That said, the one change that actually does bother me a bit is the "Designed by" part. It's groan-worthy, and eye-roll inducing gratuitous self acknowledgement. The fact that they have to try to convince us that it is at all necessary, cool, or what-have by say "Trust us, it's cool!" is telling.
Look, we all know that the designers and developers are faceless to the most of us; putting it on the cards is just annoying and out of place. If they really wanted to say who designed a card, they should put an article up about it and often. The text is meaningless to the game, but important to the flavor types.
Not saying it's going to make me quit the game, just that it's going to make my eyes roll every time I see it. It's pointless gratuitous self back-patting.
He didn't say that the "Designed by" would be on every card - just on a handful of special cards. They could be reprinting Invitational cards and crediting the old winners, or they could have a new competition where a handful of people get to design their own card.
People are getting too hung up over the idea of protecting their planeswalkers. The ability to protect itself does not a constructed playable planeswalker make.
Planeswalkers are threats.
The original Elspeth could effectively provide you with an Air Elemental (make a token then pump it every turn) that was very hard to remove. You could play your own Wrath of God (or DoJ if that's your cup of tea) and still be swinging with your "Air Elemental" the next turn. Her ultimate was mostly irrelevant, she applied pressure whilst being hard to remove as her threatening abilities added to her loyalty, rather than subtracting it.
Jace the Mindsculptor is actually similar. His Brainstorm ability is a threat. If you manage to use it multiple times before Jace is dealt with, it greatly increases your chance of winning the game. His ultimate effectively reads "you win the game", which means that his fateseal ability is in fact a clock that your opponent must answer if they want to win the game. Jace is a legitimate means of winning on his own.
This is the same reason why Koth is the best of the 3 SoM planeswakers. His +1 ability creates a damage free Lava Hounds that will keep attacking as long as you have more mountains than they have Doom Blades, while making Koth more resilient (adding loyalty). Koth's ultimate also reads as "win the game", so your opponent is forced to deal with him from the start. And for those who say his second ability sometimes does nothing, that's true, but sometimes it just wins the game. Huge mana generation is a threat as well.
Elspeth Tirel is a defensive planeswalker which is the first strike against her. Her only threatening ability is her second, and it's efficiency is questionable. Koth costs 4, Elspeth costs 5. Koth gains loyalty while generating Lava Hounds. Elspeth loses it to create Hunting Triad. Doesn't seem fair does it?
As has been stated, all three SoM planeswalkers are seeing play in Block Constructed, but Elspeth is the one that I am least worried about when my opponent plays her, because she presents the smallest threat. I can't let Koth go ultimate, I can't let Venser go ultimate (having said that, the worth of Venser is deserving of it's own debate). In most situations I can ignore Elspeth for 2 or 3 turns (especially if she is used to create tokens the turn she is played).
This is why she is valued low. She is a poor win condition as well as an inefficient answer.
Well, red is by far the most open color in this pack so taking one of its playables would not be a bad choice. By going that route I would probably pick blade-tribe berserkers first with how easy it will be to get metal craft going
While darkslick drake is a pretty good card in draft, I don't think it's good enough to justify going blue in draft especially when this pack is weak on blue. You would really need a blue bomb to do that.
Much like with blue, if White or black was more open, I would definitely lead with the sun chaser or the scudder. White is probably going to be the most heavily drafted color when it comes to creatures and with there being bigger threats out there, I'd have to choose against it and black will be pretty bad in this set due to the high influx of infect creatures. Also, don't expect to get much black removal since grasp of darkness is probably the best out there. While cutting white early could definitely be a good game plan, with how little I know this format, I just don't think I can justify it yet
As far as artifacts go, darksteel axe and strata scythe are the best 2. Because mana correction and ramp are going to be sparse in this format, I would definitely take the darksteel axe before the scythe. This is made more so since the axe is effective early game and because the scythe is not indestructible, is only effective late game, could lead to a 2 for 1 against yourself, and should only be dropped with you have more than enough mana to run the rest of your deck.
Taking this into consideration, I feel the darksteel axe is the correct 1st pick although the berserkers are a pretty close 2nd
Whilst I agree with your pick, your reasoning seems a little off.
This is the first pick, lots of cards in a single color doesn't mean it's open, in fact you are (theoretically) better off taking a card from a color with less cards, cutting it off so you get passed better cards in pack 2.
If pack still has 2-3 playable cards in a color by picks 3-5 then it is definitely open, but you can't infer anything from the contents of the pack pick 1. That's just the printing distribution at work.
