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The Top 50 List (Indefinite Hiatus)
Poll: Which WHITE CREATURE should be removed from the list?
Ended Feb 16, 2019
Poll: Which BLACK CREATURES should be removed from the list? (Pick 4)
Ended Feb 16, 2019
Poll: Which GREEN NONCREATURE should be removed from the list?
Ended Feb 16, 2019
Poll: Which COLORLESS NONCREATURE should be removed from the list?
Ended Feb 16, 2019
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"Despite being absolute autoincludes in decks that can run them, lands that do nothing but produce a single mana (or a net of a single mana, such as the filterlands) are excluded from the list. Any land that does nothing but get sacrificed to allow its controller to search for a land is similarly excluded."
Is command tower the best manafixing in most 3+ color decks and essentially an autoinclude anyway in any 2+ color deck? Absolutely. The issue in my head is one of consistency; there are loads of lands that are essentially autoincludes in decks that can run them, but we don't put them on the list, because that would make the list just a list of "what're the best mana fixing lands?" The Command Tower rule would exist in recognition of the fact that people always play the best mana fixing lands they can afford; that the set of decks playing Sunhome is probably a subset of the decks that play or would play Plateau and Arid Mesa if their owners could afford those cards, but that we don't put Plateau and Arid Mesa on the list because that makes the list less useful.
What happens if we remove colour restrictions from EDH
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You see though... Most anything that you are using as a response such as a counterspell or a spot removal are all very cheap in EDH. If you are trying to use a Snapcaster Mage with a 6 mana counterspell.... well then you probably need to work on making your deck better in the first place.
Things I like doing to my Snapcaster Mage after casting him:
Mimic Vat
Nim Deathmantle
Sword of Feast and Famine rez or carry any sword really
Skullclamp
Birthing Pod
Clone him
Karmic Guide / Reveillark / any other rez really
Proteus Staff
Venser, the Sojourner
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
Anyone who is saying it is only allowing you to reuse one spell obviously isnt using some proper creature abuse in their deck. Creatures tend to be easier to tutor for and abuse than other effects. He can reuse spot removal and counterspells which is true but he can also abuse tutors, wraths, and utility spells. You can flicker him, kill him, chump block with him. And best of all... HE HAS FLASH!!!!!!
Guys flash alone + his low mana investment makes him amazing as hell. Sure the wall is cute but everyone knows what you got back and you have to pick what you need ahead of time. The snapcaster mage lets you wait until the last second to decide what you need for the situation. Sure it exiles that card so if you are trying to make an infinite combo he doesnt work for that but if you are looking for some extra value he is miles ahead of the wall.
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[Modern] Allies
Hostility
It's a 6 mana hasted 6/6 so it's actually in business the turn you play it despite not having an etb ability. It doesn't end up in your graveyard for your opponents to use against you which is something mono red has a huge problem with. It loves Earthquake, Molten Disaster, Comet Storm, Inferno, and if your pockets are deep enough it'll love Rolling Earthquake as well. The tokens don't go away, so if you are repeatedly able to ping players life totals then you can easily create an army of 3/1s.
It really shines when you need to wipe the board with an earthquake for let's say 6 at a table of 4. You end up then being able to swing for 3x6x4=72 hasted attack power from 24 creatures. To what is now an empty board (except for you). That's a HUGE change in life totals very quickly with the strong possability of just going once around the table and killing everyone. Remember to attack the guys that run wrath first. It will just outright end games out of nowhere. I use it in my ashling the pilgrim deck to great advantage but I couldn't imagine plopping it down the turn after Heartless Hidetsugu and just destroying life totals by the hundreds.
OK! Sorry... I got a little excited.
Willbender is not nearly good enough to be on the list. The only time I would ever need a willbender is to redirect the effect of Bojuka Bog (which is otherwise very hard to disrupt and get value.)
Willbender is nice with Vesuvan Shapeshifter, but Snapcaster Mage is good with Phantasmal Image. See where I'm goin with this?
