FoN may be a decent shot in the arm for fish and Fae.
I have to admit I would have rather seen counterspell before this. I feel like terminus is pretty punishing for creature strats and now this is pretty punishing for combo/control. I'm in on control having more versatile answers but ugh this is going to be obnoxious post board.
Not sure I'm a fan of what this card is and what it's doing. Not being able to drop the shields and correctly read the game state/opponents deck/odds based off recent list your opponent has an out is what separates good players from poor ones (making informered decisions). This takes a lot of the guess work out of the game. Now you can slam your CA engine or haymakers (most of which are legendary so you're pitching extra copies) and keep up interaction.
This does answer the new teferi though, so that's a plus.
Funnily enough, this would have been great both in and against twin.
--------
New elf reads kinda weak to me. I guess it's 4 bodies if they kill the hermit or it fades out but 5 mana is a lot and if you're pushing for that much mana you can almost cast hornet queen in the format. There aren't many decks that are going to entertain a 5 drop that arent already looking at enough resources for a 7 drop. Elves may be the outlier but heck if you going to be able to keep much on the board.
FoN may be a decent shot in the arm for fish and Fae.
Both of these decks will likely benefit from FoN, especially Faeries which needs to deploy some of its better threats at sorcery speed, notably BB and JTMS. Merfolk also benefits for the same reason, although to some extent it can get the job done with Vial alone. By contrast, there was no playable Vial equivalent that allows Fae to get BB or JTMS on the table on curve without dropping shields.
VERY excited about this card for the reasons rickster and ktkenshinx already outlined. I honestly rather have this card over actual FoW for what I expect it to do to the format.
Excited about Goblin Matron, would love to see Ringleader too and make Goblins a real deck in Modern. I wonder if Lackey would be too powerful.
Prohibit I'm less excited about, between Logic Knot and Dovin's Veto there might be room for a singleton Prohibit, but FoN will also go in the counterspell slots. I'm still holding on for Counterspell on uncommon.
FON: Not being able to hit creatures severly undermines the card against aggro, but in control decks you don't need that with so much removal.
On the other hand, something no one mentioned is the easy to hard cast cost of 1UU. Miles better than fow in that deppartment.
This card is a format defining card.
It's funny that they don't let you play it during your turn to not be able to protect your combo. Wizards says no to fow in combo decks haha.
Prohibit seems underwhelming and hoping for counterspell.
Combos already have Pact of Negation. Although Dovin's Veto is very convenient in being a big NO button that ignores this, I'm extremely happy with the design of FoN as a method to combat unfair things without itself being unfair. Hopefully, this card also means that we switch to London mul, since it helps combat the decks that would gain the most.
I got excited with prohibit for an instant, then realized it's not that good, but then remembered that people were clamoring for the same effect with revolt instead of kicker. So now I'm sitting here confused, trying to understand whether they gave us what we wanted and we don't know what we want or if they ended up trolling us with an unplayable version of almost exactly what we demanded.
Matron is nice to have and hopefully midrange goblins can be ported to modern in some manner (at least it makes Skirk Fecundity more playable).
I agree with AvalonAurora, I still think Counterspell will be in the set at the uncommon rarity. R&D may have determined that counterspell was too good at the common rarity and potentially had a negative effect on the limited/draft format for MH1. My other theory, which is a long shot, is that R&D determined that Counterspell is needed in standard legal sets due to the uptick in power level we saw this time around on Ravnica. Therefore, it would be in the Fall set. I doubt this, but it's possible.
Lots of mentions of UW control as being a prime candidate for FoN, which makes sense, but it is miles worse than FoW at protecting a Walker because you can't cast it for free all the time.
Consider this:
UW player taps out for JtMS. Brainstorm
Opp EoT Lightning Bolt...
I'm not saying FoN is necessarily bad, but the free part being active only half the time, And only hitting non-creatures, sounds like a sideboard card to me. If anything, FoN might just incentivize more instants being played.
