Magic: The Gathering C/D

that's actually a 6 mana wrath you've been tricked

I fully expect some kind of shenanigans to circumvent the drawback

then its a 3 + cost of the shenanigans mana wrath

there's really no way around losing a turn's worth of mana when you cast this. i don't think it's gonna be very good.

back during the summer of Goblins I could imagine a 3-mana Wrath being really useful. dunno if there's gonna be a deck like that again.

so I qualified for the pro tour today via rptq...

GRATS!

great job dude!

niiice

its the japan one next month? or the one after that?

bunch of big announcements coming this week about the Future Of Magic and all that

Awesome news, iatee!

great job iatee! what format? which PT did you qualify for?

it's kyoto. I qualified with sealed. idk if I can actually make it because it's so soon + a 14 hour plane trip in both directions and I just started a new job / already taking a bunch of pto. hopefully either my boss is really excited for me and wants me to take even more pto...or I can defer the invite.

had a good pool with a masterpiece attrition and gideon. then in the t8 draft I had a very good rg deck with hazoret and a great curve. only had to win one match in the t8 and curved out into hazoret twice.

Attrition! good lord that must have been good in sealed

had the same trouble when I won a PTQ for Barcelona several years back, and the PT was scheduled right after my already-booked 10 day vacation. basically had an 20-minute conversation with my boss where I had to explain MTG and the Pro Tour and by the end, he let me take the time off. best of luck convincing your boss of the same - the free trip to Kyoto alone seems too good to pass up

maro's article is up, big change this time is they're getting rid of small sets entirely and having 3 large sets and a core set each year

I think every small set format has been better than its respective triple large set format since they​ went to the new system

me too...

fwiw i think that was mostly happenchance. there's no reason eldritch moon needed the pack of SOI cards to be great, in fact they kind of felt disconnected because investigate went away and the werewolf mechanic changed.

and i don't think AER was appreciably better than KLD in the end, just a little different.

my theory is they are too full-on with the applying the particular set themes and the dilution of BBA is a material benefit to gameplay

but anyway, i am pretty unmoved by the changes, seems like fixing a problem that didn't exist but we'll see what they do with it.

It feels a bit like they are continuing to flail from one fix to another, trying to find something that sticks. I'd be relieved to see fewer changes at some point.

I appreciate them being proactive at least instead of waiting for sales to drop off before making changes. I think their massive effort on focus testing has paid off, and might be the reason why the game is still alive today.

That said I'm curious as to what this'll do to design. One thing I really liked about small sets is how they'd expand upon the mechanics in new and interesting ways that would influence Limited in neat ways (for example, introducing non-mana morph costs).

yeah I am losing faith in them recently Moodles. doesn't the idea of regimenting all sets to be drafted alone go against what Maro is saying, that they want the flexibility to suit the design ideas they have? it precludes the possibility of unique draft formats like 3xRTR vs RTR-GTC-DGM. but whatever, I'm sure that two more years down the line they will break this rule too

I'm not sure why they need to announce a structure at all - they were happy enough to break the large-large-small model as needed since Lorwyn. maybe just say, hey we're gonna have four sets a year

I am also for them being proactive btw, but this change feels like a walkback for the most part

oops should be large-small-small. WotC is making me confused, obv

marvel naturalized

I'm glad, way overdue. I actually think Marvel was the real problem card way back when they did the initial banning. Now can we unban copter and mage, pretty please?

Was kind of hoping Dredge and Death's Shadow would be hit, but I guess not today.

i don't think standard unbans are a thing that will ever happen. mayyyybe theres a chance they unban copter at rotation if there's enough removal for it in the format by then.

I'm not sure why they need to announce a structure at all

Exactly. I really dug the period where there were a few blocks in a row that were structured in unique ways. I don't know why they can't just wing it according to the needs of the set. I don't think it's controversial to say some worlds deserve multiple sets and some don't.

Was kind of hoping Dredge and Death's Shadow would be hit

do you think either of these is actually too powerful? seems like modern is in an ok spot right now. on a related note, i spotted our resident professional tourist iatee hanging out in the 5-0s for the mtgo modern competitive league with dredge.

dredge is really powerful and somewhat problematic in that it often turns matches into the question "did you draw your sideboard card in your opening hand" - it has less ability to play around dedicated hate than other decks and ignores a much higher % of maindeckable/non-dedicated hate than other decks

i doubt it has the numbers to justify a ban right now though.

i'm also not yet convinced that death's shadow has ban-worthy performance, we've seen time and time again these thoughtseize decks secretly struggling to crack 50% winrate below the highest levels of play, while being upheld as the Best Deck because pro players love them for the balanced matchup profile.

haha I have another 5-0 they didn't put up. dredge and death's shadow are both fine I think, dredge is soft to unfair decks and can always be hated out - I've found it very easy to get 3-2s and 4-1s but hard to get 5-0s because somebody out there is prepared. death's shadow...I think it's a cool card - I think it opens up a lot of different builds, it's kinda the delver of secrets in legacy. there are lots of ways to interact with a one mana creature, most people should be playing them anyway.

the decks I think are problematic are counters company and storm, both of which can win on t3 pretty frequently. the old company decks were more interesting than a fast infinite mana combo, and the old storm deck didn't have easy deterministic kills. overall modern does seem to be in a better place than it has been for a while though, like death's shadow is the fair deck that needed to exist to go toe-to-toe with all the busted crap everywhere.

also valakut and tron should be banned or they should give us a better ghost quarter

no you can't take my valakuts away from me again...

dredge also serves as a good check on the death's shadow decks, especially grixis, which is a super lopsided match-up. I dunno, maybe I'm biased and dredge should be banned since it eats up so much sideboard space, but I'm generally cool w/ busted decks as long as they are hard to play and have interesting decisions.

as for valakut, I am generally pro-banning all good decks that could reasonably be played by some simple computer program. I think modern's lack of good land disruption is a long-term problem that they are gonna have to solve in one way or another.

there's a new thalia and friends human aggro deck going around that I've lost to a few times...I think it's pretty solid. maybe not tier 1 but not far from it.

the board hate vs dredge is good against a bunch of other decks rn tho right? including shadow. doesn't seem like it has to unbalance sideboarding.

the gw humans deck seems to be a real beater, can accumulate very quickly, often quick enough to get around the 1/2 toughness sweepers.

how do the Shadow decks reduce their life total so quickly? just saclands and Wraiths or is there something more to this deck?

those plus shocklands and thoughtseize. doesn't take much.

the other way they reduce their life total is you-trying-to-beat-them. I think the dynamic is pretty interesting overall, since whether or not you help them reduce their life total is rarely straightforward.

and most board hate vs dredge is also solid vs grixis shadow, and cages are okay vs the chord decks - so at this very moment it's not terrible to force peoples' hands and make them play it. during periods where there are a wider range of linear oppressive decks it can be more annoying.

RIP and cage great against storm too. possibly worth throwing in a cage vs any deck with snapcaster.

yep good point. what do you play in modern rs?

Reminds me of a Standard deck I had that abused the "Fateful Hour" mechanic that would give your dudes a special boost if you were at 5 or less life. I would use Hex Parasite to take myself down to 4 life and swing in with a massive army. It was pretty fun (mostly for the bewildered look on my opponents' faces) but most matches were over in like five minutes.

is modern burn playable right now? i'm in serious rdw withdrawal from it being gone from standard for so long

I don't think it's tier 1 after the printing of collected brutality and the fast lands but it's not unplayable or anything.

brutality is a beating for sure and blessed alliance is in a lot of sideboards now because of shadow.

i picked up eldrazi taxes (fun & relatively cheap) online after i decided i was done with amonkhet

Burn drops some creatures vs brutality as a response.

yeah im pretty sure you should only be playing goblin guide, swiftspear, and eidolon