Magic the Gathering XX: KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANS!!!

[unseenmage]

What's the best/fastest way to get legendary creatures on the field in Standard right now?

Looking to build an all legendaries deck for FNM.

[Ninjaman]

What's the best/fastest way to get legendary creatures on the field in Standard right now?

Looking to build an all legendaries deck for FNM.

Cast them off mana dorks I guess.

[Suichimo]

Milling can be a side effect to distract them and/or cause them to get rid of the card that is milling rather than some other threat.

More commonly, it can throw essential cards out of you opponents deck. For example, Kiki-Jiki could be in the graveyard, thus slowing the combo.

This is largely what I was going for. Assuming I get it out and equipped at the earliest opportunity against a typical 60 card deck, that is 10/49 cards gone.

Of course I'd love a playset of Fire and Ice, but I don't feel like I could drop $160-200 on just those. Maybe people I know still have some.

Do you guys think Feast and Famine would be better?

[Mystic Muse]

This is largely what I was going for. Assuming I get it out and equipped at the earliest opportunity against a typical 60 card deck, that is 10/49 cards gone.

Of course I'd love a playset of Fire and Ice, but I don't feel like I could drop $160-200 on just those. Maybe people I know still have some.

Do you guys think Feast and Famine would be better?

Feast and Famine will more consistently work in your favor, as Body and Mind fuels several decks. I mean, you're getting it to work on turn 4, which potentially gives Gifts ungiven decks a way to kill you on the spot.

There's also tron, which, unless they have Emrakul in hand with no way to discard it, CAN'T be milled out due to eldrazi.

[Suichimo]

Since I forgot to put it up in my last big post, here is the current list:

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/boros-legion-v3/

I'm definitely feeling the pressure to remove my 5cmc stuff.

[Eldariel]

Sword of Feast and Famine is probably better than Sword of Body and Mind. Getting a 2/2 is certainly nice, much better than discarding a card, but pro-blue is much worse than pro-black (black has way more in terms of creature removal but is much worse at dealing with artifacts so black is unlikely to be able to remove sword but very likely to be able to remove the wielder, while blue can probably only bounce either) and making enemy mill 10 is potentially actually more helpful than harmful for them, with Delve being the big new mechanic and Tarkir in general being fairly graveyard-aligned.

Feast and Famine though: Discard a card is often decent if unlikely to be outright awesome most of the time, but getting to untap all your lands is really good. Remember, your deck has a lot of mana sinks like Kargan Dragonlord, Figure of Destiny and Student of Warfare. You can use all your mana pre-combat, hit with Sword, untap everything and use all your mana again post-combat. This leads to fairly scary mana efficiency. The downside with Feast and Famine is that Mirran Crusader has Pro-Black/Green already so on him, the protections are essentially wasted and getting two untaps isn't that good.

Sword of Light and Shadow is also good but the lifegain effect is fairly minor so it's mostly recycling your creatures (of course, with Grim Lavamancer in the deck that effect gets worse). It has nice protections though. The last option is Sword of War and Peace, white/red. Unfortunately it never produces card advantage and the effects are quite situational. Still, pro-red/pro-white is certainly nice on Mirran Crusader and nice in general. The trigger could be better tho. As such, I recommend Feast and Famine or Body and Mind for now. Ultimately, Fire and Ice has by far the universally strongest effect of all the swords. Feast and Famine is probably the second-best and then Body and Mind and Light and Shadow about equal (in your deck, I like Body and Mind better just 'cause of the value of getting guaranteed extra creatures), and finally War and Peace.


Regarding 1-drops: Vexing Devil is kind of a problematic fellow. Yeah, on paper getting either 4 damage or a 4/3 for R is really good but it can be awkward at times; 1-drop creatures usually amount to more than 4 damage over the game and Vexing Devil is easy for the enemy to just take to the face unless you have a lot of burn to aim their way. Furthermore, it's not a reliable burn spell either; later on, getting a 4/3 is nice but if enemy is down to like 8, you probably just want them to take 4 damage instead.