Lots of mentions of UW control as being a prime candidate for FoN, which makes sense, but it is miles worse than FoW at protecting a Walker because you can't cast it for free all the time.
Consider this:
UW player taps out for JtMS. Brainstorm
Opp EoT Lightning Bolt...
I mean sure, but if you are playing against a Red deck that has open Red mana, you either tick up Jace to protect him or you accept that he may die so you can draw 3 cards. Yes, in that instance Force of Negation isn't very good, but neither is anything else that sees any play in UWx. And yes, there are plenty of other situations where it isn't super good either but we don't necessarily need Force of Will; this is serviceable and may be capable of slowing down the combo decks of the format. I do admit that it is going to feel awful to have one of these in hand only to have Grishoalbrand or Breach decks cast their instants on your end step where FoN can't be cast for free.
I'm not saying FoN is necessarily bad, but the free part being active only half the time, And only hitting non-creatures, sounds like a sideboard card to me. If anything, FoN might just incentivize more instants being played.
I don't think people are suggestion Force of Negation all of a sudden propels UWx into a spot where they can protect everything but it gives them options to progress the game without having to worry about holding back or needing to wait. Not being able to cast that Jace or Teferi because the opposing deck can just go off next turn means the game drags on. Force of Negation potentially allows the games to go quicker and allows UWx to put pressure on their opponent rather than just being entirely reactive.
Yes, there will be "bad" plays with it and players will likely overextend thinking it can get them out of certain situations, but I think it is still worth a 2-3 slots in the main in certain decks. At least, it is worth a try.
The format is very proactive, but it's not full of decks that kill on turn 3 so far. It's a great card in a format where Splinter Twin dominates, but it's not the format we live in.
Playing FoN for 0 mana means we sacrifice a card in the process, it's a huge disadvantage VS most non-combo linear decks in the format. For this counterspell to be in maindecks as a staple, the format needs to shift towards a meta with Neoform, Goryo's V, Cheerios and other stuff as bigger slices of the cake. FoN is still very bad VS creature decks, which are in a very good spot right now.
I suppose linear blue decks can make use of the card by over-extending and not fearing for their board to be blown away. In a sense I feel like it serves better proactive decks (Delver, Spirits, Ux Zoo, etc...).
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Pioneer - A bunch of stuff Modern - Humans Legacy - Grixis Phoenix / Death & Taxes
The rate on Lava Dart is actually pretty bad: 1 mana and sac a land to do a total of 2 damage. Forked Bolt does this without the land sac at sorcery speed. It does get better with prowess guys since they care about spells being cast, and works very well with The Flame of Keld since you can flash it back if it's discarded, and you get to double Bolt them if you draw it before the third lore counter.
Mishra's Bauble is pretty good at hiding cards from Flame's ETB and triggering prowess/Archer. (Thermo-Alchemist, Electrostatic Field and Young Pyromancer don't trigger on Bauble, Seal, or Flame). This deck has a combo-like finish once you get the third counter on Flame, whereupon all your 1-damage burn spells and Archer suddenly become Bolts.
Basic fetching rare land seems nice. Not sure how many situations you'd play it over a regular fetch. Maybe in some weird situations involving snow basics in a multi-color snow deck, or something with landfall-ish effects and wastes due to requiring some through a blood moon? Maybe for budget decks depending on the price it winds up as (although I suspect it won't wind up budget due to demand for formats like EDH). Maybe some kind of deck that cares about having all 5 colors of actual basics, rather than just all 5 color sources or land types?
The Cuatl cares about it, cause it needs Snow Permanents and this usually means that you want to play Snow Covered Basics to get it enabled instead of a more traditional fetchland + shock mana base, cause they are no Snow Permanents.
So yeah, there are uses for it.
Greetings,
Kathal
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Would be trying a single of the new fetch land in my Mardu Pyro. Seems crazy, but one won't hurt.. I need something that could grab a basic plains but still also able to grab a basic mountain or basic swamp in other situations.
I just hope this "budget" fetch land starts at a reasonable price. Something like 5-10$ dollar would be affordable.
