The flavor of Kamigawa was good. The mechanics were literally what killed it. It's not that the mechanics could not work but all in all they were too weak to stand up to standalone cards that do see play. In a lot of cases the mechanics are weak because the cards that use the mechanics are weak. They had a lot of interesting abilities but ultimately they did not push any of them far enough to make them be all that good. Most of the good cards do not use the mechanic keywords of the block.
I won't say that the set lacks good cards but the mechanics came off weak and they needed a power nudge that they never got.
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- ISBPathfinder
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Member for 13 years, 3 months, and 20 days
Last active Thu, Oct, 19 2023 23:29:58
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Mar 19, 2018
ISBPathfinder posted a message on All Sets Are Good: Saviors of KamigawaPosted in: Articles -
Feb 9, 2018
ISBPathfinder posted a message on All Sets Are Good: ProphecyThe problem I have is that its very easy to tell when a set is going to be good vs bad. I often look back at Khans of Tarkir as a good example of a modern day set that was amazing from a power and money stance.Posted in: Articles
From the get go it had:
Fetchlands
Amazing Rare Cycles
Cool Mythics
Cards so broken they got banned in legacy
I mean.... the set is so full of goodies that a card as busted as Siege Rhino is $1. In a lot of cases I determine if a set is good by the number of cards worth money. Bad sets in many cases have all of their value in like 3 cards where as with good sets you will see a lot more of the focus in $5-$15 cards.
It comes down to how you want to assess a set as good though. I generally go on the number of playable cards which is part of why I think Khans is an amazing set because it had so many playable cards that it deflated the prices of almost everything when it was new. Mechanics are fine but in a lot of cases the mechanics are there to make drafting the set interesting. You generally only see a few good cards that fit the mechanics of a set at best. -
Jan 30, 2018
ISBPathfinder posted a message on The Magic Market Index for Jan 26, 2018Its been a while since I checked in on one of these but I have to say I love the look and format you have here. I am not sure if that is new or not but the tables look really nice. Thanks for keeping up with this project Teia.Posted in: Articles
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Jan 5, 2018
ISBPathfinder posted a message on Azor Deckbuilder Challengelol meme master feydPosted in: Articles
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Jan 4, 2018
ISBPathfinder posted a message on Azor Deckbuilder ChallengePosted in: ArticlesQuote from cyberium_neo »Twitter or Facebook, as in our own page, or MtgSalvation's page, if you have such.
And what is the budget and format restriction?
I cant speak for kaburi (who seems to be heading this up) but what I got from this was:
1) Build a deck for Azor
2) Host your list here on salvation using our new deckbuilder
3) No Budget restrictions required but if you want to make yours budget thats fine.
4) Format restriction is just commander. I suspect that means the official rules committee multiplayer banned list. -
Dec 21, 2017
ISBPathfinder posted a message on MTGSalvation's Deckbuilder is Here!The short answer is no. It would be incredibly hard to import all of the raw data that is in the forums. We did bring this up when it was being discussed and really all we can do is offer the deckbuilder as a new tool that users can use.Posted in: Articles
There are advantages however when it comes to searching for decks as well as retaining your own versions of some decks especially for some formats like standard and modern where more frequently there are primers for discussing a deck but they do not track the personal progression of decks as well.
When it comes to some formats like commander it might be a little bit of a con from the standpoint that there is a lot of history that you will be dropping potentially to move to the deckbuilder. There is some upside though too in that it will be easier to search for and find lists though on the deckbuilder and several of the stat and sample hand features can be fun to look at from the perspective of others viewing a list.
Right now our focus is to make the deckbuilder as good as we can and then we will figure out how to format and organize things in a way that makes sense. As it stands we dont really have an intention to force users to change how they do things but ideally the deckbuilder gets to the point that its how it makes sense on how to build decks on site. -
Dec 20, 2017
ISBPathfinder posted a message on MTGSalvation's Deckbuilder is Here!We had some issues upfront where our card import had the wrong color for a lot of cards. We are still working on fixing that as of right now. Before the deckbuilder was introduced that data was not really being used so its easy to overlook that in testing.Posted in: Articles
Cost - its slowly getting more accurate. I uploaded a deck on day one where it said the cost was like $400 and its now up to $2200+ so its getting a little more accurate. I am not sure if there was a fix on this front / when it might have happened but it has been updated in the last week somehow. -
Dec 20, 2017
ISBPathfinder posted a message on MTGSalvation's Deckbuilder is Here!1) I brought it up and right now there is no option for private decks. It is possible in the future we may be able to provide it but its going to come down to priorities and how much dev time we get for additions and how much of a priority private lists are. I will make sure the feedback is forwarded but I cant guarentee anything on this front.Posted in: Articles
2) Currently there is the option to simulate opening hands, mulligans, and drawing additional cards from the deck. When you load up a deck it defaults to the "overview" tab and you just need to look for "Hand Draw Simulator". -
Dec 20, 2017
ISBPathfinder posted a message on MTGSalvation's Deckbuilder is Here!You can draw a hand, mulligan, and draw additional cards. There are some legal concerns if it gets much beyond that but that should at least let you do some goldfishing.Posted in: Articles
When you open a deck it defaults to the overview but if you tab over to "Hand Draw Simulator" you can do some testing. -
Dec 15, 2017
ISBPathfinder posted a message on MTGSalvation's Deckbuilder is Here!Several are giving it here but I also you can make it here if you would like.Posted in: Articles
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/community-forums/community-discussion/forum-software-feedback-and-bug/787018-deckbuilder-deckviewer-bugs-feedback -
Dec 15, 2017
ISBPathfinder posted a message on MTGSalvation's Deckbuilder is Here!Generally speaking cards that don't show up have an issue on the card in the database and its not flagged as legal in the format you chose. I am working on Confluence right now and hopefully that will fix it moving forward.Posted in: Articles
EDIT: I am able to find Mana Confluence now after having fixed the card. I don't see anything wrong with Voltaic Key offhand but it might depend on what format you had selected when searching for it. If you have issues still please let me know. -
Dec 2, 2017
ISBPathfinder posted a message on If You Can't Take Criticism of Jeremy Hambly, You're Part of the ProblemThis is the independent viewpoints of Teia Rabishu. It does not reflect the feelings of the moderator staff or of curse gaming.Posted in: Articles
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Dec 2, 2017
ISBPathfinder posted a message on If You Can't Take Criticism of Jeremy Hambly, You're Part of the ProblemPart of the problem is also that we are a two party system. To some degree its a choose your poison and to be totally honest, it didn't matter who else it was I was not voting for Hillary. Some of this problem comes back to issues with the electoral college and how our presidential elections are held but why would the established parties want to change that because they have all the power in the current system.Posted in: Articles
I am still a republican at the end of the day and while Trump might not be my "ideal" situation I will still probably end up voting for a republican candidate because of the things that I find important tend to be more republican concepts. I am a moderate because when it comes to social issues I disagree with republicans but when it comes to financial and military issues I am a conservative.
The real problem in my opinion is that there are only two parties to choose from and really you can point at either party and the extremists are totally bat ***** crazy. I actually suspect the average US citizen is more of a mix of the concepts of both parties. The problem is they take ridiculous extreme views on everything as a party. -
Dec 1, 2017
ISBPathfinder posted a message on If You Can't Take Criticism of Jeremy Hambly, You're Part of the ProblemTeia, I respect your views and your right to them. This is however me admitting publicly that I am a mild conservative from small town nowhere. I wont get into things any further than that however your are grossly grouping those that do not have your own beliefs together. I will admit that yes, some do share the extreme viewpoints that you are posting about but I think you are being wildly outspoken as to what percentage of the conservative party have these beliefs.Posted in: Articles
Personally I am an old school civility sort of believer. When it comes to flirting and dating I am a little awkward from the standpoint that I don't know how to flirt but at the same time I don't approach things from a standpoint of "grab them by the *****". When I first met my wife it was helping a mutual friend of ours to move. I was so nervous to ask her out that I did it via a somewhat formal email I asked her if I could take her out to dinner at a nice restaurant. My wife is a strong liberal independent woman who is also a pastor. We both come from a very different set of beliefs when it comes to politics but we are civil and we listen to each other and ask questions as to how and why each other believe that and while we still differ we totally respect each other's viewpoints.
So, coming back to this whole "Donald Trump voter" thing. Yes I 100% did vote for Trump. This to me was not an endorsement of his actions or things he says but instead a matter of picking between two choices and choosing the one that I wanted to politically follow. For me, its almost always going to come down to a matter of policies and expectations from any candidate. Hillary was far too liberal and I literally could not get behind a single one of her stances. I may not agree with how our president talks and acts, but if you were to get down to the actions he has taken he is still probably at about a 65% with me as far as the actions and things he has tried to achieve as the president. Lots of the ridiculous stuff is still totally ridiculous to me so I wont get into that stuff but as a whole I am still more on board with what he is doing than what Obama did or what Hillary had intended to do.
Getting more back on point. I will totally back you on the fact that disrespectful attacks on women are totally shameful. I am not at all trying to defend anyone who does this. Being a conservative does not mean that you are some sort of womanizer though. I might be in the minority but I prefer to handle dating / relationships as a dignity thing. Something to approach with class and civility rather than it being about who you get to screw in the end.
I just wanted to say my little tangent but I think you are very wrong when it comes to your grouping and assumptions of conservatives. I might want different things politically than you but that does not mean that I have any sort of disrespect for women. -
Nov 20, 2017
ISBPathfinder posted a message on Jaya Ballard ReturnsThanks for the insight on everything. I am really bad when it comes to lore lol. I always thought Jaya was a cool character from the perspective of her card but I never knew any of her story.Posted in: Articles
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Well, still here is a vague stance. I check in every few months mostly to see if I have any PMs but all of my new stuff is over on Nexus these days. Ohhhh Marton lol some of the things I did back then I probably wouldn't subject a playgroup to now lol.
Been doing well, I have a kiddo now days and my wife works a lot of nights when I could normally play commander so due to my child my games have been less frequent. I played some 1v1 against a buddy yesterday and it had been the first time playing in like.... two months.
There was a very long and annoying history when curse owned salvation that mostly the staff of salvation knew but in short in the last two or three years of being owned by curse we got just flat out zero assistance from developers outside of things that outright broke the site. The curse devs created a deckbuilder tool for the site which was the last thing they did and immediately pulled any assistance from the site after creating it never addressing the myriad of bugs that we attempted to report to them on the tool.
After getting zero attention for a few years curse decided to shut down salvation as they didn't feel they could transition it to other owners. The moderator team and tecnician (Feyd_Ruin) tried to reach out to them to attempt to purchase the site from them but were denied. We were told a final closure date of salvation and Feyd_Ruin began to create MTGNexus with a frenzy as we were planning to move at that point.
Feyd was well under way of development and MTGNexus opened publicly as the closure date that was told to us came close. Then, at the absolute last moment a previous developer of curse bought out the rights to a few sites including MTGSalvation. It was really awkward as we knew that salvation had been sort of long neglected at that point and we had already created a new location via Feyd who was actively improving Nexus. On the flip side, Salvation wasn't closing but we had no idea if it was going to be updated (it hasn't) as we moved forward. Essentially all of the staff at the time was pissed and I would say something like 80% of the staff transitioned to Nexus and dropped salvation. Most of the commander players of salvation also transitioned over to nexus but some just moved over to the new discord that the RC set up (the discord is quite active if you are into that style of thing).
So, we got burned a few times and were tired of it. Nexus was set up and we knew Feyd would be active in giving it upgrades where as salvation had grown stagnant and unsure of its future. To some degree though internet forums are becoming less used and instead more social media stuff is being used these days. I like nexus and while I wouldn't call it anywhere near as active as salvation 5-10 years ago it doesn't feel like the ghost town that sally is these days.
https://www.mtgnexus.com/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=39707&p=165625#p165625
Sorry, I don't check in here all that often anymore. This list is one that I think back to fondly from time to time and I have considered rebuilding it a few times. I won't go into a deep dive on potentail adds to this deck but offhand there are a few that come to mind that I would consider:
I mostly looked at cheap creatures in standard to come up with that list. Cleansing Nova is a good card as well that I recalled thinking about shortly after I put my own list away which is the only reason it came to mind for me. Some of the when you gain life triggers lately have gotten better but I don't know if there are any that I would actually include as of right now.
Vizkopa Guildmage / Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose they seem a little bit winmore to me to be honest. I might have a slight preference of the Guildmage because it curves into Tymna still giving you a two drop but I think that what these creatures do ultimately is a little bit winmore. If you are in a situation where you are attacking for a bunch and gaining a bunch of life already I feel like you are already probably in a good situation. When you aren't set up and doing great things these cards likely aren't going to dig you out of a bad place. I tend to avoid these type of cards often even though I see the potential for when they would work.
Emeria's Call - I think the mythic rarity cycle of these cards where you can bolt yourself for them untapped are great and should be considered in a lot of lists. The hardest thing is you really have to consider them as sort of a replacement for basic lands so make sure you have plenty of basic lands in the list still too. I think these are great though. I would probably prioritize the black one first, then the green one in a list like this. The white one seems to often be the bottom of the barrel for my own priority but I think they are all fine.
