The reason is that it requires me to pitch a card. I see it as kind of an even trade if I do so.
Iâd call it perfectly even in most situations. Losing cards for extra effects is>Paying extra mana for each effect.
For a 2 mana card that does three things, it doesnât cost as many resources as it should. Itâs significantly better when pitching things that can actually be cast in grave or off the discard though.
Utility cards that can do multiple things passably have historically been good.
Also, WTF:
(Ha at the zombie Planeswalker promos up on Mythic Spoiler.)
Itâs also a good discard outlet in a Standard that currently still cares about the graveyard even after Delve has left.
That said, Collective Brutality probably is at least slightly overrated since itâs a) not White, b) not Green, and c) canât kill Sylvan Advocate just by itself, but itâs at least a good card.
The best card with Escalate is doubtless going to be Collective Effort though because that is a) White, which is basically a superpower in current Standard, and b) in possession of an even more lenient Escalate âcostâ, especially in the same block that gave us collective vigilance through Always Watching.
Seriously that card is almost as dumb as Dromokaâs Command, Collected Company, and Repel the Abominable, with the only thing âholding it backâ is that itâs Sorcery instead of Instant like the aforementioned three.
Pre-releases went great. Took all the lands for the event. On top of took a bowl full of dice, extra tokens just in case and all of playmats in case people wanted to borrow one for funsies. The playmat idea worked out pretty well.
Right now about to cause drama in my community though.
(âŚBecause?)
Regardless, good to hear that pre-release went well for you, especially given all the other bullshit youâve gone through.
I guess the only way I can really appreciate Collective Brutality is looking at it from a MB âIâm not sure what Iâm playing againstâ or playing a GY/Delver based deck. A group of people on the modern fae primer were psyched over the card and I guess I could understand how you might be OK with using it to pitch âdeadâ cards (Mistbind or cryptic vs burn or removal vs combo/TRON).
On another note, I will probably shell out for Ancestral Visions. I had only playtested it as a MB feature but it really shines against GB/x and control decks. Some fae players run it SB and it feels awkward to spend a good amount on just a sideboard card, but hey now that I have a good paying job I can invest in my hobbies now!
Seattle also seems to have a pretty big legacy following. Iâll see where I am at in the future to figure out which deck I am interested in going all-in for. After playing the stiflenaught delver deck, I am enjoying more than just storm.
They opened up a new Magic shop in the next city over that was pretty awesome, and awesome enough that Wizards was going to be filming there today⌠and then the building across the street burst into flames and charred and flooded (fire hose water) the shop. Uggggh. Thankfully they had insurance, but â sucks.
I played FNM and saw all of the chase cards of EMN in action except for Hanweir Garrison and Liliana (basically Thalia, Spell Queller, Tamiyo, emerge stuff). They were good but not great, except for Tamiyo. She seemed pretty bad actually. Aside from one game where I saw her -2 act as a multi-turn falter, she was mostly a bad Concentrate.
Itâs possible that the decklists were unrefined so soon after release, but basically everything good seems to be tempo-reliant. If you play them while ahead and they manage to stick, they will put the game out of reach for your opponent. If you fall behind they wonât help much.
spell Queller is pretty gross. We already had reflector mage, now his brother is here, too.
I know that tempo is not overpowered in Standard right now, but because it is my most hated archetype by a wide margin I am annoyed by the addition of even more powerful tempo cards to the format.
I donât like this archetype either, since the days of Jeskai tempo. I think Queller has a chance to become problematic simply because he slots so well in Banto Coco, a deck that was already one of the best. It is week one, but Coco decks almost crushed the scg open this weekend.
Btw, Iâm surprised you dislike tempo decks so much - you played during faeries ? (I heard it was pretty miserable back then)
I wasnât playing during the Standard dominance of Faeries, but I played Extended during the heyday of Miracle Gro and I have a ton of experience against turn one Delver, turn two Wasteland and Stifle your Fetch Land. I was also active during the days when Tempo meant a first turn Unmask, followed by a ritual into Phyrexian Negator then a Skittering Skirge next turn.
I dislike Tempo because almost all Tempo decks are just âdesigned to get luckyâ.
- Aggro decks achieve consistency through redundance (all your cards are similar, so you always draw the same type of cards).
- Midrange and Control decks achieve consistency through resilience (you can play the long game so eventually you will draw into your tools).
- Combo decks achieve consistency through abundant filtering and tutoring (with enough tutors and Brainstorms you can find what you need).
- Tempo decks are inconsistent. You might think of tempo decks are a kind of combo deck where your combo is âearly threat(s) + relevant disruptionâ. You need to draw the right cards, and at the right time, for your deck to work.
Based on the above I internally think of Tempo decks as a kind of bad combo deck. You kinda hope you have your first turn Delver or second turn Goyf, and that you can draw into a good enough mix of disruption to kill the opponent before the inherent inconsistency of your deck become too big a problem. Youâve got a couple of cantrips in there to smooth draws, but nowhere near the level of a real combo deck.
A) It was more like Swamp Ritual Gix Gix Negator Unmask then Duress the next turn or Vendetta/Snuff Out. I recently ranked this deck as my #1 all time favorite but there are like 6 decks that are super close.
Tempo isnât about getting lucky. Delver/Tempo is a 1 for 1 essentially âfairâ deck that applies early pressure and goes until they can gain a board state where they get a 2 for 1 (Young Peezy) or run you out of resources this is why Grixis Delver is the best Delver deck right now and its not even close. RUG is great if you draw play every round as Stifle is one of the top 20 cards in Legacy and Goyf isnât Peezy but some could say is better?
And they are not inconsistent with 8 amazing cantrips to clean up draws(same as ANT (well I run 10 in ANT but sometimes I shave to 8/9)/less mana needed etc⌠This is where the difference between Delver and D&T is as they get to that point where the 1 for 1âs are done and the donât get card filtration and reply on Top Deckâs.
