MTG Salvation

So....well a few things to note about the reference poll. It was talking about next December, Konami will be releasing a structure deck to support a selected archtype.

The closest equivalent to MtG is to my understanding is the new guild decks (or that 75 dollar modern deck. Price Point more comparable to Guild Kits, at 20 v 12 dollar) These decks are given around 7-11 new cards depending on theme, need and more so.

Now what should be noted, is your reference of what is called archtype xenophobia is far more complicated then archetypes being no bueno with each other.

One of the options on the poll itself, was an example of that PKFire, two almost unrelated archetypes due to mechanics work together divinely. The deck that won (Shaddolls) is famous for easy hybridization (the archtype lacks xenophobia clauses and the various effects of the archtype trigger off what would be MtG equivalent to dies/discard/mill (as effect). Back to the topic, structure decks are often crafted as budget competitive (buying 2-3 of any one structure will get you the competitive tools you need to play at a local).

Through an older poll by Konami is more relevant, a poll for new link monsters. Specifically a poll for which theme should get an in theme link monster. It was held by Jump (the impetus was the change to New Master Rules and introduction of both EMZ and Link monsters which badly neutered older decks. So the poll was essentially asking what fan favorite archtype/deck wanted to be brought into modern era).

The advantage of that, was by Jump hosting/doing the poll and not Konami, Jump could slide the card into a promo slot. And not just trying to work around or fit it in a card set. Which even mob mentality aside, and your individual faith in our collective decision making process. Is not something that MtG can easily replicate, due to that fact. The closest/easiest way is something like Modern Horizons or a Core Set. But even then easier said than done.

And personally speaking? I think it’s a good idea. Essentially it’s just asking what players will spend their hard earned cash on. Or what they want out of the game. But yeah to reiterate something;

Structure Decks (most recent poll) are a gateway drug to competitive, and also provide pressure valves for reprint/card price. Meaning that archtype xenophobia aside, there is already a market for the deck regardless of theme. Second certain archtypes, hybrid very well with other cards and decks. And the one that won this poll is especially famous for that trait (it’s a built in feature to the archtype).

Jump Promos the other major avenue, YGO uses for these popularity promos represent a method for the game to introduce these cards without specific set dedication (or MtG case, needing to decide how build around draft with x card in mind unless it’s mythic). Jump Promos are also infamous for....well let’s say Jump needs to sell its subscriptions and magazines. And Yugioh promos are important to staying in the black.

MtG doesn’t really have its own stand alone structure deck style sets (Guild Kits style products long term might change that), similar to structure and doesn’t have a similar relationship to a magazine like Shonen Jump. So if MtG did do something like this I’d be wary for how they well print these cards. My 2 cents.

Quote from WarMachinePrime »

Quote from Cereberus632 »

Warmachine something else I should mention, these structure decks are explicitly meant for franchised players. Or player who left the hobby and seeking to come back. So selling them with the understanding of needing to buy 2-3 of them is something far more acceptable. Also their is a huge difference, in buy 2-3 12 dollar decks and 2 30 dollar decks. Espacially when in the 12 dollar decks even the chaff cards can be quite helpful

I like your idea in theory. My problem is that in function I don't think it would work that way. 12 dollars of chaff cards are just that, 12 dollars of cards that have no monetary value because they have no play value as well. I could have bought 4 alike Intro Decks from any set in the last decade, combined the best cards, and still would have had a crappy Standard deck. You, me or anyone else would probably be hard pressed to design a 12 dollar Intro deck that would be viable at FNM or a small Standard Constructed Event when combined with a 2nd or 3rd deck of the same. They would more than likely all have to be mono colored. Money comes in the form of lands many a time. That 12 bucks could be eaten up by just 2 lands. Again I like the idea in theory. But I think Wizards would have to print better chaff for this to work in practice. I see no sign of them doing this. If you have the time pitch me a deck idea from Standard, 60 cards, $12 of value and we can break it down or see if its even viable. If not, its okay, it would be time intensive.

It is when those chaff cards are things like lighting strike, fatal push, aether hub, check lands and that years mana dork etc. Yugioh ‘Chaff’ Cards are generic, playable cards that are usable in every deck. Which is why those 12 dollar structure decks are viable and able to be used if you bought 2-3 of them.

And for those who complain about speculators, sell them at big box stores and give them a unique set symbol.

