Magic the Gathering

Makessense. Yeah, kf you have that many early plays, then yeah, Those painlands are pretty necessary.

Gawd. Having played the Ascendancy combo deck, I thought the deck was unveatble. Good on you for being prepared. Something in that deck needs to be banned for sure. It's too consistent.

Very nice pulls~

PEARL-LAKE~ I KNEW YOU WERE GOING TO BE GOOD. :D

Good thing I have a play-set of them in Jap. During the Pro Tour, I looked at both TCGplayer and Star City for prices. TCG was holding at around $9 and Star City had like 20 in stock. Right after, the priced bumped to $17 mid on TCG and was all sold out at Star City. I laughed my ass off when I saw that. xD

Damnit, lol. My friends and I had underrated that card, and now I wanted to try it out... rofl.

Geez, I honestly would be happy either way, I like Ari Lax, and I love me any Jeskai deck (especially the way Shaun McLaren plays: with hella burn), but man, I was rooting for Jeskai bit more.
I hope Wingmate Rocs don't go up too high. That was my favorite card before and after the PT. I had three, I really wanted the fourth.
On another note, I kinda hope Siege Rhinos go up, since I had a set already, back when they were relatively cheap. As good as the card is, I don't like it. It belongs in really boring decks (granted, I was gonna build such a deck because I had Rhinos, Rocs, Caryatids, etc, but if they go up, I can build something I'd actually want to play).

All-in Temur is my calling...

Tried Superfriends, which is not bad at all (let the walkers do all the work, dedicate the rest of the deck to cleaning field), but it's not my style.

Tried tempo version, but the creatures are too big to really take advantage of the tempo (it ain't no Geist of Saint Traft or Delver), and it's too easy to get swarmed by the weenie decks (or any deck sporting tokens like Alarm and Hordeling).

Ascendancy, on the other hand, puts you so far ahead when you cast it, it's ridiculous. Especially when the deck has like 16-18 enablers, you just don't care about anything else: hasted Polyk? Hasted Knuckleblade? Hasted Surrak? Hasted Nylea? Hasted Genesis Hydra AND the friend it brings? AND YOU DRAW CARDS? You gotta be kidding.

I played some Magic: The Gathering paper version yesterday. I have a good matchup against U/B Control when Ashiok is off the equation: they can't counter everything, and even if they do, scry lands + draw (they remove the creature, I already got the draw off it) makes sure I find more gas. Had a so-so matchup against Jeskai Aggro... Temur Charm was the all-star to get rid of Mantis and Lion, and to prevent Elspeth from hitting the board along with Stubborn Denial. I should really consider playing 2 Sagu Maulers, though...

Abzan, well, we need more ways to deal with Siege Rhino...

EDIT EDIT: Bow of Nylea is a fucking all-star.

Still kinda in brew mode since I'm still not satisfied with UB control, and I'm still a long way off from actually completing my Jeskai Ascendancy deck (so many lands I need...)

So, I'll be playing Birthing Pod in Standard now. Admittedly, this was heavily inspired by Reid Duke's deck from the previous Standard (back with RTR), but it did need to be updated for the new sets.
It's essentially Mono-G Devotion, splashing Blue for Kiora's Follower, Clever Imposter, and Prophet of Kruphix. HOWEVER, there's an added gimmick: Yisan, the Wanderer Bard makes a sick engine with Kiora's Follower and Prophet, letting you tutor 2 to even 4 or 5 times per turn cycle. It gets ridiculous quickly.

The sideboard is still tentative. Also, you may notice that I'm not running Yavimaya Coast even though I should. Reason: They're in my sempai's deck. I'll have to just make do without them. Finally, I may cut a Nykthos for another Forest. The explosiveness hasn't been worth the sacrificed consistency so far.

Here's my list:


Sideboard:


I can't decide between Ranger's Guile or Stubborn Denial. I've hyped up Stubborn Denial a whole lot when it came out, and it was an auto four-of in the maindeck of every Temur deck I built. It still seems excellent in this deck, but quite less so, especially since I don't have many blue sources. Ranger's Guile is easy to cast and is both a good trick and a protection spell, but it doesn't have the same utility that Denial has. I'm choosing Guile for now since it can be more consistently cast.
I kinda just tossed in a Bow because I moved the second Clever Imposter to the main deck. It seems like it'd be okay for the graveyard ability, but, other than the Polukranos machine-gun, it doesn't seem too exciting.
Could be wrong though, many seem to like the card. I even loved it in a Sliver deck with Thorncaster Sliver, again, because machine-gun.
pewpewpewpewpew lol

Personally, as much as I like Ivan Floc and him making top 8 for the PT, I don't like his UB Control list. Personally, I would like to run Owen Turtenwald's list.

As for this upcoming game day, I switched to more of a Sultai Midrange. Has some problems against aggro/burn pre-board, but post-board I haven't lost a game against decks like Jeskai Wins.

http://deck.tk/4mbK5BaZ

I kinda like having more Opulent Palaces in the mana base since you're more of a late-game deck. It is a slow mana source, but I think that's a fair price for having better mana.

