There is no way these changes will affect Legacy more than Mental Misstep did. In fact, I think people are dramatically overrating the extent to which it will affect Legacy.
They are probably overreacting, but I don't think it is too overdramatic. Gaea's Cradle is pretty batty with the new rule. A bunch of matchups also took on a whole new dimension, especially the Emrakul and Jace staredowns. Thankfully, Modern looks to be spared a lot of the worst effects of the new rule. The only thing that is remotely scary is Mox Opal, but we still have to consider the card in the context of its deck, not in an abstract vacuum.
How much does the new Opal break Affinity? Does it enable any current strategies that were previously weak (KCI Eggs? Some artifact-powered Grapeshot/Beck deck? Cheeri0s?)? The rule definitely improves the card, but I am unconvinced that it breaks any decks.
Perhaps the most interesting implication of this rule is its impact on Jitte. That card is never, ever going to come off the banlist under the new rules (although I don't know if that was ever even a question). But the new legends rule seals it. The same probably goes for Jace and Depths.
With all the mythic slots for green probably filled does this mean we're unlikely to see Noble Hierarch in this set?
He's a mana dork, just like his best buddy Deathrite Shaman. If anything, the pricetag alone is a reason to reprint it at rare; it's a somewhat prohibitively expensive cost for a very humble effect. MM's intent is to open up Modern to a wider playerbase, and reprinting Hierarch at rare is a great start along that path.
I have been doing some very in-depth testing with this deck and should be posting some results soon. Although I am an experienced player who has been at this game for over a decade, I concede that I am not an expert on this deck. As such, I do not know the best sideboarding strategies.
I am currently testing against UWR (and holy s*** is game 1 awful). What do you all recommend I sideboard in this matchup? I'm definitely feeling +4 Pact of Negation, and I would normally add in Spellskite but I see that the current SB doesn't use it. I am also hesitant about adding the Erayo/Canonist transformational board in because it doesn't solve the fundamental problem of game 1: Fighting through removal on turns 1-2, and then countermagic on turns 3+.
Ryusei was bumped because of limited, that's all. Just like Beguiler of Wills - having cards like that around at rare would ruin too many drafts. Pack Rat is the one unfortunate recent case where a card didn't get the appropriate bump.
Ding ding ding! We have a winner. It's good to see people thinking critically about the cards and not just jumping on board the rampaging bandwagons of angry forum-goers. Given that MM has an entire Grand Prix dedicated to its drafting, it seems pretty reasonable that Wizards would want a fair and balanced draft format, at least to such an extent as is possible with the card pool. Ryusei at rare is a nightmare for sealed, but at mythic he is much more reasonable.
Gaea's Cradle is totally outrageous under this new rule. I was waiting to sell my playset for years, and the time is finally here.
I am skeptical of a Liliana ban. Edict into discard and 4 loyalty just doesn't seem that broken if it costs 2 cards over 2 turns. Opal could definitely do something stupid with the new rule, but Lilly just doesn't feel as broken. What matchups does this new rule unbalance?
How is it a buff when both players get their own geist?
Geist can no longer be called by non-targeted Clone effects, such as Phantasmal Image. That's a pretty sizable buff in the Modern Pod matchup, at the least.
So, how do you guys feel these new rule changes will effect the format, and ultimately the banned list? Most obvious decks affected are UWR Midrange and Jund, specifically mirror matches.
I'm really digging Mox Opal right now, or should I say, metalcraft Lotus Petal. The Mox just gets a whole lot better. I haven't done any testing with it under the new rules, although I imagine that Affinity, Ironworks Eggs, and cheeri0s players are all pretty happy right now.
Geist is going to be an even bigger pain (if that was even possible) with these changes. And both the Pod and Jund mirrors are going to be a comedy show.
36% win rate goldfishing is amazing since the deck you were using doesnt have a card newer then Zen block. With all the self mill in INN and RTR blocks, Dredge would be better.
I dont care anymore, unban the pieces and let them fall where they may. I am tired of arguing with people who have a different idea of what is healthy for the format.
To be honest, even with newer cards like Faithless Looting and Thought Scour, I would still rather have the vast majority of cards in that old list. I could envision the Ideas getting replaced for something that was more consistent or faster (Looting or even Breaking maybe), but otherwise I wouldn't make that many changes.
