Magic Investment? Anything on the RL that see's play in Vintage and/or Legacy. Investing in non RL is an extremely dangerous gamble.
As for Reddit, I guess now is the time for me to finally join that site. I knew the day would come eventually, but at least I'm doing so for a good cause.
I know a lot of these zero drop creatures die as they come into play Songs of the Damned is a great way to generate mana. That is, if you are using Hangarback Walker and Shifting Wall style stuff. It can make you a who lot of mana. You can splash green to grab Glimpse of Nature for another draw effect, as last I counted you can run 28 total "0" cmc mana creatures when you include things like Hangarback Walker and Shifting Wall. Running a green splash for Glimpse also opens up Land Grant, with a few Bayous as support.
I tried to build this a while ago, but never thought to run Ad Nauseam. Food for thought for sure.
Songs of the Damned is rather damned irrelevant with ANT- you actually tend to generate more fast mana than you need to win the game. For a splash, I personally use blue running three Ad Nauseam, Intuition and Pact of Negation. The Pact is every combo deck's ideal counter if you're going all-out on winning the game this turn, and Intuition to Ad Nauseam ensures that you can safely draw cards with five life left- the idea of Ad Nauseam is to draw until you're certain the next draw won't kill you, and if it might, stop.
I was imagining more of a Cheeri0s storm combo, with Nauseam drawing a critical mass of your 0 cmc creatures for little cost. Songs of the Damned was there to generate enough mana to cast both Tendrils and possibly Nauseam mid combo. As far as a splash, I choose green as if you are running a ton of 0 cmc creatures, Glimpse is the best way to take advantage of it, as seen in Kobold Storm/Legacy Cheeri0s. This would give you 4-8 ways to draw draw your deck, cast a ton of spells, and go for the kill with Tendrils, Empty the Warrens, or Brain Freeze.
Re: Stoddard article
Keep bombarding Sam, Helene, Aaron, Mark, Trick, and anyone else who has any Magic pull. Ask them questions and don't let them off the hook for their silence. Even if they don't directly decide Modern support (like Rosewater) the constant stream of customer dissatisfaction will echo to other decisionmakers.
I know I've been keeping on the pressure, bu I don't see too many keeping up. Why isn't there the same amount of frustration we had about the removal of the Pro Tour? It's really aggravating.
Glad I saw this. I've been... aggressively asking question about modern all day, with no response. I expect Sam will ignore the elephant in the room and focus on Standard BS, like the rest of the Wizard staff is doing right now.
Sam's not going to respond to every question on his Twitter. He'll select a few non-inflammatory tweets and answer them in his article.
That's to be expected. As I already said, I fully expect him to ignore the Modern elephant in the room, and push more Standard BS. That have to keep up appearances and continue to misinform and under inform the Modern player base.
Again, you can and should ask Sam Stoddart whatever you feel like about Magic(or Modern in particular) HERE up until Monay.
"Bury" him in questions regarding Modern and its state, its possible competitive role, or WOTC's intentions to further support it as a competitive format or not. Hopefully, he will answer to some or all of those questions.
Glad I saw this. I've been... aggressively asking question about modern all day, with no response. I expect Sam will ignore the elephant in the room and focus on Standard BS, like the rest of the Wizard staff is doing right now.
As for the Masterpieces, I don't think they will be as common as people believe them to be. In BFZ they where riffing on the original Zendikar's Treasures, while also hoping to minimize the damage caused by not having fetches in the set. With Kaladesh, there was a decent story reason to have these Masterpieces, even if it was somewhat of a stretch. If we where going to see things like this moving forward, I can only believe that Shadows over Innistrad would have had their own flavorful versions. Now all of this being said, I do think they tried to pull of these lottery sets much to close together, so they lost a lot of the luster they had when we heard of them for BFZ.
You must have missed the part where they came right out and said that every new set in standard will have masterpieces (which is why the Zendikar Expeditions are retroactively considered part of the Masterpiece Series). People aren't wildly speculating that WotC is going to include them going forward, we know they're going to, because they said as much when Inventions were first spoiled.
I did miss that.
I really don't understand their plan here. They want to "support" older formats by printing cards at a rarity higher than Mythic. The math I heard was something like 3 boxes for every one masterpiece. And why? Because Wizards isn't able to correctly reprint staples in standard formats without them dominating. They point out Tsieze while ignoring the rest of the deck they printed around it. They where going to reprint Liliana of the Veil into that mess! They recently missed the new standard combo! They seem to be so focused on Draft and Sealed that they don't seem to be looking into testing constructed at all.
