20 Cards We Don’t Want to See in Modern Horizons 2

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:00:00] You are listening to faithless brewing a magic, the gathering podcast for the spike road. Each week, we design new decks in modern and pioneer. We put our creations to the test and share our findings on the air. The dream of professional magic passed away last week at the age of 27, but the future is bright for fans of modern.

We are opening the mail bag this week in episode 15 of Strixhaven season. Thanks for listening and enjoy the show.

David Robertson: [00:01:01] hello and welcome to the faithless brewing podcast. I am David Robertson and joining you from a beautiful summer, a Minnesota town. And I am joined by the CEO of the faithless brewing podcast. He is Cavedan online. He Daniel Schriever in our hearts, Daniel. Dan the candy man, Schriever, what is going on?

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:01:21] Well, thank you so much for that kind introduction team. Glad to hear the weather has been beautiful. It’s gorgeous here in North Carolina as well. Uh, the community pool is open in Durham, so I’m just living my best life going swimming every day here for the end of the world. And end of magic. As we know is,

David Robertson: [00:01:39] yeah, so, you know, this week we are not joined by Damon.

It’s just the two of us. We are going to be breaking down a lot of stuff. Uh, what Dan is intimating is the most recent announcement about the MPL. We will get to that in a second. Just a reminder that we are releasing two episodes per week. This episode, we are going to focus on the MPL announcements. Uh, there have not been any additional modern horizons to previews.

We have a brew review from one of our patrons, and then we have a little mailbag from a bunch of our discord.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:02:11] Yeah, I thought it was a good opportunity to open up the mail bag. I’ve been seeing a lot of soul searching happening on the Twitter verse, especially in light of this, uh, end of the MPL announcement.

David Robertson: [00:02:22] Yeah. You make of that. So for people who don’t know, um, the MPL has been in existence for approximately two years, and there was a major announcement, uh, four or five days ago, uh, longer by the time you are listening to this recording that the MPLS we know it would be disbanded at the end of this year.

And that at this time they had not yet formulated what the pro tour or pro scene and magic would be, but they have communicated to the MPL members that the intent of whatever the new design will be, will not support professional magic playing as a career. I think they were very explicit about that to their credit.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:02:58] I don’t know if I’ve ever seen an announcement at quite like this one or a reaction quite like this, the entire content of the announcement was basically just saying the dream is dead. It wasn’t offering anything in his place. It wasn’t even articulating a clear vision for the future. It was just saying the idea of professional magic, being a pro player, that dream for however long it’s been alive is gone.

And we’re just here to kill it for you. Now. Kill it in advance. That’s a good thing they did because for the people who were actively trying to qualify for NPL or qualify for rivals, this gives them 15 months of lead time. But yeah, it’s just not often you hear a company just coming here into, you know, they stab you in the chest, at least that’s something.

David Robertson: [00:03:42] Yeah. I think there’s kind of two separate questions, right? There is the pro magic community. What does that entail? And that has a long history, you know, dating back to the first pro tour in the late nineties, that format has been updated. There’s been gold, silver, platinum levels. There have been a pro level five.

Pro-level six, depending on how old you are. You might remember some of these and then there’s the MPL itself. So I think regardless of how you feel about should the pro scene exist or not. And I think that is one where there’s a lot more sympathy for it. The MPL, I think everyone exists. With it stated in standard objective that magic, the gathering is a top five e-sports.

We are going to have this elite league of the best players in the world, or more or less the best players in the world. It’ll be a 32 member team that is actually very hard to get into. And has I have to say I have a very complicated hierarchy system, ranking system, et cetera. I think that the way that it functioned is an unmitigated disaster.

I think nobody disagrees with that point. W w would you say that that’s fair?

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:04:45] Yeah. I think even the people who were in it didn’t like it. I don’t think I’ve heard anyone say that they’re going to miss the MPL specifically or that they thought it was a success or that they thought it was good for magic.

All of the takes have been like, yes, the MPL had to die, but, but, but et cetera,

David Robertson: [00:05:02] Yeah. And so what, what we were left was a statement that said there will be GPS, there will be pro tours. And of course there will be some type of pro tour qualifier, but the idea of play magic, see the world, which was the original tagline from the late nineties.

Um, the idea of getting paid appearance fees and things, it seems like those are basically DOA dead on arrival and are unlikely to return. Um, I think the fact that the MPL had was heavily invested in, in terms of monetarily was very poorly rated in terms of Twitch streams, et cetera, while our arenas popularity itself increased exponentially.

The Delta between those two, uh, I think has maybe going to cause the management and Hasbro to overlearn the lesson that the pro tour is not relevant at all to the success of magic. Um, unfortunately. Do you believe that? I think that the idea that we need to have a pro tour that pays people, appearance fees and things is wrong.

I think we should think about more like golf or tennis. And when you think about sports like that, or chess people don’t get paid appearance fees. I think the money should be funneled into tournament winnings. And I think that ultimately, uh, probably ends up paying for itself. So if a GP like doubled his prize pool or whatever, in addition to having all the side events and stuff, but you didn’t pay, you know, 15, 20, 30 people to fly out and give them buys and stuff, and everybody’s had a fair crack at it.

I actually think GPS would be more attended. Um, and same with pro tours. I think if you just increase the price pool, people still do it. People will still participate. I didn’t ever understand how it was going to transition into this sport when no other sport pays people just to show up.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:06:48] I see what you’re saying.

I think even the nomenclature of appearance fee kind of obscure as like, what is the purpose of that payment? And when the MPL launched, they call it a salary there. I think they were at least trying to more clearly state that they’re expecting these pro is to be like ambassadors for the game. And it’s not just that they’re paying them to be good at magic, but they’re expecting them to have streams and to sort of like be the face of something elite magic play.

And I think they just haven’t gotten much return on any of that for a number of reasons.

David Robertson: [00:07:18] Yeah, I think you look at, I think you look at Crokeyz who is not in the MPL and I’m not here to debate Crokeyz’s play skill or deck design or any of that thing being totally agnostic on what, however you feel about that.

This is a person that’s streamed to way more people than any individual of the MPL does not get paid as salary by wizards of the coast and is actually probably leading ambassador. So contrast that to, you know, some of the NPL members who are perhaps superior deck builders, perhaps superior drafters, perhaps superior players.

Um, I think you just see it’s fine for this thing to exist, but it’s hard to convince somebody who’s wearing a suit and tie that they should be paying salary to these people to justify their role.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:08:01] Yeah. I mean, there’s a lot of weeds we could get into here, I guess, going back to what you said about, okay.

Does it affect players further down in the system, taking your way, the highest thing you can aspire to? Does this make you more or less likely to want to attend to gram for you? Let’s say they have grand Prixs again, 2022. Maybe

David Robertson: [00:08:21] if they had a grand Prix in 2022 and everything was exactly the same, but the prize pool was higher.

But there was no pro tour. There are no pro points to accrue. I would be, I specifically, me, I’m only speaking for myself. It would be much more likely to attend. The GPS currently constructed are huge money sucks. You have to finish. So hi, uh, to even get paid off or firing and, you know, staying in a hotel, et cetera, not to mention just me personally, like sitting in a crowded, a giant place all weekend when the sun is out, I had no aspirations to be a pro player.

