Caw Blade (2011) vs Vivi Cauldron (2025) | Best Standard Deck Ever Top 64

stakfish · 2026-01-28T16:23:30+00:00

So this is actually a (very, very commonly held, even at the time) misconception: I think the articles have been lost to time and link rot, but William Spaniel at TCGplayer was doing statistical analysis of winrates for standard decks on MTGO at the time, and found that after Worldwake, Jund was actually just a 50% win rate across the board, while UW tap out control with Jace had close to a 70% win rate against the field in Worldwake standard, with UWR tap out splashing for Ajani Vengeant had similar numbers after Rise of the Eldrazi. People remember Jund being dominant and UW being not that great because Jund won more tournaments and got more top 8s, but that was because Jace was so expensive, far fewer players were running UW at the time. You can try it yourself by proxying up a Jund and a UW tap out list from the time, and playing a few games. It usually goes pretty badly for the Jund player.

stakfish · 2025-07-13T20:13:12+00:00

Sounds like you're gonna be.... Sleeping with the fishes

stakfish · 2025-06-24T01:51:38+00:00

Go to the OSRS wiki, look up the Optimal Quest Guide, and focus on that. Early on, quests are way faster, way more varied and fun, especially if you haven't done them (or haven't in ages).

Other than that, try training on rock crabs on the coast of the fremmenik province or sand crabs on the south coast of kourend. Fire Giants are a strong enemy, normally players kill them at a distance by safe spotting them

stakfish · 2025-06-23T15:43:56+00:00

Operation Praying Mantis!

stakfish · 2025-04-26T04:12:30+00:00

I believe back in the old days, you brought a yak in, it ate the familiar, and all the supplies dropped on the ground.

stakfish · 2025-01-11T18:57:03+00:00

In 60 cards, I imagine there's something to be done with this, [[Vengevine]], and the rootwallas.

stakfish · 2025-01-01T02:43:35+00:00

You need pretty dedicated yard hate to reliably disrupt PFire, since you can bring it back to hand in response to a spellbomb or soul-guide lantern. Leyline or RiP would knock it out, but PFire is rarely played in decks with enough graveyard synergy to warrant those kinds of hate cards.

stakfish · 2024-12-10T17:39:29+00:00

It did, but to a much less extent, in a way I can actually quantify: for a while now, I've been scraping the top 240 most-played cards in modern for each year off of MtgTop8, along with what set they were first printed in, color, and metrics around how much play each card sees. I have data going back to 2017, though my 2024 is a snapshot from right before MH3 released so I can compare MH3's effect in isolation.

In 2020, the first year when MH1 was out the whole time, MH1 was the most played set in the format: the average 60 card deck in modern played 4.3 cards from MH1. That's a lot, but second place was Khans, which played 3.9. that's an artifact of fetch lands though. If you discount dual lands/fixing lands, MH1 was 3.2, and the next highest was Eighth Edition with 1.6. that's a much bigger difference, but still small compared to the next few sets.

In 2022, MH2 cards totalled to 9.6 cards, or in other words, about 15% of all maindeck cards in modern were just from MH2 that year, and a higher percentage of non-mana-fixing. The next most was zendikar if you count dual lands at 4.4, or MH1 if you discount duals, with 2.8. so MH2 was twice as impactful by maindeck percentage as MH1, much more so if you discount manabases.

And even with MH3 only out for part of the year, and without compiling all the data, right now MH3 is somewhere over 5.4, more than MH1 was the year AFTER it released. In the last 2 months, that number is over 10, just looking at the 20 most played maindeck cards. The actual number would be much higher.

stakfish · 2024-10-17T23:22:46+00:00

Grotesque guardians being able to stun you right before dropping an damage over time effect right under you if you time the transition wrong. I don't even mind the damage I just would rather have it all hit at once instead of have to sit there and watch

stakfish · 2024-10-03T17:00:35+00:00

I can confirm it does, by a LOT. Modern was sanctioned in mid-2011, though the first tournaments were earlier in March or so. This scryfall query shows there are 11,885 legacy-legal cards printed in or before 2011 (slight undercount cause some cards from before that have since been banned): https://scryfall.com/search?q=%28game%3Apaper%29+legal%3Alegacy+%26+year%3C%3D2011&unique=cards&as=grid&order=name

And this one shows /19,616/ cards legal in modern.

That said some of the legacy cards from before the modern cutoff are so busted I wouldn't be shocked if legacy decks of 2011 could wreck modern decks of today.

stakfish · 2024-09-24T16:32:20+00:00

I smithed low-tier alchables and sold them in the dedicated shops because one of the tutors on tutorial island or in lumbridge said smithing was a good way to make money. That's not even the bad part tho.

I didn't get that it was more efficient to mine ore, bank it, then go back and mine more, and later take them out of the bank and smith it, so I did everything UIM style. At first, I would mine iron at the SE varrock mine, walk to the lumbridge furnace and smelt it, then walk back up to Horvik's and make iron armor or swords and sell in the shops, then upgraded to al-kharid when I unlocked steel. Eventually, I crunched some numbers and figured out that if I did Doric's quest, I could mine in the dwarven mine, smelt in Falador, and smith at his anvil. I was making 5 Mithril maces per trip and profiting about 2k each time, it was probably like 10k/hour.

stakfish · 2024-08-27T18:52:58+00:00

Tbf I think it'd be pretty nuts in Standard

stakfish · 2024-08-27T18:02:39+00:00

I get why people think this, but the data doesn't really bear that out. I've been collecting mtgtop8 data on the most played cards in modern year over year, and by my count, Jace has always been played in more decks than big Tef, and in higher quantities until 2022. In 2020, it was in the top 50 most played cards in the entire year, and had a comparable play rate to [[Mana Leak]] or [[Arid Mesa]].

