The last ability of Orzhov Charm can only get better as Magic progresses when more utility 1 drop cards at higher rarities are printed.
Truth!
I think back to Auriok Salvagers when I look at this card anyways. Wasn't exactly considered a strong card when first released, but people tried it in different things and for a short while it got its due. Now whenever I see a new Cog on the spoiler I briefly consider salvagers and what they could do for each other.
Big D seems to have it right, so I would only add this.
I would prefer they just ban Thragtusk now. It is nowhere near the JTMS levels, but I really believe that tusk obsoletes and warps the meta nonetheless. Plus, there are 3 more sets still to be released before fall rotation and Tusk will still be doing all this. People will still be calling for him to be banned. Wizards may as well give it the chop now and let other cards shine now as opposed to seeing a format stifler possibly hinder set sales.
That's just my opinion, I own tusks IRL and on MTGO so I have no bias there. I felt the same way last year about ponder and now tusk is sort of doing the same thing.
Maro must be laughing his ass off right about now...
For those who don't read comic books the purple ring was something introduced a few years back in Green Lantern. Basically, there are more colors and corresponding rings of power than just green and its enemy color yellow. Purple was the color of passion or love.
Hands down the craziest looking and most unique card in the set so far. As a long time GW enchantress player, I LOVE the 1st mode.
As has already been said before, yet some still misnaming or abbreviating this weird little science project of a card.
1st mode: Word of Undoing isn't a card that most people can wrap their heads around so I can see why it's being heckled.
2nd mode: Vendetta w/o the nonblack clause isn't a card I would normally want to maindeck a playset of but it's I'm sure I will use it occasionally.
3rd mode: Proclamation of Rebirth is just pure genius of wizards to put on a 2 mana instant. No Standard deck can use this a centerpiece YET. But I sure will try when the pieces are there-if they haven't already shown up later in this set even...
White has plenty of history in returning enchantments like someone else said with Flickerform, but Replenish can never be left out of the conversation!
I guess from here on I'll be sure to set my utopia sprawl to black for this bad boy!
Control is hard you guys, and WOTC wants to sell packs to new players. Nobody likes to have stuff countered. Between them taking damage off the stack, and pimping exhalted WOTC has been making Magic into the Everybody Loves Raymond of gaming, mildly entertaining,but not mentally challenging, and you take what you get. It started with Ravnica one. "Play the Guilds or lose. Play aggro or lose." What was the last relevant control deck in STD?
Tempo, control, one does more countering and wiping than the other. Point of my post that I meant to get across and failed miserably at, was the counter magic is being hosed by this block like no other. Modern and Standard is getting a HUGE boost for killing it (counters). Possibly some Legacy and Vintage, too.
I agree with Demogague; Why bother printing counter spells? In fact, why bother printing anything but creatures? Turn everything sideways! "They took our jobs! Yea-er"
It's really interesting how some "control players" reacted in this thread. The scare quotes are because apparently those players can't think of any other form of control except "counter everything". When they are told that there are other forms of control which do not necessarily rely on blue and on countering everything, they complain that removal can't handle everything absolutely at all times. It's really weird to see people complain that everything sucks because they can't beat everything.
What's more is how so many people can miss the fact that these "can't be countered" spells help control much more than it helps. I just hope it actually shows those people that they can play control without blue and without counterspells.
I hope there wasn't this much whining when they started printing indestructible creatures.
It's simple good game design. If you've got a cheap form of removal that kills absolutely everything and can be used with negligible opportunity cost, there should be some things that it doesn't work against, and a few of them should be good (although I don't want to see decks where everything is uncounterable showing up frequently). Doom Blade didn't suddenly become useless because of black creatures and indestructible creatures, and counterspells aren't going to become useless because they've started printing more than one spell per year that it doesn't work against.
For reference, there are currently 33 cards in the game with the rules text "can't be countered", not including those recently spoiled. Maybe five of those are cards that people actually care about. No other form of removal comes even close to that level of ubiquity. Stop whining and realise that players who can't find any better method of control than oppressive permission decks might actually have to deal with the board state changing once in a while. Demanding that a form of removal works against a rules clause whose sole purpose is to state that it doesn't is privilege rised to an art form.
Some great quotes to be found in this thread. I'm glad I went through the whole thing.
