Jund is a shard. It is a color combination named in Shards of Alara for the Black-Green-Red grouping. You can't call any other combination of colors "Jund" any more than you can call a BW Tokens deck Red Deck Wins. It's not semantics, it's definition. Jund, in this current format, just runs the best cards in its colors and wins like that. I really don't see how that's a decision tree: I loved standard Jund and I love goodstuff decks but honestly, Jund is a hierarchy of what cards are the best at each converted mana cost in those colors that you can slam together to make sense.
Am I the only one who would be for an Emrakul ban, or any of the other combo decks that win without a decent chance of interaction (thinking mostly of Grapeshot/PiF Storm)? I hate to sound like the whiny kid that cries "OP!" but there are over 5 viable decks in this format that just try to cheat out an I-win button early... And the format has so few answers to such things that resolving an Emrakul nearly always is GG.
This format has no free counterspells, which is why combo is the most dominant archetype of them all. Combo decks can be interacted with using certain types of cards, depending on the combo. Mindbreak Trap, Combust, etc. But once an Emrakul is out... what do you do? Are you supposed to keep up 4 at all times to hardcast Mindbreak Trap? Are you supposed to play nonoptimal and/or narrow answer cards like Geth's Verdict, Wrath effects, or Oblivion Ring? Or do you just roll over and die? I'm really curious how those who play "fair" decks deal with the abundance of noninteractive combo kills in this format. If you're not playing blue or white I assume you just scoop to Emrakul decks, UR storm decks, and their like, right? And if you are playing blue, you almost have to hamstring yourself to keep up countermagic... Maybe I'm missing something?
To be fair, the last legacy GP was won by Esper Stoneblade with Souls, not Blossom... You get your bodies quicker and don't lose life at the cost of more mana and less overall power over time. It's a judgment call.
I don't think I've ever played a deck with more than 60 cards in a tournament. I feel like the 61st card is just the one that's worse than the 60th card and therefore gets cut. The only time I could ever see 60+ being ok is if you're running a toolbox-style deck, like Survival of the Fittest, but even those decks have a combo kill in mind and drawing a random toolbox card is just a wasted draw.
Also here to report: Top 8'd as well. It was a rather large FNM for my store, 5 rounds and a top 8, and I got there on tiebreakers as a 3-2. Played exactly the list above, for reference:
And you have NO IDEA how hard it was to trade for the last three chancellors I needed before the tournament started! I had to trade off a Mikaeus, the Lunarch for two Forge and two Annex to get him to agree to the deal! I also borrowed an Elesh Norn from a good friend of mine for the tournament.
Round one was against a buddy playing UB Zombies. It was relying heavily on Geralf's Messenger and clone effects for the kill. I was able to lock him out with double Chancellor of the Annex reveal when he kept a one- or two-land hand, eventually he had to pitch a Mortarpod to it and I won with tokens. Game 2, I boarded in the Timelies, Day of Judgments, and Sorins for 4x Chancellor of the Annex and 4x Chancellor of the Forge. I figured the lifelink would help more than the tokens from Forge. I end up having this game pretty locked with Sorin despite his 5ish Geralf's Messenger clones, but he blows through it after a time with Gravecrawler/Mortarpod shenanigans. Unfortunately for him I drew all four copies of [c]Timely Reinforcements[c/] and he had no real chance. I hate winning like that against a friend but it happens! I was worried all night that I'd be boarding out the chancellors too much to justify their existence, but they are great maindeck cards and can help you just win games.
