EDH is a good format too. Many of my friends play that.
Ok, I guess that is a nice explanation. People can respond to Karakas and removal with Gris draw 7 ability, while Jin just bounced or dies to the removal. The larger body, flying and lifelink of gris is also probably a factor that was considered.
Definitely the 7/7 flying/lifelink was nothing to sneeze at. Griselbrand could easily win games on its own, and in many of first games (I won with it plenty of times against Fish and Delver, which were popular when I played).
IMO, this is not as bad as it's made out to be, here.
Obviously the aggressive cast and equip cost are countered by the need for a board investment. That doesn't make it worthless, and it's fairly possible for it to have some serious bonuses even without comboing with Enchanted Evening.
I would strongly consider playing this in Estrid, Heliod, and realistically any other Enchantress deck.
It's pretty admirable that you'd hold your trump cards back until your meta can scale to meet them, I must say. It's frustrating being thumped by someone who clearly has more expendable income and a vast collection to draw from when you don't have the same resources.
It's honestly not as much fun to play like that. It's also the reason I'm a strong supporter of proxies - I want to play things like duals and Moat because I own them, but I don't want people at the table feeling like they're out of the game because they don't want to or are unable to spend that much on cardstock. That's even more true with current card prices. I would never be able to have the collection I have if I had started in the last couple years.
For me, I think that's partly because the fun is in the actual journey, not the destination (win or loss). I have a reasonable collection now, but still missed the end of reserved edition by a year or two, and bowed out of the game for a few years prior to Urza's block. Clearly, my timing is impeccable. Either way I still don't like handing a beating downwards; whatever I'm playing I try to make it an even fight where I can.
+1 with what Weebo said. It's no fun when someone gets shut down because you threw a wallet at them. Some stuff is fine because it's not excessively powerful like Telekinesis or Argivian Archaeologist, but other stuff does not have any reasonable analogues and are gamebreaking.
It was less about disposable income and more about timing for me. I got back into Magic in 2008 and rabidly bought all the singles I ever wanted. At some point, I realized that I had better buy the reserved list cards I wanted, because they would be unavailable later; case and point, when Gray Merchant of Asphodel was spoiled, I went out and bought my one copy of Invoke Prejudice (for $35, moderately played)... since 'devotion to black' was a mechanic, I had some serious suspicion that 'devotion to blue' would also be a mechanic. No surprise later, by Born of the Gods, it was $150, and has never come back down. In hindsight, I was probably wrong about the reason for the spike ('Devotion to blue' appears on precious few cards).
I am a former legacy player who moved to modern, but still sometimes visit the threads here for pleasant nostalgia.
Looking at the latest pages of discussion. Noticed that no one seems to be using Jin-Gitaxias Core Augur. Is he not good enough for this deck anymore?
Same, but mostly EDH. I want to get into Modern, but haven't had the time.
I think Jin hasn't seen real play since Griselbrand was printed. I remember initially that people were running a couple of each, but eventually lists were just 4 Griselbrand, utility targets, and no Jins. The reasoning (when I was playing) was that if your opponent has Karakas already out or a Swords to Plowshares ready that you don't have a counter for, Griselbrand still has a game-winning impact, where Jin probably does nothing.
He just kind of got out-powered by Griselbrand, I think.
I own most of what I would want (Timetwister, OG English Mana Crypt, The Abyss, a singleton set of duals, etc.), but there are cards that soared out of reach. Tabernacle, Mishra's Workshop, Bazaar of Baghdad, and Moat are probably the top ones.
<rant> Magic prices mostly make me super sad. I play with people who are like, 5-10 years younger than me, and it bothers me that they won't be able to play a lot of cards that I really enjoy. I realize a lot of it is nostalgia for me, but, some of it is also having a level playing field. When Mana Drain was spoiled in Iconic Masters, some of my friends were so stoked, and I thought to myself "Oh, I can dust off my copy now that they have access." When I first played it, they had to look at it; they had never even seen a Legends Mana Drain. There are so many cards that are, for all practical purposes, out of reach; I have singleton copies of All Hallows Eve, Eureka, Invoke Prejudice; lots of cards that are now between $250 and $500, but for reasonable purposes, no one wants to pay $200+ for a card, even if it has fairly unique functionality. My ceiling has historically been around $250, and I felt that was extreme for a casual player. Even relatively replaceable garbage like Jihad and Mirror Universe are so expensive now. </rant>
Repeatable targeted removal is nice. This one can be enabled either by dumping your own creatures or bogging your opponent.
I played this in a non-combo version of Iname, Death Aspect. It worked well, because I would always have 8-10 creatures in the 'yard, and frequently, no one would be able to ever catch up.
Part of me wants to build a non-Iname creature-dense deck that uses cards that require a certain population of dead creatures, Oversold Cemetery, Shadows of the Past...
