Magic: The Gathering C/D

I think I'm gonna get into Modern soon, the stores here are alternating FNMs between that and Standard, and Modern seems to be drawing a lot of people. I haven't built a new standard deck in nearly 18 months so it kinda sucks to see all my stuff rotate out.

modern is in a pretty decent spot right now imo though i wouldn't mind a ban or unban this time around just to shake things up

my question is, how do I make Seance work

tokens is also pretty friendly to newer players, doesn't depend on a weird combo or lots of decisions

also

ban drs unban ancestral visions

the modern ban list:

Ancestral Vision
Ancient Den
Bitterblossom
Blazing Shoal
Bloodbraid Elf
Chrome Mox
Cloudpost
Dark Depths
Dread Return
Glimpse of Nature
Golgari Grave-Troll
Great Furnace
Green Sun's Zenith
Hypergenesis
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Mental Misstep
Ponder
Preordain
Punishing Fire
Rite of Flame
Seat of the Synod
Second Sunrise
Seething Song
Sensei's Divining Top
Stoneforge Mystic
Skullclamp
Sword of the Meek
Tree of Tales
Umezawa's Jitte
Vault of Whispers
Wild Nacatl

feel like the 'best' card to unban is ponder most likey idk - bitterblossom? there really arent that many cards on here that couldnt come off except like skullclamp, top and depths. although i have no idea why blazing shoal is banned.

infect I think?

Please not Skullclamp, that card is so stupid

I don't see why Top needs to be banned but I really dislike that card so I'm fine with that

helps combo / makes games take too long

also if it's not banned counterbalance has to be

yeah top is banned for the same reason second sunrise is banned - no one wants to play against it

I have top in my edh deck and I always hate when I actually use it

at least w/ edh you can do it on someone else's turn

so is Eggs dead or can you just use the 3W version of Second Sunrise that was printed in one of the recent core sets?

both

http://www.salon.com/2001/03/23/wizards/

^ of general interest

xp there's a playable and possibly good krark-clan ironworks combo deck that's similar to the eggs deck, but it's near impossible to play on MTGO so the list hasn't really had a way to propagate.

i think wild nacatl is the easiest card to unban in modern and a lot of people expect it to happen now that we have another 1-drop in Deathrite that is just as omnipresent as nacatl used to be

blazing shoal is banned because of sam black's deck from PT philadelphia (the first modern PT) which could kill on turn 2 fairly consistently

born of the gods keyword mechanics appear to be:

Inspiration - Whenever ~ untaps, reveal the top card of your library. [do thing based on revealed card]

Tribute N ((As this creature enters the battlefield, an opponent of your choice may put N +1/+1 counters on it.) [some ability that keys off whether tribute was paid]

tribute unfortunately is a variant of the 'punisher mechanic' or so it's called, which tends to make cards look powerful and exciting but play horribly since they are always the worst case scenario of their 'modes' (Vexing Devil being the best recent example, where both halves are way more than you're supposed to get for 1 mana but the card was unplayable)

yeah my first reaction to tribute is 'ignore this text'

They're a little different from the other punisher cards in that you still get the creature regardless, you either get creature + effect or big creature, but either way you don't just get nothing like you go when your opponent pays 5 life for Browbeat. Those cards only seemed decent to me in decks that played a lot of burn, where an opponent paying 5 life really was something significant. Given that 5/5+ creatures are difficult to deal with in this Limited format I think cards like Phagarax Giant are going to be interesting there at least. I do think they'll have to really push them to make them playable in Standard but I assume R&D knows that already

also I've been getting into some arguments as to what "devotion for white and blue" means, some ppl locally are saying it means you need 7 white symbols AND 7 blue symbols which to me makes no sense because they'd be nearly impossible to activate. but still I don't know how that card would work with something like Judge's Familiar

it only counts once

also Inspired is just "whenever this untaps, do X", it's not necessarily tied to your top card. at least it explains why they decided to reprint Springleaf Drum

I'm looking forward to drafting around this

http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/tcg/products/bng/KDJ)D(jk2m2389/bCXl3Zxdwu_EN.jpg

that looks like one of those uncommons that always goes late but can wreck people if you draft around it

yeah if there if there is anything similar to the ths cantrip auras that could be brutal

well those will still be available in pack 2&3 of drafts

I guess w/ only one bwtg the chance of getting 2+ of these dudes is not high

stupid theros

boringness of theros limited has gotten me fully into modern, my last fetches arrive in the mail today

small set uncommons tend to show up a fair amount since there are fewer of them

oh right

i'm not that bored of theros limited but i've intentionally not been playing it much lately so that i'm not tired of all the cards already for BTT draft

yeah modern definitely feels like the most open and exciting format right now even though the top decks haven't really changed much in the past year. the breadth of 'tier 2'/rogue strategies is really impressive imo

yeah, like jund and friends are safe and reliable good decks but they're not unbeatable, just consistent

the UR delver/pyromancer deck in the t4 at prague seems like a legit 'top deck'. I played w/ my friend playing it yesterday, it's pretty hard to beat if pyro sticks.

yeah that deck looks fun

got a list?

Carlos Moral
Grand Prix Prague 2014 Top 8 – Modern

Main Deck

60 cards

6 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Mountain
2 Mutavault
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Steam Vents
20 lands

4 Delver of Secrets
1 Grim Lavamancer
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
4 Young Pyromancer
15 creatures

4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Pillar of Flame
4 Remand
4 Serum Visions
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
3 Vapor Snag
25 other spells

Sideboard
2 Blood Moon
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Hibernation
2 Magma Spray
2 Negate
2 Shatterstorm
1 Spell Pierce
3 Threads of Disloyalty
1 Vendilion Clique

wow yeah that looks really good

i've been playing this weird amulet deck http://i.imgur.com/vFbW0bB.jpg

its pretty strong actually, but the land sequencing is a complete headache and i am terrible at it

yeah I think a version of that t64d

seems like it would be fun to pilot but I hate non-interactive decks

that one also looks really entertaining, that Hive Mind 'combo' is hilarious

hive mind is just a plan B really, plan A is chaining primeval titans via tolaria west and summoners pact

seems like it would be fun to pilot but I hate non-interactive decks

I love the design of that deck but yeah

That said, I play Robots in Modern and people have made comments to me about that deck being non-interactive, so to each their own

most of my original decks tend to be pretty non-interactive so this is right up my alley. Was interested in building it until I saw the prices of the Titans...barf

how much are primeval titans now?

looks like 10 bucks