Three whole uncounterable spells and permission players are acting like WotC needs to "make it up to them". I would love for WotC not to reward such a spoiled mentality, but I'm pretty sure they will anyway.
Let's face it, white was the worst color followed closely by green (or the other way around) for many MANY years. People complained for a long time and wotc finally did something about it.
White now clearly has some of the most powerful tools in the game while red is by far the worst color. This is not just my opinion anyways but the cold hard fact after seeing it hated out last year by Timely Reinforcements along with purge, freeze and o-ring returning. This is fine though, one color has to be the worst and it was decided that red would be that color.
I came upon this realization about after re-reading an old Maro articles from another link off another topic. That article was about power creep and how wotc has acknowledged it and addressed it. He even mentioned assigning points to cards, with sets/blocks having a maximum number of points.
So here we are, control is still very relevant in standard. Aggro seemingly is even better right now. But oh nos they are still hosing control! The horror!
Really what's happening is they are still going with their thing of Rock-Paper-Scissors meta and just cutting out the Combo from that meta. (Not sure which is which-I never saw a clear name assignment anywhere for the 3.) So we are left with the same argument every set: control is being hosed or aggro is being hosed depending on who you talk to.
When the truth is: It's all the same yet again.
Jace looks really good, Verdict is gonna get there for control. Zombies looks ready to step up into the number 1 spot once delver loses all its 1 CMC cantrips. Messenger and Co. already show no fear of anything right now. I remember a time when red had all the Jackal Pups...
Once and if I reach infinite mana, the killing is the easy part. Usually I have some artifact lying in the GY that I could just pick up and use for the dirty. But yeah you're right the zenith should be considered as another victory path/draw engine.
Having a hard time moving pieces around in the deck now, I got attached to things.
I'd really like to have some feedback from someone who has experience with a mostly creature-less deck. Bad idea to take a combo deck and water it down with even more nonessential pieces like PW's and creatures that don't fill a niche or role.
I feel like people are just eyeballing this list and saying oh you need this or oh you need that without even understanding what the deck is trying to do.
The six creatures I have in this deck fill an exact purpose every time and more precisely, they are artifacts! Nothing else they get happily sacrificed to the Post and draw me a card, or return an artifact. You can't do that with Architect, and I can barely protect myself. I don't have time to dropping Pw's on the field and hoping to get value out of them while producing solid effects for my strategy.
Please, someone anyone-proxy this deck up and play it. If you want to go white-replace the swamps with plains and go the Day of Judgment+O-ring route. I'm sure that will be fine. I'd like to see what Faith's Reward might do in here with a more invested approach, I might try that style in a few weeks.
I considered all colors before building this, if someone believes they can better results with another color or approach. I'm open to that, I really am.
I've been messing around with forgemaster on MTGO in my classic build...
I just don't like it. Too obvious after laying down so many other random
artifacts that people smell some combo coming that they don't let me
untap with it. I liked the card well enough but, rather get there with Post.
Plus the Diabolic Revelation is AMAZING, more so when
I get to pump 7-10 mana into it like every time I get it.
Yeah I first tried 3 Lotus and felt like I was drawing them too much. Without the clock, Lotus doesn't do all that much for me in my testing the deck the first week. Using only 1 solition is really bad combo-wise, I agree.
I don't actually assume I can pull off the infinite mana combo every game. I have to worry about surviving against control and aggro too much to let soliton clog up my hand when I need good cards to fight with.
I wanna get a 2nd Batterskull in there but can't find the spot just yet.
Wurmcoil would be outstanding but I am trying to work w/o it for some silly reason.
I am playing a different deck this week so I have time to think on it, and hopefully get good feedback here.
My early game plan is drop wellsprings and mana parts while showing some disruption through distress.
After dropping a mutilate or solemn, I then lay down Trading Post
with a land held back for oblivion ring protection. I don't worry
too much about the early life loss, as I can gain as much life
as I need with Post out.
The combo goes: Clock, Lotus, 2xSolitons tapped to untap the Lotus:
Net gain of 1 blue every cycle. Repeat as many times as you want for
huge gobs of blue mana. Draw engine in the Post along with whatever artifacts are lying around.
Make goats to bring back wellsprings to draw more cards.
Staff of Nin normally does the killing. Metamorph normally
copies solemn or post early on, then comes back and copies
soliton when the rest of the combo is ready to go.
