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[Angry Grimace]

That Temur Ascendancy combo is so bad though. It worked that one time at a SCG event (that it didn't top 8 or anything) because nobody knew what it was doing.

 

[ultron87]

That 2RR dragon is pretty exciting. Will certainly give that a shot in place of Ashcloud Phoenix, which I feel gets Wild Slashed/Magma Sprayed/Lightning Struck a lot. This guy is open to Valorous Stance though so we'll see. Want to try it out.

 

[Angry Grimace]

That 2RR dragon is pretty exciting. Will certainly give that a shot in place of Ashcloud Phoenix, which I feel gets Wild Slashed/Magma Sprayed/Lightning Struck a lot. This guy is open to Valorous Stance though so we'll see. Want to try it out.

If there's even one more playable dragon in any of the Mardu colors its better than Ashcloud, I think.

Kolaghan/Stormbreath/JEMdragon together are already kind of a fun sounding dragon shell - a deck like that could be tough on control decks, assuming your lower CMC spells are not dragons, Crux of Fate is way less good than End Hostilities, Kolaghan is pretty protected against Wraths (as is Sarkhan) and Stormbreath can avoid white removal pretty well.

I'm not saying that would be good, but DRAGONS

 

[Firemind]

Well the first mistake is thinking of it as Mono-Black aggro or bust. Phyrexian Obliterater can go take a hike but cards like Mardu Strike Leader are but one of many, easy to cast and powerful aggressive Black options. If you include the cards to support it, U/B, R/B, G/B and W/B are all viable aggressive options. Literally every other set nowadays WOTC prints a new 2 power Black one drop - the redundancy exists. What Black aggro excels at that other aggressive options fail at is its disruption suite and resiliency. Discard, LD and the like means Black aggro has a better matchup against typical Blue -based + sweeper control than White aggro does and it has a better match up against Green Midrange than Red based aggro (all its removal basically kills anything). It's weaker against other aggressive decks than either Red or White Aggro but that's the thing - Red, White and Black aggro are all better in some matchups and worse in others. None of those three basic aggro camps are strictly better than the other.

Spending two mana to kill their one mana critter is a sure way to get behind. Only Dismember and Darkblast have mana parity. The former can ironically be played in any deck and Darkblast has been removed (even if it wasn't, it's more narrow than burn). Letting them ramp into value creatures is also a losing proposition, It's lose-lose. Red has much better options vs green. And creatures that are an issue for red are also an issue for black (Thragtusk, Kitchen Finks etc.)

Black being the best colour versus the blue decks is a myth. Your discard still one-for-ones except Hymn and blue can easily restock with its myriad of draw spells. Red has more access to land destruction (which isn't even all that good main deck) and even white arguably with both Armageddon and Ravages of War. Green has Plow Under, Acidic Slime and blue has Opposition.

Black aggro is the red-headed stepchild of the family. Sure, it's splashable and can function well, but it's all fairly mediocre and replaceable.

 

[Angry Grimace]

I can't be the only one a little concerned that the draft environment is going to be BOMBY AS FUCK DRAGON (we've seen 9 superbomb dragons already, only one of which is a mythic) pack wars. It doesn't help that the third pack is a set that's already filled with superbomb rares.

 

["God's Beard!"]

I can't be the only one a little concerned that the draft environment is going to be BOMBY AS FUCK DRAGON (we've seen 9 superbomb dragons already, only one of which is a mythic) pack wars. It doesn't help that the third pack is a set that's already filled with superbomb rares.

It doesn't help that Fate Reforged is the worst draft set since Dragon's Maze.

 

[charlequin]

"Mythic to tell the story" is a joke, because what part of the story is Archangel's Light telling?

In fairness, what Archangel's Light is bringing to the table is not being another obnoxious Skullclamp/Jitte/Jace/Stoneforge/Tarmogoyf type card because they purposely made something ultra-shitty instead when an absolute last-minute hole opened up.

Then there's the fact that black historically never was an aggro powerhouse. The only time I can remember was when Hatred was around. Randy should add Hatred!

Yep, black has never actually been a good aggro color; its all-out aggro creatures are too brittle and don't bring enough to the table compared to white (utility), red (throughput), or green (size.) It took an insanely busted piece of nonsense like Hatred to get it over the hump. The closest black has gotten to aggro in most eras is a disruptive tempo deck.

