I know we have a lot of mana fixing in Modern, but it occurs to me that it is a bit odd that I have seen no lists with the Reflecting Pool for 5c fixing. Combined with City of Brass, Gemstone Mine, or Vivid lands you have a lot of fixing. Now, it is not fetchable with Zen fetches, but aside from that it seems like a good budget option.
whenever I play a 4 or 5 colored deck, reflecting pool has been there. I love that card. It is very handy with the filter lands as well. (the colorless or tap UU ww Uw)
The main problem is that the only decks that really want to be playing such a crazy manabase are aggro decks for tribal flames, or combo decks, both of which it doesn't work very well in.
Control decks in the format can't afford to be playing vivid lands, and there really isn't that good of a reason to play more than 3 colors in a control deck right now outside perhaps a light splash to get value from cards like ancient grudge.
If anything, control wants to be more mono blue right now than anything just for Vedalken Shackles and Cryptic Command.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Find me online - I'm on Cockatrice * Tag - Badd B - Or on MTGO - Tag - Cbus05
In my opinion, any deck with more than two colors should play Reflecting Pool. There's no convincing reason not to. I run a playset in my Assault-Loam deck (can't really call it Aggro Loam as it's creatureless at the moment) and the only time I'm ever not happy to see it is when it's the only land in my opening hand.
I play one in my Ritual Gifts build. I can't afford to run Sulfur Falls in my manabase because they usually come into play tapped or don't help me produce the right colors on time--if I play a Halimar Depths and then a Storage land, Sulfur Falls isn't going to be helpful to me. I also only run 10 total lands which either are Islands/Mountains or fetch for Islands/Mountains, and I think that 11 is about the minimum count for a land like Sulfur Falls to act like a Volcanic Island.
On the other hand, if I have a Halimar Depths and a red storage land on the table, Reflecting Pool is a Volcanic Island that also taps for a third color. That makes it better than Sulfur Falls because it always comes into play untapped, it can help me do things like pay for Slaughter Pact, hardcast Noxious Revival, or set an Engineered Explosives for higher than 2.
The reason why I only play one Reflecting Pool is probably the same reason that it doesn't see that much play elsewhere: where is the deck space? I run 23 lands, which is already a lot for a storm deck--even though it's hybridized and it's also very much a control deck (especially with some sideboard configurations). I need to run 4 Halimar Depths, 4 storage lands, enough fetchlands to make those Halimar Depths work, enough basics and shocklands to make the basics run smoothly, and then I have only about 4 slots left for other types of lands. If I were to run more Reflecting Pools, it would cut into my dual land count. It's a good color-fixer, but it doesn't find you red mana if you don't already have a red source on the table or if your opponent has blown up your only red source(s). That's the downside.
As far as a rainbow manabase is concerned: What kind of deck is interested in playing City of Brass and Gemstone Mine in the first place? Usually some pretty ballsy combo decks are interested in those lands. I am reminded of Hypergenesis, Pre-Hedron Crab Dredge, and a number of multicolor Storm variants. Since one of those is banned and the next is very interested in playing fetchlands to feed that powerful Hedron Crab engine, I guess it would take a Storm deck with Silences and Thoughtseizes or some other similar combo deck...but otherwise I just don't see the Gemstone Mine/City of Brass/Reflecting Pool manabase being desired...yet. Maybe next Modern season.
This has been brought up before. What is written below also holds for Exotic Orchard.
1) If your hand is full of Reflecting Pools you can't make any mana.
2) For mana fixing purposes, you want access to colors that you can't get, not more of one particular color that you already have.
3) 2 color decks have a myriad of options - shocks, pains, SOM duals, checks...
4) 3 color decks can survive on fetches+shocks.
5) There are no good 4/5 color decks.
Reflecting Pool is awesome in 5cc (Cruel) Control decks because they basically have to mull 1-land hands (solving the "only land in hand" problem) and they might be able to afford the tempo loss of so many Vivid lands. (Life loss from City of Brass and eventual land loss of Gemstone Mine usually isn't worth it for that deck.)
I don't like Reflecting Pool in 3-colour decks because it fixes mana too badly. It's borderline playable in 4-colour decks with enough lands, though, and at least it never incurs life loss.
Simply fetchs and shocks are way better at what pool does. Even tri colored decks would rather see a shock or fetch plus a basic or utility land than pool plus any other land in their starting hand. And there really isn't any deck that wants to go over the top like cruel control that actively wants to play several colors and can afford to play vivids.
Hands with a pool and a random land are very likely unkeepable for tri colored decks. Add in that everyone is trying to either shove colorless sources in their decks or trying to get shackles online as soon as possible and you should get an idea.