Woodland Bellower - I think this card is fine. I guess for me its sort of an extra body tutor but the big question is how much you value any specific three drop in your list. I tend to like it a bit more when I have three drops that I have a lot of value behind in a list like say if you have a Selvala, Heart of the Wilds in your 99 at which point you pay six mana to get, put her into play, and have a big creature paired with her to make you a ton more mana. I personally didn't see a ton of value in a chonky six drop creature with no evasions in my own list but I guess it would depend on what creatures you have. With a deck that has as much draw as we can get from Tymna I guess I would be hesitant to run bellower myself as a recovery plan over something like adding Enlightened Tutor which could get you Greater Good or Necropotence for a recovery plan. My point with bellower I guess is more that what you just described seems like a very responsive sit in the hand and rot plan where as you could possibly instead include something like Living Death to accomplish that same thing. I tend to like the bellower a lot more myself when I have proactive gameplans that involve casting it. He tends to be better as well when running some ETB focused concepts.
Oracle of Mul Daya vs Dryad of the Ilysian Grove - Given that Tymna is a three drop I tend to veer away from three drops a little just because often times my plan on that mana is taken already. I think given how proactive this deck is in that most of the creatures can be played at any time I don't worry about revealing my draws to opponents that much. The fact that we get to stagger more draws with Tymna means that you can rip a land after your draw for the turn as well as after drawing from Tymna so that top deck land peak function is actually quite useful. Beyond that we have plenty of tutors and fetchlands which also give access to additional land drops which is just amazing free value. I get the concern with showing what you draw to opponents but I think that matters a lot more when running more traditional control elements like Swords to Plowshars and Counterspells. Most of our creatures can be played anytime and threaten to take over the board on their own.
Underrealm Lich - I have played it in a few decks so far and I guess I have not been impressed. I think its a better card for decks that are trying to get resources in the graveyard than it is for draw quality offhand. I have actually killed myself due to this effect before so I guess its also worth saying that it can be a liability as well.
One of the big reasons that I think the card will be inferior to Wheel of Fortune is the options it gives to opponents. If an opponent has a suck counter to our deck in their hand its far more likely that they refuse to wheel. Taking options away from opponents is part of why Wheel of Fortune is so good. Adding in the option to keep a fantastic hand or trying to go to a new one is vastly inferior as far as disrupting opponents goes. It increases the chance that you run into answers from your opponents and that is why I really can't just blindly say that it will be a good card in here.
I don't have a definite answer on how the card would work out here because I haven't played with it. I guess this is just my word of warning more than anything. I think the price tag to obtain it is fairly reasonable but I also would not consider it to be anywhere near as powerful as Wheel of Fortune due to the options that it gives your opponents. The life loss effect is cool, I just don't think that on average it will amount to much in comparison to the option to keep a good hand or get a new one.
Underworld Breach - I am not sure that I would play it over Yawgmoth's Will and I don't play Yawgmoth's. Sure, it saves you one mana in the cost but it seems like it would be hard to chain a bunch of one mana creatures with an added on exile three card requirement. Personally I don't like running any graveyard recursion tactics because they are very responsive and subjective to what your opponents are doing. For the most part they feel like they are counter play to only wraths and don't take into account how drawing cards is usually stronger than playing for recovery. I don't think its terrible but I avoided recursion tactics in general because drawing more cards plays a more proactive game against a lot more tactics than trying to be sticky. I think Breach is a fine card as far as recursion goes and it likely would be one I would at least consider, I just think its better to not play a recursive game. The effects do nothing until you get swept but what if you get in a situation where your creatures are irrelivant or are not surviving passively due to an effect in play like say Pestilence / Ghostly Prison / Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite? Recursion felt too much like it was only an answer to traditional wraths to me so I opted not to run it at all. Card draw can find you tutors or answers to those problems so rather than trying to respond to a problem with a narrow response I opted to push for draw and tutors instead because I felt like they were more generically viable to get me out of numerous issues.
Lurrus of the Dream-Den - Same issue as above. I also don't like that Lurrus only lets you recur one thing a turn. Its possible I might value him more in a sac based concept as well but as it stands I don't see why I would run Lurrus in this list. He is extremely slow in comparison to a good card engine and primarily in my list would require him to be played after a sweeper which feels like not the angle I would want.
