Yeah, as a longtime Gx Tron player, my very first thought was "well, we've been playing through Blood Mood already, so this won't be that bad." But this really does look way stronger against Gx Tron for a few reasons:
-It's far more splashable
-It comes down a turn earlier (especially relevant for players against Tron on the draw, since unlike typical Blood Moon or Fulminator Mage plays, you can now cut them off before they hit critical mass)
-The second ability is very relevant; plays like cycling Chromatic Sphere/Star into other spells repeatedly, or even Stirrings into threat or answer on the same turn, all take a hit
We will definitely have to prepare accordingly. GR's access to Ancient Grudge just became more relevant, for starters.
Speaking as a Gx Tron player, the new Karn doesn't really do it for me; as a mediocre card draw engine and a creature generator that doesn't trigger Sanctum of Ugin on cast, it's not really a solid fit for typical lists. At four generic to cast, it's pretty splashable though, so maybe those abilities could be put to good use somewhere else.
Look at what it does to a deck that wants to Counter, or Cast and then Counter. Thats going to cause issues and I think its a great thing to see.
Nobody would play this against a control deck, far better options. They basically just made a better blood moon vs very specific cards in eldrazi temple and tron (hell that's ignoring the legacy reprecussions). That's ignoring that it basically beats spell based combo on the spot.
Hopefully this all turns out to be nonsense, otherwise it sounds like WOTC wants to institute the new world order of design into modern, the exact policy which is why i play formats other than standard to begin with.
No no, I'm not saying its a counter hoser. I'm saying if I play it, against Tron, as a Control Player, I get 1 spell, my second is going to be expensive.
Stabilization Orb, which seems legitimate, is a spectacular generic hate piece for Modern. It hurts Tron, Eldrazi, Storm, and Ad Nauseam, i.e. a huge range of unfair decks in Tier 1 and Tier 2. This would be one of the best hate cards printed in a long time, AND it's a hate card that has virtually zero splash damage to fair decks. Cards like this, which are almost guaranteed to be designed for Modern, would dramatically increase my faith in the Play Design team.
I, for one, admit that my wins are 100% luck based. I win if I draw better than my opponents - the draws being very matchup dependent as well. For example, Kor Spiritdancer vs. an uninteractive deck. I need a quick clock in those matchups and it's unlikely he dies before growing exponentially large.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
I, for one, admit that my wins are 100% luck based. I win if I draw better than my opponents - the draws being very matchup dependent as well. For example, Kor Spiritdancer vs. an uninteractive deck. I need a quick clock in those matchups and it's unlikely he dies before growing exponentially large.
I would have to agree. If you are playing Bogles, you draw your hexproof dudes, play them, and play enchantments. Bonus points if you are running Leyline like I saw this guy do the other night.
He snap conceded and left the match (game 2, he took game 1) when I cast Runed Halo, not sure whats up with that...
I play a different deck nearly every week (and often every tournament), outside of doing 5 Color Gifts for 2 weeks straight. Each and every one of those decks had matches decided not by play skill, outside of perhaps mulliganing. The decks I ran were Abzan Counters, Grishoalbrand, Bogles, 5 Color Gifts, Affinity, Titanshift, UR Breach, Mono Green Tron, GDS, and BG Midrange. Those are the decks that I remember off hand that I have played in the past 2 months.
I play 3-5 times per week, so I "get around" so to say. This week, I am going to be playing every day but today (Thursday Pacific Time).
*I'm truly sorry to disappoint (some) people here, but I'm not going to say that I drew terribly when I won with GDS. I'm not going to say that I drew amazingly with GDS and my opponent still beat me. It just doesn't happen in my experience. Outside of some fringe situation that I just made up where a player on 20 life runs out multiple Death's Shadows, which I've never seen happen at any of the stores I've been to, play skill just hasn't determined matches much. I will admit that in some matches, depending on how even the draws are, it can matter. It just hasn't for me much.
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Stabilization Orb, which seems legitimate, is a spectacular generic hate piece for Modern. It hurts Tron, Eldrazi, Storm, and Ad Nauseam, i.e. a huge range of unfair decks in Tier 1 and Tier 2. This would be one of the best hate cards printed in a long time, AND it's a hate card that has virtually zero splash damage to fair decks. Cards like this, which are almost guaranteed to be designed for Modern, would dramatically increase my faith in the Play Design team.
says the lantern player
i kid.
really though gl finding SB slots for it. decks playing BR are better served playing fulminators which come in against a wider variety of decks. they have access to discard against storm.
blue decks are better served with permission spells against storm, which are also good in multiple matchups. if they want to hose tron they need to play 4 to reliably cast it before turn 3. if thats the case then blue decks could be running 4 spreading seas right now for functionally the same effect.
its a good hate card, but hardly auto-include
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
I play a different deck nearly every week (and often every tournament), outside of doing 5 Color Gifts for 2 weeks straight. Each and every one of those decks had matches decided not by play skill, outside of perhaps mulliganing. The decks I ran were Abzan Counters, Grishoalbrand, Bogles, 5 Color Gifts, Affinity, Titanshift, UR Breach, Mono Green Tron, GDS, and BG Midrange. Those are the decks that I remember off hand that I have played in the past 2 months.
