MTG Salvation

Quote from clan_iraq

I'm actually curious what the heck the difference is between frites and solar flare, because everyone was all up and giddy about solar flare back when innistrad was being spoiled

Solar Flare is a crappy control deck that had a moment in the sun when nobody knew what the new standard meta would shape up to be.

Frites is a very explosive deck that works by dropping a bunch of mana dorks, tossing Elesh Norn in the graveyard, and then bringing it back with Unburial Rites to potentially wipe your opponent's board and make all those mana dorks suddenly very dangerous. If your opponent isn't packing sideboard hate or doesn't know what you are playing, its devastating.

The only similarities between the two decks is that they both run Elesh Norn and Unburial Rites, but Solar Flare runes 1 of each generally while Frites runs playsets. Other than that they are completely different decks.

So I wonder, how good would Behemoth be in Frites? A hasty beatstick that puts all of your mana dorks on steroids seems like a pretty good rites target. And you can even hardcast him if worst comes to worst.

Good god, Personal Tutor spiked $30 in one day. Are people insane?

Quote from LifeKills

It's not hard to come up with a deck that's going to have 4 black sources by the time they hit 8 mana. He doesn't affect the board immediately, but he is quite resistant to removal spells as long as you have life to pay his ability

In standard I somewhat agree with you, but in older formats drawing 7 is going to win you the game almost every time (they also have better ways of cheating him in)

Yeah, I mean I could see Reanimator or something running him (though honestly dropping Jin-Gitaxias or Iona is probably a better show-stopper) but I don't think he will a replacement for Elesh in Frites like some people are saying. 4 black mana is still pretty prohibitive in any standard deck that would want to run him, outside of mono-black which is too slow to make use of him.

I think people are overestimating Griselbrand quite a bit. I don't think he will see play in Frites at all; he has an awesome ability but he doesn't impact the board right away like Elesh does, and also unlike Elesh, there is no mana base to support hardcasting him if you have to. ELesh is so good in Frites because you can cheat him early through Rites or cast him later if that doesn't work out. Griselbrand is just flat-out a dead draw if you can't dump + reanimate him, or if your opponent is running graveyard hate of any kind. Maybe he could be a singleton, but being able to cast Elesh even if your opponent drops a Grafdigger Cage or exiles your graveyard is a big part of why he's so good. (In addition to potentially wiping your opponent's board / making your mana dorks suddenly very dangerous).

I want Griselbrand to have a home as much as anyone, but he's too much of a Battleship and like every other awesome black card they have been printing lately, nobody but mono-black will ever be able to cast it. The irony is that mono-black is never going to have 8 mana available to do so.


edit: Also everyone buying Temporal Mastery at $30-40 is nuts.

Bets on how long it will take Temporal Mastery to be banned in Legacy?


Also this probably pretty much confirms that ponder won't be in M13. Standard is going to be completely degenerate for a few months, holy crap.


edit:

Delver isn't exactly looking for 7 mana spells. Without a brainstorm effect it's too random. If you draw more than 1 before your third turn you basically lose. Just because it's blue doesn't mean you cram it in delver.

LOL, yeah, because Delver doesn't have ponder and lots of draw. U/R delver is even crazier with Faithless Looting and noxious revival. Having a potential 4 extra turns in a deck that can manipulate it's library even a little is insane. I guarantee the opportunity to have an extra turn will offset the risk of drawing 2 or more before turn 3, which isn't all that likely and can be dealt with anyway. You are nuts if you think Delver won't be playing this card all day. Drawing one of these turn 3 or after is basically an "I win" button for a deck as fast as Delver.

Wow, so I guess Wizards is coming right out and saying that if you aren't going to play a Delver variant you might as well not play Standard.

The top border of miracle cards will look like that as a reminder that you need to play it right away.


Also curious to see what this next revealed Miracle will be. One of the Wizards guys was chatting afterwards and let slip that there was a potentially crazy one (he thought it would be banned in Legacy almost right away). And surprise, it isn't blue. Wonder what is is, maybe a super cheap white Wrath effect? I could see that being too crazy to exist in Legacy without being broken in standard.

Wow, mono-black can't get a second in the sun without getting crapped on. Was it really necessary to print cards that completely hose all of blacks targeted and non-targeted removal? I hope there are some huge sweepers to replace Black Sun's Zenith, because otherwise that Angel is going to be literally invincible. It's bad enough that hexproof is everywhere, its like they don't want removal to exist at all.

I'm a little tired of this trend of Wizards making cool, fun, cards, then immediately printing cards that shut them down completely in the next set. Unless, of course that card is in Delver, which seems to be somebody's pet deck.

Can I please get some advice from some of the amazing artists in here?

I'm just starting out, and I'm using Golden Fluid Acrylics, which I've heard are among the best you can use. But I've got a few problems:

I can't figure out the balance between paint and water - it seems like my paint is either too thick or too thin no matter how slowly I increase my amount of water.

I also keep getting little grains stuck in my paint somehow. I don't know what this is and it is really frustrating me. Is it pigment or something? I've tried cleaning my brushes, palette, and card to make sure it isn't dust or something, but I can't get rid of these little tiny bumps.

How do I make the paint transitions look so smooth? Not in terms of color matching, but in making it not look like paint. No matter what I do I can always tell it is paint and not card, and some people make it seem so easy.

