Everyone complaining about bots looks very ignorant; it's like saying don't buy from stores. Do you honestly expect stores to employ people rather than programs when the latter operates more efficiently? By all means, if that's how you feel, I also hope you don't buy Tix from the store; buy from other players if you're going to throw common sense out the window. I was about to make an argument about how most opened cards would be lost, but then I realized I'm not arguing with people who employ logic and there would be no point. More on topic: WotC does yet another profoundly stupid decision in regards to MTGO, nothing knew; like always, Worth is ironically worthless.
For all those discussing Mana Leak vs Remand, please make sure you're aware that in the mirror you Remand your own spells (and Mana Leak generally does nothing).
Well, Melira Pod still plays Abrupt Decays so we aren't completely out of the woods on that one.
I mean nothing in Modern is 100% for certain, but if thats the only other deck that is running it, I feel good about the card choice, since the rest of our cards match up well against their cards.
Melira Pod is certainly not the greatest matchup for the deck, so I would not be so quick to discount how relevant the possible 2 for 1 is; PT BNG went to all 5 games with UWR vs Melira.
Wizards actually managed to make their code worse when they were trying to fix something (pretty sure the errors in the displayed results stemmed from the problems stemming from the Murderous Redcap fix last week) and had results being displayed incorrectly last week. While there was a fix at some point, I would guess that it has something to do with that.
I am extremely close to cutting Cliques when I play in GP Richmond, especially given the Pro Tour meta. They aren't very good against Pod since they'll usually cast Birthing Pod before you can cast Clique and you can't really race them. Against Twin, they'll already be on the beatdown plan against UWR control most likely, so it's not super instrumental in disrupting their combo and you usually can't race them; at best, it seems like it will just trade or give their Electrolyzes (if they play any) a target. In the mirror, a lot of cards are interchangeable and it dies pretty much on the spot, to say nothing if the opponent is playing Electrolyze. It just seems very weak now that Jund is virtually dead as it is no longer needed to attack Liliana of the Veil, but I am interested in hearing arguments to keep it in. An interesting replacement I am considering is swapping it with Teferi as is good in the mirror match and against Twin, though he is certainly worse against Pod and Zoo (but the deck already crushes Zoo). I do not have a final decklist yet, but I plan to play the full 8 burn spells, along with the usual 4 Snapcasters; I am unsure if I will play any Restoration Angels.
These people are idiots. I have no idea how you could possible make one glitch cause the others as they describe if you have remotely competent code. For example, starting life total should be a constant, rather than loading it from memory/server. They seriously need to scrap their entire architecture and rebuild it competently.
I can't think of any online-only art outside of Cube and other "reprints" of reserved list cards, so it seems likely that Geist at least will become a paper promo (especially since he's very popular and currently does not); I would expect it to be a Judge or GP promo given that it's a mythic. Anyone can feel free to correct me if I am wrong in the opening statement.
I could only ever see it having legitimate use against Master of Waves/Jace on the play, but splashing white for Chained to the Rocks is better against mono blue anyway (and Skullcrack out of board is much better than this against UWx control).
Mono U can actually be a pain for mono B. Thassa is a killer if you can't thoughtsieze her. Just her passive is tough to overcome because they are drawing better than you.
I am not sure what the consensus is now, but it used to be Mono Black players would leave in some number of Connections as drawing a card every turn is better than just scrying one.
There is also hope for the card as, while it is not great, Ashiok's Disciple is alright against the decks Agent is bad against. Stratus Walk is also good (the deck ideally wants to splash blue for Hidden Strings once you play 12 heroic creatures) as it replaces itself (if you are careful with casting it). Even if they kill the creature in response, if it was Disciple or Agent, there is no loss in card advantage.
As far as I know, MTGO is limited in how many different formats it can contain at once, at least for queues with entry fees (that's what happens when you fire the original programming team and hire a worse one). Hopefully, some good will come out of this, such as Standard Pauper making it into the queues (replacing Standard Singleton for instance, which was a queue unlike most of the others). So while the context is sheer idiocy, this particular decision does make sense in context.
So what are the chances WotC even tries to have their programmers change the drafting interface to allow for this set to be drafted online (such as drafting cards face-up)? My bet is close to none since the set is "multiplayer-focused" and we all know how popular the multiplayer games (outside of draft) are on MTGO (for those unaware, I do not believe you can even have EDH games with more than 2 players currently and 2HG is super glitchy, if even still around).
Edit: I just found out that Oubliette and Kaervek's Torch bugs were both fixed, despite existing for years. There is still hope the new dev team is actually competent.
Even in Standard queues, at least 90% of opponents are playing a tier one/tier two deck, though in queues there is a much higher preference for cheap aggro decks.
Keep in mind, Pack Rat does get significantly worse given that it was best in the mirror and now it will have to be wary of Bile Blight, which can be difficult to play around without an obscene amount of Mutavaults.
Melira Pod is certainly not the greatest matchup for the deck, so I would not be so quick to discount how relevant the possible 2 for 1 is; PT BNG went to all 5 games with UWR vs Melira.
I am not sure what the consensus is now, but it used to be Mono Black players would leave in some number of Connections as drawing a card every turn is better than just scrying one.
Edit: I just found out that Oubliette and Kaervek's Torch bugs were both fixed, despite existing for years. There is still hope the new dev team is actually competent.