I'm still not sure if a DR unban would be as hideously broken as people claim. I performed the exact same test as I did on Dredge with Infect, using a fairly standard BUG pump list (4 each of all the main pumps and creatures, noble hierarch, 2 slots each at Thoughtseize/Apostle's Blessing). Over the course of 50 games, I saw 19 wins by turn 3 and 31 wins that would have come on turn 4 or later. That's a turn 3 win percentage of 38%, basically identical to the DR Dredge (aka DRedge) win percentage off of goldfish. And as we know, Infect is fine in the format.
So I'm still not convinced that the DR ban is warranted for power level reasons. It's winning at about the same rate as Infect, a deck that can't seem to win or even T16 at a major event. I am also not sure if Dredge is more or less resilient than Infect in the current metagame. On the one hand, it is vulnerable to removal and GY hate. But on the other hand, not every deck plays GY hate, and it is comparatively less vulnerable to removal than is Infect.
You don't outrace Dredge. Dredge outraces you. On turn 3, Dredge can have a board full of Zombie tokens from Bridge. That's IN ADDITION to Iona.
I did 50 solitaire tests of Dredge to see what the deck's turn 3 win percentage was in a vacuum. Obviously, this would change in the face of removal and graveyard hate, but it's important for us to know the goldfish turn 3 win rate of the deck first. I only looked for actual turn 3 kills where my Flame-Kin led horde stomped my opponent into the ground, not virtual turn 3 kills where I got out an Iona. In fact, my deck had 0 Ionas in it at all; Dredge is tight on slots. Before I give the deck, here is the conclusion:
In 50 solitaire games with Dread Return Dredge, I won on turn 3 in 18 of the 50 games for a goldfish turn 3 win rate of 36%. In these 18 games, I was able to deal anywhere between 17 (low end) and 110 (high end) damage on turn 3. My other 32 games were some combination of mulligans to oblivion, slow starts, and hands that could have won on turn 4.
The decklist I used is listed below. It is identical to the list that izzetmage posted a while back, only with the Ionas ditched for Flame-Kins.
This deck was surprisingly explosive, and that's coming from a guy who has played Dredge in Legacy, Vintage, and Extended since 2006. Here are some of my relevant notes from my solitaire test runs.
LETHAL DAMAGE
My average lethal damage was around 50 on turn 3. The two lowest damage values I saw were 17 and 18. The highest damage values I saw were 80, 84, and a truly obscene 110 damage, all done on turn 3.
WINNING HANDS
I tested the deck a bunch of times before I started recording wins just to see what made a good hand. Knowing the qualities of a good hand, I was able to mulligan more aggressively to find hands that could win on turn 3. Hedron Crab is your MVP. As a general rule, any hand with 1 Crab and 3 lands was a win, especially if 2 of those lands were fetches. Comboing 1 Crab with 1 Ideas Unbound/Glimpse also led to crazy plays. 2 Hedron Crabs and 2+ lands was even more ridiculous. Finally, hands that had 1 Rusalka and either Crab/Glimpse were also wins. There were some other hands that led to turn 3 wins, but they involved lucky dredges off of otherwise subpar hands (often after a mulligan to 6).
Similarly, any hand with more than 1 Bridge in it was an auto mulligan; Bridge is just too important for setting up your crazy turn 3 victory, and this particular build doesn't have enough discard outlets to reliably ditch them. Any hand without Crab, Glimpse, or Rusalka was also often tossed away.
As a way of foreshadowing the "weaknesses" section, losing a Crab early on would be a disaster for the turn 3-4 win plan. You would lose a lot of steam and momentum. The same goes for getting Glimpse or Ideas countered.
DREAD RETURN SHENNANIGANS Dread Return did a lot of insane s*** in these games. Aside from the obvious Flame-Kin alpha strike, I found two other plays that almost always set me up for gigantic attacks. The first was using DR to bring back Drowned Rusalka as a discard and sac outlet. With enough Bridges and dredgers in your yard, this gets out of hand very quickly, and you can rapidly fill up your board with tokens and fill up your yard with even more cards.
The second play was to DR on a Dryad Arbor to generate lots of tokens off of my sacrificed dudes and then to trigger landfall on Crabs/Ghasts. Both of these plays only worked if you had multiple DRs in the graveyard, but that was rarely a problem in those 36% of games that were won on turn 3.
