That seems fine to me now that Fluff has confirmed there is not one existing already. Good luck!
As for your other issue, in my opinion the hype is not for Yorion, exactly, but for Companions in general. The mechanic genuinely breaks the randomness of the game, reliably provides access to a certain dynamic, and guarantees +1 card advantage, for the price of one sideboard slot and some assorted deck building constraints. If the metagame gets to a point where the only way to stay competitive is to have your own companion, the testing needs to happen now to have the groundwork set up by the time major tournaments are back on track. Yorion, Sky Nomad is simply the lowest-hanging fruit for this shell.
The cards don't always fit cleanly; yet the effort may have become a necessity - I remember that feeling. It is exactly the same one I felt when being forced into warping my decks to run more Jace Beleren, just so that I could have a chance at fighting opposing copies of Jace, the Mind Sculptor back in 2010 Standard, except that the fight is not as direct, and will be happening far more consistently. In my opinion, it was an extremely dangerous gamble that R&D took by releasing these into the wild, and I think it smacks of very short-sighted design, but this appears to be the world we live in now. Playing without a Companion is turning down free value, and you should have a strong reason for voluntarily accepting such a handicap.
As Yogi Berra said, "Things are hard to predict, especially the future". I don't know any of this for sure, but I would guess that every playable effect among these ten legends is going to deeply affect every format it can be legal in, and I could see myself rapidly becoming very tired of their interactions. Look at how much work Burn players have to put into their deck before they can legitimately claim to "always have it". Now consider how little effort a player has to put in to ACTUALLY always have access to a companion's effect - and they have not cost themselves a resource in hand to do so.
There is a long way to go yet before I can apply the word "broken" with legitimacy, but I can and will view this mechanic as an immediate game-changer. Lurrus of the Dream-Den is so abusive, cheap, and easily accommodated by many decks that I have a strong suspicion of his being banned at some point, but I fully expect that we will just have to live with the others long-term. I truly hope that the metagame settles into a balance where they are a rare and exciting exception, but as a competitive player I assume I will need to plan for the worst. If I am walking into a gunfight with a knife, I want to know that, and at least have checked my own gun cabinet first.
Thanks Saint Tobia and Gerant. Three colors has always scared me personally with this deck but def makes for interesting potential. Does having Yorion make it more appealing to try and go with more blinking effects in general, like some of the cards seen in Soulmeria decks? Also, I’ve created a discord channel for us. Nothing fancy at the moment but can certainly grow. Here is the link for anyone interested: https://discord.gg/rEdBa6P
It is clear to me that all the data I have seen so far across all of my nearly 25 years of experience bears out my opinion that most Flicker effects cost more games than they win in Control shells with no burst card advantage. In my estimation, this is because these are toned-down to fit into acceptable power metrics during design. The Soulherder and Flickerwisp Creatures of the world have never been strict upgrades to existing options for board control, because otherwise they would themselves become the threats which Control is trying to stabilize against. Since this is a rare exception, they typically have severe drawbacks in attrition wars, even beyond the simple fact that combinations are more difficult to assemble in resource-poor environments. When threats gain oppressive value too easily, they get banned, and so long as they are not, the metagame is healthy. (Stoneforge Mystic being a case study for this logic, having been unbanned only after power creep made it possible to do so).
The upshot of this is that I will accept the 80-card sacrifice in order to gain access to Yorion as free value, but I will not change a single card to support him unless that change is justifiable on its own merits. Having permanent access to the option of 4/5 flier is a fantastic opportunity, regardless of any other ancillary benefits. If it can blink anything for value, then I will be glad, but the point is that I would literally be happy to have him in any event. Apart from Crucible of Worlds, every nonland permanent I consider maindeckable has natural synergy with it already, so I will not spend an iota of energy on extra effort for him. When it comes to alternative versions, my own opinion is that straight W/u is still the most viable and consistent shell in general.
Sadly, my local community is currently weeks away from opening up its stores to live tournaments in the best-case scenario, and I do not play online at all, so right now I will take whatever data I can get. I have not been able to justify re-investing in Magic or Yorion, Sky Nomad yet, but I hope to do so relatively soon. In the meantime, I have the following cards on my desk at home lined up and ready to go, and I will be able to test it as of the moment events begin to fire again:
This is simply as clean an expansion of my 60-card list on the homepage as I could make, attempting to isolate the variables which Yorion, Sky Nomad would have on my win percentages, while keeping the proportions of every effect as close as mathematically possible. I had committed to trying it out before the set was fully spoiled, despite my reservations based on the sideboard's decreased effectiveness, but I am now preoccupied by the need to try to make it work in the face of a potential Companion-centric world.
(Edit: Thanks for the Discord, Chantu9Y. I just set up my account, and will try to check on it every once in a while.)
The biggest thing is that you ALWAYS have him at the ready. Even if your hand is empty and you have nothing on the battlefeild, you still have access to a huge flier to provide defense. And if you do have things to blink with him, he opens up whole new lines of play that you can always have at your disposal. And the only cost to playing him is.....you have to play more good cards? In all my games playing with him, the 80 card restriction didn't exactly bite me in the ass too much (unless you count my own deckbuilding errors lol). Your deck doesn't get less consistent because so many of the cards we play are already Swiss Army Knives that can do any number of things depending on what we need at any time.
Flickerwisp, Knight Of Autumn, Charming Prince, Detention Sphere, Path To Exile, and Winds Of Abandon all can do lots of different things depending on what we need, so filling the deck with more of these modal cards helps us more than it hurts, in my opinion at least.
referring to bolded part. That's one of the better things about him. And the fact that he can reset other permanents besides creatures is icing on the cake.
Building an 80 card deck actually feels exciting for me, as it would be the first time to do such a thing. lol
The ten additional cards would obviously be lands, and the other ten I would decide by trial and error.
Once things settle down, I'm hoping a competitive 80 card build would be found which we can add to the primer.
edit: added Yorion to my scg cart for pre-order. I'm glad this guy is only 3 dollars.
Just so that no one is left out, I had some new testing information to report on the Discord, so I will reproduce it here:
"I have some preliminary results to report, but overall it is much too early to tell, especially since this is only test-match information. The general patterns may still be somewhat relevant at any rate, though, so here are my initial impressions (for whatever that is worth). Although The Birth of Meletis is an option to supplement Pilgrim's Eye I have an unfortunate update on the card to report from my Yorion, Sky Nomad build's recent testing; it in no way replaces it. As the former is a flying blocker that can be cast to colour-fix through an otherwise game-ending Blood Moon, an accurate comparison between the two boils down to deck thinning based on cost alone. The lifegain of the Saga's third chapter is a real bonus, and its CMC of 2 is much more powerful, but the lack of an immediate body is a huge drawback, as is the fact that it is not a creature for Emeria to maintain a consistent stream of value once active.