It's kinda, it's way worse than either "Deal 4 damage to target player" or "R for 4/3". Treat it as "Deal 4 damage to target player" with a downside of enemy being able to prevent the damage should situation call for it. Ultimately, I don't think your deck is that well-positioned to take advantage of it. More direct burn-deck that plays a small creature base and a ton of burn-spells to aim at the enemy's face is a better home for it (and indeed, it's not rare for such decks to play it) but your deck is decidedly more creature-based and seeks to win through attacking. My own solution would be to go with Goblin Guide; the drawback is very real but it's still a 2/2 Haste for R, which is really good early on and something you can keep in hand waiting for enemy to be open to Hasty beaters later on (Haste is nice for surprise Sword hits for instance). As such, I'd go with the following:
+ 1 Grim Lavamancer
+ 3 Goblin Guide
+ 3-4 fetchlands
- 3-4 generic lands (you want to make sure you won't run outta stuff to fetch)
- 4 Vexing Shusher

[Squark]

So, my College is going to be holding a Kahns Draft in a few weeks, and I'm in charge of organizing it. I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations about how much time to budget for the event, potential pitfalls, and the like.

EDIT: I would go Ash Zealot or another two drop over Kargan dragonlord- I'd rather come out swinging that turn, and have extra effects now, than a bear with a mana sink ability (when you already have two one drops with mana sinks). 4 swords also feels like overkill for something that won't see play until turn 4 in an agro deck.

[IcemanJRC]

So, my College is going to be holding a Kahns Draft in a few weeks, and I'm in charge of organizing it. I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations about how much time to budget for the event, potential pitfalls, and the like.

EDIT: I would go Ash Zealot or another two drop over Kargan dragonlord- I'd rather come out swinging that turn, and have extra effects now, than a bear with a mana sink ability (when you already have two one drops with mana sinks). 4 swords also feels like overkill for something that won't see play until turn 4 in an agro deck.

How many people do you expect? If you're doing Swiss with more than eight people, you should budget a while, about four hours for rounds and drafting. If you've only got eight people, you can shave some time off of that. If you've got a normal 8-man single elim, then it oughta take about 2 hours. If you expect people new to drafting, add another fifteen or twenty minutes, if you have people new to Magic, add about another hour. If everyone is super familiar with the process and game, you can shave off some time and if everyone's familiar with the cards as well you can shave off more.

Also, make sure you have someone with at least a decent knowledge of the rules, if you don't have a judge that hangs around, because people will always have questions. Even just someone that everyone trusts is fine, the questions aren't usually that complicated. If you promised prize support, make sure you pay out fairly and definitely make sure you charge appropriately so you don't end up gouging them or paying a ton out of pocket. Make sure you keep the play area and the draft area organized, keep things off the table and keep the packs from getting "train wrecked." Make sure everyone is on the same page, but don't treat it to seriously. It's casual, people are gonna talk at the table and people are gonna wanna have a good time. Just make sure people don't bring in extra cards, no trading till you're done, and don't look at other peoples packs. That's the simple stuff. Remember, if you're in charge, you have a responsibility to be "the adult" so to speak. You gotta answer questions and you gotta enforce rules.

[Sith_Happens]

I'd like to see the Coursers as a way to mitigate the life loss and grind out some advantage in the mirror and the combo-control matchup.

My cousin swears by Courser in any deck that runs Bob, and considering he recently won a $1k with a custom Jund Midrange variant his advice is probably pretty reliable.

You don't want four though. Given your current mana curve two is probably best.

[ChaosOS]

After spending the weekend thinking about Modern and the consequences of the recent bannings. I'm wondering what modern would look like if Birthing Pod, Treasure Cruise, DTT, Ancestral Visions, and BBE were unbanned? I honestly feel all of those are relatively safe unbannings that although completely undoing the trend would lead to a nice, more fair and faster pace modern. Tier 1 deck wise I feel it would hurt Affinity and Abzan Midrange, but abzan players would go back to their pods and Jund, Combo would take the biggest hit but Twin and Scapeshift would greatly appreciate DTT, but the new up and comer Bloom Titan would take a serious hit and Infect would also not be having fun. Beyond that I think control would love the addition of Ancestral Visions. As to what would get hit aggro is not getting any toys here (Zoo maybe with BBE) so burn and affinity would be down, but their ability to sideboard check decks would still mean they would see play.

As to riskier bans, I'd like to see Sword of the Meek and the Artifact Lands to come off, I still think Control needs something to help stabilize and the artifact lands would give affinity a necessary boost in a more powerful modern.

[Narkis]

So, my College is going to be holding a Kahns Draft in a few weeks, and I'm in charge of organizing it. I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations about how much time to budget for the event, potential pitfalls, and the like.

EDIT: I would go Ash Zealot or another two drop over Kargan dragonlord- I'd rather come out swinging that turn, and have extra effects now, than a bear with a mana sink ability (when you already have two one drops with mana sinks). 4 swords also feels like overkill for something that won't see play until turn 4 in an agro deck.

You should expect it to last three hours at the very minimum, three and a half as a more realistic projection, and closer to four with inexperienced drafters. IcemanJRC's advice is solid, I'd just like to add that you should try and keep everyone more or less on the same pick while drafting, with friendly reminders to the fast ones to slow down. As boosters start piling up in front of someone, it gets more and more likely that there'll be a mix-up.

[Ionbound]

I thought BBE was unbanned, wasn't it?

[ChaosOS]

It was not. With siege rhino in the format, it's reasonable and it should be unbanned.

[BlackCoatedMan]

I'm an avid Magic: the gathering fan. Unfortunately my parents found out about my hobby. Since I can't play magic as much going incognito, I turn to the internet for a fix. I was mostly doing FFRP until Eldariel and Starwulf led me here.

As suggeted by the OP, I will now post a number of deck lists.

Current Mono-Black Rat Discarder.

Spoiler

Show

Lands
2x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4x Mutavault
3x Swarmyard
13x Swamp (Zendikar)

Creatures
4x Typhoid Rats
4x Drainpipe Vermin
4x Pack Rat
1x Marrow-Gnawer
2x Squelching Leeches

Sorceries
2x Sign in Blood
4x Thoughtseize
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Wrech Mind

Instants
3x Victim of Night
2x Disfigure
4x Surgical Extraction

Sideboard
1x Disfigure
2x Tragic Slip
2x Drown in Sorrow
2x Bile Blight
4x Deathmark
4x Dark Betrayal

How to use:
This deck wins by wrecking the opponent's hand. With all the discarders, surgical extraction can wipe out threats. When the opponent's hand is broken, the Pack Rat comes out to propagate.

Typhoid Rats and Drainpipe Vermin are used to buy time, if they go unanswered then Pack Rat comes out Stronger. Marrow Gnawer is there for longer games. Squelching Leeches takes advantage of mana flood.

There are even more kill cards in the sideboard in case of creature heavy decks. Color hate is there too.

Urborg helps out against mana screw, Swarmyard helps the small rats buy time, Mutavault synergizes well with Pack Rat and Marrow-gnawer.

Pros:
Casual friendly deck
The look on your opponent's face when killed by rats

Cons:
Will not win you FNMs
People will constantly tell you to upgrade to 8 rack


Mono-Blue Illusion

Spoiler

Show

Lands
4x Halimar Depths
16x Islands

Creatures
4x Phantasmal Bear
4x Lord of the Unreal
2x Adaptive Automaton
2x Grand Architect
2x Phantasmal Image
2x Skaab Ruinator
1x Illusory Angel
1x Phantasmal Dragon

Sorcery
3x Gitaxian Probe

Instants
4x Vapor Snag
4x Mana Leak
3x Think Twice
2x Negate
2x Nullify

Enchantment
4x Spreading Seas

Sideboard
4x Void Snare
3x Dispel
2x Familiar's Ruse
2x Aetherize
2x Rapid Hybridization
1x Negate
1x Nullify

How to use:
Aggro out the opponent with the synergistic creatures.

The spells help draw cards and stall for time. Spreading seas does both plus mana screws most opponents.

Halimar Depths can rearrange the cards.

Pros:
Casual friendly deck
The look on your opponent's face when faced with time stalling shenanigans

Cons:
Will not win FNMs
People will constantly tell you to upgrade to merfolk


That's what I have. After netdecking trial and error, I'll post two more deck lists as well as the card links. Bg 8 rack & Mono-Blue Merfolk. (I can dream, right?) The decks I have posted are the makings of my inner Johnny in the span of almost a year. What do you guys think?

[CantigThimble]

I'm not sure how, but in my 4 player FRF-KTK-KTK draft I was one of two people playing mardu, one of 4 people going red, and went 3-0 with 2 jeskai students and 2 canyon lurkers in my deck, and very nearly no removal.

Also, if you have a regular group of friends you can meet with, invest in a few redraftable sets. It is so worth it.

[tgva8889]

What's the best/fastest way to get legendary creatures on the field in Standard right now?

Looking to build an all legendaries deck for FNM.

Depends on which ones. If the answer is "the most possible and I don't care what they do," then Alesha, Who Smiles at Death and Yisan, the Wandering Bard are probably the two best ways to cheat legends onto the battlefield. Though based on what I just looked up of Legendary Creatures in Standard, the best way to put them into play seems to be to cast them.

There's actually quite a few legends that go pretty well with Alesha. Daghatar, Tymaret and King Macar are pretty decent creatures to be returning that are all in your colors, and Tymaret works pretty well with Athreos and Brimaz (though the mana is awful). Yisan also works with Alesha, and Tymaret is the only 2-mana Legendary Creature legal in Standard from what I can see so if you were to play Yisan you probably want some Tymaret action anyways.

Sidisi helps put creatures into your graveyard for Alesha and gives you food for Tymaret, though the mana requirements get pretty steep if you go that route. Tasigur is also a great choice; perhaps Sultai is just the way to go? Sultai gives you access to some pretty strong cards, and a lot of them use the graveyard. Besides those two there's also Pharika, and you get to just jam powerful creatures like Polukranos. Yisan fits into this deck okay, so long as you can find something worth playing at every CMC.

Just some ideas thrown out there. I assume you're attempting to make Heroes' Podium good, in which case having a large number of smaller legendaries might be best, which basically means you're priced into playing RB for Tymaret as he is the cheapest legal Legendary Creature. If you're playing Tymaret, I would probably play Alesha since the cards work pretty well together, and from there you basically transition into the Alesha deck I suggested above. There's a pretty wide variety of Legendary Creature effects to put together, though, if you look hard enough. I'd suggest looking at some stranger color combinations like Jund and Grixis, as that might give you a better combination of legends for whatever plan you attempt to enact.

So, my College is going to be holding a Kahns Draft in a few weeks, and I'm in charge of organizing it. I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations about how much time to budget for the event, potential pitfalls, and the like.

EDIT: I would go Ash Zealot or another two drop over Kargan dragonlord- I'd rather come out swinging that turn, and have extra effects now, than a bear with a mana sink ability (when you already have two one drops with mana sinks). 4 swords also feels like overkill for something that won't see play until turn 4 in an agro deck.

If you expect a lot of first time drafters, enforce Zone Drafting rules. Each player has three zones there could possibly be a pack in: the "passed" zone, the "looking at" zone, and the "pick up" zone. Your "passed" zone is the next player's "pick up" zone and your "pick up" zone is the previous player's "passed" zone. Do not allow players to place a pack in a zone containing a pack. Ever. These rules will prevent mixups if you enforce them and make sure your players understand that if a pack is waiting, you can't pass your pack and you must hold onto it until then.

You don't have to be as strict as I sound, but getting packs mixed up is the most common way drafts get messed up in my experience and zone drafting avoids it completely. Just make sure everyone at the table at least understands and agrees to all of the same rules about drafting and you should probably be okay. Make sure you ask "does everyone know how to draft?" before you start opening packs, and make sure someone can clearly explain how to draft in case other people don't know how. I would try to avoid including strategic information on drafting unless someone asks for it; just describing the procedure should be enough, and telling people how to draft takes some of the exploration fun out of it.

[unseenmage]

Depends on which ones. If the answer is "the most possible and I don't care what they do," then Alesha, Who Smiles at Death and Yisan, the Wandering Bard are probably the two best ways to cheat legends onto the battlefield. Though based on what I just looked up of Legendary Creatures in Standard, the best way to put them into play seems to be to cast them.

There's actually quite a few legends that go pretty well with Alesha. Daghatar, Tymaret and King Macar are pretty decent creatures to be returning that are all in your colors, and Tymaret works pretty well with Athreos and Brimaz (though the mana is awful). Yisan also works with Alesha, and Tymaret is the only 2-mana Legendary Creature legal in Standard from what I can see so if you were to play Yisan you probably want some Tymaret action anyways.

Sidisi helps put creatures into your graveyard for Alesha and gives you food for Tymaret, though the mana requirements get pretty steep if you go that route. Tasigur is also a great choice; perhaps Sultai is just the way to go? Sultai gives you access to some pretty strong cards, and a lot of them use the graveyard. Besides those two there's also Pharika, and you get to just jam powerful creatures like Polukranos. Yisan fits into this deck okay, so long as you can find something worth playing at every CMC.

Just some ideas thrown out there. I assume you're attempting to make Heroes' Podium good, in which case having a large number of smaller legendaries might be best, which basically means you're priced into playing RB for Tymaret as he is the cheapest legal Legendary Creature. If you're playing Tymaret, I would probably play Alesha since the cards work pretty well together, and from there you basically transition into the Alesha deck I suggested above. There's a pretty wide variety of Legendary Creature effects to put together, though, if you look hard enough. I'd suggest looking at some stranger color combinations like Jund and Grixis, as that might give you a better combination of legends for whatever plan you attempt to enact.

Thank you. Just so you know you're the only person I've asked who's given real advice on the question and taken the question at face value.
Your supposition is half right, I'm also trying to make Hero's Blade work with it too.
I'll definitely give your advice a once over. I think I even already have the cards to make it work so that's nice too.

The deck I built for playtesting is basically all Legendary singleton except for some mana dorks and a single Chromanticore. Built it from what I have to hand and havn't done any trading for it yet. Used nothing but the common nonbasic gain-life delay lands and a few of the uncommon tri-lands. Though the deck is singleton I had enough copies of a few of the cheaper legendaries that I put together it a transformative sideboard.
Some interesting things to note:
Hero's Blade is rubbish with the gods until you can get them online.
Getting gods online is much easier with all the multicolor legends in the deck.
Without the mana dorks a single nonlegendary combo piece/beater is neat to combine with Jalira, Master Polymorphist.

If you expect a lot of first time drafters, enforce Zone Drafting rules. Each player has three zones there could possibly be a pack in: the "passed" zone, the "looking at" zone, and the "pick up" zone. Your "passed" zone is the next player's "pick up" zone and your "pick up" zone is the previous player's "passed" zone. Do not allow players to place a pack in a zone containing a pack. Ever. These rules will prevent mixups if you enforce them and make sure your players understand that if a pack is waiting, you can't pass your pack and you must hold onto it until then.

You don't have to be as strict as I sound, but getting packs mixed up is the most common way drafts get messed up in my experience and zone drafting avoids it completely. Just make sure everyone at the table at least understands and agrees to all of the same rules about drafting and you should probably be okay. Make sure you ask "does everyone know how to draft?" before you start opening packs, and make sure someone can clearly explain how to draft in case other people don't know how. I would try to avoid including strategic information on drafting unless someone asks for it; just describing the procedure should be enough, and telling people how to draft takes some of the exploration fun out of it.

Said it better than I could say it but this is what I would have said had they not already said what I would've said. You get what I'm sayin'?
TLDR: Seconded

[Lord Seth]

After spending the weekend thinking about Modern and the consequences of the recent bannings. I'm wondering what modern would look like if Birthing Pod, Treasure Cruise, DTT, Ancestral Visions, and BBE were unbanned? I honestly feel all of those are relatively safe unbannings that although completely undoing the trend would lead to a nice, more fair and faster pace modern. Tier 1 deck wise I feel it would hurt Affinity and Abzan Midrange, but abzan players would go back to their pods and Jund, Combo would take the biggest hit but Twin and Scapeshift would greatly appreciate DTT, but the new up and comer Bloom Titan would take a serious hit and Infect would also not be having fun. Beyond that I think control would love the addition of Ancestral Visions. As to what would get hit aggro is not getting any toys here (Zoo maybe with BBE) so burn and affinity would be down, but their ability to sideboard check decks would still mean they would see play.

Well, that's not going to happen, first, but I suppose we can speak hypothetically. I do think you worded your suggestion oddly; instead of saying "what Modern would look like if this list of cards was unbanned," it would've been better to say "what Modern would look like if instead of banning things this last announcement, they unbanned Ancestral Vision and Bloodbraid Elf."

Now, I've been campaigning for an Ancestral Vision unban for a long time now; I'm fully convinced it was safe to begin with, and its banning even initially was a mistake. Bloodbraid Elf would diversify BGx, which right now is just Junk. Funnily enough, it's the same problem we had with Jund before when Bloodbraid Elf was legal: There was no reason to play Junk or Rock, because you got so much with Bloodbraid Elf. Now Bloodbraid Elf would actually diversify because there's a strong alternative, Siege Rhino. Bloodbraid Elf also bears the nice distinction of being a strong creature that's unplayable in Birthing Pod decks.

I don't think Ancestral Vision would necessarily help control that much, though. I think we'd have to ban Treasure Cruise because the fact is, one of the reasons control became so bad was because why play control when you could get better card advantage in a tempo deck? Treasure Cruise draws you cards way quicker. Even tossing out Ancestral Vision doesn't seem like it'd get the job done, as Treasure Cruise is still better.

As to riskier bans, I'd like to see Sword of the Meek and the Artifact Lands to come off, I still think Control needs something to help stabilize and the artifact lands would give affinity a necessary boost in a more powerful modern.

Affinity really does not need a boost from the artifact lands. I would be in favor of a Sword of the Meek unban, as the card is simply not as quick at winning as other combos in the format.

It was not. With siege rhino in the format, it's reasonable and it should be unbanned.

Before the bans, it was reasonable. Now... I'm not so sure.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's a major dissonance to have Bloodbraid Elf banned but Siege Rhino be legal. The problem is that Junk is so huge right now that I'm not sure enabling Jund is a good idea. The ideal situation would be that some of the Junk players would switch over to Jund. This wouldn't lower the number of BGx decks, but it would diversify them. Unfortunately, what has a high chance of happening is that non-Junk players will hop over to Jund, increasing the number of BGx decks further, which is problematic when one considers how dominant BGx (well, Junk, but it's a BGx deck) is right now. How nice that, to fix the problem of us having two distinct dominant decks... they decided to make Modern have one dominant deck. Nice one, Wizards.

I think the real goof was the Dig Through Time ban. Banning something based on speculation is a horrible idea. Maybe if they hadn't banned it, we could've had a Pro Tour that wasn't utterly dominated by Junk. Of course, unbanning a card that might do something would be nice as well. Could've at least given us Ancestral Vision... still can't believe that card is somehow banned.

[Sith_Happens]

Unfortunately my parents found out about my hobby.

...Do we even want to know?

Mono-Blue Illusion

The Grand Architects should both be more Phantasmal Images. Without Lord of the Unreal on the battlefield you'll probably be winning by quality of creatures rather than quantity, and Phantasmal Image can become any of your or an opponent's fatties. With Lord of the Unreal on the battlefield Phantasmal Image can become a Lord of the Unreal with Hexproof.

[enderlord99]

...Do we even want to know?

They're probably hyperreligious loonies.

[Khay]

So I'm still trying to find that perfect janky gimmicky Modern deck that can sometimes steal wins and exasperate the opponent. Right now I'm looking at a Temur Ascendancy list that features such cross-format all stars as Imaginary Pet and Phyrexian Soulgorger and the old Hushwing Gryff/Torpor Orb/Eater of Days... thing. There's also Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind/Curiosity, but that's just so much worse than the real red/blue combo deck in the format. Thoughts? Are any of these things worth pursuing?

They're probably hyperreligious loonies.

I guess some parents also worry about cost / less time for school / not playing outside / whatever.

[ChaosOS]

Duskmantle/Mind Crank combo can be hilarious

[raymundo]

So I'm still trying to find that perfect janky gimmicky Modern deck that can sometimes steal wins and exasperate the opponent. Right now I'm looking at a Temur Ascendancy list that features such cross-format all stars as Imaginary Pet and Phyrexian Soulgorger and the old Hushwing Gryff/Torpor Orb/Eater of Days... thing. There's also Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind/Curiosity, but that's just so much worse than the real red/blue combo deck in the format. Thoughts? Are any of these things worth pursuing?

Mono Blue Timewalk Combo aka Timeshift

I have been piloting this deck to some success in the pre-TC era. UR Delver and Burn matchups are really bad, so the SB has to be adjusted to playstyle and meta. Otherwise, it's a very funny deck .. you timewalk your opponent with actual Timewalk effects, or via virtual Timewalks à la Remanding/Cryptic counter-drawing their spell, Gigadrowsing them in Upkeep so they don't get to do anything. While this happens, both players are drawing a bunch of extra cards due to Dictate of Kruphix and Howling, but you get to do more with it because of the extra turns and Gigadrowse.

Fun fact: You can Remand the original Gigadrowse, the Replicate copies still resolve individually. Snapcastering a Gigadrowse works just fine too. You can go infinite with Beacon of Tomorrows for infinite combat damage or milling them out with Mikokoro, Beacon and 19 lands. You usually just amass some dudes and kill them with beatdown during your extra turn shield.


It's one of the more reasonable janky combo decks, I have a respectable 49-24-4 record with it - 6-3 at a PTQ. It will make some opponents very annoyed

(You can add Elixir of Immortality and 2 Jace Beleren for the classic wincon of this deck, Emrakul works too. The deck used to sport 4 Temporal Mastery, but I think that card is bad)

[tgva8889]

One of my friends plays Time Walks, it's a hilarious deck.

Thank you. Just so you know you're the only person I've asked who's given real advice on the question and taken the question at face value.
Your supposition is half right, I'm also trying to make Hero's Blade work with it too.
I'll definitely give your advice a once over. I think I even already have the cards to make it work so that's nice too.

The deck I built for playtesting is basically all Legendary singleton except for some mana dorks and a single Chromanticore. Built it from what I have to hand and havn't done any trading for it yet. Used nothing but the common nonbasic gain-life delay lands and a few of the uncommon tri-lands. Though the deck is singleton I had enough copies of a few of the cheaper legendaries that I put together it a transformative sideboard.
Some interesting things to note:
Hero's Blade is rubbish with the gods until you can get them online.
Getting gods online is much easier with all the multicolor legends in the deck.
Without the mana dorks a single nonlegendary combo piece/beater is neat to combine with Jalira, Master Polymorphist.

I forgot Hero's Blade was a card legal in Standard, but that does seem like a good one as well. Both it and Heroes' Podium seem pretty sweet with Alesha, though. Attack with Alesha, get King Macar, put Hero's Blade on King Macar seems like a good sequence of plays against all those 4/5s in the format. If you decide to go for as few colors as possible, RB does seem like a pretty decent place to be with the Legendary deck. I do like Alesha a whole lot, though, so I might be biased.

Yeah, I would probably play only a few Gods because for the most part, they don't count as creatures. Just because of the legal Legendary Creatures and the fact that your support cards are both colorless artifacts, there's not really a whole lot of mana symbols to go around. If you don't want their abilities, they're just not worth playing. That said, some of them have pretty useful abilities in legendary decks, like Ephara, Thassa, and Pharika.

Some stronger lands might help you a great deal. Based on what I looked at, you basically have to play 3 colors or you won't be able to play enough good Legendary creatures. You might be able to get something 2 color to work but some of your cards wouldn't have all their abilities active. I'd suggest finding some fetch lands as they come into play untapped and will help you with speed, or simply playing fewer colors so you can afford to play some basic lands. Given how expensive many of your cards are, speed is going to be pretty important for you. You're gonna want to at least play a creature on turn 3 so you don't get run over by the faster decks.

[unseenmage]

...

I forgot Hero's Blade was a card legal in Standard, but that does seem like a good one as well. Both it and Heroes' Podium seem pretty sweet with Alesha, though. Attack with Alesha, get King Macar, put Hero's Blade on King Macar seems like a good sequence of plays against all those 4/5s in the format. If you decide to go for as few colors as possible, RB does seem like a pretty decent place to be with the Legendary deck. I do like Alesha a whole lot, though, so I might be biased.

Yeah, I would probably play only a few Gods because for the most part, they don't count as creatures. Just because of the legal Legendary Creatures and the fact that your support cards are both colorless artifacts, there's not really a whole lot of mana symbols to go around. If you don't want their abilities, they're just not worth playing. That said, some of them have pretty useful abilities in legendary decks, like Ephara, Thassa, and Pharika.

Some stronger lands might help you a great deal. Based on what I looked at, you basically have to play 3 colors or you won't be able to play enough good Legendary creatures. You might be able to get something 2 color to work but some of your cards wouldn't have all their abilities active. I'd suggest finding some fetch lands as they come into play untapped and will help you with speed, or simply playing fewer colors so you can afford to play some basic lands. Given how expensive many of your cards are, speed is going to be pretty important for you. You're gonna want to at least play a creature on turn 3 so you don't get run over by the faster decks.

With some playtesting under my belt I can agree on all counts with the above. Except to add Xenagod to the list of decent deities to include. The H. Blades already keep the power high and he skyrockets it.

[Khay]

Duskmantle/Mind Crank combo can be hilarious

It can be! Definitely something to check out, thanks.

Mono Blue Timewalk Combo aka Timeshift

Wow, that one's really cool. But then I see "3 Snapcaster Mage, 1 Vendilion Clique, 4 Cryptic Command, 4 Remand" and... yyyyeah, that's a little very far beyond my budget.

[raymundo]

Wow, that one's really cool. But then I see "3 Snapcaster Mage, 1 Vendilion Clique, 4 Cryptic Command, 4 Remand" and... yyyyeah, that's a little very far beyond my budget.

Well, these are some cards I am just using because I have them. If you're battling in a lower-budget arena, just use 1 Elixir of Imortality and Jace Beleren as win cons.. Add things like Repeal, more Gigadrowse, maybe Dream Fracture and any other spells that somehow timewalk your opponent (that is: making it so your opponent can't do anything relevant on his turn and you don't lose a card).

[ryuplaneswalker]

Sword of Feast and Famine is probably better than Sword of Body and Mind. Getting a 2/2 is certainly nice, much better than discarding a card, but pro-blue is much worse than pro-black (black has way more in terms of creature removal but is much worse at dealing with artifacts so black is unlikely to be able to remove sword but very likely to be able to remove the wielder, while blue can probably only bounce either) and making enemy mill 10 is potentially actually more helpful than harmful for them, with Delve being the big new mechanic and Tarkir in general being fairly graveyard-aligned.

Feast and Famine though: Discard a card is often decent if unlikely to be outright awesome most of the time, but getting to untap all your lands is really good. Remember, your deck has a lot of mana sinks like Kargan Dragonlord, Figure of Destiny and Student of Warfare. You can use all your mana pre-combat, hit with Sword, untap everything and use all your mana again post-combat. This leads to fairly scary mana efficiency. The downside with Feast and Famine is that Mirran Crusader has Pro-Black/Green already so on him, the protections are essentially wasted and getting two untaps isn't that good.

Sword of Light and Shadow is also good but the lifegain effect is fairly minor so it's mostly recycling your creatures (of course, with Grim Lavamancer in the deck that effect gets worse). It has nice protections though. The last option is Sword of War and Peace, white/red. Unfortunately it never produces card advantage and the effects are quite situational. Still, pro-red/pro-white is certainly nice on Mirran Crusader and nice in general. The trigger could be better tho. As such, I recommend Feast and Famine or Body and Mind for now. Ultimately, Fire and Ice has by far the universally strongest effect of all the swords. Feast and Famine is probably the second-best and then Body and Mind and Light and Shadow about equal (in your deck, I like Body and Mind better just 'cause of the value of getting guaranteed extra creatures), and finally War and Peace.


Regarding 1-drops: Vexing Devil is kind of a problematic fellow. Yeah, on paper getting either 4 damage or a 4/3 for R is really good but it can be awkward at times; 1-drop creatures usually amount to more than 4 damage over the game and Vexing Devil is easy for the enemy to just take to the face unless you have a lot of burn to aim their way. Furthermore, it's not a reliable burn spell either; later on, getting a 4/3 is nice but if enemy is down to like 8, you probably just want them to take 4 damage instead.

It's kinda, it's way worse than either "Deal 4 damage to target player" or "R for 4/3". Treat it as "Deal 4 damage to target player" with a downside of enemy being able to prevent the damage should situation call for it. Ultimately, I don't think your deck is that well-positioned to take advantage of it. More direct burn-deck that plays a small creature base and a ton of burn-spells to aim at the enemy's face is a better home for it (and indeed, it's not rare for such decks to play it) but your deck is decidedly more creature-based and seeks to win through attacking. My own solution would be to go with Goblin Guide; the drawback is very real but it's still a 2/2 Haste for R, which is really good early on and something you can keep in hand waiting for enemy to be open to Hasty beaters later on (Haste is nice for surprise Sword hits for instance). As such, I'd go with the following:
+ 1 Grim Lavamancer
+ 3 Goblin Guide
+ 3-4 fetchlands
- 3-4 generic lands (you want to make sure you won't run outta stuff to fetch)
- 4 Vexing Shusher

I do wish to Add for War and Peace, that it is quite good in a fast deck with a cheap flier that can start swinging with it before the opponent empties their hand.

I ran a deck with It and Birds of Paradise that was surprisingly effective if the opponent did not have a quick answer for the birds ready.

Though that is really true of any of the swords, Turn 1 Birds, turn 2 sword Turn 3 swing with birds starts the ball rolling on the effects really quickly.

[Ionbound]

So I made my first serious Modern deck, Jeskai Burn:

Spoiler: Decklist:

Show

Land (26)
3x Arid Mesa
4x Clifftop Retreat
1x Island
2x Mountain
1x Plains
4x Sacred Foundry
3x Scalding Tarn
4x Steam Vents
4x Sulfur Falls

Instant (15)
1x Beacon of Destruction
3x Electrolyze
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Lightning Helix
3x Thunderous Wrath

Sorcery (4)
4x Lava Spike

Creature (15)
3x Balefire Liege
3x Guttersnipe
2x Keranos, God of Storms
4x Mantis Rider
3x Soulfire Grand Master

What do people think of it?

[Dumbledore lives]

So I made my first serious Modern deck, Jeskai Burn:

Spoiler: Decklist:

Show

Land (26)
3x Arid Mesa
4x Clifftop Retreat
1x Island
2x Mountain
1x Plains
4x Sacred Foundry
3x Scalding Tarn
4x Steam Vents
4x Sulfur Falls

Instant (15)
1x Beacon of Destruction
3x Electrolyze
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Lightning Helix
3x Thunderous Wrath

Sorcery (4)
4x Lava Spike

Creature (15)
3x Balefire Liege
3x Guttersnipe
2x Keranos, God of Storms
4x Mantis Rider
3x Soulfire Grand Master

What do people think of it?

I don't play modern so take my advice with a grain of salt, but it doesn't look quick enough to me. I'm not sure how to make it quicker. I think the four lightning helix's especially needs to be made faster in some way. This should help give some advice on better instants/sorceries to use in the deck.