MTG Salvation

I don't know that I'd consider Elesh Norn an answer to anything. At seven mana, you've already won if you can resolve it.

Daring Thief seems much better, for starters. I'm actually surprised you don't run it just to steal Zur.

Most of the turn 2 combo decks are decidedly weak to Cursecatcher and Judge's Familiar. Effects like Thalia and spheres can be brutal once you have the fast decks off tempo since they don't really have the ability to develop a board and they struggle with a well-developed board.

The more I play with the new mulligan rules, the more I think it's reasonable to knock people out of the game before they have the opportunity to get a decent hand. People can't use the mulligan to sculpt hands anymore which means that they're more reliant on tutoring. Counter a tutor and you might buy yourself two turns. Leonin Arbiter got better for exactly this reason.

I think the main question is how best to deal with Animar?

If this is fake, then why is Wizards responding to the rumors with "We'll punish those responsible!" rather than denial?

It sounds like a response to a list that's more or less right since they could readily say that it has the same accuracy as people throwing darts at a list of expensive cards.

Wildfire and Moon effects are more asymetric than 'Geddon effects.

It might be time to discuss Mayor again now that more good humans have been printed and cards like Champion of the Parish are making their way into cubes. Right now, 30% of my creatures are human. That's 12% of my cube.

Thoughts?

I can't say I ever had problems with Ensnaring Bridge. It's a mild nuisance that might fog you for a turn. It's also not a card you expect to see at a competitive table as Hermit Druid and Doomsday completely ignore it.

Arcane Lab is far more likely to be seen, but it's only a problem for your general: you can still lob a potentially game-ending bomb every turn.

I've never seen GAA4 at a competitive table since it just gets archenemied. It's in no opponent's best interest to let GAA4 live.

Winter Orb you do occasionally see in competitive play alongside Derevi and sphere effects. It's a problem, to be sure. But they're just as vulnerable to your Moons as you are to their Orbs. Plus you have a bunch of artifact acceleration.

Derevi/Krenko/Druid/Doomsday just have a lot more consistency than Wanderer does.

The way I think about it is that you did something like 1:1:1 (One third lands, one third ramp, one third bombs) because you could mull into lands and ramp. Now it's more like 3:3:2, and that reduces the quality of your cascades.

The rule change had the effect of making this much less consistent and making late-game topdecks worse. This may no longer be a top tier competitive deck.

I haven't had time to test recently owing to a new baby and job hunting/interviewing. I don't think Spelljack and Mystic Confluence are gimmicks.

Honestly, it's not clear to me how viable Wanderer is without the ability to abuse the mulligan rules by turning early-game-unplayable bombs into ramp. This deck was built to abuse that style of mulligan and without it you can easily get very poor opening hands that have no ability to interact in the midgame. I think this is a huge shift in favor of decks with massive redundancy and/or good draw fixing. The change also makes prison decks much better as it's easier to lock out a player who can't sculpt their opening hand.

I think Derevi, Krenko, and every other deck whose general is a combo piece gained a lot when the rules changed. I think Derevi and Doomsday gained more than most as they're built the most like a Legacy deck to begin with.

I don't know that those ever pull their weight. The question is whether or not this justifies running the various Fyndhorn Elders and more two-drop acceleration. Four drop acceleration occupies a sweet spot in that it either produces a lot of mana or thins your deck fairly aggressively.

It's a massive change. I used to aggressively mull out everything except Tooth and Nail over 4 CMC in my opening hand just because I could. Without that kind of mulliganning, there's a real risk of getting stuck at 4-5 mana for a while. I'll have to play with it when I have time, but I think this means more ramp and fewer bombs by a smidge. Maybe more sac outlets for Wanderer since there's no fear of him being tucked.

You realize that if you're survival-ing for Prophet and you expect to resolve it, you could just Reveillark instead and win on the spot?

I think the point is that it was abusive in *casual* playgroups as the card is an enabler, not a griefer, but what it enables can quickly take over a game. Notice that Prime Time is banned while Hermit Druid is not. The ban list is about restricting the cards that can show up in good faith at a casual table. If you play Doomsday or Hermit Druid, it's assumed that you know what you're doing.

It's not obvious that Prophet was just one slot. Frankly, this may merit rebuilding with a different combo package. Prophet enabled abuse of Patron Wizard and Azami on a scale that justified their inclusion. Is it *still* justified? Dunno.

Strongly agreed. If people can't write "Black Lotus" on their basic Plains anymore, they'll just buy counterfeits to achieve the same effect. Eliminating proxies just favors actual counterfeits.

Similarly, forcing people to shuffle twenty year old card board will slowly and surely damage these already-rare cards beyond playability.

At first glance, it looks quite weak.