I have a rule with movies/TV/Games- if there is lore that is in a tie-in comic book but not actually in the actual Movie/TV/Game, it's nothing but glorified fanfiction to me. I don't read the Magic Story, I play the actual cards. Maro talks about "if something isn't at common, it's not a theme in your set". If something isn't actually on the cards, it's not something I care about. I'm sure Yahenni is a cool character and all, but he's on like 3 cards, while fucking Ajani is on at least 2 cards in any booster you open.
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Magic: the Gathering |OT10| Aether Revolt - That shit that make your Soul Burn slow
- Thread starter SigmasonicX
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I have a rule with movies/TV/Games- if there is lore that is in a tie-in comic book but not actually in the actual Movie/TV/Game, it's nothing but glorified fanfiction to me. I don't read the Magic Story, I play the actual cards. Maro talks about "if something isn't at common, it's not a theme in your set". If something isn't actually on the cards, it's not something I care about. I'm sure Yahenni is a cool character and all, but he's on like 3 cards, while fucking Ajani is on at least 2 cards in any booster you open.
Black can force discard for the enchantments before they hit the battlefield.
Who's Yahenni?
I think you dun goofed when I can't even be bothered to watch other people draft your new set let alone spend actual money on it.
SigmasonicX
Member
Concerning how often the Gatewatch appear on cards, Wizards is currently trying to get across the idea that it has recurring characters in the first place, which really isn't something obvious to a casual player. Once they're entrenched enough, I imagine they'll lay off on it a bit.
TheBlackMarvel
Member
I imagine they'd double down in that scenario. Once you have marketable characters, they tend to be exploited.
I think you are in the minority there. Reception for AER (and KLD) has been overwhelmingly positive in my experience.
Imperfected
Member
Don't worry, we'll just ban all White Artifact Removal in all formats! Now White has a weakness to artifacts. Simple!(?!)
Imperfected
Member
I'm not feeling the AER Standard (and didn't like KLD Standard at all), but I couldn't really tell you myself how much of that is problems with the sets themselves (other than Smuggler's Copter which I can tell you was definitely a problem), and how much of it is just leftover problems from BfZ that will apparently continue to haunt Standard for another eight bloody months.
charlequin
Banned
there is literally no incentive for wizards to ever do this
Imperfected
Member
I like to imagine my Poverty Walkers Deck (just a whole bunch of <$7 Planeswalkers) on some plane out there has formed the Justice Society of America equivalent of the Gatewatch and are busy fighting D-Tier planar threats like the plane full of orcs that are slightly more violent than normal orcs.
I just don't care about any of this stuff.The story is bad, the cards are average, the format is whatever. FNM is dying so I don't know how you can say it's overwhelmingly positive.
Infinite Stars
Member
The Draft Format has been great.
Wizards literally just banned 3 big offenders, with odds of another Standard ban hinging upon the Pro Tour.
It's been bad, but it's slowly getting better.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
You can't really argue things are getting better because we just had standard bannings, which historically are an extreme measure.
I don't care about the story either. The cards are well above average, the power level of this block is the highest since khans, and the draft format is beyond excellent. I don't really play standard and my town doesn't have a store, so no FNMs for me either.
Infinite Stars
Member
The point that Wizards had to ban cards, and has woken up to the fact that Threats should be stronger then Answers but the recent trends were too far favouring threats is a good thing. It's progress compared to the "Lalala Standard is fine right now!" reactions they've had in past bad formats.
Bans are mostly bad, but Wizards banning to fix a format isn't bad. R&D finally is taking an active investment in Standard that was caused by them fucking up and not putting enough safety valves into the format.
This isn't a ban like them banning Twin, where it can be argued that part of the ban was to shake up Modern right before a pro tour(Twin had been near constant, so banning it then vs literally any other ban period makes no sense unless they wanted to shake it up). Standard needed to be fixed, and they deliberately tried to weaken the over dominant decks.
They fucked up by missing Saheeli/Felidar Guardian, but it's still an improvement over Standard: the Emrakuling
For me, Kaladesh just isn't a very compelling setting.
Magic the Gathering tends to have stellar worldbuilding, even when the stories are bad. Kamigawa, Innistrad, Lorwyn, Tarkir, Ravnica, Theros, they're all interesting places with distinct tones and cultures.
Kaladesh is just... "People invent shit. Isn't that awesome?" But it just feels bland instead.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
Think my next EDH deck is going to be Keranos Tempo. Rounding out archetypes for decks.
For me personally nothing improved post bannings, on the contrary I bowed out of standard, well right now I'm physically unable to attend but I wouldn't if I could.
I'll have to see Amonkhet to know whether Wizards learned a lesson.
Emrakul is a bogeyman, if you prepared for it you could deal with her in fair decks. Aetherworks Marvel was the actual offender and that still exists with the combo.
For me personally nothing improved post bannings, on the contrary I bowed out of standard, well right now I'm physically unable to attend but I wouldn't if I could.
