You can't trust the FFL, they're the same people that allowed Faeries, Jund, Caw-Blade, etc. out to ravage their respective standard environments. I've seen Encroaching Wastes once and that was in MTGO's Just for Fun room in a casual match where it wasn't even used. That was just a terrible choice.
To be fair, Jund was only dominant for the span of two sets (2010 and Zendikar). Once Jace came out, it was pick one: Elf or Jace. You know which Elf. But hell, things like Boros Bushwhacker were playable until Eldrazi Conscription busted Sovereigns of Lost Alara to hell and turned mythic from a rarity into a deck archetype. Faeries and Caw Blade were legitimate format-warpers, but Jund was just the biggest kid on the playground of Standard.
I think that Banisher Priest would be better if it was a 1/3 like Fiend Hunter, and I already have a bunch of Tectonic Edges, so who cares. For what its worth, I could see a Nykthos-centric deck running one as a singleton to blow up a Nykthos with,
I think it's more of the having to remember to tell the other person to gain life. It's often forgotten and what not.
I have the opposite problem when playing this deck on Cockatrice. Usually my cue to to gain life off the land is I'll point from the Grove to them. Most people get this, but sometimes I catch people trying to gain life for colorless mana added. I point when I'm adding colored mana, okay, and I never forget to point because I haven't had a game where I've tapped a Grove for colored more than five times. Seven fetchlands and eight-to-ten dorks means that you can usually get your green mana elsewhere, and rarely does a red mana from a Grove pay for something other than Kiki-Jiki, who tends to make the life-gain irrelevant.
The real reason Grove won't be reprinted in a Standard-legal set is it's just too good. The fact that there are both ways to mitigate the lifegain and ways to turn it into an advantage means it's too powerful for Type 2, as it was called in the days of yore. Also, they can't make a cycle of these because the ones that tap for blue would be downright busted.
So I bought the cards for my first draft of a decklist just to realise that it's downtime right now. What a bummer I'm really excited to try the deck. I ordered a singleton Glittering Wish too because it seems like a neat idea with Wheel of Sun and Moon, a Kitchen Finks and Fracturing Gust in the SB :>
I can't wait to durdle around a bit with my pile
P.S.: I decided to play no Groves and Noble Hierarchs for now, simply because those two cards are just insanely expensive. I hope that won't make the deck all that much worse.
It will. Grove of the Burnwillows is the best land in the deck, and while Hierarch isn't as crucial, exalted helps out the beatdown plan and its the best mana-dork for this deck next to BoP. Deathrite Shaman could be an alternative, but you really want your dork's mana-making to be 100% reliable. If you want a cheap, competitive Modern deck, play Affinity.
If you're getting screwed, you're probably not shuffling well enough to begin with. I'm a compulsive shuffler, and I rarely get the mana screw. Seriously, I get screwed more on Cockatrice than in real life.
No offense, but that kind of seems like a terrible reason to share information with everyone. It also sounds like you want people to doubt you, so you can rub it in their faces later. Nonetheless, I'm happy you chose to share this information with us, and I happen to believe you.
If it seems like it, that's probably because it probably is. In retrospect, the title, while being true, is also ironic. I wish I could say that was intentional. I just thought I'd share my information in a way that would set myself up for some potential future lulz.
I heard that the percentage of rare-spot cards that are mythics is 15/121. I guess that means that the rare sheet has 2 of every rare (2x53) and one of every mythic (1x15). This is almost 1/8.
How does this work for smaller sets? Dragon's maze had 11 mythics and and 35 rares. Does this mean that the mythic percentage is 11/81? This is somewhere between 1/8 and 1/7.
Dragon's Maze is unique in that one mythic was printed only on the land slot. Every 15th card from those packs was a Guildgate, a shockland, or a Maze's End. Outside of the foil sheet, there was no other way you were going to get a Maze's End. It would never be your rare for the pack. Therefore, a pack with a Maze's End will always have one rare and one mythic or two mythics, one of those cards being the End itself.
EvilDuck, I said this before but you ignored me, and until you answer I have no reason to believe you. I'll repost it below.
I didn't grill my source for every possible piece of information I could get so I don't have any answers to your questions. That's why I posted this in Speculation and not the Rumor Mill. The reason I didn't post it in BS is because I believe this source to be reliable. Honestly, I really don't care whether any of you believe me or not. I didn't post this to be hailed as a Rumor Mill hero, I posted it so that a few years from now, when (and if) what I've said has come to pass, I could post a link to this thread in my signature and be like "Haha, told you so". A lot of doubt here seems to be directed at me because people are speculating that the fetchlands will appear in a Standard-legal set soon. I say that's not happening because I've read multiple posts by MaRo stating that WotC doesn't like the "loading screen" fetchlands and other tutor effects create. If, and this is my own bit of speculation here, they print fetchlands in Standard again, it'll be in either Return to Zendikar or another set with landfall, as with that mechanic, there'd be something to make the loading screens worth it. In that case, the fetchlands reprinted would be the Onslaught fetchlands to make them Modern-legal, and the enemy lands would be man-lands a la Worldwake.
I'm not following the rest of the sheep I'm not into net decking.
If you're not into netdecking, then you should play truly original archetypes instead of sub-par versions of existing ones. What's that? You can't? Because T2's cardpool is so very small? Well, have fun losing to netdeckers.
The only way that Ashiok will ever be competitive in Modern is if control becomes more powerful as Ashiok shines best both in against control. The only top control deck is UWR, and they can win with damage far easier than with an Ashiok.
He's the most expensive card in Tron, which is one of Modern's "budget" decks. Chances are what happened is a lot of people got Christmas money, decided to make Tron, and thus Karn's shot up as a result. Wurmcoil's a bit more expensive too.
