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Magic: the GAFering |OT2|
- Thread starter The Technomancer
- Start date
Yeah, I always wanna splash green for goyf, and that does seem kind of wrong. And confidant + DRS.... How low on instants/sorceries do we want to get when we're trying to empty our hands so quickly?
Goyf should probably stick to the #YOLOSWAG street wraith builds.
I think this deck has the potential to be competitive, I just don't know how it should be built. Tribal flames might be wrong -- cutting it, and cutting our manabase down to something much more reasonable, could be the solution here.
EDIT: tried to fill out my playset of foil death's shadow to build a silly version of this, and someone cornered the market. $20 now. ugh, ffs, the spanish foils were $1 at pax east.
Just go Grixis + Green Splash for DRS.
Alright. I think I like this, although I would really like to test a variant that plays Death's Shadow and W over the blue and delver.
grixis + green variant -
dudes: 16
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Blood Scrivener
4 Dark Confidant
spells: 26
2 Gut Shot
4 Vapor Snag
4 Thoughtseize
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Tribal Flames
lands: 18
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Steam Vents
2 Blood Crypt
2 Watery Grave
1 Breeding Pool
aaand just for fun, here's the dune-brood zoo variant -- much better manabase, certainly
dudes: 20
4 Goblin Guide
4 Death's Shadow
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Blood Scrivener
4 Tarmogoyf
spells: 21
3 Path to Exile
4 Thoughtseize
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Tribal Flames
2 Lightning Helix
lands: 19
4 Arid Mesa
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Marsh Flats
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Godless Shrine
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
1 Blood Crypt
1 Steam Vents
sideboard: 15
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Lightning Helix
3 Gaddock Teeg
4 Fulminator Mage
2 Qualsi Pridemage
2 Aven Mindcensor
1 Path to Exile
edit: a fuckload of stealth edits. MYBAD.
also, if we're going zoo, we might want to consider kird ape/loam lion over goblin guide, obviously meta-dependent. I need some thoughtseizes to sleeve up now....
It is a bummer that there are only 5 Dragon's Maze intro packs: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1210 Sucks for people that like the other guilds. Unless these are secretly all 3 color and have another guild in them too.
Playtesting is showing Blood Scrivener to be a little less broken than I anticipated, but he's still great. Deathrite Shaman was a great call, though -- we need to be able to shit our hand out by turn 3 for the deck to run properly.
1-2x Liliana of the Veil might be cute...? Still think it fucks with the goal of the deck too much.
Also, 19 lands was too many. 17-18 is right about where we want to be.
Death's Shadow is, of course, fucking insane here.
1-2x Liliana of the Veil might be cute...? Still think it fucks with the goal of the deck too much.
Also, 19 lands was too many. 17-18 is right about where we want to be.
Death's Shadow is, of course, fucking insane here.
divisionbyzorro
Member
Isn't Faithless Looting what you want? Draw 3 discard 2 when you're hellbent; otherwise filter away excess lands to help get you hellbent?
Couldn't they be waiting for the remaining champion (are the selesnya and boros the only ones left?) to be spoiled before announcing the remaining guild's intro packs? It'd suck if half of the guilds got two intro packs (one from DGM and another from whichever set they first appeared in), while the others get only one with no DGM cards in them.
I can only hope that's what's actually going on, since I was looking forward to having all guild champions available from intro packs to increase the supply and make sure none of them go for ridiculous prices. Then again, if an intro pack display has ten decks in it, and people only want one or two guilds out of them, most retailers would probably dread this set since they'd probably end up ordering lots of displays only to sell one or two decks from there.
Had about 6 new people at our shop tonight so it mad for a big fnm. A friend and I split the finals playing junk reanimator. Good times. My only loss was to bant but we only played one complete game, it was a good one though. I was glad to split though, this old man was tired.
-2 Adaptive Snapjaw
-1 Scorchedwalker
-1 Forest
+1 Island
+2 Filled Oculus
+1 Metropolis Sprite
The Spire Tracer is kind of loose but I can at least understand with the double Hands of Binding. Might also need even more blue sources but I haven't done the math to be sure.
FieryBalrog
Member
Anyone else pretty disappointed by how they've handled Orzhov this block? (and I guess Dimir as well)
Feels like Golgari got showered with toys, and some of the other guilds made out well. Even Rakdos looks pretty good as a whole. UB and BW got slathered.
I waited to make a BW EDH deck until now specifically to wait for the new Teysa, but I'll probably end up using the old Teysa. If I want a 7 mana general in the colors, Vish Kal is like leaps and bounds better.
