So I'm guessing cards that generate triggers during the Draw step aren't good includes? Ie., Howling Mine and variants?Quote from Stairc »As stated in the article, the auction step [replaces the draw step.
Well, the reason I asked is that if you don't combine the graveyards, then the dredge player gets to mill the single library solely into his own 'yard, meaning he is the only one who reaps any advantages from linear synergies of graveyard based effects like Threshold etc., etc.That sounds like a neat series of house-rules to make dredge cards more interesting in this format. It’s a lot of added rules to put in just to make one ability work, so for the official version I probably wouldn’t include it, but you should give it a try and let us know how it plays. You can do all sorts of cool things with house rules.
So basically you're saying tribes didn't fit well with your design goal of favoring highly diverse creature p/t totals, so as to allow a player on the ropes to find a blocker to "recover" with? I see what you're saying.Oddly, tribal often doesn’t work that well in our block because in MTG tribal tends to be designed to power up an army of a lot of little creatures. Goblin tribal is very hard to work in for that reason, though a block that was full of lots of tribes would probably have a lot of creatures about the same size and would likely work well. We’ve tried to work in a subtle amount of beast tribal, since beasts are a very diverse tribe with lots of sizes, but MTG doesn’t have many tribal cards that work perfectly for our existing auction block.
Agreed! Same for me. I have a knack for memorization and recall of cards and while many of my friends are in fact much better MtG players than me, few of them have my recall, and they all gave up on Mental Magic when it was clear that the playing field was ridiculously tilted in my favor. Still hoping someday I'll find someone else with thousands of cards rattling around in their brain from a misspent youth and can actually try out Mental Magic for real!Unfortunately, the skill gap in actually playing it between someone that’s prepped and someone that hasn’t is very punishing. Makes it difficult to find a good game, and actual gameplay often results in frustration (as because there’s always a way out, almost everything is an on-board trick you feel frustrated for not being able to remember). I’ve had a lot more fun preparing to play the format than actually playing it.
Well, I had been running Digs but a friend convinced me that the superior power of Cruise + Tutelage is worth losing Dig's phenomenal, well, digging. As for reshuffle options, Learn is one. Bow of Nylea is another. At least early game, Bow can keep up with your draw rate. Lategame, if you have multiple dictates and Sieges out, it may be hard to keep up with Bow. But remember, all you have to do is *not mill out before your opponent*. My current list (pre-MTG Origins) runs one Learn and one Bow main with a second Bow in the board. Bow is so insane against RDW it is unreal. Against them I usually cut Dictates, turn Sieges over to non-draw mode, and just lean on the virtual card advantage of Bow to grind them out. With Alhammaret's, bow gains a sickening 6 life per turn, far more than they can keep up with. If you combine it with Orbs for lockout, your life will be sky-high before they can find an artifact removal. God help them if they blow the artifact removal on Bow and then you land an Orbs.
Fascination is interesting and I tested it, but it's just too expensive. Stick to Cruise. Between 4 Dictate, 4 Siege, and 4 Cruise, you should have enough draw to trigger Tutelage and mill them out. If you run Kruphix you can make Fascination work (ie., you can afford a big X), but not really otherwise.
Temp Trespass just delves too much. To cast it for an on-cost Time Warp you need to delve 6, which is a ton of cards if your plan is to never delve any fogs. Extra turns are a form of fog, it's true, but I think this one's too expensive. I will test it anyway but my gut tells me they overcosted it.
Two words: Tormod's Crypt. If you have one and your opponent doesn't, that's game. Most turbofog lists won't be running artifact removal, so if you can resolve a Crypt, you can just leave it on board until their yard gets big, then Crypt them before doing a Day's Undoing or whatever. They can't beat you if you're reshuffling to 60 and they're reshuffling to 20. It's a 0-drop, dodges almost everything in the deck, and has a powerful effect. You only need one; being free, it's easy to support it with negates to force it through. Also, if you run counters, some of them should be Dissipates. In the mirror, the key cards to stop are enemy Tutelages and enemy Cruises (which restock them on counters). If you can Dissipate one of these, it won't be back after a reshuffle.
I think Archive is just a worse Learn from the Past. Learn doesn't exile itself, so you can loop indefinitely with two Learns or a Learn + Bow.
Artificer's Epiphany I think is decent draw (esp. with heavy artifact presence), but I'd prefer Anticipate for a cheap dig spell. It doesn't trigger Tutelage but we have enough of that with the 8 enchantments and Cruise. Anticipate digs one deeper than Epiphany for one less mana.
I could definitely see running RShift, mostly against decks that don't have a lot of megamorphs (don't want to turn on their Deathmists etc.). Good idea.
Depends on your mana base. If I survive the early game (at which point milling is no big anyway), I usually have 8-9 mana available. Learn is an instant so even against Control you can find ways to sneak it in.
Revealing Wind is *never* correct. Go to 4 Aetherspouts first. Then test Whelming Wave. Then test Temporal Trespass. To be playable, a 3-mana fog has to have a REAL value-add. Gatecrash's Riot Control, which often gained 3-5 life on top of fogging PLUS could fog direct burn, is an example of how to print a 3-mana fog that is playable. Revealing Wind is not.
Truth. Hard to beat that. It's amazing that WotC actually thought adding "end the turn" and "exile myself" would somehow make Timetwister not broken...
Agreed on all points. My only problem is getting my hands on a playset of the damned things.
I don't get this. Why would you want Clash over Negate? What can Clash counter that Negate can't? Answer: creatures. OK, what creatures do you want to counter? Siege Rhino, Pearl Lake, and? Compare to: how many times will you want a hard counter for an Ugin and realize you don't have enough to make Clash a guarantee, or, you don't have enough to cast Clash and back it up with a counter in case THEY have a negate?
Counter options right now are really good for this deck. Between Negate, Dissipate, Disdainful Stroke, Nullify, and Swan Song (especially the latter!), we have access to a lot of cheap hard counters. Why would we want a conditional one?
Staying creatureless is good, but there are a few who grant such strong abilities they are worth considering. Pearl Lake Ancient is a great planeswalker killer since they may tap out to attack. It is also hard to kill and allows you to replay your lifegain lands / scrylands in a pinch. Thassa is indestructible, can be turned on (and off, with PLA) at instant speed, and can go unblockable on planeswalkers. Finally, if you splash white (which I strongly recommend), you gain access to all-star Resolute Archangel, which is just silly with Alhammaret's Archive. Sure, Archangel's wings are easy to clip, but if it resolves and they don't have an Atarka's Command right then, you really don't care what becomes of your 4/4 after that. Turning on a dead removal is a small price to pay for gaining 10+ life.
Agreed with this. It makes life miserable for Jeskai Tokens, Naya Legends, and all burn decks. Since that's a lot of decks right now...
As I said earlier, could not disagree more with this... Hard counters are preferable. As Newman explained in his deck tech, all he cared about was stopping Ugin from resolving; he could handle everything else. I agree with this analysis. Stop Ugin, not much else in Standard can really hurt this deck. Don't overthink things.
I have been running Anticipates in my list for a while, and am hoping to still have room for them when I get my MTG Origins cards (hurry up UPS!). But adding back in the Sieges is going to take a lot of room. Anticipates are GREAT delve fodder - you won't want them back after reshuffling so they are easy to delve away. Which means the fact that they are late game blanks hurts you less than it often would, and allows you to take some two-land hands that would be otherwise unkeepable. (Ie., two temples and an anticipate with some gas is fine, since you will dig quite deep for your third land.) As such, with Anticipates I can get away with running 24 land. Without them I think I would want to go to 25 minimum.
That brings me to my question: how many lands is everyone else running, and how many are taplands? I have 16 taplands out of 24 total and rarely have a problem casting a 3-drop on time. How about others?
If all you need is a white sideboard card at sorcery speed to get rid of Dromoka, why not save 3 mana and just run Glare of Heresy? Side bonus: also zaps Elspeth, Siege Rhino, and enemy Banishing Lights.
Well, I am running a Bant variant that splashes white, allowing me access to Banishing Light, End Hostilities, Resolute Archangel, and (in the board) Nyx-Fleece Ram and Glare of Heresy. White has plenty of answers to both those cards. But really it's not a big deal, they're not being widely played. Dromoka is tough but you can at least survive the turn it lands (cast a Fog with D. on the stack). Spirit is actually harder to survive (since we rely heavily on card draw), but is counterable, so, just counter it.
And the cost of the white splash is really low. You have to lose Radiant Fountain but they get replaced with Tranquil Coves so you still get some lifegain. Throw in U/W Temples in place of four more islands, and add in a Strand or two and one plains, and you're set. It's more taplands but the deck never does anything before t3 so it's not really relevant, the deck can afford to run as many as 16 taplands in my experience. So all the white splash costs us (land wise) is the superior lifegain of Radiant Fountain.