Operationally, Yorion, Sky Nomad and The Birth of Meletis seem very difficult to balance. Before anything else is addressed, if I keep a hand with The Birth of Meletis and cast it on turn two, it is gone by turn four and no longer around to provide a value-target for Yorion on turn 5. Even worse is the fact that, due to the timing of the chapters, the same will be true if I cast it on turn 3, because it will gain me two life and be sacrificed during my draw step. On turn four I am therefore given a passive incentive to cast the Enchantment over a sweeper which will inevitably take precedence if it has any relevance, and so the only time I am typically glad to sequence a two-drop into a Plains is if I am short on lands, which means that I may be in danger of not having a fifth mana for Yorion on turn 5 - which would be made even more disastrous by the Saga not sticking around to bridge up to six or seven mana smoothly after that. If my first copy of The Birth of Meletis is found on turn five, (turn six now being massively weighted towards either Yorion or Sun Titan) I have an extra option to go for value, but the curve is not able to support adding more 3-drops to make this trivial, so it appears that Path to Exile or a tapland plus a two-drop fill the role a little more frequently to use all available mana cleanly. There are two problems that crop up here. #1 is that there is no functional analogue for Path, and so its presence is a 5% chance, which makes it unlikely. #2 is that I may be looking to cast Yorion before my saga instead, in which case I will not get the option to blink it again until well after Emeria is online. This almost completely covers the common dynamics of the two cards, after I make the concession that turn seven yields an excellent window for guaranteeing the obvious advantages of 7 Plains.
This moment where reanimation is available leads me to my final point on Yorion and Sagas in general: by blinking a graduated effect, the last chapter (lifegain, in this case) is consistently re-set and/or delayed, which means that the card is essentially operating at 2/3 strength. The lifegain, having been an actual draw to the card, is now made more unreliable by a "synergy" that crops up extremely consistently. As a final disadvantage, each permanent removed from play by Yorion returns at the End step, which means that flickering the Enchantment will not get you a Plains in time to make a land drop that turn if you were in danger of missing one. The card is fine, but the sequences it enables can be offered by other cards. Tellingly, the blocker it provides joins the party on a one-turn delay, and so I found myself asking if I wouldn't have been happier if this card had just been the Plains it was getting in the first place. The answer was unfortunately "yes" a non-zero amount of the time. As of right now, I have cut The Birth of Meletis, and I am now testing Arcum's Astrolabe as a direct swap (after adding the Snow Basics, of course). It is very difficult to tell how Yorion, Sky Nomad will affect plays otherwise, but this particular synergy seems much stronger, and the 4/5 flying body is a non-trivial threat for opponents, who are now much more likely to disrupt their own sequencing to use removal on the value targets that it threatens to re-trigger. Anything which makes opponents care about my board state is a huge benefit, to my mind, since I am very glad whenever other decks slow themselves down for any reason in the face of my attrition plan.
One more very strong dynamic the card brings to the battle is a tendency to underestimate the chances of Wrath of God from the opposing side of the table. When there is a Ghostway that has been telegraphed as of turn one, and the deck which represents it continually adds targets which seem to be building up to a value boardstate, it seems much less likely that the opposing pilot will be able to justify holding back to play around a sweeper that they have no guarantee of, when there is an obvious plan available to an Emeria strategy already. Though it remains to be seen whether the sideboard losses will even this effect out, it is clear that Game 1's have been much, much stronger with the option of a Companion overall."
I also had the following to say about splash colours, and my perspective on the price of Blue mana in particular:
"Watcher for Tomorrow has proved itself to be, for the most part, a trap in this strategy. The most important drawback to it is that it costs Blue mana as early as turn two, which is a true luxury. I accept Blue spells only with extreme caution before turn 3, and even later on only if the advantage that this cost offers is potentially game-breaking from the minute it becomes available. Lavinia, Azorius Renegade locks out many combo decks if she resolves. Supreme Verdict and Detention Sphere can win games on the spot if opponents overextend. Teferi, Time Raveler cripples opposing interaction from the moment he hits play. Court Hussar is the only exception to this rule, and it sits at a nexus of cost, relevance, and synergy which makes it the most powerful card selection engine accessible to this shell. In addition, like all the cards I mentioned before it, the Hussar has immediate application to staying alive from the turn it is cast. Watcher for Tomorrow is therefore worse than it on two additional massively relevant fronts. A) Thanks to a rules quirk of the Hideaway mechanic, it cannot block the turn it is cast due to being tapped, and so cannot stop a lethal attacker. B) Because the card it selects only reaches the hand after it leaves play, Watcher literally requires the presence of some other effect in order to actually generate value. This is questionable at best when working from behind, and typically win-more when ahead."
Finally, I think that everyone should probably know by now how dangerous the Companion mechanic is, but just in case it helps I also wrote this:
"Taking a step back, I think Yorion is making me fear the worst from the mechanic in general, and many pros agree because apparently someone has called it "the worst decision Wizards has made since Phyrexian Mana". I think that I concur, and Alexander Hayne, Sam Black, Zvi Mowshowitz, and Matt Sperling have already come out as saying the ability was a massive mistake, with the latter two opining that they think the game would be better if all ten legends were banned immediately. As a counterpoint, Patrick Chapin and Gerry Thompson think that the cards are strong, but balanced, although Chapin has done nothing but brew decks containing them since they were spoiled, and Thompson seemed puzzled by the recent 8-Companion top 8 (his exact words were "is Zirda really that good?", so I get the impression that he is still only evaluating the cards as creatures in a vacuum, which they are absolutely not). Even they, though, are aware that Lurrus of the Dream-Den is incredibly pushed outside of Standard.
Hayne's take was the most moderate of the "anti-Companion" crowd, and his opinion was that the designs seemed to demonstrate far less caution than the original Lorwyn Planeswalkers, which were understood to be the most recent upheaval of such proportions for the game going forward. I agree wholeheartedly, but I think that future metagames will have far more difficulty adjusting if Companions become as prevalent as Planeswalkers are today. Sperling offered an elegant solution, which was to simply re-configure the tournament floor rules such that "outside the game" is no longer treated as synonymous with "the Sideboard" for sanctioned competitive play. This would allow casual players to enjoy the new toys, while protecting the integrity and diversity of competition circuits of all kinds. The only question would then be whether to errata the Wish cycle and all the callbacks to them (Glittering Wish/Fae of Wishes/Mastermind's Acquisition) to re-define the Sideboard as an exceptionally-accessible zone, or more likely to have them revert to their original wording (under which they could once again return things from Exile, and would otherwise have their power curbed significantly).
I hope that one of these options is suitable, or that something else can be suggested which re-distributes the balance of power as it currently stands. My own idea would be to staple Companions to the Command zone, sort of like a weaker version of Partner, which leaves the tournament scene untouched. Right now, as far as I am concerned, every fair deck that is not using a companion is at the mercy of being down a card every game before they even choose whether to Mulligan. My intuition is that this leads to extremely linear decks taking up all the real estate outside of decks with Companions, except for degenerate strategies that have access to Companions themselves, and that does not seem at all healthy to me. On the other hand, Planeswalkers were absorbed into the fabric of the game successfully, despite my chagrin at their initial appearance. I am not at all certain that I am right about all this, but I believe the changes we are witnessing here will be similarly irreversible, and far more pernicious. Time, as always, will tell."
thank you for sharing thoughts on your testings. We have been doing a bit of tests here too, although limited because I could only test with people in our house due to lockdown.
the additional 20 cards of an 80 card deck means my removal are diluted. Partially solved by the addition of one more mortarpod and another removal. Also trying to be greedy with only 30 lands, so far no mana problems, but my curve is lower than the stock builds, have a high number of 2 cmc stuff.
Yorion is amazing as the 8th card in hand. Resetting mortarpods, walls, etc. Brings a lot of value when he arrives.
I'm not preparing for Lurrus at all, as I expect this thing to banned soon.
I agree on the removal dilution, but all the effects have redundant pieces so I have found the issue to be limited to Path to Exile specifically. Winds of Abandon has done reasonable work as a semi-clone, but costing 2 and being Sorcery-speed are drawbacks only partly made up for by the Overload utility (which is fantastic when it works, but only adds power to the lategame, where the help is not as necessary. When it comes to Living Weapons, Yorion, Sky Nomad has much better synergy than I was expecting. I wrote this about it on the Discord:
"My personal experience was that Stoneforge Mystic searching out a Batterskull which could be blinked later to create a fresh blocker was excellent already, but I also found that Mortarpod got much more powerful when it could reliably be combined with Yorion. I am very keen to play against more Planeswalkers as soon as possible to confirm my suspicions, but I think that loyalty will be much easier to attack going forward."
Having multiple copies of the ping effect gets out of hand very quickly, and the "machine-gun" combination is sort of like a "build your own Walking Ballista", which is an absurd card to gain access to for free. Assembling all four copies is almost trivial once Emeria, the Sky Ruin gets involved, and the direct-damage lategame is dramatically accelerated (the opponent is now dead 3/4 turns from the first Emeria trigger, assuming access to a single Stoneforge Mystic in combination with the guaranteed Yorion, and this math disregards combat completely).
A further new discussion of Yorion, Sky Nomad and Blink effects from the Discord:
"I am not a fan of Charming Prince, because it does not help as much as Lone Missionary when we are behind, and even Missionary leaves you down a card. I have included these effects maindeck in the past, but it generally requires specific metagames for me to be happy to do so, and the drawback is real in any case. As I have mentioned elsewhere, the 4/5 flier for free is not something that I would ever be disappointed by, and so I will not include any card on the basis of its "being good in combination with Yorion". Any addition to the deck must first help me justify the list I am running, which essentially means that it has to help me stay alive on the way to Emeria, the Sky Ruin. Following the same logic, since it provides similar effects to the namesake land, I would say that this also has to happen for anything that leads into the Sky Nomad. Passive synergy is fine, but the card has to be included on its own merits first. That being said, I have scoured the modern-legal alternatives in blue, white, and colourless creatures at 2 mana, and the drop-off from Wall of Omens to all the other options is extremely steep, almost as steep as the drop-off from Stoneforge Mystic to the rest of the field, so I concede that Charming Prince may sometimes be a necessary evil. I will caution you, however, that there will be times when the operations of the cards will lead you to awkward situations, because you will not be able to use the Prince's blink ability if your blockers are insufficient due to Yorion's "next End Step" wording. This is a synergy with your own Wrath of God, but if re-triggered on the End Step with a Flicker it will leave your board presence diminished until after their Combat Step."
"To sum up: The Birth of Meletis is an option because it literally replaces itself. Charming Prince CAN do this, but it needs help to do so, and on its own it can never find a land or a removal spell immediately the turn it is cast. With this in mind, as of right now the order of playable two-drops in White goes this way: Wall of Omens >>>> Stoneforge Mystic >>> The Birth of Meletis >>> Lone Missionary > Charming Prince. I made the "greater than" signs in proportion to my certainty of my assessment, so in such an assessment it can be seen that it is possible that some builds will be able to replace Mystic with the Saga, or Missionary with the Prince, but nothing replaces Wall of Omens at any level unless you are willing to stretch the definition of "two-drop" to the breaking point by including Thraben Inspector. I am not, and so I would put that card roughly on par with the Saga in this list, albeit with a large asterisk. "
Again, the sharing of information is appreciated. I've read everything you posted.
A mortarpod machine gun. I currently have 3 in the deck now, and they're working fine.
I still don't have Stoneforge Mystic, so using wall of blossoms as substitute for them. So my deck is an 8 wall deck. Yorion likes blinking walls and pods.
Cavalier of Dawn - replaced the baneslayer angel. This guy has been quite useful, being another way to blow up permanents on the other side of the board.. enemy planeswalkers are the usual target, and also large flying creatures that my walls and goyfs can't block.
Sakura-Tribe Elder - sadly, I had to replace the three pilgrim's eye with three elder. Having only 30 land, even with so many cantrips in the deck, there are situations I only have two lands. This guy helps get the very important third land. The downside is I lose the flying blocker, and my goyf are 3/4 or 4/5 with the death of the elder, but if the pilgrim eye dies my goyfs are 4/5 or 5/6 because an artifact got put into the yard.
Remorseful Cleric - 4 in the main, now that there are no pilgrim's eye, they are additional blockers against that new 1/1 UR flyer with super prowess.
___________________
these cards are still being tested.
Thragtusk - giving the life right away is the best payoff of this animal. Also if combined with soulherder he becomes a win con.
Soulherder - the best ligthning rod when I have an etb creature in play. If he lives, the value stacks up.
Qasali Pridemage - blows up equipment, he can also kill eidolons.
___________________
also someone was suggesting I try Arcades, the Strategist because got 8 walls. The dragon feels like win-more, but I would test him if I could get a copy.
Qasali Pridemage is good, but I would be concerned about his difficult mana cost on turn 2. What happened to Knight of Autumn; I thought that you said he had been performing well for you? Also; your 12 two-drop Cantrips are evenly split among Green, Blue, and White now, which seems like it will lead to consistency issues. On the same front, I would not recommend Arcades, plus the fact 8 walls is not enough to justify a 1-of in an 80-card deck. This is less important than the fact that it looks like you are pushing your manabase very hard towards Green, with 13 two-drops requiring it early.
huh, I don't have any knight of autumn. You might be remembering another person's post.
actually, the pridemage started as a wickerbough elder - too high cmc so I changed to a thrashing brontodon - still too high and double green is almost impossible, then changed the brontodon to pridemage which is the sweet spot. My deck can have green on turn two just fine with the help of astrolabes and fetches.
I am sorry; you are correct. I got your list confused with Toshenko's. Good luck with your build!
In other news, a quick update from a discussion of a Bant build on the Discord, with relevant deck construction theory:
"Ok, good luck. Before you try this out in a tournament, though, I will state for the record that I think you are absolutely going to have consistency issues in the lategame. Play Flickerwisp or not as you see fit, the upside may be worth a fail-case 3/1 with no value in a Control shell, so that is your call to make (as is your land configuration). Its presence, though, will reinforce my primary concern: your Wood Elves and Stoneforge Mystic, and to a lesser extent The Birth of Meletis.
I believe you are underestimating how important it is to guarantee value going long, since you are running 3 equipment for 3 Stoneforge, 4 total Forests for 4 Wood Elves, and 5 Plains for 4 Sagas and 4 Field of Ruin. This would be fine if you were trying to end the game on turns 1-6, but by virtue of playing Emeria, the Sky Ruin (backed up by Yorion and Sun Titan), you are actually saying you intend the game to last AT LEAST until the upkeep of turn 8 in normal circumstances, with recursion and flicker effects being involved. At this point, the average quality of your draw steps will outweigh the importance of the plans you can make based on your opening hand, which means that you cannot rely on mathematically "sufficient" conditions, and without an unlimited deck size will always have failures in "necessary" conditions which need to be mitigated in deck design.
In my experience, the game generally ends on turns 9-15 in the W/u shell, which means I try to have an extra 50% of targets over the bare minimum for any search effect. In my experimental 80-card build I would rather do without a second Batterskull and a fourth Mortarpod, but this concern is so important when trying to use a topdecked Stoneforge Mystic to survive one more turn that I am now considering Ancestral Blade as a supplemental candidate which can produce two blockers with no other help. In a similar sense, I think you very likely need Canopy Vista or - more likely given your Basic count - Scattered Groves to give your Wood Elves and fetchlands more support.
In short, when you get access to your cards off the top of your library more than you do from any other means, their absolute proportions are incredibly important. This effect is only magnified by the presence of Yorion, Sky Nomad, and building with that in mind directly affects your games."
"Ok, good luck. Before you try this out in a tournament, though, I will state for the record that I think you are absolutely going to have consistency issues in the lategame. Play Flickerwisp or not as you see fit, the upside may be worth a fail-case 3/1 with no value in a Control shell, so that is your call to make (as is your land configuration). Its presence, though, will reinforce my primary concern: your Wood Elves and Stoneforge Mystic, and to a lesser extent The Birth of Meletis.
have stopped using Flickerwisp long ago. In actual games I played with this deck, wisp is among the terrible topdecks during topdeck wars - I'd rather have another creature with an etb effect. Well, right now my build has two Soulherder who is an even worse topdeck than wisp on an empty board.. however, it is compensated by the fact that herder has an effect every turn, so long as I control a wall or someone else with a good etb.
Wood Elves.. I've looked at this card, actually have a casual mono green that used them. However, here on emeria, the elves fall to the same category of pilgrim's eye for being 3 cmc. It won't help me get out of situations being stuck at 2 mana. So went for Sakura-Tribe instead.
Just to be clear, the above post was for Magnus on the discord, not for you specifically, in case that was not clear.
At any rate, more news from the discord on new test builds:
"I have run a playset of Arcum's Astrolabe through around thirty sample hands plus turns 1/2/3 now (on top of five full test games), and I agree on its value over The Birth of Meletis in the Companion version. The cantrip has proved itself valuable (and for the sake of completeness as a bonus it essentially guarantees value with Yorion, Sky Nomad). Despite this, the timing is under some tension as I find myself trying to sequence it around search effects to manipulate the odds of drawing lands or spells alternatively.
As far as its cost is concerned, it has one major upside and one major downside, though, and I am not sure whether things are clean yet, so I will try to get another 50 samples done to see if any new wrinkles appear. The major downside is that, as fixing, it essentially puts the deck under a Sphere of Resistance on its Blue spells until a Snow land shows up. This only happens a small percentage of the time, but it also poses some as-yet minor sequencing problems for what mana to tap when casting a Pilgrim's Eye, for example, so the manabase may still need more work. On the positive end, as an additional one-drop play it helps fill in the curve at several points, and when found in the opening hand it is nearly trivial to fit in among other spells.
As a minor aside, it can also sometimes turn Sun Titan or Teferi, Time Raveler into card advantage engines. On a serious note; I can't quite put my finger on it yet, but I think that the deck is behaving oddly in some way at 80 cards. I hope to have more to say on this soon. In lighter news, if the super-size version is viable, I am thinking of calling it Clear Winter Skies, since it plays Sun Titan, Snow permanents, and Emeria, the Sky Ruin plus Yorion, Sky Nomad. Any thoughts or better ideas for the name?"
well, if the 80 card version is succesful we can use the name you suggested. I'm fine with that.
oh, and since we have plenty snow lands and a playset of astrolabe. I'm also testing one marit lage's slumber in the 80 card deck. Provides free scry with every snow land drop, and is a wincon if it transforms. Just one though.. because deck space is tight, and it's legendary. Sun Titan can bring the enchantment back to play if the token somehow get's killed. I've transformed it a few times in long games.
That may not be as useful as it might appear. First, Marit Lage's Slumber is Blue, which means it will often be getting cast later in the game when your mana is already fixed, which takes away its ability to help dig you out of sticky situations. Second, it does not affect the board the turn it comes down. Third, it triggers on the upkeep, which is a very awkward timing that gives the opponent almost two full turn cycles to interact and/ or prepare. Finally, it is purely lategame value, which the deck already has access to in many forms. Again, it will certainly win games that are going well, but it probably won't help you get into a winning position if you are behind. If you want to test a Snow Enchantment, though, I have been wondering about On Thin Ice as a card which might be able to help Path to Exile in the 80-card build. The fact that there is not a comparable 1-mana version of the effect in Modern is currently one of my major problems with the larger version.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
That seems fine to me now that Fluff has confirmed there is not one existing already. Good luck!
