I'm curious who won those two games. It sounded like the mono red player let every other player run untouched while Tolsmir just amassed an army of angels. Considering you and Riku were the only two who could handle the luminarch ascension, I feel it may have been a bit premature to kill you. It sounds like the ballard player was a bit butthurt from losing past games and would have gunned you down regardless of what happened. *shrug* I tend to not play Jenara often against other decks that aren't exceptionally well balanced. Since Jenara generally just builds up a large amount of card advantage over time, I find there's only a few ways to really end the game quickly. Not-as-well balanced decks often find themselves floundering for a long time before I eventually win. Or they scoop.
Long story short, I don't play Jenara often to avoid having everyone gang up on me and blow me out of the game. Although even if that happens, the deck can normally take care of itself if you make the appropriate decisions.
Finally gave in and switched the Jenara for the commander of my version of the deck. She is just better than the other options.
What do you think of Ghostly Flicker from the new set? Seems like great value, and becomes absurd like Ghostway with an E-Witness on the table, plus not blinking Jenara or an equipped guy/controlled guy when you don't want to. Nice tricks like blinking Sower+the guy you took, getting him permanently plus a new guy. Seems really strong.
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Finally gave in and switched the Jenara for the commander of my version of the deck. She is just better than the other options.
What do you think of Ghostly Flicker from the new set? Seems like great value, and becomes absurd like Ghostway with an E-Witness on the table, plus not blinking Jenara or an equipped guy/controlled guy when you don't want to. Nice tricks like blinking Sower+the guy you took, getting him permanently plus a new guy. Seems really strong.
Ghostly Flicker: My problem is that it needs to have exactly 2 targets of the same type. I guess this isnt that big of an issue overall however I feel like Momentary Blink, Ghostway, and Vanish into Memory are possibly all better than Ghostly Flicker... It isnt that it is a bad card but there are a lot of other things I would likely use before I got down to using it.
Also, as a side note as I dont feel like I stressed it enough earlier my experiment to run Temporal Manipulation & Capture Of Jingzhou has been a success. I plan on doing a bit more testing however the extra turns are huge with a lot of different tactics.
Jenara beats for extra hits is very surprising and a lot of times it just catches people before they had planned an answer.
Literally any value over time card goes to town: Swords, Birthing Pod, Titans all generate amazing value when you cheat extra activations out of them.
It cantrips and untaps. This allows you to do small things, dump mana to Jenara, then untap and draw a card still.
They can enable infinite turns. Even when they don't go infinite though I feel like I get really solid use out of them.
I plan on a little more testing yet however I have been very pleased with them as a whole. I will try to get in more testing before I decide to either go ahead with swapping them in on the OP or not though.
As a side note... I have been sort of mulling over playing around with Mosswort Bridge again for some extra value out of my nonbasic lands... I like that it still taps for colored mana and while it comes in tapped it might be worth going back and playing with it. I have felt like my nonbasic targets when I get Primeeval Titan in hasn't been broken enough of late.
So I played 3 games this weekend with Jenara (more aggro version)winning 1 of 3 which is fine.
Game 1 started off with a great early game Turn 1 Hierarch, turn 2, vedalken Heretic, turn 3 Rafiq. Tons of Card Advantage incurred...and beat down some of the more threatening peeps with Putrefax, Blinkmoth beats..and the weaker ones with Flying Beats backed up Elesh.
Game 2 died rather quick to a Brion Stoutarm (revenge kill), Sneak Attacked a 35/35 Serra Avatar into play after a Wrath.
Game 3 I died to an Oona bounce/discard deck..that generated enough mana to do an unearthed Leviathan, Sunder, Liliana's Caress...I discarded 14 cards which killed me...he effectively killed 3 of 5 players with this move.
Might go back to a more slower Jenara deck...although this was more fun in the fact that it was different and had more interaction.