The old BorderpostRestore Balance decks used Evolving Wilds because the Borderposts demanded it. The idea is to pick up your lands with Borderposts and sac the remainder to Greater Gargadon so Restore Balance simultaneously Armageddons and Wraths the opponent. The deck's mana wasn't the best since the cascade spells were in 4 colors (Violent Outburst, Ardent Plea), and you had a whole bunch of ETB tapped Borderposts and basics off Wilds. Prismatic View solves that problem, at least partially.
I don't see it going anywhere else. If you're in 1 or 2 colors you have fetches (though you shouldn't play fetches for the sake of thinning in mono-color decks) and if you're in 3+ colors you probably want to fetch shocks instead of basics (especially against Field of Ruin, since fetching basics makes you run out of basics faster).
Lots of mentions of UW control as being a prime candidate for FoN, which makes sense, but it is miles worse than FoW at protecting a Walker because you can't cast it for free all the time.
Consider this:
UW player taps out for JtMS. Brainstorm
Opp EoT Lightning Bolt...
I'm not saying FoN is necessarily bad, but the free part being active only half the time, And only hitting non-creatures, sounds like a sideboard card to me. If anything, FoN might just incentivize more instants being played.
This is really only a limitation in the fair matchups, where Ux doesn't need that much help and is mostly doing fine. FoN could still be valuable in this scenario if an opponent blows up T4 JTMS and then tries to follow up with any noncreature counterplay.
This scenario is less of an issue in the unfair matchups, where opponents aren't typically holding up interaction mana, or even playing those spells to begin with. The archetypal example is, again, Gx Tron. You currently can't run out T2 Search into T3 Tron on the draw or you just lose to Karn Liberated while tapped out. Same with T3 Teferi/Narset or T4 JTMS. Tron isn't suddenly evolving back to RG Tron with Bolts to deal with these lines. It's just going to walk into them, which allows Ux players to get on the board in a matchup where they are otherwise always on the backseat and waiting for Tron inevitability. This is very relevant in the URx decks, particularly Jeskai, which have horrible 30-70 MWP matchups against Tron. Even getting that to 40-60 or better is a major advantage for Jeskai players.
I'm laughing because all we are getting are *****ty versions of legacy cards with the exception of astral drift which is better. Ice fang coatl? Force of negation? Bleh.
I'm fairly certain that if they print Snow Duals the Flying Draw Snake is better than Strix. Needing 3 other snow permanents gives it Deathtouch the same time that Strix would have it but you get to play this a turn earlier and while holding up mana.
I'm fairly certain that if they print Snow Duals the Flying Draw Snake is better than Strix. Needing 3 other snow permanents gives it Deathtouch the same time that Strix would have it but you get to play this a turn earlier and while holding up mana.
If they print snow duals then they get sued. Not gonna happen.
Lots of mentions of UW control as being a prime candidate for FoN, which makes sense, but it is miles worse than FoW at protecting a Walker because you can't cast it for free all the time.
Consider this:
UW player taps out for JtMS. Brainstorm
Opp EoT Lightning Bolt...
I'm not saying FoN is necessarily bad, but the free part being active only half the time, And only hitting non-creatures, sounds like a sideboard card to me. If anything, FoN might just incentivize more instants being played.
This is really only a limitation in the fair matchups, where Ux doesn't need that much help and is mostly doing fine. FoN could still be valuable in this scenario if an opponent blows up T4 JTMS and then tries to follow up with any noncreature counterplay.
This scenario is less of an issue in the unfair matchups, where opponents aren't typically holding up interaction mana, or even playing those spells to begin with. The archetypal example is, again, Gx Tron. You currently can't run out T2 Search into T3 Tron on the draw or you just lose to Karn Liberated while tapped out. Same with T3 Teferi/Narset or T4 JTMS. Tron isn't suddenly evolving back to RG Tron with Bolts to deal with these lines. It's just going to walk into them, which allows Ux players to get on the board in a matchup where they are otherwise always on the backseat and waiting for Tron inevitability. This is very relevant in the URx decks, particularly Jeskai, which have horrible 30-70 MWP matchups against Tron. Even getting that to 40-60 or better is a major advantage for Jeskai players.