Species Specialist - I like the effect but four mana on a non vampire is sort of high for me. The card draw from it also feels like something I can't control very well. I think its ok, I just think it fits better in a sac build. Its a bit similar to Liliana, Dreadhorde General whom I do run but I think the fact that she comes with a Barter in Blood effect that opponents likely won't be expecting also pushes her a bit further for me. Given how similar it is to Liliana I really can't say its half bad but I also wish it had something more, was on tribe, or cost less. I also didn't really get to put a lot of testing in with Liliana to really stand behind that card with a lot of confidence.
Agadeem's Awakening - Yea I think this card is great and I would do that. I am not really playing my list anymore but I think this is a good way to add some recursion to the list. I would totally add this to the list for a swamp.
Vampiric Fury / Rally the Peasants - I guess my issue with these type of cards is that they don't add that much power or sustain. They are one turn effects and while they might make you kill someone in one shot or make some bad blocks into good ones, they don't feel like they add enough punch or sustainability to the deck. If I am pushing for a big attack I don't really need to save my mana so the low cost of Vampiric Fury doesn't make a lot of sense to me since I don't run a lot of mass haste its unlikely that I play a bunch of things before hand and then need a cheap buff to follow it up. I could for instance run Tears of Rage if I wanted a strong punch one shot effect which I would be a lot more prone to running than either of these cards. A big reason that I don't run a lot of anthems with Edgar though is that Edgar Markov himself is an anthem and I always have access to him. For me that means that I only really want super efficient buffs or ones that fit the theme well enough that I would cast them even outside of me going in for a last attack situation. My goal with this deck is largely to have a high consistency of low cost bodies to abuse with Edgar's free token as well as a high abundance of large tempo draw effects. If I can keep drawing cards and casting cheap creatures I can almost always rely on Edgar Markov himself as an anthem. I would be far more likely to get into tempo ramp tactics such as Dark Ritual / Culling the Weak / Mana Vault / Grim Monolith / Jeweled Lotus to get Edgar out faster than I would allocate more slots to other anthems.
In the past I probably should have looked more at the tempo ramp into Edgar more than I did. Try to keep the consistency of the deck high though and to do that you want to keep your density of cheap drop creatures and draw high. Its possible I should have cut more of the anthems from the list and turned them into tempo ramp though to push for Edgar more and other anthems less. Jeweled Lotus looks literally really interesting for this type of deck.
I don't think its really the RC's fault and I don't really think there is an easy solution to solve it. The concept of the advisor's committee giving additional feedback is a decent idea but I think it far from solves the problem of needing more exposure to more metas for additional sample size data.
I think as a whole, the RC does a decent job. I personally would prefer a larger banned list but I think given what objectives the RC has set out with they have managed their banned list fairly close to how I would want it given the objective of a smaller banned list.
I am mostly active on MTGNexus these days. I come back here rarely to check on my old lists but I haven't been updating other than responding to people who inquire about my old lists when I do rarely check in.
I ran Tithe Drinker in the past. I think its probably one of the more reasonable lifelinkers but even with that I will say that when things are going well, I kind of never used its extort effect which is why I stopped playing it. I do think of the options to have some lifegain its probably one of the more reasonable options to run.
I have seen a lot of edgar lists run Gifted Aetherborn and that is one of those lifelinkers I have never been able to get behind.
Brightclimb Pathway - I think its ok but the question is what would you bring it in for? I am down to like 5 or 6 basics tops and while I think cutting a swamp could probably be ok I don't know that I like it over much else.
Even with the mana cost being similar to Austere Command, I think that the color intensity is off the chart. I also think that even just one more mana when it comes to anything that costs 4 or more is all increasingly difficult for this deck. We run on a low curve so whenever possible I think its better to curve in lower rather than moving curves up.
Savai Triome is a sweet card. I think there are a lot of decks where it makes sense to run a copy of these tri lands with fetches but unfortunately ETB tapped lands are a problem that get compiled a lot more when you are trying to move fast which this deck is. I think in a budget markov list it could be fine but if you are trying to move as fast as possible I don't think we can justify an always tapped fix land.
Bastion of Remembrance - I don't hate it. Its still a non vampire card but coming with a free body, being cheap, and accomplishing something we want helps to some degree. Hitting each opponent is also a big deal with aristocrat effects. Some of my issues with aristocrats is that I haven't found quite enough density of sac outlets I like. I would LOVE to find another few Bloodthrone Vampire level sac outlets but its so rare that we get anything new that I would put on that level. I tried doing aristocrats recently and I ended up backing off because I didn't feel like I had the sac outlet density I wanted especially for the mana price I was willing to pay for them.