It’s great. Even giving out information isn’t a big deal, IMO.
I currently play it in Kenrith twins; it typically finds Mana Drain (even telegraphing this is fine, Mana Drain is still bonkers every time), Starstorm, and Cyclonic Rift. Occasionally Quicken.
Most nicely, it chump blocks for my planeswalkers.
I want to like this card, but the applications are pretty limited. Obviously Curse of the Swine, Profane Command (sorta) and a handful of others (notably Hex) have 'jackpot' potential, but the rest of the time, it's pretty tame. Could fit in to an Aura deck, I suppose.
I've played it on and off. It's pretty exciting if you have a lot of strong ETB effects, especially related to devotion (looking at you, Gray Merchant of Asphodel and Abhorrent Overlord). It's less exciting when you have a couple of beaters, or even just a Rune-scarred Demon and a few others.
In the right deck and right situation, it's amazing. The rest of the time, it's pretty boring.
I'm not sure if the mutual discard route really works with Malfaegor.
I agree with this sentiment. Whatever else you do, mutual discard effects will hurt Malf's power, which lies in a one-sided board wipe for cheap (mana-wise, pitching your hand is super expensive).
Obviously the aggressive cast and equip cost are countered by the need for a board investment. That doesn't make it worthless, and it's fairly possible for it to have some serious bonuses even without comboing with Enchanted Evening.
I would strongly consider playing this in Estrid, Heliod, and realistically any other Enchantress deck.
It was less about disposable income and more about timing for me. I got back into Magic in 2008 and rabidly bought all the singles I ever wanted. At some point, I realized that I had better buy the reserved list cards I wanted, because they would be unavailable later; case and point, when Gray Merchant of Asphodel was spoiled, I went out and bought my one copy of Invoke Prejudice (for $35, moderately played)... since 'devotion to black' was a mechanic, I had some serious suspicion that 'devotion to blue' would also be a mechanic. No surprise later, by Born of the Gods, it was $150, and has never come back down. In hindsight, I was probably wrong about the reason for the spike ('Devotion to blue' appears on precious few cards).
Same, but mostly EDH. I want to get into Modern, but haven't had the time.
I think Jin hasn't seen real play since Griselbrand was printed. I remember initially that people were running a couple of each, but eventually lists were just 4 Griselbrand, utility targets, and no Jins. The reasoning (when I was playing) was that if your opponent has Karakas already out or a Swords to Plowshares ready that you don't have a counter for, Griselbrand still has a game-winning impact, where Jin probably does nothing.
He just kind of got out-powered by Griselbrand, I think.
<rant> Magic prices mostly make me super sad. I play with people who are like, 5-10 years younger than me, and it bothers me that they won't be able to play a lot of cards that I really enjoy. I realize a lot of it is nostalgia for me, but, some of it is also having a level playing field. When Mana Drain was spoiled in Iconic Masters, some of my friends were so stoked, and I thought to myself "Oh, I can dust off my copy now that they have access." When I first played it, they had to look at it; they had never even seen a Legends Mana Drain. There are so many cards that are, for all practical purposes, out of reach; I have singleton copies of All Hallows Eve, Eureka, Invoke Prejudice; lots of cards that are now between $250 and $500, but for reasonable purposes, no one wants to pay $200+ for a card, even if it has fairly unique functionality. My ceiling has historically been around $250, and I felt that was extreme for a casual player. Even relatively replaceable garbage like Jihad and Mirror Universe are so expensive now. </rant>
I was always fond of his sister (and art-sharer), Stronghold Machinist. There are plenty more noncreatures I'd like to counter than creatures.
Part of me wants to build a non-Iname creature-dense deck that uses cards that require a certain population of dead creatures, Oversold Cemetery, Shadows of the Past...
I currently play it in Kenrith twins; it typically finds Mana Drain (even telegraphing this is fine, Mana Drain is still bonkers every time), Starstorm, and Cyclonic Rift. Occasionally Quicken.
Most nicely, it chump blocks for my planeswalkers.
I want to like this card, but the applications are pretty limited. Obviously Curse of the Swine, Profane Command (sorta) and a handful of others (notably Hex) have 'jackpot' potential, but the rest of the time, it's pretty tame. Could fit in to an Aura deck, I suppose.
In the right deck and right situation, it's amazing. The rest of the time, it's pretty boring.
I have a lot of ramp and a lot of large creatures; at the 6+ CMC, Rampaging Baloths, Avenger of Zendikar, Pathbreaker Ibex, Panglacial Wurm, Realm Seekers, Platinum Angel, Archetype of Endurance, Myojin of Seeing Winds (to draw all those cards for Hypergenesis!) and probably others.
Damage dealt can also be prevented by effects that explicitly use the word 'prevent', (like Intervention Pact), but losing life cannot.