For Eleventh Edition, some power-level benchmarks, plus the featured returning mechanic:
Magma SledgeR
Sorcery [C]
Magma Sledge deals 3 damage to target player.
Scent of Blood1R
Instant [C]
Scent of Blood deals 1 damage to target creature or player, then populate. (Put a token onto the battlefield that's a copy of a creature token you control.)
You may return an Island you control to its owner's hand rather than pay Daze's mana cost.
Counter target spell unless its controller pays :1mana:.
EuthanizeB
Instant [C]
Destroy target creature with power 2 or less.
Wake the ReflectionsW
Sorcery [C]
Populate. (Put a token onto the battlefield that's a copy of a creature token you control.)
Colonize2G
Sorcery [C]
Search your library for a basic land card, put it onto the battlefield tapped, shuffle your library, then populate. (Put a token onto the battlefield that's a copy of a creature token you control.)
For those following Dominaria and Call to Glory, I am designing Eleventh Edition as the Standard-legal Core Set for the DOM-CtG metagame.
[EDIT]: Dropped Euthanize down to and "power 2 or less." (Previously 1B and "power 3 or less.)
[EDIT]: Renamed Blood Sport to Scent of Blood.
I'll bite with the obvious question. Why did you decide to put populate in red?
I wanted to expand it to a third color. Red does a lot of tokenstuff. Far more than blue. And populate just doesn't feel right in black, IMO.
From a development standpoint, it also fits pretty well with where I plan to take red in this meta. Red aggro is going to be on high cycle while red control is going to be on low cycle. Blood Sport is meant to exemplify that balance.
Also, I think red populate just sounds interesting. I think it will help the mechanic play differently from RtR-block populate.
Casting any spell with CMC greater than 4 is starting to look very unviable.
I'm interested in your analysis, here, especially regarding Daze.
In terms of aggro, the way I'm looking at Daze is that it stops early game threats at the expense of control's development and its late game. I wanted it in here to foil aggro, but in a way that a successful tempo-oriented aggro deck can push past. But, I might not be looking at it correctly. Can you lend some additional perspective?
Also, I am definitely looking to make the meta challenging for midrange. Not that I want midrange to disappear, but I want to force midrange to run a much tighter ship than it's used to running. I want Daze to create uncertainty about midrange's ramp mathematics.
And also, from the control side of things, I just want one truly excellent blue soft counter in the format. "Do I need the extra or not?" is a question I want Standard players to be asking themselves a lot.
I'm interested in your analysis, here, especially regarding Daze.
Daze pull it's weight regarding control answering early threats but the it truelly shines when players play higher cmc spells. Decks that stay on curve (such as midrange decks that want to play a 4 cmc creature on turn 3~4, a big disruptive spell on turn 4~5) gets' screwed up hard by daze. The reason is that with four lands in play you can play a sweeper on turn 4 and still counter a on curve creature next turn, which is insane.
WotC did a heculean effort to introduce cmc 4 creatures in aggressive decks (past zendikar aggro was purely cmc 1~2 rushes with some 3 cmc finishers) and it's still struggling hard to do it right with cmc 5 (see how underwhelming kalonian hydra and stormbreath dragon is). It's very important that players play creatures that cost 4+ on their deck because they have bigger design space (they can trade more p/t for new abilities). Altough the overly 'nerf' of counter spells can promote midrange too much (see modern).
I'm not planning to have a CMC 4 wrath effect in the environment. Probably nothing below 6-7. If there's any kind of cheap board sweeper, it's going to be something more conditional, along the lines of Mutilate.
Part of the logic behind Call to Glory block, in particular, is that you're going to get to engage in a very robust combat back-and-forth. That pretty much rules out any efficient, unconditional board-wipes in the DOM-XI-CtG metagame.
I'm interested in your analysis, here, especially regarding Daze.
In terms of aggro, the way I'm looking at Daze is that it stops early game threats at the expense of control's development and its late game. I wanted it in here to foil aggro, but in a way that a successful tempo-oriented aggro deck can push past. But, I might not be looking at it correctly. Can you lend some additional perspective?
The only format I've ever played in which Daze was legal is Legacy. From that standpoint: Daze is only ever playable in Delver-style tempo decks and combo decks, and unplayable in control decks.
