I don't know how to "solve" this as I see the need for exile effects in standard, but I feel it drives decks to need to play more and more hexproof stuff, reducing interactivity.
I wonder how you all feel about this?
I find myself dropping creature protection cards in favor sacrifice outlets.
If I'm going to use a recursion engine, I want two things. A sac outlet, and hexproof on my person rather than my creatures (prefer Orbs of Warding).
What's this? You're trying to steal/exile a critical engine? *sacrifice in response*
With hexproof, the bojuka bog every black player runs can't exile it either. You remain vulnerable to the nastier gy hate out there, but that is a lot less prevalent than the easy stuff like bojuka.
Short answer: The first rule of Commander is, nothing lasts forever. Why should lands be any different?
Lands are restricted to one per turn to limit the tempo of the game. Resetting the tempo back to zero without a clear victory in sight is to reset the entire game. Nobody can execute a game plan, it's not interesting or fun. One beginning is enough for most games.
Wiping out creatures, artifacts, enchantments, or a graveyard is different, people still have resources and can restore their board state or increase their resources as fast as they are able to. A single good topdeck could produce a nice new interesting game plan for the player. It alters the tempo of the game, but not nearly so dramatically as a land wipe does.
Without resources there is no game plan, no choices to be made. Prison decks and strategies that intend to starve your opponents of resources may be interesting to the callous player employing them but the way in which it locks other players out of making any choices they were hoping to be able to make in the game, while keeping them in said game, is extremely frustrating. I can only imagine that this is why this stuff doesn't get printed anymore (a clue!). This is why so many players don't like it. I have successfully lobbied for votes ejecting such players (mass LD or stasis/winter orb land hate decks) on MTGO in 4 player commander games, after which I block them and good riddance.
The only mass land removal spell I don't mind playing or seeing played currently is The Great Aurora.
1. Graveyard hate is the best thing to do against it. You exile their gy when Kitchen Finks or Murderoous Cut is put into gy and before it goes back into play. To mention just some of it: Nihil Spellbomb, Relic of Progenitus, Anger of the Gods, Grafdigger's Cage(it also works against Collected Company and Chord of Calling), Pillar of Flame also helps,...
Perfect, these all look great, thank you. I'm thinking Grafdigger's Cage is the best answer of the 3 artifacts, as you don't have to sacrifice it?
The other artifact that works is Torpor Orb, which shuts down Anafenza's trigger and basically shuts the whole value engine of the deck down. Melira still goes infinite but can't actually get infinite life or damage, they can scry through their deck which might yield a pridemage to kill your orb though. It's also effective against quite a few other decks that abuse ETB abilities.
If you're white (which IMHO has a better heroic shell), Suppression Field will tax each cycle to the tune of a cost of (2) mana - as well as tax fetchlands, plainswalkers, cycling (living end), it hits a multitude of competitive decks in the meta. It's a very effective hate card.
Pithing needle can turn off Viscera Seer. Also works on fetchlands, plainswalkers, expedition map, man-lands, etc etc. Good general sideboard tech.
As for your second question, no. Modern is not a format that can really be played effectively on less than $350.
Alright, then what decks regardless of their cost have a positive match-up against this one?
There are some fun T2/T3 decks that aren't horribly expensive. The most expensive section will be your lands if you want to play multicolor decks competitively. If you're in mono, I think the best current cheap options are mono-G stompy or some Mono-R deck based around Kiln Fiend.
I like red as a budget color. Forked bolt and searing blood are cheap and awesome two-for-ones when used with skill. Throw in some good creatures like Kiln Fiend and you have yourself a deck that can win. It's like a budget infect but much more interactive with the opponent's board. With skill and practice this should allow you to beat a CoCo player at least some amount of the time without a side board hoser. It's potentially favorable if you have a highly tuned and aggressive deck.
If you want a heroic deck tailor made to demolish CoCo Melira on a budget. I might pick a U/W deck that main decks 2-4 dispel and 2-3 copies of twisted image. Both cards are big tempo swings in your direction and are maindeckable against random decks, dispel to counter removal/company/chord, twisted image for pump/killing mana dorks - Lagonna-Band Trailblazer functions exceptionally well with twisted. You could probably main deck a Suppression Field just to make other people miserable too ^^ - don't if you add fetchlands to your deck though.
