Perhaps you could elaborate on your distain for Dromoka's Command? The card is a counter to red removal/sweepers, creature removal and enchantment removal all in one for 2 cmc. Plus it can grow your dude as a random bonus to the other modes.
I find your opinion hard to take seriously when you imply that a fish player is targeting fetchlands or that a player is leaving all their lands uncracked just so they can be immune to spreading seas targeting. If you are trying to say that Knight of the Reliquary can sac it, then you're either missing that it will be an island by the time Knight is online and thus not saccable, or you're implying that a fish player is spreading seas into your untapped knight on a valid sac target.
Dromoka's Command (fight/sac enchant mode) is a reasonable answer that you dismiss as terrible, which your answers are for unreasonable scenarios.
Like I said, hard to take your opinion seriously in the face of that.
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For a shell like this, if you didnt have Arid Mesa would you play 2 Poluted Deltas? or would you go with just 4 Windswept Heath and 4 Wooded Foothills?
I don't have much expereience with the shell, but I'd say no. You'd be better off running the UR/UW/UG fetches instead of the UB fetch.
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Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
- Manite
Perhaps you could elaborate on your distain for Dromoka's Command? The card is a counter to red removal/sweepers, creature removal and enchantment removal all in one for 2 cmc. Plus it can grow your dude as a random bonus to the other modes.
I find your opinion hard to take seriously when you imply that a fish player is targeting fetchlands or that a player is leaving all their lands uncracked just so they can be immune to spreading seas targeting. If you are trying to say that Knight of the Reliquary can sac it, then you're either missing that it will be an island by the time Knight is online and thus not saccable, or you're implying that a fish player is spreading seas into your untapped knight on a valid sac target.
Dromoka's Command (fight/sac enchant mode) is a reasonable answer that you dismiss as terrible, which your answers are for unreasonable scenarios.
Like I said, hard to take your opinion seriously in the face of that.
There is obviously no way I am *implying* fish players target fetchlands, that's an inexplicable assumption on your part.
1. Dromoka is mana intensive
a) Holding up GW in a deck with 22-23 lands to stop Twin on turn 4 is not where this deck wants to be or what it wants to be doing
b) In the event Dromoka is "good" and you have the mana open and the relevant modes available, you likely have already established a board presence and are "winning"
2. Dromoka is reactive in a proactive deck
c) This is a deck where you want to play dudes on curve. This is not a deck where you sandbag your creatures because you want to "gotcha" your opponent and beat them via tempo
3. If Dromoka was good, it would see play outside of fringe Naya Company decks already. It does not.
4. There is an alternative option in Qasali Pridemage that increases your board, hits the same targets, and activates for colorless mana
You are more than welcome to disagree with my opinions, but it's a stretch to think I was talking about fetchlands. Additionally, the notion that the land will be an island by the time the knight is "online" is variable at best. It's like you're assuming the merfolk deck will perform optimally on the play every time (Vial into Seas I guess) while assuming ours will not... it makes little sense to me.
To sum, Dromoka's command is terrible because of the points above, and to boot it just doesn't advance our game plan. If there are decks that really want mainboard Dromoka Commands, they have not been invented yet, and I am positive this deck is not "it."
(just to be clear, my "Cracking lands" comment was about knight cracking forests/plains... just thought it was obvious since this is the knightfall thread :P)
So the scenario your describing must therefore be that you have some lands in play and an untapped active knight, and the fish player is targeting a land that can be sac'd in response.
Comon guy, no fish player is going to walk into that. And if they do, it is not representative of high-level gameplay.
I only suggested that you might be talking about a fetch being targeted because the above scenario is only slightly less silly: you're describing a player walking into a play based on 100% shared information.
Actually I was answering a question about what to do against Merfolk, and I provided more than one answer, you just decided to be nitpicky about part of my response, I guess because you really like Dromoka or something.
Keep in mind I'm saying 1-2 Dromoka's command at best, and I don't personally play the card. But to call it terrible is simply a failure to assess the card properly.
1. Dromoka is mana intensive
a) Holding up GW in a deck with 22-23 lands to stop Twin on turn 4 is not where this deck wants to be or what it wants to be doing
b) In the event Dromoka is "good" and you have the mana open and the relevant modes available, you likely have already established a board presence and are "winning"
2 Mana is not mana intensive. See Terminate, Abrupt Decay. 2 mana removal is certainly playable and can be great. While I don't play the card, holding GW is much better than losing. I'd prefer to have W up and Path to exile in hand, but with only 4 copies Dromoka's Command can help draws without path. Better hold GW than lose.
