Not broken At all . Nice interaction but a strong card on turn 4+ is not near as broken as other Modern cards out there. I would fear To see an eye of Ugin on the other side not a Brain in a Jar on turn 2 that needs 2 turns and 2 manas to do anything good. Abrupt decay, discard, and artifact hate Would kill a Brain in a Jar deck
Which is why Im playing it in a UB control shell. Use Inqusitions and thoughtseizes to get rid of hate and disrupt their plan. Same with counters, I don't think it's quite as bad as you think. Plus, we play a bunch of wraths main so the uber scary Eldrazi deck can just be reset. You have access to some pretty sweet land hate post board as well. The way I'm thinking of it is like Splinter Twin, although that is obviously better. We play an interactive strategy for the first few turns, and then play brain and fuse spells as our finisher. There's no infinite and it's not a flash creature, but similar idea. I don't see why everyone thinks that the deck sucks without brain. Inquisition, mana leaks, and snap casters are still good cards on their own. Brain is simply an outlet for mana acceleration and lategame power. Also, I think 4 1/1 Fliers and drawing 4 cards for 2 mana is better than a 'nice interaction'.
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"Play to have fun, it's a game."
"I do have fun. Winning is fun."
I posted in one of the other Brain threads that I really want it to be good, but just don't see it getting there...I think the fuse cards make things a little better but not great, but because of the speed that it takes to set up. As for picking a color scheme I think that I really want to push for four colors...I initially liked Bant for Beck//Call, alive//well, serum visions, and ancient stirrings, but I think the strongest things you can be doing involve Boom//bust, far//away, and Breaking//entering.
I think I will brew around with Young Pyro's in a Temur splash white for split cards, and probably end up with far//away in the deck too. Also in red you get the addition of Goblin Dark Dwellers to cast you high cost fuse spells...
I did have one question, can I activate Jar to cast Far//Away on two if there is no legal target for far and just cast away in the same way you can use isochron scepter. It seems like it should work, as you check the cost of 2 it confirms and then you pick to cast away for free and not fusing (only relevant against boggles, but still something that might make a difference.)
I posted in one of the other Brain threads that I really want it to be good, but just don't see it getting there...I think the fuse cards make things a little better but not great, but because of the speed that it takes to set up. As for picking a color scheme I think that I really want to push for four colors...I initially liked Bant for Beck//Call, alive//well, serum visions, and ancient stirrings, but I think the strongest things you can be doing involve Boom//bust, far//away, and Breaking//entering.
I think I will brew around with Young Pyro's in a Temur splash white for split cards, and probably end up with far//away in the deck too. Also in red you get the addition of Goblin Dark Dwellers to cast you high cost fuse spells...
I did have one question, can I activate Jar to cast Far//Away on two if there is no legal target for far and just cast away in the same way you can use isochron scepter. It seems like it should work, as you check the cost of 2 it confirms and then you pick to cast away for free and not fusing (only relevant against boggles, but still something that might make a difference.)
Yes you can, you choose which side you actually cast once you do cast it, brain only cares about if one of the sides matches the number of counters. Also, dark-dwellers seems cool even if we only get 1 side of the spell. Chaining Breaking // Entering and Goblin Dark-Dwellers seems like a great interaction.
Also, I really like the idea of Ancient Stirrings in here, seems quite good. However, the more I think about this deck, the more I want to not actually play the colors of our fuse spells, except for ones that are feasible, such as Far // Away. Ideally we would like to cast all of our fuse spells off of brain, so I don't know that playing white or red is even necessary, perhaps just U/B/G split control. Cards like Beck // Call and Breaking // Entering seem quite bad if not cast off of brain. So with all of that said, I think I have a new shell:
Ok so now that the ruling dilemma appears to have calmed down, I would like to discuss some ideas for a deck.
One Idea I had was to play a bant tempo/control-ish style of deck with a shell like this:
This thread is for competitive decks only. Your deck is not Grixis Control, as you said yourself. A serious decklist with shroud and counterspells belongs here, not a for fun/casual decklist with bad discard. Sorry, but your princess is in another castle.
I can't tell what it is you're trying to say.
5 was in reference to the cost. I assumed that was obvious, especially given I'm brewing around brain and there is a 2 next to it, not a 4.
I posted in one of the other Brain threads that I really want it to be good, but just don't see it getting there...I think the fuse cards make things a little better but not great, but because of the speed that it takes to set up. As for picking a color scheme I think that I really want to push for four colors...I initially liked Bant for Beck//Call, alive//well, serum visions, and ancient stirrings, but I think the strongest things you can be doing involve Boom//bust, far//away, and Breaking//entering.
