personally, my issue is it has too many MU's were the outcome is more heavily decided by the cards in the decks than by the pilots. your 30/70 & 70/30 MU's ala tron v GB/x.
it's annoying, but i don't necessarily think that means its ban worthy, though its been several months since i really tried to keep up with where the meta's at, maybe it's banworthy now? seems preeeetty unlikely tho
i've been thinking about stone rain for a while, but have trouble passing up on the incidental damage. i still run reckoners so my list already demands alot of red mana regardless of molten rain vs stone rain, i think a list like mine is better off sticking with molten. but a sans reckoner list is better with stone
MATCH 1 loss 0-2 vs TitanBreach
G1 & G2 i couldn't find blood moon, i feel like this match is very winnable if we land moon. but alas, after mulling to 5 looking for moon both games, i just couldn't find it. it was a real shame cause this guy aggressively avoided fetching basic forests.
MATCH 2 win 2-0 vs kitchen-table-vampires
not much to really say here.
MATCH 3 win 2-0 vs kitchen-table-pariah-reckoner-madcap-experiement-combo
this was a weird week. dunno how he got his win.
MATCH 4 win 2-1 vs BG midrange
G1 land turn 1 relic, outvalued him for a couple turns before landing a moon.
G2 got my relic discarded turn 1, he then follows it up with a turn 2 bitterblossom. i draw tons o' lands before hitting a scrying sheets to help mitigate the issue. ultimatly it came down to him winning the race at 1 life. i feel like i played a bit too greedily overall and the game was still very winnable if i had to replay it.
G3 i had a snap keep of a nigh-unbeatable 7. 1 relic, 2 mountains, 2 jets, 2 moons. he had to mull to 5. aylmao.
overall a pretty odd week, but 2 real MU's is better than 0. i liked the scourges, as expected. didn't have a good chance to try out the needles in their intended MUs tho.
Just 5-0'd another League. Shout out to whoever was in here playing a one of Commune with Lava. I'd been meaning to test it, and finally got around to it today. The online meta seems to have a lot less combo today, as I played against mostly fair decks. Commune was good in the grindy matches.
Trinisphere is good still as well. Playing 2, and it's solid vs combo decks. Also pretty good vs Burn and little Zoo, especially with Molten Rain to set up a bit of a lock on them.
ey im da commune guy! what's your list lookin like?
Very sorry, you'd think with all that energy I put into it I could've just scrolled back up a couple posts and refreshed myself on your actual position.
Whoops
Anyway, still prefer needle + fallout plan, I don't feel we have the pressure needed to kill them in the time gained by stopping bloom. Maybe if you're already running SSG and rabblemasters. Otherwise something more long term like needle is the stronger option.
I've been looking for an effecient way to improve our MUs against Tron and combo after scrubbing out of my last open. Day 1 was actually all combo and Tron.
i'd rather play pithing needle.
name lightning storm vs ad nauseum
against tron, name karn, o-stone, w/e.
infect and control are already really good MU's
it is cute as hell tho
Pretty sure you're right. To be fair, I think it sets Ad Nauseum back a bit further, but in general you're right that Pithing Needle is just better.
i'd like to respectfully disagree with the underlined bit.
with the pith naming lightning storm their only three options to kill us become
A) remove the needle
B) laboratory maniac
C) conflagrate
with hope of ghirapur they have the following options
A) prevent hope from dealing combat damage
B) wait/survive one more turn and combo out anyway
B part 2) combo off on your upkeep after the turn you silence them, the combo is instant speed, thusyou've not actually slowed them down whatsoever.
C) combo off before hope can attack/before you decide to pop it
i just scoured the last 10 or so pages of the ad nauseum primer and here's what i found.
ad nauseum doesn't run conflagrate anymore, or at least, if anyone in that primer was running it (or even linking performing lists) i missed it
ad nauseum runs 2-3 ways to remove artifacts, and notably they all seem to be at the 2 CMC spot. (hurkyl's recall, echoing truth, wear // tear with the former two being the most common)
ad nauseum often runs similar numbers of fog effects
hurkyl's, e-truth, and co. all work against both hope and needle. however, ethereal haze, darkness, and holy dayonly work against hope.
already, you've given your opponent more options by running hope over needle.
hope is also a 1-turn silence. meaning you have to know exactly when to pop it or you lose, additionally, you need to be able to capitalize on that one turn (assuming they can't just kill you at upkeep, which they should) both of these points put additional pressure on you that needle doesn't. needle solely asks that you get it into play and protect it.
of course, needle doesn't stop maniac. but volcanic fallout does. and all the pact of negations in the world can't stop it.
in any case, the maniac is a moot point. maniac is their backup plan, it's what they resort to if lightning storm can't do the job. which hope doesn't adequately prevent as i mentioned above.
if you're running pithing needle in conjunction with a chalice on 2, they've got no way to kill you. unless they still run conflagrate, which seems to have fallen out of favor.
pithing needle > chalice on 2 > find a relic of progenitus (for when they discard conflagrate at EoT, if they run it, which they likely wont) & a volcanic fallout.
if you do all that, they cannot win. period. well, in the case of the vast majority of their lists anyway.
i know that's easier said than done (to say the very least), but it's at least a real line of play.
compare that to
play hope > connect with hope and pop it on just the right turn with the correct reads > hope they don't play lightning storm (???) > kill them from likely 10-15 life.
maybe mix in some chalice's for added security.
doesn't seem reasonable.
i'd rather play pithing needle.
name lightning storm vs ad nauseum
against tron, name karn, o-stone, w/e.
infect and control are already really good MU's
Collective brutality is entirely on a different level.
