Magic: The Gathering C/D

some observations:

-there's tons of ways to tap your inspired creatures outside of combat, but only Crypsis, Kiora's Follower, and Akroan Conscriptor can untap creatures for extra inspired triggers. Theros adds Breaching Hippocamp (maybe no longer crappy?), Savage Surge, Portent of Betrayal, and Triton Tactics. note that conscriptor/portent can get you your opponent's inspired effects if you steal a tapped inspired guy.
-the tribute guys are really hard to evaluate but in general i think they're a lot better when you're ahead than behind so i'd probably look at them as curve-toppers in aggressive decks and leave them on the sidelines in slow/defensive ones. this theory makes the green common lifegain one look pretty bad. meanwhile, the white uncommon one looks insane and i think its better than all the rare ones.
-i don't remember if eternity snare was playable in time spiral limited where its from, but it's notable for being one of two cards in the set that completely shuts down a bestow totem rather than just knocking off the bottom layer like normal removal. the other is the lyre equipment. theros didn't have cards that do this at all so i don't know how clunky they can be and still be blowouts.

lamp modern PTQ season isn't until june, there's another sealed season first. if i had to play a modern event today i'd play some sort of scapeshift deck with prismatic omens, but i think with no important new cards for the format in the past couple sets they're going to be doing a B&R change soon.

should've gotten in front of that drs banning *makes all the saddest faces*

the ptq seasons dont make any sense it was just sealed

maybe they will just finally unban dark depths i just bought a playset

don't think dark depths is on their radar at all, nor should it be with some of the other cards they've got on the list right now. i'm expecting a wild nacatl unban or a deathrite shaman ban if anything

having the PT be a repeat of the last one where half the field just brought jund seems like a nightmare scenario for WotC. its hard for them to promote the format accessibility-wise when all the top players are just playing the $1800 deck year in year out

really though I think fetches are a bigger accessibility problem than jund, which clearly sits on the t1 deck perch but is not like unbeatable or anything

i think any talk about banning fetches is dumb and they need to just bite the bullet and put them in a large print run product to 'save' the format

as someone who just finished acquiring his I am also opposed to banning fetches but yeah that seems inevitable

I mean printing them not banning obv

i was entirely joking about dark depths. well i mean i did pick up a playset but its never coming off the modern ban list. bitterblossom and nacatl seem to be the two likely contenders for an unbanning on the internet.

oing by both mtgo and gp results the bloodbraid banning does seem to have opened up enough space for other decks. like i dont think jund is good enough now to be 40%+ of the meta at the pt? i've been playing jund in paper since the summer and while its still probably the 'best' deck its weak enough to some of the pillars that it can't be so clearly the 'right' deck in a field as big as the pt. like, the legend rule change improved affinity enough to make jund less of sound choice? idk

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/tournament/14340

it's hard to see this and think that jund is some unstoppable monster

I think risk averse people play it because it's clearly not-bad

i am still banking on fetchland reprints starting in fall of 2015. this is also how i am justifying picking up foil onslaught fetches since having them be modern legal seems like it will push the value of the original printings even higher

xp - in my xp jund is severely underrepresented on mtgo because of the cost of the deck, it was about a third of the decks that made day 2 at the most recent modern gp

I think gp players are more likely to be risk averse than people experimenting on modo

well theres also the sheer number of affinity decks in that list to consider as well :/

like how many people came into the gp w/ the deck, what's the ratio of that to the d2. (I don't think that number is public, but that's the more important figure) xp

yeah but otoh affinity did super terrible in the gp

I think the meta is actually pretty open

affinity is really popular on mtgo for reasons beyond my ability to explain

This set definitely looks very dgm'ish, Brimaz seems like it'll be a $40 card and then nothing else will come close. the minor gods all seem very fun but you really have to build around them in a way you don't have to with say Purphorous. as you guys have all figured out the uncommons look like they'll really shake up the Limited format (which is awesome bc I don't play constructed really)

Inspired looks like it'll rise the stock of Aqueous Form and Prowler's Helm. Slapping a Form on one of those creature-gen things and going to town seems like a good time. I like Tribute too, I think a lot of people have a bad reaction to any sort of "punisher" card but I think these are different because traditional punisher cards give you things that are bad in two very different ways while these are generally bad in the same way. Like they're all probably worse than they look but many of them seem very playable

Perplexing Chimera is probably my favorite card in the set right now, especially since it combos neatly with bounce or flicker effects. Next is probably Hunter's Prowess. I also dig Tromokrasis a lot and hope that both those abilities get used from now on. But these are all 25 cent rares. Kinda refreshing in a way to have a set with almost no chase rares outside of the obligitory overpowered mythic.

perplexing chimera is going to be the most groan inducing card an opponent can resolve. so annoying.

Does it combo well with bounce/flicker effects? Can't your opponent choose to take control of your bounce spell and hit something else with it? I guess if there's no other targets, they can't.

yeah but then you get the Chimera back anyway

not saying the card's any good but I love when they come up with totally new things like that (the divide into 3 piles and lose one card is also quite a unique thing, but that's not even remotely playable)

Yeah, you get the Chimera back, but they've potentially bounced whatever you stole in the first place and it's back to square one. But maybe that's fine? It's a hard card for me to get my head around. Seems playable in limited, but I can't tell how good it is. I guess at the least it delays them from playing their best spell, like having a face-up Voidmage Prodigy on the board.

I wanted to build a Modern Seance deck and this seems like it could fit. If your graveyard is stocked you can play Seance, zip this out on the opponent's turn and take control of anything bad they might cast (and the token bites it at the end of the turn anyway), then combo off on your turn. Anything to make the deck wackier than it already is...

i'd be really suprised if brimaz is a voice of resurgence situation, there's 2 other mythics that are probably as good as it in xenagos and kiora, and the rest of the gods will probably hold value too. DGM's problem was making the headlining characters regular rares and then making most of the mythics shitty

Well for one those (and the other gods) are all multicolor so that really limits the sort of decks they can go in. The major gods were cheaper and triggered with 2 other permanents in play whereas you'll probably need 3 out for these. In other words I feel like there's probably only one deck out there for any of these. I'm also wondering just how good Kiora really is, its starting loyalty is low which means it'll usually die to anything that hits it. Like often I figure you'll have to choose between using the 0 ability that you really want to use and the +1 that will keep it alive. Also I question what kind of deck it'll fit in. Brimaz seems so pushed right now that it may be another Baneslayer situation, as in you can just slot it into any ol' white deck and it'll pull its weight.

yeah I don't like kiora at all, even in limited she seems pretty meh

Anyway, the starcity guys (who are a lot smarter than me) break it down like this:

Brimaz $30
Kiora $25
Xenagos $25 (now that I think about it there's already a Standard deck this would slide right into)
Mogis $20
Other Gods and Flame-Weathered Phoenix $10

Not a lot of other rares worth money (similar to Theros I guess):
Courser of Kruphix $4
Pain Seer $12
Spirit of the Labyrinth $8
Temples $5 each

And even then I think Pain Seer will probably tank hard once people realize that it's going to be really tough to make it more than a Grizzly Bear with all the great creatures currently in Standard. If Dark Confidant didn't exist this would probably be a $3 card right now. I'm also thinking Spirit of the Labyrinth isn't going to get much play outside of sideboards right now (and Legacy-oriented cards like that tend to not be worth a whole lot while they're in print)

yeah none of the almost-dark-confidants have panned out and spirit will be this set's swan song

even xenagos in the gr deck is what a 1-2 of? in one of the less popular decks

I'm guessing people who got burned from the gods sinking in value so fast last time will be hesitant to buy/trade them even at 20

i think kiora is quite good but i'm no expert obviously

my sleeper pick for this set is scourge of skola vale, i don't think it's awesome but i think it's playable and at a cmc slot that green's had a lot of trouble filling in recent times, and it's being priced as a bulk rare by scg so its like low risk medium reward

yeah no way the minor gods are settling north of $10

I like the design of the Scourge but it has the problem of needing some work to become a threat and even then not having a way to protect itself. Unless there's a combo with the +1/+1 counters somewhere.

i think xenagos does, and if brimaz, xenagos, and tamiyo are all >$10 and a few of the regular rares break out to the $5-10 range then we've got a pretty average small set value-wise. its the latter that i don't know if is going to happen.

the best chance is that these 3 temples are worth >$5 due to the small set effect

people thought dark ascension was shitty when it came out, similar to this, and then falkenrath aristocrat and hellrider broke out later in the year and it ended up being a fine set in retrospect, it just took a bit

to me the mythics here seem less promising than the mythics in dragonsmaze did (lots of which seemed to have potential, even though only voice and baron went anywhere) + there are no random shocklands in packs

Both Aristocrat and Hellrider seemed pushed upon release but there wasn't a deck for them until later. I don't really see that sort of card here. The Phoenix and Spirit of the Labyrinth are the two cards that seem real good but need the right deck or metagame, and they're 10 and 8 right now.

Maybe Herald of Torment?

Yeah I think Herald has a chance of getting play. Reminds me of Boon Satyr in terms of cost/power level.

I also think Kiora looks pretty sweet. Her abilities map to Jace, Architect of Thought's abilities somewhat, but the ultimate is more powerful, and it's quicker to go off. The tradeoff is smaller starting loyalty. We'll see if there is a deck for her.

I agree that the power level is similar but being 2 color limits the sort of decks that it gets played in. If a deck does get built around Prophet of Kruphix and Ephara I can see it working very well...

I could see UW Control decks splashing G for Kiora too. Though then it competes directly with Jace.

I'm looking forward to someone building a crazy mill deck around Mill God + Mnemonic Walls + Triton Tactics + Hidden Strings

As someone at my LGS noticed, Pheanx + Consuming Aberration are BFFs

current modern deck, since lamp was asking about modern the other day
http://i.imgur.com/0Zi1QE5.jpg

pretty happy with it so far, i think the cryptic command build is probably fine too but i want 4 valakut 3-4 omen in any version of the deck i play right now