Beastcaller Expert...well there was my chance at a 1drop manadork shaman lol Thanks wizards! Im sure it would have been fine with the "only creature spells" clause at 1 mana until they felt that 1 mana manadorks was too strong for standard (everything that makes magic fun is too strong for standard...so what does this mean for modern if this keeps going?)
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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
Beastcaller Expert...well there was my chance at a 1drop manadork shaman lol Thanks wizards! Im sure it would have been fine with the "only creature spells" clause at 1 mana until they felt that 1 mana manadorks was too strong for standard (everything that makes magic fun is too strong for standard...so what does this mean for modern if this keeps going?)
SCG and CFB will each build their space fortress out of MTG cards and shoot laser beams powered by $$$ at planets that couldn't cough up the cash and obliterate it like Alderaan =D
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Standard : What is Stand-tart
Modern : Huh?
EDH : UBGW Thrasios / Tymna Combo UBGW // GRW Mayael Big Stuff GRW // GU Edric Timewalkers GU
Beastcaller Expert...well there was my chance at a 1drop manadork shaman lol Thanks wizards! Im sure it would have been fine with the "only creature spells" clause at 1 mana until they felt that 1 mana manadorks was too strong for standard (everything that makes magic fun is too strong for standard...so what does this mean for modern if this keeps going?)
It means eventually the only reason to buy Magic cards for Eternal players will be to get an accidentally broken new engine they print without realizing or the Modern Masters that are $20 a pop.
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Oath of the Gatewatch; the set that caused the competitive community to freak out over Basic Lands.
Knight of the reliquary is probably undervalued anyway given the recent surge and position of zoo with the advent of coco. Its been a mainstay there for ages and offers all sorts of other utility for other possible decks. I wouldn't be surprised if the combo works out to be semi-decent if knight hits $20. I also wouldn't be surprised to see Knight never break 8 bucks just ...because.
I think Beastcaller Expert beats out prior mana-ally Harabaz Druid by virtue of it immediately tapping for mana. It's only enough to follow up with a Hada Freeblade at minimum, but it doesn't require you to wait out a turn and die to pretty much anything.
It blows that it can't cast any support cards that'd be good with Allies (like Ally Gideon), but having Haste does quite a lot for its playability.
I think Beastcaller Expert beats out prior mana-ally Harabaz Druid by virtue of it immediately tapping for mana. It's only enough to follow up with a Hada Freeblade at minimum, but it doesn't require you to wait out a turn and die to pretty much anything.
It blows that it can't cast any support cards that'd be good with Allies (like Ally Gideon), but having Haste does quite a lot for its playability.
Would play in Allies.dec
Indeed. While it's a terrible Mana Dork, the fact that it can be played just to trigger Ally buffs and swing with the team makes it highly relevant.
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Oath of the Gatewatch; the set that caused the competitive community to freak out over Basic Lands.
Not a great deck - but the scenario where you get out Zada out turn 4 or even turn 3 and "combo off" is actually pretty reliable. Also - once you get Zada out - you are immune from removal since you all the cantrips (and pump and snapcaster) are all instant speed.
A turn 3 kill that is probably uncommon but happened once already in a goldfish was
1) Forest - Hierarch
2) Fetch - Sac - Dryad Arbor - Elvish Mystic - Elvish Mystic
3) Fetch - Stomping Ground - Zada - Viridescent Wisps - Draw 5 - Cerulean wisps - Draw 5 - Viridescent Wisps - Draw 5 - Snap Caster mage - flashback Cerulean Wisps - Draw 6 - Crimson Wisps - Draw 6 - repeat till draw deck and cast all snap casters + give them each haste (careful you could kill yourself with draw) and cast become immense once or twice. Attack.
Still working on a combo version of this deck (Zadastorm!)
And currently I have the following theory craft:
Instead of Time of Need you can use Ink-Treader nephelim so you don't waste a turn searching for your kill. Additionally Arbor Elf is better than Llanowar Elves or Mystic Elf as it can help with your providing colored mana.
Also Just thinking about how many "wisps" you actually need to go off by turn 4 . . . you need the [Untap Target + Cantrip] in your first 10 cards. . . so you need at least 6 of them. You definitely need to draw into one after your first Snap Caster mage . . . but by then you drew 16 cards. So you need 2 [Untap Target + Cantrip] in your first 26 cards. Technically this means you only need 5 in the deck but considering that you need 6 to start off with, I actually think this means that you only need 6 in total in the deck. The [Haste Target + Cantrip], you really only need to smooth into the draws, and one in the end of the chain - 4 is enough, since you should draw into one after the first [Untap Target + Cantrip]. So really we can take out the green wisp and just have the following as the "combo pieces."
