There's Phantasmal Image (and Protean Raider I guess...), but idk how good that is, as any copies of Brothers Yamazaki beyond 2 will be stranded in your hand again.
And most other good samurai are legendary, so copying does rather little there as well.
Really, the biggest draw I can see to that list is playing Toshiro t2-3 then going double Fatal Push / Terminate / Bolt the next turn.
Aside from that... most samurai are sadly pretty small.
Like Battle-Mad Ronin. Sure, 2 mana 3/3 sounds deece, but if they can just let it ping them for 1 each turn, it's pretty inconsequential.
Till your opponent has a bigger creature and just eats it.
In general the issue with Bushido is, that you need to make your opponent want to block your creatures and take unfavourable trades, instead of just letting them through.
Putting them in a "damned if I do, damned if I don't" situation.
Just by themselves they are kinda better on defence, warding off attackers.
They can still make for a fun and fine casual deck though, even if they won't ever see competitive glory with the current pool. ^.^
(I know bc I have a janky W/R Samurai list for the kitchentable since quite a while. :3c )
Personally, I quite like that the change is coming sooner rather than later.
I always found it quite annoying knowing the new format already, but still being stuck with the old and having to go through the motions of it for another two weeks or more.
E.g. Twin was banned, but that wasn't effective until 11 days later on Modo (Paper was 4 days).
So while you already knew you soon won't need your anti-twin cards anymore or that you can start brewing with deck X again, you really can't for another 1.5 weeks.
It's not the end of the world, but a nuisance.
I can see the short notice being more of an issue for people who play Paper Magic, as that is a lot more annoying and clunky to get new cards and switch decks, can't just hop through a few bot chains and pick up the stuff you want and start playing 10 minutes later.
So for those, the short time is probably an issue since they likely have to skip a week of FNM or w/e else they were planning on playing, unless they have a second deck or so.
Still though, overall I'm a fan of rolling the changes out more quickly and skipping the weird middle phase where you know stuff is gonna change, but you can't really play like it or test for it yet. ^^
I don't actually think that Censor is that good. I tend to agree with SuperHans99, except that I think that Force Spike would be playable.
If Force Spike would be playable, shouldn't the same go for Mana Tithe as at least a 1- or 2-of in U/Wx Control and similar decks?
In some rare cases it does, but even then it's usually just there as a game one gotcha card that gets boarded out once shown, not really as a reliable counter.
I guess Force Spike with Cycling would be too good? And since we can't have a 1.5 mana cost Force Spike, the next best thing is sadly 2.
Personally I hope that we at least see some sweet experiments with Censor and that it perhaps even finds a niche, but I wouldn't bank on it.
It does protect your Delver on the draw for one turn, so that is something I guess. ^^
But so does Spell Pierce... yeah, idk.
You mean that is because it's pulling reality smashers or Karns? you're right stirrings isn't even close to preordain it's better.
Ancient Stirrings's has a different and generally lower ceiling than a generic filtering cantrip though.
That is why it does more.
The best thing Stirrings gets is w/e the best Colourless card in your deck is.
The best thing Preordain or Ponder grab is the best card in your deck.
If the best thing in your deck is a 5 Mana 5/5 Haste, Trample Colourless thingy, then yeah, Stirrings is better.
Or a Karn etc. etc.
But Blue cantrips can get you anything, or dig towards it, which makes them go into vastly more decks and archetypes, as well as generally more universal.
They get you lands in the early game, threats and answers in the midgame and whatever that one card in your library is that you need right now to win or at least not lose.
Be it a boardwipe, an answer to w/e keeps you from comboing off right now or the reach to closer out the game.
Yes, many tools can also be found in Colourless or at least have some equivalent.
But still, the possibilities for a Preordain are much higher than for Ancient Stirrings, and seeing how these cards have turned out in the past, often eventually powering up Combo decks to very consistent levels, I can kinda get why WotC may be wary about unbans in that category.
I haven't been to mtgs for a few days and apparently we have an all nice and fancy new layout. :3
Which sadly came with two things:
-removal of a dark theme option
This isn't toooo bad as the dark-ish blue is nice, but all the textfields and the curse bar at the bottom are still jarringly bright. >.<
Is there any plan on re-emplementing that feature, or do we just have to wait for someone to mock something up themselves on e.g. userstyles.org?
The other thing is:
-the whole site seems a lot more narrow now
There's a lot of, very nice, blue space on the sides, which is fine while browsing forums or w/e, sure.
