New land cycle. Don't think it'll be playable in 99% of modern decks, there are just safer options for having a dual ETB untapped.
You only want these early on in the game and fastlands are better for that. Too bad this wasn't an enemy color cycle, that would have been interesting because there are no fastlands for that.
Uh, powercreep much? I honestly think this is better than bob. It's obviously not made for the same strategy, you want to go deep on either discard or superfast aggro with this one.
For modern it's definately not better than bob. The first few turns of a modern game are so super important and this thing does nothing for you there as you only go hellbent later. In standard it might be better, I wouldn't really know. It's still q pretty powerful card thouigh, and it would not surprise if it saw some play in modern in certain decks.
How is a 3/1 for 2 doing nothing? Seriously, this is a very aggressively costed creature with tremendous upside if you can consistently empty your opponents hand, and we all know black has cards for that...
Compared to a Tarmogoyf, Bob, Flip Jace, or even a Scooze it's pretty weak. It probably won't do anything besides being a 3/1 for the first 5 turns of the game (which in modern is surprisingly often the whole game), which is not that impressive. Bob needs to be answered right away and digs you out of mana screws as well.
edit: again I'm talking about Modern, I know nothing of standard.
Uh, powercreep much? I honestly think this is better than bob. It's obviously not made for the same strategy, you want to go deep on either discard or superfast aggro with this one.
For modern it's definately not better than bob. The first few turns of a modern game are so super important and this thing does nothing for you there as you only go hellbent later. In standard it might be better, I wouldn't really know. It's still q pretty powerful card thouigh, and it would not surprise if it saw some play in modern in certain decks.
Start with thrun, the last troll and go from there. Planeswalkers are pretty good, but you should really only play ones that are 4 CMC. Also batterskull and thragtusk are really sweet.
Well, I disagree. In one of the stores I play there is a 70pct-ish meta of Jund and Grixis decks, my weapon of choice there is definately Abazan (and I've gotten plenty of store credit there with it). You want to go over the other deck and usually have plenty of time to do so. Hitting 6 lands in these kind of matchups is very common. Both Ob Nixilis and Big Elspeth are really good in those games. I personally think big Elspeth is the best in these matchups. Nothing like seeing your Jund opponent topdecking his Chandra and thinking he's got the game in the bag after which you topdeck Elspeth and bury him in soldiers in the next turns. Elspeth is great vs these decks because they rely on big ground sloggers like Tasigur, Tarmogoyf, Scooze, Kalitas, Angler, Huntsmaster and so on, they are very vulnerable to both the + and the - ability of Elspeth.
What do you guys think of Traverse the Ulvenwald in a Sultai shell? Early game you have the typical BG stuff (the discard, Goyfs, and similar) and then TtU comes in late game to ensure that you find a way to close out the game. U gives you Thought Scour for the line of
I don't know about BUG specifically, but the card is definitely very good. 1 mana to hit a land drop early if you should need it, and 1 mana to tutor any creature (or non basic land) in your deck later on? The card is incredible. My first thought is to pair it alongside Thought Scour but like Goyf the card gets good just by playing Magic.
It's a future staple. On principal I don't preorder cards, and I'm seriously considering a preorder of these.
The card itself is quite solid but I wouldn't call it super good. I wouldn't preorder them but rather wait to see where it fill find its place and the price to drop as it will. It has potential to go in some decks but I don't think it's a card for BGx midrange decks. I for myself can tell that I wouldn't play it in my Jund for sure.
Not a card for Jund or Abzan, I agree. But this should be pretty good in any non-infect UG deck, which are, and have been for a long time, very bad. I hope but doubt this can drag them in tier 2.
6 mana walkers just aren't modern playable. I'd rather play big Elspeth than this thing, and no one is really playing Elspeth.
She is sometimes played mainboard in UW control (like this: http://www.mtgstocks.com/decks/112952 ).
I've seen her played in Boros Bridge decks.
I sometimes use her in the sideboard in my Abzan midrange deck when I expect a VERY grindy meta.
Pretty fringe, but she is definately seeing some play in modern.
6 mana is so much for this card but the fact that his plus wins you a game is interesting at least. Reminds me of Keranos, God of Storms.
