LOL that post was definitely reaching. You make red sound way better then it is.
1 search card
a few very mediocre sweeper
a few very mediocre removal
mediocre filter cards.
No straight draw
No straight search
No Ramp
Can't deal with Enchantments
Creatures are all overcosted.
No recursion
Yah, the weakest color by far.
I think you are over estimating just how much search other colors have outside of black. Blue gets instants and socereries, white gets artifacts and enchantments, green gets lands and creatures, red gets goblins and dragons - and has a straight up search your library for any card. I am pretty sure that outside mono-black no other color can make that claim. Straight draw? http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+[draw]||type=+[draw]||subtype=+[draw]||text=+[draw]&color=+@([R]) There are 4 pages of draw effects on cards, not to mention spells such as wheel of fortune. Ramp? Well I guess you may have me there as I can't recall any ramp effects I've utilized in red, but where are your blue ramp effects. As for the sweepers and removal being mediocre, I dare you to tell me an obliterate followed by me dropping some decent creature is mediocre. And creatures being overcosted? You must think that trained orgg is the only red creature then.
Red is the weakest mono-color. No draw and no searching matched with no artifact or enchantment answers. Also limited sweepers or spot removal
Red has plenty of draw/discard cards at its disposal. Searching? See Gamble. Artifact answers? The dozens of incarnations of shatter and other effects on a global level. Spot removal? Fissure. Sweepers? Decree of annihilation. The only thing it really doesn't have is good enchantment answers imo.
Since the ITT seems to have become Tithe gewd or bad, I figured I would throw my support behind Tithe. For me the big thing is that not only does it net you card advantage in the form of grabbing 2 lands the majority of the time, those are also 2 lands you don't have to worry about drawing later in the game. It's one of the reasons fetch lands are so good - not only are you fixing your mana base and ensuring land drops, you're also increasing the probability of drawing spells off of the limited draw you do have in mono-white as opposed to dead draws such as lands late in the game.
For this reason I am also a huge fan of weathered wayfarer and I doubt anyone would argue against land tax since it is just an enchantment form of tithe and ww on a larger scale. Really the only reason I wouldn't want to empty my library of lands into my hand is if I knew an opponent was playing mass LD effects.
Speaking in defense of Hermit Druid, I feel it plays a very fun role in my Mimeoplasm deck. I've kept as low a basic land count as my budget will allow, but its still high enough that there is some randomness to the ability. Sometimes I'll flip 3 cards into my graveyard, sometimes 20. This stocks my graveyard and provides me with all sorts of fun things to do with my many reanimation spells, Havengul Lich, Body Double, not to mention Mimeo. And considering graveyard hate is cheap and available to all colors, Hermit Druid can end up being quite high-risk, high-reward (thank you Sadistic Sacrament). Everyone knows it can be abused if you want, but rarely do I see anyone support Hermit Druid as a fun graveyard enabler.
To avoid derailing this thread, I'll leave it at this. It seems difficult, if not impossible, to police all of Magic's potential game-ending combos. Those who want to combo out will do so, so I'd err on the side of allowing the fun tools to those who want play with them, while accepting that some will use them for degenerate ends. While it sucks to have Tooth and Nail resolve and kill you on the spot, it has a lot of fun uses outside of that scenario. I say let it be.
This. It is kind of like the whole gun control argument in the sense that if you ban cards because combo players are going to do broken things with them, you are only hurting the players who would legitimately use them for fun. Combo players are still going to find broken ways to win the game, regardless of whether or not card X is banned. My Prog~ deck is dedicated to all of the 2 combo cards across the 5 color spectrum it can play just to prove this point.
Originally I was happy to see this format get some targeted support by WOTC... but the more often I see a card that makes me think, "Clearly this was designed with EDH in mind," the more I frown. I think there is just something exciting about discovering cards that weren't designed with this format in mind that end up being amazing.
As for prices skyrocketing... Well it is a trade I am willing to make in exchange for not having to look that hard for other EDH players.
As you can see with my signature, I have a large number of EDH decks. But I also enjoy playing a large variety of strategies, which is why I have so many built. I have done the same for my other format of choice, Legacy. To me it just gets stale playing the same handful of decks over and over again. As an added bonus, I can always loan EDH decks out to people who don't have their own but still want to play.
Interesting, how long did it take you to come to the 17 card combo? This could be a lot harder than I imagined :/
It was a group of friends and I going through my cards one afternoon. It all started because I ran the rigger card they printed in Future Sight in a deck for fun and we bluffed to one of my friends in the game that it was part of my 17 card combo infinite willow elf recursion combo. After that game, we actually decided to do it! Of course a portion of the combo is redundancies, but I imagine it could easily be stretched further to encompass more cards and accomplish more. It was a lot of fun to come up with though, and still one of my favorite casual decks to play.
