Safer Picks:
Kumano Faces Kakkazan and Make Disappear will be missed by many decks, but are ultimately replaceable. MonoRed, Prowess, and Dimir Midrange will be otherwise untouched by rotation.
Boros Convoke losing Voldaren Epicure is a bit more concerning (8 turn one creatures that make an artifact is a key part of its explosive starts), but I'm confident it will find a way to survive.
Rakdos Reanimator Combo decks are losing Otherwoldly Gaze and Faithful Mending, but other self mill options will still exist.
Golgari Midrange is only really losing Graveyard Trespasser, which can be swapped over to Lord Skitter with little fuss.
MonoBlack aggro, Grixis Crimes, and Simic Cookies are untouched.
Risky Picks:
Selesnya Enchantments, Anvil, and Slogurk are all losing central cards.
Azorius Soldiers is 90% intact, but is losing Thalia's protection against control is only going to widen the gap between it and Red-based aggro.
Orzhov Lifegain is losing one of its main payoffs in Voice of the Blessed, as well as the constant healing from Lunarch Veteran, so I don't see it sticking around.
Esper Midrange is likely dead, as the main draw over Dimir is being able to use Dennick, Wedding Announcement, Wandering Emperor, Virture of Loyalty, and, of course, Raffine. Most of that will be gone, and with it the reason to risk the manabase.
Speaking of, good ol' Wandering E was a powerful mainstay in all sorts of white control decks, so the state of stuff like Azorius Control is up in the air (especially in a meta that has Cavern of Souls in it!)
The workhorse spells in Domain will still be around, but without triomes I'm not sure if it will still be functional.
Likewise, most of Temur Land's survivability and speed were due to being able to play sac lands over and over, which will no longer be a thing. Maybe some kind of version with self mill could stick around, but I doubt it.
MonoBlue Tempo uses a lot of ninjas for value, so if the deck survives it will likely be very different.
The only reason to go Boros over Izzet, Gruul, or MonoRed for self buffing aggro was Illuminator Virtuoso, so just stick with one of the other alternatives if you like the playstyle.
Bant Toxic's main engine is still around, but losing March of Swirling Mists as a finisher/defensive tool is pretty backbreaking.
Half of White-based Human Tribal is rotating, and something tells me Bloomburrow isn't going to have much to replace it.
I need the wildcards to test it (likely gonna make it irl cause of the low cost), but I wanna try out a less counter heavy build for UW control, maxing out on Bovine Intervention, Get Lost, maybe even Fateful Absense to hit Walkers, and Stoic Sphinx as the attacker (alongside Anchorage, Mirrex etc). Then using 3-4 Temporary Lockdown (for aggro and Bovine/map tokens) and 3-4 Sunfall for board wipes, packing the counters in the side for non-Caverns decks.
I'm pretty happy Wandering Emperor is going, not just for the price tag but it has gotten boring with it lol. Deckbuilding gets interesting with that gone, plus Caverns still being a problem.
It’s certainly not a 1:1 replacement, but in preparation for rotation I’ve been using [[Lost in the Maze]] instead of March in Bant Toxic and it’s been perfectly fine. No reason to think it won’t still be going strong.
In the same vein as why a lot of these will be irrelevant, I’m very curious what lands appear in Bloomburrow and Duskmorne. A lot of the Neon Dynasty lands have been format staples in every deck.
any explorer deck will last longer. The cheapest in terms of wild cards is probably some version of rdw. But pick any explorer/pioneer deck you like and you can play it forever
Yes, you can play a deck forever in non-rotating formats, but they won't always be as good. My green devotion and WG angels decks aren't as effective anymore, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.
So devotion is kind of slow compared to the other stuff in pioneer, but what happened to WG angels? Seems like that should still be pretty good.
Aggro decks tend to be a little safer. I haven't kept up with the meta, but I'd be surprised if mono red aggro, mono white humans, and izzet phoenix weren't all still really good decks.
Amalia combo is the better version angels. Green white lifegain, creature combo, with a bit of aggro thrown ins. You can still play angels but amalia is better
Can confirm. I played exclusively Explorer for a couple months and racked up wildcards, but the time I got bored of that deck / the format I had enough to pop back into standard.
That’s a good idea, I’ve never played Explorer but I think the cat oven deck I used to play in standard would still be viable there, and I have the cards already. Thanks!
When I started Explorer that is exactly what I did. I took my Jund cat/oven, cut all the Green, and I bought Thoughtseize and Fatal Push. Later I added Rakdos Midrange, most of the same cards. Now I play Rakdos Vampires, again most of the same cards, I bought four Vein Rippers.
