As a GBx player, I find Wren interesting as a 1 or 2 of in the 75. How interesting. It's the first card as a midrange player to generate a little excitement.
Some people made great points in the previous posts. A lot of arguments in the past said, "...Wait for Horizons, it'll fix a ton".
As a midrange player, I've found this set extremely disappointed. It feels like the entire archetype was overlooked. Wren gives me pause for the first time in this set for midrange. The Force is ok but could be a 1 of sideboard or just an underwhelming card. Maybe it ends up being an all-star, I don't know. Horizon lands appear more beneficial to the linear decks and less to the fair decks that care about their life total.
As a fellow BG midrange player myself; I felt the same, but then I realized that only 3 black rares have been shown and no black mythics have been previewed yet. Gonna hope for the best and hold my judgment until the 30th.
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
-EDH-
Jori en, Ruin Diver UR
Anafenza, The Foremost BGW
Marchesa, the Black Rose UBR
Vela the Night-Clad UB
I barely have read arguments that people said Horizons will fix anything. People were saying that it does not make sense to ban anything when Horizons is going to impact the format. And exactly this is what happens. Also keep in mind that spoiler season is meant to build up a hype. So if they would have given all the candy in the first week they would have done something wrong, as they want to give us our sweets over the course of two weeks. And they want to generate the biggest possible hype, for that they throw the casual and commander candy into the mix. And tbh beside common and uncommon stuff, which cannot be that high powered as the set needs to have a good limited environment too. (Which everyone knew). There were 4 dedicated Commander spoilers.
Tested Wrenn and Six in Jund last night. (Yeah, I know, not the best place for her/them, but in terms of synergy with Liliana of the Veil, Wrenn seems rather like the Punishing Grove combo.) Wrenn wasn't that bad, but I felt like I could do better (e.g. Seasoned Pyromancer, 3rd Scavenging Ooze). Wrenn's most common mode was Crucible of Worlds recurring fetchlands, and while making my first 6+ land drops may feel good, making land drops actually doesn't win that many games. Pinging stuff for 1 damage was good against decks that present removal targets but too mediocre to use otherwise. Shame Wrenn ults so slowly (and kinda wants to survive ulting)--giving all of Jund's instants and sorceries Retrace felt quite broken. Overall, Wrenn and Six feels a lot like Crucible of Worlds: The Planeswalker, and despite having benefits over Crucible (is a 2-drop and can therefore actually rescue a low-land opening hand, can kill X/1's and low-loyalty walkers, prevents some walkers from ulting for a few turns, has an ult that generates a great endgame that doesn't involve lands that pop themselves for value, lets you cycle cycling lands and Transmute with Tolaria West every turn, is an ersatz Life from the Loam, feeds Liliana of the Veil, can deal the final points of damage), being attackable is a fairly big con. Right now, I only expect Wrenn and Six to be about as popular as Crucible of Worlds. The benefits are enough to make Crucible sweat, though.
In the meantime, Scrapyard Recombiner was quite good in Hardened Scales Robots. Despite costing 3 mana in a deck that often tops out at 2 mana, the tutoring for most creatures in the deck (especially Walking Ballista and additional copies of itself) was pretty swell, especially when I can ditch mana rocks instead of creatures to it (compare to Evolutionary Leap). Being findable with Ancient Stirrings helps. Even better, Recombiner's Modular 2 close to ensures that it pumps something, even if it's killed immediately. And saccing Recombiner to itself and putting the +1/+1 counters on Ballista wins games. I started with 1 and went up to 2--Recombiner is that much better with an additional copy in the back. Some decks still have a stronger endgame than Recombiner, though (e.g. Uxy Control).
Also, in any deck that can support its Deathtouch (I'd say enough fetches and snow basics will do the trick, but you'd better be willing to fetch for basics), Ice-Fang Coatl feels soooo much more broken than Baleful Strix simply because of the Flash. If you want to use your Deathtouch cantrip flier as a removal spell, now you really can.
Might Pillage become a respected sideboard card? Worse colours and castability than Fulminator Mage sucks, but hitting artifacts is great, and ignoring Welding Jar is even better.
Bro, blue has honestly had enough from the last two sets that I wouldn't feel bad if there were zero playable cards for them from here on in Horizon's spoilers.