And I’m guessing that most of the people at the GP did not as well. Well, maybe they did, and I’m willing to be corrected on that. And so for me, just justifying it as a fun weekend hobby I’m flying into Cincinnati or Hartford or many of the other beautiful tourist destinations of the, uh, industrial Mideast.

Um, just to feel like I, I really felt like it was a little predatory in terms of what the payouts were and how many people were setting up for the grand Prixs. And then so many people started with buys, uh, and that all the time breaks, you know, really favored the, the people with all these buys, all that just felt a little unseemly to me as somebody who just wants to participate casually play three to four GPS a year.

When I had a deck I really liked and a format I really loved. Um, it felt like because a lot of these other benefits were as part of this larger system. I did not want to be all in on cause I’ve a normal job, et cetera. I felt like it was a little predatory to me personally, my participation.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:09:46] So let’s get into that desire. You just mentioned. So you’re saying, let’s say there are GPS, you can attend three or four times a year. You have decks that you’re excited to play. So what goes into that desire of like, now that I have these conditions in place, I actually want to go and put this deck to the test, test my skills against some competition.

What I gather was that a wizards of the coast of saying, Hey, we’ll still have all of that. You know, all the incentives, you know, if you’re craving competition, and if you’re craving something a little more prestigious, something that, you know, you can brag to your friends about, maybe take a little paycheck home.

If you happen to cash, all of that will still be there. And that should be enough for 99% of you. Did, do you feel like you’re on board with that or do you feel like the grand Prix is being tied to some system? That’s like a shared experience that ladders into something that is somehow tied into pro play was an important component of what made those events attractive in the first place?

What made them prestigious in the first place? They’re exciting to plan.

David Robertson: [00:10:39] Well, it kind of gets into a cascading series of decisions. I think the grand Prixs qualifying you at with certain finishes for the pro tour was something that people are interested in. Now you could argue is qualifying for the pro tour by itself worth anything.

If getting up to gold or platinum was not an outcome, if just approach or let’s say the prize pool goes from 40,000 to 60,000, and you’re just likely to make some money there where people will be as excited to play on the pro tour. I guess my argument is yes, because if the, the move is to, if you want to call it magic influencers, magic streamers, magic article writers, the way you get the prestige eyeballs, et cetera to do that is to still finish in these things.

Now it’s less meritocratic, right? So someone who’s quote unquote, an asshole or not quite as eloquent or funny, who has a little bit better finishes may not get as many stream, uh, Watchers or as many chances to write articles or speak on podcasts. So maybe in that sense, there there’s something off about that, but. I mean,

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:11:36] no, I think in that example, I think the system is functioning as intended if they’re not getting invited because they’re an asshole, that’s, I’m fine with that.

David Robertson: [00:11:43] Well, if it’s an asshole sure. But I mean, maybe someone was an asshole to you or me is not an asshole to everyone else or whatever. My definition of an asshole should not, should not preclude someone from being employed.

Luckily that’s the beautiful part of America. But I guess just to me, I think the whole vision that everyone has of this was really colored by the fact that everyone who speaks on it was like one of the top 100 players in the world. And so they, these are like highly educated, often people, but underemployed people who were relying on wizards to like fashion, um, a salary where they didn’t want to work nine to five, which is a totally reasonable thing for them to want.

But I don’t know if it’s a reasonable thing for a toy company to provide.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:12:22] Uh, yeah. I mean, I don’t, I don’t think I agree with some of that framing. I mean, you call it a toy company. They, they earned almost 800 million off magic last year. So in terms of just like what makes something a serious enterprise there’s enough within the magic ecosystem to support many careers.

And I don’t think it’s productive to sort of say, Oh, well, you know, we’re. We don’t want to subsidize your lazy lifestyle, which is something that kind of came up in the stream. Uh, the weekly MTD stream last week, they didn’t use those exact words, but it was kind of like, well, that’s not real work. So like, whatever, that’s fine.

We don’t have to get into that. But the existence of that, you know, it’s not the players fault that that was offered as a path.

David Robertson: [00:13:01] No, not at all. I mean, I think you’re really implying lots of things. I did not say Hasbro is a toy company. That is 100% a fact. And I think that it is true that people don’t want to get normal jobs, which is just something in general for my generation that people don’t want to do.

That’s also fine. Like I said, I think there’s lots of ways to be employed. And I think that the streaming way is just the way where wizards doesn’t have to pay you a salary. You demonstrate your value by generating influence in this way that I don’t quite understand with social media, et cetera, et cetera.

And they’re still paying again. This is all assuming that the money is still being accrued and paid out in the actual permanents themselves, right? If GP price pools, double I’m very comfortable. The fact that like some random person doesn’t get to fly in, get paid hundreds of dollars just to show up and get to start with a throw record that helps them win and retire break.

But am I, am I the, in the minority it’s possible. It’s possible that losing this entire incentive structure actually starts to crumble about like what makes competitive magic. Great.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:13:58] Some would say that part of the excitement of a grand Prix is that you will occasionally play against the famous player.

Now that became less true over time. As pros had less and less reason to attend grand Prixs and airfare costs go up, you know, as platinum level was retired and faded out that all sort of went away, but basically. There’s a possible future in which we’re all just sort of nobody’s, you know, just online users were all just magic online users, quietly trying to achieve our little results.

It made me think like, okay, yeah, I do need to have something that will feel like an achievement for me personally. Like the MPL doesn’t affect me, but if they said tomorrow, that’s, they’re no longer going to publish any magic online necklace or more specifically, they’re not going to publish any five-oh decklists for magic online.

That would be like a death blow to how I experienced magic. I think how our podcasts experience magic. If they just say we’re setting down magic online, that would also be a death blow because it’s like there has to be something tangible in front of you that has an agreed upon sort of social currency.

And I think that’s also part of why, like even contemplating and making the jump to arena to explore historic also has that problem where it’s like, there is no agreed upon thing that feels achievable to me in arena. People on social, like to share like, Oh, I laddered up to such and such. The mythic rank laddering is actually pretty miserable.

You have to do it every month and it’s just kind of futile you playing against the void and your computer. So I think that certainly the MPL side is fine, but like there’s a lot that you have to pay attention to lower down the chain, if that is their end game. And they’ve said this, that this is their goal is to pay more attention now to things at the store level, at the local level, the regional level, um, to make sure that you have the opportunity to play where you want to play, how you want to play and get the competition you want.

That should be all positive, but the devil’s in the details.

David Robertson: [00:15:44] Yeah. So right now, I mean, we can only speculate. I think it’s interesting. Your example though. So playing magic online, you’re basically doing so without the, maybe you’ll play against somebody famous, but just a five-oh that’s a payoff in your mind already.

So maybe just a reasonable finish on a grand Prix that gets published as a top 32 lists, uh, as an equivalent to a five-oh or maybe getting on camera, if they still cover grand Prixs. Uh, or SCGs or whatever, maybe that is, is the statement already the five is that you accrued do not lead you to get to play pro tours, uh, or be on the MPL or anything else.

So that says that there’s an incentive structure that doesn’t have to include a, you know, whatever landed aristocracy that has to exist for you to still feel like you’re getting rewarded for good finishes for brewing cool decks for succeeding, with a brews, et cetera.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:16:38] Yeah. I mean, that’s at least how I experienced it.

Now, does Wizards of the coast know that? who knows. I mean, I think they probably have like a kill switch for Magic online that they’re fiddling with like every Thursday or something. Like, should we set it all down? Hopefully they won’t. Because, yeah, it’s the fact that it’s published, you know, the whole, the world will know that little meme.

