Runelfare trap has been an excellent wincon for me. Often I can fire off two or three in the same turn. Unlike luminarch's ascension, myth realized, or even celestial colonnade, the trap does get hit by abrupt decay, pte, or even bolt. The thing about turbofog is that if there is an answer in their deck, they will draw it. The only thing you need to worry about is a counterspell, but the only hard counter in modern is cryptic command. Remand is no problem because the spell just comes right back to your hand and you can cast it again. It's only R. Mana leak isn't an issue because the you've got the mana.
I still say we throw in a singleton of Azor's Elocutors as a wincon/flavor. It gets slaughtered by PtE, but can resist bolt, flame slash, and isn't hit by abrupt decay.
This deck uses graveyard filling spells to cast fatties with delve or exile a creature casting costs. Upgrades would include Scavenging Ooze and fetches.
The current (3/22/15) TCG optimized price is $12.73
So after realizing that modern fish could never be as good as legacy (no FoW, TNN, etc.) I decided that we needed to find our control and wincon elsewhere. The best control card in modern is Blood Moon and the best finisher for fish is Master of Waves, so I set about making a modern UR variant of fish. Shortly after that, I found that Travis Woo already made a UR Fish variant in the same line as mine. Encouraged that the most creative player in the game had already thought the idea worth exploring, I worked some of his ideas into my build and came up with this:
The beautiful thing about this list is that it doesn't run a linear aggro strategy, but instead denies mana while getting enough fish and elemental tokens to get the job done. It also doesn't play the extreme control of Blue Moon, meaning that if we don't draw into a moon we can still play reasonably well.
One other interesting thing is that if we run Magus of the Moon we can turn everything into mountains at instant speed without having to worry about counters. But he's boltable, so I still run the regular old enchantment.
I don't know if this is the right place, but I've been running a UR Merfolk list that acts more as a blue moon shell. I'm really liking it so far and was wondering if you guys had any opinions.
(I'm really new here, if this is in the wrong place I am truly sorry)
I've only been playing magic for a few months, but already I've become disturbed by the portrayal of women. Not only do women appear on cards less frequently than males, when they do they are highly sexualized. Let's look at planeswalkers.
Excluding the distinctly non humanoid Nicol Bolas, Karn Liberated, and any form of Ajani, there are 41 planeswalkers. Out of those 41, 24 (59%) are male, 2 (5%) are gender ambiguous (Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver and Domri Rade), and 15 (36%) are women.
More important that the gap in representation of women and men is the depiction of them. While most of the men are in full armor, revealing very little skin, the women are often depicted with skin tight outfits revealing either large amounts of cleavage, like Liliana of the Veil, completely bare legs, like any number of Chandras, or Liliana of the Dark Realms, or with abnormally large breasts well outlined in the shape of armor.
The sexualization of women in MTG is not merely limited to planeswalkers. A quick scan of any set reveals cards like Treasured Find, Vampire's Bite, Barony Vampire, and a million others. Just search for vampires.
My question is, how harmful is this to the MTG community? Obviously diversity is a good thing. Do depictions of women such as these discourage women from playing MTG? Do they harm men's ideas about women? How does this compare to misogyny and sexualization of women across all of "geek culture"?
If you're interested in reading some more about the problems of gender in Geek Culture and MTG, the following articles are both very good.
Your Princess is in another Castle: Misogyny, Entitlement, and Nerds (daily beast)
To my Someday Daughter (starcitygames)
What are your thoughts on this? How do we best go about changing this harmful portrayal of women in a game we all enjoy? Do we need to go about changing it in the first place?
Thanks so much for the advice, Sabotage. Somehow it hadn't occurred to me that using mana and cards to remove things that might very well stay in my opponent's deck for the entire game was a bad idea. I really appreciate you pointing that out, and steering my deck in the right direction. I took out all of the extraction, and put in everything that you suggested but the Wrench Minds. Instead I figured I'd test some Augur of Skulls and hope that with 4 Geth's Verdicts, 2 smallpoxes, and 3 other creatures (7 total) that I can sacrifice, Tragic Slip might be a better removal option than doom blade. But I'm going to test that for a while and if it doesn't work I'll swap the Augurs out for Wrench Minds.
