MTG Salvation

Examples cards I've found in M14 with sweet, sweet flavor text:
Pillarfield Ox: The best part about Pillarfield Ox's flavor text is the continuation of it.
It starts with Zendikar: These stubborn and unpredictable oxen inspire the plains nomads' most colorful curses;
...continues with M13: "May starving fleas birth a thousand generations on your stubborn hide, cow!" —Bruse Tarl, Goma Fada nomad;
...and keeps continuing with M14: "You old, immobile clod! If I could stuff your doltish head with knowledge; I'd do it just so someone else could fully comprehend what your stubbornness has cost me!"-Bruse Tarl, Goma Fada nomad. I look forward to the reading more of the nomad's curses.

Lava Axe: Arguably not as good as some iterations of previous versions of the card's flavor text, I think you'll agree that this one is "strictly better". A strict upgrade over the cinder hatchet.

Spell Blast continues the trend of cool text on counterspells. "Perhaps you could try throwing a rock? That might be better suited to your intellect."

I've found that I enjoy some of the new sliver flavor texts. For example, Steelform Sliver says: "Though the slivers may sometimes resemble us, they are not human. Anyone who fights them must remember this."-Sarlena, paladin of the Northern Verge; and Predatory Sliver has: No matter how much the slivers change, their collective might remains. The first directly mentions the new sliver appearance on a card; the second brings to mind sliver decks of old while mentioning the changes slivers have seen in this set.

I enjoyed the set of cards- both old and new- with planeswalker quotes on them. Extra points to reprints getting new text. Planeswalkers we haven't seen printed in a while (or at all like Dack) getting quotes on cards is neat. My biggest gripe about planeswalkers is that the planeswalker cards don't get flavor text; this is a good way of giving the walkers an identity.

Against Tron, you've probably lost the game if they play a creature, unless that creature is Spellskite. Most Tron decks also lack targeted removal. Keeping this in mind, it is entirely possible to go big with a Kor Spiritdancer and kill them while drawing cards and playing your sweet, sweet disruption like Stony Silence and Suppression Field. Also, Suppression Field is amazing. Absolutely find room for it. Bear in mind with the Spiritdancer that you cannot cast it without putting an Aura on it the same turn lest you lose your guy to Pyroclasm. You might even want to add another Spiritdancer to your maindeck, that's how many I play and it seems to be the right amount.

Keen Sense is great against them (no blockers) and in general. Keen Sense lets you keep "ok" hands. Against Tron, you get to draw a card every turn. Try and keep it in.

I'm not a fan of the lifelink-type auras at all. I'd much rather have that card slot a. make Bogle hurt more b. keep Bogle alive more c. not be dead against a non-aggressive opponent. Outside of the red aggressive decks, you've probably got your opponent on a faster clock anyway.



My personal board plan against Tron is:

-4 Spirit Mantle
-1 Path To Exile

+3 Stony Silence
+2 Suppression Field

However, this board and deck are all pre-banning. I haven't taken the time to consider changing my board to reflect the Eggs banning, so it's subject to change.

You can find my deck/sideboard as it was when I last played it here.

Quote from Wanderer_88

Hi guys. I am quite new to this forum, however, I have been monotoring the bogle modern deck for some time. I am contemplating getting in to modern, and I have taken an interest in this deck. I wanted to ask those of you who have some experience playing with this deck: how do you feel that is situated as opposed to other modern decks at the moment? Does bogle perform well?
I know the deck can have a hard time if the hate towards it is sufficient enough (back to nature, tempest of light, Lilliana etc), but I do believe that there are ways around it; rethether, noble hierarch and arbor to counter lilliana + other stuff I haven't mentioned. It seems like the activity in this thread has died somewhat over the last weeks, and I wanted to hear if there is anyone still putting up some decent results with this deck?

I top 4'd a PTQ last weekend, where the only enchantment hate I ever really saw was Golgari Charm/Echoing Truth. My impression is that paper players are not respecting the deck at all, and as such, aren't putting cards in sideboards to hate on it. You probably don't need Rethether.

