I don't really follow non tier 1 decks so about those I wouldn't know. I know about Standard because I play against them but since I don't play modern I don't.
Sure older sets phantom sealed events wouldn't have as much players and current set ones. But it's not just being new, it's also because current set sealed prepares you for important events. And some players will fear they'll be joinning events where they have no experience against people with a lot of experience. But if they put up triple rise of eldrazi phantom drafts, those who enjoyed it will play and players like LSV and other pros would draft those and stream or record them and that would get people to try it.
But I understand that new is always more appealing.
I don't disagree with your contention concerning biases but I will say I don't think it is merely the bias at work. People are looking for value. Value in this case being able to turn around cards you aren't currently going to be playing with. Modern has a harder time with that. Shards in particular as Tuga points out has few top winners. It isn't that they are undesirable as old cards but that they were never that desirable outside the framework of being a part of the standard format which is very narrow by comparison. And was more so when Shards was printed. Availability for those cards is already very high. Reprinting them would only serve to drop their value even lower. Who wants to buy in to something that is bound to drop in value immediately after purchase?
I've been building Modern decks for a long time, and I can tell you that outside of tier 1 decks, Modern is cheaper. In both formats, if you want to play net decks that win consistently, you're breaking the bank. Modern is a little bit worse if you enjoy playing control.
Shards is just an example. I'd be willing to bet that phantom sealed events for older sets wouldn't be as popular as the same equivalent events for newer sets. This has nothing to do with acquiring cards or the playability of the format.
Instead, it has everything to do with the simple bias people have of always wanting everything new. As someone who ran a sales business for five years, I can back this up with a fair amount of statistical data. If a product didn't sell right away, it wouldn't sell at all unless I offered some kind of a deal on it. People are willing to pay absurd prices for anything that's new, however.
Why would people want to buy Shards of Alara boosters? I'm even gonna consider the whole block. There's Pulse, Path and Noble Hierarch that I can think of for Modern. Bloodbraid is banned now but I guess it's a player in Legacy. Volcanic Fallout can be a card too. I can see people wanting to get an older set that most people enjoyed but it would still have to be relevant for Modern and Legacy and it's not easy to have many cards for those formats in one set.
New sets have never been drafted so people want to draft them and see how the limited format plays out but also to practice for important events. Limited fuels Standard way more than bigger formats.
New sets will have several relevant cards for Standard and few or even none for bigger formats. Triple Rise of Eldrazi draft is my favourite draft format ever (I started drafting with Timespiral block) but there's a very low EV drafting it and it would be hard to get 7 more players for one.
Standard is cheaper than Modern. I know a Modern deck will never rotate (it might get banned though). Certain decks will get better while others get worse or even become unplayable and new ones pop up but certain stables will always be good. But Standard is cheaper initially. Many kids and teenagers play Magic and those can only use as much money in Magic as their parents allow. Also if you are able to manage your collection correctly, you can keep building good Standard decks for minimal cost (trading cards that will rotate sooner for newer) and keep some that are playable in Modern and eventually they can start playing modern.
A new player entering Standard has way less cards to get to know than going to Modern. Modern can be a bit frightning in that aspect.
And WoTC does support Standard more. There are more Standard GPs than Modern. Standard has PTQ and WMCQ seasons while Modern only has PTQ season and of course limited GPs and PTQ season fuel Standard way more.
Now this is my opinion but I don't like how they are handling Modern. I think there are too many bans and the format is too fair. I know that's what they want but I'd rather have something closer to the old Extended where things like Dark Depths and Thoper Foundry were allowed. They even went as far as banning some "fair" cards because without those combos they would start being too powerful. And some cards like Ancestral Vision and Seething Song is going way too far. I was also expecting that they would give some cards a chance once in a while like unbanning faeries for a while to see how it worked. All this doesn't make me that interested in Modern because I can't play with the cards I liked playing.
It actually has more to do with the bias in human nature where many people prefer new things to old things. You can re-print Shards of Alara if you want, but nobody will buy it. Gatecrash will sell much faster. As a result, players have cards from the newest sets while they often don't have Modern staples. You might see Commander players sometimes, but by no means is Modern anywhere close to as popular as it could be in paper. Part of this has to do with new players simply turning their noses up at old cards.