But when actually reading a thread, it's kinda weird to have sooooo much wasted space instead of just.. broader posts and fewer lines of text etc.
Especially for longer posts, but also just in general. It seems like ~50% of the site is just wasted nothing.
Oh and while I'm at it:
Some time ago very long signatures broke and weren't scrollable anymore, yet still allowed and possible to make, which was... kinda silly.
Has anything changed about that, rules-wise, or has the scrolling part been fixed / re-enabled?
No need for Heartless Summoning or a sac outlet with Ballista + Mikaeus, since it isn't a 1/1 like Trike, but 0/0 by default.
Renegade Rallier + Saffi needs a sac outlet though.
Paradox Engine + Scepter needs a spell like say.. Manamorphose or a Desperate Ritual to go infinite, since you need to at least gain 2 mana from Scepter to keep untapping and playing it. (Gaining mana or drawing like with these 2 is just icing on the cake, as far as "just going infinite" goes. ^^ )
Green also adds: Tarmogoyf, for a big dumb thing that doesn't just die to everything, unlike the often fragile Fae Abrupt Decay, [c[Natural State[/c], etc. Removal for things U/B usually can't deal with once it hit the field.
Might actually be worth it.
On the other hand, you need to run... what was it, 24+ creature at least to reliably hit with CoCo? Not sure, look it up in Standard articles.
But yeah, finding enough creatures that are worthwhile might be hard when sticking to Faeries.
Considering we had fun things like Jeskai Black and Mardu Green for quite a bit in Standard, I don't think fetches would be ok to leave in there without speeding up the format or some kind of hate card, e.g. Blood Moon.
While yes, Shocklands are even better, with how relatively slow Standard was, and Frontier might be as well, compared to other Eternal formats, as well as more and more dual lands being printed, I don't think fetches can be left in the format as it is.
When the mana is that good, why play anything less than 3-4 colours?
And fetches mean a ton more shuffling during each game, something that not every Standard player might want to relive so soon again.
Since they weren't mentioned yet:
Limited Resources: http://lrcast.com/
for anything concerning Limited (with Marshal Sutcliffe and LSV)
and for constructed stuff
Constructed Resource: http://www.crcast.com/
Though they appear to be taking a hiatus at the moment, idk about that. (with Marshal Sutcliffe as well and Efro)
Episodes are more around 1-1.5h+, which is a lot more up my alley personally, but not so much for working out I guess. ^^
Still, it seemed weird to have a podcast thread without those being mentioned.
I'm a Modern-Player for 'bout 3 years now.
I attended PTQ's, PPTQ's, FNM's and Local gamestore Tournaments.
When i started, teh Format was quite assesable.
Yes, there has always been a bunch of niche-decks, but there has been Pillars and after that a big pool of Tier 2-3 decks.
This circumstance made the format sonehow predictable.
I knew i had to pack Twin, Jund and Delver-Hate like every time.
Nowadays i really lost my mind about Sideboarding. It became ridiculous crazy - so many decks, so many choices, so many cards to hate on specific Matchups.
I really appreciate our newcomers in Eldrazi and Dredge.
But these are not the only ones that pop up here and there - there's a crap ton of old archetypes that creeps out of there holes, making Sideboarding a horror. It becomes even more frustrating once i recognize that i got no Maindeck-Cards against some Tier'ish-3 Decks.
Wereas these are all personal complains of mine, one thing is really embarrassing:
There are 0 viable All-in Combo Decks right now.
Spell-based Combo is like completely dead archetype, only exception right now are Titan Scapeshift and Griselbrand-Combo, which pops ups randomly.
I'm no more a competitive player right now (because Job, girl friend and other hobbies took over my free time) and it's hard to keep up with the format's wide-spread decks, strategies and secret-sideboard techs. Pillars are nowhere to be found.
Sideboarding is tricky, yes.
Many cards shut down 1-2 decks, but you can only commit to those, if you _really_ need them in that match-up and the match-up is regular enough to warrant the slots taken.
Often broad answers with less singular impact are "more handy" (avoiding the term "better", since that depends entirely on your own deck, meta, etc.).
And yeah, a format that is as open as Modern means every now and then you'll lose to the odd Norin Sisters, Mono-Black Devotion or Bubblehulk nonsense.
On the other hand, it also means those decks can be played with a minor, but still existent shot at doing ok to well, depending on the current meta game.
If you prefer only 3 viable decks, that's fine, but many people like the open designspace of Modern and how even brews and weaker decks can do well at times.