However, if we're also treating Wisps as cantrips then we see 10 cards + X where X is any wisp that isn't the "go-off wisps" - We cannot count snapcaster mage as a wisp at this point as it supposes that we cast a wisp previously (off course we can then count it as a second purely cantrip wisp). We are only running 14 "wisps" - 4 of them are Snapcasters and 6 of them are "Go-Off" - which only leaves 4 "cantrip wisps" - only by running 2 extra "cantrip wisps" may we use the x5 multiplier instead [since then we are guaranteed to see 11 cards or more)
leaving us 5 "extra" spots. The "wisp" + "cantrip wisp" include 4 Cerulean Wisps, 4 Crimson Wisps, 2 Refocus, which means that the "free spots" include 4 Snapcaster and 2 Become Immense. They must also include 2 extra "cantrip wisps" as discussed above.
Which leaves 7 spots left for protection.
15 Lands
13 Dorks
2 Arbor
4 Zada
1 Ink-Treader/Time of Need
4 Cerulean Wisps
4 Crimson Wisps
2 Viridian Wisps
2 Refocus
4 Snap Caster
2 Become Immense
7 Protection
The questions are 1) What do we want those 7 protection spells to be and 2) Is a deck that can reliably combo off turn 4 but only has 7 protection spells - worth it?
Knight of the reliquary is probably undervalued anyway given the recent surge and position of zoo with the advent of coco. Its been a mainstay there for ages and offers all sorts of other utility for other possible decks. I wouldn't be surprised if the combo works out to be semi-decent if knight hits $20. I also wouldn't be surprised to see Knight never break 8 bucks just ...because.
Modern is weird.
I've always had that feeling. Knight is one of my favourite creatures and a good one. It's sad it doesn't see more play in Modern.
Its The lack of "good lands" for her to use. right now her best lands are
Ghost quarter/tectonic edge
Bojuka Bog
Kessig Wolf Run
Manlands
Vault of the archangel
Horizon canopy
And thats about it. of those, really only kessiq and vault let you "meta" one against chump blockers, the other against aggro. Quarter and Tec, actually arent that good. They arent wasteland. You cant easily screw with them, and as such they are only good counters to manlands, not that important. The big problem you'll see aside from that is the others there, man lands bog and steppe, demands you to be in a certain color, and still arent that great.
You need to look at legacy to see her really shine. She can get Karakas and Tower of the Magistrate. Karakas is counter to some of the best combo stuffs of legacy for omni tell, natural order, 12 post, Enchantress, and reanimator. Tower solved on of the biggest things you can, batterskull. It lets you attack past them, as well as kill the batterskull (pop the germ token.) and helps against stoneforge's swords and jittes. I literally cant see stoneforge unbanned without this land to counter it.
While the utility aspect of the card is underwhelming to a degree, the price of loam and knight would skyrocket the second we got something like the mono color cycle lands, or ...something from BFZ block. That's a pretty likely scenario given that lands that do stuff get printed very block.
Oh and my brain just clicked on a reason they didnt make the new Ally mana dork ally a 1 drop (besides their stance of 1 drops being too powerful in standard), a 1 drop ally/elf mana dork with haste would just scream to be abused by Cloudstone Curio
Beastcaller Expert's biggest weakness is that it can't be used to pay for Collected Company, which is used in Elf and Ally decks alike. It's worse than any 1-drop mana dork (i.e. Llanowar Elves/Elvish Mystic in Elves, Noble Hierarch/Birds anywhere else) since it can't ramp you into a 3-drop on turn 2.
There's no excuse for playing it in Elf or Ally decks, Devoted Druid or Harabaz Druid would be better choices. In Shamans, well, you have to decide if the nonbo with Collected Company is worth it. Shamans is hampered by only being allowed to play 4 copies of its lord, so a lot of the time they play instants/sorceries to dig for it (Commune with Nature, Lead the Stampede, Collected Company).