For me the question is whether he is better then Elspeth, Sun's Champion if you're in white anyway. Elspeth can turn around a hopeless situation pretty fast otoh this Sorin will probably end the game quicker. I think Elspeth is still a bit better because the plus ability gives you board presence, so can be used offensilvely or defensively.
the game starts to turn into your favour when you're 4 to 6 life. going down to 3 life is a bad play because they have lots of cards with that damage. when playing against burn, we always shout "boros charm" because it's always the card they need to beat me because I always don't go down lower than 4 life.
This is my experience as well. You go down low and then either win the next turn or get burned out with their last card.
I guess every time I play vs. Burn, they always topdeck that Boros Charm instead of the land...
From a playability standpoint, here is the situation. You are on the draw. Opponent goes turn 1 Goblin Guide, swing. Your hand consists of a good mix of lands and spells. You have a Swamp and a Thoughtseize. Do you Thoughtseize T1? If yes, what if you only have shocklands as your lands in hand? What if your lands are Forest, Marsh Flats, and the rest are spells? If it is worth playing a tapped dual turn 1, do you Thoughtseize T2 if you have a 2 drop in hand (Scooze/ Goyf)? If you play the creature, how about turn 3 if you have Lingering Souls in Hand?
In case of swamp + thoughtseize i definately play the toughtseize. With a shock it becomes more difficult, probably not, if you have no way to get rid of an eidolon I would probably shock and toughtseize. It also depends whether they kept 7 and what lifegain you have in hand. I have definately lost a game to burn where I didn't shock toughtseize turn 1 on the draw (played a tapped land) and they slammed a T 2 Eidolon which killed me (well you can also hope they don't have it, but still) because I couldn't get rid of it fast enough.
the game starts to turn into your favour when you're 4 to 6 life. going down to 3 life is a bad play because they have lots of cards with that damage. when playing against burn, we always shout "boros charm" because it's always the card they need to beat me because I always don't go down lower than 4 life.
This is my experience as well. You go down low and then either win the next turn or get burned out with their last card.
Abzan is certainly underdog against Burn and Burn player needs to have fairly bad draws in order for the Abzan player to win. It's true that Abzan has Siege Rhino, Feed the Clan and Kitchen Finks but Burn has a lot of Skullcrack effects and every Burn player who knowswhat he's doing will keep them in hand until you play any of these life gain cards. This doesn't mean that it's unwinnable mu but you need to be pretty lucky to beat Burn. I for myself can say I wouldn't be happy if I faced Burn with Abzan and can tell from my own experiences that especially game 1 is really rough and even postboard you need to basically Rhino into Feed the Cland and them not having Skullcrack or Atarka's Command in hand to win.
I don't really trust this statistics. I my experiences are different and back in the day when MtgGoldfish still had its data Jund was also described as heavily favoured against Burn (71%) and it's clear that's not the case. I have feeling that there's the same story with Junk.
I don't know how your playstyle is but I've never lost to burn with my life in modern. so I agree with the stats.
In my experience we're slightly favoured against burn, but it vastly depends on your maindeck. It is a tricky matchup to navigate though as eg sometimes the correct play is T1 fetch, shock, inquisition, but often playing a land tapped is better. I play 2 finks, 3 rhinos, 2 vents and 2 scoozes mainboard as lifegain.
The online percentages are probably skewed a bit as little kid abzan and abzan company are often lumped together with us and their burn matchup (especially melira combo) is a lot better I feel.
Also note this gives Abzan players a way to get rid of Keranos.
We already had Dromoka's Command and Celestial Purge. It's really versatile which makes it great for the sideboard, but it's not better than Maelstrom Pulse for the maindeck IMO. It seems pretty great for Esper midrange/control decks though.
Hey Guys - I've currently just bought my Goyfs and Lilies because I've been wanting to buy-in to this deck for a while. My current modern deck of choice is Abzan Coco, which I love but sometimes you just want to cast Rhinos/Lilies and Goyfs
I also think post eldrazi ban that Abzan will be in a great spot. If eye gets banned we will see less Tron, we have a good matchup against Affinity and Infect due to Lingering Souls, Jund vs Abzan has always been in our favour and Kalitas is a ******* house against Abzan company - if they aren't running Thune combos they simply can't combo out. And we're better at the Burn Matchup then Jund is.
Here's my list assuming that Eye gets knocked out:
Explanation: Oath - it could be bad. I like the idea of it. 4x Oath could potentially allow me to cut a land to 23, as I'm 100% fine as an early game play Pondering for a land. Plus, it allows us to cast Lily a bit easier or less painfully and lessens are weakness against Blood Moon. Late game it allows us to dig for a threat and multiples are fine because it pumps Goyf.