This is my first attempt at a Clock deck for Standard use. Plenty of hidden combos and tricks for the FNM goers.
Not something I would recommend a new player to try.
The sideboard needs some help, to say the least. I have mad respect for witchbane orb now though. It's good against PW's, Bonfires, and
mill strategies.
I played some seriously fun games last Friday night, if you like a good challenge feel free to try it out. Before starting, I was modestly hoping for a 2-2 start with an average of 24 players at my local FNM. Went 3-1 only losing to my friend who knew what to hit with his game 2+3 Memoricide.
I actually harnessed this past week lotus in my latest attempt at Cube Staff Clock for standard use. In the old mirrodin days, (we walked 8 miles uphill in the snow, etc, etc) I built a casual only combo deck around Clock of Omens, Staff of Domination, and Doubling Cube.
I played the hell out of it online and even proceeded to build it in real life, in foil. To this day it's one of the craziest decks I have ever attempted that did succeed in some part or another. So now when M13 released I wanted to take another stab at it, but for Standard use, not just casual multiplayer like I tried before.
I might post it in a few if anyone is interested in seeing. I think I want to put it up before M13 releases online.
I ran my own Grixis build last week also, losing only to another control deck. The only spells they played were draw and counterspells. He milled me out both games with Nephalia Drownyard. I only had a single Ghost Quarter in my 75...Thinking of shoving some Witchbane Orbs in my SB for this week.
Truth!
I think back to Auriok Salvagers when I look at this card anyways. Wasn't exactly considered a strong card when first released, but people tried it in different things and for a short while it got its due. Now whenever I see a new Cog on the spoiler I briefly consider salvagers and what they could do for each other.
I would prefer they just ban Thragtusk now. It is nowhere near the JTMS levels, but I really believe that tusk obsoletes and warps the meta nonetheless. Plus, there are 3 more sets still to be released before fall rotation and Tusk will still be doing all this. People will still be calling for him to be banned. Wizards may as well give it the chop now and let other cards shine now as opposed to seeing a format stifler possibly hinder set sales.
That's just my opinion, I own tusks IRL and on MTGO so I have no bias there. I felt the same way last year about ponder and now tusk is sort of doing the same thing.
For those who don't read comic books the purple ring was something introduced a few years back in Green Lantern. Basically, there are more colors and corresponding rings of power than just green and its enemy color yellow. Purple was the color of passion or love.
As has already been said before, yet some still misnaming or abbreviating this weird little science project of a card.
1st mode: Word of Undoing isn't a card that most people can wrap their heads around so I can see why it's being heckled.
2nd mode: Vendetta w/o the nonblack clause isn't a card I would normally want to maindeck a playset of but it's I'm sure I will use it occasionally.
3rd mode: Proclamation of Rebirth is just pure genius of wizards to put on a 2 mana instant. No Standard deck can use this a centerpiece YET. But I sure will try when the pieces are there-if they haven't already shown up later in this set even...
I would have vastly preferred the 1st mode to have been correctly placed on the Selesnya Charm however. Since Green IS THE KING OF ENCHANTMENTS.
White has plenty of history in returning enchantments like someone else said with Flickerform, but Replenish can never be left out of the conversation!
I guess from here on I'll be sure to set my utopia sprawl to black for this bad boy!
Let's review:
Let's face it, white was the worst color followed closely by green (or the other way around) for many MANY years. People complained for a long time and wotc finally did something about it.
White now clearly has some of the most powerful tools in the game while red is by far the worst color. This is not just my opinion anyways but the cold hard fact after seeing it hated out last year by Timely Reinforcements along with purge, freeze and o-ring returning. This is fine though, one color has to be the worst and it was decided that red would be that color.
I came upon this realization about after re-reading an old Maro articles from another link off another topic. That article was about power creep and how wotc has acknowledged it and addressed it. He even mentioned assigning points to cards, with sets/blocks having a maximum number of points.
So here we are, control is still very relevant in standard. Aggro seemingly is even better right now. But oh nos they are still hosing control! The horror!
Really what's happening is they are still going with their thing of Rock-Paper-Scissors meta and just cutting out the Combo from that meta. (Not sure which is which-I never saw a clear name assignment anywhere for the 3.) So we are left with the same argument every set: control is being hosed or aggro is being hosed depending on who you talk to.
