Yeah...my UB control runs Thoughtseize and Lifebane Zombie and your deck crumbles to those cards.
Man, who knew that Lifebane Zombie was such a beating against a black-based deck with a total of three white creatures that aren't Smiters? Who knew that a midrange deck would "crumble" against a 1-for-1 hand disruption spell? I mean, this guy obviously knows something we don't know, since he's trying to play a control deck with no sweeper and no Revelations.
Because Pithing Needle is a fundamentally bad card, and only good when their are problematic permanents who happen to rely almost entirely on their activated ability to be useful, and are pretty much unbeatable otherwise.
What does that even mean? Cards are not "fundamentally" good or bad. It all has to do with context.
UB also has the advantage of crushing every other control deck in the format. What is UW going to do against 6+ duress effects, a suite of control magic, our own PW win-cons in Jace and Ashiok, and transformative SB options like Lifebane Zombie and Shadowborn Demon making UW uncomfortable on how they're going to board. In the control mirror I have 5 different win-cons. UW has far less, and doesn't have the permission suite to reactively act against my win-cons. I can cast Duress, and Thoughtseize and rip their counters out of their hand and drop Aetherling, or Jace, or a large Sphinx Revelation, etc.
Bringing in Shadowborn against UWx?! Can't hit Aetherling, can't hit Obzedat, can't hit Blood Baron, doesn't want to hit Sin Collector or Omenspeaker, nobody plays Angel of Serenity AND you only run 4 creatures you'd actually be alright with sacing? If I'm playing UW, I'm going to let that resolve, not have any legal targets for the ability and you're going to have to kill one of your creatures (ETB is not a may ability) and then let it die on upkeep? Seems about as good as Thoughtseizing yourself.
Which creatures are you expecting to hit with those Lifebanes? I guess I could understand hoping to hit an Obzedat, Blood Baron or maybe a Sin Collector if you're on the play against Esper, but Lifebane is a brick against most block UW and UWR lists.
Ashiok enters the battlefield, does nothing for a couple turns, and then eats a renounce the guilds or detention sphere. You're playing 3 Jace, all the block UWx decks are playing four and I'll bet new Elspeth is going to be a smidge better because she'll actually generate some value before eating removal.
And what's this about not having a decent permission suite? UW and UWR can run the exact same counters as you, plus Render Silent and Counterflux (the best counter in the control mirror). I mean, you run eight counters between MB and SB, and Prost's top 8 block deck runs 8 MB with 3 Dispel in the side.
Yes, Thoughtseize and Duress are good against Control. That is a valid point. All your other points, though...not so much. If you want to tear apart control while having a decent game against aggro, play Grixis. I'd be a lot more scared of Thoughseize + Duress + Slaughter Games + Rakdos's Return.
the thing about augur is that a lot of the time playing him on turn 2 is a mistake because he pretty much puts your 3rd or 4th land drop on the bottom of your library. When put under pressure against agro decks when you really need a blocker, but also need your land drop augur doesn't really cut it. Aaaand that's why i'm favoring this card over augur
Your deck should be randomly organized, so drawing off the top is the same as drawing off the bottom. Playing Augur on turn two does not make you any less likely to draw lands, unless you're taking for granted that holding back Augur means that you're going to cycle an A-charm or Think Twice.
Thrag is annoying for sure, but if you just drop in an architect, you can steal their thrag.
Yup, all you have to do is drop an Jace into an empty board, kill all their subsequent creatures before they untap with them, and counter all their direct damage for four turns and then you can have a 5/3 beater! Sounds great!
So a new Chandra card is confirmed, but they're using the old pet which implies that one of her two main modes is going to be a way to deal damage to players.
It looks like they're running out of Planeswalker design space...
Someone at my LGS got accused of cheating because he had two Disciple of the Old Ways in his deck and there was supposedly no way of him being able to do that other than slipping it in himself. If the DGM guild packs differed at all, especially by the presence of duplicate cards, then it could make for a logistical nightmare like that.
Did anyone else get double anything from a guild pack?
I played against a guy with two Grisly Spectacle. I was suspicious, since I didn't think that was possible and even if you were going to get double of a GTC card, I thought you probably wouldn't get such a good one, but I held my tongue.
