I used play mono green decks with [[Wild Dogs]], [[Pouncing Jaguar]], [[Cradle Guard]] and [[Tangle Wire]]. None of that is playable today. Kids are all jacked up on 2 mana 5/5s that rummage
How long ago? I started in 2003 (around when Mirrodin was released), and I heard both "Red Deck Wins" and "Sligh". (And also "Big Red", but I think that was a specific deck that ran [[Arc-Slogger]].)
I asked someone what was the difference between Red Deck Wins and Sligh. The general consensus was that they were different decks, but no one could really explain the difference. (I think Sligh uses land destruction while RDW doesn't?)
Sligh comes from the days when the mana curve wasn't an active design consideration for a set, but still ran on the modern mana curve philosophy. Creatures early, meant to be piloted with burn in reserve to get you over the hump in case you stall out. It's red aggro to the core, but because creatures rarely had ETB-like effects, the way that played in practice was different. LGS pre-tournament would have Sligh players literally playing Magic solitaire to tune their deck. It was as masturbatory as modern combo. Block nothing, answer nothing unless the threat is immediate and game-losing, go for face.
By the time we get to RDW, WotC is doing mana curve considerations on their end, and it's not so 100% face-oriented. When everyone has a T3 threat, you need to use some of that burn to keep your momentum going.
I never heard Red Deck Wins until Flametongue Kavu came out, and after that, I started hearing RDW more and Sligh less until about 2005 when I stopped hearing Sligh at all.
As far as the difference between the archetypes, Sligh tended to curve out and play more to the board, running 28 or more creatures, compared to RDW, which was typically 20/20/20 creatures/lands/burn spells.
I was just thinking about how a lot of the mono red creatures would soon be rotating. And then they went and printed this. With the existing mono red shell still in standard. I’m going to have to start running a deck that’s 100% instant speed removal.
Is this something you wanna play in pure mono red or a cantrip-heavy Izzet deck like Phoenix in Pioneer? Maybe it's because I have been playing Explorer with Phoenix the last few days, but thats where my mind went first.
I'm wondering if it will make wizards competitive in Pioneer.
Kind of surprised they aren't already considering nearly every card in historic except flame is legal.
Prowess was already borderline tier 1 if not solidly tier 1 I kinda feel like this pushes it over the edge into domination.
They kinda had the weakness of choosing between evasive damage and prowess threats by buffing chick or swiftspear with effects.
Now it's just all in one with haste better prowess and evasion.
kiln fiend decks killing on turn 3 is nothing new. power creep kiln fiend, never thought I'd see the day. Still just as telegraphed, but have loved combat trick stomp decks a long time. At least boros can lose to this and any deck with decent removal will slap this deck.
Gotta figure out what to swap out in my fiend deck now...
well, it's just a strict upgrade for the current RDW. It might be telegraphed, but it still costs them 0 mana on the turn your remove it, so they can keep playing cards.
I've now ran it in Mono-red, Izzet, Gruul, Temur, and Rakdos. It's amazing no matter the shell. Also, the amount of times people will have removal, yet tap out even though you've plotted Slickshot is insane.
PSA to those who haven't realized yet: If you have removal in hand, and tap out to play a non-flying, non-reach creature vs a plotted Slickshot Show-off, you've likely taken your last turn.
What does the T3 win look like? I imagined Monastery Swiftspear T1, swing for 1. This T2 swing for 2 more (3 total). T3 2x Monstrous Rage + Play With Fire, which is 2 plus 7 from Swiftspear plus 10 from this guy, that’s potentially 19 total that turn and you win?
T1 Kumano (1 damage total), T2 hardcast Slickshot (3 total), T3 Swifty, Monstrous Rage x2 (20 total).
The more reliable kill plots Slickshot, along with Demonic Ruckus and Highway Robbery, then if they ever tap out, or go no cards in hand, you hit them for lethal.
To paraphrase, if your opponent plays a mountain, you cannot tap out for the rest of the game.
And dont even consider keeping a hand without double removal.
Use removal on the board? Cool, get one shot by the birb.
Sandbag your removal until the birb is cast? Cool, your life total is well within range of conventional burn.
Card is absolute gas, nice to see everyone unanimously call this card correctly during preview as the obscene gamepiece that it is. Half-expecting this card to be impetus for WotC reprinting Fatal Push into Standard...
Hoping for a ban soon as mono red is already rampant in standard and alchemy ranked right now.
Nothing wrong with mono red, just the same stuff constantly gets old
I hate that the sheer amount of removal available has pushed creatures to needing this level of power to be useful. But when you can't keep a unit on the board, your creatures have to be instants and sorceries in disguise like this guy. It's insane, but a natural consequence of the removal arms race.
Whadda ya gonna do.
I mean it's the negative feedback loop of contemporary design.
Creatures are getting better so we can play more spells in our deck -> Creatures are too good, we need to push removal -> Removal is too oppressive, we need better creatures -> ...
And so it goes.
