He would obviously be powerful in STD, but not as much as in other formats - it's not like you're drawing into bolts or goyfs with him, and you need to run a lower curve to avoid suicide. He also needs to sit around for a turn to generate CA. If anything, I'd say Snapcaster (especially with leak) was probably more format-warping for STD than Bob would be.
Why does everyone love Revenge so much? It will not see MB play unless it's meta specific, and I'd rather side in other cards against control. We already had an artifact like this from Mirrodin block.
If you're against aggro, they will dump their hand before you can get more than two cards out of it, and then you have a better chance at topdecking useless targeted discard all game. That means you'd have a 3-4 of dead enchantment, and probably 6-8 dead-ish cards against the aggro deck.
If you're looking at Standard, the only played discard effects are Lil, R. Return, and Duress. Duress and RR are board cards; Lil is good, but do you really want to run this just for her?
In modern, I guess this might be good in the megrim deck? I'd rather have something more generally interesting, though, with broader applications.
I still think the right thing to to is print back to basics in a block that doesn't have a lot of non basics.
I would love that. I've tried Blood Moon based control, but it just doesn't generally hate out nonbasics enough - Tron will eventually hit enough lands to cast their Wurmcoils and Karns, while other decks can fetch for a couple basics before you drop the moon and still cast most of their spells.
I remember a lot of people suggesting that mox would be too heavily abused by combo. Would it, though? It seems much worse than a ritual in storm, barring a need for blue mana. Eggs doesn't want to recur it. Maybe infect would use it, but I don't think so - using two cards for one mana is rough for a deck that relies on having a critical mass of pump before other decks are online.
I think it could make some fringe combo decks better, e.g. Hive Mind. It seems like having the capability to throw away dead removal against storm to get Cryptic up a turn sooner (or vice versa against affinity) would benefit control more than anything else, though.
There is a large difference between burn winning on turn 4, and eggs winning on turn 4.
Against burn I can force them to use their "win condition" defensively, I can play spells that trade "fair" with their spells, also when the Burn decks mulligan, it punishes them highly on the risk vs reward spectrum.
This is not the case with storm, splintertwin, or eggs. My cards do not trade fair with theirs, they ignore what I play and are only concerned about one axis of their choice. I require multiple elements in a balanced mixture to be effective in a deck less consistent than theirs. You are in a pemanent flux of damned if you do, damned if you don't. The only reason you will win against these combo decks is if their consistency fails them. That is not magic, that is rolling the dice and signing the match-slip.
Your contrast between burn and combo doesn't make any sense. I'm pretty sure a spell pierce trades just as well with splinter twin as it does with a bolt - heck, if anything, you might get a 2 for 1 with timely removal, or in the case of eggs, cause the entire combo to fizzle with a single counterspell.
You mention that you can force burn to shoot your dudes? They only do that to avoid dying to heavy pressure before they can kill you. I'm pretty sure a combo deck just dies in that scenario.
You think burn has bad mulligans? Try actually sleeving up eggs or storm, especially if you need to aggressively mull g2 & 3 to avoid losing to heavy discard/gy exile.
or they narrow their spectrum more. focus more on limited. or standard. or modern. or edh. they're still buying product, a lot of product, but not ALL of the products. nothing says you have to buy every single magic released product.
sports cards are a terrible comparison because... sports cards are meant to be collected. you don't play games with them its a completely different product.
+1 to this. I'd hazard a guess that most people who feel seriously "threatened" by this don't actually play the format.
Will I lose some money between this and shock reprints? Probably. It's better than not being able to find a LGS that can actually get enough people together to host a modern event. It's not like the stores around me haven't tried - even with great prize support, they couldn't even get a minimum of 8 people to show up. It'd be awesome to actually play this format outside of PTQ's, instead of watching it die.
As an aside, I can't wait to try out this limited format. Sort of sounds like a diet cube, or something.
Do you have a budget in mind? There are a few directions you might go, largely depending on if you can invest in your mana base (fetches, shocks).
Fetch heavy mana bases can make the crabs incredibly effective. Milling 6 a turn off of them is pretty crazy. Sweeps don't like them though. I'd opt for the more aggressive crab version, personally.
If you run archive trap, you can run things to set it off (in addition to opponent fetches/pods/etc) - Path to Exile and Ghost Quarter are probably the tmost notable. It's still kinda lackluster if they never search normally though, e.g. mono red affinity.
You can also run Trapmaker's Snare to be copies 5-8, along with a toolbox (if only for a single MD Ravenous Trap - you completely forfeit g1 against Tron without non-sorcery yard hate.
Visions of Beyond is very strong in mill, and pretty cheap. Maybe not a 4-of, but definitely minimum 2 imo.
Note that Snapcaster is great with Visions and Glimpse the Unthinkable, but you can't flash back a trap for the trap cost.
Mill has some inherent problems, but that might make it unexpected. People side Timely and finks, but no one sides in Emrakul for mill.