The guy in front is using a selfie stick to take a group picture.

Came in to post this.

 

[WanderingWind]

The kinds of people who would rather have an Archangel's Light instead of a JTMS are the kind of people who file their taxes on Jan. 1.

 

[Angry Grimace]

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";154444000]It doesn't help that Fate Reforged is the worst draft set since Dragon's Maze.[/QUOTE]

I only drafted RTR-GTC-DGM once and I had no fucken clue what I was doing or how to make it work.

 

[WanderingWind]

They probably enjoy cottage cheese too.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Archangel's Light was a replacement card though.

If they thought it was broken enough to emergency dump, it was probably Skullclamp 2 or something.

 

[MjFrancis]

I only drafted RTR-GTC-DGM once and I had no fucken clue what I was doing or how to make it work.

I did that once too. It was horrible.

I've drafted triple Fate Reforged twice though and had a more pleasant experience.

 

[Crocodile]

Spending two mana to kill their one mana critter is a sure way to get behind. Only Dismember and Darkblast have mana parity. The former can ironically be played in any deck and Darkblast has been removed (even if it wasn't, it's more narrow than burn). Letting them ramp into value creatures is also a losing proposition, It's lose-lose. Red has much better options vs green. And creatures that are an issue for red are also an issue for black (Thragtusk, Kitchen Finks etc.)

Black being the best colour versus the blue decks is a myth. Your discard still one-for-ones except Hymn and blue can easily restock with its myriad of draw spells. Red has more access to land destruction (which isn't even all that good main deck) and even white arguably with both Armageddon and Ravages of War. Green has Plow Under, Acidic Slime and blue has Opposition.

Black aggro is the red-headed stepchild of the family. Sure, it's splashable and can function well, but it's all fairly mediocre and replaceable.

Who is talking about aiming a Doom Blade at a mana elf? I'm saying that Doom Blade will kill any random 4+ drop where as Lightning Bolt (most Red burn spells are in the 3 damage range) won't do shit or you have to 2/3 for 1 yourself to get by. It's not just the Thragtusks and Kitchen Finks that are an issue (though they are the worst) but rather the fact that most of Green's dudes can block profitably against Red and many of them don't die to Lightning Bolt class spells. All of Black's creature removal spells are better and it is a color with more evasion at lower CMCs.

Discard can often be one for one but considering Cube is a singleton format, taking that sweeper (or whatever problematic card) out of their hand before they can use it is much better that just trying to weather through it. Literally the only way a White aggro deck can interact with a Blue Control deck is via Geddons. Otherwise it has to hope its "army in a can" cards can do the trick. Not only do a good portion of Blacks dudes just straight up not die, it can sidestep the Wrath problem all together. If Green want to exercise its disruptive options in a quick fashion and come in before the 4 mana threshold that most Wraths come in, you need to ramp but then it becomes more of a midrange deck than an aggressive deck.

Cubes play better when as many aggressive options are available as possible. Nixing Black aggro is not going to make the MODO Cube better, especially when it has been effectively replaced with garbage.

 

[kirblar]

I can't be the only one a little concerned that the draft environment is going to be BOMBY AS FUCK DRAGON (we've seen 9 superbomb dragons already, only one of which is a mythic) pack wars. It doesn't help that the third pack is a set that's already filled with superbomb rares.

I think FRF's bombiness fits a lot better with what DRK is going to look like. Still think people are just going to prefer KTKx3 and DRKx3 at the end of the day.

 

[WanderingWind]

FRF draft strategy: Draft Silumgar.


We don't know about DTK's removal suite yet though.

 

[Angry Grimace]

FRF draft strategy: Draft Silumgar.


We don't know about DTK's removal suite yet though.

So far, "draft dragons lol" doesn't seem too off.

 

["God's Beard!"]

It's Dragons/Dragons/Fate, right?

That should make it better since the shit pack is at the end. Have fun filling out your playables, though.

 

[WanderingWind]

Fuck Yo' Dragon
1B
Instant
Kill target dragon

 

[Angry Grimace]

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";154448056]It's Dragons/Dragons/Fate, right?