As for your other issue, in my opinion the hype is not for Yorion, exactly, but for Companions in general. The mechanic genuinely breaks the randomness of the game, reliably provides access to a certain dynamic, and guarantees +1 card advantage, for the price of one sideboard slot and some assorted deck building constraints. If the metagame gets to a point where the only way to stay competitive is to have your own companion, the testing needs to happen now to have the groundwork set up by the time major tournaments are back on track. Yorion, Sky Nomad is simply the lowest-hanging fruit for this shell.
The cards don't always fit cleanly; yet the effort may have become a necessity - I remember that feeling. It is exactly the same one I felt when being forced into warping my decks to run more Jace Beleren, just so that I could have a chance at fighting opposing copies of Jace, the Mind Sculptor back in 2010 Standard, except that the fight is not as direct, and will be happening far more consistently. In my opinion, it was an extremely dangerous gamble that R&D took by releasing these into the wild, and I think it smacks of very short-sighted design, but this appears to be the world we live in now. Playing without a Companion is turning down free value, and you should have a strong reason for voluntarily accepting such a handicap.
As Yogi Berra said, "Things are hard to predict, especially the future". I don't know any of this for sure, but I would guess that every playable effect among these ten legends is going to deeply affect every format it can be legal in, and I could see myself rapidly becoming very tired of their interactions. Look at how much work Burn players have to put into their deck before they can legitimately claim to "always have it". Now consider how little effort a player has to put in to ACTUALLY always have access to a companion's effect - and they have not cost themselves a resource in hand to do so.
There is a long way to go yet before I can apply the word "broken" with legitimacy, but I can and will view this mechanic as an immediate game-changer. Lurrus of the Dream-Den is so abusive, cheap, and easily accommodated by many decks that I have a strong suspicion of his being banned at some point, but I fully expect that we will just have to live with the others long-term. I truly hope that the metagame settles into a balance where they are a rare and exciting exception, but as a competitive player I assume I will need to plan for the worst. If I am walking into a gunfight with a knife, I want to know that, and at least have checked my own gun cabinet first.
https://discord.gg/rEdBa6P
UWAzorius Titan ControlUW
BWOrzhov ControlBW
It is clear to me that all the data I have seen so far across all of my nearly 25 years of experience bears out my opinion that most Flicker effects cost more games than they win in Control shells with no burst card advantage. In my estimation, this is because these are toned-down to fit into acceptable power metrics during design. The Soulherder and Flickerwisp Creatures of the world have never been strict upgrades to existing options for board control, because otherwise they would themselves become the threats which Control is trying to stabilize against. Since this is a rare exception, they typically have severe drawbacks in attrition wars, even beyond the simple fact that combinations are more difficult to assemble in resource-poor environments. When threats gain oppressive value too easily, they get banned, and so long as they are not, the metagame is healthy. (Stoneforge Mystic being a case study for this logic, having been unbanned only after power creep made it possible to do so).
The upshot of this is that I will accept the 80-card sacrifice in order to gain access to Yorion as free value, but I will not change a single card to support him unless that change is justifiable on its own merits. Having permanent access to the option of 4/5 flier is a fantastic opportunity, regardless of any other ancillary benefits. If it can blink anything for value, then I will be glad, but the point is that I would literally be happy to have him in any event. Apart from Crucible of Worlds, every nonland permanent I consider maindeckable has natural synergy with it already, so I will not spend an iota of energy on extra effort for him. When it comes to alternative versions, my own opinion is that straight W/u is still the most viable and consistent shell in general.
Sadly, my local community is currently weeks away from opening up its stores to live tournaments in the best-case scenario, and I do not play online at all, so right now I will take whatever data I can get. I have not been able to justify re-investing in Magic or Yorion, Sky Nomad yet, but I hope to do so relatively soon. In the meantime, I have the following cards on my desk at home lined up and ready to go, and I will be able to test it as of the moment events begin to fire again:
4 The Birth of Meletis
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Pilgrim's Eye
4 Court Hussar
4 Sun Titan
2 Batterskull
4 Mortarpod
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Teferi, Time Raveler
4 Detention Sphere
4 Supreme Verdict
2 Wrath of God
1 Settle the Wreckage
1 Winds of Abandon
4 Path to Exile
11 Plains
4 Field of Ruin
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Prairie Stream
1 Irrigated Farmland
1 Island
1 Mistveil Plains
4 Flooded Strand
3 Hallowed Fountain
3 Remorseful Cleric
2 Aven Mindcensor
1 Lone Missionary
1 Lavinia, Azorius Renegade
2 Pithing Needle
2 Celestial Purge
1 Blessed Alliance
1 Disenchant
1 Aura of Silence
1 Yorion, Sky Nomad
This is simply as clean an expansion of my 60-card list on the homepage as I could make, attempting to isolate the variables which Yorion, Sky Nomad would have on my win percentages, while keeping the proportions of every effect as close as mathematically possible. I had committed to trying it out before the set was fully spoiled, despite my reservations based on the sideboard's decreased effectiveness, but I am now preoccupied by the need to try to make it work in the face of a potential Companion-centric world.
(Edit: Thanks for the Discord, Chantu9Y. I just set up my account, and will try to check on it every once in a while.)
referring to bolded part. That's one of the better things about him. And the fact that he can reset other permanents besides creatures is icing on the cake.
Building an 80 card deck actually feels exciting for me, as it would be the first time to do such a thing. lol
The ten additional cards would obviously be lands, and the other ten I would decide by trial and error.
Once things settle down, I'm hoping a competitive 80 card build would be found which we can add to the primer.
edit: added Yorion to my scg cart for pre-order. I'm glad this guy is only 3 dollars.
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
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
Just so that no one is left out, I had some new testing information to report on the Discord, so I will reproduce it here:
"I have some preliminary results to report, but overall it is much too early to tell, especially since this is only test-match information. The general patterns may still be somewhat relevant at any rate, though, so here are my initial impressions (for whatever that is worth). Although The Birth of Meletis is an option to supplement Pilgrim's Eye I have an unfortunate update on the card to report from my Yorion, Sky Nomad build's recent testing; it in no way replaces it. As the former is a flying blocker that can be cast to colour-fix through an otherwise game-ending Blood Moon, an accurate comparison between the two boils down to deck thinning based on cost alone. The lifegain of the Saga's third chapter is a real bonus, and its CMC of 2 is much more powerful, but the lack of an immediate body is a huge drawback, as is the fact that it is not a creature for Emeria to maintain a consistent stream of value once active.
