Magic: The Gathering C/D

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

brainstorm plus the uw mirage fetch

abeyance

went 5-0 at FNM last night with a Temur Monsters deck I've been working on for the last several weeks. It's a lot of fun to play with hasty or hard to kill creatures like knuckleblade, stormbreath, boon satyr, and ashcloud phoenix backed up with counters and burn, although I'd say it's a bit shy of true tier 1 deck. I faced several control variants which are pretty favorable match ups for me. Dropped a game each against UB control and Jeskai aggro in the final round and 2-0ed BW Control, a Mardu build, and Sultai control with Villainous Wealth. Definitely going to stick with it for now and see how it does.

i'm playing the one from gp santiago which i think is good
http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=1220411

Yeah, I like that one, was a bit closer to it last week. Currently I'm at -1 Heir, -1 Polukranos, -3 Strikes, -1 Crater's Claws, -1 land, +2 Stormbreath, +1 Surrak, +3 Stubborn Denial, +1 Temur Charm. Also a somewhat different sideboard with an additional Surrak, Icy Blast, 2 Angers, and Hornet Queen.

I've found that I'm much more excited about Stubborn Denial than Lightning Strike in general, so I've swapped them between main and side.

started gp ottawa 6-0 ended up 7-2. i was up a game round 9 and basically had the win on the board but fucked it up for reasons that will probably always remain a mystery. (although playing 8 rounds of magic on 3.5 hours of sleep def played into things)

anyway finished day one in 60th but i feel p confidant in my khans draft.

awesome, gl tomorrow. what was your pool like?

go Lamp!

Nice job Lamp, eyes on the prize. Latest episode of South Park was about MTG, was alright. Surprised that they kept the game about 75% accurate, even down to card names.

It was weird, at one point they were clearly just reading cards off the M15 spoiler, most everything was from that or Khans, though at one point they had a Psychogenic Probe and even read the text off it, totally a wtf moment for anyone who knows the game. Interesting for me was how they cheaply reproduced the art on all those cards with similar but really shoddy images. If you know the original images it's kind of funny. This screenshot was the biggest I could find:

http://moargeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Magic-Board.png

awesome, gl tomorrow. what was your pool like?

solid but not super busted abzan. i had a seige rhino which i got to cast in almost all my games. i kept joking that the gp anthem shouldve been S.R.E.A.M. cuz there were siege rhinos everywhere around me all day. the other rares i played were windswept heath and grim haruspex which was really good once i started playing against duneblast and/or end hostilites every round. the best thing about my pool was that i didnt have to play any bad cards like my worst card was probably war behemoth. also dead drop was insane for me and i felt pretty good about my choice to play one scout the borders as fixing and to enable cut/dead drop. day one biggest brag: beating someone with the wingmate roc, foil wingmate roc pool.

i had another disappointing day two though. i went 1-2 in my first draft pod 2-1 in my second. ive managed to day two all three gps ive played but have had pretty miserable day twos or really just first drafts. ive gone 0-3, 1-2, 1-2 in those three drafts. mostly this serves to remind me that mtgo 8-4s are really pretty soft and that i still have lots to improve in my limited game. anyway i ended up 10-5 for 78th place and 250 bucks. then since three people that i was carpooling with were still in contention in the sunday super series i decided to use my voucher for $15 off a side event to play a draft win-a-box. because it was the last one of the night they gave everyone an additional three packs for registering. i drafted probably the best khans deck i will ever draft - just the perfect b/w warriors decks with an amazing curve, perfect mana (i had two scoured barrens) good rares in bloodsoaked champion, utter end and the haruspex &c &c. had a very easy 3-0/6-0 and when i went to collect my box they gave me another three packs. so i won a box + 9 packs in a free tournament which was a fun way to end the weekend. sorry for blogging

holiday cube is BACK! took me 3 minutes to get totally screwed by the new unerrata of Time Vault, which turns out is a pretty good combo with Tezzeret...

yeah time vault is super busted in this cube

I actually find this less fun than the legacy cube because fair archetypes are basically unplayable

like last night I won in the finals with t1 crypt, island, tinker, inkwell which is 'fun' but...

otoh monored was way too strong in the legacy cube and it's nice to not just have to always lose to the fun police. other than that I *really* liked it though.