And yes, it would appear that I left out 3 key cards. Sorry about that.
I just wanted to thank you for the kind welcome and helpful advice.
On a side note, does anyone think there is a place in this deck for Nyxathid? It could be very big for a small cmc, but doesn't drive towards the discard thing.
So let me start by apologizing if this is the wrong place. I just registered, and the forum is just a bit big
Let me follow by apologizing for any really dumb questions. I only started playing about a few months ago, because by friends started.
Anyway, here's the deal. Our group plays a pretty casual format. We only use modern legal cards (ugh), but with a kitchen table feel. Things are pretty lax and no deck is worth more than $40.
So that's what I've got so far. I've thought about trying to splash some red for Terminate, Blightning, and the Fall half of Rise//Fall.
I've also considered splashing blue for things like Unsummon, Warped Devotion, and the Rise of Rise//Fall, but splashing mana makes Sadistic Sacrament harder to cast, and limits the effectiveness of Mutilate.
Any have any suggestions? Ideas? Criticism? Jokes? I'm really open to all kinds of feedback, and I look forward to hearing from you guys.
4 Satyr Wayfinder
2 Skaab Ruinator
3 Splinterfright
4 Street Wraith
4 Hooting Mandrills
4 Gurmag Angler
4 Thought Scour
4 Tracker's Instincts
3 Forbidden Alchemy
2 Dismal Backwater
6 Forest
6 Island
2 Jungle Hollow
4 Opulent Palace
2 Thornwood Falls
This deck uses graveyard filling spells to cast fatties with delve or exile a creature casting costs. Upgrades would include Scavenging Ooze and fetches.
The current (3/22/15) TCG optimized price is $12.73
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Silvergill Adept
2 Grand Architect
3 Master of Waves
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Sleight of Hand
3 Sea's Claim
4 Spreading Seas
3 Blood Moon
2 Electrolyze
4 Polluted Delta
3 Steam Vents
2 Sulfur Falls
The beautiful thing about this list is that it doesn't run a linear aggro strategy, but instead denies mana while getting enough fish and elemental tokens to get the job done. It also doesn't play the extreme control of Blue Moon, meaning that if we don't draw into a moon we can still play reasonably well.
One other interesting thing is that if we run Magus of the Moon we can turn everything into mountains at instant speed without having to worry about counters. But he's boltable, so I still run the regular old enchantment.
Any suggestions? Feedback? Thoughts? Jokes?
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Silvergill Adept
2 Grand Architect
3 Master of Waves
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Sea's Claim
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Spreading Seas
3 Blood Moon
2 Electrolyze
4 Polluted Delta
3 Steam Vents
2 Sulfur Falls
In the SB I'm playing around with Izzet Charm and Magus of the Moon. The charm works as Spell Pierce, a Faithless Looting, or a Dead//Gone. The magus can also be vialed in, which is really nice.
Any thoughts?
Cracker Barrel, according to Google, is
"[a] reference to the barrels of soda crackers once found in country stores, around which informal discussions would take place between customers"
I've only been playing magic for a few months, but already I've become disturbed by the portrayal of women. Not only do women appear on cards less frequently than males, when they do they are highly sexualized. Let's look at planeswalkers.
Excluding the distinctly non humanoid Nicol Bolas, Karn Liberated, and any form of Ajani, there are 41 planeswalkers. Out of those 41, 24 (59%) are male, 2 (5%) are gender ambiguous (Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver and Domri Rade), and 15 (36%) are women.
More important that the gap in representation of women and men is the depiction of them. While most of the men are in full armor, revealing very little skin, the women are often depicted with skin tight outfits revealing either large amounts of cleavage, like Liliana of the Veil, completely bare legs, like any number of Chandras, or Liliana of the Dark Realms, or with abnormally large breasts well outlined in the shape of armor.
