Magic: The Gathering Thread XIV: Instant Annoying, Just Add Hexproof

[Mystic Muse]

Zero unfortunately, the already spoiled cards don't leave a space for it in the name/number crunch.

Ah. Well, that's sad. On the bright side, that means my birds are open for a new casual deck I wanted to make anyway.

[Fable Wright]

Zero unfortunately, the already spoiled cards don't leave a space for it in the name/number crunch.

They might reprint it in Sinker or Gatecrash... I refuse to believe that Birds won't show up during Ravnica block.

[Litewarior]

It seems that they are printing all the mana fixing stuff in the first two sets (Shocklands, gates, Chromatic Lantern), so I'm guessing birds will be in the last set, with some cool new flavor text based on the nature people that are trying to take down Ravnica

[The Extinguisher]

We wont see Birds of Paradise. Because they've basically never been out of Standard and you need to shake things up sometime.

[Lord Seth]

At this point, I think to make Birds of Paradise's price drop you have to stop printing it.

[Squark]

Hmm... So, the card that makes dragon tokens isn't in the huge section of spoiled cards...

[tgva8889]

It was revealed, however:

Utvara Hellkite 6RR
Creature - Dragon
Flying
Whenever a Dragon you control attacks, put a 6/6 Red Dragon creature token with flying onto the battlefield.
6/6

[Foeofthelance]

Guh. I want that dragon so badly.

[razark]

Wow. I used to play back in high school, almost 2 decades ago. Now my kids have discovered this game through the gamer's guild at my wife's college. They got a couple of sample decks, and really enjoyed it, so we've picked up a box of cards for them. It seems the game has changed since I left.

Looking through the cards, I've got some questions on how some things work:
Soulbond: This allows creatures to pair up and share abilities. Is a creature able to pair up with another creature with soulbond, or any other creature?
Planeswalkers: Last time I checked, the only planeswalkers were the players. Can someone explain, or point me to an explanation, how these work?
Double sided card: One of the cards had no back, but a creature on each side. I've seen reference to these types, but no explanation of what to do with them. Any input on this?

More general questions:
Is there a list of rules/resources available somewhere?
Is there a decent program for organizing collections of cards?
Any good tips for beginner players? I've had some experience, but it's been so long.
What should the ration of land to other cards be in a deck?

Thanks for any help you can bring to me.

[Fable Wright]

Wow. I used to play back in high school, almost 2 decades ago. Now my kids have discovered this game through the gamer's guild at my wife's college. They got a couple of sample decks, and really enjoyed it, so we've picked up a box of cards for them. It seems the game has changed since I left.

Looking through the cards, I've got some questions on how some things work:
Soulbond: This allows creatures to pair up and share abilities. Is a creature able to pair up with another creature with soulbond, or any other creature?
Planeswalkers: Last time I checked, the only planeswalkers were the players. Can someone explain, or point me to an explanation, how these work?
Double sided card: One of the cards had no back, but a creature on each side. I've seen reference to these types, but no explanation of what to do with them. Any input on this?

Thanks for any help you can bring to me.
Well, I can't really help with your general questions, but I can help with these:
1. Soulbond creatures can bond with any creatures that are not currently soulbonded- that is, that is not already receiving Soulbond benefits from another creature. You can soulbond two creatures with Soulbond together, for instance, and they would both get the benefits of each's soulbond ability.
2. Planeswalkers: There was a whole story arc with the Mending and planeswalkers in general getting depowered, but here's how they work: On each, there is a number in the lower right hand corner. The planeswalker enters the battlefield with that many "Loyalty counters" on them. Each turn, including the turn that the planeswalker came into play, they can activate one ability of the planeswalkers at sorcery speed. To the right of each ability is a number- for example, on Garruk Wildspeaker (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=191243), you have +1, -1, and -4. When you activate an ability, you alter Garruk's loyalty by that number- so, if you untap two lands, Garruk gets another loyalty counter, going up to 4. You can't remove more Loyalty counters than the planeswalker has- so, for instance, you can't activate Garruk's -4 ability when he has 3 counters on them. Then comes the odd part- they act sort of like other players. When creatures attack you, their owner can choose to have them attack a planeswalker you control instead- for example, your opponent's Shivan Dragon could attack your Garruk and deal no damage to you if its controller wishes it. However, you can still block for planeswalkers you control- you could still block the Shivan Dragon to save Garruk. Additionally, if a player would deal noncombat damage to you- like Lightning Bolt, and so on- they can choose to deal it to a Planeswalker you control instead. Finally, you can only have one Planeswalker of the same subtype on the battlefield at one time. So, you can't have both Garruk, Primal Hunter (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=253669) on the battlefield at the same time as you have Garruk Wildspeaker. They're both Garruk, and act like Legendary creatures, despite not having the same name.
3. Double Sided cards- cards with two faces. There are two ways to deal with those- one is that in Innistrad and Dark Ascension booster packs (The two sets that used double-faced cards), there are checklist cards with normal Magic backs that can be used in your deck. When you play the card, you just take the actual double-faced card out of wherever you're storing it, and put it on the battlefield. Alternatively, if you have sleeves that have an opaque back, you can just slip double sided cards in those, and then take them out and flip them when they transform (flip over).

Hope this helps.

EDIT: Oh, one more thing: You might want to take a look at the value of your old cards, if you have any. Some of them are worth a lot, nowadays.

[Duos]

Soulbond allows you to pair it with any unpaired creature. "Unpaired" just means that it isn't already paired with another creature, so you can pair a creature with soulbond to a creature that doesn't have soulbond.

Planeswalker cards are a bit more complicated. Basically, they enter the battlefield with the number of loyalty counters specified in the lower right. Once per turn, at sorcery speed, you can use one of the planeswalker's abilities that you can pay for by adding or subtracting the number of loyalty counters indicated in the box on the left. You can't use an ability if you don't have enough loyalty counters. Planeswalkers can be attacked as if they were a player, so if you have a planeswalker, your opponent needs to decide which of their creatures are attacking who, although you still get to block regardless of who's getting attacked. Planeswalkers who take damage get that many loyalty counters removed, and if they have zero or less loyalty, they get put into the graveyard. If you cast a spell that deals damage to a player, you can choose to redirect the damage to ONE of their planeswalkers when the spell resolves, although you are still targeting the player and not actually the planeswalker.

The double-faced cards (DFCs) have one side with a mana cost and one without one. Anywhere except the battlefield, the card is treated as the the side WITH the mana cost. All DFCs have something that triggers their transformation, and when it transforms, you flip it over and it turns into whatever is on the back. If you want to put one in your deck, you need to use the checklist cards that are in most of the packs (just mark which one it is), or you can just use sleeves.

Basic and comprehensive rules can be found here. (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/TCG/Article.aspx?x=magic/rules)

If you want to organize your old cards, you can do what I did: Cry bitter tears that you didn't have a better filing system when you were younger, then spend three months sorting them all. (I don't really have a good answer for you here, although I wish you luck:smalltongue:)

If you're just getting started, I would first just learn the basics: Steps and phases of each turn (untap, upkeep, draw, etc.), when you can cast things(the stack is your friend!), what common keywords (like flying and protection) do, and some common pitfalls to avoid (like-mana is land, planeswalkers are players, etc.).

A good land/non-land ratio differs from deck to deck. Aggressive decks with low curves or ways to ensure they can still cast their threats when low on mana can get away with running less, in the neighborhood of 17-19, and control decks that have good card advantage and NEED to hit all their land drops often play more, in the neighborhood of 24-26. Most decks usually have somewhere between 21-23 lands, though.

[razark]

EDIT: Oh, one more thing: You might want to take a look at the value of your old cards, if you have any. Some of them are worth a lot, nowadays.
Thanks, I will parse the rest of the info later, but as for the value of old cards: they were worth one bottle of Jack Daniel's. I had a shoebox full that I got rid of my first semester of college, since they weren't doing me any good. Never expected them to, either.

Edit: Ok, I've had a chance to read through your replies. That cleared things up for me. I'm sure I'll probably run into some more questions as I look deeper into things and find more stuff added during my absence.

[Bucky]

Soulbond:
Double sided card:

Looks like you got a box of the wrong set. I'd have recommended Magic 2013 instead.




More general questions:
Is there a list of rules/resources available somewhere?
Is there a decent program for organizing collections of cards?

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Default.aspx has all the cards in it, and the 'Display Rulings' link at the bottom should take care of a significant portion of your rules questions.



Any good tips for beginner players? I've had some experience, but it's been so long.

Bashing preconstructed decks into each other is a good place to start; watching online videos (http://www.youtube.com/user/ChannelFireball/videos?sort=dd&query=draft&flow=grid&view=0&page=7) of experts playing is a reasonable introduction to more advanced play. At some point you also want to start reading strategy (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCIQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.starcitygames.com%2Fmagic%2Ff undamentals%2F3692_Whos_The_Beatdown.html&ei=AzZZUP61MKns2gXn4IDoAQ&usg=AFQjCNEo7TgWypzBEB6YFlLZO63zqNBYhA) articles (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&ved=0CDAQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wizards.com%2Fmagic%2Fmagazin e%2Farticle.aspx%3Fx%3Dmtg%2Fdaily%2Fli%2F174&ei=PDZZUKHaGefq2AW7nYHQAQ&usg=AFQjCNG9hqrgHYgzhmuNbQh2REpISa8ybg).



What should the ration of land to other cards be in a deck?

That depends on how expensive its cards are, and how much colored mana they require. If everything is the same color and costs 2 mana or less, you can get away with 18 land. A more typical 2-color deck that wants to play its 4-mana spells on turn 4 most of the time will want 24 land; if any of its spells are more than half one color, it also wants some land that works for both colors like Evolving Wilds (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=269666) or the color pair's Glacial Fortress (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=249722) equivalent. (all out of 60, of course)

[Forrestfire]

So what are people's thoughts on Golgari Charm?

Golgari Charm GB
Instant
Choose one - All creatures get -1/-1 until end of turn; or destroy target enchantment; or regenerate each creature you control.

This card in general seems ridiculously strong, especially in modern. I can definitely think of a few decks that like making their stuff unkillable for a bit and/or wiping mana dorks tokens or fae...

[Sohala]

*Brings news (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/commander/24889-Commander-Official-Banned-List-And-Format-Philosophy.html)* :mitd:

[Fable Wright]

So what are people's thoughts on Golgari Charm?

Golgari Charm GB
Instant
Choose one - All creatures get -1/-1 until end of turn; or destroy target enchantment; or regenerate each creature you control.

This card in general seems ridiculously strong, especially in modern. I can definitely think of a few decks that like making their stuff unkillable for a bit and/or wiping mana dorks tokens or fae...


To me, it looks over-hyped. Not many decks run ridiculous enchantments, most Wraths in Modern don't allow Regeneration (Gifts for Final Judgement, Hallowed Burial, Wrath of God, and Day of Judgement, anyone?), and all creatures getting -1/-1 is not actually that good. Cower in Fear didn't really do anything to the format, and while the other options are nice, I don't really think that it's quite at the ridiculous level. Wrap in Vigor was subpar, a bad Erase is subpar, and Cower in Fear is subpar- I just don't get what the hype is. I can see it being useful for the utility, like it's supposed to be- niche case against unbuffed Spirit tokens in Standard, getting rid of Knights of Glory, occasionally acting as a bit of a buffer, getting rid of an Intangible Virtue, and so on make it a nice utility card/combat trick, but in the end of the day it isn't as stupid as people seem to be making it out to be. I'd give it 4 stars as a solid card, and probably run 2-4 if I ever go Golgari, but it really isn't as good as people keep saying it is...

[tgva8889]

Golgari Charm is incredibly good in Zombies. It beats Oblivion Ring/Detention Sphere and Supreme Verdict, which are going to be some of the most valuable weapons against them, and the majority of their creatures have more than 1 toughness so Golgari Charm just kills Gravecrawlers and Blood Artists. The other two modes are, however, of more value in terms of utility. It seems like quite a useful card for them to have in their toolbox.

[Mystic Muse]

*Brings news (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/commander/24889-Commander-Official-Banned-List-And-Format-Philosophy.html)* :mitd:

I'm not sure how I feel about this.

I don't really care one way or the other about Kokusho all that much.

I don't think I agree with the decision to ban Primeval Titan in Commander.

[Lord Seth]

Wait, what? I thought bans were announced on September 20? Isn't it a bit early?

[tgva8889]

It's the 19th, so it's close enough and Sheldon has a weekly column on StarCity today.

[Mystic Muse]

Anybody got some advice for my casual Tribal Eldrazi deck? Such as best colors to go with it, or should it remain entirely colorless, since there's enough affordable colorless mana acceleration anyway (Palladium myr, Cloudpost, Eldrazi Temple, Sol Ring, Everflowing Chalice, Semblance anvil, large amounts of others)? So far for it I have

2 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn (Not sure if I want to put the money down for another)
2 All is dust
1 It that Betrays
Other more common Eldrazi (Ulamog's crusher, Pathrazer of Ulamog)

I may have found an Ulamog for a decent price too. Anybody know what "#GIV" means?

Also, what's the best colorless acceleration for this deck without spending a large amount of money?

[Lord Seth]

Wonder if we'll see an Earthcraft unban this time around.

I mean, I doubt we will so soon after another unbanning...but it's still possible, and it's probably next on the list after Land Tax.

[Fable Wright]

Anybody got some advice for my casual Tribal Eldrazi deck? Such as best colors to go with it, or should it remain entirely colorless, since there's enough affordable colorless mana acceleration anyway (Palladium myr, Cloudpost, Eldrazi Temple, Sol Ring, Everflowing Chalice, Semblance anvil, large amounts of others)? So far for it I have

2 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn (Not sure if I want to put the money down for another)
2 All is dust
1 It that Betrays
Other more common Eldrazi (Ulamog's crusher, Pathrazer of Ulamog)

I may have found an Ulamog for a decent price too. Anybody know what "#GIV" means?

Also, what's the best colorless acceleration for this deck without spending a large amount of money?

I used to play a Tribal Eldrazi deck, and I went with R/G. Red mostly for burn and for Brood Birthing, Green for Overgrown Battlements and Kozilek's Predator. I saw some successful decks back in the day put in Pelakka Wurm for the lifegain on a huge body, and Crystal Ball was used for dig.

Since it's casual, I recommend Soul Foundry in the shell. Popping out tons of Predators or Overgrown Battlements every turn leads to getting ALL THE MANA more often than you'd expect...

[Landis963]

Story of RtR: So who wants to bet that Jace's fingerprints are all over the Interlocus? (That would be the giant meta-project that Niv-Mizzet is currently working on)

[Mystic Muse]

I used to play a Tribal Eldrazi deck, and I went with R/G. Red mostly for burn and for Brood Birthing, Green for Overgrown Battlements and Kozilek's Predator. I saw some successful decks back in the day put in Pelakka Wurm for the lifegain on a huge body, and Crystal Ball was used for dig. Alright. I've got 3 Rootbound Crags and 1 Copperline Gorge, so that'll work. I've got 2 Vexing Devils (Hoping to make it four) and 4 lightning bolts I could throw in for a burn aspect, plus 3 Brimstone volleys.



Since it's casual, I recommend Soul Foundry in the shell. Popping out tons of Predators or Overgrown Battlements every turn leads to getting ALL THE MANA more often than you'd expect...

Alright. I'll keep this in mind.

[Meta]

Alright. I've got 3 Rootbound Crags and 1 Copperline Gorge, so that'll work. I've got 2 Vexing Devils (Hoping to make it four) and 4 lightning bolts I could throw in for a burn aspect, plus 3 Brimstone volleys.



Alright. I'll keep this in mind.

Don't put in the devils. If you want burn in a ramp deck it's because it's a cheap way to get rid of the little creatures that threaten to take away your 20 before your drop a monster. Them being at 6 or 2 will often be irrelevant if you just made them sac their board.

[Lord Seth]

Never play Vexing Devil in a deck where you wouldn't want to run Lava Spike.

[Mystic Muse]

Never play Vexing Devil in a deck where you wouldn't want to run Lava Spike.

I never got this argument. I don't see them as being remotely the same thing, or being things you'd necessarily want in the same deck.


Don't put in the devils. If you want burn in a ramp deck it's because it's a cheap way to get rid of the little creatures that threaten to take away your 20 before your drop a monster. Them being at 6 or 2 will often be irrelevant if you just made them sac their board.

I just like the devils which is why I'm including them at the moment. I'll probably take them out eventually, and they may not even make it into the final deck. I don't know at the moment, since I don't have the cases to build the deck right now anyway.

[Fable Wright]

I never got this argument. I don't see them as being remotely the same thing, or being things you'd necessarily want in the same deck.

I just like the devils which is why I'm including them at the moment. I'll probably take them out eventually, and they may not even make it into the final deck. I don't know at the moment, since I don't have the cases to build the deck right now anyway.

I'm going to back everyone up on this- Vexing Devils isn't the best card for this deck. Vexing Devils wants the opponents to be on a clock, so either option hurts. Eldrazi Ramp is either playing enormous creatures that make the Devils look like small fries in comparison, or not really having a clock to make the decision to pay 4 life a big one.

As for cards I would recommend for this deck... Ancient Stirrings is a big one. Find a Land, Eldrazi, Sol Ring for G? Seems good. Staggershock and Arc Trail are also good ones- they facilitate powerful plays to help cripple your opponent. Shoot their beater(s) and/or dork(s), giving yourself enough time to stabilize behind Overgrown Battlements and chump blockers. And then suddenly Ulamog/Flying Spaghetti Monster.

One final bit of tech that I hadn't really considered before seeing a friend's deck was Battle Ramparts. Aside from synergizing with the Battlements well (both defenders, can turn a newly played Battlements into a ritual effect), Wizards of the Coast notably did not design Eldrazi with Haste in mind. Casting Emrakul and getting 2 swings with it is just silly. Casting an Ulamog to blow up their power permanent, swing in for Annihilation, and force the opponent to block or take 11 in one turn can really do a number on most opponents...

[9mm]

*Brings news (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/commander/24889-Commander-Official-Banned-List-And-Format-Philosophy.html)* :mitd:

noted... and promptly ignored. Simply put the problem they are trying to solve is the simple fact is Green gets the mana accelerators; banning out the favorite staple doesn't mean anything. What's next; Divining top bans?

[Lord Seth]

I never got this argument. I don't see them as being remotely the same thing, or being things you'd necessarily want in the same deck.They absolutely are.
Lava Spike: For one red mana, you deal 3 damage to an opponent at sorcery speed.
Vexing Devil: For one red mana, you deal 4 damage to an opponent at sorcery speed, but to compensate for the extra damage it has the disadvantage of your opponent possibly making it into a creature.

If Lava Spike isn't something you'd want to play in your deck, neither is Vexing Devil.

[Mystic Muse]

They absolutely are.
Lava Spike: For one red mana, you deal 3 damage to an opponent at sorcery speed.
Vexing Devil: For one red mana, you deal 4 damage to an opponent at sorcery speed, but to compensate for the extra damage it has the disadvantage of your opponent possibly making it into a creature.

If Lava Spike isn't something you'd want to play in your deck, neither is Vexing Devil.

Vexing Devil can be used in a deck if you want to possibly use morbid. Lava Spike can't be used for the same purpose.

Lava Spike having the arcane subtype means you can use it in any deck where you want to use Splice onto Arcane. Vexing Devil can't be used for the same purpose.

They are both affected by, and benefit from entirely different things, and I can't really think of any deck off the top of my head I'd want to run Vexing Devil in that I'd also want to run Lava Spike in.

I'm under no illusion that Vexing Devil is anywhere near as good as people were thinking when it first came out, and didn't even think it was all that good back then, but it is not the same thing as Lava Spike.

[tgva8889]

It really wants to be played in the same deck, though. That was what Seth was saying. Note the number of successful decks in which Lava Spike has been played for Splice onto Arcane. Hint: it is 0. They aren't the same exact card, but they do very similar things and thus the decks that want to play them are actually very similar.

Also, I wrote a really long thing about Primeval Titan earlier but it got eaten. From my experience with EDH, playing Primeval Titan is like playing an entire ramp package in one card. Playing Ramp in EDH usually requires dedicating a sizeable amount of space to it, but you could instead play Prime Time and just suddenly transition from 6 to 10 mana. Not only that, but you get to do so while getting lands that do powerful things.

[Penguinizer]

Primeval Titan is disgustingly good. 2 lands isn't much, but two lands per turn for that cheap is. Not to mention it can fetch non-basics. While it's not as silly as some of the cards they chose not to ban, it's still really really strong.

[Mystic Muse]

It really wants to be played in the same deck, though. That was what Seth was saying. Note the number of successful decks in which Lava Spike has been played for Splice onto Arcane. Hint: it is 0. They aren't the same exact card, but they do very similar things and thus the decks that want to play them are actually very similar.

*Shrug* I probably wouldn't play them in the same deck is all I'm trying to say. There are decks I'd play where I'd possibly run Lava Spike, and decks I'd play where I'd possibly run Vexing Devil, but those decks don't go about things the same way so the two cards wouldn't be interchangeable for me.

[tgva8889]

How differently would those two decks go about dealing damage? I wouldn't play them in the same deck because Vexing Devil is terrible.

[Mystic Muse]

How differently would those two decks go about dealing damage? I wouldn't play them in the same deck because Vexing Devil is terrible.

RtR spoiler

I'd use Lava Spike in a deck with Guttersnipe to abuse his ability, or in a deck where I could use flashback, or just in a deck that synergizes with sorceries such as copying them with Increasing Vengeance or Reverberate.

Vexing Devil would go in a deck using undying and morbid.

[tgva8889]

Considering the number of cards that grant Undying in the game (2), Vexing Devil would only be particularly good in one that played Undying Evil, and even then you'd be playing it because, you guessed it, it deals a lot of damage really fast. If you were trying to do that, however, you could play Bump in the Night for less work and comparable damage-per-card. I guess you might abuse it with Morbid, but what Morbid cards are you abusing it with?

If you were going to synergize with instants and sorceries, you'd synergize with better ones, like ones that draw cards when you play them. You wouldn't play either Lava Spike or Vexing Devil. If you were trying to copy instants and sorceries with cards like Reverberate, you would play bigger ones because then Reverberate is getting mana value for the risk and setup, you wouldn't play Lava Spike.

In reality, you would play these cards only in decks that want a critical mass of what both these cards do, which is lots of damage to your opponent per individual card.

