[quote from="knto »" url="/forums/the-game/modern/789239-the-state-of-modern-thread-b-r-10-02-18?comment=262"]The reason why SFM is a riskier unban than jace is three-fold.
1) It would fit into more of the current top decks. Humans would play it. Death and Taxes would play it. Variants of control would play it.
I find it very doubtful that Humans would play Stoneforge Mystic. One can watch the Pro Tour for examples of how the deck can have trouble casting anything that isn't a Human (e.g. Kataki), but it's even worse with Stoneforge Mystic because a key strength of that card is its ability to put equipment into play. A major facet to Human's success is its ability to run 12 rainbow lands with essentially no drawback. But none of those rainbow lands can be utilized to activate Stoneforge Mystic. Not one of them! To properly utilize Stoneforge Mystic, Humans will have to trade in rainbow lands that have basically no drawback in favor of much worse cards like Mana Confluence or City of Brass.
Beyond that, Humans is an aggro deck. Certainly, there's disruption in it, but it's still very aggressive. Spending several turns and a bunch of mana for Stoneforge Mystic while not putting actual pressure on the opponent does not seem to fit well into the deck's strategy.
You are completely correct that it'd be an all-star in Death & Taxes, but Death & Taxes is not a top deck of the format.
2) SFM is good vs every deck other than combo. It's good vs aggro (get battleskull). It's good vs midrange (get battleskull or sword of light and shadow). It's good vs control (get fire and ice). It's even "ok" vs combo. Jace would actually be worse vs combo then SFM because SFM represents an absurdly fast clock (fire and ice). There is zero way a combo deck is beating a thalia with a sword of fire and ice equipped.
It feels like one can mount the same argument for Tarmogoyf. It's good vs aggro (it's a cheap wall), good vs midrange (it's a good attacker), and it's good against control (same).
As for Sword of Fire and Ice providing an absurdly fast clock, we need to remember that while it might be fast once assembled, it takes several turns to pull it off. You can't actually attack with anything attached to that until turn 4 at the earliest, and in the meantime you've just been fuddling around casting Stoneforge and then casting (or sneaking) the Sword into play. You might have great pressure starting on turn 4, but you've presented absolutely nothing in the way of pressure in the interim.
As for Thalia+Sword, the decks that run Thalia already have great combo matchups in general, so I don't see this as changing that much.
3) JTMS is extremely slow and does not fit well into an aggressive format like SFM would
This is the best point you raise, but I feel I should point out that while Jace is slow, you can do whatever you want on your first three turns before casting him. Stoneforge isn't really able to start doing its thing until turn 4 (turn 3 if Batterskull blocking is relevant), and that requires you to spend turn 2 casting the thing and turn 3 spending most or all of your mana getting the equipment into play.
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2) SFM is way better than tarmagoyf because at the very worst it tortured for something.
Additionally - a sword equipped by turn 4 is still a faster clock then a jace played on turn 4.
Moroever - SFM allows you to play sword + equip by turn 4 with leaving mana up for disruption if you need it. That's huge.
Turn 3 Karn is not very common at all. Are we literally at the point of just fishing up whatever excuse fits the narrative? Jace is freakishly powerful and people playing him down are severely underestimating what he can do. He is as bit of z win more card, not going to argue that, but he can drag games out that should just end.
Odd you say that because how are those games ending that get dragged out? With the blue players losing.
How about someone picks a better example of "you beat Jace by going under him" than a gold fish plan with a karn in tron for turn 3?
Huh?
Bogles? Grishoalbrand? Burn? Infect? Bloo? Even old fashioned Zoo.
Doesnt change that Karn Turn 3 happens, because it does, but...nobody who plays Modern should be shocked to find out that you can die before Turn 3.
There is a Tron player at my LGS who has been playing the deck for years. He has said that the chances of Tron getting a Karn on turn three are something like 30/45%, which is a truly disgusting number.
My point is that small creature removal is more prevalent in modern than in legacy because the diversity of threats is greater in legacy. According to MTGOldfish's "most commonly played legacy creatures list" SFM is #5. Delver is #2, Snapcaster is #4, and Young Pyromancer is #6 yet those range from not great to awesome in modern. None of the swords or batterskull crack the top 50 spells, with Jitte being the only legit SFM target on the list.
