Magic: The Gathering C/D

on a related note, i have had a mentality switch w/r/t face down morphs from thinking that a morph is a good plan for turn 3 to making sure i have something better in my deck for that turn and playing a morph as my fall back

having creatures that can be either 3 drops or late drops is not bad, but you have to account for the mana+tempo costs from unmorphing

I play 2c aggro decks 80% of the time in this format and having someone play a t3 morph, refuse to trade w/ my 2/1, unmorph it, then get it bell striked or whatever = so many easy wins

so yeah morphs are generally powerful cards but I regularly end up w/ only 2 or 3 in my deck

i think its ok for all your 3s to be morphs if it means you're picking up more good 2s and 4s which are in much shorter supply in this format

yeah I think you really screw yourself if you don't have *some* play t3, given that that's what this format revolves around

i think there are enough good cards at 4, altho it is easy to fall into the trap of neglecting t4 in between the major morph turns. but yeah good 2 drops are hard to find. one of the inherent advantages of a more aggressive deck is that it forces you to have a curve, and you're not skipping your early turns just because you have a stack of powerful cards and you hate wasting a spot on gdman wetland sambar

haha I won a draft w/ a 5 wetland sambar deck the other day

I'm starting to think the 0/4 Outlast for B is even better than I thought. You don't often play anything turn 2 so you can usually Outlast 'em right away and if you do it twice you get a 2/6 which is pretty much a brick in this format. Plus it's a Warrior, it makes Treefolk sorcery real good, and gives you a Raid trigger for a turn 2 Mardu Skullhunter

yeah it's solid, so is the 0/5 pinger wall

agreed on both. and that they are 2 of the better early drops tells you about the general quality on offer. one problem with the B 0/4, and really with injury to an extent, is that early black is otherwise pretty bad. skullhunter is your only other good black common at 1, 2 or 3 and even that is an awkward card. black seems to be better as a third or splash colour.

yeah skullhunter is underwhelming, you often have to hold on to it to get the raid trigger, and it feels like a one for one so often because a later-game 2/1 is just dead

or you just need a 2 power blocker. the saddest skullhunter is they have face down morphs, you have nothing on board, you play your 2/1, tapped, no trigger

skullhunter isnt great but i think people undervalue how effective hand disruption is. like a) the average cmc of most peoples decks is higher than in other formats b) people are often cheating by one or even two mana sources s c) morphs mean that people will not play cards from their hands as quickly all of which means you are v likely to get a relevant card off the raid trigger and that its not a terrible turn five play in conjunction with another card. i think the biggest downside to skullhunter is that it comes into play tapped

ancestor and skullhunter being p reliable wheels is one of the big reasons that i am drafting black in almost 80% of my drafts

I feel like the mind rot card is above average in this format for that reason

just read that PV piece

"Dead Drop, which Owen's team says is the third best uncommon [...] and Trail of Mystery, which Ari Lax's group thinks is a first-pick bomb"

the first one is surprising, the second is totally wtf for me. i don't think i have seen that card played even.

There's a guy at my LGS who tries to make Trail of Mystery work. the problem is there isn't really a "morph deck"; Secret Plans is not very good and there aren't a lot of cheap unmorph dudes. I don't think it's a bomb.

Dead Drop is very good; I think Falconer, Murderous Cut, and Arc Lightning are all better but 3rd best isn't that out of line.

The card I'm curious about is Molting Snakeskin. Aggro isn't really a great strategy in KTK but this card at least helps you bust through all the 0/5s. I haven't played it outside of desperation but I wonder if it's secretly a good Mardu card.

I played 2 copies in an aggro dimir deck, mostly because I didn't have anything else for those 2 spots, but it actually worked really well

I'd say Sultai Scavenger is a pretty good black common

removal is bad and slow in this set, so unless they have injury you can often find a spot to get it on a guy

Pretty sweet Trail of Mystery/Villainous Wealth deck with double Dead Drop from Reid Duke here:

http://www.channelfireball.com/videos/channel-reiderrabbit-khans-of-tarkir-draft/

http://www.magicspoiler.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Crux-of-Fate.jpeg

block narrative alert. all dragon 3rd set.

we've basically known for months that the 3rd set is called dragons of tarkir

so my friends are organizing an old school league w/ the following guidelines:

legal sets:
Fallen Empires
Homelands
4th+5th Edition
Ice Age
Alliances
Chronicles
Mirage
Visions
Weatherlight
Tempest
Stronghold
Exodus

Banned:
Anything on the legacy/vintage banlists
Anything over $5 tcg mid (wrath of god is one exception)

who wants to help me break this format? I feel like the bans and relatively large card set really push sligh, which I think is gonna be the #1 deck. so what beats sligh?

is turbostasis viable?

another thing I was thinking - that wasn't playable at the time due to chronicles not being in standard - is mono-blue tron w/ whispers of the muse, disk, all the counterspells ever. is tron playable w/ no land-search?