Do you guys think we'll get any white eldrazi? I was kind of assuming we'd get some processors that let you gain life but it seems like the eldrazi are mostly being put into black and blue
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My Decks:
UG Merfolk RG 8-Whack BWG Abzan midrange GRB Living End UWB Spirit Control
GU Kruphix's "Hug Assassin" RW Kalemne's "Play Fatties and Hope for the Best!" BUGW Atraxa's "All counters, all the time"
Beastcaller Expert's biggest weakness is that it can't be used to pay for Collected Company, which is used in Elf and Ally decks alike. It's worse than any 1-drop mana dork (i.e. Llanowar Elves/Elvish Mystic in Elves, Noble Hierarch/Birds anywhere else) since it can't ramp you into a 3-drop on turn 2.
I wouldn't go that far. While Harabaz Druid taps for more mana and Devoted Druid can tap multiple times, Beastcaller Expert is fully able to be played and swing with the team the turn he comes in (no haste ally). A late game 2/1 with Lifelink and Protection that pumps your team isn't.... bad. I'd certainly play it over Devoted Druid, though Harabaz Druid over both of them.
I mean, going T1 Hada Freeblade, T2 Harabaz Druid, T3 Kazandu Blademaster, CoCo into Kabira Evangel and Lantern Scout, T4 Akoum Battlesinger and Beastcaller Expert would give you a lot of power that turn both the haste guys come into play.
I realize that's sometime between December 24th and December 26th, but eh.
I still like watching KotR search up the Dark Depths combo. Gives Maverick an unfair win condition, and it's funny to watch. Love KotR, and there are some good lands in modern to fetch with her, none are good enough alone to really justify her. Hopefully the new retreat lets her see her time in Modern's sunlight.
Not that we have also the awaken time walk what staple action/effect is missing to attach it awaken?
We already have the counterspell, the wrath, the ramp...
- L
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"The problem isn't when Scissors says Rock is overpowered, it's when Paper says it is."
-Mark Rosewater
Beastcaller Expert's biggest weakness is that it can't be used to pay for Collected Company, which is used in Elf and Ally decks alike. It's worse than any 1-drop mana dork (i.e. Llanowar Elves/Elvish Mystic in Elves, Noble Hierarch/Birds anywhere else) since it can't ramp you into a 3-drop on turn 2.
There's no excuse for playing it in Elf or Ally decks, Devoted Druid or Harabaz Druid would be better choices. In Shamans, well, you have to decide if the nonbo with Collected Company is worth it. Shamans is hampered by only being allowed to play 4 copies of its lord, so a lot of the time they play instants/sorceries to dig for it (Commune with Nature, Lead the Stampede, Collected Company).
It's the only elf with haste ever. He can be used both as mana producer and kill condition. After you get bunch of mana online you fetch him via something, then buff him via Ezuri or something else and kill people.
More work than Craterhoof Behemoth but it's not a dead card before you assemble mana combo and can be played in multiples.
UUU Merfolk UUU "Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR "The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
It's the only elf with haste ever. He can be used both as mana producer and kill condition. After you get bunch of mana online you fetch him via something, then buff him via Ezuri or something else and kill people.
More work than Craterhoof Behemoth but it's not a dead card before you assemble mana combo and can be played in multiples.
Big deal. Playing a mana dork on turn 1 and tapping it for mana on turn 2 provides the same acceleration as playing Beastcaller Expert on turn 2 and tapping it then. Heritage Druid already gives your Elves the ability to tap for mana on the turn they come down.
I would never play Beastcaller Expert in Elves over any of the 1-drops or 2-drops. Seriously, how can you play it over Elvish Visionary or Dwynen's Elite? Even Devoted Druid has a stronger case for it due to the infinite with Ezuri + 2 Devoted Druid and ability to generate 2 mana in one turn for mana-intensive stuff like CC or Chord.
Blighted Woodland is certainly worth considering in Scapeshift, but it's too expensive to really let you cut ramp spells. (Maybe the versions that are playing cards like Cultivate can consider cutting some.) Scapeshift also does not have much room for colourless lands, and that goes double if Bring to Light turns out to be worth it.
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When you peer long enough through the depths, the depths peer also through you.
Man oh man. They must have seen steppe lynx and plated geopede and thought "These are great examples of land fall creatures. Lets never do anything like them ever again." Scythe leopard, Makindi Sliderunner, Snapping Gnarlid. Looks like landfall is 1/1+ buff now. Damn. That nerf really saddens the zoo in me. Probably a standard thing. They are pushing big colorless hard. Looks like they wanna slow the aggro. standard aggro bad=dry spell for modern. Great.