Ghostly Flicker: My problem is that it needs to have exactly 2 targets of the same type. I guess this isnt that big of an issue overall however I feel like Momentary Blink, Ghostway, and Vanish into Memory are possibly all better than Ghostly Flicker... It isnt that it is a bad card but there are a lot of other things I would likely use before I got down to using it.
The two cards don't have to be of the same type. It's says and/or, so worst case you can flicker a land make make it cost 2 instead of 3, which is pretty good. To me it's the potential to really abuse the heck out of it with Witness that makes it better than Momentary or Vanish, and it has different strengths and weaknesses vs Ghostway, which seems potentially bad if you have a suited up Jenara with a few counters on her.
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The two cards don't have to be of the same type. It's says and/or, so worst case you can flicker a land make make it cost 2 instead of 3, which is pretty good. To me it's the potential to really abuse the heck out of it with Witness that makes it better than Momentary or Vanish, and it has different strengths and weaknesses vs Ghostway, which seems potentially bad if you have a suited up Jenara with a few counters on her.
Hummm... if you are right on Ghostly Flicker then it does make it decently better. I still am not huge on the flicker effects myself but if that is how it works it makes the card better. I guess you would sort of have to play with them some to figure out which works the best. The potential to protect artifacts / enchantments is cool about it however it wont help against any wrath effects which is unfortunate.
FLY MOLO: I am guessing you meant to say with Rafiq there... Rafiq is good but I feel like he draws more hate being a faster out of the gate commander.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Also, it sounds like Fly Molo's deck plays quite differently than our ETB list here.
@ISB - have you gotten much use out of Winding Canyons? I've found that I haven't had a chance to really get use out of it as I'm not really willing to pay the premium. I guess the situation will eventually come... but if not, I'm curious, because I wouldn't mind getting a colored land back.
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I also include discussions about cards we took out, cards we banned, and cards we might add.
Also, it sounds like Fly Molo's deck plays quite differently than our ETB list here.
@ISB - have you gotten much use out of Winding Canyons? I've found that I haven't had a chance to really get use out of it as I'm not really willing to pay the premium. I guess the situation will eventually come... but if not, I'm curious, because I wouldn't mind getting a colored land back.
I find that I use Winding Canyons in the late game more than most of my other lands. Even if it results in me doing a little less in my turns it pushes me outside of sorcery speed wrath effects. I have found several occasions it allows me to manipulate my way into not being attacked and not being wrathed by the opposition.
Overall I really like Winding Canyons however it is one of those cards that I rarely use until I am pushing over 10 lands in play. The versatility that it allows me to have in play though is really solid and it lets me keep a lot of options up for the endgame. I have had several games in which my opponents blamed Winding Canyons for my win. I really love the option to instant speed a clone in to kill commanders as well which is really fun against some of the evasive commanders like Uril and such.
Overall, it has been a big plus for me however I suppose results might vary. If your games end faster it is one of those cards that you wont see as good of results from. If you see a lot of board wipes, again it wont be as good. I have a lot of creature based and creature control based decks in my meta so it isnt uncommon for a lot of wraths to drag us into a late game.
Also, it sounds like Fly Molo's deck plays quite differently than our ETB list here.
@ISB - have you gotten much use out of Winding Canyons? I've found that I haven't had a chance to really get use out of it as I'm not really willing to pay the premium. I guess the situation will eventually come... but if not, I'm curious, because I wouldn't mind getting a colored land back.
Even with a more aggressive play style the core of our decks are very similar. The land base, creature toolbox, removal, and tutors are just about identical
I agree, the choice between Rafiq and Jenara is some about playstyle and preference. They can play rather similarly but the usual difference is that Rafiq is a bit better suited to have explosive one shot kills / faster out of the gate situations.
It really comes down to personal preference as I don't really feel it is wrong to play either as a commander.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
@ISB yes I meant Rafiq...however I still had Jenara in the decklist. I switched out about 10 of the slower cards..and threw in some Rafiqky creatures and a Rancor/Might of Oaks.
