Really I just want to scream. Mind you it isn't my collection that was stolen, just a few cards. So I bought some cards of tcgplayer, couple of expeditions and a few full art land foils. They were delivered today, my wife got them from the mailman. Between the time my wife received them and me getting home, they have vanished. She put them on my fold out table in the living room. The only people that have been in my house today are my wife, step daughter and step daughter's friend. My wife left before I got home to goto a doctors appointment, until then she had been in the living room. I'm just frustrated, I have searched everywhere. Called the police and filed a report, but they did nothing, called the two LGS by me and told them about the cards in case someone was selling those exact cards. Just needed to vent, sorry.
The point is that living as though it is a lie means you would not have wasted any effort or time feeding into an illusion. It's a "safe" response. It's not paranoid at all, although I wish it was. It's taking the surest precautions you have available. There is nothing worse for humans than the feeling that they have wasted their lives, even death is preferable to that. It is rational to prepare for the worst case scenario, you should know that. This would entail living as such.
Your worst case scenario isn't bad at all. It would be a relief for some actually. The one I have presented is far worse because you are in a reality where nothing you do has any real impact and your efforts are truly fruitless. It's like being dead in the sense, but far worse since you are aware of the waste of your life.
Imaginary things don't have feelings, by definition. They have to exist for that to occur. Your feelings for imaginary characters don't mean anything because the object of those feelings is nonexistent. That's just how it is.
Ok, lets look at the simplified versions.
Scenario A - All of reality is an illusion
Option A - Do nothing __ You have stated this is the optimal stance so you waste nothing.
Option B - Live your life as though it is in fact real __ I take this stance because it is the most optimal after all if nothing is real you can't waste anything
Scenario B - The world is in fact real
Option A - Do nothing __ You have taken this stance out of fear and it has the most horrible out come you yourself has stated, "nothing you do matters because you did nothing"
Option B - Live your life __ I have taken this stance due to the unlimited amount of upside with literally zero downside.
So if you're right then there is no difference between our choices. If I'm right you have forced your own worst case upon yourself.
How can you defend this as rational? The safe response is assume that reality exist because that is the only one with negative outcomes.
You have yet to present a case for assuming you're right, either as the more likely truth or as hedging your bet. In addition you have not proven your worst case is in fact bad at all. You have failed to present an argument beyond personal melancholy and have met each counter argument with the equivelent of "I can't consider the possibility I'm wrong so you are wrong."
The first thing I thought of when I read the OP was Pascal's wager. And while the wager doesn't offer proof one way or the other it does address the questions in the OP. Specifically that the reason to believe in reality is that it offers infinite gain.
But, let's say that that the only thing that exists is one persona and everything else is a figment of that personas imagination. Well, aside from me being difficult and asking so what, does it actually change anything? If the person reading this is the persona and then decides that they are through with this existence and want to create a new one, does that mean anything to me? If I am part of the existence of that persona, it only means something to me if that persona wants it to. So, if you are the persona, you're living the high life. Whatever you imagine is existence, sounds quite frightening like a deity. On the other hand if say you are one of the imagined who has been given enough enlightenment to have a semblance of a self contained consciousness that has let their mind get the best of them and found themself in an irrational, fatalistic state of paranoia, then I guess your life is pretty bad.
When the persona responsible for my existence reads this, please read my mind. I have a few changes I would like implemented.
Thanks for the suggestion, I may pick up the missing pieces to try the Demigod build. Seems interesting, but slow. How well does it hold up to combo decks?
My local meta is pretty small and usually contains 1-2 Tron, 1-2 Combo deck (Ad Nauseum, Breach), Eldrazi and Taxes, Bogles, Skred Red, burn, Affinity and a few more lower tier decks.
I have the cards to play Grixis Control or Delver, Jund, Junk, Sultai Control, Bant Eldrazi, Abzan Company, Jeskai Harbinger, Jeskai Control, Esper Control and whatever else can be put together using those cards. I am looking to be a bit more competitive in my meta, I usually go 2-2 with the occasional 3-1 and the very, very rare 4-0. Eventually I would like to goto an event and play in a bigger tourney. I am not against picking up cards for a new deck if needed, but I have no interest in playing Tron. I have contemplated the idea of Affinity, but I am worried about Mox Opals being hit due to Cheeri0s, also I don't have anything for that deck so it would be buying/trading for the whole thing.
Is liliana bad with counterspells or does it still work ok?
In all honesty I haven't done enough testing yet to say whether running LotV and counters together is bad or good. However Spell Snare I believe is a must run, regardless of LotV. I am trying out Remand to make discard more relavent in the late game. Also the combination of the instant speed discard K-Command provides plus Remand helps to fight against topdecks. Without AV I don't think counters are as good, but since we got the new toy, may as well try it. One thing I can say though, is I really enjoy playing this deck. It feels very powerful and has a lot of synergies.
G/R Tron 2-0
I was unhappy to be placed against Tron my first round, but I was able to beat him by not allowing any threats by remanding his search spells and discard. Fall was a house here.
R/W Burn 0-2
I stabalize at too low a life against this deck. One more turn each game and they would have been my games. But burn is our worst matchup.
Affinity 1-2
Game one I got demolished, I mulled to 6 and he drops five cards on turn one with a no lander. Turn two Master of Etherium, with a turn three attack that puts me too far behind to catch up.
Game two he drops turn one Vault Skirge and that's it... A slow start, something I can handle. K-command is an allstar this game, go figure.
Game three it went to the wire. I untap with one life, I need a basic land, bolt, terminate, K-command, or boomerang. Drew a Serum Visions into a Remand, oh well.
Bant Company 1-1
On the ticket I lost this match to give the other guy a 3-1 record so he could get prize. We played two games, the first game took forty minutes. Goblin Darkdwellers finally gets there in the end. The second game we had 7 minutes to play. Since I didn't care about the win, I kept a one lander with a Serum Vision hand that I would normally haved mulled. Collected Company decks are a lot of value and targeted removal just runs out against them. I may try to find a second Damnation for my board as some version of company decks make up about 25% of my meta.
Thoughts:
Ancestral Vision: Hands down one me my first game against Bant Company, I resolved a total of three, one with GDD. Put in work against R/G tron, resolved at least one each game. Sided out the AV against burn for the Dispels and Spellskite, sided out GDD for Kalitas.
Rise//Fall: There were quite a few games where I wanted to bounce a creature, but did not have a creature in my yard (I guess that happens when you only have 8 creatures in your deck). Fall was great though, but in the end I think I am going to up my K-command by one and drop on the the Rise//Fall.
Remand: So I went with Remand to try and make IoK topdecks not suck as bad and to get more value out of Rise//Fall
Liliana of the Veil: Only saw her once, but I saw all three copies that game. Forty minute game against bant company.
22 lands I think I was one cantrip short of running 22 lands. While there were only two games that I noticed it and that could just be variance, I still think I am going to drop a LotV and add the 4th SV.
My thoughts, mind you this has nothing to do with how I think SFM will affect the format, but rather a personal want. I want SFM unbanned, I picked up 2 of the Event decks when these were in Standard so I could get them. At the time I wasn't much of an event player, just casual (extremely competitive, but casual). Fast forward to today, I have been going to my LGS modern tourneys every Saturday for the last 3 months. Now I get wind that the GP promo is SFM, the idea gets in my head that I want to attend a GP for the first time ever... But if SFM doesn't get unbanned, I probably will not attend the GP.
I played this deck on Saturday and went 2-2 but the last win was a bye, so really 1-2.
Round 1: Scapeshift
G1, very grindy game, he has Snapcaster Mage and Baby Jace, a couple of counter wars ensue, I counter Scapeshift at least 5 times. I make a misplay at the end of game one (exarch doesn't have haste) and tap out for combo, he wins on his next turn.
G2, Not much to report here, force twin through counterspells, game over.
G3, very, very grindy again. Don't see any of my combo pieces here, but laying the beat down with Goyfs is going pretty well. We goto time, turn 1 him, supreme verdict, I never saw it coming. Turn 2 me, draw go. Turn 3 him, tries to cast scapeshift 3 times. Turn 4 me, draw go and it is over, the last scapeshift he casted was remanded, he wins on turn 5
0-1-0
Round 2: Grixis Control
G1, nothing works for me
G2, same as game 1
0-2-0
Round 3: Standard Abzan
G1, Combo out at 1 life, he doesn't believe it works, Judge!!!
G2, combo on turn 4
1-2-0
Round 4: Bye
2-2-0
Conclusion, I need Surgical Extraction in the board for Round 1, and Grixis Control just ownes us.
Yes you can redirect the destroy mode to your spellskite. Kolaghan's Command specifies a target in each of it's modes, so you can target the same thing multiple times so long as it is a legal target. In this case your spellskite is a legal target for both modes your opponent is casting so you can redirect the destroy mode to your spellskite.
So I have come back to MTG after a hiatus and I have decided to play Grixis control. This deck incorporates everything I like to do in MTG; draw cards, play with my graveyard, kill creatures, and counter spells. So after some trading, I have a list to play.
Unfortunately, after going and watching a Modern tournament at my LGS, I have noticed that the meta there is bad for my deck. R/G Tron, Boggles, Burn, Scapeshift, collected Elves. I definitely need some sideboard help handling all this. Couple of things I noticed during testing; Clique was great. I never drew her and didn't want her, was even happy to K-Command her when I could, Thoughtseize on the other hand, not so good. 5 life on turn one, just not it. Also, snapping back Cryptics was very difficult, the deck seemed to get to 5 lands, and I had trouble finding the 6th. Which also made the Creeping Tar Pit not so good. I think there was only one game I played that I attacked with the Tar Pit. Any help on the sideboard would be appreciated, thanks.
I am kind of curious; will any of the reprints in this set end up being less expensive than the originals? Pre order prices are through the roof and I know my LGS will sell the packs at high prices. So resellers who are buying these for singles sales will have to jack up the prices to get value out of them, correct? I guess I am just missing it here, how is this going to help get modern staples into players hands? I was considering buying a box or two depending on what is in the set, as my collection is rather small seeing as I just started playing again. But I am not going to spend $300 a box or $15 a booster. Anyway, the point: I will probably just continue to buy singles and was wondering if the prices will decrease for the cards in the set? And one more thing, I was playing MTG when chronicles came out. Chronicles wasn't bad because they printed too much, it was bad because it didn't live up to the hype.
The first thing I thought of when I read the OP was Pascal's wager. And while the wager doesn't offer proof one way or the other it does address the questions in the OP. Specifically that the reason to believe in reality is that it offers infinite gain.
But, let's say that that the only thing that exists is one persona and everything else is a figment of that personas imagination. Well, aside from me being difficult and asking so what, does it actually change anything? If the person reading this is the persona and then decides that they are through with this existence and want to create a new one, does that mean anything to me? If I am part of the existence of that persona, it only means something to me if that persona wants it to. So, if you are the persona, you're living the high life. Whatever you imagine is existence, sounds quite frightening like a deity. On the other hand if say you are one of the imagined who has been given enough enlightenment to have a semblance of a self contained consciousness that has let their mind get the best of them and found themself in an irrational, fatalistic state of paranoia, then I guess your life is pretty bad.
When the persona responsible for my existence reads this, please read my mind. I have a few changes I would like implemented.
Thanks for the suggestion, I may pick up the missing pieces to try the Demigod build. Seems interesting, but slow. How well does it hold up to combo decks?
My local meta is pretty small and usually contains 1-2 Tron, 1-2 Combo deck (Ad Nauseum, Breach), Eldrazi and Taxes, Bogles, Skred Red, burn, Affinity and a few more lower tier decks.
I have the cards to play Grixis Control or Delver, Jund, Junk, Sultai Control, Bant Eldrazi, Abzan Company, Jeskai Harbinger, Jeskai Control, Esper Control and whatever else can be put together using those cards. I am looking to be a bit more competitive in my meta, I usually go 2-2 with the occasional 3-1 and the very, very rare 4-0. Eventually I would like to goto an event and play in a bigger tourney. I am not against picking up cards for a new deck if needed, but I have no interest in playing Tron. I have contemplated the idea of Affinity, but I am worried about Mox Opals being hit due to Cheeri0s, also I don't have anything for that deck so it would be buying/trading for the whole thing.
In all honesty I haven't done enough testing yet to say whether running LotV and counters together is bad or good. However Spell Snare I believe is a must run, regardless of LotV. I am trying out Remand to make discard more relavent in the late game. Also the combination of the instant speed discard K-Command provides plus Remand helps to fight against topdecks. Without AV I don't think counters are as good, but since we got the new toy, may as well try it. One thing I can say though, is I really enjoy playing this deck. It feels very powerful and has a lot of synergies.
2 Steamvents
1 Watery Grave
1 Bloodcrypt
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Creeping Tarpit
1 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Darkslick Shores
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Ghost Quarter
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
2 Goblin Darkdwellers
Instants 14
3 Remand
2 Spell Snare
2 Kolagan's Command
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Terminate
Sorecery 13
4x Inquistion of Kozilek
4x Ancestral Vision
3x Serum Visions
2x Rise // Fall
Planeswalker 3
3 Liliana of the Veil
2 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2 Spellskite
1 Damnation
2 Slaughter Games
2 Boomerang
2 Dispel
1 Duress
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Other card
G/R Tron 2-0
I was unhappy to be placed against Tron my first round, but I was able to beat him by not allowing any threats by remanding his search spells and discard. Fall was a house here.
