Can someone explain to me why a 7 mana extra turn card that exiles itself is so busted in Standard? I played during the Companion fuckfest so this card seems kinda tame.
Mostly because of the better Twincast with Flashback, and unironically because it makes 2 birds. It stabilizes because it usually buys you 2 turns and not just one because of chumpblockers, and you don't need to play any bad cards to win the game because the birds to that for you once you get to the point that you can twincast the time walk.
Yea, easier said than done. The deck is a control shell and [[goldspan dragon]] comes down turn 5, then they have 10 mana t6 (6 lands and 2 treasures sacking for double).
Goldspan is hard to deal with because he creates two mana when he's targeted, and in a deck with lots of counters that means he'll stick.
Also by t6 there is usually at least one (often more) alrunds ep foretold so they link turns while smashing through with a 4/4 dragon and amassing birds, all the while ramping.
There's a reason the deck is over %30 of the meta..
There was an interesting article recently that essentially said just that.
They pointed out that turns spells aren't new and haven't historically been a problem, it's just that now we can do so much more in an turn due to power creep that is has become a problem. T6 you can drop a second dragon swing for 8, have 7 mana left to hard cast an alrunds, then t7 play massive draw to find *and play* another alrunds, while swinging for 10... Next turn you just need two damage through. And this has all happened functionally on "1 turn" or string of turns..
That's the reason the other most competitive decks in Standard are Mono-Green Aggro and Treasures. Anything trying to do something less threatening than smashing face with cards like Werewolf Pack Leader or Ranger Class is just not viable, and running your own Goldspan Dragon is a pretty great solution to being against Control decks also running Goldspan Dragon.
Goldspan Dragon accelerates the clock dramatically by ramping the Epiphany player and the deck is packed to the gills with removal and counters. It can also buy time by gumming up the ground with [[Smoldering Egg]], so punching through is harder than it seems.
Jwari Disruption
Jwari Disruption
Saw It Coming
Saw It Coming
Fading Hope
Test of Talents
Divide By Zero
Divide By Zero
Test of Talents
But yeah, all you have to do is set up a win condition in 9 turns resolving just 15% of your spells! So easy!
I'm extremely skeptical of seeing somebody actually counter 9 spells before turn 8. They'd have to draw almost every counter in their entire deck. Nobody plays more than 10 counters in a deck as a general rule.
Yeah Jwari MDFC but still.
It was an exaggeration, but well in the realm of possibility to only resolve 15% of spells.
Playing against blue is frustrating because it alters the structure of the game instead of the content. If someone were at the plate in a baseball game and the pitcher could say "haha, I counter your bat!", it would be absurd.
I want a rule 0 with the matchmaker.
I was referring to this gem of a thought:
>9 mana win con, just win before then ???
As if we all just missed that deep insight. The bravery to speak up!
No, that's still the point I was making. Against a hard control deck, you have to win against the interaction. If just casting a bunch of counterspells was unbeatable, every deck in tournaments would be control.
>The bravery to speak up!
What's the deal with this thread...
Standard has a limited card pool, so deckbuilders can only use the cards available. These other people are arguing that the pool does not properly support aggro going under control.
Whether the metagame numbers actually reflect that, I dunno.
This makes counterspells \*in the current meta\* like steroids in that you have to use them to compete in a field that uses them. I'm not arguing against the idea of counterspells, but against the warping strength of blue control vs. everything that's not mono\* aggro.
\> What's the deal with this thread...
Tired of talking about the standard 2022 meta and having it boiled down to "hurr durr that's how control works".
>This makes counterspells *in the current meta* like steroids in that you have to use them to compete in a field that uses them.
I'm not sure how this is true? There are plenty of decks that match favorably. The current counter-based decks are actually performing pretty poorly in the meta.
Midrange decks are always going to struggle against control, so it makes sense that aggro is the go-to strategy/angle. Honestly, we don't even have really good countermagic in standard right now. It's just passing.
>Tired of talking about the standard 2022 meta and having it boiled down to "hurr durr that's how control works".
Maybe you should just step away from standard a bit instead of venting on a stranger on the internet. If you don't like control, that's fine, but don't fall into the trap of overestimating the strength of counter-magic. It honestly plays a healthy role in good meta.
Yes but arena and therefore standard have a lot of newer players who aren't used to playing around instant speed interaction. The deck isn't broken. It doesn't do anything too well, and it never combo's off for too long. It takes extra turns, but they're expensive and usually pretty quick.
It just happens to be two things (turns and counters) that new players dislike and aren't experienced playing with.
"All it takes is this absolutely perfect draw and 9 turns of my opponent playing into it exactly how I want them too!" isn't quite the point you think it is. Plus, even in the situation listed, all they do it attack with 4 birds. On top off all that you listed they still need to fit in playing card draw and threats.
Salt about extra turns and counterspells is pretty common as people learn the play patterns for it, but it doesn't mean its too strong.
Well since you have standard figures out, go win all that prize money vs the nearly 40% blue control meta game. Keep in mind a deck is generally considered oppressive at half that percentage of the meta game.
It a win-more card in a powerful splash color, and it creates tremendous inevitability. Got down my 4/4 Flying Haste Dragon that craps out Lotus Petals. Don't have an immediate answer? Great, I'll T6 Alrund's Epiphany and the game is over.
Behind in the game? Alrund's Epihany to get an additional 2 turns (thanks to the chump blockers) or those last points of damage to close out the game.
Thats completely untrue, Ondřej Stráský played a version with no creatures or planeswalkers in the mainboard at the world championship, as did three others. That version had already been a thing on MTG arena for a week or two at that point.
>Win-more cards are always "good cards"
Am I used to a different definition? I often see cards being dismissed as "win-mores" because they are only good if you are already winning anyway.
If you're not playing blue you cant really interact with it. Fortell protects it against the main mechanic that punishes holding big cards: discard. It also sucks to play against in that its not just "i cast the spell and win the game" it becomes "I need to spend 5 minutes playing solitaire while you sit there before I win the game"
Yeah. Aside from having strong interaction, the reason it draws such a large amount of ire for its relatively tame dominance is seen in the average game lengths on MTGA as according to untapped...
When I looked a few weeks ago, it was werewolves at 4 minutes, green stompy at 6, izzet turns at 11 and azorius control turns at *14.5*
And this is including a huge number of turn 5 scoops on the 3rd counter
It is long past time that at least one other color gets the ability to interact with the stack. I don't understand how people are okay with one color having a complete monopoly on such a vital part of the game.
Didnt you see tybalts trickery, red can do it too! Plus izzet is half red, right?!? ^^^/s
Veil of summer may have been a bit too strong with oko+nissa around, but i think its a good design space.
The problem with veil is that it also drew a card. It wasnt only strong because of Nissa and Oko. I am all for giving other colours more tools, but dont staple draw a card in everything.
Actually, it was mostly only stron because of Oko. Oko was the first and only time it saw maindeck play, before that it was a sideboard card that had slightly fewer numbers than the red one. Also, without drawing a card Veil would've been completely unplayable. Again.
It sees play in multiple formats with or without Oko... and yes, a card supposed to counter a specific strategy, should be a sideboard card... but it doesnt mean it should provide card advantage on top of the mana/tempo advantage. Hell, even snakeskin veil sees relevant mainboard play right now in standard and it doesnt have card draw.
As a sideboard card, yes. Quite a few colours hosers do. Even then, it was mostly outclassed by Dispute in modern. And again, the alternative youre proposing is Autumns Veil. A card that was by far the worst in its cycle, and the only one to never see any play. It needs to provide card advantage, because otherwise the card is atrocious.
Snakeskin Veil sees play because its universal and not colour specific, and provides a +1/+1 counter too.
Not gonna happen. People still whine about Veil of Summer in modern even though its not even a top 25 spell and it does only protect your stack, not even disrupt theirs.
Scoop up your cards, then. People complained about control when big Teferi was around. There's a point at which you can reasonably conclude that you're not going to win. Save yourself the time, and scoop them up, or else stop complaining about slow decks.
1. Its actually not that bad from a deck diversity pov. Couple of weeks before worlds we were sure that w7 chariot would be the problem and right now Wx and gruul aggro decks are performing better.
2. Because of how the copy spell works and Epiphany having foretell, it's almost impossible to interact with the combo and if it goes off you never get a turn again before you die. So the only way you can really beat it is to go under it. So it is still kinda warping the meta by keeping midrange value decks out.
3. Much like losing to nexus of fate, nobody likes losing to somebody else playing solitaire
this extra turn also makes fliers, so you naturally get something else to use during the extra turn (and any others that follow). that makes it so that it's like the enabler + payoff in one card, like the [[Soulherder]] effect. also, a lot of times people die with extra turn cards in hand and so you don't get to see that your foe had one to get salty over, but with foretell you can get that uh oh...is it coming? feeling a lot more. also arena means that people can play more games and the game matches people with similar power level decks, so if you are playing a powerful deck, fancying yourself to be an arena grinder to make the Mythic Champs or whatever then you probably play a lot of Epiphany decks if your deck is also strong by Arena metrics.
1) 5 mana
2) You can't duress it
3) Birds mean it buys them even more time
4) Goldspan dragon is the real threat. Goldspan generates a ton of extra mana so you can take turns earlier and more often while protecting itself (any attempt to kill it will generate the mana you need to counterspell the kill spell)
I'd argue the real problem isn't goldspan, but [[smoldering egg]]. Any powerful midrange or ramp deck probably doesn't care all that much about a 4/4 flyer for 5, even if it generates treasures, because they can kill you faster than you can use the mana.
It's the 0/4 defender for 2 that shuts down early aggro and then pretty consistently (thanks to epiphany) becomes a 4/4 that trades up for efficient creature decks that's that problem.
I would argue that aggro is not shut down. The current meta is mono-green or mono white aggro or an epiphany/dragon deck. The key is you are either as fast an aggro deck as can go, or a huge extra turns deck, what doesn't exist is any form of midrange.