*this is not really a known archtype and the overall results from use of such a deck will be exploring new territory*
Sin Prodder is yet another trap/"punisher" card. You'll never get what you want from it.
Exactly.
"I reveal... Lightning Bolt!"
"I guess I'll take 1 to bin it."
"I reveal... Tarmogoyf!"
"You know what to do."
I'm just not seeing the appeal.
You're playing with the card all wrong.
"I reveal... Gurmag Angler."
"[Looks at hand] umm.... I'll take.. 7?"
"I reveal... Tasigur."
"[Looks at life total] um... Keep it."
"I reveal... Wooded Foothills"
"GY!"
"I exile all 5 cards from my gy and cast Hooting Mandrils for G. Then I cast Reckless Bushwhacker for surge cost..."
It's modern delve new best-est friend. You get either fuel, fuel and damage, or cards, you get whatever is worst for you but all of the options are upside.
You're right when it comes to consistency. My build is more focused on making a 10 power double striker turn 2 or 3 and, of course, it's very easily disrupted: any good timed removal and chump blockers can win the game from the other side. Any non good hand loses the game by itself.
Do you play more creatures or just those 3 ones?
Glass cannon can be fun to play
If I owned a set of goblin guides, I'd probably run 4 of those. I think pushing the creature count to 16 is a better overall position provided the creature quality is there. Any burn plan works best with a nice beater on the ground to supplement it. Since I'm cheap I just run Zurgo as a 1-of 2/2 for 1. I'd love to see another red 1 drop prowess even if it's only a 1/1 but preferably with haste.
You need to take a closer look at your style of play.
* Linvala and Living Plane - locks opponents without mana rocks out of playing any spells
* Graffdigger's Cage vs reanimator - locks opponent out
* Humility - locks creatures based decks (read opponents) out
* Moat - locks non-fliers (read opponents) out
* Counters - locks out opponents spells - at least if you have enough of them
Are we noticing a pattern here yet? You might approach it differently depending on the colors, deck, general, but your play style remains.
my play style isnt "combo out as soon as possible" or "brag about how many games ive won". at all. i play the waiting game for the most part
You play a defensive/control/prison style. And it is often frustrating to play against once a player realizes they're in a lock they can't get out of. Your "finishing piece" is irrelevant to your opponents, craw wurm or a 1 power bird. They don't want to be put into prison in the first place so you can beat them to death with your 1/x bird finisher. They would prefer that you win the race rather than have you tackle them 5m before the finish line so you can then limp accross.
Individual cards are not at issue here, Cyclonic rift can be put into any deck. When it is added to a prison style it becomes a piece of a puzzle that generates mounting frustration. It's not the individual cards themselves.
I sympathize a bit with your group, because I find that style frustrating as well and kill those kinds of players on sight.
I'm winning against rogues and tier decks, but also losing. Control decks with black are a pain, because of Thoughtseize if you keep a hand with only one creature. For now on, I will be saving the record against Modern decks here. Then, with your help, I can generate info about each matchup.
So, what you people think? Any suggestions? Anyone playing it?
I have been playing a variant of this for a while, but I approach my spell suite differently. Instead of pump spells, I run burn spells.
So you slot in the best mono red burn spells into the majority of the spells slots as well as a couple of Needle Drops. I'll drop the rituals in favor of card efficiency over speed. I'll keep probe and manamorphose on your list, keep 2-3 Temur Battle Rages for the occasional over the top brokenness with kiln fiend that makes the deck so fun to play. I like Rouse the Mob as a 1-2 of. I find that a bit of trample is usually better than the larger possible pump, and the strive is occasionally useful.
Honestly, with your primary creatures you don't get any real functional difference between Lightning Bolt to the face or Brute Force unless you are attempting to counter their bolt on your creature. The Lightning Bolt is also much less risky to run, you won't get blown out by a removal spell in response. The anti-Bolt aspect can be a useful feature as both an anti removal as well as pump spell, but good opponents with experience against the deck will be using their burn style removal on their turn instead of your turn - treating it more like infect. Making this play line less relevant overall. Which means Bolt > Pump in almost every relevant case.