None of these are really knightable. Or that exiting. Fen can maybe go into some pox/loamy/8 rack decks I suppose. Gorge could have some combo applications ala eggs. I cant say that for sure, I'm not a combo player Izzet, I refer to you or badd b on this kinda crap. Woodland in scapeshift? I dunno if it makes the deck better or too high mana. Blighted Steppe is maybe the only card worth mentioning for knight. SSince you could do turn 1 dork, turn 2 knight, turn 3 drop 1-2 creatures with company, turn 4 knight up this, sac it with mana, to gain 6-8 life against rdw/burn to put you ahead in the race. Its worth testing.
UB/x Faeries
UR Storm
XURWB Affinity
G Elves
UW control
SCG and CFB will each build their space fortress out of MTG cards and shoot laser beams powered by $$$ at planets that couldn't cough up the cash and obliterate it like Alderaan =D
Modern : Huh?
EDH : UBGW Thrasios / Tymna Combo UBGW // GRW Mayael Big Stuff GRW // GU Edric Timewalkers GU
It means eventually the only reason to buy Magic cards for Eternal players will be to get an accidentally broken new engine they print without realizing or the Modern Masters that are $20 a pop.
Modern is weird.
It blows that it can't cast any support cards that'd be good with Allies (like Ally Gideon), but having Haste does quite a lot for its playability.
Would play in Allies.dec
Indeed. While it's a terrible Mana Dork, the fact that it can be played just to trigger Ally buffs and swing with the team makes it highly relevant.
Still working on a combo version of this deck (Zadastorm!)
And currently I have the following theory craft:
Instead of Time of Need you can use Ink-Treader nephelim so you don't waste a turn searching for your kill. Additionally Arbor Elf is better than Llanowar Elves or Mystic Elf as it can help with your providing colored mana.
Also Just thinking about how many "wisps" you actually need to go off by turn 4 . . . you need the [Untap Target + Cantrip] in your first 10 cards. . . so you need at least 6 of them. You definitely need to draw into one after your first Snap Caster mage . . . but by then you drew 16 cards. So you need 2 [Untap Target + Cantrip] in your first 26 cards. Technically this means you only need 5 in the deck but considering that you need 6 to start off with, I actually think this means that you only need 6 in total in the deck. The [Haste Target + Cantrip], you really only need to smooth into the draws, and one in the end of the chain - 4 is enough, since you should draw into one after the first [Untap Target + Cantrip]. So really we can take out the green wisp and just have the following as the "combo pieces."
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Cerulean Wisps
4 Crimson Wisps
2 Refocus
So by turn 4, on the play, you'll have seen 10 cards. What do we want those 10 cards to be:
* 3 Lands (x6 multiplier = 18)
* 3 mana dorks/arbor (x6 multiplier = 18 )
* 1 "Zada" (x6 multiplier = 6)
* 1 "Wisp" (x6 multiplier = 6)
* 2 Free Slots (x6 multiplier = 12)
However, if we're also treating Wisps as cantrips then we see 10 cards + X where X is any wisp that isn't the "go-off wisps" - We cannot count snapcaster mage as a wisp at this point as it supposes that we cast a wisp previously (off course we can then count it as a second purely cantrip wisp). We are only running 14 "wisps" - 4 of them are Snapcasters and 6 of them are "Go-Off" - which only leaves 4 "cantrip wisps" - only by running 2 extra "cantrip wisps" may we use the x5 multiplier instead [since then we are guaranteed to see 11 cards or more)
* 3 Lands (x5 multiplier = 15)
* 3 mana dorks/arbor (x5 multiplier = 15 )
* 1 "Zada" (x5 multiplier = 5)
* 1 "Wisp" (x5 multiplier = 5)
* 2 Free Slots (x5 multiplier = 10)
* 1 "cantrip wisp" (x5 multiplier = 5)
leaving us 5 "extra" spots. The "wisp" + "cantrip wisp" include 4 Cerulean Wisps, 4 Crimson Wisps, 2 Refocus, which means that the "free spots" include 4 Snapcaster and 2 Become Immense. They must also include 2 extra "cantrip wisps" as discussed above.
Which leaves 7 spots left for protection.
15 Lands
13 Dorks
2 Arbor
4 Zada
1 Ink-Treader/Time of Need
4 Cerulean Wisps
4 Crimson Wisps
2 Viridian Wisps
2 Refocus
4 Snap Caster
2 Become Immense
7 Protection
The questions are 1) What do we want those 7 protection spells to be and 2) Is a deck that can reliably combo off turn 4 but only has 7 protection spells - worth it?