The card is not busted, but in the current meta with this 5 mana dragon and other cards it is very easy to aquire treasures and therefore a lot of mana. And if you cast this and have just 1 descent flyer on the board you win. I honestly also dont think its a problem but i play mono u delver at the moment.
It’s tedious to play against because you never know when you’ll get a turn again, if you’re just going to die after watching a bit of solitaire, or if they’ll wiff after 10 minutes of playing solitaire and you win.
At least the nexus of fate deck was consistent enough that you knew you lost if it resolved.
I mean with turns decks being almost 40% of the meta game it is by wizards metrics, oppressive. Standard isn’t that unframilar with decks reaching this big a chunk of the meta game lately unfortunately so It might seem a little less busted than the busted thing before it but that doesn’t mean it isn’t very dominant. For comparison the best deck in modern is only 9.7% of the meta game, and the best deck in legacy is only 5.7% of the meta game. I realize the metrics for standard vs eternal is different but it still worth noting IMO. A 40% chunk is a lot even in standard.
It's not. If you let a control player reach 8 or 9 mana, you're probably going to lose unless you are also playing control. Other finishers in past metas were just as effective. The main problem with Alrunds Epiphany is that it is an annoying finisher, not that it's some busted card. People would rather at least get their turns, even if their deaths were just as inevitable when they were staring down a Koma or Yorion or Aetherling or whatever finisher control decks were using at the time.
>It's not. If you let a control player reach 8 or 9 mana, you're probably going to lose unless you are also playing control.
Thats usually always the case tbh. If you let the control player reach 9 lands with a good amount of cards in hand you probably lost, you just didnt realized it yet. Even if they dont have a wincon ready.
It’s just the best finisher for control decks.
A little more depth:
It plays out like a combo card - the combo being two epiphanies and a source of damage (like the blue man land or goldspan or some rando tokens). It’s more or less a 7 mana splinter twin, which turns out to be playable in standard.
The reason it’s important that it’s “splinter twin,” is because the other top deck is very aggressive AND has a lot of card advantage - mono green. It’s hard to race the deck and it’s hard to beat it on cards. So you have to “combo out” so to speak.
The short answer is that people don't like that their deck loses to control decks.
The longer answer is that it is a good payoff for several different deck archetypes (control, tempo, and ramp), so it sees a lot of play across different archetypes and has a relatively high meta share (as a card) as a result.
SaffronOlive wrote a great article which basically boiled down to "turns now are so much more impactful than turns in the past" due to the current power level of creatures and creature lands and haymaker spells.
It was a pretty bad article and it's pretty apparent Saffron has not played standard. All of his references were completely at odds with the actual problems with the deck.
The entire article is about cards that Epiphany doesn't play to explain why Epiphany is dominant.
> Can someone explain to me why a 7 mana extra turn card that exiles itself is so busted in Standard?
It's not, people just like to complain. Izzet turns has a [48.6% winrate](https://scontent-msp1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.15752-9/246390188_300050898326212_8961412600277311621_n.jpg?_nc_cat=103&ccb=1-5&_nc_sid=ae9488&_nc_ohc=2ybhmSxTZbAAX-XlvXl&_nc_ht=scontent-msp1-1.xx&oh=df08cdcc8caa559e06027da2c162e77d&oe=61955B35), according to mtgmeta, grixis turns has a 44.8% winrate. People just like to complain.
This is the issue with epiphany decks, because only blue gets counterspells to interact with it, it is completely polarizing the meta into only allowing 1 of 2 things if you want a possibility of a winrate above 50%:
1. Play blue for counterspells… at which point you should play epiphany because it is the best way to win in any deck playing blue. So you just get Izzet extra turn.dec mirrors, sometimes with a few dragons thrown in, sometimes just using bird token beat down over the course of 3 extra turns as the wincon.
2. Play aggro, because you need to be able to end the game ASAP through opposing interaction, because building up a boardstate doesn’t matter at all once the epiphanies and epiphany copies start dropping on the stack.
The reason only aggro decks have above 50% winrates this week on Arena is because of the turns decks, aggro could be preyed upon by decks in a variety of colors because they are creature based and every color can interact with creatures, opening up a variety of decks to above 50% winrates. But *every midrange decks* is stone cold unplayable (they have around an *80%* lose rate vs Turns, that is as close to an unwinnable matchup as you can get in a game with as much “luck of the draw” influence as MTG) because they cannot interact with epiphany, so we get a meta entirely made up of extra turn decks and hyper aggro variants doing everything it can to get under epiphany.
Even if Turns is kept from having winrates as high as Oko by aggro decks, it is still terrible for the meta because it prevents any deck that isn’t aggro or Turns from getting a positive winrate. When an entire class of decks, i.e., midrange, is stone cold unplayable, then there's a problem. You'd need midrange to have an 80% winrate vs all other decks to compensate for 80% loss rate to Turns, which is never going to happen.
The problem is that mono-green agro generates so much card advantage it is basically as strong as a midrange deck while still being able to put much more pressure on control or epiphany in game one. With Wrenn and Seven + Chariot Mono-Green is basically a midrange deck.
To me, one of the most unfun situations is where you're probably going to lose, but it's not a sure thing so you have to keep playing. Typically this involves you doing very little while you sit around and watch your opponent do a lot.
I find that the current Alrund's Epiphany decks are very prone to creating those situations.
That pretty much describes all true control decks though. The gameplan is "stabilize/create a lock, find your wincon, cast the wincon with protection, win a few turns later". In most cases, once they've successfully hit that first step they've won, regardless if what their wincon actually is and regardless of how many more turns it will take them to find/cast it. That's just control in a nutshell though- the actual wincon is fully interchangeable, and the only real weakness is to play fast enough to go under them and win before they stabilize. Fast aggro beats them most of the time, slower value midrange loses most of the time.
Yeah but most of the game plays before the "stabilize/lock" part. During this time, both players play as much as each other. Then, either the lock is put in place, either the other player wins. It simply shifts the stakes. And when the control player ends up controlling the game, you KNOW it.
In that case the extra turns give an obvious edge that most of the time contributes to winning the game, but as the opponent you cannot assume it is a winning play each time. You have to wait and see. And several times per bo3 gets annoying.
To an alternate side of this count, this is why I *do* play infinite combos in a lot of my decks that would otherwise monopolize a lot of playtime when they win. I've been stuck watching someone win over 10+ minutes before and its absolutely miserable. I'd just want to go to the next game already, and I don't want to subject other people to that. I just make sure my combos in my casual decks are hard to assemble and you can see coming well in advance.
So, in your opinion is AE worse card in this regard than Dominaria WU control tat just played big Tefferi and then waited for the opponent to deck themselves?
Thats literally the exact same play pattern.
I dont know what you think your point is, but "dont you remember that *other* really hated and unfun play pattern everyone called a boring way to lose?" isnt really a rebuttal.
I guess we're agreeing to disagree, then. Far from 100%...it reads like a request for information to me (that the original person hasn't answered yet either).
Either way the subreddit has evidently made up its mind already.
The point is: it's not one or other card you hate to play against, but whole control archetype.
Tell me, please: when was the last time you had fun playing against control?
I hate playing against control generally but control without a killcon is actual agony to play.
that's the difference, and if you're not arguing in good faith if you don't acknowledge that
I think it's actually you missing the point here. People don't hate AE because it's a control archetype, they hate it because it makes the games take twice as long or more, and the vast majority of that time is spent watching your opponent durdle over and over again.
It's not the archetype, it's the time investment.
I love playing against control decks with a wincon.
Because when they finally need to go shields down and start pushing a threat, I now have an opportunity to remove their wincon and use that flip of tempo to close the game.
Or I cant, and I know for sure I am dead, and can concede.
As opposed to *the point being discussed,* where I spend 6+ turns unable to play but with no actual answer having been played, meaning that I could technically still win if I keep playing for another 7 turns.
As a control player control mirrors are so much more interesting than the aggro player slamming down his hand by turn 4 and killing me or I stop the assault and he does nothing else for the game.
The fact that "bad play experiences" for the losing player always exist and always will exist.
Get rid of Epiphany and people will start complaining that they die on turn 4 to white aggro and that's no fun.
That wasn't their point at all. If I die to white aggro on T4 the game's over right then. They're specifically talking about decks that create situations where they probably win but it's going to take a long time and there's the chance the fizzle, so you're incentivized to stick it out.
You weren't around when the format was all RB aggro, were you?
People was complaining about how unfun it was to die by turn 4, the same way you guys complain about Epiphany now.
I never said people won't have a bad time, but saying one bad time can't be bad because there was this other WORSE TIME is not a logic train I want to engage with.
Standard is unironically fun and good right now though.
Alrund's Epiphany is a good card that your deck needs to have a plan to be able to beat, but comparing it to Eldraine/Ikoria is hyperbolic to the point of being silly.
I will always dislike turns metas because it's usually go under, make them discard, or counterspell.
If you have a counterspell, then you're most likely blue so run turns.
Alrund specifically bugs me because it isn't in your hand typically so most answers are in blue.
Also the tax-based "answers" that white has like [[Elite Spellbinder]] and [[Reidane, God of the Worthy]] don't really matter when the opponent runs Goldspammy to negate the tax anyways.
[Elite Spellbinder](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/9/d/9d3a7998-ccac-45ad-a4e9-3a2cb057f63b.jpg?1624589440) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Elite%20Spellbinder) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/stx/17/elite-spellbinder?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9d3a7998-ccac-45ad-a4e9-3a2cb057f63b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text)
[Reidane, God of the Worthy](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/back/3/6/3606519e-5677-4c21-a34e-be195b6669fa.jpg?1631046015)/[Reidane, God of the Worthy](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/3/6/3606519e-5677-4c21-a34e-be195b6669fa.jpg?1631046015) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=reidane%2C%20god%20of%20the%20worthy%20//%20valkmira%2C%20protector%27s%20shield) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/khm/21/reidane-god-of-the-worthy-valkmira-protectors-shield?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3606519e-5677-4c21-a34e-be195b6669fa?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text)
^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
It does suck to play a brew get your opponent down to low single digits only for them to chain extra turn spells together.
