This is ludicrous. The value of any hypothetical is only as strong as the balance between it and the alternative, and in this entire discussion, that balance flat out doesn't exist. Additionally, urafever's point is absolutely valid, that the "dies to removal" angle is only relevant if we treat Aetherling as a functional Angel of Serenity in mana cost. What you're doing is completely ignoring the fact that when played on 6, the cards have zero difference in terms of their susceptibility to removal, weird effects like Blast of Genius and Morgue Burst notwithstanding, and combat death, which essentially negates that element of the conversation in terms of how everyone prefers Aetherling solely for that reason.
He never said that playing the blue rare at 7 was flat out an incorrect play, but if the primary advantage of Aetherling disappears if you play it at six, then given that both cards have the ability to completely pull a game out of reach for an opponent upon untapping with them, the power difference is negligible. Hell, he never said that "7 drops are bad," he just brought up how much different they were than the one mana difference might initially suggest. Remarking upon a card's advantage (difficulty to remove) without paying any heed to its disadvantages (difficulty of colored and amount of mana necessary to ensure difficulty to remove) is shortsighted, and that's exactly what his post aimed to explain. The whole "which removal spell might it be" part is absolutely irrelevant.
Oh, and bolding an entire sentence does come off as forceful and essentially internet "yelling" on here. His response had zero attitude and was calm and reasonable, so feel free to drop the snarky personal garbage anytime.
"What you're doing is completely ignoring the fact that when played on 6, the cards have zero difference in terms of their susceptibility to removal"
From my post -- "The "worst case" is the same -- you have to run it out on 6 and it dies. This is much more likely for Pontiff though, since AEtherling has the OPTION of coming out for 7."
I guess directly acknowledging something is "completely ignoring" it? I understand that if they both die that turn it's the same, but what you said isn't even completely true, AEtherling still dodges any removal topdecked after you untap that Pontiff doesn't, so it is still harder to remove overall even if it can die to removal when you're tapped out. They're only equal for that one turn, i.e. the worst case scenario.
"He never said that playing the blue rare at 7 was flat out an incorrect play," From his post -- "In this case, you have made your six drop into a seven drop. This is not a good thing." From his other post -- "I responded to a specific situation posed by another poster which regarded playing aetherling as a 7."
He said, specifically in the scenario provided (i.e. you played 'ling, they had removal, but since you played it with a blue up it lived), that it wasn't a good thing to do that. If that isn't as good as flat out saying it's incorrect I don't know what is.
I don't know why you are yelling at me in bold. I responded to a specific situation posed by another poster which regarded playing aetherling as a 7. Of course the card is vastly better at six mana. I'm not trying to fight with anyone. I frankly don't care that much about this issue. I've just tried to explain my thought process. You can feel free to have a differing opinion.
I'm not "yelling" at you, calm down. I was emphasising the main point of my post in case people didn't want to read the whole thing. You think bold is for yelling? So your signature is yelling that you are a DCI rules advisor and an official limited young wolf? That seems really weird.
Even so, you seem to have misunderstood my post's intention. I'm quite aware that you were responding to a specific situation, I just think you were looking at that situation incorrectly. He said "assume I run AEtherling out for 7 and therefore it lives" and you immediately went to "well 7 drops are bad and you don't understand the vast difference between 6 mana and 7 mana". That's completely irrelevant from both the scenario presented and the overall discussion.
This topic isn't about evaluating the play skill of the person who gave that example, it's about evaluating the card. If he says in an example he played it for 7, you shouldn't immediately assume it was wrong -- there are times when it is correct to play AEtherling for 7, and it's not even a rare occurence. The fact that you completely ignored that and instead implied that the person who presented you with the scenario was bad is my problem with your post, not your "opinion".
Uhh, but, you can just play AEtherling at 6 if you want to... no one's FORCING you to play it for 7, it's just often correct to. I play 'ling in constructed and I've definitely run it out on 6 mana more than once because I felt that it gave me the best chance to win, generally because I felt my chance to draw a seventh land in time was lower than their chance to be able to kill it that turn. Obviously a 7 drop is much worse than a 6 drop, but AEtherling doesn't have to be a 7 drop, you only save it 'til 7 when it is worth doing so, i.e. when doing so gives you the best chance to win.