Well that because WoTC supports Standard more than anything else. Standard is the format that makes people buy the latest editions packs so it's in their best interest to promote Standard (and limited). Of course they need to support other formats too so people don't feel that their old cards are useless. Even in MTGO Standard is the format with most dailies.
I would think one or more Valakuts would help the deck. Also, putting in one Wurmcoil Engine is fine, since no one is going to board in Smash on the chance you draw your one artifact. I suspect you're too slow to fight Burn.dek though, no matter your configuration, just write off that matchup and focus on others. Maybe Chalice of the Void set on 1 or 2 would be useful to board in for some matchups. Spitting Earth over Mizzium Mortars seems to make sense to take advantage of the Reckoner combo.
I also call foul on Spark Elemental. It actually sees a decent amount of play in Modern burn decks. Considerably more play than Hell's Thunder or Ball Lightning get at any rate.
Otherwise, cool lists. I find these articles pretty fun.
As a pauper player, Spark Elementals do show up sometimes in daily event winning burn lists which maybe makes it one of the more played "ball lightnings"
He's OK but the kind of deck that wants a Ball Lightning doesn't usually care about gaining life. If it was a top 10 list he would have made it.
As for Putrefax, it's left over from an earlier version of the list. I changed the words but forgot to change the thumbnail. I did the same thing with Drifter il-Dal up top :X
I am very surprised you didn't mention the new Ball Lightning: Spark Trooper. Not only does it does all the things Ball Lightning does but it has lifelink. :D
You know how in zombie movies some character will go "I can't shoot him; he's my father!" and then some other character will go "He's not your father anymore."
Becoming a zombie robs you of your humanity. WotC's model is unexpected but it makes sense, I would say.
Your last line: that's why Humans are NOT a problem in-game. It's not about the Human TRIBE but the Human TYPE, so to speak (a difference that might just seem ontological, but you know what I mean.) So we don't need to create specific events to put Humans in, but if enough people like the idea of a Human Event, let's do it (at some point down the line, where there's room. Maybe even as a Duel Event Human vs. Monsters?)
There's no urgency AT ALL. I just had a thought about the Human type and I shared it and asked opinions, that's all.
I guess I am not Melvin enough to see the urgency of this. Though that does indeed clarify your thinking a little. As far as already printed nonhumans (Mikaeus) suddenly becoming human I think that's a bit farther fetched than you make out.
Mikaeus is an interesting example actually since he has a former self in white that WAS human. Human to Zombie transformation is a common enough trope that no one even mentioned it when MII was printed. But not all Zombies are former humans so I guess that could be confusing.
However the changes made by Mr Gills were a reorganization of earlier sets based on a changed paradigm R&D has for the way creatures work in magic and to bring existing cards in line with this newer viewpoint. For them (R&D) to feel the need to change massive amounts of creature types again would take a change in the parameters with which they are currently designing creatures and how they imagine further design down the road.
That kind of change would be far more drastic than merely cleaning what doesn't make 100% sense.
As far as the population growth of humans to nonhumans, well OK you're probably right there. And hence my suggestion which you didn't respond to. But this doesn't have anything to do with playing the game. Merely how statisticians (and I guess Melvins??) view data gleaned from examining card printings and trends.
To me the sheer size of human tribe gives it a lot of building room. There are so many ways to build humans that there is no way to say "This is how you build them" which you can pretty do with Elves and Goblins, even as numerous as those two tribes are.
One with Nothing's mama is so fat, we had to take a train and two buses to get on her good side.
Is that better? :)
I don't really follow non tier 1 decks so about those I wouldn't know. I know about Standard because I play against them but since I don't play modern I don't.
Sure older sets phantom sealed events wouldn't have as much players and current set ones. But it's not just being new, it's also because current set sealed prepares you for important events. And some players will fear they'll be joinning events where they have no experience against people with a lot of experience. But if they put up triple rise of eldrazi phantom drafts, those who enjoyed it will play and players like LSV and other pros would draft those and stream or record them and that would get people to try it.
But I understand that new is always more appealing.
I don't disagree with your contention concerning biases but I will say I don't think it is merely the bias at work. People are looking for value. Value in this case being able to turn around cards you aren't currently going to be playing with. Modern has a harder time with that. Shards in particular as Tuga points out has few top winners. It isn't that they are undesirable as old cards but that they were never that desirable outside the framework of being a part of the standard format which is very narrow by comparison. And was more so when Shards was printed. Availability for those cards is already very high. Reprinting them would only serve to drop their value even lower. Who wants to buy in to something that is bound to drop in value immediately after purchase?
I've been building Modern decks for a long time, and I can tell you that outside of tier 1 decks, Modern is cheaper. In both formats, if you want to play net decks that win consistently, you're breaking the bank. Modern is a little bit worse if you enjoy playing control.
Shards is just an example. I'd be willing to bet that phantom sealed events for older sets wouldn't be as popular as the same equivalent events for newer sets. This has nothing to do with acquiring cards or the playability of the format.
Instead, it has everything to do with the simple bias people have of always wanting everything new. As someone who ran a sales business for five years, I can back this up with a fair amount of statistical data. If a product didn't sell right away, it wouldn't sell at all unless I offered some kind of a deal on it. People are willing to pay absurd prices for anything that's new, however.
Gosh apparently I've started a scandal!
I just hope nobody asks me to apologize for my Teferi's Imp rant.
That is partly true but there other reasons:
Why would people want to buy Shards of Alara boosters? I'm even gonna consider the whole block. There's Pulse, Path and Noble Hierarch that I can think of for Modern. Bloodbraid is banned now but I guess it's a player in Legacy. Volcanic Fallout can be a card too. I can see people wanting to get an older set that most people enjoyed but it would still have to be relevant for Modern and Legacy and it's not easy to have many cards for those formats in one set.
New sets have never been drafted so people want to draft them and see how the limited format plays out but also to practice for important events. Limited fuels Standard way more than bigger formats.
New sets will have several relevant cards for Standard and few or even none for bigger formats. Triple Rise of Eldrazi draft is my favourite draft format ever (I started drafting with Timespiral block) but there's a very low EV drafting it and it would be hard to get 7 more players for one.
Standard is cheaper than Modern. I know a Modern deck will never rotate (it might get banned though). Certain decks will get better while others get worse or even become unplayable and new ones pop up but certain stables will always be good. But Standard is cheaper initially. Many kids and teenagers play Magic and those can only use as much money in Magic as their parents allow. Also if you are able to manage your collection correctly, you can keep building good Standard decks for minimal cost (trading cards that will rotate sooner for newer) and keep some that are playable in Modern and eventually they can start playing modern.
A new player entering Standard has way less cards to get to know than going to Modern. Modern can be a bit frightning in that aspect.
And WoTC does support Standard more. There are more Standard GPs than Modern. Standard has PTQ and WMCQ seasons while Modern only has PTQ season and of course limited GPs and PTQ season fuel Standard way more.
Now this is my opinion but I don't like how they are handling Modern. I think there are too many bans and the format is too fair. I know that's what they want but I'd rather have something closer to the old Extended where things like Dark Depths and Thoper Foundry were allowed. They even went as far as banning some "fair" cards because without those combos they would start being too powerful. And some cards like Ancestral Vision and Seething Song is going way too far. I was also expecting that they would give some cards a chance once in a while like unbanning faeries for a while to see how it worked. All this doesn't make me that interested in Modern because I can't play with the cards I liked playing.
I don't hear a lot of ragging from you guys about One with Nothing...Also Has seen play and has been in winning decks are different things.
I feel like this ragging was gratuitous akin to the beating Cotton put on poor Spark Elemental.
One with Nothing has also seen some tourney play.
It actually has more to do with the bias in human nature where many people prefer new things to old things. You can re-print Shards of Alara if you want, but nobody will buy it. Gatecrash will sell much faster. As a result, players have cards from the newest sets while they often don't have Modern staples. You might see Commander players sometimes, but by no means is Modern anywhere close to as popular as it could be in paper. Part of this has to do with new players simply turning their noses up at old cards.