[Mystic Muse]

Considering the number of cards that grant Undying in the game (2), Vexing Devil would only be particularly good in one that played Undying Evil, and even then you'd be playing it because, you guessed it, it deals a lot of damage really fast. If you were trying to do that, however, you could play Bump in the Night for less work and comparable damage-per-card. I guess you might abuse it with Morbid, but what Morbid cards are you abusing it with?

Would depend on the colors, but let's say black and red. Brimstone Volley, Tragic slip, and possibly Skirsdag High Priest.



If you were going to synergize with instants and sorceries, you'd synergize with better ones, like ones that draw cards when you play them. You wouldn't play either Lava Spike or Vexing Devil. If you were trying to copy instants and sorceries with cards like Reverberate, you would play bigger ones because then Reverberate is getting mana value for the risk and setup, you wouldn't play Lava Spike. I'm aware. I've already said I wouldn't use Vexing Devil in this deck type so I'm not quite sure why you're bringing it up again.

You asked how differently the decks would go about dealing damage, and I provided an answer. I probably wouldn't use Lava Spike at all because I find it boring, whereas I find Vexing Devil fun.

Like I said, probably not going to include them in the Eldrazi deck for obvious reasons.

I'm not trying to say Vexing Devil is a competitive or even good card, I'm just saying "You wouldn't use Vexing Devil in any deck you wouldn't use Lava Spike" is false because they aren't similar enough, and I probably wouldn't actually use lava spike at all because there are better, more fun options.

[Squark]

To be honest, I'm not sure they're exactly the same, mainly because Lava Spike doesn't offer you a "Discard a card, counter this spell" option in burn the way Vexing Devil does (because Legacy Burn is so creature light, that removal spell your opponent had in their hand wasn't doing anything util you played Vexing devil, so you lose the virtual card advantage you had).

[tgva8889]

What I'm saying is that in all the situations you wouldn't use Lava Spike, you shouldn't be using Vexing Devil either because there are probably far better choices.

Also, I figured out why we got Craterize instead of Stone Rain! It is still very annoying but I can accept it.

[IthilanorStPete]

Also, I wrote a really long thing about Primeval Titan earlier but it got eaten. From my experience with EDH, playing Primeval Titan is like playing an entire ramp package in one card. Playing Ramp in EDH usually requires dedicating a sizeable amount of space to it, but you could instead play Prime Time and just suddenly transition from 6 to 10 mana. Not only that, but you get to do so while getting lands that do powerful things.

Pfft, only going to 10 mana? I'm used to getting Cabal Coffers, then Urborg...so that's 10 lands out after the attack trigger, 8 untapped, which makes for 15 mana.
(Yeah, Primeval Titan can get pretty silly.)


Also, I figured out why we got Craterize instead of Stone Rain! It is still very annoying but I can accept it.

Do tell?

[tgva8889]

The reason involves spoilers:
Stone Rain would have made all these land auras completely and utterly unplayable. It's good enough at what it does that stuff like the new Phyrexian Arena would never have been viable. So they weakened the LD to make it such cards more viable.

[IthilanorStPete]

The reason involves spoilers:
Stone Rain would have made all these land auras completely and utterly unplayable. It's good enough at what it does that stuff like the new Phyrexian Arena would never have been viable. So they weakened the LD to make it such cards more viable.

Ah, gotcha. Makes sense. Speaking of that, what do you think of the new Arena-aura-thingy?

[tgva8889]

I think the biggest issue with it is that you are sacrificing a land to do it (more or less). This makes it only useful when you don't really have much to do, or when you can abuse the fact that it's an activated ability with something like Arbor Elf. It's not going to just be Phyrexian Arena.

The cost of using up a land is more relevant now, where curving out has become one of the ways decks win. I don't know what deck really wants this card. The power is there, but unlike Phyrexian Arena you can't just play it on 3 mana and expect massive value. You're more likely to play it on 5 or 6 and use it to start looking for something over a few turns.

It's interesting to think about, but it does have significant cost. Spending a mana to do this every turn is not nothing.

[Eldariel]

The reason involves spoilers:
Stone Rain would have made all these land auras completely and utterly unplayable. It's good enough at what it does that stuff like the new Phyrexian Arena would never have been viable. So they weakened the LD to make it such cards more viable.

Weakening LD has been a long, long process. 3-mana unconditional "Destroy Target Land" was last printed in 9th Edition; WotC simply seems to consider it "unfun". Only remotely efficient recent LD has been non-basic hate like Fulminator Mage or Tectonic Edge. At the same time, WotC knows better than to consider 4-mana vanilla LD playable; Avalanche Riders was reprinted in Time Spiral for instance.

Craterize confuses me; they know it'll never see any play anywhere but I guess they still want to include the token Stone Rain in the sets just to point out that "yeah, LD sucks now but it's still in red's part of the color pie!". I'm thinking it has less to do with specific decision tho, though those are probably a part of the deal too, and more to do with the fact that they simply don't want "turn 1 mana elf, turn 2 LD LD LD, thanks for playing" decks to exist.

Completely unrelated, Return to Ravnica spoilers:
Spoilers in case you don't know where to look but are interested (http://mtgsalvation.com/return-to-ravnica-spoiler.html).

Holy ****! These split card 1-drops might finally bring non-ramp 1-drops back to the game. Dryad Militant is good for Legacy and strong for standard and the most blatant anti-Snapcaster Mage card they could've made; Judge's Familiar is insanely good considering Spiketail Hatchling was playable during 10E at 1 more mana.

And Nivmagus Elemental can potentially do ugly stuff; few cheap removal can stop it and it has the potential to get huge extremely fast. It'll take work to break tho, while Judge's Familiar and Dryad Militant are actually playable aggressive one-drops that don't require decks built around them. Slitherhead and Rakdos Cackler are probably niché viable but mostly limited cards.

[Landis963]

Yeah, really. My UB mill deck is begging for Judge's Familiar, and Nivmagus wouldn't go amiss as a defensive wall.

EDIT: So, what's better: Doom Blade or Ultimate Price?

[Eldariel]

Yeah, really. My UB mill deck is begging for Judge's Familiar, and Nivmagus wouldn't go amiss as a defensive wall.

EDIT: So, what's better: Doom Blade or Ultimate Price?

Ultimate Price is classic "anti-set release" á la e.g. Rend Flesh from Kamigawa. It'll possibly be playable in the upcoming Standard/Type 2 depending on how cards are picked but ultimately quite unreliable due to the number of multicolor cards that will see play, while outside this Standard format with a multicolor block in it it'll be quite solid (tho there are enough good multicolor cards that it'll always be quite unreliable).

Doom Blade is probably gonna be more reliable overall tho if you could pull off the mana, I'd look at Victim of the Night or optimally Go For the Throat (not gonna be a Type 2 card after Return to Ravnica release of course) instead. As artifact creatures that you absolutely need to answer are currently fairly rare (most fatties and big utility creatures are colored currently), the drawback is lesser than any of the others. There's always Diabolic Edict/Geth's Verdict too (but weak to tokens). Or one more mana for Murder.

[Lord Seth]

They are both affected by, and benefit from entirely different things, and I can't really think of any deck off the top of my head I'd want to run Vexing Devil in that I'd also want to run Lava Spike in.Burn, a.k.a. Red Deck Wins. Which is the only deck I can even think of that you'd want to play either in.
To be honest, I'm not sure they're exactly the same, mainly because Lava Spike doesn't offer you a "Discard a card, counter this spell" option in burn the way Vexing Devil does (because Legacy Burn is so creature light, that removal spell your opponent had in their hand wasn't doing anything util you played Vexing devil, so you lose the virtual card advantage you had).But that's again exactly my point. Vexing Devil has a disadvantage that Lava Spike doesn't to counteract the fact it deals more damage. It's better in one way and worse in another way. But they both still serve the exact same purpose of hitting the opponent for damage (without the option to hit creatures), and are only good in a deck where that works, namely Burn.

Which again brings me back to my original point that if it's not a deck where Lava Spike would be good, it won't be a deck where Vexing Devil is good.

[Bucky]

Which again brings me back to my original point that if it's not a deck where Lava Spike would be good, it won't be a deck where Vexing Devil is good.

Singleton or doubleton as a Ranger of Eos target?

[Squark]

Singleton or doubleton as a Ranger of Eos target?

I can't see a reason why a ranger of Eos deck would want it, given it does exactly what you want the least every time.

[Meta]

I could see 1 or 2 vexing in a boros deck in modern. Fetchlands, Helix, Steppe Lynx, Guide, Bolt, Lavamancer, with Ranger and some other fun things as the top of your curve. If you're playing more of the control role, grab a lavamancer, but if you've got a clear board, dropping guide and vexing doesn't seem terrible.

[Eldariel]

In a Burn-heavy Boros-deck (like 23/20/17) you could run Ranger Devil package and enemies would pretty much just die if you resolve Ranger since that's presenting 11 power of bodies for 6 mana over two turns or 8 damage to the dome which combined with 17 burn spells should be more than enough to 20-0 somebody.

[Bucky]

I can't see a reason why a ranger of Eos deck would want it, given it does exactly what you want the least every time.

You fetch it whenever you resolve a Ranger, and your weenie rush has gotten your opponent down to 4 life or less, and you have at least as many large creatures (including the Ranger) as your opponent. At that point, they get to choose between dying immediately and leaving you with a lethal alpha strike on board. Used that way, it's a mana-efficient complement to a mana sink like Student of Warfare.

If you need to play a longer game, search up Dragonmaster Outcast instead. If the 4/3 can't push through damage, search up Gideon's Lawkeeper instead. But if you want to finish the game in two turns, Vexing Devil does the job.

[Mystic Muse]

Not really spoilers, but feel I probably should anyway.

Would WUG tokens be viable once RtR hits? I need a new deck of some sort, and I want some idea of what to put together. I kinda like tokens, so I was just sort of considering what might be good with that.

[Fable Wright]

Not really spoilers, but feel I probably should anyway.

Would WUG tokens be viable once RtR hits? I need a new deck of some sort, and I want some idea of what to put together. I kinda like tokens, so I was just sort of considering what might be good with that.

I personally like W/G/b. Skirsdag High Priest is still a card, and Lingering Souls still has flashback. Populating 5/5 flying Demons seems fun. Also Sorin.

I might actually try to make a Beatdown/Populate deck for the upcoming Standard... Rancor on Wandering Temple with a mana dork and a centaur or Lingering Souls seems awesome. And then there's the silly stuff that can be added...

My one complaint is that there are no Birds right now. Those would make this deck.

[Mystic Muse]

I personally like W/G/b. Skirsdag High Priest is still a card, and Lingering Souls still has flashback. Populating 5/5 flying Demons seems fun. Also Sorin.

I might actually try to make a Beatdown/Populate deck for the upcoming Standard... Rancor on Wandering Temple with a mana dork and a centaur or Lingering Souls seems awesome. And then there's the silly stuff that can be added...

My one complaint is that there are no Birds right now. Those would make this deck.

If you get a list together, I would welcome it.

[tgva8889]

WG by itself is insane. Adding Blue gives you Geist of St. Traft or Cackling Counterpart as options. Adding Black gives you mostly Demonic Rising and Skirsdag High Priest.

The thing about Populate is that unlike most token mechanics, it's not very good with a multitude of small tokens and is actually much better with larger, beefier tokens. Populating a 1/1 Lifelink Vampire is okay, but populating a 4/4 Angel or a Thragtusk is absurdly better. Populate is fine with Lingering Souls, but I would rather be populating a 3/3 all the time. Thus why Blue is so appealing; Cackling Counterpart allows you do insane things like Populate Thragtusk. Geist enabling ridiculous Populates (and being really good with Rootbound Defenses) is a big help also.

[Mystic Muse]

WG by itself is insane. Adding Blue gives you Geist of St. Traft or Cackling Counterpart as options. Adding Black gives you mostly Demonic Rising and Skirsdag High Priest.

The thing about Populate is that unlike most token mechanics, it's not very good with a multitude of small tokens and is actually much better with larger, beefier tokens. Populating a 1/1 Lifelink Vampire is okay, but populating a 4/4 Angel or a Thragtusk is absurdly better. Populate is fine with Lingering Souls, but I would rather be populating a 3/3 all the time. Thus why Blue is so appealing; Cackling Counterpart allows you do insane things like Populate Thragtusk. Geist enabling ridiculous Populates (and being really good with Rootbound Defenses) is a big help also.

If you were going to do W/U/G tokens, what kind of list would you put together? I don't really want to drop a lot of money then find out the version I would go with (Haven't really tried to come up with anything because I need to sleep soon) sucks.

[Meta]

Geist seems like it's going to be nuts with the Azorious and Selensya mechanics.

[tgva8889]

I don't really have a list, but I would start with 4 Thragtusk, 4 Avacyn's Pilgrim and go from there. You might want some Thragtusks anyways, they're going to be all-stars for the next year.

[Fable Wright]

WG by itself is insane. Adding Blue gives you Geist of St. Traft or Cackling Counterpart as options. Adding Black gives you mostly Demonic Rising and Skirsdag High Priest.

The thing about Populate is that unlike most token mechanics, it's not very good with a multitude of small tokens and is actually much better with larger, beefier tokens. Populating a 1/1 Lifelink Vampire is okay, but populating a 4/4 Angel or a Thragtusk is absurdly better. Populate is fine with Lingering Souls, but I would rather be populating a 3/3 all the time. Thus why Blue is so appealing; Cackling Counterpart allows you do insane things like Populate Thragtusk. Geist enabling ridiculous Populates (and being really good with Rootbound Defenses) is a big help also.

Problem- hitting the UU required for Cackling Counterpart is a significant investment in the color, while something like Black can be easily splashed. Also, Demonic Rising is pretty terrible... having exactly one creature on the field at end step? In a deck running Populate?

I like Black as a splash more than investing a lot in Blue maindeck- less fixing is needed, and it's more of a splash than anything. I like black for the utility more- Lingering Souls flashback, splashing 2 High Priests, and potentially some removal. The deck you're describing is more of a U/W/g deck, which is powerful, but a different deck than I want to use. It can use populate and use Selesnya cards, but it really doesn't have that many ways to populate- the best are probably Wandering Temple and Rootborn Defenses, but that's building a deck around abusing the occasional populate on those two cards. I can see Delver fitting Rootborn Defenses in with Geist or something, but a heavier investment in W/G is needed to really get the most use out of the cards.

Running more G/W/b, I could see Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage being a viable token producer (because Populating Centaurs is good), Sundering Growth, and maybe even Growing Ranks as additional options.

All that said... I really don't want to ever see Turn 2 Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage, Turn 3 Geist, Turn 4 Populating Angels. Then again, there are a lot of God hands that I don't want to see...

It may be my inner Timmy and/or budget speaking, but I really want to just do a Loxodon Smiter/Deadbridge Goliath/Wandering Temple midrange deck. Value cards with Lingering Souls, Call of the Conclave, Armada Wurm, huge creatures for cheap, and great lategame reach through populating 8/8 Vigilant Elementals, 5/5 Fliers, Scavenging Goliath, and so on.

[Mystic Muse]

I don't really have a list, but I would start with 4 Thragtusk, 4 Avacyn's Pilgrim and go from there. You might want some Thragtusks anyways, they're going to be all-stars for the next year.

Alright. I'm guessing that, since this is a tokens deck, Intangible virtue is pretty much a given?

[tgva8889]

A UGw or UWg deck could easily run Growing Ranks and Rootbound Defenses. Unlike decks that are relying on repetitive population, a deck with Cackling Counterpart probably only needs to populate once or twice for such ridiculous advantage. I mean, how many times do you actually need to populate Thragtusk? I choose Thragtusk because he's the best possible Cackling Counterpart target in such a deck, but there are other options that are all good (Restoration Angel and Wolfir Silverheart come to mind). The mana is good enough that I could imagine playing straight WGU if you wanted, though you'd be a bit slower. I mean, they did it in Innistrad Block Constructed. 8 more dual lands should make it much more plausible.

You don't need to Populate that many times and you don't need to populate into an army. Demonic Rising is good with Populate for this very reason. With it in play, if you are ever stuck with 1 creature, all of your Populate spells become live. High Priest is also somewhat unreliable, as literally every removal spell anyone will ever play can kill it except Tragic Slip and until then it's a pretty bad 1/2 for 2, but both have the same value of making large tokens which is really where Populate thrives. It's the larger size of your tokens that really matters for Populate, not your having a bajillion of them.

Populate is more powerful with Call of the Conclave than with Lingering Souls. It's more powerful with Demonic Rising than with Lingering Souls. It's more powerful with Geist of St. Traft than Lingering Souls. What you really want to be doing is making large tokens, not a lot of tokens. I would start thus at looking at the ways to make the best tokens, not more tokens, which is why I start with Call of the Conclave.

Also, the best cards with the Populate mechanic are Trostani and Rootbound Defenses, so if you're trying to build a dedicated Populate deck I suggest you start there.

In response to above, since I posted this before I saw that:
Intangible Virtue is actually of somewhat questionable value since every GB deck will be playing Abrupt Decay if it can and many will be playing Golgari Charm somewhere in their 75. You may as well play other ways to pump that are a little less vulnerable, like Sorin emblems.

[Mystic Muse]

In response to above, since I posted this before I saw that:
Intangible Virtue is actually of somewhat questionable value since every GB deck will be playing Abrupt Decay if it can and many will be playing Golgari Charm somewhere in their 75. You may as well play other ways to pump that are a little less vulnerable, like Sorin emblems.

So, a deck that runs everything but red. That strikes me as a not so fantastic idea.:smalltongue:

[Eldariel]

If you were going to do W/U/G tokens, what kind of list would you put together? I don't really want to drop a lot of money then find out the version I would go with (Haven't really tried to come up with anything because I need to sleep soon) sucks.

You could of course try building it in some program like Cockatrice or MWS first and see how it runs before buying it; removes the risk of buying cards you don't want.

[tgva8889]

I mean, you want to choose whether you like Junk (GWB) or Bant (GWU) for your deck. You don't want to play all 4 colors. That's just too many.

[Mystic Muse]

You could of course try building it in some program like Cockatrice or MWS first and see how it runs before buying it; removes the risk of buying cards you don't want.

I know. People here just generally seem to know what they're talking about, and know a heck of a lot more about the game than I do (I've only been playing standard for a little over five months, and never competitively), so I figured somebody would pretty much be able to come up with a better idea than whatever I built, and do it quicker (Involves Return to Ravnica cards which I don't think gets put in the databases of programs like that until the set actually comes out. I may be wrong about that though.)


I mean, you want to choose whether you like Junk (GWB) or Bant (GWU) for your deck. You don't want to play all 4 colors. That's just too many.

Will probably go GWU unless I win the Sorins I bid on. I know my cousin has a few Hinterland Harbors he'd probably be willing to let go of, but I don't know anybody with Isolated chapels or Woodland cemeteries they'd be willing to let go of.

[tgva8889]

Yeah, cards from new sets generally don't get added into simulators for a while.

I haven't put my mind to serious deck building, so if someone else has a deck you may want to take a look at that.

You know, you can always use a printer to make some pretty good-quality proxies by just printing black-and-white copies of the card images off the Card Image Gallery and putting them in some sleeves, in case you wanted to test something.

[Mystic Muse]

Yeah, cards from new sets generally don't get added into simulators for a while.

I haven't put my mind to serious deck building, so if someone else has a deck you may want to take a look at that.

You know, you can always use a printer to make some pretty good-quality proxies by just printing black-and-white copies of the card images off the Card Image Gallery and putting them in some sleeves, in case you wanted to test something.

I'm going to ask my friends if it's okay if I can just use proxies by writing on the backs of useless cards to test ideas out (I use cases, so just make the backs the front and I've got a decent proxy). I'll probably still go with 4 Thragtusks like you suggested if I can manage to sell some cards to get the money.

[Sohala]

Prerelease Info (http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/214)

So, we get a non-guildleader promo and a rare slot, a rare slot that can only select your guild leader in it IF it would be a mythic.

I am thinking of taking Azorius or Selesnya with that information. Get a single populate after getting the token, now you are sitting with two 8/8 vig guys; on the other hand a 4/5 flyer who locks down two trouble makers should be able to hold the sky. Golgari is not too bad either, backed by enough scavenge.

Though I do like the regular art Grove better.

[The Extinguisher]

Does anyone here no things about Vintage? We're making a proxy Vintage league at my school, and this is what I'm thinking of running.

4x Delver of Secrets
3x Snapcaster Mage
3x Tarmogoyf

1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Black Lotus

3x Preordain
1x Timewalk
1x Ponder

4x Force of Will
4x Gush
3x Red Elemental Blast
3x Lightning Bolt
3x Mental Mistep
2x Mindbreak Trap
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Brainstorm
1x Steel Sabotage

2x Jace, the Mindsculptor

4x Volcanic Island
4x Scalding Tarn
3x Misty Rainforest
3x Tropical Island
1x Island
1x Strip Mine


SB

1x Jace, the Mindsculptor
2x Grim Lavamancer
1x Lightning Bolt
2x Ancient Grudge
2x Krosan Grip
1x Hurkyl's Recall
4x Surgical Extraction
2x Pyroblast

The sideboard is fairly generic for now, because I have no idea what our metagame is going to create.

[IthilanorStPete]

So what do you all think the meta's going to look like post-rotation? From what I've been reading, here's my assessment of the main players:

-Zombies, in BG and BR varieties
-Delver, both UW and UR. Most of the hype I've been seeing for Delver proper has been UR; the main reason to go UW is Geist of St. Traft.
-G/R/x/y midrange decks; Naya, Jund, 4 color.
-Blue-based control; what I've seen has mostly been either UW or UBG.
-Mono-R aggro, because people always play mono-R right after a set comes out.

Any major players I'm missing?


I know. People here just generally seem to know what they're talking about, and know a heck of a lot more about the game than I do (I've only been playing standard for a little over five months, and never competitively), so I figured somebody would pretty much be able to come up with a better idea than whatever I built, and do it quicker (Involves Return to Ravnica cards which I don't think gets put in the databases of programs like that until the set actually comes out. I may be wrong about that though.)


RtR's up on Cockatrice and MWS now.

[Sith_Happens]

What metric are the Duels of the Planeswalkers leaderboard rankings based on? One of my cousins is currently #17 in single-player on PC, so I'm wondering precisely what it is the game has deemed him to be awesome at.

[Mystic Muse]

Okay, question based on a few cards I've seen with similar abilities.

Do you normally get to choose what you untap during your untap step, or do you untap everything unless an effect specifically states otherwise? For example Rust Tick (http://magiccards.info/som/en/198.html) makes it sound like you normally don't get a choice whether you keep your permanents tapped or untapped, you have to untap them, unless an effect specifically states otherwise.