Looking through the number crunch gives us one tool to potentially predict new throwbacks. We know that Wizards is referencing old cards in the titles of new cards (e.g. Cabal Therapist, Giver of Runes, Force of Negation, Pondering Mage, Umezawa's Charm, Deep Forest Hermit, etc.), some of which contain references as the first word (Cabal, Force, Pondering, Umezawa's) and some as later words. Here are some throwbacks/reprints based on first word predictions which are still live in the set:
Daze throwback: live between Choking Tethers (44) and Exclude (48)
Brainstorm throwback: live between Bazaar Trademage (41) and Chillerpillar (43)
Swords to Plowshares throwback: live between Splicer's Skill (31) and Wall of 1000 Cuts (36)
Wasteland throwback: live between Sunbaked Canyon (247) and Waterlogged Grove (249)
Rishadan Port throwback: live between Prismatic Vista (244) and Silent Clearing (246)
This doesn't necessarily mean the card throwback is in, or that the card throwback will necessarily have the reference as the first word. It just gives a little hype and hope for those cards in these slots. I think all of these throwbacks minus maybe Rishadan Port are extremely likely in a set that has called back to most other major eternal staples. This is just one method of trying to predict their inclusion.
I really hope it's not those cycling lands, because Snow still needs support and snow duals that can enter untapped would be the best possible support for it.
That said, snow lands with cycling could also be pretty rad.
Modern: RW R/W Burn WB B/W TokensXU MonuU Tron // UWX UW Tron R GoblinsW Soul SistersRWG Small ZooWUR WUR Geist/Control/Kiki-Resto Combo/NahiriUR Splinter Twin (90% Japanese)/ Grixis TwinRUB UR Delver / Grixis Delver UR Blue MoonBWU Ad NauseamWDeath and TaxesRUB Grixis ControlUMerfolksX Affinity RGB Living End UR Storm/PiF Combo RGX R/G TRON GWU Bant Eldrazi BW Eldrazi and Taxes RUBGoryos Vengeance UB Faeries Legacy:BRx Renimator Playing right now:Standard: Jeskai Control Modern; GoryosVengeance/UBFaeries/Affinity Legacy: BRx Reanimator Pauper: UR Drake (banned) Commander: Merieke Ri Berit Esper
Black/Red sword seems a lot better than Blue/White sword. If swords in general are ever good enough again (And that new goblin seems kind of specifically designed for them?), this is a great SB card.
Black/Red sword seems a lot better than Blue/White sword. If swords in general are ever good enough again (And that new goblin seems kind of specifically designed for them?), this is a great SB card.
Without Stoneforge, they will continue to be as unplayable as they've always been. Feast/Famine is absolutely nuts good, Light/Shadow is a great engine for creatures, Fire/Ice is an excellent value engine and clock.
And none of them see play.
These new ones will be great for Commander and Legacy. They will be ultimately meaningless in Modern.
Black/Red sword seems a lot better than Blue/White sword. If swords in general are ever good enough again (And that new goblin seems kind of specifically designed for them?), this is a great SB card.
Without Stoneforge, they will continue to be as unplayable as they've always been. Feast/Famine is absolutely nuts good, Light/Shadow is a great engine for creatures, Fire/Ice is an excellent value engine and clock.
And none of them see play.
These new ones will be great for Commander and Legacy. They will be ultimately meaningless in Modern.
I'm cautiously optimistic about some kind of Goblin Engineer sword deck managing to be something other than complete trash.
I know there was once some play with Kuldotha Rebirth in a Goblins 8Whack like list. Maybe you could look in that direction? Use Rebirth and Engineer to get use of some of the artifacts and start swinging with Swords into your opponent with a go wide strategy that can port into a Swords strategy?
EDIT: I also had what is probably a horrible trash thought... Could you go for Blue Moon style list with Goblin Engineer, Sword of Sinew and Steel, and Liquimetal Coating? The use Spell Pierce and similar to keep your hack and slash engineer safe? Start using Coating + Sword to blow up lands. Coating also provides artifacts to sac to get a Sword back, you can fill extra creature slots with Warboss and Rabblemaster looking things.
