MTG Salvation

Hey all,
As I mentioned on the first page I have had a hectic time of it recently and this has precluded many of my online activities and mtg related hobbies. I saw Purkle's message earlier today and I have approved the transfer of the primer duties. Additionally I have posted the sections I had finished beforehand and purkle has access to the documentation on what was in progress.

As I get back into magic I still have my Time Walks deck but I will likely not be playing it much as I am focusing on several other brews.

Best of luck all!
-Eps.

Quote from drinkard »

Hm...
Wrap in Vigor, Spell Pierce/Invasive Surgery?

Ooh, I had forgotten about invasive surgery. It doesn't stop cryptic command but it gets most of the other stuff i'm concerned about.

Thanks!

Figured since I have been playing around with mdoern dredge for quite some time I should post my current list. A friend of mine tipped me off to Stitchwing Skaab awhile back and since then my list has converged to the ones in this thread.

My key takeaways from testing so far:
- Bridge From Below - Modern lacks a suitable sac outlet making the decks with this card extremely high in variance.
- Vengevine - Was far too slow in my testing since it just gives your opponent time to combo themselves or assemble their grave hate. Also a little cute with the cast triggers since that was sometimes very very hard to pull off.
- Unburial Rites - Adding the need for white in the manabase necessitates the use of 4+ pentacolored lands and they end up losing you too many games either by running out of counters (Gemstone Mine) or straight up killing you (Mana Confluence). This is addition to the fact that it adds 3-4 dead cards in the maindeck that are solely useful for the combo.



Notes:
- I am aware the mana in the deck is rough. That said you are not intending to cast any black spells but can dredge dakmoor salvage consistently enough that if the game is grindy enough you have the option.

- The power of the deck lies in the Stitchwing Skaab + Prized Amalgam interaction and the rest of the free creatures which combine with Rally the Peasants to end games quickly and often steal games you would not otherwise win. Its definitely not terribly common but I have had multiple turn three kills with this configuration.

- The biggest issue for dredge decks is the sideboarded graveyard hate. That said I would much rather have the fastest kill possible to force them to have it turn 1 or 2 instead of durdling around with vengevine. I have stolen wins against T2 Rest in Pieces by simply putting out sufficient power on my turn that they couldn't deal with it using their otherwise weak hand.

- This version of the deck does suffer from inconsistency issues though. You are mostly forced to mulligan until you have both land and a T1 discard outlet (Sometimes you can fudge on the dredger if its faithless). Too often for my taste this costs you games since you mull to a bad 4 and cannot get the deck going.

- Drowned Rusalka - I have it in for testing at the moment. As many of you have mentioned the Thought Scour is not very good but the rest of the options are generally as bad or worse. This seems promising as a bad Prized neonate since you can activate it on your upkeep and still get a double dredge in on 'T1'. Any opinions here?



As always I would love any feedback on my list. I am still working to figure out the consistency issues as well as the landbase and sideboard.

Cheers,

Eps.


EDIT: I forgot to ask if anyone has good sideboard tech versus Anger of the Gods without using white or black? That card is a beating and some of the PrimevalShift decks are running 3-4 Maindeck of all things ~.~

Will Be Reprinted

• Show and Tell
  
• Meddling Mage
  
• Ichorid
  
• Crucible of Worlds
  
• Grim Tutor
  

Will NOT Be Reprinted

• Scalding Tarn
  
• Thoughtseize
  
• Abrupt Decay
  
• Red Elemental Blast
  
• Pyroblast
  

Quote from Serj »

I feel like any deck that isn't pressuring me super early or doesn't have an overload of hate postboard are fairly easy matchups, but I need to figure out how to deal with fast Linear decks because that's the name of the game in modern. I feel like I might try some of the faster low to the ground builds that are running around with Mox Opals and such. I feel like, especially in game 1 we need to be as explosive as possible, while in game 2 we have the ability to calm down and be a little bit slower since other decks are slowing themselves down as well by bringing in SB hate. I definitely feel like I want to be doing more in the early turns of the game, also disfigure is awful in this format, really should have brought dismembers or better 2 CMC removal. Liliana is kind of lackluster but can still take over games, will probably drop her down to a 1 or 2 of in the main with another in the board for the control matchups. Not sure what I need to do against the aggro decks, perhaps the 4 spellskites MD is actually necessary, it feels really bad when damnation on turn 4 is irrelevant and we are close to dying anyways. I think I'm just too used to Legacy Tezz where we're playing 2-3 turns ahead of our opponents with Sol Lands and turn 1 chalices, turn 2 Tezz's and FoW stops anything crazy from happening before we set up shop. I also feel like I want more card velocity, definitely gonna jam a 4th Thirst in the deck (3 currently) and am considering Visions or Thought Scour. I feel like thought scour can be a fine card between Academy Ruins or getting a sword into the bin as well as let us play cards like Murderous Cut to be able to ease some early pressure while Visions can help dig us into relevant cards.