Warmachine something else I should mention, these structure decks are explicitly meant for franchised players. Or player who left the hobby and seeking to come back. So selling them with the understanding of needing to buy 2-3 of them is something far more acceptable. Also their is a huge difference, in buy 2-3 12 dollar decks and 2 30 dollar decks. Espacially when in the 12 dollar decks even the chaff cards can be quite helpful

You simply sell them at big box stores and sell them till demand is stasitified. YGO does it quite a bit and you never see sculptors try and buy YGO products for these purposes. Because Konami does it frequently and often enough to render sculpting pointless.

So I often see bans are a sign of bad game design, honestly I see the exact opposite, I somewhat regular bannings as healthy game design. Riddle me this why do bans happen?

"A deck or card is overpowered, or too strong for its cost." See Smugglar Copter espacially. Or another good example "Hinders design space." Case in point Splinter Twin or Pod. Another way I see it.

"The developers are willing to push the enevelop, experiment, try something new." If the Dev teams never tries to push something or do an interesting design, we would rarely get banning. It's too cautious. Developers aren't willing to try and experiment for new and interesting developers.

Instead just give us Generic.Big Creature 84. Thopter was a conditional looter (filter), a non-hasty two drop with no immediate Board impact. It can be used in Aggro or control effectively.

Splinter Twin, tells me that cards are 'future proof' are a card from previous sets still interact with newer cards. So I hopefully don't need to sit and twiddle my thumbs as I wait for decades to get a new card.

What I am trying to say here, is cards being banned tells me Development is just that Development. Willing to take risks, willing to draw unique and weird playable designs. No Bans tells me they wanted to play it safe were unwilling to try and push the enevelop a bit more. Experiment to make something new and improve.

The other case, for design, if no old cards are banned either tells me Power creep too strong. Or old cards are irrelevant and xenophobic or the new cards are. Telling me I shouldn't bother buying anything. Sense even if like a deck t won't A) ever get support, B) power creeped out of the game

'Prepared himself for the horde of disagreement'

Before I fully respond, Lithl let me be clear, as a poster I respect you. You normally post and explains thing in a reasonable fashion. And I apologize for excessive snark. I do not intend any offense.
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I hear Garfield thought Ancestral Recall was a fair card. And let us not forget good old Black Lotus. How about how some old artifacts could be deactivated tapping them down. (And later they would received a errata when the rules of the game changed). Hello "Howling Mind".

If the second card you are referring to is Pot of Duality, the card is fair in YGO. Because it has the additional clause "you cannot special summon this turn". Which means only Stun (Control) decks can play it.

Also instead looking at a cards from DM to GX Era. How about we compare cards from recent sets? Lyricals, a deck of just commons, is playable. And by playable I mean "can reasonably execute its strategy of summoning and protecting its boss".

Any pack printed during the last 4 Years (Duelist Alliance or Advent to Maximum Crises). Barring the DM nostalgia packs, any common or card you pull is useful (reasonably) somewhere. If you want to buy a pack and send me a list of cards you pull. I'll find and make you a deck that can play them.

Third, Lithl as I said I respect you immensely. When you talk about MtG, but given everything I assume the last pack of YGO you bought or played with was Duelist Genesis. The game has changed a lot sense then. For better and for worse.

Totally unrelated you want to talk about annoying translations, my favorite card King Dragun, got a counterpart about 7ish years ago, named Queen Dragun Djinn. However if King Dragun does have the Djinn as part of his name back in the OCG. I like at these two cards and the naming difference annoys me greatly.

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Tangent aside. I am not saying MtG should copy YGO. YGO can afford to print 'better' commons for a lack of a better word. Because YGO doesn't have a limited environment (okay it does but we don't talk about it. Save for the Battle Packs). And our packs are smaller. So design has less cards to make and print. And less filler overall. But what YGO does do, is that whatever you pull, you feel you got something useful or a card that belongs somewhere. Or is a meme card.

That means I feel more incentive to buy packs because even if I pull "*****" value I feel the cards I did pull belong somewhere.

Someone could correct me if I am wrong, but didn't Godsend see some play in that legacy Equipment deck? (Admittedly to fight True Name mostly) Godsend itself while not Sword or Batterskull, isn't a terrible card, once on board turns makes blocking hard. And once equipped the creature itself will be Bolt Immune.

http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/777487-hou-spoilers-discussion-for-modern - Inspired by the tangential discussion here. To make a long story short, true or not, Legacy is often called a "Blue Format" due to cards like Brainstorm, and Force of Will. And Legacy's blue card are often cited as the policemen of the format who keep Legacy in line.

