MTG Salvation

I mean it's a ridiculous argument because fetches increase consistency and decrease luck, which are both positive effects for the game to try and remain legitimate as a competitive venture. Without fetchlands three-color decks lose a ton of consistency, the decision point of how to play around Wasteland/Blood Moon comes down to your opener instead of actual game choices, the skill-intensive Brainstorm/Jace/Top and fetchland interactions disappear, Loam and Crucible lost almost all of ther utility, and overall the format becomes a lot less skill intensive and a lot more luck-based. And for all this downside, the only benefits are that DRS and Goyf get slightly weaker (and they aren't close to oppressive in this format) and people have to pay tons of money to field 8-12 duals instead of 4-6 duals and fetches.

In modern the question is different, because no good card selection exists, DRS and Goyf ARE pretty close to being oppressive, there are only five fetches which favors certain color combinations, and the price barrier is more of a psychological limiter in that format. But it's still ridiculous to consider, because they tie together manabase and the decision of how and when to use your fetchlands is a valuable skill testing point in Modern.

I think the reason they left a "bad taste" has little to do with their true power, but more thei relative power. They were the undisputed best decks around in their respective Standard formats and there weren't sufficient cards in the limited card pool to really give them a run for that title. I think that is really what turns people off about it, and in modern those cards have competition on the same power level.

Regardless of any of that, isn't "being unfun/players don't like it" a ridiculous sentiment for bannings in a competitive game?

Gorgon's Head means the dream is still alive for Izzet Staticaster

Targets are declared in the process of casting a spell. So the token isn't there until well after the spell is cast, but before it resolves.

The point is that UW without Walkers, mutavaults, and Revelations is still fairly playable and can win plenty of games just with Sphere/Verdict/AEtherling. UB without any expensive cards looks literally unplayable, and even without a budget isn't much better. So it's between playing a neutered top tier deck, losing some bomb and powerhouse cards but keeping all the core utility cards; and playing a neutered tier-2 deck that loses not only the bombs but also most of the utility as well.

Also, of course Revelation is infinitely better than Opportunity. No one is disputing that. But it's a moot point because UB doesn't even get the OPTION. It's stuck with the third rate version as it's best-in-slot. So comparing UW losing Rev for Opportunity to UB keeping Opportunity is still in UW's favor. Not to mention, if the player builds budget UW and manages to obtain a Rev later down the road, it's infinitely better to just slot it in over an Opportunity than it would be to build budget UB and have nowhere to go from there except sidegrade some utility cards.

I don't think there's a penalty at regular or competitive for being imprecise in naming a card. "Jace" is not a legal card in any format, so it's the same thing as Doom Blading a Mirran Crusader: you took an action that wasn't legal, so they back it up to right before the illegal action was taken. If you strongly believe the player intentionally did it do mislead the opponent then that's obviously Cheating - Fraud which is a DQ, but I think the case in the OP is about simple communication errors.

Of course, you probably know far more about the IPG than me so if you could point out a section detailing an applicable punishment in this case then I'm sure everyone in the thread could use that information.

Hey guys, I don't usually play modern at all but I'm testing a few different decks for GP richmond coming up in a few months. Basically because I don't like modern and most of the combo decks I like to play like Storm, Ascension, and Eggs got nerfed real hard, I decided to just jam all the best fair cards in the format and see what happens. I have this list of Junk I'd like critiqued:


So this list is clearly more in the BGx tradition than a real Junk list, but because of Elspeth and Path in the main I consider it more of a significant splash. White also has some of the best sideboard cards available in the format. Tarmogoyf/Bob/DRS/Lili/Decay/Thoughtseize is the best core, so I clearly had to skew the deck towards that. My other changes can be explained as follows:

1) Path to Exile over black removal. This is easily explained, the tempo in this deck is significant and playing DRS into Bob, Path your DRS/Delver/etc. is backbreaking for the opponent. The ramp is less significant in this format than in Legacy for example, some decks barely run any basics, and because of that I think this card is just stellar. Compared to Jund's Bolts or straight BG's GffT/Dismember Path hits a wider variety of targets, most importantly Tron's Wurmcoil Engine and occasional Ulamog.

2) All 4 Abrupt Decay. Decay is just nuts, it's the best removal spell I can think of. Whatever it doesn't hit, Path is likely to. It hoses noncreature threats like opposing Liliana, Pyromancer, Cranial Plating, Swords, but most importantly it's an uncounterable answer to Twin, which is clearly one of the top tier decks going into this format. Playing less than 4 doesn't seem right to me, although I do sideboard some out against more fringe combo decks like Griselbrand, Tron, Scapeshift etc.

3) Elspeth. This card is criminally underused in the format as it is. She's the third best walker ever printed, and the first one's banned so I'm playing #2 and #3 She basically wins you the game on an empty or favorable board state against any non-combo deck and she's at least a reasonable clock against combo if you have sufficient disruption, unlike the various Garruks people have run in the past. The most important part of this card decision was breaking the mirror wide open. Their only answer in the 75 is usually Maelstrom Pulse. BGx mirrors come down to large board stalls where one person is trying to find enough removal to let their Goyfs break through, usually through Confidant advantage. Elspeth simply lets a Goyf bounce overhead for a giant chunk of damage, and even if they remove the threats you can easily protect her with Souls and tokens until you win.