This build seems like a good excuse to include the Vizkopa Guildmage/Exquisite Blood combo, as well as the Mindcrank/Duskmantle Guildmage combo.
I can't believe how hard you guys ragged on Tibalt. Especially considering he HAS seen some tourney play.
Well that because WoTC supports Standard more than anything else. Standard is the format that makes people buy the latest editions packs so it's in their best interest to promote Standard (and limited). Of course they need to support other formats too so people don't feel that their old cards are useless. Even in MTGO Standard is the format with most dailies.
One of my biggest disappointments about the paper game comes from standard. That's all anybody ever plays. :(
Actually, Skred + Snow Mountains is better than Spitting Earth, and probably a lot of other stuff too.
I would think one or more Valakuts would help the deck. Also, putting in one Wurmcoil Engine is fine, since no one is going to board in Smash on the chance you draw your one artifact. I suspect you're too slow to fight Burn.dek though, no matter your configuration, just write off that matchup and focus on others. Maybe Chalice of the Void set on 1 or 2 would be useful to board in for some matchups. Spitting Earth over Mizzium Mortars seems to make sense to take advantage of the Reckoner combo.
I also call foul on Spark Elemental. It actually sees a decent amount of play in Modern burn decks. Considerably more play than Hell's Thunder or Ball Lightning get at any rate.
Otherwise, cool lists. I find these articles pretty fun.
Hmmmmm fair point. I admit to not knowing much about pauper.
oh woops... haha. good catch!
As a pauper player, Spark Elementals do show up sometimes in daily event winning burn lists which maybe makes it one of the more played "ball lightnings"
He's OK but the kind of deck that wants a Ball Lightning doesn't usually care about gaining life. If it was a top 10 list he would have made it.
As for Putrefax, it's left over from an earlier version of the list. I changed the words but forgot to change the thumbnail. I did the same thing with Drifter il-Dal up top :X
Just a quick comment: Mizzium Mortars can't target your own Reckoner. It can only target an opponents card.
I am very surprised you didn't mention the new Ball Lightning: Spark Trooper. Not only does it does all the things Ball Lightning does but it has lifelink. :D
Also: What's with putrefax?
You know how in zombie movies some character will go "I can't shoot him; he's my father!" and then some other character will go "He's not your father anymore."
Becoming a zombie robs you of your humanity. WotC's model is unexpected but it makes sense, I would say.
Your last line: that's why Humans are NOT a problem in-game. It's not about the Human TRIBE but the Human TYPE, so to speak (a difference that might just seem ontological, but you know what I mean.) So we don't need to create specific events to put Humans in, but if enough people like the idea of a Human Event, let's do it (at some point down the line, where there's room. Maybe even as a Duel Event Human vs. Monsters?)
There's no urgency AT ALL. I just had a thought about the Human type and I shared it and asked opinions, that's all.
I guess I am not Melvin enough to see the urgency of this. Though that does indeed clarify your thinking a little. As far as already printed nonhumans (Mikaeus) suddenly becoming human I think that's a bit farther fetched than you make out.
Mikaeus is an interesting example actually since he has a former self in white that WAS human. Human to Zombie transformation is a common enough trope that no one even mentioned it when MII was printed. But not all Zombies are former humans so I guess that could be confusing.
However the changes made by Mr Gills were a reorganization of earlier sets based on a changed paradigm R&D has for the way creatures work in magic and to bring existing cards in line with this newer viewpoint. For them (R&D) to feel the need to change massive amounts of creature types again would take a change in the parameters with which they are currently designing creatures and how they imagine further design down the road.
That kind of change would be far more drastic than merely cleaning what doesn't make 100% sense.
As far as the population growth of humans to nonhumans, well OK you're probably right there. And hence my suggestion which you didn't respond to. But this doesn't have anything to do with playing the game. Merely how statisticians (and I guess Melvins??) view data gleaned from examining card printings and trends.
To me the sheer size of human tribe gives it a lot of building room. There are so many ways to build humans that there is no way to say "This is how you build them" which you can pretty do with Elves and Goblins, even as numerous as those two tribes are.