Operationally, Yorion, Sky Nomad and The Birth of Meletis seem very difficult to balance. Before anything else is addressed, if I keep a hand with The Birth of Meletis and cast it on turn two, it is gone by turn four and no longer around to provide a value-target for Yorion on turn 5. Even worse is the fact that, due to the timing of the chapters, the same will be true if I cast it on turn 3, because it will gain me two life and be sacrificed during my draw step. On turn four I am therefore given a passive incentive to cast the Enchantment over a sweeper which will inevitably take precedence if it has any relevance, and so the only time I am typically glad to sequence a two-drop into a Plains is if I am short on lands, which means that I may be in danger of not having a fifth mana for Yorion on turn 5 - which would be made even more disastrous by the Saga not sticking around to bridge up to six or seven mana smoothly after that. If my first copy of The Birth of Meletis is found on turn five, (turn six now being massively weighted towards either Yorion or Sun Titan) I have an extra option to go for value, but the curve is not able to support adding more 3-drops to make this trivial, so it appears that Path to Exile or a tapland plus a two-drop fill the role a little more frequently to use all available mana cleanly. There are two problems that crop up here. #1 is that there is no functional analogue for Path, and so its presence is a 5% chance, which makes it unlikely. #2 is that I may be looking to cast Yorion before my saga instead, in which case I will not get the option to blink it again until well after Emeria is online. This almost completely covers the common dynamics of the two cards, after I make the concession that turn seven yields an excellent window for guaranteeing the obvious advantages of 7 Plains.
This moment where reanimation is available leads me to my final point on Yorion and Sagas in general: by blinking a graduated effect, the last chapter (lifegain, in this case) is consistently re-set and/or delayed, which means that the card is essentially operating at 2/3 strength. The lifegain, having been an actual draw to the card, is now made more unreliable by a "synergy" that crops up extremely consistently. As a final disadvantage, each permanent removed from play by Yorion returns at the End step, which means that flickering the Enchantment will not get you a Plains in time to make a land drop that turn if you were in danger of missing one. The card is fine, but the sequences it enables can be offered by other cards. Tellingly, the blocker it provides joins the party on a one-turn delay, and so I found myself asking if I wouldn't have been happier if this card had just been the Plains it was getting in the first place. The answer was unfortunately "yes" a non-zero amount of the time. As of right now, I have cut The Birth of Meletis, and I am now testing Arcum's Astrolabe as a direct swap (after adding the Snow Basics, of course). It is very difficult to tell how Yorion, Sky Nomad will affect plays otherwise, but this particular synergy seems much stronger, and the 4/5 flying body is a non-trivial threat for opponents, who are now much more likely to disrupt their own sequencing to use removal on the value targets that it threatens to re-trigger. Anything which makes opponents care about my board state is a huge benefit, to my mind, since I am very glad whenever other decks slow themselves down for any reason in the face of my attrition plan.
One more very strong dynamic the card brings to the battle is a tendency to underestimate the chances of Wrath of God from the opposing side of the table. When there is a Ghostway that has been telegraphed as of turn one, and the deck which represents it continually adds targets which seem to be building up to a value boardstate, it seems much less likely that the opposing pilot will be able to justify holding back to play around a sweeper that they have no guarantee of, when there is an obvious plan available to an Emeria strategy already. Though it remains to be seen whether the sideboard losses will even this effect out, it is clear that Game 1's have been much, much stronger with the option of a Companion overall."
"Watcher for Tomorrow has proved itself to be, for the most part, a trap in this strategy. The most important drawback to it is that it costs Blue mana as early as turn two, which is a true luxury. I accept Blue spells only with extreme caution before turn 3, and even later on only if the advantage that this cost offers is potentially game-breaking from the minute it becomes available. Lavinia, Azorius Renegade locks out many combo decks if she resolves. Supreme Verdict and Detention Sphere can win games on the spot if opponents overextend. Teferi, Time Raveler cripples opposing interaction from the moment he hits play. Court Hussar is the only exception to this rule, and it sits at a nexus of cost, relevance, and synergy which makes it the most powerful card selection engine accessible to this shell. In addition, like all the cards I mentioned before it, the Hussar has immediate application to staying alive from the turn it is cast. Watcher for Tomorrow is therefore worse than it on two additional massively relevant fronts. A) Thanks to a rules quirk of the Hideaway mechanic, it cannot block the turn it is cast due to being tapped, and so cannot stop a lethal attacker. B) Because the card it selects only reaches the hand after it leaves play, Watcher literally requires the presence of some other effect in order to actually generate value. This is questionable at best when working from behind, and typically win-more when ahead."
"Taking a step back, I think Yorion is making me fear the worst from the mechanic in general, and many pros agree because apparently someone has called it "the worst decision Wizards has made since Phyrexian Mana". I think that I concur, and Alexander Hayne, Sam Black, Zvi Mowshowitz, and Matt Sperling have already come out as saying the ability was a massive mistake, with the latter two opining that they think the game would be better if all ten legends were banned immediately. As a counterpoint, Patrick Chapin and Gerry Thompson think that the cards are strong, but balanced, although Chapin has done nothing but brew decks containing them since they were spoiled, and Thompson seemed puzzled by the recent 8-Companion top 8 (his exact words were "is Zirda really that good?", so I get the impression that he is still only evaluating the cards as creatures in a vacuum, which they are absolutely not). Even they, though, are aware that Lurrus of the Dream-Den is incredibly pushed outside of Standard.
Hayne's take was the most moderate of the "anti-Companion" crowd, and his opinion was that the designs seemed to demonstrate far less caution than the original Lorwyn Planeswalkers, which were understood to be the most recent upheaval of such proportions for the game going forward. I agree wholeheartedly, but I think that future metagames will have far more difficulty adjusting if Companions become as prevalent as Planeswalkers are today. Sperling offered an elegant solution, which was to simply re-configure the tournament floor rules such that "outside the game" is no longer treated as synonymous with "the Sideboard" for sanctioned competitive play. This would allow casual players to enjoy the new toys, while protecting the integrity and diversity of competition circuits of all kinds. The only question would then be whether to errata the Wish cycle and all the callbacks to them (Glittering Wish/Fae of Wishes/Mastermind's Acquisition) to re-define the Sideboard as an exceptionally-accessible zone, or more likely to have them revert to their original wording (under which they could once again return things from Exile, and would otherwise have their power curbed significantly).
