Encroaching Wastes is a complete failure... in a Mutavault - Slivers standard, to need to pay 5 mana to get rid of Mutavault? that land could hit like 5/5 in just 3 turns wih the green slivers... If they were going to reprint Mutavault, they should reprint Wasteland, or at leat Tectonic Edge... the worst is that we will have to play it, not because its good, but because is the only way for some colors to get rid of Mutavault.
Until rotation you have it and Ghost Quarter. You have no idea if there is something else to help deal with it in the next block. Given how excited they are about the new lands in Theros, I can imagine there will be some kind of balanced non-basic hate.
Well, this one is better in a land destruction deck. There were complaints from the land destruction fans that Edge couldn't mana screw people totally.
This.
Very happy to have Encroaching Wastes for these circumstances.
If in your UGW deck you have UG multicolored spells (but no/fewer UW or WG spells) you probably want to run less UG lands. This may seem counter intuitive. The reason for this is that although they may help you match the mana ratio of the card symbols, you can't use both of those contributions simultaneously for the UG multicolored spells.
Also, overweight the colors you need on turn 1.
Examples of these principles in 4 color human reanimator (with red ONLY for Faithless Looting and Burning Tree Emissary). The deck runs at least 10 red shocks, with a prioritization of red/black and red/green shocks. The deck often runs 0 red checklands, because you need the land on turn 1. Also, to make sure that Grisly Salvage is castable you don't want too many overgrown tombs, you want the green and black to be coming from the lands to play the white heavy spells - which won't be using the green or black part of the lands mana (e.g., Fiend Hunter).
I agree. It also gives first time deck builders an upfront synergy to work with; like Dark Supplicant and Scion of Darkness did. One in each core set is fine, as this is where you want linear synergies to be accessible.
Not sure about the plus ability as you will generally end up with a handful of creatures that you can't cast that turn. Possibly good at eight mana with bloodrush?
17 of the creatures have some form of resiliency, which I think is rather important. The reason for playing Vorapede over Thragtusk is that it can be reset by Zameck Guildmage. It can also evolve Renegade Krasis twice - on it's way in and its way back in - whereas Thragtusk can only do it on the way in.
I prefer Corpsejack Menace to Master Biomancer here as the Master turns off most of your creatures resiliency, while the Menace menace makes their resiliency more awesome. Also, the Menace makes Varlorz, the Scar-Striped even better.
Anything I should add to the sideboard? For instance, I've wondered about including some ways to push through damage; possibly Champion of Lambholt or Crowned Ceratok.
No, Unburial Rites/Pod initiate the combo. It requires a single card in hand at the time you win. Filling your graveyard isn't technically a part of the combo.
But pragmatically it is. Still, I think the 1 card + 3 in bin is comparable in difficulty to a 3 card combo.
People pull their hair out trying to get 3 card combos to work in Modern and you are trying to make 4 card work. Modern decks just aren't passive enough for that I think. Leave the combo in Standard where it belongs IMO.
However, many such 3 card combos require the pieces to have simultaneous board presence. In this case, you just need to have had 3 pieces at some point, and then resolve a single piece. I don't think this is appreciably more difficult then assembling a 3 card combo.
At a minimum you need a Cartel Aristocrat and a Fiend Hunter or Saffi Eriksdotter, you then are requiring what is likely to be an impossible to hard cast card and a card that does nothing unless comboing off.
There appears to be three separate incarnations of the Gifts deck at the moment as far as I can tell, the pretty standard Iona/Snapcaster/Mana Leak version and a version running Sun Titan/Finks/Inquisition & Thoughtseize, it seems to only splash blue for Gifts specifically. I also know there is a version of the deck running Eternal Witness (and there is a separate thread for that version), but then some of the Iona/Snapcaster/Mana Leak versions also run a one-of Witness it seems.
Does any one of them have a particular advantage over the other two at the moment?
I think the answer is Iona is a pretty ****ty reanimation target in some meta-games. Does it hose either a whole deck or turn of a combo deck and their outs to Iona? If no, why play Iona?
So, now you are left with Sun Titan, which already gets extra value of Liliana of the Veil (and even more after planeswalker rule changes!), but can benefit from other <= 3 drops (which we will come back to in a minute).
As so many plays in the deck are in your turn, counter magic is typically going to be worse disruption than targeted discard. When playing sorcery disruption Snappy just gets worse
Eternal Witness + Sun Titan is awesome for grinding out long games.
Kitchen Finks + Sun Titan is awesome for making up the life loss from Thoughtseize/Fetch+Shock mana base and aggro decks.
Snappy + Sun Titan is not so awesome here for the reasons discussed above.
I have been debating with other users in other threads which card between shock and searing spear is the better card, and I now wish to have an entire thread dedicated solely to that subject.
Both of these cards are obviously inferior to lightning bolt, as that card has a damage-to-mana (DTM) ratio of 3 to 1, which is possibly the best of any instant or sorcery card in the entire game. By comparison, shock has a damage-to-mana ratio of 2 to 1, and searing spear, with its mana cost of 2 for 3 damage, has a DTM ratio of 1.5 to 1, which I believe is the worst of these three spells.
Other users here argued that searing spear is superior to shock, because its extra damage is worth the extra mana, as it can destroy a greater number of creatures than can shock, but I still believe that the lower mana cost of shock is the greater advantage, since it allows the spell to be cast earlier and more frequently. If searing spear dealt 4 damage for 2 mana, thus keeping the same damage-to-mana ratio that shock has, I would find it to be appealing, but since it does not, I still prefer shock over it.
What does everyone else say on this subject? Between shock and searing spear, which card do you prefer, and why?
Is the format dominated by creatures? If not, probably Searing Spear.
If so, is the format dominated by creatures with toughness greater than or equal to 3? If not, probably Shock. If yes, probably Searing Spear.
Other considerations would be the number of other useful T1 plays and the importance of having a T1 play.
Until rotation you have it and Ghost Quarter. You have no idea if there is something else to help deal with it in the next block. Given how excited they are about the new lands in Theros, I can imagine there will be some kind of balanced non-basic hate.
Read: No thoughtseize, I'm cancelling my box pre-order.
This.
Very happy to have Encroaching Wastes for these circumstances.
If in your UGW deck you have UG multicolored spells (but no/fewer UW or WG spells) you probably want to run less UG lands. This may seem counter intuitive. The reason for this is that although they may help you match the mana ratio of the card symbols, you can't use both of those contributions simultaneously for the UG multicolored spells.
Also, overweight the colors you need on turn 1.
Examples of these principles in 4 color human reanimator (with red ONLY for Faithless Looting and Burning Tree Emissary). The deck runs at least 10 red shocks, with a prioritization of red/black and red/green shocks. The deck often runs 0 red checklands, because you need the land on turn 1. Also, to make sure that Grisly Salvage is castable you don't want too many overgrown tombs, you want the green and black to be coming from the lands to play the white heavy spells - which won't be using the green or black part of the lands mana (e.g., Fiend Hunter).
I agree. It also gives first time deck builders an upfront synergy to work with; like Dark Supplicant and Scion of Darkness did. One in each core set is fine, as this is where you want linear synergies to be accessible.
Lotleth Troll says Hi!
4 Young Wolf
4 Strangleroot Geist
3 Zameck Guildmage
Three Drops:
2 Varlorz, the Scar-Striped
4 Renegade Krasis
Four Drops:
4 Corpsejack Menace
Five Drops:
3 Vorapede
Spells:
1 Putrefy
1 Biomass Mutation
2 Golgari Charm
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Far // Away
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Woodland Cemetry
4 Breeding Pool
4 Hinterland Harbor
7 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Ghost Quarter
4 Hindervines
1 Garruk Primal Hunter
2 Gaze of Granite
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 ???
A couple of things about my choices:
17 of the creatures have some form of resiliency, which I think is rather important. The reason for playing Vorapede over Thragtusk is that it can be reset by Zameck Guildmage. It can also evolve Renegade Krasis twice - on it's way in and its way back in - whereas Thragtusk can only do it on the way in.
Although Renegrade Krasis is a card that promotes stupidity, it is funny with Corpsejack Menace.
Turn 1: Cast Experiment One (1/1)
Turn 2: Cast Strangleroot Geist (2/1) evolving Experiment One (2/2).
Turn 3: Cast Renegade Krasis (3/2) evolving Experiment One (3/3).
Sometime in turn 2 or turn 3 Strangleroot Geist dies, and comes back (3/2).
Turn 4: Cast Corpsejack Menace/CARD] (4/4) evolving Renegade Krasis and then getting a bonus from the menace (5/4), which then causes counter distribution madness to Experiment One (5/5) and Strangleroot Geist (5/4).
Opponent Turn 4: Wrath. ****! (See, it promotes stupidity :P)
I prefer Corpsejack Menace to Master Biomancer here as the Master turns off most of your creatures resiliency, while the Menace menace makes their resiliency more awesome. Also, the Menace makes Varlorz, the Scar-Striped even better.
A couple of questions:
Do I need more main deck card draw (e.g., Garruk Primal Hunter, Prime Speaker Zegana, Give // Take)?
Anything I should add to the sideboard? For instance, I've wondered about including some ways to push through damage; possibly Champion of Lambholt or Crowned Ceratok.
The cards leaving you vulnerable to sweepers are:
3 Primordial hydra
2 Wolfir silverheart
2 Rubblebelt riders (?)
3 Blessings of Nature
Why not try:
Young Wolf
Experiment One
Thragtusk
In those slots?
But pragmatically it is. Still, I think the 1 card + 3 in bin is comparable in difficulty to a 3 card combo.
However, many such 3 card combos require the pieces to have simultaneous board presence. In this case, you just need to have had 3 pieces at some point, and then resolve a single piece. I don't think this is appreciably more difficult then assembling a 3 card combo.
Can I ask why you see that as better?
At a minimum you need a Cartel Aristocrat and a Fiend Hunter or Saffi Eriksdotter, you then are requiring what is likely to be an impossible to hard cast card and a card that does nothing unless comboing off.
I just don't see that as better.
[CARD]
Angel of Glory's Rise[/CARD] + Fiend Hunter + Cartel Aristocrat + Human with ETB = infinite ETB
and
Angel of Glory's Rise + Fiend Hunter + Burning Tree Emissary + Undercity Informer = infinite mill
Modern gives us some redundant pieces for the second of these combos.
Angel of Glory's Rise: no redundant piece
Fiend Hunter: Saffi Eriksdotter fulfills the same role; depending on the situation either can be better.
Burning Tree Emissary: Wild Cantor and Priest of Urabrask fulfill the same role. Cantor can ramp though, and Priest generates hard to use mana.
Undercity Informer: Thoughtpicker Witch fulfills the wincon role, however, it acts like a pseudo fateseal while Informer digs for the combo.
There seem to be three shells that this deck can inhabit.
1/ Reanimator with Unburial Rites, like in standard.
2/ Birthing Pod; with each combo piece at multiple CMCs it should be easy to pick them up, it doesn't matter if they end up in the bin, and you can also run Cartel Artistocrat combos. Notable humans for this strategy are Huntmaster of the Fells, Nekraatal and Ranger of Eos at 4 CMC, Zealous Conscripts and Lavinia of the Tenth at 5 CMC, Captain of the Watch and Kamahl, Pit Fighter at 6 CMC (yeah, options here are a bit limited).
3/ Potential explosion in to oops I win. i.e., 4x Wild Cantor (to get you to 3 mana on turn 3), 4x Burning Tree Emissary and 4x Priest of Urabrask, and beat down.
Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions?
The target level of competitiveness for the deck is fun at FNM.
[CARD]
Training Grounds[/CARD]
I think the answer is Iona is a pretty ****ty reanimation target in some meta-games. Does it hose either a whole deck or turn of a combo deck and their outs to Iona? If no, why play Iona?
Then, one needs another big target along side Elesh. That is probably either Sun Titan or Wurmcoil Engine (+ academy ruins package) in most meta-games. Wurmcoil Engine is worse than Sun Titan in a metagame dominated by Path to Exile removal.
So, now you are left with Sun Titan, which already gets extra value of Liliana of the Veil (and even more after planeswalker rule changes!), but can benefit from other <= 3 drops (which we will come back to in a minute).
As so many plays in the deck are in your turn, counter magic is typically going to be worse disruption than targeted discard. When playing sorcery disruption Snappy just gets worse
Eternal Witness + Sun Titan is awesome for grinding out long games.
Kitchen Finks + Sun Titan is awesome for making up the life loss from Thoughtseize/Fetch+Shock mana base and aggro decks.
Snappy + Sun Titan is not so awesome here for the reasons discussed above.
Anyone else, feel free to correct me on this.
Is the format dominated by creatures? If not, probably Searing Spear.
If so, is the format dominated by creatures with toughness greater than or equal to 3? If not, probably Shock. If yes, probably Searing Spear.
Other considerations would be the number of other useful T1 plays and the importance of having a T1 play.