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Magic: The Gathering |OT| Throne of Eldraine - Will and Rowan's Excellent Adventure

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Nacho

Nacho

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,108
NYC
Piecake said:
I played an arena limited game where this happened

My opponent went:

Turn 1: Goose
Turn 2: Oko
Turn 3: Fierce Witchstalker

I just conceded
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Yeah at this point I just concede on second turn okos. Don't care if it's ranked, it truly is just a waste of time. Even if I manage to somehow survive it (I'm only in Plat1, so people with OP decks still are dumb as rocks) long enough to take their oko away and grind out a win, it's just not worth it, it's not fun, it's frustrating and a waste of time. Honestly that's sort of how I feel about a lot of decks in standard right now even without Oko, but that's another conversation.
 
Carthago Delenda Est

Carthago Delenda Est

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
6,119
f0rk said:
There hasn't been a big enough pioneer event yet to prove a deck is broken, I don't see how the first announcement can be anything but no changes. After that weekly announcements seems excessive, surely 80% will be no changes.
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I agree. There seems to be a huge variety of viable decks at the moment. Why fuck that up? And while something like like DTT is very good, a format does need very good cards. I'm not convinced it needs a ban.

Cat combo maybe. But even that isn't dominating the format. It's just a solid combo if you're in Jeskai.

Keep in mind I haven't played Pioneer. I've just been following.

I can't imagine anything gets banned Monday. It's too early.
 
TAFAE

TAFAE

Member
Aug 27, 2018
439
Michigan
Yeah, I don't think the format desperately needs bans yet. Banning nothing in the first two announcements would be cool, no bans would probably make the SCG Invitational the most fun to watch unless the top strategies all converge on one thing.

I still believe that Cruise, DTT, cat combo, and some key card in Gx ramp are not long for the format. Oko doesn't feel like he'll be around for long either, but I would expect him to go no earlier than at the same time the Standard announcement comes down. Banning him in Pioneer first would be all but admitting he's out of Standard in the next normal B&R. They might try to keep him in Pioneer a bit longer to limit the fallout from banning an expensive card.
 
Nacho

Nacho

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,108
NYC
How do you defend against discard decks? I'm seeing them more and more in arena. It's frustrating because it just feels like 'hey why don't you just not play the game for 30 minutes until I eventually pull out one card I need to win'. At least mill decks go quick if they work.
 
TAFAE

TAFAE

Member
Aug 27, 2018
439
Michigan
Nacho said:
How do you defend against discard decks? I'm seeing them more and more in arena. It's frustrating because it just feels like 'hey why don't you just not play the game for 30 minutes until I eventually pull out one card I need to win'. At least mill decks go quick if they work.
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Typically, this is something that you aim to solve in the deckbuilding stage. The big idea is that all the discard in the world can't save your opponent from the top of your deck. If you're on a highly synergistic or combo-based deck, discard is going to be a huge beating against you, but you can try to throw Leyline of Sanctity if you don't want to switch to a strategy less dependent on synergy. If you're playing an aggressive deck, often all of your cards roughly do the same thing so it usually doesn't matter that much that they take 1 or 2 cards from you, you just continue to smash in. If you're playing a midrange deck, most of your cards are high impact, so you are pretty happy to play off the top of your deck. The fact that you can't easily play either of those archetypes right now is a different problem, since the meta in Standard is just broken.

With all that said, the best way to play against discard right now is to just play Veil of Summer, which is an enormous blowout against the discard deck.
 
TheYanger

TheYanger

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
10,133
TAFAE said:
Typically, this is something that you aim to solve in the deckbuilding stage. The big idea is that all the discard in the world can't save your opponent from the top of your deck. If you're on a highly synergistic or combo-based deck, discard is going to be a huge beating against you, but you can try to throw Leyline of Sanctity if you don't want to switch to a strategy less dependent on synergy. If you're playing an aggressive deck, often all of your cards roughly do the same thing so it usually doesn't matter that much that they take 1 or 2 cards from you, you just continue to smash in. If you're playing a midrange deck, most of your cards are high impact, so you are pretty happy to play off the top of your deck. The fact that you can't easily play either of those archetypes right now is a different problem, since the meta in Standard is just broken.

With all that said, the best way to play against discard right now is to just play Veil of Summer, which is an enormous blowout against the discard deck.
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Oh play green you say?
 
Izzy

Izzy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
683
The best way to fight discard is with a hand full of nullhide feorx :)

But yeah TAFAE had it best, as long as you aren't playing combo, just make sure the rest of the cards you keep are good enough to win. Adventure is a decent way to get double duty out of your remaining cards, and once your adventure starts they can't do anything to the creature side.
 

Imperfected

Member
Nov 9, 2017
11,737
TheYanger said:
Oh play green you say?
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There's honestly pretty good solutions to the discard deck in every color except white, which makes sense given that a lot of the effects the deck runs on (instants/sorceries, ETB value creatures, etc.) are things white struggles with.

One might argue it's just not a very good deck in general for this reason, and the only reason it's even noteworthy is because losing to it is so frustrating that people react to it more strongly than their tenth loss of the day to Oko Stuff or hundred and tenth Mono Red game.
 
Nacho

Nacho

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,108
NYC
Imperfected said:
There's honestly pretty good solutions to the discard deck in every color except white, which makes sense given that a lot of the effects the deck runs on (instants/sorceries, ETB value creatures, etc.) are things white struggles with.

One might argue it's just not a very good deck in general for this reason, and the only reason it's even noteworthy is because losing to it is so frustrating that people react to it more strongly than their tenth loss of the day to Oko Stuff or hundred and tenth Mono Red game.
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I probably react stronger to it cuz I just auto concede okos now lol. Discard always feels like something I should be able to beat but there just seem to be an endless amount of counters and destroy creatures to keep me from having anything worthwhile on the board for more than a turn, and even with a deck with insane draw, I tend to sputtering out. In general any deck thats main goal is to prevent you from playing the game is just frustrating I suppose. Similar to oko, but at least oko let's you imagine you have a chance, you still have some elks on the board lol.
 
Piecake

Piecake

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,298
Nacho said:
Yeah at this point I just concede on second turn okos. Don't care if it's ranked, it truly is just a waste of time. Even if I manage to somehow survive it (I'm only in Plat1, so people with OP decks still are dumb as rocks) long enough to take their oko away and grind out a win, it's just not worth it, it's not fun, it's frustrating and a waste of time. Honestly that's sort of how I feel about a lot of decks in standard right now even without Oko, but that's another conversation.
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Oh, that was a limited draft deck.

I mean, what luck? you draft goose and oko and nut draw them too? Those are some odds...
 
keeblerdrow

keeblerdrow

Member
Dec 17, 2017
92
So Todd Anderson is 9-0 in the PTQ with this deck. And it's really really (Nykthos on the chopping block) good. And his sideboard needs work, even.
bYRvaG5.jpg
 
Nordicus

Nordicus

Member
Oct 29, 2017
1,496
Finland
keeblerdrow said:
So Todd Anderson is 9-0 in the PTQ with this deck. And it's really really (Nykthos on the chopping block) good. And his sideboard needs work, even.
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Naah, too much splash damage with Nykthos to other devotion decks, and it's not even the best card in the deck.

Take Leyline of Abundance instead (ignoring the obvious Once Upon a Time). It's both a free enabler and a payoff in one card, it's not Legendary, and it makes the nutty openings way way crazier.
 
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Imperfected

Member
Nov 9, 2017
11,737
Yeah, I even played a very similar deck in Core 2020 Standard, and it honestly didn't occur to me that it would be that much further above the line with just a handful of inclusions from older sets. Most of the real core of the deck is still in-print or recently-out-of-print stuff.
 
Toxi

Toxi

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
17,546
7 out of the top 8 decks at Grand Prix Nagoya were UGx Food.

This is fucking nuts. Not even Cawblade had this sort of dominance.
 
divisionbyzorro

divisionbyzorro

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,771
Ever since I stopped drafting control decks and started drafting aggro I've gone 7-X in twice in a row on Arena. I definitely had boxed myself into a corner with this format and I'm doing a lot better now that I'm more flexible and willing to draft from the entire pool. Funny how that works.
 
divisionbyzorro

divisionbyzorro

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Oct 25, 2017
3,771
I just had the most miserable match of Eldraine Limited. It lasted about an hour. Both me and my opponent had a Resolute Rider. We'd both managed to put multiple counters on them. He had a Shining Armor and eventually an All That Glitters. Neither of us had removal capable of dealing with each other's, and he was apparently preboarded against Mill with 65 cards so I couldn't even play for the Foreboding Fruit win.

You know what finally won the game for me? Archon of Absolution. Once I was able to stop his lifegain (he was gaining 11 life per turn from the lifelink) I pecked him to death with a handful of small fliers over the course of another 10 turns. I'm so lucky Archon wasn't closer to the bottom of the deck.
 
divisionbyzorro

divisionbyzorro

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Oct 25, 2017
3,771
So you draw your whole deck, then...how do you win? I see a Borborygmos, but how do you cast it with an active Possibility Storm? I'm missing something completely obvious, right?
 
Bigkrev

Bigkrev

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Oct 25, 2017
12,292
divisionbyzorro said:
So you draw your whole deck, then...how do you win? I see a Borborygmos, but how do you cast it with an active Possibility Storm? I'm missing something completely obvious, right?
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Joe Molotov said:
Put the Borbrygmous back on top of your library after you cast Enter the Infinite, then cast a Walking Ballista for 0.
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Thanks for explaining- I would probably just concede any time there was a possibility storm in play and an Enter the Infinite was resolved just to save myself the brain power!
 
Bigkrev

Bigkrev

Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,292


Sideboard Oko in Modern Burn!

Also, if it was just a simple "No Changes", I don't think we would be getting things like this, where it appears they are working to the last second on the list
 
divisionbyzorro

divisionbyzorro

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,771
I really though Cat would get hit, but it's not performing like I expected. I still think you see the delve draw spells get hit. I wonder if they're looking hard at Nexus and Nykthos though. Nexus is completely miserable to play against and Nykthos looked super scary.
 
TAFAE

TAFAE

Member
Aug 27, 2018
439
Michigan
5 color burn is a hell of a thing. At this point it should just be an emergency "Oko banned in all competitive formats, even Eldraine Limited" announcement, tbh.

I hope that when they do ban cards from cat combo and Gx devotion they go for the more narrow cards first. Leave the kitty legal so that people can work on weird Vannifar chains instead of Saheeli, who is only used for cat combo. Edit: they could also just, you know, ban 3feri and make it so you can reliably interact with the combo too. Leave Nykthos to see if there's devotion things you can do in other colors while you tamp down what green can do by taking Leyline.
 
Toxi

Toxi

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
17,546
TAFAE said:
5 color burn is a hell of a thing. At this point it should just be an emergency "Oko banned in all competitive formats, even Eldraine Limited" announcement, tbh.

I hope that when they do ban cards from cat combo and Gx devotion they go for the more narrow cards first. Leave the kitty legal so that people can work on weird Vannifar chains instead of Saheeli, who is only used for cat combo. Edit: they could also just, you know, ban 3feri and make it so you can reliably interact with the combo too. Leave Nykthos to see if there's devotion things you can do in other colors while you tamp down what green can do by taking Leyline.
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Banning T3feri seems like the easiest and best solution because it doesn't just hit Crazy Cat Lady, it hits all future combo decks that are gonna use T3feri to stop interaction.
 
Steve Winwood

Steve Winwood

Member
Oct 31, 2017
2,589
They should ban Once Upon A Time. That card is not a real Magic card, and it's not clear to me how or why it was printed. In conjunction with the London Mulligan, it lets these Green devotion decks just become stupidly consistent at generating powerful ramp/Nykthos/payoff draws.

They should also ban the similarly-silly Veil of Summer.
 
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Joe Molotov

Joe Molotov

Member
Oct 25, 2017
847
Just wait another 25 years and we'll have:

Crawer Wurm
4GG
When Crawer Wurm comes into play, gain 6 life, draw 6 cards, and destroy up to 4 creatures.
You may cast this spell without playing it's mana cost if this is the first spell you've cast this turn.
6/4
 
Nordicus

Nordicus

Member
Oct 29, 2017
1,496
Finland
Alternade said:
Huh. Thats a weird batch. I take it Leyline an Oath were just Oko enablers?
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Naah. Leyline is more of a Nissa enabler that creates nutty openings and is a wincon (initially mana dorks tap for 2, card freely powers up Nykthos, and then make Nissa's transformed lands tap for 3), and Oath of Nissa is such a crazy consistency tool that you played it even in cat combo
 
Toxi

Toxi

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
17,546
Feels like they should have waited longer before the cat ban.

Also, we're gonna inevitably see another strong combo deck using Teferi to prevent interaction.
 
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divisionbyzorro

divisionbyzorro

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Oct 25, 2017
3,771
Guarantee they planned to ban Cat from day one. Leyline ban is smart. Oath caught me off guard though. Surprised Dig and Cruise are still around TBH.

EDIT: Actually Oath makes sense in a format that banned fetchlands for making mana too easy now that I think about it.
 
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