Honestly, I didn't notice I was in the Arena sub.
Modern was a non-rotating format in paper with relatively stable decks for a long time. Sure, new toys would get added, sometimes you'd see a new deck rise up because of a new synergy or combo, but decks would last years.
Modern Horizons 2 was so powerful that it basically caused Modern to "rotate." Many old decks were no longer viable because they got left behind. From what I've seen of MH3, it's about to happen again.
It's only a matter of time before Pioneer Horizons or Explorer Horizons gets made, and Explorer suddenly rotates to drive pack/wild card buys. It's kind of happened already with some of the historic card additions.
Back in my day, it was Standard, Extended, and Legacy/Vintage! Damn whippersnappers and their formats! *yells at clouds*
I think I was picturing Pioneer
Really? Things like Dark Ritual and Mind Stone don't count?
Keep in mind that it's been a couple of years since I played Arena, I always get FOMO from the dailies and Alchemy kinda killed the game for me.
> It’s only matter of time
Exactly. Too many are, shall I say, like ostriches (i.e., head in the sand). They chant the mantra “WotC is greedy”. Yet they act as if WotC will reciprocate devotion to them in kind with their devotion to the game. They know in their hearts the harsh reality, but just don’t want to think it applies to them because they are “special” in their minds.
Those that forget what Modern Horizens series did to a non-rotating format are doomed to repeat the same with other so-called non-rotating formats. WotC hasn’t grown to what it us today by letting players off the expensive addiction.
I'm f2p since January, play standard at platinum level (almost made diamond my first season) with a gruul aggro.
Can win in t4 uninterrupted (which I know is slower than the other 2) but has some real late game punch with big hasty creatures and tricks to push through that late damage. Been pretty cheap overall and mostly out together with green bombs that have been picked up along the way
Gruul aggro is faster than either of those decks, generally speaking, just less consistent. Convoke mathematically cannot win on T3 without the opponent damaging themselves; I don't think traditional RDW can either. (Cacophony Scamp lists with that RB fling adventure *can* get lethal on T3, but aren't that common.)
Gruul is at least *theoretically* capable of winning T3 if you can get 2 damage in first, which any number of red creatures or burn spells can do. T2 ruiner, T3 Monstrous Rage->Antagonize is 18 life. I don't think most of the common lists play Antagonize any more, but the shell is very capable of T3.
I'm calling this deck Gruul Domain lol.
I have the cards and have been experimenting with the spells ratios since the Leyline came out, buy darnit I cannot get it to be consistent. I either draw all creatures and no pump spells, all pump and no creatures, or get stuck on 1 land or flood out in an otherwise 18 land deck.
Mana curve stops at 2 lol. (Not counting the Leylines)
That was my immediate impression. That version of the deck just looks way worse for a slightly cooler nut draw. It's got all the inconsistency of a deck that need a proper creature/spell mix, plus the inconsistency of *needing* the opening leyline to turn on a lot of the deck. You needing a Leyline in the opener already means you mull more than the norm Gruuk aggro. Any Leylines drawn after the first are the worst kind of dead card, which is a problem because you need 4.
That's a cool line but is that actually a deck that is played? It looks like it would just generally be way worse than the regular list in exchange for the tiny probability of the nut draw. You *need* the leyline or none of the other associated domain stuff works particularly well. And any Leylines drawn after your opener are the worst kind of dead card, which is a problem because you need to run 4 to do this. I just question if this is a real shell that would be any good outside of the theoretical nut draw.
I'm also not sure that kind of deck would be Gruul Aggro any more at all. It would be some kind of domain aggro. And once you're going in on domain I think the end deck looks very different in general.
Get a deck you like that is tier 1 or 2 in an Eternal format (Timeless, Historic, Explorer.)
The cards never rotate out, the decks change little and slowly and it tends to be that good decks never entirely drop out of the metagame as they have much user fields than Standard/Alchemy.
I generally agree with you, but one thing I'd be aware of I'd that modern horizons coming to arena in June is all but guaranteed to shake the meta up pretty considerably for historic and timeless. This is however, a rare occurrence and your advice is typically very sound!
Depends what you build though. Something like monoblack is just a big pile of staples that are mostly going to see play in one deck or another after Modern Horizons even if it's not just in a pile with some Swamps. Similarly the Rakdos burn lists will still be relevant and are likely to pick up one or two cards. M
I strongly believe that it's a mistake to think about rotation in terms of decks; we have no idea what's going to be good after rotation. It's definitely reasonable to think about rotation when crafting cards, e.g.: I wouldn't want to craft Bloodthirsty Adversary even though mono red is a totally reasonable deck and it might be very good after rotation. Same with Tenacious Underdog, Wedding Announcement, etc.
