MTG Salvation

I miss the good ol' days when prison decks had: stasis, kismet, and chronatog.

Isochron Scepter + Orim's Chant (a strictly better silence in formats which allow it) is another reliable staple combo not yet mentioned above.

Now my only Azorius prison deck is my Grand Arbiter Augustin IV commander deck which is very strong and finely tuned but could still use improvement. Unfortunately, decks like these are often an early target for opponents to team up against, and justifiably so. Suffice it to say taxing effects like sphere of resistance, propaganda, and rhystic study are much stronger than they seem to the untrained eye. Attached for reference is my current configuration. Note: There are a few cards I'd like to have in this deck but don't have copies of yet (or enough copies, ie: fetchlands). As such, there are placeholders in the interim. Other proven and potentially good cards are specifically omitted because I like my decks to have unique identities, and I find that when you run the same combos and/or staples in multiple decks which can support them (or "should" include them from Spike's perspective), they no longer feel as distinct and distinguished. This however is simply my opinion, and I'm always open to suggestions and constructive criticisms.

Quote from TearingEons »

I was pretty stoked about Afterlife when it was announce and couldn't wait to see what tricks they'd come up for it. Then the spoilers started to drop and it was clear it wasn't gonna get the same love that the other mechanics, especially Riot and Adapt, were getting. Even Addendum looks better balanced than Afterlife. It'll be good for limited, but not for Constructed or EDH.
There's no one drop because they did basically that in Guilds. The creatures we did get this set just feel underpowered. I know that you get one or more bodies when they die, but most don't do anything interesting aside from that. Even the mythic was just ok. The only two that look decent are Ministrant of Obligation and Orzhov Enforcer. Afterlife didn't even get a spell to grant it to your creatures like Riot did.
The other four mechanics for this set all involve some sort of choice, while Afterlife was just there.
If I am mis-evaluating things, please correct me, I'd love to think better of this mechanic.

Uhm....Have you not seen Teysa Karlov?
Are you also forgetting about Divine Visitation?!
Ajani's Last Stand grants a form of afterlife as does open the graves
Lest we forget that deathbloom thallid creates a token when dying as do doomed dissenter, Elenda, the Dusk Rose, hunted witness, and martyr of dusk.
Orzhov also got Kaya's Wrath, an unconditional 4-mana sweeper (which is something we haven't seen in standard since Supreme Verdict)

Afterlife is good as is.
Any more support and some would likely complain it's broken.

Naban, dean of iteration is another 2-drop legendary worth looking at if you want the extra mana turn 2 (or later) for dive down, and the ramp plus doubling of the subsequent etb(s) with enough wizards in the deck could be significant (ie: turn 3 riverwise augur, else merfolk trickster + silvergill adept, a pair of viashino pyromancers for 8 damage on entry, or worst case two exclusion mage triggers and a mana left over for dive down or opt).

The way I see it, Mox Amber will likely never shine in standard, but it's a sleeper which will almost certainly have modern potential once more 1-drop legendaries get printed (which is inevitable). For this reason, I already have six copies including my prerelease promo, and plan to buy or trade into more while its price is low since I don't believe it will bottom out any further. Alas, at the moment it still can't fit into many decks, and its best friends are Rhys the Redeemed, Oviya Pashiri, sage lifecrafter, and Kytheon, hero of akros. Gaddock teeg approves as do Sygg, river guide and Jace, vryn's prodigy, and some 2-drops like Radha, heir to keld, Slobad, goblin tinkerer, and Tawnos, urza's apprentice might want it for acceleration in Commander as well. I'd even consider it for nezumi graverobber. Regardless, when it eventually climbs beyond reasonable affordability as all moxen should and do, I don't want to hear people complain that they missed the boat. It's never getting cheaper because the card can only improve from here on out, so logically the time to buy copies is now.

I've only been playing standard on Arena, and so far I'm very pleased with the new mechanics. At least four of the five have shaken up the meta significantly compared to what we had prior to rotation.

