Yeah, it gives good utility, but youre not allowed to short cut anymore.
As far as people saying "you cant dig up the combo in the aggro version." Thats the point. I mean, you kinda can, Collected company. But its you take an already existing shell, in this case zoo, a very good 1.5 tier deck (and the only one on there who can run it.) And add a game wining 2 card combo, that even has protection.
You dont need to dig the combo, the opponent needs to play around it, giving you the edge and windows just to blantently beat down.
All of you advocating Courser need to remember that it pretty much prevents you from ever going off during your combo. You cannot legally shortcut the combo anymore. In between each fetch or knight activation, you will have to shuffle and let your opponent cut, then reveal the top card of your library.
In terms of shortcutting normally (just Knight+Retreat, no Courser involved), I've been asking many judges about this. The general consensus is that you are fine to shortcut it unless your opponent has a valid reason to disallow your shortcut (I.E. they have a response at some point during the combo). So they cannot force you to shuffle in between each fetch without a valid reason.
That reminds me of the Mind's Desire ruling--people typically shuffle their library once and then flip cards off the top (i.e. they don't shuffle between resolving Storm copies), and people's typical behaviour is allowed.
Round 1: 2-1
Knightfall VS Jund
Game 1 - The game went typically, me curving out with Nacatl into Voice into Geist, with him removing every creature but the geist. He drops a tarmogoyf and passes on turn 4. I play my land and pass. He casts a liliana and -2s, I respond with a collected company, drop a 5/5 knight and a Voice, sac the voice, get a big token. I path his tarmogoyf on my turn, drop another Knight, swing 15, he's down to 2 due to fetching, he draws for his turn and scoops.
Game 2 - I mulligan to 4 keeping 3 lands and a Nacatl, he Inquisitions me turn 1 and runs away with the game as I procede to draw more lands.
Game 3 - off of a hierarch I turn 3 company in response to a liliana dropping on my board of hierarch + scavenging ooze, get a knight and a nacatl, sac the nacatl. Draw into the combo and kill him on the spot turn 4.
Round 2: 2-1
Knightfall VS Abzan
Game 1 - I mulligan to 5, hand is 2 lands, hierarch, double knight. He inquisitions my knight turn 1 and my other one turn 2, I eternal witness one back on turn three, he thoughtsiezes it out of my hand again, runs me over with tarmogoyfs.
Game 2 - I go first, curve out nacatl, spellskite, geist. Drop a coralhelm and start tapping down his tarmogoyfs and Siege Rhinos to get through, he dies.
Game 3 - This game goes really long, eventually we're both top decking with no board, I draw collected company, company into Geist + Eternal Witness getting back the company, He can't keep up.
Round 3: 2-1
Knightfall VS Boogles
Game 1 - Gross, he totally runs me over with a huge boogle, there's nothing I can do
Game 2 - Spellskite turn 2, he can't do anything the rest of the game, I turn my creatures sideways until he's dead.
Game 3 - I'm at 10 life due to boogle attacks by turn three, but I combo him out than and there and it's over. I feel like this is a hard match up but the combo helps.
Round 4: 0-2
Knightfall VS Scapeshift
Game 1: She runs optimally, turn 5 scapeshifts me with my combo in hand, I have no real way to interact in my mainboard
Game 2: I keep an incredibly aggressive seven with no sideboard cards like choke, Thalia, and magus of the moon thinking I'd have to be insane to mulligan, turn 1 Hierarch, turn 2 Geist, Turn 3 Knight, Turn 4 she taps the team with a cryptic command, I drop another knight and a nacatl and pass, she plays a thragtusk to get up to 25, I swing 21 damage from 6/6 knights, nacatl, geist, she blocks the geist and takes it all, combos me out the next turn
The deck is still weak to combo, but I feel having our own combo helps us out a lot. I feel that the scapeshift deck ran completely optimally in both games and there was not much I could do. All and all I'm happy with the list.
I changed my magus to aven on the zoo thread. Still testing, but should make the games a little easier to win.
Regardless! Congrats. I 4-0ed my sat FMN with the combo, and thats over on the zoo thread right now. I'm doing online testing (cockatrice until mtgo.) and finding better results than before now my sideboard is changed too. Seems like the zoo versions are pulling out wins, even though the combo doesnt really happen "god hand" often, it basically funtions as a check against the long game, where zoo starts to get soft. Cool, you been suriving, heres 15 more points of sudden reach damage that tramples and is immune to removal. Good luck.
Will post testing results in the zoo thread in a few hours.
