this might sound like a silly topic (if so, there is not enough silly topics here) but i am interested in what you consider to be the best three cards in the format. the cards that you consider "building decks around", cards that you always want, that do the most (clear definition of "best" is what you want it to be). i am interested if there is much overlap across the many different metas and if there is overlap at all. also its kinda fun to ponder about it :)
my top3
mystical tutor
sylvan caryatid
thundermaw hellkite
Top 3 4 cards in Highlander for me are: Jace, Demonic, Drain, Brainstorm
Top 3 cards strategy wise: Birds/Hierarch/Shaman... into Clique/Geist/Nemesis... into Jace/Elspeth/Garruk...
Top 3 pet cards: Brainstorm, Teachings, Eladamri´s Call
Sylvan Caryatid
Back to Basics
Blood Moon
;)
Misty Rainforest
Scalding Tarn
Flooded Strand
Best 3 cards in format:
1. Mana Drain
2. Demonic Tutor
3. Mystical Tutor
Best 3 cards for building decks around:
1. Oath of Druids
2. High Tide
3. Wildfire / Burning of Xinye
Best 3 cards that you always want:
1. Fetchlands
2. Demonic Tutor
3. Brainstorm
Best 3 cards that do the most:
1. Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2. Fauna Shaman
3. Sensei's Divining Top
Best 3 creatures:
1. True-Name Nemesis
2. Tarmogoyf
3. Birds of Paradise
Best 3 Removal:
1. Lightning Bolt
2. Swords to Plowshares
3. Vindicate
Jace TMS
Thundermaw Hellkite
Oath of Druids
Oath of Druids
Mystical Tutor
True-Name Nemesis
Mana Drain
Demonic Tutor
Misty Rainforest
Just out of personal interest: Could the people naming Thundermax and Caryatid be so kind to give me a reason for naming these cards? I don't wnat to question your assesment, but would like to know why you chose cards so different to my choice. As i'm not a regular player anymore, my perception of the format may be really off at the moment.
Quote from: SirGalahad on 17-06-2014, 12:51:51 PM
Could the people naming Thundermax and Caryatid be so kind to give me a reason for naming these cards?
Sylvan Caryatid is kind of a symbol for "Green-based Midrange", which is a tier 1 archetype. The card exemplifies midrange's ability to deploy mana-acceleration, which in turn ramps into midrange's win-cards (Walker, good creatures). The fact that it is so robust makes it a very common go-to-target for GSZ for example, so will see it in play often.
Sylvan Caryatid is kind of the midrange-archetype condensed in one card => creaturebased, robust, versatile, board-centric.
And that train of thought leads right to Thundermaw Hellkite. The importance of "the board" (read: permanents in play) has grown continually. Planeswalkers play a huge role in this.
A HL-game is often about getting early board presence and about continually pressing and developing small incremental advantages that eventually lead to victory.
Games go like. P1-Elf. P2-Swords your Elf. P1-Sylvan Caryatid. P2-Land, Go. P1-Ajani Vengeant. P2-Drain your Ajani. P1-Confidant, Go P2-Jace TMS, bounce your guy. P1-Thundermaw your Jace etc...
Thundermaw shines here because of its ability to get ahead in the "Walker-War", flies over protective blockers (Elspeth Soldiers, Garruk Beasts and circumvents other methods of "Walker-self-protectiveness" like Ajani's tap-ability, Jace's bounce etc.) and closes stalled games rather quickly. It's often bribed by UW-Control to get rid of opposing Walkers etc.
It's just a very linchpin-type card at the moment, as is Sylvan Caryatid. I named B2B and Moon for similar reasons.
If I am not mistaken the actual meta is a classic midrange meta, like standard is right now. A lot of games are "decided" in turn 4-5 (in my perspective). To have access to a creature which will kill most of the critical t4 walker or is able to close the game very fast is in my opinion absolutely necessary for a deck to be T1. I would even go so far to say that the dragons are the main reason to play red and maybe if you chose to play a creature-based deck you have to include red for that reason(and to play red in HL felt very weak some years ago).
Besides that they dictate the structure of most games and force a player to have an immediate answer (like all real threats do)and to chain haste creature into haste creature is way too hard to answer for most decks right now.
The other approach would be to play combo which is always favored in a midrange-meta but can have a hard time against aggro-control decks which right now not many players choose to play since they lost a lot of tempo with the new mulligan.
About the carytid: I wouldnt name her in my T3 creatures but I would say shes exactly what most green mid-range decks need right now. An early blocker which is hard to remove and provides fixing + ramp (and if my analysis is correct a lot of players should play red and if so they would have all the cheap burn which takes care of most creatures that tend to fulfill that role).
1. Wasteland
2. Fetchlands
3. Mystical/enlightened/worldly tutor
1. Price of Progress
2. Mystical Tutor
3. Mana Drain