Its The lack of "good lands" for her to use. right now her best lands are
Ghost quarter/tectonic edge
Bojuka Bog
Kessig Wolf Run
Manlands
Vault of the archangel
Horizon canopy
And thats about it. of those, really only kessiq and vault let you "meta" one against chump blockers, the other against aggro. Quarter and Tec, actually arent that good. They arent wasteland. You cant easily screw with them, and as such they are only good counters to manlands, not that important. The big problem you'll see aside from that is the others there, man lands bog and steppe, demands you to be in a certain color, and still arent that great.
You need to look at legacy to see her really shine. She can get Karakas and Tower of the Magistrate. Karakas is counter to some of the best combo stuffs of legacy for omni tell, natural order, 12 post, Enchantress, and reanimator. Tower solved on of the biggest things you can, batterskull. It lets you attack past them, as well as kill the batterskull (pop the germ token.) and helps against stoneforge's swords and jittes. I literally cant see stoneforge unbanned without this land to counter it.
There's no excuse for playing it in Elf or Ally decks, Devoted Druid or Harabaz Druid would be better choices. In Shamans, well, you have to decide if the nonbo with Collected Company is worth it. Shamans is hampered by only being allowed to play 4 copies of its lord, so a lot of the time they play instants/sorceries to dig for it (Commune with Nature, Lead the Stampede, Collected Company).
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Big Johnny.
RG 8-Whack
BWG Abzan midrange
GRB Living End
UWB Spirit Control
GU Kruphix's "Hug Assassin"
RW Kalemne's "Play Fatties and Hope for the Best!"
BUGW Atraxa's "All counters, all the time"
I wouldn't go that far. While Harabaz Druid taps for more mana and Devoted Druid can tap multiple times, Beastcaller Expert is fully able to be played and swing with the team the turn he comes in (no haste ally). A late game 2/1 with Lifelink and Protection that pumps your team isn't.... bad. I'd certainly play it over Devoted Druid, though Harabaz Druid over both of them.
I mean, going T1 Hada Freeblade, T2 Harabaz Druid, T3 Kazandu Blademaster, CoCo into Kabira Evangel and Lantern Scout, T4 Akoum Battlesinger and Beastcaller Expert would give you a lot of power that turn both the haste guys come into play.
I realize that's sometime between December 24th and December 26th, but eh.
Cheeri0sXWU
Reid Duke's Level One
Who's the Beatdown
Alt+0198=Æ
We already have the counterspell, the wrath, the ramp...
- L
"The problem isn't when Scissors says Rock is overpowered, it's when Paper says it is."
-Mark Rosewater
Burn-Awaken?
Maybe a devoid kill spell would be good that cost <3 cmc to deal with with a resolved Iona would be good.
Modern : Huh?
EDH : UBGW Thrasios / Tymna Combo UBGW // GRW Mayael Big Stuff GRW // GU Edric Timewalkers GU
It's the only elf with haste ever. He can be used both as mana producer and kill condition. After you get bunch of mana online you fetch him via something, then buff him via Ezuri or something else and kill people.
More work than Craterhoof Behemoth but it's not a dead card before you assemble mana combo and can be played in multiples.
Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU
"Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR
"The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
I would never play Beastcaller Expert in Elves over any of the 1-drops or 2-drops. Seriously, how can you play it over Elvish Visionary or Dwynen's Elite? Even Devoted Druid has a stronger case for it due to the infinite with Ezuri + 2 Devoted Druid and ability to generate 2 mana in one turn for mana-intensive stuff like CC or Chord.
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Big Johnny.
Always bet on the draft chaff.
Blighted Gorge
Blighted Steppe
Blighted Woodland
Blighted Fen
None of these are really knightable. Or that exiting. Fen can maybe go into some pox/loamy/8 rack decks I suppose. Gorge could have some combo applications ala eggs. I cant say that for sure, I'm not a combo player Izzet, I refer to you or badd b on this kinda crap. Woodland in scapeshift? I dunno if it makes the deck better or too high mana. Blighted Steppe is maybe the only card worth mentioning for knight. SSince you could do turn 1 dork, turn 2 knight, turn 3 drop 1-2 creatures with company, turn 4 knight up this, sac it with mana, to gain 6-8 life against rdw/burn to put you ahead in the race. Its worth testing.