What am I doing wrong here? I really want to get into altering but this is frustrating me to no end. Do I need matte medium or something?

Ratchet bomb is a much better answer than Hellkite or Lux Cannon, but it is still a little clunky, and if you aren't playing against tokens it becomes a more questionable choice. The problem with boarding in all these cards to deal with Cage is that you have to board out threats for them, so that yeah, you can deal with Cage (though it is much easier to slap 4 Cages in a deck to hate our all of Zombies than it is to put 4 otherwise useless ratchet bombs in Zombies to hate out Cage) but then the deck has lost tempo / threat density overall. All the decks running cages also have the opportunity to run hate for the Ratchet Bombs, as well. It becomes a game of oneupsmanship that Zombies can't win.

The ideal situation is one in which Zombies can push right through a cage instead of wasting slots trying to answer it, so in my mind the deck will only be top tier when it can accomplish that. If you watch high-level players sideboard, you will notice they almost never sideboard against specific hate cards - they board against the opponents deck as a whole.

I think Zombies is a solid deck with some good potential, but it absolutely is not even close to being the next Caw-Blade.

Quote from DanzBorin

It can answer with Steel Hellkite or Lux Cannon. Not the best answer, or even a good one, but still an answer.

I guess literally wasn't the right word there.

I said black has no answer to a resolved Cage. Neither of those cards are black. So yes, literally was, in fact, the right word there.

Not to mention that nobody on earth who has even a modicum of skill would try to board in either of those cards against Cage. They aren't even reliable answers.

Hellkite requires you to spend 5 mana, wait a turn to swing with him, hope he connects, then have 1 mana open to blow up the cage. Yeaaaaaah, considering Zombies has no ramp whatsoever, that means turn 6 at the absolute earliest, probably 7 or 8 in most cases since the deck won't always be hitting its later land drops. If I drop a Cage on turn 1 or 2 and you can't answer it until 6, you are already dead.

And Lux Cannon is just as bad.


edit: Distress is honestly the only way the deck could handle a Cage before it hits the board (or Leaking it with a blue splash) but Distress is also a really bad card, and if you start filling your deck with cards to counter hate, you have to take out the actual meat of your deck. Zombies doesn't have a lot of room to start taking things out, it needs a lot of creatures and a lot of removal to have any chance of winning.

Zombies aren't even close to the new caw-blade. It's a very fringe deck that can surprise people with wins when the meta isn't prepared for it. If anything it's similar to Tempered Steel; devastating in the right circumstances but only decent if people is expecting it. Considering you can literally kill their entire deck with Graffdigger Cage (which, keep in mind, black has literally no answers to), I wouldn't worry about them becoming a huge competitor. Besides, Delver won't lose much in the rotation and will likely still be top dog unless they print some very specific hate for it in the next block, but they plan so far in advance for new sets that I don't see that happening.

Unless they give us some good new duals in the next set, Zombies will rely on splashing with shaky mana-bases to answer the Cage, since black can't touch it and blue, the most common splash, can't really answer it if it manages to stick. Red is another common splash that opens up for Ancient Grudge, but that card loses a lot of it's wow factor when you can't flash it back. Still, better a really cheap answer to Cage than nothing at all.

Don't get me wrong, I love zombies and I will literally play any quasi-competitive mono-black deck just because, but Zombies isn't going to be the top dog of standard any time soon. Even Delver right now isn't what Caw-Blade was in terms of pure meta dominance and proliferation.

People REALLY want Obliterator to be good (and they have been since he came out), but he just isn't right now. His ability looks scary but against a majority of the field it is going to be irrelevant. The only match-up I'd want him in is against Red, and the deck has no trouble stomping them as it is. Everyone else is going to Wrath, Snag, counter, O-Ring, Purge, or otherwise blow him up without dealing direct damage.


edit: To clarify, he isn't bad by any means, but he sure isn't even close to being $25 worth of good. He was high at $15, even.

Quote from CMoriarty

Wow... alot of people butthurt over this guy in newer formats. Pull up a chair, son, and let an old fogey tell you something.

In eternal formats, we've had powerful, multi-faceted hate cards for a long time. Vintage in particular, the format where Broken Things Happen, has been dealing with things like Null Rod, Pithing Needle, and Chalice of the Void for quite some time. It's very possible to have a healthy metagame where you must plan on fighting through some hate games 2 and 3. This is not bad for the format, it's not the end of flashback or reanimator or pod, the sky is not falling. Heck, it's not even that great against Dredge - unlike Leyline, they can stock the yard and ready up a win as soon as they can bounce it.

Combo decks across all formats can no longer goldfish because of this awesome card. That's all.

2 problems: Standard doesn't have those tools, and this hoses several innovative decks in that format, as well as hosing the flagship mechanics of the set it was printed in. Even if they print some ridiculous answer to this card, that is still stupid.

It hoses limited as well. Lots of archetypes are going to be useless if this hits the field, and the means of dealing with it are even smaller there.

Second, yeah, hosers and hate cards have been around in Legacy / Vintage for a while and they can be dealt with. The problem is that if you keep giving them new hosers on top of the old ones, it is eventually going to hit a critical mass where decks get hated right out of the format.