It's a great card and they aren't going to unban it but these are different formats with different metas and just because something is borderline format defining in one doesn't mean it will be broken in another.
Mtggoldfish has a weird way of sorting cards. Batterskull is played within 1% of the same amount of decks as SFM. You only play 1 for obvious reasons so format dominance on mtgggoldfish is low (this is why batterskull and sword don't crack the top 50 spells. Sword of fire and ice is within 2% of SFM. Once again format dominance is low on mtggoldfish because you only play 1 in a deck. I'm getting my info from mtgtop8.com
Also what gets played in legacy can certainly be an indicator of what can be good in modern. Only delver isn't good in modern. The rest are banned or very good in modern.
The first thing that's played in legacy that isn't lands or the cantrip cartel is lightning bolt...the most played card in modern. This is followed by...Jace... followed by more busted/banned cards etc. SFM is busted and I'm pretty sure Jace is too. He is the premier 4 drop in fair decks and he's gonna squeeze out the other options.
There is a Tron player at my LGS who has been playing the deck for years. He has said that the chances of Tron getting a Karn on turn three are something like 30/45%, which is a truly disgusting number.
He's wrong. I can't remember where, but someone actually somehow crunched all the numbers and determined that, assuming zero disruption from the opponent, it was around 20% (it was higher on the draw and lower on the play, but averaged out to about 20%). The 20% figure fits perfectly with my personal testing on the subject as well. I don't know where that 30-45% comes from, but I can tell you it's not true.
And again, that 20% figure is not taking into account disruption on the part of the opponent, which obviously would reduce that chance further.
EDIT: Found it. See here and here. These back up the 20% figure I cited (well technically they're closer to 19% but we can reasonably round it to 20% for simplicity).
I don’t know if we’ll see a reduction in diversity. UR Blood Moon, GR Blood Moon, Jund, Azorius, Esper, and Jeskai each have their advantages. We may even see a Temur list that runs both. Also, decks like traditional Tron, Hatebears/Taxes, and BW tokens have a good matchup against Jace control decks and midrange BBE decks, so we may see an increase in those decks.
Furthermore, affinity, Storm, Scapeshift, DS, humans, Abzan Coco, Burn, Eldrazi Tron, etc. are still going to be there.
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Modern
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
I'm not super convinced by any anecdotal testing so far. I remember all the "testing" that said how busted previous unbans would be, especially AV and Sword. JTMS is obviously better than those two but it's impact is far from certain. This impact will also be totally warped right now because it's the hot new thing. Remember in Fall 2014 when Burn was like 20% of the metagame? It was just the hot (har-har) new thing at the time and people gravitated to it. This was also true of Company after people learned how strong it was following its release, and true again of DS decks when they were re-"discovered" following the Probe ban. And true of E-Tron early in 2017 too. All of those scenarios led to panic and ban calls and none of them came to pass after a few months of stabilization.
I imagine RG Ponza is basically teir 1 now. It's gonna beat up Jace decks and decks that prey on Jace. Good times ahead folks. I really don't know if I want to be the player casting Jace or killing Jace right now.
Are we arguing if a t3 Karn is somehow less likely than a turn 4 Jace? YOu almost never slam a turn four jace. The reason I brought up t3 Karn is that we already have a deck that is dismantling fair decks and giving rise to decks like Traverse Shadow and people are worried about a deck containing 1 mana 8/8's and 5/5's worrying about dealing with Jace? Does Storm care Jace is unbanned aside from siding into Jace? Does any deck aside from Jeskai and UW care that Jace is even unbanned pre board? I suspect BBE to have a much greater impact on the format than Jace and you guys screaming the sky is falling are probaly just playing bad 'good stuff' value decks that are already struggling to grind out a win, and now you have to deal with Jace. I'm getting flash backs about how Ancestral Visions being unbanned was gonna break modern and now it sees almost no play. Stop this.
Stop playing bad decks and you won't have to be afraid of the 200 dollar bogeyman.
