Any list running AV really wants 4 to hit it early game. Drawing an AV on turn 4 feels awful. AV and Serum Vision do not share the same role... I think any deck that wants one likely wants the other, and both as a playset.
SDT is never getting unbanned, but it's not in the same category as Skullclamp. There's just a) no reason to essentially allow Legacy Miracles to be played in Modern and b) not enough time in tournaments to allow every Johnny Magic first time control player to spin his top 3 times a turn.
Sure there's enough time. There's 50 minutes. Need more? Enjoy getting draws until you learn your deck. This has been a known issue in legacy for years, and it's been absolutely fine. Again: why do we worry about "Johnny Magic first time control player" but tolerate something like Lantern Control, which is trying to hard lock and literally mill their opponents out, which almost always goes close to time? To your first point, I can think of one very good reason to allow "legacy miracles" (minus roughly 20 cards, btw) to be played in modern: you may have noticed that control is dog***** at the moment. You know, an entire archetype of magic? And people wonder why linear combo decks are running amok with impunity. You thought Jund was supposed to be the policeman of the format? That's like banning top in legacy and saying it's fine, Shardless can pick up the slack (spoilers: that turns out poorly).
I don't believe that SDT belongs in the same category as skullclamp. I've never bought the idea the SDT slows the game down too much. It's a ridiculous argument in a format where something like lantern control, which makes miracles look like a rabbit on speed, is legal. And if you're gonna make modern a format where permission is *****ty and decks (especially control decks) need to lean on sideboard cards, extra selection in the form of SDT might be really healthy. I'm also not convinced that GSZ needs to be on the list. Who cares if every green list runs GSZ (or for that matter, if every white list runs SFM)? We already have a format in which every blue deck runs snap, every green deck runs goyf, and every red deck runs bolt, with very few exceptions.
I don't really see how bloom taking a hit for breaking format guidelines would be a nail in the coffin for modern combo players. This kind of claim was made by different people last time heavy bloom ban discussion was on the table as well, but I don't really understand how that could be the case when there are several playable (though not necessarily tier 1) combo decks and one of them is a format pillar.
Basically the line of thought is that as long as the turn 4 rule is enforced, there isn't a point in playing a combo deck that isn't twin. Twin is by far the most adaptable and resilient combo deck, able to turn on a dime and become a control deck one game, snap-bolt aggro deck another game, and remand into exarch into twin deck another game, depending on the opponent. If you are playing a combo deck, and you can't win until turn 4, you would be better served playing twin. The only advantage to playing something like grishoalbrand, for example, is that it's faster. And if being faster means getting the axe, well... hence the nail on the coffin argument.
Suddenly I feel like I'm on Hearthpwn not MTGS with the amount of salt in this post.
The deck folds really hard to aggro. Affinity and Burn are horrible matchups, the deck takes too long to get off properly vs them.
To be fair, he said "besides switching to aggro or burn."
Blood moon still seems reasonable, if you can back it up with some sort of clock or threaten to combo. Tron is pretty good against the versions not running 3-4 ghost quarter and even then I think it's 50/50. Honestly, it seems like its matchups mostly mirror tron's. Great against midrange, great against control, pretty weak to very fast aggro (weaker than tron, I would say due to tron having pyroclasm and o-stone) and non-interactive combo (stronger than tron due to discard).
I will agree, though, that the problems everyone has with Amulet and Tron and now this deck could have been averted if people didn't incessantly ***** about land destruction for years. Force of Will isn't the only card holding legacy together - Wasteland keeps things like 12-post from running over fair decks. We don't have a true equivalent in Modern, so as a result one ramp spell is banned (cloudpost) and another one is about to be (summer bloom).
[quote from="Magicman657 »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/617663-current-modern-banlist-discussion-9-28-2015-update?comment=6752"]Hive Mind is the only truly unfair part of Amulet Bloom because tons of decks don't have answers in their colors to deal with Hive Mind, and even when they do, Bloom can spam Pact of Negation on them. Once it resolves the game is almost always immediately over with no chance for a comeback (outside of Angel's Grace which exactly 1 deck can realistically play). Turn 2/3 Titan is brutal but can still be dealt with in most colors by maindeckable removal and thus allows the game to have a chance to progress.
<snip>
There are a few things wrong with your assumptions.
A) Infect will never win turn 2 through counter magic and/or removal (if you don't misplay against it). Bloom can win through even counter magic // removal (though it is still difficult to do).
B) When you have the counter magic... and still can't stop your opponent from going off... that's not called drawing a blank. That's called drawing OK and it not being good enough. "Blank" would be a hand that has zero interaction.
To your first point: first turn fetch glistener elf, turn 2 fetch, mut mut mut groundswell/become immense with apostle's blessing or dispel in hand. I mean it's unlikely, sure, but it happens. Also, infect rarely goes for a turn 2 kill unless you know your opponent can't interact (tron game one, for example). They don't need to when they can kill turn three with much more protection. I would suspect that bloom has more turn 2 kills on average than infect, but infect has far more turn three kills and more kills before turn 4 overall.
To your second point: the bloom player had the nuts. It happens. BBD drew just ok, as you said. He was still able to keep the titan in check with his tappers for several more turns and had plenty of opportunity to find a twin and win on the spot. He didn't. That's what I meant by drawing blank.
Hive Mind is the only truly unfair part of Amulet Bloom because tons of decks don't have answers in their colors to deal with Hive Mind, and even when they do, Bloom can spam Pact of Negation on them. Once it resolves the game is almost always immediately over with no chance for a comeback (outside of Angel's Grace which exactly 1 deck can realistically play). Turn 2/3 Titan is brutal but can still be dealt with in most colors by maindeckable removal and thus allows the game to have a chance to progress.
Bro, you smiling as you wrote that?
What deck can handle a turn 2 Titan? Let's say I path to Exile your Titan on your turn 2. Turn 3 you tutor another Titan, drop Titan, get more lands, tutor Titan number 3, two Titans swing turn 3 with haste, let's say in some world, Path to Exile number 2 and 3 are in my hand. Kill them. Turn 4 you tutor the last Titan up, you swing for 24 damage? Am I going to win?
**** no
Playing Titan on turn 2 is a soft-lock win, no deck is coming back from that except an Infect player who's going to Glisten elf into the absolute nut hand
Stop it
Titan is not easy to interact with because the next turn you're most likely swinging with two new titans the next turn. No deck is coming back from a turn 2 Titan drop
The only way I'm winning is if my Bloom opponent forgot to pay that pact cost during his upkeep
I'm trying to figure out how your hypothetical even works. So first we have the turn 2 amulet, karoo, summer bloom, titan (not pact for titan since we're playing more titans turn 3 mind you). Obviously this is a standard bloom hand, happens every game. We've triple karoo'ed and bounced the turn 1 land, then played titan and presumably gotten growth chamber + t-west to transmute for a summoner's pact. Then you path, giving us another basic. So we end the turn with two karoos and a basic, 5 mana. Got it.
Now we're going into turn three. We have five mana and a least one land bounced back to hand. We're going to pact to get a titan, then use that titan to tutor for another titan. Let's try. We'll play the land we bounced turn 2 and pact for a titan, play titan and get growth chamber t-west to transmute for another titan. Wait, we're out of mana. And our titan doesn't have haste. We need another amulet! Ok, standard operating procedure, bloom clearly always has 2 amulets by turn three. But we need to cast it! So we need another karoo to play turn three to get up to 7 mana to cast our other amulet. Now let's try. Damn, still three mana short. Ok, so no we need another summer bloom in addition to the second amulet, or we need three amulets.
But you've killed both titans regardless, what luck, so we have to go to turn 4. We paid 8 mana for two pacts and obviously drew the fourth titan, since our turn three hasty titan play required us to get boros-stronghold rather than another t-west for the last titan (if we had three amulets why didn't we go for the third titan turn three? Oh well, bloom titan can handle sloppy plays, it's so easy to play that it wins anyway). We need to spend 14 mana total to get this titan into play after paying for all our pacts, but with three amulets that's not too hard. So we play our fourth naturally drawn titan with three amulets out, get vesuva to copy the slayer's stronghold and a gruul turf for the triple red. We already have the boros garrison in play and don't run two vesuvas, but hopefully we can find two more white mana from somewhere. Now we swing with our 12/6 hasty titan and get our sunhome and a gemstone mine to kill you. In our scenario naturally drew or started with three amulets, two titans, 1-2 summer blooms, 1-2 karoos, and our opponent wisely went after our titans instead of our amulets, lands, or hand. This clearly happens every game. I am, of course, lying.
This is ridiculous hyperbole and it needs to stop. Yes, amulet got the nut draw on camera. Actually, it got the ultra nut draw - the v-clique which was supposed to take away his dig to get an amulet straight up found him an amulet for free. Even then he was dead to BBD drawing twin, but he drew blanks. Second game, yes he got a titan in past remand. It was have been trivial for him to die to blood moon if BBD had or drew it, but he drew blanks. It happens. It's unfortunate that it happened on camera, so that the masses get out there pitchforks and assume that this is how every game of twin vs bloom plays out.
Also, I love Cedric Phillips but he needs to calm the **** down. When infect kills on turn 2 on camera it's "hey, bad beats, this is modern sometimes this happens." When amulet gets down a titan turn two and doesn't even win until several turns later, it's all aboard the ban-wagon. Let's have some consistency man.
So you don't feel bad about someone casting 3 titans turn 3 against you but you go crazy over hivemind? Hivemind isn't the issue with Amulet, it's the speed of the deck. That's why Summer bloom has to go.
If we keep assuming that bloom always has 3 amulets, I'm going to start assuming infect always has three mutagenic growths, tron always has three tron peices, griselbrand always has everything, burn always has 3 goblin guides, and jund always has TS into bob into lilly into double goyf. With that in mind, my opinion on the format is that we should ban everything.
EDIT:
To keep productive conversation going, as a bloom player I personally support a hive mind ban. Titans can be dealt with. It's not easy, but that's kinda what makes the deck good. Turn three Karn isn't easy to deal with either. Hive mind requires you to interact with their hand or interact on the stack, something which a number of decks (basically anything not running black or blue) are incapable of doing. It's won me games I didn't deserve. It feels cheesy, and I think is the main source of a lot of ill will towards the deck. Further, banning hive mind allows the deck to continue to function. It's possible that losing hive minds allows maindeck Hornet Queen and maybe something else, pushing bloom more towards a midrange ramp deck than pure combo deck. And I think that would be ok.
Also, stoneforge can come off. People grossly overestimate how good she is, especially in a format with far more removal than legacy and without access to Jitte. She's great, I'd love to play her, but people in this thread are saying stoneforge decks would be 40% of the PT and that's absurd. Delver didn't get that, and it was playing ANCESTRAL RECALL. AV can come off. Control needs all the help it can get, and honestly I don't think even AV is enough to push it over the top. AV is an ok control card which helps control in the long game but does NOTHING to address control's biggest problem in this format, which is that you can't go long against Tron. If you want to talk about decks warping the meta, can we talk about the fact that one deck basically makes an entire archetype tier 2? Yes, grixis control is a thing as long as you fade tron all day. And given that a trained monkey can pilot tron and it's relatively inexpensive, fading tron has become impossible where I'm from.
Haruspex is excellent in a narrow set of decks, all of which tend to want to sacrifice their creatures and/or recur them, ie Karador or Prossh. Harvester is just too ******* slow, too expensive for not enough payoff. I don't care about other people's creatures. I'm saccing 6 kobolds and drawing 6. Or cycling through my entire deck with Saffi/Sun Titan/Viscera Seer until I find a blood artist.
I'm sure you already caught this already so please don't think I'm trying to give you a hard time, but just to clarify... Grim Haruspex is probably not going to help you draw much cards as many cards as you suggested in token centric deck like Prossh. That's why, even despite the symmetry, Fecundity is a thing.
Good catch. Prossh, at least my iteration of him, is all about saccing small ETB creatures for value then recurring them later, but the kobolds themselves don't benefit from Haruspex. Got a bit hasty in my example. I do stand by my reasoning that Haruspex is very good in a deck which is proactively trying to abuse it. While Harvester has what is unarguably a better effect in a vacuum, the mana cost associated with it makes him too slow in anything but the most battlecruiser-esque meta... unless, of course, your gameplan involves actively slowing down the pace of the game, as in a mono-black stax or something similar.
Harvester of Souls is pretty trash in my opinion. The mana cost is a huge downside. I want my value engines to be cheap. The reason you're slotting Harvester into a deck isn't for the 5/5 body, or for the deathtouch (deathtouch on a 5/5, seriously?), it's for the effect.
(Though, there are 6/6s with deathtouch too. I've played Grave Titan in spite of that.)
But seriously, RTFC. Ahem...
Morph B
Whenever another nontoken creature you control dies, draw a card.
Harvester doesn't say "you control", making Harvester far more playable in multiplayer.
If you're burning a reanimate effect on Harvester of Souls, something has gone horribly wrong, either in the game or in your deckbuilding.
Haruspex is excellent in a narrow set of decks, all of which tend to want to sacrifice their creatures and/or recur them, ie Karador or Prossh. Harvester is just too ******* slow, too expensive for not enough payoff. I don't care about other people's creatures. I'm saccing 6 kobolds and drawing 6. Or cycling through my entire deck with Saffi/Sun Titan/Viscera Seer until I find a blood artist.
1)Dread Return is a pretty decent reanimator spell because it costs CMC 4 and has a good flashback cost - putting more creatures in the yard so that I can recur them again. That's something that has been very valuable for me, because you can sacrifice the guy you want to reanimate as part of the casting cost of Dread Return's flashback. So that's pretty cool.
Minor point, since most of this thread seems to have moved past this card, but it's worth mentioning that you cannot reanimate one of the creatures you sacrificed as part of the cost. Targets are chosen before costs are paid, at which time your creature wouldn't be a valid target.
I have some questions about a few card choices from the OP's list.
1) Death Rattle - I get that delving away chaff is important. Totally on board with Murderous Cut and DTT. But this seems like a stretch. Not being able to hit an opponent's prophet/seedborn/tasigur/derevi/avenger/etc seems like a huge liability. Why not a consistently cheaper removal spell like Go for the Throat?
2) Urborg/Coffers - I see this combo and Intuition but no Life From the Loam to complete the package. No Crucible either. I only see Tempt with Discovery (Edit: and Crop Rotation). Do people in your meta actually give you more than one land? And if so, are they seriously not tutoring up strip mine? This duo seems overly fragile in this configuration.
3) Birds/DRS/Kiora's Follower - I don't really see the point of the dorks in lieu of spell-based ramp. DRS doubles as grave hate, so that's fine. But the other two seem odd. They're also exceptionally weak Tasigur targets later in the game if they happen to end up in your graveyard.
3) Sword of Feast and Famine - this seems out of place in a deck that aims to win via combo or attrition and already has two cards that untap every turn. I would almost prefer a Time Warp effect over this, just to add yet another contingency plan.
4) Underworld Connections / Rhystic Study - have you tried Mystic Rhemora in either of these slots? It consistently overperforms in almost all my blue decks, and I'd be 100% okay getting it back with Tasigur at any point in the game. I also really hate effectively stone raining myself for Underworld Connections.
5) Isochron Scepter - seems like an easy way to get 2-for-1'ed way before you get any kind of value out of it. Even if you live the dream of imprinting Mana Drain with a Seedborn in play, that's the kind of ***** that gets krosan gripped instantaneously. I know this is kind of a dies to doom blade argument, I just hate imprint cards because they're such a magnet for removal.
6) The Pacts - Pact of Negation is a staple and a necessary risk. I think the other two start to get a bit cavalier, though. Does nobody cast Armageddon/Contamination/Winter Orb/Stasis/Hokori/Static Orb/Rising Waters/Ruination/etc? I may be nit-picking at this point, but it seems like an easy way to lose the game if stax is prevalent in your meta, as it is in mine.
Overall I really like the list, and this thread has been an interesting read.
I put together Enchantress with Derevi at the helm this past Friday and I'm already in love. I won the last game before closing today in the following manner:
Tap five lands, play Enchanted Evening, tap Serra’s Sanctum for 9, play Cloudstone Curio floating 6 white, play Ajani’s Chosen floating 2 white. My island with the Market Festival is untapped.
Ajani’s Chosen is itself an enchantment, so it triggers itself and creates a cat, which is also an enchantment. This creates an infinite, unstoppable (by itself) loop as Ajani’s Chosen is not a may ability. With one cat/curio trigger I bounce Serra’s Sanctum and replay it, with another cat/curio trigger I bounce the market festival after floating a mix of green and blue mana, and with a final curio/cat trigger I bounce Ajani’s Chosen to close the loop.
I then tap Serra’s Sanctum for 1x10^99 white mana and two blue and cast Time Spiral, which finds me a lot more colored mana, an Aura Shards, and a Dual Nature. Play Aura Shards, play Dual Nature, use Derevi’s ability to put her into play and untapped the Sanctum. Dual Nature triggers, putting another Derevi into play, also untapped the Sanctum after tapping it for extra colored mana from Market Festival. Legend rule kills my nontoken Derevi, causing Dual Nature to trigger removing my token Derevi from play. I then replay Derevi infinite times via the colored mana produced by the Market Festival on the Serra's Sanctum and get infinite Aura Shards triggers, destroying all my opponents’ permanents and swing in with 1x10^99 cats next turn.
So delightfully convoluted. I think the most satisfying part is that this was the first game where I played archenemy from turn 0 (against a traditional derevi, tasigur, and dark mike table), got my board nuked multiple times, and still went from 0-60 in a single turn.
Some of the replies in this thread are seriously disheartening. Rofellos and Braids were doing just fine in the 99, not broken or warping at all, just a few short months ago. Now it's all "Well if he can run Rofellos, why can't I run Tolerian Academy / Power / Dexterity cards?!?!1/1?!"
Because those cards are ******* broken, that's why. Definitively, objectively broken. Rofellos clearly was not, as he existed peacefully in the 99 without ever causing more problems than, say, CSphinx. Another poster said, "Just build a deck with Braids and plenty of ways to search for her, it will be totally degenerate and terrifying!" Are you guys kidding me? You could absolutely play a stax deck with Braids not long ago, and it. was. fine. In fact, I saw some stax decks dropping Braids because she didn't pack enough punch after about turn 3.
Honestly, I see the same sort of mentality over in the modern forums. A few months ago it was unthinkable that pod would be banned. Now the vast majority of posters will try to convince you that the deck was living on borrowed time for years, and that it was an obvious ban. The degree to which people bend their opinions to conform to authority is astounding. Some Milgram experiment *****.
I know this is the price discussion thread, but is this really what Wizards wants? My deck does well and in response I'm considering selling out?
WotC wants a format where no deck can consistently win before turn 4. Amulet Bloom clearly breaks that rule. The problem isn't that "your deck [did] well", the problem is your deck breaks one of the (arbitrary) rules that WotC has for the format.
Is it most financially prudent to just sell out of the format and see what happens?
If you like playing Magic, then the most financially prudent thing to do, is to pick up a deck that doesn't threaten WotC's agenda for Modern. If you want to look on the bright side, you probably just made a bunch of money on Amulet Bloom staples.
No, it's exactly that the deck did well. This deck has existed for years. There's nothing new to see here. If it broke any rules, it's been breaking them the whole time. This is Pod all over again. I think I will sell. The funny thing is Amulet should spike even more than it will, but who is going to drop $70-80 on foil amulets with a banlist update looming in a month?
Amulet seems a much likelier ban, but you are basically right.
Price related:
1. Wait and see the T8
2. If 1+ Amulets in T8, sell every Amulet staple (Especially the foil ones) in the next 30 days.
3. Rebuy staples in 2 months if Amulet can stay Tier 2 despite bannings.
Alrighty, so the T8 had not one, but TWO Amulet decks. I'm sitting on foil Amulets, Hive Minds, and Titans. I'm kind of reluctant to sell them, since I actually, you know, enjoyed playing Amulet Bloom. I'm also loathe to not sell them and lose both my deck and tons of money when a ban hits. I could always immediately rebuy non-foils and continue playing the deck without taking as big of a hit... I know this is the price discussion thread, but is this really what Wizards wants? My deck does well and in response I'm considering selling out? My other deck is Twin, which isn't exactly 100% safe either. Is it most financially prudent to just sell out of the format and see what happens? This is miserable.
Sure there's enough time. There's 50 minutes. Need more? Enjoy getting draws until you learn your deck. This has been a known issue in legacy for years, and it's been absolutely fine. Again: why do we worry about "Johnny Magic first time control player" but tolerate something like Lantern Control, which is trying to hard lock and literally mill their opponents out, which almost always goes close to time? To your first point, I can think of one very good reason to allow "legacy miracles" (minus roughly 20 cards, btw) to be played in modern: you may have noticed that control is dog***** at the moment. You know, an entire archetype of magic? And people wonder why linear combo decks are running amok with impunity. You thought Jund was supposed to be the policeman of the format? That's like banning top in legacy and saying it's fine, Shardless can pick up the slack (spoilers: that turns out poorly).
I don't believe that SDT belongs in the same category as skullclamp. I've never bought the idea the SDT slows the game down too much. It's a ridiculous argument in a format where something like lantern control, which makes miracles look like a rabbit on speed, is legal. And if you're gonna make modern a format where permission is *****ty and decks (especially control decks) need to lean on sideboard cards, extra selection in the form of SDT might be really healthy. I'm also not convinced that GSZ needs to be on the list. Who cares if every green list runs GSZ (or for that matter, if every white list runs SFM)? We already have a format in which every blue deck runs snap, every green deck runs goyf, and every red deck runs bolt, with very few exceptions.
Basically the line of thought is that as long as the turn 4 rule is enforced, there isn't a point in playing a combo deck that isn't twin. Twin is by far the most adaptable and resilient combo deck, able to turn on a dime and become a control deck one game, snap-bolt aggro deck another game, and remand into exarch into twin deck another game, depending on the opponent. If you are playing a combo deck, and you can't win until turn 4, you would be better served playing twin. The only advantage to playing something like grishoalbrand, for example, is that it's faster. And if being faster means getting the axe, well... hence the nail on the coffin argument.
To be fair, he said "besides switching to aggro or burn."
Blood moon still seems reasonable, if you can back it up with some sort of clock or threaten to combo. Tron is pretty good against the versions not running 3-4 ghost quarter and even then I think it's 50/50. Honestly, it seems like its matchups mostly mirror tron's. Great against midrange, great against control, pretty weak to very fast aggro (weaker than tron, I would say due to tron having pyroclasm and o-stone) and non-interactive combo (stronger than tron due to discard).
I will agree, though, that the problems everyone has with Amulet and Tron and now this deck could have been averted if people didn't incessantly ***** about land destruction for years. Force of Will isn't the only card holding legacy together - Wasteland keeps things like 12-post from running over fair decks. We don't have a true equivalent in Modern, so as a result one ramp spell is banned (cloudpost) and another one is about to be (summer bloom).
To your first point: first turn fetch glistener elf, turn 2 fetch, mut mut mut groundswell/become immense with apostle's blessing or dispel in hand. I mean it's unlikely, sure, but it happens. Also, infect rarely goes for a turn 2 kill unless you know your opponent can't interact (tron game one, for example). They don't need to when they can kill turn three with much more protection. I would suspect that bloom has more turn 2 kills on average than infect, but infect has far more turn three kills and more kills before turn 4 overall.
To your second point: the bloom player had the nuts. It happens. BBD drew just ok, as you said. He was still able to keep the titan in check with his tappers for several more turns and had plenty of opportunity to find a twin and win on the spot. He didn't. That's what I meant by drawing blank.
I'm trying to figure out how your hypothetical even works. So first we have the turn 2 amulet, karoo, summer bloom, titan (not pact for titan since we're playing more titans turn 3 mind you). Obviously this is a standard bloom hand, happens every game. We've triple karoo'ed and bounced the turn 1 land, then played titan and presumably gotten growth chamber + t-west to transmute for a summoner's pact. Then you path, giving us another basic. So we end the turn with two karoos and a basic, 5 mana. Got it.
Now we're going into turn three. We have five mana and a least one land bounced back to hand. We're going to pact to get a titan, then use that titan to tutor for another titan. Let's try. We'll play the land we bounced turn 2 and pact for a titan, play titan and get growth chamber t-west to transmute for another titan. Wait, we're out of mana. And our titan doesn't have haste. We need another amulet! Ok, standard operating procedure, bloom clearly always has 2 amulets by turn three. But we need to cast it! So we need another karoo to play turn three to get up to 7 mana to cast our other amulet. Now let's try. Damn, still three mana short. Ok, so no we need another summer bloom in addition to the second amulet, or we need three amulets.
But you've killed both titans regardless, what luck, so we have to go to turn 4. We paid 8 mana for two pacts and obviously drew the fourth titan, since our turn three hasty titan play required us to get boros-stronghold rather than another t-west for the last titan (if we had three amulets why didn't we go for the third titan turn three? Oh well, bloom titan can handle sloppy plays, it's so easy to play that it wins anyway). We need to spend 14 mana total to get this titan into play after paying for all our pacts, but with three amulets that's not too hard. So we play our fourth naturally drawn titan with three amulets out, get vesuva to copy the slayer's stronghold and a gruul turf for the triple red. We already have the boros garrison in play and don't run two vesuvas, but hopefully we can find two more white mana from somewhere. Now we swing with our 12/6 hasty titan and get our sunhome and a gemstone mine to kill you. In our scenario naturally drew or started with three amulets, two titans, 1-2 summer blooms, 1-2 karoos, and our opponent wisely went after our titans instead of our amulets, lands, or hand. This clearly happens every game. I am, of course, lying.
This is ridiculous hyperbole and it needs to stop. Yes, amulet got the nut draw on camera. Actually, it got the ultra nut draw - the v-clique which was supposed to take away his dig to get an amulet straight up found him an amulet for free. Even then he was dead to BBD drawing twin, but he drew blanks. Second game, yes he got a titan in past remand. It was have been trivial for him to die to blood moon if BBD had or drew it, but he drew blanks. It happens. It's unfortunate that it happened on camera, so that the masses get out there pitchforks and assume that this is how every game of twin vs bloom plays out.
