I think hosers are a necessity. The game needs arbiters. It adds a bit of a rock / paper / scissor element to things but it also stops decks being completely mathematical where matches are only decided by luck. For a lot of decks the need to play around weaknesses to those hosers stops them dominating. It makes it interesting when it comes to reading the meta as well, decks like Living End for example are great when graveyard hate is practically non-existent but fall apart if everyone is packing it, hosers are good for metagame variety.
(It also depends how exactly you define āhoserā beyond the obvious one-sided destruction of one particular strategy by one card.)
I would say more, but I am about to go for a walk that I have already delayed, so instead I will just leave the newest sweeper here and note that I find it darkly hilarious while also being surprised such a simple name was not already used:
Wow didnāt realise modern had got to the point when draw-go canāt even control the board until 6 mana, is cavern of souls causing this by making creatures uncounterable or are decks just getting turn 4 wins consistently?
Iām starting to wonder if Jund might become a thing in standard again, I mean when weāve got the likes of Voltaic Brawler, Longtooth Cub, Scrapheap Salvager , Lost Legacy/Eternal Scourge combo and Unlicensed Disintegration in the early game alongside Eldritch Evolution and bombs like Noxious Gearhulk, Combustible Gearhulk, Verdurous Gearhulk and Demon of Dark Schemes to close the game out it looks like there must be something there.
Although Harnessed Lightning is no bolt I like the versatility it offers in giving you the energy counters and letting you use more or less than it gives you as needed.
Hell weāve even got a land that comes in untapped and runs off energy to tap for any colour which eases the mana base (and cash price) for a 3 colour deck.
What are people thinking of Bomat Courier by the way?
It seems like a good 1 drop as in you donāt mind seeing it in topdeck mode because you can just run it into something and sac it to cantrip when itās blocked and played on turn one it can squirrel away one card getting though and then swing and sac to get 2 when you have none in hand later unless your opponent removes it, in which case great, your opponent just used their removal on a 1 drop.
Being 1 generic mana helps make sure you can cast it on turn one too which is nice.
Gaining life is certainly very powerful but standard will be filled with a lot of cards that can work around sweepers very well, I assume the power level of this card will be tied to how many of those are being played.
Looking forward to try RB Control with the new set. I believe Chandra is the additional wincon it needed, she also makes Oath of Liliana an actual card in that color combination. Iām suspecting that instant speed removal will be really important this set which both red and black have plenty of options for.
Went 1-4-1 at the RPTQ in STockholm. I fell mainly to my own decision making which is what I suspected Iād do prior to the event, something that I can work on over time at least. The combination of not sleeping well and being nervous certainly didnāt help along the way though. Great players and a great experience overall.
I think that hosers are a good idea, if done correctly. Players should have options they use to be rewarded if they feel that they can accurately predict the metagame. In MtG most hosers are done well, especially nowadays. Problem is when they mess up, they mess up big time.
I think a great hoser is something like Sun Droplet against burn. Itās really good against burn, it still somewhat works against most other decks, and burn decks have viable ways to deal with it. In metagames where burn is prevalent you could play it maindeck and not feel like an idiot against non-burn opponents. Kitchen Finks is also a great burn hoser. Less of a swing against Burn, but increased utility against other decks. So maybe if I feel like Burn will make up a decent percentage of the field I put Finks maindeck, but if I feel Burn will be a huge part of the meta I run Sun Droplet instead.
A bad hoser is something like Rest in Peace. You never play it maindeck, and when you bring it in your opponent instantly loses unless he has a way to deal with it right then and there. Other bad hosers include Boil, Blood Moon, Shatterstorm, etc. In practice players donāt have to think about whether they should run Finks or Sun Droplet, because dumb cards like Kor Firewalker instantly solve that match-up.
(Ha. The latest spoiler, Visionary Augmenter, instantly made me think of Aliens when I saw it. I assume that is what the art was aiming for even if the flavor text and abilities do not reflect the reference.)
Yeah, when it comes to hosers, ukyo_rulz basically said pretty much everything I was going to type.
Hosers are totally necessary, hence why people are still wondering where the hell the ārealā graveyard hate is in Standard, but they should not be so one-sided that instantly playing them makes your opponent effectively lose the game no matter your opponentās previous position in the game. This is why I was not as āmadā as I expected to be upon finding out that WotC said they heavily pulling back from using āprotection from [whatever]ā cards when Magic Origins came out. That is more than understandable after the massive fuck-up with True-Name Nemesis or even just the overkill of something like Kor Firewalker be to deal with for the color(s) it hoses; ironically, the first block in the newly formatted M:tG (technically) gave Red Reality Hemorrhage, which is apparently sideboard-worthy enough in Modern to kill Kor Firewalker in particular. So in this case, yes, I understand why they decided to get rid of protection as a particular hoser even if I think the culprit was more permanent protection from large swathes of thingsācoughprotection from colored spells*āand there is still interesting design space to be had in more specific protections like the recent re-use of āprotection from instantsā, but I digress.