There has to be something that’s like a little bit prestigious, even as simple as winning five matches in a magic online league and maybe getting your deck list published with your gamer tag username next to it. So that you can talk about it on your podcast with your friends.

David Robertson: [00:17:11] Yeah. And I mean, you know, it, it’s also, they’re just going to respond to, you know, what the numbers do.

If they make another $800 million next year, without an MPL and with whatever system they proposed, then they’re like, all right, well that, that was a great cut. If they make $700 million and they receive feedback that there, they could’ve made more. If, you know, there was a little bit more of a protein and only cost them X dollars, then they’ll probably do that instead.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:17:35] Well, we have to believe they’ve left money on the table literally every year. I mean, Especially where Pro Magic is concerned. They’re not getting a great return on their investment. So the money was not spent well, basically at any point now we’ve seen a lot of interesting stuff happening in the last few months where, you know, a lot of money is being spent on these events with sort of non magic personalities.

Uh, there was like a Mr. Beast YouTube arena event, and there’s a couple of things on the main magic YouTube channel. They’re like little shows, little series with sort of outside celebrities. You mentioned chess. I think they’re having an event with Anna Rudolf of Anna plays chess. So just like trying to get people who already have followings outside of magic to show off the game a little bit.

I think that’s cool. But I think that’s also like something that I haven’t seen enough people as they’re like sort of processing their feelings about the future of magic. You should pay attention to that and realize that the future of magic also does not include wizards paying magic content creators, either becoming a streamer or becoming a magic content.

Creator is just as much an illusion as becoming a magic pro was it’s overcrowded. It doesn’t pay well, it has no support. And why would they, I mean, you’re doing it for free already. So why would they pay you? They’re going to get much more return in their eyes, getting kids hyped up because Mr. Beast is giving away money.

David Robertson: [00:18:48] Yeah. I mean, the fundamental realization is that the e-sport thing is exactly what happens when like a grandkid, tell something guy on the executive board of Hasbro about the word e-sports and then, you know, he just starts repeating it like as a buzzword in the board meeting. And he’s just like screaming at Aaron Forsythe like, number five E-sport like get on it, you know? And so it’s like, all right, so we’ll just incinerate that for a year. If listeners out there have not worked at big companies, this happens all the time. We redid all of our offices. So we could be like Google because we were a technology company. It’s just like, we don’t do what Google does, man.

You’re the boss. So, yeah, you just incinerate a couple million dollars and then you reset the system and you, you wait to see what the next person does. And because VPs get paid so much money, they’re only in that position for a few years and they retire. So then the next person takes over and they have to make it their system.

And that person will, uh, proceed as they feel is most appropriate. But yeah, for right now, all we can do is cross our fingers and hope. I feel bad personally, for all the MPL people. I think they really were appreciative of the opportunity that they got. Um, you know, people like Andre, them and Gucci, you know, it’s so positive about, uh, magic and so enthusiastic to play.

I think everyone kind of knew that that system was on borrowed time, whether they go back to the old system in some bifurcated way or they abandoned altogether. You know, I guess I don’t want to comment too strongly one way or the other until we actually see the specific, like you said, the devil’s in the details and they right now made this announcement without knowing anything about what they’re doing.

I mean, they didn’t even give a hint. So the recent history is that they, uh, there’s a lot of, it’s a fluid situation, uh, as we would say,

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:20:22] Recent history suggest that they will just sort of quietly and not do the grand. Prixs give it a year for us to forget about this, but who knows, who knows anyway, um, back to more immediate news.

So I’m thinking about modern right now, actually been paying a lot of attention to modern because modern horizons too is here. Basically. Uh, we’re recording this Tuesday by Thursday. Uh, there’s going to be the first set of official previews. They will kick off the preview week on Monday. Um, I’ve been the tracking very closely, the results in the magic online modern leagues.

I’ve been putting up some bonus articles on our website. That’s Faithless brewing.com, looking at some of the more interesting decks to come out of the five-oh dumps and the weekend challenges. It’s interesting because modern kind of gives us a glimpse into this pro less future. Modern is a format that has been abandoned by professional magic for at least a year and a half, maybe more, you know, even before that’s pro said they didn’t like modern, cause it didn’t feel like controllable enough for them.

So it’s been like a sandbox for people like myself. Like you David’s to just sort of have fun with it without having to actually play against the, that many people who are like technically very good and on testing team is trying to break them at a, and maybe this is what all the is going to be like.

David Robertson: [00:21:32] And honestly like. Modern has been so much better in those months, the year. Like that’s, that’s the thing while I’m just like, the examples are pros aren’t involved as like pioneer, modern, like as soon as pros got involved with historic, it became miserable. They started banning cards. The way that arena works, people just copy decks and don’t brew like this way, there there’s all these streamers, you know, whoever you like, d00mwake or aspiringspike or HarryMTG.

I mean, they all have different conduct’s I like to play. They’re all exploring stuff all the time. There’s like archetype, masters. You don’t have a lot of these people just like harshing the buzz of everyone. Or like ridiculing everyone for not playing the best deck. It’s just, I find like the modern and pioneer like culture on the formats to be ideal.

I can’t imagine a better one.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:22:14] Yeah, no, I agree. And I’m excited to see what the previews will bring. So I do want to take a look at a deck and this is not one from the five-oh is this is actually a deck that was submitted to us by one of our listeners, Brian Madden, who is co-host of the Serum Visions podcast, another great source of brewing inspiration.

This is a deck that he calls Silvergaak and he asked her to take a look at it. I think he’s played this Through actually, uh, several leagues, um, two various, two threes, and three, two, it’s gone through a ton of iterations. And they’ve actually talked about this in some detail on Serum Visions. If you go back, uh, I want to say three or four weeks ago, this is a complicated deck.

David, you want to sort of walk us through what’s in here. What are these cars, what are we trying to do? And why is this called silver deck?

David Robertson: [00:23:01] You know, if I can answer some of those questions, I will name some of the cards in here and we’ll have to kind of talk through some of these interactions as, as we walk through the deck.

So primarily the deck is a scrap trawler deck and or a mystic forge, semblance anvil deck. So let’s talk through just those cars individually, maybe, and then we’ll kind of get a sense of the rest of the deck. So scrap trawler, this card was briefly in, uh, one of the more broken decks in the format. It is a three man, uh, artifact for a three to artifact, creature, wind scrap trawler, or another artifact you control is put into a graveyard from the battlefield return to your hand, target artifact card in your graveyard with less converted manta cost.

So as an example, a scrap trawler dies, you can get a artifact that cost to one or zero back to your hand. So that’s our, okay. So that’s telling us we want artifacts that can go to the graveyard. So that’s one of the combos built near the second one is with mystic forge and semblance Anvil. So mystic forge is a four mana artifacts.

Uh, it says you may look at the top card of your library at any time. You may cast the top card of your library. If it’s an artifact card or a colorless non land card, and then you may tap it and pay a life, exhale, the top cards, the top card of your library. So it kind of helps you keep trying to find artifacts are called as cards to cast off the top of your deck.

And then semblance anvil is a card from, uh, the second time we went to Mirrodin scars and Mirrodin, I believe so the three men artifact with an imprint. So it reads when it enters a battlefield, you may exile a land card from your hand spells you cast that share a card type with the exiled card costs you less to cast.