The upside of Daze is that it gives you a free counterspell, but at the expense of a land drop. Therefore, Daze is most optimal in decks that can operate on a low land count, and ideally want to end the game while the opponent is stuck on a low land count as well. Turn 1 Delver, Daze your one-drop, flip Delver is a powerful play in a tempo deck.
Control decks aren't planning on using that mana during their own turn, so the ability to cheat the mana cost of the counter isn't as important. (Compare the other free counter in Legacy, which all control decks do play: Force of Will. Force lets you counter a turn 1 play from your opponent when you are on the draw. Daze does not.) Control decks do not want to be reducing the number of lands they have in play. Control decks do not want to stretch the game out to 7 turns then topdeck Daze. Control's best soft counter is probably Mana Leak, because the +3 cost makes it virtually impossible for the opponent to "play around" it unless they're severely flooded, so it's effectively a hard counter.
Tempo is greatly advantaged when you give up a turn of your own development to "play around" Daze, because it's one additional turn that Phantasmal Bear/Delver/Something Faerie gets to whack you in the face. Control is not similarly advantaged.
Just looking at the first three cards of XI, I predict the best Daze deck is going to be a Young Pyromancer tempo/burn deck.
EDIT: And no 4cmc sweeper? Yeah, late-game decks are getting nerfed hard.
And no 4cmc sweeper? Yeah, late-game decks are getting nerfed hard.
It's not that I want early-game decks to go unanswered, it's that I want the answers to be different than "board wipe."
I don't want aggro vs. control games in this meta to be an issue of getting in your damage against a defenseless player before his wrath effect closes the door on you. I'm bored with that dynamic. I want to force the control player to engage in the early game, and I want to force the aggro player to engage in the late game.
It's funny, because I think this conversation is actually opening my eyes about Magma Sledge and Euthanize. Namely, I'm questioning whether I want direct damage to look like this, and I'm thinking that my weenie-slaying black spell needs to be more awesome. I'm not exactly sure what to do about Magma Sledge, yet, but I think the following is a better point for Euthanize:
Euthanize1B
Instant [C]
Destroy target creature with power 3 or less.
I'm not planning to push black control, but I think this makes Euthanize effective enough to maindeck in any random X/b or B/x build. Do you agree, or am I losing my mind?
Considering Smother's popularity, I think that Euthanize is a good early answer for Bx control decks. It also makes Gx midrange slightly better since those decks can field a 4/x dude on turn 2 or 3 relatively easily.
Obviously, control decks need some way to interact during the early turns in a format where aggro is good. I'm just not seeing any cards that I would be more happy to play in a controlling, late-game deck than in a deck that's trying to deal 20 as fast as possible.
Traditionally that has been true, but there are a lot of examples in Standard right now of aggro cards that are intended primarily to fuel your late game: Chandra, Pyromaster, Purphoros, God of the Forge, Ogre Battledriver, and Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch are all aggro curve-toppers that don't act as traditional finishers. Now, I don't love love any of those cards. They feel counterintuitive to how I want to build an aggro deck. But I think WotC's head is in the right place with them, so I want to do something like them but better-tailored.
I'm just not seeing any cards that I would be more happy to play in a controlling, late-game deck than in a deck that's trying to deal 20 as fast as possible.
Well, I've been thinking a lot about this thing:
Deafening Phantasm1UU
Creature — Illusion [R]
Flash
Flying
Creatures your opponents control get -1/-0.
[1/2]
Pushing a -X/-0 effect could really hit the sweet spot in answering aggro without wiping the board, and maintaining the relevance of combat.
The populate cards and Euthanize are solid, in the "printable, looks fun, nothing really to say here" way.
I like magma sledge because it will make modern Burn better (nice, cheap intro to the format). I suspect many people would grow to dislike magma sledge because it makes modern burn better.
Jenesis has done a good of explaining how daze doesn't really help control but is very good for aggro.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I primarily play limited, so most of my spoiler season comments view cards through that lens.
Well, to give credit where it's due, I'm constructing the set as though it would be Modern-legal.
So if you think Daze completely messes up Modern, I'm interested to know why, and how badly.
Although I will say, if the answer is, "Daze makes midrange have to work for its dinner," I'm not super receptive to that criticism. Midrange should be viable, but it also should have to compete.