EDIT
Oh, the red creatures list needs a ton of work.
Let's hear it for Rapacious One and Lord of Shatterskull Pass! Furystoke Giant, and Mana-charged Dragon. Hamletback Goliath, Butcher Orgg!
SOMETHING, anything to get Rakka Mar taken off.
My very first EDH deck was a UW "Good stuff" deck, using Sygg, River Guide. Being my first deck my idea of good stuff was, to put no fine print on it, net-decking using lists like this one. Armageddon as a highly praised card was an auto-include.
After many games and personalizing changes to the deck i was getting increasingly annoyed to have what felt like a "dead card" but i shrugged it off due to it's advertised effect and tried to figure out how to best wield it.
From non-edh duels i knew that armageddon was used either with non-land mana or to lock a game state that was in ones favor, comparing that to the card explanaition thread (thanks to sharky) we have: "Used with artifact mana to create an asymmetrical effect or used when the game state looks favorable for you and you don't want people messing with that." Ok so atleast that was still the uses.
Problem 1: All edh decks use artifact mana. This means that to create the asymmetrical effect we are looking for we need to include a much larger arsenal of non land mana sources. This in turn leads the "armageddon package" to be such a large part of the deck that it becomes defining. In my opinion a card is not good enough for the top when it needs to be in CardName.dec to work properly, especially not when that deck is degenerative to the format, so i abandoned this approach.
Problem 2: edh is a multiplayer format. The reasons i had thought of the card as being mainly dead was quite simply: i could never get a board position that was stronger than the combined position of 3+ other people, and we were always 4 or 5 people playing. Experimenting with other groupings i got better results. With 3 players i found i could sometimes use it to it's intended effect and with only 2 players it worked as advertised; Resolve while state is favorable -> win game.
Ok so it's a powerfull card, no doubt, but it has restrictions on it's use to such an extent that it's not really a top contender.
When I see Rikku with 8+ lands, I will 'geddon. When I see Drana with 6+ lands, I will 'geddon. When I see whatever with insert#oflandshere, I will 'geddon.
Armageddon does not need to be paired with anything IMHO, because it can be such a a backbreaker. And since you are the one casting it, saving some lands in your hand should help you rebuild faster.
-K
This entirely. I run Keldon Firebombers and Impending Disaster in mono red. If I'm playing against 3 decks with green in them and have either one in my opening hand, I will fudge land drops. Which is a HUGE tell in a mono red deck running 48 lands. But because of those 48 lands and the 3+ I'll have in my hand, I know I just have to wait till the ramp is slowing down, reset the board, and then I'll almost certainly be out in front. Armageddon is the same way.
Please provide an explanation as to why they are good, and what they should replace.
That said, SadSac is a card that I think does not deserve a slot on the Black Noncreature list. While it's very solid, it does not provide enough of an immediate advantage to be useful.
Dauthi Embrace is a very niche card. It works best in decks that like having a really big creature and can pump out a lot of mana. But it does little more than "BB: Something is unblockable until EoT." Not exactly what I'd call powerful, and it paints an utterly massive target on you.
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I would suggest you make a new thread called "(SCD) Akroma's Memorial" for that. This isn't really the place to go in depth on that topic here.
This thread is reserved more for discussion on cards that should make this list or be removed from this list.
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[Modern] Allies
[quote]Problem 2[quote]
Both of these are short sighted comments.
For prob 1 there are actually quite a few decks that dont auto include tons of artifact mana. I rarely run these beyond Sol Ring and maybe Mana Crypt/Mox Diamond/Chrome Mox. Do not assume that because you see decks with lots of this stuff that everybody is also running lots of this stuff.
