hi.
sooo emrakul got revealed in the access magic, are you happy with that?
i hoped for a new emrakul being playable but old one still is better so meh
A 13/13 for 9 with Flying, Trample, protection from Instants and Mindslaver on casting isn't playable?
It's not mind slaver though. It gives your opponent card advantage and an extra turn to boot. Controlling one of those turns is nice but one of the advantages is being able to leave their board state as you want to for your turn.
Eye + no other lands = 2 mana
Temple + no other lands = 2 mana
Eye + 1 land = 5 mana
Temple + 1 land = 3 mana
Eye + 2 land = 8 mana
Temple + 2 land = 4 mana
Eye + 3 land = 9 mana
Temple + 3 land = 5 mana
Eye + 4 land = 10 mana
Temple + 4 land = 6 mana
Sure Temple is better when you draw two of them, but how often is that?
I'm not really sure where you are getting your math since eye generates 0-2 mana depending on if you have an eldrazi in hand. It's only a problem once you have the ability to pay for multiple color/colorless costs in a turn. Eye itself is as much. Liability as it is a boon in eldrazi right now since it does not actually generate colorless mana and thus can't cast thoughtnots and amashers by itself or paired with basics.
I would like to see something like:
Banned: No changes.
Unbanned: Stoneforge Mystic, Bloodbraid Elf, Ancestral Vision.
Let us play the eldrazi's game.
Another thing I wouldn't mind-
Banned: Eye of Ugin
Unbanned: Stoneforge Mystic/Jace, the Wallet Sculptor/Dig Through Time/Ancestral Vision/Bloodbraid Elf/Deathrite Shaman.
One of those things. Not all.
Jace will never be unbanned and I wish people would stop even mentioning him lol. He's already proven to be a problem in modern AND cost wizards money in torniment attendance when he was legal in standard.
Land does nothjng without cheap creatures to abusem
Yall should also git gud and play more removal.
I rarely play modern but I'm pretty sure that there's not enough good land removal for the format. Either way, I'm curious how many cards will get affected this time.
There is more than enough land destruction between ghost quarter, molten rain, beast within and of course bloodmoon. Also spreading seas
I can see what he's saying though, I wouldn't keep a hand with bad spells anyways, even if the 7th were something I could cast. I would pitch it and mull to 6. You do run the odds of having random hands that are an auto mull to 6 but it has to be wayed against the games where you are the top deck champ and win off of it.
With that said I still wouldn't run it just because I like the safer cards and I line to be able to better plan how I'm going to use my mana in a turn. There will be random times you top deck it and wanted to cast a creature with that red mana instead for one reason or another.
I see what he's saying too, but he's looking at it totally wrong. Of course you'd mulligan any bad 7 anyway, but Thunderous Wrath turns every keepable N card hand into a keepable N-1 card hand because TW is dead. You're choosing to start with 6 keepable cards when you could have had 7 keepable cards with the 7th being Lightning Helix or something else playable. It's unacceptable. Burn requires a certain density of burn spells to win, and you're voluntarily choosing to make your mulligan pattern 6-6-5-4... or 7-5-5-4... instead of 7-6-5-4... That's terrible. Sometimes, you're on the draw and you topdeck it as your first draw and it's a dead card there.
If TW is in your opening 7, you are forced to evaluate that hand as if you started at 6 cards. Those other 6 might be keepable, but you made a deck building decision that turns what would have been a keepable 7 card hand into a keepable 6 card hand with 1 dead card that you will never cast. This will cost you games. It will certainly cost you more games than the few times you get to Miracle it off the top. You removed something like Helix to play it. Know what Helix does that TW doesn't? If Helix gets Remanded you have enough mana to cast it next turn, while Remand is effectively Counterspell against TW.
Except that there are plenty of other viable (although notably not t1 decks) which run a card or two you never want in your opening hand. They still manage just fine.
You need to weigh the odds of drawing that TW against the benifit of top decking it at the right time, perhaps making a game winning play.
And sometimes you will topdecks a bolt with Jim which your opponent will then take from for a measly 1 damage and then draw a land. And at that moment in time anyone playing this created will sit back and reevaluate their life choices.
How is that any different from regularly top-decking a land? Assuming the top of your deck is actually random, milling a card on your upkeep has no bearing on what you draw.
Except is has since you have lost 2 damage and have nothing to show for it. You have lost the ability to respond to your opponent's plays. Outside of those fair few who RNJESUS smiles upon I think we can all agree this is going to be the result of running this creature
Red decks need gas and lots of it. Anytime your opponent can pick a card for you is bad.
Your opponent isn't picking a card for you. This is a bonus card on your upkeep; you still get your regular draw step after this, whether he gives you the card or not. The card is just a 3/2 menace for 3 that sometimes gives you free damage on top of it, which is still plenty good.
And sometimes you will topdecks a bolt with Jim which your opponent will then take from for a measly 1 damage and then draw a land. And at that moment in time anyone playing this created will sit back and reevaluate their life choices.
Problem with Wraith is that makes 12% of your starting 7s an effective Mulligan. That's a steep price for an extra 1 damage better on a card.
It's only so much if you run the playset, but just as it's with shard volley, running thunderous wrath as a playset is crap. I'm sticking with one of each and wrath already won me three or four games that would have been lost otherwise.
It's not the same with Shard Volley. You don't need 6 mana to cast Shard Volley. You need R and a land to sacrifice, which is something you're pretty much always going to have. I wouldn't play too many Shard Volley because it's really just a finisher Bolt, not a Bolt you cast any time.
If its in the opening hand and the other cards are good, just keep it and play like you had a mulligan. If the other cards are bad, you probably would take a mulligan anyways.
It's a straight up dead card if it is in your opening hand. It could have been something like Lightning Helix or Shard Volley, or any other card you're actually capable of casting. Instead, you've got a 6 mana card sitting in your hand on T4 and you can't do anything with it. That will lose you games a non-zero amount of the time. It's confirmation bias to only look at the "three or four games that would have been lost otherwise" while ignoring instances where it cost you the game.
I can see what he's saying though, I wouldn't keep a hand with bad spells anyways, even if the 7th were something I could cast. I would pitch it and mull to 6. You do run the odds of having random hands that are an auto mull to 6 but it has to be wayed against the games where you are the top deck champ and win off of it.
With that said I still wouldn't run it just because I like the safer cards and I line to be able to better plan how I'm going to use my mana in a turn. There will be random times you top deck it and wanted to cast a creature with that red mana instead for one reason or another.
I know this dies to bolt but of the decks that run bolt and are tier 1, only one would play a blt to kill this. Burn isn't gonna do it because it throws off their math. Prodder itself is an evasive 3 damage without its ability. It's a creature that needs to be removed though because it will end games. At three mana that is remarkable at least.
I guess it depends on the deck its in since I get to choose what cards go to your hand with it but speaking as a burn player I would gladly bolt this creature game 1 and not feel like I lost anything. The only reason I don't bolt Bob usnhe furthers my plan. You are also forgetting the g2 searing blaze that will be sided in against you. I'm not saying this creature is unplayable persay buy I would expect to see him in even a t2 deck.
An add-on to my previous statement but atleast in burn I wouldn't even have to bolt it if I didn't want to. I can trade favorably with any 2 creatures in my deck and in general have come out ahead against you since I have all the power in this matchup and you have invested turn 3 and half of turn 4 playing and using this creature, mean while I've probably got you close to dead on board anyways
I know this dies to bolt but of the decks that run bolt and are tier 1, only one would play a blt to kill this. Burn isn't gonna do it because it throws off their math. Prodder itself is an evasive 3 damage without its ability. It's a creature that needs to be removed though because it will end games. At three mana that is remarkable at least.
I guess it depends on the deck its in since I get to choose what cards go to your hand with it but speaking as a burn player I would gladly bolt this creature game 1 and not feel like I lost anything. The only reason I don't bolt Bob usnhe furthers my plan. You are also forgetting the g2 searing blaze that will be sided in against you. I'm not saying this creature is unplayable persay buy I would expect to see him in even a t2 deck.
She seems pretty good. Not an auto-include in WR decks, but if at the very worst she's exiling a decent slew of permanents, she'll se some degree of play in Standard IMO.
Her +2 is alright-ish, and to me it seems like it was something else in development that kinda broke something out and they decided to swap it for something "safer". Its playability will rely on Madness, but honestly I'm not too hot about it. Looting effects, however, are the perfect complement to Nahiri's main use: pressure. The real gem here is that the ability is a +2, and that's awesome.
Her -2 is pretty good. "But it only exiles tapped creatures!", you might say, and yeah, that's kind of a bummer. But she's still the 4-mana Planeswalker that answers the most permanents. Her minus effect is like half of Karn Liberated's effect, with the drawbacks being not hitting lands, untapped creatures and Planeswalkers, but that's still pretty good, because Karn is pretty good! But her minus ability is awesome by the sheer pressure it puts into your opponent. Think about it for a sec: Once you drop her, she's a 6 loyalty Planeswalker threatening into a 8 mana Ultimate next turn that will kill anything that swings at her and doesn't drops her at below 1 Loyalty. Once she hits the table, she'll pressure your opponent into action, and then she will punish him for it. That's why I think Nahiri is pretty good. She's a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" kind of girl.
Her -8 is a massive threat. Honestly, one of the most threatening Ultimates I've ever seen. Not because it's extremely powerful - it's actually pretty tame as far as Ultimates goes, but as mentioned before because she is both very fast to get into Ultimate range and punishes your opponent when he tries to retaliate. Shame it's kind of a massive nonbo with her +2 ability. Would love to see her fetch from Grave as well. Now that would make her a powerhouse.
Doubt she'll make a splash in Modern or, heck, maybe she ends up without a deck and fails even in Standard. But I personally think she's great, and if we ever get a Madness or Delirium deck that has some massive beefy creature/artifact finisher for her Ultimate I'm confident she'll see play.
The biggest problem I think she will have is that she will have trouble protecting herself. More often than not the only way she can target and remove a creature is after the thing has gotten to take a swing at her and if they manage to damage her badly she won't have the counters left to get rid of them. Remember you just spent your 4 drop slot on bringing her to the field so your opponent is more likely than not going to have a pretty serious creature advantage over you at this point. You are quite likely going to be forced into blocking unfavorably for at least one round to keep her healthy.
I think the best play with her will be waiting to play her until you see a tapped creature you want to kill and then using her removal ability immediately. The problem with this is it leaves her with just 2 counters which puts her into shock range or just within the killing range of even a small unblocked creature. It also means you have will likely have to play her reactively rather than proactively a lot of the time. I think she is a neat planeswalker, but I do so see some potential issues with playing her in more aggressive builds. I think she belongs in a more defensive deck that utilizes a lot of tapping lock down.
It's the same idea behind lili though, she hits the board and almost immediately goes to 1 loyalty (they key difference is she does it a turn ealier) but she's still amazingly playable
I'd actually rather something that's relevant in later turns. Blightsteel is a nice trick but if they have more than 2 toughness on board he's a dead card. Emrakul or something janky like inferno Titan would be better (emrakul would probably be dead in hand as well but annihilator 6 means it's already done its damage, inferno Titan basiclaly reads as wrath the board, swing for 6+fire breathing)
Personally, I think people who complain about too many decks to try and sideboard against are a bit strange. Part of the entire joy of going to a game night is running into that odd-ball home brew or variant. It helps make games interesting to watch and makes it so that someone can't just clean house.
Its the difference in the mentality depending on the level the players play. Pro players want a few decks with one or 2 having 50/50 match ups across the board so they can lean more on skill and less variance. The kitchen table/FNM player doesnt mind a bunch of decks in the format as long as they get to play. Its the difference in the love of the game and making the game a money generator. I am not bashing anyone, everyone has their desired play and we all started out some where.
I'm not sure I would call that skill though. Not to say that the pros arnt amazingly skilled but playing in a game with only a few viable options for strategy means the game boils down more to luck than actual skill. Skill is walking into an unknown situation and coming out on top even against an unfavorable matchup.
When you know everything your opponent could possibly do there is no skill involved.
I cannot agree with this one bit. There is a correlation with diversity and variance. Saying otherwise is like saying a symmetrical game requires no skill which is not true since without the difference all that is left is who can use the tools they are given better. I personally want one deck of every major archetype to be viable at least and not much more from that. You have enough diversity to not get bored but the meta not so large that winning a tournament depends on your opponents deck choice. Rtr/theros standard was that kind of format and it was a fantastic format and many top players feel that way about it. That format had top tier midrange, control, and tempo decks while there were tier 1.5 and 2 aggro decks.
That's certainly one way of looking at it, another is that when you get down to a symmetrical game like that it comes down to who topdecks better cards. There is 0 skill involved in that. In the highest level op play games seem to rarely be decided on skill any more. Watching the top 8 at a pro tour for example its rare you can say "player x beat player y because player x was more skilled" or even to some degree "player y only lost because of such and such miss play". 90% of these games are decided by who top decks what.
I don't understand why people are obsessed in playing with Wild Nacatl over Vexing Devil. Vexing Devil does the same thing if not or more, for half the cost. 1) It only takes red mana to cast. 2) It doesn't even require you to search for shocks. I don't get why people complain about Vexing Devil when its as prone to removal as Wild Nacatl. Plus its a better value card as a 4/3 vs a 3/3, and also gives you an indication if your opponent has removal or not in her/his hand.
Nacatl being Green is often a good thing (gets around protection from red)
If you play devil OR nacatl on turn 1 and they have removal or a huge blocker, you don't deal any damage
If you play devil on turn 1 and they don't have removal, he will deal 4 damage and die
If you play nacatl on turn 1 and they don't have removal, he will deal 3 damage each turn, and eventually eat a removal (making your eidolon safer, since your opponent just used his removal)
Personally I would play the devil if Nacatl din't exist (or was banned again), but I rather have a slightly weaker threat, that is more resilient.
Okay, this actually makes a lot of sense: Nacatl always forces a trade for cards, or threatens a large damage output; Vexing Devil will often trade solely for 4 life (not an insignificant amount), but allows our opponents to save those cards to trade for other creatures like eidolon.
This begs the follow up question, as someone who has played almost no burn, how much weight does Eidolon actually pull? In the context of a "normal" metagame, sans Eldrazi. My assumption is that it will hopefully trigger 2-3 times to keep up with the rest of the burn cards available. Eidolon can also attack, so that means that 1 trigger will deal 4 dmg/card, and 2 triggers will deal 6 dmg/card.
.
To be quite honest half the time when I drop eidolon I don't even get that many triggers our of him but even then I feel like it's still more valuable then the 4 damage from devil. Reason being is that eidolon, when dropped at lower life totala (8 or less) can shut some decks (elves, delver, infect) out of the game for dear of just killing themselves with their own cards/my bolts. It forces my opponent to play more conservatively and slow themselves down
Personally, I think people who complain about too many decks to try and sideboard against are a bit strange. Part of the entire joy of going to a game night is running into that odd-ball home brew or variant. It helps make games interesting to watch and makes it so that someone can't just clean house.
Its the difference in the mentality depending on the level the players play. Pro players want a few decks with one or 2 having 50/50 match ups across the board so they can lean more on skill and less variance. The kitchen table/FNM player doesnt mind a bunch of decks in the format as long as they get to play. Its the difference in the love of the game and making the game a money generator. I am not bashing anyone, everyone has their desired play and we all started out some where.
I'm not sure I would call that skill though. Not to say that the pros arnt amazingly skilled but playing in a game with only a few viable options for strategy means the game boils down more to luck than actual skill. Skill is walking into an unknown situation and coming out on top even against an unfavorable matchup.
When you know everything your opponent could possibly do there is no skill involved.
It's not mind slaver though. It gives your opponent card advantage and an extra turn to boot. Controlling one of those turns is nice but one of the advantages is being able to leave their board state as you want to for your turn.