Duress, disfigure, and drain 2 are all 1 mana effects.
This means your only overpaying by 1 mana when you cast brutality for 1 effect.
If you cast it for all three, your actually getting an incredibly mana efficient spell, at the cost of some card advantage.
This is a part of its strength. You can cast it at either a tempo cost OR a slight card cost.
Further, it's modes are actually flexible. Drain 2 gives both reach and life gain, where's lava spike only gives reach. Disfigure gives removal similar to flame slash, but duress gives you hand attack. There are far, faaaaar more realistic scenarios where brutality isn't just better than defiance, it's better than just having all it's constituent cards.
Let's compare this to defiance. Flame slash and lava spike are both 1 mana effects, so casting defiance for either mode means you're overpaying by twice as much mana. Wheel is reasonably priced, but it's not something we want, trust me I played with flamecaller long enough to tell that.
Even when combining all modes, all your doing is paying an appropriate price. And anything less is bad.
And this assumes they have an x/(<=4) and you have a hand you want to wheel.
So if this is the card you want, then just play draconic roar.
As a side note, I was so disappointed in draconic roar, imagine if the bonus was to do another 3 damage to a target creature instead of a player.
Fallout is a perfectly reasonable choice, especially if you run reckoners.
Agreed, obliterate is cool, but not worth the effort.
As a HUGE fan of sarkhan, I think you should only run him once you already have 2-3 stormbreaths (franks list runs only 1... In the SB) AND 2-3 Chandra ToD's.
I don't like collective defiance at all. The only mode id consistently want is flame slash. And 3 mana flame slashes are bad. It's not even that flexible, lava spike mode isn't all that useful tbh. Wheel mode less so. I'd just run banefire in it's place.
Or even searing blaze if that's really what you're trying to do.
Phoenix is a worse scourge.
It's more difficult to infinitely recur.
It non-Bo's with our own relics.
It can't block pro-red.
The difference in p/t is largely irrelevant.
All for haste and flying? I love both abilities, but the phoenix lacks the stats needed to make those abilities threatening.
Frank seems like... Not the best skred player. What really stood out to me was how aggressively he threw away his relics. Even when he had a scourge he'd want to recur.
I noticed a ton of other issues in play as well.
Also not a fan of the list, though the list is much better than the play.
Even in the case of auriok champion, kor firewalker (outside of burn) and master of waves. I find we can just ignore the creature and clear the rest of their board. From there we can outrace them pretty easily.
it's annoying, but i don't necessarily think that means its ban worthy, though its been several months since i really tried to keep up with where the meta's at, maybe it's banworthy now? seems preeeetty unlikely tho
and congratulations on the results.
any reason you dont run scrying sheets?
But in general, no, commune is at their EoT >95% of the time
3-1
19 snow-covered mountain
3 scrying sheets
THREATS
4 boros reckoner
2 eternal scourge
3 koth of the hammer
2 chandra, torch of defiance
1 sarkhan, the dragonspeaker
2 stormbreath dragon
4 lightning bolt
4 skred
4 magma jet
3 volcanic fallout
4 relic of progenitus
2 blood moon
2 molten rain
1 commune with lava
3 chalice of the void
3 pithing needle
3 dragon's claw
2 blood moon
1 molten rain
3 anger of the gods
MATCH 1 loss 0-2 vs TitanBreach
G1 & G2 i couldn't find blood moon, i feel like this match is very winnable if we land moon. but alas, after mulling to 5 looking for moon both games, i just couldn't find it. it was a real shame cause this guy aggressively avoided fetching basic forests.
MATCH 2 win 2-0 vs kitchen-table-vampires
not much to really say here.
MATCH 3 win 2-0 vs kitchen-table-pariah-reckoner-madcap-experiement-combo
this was a weird week. dunno how he got his win.
MATCH 4 win 2-1 vs BG midrange
G1 land turn 1 relic, outvalued him for a couple turns before landing a moon.
G2 got my relic discarded turn 1, he then follows it up with a turn 2 bitterblossom. i draw tons o' lands before hitting a scrying sheets to help mitigate the issue. ultimatly it came down to him winning the race at 1 life. i feel like i played a bit too greedily overall and the game was still very winnable if i had to replay it.
G3 i had a snap keep of a nigh-unbeatable 7. 1 relic, 2 mountains, 2 jets, 2 moons. he had to mull to 5. aylmao.
overall a pretty odd week, but 2 real MU's is better than 0. i liked the scourges, as expected. didn't have a good chance to try out the needles in their intended MUs tho.
ey im da commune guy! what's your list lookin like?