Feels like Golgari got showered with toys, and some of the other guilds made out well. Even Rakdos looks pretty good as a whole. UB and BW got slathered.
I waited to make a BW EDH deck until now specifically to wait for the new Teysa, but I'll probably end up using the old Teysa. If I want a 7 mana general in the colors, Vish Kal is like leaps and bounds better.
It was a general issue with how RTR and GTC were designed. RTR was designed with competitive players in mind, while Gatecrash had a more EDH or casual focus. As a result, the guilds in RTR got more powerful cards.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
I agree on Dimir, but Orzhov may be the most powerful in limited and constructed, if taken strictly as block only. Obzedat is clearly the best and most playable of the guild leaders, Orzhov charm is probably 2-3 in terms of power for the charms behind Boros and Simic, and stuff like Cartel Aristocrats and Kingspin are limited powerhouses. Not to mention it has the best enchantment in the block with Blind Obedience.
Golgari got what, Grisly Salvage for reanimator decks and Lotleth troll?
IMO, Orzhov is one of the top 3 guilds, based solely on the cards in the guild. Gruul is the most powerful, Simic isn't too far behind. Boros is all hype and no bite. Golgari sucks without substantial help from Innistrad. Izzet is tricky, but underpowered. Dimir...lol. Shadow slice in limited and casual mill fun only. Azorious has Sphinx's and...nothing. Selesnya is pretty freaking good, but again, the best cards in those colors came from the core set and AVR. Rakdos is up there though. Lots of great stuff in those colors if just playing RtR and GTC.
Golgari got what, Grisly Salvage for reanimator decks and Lotleth troll?
IMO, Orzhov is one of the top 3 guilds, based solely on the cards in the guild. Gruul is the most powerful, Simic isn't too far behind. Boros is all hype and no bite. Golgari sucks without substantial help from Innistrad. Izzet is tricky, but underpowered. Dimir...lol. Shadow slice in limited and casual mill fun only. Azorious has Sphinx's and...nothing. Selesnya is pretty freaking good, but again, the best cards in those colors came from the core set and AVR. Rakdos is up there though. Lots of great stuff in those colors if just playing RtR and GTC.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
MTGO Academy is the cheapest set of bots. CardWorld is right up there. RDW is probably the cheapest standard deck worth a crap. You can buy it altogether for 30-40 tickets if you go with the Zealous Conscripts build over the one with Hellkites.
4 x Stromkirk Nobles
4 x Legion Loyalists
4 x Rakdos Cackler
4 x Ash Zealots
4 x Zealous Conscripts
4 x Hellrider
4 x Searing Spear
4 x Pillar of Flame
4 x Mizzium Mortar
24 x Mountain
...is the basic idea of that deck.
I've been doing good with Boros Humans, and Red Goblins
Red Goblins has some pretty awesome cards to it, giving foundry street champion trample when you got legion loyalist, and krenko pooping out 40 tokens makes the deck awesome
only problem with that deck is that goblin tokens can be really slow because MTGO is a pile of shit
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
Fuck. You're right there.
Don't forget about Dreg Mangler. That card is really good.
I'm really liking Ral Zarek more the more I look at him.
Ajani Vengeant would've been broken as fuck in control colors. Control deck at the time were running all five colors to be able to run it, and would've been godly if the manabase wasn't so inconsistent.
This card, I believe, will fill a similar role -- you -3 to kill an opposing creature, then anything from that point on is just gravy. You don't need to get ticked off by the 'tap a permanent' ability being near useless -- you have half of garruk's +1 available to you right there, allowing you to keep mana open for your syncopates and shit.
The card is very playable. Time will tell if he's on the same level as Jace AoT, which, by the way, is a fantastic investment right now -- he'll be fantastic after rotation.
Ajani Vengeant would've been broken as fuck in control colors. Control deck at the time were running all five colors to be able to run it, and would've been godly if the manabase wasn't so inconsistent.
This card, I believe, will fill a similar role -- you -3 to kill an opposing creature, then anything from that point on is just gravy. You don't need to get ticked off by the 'tap a permanent' ability being near useless -- you have half of garruk's +1 available to you right there, allowing you to keep mana open for your syncopates and shit.
The card is very playable. Time will tell if he's on the same level as Jace AoT, which, by the way, is a fantastic investment right now -- he'll be fantastic after rotation.
It's -2
Even better! And although Ajani V and Ral Zarek both have somewhat impossible ults, Zarek's will happen more often due to his better loyalty costs, and impacts the game more in more dangerous situations.
