I've always been fond of Birthing Pod; I've played it in Standard, I play it in Modern, and I'm working to build a list utilizing it that will be competitive in Legacy, although I'm not confident that that will end up as a Tier 1 deck.
I'm fond of the Pod because I've always had a fascination with utility creatures and toolbox-style decks, and I do like playing more creature-oriented lists that can gain incremental advantage over an opponent. I do have a particular fondness of using Birthing Pod to turn Geralf's Messenger into Phyrexian Metamorph, copying Geralf's Messenger and causing massive life-loss between such interactions and Blood Artist triggers. One of the many versatile applications that the 3-and-a-half (if you will) mana build-around-me card can perform.
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- Drifting Skies
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Member for 11 years, 8 months, and 26 days
Last active Sun, Aug, 7 2016 11:00:13
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Started off normal. Then my phone died. Went to the Apple Store - turns out it wasn't dead and just needed a hard reset (never heard of this happening, figured it was completely bricked). Since it wasn't going to cost $500 for a new phone, I went to the card shop to play in GPT Vegas. That went rather well:
Step 1: Open Packs
Step 2: Receive Narset Transcendent & Dragonlord Silumgar (along with some other decent goodies)
Step 3: Decide that since I am not going to Vegas and I'm not giving up $45 in cards, I'm going to walk from the tournament.
Step 4: Go to PucaTrade and try frantically to be that person who gets to unload the Narset instead of one of X other people also trying to do the same.
(I'm beginning to wonder if this is intentional...)
The list, as best I can make out:
4 Satyr Hoplite
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Mardu Scout
2 Arena Athlete
2 Goblin Heelcutter
2 Coordinated Assault
4 Dragon Mantle
3 Hammerhand
2 Wild Slash
4 Titan's Strength
1 Lightning Strike
3 Temur Battle Rage
20 Mountain
2 Coordinated Assault
2 Wild Slash
1 Arena Athlete
2 Lightning Strike
3 Searing Blood
2 Goblin Rabblemaster
2 Goblin Heelcutter
This deck was, of course, designed to push the budget direction as far as Woo could, but that doesn't mean it's not useful to analyze what we might do from here. Why are we playing these spells?
T1 Monastery Swiftspear = 1 damage
T2: Coordinated Assault + Titan's Strength = 7 damage (8 total)
T3: Titan's Strength + Temur Battle Rage = 12 damage (20 total)
Titan's Strength is often a Lava Spike and can be a 1-mana Lightning Blast on a Hoplite or a Swiftspear. Coordinated Assault is 2 Heroic Triggers + 2 damage (and more with Swiftspear). Dragon Mantle replaces itself and provides another mana sink, in addition to the potential Heroic trigger.
Now, can we do better by relaxing the budget constraint and incorporating some DTK cards in? I think so. Beyond Stoke the Flames, Zurgo and Lightning Berserker fit well into the battle plan of this deck and provide additional hasty sources of damage. Zurgo is Legendary, of course, so I'd like to stick to 2-3 of him. Lightning Berserker isn't ideal in multiples either, so I'll keep his numbers down to 2 as well. Twin Bolt is an interesting card, but it's not clear to me if it's better than some combination of Arc Lightning, Searing Blood, and Roast. Finally, Dragon Whisperer is an interesting mana sink. We can ignore the Formidable Ability since I don't expect to ever have it online and have six mana, but I guess there's that one game in a thousand where we can do so and aren't just dead. It does have the ability to attack in the air for 3 if we have three mana to pump into it.
Roast is a strong removal spell to help us fight through Siege Rhino and Courser, taking either of them down for two mana. Titan's Strength allows either a Monastery Swiftspear, Zurgo (not-dashed - might want to do this if we don't have other early drops or have multiples), or Satyr Hoplite to survive through a Drown in Sorrow which is the main 3-drop anti-aggro card in the format - I don't see much Anger of the Gods these days.
So, when it's all said and done, I think we can keep some of the Heroic part of the deck, replace some of the pump spells with other action that doesn't require us to have a creature, and build a deck that provides an appropriate balance of cheap, efficient creatures, reach, and mana sinks to give us stuff to do every turn.
4 Monastery Swiftspear
2 Akroan Crusader
2 Foundry Street Denizen
2 Lightning Berserker
2 Zurgo Bellstriker
3 Mardu Scout
1 Dragon Whisperer
2 Goblin Heelcutter
4 Titan's Strength
3 Dragon Mantle
3 Hammerhand
2 Roast
3 Wild Slash
1 Lightning Strike
Sideboard should probably include more Wild Slash, Goblin Rabblemaster for when you want to go up the curve just a hair, more Searing Blood, another Roast or two, and the like.