Does the Black suite of cards like Inquisition and other discard, alongside now Fatal Push, fulfill that role in modern? Why or why not? Or are the two formats and colors too different for this kind of comparison?

Below is my decks flagbearer and ace/trump/etc monster; Underworld Cerberus.


The card forms several roles as win condition and center piece of the deck. First and foremost is that it has several effects, each of these play a key part in the strategy. I'll discuss the Grave-Hate effect first. The non-targeting card, means several things but foremost, it turns off cards like Snappy Caster and Scooze.

In addition it means E-Wit and similar recursion style cards do not function under a Cerberus. However, cards like Grapple with the Past, Tasigur, and Season's Past do function under a Cerberus. Additionally Relic of Progenitus tap effect also functions while Cerberus is active, as it doesn't target the graveyard for its effect. That makes his effect both a strength and weakness, should be recognize as such.

That stated, it means an on board Tasigur or Grapple in hand are not dead with Cerberus on board. Of the three effects this most and least relavent ability.

The second effect, the FauxLivingEnd, is the one most key to this card as an engine piece. It's also the piece that the deck is most intent on breaking the symmetry of. You will notice that there is a lack of Abrupt Decays and Bolts in the main.

The simple reason being, if I used Abrupt and remove a creature, when Cerberus dies, I don't get back the Abrupt Decay, but I do get back the Ambush Viper. This means in summary I can break the Cerberus symmetry. Or better put it, I can use my Viper to trade up and remove their big creatures instead trading something like Grim Flayer.

Furthermore sense I will likely sac'ing (via Tymaret) Cerberus at EoT (Opponent), the opponent will have discard down to 7 while I get back Brain Maggots. Having a full hand, plus some, I will use Maggots to further strip their hand. To explain if after Cerberus we both had 9-10 cards in hand.

My opponenet then discards down to 7 during their end step. My turn I have 9-10ish cards and around 6-7 Mana. I play a land. Then I do something like Double Maggot. So post-Cerberus, we each have 9 cards in hand. They discard down to 7 cards.

I draw a card they have 7, I have 10 and 6-7 Mana. I play two or so Maggots, now they have 5 cards to my 8. I can then play a land or even Tymaret. Meaning despite both of us getting cards back, I managed to end with +4 Cards in Virtual advantage. If they remove maggots via spell, they still net lost a card and paid additional mana, allowing me to maintain tempo and push easier.

On the other hand, if my Cerberus dies before EoT, and they try and flood the board using the cards they got back, I noted that I refilled my hand. Using the previous example, on 5-7ish mana they will play around 3-4 cards or 6-7. So 9 Card hand down to 5. My hand is 9ish as well. At 5-7ish mana. I play a land. 6-8ish. Lands. I can from here play a card like Tym, Flayer, Maggot. Or even Delve Tasigur. Then I play Malfegor.

Clearing board, and regaining Tempo. If I have Domri/Courser I can even refill my hand quickly. Then push to win.

This effect has two other notable interactions, that most often comes up vs Dredge. If they return Gravecrawler, trigger Prize Amaglamation, I can use Cerberus effect. In doing so I return all the creatures in our graveyards to hand. This means in summary, they aren't in the graveyard to trigger. I can do a similar trick vs dredgers.

And if Living End, sense if we have no cards in Graveyard to return, Living End does nothing.

The third effect; Super Menace, I will discuss in relation to two other relavent qualities in regards to Cerberus. The first is, good old Cerberus is 5 Mana, 6/6, a Black/Red Creature, and must be exiled to avoid his death effect.

The super menace 6/6 means you cannot chump with tokens for very long vs my doggy and the doggy immune to burn spells for the most part. In addition, Fatal Push and Abrupt Decay are useless vs him. And he can kill (without dying) Siege Rhinos, Tasigurs, Flayers, Scooze and 5-Typed Tarmogoyfs.

And he is immune to Sultai Charm is Sultai/BUG starts seeing play now with Fatal Push. Meaning once resolved it'll take a path or 3+ Mana spell to kill my doggy. And because of this, it also means vs control decks that Sphinx Rev, I can Cerberus to maintain parity.

However Cerberus is 5 Mana, he might be the Flag Bearer, but Grim Flayer is the Work Horse.


In how Cerberus is corner stone, Flayer puts in the work so I survive long enough to play my doggy. Flayer (or Maggot followed by Flayer) is the ideal T2 Play. In particular, Flayer setups the board of Flayer/Courser/Domri. Flayer puts land or creature on top. Domri pluses. Courser plays the land and presumably I draw a non-creature non-land.

