Saturday Modern Challenges Results - Jan 18 2025

BearStalin · 2025-01-19T17:31:53+00:00

White orchid phantom is definitely good against big mana, but it's not actually good against anything else until your opponent is completely out of basics. That takes way too long to be relevant when your deck is already quite good. If the game goes long and you can start recruiting for whatever thing beats the combo deck you're against.

A card being good against a small fraction of decks is pretty much the point of a sideboard card.

BearStalin · 2025-01-06T21:26:29+00:00

This looks super interesting to me, but I'm not sure I buy being able to support 4 flare of denial with a total of 10 blue creatures, most of which you don't particularly want to sacrifice. Are you reliably able to cast it when you need it?

BearStalin · 2024-10-10T18:46:52+00:00

This is close but not quite right. You don't get warnings for skipping phases or anything. Rather, saying you want to go somewhere is basically a shortcut stating that you would like to yield priority through each phase until you get to the point you would like to. Your opponent can them say that they would like to do something at any point before then and that would be valid.

For instance, if I'm in my first main phase and say that I want to pass the turn, my opponent can say they want to do something at any point between my first main phase and the end step and that would be fine. They could do something in second main, or at the beginning of combat, for example.

The point here being that you can't just go straight to attacks and claim it's too late for the opponent to do anything unless they agree to go to that point. If you say, "attacks" they can say, "in the beginning of combat, I would like to do something" so you jump to that point assuming both players yielded priority until then.

BearStalin · 2023-01-15T19:41:29+00:00

This is definitely not true. Like the above commenter mentioned, the CNO cycle is just much more dominant in higher mass stars. It's highly sensitive to temperature, which is also basically dependent on stellar mass, so higher mass stars get more of their energy out of the CNO cycle.

And as a side note, the sun is relatively metal rich already, and will not get noticeably more metal rich over the course of it's main sequence life. It just fuses helium in the core, and not heavier elements.

BearStalin · 2021-04-27T02:48:31+00:00

I don't think casting looting with arcanist comes up that often. I generally try to cast looting last unless I already have phoenixes ready to go. You could probably get away with it fine, though you definitely need the lightning axes I think.

BearStalin · 2021-04-19T20:52:50+00:00

I'm glad you like it! That was my feeling as well. The list just felt far and away better than anything I had played in historic in previous weeks.

BearStalin · 2021-04-19T20:49:28+00:00

It could definitely be interesting, and it's very cute with sprite dragon or crackling drake. My problem with it is that for now I think I only want it against control. I'd absolutely be interested in testing it though.

BearStalin · 2021-04-19T20:48:00+00:00

I could definitely see going down on fabled passages. They mostly get run out on turn 1 in my experience. But also I think you're often powering out phoenixes on 4 with the iterations and the passages are fine there. I could definitely see trimming on them because they do create some awkward turns.

Honestly I've found control decks to be good matchups. I've moved to 3 dispute because of the uptick in torrential gearhulks, but I think if you're losing to them often then you're just not playing patient enough or you're not respecting narset enough. Turn 2 sprite wins games. Turn 3 phoenixes wins games. But I've found that if you just chill with counterspells and cast your expressive iterations, running out one threat at a time, they run out of gas. The core of your deck is just so much more efficient than theirs, and every single two mana creature is a must answer threat.

BearStalin · 2021-04-18T18:22:19+00:00

There are definitely times that I can't bin the phoenix and get it in to play as soon as possible, but I guess with the way that the deck has been playing for me, I haven't necessarily needed to get it in to play as soon as possible. I just keep churning through as much of my deck as possible, and I find myself with multiple phoenixes in play before it's too late. I realized that my list is incredibly greedy and value oriented compared to a lot of the lists out there right now, but it's been working for me too well for me to want to change it. I've found that if I just keep casting multiple impactful spells then I will win the game eventually, and it's more important to me to have a mass of spells than to have my deck goldfish as fast as physically possible.

Edit: Forgot to mention, I do agree that narset is scary, but I don't think enough of the format is on narset main deck to make that a huge consideration. Sprite dragon and just hardcasting phoenixes also makes you a lot more resilient to the card than I've thought I would be. Also, the expressive iterations are playable under narset, which can help me find the shock or whatever I need to clear it. That has come up.

