blindrocket
Member
While I save up to finish out my Jund deck, I am thinking that Phyrexian Arena could be a poor man's Dark Confidant. I know it's not as versatile since it can't be a beater, but what do you think?
Magic: the GAFering |OT2|
- Thread starter The Technomancer
- Start date
For the last few hours I've been trying to brew a deck for Modern that runs Fulminator Mage, Blood Moon, and Shadow of Doubt maindeck (since someone in the Eternal Champs stream chat mentioned this would be cool, I figured to try). Currently the deck is basically those three cards plus Liliana, Thoughtseize, Terminates, Blightning, Pillar of Flame, Inquisitions, Revokers, and Bobs, with a pair of Batterskulls to help kill.
The deck seems ok but doesn't feel good. My goal with it was to demolish their hand and ability to play things, but it seems like it just wants to be GB rock since it doesn't have a good threat like goyfs. I should probably just put that together but I really dont want to keep switching out all the cards between that and legacy Jund every time.
Arena is fantastic, it's definitely what you want as a replacement for Bob.
The deck seems ok but doesn't feel good. My goal with it was to demolish their hand and ability to play things, but it seems like it just wants to be GB rock since it doesn't have a good threat like goyfs. I should probably just put that together but I really dont want to keep switching out all the cards between that and legacy Jund every time.
While I save up to finish out my Jund deck, I am thinking that Phyrexian Arena could be a poor man's Dark Confidant. I know it's not as versatile since it can't be a beater, but what do you think?
Arena is fantastic, it's definitely what you want as a replacement for Bob.
blindrocket
Member
Great, thanks for the input. 
TestMonkey
Member
Moneywise it would be Mind Seize, the UBR one. Baleful Strix and Identity Nemesis are probably the two biggest money cards. As for playability I wouldn't ever play a precon in my playgroup.
Speaking of Commander. Resleeving EDH decks is one of the worst parts of MtG.
keeblerdrow
Member
I pre-ordered and picked up all 5 Commander decks and have been playing them with my girlfriend all weekend. They are an absolute blast against each other and fairly well balanced. We plan to keep all 5 of them completely intact as-is. There's only one matchup that truly sucked because both decks were firing on all cylinders for life-gain and no one was gaining traction for doing damage. It ended up being the most interesting 2.5 hour Magic game I've ever played, though.
narcosis219
Member
How about sleeving a cube, then later double sleeving it?
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Yeah the first game my friends and I played last night was a B/W Triad of Fates deck against a B/W Obzedat deck and the Esper deck
The game took an hour and forty-five minutes
We agreed never to play those three decks together ever again.
I really enjoyed the last set of decks as well. Will probably sleeve up a set of these and buy a couple to tear apart for the cards. I like the precons for decks when someone comes over and wants to play something different, or if me and my wife just want to play something different.
Ended up getting the Esper commander deck since the Grixis one was not available. I'm fine with the one I got though since it's the one I would have picked anyways had the money cards in Grixis not been included. It looks like a fun deck and my play group has an agreement to leave most of it stock so we can have enjoyable, combo-free games.
ThLunarian
Member
I'm not sure what design constraints you used when putting this cube together, so I'll assume that there were none apart from the size. I'll also try to limit my ideas to cards that are relatively easy to get.
This cube badly needs mana fixing, especially in its non basic lands. The Ravnica bouncelands, the base set check lands, and probably some other uncommon options if the rare versions and/or proxies are out of the question. I might also consider putting in all 10 signets.
There are also some key utility cards missing from all colors. Path to Exile, Swords to Plowshares, Flametongue Kavu, Fact or Fiction, Counterspell, Diabolic Edict... I could go on for a while. Your cube has a lot of cards in it that would be bad even in a normal limited environment, like Tome Scour and Dying Wish.
That's all I'll say without more insight into your goals with this cube, but if you want to provide more context or ask more questions then I'll be happy to say more. Good luck!
blindrocket
Member
Wizards, what have you done?! J/K
divisionbyzorro
Member
It's only "worse" from a Spike perspective. The intent of the card in a multiplayer product is clearly to force player politics.
"Why did you choose me?"
"Hey, I had to choose somebody..."
"Whatever man. I'm coming after you now."
"Why did you choose me?"
"Hey, I had to choose somebody..."
"Whatever man. I'm coming after you now."
On the one hand, they're beautiful.
On the other hand, they're beautiful because Alphonse Mucha's work was always beautiful.
These alts always have me wondering: How many original, undoctored copies of the Power 9 actually exist these days?
divisionbyzorro
Member
There is a disappointingly large disparity between the number of copies of Power 9 that exist and the number that are in circulation.
blindrocket
Member
Those alters are nice, but you'd have to do that to like, the second set that you own. Right?
Chat mentioned that they were really beat before being altered, so I can see doing it. On a decent set though, it'd just be wrong. Unethical.
blindrocket
Member
That's good to hear. I couldn't imagine someone doing it to a very good condition set. Especially if it was the only set they owned.
How is it unethical? Odds are if you own power, you aren't selling them to a faceless buyer- you either hold onto them forever, or you are doing a personal sale
While I save up to finish out my Jund deck, I am thinking that Phyrexian Arena could be a poor man's Dark Confidant. I know it's not as versatile since it can't be a beater, but what do you think?
Harder to remove, but has a higher converted mana cost and BB instead of B.
The design constraints were two-fold:
- Design a budget cube with (primarily) cards I already have.
- Design a limited environment that falls somewhere between a typical standard environment and modern masters, in terms of power level.
To do this, I limited the number of rares and powerful cards. Instead, each color pair has it's own archetype with lots of cards in those colors to support it (which is how a typical standard limited environment is crafted).