Personally I'm always for more options, so more decks are a good thing in my book. ^^
As for combo: Ad Nauseam is still tier 2 and kicking.
Storm might not be, but that isn't the only spell-based combo there is.
And while Titanshift variants can still win with Titan beats and Emrakul, Ad Nauseam is as all in as you can get.
You draw your whole deck and if your control key says "no" when you cast Lightning Storm you're dead (N-not that that happened to me yesterday.. ^^; ).
While I'd like to see Storm or similar combos more often, there are decks you can play as a combo aficionado, even a creatureless one without a "turn your combo dudes sideways" backup plan. ;3
You also have tier 1 Abzan, tier 2 Jeskai, the company and chord decks and Ad Nauseam.
Sure, they aren't mono-white, but fish aside, no colour is really represented in a mono- or two-colour deck.
And white even is, in Death'n Taxes, which is a super varied strategy in itself, between WB, W, WG, WBC, etc.
So.. what glaring issues do you see there, or rather, what would want for White?
WhiteWeenie tier 1?
(Not saying White doesn't need help, it kinda is "Path and 1W sideboard enchantments".colour ^^ )
Do you want to play a
2 mana equipment
+2/+2 to +0/+1 (YP token to flipped Delver crewing)
haste, flying
loots on attack and block
totem armor
equip 0
?
It doesn't flip Delver (but pseudo-flips it, so that's nice?) and doesn't pressure the board. It doesn't provide card advantage, although filtering past the few lands they have can be nice, or past late Delvers.
The Copter sounds pretty nice, but only with other creatures and at that point, playing "protect the queen" and riding your stuff to victory is probably the easiest solution, while without a creature it just sits there.
Just a thought:
It would be cute with Bitterblossom, as you can reliably crew every turn and the tokens get virtually haste.
I was just writing this line in a post:
"Pay 1 mana more and you can even {c=Drown in Sorrow]give all{/c] {c=Flaying Tendrils]of them -2/-2{/c]." (tags deliberately broken to show what I wrote)
which turns into:
Pay 1 mana more and you can even give allof them -2/-2.
I did another test, removing all but the / from the first [/c] and lo and behold, this happens:
Pay 1 mana more and you can even {c=Drown in Sorrow]give all/ {c=Flaying Tendrils]of them -2/-2.{/c]
Pay 1 mana more and you can even give all/ [c=Flaying Tendrils]of them -2/-2.
I did another test with this:
{c=Island]asdasdasdasd {/c] {c=Swamp]asdas / dasdasd asdasd -asda/-sd{/c]. asdasdasdasd [c=Swamp]asdas / dasdasd asdasd -asda/-sd. - space right before the 1st [/c] asdasdasdasdasdas / dasdasd asdasd -asda/-sd. - no space before the 1st [/c] asdasdasdasdasdas / dasdasd asdasd asda/sd. - no space before the 1st [/c] and no - -
The weird thing is:
In my first text, the Flaying Tendrils one, there is NO space right before the Drown in Sorrow ending tag.
It's just *tag*text*/tag* *tag*text*/tag*. Even more curiously the tag breaks before the -2/-2, which is what actually got me to notice and investigate this weird behaviour.
And most other good samurai are legendary, so copying does rather little there as well.
Really, the biggest draw I can see to that list is playing Toshiro t2-3 then going double Fatal Push / Terminate / Bolt the next turn.
Aside from that... most samurai are sadly pretty small.
Like Battle-Mad Ronin. Sure, 2 mana 3/3 sounds deece, but if they can just let it ping them for 1 each turn, it's pretty inconsequential.
Till your opponent has a bigger creature and just eats it.
In general the issue with Bushido is, that you need to make your opponent want to block your creatures and take unfavourable trades, instead of just letting them through.
Putting them in a "damned if I do, damned if I don't" situation.
Just by themselves they are kinda better on defence, warding off attackers.
They can still make for a fun and fine casual deck though, even if they won't ever see competitive glory with the current pool. ^.^
(I know bc I have a janky W/R Samurai list for the kitchentable since quite a while. :3c )
I always found it quite annoying knowing the new format already, but still being stuck with the old and having to go through the motions of it for another two weeks or more.
E.g. Twin was banned, but that wasn't effective until 11 days later on Modo (Paper was 4 days).
So while you already knew you soon won't need your anti-twin cards anymore or that you can start brewing with deck X again, you really can't for another 1.5 weeks.
It's not the end of the world, but a nuisance.
