The real ticket with the Blue retreat is Ruin Ghost.
Now what to do with infinite landfall triggers.. shush, Hedron Crab, I'm thinking here!
It's a 3 card combo though, while Knight of the Reliquary, as pointed out earlier, is a 2 card combo. If you don't include a 3rd colour for mana dorks you're also a turn slower (though Knight + blue retreat are 3 colours to begin wiht, so that shouldn't be an issue).
But milling a win is so much more Johnny-tastic...
If you get a stomping ground or some nonsense with the Knight/Retreat combo out, I'd probably just go for Kessig Wolf Run. Sink the net mana, swing with your 20/10 trample. That way if it dies you could still have an amount of deck left.
So people are questioning whether Wasteland Strangler is even standard playable, but I'm going to suggest something crazy anyway. I think it's modern playable.
It seems very good in modern death & taxes. It's 3 cmc for vial, feeds off of Path to Exile which is already the removal of choice, and here's the big one, it's insane with Flickerwisp. If at first it seems like a mediocre combo you're looking at the wrong interaction so take another look. Flickerwisp reads "When Flickerwisp enters the battlefield, exile another target permanent..." just let that sink in.
People always criticize cards terribly. If we all could design a set, we would all design it very stupidly which would surge sales but not do anything for the health of the game.
Example given: I wanted newlamog to have annihilator as a surprise because it makes sense to ME in a flavor sense. Some people would design Ugin's Insight to be instant without seeing how stupid that is. People want the white Mythic spoiled to cost XWWW without seeing how dumb that is.
Let them design the set, reflect on the cards once and let them be. If they deemed Archangel's Light printable then nothing surprises me these days. Who cares though? We are all stil gonna play limited and Game Day for this set.
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"The essence of every world, every spell and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
Let them design the set, reflect on the cards once and let them be. If they deemed Archangel's Light printable then nothing surprises me these days. Who cares though? We are all stil gonna play limited and Game Day for this set.
More like, let the set be crap because it's going to sell tons anyway because 'extremely rare pretty lands.' Makes sense to me that the people buying the packs are the ones criticizing the bad cards.
So people are questioning whether Wasteland Strangler is even standard playable, but I'm going to suggest something crazy anyway. I think it's modern playable.
It seems very good in modern death & taxes. It's 3 cmc for vial, feeds off of Path to Exile which is already the removal of choice, and here's the big one, it's insane with Flickerwisp. If at first it seems like a mediocre combo you're looking at the wrong interaction so take another look. Flickerwisp reads "When Flickerwisp enters the battlefield, exile another target permanent..." just let that sink in.
Yes, but you then need to cast (or vial) the strangler in the same turn after you cast (or vial) the flickerwisp in. You can't have either out already for it to work. Still, destroying any permanent and killing an x/3 on turn 4 (the earliest you get the vial to 3) is good, right?
Let them design the set, reflect on the cards once and let them be. If they deemed Archangel's Light printable then nothing surprises me these days. Who cares though? We are all stil gonna play limited and Game Day for this set.
More like, let the set be crap because it's going to sell tons anyway because 'extremely rare pretty lands.' Makes sense to me that the people buying the packs are the ones criticizing the bad cards.
what do you mean by "let the set be crap"? you say that as if its difficult for them to design a more powerful card. makes no sense.
"Well we wanted to make this creature a 6/6 instead of a 4/4 but the 6's were just too heavy to lift. we just couldnt do it. so we went with the lighter, easier to carry 4's" --Wizards Design Team from your perspective." You see how little sense that makes? lol. just please stop.
Retreat to Coralhelm is so silly with Knight of the Reliquary. I hope that ends up being a Modern deck. Knight already sees some Modern play and Retreat to Coralhelm isn't terrible on its own, so I think it's a real possibility. You could also throw in landfall creatures such as Steppe Lynx to have a second huge attacker when comboing off. And/or you could find a use for all the mana the combo generates.
I think you'd want Pact of Negation to protect your combo.
The only problem I have with Knight of the Reliquary here is that you need a lot of Plains and Forests or it won't get all the way there.
Now, Lotus Cobra certainly brings some possibilities... Sphinx's Tutelage?
Yes, but you then need to cast (or vial) the strangler in the same turn after you cast (or vial) the flickerwisp in. You can't have either out already for it to work. Still, destroying any permanent and killing an x/3 on turn 4 (the earliest you get the vial to 3) is good, right?
That's how I feel. At it's worst it's usually a 2-for-1 and a great combat trick with vial. It's also a very good followup to Tidehollow Sculler so I imagine it will fit in very nicely. I wouldn't run it as a 4x because of the limited resources and the fact that it needs a target to use it properly but the synergy is very strong.
The blue expedition is absurdly good. It has so many different combos. Knight of the Reliquary can just dump all your lands into your yard. Argothian elder + thawing glaciers gets you all the basics in your library in play. Walking atlas or that snake from kamigawa + a bounceland gives you infinite landfall triggers, combine with the black retreat to kill everyone. The combos are a little convoluted but i think that the kotr combo is easily modern viable the last one might be as well.
Unfortunately every try hard from Sacramento to Shanghai preaches from the top of their 27 lands + Mana Reflection that Tooth and Nail and Time Stretch are fine to play in the same turn but Armageddon is unfair.
I think you'd want Pact of Negation to protect your combo.
The only problem I have with Knight of the Reliquary here is that you need a lot of Plains and Forests or it won't get all the way there.