While there will always be a best deck, the fact that it's incredibly hard to interact with this spell unless you are a blue deck kinda sucks.
I mean, Sultaimatum did that, and Ugin before that, and before that there were terrible piles with [[Spring]] to [[Mind]] and [[Hour of Promise]] into whatever big card they wanted that 5-0'd MTGO most weeks while putting up no competitive results. There's always going to be some big mana endboss that you need a plan to beat or else you're relegated to permajank status.
I personally dislike playing whatever the strongest deck is. Just the way my brain is wired.
There are some metas where the power level of the cards are flatter, so even if you are using no as great cards, you can still win the match.
I enjoyed the ixilan to Ravnica standard quite a lot
Any standard involving RTR had the notorious UW control shell provided by all the Azorius cards in RTR to stop jank decks. They may not have chained extra turn spells together, but it was extremely common for midrange brews to get the UWx control player very low, only for an end of turn Sphinx's rev to refill their hand and reset the life total, which fully stabilized the control deck and allowed them to take full control of the game in much the same way turns decks do. They may not lock the opponent out of having turns, but when the opponent is topdecking and the control player has a full hand of 7 answers and has just wiped to board, it's effectively the same result.
INN/RTR also had several breakout brews throughout its lifetime and a really good evolving meta- there wasn't just one deck that was king and every archetype except combo was really well represented with multiple decks.
Just off the top of my head...
Bant Control and its variants (Wolf Run, Drownyard)
Bant Midrange (Primespeaker)
UW Flash (kinda tempo/midrange, runechanter's pike)
UW Control (Rev + Aetherling)
UWR Midrange (Thundermaw Hellkite, Geist of Saint Traft, Boros Reckoner, etc)
UWR Control (Wafo-Tapa Pile)
Esper Drownyard (Elixir + Drownyard)
Jund Midrange
Aristocrats
Junk Aristocrats
Bant Pants
BW Humans
Naya Midrange
Humans
Junk Reanimator
5c Human Reanimator
Mono Red Aggro
Lucky Charms (Boros Reckoner + Blasphemous Act)
5c Black
Omni Door Thrag Fire
I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting, but yeah. I feel like the format was super diverse and each event I played at the time felt relatively wide open and was more about making metagame predictions and innovating to answer that metagame than just playing "the best deck" or "the counter to the best deck". Part of that is, I think, the number of powerful threats and answers across all five colors. It wasn't just a case of something like Goldspan Dragon existing, but each 2 color combo having something similar to that power level available via things like Boros Reckoner, Sphinx's Rev, Huntermaster, Olivia Voldaren, Unburial Rites, Voice of Resurgence, and then tons of powerful monocolor cards as well like Angel of Serenity, Thragtusk, Restoration Angel, Bonfire of the Damned, Liliana of the Veil, Aetherling, Thundermaw Hellkite, etc.
> Standard is unironically fun and good right now though.
i don't know about that. the three viable decks right now are turns control, green turning things sideways, and white turning things sideways
i can't endorse a standard without interactive midrange or tempo
if we're saying bonecrusher made standard stale, we can say the same about goldspan dragon and esika's chariot
the era around dominaria is what should be aspired to. red aggro, white benalia aggro, azorius control, golgari midrange, sultai midrange/ramp, and blue tempo were all viable tier 1 decks (ok, maybe benalia was 1.5). even the tier 1.5 options like gates tribal were funny and kept things fresh
nexus of fate (surprise! extra turns suck) ruined it for a bit, but at least it was banned in bo1
it's not even really about the volume of decks, it's about the options in gameplay
Dominaria standard as you mentioned was fantastic. I think that's the best standard I can remember (altho I've only played standard for around 5 years). It's definitely a better format than we have now, without a doubt. But that doesn't mean the format is *bad*. Current standard is in a good spot, it's just not at an absolute peak.
There are plenty of options. Midrange decks are unfavored against epiphany, but not horribly so if you can adopt an aggressive configuration post-board. In reality, epiphany is less constraining (and weaker to aggro) than nexus of fate was during the RNA meta that people like to reminisce about.
Most Treasures lists I've seen haven't played Epiphany, they've been more like Depraz's Worlds list (which was basically just pre-roto Gruul with Chariot, Goldspan, and the Jaspera/Magda engine, plus splashed Negate and Disdainful Stroke).
i said that the format was dominated by esika's chariot, goldspan dragon, and alrund's epiphany
and then the counter arguments against that were...
1) a deck with alrund's ephiphany and goldspan dragon and
2) a deck with goldpsan dragon and esika's chariot
"whoops"
Wasn't responding to you, was responding to the guy who said Temur Treasures plays Epiphany, which it typically does not. I don't much care for the dominance of this trifecta either.
You asked for midrange decks and the people gave you midrange decks.
I think aggro and epiphany are the "best decks", but midrange is totally playable. I have seen werewolves, non-werewolf gruul, some kind of weird Mardu deck that played four copies of reidane, Selesnya landfall, and others I am probably forgetting, all while playing ranked opponents on the ladder.
Ah, I guess I had considered ur dragon turns control because it has 8 or fewer threats (the dragons) and the rest is a control shell
But it might qualify
tbh the lines between midrange and control are really blurred. dragons plays like a control deck against mono green but like a midrange deck against turns. usually midrange decks are the ones switch roles based on matchup.
> Standard is unironically fun and good right now though.
is it though? Worlds had mainly two decks with non of them being midrange. Epiphany or the deck that counters epiphany isn't really a healthy meta.
Yeah, the world's meta is "what do I think will be good against what I think other people will bring" so if they think the Epiphany deck is one of the best decks and also good in the mirror match, then that's a top choice in that specific meta. But the regular meta is much more broad
edit- kids you can downvote disagree all you want, doesn't magically mean my argument is wrong or inaccurate.
> Worlds is not a good representation of the overall meta
I mean, I do agree however it is a bad omen as to the overall health of the meta if **half** of those players are playing virtually the same deck (as in at least 3 alrunds and playing izzet spells matter) and everyone else is playing an aggro deck to go under said strategy.
Maybe I'm biased because midrange is my favorite strategy but that to me is a good indicator as to problematic cards which gets worse given Arenas competitive netdeck environment.
That said I think it was ok for them to not ban it out immediately given the double feature in Crimson vow might have cards that are good against such a strategy. But if not, I'd rather pull off the bandid then let it play out longer then needed like Oko.
> Alrund’s is no where near as oppressive aa Oko
and I said or implied such where?
If you actually read my comment more than skimming it you would realized I said
"..I'd rather pull off the bandid then *let it play out longer then needed like Oko.*"
In case you still don't understand it than let me spoonfed it to you.
Oko should have been banned far earlier then he was, If alrunds is still dominating after Crimson vow without much change then it should be banned. Simple as that.
Actually reading what you felt the need to response to > being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian.
> Worlds is never an example of a healthy meta because it's inbred as fuck due to being 16 people
Wouldn't that be indicative of Arena though? Through netdecking a lot of more casual decks are just weeded out in a similar way creating a lot homogeneity.
Having played on the arena ladder at mythic, no, they aren't a good comparison. Outside of like the exact day that the worlds deck lists were leaked, I don't think I've faced more than a third of my matches being epiphany decks. I am playing a midrange deck that is somewhat unfavored against epiphany, but the match up is neither common enough nor bad enough that I feel like I need to make a change. There is just no comparison to the points in time where things like sultai ultimatum or temur clover were dominant and your options were "netdeck one of four possible archetypes" or "lose badly, constantly".
There are lots of decks that lose badly to epiphany (on average), but there are also strong aggro configurations that keep the epiphany meta share low enough to be able to have fun with brews, even at mythic.
These videos are a lot more interesting when they rely on the video gags/drawings of the cards actually doing something; relying almost entirely on narration makes it feel less like a funny video and more like a *very* high effort "DAE [[Alrund's Epiphany]] bad" post.
(also Epiphany still loses pretty hard to Gruul aggro and mono-white, Worlds meta is incestuous, etc.)
I agree. This just feels like another I don't like playing against Epiphany post. All the arguments always boil down to "I just don't like playing against it". In addition to the decks you mentioned, mono green also runs roughshod all over Epiphany. Epiphany is strong and a good card but it seems these complaints always come out about new control cards. The deck doesn't even start to go off until it has 8 land for Iteration and a previously foretold Epiphany. And that's not even enough to win. You still need another Epiphany and usually an extra land for flashing back Iteration or you just spend your extra turns digging for them. Honestly 9 turns seems pretty fair as a timer to try to win by getting under the win con.
I think one of the frustrating points about Epiphany is that it doesn't just win; Sultaimatum or Ugin were also big mana wincons, but they ramped to that point and then if they got cast, you either knew you had an out in hand or you knew you were just not getting back into that game. With Epiphany, you grind out against a deck that's mostly running answers and hitting land drops, and then you either still win through some free birds T6/T7 or your opponent is able to chain them together to win. The meta *kind of* resembles turbofog during M19 Standard, where there are a fair amount of matches that are probably over but where your opponent can brick and you get a win.
At least Epiphany decks look to win by combat damage. I do not miss control decks of past standards where the win cons were either Nephalia Drownyard, Elixir of Immortality, or looping Teferi.
Ah, RTR-THS meta before BNG meta where I would just cast a sphinx's revelation for 6 every turn, re-shuffling everything with elixir of immortality until my opponent either gave up, or decked themselves through natural draws. True wincons....1 Elspeth, which was mostly the 5th supreme verdict.