2. Dromoka is reactive in a proactive deck
c) This is a deck where you want to play dudes on curve. This is not a deck where you sandbag your creatures because you want to "gotcha" your opponent and beat them via tempo
Path to exile is reactive as well, yet some interaction is necessary. Dromoka's Command is played by those who don't feel safe with just 4 path to exile.
3. If Dromoka was good, it would see play outside of fringe Naya Company decks already. It does not.
One of the weakest arguments I've seen in a while. "Not played by enough decks" is how this reads.
4. There is an alternative option in Qasali Pridemage that increases your board, hits the same targets, and activates for colorless mana.
To sum, Dromoka's command is terrible because of the points above, and to boot it just doesn't advance our game plan. If there are decks that really want mainboard Dromoka Commands, they have not been invented yet, and I am positive this deck is not "it."
As far as I am concerned, the salient question is whether the card should be played instead of Qasali Pridemage. I personally play pridemage, but I see nuance to the question.
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All the back and forth on Spreading Seas is puzzling. If fish can get one to stick (i.e. a target that cannot be sac'd to an untapped KotR in response), too bad so sad. You may have a Pridemage to take care of it, otherwise I'd probably just play around it. I don't see a scenario where they are getting more than one online against this particular deck. The combination of KotR and a really high fetch count means that our lands tend to be slippery.
Mana intensive = GW. It requires 2 colors of mana. This is bad because, as you keep conveniently ignoring in your counterpoints, we're trying to curve out, and to do that, we tap out. The difference between 2 colors of mana for Dromoka, as opposed to W for Path, are so huge it's entirely on you to get it, not for me to explain it. Though, to paraphrase your earlier post, it's hard to take your opinion seriously since you don't seem to get this.
Anyway, blah blah blah, abrupt decay is in jund/different deck, blah blah blah, pride mage is better, blah blah blah, angel tokens don't kill 4/5 tasigurs, blah, blah blah.
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
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5/5 angel tokens kill tasigur, thanks for playing though.
I'm only seeming smart because your points are completely lacking in that area. The spreading seas discussion is only going on so long since this poster continues to suggest that knight of the reliquary can answer spreading seas, which it certainly can't unless the opponent walks into it with 100% shared information.
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I'm not huge on the Command myself, I've had more success with Simic personally. I dont agree this deck needs to be full on tap out, aggro to be successful. Its valid, it will be successful, but at that point its just Zoo with Retreat thrown in and it can be discussed in the Zoo thread. If you are intending to do nothing but tap out and jam cards, there's no reason one would avoid Red, because adding some will get you there faster, and then you add Nacatl, Bolt, and you are really just running aggro zoo.
Angel tokens with +1/+1 counters on them kill tasigurs
Also, Dromoka's has not been out long enough to see what its long term impact will be on the meta. My suspicion is it'll crop up as the 5th path in a lot of these type of lists who want an answer that deals with Anger/Pyroclasm AND deals with opposing fatties AND deals with a splinter twin (sometimes killing the exarch via wrassling). It's also pretty good at making your hierarch swing then wrassle an infect creature
Anyone who thinks pridemage is a better out to Twin is crazy, you have to hold two mana up to USE pridemage because they'll tap one and leave you hanging. Pridemage is not a good magic card vs. twin unless you've gotten lucky and made the game go long enough to have plenty of mana to advance your board. Otherwise you're just gonna get tempo'd out.
The place you need to be against twin with pridemage is with a beater+pridemage (or pridemage+hierarch) applying pressure and leaving 2 mana untapped at all times to play around the combo. That's...OK, but not likely since they play 4 bolts and 2 electrolyzes and a roast.
I'm not huge on the Command myself, I've had more success with Simic personally. I dont agree this deck needs to be full on tap out, aggro to be successful. Its valid, it will be successful, but at that point its just Zoo with Retreat thrown in and it can be discussed in the Zoo thread.
This is where I've been trying to go I think. Well said.
Simic charm is really strong with the tempo option, and protecting our retreats from abrupt decay. Also does work v. twin. Definitely worth considering.
I really think for the deck to be good we need to be looking at leveraging coralhelm for the mid-game. Cast some bigger spells by having a fetchland generate 2 extra mana off of hierarch, leverage some card quality from the scrying, etc.
5/5 angel tokens kill tasigur, thanks for playing though.