[Cogwheel]

Do you normally get to choose what you untap during your untap step, or do you untap everything unless an effect specifically states otherwise? For example Rust Tick (http://magiccards.info/som/en/198.html) makes it sound like you normally don't get a choice whether you keep your permanents tapped or untapped, you have to untap them, unless an effect specifically states otherwise.

You guessed correctly. No choice unless the card says otherwise.

[Shadow of the Sun]

Well, I went to the prerelease.

Played Rakdos.

Lost. Badly.

But I'm happy.

Return To Ravnica is going to give me a bunch of cards I can use to complete my monoblack control deck, which will be good.

Such as, for example, Desecration Demon (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=270959).

A 4 mana source of repeatable creature destruction or a 6/6 smasher? Sold!

[Klose_the_Sith]

So, after having been out of Magic for a very long time my internal resistance has buckled and I've fallen back into the game that remains my first geek love (I think I was 9? I was awful, but it was still fun).

I just got a few (18) M13 boosters for cheap on eBay and I was hoping to use whatever I got in those as the basis for a new deck that's up to date with whatever hip and happening things are going on in the game today. So what should I look out for from those packs that's worth keeping/using? It'll only really be for casual play, but some of my opponents tend to be a bit serious in their casual so hopefully I can end up with a fearsome speed-bump to bother them.

[Shadow of the Sun]

So what do you all think the meta's going to look like post-rotation? From what I've been reading, here's my assessment of the main players:


From what I've seen, you could do a very good Rakdos Control deck.

The following is my current (uncompleteted) monoblack control deck:


Lands
23 x Swamps

Creatures
4 x Vampire Nighthawk
2 x Desecration Demon
1 x Necropolis Regent

Planeswakers
2 x Liliana of the Dark Realms

Sorceries/Instants
4 x Murder
4 x Night Terrors
4 x Sign in Blood
4 x Mutilate
4 x Mind Rot
4 x Duress

Enchantments
4 x Underworld Connections


If you make the following changes:

Replace, say, 5 of the swamps with mountains or with shocklands etc.
Replace the Murders with Dreadbore
Replace the Mutilates with Rakdos's Returns

You'd have a reasonably good deck. A bit of card draw (which can also be used as a last hit of life loss to finish the opponent), a fair bit of discard, creature destruction- the win condition would either be getting the Necropolis Regent out and going stompy, or using Liliana of the Dark Realms to fuel a massive Rakdos's Return.

The sideboard would include a bit of artefact destruction and Slaughter Games to disable threats before they can hit the field.

[Foeofthelance]

Just got back from the prerelease, and ended up going 3-1 to earn 7th of 34. I picked Izzet, despite all the warnings about it being the weakest, and did pretty good all told. I played two games against Rakdos, which ended up being the easiest, as they tended to get screwed over by Unleash. Third game was against another Izzet, and that was a close run thing as we tried to nibble each other to death. The one match loss was against Golgari, as Scavenge just made his creatures too big to handle. Final deck ended up being:

17 Lands
8x Islands
6x Mountains
3x Izzet Guildgate

16 Creatures
1x Door Keeper
2x Hover Barrier
2x Tower Drake
2x Isperia's Skywatch
1x Lobber Crew
1x Viashino Racketeer
3x Tenement Crasher
1x Goblin Electromancer
1x Izzet Static Caster
1x Hypersonic Dragon
1x Frostburn Weird

7 Spells
1x Dispel
2x Cancel
1x Mizzium Mortars
1x Explosive Impact
2x Essence Backlash

Best Creature: Tenement Crasher. These guys just broke games open, especially with Mizzium Mortars clearing their way and Isperia's Skywatcher's holding down blockers.

Best Spell: Essence Backlash. The Rakdos players hated this guy, and it wasn't hard to see why. It can be hard enough watching your bomb creatures get countered; it's even worse when you end up taking five or six damage in the bargain. But Essence Backlash wasn't just for big creatures, as my Izzet match was won by pinging the other guy with his own Frostburn Weird late in the game.

Least Useful Card: Dispel. It never saw play, and the only time it proved of any use was for paying off Viashino Racketeer.

[tgva8889]

Went 3-2 with Selesnya for 4 boosters. Selesnya is by far the best guild. No other guild has the tools to deal with an 8/8 that can be populated. Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage and Trostani are so unbeatable it isn't even a contest. Of our top 4, half were Selesnya, as were 5th and 6th. My only loses were to other Selesnya decks; if you weren't playing Selesnya, it was almost impossible for me to lose to you.

[9mm]

Went 3-2 with Selesnya for 4 boosters. Selesnya is by far the best guild. No other guild has the tools to deal with an 8/8 that can be populated. Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage and Trostani are so unbeatable it isn't even a contest. Of our top 4, half were Selesnya, as were 5th and 6th. My only loses were to other Selesnya decks; if you weren't playing Selesnya, it was almost impossible for me to lose to you.

funny Azorius crushed my prerelease, with Selesnya coming in third behind Izzit.

[tgva8889]

I mean, Selesnya can lose, but the value on the 8/8 is insane. Every game I lost involved that guy or a repeatable Populate effect. The 8/8 is an unreasonable amount of value. I could see winning with Azorious or Izzet but you definitely would need some fliers to do so.

[IthilanorStPete]

I went 3-1 with Azorius, splashing red for 2 Street Spasms and 2 Mercurial Chemisters. Chemister was just nuts for me; he takes over a game pretty much immediately. I had a good curve of fliers followed up by Archon and Sphinx of the Chimes, which worked well. I played two matches against Selesnya, and didn't see the land in any of the games. Speaking of populate, though, one of those opponents did have Growing Ranks...nearly ran me over, but I had Detention Sphere to clear out his tokens, and he just never had another token maker.

I pulled really well in my packs - from the 6 boosters from Sealed, I had:
-2*Chemister
-Sphinx of the Chime
-Underworld Connections
-Martial Law
-Detention Sphere
And then I had two prize packs...pulled a Vraska and a Steam Vents. :smallbiggrin:

[Sinfonian]

Just got home from my pre-release, where I'd chosen Golgari (figuring that even if I didn't manage to do well that I had a good chance of recouping the cost of entry). I had a very solid pool for playing in my chosen guild including Overgrown Tomb, Jarad (not from my guild pack), 2 Stab Wounds, and plenty of Salvage creatures/targets. Also pulled: Temple Garden, Mercurial Chemister, Grove of the Guardian, and Grave Betrayal (decided it wouldn't have enough impact to maindeck).

Ended up going 4-1-1 into the Top 8, where we all split for 8 packs and to go home and see our families (6 Swiss rounds was LONG, since every round went to time). Selesnya won the guild contest by about 12, trouncing the competition. I think Rakdos took second. I was the only Golgari in the top 8.

Prize packs netted me: Hallowed Fountain, Sphinx's Revelation, Counterflux, Ash Zealot, Palisade Giant, and Cryptborn Horror. (Got an IOU from the shop for the other 2 packs).

All in all, a great day and my first Top 8. I even got the Doubling Season I'd had my eye on forever.

[Sohala]

Oh! I want to share, I want to share! :smallbiggrin:

So, I picked Golgari thinking that at the very least I will get value creatures with salvage. I go on to open a total of 3 salvage creatures and MAYBE 9 decent cards for green and black combined. In disgust I tossed them aside and looked at my other colors. Red had some nice large bodies, blue had some flyers, white had flyers, and all three had a spray of removal and control, so I put them all in one deck.


12 basics lands
2 Transguild Promenade
2 Azorius Guildgate

1 New Prahv Guildmage
1 Guttersnipe
1 Stealer of Secrets
3 Sunspire Griffin
3 Runewing
1 Hypersonic Dragon
1 Mercurial Chemister
2 Tenement Crasher
1 Utvara Hellkite

2 Dispel
1 Syncopate
1 Cancel
1 Paralyzing Grasp
1 Arrest
1 Avenging Arrow
1 Annihilating Fire
1 Thoughtflare
1 Trostani's Judgement

First round was vs an Izzit. Our first game was very back in forth, but with him in a stronger position most of the time. The last few turns though, WOW!
Fifth to last: I drop Utvara Hellkite and hit him for 2, putting him at 18.
Fourth to last: Asks to know how many cards I have left (he milled with Psychic Spiral the turn after Epic Experiament), 4 is all I had, his wall could mill me out on his next turn.
Third to last: Swing for 8, putting him at 10, get a dragon, call end of turn, he uses wall to mill me to 1. With the top decked Trostani's Judgement I exile the wall and get another dragon.
Second to last: Land, pass.
Last turn: Draw my last card, swing for 20, get three dragons!

He won the next one thru Essence Backlash and early creatures. I swap the Dispels in now to fix the counter problem.

Last game ended with me at 2 life and him with no cards left in his library, but killed by damage.

Second round was vs an Azorius splashing green for Grove of the Guardian, Coursers' Accord and a Druid's Deliverance. He had some white stuff to increase the splash's viability. First game goes to me after landing an unanswered Tenement Crasher. Second went to him with a populated Grove. I took the last game, bluffing an Avenging Arrow against his Righteous Authority enchanted Armory Guard, and he had a gate.

Third round was vs a Golgari splashing white. First game I won, being in full control as New Prahv Guildmage and Mercurial Chemister did serious work to his board. Second game a nail biter, him having a couple early creatures and lifelink, plus late game having a Korozda Guildmage and Rogue's Passage slip creatures thru my line. New Prahv Guildmage was again a heavy lifter, locking down two creatures a turn to stall until I could get something on the board. On my last turn I decided to go all or nothing against him not having a fog, dropping a second Tenement Crasher followed by my Hypersonic Dragon, swinging for 16. I won with 2 life.

Fourth and final round was rather a letdown. It was vs a Rakdos, who described his deck afterwards as, "A pile of cheap crappy creatures." His small creatures backed up by cheap burn and cheap pump spells proved too fast for my deck, and I lost without giving him much of a challenge. His pair of Pack Rats didn't help me either.

So, I ended up going 3-1, playing a deck without any card from my guild, opening lackluster rares, but having a total blast with a deck that I thought was going to lose really bad.

[Science Officer]

Off to pre-release tomorrow, hopefully, but before that, how about some bad deck ideas for the new standard?

izzet_dead_yet.cod

4 Guttersnipe
4 Goblin Electromancer

4 Desperate Ravings
4 Brimstone Volley
4 Izzet Charm
3 Electrickery
4 Cyclonic Rift
3 Negate

3 Mizzium Mortars
4 Divination

9 Island
10 Mountain
4 Izzet Guildgate


the idea is to get out electromancers and guttersnipes, and then play lots of burn, draw, and counters. Desperate Ravings is really very nice with Goblin Electromancer. Think Twice might be worth considering. Electromancers also make overload costs more palatable.

seance.cod

3 Mirror-Mad Phantasm
2 Laboratory Maniac
4 Tower Geist
4 Armored Skaab
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage
4 Gatecreeper Vine

3 Tracker's Instincts

3 Oblivion Ring
4 Séance

4 Azorius Guildgate
4 Selesnya Guildgate
3 Plains
6 Island
4 Evolving Wilds
4 Forest


So here's the combo: if you have Seance in play, one or more Mirror-Mad Phantasms in the yard, and no Phantasms in your deck, you can win.
During your opponent's upkeep, Seance out a Phantasm token. Activate its ability. The token gets "shuffled" into the deck, and you then start milling stuff to find the next Phantasm.
As there's none left, you end up milling the entire deck.
During your upkeep, Seance out a Laboratory Maniac token. Win during your draw-step.

Problems: -Combo is very slow and disruptable -Doesn't work if you have a Phantasm left in the deck. but if you only play one, you'll never draw it...
Still, it's a lot of fun, and generates a lot of card advantage.

Considered Parallel Lives or Growing Ranks to churn out more Seance tokens, but using the Guildmage seems more expedient. Deck might actually be playable without the combo and instead just abusing Seance for card advantage.

tokens_and_enchantments.cod

3 Geist-Honored Monk
4 Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage

4 Martial Law
4 Detention Sphere
3 Mana Bloom
3 Sphere of Safety
3 Soul Tithe
3 Abundant Growth
3 Paralyzing Grasp
3 Security Blockade
1 Touch of the Eternal

3 Selesnya Charm

5 Forest
5 Plains
5 Island
4 Azorius Guildgate
4 Selesnya Guildgate


..and then there's this monstrosity. When I saw Sphere of Safety, I was so excited. I thought to myself, "I could make a gloriously un-fun deck with this." And I hope that is what has mostly been achieved. There's enough token producers and proliferaters that you can at least pretend like you want to win the game.


Anyways, I thought these ideas were interesting, or intriguingly terrible. Hope you found them so.


EDIT: Sorry for the double post, was getting 503 errors.

The thing with Back from the Brink is that it costs 6, Seance is already pretty slow for not doing much before turn 4. Also, getting tokens for free is nice.

[Sohala]

You could include Back from the Brink in your Séance deck, but leans away from the combo. Armada Wurm might get included in a Brink version.

BTW, you double posted.

[IthilanorStPete]

1 Hypersonic Dragon
1 Mercurial Chemister
1 Utvara Hellkite


opening lackluster rares

These might not be the most valuable cards price-wise, but they're very solid for Limited. Chemister in particular is very, very good. Glad you did well with a rather unorthodox pool, though!


Off to pre-release tomorrow, hopefully, but before that, how about some bad deck ideas for the new standard?

izzet_dead_yet.cod

4 Guttersnipe
4 Goblin Electromancer

4 Desperate Ravings
4 Brimstone Volley
4 Izzet Charm
3 Electrickery
4 Cyclonic Rift
3 Negate

3 Mizzium Mortars
4 Divination

9 Island
10 Mountain
4 Izzet Guildgate


the idea is to get out electromancers and guttersnipes, and then play lots of burn, draw, and counters. Desperate Ravings is really very nice with Goblin Electromancer. Think Twice might be worth considering. Electromancers also make overload costs more palatable.

Add some Delvers and some rare lands for colorfixing, and you've pretty much got the UR Delver deck that's been floating around. This is the most recent list I've seen:


4 Sulfur Falls
4 Steam Vents
2 Desolate Lighthouse
6 Mountain
7 Island
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Goblin Electromancer
3 Guttersnipe
4 Talrand's Invocation
3 Mizzium Mortars
4 Pillar of Flame
3 Bonfire of the Damned
2 Syncopate
4 Desperate Ravings
2 Izzet Charm

[Fable Wright]

Went 3-2 with Selesnya for 4 boosters. Selesnya is by far the best guild. No other guild has the tools to deal with an 8/8 that can be populated. Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage and Trostani are so unbeatable it isn't even a contest. Of our top 4, half were Selesnya, as were 5th and 6th. My only loses were to other Selesnya decks; if you weren't playing Selesnya, it was almost impossible for me to lose to you.

I will have to disagree with this. I also went Selesnya, but I have to say that while it can certainly be the most powerful deck, that isn't always going to be the case. My sealed pool contained tons and tons of proliferate cards (Four Dryad's Deliverances...) and no token producers. I saw no Vitu-Ghazi Guildmages, either. While Selesnya decks can certainly be the most powerful deck if they get a god-like pool, I can safely say that they are by no means unbeatable. Also, I wish to say that other guilds do have the tools to deal with that 8/8. Red guilds have Traitorous Instinct, Black guilds Assassin's Strike, Green can ignore it with Golgari Decoy and swinging in for the win, blue can Blustersquall to ignore it or Cyclonic Rift it away, white can eliminate it with Trostani's Judgement and Martial Law. Azorius has Detention Sphere, Dramatic Rescue, Azorious Charm, and Supreme Verdict. Golgari has Abrupt Decay and creatures as big (and occasionally bigger) than the Elemental and can just dodge it with Korozda Guildmage or just block with regenerators or deathtouchers, Rakdos can kill you with its Charm or the token with Dreadbore, and the Izzet can tap it down and swing in for the win, or kill you with Guttersnipe, or however the Izzet decks win. Probably with Hypersonic Dragon.

I haven't played with another guild yet, but I wouldn't count them out. Carnival Hellsteed is terrifying. Corpsejack Menace gets you the same kind of ridiculous value that Grove can (ever seen someone with a Menace on the field and scavengers in the bin?), Hypersonic Dragon is a big hasty flier, and the Archon usually wins the game if you get an attack step with it.

Again, I'm not saying that Selesnya isn't silly when it works right. When it does work right, it can be almost impossible to stop. I'm just saying that it isn't necessarily the best guild; it does have the most internal synergy, by design, and that can lead to some ridiculously powerful pools that are much more obvious in the top 8; I will not deny that a lucky Selesnya pool will outclass most other lucky pools. However, other guilds are usually less hit and miss; Scavenge is a mechanic that can work by itself, without needing any support cards (though Corpsejack Menace is silly with it) and turn out more consistent (and still good) results. Rakdos can either be lightning fast out of the starting gate and win without a lot of lucky synergistic pulls or bomb rares, and Azorius can have an unmatched aerial armada.

Tl;dr: Selesnya is not the best guild; it has the potential to be the most powerful, but it is much less reliable at being good than the other guilds are.

[tgva8889]

It wouldn't be a problem if the strong Selesyna decks were beatable. It turns out they actually aren't.

I note how many of your answers are rare. They exist, but they're much less common than Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage is, and how many 8/8 Vigilant elementals does someone actually need? It's not as many as you would think, though making 5 of them is fun. (I did that!) It's more that when you are doing it, you are completely and totally blowing your opponent out. It's not even a game. Many of the Selesnya decks I saw can also do other things early and then just have the unbeatable late game of multiple 8/8s.

It doesn't help that White has the best removal, so Selesnya decks also have access to Arrest and Trostani's Judgment to answer whatever it is you're trying to do against them. The removal was what really made my deck worse than the other variations of the same deck; I didn't have as much, and they won because of it.

Can they lose? Certainly. This is Magic we're talking about. But the deck is actually quite functional and very consistent if you have the tools, and most of the games involving the 8/8 are certain victories to anything but your opponent's identical card. Nothing anyone else could do seemed to work, or they simply didn't have it.

This is all from my personal experience. Theoretically what you are saying may be true, but for specifically the prerelease I played in, no one who picked anything but Selesnya had a comparable deck to the top 3 or 4 Selesnya decks.

[Sohala]

These might not be the most valuable cards price-wise, but they're very solid for Limited. Chemister in particular is very, very good. Glad you did well with a rather unorthodox pool, though!Oh, I wont disagree that they were getting work done when played, but when your deck pool includes a Rest in Peace and Palisade Giant, and then your prize pool contains another copy of each along with a Mana Bloom, the rares seem kind of bleh.

[The Extinguisher]

I feel like I made some mistakes at the prerelease. This was my pool (I picked Izzet), and I want to know what other people would have done with it.


White:
Trostani's Judgement
Ethereal Armor
Baazar Krovod
Trained Caracal
Swift Justice
Conordia Pegasus
Azorius Arrester

Blue:
Bluster Squall
Paralyzing Grasp
Voidwielder
Skyline Predator
Isperia's Skywatch
Runewing
Doorkeeper X3
Downsize X2
Crosstown Courier
Tower Drake

Black:
Launch Party
Daggerdrome Imp
Mind Rot
Destroy the Evidence
Catacomb Slug
Tavern Swindler
Perilous Shadow
Terrus Wurm
Sewer Shambler

Red:
Goblin Rally
Viashino Racketeer
Street Spasm X2
Explosive Impact
Electrickery
Lobber Crew X2
Bellows Lizard
Traitorous Instinct
Tenement Crasher
Pyroconvergence
Survey the Wreckage
Cobblebrute
Dynacharge X2
Vandalblast

Green:
Aerial Predation
Seek the Horizon
Axebane Guardian
Axebane Stag
Druid's Deliverance
Centaur's Herald
Chorus of Might
Drudge Beetle

Azorius:
Archon of the Triumvirate
Vassal Soul

Selesnya:
Collective Blessing
Heroes Renion
Centaur Healer
Common Bond
Growing Ranks
Sundering Growth
Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage

Golgari:
Sluiceway Scorpion
Rites of Reaping X2
Korozda Guildmage

Rakdos:
Skull Rend
Spawn of Rix Maadi

Izzet:
Frostburn Weird X2
Hypersonic Dragon
Izzet Staticaster
Thoughtflare
Goblin Electromancer X2
Firemind's Foresight
Nivmagus Elemental
Chemister's Trick

Artifacts and Lands:
Rakdos Keyrune
Tablet of the Guilds
Overgrown Tomb
Golgari Guildgate
Rakdos Guildgate
Izzet Guildgate X2

[Fable Wright]

It wouldn't be a problem if the strong Selesyna decks were beatable. It turns out they actually aren't.

I note how many of your answers are rare. They exist, but they're much less common than Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage is, and how many 8/8 Vigilant elementals does someone actually need? It's not as many as you would think, though making 5 of them is fun. (I did that!) It's more that when you are doing it, you are completely and totally blowing your opponent out. It's not even a game. Many of the Selesnya decks I saw can also do other things early and then just have the unbeatable late game of multiple 8/8s.

It doesn't help that White has the best removal, so Selesnya decks also have access to Arrest and Trostani's Judgment to answer whatever it is you're trying to do against them. The removal was what really made my deck worse than the other variations of the same deck; I didn't have as much, and they won because of it.

Can they lose? Certainly. This is Magic we're talking about. But the deck is actually quite functional and very consistent if you have the tools, and most of the games involving the 8/8 are certain victories to anything but your opponent's identical card. Nothing anyone else could do seemed to work, or they simply didn't have it.

This is all from my personal experience. Theoretically what you are saying may be true, but for specifically the prerelease I played in, no one who picked anything but Selesnya had a comparable deck to the top 3 or 4 Selesnya decks.
Bolded for emphasis. My main point was that Selesnya will not always, or even most of the time, have the tools to make the deck work. The Guildmage is an uncommon, meaning it's unreliable. Trostani is a mythic, as is the 8/8 vigilant land (though it is included in the guild packs, yes). Perhaps I'm just bitter about getting all the Populate cards and almost none of the token producers, but I'm skeptical about Selesnya always being the best deck. I will agree that Selesnya decks are the best in the format, but I feel that the overall power level of Selesnya fluctuates a lot compared to the other guilds; Rakdos can consistently turn out an aggro deck, Golgari decks have a lot of inevitability on their end and act as good midrange decks, Izzet decks have a tendency to win out of nowhere, and so on. All I'm saying is that, based on my personal experience, Selesnya will get there if it has the tools it needs. I'm highly skeptical about most Selesnya players getting those tools. Your experience is probably skewed because you were in the winning bracket most of the time when you had the synergies to work with, and only played the Selesnya decks that did get the tools. Mine is skewed in that I was almost demolished by a Golgari deck that would certainly have demolished me despite my Elemental token had the person running it not misplayed several times and had I not been able to draw game 3 out to a draw. I'm just saying, just because Selesnya has a chance at getting the best deck, don't count out the other decks. Scavenge is a really powerful mechanic that is a lot easier to put together than a Populate deck is, and evasion through Korozda Guildmage on any of the numberous huge bodies that a Golgari deck can put out is ridiculous.

