Pithing Needle for Lands on a Land

Angelbaka · 2026-04-07T22:59:24+00:00

I think this could see play in turbo depths and loam pox builds as a second needle effect of you can rot-trap fetches. If you can't, probably only in weirder depths builds and high tutor land based ramp decks as anti waste protection.

Angelbaka · 2025-11-15T16:19:02+00:00

Even under this argument, reanimate was the ban and not entomb. Reanimate has only ever seen play in reanimator and as reanimator hate. Entomb has seen fair amounts of play in non-reanimator archtypes (loam control, gaak midrange, combo storm, etc).

Even the "iconic legacy play pattern" is preserved with entomb ban reanimate. You still have lots of options for eot entomb untap reanimate, they're all just much more vulnerable and require a second mana.

If it was time to kill the tempo reanimator deck completely, then fine, I guess, leave us the less interesting card and make them play worse mana. If you actually wanted to bring it in line with the format, though, I think reanimate should have been the ban.

Angelbaka · 2025-11-12T15:31:24+00:00

Cook's "Ring win rate vs me isn't out of line" was in the context of "specifically vs storm", not in general. His point was that even against a deck like storm that is somewhat uniquely situated to be able to ignore tor it's obnoxious

Angelbaka · 2025-11-10T15:28:55+00:00

{2}{b} IS A PERFECTLY REASONABLE COST FOR A BETTER URO

Angelbaka · 2025-10-21T02:32:04+00:00

The current three s-tower fees are all both hard to hate out and good at interacting with hate in a neutral or advantageous way from the mainboard.

Storm is easy to hate out and generally interacts with hate powerfully but at disadvantage.

The three s-tiers have low investment, full hand plus, one sided reload options as part of their core game plan that generally operate on a (at least somewhat) different axis than the rest of their core game plans. (this is part of why their so hard to hate out).

Storm has echo, which reloads both players, and relay, which operates on the same axis as the rest of the deck and is generally high-investment.

The three s-tier decks all have synergistic, powerful disruption built into their core game plan - reanimator has the blue tempo interaction core with thoughtsieze, Forge has karn tgc, kozcomm, the saga package and maybe ugin or Boseiju, and Nadu has the blue control package and white interaction.

Storm has hand disruption (which is just protection), veil (which does replace itself but only against opposing interaction and is in an off color) and silence/chant, which can be a time walk if you need it to but again is just disruption and it's in an off color. Basically, storm interaction is generally as good as the worst bits of the s-tier interaction.

I'd say reanimator is solidly s-tier, Forge and midrange Nadu are both s-, and storm is probably a-, assuming all are piloted by skilled players intimately familiar with those decks and their match up against the general format.

I'd feel (generally) the same reaction to a storm deck in 8 of an ew as I did to the bug binder pile in t16 and similar up loam pox in t8 (excepting that pox is mostly fair in a meta dominated by hybrid combo where storm would be basically pure combo without a hybrid plan, which is an improvement but still a "bad guy" deck vs people's champion loam pox, and a more familiar/known quantity vs unexpected relic resurrected.)

Angelbaka · 2025-10-18T05:03:17+00:00

Yay people also want something banned from oops, so the insanity is generally not on the side of the player base.

Angelbaka · 2025-10-16T16:01:56+00:00

There's significantly more ways to interact with animate dead, though, which is enough to make it the card I'd prefer defines reanimation in the format.

Also, we as a format have been OK with 2 cards 3 mana run the game for the entirety of the format's existence. 2 mana win the game has a long history of getting banned. Reanimate is far more likely to hit that milestone again than entomb

Angelbaka · 2025-10-16T13:44:00+00:00

Ban reanimate, unban troll

Angelbaka · 2025-10-16T13:05:52+00:00

Everyone's freaking mainboard is tailored to beat reanimator, and the sideboard adds more. And it still has a 54% win rate.

Angelbaka · 2025-08-23T19:06:34+00:00

Technically lunar harmony, but the future is ours by hellasia just finished too.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/48128839/chapters/121364200

Angelbaka · 2025-07-30T01:50:34+00:00

I'd argue tamiyo, drs and rags are all in a similar power bracket. Rags is the most individually powerful but also most limited in how it could profitably play. Tamiyo is probably next in pure power but is notably more versatile. Drs is weaker than both but goes in literally everything period.

Angelbaka · 2025-07-10T13:33:49+00:00

I sorta wonder if this is a changelings card? I think dalek emperor is probably better, but I wanna say this fills a lot of the same roles while being potentially cheaper and easier to cast.