So in theory, you cast or semblance anvil for three, you exile artifact because this deck is all artifacts. And then when you play your mystic forge, which again, only costs two, all these cheap artifacts that you have in the deck. And there’s a bunch of them. I’ll read them off real quick, can be played for free or very little manner.

So that’s Chromatic Sphere, Chromatic star. Mindstone Talisman of Dominance Ichor wellspring grinding station. So you just start flying through your deck, looking to assemble your combo. Now, one of the cards that pays you off for having all these non creature artifacts in play as metalwork Colossus.

So it’s an 11 man on 10 10, that reads its casting cost is reduced by the total number of, uh, I guess they’re not pips, but the total casting costs of all the non creature artifacts you have in play. So that’s like the basic shell of the deck. And then he is a nice enough to outline one of these interactions here, which is, um, if you have grinding station, uh, semblance anvil, mystic forge scrap trawler and Colossus.

If you have Colossus in the yard, you can sacrifice the trawler and the mystic forge to put the Colossus in your hand, this trigger triggers the trawler to bring it in a, uh, cheaper artifact. Back in your hand, you can cast trawler and Colossus. Then you grind your Colossus to get the forge back and you start to loop all over again.

So I mean, the lines here just sound like you’re taking a ton of game actions and he even says he’s timed out a few times, which does not surprise me. And then to top it all off, he has three semblance, excuse me, three Wishclaw Talismans and the deck. So we can kind of wish at various points. He can, he can tutor his deck to find the missing pieces.

Uh, and then ultimately you can go infinite and generating infinite mana for walking ballista. Or grinding station, I think can mill your opponent out. Is that, am I understanding this correctly?

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:26:36] I think so. I have not seen the second action myself, but given that there’s no Thassa’s Oracle, I assume the grinding station eventually gets pointed at them.

Yeah. I mean the metalwork Colossus, so that’s the Hogaak like creature, right? It’s 10, 10 that you can cast potentially for zero manna. It also has that weird clause that if it’s in the graveyard, you can sacrifice two artifacts to like bring it back from the graveyard to your hand. And Brian has really, really cleverly like figuring out that you can use that as like a faux Krark-Clan Ironworks, sacrifice outlets.

So somehow like you take metalwork clauses, one of my all time, favorite cards. I love this card. I’m obsessed with it. I’ve never tried it in anything like this. This is like even beyond where I would go with this guy. So he wants it to be like a whole gang style beater. Cause if they attack your graveyard or something, you could, you could still just like play a 10/10 for free and get them with that.

Or it can also be part of these really, really intricate combo loops where you’re sacking two artifacts at once and that’s triggering scrapped taller or twice. And you’re got a stack and make sure that, you know, you’re clicking this artifact, make sure it lines up with exactly the right one with the casting cost one below.

I feel like it’s all held together by Semblance Anvil. And that scares me a little bit because semblance anvil is not the modern stapler. This is a card that basically hasn’t made the cut in anything, um, except for like very speculative all in combos. So do you feel like, is that a problem for this kind of deck?

Like we’ve seen mystic forge is in a company finished and like a dice factory deck where they’re just trying to set up a bunch of manna play mythic forage, maybe get a paradox engine down. And then just between mystic forge and paradox engine and mana rocks, you can play your deck that way.

David Robertson: [00:28:11] Yeah. I mean, I do like that the mystic force doesn’t only work with semblance anvil because it is also a deck that has the 12 Urza lands and it’s playing to expedition map.

I guess the one of the first things I would do is put that up to four. So you can just do it. The normal wage is missing forge, plus a lot of manna, even if they’ve killed your anvil with their Prismari command or whatever your forge is still flying through your deck. And because most of the deck is cheap, even without semblance anvil, you’re only playing, you know, a manna for Pithing needle, you know, two men and for ichor wellspring, et cetera, you are, I think, still able to kind of get that, that velocity through your deck that you need.

So, yeah, I think the fact that it doesn’t rely a hundred percent on semblance. Anvil is important, but even these loops that they’re describing to replay all this stuff for so cheap does require Semblance anvil. So I feel like that that’s a little concerning also Semblance Anvil is car disadvantaged.

So without the mystic forge to start bringing those cards back to you, this deck does not have a lot of ways to sort of recover what you’re losing there.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:29:09] Yeah. Yeah. If you don’t resolve a forge, you might be in trouble. Now there are three Wishclaw talismans to find it. And there are a scrap trawlers for another way to maybe get some card advantage.

If you can get a grinding station doing popping wellsprings. So that’s what we have in front of us for us to suggest any tweaks, any critiques. I don’t know where to start with this. So, and Brian highlighted a few issues. He said agro has consistently been a problem. He said this Urza manna base is optional.

Well, basically you’ve tried a few different databases with different splashes. This was one has the lightest of black splashes just for . Uh, do you have any ideas here for tweaks you want to make?

David Robertson: [00:29:46] I mean, one of the things I would look to do, and again, it’s so hard for me to make recommendations because, um, I feel like this is a deck you have to iterate and it sounds like he has done a bunch of that on my thought is to maybe just abandoned the black, you know, we’re, we’re paying, we’re playing for swamps.

To expedition map for Talisman of dominance and then four-star to sphere, which can make black just to play, Wishclaw talisman and a new Maury and the board. And unless I misunderstand, it’s actually quite hard to assemble a kill that turn with talisman again, I’m I might be misunderstanding, uh, how the combo works, but I feel like we’re not getting paid off enough for the black.

And I would like to instead play Karn, the great creator this, because first of all, our sideboard is already a bunch of like Karn hit targets. So we’d have access to those in game one, our man will be a little smoother. We wouldn’t have to play any Talisman of dominance. We could make those all, you know, mindstones or whatever.

And then I think Karn maybe gives you outlets to steal games one against agro, because a lot of times a game one bridge can just beat their entire deck and you can put additional combo pieces in the board if you need to. Um, And you could even play like ways to exhale your own graveyard. So Karn can like look through your exile to find missing combo pieces, if they’re destroyed.

So you can use your Nihil spellbomb or whatever to do that. So that’s just one thought that I had.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:31:14] Yeah. I think Karn is a good thoughts. I’m not sure that I would want to take out the Talisman of dominance. I know you were saying to replace a Mind Stone, but the six total copies of two men accelerators, I almost think I’d like to go higher on that number just to feel like I have more of a chance in the fast match-ups.

Now, maybe that alone isn’t enough. I think it may be the weakness to agro is insoluble, unless you can somehow get like a one man not defensive play. And I, I don’t think there is a car. Like basically you need a seal of fire that is not Pyrite Spellbomb, but only cost one that you can just like, maybe even steal a wall and just like, oh, for, for awhile, just something to like get in away.

Um, because I think that you, you have all the stuff here. Yeah. You’re not gonna get, who is, do you have the stuff that we no longer game, but you just can’t get overrun like that. And then whether that’s setting up just buying time to set up and staring bridge, maybe you’re trying to get like, Urza saga the new one from image two and like make some Tarmogoyf blockers or whatever it is.

You just like, can’t survive against that. I grew up your first term play is chromatics sphere. Your second term play is Ichor wellspring. And your third term play is like, you know, Wishclaw Talisman you’re just dead. You’re just going to die. It’s so hard to like come up with something without fundamentally changing the deck.