Mhjames: mtgsalvation: I DON'T SEE HOW THIS CARD IS GOOD. I KNOW PATRICK CHAPIN USED IT AND WENT 8-0, BUT THAT WAS A SMALL TOURNAMENT. THE CARD IS TOO SLOW. YOU NEED TO MAKE SURE THE OPPONENT HAS A SPELL IN THE GRAVEYARD
Traverse Shadow just became the best deck in the format and you're all still crying about Jace.
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By: ol MISAKA lo
Cockatrice: Infallible
Mhjames: mtgsalvation: I DON'T SEE HOW THIS CARD IS GOOD. I KNOW PATRICK CHAPIN USED IT AND WENT 8-0, BUT THAT WAS A SMALL TOURNAMENT. THE CARD IS TOO SLOW. YOU NEED TO MAKE SURE THE OPPONENT HAS A SPELL IN THE GRAVEYARD
In my time playing Magic, one thing I've learned is that the majority of Magic players are completely terrible at predicting what new cards, reprints, or unbans will do in general.
So rather than the doomsaying that's going on, I'm just... gonna wait and see.
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Well, I can saw a woman in two, but you won't wanna look in the box when I'm through.
In my time playing Magic, one thing I've learned is that the majority of Magic players are completely terrible at predicting what new cards, reprints, or unbans will do in general.
So rather than the doomsaying that's going on, I'm just... gonna wait and see.
This 100% nassif is even worried he might just be completely wrong and jtms is just not good enough/great. Would be awesome if bbe was the problem unban and jtms turned out to be fine though lol.
I didn'r find pod oppressive but i was on twin at the time.
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By: ol MISAKA lo
Cockatrice: Infallible
Mhjames: mtgsalvation: I DON'T SEE HOW THIS CARD IS GOOD. I KNOW PATRICK CHAPIN USED IT AND WENT 8-0, BUT THAT WAS A SMALL TOURNAMENT. THE CARD IS TOO SLOW. YOU NEED TO MAKE SURE THE OPPONENT HAS A SPELL IN THE GRAVEYARD
i think the distinction needs to be made between jace being format warping/oppressive and it being the best thing going on at that CMC.
the idea that a single jace deck emerges to claim an overly large portion of the meta is nonsense. there are a plethora of decks that go over and under, which enforces the cyclical nature of the format.
multiple blue shells looking to leverage jace will exist, each with their own strength and weaknesses.
the real question that we need to ask ourselves is whether or not we are fine with having such a powerful card be the clear finisher for blue decks. with it remaining that way from this point onwards because the chance that something more powerful comes down the pipeline is slim to nonexistent.
i can see some people being fine with that situation. there are a bunch of cards that are auto-include for a lot of decks, like snapcaster for instance. deck diversity and having powerful cards in the format aren't mutually exclusive.
i remember one of the reasons twin was banned was because it supplanted pretty much every other blue based strategy. any deck playing UR without twin was basically a worse version of the deck that did play twin.
twin was a combo of course, so the comparison isn't perfect. however i expect jace to have a similar effect. if you are playing a blue 'fair' deck without jaces, it is probably a worse version of the same deck with jaces.
i honestly can't tell if this is good or bad for the health of the format.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
i think the distinction needs to be made between jace being format warping/oppressive and it being the best thing going on at that CMC.
the idea that a single jace deck emerges to claim an overly large portion of the meta is nonsense. there are a plethora of decks that go over and under, which enforces the cyclical nature of the format.
multiple blue shells looking to leverage jace will exist, each with their own strength and weaknesses.
the real question that we need to ask ourselves is whether or not we are fine with having such a powerful card be the clear finisher for blue decks. with it remaining that way from this point onwards because the chance that something more powerful comes down the pipeline is slim to nonexistent.
i can see some people being fine with that situation. there are a bunch of cards that are auto-include for a lot of decks, like snapcaster for instance. deck diversity and having powerful cards in the format aren't mutually exclusive.
i remember one of the reasons twin was banned was because it supplanted pretty much every other blue based strategy. any deck playing UR without twin was basically a worse version of the deck that did play twin.
twin was a combo of course, so the comparison isn't perfect. however i expect jace to have a similar effect. if you are playing a blue 'fair' deck without jaces, it is probably a worse version of the same deck with jaces.
i honestly can't tell if this is good or bad for the health of the format.