I think the issues plaguing Modern are an issue with all of Magic. The whole game seems to have been mismanaged for a while now. They say powerful reprints ruin standard, citing Thoughtseize. They look past the fact they printed Pack Rat, Abrupt Decay, Lifebane Zombie, Desecration Demon and Gray Merchant of Asphodel in the same standard. They then say reprinting Liliana of the Veil couldn't be reprinted, saying she was just too strong, while again ignoring the Bx devotion monster they created. Instead, Modern is supported by it's own supplementary set every two years. Sounds fantastic until you realize that they are more worried about draft and sealed than actually reprinting relevant Modern cards. Now we get masterpiece reprints that are supposed to support the eternal formats while being rarer than Mythics. Makes perfect sense am I right?
Take that in hand with the ever decreasing amount of high level tournaments, the ban mania Wizards has created, and you have what looks to be a really big issue for the future health of the format many of us love and enjoy.
In a way Worship can grind damaged based decks to a halt. Especially if you run it with hexproof cards. Back that up with some counters to hedge against sweepers. Then you just need to find a way to win the game.
This was my first real Modern deck, man this takes me back. I do really like the idea of the Ballista. It would seem to enable some really busted wins, and without needing to go to combat. I agree that it's not anything special, and even subpar without the combo online, but once it's one line you can start doming people with the ballista. Death's Shadow would read B: deal 13 damage to target opponent. Even Hangarback Walker would be an interesting scavenge target. You wouldn't want to kill a Walker with a ton of counters, and you could respond to Path by sacrificing it to Valroz as long as he is still alive.
I know a lot of these zero drop creatures die as they come into play Songs of the Damned is a great way to generate mana. That is, if you are using Hangarback Walker and Shifting Wall style stuff. It can make you a who lot of mana. You can splash green to grab Glimpse of Nature for another draw effect, as last I counted you can run 28 total "0" cmc mana creatures when you include things like Hangarback Walker and Shifting Wall. Running a green splash for Glimpse also opens up Land Grant, with a few Bayous as support.
I tried to build this a while ago, but never thought to run Ad Nauseam. Food for thought for sure.
Wizards thought they knew the definition of fun magic. Undoubtedly their market research showed people like fielding threats and casting win cons over spot removal, sweepers and counters. So they went in hard in printing powerful threats, while scaling back the answers to a point of being unplayable. This has resulted in several standard rotations being Magic; The Midranging, which even as a Midrange fan, can get really boring. There was a time when Spells where the overpowered sub set in magic, and Wizards really wanted to balance that out. The issue is there aren't a whole of of "answer" creatures. When instants and sorceries where the most powerful thing in magic, you had your answers and your win conditions. With creatures being pushed, you really only have win cons. Luckily Wizards has admitted their mistake, and will hopefully try to find an equilibrium.
As for the Masterpieces, I don't think they will be as common as people believe them to be. In BFZ they where riffing on the original Zendikar's Treasures, while also hoping to minimize the damage caused by not having fetches in the set. With Kaladesh, there was a decent story reason to have these Masterpieces, even if it was somewhat of a stretch. If we where going to see things like this moving forward, I can only believe that Shadows over Innistrad would have had their own flavorful versions. Now all of this being said, I do think they tried to pull of these lottery sets much to close together, so they lost a lot of the luster they had when we heard of them for BFZ.
As for the cost of standard, the Masterpieces are helping keep the price of standard down, by making cracking packs more intriguing. This floods the market with unwanted cards of all rarities, lowering the prices. The issue is that it's weakened the secondary market, making opening boxes a game of Lottery card or bust. That is not good. Things where even worse with the sped up rotation, but luckily that was fixed, with the rotation speed being slowed down again. I fear this though, as Wizards alluded to the faster rotation allowing them to print pushed cards, and let the fast rotation deal with them. Without that, it'll be interesting to see what kind of creatures they had in the pipe line with the faster rotation in mind. Another issue was the consolidation of powerful, playable cards at the rare and mythic levels. This undoubtedly has pushed the price up. Aether Revolt has a great selection of uncommons, and hopefully we see that trend continue. If not, I don't see a big drop in standard price anytime soon.
Lastly, a real lack of player rewards is hurting the player base. The FNM promos have been laughable for the most part, and they are the only real incentive to play standard for most people. With a boring, expensive format with little to no reward at the end what is the point?