With burn spells your deck becomes a lot more resilient against control decks removing your creatures. Without the free pump/burn spells you're giving up your T2 potential but a much more consistent T3, and also a T4 kill path with no creatures connecting.
I like this over a pure burn red deck as kiln fiend can easily go over the top of kor firewalker and laughs at leyline or even modest lifegain. All of which can be backbreaking for a pure burn decks that don't have an answer to it sitting in hand. I also like not being *completely* dependent on my creature suite to deliver the goods. Otherwise you end up with so many dead cards and that isn't conductive to winning matches. Thoughtsieze becomes more amusing than heart breaking then. Shock yourself at your own peril when I've got 9-12 direct damage sitting in hand and a 1-2 drop creature that will cause big pain.
Smash to Smithereens is great side board fodder. Consider Searing Blaze/Searing Blood in the sideboard for creature heavy strategies - easy 2 for 1 in mono-R and perhaps 1-2xAssault Strobes for match-ups like tron that are light on chump blockers. Your sideboard should have one Hammer of Purphoros. It is the ultimate answer to a control deck, turning your extra lands into threats that have to be dealt with meaning you literally have no dead topdecks - this is exactly the spot you want to be in Mono-Red vs control. You will out removal them eventually and start connecting. Giving everything haste also makes life rough for them.
I've played Mizzex with 10+ exp counters and even then I didn't really want to cast Illuminate. It was in my deck. I cut it in short order. Invoke the Firemind is what you really want here. It does what you need when you need it, but it will cost you at least 3 mana to cast, which pays for that flexibility.
Relying on X spells makes your deck somewhat fragile and you have to have Mizzix on the board to accomplish anything.
The point i am at now is do i run a dozen good X spells or do i go full out and put 30 or so x spells in the deck.
You can go either way.
X spells help you get more experience, which helps you cast more X spells for more and it's a strong feedback mechanism. But X spells come in 3 general varieties. Counterspell, draw spell, burn spell. And it works fairly well. Around turn 10-11 you can have 12+ experience counters if you've managed to keep Mizzix on the board. Then it isn't hard to have a bonkers turn where you draw 15-30 cards and cast 10 other X spells and kill the board. Or Past in flames and kill the board.
Some gotchas with buyback. The buyback or overload costs do not count towards the CMC of the spell for the purposes of level up counters. They can be good value spells, but they are poor for leveling up. For example, if you want to use the burn buyback spell to get an experience counter, and lets say you have 5 experience. you get to burn for 2 for RR, but the CMC is 4, no exp counter. You have to spend 2RR and burn for 4 to get a counter. Which tends to be expensive and slow IMHO.
When I started trying to hit up FNM a year ago, I whipped up a 5$ deck and had plenty of fun with it. I never went 4-0 with it, but I did go 3-1 a couple of times. One of my more memorable games was a T3 kill that left my opponent flabbergasted. I don't make it to FNM very often due to, well, life. My collection is a bit better now, but I think the principles still apply. If you want to play - find a play style you like, build a deck to suit it that fits your budget. And just jam it. Free events, or even small fee events.
I do occasionally feel like standard is a pay-to-win format. But not enough to keep me totally out of it. I think one of the funner things to do is to find a powerful build-around-me card. When I upgraded from my $5 mono-red deck, I built around the card goblin slide that effectively blanked the removal everyone was running and kept the board clear and paid for the incremental tokens every turn. It was remarkably effective and won me plenty of matches. That deck started having trouble when Ugin showed up though.
Today I'm running Jeskai Ascendancy in a pseudo token manner. I play tested some Jeskai black, and found that didn't like the playstyle and wasn't winning as often as straight Jeskai (Never had Jace in mine, nor an ideal manabase). I've build around all the ascendancy cards from Khans and they all have unique and fun mechanics that can be surprising competitive. My Abzan Ascendancy deck was soooo ridiculously durdly but it could win surprisingly often, eventually.
I don't pay to win, but it's fun anyway. Especially when you beat the 700.net.deck .