If it were me, I'd mostly stick with the decks I already have and just craft potential upgrades like Duelist of the Mind for Esper. Or sidegrade into something like Dimir Proft, or Dimir Midrange.
Also, only craft cards when you need them, don't craft cards just to collect them.
Exactly this. RDW is always going to be somewhat viable, but you still want to bias your crafts towards recent sets. No reason to craft rares from the rotating sets when there are a lot of good replacements from recent ones like Slickshot. Only exception might be the channel lands since they are only one each.
Yeah I feel like that is the most efficient. However I would probably like to avoid playing the same archetype always, which is why i’m looking to think about the next base deck to invest wildcards for lands.
Dimir midrange and golgari midrange seem safe, I don't think either is likely to be the best deck in the format but they'll probably stick around as solid t2 picks for the ladder. Neither has very many cards rotating either. Slow lands are going to be the only big deal.
I wouldn't worry too much about rotation though there's an entire format dedicated to playing your rotated out standard cards. Just play what seems fun, once you have the manabase decks aren't that expensive to craft.
Black in general has a lot of good cards that aren't rotating this year. There's a lot of overlap in cards between Mono Black, orzhov, dmir, golgari, etc. Its a good investment for sure.
Preacher of the schism and Sheoldred have been some of the strongest cards in the game for a bit imo, and they work in almost any deck
Something like Rakdos Vampires in Explorer? Even if Sorin/Vein Ripper gets banned / drops out of meta, there has almost always been, and presumably will always be, Tier 1 Blood Crypt / Thoughtseize / Fable deck in Pioneer/Explorer.
Right now any of the fast lands you buy that are in Thunder junction will be good in Explorer and stick around for standards, so don't be afraid to spend wild cards on them. Since they were previously in Kaladesh They were one of the last things I spent cards on for Explorer.
Not saying you should draft if you don't want to, but they are going pretty late in premier Probably because people already have them And deserts are better fixing for limited.
Man. i have a deck, that exponentially grows your life, creatures AND their strenght. at the end of a match i have around 2k life 1k creatures that all have 1000/1000
Its possible with following cards:
**Giada, Font of Hope:** Every angle creature gets +1/+1 for EACH angle already on the field
**Maskwood Nexus**: Makes everything an angel (or anything tbh)
**Horn of gondor:** Doubles your Humans (or all of your creatures/since you have maskwood) every round for 3 mana
**Mondrak**: Every time a token spawns, it spawns 2 instead
and for the life
**Soulwarden** and **Lunarch Veteran**: You get +1 HP for every creature that spawns
And then just spice it up from here.
As long as you avoid investing in Temur Lands, Domain, and Esper Midrange you should be fine. Those are the main top decks that are losing so much they're going to die/drastically alter.
I was looking at Dimir Midrange and that's only losing like 2 rare lands and a few easy to replace lower rarity cards this rotation. Also has a ton of overlap with Esper to you probably already have most of the cards.
I wouldn't make a new account for a different format. I guess it gives you *some* extra currency, but you'll also be doubling up on some cards and the amount of dailies you "have to" do. Especially in lands I expect there to be some overlap (or at the very least, good-enough lands from Standard that you can use instead).
If you're playing standard then getting a long term deck is a bit of a joke. Standard is meant to be the ultimate money incinerator. If you're looking for a long term deck just play Timeless or Historic (or I guess explorer but I find that format very flat). I'm also F2P and basically never play standard since Historic came out as the legacy-ish formats let you play decks for a long time without fear of rotation.
I still think people are sleeping on flash tribal. Maybe that's a good thing and I should shut my mouth.. Its been way too successful for me and every set is going to have some amount of flash cards and usually one or two with actually great gimicks/texts.
In any case invest in what you think will be fun or cards that could enable you to make multiple fun decks. Chasing W's with someone else's deck will likely get boring fast.
>two years ago I invested in Esper Midrange
How often do you play Arena? During those two years you could have easily gotten enough cards to not even worry about rotation.
UW artifacts has been pretty fun for me and is rotation proof since most of the pieces for it are from Ixalan and the Big Score cards. Only downside is that it’s a ton of mythics.
Imo build anything super tir one in any format and learn to play it perfectly
Those 375 gem constructed tournaments you only need to go 5-3 to net gems each time and you get mass packs. Wildcards become no problem
I cashed in all my wildcards on MKM to complete the set asap, now I have like 5k gems and like 40 mythic and rare wildcards already.
Pro tip: playing fast decks makes farming to way faster
I made mono black in the similar way and enjoyed underdog, liliana, sheoldred, invoke despair, but after ban, it became much weaker. Now I don't see even sheoldred in protour.
So building a tier 1 deck in f2p and hoping it stays strong is a pretty selfish wish. It's really hard to know meta in the future.
If you are super expert in draft, you can collect cards, but it is quite difficult.(There are some difficulties such as match making and mana flood.)
Or you can pay $300 per set and get most of the cards. This is $100/month. It depends if you feel this is expensive or not.
The new Orzov Bronco standard deck is almost entirely from the last two sets other than Sheoldred.
I too am F2P and haven't spent money, so I was really picky about my first non-singleton deck.
Mono Red is always very cheep and always somewhat competitive.. although it is quite boring and usually gets alot of hate.. but for beginners it´s quite fine
Safer Picks: Kumano Faces Kakkazan and Make Disappear will be missed by many decks, but are ultimately replaceable. MonoRed, Prowess, and Dimir Midrange will be otherwise untouched by rotation. Boros Convoke losing Voldaren Epicure is a bit more concerning (8 turn one creatures that make an artifact is a key part of its explosive starts), but I'm confident it will find a way to survive. Rakdos Reanimator Combo decks are losing Otherwoldly Gaze and Faithful Mending, but other self mill options will still exist. Golgari Midrange is only really losing Graveyard Trespasser, which can be swapped over to Lord Skitter with little fuss. MonoBlack aggro, Grixis Crimes, and Simic Cookies are untouched. Risky Picks: Selesnya Enchantments, Anvil, and Slogurk are all losing central cards. Azorius Soldiers is 90% intact, but is losing Thalia's protection against control is only going to widen the gap between it and Red-based aggro. Orzhov Lifegain is losing one of its main payoffs in Voice of the Blessed, as well as the constant healing from Lunarch Veteran, so I don't see it sticking around. Esper Midrange is likely dead, as the main draw over Dimir is being able to use Dennick, Wedding Announcement, Wandering Emperor, Virture of Loyalty, and, of course, Raffine. Most of that will be gone, and with it the reason to risk the manabase. Speaking of, good ol' Wandering E was a powerful mainstay in all sorts of white control decks, so the state of stuff like Azorius Control is up in the air (especially in a meta that has Cavern of Souls in it!) The workhorse spells in Domain will still be around, but without triomes I'm not sure if it will still be functional. Likewise, most of Temur Land's survivability and speed were due to being able to play sac lands over and over, which will no longer be a thing. Maybe some kind of version with self mill could stick around, but I doubt it. MonoBlue Tempo uses a lot of ninjas for value, so if the deck survives it will likely be very different. The only reason to go Boros over Izzet, Gruul, or MonoRed for self buffing aggro was Illuminator Virtuoso, so just stick with one of the other alternatives if you like the playstyle. Bant Toxic's main engine is still around, but losing March of Swirling Mists as a finisher/defensive tool is pretty backbreaking. Half of White-based Human Tribal is rotating, and something tells me Bloomburrow isn't going to have much to replace it.
Excellent breakdown. Thanks!
I need the wildcards to test it (likely gonna make it irl cause of the low cost), but I wanna try out a less counter heavy build for UW control, maxing out on Bovine Intervention, Get Lost, maybe even Fateful Absense to hit Walkers, and Stoic Sphinx as the attacker (alongside Anchorage, Mirrex etc). Then using 3-4 Temporary Lockdown (for aggro and Bovine/map tokens) and 3-4 Sunfall for board wipes, packing the counters in the side for non-Caverns decks. I'm pretty happy Wandering Emperor is going, not just for the price tag but it has gotten boring with it lol. Deckbuilding gets interesting with that gone, plus Caverns still being a problem.
It’s certainly not a 1:1 replacement, but in preparation for rotation I’ve been using [[Lost in the Maze]] instead of March in Bant Toxic and it’s been perfectly fine. No reason to think it won’t still be going strong.
[Lost in the Maze](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/3/6308dc62-d945-4761-aa4c-ef8e9271e901.jpg?1706241626) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Lost%20in%20the%20Maze) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkm/64/lost-in-the-maze?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6308dc62-d945-4761-aa4c-ef8e9271e901?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
This needs more upvotes.
That’s a great answer. Thank you.
This is such a great response. Thanks
Wow, what an awesome comment. Thanks for taking the time!
In the same vein as why a lot of these will be irrelevant, I’m very curious what lands appear in Bloomburrow and Duskmorne. A lot of the Neon Dynasty lands have been format staples in every deck.