I'm only seeming smart because your points are completely lacking in that area. The spreading seas discussion is only going on so long since this poster continues to suggest that knight of the reliquary can answer spreading seas, which it certainly can't unless the opponent walks into it with 100% shared information.
As I said, there were multiple answers in my post, you're just obnoxiously fixated on this one. I believe I ended my original post with "Bant has tons of answers" or something like it.
Anyway, if your point was that you're going to attack with geist and use Dromoka's +1/+1 on a token to kill Tasigur... well, that too is terrible. But congrats on convincing yourself you've successfully defended a card you don't even want to play.
@Pokken pridemage is an answer to Twin in addition to path, and somewhere earlier in the thread I mentioned this deck should be bringing Dismembers from the board. Game 1 against Twin isn't an auto-win, but let's not play bad cards in order to shore up one matchup.
@Pokken pridemage is an answer to Twin in addition to path, and somewhere earlier in the thread I mentioned this deck should be bringing Dismembers from the board. Game 1 against Twin isn't an auto-win, but let's not play bad cards in order to shore up one matchup.
Pridemage is not an answer vs Twin unless you tempo yourself out by leaving 2 mana untapped forever after you play it. It's certainly not an on-curve answer unless you have ramp, since they'll tap your land. I played with a total of 4 pridemages in the 75 and it did something versus twin zero times because it's crazy easy to play around for a deck with all instant speed dudes.
Dismembers seem OK, although you risk just getting bolted to death when you play dismember vs. twin, so I'm not sure that's the best. I'd rather play ghostly prison or suppression field or something more proactive and broad (good vs. other combo decks as well).
Edit: Note, my numbers vs. twin did go up quite a lot when I jammed 3 ghostly prisons in the board. The problem is strong sideboard tech like that doesn't work as well if you're playing coco. Dismember is equally crap with coco and 25-26 creatures, since your only real thing to remove are cocos or dudes which ruin your cocos Dismember is OK in elves with 30-ish creatures where you can afford to cut and maintain your cococount.
Can't say I'm really attracted to either version they posted up in the article. Fuel for thought I guess.
Wow, they really shoehorned Jace, Vryn's Prodigy into that first list. Neither of these looks particularly good, at all, but at least it'll get some more eyes on the combo.
@ rstnme : All you have to do is scroll up to see that it was the first of the two options you provided. Now you're trying to make it seem like I picked one point from a well articulated and thorough post on the subject.
I'm sorry that you don't see value in using Dromoka's as a removal spell when it's needed in that mode, but that failure is on you, not me.
I'd play the card if I weren't playing Collected Company in this deck, which I might yet try.
edit: I've decided that ignoring that user is simply the best value option at this point.
Jace, Goyf and Serum Visions all feel forced in that list. Not a huge fan of LSVs lists, they don't look like they are applying enough pressure.
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It's actually pretty damned close to what I tried out, though I tried snaps instead of Jace, and didn't think to try Bant charm (which I am not sure is good enough). And stubborn denials.
Multiple Jace activations is actually pretty clever--can flip him pretty damned quickly off of a fetchland and retreat.
I think that version might want remand instead of mana leak, since we want velocity to combo there (or swan song, spell pierce or stubborn denial if we're trying to focus on protecting combo)
I'm pretty strongly favoring that type of direction vs. the whole "cram it in zoo and cross your fingers" approach
Also: Serum visions was awful for me. Just not good enough even with snaps. I think you'd want to be down around 20 lands to support dorks+serum visions, and Knight wants more lands than that.
Note: Other direction is Coco with lots of hate creatures - spellskite, mindcensor, thalia, gryff, wingmare type stuff.
As an avid player of legacy and standard as well as an all time fan of Knight of the Reliquary , I am now looking to get into modern off of this sweeeeet interaction between knight and Retreat to Coralhelm. So far most of the brews I have been testing and most of the brews online have been some version of CoCo or zoo with this package plugged into it.
I am mostly interested in building a new bant deck with this interaction. While CoCo and zoo may be great competitive homes for the combo, I think they're shortcuts in terms of finding a home for this combo. I'm curious as to what other cards you guys might have in mind that synergize well with both knight and Retreat, independent of other decks.
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I find your opinion hard to take seriously when you imply that a fish player is targeting fetchlands or that a player is leaving all their lands uncracked just so they can be immune to spreading seas targeting. If you are trying to say that Knight of the Reliquary can sac it, then you're either missing that it will be an island by the time Knight is online and thus not saccable, or you're implying that a fish player is spreading seas into your untapped knight on a valid sac target.