WEAKNESSES
This deck has two huge weaknesses which would have been very hard to play around in real matchups. The first is its vulnerability to spot removal. Crab, and Rusalka to a lesser extent, are burn magnets. Anyone who saw a turn 1 Crab would instantly murder it. Although a Dredge player could get around this by waiting to cast Crab on turn 2, this would tie up mana that is needed for Glimpse/Ideas, and would definitely slow the deck down to turn 4 or later. The same goes for Rusalka; the more mana you have open, the crazier it gets. Waiting to cast these spells to dodge removal would absolutely cut down the turn 3 win percentage.
The second weakness is against DRS and Ooze. Dread Return targets a creature, and getting that target removed in response would be a disaster in a lot of cases. In games where you are only going to swing with 6-8 Zombies and a Flame-Kin, you don't have the extra creature resources to use a follow-up DR to win. That said, in some games, you would already have a critical mass of sacrificial creatures that it wouldn't matter. And of course, there's the natural weakness of Dredge to Ooze/DRS just by virtue of removing dredge engines.
CONCLUSIONS
I'm not sure if this deck is any more consistent or crazy than similar glass cannon combo decks like Infect, cheeri0s, and Griselbrand Reanimator. That would require more testing, and testing done against actual opponents. It's definitely more vulnerable to graveyard hate. The only redeeming characteristic of the otherwise broken deck is its vulnerability to removal. Crab is just not very tough, even though he's a cornerstone of the deck. But that said, there were some games where Crab wasn't even needed, and in those games, decks without GY hate would probably be in serious trouble.
Step 1: When opening hands are declared, reveal Chancellor and get a Goblin token.
Step 2: Exile Chancellor with Gemstone Caverns. (103.5. Some cards allow a player to take actions with them from his or her opening hand. Once all players have kept their opening hands, the starting player may take any such actions in any order. Then each other player in turn order may do the same.)
Step 3: Exile both Simian Spirit Guides and tap Caverns for B (RRB floating)
Step 4: Cast Lightning Axe targeting the Goblin, discarding Griselbrand (RB floating)
Step 5: Goryo's Vengeance on Griselbrand
Step 6: Pay 14 life, draw 14 cards (6 life, 39 cards in deck)
Step 7: Use Soul Spike to ping for 4 and gain 4 life (10 life)
Step 8: Pay 7 life and draw 7 more cards (3 life, 32 cards in deck)
Step 10: Cast Nourishing Shoal pitching Autochthon Wurm (fetchable off of Summoner's Pact (17 life)
Step 11: Pay 14 life and draw 14 more cards (3 life, 18 cards)
Step 12: Fire 2 more Soul Spikes to bring opponent to 8 (11 life)
Step 13: Draw 7 more cards (4 life, 11 cards)
Step 14: Finish with some combination of Fling/Soul Spike/SSG/Nourishing Shoal (don't deck yourself!)
Everyone here is wrong about how Scourge of Valkas works. They all see each other, so if you storm for a bunch of them you get the cube of the number in damage (i.e. three of them is lethal at 27). Certainly an upgrade over Hellkite. However, Dragonstorm has zero chance of being a deck with both Seething Song and Rite of Flame banned.
Yeah, I totally misread that card. For those that still don't see how it works, here's the breakdown:
Scourge 1 enters trigger: 3 damage
Scourge 2 enters trigger: 3 damage
Scourge 3 enters trigger: 3 damage
Scourge 1 trigger when Scourge 2 and 3 enter: 6 damage
Scourge 2 trigger when Scourge 3 and 1 enter: 6 damage
Scourge 3 trigger when Scourge 1 and 2 enter: 6 damage
27 damage in total. Still probably not enough to help out poor Dragonstorm with its loss of ritual mass. Infernal Plunge anyone...?
This is entirely based on how much is printed and released, at least form a collection stand point. I'm not entirely certain of the probability but I think its around 1 mythic of a given name in every 4/5 boxes. Based on that you could assume, given the 40 boxes per card shop number that every shop will be adding an additional 2 plus playsets of every mythic in MM to the card pool. Now this is the first run. If there is another print run of the same size, well that puts the influx of the MM mythics to 4 plus playsets per store. And were not even accounting for online retailers. It maybe will only be a $5 drop in prices for the MM mythics but everything else, whatever is printed at rare or lower, well those values I expect to crash.
I edited my post to change an important point. My prediction is only about the high-end of the mythic rare value. Not the box itself. We have no way of predicting the value of rares, and so we can't know what a box is worth. I tried to go through both posts and change my wordings to reflect that ("value of the mythics" not "value of the box"), but I missed some. If I missed any more, then I apologize.
The rares of MM will need to make up a lot of its value in order for the set to be worth players' money. For instance, Thoughtseize as a rare (unlikely but possible) would really increase their value. A more realistic example would be the commands at rare (Cryptic et al.).
This is all speculation on stuff we have no business speculating about.
I totally disagree. That list of 15 cards included the 15 most valuable cards that are currently in the Modern pool. We can think of my estimates as a "best-case", "high-end" prediction of what an MM box's mythic cards will be worth. The mythics won't be more than that because there are no other cards that are worth more money.
But the mythics could definitely be worth less if Wizards doesn't print the highest value cards in those 15 slots. So the value of the mythics in a box can only go down from that point.
The only scenario that we can't really predict is demand for the cards increasing faster than their supply, in which case the prices in my above thread would actually rise. This would be the effect of an explosion in Modern popularity following an MM release (and that's definitely possible). But even if prices rose a whopping 20% across the board, that would still bring the value of mythics in a box to around $150.
EDIT: This suggests that for boxes to be valuable, they need to make up price in their rares. So a lot is riding on the rares that Wizards chooses to reprint; perhaps some of the valuable mythics will be reprinted as rares, which would definitely drive up a box's value.
One last chance. Playtest this list. I'm saying it reanimates Iona on T3 often enough for Dead Return never to see the light of day, even though it is not optimized. I'll give you the benefit of doubt and assume you can play the deck competently.
In testing Dredge lists, I think people (myself included) were looking for actual turn 3 kills, not virtual ones. That's not to knock your list or diminish your testing so far. It's just to say that a "virtual" turn 3 win gets us in some murky definitional territory; Wizards has never mentioned "virtual" wins in its ban justifications. Hypergenesis and Glimpse of Nature led to actual wins on turns 1-3, not virtual ones. So did Rite of Flame and Blazing Shoal. And what even constitutes a virtual win? Going down to 8 against Affinity is a virtual loss in most games. So is having Karn resolved on turn 3 in a lot of cases.
Finally, none of this testing speaks much to the deck's consistency in the face of hate. Shoal Infect was quite consistent, with its 10+ maindeck counterspells and redundant dig and tutors. Pump Infect is not at all consistent, can't win a major event, and consistently dodges bans. It's hard to say where Dread Return fits on that spectrum.
They are probably overreacting, but I don't think it is too overdramatic. Gaea's Cradle is pretty batty with the new rule. A bunch of matchups also took on a whole new dimension, especially the Emrakul and Jace staredowns. Thankfully, Modern looks to be spared a lot of the worst effects of the new rule. The only thing that is remotely scary is Mox Opal, but we still have to consider the card in the context of its deck, not in an abstract vacuum.
How much does the new Opal break Affinity? Does it enable any current strategies that were previously weak (KCI Eggs? Some artifact-powered Grapeshot/Beck deck? Cheeri0s?)? The rule definitely improves the card, but I am unconvinced that it breaks any decks.
Perhaps the most interesting implication of this rule is its impact on Jitte. That card is never, ever going to come off the banlist under the new rules (although I don't know if that was ever even a question). But the new legends rule seals it. The same probably goes for Jace and Depths.
He's a mana dork, just like his best buddy Deathrite Shaman. If anything, the pricetag alone is a reason to reprint it at rare; it's a somewhat prohibitively expensive cost for a very humble effect. MM's intent is to open up Modern to a wider playerbase, and reprinting Hierarch at rare is a great start along that path.
I am currently testing against UWR (and holy s*** is game 1 awful). What do you all recommend I sideboard in this matchup? I'm definitely feeling +4 Pact of Negation, and I would normally add in Spellskite but I see that the current SB doesn't use it. I am also hesitant about adding the Erayo/Canonist transformational board in because it doesn't solve the fundamental problem of game 1: Fighting through removal on turns 1-2, and then countermagic on turns 3+.