I play 3-5 times per week, so I "get around" so to say. This week, I am going to be playing every day but today (Thursday Pacific Time).
*I'm truly sorry to disappoint (some) people here, but I'm not going to say that I drew terribly when I won with GDS. I'm not going to say that I drew amazingly with GDS and my opponent still beat me. It just doesn't happen in my experience. Outside of some fringe situation that I just made up where a player on 20 life runs out multiple Death's Shadows, which I've never seen happen at any of the stores I've been to, play skill just hasn't determined matches much. I will admit that in some matches, depending on how even the draws are, it can matter. It just hasn't for me much.
You should probably be playing Ashton's Eldrazi Stompy then, pretty sure its whole point is to maximize your draws and limit variance.
Stabilization Orb, which seems legitimate, is a spectacular generic hate piece for Modern. It hurts Tron, Eldrazi, Storm, and Ad Nauseam, i.e. a huge range of unfair decks in Tier 1 and Tier 2. This would be one of the best hate cards printed in a long time, AND it's a hate card that has virtually zero splash damage to fair decks. Cards like this, which are almost guaranteed to be designed for Modern, would dramatically increase my faith in the Play Design team.
Karn is epic in decks like Tezzerator. I've been playing the deck since the JtMS unban and it has some abysmal match ups against Tron. This new artifact, the Karn and the mox are setting up some serious artifact synergies with Saheeli and Tezzerets. The deck as it stands has some serious game against the field, these just give it more tools and ways to build and tinker with.
there are just too many moving parts imo. its the reason that, as far as i know, no one has attempted to create/use a standardized method to assess the difficulty of decks, or judge how much variance plays a role in a certain decks success. for instance how would categorize events where a player actively attempts to put themselves in a position to get lucky - and then do. identifying potential outs is a pretty common occurrence when in a bad position.
if i understand correctly, it looks like you are assuming that skilled players always play more difficult or complex decks. which is most definitely not true. some pros like to play decks that include a number of decisions over a long game to hopefully leverage their play skill, but plenty of others play decks that are powerful or consistent because they deemed it the best avenue to winning.
for instance the recent MOCS tournament won by boggles. the MOCS is an invitational tournament so the baseline skill of the players is higher than it would be otherwise, yet multiple players chose to sleeve up boggles because it employs a strategy that is strong against jund - which ended up being the most played deck at the event. are these players less skilled because of their choice?
assigning values to cards sorta makes sense, but i have no clue how you would even attempt to create a comprehensive system. the card effects are so varied that you would have to create an enormous list of assumptions that people would have to agree on in order to take your results seriously.
so the magic community falls back on generalizations like 'linear', or 'reactive'. which goes back to my comment about intuition. people can grasp what you mean by these terms just by seeing a decks strategy play out or by eyeballing a decklist. the unfortunate side effect of this is that certain decks or their pilots dont get enough credit when they do play skillfully.
at the end of the day though you have to ask yourself: what does it matter? i say let people play the decks they enjoy. any deck that becomes too good, by whatever metric, should get the same treatment.
Quantifying complex systems using algorithms is a good way of solving complex problems. Models will typically outperform human intuition without models.
Knowing and maximizing your outs is a skill. Over the long run the skill would become apparent.
Players aren't less skilled for picking Bogles. However, Bogles is still the same deck regardless if it's picked or not. Interestingly, if a deck does well in some event and people start to pick it up and it puts up a lot of results quickly; does that mean the deck is easy to play? It might be too difficult to parse this from all the noise but it's fun to think about.
Words like linear and reactive reveal what the deck does but it doesn't tell us how much skill matters in playing the deck. I consider this an important point as 2 decks with high skill caps playing against each other will probably be more enjoyable for everyone involved as opposed to bogle vs bogle. Interesting games are good for the game overall and I would be sad if I saw only bogles
Just because cards are varied doesn't mean they can't be put into categories. For example "there are so many fruits how could you possibly classify all of them???!" Well, we do. Are there fringe cases, yes. In general though fruit fits into the fruit category.
Unfortunately I can't answer why something matters in any sense.