For prob 2 you are falling prey to the same bad argument lots of other people here make which is "edh is multiplayer" so we can only base all assumptions about card viability off of slow paced poorly constructed casual multiplayer decks. Yes some people play this as multiplayer only...yes some people play this casually....NO it isnt ONLY a multi player format and NO it isnt only a casual format. In competitive 1v1 for example it is extremely viable to drop out a clock in the first turn or two (doesnt even have to be a super fast clock for a deck like sygg river cutthroat or edric for example) and then follow it up with mana denial in the form of geddon or a few others which leaves the opponent hopelessly behind the game.
I know that this isnt the only reason to include it and that you have to look at all angles. I just hate when people come on here assuming that people only play EDH the way they do around their kitchen table.
Roger roger. Will do and thanks for not biting my head off.
Fair point, except that on the first page of this thread (in I think the first FAQ point) it is explicitly stated that these lists are for multiplayer.
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This is true... This list is designed for multiplayer as obviously different cards are useful in the different formats.
Unfortunately I just dont think it is possible to piece together a list like this that would cover both all that well because there would be too many conflicting cards that totally suck in one but are must haves in the other.
I have sort of wondered if this list really should belong in the multiplayer section due to the fact that it does not pertain really to the 1v1 players.
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[Modern] Allies
The Dawn Bringers are also really good. I dare say there should be a small "five-color" section for cards like that, which should include Conflux and Maelstrom Nexus.
Also, if there already isn't a thread out there, there needs to be a special tribal card section. There's a lot of awesome "creature type" cards that work for all of those types of decks. Since tribal decks are so common, it should really be here. Cards would include Coat of Arms, Adaptive Automaton, Alpha Status, Door of Destinies, Urza's Incubator, Changeling Titan, Taurean Mauler, etc.
No they aren't all good for commander:
Clarion Ultimatum
I'd much rather have the best in a cycle listed to represent the entire cycle than list everyone. That way it'd even be possible to list the best mana fixers by arbitrarily selecting a color pair/triplet to represent all mana producing cycles.
Wretch is a lot better than you give it credit for. Bog and Relic are mostly one-shot and tricky to re-use.
With Wretch, as long as you leave mana open, you can counter any reanimation or regrowth spell. And if it's killed, you can easily recur it.
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Birthing Pod also works off of creatures already in play and or creatures who come in later. This is important as some cards of this nature only work on future creatures who come in after. However due to its low mana cost and ease to use it is easy to cast and use the pod in one turn as it does have the option to be cast + used for 4 mana and 4 life.
Cards I think could be examined for being replaced by Birthing Pod:
Genesis Wave cool card but this usually gets responded to by a wrath. It can generate some fun things but it sits in hand dead until late in the game. It is hard to abuse and high profile / rarely brings the game to an end. I have seen this card backfire on the player who uses it more often than I have seen it play out nicely.
Praetor's Counsel This card is extremely expensive to cast and completely varries in how useful it will be based on how previlant graveyard hate is in your meta. Even then I have seen a lot of Counsels followed by an opponent tutoring and casting a black myojin. This card quickly turns the game into archenemy and is hard to get it to execute correctly.
Vernal Bloom it is cute but it helps everyone and it only works well for mono green. I think there are a lot of more powerful variants available in green that arent as restrictive / doesn't help others as well.
Wild Pair my big issue with Wild Pair is that it doesnt do anything until you get to cast more creatures. Most times I have seen this card come down it gets answered before it ever does anything. Due to that I like my effects like this to do something right away thus why I like Birthing Pod more as I can pay less to drop it in and make immediate use of it even if I cannot afford to throw more creatures out right away.
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[Modern] Allies
I dunno, I think the Wretch is outclassed lately; I haven't wanted to run it in a while. Bog and Relic benefit from a little surprise factor whereas Wretch will eat up more mana if you want that same surprise. Bog can be recurred fairly easily as well, while not taking up slots in your list via karoo lands.
Sometimes a Wretch sitting there will have some benefit of keeping people from doing things, but other times that information helps them make other optimal plays. And Relic/Nihil Spellbomb are both Trinket Mage-able, making them even better.
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