What exactly do you wish to see in the art of Archangel of Thune to make it represent the mechanics?
give me like an angel leading an army into battle, or something along those lines. the bland 'angel holding a sword that looks like its going to break her arm if she swings it too hard' thing, to me, just does not work. it's like they had someone pull up a book of 'generic angels' and just picked the first thing they saw. that's how i feel with a lot of m14's art. it's just stock art, there is little-to-no actual feeling in the artwork.
Ravnica direction was terrible. I wasn't around for the first one but I can tell you I don't want to go back to RTR.
The only nice thing about M13 was the booster/playmat color schemes. The set was a snorefest.
M14 is full of new and interesting cards. Chandra's art might be weird but I don't really care. People will remember Young Pyromancer more with its weird art. There's always cards with terrible artwork. Liliana of the Dark Realms is horrible. Unflinching Courage is one of the worst card arts I've ever seen.
Innistrad was pretty awesome, but M14 is standing out quite well. The Necromancer and Paladin look awesome. So do Garruk and Scourge of Valkas. Archangel of Thune is awesome. Shadowborn Demon is amazing. WHY IS THIS LEAGUES WORSE AGAIN?
you listed 6 cards in that last paragraph, there have been 171 spoiled so far. 6/171 is a pretty poor ratio.. and arguably, of the 6 you listed, Garruk is the only one that I think has passable art. i just feel like the quality control for artwork has slipped by the wayside, i used to love spoilers because i got to relish in the flavor of new cards, and the art was an extension of that flavor. now it's just... bland. gross. bad.
i'm just not a huge fan of CGI rendering, which is what i'm seeing a lot of, in heavy handed portions.
I've been perusing the spoilers one by one as they've been announced, and the only noteworthy thing, to me, about ANY of the cards that have been spoiled, is how absolutely atrocious the artwork is on every single card i've seen. am i the only person in this boat? literally every piece of artwork i've seen pertaining to M14 so far has been leagues worse than RTR, M13, or Innistrad.
Unfortunately this is the wrong forum, so money says you're going to catch a warning from one of these mods...
but to answer the question, no, you will not mill forever.
Your opponent casts mind grind for 20000, you reveal the top 20000 cards of your library, you reveal a Wurldspine Wurm, and then have 0 cards left in your library, you place all the revealed cards in the graveyard, and your Wurm shuffles back into your library. mind grind has now resolved, you have 1 card in your library.
has anyone tried Spellstutter Sprite in some number? i want to lower the amount of Spell Snares in the deck for some amount of Sprites.
the perks of Spellstutter:
is a hard counter with a 1/1 flying body attached to it.
will always hit 1cmc spells: Bolt, Deathrite Shaman, Spell Snare
often times can hit 2cmc spells
possibility of hitting 3cmc spells
with a Cavern of Souls on either Wizard or Faerie, you now have uncounterable counterspells
reusable with Restoration Angel
everything about this says 'run 4 of me'. but maybe i'm missing something. input welcome!
Gerry went to counter it. Todd countered the counter with a Counterflux.
What the announcer points out, is that you can still respond to Counterflux being put on the stack, you just cannot respond by attempting to counter a Counterflux.
Gerry let the Counterflux resolve, then plays another counterspell targeting Jace (still on the stack), and Todd played Snapcaster Mage to bring back the Counterflux that just went to the graveyard upon resolution.
the point that the announcers were trying to make is that instead of letting Todd's Counterflux resolve, Gerry could have just played another counterspell targeting the Jace with Counterflux still on the stack, so that it wouldn't be available to be Snapcastered back. But that's irrelevent, because i'm 99% sure Todd had at least 2 more counterspells in his graveyard for Snapcaster targets.
yeah, I don't think it can do turn 3. I can't see a way to have enough tokens. It can do turn 4 though I think. you could definitely have 4 tokens turn 4, with 4 lands out, and go battle hymn, copy it with increasing vengeance, burn at the stake, copy it with increasing vengeance. But that certainly isn't common. Unless there is something I'm missing. Which is certainly possible.
EDIT: scratch that, it can do turn 3 on the draw. Not sure if on the play. But you need a seriously crazy hand, and you need to draw the right things. But, with a turn 2 electromancer and all three land drops, and the absolute nut draw, you can so do something like this:
krenko's command, krenko's command, battle hymn, krenko's command, battle hymn, burn at the stake, tapping seven creatures for 21 damage.
It's extremely unlikely.
extremely unlikely is.. more like once every 5-6 games. but like i said, i'm running a version without Lingering Souls, because i think that 4 colours really clunks the manabase up.
Would this deck just fold to countermagic? Seems like you could end up blowing your load right into Negate, or worse Syncopate or Dissipate which prevents Past in Flames from helping.
yeah man, it's terrible against all those counter magic packed decks in standard right now. oh that's right, there aren't any for fear of Cavern of Souls.
no fluke. this deck does work and can consistently go off on turn four, occasionally on turn three. i don't have lingering souls in my build though, seems kinda clunky
i've got to say; this may just be one of my favorite decks in modern from the looks of it. i've always loved artifact heavy decks. really good tools here too. can i ask;
what do you typically transmute for with Muddle?
what about Tolaria West? what are your main transmute targets?
edit; i just realized the last post here was about a month ago. hope to see some revitalized interest here!
the deck basically has a core system where you just dig as quickly as possible for Goblin Electromancers and Past in Flames.
