The land hate that exists, besides blood moon, is narrow and inefficient. People want the ability to drop one card in the sideboard that will hurt tron, valakut, and temple the same way rest in peace hurts graveyards and stony silence hurts affinity.
Blood moon isnt enough. It warps your own deck options, and is only available to red decks, and can actually still be too slow on the draw (t3 tron or t3 tks).
I dont want sinkhole in modern, I want something at one or two mana that specifically shuts off horse ***** hard to interact with lands without necessarily being mana denial. I want to put 2 or 3 of these in my sideboard and check that off as a valid measure against tron, temple, and valakut the same way I drop in a stony or rip vs decks counting on artifacts or graveyard.
Ghost quarter is a great way to combat late game manlands or utility lands; it is not a good way to stop land decks in the first four turns (its a speedbump at best and will hurt you as much as them way too often)
How is 1 mana turn off your Tron lands or 2 mana turn them off and draw a card 'narrow and inefficient'? And if you want something that shuts off lands the same way as RIP and Stony that you can 'drop on...in the sideboard that wil hurt...', play Blood Moon and a few more basics. Doing that is a similar deck building restriction to not playing things that care about your graveyard or artifacts you need to activate. And if you are unwilling to do that, don't whine that the format needs a new version of the exact card it already has. Just because it's not in white or you don't feel like playing what there is doesn't mean it needs to be anything new.
And why should you have the ability to hate valakut decks the same as Tron? Valakut decks are combo decks, just because it happens to be a land combo doesn't mean you should be able to fight it the exact same way you do with Tron. Either play the cards that can hate these decks or accept a bad matchup and let the meta adjust. That's why I don't whine about Affinity or Burn. I understand why they are bad matchups and do what I can against them and let the meta adjust.
How do you suppose players fetch their basics before this when they only get one turn to do so? Also, I'm pretty sure this stuff should be in the 'Please print this so I can play it in modern thread.'
They play one fetch on turn one and name whatever color they need going forward. Or they use thoughtseize, wear tear, spell snare, nature's claim, ect and just answer it.
Also, formatting comment, take out 'starting with you'. It's redundant. Any time the game asks multiple players to make a choice those choices are made in APNAP order. So, whoevers turn it is first then following in turn order. Unless you want to give this flash for some reason and still make the first choice yourself.
Correct but if you look at cards that require choices, current templating makes explicit who starts. (The will of the council mechanic, for example)
That's text for an ability in a multiplayer specific set that is there specifically to remind players who may not know what order to do things how that's actually done. And in multiplayer, voting in APNAP order is very important so it needs to be spelled out in conspiracy. And supplemental multiplayer sets do not set the current templating standards.
Templating semantics aside, I don't think your card is necessary as I find your arguments to be lacking in enough substance to sway that opinion.
I don't understand people clamoring for more land hate. There is already so much. There is a good one mana land destruction spell in Seas Claim and a good two mana one in Spreading seas. A wealth of decent 3 mana land destruction spells as well as Blood Moon at 3 mana. And at 4 mana you have multiple options to exile all of a given non-basic land from deck and hand. All of these help keep ETron and regular Tron in check. And against Titanshift, the 1-3 mana options are pretty good at slowing it down if they are on the titan plan and a simple counterspell stops Scapeshift. I don't understand people clamoring for a 'safety valve' when it already exists in so many cards at 1-4 mana in a variety of colors. And when the presence of Aggro and D&T both are already safety valves in the format for these decks.
How do you suppose players fetch their basics before this when they only get one turn to do so? Also, I'm pretty sure this stuff should be in the 'Please print this so I can play it in modern thread.'
Also, formatting comment, take out 'starting with you'. It's redundant. Any time the game asks multiple players to make a choice those choices are made in APNAP order. So, whoevers turn it is first then following in turn order. Unless you want to give this flash for some reason and still make the first choice yourself.
Try pulse of murasa it does work against Burn while grabbing back a fetchland to progress the game plan or a STE to block and ramp. Plus it has applications in a bunch of matchups. Even rebuying a Prime Time against control when they tap out on your end step.
