MTG Salvation

Welcome to my blog, I plan on doing tons of articles here and giving my more competitive point of view on commander and cards










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Top Modern Masters cards for Commander

http://diestodoomblade.blogspot.com/2017/03/top-ten-modern-masters-2017-cards-for.html

Quote from JDviant »

We have 82 Walkers already!? It feels like yesterday when there were none. I'm so old...this is how Urza must have felt all the time.

Oh no...after reading that list the part of me that likes trying to work bad cards is screaming that I should make a R reanimator deck with Tibalt. We all know how that ends up. Please brain no, 2017 has started out so well!

Don't do it. You could always sell him and get a tasty beverage instead!

Both Chandras that aren't ablaze are good in superfriends builds that contain red. Ablaze is good in Olivia Mobilized. Both Jaces put in work in decks that want to self mill. Ajani is still good in token decks. Gatewatch Gids should be lower. I have never seen him do anything, and you can't even cheat his ult with doubling season.

Oh, and my bet for #1 is OG Sorin. His minus ability usually translates in "Destroy target player." Elspeth Sun's Champion and Ugin as honorable mentions.

I would contest Chandra Ablaze being THIS low. The CMC is horrible and her first two abilities are meh, but she has more usage outside of mono-red. I have her in my Niv 1.0 deck, and she can often provide a little nudge for me to take home the win(minus ability for a few more cards, which might be spells for me to draw even more, etc).

The others are quite understandable...I'd completely forgotten about Nissa 1.0, and good LORD, is she poor. Ajani 1.0(one of my standard favorites back in the day) also is hideous to behold any more.

I'm running a copy of Jace, the Living Guildpact in my Intet Dragons deck and Chandra Ablaze in my Jaya deck.

Quote from Onering »

Oh, and my bet for #1 is OG Sorin. His minus ability usually translates in "Destroy target player." Elspeth Sun's Champion and Ugin as honorable mentions.

Oh man will you be disappointed.

Quote from ChazA4 »

I would contest Chandra Ablaze being THIS low. The CMC is horrible and her first two abilities are meh, but she has more usage outside of mono-red. I have her in my Niv 1.0 deck, and she can often provide a little nudge for me to take home the win(minus ability for a few more cards, which might be spells for me to draw even more, etc).

This is what I'm hearing and what's surprising me the most.
I don't think the card is good by any stretch of the imagination but she could have been slid up a few slots

My guess for high-ranking PWs (where seeing them in EDH wouldn't be considered at all suboptimal)

Tezzeret the Seeker
Elspeth, Sun's Champion
Karn Liberated
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Teferi, Temporal Archmage
Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury
Daretti, Scrap Savant
Dack Fayden

3 of them get artifacts, and those that don't almost all blow up stuff (or multiple things) and leave a threat behind.

I personally believe that Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast is also quite good but not a lot of other people have experience with him.

Oh, I also forgot Jace, Vryn's Prodigy on that list. Can't forget the blue 2-mana one!

Literally all of those will place high.

I don't think freyilise is super great but she still is far better than most walkers.

While I feel that it is likely that the rankings are going to be very much skewed towards usefulness in a combo happy meta, in my slow paced, casual social playing meta Gideon Jura can do work. By forcing an opponent to swing into either your blockers or waste a turn hitting Gideon, he can really screw up combat plans, especially when he is in an Atraxa deck. Champion of Justice has been turning out poorly in the deck though, without evasion he just gets chumped, and people don't want everything exiled.

On the topic of Nissa Revane, she does make it so her chosen can chump every turn. And spewing out all your elves just to get the pumps to make your existing elves lethal is a thing.

Sarkhan's ult is pretty devastating if you manage to Harmless Offering him after using a Mindslaver on that opponent

I actually played that Ajani back when I was trying to brew Darien. He was relatively serviceable, but nothing to write home about. Good reads, both this and the 10 underplayed cards thing. Now I'm trying to determine if I should wedge Carpet of Flowers into my Patron of the Orochi, simultaneously correcting for the fact my meta is some sort of crazy Naya cluster****.

I imagine many of the planeswalkers I rate quite highly will rate only middling-high on this listing, due to an obvious bias toward combo, with one exception being Tezzeret 1, who I consider arguably the best planeswalker for EDH, due to his first two abilities being so exceptionally strong. Garruk Wildspeaker is also quite good when combined with various lands that produce extra mana and for an easy-to-achieve, potentially game-winning ultimate, and Daretti I is insanely good, so I expect both of them will rate pretty high. I'm one of those barbarians who still plays red-zone and creature-oriented decks, though, and as such, I find Venser, the Sojourner, Garruk, Primal Hunter, Elspeth, Sun's Champion, Sarkhan Vol and Xenagos, the Reveler to be very strong. I don't know how many times Venser has won me games, either straight-out by making my stuff unblockable or through sheer value of flickering things. He's one of the few cards that has lasted through ever iteration of my very first EDH deck (Rafiq), and I have literally never been unhappy to draw him.

For the most part, I agree with your rankings. Ablaze is a little low, considering her -2 is actually somewhat absurd for a number of decks and the potential disruption it represents is significant, especially in advanced metas where tutors are abundant. However, as the walkers you discuss rise in ranking and complexity, I'd appreciate a more in-depth analysis than simply "This card is bad *sarcastic remark*". Perhaps a solid paragraph where you address where the card functions, where it doesn't, and how it compares to other options at the same CMC.

Other than that and few typos, the article was insightful and mildly entertaining. I just think you can do better next round.

Quote from Igzex »

Sarkhan's ult is pretty devastating if you manage to Harmless Offering him after using a Mindslaver on that opponent

You mean to donate a grafted skullcap, except twice as convoluted and for 11 more mana?

