Magic The Gathering Thread XXIII: Modern is Dead, Long Live Modern

[Togath]

Do you think any sort of half decent mill deck could be built with the stuff available in Arena? I noticed the Dimir stuff seems more about self mill than opponent milling t his time around.

[Douglas]

There are some pretty significant repeating mill cards, including the namesake of the concept, Millstone, but most of them are mono-blue, not UB, and don't give you anything to help survive while waiting to hit your opponent's last card. Thief of Sanity and Unmoored Ego are pretty nice, though, and if you can deal with its high mana cost Fleet Swallower is huge. I searched on magicarenacardlist.com for card rules containing "library AND graveyard AND NOT explore AND NOT surveil" to look into this. There's still a lot of non-mill cards in the list, but it's short enough that checking everything is reasonable.

[Gauntlet]

Your best bet is probably to play a controlling blue deck of some form with either Psychic Corrosion, Patient Rebuilding or Drowned Secrets as the kill.

There's some difficulties with it right now because a lot of decks use the graveyard in some capacity as a resource, so milling them might not be a great idea, and none of the options are particularly fast so you'll need to be more controlling.

[tgva8889]

Also if your opponent is playing Nexus of Fate you need another plan. Milling yourself is I think stronger right now than milling your opponent, though, because there are some strong cards that care about you having good things to use in your graveyard.

[Bucky]

I see three plausible options for a mill kill:
* Diligent Excavator - A combo converter if you find a way to bounce and recast an artifact infinite (or ~25) times. Unfortunately, I don't think the combo's there now.
* Psychic Corrosion - A win condition for a control deck. Play it for 3 and win with it gradually while using your mana on answers. Also, your other card advantage speeds up the clock. Alternatively, you could try to combo people out with a bunch of cards like Induced Amnesia, but I don't think the card-pool is deep enough for that.
* Patient Rebuilding - A less explosive, more expensive, more value-oriented alternative to Psychic Corrosion.

[Androgeus]

Also if your opponent is playing Nexus of Fate you need another plan.

I mean there is Unmoored Ego. Probably not the best game plan though.

[tgva8889]

Unmoored Ego is the kind of card you really don't want to play unless you have to, so I'd probably avoid it. You can get around Nexus of Fate with Thief of Sanity, but honestly you can win with Thief of Sanity without really decking your opponent, the card is just good.

Drowned Secrets, Patient Rebuilding, and Psychic Corrosion give you some decent repeatable ways to go about decking someone, but awkwardly it's hard to make them work for you since two of them don't do anything by themselves and I don't think it's very plausible to win with just one of them in your deck by decking.

[Spore]

Any thoughts about the vault system? Because I kind of share the sentiment of user Evermind on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/MagicArena/...eal_our_money/

Let me remind that to get these precious 1 mythic, 2 rare and 3 uncommon WCs you need to get 90 5th mythics, 180 5th rares, 300 5th uncommons or 900 5th commons. That is the definition of outrageous.

[Silfir]

It seems to me that WotC is confident that having the better game will grant them market dominance against the likes of Hearthstone, Shadowverse, Eternal and so on, and that there is no need for them to offer a more attractive F2P experience on top of that.

There's so much wasted potential there. Offering the unequivocally best CCG experience would give them a much larger player base - I doubt they'd even make less money in the end. They could also do a better job of leveraging paper MtG - it goes both ways; something as simple as putting Arena codes into paper booster packs (1:1 card redemption, or even free online events) could turn paper money players into online players, and previously online-only players of Hearthstone etc. who get successfully hooked on M:tG could very easily end up in stores cracking booster packs and buying planeswalker decks.

I suspect the success of Arena is being measured internally by direct financial returns - so making sure to give their existing player base as little as possible for free so that they're incentivized to pay is more important than trying to expand the player base. Maybe the prevailing opinion at the company is that their player base will be massive regardless of what they do - I'm pretty sure they're dead wrong on that, but I'm not clairvoyant myself.

[Spore]

Seriously at this point I have spent 200 dollars on MTG and it was fun but the money would have been better used elsewhere. Even as a paperback game. Though I would have needed to trade a bit (I know, WEIRD concept) for a few functioning deck and could not easily have a set of expensive cards in two decks without fiddling with them, but at the worst case I would have a physical card that I could resell if it is in decent condition.

MTGA is presposterous with its prices, and if liked TES Legends' two lane system more I'd probably still play that.

[Emmerlaus]

Seriously at this point I have spent 200 dollars on MTG and it was fun but the money would have been better used elsewhere. Even as a paperback game. Though I would have needed to trade a bit (I know, WEIRD concept) for a few functioning deck and could not easily have a set of expensive cards in two decks without fiddling with them, but at the worst case I would have a physical card that I could resell if it is in decent condition.

MTGA is presposterous with its prices, and if liked TES Legends' two lane system more I'd probably still play that.

I spent way more then that on MTG... and then had to move on the countryside, where almost nobody plays it!

Thus is life! Unpredictable...

Now, I have several commander decks I could use with friends though... 4 decks even

Im only interested in the formats where you have a commander though...

[Douglas]

The upcoming Singleton Challenge event in Arena has me seriously tempted with its potential prizes, but I don't have a singleton deck built yet. The obvious idea that comes to mind is a deck composed entirely of lands and legendaries, with maybe an occasional other card that synergizes well, but I'm not sure how well that would work. I suppose I could look for a creature type with enough different and good creatures for tribal to work.

Any suggestions or advice on building for Arena Singleton? By now I have enough cards and wildcards that I can probably build almost any (singleton) deck you might reasonably suggest.

[LansXero]

The upcoming Singleton Challenge event in Arena has me seriously tempted with its potential prizes, but I don't have a singleton deck built yet. The obvious idea that comes to mind is a deck composed entirely of lands and legendaries, with maybe an occasional other card that synergizes well, but I'm not sure how well that would work. I suppose I could look for a creature type with enough different and good creatures for tribal to work.

Any suggestions or advice on building for Arena Singleton? By now I have enough cards and wildcards that I can probably build almost any (singleton) deck you might reasonably suggest.

google around for Brawl decks. FWIW, Pirates and Vampires / Knights seem solid and easy to make. And there is always monored singleton because 'punches you in the face' is a valid tribe :v

[Jurai]

The upcoming Singleton Challenge event in Arena has me seriously tempted with its potential prizes, but I don't have a singleton deck built yet. The obvious idea that comes to mind is a deck composed entirely of lands and legendaries, with maybe an occasional other card that synergizes well, but I'm not sure how well that would work. I suppose I could look for a creature type with enough different and good creatures for tribal to work.

Any suggestions or advice on building for Arena Singleton? By now I have enough cards and wildcards that I can probably build almost any (singleton) deck you might reasonably suggest.

If you're looking for Legendary Tribal, I'd recommend Arvad the Cursed, and Benalish Honor Guard, just be wary of Price of Fame.

[Douglas]

If you're looking for Legendary Tribal, I'd recommend Arvad the Cursed, and Benalish Honor Guard, just be wary of Price of Fame.

Of course! Arvad is actually what first started me thinking about it. Well, that and Urza's Ruinous Blast, plus seeing that "Historic" synergy is a thing.

I'm thinking of trying dinosaur tribal, there are a ton of those and I already have most of them, including all the legendary and avatar ones except Tetzimoc if I really want to go extravagant on the high end of the mana curve. I think I've only ever seen someone play that once, though. Any idea how competitive it is, and how much singleton affects that?

[Shadow of the Sun]

Or just go Mono Rat Colony, which is apparently one of the best singleton decks in the format. :P

[Spacewolf]

How did you find out what the rewards are? Doesn't seem to be up on the main site or anywhere I can easily find.

[Douglas]

Or just go Mono Rat Colony, which is apparently one of the best singleton decks in the format. :P

Heh. No.

I recognize and accept its legality in singleton, unlike some of the ranters on the game's official forums, but it seems like a monotonous gimmick and there are plenty of ways for someone prepared for it to beat it. Ixalan's Binding in particular is hilariously effective. I might consider playing it once for a few laughs, but no more than that.

How did you find out what the rewards are? Doesn't seem to be up on the main site or anywhere I can easily find.

Here. It's in the News/Announcements section of the official game forums.

[Otomodachi]

Heh. No.

I recognize and accept its legality in singleton, unlike some of the ranters on the game's official forums, but it seems like a monotonous gimmick and there are plenty of ways for someone prepared for it to beat it. Ixalan's Binding in particular is hilariously effective. I might consider playing it once for a few laughs, but no more than that.


Here. It's in the News/Announcements section of the official game forums.

*plays Unmoored Ego turn three* So, is that GG then?

[Douglas]

*plays Unmoored Ego turn three* So, is that GG then?

Sadly, no. You'd only get to remove 4 of the rats, not all of them. They probably worded it that way because it doesn't say "nonland", and letting you exile all of your opponent's unplayed Islands, for example, would be ridiculous.

[Zhentarim]

Is a mono red prison deck possible? is is that solely the domain of white or blue cards?

[Ninjaman]

Is a mono red prison deck possible? is is that solely the domain of white or blue cards?

There is a White Red prison deck in modern.


There is also skred which is a mono red control deck. Though it might not be quite as prison as you're looking for.

[ImperiousLeader]

Is a mono red prison deck possible? is is that solely the domain of white or blue cards?

I think it'd have to be a Mass Land Destruction deck.

[Zhentarim]

How do spend to play land cards

[Otomodachi]

Sadly, no. You'd only get to remove 4 of the rats, not all of them. They probably worded it that way because it doesn't say "nonland", and letting you exile all of your opponent's unplayed Islands, for example, would be ridiculous.

OK, yes, good point, let's make it Ixalan's Binding instead. :)

[tgva8889]

There is a deck in Modern called Free Wins Red that I've seen that is designed to disable other decks by playing a fast Blood Moon, Magus of the Moon, Chalice of the Void, or Ensnaring Bridge to stop them from being able to play their game plan and then winning via some combination of Planeswalkers. Here's where I saw it.

[enderlord99]

Is Aether Storm + Pithing Needle a good combo, assuming you don't plan to cast any creatures?

[Ninjaman]

Is Aether Storm + Pithing Needle a good combo, assuming you don't plan to cast any creatures?

I what format?

[Shadow of the Sun]

Is Aether Storm + Pithing Needle a good combo, assuming you don't plan to cast any creatures?

Not really. A lock where one piece is 4 mana and both pieces are reasonably vulnerable to common hate isn't... great.

Feel free to jam it in Commander, but it's not going to be super competitive.

[Techwarrior]

Ignoring for the moment that your lock is vulnerable to Naturalize and it's variants, what is your deck's gameplan against other decks that don't cast creatures? Every format has them.