In fact, the only non sexualized female planeswalkers are Vraska the Unseen, Elspeth, Sun's Champion, Tamiyo, the Moon Sage, Elspeth Tirel, and Elspeth, Knight Errant.
The sexualization of women in MTG is not merely limited to planeswalkers. A quick scan of any set reveals cards like Treasured Find, Vampire's Bite, Barony Vampire, and a million others. Just search for vampires.
My question is, how harmful is this to the MTG community? Obviously diversity is a good thing. Do depictions of women such as these discourage women from playing MTG? Do they harm men's ideas about women? How does this compare to misogyny and sexualization of women across all of "geek culture"?
If you're interested in reading some more about the problems of gender in Geek Culture and MTG, the following articles are both very good.
Your Princess is in another Castle: Misogyny, Entitlement, and Nerds (daily beast)
To my Someday Daughter (starcitygames)
What are your thoughts on this? How do we best go about changing this harmful portrayal of women in a game we all enjoy? Do we need to go about changing it in the first place?
Plague Dogs
Hollow Dogs
All out of color, but also all fine Led Zeppelin references.
Depending on how far you are willing to stretch it, Into The Maw of Hell makes a potential AC/DC joke.
And yes, it would appear that I left out 3 key cards. Sorry about that.
I just wanted to thank you for the kind welcome and helpful advice.
On a side note, does anyone think there is a place in this deck for Nyxathid? It could be very big for a small cmc, but doesn't drive towards the discard thing.
Currently, the decklist looks like:
Creatures:
x3 Fume Spitter (early removal/morbid trigger)
x4 Augur of Skulls (quasi hymn/morbid trigger)
x4 Hypnotic Specter (early random discard)
x2 Bloodgift Demon (card advantage being nice and all)
Artifacts:
x4 The Rack
Sorceries:
x4 Duress
x2 Smallpox
x1 Diabolic Tutor
x3 Mutilate
Instants:
x4 Tragic Slip
x4 Geth's Verdict
Enchantments:
x4 Shrieking Affliction (not gonna forget it this time)
Lands:
x2 Leechridden Swamp
x19 [card]Swamp] (took out one swamp to make room for a fourth shrieking affliction)
Thoughts? Suggestions? You guys have already been more than helpful to me.
Let me follow by apologizing for any really dumb questions. I only started playing about a few months ago, because by friends started.
Anyway, here's the deal. Our group plays a pretty casual format. We only use modern legal cards (ugh), but with a kitchen table feel. Things are pretty lax and no deck is worth more than $40.
I'm trying to put together a Black deck that uses The Rack and Shrieking Affliction to do all the work, while using cards like Shimian Specter and Sadistic Sacrament to buy them enough time to do so.
I keep play testing it with proxied cards, but it either gets overrun early on, or can't keep opponent's hands below 2.
Here is what the deck looks like so far.
Creatures:
x3 Blind Zealot
x4 Shimian Specter
x2 Bloodgift Demon
Artifacts:
x4 The Rack
Sorceries:
x2 Smallpox
x3 Coercion
x4 Sadistic Sacrament
x1 Diabolic Tutor
x3 Mutilate
x2 Haunting Echoes
Instants:
x3 Geth's verdict
x4 Doom Blade
Lands:
x2 Leechridden Swamp
x20 Swamp
So that's what I've got so far. I've thought about trying to splash some red for Terminate, Blightning, and the Fall half of Rise//Fall.
I've also considered splashing blue for things like Unsummon, Warped Devotion, and the Rise of Rise//Fall, but splashing mana makes Sadistic Sacrament harder to cast, and limits the effectiveness of Mutilate.
Any have any suggestions? Ideas? Criticism? Jokes? I'm really open to all kinds of feedback, and I look forward to hearing from you guys.
Thanks for taking the time to help a beginner.