Thoughts on the sideboard strategy in UWR?
Ding ding ding! We have a winner. It's good to see people thinking critically about the cards and not just jumping on board the rampaging bandwagons of angry forum-goers. Given that MM has an entire Grand Prix dedicated to its drafting, it seems pretty reasonable that Wizards would want a fair and balanced draft format, at least to such an extent as is possible with the card pool. Ryusei at rare is a nightmare for sealed, but at mythic he is much more reasonable.
Gaea's Cradle is totally outrageous under this new rule. I was waiting to sell my playset for years, and the time is finally here.
I am skeptical of a Liliana ban. Edict into discard and 4 loyalty just doesn't seem that broken if it costs 2 cards over 2 turns. Opal could definitely do something stupid with the new rule, but Lilly just doesn't feel as broken. What matchups does this new rule unbalance?
Geist can no longer be called by non-targeted Clone effects, such as Phantasmal Image. That's a pretty sizable buff in the Modern Pod matchup, at the least.
I'm really digging Mox Opal right now, or should I say, metalcraft Lotus Petal. The Mox just gets a whole lot better. I haven't done any testing with it under the new rules, although I imagine that Affinity, Ironworks Eggs, and cheeri0s players are all pretty happy right now.
Geist is going to be an even bigger pain (if that was even possible) with these changes. And both the Pod and Jund mirrors are going to be a comedy show.
To be honest, even with newer cards like Faithless Looting and Thought Scour, I would still rather have the vast majority of cards in that old list. I could envision the Ideas getting replaced for something that was more consistent or faster (Looting or even Breaking maybe), but otherwise I wouldn't make that many changes.
I'm still not sure if a DR unban would be as hideously broken as people claim. I performed the exact same test as I did on Dredge with Infect, using a fairly standard BUG pump list (4 each of all the main pumps and creatures, noble hierarch, 2 slots each at Thoughtseize/Apostle's Blessing). Over the course of 50 games, I saw 19 wins by turn 3 and 31 wins that would have come on turn 4 or later. That's a turn 3 win percentage of 38%, basically identical to the DR Dredge (aka DRedge) win percentage off of goldfish. And as we know, Infect is fine in the format.
So I'm still not convinced that the DR ban is warranted for power level reasons. It's winning at about the same rate as Infect, a deck that can't seem to win or even T16 at a major event. I am also not sure if Dredge is more or less resilient than Infect in the current metagame. On the one hand, it is vulnerable to removal and GY hate. But on the other hand, not every deck plays GY hate, and it is comparatively less vulnerable to removal than is Infect.
I did 50 solitaire tests of Dredge to see what the deck's turn 3 win percentage was in a vacuum. Obviously, this would change in the face of removal and graveyard hate, but it's important for us to know the goldfish turn 3 win rate of the deck first. I only looked for actual turn 3 kills where my Flame-Kin led horde stomped my opponent into the ground, not virtual turn 3 kills where I got out an Iona. In fact, my deck had 0 Ionas in it at all; Dredge is tight on slots. Before I give the deck, here is the conclusion:
In 50 solitaire games with Dread Return Dredge, I won on turn 3 in 18 of the 50 games for a goldfish turn 3 win rate of 36%. In these 18 games, I was able to deal anywhere between 17 (low end) and 110 (high end) damage on turn 3. My other 32 games were some combination of mulligans to oblivion, slow starts, and hands that could have won on turn 4.
The decklist I used is listed below. It is identical to the list that izzetmage posted a while back, only with the Ionas ditched for Flame-Kins.
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Dryad Arbor
3 Watery Grave
2 Breeding Pool
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Island
4 Drowned Rusalka
2 Flame-Kin Zealot
4 Narcomoeba
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Hedron Crab
3 Bloodghast
3 Dread Return
4 Bridge from Below
3 Glimpse the Unthinkable
1 Life from the Loam
4 Ideas Unbound
This deck was surprisingly explosive, and that's coming from a guy who has played Dredge in Legacy, Vintage, and Extended since 2006. Here are some of my relevant notes from my solitaire test runs.