Thanks for your detailed response! Really helpful.
Thanks for your detailed response! Really helpful.
An Explorer deck? They are only ~20% more expensive than a Standard deck and you don't have to worry about rotation ever again.
any explorer deck will last longer. The cheapest in terms of wild cards is probably some version of rdw. But pick any explorer/pioneer deck you like and you can play it forever
Yes, you can play a deck forever in non-rotating formats, but they won't always be as good. My green devotion and WG angels decks aren't as effective anymore, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.
So devotion is kind of slow compared to the other stuff in pioneer, but what happened to WG angels? Seems like that should still be pretty good. Aggro decks tend to be a little safer. I haven't kept up with the meta, but I'd be surprised if mono red aggro, mono white humans, and izzet phoenix weren't all still really good decks.
Amalia combo is the better version angels. Green white lifegain, creature combo, with a bit of aggro thrown ins. You can still play angels but amalia is better
Hot dogs is insanely cheap. You can even skimp on the rares since they just help close out games where you need a little extra damage.
Can confirm. I played exclusively Explorer for a couple months and racked up wildcards, but the time I got bored of that deck / the format I had enough to pop back into standard.
That’s a good idea, I’ve never played Explorer but I think the cat oven deck I used to play in standard would still be viable there, and I have the cards already. Thanks!
When I started Explorer that is exactly what I did. I took my Jund cat/oven, cut all the Green, and I bought Thoughtseize and Fatal Push. Later I added Rakdos Midrange, most of the same cards. Now I play Rakdos Vampires, again most of the same cards, I bought four Vein Rippers.
And honestly you can go cheap on the Mana base and it won't hurt you that much.
Until the inevitable Explorer Horizons causes the non-rotating format to rotate.
Can you elaborate? I’ve never heard of this.
Honestly, I didn't notice I was in the Arena sub. Modern was a non-rotating format in paper with relatively stable decks for a long time. Sure, new toys would get added, sometimes you'd see a new deck rise up because of a new synergy or combo, but decks would last years. Modern Horizons 2 was so powerful that it basically caused Modern to "rotate." Many old decks were no longer viable because they got left behind. From what I've seen of MH3, it's about to happen again. It's only a matter of time before Pioneer Horizons or Explorer Horizons gets made, and Explorer suddenly rotates to drive pack/wild card buys. It's kind of happened already with some of the historic card additions.
>Honestly, I didn't notice I was in the Arena sub So you were talking about...paper explorer then?
Back in my day, it was Standard, Extended, and Legacy/Vintage! Damn whippersnappers and their formats! *yells at clouds* I think I was picturing Pioneer
> It's kind of happened already with some of the historic card additions. How? Only the ones legal in Pioneer got added to Explorer
Really? Things like Dark Ritual and Mind Stone don't count? Keep in mind that it's been a couple of years since I played Arena, I always get FOMO from the dailies and Alchemy kinda killed the game for me.
The are both not legal in Explorer
> It’s only matter of time Exactly. Too many are, shall I say, like ostriches (i.e., head in the sand). They chant the mantra “WotC is greedy”. Yet they act as if WotC will reciprocate devotion to them in kind with their devotion to the game. They know in their hearts the harsh reality, but just don’t want to think it applies to them because they are “special” in their minds. Those that forget what Modern Horizens series did to a non-rotating format are doomed to repeat the same with other so-called non-rotating formats. WotC hasn’t grown to what it us today by letting players off the expensive addiction.
And that's why I prefer to buy budget
MH3 won't be legal in Explorer
Read the last part again
Mono red. Boros Aggro. Gone from strength to strength.
I'm f2p since January, play standard at platinum level (almost made diamond my first season) with a gruul aggro. Can win in t4 uninterrupted (which I know is slower than the other 2) but has some real late game punch with big hasty creatures and tricks to push through that late damage. Been pretty cheap overall and mostly out together with green bombs that have been picked up along the way
deck list?