Either way, I'm going to another prerelease tomorrow, and I can give a more accurate report of how good the guilds are.

[Gullara]

Well, it's been forever since I even glanced at this thread, much less posted. @.@
I'm looking for advice, however. I got the random urge to create a Golgari Zombie list. Unfortunately I don't have any means of playtesting at the moment, so I just did the best I could while just thinking it over.

{table=head] | Golgari Zombies | 60 | Cards | |
23 | Lands | 23 | Creatures | 14 | Spells
3 | Cavern of Souls | 3 | Diregraf Ghoul | 2 | Abrupt Decay
2 | Forest | 4 | Dreg Mangler | 2 | Garruk Relentless
4 | Overgrown Tomb | 4 | Geralf's Messenger | 2 | Grisly Salvage
10 | Swamp | 4 | Gravecrawler | 1 | Murder
4 | Woodland Cemetary | 4 | Lotleth Troll | 4 | Rancor
| | 4 | Slitherhead | 3 | Tragic Slip
[/table]

That's what I was thinking, though I expect there are better choices I could have made. The card selections seem solid to me, but perhaps the amount of each could be better.

Also, I'm trying to decide whether or not that was the worst way to format that ever.

[Sinfonian]

I can't claim to be much of a Standard player (since I mostly play EDH and some Limited) but I feel like there's something to be gained from adding some Blood Artists to the mix. Unless I'm mistaken, they change up combat calculations as well as adding some reach. I've seen them quickly becoming backbreaking in multiples in zombie decks.

Edit: Another thing is that I'm not personally all that interested by Slitherhead so far. I understand the usefulness of a 1-drop that can help from the grave, but I feel like the slots might be better used elsewhere.

Edit2: I'd have some Mutilates on hand, if only in the sideboard.

[Gullara]

Hm, Blood Artists are definitely something to consider. However, I'm not sure they're consistent enough. Simply because they rely on things dying, and things aren't always guaranteed to die. Now if it interacted with Lotleth Troll's discarding, that'd be another story, but unfortunately it doesn't synergize with the other cards in the deck very well. It's on my radar, though.

Slitherhead interests me simply because of the excellent synergy with Lotleth Troll. I think it has potential. When I can do some playtesting I'll have a much better idea of it's strengths and weaknesses.

And I'll definitely toss some Mutilates in the sideboard.

[IthilanorStPete]

-Blood Artists are great, easy 4-of. You need the reach. Don't worry about things not dying; you're an aggro deck. If they're not killing your creatures, you're using those creatures to beat them to death.
-Grisly Salvage seems potentially good, though it might be a bit slow. Not sure on this one.
-I'm also mixed on Slitherhead. It's nice value with Lotleth Troll, but it's also pretty slow on its own. Rakdos Cackler might be good as another one-drop, it's not a zombie, but it's a one mana 2/2.
-You don't want Mutilate in the sideboard; wiping your board as well as theirs isn't the way you want to go in a low-curve aggro deck like Zombies. I'd just go with more midrange-ish cards like Garruk and more spot removal. Golgari Charm's a decent option if you're really worried about token swarms; some of your guys can actually live through it, and its other modes are also useful.

[Gullara]

Hm, alright, I'll give Blood Artist a go then. If enough people are saying it' good I'd be silly to resist.

Grisly Salvage is one card I'm leaving up to playtesting. I like it with all the Slitherheads, Dreg Manglers, and Gravecrawlers in the list, but whether or not it works well is another question. And if I were to lose the Slitherheads, the Grisly Salvages would go as well.

And I completely forgot the Charm. I'm not worrying too much about the sideboard at this point in time anyway, however. I'm more concerned with the main deck.

EDIT: Also, some input on the removal I chose and the amounts would help me a lot.

[IthilanorStPete]

It's hard to tell the exact amount/kind of removal you should run without knowing what the metagame's going to be like, or what your particular meta is. I'd probably go with 7-8 total, say 4 Abrupt Decay and 3-4 Tragic Slip.

[Sohala]

I feel like I made some mistakes at the prerelease. This was my pool (I picked Izzet), and I want to know what other people would have done with it.


White:
Trostani's Judgement
Ethereal Armor
Baazar Krovod
Trained Caracal
Swift Justice
Conordia Pegasus
Azorius Arrester

Blue:
Bluster Squall
Paralyzing Grasp
Voidwielder
Skyline Predator
Isperia's Skywatch
Runewing
Doorkeeper X3
Downsize X2
Crosstown Courier
Tower Drake

Black:
Launch Party
Daggerdrome Imp
Mind Rot
Destroy the Evidence
Catacomb Slug
Tavern Swindler
Perilous Shadow
Terrus Wurm
Sewer Shambler

Red:
Goblin Rally
Viashino Racketeer
Street Spasm X2
Explosive Impact
Electrickery
Lobber Crew X2
Bellows Lizard
Traitorous Instinct
Tenement Crasher
Pyroconvergence
Survey the Wreckage
Cobblebrute
Dynacharge X2
Vandalblast

Green:
Aerial Predation
Seek the Horizon
Axebane Guardian
Axebane Stag
Druid's Deliverance
Centaur's Herald
Chorus of Might
Drudge Beetle

Azorius:
Archon of the Triumvirate
Vassal Soul

Selesnya:
Collective Blessing
Heroes Renion
Centaur Healer
Common Bond
Growing Ranks
Sundering Growth
Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage

Golgari:
Sluiceway Scorpion
Rites of Reaping X2
Korozda Guildmage

Rakdos:
Skull Rend
Spawn of Rix Maadi

Izzet:
Frostburn Weird X2
Hypersonic Dragon
Izzet Staticaster
Thoughtflare
Goblin Electromancer X2
Firemind's Foresight
Nivmagus Elemental
Chemister's Trick

Artifacts and Lands:
Rakdos Keyrune
Tablet of the Guilds
Overgrown Tomb
Golgari Guildgate
Rakdos Guildgate
Izzet Guildgate X2


The promised list:
Frostburn Weird (X2)
Hypersonic Dragon
Izzet Staticaster
Thoughtflare
Goblin Electromancer (X2)
Chemister's Trick
Tenement Crasher
Traitorous Instinct
Lobber Crew (X2)
Viashino Racketeer
Street Spasm (X2)
Explosive Impact

Paralyzing Grasp
Voidwielder
Skyline Predator
Runewing
Doorkeeper (x3)
Downsize (x2)

Trostani's Judgment
Archon of the Triumvirate
Vassal Soul

Izzet Guildgate (X2)
Needs 3 or 4 cuts, I don't really care for the curve, but you have some decent sized flyers, along with poke and mill options.

Day two prerelease:
I grabbed Selesnya for today and got good color support; I had cards fighting for slots! Loads of populate and token cards (including removal) and they got backed up by a Martial Law and Deadbridge Goliath. I went 4-0, losing not a single game. The games were not as great as yesterday, given I got fairly low during several, but once I stabilized the board, games ended quickly.

Largest swing of the day: 30 (3 elementals & 2 centaurs)

Zombie talk:
Falkenrath Noble costs a bit more, but he does have the 2/2 flying body; that is if you wanted to try something other than Artist.

Edit: Oh right, I cracked Vraska in my prize packs.

[The Extinguisher]

The promised list:
Frostburn Weird (X2)
Hypersonic Dragon
Izzet Staticaster
Thoughtflare
Goblin Electromancer (X2)
Chemister's Trick
Tenement Crasher
Traitorous Instinct
Lobber Crew (X2)
Viashino Racketeer
Street Spasm (X2)
Explosive Impact

Paralyzing Grasp
Voidwielder
Skyline Predator
Runewing
Doorkeeper (x3)
Downsize (x2)

Trostani's Judgment
Archon of the Triumvirate
Vassal Soul

Izzet Guildgate (X2)
Needs 3 or 4 cuts, I don't really care for the curve, but you have some decent sized flyers, along with poke and mill options.

Day two prerelease:
I grabbed Selesnya for today and got good color support; I had cards fighting for slots! Loads of populate and token cards (including removal) and they got backed up by a Martial Law and Deadbridge Goliath. I went 4-0, losing not a single game. The games were not as great as yesterday, given I got fairly low during several, but once I stabilized the board, games ended quickly.

Largest swing of the day: 30 (3 elementals & 2 centaurs)

Zombie talk:
Falkenrath Noble costs a bit more, but he does have the 2/2 flying body; that is if you wanted to try something other than Artist.

Edit: Oh right, I cracked Vraska in my prize packs.

Yeah, I feel like I valued my fixing waaaay to high, and shouldn't have tried to play black at all. My deck was just trying to do way to many things.
Thanks for the list though. I really like that list. If I had played that I might have done better.

[Gullara]

It's hard to tell the exact amount/kind of removal you should run without knowing what the metagame's going to be like, or what your particular meta is. I'd probably go with 7-8 total, say 4 Abrupt Decay and 3-4 Tragic Slip.

Hm, okay, I'll take that into account.


Zombie talk:
Falkenrath Noble costs a bit more, but he does have the 2/2 flying body; that is if you wanted to try something other than Artist.

While a 2/2 flying body is nice, I think the increased casting cost would hurt it too much, especially in an aggro deck.

[Sohala]

Yeah, I feel like I valued my fixing waaaay to high, and shouldn't have tried to play black at all. My deck was just trying to do way to many things.
Thanks for the list though. I really like that list. If I had played that I might have done better.
Black looks okay, and with your fixing it work be easier, but the removal and detain from white seem stronger.
Spawn of Rix Maadi
Rakdos Guildgate
Rakdos Keyrune
Terrus Wurm
Sewer Shambler
Those five would be the only black I think I would have tried to fit in, not including swamps.


While a 2/2 flying body is nice, I think the increased casting cost would hurt it too much, especially in an aggro deck.My thought was instead of 4 Artist, go with 2 Artist and 2 Noble. The train of thought was, seeing that there was no flying in the list and that when you would be playing a 4cc creature would be about the time you need those last points of damage. By himself an Artist does no damage; you of course have scavenge to make him do damage, but that scavenge could go on other creatures.

[tgva8889]

The issue with Selesnya at the prereleases (which is all I was talking about, not in general limited) is that they automatically have an 8/8 token generator, which means ALL of your Populate cards can be turned on for amazing value. From there you want maybe 2 or 3 cards that can make Centaurs or Knights and 2 or 3 cards that can make Birds and you should be good to go. It doesn't take that much to make the Populate cards work for you to great extremes. The only problem you may have is in the removal department, but you get Trostani's Judgment and Avenging Arrow which are not bad and are also common. You also get Arrest at Uncommon, which is probably the best removal spell in the set.

Since you have a guild pack, it's not as hard as it seems to open either a Guildmage or a Trostani, and you don't actually NEED either for your deck to be good, they just break your deck in half. Also, the 8/8 vigilant land is a rare.

The Guild Packs ruin every attempt to analyze limited based on the prereleases. It's really hard to decide how the format goes when people have decks with 2 Skymark Rocs and 3 Avenging Arrows (among other things) or multiple copies of literally every good Rakdos common, the Keyrune, the 3/2 Unleash for 3, and the 1/2 Unleash Deathtouch. I don't think we get any relevant analysis out of pools like that, we just get to see some format warping from the Guild Packs. While you're right in that it's hard to expect a Selesnya deck to always have the bomb, when they get a guild pack with assured good chances at some of those good cards it's easier to assure them.

I'm not sure whether this format is just ridiculously powerful or whether it was mostly guild packs skewing it, but it seems like if your best build was solidly in your guild pack's color, you crushed and if it wasn't, you had no chance.

My deck was abyssmal, but I made 7th which was good for 6 packs. Not sure how I managed that, but I accept it after losing to the absurd decks I mention above. Golgari ended up being really awkward and turned into 3-color, mostly to play Rakdos Lord of Riots as a big finisher and to play any removal spells (seriously, I get no removal spells in Black and someone gets 3 Launch Parties). I did learn that Deathrite Shaman is a very good card in Limited and I could easily see it making a splash in Standard.

[Grytorm]

I'm trying to put a deck together. I have a great deal of the cards already. Only missing the Ash Zealots for the rares. Later on I probably will splash Black in the deck but I don't have enough money for the Blood Crypts. Some advice for the second two drop would be nice and I am unsure of the Splatter Thugs although it does block GoST. Maybe Cryptborn Horror for a new 3 Drop


4x Stromkirk Noble
4x Rakdos Cackler
4x Ash Zealot
4x Lightning Mauler
4x Guttersnipe
2x Splatter Thug
3x Hellrider
4x Pillar of Flame
2x Elecktrickery
4x Searing Spear
4x Brimstone Volley
21x Mountain

[Lord Seth]

I really liked this prerelease format, though I'm disappointed that I elected to not go to the second one at the store (was interested in trying out Izzet) because I went to an unrelated meeting instead, only to discover that said meeting wasn't anywhere near as important as I thought it'd be and run into a few problems getting home, leaving me wishing I had just stayed around. Though I did save some money, I guess...then again, maybe I would have gotten some great stuff from it, like how my box contained an Abrupt Decay and a Blood Crypt (neither of which worked in my deck...but they cover a significant portion of the entrance fee).

As a fun note, I did win two games thanks to Azor's Elocutors.

Anyway, I remember all the guild boxes had these goofy little "welcome to the guild" letters. Since I was Azorius and didn't get a chance to try or really look at the others, I was wondering if anyone knew of any places where it's possible to read them?

[Gullara]

My thought was instead of 4 Artist, go with 2 Artist and 2 Noble. The train of thought was, seeing that there was no flying in the list and that when you would be playing a 4cc creature would be about the time you need those last points of damage. By himself an Artist does no damage; you of course have scavenge to make him do damage, but that scavenge could go on other creatures.

Hm, I'll think about it. Slapping Scavenge on a flier seems like an appealing idea. On the other hand, there might be better creatures to do it with if that's what I wanted. (Vampire Nighthawk anyone?) I imagine the deck could use another creature that can slip damage through. Lotleth Troll is obviously the creature of choice seeing as he's resilient and has evasion, but there are only four of them in the deck.

[Ninjaman]

Well, it's been forever since I even glanced at this thread, much less posted. @.@
I'm looking for advice, however. I got the random urge to create a Golgari Zombie list. Unfortunately I don't have any means of playtesting at the moment, so I just did the best I could while just thinking it over.

{table=head] | Golgari Zombies | 60 | Cards | |
23 | Lands | 23 | Creatures | 14 | Spells
3 | Cavern of Souls | 3 | Diregraf Ghoul | 2 | Abrupt Decay
2 | Forest | 4 | Dreg Mangler | 2 | Garruk Relentless
4 | Overgrown Tomb | 4 | Geralf's Messenger | 2 | Grisly Salvage
10 | Swamp | 4 | Gravecrawler | 1 | Murder
4 | Woodland Cemetary | 4 | Lotleth Troll | 4 | Rancor
| | 4 | Slitherhead | 3 | Tragic Slip
[/table]

That's what I was thinking, though I expect there are better choices I could have made. The card selections seem solid to me, but perhaps the amount of each could be better.

Also, I'm trying to decide whether or not that was the worst way to format that ever.

You don't want forests as they hurt your messanger, golgari guildgates if you want more green sources. They come down tapped which is dangerous, but it is better than not tapping for black.


I can't claim to be much of a Standard player (since I mostly play EDH and some Limited) but I feel like there's something to be gained from adding some Blood Artists to the mix. Unless I'm mistaken, they change up combat calculations as well as adding some reach. I've seen them quickly becoming backbreaking in multiples in zombie decks.


-Blood Artists are great, easy 4-of. You need the reach. Don't worry about things not dying; you're an aggro deck. If they're not killing your creatures, you're using those creatures to beat them to death.

Actually i don't think blood artist is the way to go. They where great in the previous format, because of sack outlets like birthing pod, mortar pod, Falkenrath aristocrat and killing wave. Of all of those you only still have killing wave, since you need to be red to play the falkenrath.
Also it gave you an edge against board wipes when playing agains Wolf run ramp, esper control and the like, but there are far fewer cheap board wipes now: Suprime verdict and bonfire are the only that really make the cut, mizzium mortars and street spasm are just too slow. And even against the few board wipes there are the deck is going to fare better since the troll can be regenerated, mangler has 3 toughness which helps agains non-miracled bonfire and you can scavenge it to make your surviving creatures bigger, and rancors helps you get the agro going with even just 1 surviving creature. Also you have golgari charm in board which will help too.

So far my zombies are going to look like this:
Creatures:25
4 Diregraf ghoul
4 Gravecrawler
3 Rakdos cackler
4 Lothleth troll
4 Geralf's messanger
4 Dreg mangler
2 Disciple of bolas

Non-creatures:12
3 Tragic slip
3 Abrupt decay
4 Rancor
2 Garruk relentless

Lands:23
4 Cavern of sous
4 Overgrown tomb
4 Woodland cemetery
11 Swamps (i might switch out two for guilgates)

Sideboard:
2 Pithing needle
3 Deathrite shaman
2 Underworld connections
1 Abrupt decay
3 Golgari charm
2 Naturalize
2 Sever the bloodline

The sideboard should be changed acording to the meta.

[Gullara]

Hm, that was related to my concern with Blood Artist earlier. It still probably deserves some playtesting, but it is on my list of things to keep an eye on.

One question, why do you include Disciple of Bolas? There don't seem to be much in the way of good targets for the effect in this deck, aside from Dreg Mangler perhaps.

As for the forests, I know what you mean, but I'm thinking that once in a while not having three black mana by turn three would hurt me less than the guild gate slowing me down a turn or lacking a green source when I need it. I'll be keeping my eye on the mana base, though.

[Meta]

I really liked this prerelease format, though I'm disappointed that I elected to not go to the second one at the store (was interested in trying out Izzet) because I went to an unrelated meeting instead, only to discover that said meeting wasn't anywhere near as important as I thought it'd be and run into a few problems getting home, leaving me wishing I had just stayed around. Though I did save some money, I guess...then again, maybe I would have gotten some great stuff from it, like how my box contained an Abrupt Decay and a Blood Crypt (neither of which worked in my deck...but they cover a significant portion of the entrance fee).

As a fun note, I did win two games thanks to Azor's Elocutors.

Anyway, I remember all the guild boxes had these goofy little "welcome to the guild" letters. Since I was Azorius and didn't get a chance to try or really look at the others, I was wondering if anyone knew of any places where it's possible to read them?

Scroll down to the bottom and they're all there as individual files: http://wiki.mtgsalvation.com/article/Return_to_Ravnica

I played Azorious and had a good time with it. Lost to an Izzet deck who was a good player and had double chemister. That card is nuts if you can't find a way to do more than detain it. And lost to dem tokens which I think has the potential to be crazy. I disagree that it's because of the elementals though, they can be good, but the deck doesn't need em in limited.

Game 1 I was doing pretty well but his curve was t2 centaur, wayfaring temple, eyes in the sky, eyes in the sky, collective blessing. Lost to some big birds.
Won Game 2 thanks to my own collective blessing forcing bad chumps and then bouncing or detaining his pair of 8/8's.
Game 3, both my keyrune and lantern meet sundering growth so I don' hit my splash and he gets 2 more centaurs. Ouch.

I feel like the deck has a LOT of token makers at the common and uncommon slots and their only consistent weakness (IME) was in the air thanks to nothing bigger than 1/1 birds... most of the time. Plus a lot of borderline cards like safe passage, naturalize, or fog get pretty crazy when you staple 3/3 centaurs or 5/5 slimes on them.

[Ninjaman]

Hm, that was related to my concern with Blood Artist earlier. It still probably deserves some playtesting, but it is on my list of things to keep an eye on.

I playtested it a bit, and it just didn't do what it used to do.


One question, why do you include Disciple of Bolas? There don't seem to be much in the way of good targets for the effect in this deck, aside from Dreg Mangler perhaps.

Gravecrawler, messanger, anything equiped with a rancor.


As for the forests, I know what you mean, but I'm thinking that once in a while not having three black mana by turn three would hurt me less than the guild gate slowing me down a turn or lacking a green source when I need it. I'll be keeping my eye on the mana base, though.

sure.

[tgva8889]

Anyway, I remember all the guild boxes had these goofy little "welcome to the guild" letters. Since I was Azorius and didn't get a chance to try or really look at the others, I was wondering if anyone knew of any places where it's possible to read them?

Since they posted the Achievement Cards as Arcana on the mothership, I hope they post these as well. I too wish I could read all of them, as some of them are fun to read (and add your own comments to like I did when reading the Selesnya one).

[Mystic Muse]

How many Armada wurms would you guys suggest for a populate deck?

[Nightson]

Three to four. No ramp go with three, with ramp go with four imo.

[Duos]

Just fleshed out my playset of Cackling Counterpart. What are some really, really dumb things to populate? (Aside from the obvious choices like Thragtusk, Restoration Angel, Wolfir Silverheart, etc.)

[Landis963]

Just fleshed out my playset of Cackling Counterpart. What are some really, really dumb things to populate? (Aside from the obvious choices like Thragtusk, Restoration Angel, Wolfir Silverheart, etc.)

Tarmogoyf comes to mind. Armada Wurm. Any non-legendary Eldrazi. If you're asking about the modern meaning of dumb, then Avacyn. :smallwink:

[tgva8889]

Additional copies of Armada Wurm and Angel of Serenity are pretty silly things to Populate. Populating Restoration Angel pales in comparison to these. If you are looking at the most absurd things you can possibly populate, populate the biggest, most abusive things.

If you want some less mainstream answers, Goldnight Redeemer could be worth a lot of life. Any of the lords are possible options (Drogskol Captain works well because he protects the others and also works well with Phantom Captain if you want to go really deep). Dungeon Geists is a pretty good choice as well. Obviously if there's a creature that you can transform into something awesome, making a copy that can't transform could be beneficial (unless, perhaps, it is Huntmaster/Ravager of the Fells).

I think if you wanted to go all the way out of the box and onto the table then Beguiler of Wills would be really amusing. How many creatures can you steal?

Edit: Do not populate Avacyn, she'll die immediately upon seeing the token copy of herself. Indestructible is not a defense here.

