I guess we will have to see.
I think two sites won't work long term.
I guess the quality of the sites will determine what happens.
Mtgs has good general and Modern content, which matters to me. Its Legacy content is nearly unusable, due to the way it is organised, and Legacy also matters to me. I don't really do the rest, rumours aside of course, so the new site has to exceed the current site in those areas in order for me to move. That is easy to do in the cade of the Legacy content, but harder for Modern where the current site is very well organised.
- drmarkb
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Feb 4, 2014drmarkb posted a message on Launch Giveaway!I want to give it to a fallen empires card because that was the set that I fell in love with first.Posted in: Announcements
I should give it to a Death and Taxes modern card or to a Pox legacy card.
But in the end I have to give it to magus of the tabernacle .
I rediscovered this card a couple of years ago.
The beauty of it wiping a mass of creatures whilst operating mana restriction with ghostly prison or smokestack type cards is magnificent- you have the paradox of giving your opponent lots of choices, none of which they actually want- each one of which makes them fall closer into being able to do nothing. Even in modern I have used this card with world queller and other lock cards to slowly reduce an opponent to zero permanents, and unlike the original expensive legends land upon which it is based it can block a goyf worth 100 times as much, which always feels sweet. Nothing beats the experience of top decks folding to a 50 cent card that often needs to be read twice. If only it was in fallen empires........:):) - To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I am open minded on a single wildwood. I like the colourless aspect of vault- lots of blocking options for etched champions with four splicers. I do not know if the tapped aspect will make vault unusable, but I guess that it would not. ↲
re splash. I have had a desire to test blue for a while- and do indeed run green. My build is aimed at etb effects and green adds nothing to that but green adds great board options and canopy. Not sure meddling mage in blue would be worth it- I want those board effects on things that do not die to pyro. If we could get a version that could cast clique I would be interested.
Remember cunning sparkmage kills revoker, so perhaps needle is better as a board option in versions that run loads of men (eg runing mutavault over edge)
I agree its certainly true that you need to practice mulligans, and that game two and three its important to bear in mind the power of the cards in front of you against the specific deck. But there are relatively few matches where immediate hate cards are needed or we lose- the deck is generally adaptable and resilient.
One thing I would note is that a lot of the hate used is man based and two power, making the deck vulnerable to red sweepers, bar the excellent jotun grunt . I have found the deck to do well in certain matches game two and three with a mixture of man based hate and one or two cheap hate cards that are not men, obviously allowing for thalia.
The deck is not really about tempo any more than any other deck. True tempo decks are like standard delver decks- they do an impression of a control deck and just win before the opponent stabilises. That is not D and T, we have a very large amount of inevitability, and a large amount of control options.
Regarding the humorless- we have to ask why do I want to attack and block, other than the one turn it comes in to surprise the enemy where it is conceivable CA/removal.
I would rather hold the enemy off on the ground and fly in or remove their bigger man/men and hoard in or just smash face with a large jotun grunt keeping other first strikers back.
Perhaps its best to look at it as a mindsensor that does not fly with an ability that is less relevant.
Although G2 and 3 went very well, it made me wonder if a damping matrix might not be appropriate for this match up? Torpor orb is obviously a no no as it ruins us. But the matrix hits EVERY ability they have - kiki, and any melira combo element, plus their sparkmages, pods and pridemages. In contrast we lose equipment (masks- boardable anyway) and vials, but retain the CIP cards. We can hit the matrix with flickerwisp if we need to.
Matrix is expensive and cumbersome. But I am tempted by it as it hurts all varieties of pod, elements of tron, eggs etc. Anyone tried it?
I know that student is popular but I find he does not add much to my deck. He is efficient but a three power first striker early doors does not exite when I am running four splicers. He never gets levelled further when I pop my lands so readily.
I have a green splash, but not yet added teeg to the board- hence my post above.
Green gives pridemages somewhere in the 75 (also/alt harmonic sliver- though it does nothing vs torpor orb and is in the 3 slot, so I am happier with pridemages).
It can be made a little green easily- horizon canopies for 4 plains and maybe a scars land or two- plenty of other options. Remembering vial circumvents a huge amount of casting.
Canopies have been invaluble in my build, and rarely do much life loss - I got the idea here- this is one of the better threads- and it works well,- hiding draws from thoughtseize/inquisition when vial is online, filling GYs for an extra grunt turn when the enemy is low on cards etc.
I know one of the contributors has an aggro d and t core deck with rancor in, though I have only played controlling builds that are happy to go long.
I am wary of boarding him vs matches with red sweepers if we already have lots of stuff the red sweepers must take out anyway.
he seems to hit
POD
and CHORD OF CALLING
- more efficiently than mind sensor but mindsensor can be done in response to the search.
neither stop kiki hard cast combo obv.
PAST IN FLAMES was mentioned above (although we could use cannonist/rule of law - more specific cards for this match). would rather use thalia and rule plus some men that circumvent sweepers-eg grunt (with runed halo/rule of law too) rather than being all in with men. not sure I fancy having him in this just for PIF.
WRATH in martyr proc (spectral procession too)- this seems worth it MP can be a pain.???
KARN in tron (but they board it out)- so is it worth it here? seems not to me.
GIFTS/UNBURIAL RITES in gifts decks. obv good although this is an easier match
only hits spectrals in BW tokens- prob not worth it - they do not seem to run wrath?