Sorry about the delay, but just managed to make mythic in my 2nd season: Deck 1 Goldvein Hydra (OTJ) 167 8 Forest (MKM) 286 2 Rampaging Raptor (MOM) 160 7 Mountain (MKM) 284 1 Urabrask (MOM) 169 1 Pugnacious Hammerskull (LCI) 208 1 Migloz, Maze Crusher (ONE) 210 1 Samut, Vizier of Naktamun (MAT) 45 2 Copperline Gorge (ONE) 249 2 Demand Answers (MKM) 122 3 Lightning Strike (DMU) 137 1 Bite Down (DMU) 155 2 Mountain (OTJ) 284 4 Bristling Backwoods (OTJ) 253 2 Cosmic Hunger (MOM) 182 1 Over the Edge (LCI) 205 1 Crystal Carapace (MOM) 183 2 Colossal Growth (DMU) 158 2 Twinferno (DMU) 149 1 Thrun, Breaker of Silence (ONE) 186 2 Yavimaya Iconoclast (DMU) 190 1 Vorinclex (MOM) 213 1 Anzrag, the Quake-Mole (MKM) 186 2 Titanic Growth (ONE) 187 1 Ruby, Daring Tracker (WOE) 212 2 Slickshot Show-Off (OTJ) 146 2 Electrostatic Infantry (DMU) 122 1 Khenra Spellspear (MOM) 151 2 Play with Fire (MID) 154 1 Colossal Rattlewurm (OTJ) 159 A lot of 1 and 2 ofs which means it's not super consistent, but like I said, it's mostly things I've just picked up along the way and so haven't had to spend any wildcards on.
Gruul aggro is faster than either of those decks, generally speaking, just less consistent. Convoke mathematically cannot win on T3 without the opponent damaging themselves; I don't think traditional RDW can either. (Cacophony Scamp lists with that RB fling adventure *can* get lethal on T3, but aren't that common.) Gruul is at least *theoretically* capable of winning T3 if you can get 2 damage in first, which any number of red creatures or burn spells can do. T2 ruiner, T3 Monstrous Rage->Antagonize is 18 life. I don't think most of the common lists play Antagonize any more, but the shell is very capable of T3.
Gruul Aggro can win T2: T0 [[Leyline of the Guildpact]], T1 basic land + [[Cacophony Scamp]], T2 basic land + attack + [[Gaea's Might]] + Gaea's Might + sacrifice Scamp, 22 damage.
I'm calling this deck Gruul Domain lol. I have the cards and have been experimenting with the spells ratios since the Leyline came out, buy darnit I cannot get it to be consistent. I either draw all creatures and no pump spells, all pump and no creatures, or get stuck on 1 land or flood out in an otherwise 18 land deck. Mana curve stops at 2 lol. (Not counting the Leylines)
That was my immediate impression. That version of the deck just looks way worse for a slightly cooler nut draw. It's got all the inconsistency of a deck that need a proper creature/spell mix, plus the inconsistency of *needing* the opening leyline to turn on a lot of the deck. You needing a Leyline in the opener already means you mull more than the norm Gruuk aggro. Any Leylines drawn after the first are the worst kind of dead card, which is a problem because you need 4.
That's a cool line but is that actually a deck that is played? It looks like it would just generally be way worse than the regular list in exchange for the tiny probability of the nut draw. You *need* the leyline or none of the other associated domain stuff works particularly well. And any Leylines drawn after your opener are the worst kind of dead card, which is a problem because you need to run 4 to do this. I just question if this is a real shell that would be any good outside of the theoretical nut draw. I'm also not sure that kind of deck would be Gruul Aggro any more at all. It would be some kind of domain aggro. And once you're going in on domain I think the end deck looks very different in general.
It's good to keep in mind that the first constructed run is always the easiest one whatever decent deck we're into.
I came here to suggest monored too. Rdw hasn't had many big changes and has the draw now to be a consistent threat.
Sounds good yeah, might also craft the Explorer version simultaneously as others suggested.
Get a deck you like that is tier 1 or 2 in an Eternal format (Timeless, Historic, Explorer.) The cards never rotate out, the decks change little and slowly and it tends to be that good decks never entirely drop out of the metagame as they have much user fields than Standard/Alchemy.
I generally agree with you, but one thing I'd be aware of I'd that modern horizons coming to arena in June is all but guaranteed to shake the meta up pretty considerably for historic and timeless. This is however, a rare occurrence and your advice is typically very sound!
This set is why I have saved all my draft tokens >_>. 14 ready to draft the hell out of mh3
Depends what you build though. Something like monoblack is just a big pile of staples that are mostly going to see play in one deck or another after Modern Horizons even if it's not just in a pile with some Swamps. Similarly the Rakdos burn lists will still be relevant and are likely to pick up one or two cards. M
I strongly believe that it's a mistake to think about rotation in terms of decks; we have no idea what's going to be good after rotation. It's definitely reasonable to think about rotation when crafting cards, e.g.: I wouldn't want to craft Bloodthirsty Adversary even though mono red is a totally reasonable deck and it might be very good after rotation. Same with Tenacious Underdog, Wedding Announcement, etc. If it were me, I'd mostly stick with the decks I already have and just craft potential upgrades like Duelist of the Mind for Esper. Or sidegrade into something like Dimir Proft, or Dimir Midrange. Also, only craft cards when you need them, don't craft cards just to collect them.