All of you advocating Courser need to remember that it pretty much prevents you from ever going off during your combo. You cannot legally shortcut the combo anymore. In between each fetch or knight activation, you will have to shuffle and let your opponent cut, then reveal the top card of your library.
In terms of shortcutting normally (just Knight+Retreat, no Courser involved), I've been asking many judges about this. The general consensus is that you are fine to shortcut it unless your opponent has a valid reason to disallow your shortcut (I.E. they have a response at some point during the combo). So they cannot force you to shuffle in between each fetch without a valid reason.
That reminds me of the Mind's Desire ruling--people typically shuffle their library once and then flip cards off the top (i.e. they don't shuffle between resolving Storm copies), and people's typical behaviour is allowed.
Its a different interaction. While shuffle is on the card (as it is with the the fetches too) you can loop short cut it as long as the top is never "known information" Since cour's is, its not the "reveal trigger" that messes up the loop, its the fact that because its information given to the opponent, you must combo out one by one. This is so the player can see more of your deck for example.
Its not allowed to short cut with it on the field.
Courser is an incredible card in the deck, and you're going to see (quote me on this) MTGO lists 3-1 and 4-0'ing with Courser. Cutting him for time in paper seems like an early concession, in my opinion. Try it first. Please don't cut a card that has clear value in the deck because of time. Its synergy with Retreat is real. If you're all-in on the combo, I understand.
People will eventually start scooping when you present the combo. Let's be real here..if they have interaction they need to do it before you go off and gain ten life from courser and get all the value lands ou
There was a guy in Omaha a few years back bluffed his way to top 8 of a PTQ running Day of the Dragons with no dragons at all. People would auto scoop every time until Top 8 and dude called him on it, he laughed and scooped.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Current Decks Standard : WB Orzhov Vampires BWGUB Sultai Constrictor BUG Brawl : GB Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons BG Modern : GB Golgari Elves BGGR Atarka Goblins RG Pauper : W Heroic WGB Delve BG
Yes, occasionally you'll have to do it. But then you shuffle a few times times rapidly, present your deck, and flip. It'll take no more than 5 minutes to execute the combo to lethal.
The deck presents a pretty fast clock not respective of the combo and so the percentage of games you'll lose by going to time likely far fewer than UR twin loses going to time trying to beat people to death with deceiver exarchs.
I think people are premature worrying about mechanics - play the best deck and see if it's a problem
All of you advocating Courser need to remember that it pretty much prevents you from ever going off during your combo. You cannot legally shortcut the combo anymore. In between each fetch or knight activation, you will have to shuffle and let your opponent cut, then reveal the top card of your library.
In terms of shortcutting normally (just Knight+Retreat, no Courser involved), I've been asking many judges about this. The general consensus is that you are fine to shortcut it unless your opponent has a valid reason to disallow your shortcut (I.E. they have a response at some point during the combo). So they cannot force you to shuffle in between each fetch without a valid reason.
The simplest way to shortcut is to simply reveal a card from your deck at random in between fetches. It isn't that hard and only takes a few extra seconds per fetch. Any reasonable judge should allow this.
That reminds me of the Mind's Desire ruling--people typically shuffle their library once and then flip cards off the top (i.e. they don't shuffle between resolving Storm copies), and people's typical behaviour is allowed.
You were able to shortcut mind's desire in that way because the decks order never becomes known information during the resolution of Mind's desire. If you cast mind's desire with a courser up, you would need to take a similar approach to the above. For each copy of Mind's desire to be resolved, first choose a card at random from your deck to be the top card that is exiled, second choose a card at random to be revealed as the next top card. Mix the revealed card back into the deck and then repeat the first and second step until all copies of mind's desire are resolved. When the last is resolved, leave the last revealed card separate from the deck, shuffle the rest of your library, then put the revealed card on top of your library.
Shortcuts with reveal effects are difficult, but not impossible.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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
I uploaded what is 80% of the primer so far. The images will come shortly... Also a lot of the text is untested/unrefined so don't get too picky. Although critiques are still nice. And MTGS changed how the [box] command works...... I'm real sad.
Great to see the primer rolling out! It's looking good so far and I like the official name change. Now we just need some official games and results to start building it up.
