I'd be willing to argue that the effects don't replace one another as much as the supplement each other. Getting rid of two things is almost always good at instant speed. Just something you might want to try out, Yugi, I know I will be.

Is it still a double post if it's 6 hours later? I'm going to say no, since new spoilers are up.


Recurs an artifact card. Not too hot, but worth consideration at instant speed, especially with the increase in artifacts this block is creating. Probably not quite there, but worth a look.


This one looks much more promising. Card advantage at instant speed. It's sort of a double Time Walk in this format. Not quite, but oh well. I think this will see at least an opportunity in all but the strongest stacks.


Probably no good, unless you like flavorful removal. Just added it because I want this set to give us more cards. I guess the new Yawgmoth's Agenda is more than enough and Wizards knew it.

Did I miss any? Spoiler at 145 as of this post.

It seems like generally people avoid +1/+0 regardless of the creature it's on, so I'm not sure why "it dies to removal" is now a relevant argument. I guess you guys already play firebreathers, or maybe just a low number of artifacts? Either way, I feel he's going to be either overwhelming or underwhleming, neither of which feels playable to me. Yugi had a pretty thorough explanation.


Ooh, that's what that asterisk next to the card means. My bad, wasn't looking. Thanks for the info.

First of all, I don't see why people are saying Blightsteel will replace Darksteel. Is Darksteel really your worst beater? They're similar, but you can still use both...

Also, to the people saying the Hellkite is too conditional to be good, or that it's fair: if you have 1 artifact, it gets +1/+0 infinite times and kills a player with haste through the air. I don't see how that's too conditional and it's definitely far from fair for most players.

I can't wait for Praetor's. It's expensive CMC, so it'll be a cheap mythic to pick up and Spine of Ish Sah is a Vindicate with possible multi-use. Both sound good to me.

Small one I don't think I saw mentioned:
Divine Offering: Nothing too exciting. Artifact destroy with a bit of lifegain at instant speed. Definitely worth considering.

Slice in Twain
Instant
Destroy target artifact or enchantment.
Draw a card.

Instant speed card draw with destroy attached. Uncommon.  Probably a staple.

8/8 stopping attacks will make it in some stacks.

How about the new land?

Mystifying Maze
Land   
T: Add 1 to your mana pool

4, T: Exile target attacking creature an opponent controls. At the beginning of the next end step, return it to the battlefield tapped under its owner's control.

Not sure if the effect is big enough, but I always feel that things are better as lands. It's a bit Prahv-esque.

I like the Evocation, we'll see if being a symmetrical effect proves too costly. I'll certainly be trying it, though.

The Redirection is plenty good. Most people run several Misdirection-type effects, and this one is top of the line. I can't tell whether it will get Standard play, I feel like the UU cost makes it feel strong when compared to other UU instant staples and might be tricking me.

Don't worry, it won't be important unless some combo deck comes around. It's good for free, but not for 4 mana and multiple copies are dead cards. I'm just glad Flores didn't review it and hype it up. Everyone thought Tattermunge Maniac was going to be great. It wasn't. This won't be either.

Enchantments seem just a tad harder to remove, as well. Shouldn't be too good in standard, not really worth wasting a card to instant a Cruel Ultimatum, so this thing will be $.25 and uber powerful. VERY exciting. Can't ask much more of M11 than this baby. Leyline cycle in the works, I assume? I'm pumped now.

I guess I ought to take a look at my ratios. Creatures will often stick, but rarely fight each other. Usually one or two guys will have a dude, and will attack the other guys for fear of blocking or whatever else, so I'm not sure there's too much removal. I guess I have to look at ratios before anything else.

What is the overall ratios of your stacks? Creatures, removal, counter, other? I feel this may be important in establishing something where creatures matter, but might not be the grand melee scenario, although it might be fun to just take out half the non creature stuff and see what happens.

EDIT: Does ~33% creatures, ~12% counters, ~10% sweepers/wraths, ~10% removal (including non-creature), ~35% draw/broken/other seem good?

@ spcleddy

Add more morphs to protect that Bane, as well as other morphs. There's tons of good ones like Skinthinner and Quicksilver Dragon as well as the very beefy Krosan Cloudscraper. All it takes is 5 or 6 morphs to make it at least a bit scary that you have Cloudscraper attacking you facedown.

Doesn't Tainted Pact take forever to get used?

I wouldn't use Witherscale Wurm, Autochthon is notably better, and that guy doesn't really do much.

Nivix should be OK, but I don't expect it to be overwhelming by any means. If you want to add more lands, which I think is a great idea for any stack, I might suggest:
Academy Ruins
Boseiju, Who Shelters All
Eye of Ugin
Karakas
Kor Haven
Maze of Ith
Prahv, Spires of Order
Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion
Volrath's Stronghold

Not to count out Nivix, just giving you some ideas. Admittedly, I didn't check for all these in your list, you may already have some or most of those. I usually just consider if I would play an artifact with the ability, and if so, it's gonna be good as a land.