Just assume for a second that you cast 'ling at 6 every time as you would Pontiff. Obviously that's a ridiculous assumption and it makes the card vastly worse, but even so lets do so for the sake of your example. I personally believe that I'd still rather have 'ling than Pontiff in most games. The worst case is the same for both - it dies the following turn. In your words -- "you've traded 1-for-1 with your six mana spell for their five mana spell". The best case though? AEtherling swings for a bunch of unblockable damage until they die, while being immune to removal and having pseudo-vigilance to block and defend you. To be a 3 turn clock alone (i.e a 7/2), unblockable, with an exile in your turn to be 'vigilant' and an exile in their turn to dodge removal requires only 6 mana. 3 must be blue, though. Pontiff -- I guess casting a cheap spell every turn and using all the rest of your mana to exort? The clock is exactly the same to kill alone (3 turns) but this requires an insane amount of other cards to happen. You'd need a board of 4+ other creatures and a bunch of cheap spells, plus the same amount of lands that 'ling needed, except all of them need to be black or white.
That's pretty much it. The "worst case" is the same -- you have to run it out on 6 and it dies. This is much more likely for Pontiff though, since AEtherling has the OPTION of coming out for 7. The "best case" is also roughly the same, a 3 turn unblockable clock, with some differences ('ling is much harder to remove, whereas pontif makes you harder to kill with the lifegain), except Pontiff's is far more difficult to achieve. In terms of average case, AEtherling is far closer to the best case, and Pontif is far closer to the worst case, and that's why I would always take the AEtherling.
edit: note that these "best cases" aren't really the "best" cases, I assumed for both that you're playing it out on turn 6, with 6 lands, and your opponent on 20 life. You could theoretically play Pontiff with 27 mana and 19 creatures and then play a 1-drop and exort your opponent to 0 that turn, heh.
Also I think my tone in this post is way more combative than I intended -- I haven't even played with Pontiff, it might be the pick. I was just trying to point out that playing AEtherling as a 6 drop is a definite possibility, and if you're going to argue that statistically you can just run Pontiff out there and it shouldn't die, then you can make the exact same argument for 'ling except it also gives you the option of waiting to protect it if statistically that is a better play.
Hey guys. I've been playing a variant of Duskmantle Grixis for a couple of weeks now.
I'm actually splashing green for Deathrite Shaman. It's actually been working out pretty well, the Shamans have been insane with the 4 thought scours and 2 ravings. Plus those self-mill cards also make snapcasters a lot better, and let me run a lot of 1 and 2 of spells since I'm much more likely to find them than other decks would be able to.
MTG Salv admins decided they are sick of the rampant netdecking going on in standard today and have decided to abolish all discussion of any Tier 1 decks.
I've been working on an aggressive BUG deck recently.
If you can get the mana in that deck to work, with Cloudfin Raptor, Strangleroot Geist, and Geralf's Messenger, you're extremely lucky. I've been trying to fit both Geist and Messenger into the same list and just can't manage it without considering the Messenger a 4+ drop.
That said, a very powerful card to consider with Undying creatures is Rapid Hybridization. I had some insane games with Turn 1 Experiment One, Turn 2 Young Wolf, Hybridize it, swing for 3 with Exp1, Turn 3 Dreg Mangler swing for 11. Plus it kills Olivia, Huntermaster, Angels, Thundermaws etc. when you really need it to.
Yeah I meant getting hit by it can be a game ender. It's usually Jund throwing at at you, and if they 3 or 4 for 1 you like that you can very easily just be buried in card advantage and never get back in the game. You have to be able to counter it really unless you're way ahead on board.
I completely left them out. While they DO have a lot of options, I think that right now is not the best time to have multiple sub-par effects on a single card. This is doubly true because of Snapcaster. If Snapcaster were not in the Meta, I think it would see a lot more play, just because it offers diversity.
I want at least 2-3 total of Izzet Charms and Syncopate total to deal with Rakdos's Return. That card can just straight up kill you sometimes and Dissipate at 3 mana just isn't good enough imo.
I run 1x Izzet Charm and 2x Syncopate.
edit: Killing Keyrunes is interesting I guess, Spellsnare, but I'm not sure I care about them. All my guys are fliers mainly, and I mean obviously the option to kill it is nice, but I think I prefer exiling Zombies. Slip does get Aristocrat too though which can definitely be relevant.
I agree with Midrange, I agree with zero planeswalkers ( Tamiyo is still a contender MB and Lilly for SB but not currently)
I disagree with Hellkite (haste isnt that relevant and trading with Sigarda is worse than just crushing it aka Demon) and I disagree hugely with the lack of Dreadbore
Was meant to be 2x Dreadbore maindeck, must have forgotten them.