I'm not really sure where you are getting your math since eye generates 0-2 mana depending on if you have an eldrazi in hand. It's only a problem once you have the ability to pay for multiple color/colorless costs in a turn. Eye itself is as much. Liability as it is a boon in eldrazi right now since it does not actually generate colorless mana and thus can't cast thoughtnots and amashers by itself or paired with basics.
Jace will never be unbanned and I wish people would stop even mentioning him lol. He's already proven to be a problem in modern AND cost wizards money in torniment attendance when he was legal in standard.
There is more than enough land destruction between ghost quarter, molten rain, beast within and of course bloodmoon. Also spreading seas
Except that there are plenty of other viable (although notably not t1 decks) which run a card or two you never want in your opening hand. They still manage just fine.
You need to weigh the odds of drawing that TW against the benifit of top decking it at the right time, perhaps making a game winning play.
Except is has since you have lost 2 damage and have nothing to show for it. You have lost the ability to respond to your opponent's plays. Outside of those fair few who RNJESUS smiles upon I think we can all agree this is going to be the result of running this creature
And sometimes you will topdecks a bolt with Jim which your opponent will then take from for a measly 1 damage and then draw a land. And at that moment in time anyone playing this created will sit back and reevaluate their life choices.
I can see what he's saying though, I wouldn't keep a hand with bad spells anyways, even if the 7th were something I could cast. I would pitch it and mull to 6. You do run the odds of having random hands that are an auto mull to 6 but it has to be wayed against the games where you are the top deck champ and win off of it.
With that said I still wouldn't run it just because I like the safer cards and I line to be able to better plan how I'm going to use my mana in a turn. There will be random times you top deck it and wanted to cast a creature with that red mana instead for one reason or another.
An add-on to my previous statement but atleast in burn I wouldn't even have to bolt it if I didn't want to. I can trade favorably with any 2 creatures in my deck and in general have come out ahead against you since I have all the power in this matchup and you have invested turn 3 and half of turn 4 playing and using this creature, mean while I've probably got you close to dead on board anyways
I guess it depends on the deck its in since I get to choose what cards go to your hand with it but speaking as a burn player I would gladly bolt this creature game 1 and not feel like I lost anything. The only reason I don't bolt Bob usnhe furthers my plan. You are also forgetting the g2 searing blaze that will be sided in against you. I'm not saying this creature is unplayable persay buy I would expect to see him in even a t2 deck.
It's the same idea behind lili though, she hits the board and almost immediately goes to 1 loyalty (they key difference is she does it a turn ealier) but she's still amazingly playable
I'd actually rather something that's relevant in later turns. Blightsteel is a nice trick but if they have more than 2 toughness on board he's a dead card. Emrakul or something janky like inferno Titan would be better (emrakul would probably be dead in hand as well but annihilator 6 means it's already done its damage, inferno Titan basiclaly reads as wrath the board, swing for 6+fire breathing)
That's certainly one way of looking at it, another is that when you get down to a symmetrical game like that it comes down to who topdecks better cards. There is 0 skill involved in that. In the highest level op play games seem to rarely be decided on skill any more. Watching the top 8 at a pro tour for example its rare you can say "player x beat player y because player x was more skilled" or even to some degree "player y only lost because of such and such miss play". 90% of these games are decided by who top decks what.
To be quite honest half the time when I drop eidolon I don't even get that many triggers our of him but even then I feel like it's still more valuable then the 4 damage from devil. Reason being is that eidolon, when dropped at lower life totala (8 or less) can shut some decks (elves, delver, infect) out of the game for dear of just killing themselves with their own cards/my bolts. It forces my opponent to play more conservatively and slow themselves down
I'm not sure I would call that skill though. Not to say that the pros arnt amazingly skilled but playing in a game with only a few viable options for strategy means the game boils down more to luck than actual skill. Skill is walking into an unknown situation and coming out on top even against an unfavorable matchup.
When you know everything your opponent could possibly do there is no skill involved.