In furthering what ukyo_rulz said, the other annoying thing about braindead bad hosers is that they are usually in response to some overpowering strategy that would otherwise run rampant without them and thus end up taking down a bunch lesser, potentially more fair strategies that use the same type of enablers as causalities. The chiefest example of this is perhaps graveyard strategies and graveyard hosers. Delirium is never going to take off in Modern not because it is bad, but because Dredge and Reanimator are such comparatively degenerate graveyard strategies that they necessitated overpowered, bad hosers to keep from overrunning the metagame, at least after sideboard. So we got stuff like Leyline of the Void, Rest in Peace, Tormodās Crypt, Nihil Spellbomb, Relic of Progenitus, and the ever-so dumb Bokuja Bogāwho thought a land with that much power was a good idea in general?āthat nuke all graveyard strategies regardless of how āhonestā they might otherwise be because nuking the graveyard or making it irrelevant is generally the only way most decks can beat Dredge or Reanimator rather than out-playing them.
To prevent from having to make bad hosers as stop-gaps, you have to make sure you are cautious with your mechanics and, if you fuck up, ban or restrict said fuck-up relatively quickly and not repeat that mistake. Otherwise you basically are forced to bad hosers, and thatās no good. [/Sonic]
Iāve been running 4x Pyrite Spellbomb in my burn deck for years, for the same reason.
Good points. Iād also like to add that even when they work in this capacity, bad hosers can only fix metagames. They canāt fix games. If we play ten games of Dredge vs whatever and go 5-5 because I was able to Leyline of the Void five times and didnāt find it five times, that may be a ābalancedā match-up but we played some pretty stupid games.
Like, imagine an 11-character fighting game where each character has five 9-1 match-ups and five 1-9 match-ups. Thatās not a good game.
I also would like to bring attention to this vid:
You may or may not like the participants, but there is some nice discussion there.
This is a tough one. I would say that I hate them, I think hosers in general are terible cards, cheap fixes to complex problems. For the record, when I think of hosers I donāt think at Kitchen finks - Iām reffering to cards that generally wins you the game when casted, or at least gives you a huge advantage (RIP, stony silence, etc).
Basically, the way I see it, hosers are brought in when Wizards screw something - they made affinity broken, and since then a bunch of hosers for artifacts were printed. Dredge became too strong, and a ton of gv hate were released, etc, etc. This type of cards leads to stupid games, where you either draw them and win on the spot, or you not and you lose.
The problem is that in older formats is almost impossible to achieve a meta where hosers are not necesarry - the sheer numbers of cards means that broken things are inherent, which makes hosers a necesarry evil. Which I guess it is my take on hosers - Ideally I think the game should not have thses type of cards, but for practical reasons they are a necesity.
It is very similar to my views on thoughtseize: I hate it, I think it is a stupid card, but I aknowledge that modern/legacy would be worse without it around.
Handhate, Cavern, Vial and the sheer speed of the meta. Affinity, Suicide Zoo, Infectā¦ Those decks often kill you t3-t4 before you get a chance to verdict. Tron beats midrange, midrange beats aggro and aggro beats absolutely everything else right now
WR aggro, UB emerge is a deck, thereās a week one eldritch evolution deck, tokens is still sort of a deck but not sure if it has the same amount of gas it did before.
There seems to be a kind aggro deck and some weird midrange deck you can do with bedlam reveled in WR, UR or something else.
The most viable vehicle seems to be Loot copter. It can fit right in on WR aggro since it powers up two of its one drops.
Reckless fireweaver is subtly good.
Filigree familiar is really solid since itāll trade with lots of 1 and 2 drops profitably.
Blue hulk looks like it might have the most potential. Sure itās 6 but he created all sorts of bad trades for your opponent. There are also a couple of ways of bouncing him back that are productive. UGā s seasonās past is kinda possible.
You could do grixis with dark dwellers and blue hulk to go ham. Might be the deck that goes over the top of other midrange decks.
Sorry couldnāt do a better post. Cool set.
WR Aggro, UB Emerge, Tokens, I can probably see some kind of Azorius Tempo, I can see a Walker Control deck, there is enough in WB that there might be some kind of WB Aristocrats or WBG Aristocrats, it honestly wouldnāt surprise me if t3 Eldritch Evolution into Avacyn was a thing in a deck like that. Lots of people are calling Jund as well since Green seems like the best colour post-rotation and Red and Black have a lot of good support cards plus new landbase.
Personally this is my first draft of my new Standard deck for nowā¦
2x Horribly Awry
2x Negate
2x Revolutionary Rebuff
4x Anticipate
4x Scatter to the Winds
4x Grip of the Roil
4x Engulf The Shore
2x Overwhelming Denial
3x Pore Over the Pages
2x Confirm Suspicions
4x Torrential Gearhulk
1x Rise from the Tides
26 Island
Iām calling it Draw Go-Hulk
(A mono-Blu deck? In Standard? That is ambitious. Might want one or two independent win conditions given Lost Legacy though.)