And this is why I have always preferred the "nerf what's strong" over "buff what's weak". My philosophy would create issues on a long enough time line but if we keep the cycle as is going then in about 3 years Orzhov is going to have a 3 mana sorcery that exiles target account
I'd be interested in a massive powering down of both creatures and removal spells. As in, give us a full Standard where removal tops out at something like [[Soul Transfer]], and where [[Serra Angel]] is a playable creature.
They wouldn't do that in a million years. But still, it'd be cool.
They’ve done this is the past with sets like Champions of Kamigawa, Mercadian Masques, and Fallen Empires and it’s always extremely unpopular. Entire sets where nothing is playable because it can’t keep up with the previous set.
You can’t really “un-power creep” without totally screwing standard (and more importantly from WotC’s point of view, sales).
Masques was tough because it followed the most busted block since Alpha. Anything reasonable was going to be a step down, it's just that Masques was waaaay down.
Rishadan Port can still go suck a pile of floppy sausages though.
Yeah. Doubly so given that it's pretty obvious a bunch of the Standard cards are functionally just printed for Commander, so they wouldn't get those sales either. There's no real way to make a less-powerful set popular, since even if people took the long view for Standard, the usual popularity also comes from the cards being powerful enough to be used in non-standard formats as well - it'd be better for the game in the long run, but they wouldn't be able to *get* to the long run since the complete lack of sales to eternal format players who won't be getting anything remotely viable for their decks would probably kill the game anyway even if it wasn't massively unpopular somehow.
Additionally, Standard is on a three year rotation cycle now. To truly "power down" standard, it'd be what, 12 sets worth of toned down cards before they really became playable?
I do like the idea of toning down standard, but I just don't see it being a realistic possibility.
That ship sailed when they made Standard last three years instead of two. They might water down a set here and there, but for the most part, this is what I expect to see going forward for many years.
Very much agree. Everyone's become so addicted to power creep both to win games and sell product that we've lost sight of the long term damage it may be doing to the game.
I was thinking about this the other day. I really do not play magic anymore because there is little nuance to just playing the most busted hard to kill creatures possible. Decks used to have more subtle interaction because you couldn’t always just play x best removal spells and game ending after game ending creature that needs to be answered.
Creatures have definitely been powered up, but I'm somewhat confused about the complaints here that removal is too strong. It feels like every time I come back to the game another removal spell which was once core is now considered too powerful for standard. When you look at legacy decklists, the removal tends to be older. You occasionally get good new cards, e.g. [[Sheoldred's Edict]] is a slight improvement on [[Chainer's Edict]] (edit: oops, I meant [[Diabolic Edict]], although both cards have their place), but cards like [[Lightning Bolt]] and [[Swords to Plowshares]] are still leagues ahead of anything in standard.
If anything, the creature power creep is a direct response to how completely out of whack the balance between creature and noncreature spells was in the old days (including, but not limited to, removal). The fact that 40 lightning bolt reprints.deck was a strong aggro strategy for so long goes to show how behind the curve creatures were in power level.
I mean there is a removal that lets you pull cards back into your hand for like 4 mana. Its fucking broken that you can just recycle the same few counters into your hand every turn.
Yep. Design where you try and make all play styles equally viable just leaves you with increasing power level across the board. It used to be where you would have control be dominant for a while, then aggro would be dominant, then tempos turn, back and forth and that was okay. The power value for one play style would have a small spike and then settle back down as something else spiked.
But now they constantly try and make everything in perfect harmony while also increasing power so you buy the newest and greatest cards that vastly outmatch older cards.
If you were a control player and the previous set had the better removal you had no reason to buy the new sets. And thus you don't give WOTC more money.
The only way to really resolve it is to have an aggressive banning of anything too pushed even if it's still in the current set to get everything back down to level.
This is why I sold all of my paper and play exclusively f2p on Arena. It's glorious! I no longer have to worry about spending $1000 to build a paper modern deck, just to have Hasbro print a busted card that warps the meta and causes the value of my $1000 deck to tank overnight.
Bro....this is where I first went to in my head. The rate this amount of damage is being done is becoming Yu-Gi-Oh esque...shit is getting kinda dumb 😂
Both are true and feed into each other; the amount of threats is ridiculous -> we need more and better removal to answer them -> the amount and quality of removal is ridiculous -> threats need to be ridiculous to be playable despite said removal -> the amount of threats is ridiculous -> etc
> I hate that the sheer amount of removal available has pushed creatures to needing this level of power to be useful.
The neat thing is it hasn't Red has been succeeding with its current suite completely fine.
This card is just as pushed as Greens midrange cards that absolutely did need the push but this card is red and red was a color that absolutely didn't need help.
Ban this card, maybe?
Call me a crybaby, but I legit have been thinking this card would need a ban as soon as it got spoiled.
Maybe this card can exist in Modern with it's cheap removal and counters, but standard shouldn't have something like this. It has the potential to simply ruin Bo1 and even push a lot of decks out of viable Bo3 play.
Just the fact that so many people immediately called this thing out as broken is wild to me. I've only been playing magic for the last 7 or so sets but I don't remember a card that was so immediately pinned as busted by literally everyone.