I hope that one of these options is suitable, or that something else can be suggested which re-distributes the balance of power as it currently stands. My own idea would be to staple Companions to the Command zone, sort of like a weaker version of Partner, which leaves the tournament scene untouched. Right now, as far as I am concerned, every fair deck that is not using a companion is at the mercy of being down a card every game before they even choose whether to Mulligan. My intuition is that this leads to extremely linear decks taking up all the real estate outside of decks with Companions, except for degenerate strategies that have access to Companions themselves, and that does not seem at all healthy to me. On the other hand, Planeswalkers were absorbed into the fabric of the game successfully, despite my chagrin at their initial appearance. I am not at all certain that I am right about all this, but I believe the changes we are witnessing here will be similarly irreversible, and far more pernicious. Time, as always, will tell."
thank you for sharing thoughts on your testings. We have been doing a bit of tests here too, although limited because I could only test with people in our house due to lockdown.
the additional 20 cards of an 80 card deck means my removal are diluted. Partially solved by the addition of one more mortarpod and another removal. Also trying to be greedy with only 30 lands, so far no mana problems, but my curve is lower than the stock builds, have a high number of 2 cmc stuff.
Yorion is amazing as the 8th card in hand. Resetting mortarpods, walls, etc. Brings a lot of value when he arrives.
I'm not preparing for Lurrus at all, as I expect this thing to banned soon.
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
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 agree on the removal dilution, but all the effects have redundant pieces so I have found the issue to be limited to Path to Exile specifically. Winds of Abandon has done reasonable work as a semi-clone, but costing 2 and being Sorcery-speed are drawbacks only partly made up for by the Overload utility (which is fantastic when it works, but only adds power to the lategame, where the help is not as necessary. When it comes to Living Weapons, Yorion, Sky Nomad has much better synergy than I was expecting. I wrote this about it on the Discord:
"My personal experience was that Stoneforge Mystic searching out a Batterskull which could be blinked later to create a fresh blocker was excellent already, but I also found that Mortarpod got much more powerful when it could reliably be combined with Yorion. I am very keen to play against more Planeswalkers as soon as possible to confirm my suspicions, but I think that loyalty will be much easier to attack going forward."
Having multiple copies of the ping effect gets out of hand very quickly, and the "machine-gun" combination is sort of like a "build your own Walking Ballista", which is an absurd card to gain access to for free. Assembling all four copies is almost trivial once Emeria, the Sky Ruin gets involved, and the direct-damage lategame is dramatically accelerated (the opponent is now dead 3/4 turns from the first Emeria trigger, assuming access to a single Stoneforge Mystic in combination with the guaranteed Yorion, and this math disregards combat completely).
A further new discussion of Yorion, Sky Nomad and Blink effects from the Discord:
"I am not a fan of Charming Prince, because it does not help as much as Lone Missionary when we are behind, and even Missionary leaves you down a card. I have included these effects maindeck in the past, but it generally requires specific metagames for me to be happy to do so, and the drawback is real in any case. As I have mentioned elsewhere, the 4/5 flier for free is not something that I would ever be disappointed by, and so I will not include any card on the basis of its "being good in combination with Yorion". Any addition to the deck must first help me justify the list I am running, which essentially means that it has to help me stay alive on the way to Emeria, the Sky Ruin. Following the same logic, since it provides similar effects to the namesake land, I would say that this also has to happen for anything that leads into the Sky Nomad. Passive synergy is fine, but the card has to be included on its own merits first. That being said, I have scoured the modern-legal alternatives in blue, white, and colourless creatures at 2 mana, and the drop-off from Wall of Omens to all the other options is extremely steep, almost as steep as the drop-off from Stoneforge Mystic to the rest of the field, so I concede that Charming Prince may sometimes be a necessary evil. I will caution you, however, that there will be times when the operations of the cards will lead you to awkward situations, because you will not be able to use the Prince's blink ability if your blockers are insufficient due to Yorion's "next End Step" wording. This is a synergy with your own Wrath of God, but if re-triggered on the End Step with a Flicker it will leave your board presence diminished until after their Combat Step."
"To sum up: The Birth of Meletis is an option because it literally replaces itself. Charming Prince CAN do this, but it needs help to do so, and on its own it can never find a land or a removal spell immediately the turn it is cast. With this in mind, as of right now the order of playable two-drops in White goes this way: Wall of Omens >>>> Stoneforge Mystic >>> The Birth of Meletis >>> Lone Missionary > Charming Prince. I made the "greater than" signs in proportion to my certainty of my assessment, so in such an assessment it can be seen that it is possible that some builds will be able to replace Mystic with the Saga, or Missionary with the Prince, but nothing replaces Wall of Omens at any level unless you are willing to stretch the definition of "two-drop" to the breaking point by including Thraben Inspector. I am not, and so I would put that card roughly on par with the Saga in this list, albeit with a large asterisk. "
Again, the sharing of information is appreciated. I've read everything you posted.
A mortarpod machine gun. I currently have 3 in the deck now, and they're working fine.
I still don't have Stoneforge Mystic, so using wall of blossoms as substitute for them. So my deck is an 8 wall deck. Yorion likes blinking walls and pods.
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
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
If your mana is working out, that sounds great. I haven't had success with that idea yet, but perhaps you will. Good luck!
What does your current build look like?
these cards that have been performing well.
Cavalier of Dawn - replaced the baneslayer angel. This guy has been quite useful, being another way to blow up permanents on the other side of the board.. enemy planeswalkers are the usual target, and also large flying creatures that my walls and goyfs can't block.
Sakura-Tribe Elder - sadly, I had to replace the three pilgrim's eye with three elder. Having only 30 land, even with so many cantrips in the deck, there are situations I only have two lands. This guy helps get the very important third land. The downside is I lose the flying blocker, and my goyf are 3/4 or 4/5 with the death of the elder, but if the pilgrim eye dies my goyfs are 4/5 or 5/6 because an artifact got put into the yard.
Remorseful Cleric - 4 in the main, now that there are no pilgrim's eye, they are additional blockers against that new 1/1 UR flyer with super prowess.
___________________
these cards are still being tested.
Thragtusk - giving the life right away is the best payoff of this animal. Also if combined with soulherder he becomes a win con.
Soulherder - the best ligthning rod when I have an etb creature in play. If he lives, the value stacks up.
Qasali Pridemage - blows up equipment, he can also kill eidolons.
___________________
Current build
30 still under testing
Creatures: 29
4 Wall of Omens
4 Wall of Blossoms
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Remorseful Cleric
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Soulherder
1 Cavalier of Dawn
2 Thragtusk
3 Sun Titan
4 Arcum's Astrolabe
3 Mortarpod
Planeswalker: 1
1 Elspeth, Knight Errant
Spells: 7
4 Path to EXile
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Wrath of God
1 Day of Judgment
Enchantment: 7
4 Spreading Seas
2 Detention Sphere
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Yorion, Sky Nomad - Companion
1 Gaddock Teeg
3 Celestial Purge
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
2 Runed Halo
1 Damping Sphere
2 Spellskite
4 Aven Mindcensor
also someone was suggesting I try Arcades, the Strategist because got 8 walls. The dragon feels like win-more, but I would test him if I could get a copy.