Nah, just kidding. Seriously though, where's Goblin Guide?
The interaction of Furnace Celebration with Fetches, Tectonic Edge, and Ember Hauler is good, but why neuter the rest of your red deck with cards that don't fit the plan (Darksteel Axe, Ichorclaw Myr, Iron Myr, Perilous Myr, Infiltration Lens).
If you want a quick red deck, add more burn and some good creatures.
If you really want to build around the Celebration play more land, and try out Emrakul's Hatcher and Magmaw.
Very hard to determine the relative value of Darkslick Drake vs Necrogen Scudder vs Sky-Eel School, and also Darksteel Axe vs Strata Scythe.
If metalcraft ends up being relatively easy to manage, Auriok Sunchaser jumps up immensely, probably becoming better than Scudder, and possibly becoming a perfectly reasonable first pick.
To conclude, probably the Darkslick Drake or the Darksteel Axe depending on whether I feel like drafting aggro or control.
Surely this card is a limited powerhouse, but can it be used in constructed? It's really just giving pseudo-unblockability, is that worth the cost? There is Tangle Angler, a terrible 1/5 green creature that can force creatures to block it, as well as Prized Unicorn, but they seem awful. What about using it with creatures like Scroll Thief, creating a damned if you do/damned if you don't situation? Does this card have potential in the inevitable GB Infect deck that will be built in the coming months?
How does Lavaball Trap look for any deck like this?
It's an interesting one.
If you untap with Koth you should easily be able to cast Lavaball Trap (or Destructive Force), but because of the way planeswalkers work, you naturally want to include early creatures to ensure that Koth is not an easy target to pick off, and those little guys all get blasted by the Trap.
On the flip side, there are a lot of non-basic lands played at the moment that are worth picking off, and sweeping the board end of turn allows a Koth animated Mountain to bash in, but if you play the Trap as an instant you can't use Koth's ability to fuel it.
It would certainly be worth testing, maybe sideboarded.
I give up trying to explain why not to use pyretic ritual.
I guess I'm wrong, and from now on we'll be seeing tier 1 decks whose sole strategy is to 2-for-1 yourself to get koth out with no protection.
I'd rather drop koth turn 4 with a creature on board and put 4 more live cards back into my deck, than alone on t3, but who knows, maybe having a 4/4 for 4 that lasts one turn will be a good strategy. And I suppose, after turn 3 when koth gets finished off and all you have left is an everflowing chalice up, you can just do it all again with your 8 card nut hand.
Did you even read my previous post (with the decklist)?
I explained that the advantage Ritual has is that it accelerates without taking up a turn.
Essentially it allows you to drop Koth on turn 3 with a creature on board.
Also, you may have noted that I didn't end up including the Ritual in my decklist, but that does not mean it did not merit consideration. Coming here and saying "OMG why aren't u ppl listening to me, bad card is bad!" is not productive.
I agree that Pyretic Ritual is not generally a strong card, but it does have it's place in decks that want to cast higher drops (4 cost+) without missing a beat.
Also you seem to be ignoring the fact that Koth's +1 ability can be used defensively, you don't have to attack with the 4/4. Realize that the ability can also be used as a pseudo Garruk Wildspeaker untap, in a deck that contains Lightning Bolt and Burst Lightning no less. You seem to think a turn 3 Koth will be killed immediately 100% of the time. That just isn't true.
if you are playing RDW there should never be a turn 7 or even 6
keeping the board clear is for UW, playing defensively is going to lose, you don't generate any real CA with RED, so against a deck like naya toolbox or artifact proliferate or even titan ramp you won't win an answers war
and koth doesn't play with other colors at all, even splashing with BR or GR land hinders his ability to make mana and gives you one less mountain to shoot with later and a target for tectonic edge
This is rather close-minded thinking.
Kargan Dragonlord, Burst Lightning, and Comet Storm are all examples of red cards that get better the longer the game goes. Comet Storm is also capable of generating card advantage (although I would not claim that card advantage always directly generates wins).
Whether you want the game to end quickly or not solely depends on how your late game stacks up against your opponent's. Big Red worked in Mirrodin block because Arc-Slogger was the premier single threat in the format. It's only real trump was a resolved Tooth & Nail. All other decks just tried to race it (even Affinity).
Obviously I'm not suggesting that red wants every game to go long, but it's ridiculous to say that if a red deck doesn't kill a goldfish by turn 4 in average then it's not viable....
The set has three planeswalkers which all seem playable and thus should maintain price tags of $20-$80.