Edit: I've been busy recovering from surgery and getting ready to move back to school so I haven't had time to work with the Primer in a bit. I just noticed how few cards are listed in the sideboard guide. That will be my first priority on the Primer when I get time.
I've long discounted the mirror as we were never really that popular. I would think that crumble to dust could be reasonable as mirror hate. I used to run it in a Tron heavy meta and it came in the few times I saw the mirror and the many Tron and RUGShift matchups. It did quite well. A witchbane orb can be removed. It's much harder to return your 4 valakuts from exile.
As for witchbane orb itself, it does have applications in other matches. Probably more than Crumble as it stops Burn and discard. But it comes down too late. You are probably better off with Leyline in your board along with a sacred foundry and a plains just in case. But I'm not sure you need to worry that much about it. I haven't devoted much thought to the mirror, but I would imagine Crumble is probably better than hexproof.
I don't understand anyone asking for rules that are entirely unenforceable around foreign language cards. This is an international game where people of all races and languages can come together and play. Most of the time you will know what staples do off of the art and you can ask a judge for oracle text.
You can't institute some time extension rule because it is entirely unenforceable and abusable. You would have to have players mark on their decklist whether or not they had cards outside of the predominantly spoken language of the area then give each of them a time extension. That's way too much to ask of the judges at any event. In a PPTQ you will have 1 Judge per 16 matches usually. It's unreasonable to ask them to monitor that and have multiple different time clocks going. And at larger events you will have even fewer judges per match and now not only is every round going to time because of the size of the event, it's going to extra time on half the matches and grinding the day to a halt. And it's so easy to abuse this. Just get whatever random language outside of your country's tongue is cheap for a couple of playsets of commons and boom you have an unfair time extension.
I understand being frustrated at having to slog through some Brew deck in a random handful of languages, but this is not a problem. Just call a judge and make sure to carefully write out the oracle text to make it take long enough to get the 1 minute extension if it matters that much to you. And if it really is some wonky brew, you would be rereading the cards anyway so who cares if you are reading it off your notes or their card. Don't make an issue out of nothing just because you got frustrated.
One card that gets forgotten about and was left out of that list last page is sea's claim. Also, I don't remember if it was listed or not and don't really care to check, but beast within is a solid hate card. It is never really that dead in a matchup as it answers everything and is decent land hate.
Yeah, I guess I needed a sanity check. Although I do think Tasigur may be better than Tracker as it doesn't die to bolt or push. But still, probably not worth it against Jund or other grindy midrange decks and not as good as Thrun against control.
Good point. Wasn't really thinking there. Well, it's probably decent against Titanshift. But I still don't think it's backbreaking. The deck runs 27 lands and a lot of basics. Plus, you could always play Splendid Reclamation.
From the Ashes seems like it would be a great reprint for both standard and modern.
Enough decks play basics in standard where this should never mana screw anyone. And it would force modern players to run more basics, as well as keeping Tron/Valakut strategies in check.
Standard really heavily relies on nonbasics. Sure, Mono red and mono black right now are pretty big and run a lot of basics, but try playing 3 color vehicles or even UR control without 4 aether hub and a bunch of non basics. But that doesn't matter so much anyway.
My real point, valakut decks already run 7 or sometimes more basic mountains. All casting a from the ashes will do is either trigger their valakut some more or give them slightly few lands in deck for scapeshift. It's almost never gonna do anything relevant. Tron and ETron though, probably destroys them.
Edit: and if it ever became popular, Titanshift could even up the number of basics. Cutting a fetch and 1-2 duals. If blood moon isn't seeing much play, could even go down to two basic forests and stay at a higher number of dials. With sheltered thicket, you might could even go down to 4 fetches and keep up a bunch of dials and basic mountains.
