Magic: The Gathering C/D

This is very close to what I ran yesterday. I agree with swapping in copter. A couple changes I'm seeing in the PT lists is swapping Wanderer with Thraben Inspector and Nebelgast with Reflector Mage. I'm on board with swapping in Inspector, but I don't really like Mage over Nebelgast because you lose a lot of flash and spirit synergies, and a lot of the creatures you might bounce with Mage have strong ETB effects.

the pt deck is very much just a UW midrange deck, not a spirits deck. that's fine as well, you just need to be comfortable with playing grindier games rather than aggroing people out

I'm going to try keeping in Nebelgast, I don't feel like I'd get much from Reflector Mage. I'm happy with the deck's ability to shift gears towards control as is.

nebelgast is definitely better in the tribal version

okay so I just got matched up against the same dude twice in a row during a Sealed league, which sucks because even though I won the first match (thanks to him getting colorscrewed in game 3), his deck was absolutely nuts and I got obliterated the second match. didn't know that was possible!!!

yeah its not supposed to happen i dont think? but its definitely happened to me in constructed leagues where theres fewer players in the pool

here's where i'm currently at with colossus
http://i.imgur.com/xXwRcpL.png

it really feels like its missing some major piece but it'd have to be a noncreature artifact and i've scoured all of standard and haven't found it yet - have tested everything up to and including aetherflux reservoir

Panharmonicon isn't playable, is it? Doubles up Crane, Prism, Puzzleknot, Trap, Skysovereign, but I doubt even that is enough to earn its place

Seer's Lantern seems like it could be ok though. Maybe Terrarion?

ive tried those. panharmonicon is crappy, the others are okay but dont really improve things especially in the bad matchups. i think more keys + kozilek's return might be worth pursuing

what's the Woodweaver's Puzzleknot for?

artifacts for colossus and helping stay alive, presumably

I'm excited for 24 months of turn 4 Aetherworks Marvel cheating a massive win condition onto the board!

Remember when it felt like Collective Company was Standard-legal forever?

But seriously, I generally take wotc's endless and capricious tweaks to their model in stride, but this new change has me irritated. Was the new set rotation really just an unmitigated disaster?

yeah this completely blindsided me and everyone else i know, so a lot of negative feedback must have been coming from newer/less competitive players. i'm fine with it though it sucks that the set that benefits most from it is oath of the gatewatch which has a lot of overbearing midrange cards and not a lot of fun synergy stuff

People seem pretty positive about the change, so I guess the shorter rotation was pretty unpopular. I was personally happy to see baby Jace, Collective Company, and Dromoka's Command go away, and I wasn't particularly saddened to bid farewell to Siege Rhino or fetchlands before that. It seems like every Standard format has a handful of obnoxious cards that overstay their welcome.

xp green puzzleknot is just for staying alive while progressing towards colossus. in a perfect world you'd get to play black puzzleknot in that slot but we need to make concessions to aggro, and vs control it still ends up representing half of a colossus redraw at some point which isn't the worst

jace and collected company would have had the same run under either rotation scheme since they were from spring/summer sets. siege rhino and the fetchlands did get cut short though.

the losers here are obviously the spring/summer blocks, i wonder if they'll make a conscious effort going forward to put what they think is the better constructed set of each pair of blocks in the fall slot. kaladesh seems like a nice one to have for the max length but if there's something particularly sweet in HOUR OF DEVASTATION it still only gets 15 months.

Yeah I too had no idea it was an unpopular change, but most of the Magic players I hear opinions from are pretty deep into competitive play. As someone who basically never plays Standard but enjoys watching it, I like the format changing often, but obv my opinion doesn't count for much

it's pretty unusual for standard to have a card go coast to coast as the best card, even collected company wasn't oppressive until reflector mage which came out halfway through its window

While you mention Collected Company, sometimes I wonder how much the current state of things affects players' opinions. For example, I bet it was a lot easier for players to swallow the change to all Standard PTs after the Modern PT this year. Collected Company was kind of an exception to Standard, I think pretty clearly the best card in Standard this year when there isn't always a best card, and I wonder if some of the players who don't like the change to a slower rotation have that card's oppressiveness in mind (I certainly do)

Woot! Took down Game Day with spirits, the deck is the real deal. I'm so glad that it has improved with rotation. Losing CoCo was a big factor in this. My last two rounds today were against bant decks that were not quite so good without it.

