That's why you run mana acceleration so you win on turn 3-4 rather than asking people named Stax what single card you need 3-4 mana for. Turn 3-4 you should have somewhere in the neighborhood of 8+ mana depending on whether you've got running in terms of untappers, Crossroads, Priest, or some combo thereof.
And BTW, competitive decks? Run 4 Fyndhorn and 4 Llanowar for exactly the reasons I'm stating. Admittedly they're more tech'y but they run stuff like Natural Order that I don't feel like dropping money on.
EDIT - And I really do want to run a 4th Crossroads, but drawing a second is SUCH a wasted card.
That's really not true. Like at all. I've been playtesting my current list all weekend and I don't think I've ever had to mully because of no Forests. That deck can (and often does) win just fine with 1 forest because after turn 1 a forest is SO MUCH worse than any Elf-based alternative.
And if you go -4 Fyndhorn, I'm sorry, you're just wrong. The entire point of the deck is as many of those in the early turns as possible coupled with an untapper or two into your win con on 3 or 4. And if you face any removal at all removing those Fyndhorn basically = Autolose.
And probably with the Wellwishers replaced by Glimpse, where would you fit Forcemages? As for mirror, that's what sideboards are for, and end of the day the +2/+2 cancels out (effectively) and you still get trampling at least which gives you more fun to play with Timberwatch.
I'm trying 4x Relic of Progenitus for the Pyroclasms and Prisms because I'm seeing so much Ascension lately (plus it fights Vengevine and Knight of the Reliquary).
Elfball is the old name for this list, that was mostly centered on a giant Fireball FTW. But RG definitely works. With enough mana fixer elves you almost don't need Mountains.
I'm currently working with the Jund list from our primer, I'm enjoying it (I'm just starting to playtest, any finetuning for the MD would be appreciated).
But my big question is that sideboard. This list comes from a May tourny and some unknown meta, wondering if you guys could give some updating advice and any notes on how to make the SB more generic (if this is too geared towards a particular meta).
Forcemage evades removal much better as, effectively, a one-turn super-Lord without a body to shoot down. And really, Forcemage Morph+Flip costs only what a twice-kickered Joraga costs and as opposed to just +2/+2 you get Trample out of it as well. I dunno, I just ordered a set of Joraga for cheap and I like them a lot (particularly the scalability so you can make a serious beatstick) but there is something to be said for dancing around removal.
Can you Stifle abilities out of the hand? This isn't a great example since Elvish Spirit Guide is a mana ability, but pretend that card had a red mirror "Goblin Spirit Guide" that instead dealt 1 damage to a creature or something. Could such an ability be Stifle'd?
I love Glimpse..when it works. It works pretty often, but not always. It's never really a 'bad' play though.
Perfects, I'm honestly just running for another Lord. He's marginally better than Elvish Champion since he also provides bodies for Heritage Druid. But other than that, he's not really what I'd call 'stellar'. You could replace him I suppose.
But not Glimpse. Nothing else really does what it does. There's Skullclamp of course, but I like Glimpse better. Just 'fits' better, is cheaper to pull off, and doesn't feel quite so dickish.
I think Wellwisher is cute, nothing more. (And life gain still sucks, btw. Even (sorry, fans) here.) He really has no place in a 'serious' build, imo.
==
I'm actively looking for space for 4x Elvish Spirit Guide. I think he def has a role to play...could accelerate me that much more. We'll see..
I actually have a playset of Spirit Guides in a garbage cheap-Magic Stompy deck I use to teach people the basics of the game. But yeah, look at my list (I quoted it above), would you swap 4 Wellwishers for 4 Glimpses? Even absolute worst case it turns a creature into a cantrip for a mana, and most cases can be a healthy turn 2 or 3 draw.
EDIT - Here's a question. Looking at the Legacy lists (basically what I play for Casual) they prefer Tribal Forcemage to Joraga. Whaddya think?
Forests are such slow mana generation relative to the engines of the deck, tho. Your list seems too tech heavy to me. I buy slimming Wellwishers, but removing Messengers seems suicidal to me. You're removing a Trampling body (useful thing A) that generates truly insane card advantage in a deck like this. Why run Taunting Elves when your whole deck is built on an army of similar small elves either Sligh style or pumped by Joraga FTW, it's not like there's some single target worth chumping that Taunting protects.
I just playtested this list for fun against some T2-legal Vampires.