EDIT again: Use Goblin Matron as Engineer 5-8 if you need. She probably costs too much though.
there might be some URx artifact deck using goblin engineer, but i dont think it would look anything like current blue moon lists. the stoneforge comparison falls short once you have to include ancillary artifacts to turn it on, and at that point you gotta ask yourself why you arent playing other artifact support cards. keep going down that line and i figure you then gotta ask yourself why you arent playing URx grindfather/whir prison.
the 'sword' that i could see engineer searching up is sword of the meek (for the thopter/sword combo). maybe there is some grixis (or jeskai) midrangy/control deck that could include the package without incurring much deckbuilding cost; which is really the goal - getting access to high powered interactions while still being able to play a more regular/normalized gameplan.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
I know there was once some play with Kuldotha Rebirth in a Goblins 8Whack like list. Maybe you could look in that direction? Use Rebirth and Engineer to get use of some of the artifacts and start swinging with Swords into your opponent with a go wide strategy that can port into a Swords strategy?
EDIT: I also had what is probably a horrible trash thought... Could you go for Blue Moon style list with Goblin Engineer, Sword of Sinew and Steel, and Liquimetal Coating? The use Spell Pierce and similar to keep your hack and slash engineer safe? Start using Coating + Sword to blow up lands. Coating also provides artifacts to sac to get a Sword back, you can fill extra creature slots with Warboss and Rabblemaster looking things.
EDIT again: Use Goblin Matron as Engineer 5-8 if you need. She probably costs too much though.
Seems like a LOT of hoops to jump through and a lot of bad cards taking precious slots. I'm personally moving towards some kind of UWx Mentor build thanks to the new Force. Jeskai Phoenix with Mentor in the side is already pretty fun. Would be an easy transition to add Force and baby Teferi. Esper with discard, pushes, and Lilis also seems interesting, or maybe just UW midrange. Either way, a free protection spell is exactly what Mentor needed to be a good clock that can actually come down on 3.
Ya, I'm not very good at building fast decks, lol. I'm glad I dropped the thought here first because I like the Swords cycle a bit and they're just sort of sitting in my rares box.
From a UW/x player perspective, I'm looking at the below and I think :
- Prohibit : nothing to play with.
- Flusterstorm : could be 1 sideboard slot.
- Force of Negation : could be 1 sideboard slot. It's really restrictive and I haven't had any issues against Humans, Tron, BG/x to land my planeswalkers and protecting them. I'm not sure I want more than 2 ever (1 main and 1 side at best). It wont define the format as much as the canopy cycle that is printed in the set. It will be good sometimes, but mostly support cast (especially with the new planeswalkers).
From a Burn player perspective :
- 4 Sunbaked Canyon all the way. We need this so bad
From a Scapeshift player point of view :
- NOTHING.
I'm still not entirely sure why I did this, as I don't think it's a very good card, but I snap grabbed these for a few bucks within minutes of the apoiler and they finally arrived... Time to go in the box/binder of shame? Lol.
Still very excited about Force, Charm, and Fact or Fiction, but iduno what I was thinking with Prohibit...
As a fellow BG midrange player myself; I felt the same, but then I realized that only 3 black rares have been shown and no black mythics have been previewed yet. Gonna hope for the best and hold my judgment until the 30th.
Jori en, Ruin Diver UR
Anafenza, The Foremost BGW
Marchesa, the Black Rose UBR
Vela the Night-Clad UB
In the meantime, Scrapyard Recombiner was quite good in Hardened Scales Robots. Despite costing 3 mana in a deck that often tops out at 2 mana, the tutoring for most creatures in the deck (especially Walking Ballista and additional copies of itself) was pretty swell, especially when I can ditch mana rocks instead of creatures to it (compare to Evolutionary Leap). Being findable with Ancient Stirrings helps. Even better, Recombiner's Modular 2 close to ensures that it pumps something, even if it's killed immediately. And saccing Recombiner to itself and putting the +1/+1 counters on Ballista wins games. I started with 1 and went up to 2--Recombiner is that much better with an additional copy in the back. Some decks still have a stronger endgame than Recombiner, though (e.g. Uxy Control).
Also, in any deck that can support its Deathtouch (I'd say enough fetches and snow basics will do the trick, but you'd better be willing to fetch for basics), Ice-Fang Coatl feels soooo much more broken than Baleful Strix simply because of the Flash. If you want to use your Deathtouch cantrip flier as a removal spell, now you really can.
Might Pillage become a respected sideboard card? Worse colours and castability than Fulminator Mage sucks, but hitting artifacts is great, and ignoring Welding Jar is even better.
Not that I want the card, just that it feels like they included it.