Now, my problems with the deck in testing have been these:
1) The mana base. One of my strengths as a player is coming up with good mana bases, but this one seems a little off. You want as many lands untapped as possible, minimal life payment, double B, W, and G (for Ooze as well as Goyf+Decay and similar situations) and some amount of utility from your land drops. To this end, I'm playing the two W filters to help cast Elspeth, a full suite of basics to fight Blood Moon, and minimal shocklands for fetching only. I might cut Treetop Village completely for a second Wildwood and a Gavony Township. But the main issue is your reliance on the shock-fetch interaction for colored mana early, which results in a lot of points taken especially combined with Thoughtseize.

2) Over-reliance on the graveyard. Between DRS, Goyf, and Ooze the graveyard is stretched very thin. You often have to decide between a large Goyf and a large Ooze, or which cards to eat with DRS for maximum utility, etc. I don't think there's much that can be done about this to fill the graveyard more quickly. Perhaps 3 Ooze is too much; if there was another lifegain utility creature that I could play I'd cut the ooze for one-of. Finks is too slow against the main decks and applies no pressure to combo. Baneslayer or Batterskull are too high on the curve for Bob. Smiter and Wilt-Leaf Liege are too vanilla as far as beaters go. Maybe I expect too much, haha.

3) Weak to being out-valued. UWr Control absolutely walks all over you, they have too many cantrips and value cards in Snapcaster and Rev/Verdict. Pod eats you alive if you can't disrupt them early enough, and even the beatdown plan is strong against you. Jund has removal for your main threats so it comes down to who draws more Bobs, walkers, and utility lands. Again, this is maybe a concern with the state of midrange in the format in general versus this specific list, but it makes the deck feel weaker when you simply lose to your opponents superior draw with inferior cards. I wish there was a more consistent way of generating real card advantage in this deck. I considered a singleton Sword of Light and Shadow, recurring Bobs/Goyfs but it has anti-synergy with Ooze and Deathrite.

4) The sideboard is a rough draft at best. I just brewed this up myself with no input from my magic playing group, and it's obvious White has really strong sideboard cards, but I dunno which of these are necessary or useful. Mindcensor is good against Tron, but is it efficient enough or is there better hate? I ideally would want more discard against combo, but I feel like the slots are tight. The big fatties postboard help mirrorbreak in midrange matchups, and Baneslayer rocks most aggro decks alongside Batterskull.


Thanks for reading my giant wall of text, and any comments or critiques are appreciated.

It really hasn't been that long since Zendikar. I started playing during that block (spent way too much on Jaces, glad I did though!) and that was less than 5 years ago.

^To be fair, it is nitpicking in the vast majority of games. When someone Needles Jace or Liliana in legacy, everyone knows what they're talking about. And as with most rules disputes if there is any confusion then player communication can likely sort it out without judges needing to intervene.

As far as the rules are concerned only the english name of a card matters, so I think from Wizard's perspective any foreign language printings are more the equivalent of subtitles than a real foreign market: they make it significantly more convenient and accessible for non-native speakers but don't really capture what's being said or intended.

I find it funny that that guy is touting Assemble as an answer to Mono-Black, when you should just be rolling them automatically because you're playing control and most of their cards are bad. The only things you need to worry about are Whip and Connections, everything else gets picked up in sweepers. They auto-lose to a decent sized revelation, and our deck is best suited to keep the board clear to make Gray Merchant a blank.

Not quite as good in multiplayer, but AEtherling is about as good a finisher as blue will ever get. Immune to all removal, unblockable, 8 power, essentially vigilance.

Quote from Sygerrik

Anyone who thinks Brimaz, Hero of Iroas, Spirit of the Labyrinth, Fated Infatuation, Thassa's Rebuff, Whelming Wave, Bile Blight, Drown in Sorrow, Searing Blood, Unravel the Aether and Kiora's Follower are not going to see Constructed play are not paying attention (or possibly just bad at magic). And I left out a bunch of borderline cards that are just waiting for the right archetype: Fanatic of Xenagos, all the Gods but Karametra, Hero of Leina Tower, Pain Seer, Archetype of Courage etc etc.

You're absolutely right, and I agree wholeheartedly. Two constructed playable rares is exactly right for this kind of small set :rolleyes:! Although you did forget Xenagos.

This is pretty much just like the Helvault two years ago, where they hyped it up a lot but the prize was tokens and dice. They really should give out promos of some kind, at least like FNM/Gateway foils that are always cheap as hell but still at least have a use. FNM foils have gotten better recently, usually always constructed playable commons or uncommons, so why not that? Give us a foil promo Magma Jet or something.

Quote from TurboJustice

None of those are playable period.

Fixed.

The point is that playing a bad creature to enable bad spells is just bad, but if your deck's ok with a 3/1 haste creature with marginal upside then he's fine.