MTG Salvation

Quote from Deadkitten »

Remember way way back when we were asking if Modern was going to be Little Legacy or Big Standard? At this point I think it is fair to say that Modern is Little Legacy. Historic is going to be Big Standard. It will be a lower powered non-rotating format post New World Order.

What will be really telling is if, down the road, Historic becomes "Little Little Legacy". I'm mildly conspiratorial that this is just a symptom of eternal formats having been around for too long; may also be relevant that paper prevents more pointed nerfs (like straight up altering cards), but that probably requires a much deeper analysis than I can bother with.

Quote from Bearscape »

I am really fearing another Brawl fiasco where they toss a ruleset at the playerbase and hope it sticks without any support. Arena doesn't even have a Historic ladder... I kind of feel they don't WANT Historic to become popular so people keep dumping money into Standard rotation.

Wouldn't Arena's economy keep players buying the old packs though? Since there is no trading, there cannot be a market outside what WotC provides. As such, in 5 years, if say Carnage Tyrant is still a big player in Historic, the only method of acquisition will be to buy old packs or to use wild cards (I'm not actually familiar with Arena's economy at all, so please correct me if I've misunderstood how that works). That would be sales enough at only the cost of the servers they're already using. There's no real cost to making Historic a functioning Arena only format. Though I doubt it'll stay Arena only if it does actually pick up popularity; LGSs will still benefit from the after market it creates, so it can easily be adopted at that level.

I think the issue with Brawl was that they immediately broke the format, they can only make so many legends in every set, and it rotates. With the last probably being the most important.

The Elderspell? I know it's super silly, but I think this is an actual decent answer. You can't cast anything at instant speed anyway and 1UBB isn't bad for a Snap back cost to pressure through counters. Other than that, I think you're looking at attacking unless you settle for more expensive walker removal.

Little Teferi is a Prison card, in my opinion. @idSurge, I think that's why you get that bad feel when you play him. He's just a Prison card that masquerades as a Control piece.

Control tends to continually need more resources to keep it's opponent at bay, Prison plays a few things and generally renders a deck useless. Teferi, does get you more resources, but the single card draw and bounce is peanuts compared to what he does with his passive; that's one card rendering many irrelevant.

Is it a perfect analogy? Nope. I'm not going to even pretend it is, but it's pretty close to how I view Teferi.

Quote from knto »

Oh wow. Dryad Arbor becomes a fetchable sol land, llanowar elves becomes Fyndhorn Elder, etc , etc. This seems really good in mono green devotion. I love it.

Three Frickin Elves becomes Four Frickin Elves!

Dryad Arbor in an interesting one though.

These are very pretty arts... I'm also excited to see these again. I enjoy their concept.

I think this is just WotC reminding people that graveyard hate exists. It also makes me a bit worried that the next standard set might be really yard heavy.

Now we have Loaming Shaman. M20 is just a reminder core set that grave hate exists.

There was a reddit thread a few days ago talking about it. Something about Reshape being similar to Whir but having a smaller supply so it was easier to buy out.

Is there truth in that? No idea. But if the road sign helps...

I'm pretty happy seeing Leyline of Combustion. Seems like THIS is the Red Force and not Force of Rage.

I would 100% sell my Voids if I ever thought they'd drop.

What on earth could they print!? For real though! What’s better than pregame effects? They aren’t giving is a better RiP. How do you improve upon free and instant?

I don’t think these highly focused silver bullets are enough anymore.

I think they printed all the tools necessary to finally forget the T4 rule.

Between Negation, Despair, and Vigor nearly every color combination has access to free instant speed safety valves on the format. Like I said in a post awhile back, their printing just allows more nonsense to be printed. Better removal is just a spiral toward better threats is just a spiral towards better removal is just...

This is why I support bannings. And ya, I know, "that's unpopular", "that's ban-mania", that's great. Have fun with Hogaak.

Quote from krishnath »

Seething Song

Seething Song is not Modern legal. I would look to Planebound Accomplice for silliness. Throw in a nice Cloudstone Curio for sustainability in a superfriends like list.

Even a T3 Chandra is still not killing you by the time most other decks are. I really don't see the issue when other lists are sporting very fast and difficult to interact with wins. Other lists are playing an 8/8 trample on T2, but instead of making sense they're milling you. Other lists literally have that many resources and that same deck has been seen putting 100 power into play on T3. This emblem is a joke by comparison. Tired of Hogaak comparisons? How about free 4/4s? Multiple 3/2 flying haste for free? T1 Blood Moon? T4 Lattice Lock? T3 Liberated? It goes on and on, but they print something that isn't free, isn't graveyard, and isn't linear and people gush about how it's too strong and you have to be able to interact with it.

All that said, I'm still a control player, I'm still going to be killing people with these emblems. Why? Because if control can manage getting to a safe board state by T6, then they deserve to win and you don't deserve an out- that's the advantage gained for going slow. Not to mention it probably takes a good 4 turns to win anyway; realize that many decks could start the turn you play her and win faster.

That's how I see this.

Standard might be a bit different, but in Modern, at least, the Emblem isn't that great. If I can cast this on T6 and they can't end the game, they they were going to lose anyway or it's a control mirror.

Over all telling your opponent they are going to take 1 damage per turn is not a huge threat. If you can keep her for 3 Emblems though... That's when I thin k this starts to really push the limits. 2 is okay, but you should still have plenty of time if you're actually the aggressor.