That's rough with the blood moons, but that's a weakness for any 3 colour deck. Luckily we can mainboard dromoka's as a hedge. As well as Heirarch helps fight through and the deck can pretty safely fetch basics and still operate. In fact I've been fetching basics more and more while playing with some of the tango lands. I think this deck might have an easier time than other 3 colour non red decks against blood moon. But in the end blood moon is blood moon and it can wreck you
I'm thinking of going bant, dropping coco and putting in some other card advantage along with some spells. Aside from Courser and maybe Jace/visions what other CA do we really have access too?
1) Artifacts. Knight gives us the ability to easily tutor up Academy ruins (and darksteel citadel for that matter), Hangarback is really good in the deck, and there are a few strong artifact creatures who tap. Play thirst for knowledge. trinket mage is insane for Hangarback.
Repeatedly activating steel overseer might be worth the price of admission to an artifact heavy deck, and in colors with plenty of removal (even maindeck answers with Dromoka's) for stony silence.
2) Snapcasters. Sadly our removal is not the best, and counterspells are pretty poor in modern, and not having bolt gives us substantially less reach than Twin. If we had another solid removal spell or two, or a good counterspell, I think this could work.
3) Put lands in your hand. Life from the loam, Weathered wayfarer, gift of estates, and that gift's ungiven for lands can both result in a lot of cards, and potentially some serious value.
4) Day's Undoing - it's a nonbo with a resolved Knight, but if we play cards like Hangarback, Voice and Supreme Verdict it might be strong. Hilariously though, you can Day's Undoing and then keep executing the Knight combo the next time you get priority - it's functionally an instant speed combo, although you have to wait until you hit an attack step.
5) Wall of Omens, Restoration angel, Kitchen Finks package (aka the UW Control model)
6) Gifts - not sure how this'd work but there're probably some pretty strong gifts packages here, maybe even a 4-of that resolves the combo with enough mana.
So far I am liking the artifacts and UW control models the best conceptually. The Trinket mage package was very very strong when I tried it, and generates a lot of cards.
The issue with both approaches is you wind up playing almost all value critters, and Knight is a baneslayer not a mulldrifter -- so we really make people's removal live on Knight
Reveillark is possible as a way to rescue Knight, especially strong with Restoration angel, but very slow.
I uploaded what is 80% of the primer so far. The images will come shortly... Also a lot of the text is untested/unrefined so don't get too picky. Although critiques are still nice. And MTGS changed how the [box] command works...... I'm real sad.
I uploaded what is 80% of the primer so far. The images will come shortly... Also a lot of the text is untested/unrefined so don't get too picky. Although critiques are still nice. And MTGS changed how the [box] command works...... I'm real sad.
crap. Does that mean our primers got messed up? Damnnnnnnn
I'm thinking of going bant, dropping coco and putting in some other card advantage along with some spells. Aside from Courser and maybe Jace/visions what other CA do we really have access too?
theres always sphinx's revelation but were in blue, king of card draw so theres lots of stuff depending on how you want to commit to it. Even something like perilous research turns their removal into card draw, and helps mitigate flood or cycle useless mana dorks.
thats just card draw. there are many things like Pokken pointed out that enable 2-for-1s in our favour like finks or resto or the academy package. Currently I am using Dragonlord ojutai as a beefy finisher/card advantage engine
I played a bunch of testing games against Jund and UW control with my Knightfall + Molten Vortex / Life from the Loam deck. It didn't go well, I won about half the games, the deck is powerful, but its trying to do too many things and doesn't have enough interaction to either defend my board or interact with the opponent.
I really missed Simic Charm, and the games I won were almost all either Vortex or straight beatdown. The threat of the combo did some work for me, but I rarely won games directly with it. Most of the time I just didn't have enough pressure against the control deck, he was too comfortable unless I had Vortex on the board. I'm going back to the drawing board.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
As far as people saying "you cant dig up the combo in the aggro version." Thats the point. I mean, you kinda can, Collected company. But its you take an already existing shell, in this case zoo, a very good 1.5 tier deck (and the only one on there who can run it.) And add a game wining 2 card combo, that even has protection.
You dont need to dig the combo, the opponent needs to play around it, giving you the edge and windows just to blantently beat down.
That reminds me of the Mind's Desire ruling--people typically shuffle their library once and then flip cards off the top (i.e. they don't shuffle between resolving Storm copies), and people's typical behaviour is allowed.