R/W Burn 0-2
I stabalize at too low a life against this deck. One more turn each game and they would have been my games. But burn is our worst matchup.
Affinity 1-2
Game one I got demolished, I mulled to 6 and he drops five cards on turn one with a no lander. Turn two Master of Etherium, with a turn three attack that puts me too far behind to catch up.
Game two he drops turn one Vault Skirge and that's it... A slow start, something I can handle. K-command is an allstar this game, go figure.
Game three it went to the wire. I untap with one life, I need a basic land, bolt, terminate, K-command, or boomerang. Drew a Serum Visions into a Remand, oh well.
Bant Company 1-1
On the ticket I lost this match to give the other guy a 3-1 record so he could get prize. We played two games, the first game took forty minutes. Goblin Darkdwellers finally gets there in the end. The second game we had 7 minutes to play. Since I didn't care about the win, I kept a one lander with a Serum Vision hand that I would normally haved mulled. Collected Company decks are a lot of value and targeted removal just runs out against them. I may try to find a second Damnation for my board as some version of company decks make up about 25% of my meta.
Thoughts:
Ancestral Vision: Hands down one me my first game against Bant Company, I resolved a total of three, one with GDD. Put in work against R/G tron, resolved at least one each game. Sided out the AV against burn for the Dispels and Spellskite, sided out GDD for Kalitas.
Rise//Fall: There were quite a few games where I wanted to bounce a creature, but did not have a creature in my yard (I guess that happens when you only have 8 creatures in your deck). Fall was great though, but in the end I think I am going to up my K-command by one and drop on the the Rise//Fall.
Remand: So I went with Remand to try and make IoK topdecks not suck as bad and to get more value out of Rise//Fall
Liliana of the Veil: Only saw her once, but I saw all three copies that game. Forty minute game against bant company.
22 lands I think I was one cantrip short of running 22 lands. While there were only two games that I noticed it and that could just be variance, I still think I am going to drop a LotV and add the 4th SV.
Round 1: Scapeshift
G1, very grindy game, he has Snapcaster Mage and Baby Jace, a couple of counter wars ensue, I counter Scapeshift at least 5 times. I make a misplay at the end of game one (exarch doesn't have haste) and tap out for combo, he wins on his next turn.
G2, Not much to report here, force twin through counterspells, game over.
G3, very, very grindy again. Don't see any of my combo pieces here, but laying the beat down with Goyfs is going pretty well. We goto time, turn 1 him, supreme verdict, I never saw it coming. Turn 2 me, draw go. Turn 3 him, tries to cast scapeshift 3 times. Turn 4 me, draw go and it is over, the last scapeshift he casted was remanded, he wins on turn 5
0-1-0
Round 2: Grixis Control
G1, nothing works for me
G2, same as game 1
0-2-0
Round 3: Standard Abzan
G1, Combo out at 1 life, he doesn't believe it works, Judge!!!
G2, combo on turn 4
1-2-0
Round 4: Bye
2-2-0
Conclusion, I need Surgical Extraction in the board for Round 1, and Grixis Control just ownes us.
4 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Steam Vents
2 Watery Grave
2 Blood Crypt
2 Creeping Tar Pit
3 Island
2 Mountain
1 Swamp
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Gurmag Angler
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Vendilion Clique
Sorcery (5)
4 Serum Visions
1 Thoughtseize
Instant (24)
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Terminate
3 Kolaghan's Command
1 Electrolyze
4 Thought Scour
3 Cryptic Command
4 Mana Leak
2 Spell Snare
1 Remand
Unfortunately, after going and watching a Modern tournament at my LGS, I have noticed that the meta there is bad for my deck. R/G Tron, Boggles, Burn, Scapeshift, collected Elves. I definitely need some sideboard help handling all this. Couple of things I noticed during testing; Clique was great. I never drew her and didn't want her, was even happy to K-Command her when I could, Thoughtseize on the other hand, not so good. 5 life on turn one, just not it. Also, snapping back Cryptics was very difficult, the deck seemed to get to 5 lands, and I had trouble finding the 6th. Which also made the Creeping Tar Pit not so good. I think there was only one game I played that I attacked with the Tar Pit. Any help on the sideboard would be appreciated, thanks.