Elspeth, Champion: Pet card - almost unbeatable if she's allowed to get going in any grindy matchup. Probably a sideboard card.
Kalitas: Just pure value.
And the rest are pretty self-explanatory. Thoughts? Suggestions? Deck is bad - burn it?
My remarks: I like Oath of Nissa but not in Junk Midrange. Against the many aggro decks in the format we don't have the extra mana lying around and we often want to find a spell like lingering souls. Besides that we need to assume our random topdeck is better than our opponent's and we also don't run toolbox creatures so the dig isn't so useful.
Elspeth is great, but not in the main board. I'd only maindeck her in a meta with 60%+ midrange decks.
Kalitas imo is worse than Rhino. I'd play the 4th Rhino before the first Kalitas. Sure Kalitas ceiling is higher, but Rhino's floor is a lot higher as well. The higher floor matters more in this deck IMO. Kalitas is great in Jund because they run bolt and terminate where our 1 cmc kill spell (path) nonbos with it. If you want the exile effect try Anafenza, the Foremost. She is maindeckable IMO if you have a few decks like company, loam, grishoalbrand,... in your meta.
Smaller issues:
you only use 1 utility land, you can go up to two and IMO as the meta was before the eldrazi mess you want those to be ghost quarters. While Vault can be great it's often a bit win-more. But this depends on your meta.
sideboard:
Your sideboard is extremely grindy in general, I think you need some more cards vs aggro and combo.
I like at least 1 Damnation over Languish but I know the $ difference matters too so it's a small one
3 painful truths seems a lot.
The Sorin is great vs burn but not that great vs most decks, if you have a lot of burn in your meta it's fine.
I'd move some finks to the main and add some flex cards like Golgari Charm, Duress or Engineered Explosives.
If you have a few Tron decks in the meta you'll need at least 3 fulminator mage (or other forms of land destruction), these also come in vs control and infect.
to summarize:
In general the deck seems a bit too slow for an (non-eldrazi) average meta. If you have an extremely grindy meta it seems fine (although I'd still remove the Oaths).
Yeah, there's no need to worry for Tron, once Temple and Eye are banned and Unfair Eldrazi decks are out of the picture it will probably be one of the best deck.
Forscythe basically confirmed they aren't banning both lands during GP Detroit. It's going to be two cards and we know one is going to be a land, but the other could be an eldrazi card or even Simian spirit Guide, we have absolutely no clue, and there's reasons enough behind either land to say that it could go eye or temple. So start flipping coins. I'm hoping for mimic + eye ban so we don't have an alternate version of affinity.
You might be reading too much into that. For all we know "not destroying" equals not banning any eldrazi creatures while getting rid of the two lands. Then you can still play your eldrazi deck but it will just suck.
After the Twin thing, who the heck can guess what deck is going to be obliterated for the next PT? How do you prepare for that? You don't. Chaos ensues and from chaos sometimes good things emerge, sometimes Eldrazi decks emerge.
Sorry, but this is really far of the mark IMO. With just the summer bloom ban before the PT we would have been in exactly the same mess. The Eldrazi issue has nothing to do with the Twin ban.
You only want these early on in the game and fastlands are better for that. Too bad this wasn't an enemy color cycle, that would have been interesting because there are no fastlands for that.
Compared to a Tarmogoyf, Bob, Flip Jace, or even a Scooze it's pretty weak. It probably won't do anything besides being a 3/1 for the first 5 turns of the game (which in modern is surprisingly often the whole game), which is not that impressive. Bob needs to be answered right away and digs you out of mana screws as well.
edit: again I'm talking about Modern, I know nothing of standard.
For modern it's definately not better than bob. The first few turns of a modern game are so super important and this thing does nothing for you there as you only go hellbent later. In standard it might be better, I wouldn't really know. It's still q pretty powerful card thouigh, and it would not surprise if it saw some play in modern in certain decks.
Well, I disagree. In one of the stores I play there is a 70pct-ish meta of Jund and Grixis decks, my weapon of choice there is definately Abazan (and I've gotten plenty of store credit there with it). You want to go over the other deck and usually have plenty of time to do so. Hitting 6 lands in these kind of matchups is very common. Both Ob Nixilis and Big Elspeth are really good in those games. I personally think big Elspeth is the best in these matchups. Nothing like seeing your Jund opponent topdecking his Chandra and thinking he's got the game in the bag after which you topdeck Elspeth and bury him in soldiers in the next turns. Elspeth is great vs these decks because they rely on big ground sloggers like Tasigur, Tarmogoyf, Scooze, Kalitas, Angler, Huntsmaster and so on, they are very vulnerable to both the + and the - ability of Elspeth.