Anyways back to tuning the deck I guess, have another modern event tomorrow that I'll be able to jam to hopefully better results.

Personally a few things stood out from your report to me.

1: Ashiok - My final feelings on this card is that its a trap and is only worthwhile in quite specific situations. Mainly due to the fact that it is guaranteed to have no effect on board state the turn it lands and only conditionally does anything after that is terrible. I would never consider putting him in the deck unless it were for the grindiest of matchups that I expect to go very long.

2: Removal - According to your synopsis the only interaction that you seemed to have with you opponents was when you discarded things from their hand or were casting damnation. As noted by yourself modern is a fast format and forsaking interaction early on will lose you many games you could otherwise win. In the end we are trying to cast a 4/5 mana planeswalker as a finisher (Unless we are lucky enough to draw the combo) so packing removal and doing a good imitation of a regular control deck up to that point has been much more productive in my testing.

I didn't really have time to go examine your list but maybe try to revise the deck a little more towards a control deck rather than attempting to power out the combo as fast as possible which will still be slower than most other combo decks in the format.

I haven't posted here in awhile since I took a break from Tezzerator in favor of testing other stuff. But of course with the unban it went right back into some sleeves and its off to the tournies.

Enough has been said about the merits of thopter sword in the deck so i'm not going say anything there. However, it is worth noting that when I left Tezz I was on a BUG list which I have revisited with the combo due to abrupt decay answering so many of our problem cards.

The mana base and sideboard are a little rough and need refining but I have been quite happy with the main and how it performs. The only other thing I would want to point out would be the lack of Thirst and Chalice in the 75. I made this decision because as a combo deck now I am less worried about card advantage in many games and serum digs as deep as thirst and does so much more in the early game. Chalice I have omitted since excepting burn there is no deck where I really feel I need it and the late game value is mostly negligible with the thopters wrapping those types of games up faster than we were able to before.


Abrupt decay is self explanatory as probably the best general answer card in the format and specifically great against the hate cards for the thopter combo. There are 20 total artifacts so tezz +1 doesn't brick but I try to minimize the impact that mass artifact removal and such will have on the deck.

Let me know if you have any criticism or questions for me.

Cheers,

Eps.

Quote from cfusionpm »

Quote from Magicman657 »

Quote from Epsilonson »

Quote from cfusionpm »

Yeah! Nothing says "making the format better" like burning it to the ground and making the players scramble! That's exactly what the format needs: more uncertainty and constant reinforcement to never buy into a top tier deck! Excellent business practices and top notch management from a team that goes above and beyond to do what is best for the format.

Sarcasm aside this terrible argument is one I see repeated far too often and believed by too many people who somehow think there is causation between people feeling comfortable that their deck will not be banned and modern becoming a better format.

Lets start with some assumptions:
1: Wizards has the best interests of Modern at heart when considering bans.
2: A more diverse format is a healthier format.
3: A more diverse format will draw more players to it because more of them will be able to find decks they love to play and percentage wise are less likely to play against decks they absolutely hate thus decreasing the chances they leave the format because of bad experiences.

Your argument rests upon the perception that Top-Tier decks should be safer from bans solely because of the money invested in them by the players and the thought that if their deck gets banned the entire format will take a hit because those players are just going to up and quit instead of using the staples from their former deck to build or trade into something else.

From the perspective of Wizards players investment into a certain deck should have zero impact on banlist decisions. Lets take the current eldrazi deck for example, it makes up roughly 30-40% of the metagame and is widely considered to be a tier 0 deck. Should this be safe from bans because of the possibility 40% of modern players are going to quit once their deck is suddenly not viable? NO, Clearly in the best interests of the format the correct decision is to decrease the power of the eldrazi through a ban.