The three life from Ajani V's helix ability was very relevant, though. Kind of shame we don't have access to that.
FieryBalrog
Member
I guess my view is skewed because I don't really care about Standard, but, for example: Obzedat may be better than the other guild leaders for Standard itself, but he's still not a power house Standard card. Any card that has a CCDD card is almost never going to be more than a niche card in competitive 60 card magic. It seems like Esper Control doesn't even bother running him most of the time.
On the other hand, Obzedat is one of the worst guild leaders from an EDH deck-building perspective, and the previous Ghost Council from Rav 1.0 is much, much better, being harder to kill, a cheap sac outlet, and abusing ETB about as well. So I feel like Obzedat doesn't really satisfy either end of the spectrum, you know what I mean? On the other hand, Zegana may be slightly worse in Standard, but is pretty silly OP in casual or semi-casual EDH. Aurelia may not be OP anywhere, but is also just a good, fun general, ditto Lazav, and Jarad, and some others.
And Teysa is worse, she's about as useless as the new Isperia, and more disappointing because no one really cared about Isperia, and no one was expecting Teysa's new card to be a 7 mana brick with a mish-mash of abilities.
...Deathrite Shaman? Abrupt Decay? Especially given my focus is more on Eternal (EDH & Legacy in particular), Golgari made out like bandits, and their stuff is fantastic in Modern as well. Varolz is probably the most solid guild champion, too, both inside Standard and out.
FieryBalrog
Member
One of the reasons I'm pointing this out about EDH generals is that BW has one of the worst selections in the game for Generals. Being an enemy color pair, only a few legendaries exist, and of the ones that do:
1) Selenia: random legend from Weatherlight storyline who is mostly useless, like most older legends
2) Ghost Council 1.0: He's OK, with the benefits mentioned above, but really nothing spectacular. You have to really want to play pure BW or abuse some ETB effects to want to play him over Ghave, for instance.
3) Teysa 1.0: She's good, fun, and somewhat unique.
4) Vish Kal: Like the previous two, he's again a sac outlet. He's got good abilities, but is 7 mana and I've never seen anyone play him as a general
5) Obzedat: there's almost no reason to run this guy as a general over Ghost Council 1.0
6) Teysa 2.0: remains to be seen, but looks like an expensive brick to me, with two sets of abilities that don't really gel together. She's too slow to be a decent Voltron, which means you maybe build a control shell; in which case you get low, low value from her being an unblockable 4/4, and BW control shell relies heavily on wraths, which ends up killing your already expensive brick of a general.
This is why I was kind of hoping for Rav 2.0, with its guaranteed two BW legendaries, would bring something cool to the table.
1) Selenia: random legend from Weatherlight storyline who is mostly useless, like most older legends
2) Ghost Council 1.0: He's OK, with the benefits mentioned above, but really nothing spectacular. You have to really want to play pure BW or abuse some ETB effects to want to play him over Ghave, for instance.
3) Teysa 1.0: She's good, fun, and somewhat unique.
4) Vish Kal: Like the previous two, he's again a sac outlet. He's got good abilities, but is 7 mana and I've never seen anyone play him as a general
5) Obzedat: there's almost no reason to run this guy as a general over Ghost Council 1.0
6) Teysa 2.0: remains to be seen, but looks like an expensive brick to me, with two sets of abilities that don't really gel together. She's too slow to be a decent Voltron, which means you maybe build a control shell; in which case you get low, low value from her being an unblockable 4/4, and BW control shell relies heavily on wraths, which ends up killing your already expensive brick of a general.
This is why I was kind of hoping for Rav 2.0, with its guaranteed two BW legendaries, would bring something cool to the table.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
Eh, I don't really consider cards as they fit into EDH, as pretty much anything fits into that format if you want it to. I also don't think it's a fair comparison to compare what cards exist in the here and now versus what the game was like 5 years ago. If we're going to do that, almost none of the cards that aren't being played heavily in legacy are worth a damn.
Also, it doesn't seem to make much sense to compare them against cards that haven't even been printed yet.
I did already admit that I overlooked a couple Golgari cards, so ya got me there.
Also, it doesn't seem to make much sense to compare them against cards that haven't even been printed yet.
I did already admit that I overlooked a couple Golgari cards, so ya got me there.