I didn't look the whole thing over, but I hope the bit of input I gave helped. Otherwise, just look at the set reviews that are in the Type 4 section of the site and you can usually find a few things to add within those.

EDIT: Thank you, Farandar, for doing the morph search I wasn't willing to in the next post down.

I enjoy it more than any other format because every set brings updates, but things never cycle out like Standard. Also, most of the best cards are complete crap and can be bought for under a dollar, with a few exceptions. Unfortunately, I only have a few friends that play Magic, so we need almost all of us to get to play T4 (at least 4/5 of us).

I think you're counter-heavy, by the way. Go check out my counterspells thread. Most of us feel the number should be about 8-12% depending on taste, and you appear to be around 18%, which seems to high no matter what your taste unless everything is a huge bomb in your stack. Otherwise, you feel that 25% fatties makes creatures matter? Or maybe more like a 1:1 fatty to removal ratio?

I strongly suggest you go online and order Witch and Guildmage, they're super cheap and two of the only creatures that can win games without needing to attack. Also, if you don't even have those, I'm sure you could go for ordering quite a few of the cheaper goodies, as well as a lot of removal and counterspells. For like $20 you can get 100 relevant Type 4 cards.

The significance of permanents in Type 4 seems to be less than that of instants which have the advantage of being played on any given turn, or sorceries which can tutor for five cards or clear the board. Granted, some permanents are a bit better/safer than others, primarily lands or nonland permanents with instant-speed abilities capable of winning a game, which then makes the card often feel very sorcery-esque.

The idea that "a 6/6 with relevant abilities is pretty good" seems incorrect when creatures often get shot down as they enter the battlefield. I feel that creatures, especially the so-called "beaters," fall short of expectations very often. So, I guess I'm wondering a few key things:

Is creature combat a relevant part of Type 4 in your stack?
Have the counterspells and removal spells entirely overpowered permanents?
What % of your stack is creatures? An approximate split between beaters and utility would also be helpful.
What % is removal for on-board answers?
Any other suggestions outside of answering these questions is appreciated.

Thanks in advance for the usually great tips I get here.

Ya, I was trying to say it's strictly worse than the Wurm, which isn't very good.

I agree the scry 2 every turn won't be worth running, and the Sun Titan just doesn't have enough targets. It might be something we have to dig up a few sets from now, depending what kind of new goodies we get in the future.

Do not underestimate Sudden Death:
Mistmeadow Witch
Azorius Guildmage
Teferi

I promise there's more, but I'm not going to grab my stack right now and search it for guys that roll over to Sudden Death. You can go search yours, but those 3 guys are usually heavily protected and potentially game-winning.

Lmao. Reading ftw.

I don't see how the Hellkite is much different from Novablast Wurm out of WWK. It is Plague Wind vs Wrath, basically, except the Hellkite has to target, which is often relevant.

Sun Titan is decent, but there's better stuff. There isn't a ton of 3 or less CMC I want back, plus graveyard-based plays are easily stopped, and then you're stuck with a vigilant 6/6. It's good, but probably not worth it.

The instant draw-3 is probably good enough for any stack, given the lack of instant-speed draw there is for more than 2 cards.

I hope we get something good, but I doubt it out of a base set. Maybe some 6 CMC Wrath would be nice, and some flashy creature. Can't expect anything better than that, but we can hope.

It's actually a sorcery Plague Wind everyone. It is a bit narrow in its use, due to the possibility of not having a high costing creature in your hand, but I think it's a powerful effect worth trying.

Basically all the Eldrazi are either really good or worth considering.

Transcendent Master should be good, just because it has a moment of vulnerability before it becomes a lifelinking DSC doesn't mean it isn't playable. Echo Mage, however, will be too slow. It needs to be in play for a turn, and it's really small. Something that won't be held back by its size will be Lighthouse Chronologist, his effect is game winning with any amount of backup.

Drana is a firebreather, as stated in the last post, I'm not sure how so many people overlooked this. I, for one, won't use it. If you run firebreathers, it's one of the best. Pestilence Demon is also able of killing anyone with less life than you, so that's probably not that fun.

Two new ones I'm excited for are Support Revenge and Suffer the Past. Support Revenge is a lot like Sway of the Stars, which is always fun to see hit the table, no one tends to counter it in my playgroup. This might not be as good because it doesn't cause you to draw cards like Sway does. Suffer the Past I'm super excited for because my group doesn't play any infinite effects with the exception of a 0/1 firebreather. Suffer the Past is capable of a one hit kill, but has a big limitation on it. Seems like a lot of fun.

Explosive Revelation might be just questionable enough to almost always resolve, but it replaces itself, so it should be useful despite the pathetic sorcery speed. Plus, everyone's average converted cost is probably going up with the addition of the Eldrazi.

Another one that MIGHT be good, or at least interesting, is Surreal Memoir.  It's usually a 2 for 1, so that's useful. The random return seems bad, but drawing 2 cards is random, too.

I didn't discuss anything people already seemed certain about, I just wanted to toss some new ideas out there. Hope I didn't miss any goodies, but I wanted to be sure the thread stayed active.

I did not realize this was an alternate format, I thought he just meant budget which is why I made rare suggestions last.

Bill_Murray, you might want to be at least a bit respectful if you hope to obtain any respect on these forums.

If you get five uncommons, simply ignore my last paragraph and use 1 Heritage Druid and 4 Skullclamps as uncommons. Grapeshot will likely be a good win condition, although it's hard to say for sure because Heritage Druid is a huge mana producer. Luckily, your Wirewood Heralds can search this singleton copy out of your deck and get you rolling. Look at Pro Tour Berlin coverage to get some ideas for this deck and see what you can pull from that.

Make the win condition Grapeshot, possibly Predator Dragon.

Add Nettle Sentinel and Heritage Druid to produce disgusting amounts of mana.

One more Land Grant seems helpful and the Sprout Swarms look unneeded.

Glimpse of Nature allows massive amounts of card drawing and Chord of Calling lets you search up your Nettle Sentinels for fast mana production. A singleton Staff of Domination allows a combo with Priest of Titania to randomly spring up. Also, the M10 card Elvish Archdruid has a similar effect to Priest of Titania, although I'm uncertain how useful that combo will be in the deck.

Thoughtcast is an entirely viable option, as long as you don't over dedicate your manabase to artifacts. Tezzeret already runs all the Moxen, Lotus, Mana Crypt/Vault, Time Vault, Voltaic Key, and will likely step up to 2 Tops when Thirst is gone. Seat of the Synod can be risky facing Null Rod, but the deck needs to either not use them or have an answer to the Rod.

I'm not sure that I would opt into the Thoughtcast engine right off the bat, I definitely think Bob is probably the direction the deck will go in, but it's not very wise to count it out.

EDIT: Is it possible to retitle the thread "The Next Tezzeret Draw Engine" or something similar? We have barely talked about Gush.

I put a good amount of thought into Three Wishes and decided to not even try it.

If I get around to ordering Arcanes plus Baubles I'll give that a try. But I have no one to test with right now (everyone seems to be busy for about a week) and don't enjoy playing online, so we'll see if I get an opportunity to use the Arcane engine at any point.

Mystic Remora is quite good. It served as an Ancestral for me yesterday. If you can open with Mox, Land, Remora then you will be able to keep two mana up as long as you put a land into play each turn. Two mana can play a LOT of good cards. It might thrash everything but Fish. Needs more first-hand testing for me to know for sure, but it's done fine in tournaments.

That Djinn is surely nuts.
Planar Cleansing will make it for me if it's under $5 (I just buy the cheap wraths).
The Behemoth is probably going to make it because I love Plated Slagwurm and this guy resembles him well.

Also, at the "new cards" comment: is anyone else pissed that a lot of our new cards are just renamed oldies or have a slight tweak?

Something I was just thinking about is the Arcane Bauble engine. It's somewhat similar to TfK, and seems to have a lot of potential, but I'm skeptical anyone will put extensive testing into the idea because it seems a little silly. I'm certainly going to give it a shot. The main problem is that it takes up 1/5 of your total slots. Outside of that, it seems alright.

Skeletal Scrying is a good option, but that card in multiples seems difficult to handle because of both drawbacks. You won't have tons of cards you want to remove (unless you already did Will, then get rid of 'em all) and life is a resource that isn't terribly important for most of the game, but you might not want to launch off multiple Scryings for 4+.

Impulse is good for a dig, but doesn't give advantage. Another one worthy of definite consideration, but time will tell.

Kalonian Behemoth   5GG
Creature - Beast   Rare
Shroud
9/9

Similar to Plated Slagwurm. A little bigger, but can't be targeted by it's controller. Loses a couple tricks from that, but shroud is still one of the better abilities for a creature to have.

No. Remora, Dark Confidant, and Night's Whisper appear to be the best three options. A singleton Careful Consideration might not be too bad, though. It looks at one more card, has a bit of an option (Instant/Sorcery), but costs U more.

Time will tell, expect to see a lot of Remora for a while. Then expect the Goyfs to even it out. Then we'll see.

@ Godder. I had a feeling it was something like that. Forgot the term 'static ability' due to 3 hours of sleep last night and had a hard time explaining it to even myself.

I'm assuming that morph can respond to Split Second? Why is that?

I agree that narrow counters do have their own type of allure. There's something special about actually being able to counter target multicolored spell instead of just tossing down another 2UU card to stop whatever you want.

That said, what kind of ratio do you like between complete and narrow counters? I can't imagine the narrow counters are found in too large of numbers.

OK, this seems similar to what I was thinking. Something else I was considering was a slightly higher counterspell number, but make them narrow counters to make it more interesting. As of now, most people play strictly Counterspell+ unless the narrow has a fairly impressive effect on it?

What about Countersquall? It isn't a strong effect but counters a lot and has a small effect tacked on.