I'm gonna second what Reymon said and part of what FCG said. Try out the Chameleon colossus before anything else. After that, STE and Wood Elves are MVPs. If you splash black, Fatal Push and abrupt decay maindeck deal with any and all Shadows and Tasigur/Angler often don't present a fast enough clock to stop you. Especially after being blocked once or twice. I keep two Terminates in the side and have been considering a murderous cut since we don't care about our graveyard and it can often be live turn 2-3 if the opponent has made us discard a couple of times.
Question for people here. After considering a murderous cut for a bit it's made me think that maybe Tasigur as a card drawing sideboard threat might be good in the black splash. What do you think?
Then call those decks out by name or call them 'lands' decks or 'land matters' decks. But big mana is a bad name that is not descriptive. Especially when all three of those decks are doing such radically different things.
Elves is designed to make 3 mana on turn 2 then a billion mana on turn 3. Sometimes it makes over 10 mana on turn two with heritage Druid and nettle sentinel. Does that make it broken or a 'big mana' deck?
You have to define big mana some way other than making more than x mana on turn x.
I just can't buy into this idea that big mana decks are terrorizing tier 1. E-tron has close to a 50-50 MU against GDS, the most played deck. It's a dog against affinity, and titanshift isn't much better there. Titanshift is still weak to combo and storm seems to be keeping things in check there. Of course they're both really good decks, but I don't think they're warping things, and I DEFINITELY don't things are anywhere close to clear enough to be saying they're the strongest decks in the format right now.
I agree, big mana isn't going to be a threat to the meta as long as Burn, Affinity, Storm, and Ad Nauseum are around. I am not sure how E tron matches up to those, but Titanshift has a very hard time against those decks. Affinity is solidly beatable especially with the Black splash people were getting excited about a few months ago. And burn matters a lot on the dice roll and drawing removal. But storm is actively bad. Also, GDS is an unfavored matchup. Their discard plus clock plus Stubborn Denial makes winning pretty challenging.
Random side note. Does anyone remember that RUG delver list with Probe, Hooting mandrills, and the blue Shoal? That was such a garbage matchup for Titanshift that it felt unwinnable. Now, there's probably no data about it as neither were popular decks, but it was atrocious.
If you plan to use scapeshift and don't expect it to be discarded or countered, you can get all your basic forests first. If you are on the Titan plan, get yourself to 5 mountains in play then stop getting mountains in play if you can. 5 mountains means you haven't wasted any potential valakut triggers and any mountain you get from here on out once Titan gets some valakuts for you are live for triggers.
And thank you to everyone for wishing me a speedy recovery. It means a lot to me and I really appreciate it.
How is 1 mana turn off your Tron lands or 2 mana turn them off and draw a card 'narrow and inefficient'? And if you want something that shuts off lands the same way as RIP and Stony that you can 'drop on...in the sideboard that wil hurt...', play Blood Moon and a few more basics. Doing that is a similar deck building restriction to not playing things that care about your graveyard or artifacts you need to activate. And if you are unwilling to do that, don't whine that the format needs a new version of the exact card it already has. Just because it's not in white or you don't feel like playing what there is doesn't mean it needs to be anything new.
And why should you have the ability to hate valakut decks the same as Tron? Valakut decks are combo decks, just because it happens to be a land combo doesn't mean you should be able to fight it the exact same way you do with Tron. Either play the cards that can hate these decks or accept a bad matchup and let the meta adjust. That's why I don't whine about Affinity or Burn. I understand why they are bad matchups and do what I can against them and let the meta adjust.
That's text for an ability in a multiplayer specific set that is there specifically to remind players who may not know what order to do things how that's actually done. And in multiplayer, voting in APNAP order is very important so it needs to be spelled out in conspiracy. And supplemental multiplayer sets do not set the current templating standards.
Templating semantics aside, I don't think your card is necessary as I find your arguments to be lacking in enough substance to sway that opinion.