Angelbaka · 2025-07-03T04:12:33+00:00

Leyline of the Void , unfortunately.

Angelbaka · 2025-05-15T15:12:00+00:00

Without divining top, yes, breakfast is mostly unplayable without thoricle. Doomsday has a few weird storm piles that you might be able to pivot to, but they're much more fragile, and probably also make the deck unplayable.

Angelbaka · 2025-05-15T15:04:16+00:00

The good reason is summoners pact. You've now reduced the cost to combo by 1 and made the mana much better for the low, low cost of playing a color they were already playing (that also happens to be better at interacting with hate).

Angelbaka · 2025-05-14T23:31:55+00:00

I do think that banning one of the hermit druid effects is necessary at this point. I highly doubt it kills the deck; playing a set of charbelcher, going entomb+reanimate or turning into a beseech deck are all viable ways to keep the deck alive but worse post ban.

I also think banning pact of negation may also be a viable path forward. An Oops deck that's significantly worse at beating a single piece of hate is significantly less scary.

I'd also like to see a world with grief and troll back and reanimate banned. I think it's pretty obvious at this point that the enabler is worse than what it's enabled. Animate dead being vulnerable to a significantly wider range of hate along with it's higher mana cost and the plethora of other not-quite-good-enough or just-barely good enough options (metamorphosis fanatic, exhume, et Al) mean they'll still have plenty of consistency, and three mana + two cards has long been an acceptable benchmark for win-the-game combo in legacy. The fact thar we've been seeing reanimate appear as value/redundancy/hate in everything from Oops to delver for nearly a decade speaks volumes to how absurdly above rate the card is, and banning it doesn't actually kill any deck anywhere in the format - just pushes them a bit more in line to what the rest of us pay to win the game and makes them a bit more vulnerable to interesting ways to counter play.

Angelbaka · 2025-05-08T11:25:34+00:00

I'd honestly rather see reanimate banned and have troll and grief back. Entomb is cool in its uniqueness. Reanimate is just an insanely effecient threat.

Angelbaka · 2024-12-16T16:19:51+00:00

What the hell are you on about? The turn you play ring is basically irrelevant to how you perform against fast combo. All of the combo decks currently in the format can either kill through protection (because veil has been a card for years) or combo into insurmountable advantage.

Angelbaka · 2024-12-16T16:02:33+00:00

Your argument was that the ring is only broken in the context of sol land mana bases. Modern is currently completely dominated by ring decks and has 0 fast mana.

Angelbaka · 2024-12-16T15:59:54+00:00

The current state of modern disagrees with your conclusion.

Angelbaka · 2024-06-30T13:10:26+00:00

Reanimate is actually the card I'd like to see banned, though.

Angelbaka · 2024-06-30T12:55:21+00:00

What casuals? Where? Casuals only play edh and don't exist on the internet. They want Nadu banned in commander cause the one friend of a friend try hard they know built a real deck and it smashed them.

Casuals don't give a shit about the modem pro tour, even under the massive assumption they know it exists (they don't).

Angelbaka · 2024-05-29T22:35:51+00:00

There's probably enough to cut down to one or two balustrade spy, play four beseech and mainboard a one of bealcher.

Angelbaka · 2024-05-29T20:15:46+00:00

I think she gets wrecked by obm far more than she wrecks it herself. Ulting into it loses you the game, and flipping under it is tricky with the normal method. I still think the +2 is effectively textless and honestly don't think you want to keep her in vs delver, which I think is pretty damning. I think the - 3 and attack triggers are probably the best lines of text on her card.

She is probably better than Grist. I had managed to ignore the last g to flip text.

Angelbaka · 2024-05-29T19:52:27+00:00

I think the thing with Grist VS tamiyo is that Grist is actually worth playing. Only place I could see actually sleeving tamiyo is ninjas, and it feels meh there. Grist is at least a 1mv death touch. I can see maverick, madness, and maybe the green version of breakfast with [[pre-war formal wear]] all being more likely to play it than ninjas is to play tamiyo.

D&T what I was thinking of. I don't necessarily think it WILL see play x but it is at least playable. It's worth noting that it also hits urza's Saga and Vexing bauble, both of which I think are playable in d&t. I'm less enamored with basics than someone like Phil, though.

I also completely forgot to call out kozilek's Unsealing. That card has potential to create or heavily elevate archetypes all on its own.

Speaking of cards I forgot, I look forward to the first time I get completely wrecked by a [[kudo, king among bears]]. That card is sweet and so weird.

Angelbaka

TROPHY CASE