I like Klug's alters, I strongly dislike the PT Cube.
Archetypal payoffs are too narrow, you likely won't be able to reach a critical mass to emulate any of the more synergy driven PT decks, and there is WIDE disparity in power level and playability of cards due to major shifts in design philosophy over the last decade plus. A single Aether Vial is damn near useless, Eldrazi Mimic is a below average bear without the consistency of turning into a Thoughtknot Seer or Reality Smasher, and there are far too many narrow enablers/payoffs (Dragonstorm? Donate/Illusions?). You definitely cannot expect to draft an old school style deck successfully without the density of support and while facing down pushed modern threats like Polukranos and Baneslayer.
I like the nostalgia of seeing certain cards and recalling those decks, but it's useless if I can't realistically draft that archetype. I'd need to get insanely lucky to have all of the narrow enablers in the 360 card pool, have them wheel to me, AND hope that none of them are generic enough to be wanted elsewhere. This is just not good design across a consistency and power spectrum.
I did run Abzan Charm in the mainboard at one point a few months ago and it was pretty decent most of the time. A lot of this list was left unchanged from pre-SOI when I was facing Grixis Control frequently at a local weekly event. I found that that the Charm often didn't do enough against quicker decks (sucked against Zoo and Burn), while drawing three off the Truths was huge against Grixis and other grindy matchups. The extra card ended up being more relevant than the utility at that point.
I might just swap out the Truths in the side for the Charm now that I think about it. Seems like a nice one to have access to somewhere in the 75.
Hey guys, I've been playing Wilted Abzan since around February, first time posting in here since I don't really get out to play Modern all that often. With Tron not as great as it used to be, deck feels like less of a dog and pretty decently positioned against the meta around here. I've been running this list:
I'm pretty happy with the mainboard for the most part, I'd probably just add in another Voice of Resurgence at some point because it's just always a solid card. The Pulse of Murasa in the side is just to deal with Burn and Zoo where buying back something like a Finks is pretty big game. The 2nd copy of Painful Truths is just to board into the grindy matchups but I'm not too attached to it. It was much better when Grixis Control was a bit more popular a few months ago. I pretty much have 2-3 open slots to mess around with in the sideboard. I've really been liking Thrun, the Last Troll with Jeskai Nahiri being a thing nowadays. It's just such a difficult threat for them to deal with. With the combination of Finks/Smiters/Souls mainboard, we often have enough to just apply enough pressure to them and keep them on the backfoot throughout much of the match.
Yeah BBD straight up missed the Cryptic interaction and could have won way earlier just by making a copy with Snapcaster, flashback Crytic, Bounce Twin + something, then replay Twin for combo kill. And then he gets the easy win in game 2, gg.
A friend of mine built a G/W fog deck with Freyalise at the helmn. The deck did nothing but fog, rebuy fogs, and just drew a bunch of cards and played a bunch of dorks until it lethaled with a Craterhoof Behemoth.
So Glass Door is kind of like this thread, where most people who write posts are disgruntled players or former players. It's a a skewed version of Magic reality.
Is it really? For the most part, the views in the thread reflect the views of most everyone I play with locally. That includes the two LGS I go to every few weeks as well as my local group on campus. I could probably count on my hand the number of people who are actually fine with this set as is. Most everyone here is disappointed that something billed as a "premium" product is so lackluster. There's some expectation of opening value within a booster if you're paying nearly 3 times the cost of a regular booster. Playing the card lottery with $3-3.50 packs is fine, but not when you're shelling $10 per pack and $30 (probably) per draft.
I don't actively look for foils for my EDH decks, but if I happen across a specific card that I really like for one of my decks in someone's trade binder or at a reasonable price at my LGS, I'll usually try to get it. Like, this weekend I picked up a Foil Zendikar Sorin Markov for around $20, it's worth closer to $30. Pretty good deal. I do like picking up foils of the cheaper cards in my decks though, since it usually isn't much of a hit on the wallet. Like, I'm not down to drop $60 on a foil Apocalypse Phyrexian Arena, but I'd definitely pick up foils of cheaper cards in the $6-10 range.
It's not really a priority though, just a fun little side project I suppose.
The issue with this set isn't the rares, it's the commons and uncommons. They fixed the issue with opening crap mythic rares like Jugan or Keiga, but they've done so at the expense of value at lower rarities. Barring a Remand in your uncommon slot, if you open a junk rare then you just blew an extra $9. Can't even rely on that guaranteed foil to be something of value since there aren't nearly as many desirable lower rarity cards this time around.
Have fun drafting this set for $30+. They clearly geared this towards that portion of the player base. Looks like an okay set for Limited, but most everyone I know is not down to just fork over that much to open up jank and play the rare lottery. MM was value because you'd still be able to open decent cards at uncommon to help round out the value of a given pack. There's not nearly as much this time around.
4 mana (at best) for a recurrable 4/3 that is pretty much a vanilla creature that can't block isn't where I want to be. If there were some viable ways of zombie swarming then maybe that +1/+1 would be relevant, but as is, he just doesn't seem good at all. I don't see what's mythic about him or the upside really. He costs MORE for each creature of yours that died, he can't block, and he's a 4/3 for 4. There's nothing that sticks out about him at all.
I'm just disappointed that there isn't a Taigam card. He had a UR story, switched allegiances in the timeline, was mentioned more than a handful of times across cards and UR articles, but still didn't get a card. And they even had badass artwork as well but wasted it on Student of Ojutai. I mean seriously, as soon as that art was spoiled I was like 90% sure that that was Taigam art. Instead, that amazing art is doomed to litter draft tables and fill boxes of jank. What a waste.