There are multiple lesser mythics that will maintain $10 value because of power or casual appeal (Skithiryx, Masticore, Sword of Body & Mind).
A set can only support a given number of money cards before packs become more attractive than singles, which in turn pushes prices down. For instance, Rise only has 1 card that sells consistently over $30 (Vengevine). M11 also only 1 card consistently over $30 (Primeval Titan).
Mox Opal will only be played in artifact decks, and it will likely only see play in quantities of 2-3.
For the reasons listed above, I can't see Mox Opal settling any higher than $15, and it may become the next Mindbreak Trap/Time Reversal and fall to $5 or less.
Why is it better - So the reason I mained dragon claws in the first place was because this deck needs an edge of RDWs, because outside of facing each other they have comparable match ups, but paired against each other RDWs is so very much faster. In my original build the claws made sense since they could be saced to the throne when they ran out of usefulmess, so i guess my point, just critical thinking mind you, what would be your decks advantage over a plain old burn deck, which it looks like will have an average turn clock of around 4?
In the red deck mirror, it rarely becomes a race, it's more of an attrition war. Neither of us can afford to let a Dragonlord live, they have more burn, I can play out bigger threats faster. Ruinblaster is a liability in this matchup, but Cyclops is strong. The matchup would be very draw dependent. If Red Deck Wins was a significant meta presence I would probably sideboard the Dragon's Claws.
Let me preface this by saying I am not a huge fan of the decklist in the first post. Dragon's Claw and Throne of Geth are not maindeck cards - I don't think the Throne has a place at all.
As this thread is named Koth's big red, it seems worth discussing what makes a red deck big (as opposed to what makes a red deck win - lol).
When we compare the accelerators, Pyretic Ritual is the weakest in terms of strict acceleration, but it has an advantage in that it doesn't require us to waste a turn casting it that could have otherwise been spent on early pressure.
For example, compare the following sequences:
Turn 2: Everflowing Chalice
Turn 3: Koth of the Hammer, untap Mountain to threaten Lightning Bolt
Turn 2: Ember Hauler
Turn 3: Pyretic Ritual, Koth of the Hammer, untap Mountain to threaten Lightning Bolt, or Ember Hauler sacrifice.
For this reason I believe the Ritual is worthy of consideration, even if it is not ultimately included.
Taking this into account, I will be testing something similar to this:
Obviously this deck bears some similarity to Red Deck Wins, the difference being that a higher land count and the Everflowing Chalices allow a stronger late game with kicked Burst Lightning and big Comet Storms, as well as making the many 4 drops (Koth, Gladiator/Masticore, Ruinblaster) more consistent.
I am quite excited about the prospect of Molten-Tail Masticore as an excess mana sink. Goblin Guide and Ember Hauler seem to have no trouble getting themselves into the graveyard, and Dragonlord is a removal magnet, so the Masticore should have some fuel.
One final point on Goblin Guide - just because the deck has big in the title doesn't mean I have to throw away free wins. The Guide is like a Slith Firewalker turn 1 off of Chrome Mox, but it only costs 1 card instead of 3.
He didn't say that the "Designed by" would be on every card - just on a handful of special cards. They could be reprinting Invitational cards and crediting the old winners, or they could have a new competition where a handful of people get to design their own card.
What cards have an interesting enough designer to be worth noting on the card?
Magic Invitational cards.
Might we see Dark Confidant, Meddling Mage, Sylvan Safekeeper et al in M15?
Wrath, which is always good, then significantly lower the chances of your opponent drawing more threats.
Combine with Tumble Magnet to force the overextension. Bam, game over.
Planeswalkers are threats.
The original Elspeth could effectively provide you with an Air Elemental (make a token then pump it every turn) that was very hard to remove. You could play your own Wrath of God (or DoJ if that's your cup of tea) and still be swinging with your "Air Elemental" the next turn. Her ultimate was mostly irrelevant, she applied pressure whilst being hard to remove as her threatening abilities added to her loyalty, rather than subtracting it.
Jace the Mindsculptor is actually similar. His Brainstorm ability is a threat. If you manage to use it multiple times before Jace is dealt with, it greatly increases your chance of winning the game. His ultimate effectively reads "you win the game", which means that his fateseal ability is in fact a clock that your opponent must answer if they want to win the game. Jace is a legitimate means of winning on his own.