As for other formats, Modern is still living under the Ban Hammer and lack of reprint support. Legacy would kill for any WotC support what so ever. Vintage is a joke for most people outside of MTGO. And MTGO? The issues with that train wreck could have a thread of it's own. Supplemental products are coming out far to fast, with some getting printed into the ground (Planechase Anthologies) and others not being printed enough (Commander 2016). It's easy to see why there was a change in upper management. Let us just hope it actually translates into a positive move for the game on our end.
I've dabbled with a red splash now and then. Some have tried to go with Demigod of Revenge, and they seemed to like it. I felt that it made the deck feel more aggro/combo, trying to dump and mill Demigods and cheat on onto the board as fast as possible. If you tried to go for a longer game, you open up your Demigods to more and more gravehate, which I always found to be an issue when he is a main win condition.
I enjoyed pairing Liliana, Defiant Necromancer and Fulminator Mage. A powerful engine if you can get it going, but relying on two three drops kinda sucked. The good news was you got to run Lightning Bolt and Terminate. Combined with Fatal Push that is one hell of a removal package, with Bolt threatening to steal games for you. The only great creature addition other than maindeck Fulminators the red splash really gives you is Tymaret, the Murder King. He goes quite well with Gravecrawler, and is usable with Bloodghast. Having a repeatable sac outlet would make Push more reliable along side the fetches you'd run to trigger revolt. You can also main deck or side in Blood Moon if you craft your mana base correctly.
If you are going to run Smallpox I'd highly recommend Drownyard Temple, and possibly splashing white to enable Flagstones of Trokair. This will help negate the effects of pox on your land base.
On the discard heavy deck, as much as you don't want to hear it, 8rack is the way to go. The issue with discard decks is that you need the opponent to keep drawing cards, or you punish them with racks. As you usually don't want to allow people to draw cards, the best option there is to use rack effects.
On the more creature focused deck, it seems like Suicide Black with a few controlling cards thrown in. I'd focus on speeding that up, really leaning on the speed of the creature base, using your spells to keep the field open for them.
The biggest issue I see, is that neither of these decks are Devotion strategies. While they share some cards, without Gary as a win con build around piece, it's not devotion. There certainly are similarities with some decks like The Gate, MBC, 8Rack, Suicide Black, and even Zombie Tribal, it's building around Gary that separates this deck from the other Bx decks. This is why you aren't getting a lot of great feed back here. There are threads for all of these, though, the Suicide Black and Zombie Tribal threads are few and far between, and poorly maintained.
This is an article I'm going to have to bookmark for future re-reading and referencing. Really good work here, you've provided a great resource to the community.
It wouldn't be hard to do a few interviews before round play, and then show those interviews during intermission. I onow the mothership usually has articles with the winner, but wouodnt it be nice to have a video of the interview instead of just a transcript?
As for Reddit, I guess now is the time for me to finally join that site. I knew the day would come eventually, but at least I'm doing so for a good cause.
I was imagining more of a Cheeri0s storm combo, with Nauseam drawing a critical mass of your 0 cmc creatures for little cost. Songs of the Damned was there to generate enough mana to cast both Tendrils and possibly Nauseam mid combo. As far as a splash, I choose green as if you are running a ton of 0 cmc creatures, Glimpse is the best way to take advantage of it, as seen in Kobold Storm/Legacy Cheeri0s. This would give you 4-8 ways to draw draw your deck, cast a ton of spells, and go for the kill with Tendrils, Empty the Warrens, or Brain Freeze.
I know I've been keeping on the pressure, bu I don't see too many keeping up. Why isn't there the same amount of frustration we had about the removal of the Pro Tour? It's really aggravating.
That's to be expected. As I already said, I fully expect him to ignore the Modern elephant in the room, and push more Standard BS. That have to keep up appearances and continue to misinform and under inform the Modern player base.
Glad I saw this. I've been... aggressively asking question about modern all day, with no response. I expect Sam will ignore the elephant in the room and focus on Standard BS, like the rest of the Wizard staff is doing right now.
I did miss that.
I really don't understand their plan here. They want to "support" older formats by printing cards at a rarity higher than Mythic. The math I heard was something like 3 boxes for every one masterpiece. And why? Because Wizards isn't able to correctly reprint staples in standard formats without them dominating. They point out Tsieze while ignoring the rest of the deck they printed around it. They where going to reprint Liliana of the Veil into that mess! They recently missed the new standard combo! They seem to be so focused on Draft and Sealed that they don't seem to be looking into testing constructed at all.
