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Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Diakonov said:
Sadly, magiccards.info might be dead. Still no updates for Eldritch Moon and it still thinks Fate Reforged is in Standard. The rumor is that the owner stopped updating it when he sold mtgsalvation, which he also owned.
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That is sad news indeed, magiccards.info is by far the best card database there is, utterly superior to gatherer.

Edit: I just found this: https://magidex.com/. Haven't explored it yet, it's super new on the scene, but it says it's an enhanced magiccards.info clone.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
ahadabans said:
I want to reply on the subject of red for storm. I somewhat disagree... not so much in that red isn't the greatest support for a full combo win (I agree UB is a better base), but that you can't build a more aggressive "value" version of the deck and still do well. Empty the Warrens isn't bad at all. Sequence a few spells and you can easily get 6-8 goblins for 4 mana. That is a lot of value. Hell, power max lists were running that card until a few years ago with zero storm support.

Guttersnipe in a heavy spells list is a wrecking ball, but it doesn't work nearly as well in most modern creature heavy lists because you are always facing superior creatures making him useless for attacking most of the time. I've been playing around with some of these builds quite a bit in my retro list and I have a new found appreciation for Guttersnipe in particular. Coupled with burn and counters, you can do a great deal of damage with it. You can also switch from aggressive to control fairly easily in these builds too by where you point burn and how you use the few creatures you have. These decks are deviating from storm quite a bit at that point, but there's still overlap with the archetype. And throwing away cards like that feels a bit like tossing the baby out with the bathwater to me. The spells matter archetype is one of the best things to come out of modern magic IMO (speaking strictly from a cube perspective).

I guess my question is, does the storm deck need to win in one massive turn to be a successful storm deck? Or can it do a variety of things and maybe at the end win with a 4 storm count Tendrils of Agony? What's wrong with that? Isn't that more interactive anyway since a lot probably happened on both sides to make an 8 life drain lethal? Not even sure we fully disagree either. I think you are arguing this idea of overlapping mechanics, so I'm a bit surprised that the reanimator overlap seems good to you but the spells matter overlap seems bad (or am I misunderstanding?) If anything, the latter feels more natural to me since storm decks inevitably pack a billion spells (might as well have a dual purpose). Then again, I am not a good storm drafter so could be way off base here.
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The red storm cards are much worse at actually killing people, but people keep on running them, on the basis that even if they never go into a storm deck, they can at least go into a value deck. I think thats the difference, the UB storm cards actually overlap since the same deck can benefit from them, while the red ones don't.

I got that feeling when drafting your retro cube. I would always go into it with the intent of drafting storm, and I've done that several times, but never with red cards, because the red storm deck is so hard to draft. These are my options:





Even if you were to give me ritual support, this just feels much more fragile than potential options in blue, black, or even green.

Taking it infinite outside power lists is really hard to do.
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I think its actually much easier to do in low power lists. You gain access to temporal fissure, and a bunch of mana configurations that make mass mana generation trivial. Otherwise you are kind of dependent on rituals.
 
ahadabans

ahadabans

Grillo_Parlante said:
I think its actually much easier to do in low power lists. You gain access to temporal fissure, and a bunch of mana configurations that make mass mana generation trivial. Otherwise you are kind of dependent on rituals.
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I'm clearly bad at drafting storm. But I just don't get this. Storm is like the poster child mechanic for broken magic enabled win conditions. It pretty much doesn't work any other way. How are you taking mana generation infinite and having enough cards in hand to find and cast your storm finisher in a low powered list before you are dying to virtually any deck applying board pressure? If I slotted the best storm deck I could build from my retro cube into my midrange cube, it would lose to every single deck it played against.

I re-watched that link you posted with LSV (actually, I watched all his vintage drafts plus the triple ravnica drafts - quite enjoy his commentary and seeing him play - if you haven't seen them, highly recommend the ravnica drafts. so good).

Anyway, that storm deck he had was way better than anything even possible in my retro list. And it simply doesn't function at all without key ultra powerful cards (channel was so important to that build he ran for more than one victory. So was time twister). I just don't get how this works in something like Penny Pincher or even my main list. A play like Mana Flare/Heartbeat of Spring, pass is almost forcing you to go off the next turn and hoping your opponent can't kill you with 8+ mana on their turn. How many ways are there in a low powered list to make that profitable?
 
safra

safra

I'm a storm dork and I also don't see it. Ahadabans and I agree again! Must be a full moon

e: duress, sapphire medallion/nightscape familiar, archaeomancer, peregrine drake, duress, ghostly flicker is a turn 4 protected storm engine

(that requires 4-6 cards in hand by turn 4 since you've also gotta pour that mana into something)
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
ahadabans said:
I'm clearly bad at drafting storm. But I just don't get this. Storm is like the poster child mechanic for broken magic enabled win conditions. It pretty much doesn't work any other way. How are you taking mana generation infinite and having enough cards in hand to find and cast your storm finisher in a low powered list before you are dying to virtually any deck applying board pressure? If I slotted the best storm deck I could build from my retro cube into my midrange cube, it would lose to every single deck it played against.

