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Magic: the Gathering |OT10| Aether Revolt - That shit that make your Soul Burn slow

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Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
For the record, THS/KTK was the last standard I played- my last FNM coming shortly before DTK came out.



A lot of the hate comes from how opressive a deck Mono Black Devotion was, where if you never printed one of Gray Merchant, Pack Rat, or Nythkos, you probably would think higher of Thoughtsieze.

I think a lot of the conception that Mono-Black was "oppressive" is basically just a meme.

If you look at the GPs after Mono-Blue won PT Theros, there were lots of decks that had tournament success:

GP Dallas (2013)

1 Orzhov Control
2 UW Control
3 RG Devotion
4 Weenie White
5 Boros Aggro/Burn
6 Devotion to Black
7 UW Control
8 UW Control

GP Melbourne (2014)

1 Devotion to Black
2 UW Control
3 Esper Control
4 Jund Aggro
5 Devotion to Blue
6 Esper Control
7 RG Monsters
8 Orzhov Control

GP Cincinnati (2014)
1 Esper Control
2 Esper Control
3 Devotion to Black
4 Mono Black Aggro
5 Devotion to Blue
6 Esper Control
7 Naya Aura
8 Orzhov Control

GP Phoenix (2014)

1 Devotion to Black
2 Devotion to Blue
3 Devotion to Blue
4 Jund Aggro
5 Jund Aggro
6 Devotion to Black
7 Devotion to Black
8 UW Control

The problem card in MBD was Pack Rat, not Thoughtseize.
 

aidan

Hugo Award Winning Author and Editor
I think a lot of the conception that Mono-Black was "oppressive" is basically just a meme.

If you look at the GPs after Mono-Blue won PT Theros, there were lots of decks that had tournament success:

GP Dallas (2013)

1 Orzhov Control
2 UW Control
3 RG Devotion
4 Weenie White
5 Boros Aggro/Burn
6 Devotion to Black
7 UW Control
8 UW Control

GP Melbourne (2014)

1 Devotion to Black
2 UW Control
3 Esper Control
4 Jund Aggro
5 Devotion to Blue
6 Esper Control
7 RG Monsters
8 Orzhov Control

GP Cincinnati (2014)
1 Esper Control
2 Esper Control
3 Devotion to Black
4 Mono Black Aggro
5 Devotion to Blue
6 Esper Control
7 Naya Aura
8 Orzhov Control

GP Phoenix (2014)

1 Devotion to Black
2 Devotion to Blue
3 Devotion to Blue
4 Jund Aggro
5 Jund Aggro
6 Devotion to Black
7 Devotion to Black
8 UW Control

The problem card in MBD was Pack Rat, not Thoughtseize.

I think the success of the U/B Devotion decks at the end of the season coloured a lot of people's perceptions of what RTR/THS standard looked like.
 

Wulfric

Member
Hooray! I'm registered for GP Orlando. I got the Infinite badge, because the Scraper Champion playmat looks rad. Hareruya is a listed vendor too, hopefully I can get some of their sleeves. I heard they're quite good. And I can't wait to get my ass handed to me in Legacy again. xD

Also, it seems Pete Venters is attending. Maybe a Kiki Jiki alter is in order?
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I think the success of the U/B Devotion decks at the end of the season coloured a lot of people's perceptions of what RTR/THS standard looked like.

The very end of that season had a lot of GW Aggro in it, actually.
 

Tunoku

Member
Hooray! I'm registered for GP Orlando. I got the Infinite badge, because the Scraper Champion playmat looks rad. Hareruya is a listed vendor too, hopefully I can get some of their sleeves. I heard they're quite good. And I can't wait to get my ass handed to me in Legacy again. xD

Also, it seems Pete Venters is attending. Maybe a Kiki Jiki alter is in order?

I think KMC makes the Hareruya sleeves. They're quite good, but I don't think I'd ever dare to double sleeve them. They're really thick.
 

Ashodin

Member
Hey kamigawa was awesome

Also Kaladesh is awesome

I love vehicles

and Equipment

that is all

Amonkhet give me some good equipment bby ; (
 
Go look at the cards and say that again. Kamigawa was great for Vorthos and maybe some of the hybrids. So much trash in those sets.

Shod you gotta play vehicles in modern. Last time I played modern my opponent asked wtf vehicles were and how they worked with a super perplexed look. I explained and he still chose to attack right into my Smug copter.

Also how's the Dovin Baad challenge going?
 