I'll have to see Amonkhet to know whether Wizards learned a lesson.
Infinite Stars
Member
Please, tell me what decks could reliably beat Emrakul in Standard that weren't slaughtered by other decks. The only clean way to beat Emrakul was a 4 Mana Counter that you would never want to cast except against Emrakul, because turns out Mindslaver for 8-9 Mana is pretty good.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
Summary Dismissal actually had decent applications outside of emrakul but at an FNM level there were a bunch of decks that could beat Emrakul. Most of them involving black and discard or blue and Dismissal and Fatcasters or low to the ground aggro.
Infinite Stars
Member
Okay, I'll concede that point, but the fact that those decks were being checked by the other Big tier decks Indicated an issue.
I mean, Turn 4 Emrakul was a very real thing thanks to Marvel, so I'm not sure that having to hold up Mana to stop Emrakul after your fourth land is that great.
Modern has had a rough year. Twin ban followed by Eldrazi Winter, which was followed by a great summer period until Kaladesh when All in Pump/Dredge became kind of stupid powerful. It's seemingly recovering, what with 14 different archetypes in an SCG Classic Top 16.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
I'll certainly not miss the feeling of helplessness that's a turn 2 resolved smuggler's copter.
Hm might actually go with Marchesa over Keranos tempo/aggro in EDH but it's not supposed to be that creature heavy otoh. Gives me access to bob and rebuy ETB effects.
Cause people are stupid.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
that should be a sign of a badly constructed deck, since the crew cost of heart is an actual cost compared to copter's crew 1 being live by literally any creature and gideon tokens for that matter.
Toolcraft Exemplar was on turn 1 tho
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
it's a 1/1 on your turn or until beginning of combat. Just kill it main phase 1.
Imperfected
Member
The problem with Copter (and to a lesser extent Harvester) is that you just need to generate any shitty little 1/1 token to crew them, which is absurdly easy in this set. The other player can't really respond by wiping your board, even, because it's just too likely they get another token out and abuse the pseudo-haste off crewing.
Heart you have to keep an actual creature (or a whole mess of tokens) in play. Actual creatures can be interacted with; all those X/1 pilots can get eaten by Lili or pinged off by Ballista, for example. The player running vehicles has to actually start looking to commit something (in terms of deck construction) to keeping a crew on hand, instead of just skating by off incidental token production from value cards.
Yep, I've had to take that into account.
Joe Molotov
Member
It's not as bad as Turn 2 5/5 Ensouled Ornithopter.
Imperfected
Member
That sounds like some pretty hard Fatal Push bait.
I mean, being able to have a beef creature on Turn 2 with Enchantments has always been a thing, if it's too good of a thing that would just indicate a set has crap removal.
I'm just imagining a line of play that would have been:
T1: Hope of Ghirapur
T2: Smuggler's Copter
T3: Eldrazi Sky Spawner
T4: Thought Knot Seer
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
Instead of Saheeli everyone is playing some form of walking ballista deck on the MTGO beta. Nothing of value was gained.
Wanted to test out a BW hidden stockpile deck and it turns out walking ballista is pretty good against 2/1 flyers with an anthem effect and an army of servos.
Wanted to test out a BW hidden stockpile deck and it turns out walking ballista is pretty good against 2/1 flyers with an anthem effect and an army of servos.
GoutPatrol
Forgotten in his cell
There are so many little answers they could have put in to the past few sets that would solve alot of Standard's problems, that that is just reprints. Grafdigger's Cage. Pithing Needle. Essence Scatter. Duress. Planar Cleansing. Shatter. These are not super powerful cards.
keeblerdrow
Member
Also peacewalker colossus.
Literally everyone who saw me play on Saturday asked how many copies of Start Your Engines I was running. Because win or lose, I regularly had 5-7 vehicles on board at the end of every game.
Concerning the bannings and answers:
- Appetite for Brains would be perfect discard to answer of Emrakul-Marvel but not kill it.
- Some sort of affordable instant speed removal would have done so much to combat Smuggler's Copter. Fatal Push was likely that answer, but you know, bannings.
- Reflector Mage still seems like a goofy banning, but I get it. Essence Scatter would be great, hell, even Stifle would be a great print in this meta.
As for the other suggestions, I feel like Grafdigger's Cage would have killed more archetypes than it would have helped. Pithing Needle would help a little bit, it would at least help keep Gideon from being so feel bad for the opponent. Duress is not bad but I think Appetite would have been better. Planar Cleansing, honestly, I miss 4cmc wraths. Or make a 5cmc wrath that also hits 'walkers. Shatter would have been quite welcome. Any affordable artifact destruction would have been great.
Imperfected
Member
I'm not a huge fan of Peacewalker Colossus, but if you're 4x on it and 4x into Start Your Engines (and maybe even an artifact creature enchant or two) I at least can't complain very much about you not building your deck to to support your vehicles. That's a proper deck at that point, and it's fair to ask me whether or not I should be packing proper answers for an entire deck, especially post board.