^
I did try going down that path a while back and I just found that I couldn't get the consistency out of it that I wanted. I wanted a few more sac outlets and I wanted them to cost a little less as well as a few more payoffs. I think we tend to see some new payoffs but the sac outlets we still struggle with.
Subira, Tulzidi Caravanner its cute but its a non vampire and I think that I would more consider her a five drop because I really wouldn't want to just cast her at three and not activate that ability in the same turn. I think that the cost is a little steep and you might be paying a lot of mana to blow up your hand before drawing cards so it could easily end up with overdrawing after tapping out. I think its interesting but I think I would pass.
I think that all non vampires are things to look at and question in this list. I think there is a time and place for several though. Obviously I have had some good results with several that are in my own list but I think its well worth questioning each. There is a question of how efficient an effect is when its on a nonvampire for this deck though. Anything where it has continued mana costs to maintain and do something is going to be a lot harder to justify in my book than something that is a fire and forget one time mana cost.
If you have a swarm of vampires and they are bigger than 2 power then I think you probably don't need more draw
I think that every meta has different demands that will get you playing a little different with different tech. Dolmen Gate for instance is fantastic if you play against a lot of other go wide decks but it might not be the card you need if your opponents are playing a bunch of sweepers and control.
There is nothing wrong with adjusting your list to fit the meta you play in. Spot removal has its place as well, I just think that it is primarily for must answer things which in my book for this deck are threats that are ending the game if not answered or preventing you from playing. The more of that stuff you see the more answers you need. I have been hating on Swords to Plowshares for a few years now from the standpoint that so many of the must answer threats don't feel like they are creatures anymore. They still exist though and if you see something like an Elesh Norn, Consecrated Sphinx, or Seedborn Muse I am more than happy to have and cast that Swords to Plowshares. I just also feel like I see a lot of combo based things where I would rather have a Disenchant or can't be responded to at all with spot removal (looking at you Thassa's Oracle).
Thanks, I ended up downsizing my collection a little selling off a number of expensive things like going from 4 Mana Crypts to 2 and selling off a lot of duplicate ABU Duels to pay off some debt before my kid was born. I have found it a little harder to have as many active multicolored and or fast decks together after that. Currently my Markov list is not complete but also not put away. I might order a few more Mana Crypts as I do like having another one or two on hand but at that time it was more important to get things payed down. Since then I paid off the house that I sold that I had to take out a loan to cover the sale of, I paid off my car, my student loans, and am within the next few months going to pay off the hospital for my daughter's birth. I am almost debt free so I might be able to pick up some of the things I purged at the time to not be up to my eyeballs in debt lol.
I think I might have responded to this question on Nexus already but I think it is not because I would want 3-4+ as the hit before I feel I would be happy with it. I feel like it would be sort of rare to hit for more than one as it stands and one to two is not a good result in my book.
I agree.
Life is a resource, being an aggro deck generally speaking I usually feel like we haven't been fast enough before my own life total is an issue and by then its hard for a little bit of lifegain to be what keeps us in. Use up the life and move faster. If you run out, its usually because it took too long to kill everyone.
At three mana its not really great ramp for the deck. I guess you could get away with running it but it feels like kind of bad ramp / bad anthem mushed together. Maybe that's good enough but I wouldn't normally run a three mana ramp or three non creature vampire anthem for the most part in this list. Getting both I guess is a thing but I am not really excited about it. I think there are a lot of other ramp or anthem effects that compete with it is all.
I think its far from a terrible inclusion. I just think that there isn't a huge reason to run it when comparing with other ramp or anthems. Even just a +1/+1 anthem has some amount of advantage in that you then don't still 1 for 1 trade with a token deck. I did kind of questionably recently add Arcane Signet to my list which I guess I could maybe see going with the Banner instead but to be honest, that is something I am far from confident in here anyways.
No problem, I really haven't done much with the original post in conveying a lot of this. I kind of backed off on trying to be the person to make a Primer on this in part because after I really got it where I wanted I backed off on it as its faster than I often want to try to be for average games of commander.
I primarily post to MTGNexus these days but I haven't done any work with this over there in part because while I have not retired this deck, again I am not really seeing tons of changes these days with it nor am I playing it as much. I kept everything for Markov over here given I wasn't really making big strides with it of late and a lot of the history of it was here.