Blue decks that are more tempo/mid-range oriented. A midrange Jund-esque deck like BUG for example, probably wants opt.
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Magic: the Gathering |OT13| Ixalan - Port to Sideboard
- Thread starter SigmasonicX
- Start date
This is exactly the deck that DOESN'T want opt. Opt decks want to play at instant speed and is worse than serum in sorcery speed decks. Why play a sorcery speed midrange deck with opt?
Because it lets you filter before you draw.
Like, I played a LOT of preordain in Standard! There's a reason it's god-tier and Serum Visions is not.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Opt is going to be great in Splinter Tw-oh wait
Unban Preordain; end the argument. Also just ban Grapeshot and be done with it.
Unban Preordain; end the argument. Also just ban Grapeshot and be done with it.
The format's in a way more fun place years after it's gone?
Who ever could have imagined!
The format's in a way more fun place years after it's gone?
Who ever could have imagined!
It's still weird to think about how long some of us were advocating for its ban before they actually did it.
Where the hell is the pushed green explore card ? Or any pushed explore card for that matter. Like why the fuck is a 4/3 for 4 and a 1/1 the 2 best explore cards.
Enrage gets Ripjaw Raptor, Raid gets the dark confidant variant, explore gets .... deadeye tracker and a crappy vehicle.
Enrage gets Ripjaw Raptor, Raid gets the dark confidant variant, explore gets .... deadeye tracker and a crappy vehicle.
divisionbyzorro
Member
Let's look at the Modern Metagame:
Deck with Blue:
Baral Storm: Will keep playing 4x Sleight of Hand. I think they'll keep playing Serum Visions as well, because Visions gets you all the way to the fourth card if you need it. Might play more than 8 cantrips though.
Death's Shadow: Will keep playing 4x Thought Scour. If Wraith gets banned, they might go to 12 cantrips and play Opt and Serum Visions. Otherwise, I could see them probably replacing Serum Visions with Opt.
UW/Jeskai: Obviously replaces Serum Visions with Opt.
Merfolk: Can't see them taking time off to cantrip, to be honest.
What am I missing?
Deck with Blue:
Baral Storm: Will keep playing 4x Sleight of Hand. I think they'll keep playing Serum Visions as well, because Visions gets you all the way to the fourth card if you need it. Might play more than 8 cantrips though.
Death's Shadow: Will keep playing 4x Thought Scour. If Wraith gets banned, they might go to 12 cantrips and play Opt and Serum Visions. Otherwise, I could see them probably replacing Serum Visions with Opt.
UW/Jeskai: Obviously replaces Serum Visions with Opt.
Merfolk: Can't see them taking time off to cantrip, to be honest.
What am I missing?
Merfolk Branchwalker is the best explore card, and it looks really good.
Joe Molotov
Member
You know who was a great explorer? Goblin Guide.
I'll be honest, I was sort of holding out hope that this might see a surprise reprint. (And not just because I need four for my Goblins deck.)
But it was just reprinted... and it's literally less than half of where it was at its peak.
Jump on man. Now's the time.
$20+/card is still too rich for my (casual player) budget.
Joe Molotov
Member
mfw the back side is just Blood Moon ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
I'd like to see MTGO try to handle that sort of logic problem. Is it or isn't it a Basic Mountain?
Easily fixed by adding an "other lands" to the effect.
The second copy is actually quite good.Here it is:
Pretty good in control mirrors or slow matchups.
SigmasonicX
Member
Front is the relevant part of Outpost Siege minus lands, and the back half is powerful inevitability. Seems good.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Outpost Siege saw play, so this could too. The problem this card would see in Constructed starts with "C" and ends with "handra, Torch of Defiance."
As low as $13 on eBay.
Joe Molotov
Member
Yup, Chandra costs 4-cmc, and gets you value on the same turn, and does basically the same thing as this (but also a lot more) on the front. The flip-side is strong, but it requires casting three spells in one turn late in the game. How often are you gonna play three one-drops on Turn 5+? This card's main benefit over Chandra is that it's less vulnerable and more easily splashable.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
That's true of all Planeswalkers to be certain, but Chandra is independently super powerful in most situations in which you could play it. Even assuming Chandra gets destroyed, she doesn't die with no value gained basically ever.
I'd be really shocked if Chandra isn't even more expensive this standard than she was last year. She's going to be the most powerful Planeswalker in Standard.
Joe Molotov
Member
Make no good mythics, problem solved!
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I would be very surprised if it saw play unless there's a better Pirate deck than I'm envisioning.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I mean, the only one I'm almost 100% sure will get into a constructed deck is Carnage Tyrant because it's the generic "big green fuck control decks" card and those do get into boards with some frequency.
Axis of Mortality - Pure Unfiltered Jank
Wakening Sun's Avatar - If Dinosaurs is a real deck, I could see it as the top end because it can be insanely swingy from losing badly to winning.
Jace - I don't like to dismiss 3 mana PW, but neither of his first two abilities do very much.
Overflowing Insight - Pure Jank
Boneyard Parley - Pure Jank
Dire Fleet Ravager - Limited Bomb that you'll first pick, but a 5 mana 4/4 with an incidental drain probably isn't good enough. It's one of those cards where I have no clue if it's trying to be aggressive or midrangey because the ETB is largely meaningless in midrange games but also less and less relevant in aggressive decks.
