I agree, this article is what I feel has been happening for a long time. Modern, even though attendance-wise was successful, was a massive flop in what it was supposed to do. Speculators jacking up prices from hype and buyouts are hurting formats.
Pucatrade is tricky. I just signed up for it, but I am waiting to use it until they add card conditions later this year (at least that's what I heard when I asked about conditions). Trading in person is a pain, I want legacy stuff and virtually nobody around has it or doesn't want the specific cards that I have for it and the stores that have it might take 60% on trade-ins which I just can't afford when trying to trade away hundreds of dollars of cards. If I find somebody in person who has what I want, and I have what they want, it will definitely go to them before through a site like Pucatrade.
If As Foretold works as a major piece in a time warp deck, I feel that it would have to be used in place of mine effects and the deck would have to completely change around that.
The 4x looks like the remand promo, the 2x looks like the snapcaster promo.
If the rest of the deck is foil, definitely the pack foil unsubstantiate. The only exception to using a non-foil in a foiled out deck is the Jace promo imo.
So that person who just tutored up 3 cards isn't a threat? I should just leave him alone and let him go infinite to end the game? I guess that sounds right, I never actually wanted to play magic and interact with people, let's let that guy play solitaire until he wins, it sounds so much more fun than playing stuff and interacting with your opponents.
If you aren't playing a combo-oriented deck (I know multiple players who refuse to use infinites), you can't just sit there durdling around. You have to put pressure on your opponents and force them to use a tutor to live through next turn, not go infinite three turns from now. There are different play styles and you should be prepared for all of them. Yeah, it can suck getting zerged down, but there are so many things you can add to beat that type of play it isn't even funny. To that aggro player, you were the obvious threat for some reason, you should learn why you were the target, and either fix that reason or find ways to live through the hate.
Finally, I never said to ask a player to concede before I declare attackers (that sounds extremely douchebaggy), I am just saying let the game resolve as normal, don't scoop when another player end up swinging at you, who knows who could have a fog waiting for this moment where then that aggressive player get punished for doing that play.
I was playing an older version of time attack (well, somewhere in the middle of the history of the deck, no exhaustion in the list), so trading off the cliques and snapcasters I still have most of the deck for the combo version that I will probably keep but I am starting to trade into legacy. I always found the combo version more fun to play overall even if it was a weaker match up vs fast decks.
I went to a PTQ in August, I had not played the deck for a few months so I was quite rusty with it and definitely didn't have the experience for a few match ups, I ended up going 2 wins, 3 losses.
I was playing a time attack version from about when the old thread was closed (exhaustion and gigadrowse were out of the main, exhaustion gone all together).
Game 1 vs affinity. Opponent had a bad hand and mulliganed down to 6, kept too few threats all of them costing too much or were too slow. I was able to keep him off threats enough to out tempo him. 1-0. Game 2, side-boarded in recalls, chalice, drew neither of them, he got a very aggressive hand and it got too big too fast. 1-1. Game 3 comes around, no recalls or chalice but a decently fast hand that I kept. I ended up living with nearly no health and going off with cryptic commanding his lethal combat step (I believe his misplayed with his man lands here), time warping multiple times, bouncing the blocker that he held up for the last warp I had for lethal. 2-1
Game 2 vs infect. Game 1 I got shackles down early and it just took over the game, taking some of his few threats and bouncing the rest 1-0. Game 2, I sideboard in spellskite + chalice and spell pierce over some of my higher cost cards. I end up losing when he gets a great hand and wins early 1-1. Game 3 I draw multiple spellskites and shackles, I was on the play and it was a massively uphill battle for him that I ended up winning 2-1.
With some of what I understand as our worse matchups out of the way, I was feeling confident going forward but you know by my ending score, it's all downhill from here.
Game 3 vs Ad Nausium. I completely forgot this deck existed until he threw down Ad nausium turn 3 in response to my dictate and won the game 0-1. Game 2, I keep him off his fast mana, I sideboard in my spell pierces and side out some late game. I attempt to cast warp, and he plays ad nausium, I should have just sat there and kept up counter mana but got greedy and instant lost because of it. I scooped early the first game, I forgot the ad nausium might have killed him before he got the combo but the second game he had angel's grace to win with 0-2.
I was definitely on tilt after that, I forgot most of the next matches.
Game 4 was vs an aggressive Junk deck. He managed to land a large number of early threats, goyf and anefenza, and managed to disrupt my game plan enough to win off those early game drops before I could muster a defense. Game 2 he sided in choke, I didn't draw one of my 7 bounce spells until 3 turns of not casting anything and lost pretty hard 0-2.
Game 5 vs burn. Game 1 he kills me before I can do anything, I kept a slower hand that would be fine in most cases, not against burn. Game 2 I keep a faster hand but none of my sideboard (chalice + pierces) don't show up and he draws all gas 0-2.