That’s going to address that in a meaningful way.

David Robertson: [00:32:33] Yeah, you’re also going to get hit. You know, there’s a lot of, uh, land hate in the format right now for decks that aren’t you. And so people are obviously not creating their sideboards thinking. I need to beat Umori Silvergaak, but they will nonetheless be able to disrupt your Tron, play blood moon, et cetera.

So you’re also weeks all that in addition.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:32:54] So I don’t have any firm suggestions for Brian at this point. And I know this is like one of his many iterations on this. Like, uh, he’s tried a lot with Bolas’s Citadel lately. Um, sometimes with Shape Anew, uh, a card that I’m like urging people to try again.

Uh, you know, I’ve got a whole stack of failed metalwork, Colossus brews using the, uh, border post cycle. I was doing that during our in search of greatness week with Karn, the Great creator. And just trying to get things to land 10 tens earlier. There’s so much you can do in this space. I think Ugin the ineffable, the six minute that reduces the cost of your colorless things by two can perform the same function as semblance Anvil without being like such a bad card on its own.

There’s a ton of cards you could consider. And even just looking at Brian’s list, there’s a lot of 102 others and three others. So there’s a lot to discover. I’ll put it that way.

David Robertson: [00:33:48] Yeah. I mean, there’s just so many moving parts here. Uh, obviously there’s some cards that look a little funny, but I’m sure they actually serve their role really well.

Right. I mean, Ichor wellspring is not a, uh, a modern all-star, but you can imagine how good it would be, uh, with grinding station. Yeah.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:34:03] Maybe like a red splash. Now, hearing you say that a red splash for a galvanic blast for Goblin engineer to put the Metalwork Colossus in the graveyard. Maybe if you want to get really frisky, you can play a trash for treasure or something and try to get someone with animation.

Yeah. I don’t know. I don’t know, but I’m excited to see what Brian comes up with the next, he is the artificer master little mad tinkerer, and I’m sure he’s going to have some exciting updates to this in the near future. Absolutely. All right. So that is our Brew review for the week. If you are a patron, one of the benefits that you will receive for joining our Patreon is you have the opportunity to send in your decklist for us to review.

So with that said, we are going to take a short break. And when we come back, we are going to open up the listener, mailbag and field a few questions.

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And I just can’t seem to keep up. Does this sound familiar? If it does, we’ve got something that can help Serum Visions. Hi, I’m Dr. Combo and my team of DJs. And tonight had a simple goal in mind, crushed done. Once we did that, we had some more time and energy. So we decided to create Serum Visions a twice monthly oral supplement for your magic.

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What we’re interested in is ideas that excite us. And we hope they’ll excite you. If you feel a strong desire to register, burn, call your doctor immediately, jank brewing is not for everybody. And to mix poorly with other hobbies, drugs or alcohol, do not listen to Serum Visions. If you’re listening to podcasts that deal with standard in a serious way, the makers of Serum Visions are not responsible for any loss tickets, revenue, or Digna Nita, any persons inspired fully or in part by the contained information.

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So one of our discord members Benjamin S asks us. Why isn’t fires of invention, seeing more plan modern, the card seems bonkers. It essentially doubles your man on. If you have lands, you can activate with the manner that you’re not using the Castro spells. And then it’s actually more than double. If you ever on tap with five lands, you get access to 10 minute worth of spells.

Not limited to color, just spells for Pete’s sake. Plus if you have a creature land or land within abilities, I just said, and you still got access to that. I understand that it’s slow, but you could very easily ramp it out faster. And the effect seems so ludicrous. I can not really imagine it not being worth it.

If you build your deck to maximize its potential, what am I missing here guys? So Dan you’re the modern whisper as a Damon likes to call you, what is your thought about fires of invention in modern? Why aren’t we seeing it? We don’t see it at all.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:37:18] Yeah. So Benjamin, everything you described about fires on invention near exactly right the card is ludicrous.

It’s bonkers, it’s broken. It shouldn’t have been printed. Certainly not at three in a red, maybe it should have had like a different man of costs. It’s kind of an interesting effect, but I mean, we’ve seen what it did to standard. We’ve seen what it continued to do to Pioneer. We actually tried this card in modern.

They was right when Throne of Eldraine was about a month or two old. We decided to feature this because we liked a lot of the same things that you liked. Benjamin. Um, modern is just a punishing place. The problem is it’s kind of like an engine built around and the golden rule I would say is that those can only cause two men in modern, maybe three, if they have a good enter the battlefield effect at four men or above, once they see what you’re up to, like maybe you can execute a sweet line with fires in one game, but once they see what you’re up to the counter play to fires, whether that’s just Thoughtseizing yet, whether that’s countering yet, whether that’s killing you first, um, is too easy to stop.

Then you built a deck that will really only be optimized when fires is online. And that means your deck is not really functioning until turn three turned four when you might not actually resolve the fires at all.

David Robertson: [00:38:36] Yeah. And I, I think I would echo that one of the things that Benjamin says is I know it’s slow, but the problem is, uh, the first part of that sentence, um, the slow part to Dan’s point wilderness rec, reclamation, Nissa, all these cards that are like, Oh, once you on tap with it with your four or five minute permanent, and then you’re going to do all the stuff, that’s just not how modern is played, because to get to, to really get paid off for that, you need to have all these four and five minute cards.

Right. And in standard, it was fine because the formats are so much less punishing that you could just they’d play a few, like three damaged sweepers for three men. And that would just be enough to get into their wilderness rack. And then once they did that, they got to the powerful thing. That’s just not going to cut it in.

Uh, modern. And then the card advantage thing, you can just play these super clunky cards at, you know, recoup four or five or six cards when you were down. But in modern, those don’t really exist at reasonable manta cost. So, you know, I don’t think that fires is really playable except for see it index like turns where you’re going to take all the turns and then you are getting paid off for all that manna and even wilderness rec.

We see very occasionally show up in the five-oh lists and often as like a tool of index that are, you know, super powerful, tons of car draw, et cetera, built into them.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:39:52] Yeah. To echo that wilderness reclamation is a card that I thought, well, unlike fires a wilderness reclamation deck, because that’s the reactive playing at instant speed will slow the game down and create the space.

It needs to get its engine online. I played this during our Magma Opus week, three weeks ago. And the wilderness reclamation was like by far the worst card in my deck, it was just a liability trying to find a window to land it. If they were pressuring my life total, the reclamation was too slow. And if it was going to be a back and forth matchup, the Reclamation was either not worth the card or it was just going to get countered, made me realize that both fires and wilderness reclamation, their reign of terror and standard was always went Teferi time reveler was also legal.

So like people just weren’t attempting into speed interaction. Like your enchantment always resolved just because that’s how the format was laid out. And modern is not like that.

David Robertson: [00:40:43] Yeah, Teferi was weirdly punishing. Normally you’d have out for these kind of clunky format and champions, and you can just bring in Negates or whatever, but, or disdainful stroke that you had a counter of their three drop and their four drop on consecutive terms.

It was very odd even now, like fires is a fine thing to be doing in pioneer, which has a much, much lower power format than modern, but it’s certainly not dominant. It’s not even close to even being talking about banning and only sees play in lists that specifically can play Yorion, which makes sure you kind of always get that card advantage.