Personally, I don't feel like Ojutai was ever like extremely oppressive as some of the comments in the last couple of pages seemed to mention. Ojutai did what had to be done for the good of his brood. As wise and teacher-y as he's supposed to be, he's still the leader of his brood and he's attacking the group that has been killing members of his brood for years. If he were really out to just exact revenge or whatever, he would have straight wiped out the Jeskai at the point in time. Instead, he just simply took out every Ghostfire warrior and removed the teachings that would be detrimental to his brood. Sure, you can analyze that however you like and equate him to a slimy politician/dictator sort (which isn't false), but I totally see where he was coming from.
As far as I can see in Tarkir 1.1, however, Ojutai seems well-loved by the members of his faction. He's not necessarily an oppressor of knowledge or anything, since he let Narset go without any real rebuff, but he had done all that 1000+ years ago to protect his brood. He was known as the "Great Teacher" before that to his brood and he's simply brought that along with him to the present. And Narset was his star pupil, he probably has some affection for her ala master-pupil, and he's probably proud of her for pursuing knowledge as shown by the end of this week's UR (which was very well-written).
I dunno, I just don't see Ojutai being as dastardly as some of you guys. He seems pretty chill to me.
Archetypal payoffs are too narrow, you likely won't be able to reach a critical mass to emulate any of the more synergy driven PT decks, and there is WIDE disparity in power level and playability of cards due to major shifts in design philosophy over the last decade plus. A single Aether Vial is damn near useless, Eldrazi Mimic is a below average bear without the consistency of turning into a Thoughtknot Seer or Reality Smasher, and there are far too many narrow enablers/payoffs (Dragonstorm? Donate/Illusions?). You definitely cannot expect to draft an old school style deck successfully without the density of support and while facing down pushed modern threats like Polukranos and Baneslayer.
I like the nostalgia of seeing certain cards and recalling those decks, but it's useless if I can't realistically draft that archetype. I'd need to get insanely lucky to have all of the narrow enablers in the 360 card pool, have them wheel to me, AND hope that none of them are generic enough to be wanted elsewhere. This is just not good design across a consistency and power spectrum.
I did run Abzan Charm in the mainboard at one point a few months ago and it was pretty decent most of the time. A lot of this list was left unchanged from pre-SOI when I was facing Grixis Control frequently at a local weekly event. I found that that the Charm often didn't do enough against quicker decks (sucked against Zoo and Burn), while drawing three off the Truths was huge against Grixis and other grindy matchups. The extra card ended up being more relevant than the utility at that point.
I might just swap out the Truths in the side for the Charm now that I think about it. Seems like a nice one to have access to somewhere in the 75.
4 Windswept Heath
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Marsh Flats
3 Razorverge Thicket
1 Horizon Canopy
2 Gavony Township
1 Vault of the Archangel
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Temple Garden
1 Godless Shrine
2 Forest
1 Plains
1 Swamp
3 Noble Hierarch
3 Birds of Paradise
3 Kitchen Finks
4 Loxodon Smiter
2 Qasali Pridemage
4 Siege Rhino
3 Voice of Resurgence
3 Wilt-Leaf Liege
Instant (6)
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Path to Exile
1 Dromoka's Command
Sorcery (6)
4 Lingering Souls
1 Painful Truths
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Duress
3 Thoughtseize
2 Stony Silence
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Celestial Purge
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Painful Truths
1 Pulse of Murasa
I'm pretty happy with the mainboard for the most part, I'd probably just add in another Voice of Resurgence at some point because it's just always a solid card. The Pulse of Murasa in the side is just to deal with Burn and Zoo where buying back something like a Finks is pretty big game. The 2nd copy of Painful Truths is just to board into the grindy matchups but I'm not too attached to it. It was much better when Grixis Control was a bit more popular a few months ago. I pretty much have 2-3 open slots to mess around with in the sideboard. I've really been liking Thrun, the Last Troll with Jeskai Nahiri being a thing nowadays. It's just such a difficult threat for them to deal with. With the combination of Finks/Smiters/Souls mainboard, we often have enough to just apply enough pressure to them and keep them on the backfoot throughout much of the match.
Is it really? For the most part, the views in the thread reflect the views of most everyone I play with locally. That includes the two LGS I go to every few weeks as well as my local group on campus. I could probably count on my hand the number of people who are actually fine with this set as is. Most everyone here is disappointed that something billed as a "premium" product is so lackluster. There's some expectation of opening value within a booster if you're paying nearly 3 times the cost of a regular booster. Playing the card lottery with $3-3.50 packs is fine, but not when you're shelling $10 per pack and $30 (probably) per draft.
It's not really a priority though, just a fun little side project I suppose.
Doesn't look like land art at all, probably the DTK version of Bitter Revelation.
As far as I can see in Tarkir 1.1, however, Ojutai seems well-loved by the members of his faction. He's not necessarily an oppressor of knowledge or anything, since he let Narset go without any real rebuff, but he had done all that 1000+ years ago to protect his brood. He was known as the "Great Teacher" before that to his brood and he's simply brought that along with him to the present. And Narset was his star pupil, he probably has some affection for her ala master-pupil, and he's probably proud of her for pursuing knowledge as shown by the end of this week's UR (which was very well-written).
I dunno, I just don't see Ojutai being as dastardly as some of you guys. He seems pretty chill to me.