Round two was against UW Delver. This is a bad matchup for me, all I know is that I won game one with Forge tokens, Increasing Devotion, and Intangible Virtue. Game 2 I boarded in Sorin and Ancient Grudge for the Dross Chancellor. He made a play that severely impressed me: I had revealed Annex and Forge to start and slowed him down a bit on his early Delvers, allowing me time to cast Lingering Souls to trade with the Delvers when they flipped and the Forge token traded with an unflipped one when he blocked. After that it seemed we were both out of gas, so I spent a few turns Faithless Looting for an Unburial Rites to get value from my Chancellors, but ended up with a ton of lands and Sphere of the Suns so I decided to just go for the plan of getting to 10 mana to play around Mana Leak and cast the chancellors. I had pretty much read him to have two mana leaks and perhaps a Snag in his hand, and it turns out I was right. My hand was something like: Forge, Increasing Devotion, 2 Day of Judgment. So he sees me going to ramp up to cast either a Chancellor or Increasing Devotion+3 for leak, and he makes a very slick play: Revoke Existence my first Sphere, Oblivion Ring my second. This then let him cast Geist of Saint Traft, forcing me to either Day or Increasing Devotion, either of which he was able to leak. So I Day, he leaks, gets in for 6, I Day, he leaks, gets in for 6. and by the time I stabilize with Increasing Devotion the Angel has me dead. Game 3 I think I just choked on lands or something and died to his Delvers.
Game 3 was against mono-White Puresteel. I have never played this deck before in the current DKA format so I didn't know what to expect. He was playing lots of cheap equips like Flayer Husk, Infiltration Lens, and Swiftfoot Boots to make his Puresteel Paladins amazing, so game 1 I of course had to blow him out with Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. He retaliates with a Etched Champion game 2 which he recurs with Buried Ruin after I Day, and game 3 I lose to Etched Champion/Argentum Armor after he kills my intangible virtue when i have lethal on him. I don't feel bad about this one, because I just didn't draw the Ancient Grudges and he had freakin' Argentum Armor. I feel like any deck really just loses to Argentum Armor on an Etched Champion.
Game 4 was versus a U/G Dredge deck. It was unfortunately basically a bye because he drew very poorly and I had the smashing curve out of Reveal Forge, T1 Faithless pitching Forge Unburial, beat put you at 19, T2 Intangible Virtue, attack you to 17, T3 Lingering Souls, attack you to 15, T4 Unburial Forge, making 4 haste tokens, attack you down to 7, next turn you have blocks but I either had another Intangible Virtue or I faithlessed into Rites + Elesh Norn. Game 2 is similarly non-interactive as I double Annex him, he waits til turn 2 to pitch a Mulch to get rid of the Annex triggers, and then fails to draw land for several turns. This matchup can be hard if they play enough Gnaw to the Bone and have a decent clock to speed it up, but I had enough ways to interact that it didn't matter.
Game 5 I was paired up against Werewolves. We weren't sure if we could get in at 3-2 but we decided to play it. He played really sloppily and made tons of mistakes and I killed him pretty quick game 1, and with access to Ancient Grudge and Day of Judgment and Timely Reinforcements game 2 was also a joke. I ancient grudged his first sword, then as he swung in with a War and Peace equipped Mayor I used a Sphere to flash it back and then blocked with a pumped token, blowing him out. This deck does really well against straight up aggro decks despite the lack of sweepers, because you make and pump enough tokens to stall the early game til you can resolve a bomb or trade your Lingering Souls tokens for 2+ cards. It's surprisingly easy to get value in this deck: a common sequence is Reveal Chancellor (which is either a Raging Goblin or Force Spike, or a Lightning Helix) getting you small value, Faithless Looting discarding it to draw roughly a card (you get -1 CA from looting, but ditching a Chancellor for a land or a relevant spell is better than pure card advantage) and then Unburial Rites it for an effective +3 (you usually Faithlessed discarding the Unburial, meaning it didn't even cost you a card to cast it, you get a fatty which can trade with one of the opponents cards, and they all have abilities which are worth some portion of a card. And if you were fortunate enough to hardcast the Rites, they still have flashback so you can get the Chancellor again if it dies). The routes to value in this deck are pretty strong, and I really wish I could run 8x Faithless Looting. That card IS this deck. I tried running Desperate Ravings but the random discard kills you.
So I qualified for top 8 based on tiebreakers, slightly edging out my girlfriend who also went 3-2 with a Ub Delver Pike build. I played against the same UB Zombies player as round 1, but this time he just got better draws. Game 1 was at least close, but g2 he literally had almost 10 copies of Diregraf Captain in play and my Day of Judgment in hand was a death sentence. This deck is really strong. I should board at least one Sever the Bloodline for this matchup as well as tokens.