[Landis963]

Edit: Do not populate Avacyn, she'll die immediately upon seeing the token copy of herself. Indestructible is not a defense here.

:smalltongue: Ahem. "modern meaning of dumb." That post probably needs a smiley to make the joke clear.

[Dralnu]

Day 1 Prerelease I went Izzet, which was the most popular guild (Rakdos second). I opened up a crappy pool with Nivmagus Elemental as my pack rare and Guild Feud as my only other on-color rare. The only things going for me were my multiple Street Spasms (2), 6cmc 5 burn spell thing (2), and voidwielder (2). None of the other colors were strong enough to go into so I just splashed a little black for the +4/-4 card and relied on my promo / guttersnipe / pyroconvergence to win it for me.

Went 1-3 drop. Won the first round against Rakdos because I curved perfectly both games and rationed my removal properly, and my opponent's deck wasn't very good. Round 2 went up against Selesnya with 2 Loxodon Smiter / 2 Vitu Guildmage, tons of 3/3 tokens and populate oh my, got 0-2'd but both games were very close. Round 3 went up against Izzet, was close but ended up 1-2 as he topdecked the perfect card each time. Round 4 went against Rakdos, he had a reeeeally good deck but he had absolutely no idea how to play, first game I had to mull to 4 and kept a no-land hand but topdecked one after two turns and held his massive army at bay with my 1/2 nivmagus elemental that apparently scared him, turn 8 I had my second land but it was too late, then game 2 I mull'd to 5 and kept a good hand but got flooded out. Left the tournament pretty annoyed.

Second prerelease went Azoriusat a different store. Selesnya was the most popular followed by Rakdos. Got a sick pool with 2 Righteous Authority, JACE, and a bunch of solid commons/uncommons to fill out a UW control deck. Went 3-2, lost both games to Selesnya in large part to Vitu Guildmage, which my removal suit of Paralyzing Grasp + 2x Avenging Arrow was ill-suited to deal with. I was actually the only non-Selesnya that got over 2 wins. Also fun note, my Archon never once was able to attack in any game that I played it.

Overall I really liked the prerelease. Selesnya looks OP in this format, however. It has way too many insane cards at common/uncommon.

[tgva8889]

:smalltongue: Ahem. "modern meaning of dumb." That post probably needs a smiley to make the joke clear.

I dunno. I could imagine you Populating Phage. If you did all that work to get a token of her into play and then not only make a copy of her, thus Legend Ruling them away, but also give yourself another "you lose the game trigger," that would be pure guts.

[Sith_Happens]

Playground, I have discovered a terrible secret that will shake Ravnica--nay, the entire multiverse--to its core. Jarad and Trostani are merely figureheads. In reality, the Golgari Swarm and the Selesnya Conclave are both being controlled behind the scenes by a single entity, one who plans to use their combined abilities to grow an undying army with which to conquer the planes.

And who might this secret mastermind be, you might ask? Is it Nicol Bolas? A reasonable suspect, but no. I speak of none other than Ghave, Guru of Spores. Seriously, Ghave + Scavenge + Populate. Preferably with Corpsejack Menace. The synergies are insane, and I can't believe no one's mentioned it before now.

[Razaele]

Does anyone know what is up with Jace, Architect of Thought? Honestly, I don't see what makes it such a good card, but people are hoarding it and the price is only going up. Can someone please explain to me what makes it so good?

[Lea Plath]

Does anyone know what is up with Jace, Architect of Thought? Honestly, I don't see what makes it such a good card, but people are hoarding it and the price is only going up. Can someone please explain to me what makes it so good?

OK, it is 4 mana, double blue. This is OK, but not great, however with all the fixing, it makes him somewhat playable.

His +1 negates the tokens from Lingering Souls and any other 1/1 tokens, which protects him. It also gives you some protection from big stuff by reducing their power by 1.

His -2 is like a smaller, repeatable fact or fiction that doesn't stick stuff into grave. Using Jace twice for his fact or fiction ability is pretty good as it looks at 6 cards and gives you at least 2 for 4 mana.

His -8 is pretty nice for EDH, and possibly usable in Standard. Take the best card from their decks and play it. However, for me, the repeatable fact or fiction ability is what makes him good.



Anyway, update from me.

I've been playing a lot of magic recently. I sold off my vampire deck and build a RB zombie deck before prices on the cards sky rocketed. I top 8ed a few times and now I'm building it into a Jund zombie deck as seen here ( http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/the-swarm-overuns-jund-zombies/ ) which I'm still looking for advice on. Tempted to sideboard Vraska, but unsure.

I am also building myself a homebrew modern deck using Shaman, if anyone wants to see the list.

And if any UK/Irish MTG players pull Overgrown Tombs or Abrupt Decays, I can trade for them over mail.

[Razaele]

OK, it is 4 mana, double blue. This is OK, but not great, however with all the fixing, it makes him somewhat playable.

His +1 negates the tokens from Lingering Souls and any other 1/1 tokens, which protects him. It also gives you some protection from big stuff by reducing their power by 1.

His -2 is like a smaller, repeatable fact or fiction that doesn't stick stuff into grave. Using Jace twice for his fact or fiction ability is pretty good as it looks at 6 cards and gives you at least 2 for 4 mana.

His -8 is pretty nice for EDH, and possibly usable in Standard. Take the best card from their decks and play it. However, for me, the repeatable fact or fiction ability is what makes him good.


Sure, the +1 negates many of the 1/1 tokens out there, though cards like Intangible Virtue will still see play, meaning the tokens will still be doing damage. I myself run a tokens deck and I have to say that buffing my tokens is a pretty big part of my strategy. As for protecting against big stuff, I honestly think that bouncing would be a much better option that just reducing their attack power by 1.

I agree, the -2 ability is good. The problem is being able to use it twice, however. If only one attack gets through to Jace, or he gets destroyed by something like Dreadbore, that would have been a very costly casting of Fact or Fiction.

Admittedly, his -8 could be useful as well. The problem here is that it takes 4 turns at least for him to reach the -8. That is a very long time, and that requires absolutely nothing to touch Jace.

[Lea Plath]

He isn't amazing, but he has his place. In control decks, he lessens damage done to you. Most token using decks at the moment (esper midrange, etc), use Lingering Souls but don't use anything to buff them and it even weakens fatties. Also, given how it takes 4 uses of his +1 to use his ult, people aren't likely to be swinging at him, especially if tokens are useless. Plus, Fact and Fiction is 4 mana too, so using it twice for 4 mana is pretty good.

And as a rule of thumb, never assume you are going to be able to ultimate. It will take several turns and it can be destroyed.

He isn't amazing, but he is a good response to some of the meta, adds some more card draw and fixing for control and tempo decks. It isn't a Liliana of the Veil?

[Bucky]

I agree, the -2 ability is good. The problem is being able to use it twice, however. If only one attack gets through to Jace, or he gets destroyed by something like Dreadbore, that would have been a very costly casting of Fact or Fiction.

I think you've been spoiled by overpowered planeswalkers. 4 mana for 2 cards and your opponent's Dreadbore is a very good deal.

[Squark]

I think you've been spoiled by overpowered planeswalkers. 4 mana for 2 cards and your opponent's Dreadbore is a very good deal.

Or 4 mana for 2 cards and absorbing 2+ damage that would have come at you, but yeah, given how incredibly powerful fact or fiction is, the fact that Jace, Architect of Thought doesn't give you the full 5 cards or dump the rest in your graveyard is not really a mark against him. Compare Jace, Architect of Thought, to Divination. Which would you rather play? I know I'd rather play the former in most modern control decks.

[Lea Plath]

So, I'm trying to work out a BUG tempo deck list.

My idea is use Green for Rancor, Farseek, Quiron Dryad. Blue for Delver, inaction injunction and card draw. Black for removal. Vraska, maybe Jace. I'm trying to add some tokens but unsure. Deathrite Shaman as a 2 off too so I can turn spent spells/creatures into life/damage.

And I'm not gonna add snapcaster, simply cause I don't like him, don't like price and I want to use deathrite to turn all spells into 2 damage.

[Sith_Happens]

Does anyone know what is up with Jace, Architect of Thought? Honestly, I don't see what makes it such a good card, but people are hoarding it and the price is only going up. Can someone please explain to me what makes it so good?

Along with what other people have said about his -2 being pretty good, there's also just the fact that his subtype is "Jace." Seeing as Mind Sculptor exists, I'm pretty sure that Wizards could print a new Jace with

{0}: Exile your hand.
{-3}: Skip your next turn.
{-10}: You lose the game.

and it would still take about a week for people to realize that it isn't the best thing since Black Lotus.

[Cogwheel]

Along with what other people have said about his -2 being pretty good, there's also just the fact that his subtype is "Jace." Seeing as Mind Sculptor exists, I'm pretty sure that Wizards could print a new Jace with

{0}: Exile your hand.
{-3}: Skip your next turn.
{-10}: You lose the game.

and it would still take about a week for people to realize that it isn't the best thing since Black Lotus.

Say what you will, I would play that card so much.

[Fable Wright]

Say what you will, I would play that card so much.

Donate+Mindslaver? :smalltongue:

[Ninjaman]

Rules question:
I try to enchant my gravecrawler with a rancor, in response my opponent murders it. Is the rancor then countered and just sent to the graveyard? Or does it enter the battlefield and is then put into the graveyard, and so the ability triggers and i return the rancor to my hand?

[Lea Plath]

Rules question:
I try to enchant my gravecrawler with a rancor, in response my opponent murders it. Is the rancor then countered and just sent to the graveyard? Or does it enter the battlefield and is then put into the graveyard, and so the ability triggers and i return the rancor to my hand?

Murder goes on the stack before rancor, so going down it goes like this.

Murder kills Gravecrawler.
Rancor enters the battlefield without a valid target and fizzles
Because it never was technically on the battlefield, it stays in grave and doesn't come back.

But rancor...AND Gravecrawler, Evil :P

[Sith_Happens]

But rancor...AND Gravecrawler, the reason Goglari is awesome.

Fixed.:smallwink:

[Lea Plath]

Fixed.:smallwink:

I will admit, golgari is the best guild ever.

In sealed, I got 2 Daggerdrome Imps and scavange. Winning :D Loltroll in draft, total bomb in GB, as he turns dead or weak creatures into big nom noms, and regenerates. Last I checked there were 2 pieces of removal for him in draft?

In standard/modern/legacy, they have Abrupt Decay, a fantastic bit of removal. They also have a nice bit of GY hard and gy advantage in the form of deathrite shaman.

They have access to all the best cards of the Isd block/M13. Gravecrawler, Diregraf, Blood Throne Vampire, Rancor, Thragtusk, Geralf's and can easily spalsh blue, white, or red to get the best cards of other decks.

Golgari is best guild. FOR THE SWARM!

[Lord Seth]

I will admit, golgari is the best guild ever.

In sealed, I got 2 Daggerdrome Imps and scavange. Winning :D Loltroll in draft, total bomb in GB, as he turns dead or weak creatures into big nom noms, and regenerates. Last I checked there were 2 pieces of removal for him in draft?

In standard/modern/legacy, they have Abrupt Decay, a fantastic bit of removal. They also have a nice bit of GY hard and gy advantage in the form of deathrite shaman.You're listing reasons you think the Golgari are strong and you didn't mention Dredge? That's like their #1 claim to fame.


They have access to all the best cards of the Isd block/M13. Gravecrawler, Diregraf, Blood Throne Vampire, Rancor, Thragtusk, Geralf's and can easily spalsh blue, white, or red to get the best cards of other decks.That applies to every guild, though, because any combination of two colors can easily splash to get the other three colors.

Furthermore, I am confused as to how you can "easily splash" for Geist of Saint Traft, Delver of Secrets, and Snapcaster Mage, the three best cards from Innistrad. Geist of Saint Traft requires Blue and White, and while Delver of Secrets and Snapcaster Mage are easy to splash mana-wise, they're not so easy to splash in terms of deck type, and Black/Green decks don't tend to be the kind of decks they work well in.

[Sith_Happens]

Anyone here who can draw? Because I suddenly have the urge to see a picture of Snapcaster Mage and Ash Zealot throwing fisticuffs.

[Cogwheel]

Donate+Mindslaver? :smalltongue:

No, just wish it was a sorcery/instant so I could use it with Hive Mind.

[Lea Plath]

I would mention Dredge, but I've still got no idea quite how it works as a deck. From what I understand, it is a combo?

And I'm possibly putting snapcast in my BUG deck, looking at it now, and Delver for sure. However, I don't rate Giest that highly. It is a 2/2 that swings as a 6/6 with the damage split, so yeah that is pretty good. 3 mana for it. Pretty good. Hexproof, pretty good. But he dies so easily, and I don't feel he contributes to the board as much as cards like Aristocrat (in zombie decks), Olivia (in general), Huntsmaster (in general).

[Fable Wright]

I would mention Dredge, but I've still got no idea quite how it works as a deck. From what I understand, it is a combo?

To put it simply:

Dredge replaces each card you draw with putting the top {insert dredge value here, probably 4 (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=292953), 5 (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=292958), or 6 (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=338406)} into your graveyard and putting the dredged card in your hand. Dredge decks discard these via things like Tireless Tribe (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=29695) and Putrid Imp (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=270459). Then, when they draw for turn, they get it back, and basically replace their draw steps with milling themselves for a certain number of cards. And then they cast things like Careful Study (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=29727) and Faithless Looting (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=245299) to draw two cards and discard them again, milling values like 11 or so each time, or occasionally Breakthrough (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=29927)for X=0 for even more ridiculous dredgin. And then things like Cephalid Colosseum (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=288995) to draw/discard more cards. Then, on their upkeep, they return Ichorids (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=35923) from the graveyard to the battlefield. They use the Ichorids to swing and/or flashback Cabal Therapy (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=265166) or Dread Return (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=270463) (which are in the graveyard from the milling). Whenever one of those Ichorids dies, for each Bridge from Below (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=136054) in their graveyard, they get a Zombie. So, with 3 Ichorids and 3 Bridges, when they all die, the Dredge player gets 9 2/2 Zombie tokens. Add in the fact that all of that milling probably put several Narcomoebas (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=136140) onto the battlefield, which provide more bodies for Cabal Therapy and Dread Return, and each of their deaths generates Zombies. Now combine that with the fact that they just spent a turn destroying someone's hand with Cabal Therapy or generated a huge/huge Golgari Grave-Troll with a Dread Return (or just swung in for damage, if there aren't any blockers), and the fact that those Ichords come back next turn...

There's a reason every Legacy tournament player who knows their stuff will pack at least 4 graveyard hate cards (usually just Tormod's Crypts, but that's still something): Dredge is usually just not beatable pre-sideboard. You either have to race them (See also: hasty 3/1s every turn, increasing armies of 2/2s to back them up, you have no hand, and they have Grave Trolls), exile all of their Ichorids when they first come out (because your starting hand just happened to be 1 stoneforge, 2 plains, and 4 Swords to Plowshares) and try to kill them before they get 3 Narcomoebas on the battlefield and a Dread Return in the bin...

For more reading (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?23432-Deck-Dredge).

Finally, Dredge isn't so much a Combo deck as one of the few Aggro/Combo decks in Magic. Even if it doesn't get a random combo win (Dread Return a Flame-Kin Zealot (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=83562), swing in for lethal with the Flaming Zombies generated by Bridge from Below), it can still just kill people with its ridiculous Ichorid + Bridge engine (which is, by its nature, highly aggressive).

[Lea Plath]

I see, looks an intresting deck, if not a very interactive one.

Also, does anyone have any good BUG lists for modern or standard? I'm trying to build a BUG Tempo deck. So far, I'm thinking pack all the good removal. Pack counter spells. Delver. Dreg Mangler. The BG utility lands so I can sac a creature in response to removal or dying to draw a card. Scavange cards. Rancor. Vraska and Tamiyo. Duress for hand disruption. Deathrite shaman to turn old cards into life/damage.

Don't think I'll add snapcaster, but I'm up for hearing ideas.

[Avaris]

So, possibly a little late but I was wondering about people's opinions on the prerelease format for RtR. Here are my views:

The good
The faction boxes containing the product were awesome. Getting all 6 boosters in a box felt good. I don't know why: I don't care much for spindowns or silly things like achievement cards, but having a sealed pool in a box worked.

I was also pleasantly surprised by the way being able to use the promos worked. All of them were good, but none felt like they were at risk of warping the format on their own. Whilst I'm hesitant about anyone knowing an exact card they will get, I would be happy for people to have access to the promo cards in their sealed pools again in the future

The bad
The guildpacks warped the format too much for my liking. Normally in sealed you'll have some variation in pool quality, but often players still place on the basis of their skill: a good player with a weak pool can beat a poor player with a strong pool. The guildpacks seemed to stretch this: a weak pool could be created if the first five packs were the 'wrong' guild or the guildpack didn't have the good cards of its guild (I had selesnya with very little populate or token production), whereas a strong pool, where the other boosters align with the guild, can be unstoppable (as discussed earlier for Selesnya by tgva8889 I believe).

I think fundamentally the idea of being able to choose one of the five guilds on the basis that it is most likely to let you win is wrong. We saw this happen with speculation online: general opinion was that Izzet was worst, with Golgari/Selesnya being best I think? I picked my guilds purely for flavour and play style (Izzet first, then Selesnya at my second event), but for someone more competitive than me I can see that there are right and wrong choices. For me, part of the appeal of sealed is tackling whatever your packs give you, and metagaming/planning before a tournament should stay well away from it (better for constructed).

tl;dr - promos good, guildpacks bad

[Sith_Happens]

Don't think I'll add snapcaster, but I'm up for hearing ideas.

Well, flashbacking Abrupt Decay is one heck of an idea. Or flashbacking Duress. It's definitely a trick you can live without, but where's the fun in that?:smalltongue:

[Lea Plath]

Well, flashbacking Abrupt Decay is one heck of an idea. Or flashbacking Duress. It's definitely a trick you can live without, but where's the fun in that?:smalltongue:

Using the money to buy lots and lots of ice cream? Want to see the list I got so far?

[Sith_Happens]

Using the money to buy lots and lots of ice cream?

At least make sure to get mint chocolate chip, for the color synergies.:smallwink:

[Landis963]

At least make sure to get mint chocolate chip, for the color synergies.:smallwink:

GB. Best guild and best ice cream!*

*for certain values of "best" reliant on personal opinion

[tgva8889]

I see, looks an intresting deck, if not a very interactive one.

Dredge is probably one of the least interactive decks you can play. It plays by such different rules of Magic that there are variations of the deck that don't play any lands.

[Fable Wright]

Dredge is probably one of the least interactive decks you can play. It plays by such different rules of Magic that there are variations of the deck that don't play any lands.

Just for future reference, the non-combo versions of the landless (though that's a misnomer, due to the fact that they do run 2-3 lands; manaless is a more appropriate adjective, since they almost never tap the lands for mana) is the most interactive version of Dredge there is. It's significantly slower, and tries to keep bringing back creatures for the incremental gain from Bridge from Below, and people actually liked the deck. When it first premiered, people were actually requesting that more Manaless Dredge games to be shown on the video-feed feature matches. When the game doesn't go Turn 2 Iona (I win), the games can actually be very back and forth. I've played casual games against people with legacy decks using comboless Manaless Dredge, and it was actually quite fun for everyone involved.

EDIT: Oh, and in case you were wondering why people play dredge: Dredge decks are among the cheapest Legacy decks you can build (right next to Elves, Discard-based Pox, and Mono G Infect Stompy). I built my manaless dredge deck from scratch for a bit over $100, and it has actually won me some local tournaments. For reference, that is a few hundred dollars under the cost of the kind of manabases that most Legacy decks use.

[Lea Plath]

EDIT: Oh, and in case you were wondering why people play dredge: Dredge decks are among the cheapest Legacy decks you can build (right next to Elves, Discard-based Pox, and Mono G Infect Stompy). I built my manaless dredge deck from scratch for a bit over $100, and it has actually won me some local tournaments. For reference, that is a few hundred dollars under the cost of the kind of manabases that most Legacy decks use.

20 card legacy proxy tournies FTW! I'm looking to build Countersliver.

[tgva8889]

Dredge just plays by different rules than other decks, so much so that many don't consider Dredge to be playing "real Magic." Decks that attack with creatures over several turns are generally interactive by default. So Dredge can be interactive, but the general idea of the deck (mill myself, barely cast any spells until you instantly die) generally isn't seen that way. Time Spiral Standard spawned a really large number of highly non-interactive decks.

Even the most non-interactive decks do have to interact sometimes, though, because chances are your opponent will be doing something that you have to do something about if you want to not lose.

[Lea Plath]

So, I'm gonna be doing some article writing for http://ponderingmagic.com/ soon on being a newbie and understanding magic. Check it out!

[Lord Seth]

To put it simply:

Dredge replaces each card you draw with putting the top {insert dredge value here, probably 4 (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=292953), 5 (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=292958), or 6 (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=338406)} into your graveyard and putting the dredged card in your hand. Dredge decks discard these via things like Tireless Tribe (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=29695) and Putrid Imp (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=270459). Then, when they draw for turn, they get it back, and basically replace their draw steps with milling themselves for a certain number of cards. And then they cast things like Careful Study (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=29727) and Faithless Looting (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=245299) to draw two cards and discard them again, milling values like 11 or so each time, or occasionally Breakthrough (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=29927)for X=0 for even more ridiculous dredgin. And then things like Cephalid Colosseum (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=288995) to draw/discard more cards. Then, on their upkeep, they return Ichorids (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=35923) from the graveyard to the battlefield. They use the Ichorids to swing and/or flashback Cabal Therapy (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=265166) or Dread Return (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=270463) (which are in the graveyard from the milling). Whenever one of those Ichorids dies, for each Bridge from Below (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=136054) in their graveyard, they get a Zombie. So, with 3 Ichorids and 3 Bridges, when they all die, the Dredge player gets 9 2/2 Zombie tokens. Add in the fact that all of that milling probably put several Narcomoebas (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=136140) onto the battlefield, which provide more bodies for Cabal Therapy and Dread Return, and each of their deaths generates Zombies. Now combine that with the fact that they just spent a turn destroying someone's hand with Cabal Therapy or generated a huge/huge Golgari Grave-Troll with a Dread Return (or just swung in for damage, if there aren't any blockers), and the fact that those Ichords come back next turn...Don't forget that in Vintage, you get to play around with Bazaar of Baghdad, which powers up the deck immeasurably. It's so good that I believe it's the only competitive deck in Vintage that doesn't need any of the power 9. Heck, Bazaar of Baghdad is so critical to the deck that the strategy is to (with 4x Serum Powder) mulligan until they start with one.