I tried to quantify interactivity by evaluating every card in a deck and how many modes it has that interact with an opponent's cards. For instance, a card like Ethereal Armor gets 0 points as it doesn't interact at all barring absurd corner cases. Path/Push gets 1 point for targeting just creatures. Bolt gets 2 for targeting creatures and planeswalkers. Negate would get 5 for all card types it can hit. I haven't re-tested this system recently, but it was a good first attempt at objetively quantifying a very subjective topic.
Interesting that you did this! I'm assuming results weren't great. I feel like only having one axis is not enough. Interactivity can also be interactive within the deck itself. Like tutoring for an answer. The tutor isn't particularly interactive but it can get something interactive. So it's more complex than ethereal armor but it's not necessarily more interactive. I've been toying with an interactivity scale along with complexity scale. So in this case ethereal armor will score low and in both categories while negate is high in interactivity but fairly low in complexity and a tutor is high in complexity but low in interactivity.
My assumption for complexity playing into interactivity is this: Chess is really only interactive because of the sheer complexity. I believe complexity plays a large role in interactivity.
Well, I’m not sure with Jund being arguably the best deck in the format it makes any sense to print lights out hate cards for the best option there’s is to keeping Jund in check, but here we are. The format is already so heavily skewed towards midrange that bogles is having a renaissance, I think this is a really unfortunate thing to do to the format.
Well, I’m not sure with Jund being arguably the best deck in the format it makes any sense to print lights out hate cards for the best option there’s is to keeping Jund in check, but here we are. The format is already so heavily skewed towards midrange that bogles is having a renaissance, I think this is a really unfortunate thing to do to the format.
Well, I’m not sure with Jund being arguably the best deck in the format it makes any sense to print lights out hate cards for the best option there’s is to keeping Jund in check, but here we are. The format is already so heavily skewed towards midrange that bogles is having a renaissance, I think this is a really unfortunate thing to do to the format.
It may be one of the best anti-Tron card ever printed, but it is certainly not lights-out hate for them. Access to green gives Tron plenty of artifact destruction effects out of the sideboard. And, eventually, Oblivion Stone will destroy it just like it destroys blood moon.
Lantern Control, however, will maximize this card more than anyone else I believe given that it has the ability to dig for it or tutor for it and normally has a difficult tron matchup
As a Tron player, i'm really not worried about this card, it's like Stony Silence, if you dont cast it turn 2, it's meh ...
Don't get me wrong, it's good, but not as it is beeing hyped.
Oh. No. Hate cards for unfair things that had limited hate. How tragic. I enjoyed watching my opponent win on my turn 2.
And how many times did that actually happen?
OT: The Orb is powerful, and it makes your counter magic stronger, but it also punishes you for playing Snapcaster or Bloodbraid like Cfusion was saying. I could see this as a 4-of in a control variant that specializes in countering, but without Snapcaster. A hybrid between a traditional counter deck and a prison deck.
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Level 1 Judge
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
As a Tron player, i'm really not worried about this card, it's like Stony Silence, if you dont cast it turn 2, it's meh ...
Don't get me wrong, it's good, but not as it is beeing hyped.
Even if you spent your entire turn answering (which you will be doing) the fair deck will be ahead of mana against you. The card itself is powerful, but the implications it has further project how the game plays.
-It's far more splashable
-It comes down a turn earlier (especially relevant for players against Tron on the draw, since unlike typical Blood Moon or Fulminator Mage plays, you can now cut them off before they hit critical mass)
-The second ability is very relevant; plays like cycling Chromatic Sphere/Star into other spells repeatedly, or even Stirrings into threat or answer on the same turn, all take a hit
We will definitely have to prepare accordingly. GR's access to Ancient Grudge just became more relevant, for starters.
Speaking as a Gx Tron player, the new Karn doesn't really do it for me; as a mediocre card draw engine and a creature generator that doesn't trigger Sanctum of Ugin on cast, it's not really a solid fit for typical lists. At four generic to cast, it's pretty splashable though, so maybe those abilities could be put to good use somewhere else.
Nobody would play this against a control deck, far better options. They basically just made a better blood moon vs very specific cards in eldrazi temple and tron (hell that's ignoring the legacy reprecussions). That's ignoring that it basically beats spell based combo on the spot.
Hopefully this all turns out to be nonsense, otherwise it sounds like WOTC wants to institute the new world order of design into modern, the exact policy which is why i play formats other than standard to begin with.
Spirits
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)I would have to agree. If you are playing Bogles, you draw your hexproof dudes, play them, and play enchantments. Bonus points if you are running Leyline like I saw this guy do the other night.
He snap conceded and left the match (game 2, he took game 1) when I cast Runed Halo, not sure whats up with that...