FieryBalrog
Member
I don't really think that's true, and I've played a LOT of EDH at this point. The format may be looser than a lot of others, but there are guidelines,
I've seen myself as well as other friends go through deck iteration and trying to improve decks- what I mean by improve is finding what "works", or is fun, or leads to cool games, and what is just "meh", or ruins games, or is so weak that it's not fun to use. Sometimes that includes upping the power level, and sometimes it doesn't. It's really not a format where most people would have fun if they just jammed a bunch of cards together without thinking about it. In fact, a lot of cards that are fun or useful in 60-card 1v1 are pretty bad or boring in EDH.
I love when draft cards like Mindshrieker get played in eternal formats
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gpstr13/welcome#3
Reminds me of how Slash Panther was playable in Type 1 but not in standard.
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gpstr13/welcome#3
Reminds me of how Slash Panther was playable in Type 1 but not in standard.
4 mana is a lot for a mana drain.
I don't think that's going to matter. This card will see play. Glad they didn't make it mythic.
Honestly, with most control decks wanting to run three colors, I'm not terrified of what that thing can do, but a midrange-y UG stompy deck? You have think twice, yeva, wolfir avenger, and snapcaster to take over that missed opportunity to counter something.
I don't think that's going to matter. This card will see play. Glad they didn't make it mythic.
Honestly, with most control decks wanting to run three colors, I'm not terrified of what that thing can do, but a midrange-y UG stompy deck? You have think twice, yeva, wolfir avenger, and snapcaster to take over that missed opportunity to counter something.
You mean I can't live the dream of turn 2 farseek into turn 4 Mana drain into turn 5 Omniscience?
I think its also important to note you can get whatever colors you want from it- making it easier to throw someone through the door (of nothingness) if thats your thing.
lol "please cast something I need to fix my mana"
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Meh that Mimic is too expensive to be at mythic I feel. I could see it as a 4 mana mythic, but at six I'd prefer it was rare.
divisionbyzorro
Member
Mishra's Workshop tends to warp the playability of all sorts of artifacts.
Lucario said:
Both Domri and Jace AoT seem like good investments (after we've had some DGR drafts to put more supply out).
I'm also going to be looking closely at Dragon's Maze mythics and rares that don't immediately find a home, especially those with unique effects. Those are the cards that see huge jumps after rotation.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
I kinda want to break that mimic.
The rebalanced Mana Drain almost makes me forgive them for not printing an ooze lord in this block. It's eating Niv's (or some similar dragon) fiery breath for breakfast! It even adds colored mana in any combination of colors! I'd love to use it alongside Wolfir Avenger, Shambleshark and possibly Restoration Angel too, and with Zameck Guildmages as mana dumps in case I don't have any relevant expensive cards in hand to spend the mana on. That kind of deck would probably conflict with my planned BUG deck, but I guess I'll make two decks and see which one works better, or which cards I get my hands on first.
The mimic looks fun, but hard to play unless used in a control deck. I think playing one targeting another one could result in it dropping two creatures per turn rather than one, but part of me tells me text-change effects can't be copied since they're applied on a later layer; I really should brush up some my layer skills soon, since it's been too long since I last judged at a competitive or professional REL event, and regular events have made me let my guard down when it comes to keeping some more complicated stuff fresh in my mind...
Also, I'm really happy to see Mindshrieker do well somewhere. I always liked the card for the sort-of unique things it could do, and I love it when someone spots a card nobody cares about that's ideal to combat some popular cards or strategies.
The mimic looks fun, but hard to play unless used in a control deck. I think playing one targeting another one could result in it dropping two creatures per turn rather than one, but part of me tells me text-change effects can't be copied since they're applied on a later layer; I really should brush up some my layer skills soon, since it's been too long since I last judged at a competitive or professional REL event, and regular events have made me let my guard down when it comes to keeping some more complicated stuff fresh in my mind...
Also, I'm really happy to see Mindshrieker do well somewhere. I always liked the card for the sort-of unique things it could do, and I love it when someone spots a card nobody cares about that's ideal to combat some popular cards or strategies.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
wrong thread
Hopefully, we'll get some fun Dimir spoilers soon. I really want all guilds to get at least a couple of good cards, but Cypher treads in dangerous ground simply because it's lets players cast spells for free, which has lead to some bad situations (ie: cascade and storm). Having to cast the spell once to encode it limits the mechanic somewhat, though, but since you might get anywhere from none to any number of free copies (depending on whether your opponent has a way to kill or otherwise handle the creature), it's probably harder to balance.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Yeah, I do think the new drain is really good. It costs GG more, but not only was the old one insanely good anyway but the new one lets you add it in any color combination, and that seems like it could be really really useful. You just need to commit to its colors.
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