That should make it better since the shit pack is at the end. Have fun filling out your playables, though.[/QUOTE]

Just draft [whatever bomb is in your FRF pack; lol if its Rally the Ancestors], then poach every piece of guaranteed fixing you can.

 

[kirblar]

This Time Travel structure will work much better under the 2-block paradigm. Lets you pull a Lorwyn/Shadowmoor with the whole thing and avoid this "draft with both!" issue that's awesome in theory but is kinda annoying in reality. (As a constructed set, FRF is very awesome, however.)

 

[WanderingWind]

Yeah, FRF has a ton of great constructed. Like Valorous Stance.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Magic: The Gathering |OT4| Valorous Stance Chat

 

[keeblerdrow]

Thought experiment time! A bunch of us at the LGS decided this Friday we're all bringing in a try-hard deck featuring 4 copies of any Theros god. The easy answers are Mogis and Thassa, I suppose. Anyone have any ideas on what I could brew up here? I was speccing deck lists for Phenax with a control/wall suite (new players say hello). I was looking at an Ephara value engine deck, but I'm not even sure what I'd want in there. There's also an Athreos sac engine deck, but it's very mana intensive to keep the opponent trapped.

I'm open to almost every god except Karametra. Because Karametra.

 

[kirblar]

Thought experiment time! A bunch of us at the LGS decided this Friday we're all bringing in a try-hard deck featuring 4 copies of any Theros god. The easy answers are Mogis and Thassa, I suppose. Anyone have any ideas on what I could brew up here? I was speccing deck lists for Phenax with a control/wall suite (new players say hello). I was looking at an Ephara value engine deck, but I'm not even sure what I'd want in there. There's also an Athreos sac engine deck, but it's very mana intensive to keep the opponent trapped.

I'm open to almost every god except Karametra. Because Karametra.

Go U/W, she's real good in midrangy decks.

Also, you get to be a giant jerk and play Deicide.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Thought experiment time! A bunch of us at the LGS decided this Friday we're all bringing in a try-hard deck featuring 4 copies of any Theros god. The easy answers are Mogis and Thassa, I suppose. Anyone have any ideas on what I could brew up here? I was speccing deck lists for Phenax with a control/wall suite (new players say hello). I was looking at an Ephara value engine deck, but I'm not even sure what I'd want in there. There's also an Athreos sac engine deck, but it's very mana intensive to keep the opponent trapped.

I'm open to almost every god except Karametra. Because Karametra.

R/W Aggro with Iroas, God of Victory.

Creatures (18)

4 Stormbreath Dragon
3 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
3 Soulfire Grand Master
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
4 Iroas, God of Victory

Spells (18)

4 Lightning Strike
2 Banishing Light
4 Hordeling Outburst
4 Stoke the Flames
4 Chained to the Rocks

Lands (24)

9 Mountain
5 Plains
2 Evolving Wilds
4 Battlefield Forge
4 Temple of Triumph

Sideboard (15)

3 Anger of the Gods
3 Deflecting Palm
3 Valorous Stance
4 Erase
2 Elspeth, Sun's Champion

 

[Joe Molotov]

Fuck Yo' Dragon
1B
Instant
Kill target dragon (also Silumgar, cuz fuck hexproof)

fixed

 

[Wichu]

Thought experiment time! A bunch of us at the LGS decided this Friday we're all bringing in a try-hard deck featuring 4 copies of any Theros god. The easy answers are Mogis and Thassa, I suppose. Anyone have any ideas on what I could brew up here? I was speccing deck lists for Phenax with a control/wall suite (new players say hello). I was looking at an Ephara value engine deck, but I'm not even sure what I'd want in there. There's also an Athreos sac engine deck, but it's very mana intensive to keep the opponent trapped.

I'm open to almost every god except Karametra. Because Karametra.

R/G ramp using the Xenagos + Atarka combo as your finisher. Timmy it up.

Phenax is pretty awesome unless your meta has any control in it at all. He rips apart midrange decks that can't hit through your high-toughness guys, but control can just take out your walls and make Phenax useless. I really enjoyed playing my morph mill deck (Trail of Mystery is a ridiculous card), but having my walls removed or drawing multiples of Phenax really sucks.