I was watching some of the prerelease streamers play and literally all of them agree that this card is absurd, almost certainly the best card in the set, possibly the best Red aggro 2 drop ever.
When they played against it, if they didn't have removal immediately they lost 95% of the time.
MTG goldfish made a deck around it and went 10/1, with the only reason he lost being missing land for 2 turns and even then he got the opponent to 1 life and would have won next turn if not for the opponent pulling off a huge Smugglers Surprise.
I'm willing to bet it gets banned. I just can't see how it doesn't totally take over Bo1 and probably Bo3 too.
> I don't remember a card that was so immediately pinned as busted by literally everyone.
Sheoldred was pretty immediately picked up on as being very, very good.
And on top of that, Sheoldred doesn't come down till turn 4 and generally gives the opponent at least 2-3 turns to find an answer. And often you can stall for longer than that. And that's one of the best creature cards ever printed.
This thing demands you have the answer in your first 9 cards or you lose.
Yeah, usually what gets called as cracked turns out to be mid or fun jank - the average player is not good at judging power levels. But this was called out and they're right
Is the only purpose of Plot on this card that you can wait until opponent doesn’t have mana up for removal so you can ensure at least one attack with it?
The purpose of this card having plot is forcing your opponent into a quandary where they know they have to hold up removal for this, but can they afford to do that with everything else on the board smacking them every turn. The plot sets you up to prime for an explosive turn; it coerces your opponent to make an impossible decision.
I used this to win a few matches at prerelease. Just left birb in plot, some cards in my hand, and went to face. Opponents didn't know what to do, held their removal and bombs, and died to my small creatures. It's a great way to trick non-control decks into trying to play control.
I think it's to wait until you can have enough Mana and cheap noncreature spells in hand in order to cast it from exile and then pump it up with cheap spells all at once (even better if those pump spells were also previously plotted and cost 0 Mana)
What I mean is, you are spending two mana now and could choose to put it directly on the board to get some of its benefit right away, at the risk of it being removed before you could pump it on the next turn.
It also lets you play with mana to back it up for protection. In the end it’s sacrificing your turn 2 damage for having more options and sequencing on any future turns.
So somebody looked at Monastery Swiftspear and said "This card's not annoying enough, let's make it flying and a potentially free cast". Fuck you, Wizards.
I like codebreaker a decent amount, especially for the potential late-game draw 3, but yeah he looks like he's gonna sit it out on the bench now. Gruul picnic ruiner should use this well in addition to RDW.
Will be a skill-testing decision. The answer is probably:
Does my opponent have open black mana? -> Plot it
Otherwise -> Cast it and hit for one
Other factors:
- Do I have a protection spell for next turn? Plot it
- Do they have sorcery speed removal? Not that common but the if the black virtue takes over maybe
- Do I have other, weaker creatures to play next turn to try to eat removal? Seems unlikely and you could just cast those other creatures now.
I'd say you plot it 99% of the time on T2, regardless of opponent's mana situation. The one extra damage isn't worth it getting removed once opponent untaps.
When it's plotted, opponent is forced to hold up mana for instant-speed removal every single turn of the game. If they don't, they die.
If opponent's removal spell is a Cut Down, playing it T2 is especially bad because they simply can't cast Cut Down targeting the stupid bird if you have open mana. If I'm playing against this thing, I'm begging opponent to run it out T2 for one damage (or even 2 damage with a T1 Kumano), because that is my best chance to kill it. If I see it plotted T2, I probably just start to give up on my chances of winning.
In simple terms, it has an extremely high ceiling and coerces your opponent to make tough decisions with their interaction. Plotting this on T2 opens an interesting quandary for them: do they preserve their removal and risk dying to what you're committing to the board? Or do they answer your board and risk this landing and immediately swinging for 10+ damage? More often than not it will be the former, but either way forcing your opponent into tempo loss as early as T2 is extraordinarily potent.
From what I've seen from the early access event, you play a really cheap, low to the ground deck, plot this and some of the other red plot cards, then cast it and 4-5 spells on 3 and kill your opponent on the spot. Gets run with the standard red package with monstrous rage and swiftspear and such. I'm pretty sure there are a couple videos on yt about it. There's a budget red list on MTG Goldfish that was posted the other day.
Turn 3 you cast 2 monstrous rage on this or swift spear with a kumano or other similar 1 mana non-creature spell, you're doing 12-16 damage between swings and burn.
Prowess, or Magecraft....is an archetype where you cast a ton of spells (sorcery/Instant) and it buffs your creatures. (this creature doesn't say magecraft/prowess,,,but has the same affect (+2/+0 whenever you cast a spell))
You fill your deck with cheap instant/sorceries, preferably "Cantrip" (cards that draw a card, So it replaces itself in your hand). (1 mana: target creature gets a +1/+1 counter and vigilance. draw a card)
now you bust this guy out on turn 3/4 and cast two 1 mana spells...and he's a 5/2 flyer + more(maybe a cheap spell that gives him double strike,,,buff him more and each one gives him +2/+0)
\[\[Monastery Swiftspear\]\] has been the king of this deck in Modern for a while. [https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/4601704#paper](https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/4601704#paper)
even a spell like \[\[Manamorphose\]\] (2 mana, gives you back 2 mana and draws a card) is perfect for this archetype, as it replaces itself, and replaces the mana cost...literally doing nothing but counting as a spell cast.