AYO you control players need to get off your high horses. Aggro is not strictly easier than control. In fact, the aggro mirror is one of the toughest match-ups there is. Which is harder- reading your opponent to know if they have a sweeper and playing accordingly, or deciding whether to play Supreme Verdict on turn four? (hint: play supreme verdict on turn four, then play terminus on turn six, then you win. Two cards.). Mulligan decisions are also harder with aggro.
Legion's Initiative? Are people actually considering playing this card? When do you play it? Instead of T2 Burning Tree? Instead of T3 Reckoner? Instead of T4 Hellrider? Aggro isn't really in the business of low-impact plays.
So basically you want the new Chandra to be a card that's unplayable? We're owed a good/broken red planeswalker after all the crap cards they've given us over the years!
Shame on both of you. For one, Chandra's abilities are not just going to be a mash up of Tibalt and Ral Zarak. For the other one of you, how do you know good this card is without the OP even giving it a mana cost? At 6CMC this card is terribad, but at 1CMC this is one of the most broken cards in all of magic.
I really don't foresee the aggro decks doing too well, although I agree that the slowness of the format is probably overstated. A three color aggro deck in sealed just probably isn't going to work with the amount of slow guildgates and slower cluestones that are needed to fix the mana. The worst deck is likely going to be RUG, since Simic and Izzet are terrrrrible together (simic wants almost all creatures for evolve, Izzet wants spells and has tiny creatures that can't evolve others).
I'm going with Golgari, because it has a 50/50 shot of going BUG, which is where I want to be. Dimir self-milling to get scavengers in the graveyard to put +1/+1 counters on creatures and having Simic, which loves +1/+1 counters seems like a good place to be. Also, Golgari has the best fixing-- it was always the guild in RTR that could splash into 3-5 color decks. If I pull a bomb, I'm splashing for it no matter what because I think a lot of games will become stalemates in which the best bomb wins.
At the beginning of your upkeep, put a blood counter on ~ and then draw X cards and lose X life, where X is the number of blood counters on ~
My problem with a lot of the designs here is that they're too complicated. I like this design because of the simplicity, and succumbing to your own masochism feels very black.
My opponent has Lazav, Dimir Mastermind on board and is threatening lethal with a Glaring Spotlight. I cast Stolen Identity on the spotlight, cipher onto a guy, and beat in. I use the encoded copy to put a token of Lazav into play, killing his.
Of course, I lost the next turn, but it was awesome.
Well, i think i would only be splashing just for rakdos's return, just for the shear power. Maybe sign in blood because that doesn't affect the board either, IDK just a thought.
And yeah i knew it was for plurals but it just didn't look right y'know? lol
Edit; How has your experience with Staff of Nin been? Its one of those cards where its been seeing fringe play in my meta. Looks great for control IMO
You might be right on cutting Sign in Blood. There have been a few times I've played it T2 on the draw and then had to discard, which kind of defeats the purpose. On the play, it's awesome and one of the few things that I can do on the early turns, but I have once or twice cast a sign in blood that cost me the game because of the two life.
Staff of Nin has been good. I like it as a singleton mainboard, but I might take one out of the board for a grafdigger's cage or something. I don't like having too many because they're clunky and getting 12 mana worth of artifacts taken away by a 3 mana D-sphere for card parity is pretty rough.
Shouldn't Rakdos's Return be spelled Rakdos' Return?
The " s' " only goes on plural words, such as "pyroclasm destroyed both players' creatures". Rakdos isn't plural, so it's Rakdos's return, just like "Gauss's law"
So there's this card called Think Tank that nobody ever played...Maybe be less aggressive and know-it-all next time?
Man, who knew that Lifebane Zombie was such a beating against a black-based deck with a total of three white creatures that aren't Smiters? Who knew that a midrange deck would "crumble" against a 1-for-1 hand disruption spell? I mean, this guy obviously knows something we don't know, since he's trying to play a control deck with no sweeper and no Revelations.
What does that even mean? Cards are not "fundamentally" good or bad. It all has to do with context.