Huh, so the rest of Kaladesh got spoiled today, which I guess means it comes out next weekend already. Man, keeping up with this new schedule format is still difficult.
For being a ādumpā of uncommons and commons, there are a lot of rather solid cards there, especially at the common level. This might easily be the kindest Standard set to Pauper since the new format rotated and in addition to the all archetypes Pertho mentioned, I can see WB Human Aggro being a thing surprisingly just due to Black uncommon and commons revealed today. Ha at Subtle Strike being a strictly better Borrowed Malevolence just one set after that card was printed.
That said, it is not utility, but artwork that made one card stick out to me more than others:
The face that Nissa is making rather hilariously inappropriate, even more so than Cathartic Reunionās artwork. The card itself is actually more than decent though.
I see. That makes sense. It is a shame that most of the Spellbombs are criminally underrated.
People wont be prepared for it, at least not at first and there are three ways to win. You can dig for Rise from the Tides, you can beatdown with Hulk or you can awaken a land with Scatter and kill with that. Iām pretty sure this deck is going to be supremely frustrating to play against in a creature heavy meta with the speed of Standard.
Out of the new cards I put a couple of Revolutionary Rebuff in the deck. Ceremonius Rejection and Dispel are obvious sideboard cards.
(Oh, right. I keep forgetting Scatter to the Winds has Awaken.)
Makes sense. In the sideboard I could also see that newest variant of Control Magic as well:
Thatās definitely an option. I was thinking Crush of Tentacles could be good for Walkers. Sphinx of the Final Word might be a powerful option vs. Control. With any sideboard, particularly a sideboard for a Control deck, you need to know the meta which is all speculative at the moment. I can only speculate what might be useful. If swarming 2/2 decks become common Filligree Familiar or Dampening Pulse could be useful.
There is definitely a RB something. Iām not necessarily sure that itās kind per say.
Bring To Light is still in the format though.
Oooh, endbringer. That guy is so good.
Vamps donāt get a lot out of the new set but they kind of already had enough as it was, the meta-shift might be kind to RB vamps. There will definitely be some form of artifact deck as well but like Eldrazi it probably wont become big until the rest of the block comes out. Speaking of Eldrazi, running a deck full of Mimic, Matter-Reshaper, Thought-Knot Seer and Reality Smasher is still going to be good.
What did you think of that Blue Control deck?
@
You mean how Pia looks like sheās craving the Jello Pudding?
Kaladesh Limited Ramblings:
Man, Red looks like it got the lionās share of good removal in this set. I expect a repeat of EMN limited where red just hits hard and kills stuff on the other side. Black OTOH seems awfully narrow at first glance. Its best creatures are aggressive yet it appears like Black spells are geared more for late game through value grinding. Itās just like SOI yet again where it was a jack-of-all-trades color outside of particular synergies. Blue isā¦ interesting. Not a ton of fliers going around so it looks like blue will be forced to make Energy work for it most of the time. Although I donāt look forward to getting walloped by that 4 mana sky whale. Interestingly enough, I think U wants to pair with B for a fliers deck instead of with W. White has a pile-o-removal, so just for that it will do fine despite its creature quality being surprisingly tame this time around at common. And green is finally back to putting undercosted oversized beaters after a big hiatus between Battle for Zendikar and now. Iām not sure what to think of Vehicles just yet. At the surface it looks like thereās a ton of 4 toughness going around, so most colors are safe from getting tempoād out by Red. Still it just takes one well timed Welding Sparks or Greenās artifact removal to set vehicles waaay back. Energy appears like something well worth building around. It has lots of set-up cards and payoffs at common with even stronger buildaround payoffs at uncommon and up. To me it seems like RG will be the colors to beat, Red for its plethora of efficient instants and Green for its big beaters, artifact hate, and energy production. White will just be a slower Red. Blue will yet again be synergy dependent and will often have to pair up with Green for energy storing/spending. Black will have to rely on sheer value unless it gets paired with Red, in which case it gets to beat face just fine.
(Yeah, Endbringer is a rather underrated card, though thatās likely because it came in the same set as both Thought-Knot Seer and Reality Smasher.)
Haha. I knew that facial expression reminded me of something. I did not realize Pia was actually shedding a tear in the artwork though. It is really hard to see in the card size on Mythic Spoiler and I was too busy laughing at the comments on that card for various reasons to notice.
RB Vamps got Key to the City from this set:
That and Unlicensed Disintegration may be all that deck archetype needs from this set to actually, finally do some work, especially since for all of removal that Red got, it did really not get artifact removal, much less artifact removal that really replaces the utter hits to the face that were Kolghanās Command and Smash to Smithereens. So playing Key to the City maindeck seems relatively āsafeā.
I have to goldfish it. Donāt really know what half of those cards do. If cockatrice updates today, I may pile a bunch Of decklists in the coming days.