Lilliana is and will always be played in Modern, she's just so good. She's not being played to hate on us, but you still need to be prepared to play against her all the same. Targeted discard is equally bad for us, because we're basically a combo deck. Losing a key combo piece- like a Bogle or Ethereal Armor/Rancor/Daybreak Coronet is really bad for this deck. You must be prepared to beat these strategies in games 2 & 3, which is why I play 4 Leyline of Sanctity.

In summary: Players aren't respecting the deck and aren't playing hate cards. Players and pros alike refer to the deck as "that stupid deck". Take advantage of this, play smart and win.

Someone asked for my list from PTQ Plano, TX that top 4'd in the results thread.



Things that helped me Top 4:
You cannot keep hands (that have more then 5 cards) that do not have a turn 1 Bogle and some sort of enchantment to put on him the next turn. Keen Sense lets you cheat a lot with this rule by drawing you into good enchantments. 4 land, Ethereal Armor, Bogle and Keen Sense is a great hand to keep. Never, ever expect to actually enchant a Noble or Spiritdancer in a game and connect with it. It's modern, unless your opponent is playing combo, they have removal.

You can enchant your opponents creatures with Spirit Mantle. If Splintertwin gets cute on your upkeep with a flashed Exarch, enchant it with Spirit Mantle and shut off his combo.

When playing against black decks, they will have a turn 3 Lilliana. Either play a second Bogle or have a fetchland sitting back so you don't have to sac your enchanted creature.

It might not seem obvious, but bring in Nature's Claim(/or other enchantment hate you can cast for G) against Mono-red and other decks that might conceivably play Blood Moon. And fetch your Forest at your earliest convenience, making sure you can still cast Daybreak Coronet when you need to. Do this because you will quickly lose to a Blood Moon.

Any deck that plays Lightning Bolt or Inquisition/Thoughseize/Lilliana are good decks to bring in Leylines for. Even UWR Control.

Suppression Field shuts down a lot of decks effects. Deathrite Shaman, Planeswalkers, and deceiver exarchs enchanted with Splintertwin are some good examples. Very good sideboard card.

Spoiled by LSV on channelfireball.com.

Just went 4-0 in a Standard tourney with the above list. Beat Epic Experiment (spoiler alert: not actually a deck), RDW (thragtusk, huntmaster, and better creatures get there), Grixis and Bant Geist.

The first two matches weren't terribly even. RDW got me low a few times, but the creature quality in this deck outpaces RDW's creature and spell quality.

Grixis gave me some trouble, but honestly, his deck felt like Jund trading Greens sweet Huntmasters, Farseeks and Thragtusks, all cards I'd never cut, for Blue planeswalkers like Tamiyo and Jace (which he didn't have) and durdle stuff like Think Twice and Forbidden Alchemy. Rakdos's Return crushed him. Getting a two for one between his hand and his planeswalker is sweet. The sideboard Sever the Bloodlines worked well at killing his creature win conditions, especially because he played so few. Keyrune was great as a way to survive his sweepers and still do damage the next turn.

I've managed to test against this Bant list in the past, and it's not fun. The decks plan was to play a creature like St. Traft or Loxodon Smiter and suit it up with Rancor, then bash. Use charms to keep the creature alive, and when it died, play another one and cast Rancor. This matchup was really up to who drew better almost. Golgari Charm from the sideboard was decent for its regen, letting me block creatures and still keep mine around. Never did see an enchantment worth blowing up. Bonfire was decent at killing Geists, and I never actually drew a Mortars against him. I took Garruk and 2 Pillars out against him for 2 Golgari Charms and 2 Blasphemous Acts.

Regarding the discussion between Farseek, Borderland Ranger and Rakdos Keyrune: I've been playing all three of them for some time now, and have no complaints. Ranger feels like drawing a card, Farseek is invaluable for getting to 4 turn 3, both of them fix, and Rakdos Keyrune is amazing as a sweet firststriker that favorable blocks most of the creatures being played. Like most creatures, its a sweet combo with Wolf Run. Still having a body after a board wipe is sweet. In the end, this deck has things to do with excess mana- be it stealing creatures with Olivia, big Fireballs with Rakdos's Returns and Bonfire, or crashing for a ton with a Wolf Run activation.