There's a reason every Legacy tournament player who knows their stuff will pack at least 4 graveyard hate cards (usually just Tormod's Crypts, but that's still something): Dredge is usually just not beatable pre-sideboard.Okay, this I'll disagree with. At least 4 graveyard hate cards? Nah. 4 is generally the maximum you'd want. If you pack too much graveyard hate you'll just leave yourself open to everything else. And not beatable pre-sideboard? That may be true about Vintage dredge, but not really in Legacy. It's true control decks will have a heck of a time against it early on, but other decks can beat it. Maybe dredge has an advantage, but it's hardly unbeatable.

The "usually" Tormod's Crypt isn't correct either. I don't see that card used much. Relic of Progenitus is far more popular (I believe Surgical Extraction is the second most popular), and for good reason, it has far more utility against other decks. Tormod's Crypt doesn't automatically take Tarmogoyf down to a 0/1, it's a "one and one" deal whereas Relic can keep an opponent's graveyard down for a longer period of time, and Relic is able to replace itself. Tormod's Crypt sees some play to be sure, but Relic of Progenitus has far more general utility and is probably the #1 anti-graveyard card of choice.

Yeah, I'm nitpicking majorly, but I figured I should make it a little more correct.

If you want to see Dredge in action, this (http://blip.tv/scglive/scgorl-leg-finals-david-mcdarby-vs-mark-eilers-6162212) is a good video. It's quite long, but I think it demonstrates the way the deck works pretty well, along with how it can overcome (or be overcome by) opposition.

EDIT: Here (http://blip.tv/scglive/scgdes-moines-lgc-rnd7-justin-uppal-vs-daniel-rude-6084435) is a shorter one that I also feel demonstrates the deck well, and and is against a non-combo deck if you wanted to see how that played out (though the transformational sideboard of this Dredge deck is a bit unique).

[Fable Wright]

Okay, this I'll disagree with. At least 4 graveyard hate cards? Nah. 4 is generally the maximum you'd want. If you pack too much graveyard hate you'll just leave yourself open to everything else. And not beatable pre-sideboard? That may be true about Vintage dredge, but not really in Legacy. It's true control decks will have a heck of a time against it early on, but other decks can beat it. Maybe dredge has an advantage, but it's hardly unbeatable.

The "usually" Tormod's Crypt isn't correct either. I don't see that card used much. Relic of Progenitus is far more popular (I believe Surgical Extraction is the second most popular), and for good reason, it has far more utility against other decks. Tormod's Crypt doesn't automatically take Tarmogoyf down to a 0/1, it's a "one and one" deal whereas Relic can keep an opponent's graveyard down for a longer period of time, and Relic is able to replace itself. Tormod's Crypt sees some play to be sure, but Relic of Progenitus has far more general utility and is probably the #1 anti-graveyard card of choice.
Perhaps it's a meta thing. However, I can say, from personal experience at least, if you do not play at least 4 graveyard hate spells or a combo deck (which I will admit, potentially won't need them), you will lose your match to dredge. In all of the matches with Manaless Dredge I've played against Merfolk, Reanimator, Maverick, Combo Elves, Stoneblade, and most other fair decks (I haven't had too much testing against Zoo with the combo build, so I can't say too much about that), if you do not see hate in the game, you will lose. This has, oddly enough, applied to most games I played against regular Dredge, as well. The one time a regular Dredge deck beat me without hate was after repeatedly Cabal Therapying out all of my non-dredgers from hand before I could discard a Dredger when he was on the play. As a side note, I have not played against LED dredge and cannot comment on that, and I will note that landed Dredge can play around hate better than manaless.

On reflection, "every" was inaccurate, and there are several cases where people certainly don't need to board in hate (see: Wishboard decks, ANT, Belcher). However, I will stand by my amended assertion that nearly every fair deck pilot (exceptions being Maverick pilots, who need exactly one hate card, and potentially Zoo players, pending further investigation) who knows what they're doing generally does have 4 Graveyard Hate cards in the board. When graveyard decks are "bad," and hate is down, you will see the top 8 players generally having at least 4 hate cards in the board, as graveyard decks become better when they're worse, and without the hate, they tend to lose to graveyard decks in later rounds that dodged a lot of hate. When graveyard decks are big, the highest placing players tend to be either Maverick or have 4 hate cards in the board, as those beat Graveyard decks.

As for Crypt vs. Relic:
I have played in many (mostly local) Legacy tournaments. I have had a Relic played against me exactly once, and Crypts in many more games than that. Legacy is a deck with precise manabases and almost no leftover mana, and most people aren't willing to sacrifice important early game drops and leave mana open to crack a Relic each turn, despite the cantrip effect and ancillary Goyf hate. Surgical Extractions are popular, but they aren't really focused graveyard hate cards, and don't actually do as much against (at least Manaless) Dredge as Relic does. As for the maximum of 4... a lot of people in my area are afraid of Graveyard decks (Every Legacy event at my FLGS has a Dredge deck and a Reanimator deck), and I have seen decks with 8 or more cards in the board solely to deal with Graveyard decks. I have also seen a number of highly placing decklists run 6 graveyard hate cards in the board. Four is by no means the maximum number you should run.

[Lea Plath]

Crypt Versus Relic

I personally find Relic to be stricly better. It can be a more precsise tool or just get rid of anything in a grave and replacement effect is important. However, it does depends on the mana base.

In my modern deck, because I focus on playing creatures cheaply and I can tutor out mana if needed, I can run Relic. In the orginial version, it ran more 2 drops so I was playing 3-4 creatures a turn, then dropping a Rage Forger so I couldn't have run Relic.

And I've just noticed a deck, very very similar to dredge but with a slice of reanimator. Mind if I share?

[Fable Wright]

In my modern deck, because I focus on playing creatures cheaply and I can tutor out mana if needed, I can run Relic. In the orginial version, it ran more 2 drops so I was playing 3-4 creatures a turn, then dropping a Rage Forger so I couldn't have run Relic.

...How did I not know about this card until now? I feel the sudden need to build a Rakdos Rage Forger deck...

[Lea Plath]

...How did I not know about this card until now? I feel the sudden need to build a Rakdos Rage Forger deck...

Not standard :P The next best thing is Hellrider, which is in standard right now.

In my deck, I run lots of Bosk Bannerettes, so my turns look like this.

Turn 1: Land, Treefolk Harbinger to Bosk on top of deck
Turn 2: Land, Bosk Bannerette
Turn 3: Land. Bosk. Visonary. Visonary.
Turn 4: More shaman, then drop a rage forger.
Turn 5, swing for at least 10 damage, 4 of which is unblockable.

[Fable Wright]

Not standard :P The next best thing is Hellrider, which is in standard right now.

Who said Rakdos decks have to be standard? Efficiently costed R/B creatures are good in any format, and with the reach that Rage Forger and Hellrider give just makes it better. Besides, you have Lightning Bolt outside of Standard. :smalltongue:

[Zombimode]

Ok, just pulled a Jace out of one of the boosters of my case.

According to MKM, a major german/european MTG trading site, those go for 30 euros apiece!

And I don't even like him. But something tells me this price wont stay for long.
I have to get to my LGS next Friday to trade him against three bloodcrypts or something.

[tgva8889]

Well, since every Maverick deck plays "5"+ graveyard hate cards maindeck anyways (Scavenging Ooze), after board they have a lot more options available even if they only have 4 in their sideboard.

[Sohala]

I was doing some tinkering with standard cards and came up with this:

2 Drowned Catacomb
3 Sunpetal Grove
3 Woodland Cemetery
2 Hinterland Harbor
4 Temple Garden
1 Blood Crypt
1 Rootbound Crag
2 Isolated Chapel
4 Overgrown Tomb
1 Rancor
3 Avacyn's Pilgrim
2 Ultimate Price
3 Mulch
4 Tracker's Instincts
3 Grisly Salvage
3 Lotleth Troll
4 Dreg Mangler
3 Splinterfright
3 Deadbridge Goliath
4 Unburial Rites
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Bruna, Light of Alabaster
1 Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
1 Griselbrand
1 Avacyn, Angel of Hope
Beyond the terrible lack of removal, thoughts?

[Lord Seth]

Perhaps it's a meta thing. However, I can say, from personal experience at least, if you do not play at least 4 graveyard hate spells or a combo deck (which I will admit, potentially won't need them), you will lose your match to dredge.The issue here is that even if you'll likely lose to Dredge, Dredge isn't generally that big a part of the meta. In terms of graveyard decks you have more to fear from RUG Delver, and Relic of Progenitus is far superior against that deck (it brings Tarmogoyf down to a 0/1 whereas Tormod's Crypt leaves it at a minimum of a 1/2, and it can also be used to keep their graveyard down in the long term). Surgical Extraction, on the other hand, is far superior than Tormod's Crypt against other combo decks, in particular making Intuition a dangerous card to try to use. I actually may consider Surgical Extraction better against Dredge because there's really only a few cards in Dredge that are truly dangerous (the dredgers themselves aren't really a threat on their own), so if you can get rid of the Ichorids or Bridges from Below--or even just the Narcomoebas--you've really hurt them.

I also think RUG Delver is pretty decent against Dredge even without hate. Dredge powers up their Tarmogoyfs, has trouble dealing with their Delvers (all they have is Narcomoeba to chump block with), and can be quickly overrun before they get things set up enough. There's even some goofy tactics that RUG Delver can do to thwart Bridge from Below, like using a Lightning Bolt on their own Delver of Secrets.

Winning against it without graveyard hate otherwise is hardly impossible or even improbable. Unless you're playing control, in which case you're probably screwed without strong graveyard hate. Dredge going against something like Miracles reminds me of High Tide going against Lands.

At any rate, my issue was the "usually" claim, when that does not seem to be true.


I have played in many (mostly local) Legacy tournaments. I have had a Relic played against me exactly once, and Crypts in many more games than that. Legacy is a deck with precise manabases and almost no leftover mana, and most people aren't willing to sacrifice important early game drops and leave mana open to crack a Relic each turn, despite the cantrip effect and ancillary Goyf hate.Again, I think you're focused too much on how it handles Dredge. Dredge is far from the only deck in the format or the only deck that needs graveyard hate. And Relic of Progenitus is better against all the other graveyard-based decks I can think of. I will concede that Tormod's Crypt is slightly better than Relic of Progenitus against Dredge, but Relic of Progenitus seems better than or equal to Tormod's Crypt against pretty much everything else.


Four is by no means the maximum number you should run.It's the maximum that usually gets run unless you have an extremely graveyard-infested meta.

Personally I only run two (a Surgical Extraction and a Ravenous Trap--if Dredge was all over the place I might add on another Extraction), but then again I play High Tide. Unless you count Time Spiral as graveyard hate...
Well, since every Maverick deck plays "5"+ graveyard hate cards maindeck anyways (Scavenging Ooze), after board they have a lot more options available even if they only have 4 in their sideboard.Took me a while to figure this out. Are you referring to Green Sun's Zenith counting as 4 of them? Might have been better if you had been a little more clear about that, maybe mentioning it in the parentheses with Scavenging Ooze. If someone's not familiar with Maverick--and not everyone here is a Legacy player--they're probably completely stumped by this post. Heck, I'm a Legacy player and I was confused for a while.

[tgva8889]

Considering the post wasn't for anyone who wasn't familiar with Legacy, I'm not sure it matters. That is what I was referring to.

I think Maverick is pretty dependent on two cards to keep up with the "unfair" decks, though I don't pretend to know everything there is to know about Legacy. It seemed to me that Green Sun's Zenith and Knight of the Reliquary were their most powerful and important cards. From watching the deck play, it seemed like this was true.

Scavenging Ooze is a big Legacy card (or at least one of the rather expensive ones). Due to my familiarity with it as a card from Commander, my immediate response to the phrase "graveyard hate in Legacy" led me to it. Perhaps my mind is just weird that way.

[Lea Plath]

Someone suggest to me a legacy deck that is cheapish, fun, and consistant? :P

[Fable Wright]

The issue here is that even if you'll likely lose to Dredge, Dredge isn't generally that big a part of the meta. In terms of graveyard decks you have more to fear from RUG Delver, and Relic of Progenitus is far superior against that deck (it brings Tarmogoyf down to a 0/1 whereas Tormod's Crypt leaves it at a minimum of a 1/2, and it can also be used to keep their graveyard down in the long term). Surgical Extraction, on the other hand, is far superior than Tormod's Crypt against other combo decks, in particular making Intuition a dangerous card to try to use. I actually may consider Surgical Extraction better against Dredge because there's really only a few cards in Dredge that are truly dangerous (the dredgers themselves aren't really a threat on their own), so if you can get rid of the Ichorids or Bridges from Below--or even just the Narcomoebas--you've really hurt them.
This... is rather inaccurate. If the Dredge player is struggling to find his dredgers, using it to Extract the one Dredger he keeps using will probably buy you a good amount of time. Just Extracting an Ichorid, and you're leaving yourself open to getting hit by Bridges and Narcomoebas (and giant reanimator targets). Extract the Bridges, and you have to deal with Ichorids while the Dredge player suddenly no longer cares about keeping your guys alive. And you still have to deal with the Zombies already assembled, in any case. Extract the Dread Returns, and you're still dealing with most of the deck- it will be toned down and there's no chance of a sudden kill, but you're still screwed. I may be biased from the fact that I play Manaless Dredge (protip: Nether Shadows and Bloodghasts for beater redundancy and Flayer of the Hatebound as an alternate wincon to Flamekin Zealot will greatly improve your chances of getting the kill), but the one time that a Surgical Extraction did something I cared about was the one time someone had two Surgical Extractions and a Snapcaster mage, which they used to Extract my Gravetrolls, Stinkweed Imps, and Golgari Thugs.

But, you probably have more experience against LED-type Dredge decks to me, and I can see that when there's a lot of chaff in the graveyard (lands, useless draw spells, and LEDs) Surgical Extraction might do a much better job than it has in my experience.


I also think RUG Delver is pretty decent against Dredge even without hate. Dredge powers up their Tarmogoyfs, has trouble dealing with their Delvers (all they have is Narcomoeba to chump block with), and can be quickly overrun before they get things set up enough. There's even some goofy tactics that RUG Delver can do to thwart Bridge from Below, like using a Lightning Bolt on their own Delver of Secrets.

Winning against it without graveyard hate otherwise is hardly impossible or even improbable. Unless you're playing control, in which case you're probably screwed without strong graveyard hate. Dredge going against something like Miracles reminds me of High Tide going against Lands.

At any rate, my issue was the "usually" claim, when that does not seem to be true.

Again, I think you're focused too much on how it handles Dredge. Dredge is far from the only deck in the format or the only deck that needs graveyard hate. And Relic of Progenitus is better against all the other graveyard-based decks I can think of. I will concede that Tormod's Crypt is slightly better than Relic of Progenitus against Dredge, but Relic of Progenitus seems better than or equal to Tormod's Crypt against pretty much everything else.

It's the maximum that usually gets run unless you have an extremely graveyard-infested meta.

Personally I only run two (a Surgical Extraction and a Ravenous Trap--if Dredge was all over the place I might add on another Extraction), but then again I play High Tide. Unless you count Time Spiral as graveyard hate...
Couple of things here. First, in all the games I've played, I have never, ever, lost a match to a RUG Delver player. Again, this may be anomalous from the fact that I play manaless, and combo manaless at that, but Goyf can't do enough damage to me by the time I go off (I usually also have Zombies to block by that point), you have to bolt your creatures early in order to actually use them (Cabal Therapy usually hits them), at which point most of my Bridges are safe. Your experience is probably different- you run a Wishboard and are playing a combo deck. You don't have as much to fear as a "fair" deck, and can afford to skimp on hate. All I'm saying is that fair decks usually want to have at least 4 pieces of graveyard hate to give them game against Dredge, which is usually a fairly big concern in the format.

[Sith_Happens]

Someone suggest to me a legacy deck that is cheapish, fun, and consistant? :P

I believe that at least 80% of the total text on this page so far has been dedicated to discussing one (provided that you mean fun for you, rather than for your opponents:smallwink:).

-----

Calling it now: Champion of Lambholt (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=279608) is going to be the breakout star of this Standard season. The synergies with both Selesnya (spam tokens, get counters) and Golgari (scavenge, Gravecrawler) are insane, not to mention Rancor for an easy +2 power.

[Lea Plath]

I believe that at least 80% of the total text on this page so far has been dedicated to discussing one (provided that you mean fun for you, rather than for your opponents:smallwink:).

I don't like none interactive decks. I played Infernity. Turn 2 Red Nova dragon combo meh :P

[Meta]

Someone suggest to me a legacy deck that is cheapish, fun, and consistant? :P

There's some good stuff here:

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=442552

[Lord Seth]

Someone suggest to me a legacy deck that is cheapish, fun, and consistant? :P"Fun" is of course relative, but Dredge and Burn spring to mind.

[Fable Wright]

I don't like none interactive decks. I played Infernity. Turn 2 Red Nova dragon combo meh :P

The problem is, interactivity costs money in Magic.

There are 3 main ways of interacting with your opponent: Interacting with their spells, combat, and interacting with creatures outside of combat. The problem is, the best tools to do each of these costs money. Interacting with spells require counterspells, Force of Will being the prime method of doing so. They go for about $60+ apiece. Another outlet is available in the form of Discard, such as with Thoughtseize ($40 apiece or so). However, discard is less precise, as you need to be preemptive about it, and you can't do too much about a good topdeck. There are budget alternatives for discard, however; Hymn to Tourach and Inquisition of Kozilek are both pretty solid discard spells and are relatively cheap. The problem is that if you don't have ways of interacting with your opponent like this, you will probably get blown out of the water by combo decks.

Interacting on the battlefield is also expensive; casting cost is very important in Legacy, as it's very much a tempo-based format. The best creatures cost a lot of money. Tarmogoyf, here, is the biggest one to note. They go for $80 or so apiece. They're also the most cost-efficient creatures in the game, usually clocking in at around a 3/4 body for 2, and occasionally bigger. However, this area generally fluctuates a lot, as tribal decks like Merfolk and Goblins can pump out a ton of creatures for cheap cost, and make them relevant on the battlefield. The problem with this strategy is that you need a lot of Lords, and while the Lords are cheap individually, the prices add up. In Merfolk, for example, two lords you need for of are Lord of Atlantis and Master of the Pearl Trident. Individually, around 5 bucks apiece (Did Not Do Research; I just remembered the prices from when M13 came out). As a set, $40. It's cheaper than buying a single Goyf, yes, but the costs are non-negligible. Alternatively, you use Stoneforge Mystic and an equipment package to win in combat. This has its own cost issues.

Interacting outside of combat is also known as removal; this is generally the cheapest way to interact. Lightning Bolt, Swords to Plowshares, and so on. Individual pieces of removal cost usually no more than $6 apiece. There are also other ways of interacting outside of combat, such as tapping down creatures with Merfolk Reejery.

If you want the deck that interacts best in all of those fields, you're looking at RUG Delver, one of the more expensive decks in the format. Force of Will and Daze counters, the most efficient creatures in the game as beaters, and enough burn to finish someone off or to kill off scary creatures outside of combat.

Obviously, you're looking for a cheaper deck. The primary thing to look at, usually, are monocolored decks; dual lands are expensive, and they and fetches will eat up your budget (or proxies, as the case may be).

The second most interactive deck is probably Merfolk, as it interacts with spells the best, has a few ways of interacting with creatures outside of combat, and has a huge number of lords within combat. If you're allowed 20 proxies, as you've said, it's incredibly cheap, as well. The expensive cards are the Forces, the Mutavaults and Wastelands (and fetches), the Vials, and to a lesser extent, the Lords. Everything else is fairly cheap. You're still probably going to spend a bit of money on the deck (perhaps around $30-40+, depending on the build) with proxies, but it's a solid, interactive deck.

Keeping to mono-colored decks, two relatively cheap decks to check out are Pox and The Gate. Both are mono-black decks, and don't have too many expensive cards; they focus on inexpensive discard spells, and a few win conditions. Pox is the cheaper of the two, but isn't that reliable; the deck focuses on forcing people into topdeck mode, and through Liliana of the Veil, preventing their opponents' topdecks from doing anything against them, and finishing them off with Shrieking Affliction and The Rack. If you avoid the Land Destruction builds, it can be cheap, and the games certainly won't be short and "I win." However, it's very much a Griefer deck. Your opponent is likely to hate you towards the end of it, as you prevent them from doing anything. The Gate is a somewhat expensive Mono-Black Aggro/Control deck that focuses on controlling opponents' creatures with sacrifice removal, and grinding value off cards that cost life to use. The problem is that the deck really wants some expensive cards- Dark Confidant, Umezawa's Jitte, Bitterblossom, and Liliana of the Veil. Everything else is fairly cheap, and the deck is interesting to play with.

The final, and cheapest, option is Manaless Dredge. I know you don't like Dredge because of people's opinions on it, but Manaless Dredge (using Nicholas Rausch's original decklist (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/22324_Deck_Tech_NotQuiteManaless_Dredge_With_Nicho las_Rausch.html), not the combo version of the deck) is actually fairly interactive. It's unlike most Dredge decks in that it tries to grind out opponents with incremental advantage from Bridge from Below, rather than comboing out with it all at once. It cost me just over $100 to put the deck together from scratch, and it has consistently done well at the Legacy events I've gone to. (Better after I went to the combo mode of the deck (which costs under $5, minus shipping and handling to put together), but whatever.) It interacts with opponents through Cabal Therapy and the careful management of attackers and blockers to get advantage out of Bridge, it requires decisions of Ichorid's management (important, here: You need to know whether or not to exile one of your dredgers and if you're likely to get another), whether or not you need another Phantasmagorian in the graveyard or if you can exile it, whether or not to dump Bridges or Dredgers into your graveyard from your hand with Phantasmagorian or Gigapede, whether to go for the immediate advantage gained by Therapying out Bolts, Removal, or Creatures, or whether to save it for when you want to push through a Dread Return, how/when to save your Flashback spells, and so on. The deck doesn't really pilot itself; it requires experience to use properly, and takes time to win. Adding in the combo takes some of the fun out of that, but makes winning much easier.

It's also the cheapest deck you can build; it's made up of a few money cards (Bridge from Below and Ichorids; $15 and $7, respectively, plus a varying amount of money for your Dread Return targets), Cabal Therapy ($5), Bloodghast ($3.50), a few cards worth a couple bucks (literally $2: Narcomoeba, Street Wraith, Grave-Troll, Nether Shadow), and then the rest of the deck is made up of cards individually worth under a dollar. With 20 proxies, you could put the deck together for under $30, and fill out the proxies easier than any other deck I just listed. And trust me, it does feel satisfying to have a non-proxied Legacy deck to play with.