I don't understand people clamoring for more land hate. There is already so much. There is a good one mana land destruction spell in Seas Claim and a good two mana one in Spreading seas. A wealth of decent 3 mana land destruction spells as well as Blood Moon at 3 mana. And at 4 mana you have multiple options to exile all of a given non-basic land from deck and hand. All of these help keep ETron and regular Tron in check. And against Titanshift, the 1-3 mana options are pretty good at slowing it down if they are on the titan plan and a simple counterspell stops Scapeshift. I don't understand people clamoring for a 'safety valve' when it already exists in so many cards at 1-4 mana in a variety of colors. And when the presence of Aggro and D&T both are already safety valves in the format for these decks.
Also, formatting comment, take out 'starting with you'. It's redundant. Any time the game asks multiple players to make a choice those choices are made in APNAP order. So, whoevers turn it is first then following in turn order. Unless you want to give this flash for some reason and still make the first choice yourself.
Edit: I've been busy recovering from surgery and getting ready to move back to school so I haven't had time to work with the Primer in a bit. I just noticed how few cards are listed in the sideboard guide. That will be my first priority on the Primer when I get time.
As for witchbane orb itself, it does have applications in other matches. Probably more than Crumble as it stops Burn and discard. But it comes down too late. You are probably better off with Leyline in your board along with a sacred foundry and a plains just in case. But I'm not sure you need to worry that much about it. I haven't devoted much thought to the mirror, but I would imagine Crumble is probably better than hexproof.
You can't institute some time extension rule because it is entirely unenforceable and abusable. You would have to have players mark on their decklist whether or not they had cards outside of the predominantly spoken language of the area then give each of them a time extension. That's way too much to ask of the judges at any event. In a PPTQ you will have 1 Judge per 16 matches usually. It's unreasonable to ask them to monitor that and have multiple different time clocks going. And at larger events you will have even fewer judges per match and now not only is every round going to time because of the size of the event, it's going to extra time on half the matches and grinding the day to a halt. And it's so easy to abuse this. Just get whatever random language outside of your country's tongue is cheap for a couple of playsets of commons and boom you have an unfair time extension.
I understand being frustrated at having to slog through some Brew deck in a random handful of languages, but this is not a problem. Just call a judge and make sure to carefully write out the oracle text to make it take long enough to get the 1 minute extension if it matters that much to you. And if it really is some wonky brew, you would be rereading the cards anyway so who cares if you are reading it off your notes or their card. Don't make an issue out of nothing just because you got frustrated.
Standard really heavily relies on nonbasics. Sure, Mono red and mono black right now are pretty big and run a lot of basics, but try playing 3 color vehicles or even UR control without 4 aether hub and a bunch of non basics. But that doesn't matter so much anyway.
My real point, valakut decks already run 7 or sometimes more basic mountains. All casting a from the ashes will do is either trigger their valakut some more or give them slightly few lands in deck for scapeshift. It's almost never gonna do anything relevant. Tron and ETron though, probably destroys them.
Edit: and if it ever became popular, Titanshift could even up the number of basics. Cutting a fetch and 1-2 duals. If blood moon isn't seeing much play, could even go down to two basic forests and stay at a higher number of dials. With sheltered thicket, you might could even go down to 4 fetches and keep up a bunch of dials and basic mountains.
Question for people here. After considering a murderous cut for a bit it's made me think that maybe Tasigur as a card drawing sideboard threat might be good in the black splash. What do you think?
You have to define big mana some way other than making more than x mana on turn x.
I agree, big mana isn't going to be a threat to the meta as long as Burn, Affinity, Storm, and Ad Nauseum are around. I am not sure how E tron matches up to those, but Titanshift has a very hard time against those decks. Affinity is solidly beatable especially with the Black splash people were getting excited about a few months ago. And burn matters a lot on the dice roll and drawing removal. But storm is actively bad. Also, GDS is an unfavored matchup. Their discard plus clock plus Stubborn Denial makes winning pretty challenging.
Random side note. Does anyone remember that RUG delver list with Probe, Hooting mandrills, and the blue Shoal? That was such a garbage matchup for Titanshift that it felt unwinnable. Now, there's probably no data about it as neither were popular decks, but it was atrocious.
And thank you to everyone for wishing me a speedy recovery. It means a lot to me and I really appreciate it.