 

[Firemind]

Who is talking about aiming a Doom Blade at a mana elf? I'm saying that Doom Blade will kill any random 4+ drop where as Lightning Bolt (most Red burn spells are in the 3 damage range) won't do shit or you have to 2/3 for 1 yourself to get by. It's not just the Thragtusks and Kitchen Finks that are an issue (though they are the worst) but rather the fact that most of Green's dudes can block profitably against Red and many of them don't die to Lightning Bolt class spells. All of Black's creature removal spells are better and it is a color with more evasion at lower CMCs.

Which green creature can profitably block that doesn't die to bolt, costs less than four mana and isn't named Kitchen Finks? By the time the green deck has four mana, Goblin Guide will have already done its job. People assume green trumps red because its creatures are bigger. With red decks, creatures are only part of the puzzle. When they reach single digits, burn can and will finish opponents off. Cards like Brimstone Volley deal a quarter of life, so it doesn't even require that much.

Literally the only way a White aggro deck can interact with a Blue Control deck is via Geddons.

Are we playing the same cube? White has Thalia, Mother of Runes, Oblivion Ring, Eight-and-a-Half-Tails, Hallowed Spiritkeeper, Unexpectedly Absent, Tangle Wire.

 

[ultron87]

From Gaming Side: http://news.xbox.com/2015/03/games-idxbox-gdc-2015

Magic the Gathering: F2P (Wizards of the Coast): The world’s most beloved collectible card game goes free-to-play! It will make its console debut first on Xbox one

We Hearthstone now.

*braces for inevitable disappointment*

Edit: It's not actually called that. "Magic Duels™ Origins"

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUjnNUy0H1I

So probably just the DOTP 2015 model but with no initial purchase because that was dumb.

 

["God's Beard!"]

Which green creature can profitably block that doesn't die to bolt, costs less than four mana and isn't named Kitchen Finks?

Loxodon Smiter?

 

[Angry Grimace]

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";154465168]Loxodon Smiter?[/QUOTE]

That's kind of cheating to make it green, though. Courser of Kruphix is still in the Cube!

 

[SigmasonicX]

Link to the Gaming thread

 

[inthrall]

Which green creature can profitably block that doesn't die to bolt, costs less than four mana and isn't named Kitchen Finks?

Phantom Tiger, simian grunts, carven caryatid, penumbra bobcat work here

trusted forcemage and Wolfir Avenger are borderline, but I like them

 

[Angry Grimace]

Phantom Tiger, simian grunts, carven caryatid, penumbra bobcat work here

trusted forcemage and Wolfir Avenger are borderline, but I like them

Wait, aren't we talking about Cube?

 

["God's Beard!"]

That's kind of cheating to make it green, though. Courser of Kruphix is still in the Cube!

Well his example was Kitchen Finks.

 

[Angry Grimace]

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";154470478]Well his example was Kitchen Finks.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, but you can cast Finks as a straight-up green card.

 

[Maledict]

Still not sure why Magic, out of all things, is exclusive to the XBone in the current gen. Just seems like such a strange, arbitrary decision.

 

[Matriox]

But seriously. When it comes to digital magic games, does Wizards always make good decisions?

 

[Angry Grimace]

But seriously. When it comes to digital magic games, does Wizards always make good decisions?

You still can't leave comments on Gatherer.

 

[Lucario]

That 2RR dragon is pretty exciting. Will certainly give that a shot in place of Ashcloud Phoenix, which I feel gets Wild Slashed/Magma Sprayed/Lightning Struck a lot. This guy is open to Valorous Stance though so we'll see. Want to try it out.

I love it. Plays very well with Flamewake Phoenix and Stormbreath.

It's probably wishful thinking, but if a 2cmc mana rock gets printed, Big Red could become a very strong deck.

 

[Angry Grimace]

I love it. Plays very well with Flamewake Phoenix and Stormbreath.

It's probably wishful thinking, but if a 2cmc mana rock gets printed, Big Red could become a very strong deck.

That's happening on the first of Never. The last time they did that was what, Signets? That turned out well, no?

 

[ultron87]

I really want to play that Dragon with Stubborn Denial so they try to kill my guy, bolt themselves, and then get countered anyway.

I love Stubborn Denial.

 

[kirblar]

I love it. Plays very well with Flamewake Phoenix and Stormbreath.

