I have not been impressed with Archetype of Imagination so far. It comes down too late, and it's too easily killed for what it does and what it costs, not to mention that it can lead to blowouts against instant speed removal. I assume this will be a minority opinion, but I prefer Chorus of the Tides.
I agree with Chorus of the Tides. Assault Griffin is excellent in this format, and it's more important for blue decks to establish their base first than worry about the top of the curve. Archetype only shines if you can establish tempo dominance and have reasonable things to levitate, and I expect it to be far worse in draft than sealed.
I've also come around to preferring Chorus to Archetype. I was pretty excited about the latter and unimpressed with the former to start with, but in practice Snapping Drake has been better than I expected and Archetype hasn't done enough to justify the cost and risk associated with it. It's early yet and I could be wrong, but that's been my experience.
I'm holding off on voting because of Sudden Storm, though. I was skeptical of adding a mana to Frost Breath, but it does seem like a good format for that effect, and people have been telling me it's overperforming. If anyone would like to persuade me to take it over Chorus, I'm all ears.
Sudden Storm, and, while I hate this phrase in such discussions, I don't think it's close. 3/2 flier is good, but replaceable. Frost Breath is very, very strong in this format... you could not draw too many of these.
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I'm inclined to say Sudden Storm as well. Tap and keep tapped for a turn just seems quite strong in THS (witness Wavecrash Titan, which does it in a much clunkier manner). It's kind of a poor mans Sea God's Revenge.
Ways it is better:
Cheaper
Instant
Taps down an entire Voltron as opposed to having a bunch of pieces fall off and still be able to block/attack
Doesn't allow bounced bestow creatures to be bestowed.
Ways it is worse:
Fewer targets
Opponent doesn't have to respend mana.
Doesn't get rid of non-bestow auras.
Untap effects like Sudden Surge and Triton Tactics might be able to blow you out.
I don't think you can just blow off the 3-power flyer - there aren't *that* many of them and none of them are 4 mana, but I do agree with Sudden Storm.
We've already got a 5, so I'd really rather not grab a 6. Personally I'm more a fan of a solid creature than a conditionally useful trick. As such Chorus of the Tides it is.
We've already got a 5, so I'd really rather not grab a 6. Personally I'm more a fan of a solid creature than a conditionally useful trick. As such Chorus of the Tides it is.
I can much more easily imagine a board where Chorus of Tides is a blank than Sudden Storm is a blank...
We've already got a 5, so I'd really rather not grab a 6. Personally I'm more a fan of a solid creature than a conditionally useful trick. As such Chorus of the Tides it is.
"Conditionally useful trick" is a woefully inadequate summation of Sudden Storm.
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It's not a consistently good card. Adding an extra mana to Frost Breath is a big downside (and not at all made up by the scry), for one thing. There are situations where it's a dead card, situations where you have to use it for dubious value (slowing down your opponent by a couple of turns when you're on the back foot is alright, but spending a card and four mana on it puts you in a very awkward place), and slower blue decks don't get anywhere near as much consistent value out of it as aggressive ones.
Frost Breath would be overpowered in this set. At four, it's balanced, and the scry 1 is, as always, just gravy.
Like all cards, there are situations where it is better and worse, but the only condition this needs to be useful is being so far ahead or behind that removing two creatures for two turns is pointless.
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I will put my vote behind Sudden Storm. I agree with those who have noted that Chorus of the Tides is good, yet replaceable. In practice, I have found that the ability to blank combat for two full turns is too consistently useful to ignore.
Wavecrash Triton gives a "mini frostbreath" with each trigger and honestly he's one of my least favorite heroic dudes (I also was not a fan of Frost Breath in core for what it's worth). Maybe I'll see a game where this card blows things out of the water and I'll change my view but as it stands I don't value it nearly as highly as you guys seem to.
I agree that the pick is between Sudden Storm and Chorus of the Tides, with Archetype of Imagination a distant third. I also think it's a very close pick. I'm leaning towards Sudden Storm because that card has dome some incredible things for me, but it's really hard to pass the solid creature.
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It's not your job to win games of Magic where you're mana screwed.
It's your job win every game of Magic where you're not.
Sudden Storm may suffer from that bias where you remember the times it won you the game / beat you when you thought you were ahead, but you forget the times it just delays the inevitable or never gets cast because the board was never right for it. It's a metagame card. Maybe it's good, but there's no doubt that 3/2 Flying is good.