Thoughtsieze didn't ruin Standard: what ruined Standard is that the colours had anything near the power of Packrat+Merchant+Thoughtsieze(outside of Blue) in a single color. I mean, we saw Green/White devotion when Khans was legal, but that's a completely different Standard.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Thoughtsieze didn't ruin Standard: what ruined Standard is that the colours had anything near the power of Packrat+Merchant+Thoughtsieze(outside of Blue) in a single color. I mean, we saw Green/White devotion when Khans was legal, but that's a completely different Standard.

Standard wasn't ruined. It was fun and all sorts of decks could compete. There's always gonna be a "best deck."
 

Hero

Member
We're talking about Thoughtseize being in standard again? Seriously? Did you guys not learn last time around?

If they reprint Thoughtseize again the surrounding blocks' black cards would have to suffer because of it, but sure.
 

red13th

Member
Kamigawa-Ravnica was the greatest standard format. Until a few years ago I still had my Standard decks from back then, a Selesnya Ghazi-Glare and a UG SNAKES deck (so much fun!).
 

HK-47

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.
So many people rushing to Maro's defense over that boneheaded tumblr response over on reddit. Even people arguing no cat ban and GY hate were acceptable decisions.
 

Ashodin

Member
Go look at the cards and say that again. Kamigawa was great for Vorthos and maybe some of the hybrids. So much trash in those sets.

Shod you gotta play vehicles in modern. Last time I played modern my opponent asked wtf vehicles were and how they worked with a super perplexed look. I explained and he still chose to attack right into my Smug copter.

Also how's the Dovin Baad challenge going?

#1 I'm a Vorthos mainly

#2 Hilarious

#3 Dovin Baan continues to surprise and wins me games
 
It's weird to me that Kamigawa has such an awful legacy, when the flavor is so much stronger than most other sets, the art is fantastic, the limited is considered fine to good outside Jitte, and Kamigawa/Rav standard is considered a high point of all time.

The problem with the Kamigawa flavor is that it works well in individual cards and horribly collectively. You can have these individual cards that are incredibly evocative like Godo, Bandit Warlord or That Which Was Taken, but you look at boosters of the whole set and it's like Cruel Deceiver - Dripping-Tongue Zubera - Eerie Procession - Honden of Seeing Winds - Cleanfall - Kusari-Gama - Kumano, Master Yamabushi and on and on and unless you're already actively familiar with the source material or at very least the Japanese language it all quickly becomes impossible to track or separate. The Kami collectively are very hard to distinguish and the Arcane spells all have weird abstract concepts that are totally different from how the same effects are typically flavored -- but then even with all this there also isn't the level of diversity in the setting because there's no gold cards and almost all tightly-constrained tribes and affiliations in each color. It's like perfectly positioned for people to discover the cool parts of by accident later on, but come off really poorly when it's 100% of what's on offer for a whole year.

The Limited format definitely didn't get the love it deserved at the time; CHKx3 was hella fun.

The interesting thing is that development likes Ninjutsu (Sam Stoddard initially tried to make Esper Ninjas a playable archetype in MM2017), but Maro seems to very much dislike it.

He does? I thought Rosewater was kinda into the ninjas.

BFZ deserves to be called the worst block, because it's surrounded by much better sets, abandons New World Order, has no little synergy between sets, and had a completely sucky limited environment.

Just quoting this one little part but yes, I agree 100% with this entire analysis.

THS/KTK was my favorite Standard (anecdotally, it was also the best attended). People always remember getting Rhino'd but there were a lot of powerful cards that could answer Siege Rhino and lots of powerful alternative strategies.

It was also a format with a lot of really interesting play during the actual matches; I enjoyed watching the Pro Tours in this era a lot.

Now we've shifted to liking Thoughtseize again?

I don't know that we need Thoughtseize exactly again (there's definitely a question of how much power should be individually wrapped up in a single discard spell), but there's a pretty good list of stuff that should always be available:

  • A strong, turn-one point-discard spell
  • A good enough general-purpose counterspell that decks run it
  • A cheap way to destroy planeswalkers
  • A good 5-mana sweeper
  • A cheap way to deal with giant waves of tiny tokens
  • A good 1-2 mana single-target creature kill
  • An effect to turn off individual cards
  • A couple ways to punish greedy manabases
 

traveler

Not Wario
The Vegas flashback draft for INN is the whole block?......

