Anyone see the spoiled card from Ixalan, yet? Bishop of Rebirth.
Bishop of Rebirth - 3ww
Creature - Vampire Cleric
3/4
Vigilance
Whenever this attacks, return target creature card with converted mana cost 1 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield.
Not as good as Sun Titan for recursion, but a 5-mana Proc alternative. Something to look at if you want more mid-range / mid-to-late game action.
The biggest challenge with any type of super-early mana-ramp like Dark Ritual, or even "fixed" dark ritual effects is that it warps creative. Every single creative decision after "fixed dark ritual" has to take "fixed dark ritual" into consideration. In this example, every creature with CMC 3 or less would have to be evaulated as if it could enter play turn 1. Currently, the cost involved with making a 3-cmc hit play T1 is self-balancing. Once you change that, and allow 3-cmc creatures to enter on turn 1, well, you then completely limit every 3-cmc creature thereafter. Wooly Thoctar (from the previous example) would probably never have a chance of being printed. Probably not Vampire Nighthawk, and never Hypnotic Spectre: a card that sees zero play currently. Those cards could never exist. So, no matter how well you try to balance a T1 "fixed dark ritual" either it will be so underpowered as to not even be considered a "dark ritual" type card or it will warp formats foreverafter simply because of the way design has to balance the possibility of it being played.
I love how everyone missed the entire point. Guys bonepicker was not the topic of discussion. Just a point made. Okay so now past that. If the card read... And this just feels more green than black BTW so fixing that.
Creative and cool name G
Sorcery
Put a creature with converted mana cost of 3 or less from your hand into the battlefield.
That's more like the OP is trying to describe. Would this be played in modern?
Or make it black for some reason. Would that be played?
Even though with the new evolution card, the OP card just feels green.
Ah, see, thats a different card tho. Cause multi-colored cards could come into play because of it, whereas Dark Ritual had that very specific BBB
Turn 1 Hyppie was brutal. I can attest to that. Granted, it didn't happen all the time, but when it did, it wrecked face. Add to that black land destruction Strip Mine and Sinkhole. Ugh.
In that regard, turn 1 Fulminator Mage could really really slow opponents down. Is it good enough? Maybe with a boat load of Ghost Quarters to keep the pressure up. Turn 1 Hyppie or Turn 1 Fulminator gives resiliency, then just follow it up with all the Thoughtseizes turns 2 through scoop.
Don't forget Court Hussar will die when flickered. When it returns, the "sacrifice it" clause triggers, and since you didn't actually pay anything to cast this new version, it gets sacrificed.
Has anyone tried As Foretold yet? I think as a 2-of in the deck, possibly. This deck is a tap-out style control deck, and being able to tap out for Detention Sphere and still be able to Path on opponent's turn seems valuable. If it ever gets binned, it has the right mana cost to get back from Sun Titan.
I run 3 Spreading Seas main. I'm very happy with it. The matches I side it out for are matches that this deck seems to do well against Game-1 anyway.
I also did a tourney last night. 3-1 overall. I faced:
1) Elves, and won 2-0
2) Midrange Bant, and won 2-0 (down to 1 life before stabilizing)
3) Grixis Death Shadow, and won 2-1 (down to 2 life before stabilizing one game, and complete blowout another)
4) Scapeshift, which I lost 0-2.
I really love the deck. I started playing Modern (when it started back in 2011 and 2012) with a budget mono-white deck that I've been powering up and tweaking over time. Got out of the game for a while and now just recently got back in (approx 4 year absence) and U/W seems so good right now. I'm really happy with Sun Titan every time I draw it. But the real all-star has been Flickerwisp. Getting extreme value PLUS putting opponents on a clock. Best card in the deck for me.
PS: I really, really want to have 4 Negates. Currently, 2 Negate + 3 Mana Leak does not cut it. The cards I want to counter are in matchups that run big-mana, so the Mana Leaks end up dead. 4 Negates seem to be the better option.
After some more testing with the W/B list I can say that I was rather impressed with Trial of Ambition and would probably play 2x maindeck instead of 1x going forward, curving from it into Flickerwisp is very good.
#The 2-drop slot continues to dissapoint and I didn't like both Knight of the White Orchid and Lone Missionary (though the latter was slightly better).
Is there a reason you don't run Tidehollow Sculler main? The main reason I want to run a W/B list would be for Tidhehollow Sculler keeping the most dangerous card out of my opponents hand.