Oh, they you’re describing. So yeah, I mean, fires is very powerful. There may be some future scenario where it finds more cards that work with it. But right now I think it’s a very nice card. And like I said, the only deck I really see using it to, to any a good effect is, is it turns list that can take advantage of all those.

And specifically that only really works or matters because you have that three men, um, Time warp that doesn’t let you and tap your lands. So it basically lets you play a bunch of extra time warps

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:41:44] savor the moment, savor the moment. One other deck that sometimes played fires was the As Foretold the deck, because both fires of invention and as retold interact favorably with the zero costs, suspend spells, not zero cost, the suspend cycle that doesn’t actually have a manual cost.

There are rumblings from the dark corners of the spoiler internet. There there’s another cycle of those suspended sorceries coming in modern horizons too. Possibly they will already be revealed by the time you’re hearing this. And if that’s the case, maybe that deck is worth a closer look where you would start with four copies of, as foretold, then electrodominance as your other card.

And maybe you just want more of the effect. You, you can go to fires or invention, or maybe Collected conjuring, or if you want to go with that route, it definitely has really interesting skills. Um, but just in terms of it being a manna engine, basically the four mana Omnath has just better than this right now.

So just play that instead for anything else that is not that specific suspend interaction. All right. Great. So a lot about fires. Um, but yeah, that was a very interesting question, Benjamin and reading the question it made me think. Yeah. Why is whatever happened to fires who was supposed to be so good?

Benjamin has also sent us another question in the spirit of looking forward to MH two, we just couldn’t resist this question. He just gave us a long list of cards and he asked us for our just quick hits, yay or nay on these cards for the health of modern. Would this be good for the format essentially?

So let’s just rattle through them quick takes, uh, I’ll throw it to you, David. So punishing fire. yay. Or nay.

David Robertson: [00:43:21] Benjamin has actually started his question with Punishing fire should of course be legal and power level. I agree. Benjamin S is correct there. However, I think it really discourages the kind of decks that we want people to be able to play.

You already have Wrenn and Six and, um, The three men and black card. That’s two, two that makes a creature type. I’ll get minus one, minus one, a two, I think poor designs from previous modern horizons, punishing people that want to play tribal, et cetera. Um, although it’s not overpowered, I think that punching fire eliminates decks like more folks, spirits, humans, uh, for no gain it.

And it leads to repetitive game states, et cetera. So on power level, yes, you are correct. But for me, no, I would not like to see this card unbanned in the format.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:44:05] Agreed. Palace jailer.

David Robertson: [00:44:07] No, I hate Monarch. Uh, and then also while we’re here, if we’re on this whole, we don’t need an aspirational pro tour to inspire people to play commander, conspiracy, et cetera.

Can we stop making cars that are designed for commander and conspiracy legal and legacy? It makes no sense. The format has all these cards with no history at all in magic and they become weirdly powerful.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:44:28] Yeah, legacy players have suffered enough. Just leave them alone. No more cards. It’s allowed to legacy from here on out.

David Robertson: [00:44:35] Let, let them get the three or four random cards that were like misdesigned in standard and moderate horizons. There’s no reason for them to have to take on weird commander cards.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:44:44] Even, even Pauper has been terrorized by the Monarch mechanic. I mean the palace jailer, or I forgot what the other one is called that, uh, give you a Monarch.

And like our red, white deck, it’s one of the better decks and pie in popper. And then they briefly printed like this and shipment. That was what was the two mana. And, but you came to Monterrey. It was insane. And that just broke the format immediately. They had to ban that one. So yeah, monarchs for one-on-one bad news.

Next up recruiter of the guard.

David Robertson: [00:45:12] I’m called shot here. I think recruiter of the guard will be in modern horizons 2. For me, I’m a little ambivalent. I don’t like tutors. Uh, that are a little easy. This is a bit restricted. Maybe it does create some interesting choices. I think often it just leads to very repetitive gameplay.

So I guess I’m a lean towards not, but I think this will be legal in a modern horizons

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:45:34] personally. I hope not. I just don’t want this card in the format for the reasons you said ambivalent towards tutors. What about council’s judgement?

David Robertson: [00:45:42] I think a functional reprint. So it does the same thing without this weird will of the council, which people might not be familiar with where you each vote, but if it’s a tie, it’s the one that you want anyway.

Um, I do think that like a vindicate, like effect in white is probably acceptable and modern and vindicate itself might be reprinted it and monitor horizons too. But the way that we’ll have council functions, I think the exact card comes judgment will not be in modern.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:46:06] So when you say a vindicate like effects, are you saying a card that just point and shoot kills anything or specifically kills a land?

Is there a plenty of vindicate like effects that do not kill land?

David Robertson: [00:46:18] I think vindicate itself would be fine. Council’s judgment, I think should probably just be legal at the way. It actually functions without being able to kill. And I think, yeah, it’s certainly fine.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:46:29] Okay. Uh, Archon of Valor’s reach.

David Robertson: [00:46:32] I had to look up this car.

Well, what do you think about council’s judgment?

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:46:37] Oh, counselors talked about, I think it’s fine. You know, and it’s, it’s three men of her removal spell that. That’s totally fine. Um, vindicate, I’m not sure. Just because, you know, having your lands destroyed is not a good feeling, right. RIshadan Port is also on this list of cars that Ben is asking us to consider.

And for the same reason, like, I don’t know that we want to promote that play style. I think vindicate could be used like prop up fair, interactive decks, or it could just be like smallpox destroy all your lens, like, Oh, um, I’m not sure, but yeah, let’s talk about the art and this is what Six man or something.

I’m actually not totally sure what it does. I played against it last week and I’m like, and

David Robertson: [00:47:11] it comes into play. You actually, um, name a type and then your opponents can not play this car type. But yeah, I mean a six minute card that is five, six vigilance flying trample and it prevents your opponents from casting, either artifact and chairman instant sorcery Planeswalker this card, it will be totally unplayable and it would join literally thousands of other unplayable cars and modern.

So go ahead and print it

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:47:36] at Six, man, I get basically cheated. Get into play where you’re ramping very heavily into it, and then it needs to have an enter. The battlefield that actually wins the game like premie will tighten. Does. A force of Will. Benjamin. Now why Benjamin?

David Robertson: [00:47:48] Yeah. Force of will is not even the discussion

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:47:51] misdirection.

David Robertson: [00:47:53] So this one I think is actually a little more interesting. It only works against certain cards that doesn’t actually stop any existing combos as they’re currently constructed. Uh, doesn’t stop like this as Oracle kills, doesn’t stop primeval Titan in general. I don’t like free spells existing that much.

There’s this random stuff you have to play around, but this card is so limited. I think it would see very little play and so I can live with it. Okay.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:48:18] Yeah. Philosophically, I don’t like it, but now that you put it that way, I’m realizing it probably won’t affect that many. Match-ups

David Robertson: [00:48:24] I’ll say this. I wish Misdirection was legal and Force of Negation was illegal instead of the other way around.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:48:30] Yeah, it was the primary use of misdirection is to counter another tenor spill. Right?

David Robertson: [00:48:35] Yeah, or it’s probably, it would be a card that you don’t only see playing like weird match-ups where like, if, you know  or something random got put in the format, you know, or, or like time warp, I mean, it, it would just interact with a bunch of strange corner case effects and it would not just be, uh, you know, Force of Negation hits every non-conscious bell that, well, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what that’s going to affect.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:48:59] Okay. Careful study. This is one of the most speculated on cards ever since Faithless Looting got banned. There’s been a careful study of sized hole in the format. Some might say where the graveyard decks don’t have that one man on thing that makes them work, it makes them churn.