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
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
Qasali Pridemage is good, but I would be concerned about his difficult mana cost on turn 2. What happened to Knight of Autumn; I thought that you said he had been performing well for you? Also; your 12 two-drop Cantrips are evenly split among Green, Blue, and White now, which seems like it will lead to consistency issues. On the same front, I would not recommend Arcades, plus the fact 8 walls is not enough to justify a 1-of in an 80-card deck. This is less important than the fact that it looks like you are pushing your manabase very hard towards Green, with 13 two-drops requiring it early.
How have you been finding it so far?
actually, the pridemage started as a wickerbough elder - too high cmc so I changed to a thrashing brontodon - still too high and double green is almost impossible, then changed the brontodon to pridemage which is the sweet spot. My deck can have green on turn two just fine with the help of astrolabes and fetches.
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
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 am sorry; you are correct. I got your list confused with Toshenko's. Good luck with your build!
In other news, a quick update from a discussion of a Bant build on the Discord, with relevant deck construction theory:
"Ok, good luck. Before you try this out in a tournament, though, I will state for the record that I think you are absolutely going to have consistency issues in the lategame. Play Flickerwisp or not as you see fit, the upside may be worth a fail-case 3/1 with no value in a Control shell, so that is your call to make (as is your land configuration). Its presence, though, will reinforce my primary concern: your Wood Elves and Stoneforge Mystic, and to a lesser extent The Birth of Meletis.
I believe you are underestimating how important it is to guarantee value going long, since you are running 3 equipment for 3 Stoneforge, 4 total Forests for 4 Wood Elves, and 5 Plains for 4 Sagas and 4 Field of Ruin. This would be fine if you were trying to end the game on turns 1-6, but by virtue of playing Emeria, the Sky Ruin (backed up by Yorion and Sun Titan), you are actually saying you intend the game to last AT LEAST until the upkeep of turn 8 in normal circumstances, with recursion and flicker effects being involved. At this point, the average quality of your draw steps will outweigh the importance of the plans you can make based on your opening hand, which means that you cannot rely on mathematically "sufficient" conditions, and without an unlimited deck size will always have failures in "necessary" conditions which need to be mitigated in deck design.
In my experience, the game generally ends on turns 9-15 in the W/u shell, which means I try to have an extra 50% of targets over the bare minimum for any search effect. In my experimental 80-card build I would rather do without a second Batterskull and a fourth Mortarpod, but this concern is so important when trying to use a topdecked Stoneforge Mystic to survive one more turn that I am now considering Ancestral Blade as a supplemental candidate which can produce two blockers with no other help. In a similar sense, I think you very likely need Canopy Vista or - more likely given your Basic count - Scattered Groves to give your Wood Elves and fetchlands more support.
In short, when you get access to your cards off the top of your library more than you do from any other means, their absolute proportions are incredibly important. This effect is only magnified by the presence of Yorion, Sky Nomad, and building with that in mind directly affects your games."
have stopped using Flickerwisp long ago. In actual games I played with this deck, wisp is among the terrible topdecks during topdeck wars - I'd rather have another creature with an etb effect. Well, right now my build has two Soulherder who is an even worse topdeck than wisp on an empty board.. however, it is compensated by the fact that herder has an effect every turn, so long as I control a wall or someone else with a good etb.
Wood Elves.. I've looked at this card, actually have a casual mono green that used them. However, here on emeria, the elves fall to the same category of pilgrim's eye for being 3 cmc. It won't help me get out of situations being stuck at 2 mana. So went for Sakura-Tribe instead.
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
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
Just to be clear, the above post was for Magnus on the discord, not for you specifically, in case that was not clear.
At any rate, more news from the discord on new test builds:
"I have run a playset of Arcum's Astrolabe through around thirty sample hands plus turns 1/2/3 now (on top of five full test games), and I agree on its value over The Birth of Meletis in the Companion version. The cantrip has proved itself valuable (and for the sake of completeness as a bonus it essentially guarantees value with Yorion, Sky Nomad). Despite this, the timing is under some tension as I find myself trying to sequence it around search effects to manipulate the odds of drawing lands or spells alternatively.
As far as its cost is concerned, it has one major upside and one major downside, though, and I am not sure whether things are clean yet, so I will try to get another 50 samples done to see if any new wrinkles appear. The major downside is that, as fixing, it essentially puts the deck under a Sphere of Resistance on its Blue spells until a Snow land shows up. This only happens a small percentage of the time, but it also poses some as-yet minor sequencing problems for what mana to tap when casting a Pilgrim's Eye, for example, so the manabase may still need more work. On the positive end, as an additional one-drop play it helps fill in the curve at several points, and when found in the opening hand it is nearly trivial to fit in among other spells.
As a minor aside, it can also sometimes turn Sun Titan or Teferi, Time Raveler into card advantage engines. On a serious note; I can't quite put my finger on it yet, but I think that the deck is behaving oddly in some way at 80 cards. I hope to have more to say on this soon. In lighter news, if the super-size version is viable, I am thinking of calling it Clear Winter Skies, since it plays Sun Titan, Snow permanents, and Emeria, the Sky Ruin plus Yorion, Sky Nomad. Any thoughts or better ideas for the name?"
well, if the 80 card version is succesful we can use the name you suggested. I'm fine with that.
oh, and since we have plenty snow lands and a playset of astrolabe. I'm also testing one marit lage's slumber in the 80 card deck. Provides free scry with every snow land drop, and is a wincon if it transforms. Just one though.. because deck space is tight, and it's legendary. Sun Titan can bring the enchantment back to play if the token somehow get's killed. I've transformed it a few times in long games.
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
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
That may not be as useful as it might appear. First, Marit Lage's Slumber is Blue, which means it will often be getting cast later in the game when your mana is already fixed, which takes away its ability to help dig you out of sticky situations. Second, it does not affect the board the turn it comes down. Third, it triggers on the upkeep, which is a very awkward timing that gives the opponent almost two full turn cycles to interact and/ or prepare. Finally, it is purely lategame value, which the deck already has access to in many forms. Again, it will certainly win games that are going well, but it probably won't help you get into a winning position if you are behind. If you want to test a Snow Enchantment, though, I have been wondering about On Thin Ice as a card which might be able to help Path to Exile in the 80-card build. The fact that there is not a comparable 1-mana version of the effect in Modern is currently one of my major problems with the larger version.