MTG Salvation

Any thoughts on Avacyn vs Glorybringer? The top list at the Open last weekend run Avacyns with 0 Glorybringers, but there was clearly mixed opinion throughout the top 16.

I feel like Glorybringer is so much more aggressive and fits in a lot more for what the deck is doing, but Avacyn certainly has more play to it.

I have been playing Twin variants for a long time and have recently started trying RUG without the twin combo after siding it out so frequently. The Tron matchup is atrocious so it is tricky weighing if you want Blood Moons to combat that along with having applications against UWR, Rock decks, and Scapeshift, but then having the nonbo with the green heavy cards. Shackles is powerful, but also pretty bad in a lot of matchups due to being irrelevant or too slow. Another problem is that the rock decks have Decay, Pulse, and possibly Putrefy along with the discard to answer it. Pod has their own tutorable answers and it can be too slow against affinity and zoo. Shackles is oddly best against UWR (an already good matchup regardless) and splinter twin. I ended cutting my shackles down to 1 and am currently on a MD Blood Moon over the last remaining shackles. The manabase seems pretty thrown together since the tectonic edges are a huge strain on the manabase with ooze, shackles, and cryptic. The Raging Ravine is probably too greedy as well for the same reasons. I'm not a fan of the singleton Pyroclasm MD (which happens to also kill a lot of your own threats) and which is also not great against several decks. Tron can play 4 because of how linear it is. This deck is not linear whatsoever and cannot afford to run so many possibly dead cards. Reid ran it too in his version, but at least he could pitch it to a Thirst for Knowledge if needed, which this individual cut. I also am not in love with Huntmaster since the format hinges around Lightning Bolt and the rest of the format doesn't care about a 4 mana creature that doesn't win the game. At least something like Thrun is almost unbeatable for UWR and can do a lot of work against certain midrange hands. Reid wasn't running the green heavy cards, but this guy changed the manabase to support it. I'm actually a bigger fan of just not bothering with the 4 mana creatures at all, but the core of the deck with Snapcasters, Goyfs, and spells is good enough to where you can customize as needed and the deck can still win.

The sb has some weird stuff. I don't get the purpose of Thragtusk since it is probably just a worse version of other cards (Batterskull, Kernos, Thrun) based on what you want it for. Reid was runnings Relics in the sb (2 I believe), but they always felt super awkward in a snapcaster/goyf deck (and even moreso with ooze). What do you even want them for other than Living End? Opposing goyfs and snapcasters? Seems inefficient. The rest of the cards are all fine.

A couple other ideas to throw out there are streamling the manabase more to where Reid had it and running Gitaxian Probes and Pyromancers with Blood Moons. I could also imagine a deeper Blue Moon hybrid with Blood Moon, Spreading Seas, and Master of Waves. Perhaps that version could also keep Pyromancers, which is a card people have wanted to pair with Master of Waves since it was printed lol. At this time I really like Thrun in the sb and I also like Obstinate Baloth against the rock decks. I have kind of grown tired of Ooze due to the set up necessary of trying to play him when you can get him out of Bolt range and he makes the manabase a little rougher. Again, I think you really would rather have Blood Moon than Sowing Salts, but would agree that you definitely need something for Tron. I also have found that Spell Snare consistently overperforms due to hitting a lot of hard to deal with cards such as Goyf, Cranial Plating, Ravager, Pyromancer's Ascension, Ooze, Spellskite, Snapcaster Mage, Goryo's Vengeance, etc. I am up to 4 now after playing 3 for a while, but I could understand sticking to 3. Aside from Tron, it really does have a ton of targets and you want all you can get against affinity and the rock decks. Flame Slash is alright, but not always as great as it seems. Sometimes Goyf is a 4/5 and if you are behind then Slash isn't going to help you. I was playing a Dismember for a while and while it is quite painful, it is also very efficient and I would consider a split is that is what you want your removal to do. Being able to kill manlands is very nice as well. Our last PTQ in the area is this weekend so hopefully I can hammer out a list that I like. On the other hand, like I said earlier, the strength is in the core of the deck so you have a lot of room for playing what you want to play with and still doing well!