All true. And Tron is apparently the most common deck right now (https://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/modern/full#paper). Again, I'm not saying Force of Negation is a bad card, I just question it's ability to have relevant applications across the board. Even with Tron being 10% of the meta currently, it is only 10%. You could play a 6 round event and still be statistically favored to not even see it once.
We might see an uptick in Supreme Verdict, which could compliment FoN very well.
I'm coming around to FoN a little, but I still see it primarily as a sideboard card to fight decks that want to tap out for non-creature threats. Karn(s), Blood Moon, Scapeshift, Ensnaring Bridge, etc. things like that.
They're not going to get sued for printing Snow Duals. I'm sure you're imagining Snow-Covered Badlands, but there are SO many more options. Could they not just be snow covered shocks? Boom done. What if they were snow check lands? Snow Fast lands?
I know many are saying "duals" as a straight up term, but that's because they could be anything.
I have to admit I would have rather seen counterspell before this. I feel like terminus is pretty punishing for creature strats and now this is pretty punishing for combo/control. I'm in on control having more versatile answers but ugh this is going to be obnoxious post board.
Not sure I'm a fan of what this card is and what it's doing. Not being able to drop the shields and correctly read the game state/opponents deck/odds based off recent list your opponent has an out is what separates good players from poor ones (making informered decisions). This takes a lot of the guess work out of the game. Now you can slam your CA engine or haymakers (most of which are legendary so you're pitching extra copies) and keep up interaction.
This does answer the new teferi though, so that's a plus.
Funnily enough, this would have been great both in and against twin.
--------
New elf reads kinda weak to me. I guess it's 4 bodies if they kill the hermit or it fades out but 5 mana is a lot and if you're pushing for that much mana you can almost cast hornet queen in the format. There aren't many decks that are going to entertain a 5 drop that arent already looking at enough resources for a 7 drop. Elves may be the outlier but heck if you going to be able to keep much on the board.
Both of these decks will likely benefit from FoN, especially Faeries which needs to deploy some of its better threats at sorcery speed, notably BB and JTMS. Merfolk also benefits for the same reason, although to some extent it can get the job done with Vial alone. By contrast, there was no playable Vial equivalent that allows Fae to get BB or JTMS on the table on curve without dropping shields.
UW Heroic!
UBR Kitty Pact
VERY excited about this card for the reasons rickster and ktkenshinx already outlined. I honestly rather have this card over actual FoW for what I expect it to do to the format.
Excited about Goblin Matron, would love to see Ringleader too and make Goblins a real deck in Modern. I wonder if Lackey would be too powerful.
Prohibit I'm less excited about, between Logic Knot and Dovin's Veto there might be room for a singleton Prohibit, but FoN will also go in the counterspell slots. I'm still holding on for Counterspell on uncommon.
On the other hand, something no one mentioned is the easy to hard cast cost of 1UU. Miles better than fow in that deppartment.
This card is a format defining card.
It's funny that they don't let you play it during your turn to not be able to protect your combo. Wizards says no to fow in combo decks haha.
Prohibit seems underwhelming and hoping for counterspell.
I got excited with prohibit for an instant, then realized it's not that good, but then remembered that people were clamoring for the same effect with revolt instead of kicker. So now I'm sitting here confused, trying to understand whether they gave us what we wanted and we don't know what we want or if they ended up trolling us with an unplayable version of almost exactly what we demanded.
Matron is nice to have and hopefully midrange goblins can be ported to modern in some manner (at least it makes Skirk Fecundity more playable).
P.S. The hype is here for SQUIRREL TRIBAL!
GW Copycat
Jund Loam
UWRUWR MidrangeUWR
BUGSultai MidrangeBUG
BUGRTraverse MidrangeBUGR (currently brewing)
Consider this:
UW player taps out for JtMS. Brainstorm
Opp EoT Lightning Bolt...
