BFZ block printed two problem cards, which I immediately thought of when I saw the title: Ulamog and Worldbreaker. With a fast mana source like new Selvala and the relative ease that a green deck can tutor for big eldrazi a player can be curbstomped by three exile triggers in the early phases of the game. These are triggers, not spells, so Summary Dismissal and Time Stop are the only cards that can save you from both the trigger and the threat on its way into play.
Stifle and Voidslime too, but they are big ones. I think they tried to mitigate these heavy duty exilers with things like Blight Herder, so that you would consider bringing cards back from exile. Granted, most of these are pretty average for EDH, but they tried.
My least favourite exile personally is Sadistic Sacrament. With kicker, its targeted, intentional disassembly of someone's deck. Last time I had it played against me I drew land 8 turns in a row and vowed I would never let it go unanswered again.
Graveyard shennigans are one of the most powerful things you can do in Magic. Just look at the competitive scene. Dredge is one of the most bonkers mechanics ever invented. In Modern alone there are two competitive decks that use the graveyard as their primary source of win (Dredge and Living End) but a lot more (like Grixis Delver, Ad Naseum, Storm) utilize the graveyard for value and they aren't even considered Graveyard decks! Exile has become an extremely necessary mechanic. In Commander especially its necessary to have more mass exile because of certain combos like Darksteel Forge + Mycosynth Lattice or Crystaline Sliver + Sliver Overlord that basically become "race or lose" without a mass Exile sweeper.
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I have a deck where almost every disruption card exiles.
The theme of the deck is to try and grind all the players decks out, like literally get them so that they have nothing left. I made it as a sort of casual deck, not thinking it would be very good. Every-time I play it over performs. It turns out exile is really hard to deal with. Even against non graveyard recursion decks, it just packs so much disruption that opponents have a hard time with it.
Spending a card to stop the trigger on those monsters is definitely worth it, but they still get the Ulamog/Worldbreaker, and Ulamog will chew up a library pretty quickly if you don't spend another card to get him off the board. Selvala is probably more ban worthy, but the two eldrazi feel really oppressive.
I wouldn't necessarily call it exile creep so much as "things that render indestructible mostly irrelevent" creep. It just so happens quite a few of those are exile effects, but not all. In the last couple years we've seen Song of the Dryads, Darksteel Mutation, Anguished Unmaking, Declaration in Stone, Polymorphist's Jest, Utter End, Reality Shift, Imprisoned in the Moon, a Fleshbad Marauder functional reprint, etc. all of which see quite a bit of play. The meta (as in the meta of the game as a whole) has shifted in a way to make indestructible less valuable. I'm personally not running Darksteel Plate anywhere anymore, and when I see the words on a creature I mostly assume they're meaningless outside a corner case like Avacyn or Zurgo MLD decks built to abuse it.
I wouldn't necessarily call it exile creep so much as "things that render indestructible mostly irrelevent" creep. It just so happens quite a few of those are exile effects, but not all. In the last couple years we've seen Song of the Dryads, Darksteel Mutation, Anguished Unmaking, Declaration in Stone, Polymorphist's Jest, Utter End, Reality Shift, Imprisoned in the Moon, a Fleshbad Marauder functional reprint, etc. all of which see quite a bit of play. The meta (as in the meta of the game as a whole) has shifted in a way to make indestructible less valuable. I'm personally not running Darksteel Plate anywhere anymore, and when I see the words on a creature I mostly assume they're meaningless outside a corner case like Avacyn or Zurgo MLD decks built to abuse it.
This is important. Indestructible needed to be less powered, simply so that we see less eldrazi titans, Colossi and other indestructible stuff dominating the EDH meta as a whole. It's not necessarily a bad thing to see indestructible become less relevant, but it can be frustrating to see exile become more relevant outside of the indestructible context. I get it, and I think this is the trouble with developing the game. There will always be push and pull, in order for one ability to be answerable another must be made more powerful, and this warps the game in subtle ways, such as the discussion we see here.
