MTG Salvation

Comment Hidden

Comment Hidden

For any given archetype that exists in both formats, that, due to the different card pools, has some similar but not identical cards: It's much easier to compare the impact of replacing Brainstorm and the now banned Preordain & Ponder with Visions, than most other cards Modern plays for a lack of the better options Legacy has.
First, the Modern approach to some archetypes is quite different from the Legacy one, due to a different pool and meta. Most replacement cards have slightly different roles than what they replace. Whereas Visions fills the exactly same role.
Second, most replacement cards are not fixed versions of older cards. Unlike Visions, that is extremly close to being strictly inferior. Interestingly enough Visions was made before the banned Ps.
Third, most replacements are not worse than three options Legacy has. Visions simply sticks out.

I don't quite understand the procedure that ended up costing you money, but it sounds like an expensive lesson in 'don't trust random people'. Atleast you're still young and it's not (atleast I hope so) back-breakingly expensive.
You might as well have removed the link by now. Assuming it's the one to the goblin.
Anyways, best wishes & :hug:.

As for BNG, the set does have a bunch of interesting cards, maybe the most since ... Innistrad, as well as cards I expect to not do well (tribute & inspired will have a huge variance in playability). It's a shame that they already got rid of monstrosity. I don't like them spewing out new abilities each set and then doing only a handfull of cards. I understand that it's less risky for them, that it's an experimental nature, that makes limited more diverse - but as a constructed player and s.o. interested in card design, some mechanics deserve more depth. Back to BNG, all but General, Hero & Shieldmate are atleast interesting, the only thing speaking against Hero being that I don't like this type of card. For blue, Mindreaver and the counter suck, the rest again is ok. Reaver being a worse 'reprint' and the counter, well I wrote the MUC primer, you know my stance on this. Wave is outright hilarious and Tromokratis' only fault is that its hexproof clause is sort of an insult, acknowleding I'll be happy 'bout it, if it's on the other side. Black's prerelease promo is simply too expensive, Herald I think will not perform well, and that Pulsetracker thing still is a 1/1 body. "Oh it's great against an empty board." What body worth playing isn't? Nothing to say on red. Only that the fixed Kiki really got fixed hard, and yet it looks interesting (solid stats). Green's heroic and tribute cards so far and the card against flyers... suck. But atleast the flyer hate most often does. Multicolour, what to say on a random 5C critter... I know what song I'll have in mind if I ever face it. The Ephara cards both have great artwork and are engine-y, so I approve. The other gods atleast have stunning artwork, while their abilties don't make me want to play them. Of the rest only Fanatic and Follower strike me as good. Monger's issue is that his tribe sucks, on a competitive level. Cheaper cows still are cattle.

Just the Hermit. but your furry creatures will lose the +1/+1 bonus of the 2nd Hermit and be less nuts.

Comment Hidden

Comment Hidden

Cards that boil down to the effect of Divination & Mind Rot (and to be complete Unhinge). You spend one card drawn and get back more from your deck (Divination), or take away more than one from the opponent (Mind Rot), or in sum get ahead (Unhinge). The concept is called card advantage (shortened often as CA). MtG is a game of resource management. And usually, if you have access to more resources than your opponent, you're in a good position.

While I use examples that all affect hand cards only, this is only to underline that it matters that the player in a wider sense drew the cards (Glimpse the Unthinkable is not a 10:1, the same way Mind Rot is a 2:1). So for example, if your beloved Huntmaster and its token each just block a different creature and die - you have two for oned your opponent and are a card ahead.
Similar if you cast Slagstorm, and kill a Birds of Paradise on your side and three creatures of the opponent, you're also ahead one card (not saying that is the correct play).
Trading a 4/4 of yours in combat against two smaller creatures also is a 2:1.
As said before, Kodama's Reach also gets you two cards out of your deck (I even mentioned how it's similar to Divination. lol) and costs you one card.
Etc.

So to expand on the question Xyx asked you on what you mean saying midrange. And keeping it simple, cuz there's a lot more to it;
Fast decks favour speed over most other aspects of deck building. They try to take the game before decks slower than them can get foothold. Each individual card is neither as important nor as powerfull in a vacuum as in slower decks. Redundancy also matters a lot here. It is not as important what exactly you draw, only that it alltogether gets you there, fast. You basically win with the sum of the dozen cards you drew until you expect to have won (turn 5 or so).
Slow decks try to survive the early turns and win when the faster deck has run out of cards and then win on the back of their few impactfull game ending cards. Cruel Ultimatum is a good example of a spell that is very hard to come back from. It's very common for this kind of deck to have cards that are very specialized. A couple of cards to surive, a couple of cards to dig trough for whatever you need at the moment, and the winning spells. Etc.
Midrange is somewhat of both. Your expensive spells are not that definite of an 'I win' as f.e. the recent Aetherling, but are also more potent than let's say... Soldier of the Pantheon. In that situation midrange is really positioned to win on accumulated card quality and accumulated card advantage.

Comment Hidden

If you think about adding Oozes, atleast one would make some sense MB over a Tusker. Only one cuz the 2nd is weaker when the first already ate all the goodies.

There's also Contested Cliffs, if your base can take another colourless land (tho I'd argue you don't need two Wolf-Run), for some additional value.

The fastlands don't have much value in here, considering your curve, you have no red (well, Bolt) turn 1 play. You have enough basics for Rootbound Crag, and Raging Ravine would present another late game option... that can be fetched with Titan.