- arrogantAxolotl
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Member for 9 years, 3 months, and 20 days
Last active Tue, Nov, 9 2021 20:36:47
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Oct 31, 2017arrogantAxolotl posted a message on The 13 Scariest Pieces of Magic ArtNo old school Mutilate?Posted in: Articles
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Sep 12, 2017arrogantAxolotl posted a message on Changes to MTGSalvation User AccountsPosted in: Articles
I don't think this is an entitlement thing for most folks. I think folks are just being skeptical about the change and aren't sure if they can trust Curse because they don't understand the imperative for the change.Quote from Ertai Planeswalker »As much as I dislike this change as the next guy, I do want to remind everyone that if you did not pay for anything, you are not entitled to anything.
Everybody who paid for your MTGS account, raise your hands -
Sep 11, 2017arrogantAxolotl posted a message on Changes to MTGSalvation User AccountsPosted in: Articles
Thanks for taking the time to reply to my inquiry. I guess I'll just bite the bullet and make myself a Twitch account then.Quote from Feyd_Ruin »snip -
Sep 11, 2017arrogantAxolotl posted a message on Changes to MTGSalvation User AccountsPosted in: Articles
Would you be willing to elaborate on why this is true? I know that I'm being skeptical here and that the question I'm asking is pretty technical in nature, but I'm failing to see why this is the case. What makes the account merging more secure for users here? Aren't you still just dealing with the same number / types of accounts anyway?Quote from molster »
This lets us just run a single user pool, which is a LOT more secure for users!Quote from Eruyaean »So Basically, i have to create an account in some unrelated service i may not use to continue to use this Forum? -
Sep 11, 2017arrogantAxolotl posted a message on Changes to MTGSalvation User AccountsThis is... huh? What? I don't understand what's going on here at all.Posted in: Articles
I don't use Twitch. I don't even like Twitch. Why do I have to merge my Salvation account with a Twitch account all of a sudden? Molster says it's because it provides more streamlined account security, faster user support, and an easier log-in process, but this is still baffling to me. Easier log-in process? How much easier could logging in be? My home computer already logs me in automatically. Everywhere else... it's just a simple username/password system. How could that process possibly be made any easier?
Maybe this is a security thing, and admittedly I know absolutely nothing about security, but how does merging Salvation accounts to Twitch accounts make things more secure? And why Twitch of all things? Why now? What's the prerogative for this change? Maybe I'm just being some cranky, old man whose resistant to change regardless if it's for the better or not, but I honestly just don't understand why this even needs to happen. I don't want a Twitch account. - To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
7 mana, 4 cards:Land, Arbor Elf —> Land, Overgrowth
6 mana, 4 cards:Land, Arbor Elf —> Land, Llanowar Tribe
6 mana, 4 cards:Land, Arbor Elf —> Arbor Elf, Utopia Sprawl
6 mana, 4 cards:Land, Arbor Elf —> Utopia Sprawl, Utopia Sprawl
6 mana, 4 cards:Land, Utopia Sprawl —> Land, Llanowar Tribe
6 mana, 4 cards:Land, Utopia Sprawl —> Arbor Elf, Arbor Elf
6 mana, 4 cards:Land, Utopia Sprawl —> Arbor Elf, Utopia Sprawl
6 mana, 5 cards:Land, Arbor Elf —> Land, Utopia Sprawl —> Land
6 mana, 5 cards:Land, Arbor Elf —> Land, Utopia Sprawl —> Utopia Sprawl
6 mana, 5 cards:Land, Utopia Sprawl —> Land, Overgrowth —> Land
That's SO MANY. And now you don't need exactly Overgrowth or some ludicrous number of Arbor Elves and Utopia Sprawls to get there. You can just play Llanowar Tribe in conjunction with two lands and any 1-drop. And sure, you could have always made 6 by turn 3 with something like Greenweaver Druid, but those lines always required 5 cards: a 1-drop, a 3-drop, and 3 lands. Llanowar Tribe now makes those same lines one card shorter, significantly increasing the odds you'll assemble them.