I think I will brew around with Young Pyro's in a Temur splash white for split cards, and probably end up with far//away in the deck too. Also in red you get the addition of Goblin Dark Dwellers to cast you high cost fuse spells...
I did have one question, can I activate Jar to cast Far//Away on two if there is no legal target for far and just cast away in the same way you can use isochron scepter. It seems like it should work, as you check the cost of 2 it confirms and then you pick to cast away for free and not fusing (only relevant against boggles, but still something that might make a difference.)
First, you can't actually Fuse with Dark-Dwellers due to Fuse requiring the spell to be cast from the hand. You can cast the more expensive sides of fuse spells with it, however, if that's where you are going.
With Far//Away you can certainly cast either side on its own with Dark Dwellers. Same thing as with Boom/Bust. Refer to the rules reasons I've posted above as to why it works, but you can certainly do it (and you can't actually fuse it anyway due to how fuse works).
I love brain in a jar and find this discussion very interesting. has anyone considered 'accelerating' into spells with voltaic key, coretapper, and tezzeret's gambit? it's probably too cute to do anything relevant because of the higher artifact count, but you'd get to play thirst for knowledge in that deck pretty easily which is another card I'm a big fan of. the question is what spells do you ramp into? I'd like to be casting fuse spells on the cheap with this followed by all suns' dawn or something to buy them back and bury the opponent in card advantage.
I want to brew with this card very badly because I think the potential is only limited by our imagination.
Brain in a Jar is great for bluffing. Just having it in play with one mana open makes your opponent suspect Dispel or some other combat trick. It also allows for mana fixing--Void Shatter for 2 counters and R? Sure, why not.
As far as the potential being limited by our imagination....well, it is awfully hard to imagine things when your are a Brain in a Jar. It got scooped out, misplaced, then *fwoosh* flushed all the way to The Forbidden Zone.
Tried Brain in a Jar in a Modern Esper Goodstuffs Control shell (Lingering Souls, Far // Away, Supreme Verdict, 3-mana draw spells). Brain in a Jar didn't do so much for me there, but the mana ramp was surprisingly useful, and Fusing Far // Away for 1 mana was pretty good. Barely Scryed with it, though.
Tried Brain in a Jar in UW Midrange with 3 Beck // Call. Brain in a Jar and Beck // Call both didn't feel so good when they weren't with each other, even though Fusing out Beck // Call with Brain in a Jar was wonderful when it worked.
Tried Brain in a Jar in a Breaking // Entering Combo shell and I finally feel like I'm not wasting my time playing Brain in a Jar:
I am assuming that you can Fuse spells cast through Brain in a Jar and that Breaking // Entering atomically can mill Emrakul and reanimate her when Fused (then her shuffle graveyard trigger goes on the stack).
Breaking // Entering has whiffed twice so far and reanimated Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre more often than that. (Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre is my current third wheel because he resists removal and screws over aggro and combo, including Affinity to some extent.)
It's been able to race aggro, but it doesn't race Affinity so well, it's a dog to Jund (although it has legs against Junk and Mardu), it's a dog to RG Tron (yikes)...at least it's able to race Eldrazi!
The manabase is probaly wrong and the sideboard was just thought up, but I feel the maindeck is solid. 18 lands seem correct for a deck that wants to end the game with 2-4 lands in play and a Simian Spirit Guide in the graveyard. May even be a little much with all the filtering we have. Does Remand seem right or would some combination of Lightning Bolt and Dispel make sense?
I think the brains is quite bad for all formats but I could see some weird/bad turbo fog deck in standard that uses day's undoing and sphinx's tutelage
Pre-ordered the card because someone is going to break this thing depending on how the rulings pan out. I just can't see otherwise.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Could you cast a 0 cmc spell (such as Living End) if you responded to the trigger of Jar with Vampire Hexmage?
No, you can't.
You put the counter as part of the ability and not as a cost. I'm not 100% sure but I think you ancient grudge jar in response the game will use last know information when the ability tries to resolve (aka jar with 0 counters) allowing you to cast a zero cmc spell.
Why not use Brain in a Jar and Isochrome Scepter, perhaps slotting Muddle the Mixture for tutoring, and then use the Fuse cards as flexible value? Perhaps getting Hex Parasite in the side (to when opponents side in artifact hate) and Muddle the Mixture eternally on a Scepter, preventing artifact destruction? Scepter is really powerful. It hasn't broken modern, but you might be able to compete somewhat with 8 copies and 4 tutors?
MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
So I've been testing out a Grixis Breaking//Entering list with Brain in a Jar and Far//Away. I've been pretty please with it Entering over Through the Breach as hitting a Goblin Dark Dwellers off of the mill means you get a hasty 4/4 body, as well as Griselbrand/Emrakul with haste that sticks around permanently.