This is the same reason why Koth is the best of the 3 SoM planeswakers. His +1 ability creates a damage free Lava Hounds that will keep attacking as long as you have more mountains than they have Doom Blades, while making Koth more resilient (adding loyalty). Koth's ultimate also reads as "win the game", so your opponent is forced to deal with him from the start. And for those who say his second ability sometimes does nothing, that's true, but sometimes it just wins the game. Huge mana generation is a threat as well.
Elspeth Tirel is a defensive planeswalker which is the first strike against her. Her only threatening ability is her second, and it's efficiency is questionable. Koth costs 4, Elspeth costs 5. Koth gains loyalty while generating Lava Hounds. Elspeth loses it to create Hunting Triad. Doesn't seem fair does it?
As has been stated, all three SoM planeswalkers are seeing play in Block Constructed, but Elspeth is the one that I am least worried about when my opponent plays her, because she presents the smallest threat. I can't let Koth go ultimate, I can't let Venser go ultimate (having said that, the worth of Venser is deserving of it's own debate). In most situations I can ignore Elspeth for 2 or 3 turns (especially if she is used to create tokens the turn she is played).
This is why she is valued low. She is a poor win condition as well as an inefficient answer.
The fact that you are mono colored means you can easily support this.
It gets pumped by Tempered Steel and is immune to Day of Judgment and any other sorcery removal.
Also, how do you cast Sun Titan with only 20 land?
Whilst I agree with your pick, your reasoning seems a little off.
This is the first pick, lots of cards in a single color doesn't mean it's open, in fact you are (theoretically) better off taking a card from a color with less cards, cutting it off so you get passed better cards in pack 2.
If pack still has 2-3 playable cards in a color by picks 3-5 then it is definitely open, but you can't infer anything from the contents of the pack pick 1. That's just the printing distribution at work.
Nah, just kidding. Seriously though, where's Goblin Guide?
The interaction of Furnace Celebration with Fetches, Tectonic Edge, and Ember Hauler is good, but why neuter the rest of your red deck with cards that don't fit the plan (Darksteel Axe, Ichorclaw Myr, Iron Myr, Perilous Myr, Infiltration Lens).
If you want a quick red deck, add more burn and some good creatures.
If you really want to build around the Celebration play more land, and try out Emrakul's Hatcher and Magmaw.
Very hard to determine the relative value of Darkslick Drake vs Necrogen Scudder vs Sky-Eel School, and also Darksteel Axe vs Strata Scythe.
If metalcraft ends up being relatively easy to manage, Auriok Sunchaser jumps up immensely, probably becoming better than Scudder, and possibly becoming a perfectly reasonable first pick.
To conclude, probably the Darkslick Drake or the Darksteel Axe depending on whether I feel like drafting aggro or control.
Maybe I've just been conditioned to be afraid of equipment with a casting and equip cost of 1 with the phrase "draw two cards" written on it.
Surely this card is a limited powerhouse, but can it be used in constructed? It's really just giving pseudo-unblockability, is that worth the cost? There is Tangle Angler, a terrible 1/5 green creature that can force creatures to block it, as well as Prized Unicorn, but they seem awful. What about using it with creatures like Scroll Thief, creating a damned if you do/damned if you don't situation? Does this card have potential in the inevitable GB Infect deck that will be built in the coming months?
It's an interesting one.
If you untap with Koth you should easily be able to cast Lavaball Trap (or Destructive Force), but because of the way planeswalkers work, you naturally want to include early creatures to ensure that Koth is not an easy target to pick off, and those little guys all get blasted by the Trap.
On the flip side, there are a lot of non-basic lands played at the moment that are worth picking off, and sweeping the board end of turn allows a Koth animated Mountain to bash in, but if you play the Trap as an instant you can't use Koth's ability to fuel it.
It would certainly be worth testing, maybe sideboarded.
Did you even read my previous post (with the decklist)?
I explained that the advantage Ritual has is that it accelerates without taking up a turn.
Essentially it allows you to drop Koth on turn 3 with a creature on board.
Also, you may have noted that I didn't end up including the Ritual in my decklist, but that does not mean it did not merit consideration. Coming here and saying "OMG why aren't u ppl listening to me, bad card is bad!" is not productive.
I agree that Pyretic Ritual is not generally a strong card, but it does have it's place in decks that want to cast higher drops (4 cost+) without missing a beat.
Also you seem to be ignoring the fact that Koth's +1 ability can be used defensively, you don't have to attack with the 4/4. Realize that the ability can also be used as a pseudo Garruk Wildspeaker untap, in a deck that contains Lightning Bolt and Burst Lightning no less. You seem to think a turn 3 Koth will be killed immediately 100% of the time. That just isn't true.