Compared to the previous RTR block when I also played standard (albeit more with the INN block than THS)...
-Convoke is better than or equal to Populate. Why? Tokens are inherently vulnerable to bounce, and who doesn't like ramp for added tempo?
-Undergrowth is worse than Scavenge. Admittedly I love kraul harpooner and vigorspore wurm (in limited), but there's nothing practical and undercosted like deadbridge goliath nor do we have efficient enablers this time around within the guild such as lotleth troll
-Surveil is obviously much better than Cipher (which I don't even remember seeing play in standard back then or other formats since), though everyone sure loved nightveil specter back then). Cipher occasionally had better value in limited since there was less removal and countermagic, but I'd still rather have a mechanic that lets me dig through my deck quicker than something which might trigger when a creature hits an opponent. In hindsight, I wonder if cipher would've been playable if those triggers didn't rely specifically on combat damage. Would any form of damage by the encoded creature to the player have made it too easy to abuse (now or then?)? Who knows.
-Jump-start is better than I anticipated, but still feels like a weak flashback most of the time, and also inferior to Overload which gave us great cards like cyclonic rift, mizzium mortars, and vandalblast.
-Lastly, Mentor is certainly better than Battalion which was too conditional and didn't trigger as often.

Quote from motleyslayer »

my buddy paid $19 each for 3 foils a month ago at GP Montreal, unfortunate for him

Unfortunate indeed, but when you're dealing with devils, you should expect to get burned

Coincidentally, I was at that recent GP (mainly for trading and signatures, albeit not my devils which were done a few years back among other AVR and RTR block cards). My advice to your buddy is to look for underpriced RL cards and/or foils which are commander staples at such events. I personally target cards like memory jar which meets both criteria along with other cards which I feel know don't carry the same inherent risk. Hopefully this reprint serves as a good learning experience.

Anyway, it may not the best rare for a masters set, but it's still a worthy 1-drop, and I certainly look forward to eventually getting new borders signed as well for my collection at the next available opportunity.

Drakes on a Plane, Part IV: New Borders, Old Wings

Perhaps in Commander 2020 we'll be lucky enough to see the next sequel entitled: Drakes on a Plane, Part V: Same Legend, New Art !

Quote from Ryperior74 »

That scared me for a second thank heavens it’s uncommon and not rare

Agreed. It definitely didn't need to waste a rare slot so I share your sigh of relief.
The new art looks nice, but the old flavor text is better in my opinion.

Quote from Silver_Spellthief »

Not feeling that art on gravetroll. Looks like somebody reanimated Quasimodo and put him on a hearthstone card.

To me it looks more like they're trolling us with the skeleton of little red riding hood!

These are my pics, 3 per single color, and one 2CMC card per 2-color combination
(and yes, I realize that some of these cards were never standard-legal to begin with)

Green: birds of paradise, krosan grip, eternal witness
Red: arc trail, blood moon, anger of the gods
Black: go for the throat, liliana of the veil, rise from the grave
Blue: dissipate, snapcaster mage, ponder
White: path to exile, oblivion ring, honor of the pure
Artifact: chromatic lantern, elixir of immortality, relic of progenitus
multicolor: abrupt decay, goblin electromancer, azorius guildmage, rakdos charm, qasali pridemage, baleful strix, lightning helix, tidehollow sculler, vexing shusher, coiling oracle

Now tell me that wouldn't be an awesome standard with a straight face!

Arclight phoenix has apparently become the new go-to deck for Johnny-Spikes which started to annoy me recently on Arena, so I built an experimental new Esper control deck to keep it in check and teach those players a valuable lesson about that deck's fragile nature and situational co-dependencies. I still need to unlock more non-basic lands among other cards so it's not fully optimized yet, but I wanted to share it anyway to get some opinions, comments, suggestions, and criticisms.

What do you think?

First off, welcome back! I know how overwhelming the game can seem after a long hiatus, but don't worry or let first impressions fool you.
The market corrects over time, and there are ways to avoid falling into the trap of buying expensive standard staples which often don't hold post rotation.

Teferi is very strong, this we can agree on. However, so are countless other cards in recent sets. And yes...Back in the day <insert reminiscent music here> green stompy decks played craw wurms and force of nature. But wait! Now there's Ghalta, carnage tyrants, aggressive mammoth, and lest we forget terra stomper which isn't even competitive by today's standards! What about Karn, flip Bolas, and Chandra who just rotated out, as well as both 3-drop Lilianas, BFZ Gideon, etc. Cards were all pushed and overpriced on the secondary market. Some hold, and some lose post rotation. It's a matter of popularity and supply. The player base has increased, and the market is fickle. Every set now is bound to have absurdly pushed cards, but they all have vulnerability.

