Anyone else thinking about Blue Moon? That deck has long needed some decent card draw and a good finisher to end games before the opponent can find it's basics. This card does both.
While the unbanning of Ancestral Visions helped, we thought that Thing in the Ice would be the finisher it's always wanted, but the card just wasn't good enough. This card is a reasonable clock and doesn't need to come down before moon to be valuable.
I drafted good blue/green and played a ramp style deck that used dorks/bounce/fatties and ended up getting like sixth place. I wouldn't be mad about it, but I could have got second place. I ended up getting cheated out of a victory because this guy tried to make up rules by how Tromokratis worked. Here's what happened.
My opponent had two creatures (that stupid charioteers card everyone used) and another creature, and I had Tromokratis and Heroe's Bane. We were down to turns, and he was down to 4 life I believe. I attacked with both of my cards, and he said he was blocking both. I said that he had to block everything to Tromokratis and he said that's not how it worked. He said as long as Tromokratis was blocked he could block everything. I said I thought he was wrong (and I try my best to be casual and nice about these sort of things) but he tried to prove me wrong. And I said, can we get a judge on this? So he calls over this guy who I assumed was a judge, and the guy said that my opponent was right about Tromokratis.
Turns out, I don't think the guy was a judge, and additionally I still think they're wrong. I ended up breaking even with him because of the call and lost a lot of position. I'm not mad about getting a bad place in the event, I'm mad about the call being wrong.
Not really. Anger comes down one turn earlier than Supreme Verdict, which isn't a big deal. It's no better than Dissolving Athreos or Xathrid Necromancer on turn 3. BW humans will be solid because of its resiliency to removal, and adding more limited removal isn't going to help that.
Using burn as a primary control option makes no sense pre-rotation.
While I agree that trading White for Red doesn't seem like the better option you are very much wrong about Anger of the Gods. Since it exiles the creatures upon death it totally nullifies Athreos, Immortal Servitude and Xathrid Necromancer. You couldn't have put your argument in a more wrong way, grtz.
Pay more attention. I wasn't directly comparing Anger to Supreme Verdict. I explaining that the speed only doesn't matter when you can D-Sphere, Dissolve, Deicide, Revoke, or otherwise use any of of the numerous answers that white has Athreos on the same turn you could drop an Anger. As I said, "It's no better than dissolving Athreos or Xathrid Necromancer on turn 3." Using those options takes care of Athreos himself and the weenies, whereas Anger leaves Athreos on the board. You couldn't have attacked any more fragile strawman, grtz.
I actually think that Grixis Control will be a top tier deck going into this next standard season with JOU becoming legal. With Keranos as a sort of card advantage engine/win con, we also have access to the classic package of Jace/Thoughtseize/Dissolve/Hero's Downfall/Aetherling/Syncopate/etc etc that Esper does, and Izzet Charm, Ral Zarek, Anger of the Gods, and Lightning Strike seem like a very fair trade off for Elspeth, Sphinx's Rev, D Sphere, and Verdict. Plus we can still pull Specter out of our SB.
Ral Zarek and Lightning Strike have no business of being anywhere near a control deck (both cards very much pull you towards aggro/tempo builds), Anger of the Gods is a sideboard card and while Izzet Charm is very good, it certainly doesn't compensate for losing the massive power of the white cards you listed.
Anger of the Gods is going to be incredibly potent against all the new BW Humans decks that will be popping up post JOU,and its good against a lot of other decks that play X/3's or lower, so I feel like it's definitely maindeck-able in a UBR Control list. As far as Lightning Strike, you may be right, it might be better to have Mizzium Mortars instead, but regardless I think the archetype has a shot. By the way the reason I included Ral Zarek is because he's a decent defensive dude plus nets you a bit of ramp while at the same time being a lowkey wincon or a must-remove. You also have Ashiok, who seems like a MB 2-of to me.
Not really. Anger comes down one turn earlier than Supreme Verdict, which isn't a big deal. It's no better than Dissolving Athreos or Xathrid Necromancer on turn 3. BW humans will be solid because of its resiliency to removal, and adding more limited removal isn't going to help that.
Using burn as a primary control option makes no sense pre-rotation.
When you put it that way, you could just play better threats, like Stormbreath Dragon.
Sure, but the idea behind Tribal decks is to abuse the synergy they offer, not to play cards that are individually better in a vacuum.
Minotaur Tribal has quite a few things going for it. For once, it has the ideal curve now for a "midrange-y Aggro deck" with the new 1-drop and Thoughtseize, Ragemonger as a cost reducer and Kragma Warcaller to top things off. Then it also has the 2 best minotaurs ever printed in Boros Reckoner and Mutavault.
It might not be the best deck ever, but it's still a pretty cool and viable Tribal deck, at least for an FNM.
Tribal decks always have synergy if they have even one lord card. By your definition every tribal deck ever meets that standard.
The problem here is that its best creatures are 3-drops, which force it to play midrange instead of aggro. Naya and Gruul end up being much better despite the synergy.
And the thread is "Minotaurs Standard Viable?" not FNM-viable.
Felhide Petrifier seems really good. This +Rageblood Shaman ends the game really quick. I'm going to get called a noob for saying this but Flurry of Horns is a great curve topper. If you have Kragma Warcaller and some of the other "lords," this creates a big presence that would end the game.
We're also playing RB, so we have access to a very large pool of removal, torching the threats and leaving the opponent with bad blocks and trample damage. This is definitely viable in FNM, but could we expect a deck like this to become T2?
T1? (hah, probably not)
Kragma Warcaller and Flurry of Horns are too expensive in what otherwise absolutely needs to be an aggro deck. The fact that they have haste helps, but no more than 2 or 3 between the two of them. More interesting is the addition of Gnarled Scarhide which actually gives the deck a much-needed 1-drop.
Throw these into a RDW shell with burn for reach and maybe you have a Tier 2 deck, but probably not. The problem is that these creatures aren't efficient on their own, and instant-speed removal will absolutely wreck whatever combat math you were counting on.
Kragma Warcaller too expensive? lol that card it's basically the reason why you want to play minotaurs! first of all with ragemonger it becomes pretty cheap, secondly, if you have a look at the discussion about this deck in the standard deck creation sub forum, you'll see how pretty much everyone agrees on the fact that this is NOT an aggro deck. it's midrange.
how could it be an aggro deck when we have only one 1 drop, and two 2 drops that are just meh? you use turns 1-2 for hand disruption and removal (we are playing black...) turn 3 ragemonger, turn 4 ragemonger and kragma warcaller swing for 12.
I've been playing minotaurs for a while now and i'm far more excited about Fellhide Petrifier than Gnarled Scarhide
Read more carefully. He's saying this type of deck NEEDS to be an aggro deck due to its beatdown gameplan, but all of the good tribal cards are too slow. Hence why the 1-drop is relevant.
If you want a midrange beater deck, Gruul and Naya are way better.
The problem is that the deck wouldn't be overpowered at all. Would this have costed 3 mana with an activation cost of 1 it might have spawned a new deck, but one that relies on Thassa and this enchantment a lot, and forces you to play a buch of cards that arent that great if this card gets removed- and enchantment removal in an enchantment-heavy block kinda makes sense, now doesnt it?
The problem is, that this card is really hard to break. Cycling is so good with cards like Rift mentioned above because all those cards automatically make sure you won't run out of gas, making your combo self-sustainable. It's like a storm ritual that can be cast from the graveyard. On the other hand, These scry cards help looking for cards with scry, but they don't actually get them in most cases, since preordain and serum visions aren't reprinted in the format. Because of this, you can easily run out of gas, because you only get 1 card a turn and then the output of this enchantment is quite supper. Again, The rift makes sure that late game, you can cycle a card, draw a card with cycling, and cycle through your deck.
This would be correct if scry was only attached to spells. But the fact that you can get multiple scries per turn with Thassa, Sigiled Starfish, Sigiled Skink, and Stormcaller of Keranos means that they have to be extremely cautious with this. I mean, let's imagine they print this at 3 mana with a 1 activation cost.
T2 Starfish. T3 Thassa. T4 this, tap starfish for a scry and a shock. T5 get a trigger from Thassa, shock. Tap starfish for a shock. Play a Scryland, shock. Cast another Starfish. T6, you get 3 free Shocks, and cast Stormcaller. T7, you get 3 free shocks and then another one for free off of the stormcaller.
It could get very quickly out of control, especially since it can both shut down creatures (and Planeswalkers) and act as its own wincon.
I would be more than happy to play against this deck even with the buffed version. Even playing the most synergistic cards, the deck is slow, and if I remove the enchantment its game over because those cards do little on their own.
Except for the fact that all the pieces help you dig into Knowledge and Power if you don't draw one or it gets blown up. I really think it would have been problematic, and I'm guessing the initial version was more pushed, which is why we've ended up with such a weak final version.
As I and others have pointed out, it's not great even as the buffed version even if it's rolling properly. A couple bolts on T7 isn't even close to, say, dropping an Aetherling or Elspeth. And that's ignoring the fact that only one card needs to stick for either to be a threat.
On top of that, a bunch of scry 1s aren't necessarily going to dig up your key enchantment, especially with the copious amounts of enchantment removal in block alone. You're being overoptimistic about assembling the combo.
The problem is that the deck wouldn't be overpowered at all. Would this have costed 3 mana with an activation cost of 1 it might have spawned a new deck, but one that relies on Thassa and this enchantment a lot, and forces you to play a buch of cards that arent that great if this card gets removed- and enchantment removal in an enchantment-heavy block kinda makes sense, now doesnt it?
