General It could happen in any number of formats

[Jason Waddell]

Yes, that thread.

Last night a player had Jace, Liliana, Dark Confidant, Jitte and Blood Artist on the table against an empty board and lost.

In a control mirror, one player main-phases a Vendilion Clique to play around counterspells (his opponent only has a Plains open). He targets his opponent, and puts a card on the bottom of the library. The opponent reveals Terminus off the top and wraths for one mana.

 

[Miasmir]

I have the distinct feeling that there's an interesting story behind that first situation that you're coyly omitting.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Truth is I didn't see it all. It was at the table next to me, and people were flipping out. Somebody whipped out a cell phone to take a picture of the board state. As far as I perceived it what happened next was a burn spell + Snapcaster burn spell to kill the two planeswalkers, and a Control Magic to steal the Dark Confidant + Jitte. But I don't know if that's completely factually correct.

 

[Jason Waddell]

 

[Chris Taylor]

Not quite as surprising, but we had two different players die to Serendib Efreet Triggers on their upkeep in the same match. (Thanks Juzam Efreet )

 

[Jason Waddell]

In another game from the above match, the opponent was about to mill out, then on his second-to-last turn popped a Hellion Crucible and copied it with Phantasmal Image to swing in for lethal.

 

[Eric Chan]

How has Hellion Crucible been for you guys, anyways? I've been considering it for my utility land pile, because I have enough Teetering Peaks-style cards to last a lifetime. I mean, I also have Kher Keep, but I'm not convinced that's a card. (Or is it...?)

 

[Jason Waddell]

It's been fine. You don't have to use it. Sometimes you're glad you did. There's a fairly low threshold for playability on ETB untapped lands.

 

[Lucre]

A couple weeks back I won a game when I played a grave titan into another player's graveborn muse and he died of lifeloss.

It turns out it doesn't work like that but it was really cool and I imagine it happens in EDH all the time.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Nothing too spectacular, but having an 8/8 Figure of Destiny and an 8/8 Phantasmal Image on the board at the same time is pretty satisfying. Not too bad for a 1-drop and 2-drop.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Oh, now I remember my favorite play of the night. On the draw I play T2 Augur of Bolas, and my opponent plays T3 Call of the Herd. I topdeck Stonecloaker, exiling the Call of the Herd and rebuying the Augur. So much value for 3 mana.

 

[CML]

i dunno jason, i disagree pretty strongly. the threshold for colorless lands is very high in constructed (junk rites in standard, which runs ~24 lands that are all duals, can get away with 1-2), and in cube where the mana is worse and the decks are smaller the same is true. that being said the good ol fishes in legacy love their god-awful 12 island 4 waste 4 vault manabase. thanks to m14 spoilers, now with even more UU dudes you can never cast in a million years. i do think cube manabases tend more towards the junk rites side of things, though

of course cipt lands have a high opportunity cost too (bonus to cathedral of war for hitting both). then we get into eiganjo castle territory, where the effect is so marginal (especially with wasteland + a bunch of fetches that do need targets) that why bother.

time to resurrect the util land thread

 

[Dom Harvey]

Junk Rites' manabase is about as stable as Enron, so I'm not sure it's a great example. The mana requirements are very strict in Standard (e.g. Boros Reckoner, Supreme Verdict/Sphinx's Revelation, various multicoloured spells) so they can't afford to run colourless lands almost no matter how strong they are; look back to the previous Standard format, where Delver and UB Control were able to support Moorland Haunt/Drownyard respectively in otherwise flimsy manabases.

 

[Jason Waddell]

I think it's also important to note how much better fetchlands are for three-color decks than the Shockland / Checklands. A fetchland in the right deck can grab all of your colors, and depending on the land, grab any relevant two-color shock/dual.

 

[Lucre]

I just got a text from a friend about how he flipped up a Geist of Saint Traft with his Bloodbraid Elf today. I really wana see this deck.

 

[FlowerSunRain]

I lost to the power of Springjack Pasture Sunday. The goats, the lifegain AND the colorfixing were all relevant. That card was a stud

 

[Jason Waddell]

I lost to the power of Springjack Pasture Sunday. The goats, the lifegain AND the colorfixing were all relevant. That card was a stud

Devil's Play copied with Chandra the Fireband for 14. Flashback for lethal.

Genesis Wave for 7 putting 30 something power on the board. Opponent casts Blasphemous Act next turn.

Ramp player winning through Collective Restraint (Domain = 5) as if it wasn't there.

Kessig Wolf Run + Zhur Taa Ancient

Proliferating with Coalition Relic and Everflowing Chalice on the board.

Winning with 3 permanents left against an Ulamog's Crusher.

Spellbound Dragon pitching Blasphemous Act.

 

[FlowerSunRain]

I was under the mistaken impression that I was the only one who thought Zhur Taa Ancient was a card worth playing! Well done!

 

[Dom Harvey]

How has Ancient been? I never really saw it as a potential Cube card but given that my Cube has 3+ Heartbeat effects in it that's probably an error. 7/5 is pretty beefy as well.

 

[Jason Waddell]

How has Ancient been? I never really saw it as a potential Cube card but given that my Cube has 3+ Heartbeat effects in it that's probably an error. 7/5 is pretty beefy as well.

It's actually a pretty interesting card. Almost every time I drew it I felt like my opponent was bottlenecked on mana and often I would hold it for a couple turns and do other things in the meantime. Particularly tense when the opponent has a Figure of Destiny on board.

 

[Lucre]

I was talking to a friend of mine from class about trying to play red or black aggro with proactive disruption like LD and duress and how you never feel like you are doing any one thing well enough to win. He proceeds to drop a card on me like a tonne of bricks: Young Pyromancer. Apparently it's just absolutely insane with Cabal Therapy and when you spend a turn removing a blocker or 3 mana trying to set your opponent back a turn you don't feel like you are wasting one yourself. I Am waaaaaaaaay too excited to play with this card. Soooooo curious about what it's like to play around it.

 

[Jason Waddell]

I was talking to a friend of mine from class about trying to play red or black aggro with proactive disruption like LD and duress and how you never feel like you are doing any one thing well enough to win. He proceeds to drop a card on me like a tonne of bricks: Young Pyromancer. Apparently it's just absolutely insane with Cabal Therapy and when you spend a turn removing a blocker or 3 mana trying to set your opponent back a turn you don't feel like you are wasting one yourself. I Am waaaaaaaaay too excited to play with this card. Soooooo curious about what it's like to play around it.

Was this person just quoting my M14 review?

As with any build-around card, Young Pyromancer is far more potent in a Constructed setting than in draft. Delver of Secrets makes inroads in powerful formats like Legacy, but in Cube it’s difficult achieve the right density of spells without suffering from a lack of threat density. One of the factors that has long held back the “spells matter” archetype in Cube is a lack of cards that properly reward you for playing spells.

Many of the cards from this school of design have fallen flat. Talrand, Sky Summoner, for example, required you to cast two spells after casting it in order to get more value than simply casting Talrand’s Invocation instead.

The biggest difference, of course, is that Young Pyromancer hits the table much earlier, greatly extending your window to cast spells. Following up a turn 2 Young Pyromancer with a turn 3Stone Rain is a massive game. Moreover, aggressive decks often suffer from a loss of momentum when using removal spells to clear out blockers. Young Pyromancer elegantly gets around this.

Young Pyromancer also lights up my imagination. I dream of following it up with aGitaxian Probe, Cabal Therapy, and an immediate flashback on Cabal Therapy. Even when not hitting a ridiculous draw, Young Pyromancer challenges you to properly sequence your plays and consider how to get the greatest value out of your investment. Do you alpha-strike into blockers with the Pyromancer, or leave him back for future token generation?
All in all, an excellently designed card that I can’t wait to cast.

 

[Lucre]

Maybe I shoulda read the review! I guess I'd seen that sort of thing said before, but until I started trying to play stone rain // bad aggressive decks again it didn't really catch. Like playing a stone rain and not having a board position advantage is such a lame feeling. It's just so nice to be able to get both your fulminator mage and their land too. Being forced to pick between grey ogre and a land just makes you feel like such a twat in most games. This is really the sort of card I can see myself excited to be playing in multiples even in cube.

 

[Lucre]

I got another of what I can only assume is a young pyromancer update.
Recieved a text from my buddy that plays with power that read:

"Whats a 1/1 creature that draws 3 cards when it comes into play?"

I've only been able to get smiley faces out of him since. I assume someone's having fun with ancestral recall. I really want to convince them to run two of that pyromancer because it seems like way too much fun.

 

[Kyultu]

Last night I had an opponent ramp to Elesh Norn to wrath my board, but I got to untap and cast a brutal Living Death as a 10-for-1, he had nothing in the yard and I got to bring back an Angel of Despair, Inkwell Leviathan, Augur of Bolas and 2 more dorks. Angel blew up has man-land and Augur hit a counterspell to seal the deal.