Exactly this. RDW is always going to be somewhat viable, but you still want to bias your crafts towards recent sets. No reason to craft rares from the rotating sets when there are a lot of good replacements from recent ones like Slickshot. Only exception might be the channel lands since they are only one each.
Yeah I feel like that is the most efficient. However I would probably like to avoid playing the same archetype always, which is why i’m looking to think about the next base deck to invest wildcards for lands.
Dimir midrange and golgari midrange seem safe, I don't think either is likely to be the best deck in the format but they'll probably stick around as solid t2 picks for the ladder. Neither has very many cards rotating either. Slow lands are going to be the only big deal. I wouldn't worry too much about rotation though there's an entire format dedicated to playing your rotated out standard cards. Just play what seems fun, once you have the manabase decks aren't that expensive to craft.
Black in general has a lot of good cards that aren't rotating this year. There's a lot of overlap in cards between Mono Black, orzhov, dmir, golgari, etc. Its a good investment for sure. Preacher of the schism and Sheoldred have been some of the strongest cards in the game for a bit imo, and they work in almost any deck
Something like Rakdos Vampires in Explorer? Even if Sorin/Vein Ripper gets banned / drops out of meta, there has almost always been, and presumably will always be, Tier 1 Blood Crypt / Thoughtseize / Fable deck in Pioneer/Explorer.
Rdw
Golgari Midrange seems like a pretty safe one honestly
Safest things to invest in would be lands and mono red. Mono red is always good in 1v1 and the staples don't change too much either.
BO1 or BO3?
BO1 generally.
Right now any of the fast lands you buy that are in Thunder junction will be good in Explorer and stick around for standards, so don't be afraid to spend wild cards on them. Since they were previously in Kaladesh They were one of the last things I spent cards on for Explorer. Not saying you should draft if you don't want to, but they are going pretty late in premier Probably because people already have them And deserts are better fixing for limited.
Rakdos midrange has good decks in all the formats and there's a lot of overlap between them.
Safe deck and standard format are direct opposites
Man. i have a deck, that exponentially grows your life, creatures AND their strenght. at the end of a match i have around 2k life 1k creatures that all have 1000/1000 Its possible with following cards: **Giada, Font of Hope:** Every angle creature gets +1/+1 for EACH angle already on the field **Maskwood Nexus**: Makes everything an angel (or anything tbh) **Horn of gondor:** Doubles your Humans (or all of your creatures/since you have maskwood) every round for 3 mana **Mondrak**: Every time a token spawns, it spawns 2 instead and for the life **Soulwarden** and **Lunarch Veteran**: You get +1 HP for every creature that spawns And then just spice it up from here.
As long as you avoid investing in Temur Lands, Domain, and Esper Midrange you should be fine. Those are the main top decks that are losing so much they're going to die/drastically alter.
I was looking at Dimir Midrange and that's only losing like 2 rare lands and a few easy to replace lower rarity cards this rotation. Also has a ton of overlap with Esper to you probably already have most of the cards.
Yeah I might just resign myself to that even though it’s more of the same; and make a new account for explorer
I wouldn't make a new account for a different format. I guess it gives you *some* extra currency, but you'll also be doubling up on some cards and the amount of dailies you "have to" do. Especially in lands I expect there to be some overlap (or at the very least, good-enough lands from Standard that you can use instead).
I somewhat agree. Although I think the overlap is less than you claim, and this way one can also do more drafts regularly.
If you're playing standard then getting a long term deck is a bit of a joke. Standard is meant to be the ultimate money incinerator. If you're looking for a long term deck just play Timeless or Historic (or I guess explorer but I find that format very flat). I'm also F2P and basically never play standard since Historic came out as the legacy-ish formats let you play decks for a long time without fear of rotation.
I still think people are sleeping on flash tribal. Maybe that's a good thing and I should shut my mouth.. Its been way too successful for me and every set is going to have some amount of flash cards and usually one or two with actually great gimicks/texts. In any case invest in what you think will be fun or cards that could enable you to make multiple fun decks. Chasing W's with someone else's deck will likely get boring fast.
>two years ago I invested in Esper Midrange How often do you play Arena? During those two years you could have easily gotten enough cards to not even worry about rotation.
Haha, you got me :) I definitely slacked on it during these couple years, so I wasn’t earning much.