I actually had a lot more mana fixing at the beginning, but playtests had lots of people playing 3 color decks and some even playing 4-color decks. I really want people to stick to 2-color with an occasional splash into a 3rd, so I got rid of a lot of the fixing.
Flametongue is actually in there. Path, Swords and FoF I own, but they're at a higher power level than I want for this cube. I had a few edict effects at the beginning as well, but the cube isn't running any hexproof dudes, I got rid of them in place of more direct removal. For counterspells, I tried to focus on fewer universal counters and more that fit particular archetypes, like Induce Paranoia, for example. Likewise, Dying Wish, Tome Scour, Bond Beetle and other so-so cards I included work well with what their archetype is trying to do.
The actual archetypes are:
I'm just being flippant. There's nothing wrong with them doing it, I'm just jealous.
I got the Esper and Grixis decks with the idea of moving some of the relevant Blue/Black cards into the Esper deck. I'm going to try to make a deck with Sharuum the Hegemon as a Commander and I've always wanted a Baleful Strix so I'll keep that money card.
I sold the True-Name Nemesis, though, I've never liked the flavor of Merfolk and if people are willing to pay $30+ for that one card, I'll let them pay for my Grixis deck.
I believe a secondary vendor handles stock for most big box stores. Hence why the only TRU with them is 30 miles away from me when all 5 of my local ones don't have them yet.
divisionbyzorro
Member
My love for terrible combo decks in Modern will never cease! I have made three straight opponents quit from boredom while I killed them with this deck in the TP room on MTGO:
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/draw7-twiddlestorm/
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/draw7-twiddlestorm/
blindrocket
Member
I get this when I click on the link: Page not found (404).
divisionbyzorro
Member
Whoops. I had it set to private by mistake. Should be working now.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
So my friends and I did Theros Constructed over Cockatrice for our blog this week, and I built a UB Heroic Deck. it turns out this is actually kind of awesome. Agent of the Fates wrecked everyone's day when I was able to play lots of Triton Tactics and Odeal of Thassa's on it
Went 3-1 in drafts tonight, losing to a R/B Minotaurs deck in the finals. Damn that's a scary deck. He had 3 of the uncommon minotaurs that gives other minotaurs +2/+0 and haste, 2 Fanatic Mogis, nothing but minotaur creatures, and the best R/B removal spells. Destroyed me in no time.
Oh well at least I pulled a Hero's Downfall. That card is like $24 now wtf!
Oh well at least I pulled a Hero's Downfall. That card is like $24 now wtf!
blindrocket
Member
Yeah, it's stupid. I'm not paying that for it.
Where are you seeing that at?
blindrocket
Member
Looks like that's the foil price he stated.
TCG has it at $15 mid for the non-foil.
SCG is selling it for $16, but they are OOS
MTGgoldfish has the value at $15.33
divisionbyzorro
Member
There was a thread I participated in for a while called "Modern Tide" on MTGSalvation that focused on using Gifts Ungiven as a tutor engine to abuse untap effects on enchanted lands, building up a critical mass of mana to either kill with a lethal Banefire, or get really cute and draw the entire library with Enter the Infinite and kill with Blue Sun's Zenith. At one point, it was suggested that we should just go with Storm as the win condition, since the original version relied heavily on the graveyard and casting/flashing back Past in Flames multiple times, and it was literally impossible to beat graveyard hate. I couldn't ever get the storm deck to work even when goldfishing until I started using the Modern-legal draw-sevens, since the deck has a much easier time generating mana as opposed to generating Storm. The thread died months ago because, even post-ban, Storm is a miles better deck.
But I got the urge yesterday to dig the thread out and build my draw-seven deck on MTGO to see how it would play. It needs a sideboard to deal with counterspells (I'm thinking either Defense Grid or Gigadrowse; probably the latter), and it simply can't beat Ghost Quarter (you're pretty much obligated to play Pithing Needle naming GQ to even have a shot), and on to of all that you need to draw your spells in the right order (you have to enchant lands, then draw the untap effects, then the draw-sevens, then find the Grapeshot, then shuffle it back in with Time Reversal and find it again), but if you can do all of that, you get to play with your deck for about five minutes and win the game.
EsotericManiac
Banned
Went 6-3 at the eternal legacy event with UWR
lost rounds 4 and 5 to miracles. that is a pretty horrible matchup tbh. then lost round 7 to mono black pox. that has to be the most miserable deck not only to play against, but also to pilot lol
lost rounds 4 and 5 to miracles. that is a pretty horrible matchup tbh. then lost round 7 to mono black pox. that has to be the most miserable deck not only to play against, but also to pilot lol
Ah someone told me $24 when looking up for trades. I guess you should always look up card values yourself. Dude was trying to cheat me.
If you're bored and people are over-aggressively trying to shark, do what I do:
Let them do their own valuations for both sides of the trade, nod as they price everything incorrectly, then pull out your phone and look everything up.
Miracles showing up years after its good highlights the problems with the format.
EsotericManiac
Banned
I like the deck a lot. don't get me wrong. it's my "other deck" that I always play when not in a major tournament.
the counterbalance/top combo just shuts down delver, especially the UWR version as you don't have grip to break it up.
I had a SWEET play to get around counter/top the one game against eventual top 8 Paul Lynch.
Thing that sucked is that I worked so hard for him to just TD a jace and bounce my hard work
lol
divisionbyzorro
Member
I assume you're referring to the expense required to stay "current?"
EsotericManiac
Banned
there's very little expense in staying current, really. unless you are staying up with the "cool" deck and changing every tournament
Essentially- that people get "locked into" a certain deck and can't actually switch to something good.
The idea that "any" deck in Legacy is viable is a big fat lie.
Just curious what are some legacy decks that you don't consider viable?