This is rather close-minded thinking.
Kargan Dragonlord, Burst Lightning, and Comet Storm are all examples of red cards that get better the longer the game goes. Comet Storm is also capable of generating card advantage (although I would not claim that card advantage always directly generates wins).
Whether you want the game to end quickly or not solely depends on how your late game stacks up against your opponent's. Big Red worked in Mirrodin block because Arc-Slogger was the premier single threat in the format. It's only real trump was a resolved Tooth & Nail. All other decks just tried to race it (even Affinity).
Obviously I'm not suggesting that red wants every game to go long, but it's ridiculous to say that if a red deck doesn't kill a goldfish by turn 4 in average then it's not viable....
- The set has three planeswalkers which all seem playable and thus should maintain price tags of $20-$80.
- There are multiple lesser mythics that will maintain $10 value because of power or casual appeal (Skithiryx, Masticore, Sword of Body & Mind).
- A set can only support a given number of money cards before packs become more attractive than singles, which in turn pushes prices down. For instance, Rise only has 1 card that sells consistently over $30 (Vengevine). M11 also only 1 card consistently over $30 (Primeval Titan).
- Mox Opal will only be played in artifact decks, and it will likely only see play in quantities of 2-3.
For the reasons listed above, I can't see Mox Opal settling any higher than $15, and it may become the next Mindbreak Trap/Time Reversal and fall to $5 or less.In the red deck mirror, it rarely becomes a race, it's more of an attrition war. Neither of us can afford to let a Dragonlord live, they have more burn, I can play out bigger threats faster. Ruinblaster is a liability in this matchup, but Cyclops is strong. The matchup would be very draw dependent. If Red Deck Wins was a significant meta presence I would probably sideboard the Dragon's Claws.
As this thread is named Koth's big red, it seems worth discussing what makes a red deck big (as opposed to what makes a red deck win - lol).
Previous big red decks (or Kuroda red as I remember them) applied early pressure with Slith Firewalker and land destruction (Molten Rain), then ended the game with a big mana hungry threat (Arc-Slogger, Kumano, Master Yamabushi, Pulse of the Forge, Beacon of Destruction). To fuel these mana hungry threats the deck played accelerants in the form of some combination of Chrome Mox, Solemn Simulacrum, Wayfarer's Bauble, and Seething Song.
If we apply this design philosophy to the current card pool we get the following:
Early pressure/land destruction:
Goblin Guide
Ember Hauler
Kargan Dragonlord
Goblin Ruinblaster
Mana hungry/expensive threats:
Kargan Dragonlord
Koth of the Hammer
Cyclops Gladiator
Inferno Titan
Chandra Nalaar
Comet Storm
and finally we have accelerators:
When we compare the accelerators, Pyretic Ritual is the weakest in terms of strict acceleration, but it has an advantage in that it doesn't require us to waste a turn casting it that could have otherwise been spent on early pressure.
For example, compare the following sequences:
Turn 2: Everflowing Chalice
Turn 3: Koth of the Hammer, untap Mountain to threaten Lightning Bolt
Turn 2: Ember Hauler
Turn 3: Pyretic Ritual, Koth of the Hammer, untap Mountain to threaten Lightning Bolt, or Ember Hauler sacrifice.
For this reason I believe the Ritual is worthy of consideration, even if it is not ultimately included.
Taking this into account, I will be testing something similar to this:
21 Mountain
4 Tectonic Edge
CREATURES
4 Goblin Guide
4 Kargan Dragonlord
4 Ember Hauler
4 Goblin Ruinblaster
2 Cyclops Gladiator/Molten-Tail Masticore
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Koth of the Hammer
4 Everflowing Chalice
3 Burst Lightning
2 Comet Storm
Obviously this deck bears some similarity to Red Deck Wins, the difference being that a higher land count and the Everflowing Chalices allow a stronger late game with kicked Burst Lightning and big Comet Storms, as well as making the many 4 drops (Koth, Gladiator/Masticore, Ruinblaster) more consistent.
I am quite excited about the prospect of Molten-Tail Masticore as an excess mana sink. Goblin Guide and Ember Hauler seem to have no trouble getting themselves into the graveyard, and Dragonlord is a removal magnet, so the Masticore should have some fuel.
One final point on Goblin Guide - just because the deck has big in the title doesn't mean I have to throw away free wins. The Guide is like a Slith Firewalker turn 1 off of Chrome Mox, but it only costs 1 card instead of 3.