That is super disappointing. Triple INN is the best limited format of all time; AVR/DAS/INN is decidedly nowhere close. Hell, it's not even a real format- you do either triple AVR, which is terrible, or inn inn dark which is not as good as triple inn. I think I'll actually email and see if they'll consider changing it.
 
I just realized in my list of mechanics from BFZ I forgot Awaken, because dear God the set had so many mediocre mechanics in it. It only popped into my head because I remembered Ruinious Path exists as a card.

It was also a format with a lot of really interesting play during the actual matches; I enjoyed watching the Pro Tours in this era a lot.


I don't know that we need Thoughtseize exactly again (there's definitely a question of how much power should be individually wrapped up in a single discard spell), but there's a pretty good list of stuff that should always be available:

  • A strong, turn-one point-discard spell
  • A good enough general-purpose counterspell that decks run it
  • A cheap way to destroy planeswalkers
  • A good 5-mana sweeper
  • A cheap way to deal with giant waves of tiny tokens
  • A good 1-2 mana single-target creature kill
  • An effect to turn off individual cards
  • A couple ways to punish greedy manabases

Hell, KTK/THS had one of the best matches be a mirror match in the Worlds finals. If that's not a hallmark of a great format, I don't know what is.

I also like the list of cards, though I think (and this is 100% me) if they continue to push Creatures/Vehicles they can probably drop Generic Wraths(Judgement) back down to 4, Wrath with Upside(Fumigate/Planar Outburst) at 5 and "Exile-Wrath with Upside"(Descend upon the Fishermen) at 6. I mean, I'd even think this would be fine to see print:

Punish the Meek- 2WB

Sorcery

Destroy all creatures with CMC <=3.

I mean, if we continue to have cards like Rishkar/Reflector Mage/etc as creatures, I see a 4 Mana Generic Wrath as a strong safety valve.

I think them missing a Revolt Counterspell is probably one of the bigger misses in the set, even if Revolt wasn't in Blue.

Also, I hope they're going to put more ways to interact with Planeswalkers into future sets, because Ruinious Path at Sorcery speed isn't worth it. Adding in Pithing Needle/O-Ring/red cards that can hit them/better blue counters/Green fatties should help to reduce their strength though

I should just clarify I'm hopeful that Wizards is learning from their mistakes over the past few blocks in terms of "No Core Set=Lack of generic Answers". I'm not sure how they can get around it though. Maybe a core set light ala Hearthstone? Like, have R&D make up a list of 50 Good generic cards that they'd like to see in Standard as Safety Valves. Something like "White always has O-Ring, Blue always has Cancel, Green has Naturalize, Red has Lightning Strike, Black has Duress/Despise"? As some check on the format. We've already got cards in Standard legal products not legal in Standard, so why not Standard legal cards found in Intro/Planeswalker Decks?
 

traveler

Not Wario
Actual wrath of God would suck against Marduk vehicles. Scrapheap scrounger? Heart of Kiran? Gideon? thraben Inspector? Wrath feels terrible against those cards. It'd be what it is now- a tool for Mardu to use in its own sideboard. Wraths need upside at 4 to even have a shot if aggro is getting planeswalkers and creatures as resilient as it is.
 
I should just clarify I'm hopeful that Wizards is learning from their mistakes over the past few blocks in terms of "No Core Set=Lack of generic Answers". I'm not sure how they can get around it though. Maybe a core set light ala Hearthstone? Like, have R&D make up a list of 50 Good generic cards that they'd like to see in Standard as Safety Valves. Something like "White always has O-Ring, Blue always has Cancel, Green has Naturalize, Red has Lightning Strike, Black has Duress/Despise"? As some check on the format. We've already got cards in Standard legal products not legal in Standard, so why not Standard legal cards found in Intro/Planeswalker Decks?

Yeah, they can't do a real "core set" anymore -- they stopped that for very, very good reasons and I don't want them to start again. The theory I've been rolling around in my head this year is for each "Magic year" (i.e. fall to fall) come up with a "basic" set of like 30-40 cards, give them a custom frame treatment, and insert the same set of them at X frequency in all four sets from that year -- they already do a thing like this with Masters, so no reason they can't also use it for another purpose.
 