This deck is prepared to use Heelcutter and Hammerhand to negate the X/5 blocker that is Siege Rhino for 1 turn or Roast it out of the battlefield. Stoke and the other spells provide a bit of reach, and Dash creatures provide steady fodder to keep Foundry Street Denzien a 2/1 or 3/1 as needed, while Titan's Strength provides some resilience and surprise damage. All of this allows you to hit hard and fast, while the Dash and burn give you a second wind if your opponent sweeps the first wave and you need another 5-6 damage to close it.
Tempest Blade 3
Artifact - Equipment (R)
Equipped creature gets +3/+0 and has first strike, trample, and reach.
Equip 4
(This one is top-down; I'm going for one of those fantasy swords that creates shockwaves when swung. May unfortunately be a bit too close to Sword of Vengeance, though.)
Most traders I have encountered are very honest - I always credit for cards received with minimal delay, and I've found the reverse to be true as well. I generally don't send internationally, though, so I can't comment on that.
* The commercial base rate is lower, but I'd rather pay an extra $1.40 than have to do business with PayPal.
I don't wholly disagree with your assessment, as Tasigur is certainly a very efficient / powerful card. However, I am curious how much it hurts him that he's not exactly a auto-four-of in the decks that want him. I certainly see him being played as a mid-game threat in Standard/Modern, but I just don't see a deck that wants to jam 4 copies of him. His being a rare and generally a 2-3 of make me suspicious that he will maintain $8+ long-term; Siege Rhino is a 4-of in Standard and many Modern decks and even that card is only $7-8.
I do think he's a long-term buy, but I'm less interested at $8 than I am at $5-6.
Narset: 2 Pi = 6.28. However, she has 6 starting loyalty, but was a 3/2 creature before.
Sidisi: In an alternate timeline, he was a 4 mana 3/3
Surrak: 5/4, but he was 6/6 in an alternate timeline
Some others I came up with:
Thunderbreak Regent: 4 mana 4/4
Zurgo was a 7/2 before.
Sarkhan: 4/4 Dragons, turns into a 4/4 dragon in a previous iteration, costs 5 mana.
Shaman of the Forgotten Ways has no price listed, because it was forgotten.
Dragon Whisperer lists "ER" as an error because it has been misspelled several times in the tally thus far.
As a general question, who would be the person to talk to if the RC doesn't answer e-mails either? I know I tried to contact my RC with several concerns that I had and never received a response, and basically just decided to resign from the judge program altogether due to abysmal communication (or lack thereof).
I roll to disbelieve.
With that said, I would be all too glad to sell you all the Dragonlord Silumgars you want for $1,280, as I know that is a completely unsustainable price.
EDIT: Even if it's obvious to me and others, I'm not particularly fond of using this the Running Tally threads as an April Fool's prank - people use this to make real money decisions, after all.
Exciting news. Really looking forward to getting that awesome playmat! And being able to offload my SP/MP cards without jumping through lots of hoops.
I compared the dot pattern, the glare from the light bouncing on it, and checked some other things between the copy there on top and the one I have. I did not detect any striking anomalies between the two that would lead me to believe the copy you have presented is anything but the genuine article. However, while I do have many dual lands, I'm not an expert on counterfeits or distinguishing between real ones and the especially deceptive fakes.
Channel Fireball has a NM German Trop that they are selling for $625 and a SP one for $500. By contrast, English Revised U. Seas are in the range of $275 for NM and Volcs are in the $250 range for NM or thereabouts. Trading a NM- FBB German Trop for one of each Revised U. Sea and Volc (both NM) is probably not going to be terribly far off.
German tends to be one of the more desirable FBB languages from my experience, and it's my understanding that German FBB trades at somewhere in the 2.5x range compared with English Revised, though someone more knowledgeable on high-end Magic cards may have a better viewpoint - I tend to spend the majority of my efforts in Modern C/UC's as well as Legacy staples.
Is it correct that we CANNOT post tournament information for any events if we are not directly associated with Wizards' Organized Play Network? If my understanding is correct, why is this the case?
There would seem to be legitimate use of this forum by organizers of tournament series who coordinate directly with TO's but are themselves third-party. This may come up if a series is being conducted at various locations with different TO's & locations for each event, but are being coordinated and organized independently. I know that such a scenario has occurred locally to my area in the past, and this would seem to exclude centrally announcing each event in the series as it comes up unless the TO for each event were to post here directly.
I mean, I have a tendency to use white-bordered cards when possible specifically because it bothers other people and I am indifferent.
I guess that makes me the bad guy in this conversation.