I still don't like vehicles in general, but I don't like a lot of deck archetypes I have to play against. That's life.
On the topic of answers, I have to admit I'm a bit surprised that Pithing Needle ended up in the Masterpiece series instead of just the set proper. I'd be interested to see what the Standard where that happened instead looked like.
What are you looking at and why Marath in particular? They need to be crewed before you're able to transfer counters and it seems like your spending a lot of mana to move counters after they are crewed. Sepals might be a better choice letting you dig and she has anthems that pump them without all that.
I love Marath and have her built, but she is combo oriented because it fits her better.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I'm never going to understand why they don't just ban Grapeshot itself and be done with it.
Walking Ballista isn't all that great unless you have a way to get more counters on it than it would otherwise have. It's not Hangarback Walker in any sense.
That said, the biggest problem is still the fact that you can't reasonably play Fumigate in the format.
Walking Ballista isn't all that great unless you have a way to get more counters on it than it would otherwise have. It's not Hangarback Walker in any sense.
That said, the biggest problem is still the fact that you can't reasonably play Fumigate in the format.
What brought this on?
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I posted the deck a few days ago, but its dumb.
It's basically Sram, Senior Edificer and Puresteel Paladin and a bunch of 0 cost artifacts (e.g. Mox Opal, Paradise Mantle, etc.). You just cast them and keep drawing cards until you get a copy of Retract (Instant, U, "Return all artifacts you control to their owner's hands"), cast all of them again, drawing a full new grip with Sram and Paladin, cast Retract again, until you get Grapeshot and then Storm your opponent. This would be stupider if Gitaxian Probe was legal, of course.
The problem of course, is that Storm is a dumb mechanic that nobody likes, but WOTC constantly banned around Grapeshot and Empty the Warrens instead of just banning them so people will keep coming up with these goldfishing decks.
(It's something like this, but IDK what people are actually using, but Retract is went up by a lot)
//Lands
2 Arid Mesa
2 Flooded Strand
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Horizon Canopy
2 Marsh Flats
2 Plains
2 Seachrome Coast
2 Windswept Heath
//Spells
4 Accorder's Shield
4 Bone Saw
4 Cathar's Shield
2 Grapeshot
2 Kite Shield
4 Mox Opal
1 Noxious Revival
4 Paradise Mantle
4 Retract
4 Serum Visions
4 Spidersilk Net
//Creatures
4 Puresteel Paladin
4 Sram, Senior Edificer
I know the deck. I have a pre-SRAM copy in paper. I might actually update it and take it to a few local events, it's really fun to pilot.
Doesn't it basically just die to removal though? Like, any removal?
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Shoal Infect technically dies to everything too, but that's banned as fuck also. If you're really planning to go off and want to protect it, you can just play Pact of Negation anyways, although I think the most common thing you do is just cast Silence, then go off since Mox Opal lets you float mana.
You technically also lose to Chalice of the Void cast for free.
King Macar is an awesome vehicle commander. It's mono black, so there's no support but he goes so well with them.
Turn 1/2 interaction makes it stumble pretty hard, yeah. On the other hand, it could conceivably kill you on Turn One so there's that. That requires a magic Christmas Land hand and essentially an ungodly series of draws off the draw effects. It's perfectly capable of a Turn 3/4 kill on a relatively consistent basis though. There are some easy, broadly applicable sideboard cards that hose the whole thing so atm I'm not really seeing the issue. If there is an issue with the deck it's not Grapeshot, it's Mox Opal.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
It's that the entire deck idea of Storm is stupid and people will continue finding ways to fuck around with it that WOTC then nerfs when they could just not let people play Storm at all and stop having to force people to put a billion board cards in for silly uninteractive stuff.
I mean, Dredge with legal Dread Return can be stopped with Leyline of the Void too, but that doesn't mean they left it legal. In reality its a problem with having a non-rotating format like Modern exist. Sure, people whined about Extended, but at some point cards stop being legal.
Infinite Stars
Member
It can, but I've seen(X-Mage, not Modo, but similar enough) it go off on Turn 2/3. Required the nuttiest hand ever, but the full Mox Opel Set makes it better.
It was something like T1 Land, T2 Land, Paladin, 3 Equipment, Mox Opal, equipment, Retract using Mox Opal, Recast all equipment+Additional drawn ones, Opal, Grapes hot for 19(When I was at 18 off of Temple Garden, Hierarch.
I'm basically with Grimace on this : Just ban Grapeshot and end Storm from existing in Modern.
The problem with Dredge wasn't necessarily that it required something like Leyline of the Void but that it worked on an axis entirely different than any other deck and interacting with it via normal methods, like Removal or Discard, didn't slow the deck down enough. That isn't the case here. The problem here is that Mox Opal makes a Turn One kill possible, if incredibly unlikely, and that is understandably hard to interact with.
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