[/2cents]

[Lord Seth]

But, you probably have more experience against LED-type Dredge decks to me, and I can see that when there's a lot of chaff in the graveyard (lands, useless draw spells, and LEDs) Surgical Extraction might do a much better job than it has in my experience.I'm talking mostly about Non-manaless dredge (or whatever its term is, usually "Dredge" just refers to dredge with mana in my experience and you have to add the qualifier "manaless" to specify that). And while one Surgical Extraction won't end the deck, it will slow it noticeably. Yes, they have backups, but they have backups if you Tormod's Crypt. What's great about Surgical Extraction is that you now and forever can remove one of their "key cards". The deck can work with the others, but it's slowed down and weakened so you can take them out either more easily or at least have more time to kill them.

I will agree that Tormod's Crypt is probably the best anti-Dredge card anyone can play*, but I question how useful it is against the field in general in comparison to a card like Relic of Progenitus. You're not as guaranteed to see Dredge as you are to see something like RUG Delver, so unless you're really familiar with the meta and know there will be Dredge or another graveyard-based deck, I think I might prefer to have Dredge hate be ancillary to my other hate. 3x Relic of Progenitus might not be ideal against Dredge, but it still covers it while being better against the decks I'd be more likely to meet.

*To clarify, that means a card that can go into any deck. Color-specific cards can be even better...Rest In Peace might be the best card against Dredge ever, but it's really limited in what decks it can actually go into.

As a random question, as a Dredge player, how do you think the Lands matchup is?

[Lord Seth]

Double posting because I think this is a bit separate from my previous one...


I don't like none interactive decks. I played Infernity. Turn 2 Red Nova dragon combo meh :PHaving never played Yu-Gi-Oh I really don't know what you're talking about, but I'm not really sure Dredge is that non-interactive. Every deck has interaction. You'd really have to clarify what you mean by "non-interactive."

Still, it and burn are the cheapest competitive decks in the format. You might have to also qualify what you mean by "cheapish". What qualifies as that?

Nitpicking time again!
Interacting with spells require counterspells, Force of Will being the prime method of doing so. They go for about $60+ apiece.In all fairness, though, you can play without Force of Will. Someone I know got Top 8 at a SCG Legacy Open with a mono-Blue deck without playing any Force of Wills (deck here (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=49131)). Though if you do that, you definitely want at least 4x Daze.


In Merfolk, for example, two lords you need for of are Lord of Atlantis and Master of the Pearl Trident. Individually, around 5 bucks apiece. As a set, $40.Where are you buying them? Star City Games sells Masters for $3.49 and Lord of Atlantises for $3.99 ($2.99 if you don't mind them played), and they're one of the more EXPENSIVE places to buy cards. I can buy a full set of both on eBay for $25.48. I know that I can say "I can find them for cheaper" to any of the prices you cited in your message, but this is especially noticeable.


It's also the cheapest deck you can build;No, I think Burn is cheaper if you're willing to eschew the fetchlands (which literally cuts the price in half--even going with just 8 by not using the Onslaught fetchlands takes the price down a lot).


And trust me, it does feel satisfying to have a non-proxied Legacy deck to play with.And is required to play in any sanctioned tournament, for that matter. If your local Legacy tournaments are sanctioned, all proxies are out.

[Fable Wright]

As a random question, as a Dredge player, how do you think the Lands matchup is?

For regular Dredge? It depends on the Lands player's deck. If the Lands player gets a Glacial Chasm and a Tabernacle out, the Dredge player is done for. If the Lands player doesn't land a Chasm, he's done for. Chasm provides for losing 2 life every 2 turns rather than taking any damage from an opponent, thanks to Life from the Loam. If there's no Tabernacle out, the Dredge player is probably going to just take this opportunity to stockpile Zombies for the Alpha Strike after a Chasm goes down for good. If the Lands player gets just the Tabernacle, they die a death of Flaming Zombies. If they stabilize with Chasm, they can start wearing down Dredge's resources by doing things such as sacrificing activated manlands for Glacial Chasm to exile Bridges, and when they land a Tabernacle it becomes game over. Dredge does have problems when it can't stick a Zombie and it's on a clock, such as the one provided by the manlands of 43 Lands. Especially when it's losing its Bridges...

On the other hand, having Woodfall Primus as a reanimator target means that Lands has 0 chance of winning. Combo out-> Tons of Flaming Zombies -> No Chasm up for one turn -> Dead lands player.

As I've never actually seen a Lands deck in action, I can't really guarantee the results, but between the Gambles, Life from the Loams, and Mulches, the Lands player does have a chance at getting his out. The problem is, not all Lands decks run Chasm when Tabernacle is available, and some Dredge decks do have Woodfall Primus included as a random Dread Return target. I can't really call for a general decision, but that's basically what the match comes down to.

[Lea Plath]

So, control seems fun. My local legacy does 20 card proxy, so I can proxy wastelands etc.

Decided to try The Gate. It looks more fun than Pox and easier to use. http://www.mtgdecks.net/decks/view/36960 is the deck list I plan to use, with some tweaks. I was thinking maybe Sword of Peace and War over Shadow and Light as I can use it to gain more life, possibly. Also, can anyone see a reason to running the fetch lands over more swamps? I can't quite understand it.

[IthilanorStPete]

So, control seems fun. My local legacy does 20 card proxy, so I can proxy wastelands etc.

Decided to try The Gate. It looks more fun than Pox and easier to use. http://www.mtgdecks.net/decks/view/36960 is the deck list I plan to use, with some tweaks. I was thinking maybe Sword of Peace and War over Shadow and Light as I can use it to gain more life, possibly. Also, can anyone see a reason to running the fetch lands over more swamps? I can't quite understand it.

Shuffle effects for use with Top. If you Top and don't like what you see in your top cards, you can crack a fetch to shuffle them away.

[Sith_Happens]

Also, can anyone see a reason to running the fetch lands over more swamps? I can't quite understand it.

You're "drawing" two lands from your library for every one additional land on the battlefield, which decreases your chances of drawing a land later in the game when you'd much rather get anything else.

[tgva8889]

Looks like one of those "because we can" more than "because it actually provides a huge awesome benefit." The above reasons are correct, but if you're worried about Stifle, it seems reasonable to drop them.

[Penguinizer]

Stifle isn't as common anymore. I've only seen a few decks play it.

[tgva8889]

Probably true. I was speaking more from a metagame perspective, though. If people in your meta were playing lots of Stifle (which is uncommon), it might be correct to change your deck designed for a meta without a lot of Stifle to accommodate it, and thus cut some fetch lands. If you were playing in a metagame that mirrors normal Legacy, you shouldn't have to worry about it so you may as well play the fetch lands.

Edit: Here's a question that came up when I was looking at cards: What kinds of cards would you have to be getting with Firemind's Foresight (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=290541) for it to be good? I was just realizing that we have Sphinx's Revelation, Cyclonic Rift, and Stream Spasm available to fill the three options with relatively flexible cards in both power and usefulness (though I guess playing a 7-mana instant to search your deck for Sphinx's Revelation is questionable).

[Ninjaman]

rakdos return and bonfire are also options.

[Lea Plath]

rakdos return and bonfire are also options.

OK, wrong there. Bonfire is not a good target for this card as it doesn't provide Miracle. Rakdos return is a good target.

I would use it in a control deck personally to fetch the cards I need. Grixis control. Fetch a Pillar for zombies, or a tragic slip. Use the 2 mana to fetch an izzet charm or Rakdos return or Rakdos Charm or searing spear. Use the 3 mana to fetch a Flames of the Firebrand.


Also, for standard control decks. Grixis, WUR, or BUG?

Way I see it. They can all splash white or black for Lingering Souls (probably the best chump blocker in game at the moment).

Grixis and WUR have access to Firemind's Foresight and a good tool box of cards. Charms. Removal. Burn. Counters and some nice creatures like Olivia. They also have spirits to generate some advantage.

BUG seems like it can be more zombies or tempo based. Cap the mana out at 3 for zombies, use counters, bit of mill, snapcaster, Diregraft Captain.

[Duos]

Actually, neither Rakdos' Return nor Bonfire are options because they're both sorceries.

[tgva8889]

The biggest issue is that you can't get any Sorceries, so the majority of the cards that have been suggested so far you actually can't get with Firemind's Foresight. Though if you could get Sorceries I think the card would be worth the effort.

[Callos_DeTerran]

You can always grab Annihilating Fire for the three cost spell, it does four damage and exiles whatever it would otherwise kill.

[Binks]

Sticking to cards that are Blue, Red, or Black (Grixis control) in standard.

1 - Blustersquall or Tragic Slip
2 - Izzit Charm or Cyclonic Rift (whose overload cost meshes nicely)
3 - Counterflux? Dissipate? Murder?

It's not that great of a card from the a tournament power level perspective, but from a kitchen table perspective it's pretty good. There are also some rather silly things you can do. Tainted Strike (1), Veil of Secrecy (2), Downhill Charge (3) could be pretty a pretty amusing way to end a duel if your opponent taps out and you have 7 open, at least some of it mountains (enough to make charge +X where x is 10 - your biggest creature's power), and a creature on the battlefield in a Grixis control deck. Foresight on endstep for those 3, Untap, Charge, Strike, Veil, swing for 10 poison unblockable shroud. GG. :smalltongue:

That's not much of an argument for it being good, but it can be made fun at least, and the fact that it's an instant is a lot in its favor. Leaving 7 up is going to make any opponent wary and give you plenty of options for responses to their plays, if they do nothing important just play it and grab 3 cards from your deck.

Side Note - Anyone else notice that Gatherer hasn't updated its standard legality yet? I went to search for 1/2/3 cost instants in standard and it was giving me lots of New Phyrexia and Mirroden Besieged stuff. Odd.

[Androgeus]

Side Note - Anyone else notice that Gatherer hasn't updated its standard legality yet? I went to search for 1/2/3 cost instants in standard and it was giving me lots of New Phyrexia and Mirroden Besieged stuff. Odd.

Yhea I noticed this the other week, it has standard going from Scars to RTR.

[arguskos]

Out of standard, there is always the brutal and fairly unfun combo of Reiterate, Reset, and Lightning Bolt. You can auto kill everyone in the game with 8 lands and these three cards. I'm not really looking forward to EDH games with Firemind's Foresight because of this setup.

[Callos_DeTerran]

Hello all! In EDH, what ways do you know of to skip your upkeep? So far, I've only found 'Gibbering Descent' which requires you to have no hand at your upkeep in order to skip it.

[tgva8889]

I believe Eon Hub (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=51160) is actually the only other card that specifically allows you to skip your upkeep. There may be other ways, but those are the ones with the actual text "skip" and "upkeep step."

[Litewarior]

Edit: Here's a question that came up when I was looking at cards: What kinds of cards would you have to be getting with Firemind's Foresight (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=290541) for it to be good? I was just realizing that we have Sphinx's Revelation, Cyclonic Rift, and Stream Spasm available to fill the three options with relatively flexible cards in both power and usefulness (though I guess playing a 7-mana instant to search your deck for Sphinx's Revelation is questionable).

Lightning Bolt (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=234704)
Reset (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=201163)
Reiterate (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=109729)

[tgva8889]

I meant in Standard. Though Reiterate is quite possibly the best 3-mana instant to get with Firemind's Foresight, because Reiterate is awesome.

I'm going to GP San Jose this weekend, so wish me luck! Wee!

[IthilanorStPete]

I meant in Standard. Though Reiterate is quite possibly the best 3-mana instant to get with Firemind's Foresight, because Reiterate is awesome.

I'm going to GP San Jose this weekend, so wish me luck! Wee!

Good luck! Got a nice team?

[Mystic Muse]

Good luck!

[tgva8889]

Good luck! Got a nice team?

My team is me, one of my friends, and one of his friends. We're all on the same team for testing for the Pro Tour (one of our mutual friends is qualified). It'll be awesome, though a huge time sink. My travel is kind of terrible. :smalltongue:

[9mm]

got bored, made a deck.


3 Séance
3 Thragtusk
4 Call of the Conclave
4 Loxodon Smiter
4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
2 Trostani, Selesnya's Voice
3 Trostani's Judgment
3 Druid's Deliverance
2 Growing Ranks
1 Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage
3 Armada Wurm
3 Rancor
4 Temple Garden
4 Selesnya Guildgate
3 Selesnya Charm
7 Forest
7 Plains

Unsure if I should go full on ramp/mid range with the angel that exile stuff and keyrunes.

[Razaele]

So, what does everyone think about running a Golgari Zombies deck? It seems like most of the Internet thinks that they're no good at all, but I'm holding out some hope (particularly because I've already spent some money on the deck).

Should I just cut my losses now and shift change to a Rakdos Zombies deck?

[Lord Seth]

So, what does everyone think about running a Golgari Zombies deck? It seems like most of the Internet thinks that they're no good at all, but I'm holding out some hope (particularly because I've already spent some money on the deck).A guy got Top 8 at Star City Games Cincinnati with a Black/Green Zombies deck, so...not sure where the idea that they're not any good is coming from.

You could give Jund Zombies a try if you want though.

[Razaele]

A guy got Top 8 at Star City Games Cincinnati with a Black/Green Zombies deck, so...not sure where the idea that they're not any good is coming from.

You could give Jund Zombies a try if you want though.

Would you be kind enough to please provide a link to that particular article? I would love to see his deck list and how he played it.

The idea came from the fact that there are a lot of discussions out there that say "Golgari Zombies Sucks" when you Google "Golgari Zombies Standard". That, plus the fact that the prices for some of the Golgari Cards (Abrupt Decay, Lotleth Troll), have been falling lately have been pretty ominous.

That said, I really do love the Aggro play style, and if I can make Golgari Zombies work, I will be a very happy man. Seriously, turn 2 Gravecrawler buffed with Rancor attacking for 4 damage. What's not to love?

[Androgeus]

I think this (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=49841) is the deck Lord Seth is talking about

[Gullara]

It's also discussed in this (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/td/216) article. I for one think Golgari zombies has a lot of potential, and I'm more fond of it over the Rakdos or Jund varieties.

Generally I ignore the general discussion of the internet. Most of the time suck discussion is unreliable and biased to the point of uselessness.

[9mm]

... So apparently you can derp hard, try and draft white weenie with RtR, recover your senses mid second pack and come in 3rd place.

Here's hopping attendance drops though, 10 man pods are WEIRD.

[Squark]

So, possible black creatures to support my Current creature base of Desecration Demon, Geralf's Messenger, and Vampire Knighthawk (without breaking my budget and buying shocklands, which means keeping this monocolored to support Mutilate);

-Griselbrand: He's kind of pricy, but he'd make a great 1 or 2 of as a finisher
-Bloodline Keeper: My issue is that a 3/3 Flier isn't terribly threatening on his own, he's too slow to produce tokens, and I don't run enough vampires to quickly flip him. But there are still people who like him.
-Necropolis Regent: Respectable finisher, and can quickly make any of my creatures into a threat (although it does clash with Geralf's Messenger)

[Sith_Happens]

So, what does everyone think about running a Golgari Zombies deck? It seems like most of the Internet thinks that they're no good at all, but I'm holding out some hope (particularly because I've already spent some money on the deck).

Not sure what parts of the Internet you've been to, because Lotleth Troll + Gravecrawler + Rancor is practically a deck by itself.

[Lord Seth]

Would you be kind enough to please provide a link to that particular article? I would love to see his deck list and how he played it.It's not an article, it's just a deck list. But if you want to see it in action, here are two (http://blip.tv/scglive/scg-cin-std-rnd-6-ryan-forsberg-vs-daniel-caskey-6391927) games (http://blip.tv/scglive/scg-cin-std-t8-christopher-weidinger-vs-dan-caskey-6392112) he played in. Haven't looked at them myself, though.


That, plus the fact that the prices for some of the Golgari Cards (Abrupt Decay, Lotleth Troll), have been falling lately have been pretty ominous.Prices of almost all cards drop as the set is released and there are more copies around. Yes, occasionally there's a freak like Bonfire, but for the most part prices drop.

[Squark]

On the topic of Golgari competitiveness and price dropping: While the price of individual Golgari cards may be dropping due to increased supply, one of the biggest Golgari Support cards, woodlance Cemetary, is the most expensive of it's cycle. I don't think that's a coincidence.

In other BG news, I was testing Desecration Demon in my Mono-Black Control deck, and it occured to me that where Desecration Demon would really shine is in a midrange Rock deck, where it becomes a Lose-Lose situation if your opponent can't deal with it. So... a preliminary list. I'd like to fit another creature in here, but I'm not sure what would fit besides Thragtusk, and frankly, the mana base is pushing my budget as is.

Lands (24)
4x Overgrown Tomb
3x Woodland Cemetary
2x Forest
15x Swamp

Creatures (16)
4x Vampire Nighthawk
4x Geralf's Messenger
4x Dreg Mangler
4x Desecration Demon

Other Spells (20)
3x Duress
2x Golgari Charm
3x Victim of the Night
4x Sign in Blood
2x Lilliana of the Veil
1x Lilliana of the Dark Realms
2x Sever the Bloodline
3x Mutilate

Sideboard
2x Golgari Charm
3x Tragic Slip
3x Pithing Needle
2x Acidic Slime
3x Tormod's Crypt
2x ?

Thoughts?

[The Extinguisher]

RTR just got released online, so give it a few weeks and prices will drop when redemption becomes available.

And on that note, I think all my money will go to drafting RTR all day online.

[Giegue]

I'm personally waiting on the second set of the RTR block before I make a new standard legal deck. I ran Infect(First U/B then later mono B) right until it was rotated out of existence, and busted a lot of cash on it to boot. With the shock lands being reprinted most good decks are now out of my budget because most good decks will run multiple play-sets of shocklands. HOWEVER, thankfully, back during the original Guildpact set I was able to get 4x Godless Shrine as a birthday gift, so basically, my standard legal deck will be Orzhov guild based for sure, since the Orzhov where always my favored guild anyway. I'll probably be making a strait Orzhov control deck, though I do hope they reprint Faith's Fetters. That card was one of the main MVPs of my orzhov deck back in the day. The lifegain from it was a lifesaver in many games and the fact that it can totally shut down walkers in addition to creatures is a nice plus.

[Lea Plath]

So BUG decks for me look a way off. Can't get the mana base/tricks to do what I want.

I then tried a junk zombie deck. The white splash is nice, but not worth it over red "5 to the face".

So I am back to Jund and waiting on Gatecrash. Was wondering if I could get some feedback on my current deck.

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/the-swarm-overuns-jund-zombies/ is my current deck. Generic jund zombies. I'm avoiding Bonfire for how spotty the red is. Came 7th of 25 last time with a similar deck to this, cause I didn't own all the cards.

[Razaele]

On the topic of Golgari competitiveness and price dropping: While the price of individual Golgari cards may be dropping due to increased supply, one of the biggest Golgari Support cards, woodlance Cemetary, is the most expensive of it's cycle. I don't think that's a coincidence.

In other BG news, I was testing Desecration Demon in my Mono-Black Control deck, and it occured to me that where Desecration Demon would really shine is in a midrange Rock deck, where it becomes a Lose-Lose situation if your opponent can't deal with it. So... a preliminary list. I'd like to fit another creature in here, but I'm not sure what would fit besides Thragtusk, and frankly, the mana base is pushing my budget as is.

Lands (24)
4x Overgrown Tomb
3x Woodland Cemetary
2x Forest
15x Swamp

Creatures (16)
4x Vampire Nighthawk
4x Geralf's Messenger
4x Dreg Mangler
4x Desecration Demon

Other Spells (20)
3x Duress
2x Golgari Charm
3x Victim of the Night
4x Sign in Blood
2x Lilliana of the Veil
1x Lilliana of the Dark Realms
2x Sever the Bloodline
3x Mutilate

Sideboard
2x Golgari Charm
3x Tragic Slip
3x Pithing Needle
2x Acidic Slime
3x Tormod's Crypt
2x ?

Thoughts?

I've been thinking of running Desecration Demons in my Golgari deck as well, though I have yet to see their effectiveness in actual combat. Time will tell, I suppose. :smallsmile:

As for additional cards, perhaps some Rancors might do the trick? Also, due to the popularity of cards like Thragtusk, Resotration Angel, and the like, perhaps Ultimate Price can find a place to belong in your deck.

[Squark]

On Desecration Demon; In my (limited) testing, I've tentatively concluded it works best as a close the game down sort of card; Play it when your opponent is down to 10 or fewer life and you have a few creatures on the board, and unless your opponent has a wrath (and you don't have a golgari charm), your opponent is in a lose-lose situation.

On Ultimate Price: There are only a handful of creatures it hits that victim of the night doesn't, and in my meta, I'm the one playing most of them right now. It's something to consider, but it's only really better against zombie decks, and against those, its still struggling due to it's inability to hit Lotleth Troll, Dreg Mangler, and Rakdos Cackler. Now, in a deck that has fewer black sources, ultimate price starts to look a lot more appealing; But right now, my only non-black mana source in this hypothetical deck is a pair of forests.

[tgva8889]

The thing is, the shock lands are almost always worth picking up when possible. They aren't going to get any cheaper than $12 because they're multiformat staples, so you may as well pick them up now so you have them for the whole Standard environment. They will be worth it if you plan to play any decks of their colors ever.

[Foeofthelance]

Three questions:

1) Is there currently any infinite draw engine available to standard?

2) Is there currently any infinite mana engine available to standard?

3) Can they be combined?

[Binks]

Three questions:

1) Is there currently any infinite draw engine available to standard?

2) Is there currently any infinite mana engine available to standard?

3) Can they be combined?
Absolutely. Extremely Convoluted infinite mana/draw engine ahoy! I may no claims as to the playability of this, just as to it working by the rules and all the cards being standard legal. I am 100% sure there's a simpler way to do this, but this demonstrates that, if nothing else, it does exist.

Requires 4 colors (Black,Blue, White, Red). There's probably a way to do it in less. Axebane guardian + ferver as a replacement for the lotuses and torch fiends might be useful.