The same logic applies to twin. Wizards felt that the presence of the deck was unhealthy overall for the metagame and therefore warranted a ban. Granted, this ban is controversial because many feel that Wizards decision is in error but that's a different argument entirely. Player's investment in a particular deck simply does not factor in when considering the health of the overall format. Even if a few players decide to quit in the long term there will be many more who decide join a fun diverse format.

I think a lot of that uncertainty stems from the fact that Wizards isn't terribly transparent about their intentions for the format or their metrics for what deserves a ban. I agree that the price of a deck should not protect it from these metrics. However, it does look like there was an ulterior motivation to ban a deck for the sake of the Pro Tour because of this lack of transparency, and THAT'S why people feel it's so unsafe to spend nearly a thousand dollars on a deck when there's no real way to assess for oneself how likely it is to last longterm. Eldrazi players had to have known since day 1 that their deck was going to get a ban and chose to play it despite that. I don't think you could really say the same about Twin.

Exactly what I was getting at. At no point did I (or most of the Modern community) see Eldrazi as anything more than a temporary menace that will be dealt with in April. The bigger problem comes from the chaos leftover after an arbitrary ban on the format's premiere control deck. The fact that it was made on such questionable justifications seem to leave people to wonder if any deck is actually safe. It showcases that a deck can be banned for nothing more than simply being a good deck. The consequences of the Twin ban go way beyond someone's pet $1,500 pile of cards, as they affect the entire landscape of Modern. From turmoil in the metagame to players' faith in the format, it was a bad decision made for bad reasons at a bad time.

@Magicman657, I mainly used Eldrazi as an example because it was so over the top as to be immediately graspable that using price/popularity of a deck as a metric for ban decisions would be absurd. I have to agree with you that the main reason people feel what seems to be betrayal is the lack of communication from wizards as to their intentions. However, I also think that it is somewhat ridiculous for players to expect too much information ahead of official decisions.

For instance, the two obvious solutions as I see them are for wizards to either hold themselves to a rigid set of announced rules in regards to bans or be more open on what decks they are looking at as possibly unhealthy for the format. The first will not happen because what good reason do they have to confine their decision making process so strictly. The second cannot happen because by the very fact of telling us what decks are dangerous will begin to skew the numbers they look at for reference and makes any resulting decision inaccurate.

I think that wizards is quite clear as to why they have banned any particular card after the fact and those statements give good insight into the decision process for analyzing dangerous modern decks. Any magic player who wishes to inform him/herself about how wizards goes about banning and unbanning cards in modern only has to read over the past announcements and apply those lessons to the current metagame. (Personally I think the next deck up is likely affinity which looks to lose Cranial PLating).

-------------------------------

@cfusionpm, First of all I think you misunderstand what a real control deck is. Twin is widely regarded as a Combo/Tempo deck with disruption elements leveraged to buy time for the combo or to get damage through.

Second, the deck was absolutely not banned simply for being good. Same as any other banning (see my Eldrazi example above) Twin was banned for being TOO good. The fact that it was a surprise to many players seems to be the only thing that is causing resentment.

As to your closing "argument", Yes, bannings are meant to change the metagame and stir up the format. Ignoring your opinionated statements about how bad a decision it was I would love to see any statistically significant evidence you have that a large percentage of the format's players have lost faith in Wizards ability to make good decisions in regards to the ban list. Otherwise I would have to assume its entirely baseless and unjustified.


If anyone is curious here is the annoucement from wizards on the Splinter Twin ban: LINK

I would love to hear someone argue that Wizards did not give enough information as to the logic and justification they used to ban the card.

Quote from cfusionpm »

Yeah! Nothing says "making the format better" like burning it to the ground and making the players scramble! That's exactly what the format needs: more uncertainty and constant reinforcement to never buy into a top tier deck! Excellent business practices and top notch management from a team that goes above and beyond to do what is best for the format.

Sarcasm aside this terrible argument is one I see repeated far too often and believed by too many people who somehow think there is causation between people feeling comfortable that their deck will not be banned and modern becoming a better format.

Lets start with some assumptions:
1: Wizards has the best interests of Modern at heart when considering bans.
2: A more diverse format is a healthier format.
3: A more diverse format will draw more players to it because more of them will be able to find decks they love to play and percentage wise are less likely to play against decks they absolutely hate thus decreasing the chances they leave the format because of bad experiences.

Your argument rests upon the perception that Top-Tier decks should be safer from bans solely because of the money invested in them by the players and the thought that if their deck gets banned the entire format will take a hit because those players are just going to up and quit instead of using the staples from their former deck to build or trade into something else.

From the perspective of Wizards players investment into a certain deck should have zero impact on banlist decisions. Lets take the current eldrazi deck for example, it makes up roughly 30-40% of the metagame and is widely considered to be a tier 0 deck. Should this be safe from bans because of the possibility 40% of modern players are going to quit once their deck is suddenly not viable? NO, Clearly in the best interests of the format the correct decision is to decrease the power of the eldrazi through a ban.

The same logic applies to twin. Wizards felt that the presence of the deck was unhealthy overall for the metagame and therefore warranted a ban. Granted, this ban is controversial because many feel that Wizards decision is in error but that's a different argument entirely. Player's investment in a particular deck simply does not factor in when considering the health of the overall format. Even if a few players decide to quit in the long term there will be many more who decide join a fun diverse format.

Awesome, Thanks guys!

There have been similar posts in the past in this forum but none quite have my exact scenario from what I read.

I play the infinite turns deck in Modern which uses Howling Mine effects combined with Elixir of Immortality and Time Warp effects to gain infinite turns.

Usually once the combo is in effect the game is won via the use of Part the Waterveil, however I had an opponent propose an interesting scenario:

Game one in a Competitive REL tourny. I have successfully started the extra turns combo. Seeing that the matchup is unfavorable for me I opt to play all my PtW without animating lands and proceed to my backup wincondition of drawing them out via Mikokoro, Center of the Sea intending to drag the game out long enough that we will not finish the second game before time is called.

If my opponent decides to see if the combo fails (The chance is technically never zero) does this constitute the violation of any of Magic's Rules?

Assume the highest level of play and that I am proceeding at a reasonable pace but it takes 40-50 turns with the land to combo and with shuffling and the preceding turns I will likely not end the game before 35 minutes or more of the round have elapsed.

I am indeed aware this would be violating several social conventions but since the question was posed to me I have wondered if it violates any actual rules.

And so I come before you all seeking clarity

Thanks,

-Eps.

EDIT: Bonus question - Pushing the envelope even further if I decide to hold Mikokoro in my hand for awhile to take even longer and try to deceive the opponent into thinking I lack win conditions does that change anything? (Still assuming reasonable pace of play)

Quote from Barthalamoo »

I chose Ashiok because she has multiple wincons on her own and after clearing the board you can steal their threats off the top. She comes in at 5 loyalty for 3 mana which is pretty huge, not much can take her off the board quickly. With thirst and Tezz I can easily control how many cards I have in my hand so I can swing and my opponent can't. That combined with the choice of creatures I can take with Ashiok I can put almost any board state in my favor. But she isn't just strong against creatures, she is great vs almost all decks. It's basically I get the top 3 cards of their deck and then they get 1 and it just continues. The chances of me taking one of their wincons/answers vs them pulling one of their wincons/answers is in my favor.
*edit for spelling

Playing Devil's Advocate here I think its only fair to contradict a few of those statements.

1: "I chose Ashiok because she has multiple wincons on her own" - Unfortunately this is just not true, Ashiok actually has a single wincon of it's own and that is to plus it until your opponent has no cards in his or her deck. Everything else comes from the creatures you have to hope to exile from their deck and then for them to not remove themselves. This is assuming they can even attack once stolen meaning there is no bridge lock in place in addition to them inexplicably not having blockers.

2: "That combined with the choice of creatures I can take with Ashiok I can put almost any board state in my favor" - I would disagree. In situations where you need it to swing the board state in your favor you are relying on bold luck in order to hit the correct creature AND then have your opponent leave Ashiok alone so you can minus her to get it the turn after. Experience shows it never happens like that and your looking at three turns minimum before it impacts anything.

3: "she is great vs almost all decks." - In a very slow and limited way perhaps. Against any sort of creature deck Tezzerator is already fairly heavily favored And most combo decks will never mind seeing her in lieu of a more dangerous card since you have to get incredibly lucky to knock their combo pieces out of the deck in only 2 or three activation's which is the time frame before they are ready to go off in most cases.