The primary thing to remember is that DU will reset all your milling, so be careful with this and make sure you are following the rules correctly. Alternatively, you might throw in a Tormod's Crypt to activate before the reshuffle, though I don't recommend this.
I would just cut the Commands, they don't do enough. James Newman was running Talent of the Telepath which, in terms of value, just seems hugely superior to Ojutai's Command. Nothing like turning Abzan's Thoughtseizes against them or burning a Red player's Rabblemaster.
I'm still on DtT myself but am contemplating switching to Treasure Cruise. It synergizes with Tutelage, and draws 6 with online Alhammaret's; Dig does not.
I think this is a very bad idea. It wipes all your control permanents (sphinx's, dictate, etc., etc), and if you're unlucky you might not get much land. If your life is low and you do this against red you could die immediately in a flurry of burn. If you do this against Abzan you might get lands and one spell which they Thoughtseize and you get run over. Far too much variance with this IMO. I will be running Great Aurora where expensive, high variance silly cards belong - in my Ulasht, the Hate Seed EDH tokens deck built around Warp World.
Regarding the Oracle ruling quoted by Ellfangor8, what does the ruling mean when it says "this process"? I assumed it meant, "the resolution of this spell", since they didn't specify. I'm guessing this is not correct?
Essentially: why does the ruling Ellfangor8 mentioned even exist, if they were going to go ahead and print a specific rules update to counteract it?
I don't get the Day's Undoing either. With the yard shuffle-in, it kills the deck's mill win-con unless you run something like Tormod's Crypt. And you'd need to run at least 3 Crypt effects or you'd be stuck staring at a Day's Undoing wishing you could cast it but needing to wait lest you reset all your hard work milling. Boo. I'd rather run Dictate as turbo 1-4 and Thassa / MonaSiege as my pieces of filtering / virtual advantage.
Also, why is he running Alhammaret's Archive without any lifegain sources except lifelands? You'd want to maximize its utility, for a 5-cost permanent that loses hard to countermagic you need it to really pack a lot of punch whenever you manage to stick it. Comboing Alhammaret's with Bow of Nylea sounds pretty sick to me. Alhammaret's + Resolute Archangel = roflcopters. 4 life becomes 36 life.
Tutelage seems strong, will definitely take some testing, I'm looking forward to it though.
Day's Undoing doesn't work. It reshuffles in their yard, so it's useless as a mill tool unless you combine it with a graveyard-exiling effect, and at that point you're just running too many moving parts. Fascination is ok as a one or two-of also-ran but is just too mana intensive to be a primary win-con, especially once Kruphix rotates and can no longer support mass mana.
No sweat, glad I could help! Yeah, I struggled with this for quite a while but eventually realized Bow is essentially virtual card advantage against them. Once MTG Origins comes out, Orbs of Warding will be a very useful sideboard 2-of against Red. Currently all you need to do is stay alive and resolve a Resolute Archangel. If you do this with Dictate online, they can just untap and burn you down to 7 or so and once again you're in "die to their topdeck" mode. Without Dictate, they can't come at you as quickly after Archangel drops. Some run Monastery Sieges (I think I have one in right now) and these are great because against Red you can choose the alternate mode to tax their burn spells. In multiples this is great for shutting down their ability to just pipeline burn straight from their topdeck to your face, and makes your counterspells actually mana-efficient answers. Dissolving a Wild Slash doesn't feel so terrible when it's a 3-cost Wild Slash. But I don't think this utility alone justifies MonaSiege as a 4-of. Thassa and Dictate are both better so you want to max out on those first (max Thassa being 1 or 2 depending on your needs).
I think that's very backwards logic. A body just turns on opponent removal which is otherwise sitting dead in their hand. So you may call it a "2-for-1" when they Bile Blight your DP in order to continue to swing through unblocked, but realistically that BB was going to just sit in their hand being blank for the entire game if you hadn't given it a target, so that card was already nullified. The only creatures I run in this list are ones that are extremely hard to remove (Thassa, Pearl Lake) or which I don't actually care if they get removed (Resolute Archangel, Ram) because they will have accomplished their purpose by then. If you expect Den Protector to actually block anything then you are basically gambling on your opponent having not a single card in their deck that can kill a vanilla 3/2, and that's just not realistic. He's not ever going to block anything, it's a waste of time. All he does is turn on their removal. Which is why I say if you want recursion, run recursion that's a *real* two for one. Pull from the Deep gets back a wrath and a fog, buying you a lot of time.