Jeskai matchup: Hammer of Purphoros is the magic bullet for Jeskai. Being smaller, you have a higher velocity and generally come out ahead on the life totals, making them using their burn to clean out your board on the back foot. So you end up a bit threat light, and your burn does the same for their threats. Often the game will come down to top decking or possibly 1-2 cards in hands with him trying save up enough to get enough in hand and bring you down into burn range. And eventually he might succeed or stick a threat you can't kill if you don't manage to burn him out first. A hammer of purphoros on the field changes that, your curve is so low all extra lands turn into hasty 3/3 golumn tokens and he just can't keep up with that, he has no answers that can block them effectively, every sacced land costs him a card to remove the token. Creatures you play all having haste is just gravy.
Vs drown in sorrow, anger, bile blight, you can go tall instead of wide... Satyr Hoplite, Mogis's Warhound help you do that. Also helps against midrange decks especially if they board out single target removal in favor of more mass removal that whiffs against that big fat satyr hoplite who is bigger than their seige rhino..
It appears that it became a speculation target since it wasn't spoiled.
I may need to do my part to increase the supply by releasing my playset into the wild.
I find myself dropping creature protection cards in favor sacrifice outlets.
If I'm going to use a recursion engine, I want two things. A sac outlet, and hexproof on my person rather than my creatures (prefer Orbs of Warding).
What's this? You're trying to steal/exile a critical engine? *sacrifice in response*
With hexproof, the bojuka bog every black player runs can't exile it either. You remain vulnerable to the nastier gy hate out there, but that is a lot less prevalent than the easy stuff like bojuka.
Lands are restricted to one per turn to limit the tempo of the game. Resetting the tempo back to zero without a clear victory in sight is to reset the entire game. Nobody can execute a game plan, it's not interesting or fun. One beginning is enough for most games.
Wiping out creatures, artifacts, enchantments, or a graveyard is different, people still have resources and can restore their board state or increase their resources as fast as they are able to. A single good topdeck could produce a nice new interesting game plan for the player. It alters the tempo of the game, but not nearly so dramatically as a land wipe does.
Without resources there is no game plan, no choices to be made. Prison decks and strategies that intend to starve your opponents of resources may be interesting to the callous player employing them but the way in which it locks other players out of making any choices they were hoping to be able to make in the game, while keeping them in said game, is extremely frustrating. I can only imagine that this is why this stuff doesn't get printed anymore (a clue!). This is why so many players don't like it. I have successfully lobbied for votes ejecting such players (mass LD or stasis/winter orb land hate decks) on MTGO in 4 player commander games, after which I block them and good riddance.
The only mass land removal spell I don't mind playing or seeing played currently is The Great Aurora.
The other artifact that works is Torpor Orb, which shuts down Anafenza's trigger and basically shuts the whole value engine of the deck down. Melira still goes infinite but can't actually get infinite life or damage, they can scry through their deck which might yield a pridemage to kill your orb though. It's also effective against quite a few other decks that abuse ETB abilities.
If you're white (which IMHO has a better heroic shell), Suppression Field will tax each cycle to the tune of a cost of (2) mana - as well as tax fetchlands, plainswalkers, cycling (living end), it hits a multitude of competitive decks in the meta. It's a very effective hate card.
Pithing needle can turn off Viscera Seer. Also works on fetchlands, plainswalkers, expedition map, man-lands, etc etc. Good general sideboard tech.
There are some fun T2/T3 decks that aren't horribly expensive. The most expensive section will be your lands if you want to play multicolor decks competitively. If you're in mono, I think the best current cheap options are mono-G stompy or some Mono-R deck based around Kiln Fiend.
I like red as a budget color. Forked bolt and searing blood are cheap and awesome two-for-ones when used with skill. Throw in some good creatures like Kiln Fiend and you have yourself a deck that can win. It's like a budget infect but much more interactive with the opponent's board. With skill and practice this should allow you to beat a CoCo player at least some amount of the time without a side board hoser. It's potentially favorable if you have a highly tuned and aggressive deck.
If you want a heroic deck tailor made to demolish CoCo Melira on a budget. I might pick a U/W deck that main decks 2-4 dispel and 2-3 copies of twisted image. Both cards are big tempo swings in your direction and are maindeckable against random decks, dispel to counter removal/company/chord, twisted image for pump/killing mana dorks - Lagonna-Band Trailblazer functions exceptionally well with twisted. You could probably main deck a Suppression Field just to make other people miserable too ^^ - don't if you add fetchlands to your deck though.
