Because TCGs are supposed to have chance as a factor, rather than just player skill. If you want a game that's purely skill-based, try chess.
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First, MTG and Chess have a vast array of other differences too so it's not a simple choice of "if you like randomness, play MTG - if you don't like randomness, play Chess". The only real common factor is that they're both games, Chess mostly two-player and MTG primarily two-player as a competitive platform. The similarities end there.
Second, the chance factor is already built-in into the game design. Cards don't need to exacerbate the issue and few do in Magic (something MTG has over competition on the TCG front). Deck construction is the process of maximizing your deck's ability to do what it's designed to do, i.e. minimizing the inherent randomness. Having a card that's too strong not to play and still instead serves to build inherent randomness into the deck playing out in addition to the randomness of the individual draws and the randomness of the match-up is problematic in competitive MTG in my opinion.
I'm currently working on a casual green deck, which acts as a moderate aggro deck and then blooms into a combat deck. The Worm Harbests are my way of getting around someone exiling my Worldspine Worms, and the Ooze Garden allows me to sack Wurms and Gamekeepers to set of their die abilities. The Ooze gardens are a little problematic, and I have considered switching them for prey upon (which won't help with the worms but will kill my gamekeepers). Pulse of the Tangle is an all-star, and I can't believe I had not seen one before working on this deck.
Spoiler2 Worm Harvest
2 Ooze Garden
4 Pulse of the Tangle
4 Call of the Herd
4 Chatter of the Squirrel
4 Vitality Charm
4 Dismember
3 Sundering Growth
4 Gamekeeper
2 Worldspine Wurm
24 Forest
3 Treetop Village
That's a pretty interesting deck. I haven't seen Chatter of the Squirrel in a while, and Gamekeeper into Worldspine Wurm is just too funny. I feel this deck wants Overrun or just general pump effects so it can actually win with tokens if need be, though. Planeswalkers in casual decks are always a bit iffy, but have you considered Garruk Wildspeaker, perhaps? He also makes tokens and helps you hardcast Worldspines if need be.
Speaking of casual decks, I'm still trying to figure out what I want to play in Modern. For the serious/competitive deck I'm looking at maybe checking out Gifts Ungiven (because the banlist update reminded me that oh yeah that's a card); for the funny/weird/casual deck I thought I'd try something more oddball. I'm still not happy with the card frame change... that is, the change that happened with 8th edition. :smallbiggrin: Thanks to reprints, there's actually a fairly significant number of old-frame cards that are Modern-legal, so I wanted to see if one can build a deck with that. I wrote a small script to generate a mostly complete spoiler. At first glance, I'm seeing a bad reanimator deck (Resurrection for Akroma like it's Time Spiral Block) and a probably-playable burn deck (with Mogg Fanatic filling in for Goblin Guide). But since I like bad combo decks, how does Enduring Renewal/Ornithopter/Fallen Angel sound? :smalltongue:
I'd love to see Natural Order in here as an additional means to get Wurms into play, to chain Wurm into Wurm for hilarious overkill and so on. You have it well-enabled already with a bunch of tokens and the Gamekeeper itself. I'd also add some additional sacrifice outlets for Gamekeeper, perhaps lands such as High Market or Phyrexian Tower. You should be able to afford enough non-green mana for that to be a non-issue. Greater Good is also worth thinking about if only for the ridiculousness of sacrificing a Worldspine Wurm to it. Of course it's almost strictly an overkill but it does sacrifice Gamekeeper too, if not very efficiently. Lands have the advantage of not taking slots in the deck though.
I also think the deck needs some way to discard Wurms from your hand so you don't get stuck with no Wurms in library; Survival is the obvious solution but probably a tad north on the powerscale and not well-enabled in any case. Creature-based options are out due to Gamekeeper so perhaps something like Narcissism, Saproling Cluster or some such. Nostalgic Dreams could be an interesting option. It's worth noting that Greater Good would also accomplish this half.