Ashodin

Member
The problem with the Kamigawa flavor is that it works well in individual cards and horribly collectively. You can have these individual cards that are incredibly evocative like Godo, Bandit Warlord or That Which Was Taken, but you look at boosters of the whole set and it's like Cruel Deceiver - Dripping-Tongue Zubera - Eerie Procession - Honden of Seeing Winds - Cleanfall - Kusari-Gama - Kumano, Master Yamabushi and on and on and unless you're already actively familiar with the source material or at very least the Japanese language it all quickly becomes impossible to track or separate. The Kami collectively are very hard to distinguish and the Arcane spells all have weird abstract concepts that are totally different from how the same effects are typically flavored -- but then even with all this there also isn't the level of diversity in the setting because there's no gold cards and almost all tightly-constrained tribes and affiliations in each color. It's like perfectly positioned for people to discover the cool parts of by accident later on, but come off really poorly when it's 100% of what's on offer for a whole year.

But then you have hella easy concepts to get like Samurai and Ninja and

Bushido is a badass ability that feels good on creatures
 
I just realized in my list of mechanics from BFZ I forgot Awaken, because dear God the set had so many mediocre mechanics in it. It only popped into my head because I remembered Ruinious Path exists as a card.
Awaken was the best mechanic from BFZ and was great. It fit the flavor of Zendikar perfectly and provided good game play buy making flooding not suck as much.
 
Awaken was probably the only good mechanic that came out of the Battle for Zendikar block. It's criminally under supported in just one set. I was hoping Noyan Dar and Halimar Tidecaller would get enough support cards in Oath, instead we got Wastes, and an unplayable version of Kozilek
 
Awaken was the best mechanic from BFZ and was great. It fit the flavor of Zendikar perfectly and provided good game play buy making flooding not suck as much.
Yeah it's a self contained mechanic that worked with just a bit of support. In OGW there was the embodiment cycle that gave Keywords to lands for instance. Technically UW was the awaken colour combination.

I really dislike how Oath get lumped in with BFZ. BFZ wasn't bad in a way it dragged OGW down with it.


Almost any set has cards you'll never cast. Kozilek was uncastable because you don't put a 10 mana card in your limited decks. I've played with Emrakul in draft and the best use I got out of her was discarding her to Nahiri's Wrath.
 
Almost any set has cards you'll never cast. Kozilek was uncastable because you don't put a 10 mana card in your limited decks. I've played with Emrakul in draft and the best use I got out of her was discarding her to Nahiri's Wrath.

Oddly enough I have casted that Kozilek in limited. I was criticizing it as being one of the worst constructed plants in recent memory, and Wastes and colorless lands matters in Oath was abysmal for draft.

I do think generally Oath was a good set for constructed though.
 

GoutPatrol

Forgotten in his cell
Yeah it's a self contained mechanic that worked with just a bit of support. In OGW there was the embodiment cycle that gave Keywords to lands for instance. Technically UW was the awaken colour combination.

I really dislike how Oath get lumped in with BFZ. BFZ wasn't bad in a way it dragged OGW down with it.


Almost any set has cards you'll never cast. Kozilek was uncastable because you don't put a 10 mana card in your limited decks. I've played with Emrakul in draft and the best use I got out of her was discarding her to Nahiri's Wrath.

The best 3xBFZ draft deck I ever made was all about casting Ulamog. I somehow got a Conduit of Ruin, 2 Kozilek's Channeler, Emeria Shepherd, 2x Brood Monitor, and a Nissa's Renewal. Just ramp ramp ramp, cast Ulamog, win.
 
The best 3xBFZ draft deck I ever made was all about casting Ulamog. I somehow got a Conduit of Ruin, 2 Kozilek's Channeler, Emeria Shepherd, 2x Brood Monitor, and a Nissa's Renewal. Just ramp ramp ramp, cast Ulamog, win.
That's awesome.
Oddly enough I have casted that Kozilek in limited. I was criticizing it as being one of the worst constructed plants in recent memory, and Wastes and colorless lands matters in Oath was abysmal for draft.

I do think generally Oath was a good set for constructed though.
That I can't agree with. Walker of the Wastes was abysmal in draft as you rarely were able to draft both but there were more than enough colourless lands at all rarities you could draft a 2 colour deck + diamond w/o issues. BFZ had evolving wilds to reward taking a wastes as well.
Kozilek is just not good enough for 10 mana, even when you can cast him easily in standard with Marvel he doesn't compete.
 

HK-47

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.
Man the twin bitching is incessant. They dont care if Modern is diverse or not. Just that a blue deck be tier 1.
 

HK-47

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.
Grixis isn't enough? Jeskai isn't enough? Those are decent color pairings in Modern, and the blue is pretty important.

It isnt as good as Suicide Aggro though. This is an injustice!