*this is not really a known archtype and the overall results from use of such a deck will be exploring new territory*
You're playing with the card all wrong.
"I reveal... Gurmag Angler."
"[Looks at hand] umm.... I'll take.. 7?"
"I reveal... Tasigur."
"[Looks at life total] um... Keep it."
"I reveal... Wooded Foothills"
"GY!"
"I exile all 5 cards from my gy and cast Hooting Mandrils for G. Then I cast Reckless Bushwhacker for surge cost..."
It's modern delve new best-est friend. You get either fuel, fuel and damage, or cards, you get whatever is worst for you but all of the options are upside.
Glass cannon can be fun to play
If I owned a set of goblin guides, I'd probably run 4 of those. I think pushing the creature count to 16 is a better overall position provided the creature quality is there. Any burn plan works best with a nice beater on the ground to supplement it. Since I'm cheap I just run Zurgo as a 1-of 2/2 for 1. I'd love to see another red 1 drop prowess even if it's only a 1/1 but preferably with haste.
Maybe consider talrand the sky summoner as an alternative win condition. Slaughter Games is a thing I've run into.
* Linvala and Living Plane - locks opponents without mana rocks out of playing any spells
* Graffdigger's Cage vs reanimator - locks opponent out
* Humility - locks creatures based decks (read opponents) out
* Moat - locks non-fliers (read opponents) out
* Counters - locks out opponents spells - at least if you have enough of them
Are we noticing a pattern here yet? You might approach it differently depending on the colors, deck, general, but your play style remains.
You play a defensive/control/prison style. And it is often frustrating to play against once a player realizes they're in a lock they can't get out of. Your "finishing piece" is irrelevant to your opponents, craw wurm or a 1 power bird. They don't want to be put into prison in the first place so you can beat them to death with your 1/x bird finisher. They would prefer that you win the race rather than have you tackle them 5m before the finish line so you can then limp accross.
Individual cards are not at issue here, Cyclonic rift can be put into any deck. When it is added to a prison style it becomes a piece of a puzzle that generates mounting frustration. It's not the individual cards themselves.
I sympathize a bit with your group, because I find that style frustrating as well and kill those kinds of players on sight.
Angel of Finality
Hellrider
Banisher Priest
Hypnotic Specter
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
Blazing Specter
Magus of the Moon (gotta watch your mana base if you run this one)
Tidehollow Sculler
Aven Mindcensor
Stoneforge Mystic
Necrotic Sliver
Kataki, War's Wage
Leonin Arbiter
Sin Collector
Leonin Relic-Warder
Butcher of the Horde
Anger
Hero of Bladehold
Transcendent Master
Serra Avenger
War Priest of Thune
Ravenous Baboons
War Elemental (a bit heavy on red)
Skinrender
Sublime Archangel
Liliana's Specter
Ranger of Eos
Hunted Horror (might be interesting in multiplayer)
Mindslicer
Frontline Medic
Firemane Avenger
Stingscourger
Odric, Master Tactician
Goblin Rabblemaster
Shivan Wumpus
Brimaz, King of Oreskos
Cyclops Gladiator (might be a bit heavy on red)
Olivia Voldaren
Geralf's Messenger (heavy on black)
Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant (not exactly agro oriented but makes your opponent's combat against you difficult to deal with)
Loxodon Gatekeeper
Zo-Zu the Punisher
Brion Stoutarm
Accorder Paladin
Angel of Jubilation (surprisingly oppressive in EDH, but means you have to be careful with what you do in your own deck, turns off sac outlets and most black card draw, heavy white)
Hero of Oxid Ridge
Pain Seer
I have been playing a variant of this for a while, but I approach my spell suite differently. Instead of pump spells, I run burn spells.
So you slot in the best mono red burn spells into the majority of the spells slots as well as a couple of Needle Drops. I'll drop the rituals in favor of card efficiency over speed. I'll keep probe and manamorphose on your list, keep 2-3 Temur Battle Rages for the occasional over the top brokenness with kiln fiend that makes the deck so fun to play. I like Rouse the Mob as a 1-2 of. I find that a bit of trample is usually better than the larger possible pump, and the strive is occasionally useful.