I can see the short notice being more of an issue for people who play Paper Magic, as that is a lot more annoying and clunky to get new cards and switch decks, can't just hop through a few bot chains and pick up the stuff you want and start playing 10 minutes later.
So for those, the short time is probably an issue since they likely have to skip a week of FNM or w/e else they were planning on playing, unless they have a second deck or so.
Still though, overall I'm a fan of rolling the changes out more quickly and skipping the weird middle phase where you know stuff is gonna change, but you can't really play like it or test for it yet. ^^
Don't necro threads, you silly. :b
If you want to look for Infinite Combos in Modern, there's this thread here: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/619731-infinite-combo-reference
It's still taken care of and has a lot of stuff (yes, even the elusive Kiki+Resto ;> )
If Force Spike would be playable, shouldn't the same go for Mana Tithe as at least a 1- or 2-of in U/Wx Control and similar decks?
In some rare cases it does, but even then it's usually just there as a game one gotcha card that gets boarded out once shown, not really as a reliable counter.
I guess Force Spike with Cycling would be too good? And since we can't have a 1.5 mana cost Force Spike, the next best thing is sadly 2.
Personally I hope that we at least see some sweet experiments with Censor and that it perhaps even finds a niche, but I wouldn't bank on it.
It does protect your Delver on the draw for one turn, so that is something I guess. ^^
But so does Spell Pierce... yeah, idk.
Ancient Stirrings's has a different and generally lower ceiling than a generic filtering cantrip though.
That is why it does more.
The best thing Stirrings gets is w/e the best Colourless card in your deck is.
The best thing Preordain or Ponder grab is the best card in your deck.
If the best thing in your deck is a 5 Mana 5/5 Haste, Trample Colourless thingy, then yeah, Stirrings is better.
Or a Karn etc. etc.
But Blue cantrips can get you anything, or dig towards it, which makes them go into vastly more decks and archetypes, as well as generally more universal.
They get you lands in the early game, threats and answers in the midgame and whatever that one card in your library is that you need right now to win or at least not lose.
Be it a boardwipe, an answer to w/e keeps you from comboing off right now or the reach to closer out the game.
Yes, many tools can also be found in Colourless or at least have some equivalent.
But still, the possibilities for a Preordain are much higher than for Ancient Stirrings, and seeing how these cards have turned out in the past, often eventually powering up Combo decks to very consistent levels, I can kinda get why WotC may be wary about unbans in that category.
As silly as that may seem to us right now.
I haven't been to mtgs for a few days and apparently we have an all nice and fancy new layout. :3
Which sadly came with two things:
-removal of a dark theme option
This isn't toooo bad as the dark-ish blue is nice, but all the textfields and the curse bar at the bottom are still jarringly bright. >.<
Is there any plan on re-emplementing that feature, or do we just have to wait for someone to mock something up themselves on e.g. userstyles.org?
The other thing is:
-the whole site seems a lot more narrow now
There's a lot of, very nice, blue space on the sides, which is fine while browsing forums or w/e, sure.
But when actually reading a thread, it's kinda weird to have sooooo much wasted space instead of just.. broader posts and fewer lines of text etc.
Especially for longer posts, but also just in general. It seems like ~50% of the site is just wasted nothing.
Oh and while I'm at it:
Some time ago very long signatures broke and weren't scrollable anymore, yet still allowed and possible to make, which was... kinda silly.
Has anything changed about that, rules-wise, or has the scrolling part been fixed / re-enabled?
I was looking for value, but all I got was shenanigans! Bamboozled indeed.
Renegade Rallier + Saffi needs a sac outlet though.
Paradox Engine + Scepter needs a spell like say.. Manamorphose or a Desperate Ritual to go infinite, since you need to at least gain 2 mana from Scepter to keep untapping and playing it. (Gaining mana or drawing like with these 2 is just icing on the cake, as far as "just going infinite" goes. ^^ )
goes to invert all the votes
Maybe put that into your first post. ^^
Or the title of the poll or so, so you get less wrong votes from people not bothering to read any posts. :b
Tarmogoyf, for a big dumb thing that doesn't just die to everything, unlike the often fragile Fae
Abrupt Decay, [c[Natural State[/c], etc. Removal for things U/B usually can't deal with once it hit the field.
Might actually be worth it.
On the other hand, you need to run... what was it, 24+ creature at least to reliably hit with CoCo? Not sure, look it up in Standard articles.
But yeah, finding enough creatures that are worthwhile might be hard when sticking to Faeries.