How do you guys board against affinity with RUG Twin? If you bring in artifact hate, anger of the gods, spellskite, you don't really have MD cards that are straight up bad unless you have MD Thrun or 5 drops. Probes likely come out, but I run 2 Flame Slash and 0 Probes at this time. At that point the potentials are:
1. Remand - kind of weak against a deck with a low curve, still pretty good on t2, pretty weak topdeck after that.
2. Tarmogoyf - You can do some work if you play him turn 2, but it is easy to fall behind with them stuck in your hand for a number of turns.
3. Cryptic Command - Probably on the expensive side unless you are racing with Goyfs.

Anyway, I was boarding in 6-7 cards and had been siding out 4 Remands and 2 Cryptics and then sometimes cut a Goyf to leave in a Cryptic. At the end of the day, none of these cards seemed to be super relevant to my wins or losses since either I was able to sneak through the combo quick without open red mana or control the board with removal/snapcasters.

How can it not be superior when every version that does well plays Petals? One of the reasons you play this deck is the speed that Petal enhances. Reanimating before a deck has Daze, Pierce, etc up is a powerful option. Also, Petal allows you to get passed pierces and effects like that later in the game as well.

Mana Leak is fair, but counter magic is the new (and old) bad guy in magic. The control decks haven't even been posting consistent results to show that Mana Leak has some stranglehold of the metagame. Mana Leak also comes out against the nonramp, non control decks, which are quite a few.

I suppose wotc has made it clear that they think Cancel is the fair counterspell. Someday Cancel will be too good and we will have to look to Convolute to have any interaction with cards on the stack. Then people will complain that their 3 mana 10/10 with hexproof creatures are getting countered by such a splashable and easy to cast counter. May the Ken Nagels rejoice.

Green seems dreadfully shallow in this set. It is the best card, but for being in such a weak color, it comes down to preference in the 2 removal spells.

If you don't want to put money into revised duals then why would you want to put money into shock lands? Revised duals are a much better investment if you want to get into a "worth buying" argument. Although a solid manabase is important, if money is a concern and there are other cards you want, you can probably get by without them.

The issue with Geist and also Thrun is all the phantasmal images running around. Geist is much worse however since it is also invalidate by any 2/2 or greater. If you aren't running Geist blade, then he really has no place elsewhere. Skaab is good against control and also the new Wolfrun deck since it relies on Slagstorms. A cheap power flyer that recurs is obviously good.

If you didn't develop good study habits while you were younger, it can be difficult to implement them while in college. For example, throughout grade-high school I got exceptional grades by paying attention in class, writing down notes and looking them over the night before the exam. School was pretty easy. When I got to college I found that some courses required a lot more reading (as they did not cover everything that would be on the exams through lecture) in order to get As on the exams. I was so tied to my study habits from HS that I got more Bs and Cs in classes where I could have pulled As if I could have successfully altered my study habits. It seems like you have spotted that there is a problem with your system and are ready to move forward.

These are the things you should do, but that I always had a problem actually doing:
1. Review the notes of today's lectures every night. If you review the notes you took each night then that will allow your mind to process that information all the better. You can also use the weekend to look through your past notes more thoroughly.
2. Study somewhere other than your room. When I was not at school or out doing whatever, I was in my room. Your room is where you sleep and if you are reading 4 chapters of a textbook at night, you are more likely to get tired due to the location. Also, if you are sitting in front of your laptop, you are more likely to be distracted by things like facebook, etc. Go to the library, somewhere on campus, or even the kitchen table if possible.
3. Outline the chapters of the textbook if the textbook is important to success on the exams. It might seem silly that the assigned textbook would not be essential reading, but some professors just don't use it or use it very sparingly. For the ones that do, outlining each chapter in your notes can be very useful. Many people (myself included) absorb information better when you write it down. It was not until my senior year of college that a professor told the class that this was the way we should be preparing for exams and studying. I then found out that some of my more studious friends studied like this for years already.