I re-watched that link you posted with LSV (actually, I watched all his vintage drafts plus the triple ravnica drafts - quite enjoy his commentary and seeing him play - if you haven't seen them, highly recommend the ravnica drafts. so good).

Anyway, that storm deck he had was way better than anything even possible in my retro list. And it simply doesn't function at all without key ultra powerful cards (channel was so important to that build he ran for more than one victory. So was time twister). I just don't get how this works in something like Penny Pincher or even my main list. A play like Mana Flare/Heartbeat of Spring, pass is almost forcing you to go off the next turn and hoping your opponent can't kill you with 8+ mana on their turn. How many ways are there in a low powered list to make that profitable?
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The familiar deck is a storm deck. It can produce infinite mana, is extremely resilient, and doesn't need to rush out the combo. When your mana base has part of the storm engine built until it, storming off becomes much easier, and engines can be included in a myriad number of decks. You're thinking of storm too narrowly.


The deck that got Frantic Search banned operates along a slightly different path than its Storm brethren. Instead of using Ritual effects to generate mana it instead combines Cloud of Faeries andSnap with Ravnica Block bouncelands and Nightscape Familiar and Sunscape Familiar from Planeshift to generate oodles of mana. Then the deck uses Mnemonic Wall Ghostly Flicker and Toils of Night and Day to generate more mana and rebuy Snap (with Wall) to continue bouncing Cloud to generate a high enough storm count to use Temporal Fissure to remove all opposing permanents from the board and win with attacking Mulldrifters and the like. Even if the enemy rebuilds Temporal Storm can just loop the cycle again the next turn thanks to bounce and Mnemonic Wall.

This is the most resilient of the Storm decks but it also takes the longest to set up victory.
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And I'm not pushing storm in the format for balancing reasons. I don't run any of the actual storm cards, and I'm not experimenting with any of the other storm friendly CIPT lands :



Cards like skerry or the bouncelands really open blue up as a ramp color. So you have decks that can play normal games (usually either ramp or control) and than use blue's filter or draw effects (some of which ramp you too) to eventually combo. That is why the deck is so ridiculous, since none of the parts in it are truly poisonous or incapable of filling into value generating roles.

Giving drafters the ability to generate anywhere from 10-14 mana in one turn is not that hard in a low power format, and aggro pressure tends to be lighter in general anyways. Its just really easy to design these formats to have abusable ramping everywhere.

Really surprised this is a topic of discussion.
 
ahadabans

ahadabans

Grillo_Parlante said:
The familiar deck is a storm deck. It can produce infinite mana, is extremely resilient, and doesn't need to rush out the combo. When your mana base has part of the storm engine built until it, storming off becomes much easier, and engines can be included in a myriad number of decks. You're thinking of storm too narrowly.

Giving drafters the ability to generate anywhere from 10-14 mana in one turn is not that hard in a low power format, and aggro pressure tends to be lighter in general anyways. Its just really easy to design these formats to have abusable ramping everywhere.

Really surprised this is a topic of discussion.
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When I experimented with the familiars, they were simply too slow and fragile. Against anything that was aggressive or had a decent amount of removal, it was rare when you could essentially take a turn off to cast one and not put yourself behind (or open yourself up for them to just get removed). The medallions seem a little better, but more narrow obviously since they only work for one color (I feel like the blue one is the only one that is actually good).

Low format where nothing can win before T6? Sure. A lot more stuff is viable. You can durdle your way to some untap dude + ghostly flicker + return from GY shenanigans, but I'm not convinced that is playable in higher powered cubes. I'm not even convinced it would work in my retro list where the creatures are generally much worse.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
ahadabans said:
Low format where nothing can win before T6? Sure. A lot more stuff is viable. You can durdle your way to some untap dude + ghostly flicker + return from GY shenanigans, but I'm not convinced that is playable in higher powered cubes. I'm not even convinced it would work in my retro list where the creatures are generally much worse.
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You can win in that cube prior to turn 6 and those pauper lists kill between turns 2-5. In cube, there is no reason to tight cast storm as a focused deck, racing to execute its combo. The familiar deck in the penny cube is essentially a bunch of value cards that happen to be able to combine to create infinite mana. Since the penny cube is fundamentally a fair/midrange/value based format, you can just slot that into any control, ramp, tempo, or midrange deck running blue, and the pieces fold naturally into any of those broad strategies. Thats why the deck was/is too good, as there is no price to running the combo, and it abruptly wins games.

Seeing as the question posed to me was the viability of storm in low power lists, I'm not really sure what we are discussing than at this point: I've shown that storm decks can slot in naturally into lower power formats, since any format that can support CIPT lands, can effectively build rituals into their own mana base while all of the other pieces are just generic value producers everyone wants.

But in the interest of producing something productive, that retro list of yours would have a very easy time supporting storm, to the point where its not a question of "if" its a question of whether it should. What you would want to do is make it where your storm cards slot naturally into an existing valid deck. In that specific format I would focus less on spell rituals, and more on blue spell based ramp to achieve 10+ mana in a turn. Cards like turnabout, frantic search, peregrine drake, cloud of faeries, and snap are effectively 0 mana ramp spells in your format.

Colors that are very good at ramping out large amounts of mana in one turn, it turns out, are also really good at ramping out large amounts of spells in one turn, and thats where you find your storm deck. Storm slots in much easier as a sub theme, rather than a main theme.

For you I think it very clearly should be a UG/x ramp or ramp control deck, not fragile and difficult to draft spell-ritual based grixis decks. You could build onto that theme by adding fallen empires and invasion block sac. lands, as well as the mercadian masque depletion lands.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
I thought this was kind of fun.

Apparently these guys have a format where they just play 93/94 magic. Its a rare opportunity to see how decks from that ancient period might have evolved with contemporary theory, and some of the results are really interesting. Some of the more fascinating ones.

MonoBlue aggro

MonoBlue Aggro combines fairly undercosted creatures with card advantage
and cheap counters. Bounce and control effects clear the path for juggernauts
and factories, and a set of six Lord of Atlantis (with the 2 clones) makes a
quick clock for any opponent running blue, which usually means more than
half the field.

Note: This looks like an actual "tempo" deck, which I didn't believe existed during this period. Looking at the x4 lord of Atlantis makes me feel like I'm seeing some sort of missing evolutionary link between "fish" decks and true "tempo" decks. Note that despite unsummon existing in the format, there is no bounce, instead preferring hard answers (psi blast) and board state swinging control magic effects. There is still the focus on evasion, which seems to be a defining elements in so-called "tempo" decks, but here it comes from merfolk lords: a common recourse for developing decks after this period.

CREATURES (17)
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Serendib Efreet
4 Juggernaut
2 Old Man of the Sea
1 Time Elemental
2 Clone

ENCHANTMENTS (2)
2 Control Magic

SORCERIES (3)
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
1 Braingeyser

INSTANTS (14)
1 Ancestral Recall
3 Boomerang
4 Counterspell
4 Force Spike
2 Psionic Blast

ARTIFACTS (5)
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mana Vault
1 Icy Manipulator

LANDS (20)
4 Mishra’s Factory
1 Strip Mine
1 Maze of Ith
14 Island

SIDEBOARD
4 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Dandan
1 Acid Rain
4 Psychic Purge
1 Amnesia
1 Mana Vortex
1 Tolaria


Land of the Lich

Land of the Lich combines strong control elements with lots of card advantage,
life gain, and combo wins out of nowhere. It can draw it's entire deck using
Lich and then win with Land's Edge, or it can simply use Mirror Universe as
a win condition. Post board it can transform into a tempo based aggro-control
when the opponent has sided out creature removal.
Note: Love this combo deck. There is a second, less combo focused version on the list as well, but this one brilliantly used Lich (of all things) as an unbelievably broken draw engine, before tossing all of the lands at an opponent for lethal. It also has a focus on my favorite use for sylvan library as part of a life gain powered draw engine. Food for thought for people that want to run stuff like molten vortex, or seismic assault alongside life from the loam. This is the big boy version of that deck.

CREATURES (4)
2 Wall of Earth
1 Evil Eye of Orms-by-Gore
1 Serendib Efreet

ENCHANTMENTS (5)
1 Lich
1 Land’s Edge
1 Dark Heart of the Wood
2 Sylvan Library

SORCERIES (10)
2 Fireball
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 Mind Twist
1 Recall
1 Timetwister
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Braingeyser
1 Regrowth

INSTANTS (10)
1 Shatter
4 Mana Drain
1 Ancestral Recall
3 Lightning Bolt
1 Fork ARTIFACTS (8)
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Mirror Universe
2 Ivory Tower
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire

LANDS (23)
2 Diamond Valley
3 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
4 City of Brass
4 Taiga
2 Bayou
2 Mishra’s Factory
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Strip Mine
3 Volcanic Island

SIDEBOARD
1 Giant Shark
3 Serendib Efreet
3 Kird Ape
2 Hypnotic Specter
1 Lightning Bolt
2 Chain Lightning
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Blue Elemental Blast

Colossus Control

This insane combo deck won the 2011 world championship. The goal is to drop
Sylvan Library turn 2, then use millstone on one's own deck until a few
colossi has hit the bin. A resolved All Hallow's Eve then gets you a small
army of 9/9's which ends the game quickly. In order to maximize the chance to
have green mana turn two it runs more duals and less moxen. After sideboard it
can transform almost completely to a version of The Deck with the Millstones
as win conditions.
Note: Does this look familiar to anyone? Yes, this is a 93/94 self-mill strategy, using all hallow's eve as a living death variant. What a smart way to take a strategy that didn't really exist until much later in the game's history and scale it for the period.
CREATURES (3)
3 Colossus of Sardia

ENCHANTMENTS (6)
4 Sylvan Library
2 The Abyss

SORCERIES (7)
1 Regrowth
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mind Twist
2 All Hallow’s Eve
1 Balance
1 Wrath of God

INSTANTS (13)
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Disenchant
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Mana Drain

ARTIFACTS (9)
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Disrupting Scepter
2 Jalum Tome
2 Millstone
2 Tormod’s Crypt
 
japahn

japahn

Do they play with current oracle? I'm guessing yes, since Lord of Atlantis did not give +1/+1 to other lords at the time. Of course, maybe they were just used as bears...

Super interesting format though. Without token makers, The Abyss seems like a format defining card.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
It was major anti-creature tech at the time as well, and one of the reasons why juggernaut was such a powerful card.

Most spell based decks relied on either the abyss or moat (or both) as mass removal, and control decks didn't really start to look at WOG until those tools were taken away.
 
CML

CML

Contributor
travel update: airbnb in prague describes us as "horrible and very stinking"; i puke on myself in belgrade

(xpost with jam stovenseeeeeon fb)
 
James Stevenson

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
FA2TaLm.png

contributor CML said:
travel update: airbnb in prague describes us as "horrible and very stinking"; i puke on myself in belgrade
Click to expand...
 
Rasmus Källqvist

Rasmus Källqvist

Is there any chance of seeing these old school decks in action?


japahn said:
Do they play with current oracle? I'm guessing yes, since Lord of Atlantis did not give +1/+1 to other lords at the time. Of course, maybe they were just used as bears...
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Wait, explain this to me. Nothing of the wording on the alpha lord of atlantis wording seems to indicate it wouldn't buff other lords of atlantis?
 
Fulcrum

Fulcrum

Rasmus Källqvist said:
Is there any chance of seeing these old school decks in action?




Wait, explain this to me. Nothing of the wording on the alpha lord of atlantis wording seems to indicate it wouldn't buff other lords of atlantis?
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93-94 is a neat format. A few people play it in my area.

You can see more decklists here

http://oldschool-mtg.blogspot.com/p/decks-to-beat.html

There's a few videos of games being played as well.
This video is super neat because you get to see a chaos orb activation.


Went deeper, here's 5 hours of this format.



 
ahadabans

ahadabans

I think creatures like this have less to do with having drawbacks and more to do with how punished you are by removal in particular. Drake feels borderline suicidal in the average cube deck, especially anyone running something like lightning bolt. Master of the Feast is interesting because it makes pacify effects amazingly good, which is cool because pacify effects are often underwhelming. So I honestly like that one a lot. It's high risk/high reward.

One thing I'd love to see someone craft is a really well balanced suite of removal specifically with creatures in mind. I know everyone tries to do this, but what if that were the focus of your cube design? Thinking almost a roshambo type arrangement. Stuff that recurs from the yard is trumped by exile. Things like Master are trumped by pacify effects (not sure how many cards fall into this bucket though). Token makers are trumped by dividable burn and mass reomval (though that never seems to be the audience most impacted making this great on paper and poor in practice).

Just rambling here. Don't mind me.
 
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