Magic: the Gathering - Battle for Zendikar |OT| Lands matter (but nothing else does)

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The reason I think it could be a legit deck is that Knight of the Reliquary is just a good modern playable without some other combo unlike, say Pestermite.
 
Retreat just by itself will be prime deckfixer/removal target in an environment like Modern wouldn't it?

I mean it's not going to win by itself but it'll let you filter a lot of your deck while moving towards that end-game.

That ruin Ghost is really nice tech.
 
Copying one of the manlands doesn't make them creatures but I guess you can tap one half of the infinite pool to animate the other half of the infinite pool. Still, a combo requiring three pieces is harder to set up, especially since the lands can slow down your mana curve a bit. It's also blocked completely by Blood Moon. Still a viable strategy though, but I think the normal Deceiver or Pestermite Twin is a better beating outside the combo.
 
Might as well play TarmoTwin in that case. You get the Splinter Twin combo and you get to play Snapcasters, Bolts and Ancient Grudges.
 
Daedardus said:
Copying one of the manlands doesn't make them creatures but I guess you can tap one half of the infinite pool to animate the other half of the infinite pool. Still, a combo requiring three pieces is harder to set up, especially since the lands can slow down your mana curve a bit. It's also blocked completely by Blood Moon. Still a viable strategy though, but I think the normal Deceiver or Pestermite Twin is a better beating outside the combo.
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Yup, the plan was to animate enough to generate 1000 land tokens and use 500 to activate the other 500. Nice catch, I had to think about it for a bit to realize how it'd work.

Unfortunately, I don't think that combo is viable in modern; I'm mostly brewing for EDH. As you said, three card combos are difficult, and running two combo pieces that don't do much on their own (Retreat to Coralhelm and Splinter Twin) isn't exactly ideal. I would like to try at least one Retreat to Coralhelm deck in modern, though.


Right now I'm thinking midrange/zoo with Ruin Ghost, Steppe Lynx, Sejiri Steppe, and Knight of the Reliquary. Play early mana dorks and beaters, use Ruin Ghost with Steppe as a bad Mother of Runes, and combo off with Retreat when your opponent taps out. Running a 3-drop that doesn't impact the board in that kind of list seem really awkward, but it'd still be fun to sleeve it up and bring to FNM.
 
Firemind said:
Might as well play TarmoTwin in that case. You get the Splinter Twin combo and you get to play Snapcasters, Bolts and Ancient Grudges.
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You just don't like anything that isn't UR. -_-

Its not exactly the same concept because you get to play Path to Exile and significantly better beaters, not to mention a lot of the really good sideboard strategies are white-based.
 
The Technomancer said:
Ahaha I love how an uncommon blue enchantment is like the first card we've seen that has people reflexively brewing
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Don't know what you're talking about. I've been brewing with those Full Art lands for a while and I think I can say they're all Modern playable. The Island in particular looks like it might have applications in every format.
 
Angry Grimace said:
You just don't like anything that isn't UR. -_-

Its not exactly the same concept because you get to play Path to Exile and significantly better beaters, not to mention a lot of the really good sideboard strategies are white-based.
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Getting access to the best sideboard color in a format almost defined by its sideboard games is huge. You also get to take advantage of Collected Company. You don't have to just race Burn. Etc etc.
 
Anybody ever played Khans/Fate/Dragons draft before? I got a lot of spare boosters from all three sets and want to know what the best use for them would be.
 
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";178934971]White?[/QUOTE]

Yeah, that's what we were saying - Firemind said you could just play TarmoTwin instead since the whole value + random infinite combo idea already exists with that deck, but we were saying access to white is really good since a lot of the best sideboard cards are white.
 
WzEOsXA.jpg
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Oh my.
 
Knight of the Reliquary is currently bugged on MTGO. You can sacrifice any permanent to it.

Coralhelm deck looking a lot better now! /s
 
Awaken-Cancel is worse than you probably think it is. I doubt it will be likely to be correct to pay the Awaken cost enough for it to be even vaguely comparable to Dissolve.
 
Interesting that all of the good Awaken spells fit into a control shell.

Coastal Discovery, Ruinous Path, Planar Outburst, and now Scatter to the Winds. Outburst seems nuts if these work together as well as it looks like they're going to.
 
That's horrible, nobody keeps six mana open for a counter spell. And rare means it's hardly useful in limited.


Where are my expeditions by the way? Kinda expected Scalding Tarn by now.
 
It's good. It's not nearly as good as Dissolve, but that card was absurdly powerful. You'll only ever cast it for Awaken towards the back half of the game, and at that point the 3/3 can help you close out the game or pressure a Planeswalker. It's a good card.
 
Lucario said:
Interesting that all of the good Awaken spells fit into a control shell.
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Size dictates they were always going to, an awaken spell that makes a 1/1 for 2G isn't going to see play anywhere, and if they're making 3/3s or bigger they have to be costed such that Control is the only strategy that's going to really want them
 
Angry Grimace said:
Awaken-Cancel is worse than you probably think it is. I doubt it will be likely to be correct to pay the Awaken cost enough for it to be even vaguely comparable to Dissolve.
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I think it's fine. How broke do we want counter spells to be lol? We will just bitch about it. 3 mana counter that can get you extra value later in the game and the body is only a 3/3. Sounds good to me.
 