It's probably wishful thinking, but if a 2cmc mana rock gets printed, Big Red could become a very strong deck.

They don't like 2CC mana rocks because they obsolete rampant growth effects.

 

[Angry Grimace]

They don't like 2CC mana rocks because they obsolete rampant growth effects.

Also, they're 2CC mana rocks in limited.

 

[kirblar]

Also, they're 2CC mana rocks in limited.

Turn 3 Wraths are also a ton of fun.

 

[inthrall]

Wait, aren't we talking about Cube?

Yeah, but he was asking for cards that met that set of criteria

 

[Crocodile]

Which green creature can profitably block that doesn't die to bolt, costs less than four mana and isn't named Kitchen Finks? By the time the green deck has four mana, Goblin Guide will have already done its job. People assume green trumps red because its creatures are bigger. With red decks, creatures are only part of the puzzle. When they reach single digits, burn can and will finish opponents off. Cards like Brimstone Volley deal a quarter of life, so it doesn't even require that much.


Are we playing the same cube? White has Thalia, Mother of Runes, Oblivion Ring, Eight-and-a-Half-Tails, Hallowed Spiritkeeper, Unexpectedly Absent, Tangle Wire.

I mean I'm not speaking from a hypothesis but rather from my experiences playing Magic and Cube. I'm not suggesting that Green decks are auto-losses for Red aggro decks at all. However, I don't think it useful or fair to assume that you're going to start every game with a Goblin Guide on the play or that you'll goldfish a Turn 4 win every time. The Green midrange dudes are harder to get through for Red decks than Black decks and the Green decks will cast them against you in most games. Also not only is Brimstone Volley one of the few burn spells that can do more than 3 damage, since its a morbid card, you have to jump through some hoops which often involves you losing a dude (i.e. its still a 2 for 1 against you often).

As for those White cards, not all of them interact in the same manner or axis I had in mind but I will admit I did brain fart and forget about Thalia (Mana Tithe would also be a similar card). Tangle Wire is a colorless card so I dunno why you mentioned that though.

They don't like 2CC mana rocks because they obsolete rampant growth effects.

This line of thought never made sense to me considering the cards don't go in the same decks. It reeks more of theory than reality. Green decks don't want/need mana rocks more often than not and non-Green decks wouldn't splash for Rampant Growths unless they were actually ramping into Green cards. I don't think a format ever needs more than one 2 CMC mana rock and I can understand if they would rather they produce colorless mana but Kamigawa/Ravnica and Ravnica/Timespiral were amongst the most diverse Standard formats I'd ever seen or played in and cards like Everflowing Chalice of Sphere of the Suns were not the problem cards in their respective formats.

Turn 3 Wraths are also a ton of fun.

Kind of hard to do when there are no 4 mana Wraths in standard or the current limited format

 

[kirblar]

This line of thought never made sense to me considering the cards don't go in the same decks. It reeks more of theory than reality. Green decks don't want/need mana rocks more often than not and non-Green decks wouldn't splash for Rampant Growths unless they were actually ramping into Green cards. I don't think a format ever needs more than one 2 CMC mana rock and I can understand if they would rather they produce colorless mana but Kamigawa/Ravnica and Ravnica/Timespiral were amongst the most diverse Standard formats I'd ever seen or played in and cards like Everflowing Chalice of Sphere of the Suns were not the problem cards in their respective formats.

They want to force you go green for that effect. They don't want the colorless options to be more efficient than the colored ones here. We've seen Bant control decks recently play Farseek specifically to ramp into Supreme Verdict, so their goal is working

Kind of hard to do when there are no 4 mana Wraths in standard or the current limited format

2cc Rock into a 4cc Wrath has been a traditional play in a number of previous standard formats.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Its really weird that spoiler season has started with such a whimper. Nothing really flashy and exciting beyond a Dragon that's exciting simply for being a 4 CMC dragon without a drawback. I get that they're saving it for PAX, but shoulda started with Sarkhan or Narset, imo

 

[divisionbyzorro]

Its really weird that spoiler season has started with such a whimper. Nothing really flashy and exciting beyond a Dragon that's exciting simply for being a 4 CMC dragon without a drawback. I get that they're saving it for PAX, but shoulda started with Sarkhan or Narset, imo

New Command cycle, bro! Get hype!