yeah a lot of the junk commons in modern sets are put there for specific sideboard reasons once they've run out of what they think that color's 'power budget' is
in your example merfolk of the pearl trident was also a throwback to alpha along with master of the pearl trident, since it and lord of atlantis were the only merfolk in alpha
― ciderpress, Friday, 24 February 2017 20:03 (seven years ago) link
infect is a little too dangerous
― iatee, Friday, 24 February 2017 20:09 (seven years ago) link
yeah it has balance issues too. i really don't expect it to come back to standard-legal sets. it'll probably get some supplemental cards at some point like how cascade got a planechase deck
― ciderpress, Friday, 24 February 2017 20:13 (seven years ago) link
thinking about how you would bring infect back, it is kind of fun imaging how to make the archetype work if all/most of the infect creatures in the set have <1 power.
― Roberto Spiralli, Friday, 24 February 2017 20:21 (seven years ago) link
quick google seems to suggest we've had only one card with negative power, altho i am not necessarily advocating reprinting char rumbler with infect.
― Roberto Spiralli, Friday, 24 February 2017 20:24 (seven years ago) link
it was before i started playing but im told that infect wasnt a particularly good limited mechanic
― ( ^_^) (Lamp), Friday, 24 February 2017 20:27 (seven years ago) link
well it's like the mill problem but worse, right? can you reliably get a whole deck together working towards the alt win con?
― Roberto Spiralli, Friday, 24 February 2017 20:30 (seven years ago) link
infect started as just the BG archetype in scars and then they added colors as the block went on and made some cards like viral drake and whatever the infect pinger was called that let you use it as a backdoor wincon rather than just an aggro + pump spells deck.
in triple scars you basically had to be BG to play it though and people fought over it and ended up with awful decks since the deck obviously had really limited resources creature-wise. occasionally you could get a UG or UB infect going with enough proliferate but that wasn't a reliable strategy until they added the small sets.
― ciderpress, Friday, 24 February 2017 20:39 (seven years ago) link
the problem was it was strong enough that if no one contested it then the BG infect player just auto-won the draft, there had to be at least 2 BG drafters at the table for it to be balanced.
― ciderpress, Friday, 24 February 2017 20:42 (seven years ago) link
iirc the Infect decks were alright, led to some interesting draft decisions since the stuff you'd want out of non-infect dudes is a bit different if you go that route. there were certainly enough at common, the issue was they just went overdrafted for a good while. I don't remember too many games where you'd get a guy to 6 poison counters and 8 life and then lose - the big problem would be when the person to your right would just suddenly switch into Infect
― frogbs, Friday, 24 February 2017 20:43 (seven years ago) link
then again I never played that one online, just at my LGS where you'd always have a couple of drafters who would want to go Infect before the draft even started
― frogbs, Friday, 24 February 2017 20:44 (seven years ago) link
yeah there were definitely People Who Forced Infect in that format which was fine with me because i liked the other decks better
i think that was one of the rare blocks where the middle format was the best - the first set had a few too many important cards to be a one-pack affair but not enough archetypes to be a good 3x
― ciderpress, Friday, 24 February 2017 20:50 (seven years ago) link
plus bleeding infect to other colors was probably not a great choice
― frogbs, Friday, 24 February 2017 21:05 (seven years ago) link
i liked the slight bleeds in the 2nd set - the white infect creatures made some variety possible (though GB was still the best)
― ciderpress, Friday, 24 February 2017 21:15 (seven years ago) link
i'd kinda like to play that format again now that i'm thinking about it, but im pretty sure i'm the only one who a) likes that block for draft and b) likes specifically MSS best of the 3 iterations so i probably missed my only chance with the flashbacks last year
― ciderpress, Friday, 24 February 2017 21:21 (seven years ago) link
Living Weapon was a really cool mechanic. too bad Batterskull pretty much overshadowed everything though
what were the great full, 3-set block draft formats? off hand it's hard to think of any that were clearly better than simply doing 3x the large set, though I tend to like the wackier formats like full Time Spiral block and RTR/GTC/Dragon's Maze.
― frogbs, Friday, 24 February 2017 21:37 (seven years ago) link
most 3rd sets have sucked unfortunately so there's no obvious answer to this. invasion block is probably the best but it's a little antiquated when you hold it up against good modern limited sets.
time spiral block was very close but sprout swarm ruined it
journey into nyx is a good 3rd set but it's in a pretty mediocre block. still probably a runner-up.
i've never bought into the hype for either ravnica block, they both had big structural issues in draft. return to ravnica full block was my favorite sealed format ever though.
