MTG Salvation

For those comparing encroaching wastes to tectonic edge variants, please keep in mind encroaching wastes was designed for a standard environment so control would have access to LD while aggro wouldn't. A tectonic edge that costs 2 or 3 to activate could easily see print in a future more basic-centric standard.

When assigning combat damage, only lethal combat damage must be assigned to each creature. With deathtouch lethal is 1.

It certainly fits the recent plansewalkers guide flavor where gods are thought to be enchantments.

I hope other colors will be able to interact with the stack like:
Lapse of Certainty and Dash Hopes.

I could certainly see and even expect to see some 1UU counter variants being printed with Dissipate leaving.

Quote from Psychobabble

None of the decks from the team tournament are "real". If you want to make a 2-colour control deck (which is not a bad idea thanks to burning earh), I think UW is your only real choice because wraths and revelation.

And dentition sphere, and Azorious Charm, and restoration angel. Which are all cards that are so much better than anything in UB.

The thing about the team format is they were playing unified standard so no more than four copies of a card between their three decks which means that someone would have to give up duals. And after Jund and UWR the only options left are Elves, or UB control.

So as most people agree farseek is the best card in jund. It's so powerful that sometimes when it is cast T2 on the draw it feels like it reverses the play/draw order of the game and mashing Olivia or Huntmaster on T3 on the play is just as dirty as it sounds. But what about when it's not the best card?

Take, for example, Stephane Gerard's list that made it to the finals of GP Calgary:



He recounts his arguements and tournament report in rather florid english here.

This is my arguement for it: the magic here is 0 farseek. He made no consessions to his removal suite to play 4 lifebane zombies main. With the rise of UWR control I no longer think this number is right, but I do think some number of maindeck Liliana of the Veil could be in order in a heavy UWR meta. Doing so keeps the curve the same, so the justifications for not running farseek still exist. While hurting your explosive starts it does darastically improve the topdeck performace of your deck by removing 4 cards that are dead from turn 5 onwards.

I think without farseek 26 lands is the right number as seeing your fifth land on time without it jumps up by more than 4% by running 26.

Pros:

• Makes Rakdos's Return, Bonfire of the Damned, Olivia Voldaren, Scavenging Ooze, and Kessig Wolf Run better cards later.
• Increases your odds of having 5 lands after your fifth draw to ~77% versus 62.37% or 67.24% without it (running 25 and 26 lands respectively).
• ~30% chance to have an explosive start (cast olivia or huntmaster on turn 3). Plus whatever chance there is to thragtusk/garruk on 4.
• Makes color intensive cards like Garruk, Primal Hunter easier to cast
• Smooths otherwise awkward draws like double GR or GB sources or weird shock/check combinations.

Cons:

• Very poor topdeck as it increases your chance of hitting a blank after 5 land by approx 6.5% every single turn.
• Decreases your threat and answer density by 5.6%
• Can make some lines of play very awkward eg: Draw it turn three with lifebane zombie and thragtusk in hand.

I want to hear your thoughts on the farseek arguement and why you do/don't run it.

Demonic Rising with mutavault, keyrune, and thragtusk. Suprisingly good.

More inbred lists of jund are moving away from cavern in favor of kessig. Also it's pretty much never okay for a jund player to resolve a spell (except for olivia) just because of the tremendous card advantage almost all of their spells generate.

Quote from Hagalaz

Modern is the worst format in my eyes, and with good reason. It is the least diverse format! When the vast majority of the format are midrange and combo strategies, and everything else is barely seen... we have a problem. Even standard is better off!

For serious? To name a few in modern we have:

Living End (Combo in game 1 and Control in 2&3)
JikiTwin (Combo)
Storm (Combo)
Infect (All in Aggro)
Affinity (Aggro)
Red Deck Wins (Aggro)
Pod Varients (MidRange - Combo)
ScapeShift (Control - Combo)
Jund (Midrange - Control)
RG Tron (Unique)
Eternal Command (Midrange)
UWR (Control or Tempo depending on build)
Merfolk (Tempo)
Complex Dredge (Control)
CawBlade (Tempo)
Rites Control (Control)
Soul Sisters (Control)

Control is about generating card advantage while providing efficeint ansswers. Control is different now because the most efficient card advantage and answers are no longer in the form of draw spells and counterspells. There is a healthy spread between aggro, combo, control, and midrange.

Quote from Hagalaz

Isn't that irrelevant? I mean, the permanents on the board thing? Are you familiar with legacy, even? Cause it doesn't look like it.

There are lots of legacy decks that do use permanents like stoneblade, rock, and aggro varients, but there also a large portion of legacy decks that simply don't. Storm, dredge, and Show and Tell. Modern has a much smaller portion of decks that do this as Living End and Storm are the only real culprits.

Quote from Hagalaz

The game doesn't have "all the depth and strategy it allways haD". When modern has such low amount of control, tempo and aggro, how can you say it has the same depth? When people no longer learn to bait and contain resources as they don't need to, how does it have the same strategy?

It has depth and strategy now just as much as ever the resources and answers have changed. Control exists but here's the thing, it usually isn't blue. Against Jund I always have to think what permanents I want to play first to bait out his Lilly and dreadbores. If I'm playing living end after they land some grave hate I have to be very particular on how I land my threats and when to cycle. I want to bait out the most creatures for my instant speed wrath. When you are playing soul sisters you have to be meticulous about when you play your spells to make sure you conserve as many resouces as possible. Complex dredge is probably the hardest to pilot control deck.

Quote from Hagalaz

I've been playing for 15 years, and I am also perfectly happy to enjoy the game as it stands. Doesn't mean modern is in a good shape. It's not.


Why? The best standard of all times in terms of richness and variety was invasion-odyssey. To this day we still haven't seen regionals and continentals (which no longer exist, I know) with such a diversity among deck types. What are you running away from?


See, this is where you are completely wrong. Legacy is one of the few formats where decks of all types are present and getting results. It is the format where when some new explosive deck comes up, most likely the metagame will self-correct and adjust to it. It is rich by its diversity, it is always evolving to beat itself, this is what every format should aim to be!!! This is the epitome of a healthy format and it shouldn't simply be ignored!

Richness and variety are characteristics which set magic apart from other games. Why do you want to ignore strong points of the game you claim to like?

Which is exactly what modern is. Self correcting with new explosive decks popping up regularly in an extremely diverse field.

I agree on the point of desperate ravings. It provides the same CA as think twice at the same cost while having the downside of increased variance, something control decks do not want. I would for sure do the full replacement.

Magmaquake and walkers in the same list seems like some seriously super super bad synergy. I would replace them with far//away to go up to 4.

I would cut a devour flesh for a dreadbore.

Liliana seems kind of sketchy in this list, but certainly not out of the question. Testing should decide here.

I would like to see some number of ghost quarters here but it is not essential.

For the board I would cut the slaughter games for two counterflux and drop the crypt incursions for another pithing needle and another rakdos charm.


What is your guy's thoughts about bonfire in our lists? Too slow? I think in a grixis tapout shell it could really shine. It could be our supreme verdict.

I just... LOL.

It's so wrong on so many levels. Like gross violation of color pie and rehashed art.

So bad.

Doesn't spectral flight already do that and give toughness? I mean the only two relevant fliers are Olivia and resto both of which are outclassed by spectral flight. If you're bent on running a 4 cmc card perhaps increasing savegry is up your alley.

Quote from Kryptnyt

I want to call fake on this one because it seems even more cliche than something wizards would print. Wizards would definitely ask themselves "Do we want a card in White that does everything Divination can do but better?" And because only Blue, Green, and Black can have raw card draw, they'd return that with "no." In other words, if they did this, she would specify that she can't shuffle herself in.

Agreed the second ability would probably have a clause making it so you can only do other or oppnent's permanents. Otherwise at minimum it is just a 1WW divinination with huge upside.

And the oxford comma after liflinks is missing.

And the PW art doesn't extend past the frame.

That list gets crushed by UWR control as demonstrated in the finals. It's a really good tech to play in a meta filled with anything but control.

25 lands without farseek seems fine to me especially when you lower the curve with lifebane.

I'd kill for that, my LGS has 15€ ($20) draft with a whopping three (3) packs of prize support for each pod (only two if its a 6 man pod). But wait the packs don't go to first, the packs are added in the rare redraft pool, so instead of taking a rare you can take a pack.

This often means first gets a money mythic and garbage rares. In the two m14 drafts I did I got archangle of thune and chandra respectively and jank for first place.

Weeeee only having one lgs in the city..