This allows me to gain 2.5 cards each turn. And filter away up to three no goes. And because I have 10 Enchantment Creatures, roughly one out of six cards I hit or reveal will count for two for Delirum. So Grapple+Enchantment Creature and Fetch gives Delirium. And between his effect, fetches, Grapple and Grisly I can keep my graveyard nice and full for my various graveyard related effects.

The final interaction and biggest anti-synergy in my deck. Nighthowler. Nighthowler not Bueno with cards like Cerberus for obvious reasons. However I can bestow it on onto cards like Malfegor and Flayer for a quick win. Even if only two cards in hand it turns Flayer into 6/6 Trampler that grows for every creature added to the yard. In addition if Flayer dies, he leaves behind a 3/3+ creature that grows almost every turn regardless.

So....? How GB/X is Green where Grixis Shadow is not Blue? What GB/X do that is really green?

....play big creatures? That like saying Blue is just contripping. Green cannot play as a primary color because it lacks interaction to beat Combo. Or uses cards like Beast Within. You can say Grixis is not your style of blue but it most assuredly a blue deck.

It plays contrips to shape hands, has ways to control tempo via cards like Snappy granting flashback. It plays at instant speed mostly to save its discord, and creatures. It seeks to establish a point where it can safely drop its win condition and defend it until you win the game.

(Yes I know that can be used to for GB/X, which is partly the point, if we want to call Grixis Shadow a Black Deck only. We need to call GB/x (traditional) a Black deck)

As much as I generally agree with the RC's decisions and direction, this is one of the few cases I don't. The severity of my disagreement this time is greater than that of Iona's position in the format (basically the RC and I don't place the same severity distribution on the different factors that are taken into account for banning) but less than that of the old Rule 4, although that's due to the temporary nature of this new change (otherwise it'll be a lot more severe than the old Rule 4 imbalance).

Even with the temporary clause, I don't agree with the decision for many reasons that undoubtedly rose because all I have is that paragraph from the announcement (which means the RC can easily counter it if they told us the reasons behind the decision), but since I have to work with what I have at the moment - it's not going to be too good for me.

The main reason this decision is bad to me it's that it's almost on par on the level of creating a sub-EDH format that isn't Duel Commander (the only one that survived long). It's almost like as though the RC decided to scrap EDH and replace it with Tiny Leaders officially in some ways (not all obviously), but within this timeframe I would expect results that would almost be the same - an unpopular decision rejected by the masses eventually, although I do recognize the RC did effectively pre-empt that by making the change temporary. That doesn't change the similar factors in the response though.

It all stems to this - how many people have silver-bordered cards (and play EDH) - and not only that - how many playgroups have enough players with silver-bordered cards to accept this change without much internal strife? One can easily say that Unstable is coming out (and I won't deny because of the lack of information behind the decision, it does smell as a marketing tactic, but I refrain from making absolute statements on the matter for now), but the change includes two older sets that are not only out-of-print, but probably rarer than Coldsnap in the market. There's inherently an imbalance as a result but this one is ironically more serious than the typical cases in EDH (the usual "you don't need old cards/ABURDuals to play EDH effectively"), because the yardstick isn't power, but well, something even harder to quantify (I wanted to say "fun", but with all the weird things from Unglued and Unhinged combined, it's actually too huge a mess for me to bother classifying).

Bluntly put, even with Unstable in print, I suspect that most internal strife within playgroups will rise between people with old Un-cards and those who don't and as a result, majority of playgroups will "house-ban silver-bordered cards" (almost said "keep status quo", but the RC just changed it...), which becomes a more practical unpopular decision on the RC's end, rather than the typical more vocal ones we get (Banned as Commander and Tuck Rule...). Throw in that the change is temporary, it does add favor to "I'm not going to buy cards for a format lasting less than 2 months" and/or "I'm not going to revamp my decks for just 2 months", which in turns aids the "house-ban" side of the internal strife. As for groups without the internal strife - the same reasoning should make it an even easier battle to win.

The last factor I wanted to raise is that the RC does need to recognize that although Commander isn't the typical sanctioned format, plenty of major events have Commander side-events and this kind of change affects those to a very huge degree. Even if its temporary, it's still a major change and I can imagine plenty of players being confused about whether their GP side-event is silver-bordered legal or not, because the base status quo of the format is currently different and it would seem stupid to either get silver-bordered cards for an event that banned them or get into all sorts of weird situations because you entered a silver-bordered format without knowing it. Yes, I know clear communication helps for each event, but even in the time period of 1 month, I'm confident there's some players out there getting the wrong end of this stick.