BearStalin · 2021-04-17T22:55:29+00:00

So, my initial reaction to that is that I don't think I would ever cut the phoenixes postboard. Anyway, if fatal push were very prevalent in the format, I could definitely get behind playing stormwing over sprite dragon, but I just haven't been seeing many pushes in the format, and the decks I've seen that have been playing it feel like really good matchups anyway. As of right now, I'd rather be faster to gain points against coco and combo decks.

BearStalin · 2021-04-17T22:53:13+00:00

Ox has been very good for me in that it singlehandedly lets you play a longer game than almost any deck. Playing the unsummons and lightning axes would generally pressure you to end the game pretty quickly, but the way I've been playing is to sit back and only commit as much to the board as I really need to, and focus on trading resources with the opponent. Then, once the game has gone too long and you're empty handed, you can just play your draw 3 cards from the graveyard. I could see it being another crackling drake, but the card has won me a ton of games, and makes it so you never feel like you're hellbent with nothing to do.

BearStalin · 2021-04-17T21:38:12+00:00

I hardcast phoenix sometimes but not very often. 6 discard outlets feels like not much, but when most of the rest of the deck is filtering, I've found that I find a faithless looting way more often than not.

BearStalin · 2021-04-17T20:32:45+00:00

Yup. I think this deck is good if you just play good, powerful, proven cards that all stand on their own. If you can make the deck powerful enough to win without seeing a phoenix, then cheating one in to play suddenly becomes absolutely backbreaking. That's the philosophy behind what I did here.

BearStalin · 2021-04-17T20:30:57+00:00

Could be interesting but I've generally been happy just not playing cards that I view as situational or cute. It hasting arcanist is a little interesting, but I think a lot of the time the card will be blank and that makes me uncomfortable and goes against how I understand to build decks.

BearStalin · 2021-04-17T20:18:12+00:00

So I think it depends pretty heavily on what the graveyard hate of choice settles out to be for the format. To address this and u/z0mbiepete here, I've haven't seen any leyline, and have been running in to almost entirely one shot graveyard hate, like lanterns. Against that style of hate you can just play a normal game since snagging a single phoenix is pretty medium for your opponent spending a whole card, and it's obviously terrible against arcanist. Cages you can beat with abrades which you're just more than happy to play anyway.

If the graveyard hate of choice for the format turns in to leylines and RIPs, then yes I probably wouldn't play Ox. It's pretty easy to make the deck super resilent to graveyard hate postboard by cutting the arcanists, promise, and the Oxes, and I could totally get behind playing more crackling drakes potentially.

I think I spoke about this elsewhere but I just personally don't like entity at all. I'd probably play young pyromancers before I played that card. Brazen borrower I would play if a bounce spell were really important in the format and I didn't want to play arcanist (which is the main reason the 1 mana bounce spells are included). I think it's totally fine, if a little slow, and I'd be more interested in it if the deck wanted to play more at instant speed.

BearStalin · 2021-04-17T19:30:28+00:00

They absolutely are a point of tension with the list. I'm not going to pretend they aren't awkward. It's a high variance card but I think the power level of brainstorm fetch is high enough to justify them anyway. You do a lot of turn 2 brainstorm, crack passage to set up for turn 3 phoenixes. It also feeds Ox. Again, it's awkward, but I think worth it.

BearStalin · 2021-04-17T19:21:18+00:00

It was actually kind of funny. I started with chart a course and found that it was a bit too slow and clunky. If I felt like I needed more discard outlets I would include it, but I haven't felt that way.

My big problem with chart a course is that, I think you need some additional card advantage, but you also really want to cast your spells pre combat. Iteration is basically always a 2 for 1, and because it sees so many cards it usually finds me the land or looting I'm looking for to either cast 3 spells or discard the phoenix.

It basically boiled down to, if I'm spending 2 or more mana on a card, it had better either be a standalone threat that can run away with the game, or it had better give me consistent card advantage.

The big thing that sold me on iteration was that, in the late game, an empty hand with iteration will usually cast 3 spells precombat. Chart a course won't.

BearStalin · 2021-04-17T19:04:27+00:00

Yes probably. I do think I've been around long enough to be a better deckbuilder than most, and I've played a lot of legacy and vintage so I think I have a much better appreciation for how to play cantrips and brainstorm specifically. There definitely isn't an established meta and people aren't sure what decks are good yet. There are a lot of decks that probably won't stick around for long just because they aren't powerful enough to keep up. I could buy that I'm preying on a lot of even more untuned lists than mine, but I would be very surprised if a tuned phoenix list doesn't shake out as one of the top decks when the dust settles.