I don't get this. Elspeth isn't a problem. Her tokens get fogged like everything else, she has no abilities to grant her controller reach or realistically affect our board. She can force you to bounce PLA, that's about it. Thoughtseize can't take a Fog away from you, you can just Fog in response after all. Thoughtseize can take a Wrath, but if you're reduced to burning End Hostilities on Elspeth tokens you're probably already in bad shape. One of the reasons I enjoy this deck so much is precisely because I get to laugh at Elspeth as an overcosted do-nothing. Heck, Thassa also locks Elspeth in the opponent's hand until they can find something to remove her, and that's just gravy, it's not even why I run her...
Finally, white gives access to one more crucial card - Resolute Archangel. Seven mana is hefty but if this card resolves (and doesn't get beaten by an Atarka's Command), some decks just scoop on the spot. Against RDW I often just pull all the dictates and bring in Rams and a second Archangel and second Bow for game 2. Since they often take out creatures and bring in burn, they wind up sitting there topdecking after my first wrath while I outrace their burn with efficient lifegain. Racing an online Bow is already miserable for them, resolve an Archangel on top of that and they usually scoop.
It doesn't take many white sources to support these cards and the improvement over the Simic variant (which I've tested) is significant. It meant sacrificing the Radiant Fountains, but since I replaced them with lifegain lands it wasn't a terribly bad hit.
The answer is simply that Simic doesn't have access to the removal we need. Aetherspouts and Whelming Wave are awesome but they just can't handle everything. As for Thoughtseize, I don't think we should be proactive here, I think we should be reactive. Thoughtseize is never better than a 1-for-1, and besides we can run counters to stop problem spells. The only truly valuable spell black offers (IMO) is Hero's Downfall, which would give us an even better (permanent) answer to Ashiok, but at a high cost in color intensiveness.
I feel like everyone is trying to shoehorn Den Protector into every deck these days. Don't get me wrong, the card is awesome but I don't really think it's that great here. If we want a regrowth effect why not use Pull From the Deep or Restock, both of which are in standard right now? Both are two-for-ones and aren't vulnerable to creature removal.
So many problems with this. You list "21 Other" land but you are running 4x non-color producing lands in a deck that needs to make 1W on t2, 1UU on t3 and 3WW on t5, plus have access to green in there somewhere for fogs.
You are running a bunch of creatures that opponents will happily point removal at, and you are running zero counters to prevent this. None of these creatures double as win-cons and none are particularly good at digging you back out of a hole. They all die when you pull the trigger on End Hostilities, which your opponent will force you to do, possibly before you've gotten much life out of the creatures.
You are running zero draw except Dictates. If you don't draw a Dictate, you just plain die, which forces you to aggressively mull for Dictate, which weakens you.
You are maindecking a card (Orbs) that is useless against a variety of major decks and belongs in the board.
You are very all-in on a plan that requires a lot to go right (Thopter network needs itself + artifacts + time to set up). You are running only nine artifacts total which is not remotely enough to reliably trigger the TSN. Rather than generating token chumps that might get run over by tramplers or swept aside, I'd run more wraths or fogs. Just three End Hostilities is not enough.
Again, you are in blue with zero counterspells to stop planeswalkers, life loss effects, enemy counters, etc., etc.
Orbs of Warding is a strong card and a good sideboard choice against red, but by no means puts the game away. Creatures can still attack you to death and Wild Slash can still turn your fogs off without warning. You need safer sources of recurring lifegain to pull out of the danger zone (like Bow of Nylea) so that by the time they find an answer for Orbs, you won't immediately die to a fistful of burn. And they WILL have answers to Orbs, because RDW players aren't dummies and they are all currently sh*tting a sizeable brick over Orbs of Warding and are adding artifact hate to their boards. This is another area where counters could help you; they won't have more than two, three max pieces of artifact hate and counters could complete the lockdown.
Speaking of Bow of Nylea, that would be a much better card to combo with your Thopter Spy Network, since it's not only a lifegain source that survives End Hostilities but is also an artifact. But I wouldn't bother. Thopter Spy Network, at best, creates one chumper per turn who dies in combat, for four mana. Citadel Siege fulfills much the same role - stopping one attacker per turn - and does so without any other requirements AND doesn't get beaten by trample, landwalk, unblockability, etc., etc. And yet it doesn't make the grade because it's just not good enough for the deck, and too color intensive (flaws which TSN shares). I really don't think TSN is going to work.