Sure, that's reasonable. But these players also understand Wizard's reasoning. I don't see anyone saying "Awesome, Treasure Cruise and Pod are banned! A whole new world, a new fantastic point of view!" But the majority is basically saying "Yeah, that makes sense, let's work on the new Modern format." It's an acceptance rather than saying "Yeah, they shouldn't have done that." I'm not saying that they're experts on the format in particular, and I'm sure those experts haven't written the articles in response to the bans yet that Jeff has. I look forward to reading those articles when they come out.
As another random thought on this topic, the thoughts of large amounts of the player base are important, because if people stop playing the format then Wizards has to change it. I'm not saying that was going to happen, I don't know anything about Modern tournament attendance, but theoretically, if people didn't wan to play Treasure Cruise-enabled Modern, they would just stop doing so, Modern tournament attendance would drop, and Wizards would have a problem. Not that Wizards should bend to accommodate random players or even the majority of players, but the majority of players do have a pretty important voice when it comes to changes to the Modern format.
Jeff Hoogland's article is interesting and I appreciated reading it. However, his comments on Modern as a format and the financial/time costs to playing it are exactly the same as they have always been. As much as I am sympathetic to his sadness and the loss of a potentially great format (I can't say that I know since when I played Modern is was miserable, but maybe that's just me), Modern has been this way since its beginning and people have been complaining about it just as long. But people still devote their competitive energies to playing it rather than some other format. It would be like people complaining that Standard sucks because all their decks become unplayable a year later; Standard has been like this ever since it was created, you shouldn't be surprised.
The unfortunate difficulty with such a combo is that you get hosed by graveyard hate and removal, both of which every single deck is playing in some capacity. You might be able to dodge some of it, but everyone playing Modern will probably either have something to stop you or some way to kill you faster than your combo can possibly kill them. Sometimes both, simultaneously. Might be amusing to work on it, but I don't imagine that Fallen Angel is the way you want to win the game in this scenario.
Grafdigger's Cage doesn't cut it, but that combo does lose to Relic of Progenitus if timed correctly, that's true - or to Lightning Bolt or Path to Exile - which is a Very Bad Thing. It's possible to replace Fallen Angel with Mogg Fanatic and be not vulnerable to creature removal, but it also means it takes the combo a few turns to win. Enduring Renewal can probably also go into a grind-you-out deck, which could be interesting. Honestly, I'm not going for something ultra-competitive here, that's probably just not possible with the cards available.
... also, I just like Enduring Renewal.
Kiki-jiki commander.
I think you think BBE is more random than it actually is. It would be like banning Delver for being random.
Not saying worldgorger dragon is going to see any play, but it does actually produce infinite mana, and that can be used for winning the game.
Eh, apples and oranges: BBE actually generates effective mana and only has the chance to do anything once, plus the fact that it's RG and an aggressive card and costs 4 makes it very inconvenient to play a library manipulation engine of any kind with it. If it whiffs, it never does anything. You hit a Terminate/Fallout/whatever at an inconvenient timing, you just paid 2RG for a 3/2 Haste - you don't get to keep the card, cast it later or whatever, you just didn't get anything off Cascade. On the flipside, you happen to hit say Liliana of the Veil and you essentially paid 4 mana for ~6 mana worth of stuff plus two cards.
Delver is far lower variance. Flipping only influences the "when": it will eventually flip and most decks that house it tend to house relatively robust means of controlling the timing. It never generates any mana efficiency in the first place. It'll of course impact the outcome of the game but Delver always flips eventually and Delver is significantly more controllable in a reasonably constructed competitive deck than BBE (it's kinda hard to avoid playing 1-3 drops, while it's perfectly reasonable to play a large number of spells and relatively few creatures in a deck chockful of library manipulation), and when it's not flipping, it's doubling as a potential library manipulation effect in conjunction with fetchlands so it's not even an entirely useless effect that way.
Hell, Shardless Agent is far, far less egregious of a lottery card than BBE: it's a 3-drop and blue. Therefore it only generates 0-2 mana and it can generate 2 mana plus a card with reasonable consistency due to being naturally suited for a more controlling shell in the color best-suited for library manipulation (when it's not casting Ancestral Visions anyways).
The trick is to have a removal suite that either almost always hits something (Abrupt decay) or can go to the face (Lightning bolt) even if you're not always hitting "optimal" targets for the matchup.
You can activate the ability and in response sacrifice it just fine. You still get the cards, it has no clause stopping you from drawing the cards when Defector is no longer in play. In the same vein, untap effects work great with the Defector; tap to draw, untap in response, tap to draw again, then kill/sacrifice.
So, with Golgari Grave Troll being unbanned, I'm really liking how Dredgevine is really shaping up; Golgari Grave Troll is just leagues better than stinkweed imp, not only due to higher dredge count but because of how it's immune to all removal but path to exile
I don't think Enduring Renewal works as a grind-out engine, mostly because if you do end up running out of creatures you never get to draw anymore for the rest of the game.
If there's another combo that you can play, that certainly seems like it might be worth trying. I don't think Fallen Angel is the win condition of choice, but perhaps there's something else reasonable you can try to play. The win condition you want is Blasting Station: not as vulnerable to removal and kills immediately without a combat step.
Alright, here's the list I'll be taking to a local modern event tomorrow:
Spoiler: The deck, UB Fae
Creatures/Enchantments
4 Spellstutter Sprite
2 Vendilion Clique
4 Scion of Oona
4 Bitterblossom
4 Mistbind Clique
2 Tasigur, the Golden FangInstants
2 Spell Snare
1 Spell Pierce
4 Mana Leak
2 Cryptic Command
2 Remand
2 Murderous Cut
2 Darkblast
Artifacts
1 Sword of Feast and FamineLands
2 Watery Grave
2 Polluted Delta
4 Secluded Glen
2 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Mutavault
4 River of Tears
3 Island
1 Swamp
2 Ghost QuarterSideboard
2 Black Sun's Zenith
2 Grafdigger's Cage
3 Chalice of the Void
4 Thoughtseize
2 Monastery Siege
2 Advice from the Fae
I'm looking forward to playing around with delve in this new meta. In testing, I've found [card]Tasigur[/card] to be great. He dogdes decay as removal, something that most fae don't, as well as providing some amount of card advantage. Plus, he fights nicely with goyf, so that's a plus. I'll admit the mana base is iffy for this, but unfortunetly I've been unable to find the extra deltas and graves to fill out the mana base and prefect it. As far as basics go, I'm happy with a 3:1 spilt, as the three Islands help us cast cryptic despite blood moon. I'm also considering adding some number of tarns for delve.
For the removal/countermnagic split goes, darkblast is being run as a two of to help fuel delve for both Tasigur and Cut. Given the amount of Rhino's I'm expecting to see, Cut feels like the choice removal spells.
In the board, the seizes come in against combo/control match-ups, I'm also testing the seiges against burn and possibly Junk/Jund. In testing, I found the loot mode to be cute, but generally not worth the card. the tax mode is wonderful against certain decks, and might be enough for the maindeck, but for now they're in the board. We'll see how often I side them in. Cage is a nod towards the new dredge brews I'm sure people are going to be tring, and chalice is for the few remaining delver players as well as additional combo/burn hate. Advice from the Fae is my other big tester slot, as well as being a local meta call, because I'm certain a friend of mine will be piloting Top control. Black sun is in there for Affinity and other aggro match-ups.
Have I missed anything? There are certainly some card changes I'd like to make given a higher card availability, (the lands, and Ideally the two remands would be an extra cryptic and an extra spell pierce,) but have I missed any must run SB cards? I'll be posting a tournament report after the event as well.
Eh, I'd likely sideboard Dark Betrayal over Black Sun's Zenith, but that's because I'm not a fan of Black Sun's Zenith, and given that you mentioned Siege Rhino, Dark Betrayal is a kill for {B}, with no delve cost. I wouldn't ever mainboard it, but if you're facing Back decks, it can be really, really nice.
You're probably right. Enduring Renewal makes it impossible to kill creatures, but if they can be exiled or bounced to library or removed from the graveyard... ouch.
Blasting Station would be a significantly better kill condition! The problem here is that I'm specifically trying to build a Modern-legal deck that uses only cards in the pre-Modern frame as part of a weird thought experiment, which restricts what cards I can use - Blasting Station was printed first in Fifth Dawn and is, thus, out. The only valid insta-kill conditions I can find in the spoiler I assembled are Fallen Angel and Nantuko Husk of all things. It's possible I'm missing something and there's a better combo deck in there though.
Well, I ended up taking third with a 3-1 record. Overall I found I was missing some cards in the sideboard, and not bothering to side in others. As a last minute change, the two advice from the fae were dropped in favor of devour flesh, as some pre-tournament scouting revealed that a few people were on Infect and I figured the extra removal would come in handy.
Round 1 VS Grixis dragons? (1-0 in rounds, 2-0 in games)
Not really a whole lot to say here, I got a lucky round 1 match-up against one of the more casual players at the store, who was on some sort of grixis dragon control deck? I didn’t exactly see a whole lot, as I ended up with a fairly proactive hand both games. With the easy match-up done, I find myself off to a quick 1-0
Round 2 VS Death and Taxes. (1-1 in rounds, 3-2 in games)
My round 2 opponent was one of the guys I’d been chatting about the Meta with before the event, so we both had some idea about this match-up going in. Game one I lost to a quick hand with 2 vials, and some well timed path to exiles. . Darkblast proved its worth in this match-up, as most of his dudes were x/1s. Whelp, this should be fun I sided out most of the counter magic (-4 leak, -2 remand, -2 Snare) and sided in all the extra removals/wipes, as well as siege, (+2 Devour Flesh, +2Black Sun, +2 seige) as I hoped the extra card draw would prove useful. In hindsight this was a mistake, I should have brought in the seizes instead of the sieges. I came back game two, owing to a turn 2 bitterblossom followed up by a pair of scions to just aggro him out. Game three we traded creatures back and worth, eventually losing out to the topdeck war. Oh well, I’m 1-1.
Round 3 VS Breach Combo (2-1 in rounds, 5-3 in games)
Round 3 was an fun, my opponent was on the casting through the breach into emrakul/worldspine wurm plan. He took me by surprise game one when he was able to crop worldspine in response to a Mistbind trigger, and, and while I was able to fight though the first one, when he combo’d off for emrakul game two I scooped and we when to game 2. For sideboarding, I sided both darkblasts in favor of devour flesh, and I’m quite glad I opted to run them Monastery siege also came in for Cut, and proved to be useful digging us out of a hand full of cliques named by nevermore. There may be better edict effects in modern, but some number of them should be in the sideboard. Game two I started on the play, and was able to quickly pressure my opponent into trying to combo off into cryptic mana from the pressure of an early Scion+vault. Game three was perhaps the most interesting, as my opponent was able to go off turn three and have emrakul walk strait into another devour flesh. The flying spaghetti monster, as it turns out, makes a tasty plate of spaghetti. Despite the 15 point life gain, I was able to beat down with a scion and a pair of Mistblinds.
Round 4 VS Mono-U tron (3-1 in rounds, 7-4 in games)
As my opponent and I sat down for round 4, we found out that the winner of this match-up had a good chance of taking third, and the last prize. I lost the dice roll, and was elated to see my opponent play a mine on turn 1. He was unable to contest a turn 2 Bitterblossom, and we moved quickly on to game two. For sideboarding, I again dropped both darkblasts in favor of devour flesh, as well as the spell snares and remands in favor of thoughtseize. Game two looked to be going much the same way, until I opted to tap out for Blossom on turn two and my opponent dropped Wurmcoil off of natural tron. Despite a valiant fight by the rogue tokens, I wasn’t able to deal with the Wurncoil through the silly amount of contermagic he had available. Game 3 proved unfortunate for my opponent, as he mulligan to 5 and a thoughtseize from me led to a quick aggro win.
Overall I’m loving the deck, and feel we’re pretty well positioned at the moment, or at least for that particular meta. Tasigur was useful in every game I cast him, although more as a 4/5 body for black rather than as a quasi draw engine. Looking at my sideboard notes from the event, darkblast could probably be moved to the sideboard in favor of either seizes or inquisitions, or possibly even the sieges. The deck needs some sort of draw engine main, and I don’t think tasigur is enough on his own. Had I had the cards available, lilly probably would be the correct swap for siege.
So, I've gone and revamped my Myr tribal deck. Anyone mind telling me what they think of it? Any suggestions for filling out the last five cards of the sideboard?
Spoiler: decklist
Land- 20
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Tree of Tales
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Ancient Den
4 Vault of Whispers
Creatures- 25
4 Myr Galvanizer
4 Shimmer Myr
4 Perilous Myr
3 Silver Myr
2 Gold Myr
2 Leaden Myr
2 Copper Myr
3 Myr Battlesphere
1 Steel Overseer
Artifacts- 6
3 Myr Incubator
1 Door of Destinies
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Lightning Greaves
Instants- 4
2 Negate
2 Path to Exile
Enchantments- 2
2 Rancor
Sideboard- 10
4 Dissipate
2 Hero's Downfall
2 Swords to Plowshares
1 Myr Battlesphere
1 Myr Incubator
You know, there used to be a time I thought I'd never have any original duals. Pretty soon I'll have 3. Revised edition, but still.
Is this designed to be legal in any particular format, or just a casual deck?
Rancor is an interesting choice for what this deck looks like it's trying to do; do you have it just to give Battlesphere trample? My initial thoughts on this deck is that it looks like you mostly want to attack with hordes of Myr rather than rely on a single Battlesphere unless your opponent has powerful ways to make swarms ineffective. Sword of Feast and Famine is weird to me in the same way; it just doesn't seem like the thing you want to be doing. I feel like you'd rather play something that helped your entire team; Adaptive Automaton is a great consideration in addition to the Steel Overseer you already have, and Master of Etherium provides another card that serves as both a swarm support and a "go tall" large creature. Phyrexian Metamorph seems like a great tool that could fulfill any number of different jobs.
Dissipate seems very hard to cast for your mana base and I'm not sure that's a card you want in the board. Are there specific things you board it in against? Myr Reservoir seems like a great card to have access to in your sideboard for grindy matchups, as it allows you to rebuy (and cast!) Myr Battlesphere. It's also a really efficient mana source, so I'd probably play at least 1 in your main deck if you can find space; sometimes you get into the situation where you just want to get back your Myr Battlesphere and play it until your opponent dies to it. Myr Retriever might also be a card you want in those matchups. If your opponent is very aggressive, Myr Sire is not the worst choice for a speed bump to give you more time to build up an army of Myr. Lodestone Myr does something a little different and might be worth a slot in your board; you never know when you'll need more large, trampling threats.
There's also Atog, which seems significantly better than the other two because it is cheaper. You can also play Cathodian as another creature to sacrifice to make your combo a bit more reusable. If you play Atog that lets you play some Mogg Fanatics and/or Siege-Gang Commanders for free, which is a pretty sweet deal.
Mostly casual, but we have a "Tribal deck night" at the local FNM about once a month, which I believe is based off of legacy, but with the additional caveat that at least 1/3 of your deck must share a tribal type. Rancor is mostly for trample on the sphere, yeah, or trample on anything sufficiently large after bonii from galvanizers and the overseer. Speaking of the battlesphere, its there for getting around things like Circle of Flame or Anger of the Gods, and also is useful against other decks that put out swarms of creatures.
The Resivoir and Automaton seem like they'd go well in this, and yeah, I should probably drop the dissapates andthe sword. I'll grab some Lodestones and Metamorphs for the board, too.
If you're playing Tribal (which is the name of the format you're describing), Adaptive Automaton may not actually be legal since everyone can play it. I certainly know Cavern of Souls is an unreasonably good card in that format.
Anger's pretty bad, but Circle of Flame isn't super useful if you get a Galvanizer or some other way to buff your creatures. I'm honestly not sure how good Myr Incubator is, but it seems interesting enough to be worth trying. You could play some slightly more resilient Myr if that was something you wanted to do, although I'm not sure how you would do so. You could also play some useful lands to help get around Anger and other exiling effects, especially if you decide to play Myr Reservoir. Phyrexia's Core and Hig Market are the immediate candidates. If you want ways to keep trucking through board wipes, Myr Matrix and Myr Turbine are the obvious choices. Myr Enforcer is cheap and dodges Anger in particular and a lot of the cheaper board wipes in general, and will almost always be playable on turn 3 thanks to your artifact lands.