Honestly, with your primary creatures you don't get any real functional difference between Lightning Bolt to the face or Brute Force unless you are attempting to counter their bolt on your creature. The Lightning Bolt is also much less risky to run, you won't get blown out by a removal spell in response. The anti-Bolt aspect can be a useful feature as both an anti removal as well as pump spell, but good opponents with experience against the deck will be using their burn style removal on their turn instead of your turn - treating it more like infect. Making this play line less relevant overall. Which means Bolt > Pump in almost every relevant case.
With burn spells your deck becomes a lot more resilient against control decks removing your creatures. Without the free pump/burn spells you're giving up your T2 potential but a much more consistent T3, and also a T4 kill path with no creatures connecting.
I like this over a pure burn red deck as kiln fiend can easily go over the top of kor firewalker and laughs at leyline or even modest lifegain. All of which can be backbreaking for a pure burn decks that don't have an answer to it sitting in hand. I also like not being *completely* dependent on my creature suite to deliver the goods. Otherwise you end up with so many dead cards and that isn't conductive to winning matches. Thoughtsieze becomes more amusing than heart breaking then. Shock yourself at your own peril when I've got 9-12 direct damage sitting in hand and a 1-2 drop creature that will cause big pain.
Smash to Smithereens is great side board fodder. Consider Searing Blaze/Searing Blood in the sideboard for creature heavy strategies - easy 2 for 1 in mono-R and perhaps 1-2xAssault Strobes for match-ups like tron that are light on chump blockers. Your sideboard should have one Hammer of Purphoros. It is the ultimate answer to a control deck, turning your extra lands into threats that have to be dealt with meaning you literally have no dead topdecks - this is exactly the spot you want to be in Mono-Red vs control. You will out removal them eventually and start connecting. Giving everything haste also makes life rough for them.
Relying on X spells makes your deck somewhat fragile and you have to have Mizzix on the board to accomplish anything.
You can go either way.
X spells help you get more experience, which helps you cast more X spells for more and it's a strong feedback mechanism. But X spells come in 3 general varieties. Counterspell, draw spell, burn spell. And it works fairly well. Around turn 10-11 you can have 12+ experience counters if you've managed to keep Mizzix on the board. Then it isn't hard to have a bonkers turn where you draw 15-30 cards and cast 10 other X spells and kill the board. Or Past in flames and kill the board.
Some gotchas with buyback. The buyback or overload costs do not count towards the CMC of the spell for the purposes of level up counters. They can be good value spells, but they are poor for leveling up. For example, if you want to use the burn buyback spell to get an experience counter, and lets say you have 5 experience. you get to burn for 2 for RR, but the CMC is 4, no exp counter. You have to spend 2RR and burn for 4 to get a counter. Which tends to be expensive and slow IMHO.
Or maybe something odd and new. UB enchantment Twisted Twilight, all creatures swap power and toughness.
Bit of Jace hate wouldn't hurt any, and would cull him back some.
I do occasionally feel like standard is a pay-to-win format. But not enough to keep me totally out of it. I think one of the funner things to do is to find a powerful build-around-me card. When I upgraded from my $5 mono-red deck, I built around the card goblin slide that effectively blanked the removal everyone was running and kept the board clear and paid for the incremental tokens every turn. It was remarkably effective and won me plenty of matches. That deck started having trouble when Ugin showed up though.
Today I'm running Jeskai Ascendancy in a pseudo token manner. I play tested some Jeskai black, and found that didn't like the playstyle and wasn't winning as often as straight Jeskai (Never had Jace in mine, nor an ideal manabase). I've build around all the ascendancy cards from Khans and they all have unique and fun mechanics that can be surprising competitive. My Abzan Ascendancy deck was soooo ridiculously durdly but it could win surprisingly often, eventually.
I don't pay to win, but it's fun anyway. Especially when you beat the 700.net.deck .
Vs drown in sorrow, anger, bile blight, you can go tall instead of wide... Satyr Hoplite, Mogis's Warhound help you do that. Also helps against midrange decks especially if they board out single target removal in favor of more mass removal that whiffs against that big fat satyr hoplite who is bigger than their seige rhino..