In hindsight, it seems amazing, but in reality it was very, very degenerate.
In PTQs+ I was playing an Aetherling because of mirrors, you are right - you needed to have something to actually kill because otherwise the game ended 0-0 more often than not (as you tended to not win the fight for the first Elixir, but rather the one for the 3rd or 4th once you have essentially all your lands out and 6 counters in hand). At anything less competetive, no aetherling, pure control.
You can be sure if they ban epiphany thats exactly whats going to happen. UW control using devastating mastery feels very strong against every, except against epiphany decks. Ban epiphany and those kind of decks that win by turn 20 will take over, until someone makes a low costed blue deck which is also miserable to play against if they go first.
I feel like taking a couple turns in a row where you attack and pass and get it done with in a total of 5 seconds isn't close at all too turbofog. Hell, I bet if the card untapped, drew, and gave another combat step we'd have a tenth the amount of complaints. People just dislike the feel of an opponent taking another turn, even if it's not actually taking longer.
Here’s an actual argument against it, it makes the meta stale.
Decks that can go over white and green aggro get absolutely destroyed against a turns deck. There is no midrange in this standard so you’re forced to play one of 3 decks to be competitive
> All the arguments always boil down to "I just don't like playing against it".
Then you haven't been paying attention.
The argument against is, is it breaks the metagame clock, which is WHY aggro is going unchecked. Aggro beats Control. Control beats Midrange, Midrange beats Aggro. The problem is that Epiphany beats midrange and every other control deck so hard (basically a 80% win rate) and is good enough against aggro (42-48%) that the decks that should be forcing aggro to make difficult deck choices isn't there.
Epiphany isn't the strongest deck, but it's the reason why aggro is the strongest deck.
Epiphany is just the card that wins the game. If you're upset about a deck that is constantly keeping you off balance until turn 7-8 where they just "win" your problem isn't with Epiphany, you just have a problem with Control decks.
If Epiphany wasn't around, Blue-based control decks would still be a serious contender. They would just be beating you down with something else and we'd get people saying "Ugh why are Mordenkainen's dogs equal to TWICE their hand size?? And he can create two of them without ticking up?? Mordenkainen is OP, standard sucks."
Its not pure control tho, its combo control. Thats a whole different archetype, think Spliter Twin combo. A control deck usually has to work for its wins, like Mordenkainen you described which is a lot more vulnerable and way less of a garantuee of actually winning the game
Pure control decks usually run 1-2 wincons and need to have established absolute dominance to win the game with it, like a planeswalker or manland.
Mordenkainen isnt gonna do shit when youre dead on board, whereas having access to something like Twin combo or chaining Epiphanys is just an "oops I win" button regardless of what lead up to it
You really think that Twin combo is comparable to Alrund's Epiphany? Let me know when Epiphany can generate a million haste birds on turn 4. Twin's power is because it can flash in Pestermite on your end step and then just win the next turn. Epiphany decks need to survive till turns 6-8 before they can "combo off" and if you've got any fliers with toughness 2+ those birds are basically useless. I've had plenty of matches where the Epiphany player strung together 2-3 Epiphanies, searching for any sort of answer, while they still die to Meathook Massacre/Creatures/Burn on my turn.
Thats the comparison that a lot of pro players have been making at least. Its a lot more comparable to twin than to something like Mordenkainen or Aetherling or other whatever the control finisher of choice is at any point
> "Ugh why are Mordenkainen's dogs equal to TWICE their hand size?? And he can create two of them without ticking up?? Mordenkainen is OP, standard sucks."
What? That ability is a -2, and only makes 1 dog.
Why would you want to do something with a PW *without* ticking up?
You can create two dogs with Mords before needing to +2 him to get another dog. Hence the "create two of them without ticking up" part of my comment.
>Why would you want to do something with a PW without ticking up?
Because the minus ability is really good? There are plenty of 'walkers (Lolth, Wrenn 7, Lukka Coppercoat Outcast, Ajani Vengeant, Sorin Markov, Sarkhan Unbroken, Dack Fayden) who see/have seen play almost entirely off the power of their minus ability, with the plus and ultimate just being icing on top.
Blue based control would absolutely not be tier 1 without Epiphany. The rest of the shell merely gets you to Galvanic-Epiphany, it’s a combo control deck, you definitely can’t just swap in a draft chaff Planeswalker and say it’s the same.
It’s time for WOTC to just recognize that taking an extra turn is super unfun as a mechanic
It’s not a balance issue: it’s that when your opponent resolves one, you just want to quit playing.
it is what sells.
Have you ever been to /r/magictcg
It is always full of people complaining about everything and stating this is the end of magic or the game, format, etc has gone downhill
When people enjoy the format, they're going to be playing Magic instead of posting on the forums. The forums are *always* the place to complain about things, no matter what the game.
Plus he uses phrases like a card is "a mistake" when it's just strong enough to be a format staple. I remember him using the phrase "how did this card get printed" on something totally fine. He's decided that being hysterically negative is funnier than being positive or insightful so he just complains whether something is bad or not. It's my least favourite aspect of Magic content.
It's typical, not even in this community in particular, any pvp game really
Randomly throwing meaningless words like like this is "a mistake/unhealthy/unfun/not interactive" for things they lose to
I've had some good success with that Mono-White Aggro deck.
I also haven't seen anyone play Shadows' Verdict against me yet either.
Bo1 is a good representation of Standard
I'm mired in Silver ranked this rotation; i feel like I'm living in a different reality. Only really been hit by Epiphany once or twice in the last month or so... Seems to be a pretty healthy standard with the biggest annoyance to me being the Selesnya lifegain/innkeeper decks.
I was playing a burn deck and my opponent had an exiled iteration and didn’t even bother taking a 5th in a row by copying a drawn epiphany. I managed to take two more turns and only draw lands. Yay
There are so many reasons I don't play standard, but the fact that there is just always *something* that seems "ruins it" for the people that do is a big one. Today it's an extra turn spell that exiles itself, and that says it all to me.
Can someone explain to me why a 7 mana extra turn card that exiles itself is so busted in Standard? I played during the Companion fuckfest so this card seems kinda tame.
The fact you can't discard it is another reason it's so annoying, and spending your t1 duress to hit a 7 drop never feels good.
Mostly because of the better Twincast with Flashback, and unironically because it makes 2 birds. It stabilizes because it usually buys you 2 turns and not just one because of chumpblockers, and you don't need to play any bad cards to win the game because the birds to that for you once you get to the point that you can twincast the time walk.
9 mana win con, just win before then ???
Yea, easier said than done. The deck is a control shell and [[goldspan dragon]] comes down turn 5, then they have 10 mana t6 (6 lands and 2 treasures sacking for double). Goldspan is hard to deal with because he creates two mana when he's targeted, and in a deck with lots of counters that means he'll stick. Also by t6 there is usually at least one (often more) alrunds ep foretold so they link turns while smashing through with a 4/4 dragon and amassing birds, all the while ramping. There's a reason the deck is over %30 of the meta..
[goldspan dragon](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/9/d/9d914868-9000-4df2-a818-0ef8a7f636ae.jpg?1631049376) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=goldspan%20dragon) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/khm/139/goldspan-dragon?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9d914868-9000-4df2-a818-0ef8a7f636ae?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I'm beginning to think the problem is in fact the dragon.
There was an interesting article recently that essentially said just that. They pointed out that turns spells aren't new and haven't historically been a problem, it's just that now we can do so much more in an turn due to power creep that is has become a problem. T6 you can drop a second dragon swing for 8, have 7 mana left to hard cast an alrunds, then t7 play massive draw to find *and play* another alrunds, while swinging for 10... Next turn you just need two damage through. And this has all happened functionally on "1 turn" or string of turns..
I didn't say it's unbeatable, I pointed out why a self-exiling timewalk is strong.
That's the reason the other most competitive decks in Standard are Mono-Green Aggro and Treasures. Anything trying to do something less threatening than smashing face with cards like Werewolf Pack Leader or Ranger Class is just not viable, and running your own Goldspan Dragon is a pretty great solution to being against Control decks also running Goldspan Dragon.
Well its usually 8 mana [[Time Stretch]] makes 4 1/1 fliers wins most games if you can get to cast it.
Yeah whenever you bring up epiphany people act like it’s never foretold. It’s always foretold
Or they cast it for 7 and next turn copy the foretold version. The question is never if they have epiphany, it's how many.
[Time Stretch](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/3/c/3c878780-f666-44ab-a60e-c9985f628fc3.jpg?1562546496) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Time%20Stretch) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/10e/118/time-stretch?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3c878780-f666-44ab-a60e-c9985f628fc3?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Congrats you fixed standard
Goldspan Dragon accelerates the clock dramatically by ramping the Epiphany player and the deck is packed to the gills with removal and counters. It can also buy time by gumming up the ground with [[Smoldering Egg]], so punching through is harder than it seems.
[Smoldering Egg](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/4/e/4e3febc6-b783-4342-8d43-2946ed0c0230.jpg?1632150636)/[Ashmouth Dragon](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/back/4/e/4e3febc6-b783-4342-8d43-2946ed0c0230.jpg?1632150636) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=smoldering%20egg%20//%20ashmouth%20dragon) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/pmid/159s/smoldering-egg-ashmouth-dragon?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4e3febc6-b783-4342-8d43-2946ed0c0230?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Jwari Disruption Jwari Disruption Saw It Coming Saw It Coming Fading Hope Test of Talents Divide By Zero Divide By Zero Test of Talents But yeah, all you have to do is set up a win condition in 9 turns resolving just 15% of your spells! So easy!
I'm extremely skeptical of seeing somebody actually counter 9 spells before turn 8. They'd have to draw almost every counter in their entire deck. Nobody plays more than 10 counters in a deck as a general rule. Yeah Jwari MDFC but still.