I don't see why a EDH deck wouldn't want to play this. Sure, you might not have a need for that mana, but being able to thin your deck out and increase the likelihood of drawing a spell seems worth a card. It's certainly something that I can see being an advantage over the course of a longer game.

Ill bet they had to adjust its CMC in testing for limited. Remember, a card is only good or bad in context.

I like seeing spoilers as much as anyone, but I'm not going to indulge somebody's childish desire for fifteen minutes of fame and attention in exchange for knowing a bunch of (reprinted!) cards a week early.

There are certain types of cards that lead to lopsided games where one player gets to do stuff while the other sits and watches helplessly. There are other types of cards that lead to games in which both players get to do things and react to the things being done to them. Most creature-based decks (with the exception of those silly hexproof shenanigans) happen to fall squarely into the latter camp, while many (not all) combo decks fall into the former. And this is the real crux of the issue.

Players want to feel like their hard-earned skill in this game matters. Therefore, they desire a game in which they can use that skill to increase their odds of winning. Interactive games where both players get a chance to act and react allow for more decision points for both players, which allows skill to come to the forefront and have more influence over the outcome of the game. It's frustrating, then, when you lose without ever having a chance to use your skill or make an influential decision. And no, siding into three copies of Rest in Peace doesn't make it any better — you're still relying on the luck of the draw rather than your ability to make good plays and decisions. This is why some combo decks are a problem. They blank the opponent's skill as a factor and instead make the game about "did you draw any of the three spells from your sideboard that can stop me? No? Okay, I win." Only the combo player gets to put their skills to use in this type of game, and only the combo player finds this at all fun. This doesn't mean combo is bad — many people enjoy it, and they should be allowed to have fun too — but combo that doesn't allow interaction and requires "fair" decks to cram their sideboard full of situational hate cards just so they have a fighting chance are not good for the health of the format.

And can I just say: I'm so unbelievably tired of people characterizing decks with creatures as some form of remedial Magic for players incapable of wielding big boy spells. Just stop it. You're making a fool of yourself. I can tell you with the absolute certainty of someone who spent years unskillfully piloting control, aggro, midrange, combo and any combination thereof — nearly every deck takes a metric ****-ton of skill to pilot correctly.

If you think that aggro or midrange decks don't require skill to pilot correctly, you've either a) never played one of these decks, b) played these decks, but didn't understand what you were doing well enough to recognize a difficult decision when it arose, or c) have absolutely no idea what you're talking about and are just parroting something you heard someone else say, who was just parroting something they heard yet a different person say, and so on and so forth all the way back to the first scrub who decided that casting a counterspell meant they were outsmarting their opponent. Yes, you're smart. Good job. So is the Zoo player who baited out your counterspell with a less important threat. So is the BUG player who left back his Deathrite Shaman so you couldn't Snapcaster/path his Tarmogoyf. So is the Junk player who made the correct decision about what to take out of your hand with Inquisition of Kozilek. So is the White Weenie player who successfully played around your wrath. Almost every deck is a "smart" deck if you're a smart player.

So, I beg you, can we PLEASE do away with all the petty "turn mah doodz sideways, herp derp" and "poor Timmy wants to attack with his creatures" comments. Creatures aren't the problem. You can make an argument that WotC has been printing increasingly user-friendly spells that allow even the most freshly-minted player to bumble his or her way through an FNM without having to rely on skilled decisions, and many of these spells happen to be creatures, but that in no way means that creatures are an inherently "stupid" card type.

Keep this in mind when we're discussing banning a card that enables one of the archetypes you like to think of as "smarter" than the others. We aren't simpletons trying to crush your smart-person dreams so we can play Creatures vs. Creatures all day — we just want to have a chance to make decisions that influence the outcome of the game. We can't do that when your game plan involves a degenerate combo that can go off before we even have a chance to drop our third land.

That's not to say that I want something from Eggs banned (I'm undecided at this point), but I'd certainly like to see fewer Ad Hominem arguments that insult the intelligence of players who like creatures.

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Blue is nearly always the weakest color in Limited during the time between the set being spoiled and the prerelease. It nearly always gets better as soon as people actually play with the set.