Preventing graveyard exile requires more extreme measures and stuff like Witchbane Orb is just bad magic. But it can be done if your dead-set on recurring the same engine.
I just had to comment on this. We've had cards that stop player targeting the whole time I've played Magic (since Onslaught block) and this is the first complaint I've heard. Yeah, it's really good against a few things but it's really, really narrow. Witchbane Orb isn't even the cheap version of the effect. You can get it on a Grizzly Bear. The fact that there are answers for things is a good thing.
Now, as for exile effects, I've actually seen a mix of more efficent effects, exile, and tuck. Of course, with tutors, you can pick what you need at the time. It's also not a new thing. Years ago, I remember Sheldon mentioning being on an exile kick. That was back before we had such a huge variety of exile options. Of course, I'm sure metas will ebb and flow with potential threats. If indestructible and recursion are less important, people might gravitate back toward more efficient answers and more threats. I mean a few years ago when tokens were all the rage in my meta, wrath effects were a lot more common. Of course, having a bunch of decks also helps because you can't metagame against everything without building an anti meta deck that does nothing but play policeman. It kind of seems like the op's problem might be more that the decks in question tend to be recursion based. Maybe building more decks in a bigger variety might spread the answers more thin.
I think it's more of Magic keeping up to date than creep. Like any updates to a digital game, buffing a character's stat has consequences. Wizards has removed regeneration and replaced with indestructible. Naturally like any balanced game with leveled mechanics, there has to be a yin and yang. The answer for indestructible? Exile.
Again, moving forward to EDH, many players are slow to update and keep up with the ever-changing landscape of magic. Magic will die if it stagnates, and this shift represents change. It's up to EDH players to own up and alter their decks accordingly.
If anything, the "new" change is a positive one IMO. It's about time we see less recursive things. A game shouldn't be about centered around repetition of a few choice cards.
I think it's more of Magic keeping up to date than creep. Like any updates to a digital game, buffing a character's stat has consequences. Wizards has removed regeneration and replaced with indestructible. Naturally like any balanced game with leveled mechanics, there has to be a yin and yang. The answer for indestructible? Exile.
Again, moving forward to EDH, many players are slow to update and keep up with the ever-changing landscape of magic. Magic will die if it stagnates, and this shift represents change. It's up to EDH players to own up and alter their decks accordingly.
If anything, the "new" change is a positive one IMO. It's about time we see less recursive things. A game shouldn't be about centered around repetition of a few choice cards.
RoE Ulamog destroys one permanent on cast, Newlamog exiles two. Unmake exiled one creature for wb wb wb and Reality Shift does it for 1U in a color that shouldn't have spot removal in the first place. Descend Upon the Sinful is strictly better Final Judgment. Exile removal is absolutely on an upward creep, and with the exception of Orbs of Warding, which stops most of the popular graveyard nukes, no new tools have been printed to fight it. I can't remember the last time we got a good tuck effect, which also gets around indestructibility, WotC should really go that direction if they want to fight blightsteel and the gods.
I would really like to get the Riftsweeper trigger as an activated ability on a cheap utility card. Something along the lines of Scavenging Ooze or Bow of Nylea.
I agree that exile creep is sort of getting out of hand. I like that it hits reanimation strategies because they tend to be repeitive, overplayed and very strong. However because of all the exile in the format, indestructible doesn't really many much anymore which is unfortunate.
Why would anyone favor tuck, when exile is the much cleaner option? Cleaner as in one word compared to "put card on the bottom of library", cleaner as in it's like a fire-and-forget missile (you know the card's not coming back until the next game). Magic is game of numerous decisions, many of these decisions take too much time. One has to think on a Wizards design/developer perspective why they do the things they do. There's so many benefits why exile is used more than tuck.
As for creep, let's not forget that we've "creature creep" probably during Lorwyn onwards, except that it's not. The same with Blue losing more and more stuff on their color pie, the same with red expanding on what they can do. It's not creep. In MaRo's words, it's self-correcting.