1x Birds of Paradise
3x Voice of Resurgence
4x Wild Nacatl
2x Scavenging Ooze
1x Eternal Witness
3x Geist of Saint Traft
1x Grim Lavamancer
4x Knight of the Reliquary
4x Noble Hierarch
2x Qasali Pridemage
Noncreature Spells
3x Retreat to Coralhelm
3x Collected Company
3x Lightning Bolt
4x Path to Exile
1x Plains
1x Sacred Foundry
1x Sejiri Steppe
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Kessig Wolf Run
2x Stomping Ground
1x Temple Garden
4x Windswept Heath
4x Wooded Foothills
3x Arid Mesa
2x Forest
1x Breeding Pool
2x Burrenton Forge-Tender
1x Choke
2x Engineered Explosives
2x Kataki, War's Wage
2x Kor Firewalker
2x Magus of the Moon
2x Spellskite
2x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
Round 1: 2-1
Knightfall VS Jund
Game 1 - The game went typically, me curving out with Nacatl into Voice into Geist, with him removing every creature but the geist. He drops a tarmogoyf and passes on turn 4. I play my land and pass. He casts a liliana and -2s, I respond with a collected company, drop a 5/5 knight and a Voice, sac the voice, get a big token. I path his tarmogoyf on my turn, drop another Knight, swing 15, he's down to 2 due to fetching, he draws for his turn and scoops.
Game 2 - I mulligan to 4 keeping 3 lands and a Nacatl, he Inquisitions me turn 1 and runs away with the game as I procede to draw more lands.
Game 3 - off of a hierarch I turn 3 company in response to a liliana dropping on my board of hierarch + scavenging ooze, get a knight and a nacatl, sac the nacatl. Draw into the combo and kill him on the spot turn 4.
Round 2: 2-1
Knightfall VS Abzan
Game 1 - I mulligan to 5, hand is 2 lands, hierarch, double knight. He inquisitions my knight turn 1 and my other one turn 2, I eternal witness one back on turn three, he thoughtsiezes it out of my hand again, runs me over with tarmogoyfs.
Game 2 - I go first, curve out nacatl, spellskite, geist. Drop a coralhelm and start tapping down his tarmogoyfs and Siege Rhinos to get through, he dies.
Game 3 - This game goes really long, eventually we're both top decking with no board, I draw collected company, company into Geist + Eternal Witness getting back the company, He can't keep up.
Round 3: 2-1
Knightfall VS Boogles
Game 1 - Gross, he totally runs me over with a huge boogle, there's nothing I can do
Game 2 - Spellskite turn 2, he can't do anything the rest of the game, I turn my creatures sideways until he's dead.
Game 3 - I'm at 10 life due to boogle attacks by turn three, but I combo him out than and there and it's over. I feel like this is a hard match up but the combo helps.
Round 4: 0-2
Knightfall VS Scapeshift
Game 1: She runs optimally, turn 5 scapeshifts me with my combo in hand, I have no real way to interact in my mainboard
Game 2: I keep an incredibly aggressive seven with no sideboard cards like choke, Thalia, and magus of the moon thinking I'd have to be insane to mulligan, turn 1 Hierarch, turn 2 Geist, Turn 3 Knight, Turn 4 she taps the team with a cryptic command, I drop another knight and a nacatl and pass, she plays a thragtusk to get up to 25, I swing 21 damage from 6/6 knights, nacatl, geist, she blocks the geist and takes it all, combos me out the next turn
The deck is still weak to combo, but I feel having our own combo helps us out a lot. I feel that the scapeshift deck ran completely optimally in both games and there was not much I could do. All and all I'm happy with the list.
~Modern~
BGURWhiteless Death's ShadowRUGB
GWRUSaheeli BlinkURWG
RGBUGood Ole' DredgeUBGR
~Commander~
URWNarset, Enlightened Time-TravelerWRU
UBRWBreya, Etherium ArchitectWRBU
A Prolific Loser To Blood Moon
Regardless! Congrats. I 4-0ed my sat FMN with the combo, and thats over on the zoo thread right now. I'm doing online testing (cockatrice until mtgo.) and finding better results than before now my sideboard is changed too. Seems like the zoo versions are pulling out wins, even though the combo doesnt really happen "god hand" often, it basically funtions as a check against the long game, where zoo starts to get soft. Cool, you been suriving, heres 15 more points of sudden reach damage that tramples and is immune to removal. Good luck.
Will post testing results in the zoo thread in a few hours.
Its a different interaction. While shuffle is on the card (as it is with the the fetches too) you can loop short cut it as long as the top is never "known information" Since cour's is, its not the "reveal trigger" that messes up the loop, its the fact that because its information given to the opponent, you must combo out one by one. This is so the player can see more of your deck for example.
Its not allowed to short cut with it on the field.