Whoops
Anyway, still prefer needle + fallout plan, I don't feel we have the pressure needed to kill them in the time gained by stopping bloom. Maybe if you're already running SSG and rabblemasters. Otherwise something more long term like needle is the stronger option.
I've been looking for an effecient way to improve our MUs against Tron and combo after scrubbing out of my last open. Day 1 was actually all combo and Tron.
i'd like to respectfully disagree with the underlined bit.
with the pith naming lightning storm their only three options to kill us become
A) remove the needle
B) laboratory maniac
C) conflagrate
with hope of ghirapur they have the following options
A) prevent hope from dealing combat damage
B) wait/survive one more turn and combo out anyway
B part 2) combo off on your upkeep after the turn you silence them, the combo is instant speed, thus you've not actually slowed them down whatsoever.
C) combo off before hope can attack/before you decide to pop it
i just scoured the last 10 or so pages of the ad nauseum primer and here's what i found.
ad nauseum doesn't run conflagrate anymore, or at least, if anyone in that primer was running it (or even linking performing lists) i missed it
ad nauseum runs 2-3 ways to remove artifacts, and notably they all seem to be at the 2 CMC spot. (hurkyl's recall, echoing truth, wear // tear with the former two being the most common)
ad nauseum often runs similar numbers of fog effects
hurkyl's, e-truth, and co. all work against both hope and needle. however, ethereal haze, darkness, and holy day only work against hope.
already, you've given your opponent more options by running hope over needle.
hope is also a 1-turn silence. meaning you have to know exactly when to pop it or you lose, additionally, you need to be able to capitalize on that one turn (assuming they can't just kill you at upkeep, which they should) both of these points put additional pressure on you that needle doesn't. needle solely asks that you get it into play and protect it.
of course, needle doesn't stop maniac. but volcanic fallout does. and all the pact of negations in the world can't stop it.
in any case, the maniac is a moot point. maniac is their backup plan, it's what they resort to if lightning storm can't do the job. which hope doesn't adequately prevent as i mentioned above.
if you're running pithing needle in conjunction with a chalice on 2, they've got no way to kill you. unless they still run conflagrate, which seems to have fallen out of favor.
pithing needle > chalice on 2 > find a relic of progenitus (for when they discard conflagrate at EoT, if they run it, which they likely wont) & a volcanic fallout.
if you do all that, they cannot win. period. well, in the case of the vast majority of their lists anyway.
i know that's easier said than done (to say the very least), but it's at least a real line of play.
compare that to
play hope > connect with hope and pop it on just the right turn with the correct reads > hope they don't play lightning storm (???) > kill them from likely 10-15 life.
maybe mix in some chalice's for added security.
doesn't seem reasonable.
name lightning storm vs ad nauseum
against tron, name karn, o-stone, w/e.
infect and control are already really good MU's
it is cute as hell tho
Duress, disfigure, and drain 2 are all 1 mana effects.
This means your only overpaying by 1 mana when you cast brutality for 1 effect.
If you cast it for all three, your actually getting an incredibly mana efficient spell, at the cost of some card advantage.
This is a part of its strength. You can cast it at either a tempo cost OR a slight card cost.
Further, it's modes are actually flexible. Drain 2 gives both reach and life gain, where's lava spike only gives reach. Disfigure gives removal similar to flame slash, but duress gives you hand attack. There are far, faaaaar more realistic scenarios where brutality isn't just better than defiance, it's better than just having all it's constituent cards.
Let's compare this to defiance. Flame slash and lava spike are both 1 mana effects, so casting defiance for either mode means you're overpaying by twice as much mana. Wheel is reasonably priced, but it's not something we want, trust me I played with flamecaller long enough to tell that.
Even when combining all modes, all your doing is paying an appropriate price. And anything less is bad.
And this assumes they have an x/(<=4) and you have a hand you want to wheel.
So if this is the card you want, then just play draconic roar.
As a side note, I was so disappointed in draconic roar, imagine if the bonus was to do another 3 damage to a target creature instead of a player.
Agreed, obliterate is cool, but not worth the effort.
As a HUGE fan of sarkhan, I think you should only run him once you already have 2-3 stormbreaths (franks list runs only 1... In the SB) AND 2-3 Chandra ToD's.
I don't like collective defiance at all. The only mode id consistently want is flame slash. And 3 mana flame slashes are bad. It's not even that flexible, lava spike mode isn't all that useful tbh. Wheel mode less so. I'd just run banefire in it's place.
Or even searing blaze if that's really what you're trying to do.
Phoenix is a worse scourge.
It's more difficult to infinitely recur.
It non-Bo's with our own relics.
It can't block pro-red.
The difference in p/t is largely irrelevant.
All for haste and flying? I love both abilities, but the phoenix lacks the stats needed to make those abilities threatening.
I noticed a ton of other issues in play as well.
Also not a fan of the list, though the list is much better than the play.
Or just plop a scourge in front of them