So that's the report! The deck felt very strong as well as viable. One important point is the necessity of Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. She is the best bomb to reanimate nearly 100% of the time because her ability neuters the opponent and is basically an Overrun for your squad. I unfortunately only have one, which is actually my brother's, because when NPH released and Caw-Blade was the nuts, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite was an awful card. Obviously the deck becomes stronger with more of them (I would run 3, perhaps cutting some Annex chancellors) and since I had to borrow one of them, I've been running a Sheoldred, Whispering One in its place which has surprisingly been somewhat ok. Maybe a future build would be -2 Annex in the main, +1 Elesh Norn and +1 Sheoldred as well as +2 Sever the Bloodline and the full 4 Day of Judgment in the sideboard. I attribute the success of this deck to the fact that nobody is running any removal right now. My Elesh Norn was killed exactly once, and Oblivion Ring ate Intangible Virtue a further 2 times. A few Chancellors ate Geth's Verdict in the Zombies matchup. The rest of my creature casualties were from sweepers or creature combat.
Combat damage does not use the stack (anymore). Maze of Ith has to be activated before the Combat Damage step in order to have its damage prevention effect.
If it is, then all combat damage that that creature would deal and all combat damage that would be dealt to it are prevented.
Not true. Maze can be activated in the End of combat Step, which is AFTER Combat Damage. Nothing on Maze says it must be used before damage is dealt, the only restriction is that it be used on an attacking creature.
Using Maze after damage is a very good play in legacy on your own Knight of the Reliquary, incidentally. You deal (presumably massive) damage, then untap it, giving it practical vigilance and letting you use its tap ability during your opponent's turn.
I really know nothing about and am not at all interested in steampunk, but in an artifact set, this might be good:
Artificial Selection :sym2w::sym2w::sym2w:
Sorcery
Search your library for an artifact card with converted mana cost 3 or less and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library. Steam-powered - If only colorless mana was spent to cast Artificial Selection, put that artifact into play instead. When the driving mechanisms of evolution fail, sometimes an artificer knows just the fix.
The name is a pun on "natural selection" in evolution, and the design should fit in with your set's GW druid guild. I snagged that ability word from your thread as well. Has strong synergy with an artifact block, is obviously very strong at WWW (in the vein of Enlightened Tutor and Idyllic Tutor, though, it is understandable) and still pretty good at 2WW. The 6 mode gives you an incentive to spend such a huge cost.
That's your opinion and you're more than entitled to it. I'd like to disagree though and say that the anonymity of the Internet changes a lot of things. There are no social norms that constrict me whilst on the internet. There is no backlash or infact any consequences of trash talking on the internet. However in real life there ARE social norms to abide by and by trash talking to a stranger sitting across from you, it will just just making for an uncomfortable situations.
I hope that better explained that to you to further your understanding of the matter.
Moral development in children illustrates exactly the kind of behavior you're projecting. By saying, effectively, "it's ok because there are no consequences immediately apparent" you are clearly in a preconventional subset. Also, if an "uncomfortable situation" is really what you're trying to avoid, that shows you have no concept or empathy for the feelings of others. Does it bother you at all that most developmental psychologists agree that the morality you're demonstrating should have been "grown out of" by age 8 at the latest?
Moral action has nothing to do with context. If it's not right to ridicule someone in person then it's not right to do it anonymously either. The argument that "you're drastically unlikely to meet someone you effect this way" is basically akin to "stealing is only wrong if I get caught" or "cheating on my spouse is ok unless she confronts me." Would you say either of those were wrong, independently of circumstance?
I'm studying ethics at the moment. And there are lots of different theories of what it means to be right, to be perfectly fair. I won't absolutely claim an objective moral standard because I'm not sure one exists. But I think that outside of strict forms of Ethical Egoism, nearly every system would agree that insulting others for no logical reason is pointless at best and morally wrong at worst. The fact that you and others try to rationalize it just makes it more evident that it is wrong.