Dromoka's Command (fight/sac enchant mode) is a reasonable answer that you dismiss as terrible, which your answers are for unreasonable scenarios.
Like I said, hard to take your opinion seriously in the face of that.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
- Manite
There is obviously no way I am *implying* fish players target fetchlands, that's an inexplicable assumption on your part.
1. Dromoka is mana intensive
a) Holding up GW in a deck with 22-23 lands to stop Twin on turn 4 is not where this deck wants to be or what it wants to be doing
b) In the event Dromoka is "good" and you have the mana open and the relevant modes available, you likely have already established a board presence and are "winning"
2. Dromoka is reactive in a proactive deck
c) This is a deck where you want to play dudes on curve. This is not a deck where you sandbag your creatures because you want to "gotcha" your opponent and beat them via tempo
3. If Dromoka was good, it would see play outside of fringe Naya Company decks already. It does not.
4. There is an alternative option in Qasali Pridemage that increases your board, hits the same targets, and activates for colorless mana
You are more than welcome to disagree with my opinions, but it's a stretch to think I was talking about fetchlands. Additionally, the notion that the land will be an island by the time the knight is "online" is variable at best. It's like you're assuming the merfolk deck will perform optimally on the play every time (Vial into Seas I guess) while assuming ours will not... it makes little sense to me.
To sum, Dromoka's command is terrible because of the points above, and to boot it just doesn't advance our game plan. If there are decks that really want mainboard Dromoka Commands, they have not been invented yet, and I am positive this deck is not "it."
Comon guy, no fish player is going to walk into that. And if they do, it is not representative of high-level gameplay.
I only suggested that you might be talking about a fetch being targeted because the above scenario is only slightly less silly: you're describing a player walking into a play based on 100% shared information.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
Which, btw, is terrible. Have I mentioned that?
2 Mana is not mana intensive. See Terminate, Abrupt Decay. 2 mana removal is certainly playable and can be great. While I don't play the card, holding GW is much better than losing. I'd prefer to have W up and Path to exile in hand, but with only 4 copies Dromoka's Command can help draws without path. Better hold GW than lose.
Path to exile is reactive as well, yet some interaction is necessary. Dromoka's Command is played by those who don't feel safe with just 4 path to exile.
One of the weakest arguments I've seen in a while. "Not played by enough decks" is how this reads.
Agreed, I play Qasali instead of Dromoka's Command. That being said, Qasali can't stop anger of the gods or have your geist of saint traft angel token fight and kill Tasigur, the golden fang. Dromoka's is more flexible but liable to get stuck in your hand at times.
As far as I am concerned, the salient question is whether the card should be played instead of Qasali Pridemage. I personally play pridemage, but I see nuance to the question.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
CG
Mana intensive = GW. It requires 2 colors of mana. This is bad because, as you keep conveniently ignoring in your counterpoints, we're trying to curve out, and to do that, we tap out. The difference between 2 colors of mana for Dromoka, as opposed to W for Path, are so huge it's entirely on you to get it, not for me to explain it. Though, to paraphrase your earlier post, it's hard to take your opinion seriously since you don't seem to get this.
Anyway, blah blah blah, abrupt decay is in jund/different deck, blah blah blah, pride mage is better, blah blah blah, angel tokens don't kill 4/5 tasigurs, blah, blah blah.
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/top-decks/bringing-modern-light-2015-09-25
Can't say I'm really attracted to either version they posted up in the article. Fuel for thought I guess.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
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I'm only seeming smart because your points are completely lacking in that area. The spreading seas discussion is only going on so long since this poster continues to suggest that knight of the reliquary can answer spreading seas, which it certainly can't unless the opponent walks into it with 100% shared information.
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I'm not huge on the Command myself, I've had more success with Simic personally. I dont agree this deck needs to be full on tap out, aggro to be successful. Its valid, it will be successful, but at that point its just Zoo with Retreat thrown in and it can be discussed in the Zoo thread. If you are intending to do nothing but tap out and jam cards, there's no reason one would avoid Red, because adding some will get you there faster, and then you add Nacatl, Bolt, and you are really just running aggro zoo.