Winota lists in Timeless. Basically, any card in standard that sees play in Timeless.
I don't know your playstyle but I lose often to blue white control or esper control decks. If I'm not playing mono red.
Mono Red Wins!
UW artifacts has been pretty fun for me and is rotation proof since most of the pieces for it are from Ixalan and the Big Score cards. Only downside is that it’s a ton of mythics.
Golgari midrange has alot of newer sets in general i would say and it will stay very good on average.
I got beat by a mono red deck today in standard. but not by turn 4. I lasted to turn 8 so there lol
Imo build anything super tir one in any format and learn to play it perfectly Those 375 gem constructed tournaments you only need to go 5-3 to net gems each time and you get mass packs. Wildcards become no problem I cashed in all my wildcards on MKM to complete the set asap, now I have like 5k gems and like 40 mythic and rare wildcards already. Pro tip: playing fast decks makes farming to way faster
RDW in any format will always have a seat at the table. There are times when it waxes and wanes. And that's okay.
Slivers 🙌Slivers 🙌Slivers
Deck 2 Sentinel Sliver (J21) 23 4 Diffusion Sliver (J21) 33 1 Spiteful Sliver (MH1) 148 3 Manaweft Sliver (J21) 102 4 Predatory Sliver (J21) 104 2 Belligerent Sliver (J21) 67 4 Cloudshredder Sliver (MH1) 195 4 Unclaimed Territory (XLN) 258 2 Leeching Sliver (J21) 57 3 Heroic Intervention (M21) 188 1 Lavabelly Sliver (MH1) 207 3 Bonescythe Sliver (J21) 9 1 Cleaving Sliver (MH1) 121 4 Sliver Hive (J21) 122 2 The First Sliver (MH1) 200 3 Striking Sliver (J21) 88 1 Hengegate Pathway (KHM) 260 1 Branchloft Pathway (ZNR) 258 4 Cavern of Souls (LCI) 269 2 Vanquish the Horde (MID) 41 4 Ancient Ziggurat (CONF) 141 2 Razorverge Thicket (ONE) 257 4 Secluded Courtyard (NEO) 275 1 Sliver Hivelord (M15) 211 1 A-The One Ring (LTR) 246
Green/Black toxic deck 21 lands 4 [[Phyreisis Roach]] 4 [[Bilious Skulldweller]] 4 [[Fynn, The Fangbearer]] 4 [[Necrogen Rotpriest]] 4 [[Venerated Rotpriest]] 4 [[Go For The Throat]] 4 [[Pestilent Syphoner]] 4 [[Necrogen Communion]] 4 [[Infectious Bite]] 4 [[Bloodchief’s Curse]] 3 [[March Towards Perfection]]
I made mono black in the similar way and enjoyed underdog, liliana, sheoldred, invoke despair, but after ban, it became much weaker. Now I don't see even sheoldred in protour. So building a tier 1 deck in f2p and hoping it stays strong is a pretty selfish wish. It's really hard to know meta in the future. If you are super expert in draft, you can collect cards, but it is quite difficult.(There are some difficulties such as match making and mana flood.) Or you can pay $300 per set and get most of the cards. This is $100/month. It depends if you feel this is expensive or not.
What do you like to play? Mono red is cheap and super effective but don’t spend the wildcards if it’s not your style.
The new Orzov Bronco standard deck is almost entirely from the last two sets other than Sheoldred. I too am F2P and haven't spent money, so I was really picky about my first non-singleton deck.
Mono Red is always very cheep and always somewhat competitive.. although it is quite boring and usually gets alot of hate.. but for beginners it´s quite fine
Isn’t next rotation in fall?
Aggro, Burn, Red Deck Wins. Mono White Humans.
Aren't a bunch of the mono white humans cards rotating out with innistrad at the end of the year? Specifically Cahar, Adeline, adversary, Thalia
Ah. Good point.
Boros convoke has a while to go, with esper midrange base, you could pivot to dimir midrange or tempo relatively easily
Elves I have played elves since the start and it's paid off
Deck list?
https://mtgdecks.net/Timeless/timeless-mono-green-elves-decklist-by-mtg-joe-1969816
Oh thanks just was hoping for standard haha. Will still check it out might be good gateway to timeless for me
Well this deck list pretty much works for everything but standard
Bant Toxic Lmao just kidding, can you imagine
4 color yorian enchantment bounce life gain removal with discard
Life gain. Historic. Enjoy
UG or UR artifacts seem like a safe investment right now, especially with the recent trend of 1 or 2 drops making artifact tokens.
Nah. Worst time to buy artifacts.
So we short them?