if you even have only one Electromancer out, you can win pretty ridiculously turn 4 or five. i've drawn most of my deck in one turn. putting in Forbidden Alchemy is what i think this deck needed. its like a standard Peer Through Depths
during the Scars-Innistrad standard, you could turn on Fateful Hour intentionally pretty easily with some phyrexian spells. is there any such easy way to do that in this standard format? are there any decently cheap spells that allow you to pay an 'x' amount of life?
hmm i want to ask something . i saw your deck list which have heroic reunion and increasing devotion with it . but what purpose is increasing ambition in the deck? thx.
it was a virtual land drop for getting Gavony Township off of an Epic Experiment. thats how the kill was in the deck. EpEx for 8, hit a wrath, a token making spell or two, some temporal masteries, and Ambition to get Township.
play Township, take your first extra turn, pump your tokens with Township, attack, take your next extra turn, pump, and attack again.
it could also tutor up the spell Epic Experiment itself, or tutor for extras if you hit it off an EpEx
im playing a TCGPlayer silver event this weekend and i have a pretty sweet esper list brewed up. will post my list and tournament report after the event, but i've been going in a fairly different direction than most of these decks and been performing well with it.
i would say that this fits better in the 'Jund Midrange' board, as this is pretty much a Jund list that splashes white for Restoration Angel and Armada Wurm [and flashing back Rites]
i like his list a lot though, and ive been trying to do something similar. skeptical on 4c though.
give me like an angel leading an army into battle, or something along those lines. the bland 'angel holding a sword that looks like its going to break her arm if she swings it too hard' thing, to me, just does not work. it's like they had someone pull up a book of 'generic angels' and just picked the first thing they saw. that's how i feel with a lot of m14's art. it's just stock art, there is little-to-no actual feeling in the artwork.
you listed 6 cards in that last paragraph, there have been 171 spoiled so far. 6/171 is a pretty poor ratio.. and arguably, of the 6 you listed, Garruk is the only one that I think has passable art. i just feel like the quality control for artwork has slipped by the wayside, i used to love spoilers because i got to relish in the flavor of new cards, and the art was an extension of that flavor. now it's just... bland. gross. bad.
i'm just not a huge fan of CGI rendering, which is what i'm seeing a lot of, in heavy handed portions.
what gives?
but to answer the question, no, you will not mill forever.
Your opponent casts mind grind for 20000, you reveal the top 20000 cards of your library, you reveal a Wurldspine Wurm, and then have 0 cards left in your library, you place all the revealed cards in the graveyard, and your Wurm shuffles back into your library. mind grind has now resolved, you have 1 card in your library.
the perks of Spellstutter:
is a hard counter with a 1/1 flying body attached to it.
will always hit 1cmc spells: Bolt, Deathrite Shaman, Spell Snare
often times can hit 2cmc spells
possibility of hitting 3cmc spells
with a Cavern of Souls on either Wizard or Faerie, you now have uncounterable counterspells
reusable with Restoration Angel
everything about this says 'run 4 of me'. but maybe i'm missing something. input welcome!
it actually wouldn't have mattered either way.
what happened: Todd went to resolve a Jace, Memory Adept
Gerry went to counter it. Todd countered the counter with a Counterflux.
What the announcer points out, is that you can still respond to Counterflux being put on the stack, you just cannot respond by attempting to counter a Counterflux.
Gerry let the Counterflux resolve, then plays another counterspell targeting Jace (still on the stack), and Todd played Snapcaster Mage to bring back the Counterflux that just went to the graveyard upon resolution.
the point that the announcers were trying to make is that instead of letting Todd's Counterflux resolve, Gerry could have just played another counterspell targeting the Jace with Counterflux still on the stack, so that it wouldn't be available to be Snapcastered back. But that's irrelevent, because i'm 99% sure Todd had at least 2 more counterspells in his graveyard for Snapcaster targets.
sorry if that's long and confusing
extremely unlikely is.. more like once every 5-6 games. but like i said, i'm running a version without Lingering Souls, because i think that 4 colours really clunks the manabase up.
yeah man, it's terrible against all those counter magic packed decks in standard right now. oh that's right, there aren't any for fear of Cavern of Souls.
what do you typically transmute for with Muddle?
what about Tolaria West? what are your main transmute targets?
edit; i just realized the last post here was about a month ago. hope to see some revitalized interest here!
3 Evolving Wilds
2 Shimmering Grotto
4 Sulfur Falls
4 Steam Vents
3 Island
4 Mountain
4 Goblin Electromancer
Deck Core
3 Faithless Looting
4 Forbidden Alchemy
3 Wild Guess
3 Reforge the Soul
Mana
4 Battle Hymn
3 Infernal Plunge
4 Krenko's Command
4 Thatcher Revolt
4 Past in Flames
2 Epic Experiment
2 Burn at the Stake
the deck basically has a core system where you just dig as quickly as possible for Goblin Electromancers and Past in Flames.
if you even have only one Electromancer out, you can win pretty ridiculously turn 4 or five. i've drawn most of my deck in one turn. putting in Forbidden Alchemy is what i think this deck needed. its like a standard Peer Through Depths
it was a virtual land drop for getting Gavony Township off of an Epic Experiment. thats how the kill was in the deck. EpEx for 8, hit a wrath, a token making spell or two, some temporal masteries, and Ambition to get Township.
play Township, take your first extra turn, pump your tokens with Township, attack, take your next extra turn, pump, and attack again.
it could also tutor up the spell Epic Experiment itself, or tutor for extras if you hit it off an EpEx
i like his list a lot though, and ive been trying to do something similar. skeptical on 4c though.