LETHAL DAMAGE
My average lethal damage was around 50 on turn 3. The two lowest damage values I saw were 17 and 18. The highest damage values I saw were 80, 84, and a truly obscene 110 damage, all done on turn 3.
WINNING HANDS
I tested the deck a bunch of times before I started recording wins just to see what made a good hand. Knowing the qualities of a good hand, I was able to mulligan more aggressively to find hands that could win on turn 3. Hedron Crab is your MVP. As a general rule, any hand with 1 Crab and 3 lands was a win, especially if 2 of those lands were fetches. Comboing 1 Crab with 1 Ideas Unbound/Glimpse also led to crazy plays. 2 Hedron Crabs and 2+ lands was even more ridiculous. Finally, hands that had 1 Rusalka and either Crab/Glimpse were also wins. There were some other hands that led to turn 3 wins, but they involved lucky dredges off of otherwise subpar hands (often after a mulligan to 6).
Similarly, any hand with more than 1 Bridge in it was an auto mulligan; Bridge is just too important for setting up your crazy turn 3 victory, and this particular build doesn't have enough discard outlets to reliably ditch them. Any hand without Crab, Glimpse, or Rusalka was also often tossed away.
As a way of foreshadowing the "weaknesses" section, losing a Crab early on would be a disaster for the turn 3-4 win plan. You would lose a lot of steam and momentum. The same goes for getting Glimpse or Ideas countered.
DREAD RETURN SHENNANIGANS
Dread Return did a lot of insane s*** in these games. Aside from the obvious Flame-Kin alpha strike, I found two other plays that almost always set me up for gigantic attacks. The first was using DR to bring back Drowned Rusalka as a discard and sac outlet. With enough Bridges and dredgers in your yard, this gets out of hand very quickly, and you can rapidly fill up your board with tokens and fill up your yard with even more cards.
The second play was to DR on a Dryad Arbor to generate lots of tokens off of my sacrificed dudes and then to trigger landfall on Crabs/Ghasts. Both of these plays only worked if you had multiple DRs in the graveyard, but that was rarely a problem in those 36% of games that were won on turn 3.
WEAKNESSES
This deck has two huge weaknesses which would have been very hard to play around in real matchups. The first is its vulnerability to spot removal. Crab, and Rusalka to a lesser extent, are burn magnets. Anyone who saw a turn 1 Crab would instantly murder it. Although a Dredge player could get around this by waiting to cast Crab on turn 2, this would tie up mana that is needed for Glimpse/Ideas, and would definitely slow the deck down to turn 4 or later. The same goes for Rusalka; the more mana you have open, the crazier it gets. Waiting to cast these spells to dodge removal would absolutely cut down the turn 3 win percentage.
The second weakness is against DRS and Ooze. Dread Return targets a creature, and getting that target removed in response would be a disaster in a lot of cases. In games where you are only going to swing with 6-8 Zombies and a Flame-Kin, you don't have the extra creature resources to use a follow-up DR to win. That said, in some games, you would already have a critical mass of sacrificial creatures that it wouldn't matter. And of course, there's the natural weakness of Dredge to Ooze/DRS just by virtue of removing dredge engines.
CONCLUSIONS
I'm not sure if this deck is any more consistent or crazy than similar glass cannon combo decks like Infect, cheeri0s, and Griselbrand Reanimator. That would require more testing, and testing done against actual opponents. It's definitely more vulnerable to graveyard hate. The only redeeming characteristic of the otherwise broken deck is its vulnerability to removal. Crab is just not very tough, even though he's a cornerstone of the deck. But that said, there were some games where Crab wasn't even needed, and in those games, decks without GY hate would probably be in serious trouble.
Opening hand:
You will also need the following, but you will get to draw a lot of cards along the way.
Soul Spike
Nourishing Shoal
Summoner's Pact/Autochthon Wurm
Fling
Step 1: When opening hands are declared, reveal Chancellor and get a Goblin token.
Step 2: Exile Chancellor with Gemstone Caverns. (103.5. Some cards allow a player to take actions with them from his or her opening hand. Once all players have kept their opening hands, the starting player may take any such actions in any order. Then each other player in turn order may do the same.)