VS CAW seems relevant for cryptic/wrath- seems worth it ???
vs fae just cryptic gets hit- is it worth it or do we win if we do not get shackled? seems marginal to me
does not seem relevant for jund, rdw, affinity boros, zoo, or delver at all
also good for teachings and hive mind.
anything I have missed?
I do not think val will make it big time. Four mana is huge in a format with remand etc. From d and t point of view it sounds like a relatively facile match. We have main b anti search and land destruction. Many of our men avoid the best sweepers and we can hide behind leyline etc.
Main:
Arbiter obv pretty good here.
Hold back your paths till they try the combo. Ditto be careful on flickerwisp at instant speed- it can buy a turn........
If they also run the merlira combo then icatian javalineers are good at shooting bops obv and seers (and also bring restoration angel in range if they are forced to block a splicer token, stonecloaker or finks).
flyers are obv essential to fly over walls. Stonecloaker does double duty vs ones with mini melira engines, though it dies to blocks by restoration angels.
mindsensors main obv good- always flash them in response to a search
thalia is normally really nice too on the play.
pridemages can restrict their poding to one shot- careful pathing can stop them comboing on the turn they pod.
board stuff- for the hide behind a card brigade
ghostly prison
runed halo - set to restoration angel (or exarch for bant pod).
supression field - hurts vials though and equipment
even nevermore can be good in stopping a piece (eg pod/kiki) although its more a card that comes in because there are a lot of dead/replacable cards in the main. If you set it to kiki they have to search kiki in, which your anti search stuff hurts. If you set it to pod they can just hard cast the combo or use alt search cards.
pro white swords - pretty essential in my view if you actually want to beat them whilst they have the combo available but can't hit you due to the above cards.
more proactively:
fiend hunter- great with vial working
more mindsensors
You can board out the splicers and finks type cards that have little or no restoration angel impact and cant get past wall of roots.
If your deck is all aggro and tempo just try and race them hitting as many anti search cards as possible.
When people say its our best match up they normally mean its a fair bit better than ok. Very few decks in the format go more than 60% in any one match up.
I find that jund is pretty good- lilliana is not that hot vs splicers and finks, and also rather poor vs icatian javalineers(!), one of the cards I use that few others chose to run (they work well in combat with a splicer/thalia first strike too and against URW can pop in at EOT and take out a lynx as well as hitting bob and any mancers in the jund match and they always hit something vs affinity).
Basically run LOTS of the potential two for one men- splicers, finks, stonecloaker which can save men, and lots of value out of the mana base (horizon canopy and mutavault, not edge) and grunts. Sometimes the strip mine/arbiter interaction goes well enough to put them behind forever when we play but with bob down they always recover when they play.
Basically mask of memory is good here too- a couple of hits and you are out of sight in such a tight incremental advantage game so those 2 for 1 guys are essential as are flyers to carry it. The match seems to come down to an arm wresle- they try and 2 for 1, you do it to them- they draw via bob you do via canopy/mask. I have had a lot of games decided by the mask attaching to a solitary last standing mutavault or splicer and winning form there.
Jotun grunts, multiple splicer tokens and finks stand up rather well to those things in defense. Grunts do well in attack too, and stonecloakers, flickerwisp, restoration angel and mindsensor fly- which none of those men you refer to do. They are all used in some builds. Sounds like your deck smashes face on the deck with first strike, trample etc, which is why mask isn not for you.
On the second point if you mulligan till you get a vial you may end up being sorely dissappointed. The maths is not too nice on doing that- in fact its horrific. Thats without mentioning the possibility of it being pridemaged/maelstrom pulsed/inquisition of kozileked/thoughtseized by the enemy.
A common problem with this deck is that there are so many versions, and they all have the same name- and so when discussing wires cross. In this case i suspect the deck lists are so different the decks play totally differently.......
This is in contrast to standard where 10 different names seem to be applied to the same delver deck that all play the same way
A ) I agree we do very well against lilliana- jund with lilly is easier than without. I would say that jund matchup changes a bit if they run 4 lavamancer- which I have seen and played against a lot. It is rather difficult if mancer sticks unless you run grunts.
B)The card advantage of mask is absolutely huge- it is not a "little bit of card advantage". You are right to keep the man count very high indeed- its one of the reasons I run mutavault for example. But mask wins matches when you do not draw vial till turn 6, it wins matches you have no right to win. D and T can go long and recover tempo against a lot of decks- or at least some lists are designed that way. I certainly like the game to go long.
c) White orchid, much as I like the card, has no apparent synergy in the deck with arbiter- if you draw it after arbiter that is. Sure you can remove arbiter with 'wisp or whatever, and with a vial its great. But assume you do not draw the vial early or at all. What then - T2 arbiter, T3 Orchid? Does not sound right. I like to test without the vial hands- after all we generally win with a T1 vial as you suggest.
d) Sounds like with white orchid, rancor (or HTP) silverblade paladin etc you are not running D and T, and you are running a very different aggro ww with arbiters and thalias- one that is designed to hurt quickly and not go long. That probably explains why you have a different idea about your deck to some of the other posters- you are probably both right but your lists are probably very different.
wheel of sun and moon is already available- this has up and downsides by comparision, but won't alter much.
Its a bit easier to cast I suppose.