no urza block is fucking up everything cool i think of for this

yeah we decided against it on purpose

i think all the top non-sligh decks from this time period had cards that are banned in legacy now

otherwise it's just like, urza's block constructed plus hymn and bolt and swords xp

yeah not across the board but a handful

prosbloom seems a little slow but most of the cards are available

cuneoblue is more or less what I was thinking w/ my urza's deck and almost everything there is available. it does seem soft to sligh.

monoblack minus necro seems ??? obviously hymn and ritual->specter is pretty great, but is that enough? can hymn fit into any other build?

there's not even anything good to natural order for in this format, is there?

haha yeah green just seems not even worth considering on any level, maybe if oath was available

if you really think everyones going to play sligh then i think you play white weenie with 4 CoP Red

I feel like ww is so bad even then, like your creatures just aren't relevant enough. maybe a variant w/ 4 geddeons?

monoblue can play like 4 hydroblasts, 4 red elemental blast

too bad cataclysm is $10, damn you edh, this deck looks fun otherwise

Matt Linde
Winner, US Nationals 1998
3 Nomads en-Kor
3 Paladin en-Vec
4 Soltari Monk
4 Soltari Priest
1 Soltari Visionary
4 Soul Warden
4 Warrior en-Kor
4 White Knight
1 Aura of Silence
4 Cataclysm
3 Disenchant
4 Empyrial Armor
4 Tithe
17 Plains

Sideboard:
1 Afterlife
3 Abeyance
3 Aura of Silence
1 Disenchant
1 Soltari Visionary
2 Spirit Link
2 Tariff
2 Wrath of God

sands of time/equipoise is another combo deck that's in this format. not sure what the shell of the deck was though, i'm having trouble finding good decklists from that era. also not sure if its better or worse than pros bloom

i think i like equipoise more b/c it lets you play a UW shell with wrath and/or fow

i guess fow isn't legal though hah

oh I like that one hmmm...

yeah there's also enduring renewal + goblin bombardment but a 3 card combo deck

in a WR shell

seems bad

countersliver would be fun but i dont know if it beats the red deck without worship

also the mana is sketchy without duals

yeah countersliver seems like it really needs a. good mana b. the counterspells that happen to be banned

if it was me i would probably just try to build a prosbloom deck because it's fun and even if you're losing you get to play with squandered resources which is one of the all-time great magic cards aesthetically

I'm probably gonna build two decks and at least one of them will probably be around these lines. I feel like this type of control deck loses the least from not having fow.

http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mf111

Main Deck
60 cards

18 Island
4 Quicksand
4 Stalking Stones
26 lands

1 Rainbow Efreet
1 creature

4 Counterspell
4 Dismiss
2 Dissipate
3 Forbid
4 Force Spike
4 Impulse
3 Mana Leak
1 Memory Lapse
4 Nevinyrral's Disk
4 Whispers of the Muse
33 other spells

Sideboard
2 Capsize
1 Grindstone
4 Hydroblast
4 Sea Sprite
4 Wasteland
15 sideboard cards

Main Deck
60 cards

14 Island
4 Quicksand
3 Svyelunite Temple
1 Winding Canyons
22 lands

2 Dancing Scimitar
4 Steel Golem
6 creatures

2 Argivian Restoration
3 Capsize
4 Counterspell
4 Dismiss
2 Disrupting Scepter
4 Dissipate
3 Mind Stone
4 Nevinyrral's Disk
2 Power Sink
4 Whispers of the Muse
32 other spells

Sideboard
1 Amber Prison
3 Dream Tides
1 Essence Bottle
4 Hydroblast
2 Jester's Cap
2 Knight of the Mists
1 Rainbow Efreet
1 Steal Artifact
15 sideboard cards

Main Deck
60 cards

15 Island
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Plains
2 Quicksand
2 Soldevi Excavations
3 Thawing Glaciers
27 lands

4 Ghost Ship
3 Wall of Air
7 creatures

1 Circle of Protection: Red
4 Control Magic
4 Counterspell
4 Dissipate
4 Force of Will
2 Inspiration
4 Nevinyrral's Disk
2 Political Trickery
1 Recall
26 other spells

Sideboard
3 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Circle of Protection: Red
1 Disenchant
4 Disrupting Scepter
2 Energy Flux
1 Giant Tortoise
1 Plains
1 Political Trickery
1 Steal Artifact
15 sideboard cards

yeah prosbloom is fun for sure, that might be my other

also might be soft to sligh though, which really gets a lot of good cards w/ this period...

like, half my life, half my life, fill your hand with fireblasts

i think prosbloom has to be built pretty different for this format - you have access to a lot more draw spells, meditate is one that comes to mind

looking into it, I think the 6th edition rules change is the biggest problem. you can't go into negative life during a phase anymore, so vs a red player w/ open mana...

also no vamp tutor hurts

what about some u/w tempo deck

something like:

4 swords
4 spirit link
4 memory lapse
4 mana leak
4 soltari priest
4 soltari monk
4 savannah lions
4 order of leitbur
4 armageddeon

other options...disrupt, curiousity, island sanctuary, sapphire charm