He exiled the one I targeted and said it was the only one in his deck. I didn't feel like calling the judge back to try to explain to him that there was no way he could only have one in his deck. He didn't play anymore if he was lying though.
It doesn't seem like it would matter anyway. His hand and library are hidden zones and he could have "failed to find" more Breeding Pools in the same way that a player is allowed to grab just two cards with Gifts Ungiven despite the outrageousness of the notion that their deck has less than four different cards left in it.
So, after a long hiatus, I'm getting back into Magic via Modern, and Modern via G(r)Tron. Presently I've got the budget for most everything but the Groves of the Burnwillows, and was wondering what people consider the "best" budget replacement for it. Culling this thread, I see the intuitive pick of Karplusan Forest is largely not advised due to life loss, but it still seems better than conditional ETB untapped options like Copperline Gorge or Rootbound Crag, as the former is only going to come down untapped if you don't go for a turn 3 Tron, and the latter does not have the basic land count it needs to work. Stomping Ground isn't much of a budget option and seems like it'll probably end up doing about as much damage as Karplusan Forest over the course of a game.
Thoughts? Any notable omissions? I really want to get going on this deck.
If my opponent casts Bloodbraid Elf and flips a Lightning Bolt while Thalia, Guardian of Thraben is on the board, do they need to pay one colorless mana to cast it, or does the "cast it without paying its mana cost" override the one mana tax?
So I've heard about the Iona, Shield of Emeria + Unburial Rites + Gifts Ungiven package before, in which you fail to find the last two cards for Gifts to force your opponent into allowing you to effectively Reanimate Iona for 3W. Can something similar be pulled with Intuition? If I grab one or two cards, and then fail to find a second or third, do the remaining cards automatically go to my graveyard?
I wanted to build UWB Stoneblade but I still miss the Underground Seas, Polluted Deltas and only have one Jace. So I thought about keeping my mana base (I already have 4 Flooded Strand and 2 Tundra and 4 Counterbalance) and building a CounterTop deck with Thopter Foundry. Is such a deck fun to play and has it chances at tournaments?
This may not be precisely the answer you're looking for, but have you considered/do you have the money to try to build UWB Stoneblade with Marsh Flats and Scrublands rather than Polluted Deltas and Underground Seas? The overall cost would probably be about a third (definitely less than half) to acquire the W/B rather than the U/B lands, and I'm sure that since you already have the Strands and Tundras you could tweak the manabase to work anyway. A quick look at the ThopterBalance thread reveals that most lists seem to run Underground Sea as well.
Howlgeist. I got an otherwise very underwhelming creature pool power-wise, mostly small-body utility guys like Borderland Ranger and Mist Raven. Those are both still fantastic cards, but I think the 'Geist was probably blockable three times throughout the entire day, and many a game went by with him having swung for 20 by the end.
Triumph of Ferocity probably would've been if I'd just drawn it more times. Every time I played it and my opponent didn't immediately have Enchantment hate, I won. Just won. Howlgeist/Nettleswine + that usually netted me an extra 4 or 5 draws a game.
If you blink the Conscripts during the opponent's end step you'll get to keep the creature until the beginning of the next end step--yours--and then can just order the triggers so that Conjurer's Closet goes into effect first, negating the "lose control" trigger.
No matter how good or popular a Standard rare is, there are enough of them floating around at a given time to keep them tied pretty close to the $20 mark. Stoneforge Mystic and Snapcaster Mage--both incontestably dominant cards--have been/were barely capable of peaking at much more than $20. The Shocklands will certainly be pretty expensive during spoiler season and the first month or so after the set simply due to lack of supply, but after that I can't see any but the best of them pushing much more than Snapcaster and Stoneforge did.
The caveat I would have to bakgat's otherwise very shrewd post would be that the set does have a sub-theme of rewarding having precisely one creature in play. I wouldn't be surprised if somebody gets a pool that can curve its Fettergeist or Demonic Taskmaster into Into the Void into Homicidal Seclusion and ride its 6/5 Flying Lifelink to victory. Yes, those are all uncommons, and its kind of a nut play, but it can't hurt to be aware that R&D built an exception into the normal Limited mentality into the set.
The problem with saying that the card "looks like a rape" is the implication of intention. Whether or not you need to go out of your way to see the image as one of rape isn't the issue; the issue is that by denying the possibility of it being anything else, you imply that it was put there on purpose.