I'll agree that it's a metagame card; where we part ways is that I believe the metagame in which it is good is the entire Theros limited environment. It's not a game-ending bomb like Sea God's Revenge, but rather a highly consistent workhorse that is equally at home in GU and UB, both of which are powerful decks.
The only matchup I have found in which it is relatively weak is against RW aggro, and in that scenario I find Chorus of the Tides to be even weaker. Don't get me wrong -- Chorus is great. It's just too easily stopped by every flier in the format to be anywhere near as consistent as Sudden Storm.
Justification is always appreciated, but I've never found it necessary.
I'm surprised at the dislike for the Archetype. Seems like a game-ender to me. I hate seeing all of this top end so early, though, as I'm afraid it will put pressure on to pick lower curve creatures later on. Sudden Storm is middle-of-the-curve stuff, and keeps us open to both tempo and control styles, so I'm going to head in that direction.
I agree, it's just the ordering of the cards. I would pick Archetype myself, but 'early' on, I would rather go for the cards that Blue needs. And it needs some type of either bounce, or tempo. If you don't get those cards, you just lose.
It's better (IMO of course!), to pass random guys but not to pass random spells early
It's always served me well to avoid these type of 'traps', ie, you see all these so-so creatures being passed to you, so you think, 'AH HA!! Blue is open'. Then after the draft you realize...'oh, I got random dudes, but none of the necessary spells'.
The opposite seems true for Black (ie you get all these great spells, but no creatures) (Biased opinion of course!!)
I'm going to go with Sudden Storm here. It seems like there are just a lot of places where two frozen guys can win you the game over a 3/2 with a heroic upside.
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L5R or MTG, if it's got Samurai, Knights or Soldiers, it's all good as far as I'm concerned.
I'm glad most people have come over to the Sudden Storm side. I try to have two of these in my deck and I'm almost always happy to draw it. A lot of times when you play this it doesn't seem fair to your opponent. You either get the ability to take over by stabilizing and setting up your draws, or just kill based on opponent losing the ability to block twice plus scry!
Frost Breath would be overpowered in this set. At four, it's balanced, and the scry 1 is, as always, just gravy.
Like all cards, there are situations where it is better and worse, but the only condition this needs to be useful is being so far ahead or behind that removing two creatures for two turns is pointless.
It's rarely uncastable, sure. But when you're using it defensively it's pretty bad - most of the time you buy yourself one turn, not two (spend a turn casting it). Then you're down a card. In any situation where you're not going to smash through a game-swinging amount of damage or semi-blow out an opponent's play the card is unsatisfying, because the card disadvantage comes back to bite you. That's a lot of downside, and you can't just slam the card in any blue deck. It does have very high upside as well, but it is situational.
What are the (common) situations where you don't want this? When you're a little behind and need the time to stabalize this is going to freeze two creatures from attacking for two turns and give you scry, if you need more help than that it isn't sudden storm's fault. If you are ahead it let's you flat out win, if you are racing it let's you win the race.
Games in Theros often come down to managing tempo. I view Sudden Storm as a baby Sea God's Revenge - it doesn't tie up their mana or hit as many creatures as Sea God's does, but it does tie up their creatures, it costs much less, and is instant speed to boot. And as with Sea God's, I look at it as a highly offensive card. I think it's an excellent card to have access to in your deck that gives you an angle of attack that a lot of decks aren't prepared to deal with.
Then again, it's really hard to argue with anyone who just wants to take the efficient creature with the second pick. It often is correct to just take the efficient creature when in doubt.
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It's not your job to win games of Magic where you're mana screwed.
It's your job win every game of Magic where you're not.
What are the (common) situations where you don't want this? When you're a little behind and need the time to stabalize this is going to freeze two creatures from attacking for two turns and give you scry, if you need more help than that it isn't sudden storm's fault. If you are ahead it let's you flat out win, if you are racing it let's you win the race.
It's four mana, so it usually buys you one turn when you're behind (takes a turn to cast) and costs a card. You do usually want more help than that + scry 1, yes. You want a card that actually helps you stabilise. It's not the worst card to have in that situation, but it's not miles better than a fog effect either, and no one wants to play fog.
It's not necessarily powerful on balanced boards either, since the damage you get in from two turns worth of attacks (and that's assuming they don't play something relevant the next turn) is far from certain to be worth the card.
It should be buying you about two turns. Declare combat step, tap down their two would be attacking creatures, and they also don't get to attack you next turn, that's close to two turn fog plus scry, which has been solid (almost unfair at times).
It does depend on your deck building skills I guess. I've found in all three of the common situations in Magic, a little behind, racing, a little ahead the card is always something I'm happy to draw. This is a card that is currently underrated from what I've seen so far.It's usually only bad in situations where you'd accept it to be bad. It's a very strong tempo card and more often than you would imagine it wins on the spot in a blue fliers deck.
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I'm holding off on voting because of Sudden Storm, though. I was skeptical of adding a mana to Frost Breath, but it does seem like a good format for that effect, and people have been telling me it's overperforming. If anyone would like to persuade me to take it over Chorus, I'm all ears.
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Ways it is better:
Cheaper
Instant
Taps down an entire Voltron as opposed to having a bunch of pieces fall off and still be able to block/attack
Doesn't allow bounced bestow creatures to be bestowed.
Ways it is worse:
Fewer targets
Opponent doesn't have to respend mana.
Doesn't get rid of non-bestow auras.
Untap effects like Sudden Surge and Triton Tactics might be able to blow you out.
I don't think you can just blow off the 3-power flyer - there aren't *that* many of them and none of them are 4 mana, but I do agree with Sudden Storm.
I can much more easily imagine a board where Chorus of Tides is a blank than Sudden Storm is a blank...
"Conditionally useful trick" is a woefully inadequate summation of Sudden Storm.
My Decks:
EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn
Modern: Polytokes
IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Just a friendly reminder that I will drive this car off a bridge
Frost Breath would be overpowered in this set. At four, it's balanced, and the scry 1 is, as always, just gravy.
Like all cards, there are situations where it is better and worse, but the only condition this needs to be useful is being so far ahead or behind that removing two creatures for two turns is pointless.
My Decks:
EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn
Modern: Polytokes
IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Just a friendly reminder that I will drive this car off a bridge
It's your job win every game of Magic where you're not.
The only matchup I have found in which it is relatively weak is against RW aggro, and in that scenario I find Chorus of the Tides to be even weaker. Don't get me wrong -- Chorus is great. It's just too easily stopped by every flier in the format to be anywhere near as consistent as Sudden Storm.
(Do we need to justify picks or just state them?)
Justification is always appreciated, but I've never found it necessary.
I'm surprised at the dislike for the Archetype. Seems like a game-ender to me. I hate seeing all of this top end so early, though, as I'm afraid it will put pressure on to pick lower curve creatures later on. Sudden Storm is middle-of-the-curve stuff, and keeps us open to both tempo and control styles, so I'm going to head in that direction.
It's better (IMO of course!), to pass random guys but not to pass random spells early
It's always served me well to avoid these type of 'traps', ie, you see all these so-so creatures being passed to you, so you think, 'AH HA!! Blue is open'. Then after the draft you realize...'oh, I got random dudes, but none of the necessary spells'.
The opposite seems true for Black (ie you get all these great spells, but no creatures) (Biased opinion of course!!)
L5R or MTG, if it's got Samurai, Knights or Soldiers, it's all good as far as I'm concerned.
What are the (common) situations where you don't want this? When you're a little behind and need the time to stabalize this is going to freeze two creatures from attacking for two turns and give you scry, if you need more help than that it isn't sudden storm's fault. If you are ahead it let's you flat out win, if you are racing it let's you win the race.
Then again, it's really hard to argue with anyone who just wants to take the efficient creature with the second pick. It often is correct to just take the efficient creature when in doubt.
It's your job win every game of Magic where you're not.
It should be buying you about two turns. Declare combat step, tap down their two would be attacking creatures, and they also don't get to attack you next turn, that's close to two turn fog plus scry, which has been solid (almost unfair at times).
It does depend on your deck building skills I guess. I've found in all three of the common situations in Magic, a little behind, racing, a little ahead the card is always something I'm happy to draw. This is a card that is currently underrated from what I've seen so far.It's usually only bad in situations where you'd accept it to be bad. It's a very strong tempo card and more often than you would imagine it wins on the spot in a blue fliers deck.