I have a friend who has a crazy artifact deck that will tap and untap it several times when going off to generate wonky amounts of mana. I've wanted to build a deck modeled around it for a while now.
If your opponent does anything questionable, call a judge. If you suspect your opponent of stacking their deck, call a judge, do NOT shuffle it in a way to screw them over.
Don't let yourself get tilted. This means feeling very bad about variance or a mistake you made and letting it affect your play.
When you put your backpack on the floor, put your leg through one of the shoulder straps so thieves will have a hard time taking your stuff from you. If you go to a restaurant after the event and your car doesn't have an alarm, take your backpack with you. My friends and I left our backpacks in a locked car trunk but the thieves still broke into the car and opened the trunk, taking all of our stuff. If you do have an alarm put your backpack in the trunk.
Don't plan on using altered cards or sleeves with art on them unless you can get them approved by the head judge. It's better to play with plain sleeves. Oh, and bring some extra packs of sleeves too in case some of them break. Jackie Lee recommends using new packs of sleeves for large events like this.
There was a thread in this very forum where the OP's friend got a judge called on him by his opponent, his opponent said he drew an extra card or played an extra land, but he said his opponent mulliganed. He didn't prove that his opponent mulliganed, so he got a game loss. This is where writing down that your opponent took a mulligan is handy.
Wow, I cannot believe people would go as far as to break into someone's car for their stuff. I guess I am a little more accepting of people stealing inside the venue itself, but breaking into a car? As if losing the cards wasn't bad enough; now you have car damage to deal with.
It was one of those things my parents tasked me with when I was a small child. 15 years later can't say I remember much of it. I've also read through the entirety of the Quran and the Avesta.
The Molten Slagheap cycle is preferred to the Hanger cycle in my opinion only because of the early game disadvantage the Hanger cycle puts you at that the Slagheap cycle alleviates by having a colorless tap ability. If I knew I could draw them mid-game, I would love them. But the majority of the game they just aren't that good. Also, there is the Fallen Empires series of storage lands like Icatian Store. Arguably even worse than the 2 mentioned before, but if you really want storage lands...
I prefer the regular stasis art
I think you are over estimating just how much search other colors have outside of black. Blue gets instants and socereries, white gets artifacts and enchantments, green gets lands and creatures, red gets goblins and dragons - and has a straight up search your library for any card. I am pretty sure that outside mono-black no other color can make that claim. Straight draw? http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+[draw]||type=+[draw]||subtype=+[draw]||text=+[draw]&color=+@([R]) There are 4 pages of draw effects on cards, not to mention spells such as wheel of fortune. Ramp? Well I guess you may have me there as I can't recall any ramp effects I've utilized in red, but where are your blue ramp effects. As for the sweepers and removal being mediocre, I dare you to tell me an obliterate followed by me dropping some decent creature is mediocre. And creatures being overcosted? You must think that trained orgg is the only red creature then.
Red has plenty of draw/discard cards at its disposal. Searching? See Gamble. Artifact answers? The dozens of incarnations of shatter and other effects on a global level. Spot removal? Fissure. Sweepers? Decree of annihilation. The only thing it really doesn't have is good enchantment answers imo.
For this reason I am also a huge fan of weathered wayfarer and I doubt anyone would argue against land tax since it is just an enchantment form of tithe and ww on a larger scale. Really the only reason I wouldn't want to empty my library of lands into my hand is if I knew an opponent was playing mass LD effects.
This. It is kind of like the whole gun control argument in the sense that if you ban cards because combo players are going to do broken things with them, you are only hurting the players who would legitimately use them for fun. Combo players are still going to find broken ways to win the game, regardless of whether or not card X is banned. My Prog~ deck is dedicated to all of the 2 combo cards across the 5 color spectrum it can play just to prove this point.
As for prices skyrocketing... Well it is a trade I am willing to make in exchange for not having to look that hard for other EDH players.
It was a group of friends and I going through my cards one afternoon. It all started because I ran the rigger card they printed in Future Sight in a deck for fun and we bluffed to one of my friends in the game that it was part of my 17 card combo infinite willow elf recursion combo. After that game, we actually decided to do it! Of course a portion of the combo is redundancies, but I imagine it could easily be stretched further to encompass more cards and accomplish more. It was a lot of fun to come up with though, and still one of my favorite casual decks to play.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=108129
If you are interested
Wow, I cannot believe people would go as far as to break into someone's car for their stuff. I guess I am a little more accepting of people stealing inside the venue itself, but breaking into a car? As if losing the cards wasn't bad enough; now you have car damage to deal with.