But a deck like Delver is the MOST consistent deck in especially Legacy as its ALWAYS proactive. Think of it as like a character that doesnât have ANY 4-6 or 6-4âs but will be like 4.7-5.3 every single round. While a deck like Miracles/ANT have 6.5-3.5âs and 3.5-6.5âs.
LOL the Gatewatch got freaking owned.
Spoiler
Long story short. Tamiyo and Nissa didnât imprison Emrakul in the moon as was expected. Emrakul imprisoned herself, mentally manipulating Tamiyo to use her forbidden scroll and to change its contents around. Apparently Emrakul is not âreadyâ yet and so she seems to be using the moon as a sort of cocoon.
Delver decks rely on early threats backed by cheap disruption to win before they run out of gas. I have never lost to a tempo deck due to running out of resources. Maybe if Isochron Scepter was a thing I could see it, but since when can Gurmag Anglers and Deathrite Shamans outgrind counter-top, shardless or any combo deck? Iâm not even sure Delver can outgrind Burn if it goes for the Lavamancer/Bridge value plan.
Then again, I havenât played Legacy seriously since Modern became a thing. Is Delver the new value deck? How does that work? At some point the opponent will have traded all his cards one-for-one and he will be drawing real cards while the Delver player is drawing Stifles, Spell Pierces and Cabal Therapies. What happens then?
Legacy delver lists are amazingly consistent compared to Standard decks, but compared to other Legacy decks I think they are trash. While ANT just needs to find the right cards, Delver needs to get them at the right time. A turn one Delver is top tier. A turn three Delver is garbage. And weâre not even considering the added layer of luck when Delver does or doesnât flip naturally, and the vast gulf in performance when the deck is on the play vs drawing first.
And moving out of Legacy for a moment, this discussion is not really limited to Delver decks. Think of Jeskai Tempo from Standard. That deck had all the tools to go toe-to-toe against Abzan, but in the end Abzan ruled the format because midrange is just structurally more sound than Tempo. I would argue that Jeskaiâs cards were significantly more powerful than Abzanâs options at every point in the curve (with the possible exception of Rhino) but those cards were only powerful on the specific turn that they were meant to be dropped. Turn three Rabblemaster is top tier. Turn five Rabblemaster is garbage.
I personally believe that Miracles is the most consistent deck, but this is arguable. In my local Legacy community people havenât changed archetypes in years, and the Miracles players are the most consistent performers by far.
Delver runs the best game 1 plan, drop threat and back it up and make YOU have IT and assuming thats 50/50 then the battle is half over. Sure Delver can keep the FOWless hand on the draw and just lose but it can keep a strong hand that no fair/some non fair decks can beat. Yes top into balance is a losing 1-2 punch for most decks hence why Miracles is the BEST deck. But its runs on a different plain and the best way I can describe it is to compare to fighting games. Miracles is equal to Super SF4 when Honda was top nigga. He wasnât best cause he is like Nash is today but cause he had SOOOOO many 6-4âs they added up but had those random underplayed 4-6âs/3-7âs he had to overcome like a MUD or Post that Miracles just scoops to.
yes a BUG deck vs merica in a type 2 environment isnât fair. Cause blue is now treated like garbage cause they donât want blue getting better cards than they already have. Since I did follow type 2 then it was even and the lack of a Wasteland is different and made the tempo deck very very very weak.
Tempo isnât good outside legacy and even vintage cause the card pool lacks the needed cards like WL.
Your local meta is defined like you said and I am sure that most of these players are âweakâ / âscrubbyâ / âwanna win onlyâ cause the Miracles player can make a local SB and be so well favored it would be considered AKUMA ST broken or the local meta lacks the needed 3-7âs to keep the miracles in check cause if it did/does than Miracles is the ONLY deck I would sleeve if I wanted to win.
(Haha at none of the Eldritch Moon cards making a big impact yet outside of the one of the obviously powerful ones.)
Granted, itâs only been formally released for a weekend, but Iâm more laughing at the fact that some people thought that Spell Queller wasnât going to be obnoxious and that new Liliana was actually bad. I canât tell whether said people have been spoiled by power creep or are just naturally spoiled (and stupid).
The only real surprises are no It That Rides As One (yet), the general down-turn in Wr Humans decks for some reason (unlike GW Tokens plummeting somewhat predictably due to lack of fliers), and Tamiyo not seeing much use (yet) despite Bant still be go-to three-color combination.
You hate Tempo more than Ramp? Even with your explanations, thatâs still a bit surprising.
Well thatâs a stupid, nonsensical ending all around even if it means that Innistrad gets to exist for at least a little longer.
In before Tamiyo dies horribly despite being far more likable than Jace.
If by âDelverâ you mean âDredgeâ, then I agree.
Thatâs true, but virtually all Legacy decks have insane openers.
This is what Iâve been saying all along! Delver gives you the possibility of amazing nut draws in exchange for an increased chance of having clunky draws. I see Delver in Legacy as a testament to the power of BS, Ponder and WL.
I wouldnât be so sure about this. I dunno about the US but here in Japan most of the Legacy scrubs have simply quit. Itâs mostly serious players now, because the main tournaments are all in Hareruya (Saitoâs shop) and that place is super competitive.
I have a lot of hate to go around LOL.
Seriously though my main beef with ramp has more to do with the way itâs defined. Iâve explained this before but the TLDR is I see ramp as being basically the same as storm and burn (your deck is mostly <X> and you win when you draw and play enough <X>), and I donât see storm as true combo (true combo would be stuff like Aluren or Melira Combo).
I assume by âcomboâ you then mean âassemble these 2-4 cards and win the gameâ?