Do you have any friends playtesting on Cockatrice? I remember playing against this about a week ago with a UWr Hawks control deck.
After g1, the guy told me I was kicked for using a stupid tempo deck. I offered to grab a brew, and he replied 'blocked.' I sobbed all night, imaging the conversations we could have had.
Solid ideas. I'm definitely a fan of the survival archetype, but I usually play a little more removal. Maybe Journey to Nowhere, or maybe squeeze in Wall of Omens and extra wraths? They both work with the recursion theme.
+1 for Fact or Fiction, Innocent Blood, and Meekstone. Besides providing tools to struggling control decks, I think the nostalgia factor would be great. I'm not sure how effective FoF would be, given that Gifts generally is limited to occasional use as a double entomb. I'd have a blast with it, regardless.
He would obviously be powerful in STD, but not as much as in other formats - it's not like you're drawing into bolts or goyfs with him, and you need to run a lower curve to avoid suicide. He also needs to sit around for a turn to generate CA. If anything, I'd say Snapcaster (especially with leak) was probably more format-warping for STD than Bob would be.
If she wants to play a game, why not play along? Geeze, you guys are spoiled.
If you're against aggro, they will dump their hand before you can get more than two cards out of it, and then you have a better chance at topdecking useless targeted discard all game. That means you'd have a 3-4 of dead enchantment, and probably 6-8 dead-ish cards against the aggro deck.
If you're looking at Standard, the only played discard effects are Lil, R. Return, and Duress. Duress and RR are board cards; Lil is good, but do you really want to run this just for her?
In modern, I guess this might be good in the megrim deck? I'd rather have something more generally interesting, though, with broader applications.
I would love that. I've tried Blood Moon based control, but it just doesn't generally hate out nonbasics enough - Tron will eventually hit enough lands to cast their Wurmcoils and Karns, while other decks can fetch for a couple basics before you drop the moon and still cast most of their spells.
I think it could make some fringe combo decks better, e.g. Hive Mind. It seems like having the capability to throw away dead removal against storm to get Cryptic up a turn sooner (or vice versa against affinity) would benefit control more than anything else, though.
Your contrast between burn and combo doesn't make any sense. I'm pretty sure a spell pierce trades just as well with splinter twin as it does with a bolt - heck, if anything, you might get a 2 for 1 with timely removal, or in the case of eggs, cause the entire combo to fizzle with a single counterspell.
You mention that you can force burn to shoot your dudes? They only do that to avoid dying to heavy pressure before they can kill you. I'm pretty sure a combo deck just dies in that scenario.
You think burn has bad mulligans? Try actually sleeving up eggs or storm, especially if you need to aggressively mull g2 & 3 to avoid losing to heavy discard/gy exile.
+1 to this. I'd hazard a guess that most people who feel seriously "threatened" by this don't actually play the format.
Will I lose some money between this and shock reprints? Probably. It's better than not being able to find a LGS that can actually get enough people together to host a modern event. It's not like the stores around me haven't tried - even with great prize support, they couldn't even get a minimum of 8 people to show up. It'd be awesome to actually play this format outside of PTQ's, instead of watching it die.
As an aside, I can't wait to try out this limited format. Sort of sounds like a diet cube, or something.
Fetch heavy mana bases can make the crabs incredibly effective. Milling 6 a turn off of them is pretty crazy. Sweeps don't like them though. I'd opt for the more aggressive crab version, personally.
If you run archive trap, you can run things to set it off (in addition to opponent fetches/pods/etc) - Path to Exile and Ghost Quarter are probably the tmost notable. It's still kinda lackluster if they never search normally though, e.g. mono red affinity.
You can also run Trapmaker's Snare to be copies 5-8, along with a toolbox (if only for a single MD Ravenous Trap - you completely forfeit g1 against Tron without non-sorcery yard hate.
Visions of Beyond is very strong in mill, and pretty cheap. Maybe not a 4-of, but definitely minimum 2 imo.
Note that Snapcaster is great with Visions and Glimpse the Unthinkable, but you can't flash back a trap for the trap cost.
Mill has some inherent problems, but that might make it unexpected. People side Timely and finks, but no one sides in Emrakul for mill.
It's not strictly better, it's UR.
How much play does Last Word see again?
After g1, the guy told me I was kicked for using a stupid tempo deck. I offered to grab a brew, and he replied 'blocked.' I sobbed all night, imaging the conversations we could have had.
Solid ideas. I'm definitely a fan of the survival archetype, but I usually play a little more removal. Maybe Journey to Nowhere, or maybe squeeze in Wall of Omens and extra wraths? They both work with the recursion theme.
I was hoping for something new, given the Maelstrom Pulse+ and Terminate+ we just got.
I don't think so. The comparison to blightning made me realize - this is not only worse than blightning at 4 mana, but it also can't be cascaded into.
How often do most decks have 4+ cards in hand by turn 6?