Wizards is desperately trying to make sure that Modern doesn't turn into legacy in terms of accessibility. Legacy is a dying format thanks to the reserved list preventing the reprinting of a number of key cards, and JTMS, if he takes off, is going to add another 100+ dollar card to a format with a bunch of main deck staples already exceeding 50 dollars. I'd be inclined to say yes that they would ban him if he took over ever single blue deck strategy in the meta. However, keep in mind this is the company that banned BBE for the sins of DRS. If they got the spotlight on JTMS, they aren't going to turn around and ban him until it's been at least a year or more and they may try to print an answer or at least ban some other card first in the meantime.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Modern will probably be very exciting and messy for the next two months, hopefully people don't freak the hell out.
I think BBE's unban has been heavily voided by the Jace unbanning, every video and testing is showing these blue decks destroying BBE Jund, not unlike Starcity and Saffron Olivers video where people laughed that N=too small a sample.
Jund is going to have to be radically different if it's expected to stay relevant, I'm not sure jamming 3-4 copies of BBE is jund is enough, the deck will need to look different and warp itself. Hopefully it's discovered in the next month or so.
I bought Jaces and have access to most blue staples in preparation of this
Also curious to see if Sultai becomes a real thing, as Jace is more powerful in midrange than control.
Modern will probably be very exciting and messy for the next two months, hopefully people don't freak the hell out.
I think BBE's unban has been heavily voided by the Jace unbanning, every video and testing is showing these blue decks destroying BBE Jund, not unlike Starcity and Saffron Olivers video where people laughed that N=too small a sample.
Jund is going to have to be radically different if it's expected to stay relevant, I'm not sure jamming 3-4 copies of BBE is jund is enough, the deck will need to look different and warp itself. Hopefully it's discovered in the next month or so.
I bought Jaces and have access to most blue staples in preparation of this
Also curious to see if Sultai becomes a real thing, as Jace is more powerful in midrange than control.
Yeah I'm foreseeing blue becoming even more costly, albeit not necessarily the usual culprits. With Jace at 4cmc I'm not sure that Cryptic Command is going to take up as many slots in blue as it once did since blue is going to need more answers to handle all the decks trying to run under Jace. I'm expecting Sultai listings packing Abrupt Decay and fatal push, while opposing listings will likely be running Lightning bolt and Dreadbore.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I'm pissed that I missed out on a foil dreadbore foil for a few dollars. I didn't buy it because I didn't want to spend 2 dollars on shipping. Ugh
The prices are absolutely disgusting right now, K-Command, Collective Brutality and Blackcleave are skyrocketing
Blue staples are as well
I want to play Blue on MTGO but that's getting to be too much, too
I honestly really didn't want to spend money for the next two months or so, and now I've spent so much the past few days
On MTGO: you can always rent. Not to get off topic but it is an option (one I would personally recommend).
And that's magic. When you think you're out... it reals you back in ._.
The good news though is that Titanshift and Urzatron staples are holding steady - if jund and Ux tick up those immediately become better. Then you end up in a rock paper scissors format where fast aggro and combo beat ramp, ramp beats fair midrange and control, and midrange and control gear to beat the fast aggro and combo. I think these price jumps right now are the result of people trying to cash in on players desire to play with some new toys by adding a hype tax. The adjustments will be there.
I guess ultimately, I'm willing to watch this play out, largely because diversity comes with diminishing marginal returns. The improvement of two viable decks to three is big. The improvement of twenty-two viable decks to twenty-three is negligible to me. Similarly, the loss of a reduction in the latter case is minor.
Hell I am really hoping someone tries to incorporate disrupting shoal into a jace shell for extra protection.
I'm pissed that I missed out on a foil dreadbore foil for a few dollars. I didn't buy it because I didn't want to spend 2 dollars on shipping. Ugh
The prices are absolutely disgusting right now, K-Command, Collective Brutality and Blackcleave are skyrocketing
Blue staples are as well
I want to play Blue on MTGO but that's getting to be too much, too
I honestly really didn't want to spend money for the next two months or so, and now I've spent so much the past few days
I spent around 592 usd on masters 25 and various small fry stuff over the last two weeks and your prior mentioning of dreadbore actually got me into just grabbing four of them before any spiking happens. The thing is that card is filler removal for just about any masters set, so it along with Maelstrom Pulse and Abrupt Decay are all targets for possible reprinting.
