I've been playing them for a while in Ritual Gifts and have a sort of love/ hate relationship with them. Sometimes it can be awesome, being able to tutor up a counterspell to protect my combo, or an Electrolyze to kill some guys. It's a super versatile card, but other times it can just be too slow.
So what do you guys think of Merchant Scroll? Is the Sorcery speed pitfall overcome by it's cheap, versatile, tutoring power?
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Not just the Tendo King, the power of the Galactic Leyline surpasses that of the Tempa Emperor, No!, It's magnificent power is even greater than that!
Though I love this card for all it's unique ways to tutor up some mischief, I do believe the sorcery speed is it's downfall. Okay so Blue has their own Demonic Tutor for most of the spells it would be looking for, but for U that is a huge drawback that it can't be cast at the end of their opponents turn.
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It's not the fall that hurts, it's the sudden stop at the bottom.
the red mage lives by the variance and dies by the variance. May the variance be with you, always.
Yeah, I tried it out in the first builds of Green's Sun's Zenith but I found that it would bee too slow, or because of the extra 2 mana I would have to wait a turn to use the spell I got with it. This left me open to discard which when running 1-ofs that you tutor up poses a real problem.. Since then I have backed away form the card but it is still something that could become really good if more stuff like Dig Through Time gets printed, or even more 0 cmc instants.
I would play it if it could have searched up a card with flash (mystical teachings is one alternative, but that costs 4 and I would rather cast this on 2 to set up my turn 3 or turn 4 than tap out 4 mana on turn 4 just to search)
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Decks I have in my bag of tricks- Needless to say, someone who wants to play will probably have a deck UB/x Faeries UR Storm XURWB Affinity G Elves UW control
Agreed. If the metagame slowed down enough to make an Esper Gifts list playable, I could see running it as gifts 5 and 6, with the added utility of sticking a random one into a value gifts pile to grab another gifts or cryptic, but at that point you should just be winning the game anyway. When we have an instant-speed wrath with blue in its mana cost somehow (UB Consume the Meek?) I could see it being more playable.
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Yes, I am a local area mod. WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE
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EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
There's nothing in modern that's blue worth tutoring with merchant scroll. It's better to just have more card draw or counter spells in the first place.
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Currently playing: GCasual 8-post R Casual Land Destruction UBRWG Legacy Dredge WGB Modern Melira Pod RUG EDH
not necessarily. Cryptic Command, Gifts Ungiven, or Mystical Teachings are likely worth grabbing with merchant scroll, but that's not enough versatility to be worth running merchant scroll except as perhaps extra copies of gifts, which isn't playable at the moment as its own shell. I would say teachings also fits that slot, except teachings can grab a copy of itself and then flashback for actual targets, as a very slow "draw" engine.
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Your deck really needs to be chock full of blue Instants for it to be good. It's why it only sees play in High Tide in Legacy, because outside of some of the cantrips and Time Spiral, every spell in that deck is an Instant. If some combo deck like that ends up being a thing, it'll see more play in Modern.
please... wizards isn't going to let a high-tide deck exist in modern ever. They HATED that it dominated legacy for almost three years.
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I don't think you want to be grabbing either Gifts or Teachings with it. You're basically tutoring for a tutor that can tutor for something else. That's two turns of doing nothing. Teachings is way too slow on its own (I've been there) and adding 1U to its cost doesn't help.
I don't hate using it to grab Cryptic or even Sphinx's Rev (since it gains you life unlike Gifts/Teachings) but if that's the only thing worth getting, then it's obviously not good enough.
I agree with someone else that wrote that if they printed a blue Consume the Meek then it would be a step in the right direction. Either that or if some combo emerged where one of the pieces was a blue instant.
That's exactly the point I was making when I said we needed a blue consume the meek--Until that happens, the only things worth grabbing are cryptic and rev, and those decks would rather run something else since you could just play an extra cryptic or rev in that slot. Mystical teachings I could see running a 1 of since a teachings deck likely has other blue instants worth grabbing (like cryptic) and when in doubt, or in slow matchups like control mirrors, it can find a mystical teachings (the card that is functionally your Card Advantage engine IS teachings in teachings decks, so finding one with a tutor in a control mirror is not out of place for example). In gifts builds, same story--It finds gifts, or it comes in a value gifts package to guarantee you get that cryptic command or whatever it is that you wanted. But again, that's dependent on there BEING a solid dedicated gifts shell, which there isn't.
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Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
There used to be both a 4c Gifts and a UWR Gifts deck that did all right. The streamer MattiasNL engineered the UWR version to a lot of 4-0 finishes (even got mentioned in a Daily Magic article).