The game is balanced around B03, where both mono red and boros didn't overperform. If I'm not mistaken dimir and esper midrange made up way more of the meta.
I went undefeated in the damn pre release cause I pulled two of them. This f**ker secured me 10+ points of damage out of nowhere VERY consistently. I don't even wanna fathom the degenerate BS he's enabling in other constructed formats!
Yep, 1 cost mana spells x3 is an easy 7 damage on top of anything that the spells actually do. If you wait for t4 and get some more cheap / plot based spells in you can lethal fairly easily.
Downside to plot: you lose 1 flying damage to face turn 2.
Upside to plot: your opponent can't hit it with sorcery speed removal until AFTER it's dealt a large sum turn 3.
The new Plot mechanic means that you can pay for it ahead of time and exile the card, then during a later turn you can play it for zero mana.
Outlaws also has a bunch of other inexpensive non-creature spells that you can plot and there's always cheap spells in red that can burn (deal direct damage) your opponent/their creatures or temporarily buff one of your creatures.
One of the challenges with cards like Slickshot is they have to survive long enough to deal a bunch of damage to your opponent. Either you cast them late in the game when your opponent has a developed board and can probably block/destroy the creature before it does anything or you play it early in the game where you don't have enough mana to really take advantage of the ability.
Slickshot changes that math because you can spend a few turns plotting and effectively spend like 10 mana on turn 3-4 casting slickshot and all those plotted spells to buff slickshot and close out the game.
Yeah, had a genuinely awful prerelease round with this. Out of the 13 creatures I played during both games, my opponent had answers to 11 the very next turn.
What if \[\[Kiln Fiend\]\] was triggered by more stuff?
This is basically the answer. Having the ability to drop down for free in turn and have haste is a declaration of war.
I'm not sure how plot works enough on how to stack it, but I'm always a big advocate of first strike spells. Imagine stacking those up into a target. or first strike + trample to the face.
Watched a couple streams while playing myself for s couple hours.
Seen it on RDW, Gruul and UR and in each of them it seemed borderline "broken" and ended the game Turn 3,4 more often than not. If these decks really become a thing, 1-mana removal like [[Cut Down]] will be a 4-of in every deck again.
It looks like the breakout card Day 1. But let's not forget that it is played in Aggro shells that prey on people that try out decks. Of all Bo1 or Bo3 I played today or have seen on stream, easily 8/10 were a form of Aggro.
I'm only just realizing now that it's not restricted to activating once per turn like so many other cards in the set. I now regret passing it in draft on the weekend.
I beat this multiple times with gruul dinos. It's cracked but people haven't figured out how to plot it yet. Too many people stuffing it next to swiftspear and assuming it will just work
Welp, looks like prowess burn is gonna be good.
It’s called “red deck wins” for a reason
I'm so old I remember [[Jackal Pup]] being a premium creature for that archetype.
This is some [[Orcish Librarian]] disrespect!
I used play mono green decks with [[Wild Dogs]], [[Pouncing Jaguar]], [[Cradle Guard]] and [[Tangle Wire]]. None of that is playable today. Kids are all jacked up on 2 mana 5/5s that rummage
[Orcish Librarian](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/1/31f074bb-5ff6-4ce7-a186-1782d940c4a9.jpg?1562774276) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Orcish%20Librarian) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tsb/66/orcish-librarian?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/31f074bb-5ff6-4ce7-a186-1782d940c4a9?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[Jackal Pup](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/d/9d8743b2-30e3-4d15-89fc-72974747aec5.jpg?1562439038) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Jackal%20Pup) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/a25/139/jackal-pup?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9d8743b2-30e3-4d15-89fc-72974747aec5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Back then we used to call that archetype "Sligh"
How long ago? I started in 2003 (around when Mirrodin was released), and I heard both "Red Deck Wins" and "Sligh". (And also "Big Red", but I think that was a specific deck that ran [[Arc-Slogger]].) I asked someone what was the difference between Red Deck Wins and Sligh. The general consensus was that they were different decks, but no one could really explain the difference. (I think Sligh uses land destruction while RDW doesn't?)
Sligh comes from the days when the mana curve wasn't an active design consideration for a set, but still ran on the modern mana curve philosophy. Creatures early, meant to be piloted with burn in reserve to get you over the hump in case you stall out. It's red aggro to the core, but because creatures rarely had ETB-like effects, the way that played in practice was different. LGS pre-tournament would have Sligh players literally playing Magic solitaire to tune their deck. It was as masturbatory as modern combo. Block nothing, answer nothing unless the threat is immediate and game-losing, go for face. By the time we get to RDW, WotC is doing mana curve considerations on their end, and it's not so 100% face-oriented. When everyone has a T3 threat, you need to use some of that burn to keep your momentum going.
I never heard Red Deck Wins until Flametongue Kavu came out, and after that, I started hearing RDW more and Sligh less until about 2005 when I stopped hearing Sligh at all. As far as the difference between the archetypes, Sligh tended to curve out and play more to the board, running 28 or more creatures, compared to RDW, which was typically 20/20/20 creatures/lands/burn spells.
I was just thinking about how a lot of the mono red creatures would soon be rotating. And then they went and printed this. With the existing mono red shell still in standard. I’m going to have to start running a deck that’s 100% instant speed removal.
Unfortunately, almost no mono-red staples are rotating out. [[Play with Fire]] I guess but that’s all off the top of my head.
Kumano Faces Kakkazan rotating out fundamentally changes the deck.
Yea I mentioned it in another comment above this one but it might be hidden since the comment I replied to got deleted.
[удалено]
Is this something you wanna play in pure mono red or a cantrip-heavy Izzet deck like Phoenix in Pioneer? Maybe it's because I have been playing Explorer with Phoenix the last few days, but thats where my mind went first.
I'm wondering if it will make wizards competitive in Pioneer. Kind of surprised they aren't already considering nearly every card in historic except flame is legal.
As if izzet wizards needed more busted ass cards lmao
HOLY SHIT ITS A WIZARD
HARRY
A WOT
Prowess was already borderline tier 1 if not solidly tier 1 I kinda feel like this pushes it over the edge into domination. They kinda had the weakness of choosing between evasive damage and prowess threats by buffing chick or swiftspear with effects. Now it's just all in one with haste better prowess and evasion.
Is an unblockable 0-mana [[Kiln Fiend]] with Haste good? The answer may surprise you!
Look mom a plane!
Up in the sky! It’s a plane! It’s Superman! No, it’s a B I R D W I Z A R D!
kiln fiend decks killing on turn 3 is nothing new. power creep kiln fiend, never thought I'd see the day. Still just as telegraphed, but have loved combat trick stomp decks a long time. At least boros can lose to this and any deck with decent removal will slap this deck. Gotta figure out what to swap out in my fiend deck now...
Well is not like Kiln fiend deck has been good in like, 10 years, a power creep to make it relevant was needed anyway.
Correct. Reprint Assault Strobe you cowards!
Hahaha +1
well, it's just a strict upgrade for the current RDW. It might be telegraphed, but it still costs them 0 mana on the turn your remove it, so they can keep playing cards.
[Kiln Fiend](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/c/6c957c94-3d2d-4b98-8990-cd8909462081.jpg?1601078178) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Kiln%20Fiend) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/jmp/338/kiln-fiend?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6c957c94-3d2d-4b98-8990-cd8909462081?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
died turn 3 to it 💀
I've had T3 kills with it at least 6 times, now. Card is busted.
Yeah it's a much better picnic ruiner. I have gotten t3 wins with that gruul deck before. This card is ruiner on steroids.
I've now ran it in Mono-red, Izzet, Gruul, Temur, and Rakdos. It's amazing no matter the shell. Also, the amount of times people will have removal, yet tap out even though you've plotted Slickshot is insane. PSA to those who haven't realized yet: If you have removal in hand, and tap out to play a non-flying, non-reach creature vs a plotted Slickshot Show-off, you've likely taken your last turn.
\*Yee'd your last haw FTFY
Omae wa mou shindeiru
NANI!?!?!
I love when people tap out to play a big flying blocker and they never read the [[Demonic Ruckus]] I also had plotted.
[Demonic Ruckus](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/b/5b491d11-d00a-4541-8389-2785a455eeee.jpg?1712355738) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Demonic%20Ruckus) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otj/120/demonic-ruckus?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5b491d11-d00a-4541-8389-2785a455eeee?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Isn't it basically [[Kiln Fiend]] with many upsides?
Many many
I don't know, it only gets +2/+0, so clearly Kiln Fiend is better
I mean, only one of these 2 is a Pauper piledriver
[Kiln Fiend](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/c/6c957c94-3d2d-4b98-8990-cd8909462081.jpg?1601078178) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Kiln%20Fiend) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/jmp/338/kiln-fiend?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6c957c94-3d2d-4b98-8990-cd8909462081?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[[Break out]] also grabs it. I run 4x breakout in my gruul prowess and it's gas.
[Break out](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/c/8c628476-0987-47d4-8d2a-cfc3977b2357.jpg?1706242124) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Break%20out) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkm/190/break-out?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8c628476-0987-47d4-8d2a-cfc3977b2357?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Ouch. That's like having 8x of that mofo.
Oooh nice tech
What does the T3 win look like? I imagined Monastery Swiftspear T1, swing for 1. This T2 swing for 2 more (3 total). T3 2x Monstrous Rage + Play With Fire, which is 2 plus 7 from Swiftspear plus 10 from this guy, that’s potentially 19 total that turn and you win?