EDIT: I just realized it grants you protection in addition to all of your creatures, so I suppose it could be used as a possible option against storm? Even still, I'm unsure...
Astral Drift looks like it has potential, and while some of the other cycling payoff cards like Drake Haven don't look too terrible, almost all of the available cards with the cycling mechanic themselves look downright atrocious. Granted, there are some exceptions, notably the lands, but most of the available spells look way too poor for Modern. This led us to the conclusion that the cycling lands would need to make up the bulk of what we cycle, and that in turn makes Life from the Loam really good as a 2nd cycling payoff card, putting the deck in at least GW.
Because the deck is going to want to play a significant number of Secluded Steppe, Tranquil Thicket, and probably Scattered Groves, it's going to be difficult to reliably cast mana dorks on turn 1. Too many lands come into play tapped, and it's likely that some that don't still won't always produce green because they're either colorless utility lands or because they're something like basic Plains or Flagstones of Trokair. This, combined with the fact that there isn't any intrinsic value in blinking a card like Noble Hierarch, led us to avoid mana dorks in general. Fortunately, there is a valuable ramp spell available to us in Edge of Autumn. Aside from Street Wraith, it's the only other "free" cycler, and playing tapland on 1 -> Edge of Autumn on 2 is a reasonable curve. It also helps fuel Life from the Loam in the midgame, and being able to tap out on turn 3 to cast Astral Drift while simultaneously being able to cycle a card if need be is nothing to slouch at.
Another observation we made is that, because Astral Drift comes down on turn 3 at the earliest and because almost no cards cycle for free, you're almost never going to blink something before turn 4. And if what you want to blink is a creature of your own, it would help tremendously if that card only cost 2 or 3. That way, if you curve into tapland -> 2-drop -> Astral Drift, you have both mana and a target to blink when you cycle a card turn 4. And that works even if you don't make your 4th land drop (or if your 4th land enters the battlefield tapped). Alternatively, if you curve into tapland -> anything -> 3-drop, then a 4th untapped land on turn 4 also allows you to play Astral Drift and still have 1 available with which to cycle a card and blink whatever 3-drop you played.
From that point, my friend and I took a look at what creatures we could blink to get good value out of. While there are plenty of good 3-drops in this category, good blinkable 2-drops are a little more scarce. Here are the most notable 2-drops we found (sorted by color):
Knight of the White Orchid
Lone Missionary
Wall of Omens
Dusk Legion Zealot
Ravenous Rats
Stitcher's Supplier
Arboreal Grazer
Elvish Visionary
Nest Invader
Satyr Wayfinder
Coiling Oracle
Glowspore Shaman
Meddling Mage
Tidehollow Sculler
Phyrexian Revoker
Unfortunately, while there were a handful of blue cards that would be okay to blink, there weren't that many 2-drops that we were all that happy to proactively play. (Cards like Omenspeaker, Augur of Bolas, and Fblthp just don't look that great in comparison to something like Wall of Omens.) We also knew we wouldn't be red from the start (to sort of differentiate this deck from a Hollow One deck), so we didn't pursue that direction at all.
Of the cards listed above, the ones we were most excited about were Wall of Omens and Nest Invader. Wall of Omens provides card advantage in addition to a solid body with which to block, something a slower deck like this one might find valuable. Nest Invader provides multiple bodies, and allows the deck to ramp into Astral Drift on turn 3 while simultaneously having both a blink target and a mana available with which to cycle a card. Lone Missionary was also quite tantalizing, but because we foresaw there being a plethora of other GW cards that gain life higher up on the curve that we might also want to play (things like Knight of Autumn, Thragtusk) we decided to omit the Missionary. Satyr Wayfinder is another card we're curious about. It doesn't provide cards as reliably as Wall of Omens, and its body isn't as valuable, but it may potentially synergize with other cards in the deck beyond Life from the Loam, so we're keeping our eyes on it.