I copied his UWR list and played it for some time and it was solid back then. The problem with throwing in Gifts 5-x is that you don't always need to draw them and they are not that great in multiples. Often you'd just win with Colonnades and burn. Tutoring for Gifts is just really clunky. I guess it's fine in some corner cases but I think that Remand, Think Twice or even DTT are much safer inclusions. And there's only so much card draw/tutoring a deck can afford to run. I don't agree with the control mirror argument. Even though CA is more important than tempo here, it doesn't mean that tempo is of no importance. Spending 9BUU for a double Demonic Tutor is a lot of investment to make (by fetching Teachings). Especially since you can resolve Batterskull/Keranos for less than half the price.
If they printed the blue Consume and maybe a blue White Sun's Zenith I could see Scroll possibly coming in handy but I don't think it'd be played along with Gifts. That's just too much deck space committed for tutors I think.
the point I was making about gifts was, say you're casting an EOT gifts with 6 mana on the table, and the board is empty for whatever reason. you can gifts for cryptic, snapcaster mage, gifts, and merchant scroll, thus guaranteeing you access to a cryptic command for the next turn, whether via snapcaster, getting it, or tutoring it. Not as necessarily the 5th or 6th gifts, although in really grindy matches it could be a thing. I played extended gifts control to several PTQ top 8's and top 16's back in the day, I know how the deck works, and what its problems now are.
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Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
Those sweepers and bullets are great for a combo deck, and I've taken some of the more recent ritual gifts lists in the primer thread for a spin, but that's the nature of merchant scroll--it finds its slot as a 1 or 2 of in combo decks, but it just doesn't have the power level of OTHER tools to fetch for a fair deck that isn't using it to find an I-win button or just needs a single timewalk to get to the I-Win stage. The closest a fair deck has is merchant scroll->gifts ungiven-->elesh/unburial rites, and that's not even a sure thing. We need a blue consume the meek to make it relevant for anything other than a toolbox combo.
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Yes, I am a local area mod. WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE
Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
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A lot of people forget that Merchant Scroll is legal in Modern, but it's a pretty interesting card. There are a ton of things you can grab with it like Dig Through Time, Gifts Ungiven, Pact of Negation, Cryptic Command, Echoing Truth, Repeal, Izzet Charm, Hurkyl's Recall, etc. However the drawback is that it's sorcery speed.
I've been playing them for a while in Ritual Gifts and have a sort of love/ hate relationship with them. Sometimes it can be awesome, being able to tutor up a counterspell to protect my combo, or an Electrolyze to kill some guys. It's a super versatile card, but other times it can just be too slow.
So what do you guys think of Merchant Scroll? Is the Sorcery speed pitfall overcome by it's cheap, versatile, tutoring power?
the red mage lives by the variance and dies by the variance. May the variance be with you, always.
MTGO/MTGA: Tyclone
My Primers ~ GWx Vizier Company ~ Knightfall ~ RG Eldrazi ~ Green's Sun's Zenith
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Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
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EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
Currently playing:
GCasual 8-post
R Casual Land Destruction
UBRWG Legacy Dredge
WGB Modern Melira Pod
RUG EDH
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
I don't hate using it to grab Cryptic or even Sphinx's Rev (since it gains you life unlike Gifts/Teachings) but if that's the only thing worth getting, then it's obviously not good enough.
I agree with someone else that wrote that if they printed a blue Consume the Meek then it would be a step in the right direction. Either that or if some combo emerged where one of the pieces was a blue instant.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
I copied his UWR list and played it for some time and it was solid back then. The problem with throwing in Gifts 5-x is that you don't always need to draw them and they are not that great in multiples. Often you'd just win with Colonnades and burn. Tutoring for Gifts is just really clunky. I guess it's fine in some corner cases but I think that Remand, Think Twice or even DTT are much safer inclusions. And there's only so much card draw/tutoring a deck can afford to run. I don't agree with the control mirror argument. Even though CA is more important than tempo here, it doesn't mean that tempo is of no importance. Spending 9BUU for a double Demonic Tutor is a lot of investment to make (by fetching Teachings). Especially since you can resolve Batterskull/Keranos for less than half the price.
If they printed the blue Consume and maybe a blue White Sun's Zenith I could see Scroll possibly coming in handy but I don't think it'd be played along with Gifts. That's just too much deck space committed for tutors I think.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
As far as Scrollable sweepers, we do have access to Evacuation, and Ætherize if you really wanted.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm