Pyrotechnics reprint is nice, even if it has the wrong coloured symbol for purists, more art and new border (for those who care about borders) is nice.
My mana base is currently pretty cookie cutter, but I still find the Talisman's worth keeping. I am currently running the 12 Tron (obviously), 8 Island, 1 Academy Ruins, 1 Tectonic Edge, 1 Ghost Quarter (I just feel I need more md land control in my area), 1 Oboro, with 4 Map and 3 Talisman. Your mileage may vary, but I find that I can consistently hit the blue sources that I require.
Edit: That totals 24 lands, of which 9 produce blue, and 4 map/3 talisman.
Most certainly. Don't have all of the pieces for it, but am in the process of building a list, and aiming to have all 75 altered by the end of January.
Just a few things I have been working on lately, three guesses as to what deck I am working on. No scans at the moment, but I like how things are coming out so far.
Thank you for the advice folks. Regarding the money cards mentioned, I already have Daze, Witness, BBE and city, and it seems that the price point for Peasant isn't problematic (I guess the priciest thing I would potentially look at is FoW, but that doesn't seem to promising outside of powered cubes or at least combo cubes).
I will probably sit on this info until after christmas, but in the new year I will likely look at making the upgrades. I will document this process if people are interested for future reference, and to direct others looking to do the same thing towards.
I've been following discussion regarding peasant cube for some time, and am reviewing whether or not I should change out my pauper cube for a peasant variant. I had a couple of questions though, curious if you guys could provide some answers.
Firstly, is there any sort of resource that informs what carries over well from pauper to peasant, what falls off, and what has strictly better upgrades? Some things are obvious, such as having access to vivids and trilands improving the mana base, but if there is any more documentation on the matter I wouldn't mind to have a look. Secondly, what is the general buy in for peasant cubing? Are there any major money cards (a pauper equivalent would be Chain Lightning, which costs 15 dollars or so in a cube that mostly costs 10 cents for each card) that are considered "must haves" for peasant cube (or at least for some archetype support)? Thirdly, does peasant hold up well to 360 lists like powered or pauper, or does it play better in larger lists (450-720)? I know this one is largely down to personal opinion, but some discussion on the matter might be interesting.
Except Splinter Twin requires exactly as many cards to combo, wins the game immediately rather than gradually, has redundancy (Kiki-Jiki can work in the place of Splinter Twin, Deceiver Exarch can work in the place of Pestermite), and its pieces are better on their own than Sword of the Meek or Thopter Foundry are.
Speaking as someone who would like to see thopter sword unbanned, I think that a large part of why it remains banned is the existence of Time Sieve. Having all three cards legal MIGHT just push UB Tezzeret a little over the top in modern.
Note that I would rather see Sword of the Meek unbanned and Time Sieve banned if it was a problem (I would rather some decks run thoptersword than have no decks run Time Sieve and only a few decks like trinket control run Thopter Foundry), but I think that they won't unban Sword anytime soon because of the Sieve.
Don't worry, I wasn't arguing for lantern control (although my burn matchup generally depends on keeping Eidolon off the board, because I can just run away with recurred Sunbeam Spellbomb to stabilise if that bloody little enchantment creature is off the board) but I was arguing for Oust in general. It buys back snapcaster mage in normal decks, buys back trinket mage in tezzerators and treasure mage in Tron (theoretically, don't run out and sleeve up WU Tron but the theory is there, something that is being tested by a few mates), does downright unfair stuff with Thragtusk in Bant or Junk shells... The card is currently VERY underrated.
As an aside, and don't want to go too off topic, while I am not arguing for lantern control vs the current metagame with so much burn and delver (especially not jund lantern or pixy sticks variants) I personally quite enjoy the burn matchup as if you don't deal about 25 to me with your opening hand I am not too concerned, I can search pithing needle in the maindeck vs lavamancer builds, have verdict off the board vs young pyromancer, and have Sunbeam Spellbomb and Elixir of Immortality as options, on top of 3 maindeck 1 sideboard Oust, 3 maindeck Path to Exile (want to put a fourth in but struggling to find deckslots) and relic off the board and cage in the main (the main cage is to hose the multiple dredgevine decks locally, crypt or relic is normally better main for most builds) to take on snapcaster bolts (in UR delver) or bomb out the graveyard vs cruise burn. So yeah, not a deck I would recommend people sleeve up to take on a heavy burn metagame, but as a player that plays it a lot I don't worry too much about the matchup (which like I said boils down to if Eidolon of the Great Revel does silly things or if I stop it fast/prevent it outright). Running Thopter Foundry as my wincon also helps me vs burn, those little lifegain ticks are all too relevant in some games (I've even Ousted a Thopter token for the lifegain at one point when my trinket mage's were not on board and I needed the 3 life urgently).
I disagree strongly. I played UW before the onslaught fetchlands were reprinted. UW takes almost no damage from its manabase, kitchen finks and sphinx's rev do a ton to pad your life total, and oust-snapcaster-oust your own snapcaster can gain a significant chunk of life. UW plays more board wipes than esper and can more consistently (in my experience) dig for them. Finally, resto angel post board with finks creates a ton of problems for burn. UW is a great choice for a burn and delver meta.
I might not have too much to add to this discussion, but I would like to back up this user and vouch for the power of Oust in the current meta. In my case I run UW lantern control, so my Oust is often used as hard removal (oust into milling/exiling the problem card) but the ability to oust your etb creatures (normally a snappy in decks, a trinket mage in my case) and replaying them while gaining 3 life (forcing out an extra bolt, delver swing or similar) can be a swing that puts a game out of range for the current delver decks.
I experienced a game lately where I ousted my own trinket mage twice in a game, 6 life and 3 tutor effects from 3 cards is pretty decent right now.
Wild Nacatl is the card to consider, do I go for the FNM foil, the Shards of Alara foil, or the Shards of Alara regular with an altered border extension? Have all 3, not sure which one to run.
It doesn't overly appeal to me either, but it is an archetype that is popular with several players I know, so running it for a month or two is fair to me. I don't like drafted storm very much myself for example, but that didn't stop the storm deck in modern masters from being popular. And several people didn't really like Spider Spawning in Innistrad, but I loved the archetype. The cards will get a fair shot until I bring the karoos in.
I dislike the Soul Sisters for several reasons. One reason obviously is the raw power, but also that I really dislike lifegain as a strategy. My most hated card in Theros was Hopeful Eidolon. It was extremly powerful in this removalless and fatty/heroic-heavy set, but it led to games, that went terribly much longer, than they were supposed to and often ended with time outs. I remember the situation, when I had a 22/23 Heroic dude with Lifelink and my opponent had like a 24/24 dude with lifelink and booth just hit the opponents life in a neverending cycle, till one finds a Divine Verdict, that wasn't answered by God's Willing. I know that lifegain can be a strategy, but I prefer not to support it as an own archetype, but as a support keyword for different strategies.
I fully understand where you are coming from, and I don't want my cube to end up like Theros draft, but I feel that in a more removal heavy format then it is a workable situation. The lifegain is intended to be a side strategy to a general lategame flood strategy, with the lifegain keeping a deck going until it reaches some lategame bombs. At the end of the day this is just a test with some slots until I have to cut 10 cards for karoos (when I get my last 2 karoos, can't find Simic Growth Chambers or Boros Garrisons in my area) in the next month or so.
Presence of Gond + Midnight Guard is a very neat combo. Ill include the Guard immediately. It doesnt need the lifegain to win, though.
I always liked the soulsisters, but in the end I cut them for higher impact cards.
Midnight Guard + Presence of Gond is a pet combo of mine, the two cards are decent enough to run on their own (neither are true bombs, but they aren't at all bad) and when they come together they have an infinite creature combo - something that I have used to draw more than a few people into pauper cube that would otherwise think the format low powered.
I fully understand why people dislike the soul sisters, but for now I am trying to include them as support cards for a draft archetype (I feel that 2 or 3 colours to support an archetype across multiple colours doesn't dilute the cube too much, especially if it is just a short term change) and am trying to loosen up drafts a little bit for a while. They will likely be the 2 cuts in white and 1 of the cuts in green, which makes adding the karoos a bit easier for me.
Testing out the soul sisters in cube again. I know that in the past they have been dismissed as not achieving enough, but I am not testing them for raw power. Instead I am testing them to encourage an archetype, G/W attrition. with token generators (Sprout Swarm, Presence of Gond (especially going infinite with Midnight Guard)), other decent lifegain cards (Lone Missionary, Aven Riftwatcher, Faith's Fetters, lifelinkers, extorters) I am testing a more grindy G/W than people are used to. I have seen this archetype work well in drafts so far, but there was little incentive to draft it over old good stuff Selesnya decks, so I have moved in the Soul Sisters (Soul Warden, Soul's Attendant, Essence Warden) and am giving them a fair shot. Will report back on how things go.
Edit: That totals 24 lands, of which 9 produce blue, and 4 map/3 talisman.
Dammit, someone asked me to do one of those and I was waiting on cardstock, seems you beat me to it!
Seriously speaking though, very nice alter.
I will probably sit on this info until after christmas, but in the new year I will likely look at making the upgrades. I will document this process if people are interested for future reference, and to direct others looking to do the same thing towards.
Firstly, is there any sort of resource that informs what carries over well from pauper to peasant, what falls off, and what has strictly better upgrades? Some things are obvious, such as having access to vivids and trilands improving the mana base, but if there is any more documentation on the matter I wouldn't mind to have a look. Secondly, what is the general buy in for peasant cubing? Are there any major money cards (a pauper equivalent would be Chain Lightning, which costs 15 dollars or so in a cube that mostly costs 10 cents for each card) that are considered "must haves" for peasant cube (or at least for some archetype support)? Thirdly, does peasant hold up well to 360 lists like powered or pauper, or does it play better in larger lists (450-720)? I know this one is largely down to personal opinion, but some discussion on the matter might be interesting.
Speaking as someone who would like to see thopter sword unbanned, I think that a large part of why it remains banned is the existence of Time Sieve. Having all three cards legal MIGHT just push UB Tezzeret a little over the top in modern.
Note that I would rather see Sword of the Meek unbanned and Time Sieve banned if it was a problem (I would rather some decks run thoptersword than have no decks run Time Sieve and only a few decks like trinket control run Thopter Foundry), but I think that they won't unban Sword anytime soon because of the Sieve.
As an aside, and don't want to go too off topic, while I am not arguing for lantern control vs the current metagame with so much burn and delver (especially not jund lantern or pixy sticks variants) I personally quite enjoy the burn matchup as if you don't deal about 25 to me with your opening hand I am not too concerned, I can search pithing needle in the maindeck vs lavamancer builds, have verdict off the board vs young pyromancer, and have Sunbeam Spellbomb and Elixir of Immortality as options, on top of 3 maindeck 1 sideboard Oust, 3 maindeck Path to Exile (want to put a fourth in but struggling to find deckslots) and relic off the board and cage in the main (the main cage is to hose the multiple dredgevine decks locally, crypt or relic is normally better main for most builds) to take on snapcaster bolts (in UR delver) or bomb out the graveyard vs cruise burn. So yeah, not a deck I would recommend people sleeve up to take on a heavy burn metagame, but as a player that plays it a lot I don't worry too much about the matchup (which like I said boils down to if Eidolon of the Great Revel does silly things or if I stop it fast/prevent it outright). Running Thopter Foundry as my wincon also helps me vs burn, those little lifegain ticks are all too relevant in some games (I've even Ousted a Thopter token for the lifegain at one point when my trinket mage's were not on board and I needed the 3 life urgently).
I might not have too much to add to this discussion, but I would like to back up this user and vouch for the power of Oust in the current meta. In my case I run UW lantern control, so my Oust is often used as hard removal (oust into milling/exiling the problem card) but the ability to oust your etb creatures (normally a snappy in decks, a trinket mage in my case) and replaying them while gaining 3 life (forcing out an extra bolt, delver swing or similar) can be a swing that puts a game out of range for the current delver decks.
I experienced a game lately where I ousted my own trinket mage twice in a game, 6 life and 3 tutor effects from 3 cards is pretty decent right now.
Edited to add card tags.
I fully understand where you are coming from, and I don't want my cube to end up like Theros draft, but I feel that in a more removal heavy format then it is a workable situation. The lifegain is intended to be a side strategy to a general lategame flood strategy, with the lifegain keeping a deck going until it reaches some lategame bombs. At the end of the day this is just a test with some slots until I have to cut 10 cards for karoos (when I get my last 2 karoos, can't find Simic Growth Chambers or Boros Garrisons in my area) in the next month or so.
Midnight Guard + Presence of Gond is a pet combo of mine, the two cards are decent enough to run on their own (neither are true bombs, but they aren't at all bad) and when they come together they have an infinite creature combo - something that I have used to draw more than a few people into pauper cube that would otherwise think the format low powered.
I fully understand why people dislike the soul sisters, but for now I am trying to include them as support cards for a draft archetype (I feel that 2 or 3 colours to support an archetype across multiple colours doesn't dilute the cube too much, especially if it is just a short term change) and am trying to loosen up drafts a little bit for a while. They will likely be the 2 cuts in white and 1 of the cuts in green, which makes adding the karoos a bit easier for me.