Not a card for Jund or Abzan, I agree. But this should be pretty good in any non-infect UG deck, which are, and have been for a long time, very bad. I hope but doubt this can drag them in tier 2.
She is sometimes played mainboard in UW control (like this: http://www.mtgstocks.com/decks/112952 ).
I've seen her played in Boros Bridge decks.
I sometimes use her in the sideboard in my Abzan midrange deck when I expect a VERY grindy meta.
Pretty fringe, but she is definately seeing some play in modern.
For me the question is whether he is better then Elspeth, Sun's Champion if you're in white anyway. Elspeth can turn around a hopeless situation pretty fast otoh this Sorin will probably end the game quicker. I think Elspeth is still a bit better because the plus ability gives you board presence, so can be used offensilvely or defensively.
In case of swamp + thoughtseize i definately play the toughtseize. With a shock it becomes more difficult, probably not, if you have no way to get rid of an eidolon I would probably shock and toughtseize. It also depends whether they kept 7 and what lifegain you have in hand. I have definately lost a game to burn where I didn't shock toughtseize turn 1 on the draw (played a tapped land) and they slammed a T 2 Eidolon which killed me (well you can also hope they don't have it, but still) because I couldn't get rid of it fast enough.
This is my experience as well. You go down low and then either win the next turn or get burned out with their last card.
In my experience we're slightly favoured against burn, but it vastly depends on your maindeck. It is a tricky matchup to navigate though as eg sometimes the correct play is T1 fetch, shock, inquisition, but often playing a land tapped is better. I play 2 finks, 3 rhinos, 2 vents and 2 scoozes mainboard as lifegain.
The online percentages are probably skewed a bit as little kid abzan and abzan company are often lumped together with us and their burn matchup (especially melira combo) is a lot better I feel.
We already had Dromoka's Command and Celestial Purge. It's really versatile which makes it great for the sideboard, but it's not better than Maelstrom Pulse for the maindeck IMO. It seems pretty great for Esper midrange/control decks though.
I have an Esper deck that loves this though.
My remarks: I like Oath of Nissa but not in Junk Midrange. Against the many aggro decks in the format we don't have the extra mana lying around and we often want to find a spell like lingering souls. Besides that we need to assume our random topdeck is better than our opponent's and we also don't run toolbox creatures so the dig isn't so useful.
Elspeth is great, but not in the main board. I'd only maindeck her in a meta with 60%+ midrange decks.
Kalitas imo is worse than Rhino. I'd play the 4th Rhino before the first Kalitas. Sure Kalitas ceiling is higher, but Rhino's floor is a lot higher as well. The higher floor matters more in this deck IMO. Kalitas is great in Jund because they run bolt and terminate where our 1 cmc kill spell (path) nonbos with it. If you want the exile effect try Anafenza, the Foremost. She is maindeckable IMO if you have a few decks like company, loam, grishoalbrand,... in your meta.
Smaller issues:
you only use 1 utility land, you can go up to two and IMO as the meta was before the eldrazi mess you want those to be ghost quarters. While Vault can be great it's often a bit win-more. But this depends on your meta.
sideboard:
Your sideboard is extremely grindy in general, I think you need some more cards vs aggro and combo.
I like at least 1 Damnation over Languish but I know the $ difference matters too so it's a small one
3 painful truths seems a lot.
The Sorin is great vs burn but not that great vs most decks, if you have a lot of burn in your meta it's fine.
I'd move some finks to the main and add some flex cards like Golgari Charm, Duress or Engineered Explosives.
If you have a few Tron decks in the meta you'll need at least 3 fulminator mage (or other forms of land destruction), these also come in vs control and infect.
to summarize:
In general the deck seems a bit too slow for an (non-eldrazi) average meta. If you have an extremely grindy meta it seems fine (although I'd still remove the Oaths).
You might be reading too much into that. For all we know "not destroying" equals not banning any eldrazi creatures while getting rid of the two lands. Then you can still play your eldrazi deck but it will just suck.
Sorry, but this is really far of the mark IMO. With just the summer bloom ban before the PT we would have been in exactly the same mess. The Eldrazi issue has nothing to do with the Twin ban.