CG
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Current Decks
Standard : WB Orzhov Vampires BW GUB Sultai Constrictor BUG
Brawl : GB Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons BG
Modern : GB Golgari Elves BG GR Atarka Goblins RG
Pauper : W Heroic W GB Delve BG
Yes, occasionally you'll have to do it. But then you shuffle a few times times rapidly, present your deck, and flip. It'll take no more than 5 minutes to execute the combo to lethal.
The deck presents a pretty fast clock not respective of the combo and so the percentage of games you'll lose by going to time likely far fewer than UR twin loses going to time trying to beat people to death with deceiver exarchs.
I think people are premature worrying about mechanics - play the best deck and see if it's a problem
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
The simplest way to shortcut is to simply reveal a card from your deck at random in between fetches. It isn't that hard and only takes a few extra seconds per fetch. Any reasonable judge should allow this.
You were able to shortcut mind's desire in that way because the decks order never becomes known information during the resolution of Mind's desire. If you cast mind's desire with a courser up, you would need to take a similar approach to the above. For each copy of Mind's desire to be resolved, first choose a card at random from your deck to be the top card that is exiled, second choose a card at random to be revealed as the next top card. Mix the revealed card back into the deck and then repeat the first and second step until all copies of mind's desire are resolved. When the last is resolved, leave the last revealed card separate from the deck, shuffle the rest of your library, then put the revealed card on top of your library.
Shortcuts with reveal effects are difficult, but not impossible.
- Manite
MTGO/MTGA: Tyclone
My Primers ~ GWx Vizier Company ~ Knightfall ~ RG Eldrazi ~ Green's Sun's Zenith
More Brews ~ Modern Four Horsemen ~ Gitrog Dredge
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
That's rough with the blood moons, but that's a weakness for any 3 colour deck. Luckily we can mainboard dromoka's as a hedge. As well as Heirarch helps fight through and the deck can pretty safely fetch basics and still operate. In fact I've been fetching basics more and more while playing with some of the tango lands. I think this deck might have an easier time than other 3 colour non red decks against blood moon. But in the end blood moon is blood moon and it can wreck you
1) Artifacts. Knight gives us the ability to easily tutor up Academy ruins (and darksteel citadel for that matter), Hangarback is really good in the deck, and there are a few strong artifact creatures who tap. Play thirst for knowledge. trinket mage is insane for Hangarback.
Repeatedly activating steel overseer might be worth the price of admission to an artifact heavy deck, and in colors with plenty of removal (even maindeck answers with Dromoka's) for stony silence.
2) Snapcasters. Sadly our removal is not the best, and counterspells are pretty poor in modern, and not having bolt gives us substantially less reach than Twin. If we had another solid removal spell or two, or a good counterspell, I think this could work.
3) Put lands in your hand. Life from the loam, Weathered wayfarer, gift of estates, and that gift's ungiven for lands can both result in a lot of cards, and potentially some serious value.
4) Day's Undoing - it's a nonbo with a resolved Knight, but if we play cards like Hangarback, Voice and Supreme Verdict it might be strong. Hilariously though, you can Day's Undoing and then keep executing the Knight combo the next time you get priority - it's functionally an instant speed combo, although you have to wait until you hit an attack step.
5) Wall of Omens, Restoration angel, Kitchen Finks package (aka the UW Control model)
6) Gifts - not sure how this'd work but there're probably some pretty strong gifts packages here, maybe even a 4-of that resolves the combo with enough mana.
So far I am liking the artifacts and UW control models the best conceptually. The Trinket mage package was very very strong when I tried it, and generates a lot of cards.
The issue with both approaches is you wind up playing almost all value critters, and Knight is a baneslayer not a mulldrifter -- so we really make people's removal live on Knight
Reveillark is possible as a way to rescue Knight, especially strong with Restoration angel, but very slow.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
theres always sphinx's revelation but were in blue, king of card draw so theres lots of stuff depending on how you want to commit to it. Even something like perilous research turns their removal into card draw, and helps mitigate flood or cycle useless mana dorks.
thats just card draw. there are many things like Pokken pointed out that enable 2-for-1s in our favour like finks or resto or the academy package. Currently I am using Dragonlord ojutai as a beefy finisher/card advantage engine
I really missed Simic Charm, and the games I won were almost all either Vortex or straight beatdown. The threat of the combo did some work for me, but I rarely won games directly with it. Most of the time I just didn't have enough pressure against the control deck, he was too comfortable unless I had Vortex on the board. I'm going back to the drawing board.