Lucario said:
Interesting that all of the good Awaken spells fit into a control shell.

Coastal Discovery, Ruinous Path, Planar Outburst, and now Scatter to the Winds. Outburst seems nuts if these work together as well as it looks like they're going to.
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Control looks like garbage in BFZ standard tbh

99% of the time this is worse than Dissolve, control no longer has instant Planeswalker removal and doesn't even really have reliable instant speed removal at all unless it goes white for Stasis Snare. The only thing I can say that's good is the mana for Esper is better than it was in Khans block, but that might not matter when a reasonable removal package involves 1BB, 1WW and 1UU
 
divisionbyzorro said:
It's good. It's not nearly as good as Dissolve, but that card was absurdly powerful. You'll only ever cast it for Awaken towards the back half of the game, and at that point the 3/3 can help you close out the game or pressure a Planeswalker. It's a good card.
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The problem with it is that you can't cast it on its own,you have to play it in respondence to something. Keeping this many mana open to anticipate the right move by your opponent can get you behind the curve and there's the possibility you waste it on the wrong card just to have the land.
 
It's the first Awaken card we've seen that's at instant speed as well, making it a potential combat trick. Surprise blockers usually do a lot of work.

And for the record I really don't like it at rare.
 
A Serious Man said:
It's the first Awaken card we've seen that's at instant speed as well, making it a potential combat trick. Surprise blockers usually do a lot of work.

And for the record I really don't like it at rare.
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The timing means that's almost never relevant. Because for it to be a surprised blocker you have to cancel something in the Declare Attackers phase or your opponent has to walk into it by casting a spell into Cancel mana during the Declare Attackers phase.
 
Daedardus said:
The problem with it is that you can't cast it on its own,you have to play it in respondence to something. Keeping this many mana open to anticipate the right move by your opponent can get you behind the curve and there's the possibility you waste it on the wrong card just to have the land.
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You're assuming that the correct move is to always hold up six mana. It won't be. You'll probably cast this for three mana most of the time.
 
Angry Grimace said:
The timing means that's almost never relevant. Because for it to be a surprised blocker you have to cancel something in the Declare Attackers phase or your opponent has to walk into it by casting a spell into Cancel mana during the Declare Attackers phase.
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And you don't want to be saving your counters for potential combat tricks anyway. I just don't understand why this is at rare. The value is decent but... that's it. Did they think it was too good in limited to be at uncommon?
 
A Serious Man said:
It's the first Awaken card we've seen that's at instant speed as well, making it a potential combat trick. Surprise blockers usually do a lot of work.

And for the record I really don't like it at rare.
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Since it's a counterspell, it hardly has applications as a combat trick, unless they cast a trick of their own before blockers are declared.

This card is essentially just a glorified Cancel. I cannot imagine too many cases where you are paying the Awake cost. Of course, it had to be a rare just so that I could open 2-3 in my box instead of something worthwhile.
 
Angry Grimace said:
Control looks like garbage in BFZ standard tbh

99% of the time this is worse than Dissolve, control no longer has instant Planeswalker removal and doesn't even really have reliable instant speed removal at all unless it goes white for Stasis Snare. The only thing I can say that's good is the mana for Esper is better than it was in Khans block, but that might not matter when a reasonable removal package involves 1BB, 1WW and 1UU
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Still too early to say this. Lots of the best removal tends to be uncommon and we haven't seen half of the uncommons yet.

That said, from what we've seen, it looks like control decks won't be the draw/go style in this set. I wouldn't be surprised to see a creatureless control shell take shape.
 
Yeef said:
Still too early to say this. Lots of the best removal tends to be uncommon and we haven't seen half of the uncommons yet.

That said, from what we've seen, it looks like control decks won't be the draw/go style in this set. I wouldn't be surprised to see a creatureless control shell take shape.
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That's....not actually true. We almost always see the good removal spells very quickly, which we did in this set with Ruinous Path before the set blowout and Stasis Snare on Day 1 of spoilers.
 
kirblar said:
Yeah, I get it though.
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Rosewater's stance on the kind of reboot that would fix all of this fundamentally is, interestingly enough, not explicitly "we're too far in now" but often "you don't reboot your product at the height of its popularity". So...who knows if the game hits a low point in the next ten years. Its the most tentative of comments to read into, but there is some sentiment there.
 
The Technomancer said:
Rosewater's stance on the kind of reboot that would fix all of this fundamentally is, interestingly enough, not explicitly "we're too far in now" but often "you don't reboot your product at the height of its popularity". So...who knows if the game hits a low point in the next ten years. Its the most tentative of comments to read into, but there is some sentiment there.
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The problem is that you have to have it "on" or "off. You can't go halfway, and it becomes useless text in most blocks that don't care about tribal.
 
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