Swinging for 19 with Annihilator on turn three/four is entirely a possibility, and being able to instant speed a Thoughtsieze (during your opponent's draw step) via Jar feels downright unfair.
I'm wondering if anyone else is testing a similar Breaking//Entering build.
I don't know that it's worth running Dank Dwellers. Yes, if your fused Breaking // Entering hits Dank Dwellers AND a fatty then you can get both, but the fatty by itself usually ought to be enough, I dunno how relevant the extra 4/4 would be.
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STANDARD U Mono U Brain U WUBRG 5c Superfriends GRBUW
Dark Dwellers is pretty amazing to keep you going if you're in a re-animator shell. Either you hit your fattie right away and win at life, or you don't and you instead mill yourself for 16 total and get your hasty 4/4. And, that assumes that you didn't hit any other spell that was more worthwhile to cast than simply re-using your Breaking // Entering.
I guess if you're running stuff like Unburial Rites then milling yourself for an extra 8 is fine, but if you're just on Breaking // Entering then you're going to have to draw and resolve another one anyway.
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STANDARD U Mono U Brain U WUBRG 5c Superfriends GRBUW
LEGACY R Burn R
MODERN (U/B) Mill (U/B) R(G/W) Burn (G/W)R
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Which is why Im playing it in a UB control shell. Use Inqusitions and thoughtseizes to get rid of hate and disrupt their plan. Same with counters, I don't think it's quite as bad as you think. Plus, we play a bunch of wraths main so the uber scary Eldrazi deck can just be reset. You have access to some pretty sweet land hate post board as well. The way I'm thinking of it is like Splinter Twin, although that is obviously better. We play an interactive strategy for the first few turns, and then play brain and fuse spells as our finisher. There's no infinite and it's not a flash creature, but similar idea. I don't see why everyone thinks that the deck sucks without brain. Inquisition, mana leaks, and snap casters are still good cards on their own. Brain is simply an outlet for mana acceleration and lategame power. Also, I think 4 1/1 Fliers and drawing 4 cards for 2 mana is better than a 'nice interaction'.
"I do have fun. Winning is fun."
Modern URB Grixis Shadow
EDH URG Animar
I think I will brew around with Young Pyro's in a Temur splash white for split cards, and probably end up with far//away in the deck too. Also in red you get the addition of Goblin Dark Dwellers to cast you high cost fuse spells...
I did have one question, can I activate Jar to cast Far//Away on two if there is no legal target for far and just cast away in the same way you can use isochron scepter. It seems like it should work, as you check the cost of 2 it confirms and then you pick to cast away for free and not fusing (only relevant against boggles, but still something that might make a difference.)
Yes you can, you choose which side you actually cast once you do cast it, brain only cares about if one of the sides matches the number of counters. Also, dark-dwellers seems cool even if we only get 1 side of the spell. Chaining Breaking // Entering and Goblin Dark-Dwellers seems like a great interaction.
Also, I really like the idea of Ancient Stirrings in here, seems quite good. However, the more I think about this deck, the more I want to not actually play the colors of our fuse spells, except for ones that are feasible, such as Far // Away. Ideally we would like to cast all of our fuse spells off of brain, so I don't know that playing white or red is even necessary, perhaps just U/B/G split control. Cards like Beck // Call and Breaking // Entering seem quite bad if not cast off of brain. So with all of that said, I think I have a new shell:
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Serum Visions
1 Spell Snare
1 Mana Leak
2 Remand
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Far // Away
4 Beck // Call
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Damnation
1 Cryptic Command
4 Polluted Delta
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Watery Grave
1 Breeding Pool
2 Island
2 Swamp
1 Forest
2 Darkslick Shores
2 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Sunken Ruins
1 Damnation
2 Dispel
3 Breaking // Entering
4 Boom // Bust
3 Alive // Well
2 Wear // Tear
Edit: I want to make a combo deck with Dark Dwellers.
Idea:
4 Faithless Looting
2 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Axe
4 Serum Visions
4 Breaking // Entering
4 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Brain in a Jar
4 Simian Spirit Guide
22 Lands
Am I too crazy?
"I do have fun. Winning is fun."
Modern URB Grixis Shadow
EDH URG Animar
Needs more Colonnade
My Alter portfolio
I can't tell what it is you're trying to say.
5 was in reference to the cost. I assumed that was obvious, especially given I'm brewing around brain and there is a 2 next to it, not a 4.
"I do have fun. Winning is fun."
Modern URB Grixis Shadow
EDH URG Animar
First, you can't actually Fuse with Dark-Dwellers due to Fuse requiring the spell to be cast from the hand. You can cast the more expensive sides of fuse spells with it, however, if that's where you are going.
