Formal and official announcement, I won't be a Mod here in 2 weeks time. I'll be here long enough to find someone to replace me, which you can apply here!
So with that formal announcement out of the way I get my 15 minutes of being sappy and sentimental. I'm sure some have you have noticed that I've been much less active lately on the forums. It has everything to do with jobs. I've been at MTGsal for 7 years and I've loved every second of it. I started here in college, and really did a lot of growing up.
So much so if you dive into the code... you'll find my user name is actually KidLantern... but I dropped the Kid part because I started to joke about becoming an all grown up Lantern. I've watched my user name go from Green Lantern jokes, to pumpkin, to a completely new archetype that people think I play now. Also.. I don't play Lantern.
I'm getting off track, but I am really attached to this place, so saying my semi goodbye got me a little emotional. The point I want to make is, ya'll helped me grow. In really real life I'm a movie and television producer, so no joke, even trying to manage uncooperative users has helped me in gain the tools to advance in my career.
And thats why I've had to step down. Its hard to move on from something so rooted in me as a person. Don't get me wrong, I'll still be around sometimes. And in a weird way, ya'll are likely still going to see my work a lot more now that I've been promoted to Executive Producer. I know the staff I've helped make here are the best people to help grow the modern community to reach ever greater heights. I'm thankful for them too, because I can rest assured that my leaving won't cause major disruptions.
At the end of the day, the community was the main draw for me. When I started, if you can believe it or not, Modern wasn't even what the format was called, and most of the player base thought it would die. It actually had quite a small following AND most stores refused to run the format. I started out here running tournaments online for Modern because people who wanted to play the format didn't have a store. I was genuinely worried the format would die.
But wow! Its an FMN format, has pros playing, and is one of the most popular things to do in magic. With huge scores of you all talking about it. I don't really think anything I did was that impressive. A drop in the bucket, but I still couldn't be prouder of the format, and the people who made it possible. So this is just a huge thank you to all of you for giving me a place to play and talk about the thing I love, and helping me get to where I am as a person.
Well... I guess thats really it! Anyone who reads my posts knows I'm always wordy as hell. So this isn't goodbye, Its just a see ya later and a thank you.
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- epoa
- Registered User
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Member for 10 years, 3 months, and 15 days
Last active Sat, Mar, 30 2024 21:13:48
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- 132 Total Posts
- 28 Thanks
1
Yeah, current theme is no black, still. I miss the old days where my favorite color stood for something in our archetype.
It’s been mostly successful. It’s strong against a good number of the field and only really has a tougher matchup vs Spirits and Humans. It seems the cascadeless version has the same good and bad matchups as the cascade version, but the w/l percentage is push further in that direction (i.e. our matchup against spirits becomes worse, despite already being bad; but our matchup against control becomes better, despite already being slightly favorable), with the only exceptions being that cascadeless decks are better against thoughtseize matchups. Luckily, the versatility in sideboard options makes games 2 and 3 feel a lot less clunky. Being able to run shattering spree instead of ingot chewer feels so much better.
Overall, Cascade version feels “safer” walking into an unknown meta and cascadeless feels better walking into a meta where a majority of the floor is expected to be 50/50 or better.
1
I’ll probably be cutting one of her so I only run one.
So, my main reasons are her strong removal and her ramp potential. Several times now, I’ll cast her turn three, then immediately electro into RB. She’s extremely powerful against an empty board because she easily kills anything that comes down or threatens opponent’s life totals if they don’t deal with her. Her ramp is great at all stages of the game. The only issue is her potential to exile something we need, which drastically decreases with As Foretold on the field. Serum Visions can also influence her lines of play.
Ultimately, I think she’s a perfectly reasonable 1-of that offers a lot to our game. Unfortunately, unlike Nahiri (who can cycle), a second copy in hand is usually more of a problem than anything.
1
Even if you have the Don suspended, you can a) probably recover faster then them because you have more control on the timing, and b) you have big boy barry coming off suspend in a couple turns facing a board devoid of permanence.