The sweetest thing we found about black is that it grants access to repeatable discard in the form of cards like Ravenous Rats, but because Astral Drift is a long blink, the discard loses a lot of its value since there's no way to get the creature to return on the opponent's draw step. (This is also why blinking Frilled Mystic is unhelpful.) Despite this fact, a card like Tidehollow Sculler may be a direction worth taking the deck, and things like Sin Collector or Chittering Rats might also be worth pursuing.
So far, we now have a deck that looks like this:
4 Secluded Steppe
4 Scattered Groves
2 Forest
1 Plains
4 Nest Invader
4 Wall of Omens
3 Life from the Loam
From this point, we decided to include a few of the remaining cyclers that I haven't talked about yet.
4 Secluded Steppe
4 Scattered Groves
2 Forest
1 Plains
4 Nest Invader
4 Wall of Omens
3 Life from the Loam
1 Dissenter's Deliverance
2 Cast Out
2 Restoration Angel
Because we knew the deck would be primarily if not entirely GW, we knew what little removal the deck did have ought to be flexible. Cast Out does that by exiling a smattering of card types while also being an instant. That's especially useful once Astral Drift is in play since it allows us to play the game either proactively or reactively depending upon the situation. If there's a card that has to be answered, we can use the 4 we held up to cast Cast Out. If they don't force us to react, we can just cycle a few cards, and eke value out of whatever we have in play. And because Restoration Angel both has flash and synergizes with everything else we're blinking, we thought it would also make a good addition seeing as it would mean our opponents wouldn't always know exactly what we're doing with 4 open mana and would give us another kind of proactive play.
So, that's pretty much where we're at right now. Of the GW cycling cards, the only ones we thought stood any chance (apart from the lands and Astral Drift anyway) were Edge of Autumn, Dissenter's Deliverance, Cast Out, Renewed Faith, and maybe Street Wraith. Dissenter's Deliverance and Renewed Faith both suffer from the fact that it just might be better to play some kind of creature with an ETB effect that does either of those things than it is to play the actual cycler. Street Wraith is also kind of a gamble since, while it is a free cycler, I'm not sure if this deck will want something like Traverse the Ulvenwald (it might), and there really isn't any use for Street Wraith beyond being Astral Drift fodder, so there's a real opportunity cost to playing it.
Anywho, I guess we're now just going to fill out the deck with other miscellaneous cards, Eternal Witness, Kitchen Finks, etc., and make adjustments from there once we playtest it.
I don't think it's heresy. In fact, I cut my Garruks a long time ago. He was always too vulnerable, and especially so without cheaper creatures to block for him. Granted, I'm not a Nykthos deck exactly, so he isn't as crucial for me as he probably is for other players, but Llanowar Tribe will often come down sooner than Garruk (it's a lot easier to make 3 on turn 2 than it is to make 4), and will frequently tap for just as much if not more during most stages of the game without also being any more vulnerable on average.
With two lands, any dork on one, and Llanowar Tribe on two, you're set up to cast six drops on turn three even without a third land.
Something I've always valued in message boards is that, while writers have always been free to dump their thoughts in a careless manner, the mechanics of message boards don't encourage it to the extent social media does. People like me will just spend their time meticulously crafting their posts in such a way that their ideas are shared with as much clarity and refinement as possible. I don't know why that is exactly. All I know is that the overall format here is just better for having conversations.
And that's what I think I'm ultimately afraid of losing. I'm afraid I'll lose the ability to have meaningful conversations with people about Commander and about Magic: the Gathering at large. Nothing is ever going to beat a face to face conversation with someone, but there's only so many people I can reach due to physical distance. The Internet, and message boards specifically, have always been the next best place to go.
My Modern Tooth and Nail deck is also pretty stoked.
To answer the question in your title, you first need to make a distinction. Are you looking for the best ramp cards in green? Or are you looking for the cards that ramp the best in green? Because those two things aren't exactly the same. It's not too difficult to construct a hierarchy of ramp cards based on how good they are at ramping, but it's very difficult to construct the same hierarchy based on how good those cards are in general in part because a card's worth always depends upon context; you start getting really apples to oranges comparisons that way.