First off the last game I played was one of the most hilarious games of Magic I ever played, I literally drew NO THREATS (Heedless, Joraga, or Timberwatch) nor either draw-elf to dig faster for one for about 25 turns. However double Wellwishers coupled with untap trickery kept pumping my life. However again, he had a Vampire Nighthawk with 2 Blade of the Bloodchief on it and via Viscera Seer was constantly dropping 5-6 creatures through the graveyard via Reassembling Skeletons and Bloodghast. By the end of the game I finally drew a Joraga and swung for 154 damage. And he still had 70ish life left. I lost to a (we didn't play the last turn where he'd pump it again) 78/79 flying, deathtouch, lifelink, double haste (I had 2 Crossroads out, lulz) Vampire Shaman.
More seriously, however, we played multiple games before and I was amazingly screwed in EVERY GAME for about 4 straight. I had to mully in 2 or 3 of them and basically never drew a Llanowar in my opening hand. It was admittedly more frustrating because he had removal for early Priests when I got them (and losing a Priest without getting at least one use really sucks the life out of your acceleration).
However, I'm wondering if I should be cutting those Wellwishers for more acceleration, card advantage, or threats. They kept me in that hilarious game, but if one of the two had been any sort of threat (even Elvish Archdruid would've won me the game early before he topdecked the Hawk)? I just feel like early game they aren't doing much (a handful of life, I suppose) and late game they're holding things back in hope of a topdeck when they could just be that topdeck in the first place.
The most common solutions I've seen here seem to be:
-Reprint in easily gettable ways like Precons
-Reprint and de-Mythic-ify
-Restrict
-No more Mythics (though this won't fix the current ones).
Can I suggest a simpler solution that I haven't seen (though maybe I missed it)? Just print similarly powerful deck-center cards in the next set or two at regular rare (or perhaps even uncommon) level. You don't necessarily need to combat the Mythics directly.
Think of it like Goldfinger. His plot wasn't to steal gold from Fort Knox (which would require legions of trucks and infrastructure), but simply to irradiate that gold to make his own more valuable. Similarly, WotC could simply "irradiate" (aka improve) T2 by creating more playable styles. If Jace is the only playable centerpiece then his price will be sky high. But if there are other playable and cheaper options they will be used more, Jace used less, and thus Jace's price drops.
That's a pretty clear indicator of exactly how "difficult, complex, expensive, or trying" it is to "opt".
Not really. Voter registration takes what, 10 seconds? And what %age of the population is registered to vote? Apathy (which the US population has loads of) leads to inaction, but the people who don't want their organs donated are hardly apathetic about that fact.
But don't wave "opt out" in my face as an ethical solution.
So don't wave the fact that this law in no way forces you to be an organ donor in your face as the solution to you not wanting to be an organ donor?
Regulation isn't the answer. If you want a free market economy then allow it to be so.
False. Savings and Loan, Enron, et al. were problems of deregulation, not regulation. Even this past financial crisis was an odd mix of not enough regulation in some places (allowing these far-riskier-than-advertised securities to exist) and too much regulation/government-nose-butting-in in other areas (laws trying to push/ensure home ownership where it didn't belong).
The free market does not cure all woes because:
1. Greed
2. See #1
3. Public "good" is not necessarily profitable.
Street lights would not exist in poor neighborhoods, where crimes is higher and they are needed the most, if provided by private companies and/or homeowners as no one there would be able to use them. But public safety is generally promoted by ensuring those areas are lit.
And BTW, competitive decks? Run 4 Fyndhorn and 4 Llanowar for exactly the reasons I'm stating. Admittedly they're more tech'y but they run stuff like Natural Order that I don't feel like dropping money on.
EDIT - And I really do want to run a 4th Crossroads, but drawing a second is SUCH a wasted card.
And if you go -4 Fyndhorn, I'm sorry, you're just wrong. The entire point of the deck is as many of those in the early turns as possible coupled with an untapper or two into your win con on 3 or 4. And if you face any removal at all removing those Fyndhorn basically = Autolose.
14 Forests
//Creatures (43)
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Priest of Titania
4 Timberwatch Elves
4 Joraga Warcaller
4 Sylvan Messenger
4 Wellwisher
4 Heedless One
3 Elvish Visionary
3 Concordant Crossroads
And probably with the Wellwishers replaced by Glimpse, where would you fit Forcemages? As for mirror, that's what sideboards are for, and end of the day the +2/+2 cancels out (effectively) and you still get trampling at least which gives you more fun to play with Timberwatch.