My Game Day went pretty well. My GU Yisan deck got me to third place. Other than my friend's Mardu Planeswalkers deck (which won him the whole tourney), I felt favored in all my matchups, even the ones I didn't play, rather just observed. I beat a GR beatdown deck, a different friend's WB aggresive Constellation deck, a third friend's Abzan Constellation (with an aggresive transformative plan, which threw me off), and a Jeskai Ascendancy Combo player who got really unlucky against me.
I never dropped a Game One (except for the friend I lost to), and I felt my sideboard was well-suited for the meta I played with. I'm really happy with the deck, I think I'm gonna stick to it for a while. I have loads of fun playing it.

I had a really funny game against the friend playing Abzan, where I had a Soul of Zendikar and Prophet of Kruphix going nuts, and he failed to draw any of his many removal spells. I suddenly really like Soul of Zendikar now. It's done good work for me before, but I've never been fully impressed with it till then.

EDIT: My list during Game Day was exactly like the list I posted earlier, except I cut an Island for a Forest. I was getting blue-flooded waaaay too often during FNM the night before, and this one little change made a HUGE difference.

Exclusive Commander 2014 spoiler:

Nice to see the new Commander set looking good so far. Personally, I like this card a lot :



Reverberate was on of my favorite card when it was around in Standard, especially around the IND/RTR where I did a lot of shenanigans with it, and it's nice to see it on a body.

Hoping the blue deck will be fleshed out soon too. The black one looks really powerful, especially 2 of the Demon Rares.

Bow of Nylea is my new best friend, I swear. I'm practicing a combination of Fanatic of Xenagos and Goblin Rabblemaster with permission, burn and some walkers, but the list is changing like, every day. I haven't settled into anything because I haven't played as much as I'd like... :(

Whoch reminds me. You still in Japan by June? If so you play legacy? There's a legacy tourney in Osaka in June. Gonna head there. Let me know if interested.

I'll be plaulying UR Delver if i can get the pieces by then. If not, then i always have dredge on me.

I only have Modern and Standard, sorry. :(

I do really want to play Legacy eventually, but it's impossible for me right now to buy all the necessary pieces... Maybe next year eventually. I'm trying to work an extension until 2016 so we'll see. >:

If anything, if you are still down, I can lend you Dredge if I complete UR Delver. I have all the commons and uncommons for that deck, just the land base and the counterspells are what going to kill me :P

Oh, I could borrow a Legacy deck no problem, but that's not the main issue... it's the trip to Osaka. There's still a long time until then, so I'll get with you later on when I'm sure I can make it.

But I might just take you up on your offer to play Dredge, since that was my deck when I DID play Legacy. It's not the manaless version, is it? I forgot...

I built this deck casually, just because I love the card so much, and I didn't actually think it'd be that good at all, but so far I'm undefeated with the deck on untap.in so far. It's pretty sweet, I'm loving it. That said, I have only faced off against other brews, but hey, it still means something beating those decks considering people seemed to have worked pretty hard on them.

The deck I'm talking about is a pretty jank Birds deck, just because I wanted to play Wingmate Roc (my favorite card out of Khans) in a deck I'd actually enjoy playing (since Abzan midrange is so boring). I decided to make it a modern deck so I can play another card I really like: Squadron Hawks, a card in my first ever deck when I first started playing Magic. It became just mono-Bird beatdown, and it's been working. Wingmate Roc turns over games SO QUICKLY. If I cast it while I'm winning, I win even faster. When I'm losing, and I trigger it's raid, I'm winning. It's more ridiculous than I thought, and I already love the card.

Here's the list. It still feels like I should find ways to make my Treasure Cruises better. They're really bad in my deck compared to other decks; mine can't fill the graveyard with anything other than fetchlands, or if my opponent wraths me (which happened once, and TC was actually useful for once).



Sometimes, it feels like 24 lands is too much, but I always want to cast my Wingmate Roc on 5 (or even 4 with Warden), or at least be able to cast multiple spells in a turn (with 4 lands or 3 with a Warden). Considering that I haven't ever been screwed and rarely flooded, I guess 24 is fine.

My sideboard is almost nonexistent. I wasn't sure how exactly to build it for now, so all I have is 4 Stony Silence and 4 Dragon's Claw, in case Affinity or Burn seem like rough matchups (that's what I envision, anyways). Might be overkill, but I wanna at least have something.

It should be within my budget, too. Hopefully my friend will loan me his fetchlands if I decide to actually go out and buy this deck, and figure out a sideboard. It's pretty fun, even though it's an aggro deck.

Aaaaaaand, as I usually do, I find myself drifting to a blue control deck again in Modern. Thanks to the new fetchlands, this deck I'm playing a lot on untap.in right now is actually close to within my budget range, though it still requires Cryptic Commands and Scalding Tarns, which, to put it lightly, haven't gone down in price lately...