In truth, i've been thinking about splashing 3-color (W/U/b) for either Tidehollow Sculler possibly even Baleful Strix. In fact, Baleful Strix seems so, so, so perfect for our 2 drop slot. Just getting the mana right is going to be difficult.
Do you feel you have too many 3 drops? Perhaps cutting the Kitchen Finks (a card I absolutely love) is actually the better option? Or, since you play with Lingering Souls tokens, perhaps Smuggler's Copter can find a home here.
We could easily stay tier 1 with a opal ban and an artifact land unban
I'm assuming this is a joke / jest. Artifact lands will never be unbanned. As much as I love Affinity, I don't anticipate (nor do I want) artifact lands unbanned. No amount of artifact removal can make up for the broken shenanigans artifact lands allow, and every card Wizards prints going forward would have to take into account the existence of artifact lands.
I know that the deck focuses hard around the Emeria long-term inevitability, but has anyone tried removing Emeria completely for Celestial Colonnade? I have rarely found Emeria to actually go the distance. Sun Titan + flicker effects seems to be more of the most important finishers. If we remove Emeria, Colonnade becomes an immediate replacement option. Still comes into play tapped, but has an impressive upside in that it can win games, uncounterably.
It also allows for Rest in Peace to be more viable sideboard option to help fight graveyard shenanigans, even with its horrid interaction with Sun Titan. It shifts the deck slightly away from Sun Titan / graveyard recursion as primary, and allows it to be flexible.
Creature - Vampire Cleric
3/4
Vigilance
Whenever this attacks, return target creature card with converted mana cost 1 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield.
Not as good as Sun Titan for recursion, but a 5-mana Proc alternative. Something to look at if you want more mid-range / mid-to-late game action.
Unfortunately, no. See the bannings of Rite of Flame and Seething Song
Ah, see, thats a different card tho. Cause multi-colored cards could come into play because of it, whereas Dark Ritual had that very specific BBB
In that regard, turn 1 Fulminator Mage could really really slow opponents down. Is it good enough? Maybe with a boat load of Ghost Quarters to keep the pressure up. Turn 1 Hyppie or Turn 1 Fulminator gives resiliency, then just follow it up with all the Thoughtseizes turns 2 through scoop.
I also did a tourney last night. 3-1 overall. I faced:
1) Elves, and won 2-0
2) Midrange Bant, and won 2-0 (down to 1 life before stabilizing)
3) Grixis Death Shadow, and won 2-1 (down to 2 life before stabilizing one game, and complete blowout another)
4) Scapeshift, which I lost 0-2.
I really love the deck. I started playing Modern (when it started back in 2011 and 2012) with a budget mono-white deck that I've been powering up and tweaking over time. Got out of the game for a while and now just recently got back in (approx 4 year absence) and U/W seems so good right now. I'm really happy with Sun Titan every time I draw it. But the real all-star has been Flickerwisp. Getting extreme value PLUS putting opponents on a clock. Best card in the deck for me.
PS: I really, really want to have 4 Negates. Currently, 2 Negate + 3 Mana Leak does not cut it. The cards I want to counter are in matchups that run big-mana, so the Mana Leaks end up dead. 4 Negates seem to be the better option.
Whoops. LoL. I've derped before, but not quite a derpy as this.
Is there a reason you don't run Tidehollow Sculler main? The main reason I want to run a W/B list would be for Tidhehollow Sculler keeping the most dangerous card out of my opponents hand.
In truth, i've been thinking about splashing 3-color (W/U/b) for either Tidehollow Sculler possibly even Baleful Strix. In fact, Baleful Strix seems so, so, so perfect for our 2 drop slot. Just getting the mana right is going to be difficult.
Do you feel you have too many 3 drops? Perhaps cutting the Kitchen Finks (a card I absolutely love) is actually the better option? Or, since you play with Lingering Souls tokens, perhaps Smuggler's Copter can find a home here.
I'm assuming this is a joke / jest. Artifact lands will never be unbanned. As much as I love Affinity, I don't anticipate (nor do I want) artifact lands unbanned. No amount of artifact removal can make up for the broken shenanigans artifact lands allow, and every card Wizards prints going forward would have to take into account the existence of artifact lands.
It also allows for Rest in Peace to be more viable sideboard option to help fight graveyard shenanigans, even with its horrid interaction with Sun Titan. It shifts the deck slightly away from Sun Titan / graveyard recursion as primary, and allows it to be flexible.