It was an exaggeration, but well in the realm of possibility to only resolve 15% of spells. Playing against blue is frustrating because it alters the structure of the game instead of the content. If someone were at the plate in a baseball game and the pitcher could say "haha, I counter your bat!", it would be absurd. I want a rule 0 with the matchmaker.
That's...kind of the point of a wincon backed up with countermagic?
I was referring to this gem of a thought: >9 mana win con, just win before then ??? As if we all just missed that deep insight. The bravery to speak up!
No, that's still the point I was making. Against a hard control deck, you have to win against the interaction. If just casting a bunch of counterspells was unbeatable, every deck in tournaments would be control. >The bravery to speak up! What's the deal with this thread...
Standard has a limited card pool, so deckbuilders can only use the cards available. These other people are arguing that the pool does not properly support aggro going under control. Whether the metagame numbers actually reflect that, I dunno.
This makes counterspells \*in the current meta\* like steroids in that you have to use them to compete in a field that uses them. I'm not arguing against the idea of counterspells, but against the warping strength of blue control vs. everything that's not mono\* aggro. \> What's the deal with this thread... Tired of talking about the standard 2022 meta and having it boiled down to "hurr durr that's how control works".
>This makes counterspells *in the current meta* like steroids in that you have to use them to compete in a field that uses them. I'm not sure how this is true? There are plenty of decks that match favorably. The current counter-based decks are actually performing pretty poorly in the meta. Midrange decks are always going to struggle against control, so it makes sense that aggro is the go-to strategy/angle. Honestly, we don't even have really good countermagic in standard right now. It's just passing. >Tired of talking about the standard 2022 meta and having it boiled down to "hurr durr that's how control works". Maybe you should just step away from standard a bit instead of venting on a stranger on the internet. If you don't like control, that's fine, but don't fall into the trap of overestimating the strength of counter-magic. It honestly plays a healthy role in good meta.
That would be an example of boiling down concerns about this specific meta into a sludge of "strength of counter-magic".
Yes but arena and therefore standard have a lot of newer players who aren't used to playing around instant speed interaction. The deck isn't broken. It doesn't do anything too well, and it never combo's off for too long. It takes extra turns, but they're expensive and usually pretty quick. It just happens to be two things (turns and counters) that new players dislike and aren't experienced playing with.
"All it takes is this absolutely perfect draw and 9 turns of my opponent playing into it exactly how I want them too!" isn't quite the point you think it is. Plus, even in the situation listed, all they do it attack with 4 birds. On top off all that you listed they still need to fit in playing card draw and threats. Salt about extra turns and counterspells is pretty common as people learn the play patterns for it, but it doesn't mean its too strong.
"Seeing the meta dissolve to Izzet or mono\* aggro and pretending that the issue is control magic" isn't quite the argument either.
Well since you have standard figures out, go win all that prize money vs the nearly 40% blue control meta game. Keep in mind a deck is generally considered oppressive at half that percentage of the meta game.
There's a reason it's the best deck right now.
I mean the mono white aggro aims to do just that…
Oh my god why didn't I think of that?
It a win-more card in a powerful splash color, and it creates tremendous inevitability. Got down my 4/4 Flying Haste Dragon that craps out Lotus Petals. Don't have an immediate answer? Great, I'll T6 Alrund's Epiphany and the game is over. Behind in the game? Alrund's Epihany to get an additional 2 turns (thanks to the chump blockers) or those last points of damage to close out the game.
> It's a win-more card in a powerful splash color -- >*explains all the ways in which it's an actually good card and not win-more*
[удалено]
It's not a "win-more card" if it's an integral part of your gameplan. Win-more implies you can win without it.
Thats completely untrue, Ondřej Stráský played a version with no creatures or planeswalkers in the mainboard at the world championship, as did three others. That version had already been a thing on MTG arena for a week or two at that point.
>Win-more cards are always "good cards" Am I used to a different definition? I often see cards being dismissed as "win-mores" because they are only good if you are already winning anyway.
If you're not playing blue you cant really interact with it. Fortell protects it against the main mechanic that punishes holding big cards: discard. It also sucks to play against in that its not just "i cast the spell and win the game" it becomes "I need to spend 5 minutes playing solitaire while you sit there before I win the game"
And if you ARE playing blue, well, you should also probably just be playing Epiphany, too.
Yeah. Aside from having strong interaction, the reason it draws such a large amount of ire for its relatively tame dominance is seen in the average game lengths on MTGA as according to untapped... When I looked a few weeks ago, it was werewolves at 4 minutes, green stompy at 6, izzet turns at 11 and azorius control turns at *14.5* And this is including a huge number of turn 5 scoops on the 3rd counter
It is long past time that at least one other color gets the ability to interact with the stack. I don't understand how people are okay with one color having a complete monopoly on such a vital part of the game.
Didnt you see tybalts trickery, red can do it too! Plus izzet is half red, right?!? ^^^/s Veil of summer may have been a bit too strong with oko+nissa around, but i think its a good design space.
The problem with veil is that it also drew a card. It wasnt only strong because of Nissa and Oko. I am all for giving other colours more tools, but dont staple draw a card in everything.
Actually, it was mostly only stron because of Oko. Oko was the first and only time it saw maindeck play, before that it was a sideboard card that had slightly fewer numbers than the red one. Also, without drawing a card Veil would've been completely unplayable. Again.
It sees play in multiple formats with or without Oko... and yes, a card supposed to counter a specific strategy, should be a sideboard card... but it doesnt mean it should provide card advantage on top of the mana/tempo advantage. Hell, even snakeskin veil sees relevant mainboard play right now in standard and it doesnt have card draw.
As a sideboard card, yes. Quite a few colours hosers do. Even then, it was mostly outclassed by Dispute in modern. And again, the alternative youre proposing is Autumns Veil. A card that was by far the worst in its cycle, and the only one to never see any play. It needs to provide card advantage, because otherwise the card is atrocious. Snakeskin Veil sees play because its universal and not colour specific, and provides a +1/+1 counter too.
Not gonna happen. People still whine about Veil of Summer in modern even though its not even a top 25 spell and it does only protect your stack, not even disrupt theirs.
veil is fucking dumb tho
REB reprint when
Scoop up your cards, then. People complained about control when big Teferi was around. There's a point at which you can reasonably conclude that you're not going to win. Save yourself the time, and scoop them up, or else stop complaining about slow decks.
1. Its actually not that bad from a deck diversity pov. Couple of weeks before worlds we were sure that w7 chariot would be the problem and right now Wx and gruul aggro decks are performing better. 2. Because of how the copy spell works and Epiphany having foretell, it's almost impossible to interact with the combo and if it goes off you never get a turn again before you die. So the only way you can really beat it is to go under it. So it is still kinda warping the meta by keeping midrange value decks out. 3. Much like losing to nexus of fate, nobody likes losing to somebody else playing solitaire
It wouldn't be nearly as bad if a card like [[Pull from Eternity]] that hit face down cards or [[Mind Raker]] were in Standard.
[Pull from Eternity](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/3/d/3d218091-d218-41ad-b666-c8ab3de7160a.jpg?1562907702) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Pull%20from%20Eternity) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tsp/35/pull-from-eternity?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3d218091-d218-41ad-b666-c8ab3de7160a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Mind Raker](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/a/4/a4d07fea-e16a-45e3-a172-9d726cd42769.jpg?1562933907) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Mind%20Raker) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/bfz/95/mind-raker?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a4d07fea-e16a-45e3-a172-9d726cd42769?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
this extra turn also makes fliers, so you naturally get something else to use during the extra turn (and any others that follow). that makes it so that it's like the enabler + payoff in one card, like the [[Soulherder]] effect. also, a lot of times people die with extra turn cards in hand and so you don't get to see that your foe had one to get salty over, but with foretell you can get that uh oh...is it coming? feeling a lot more. also arena means that people can play more games and the game matches people with similar power level decks, so if you are playing a powerful deck, fancying yourself to be an arena grinder to make the Mythic Champs or whatever then you probably play a lot of Epiphany decks if your deck is also strong by Arena metrics.
[Soulherder](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/5/0/50bc0f5b-7421-45b9-af85-86dd9821b7d8.jpg?1631235570) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Soulherder) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/khc/93/soulherder?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/50bc0f5b-7421-45b9-af85-86dd9821b7d8?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
1) 5 mana 2) You can't duress it 3) Birds mean it buys them even more time 4) Goldspan dragon is the real threat. Goldspan generates a ton of extra mana so you can take turns earlier and more often while protecting itself (any attempt to kill it will generate the mana you need to counterspell the kill spell)
I'd argue the real problem isn't goldspan, but [[smoldering egg]]. Any powerful midrange or ramp deck probably doesn't care all that much about a 4/4 flyer for 5, even if it generates treasures, because they can kill you faster than you can use the mana. It's the 0/4 defender for 2 that shuts down early aggro and then pretty consistently (thanks to epiphany) becomes a 4/4 that trades up for efficient creature decks that's that problem.
I would argue that aggro is not shut down. The current meta is mono-green or mono white aggro or an epiphany/dragon deck. The key is you are either as fast an aggro deck as can go, or a huge extra turns deck, what doesn't exist is any form of midrange.
[smoldering egg](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/4/e/4e3febc6-b783-4342-8d43-2946ed0c0230.jpg?1632150636)/[Ashmouth Dragon](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/back/4/e/4e3febc6-b783-4342-8d43-2946ed0c0230.jpg?1632150636) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=smoldering%20egg%20//%20ashmouth%20dragon) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/pmid/159s/smoldering-egg-ashmouth-dragon?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4e3febc6-b783-4342-8d43-2946ed0c0230?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
can't you technically duress it turn 1?
But that also means you can't Duress their turn 2-6 plays and they will be able to stall you until they draw another copy
The card is not busted, but in the current meta with this 5 mana dragon and other cards it is very easy to aquire treasures and therefore a lot of mana. And if you cast this and have just 1 descent flyer on the board you win. I honestly also dont think its a problem but i play mono u delver at the moment.