In the eyes of a novice player, yea it does look like it's creeping. But to me creeping is when things go overboard; more than they should.
Why would anyone favor tuck, when exile is the much cleaner option? Cleaner as in one word compared to "put card on the bottom of library", cleaner as in it's like a fire-and-forget missile (you know the card's not coming back until the next game). Magic is game of numerous decisions, many of these decisions take too much time. One has to think on a Wizards design/developer perspective why they do the things they do. There's so many benefits why exile is used more than tuck.
As for creep, let's not forget that we've "creature creep" probably during Lorwyn onwards, except that it's not. The same with Blue losing more and more stuff on their color pie, the same with red expanding on what they can do. It's not creep. In MaRo's words, it's self-correcting.
In the eyes of a novice player, yea it does look like it's creeping. But to me creeping is when things go overboard; more than they should.
I didn't say that tuck was better, I said that I wanted WotC to start printing more of it as opposed to exile. Exile removal should be the exception, not the rule, and getting that level of finality should come at a premium. I suggested tuck as an alternative to exile because it also gets around indestructibility.
Also, how on Earth can you think blue's slice of the pie is shrinking, when using the whole pie has become one of its a feature? It snagged hexproof when they keyworded the mechanic and stopped printing shroud, it's stolen exile shenanigans and permanent removal from white, and uncounterable spells from red and green.
I think it's more of Magic keeping up to date than creep. Like any updates to a digital game, buffing a character's stat has consequences. Wizards has removed regeneration and replaced with indestructible. Naturally like any balanced game with leveled mechanics, there has to be a yin and yang. The answer for indestructible? Exile.
Again, moving forward to EDH, many players are slow to update and keep up with the ever-changing landscape of magic. Magic will die if it stagnates, and this shift represents change. It's up to EDH players to own up and alter their decks accordingly.
If anything, the "new" change is a positive one IMO. It's about time we see less recursive things. A game shouldn't be about centered around repetition of a few choice cards.
RoE Ulamog destroys one permanent on cast, Newlamog exiles two. Unmake exiled one creature for wb wb wb and Reality Shift does it for 1U in a color that shouldn't have spot removal in the first place. Descend Upon the Sinful is strictly better Final Judgment. Exile removal is absolutely on an upward creep, and with the exception of Orbs of Warding, which stops most of the popular graveyard nukes, no new tools have been printed to fight it. I can't remember the last time we got a good tuck effect, which also gets around indestructibility, WotC should really go that direction if they want to fight blightsteel and the gods.
I would really like to get the Riftsweeper trigger as an activated ability on a cheap utility card. Something along the lines of Scavenging Ooze or Bow of Nylea.
Newlamog also deserves a better trigger since, outside of limited, the attack trigger does nothing immediate unlike annihilator 4 which is a 4 for 1. Unmake is clean, simple instant exile with no catch. Final Judgment was close to obsoleted by Hallowed Burial and Terminus. While exile is nice, was it ever worth a +2 while other nice perks tend to cost 1? Also, back in the day, wraths tended to cost 6 because Wizards was worried about the 8 wrath deck that proved to be a dumb idea after Damnation and Wrath shared the same standard. While there's a lot more exile printed now, there's also lots more recursion than there was back in the beginning, too. We didn't have things like persist, undying, Reassembling Skeleton, etc. There were a few Regrowth effects, a few recurring dudes that were way worse at it, admittedly overpowered creature reanimation, and that was about it. There was no indestructible, hexproof/shroud, very few etb triggers, and certainly not creatures that were easily recurrable every turn or multiple times per turn indefinately. You can't just ignore the rest of the card as well as history if you're trying to actually be fair and balanced.
Rather than complain about exile effects, which are needed to beat unfair recursion engines, you should build more redundancy into your decks so that they keep on going after a key piece is removed.
You can play cards that make your enchantments, artifacts or creatures hexproof.
You can play countermagic to protect your key pieces... or sac outlets.
And if your deck falls apart when a single enchantment is exiled, maybe you are too dependant on that strategy.
Newlamog also deserves a better trigger since, outside of limited, the attack trigger does nothing immediate unlike annihilator 4 which is a 4 for 1. Unmake is clean, simple instant exile with no catch. Final Judgment was close to obsoleted by Hallowed Burial and Terminus. While exile is nice, was it ever worth a +2 while other nice perks tend to cost 1? Also, back in the day, wraths tended to cost 6 because Wizards was worried about the 8 wrath deck that proved to be a dumb idea after Damnation and Wrath shared the same standard. While there's a lot more exile printed now, there's also lots more recursion than there was back in the beginning, too. We didn't have things like persist, undying, Reassembling Skeleton, etc. There were a few Regrowth effects, a few recurring dudes that were way worse at it, admittedly overpowered creature reanimation, and that was about it. There was no indestructible, hexproof/shroud, very few etb triggers, and certainly not creatures that were easily recurrable every turn or multiple times per turn indefinately. You can't just ignore the rest of the card as well as history if you're trying to actually be fair and balanced.
A better trigger? What more could you possibly want than two free Scour from Existence stapled onto your 10/10 colorless beatstick? Replicating the trigger with spells would cost more mana than Ulamog.
I'm not sure where you got the misconception that six mana wraths are an old, rather than modern, trend when Wrath of God itself was printed it Alpha. The older wraths that cost 5+ had significant upside, like Catastrophe's ability to double as an Armageddon or Rout's optional flash. Honest to god wraths cost 5+ for the same reason mana dorks now cost 2+, MaRo decided that 4 and 1 were too good for standard.
Well considering the amount of topics about "blue lacking a clear idea what blue is about now that we won't get counterspell and draw-go interactions" in the standard forum: yes blue has an identity crisis. It's near impossible to make a blue-main control or a blue-main mill deck nowadays.
As someone who gets blown out by u/r Dynavolt every week I can confirm that draw go is as powerful and obnoxious as ever.
I didn't mean Newlamog needed a better trigger than it has now. I meant a better trigger than the original. Exile two is a perfectly fine way not power it up since the exile 20 is weaker than annihilator. I think it's also pretty obvious looking at the wraths printed that most of them now cost 5 where ones that weren't Wrath of God costed 6 back in the day. If they printed a functional ripoff of Final Judgment now it would probably cost 5 mana so Descend Upon the Sinful isn't really that pushed.
The street goes both ways though, and players sometimes find that their only way to stop me is by exiling my most important cards. Because of this, I've deliberately built my deck to recur cards back from exile with Mirror of Fate. Mirror of Fate allows me to return up to seven cards from my exile back into my library, but in tandem with cards like Rest in Peace, I can theoretically get back any number of cards from exile (If Mirror of Fate somehow exiles itself before its activated ability resolves, you can choose to return the Mirror as one of your seven cards since its ability doesn't target). If Mirror of Fate somehow winds up stranded in exile by itself, I can even employ Riftsweeper to put it back into my deck to use another time. These tools feel extremely important to me because my Rube Goldberg machine won't work if certain cards become permanently lost. My opponents like the added challenge that comes with being unable to exile anything forever, and I enjoy how it requires me to take a sizable detour to move everything to where I want it to be.
So in that situation (with Rest in Peace on the battlefield) you basically just keep picking Mirror of Fate and 6 other cards to become your library until you get Mirror on the field again and activate?
So in that situation (with Rest in Peace on the battlefield) you basically just keep picking Mirror of Fate and 6 other cards to become your library until you get Mirror on the field again and activate?
Yes, that's correct.
Mirror of Fate doesn't target anything; it's controller chooses which cards they would like to pull back from exile. As such, if Mirror of Fate ends up in exile before its activated ability resolves it can be chosen as one of the seven cards. From there you can redraw the Mirror, play it again, and repeat the process all over again provided that you can continue to exile Mirror of Fate each time before you resolve its activated ability. There are several ways to do that; Rest in Peace just makes it really easy.
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I'm not sure where you got the misconception that six mana wraths are an old, rather than modern, trend when Wrath of God itself was printed it Alpha. The older wraths that cost 5+ had significant upside, like Catastrophe's ability to double as an Armageddon or Rout's optional flash. Honest to god wraths cost 5+ for the same reason mana dorks now cost 2+, MaRo decided that 4 and 1 were too good for standard.
It may be irrational, but this kind of comment pisses me off. MaRo didn't decide that, the design team did so. They didn't want to have to be careful with every green 3-drop because of Green's ability to power them out on turn 2. They didn't want to have 4-mana-wraths in Standard because it rendered bigger creatures near-obsolete unless they were titan levels of broken. But no, it's all MaRo's fault and wizards hates it's players, I get it.
As to the discussion at hand: Exile is simply needed. Even with the exile creep, GY based strategies are still awesome, both high and mid tier. Average tables can get headaches from Chainer, Meren, Karador, Athreos and various others, while high level tables have Hermit Druid to content with. Easier exile gives the possibility of dealing with that kind of stuff with a bit more ease, without making it TOO easy.
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My Commander decks:
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
I'd like for them to diversify removal instead of just using exile as a catch-all solution. I'd like to see more tuck, and forced sacrificing of targets, though at a premium for the latter.
I don't know how to "solve" this as I see the need for exile effects in standard, but I feel it drives decks to need to play more and more hexproof stuff, reducing interactivity.
I wonder how you all feel about this?
I find myself dropping creature protection cards in favor sacrifice outlets.
If I'm going to use a recursion engine, I want two things. A sac outlet, and hexproof on my person rather than my creatures (prefer Orbs of Warding).
What's this? You're trying to steal/exile a critical engine? *sacrifice in response*
With hexproof, the bojuka bog every black player runs can't exile it either. You remain vulnerable to the nastier gy hate out there, but that is a lot less prevalent than the easy stuff like bojuka.
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Stifle and Voidslime too, but they are big ones. I think they tried to mitigate these heavy duty exilers with things like Blight Herder, so that you would consider bringing cards back from exile. Granted, most of these are pretty average for EDH, but they tried.
My least favourite exile personally is Sadistic Sacrament. With kicker, its targeted, intentional disassembly of someone's deck. Last time I had it played against me I drew land 8 turns in a row and vowed I would never let it go unanswered again.
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The theme of the deck is to try and grind all the players decks out, like literally get them so that they have nothing left. I made it as a sort of casual deck, not thinking it would be very good. Every-time I play it over performs. It turns out exile is really hard to deal with. Even against non graveyard recursion decks, it just packs so much disruption that opponents have a hard time with it.
1 Oloro, Ageless Ascetic
Exiles
1 Descend upon the Sinful
1 Final Judgment
1 Rest in Peace
1 Leyline of the Void
1 Merciless Eviction
1 Path to Exile
1 Agent of Erebos
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
1 Karn Liberated
1 Kalemne's Captain
1 Luminate Primordial
1 Angel of the Dire Hour
1 Utter End
1 Fate Forgotten
1 Void Shatter
1 Return to Dust
1 Anguished Unmaking
1 Ashen Rider
1 Council's Judgment
1 Curse of the Swine
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
1 Sire of Stagnation
1 Perilous Vault
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 False Prophet
1 Ashes to Ashes
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Planar Void
1 Declaration in Stone
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Burnished Hart
1 Oblivion Sower
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Land Tax
Draw
1 Rhystic Study
1 Erebos, God of the Dead
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Necropotence
Tutors
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Grim Tutor
1 Beseech the Queen
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Zur the Enchanter
More distruption (non-exiling)
1 Darksteel Mutation
1 Austere Command
1 Nevermore
1 Mystic Barrier
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Helm of Obedience
Counters
1 Swan Song
1 Arcane Denial
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Mana Drain
1 Counterspell
1 Negate
1 Pact of Negation
