kumena's Speaker and a lord.

Dinosaurs is a thing now - Fiction, despite a Dinosaur Ancient Stirrings and two cost reducers . The payoff isn't there.

Opt is better than 1) Serum Visions, 2) Sleight of Hand - 1) Fiction, 2) Fiction (but only because of trichotomy). SV is the best; it digs deeper than the other two as long as you have an extra draw to make. I consider Opt to be approximately equal to Sleight of Hand, so that would technically be a "fiction" for 2). I don't think you can slam all 3 in a deck that isn't pure combo like Storm though - for one, people weren't already slamming 4 SV and 4 Sleight in their decks.
I think it could replace Spoils of the Vault in Ad Nauseam; Spoils is kinda like a high-variance cantrip that can range from tutoring the exact card that you need for just 1 mana, to killing yourself by life loss/exiling wincons. Opt is more consistent.

Format is card name, followed by number of decks found on mtgtop8. Disclaimer: mtgtop8 data includes MTGO League data, which is picked in a non-random manner by WotC.

Oketra's Last Mercy 3
Overwhelming Splendor 0
Solemnity 5
Steward of Solidarity 0
Sunscourge Champion 0
Countervailing Winds 0
Fraying Sanity 0
Kefnet's Last Word 1
Nimble Obstructionist 7
Riddleform 0
Strategic Planning 2
Striped Riverwinder 1
Supreme Will 12
Tragic Lesson 0
Ammit Eternal 0
Bontu's Last Reckoning 6
Doomfall 0
Dreamstealer 0
Liliana's Defeat 6
Lurching Rotbeast 0
Razaketh's Rite 0
Abrade 7
Crash Through 0
Firebrand Archer 0
Hazoret's Undying Fury 0
Hour of Devastation 2
Wildfire Eternal 0
Hour of Promise 31
Life Goes On 2
Pride Sovereign 0
Ramunap Excavator 22
Rhonas's Last Stand 0
Uncage the Menagerie 0
Bloodwater Entity 0
Samut, the Tested 0
Claim//Fame 20
Leave//Chance 1
Driven//Despair 9
God-Pharaoh's Gift 1
Hollow One 3
Hashep Oasis 0
Hostile Desert 1
Ifnir Deadlands 1
Ipnu Rivulet 0
Ramunap Ruins 0
Scavenger Grounds 11
Shefet Dunes 2

Confirmed: every block with gods is underpowered. Only 3 cards broke the 20-deck threshold, and one of those cards is Claim//Fame, which turned out to be much worse than the pre-release hype. The last recorded Claim//Fame deck on mtgtop8 dates back to 17/8, almost a month ago. Lesson learnt: don't pay 1 mana just to reanimate a 2 mana creature.

Hour of Promise is the most played HOU card by # of records on mtgtop8, but it's not quite a staple in Titanshift yet. Its adoption rate in that deck is 38.75%, and none of the Titanshift players who T32ed GP Birmingham played it (although GP Sao Paulo had more Hour devotees).

There's nothing left to say but how disappointing the other cards turned out. Burn has little to worry about Oketra's Last Mercy, Solemnity isn't a good combo, Fraying Sanity neither made dedicated mill nor the 2-card combo with Traumatize better, Nimble Obstructionist is nowhere near Vendilion Clique, Liliana's Defeat isn't worth the SB slot for GDS, Miracles is a pipe dream even with Bloodwater Entity, Hollow One isn't even tier 3 despite the press coverage, and every deck in Modern either plays too few fetches or is in too many colors for Hostile Desert.

RIP HOU, may you have more value than DGM in 5 years' time.

Dinosaurs are definitely not a thing. Being they are in naya colors, and represent a kind of stompy or "agressive midrange" area, its basically Zoo's field, and there is nothing here that makes Dinos better than zoo. No cheap threats (nacatl is a 3/3) no good mana ramp (Noble is the best aggressive mana ramp) and the cost reducers are great, they dont synergize well and wont be swinging for more than a point of damage or so.

The dinos would need to be absurd at 2-4 mana next set to make that work. As it is, dino fans just need to hope that theres a dino goyf or nacatl or something in the next set that bumps the playability of zoo or naya midrange.

As far as HOU Playability. Yeah, I thought claim might be good... but as I kept thinking about it, the only place that really is great is where you have the option of tutoring the card, thus making it a tool box spell. If the aftermath was reversed, or just different where the reanimate is the aftermath side, it would be a thousand times better. that way you can mill the effect while milling the toolbox to use from. Less work, more pay off, less raw power, more utility. But alas.

Driven doesnt have numbers behind it, but it is a 1 of in dredge now, and is played. Dredge isnt all that great right now, but its a very good 1 of, and in dredge it shows up in the yard more often than not. Its on par with stuff like rally, scourge devil and haunted dead.

On the play I prefer discard. On the draw I prefer destruction.

On the play If you miss the discard you can often go under it with a well placed looting or mom hug. On the draw you don't have that option, and you have less turns to get there. You can destroy easier on the draw too.