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P.S. did some testing against a friend's Dromoka aggro and Abzan aggro lists in which he's boarding Vryn Wingmare. Confirmed for being a major problem for t-fog to deal with. Comes down and promptly turns off Dictate, counters, and Banishing Light. In multiples can push End Hostilities back so far we die waiting for it to happen. Makes any no-fog hand a potential t4 scoop. It's no Thalia, but Wingmare is a real problem and anyone running t-fog needs to respect this card (and pray it doesn't get widely adopted!).
Correct me if I'm wrong, but SGM is a creature, right? And we're running Dictate of Kruphix, right?
Good luck with that.
According to forum rules IIRC it is now acceptable to discuss new cards from the upcoming set in this thread. So, without further ado, I will go over my thoughts for t-fog from Magic Origins. (Spoiler alert: not much in this set is any use to us.)
Sphinx's Tutelage is riDONKulous. Will definitely be testing a few. Even if its grindstone ability never triggers, it mills a good deal faster than Grindclock in combination with Dictates. It doesn't fit into an early curve like the Clock, but the cool thing is since you don't need to "charge" it, you can drop it later without worrying so much. With two Dictates online it drops and immediately starts milling for 6+ per turn. I would say this card is good enough that it makes the deck want to replace some of its pseudo-draw like Anticipate and Dig Through Time, with cards that actually say the word "draw" so we can get more triggers. I will still want a couple Clocks in the board vs. decks packing Ugin, which I expect to make a resurgence with the phenomenally good ramp spells green is getting in this set.
I have to say I'm pretty disappointed with the Walkers in this set. Not just because, since they all have to arrive as creatures, they are all miserable in this deck since they will be removal magnets, but also just because their walker modes are pretty weak compared to what you have to go through to get them to transform. :\
Vine Snare - OK, so WotC has given us another Fog to play with, but once again it's a limited and crappy fog. This is pretty terrible, since it can't stop a lot of relevant creatures in Standard, particularly Dragons. Not that I was even running Revealing Wind (which is terrible but still better than Vine Snare), but Vine Snare doesn't deserve a slot in this deck at all, at least not until Theros rotates out. But since Theros rotating out might take out Dictate without providing a replacement in a later set, the deck might not survive that rotation anyway. I expect Vine Snare might see a little play as a "trick" in green fatties type decks at FNM but it's useless for T-Fog purposes.
Tragic Arrogance is a pretty poor example of a wrath, especially since it forces us to lose all but one of our enchantments, while allowing the opponent to save their best fatty. No thanks.
Orbs of Warding strike me as a useful card against token decks and potentially Red Deck Wins. This combination Witchbane Orb and quasi-Urza's Armor does a lot of work for only five mana. Blanking all direct burn until they can find an artifact removal, and blunting all combats, means we gain a LOT of time to find answers. I will definitely be testing a couple of these in the board vs. Red, as in my experience they often pull their bigger creatures and bring in all their situational burn. By running zero creatures plus Orbs I think Orbs could also play a role against WGx decks running Dromoka's Command, which is also a beating against us. Clever red players will realize they can still Wild Slash themselves to beat a fog, but even that will still reduce the threat to us.
Cards to look out for would include Vryn Wingmare. If we are relying on being able to untap and cast End Hostilities, but they cast this thing on their t5, we could be hosed if we don't have a fog to last another turn. In multiples it's particularly nasty, because this deck relies on being able to fog plus anticipate / counter on several turns in the midgame. I could see some W/x aggro decks sideboarding this card against control decks, and catching us in the "splash damage". Remember that if you have a fog in hand and they go to cast this guy before combat you can just fog the turn right then. If you can take the hit from the attack it's probably better to just counter the Wingmare.
Let me know what your thoughts are! I'm very excited to start testing Sphinx's Tutelage and Orbs of Warding.
Uh, I may be wrong here but I'm pretty sure this forum's rules preclude discussion of spoiled cards until WotC has published the full spoiler. Which they haven't. If I were you I'd be careful, a moderator might nuke those comments.
End Hostilities. Banishing Light. Whelming Wave can buy a turn. Or just combo lifegain from Bow with a beatstick like Pearl Lake Ancient and just outrace him. Some bant versions of t-fog run Citadel Siege, which can lock Dromoka down. Still though, you really don't want to leave him on the board, so wrathing or banishing him is best. Glare of Heresy works too.
Edit: never mind, this problem has been resolved by a moderator.