Why would you feel the need to explain and defend yourself if you, internally, were satisfied with your action and ok with the moral consequence?
^That is literally akin to saying a white guy feels just as bad as a black guy while watching Roots, because it makes me feel guilty when "my kind" is in such a position of power.
Fact is, it's very hard for those of us who are not in marginalized groups or have suffered comparable prejudices to see past that privilege. This art is absurd and backwards and it deserves the condemnation it gets.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure being a "nice guy" and doing something "to piss [other people] off, and get enjoyment from their expense." are mutually exclusive. Hurting others for no rational purpose other than your own enjoyment is basically the definition of being a bad person.
As weird as it is... read the oracle text. "This effect lasts indefinitely." There's no "until end of turn."
Dat sorcery speed "response"
This format has no free counterspells, which is why combo is the most dominant archetype of them all. Combo decks can be interacted with using certain types of cards, depending on the combo. Mindbreak Trap, Combust, etc. But once an Emrakul is out... what do you do? Are you supposed to keep up 4 at all times to hardcast Mindbreak Trap? Are you supposed to play nonoptimal and/or narrow answer cards like Geth's Verdict, Wrath effects, or Oblivion Ring? Or do you just roll over and die? I'm really curious how those who play "fair" decks deal with the abundance of noninteractive combo kills in this format. If you're not playing blue or white I assume you just scoop to Emrakul decks, UR storm decks, and their like, right? And if you are playing blue, you almost have to hamstring yourself to keep up countermagic... Maybe I'm missing something?
To be fair, the last legacy GP was won by Esper Stoneblade with Souls, not Blossom... You get your bodies quicker and don't lose life at the cost of more mana and less overall power over time. It's a judgment call.
4 Chancellor of the Dross
4 Chancellor of the Annex
2 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
4 Faithless Looting
4 Lingering Souls
4 Unburial Rites
2 Increasing Devotion
4 Intangible Virtue
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
4 Dragonskull Summit
4 Isolated Chapel
4 Clifftop Retreat
4 Mountain
2 Plains
2 Swamp
4 Timely Reinforcements
2 Day of Judgment
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Ray of Revelation
2 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
5 cards I forget and never boarded in
And you have NO IDEA how hard it was to trade for the last three chancellors I needed before the tournament started! I had to trade off a Mikaeus, the Lunarch for two Forge and two Annex to get him to agree to the deal! I also borrowed an Elesh Norn from a good friend of mine for the tournament.
Round one was against a buddy playing UB Zombies. It was relying heavily on Geralf's Messenger and clone effects for the kill. I was able to lock him out with double Chancellor of the Annex reveal when he kept a one- or two-land hand, eventually he had to pitch a Mortarpod to it and I won with tokens. Game 2, I boarded in the Timelies, Day of Judgments, and Sorins for 4x Chancellor of the Annex and 4x Chancellor of the Forge. I figured the lifelink would help more than the tokens from Forge. I end up having this game pretty locked with Sorin despite his 5ish Geralf's Messenger clones, but he blows through it after a time with Gravecrawler/Mortarpod shenanigans. Unfortunately for him I drew all four copies of [c]Timely Reinforcements[c/] and he had no real chance. I hate winning like that against a friend but it happens! I was worried all night that I'd be boarding out the chancellors too much to justify their existence, but they are great maindeck cards and can help you just win games.
Round two was against UW Delver. This is a bad matchup for me, all I know is that I won game one with Forge tokens, Increasing Devotion, and Intangible Virtue. Game 2 I boarded in Sorin and Ancient Grudge for the Dross Chancellor. He made a play that severely impressed me: I had revealed Annex and Forge to start and slowed him down a bit on his early Delvers, allowing me time to cast Lingering Souls to trade with the Delvers when they flipped and the Forge token traded with an unflipped one when he blocked. After that it seemed we were both out of gas, so I spent a few turns Faithless Looting for an Unburial Rites to get value from my Chancellors, but ended up with a ton of lands and Sphere of the Suns so I decided to just go for the plan of getting to 10 mana to play around Mana Leak and cast the chancellors. I had pretty much read him to have two mana leaks and perhaps a Snag in his hand, and it turns out I was right. My hand was something like: Forge, Increasing Devotion, 2 Day of Judgment. So he sees me going to ramp up to cast either a Chancellor or Increasing Devotion+3 for leak, and he makes a very slick play: Revoke Existence my first Sphere, Oblivion Ring my second. This then let him cast Geist of Saint Traft, forcing me to either Day or Increasing Devotion, either of which he was able to leak. So I Day, he leaks, gets in for 6, I Day, he leaks, gets in for 6. and by the time I stabilize with Increasing Devotion the Angel has me dead. Game 3 I think I just choked on lands or something and died to his Delvers.