If masters 25 is the last masters set they are doing for the next two years, I'm fully expecting it to be loaded with as many high dollar cards as possible along with a lot of downshifted rares to make space. They are going to want uncommons to be worth at least 2 dollars and a rare to bottom out at around 3-7 usd pre-release. I'm just hoping they don't completely bomb the mythic slot and put something horrible in it like a 4 dollar Shaman of Forgotten Ways.
In any case, I think it's a bit premature to jump the gun on any high dollar cards. The meta needs time to settle before we really know what is going down, and people are just starting to test the waters.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
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2) SFM is way better than tarmagoyf because at the very worst it tortured for something.
Additionally - a sword equipped by turn 4 is still a faster clock then a jace played on turn 4.
Moroever - SFM allows you to play sword + equip by turn 4 with leaving mana up for disruption if you need it. That's huge.
3) See above point.
Twitter: twitter.com/axmanonline
Stream: twitch.tv/axman
Current Decks
Modern: Affinity
Standard: BW Control
Legacy: Death and Taxes :symw::symr:
Vintage: NA
Huh?
Bogles? Grishoalbrand? Burn? Infect? Bloo? Even old fashioned Zoo.
Doesnt change that Karn Turn 3 happens, because it does, but...nobody who plays Modern should be shocked to find out that you can die before Turn 3.
Spirits
UWR Control
BR Hollow One
Mtggoldfish has a weird way of sorting cards. Batterskull is played within 1% of the same amount of decks as SFM. You only play 1 for obvious reasons so format dominance on mtgggoldfish is low (this is why batterskull and sword don't crack the top 50 spells. Sword of fire and ice is within 2% of SFM. Once again format dominance is low on mtggoldfish because you only play 1 in a deck. I'm getting my info from mtgtop8.com
Also what gets played in legacy can certainly be an indicator of what can be good in modern. Only delver isn't good in modern. The rest are banned or very good in modern.
The first thing that's played in legacy that isn't lands or the cantrip cartel is lightning bolt...the most played card in modern. This is followed by...Jace... followed by more busted/banned cards etc. SFM is busted and I'm pretty sure Jace is too. He is the premier 4 drop in fair decks and he's gonna squeeze out the other options.
And again, that 20% figure is not taking into account disruption on the part of the opponent, which obviously would reduce that chance further.
EDIT: Found it. See here and here. These back up the 20% figure I cited (well technically they're closer to 19% but we can reasonably round it to 20% for simplicity).
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Furthermore, affinity, Storm, Scapeshift, DS, humans, Abzan Coco, Burn, Eldrazi Tron, etc. are still going to be there.
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
RG BBE Ponza
UX Eldrazi Tron
UR Jace Breach
Stop playing bad decks and you won't have to be afraid of the 200 dollar bogeyman.
By: ol MISAKA lo
Cockatrice: Infallible
By: ol MISAKA lo
Cockatrice: Infallible
Remember when JDS and then GDS were the greatest Modern decks that could exist 'playing a legacy deck in Modern'?
Yeah.
Spirits
So rather than the doomsaying that's going on, I'm just... gonna wait and see.
This 100% nassif is even worried he might just be completely wrong and jtms is just not good enough/great. Would be awesome if bbe was the problem unban and jtms turned out to be fine though lol.
'Oppressive' was Eldrazi Winter. I dont think there has been anything, long since Pod, that was oppressive really has there been?