Bringing in Shadowborn against UWx?! Can't hit Aetherling, can't hit Obzedat, can't hit Blood Baron, doesn't want to hit Sin Collector or Omenspeaker, nobody plays Angel of Serenity AND you only run 4 creatures you'd actually be alright with sacing? If I'm playing UW, I'm going to let that resolve, not have any legal targets for the ability and you're going to have to kill one of your creatures (ETB is not a may ability) and then let it die on upkeep? Seems about as good as Thoughtseizing yourself.
Which creatures are you expecting to hit with those Lifebanes? I guess I could understand hoping to hit an Obzedat, Blood Baron or maybe a Sin Collector if you're on the play against Esper, but Lifebane is a brick against most block UW and UWR lists.
Ashiok enters the battlefield, does nothing for a couple turns, and then eats a renounce the guilds or detention sphere. You're playing 3 Jace, all the block UWx decks are playing four and I'll bet new Elspeth is going to be a smidge better because she'll actually generate some value before eating removal.
And what's this about not having a decent permission suite? UW and UWR can run the exact same counters as you, plus Render Silent and Counterflux (the best counter in the control mirror). I mean, you run eight counters between MB and SB, and Prost's top 8 block deck runs 8 MB with 3 Dispel in the side.
Yes, Thoughtseize and Duress are good against Control. That is a valid point. All your other points, though...not so much. If you want to tear apart control while having a decent game against aggro, play Grixis. I'd be a lot more scared of Thoughseize + Duress + Slaughter Games + Rakdos's Return.
Your deck should be randomly organized, so drawing off the top is the same as drawing off the bottom. Playing Augur on turn two does not make you any less likely to draw lands, unless you're taking for granted that holding back Augur means that you're going to cycle an A-charm or Think Twice.
Yup, all you have to do is drop an Jace into an empty board, kill all their subsequent creatures before they untap with them, and counter all their direct damage for four turns and then you can have a 5/3 beater! Sounds great!
It looks like they're running out of Planeswalker design space...
Chandra Nalaar pings players for one
Chandra, the Firebrand pings creatures or players for one
Chandra Ablaze shoots for four
Ral Zarek burns for three
Ajani Vengeant burns for three and gains life
So my guess is that she shocks this time?
I played against a guy with two Grisly Spectacle. I was suspicious, since I didn't think that was possible and even if you were going to get double of a GTC card, I thought you probably wouldn't get such a good one, but I held my tongue.
Legion's Initiative? Are people actually considering playing this card? When do you play it? Instead of T2 Burning Tree? Instead of T3 Reckoner? Instead of T4 Hellrider? Aggro isn't really in the business of low-impact plays.
Shame on both of you. For one, Chandra's abilities are not just going to be a mash up of Tibalt and Ral Zarak. For the other one of you, how do you know good this card is without the OP even giving it a mana cost? At 6CMC this card is terribad, but at 1CMC this is one of the most broken cards in all of magic.
I'm going with Golgari, because it has a 50/50 shot of going BUG, which is where I want to be. Dimir self-milling to get scavengers in the graveyard to put +1/+1 counters on creatures and having Simic, which loves +1/+1 counters seems like a good place to be. Also, Golgari has the best fixing-- it was always the guild in RTR that could splash into 3-5 color decks. If I pull a bomb, I'm splashing for it no matter what because I think a lot of games will become stalemates in which the best bomb wins.
My problem with a lot of the designs here is that they're too complicated. I like this design because of the simplicity, and succumbing to your own masochism feels very black.
Of course, I lost the next turn, but it was awesome.
You might be right on cutting Sign in Blood. There have been a few times I've played it T2 on the draw and then had to discard, which kind of defeats the purpose. On the play, it's awesome and one of the few things that I can do on the early turns, but I have once or twice cast a sign in blood that cost me the game because of the two life.
Staff of Nin has been good. I like it as a singleton mainboard, but I might take one out of the board for a grafdigger's cage or something. I don't like having too many because they're clunky and getting 12 mana worth of artifacts taken away by a 3 mana D-sphere for card parity is pretty rough.
What would you suggest taking out? I like RR, but I'm a little afraid that it doesn't affect the board state at all
The " s' " only goes on plural words, such as "pyroclasm destroyed both players' creatures". Rakdos isn't plural, so it's Rakdos's return, just like "Gauss's law"
F*** YEA ENGLISH MAJOR