I feel that I could have definitely done better if I knew the game 3 match-up, but as said by Chalupacabra, the deck just isn't quite there yet, it needs something to push if over the edge. Some sort of un-equal draw engine, an extremely solid counterspell (like counterspell itself), something to give it an edge, to tilt the advantage into itself significantly more than the opponent. I am currently disassembling the deck, I will keep the core around and play the combo deck for fun every once in a while but I feel that until that something comes out, the deck won't be much more than what it is now and I would rather not keep the significant amount of finances that are currently tied into the deck with the deck until that something comes out.
The person beating people in the face isn't usually the dominant player though. That person might be ahead on board presence but scooping to stop effects like that might put a fair game out of their reach, by scooping you just prolonged the game that the player might have ended in short order if they ended up being the dominant player. How do you know the dominant player isn't the guy that just used demonic tutor or just used boundless realms? You can't scoop to make him discard that infinite combo he just searched for, even though him having it at the ready makes him the obviously most dominant threat at the table. Aggressive decks already have a difficult enough time with the increased life points, and it's usually just going to happen for one game, after that most of the table will do more to stifle that players early game because they know what the aggressive players strategy is.
Definitely this, even without a doubler, 2 turns and your opponents are easily in range for burn or beats to kill them.
Adamaro, First to Desire usually has the highest p/t for a voltron commander, can be a 3 turn kill if there is a greedy player at the table, if not he will almost always be a 4 turn clock with no help. Wheel effects can pump him back up and refill your hand. Throw in the 2 mana or less rituals and you can get him out turn 2 pretty often. As red, you have enough double strike/double damage enablers to start 2 hitting people really early on, and have enough haste to make sure he usually swings when he comes down.
I know in my Hazezon Tamar list I had 15 or so creatures in there and the tokens came out with the creatures. Nothing really came out unless I got one of the handful of utility creatures out there, I had no mana dorks because Hazazon doesn't get any benefit from them like from lands and they are easier to remove. It would have been a temple of the false god that wouldn't really do anything until I was going to win the game.
I believe this is correct, divert is still on the stack when you change the target, change it to divert, divert leaves stack and the counterspell fizzles without a target. It seems a lot more narrow, it doesn't do anything to stop a lot of combo cards like show and tell, is it being used sideboard or main board mostly?
Days undoing allows you to essentially refill your hand for 3 mana, equal effects are never truly equal in magic. A simple example is wrath of god, yes it's an equal effect but when your opponent has more creatures, it hurts your opponent and doesn't hurt you. This is a similar situation except with an amazingly powerful effect. I would be highly surprised if it doesn't get banned in legacy and modern. The downside might be enough but every card like this so far has been banned because drawing 7 for 3 mana is insanely broken.
The example from 9talete9 is perfect. Turn 1 as affinity you drop your hand, Days, it's game over, there is no way in modern that I can think of to come back from that and it's going to be even more potent in legacy, at least there force exists. People splashed blue for burn for treasure cruise, this effect is twice as good at least and this lets burn crush control matchups for the most part, if it resolves it is pretty much GG vs any BGx deck in modern whose normal defense is to empty their oponents hand then slowly build up life or any deck that tries to starve resources. I might be wrong, the drawback may truly be enough but I doubt it.
On a less insane note, the new flip jace seems decent. As shown from the siege though, looting might not be strong enough (although he starts with a ton of loyalty when he flips and his minus allows him to turn 6 psuedo snapcaster - warp where snapcaster costs the extra mana).
I was actually thinking about silence and it sounded pretty good. Tron can't do anything when you play it, Junk can abrupt decay if they have it but pretty much everything else is sorcery speed. I feel like you would have to compare it to Boomerang, both essentially keep the card in their hand, but boomerang has the downside of allowing ETBs and planeswalker's effects going off and silence has the downside of not being able to react to the board (there are more pros and cons of each beyond these obviously).
The only thing I can think of is if you have the double W cards consistently enough to cast sunscour in a dual colored deck, I know commandeer was in some decks earlier there but that was in mono U.
About the Scornful Sprites deck, if you want a more reliable late game counter, why not rune snag? 2 mana to stop the counter spell seems so much more significant than one in aggressive match ups, and if you throw out a mutavault to "hard counter" you can easily be strip mining yourself in modern. Late game 4 is going to be a hard counter to all but the smallest spells and if you hit 6 it's pretty much a hard counter.
I have still been working on the UB time attack version and I have just been running into problems. I am up to running 16 creatures and I feel that I always end up running out of threats fairly fast or I run out of answers to more efficient cards. I need a sticky threat that is difficult to deal with (preferably that doesn't lose me life bitterblossom) and I feel that this deck could work, I haven't really had much time with school but I should have plenty of time in the summer for this and I would like to see it work.