Rowdy Crew - Jank
Star of Extinction - It costs 7 mana. I guess it's a sweet combo with Boros Reckoner, but it's significantly worse than Hour of Devastation beyond creatures with 6 toughness, of which there aren't many.
Carnage Tyrant - See above
Admiral Beckett Brass - EDH jank.
Gishath - I think this is just too expensive even with keyword soup and the damage trigger.
Huatli - I could see this being sideboard material, but it's an unusual card to me in that I don't know what you'd specifically want to board it in for.
Tishana - EDH jank
Vona - EDH jank
Vraksa - She costs 6 mana and the inability to destroy Planeswalkers is a very significant nerf imo.
Axis of Mortality - Pure Unfiltered Jank
Wakening Sun's Avatar - If Dinosaurs is a real deck, I could see it as the top end because it can be insanely swingy from losing badly to winning.
Jace - I don't like to dismiss 3 mana PW, but neither of his first two abilities do very much.
Overflowing Insight - Pure Jank
Boneyard Parley - Pure Jank
Dire Fleet Ravager - Limited Bomb that you'll first pick, but a 5 mana 4/4 with an incidental drain probably isn't good enough. It's one of those cards where I have no clue if it's trying to be aggressive or midrangey because the ETB is largely meaningless in midrange games but also less and less relevant in aggressive decks.
Rowdy Crew - Jank
Star of Extinction - It costs 7 mana. I guess it's a sweet combo with Boros Reckoner, but it's significantly worse than Hour of Devastation beyond creatures with 6 toughness, of which there aren't many.
Carnage Tyrant - See above
Admiral Beckett Brass - EDH jank.
Gishath - I think this is just too expensive even with keyword soup and the damage trigger.
Huatli - I could see this being sideboard material, but it's an unusual card to me in that I don't know what you'd specifically want to board it in for.
Tishana - EDH jank
Vona - EDH jank
Vraksa - She costs 6 mana and the inability to destroy Planeswalkers is a very significant nerf imo.
If there are codes on these cards, standing offer of $5 for anyone who gets me one, because I can't make the event
I mean I heard boxes were preordering at $80
seems a lot of the power in this set is in the lower rarities
assuming paypal, yes, I can get you one.
seems a lot of the power in this set is in the lower rarities
assuming paypal, yes, I can get you one.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
It's cheap and will stay cheap because, there's no masterpieces, the land cycle is entirely reprints and there's no chase cards at all.
It's on the power level of Battle for Zendikar except it doesn't randomly have completely OP Gideon.
It's on the power level of Battle for Zendikar except it doesn't randomly have completely OP Gideon.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
That's the only card that's pre-ordering for anything meaningful (that isn't a Planeswalker because people go crazy for those) and that's just unproven Elves hype.
Giant Panda
Member
The set doesn't have a Gideon-level card, but Ixalan is much more powerful than the rest of BFZ.
Should've mentioned that I'm in Canada, so add 40% to the price of any card.
It seems like we go through this song and dance with every new set, though. Complaining that it's low-powered and won't affect standard, and then that's never holds true.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I'm not sure I see that at all. I'm not seeing anything constructed-level powerful beyond Ripjaw Raptor.
Except it was largely true for the entire time BFZ was in standard.
BFZ's impact on standard revolved entirely around "ruining standard with double typed lands" which wasn't a theme of the set; it was a dumb development mistake on a land cycle. Otherwise you're just talking about Gideon was independently OP and Ulamog was a ridiculous ramp payoff. A lot of which revolved around Emrakul being banned.
BFZ was also bad because it was so poorly designed/developed (in addition to being messed up because of the switch to two set blocks). With rotation, it's almost impossible that Ixalan won't have a huge impact on Standard and provide a ton of playable cards. When's the last time that a fall/rotation set didn't warp standard around itself?
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Um, Battle for Zendikar. The only thing it did was add double-typed lands and it's being super generous to say that this was a feature of the set and not a bug and that really had nothing to do with power level.
Power level isn't really a big deal most of the time. I just have trouble seeing some new ultra powerful deck emerging out of this set; particularly given that it's largely pushing tribes that don't have any existing support in Standard. It's not a bad thing you can't look at the set and point out some obviously busted card like Aetherworks Marvel.
A lot of the cards in Ixalan that look like constructed-level cards are cards that just slot into Desert Red, tbh.
Yep! Assuming the codes are unique!
We shall SEE
A lot of the Ixalan cards seem like things they are seeding in for the next 2 year rotation with all the hate and answers being printed. I hope there are some cool decks that come out of it since 3/4 months of Energy mirrors would suck. Limited should be fun either way.
Out of pure curiosity (and the fact I might want to play with Jace), why are you down on his two main abilities? They seem pretty good for a 3 mana walker. There's no shortage of cheap, hard to block creatures in blue so it shouldn't be too hard to get value out of his +1 every time you use it, and being able to make a 2/2 repeatedly sounds really good for a walker as cheap as he is.
Just imagining him as 3 mana for "Loot + occasional bear". Looks like a winner to me.
I guess it depends on if Ux aggro/tempo takes off, but if it does Jace looks like a good fit for it.