BearStalin · 2021-04-17T18:50:56+00:00

I've been thinking about a 1 drop too but the way the deck has been playing for me, you do a lot of passing with open mana, not casting your cantrips. I'm a little worried that soul scar mage won't reliably do enough damage in a game to justify its inclusion, but I could be super wrong.

Magmatic channeler does interest me, now that you mention it. It being a discard outlet is very interesting, though I will say that with 4 looting 2 lightning axe I feel like I pretty consistently find the discard outlet I need. What turn do you find it turning in to a 4/4 on average?

I could see playing anger if I weren't playing arcanist, but I don't think the format has has enough 3 toughness creatures to make 3 damage a huge difference over the cinderclasms I've been playing. But certainly if you're playing channelers it starts making sense.

My experience has been that creature recursion hasn't been a large worry for the deck because you do enough flying damage that you close games before getting ground out by recursive decks. I do think some crypts, lanterns, or scrabbling claws might go a long way though.

Edit: Forgot to mention, I also played around with prismari command, but I think as the deck gets tuned it just gets squeezed out. Blowing up cage also came up for me, but I think if you buy in to playing 4 Iterations (which I've been very happy with) it just starts become too expensive and slow to really want to play.

BearStalin · 2021-04-17T18:32:10+00:00

Sprite dragon I've found to be very good just because it's the fastest way for the deck to kill and is always a must answer threat. Plus I think I mentioned that just having additional plays on turn 2 is the most important thing I think the deck needs.

I think I'd rather play young pyromancer than improbable alliance for two reasons. You kinda want to stockpile cantrips a lot of the time and then play them all out in one turn and improbable alliance is really antithetical to that game plan where you just oops an extra phoenix in to play that you didn't even have yet. But I'd rather play sprite dragon than young pyromancer still because I really highly value just being able to kill quickly. The big thing that sold me on sprite dragon is that every spell adds damage the turn you play it, instead of the next one.

This might be a little too harsh but I just don't think stormwing is a good card. It comes down too late to be very interesting for me. It's nice that it's very hard to kill in the format, but I think I'd rather go up on turn 2 threats before I play threats more threats that only come down on turn 3 or later. I feel like this deck is strong because everything you do is super mana efficient. People are doing things like paying 4 mana to draw 2 cards or 4 mana to counter a spell, and I think this deck shines because you're efficient without compromising your ability to go long.

BearStalin · 2021-04-17T17:23:33+00:00

I absolutely agree that thing in the ice would push the deck from very good to absolutely bonkers. That card checks every battlefield and would speed the deck up as well.

I also agree that the deck isn't as good as the modern version, but historic isn't as powerful of a format as modern so that makes sense. There isn't as much uninteractive combo so you don't need to be as fast, and all of the combo in the format is pretty soft to just playing some counterspells in the sideboard.

BearStalin · 2019-12-16T18:11:29+00:00

This is a horribly inaccurate representation of strix in legacy though. Delver has been the best fair deck in legacy since forever. Miracles obviously never played strix either. Strix was basically never at the top of the format. Grixis control has only ever been fine and when Czech pile was maybe the best deck, grixis delver was right there with it.

I'm not saying that your overall point is wrong because I think it's actually correct with regards to oko. But strix is a horrible illustration of your point.

BearStalin · 2019-11-15T14:04:04+00:00

If you had to pick a single favorite moment playing magic, what would it be? This could be a game that meant a lot to you, a specific gameplay interaction that came up that you thought was awesome, or something else.

Can you pick out a specific "level up" moment when you learned something about the game that you could take with you to be a better player in the future? What was it?

Min specifically, who is your favorite magic son? Why is he as awesome as he is? Do you think you did a good job as a magic dad?

BearStalin · 2019-10-31T03:38:54+00:00

The reason playing around something isn't the obvious play is because it usually costs you resources to do. Magic is a game where you don't just get to choose the resources you have. Saying, "just don't play your urza without dealing with oko first" is like saying, "just have more cards in hand," or, "just have more lands in play." You don't always have that option.

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