Its worse if they get Jace or Preordian unbanned though.
 
The Twin bitching is a symptom of blue not really being present in the format. People know something needs to be done about it and that's a thing that could be done. The thought experiment is whether or not the format can handle it now. Eldrazi in all forms has always been a deck that can/could prey on twin. Fatal Push is another new angle that can deal with Twin. Death's Shadow almost certainly can handle Twin. So what decks get pushed out? The format seems fast heading towards Eldrazi/Shadow dominance, is Twin something that would check that without going overboard?
 

HK-47

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.
The best periods in Modern's history have happened post Twin-ban and that's not an accident.

They will just say that Modern is merely 20 flavor of aggro racing each other. Because they'd rather it be legacy where the only aggro deck is tempo control.
 

Lucario

Member
Hooray! I'm registered for GP Orlando. I got the Infinite badge, because the Scraper Champion playmat looks rad. Hareruya is a listed vendor too, hopefully I can get some of their sleeves. I heard they're quite good. And I can't wait to get my ass handed to me in Legacy again. xD

Also, it seems Pete Venters is attending. Maybe a Kiki Jiki alter is in order?

Hareruya sleeves are the best. Would probably be cheaper to buy a case from their website, though - they ship to the US. 300 yen for 50 of those is an insane deal.
 

Santiako

Member
The Twin bitching is a symptom of blue not really being present in the format. People know something needs to be done about it and that's a thing that could be done.

But that's a fallacy. Blue is more present than white and no one bitches constantly about white. Merfolk, Grixis control, Grixis delver, Jeskai flash, jeskai control (nahiri or not), ad nauseam, rug scapeshift, all are blue decks that are good/have been good in the last year.
 

HK-47

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.
But that's a fallacy. Blue is more present than white and no one bitches constantly about white. Merfolk, Grixis control, Grixis delver, Jeskai flash, jeskai control (nahiri or not), ad nauseam, rug scapeshift, all are blue decks that are good/have been good in the last year.

I cant believe you would throw Infinite Stars under the bus like that.
 
A deck using blue doesn't make it a blue deck. Bant Eldrazi is technically a blue deck but nobody is calling it blue. The problem here is that blue is shorthand for blue control, a type of deck nobody is going to say is doing good in the format.

A format is only good after a banning because it's wide open by default. Any format takes months to come together, and post twin was essentially eldrazi winter, so claiming that post twin was a great period is kind of hilarious.

There is an argument that preordain could be unbanned because probe was banned. The issue with it is having too many strong cantrips in modern, and with one of those gone theres a power vacuum.
 

kirblar

Member
One big issue is that people don't see Control and Tempo as two sides of the same coin.

One is Disruption, then threats, the other is Threats, then disruption.
 
The only thing preordain unban would do is 3 months of combo being OP until it got banned again.

Preordain isn't stronger than probe in storm decks. Preordain also fuels control decks which prey on combo, which probe didn't do.

The real optimal out is a new card. Which may or may not be happening. Any unbanning will hinge on that.
 
Modern is the only format where the Aggro/Tempo deck is White, the "Buff a bunch of dudes" deck is blue, the best ramp deck is colorless, and the best Control deck is BG.

Man the twin bitching is incessant. They dont care if Modern is diverse or not. Just that a blue deck be tier 1.
The best part is that their solution to make Blue better.. is to unban a red card. Like, I'm not sure how that makes any sense that to help blue you make URx be the only viable combination.

Plus, I'm like 90% certain Twin is permanently stuck on the list because Visions/Sword got off. There's no way they'll let Twin get all that and more.

Twin was a bandaid that was only covered the issues with blue in the format, but sure, let's cover back up the wound rather then address the issues.

I cant believe you would throw Infinite Stars under the bus like that.

Yeah, I mean, has my complaining really left that little of a memory?

I'm fully aware I'm like the only person who cares about White in Modern and I can go a bit over the top.
 

Santiako

Member
Preordain isn't stronger than probe in storm decks. Preordain also fuels control decks which prey on combo, which probe didn't do.

The real optimal out is a new card. Which may or may not be happening. Any unbanning will hinge on that.

Preordain sends Ad Nauseam, Goryo's and the like over the top. Opt would be a great reprint that is not too strong yet would benefit mostly control decks,
 

HK-47

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.
Ad Naus would give its left nut to play Preordain over Visions or Sleight and thats already the best combo deck in the format.

Then you have Gifts Storm gaining traction.
 
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