You saying the haste on Hellkite isn't relevant is just wrong though, sadly: It's for killing Planeswalkers and players, not blocking enemy Sigardas. Jace is a lot more relevant than Sigarda, not to mention all the other walkers in the format, and the Demon has just been very unimpressive to me in testing. Unless you play the Demon turn 4, Hellkite does more damage (unless the demon gets to attack 6 times in which case I don't think it matters what finisher you use) and doesn't give your opponent the option of saccing their mana guys or tokens to effectively chump you in a race. Plus, sometimes you can turn 4 dragon off keyrune anyway. The Demon is basically a 6/6 ground guy in terms of reach, a 5/5 hasty flier is so much more deadly. Likewise I think that you having no burn maindeck is a mistake, burning people out is a real option. Why do you favour tragic slip over pillar?
4x Izzet Charm also seems like too many, to me. I'd not play more than 2 maindeck unless it's for a very metagame specific reason.
I've been playing it in my Grixis deck's sideboard to bring in against the Bant Control decks that are trying to use Angel recursion from the graveyard. Sometimes it randoms boosts your mana, sometimes you can screw their graveyard stuff up, and it often does a few sets of 2 damage. It's a strong card in the right match ups.
I'm playing Grixis midrange and loving it. I'm running no planeswalkers right now, with some reasons, but I think I might want a couple of Liliana of the Veil's in the sideboard instead of Geralf's Messengers.
It plays really interestingly in that it's very fast and very aggressive for this colour combination which is usually a traditional control shard. The main difference between my build and other builds is that I don't play any planeswalkers, most notably Jace, and that I have 4x Sign in Blood, which I believe is the best draw spell in the format, especially with Snapcaster.
We can't beat green decks at the Jace game. They farseek turn 2 and Jace turn 3 and you're screwed if you're trying to jace them. But if you're burning their Jace, or attacking it with a Thundermaw Hellkite, or with a Snapcaster and a Rakdos Keyrune, or whatever, you're fine.
The 3 drops give us a ton of game against aggro as well as against thragtusk and other creatures, Nighthawk and Rakdos Keyrune are 2 of the best blockers in the format, but they can both do decent damage offensively. Likewise Olivia can be slow and controlly, but gets big fast.
Hellkite as a finisher just fits with the aggressive nature of the deck, including burn and bonfires off ramp. Hellkite also slays Jace every time.
Should there be a separate thread for the UWR Tempo deck? I feel like I'm kind of spamming this thread.
Pretty sure there is a thread for it in the developing section. The deck hadn't really taken off before the Established subforums were decided I guess, so it didn't get one. It definitely shouldn't come under UWx Control.
Seems nice against Bant Control with their Angel/Thragtusk loop. The lifegain can get pretty absurd in control mirrors, this could let grixis beat them.
You're totally right about UWR control resum, I'd thought about that too, I guess it just slipped my mind when I was typing the OP. Seems that most people who were playing it are either on Bant Control or UWR Midrange now, I figure the UWR control lists will be rare enough that maindecking scatter is good. Still, UWR control could definitely take off again.
"What you're doing is completely ignoring the fact that when played on 6, the cards have zero difference in terms of their susceptibility to removal"
From my post -- "The "worst case" is the same -- you have to run it out on 6 and it dies. This is much more likely for Pontiff though, since AEtherling has the OPTION of coming out for 7."
I guess directly acknowledging something is "completely ignoring" it? I understand that if they both die that turn it's the same, but what you said isn't even completely true, AEtherling still dodges any removal topdecked after you untap that Pontiff doesn't, so it is still harder to remove overall even if it can die to removal when you're tapped out. They're only equal for that one turn, i.e. the worst case scenario.
"He never said that playing the blue rare at 7 was flat out an incorrect play," From his post -- "In this case, you have made your six drop into a seven drop. This is not a good thing." From his other post -- "I responded to a specific situation posed by another poster which regarded playing aetherling as a 7."
He said, specifically in the scenario provided (i.e. you played 'ling, they had removal, but since you played it with a blue up it lived), that it wasn't a good thing to do that. If that isn't as good as flat out saying it's incorrect I don't know what is.
I'm not "yelling" at you, calm down. I was emphasising the main point of my post in case people didn't want to read the whole thing. You think bold is for yelling? So your signature is yelling that you are a DCI rules advisor and an official limited young wolf? That seems really weird.