4 Raging Ravine
4 Dragonskull Summit
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Forest
3 Swamp
3 Mountain
1 Lavaclaw Reaches
4 Putrid Leech
4 Sprouting Thrinax
4 Bloodbraid Elf
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Broodmate Dragon
2 Terminate
4 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Blightning
4 Bituminous Blast
2 Sarkhan The Mad
4 Goblin Ruinblaster
4 Duress
2 Doom Blade
2 Pyroclasm
1 Malakir Bloodwitch
2 Prophetic Prism
But my big question is that sideboard. This list comes from a May tourny and some unknown meta, wondering if you guys could give some updating advice and any notes on how to make the SB more generic (if this is too geared towards a particular meta).
I actually have a playset of Spirit Guides in a garbage cheap-Magic Stompy deck I use to teach people the basics of the game. But yeah, look at my list (I quoted it above), would you swap 4 Wellwishers for 4 Glimpses? Even absolute worst case it turns a creature into a cantrip for a mana, and most cases can be a healthy turn 2 or 3 draw.
EDIT - Here's a question. Looking at the Legacy lists (basically what I play for Casual) they prefer Tribal Forcemage to Joraga. Whaddya think?
I just playtested this list for fun against some T2-legal Vampires.
First off the last game I played was one of the most hilarious games of Magic I ever played, I literally drew NO THREATS (Heedless, Joraga, or Timberwatch) nor either draw-elf to dig faster for one for about 25 turns. However double Wellwishers coupled with untap trickery kept pumping my life. However again, he had a Vampire Nighthawk with 2 Blade of the Bloodchief on it and via Viscera Seer was constantly dropping 5-6 creatures through the graveyard via Reassembling Skeletons and Bloodghast. By the end of the game I finally drew a Joraga and swung for 154 damage. And he still had 70ish life left. I lost to a (we didn't play the last turn where he'd pump it again) 78/79 flying, deathtouch, lifelink, double haste (I had 2 Crossroads out, lulz) Vampire Shaman.
More seriously, however, we played multiple games before and I was amazingly screwed in EVERY GAME for about 4 straight. I had to mully in 2 or 3 of them and basically never drew a Llanowar in my opening hand. It was admittedly more frustrating because he had removal for early Priests when I got them (and losing a Priest without getting at least one use really sucks the life out of your acceleration).
However, I'm wondering if I should be cutting those Wellwishers for more acceleration, card advantage, or threats. They kept me in that hilarious game, but if one of the two had been any sort of threat (even Elvish Archdruid would've won me the game early before he topdecked the Hawk)? I just feel like early game they aren't doing much (a handful of life, I suppose) and late game they're holding things back in hope of a topdeck when they could just be that topdeck in the first place.
-Reprint in easily gettable ways like Precons
-Reprint and de-Mythic-ify
-Restrict
-No more Mythics (though this won't fix the current ones).
Can I suggest a simpler solution that I haven't seen (though maybe I missed it)? Just print similarly powerful deck-center cards in the next set or two at regular rare (or perhaps even uncommon) level. You don't necessarily need to combat the Mythics directly.
Think of it like Goldfinger. His plot wasn't to steal gold from Fort Knox (which would require legions of trucks and infrastructure), but simply to irradiate that gold to make his own more valuable. Similarly, WotC could simply "irradiate" (aka improve) T2 by creating more playable styles. If Jace is the only playable centerpiece then his price will be sky high. But if there are other playable and cheaper options they will be used more, Jace used less, and thus Jace's price drops.
Not really. Voter registration takes what, 10 seconds? And what %age of the population is registered to vote? Apathy (which the US population has loads of) leads to inaction, but the people who don't want their organs donated are hardly apathetic about that fact.
So don't wave the fact that this law in no way forces you to be an organ donor in your face as the solution to you not wanting to be an organ donor?
False. Savings and Loan, Enron, et al. were problems of deregulation, not regulation. Even this past financial crisis was an odd mix of not enough regulation in some places (allowing these far-riskier-than-advertised securities to exist) and too much regulation/government-nose-butting-in in other areas (laws trying to push/ensure home ownership where it didn't belong).
The free market does not cure all woes because:
1. Greed
2. See #1
3. Public "good" is not necessarily profitable.
Street lights would not exist in poor neighborhoods, where crimes is higher and they are needed the most, if provided by private companies and/or homeowners as no one there would be able to use them. But public safety is generally promoted by ensuring those areas are lit.