Game 3 was against mono-White Puresteel. I have never played this deck before in the current DKA format so I didn't know what to expect. He was playing lots of cheap equips like Flayer Husk, Infiltration Lens, and Swiftfoot Boots to make his Puresteel Paladins amazing, so game 1 I of course had to blow him out with Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. He retaliates with a Etched Champion game 2 which he recurs with Buried Ruin after I Day, and game 3 I lose to Etched Champion/Argentum Armor after he kills my intangible virtue when i have lethal on him. I don't feel bad about this one, because I just didn't draw the Ancient Grudges and he had freakin' Argentum Armor. I feel like any deck really just loses to Argentum Armor on an Etched Champion.
Game 4 was versus a U/G Dredge deck. It was unfortunately basically a bye because he drew very poorly and I had the smashing curve out of Reveal Forge, T1 Faithless pitching Forge Unburial, beat put you at 19, T2 Intangible Virtue, attack you to 17, T3 Lingering Souls, attack you to 15, T4 Unburial Forge, making 4 haste tokens, attack you down to 7, next turn you have blocks but I either had another Intangible Virtue or I faithlessed into Rites + Elesh Norn. Game 2 is similarly non-interactive as I double Annex him, he waits til turn 2 to pitch a Mulch to get rid of the Annex triggers, and then fails to draw land for several turns. This matchup can be hard if they play enough Gnaw to the Bone and have a decent clock to speed it up, but I had enough ways to interact that it didn't matter.
Game 5 I was paired up against Werewolves. We weren't sure if we could get in at 3-2 but we decided to play it. He played really sloppily and made tons of mistakes and I killed him pretty quick game 1, and with access to Ancient Grudge and Day of Judgment and Timely Reinforcements game 2 was also a joke. I ancient grudged his first sword, then as he swung in with a War and Peace equipped Mayor I used a Sphere to flash it back and then blocked with a pumped token, blowing him out. This deck does really well against straight up aggro decks despite the lack of sweepers, because you make and pump enough tokens to stall the early game til you can resolve a bomb or trade your Lingering Souls tokens for 2+ cards. It's surprisingly easy to get value in this deck: a common sequence is Reveal Chancellor (which is either a Raging Goblin or Force Spike, or a Lightning Helix) getting you small value, Faithless Looting discarding it to draw roughly a card (you get -1 CA from looting, but ditching a Chancellor for a land or a relevant spell is better than pure card advantage) and then Unburial Rites it for an effective +3 (you usually Faithlessed discarding the Unburial, meaning it didn't even cost you a card to cast it, you get a fatty which can trade with one of the opponents cards, and they all have abilities which are worth some portion of a card. And if you were fortunate enough to hardcast the Rites, they still have flashback so you can get the Chancellor again if it dies). The routes to value in this deck are pretty strong, and I really wish I could run 8x Faithless Looting. That card IS this deck. I tried running Desperate Ravings but the random discard kills you.
So I qualified for top 8 based on tiebreakers, slightly edging out my girlfriend who also went 3-2 with a Ub Delver Pike build. I played against the same UB Zombies player as round 1, but this time he just got better draws. Game 1 was at least close, but g2 he literally had almost 10 copies of Diregraf Captain in play and my Day of Judgment in hand was a death sentence. This deck is really strong. I should board at least one Sever the Bloodline for this matchup as well as tokens.