Even so, you seem to have misunderstood my post's intention. I'm quite aware that you were responding to a specific situation, I just think you were looking at that situation incorrectly. He said "assume I run AEtherling out for 7 and therefore it lives" and you immediately went to "well 7 drops are bad and you don't understand the vast difference between 6 mana and 7 mana". That's completely irrelevant from both the scenario presented and the overall discussion.
This topic isn't about evaluating the play skill of the person who gave that example, it's about evaluating the card. If he says in an example he played it for 7, you shouldn't immediately assume it was wrong -- there are times when it is correct to play AEtherling for 7, and it's not even a rare occurence. The fact that you completely ignored that and instead implied that the person who presented you with the scenario was bad is my problem with your post, not your "opinion".
Uhh, but, you can just play AEtherling at 6 if you want to... no one's FORCING you to play it for 7, it's just often correct to. I play 'ling in constructed and I've definitely run it out on 6 mana more than once because I felt that it gave me the best chance to win, generally because I felt my chance to draw a seventh land in time was lower than their chance to be able to kill it that turn. Obviously a 7 drop is much worse than a 6 drop, but AEtherling doesn't have to be a 7 drop, you only save it 'til 7 when it is worth doing so, i.e. when doing so gives you the best chance to win.
Just assume for a second that you cast 'ling at 6 every time as you would Pontiff. Obviously that's a ridiculous assumption and it makes the card vastly worse, but even so lets do so for the sake of your example. I personally believe that I'd still rather have 'ling than Pontiff in most games. The worst case is the same for both - it dies the following turn. In your words -- "you've traded 1-for-1 with your six mana spell for their five mana spell". The best case though? AEtherling swings for a bunch of unblockable damage until they die, while being immune to removal and having pseudo-vigilance to block and defend you. To be a 3 turn clock alone (i.e a 7/2), unblockable, with an exile in your turn to be 'vigilant' and an exile in their turn to dodge removal requires only 6 mana. 3 must be blue, though. Pontiff -- I guess casting a cheap spell every turn and using all the rest of your mana to exort? The clock is exactly the same to kill alone (3 turns) but this requires an insane amount of other cards to happen. You'd need a board of 4+ other creatures and a bunch of cheap spells, plus the same amount of lands that 'ling needed, except all of them need to be black or white.
That's pretty much it. The "worst case" is the same -- you have to run it out on 6 and it dies. This is much more likely for Pontiff though, since AEtherling has the OPTION of coming out for 7. The "best case" is also roughly the same, a 3 turn unblockable clock, with some differences ('ling is much harder to remove, whereas pontif makes you harder to kill with the lifegain), except Pontiff's is far more difficult to achieve. In terms of average case, AEtherling is far closer to the best case, and Pontif is far closer to the worst case, and that's why I would always take the AEtherling.
edit: note that these "best cases" aren't really the "best" cases, I assumed for both that you're playing it out on turn 6, with 6 lands, and your opponent on 20 life. You could theoretically play Pontiff with 27 mana and 19 creatures and then play a 1-drop and exort your opponent to 0 that turn, heh.
Also I think my tone in this post is way more combative than I intended -- I haven't even played with Pontiff, it might be the pick. I was just trying to point out that playing AEtherling as a 6 drop is a definite possibility, and if you're going to argue that statistically you can just run Pontiff out there and it shouldn't die, then you can make the exact same argument for 'ling except it also gives you the option of waiting to protect it if statistically that is a better play.
I'm actually splashing green for Deathrite Shaman. It's actually been working out pretty well, the Shamans have been insane with the 4 thought scours and 2 ravings. Plus those self-mill cards also make snapcasters a lot better, and let me run a lot of 1 and 2 of spells since I'm much more likely to find them than other decks would be able to.
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Vampire Nighthawk
4 Duskmantle Seer
Stuff (4)
2 Runechanter's Pike
2 Liliana of the Veil
Instants/Sorceries (18)
4 Thought Scour
2 Pillar of Flame
3 Searing Spear
2 Desperate Ravings
1 Dreadbore
1 Victim of Night
1 Dissipate
2 Syncopate
2 Bonfire of the Damned
4 Watery Grave
3 Drowned Catacomb
3 Blood Crypt
3 Dragonskull Summit
2 Steam Vents
2 Sulfur Falls
2 Hinterland Harbor
1 Stomping Ground
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Woodland Cemetary
2 Dissipate
2 Dispel
2 Gloom Surgeon
1 Duress
2 Appetite for Brains
2 Rolling Temblor
1 Desolate Lighthouse
1 Dreadbore
2 Evil Twin
If you can get the mana in that deck to work, with Cloudfin Raptor, Strangleroot Geist, and Geralf's Messenger, you're extremely lucky. I've been trying to fit both Geist and Messenger into the same list and just can't manage it without considering the Messenger a 4+ drop.