Example--Kate Millett can say whatever she wants about her opinion on the relationship between men and women. It's her opinion, and as such can't really be inherently harmful or helpful. But when she uses her perception of James Joyce's singular fixation “of presenting woman as ‘nature’ ‘unspoiled primeval understanding,’ and the ‘eternal feminine’” to back up the notion that men are trying to reinforce patriarchal values, then I get pissed. Not only because it was wrong--Joyce was probably behind only Shakespeare in terms of English literary brilliance, and his realistic portrayal of women was one of only many among his accomplishments--but because it implied he went out of his way to do so.
It reduces everything else going on to the singularity of the issue, because you write in the subtext that the issue itself was at hand in the artist's mind. By saying that there's a rape subtext going on in Triumph of Ferocity, you disavow the more plausible explanation that the perspective of the card simply dictated that be where Garruk's leg is (seriously, would it make sense for both of Liliana's legs to be to one side?), making the issue one of gender when in all likeliness the issue is simply not there.
Rose-tinted glasses, in my opinion. There have always been things like Tundra Kavu. The quality of flavor text seems pretty prone to random variance in quality; it isn't really intrinsic to the design of the set, so there's nothing stopping it from being exceedingly good one time and exceedingly bad another. I wouldn't be surprised if RTR brings back superb flavor text.
Sidebar: I was trying to find an example of bad flavor text in Beta, but gave up after the fourth quotation from Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Anybody else ever notice the man was used as a ton of flavor texts way back when?
RUG Tempo used Ice Beam on enemy Maverick!
Enemy Maverick fainted!
Opponent switched in W/U Stoneblade.
RUG Tempo used Thunderbolt on enemy Stoneblade!
Enemy Stoneblade fainted!
It doesn't seem like it would matter anyway. His hand and library are hidden zones and he could have "failed to find" more Breeding Pools in the same way that a player is allowed to grab just two cards with Gifts Ungiven despite the outrageousness of the notion that their deck has less than four different cards left in it.
Thoughts? Any notable omissions? I really want to get going on this deck.
If my opponent casts Bloodbraid Elf and flips a Lightning Bolt while Thalia, Guardian of Thraben is on the board, do they need to pay one colorless mana to cast it, or does the "cast it without paying its mana cost" override the one mana tax?
This may not be precisely the answer you're looking for, but have you considered/do you have the money to try to build UWB Stoneblade with Marsh Flats and Scrublands rather than Polluted Deltas and Underground Seas? The overall cost would probably be about a third (definitely less than half) to acquire the W/B rather than the U/B lands, and I'm sure that since you already have the Strands and Tundras you could tweak the manabase to work anyway. A quick look at the ThopterBalance thread reveals that most lists seem to run Underground Sea as well.
Triumph of Ferocity probably would've been if I'd just drawn it more times. Every time I played it and my opponent didn't immediately have Enchantment hate, I won. Just won. Howlgeist/Nettleswine + that usually netted me an extra 4 or 5 draws a game.
If you blink the Conscripts during the opponent's end step you'll get to keep the creature until the beginning of the next end step--yours--and then can just order the triggers so that Conjurer's Closet goes into effect first, negating the "lose control" trigger.Well doesn't I feel a damn fool.
Example--Kate Millett can say whatever she wants about her opinion on the relationship between men and women. It's her opinion, and as such can't really be inherently harmful or helpful. But when she uses her perception of James Joyce's singular fixation “of presenting woman as ‘nature’ ‘unspoiled primeval understanding,’ and the ‘eternal feminine’” to back up the notion that men are trying to reinforce patriarchal values, then I get pissed. Not only because it was wrong--Joyce was probably behind only Shakespeare in terms of English literary brilliance, and his realistic portrayal of women was one of only many among his accomplishments--but because it implied he went out of his way to do so.
It reduces everything else going on to the singularity of the issue, because you write in the subtext that the issue itself was at hand in the artist's mind. By saying that there's a rape subtext going on in Triumph of Ferocity, you disavow the more plausible explanation that the perspective of the card simply dictated that be where Garruk's leg is (seriously, would it make sense for both of Liliana's legs to be to one side?), making the issue one of gender when in all likeliness the issue is simply not there.
Sidebar: I was trying to find an example of bad flavor text in Beta, but gave up after the fourth quotation from Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Anybody else ever notice the man was used as a ton of flavor texts way back when?
Enemy Maverick fainted!
Opponent switched in W/U Stoneblade.
RUG Tempo used Thunderbolt on enemy Stoneblade!
Enemy Stoneblade fainted!