Teferi may be stronger than Venser, the sojourner, but he's certainly not as threatening as the scarab god

You're concerned about Teferi draw/go with countermagic in hand?
You have cheap answers: banefire and inescapable blaze just to name a couple in addition to the aforementioned tyrant. Slap a blanchwood armor on it and Teferi is crying.

The money trap is thinking you have to play every high end card to win when you can have just as much fun and win your local FNM events by brewing with cards which go under the radar but still perform well, or by knowing the local competition well enough to play a counter-meta deck which doesn't necessarily cost much to buy or trade into either.

You don't even need to play multicolored decks and you can save on shocklands and checklands. Mono blue can be dirt cheap to build and tempest djinn is great at 3CMC, possibly better than any other card in the cycle because you can protect it with siren stormtamers (which is ironically an uncommon worth triple the rare djinn).

The strength of cards is always relative to the other cards in the format, and even the cards which seem strongest in theory have weaknesses in practice.

Another preconstructed Commander deck you can start her off with is Derevi, Empyrial Tactician which also includes an alternate art Rubinia Soulsinger and Roon of the Hidden Realm which are also both viable options to use as commanders. Better yet, get her both and she'll think you're the best brother in the world. Two bant commander decks; What more could any bant player want? Empyrial Archangel perhaps? Jenara, Asura of war? Stoic Angel is nice. And lastly, I suggest a Phelddagrif and questing phelddagrif which are must-haves for any bant collector

Curious to know what would happen in this situation...

Say I have ornithopter on the battlefield, bring in skilled animator to make it a 5/5, then enchant the animator with metamorphic alteration choosing the now 5/5 thopter. What happens here? Does the animator become a 5/5 flying with no other abilities or simply a 0/2 flying since the overwritten p/t isn't copiable? The game object (animator) hasn't left the battlefield, so I'm assuming the thopter wouldn't revert back to its original p/t. However, if the modified animator (now a thopter with no etb) leaves the battlefield as a thopter, will the delayed trigger still fire off reverting the first thopter back to a 0/2, or is that contingent on the object leaving the battlefield still having the ability which created the trigger as it leaves.

Similarly, if a non-creature (non-legendary) artifact is turned into a 5/5 by the animator and subsequently chosen as the creature to copy when the animator is then enchanted by the alteration, will the animator be a 5/5 creature with whatever abilities that artifact has, or will the animator become an "unanimated" (non-creature) copy of the artifact which it's copying?

Thanks

The main LGS I play at used to do 5 rounds, but a few impatient losers complained the events were too long, so now they only do 4 rounds.
What those fools failed to realize is that by requesting that they reduce the events by one round, the prize pool suffered significantly!

Now:
4-0 = 12 packs
3-0-1 = 9 packs (what most 3-0s end up with after mutually agreeing to draw round 4)
3-1 = 6 packs
2-1-1 = 2 packs

Previously:
5-0 = 24 packs! (the last time I managed this at a prerelease was Gatecrash...Got a firemane avenger as my Boros promo, and opened a second one in a booster which was amazing)
4-0-1 = 18 packs (what most 4-0s would end up with after mutually agreeing to draw round 5)
4-1 = 12 packs
3-1-1 = 6 packs
3-2 = 2 packs

Personally, it annoys me when people show up to a prerelease, pay their entry fee, and then drop out before the event even begins (especially when they have a more viable pool to build with than me). It may be their prerogative to do so, but oftentimes someone else gets a "bye" as a result and has to wait an hour before even playing their first game. Some people may like that (bad players especially), but even if I get the bye which translates to a free win, I go primarily to play and have fun with new game pieces, not wait and receive handouts in the form of free victory points. Dropping after two rounds when you're not likely to win any prize packs, fine, I get that. However, in my opinion if an individual is only attending prerelease events to acquire cards early and get a free promo without even playing a single game, I think that's sad if not pathetic and their priorities are really backwards. Why knowingly attend an event which is 4-6 hours long if you can't even commit to budgeting the time required for said event in your (apparently too busy) schedule?

So I previously had the two on the left and recently got the top on the right.
Are these all legit?
I know that some other artists have changed their signatures, so I just wanted to confirm that's the case here.
Thanks!