Spirits
I play 3-5 times per week, so I "get around" so to say. This week, I am going to be playing every day but today (Thursday Pacific Time).
*I'm truly sorry to disappoint (some) people here, but I'm not going to say that I drew terribly when I won with GDS. I'm not going to say that I drew amazingly with GDS and my opponent still beat me. It just doesn't happen in my experience. Outside of some fringe situation that I just made up where a player on 20 life runs out multiple Death's Shadows, which I've never seen happen at any of the stores I've been to, play skill just hasn't determined matches much. I will admit that in some matches, depending on how even the draws are, it can matter. It just hasn't for me much.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)says the lantern player
i kid.
really though gl finding SB slots for it. decks playing BR are better served playing fulminators which come in against a wider variety of decks. they have access to discard against storm.
blue decks are better served with permission spells against storm, which are also good in multiple matchups. if they want to hose tron they need to play 4 to reliably cast it before turn 3. if thats the case then blue decks could be running 4 spreading seas right now for functionally the same effect.
its a good hate card, but hardly auto-include
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)You should probably be playing Ashton's Eldrazi Stompy then, pretty sure its whole point is to maximize your draws and limit variance.
Spirits
Hmm.. not sure why my link isn't working, but the article is on the mothership
Unless those fair decks play Snapcaster Mage.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
There will exist adequate interaction for this archetype
The same could be said for storm, although that archetype already had a hate card any deck could run: Mindbreak Trap
Also can't believe they printed another mox. This one looks very difficult to break, however, compared to all previous ones.
Not only that, now that there's going to be even cheaper and more splashable hate Cloudpost can be unbanned at last.
Quantifying complex systems using algorithms is a good way of solving complex problems. Models will typically outperform human intuition without models.
Knowing and maximizing your outs is a skill. Over the long run the skill would become apparent.
Players aren't less skilled for picking Bogles. However, Bogles is still the same deck regardless if it's picked or not. Interestingly, if a deck does well in some event and people start to pick it up and it puts up a lot of results quickly; does that mean the deck is easy to play? It might be too difficult to parse this from all the noise but it's fun to think about.
Words like linear and reactive reveal what the deck does but it doesn't tell us how much skill matters in playing the deck. I consider this an important point as 2 decks with high skill caps playing against each other will probably be more enjoyable for everyone involved as opposed to bogle vs bogle. Interesting games are good for the game overall and I would be sad if I saw only bogles
Just because cards are varied doesn't mean they can't be put into categories. For example "there are so many fruits how could you possibly classify all of them???!" Well, we do. Are there fringe cases, yes. In general though fruit fits into the fruit category.
Unfortunately I can't answer why something matters in any sense.
Interesting that you did this! I'm assuming results weren't great. I feel like only having one axis is not enough. Interactivity can also be interactive within the deck itself. Like tutoring for an answer. The tutor isn't particularly interactive but it can get something interactive. So it's more complex than ethereal armor but it's not necessarily more interactive. I've been toying with an interactivity scale along with complexity scale. So in this case ethereal armor will score low and in both categories while negate is high in interactivity but fairly low in complexity and a tutor is high in complexity but low in interactivity.
My assumption for complexity playing into interactivity is this: Chess is really only interactive because of the sheer complexity. I believe complexity plays a large role in interactivity.
Also holy moly Dominaria spoilers????
Doesn't the card also hose Bloodbraid Elf?
It may be one of the best anti-Tron card ever printed, but it is certainly not lights-out hate for them. Access to green gives Tron plenty of artifact destruction effects out of the sideboard. And, eventually, Oblivion Stone will destroy it just like it destroys blood moon.
Lantern Control, however, will maximize this card more than anyone else I believe given that it has the ability to dig for it or tutor for it and normally has a difficult tron matchup
Spirits
Don't get me wrong, it's good, but not as it is beeing hyped.
GXTronGX
RWxBurnRWx
And how many times did that actually happen?
OT: The Orb is powerful, and it makes your counter magic stronger, but it also punishes you for playing Snapcaster or Bloodbraid like Cfusion was saying. I could see this as a 4-of in a control variant that specializes in countering, but without Snapcaster. A hybrid between a traditional counter deck and a prison deck.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
It's not just this card, it's the fact that it's probably following from a Turn 1 Thoughtseize into a Turn 3 Liliana of the Veil or Fulminator Mage.
Even if you spent your entire turn answering (which you will be doing) the fair deck will be ahead of mana against you. The card itself is powerful, but the implications it has further project how the game plays.
Me, 6:30 p.m.: "Never mind."
WUBRG Humans
BRW Mardu Pyromancer
UW UW "Control"
UR Blue Moon