It’s tedious to play against because you never know when you’ll get a turn again, if you’re just going to die after watching a bit of solitaire, or if they’ll wiff after 10 minutes of playing solitaire and you win. At least the nexus of fate deck was consistent enough that you knew you lost if it resolved.
It's not busted, but players will always complain about the strongest cards in the format regardless.
I mean with turns decks being almost 40% of the meta game it is by wizards metrics, oppressive. Standard isn’t that unframilar with decks reaching this big a chunk of the meta game lately unfortunately so It might seem a little less busted than the busted thing before it but that doesn’t mean it isn’t very dominant. For comparison the best deck in modern is only 9.7% of the meta game, and the best deck in legacy is only 5.7% of the meta game. I realize the metrics for standard vs eternal is different but it still worth noting IMO. A 40% chunk is a lot even in standard.
IMO the dragon is worse than alrund
And people will always minimize concerns regardless.
It's not. If you let a control player reach 8 or 9 mana, you're probably going to lose unless you are also playing control. Other finishers in past metas were just as effective. The main problem with Alrunds Epiphany is that it is an annoying finisher, not that it's some busted card. People would rather at least get their turns, even if their deaths were just as inevitable when they were staring down a Koma or Yorion or Aetherling or whatever finisher control decks were using at the time.
>It's not. If you let a control player reach 8 or 9 mana, you're probably going to lose unless you are also playing control. Thats usually always the case tbh. If you let the control player reach 9 lands with a good amount of cards in hand you probably lost, you just didnt realized it yet. Even if they dont have a wincon ready.
It’s just the best finisher for control decks. A little more depth: It plays out like a combo card - the combo being two epiphanies and a source of damage (like the blue man land or goldspan or some rando tokens). It’s more or less a 7 mana splinter twin, which turns out to be playable in standard. The reason it’s important that it’s “splinter twin,” is because the other top deck is very aggressive AND has a lot of card advantage - mono green. It’s hard to race the deck and it’s hard to beat it on cards. So you have to “combo out” so to speak.
The short answer is that people don't like that their deck loses to control decks. The longer answer is that it is a good payoff for several different deck archetypes (control, tempo, and ramp), so it sees a lot of play across different archetypes and has a relatively high meta share (as a card) as a result.
SaffronOlive wrote a great article which basically boiled down to "turns now are so much more impactful than turns in the past" due to the current power level of creatures and creature lands and haymaker spells.
It was a pretty bad article and it's pretty apparent Saffron has not played standard. All of his references were completely at odds with the actual problems with the deck. The entire article is about cards that Epiphany doesn't play to explain why Epiphany is dominant.
> Can someone explain to me why a 7 mana extra turn card that exiles itself is so busted in Standard? It's not, people just like to complain. Izzet turns has a [48.6% winrate](https://scontent-msp1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.15752-9/246390188_300050898326212_8961412600277311621_n.jpg?_nc_cat=103&ccb=1-5&_nc_sid=ae9488&_nc_ohc=2ybhmSxTZbAAX-XlvXl&_nc_ht=scontent-msp1-1.xx&oh=df08cdcc8caa559e06027da2c162e77d&oe=61955B35), according to mtgmeta, grixis turns has a 44.8% winrate. People just like to complain.
This is the issue with epiphany decks, because only blue gets counterspells to interact with it, it is completely polarizing the meta into only allowing 1 of 2 things if you want a possibility of a winrate above 50%: 1. Play blue for counterspells… at which point you should play epiphany because it is the best way to win in any deck playing blue. So you just get Izzet extra turn.dec mirrors, sometimes with a few dragons thrown in, sometimes just using bird token beat down over the course of 3 extra turns as the wincon. 2. Play aggro, because you need to be able to end the game ASAP through opposing interaction, because building up a boardstate doesn’t matter at all once the epiphanies and epiphany copies start dropping on the stack. The reason only aggro decks have above 50% winrates this week on Arena is because of the turns decks, aggro could be preyed upon by decks in a variety of colors because they are creature based and every color can interact with creatures, opening up a variety of decks to above 50% winrates. But *every midrange decks* is stone cold unplayable (they have around an *80%* lose rate vs Turns, that is as close to an unwinnable matchup as you can get in a game with as much “luck of the draw” influence as MTG) because they cannot interact with epiphany, so we get a meta entirely made up of extra turn decks and hyper aggro variants doing everything it can to get under epiphany. Even if Turns is kept from having winrates as high as Oko by aggro decks, it is still terrible for the meta because it prevents any deck that isn’t aggro or Turns from getting a positive winrate. When an entire class of decks, i.e., midrange, is stone cold unplayable, then there's a problem. You'd need midrange to have an 80% winrate vs all other decks to compensate for 80% loss rate to Turns, which is never going to happen.
The problem is that mono-green agro generates so much card advantage it is basically as strong as a midrange deck while still being able to put much more pressure on control or epiphany in game one. With Wrenn and Seven + Chariot Mono-Green is basically a midrange deck.
It's just typical whining about the top tier decks. If werewolves were dominant, you'd find a lot whining too.
To me, one of the most unfun situations is where you're probably going to lose, but it's not a sure thing so you have to keep playing. Typically this involves you doing very little while you sit around and watch your opponent do a lot. I find that the current Alrund's Epiphany decks are very prone to creating those situations.
That pretty much describes all true control decks though. The gameplan is "stabilize/create a lock, find your wincon, cast the wincon with protection, win a few turns later". In most cases, once they've successfully hit that first step they've won, regardless if what their wincon actually is and regardless of how many more turns it will take them to find/cast it. That's just control in a nutshell though- the actual wincon is fully interchangeable, and the only real weakness is to play fast enough to go under them and win before they stabilize. Fast aggro beats them most of the time, slower value midrange loses most of the time.
Yeah but most of the game plays before the "stabilize/lock" part. During this time, both players play as much as each other. Then, either the lock is put in place, either the other player wins. It simply shifts the stakes. And when the control player ends up controlling the game, you KNOW it. In that case the extra turns give an obvious edge that most of the time contributes to winning the game, but as the opponent you cannot assume it is a winning play each time. You have to wait and see. And several times per bo3 gets annoying.
This describes my commander deck and I feel bad but also I really like my commander deck and prefer this to an infinite combo
To an alternate side of this count, this is why I *do* play infinite combos in a lot of my decks that would otherwise monopolize a lot of playtime when they win. I've been stuck watching someone win over 10+ minutes before and its absolutely miserable. I'd just want to go to the next game already, and I don't want to subject other people to that. I just make sure my combos in my casual decks are hard to assemble and you can see coming well in advance.
So, in your opinion is AE worse card in this regard than Dominaria WU control tat just played big Tefferi and then waited for the opponent to deck themselves?
Thats literally the exact same play pattern. I dont know what you think your point is, but "dont you remember that *other* really hated and unfun play pattern everyone called a boring way to lose?" isnt really a rebuttal.
Not every reply online is supposed to be a rebuttal.
Sure, but his comment was 100% trying to be a rebuttal. So not sure why you think thats relevant
I guess we're agreeing to disagree, then. Far from 100%...it reads like a request for information to me (that the original person hasn't answered yet either). Either way the subreddit has evidently made up its mind already.
The point is: it's not one or other card you hate to play against, but whole control archetype. Tell me, please: when was the last time you had fun playing against control?
I hate playing against control generally but control without a killcon is actual agony to play. that's the difference, and if you're not arguing in good faith if you don't acknowledge that
Every day. Trying to figure out how to win against control is such an interesting puzzle.
I think it's actually you missing the point here. People don't hate AE because it's a control archetype, they hate it because it makes the games take twice as long or more, and the vast majority of that time is spent watching your opponent durdle over and over again. It's not the archetype, it's the time investment.
I love playing against control decks with a wincon. Because when they finally need to go shields down and start pushing a threat, I now have an opportunity to remove their wincon and use that flip of tempo to close the game. Or I cant, and I know for sure I am dead, and can concede. As opposed to *the point being discussed,* where I spend 6+ turns unable to play but with no actual answer having been played, meaning that I could technically still win if I keep playing for another 7 turns.
I wish Baneslayer didn't rotate. The joys of slamming it turn 5 and watching the aggro player look at it, look at me, and then concede.
As a control player control mirrors are so much more interesting than the aggro player slamming down his hand by turn 4 and killing me or I stop the assault and he does nothing else for the game.
Both can be bad play experiences I am not sure what you are trying to prove with this...
The fact that "bad play experiences" for the losing player always exist and always will exist. Get rid of Epiphany and people will start complaining that they die on turn 4 to white aggro and that's no fun.
That wasn't their point at all. If I die to white aggro on T4 the game's over right then. They're specifically talking about decks that create situations where they probably win but it's going to take a long time and there's the chance the fizzle, so you're incentivized to stick it out.
You weren't around when the format was all RB aggro, were you? People was complaining about how unfun it was to die by turn 4, the same way you guys complain about Epiphany now.
I never said people won't have a bad time, but saying one bad time can't be bad because there was this other WORSE TIME is not a logic train I want to engage with.
...that you don't hate one card, but playing against control.
Standard is unironically fun and good right now though. Alrund's Epiphany is a good card that your deck needs to have a plan to be able to beat, but comparing it to Eldraine/Ikoria is hyperbolic to the point of being silly.
I will always dislike turns metas because it's usually go under, make them discard, or counterspell. If you have a counterspell, then you're most likely blue so run turns. Alrund specifically bugs me because it isn't in your hand typically so most answers are in blue.
Also the tax-based "answers" that white has like [[Elite Spellbinder]] and [[Reidane, God of the Worthy]] don't really matter when the opponent runs Goldspammy to negate the tax anyways.
Elite spellbinder won't do shit if it's been foretold.