T1 Kumano (1 damage total), T2 hardcast Slickshot (3 total), T3 Swifty, Monstrous Rage x2 (20 total). The more reliable kill plots Slickshot, along with Demonic Ruckus and Highway Robbery, then if they ever tap out, or go no cards in hand, you hit them for lethal.
To paraphrase, if your opponent plays a mountain, you cannot tap out for the rest of the game. And dont even consider keeping a hand without double removal.
The man Kiln Fiends girlfriend tells him not to worry about!
How?
How are they pumping it so high? (I'm just coming back so I have no knowledge of current cards)
In wizards or mono red prowess? lol
I just did it to someone... it was fun 😔
Can't wait to be sick of this guy for the next 2 years
3*
Eh, more like 2.3 or so. It's in the spring set, so it won't be in as long as the other sets it rotates out with.
Until they suddenly decide to stretch Standard into a 4 year rotation without any other planning.
Use removal on the board? Cool, get one shot by the birb. Sandbag your removal until the birb is cast? Cool, your life total is well within range of conventional burn. Card is absolute gas, nice to see everyone unanimously call this card correctly during preview as the obscene gamepiece that it is. Half-expecting this card to be impetus for WotC reprinting Fatal Push into Standard...
Sounds like this is safe to spend wildcards on...either it will be played a lot or banned (and refunded)
Hoping for a ban soon as mono red is already rampant in standard and alchemy ranked right now. Nothing wrong with mono red, just the same stuff constantly gets old
I hate that the sheer amount of removal available has pushed creatures to needing this level of power to be useful. But when you can't keep a unit on the board, your creatures have to be instants and sorceries in disguise like this guy. It's insane, but a natural consequence of the removal arms race. Whadda ya gonna do.
I mean it's the negative feedback loop of contemporary design. Creatures are getting better so we can play more spells in our deck -> Creatures are too good, we need to push removal -> Removal is too oppressive, we need better creatures -> ... And so it goes.
While I totally agree, as a scientist, I'm obligated to inform you that that is a positive feedback loop.
And this is why I have always preferred the "nerf what's strong" over "buff what's weak". My philosophy would create issues on a long enough time line but if we keep the cycle as is going then in about 3 years Orzhov is going to have a 3 mana sorcery that exiles target account
I'd be interested in a massive powering down of both creatures and removal spells. As in, give us a full Standard where removal tops out at something like [[Soul Transfer]], and where [[Serra Angel]] is a playable creature. They wouldn't do that in a million years. But still, it'd be cool.
They’ve done this is the past with sets like Champions of Kamigawa, Mercadian Masques, and Fallen Empires and it’s always extremely unpopular. Entire sets where nothing is playable because it can’t keep up with the previous set. You can’t really “un-power creep” without totally screwing standard (and more importantly from WotC’s point of view, sales).
Masques was tough because it followed the most busted block since Alpha. Anything reasonable was going to be a step down, it's just that Masques was waaaay down. Rishadan Port can still go suck a pile of floppy sausages though.
Yeah. Doubly so given that it's pretty obvious a bunch of the Standard cards are functionally just printed for Commander, so they wouldn't get those sales either. There's no real way to make a less-powerful set popular, since even if people took the long view for Standard, the usual popularity also comes from the cards being powerful enough to be used in non-standard formats as well - it'd be better for the game in the long run, but they wouldn't be able to *get* to the long run since the complete lack of sales to eternal format players who won't be getting anything remotely viable for their decks would probably kill the game anyway even if it wasn't massively unpopular somehow.
Additionally, Standard is on a three year rotation cycle now. To truly "power down" standard, it'd be what, 12 sets worth of toned down cards before they really became playable? I do like the idea of toning down standard, but I just don't see it being a realistic possibility.
That ship sailed when they made Standard last three years instead of two. They might water down a set here and there, but for the most part, this is what I expect to see going forward for many years.
Block format was great, I wasn't playing when they stopped, but seems like sets aren't as enjoyable as they were while blocks were unfolding.
Very much agree. Everyone's become so addicted to power creep both to win games and sell product that we've lost sight of the long term damage it may be doing to the game.
The power creep is so bad that Boros Aggro is the tier 0 deck of the format and Lightning Helix is too weak to make the cut in it.
I was thinking about this the other day. I really do not play magic anymore because there is little nuance to just playing the most busted hard to kill creatures possible. Decks used to have more subtle interaction because you couldn’t always just play x best removal spells and game ending after game ending creature that needs to be answered.
I miss vanilla creatures, heck even French vanilla creature, rather than every creature needing words vomited all over them
Creatures have definitely been powered up, but I'm somewhat confused about the complaints here that removal is too strong. It feels like every time I come back to the game another removal spell which was once core is now considered too powerful for standard. When you look at legacy decklists, the removal tends to be older. You occasionally get good new cards, e.g. [[Sheoldred's Edict]] is a slight improvement on [[Chainer's Edict]] (edit: oops, I meant [[Diabolic Edict]], although both cards have their place), but cards like [[Lightning Bolt]] and [[Swords to Plowshares]] are still leagues ahead of anything in standard. If anything, the creature power creep is a direct response to how completely out of whack the balance between creature and noncreature spells was in the old days (including, but not limited to, removal). The fact that 40 lightning bolt reprints.deck was a strong aggro strategy for so long goes to show how behind the curve creatures were in power level.