Just some ideas, but good luck

It just depends on the jerk haha. If you think he is doing it for attention then ignoring it might be the better option. If he is doing it because he thinks he has something to prove, does it to make himself feel better, etc, then it is probably better to call him out on it. People like that just need to be put in their place. Standing up for yourself or standing up for someone else they are being a jerk to might also give other people the confidence to think likewise so he can shut his mouth. There are some competitive gamers who get to a stage where they fancy themselves as good and/or better than most, but still have something to prove.

Quote from Chronitog Drake

The only thing that bugs me is the FNM championships. The stores who run bigger FNMS have a better chance of having there players attend these.

I agree as well. I think in the end, the better players will still get the invites/byes, with the exception of people like Paul Rietzl who have good jobs and don't have the time to grind enough. The FNM champs definitely seems to only allow players from stores that hold the bigger FNMs.

Quote from TheLizard

What I don't like is this:

Let's say you have two players who just got into the game today. They only play FNMs, and they play at the same store. One of them is a doctor who sometimes has to be on call, and thus he misses one third of the FNMs. The other one is a lawyer who never has to miss FNM. Now, over the next year, the lawyer ends up winning 40% of his matches, and the doctor wins 60% of his. It's very clear who the more skilled player is, but their ratings are identical, so it is useless for determining skill.

The part you were missing is that, while rating provided a guide into who the better players were, they were never set in stone as #2 is better than #3. There is too much variance in the game to allow that. With the way it was before, if you had a higher rating, you lost many more points due to a loss than someone with a lower rating. The other part of this is that you aren't likely to get any big invites by just attending fnm each week. You need to go to the bigger events with the bigger "multipliers" and do well. From what I understand they are taking the top X number at a cutoff date for PT invites and GP byes so it will be pretty competitive do get them. Every system is going to have its problems, but it was a depressing feeling to think, wow, I can't play any sanctioned magic for 2 months because I need my rating to stay where it is.

Level 40. 0o0o0o0

I played UR/w Twin at the SCG Open in Cbus earlier this year with a white splash for 4 Leyline in the SB and MD Wall of Omens (which were a bit more relevant at the time). I was 7-1 before losing my win and in match unfortunately. The problem splashing white is that the manabase is worse with more lands coming into play tapped on turn 4 and it makes you need to run 24 lands. The other issue with the manabase is that it does not want a basic Plains due to the sometimes demanding blue and red requirements; however, when you want to hardcast Leyline, there are times where you stare at an arid Mesa really wishing you could search up a Plains to cast it. Then there is the whole, how far do I mulligan to get to Leyline against UB? Getting it turn 4 is pretty weak when you want to strand their early discard spells.

The second issue is that other white cards just aren't worth splashing. I tried to come up with other options for a spicy brew, but they were all just not up to par. Once you realize that white would only be for 4 Leyline in the SB, you also realize that it just isn't worth it. Leyline is good against Valakut, Shrine Red, and discard. You should beat Valakut regardless, there are better hate options for red variants and there are cards you can play against UB that don't wreck your manabase.

The best thing about playing white was going T1 Seachrome Coast, T2 Seachrome Coast, T3 Scalding Tarn, T4 Arid Mesa, only to have them tap out and be speechless when you flashed in Exarch. Mind. Blown.

Zoo looks insane and banning Ancestral Vision is a complete joke.

This is pretty basic and I think I know the answer, but people are saying otherwise.

So Splinter Twin resolves on Deceiver Exarch. You tap exarch to make a copy. Is the converted mana cost of the token zero or three? It makes sense to me that the CMC is 3 because you are making an exact copy of the creature and making a copy of a creature is different than just making a random token, which would have a CMC of zero.

Thanks friends.