Daze throwback: live between Choking Tethers (44) and Exclude (48)
Brainstorm throwback: live between Bazaar Trademage (41) and Chillerpillar (43)
Swords to Plowshares throwback: live between Splicer's Skill (31) and Wall of 1000 Cuts (36)
Wasteland throwback: live between Sunbaked Canyon (247) and Waterlogged Grove (249)
Rishadan Port throwback: live between Prismatic Vista (244) and Silent Clearing (246)
This doesn't necessarily mean the card throwback is in, or that the card throwback will necessarily have the reference as the first word. It just gives a little hype and hope for those cards in these slots. I think all of these throwbacks minus maybe Rishadan Port are extremely likely in a set that has called back to most other major eternal staples. This is just one method of trying to predict their inclusion.
Legacy Landstill in modern? just kidding
Well, having standstill here would be interesting.
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Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
I need Forgotten Cave for Wrenn and Six Loam...
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
I'm down with some cycling lands!
That said, snow lands with cycling could also be pretty rad.
Snow DRS that can only use Snow cards for its abilities. > . > (Is there a way to make it not do these hideous-ass emoji?)
RW R/W Burn WB B/W TokensXU MonuU Tron // UWX UW Tron
R GoblinsW Soul SistersRWG Small ZooWUR WUR Geist/Control/Kiki-Resto Combo/NahiriUR Splinter Twin (90% Japanese)/ Grixis TwinRUB UR Delver / Grixis Delver UR Blue MoonBWU Ad NauseamWDeath and TaxesRUB Grixis ControlUMerfolksX Affinity RGB Living End UR Storm/PiF Combo RGX R/G TRON GWU Bant Eldrazi BW Eldrazi and Taxes RUBGoryos Vengeance UB Faeries
Legacy:BRx Renimator
Playing right now: Standard: Jeskai Control Modern; GoryosVengeance/UBFaeries/Affinity Legacy: BRx Reanimator Pauper: UR Drake (banned) Commander: Merieke Ri Berit Esper
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Yep. Goes straight from B to D. No room for Containment Priest.
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/the-rumor-mill/810024-modern-horizons-name-and-number-crunch
They could just print some other new version that does something similar, but slightly worse (as they have done for other cards).
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
And none of them see play.
These new ones will be great for Commander and Legacy. They will be ultimately meaningless in Modern.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I'm cautiously optimistic about some kind of Goblin Engineer sword deck managing to be something other than complete trash.
I know it's an older Saffron Olive list, but it's a starting black.
EDIT: I also had what is probably a horrible trash thought... Could you go for Blue Moon style list with Goblin Engineer, Sword of Sinew and Steel, and Liquimetal Coating? The use Spell Pierce and similar to keep your hack and slash engineer safe? Start using Coating + Sword to blow up lands. Coating also provides artifacts to sac to get a Sword back, you can fill extra creature slots with Warboss and Rabblemaster looking things.
EDIT again: Use Goblin Matron as Engineer 5-8 if you need. She probably costs too much though.
"Reveal a Dragon"
the 'sword' that i could see engineer searching up is sword of the meek (for the thopter/sword combo). maybe there is some grixis (or jeskai) midrangy/control deck that could include the package without incurring much deckbuilding cost; which is really the goal - getting access to high powered interactions while still being able to play a more regular/normalized gameplan.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Seems like a LOT of hoops to jump through and a lot of bad cards taking precious slots. I'm personally moving towards some kind of UWx Mentor build thanks to the new Force. Jeskai Phoenix with Mentor in the side is already pretty fun. Would be an easy transition to add Force and baby Teferi. Esper with discard, pushes, and Lilis also seems interesting, or maybe just UW midrange. Either way, a free protection spell is exactly what Mentor needed to be a good clock that can actually come down on 3.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
"Reveal a Dragon"
- Prohibit : nothing to play with.
- Flusterstorm : could be 1 sideboard slot.
- Force of Negation : could be 1 sideboard slot. It's really restrictive and I haven't had any issues against Humans, Tron, BG/x to land my planeswalkers and protecting them. I'm not sure I want more than 2 ever (1 main and 1 side at best). It wont define the format as much as the canopy cycle that is printed in the set. It will be good sometimes, but mostly support cast (especially with the new planeswalkers).
From a Burn player perspective :
- 4 Sunbaked Canyon all the way. We need this so bad
From a Scapeshift player point of view :
- NOTHING.
Aggro: Naya Burn RWG
Combo: Scapeshift RG
Control: Jeskai Control UWR
Legacy
Control: Miracles UW
Aggro: Burn R
Still very excited about Force, Charm, and Fact or Fiction, but iduno what I was thinking with Prohibit...
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate