The argument that the format is somehow unhealthy is a shallow one that equates health to a diversity of decks.
While I can understand how boring this is to spectators and casual players devoted to the format, there is a difference
between that and what tends to happen with broken formats(ex: Ice Age+4th Ed.standard or Tempest+Urza's standard).
There are stagnant formats where there is a fair amount of homogeneity among top decks and I think that is what people are
griping about because unhealthy formats are ones that are defined by matches where the player who has the hot tech
is the only one who is actually able to play magic. For instance, if Modern's top decks were non-interactive combo engine
decks(ex: Eggs, Storm, Ascendancy, etc), or if the only decks that could hang are ones that run super-expensive cards, like Goyf or JtMS, then it would be unhealthy.
Another elephant in the room is how incredibly cheap cruise decks are(burn and delver come to mind), plus the fact that
pod has been a format mainstay since the format began. Looking at UR Delver, builds without tarns manage to 3-1 and 4-0
regularly online, which speaks volumes for the power of the deck and also its accessibility.
No, I do not even play Treasure Cruise decks- my perspective comes from having more important things to do than fret about
whether or not I'll be able to get away with playing a pet deck at my LGS and finish in packs.
Sure, the Modern format has been warped by Cruise, but the fact is that's how most competitive formats work: they
revolve around powerful cards and the decks that abuse them the best. This might be a lame time for people who spend more time reading and discussing Modern than playing it, but in the long run, the affordability of decks like fish, burn or delver are going
to help wet a lot of appetites for playing Modern that may not have been wet otherwise.
Long story short- people who dislike something trivial, like the state of a card game's format should just leave it that and get on with their day, rather than wasting time concocting empirical arguments to justify their tastes.
Yeah....dig is totally good in uwr midrange; finds misers, last few burn spells, and the sideboard cards that make uwr the menace that it is.
Anyone who says that it doesn't fit and cite snapaster as a reason are just on here to argue about cards, rather than stepping their game up with sweet tech.
It's a good card for uwr decks in general. Saying that it is only for combo or control is like saying Brainstorm is only for sneak and show or rug delver decks- just ridiculous.
Yeah...that's kind of a given. Being as they tend to run 4-5 1cc counters, you'll need an extra counter(probably a spell pierce) if you plan on having a remand stop a TC that isn't being tossed out as bait(anyone should be able to see remands coming from a mile away).
I am pretty sure that Dig Through Time is the real deal for uwr because it is pretty much like a tutor for the bombs the deck gets lots of its power from post-sb to start with.
Paying 5-7 to cast it has proven quite acceptable even.
I am pretty much positive the build from MDSS is the product of wanting to be able to put relatively early pressure on more clunky strategies where dealing an extra 6-12 dmg with a resto or clique is better than dumping burn, snapcasters, colonnades, and hope.
Dig Through Time will probably show more potential as it finds its way into builds running singleton walkers, wraths, and such. Definitely missed the card's applications to Modern when looking at the spoiler.
A priori arguing about innovations definitely kills this thread because those just tuning-in miss substantial posts because of spam about splashes. I admittedly added to some of that myself. The life loss is relevant and until someone actually starts putting up a good list and results, it needs to get dropped.
The hypothesis that a second colour might help is PAINFULLY well-established.
I was looking back and noticed that the Raybomb person has been editting the four days old post into some sort of silly magic essay. Definitely can save anyone the trouble of suffering through it with this summary:
do not be discouraged by others; try your ideas regardless of what others say.
For the sake of not being a gigantic waste of air, please test ideas by playing the games, instead of wasting time revising four day old posts that are vaccuous arguments about said game.
The scientific method entails coming up with a hypothesis, then testing said hypothesis. All that has to be done to test mtg ideas is play the damned game. Seriously, people. Test your ideas first. The end.
A copied rat would actually have the same cost as a real rat- 1B
The only real thing that I've wanted to jam into 8rack so far, excluding a white splash(which failed), has been draw(Night's Whisper probably fits best HYPOTHETICALLY).
The reason is that sometimes I lose to being run out of steam by tempo decks that get through the early turns, and being unable to simultaneously rat it up hard enough whilst casting discard or activating mutavaults. Night's Whisper would hopefully set up fourth land drops, bigger rats, and generally help catch up/dig. Repeat draw effects seem too sketchy in that they cost life each turn and nonbo badly with bridge, like Dark Confidant and Phyrexian Arena, then there are cards that are simply too expensive or clunky(Bottled Cloister, Read the Bones, and Grafted Skullcap), which is how I arrived at Night's Whisper. Not enough matches have been put in to feel good about cutting a thoughtseize and something else to make room for two, but will definitely be keeping an eye out for situations that may justify making such adjustments moving forward.
Being hellbent isn't normally that big of an issue, but sometimes rats need to be able to take over a game and the draw phase alone is underwhelming at making that a reality for an unfortunate opponent.
It seems like an exaggeration to refer to asinine questions/suggestions as trolling. Modern is an eternal format and this is a relatively budget-friendly deck. Of course it will attract the sorts of randoms who live to argue about deck construction, rely on conjecture, and have limited hands-on experience with actually playing the deck.
There's nothing at all wrong with investigating the conversations between those who actually play a deck, but there is with chiming in with nonsensical suggestions/arguments.
Nobody learns to think before saying/typing something without getting embarrassed for doing such at some point. I blame the edumacation system.
(P.S. Rob, are you still planning on uploading those matches from the 24th?!)
I've not played this deck as much as others, but still think that the new delve removal is mediocre. My main issue with it is that it is fairly bad at killing things early that get ripped, the odd smiter, and so on. It is admittedly an enticing card, but have played enough card with alternate costs to have the feeling that casting a murder for B is not worth having it be more expensive at other times.
I never got a chance to try out the old BB build and with how tight many games end up with thougtseizes alone, am quite pleased that the P-Rat tech got unearthed because lack of BBs is what was keeping me from assembling this deck in paper.
For a tournie where there's no burn expected, but reasonable likelihood for multiple tron builds, I was thinking that 3-4 copies of an LD card might be good.
What came to mind were: ghost quarter and rain of tears.
Smallpox needs to be early and even then gives opponent choices; fulminator mage is not owned; blight seems bad; evil presence and other land auras are cheap, but that's about it for their strengths.
After working out the above, perhaps Pithing Needles would be best, since they work in other matches and are hopefully tough for a tron deck to deal with if their hand has been pilfered enough.
Rats are sweet. They are indeed at home in this deck. If bridge keeps nonboing with rats, learn how to play the deck better is my advice. It happens, but very rarely when one is making good decisions.
On a more general 8 Rack note, recently tried to find my set of bridges and to my dismay could only find an eye-raping 8th ed one, plus a far more pleasing stronghold copy. As it turned out, my local shop has to of the latter type on hand. I'll probably end up finding the missing ones, but oh well. They're sweet cards.
Will be able to terrorize monthly modern tournies now instead of randoms on freeware mtg programs.
People at the shop will be very surprised to see me playing with something that doesn't run cryptics, bolts, paths, and cliques.
The 8 Rack build is a copy of Memorylapse's, but minus a Salvage and plus a Buried Ruin. Haven't asked any locals if there's burn being played, so 15 will also be the same boring ol' sb as Lapse's.
Unless anyone reps some other build more to greater anecdotal AND demonstrable results, I will come out and put in my- likely obvious at this point- two cents and posit that the build mentioned is likely where anyone playing the deck should start before making changes. It runs really well; be more critical of your play to anyone having a terrible time with it.
While I can understand how boring this is to spectators and casual players devoted to the format, there is a difference
between that and what tends to happen with broken formats(ex: Ice Age+4th Ed.standard or Tempest+Urza's standard).
There are stagnant formats where there is a fair amount of homogeneity among top decks and I think that is what people are
griping about because unhealthy formats are ones that are defined by matches where the player who has the hot tech
is the only one who is actually able to play magic. For instance, if Modern's top decks were non-interactive combo engine
decks(ex: Eggs, Storm, Ascendancy, etc), or if the only decks that could hang are ones that run super-expensive cards, like Goyf or JtMS, then it would be unhealthy.
Another elephant in the room is how incredibly cheap cruise decks are(burn and delver come to mind), plus the fact that
pod has been a format mainstay since the format began. Looking at UR Delver, builds without tarns manage to 3-1 and 4-0
regularly online, which speaks volumes for the power of the deck and also its accessibility.
No, I do not even play Treasure Cruise decks- my perspective comes from having more important things to do than fret about
whether or not I'll be able to get away with playing a pet deck at my LGS and finish in packs.
Sure, the Modern format has been warped by Cruise, but the fact is that's how most competitive formats work: they
revolve around powerful cards and the decks that abuse them the best. This might be a lame time for people who spend more time reading and discussing Modern than playing it, but in the long run, the affordability of decks like fish, burn or delver are going
to help wet a lot of appetites for playing Modern that may not have been wet otherwise.
Long story short- people who dislike something trivial, like the state of a card game's format should just leave it that and get on with their day, rather than wasting time concocting empirical arguments to justify their tastes.