Also, I love Cedric Phillips but he needs to calm the **** down. When infect kills on turn 2 on camera it's "hey, bad beats, this is modern sometimes this happens." When amulet gets down a titan turn two and doesn't even win until several turns later, it's all aboard the ban-wagon. Let's have some consistency man.
If we keep assuming that bloom always has 3 amulets, I'm going to start assuming infect always has three mutagenic growths, tron always has three tron peices, griselbrand always has everything, burn always has 3 goblin guides, and jund always has TS into bob into lilly into double goyf. With that in mind, my opinion on the format is that we should ban everything.
EDIT:
To keep productive conversation going, as a bloom player I personally support a hive mind ban. Titans can be dealt with. It's not easy, but that's kinda what makes the deck good. Turn three Karn isn't easy to deal with either. Hive mind requires you to interact with their hand or interact on the stack, something which a number of decks (basically anything not running black or blue) are incapable of doing. It's won me games I didn't deserve. It feels cheesy, and I think is the main source of a lot of ill will towards the deck. Further, banning hive mind allows the deck to continue to function. It's possible that losing hive minds allows maindeck Hornet Queen and maybe something else, pushing bloom more towards a midrange ramp deck than pure combo deck. And I think that would be ok.
Also, stoneforge can come off. People grossly overestimate how good she is, especially in a format with far more removal than legacy and without access to Jitte. She's great, I'd love to play her, but people in this thread are saying stoneforge decks would be 40% of the PT and that's absurd. Delver didn't get that, and it was playing ANCESTRAL RECALL. AV can come off. Control needs all the help it can get, and honestly I don't think even AV is enough to push it over the top. AV is an ok control card which helps control in the long game but does NOTHING to address control's biggest problem in this format, which is that you can't go long against Tron. If you want to talk about decks warping the meta, can we talk about the fact that one deck basically makes an entire archetype tier 2? Yes, grixis control is a thing as long as you fade tron all day. And given that a trained monkey can pilot tron and it's relatively inexpensive, fading tron has become impossible where I'm from.
Good catch. Prossh, at least my iteration of him, is all about saccing small ETB creatures for value then recurring them later, but the kobolds themselves don't benefit from Haruspex. Got a bit hasty in my example. I do stand by my reasoning that Haruspex is very good in a deck which is proactively trying to abuse it. While Harvester has what is unarguably a better effect in a vacuum, the mana cost associated with it makes him too slow in anything but the most battlecruiser-esque meta... unless, of course, your gameplan involves actively slowing down the pace of the game, as in a mono-black stax or something similar.
If you're burning a reanimate effect on Harvester of Souls, something has gone horribly wrong, either in the game or in your deckbuilding.
Haruspex is excellent in a narrow set of decks, all of which tend to want to sacrifice their creatures and/or recur them, ie Karador or Prossh. Harvester is just too ******* slow, too expensive for not enough payoff. I don't care about other people's creatures. I'm saccing 6 kobolds and drawing 6. Or cycling through my entire deck with Saffi/Sun Titan/Viscera Seer until I find a blood artist.
Minor point, since most of this thread seems to have moved past this card, but it's worth mentioning that you cannot reanimate one of the creatures you sacrificed as part of the cost. Targets are chosen before costs are paid, at which time your creature wouldn't be a valid target.
I have some questions about a few card choices from the OP's list.
1) Death Rattle - I get that delving away chaff is important. Totally on board with Murderous Cut and DTT. But this seems like a stretch. Not being able to hit an opponent's prophet/seedborn/tasigur/derevi/avenger/etc seems like a huge liability. Why not a consistently cheaper removal spell like Go for the Throat?
2) Urborg/Coffers - I see this combo and Intuition but no Life From the Loam to complete the package. No Crucible either. I only see Tempt with Discovery (Edit: and Crop Rotation). Do people in your meta actually give you more than one land? And if so, are they seriously not tutoring up strip mine? This duo seems overly fragile in this configuration.
3) Birds/DRS/Kiora's Follower - I don't really see the point of the dorks in lieu of spell-based ramp. DRS doubles as grave hate, so that's fine. But the other two seem odd. They're also exceptionally weak Tasigur targets later in the game if they happen to end up in your graveyard.
3) Sword of Feast and Famine - this seems out of place in a deck that aims to win via combo or attrition and already has two cards that untap every turn. I would almost prefer a Time Warp effect over this, just to add yet another contingency plan.
4) Underworld Connections / Rhystic Study - have you tried Mystic Rhemora in either of these slots? It consistently overperforms in almost all my blue decks, and I'd be 100% okay getting it back with Tasigur at any point in the game. I also really hate effectively stone raining myself for Underworld Connections.
5) Isochron Scepter - seems like an easy way to get 2-for-1'ed way before you get any kind of value out of it. Even if you live the dream of imprinting Mana Drain with a Seedborn in play, that's the kind of ***** that gets krosan gripped instantaneously. I know this is kind of a dies to doom blade argument, I just hate imprint cards because they're such a magnet for removal.
6) The Pacts - Pact of Negation is a staple and a necessary risk. I think the other two start to get a bit cavalier, though. Does nobody cast Armageddon/Contamination/Winter Orb/Stasis/Hokori/Static Orb/Rising Waters/Ruination/etc? I may be nit-picking at this point, but it seems like an easy way to lose the game if stax is prevalent in your meta, as it is in mine.
Overall I really like the list, and this thread has been an interesting read.
My hand was Ajani's Chosen, Time Spiral, Cloudstone Curio, and 2 other irrelevant cards. I have a Serra's Sanctum and six other lands out, one of which is a basic island with a Market Festival attached to it. I have no other permanents, having been hit with multiple All is Dusts. I draw Enchanted Evening for the turn.
Tap five lands, play Enchanted Evening, tap Serra’s Sanctum for 9, play Cloudstone Curio floating 6 white, play Ajani’s Chosen floating 2 white. My island with the Market Festival is untapped.
Ajani’s Chosen is itself an enchantment, so it triggers itself and creates a cat, which is also an enchantment. This creates an infinite, unstoppable (by itself) loop as Ajani’s Chosen is not a may ability. With one cat/curio trigger I bounce Serra’s Sanctum and replay it, with another cat/curio trigger I bounce the market festival after floating a mix of green and blue mana, and with a final curio/cat trigger I bounce Ajani’s Chosen to close the loop.
I then tap Serra’s Sanctum for 1x10^99 white mana and two blue and cast Time Spiral, which finds me a lot more colored mana, an Aura Shards, and a Dual Nature. Play Aura Shards, play Dual Nature, use Derevi’s ability to put her into play and untapped the Sanctum. Dual Nature triggers, putting another Derevi into play, also untapped the Sanctum after tapping it for extra colored mana from Market Festival. Legend rule kills my nontoken Derevi, causing Dual Nature to trigger removing my token Derevi from play. I then replay Derevi infinite times via the colored mana produced by the Market Festival on the Serra's Sanctum and get infinite Aura Shards triggers, destroying all my opponents’ permanents and swing in with 1x10^99 cats next turn.
So delightfully convoluted. I think the most satisfying part is that this was the first game where I played archenemy from turn 0 (against a traditional derevi, tasigur, and dark mike table), got my board nuked multiple times, and still went from 0-60 in a single turn.
Because those cards are ******* broken, that's why. Definitively, objectively broken. Rofellos clearly was not, as he existed peacefully in the 99 without ever causing more problems than, say, CSphinx. Another poster said, "Just build a deck with Braids and plenty of ways to search for her, it will be totally degenerate and terrifying!" Are you guys kidding me? You could absolutely play a stax deck with Braids not long ago, and it. was. fine. In fact, I saw some stax decks dropping Braids because she didn't pack enough punch after about turn 3.
Honestly, I see the same sort of mentality over in the modern forums. A few months ago it was unthinkable that pod would be banned. Now the vast majority of posters will try to convince you that the deck was living on borrowed time for years, and that it was an obvious ban. The degree to which people bend their opinions to conform to authority is astounding. Some Milgram experiment *****.
No, it's exactly that the deck did well. This deck has existed for years. There's nothing new to see here. If it broke any rules, it's been breaking them the whole time. This is Pod all over again. I think I will sell. The funny thing is Amulet should spike even more than it will, but who is going to drop $70-80 on foil amulets with a banlist update looming in a month?
Alrighty, so the T8 had not one, but TWO Amulet decks. I'm sitting on foil Amulets, Hive Minds, and Titans. I'm kind of reluctant to sell them, since I actually, you know, enjoyed playing Amulet Bloom. I'm also loathe to not sell them and lose both my deck and tons of money when a ban hits. I could always immediately rebuy non-foils and continue playing the deck without taking as big of a hit... I know this is the price discussion thread, but is this really what Wizards wants? My deck does well and in response I'm considering selling out? My other deck is Twin, which isn't exactly 100% safe either. Is it most financially prudent to just sell out of the format and see what happens? This is miserable.