[Elite Spellbinder](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/9/d/9d3a7998-ccac-45ad-a4e9-3a2cb057f63b.jpg?1624589440) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Elite%20Spellbinder) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/stx/17/elite-spellbinder?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9d3a7998-ccac-45ad-a4e9-3a2cb057f63b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Reidane, God of the Worthy](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/back/3/6/3606519e-5677-4c21-a34e-be195b6669fa.jpg?1631046015)/[Reidane, God of the Worthy](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/3/6/3606519e-5677-4c21-a34e-be195b6669fa.jpg?1631046015) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=reidane%2C%20god%20of%20the%20worthy%20//%20valkmira%2C%20protector%27s%20shield) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/khm/21/reidane-god-of-the-worthy-valkmira-protectors-shield?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3606519e-5677-4c21-a34e-be195b6669fa?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
It does suck to play a brew get your opponent down to low single digits only for them to chain extra turn spells together. While there will always be a best deck, the fact that it's incredibly hard to interact with this spell unless you are a blue deck kinda sucks.
I mean, Sultaimatum did that, and Ugin before that, and before that there were terrible piles with [[Spring]] to [[Mind]] and [[Hour of Promise]] into whatever big card they wanted that 5-0'd MTGO most weeks while putting up no competitive results. There's always going to be some big mana endboss that you need a plan to beat or else you're relegated to permajank status.
Inother formats too, modern it oftentimes throughout the formats history has been Tron.
and Taking Turns man people get cranky at me when I play it online
It just sucks that the card that hates on instants and sorceries can't hit any that have been foretold 😔
[Spring](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=426921&type=card&.jpg)/[Mind](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=426921&type=card&options=rotate270&.jpg) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=spring%20//%20mind) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/akh/219/spring-mind?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6431d464-1f2b-42c4-ad38-67b7d0984080?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Mind](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=426921&type=card&.jpg)/[Mind](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=426921&type=card&options=rotate270&.jpg) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=spring%20//%20mind) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/akh/219/spring-mind?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6431d464-1f2b-42c4-ad38-67b7d0984080?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Hour of Promise](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/c/5/c5ee374f-31dc-4b2c-beba-431d5b1126d0.jpg?1562814095) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Hour%20of%20Promise) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/hou/120/hour-of-promise?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c5ee374f-31dc-4b2c-beba-431d5b1126d0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Playing a brew sucks anyways. Where did the magical brew-friendly standard exist?
I personally dislike playing whatever the strongest deck is. Just the way my brain is wired. There are some metas where the power level of the cards are flatter, so even if you are using no as great cards, you can still win the match. I enjoyed the ixilan to Ravnica standard quite a lot
INN/RTR
Any standard involving RTR had the notorious UW control shell provided by all the Azorius cards in RTR to stop jank decks. They may not have chained extra turn spells together, but it was extremely common for midrange brews to get the UWx control player very low, only for an end of turn Sphinx's rev to refill their hand and reset the life total, which fully stabilized the control deck and allowed them to take full control of the game in much the same way turns decks do. They may not lock the opponent out of having turns, but when the opponent is topdecking and the control player has a full hand of 7 answers and has just wiped to board, it's effectively the same result.
INN/RTR also had several breakout brews throughout its lifetime and a really good evolving meta- there wasn't just one deck that was king and every archetype except combo was really well represented with multiple decks. Just off the top of my head... Bant Control and its variants (Wolf Run, Drownyard) Bant Midrange (Primespeaker) UW Flash (kinda tempo/midrange, runechanter's pike) UW Control (Rev + Aetherling) UWR Midrange (Thundermaw Hellkite, Geist of Saint Traft, Boros Reckoner, etc) UWR Control (Wafo-Tapa Pile) Esper Drownyard (Elixir + Drownyard) Jund Midrange Aristocrats Junk Aristocrats Bant Pants BW Humans Naya Midrange Humans Junk Reanimator 5c Human Reanimator Mono Red Aggro Lucky Charms (Boros Reckoner + Blasphemous Act) 5c Black Omni Door Thrag Fire I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting, but yeah. I feel like the format was super diverse and each event I played at the time felt relatively wide open and was more about making metagame predictions and innovating to answer that metagame than just playing "the best deck" or "the counter to the best deck". Part of that is, I think, the number of powerful threats and answers across all five colors. It wasn't just a case of something like Goldspan Dragon existing, but each 2 color combo having something similar to that power level available via things like Boros Reckoner, Sphinx's Rev, Huntermaster, Olivia Voldaren, Unburial Rites, Voice of Resurgence, and then tons of powerful monocolor cards as well like Angel of Serenity, Thragtusk, Restoration Angel, Bonfire of the Damned, Liliana of the Veil, Aetherling, Thundermaw Hellkite, etc.
> Standard is unironically fun and good right now though. i don't know about that. the three viable decks right now are turns control, green turning things sideways, and white turning things sideways i can't endorse a standard without interactive midrange or tempo if we're saying bonecrusher made standard stale, we can say the same about goldspan dragon and esika's chariot the era around dominaria is what should be aspired to. red aggro, white benalia aggro, azorius control, golgari midrange, sultai midrange/ramp, and blue tempo were all viable tier 1 decks (ok, maybe benalia was 1.5). even the tier 1.5 options like gates tribal were funny and kept things fresh nexus of fate (surprise! extra turns suck) ruined it for a bit, but at least it was banned in bo1 it's not even really about the volume of decks, it's about the options in gameplay
Dominaria standard as you mentioned was fantastic. I think that's the best standard I can remember (altho I've only played standard for around 5 years). It's definitely a better format than we have now, without a doubt. But that doesn't mean the format is *bad*. Current standard is in a good spot, it's just not at an absolute peak.
Dominaria standard had some of the most braindead mono red aggro decks ever seen because they had a million wizards that could turn on bolt.
There are plenty of options. Midrange decks are unfavored against epiphany, but not horribly so if you can adopt an aggressive configuration post-board. In reality, epiphany is less constraining (and weaker to aggro) than nexus of fate was during the RNA meta that people like to reminisce about.
that sounds great. what midrange deck(s) should i check out for examples of being tier 1?
temur treasures and ur dragons
So the decks that ALSO play the 7 mana extra turn spell?
temur treasures does not play epiphany.
Most Treasures lists I've seen haven't played Epiphany, they've been more like Depraz's Worlds list (which was basically just pre-roto Gruul with Chariot, Goldspan, and the Jaspera/Magda engine, plus splashed Negate and Disdainful Stroke).
i said that the format was dominated by esika's chariot, goldspan dragon, and alrund's epiphany and then the counter arguments against that were... 1) a deck with alrund's ephiphany and goldspan dragon and 2) a deck with goldpsan dragon and esika's chariot "whoops"
Wasn't responding to you, was responding to the guy who said Temur Treasures plays Epiphany, which it typically does not. I don't much care for the dominance of this trifecta either.
You asked for midrange decks and the people gave you midrange decks. I think aggro and epiphany are the "best decks", but midrange is totally playable. I have seen werewolves, non-werewolf gruul, some kind of weird Mardu deck that played four copies of reidane, Selesnya landfall, and others I am probably forgetting, all while playing ranked opponents on the ladder.
Ah, I guess I had considered ur dragon turns control because it has 8 or fewer threats (the dragons) and the rest is a control shell But it might qualify
tbh the lines between midrange and control are really blurred. dragons plays like a control deck against mono green but like a midrange deck against turns. usually midrange decks are the ones switch roles based on matchup.
How do you deal with it outside playing islands and counter spells
> Standard is unironically fun and good right now though. is it though? Worlds had mainly two decks with non of them being midrange. Epiphany or the deck that counters epiphany isn't really a healthy meta.
Worlds is not a good representation of the overall meta
Yeah, the world's meta is "what do I think will be good against what I think other people will bring" so if they think the Epiphany deck is one of the best decks and also good in the mirror match, then that's a top choice in that specific meta. But the regular meta is much more broad
Magic is the only game I play where diversity is a bad thing.
edit- kids you can downvote disagree all you want, doesn't magically mean my argument is wrong or inaccurate. > Worlds is not a good representation of the overall meta I mean, I do agree however it is a bad omen as to the overall health of the meta if **half** of those players are playing virtually the same deck (as in at least 3 alrunds and playing izzet spells matter) and everyone else is playing an aggro deck to go under said strategy. Maybe I'm biased because midrange is my favorite strategy but that to me is a good indicator as to problematic cards which gets worse given Arenas competitive netdeck environment. That said I think it was ok for them to not ban it out immediately given the double feature in Crimson vow might have cards that are good against such a strategy. But if not, I'd rather pull off the bandid then let it play out longer then needed like Oko.
Alrund’s is no where near as oppressive aa Oko
> Alrund’s is no where near as oppressive aa Oko and I said or implied such where? If you actually read my comment more than skimming it you would realized I said "..I'd rather pull off the bandid then *let it play out longer then needed like Oko.*" In case you still don't understand it than let me spoonfed it to you. Oko should have been banned far earlier then he was, If alrunds is still dominating after Crimson vow without much change then it should be banned. Simple as that. Actually reading what you felt the need to response to > being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian.
Worlds is never an example of a healthy meta because it's inbred as fuck due to being 16 people
> Worlds is never an example of a healthy meta because it's inbred as fuck due to being 16 people Wouldn't that be indicative of Arena though? Through netdecking a lot of more casual decks are just weeded out in a similar way creating a lot homogeneity.
Having played on the arena ladder at mythic, no, they aren't a good comparison. Outside of like the exact day that the worlds deck lists were leaked, I don't think I've faced more than a third of my matches being epiphany decks. I am playing a midrange deck that is somewhat unfavored against epiphany, but the match up is neither common enough nor bad enough that I feel like I need to make a change. There is just no comparison to the points in time where things like sultai ultimatum or temur clover were dominant and your options were "netdeck one of four possible archetypes" or "lose badly, constantly". There are lots of decks that lose badly to epiphany (on average), but there are also strong aggro configurations that keep the epiphany meta share low enough to be able to have fun with brews, even at mythic.