With Far//Away you can certainly cast either side on its own with Dark Dwellers. Same thing as with Boom/Bust. Refer to the rules reasons I've posted above as to why it works, but you can certainly do it (and you can't actually fuse it anyway due to how fuse works).
I want to brew with this card very badly because I think the potential is only limited by our imagination.
As far as the potential being limited by our imagination....well, it is awfully hard to imagine things when your are a Brain in a Jar. It got scooped out, misplaced, then *fwoosh* flushed all the way to The Forbidden Zone.
Tried Brain in a Jar in UW Midrange with 3 Beck // Call. Brain in a Jar and Beck // Call both didn't feel so good when they weren't with each other, even though Fusing out Beck // Call with Brain in a Jar was wonderful when it worked.
Tried Brain in a Jar in a Breaking // Entering Combo shell and I finally feel like I'm not wasting my time playing Brain in a Jar:
2 Desolate Lighthouse
2 Seachrome Coast
1 Sulfur Falls
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strand
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Steam Vents
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Watery Grave
2 Island
1 Mountain
1 Plains
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Griselbrand
2 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
Spells
4 Brain in a Jar
4 Breaking // Entering
4 Muddle the Mixture
1 Through the Breach
4 Serum Visions
1 Sleight of Hand
4 Remand
2 Izzet Charm
4 Path to Exile
2 Anger of the Gods
1 Roast
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Wear // Tear
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Negate
1 Counterflux
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Keranos, God of Storms
1 Celestial Purge
1 Spellskite
1 Pyroclasm
I am assuming that you can Fuse spells cast through Brain in a Jar and that Breaking // Entering atomically can mill Emrakul and reanimate her when Fused (then her shuffle graveyard trigger goes on the stack).
Breaking // Entering has whiffed twice so far and reanimated Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre more often than that. (Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre is my current third wheel because he resists removal and screws over aggro and combo, including Affinity to some extent.)
It's been able to race aggro, but it doesn't race Affinity so well, it's a dog to Jund (although it has legs against Junk and Mardu), it's a dog to RG Tron (yikes)...at least it's able to race Eldrazi!
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Griselbrand
4 Simian Spirit Guide
Artifacts
4 Brain in a Jar
Instants
4 Izzet Charm
4 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Remand
Sorceries
4 Breaking // Entering
4 Faithless Looting
4 Serum Visions
2 Thoughtseize
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Blood Crypt
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Steam Vents
2 Swamp
1 Watery Grave
1 Anger of the Gods
2 Blood Moon
2 Dispel
4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Painful Truths
2 Spellskite
2 Wear // Tear
The manabase is probaly wrong and the sideboard was just thought up, but I feel the maindeck is solid. 18 lands seem correct for a deck that wants to end the game with 2-4 lands in play and a Simian Spirit Guide in the graveyard. May even be a little much with all the filtering we have. Does Remand seem right or would some combination of Lightning Bolt and Dispel make sense?
FREE BLOODBRAID ELF
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
No, you can't.
You put the counter as part of the ability and not as a cost. I'm not 100% sure but I think you ancient grudge jar in response the game will use last know information when the ability tries to resolve (aka jar with 0 counters) allowing you to cast a zero cmc spell.
Why not use Brain in a Jar and Isochrome Scepter, perhaps slotting Muddle the Mixture for tutoring, and then use the Fuse cards as flexible value? Perhaps getting Hex Parasite in the side (to when opponents side in artifact hate) and Muddle the Mixture eternally on a Scepter, preventing artifact destruction? Scepter is really powerful. It hasn't broken modern, but you might be able to compete somewhat with 8 copies and 4 tutors?
Forbidden Alchemy works well too, as does Uncovered Clues.
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
So I've been testing out a Grixis Breaking//Entering list with Brain in a Jar and Far//Away. I've been pretty please with it Entering over Through the Breach as hitting a Goblin Dark Dwellers off of the mill means you get a hasty 4/4 body, as well as Griselbrand/Emrakul with haste that sticks around permanently.
Swinging for 19 with Annihilator on turn three/four is entirely a possibility, and being able to instant speed a Thoughtsieze (during your opponent's draw step) via Jar feels downright unfair.
I'm wondering if anyone else is testing a similar Breaking//Entering build.
U Mono U Brain U
WUBRG 5c Superfriends GRBUW
LEGACY
R Burn R
MODERN
(U/B) Mill (U/B)
R(G/W) Burn (G/W)R
U Mono U Brain U
WUBRG 5c Superfriends GRBUW
LEGACY
R Burn R
MODERN
(U/B) Mill (U/B)
R(G/W) Burn (G/W)R