When the truth is: It's all the same yet again.
Jace looks really good, Verdict is gonna get there for control. Zombies looks ready to step up into the number 1 spot once delver loses all its 1 CMC cantrips. Messenger and Co. already show no fear of anything right now. I remember a time when red had all the Jackal Pups...
Having a hard time moving pieces around in the deck now, I got attached to things.
I feel like people are just eyeballing this list and saying oh you need this or oh you need that without even understanding what the deck is trying to do.
The six creatures I have in this deck fill an exact purpose every time and more precisely, they are artifacts! Nothing else they get happily sacrificed to the Post and draw me a card, or return an artifact. You can't do that with Architect, and I can barely protect myself. I don't have time to dropping Pw's on the field and hoping to get value out of them while producing solid effects for my strategy.
Please, someone anyone-proxy this deck up and play it. If you want to go white-replace the swamps with plains and go the Day of Judgment+O-ring route. I'm sure that will be fine. I'd like to see what Faith's Reward might do in here with a more invested approach, I might try that style in a few weeks.
I considered all colors before building this, if someone believes they can better results with another color or approach. I'm open to that, I really am.
I just don't like it. Too obvious after laying down so many other random
artifacts that people smell some combo coming that they don't let me
untap with it. I liked the card well enough but, rather get there with Post.
Plus the Diabolic Revelation is AMAZING, more so when
I get to pump 7-10 mana into it like every time I get it.
I don't actually assume I can pull off the infinite mana combo every game. I have to worry about surviving against control and aggro too much to let soliton clog up my hand when I need good cards to fight with.
I wanna get a 2nd Batterskull in there but can't find the spot just yet.
Wurmcoil would be outstanding but I am trying to work w/o it for some silly reason.
I am playing a different deck this week so I have time to think on it, and hopefully get good feedback here.
4x Trading Post
4x Ichor Wellspring
2x Gilded Lotus
2x Clock of Omens
2x Staff of Nin
2x Sphere of the Suns
1x Mox Opal
1x Batterskull
1x Elixir of Immortality
Black Spells:12
4x Mutilate
4x Distress
2x Tragic Slip
1x Diabolic Revelation
1x Life's Finale
3x Phyrexian Metamorph
2x Solemn Simulacrum
1x Soliton
Lands:23
19x Swamp
3x Phyrexia's Core
1x Plains
2x Duress
2x Grafdigger's Cage
2x Surgical Extraction
2x Timely Reinforcements
2x Witchbane Orb
1x Grave Titan
1x Faith's Reward
1x Paraselene
1x Spine of Eish Sah
1x Elixir of Immortality
My early game plan is drop wellsprings and mana parts while showing some disruption through distress.
After dropping a mutilate or solemn, I then lay down Trading Post
with a land held back for oblivion ring protection. I don't worry
too much about the early life loss, as I can gain as much life
as I need with Post out.
The combo goes: Clock, Lotus, 2xSolitons tapped to untap the Lotus:
Net gain of 1 blue every cycle. Repeat as many times as you want for
huge gobs of blue mana. Draw engine in the Post along with whatever artifacts are lying around.
Make goats to bring back wellsprings to draw more cards.
Staff of Nin normally does the killing. Metamorph normally
copies solemn or post early on, then comes back and copies
soliton when the rest of the combo is ready to go.
This is my first attempt at a Clock deck for Standard use. Plenty of hidden combos and tricks for the FNM goers.
Not something I would recommend a new player to try.
The sideboard needs some help, to say the least. I have mad respect for witchbane orb now though. It's good against PW's, Bonfires, and
mill strategies.
I played some seriously fun games last Friday night, if you like a good challenge feel free to try it out. Before starting, I was modestly hoping for a 2-2 start with an average of 24 players at my local FNM. Went 3-1 only losing to my friend who knew what to hit with his game 2+3 Memoricide.
I played the hell out of it online and even proceeded to build it in real life, in foil. To this day it's one of the craziest decks I have ever attempted that did succeed in some part or another. So now when M13 released I wanted to take another stab at it, but for Standard use, not just casual multiplayer like I tried before.
I might post it in a few if anyone is interested in seeing. I think I want to put it up before M13 releases online.
Ok then, thanks for clearing that up.