― ciderpress, Friday, 24 February 2017 21:48 (seven years ago) link
my favorite draft formats:
invasion block: IPAkamigawa block: CCC and CCBtime spiral block: TTT and 'fixed' TPF (replace all Sprout Swarms after the draft with Scatter the Seeds from ravnica)zendikar block: ROE x3innistrad block: III and DIIM13 x3ORI x3shadows block: EES
haven't really cared for any of the masters sets so far but i think a great one is possible. ROE only pulled off the 'bunch of non-intersecting tracks' thing by having most of its archetypes be unusual and new to limited. in a fully retrospective set it works against the experience imo.
― ciderpress, Friday, 24 February 2017 22:20 (seven years ago) link
please not Infect again. Scars block was fun but that block really was defined by infect and I don't think we need another block like that. I wouldn't mind poison counters coming back in another form, but hard to imagine what that would be if not infect
― Vinnie, Saturday, 25 February 2017 02:08 (seven years ago) link
I'm dipping my toe into modern with burn. It seems that naya isn't really the way to go right now, so will probably be focusing on pretty much straight up R/W with a small splash for Destructive Revelry. I tried my first event last night with more or less this build. Although I didn't do amazing, it felt like every match was very close and often came down to whether I top decked the right thing on the final turn. I think a few tweaks to the deck will help swing this more in my favor. I definitely learned a lot about some of the decks and tricky interactions in the format. My opponents were very nice and helpful, which I appreciated.
― Al Moon Faced Poon (Moodles), Saturday, 25 February 2017 15:25 (seven years ago) link
oh man i love modern burn
i havent played it in quite a while though so i don't know what the good build is now - last time i played it it had deathrite shaman in it
― ciderpress, Saturday, 25 February 2017 15:38 (seven years ago) link
This type of RW build seems to be doing best right now:
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/573714#paper
The more creature-heavy builds aren't great because of cards like Fatal Push and Collective Brutality. It's also nice to have maindeck Lightning Helix to help mitigate all the damage you do to yourself. Against all the other aggressive decks out there, Helix can buy you that one extra turn to close things out.
One intriguing variation I've been seeing this past week is RB burn with Gonti's Machinations and Bump In The Night:
http://www.channelfireball.com/videos/channel-pmayne-modern-gonti-burn/
― Al Moon Faced Poon (Moodles), Saturday, 25 February 2017 15:58 (seven years ago) link
yeah bump in the night was in deathrite burn
― ciderpress, Saturday, 25 February 2017 16:07 (seven years ago) link
invasion block is probably the best but it's a little antiquated when you hold it up against good modern limited sets.
It was fun but it had its own 3rd set problem - it pushed hard for allied pairs and 3-color combos in Invasion and Planeshift, then by the time you got to Apocalypse where all the real good stuff was, you suddenly were shifted into enemy pairs, of which you'd only have one. Cards like Lightning Angel were basically unplayable for that reason. As I recall full block Rav had a similar problem.
― frogbs, Saturday, 25 February 2017 17:09 (seven years ago) link
full block rav the problems were more that the common duals were way too strong to the point where it was correct to take off-color ones over most spells, so everyone ended up with sketchy manabases since the lands didn't fall to the right people. also there were weird color balance issues where e.g. the GW deck in pack 1 was really strong but also a trap, you needed to get like 2/3rds of your deck from pack 1 or you got screwed because it didn't lead into 3 color decks like the others.
― ciderpress, Saturday, 25 February 2017 17:23 (seven years ago) link
RTR fixed those problems by going 5-5-10 instead of 4-3-3 but then they fucked that up by putting most of the linear mechanics in the same set
― ciderpress, Saturday, 25 February 2017 17:29 (seven years ago) link
really hope the saheeli combo gets banned in standard asap
― ciderpress, Sunday, 26 February 2017 04:43 (seven years ago) link
play mardu vehicles and watch them fold
― Al Moon Faced Poon (Moodles), Sunday, 26 February 2017 04:56 (seven years ago) link
the 4 color build does fine vs mardu (and everything else)
― ciderpress, Sunday, 26 February 2017 05:12 (seven years ago) link
i'm getting completely wrecked in this limited format after crushing 3x KLD
― ciderpress, Sunday, 26 February 2017 19:12 (seven years ago) link
funnily enough i am the exact reverse. i think in KLD i was distracted by drafting decks that were appealing to me to play but only sometimes effective, whereas there are almost no viable options in this format that do not involve smashing face. also, your uncommon run breakout has been a delight.
