those mono red bans were a bit random imo, but attune and refiner getting banned is great news!
both those cards give just a bit too much value because of the energy stapled on. a 3 mana 3/2 that draws a card is a very good rate, but when you add energy on top of that rogue refiner is almost 2.5 cards for just one creature. similarly, attune is probably 1.5 cards for a card.
interested to see how energy evolves from here. it certainly isn't dead. back to the winding constrictor plan i suspect. black green may be da wae going forward.
i had been avoiding standard like the plague since playing against these two decks over and over is not super fun, but i will definitely be giving it a go once these bans are in effect.
another thing i find interesting is that ian duke wrote that article on the mothership site. didn't he head the design for kaladesh block? i have heard people calling for him to be fired based on the damage that block has done to standard. i don't think i want to see that exactly, but i wouldn't mind hearing something like 'yeah i headed kaladesh and i said okay to a lot of things that were ultimately bad for standard/the game'.
Question: I cast collective brutality escalating twice, discarding call to the netherworld and dark confidant. can i use the madness from call to return the just now discarded confidant, or must i pick a creature already in a graveyard? if this is possible, does the order cards are chosen in matter? Thanks in advance.
at game day, i was too mentally exhausted/winning the game to argue much or call a judge, but is there a point during your turn that a locust/scorpion/scarab god can be killed and not return to your hand? my opponent said 'harnessed lightning your locust god during your end phase' then proceeds to make the claim that the god will not come back when killed at this point because the 'beginning of the next end phase' has already happened. is this so? i was under the impression the end step was like the untap step in that that you don't get to cast a spell during your opponents untap step while their lands are still tapped. like i said, the stakes were low and this did not cost me a game, but i am curious. i appreciate appreciate any help i can get!
i didn't mean to imply the ds matchup was bad for tron, i should have clarified, sorry. what i meant was people here tend to play the most popular deck and right now that is shadow decks.
With Blue Moon you could run Molten Rain. Molten Rain basics after people search for it, and Molten Rain and Blood Moon should do a lot against Tron. People hate land destruction decks, but a big reason why people run land destruction decks is because of ramp decks like Tron.
i have run molten rain instead of/in addition to blood moon before. the issue here is do i dilute slots in my sideboard just to turn a 90/10 matchup into something of a 70/30 matchup? not worth it in my opinion. better to just be prepared for the decks you can beat and hope to dodge the ones you can't. people will always play tron but right now it seems like it's at a low point because of all the death's shadow, at least where i play.
personally, i get frustrated because i am one of those people who like to try to play control. i get wrecked by tron 99 percent of the time. it's one of those matchups you just hope to dodge completely because it is so unfavorable.
another issue with fighting tron is that there are no real cards that have the blowout potential against it the same way leyline of the void does against dredge, for example. i play blue moon variants usually. while blood moon is supposed to be good against tron in theory, the reality is it only slows them down, and not by much. the other 'hate' cards out there are ghost quarter, tec edge, stony silence, and spreading seas, which have the same problem. then you have all the variants of tron that are similar but do have some significant differences. if i have to play against tron i would prefer it to be mono blue, but there is also green red, just green, eldrazi tron, green white, i've even seen green black pop up. there is plenty of room for exploring other colors with tron as well.
tron is sort of like birthing pod in a way. the lands have already proven to be powerful and they just get better the more cards get printed that work well with them. there was once a world where tron lands existed but karn and ugin weren't printed yet lest we forget. i don't think the deck is any more egregious than other villains in the format but damn is it annoying to get turn 3 kara'd.
apologies if this has been asked elsewhere, but can metallic mimic naming constructs enable me to cast a walking ballista for X=0 and have the ballista live to tell about it? i know this wouldn't work if the +1/+1 counter from mimic's ability were a triggered ability. thanks in advance for any help anyone can give. cheers!
this is my favorite block ever i think. they hit this one out of the park in terms of flavor, as well as with powerful constructed playable cards.
anyone who thinks the concept on this block was bad, do yourself a favor and read some HP lovecraft. this block was the perfect homage to so many of his stories. i cannot imagine it being any more well executed.
yes coco seems to definitely have been a mistake at this point. but aside from that elephant in the room, PT EMN seemed to have a lot of fresh interesting decks coming to the table.
i have to admit i am going to just sit on my hands and watch standard for the time being. haven't played against spell queller with collected company yet, but it sounds miserable. the last time i played at my LGS i played against company twice and i really can't help but roll my eyes when they hit anything + reflector mage at this point. now one can quell your spell AND bounce your creature? that is grotesque.