Pools are great for manafixing in the mid to late game, but only the aggro decks are playing 3 colors or more and they can't afford to see it too early and don't have issues with the mana later on. Tron has taken the place as the default control list, so there is no room for this kind of manafixing. Cards like Cruel Ultimatum are nowhere to be seen in control lists and jund doesn't need Demigod of Revenge in this format.
The whole point of Reflecting Pool is to cast spells which have very tough mana costs. This isn't something you can always solve with fetches and duals. Reflecing Pools is the kind of land that can contribute to Cryptic Command, Volcanic Fallout, and Esper Charm from one turn to the next. For most Modern decks, they won't need that kind of color fixing. But Reflecting Pool is in the format, and it's far from uelsess. It allows us the option to build a very color-greedy deck. Sure, there are consequences to this (especially with Blood Moon around--Magus is pretty easy to solve), but the last time people wrote of this land was when it was reprinted in Standard. And anyone who was around for the rise of Quick 'n' Toast will remember how stupid they felt for thinking of Reflecting Pool as anything below its actual power level (which is through the ceiling of the stars). I know that I thought it was lackluster before personally seeing someone with the balls to play 8 Vivid lands at the Pro Tour in Los Angeles.
When Reflecting Pool was in recent Standard, and 5-color decks became viable, there was no Ghost Quarter nor Tectonic Edge. So the risk of playing Vivids+Pool was really pretty low. IIRC, you pretty much only had to worry about Fulminator Mage as far as LD you might predictably run into.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Reprint Opt for Modern!!
FREE DIG THOROUGH TIME!
PLAY MORE ROUGE DECKS!
Control decks in the format can't afford to be playing vivid lands, and there really isn't that good of a reason to play more than 3 colors in a control deck right now outside perhaps a light splash to get value from cards like ancient grudge.
If anything, control wants to be more mono blue right now than anything just for Vedalken Shackles and Cryptic Command.
On the other hand, if I have a Halimar Depths and a red storage land on the table, Reflecting Pool is a Volcanic Island that also taps for a third color. That makes it better than Sulfur Falls because it always comes into play untapped, it can help me do things like pay for Slaughter Pact, hardcast Noxious Revival, or set an Engineered Explosives for higher than 2.
The reason why I only play one Reflecting Pool is probably the same reason that it doesn't see that much play elsewhere: where is the deck space? I run 23 lands, which is already a lot for a storm deck--even though it's hybridized and it's also very much a control deck (especially with some sideboard configurations). I need to run 4 Halimar Depths, 4 storage lands, enough fetchlands to make those Halimar Depths work, enough basics and shocklands to make the basics run smoothly, and then I have only about 4 slots left for other types of lands. If I were to run more Reflecting Pools, it would cut into my dual land count. It's a good color-fixer, but it doesn't find you red mana if you don't already have a red source on the table or if your opponent has blown up your only red source(s). That's the downside.
As far as a rainbow manabase is concerned: What kind of deck is interested in playing City of Brass and Gemstone Mine in the first place? Usually some pretty ballsy combo decks are interested in those lands. I am reminded of Hypergenesis, Pre-Hedron Crab Dredge, and a number of multicolor Storm variants. Since one of those is banned and the next is very interested in playing fetchlands to feed that powerful Hedron Crab engine, I guess it would take a Storm deck with Silences and Thoughtseizes or some other similar combo deck...but otherwise I just don't see the Gemstone Mine/City of Brass/Reflecting Pool manabase being desired...yet. Maybe next Modern season.
1) If your hand is full of Reflecting Pools you can't make any mana.
2) For mana fixing purposes, you want access to colors that you can't get, not more of one particular color that you already have.
3) 2 color decks have a myriad of options - shocks, pains, SOM duals, checks...
4) 3 color decks can survive on fetches+shocks.
5) There are no good 4/5 color decks.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
I don't like Reflecting Pool in 3-colour decks because it fixes mana too badly. It's borderline playable in 4-colour decks with enough lands, though, and at least it never incurs life loss.
Hands with a pool and a random land are very likely unkeepable for tri colored decks. Add in that everyone is trying to either shove colorless sources in their decks or trying to get shackles online as soon as possible and you should get an idea.
Pools are great for manafixing in the mid to late game, but only the aggro decks are playing 3 colors or more and they can't afford to see it too early and don't have issues with the mana later on. Tron has taken the place as the default control list, so there is no room for this kind of manafixing. Cards like Cruel Ultimatum are nowhere to be seen in control lists and jund doesn't need Demigod of Revenge in this format.