So that's the report! The deck felt very strong as well as viable. One important point is the necessity of Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. She is the best bomb to reanimate nearly 100% of the time because her ability neuters the opponent and is basically an Overrun for your squad. I unfortunately only have one, which is actually my brother's, because when NPH released and Caw-Blade was the nuts, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite was an awful card. Obviously the deck becomes stronger with more of them (I would run 3, perhaps cutting some Annex chancellors) and since I had to borrow one of them, I've been running a Sheoldred, Whispering One in its place which has surprisingly been somewhat ok. Maybe a future build would be -2 Annex in the main, +1 Elesh Norn and +1 Sheoldred as well as +2 Sever the Bloodline and the full 4 Day of Judgment in the sideboard. I attribute the success of this deck to the fact that nobody is running any removal right now. My Elesh Norn was killed exactly once, and Oblivion Ring ate Intangible Virtue a further 2 times. A few Chancellors ate Geth's Verdict in the Zombies matchup. The rest of my creature casualties were from sweepers or creature combat.
Not true. Maze can be activated in the End of combat Step, which is AFTER Combat Damage. Nothing on Maze says it must be used before damage is dealt, the only restriction is that it be used on an attacking creature.
Using Maze after damage is a very good play in legacy on your own Knight of the Reliquary, incidentally. You deal (presumably massive) damage, then untap it, giving it practical vigilance and letting you use its tap ability during your opponent's turn.
4 Chancellor of the Dross
4 Chancellor of the Annex
2 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
4 Faithless Looting
4 Lingering Souls
4 Unburial Rites
2 Increasing Devotion
4 Intangible Virtue
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
4 Dragonskull Summit
4 Isolated Chapel
4 Clifftop Retreat
4 Mountain
2 Plains
2 Swamp
Been having a lot of fun and casual testing success with this list! I'll post a report tomorrow or Saturday night.
Artificial Selection :sym2w::sym2w::sym2w:
Sorcery
Search your library for an artifact card with converted mana cost 3 or less and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library.
Steam-powered - If only colorless mana was spent to cast Artificial Selection, put that artifact into play instead.
When the driving mechanisms of evolution fail, sometimes an artificer knows just the fix.
The name is a pun on "natural selection" in evolution, and the design should fit in with your set's GW druid guild. I snagged that ability word from your thread as well. Has strong synergy with an artifact block, is obviously very strong at WWW (in the vein of Enlightened Tutor and Idyllic Tutor, though, it is understandable) and still pretty good at 2WW. The 6 mode gives you an incentive to spend such a huge cost.
Psychologically speaking, this type of behavior is, by definition, childish.
http://tigger.uic.edu/~lnucci/MoralEd/overview.html
Moral development in children illustrates exactly the kind of behavior you're projecting. By saying, effectively, "it's ok because there are no consequences immediately apparent" you are clearly in a preconventional subset. Also, if an "uncomfortable situation" is really what you're trying to avoid, that shows you have no concept or empathy for the feelings of others. Does it bother you at all that most developmental psychologists agree that the morality you're demonstrating should have been "grown out of" by age 8 at the latest?
Moral action has nothing to do with context. If it's not right to ridicule someone in person then it's not right to do it anonymously either. The argument that "you're drastically unlikely to meet someone you effect this way" is basically akin to "stealing is only wrong if I get caught" or "cheating on my spouse is ok unless she confronts me." Would you say either of those were wrong, independently of circumstance?
I'm studying ethics at the moment. And there are lots of different theories of what it means to be right, to be perfectly fair. I won't absolutely claim an objective moral standard because I'm not sure one exists. But I think that outside of strict forms of Ethical Egoism, nearly every system would agree that insulting others for no logical reason is pointless at best and morally wrong at worst. The fact that you and others try to rationalize it just makes it more evident that it is wrong.
Why would you feel the need to explain and defend yourself if you, internally, were satisfied with your action and ok with the moral consequence?
Fact is, it's very hard for those of us who are not in marginalized groups or have suffered comparable prejudices to see past that privilege. This art is absurd and backwards and it deserves the condemnation it gets.