Now, Lotus Cobra certainly brings some possibilities... Sphinx's Tutelage?
That shouldn't be too much of a problem I think. You could build a heavily G/W focused deck with a U splash. Of course, that would make if more difficult to include Hedron Crab. Maybe some Breeding Pools and Hallowed Fountains to helpt with that? Shocking yourself shouldn't be a huge drawback in a combodeck. Not sure why you would want the Cobra or the Tutelage though. You are already producing a lot of mana with the Knight and you're not drawing cards.
I thought of including Emrakul as you can easily generate 15 mana with this combo, but it seems to me that at the point you can cast Emrakul you might as well just kill them with the Knight.
Mainly for redundancy, I guess. I'd like to put together a bunch of ways to combo off. If you have Cobra instead of Crab, you get infinite mana instead of milling them out. Tutelage just gives you something to do with all that mana, and if it doesn't mill them , you can find some other win condition.
I really want to do a knight combo deck that also uses Faith's Reward after throwing all of your lands in the garbage. End up getting every land in your deck into play on turn three, if nothing else.
Wow that strangler is ridiculous. I really want these processors to work, but I don't want to have to rely on ingest creatures to enable them. What we could really use is a one or two mana enchantment/artifact that exiles one card from the opponent's yard a turn. Something like relic of progenitus. Relic does fit the crunch.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If MTG is a part of your life, the formats are like relationships:
Standard/Block = The on-again, off-again holiday fling
Modern/Vintage/Legacy = Stable, homely. A ***** after absence/misreading
Limited/Sealed = Heart breaking free spirit
Commander/Cube = Agreeable, needy and expensive
Pauper/Peasant = Sweet, kind, practical, but shy and boring
Retreat to Coralhelm isn't exactly amazing, I'll admit that, but it can provide some value.
It's definitely better on its own than Splinter Twin is in a Twin deck, though that's not saying much. It can tap down creatures to prevent them from attacking with a fetch, so that's something. And of course scrying never hurts.
Wow that strangler is ridiculous. I really want these processors to work, but I don't want to have to rely on ingest creatures to enable them. What we could really use is a one or two mana enchantment/artifact that exiles one card from the opponent's yard a turn. Something like relic of progenitus. Relic does fit the crunch.
It seems very good in modern death & taxes. It's 3 cmc for vial, feeds off of Path to Exile which is already the removal of choice, and here's the big one, it's insane with Flickerwisp. If at first it seems like a mediocre combo you're looking at the wrong interaction so take another look. Flickerwisp reads "When Flickerwisp enters the battlefield, exile another target permanent..." just let that sink in.
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
Damn.
Yes and they need you. They called me and told me they want you to replace their entire design team.
People always criticize cards terribly. If we all could design a set, we would all design it very stupidly which would surge sales but not do anything for the health of the game.
Example given: I wanted newlamog to have annihilator as a surprise because it makes sense to ME in a flavor sense. Some people would design Ugin's Insight to be instant without seeing how stupid that is. People want the white Mythic spoiled to cost XWWW without seeing how dumb that is.
Let them design the set, reflect on the cards once and let them be. If they deemed Archangel's Light printable then nothing surprises me these days. Who cares though? We are all stil gonna play limited and Game Day for this set.
More like, let the set be crap because it's going to sell tons anyway because 'extremely rare pretty lands.' Makes sense to me that the people buying the packs are the ones criticizing the bad cards.
Yes, but you then need to cast (or vial) the strangler in the same turn after you cast (or vial) the flickerwisp in. You can't have either out already for it to work. Still, destroying any permanent and killing an x/3 on turn 4 (the earliest you get the vial to 3) is good, right?
what do you mean by "let the set be crap"? you say that as if its difficult for them to design a more powerful card. makes no sense.
"Well we wanted to make this creature a 6/6 instead of a 4/4 but the 6's were just too heavy to lift. we just couldnt do it. so we went with the lighter, easier to carry 4's" --Wizards Design Team from your perspective." You see how little sense that makes? lol. just please stop.
The only problem I have with Knight of the Reliquary here is that you need a lot of Plains and Forests or it won't get all the way there.
Now, Lotus Cobra certainly brings some possibilities... Sphinx's Tutelage?
That's how I feel. At it's worst it's usually a 2-for-1 and a great combat trick with vial. It's also a very good followup to Tidehollow Sculler so I imagine it will fit in very nicely. I wouldn't run it as a 4x because of the limited resources and the fact that it needs a target to use it properly but the synergy is very strong.
Mainly for redundancy, I guess. I'd like to put together a bunch of ways to combo off. If you have Cobra instead of Crab, you get infinite mana instead of milling them out. Tutelage just gives you something to do with all that mana, and if it doesn't mill them , you can find some other win condition.
WWWAvacyn: We Can Make The World StopWWW
Standard/Block = The on-again, off-again holiday fling
Modern/Vintage/Legacy = Stable, homely. A ***** after absence/misreading
Limited/Sealed = Heart breaking free spirit
Commander/Cube = Agreeable, needy and expensive
Pauper/Peasant = Sweet, kind, practical, but shy and boring
BAfter the lights go out on you, after your worthless life is through. I will remember how you scream...B
It's definitely better on its own than Splinter Twin is in a Twin deck, though that's not saying much. It can tap down creatures to prevent them from attacking with a fetch, so that's something. And of course scrying never hurts.
Relic of Progenitus is out due to flavor (Progenitus is from Alara).