Basically, I took Blue Moon, took out all of the main deck Blood Moons since they're pretty useless in Modern right now, and replaced them with Dig Through Times. It's a satisfyingly slow control deck that needs to fully stabilize to win, but stabilizes hard. Dig Through Time is suuuuuuch a good card. It feels so much more satisfying than Treasure Cruise. I'm not upset at all that we're forced to play with these cards that are possibly too good. They make for very interesting games.
Plus, with Dig Through Time, you can get so much value chaining them together that it's like a protect-able Sphinx's Revelation. Also, it lets you play a bunch of one-ofs since you can dig (slight pun intended) so far to find them, which is the reason my sideboard has so many ones. I can be a bit more diverse.

I've been going back and forth between Thought Scour and Serum Visions a lot, though. Serum Visions is obviously the better card: it sets up your draw, it's good any part of the game, and being a sorcery is almost irrelevant given that it's only one mana. My deck can fuel a Dig Through Time, no problem, so the mill element of Thought Scour isn't as good in the early stages of the game.
However, late game, my graveyard gets somewhat pinched in what I can afford to exile since multiple Dig Through Times actually can take their toll. This is why I preferred Thought Scour for a short while. It's a Dark Ritual in regards to Dig Through Time, is instant speed, but suffers since there's not a good reason to mill yourself when there are one-ofs you might wanna dig to, and having a random draw is so much worse than the setup Serum Visions gives you. However, the fact that it can help make the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Dig much less painful made it a worthy consideration for a while.
It's a decision I can't make a final call on. My latest version is running Serum Visions, and I want Thought Scour back, even though I felt like I wanted Serum Visions more in the Thought Scour configuration. I'm trying to think of a way to incorporate both, which I tried once when I decided to make the deck mono-U.
(For the record, mono-U is terrible because it has no removal. A splash of another color is necessary.)

So, finally, here's my list. Thought Scour and Serum Visions are combined since I haven't decided between the two yet:



Sideboard:



EDIT: I just switched back to Thought Scour for now. I forgot a major reasoning: having Thought Scour makes having 4 Digs and 4 Snapcaster less impactful. Milling non-instants/sorceries is always welcome, since you'll have a lot of fuel for Delve that still lets you have targets left for Snapcaster. Plus, the reasoning I mentioned above about making the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Digs much more playable.
EDIT2: The decision is still up in the air, though.
EDIT3: I made room in my sideboard for 2 Sudden Shocks, and may go to a third. It's the only thing that can reliably kill everything in UR Delver without them getting still getting value, since it kills Young Pyromancer before they can get one last Elemental, and it doesn't let them save Swiftspear. If I stay with just 2 Sudden Shocks, I need to decide whether my one sweeper will be Anger of the Gods or Volcanic Fallout. I'm leaning toward Anger of the Gods since Pod is still apparently a strong enough deck in Modern, but I like that Fallout is uncounterable. For now, I'm on Anger.

Gawd, this standard so versatile. So many new decks pop up every single week. I'm personally playing Jeskai Heroic Combo ATM. Loving it so far.

That and I really, REALLY think that Dig Through Time is going to be banned in the near future. SO good in almost every combo deck there is in Modern. Might switch to Grixis Twin if it comes down to it because hand disruption will be quite handy when it comes down to it against combo matches.

Yeah, Standard's nice. It's pretty weird, in fact, that I'm playing a deck that barely benefits from Khans... lol. I'm still on that Mono-G-splash-U devotion list, which has been fun, except that my friend is always the one who tops with me in second place since the Mardu Midrange matchup is literally unwinninable. No amount of sideboard will help me stand ANY chance. It's why I kinda wanna try UB control again, since it's good against my store's meta, except, if someone brings monoR (there's two people who occasionally switch to that), I auto-lose that matchup, too.

Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time, and Jeskai Ascendancy. All three are too absurd for the format, though I'd be sad to see them all gone. I love me good card draw effects, and I love me a combo deck, but damn.
I really like my Mono-U-splash-R deck, though... Dig makes it super viable... Without it, well, I can switch to Blue Moon again I guess, but that's also a bit more expensive since I don't have a full set of Moons yet, I already have 4 Digs, and I really really REALLY like casting Dig.

That said, for the time being, I need to remember to try to find room for one or two copies of Shadow of Doubt in my Mono-U. I can't seem to win reliably against Pod or Scapeshift, and it helps against both matchups. Also, I'm still trying to find room for the third Vedalken Shackles. The more I play with it, the more I wanna draw it every game. I almost wanna cut Batterskull for it, but Batterskull is too good at getting me out of a hole if I'm too low on life after I fully stabilize.

I wouldn't say so much for Cruise and Jeskai Ascendancy. They need a lot more enablers in Modern over something like Legacy, but Dig seems pretty broke considering that it looks deep for combo pieces and so much answers in the modern format. The Jeskai Eggs deck is not as viable due to it being needed on the field to do any good. That, and I think that Swan Song HOSES that deck a LOT.