Anyone who says that it doesn't fit and cite snapaster as a reason are just on here to argue about cards, rather than stepping their game up with sweet tech.
It's a good card for uwr decks in general. Saying that it is only for combo or control is like saying Brainstorm is only for sneak and show or rug delver decks- just ridiculous.
Paying 5-7 to cast it has proven quite acceptable even.
I am pretty much positive the build from MDSS is the product of wanting to be able to put relatively early pressure on more clunky strategies where dealing an extra 6-12 dmg with a resto or clique is better than dumping burn, snapcasters, colonnades, and hope.
Dig Through Time will probably show more potential as it finds its way into builds running singleton walkers, wraths, and such. Definitely missed the card's applications to Modern when looking at the spoiler.
I ran both while toying with a white splash and lingers were generally out-performing rats to the effect of rats often getting pitched to lilly.
The hypothesis that a second colour might help is PAINFULLY well-established.
I was looking back and noticed that the Raybomb person has been editting the four days old post into some sort of silly magic essay. Definitely can save anyone the trouble of suffering through it with this summary:
do not be discouraged by others; try your ideas regardless of what others say.
For the sake of not being a gigantic waste of air, please test ideas by playing the games, instead of wasting time revising four day old posts that are vaccuous arguments about said game.
The scientific method entails coming up with a hypothesis, then testing said hypothesis. All that has to be done to test mtg ideas is play the damned game. Seriously, people. Test your ideas first. The end.
The only real thing that I've wanted to jam into 8rack so far, excluding a white splash(which failed), has been draw(Night's Whisper probably fits best HYPOTHETICALLY).
The reason is that sometimes I lose to being run out of steam by tempo decks that get through the early turns, and being unable to simultaneously rat it up hard enough whilst casting discard or activating mutavaults. Night's Whisper would hopefully set up fourth land drops, bigger rats, and generally help catch up/dig. Repeat draw effects seem too sketchy in that they cost life each turn and nonbo badly with bridge, like Dark Confidant and Phyrexian Arena, then there are cards that are simply too expensive or clunky(Bottled Cloister, Read the Bones, and Grafted Skullcap), which is how I arrived at Night's Whisper. Not enough matches have been put in to feel good about cutting a thoughtseize and something else to make room for two, but will definitely be keeping an eye out for situations that may justify making such adjustments moving forward.
Being hellbent isn't normally that big of an issue, but sometimes rats need to be able to take over a game and the draw phase alone is underwhelming at making that a reality for an unfortunate opponent.
It seems like an exaggeration to refer to asinine questions/suggestions as trolling. Modern is an eternal format and this is a relatively budget-friendly deck. Of course it will attract the sorts of randoms who live to argue about deck construction, rely on conjecture, and have limited hands-on experience with actually playing the deck.
There's nothing at all wrong with investigating the conversations between those who actually play a deck, but there is with chiming in with nonsensical suggestions/arguments.
Nobody learns to think before saying/typing something without getting embarrassed for doing such at some point. I blame the edumacation system.
(P.S. Rob, are you still planning on uploading those matches from the 24th?!)
For a tournie where there's no burn expected, but reasonable likelihood for multiple tron builds, I was thinking that 3-4 copies of an LD card might be good.
What came to mind were: ghost quarter and rain of tears.
Smallpox needs to be early and even then gives opponent choices; fulminator mage is not owned; blight seems bad; evil presence and other land auras are cheap, but that's about it for their strengths.
After working out the above, perhaps Pithing Needles would be best, since they work in other matches and are hopefully tough for a tron deck to deal with if their hand has been pilfered enough.
On a more general 8 Rack note, recently tried to find my set of bridges and to my dismay could only find an eye-raping 8th ed one, plus a far more pleasing stronghold copy. As it turned out, my local shop has to of the latter type on hand. I'll probably end up finding the missing ones, but oh well. They're sweet cards.
Will be able to terrorize monthly modern tournies now instead of randoms on freeware mtg programs.
People at the shop will be very surprised to see me playing with something that doesn't run cryptics, bolts, paths, and cliques.
The 8 Rack build is a copy of Memorylapse's, but minus a Salvage and plus a Buried Ruin. Haven't asked any locals if there's burn being played, so 15 will also be the same boring ol' sb as Lapse's.
Unless anyone reps some other build more to greater anecdotal AND demonstrable results, I will come out and put in my- likely obvious at this point- two cents and posit that the build mentioned is likely where anyone playing the deck should start before making changes. It runs really well; be more critical of your play to anyone having a terrible time with it.