I'm not saying FoN is necessarily bad, but the free part being active only half the time, And only hitting non-creatures, sounds like a sideboard card to me. If anything, FoN might just incentivize more instants being played.
I don't think people are suggestion Force of Negation all of a sudden propels UWx into a spot where they can protect everything but it gives them options to progress the game without having to worry about holding back or needing to wait. Not being able to cast that Jace or Teferi because the opposing deck can just go off next turn means the game drags on. Force of Negation potentially allows the games to go quicker and allows UWx to put pressure on their opponent rather than just being entirely reactive.
Yes, there will be "bad" plays with it and players will likely overextend thinking it can get them out of certain situations, but I think it is still worth a 2-3 slots in the main in certain decks. At least, it is worth a try.
Playing FoN for 0 mana means we sacrifice a card in the process, it's a huge disadvantage VS most non-combo linear decks in the format. For this counterspell to be in maindecks as a staple, the format needs to shift towards a meta with Neoform, Goryo's V, Cheerios and other stuff as bigger slices of the cake. FoN is still very bad VS creature decks, which are in a very good spot right now.
I suppose linear blue decks can make use of the card by over-extending and not fearing for their board to be blown away. In a sense I feel like it serves better proactive decks (Delver, Spirits, Ux Zoo, etc...).
It's no Baleful Strix, but flash is surprisingly valuable.
Sample Dart Prowess list:
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Soul-Scar Mage
4 Firebrand Archer
4 Lava Spike
4 Seal of Fire
3 Lava Dart
2 Gut Shot
4 Manamorphose
3 The Flame of Keld
4 Light Up the Stage
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
So yeah, there are uses for it.
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
I just hope this "budget" fetch land starts at a reasonable price. Something like 5-10$ dollar would be affordable.
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Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
I don't see it going anywhere else. If you're in 1 or 2 colors you have fetches (though you shouldn't play fetches for the sake of thinning in mono-color decks) and if you're in 3+ colors you probably want to fetch shocks instead of basics (especially against Field of Ruin, since fetching basics makes you run out of basics faster).
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
This is really only a limitation in the fair matchups, where Ux doesn't need that much help and is mostly doing fine. FoN could still be valuable in this scenario if an opponent blows up T4 JTMS and then tries to follow up with any noncreature counterplay.
This scenario is less of an issue in the unfair matchups, where opponents aren't typically holding up interaction mana, or even playing those spells to begin with. The archetypal example is, again, Gx Tron. You currently can't run out T2 Search into T3 Tron on the draw or you just lose to Karn Liberated while tapped out. Same with T3 Teferi/Narset or T4 JTMS. Tron isn't suddenly evolving back to RG Tron with Bolts to deal with these lines. It's just going to walk into them, which allows Ux players to get on the board in a matchup where they are otherwise always on the backseat and waiting for Tron inevitability. This is very relevant in the URx decks, particularly Jeskai, which have horrible 30-70 MWP matchups against Tron. Even getting that to 40-60 or better is a major advantage for Jeskai players.
"Reveal a Dragon"
If they print snow duals then they get sued. Not gonna happen.
All true. And Tron is apparently the most common deck right now (https://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/modern/full#paper). Again, I'm not saying Force of Negation is a bad card, I just question it's ability to have relevant applications across the board. Even with Tron being 10% of the meta currently, it is only 10%. You could play a 6 round event and still be statistically favored to not even see it once.
We might see an uptick in Supreme Verdict, which could compliment FoN very well.
I'm coming around to FoN a little, but I still see it primarily as a sideboard card to fight decks that want to tap out for non-creature threats. Karn(s), Blood Moon, Scapeshift, Ensnaring Bridge, etc. things like that.
I know many are saying "duals" as a straight up term, but that's because they could be anything.
"Reveal a Dragon"
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
What a disappointing missed opportunity if they didn't introduce something good or new. Preferably untapped.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate