Instead of creating a brand new format between Legacy and Modern, why not just add these "unreserved" cards to Modern? I would think that this theoretical format would kill Modern, anyway.
This is an idea that had occurred to me, and I sort of like it. As I see it there are two big problems with this idea:
1) The smaller problem is that there are a lot of cards that conflict with what WOTC wants modern to look like. They would mean either changing the design philosophy of modern to allow for fast combo, good counterspells, better cantrips, more blue, and some "unfun" strategies like pox and that would get better (the choice most players would want), OR an extensive ban list that includes many of the cards that would make "unreserved" worthwhile such as Jace, FOW, wasteland, show and tell, ect.
2) The larger problem is the reserved list itself... it is too large to memorize and has nothing to do with power level. The result is a LOT of players have no idea what's actually on it. I mean everyone knows the power 9, the duals, and a few other high-$$ cards like cradle and LED, but if someone showed up with abeyance, lake of the dead, kjeldoran outpost, cursed scroll, undiscovered paradise, opalescence, squandered resources, or any other random cards that could fit in a brew, do you think everyone in the room would immediately recognize the illegal card? Similarly, there are a LOT of people who assume that certain high-dollar cards like force of will, karakas, mana drain, and mana crypt are on the RL that actually are not (the latter two would be banned anyway, but that's beside the point). It would just be a big headache logistically.
And then of course there's the problem that a lot of modern decks would drop a tier or two and the staples in them would tank in value.
As an aside, I find the whole idea of "unreserved" as a bit ironic and circular... those of us who were playing in 1997 will remember when "Type 1.5" was created as a solution to the problem of not having enough of the Power 9 to go around, therefore making it impossible to grow Type 1. Type 1.5 of course is now Legacy, and it's taken almost 20 years, but we're at a point where there aren't enough duals (and a handful of other RL cards) to go around.
I think the "top decks" would be very hard to predict, and much more different than people realize simply because of ONE reserved list card: Lion's eye diamond. This one card is absolutely critical to the competitiveness of various storm strategies, other fast combo, and dredge. Without it, there is almost zero fast combo, with the only thing I can think of off the top of my head being show and tell variants. This has a couple of HUGE effects:
1) aggro strategies, which lose to fast combo, become MUCH better. Suddenly burn, affinity, zoo, merfolk, and a bunch of other stuff is much more viable than it was before. Midrange also gets better. This effect is exacerbated by ABUR duals becoming shocks.
2) force of will, daze, and spell pierce (read: basically the entire current legacy counterspell suite) become MUCH worse, as they are critical vs. combo but mediocre to bad vs. linear aggro.
Those two changes are so large in scope it's honestly hard for me to even begin to predict what that format would look like. Weirdly, I could see the premiere combo deck becoming... wait for it... Splinter Twin. At that point, with twin probably being good, and lots of linear aggro making it harder to play control, I feel like legacy might start looking a lot more like modern.
Here's an idea (and what I am betting all of my internet value on), new Eternal. The highly rumored Reserved list-less Legacy. Everyone wins, people can now get less expensive cards (all the cards from this set, etc.) and reserved list remains intact and old cards hold their relative value.
That is a format that would make me both happy and sad. Despite what most people will have you believe, there are really only a handful of RL cards that see play in top-tier decks that aren't dual lands. Mostly, it's just lion's eye diamond. Unfortunately, it includes important random cards like gaea's cradle, city of traitors, and a couple others that are critical to specific cool decks. The most annoying loss to me would be cursed scroll, which is critical to pox (my pet deck) and has no reason to be on the RL anyway.
All of that aside, I'm not sure what legacy would look like with shocks in place of fetches. Burn would be fairly insane, and daze would be WAY worse. LED is critical to the competitiveness of basically every good combo deck, so with that gone, aggro in general would be a ton better, and legacy would look a lot more like modern.
Honestly, at the end of the day I think this set is aimed more at Commander than Legacy. There's a lot of high-dollar legacy staples that see a ton of EDH play, so Legacy will benefit, but I think that's a secondary goal for WOTC. I still dont' know what they're going to do about duals, though... Every EDH player wants ABUR duals.
Here's hoping for a mana drain reprint, which is NOT on the RL. Also Rishadan port and karakas, 'cause I'd like to build D&T and those are the only important things I'm missing.
[quote from="GotSK »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/660897-beating-bx-eldrazi?comment=311"]
Yes you're right about fine due to 2 mana (don't know why I though it's 1 cmc card at first) but the problem is like told above that you need it on turn 2 otherwise they will have a buch of creature out before you play it and it won't do much anymore. It does nothing against their threats on the board and will need something else to follow up, to put pressure on them or throw more disruption at them, Torpor Orp itself isn't enough in any case. Their creatures just by the body and the fact how fast they can come on the field they're still a problem you will have to deal with regardless of Torpor Orb which will only take care of their etb abilities.
For sure. I'm thinking damnation/wrath of god will become part of my 75 in junk to help mitigate this and other aggro strategies. Probably 1 main, 1 in the side.
Torpor Orb as a card is not bad and would shoot down their etb abilities but they would still have their big bodies and they could still cast them very fast which is the main problem against Eldrazi. It's also worth to note that (at least colorless version) play a full set of CotV which would deal with it if that turned out to be a problem.
Torpor Orb as a card is not bad and would shoot down their etb abilities but they would still have their big bodies and they could still cast them very fast which is the main problem against Eldrazi. It's also worth to note that (at least colorless version) play a full set of CotV which would deal with it if that turned out to be a problem.
no doubt they can still cast their dudes, I'm just thinking they'll be mostly casting vanilla dudes. I don't see chalice being a problem... Orb comes down turn 2, chalice set to 2 takes a few turns (and is less likely than chalice set to 1, and frankly jund/junk in particular have bigger problems than an inability to cast orb if a chalice is set to 2 and they don't have decay. The big dudes not turning mimics into 5/5's also seems really, really good.
What about torpor orb vs. eldrazi? Shuts down a lot of their card advantage. Much more versatile than something like painters servant. For us, it affects finks and rhino, which sucks, but might be worth it against a lot of decks.
Just had a thought: torpor orb. Not like it's a new card, but it seems really well-positioned right now. Shuts down a LOT of eldrazi shenanigans, while also shutting down snapcaster, clique, junk company loops, restoration angel, sun titan, and a lot of random synergy-based creature decks that tend to have a ton of ETB triggers. Obviously doesn't go in every deck, but seems pretty good if it doesn't affect your own deck much or at all. Jund seems like it would benefit (only really affects lifegain from finks), or even junk (though affecting rhino would suck).
Seems a lot more versatile than painters servant, which is useless against most non-eldrazi decks. Also costs $3 instead of $25.
The other card I've found super underwhealming is fulminator mage. Mage may become a couple lili's, a vortex, and the 4th bolt or something. At that point I could probably justify demigod of revenge over dark-dwellers. I don't know... the ideas keep going in circles.
Lately I have been running hot and cold on bloodghast. I hate that he cannot block, and as a win condition he is very weak. I cut him for Tombstalker in my list. Tombstalker does not benefit much from your life from the loam based shell though. Bloodghast is probably the best attacker for that shell imo.
Which brings me to my next point - I am not sure you are running enough ways to leverage loam in your deck. Right now I just see Ghasts, Worm Harvest, and Vengeful Pharaoh. These are good, but I think you need 1-2 more ways to leverage your loam suite. I know you said you didn't like Molten Vortex, but even as a 1-of it is a great way to benefit from loam, or even Seismic Assault. So is Raven's Crime.
Overall I think your pox list is a little unfocused. I usually try to find an overall strategy and then choose cards that compliment it well. Here you have discard, land destruction, loam recursion, and board control. I think your deck would benefit from narrowing it's scope a bit to maybe one of those control options combined with Loam Engine. What is your main goal for the deck?
Here are some other pox cards I always have in the back of my mind for brewing:
You have some valid criticisms... to be honest I'll need several more rounds at FNM before I really know how this deck performs. Most of my experience with pox is from legacy, which is more pox-friendly for many reasons.
Regarding lili, I started with 4 mainboard. She's an MVP in legacy for sure. She may come back, but so far she's been suprisingly underwhelming.
The goal of the deck is to kill the early threats and get to topdeck mode as fast as possible, and then bury the opponent in card advantage and recursion. Loam does more than is obvious: In my opening hand it lets me recur a fetch or two and keep the mana coming. Later, it interacts beautifully with faithless looting by letting me discard recurred lands. It gives me fuel to both discard and sac to smallpox. It dredges bloodghasts & pharaoh, and provides infinite landfall triggers. And of course it works well with GQ vs. greedy mana bases. I do want it to do more, and a 1-of molten vortex or even zombie infestation may come back. I also wish I could find room for man-lands, but coming in to play tapped in early turns is so horrible...
As I said, my problem so far has been too many answers and not enough threats. So I added threats in the form of bloodghast, but I know that's not enough. I need something that can end a game faster. My first thought was demigod of revenge. I love it, but you either run 4 or 0, and I don't feel like I've got room for 4, and while it's an amazing threat, that's all it is. I wanted something that can also be removal or card advantage. Thoughts have included vraska, the unseen, sarkhan, the dragonspeaker, koth of the hammer, molten vortex, and some other stuff. Vraska was terrible, vortex was cool, but I feel like I can't run more than 1. Goblin dark-dwellers is what I'm using for now. It'll recur removal or pox and be a body. The only thing I don't like is it dies to almost every removal, which might make it terrible, but I won't know until I try it. I'm definitely open to other suggestions for that slot. Something that serves as board control and a win-con.
Raven's crime is wonderful out of the board. The rack is something I think of often... it may take the place of ghasts, but I don't like that I can't discard it. ensnaring bridge could be good in a different shell, but is bad with life from the loam. bloodchief ascension wasn't even on my radar, but it's got me thinking. A win-con that loves the long game and gains me life for 1 mana... makes loam/GQ shenanigans awesome, too. Only problem is that by the time I've dealt 2 damage on 3 separate turns, this card is probably win-more.
I love the deck, and I've been following it's evolution with interest. I've been brewing a similar smallpox deck in jund colors, and I thought I'd post the current list here. Your deck is a bit more focused on land destruction, while mine is more interested in early board control. I'm posting it here because I feel like we can probably learn from each other. Here's the current list:
The original version had molten vortex over bloodghast and liliana of the veil/vraska the unseen. My experience was that I had no trouble controlling the board in the early game, but would struggle to find a win condition and either flood out on lands or simply run out of answers. Also, while the loam/vortex idea seems great on paper, it is very mana-intensive and means I'm not drawing anything but loam, giving the opponent too much opportunity to find threats. Faithless looting has been great, being both a powerful card-draw engine and something I can discard to pox. I'm hoping the presence of bloodghast means that when we're in topdeck mode I'm chipping away to the life total instead of doing nothing. So far, with 3 life from the loam, I have had zero trouble getting to 5 mana even with smallpox and frequent use of ghost quarter. This justifies the inclusion of goblin dark-dwellers. I figure most of the time it'll be a 4/4 + terminate/decay/bolt, but the times I get to use them to recur smallpox or boom//bust will just be insane. I really, really want to include a 1-of palace siege, but am uncertain what to cut for it. It might slot in for either worm harvest, vengeful pharoah, the 3rd dark-dweller, or even the 4th ghost quarter... at 24 lands the deck sure seemed to flood out a lot, so I'll see how 23 goes.
One of the things that makes Modern so different from Legacy and especially Vintage is that it's less of a "goodstuff" format as a "synergy" format. If you look at legacy, there's a lot of overlap. Cards like force of will, wasteland, and brainstorm are in almost literally everything. Top tier combo decks are almost always Lion's eye diamond + storm + stuff. Modern's not like that at all. You could easily take a half-dozen Tier 1/2 decks at random and find they only share a few cards (and that those are things like thoughtseize and lightning bolt that aren't really pillars). For example, pre-ban, the top decks were arguably burn, affinity, infect, jund, junk, twin, and GR tron. Only two of those decks have more than a card or two in common, so that's like 6 pillars right there, and you could easily think of another 6. This diversity of cards is one reason people love modern and also why people hate modern.
To be honest, the BEST way to use rites in a deck like this is probably with a finisher you can actually cast like tombstalker, desecration demon, stormbreath dragon or thundermaw hellkite. That said, I just love the idea of ashen rider.
This is an idea that had occurred to me, and I sort of like it. As I see it there are two big problems with this idea:
1) The smaller problem is that there are a lot of cards that conflict with what WOTC wants modern to look like. They would mean either changing the design philosophy of modern to allow for fast combo, good counterspells, better cantrips, more blue, and some "unfun" strategies like pox and that would get better (the choice most players would want), OR an extensive ban list that includes many of the cards that would make "unreserved" worthwhile such as Jace, FOW, wasteland, show and tell, ect.
2) The larger problem is the reserved list itself... it is too large to memorize and has nothing to do with power level. The result is a LOT of players have no idea what's actually on it. I mean everyone knows the power 9, the duals, and a few other high-$$ cards like cradle and LED, but if someone showed up with abeyance, lake of the dead, kjeldoran outpost, cursed scroll, undiscovered paradise, opalescence, squandered resources, or any other random cards that could fit in a brew, do you think everyone in the room would immediately recognize the illegal card? Similarly, there are a LOT of people who assume that certain high-dollar cards like force of will, karakas, mana drain, and mana crypt are on the RL that actually are not (the latter two would be banned anyway, but that's beside the point). It would just be a big headache logistically.
And then of course there's the problem that a lot of modern decks would drop a tier or two and the staples in them would tank in value.
1) aggro strategies, which lose to fast combo, become MUCH better. Suddenly burn, affinity, zoo, merfolk, and a bunch of other stuff is much more viable than it was before. Midrange also gets better. This effect is exacerbated by ABUR duals becoming shocks.
2) force of will, daze, and spell pierce (read: basically the entire current legacy counterspell suite) become MUCH worse, as they are critical vs. combo but mediocre to bad vs. linear aggro.
Those two changes are so large in scope it's honestly hard for me to even begin to predict what that format would look like. Weirdly, I could see the premiere combo deck becoming... wait for it... Splinter Twin. At that point, with twin probably being good, and lots of linear aggro making it harder to play control, I feel like legacy might start looking a lot more like modern.
That is a format that would make me both happy and sad. Despite what most people will have you believe, there are really only a handful of RL cards that see play in top-tier decks that aren't dual lands. Mostly, it's just lion's eye diamond. Unfortunately, it includes important random cards like gaea's cradle, city of traitors, and a couple others that are critical to specific cool decks. The most annoying loss to me would be cursed scroll, which is critical to pox (my pet deck) and has no reason to be on the RL anyway.
All of that aside, I'm not sure what legacy would look like with shocks in place of fetches. Burn would be fairly insane, and daze would be WAY worse. LED is critical to the competitiveness of basically every good combo deck, so with that gone, aggro in general would be a ton better, and legacy would look a lot more like modern.
Honestly, at the end of the day I think this set is aimed more at Commander than Legacy. There's a lot of high-dollar legacy staples that see a ton of EDH play, so Legacy will benefit, but I think that's a secondary goal for WOTC. I still dont' know what they're going to do about duals, though... Every EDH player wants ABUR duals.
For sure. I'm thinking damnation/wrath of god will become part of my 75 in junk to help mitigate this and other aggro strategies. Probably 1 main, 1 in the side.
no doubt they can still cast their dudes, I'm just thinking they'll be mostly casting vanilla dudes. I don't see chalice being a problem... Orb comes down turn 2, chalice set to 2 takes a few turns (and is less likely than chalice set to 1, and frankly jund/junk in particular have bigger problems than an inability to cast orb if a chalice is set to 2 and they don't have decay. The big dudes not turning mimics into 5/5's also seems really, really good.
Seems a lot more versatile than painters servant, which is useless against most non-eldrazi decks. Also costs $3 instead of $25.
You have some valid criticisms... to be honest I'll need several more rounds at FNM before I really know how this deck performs. Most of my experience with pox is from legacy, which is more pox-friendly for many reasons.
Regarding lili, I started with 4 mainboard. She's an MVP in legacy for sure. She may come back, but so far she's been suprisingly underwhelming.
The goal of the deck is to kill the early threats and get to topdeck mode as fast as possible, and then bury the opponent in card advantage and recursion. Loam does more than is obvious: In my opening hand it lets me recur a fetch or two and keep the mana coming. Later, it interacts beautifully with faithless looting by letting me discard recurred lands. It gives me fuel to both discard and sac to smallpox. It dredges bloodghasts & pharaoh, and provides infinite landfall triggers. And of course it works well with GQ vs. greedy mana bases. I do want it to do more, and a 1-of molten vortex or even zombie infestation may come back. I also wish I could find room for man-lands, but coming in to play tapped in early turns is so horrible...
As I said, my problem so far has been too many answers and not enough threats. So I added threats in the form of bloodghast, but I know that's not enough. I need something that can end a game faster. My first thought was demigod of revenge. I love it, but you either run 4 or 0, and I don't feel like I've got room for 4, and while it's an amazing threat, that's all it is. I wanted something that can also be removal or card advantage. Thoughts have included vraska, the unseen, sarkhan, the dragonspeaker, koth of the hammer, molten vortex, and some other stuff. Vraska was terrible, vortex was cool, but I feel like I can't run more than 1. Goblin dark-dwellers is what I'm using for now. It'll recur removal or pox and be a body. The only thing I don't like is it dies to almost every removal, which might make it terrible, but I won't know until I try it. I'm definitely open to other suggestions for that slot. Something that serves as board control and a win-con.
Raven's crime is wonderful out of the board.
The rack is something I think of often... it may take the place of ghasts, but I don't like that I can't discard it.
ensnaring bridge could be good in a different shell, but is bad with life from the loam.
bloodchief ascension wasn't even on my radar, but it's got me thinking. A win-con that loves the long game and gains me life for 1 mana... makes loam/GQ shenanigans awesome, too. Only problem is that by the time I've dealt 2 damage on 3 separate turns, this card is probably win-more.
3 lightning bolt
3 terminate
1 kolaghan's command
2 abrupt decay
4 smallpox
1 darkblast
3 fulminator mage
1 boom//bust
4 faithless looting
3 goblin dark-dwellers
4 bloodghast
1 worm harvest
1 vengeful pharaoh
3 life from the loam
4 bloodstained mire
3 verdant catacombs
2 blood crypt
2 overgrown tomb
3 dragonskull summit
1 urborg, tomb of yawgmoth
2 swamp
1 stomping ground
1 mountain
4 ghost quarter
3 leyline of the void
1 curse of death's hold
2 nature's claim
3 duress
1 raven's crime
2 liliana of the veil
The original version had molten vortex over bloodghast and liliana of the veil/vraska the unseen. My experience was that I had no trouble controlling the board in the early game, but would struggle to find a win condition and either flood out on lands or simply run out of answers. Also, while the loam/vortex idea seems great on paper, it is very mana-intensive and means I'm not drawing anything but loam, giving the opponent too much opportunity to find threats. Faithless looting has been great, being both a powerful card-draw engine and something I can discard to pox. I'm hoping the presence of bloodghast means that when we're in topdeck mode I'm chipping away to the life total instead of doing nothing. So far, with 3 life from the loam, I have had zero trouble getting to 5 mana even with smallpox and frequent use of ghost quarter. This justifies the inclusion of goblin dark-dwellers. I figure most of the time it'll be a 4/4 + terminate/decay/bolt, but the times I get to use them to recur smallpox or boom//bust will just be insane. I really, really want to include a 1-of palace siege, but am uncertain what to cut for it. It might slot in for either worm harvest, vengeful pharoah, the 3rd dark-dweller, or even the 4th ghost quarter... at 24 lands the deck sure seemed to flood out a lot, so I'll see how 23 goes.
An admittedly late-game card, and 5 mana is a lot for a deck like yours, but there's always Palace siege. Either mode is relevant.