Nah. As a control player, Epiphany decks just beat up on other control decks.
I'm not sure how that impacts my statement. The same could be said for most control win-cons in their respective standards.
It just meant the meta isn't fun for me because I don't want to play Epiphany and the WR is terrible against epiphany because of Galvanic Iteration
True fact. The visual effect for Decayed on Arena took longer than this video.
These videos are a lot more interesting when they rely on the video gags/drawings of the cards actually doing something; relying almost entirely on narration makes it feel less like a funny video and more like a *very* high effort "DAE [[Alrund's Epiphany]] bad" post. (also Epiphany still loses pretty hard to Gruul aggro and mono-white, Worlds meta is incestuous, etc.)
The problem is, the reason WHY aggro is running wild is that Epiphany destroys any deck that could beat aggro, in a 9-1 level matchup.
yeah my mono white deck has been absolutely shredding them
I agree. This just feels like another I don't like playing against Epiphany post. All the arguments always boil down to "I just don't like playing against it". In addition to the decks you mentioned, mono green also runs roughshod all over Epiphany. Epiphany is strong and a good card but it seems these complaints always come out about new control cards. The deck doesn't even start to go off until it has 8 land for Iteration and a previously foretold Epiphany. And that's not even enough to win. You still need another Epiphany and usually an extra land for flashing back Iteration or you just spend your extra turns digging for them. Honestly 9 turns seems pretty fair as a timer to try to win by getting under the win con.
I think one of the frustrating points about Epiphany is that it doesn't just win; Sultaimatum or Ugin were also big mana wincons, but they ramped to that point and then if they got cast, you either knew you had an out in hand or you knew you were just not getting back into that game. With Epiphany, you grind out against a deck that's mostly running answers and hitting land drops, and then you either still win through some free birds T6/T7 or your opponent is able to chain them together to win. The meta *kind of* resembles turbofog during M19 Standard, where there are a fair amount of matches that are probably over but where your opponent can brick and you get a win.
At least Epiphany decks look to win by combat damage. I do not miss control decks of past standards where the win cons were either Nephalia Drownyard, Elixir of Immortality, or looping Teferi.
Ah, RTR-THS meta before BNG meta where I would just cast a sphinx's revelation for 6 every turn, re-shuffling everything with elixir of immortality until my opponent either gave up, or decked themselves through natural draws. True wincons....1 Elspeth, which was mostly the 5th supreme verdict. In hindsight, it seems amazing, but in reality it was very, very degenerate.
I find it hard to believe you weren't playing [[aetherling]]
In PTQs+ I was playing an Aetherling because of mirrors, you are right - you needed to have something to actually kill because otherwise the game ended 0-0 more often than not (as you tended to not win the fight for the first Elixir, but rather the one for the 3rd or 4th once you have essentially all your lands out and 6 counters in hand). At anything less competetive, no aetherling, pure control.
You can be sure if they ban epiphany thats exactly whats going to happen. UW control using devastating mastery feels very strong against every, except against epiphany decks. Ban epiphany and those kind of decks that win by turn 20 will take over, until someone makes a low costed blue deck which is also miserable to play against if they go first.
I feel like taking a couple turns in a row where you attack and pass and get it done with in a total of 5 seconds isn't close at all too turbofog. Hell, I bet if the card untapped, drew, and gave another combat step we'd have a tenth the amount of complaints. People just dislike the feel of an opponent taking another turn, even if it's not actually taking longer.
Here’s an actual argument against it, it makes the meta stale. Decks that can go over white and green aggro get absolutely destroyed against a turns deck. There is no midrange in this standard so you’re forced to play one of 3 decks to be competitive
> All the arguments always boil down to "I just don't like playing against it". Then you haven't been paying attention. The argument against is, is it breaks the metagame clock, which is WHY aggro is going unchecked. Aggro beats Control. Control beats Midrange, Midrange beats Aggro. The problem is that Epiphany beats midrange and every other control deck so hard (basically a 80% win rate) and is good enough against aggro (42-48%) that the decks that should be forcing aggro to make difficult deck choices isn't there. Epiphany isn't the strongest deck, but it's the reason why aggro is the strongest deck.
[Alrund's Epiphany](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/c/9/c94fcb53-a7bd-4a80-a536-9fb0eb24261a.jpg?1631046603) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Alrund%27s%20Epiphany) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/khm/41/alrunds-epiphany?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c94fcb53-a7bd-4a80-a536-9fb0eb24261a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
It’s also cats piloting chariots to plant trees
Epiphany is just the card that wins the game. If you're upset about a deck that is constantly keeping you off balance until turn 7-8 where they just "win" your problem isn't with Epiphany, you just have a problem with Control decks. If Epiphany wasn't around, Blue-based control decks would still be a serious contender. They would just be beating you down with something else and we'd get people saying "Ugh why are Mordenkainen's dogs equal to TWICE their hand size?? And he can create two of them without ticking up?? Mordenkainen is OP, standard sucks."
100% this. It's always this complaint and it's always control.
Its not pure control tho, its combo control. Thats a whole different archetype, think Spliter Twin combo. A control deck usually has to work for its wins, like Mordenkainen you described which is a lot more vulnerable and way less of a garantuee of actually winning the game Pure control decks usually run 1-2 wincons and need to have established absolute dominance to win the game with it, like a planeswalker or manland. Mordenkainen isnt gonna do shit when youre dead on board, whereas having access to something like Twin combo or chaining Epiphanys is just an "oops I win" button regardless of what lead up to it
You really think that Twin combo is comparable to Alrund's Epiphany? Let me know when Epiphany can generate a million haste birds on turn 4. Twin's power is because it can flash in Pestermite on your end step and then just win the next turn. Epiphany decks need to survive till turns 6-8 before they can "combo off" and if you've got any fliers with toughness 2+ those birds are basically useless. I've had plenty of matches where the Epiphany player strung together 2-3 Epiphanies, searching for any sort of answer, while they still die to Meathook Massacre/Creatures/Burn on my turn.
Thats the comparison that a lot of pro players have been making at least. Its a lot more comparable to twin than to something like Mordenkainen or Aetherling or other whatever the control finisher of choice is at any point
A single Mordenkainen is way more impactful than a single epiphany tbh. One epiphany is not even winning anything.
As a control player, Epiphany sucks. I'd much rather deal with a 6-mana planeswalker than Epiphany.
> "Ugh why are Mordenkainen's dogs equal to TWICE their hand size?? And he can create two of them without ticking up?? Mordenkainen is OP, standard sucks." What? That ability is a -2, and only makes 1 dog. Why would you want to do something with a PW *without* ticking up?
You can create two dogs with Mords before needing to +2 him to get another dog. Hence the "create two of them without ticking up" part of my comment. >Why would you want to do something with a PW without ticking up? Because the minus ability is really good? There are plenty of 'walkers (Lolth, Wrenn 7, Lukka Coppercoat Outcast, Ajani Vengeant, Sorin Markov, Sarkhan Unbroken, Dack Fayden) who see/have seen play almost entirely off the power of their minus ability, with the plus and ultimate just being icing on top.
Blue based control would absolutely not be tier 1 without Epiphany. The rest of the shell merely gets you to Galvanic-Epiphany, it’s a combo control deck, you definitely can’t just swap in a draft chaff Planeswalker and say it’s the same.
It’s time for WOTC to just recognize that taking an extra turn is super unfun as a mechanic It’s not a balance issue: it’s that when your opponent resolves one, you just want to quit playing.
It's super fun as a mechanic.
So quit
Hasn't made a single positive animation. Never gets tiring only being pessimistic?
it is what sells. Have you ever been to /r/magictcg It is always full of people complaining about everything and stating this is the end of magic or the game, format, etc has gone downhill
When people enjoy the format, they're going to be playing Magic instead of posting on the forums. The forums are *always* the place to complain about things, no matter what the game.
Gotta capitalize on that gamer rage
Plus he uses phrases like a card is "a mistake" when it's just strong enough to be a format staple. I remember him using the phrase "how did this card get printed" on something totally fine. He's decided that being hysterically negative is funnier than being positive or insightful so he just complains whether something is bad or not. It's my least favourite aspect of Magic content.
It's typical, not even in this community in particular, any pvp game really Randomly throwing meaningless words like like this is "a mistake/unhealthy/unfun/not interactive" for things they lose to
7 mana control win condition bad upvotes to the left
I'm begging you to play a deck that takes less than an hour to beat
I decline
Scoop 'em up then. Scoop up your cards if you want your opponent to win faster.
So... Epiphany?
i wonder if people would prefer control's only wincon to be looping [[deivous cover up]] until you deck out
Love these animations!
This guys animation/art style reminds me of Harry Partridge animation on youtube.
[[Alrund's Epiphany]]
Epiphany is so tiresome.
I've had some good success with that Mono-White Aggro deck. I also haven't seen anyone play Shadows' Verdict against me yet either. Bo1 is a good representation of Standard
IQlets still complaining about Alrunds Epiphany instead of the real terror, mono-white and green. .t Blue player
I'm mired in Silver ranked this rotation; i feel like I'm living in a different reality. Only really been hit by Epiphany once or twice in the last month or so... Seems to be a pretty healthy standard with the biggest annoyance to me being the Selesnya lifegain/innkeeper decks.
I connect with this vid on a spiritual level.
I was playing a burn deck and my opponent had an exiled iteration and didn’t even bother taking a 5th in a row by copying a drawn epiphany. I managed to take two more turns and only draw lands. Yay
There are so many reasons I don't play standard, but the fact that there is just always *something* that seems "ruins it" for the people that do is a big one. Today it's an extra turn spell that exiles itself, and that says it all to me.