[ELD] Throne of Eldraine Modern Discussion

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Ym1r
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Post by Ym1r » 4 years ago

The Fluff wrote:
4 years ago
the blue and black castles feel like they would be decent as a mid-late game mana sink. Adding a single castle land to a deck that can support it feels not bad at all.
Yeah, gonna definitely try them out in some decks! Now that UW control doesn't run SfA, the U land might be good!
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Post by The Fluff » 4 years ago

[mention]Ym1r[/mention]

the castles sort of feel like the kamigawa lands.. like for example, people can sometimes slot a single Eiganjo Castle into their deck to have a little upside.

Will be trying the blue castle in my ub ninja deck. :)
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Post by Bearscape » 4 years ago

The rare land cycle is really pushed. Their opportunity costs are just so low; no damage when tapping for colored mana like the deserts, their etb untapped clause is incredibly easy, and they're not even legendary!

Btw, the green castle enables a turn 3 Primeval Titan in Valakut shells (T1 Forest + Search for Tomorrow, T2 Castle + Farseek, T3 untapped land + Titan). A bit magical Christmas-y, but again, the opportunity cost is so incredibly low.

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Post by ktkenshinx » 4 years ago

Bearscape wrote:
4 years ago
The rare land cycle is really pushed. Their opportunity costs are just so low; no damage when tapping for colored mana like the deserts, their etb untapped clause is incredibly easy, and they're not even legendary!

Btw, the green castle enables a turn 3 Primeval Titan in Valakut shells (T1 Forest + Search for Tomorrow, T2 Castle + Farseek, T3 untapped land + Titan). A bit magical Christmas-y, but again, the opportunity cost is so incredibly low.
Agree. I was literally just writing on Reddit how Titanshift probably wants to play a few of these. Early Titans are what that deck is all about and this is basically a ramp spell wrapped into a land. Even if you aren't hitting T3 Titan, this is yet another card that "guarantees" the T4 Titan (with the upside of enabling T3 Titans in some cases). Not sure about the other lands, but I can see some of the lower-tier red critter decks playing the pump Castle. Scry castle can enable Miracles too, which is slow but neat.
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Post by The Fluff » 4 years ago

but I can see some of the lower-tier red critter decks playing the pump Castle.
excited to add that red castle to my goblins deck. To help push in the last bits of damage. ^__^

These castle lands will probably be used by modern decks for as long as they're modern legal.
They're simple and easy to insert as a one-of in decks that have the correct type of land.
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Post by Bearscape » 4 years ago

ktkenshinx wrote:
4 years ago
Bearscape wrote:
4 years ago
The rare land cycle is really pushed. Their opportunity costs are just so low; no damage when tapping for colored mana like the deserts, their etb untapped clause is incredibly easy, and they're not even legendary!

Btw, the green castle enables a turn 3 Primeval Titan in Valakut shells (T1 Forest + Search for Tomorrow, T2 Castle + Farseek, T3 untapped land + Titan). A bit magical Christmas-y, but again, the opportunity cost is so incredibly low.
Agree. I was literally just writing on Reddit how Titanshift probably wants to play a few of these. Early Titans are what that deck is all about and this is basically a ramp spell wrapped into a land. Even if you aren't hitting T3 Titan, this is yet another card that "guarantees" the T4 Titan (with the upside of enabling T3 Titans in some cases). Not sure about the other lands, but I can see some of the lower-tier red critter decks playing the pump Castle. Scry castle can enable Miracles too, which is slow but neat.
UW has been going lower on Colonnades and looking for replacement utility, I am definitely testing a blue castle in my lists. Goblins is also still very much in development, and there I am going to try the red castly for sure. Honestly, I can just see a whole lot of 1-2 color decks just randomly adding a singleton of these.

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Post by worldsaverinc » 4 years ago

Elves, sadly, probably can't use the green land and doesn't have enough other types to run the lands. Elves, currently, relies on a lot of basic lands and none of them come into play tapped. Elves would have to go to a fetch/shock mana base to play these with any efficiency and I don't see that happening much.

Merfolk might want 1 of these.

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Post by izzetmage » 4 years ago

The green Castle provides as much mana as Eldrazi Temple for Giants. Amulet could want it, Titanshift not so much because 1) Valakut limits the number of non-mountain lands they can have in the deck and 2) Valakut places emphasis on "number of lands you have" and not "total amount of mana you can draw from your lands".

I don't think you can just throw Castles into any old deck, much like how you can't just throw the Kamigawa legendary lands into any old deck. The first concern is color, since they only produce one at a time, and the second is not having basic land types, meaning they are not fetchable, don't count for Glacial Fortress, can't be enchanted by Utopia Sprawl, etc. If your deck is mono-color or mostly mono-color with only a light splash, then it could use a Castle or two.

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Post by Bearscape » 4 years ago

The white castle just got spoiled, creating a 1/1 soldier for 2WW. That's quite powerful for a grindy deck, but demands to be mostly white, which very few decks in modern are.

Is there a source on the statistics of these kinds of lands? Like how many Islands would you need to have the blue castle enter untapped on turn 2, 3, 4 etc?

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Post by The Fluff » 4 years ago

white castle looks good enough. My emeria the sky ruin deck has 11 total plains, so we can have a castle there. I like the flavor of these lands, you need the right type of land already present to build the castle properly.. err, I mean so it don't come tapped. :)
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Post by The Fluff » 4 years ago

54320-fae-of-wishes-full.jpg
not exactly the same, but this sort of feels like cunning wish with legs. :)
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Post by izzetmage » 4 years ago

UW supports its 2 Glacial Fortress with 2 shocks, 5 fetches and 8 basics. So I'd be looking at 15 basics in a mono-colored deck for 2 Castles, maybe be a bit generous and lower that to 13. Note that this only matters if ETBing tapped is a big deal - in Amulet for example they have an artifact that removes that drawback.

The white Castle is just Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree with colors changed. I think it's a little slow to be pumping out 1/1s for 5 mana (including the cost of tapping the Castle itself) every turn when there are 4-mana PWs that pump out 2/2s and require their costs to be paid only once.

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Post by The Fluff » 4 years ago

izzetmage wrote:
4 years ago
The white Castle is just Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree with colors changed. I think it's a little slow to be pumping out 1/1s for 5 mana (including the cost of tapping the Castle itself) every turn when there are 4-mana PWs that pump out 2/2s and require their costs to be paid only once.
vitu ghazi does not produce white mana, and needs two colors to make a token - the castle is an improvement. And I'm adding the castle because it will take up a "free" slot in the deck, as compared to adding gideon who will actually take up a real slot from other cards weakening my main strategy. The land also does not need to be cast, and can just be another mana source until the time to use it.
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Post by Bearscape » 4 years ago

Yeah the point of the lands IMO isn't that their ability is super powerful, it's more that they have really low opportunity cost. Saying the white castle is slow because 4 mana walkers make 2/2s is like saying you should not bother playing Celestial Colonnade since Serra Angel only you makes you pay the activation cost once

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Post by ktkenshinx » 4 years ago

The lands will be playable and will be nice upgrades to mono-colored or light-splash decks. 8Rack will enjoy the card draw. Titanshift and/or maybe Amulet Titan will play at least 1 of the green Castles. Merfolk will play at least one of the scry Castles. The red one will probably pump up some of the go-wide strategies, although the ETB tapped clause can screw over a deck that is low to the ground in lands, and the white one might aid any of the Wx decks out there. None of these appear too spectacular, but all of them are upgrades.
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Post by izzetmage » 4 years ago

Putting a Castle in a 2-color deck does have a significant opportunity cost. That cost is being able to find the right colors for your spells, when each Castle only taps for 1 color. Colonnade's cost is lower than a Castle's because it taps for 2 colors, along with most other manlands.

Martyr Proc has Mistveil Plains for an endless stream of Squadron Hawk and it's fetchable with Flagstones of Trokair.

Merfolk is already playing Fiery Islet and Waterlogged Grove solely for the draw (and not the second color). Between an expensive but repeatable scry 2 and a cheap but one-time draw 1, I think most aggro decks are going to take the solid card in hand most of the time.

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Post by AvalonAurora » 4 years ago

House of Candy seems like something interesting with creating an artifact token to increase the count of artifacts, but requiring multiple forests makes me doubt it's viability for any sort of current decks that would want that sort of thing.

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Post by The Fluff » 4 years ago

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The Great Henge and Improbable Alliance feels like they can have a spot in certain modern decks.
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Post by Ym1r » 4 years ago

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I just want to talk for a bit about this card, because I have seen it being heavily discussed on Twitter/Reddit. Main topics include whether it should/shouldn't be a Mythic, and whether it is powerful or not, and if it is, does it justify being a mythic. I don't really care about the rarity, as I think the main reason for it's rarity is to safeguard the limited environment.

Regarding its power, contrary to what a lot of people claim, i.e. that it's pushed, I believe that this card is significantly held back. It has so many "drawbacks" that is might actually not even see any serious play in modern.

At fist glance this card looks insane, bounce effect on 2 and a flash 3/1 flyer on 3 with the Vclique mana cost. The similarity to VClique is what makes this card look powerful when it's not, or at least not as much as people make it to be.

It's adventure is a bounce effect but bounces only opposing nonland permanents. The fact that it is only opposing permanents is significant, because you can't utilize it to get value out of your own stuff. Especially in Faeries, where this card would naturally fit the most, you can't bounce your Bitterblossom to save your life, or bounce your Mistbind Clique to lock your opponent. That would be fine if it could bounce your opponents lands at least, to make it a real tempo play, T2 bounce their thing, T3 keep permission up and have the threat of a 3/1 flyer.

Then it's the fact that it can only block creatures with flying. This is a surprising drawback for modern. The only meaningful creatures with flying are Kitesail Freebooter and Mantis Rider from Humans and Inkmoth Nexus from Infect. VClique is good because sometimes it can ALSO act as a removal for an attacker, something that this card fails miserably to do.

So bottom line, for me this card could had been great, this card could had been literally ALL that the Faeries deck wanted, a bounce effect for BB/MC tied to a good tempo play, tied to an actual Faerie. Sadly, it's a mediocre tempo play, tied to a mediocre Faerie. I hope I am wrong, but I don't think the card is all that great for modern.
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Post by AvalonAurora » 4 years ago

Another issue with Brazen Borrower is the order it does things (due to the nature of adventures). It's usually midrange decks that wan't to put the anti-opponent things effect first, and the creature second, but the midrange decks want to lastingly remove things, not just bounce them. Tempo decks on the other hand usually want to put out the creature threat first, and _then_ help it slip past defenses and/or protect it, so are more fine with bounce effects (to temporarily shut down defenses, and, in versions that can hit your own stuff, protect it from more lasting removal).

So Borrower is doing tempo things in a midrange turn order. By the time your creature is ready to attack, the thing that you bounced might be back on the battlefield, which isn't a setup tempo really wants, even if instant/flash aspect somewhat helps in this area.

I won't say it's outright bad, but the timing of things based on mana costs and the way adventures work isn't very good for tempo.

A midrange card could have been much more powerful for the adventure mechanic, such as something like a nerfed fatal push (without it's enhanced mode) or a shock as the adventure, and something with relatively high P/T for it's second mana cost as the creature mode in some kind of midrange environment (whatever setup you might use for that, like delve, or tarmogoyf, or something else).

Fitting tempo in with the adventure mechanic well would probably have required something more pushed or weirder than Borrower wound up, such as something that leaves behind a token that can be sacrificed to hexproof something for the adventure, and the creature being no more than 2 cmc or having some interesting effect tacked onto it as well to help disrupt opponents.

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Post by The Fluff » 4 years ago

About Borrower.... an Into the roil on turn 2 that becomes a 3/1 flash that can only block flying on turn 3 does not feel threatening. Is there something I'm not seeing here? Maybe if faerie tribal becomes a thing it will be good?

edit: maybe because I'm not a tempo player, so cannot see the value of this card..
Last edited by The Fluff 4 years ago, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Bearscape » 4 years ago

In Modern it's very comparable to Venser, Shaper Savant, which sees zero play and is IMO better.

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Post by AvalonAurora » 4 years ago

Hushbringer looks interesting! It doesn't just stop ETB triggers, but death ones as well.

I feel like the cantrip on Kenrith's Transformation makes it worth looking at even with sorcery speed and not quite being true removal.

Merfolk Secretkeeper having both modes at 1 cmc is nice, but the 4 toughness blocker aspect draws a bit more of my interest. Not sure if it really fits anywhere or is good enough, but milling or dumping some library in a graveyard depending on your deck and circumstances and then having a cheap blocker to spit out later on without costing another card seems like it could produce value in the right situation/deck, possibly as a sideboard option in some decks that want the mill/grave filling against non-evasive creature aggro.

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Post by The Fluff » 4 years ago

Hushbringer, one more anti-sfm card. Currently using Hushwing Gryff... will test if the faerie is better, once the card becomes available.
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Post by izzetmage » 4 years ago

Merfolk Secretkeeper might be good for self-mill decks. It mills you first and then provides a body for Vengevine later. If you want to go deep you can use it to conspire Memory Sluice too. It mills more than Stitcher's Supplier at first (but less once Supplier dies), and you have to pay 2 mana to get both the mill and the creature (though with Secretkeeper you get to hold the creature in reserve until Vengevine is in your graveyard).

However the problem with Sultai Vengevine is that blue is very good at moving cards from your library into your graveyard, but lacks good ways to move cards from your hand to your graveyard (whereas red has stuff like Insolent Neonate, Cathartic Reunion, and the new Merchant of the Vale).

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