This was just for a change for this week...as I just felt I wanted to be aggressive as a surprise or my friends (I only have 2 decks, so they are pretty predictable otherwise). I have 3 Bant commanders (Jenara, Rafiq, Angus) and 3 Jund commanders (Kresh, Xira, Resdude).and the best cards that can go in these...so i tend to mix it up from time to time.
At the bare minimum it will replace Winding Canyons in my deck. I dont know if I really want to use 2 of these effects in my deck but I will take a strict land upgrade any day. I really want to run both but that might be overkill...
EDIT: I figured I would do sort of a quick overview as well of the other cards we hadnt discussed but probably dont need to:
Cavern of Souls - uncounterable creature land. Our deck doesn't rely heavily on our commander and really has no one big tribe to consider. This in my mind really only helps handle Hinder and Spell Crumple on our commander and to be honest, I really don't care if she gets tucked as I have plenty of ways to go get her and the deck relies little on her to win. It looks cool but not that big for this deck. I sort of view this land of more of a tribal / commander centric style of land. I think it would work great in decks like Uril and Zur where the chance of your commander being countered / tucked is a bit higher.
Entreat the Angels - cool big angel card but this hasn't ever been what this deck is about. It looks like it would be fun to miracle this during someone else's EOT off of a top effect but it really isnt something that this deck is looking for.
Nephalia Smuggler - it is a really sort of cool effect however I don't see it being any better than Mistmeadow Witch other than giving a 1 drop target for Birthing Pod but we dont really have much for tokens to kick off into this... Really sort of meh overall. I think it is cool that Ranger of Eos is picking up more targets all the time but until there is a few one drops that I really feel I need I wont be going there.
Somberwald Sage I like how big the ramp is but the fact that it is a fragile fast mana critter / limited where it can be used I sort of view it as a bad Bloom Tender here as other than trying to hit a turn 3 titan I think this mana critter is better saved for a larger, slower commander type of deck.
Sounds about right at replacing Canyons ISB. I'd love to run both as well in the off chance one gets popped, but my first primeval titan trigger generally gets canyons and kor haven. Kor Haven is generally just for looks, and to give people a better strip mine target than canyons, but has proven to be useful on occasion. And Canyons I generally use much the way you do for the rest of the game unless I have a blowout of a hand. So it's not often that the sucker gets popped, if I find this new land doing the same maybe I will bring canyons in as well.
The other cards you mentioned, I agree are likely just not viable whatsoever. The Cavern seems neat, and would actually be awesome if you could get it before turn 6, drop it, and say titan. An uncounterable sun - primeval titan sounds pretty awesome to me. I typically have to wait until I have 8-9 lands if I'm not podding into one of them so I can have a counter up to protect them.
The only thing I'm not sure if was mentioned was the Karmic Guide sorcery. Defy Death
Seems pretty useful to me, but as it's not a creature it doesn't give us a ton of spots to manipulate. Karmic Guide is downright better, and I don't think it would take any of the spots of my pet cards. But it's certainly an option!
I didn't bother mentioning Defy Death because it is strictly worse than a lot of rez already available in the colors.
Miraculous Recovery is the big offender that just blows Defy Death out in my mind considering it is an instant speed rez at the same mana that puts a +1/+1 counter on the creature regardless of creature type.
Then there are the many 4 mana sorcery rez effects, Breath of Life, False Defeat, and Resurrection. In my mind the 5 mana sorcery speed rez is just outclassed in too many ways.
For now I will probably just replace Winding Canyons with the new land. There is no downside to making the swap assuming everything known so far is accurate. If I have problems with people blowing it up I will consider running both at that time.
EDIT: oooohhhh man I just realized that the new land totally enables instant speed wraths / time warps which is totally sick.
EDIT 2: As soon as I know the name of the new land / everything gets confirmed for it I am going to update it to the OP in place of Winding Canyons. As much as I would love to run both for now I will just run the new land as soon as I can get it proxy added into the list. This one might actually get Strip Mined a bit though whereas I rarely ran into the problem with Winding Canyons.
How was the Rafiq/Dryad switch for you ISB? Have you found rafiq useful enough for this deck? I'm a bit reluctant to cut the dryad cause i usually play against many green deck and i like forestwalk with the swords. I'm also happy with early ramp against fast decks, but probably it's one of the weakest spot here..
I have so far enjoyed rafiq in the list just for some extra damage. I dont feel like he needs to be in here however he has given me some really explosive turns. I havent really goten enough use of him yet though to tell. So far my only real use of him was like this:
Turn 1: Land
Turn 2: Land, EOT of my opponents I Eladamri's Call for Rafiq
Turn 3: Jenara
Turn 4: Rafiq and swing Jenara at someone for 8 dmg.
From there some other player killed rafiq which was a bummer but it sort of shows the explosiveness that he can entail. If I had tutored him up later in the game with a few counters on Jenara she can really ramp up big for a surprise kill shot which I like. I cant really say yet how the swap will be overall but I have enjoyed it so far. The extra turn effects that I am playtesting might very well pan out to be more impressive but I like having a creature tutor turn into a finisher for this deck. I guess time will tell how he will play out. I like him but I don't know if he is the best card for the deck or not.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I think I might cut Rafiq after adamantly wanting him in the deck. I just feel he just is there to kill an opponent 1 or 2 turns earlier..not sure if its necessary. Obviously sometimes he is gonna win the game for you..same could be said for other cards.
Anyways..I Played a game...died at 40 life, no General Damage...to Pacting a Counter on my Karmic Guide...and then someone EOTT, Obliterated (Leyline of Anticipated). Sigh.......
As for the new land...auto include.....I pray for some good art. Gonna be some sick EOTT plays...with that land.
Pact can in fact backfire, I remember once where I used a pact to stop a wrath when I had an Avenger going way back. The next player dropped and poped a Mindslaver on me...
To my own luck though that player needed the wrath that I had in hand to live through Uril's attack so he was forced to pay the pact and wrath lol. It very very easily could have turned into me dying though.
As for rafiq, I wanted to play with him a bit more yet before I gave a consensus on him. I really like some aspects of him such as the fact that he can turn out some aggressive damage however like you said, he has no ETB effect and he can be a dud if answered quickly. I plan on testing the angel quickly upon it being released and have sort of considered proxying her for some play beforehand but I sort of always get lazy when it comes to actually doing it. I have probably played 5 or so games now with rafiq in the deck and only once have I seen him due to tutoring for him. I really need to put in more games with my Jenara. I just feel a bit bad as everyone *****es when I bring out my jenara deck lol. Probably because it is really solid
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I played 3 games last night as well, unfortunately 2/3 of those games were emperor and my flanker was total crap and he got lined up across from fast agro decks that just murdered him... It didn't help that the opposing emperor built his deck as an emperor style of control deck.
The other game which was a 4 player FFA turned out to be sort of a nothings happening game where I was doing good things with a Skullclamp + Birthing Pod + Simulacrum. Out of nowhere I sucked on Sorrin Markov putting me to 10 life... I put up full defenses next turn then sucked on a 10 pt Red Sun's Zenith from the same player.... it was really weak.
All of my games looked solid but just things that were mostly outside of my control. Sorrin is so lame and he blamed his actions on the fact that I finished his Liliana off... wow really?
[HIDE]???
Land T: Add to your mana pool. UG, : Until end of turn, you may cast nonland cards as though they had flash.[/HIDE]
Currently that is the plan. As much as I would love to run both of them the new land is a strict upgrade. I hate adding extra colorless lands unless absolutely necessary.
Ya I'm actually so excited for the new land. Leyline of Anticipation on a land is dreams come true for me. Unfortunately only 3 of my decks can run it.
For the games, yeah. Most people (including me) get all excited when first discovering cards like Sorin Markov. Then we play it a few times and learn that people don't avoid running it because they're not smart enough to realize that the card is powerful. The card simply unfun. If the guy is a regular member of your playgroup, I hope he realizes that soonish, or many more ruined games to come.
Ya I'm actually so excited for the new land. Leyline of Anticipation on a land is dreams come true for me. Unfortunately only 3 of my decks can run it.
For the games, yeah. Most people (including me) get all excited when first discovering cards like Sorin Markov. Then we play it a few times and learn that people don't avoid running it because they're not smart enough to realize that the card is powerful. The card simply unfun. If the guy is a regular member of your playgroup, I hope he realizes that soonish, or many more ruined games to come.
He is a newbie who doesn't win much. He finds it funny when he gets to ruin the game for me though... What a pal hu.
Sorrin is good in here but really almost less fun than comboing out. I really dislike a random axe of a single player. I would rather someone infinite comboed and just ended the game. I had to wait another 20+ min for the game to wrap up after that happened. Ohhh well I guess it happens.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
It's usually newbs use cards like that. In my play group there is a Mayael deck that rarely does anything, until it gets the blightsteel colosseus + warstorm surge/Mageslayer/soul's fire combo and kills someone. That is pretty much his only win con and if he gets rid of that, he won't be doing much in games at all.
Same with the sorin/red sun guy. If he doesn't do that kind of stuff, he probably rarely has any impact on the game.
It's usually newbs use cards like that. In my play group there is a Mayael deck that rarely does anything, until it gets the blightsteel colosseus + warstorm surge/Mageslayer/soul's fire combo and kills someone. That is pretty much his only win con and if he gets rid of that, he won't be doing much in games at all.
Same with the sorin/red sun guy. If he doesn't do that kind of stuff, he probably rarely has any impact on the game.
Ya, the problem is though that he runs like 6 tutors and its like what he fetches every time... The one other annoying thing he does is random ass Jokulhaups with no follow up that he will also tutor for. Its sort of an annoying deck. He focuses a lot on his commander as well so you just nuke it on occasion and he rolls over. I usually shoot to kill him quickly because he just does things to jack with the game. Nothing annoys me more than lame moves that dont end the game. If you are going to do something lame at least end the game on the spot... jeez
BTW... my Mayael player runs that too lol. He does win through other things as well but it usually turns into an EOT eldrazi into slapping you in the face for your permenants.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Long story short, I don't play Jenara often to avoid having everyone gang up on me and blow me out of the game. Although even if that happens, the deck can normally take care of itself if you make the appropriate decisions.
What do you think of Ghostly Flicker from the new set? Seems like great value, and becomes absurd like Ghostway with an E-Witness on the table, plus not blinking Jenara or an equipped guy/controlled guy when you don't want to. Nice tricks like blinking Sower+the guy you took, getting him permanently plus a new guy. Seems really strong.
- Willy Wonka
The Quote function doesn't work for me on this forum. Sorry for any confusion created.
Ghostly Flicker: My problem is that it needs to have exactly 2 targets of the same type. I guess this isnt that big of an issue overall however I feel like Momentary Blink, Ghostway, and Vanish into Memory are possibly all better than Ghostly Flicker... It isnt that it is a bad card but there are a lot of other things I would likely use before I got down to using it.
Also, as a side note as I dont feel like I stressed it enough earlier my experiment to run Temporal Manipulation & Capture Of Jingzhou has been a success. I plan on doing a bit more testing however the extra turns are huge with a lot of different tactics.
I plan on a little more testing yet however I have been very pleased with them as a whole. I will try to get in more testing before I decide to either go ahead with swapping them in on the OP or not though.
As a side note... I have been sort of mulling over playing around with Mosswort Bridge again for some extra value out of my nonbasic lands... I like that it still taps for colored mana and while it comes in tapped it might be worth going back and playing with it. I have felt like my nonbasic targets when I get Primeeval Titan in hasn't been broken enough of late.
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Game 1 started off with a great early game Turn 1 Hierarch, turn 2, vedalken Heretic, turn 3 Rafiq. Tons of Card Advantage incurred...and beat down some of the more threatening peeps with Putrefax, Blinkmoth beats..and the weaker ones with Flying Beats backed up Elesh.
Game 2 died rather quick to a Brion Stoutarm (revenge kill), Sneak Attacked a 35/35 Serra Avatar into play after a Wrath.
Game 3 I died to an Oona bounce/discard deck..that generated enough mana to do an unearthed Leviathan, Sunder, Liliana's Caress...I discarded 14 cards which killed me...he effectively killed 3 of 5 players with this move.
Might go back to a more slower Jenara deck...although this was more fun in the fact that it was different and had more interaction.
The two cards don't have to be of the same type. It's says and/or, so worst case you can flicker a land make make it cost 2 instead of 3, which is pretty good. To me it's the potential to really abuse the heck out of it with Witness that makes it better than Momentary or Vanish, and it has different strengths and weaknesses vs Ghostway, which seems potentially bad if you have a suited up Jenara with a few counters on her.
- Willy Wonka
The Quote function doesn't work for me on this forum. Sorry for any confusion created.
Hummm... if you are right on Ghostly Flicker then it does make it decently better. I still am not huge on the flicker effects myself but if that is how it works it makes the card better. I guess you would sort of have to play with them some to figure out which works the best. The potential to protect artifacts / enchantments is cool about it however it wont help against any wrath effects which is unfortunate.
FLY MOLO: I am guessing you meant to say with Rafiq there... Rafiq is good but I feel like he draws more hate being a faster out of the gate commander.
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@ISB - have you gotten much use out of Winding Canyons? I've found that I haven't had a chance to really get use out of it as I'm not really willing to pay the premium. I guess the situation will eventually come... but if not, I'm curious, because I wouldn't mind getting a colored land back.
I also include discussions about cards we took out, cards we banned, and cards we might add.
I find that I use Winding Canyons in the late game more than most of my other lands. Even if it results in me doing a little less in my turns it pushes me outside of sorcery speed wrath effects. I have found several occasions it allows me to manipulate my way into not being attacked and not being wrathed by the opposition.
Overall I really like Winding Canyons however it is one of those cards that I rarely use until I am pushing over 10 lands in play. The versatility that it allows me to have in play though is really solid and it lets me keep a lot of options up for the endgame. I have had several games in which my opponents blamed Winding Canyons for my win. I really love the option to instant speed a clone in to kill commanders as well which is really fun against some of the evasive commanders like Uril and such.
Overall, it has been a big plus for me however I suppose results might vary. If your games end faster it is one of those cards that you wont see as good of results from. If you see a lot of board wipes, again it wont be as good. I have a lot of creature based and creature control based decks in my meta so it isnt uncommon for a lot of wraths to drag us into a late game.
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Even with a more aggressive play style the core of our decks are very similar. The land base, creature toolbox, removal, and tutors are just about identical
BRGrenzo, Dungeon Warden EDH
GAzusa, Always in a Rush EDH
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Warlord EDH
Trade thread on MOTL
It really comes down to personal preference as I don't really feel it is wrong to play either as a commander.
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This was just for a change for this week...as I just felt I wanted to be aggressive as a surprise or my friends (I only have 2 decks, so they are pretty predictable otherwise). I have 3 Bant commanders (Jenara, Rafiq, Angus) and 3 Jund commanders (Kresh, Xira, Resdude).and the best cards that can go in these...so i tend to mix it up from time to time.
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Land
t: Add 1 to your mana pool.
GU, t: Until end of turn, non-land cards you own have flash.
Link to rummor mill spoil.
EDIT: I figured I would do sort of a quick overview as well of the other cards we hadnt discussed but probably dont need to:
Cavern of Souls - uncounterable creature land. Our deck doesn't rely heavily on our commander and really has no one big tribe to consider. This in my mind really only helps handle Hinder and Spell Crumple on our commander and to be honest, I really don't care if she gets tucked as I have plenty of ways to go get her and the deck relies little on her to win. It looks cool but not that big for this deck. I sort of view this land of more of a tribal / commander centric style of land. I think it would work great in decks like Uril and Zur where the chance of your commander being countered / tucked is a bit higher.
Entreat the Angels - cool big angel card but this hasn't ever been what this deck is about. It looks like it would be fun to miracle this during someone else's EOT off of a top effect but it really isnt something that this deck is looking for.
Nephalia Smuggler - it is a really sort of cool effect however I don't see it being any better than Mistmeadow Witch other than giving a 1 drop target for Birthing Pod but we dont really have much for tokens to kick off into this... Really sort of meh overall. I think it is cool that Ranger of Eos is picking up more targets all the time but until there is a few one drops that I really feel I need I wont be going there.
Somberwald Sage I like how big the ramp is but the fact that it is a fragile fast mana critter / limited where it can be used I sort of view it as a bad Bloom Tender here as other than trying to hit a turn 3 titan I think this mana critter is better saved for a larger, slower commander type of deck.
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The other cards you mentioned, I agree are likely just not viable whatsoever. The Cavern seems neat, and would actually be awesome if you could get it before turn 6, drop it, and say titan. An uncounterable sun - primeval titan sounds pretty awesome to me. I typically have to wait until I have 8-9 lands if I'm not podding into one of them so I can have a counter up to protect them.
The only thing I'm not sure if was mentioned was the Karmic Guide sorcery. Defy Death
Seems pretty useful to me, but as it's not a creature it doesn't give us a ton of spots to manipulate. Karmic Guide is downright better, and I don't think it would take any of the spots of my pet cards. But it's certainly an option!
Miraculous Recovery is the big offender that just blows Defy Death out in my mind considering it is an instant speed rez at the same mana that puts a +1/+1 counter on the creature regardless of creature type.
Then there are the many 4 mana sorcery rez effects, Breath of Life, False Defeat, and Resurrection. In my mind the 5 mana sorcery speed rez is just outclassed in too many ways.
For now I will probably just replace Winding Canyons with the new land. There is no downside to making the swap assuming everything known so far is accurate. If I have problems with people blowing it up I will consider running both at that time.
EDIT: oooohhhh man I just realized that the new land totally enables instant speed wraths / time warps which is totally sick.
EDIT 2: As soon as I know the name of the new land / everything gets confirmed for it I am going to update it to the OP in place of Winding Canyons. As much as I would love to run both for now I will just run the new land as soon as I can get it proxy added into the list. This one might actually get Strip Mined a bit though whereas I rarely ran into the problem with Winding Canyons.
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[Modern] Allies
I have so far enjoyed rafiq in the list just for some extra damage. I dont feel like he needs to be in here however he has given me some really explosive turns. I havent really goten enough use of him yet though to tell. So far my only real use of him was like this:
Turn 1: Land
Turn 2: Land, EOT of my opponents I Eladamri's Call for Rafiq
Turn 3: Jenara
Turn 4: Rafiq and swing Jenara at someone for 8 dmg.
From there some other player killed rafiq which was a bummer but it sort of shows the explosiveness that he can entail. If I had tutored him up later in the game with a few counters on Jenara she can really ramp up big for a surprise kill shot which I like. I cant really say yet how the swap will be overall but I have enjoyed it so far. The extra turn effects that I am playtesting might very well pan out to be more impressive but I like having a creature tutor turn into a finisher for this deck. I guess time will tell how he will play out. I like him but I don't know if he is the best card for the deck or not.
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[Modern] Allies
Anyways..I Played a game...died at 40 life, no General Damage...to Pacting a Counter on my Karmic Guide...and then someone EOTT, Obliterated (Leyline of Anticipated). Sigh.......
As for the new land...auto include.....I pray for some good art. Gonna be some sick EOTT plays...with that land.
To my own luck though that player needed the wrath that I had in hand to live through Uril's attack so he was forced to pay the pact and wrath lol. It very very easily could have turned into me dying though.
As for rafiq, I wanted to play with him a bit more yet before I gave a consensus on him. I really like some aspects of him such as the fact that he can turn out some aggressive damage however like you said, he has no ETB effect and he can be a dud if answered quickly. I plan on testing the angel quickly upon it being released and have sort of considered proxying her for some play beforehand but I sort of always get lazy when it comes to actually doing it. I have probably played 5 or so games now with rafiq in the deck and only once have I seen him due to tutoring for him. I really need to put in more games with my Jenara. I just feel a bit bad as everyone *****es when I bring out my jenara deck lol. Probably because it is really solid
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[Modern] Allies
UWU/W BlinkUW
BMono-Black ControlB
Commander:
GWUJenaraGWU
BGeth MBCB
RGXenagosRG
WUBSharuumWUB (retired)
Modern:
xAffinityx (starting)
Standard:
Ha! That's a good one.
Land
T: Add to your mana pool.
UG,T: Until end of turn, you may cast nonland cards as though they had flash.
GUB [Retired Primer] The Mimeoplasm BUG
Modern: UR Storm RU
Cube: WUBRG Pauper Cube GRBUW
Credit for the banner goes to DarkNightCavalier at Heroes of the Plane Studios
GAME REPORT
I played 3 games last night as well, unfortunately 2/3 of those games were emperor and my flanker was total crap and he got lined up across from fast agro decks that just murdered him... It didn't help that the opposing emperor built his deck as an emperor style of control deck.
The other game which was a 4 player FFA turned out to be sort of a nothings happening game where I was doing good things with a Skullclamp + Birthing Pod + Simulacrum. Out of nowhere I sucked on Sorrin Markov putting me to 10 life... I put up full defenses next turn then sucked on a 10 pt Red Sun's Zenith from the same player.... it was really weak.
All of my games looked solid but just things that were mostly outside of my control. Sorrin is so lame and he blamed his actions on the fact that I finished his Liliana off... wow really?
Currently that is the plan. As much as I would love to run both of them the new land is a strict upgrade. I hate adding extra colorless lands unless absolutely necessary.
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[Modern] Allies
For the games, yeah. Most people (including me) get all excited when first discovering cards like Sorin Markov. Then we play it a few times and learn that people don't avoid running it because they're not smart enough to realize that the card is powerful. The card simply unfun. If the guy is a regular member of your playgroup, I hope he realizes that soonish, or many more ruined games to come.
He is a newbie who doesn't win much. He finds it funny when he gets to ruin the game for me though... What a pal hu.
Sorrin is good in here but really almost less fun than comboing out. I really dislike a random axe of a single player. I would rather someone infinite comboed and just ended the game. I had to wait another 20+ min for the game to wrap up after that happened. Ohhh well I guess it happens.
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[Modern] Allies
Same with the sorin/red sun guy. If he doesn't do that kind of stuff, he probably rarely has any impact on the game.
Ya, the problem is though that he runs like 6 tutors and its like what he fetches every time... The one other annoying thing he does is random ass Jokulhaups with no follow up that he will also tutor for. Its sort of an annoying deck. He focuses a lot on his commander as well so you just nuke it on occasion and he rolls over. I usually shoot to kill him quickly because he just does things to jack with the game. Nothing annoys me more than lame moves that dont end the game. If you are going to do something lame at least end the game on the spot... jeez
BTW... my Mayael player runs that too lol. He does win through other things as well but it usually turns into an EOT eldrazi into slapping you in the face for your permenants.
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[Modern] Allies