My guess that they will reprint the Zendikar fetches in Return to Zendikar which is already in their 6 year plan but still 4 years from now. Now they know that they need to reprint fetches sooner but if they put fetches into the next block it will steal the thunder of reprinting fetches in Return to Zendikar. So they decided to put it into Modern Masters 2. It will not be able to push the prices down much, but at least it will ease it a bit for another two years when Return to Zendikar will solve this problem.
Obviously the years are baseless speculation, just to demonstrate the point.
Return to Zendikar block can have the allied fetches to get them into Modern and that will conveniently allow for doing the enemy manlands in the block. Reprinting the fetches at rare in MM2 would do more to the prices than you'd think. The only card that really shot up after MM1 was Tarmogoyf.
Affinity is the best aggro deck in the format. It's only weakness is a vulnerability to hate, but quite a few top decks suffer from that, and Affinity has the resilience to power through. Cranial Plating is just ridiculous.
which, as far as I can tell, is the MO of this deck: great for the combo, but even if you arent assembling it, the cards are still mostly useful.
Knight has value as a fat body and allows for a toolbox of utility lands to be squeezed in. Minamo is less useful, as the only maindeck legends are Kiki and Linvala, but it does a better job of protecting the combo than Sejiri Steppe.
I've won a few games by getting a Frost Titan down the turn before or after Primeval Titan comes down. A couple
I only won by getting two Frost Titans down. Generally, they need two Primeval triggers to screw you, I've found, and being able to hold off one of those can make the difference. Everybody loves Wurmcoil Engine too (myself included). Oh, and being able to tap down an opposing Frost Titan is priceless and playing green means you'll be on the giving side of that more often. In this next couple of months we have of being beaten down by mythic 6/6s, the anti-6/6 is definitely one of the top 3 reasons to play blue IMO.
To be fair, Jund was only dominant for the span of two sets (2010 and Zendikar). Once Jace came out, it was pick one: Elf or Jace. You know which Elf. But hell, things like Boros Bushwhacker were playable until Eldrazi Conscription busted Sovereigns of Lost Alara to hell and turned mythic from a rarity into a deck archetype. Faeries and Caw Blade were legitimate format-warpers, but Jund was just the biggest kid on the playground of Standard.
I think that Banisher Priest would be better if it was a 1/3 like Fiend Hunter, and I already have a bunch of Tectonic Edges, so who cares. For what its worth, I could see a Nykthos-centric deck running one as a singleton to blow up a Nykthos with,
I have the opposite problem when playing this deck on Cockatrice. Usually my cue to to gain life off the land is I'll point from the Grove to them. Most people get this, but sometimes I catch people trying to gain life for colorless mana added. I point when I'm adding colored mana, okay, and I never forget to point because I haven't had a game where I've tapped a Grove for colored more than five times. Seven fetchlands and eight-to-ten dorks means that you can usually get your green mana elsewhere, and rarely does a red mana from a Grove pay for something other than Kiki-Jiki, who tends to make the life-gain irrelevant.
The real reason Grove won't be reprinted in a Standard-legal set is it's just too good. The fact that there are both ways to mitigate the lifegain and ways to turn it into an advantage means it's too powerful for Type 2, as it was called in the days of yore. Also, they can't make a cycle of these because the ones that tap for blue would be downright busted.
It will. Grove of the Burnwillows is the best land in the deck, and while Hierarch isn't as crucial, exalted helps out the beatdown plan and its the best mana-dork for this deck next to BoP. Deathrite Shaman could be an alternative, but you really want your dork's mana-making to be 100% reliable. If you want a cheap, competitive Modern deck, play Affinity.
Dragon's Maze is unique in that one mythic was printed only on the land slot. Every 15th card from those packs was a Guildgate, a shockland, or a Maze's End. Outside of the foil sheet, there was no other way you were going to get a Maze's End. It would never be your rare for the pack. Therefore, a pack with a Maze's End will always have one rare and one mythic or two mythics, one of those cards being the End itself.
I didn't grill my source for every possible piece of information I could get so I don't have any answers to your questions. That's why I posted this in Speculation and not the Rumor Mill. The reason I didn't post it in BS is because I believe this source to be reliable. Honestly, I really don't care whether any of you believe me or not. I didn't post this to be hailed as a Rumor Mill hero, I posted it so that a few years from now, when (and if) what I've said has come to pass, I could post a link to this thread in my signature and be like "Haha, told you so". A lot of doubt here seems to be directed at me because people are speculating that the fetchlands will appear in a Standard-legal set soon. I say that's not happening because I've read multiple posts by MaRo stating that WotC doesn't like the "loading screen" fetchlands and other tutor effects create. If, and this is my own bit of speculation here, they print fetchlands in Standard again, it'll be in either Return to Zendikar or another set with landfall, as with that mechanic, there'd be something to make the loading screens worth it. In that case, the fetchlands reprinted would be the Onslaught fetchlands to make them Modern-legal, and the enemy lands would be man-lands a la Worldwake.
If you're not into netdecking, then you should play truly original archetypes instead of sub-par versions of existing ones. What's that? You can't? Because T2's cardpool is so very small? Well, have fun losing to netdeckers.
Well, clearly you just know everything, don't you? Did your inside source tell you something different?
Return to Zendikar block can have the allied fetches to get them into Modern and that will conveniently allow for doing the enemy manlands in the block. Reprinting the fetches at rare in MM2 would do more to the prices than you'd think. The only card that really shot up after MM1 was Tarmogoyf.
Knight has value as a fat body and allows for a toolbox of utility lands to be squeezed in. Minamo is less useful, as the only maindeck legends are Kiki and Linvala, but it does a better job of protecting the combo than Sejiri Steppe.