The problem is, that this card is really hard to break. Cycling is so good with cards like Rift mentioned above because all those cards automatically make sure you won't run out of gas, making your combo self-sustainable. It's like a storm ritual that can be cast from the graveyard. On the other hand, These scry cards help looking for cards with scry, but they don't actually get them in most cases, since preordain and serum visions aren't reprinted in the format. Because of this, you can easily run out of gas, because you only get 1 card a turn and then the output of this enchantment is quite supper. Again, The rift makes sure that late game, you can cycle a card, draw a card with cycling, and cycle through your deck.
This would be correct if scry was only attached to spells. But the fact that you can get multiple scries per turn with Thassa, Sigiled Starfish, Sigiled Skink, and Stormcaller of Keranos means that they have to be extremely cautious with this. I mean, let's imagine they print this at 3 mana with a 1 activation cost.
T2 Starfish. T3 Thassa. T4 this, tap starfish for a scry and a shock. T5 get a trigger from Thassa, shock. Tap starfish for a shock. Play a Scryland, shock. Cast another Starfish. T6, you get 3 free Shocks, and cast Stormcaller. T7, you get 3 free shocks and then another one for free off of the stormcaller.
It could get very quickly out of control, especially since it can both shut down creatures (and Planeswalkers) and act as its own wincon.
I would be more than happy to play against this deck even with the buffed version. Even playing the most synergistic cards, the deck is slow, and if I remove the enchantment its game over because those cards do little on their own.
Unless you're a monoblue player or potentially discussing Block Constructed, I can't understand the overreaction to this card. It's impact in the vast majority of games will be that of Wear // Tear, Disenchant, etc.
It's very powerful. I like it a lot. I feel bad for the Thassa decks. It is a bit of a fun killer, but its effect is being vastly overstated in this thread.
That's part of the problem though. The deities aren't as playable as they should be if they're the format-defining cards that WotC advertises them as. They're simply not strong enough to warrant this level of hate. Now that there's such a powerful hate card out, this supposed staple of the format will likely never see the light of day, even post rotation.
I love it, I play U/B Control, and already splashed white for Merciless Eviction MD, Blood Baron and 2x Revoke Existence SB, and I was considering taking out the 2 white sorceries. Now I get it at instant speed for the exact card I was targetting? You threw in a Lobotomy kicker on the end for FREE? Wizards, I love you too!
And for all the players screaming about hate cards, watch how good they work when people don't get to their Deicide in time to matter. You've got your pick of 3 Gods in 2 color, and 6 Gods in 3 Color. MonoU isn't overly reliant on Thassa, MonoB barely uses Erebos. This makes things fair. Especially since it can rip the god out of your hand and library. None of the other Theros Block answers come even close to this, seeing as 2 of those 5 spells put it in the GY, 2 exile a single copy at Sorcery speed, and that last one puts it back in the library nd shuffles, which could turn around and put it back on the top anyway. Aggro players continued to tell Control players Things like "Quit whining" when game swinging creatures like Craterhoof Behemoth dropped, and if we didn't have a counter, there was nothing to do but take the loss. Or when things like Thragtusk EtB and LtB with something to show for it. Now we get to rip your precious little god of the field and out of your library and these guys are all like "No fair!" and "It's unfun". It's unfun if you don't care to do something like this with a spell. It's about time you learn that, despite how I have felt about this in the past, Wizards prints cards for everybody. Use the ones you want, and deal with the ones you don't wanna see. Seems fair to me. Btw, a simple card like Ranger's Guile Counters this. You have answers too, start playing magic.
Also, I don't understand why this card isn't Black? It seem pretty metal for a Magic Card.
All you're doing is arguing for how good the card is at what it does. Yes, it's a powerful hate card against its target. No one's denying that.
The problem is where I bolded your statement. The deities are supposed to be the format-defining powerhouses, but even without much hate they're not seeing a ton of play. There's one deck built almost entirely around Thassa . . . and that's it. Xenagos shows up in a tier 2 deck I guess, but the other major devotion option, Mono B, doesn't even run Erebos. Mogis showed up in BWR control decks early but was hardly necessary, and that deck fell out of favor fairly fast.
I'm with everyone else. This is a powerful hate card against cards that didn't need hating on. They were supposed to be a significant presence in standard, they arguably weren't as much as they should have been, and now if you build around them (as you must to trigger devotion), you risk getting blown out by one sideboard card.
Mana Confluence is potentially the biggest. It gives the mana fixing to multicolor aggro that multicolor midrange/control have had all along from the scrylands, but the scrylands are too slow to support an aggro strategy. Now multicolor aggro might actually exist in block (before the heroic decks were more midrange/combo) - things like T1 akroan crusader T2 phalanx leader are now possible. And in standard, shocklands+mana confluence provides 8 sources of fixing, which gives more than enough consistency to aggro if it has the low cost cards have the power to kill early.