So yeah, from my own projections and predictions this is going to a practically bad decision (in the sense it will really give the RC a negative image overall) rather than the typical vocal ones and maybe it's because I do somewhat care about the RC's image (it doesn't and isn't always shining good, but it's has always been a reasonable one), this particular decision just doesn't follow the typical RC logic that I'm used to.

Why do people always feel the need to insult "whiny jund players?" Between here, reddit and Facebook, I don't see them crying for unbans, meta changes or anything to that magnitude

They're either

Jamming Jund
shoving in Blood Moon and Rabble Master
Playing Junk
Playing Shadow

or moved to other decks completely

I certainly don't like seeing jund dropping to tier 3, but it is what it is. The deck isn't really playable, but there's certainly people happy enough to shove a side event result in my face, or allude to Tyler Lutes deck which made top 8 not too long ago. Unless the new Humans deck promotes creature aggro, Jund is a bad deck held down by Eldrazi Tron and ramp combo.

I've been playing Jeskai Geist, mono white DnT and Eldrazi Tron. Just bought into affinity again.

Instead of people writing out the same arguments going on a year now, find a new deck to play, or just leave, and stop posting an absurd amount of posts and time dedicated to how bad modern has become.

Welp, Nahiri went guano insane since the last time we saw her. Red-White Madness+Equipment themed perhaps? And werewolf flip cards being back is neat, though I also want to see Wolfir.

The assertion that the set has competitive depth, just that it hasn't been explored, needs to be debunked at some point. It's an easy argument to make because it requires little evidence and requires a ton of strenuous testing to prove wrong. I'm just waiting to see when that point is reached.

Quote from Nakhla »

Something I'm noticing in this thread is the idea of playgroups self-regulating, which I agree works to a point, but there is something else I feel might be worth mentioning: what about the folks who mainly play at FNM or at LGS events? The store can only go on the official EDH rules, but that also means there is no group regulation regarding power level.

It seems to me the idea of flexible guidelines only works in an environment of group consensus and group familiarity, rather than a bunch of relative strangers getting together to play at a card shop.

I would like this post, if I could figure out how.

The official ban list is official. Unofficial house-rules are unofficial. It confounds me how this simple idea is lost on so many people, places high and low.

When there's an issue with a card, the only question to decide whether it's a problem with official EDH should be whether the card is officially legal. The reply "it's not an issue, because the format at large has learned to play around this problem" is just not relevant to official EDH. It might be true, and it might be necessary. But unofficial, community soft-bans have no relevance whatsoever to EDH under the official ban list. Is the card legal? Yes? Then the issues it causes are issues with official EDH.

And saying anything to the effect that "this format won't work how it's supposed to unless certain, undisclosed, unofficial steps are taken" is essentially giving up on any official regulation of EDH. In that case, the official ban list needs to stop.

What gets me is how the official ban list has been used to get people to play the format, notwithstanding open statements to the public that the official list doesn't work in getting the format to the players how they'd like it to. Wizards released Commander products. It's referred to Commander as its own Magic format, with all the trappings of any other format, other than sanctioned events. Wizards published the rules of the format, included a link to the official ban list on the WOTC website, and supported the format digitally through MTGO. They've profited in every way from making the format official. All the while, the official rules body is saying that their official rules aren't sufficient on their own to support an official format.

It's like buying an off road vehicle whose intake gets clogged by design when you take it off road, then when you take it into the dealership for service you're told that you got what you paid for because it still works on city streets. It's mismarketing to an irresponsible degree.

And it's not as if the main issues with this format are hard to fix. Certain cards on this list have been attached the highest degree of opprobrium that it's possible for WOTC to give a card - banned in Legacy, restricted in Vintage. It's impossible to claim ignorance of or disagreement with the issues these cards cause. But a Commander player has to be prepared to deal with them whenever they go out and play the format that was sold to them.

Quote from MemoryLapse

I would highly suggest you guys try Dissolve. It's as close as we are going to get to a counter+draw for 3cc. They wont let us draw, but the scry is damn close.

You keep trying to shove Dissolve down people's throats, but the fact remains: Dissolve is crap

1 Scry isn't worth 1 mana, and if you are on color Counterflux actually has two much more relevant abilities.

PS: and please don't say scry is almost like drawing a card ffs. If that was remotely true, Magma Jet would be a good card and Electrolyze no.