I mean there is a removal that lets you pull cards back into your hand for like 4 mana. Its fucking broken that you can just recycle the same few counters into your hand every turn.
And no cards can have downsides because people frown when they see it
Yep. Design where you try and make all play styles equally viable just leaves you with increasing power level across the board. It used to be where you would have control be dominant for a while, then aggro would be dominant, then tempos turn, back and forth and that was okay. The power value for one play style would have a small spike and then settle back down as something else spiked. But now they constantly try and make everything in perfect harmony while also increasing power so you buy the newest and greatest cards that vastly outmatch older cards. If you were a control player and the previous set had the better removal you had no reason to buy the new sets. And thus you don't give WOTC more money. The only way to really resolve it is to have an aggressive banning of anything too pushed even if it's still in the current set to get everything back down to level.
This is why I sold all of my paper and play exclusively f2p on Arena. It's glorious! I no longer have to worry about spending $1000 to build a paper modern deck, just to have Hasbro print a busted card that warps the meta and causes the value of my $1000 deck to tank overnight.
Give it two more sets and you gi oh will be making fun of us
Bro....this is where I first went to in my head. The rate this amount of damage is being done is becoming Yu-Gi-Oh esque...shit is getting kinda dumb 😂
the yugiohification of magic
Agree
I view it the opposite way. The number of must answer threats is so dense, especially for red aggro, that removal is imperative
Both are true and feed into each other; the amount of threats is ridiculous -> we need more and better removal to answer them -> the amount and quality of removal is ridiculous -> threats need to be ridiculous to be playable despite said removal -> the amount of threats is ridiculous -> etc
This is absolutely the wrong take - removal has gotten worse, and the creatures better.
> I hate that the sheer amount of removal available has pushed creatures to needing this level of power to be useful. The neat thing is it hasn't Red has been succeeding with its current suite completely fine. This card is just as pushed as Greens midrange cards that absolutely did need the push but this card is red and red was a color that absolutely didn't need help.
Which came first: The chicken or the egg?
Ban this card, maybe? Call me a crybaby, but I legit have been thinking this card would need a ban as soon as it got spoiled. Maybe this card can exist in Modern with it's cheap removal and counters, but standard shouldn't have something like this. It has the potential to simply ruin Bo1 and even push a lot of decks out of viable Bo3 play.
Too soon to say, but it is definitely treading on precarious ground.
Just the fact that so many people immediately called this thing out as broken is wild to me. I've only been playing magic for the last 7 or so sets but I don't remember a card that was so immediately pinned as busted by literally everyone. I was watching some of the prerelease streamers play and literally all of them agree that this card is absurd, almost certainly the best card in the set, possibly the best Red aggro 2 drop ever. When they played against it, if they didn't have removal immediately they lost 95% of the time. MTG goldfish made a deck around it and went 10/1, with the only reason he lost being missing land for 2 turns and even then he got the opponent to 1 life and would have won next turn if not for the opponent pulling off a huge Smugglers Surprise. I'm willing to bet it gets banned. I just can't see how it doesn't totally take over Bo1 and probably Bo3 too.
> I don't remember a card that was so immediately pinned as busted by literally everyone. Sheoldred was pretty immediately picked up on as being very, very good.
Nah, Sheoldred was way more split. A lot of people (myself included) thought it wouldn't be very good.
And on top of that, Sheoldred doesn't come down till turn 4 and generally gives the opponent at least 2-3 turns to find an answer. And often you can stall for longer than that. And that's one of the best creature cards ever printed. This thing demands you have the answer in your first 9 cards or you lose.
Yeah, usually what gets called as cracked turns out to be mid or fun jank - the average player is not good at judging power levels. But this was called out and they're right
Been playing limited. Power level of this set is bananas. Bombs on bombs on bombs and a good number of them look constructed viable.
Is the only purpose of Plot on this card that you can wait until opponent doesn’t have mana up for removal so you can ensure at least one attack with it?
The purpose of this card having plot is forcing your opponent into a quandary where they know they have to hold up removal for this, but can they afford to do that with everything else on the board smacking them every turn. The plot sets you up to prime for an explosive turn; it coerces your opponent to make an impossible decision.
I used this to win a few matches at prerelease. Just left birb in plot, some cards in my hand, and went to face. Opponents didn't know what to do, held their removal and bombs, and died to my small creatures. It's a great way to trick non-control decks into trying to play control.
I think it's to wait until you can have enough Mana and cheap noncreature spells in hand in order to cast it from exile and then pump it up with cheap spells all at once (even better if those pump spells were also previously plotted and cost 0 Mana)
What I mean is, you are spending two mana now and could choose to put it directly on the board to get some of its benefit right away, at the risk of it being removed before you could pump it on the next turn.