you can definitely build BG and not be married to goyf and liliana. your example of a delve based creature deck is a good one. i don't know who you keep talking to but you shouldn't listen to close-minded magic players who only ever netdeck. some see a jund list do well in a tournament and assume there is no other deck within those 3 colors that doesn't play 4x of your aforementioned cards. i would rather experiment and fail and be told i was wrong than blindly sleeve up a 75 that won a tournament. it feels lazy and almost even like plagiarizing someone else's idea in my eyes. but creativity, experimentation, and innovation are more important to me than results so maybe you shouldn't listen to me either.
goyf won't be banned because contrary to what you said, it is not too strong. it is just one of the most if not the most efficient creature ever printed for it's cost. lili won't get banned for the same reason. the unbanning of ancestral vision made her a lot worse. normally even to favorable games of attrition with jund/junk vs. blue control decks are now probably slightly unfavorable just because you can reload with vision and make liliana +1's much more detrimental to the BGx player.
okay so i was able to get a new nickname and i was trying to make my nickname "the mouth of gix". however, spellcheck happened and now my name is mouth of fix, and i'd rather not go by that name. how do i change my name again???
both those cards give just a bit too much value because of the energy stapled on. a 3 mana 3/2 that draws a card is a very good rate, but when you add energy on top of that rogue refiner is almost 2.5 cards for just one creature. similarly, attune is probably 1.5 cards for a card.
interested to see how energy evolves from here. it certainly isn't dead. back to the winding constrictor plan i suspect. black green may be da wae going forward.
i had been avoiding standard like the plague since playing against these two decks over and over is not super fun, but i will definitely be giving it a go once these bans are in effect.
another thing i find interesting is that ian duke wrote that article on the mothership site. didn't he head the design for kaladesh block? i have heard people calling for him to be fired based on the damage that block has done to standard. i don't think i want to see that exactly, but i wouldn't mind hearing something like 'yeah i headed kaladesh and i said okay to a lot of things that were ultimately bad for standard/the game'.
Question: I cast collective brutality escalating twice, discarding call to the netherworld and dark confidant. can i use the madness from call to return the just now discarded confidant, or must i pick a creature already in a graveyard? if this is possible, does the order cards are chosen in matter? Thanks in advance.
i have run molten rain instead of/in addition to blood moon before. the issue here is do i dilute slots in my sideboard just to turn a 90/10 matchup into something of a 70/30 matchup? not worth it in my opinion. better to just be prepared for the decks you can beat and hope to dodge the ones you can't. people will always play tron but right now it seems like it's at a low point because of all the death's shadow, at least where i play.
another issue with fighting tron is that there are no real cards that have the blowout potential against it the same way leyline of the void does against dredge, for example. i play blue moon variants usually. while blood moon is supposed to be good against tron in theory, the reality is it only slows them down, and not by much. the other 'hate' cards out there are ghost quarter, tec edge, stony silence, and spreading seas, which have the same problem. then you have all the variants of tron that are similar but do have some significant differences. if i have to play against tron i would prefer it to be mono blue, but there is also green red, just green, eldrazi tron, green white, i've even seen green black pop up. there is plenty of room for exploring other colors with tron as well.
tron is sort of like birthing pod in a way. the lands have already proven to be powerful and they just get better the more cards get printed that work well with them. there was once a world where tron lands existed but karn and ugin weren't printed yet lest we forget. i don't think the deck is any more egregious than other villains in the format but damn is it annoying to get turn 3 kara'd.
anyone who thinks the concept on this block was bad, do yourself a favor and read some HP lovecraft. this block was the perfect homage to so many of his stories. i cannot imagine it being any more well executed.
yes coco seems to definitely have been a mistake at this point. but aside from that elephant in the room, PT EMN seemed to have a lot of fresh interesting decks coming to the table.
goyf won't be banned because contrary to what you said, it is not too strong. it is just one of the most if not the most efficient creature ever printed for it's cost. lili won't get banned for the same reason. the unbanning of ancestral vision made her a lot worse. normally even to favorable games of attrition with jund/junk vs. blue control decks are now probably slightly unfavorable just because you can reload with vision and make liliana +1's much more detrimental to the BGx player.
i want to throw a couple of these in a werewolf deck? that deck is going to have enough wolves to be really low to the ground with this new set.