If we're seriously discussing the value of this card, I'll add a few points:
(1) Its status as an enchantment creature is nigh irrelevant. The only enchantment-matters cards printed in Theros must be played BEFORE successive enchantments - Constellation triggers on ETB. As a 2-drop and due to its stats, you would only want to play this card before those constellation cards hit the board.
(2) With #1 in mind, this card is arguably worse than Yoked Ox. 1 mana for 1 toughness is a very raw deal, and I can't see the 1 life/turn being more important than putting a roadblock up one turn earlier.
I'm also very confused why this thing was printed at uncommon rarity.
Win-more is a horribly misdeployed concept. There are times where you need to close out the game fast even if you are "winning." Aggro is the most obvious example of that - they need to kill before a board wipe or their key pieces get taken out.
While the unbanning of Ancestral Visions helped, we thought that Thing in the Ice would be the finisher it's always wanted, but the card just wasn't good enough. This card is a reasonable clock and doesn't need to come down before moon to be valuable.
People don't understand what win more means anymore. Especially with aggro decks.
You got bamboozled. The text is pretty plain.
Pay more attention. I wasn't directly comparing Anger to Supreme Verdict. I explaining that the speed only doesn't matter when you can D-Sphere, Dissolve, Deicide, Revoke, or otherwise use any of of the numerous answers that white has Athreos on the same turn you could drop an Anger. As I said, "It's no better than dissolving Athreos or Xathrid Necromancer on turn 3." Using those options takes care of Athreos himself and the weenies, whereas Anger leaves Athreos on the board. You couldn't have attacked any more fragile strawman, grtz.
Not really. Anger comes down one turn earlier than Supreme Verdict, which isn't a big deal. It's no better than Dissolving Athreos or Xathrid Necromancer on turn 3. BW humans will be solid because of its resiliency to removal, and adding more limited removal isn't going to help that.
Using burn as a primary control option makes no sense pre-rotation.
Tribal decks always have synergy if they have even one lord card. By your definition every tribal deck ever meets that standard.
The problem here is that its best creatures are 3-drops, which force it to play midrange instead of aggro. Naya and Gruul end up being much better despite the synergy.
And the thread is "Minotaurs Standard Viable?" not FNM-viable.
Read more carefully. He's saying this type of deck NEEDS to be an aggro deck due to its beatdown gameplan, but all of the good tribal cards are too slow. Hence why the 1-drop is relevant.
If you want a midrange beater deck, Gruul and Naya are way better.
As I and others have pointed out, it's not great even as the buffed version even if it's rolling properly. A couple bolts on T7 isn't even close to, say, dropping an Aetherling or Elspeth. And that's ignoring the fact that only one card needs to stick for either to be a threat.
On top of that, a bunch of scry 1s aren't necessarily going to dig up your key enchantment, especially with the copious amounts of enchantment removal in block alone. You're being overoptimistic about assembling the combo.
I would be more than happy to play against this deck even with the buffed version. Even playing the most synergistic cards, the deck is slow, and if I remove the enchantment its game over because those cards do little on their own.
That's part of the problem though. The deities aren't as playable as they should be if they're the format-defining cards that WotC advertises them as. They're simply not strong enough to warrant this level of hate. Now that there's such a powerful hate card out, this supposed staple of the format will likely never see the light of day, even post rotation.
All you're doing is arguing for how good the card is at what it does. Yes, it's a powerful hate card against its target. No one's denying that.
The problem is where I bolded your statement. The deities are supposed to be the format-defining powerhouses, but even without much hate they're not seeing a ton of play. There's one deck built almost entirely around Thassa . . . and that's it. Xenagos shows up in a tier 2 deck I guess, but the other major devotion option, Mono B, doesn't even run Erebos. Mogis showed up in BWR control decks early but was hardly necessary, and that deck fell out of favor fairly fast.
I'm with everyone else. This is a powerful hate card against cards that didn't need hating on. They were supposed to be a significant presence in standard, they arguably weren't as much as they should have been, and now if you build around them (as you must to trigger devotion), you risk getting blown out by one sideboard card.
(1) Its status as an enchantment creature is nigh irrelevant. The only enchantment-matters cards printed in Theros must be played BEFORE successive enchantments - Constellation triggers on ETB. As a 2-drop and due to its stats, you would only want to play this card before those constellation cards hit the board.
(2) With #1 in mind, this card is arguably worse than Yoked Ox. 1 mana for 1 toughness is a very raw deal, and I can't see the 1 life/turn being more important than putting a roadblock up one turn earlier.
I'm also very confused why this thing was printed at uncommon rarity.