Spirits
Also, Dromoka's has not been out long enough to see what its long term impact will be on the meta. My suspicion is it'll crop up as the 5th path in a lot of these type of lists who want an answer that deals with Anger/Pyroclasm AND deals with opposing fatties AND deals with a splinter twin (sometimes killing the exarch via wrassling). It's also pretty good at making your hierarch swing then wrassle an infect creature
Anyone who thinks pridemage is a better out to Twin is crazy, you have to hold two mana up to USE pridemage because they'll tap one and leave you hanging. Pridemage is not a good magic card vs. twin unless you've gotten lucky and made the game go long enough to have plenty of mana to advance your board. Otherwise you're just gonna get tempo'd out.
The place you need to be against twin with pridemage is with a beater+pridemage (or pridemage+hierarch) applying pressure and leaving 2 mana untapped at all times to play around the combo. That's...OK, but not likely since they play 4 bolts and 2 electrolyzes and a roast.
This is where I've been trying to go I think. Well said.
Simic charm is really strong with the tempo option, and protecting our retreats from abrupt decay. Also does work v. twin. Definitely worth considering.
I really think for the deck to be good we need to be looking at leveraging coralhelm for the mid-game. Cast some bigger spells by having a fetchland generate 2 extra mana off of hierarch, leverage some card quality from the scrying, etc.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
As I said, there were multiple answers in my post, you're just obnoxiously fixated on this one. I believe I ended my original post with "Bant has tons of answers" or something like it.
Anyway, if your point was that you're going to attack with geist and use Dromoka's +1/+1 on a token to kill Tasigur... well, that too is terrible. But congrats on convincing yourself you've successfully defended a card you don't even want to play.
@Pokken pridemage is an answer to Twin in addition to path, and somewhere earlier in the thread I mentioned this deck should be bringing Dismembers from the board. Game 1 against Twin isn't an auto-win, but let's not play bad cards in order to shore up one matchup.
Pridemage is not an answer vs Twin unless you tempo yourself out by leaving 2 mana untapped forever after you play it. It's certainly not an on-curve answer unless you have ramp, since they'll tap your land. I played with a total of 4 pridemages in the 75 and it did something versus twin zero times because it's crazy easy to play around for a deck with all instant speed dudes.
Dismembers seem OK, although you risk just getting bolted to death when you play dismember vs. twin, so I'm not sure that's the best. I'd rather play ghostly prison or suppression field or something more proactive and broad (good vs. other combo decks as well).
Edit: Note, my numbers vs. twin did go up quite a lot when I jammed 3 ghostly prisons in the board. The problem is strong sideboard tech like that doesn't work as well if you're playing coco. Dismember is equally crap with coco and 25-26 creatures, since your only real thing to remove are cocos or dudes which ruin your cocos Dismember is OK in elves with 30-ish creatures where you can afford to cut and maintain your cococount.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Wow, they really shoehorned Jace, Vryn's Prodigy into that first list. Neither of these looks particularly good, at all, but at least it'll get some more eyes on the combo.
CG
I'm sorry that you don't see value in using Dromoka's as a removal spell when it's needed in that mode, but that failure is on you, not me.
I'd play the card if I weren't playing Collected Company in this deck, which I might yet try.
edit: I've decided that ignoring that user is simply the best value option at this point.
Jace, Goyf and Serum Visions all feel forced in that list. Not a huge fan of LSVs lists, they don't look like they are applying enough pressure.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
Spirits
It's actually pretty damned close to what I tried out, though I tried snaps instead of Jace, and didn't think to try Bant charm (which I am not sure is good enough). And stubborn denials.
Multiple Jace activations is actually pretty clever--can flip him pretty damned quickly off of a fetchland and retreat.
I think that version might want remand instead of mana leak, since we want velocity to combo there (or swan song, spell pierce or stubborn denial if we're trying to focus on protecting combo)
I'm pretty strongly favoring that type of direction vs. the whole "cram it in zoo and cross your fingers" approach
Also: Serum visions was awful for me. Just not good enough even with snaps. I think you'd want to be down around 20 lands to support dorks+serum visions, and Knight wants more lands than that.
Note: Other direction is Coco with lots of hate creatures - spellskite, mindcensor, thalia, gryff, wingmare type stuff.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
As an avid player of legacy and standard as well as an all time fan of Knight of the Reliquary , I am now looking to get into modern off of this sweeeeet interaction between knight and Retreat to Coralhelm. So far most of the brews I have been testing and most of the brews online have been some version of CoCo or zoo with this package plugged into it.
I am mostly interested in building a new bant deck with this interaction. While CoCo and zoo may be great competitive homes for the combo, I think they're shortcuts in terms of finding a home for this combo. I'm curious as to what other cards you guys might have in mind that synergize well with both knight and Retreat, independent of other decks.