1 Forbid
4 Snow-Covered Plains
3 Snow-Covered Swamp
4 Snow-Covered Island
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
1 Fetid Heath
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Underground Sea
1 Polluted Delta
1 Celestial Colonnade
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Kor Haven
1 Arid Mesa
1 Godless Shrine
1 Cabal Coffers
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Marsh Flats
1 Mystic Gate
1 Prairie Stream
1 Sunken Ruins
1 Sunken Hollow
1 Command Tower
1 Flooded Strand
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1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Windswept Heath
1 Verdant Catacombs
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
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GReki, the History of Kamigawa Legendfall
UGEdric, Spymaster of Trest Drawmaster of Trest | GBGlissa the Traitor A Touch of Death | WBTeysa, Orzhov Scion Spinning in Graves
UWIsperia, Supreme Judge A Riddles of Sphinxes | RG Mena and Denn, Wildborn Beware Falling Rocks | GWSigarda, Host of Hurons The Enchantress
WRGRith the Awakener Superfriendly Tokens
This is important. Indestructible needed to be less powered, simply so that we see less eldrazi titans, Colossi and other indestructible stuff dominating the EDH meta as a whole. It's not necessarily a bad thing to see indestructible become less relevant, but it can be frustrating to see exile become more relevant outside of the indestructible context. I get it, and I think this is the trouble with developing the game. There will always be push and pull, in order for one ability to be answerable another must be made more powerful, and this warps the game in subtle ways, such as the discussion we see here.
Now, as for exile effects, I've actually seen a mix of more efficent effects, exile, and tuck. Of course, with tutors, you can pick what you need at the time. It's also not a new thing. Years ago, I remember Sheldon mentioning being on an exile kick. That was back before we had such a huge variety of exile options. Of course, I'm sure metas will ebb and flow with potential threats. If indestructible and recursion are less important, people might gravitate back toward more efficient answers and more threats. I mean a few years ago when tokens were all the rage in my meta, wrath effects were a lot more common. Of course, having a bunch of decks also helps because you can't metagame against everything without building an anti meta deck that does nothing but play policeman. It kind of seems like the op's problem might be more that the decks in question tend to be recursion based. Maybe building more decks in a bigger variety might spread the answers more thin.
Again, moving forward to EDH, many players are slow to update and keep up with the ever-changing landscape of magic. Magic will die if it stagnates, and this shift represents change. It's up to EDH players to own up and alter their decks accordingly.
If anything, the "new" change is a positive one IMO. It's about time we see less recursive things. A game shouldn't be about centered around repetition of a few choice cards.
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
RoE Ulamog destroys one permanent on cast, Newlamog exiles two. Unmake exiled one creature for wb wb wb and Reality Shift does it for 1U in a color that shouldn't have spot removal in the first place. Descend Upon the Sinful is strictly better Final Judgment. Exile removal is absolutely on an upward creep, and with the exception of Orbs of Warding, which stops most of the popular graveyard nukes, no new tools have been printed to fight it. I can't remember the last time we got a good tuck effect, which also gets around indestructibility, WotC should really go that direction if they want to fight blightsteel and the gods.
I would really like to get the Riftsweeper trigger as an activated ability on a cheap utility card. Something along the lines of Scavenging Ooze or Bow of Nylea.
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate
As for creep, let's not forget that we've "creature creep" probably during Lorwyn onwards, except that it's not. The same with Blue losing more and more stuff on their color pie, the same with red expanding on what they can do. It's not creep. In MaRo's words, it's self-correcting.
In the eyes of a novice player, yea it does look like it's creeping. But to me creeping is when things go overboard; more than they should.
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
I didn't say that tuck was better, I said that I wanted WotC to start printing more of it as opposed to exile. Exile removal should be the exception, not the rule, and getting that level of finality should come at a premium. I suggested tuck as an alternative to exile because it also gets around indestructibility.