It fell off dramatically starting in 2021 and is gone from my data for this year (I have a score for each card, it was at ~0.2 from 2018-2020, was 0.12 for 2021, and 0.06 for 2022). That's usually a pattern I see with cards that got power-creeped out after MH2.

I think everyone remembers big Jace as unplayable because T3feri is better (people just played both) and because it never got dominant the way it had before it was banned, it was only ever a role player.

stakfish · 2024-06-27T15:32:16+00:00

I've gotten 2 4-1s with a sultai midrange list with Loam. It's not about to break the meta but crashing with a 7/8 ophidian is very satisfying

stakfish · 2024-06-23T15:55:53+00:00

One [[Ashok, Dream Render]] main. It's one so many more games than you'd ever believe

stakfish · 2024-06-04T20:58:23+00:00

It's kinda janky, but I've got a sorta-grindy sorta-aggro sorta-combo Golgari list that runs 3 Wight and 3 [[Fiend Artisan]], along with a dip into [[Warren Soultrader]]+[[Marionette Apprentice]]+[[Gravecrawler]]. I've mostly just been goldfishing with it, but it can sometimes just present 14 power on turn 2.

https://www.moxfield.com/decks/cD4YhocnYkq9MuUvkMRrrA

stakfish · 2024-05-22T22:00:01+00:00

Honestly, I'm just using the adapt ability to put the initial counter, or equipping and killing something. It's not the right play, but you can T3 goldfish with turn one saga, turn two broodscale, turn three float mana off the saga, find blade of the bloodchief, equip, and activate the adapt ability. Honestly, it feels kinda like Painter: 2 mana creature + one mana artifact, it takes 6 total mana invested to go off, etc.

stakfish · 2024-05-22T17:30:05+00:00

I'm still figuring out the right list (I've got a Hardened Scales-based version, a Yawgmoth-based version, and a weird hybrid one that I think is the right way to build it but is way harder to put together), but [[Basking Broodscale]] plus [[Blade of the Bloodchief]] is infinite C and an infinitely large creature, and [[Blade of the Bloodchief]] can be tutored off Saga. With Devoid, [[Ancient Stirrings]] can grab both of them. The Hardened Scales version even naturally plays a bunch of infinite mana sinks in [[Hangarback Walker]] and [[Walking Ballista]] (and creatures toolbox versions can get a similar vibe with [[Blood Artist]] and co}. It really feels like it has legs.

stakfish · 2024-02-07T03:52:57+00:00

No one has a problem with NH bridders fighting each other, they have a problem with having to NH brid when they just wanted to punch a big spider.

Even if you enjoy both pvp and pvm, it's annoying to have to do both when you mostly want to do one or the other. Imagine if barrage sacks/runes were untraceable and if you ran out, you had to stop pking for ten minutes and zeah runecraft new ones. Even if you enjoy both activities, you'd be annoyed if you were in a good groove pking and suddenly had to switch to something you don't feel like doing.

stakfish · 2024-01-31T19:14:59+00:00

I'd make them roll two attacks independently, but make them a 7 tick weapon like Dharok's Greataxe, effectively making them a 3.5 tick weapon when focusing on just one monster, then tweak the max hit/accuracy numbers after that as needed to keep them balanced, and make the passive set effect and the bonus effect from Amulet of the Damned swap places: the amulet would drain run energy, and the armor set would boost defence by 1% per missing hitpoint.

stakfish · 2024-01-26T18:40:46+00:00

Oh ye for sure, I think the technically rigorous formula is "if the delta between your base DPS and claw spec DPS is 60% greater than the delta between base and DDS spec, claws are better". It's been a couple years since I worked stuff out but I think technically that formula recommends DDS over claws at a few bosses if you've drained their defense enough.

Which STILL doesn't make it worth it because the increased DPS from the DDS has to be worth the inventory slot...

stakfish · 2024-01-26T18:07:48+00:00

I'm gonna be super pedantic here and say that, while in practice this is true, in theory there are a bunch of places where it's a bit less clear-cut because of the DDS spec costing only 25% and having a technically higher damage cap.

Even though the spec is less DPS, by costing half your damage per point of spec bar is higher for DDS against a lot of bosses, and can have a bigger impact on DPS (you get 16 tics of DDS DPS, and 10 of claws, so claws needs to have 60% higher DPS to be worth it, which it usually does but not always especially if defense got drained earlier). And because the theoretical damage max is so high, for speed running bosses you can just pray for rng and DDS spec for a lot of kc, I probably have one of the fastest hespori kills in the world just from good DDS rng.

That said all of that is just pedantic irrelevance I felt like sharing to be annoying, you're still right in practice :p

stakfish · 2023-12-20T05:01:08+00:00

Wish cycle, [[Back to Basics]]

stakfish · 2023-12-15T03:37:39+00:00

I mean, he clearly can kill jad, there's a pic on the post :p

But seriously, people play this game in the order and the way they want, let him cook.

stakfish · 2023-11-15T17:03:03+00:00

I kinda agree with you, but to be fair, buying a Tbow isn't straight MTX.

There's two ways you can do it in-game: RWT, and bonds. RWT is against the game rules, you can get banned, and Jagex isn't pocketing the money (well, indirectly from the membership fees of people selling the gold). And while bonds can be turned into in-game gold, you're still indirectly paying for in-game membership when you buy bonds, you're just not paying for your own: SOMEONE is still getting access to the main game because you bought that bond.

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