Step 3: Exile both Simian Spirit Guides and tap Caverns for B (RRB floating)
Step 4: Cast Lightning Axe targeting the Goblin, discarding Griselbrand (RB floating)
Step 5: Goryo's Vengeance on Griselbrand
Step 6: Pay 14 life, draw 14 cards (6 life, 39 cards in deck)
Step 7: Use Soul Spike to ping for 4 and gain 4 life (10 life)
Step 8: Pay 7 life and draw 7 more cards (3 life, 32 cards in deck)
Step 10: Cast Nourishing Shoal pitching Autochthon Wurm (fetchable off of Summoner's Pact (17 life)
Step 11: Pay 14 life and draw 14 more cards (3 life, 18 cards)
Step 12: Fire 2 more Soul Spikes to bring opponent to 8 (11 life)
Step 13: Draw 7 more cards (4 life, 11 cards)
Step 14: Finish with some combination of Fling/Soul Spike/SSG/Nourishing Shoal (don't deck yourself!)
Super improbable but super hilarious.
Yep. Feeling very silly right now for a double rules failure. So is this how it works?
Scourge 1 enters: 1 damage (1 total)
Scourge 2 enters, triggers self and Scourge 1: 2 + 2 (4) damage (5 total)
Scourge 3 enters, triggers self, Scourge 1 and 2: 3 + 3 + 3 (9) damage (14 total)
Scourge 4 enters, triggers self, Scourge 1, 2, and 3: 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 (16) damage (30 total)
That (finally) seems right.
Yeah, I totally misread that card. For those that still don't see how it works, here's the breakdown:
Scourge 1 enters trigger: 3 damage
Scourge 2 enters trigger: 3 damage
Scourge 3 enters trigger: 3 damage
Scourge 1 trigger when Scourge 2 and 3 enter: 6 damage
Scourge 2 trigger when Scourge 3 and 1 enter: 6 damage
Scourge 3 trigger when Scourge 1 and 2 enter: 6 damage
27 damage in total. Still probably not enough to help out poor Dragonstorm with its loss of ritual mass. Infernal Plunge anyone...?
I edited my post to change an important point. My prediction is only about the high-end of the mythic rare value. Not the box itself. We have no way of predicting the value of rares, and so we can't know what a box is worth. I tried to go through both posts and change my wordings to reflect that ("value of the mythics" not "value of the box"), but I missed some. If I missed any more, then I apologize.
The rares of MM will need to make up a lot of its value in order for the set to be worth players' money. For instance, Thoughtseize as a rare (unlikely but possible) would really increase their value. A more realistic example would be the commands at rare (Cryptic et al.).
I totally disagree. That list of 15 cards included the 15 most valuable cards that are currently in the Modern pool. We can think of my estimates as a "best-case", "high-end" prediction of what an MM box's mythic cards will be worth. The mythics won't be more than that because there are no other cards that are worth more money.
But the mythics could definitely be worth less if Wizards doesn't print the highest value cards in those 15 slots. So the value of the mythics in a box can only go down from that point.
The only scenario that we can't really predict is demand for the cards increasing faster than their supply, in which case the prices in my above thread would actually rise. This would be the effect of an explosion in Modern popularity following an MM release (and that's definitely possible). But even if prices rose a whopping 20% across the board, that would still bring the value of mythics in a box to around $150.
EDIT: This suggests that for boxes to be valuable, they need to make up price in their rares. So a lot is riding on the rares that Wizards chooses to reprint; perhaps some of the valuable mythics will be reprinted as rares, which would definitely drive up a box's value.
In testing Dredge lists, I think people (myself included) were looking for actual turn 3 kills, not virtual ones. That's not to knock your list or diminish your testing so far. It's just to say that a "virtual" turn 3 win gets us in some murky definitional territory; Wizards has never mentioned "virtual" wins in its ban justifications. Hypergenesis and Glimpse of Nature led to actual wins on turns 1-3, not virtual ones. So did Rite of Flame and Blazing Shoal. And what even constitutes a virtual win? Going down to 8 against Affinity is a virtual loss in most games. So is having Karn resolved on turn 3 in a lot of cases.
Finally, none of this testing speaks much to the deck's consistency in the face of hate. Shoal Infect was quite consistent, with its 10+ maindeck counterspells and redundant dig and tutors. Pump Infect is not at all consistent, can't win a major event, and consistently dodges bans. It's hard to say where Dread Return fits on that spectrum.