Red has about 30 creature token makers and blue has about 24 creature token makers. Not exactly " far more than blue". The flavor of populate can be seen to work in either color. I think blue is slightly more mechanically suited to Populate than red because many of red's tokens get sacked at eot. That being said, I don't think red can't or shouldn't have populate. In fact, I prefer it in red over blue.
Population Explosion (Rare) 3RR
Instant
Put two 1/1 red Goblin creature tokens onto the battlefield, then populate. Population Explosion deals 1 damage to target creature or player for each token creature you control.
Well, to give credit where it's due, I'm constructing the set as though it would be Modern-legal.
So if you think Daze completely messes up Modern, I'm interested to know why, and how badly.
Although I will say, if the answer is, "Daze makes midrange have to work for its dinner," I'm not super receptive to that criticism. Midrange should be viable, but it also should have to compete.
You seem to be under the impression that midrange decks dominate modern. I don't have much experience with modern, but from what I've seen, midrange doesn't dominate modern. At the last Grand prix for instance, there were only 3 decks which I would call midrange, among 2-3 combo, 2-1 aggro, and 1 ramp deck.
Why do you believe midrange hasn't been competing? Even if you do feel that way, and you are correct, the answer isn't to given tempo decks more ways to beat midrange. That will simply lock midrange out of the format and all modern would be is combo and aggro. The answer is to make control decks viable in the format which can put pressure on midrange.
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
- Manite
Red has about 30 creature token makers and blue has about 24 creature token makers. Not exactly " far more than blue". The flavor of populate can be seen to work in either color. I think blue is slightly more mechanically suited to Populate than red because many of red's tokens get sacked at eot. That being said, I don't think red can't or shouldn't have populate. In fact, I prefer it in red over blue.
Population Explosion (Rare) 3RR
Instant
Put two 1/1 red Goblin creature tokens onto the battlefield, then populate. Population Explosion deals 1 damage to target creature or player for each token creature you control.
In the modern cardpool, mono-red has 37 non sac at eot token effects and mono-blue has 17 non copy token effects. Cool card.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I primarily play limited, so most of my spoiler season comments view cards through that lens.
You seem to be under the impression that midrange decks dominate modern. I don't have much experience with modern, but from what I've seen, midrange doesn't dominate modern. At the last Grand prix for instance, there were only 3 decks which I would call midrange, among 2-3 combo, 2-1 aggro, and 1 ramp deck.
Why do you believe midrange hasn't been competing? Even if you do feel that way, and you are correct, the answer isn't to given tempo decks more ways to be midrange. That will simply lock midrange out of the format and all modern would be is combo and aggro. The answer is to make control decks viable in the format which can put pressure on midrange.
To be fair, midrange is one of the top archetypes due to Jund's consistent dominance in Modern. It is much stronger than aggro, tempo, or control is.
To answer Guesswork's question, I probably overreacted, but Merfolk would become the dominant deck at that point.
Also, I agree that there isn't much reason to play Control from what I have seen so far in these sets.
Sorcery [C]
Magma Sledge deals 3 damage to target player.
Instant [C]
Scent of Blood deals 1 damage to target creature or player, then populate. (Put a token onto the battlefield that's a copy of a creature token you control.)
Instant [C]
You may return an Island you control to its owner's hand rather than pay Daze's mana cost.
Counter target spell unless its controller pays :1mana:.
Instant [C]
Destroy target creature with power 2 or less.
Sorcery [C]
Populate. (Put a token onto the battlefield that's a copy of a creature token you control.)
Sorcery [C]
Search your library for a basic land card, put it onto the battlefield tapped, shuffle your library, then populate. (Put a token onto the battlefield that's a copy of a creature token you control.)
[EDIT]: Dropped Euthanize down to and "power 2 or less." (Previously 1B and "power 3 or less.)
[EDIT]: Renamed Blood Sport to Scent of Blood.
I wanted to expand it to a third color. Red does a lot of token stuff. Far more than blue. And populate just doesn't feel right in black, IMO.
From a development standpoint, it also fits pretty well with where I plan to take red in this meta. Red aggro is going to be on high cycle while red control is going to be on low cycle. Blood Sport is meant to exemplify that balance.
Also, I think red populate just sounds interesting. I think it will help the mechanic play differently from RtR-block populate.
Casting any spell with CMC greater than 4 is starting to look very unviable.
Avatar by Numotflame96 of Maelstrom Graphics
Sig banner thanks to DarkNightCavalier of Heroes of the Plane Studios!
I'm interested in your analysis, here, especially regarding Daze.
In terms of aggro, the way I'm looking at Daze is that it stops early game threats at the expense of control's development and its late game. I wanted it in here to foil aggro, but in a way that a successful tempo-oriented aggro deck can push past. But, I might not be looking at it correctly. Can you lend some additional perspective?
Also, I am definitely looking to make the meta challenging for midrange. Not that I want midrange to disappear, but I want to force midrange to run a much tighter ship than it's used to running. I want Daze to create uncertainty about midrange's ramp mathematics.
And also, from the control side of things, I just want one truly excellent blue soft counter in the format. "Do I need the extra or not?" is a question I want Standard players to be asking themselves a lot.
Daze pull it's weight regarding control answering early threats but the it truelly shines when players play higher cmc spells. Decks that stay on curve (such as midrange decks that want to play a 4 cmc creature on turn 3~4, a big disruptive spell on turn 4~5) gets' screwed up hard by daze. The reason is that with four lands in play you can play a sweeper on turn 4 and still counter a on curve creature next turn, which is insane.
WotC did a heculean effort to introduce cmc 4 creatures in aggressive decks (past zendikar aggro was purely cmc 1~2 rushes with some 3 cmc finishers) and it's still struggling hard to do it right with cmc 5 (see how underwhelming kalonian hydra and stormbreath dragon is). It's very important that players play creatures that cost 4+ on their deck because they have bigger design space (they can trade more p/t for new abilities). Altough the overly 'nerf' of counter spells can promote midrange too much (see modern).
BGU Control
R Aggro
Standard - For Fun
BG Auras
I'm not planning to have a CMC 4 wrath effect in the environment. Probably nothing below 6-7. If there's any kind of cheap board sweeper, it's going to be something more conditional, along the lines of Mutilate.
Part of the logic behind Call to Glory block, in particular, is that you're going to get to engage in a very robust combat back-and-forth. That pretty much rules out any efficient, unconditional board-wipes in the DOM-XI-CtG metagame.
Does that change the landscape for Daze at all?
The only format I've ever played in which Daze was legal is Legacy. From that standpoint: Daze is only ever playable in Delver-style tempo decks and combo decks, and unplayable in control decks.
The upside of Daze is that it gives you a free counterspell, but at the expense of a land drop. Therefore, Daze is most optimal in decks that can operate on a low land count, and ideally want to end the game while the opponent is stuck on a low land count as well. Turn 1 Delver, Daze your one-drop, flip Delver is a powerful play in a tempo deck.
Control decks aren't planning on using that mana during their own turn, so the ability to cheat the mana cost of the counter isn't as important. (Compare the other free counter in Legacy, which all control decks do play: Force of Will. Force lets you counter a turn 1 play from your opponent when you are on the draw. Daze does not.) Control decks do not want to be reducing the number of lands they have in play. Control decks do not want to stretch the game out to 7 turns then topdeck Daze. Control's best soft counter is probably Mana Leak, because the +3 cost makes it virtually impossible for the opponent to "play around" it unless they're severely flooded, so it's effectively a hard counter.
Tempo is greatly advantaged when you give up a turn of your own development to "play around" Daze, because it's one additional turn that Phantasmal Bear/Delver/Something Faerie gets to whack you in the face. Control is not similarly advantaged.
Just looking at the first three cards of XI, I predict the best Daze deck is going to be a Young Pyromancer tempo/burn deck.
EDIT: And no 4cmc sweeper? Yeah, late-game decks are getting nerfed hard.
Avatar by Numotflame96 of Maelstrom Graphics
Sig banner thanks to DarkNightCavalier of Heroes of the Plane Studios!
It's not that I want early-game decks to go unanswered, it's that I want the answers to be different than "board wipe."
I don't want aggro vs. control games in this meta to be an issue of getting in your damage against a defenseless player before his wrath effect closes the door on you. I'm bored with that dynamic. I want to force the control player to engage in the early game, and I want to force the aggro player to engage in the late game.