Correct me if I am wrong but what I am seeing in your statement is the assumption you have already established bridge and have all the time in the world to mess around with Ashiok. Unfortunately this is far too often not the case and I think you will find in those scenarios Ashiok will be the dead card you wished was Liliana or a piece of removal or other interaction.

At the end of the day Ashiok will always pale in comparison to more powerful choices due to the simple fact she can never impact the board the turn she comes down and requires a fair amount of luck to have any sort of significant interaction in the next few turns as well.

If you are behind on board state it is no help, If you are even in board state it will only sometimes tip the advantage your way, and of course if you are already winning it just adds to that.

My conclusion after testing is that Ashiok falls into the win-more category too often to risk playing it with specific interactions with the mill/Exile part of card.

Spamming my own thread a bit here but the new spoiler definitely deserves a test in the deck and might be what tips it into a more zombie focused shell.

Double black for a 2/2 with evasion is pretty decenet but where it really shines is the double death clause. Potentially returning itself AND another zombie, one to play and one to hand, is pretty big and this could be an all-star in the deck.

Quote from Rotanimod12 »

Spectral shift definitely has to leave my sideboard, it's way too cute. What should I replace it with? A third Hurkyl's recall is currently tempting but something for eldrazi seems useful as well.
When do you guys sideboard out the mines/dictates if ever? Even versus very fast decks like affinity and burn I feel I can't really sideboard them out as I need them to make my timewalks good, and I can't sideboard out all the mines and all the timewalks because that's simply too many cards.
Is spell snare worth it? I've been questioning this inclusion recently, I want to include some telling times and a third Temporal mastery as that seems very powerful early game advantage but would need to cut something and spell snare is the most likely candidate.
What does the manabase for a whitesplash version look like and what cards change? I'm guessing Timely Reinforcements in the sideboard, but do you maindeck or sideboard Supreme Verdict? Path to Exile? Anything else?

Yeah Spectral Shift is definitely cute and at the very least should turn into a Boomerang as it has the same effect versus a choke and is applicable in many more matchups. Boil I tend to not worry as much about since it is only really run in tron and living end to my knowledge.

You asked about he white splash. Here is my current decklist:


I am looking to drop something main deck (Possibly a turn spell) in order to have the 24th land as I occasionally lose games due to missing land drops.

In the side Timely has been amazing to me complemented by Leyline (especially versus scapeshift) and wrath of god. Boseiju has been underwhelming for me so far but it is early days on testing it to be honest so I will have to see.

Cheers,

-Eps.

Hey guys,
So as part of my efforts in redoing the primer I would like to have a section of decklists that have placed at events in the last year or so. To that end I would really appreciate it if you guys could pm me lists that have done well at major events ex: 6-3 or better at a GP. Or lists that have gone X-0 at modern FNM's with 20+ people.

Also if anyone has that list from the Most recent Pro-Tour I would love to get that as well. I went back a few pages but did not see it.

Cheers,

-Eps.

EDIT: Also if its your own deck that your sending if you want to include a short explanation on why you made some of the cards choices that you did or links to any relevant material like videos of your playing it ect.. that would be awesome.

Quote from WWWolfe »

This is probably the best Horde deck I've seen. Definite kudos!

Thanks a ton! Actually since I saw someone had posted awhile back I decided to dust it off and try to get a group together to do battle with it again. So far results are good with a possibility I had overvalued arcbound reclaimer.

Quote from schweinefett »

we're still whipping out hordes (mostly the werewolf and zombie hordes), but not so often either..

i'd def give your cybermen themed one a try, but i dont have any of the cards you listed! or at least none of the pricier cards..

its a bit tragic for you that its had to come to banning certain cards i feel.

i've been thinking about building a non-fantasy-forest-creatures horde. so only things like bears, wolves and the like, no dragons or elves. its not very well thought through yet, but we'll see how it goes.

Yeah the people i'm around got really into it awhile back and then it gradually seemed to fade away. I do have a friend that finished a soldier horde recently and the way he set it up is super flavorful though. I'm hoping to get him to post about it at some point.

Yeah it kinda sucks to just ban stuff but the playgroups are generally understanding since its all in the interest of better gameplay.

I would love to see that horde when your finished! I dont usually visit the general variant subforum but I would love to stop by your thread if you want to pm me once its up = )