David Robertson: [00:49:15] Yeah, well, I guess it depends what you mean by graveyard decks.

Dredge still exists. It’s very powerful. And even got a new tool in the, uh, most recent Strixhaven release. Wouldn’t many other modern decks to not, uh, but the kind of decks we like to play yes. Would prefer a careful study inside of these other cards. One man is being the key specifically. I think, to turn on Phoenix, I think it would be probably a mistake to do so, but it would not surprise me if it was in modern horizons too.

I think if printed, it would be probably like a top ten-ish car in the format. I don’t like cards like that being added in modern horizons too, but they need to sell them on horizons, two packs. So some of the cards in that printing will have to be top 10 cards in the modern format.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:49:58] Yeah. I like it in blue also.

Just cause of Dredge, you mentioned. It doesn’t play a blue right now. They play everything else, but not blue. So make them decide if you want to play careful study, you have to give up thrilling discovery, but I think there’ll be fine next up. Tendrils of agony.

David Robertson: [00:50:16] Yeah. So tendrils is a little like dredge cards to me.

Storm cards are either the car that wins the game, or it’s not powerful enough to see play and sees no place. So we know that the storm cards that can win the game and modern right now see play. And there’s a bunch of other problems with storm. People don’t even maybe realize that don’t see any play at all.

Cause they don’t win the game. Uh, this is black. So again on power level, it’s probably fine, but I think you just gain so little by making it legal and you risk a lot.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:50:43] Yeah. I’m somewhat sympathetic to the argument that spell based combo has just had such a bad six months or three months that you gotta give them something.

But why storm like pick some other spell. They have Thassa’s Oracle for now that that’s all they need. So I don’t know. I have no strong feelings about tendrils of agony. Similarly, toxic deluge is a card Benjamin has asked us to consider. This is the three men and sweeper for black and the cost of your life.

My initial thought was this was okay. But what do you think?

David Robertson: [00:51:16] I think again, I’m power levels is probably fine. I think this would be a little toxic for the format because you know, a three, I don’t like three minutes sweepers that are borderline unconditional. Yes. Obviously there’s life, et cetera. Um, would it maybe go in a deck like a death’s shadow where you have this ability to control your life and also sweep away all their creatures, um, you know, whatever do 10 damage, if you’re whatever, and you’re at 10, you do nine you’re.

Your, a shadow does exactly 12 and probably every other creature in play die. Something like that. Maybe that wouldn’t be good. I don’t know.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:51:52] Yeah. Now that I’m thinking about it, I actually don’t want this card. The white based decks with pinky creatures, like Giver of Runes an Auriok champion. I think they’re good for the formats.

They always feel like a house of cards where like, if you can just like figure out how to make them collapse, uh, you can have a nice win, but it’s actually, they’re going to make it hard for you. And really a steal dedicated pilots can win big events with, with the white based decks, uh, that all will fall apart with toxic deluge.

I think this car would single-handedly erase those decks from the format.

David Robertson: [00:52:25] Yeah, I think that’s a great point. And it’s, it’s important to remember how little success those types of white ducks have had. Yet. People are frustrated that Heliod is good or whatever. First of all, it always has to be a best deck.

Uh, and second of all, they’ve the history of modern is just these decks getting housed over and over again. And by decks, I would use all these other cards we’ve just listed. So, you know, the fact that they were briefly have a chance to be a couple slots and a top aid is no reason to just started dunking on them and talk to daily or, you know, punishing fire or some kind of crazy, you know, reprint of whatever.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:52:58] Yeah. Speaking of crazy reprints, what about Hymn to Tourach?

David Robertson: [00:53:02] Yeah. Random discard is terrible. Uh, you have a note here. Gerard’s verdict. Instead. I love that idea. I think that’s a great idea, but yeah, him, his terrible. And when they him, you’re fricking both of the lands in your hand, that’s the worst. Like you play a tablet on and turn one they’re turned to is him your other two lands?

And the game is over like just, there’s not a worst feeling and magic almost. It’s like double stone rain

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:53:29] and they just like plucked it out of your hand or in, and we, now this comes from

David Robertson: [00:53:34] a tinker about the shuffler like seriously,

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:53:39] for a long time Time, it seemed like two men and it’s discard two cards was like forbidden territory. There, there was only one card that did that. Wrench mind Wrench Mind is like, not quite good enough.

So there’s plenty of room to make something better than wrench mind for the decks. And there’s only really one deck that would ever want this as some kind of 8 Rack type strategy. If you want to have a teammate to meet them, discard two with some upside, I think that’s perfectly fine. If it’s Gerard verdict, if it’s something else, I don’t care.

Just not him. No random discard. Yeah. All right. How about sneak attack?

David Robertson: [00:54:14] Uh, I don’t think this card should see play. We already have this effect in, through the breach. And I think those cards in that deck is like very fun making a more powerful version of it. I don’t think it increases the play experience.

You can already do the thing. You can already through the breach here Emrakul or whatever. We’ve even seen some like cool through the reach variants with, uh, the red Titan, uh, from various people in artists card. So I don’t, I don’t know that making this effect more powerful is worth it,

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:54:43] but you do think that sneak attack is a major upgrade over through the breach.

David Robertson: [00:54:47] Oh yeah.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:54:48] Okay. I guess that makes sense. Um, you don’t have the ability to do it end step, but maybe just being a managed cheaper is everything okay.

David Robertson: [00:54:58] In my experience. That is true.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:55:01] All right. Sulfuric vortex. Another red enchantments.

David Robertson: [00:55:05] Yeah, I’d love it. If this was legal, I think this card is perfectly positioned.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:55:09] How does it compare to roiling vortex?

David Robertson: [00:55:12] Doesn’t cost a manna, you know, and rolling vortex was printed. I think all three of us were a little, uh, low on it. We’re even a little mocking of it and we’ll compare it on very unfavorably to Sulphuruc vortex, uh, in some ways I think that’s true, but I think rolling vortex is not dominating the format of the thing.

And certainly three manner for this effect is, is quite a bit, so I think it’s a totally appropriate effect to have in, in modern.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:55:37] Okay. Yeah. I agree with that. Chaos warp, every time I see those cards suggested I’m like, isn’t that already legal? It’s not, apparently it’s only in commander, maybe just because it’s a color pie break allows reds to potentially remove any kind of permanence.

I don’t think this card is that powerful.

David Robertson: [00:55:55] Yeah. I don’t think it’s that powerful. I do agree with you. The color pie break feels weird, but they’ve like abandoned all tradition and modern. So like pretending like it is like, what magic is thought of is strange. But if they’re worried about the color price break, fair enough.

Don’t print it. I mean, it’s not going to go in any deck. You can’t like build your deck to try to like warp your own permanent and hope to hit Emrakul or whatever. Well, you could try

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:56:19] price of progress. No,

David Robertson: [00:56:22] I mean, let’s start with the insane and this card would actually maybe be the most powerful card.

Maybe even more powerful than force of will. I think, I mean, modern already, I think does a reasonable job, punishing greedy men and bases. Cause they’re playing fetches and shocks. So they start at 14 or whatever to play there. Niv-Mizzet okay. That’s fine too, man. I win the game against him as it seems crazy to me.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:56:43] Yeah. Please do not print this card, please. Players do not ask for this card. This card would be a disaster for the format. It’s too punishing. If there was like a weaker version of it, maybe, but.