It's funny, because I think this conversation is actually opening my eyes about Magma Sledge and Euthanize. Namely, I'm questioning whether I want direct damage to look like this, and I'm thinking that my weenie-slaying black spell needs to be more awesome. I'm not exactly sure what to do about Magma Sledge, yet, but I think the following is a better point for Euthanize:
Instant [C]
Destroy target creature with power 3 or less.
Obviously, control decks need some way to interact during the early turns in a format where aggro is good. I'm just not seeing any cards that I would be more happy to play in a controlling, late-game deck than in a deck that's trying to deal 20 as fast as possible.
Aggro decks generally want to have all the tools they need to operate entirely out of the opening hand, which tends to depress mana curves. The only "late game" cards I tend to see in aggro are either hasty fatties (Hellrider, Stormbreath Dragon, Demigod of Revenge) or direct burn (Cursed Scroll, Price of Progress, Siege-Gang Commander). Is that what you had in mind?
Avatar by Numotflame96 of Maelstrom Graphics
Sig banner thanks to DarkNightCavalier of Heroes of the Plane Studios!
Traditionally that has been true, but there are a lot of examples in Standard right now of aggro cards that are intended primarily to fuel your late game: Chandra, Pyromaster, Purphoros, God of the Forge, Ogre Battledriver, and Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch are all aggro curve-toppers that don't act as traditional finishers. Now, I don't love love any of those cards. They feel counterintuitive to how I want to build an aggro deck. But I think WotC's head is in the right place with them, so I want to do something like them but better-tailored.
Well, I've been thinking a lot about this thing:
Creature — Illusion [R]
Flash
Flying
Creatures your opponents control get -1/-0.
[1/2]
I like magma sledge because it will make modern Burn better (nice, cheap intro to the format). I suspect many people would grow to dislike magma sledge because it makes modern burn better.
Jenesis has done a good of explaining how daze doesn't really help control but is very good for aggro.
Interested in Custom Card Creation.
My Cube:Cardinal Custom Cube
A custom version of a third modern masters: MM2019
(filter->rarity to see in set rarity).
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
It wouldn't. custom sets are not Modern legal.
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
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Read up on Red Flags & NWO
Well, to give credit where it's due, I'm constructing the set as though it would be Modern-legal.
So if you think Daze completely messes up Modern, I'm interested to know why, and how badly.
Although I will say, if the answer is, "Daze makes midrange have to work for its dinner," I'm not super receptive to that criticism. Midrange should be viable, but it also should have to compete.
Red has about 30 creature token makers and blue has about 24 creature token makers. Not exactly " far more than blue". The flavor of populate can be seen to work in either color. I think blue is slightly more mechanically suited to Populate than red because many of red's tokens get sacked at eot. That being said, I don't think red can't or shouldn't have populate. In fact, I prefer it in red over blue.
Population Explosion (Rare)
3RR
Instant
Put two 1/1 red Goblin creature tokens onto the battlefield, then populate. Population Explosion deals 1 damage to target creature or player for each token creature you control.
You seem to be under the impression that midrange decks dominate modern. I don't have much experience with modern, but from what I've seen, midrange doesn't dominate modern. At the last Grand prix for instance, there were only 3 decks which I would call midrange, among 2-3 combo, 2-1 aggro, and 1 ramp deck.
Link here (http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=5905&d=234237)
Why do you believe midrange hasn't been competing? Even if you do feel that way, and you are correct, the answer isn't to given tempo decks more ways to beat midrange. That will simply lock midrange out of the format and all modern would be is combo and aggro. The answer is to make control decks viable in the format which can put pressure on midrange.
- Manite
In the modern cardpool, mono-red has 37 non sac at eot token effects and mono-blue has 17 non copy token effects. Cool card.
Interested in Custom Card Creation.
My Cube:Cardinal Custom Cube
A custom version of a third modern masters: MM2019
(filter->rarity to see in set rarity).
To be fair, midrange is one of the top archetypes due to Jund's consistent dominance in Modern. It is much stronger than aggro, tempo, or control is.
To answer Guesswork's question, I probably overreacted, but Merfolk would become the dominant deck at that point.
Also, I agree that there isn't much reason to play Control from what I have seen so far in these sets.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.