I’ve found Electro actually gives you a lot more control over the pace of the game. You don’t always have to armageddon your opponent. Sometimes just hitting one or two of their lands can set up the win.
After I finish streamlining my list, I’ll take it to events and post results. As it stands, running white for Nahiri+Emrakul is actually a great boon. Discarding Emrakuls to constantly cycle through the deck gives a lot of inevitability in the grindier matchups.
5
Simple. When you cast it, look your opponent dead in the eye and say “yiggity Yargle, I’ve come to bargle,” and watch them surrender in fear.
1
We are a prison deck, yes, but we aren’t the type of prison that provides a true lock. Because our primary prison mechanic is a sorcery, not a permanent or group of permanents, I believe we need to focus on one of two strategies: recursion of the prison effect or winning after the prison effect. Blood moon slows down opponents after a lock, but it doesn’t stop them. What if that moon were a wincon instead? What about matches where moon isn’t as effective? What about hand disruption matches where they start fetching basics after the first IoK/TS? In our current meta, these questions are legitimate concerns. When our opponent can win off of one mana spells like Death’s Shadow decks and burn decks or out-attrition our deck with their superior card advantage engines once they get that first island into Serum Visions, our lock is severely weakened.
Blood Moon main isn’t where we want to be. I see it as a trap. All because blue moon gets free wins off dropping it doesn’t mean it’s an insta-main in decks that run basics, otherwise you’d see burn lists mainboarding it. I understand running 2-3 in the side for those matchups, but mainboard should be focused on streamlining our main plan: restoring balance as often as possible or winning after bringing about board peace.
Besides, can’t sacrifice to Gargadon. 0/10
Sorry for the late and short replies. I tend to a busy lifestyle and only really get around to responding from my phone. Still owe Jenn a follow-up review on that data.
3
See, the thing is, you’re summing the entire success of the unset to the secondhand market as though that is the sole reason people ever buy packs. Full art lands are still worth less than the pack. Same with full art tokens. Believe it or not, people do spend money on just having fun. I’ve already bought 5 boxes myself and many of my friends have bough several boxes themselves and not one of us bought them because the land or tokens. Those were bonuses. This is a fun draft set and people have taken notice of that.
Another huge impact is the temporary legality of the card in commander. While technically, playgroups still decide, many playgroups go by the vanilla rules, so once these cards became legal in their favorite format, it was free game.
It was a culmination of things. I’m not saying the full art land and token didn’t contribute. They most definitely did, but they weren’t the sole contributors or even the majority. Contraptions, fun draft format, wacky cards, overwhelming fun, the lack of an unset in 13 years, and the legailty in commander were all huge contributors to the success of Unstable.
1
Very much yes. Being able to cast spells at instant speed is insanely powerful. Threatening to be able to nuke child at any point even while she's in the command zone is also very political. This works especially well with tutors.
3
If my thoughts were to be summed up into a post, it would be this one. The entire purpose of the sideboard is to better your matchups or protect you from other sideboards. People keep throwing variance around like life itself isn't already a lottery game and being able to sideboard cards that shut down or stop a deck from shutting down is ruining the format by making certain cards more powerful than others against certain matchups.
2
Those possibilities add up. Hitting something relevant, drawing multiple collosi, dead draws all add up and like I've explained before, this deck cannot afford dead draws the way others can.
I don't understand this statement. With your planeswalkers you get rid of extra wincons but you lose more to not drawing wincons? Mulligans, timing yor balances, and knowing your matchups can help if you're having problems closing games.
This last paragraph I have serious problems with. You just go for the ad hominem argument when we were having an otherwise civilised discussion over how to properly construct a Restore Balance based deck. Yes, my experience is different than yours. I haven't built the artifact version because I don't feel it's right for the meta so i don't have 100 games playtested on it. But what i do have is over 6 years of experience on my versions of the deck (longer than the primer's been around), tens of thousands of games played on it, and hundreds of small events won (because only recently have I been financially sound enough to go to larger tournaments than gpts and fnms, to which there have been no modern ones in my area). I've been playtesting this deck through several metas and streamlining it to match; but yeah, must be the player difference opposed to the deck i guess.
1