I also tried out vehicles at FNM this week, with mediocre results. The deck is good, I'm sure my results were down to weak gameplay, but I don't like being all-in aggro at this point. I felt exposed without all the answers that spirits provides.

ohhh man did I draft a fun U/R artifact energy deck, got out Whirler Virtuoso + Era of Innovation + Fabrication Module which essentially let me spend 1 energy to put a 2/2 artifact flyer in play. totally recommend drafting this deck if you can

the deck only went 1-2 but this was my finest Kaladesh moment so far: http://imgur.com/rspf5vc

awesome

that is truly living the dream

the finest boardstate i've had was in a paper draft but luckily my friend captured it: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CvVI7QDUsAARF7U.jpg:large

ha that is quite a collection of cards out there

in general i do best in this format when i draft/build conservatively though - there's less cardflow and fewer mana sinks baked in than most modern limited formats, so you can't afford to play many low impact cards or you'll find yourself struggling to keep up in the midgame. blue is considered weak but it actually has 2 of the best commons that push back against this (aether theorist and gearseeker serpent) so i've found myself drawn to it a lot.

yeah the u/artifact gearseeker deck seems pretty consistent both draft and playwise. the blue and black puzzleknots are actually reasonable in that deck, to help dig and as artifacts on the battlefield.

this format has taught me that i really dislike playing aggro and i will draft something else if there is any alternative. and i have been doing quite poorly as a result! even tho i am enjoying the format a ton, it has to be my least played for a couple years because i have 3-0'd like twice and my account is bare.

also if you are base green, there are 3 common mana fixers (attune with aether, prophetic prism, wild wanderer) and some good uncommon ones too (servant of the conduit, aether hub). that cloudblazer or whirler virtuoso or unlicensed disintegration is actually a green card in disguise. don't pass it.

and yeah i've always disliked playing aggro in limited despite being primarily an aggro player in constructed - i can't even remember the last set where WR was a color pair i actively wanted

blue puzzleknot has been surprisingly decent. I agree that blue is probably one of the weaker colors but it's definitely the most fun to play. That Scry 2/Draw 2/Get 2 Energy card is real good.

I've found almost all my best decks in this format splash (not always base green tho) or play for the long game. It's a slow enough format that you can durdle and win off of powerful cards like Cloudblazer or Virtuoso. I haven't had any success with base red decks yet, but my opponents have so I know it's possible to make it work, I just don't know how

i've had a good RG aggro deck but red's been a supporting color in all my other good ones iirc

tonight's 3-0 draft deck: http://i.imgur.com/2xdBTO6.png

v nice. see, i would've 100% played the prism and had another card that doesn't really do anything.

i boarded in prism along with the incendiary sabotage vs aggro which was effective - prism doesn't do enough in 2 color decks though unless you're way heavier on artifact synergies

Inventors Goggles strikes me as very very good in that deck - think the auto-equip is a lot better than it looks there since you often just curve into it.

How did Aether Tradewinds play in that deck? Its cool to get a bounce + re-cast some energy dude but that scenario doesn't seem to really play out to my advantage too often.

I take Prism pretty highly but don't always play it. With Serpent, Aether Tradewinds, Quicksmith, Era, and a couple double-colored cards, I'd play it in cider's deck though, probably over Rebuff, which is a card I always get trapped in hand. Nice deck though

yeah I'm very anti counterspells in general in Limited, though Ceremonious Rejection has actually been ok in my maindeck a few times

I'm rarely excited to play them maindeck, but some are great in the right machup. Same goes for pinpoint discard effects like Duress. Stuff with riders like Dissipate and Harsh Scrutiny I'll play more readily

xp tradewinds was the card i boarded out for more relevant stuff every match but it did win me some game 1s by protecting chandra

rebuff was just in becuase i was light on 2s and wanted to reduce my chance of getting run over, its not a card i'm generally looking to play. prism would certainly be preferable if i had like one more 2-drop creature

in general I'm friendlier to the 4- and 5-mana counterspell effects that come with decent upsides (for example the generate 3 clues one, from SOI) - they just never play well early game to me, but can be game-changers later on

not sure what to think of Harsh Scrutiny - in general I'm not big on cards that only really work well when they're in your opening hand. still, see their hand + nab their best creature + scry is pretty good for one mana

peregrine drake got an emergency ban in pauper fyi

Confirm Suspicions was legit good, but you can put Investigate 3 on almost any card and it becomes good

xp what I dislike about Rebuff is that even when you have it in solely for that purpose, not to get run over, your opponent can play a vehicle or artifact creature. maybe it's worked for you but I haven't had much luck with the card

yeah I have no problem inserting iffy 2-mana counterspells if I don't have many 2 drops, but a lot of decks seem to play 4-5 artifacts and many of those are 2 and 3 drops so yeah

Finally gave in and went for the full midrange UW flash deck and it absolutely destroyed FNM. I lost my first game after a mulligan to 5 and then didn't lose again all night. Don't know why I resisted it fir so long.

the secret is that it plays 4 gideon and 4 avacyn, the strongest cards in the format

I only own 3 of each and have been playing them all along. The big change for me was dropping Rattlechains and Nebelgast for Reflector Mage, Thalia, and some more removal and counters.

another blue draft deck, another 3-0 http://i.imgur.com/nz9SaA1.png