While yes, Shocklands are even better, with how relatively slow Standard was, and Frontier might be as well, compared to other Eternal formats, as well as more and more dual lands being printed, I don't think fetches can be left in the format as it is.
When the mana is that good, why play anything less than 3-4 colours?
And fetches mean a ton more shuffling during each game, something that not every Standard player might want to relive so soon again.
Limited Resources: http://lrcast.com/
for anything concerning Limited (with Marshal Sutcliffe and LSV)
and for constructed stuff
Constructed Resource: http://www.crcast.com/
Though they appear to be taking a hiatus at the moment, idk about that. (with Marshal Sutcliffe as well and Efro)
Episodes are more around 1-1.5h+, which is a lot more up my alley personally, but not so much for working out I guess. ^^
Still, it seemed weird to have a podcast thread without those being mentioned.
Sideboarding is tricky, yes.
Many cards shut down 1-2 decks, but you can only commit to those, if you _really_ need them in that match-up and the match-up is regular enough to warrant the slots taken.
Often broad answers with less singular impact are "more handy" (avoiding the term "better", since that depends entirely on your own deck, meta, etc.).
And yeah, a format that is as open as Modern means every now and then you'll lose to the odd Norin Sisters, Mono-Black Devotion or Bubblehulk nonsense.
On the other hand, it also means those decks can be played with a minor, but still existent shot at doing ok to well, depending on the current meta game.
If you prefer only 3 viable decks, that's fine, but many people like the open designspace of Modern and how even brews and weaker decks can do well at times.
Personally I'm always for more options, so more decks are a good thing in my book. ^^
As for combo:
Ad Nauseam is still tier 2 and kicking.
Storm might not be, but that isn't the only spell-based combo there is.
And while Titanshift variants can still win with Titan beats and Emrakul, Ad Nauseam is as all in as you can get.
You draw your whole deck and if your control key says "no" when you cast Lightning Storm you're dead (N-not that that happened to me yesterday..
While I'd like to see Storm or similar combos more often, there are decks you can play as a combo aficionado, even a creatureless one without a "turn your combo dudes sideways" backup plan. ;3
Sure, they aren't mono-white, but fish aside, no colour is really represented in a mono- or two-colour deck.
And white even is, in Death'n Taxes, which is a super varied strategy in itself, between WB, W, WG, WBC, etc.
So.. what glaring issues do you see there, or rather, what would want for White?
WhiteWeenie tier 1?
(Not saying White doesn't need help, it kinda is "Path and 1W sideboard enchantments".colour ^^ )
Do you want to play a
2 mana equipment
+2/+2 to +0/+1 (YP token to flipped Delver crewing)
haste, flying
loots on attack and block
totem armor
equip 0
?
It doesn't flip Delver (but pseudo-flips it, so that's nice?) and doesn't pressure the board. It doesn't provide card advantage, although filtering past the few lands they have can be nice, or past late Delvers.
The Copter sounds pretty nice, but only with other creatures and at that point, playing "protect the queen" and riding your stuff to victory is probably the easiest solution, while without a creature it just sits there.
Just a thought:
It would be cute with Bitterblossom, as you can reliably crew every turn and the tokens get virtually haste.
I was just writing this line in a post:
"Pay 1 mana more and you can even {c=Drown in Sorrow]give all{/c] {c=Flaying Tendrils]of them -2/-2{/c]." (tags deliberately broken to show what I wrote)
which turns into:
Pay 1 mana more and you can even give all of them -2/-2.
I did another test, removing all but the / from the first [/c] and lo and behold, this happens:
Pay 1 mana more and you can even {c=Drown in Sorrow]give all/ {c=Flaying Tendrils]of them -2/-2.{/c]
Pay 1 mana more and you can even give all/ [c=Flaying Tendrils]of them -2/-2.
I did another test with this:
{c=Island]asdasdasdasd {/c] {c=Swamp]asdas / dasdasd asdasd -asda/-sd{/c].
asdasdasdasd [c=Swamp]asdas / dasdasd asdasd -asda/-sd. - space right before the 1st [/c]
asdasdasdasd asdas / dasdasd asdasd -asda/-sd. - no space before the 1st [/c]
asdasdasdasd asdas / dasdasd asdasd asda/sd. - no space before the 1st [/c] and no - -
The weird thing is:
In my first text, the Flaying Tendrils one, there is NO space right before the Drown in Sorrow ending tag.
It's just *tag*text*/tag* *tag*text*/tag*. Even more curiously the tag breaks before the -2/-2, which is what actually got me to notice and investigate this weird behaviour.