David Robertson: [00:56:55] I was going to say, imagine this card at four mana instant, I think it would still be broken. Like it’s rare. You can just add man out to a card and it would still be insane.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:57:04] Yeah. Maybe give it like a Punisher type mechanics where they can choose to either take damage or lose some kind of resource. But I don’t even know, like, it’s, it’s just too much for two minutes.

David Robertson: [00:57:15] I feel like I can already punishment on basis. Like blood moon sucks, but I think it’s a reasonable, you know, I mean, red, green Ponza exists, so it’s not like decks like this don’t aren’t already having success.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:57:27] Yeah. How about Leovold, Emissary of Trest?

David Robertson: [00:57:31] Uh, this is not even is way too powerful for me.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:57:34] Hmm. Just because it’s going to lead to the mid range soup. You win all the mid-range battles basically.

David Robertson: [00:57:44] Yeah. It’s a super powered Narset plus it does other stuff and it’s a creature. Um, it’s, it’s basically unavoidable almost.

It’s countered to be a two for one. Uh, yeah, I just, I think the card is. It’s just not healthy for the format.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:57:57] Agreed. What about fire, ice?

David Robertson: [00:57:59] Yeah, I love this card. I thought this was actually an to horizons one. I think if we go back and this is a card I predicted would be in there. So still time to write that wrong.

I’ve cast this a lot of time, a lot in my lifetime.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:58:11] Yeah. This, this card is so sweet. Both halves are really sweet. What do you think it would see play? Um, no, I mean a little bit, and then I think that’s perfect for a card like this.

David Robertson: [00:58:22] I think that’s right. I think, I think people would try it. Like the LSVs all the people that are older than like 35.

Um, just cause we played it so many times. I think slowly the number we converge on like one or zero in huge amounts of games.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:58:36] Old man comes out of retirement. So sleeve up Isochron Sceptre and tries to imprint the fire and ice on it. One last time,

David Robertson: [00:58:43] it doesn’t work anymore. You can’t even print it on.

That’s the thing they will remember is in printing,

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:58:48] get his heart broken at FNM

David Robertson: [00:58:52] judge. It’s like, all right, well, that’s the end of that.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:58:55] Um, what about baleful Strix

David Robertson: [00:58:57] so Baleful Strix is a card I personally love, but again, I think it’s like punishing fire we’re on straight power level. It’s fine. But it really discourages combat while not asking very much of it’s a castor, I think the thing saving the blue green version, even though people are like, Oh, it’s a flash.

It actually really messes with your manna and painful strikes does not. And it’s an actual artifacts. So you could imagine people like, rebuying it over and over again with Emry. I just think it really promotes like, again, harmful play patterns that are anti agro without doing anything. I mean, it’s like, it’s, can’t tripping while doing that.

So.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:59:33] So the fact that it’s permanently has death touch means that it’s just like  or is it artifacts, synergies that have you worried?

David Robertson: [00:59:41] I think it’s mostly just permanently having death touch again. You can, you can play it off a triumph and something else. The Ice-Fang Coatl is almost never does touch on.

Well, it’s never don’t touch and turn to, and it’s rarely to touch on two and three, unless you’re making serious concessions in your deck. Baleful Strix always has that touch on turn two and is, you know, we’ll have that touch on every other turn.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [01:00:03] Yeah, no, that makes sense. Okay. Two more cards in this list.

It’s a long list, but, uh, these are just fun cars to think about and cars I’ve seen a lot of people speculating, you know, what would happen to the format if this or that car was in Rishadan Port? I think this is a hard, no, for me, this is a car that it exists as part of magic’s past, but I don’t think we should be prisoners to metrics pasts just because the card was printed once does not mean we need to like introduce it to all of our formats.

This does not lead to good game play.

David Robertson: [01:00:31] I agree that this does not lead to good gameplay, but I think that this will be in modern horizons 2. So I would not put it in there, but this is my prediction.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [01:00:39] Y Oh please. No,

David Robertson: [01:00:43] I hope you’re right.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [01:00:46] Finally, crystal vein, this is an interesting, so it’s a land of tabs for a color list. You can also tap it and sacrifice it to get to colorless.

David Robertson: [01:00:54] Yeah. So what set was this originally in?

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [01:00:56] I want to say Visions a is a very old set. Maybe Mirage.

David Robertson: [01:01:01] Yeah, I think this card is actually reasonable. Um, you know, it’s a soul land, but only at the cost of sacrificing itself, you could argue maybe with Wrenn and Six, it turns into some kind of like permanent soul, like effect or something, but that deck would have to play colorless lands to play it’s two minute ride green Planes Walker.

So right now I think this actually encourages some type of combo place. Obviously you’re using this, do something unfair without it being obvious or easy to do you’re it’s asking something of the pilot. So my response would be that this seems fair.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [01:01:34] Yeah. The risk reward is, is huge. Prior to the printing of castle Garenbrig

I might’ve been like, oh, this is too, too much. You know, we shouldn’t allow any kind of soul lands, but now anything goes, I mean, if the deck that most wants this effect gets to play it for free on a green, sorry. It’s like, yeah, let the other dogs have a chance that a little purse that man, if they want it

David Robertson: [01:01:57] and doesn’t have to sacrifice it. I mean Castle Garenbig is there a next turn to cast? We cast Titan after the other gusted or whatever.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [01:02:04] Yeah. All right. So it sounds like we’re like tentative yes. On crystal vein. Yeah. It’d be cool. Okay. Massive list there. Anything that was not on Benjamin’s list that you think will be a fun one to consider.

If you could promote a card to modern anything, jump out at you.

David Robertson: [01:02:23] Uh, nothing I can think of off at oh, Rootwalla. Oh, yeah. That’s more Werebear one of those too. Uh,

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [01:02:30] I think I’m good. I think Basking Rootwalla will be a little bit more impactful than Werebear,

David Robertson: [01:02:35] I would play the hell out of a Werebear you guys would be like, all right.

We got us up to Werebear and there lists.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [01:02:42] I mean, if I can ever replace the two Remands I’m okay with that. Okay. So thank you very much to you Benjamin as for the questions. Uh, that’s a lot of fun to think about as you’re going into your modern horizons, two seasons.

David Robertson: [01:02:55] All right. That is going to wrap up this episode of Faithless brewing.

If you want to tune in on Sunday, we will go over some of our latest Strixhaven brews. We had a. Prismari, popery looking at a bunch of cool list and pioneer and modern Dan, even five-oh, we’ll just spoil that, uh, now, but we won’t tell you with what list. And then, uh, next week we will be back with modern horizon spoilers and Damon will be rejoining us, giving us, uh, all of his hot takes about which soon to be banned.

Simic mythic rare is unplayable.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [01:03:29] I can’t wait

David Robertson: [01:03:31] until then. Daniel take care.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [01:03:34] That’s a wrap on episode 15 of Strixhaven seasons tune in on Sunday for our final round of Strixhaven brews. Plus testing results with Galazeth Prismari. Support for this podcast is provided by brewers like you, if you like what we do, be sure to join our community@patreon.com slash Faithless brewing for discord access bonus content and more. That’s all present day, stay safe and we’ll see you next time.