You strange, twisted man.

Part 2 of me ripping into the planeswalkers of EDH continues...


http://diestodoomblade.blogspot.com/2017/01/ranking-planeswalkers-69-60.html


If you thought I was too critical before then you may have something to say here

I play Sarkhan Vol in my Intet deck too and he's always been solid.

Sarkhan Vol is certainly not that bad. I mean a 4 mana enchantment that said "creatures you control get +1/+1 and haste" is certainly not the worst. Combine it with stealing any creature on board and a pretty achievable ult and he's quite a strong PW. I used to run him as a one-of in a modern Genesis Wave deck as a haste provider with upside.

Also I reckon that any Planeswalker that can actively draw you a card is better than Planeswalkers that don't, exception being the ones that net you multiple kills in card advantage (like Ugin and Elspeth, Sun's Champion).

Comparing every card to a "better" card of equal mana cost seems unfair. Like saying Sorin is bad because he's six mana compared to Consecrated Sphinx or Ad Nauseum is unreasonable. Not every deck wants Ad Nauseum and not every deck that plays Sorin can play Sphinx. Judge cards on their own merits, not because there's a card at the same CMC that's really good.

Also I never see people actively "love" Ashiok in EDH, Ashiok's just a pretty good card in Cubes.

You try way too hard to be funny. It's decent analysis for a cutthroat tier 1 meta, but the YouTuber quality humor is grating.

Thanks for the input guys. I'm gonna try and take everyone's opinion and work on the blog to make it cater better to you all.
I still don't think any of these cards are good but I'm looking forward to seeing what you all think about future write ups

Quote from TheAmericanSpirit »

Quote from Igzex »

Sarkhan's ult is pretty devastating if you manage to Harmless Offering him after using a Mindslaver on that opponent

You mean to donate a grafted skullcap, except twice as convoluted and for 11 more mana?

You strange, twisted man.

Thank you :3c

I knew Sarkhan The Mad was gonna be low. He's so underestimated and just needs the right deck. He's to me what Dark Magician is to Yugi. Sure dragon decks are by no means competitive but when I drop him down the momentum changes greatly whether it'd be drawing me a card I need, -4: Destroy target player, or a threat bursting out of the chest of a stray kobold.

I seriously disagree with several of your rankings this time around, but again, I'm not surprised that you and I rank things very differently, as you are clearly ranking things based on a more competitive, combo-based metagame. Sorin, Grim Nemesis is card draw that also damages opponents, and when combined with effects that let you stack your topdeck, it can be a killer. Sarkhan Vol is very strong in a range of aggro builds. I could go on, but I don't see a point, when your critiques are based around whether or not something will stop infinite damage combos. The contempt you display for playstyles other than your own renders the article pretty much unreadable, and I won't be bothering with the future installments.

Rankings so far seem reasonable-ish. Article was fun to read. However I think comparing practically any walker to "your opponent plays ad nauseum and draws 40 cards" is kind of pointless, very few walkers are going to be at all reasonable in a meta that's nothing but top-tier combo.

Also, I realize you need to leave room for a lot more walkers, but something like gideon 1.0 or chandra (...2.0? 3.0? the wheel one) is miles better than sarkhan, the intro pack commanders, or god forbid nissa 1.0 or tibalt. Sure, Gideon has zero chance against ad nauseam but for precon-level tables I think he's ok. Really the biggest downside of his +2 is one you never mentioned, which is that in multiplayer commander you aren't the target opponents only opponent - so forcing them to attack your stuff, specifically, gets a lot worse, since otherwise they might have attacked someone else which would probably have been more beneficial. Plus if you're planning to eat them on blocks, they're incentivized to kill your creatures, which they otherwise might have left alone or even used their removal elsewhere. Basically it forces antagonism with an opponent, which is of course not an issue in 1v1.

"Oh man... This entry is not kind to Sorin...oh well. Maybe he should stop sucking first." i c wat u did thar (Of course, Sorin will end up probably being #1.)

63 Ajani actually does have one thing. Sun Titan synergy, and with 67 Ajani, never underestimate filtering.

A lot of them become better with Doubling Season. (The ones where you can ult immediately with Doubling Season.)

Quote from hyalapterouslemur »

"Oh man... This entry is not kind to Sorin...oh well. Maybe he should stop sucking first." i c wat u did thar (Of course, Sorin will end up probably being #1.)

63 Ajani actually does have one thing. Sun Titan synergy, and with 67 Ajani, never underestimate filtering.

A lot of them become better with Doubling Season. (The ones where you can ult immediately with Doubling Season.)

Sure you could make the doubling season argument for all of them but unless its a heavy superfriends deck i don't want to assume that it will always be out.

That said the ajanjs are most likely to have doubling season and I feel like they have underwhelming ults. Not sure if wizards intended this.

Quote from JWK »

I seriously disagree with several of your rankings this time around, but again, I'm not surprised that you and I rank things very differently, as you are clearly ranking things based on a more competitive, combo-based metagame. Sorin, Grim Nemesis is card draw that also damages opponents, and when combined with effects that let you stack your topdeck, it can be a killer. Sarkhan Vol is very strong in a range of aggro builds. I could go on, but I don't see a point, when your critiques are based around whether or not something will stop infinite damage combos. The contempt you display for playstyles other than your own renders the article pretty much unreadable, and I won't be bothering with the future installments.

The rankings I have no problem with, it's the vitriol that gets me as well. When I read the first part, I had high hopes it would evolve into the format of a helpful guide for new players (a la Phil's stax guide or BlackJack's EDH intro guide). Instead, it's just devolved into cursing and disparaging assumptions. I tried to issue some constructive comments earlier, but it seems OP is just riding the high of shock value and trolling people who actually want to develop pertinent community resources.