Spirits
By: ol MISAKA lo
Cockatrice: Infallible
the idea that a single jace deck emerges to claim an overly large portion of the meta is nonsense. there are a plethora of decks that go over and under, which enforces the cyclical nature of the format.
multiple blue shells looking to leverage jace will exist, each with their own strength and weaknesses.
the real question that we need to ask ourselves is whether or not we are fine with having such a powerful card be the clear finisher for blue decks. with it remaining that way from this point onwards because the chance that something more powerful comes down the pipeline is slim to nonexistent.
i can see some people being fine with that situation. there are a bunch of cards that are auto-include for a lot of decks, like snapcaster for instance. deck diversity and having powerful cards in the format aren't mutually exclusive.
i remember one of the reasons twin was banned was because it supplanted pretty much every other blue based strategy. any deck playing UR without twin was basically a worse version of the deck that did play twin.
twin was a combo of course, so the comparison isn't perfect. however i expect jace to have a similar effect. if you are playing a blue 'fair' deck without jaces, it is probably a worse version of the same deck with jaces.
i honestly can't tell if this is good or bad for the health of the format.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Wizards is desperately trying to make sure that Modern doesn't turn into legacy in terms of accessibility. Legacy is a dying format thanks to the reserved list preventing the reprinting of a number of key cards, and JTMS, if he takes off, is going to add another 100+ dollar card to a format with a bunch of main deck staples already exceeding 50 dollars. I'd be inclined to say yes that they would ban him if he took over ever single blue deck strategy in the meta. However, keep in mind this is the company that banned BBE for the sins of DRS. If they got the spotlight on JTMS, they aren't going to turn around and ban him until it's been at least a year or more and they may try to print an answer or at least ban some other card first in the meantime.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I think BBE's unban has been heavily voided by the Jace unbanning, every video and testing is showing these blue decks destroying BBE Jund, not unlike Starcity and Saffron Olivers video where people laughed that N=too small a sample.
Jund is going to have to be radically different if it's expected to stay relevant, I'm not sure jamming 3-4 copies of BBE is jund is enough, the deck will need to look different and warp itself. Hopefully it's discovered in the next month or so.
I bought Jaces and have access to most blue staples in preparation of this
Also curious to see if Sultai becomes a real thing, as Jace is more powerful in midrange than control.
Yeah I'm foreseeing blue becoming even more costly, albeit not necessarily the usual culprits. With Jace at 4cmc I'm not sure that Cryptic Command is going to take up as many slots in blue as it once did since blue is going to need more answers to handle all the decks trying to run under Jace. I'm expecting Sultai listings packing Abrupt Decay and fatal push, while opposing listings will likely be running Lightning bolt and Dreadbore.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
The prices are absolutely disgusting right now, K-Command, Collective Brutality and Blackcleave are skyrocketing
Blue staples are as well
I want to play Blue on MTGO but that's getting to be too much, too
I honestly really didn't want to spend money for the next two months or so, and now I've spent so much the past few days
On MTGO: you can always rent. Not to get off topic but it is an option (one I would personally recommend).
And that's magic. When you think you're out... it reals you back in ._.
I am looking forward to playing control again
Twitter: twitter.com/axmanonline
Stream: twitch.tv/axman
Current Decks
Modern: Affinity
Standard: BW Control
Legacy: Death and Taxes :symw::symr:
Vintage: NA
I guess ultimately, I'm willing to watch this play out, largely because diversity comes with diminishing marginal returns. The improvement of two viable decks to three is big. The improvement of twenty-two viable decks to twenty-three is negligible to me. Similarly, the loss of a reduction in the latter case is minor.
Hell I am really hoping someone tries to incorporate disrupting shoal into a jace shell for extra protection.
I spent around 592 usd on masters 25 and various small fry stuff over the last two weeks and your prior mentioning of dreadbore actually got me into just grabbing four of them before any spiking happens. The thing is that card is filler removal for just about any masters set, so it along with Maelstrom Pulse and Abrupt Decay are all targets for possible reprinting.
If masters 25 is the last masters set they are doing for the next two years, I'm fully expecting it to be loaded with as many high dollar cards as possible along with a lot of downshifted rares to make space. They are going to want uncommons to be worth at least 2 dollars and a rare to bottom out at around 3-7 usd pre-release. I'm just hoping they don't completely bomb the mythic slot and put something horrible in it like a 4 dollar Shaman of Forgotten Ways.
In any case, I think it's a bit premature to jump the gun on any high dollar cards. The meta needs time to settle before we really know what is going down, and people are just starting to test the waters.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!