You need the following permanents in play to go infinite:
1x Bloodflow Connoisseur (or Bloodthrone Vampire, or any permanent that can sac another creature at will at no cost)
3x Gilded Lotus
3x Torch Fiend
1x Archeomancer
1x Alchemist's Apprentice (or any creature that draws a card when it dies)

You also need Faith's Reward in hand

1. Tap all three Lotus's for mana, 3 white, 3 red, 3 whatever
2. Use 1 red mana to sac the torch fiend to destroy one of the lotuses. Repeat with the other two torch fiends
3. Sac the archaeomancer to the connoisseur
4. Sac the Apprentice to draw a card
5. Use all three white mana and 1 whatever mana to cast Faith's Reward
6. When Reward resolves and puts Archaeomancer on the battlefield put Reward back in your hand from the graveyard (where it is, having finished resolving before the trigger was put on the stack)
7. 20 goto 10. You have the same permanents on the battlefield, 1 extra card, and 2 extra mana.

[Squark]

Alternatively;

3 Defenders+Axebane Guardian+Galvanic Alchemist can give you infinite mana, and then you can use a variety of X spells to deliver the killing blow and/or draw cards.

[Bucky]

If you really want a cheesy infinite, Tamiyo emblem plus Omniscience is the best we've had in a while.

Use with whatever card draw you want to find whatever spells you want to loop. If you insist on infinite mana, you can find Ghostly Flicker to untap your lands.

EDIT: Dual Casting on Midnight Guard repeatedly copying a stack of Thatcher Revolt and Battle Hymn has previously come up in this thread. (Midnight Guard gets three separate triggers from Thatcher Revolt, so you can copy the Battle Hymn in between the triggers and still be able to copy the Thatcher's Revolt again)

[Forrestfire]

EDIT: Dual Casting on Midnight Guard repeatedly copying a stack of Thatcher Revolt and Battle Hymn has previously come up in this thread. (Midnight Guard gets three separate triggers from Thatcher Revolt, so you can copy the Battle Hymn in between the triggers and still be able to copy the Thatcher's Revolt again)

That doesn't work, because once Thatcher's Revolt has resolved, allowing for Midnight Guard's triggers, it is no longer on the stack.

It still nets a lot of mana off of the battle hymn, though.

[Foeofthelance]

That doesn't work, because once Thatcher's Revolt has resolved, allowing for Midnight Guard's triggers, it is no longer on the stack.

It still nets a lot of mana off of the battle hymn, though.

It works something like this:

1) Enchant Midnight Guard with Dual Casting
2) Cast Thatcher Revolt
3) Cast Battle Hymn
4) Activate Midnight Guard targeting Thatcher Revolt

So the stack now reads Thatcher Revolt, Battle Hymn, Thatcher Revolt

5) Second Thatcher Revolt resolves, putting three triggers on the Guard
6) First trigger resolves, Guard untaps. Target Thatcher Revolt again.
7) Second trigger resolves, Guard untaps. Target Battle Hymn again.
8) Third trigger resolves.
9) Second Battle Hymn resolves, adding more mana to your pool.
10) Third Revolt resolves, adding three more triggers to Guard.
11) Go back to 5 and repeat through 10 till satisfied

[Forrestfire]

Ah ok. I had totally forgot that Guard could be activated beforehand :smallredface:

[Lord Seth]

The thing is, the shock lands are almost always worth picking up when possible. They aren't going to get any cheaper than $12 because they're multiformat staples, so you may as well pick them up now so you have them for the whole Standard environment. They will be worth it if you plan to play any decks of their colors ever.That's not true. Some are cheaper than $12 right now, and I'm talking about from actual online stores, not eBay (where the prices are usually the lowest they'll be). They're probably going to go down even over the next few months because (1) supply will keep going up and (2) the initial demand will wane because the people who needed them right away will have already bought them.

There probably will be a price spike (roughly) around the time Innistrad rotates out, though.

[tgva8889]

Fair enough. The fact that I was wrong on the prices doesn't mean they aren't worth picking up quickly. Allowing yourself to play a Standard deck with much better mana is worth $48 in my opinion, especially if you can be pretty sure you can get value back in two years. If you can get them for cheaper, then you should be picking that up immediately.

[Squark]

Fair enough. The fact that I was wrong on the prices doesn't mean they aren't worth picking up quickly. Allowing yourself to play a Standard deck with much better mana is worth $48 in my opinion, especially if you can be pretty sure you can get value back in two years. If you can get them for cheaper, then you should be picking that up immediately.

Oh, you meant getting one or two playsets for your favorite color combinations, not collecting a playset of the entire cycle. That's much more reasonable.

[Lea Plath]

Pick up Shocks as soon as possible. In modern, shocks vary from 15-20 dollars and you generally need multiple shocks. They can also be used in Legacy as replacement revised duals. They will be useful and probably hold their value pretty well.

I can also see Desecration Demon being used in The Gate or MBC Modern/Legacy decks as replacement Abysals, but depends on the meta. Bitterblossom and stuff pretty much negate DD.

Abrupt Decay, I think, will drop to 10 dollars. It looks to be played (but not massivly so) in standard, and a 2 mana removal spell that kills anything 3 mana or less (in formats with a lot of 3 mana or less creatures, enchantments and artifacts) will be used.

Now, is anyone any good with zombies or jund control/mid? I'm tweaking my deck and I'm looking to save up to travel around the UK playing in tournies in my break.

[Lord Loss]

I'm playing magic for the first time in a few years and I went out and made myself a Rakdos deck for standard. I'm aiming for a budget deck so a lot of my choices are going to be suboptimal. Any idea how I could improve this deck without resorting to expensive cards?

Rakdos Deck Wins

Creatures (x26)

Hellhole Flailer x4
Rakdos Cackler x4
Rakdos Shred-Freak x4
Thrill-Kill Assassin x3
Stonewright x4
Rix-Maadi Guildmage x3
Stromkirk Noble x2
Gore-House Chainwalker x2

Other Spells (x12)

Pillar of Flame x2
Thunderous Wrath x3
Auger Spree x3
Mizzium Mortars x2
Banners Raised x2

Lands (x22)

Evolving Wilds x2
Dragonskull Summit x1
Rakdos Guildgate x4
Swamp x6
Mountain x9

[Penguinizer]

I'm curious, why does it not include Searing Spear or Brimstone Volley?

For reference, here's my Rakdos deck I have yet to test since I'm too lazy to go to the T2 fnm that's farther away. (We play whatever we feel like in a non-sanctioned form at my closer LGS.)

Lands: 21
4x Blood Crypt (Something I'll probably accumulate over time, will work without.)
4x Dragonskull Summit
8x Mountain
5x Swamp

Spells:14
4x Brimstone Volley
3x Searing Spear
3x Thunderous Wrath
3x Pillar of Flame

Creatures:25
4x Rakdos Cackler
3x Stromkirk Noble
4x Rakdos Shred-Freak
4x Gore-House Chainwalker
3x Ash Zealot
4x Hellhole Flailer
3x Hellrider

Sideboard:
4x Electricker (super secret tech)
4x Torchfiend or Manic Vandal
4x Mark of Mutiny
3x Victim of Night

I'm considering adding Rixmaadi Guildmage but can't really think of what to cut out.

[Lord Loss]

Good idea, I had thought about it but didn't actually go through with it till now. I got a playset of Searing Spears, but my local store didn't have any copies of Brimstone Volley. I replaced the three Thrill-Kills with Searing Spears, any idea what I should swap out for the fourth?

EDIT: Thinking of cutting the Guildmages and keeping the Thrill-Kills

[Ninjaman]

I just played a game on cockatrice with my B/G zombies against a guy with a deck that looked somewhat like this:

4 Champion of the parish
4 War falcon
4 Elite inquisitor
4 Knight of glory
3 Thalia
1 Geist of saint Traft
3 Lyev skyknight
3 Silverblade paladin
2 restoration angel
3 Suprime archangel
5-7 of something i can't remember

And a sideboard that included
Riders of gavony
Detention sphere
Rest in peace

I won 2-1, which i think illustrates just how good the new zombies are, this deck contains so much of the zombie hate that it could seem like an impossible matchup, but the zombies still have enough ways to play around it to stand a chance. I was actually quite amazed by how well the zombies did against the deck.

[Razaele]

So, I've been playing again in FNM's lately, and I noticed that the decks that have given me the most trouble (I play Golgari Zombies, btw) are decks that feature things like Centaur Healer and Thragtusk. I've tried using things like Crippling Blight to at least shut them down, but I just can't get around the insane amount of life gain. I was thinking of maybe putting in a couple of Stab Wounds in my sideboard, but I'm not very hopeful with that because most decks that run Centaur Healers and Thragtusks also run Restoration Angels. :smallsigh:

Maybe Appetite for Brains? :smallconfused: Is there a way to stop the life gain before it happens? Maybe an enchantment?

[Fable Wright]

So, I've been playing again in FNM's lately, and I noticed that the decks that have given me the most trouble (I play Golgari Zombies, btw) are decks that feature things like Centaur Healer and Thragtusk. I've tried using things like Crippling Blight to at least shut them down, but I just can't get around the insane amount of life gain. I was thinking of maybe putting in a couple of Stab Wounds in my sideboard, but I'm not very hopeful with that because most decks that run Centaur Healers and Thragtusks also run Restoration Angels. :smallsigh:

Maybe Appetite for Brains? :smallconfused: Is there a way to stop the life gain before it happens? Maybe an enchantment?

Yes (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=253648), but it's not one that you're likely to run, as it requires red mana and costs 6 to cast. Wizards included the efficient lifegain cards in the set as a way to counter Golgari-style decks, so... yeah. Appetite for Brains probably would do you some good from the board, though. Restoration Angel and Thragtusk are both legal targets for it, and getting rid of those before they hit the board is big. Other than that, I recommend killing the Healers as soon as you get a chance when the opponent doesn't have 4 mana open. It decreases the chance of lifegain off a Restoration Angel into a good board state, and when they have mana for the Angel up, you're basically throwing away removal spells when you try to hit their creatures. Otherwise... I just have to say, life was easier when I still had Lashwrithes and Phyrexian Obliterators to plow through the life totals. Hopefully Lotleth troll can do the same thing... [/2cents]

[Razaele]

Yes (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=253648), but it's not one that you're likely to run, as it requires red mana and costs 6 to cast. Wizards included the efficient lifegain cards in the set as a way to counter Golgari-style decks, so... yeah. Appetite for Brains probably would do you some good from the board, though. Restoration Angel and Thragtusk are both legal targets for it, and getting rid of those before they hit the board is big. Other than that, I recommend killing the Healers as soon as you get a chance when the opponent doesn't have 4 mana open. It decreases the chance of lifegain off a Restoration Angel into a good board state, and when they have mana for the Angel up, you're basically throwing away removal spells when you try to hit their creatures. Otherwise... I just have to say, life was easier when I still had Lashwrithes and Phyrexian Obliterators to plow through the life totals. Hopefully Lotleth troll can do the same thing... [/2cents]

Yeah, I'm not really going to be able to cast that unless I go Jund, in which case I should probably go with Slaughter Games instead.

Maybe I should try and build a mid-range Golgari deck instead, and toss in a set of Thragtusks for myself. Fight fire with fire! :smalltongue:

[Squark]

So, I'm thinking of building a rakdos deck, as I have a lot of the cards I need, and it'd basically have the same strategy my previous mono black decks had. So, the cards I know I want in the dec


Manabase: 4x Blood Crypt
4x Dragonskull Summit
14x Swamp
1x Mountain

Creatures: 4x Rakdos Cackler
4x Vampire Nighthawk
4x Geralf's Messenger
4x Desecration Demon

Other Spells: 3x Victim of the Night
3x Tragic Slip
2x Rakdos Charm
2x Lilliana of the Viel
That's 49 cards, and the only rares I'd need are the lands, and I think I can pick those up easily enough. The question is, what else goes in. An aggro deck might appreciate blood artist and another one drop (I'm hesitant to play gravecrawler, since I don't think I have enough zombies to make it work), while with a control deck, I can put in Mutilate and Sever the bloodline, but Rakdos Cackler seems dead there, and I'm not sure what to replace it with (And I feel Desecration demon needs at least 16-20 creatures to support it)

[Lord Seth]

No mention of the new "Modern Masters" set? Apparently Wizards of the Coast is going to do a Master's Edition-esque set, this time geared towards Modern staples and more importantly, in actual print. It's apparently draftable as well. In terms of content, though, all we know is that Tarmogoyf will be a mythic rare in it.

[Sohala]

You hope it will be in there.

[IthilanorStPete]

You hope it will be in there.

No, it's the one card confirmed in. Aaron Forsythe showed it off when he previewed Modern Masters.

I like this; Master's Edition-style things are cool, and it'll be neat to draft it - kind of a Cube-like thing.

Other details:
-15 mythics, 53 rares, 60 uncommons, 101 commons. (rarity on some cards has been shifted around)
-20-30 new art pieces.
-basic land slot is replaced by a foil in EVERY pack.
-MSRP of a booster pack is $6.99. Combined with the limited print run, it's not going to be cheap.

[Mystic Muse]

When's the release date?

[IthilanorStPete]

June 2013.

[Lhurgyof]

Have any of you guys made custom tokens/cards before?

This is kinda what I have going on. I use Magic Set Editor.

http://imageshack.us/a/img513/7460/wurm.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img526/1247/soldierbf.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img855/9684/emblemelpethknighterran.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img846/51/faerie.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img72/1511/emblemvenserthesojourne.jpg

[IthilanorStPete]

Have any of you guys made custom tokens/cards before?

This is kinda what I have going on. I use Magic Set Editor.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/513/wurm.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/526/soldierbf.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/443/graveborn.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/855/emblemelpethknighterran.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/846/faerie.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/72/emblemvenserthesojourne.jpg/

Your links are broken...they have an extra slash at the end. Here's the fixed versions:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/513/wurm.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/526/soldierbf.jpg
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/443/graveborn.jpg
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/855/emblemelpethknighterran.jpg
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/846/faerie.jpg
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/72/emblemvenserthesojourne.jpg

EDIT: Whoops, that didn't work either. You need a direct link to the image, I think.

[Lhurgyof]

Your links are broken...they have an extra slash at the end. Here's the fixed versions:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/513/wurm.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/526/soldierbf.jpg
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/443/graveborn.jpg
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/855/emblemelpethknighterran.jpg
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/846/faerie.jpg
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/72/emblemvenserthesojourne.jpg

Hmm, I'm not sure what the problem is... I think ImageShack is just being a little screwed up at the moment.

Edit: Fixed Original

Edit again: If anyone has some cool art for tokens that they'd like to share, I'd be very grateful, as sometimes finding art for the tokens (and the artist to give credit to them) is very hard.

[Lord Seth]

-MSRP of a booster pack is $6.99. Combined with the limited print run, it's not going to be cheap.Not a big fan of either. It'd be great if this could be used for Friday Night Magic, even for just a few weeks before Magic 2014 comes out. But the higher price and limited print run seem like it'll sabotage that, because FNM seems out as stores probably don't want to charge extra for it, and the limited print run prevents makes it seem like it'd be harder to draft with even for fun. Hopefully even if it's "limited" it'll still be a large print run.

I guess it's something, and it's nice that Tarmogoyf is finally having something done about it, but it still does feel like they could have done a little more.

[Lhurgyof]

Not a big fan of either. It'd be great if this could be used for Friday Night Magic, even for just a few weeks before Magic 2014 comes out. But the higher price and limited print run seem like it'll sabotage that, because FNM seems out as stores probably don't want to charge extra for it, and the limited print run prevents makes it seem like it'd be harder to draft with even for fun. Hopefully even if it's "limited" it'll still be a large print run.

I guess it's something, and it's nice that Tarmogoyf is finally having something done about it, but it still does feel like they could have done a little more.

Limited Print Run is bad news bears...

[tgva8889]

I don't really understand why they do limited print runs when the objective is to increase the number of cards available so that the secondary market prices go down to something more reasonable. I guess they have to defend the price a little bit, but I feel like if you were a seller and you had been paying attention you should have known to ship all your $100 Modern cards as soon as possible.

[Foeofthelance]

Most likely its a timing thing. If they did a larger release, then it would suck up more printing time, and would also more likely overlap with the release of a regular set.

[Sith_Happens]

I don't really understand why they do limited print runs when the objective is to increase the number of cards available so that the secondary market prices go down to something more reasonable. I guess they have to defend the price a little bit, but I feel like if you were a seller and you had been paying attention you should have known to ship all your $100 Modern cards as soon as possible.

Depends on how "limited" of a run it actually is. If the limit is a big enough number then it should still do something.

[Balor01]

Hey,

I hope this is in the right thread. If not, I ask mods to make sure it gets there. :smallsmile:

Anyway.

Me and my friends have a friend who really enjoys MtG, he is sort of casual player, but had a bunch of laughs when I made him a "custom card" of his dog. Anyway, his birthday is close and we would like to make him a set of cards with his friends. We have someone who can print them, so they'll be real cards, but I got the task of shaping them mechanically.

I would like to ask Gaint to take a look at these and tell me if prices on any of them are very wrong and what the values should be. I was comparing them to Ravnica.

That's it guys, I hope someone can take the time and check these out.

Also, if there are any mistakes made, please point them out too.

Also this is suppose to be R/W/B deck, thatswhy Saprolings are Blue, etc.

http://shrani.si/t/2X/ln/UFvuJ3o/cene-mtg-deck.jpg (http://shrani.si/?2X/ln/UFvuJ3o/cene-mtg-deck.jpg)

[Sith_Happens]

Hey,

I hope this is in the right thread. If not, I ask mods to make sure it gets there. :smallsmile:

It it's about M:TG, then this is in fact the right thread.


Anyway.

Me and my friends have a friend who really enjoys MtG, he is sort of casual player, but had a bunch of laughs when I made him a "custom card" of his dog. Anyway, his birthday is close and we would like to make him a set of cards with his friends. We have someone who can print them, so they'll be real cards, but I got the task of shaping them mechanically.

I would like to ask Gaint to take a look at these and tell me if prices on any of them are very wrong and what the values should be. I was comparing them to Ravnica.

That's it guys, I hope someone can take the time and check these out.

Also, if there are any mistakes made, please point them out too.

Also this is suppose to be R/W/U deck, thatswhy Saprolings are Blue, etc.

http://shrani.si/t/2X/ln/UFvuJ3o/cene-mtg-deck.jpg (http://shrani.si/?2X/ln/UFvuJ3o/cene-mtg-deck.jpg)

First off, see my (bolded) correction above. "B" generally stands for "Black," white "U" is for "Blue."

The set is pretty good overall, here's my suggestions (I'll be abbreviating the word that may or may not be forum-okay):

B.S. Saporlings

First off, Flash allows you to cast a given card any time you could cast an instant. On an actual instant it is therefore unnecessary.

Secondly, Saporlings are generally a green thing, and Blue as a whole doesn't really do tokens. I'd suggest making this white and having the tokens be Birds with Flying, since that's already a card (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=221214). You can keep the same name though, that way the joke is that the "saporlings" are B.S. due to actually being birds.:smallbiggrin:

B.S.

Lower the mana and replicate cost by one. The baseline mana cost to bounce a creature is one (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=265715), and Replicate isn't worth more than one extra since it's already an additional cost in and of itself.

Also, the formatting for Replicate goes like this:

"Replicate {cost} (When you cast this spell, copy it for each time you paid its replicate cost. You may choose new targets for the copies.)"

Cene

For six mana this should be at least a 3/4. Or conversely, you could keep it as a 1/2 and bump the cost down to two or three total. The ability doesn't need to factor into the cost since it takes a fairly hefty amount of mana itself to use.

Egelie

As above, this should either have more power/toughness or cost less. I'd say three total mana should be about right.

Ac Dc

There's already an ability-less 2/1 for one mana (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=240315), so this should either also cost one or have some sort of ability. Either First Strike, Lifelink, or Vigilance depending on what you're going for.

Also, subtype should just be "Dog" (drop the "Animal" bit).

Epic B.S.

As with B.S., lower the cost and replicate cost by one.

Panzerotti

This is just awful. At least have it give Haste or First Strike or something (maybe Intimidate?).

Pelinkovec

I'm not sure what type of card this is supposed to be, since it says "Instant" but refers to an equipped creature. I'm assuming that you mean for it to be an instant saying "Target creature gets +2/+1 until end of turn and doesn't untap during its controller's next untap step," in which case the power bonus should be at least +4 (because otherwise it's not nearly worth using) and it should only be usable on your own creatures (because stopping an opponent's creature from untapping is a blue thing).

Petra

Should be both blue and white, because countering things is exclusively blue territory. Also, instead of "any B.S. spell" it needs to say "target spell with 'B.S.' in its name." Either that or give the three spells you want it to be able to counter the subtype "B.S."

The second ability should be worded as follows: "Dogs you control get +1/+1 as long as you control Petra."

Samo

I think I'm pretty safe in saying that most people would file a 1/3 for four mana with a drawback under "bad card." This needs to be largely redone, though how is up to you.

Sebo

Just a slight wording correction, should be "Whenever a creature named 'Petra' enters the battlefield, return Sebo to its owner's hand."

Veni Vidi Vici

Should cost one mana, otherwise it's strictly worse than a cat (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=262864), and we can't have that can we?:smalltongue:

Also, as with Ac Dc, drop the "Animal" from the type line.

Plastic Digital Watch

I don't know if you realized this, but you can only equip an Equipment to your own creatures. Right now this card doesn't actually provide any benefit.

[Balor01]

So ... how exactly can I thank you? :smallbiggrin:

What you did was pure awesome.

[Eldariel]

Veni Vidi Vici[/B]

Should cost one mana, otherwise it's strictly worse than a cat (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=262864), and we can't have that can we?:smalltongue:

Also, as with Ac Dc, drop the "Animal" from the type line.

Hey! Don't go badmouthing Squire (http://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/card/details.aspx?name=Squire)! It even got reprinted!

[Androgeus]

Petra

The second ability should be worded as follows: "Dogs you control get +1/+1 as long as you control Petra."


You got everything I saw, except doesn't this just need to be "Dogs you control get +1/+1"?


Hey! Don't go badmouthing Squire (http://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/card/details.aspx?name=Squire)! It even got reprinted!

That would have to be the worse timeshifted card to get.

[Sith_Happens]

You got everything I saw, except doesn't this just need to be "Dogs you control get +1/+1"?

Correct.:smallredface:


Hey! Don't go badmouthing Squire (http://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/card/details.aspx?name=Squire)! It even got reprinted!

Squire is not a dog, and therefore is under no particular obligation to be better than a cat.:smalltongue: See also: D&D cat vs. commoner.

[Eldariel]

Squire is not a dog, and therefore is under no particular obligation to be better than a cat.:smalltongue:

He certainly looks like a dog to me. The hound of his liege, to be precise!