That said, a very powerful card to consider with Undying creatures is Rapid Hybridization. I had some insane games with Turn 1 Experiment One, Turn 2 Young Wolf, Hybridize it, swing for 3 with Exp1, Turn 3 Dreg Mangler swing for 11. Plus it kills Olivia, Huntermaster, Angels, Thundermaws etc. when you really need it to.
GerryT wrote about a Grixis deck using those cards a couple of weeks ago on SCG.
I want at least 2-3 total of Izzet Charms and Syncopate total to deal with Rakdos's Return. That card can just straight up kill you sometimes and Dissipate at 3 mana just isn't good enough imo.
I run 1x Izzet Charm and 2x Syncopate.
edit: Killing Keyrunes is interesting I guess, Spellsnare, but I'm not sure I care about them. All my guys are fliers mainly, and I mean obviously the option to kill it is nice, but I think I prefer exiling Zombies. Slip does get Aristocrat too though which can definitely be relevant.
Was meant to be 2x Dreadbore maindeck, must have forgotten them.
You saying the haste on Hellkite isn't relevant is just wrong though, sadly: It's for killing Planeswalkers and players, not blocking enemy Sigardas. Jace is a lot more relevant than Sigarda, not to mention all the other walkers in the format, and the Demon has just been very unimpressive to me in testing. Unless you play the Demon turn 4, Hellkite does more damage (unless the demon gets to attack 6 times in which case I don't think it matters what finisher you use) and doesn't give your opponent the option of saccing their mana guys or tokens to effectively chump you in a race. Plus, sometimes you can turn 4 dragon off keyrune anyway. The Demon is basically a 6/6 ground guy in terms of reach, a 5/5 hasty flier is so much more deadly. Likewise I think that you having no burn maindeck is a mistake, burning people out is a real option. Why do you favour tragic slip over pillar?
4x Izzet Charm also seems like too many, to me. I'd not play more than 2 maindeck unless it's for a very metagame specific reason.
Anyway here's the list:
4x Drowned Catacomb
4x Blood Crypt
4x Dragonskull Summit
4x Steam Vents
3x Sulfur Falls
3x Swamp
2x Desolate Lighthouse
Creatures (13):
4x Snapcaster Mage
4x Vampire Nighthawk
2x Olivia Voldaren
3x Thundermaw Hellkite
3x Rakdos Keyrune
Other Spells (20):
1x Appetite for Brains
1x Duress
3x Pillar of Flame
2x Dreadbore
4x Sign in Blood
1x Essence Scatter
1x Izzet Charm
2x Sever the Bloodline
2x Bonfire of the Damned
1x Rakdos's Return
2x Syncopate
1x Deathrite Shaman
1x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Pillar of Flame
1x Appetite for Brains
1x Cyclonic Rift
2x Mizium Mortars
1x Dissipate
2x Geralf's Messenger (Should probably be Liliana)
2x Evil Twin
2x Zealous Conscripts
1x Rakdos's Return
It plays really interestingly in that it's very fast and very aggressive for this colour combination which is usually a traditional control shard. The main difference between my build and other builds is that I don't play any planeswalkers, most notably Jace, and that I have 4x Sign in Blood, which I believe is the best draw spell in the format, especially with Snapcaster.
We can't beat green decks at the Jace game. They farseek turn 2 and Jace turn 3 and you're screwed if you're trying to jace them. But if you're burning their Jace, or attacking it with a Thundermaw Hellkite, or with a Snapcaster and a Rakdos Keyrune, or whatever, you're fine.
The 3 drops give us a ton of game against aggro as well as against thragtusk and other creatures, Nighthawk and Rakdos Keyrune are 2 of the best blockers in the format, but they can both do decent damage offensively. Likewise Olivia can be slow and controlly, but gets big fast.
Hellkite as a finisher just fits with the aggressive nature of the deck, including burn and bonfires off ramp. Hellkite also slays Jace every time.
Pretty sure there is a thread for it in the developing section. The deck hadn't really taken off before the Established subforums were decided I guess, so it didn't get one. It definitely shouldn't come under UWx Control.