Also, how on Earth can you think blue's slice of the pie is shrinking, when using the whole pie has become one of its a feature? It snagged hexproof when they keyworded the mechanic and stopped printing shroud, it's stolen exile shenanigans and permanent removal from white, and uncounterable spells from red and green.
If people can get what they need from their decks, we should be able to get rid of anything.
Tuck comes at a cheaper mana cost, so I would like to see more of that, too.
(U/B)(U/B)(U/B) JUMP IN THE LINE, ROCK YOUR BODY IN TIME
(R/W)(R/W)(R/W) RISING FROM THE NEON GLOOM, SHINING LIKE A CRAZY MOON
(U/R)(R/G)(G/U) STEALIN' WHEN I SHOULD HAVE BEEN BUYIN'
Couldn't agree more.
You can play cards that make your enchantments, artifacts or creatures hexproof.
You can play countermagic to protect your key pieces... or sac outlets.
And if your deck falls apart when a single enchantment is exiled, maybe you are too dependant on that strategy.
Then there's always Riftsweeper.
8.RG Green Devotion Ramp/Combo 9.UR Draw Triggers 10.WUR Group stalling 11.WUR Voltron Spellslinger 12.WB Sacrificial Shenanigans
13.BR Creatureless Panharmonicon 14.BR Pingers and Eldrazi 15.URG Untapped Cascading
16.Reyhan, last of the Abzan's WUBG +1/+1 Counter Craziness 17.WUBRG Dragons aka Why did I make this?
Building: The Gitrog Monster lands, Glissa the Traitor stax, Muldrotha, the Gravetide Planeswalker Combo, Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix + Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa Clues, and Tribal Scarecrow Planeswalkers
A better trigger? What more could you possibly want than two free Scour from Existence stapled onto your 10/10 colorless beatstick? Replicating the trigger with spells would cost more mana than Ulamog.
I'm not sure where you got the misconception that six mana wraths are an old, rather than modern, trend when Wrath of God itself was printed it Alpha. The older wraths that cost 5+ had significant upside, like Catastrophe's ability to double as an Armageddon or Rout's optional flash. Honest to god wraths cost 5+ for the same reason mana dorks now cost 2+, MaRo decided that 4 and 1 were too good for standard.
As someone who gets blown out by u/r Dynavolt every week I can confirm that draw go is as powerful and obnoxious as ever.
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R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
Yes, that's correct.
Mirror of Fate doesn't target anything; it's controller chooses which cards they would like to pull back from exile. As such, if Mirror of Fate ends up in exile before its activated ability resolves it can be chosen as one of the seven cards. From there you can redraw the Mirror, play it again, and repeat the process all over again provided that you can continue to exile Mirror of Fate each time before you resolve its activated ability. There are several ways to do that; Rest in Peace just makes it really easy.
Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
It may be irrational, but this kind of comment pisses me off. MaRo didn't decide that, the design team did so. They didn't want to have to be careful with every green 3-drop because of Green's ability to power them out on turn 2. They didn't want to have 4-mana-wraths in Standard because it rendered bigger creatures near-obsolete unless they were titan levels of broken. But no, it's all MaRo's fault and wizards hates it's players, I get it.
As to the discussion at hand: Exile is simply needed. Even with the exile creep, GY based strategies are still awesome, both high and mid tier. Average tables can get headaches from Chainer, Meren, Karador, Athreos and various others, while high level tables have Hermit Druid to content with. Easier exile gives the possibility of dealing with that kind of stuff with a bit more ease, without making it TOO easy.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
I find myself dropping creature protection cards in favor sacrifice outlets.
If I'm going to use a recursion engine, I want two things. A sac outlet, and hexproof on my person rather than my creatures (prefer Orbs of Warding).
What's this? You're trying to steal/exile a critical engine? *sacrifice in response*
With hexproof, the bojuka bog every black player runs can't exile it either. You remain vulnerable to the nastier gy hate out there, but that is a lot less prevalent than the easy stuff like bojuka.