― Roberto Spiralli, Sunday, 26 February 2017 19:47 (seven years ago) link
it's mostly just let me know that green is never open, which i already knew. i think it'd be more valuable in a non-artifact format
― ciderpress, Sunday, 26 February 2017 20:11 (seven years ago) link
knowing that revolutionary and tusker are in the same pack has saved from a bunch of frustrating pack ones
― ( ^_^) (Lamp), Sunday, 26 February 2017 20:16 (seven years ago) link
enemy fetches are a go in new Modern Masters
― Al Moon Faced Poon (Moodles), Monday, 27 February 2017 16:27 (seven years ago) link
ditto here. never quite got ahold of KLD, I'd often draft myself into a brick wall and wind up with decks that just didn't work. this format feels a bit more fluid to me. I love that wacky limited decks are suddenly in vogue since that's usually my strong suit. I've been dominating with U/R which is a color combination that's pretty much never Tier 1. IDK if it is here but I've been doing really well with decks that have 2-3x of each Sweatworks Brawler and Aether Swooper. Gear-Smasher is also somewhat vital in that deck.
― frogbs, Monday, 27 February 2017 16:31 (seven years ago) link
just from the day 1 info i already suspect that this is going to be a better limited set than the last MM
― ciderpress, Monday, 27 February 2017 16:39 (seven years ago) link
yeah i like the sound of this so far
― Roberto Spiralli, Monday, 27 February 2017 17:26 (seven years ago) link
goblin guide in, though without the original art sadly
― ciderpress, Monday, 27 February 2017 17:52 (seven years ago) link
original goblin guide is one of the rare triple threat cards (good card, good art, good flavor text)
― ciderpress, Monday, 27 February 2017 17:53 (seven years ago) link
my exposure to the idea that the goblin guide art might be beloved for some reason comes from just reading someone speculating that the new art might be on purpose to maintain the price of the original, and now here.
i wish the damnation reprint had really terrible new art, that would've been hilarious.
― Roberto Spiralli, Monday, 27 February 2017 18:00 (seven years ago) link
meanwhile, if i had a deck with terminates, i would go out of my way to get this exact version, in japanese:https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C5uHAz5U0AA35PJ.png
― Roberto Spiralli, Tuesday, 28 February 2017 14:26 (seven years ago) link
i dont understand that art but i like it anyway. the original with the volcano is good too tho
― ciderpress, Tuesday, 28 February 2017 14:46 (seven years ago) link
Snapcaster Mage in at mythic
― Al Moon Faced Poon (Moodles), Tuesday, 28 February 2017 16:19 (seven years ago) link
xp both the other versions (that i know anyway) are good actually, but i do really like this one. also the flavour text is apparently 'the sun always sets' in a p cool riposte to sun titan text.
― Roberto Spiralli, Tuesday, 28 February 2017 16:32 (seven years ago) link
the one thing i know about shards of alara was that the fixing sucked in limited, so it is going to be pretty sweet actually being able to cast those 3/4 mana shard uncommons.
i think i have managed to not put any money on mtgo so far this year so i am v excited to use that as an excuse to piss away a small fortune on this set.
― Roberto Spiralli, Tuesday, 28 February 2017 16:41 (seven years ago) link
yeah shards was weird, they made a big deal about doing a 3 color set and then just way undershot on the amount of fixing you need to play 3 colors in limited. full block fixed it with landcycling and borderposts and armillary sphere and such but in the first set you had to just play 2 colors with a small splash
― ciderpress, Tuesday, 28 February 2017 17:09 (seven years ago) link
new stony silence art also v good imohttps://pbs.twimg.com/media/C5xj9aTWYAA-rt0.png
― Roberto Spiralli, Tuesday, 28 February 2017 20:06 (seven years ago) link
that reminds me of this plains art http://media.wizards.com/2016/images/daily/V9pr1xWOgp_KW_Plains.jpg
― ciderpress, Tuesday, 28 February 2017 20:21 (seven years ago) link
ok, im doing my part to get this shit banned http://imgur.com/a/ursDc
― ciderpress, Wednesday, 1 March 2017 03:55 (seven years ago) link
so the new modern masters is looking pretty absurd. I've seen some speculation that this is wotc's move to cash out of modern, don't know if there's any truth to that.
this seems like a rare case where buying boxes might actually be good value. is $225 per box worth it or just crazy?
― Al Moon Faced Poon (Moodles), Wednesday, 1 March 2017 15:38 (seven years ago) link