Take that in hand with the ever decreasing amount of high level tournaments, the ban mania Wizards has created, and you have what looks to be a really big issue for the future health of the format many of us love and enjoy.
I know a lot of these zero drop creatures die as they come into play Songs of the Damned is a great way to generate mana. That is, if you are using Hangarback Walker and Shifting Wall style stuff. It can make you a who lot of mana. You can splash green to grab Glimpse of Nature for another draw effect, as last I counted you can run 28 total "0" cmc mana creatures when you include things like Hangarback Walker and Shifting Wall. Running a green splash for Glimpse also opens up Land Grant, with a few Bayous as support.
I tried to build this a while ago, but never thought to run Ad Nauseam. Food for thought for sure.
As for the Masterpieces, I don't think they will be as common as people believe them to be. In BFZ they where riffing on the original Zendikar's Treasures, while also hoping to minimize the damage caused by not having fetches in the set. With Kaladesh, there was a decent story reason to have these Masterpieces, even if it was somewhat of a stretch. If we where going to see things like this moving forward, I can only believe that Shadows over Innistrad would have had their own flavorful versions. Now all of this being said, I do think they tried to pull of these lottery sets much to close together, so they lost a lot of the luster they had when we heard of them for BFZ.
As for the cost of standard, the Masterpieces are helping keep the price of standard down, by making cracking packs more intriguing. This floods the market with unwanted cards of all rarities, lowering the prices. The issue is that it's weakened the secondary market, making opening boxes a game of Lottery card or bust. That is not good. Things where even worse with the sped up rotation, but luckily that was fixed, with the rotation speed being slowed down again. I fear this though, as Wizards alluded to the faster rotation allowing them to print pushed cards, and let the fast rotation deal with them. Without that, it'll be interesting to see what kind of creatures they had in the pipe line with the faster rotation in mind. Another issue was the consolidation of powerful, playable cards at the rare and mythic levels. This undoubtedly has pushed the price up. Aether Revolt has a great selection of uncommons, and hopefully we see that trend continue. If not, I don't see a big drop in standard price anytime soon.
Lastly, a real lack of player rewards is hurting the player base. The FNM promos have been laughable for the most part, and they are the only real incentive to play standard for most people. With a boring, expensive format with little to no reward at the end what is the point?
As for other formats, Modern is still living under the Ban Hammer and lack of reprint support. Legacy would kill for any WotC support what so ever. Vintage is a joke for most people outside of MTGO. And MTGO? The issues with that train wreck could have a thread of it's own. Supplemental products are coming out far to fast, with some getting printed into the ground (Planechase Anthologies) and others not being printed enough (Commander 2016). It's easy to see why there was a change in upper management. Let us just hope it actually translates into a positive move for the game on our end.
I enjoyed pairing Liliana, Defiant Necromancer and Fulminator Mage. A powerful engine if you can get it going, but relying on two three drops kinda sucked. The good news was you got to run Lightning Bolt and Terminate. Combined with Fatal Push that is one hell of a removal package, with Bolt threatening to steal games for you. The only great creature addition other than maindeck Fulminators the red splash really gives you is Tymaret, the Murder King. He goes quite well with Gravecrawler, and is usable with Bloodghast. Having a repeatable sac outlet would make Push more reliable along side the fetches you'd run to trigger revolt. You can also main deck or side in Blood Moon if you craft your mana base correctly.
On the discard heavy deck, as much as you don't want to hear it, 8rack is the way to go. The issue with discard decks is that you need the opponent to keep drawing cards, or you punish them with racks. As you usually don't want to allow people to draw cards, the best option there is to use rack effects.
On the more creature focused deck, it seems like Suicide Black with a few controlling cards thrown in. I'd focus on speeding that up, really leaning on the speed of the creature base, using your spells to keep the field open for them.
The biggest issue I see, is that neither of these decks are Devotion strategies. While they share some cards, without Gary as a win con build around piece, it's not devotion. There certainly are similarities with some decks like The Gate, MBC, 8Rack, Suicide Black, and even Zombie Tribal, it's building around Gary that separates this deck from the other Bx decks. This is why you aren't getting a lot of great feed back here. There are threads for all of these, though, the Suicide Black and Zombie Tribal threads are few and far between, and poorly maintained.