MTGNexus

3drinks wrote: ↑

4 years ago

I wish people would stop saying this. There's far more ways to generate the CA needed to proceed in a game than just "drawing grips of cards". is actually pretty dang solid at this aspect, thanks to this concerted effort R&D has been focusing on in the past several years to address this in very ways.

I'm aware. That's why I said I didn't think those arguments held any water.

Also, it's the Center of the Sea.

They're okay in Nekusar, since you do get the pings (and whatever shocks you get out of cards like Liliana's Caress for Arkham over there).

You also get whatever benefit you derive from drawing cards (e.g., The Locust God) and whatever benefit you derive from opponents drawing cards (e.g., Consecrated Sphinx).

Both have their places. Filling 'yards is very useful so the Sanitarium is probably the one I see more often, but hey, there are lots of decks that want either/both of these.

Wednesday, October 16th, 2019; 3sphere



This is one of those cards that gets better thr stronger decks and strategies you're against. Kitchen table play? Watch people be mostly indifferent to it. But cEDH play? My, how the game has changed, look at all these suddenly fair decks.

This is an important card. Also a really wacky one rules-wise.

void_nothing wrote: ↑

4 years ago

This is an important card. Also a really wacky one rules-wise.

Not that hard to understand, just you have to pay at least 3, but you also have to pay all other rules. The biggest blip is Phyrexian mana. You can pay for Dismember with 1bb, 2b and 2 life, or 3 and 4 life.

Oh, and it really screws over a lot of counterspells, since Counterspell is now effectively Cancel, and Force of Will and Thwart suffer the same issue. But it screws over combo *cough*storm*cough* even more. Rituals are often pretty crap, since classic Dark Ritual just turns 2b into bbb now (so, why not just run Priest of Gix?).

And remember, you apply Trinisphere last.

Trinisphere is an odd card. As mentioned, it has more impact the more competitive the meta is. Turns off when untapped, similar to Winter Orb and Howling Mine, which opens up some potential for asymmetry. Obviously most oppressive as part of a dedicated mana denial plan. I don't think that it goes in most decks though - it can certainly slow some decks down, but most curves are high enough to not be affected too badly. Simultaneously, there isn't enough consistency to play it turn 1 or 2, like you would want to do in Legacy/Vintage, and making your own curve entirely 3+ mana spells to take advantage of it isn't a very good strategy either.

I've hypothesized about making an Orb/Sphere tribal deck before, but it ended up just being a stax/prison deck - Trinisphere, Winter Orb, Static Orb, Sphere of Resistance.... Also Story Circle and friends, if you expand it to other round cards.

I know I've much enjoyed it in Alesha where I can go about not always casting my other spells and slivers, and then watching it destroy more unfair decks while they get wrecked by my sliver horde. But I haven't played it in Kaalia, where you'd think it would shine the most but it doesn't at all because your rocks or - in the case of 1v1 - your hand disruption, is overly penalized by being forced to overpay for it (typically you'd prefer a defense grid in this type of deck anyway).

But, yes, 3sphere is a very fair card that punishes very unfair decks. We need more "prison" cards like these.

Thursday, October 17th, 2019; Stasis



Eww.

If I ever play full-blown cEDH I'll be playing Derevi, largely because of the playstyle that Stasis and similar cards enable. Control in its purest, most beautiful form

3drinks wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Thursday, October 17th, 2019; Stasis

I remember playing this as a four-of back in the day.

I'm not sure it'd be welcome in my Commander group, though.

Garruk Wildspeaker comes to mind as an easy way to break the symmetry. I mean, besides Quirion Ranger and Scryb Ranger and Daze and Gush and Thwart and...

You just need some way to give your creatures vigilance or blink them for free.

There are so many ways to break the symmetry of Stasis that I will immediately scoop if one is played, even if its controller does not present a way to pay for the upkeep. There are certain cards I simply refuse to play against like Thieves' Auction and Scrambleverse, and Stasis is one of them. Card should be banned, Nobody has ever played Stasis fairly.

3drinks wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Thursday, October 17th, 2019; Stasis

Eww.

This is the face of true love.

I remember playing back in high school against a jackass who played a prison deck with Stasis, Kismet, Winter Orb, and Smokestack. I don't think it even had a win condition. All I know for sure is that I hated that guy and his damned deck. No love lost for Stasis.

Rorseph wrote: ↑

4 years ago

I remember playing back in high school against a jackass who played a prison deck with Stasis, Kismet, Winter Orb, and Smokestack. I don't think it even had a win condition. All I know for sure is that I hated that guy and his damned deck. No love lost for Stasis.

If it was anything like my deck, the wincon was Feldon's Cane.

Sinis wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Rorseph wrote: ↑

4 years ago

I remember playing back in high school against a jackass who played a prison deck with Stasis, Kismet, Winter Orb, and Smokestack. I don't think it even had a win condition. All I know for sure is that I hated that guy and his damned deck. No love lost for Stasis.

If it was anything like my deck, the wincon was Feldon's Cane.

That feels likely. Seems like the kind of thing that would have annoyed me all the more.

I played against a Stasis deck once. Its win condition was Chronatog, backed up by Kismet.

Anyway, not a card I'm a huge fan of, but it is certainly powerful. Lots of ways to break it - planeswalkers like Garruk Wildspeaker and Tezzeret the Seeker are likely the easiest, but Derevi, Empyrial Tactician, Sword of Feast and Famine, and Bear Umbra (on creatures with vigilance) also work. Derevi is particularly nasty because you can also tap down your opponents' cards. I could also envision using Brago, King Eternal with a bunch of mana rocks. Bouncing it with Vedalken Mastermind or a similar card is also an option. None of these lines will make you any friends though.

Fruday, October 18th, 2019; Estrid, the Masked



Well. I suppose it's got that #CombosWithChainVeil property going on with it.

3drinks wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Fruday, October 18th, 2019; Estrid, the Masked

Well. I suppose it's got that #CombosWithChainVeil property going on with it.

They used to have more backstory to characters in commander decks, so while they provided some for Aminatou, we know very little about Estrid, and why she's so enchantment inclined with her abilities.

As for the card itself, it's rather pushed. Aminatou is the only PW from that set that could do more than the deck's theme, and the only one without a boring ultimate.

She's heavily aligned with auras, so there's an A+B problem. Her -1 does have some potential synergy with boardwipes.

3drinks wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Fruday, October 18th, 2019; Estrid, the Masked

She seems like a good enchantress commander. Yep.

On the one hand, she seems a little boring in that she just plays well with enchantments without making things really interesting. On the other, I appreciate that she exists, because there aren't many commanders that care about enchantments at all.

For a company that claims to not like stax much as an archetype they sure do print a lot of stax commanders, while not printing any good stax effects in other formats. I'm not a fan

"To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

I'm not sure I would consider Estrid a stax commander. EDHRec doesn't really, as 18 out of 949 Estrid decks are tagged as "Stax". I mean you clearly can make her one, but....

She's interesting. She's an enchantment deck commander that goes a different route than the typical enchantresses, although I find the combos with The Chain Veil tiring.