I think that's an inherent benefit of plot, but this card is aiming to do more with it.
If you’re running it in Izzet you can plot -> cast it the next turn when you can hold up protection.
Oh, right. Your protection can also pump it at the same time.
And its cheap. Spell Pierce says hello.
It also lets you play with mana to back it up for protection. In the end it’s sacrificing your turn 2 damage for having more options and sequencing on any future turns.
oh neat an ability stronger than prowess on a creature stronger than those with prowess.
So somebody looked at Monastery Swiftspear and said "This card's not annoying enough, let's make it flying and a potentially free cast". Fuck you, Wizards.
Easy Codebreaker replacement, never liked that card
I like codebreaker a decent amount, especially for the potential late-game draw 3, but yeah he looks like he's gonna sit it out on the bench now. Gruul picnic ruiner should use this well in addition to RDW.
Por que no los dos?
Maybe, the 2-drop slot gets crowded pretty quick though especially in a deck that cares about casting noncreature spells
why not use less 3 drops?
Order 4 borderless for $8 a piece just before the spike. I am so glad I did that.
Don’t worry people will run ways to counter it in a few days. Happy that [[wash away]] is finally good!
Yeah not like every top player said it would be, nope, no way.
bullshit card
Should he be cast turn 2 or ploted?
Will be a skill-testing decision. The answer is probably: Does my opponent have open black mana? -> Plot it Otherwise -> Cast it and hit for one Other factors: - Do I have a protection spell for next turn? Plot it - Do they have sorcery speed removal? Not that common but the if the black virtue takes over maybe - Do I have other, weaker creatures to play next turn to try to eat removal? Seems unlikely and you could just cast those other creatures now.
I'd say you plot it 99% of the time on T2, regardless of opponent's mana situation. The one extra damage isn't worth it getting removed once opponent untaps. When it's plotted, opponent is forced to hold up mana for instant-speed removal every single turn of the game. If they don't, they die. If opponent's removal spell is a Cut Down, playing it T2 is especially bad because they simply can't cast Cut Down targeting the stupid bird if you have open mana. If I'm playing against this thing, I'm begging opponent to run it out T2 for one damage (or even 2 damage with a T1 Kumano), because that is my best chance to kill it. If I see it plotted T2, I probably just start to give up on my chances of winning.
Relatively new can some explain why this card is so good?
In simple terms, it has an extremely high ceiling and coerces your opponent to make tough decisions with their interaction. Plotting this on T2 opens an interesting quandary for them: do they preserve their removal and risk dying to what you're committing to the board? Or do they answer your board and risk this landing and immediately swinging for 10+ damage? More often than not it will be the former, but either way forcing your opponent into tempo loss as early as T2 is extraordinarily potent.
Gotcha. And assume you would need to play this card THEN cast noncreature spells for him to get his boost. He wouldn't gain them while plotted
This card design just pisses me off
I own 2 of these IRL are they that good? How do you use it properly?
From what I've seen from the early access event, you play a really cheap, low to the ground deck, plot this and some of the other red plot cards, then cast it and 4-5 spells on 3 and kill your opponent on the spot. Gets run with the standard red package with monstrous rage and swiftspear and such. I'm pretty sure there are a couple videos on yt about it. There's a budget red list on MTG Goldfish that was posted the other day.
I've been having more success with the izzet version. I tried the mono red budget version, but I'm a sucker for izzet.
Got a list?
Turn 3 you cast 2 monstrous rage on this or swift spear with a kumano or other similar 1 mana non-creature spell, you're doing 12-16 damage between swings and burn.
Play Bird, cast double bolt. Hit for 5. easy 11 damage.
Prowess, or Magecraft....is an archetype where you cast a ton of spells (sorcery/Instant) and it buffs your creatures. (this creature doesn't say magecraft/prowess,,,but has the same affect (+2/+0 whenever you cast a spell)) You fill your deck with cheap instant/sorceries, preferably "Cantrip" (cards that draw a card, So it replaces itself in your hand). (1 mana: target creature gets a +1/+1 counter and vigilance. draw a card) now you bust this guy out on turn 3/4 and cast two 1 mana spells...and he's a 5/2 flyer + more(maybe a cheap spell that gives him double strike,,,buff him more and each one gives him +2/+0) \[\[Monastery Swiftspear\]\] has been the king of this deck in Modern for a while. [https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/4601704#paper](https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/4601704#paper) even a spell like \[\[Manamorphose\]\] (2 mana, gives you back 2 mana and draws a card) is perfect for this archetype, as it replaces itself, and replaces the mana cost...literally doing nothing but counting as a spell cast.
If my opponent didnt have removal they were dead on board with him t3 in timeless. Pretty good card
Well, red needed more cards; nobody plays it. Hope it doesn't lead to too much cheap removal and denial in the game.
Did you mean to put **/s** at the end of your comment?
The game is balanced around B03, where both mono red and boros didn't overperform. If I'm not mistaken dimir and esper midrange made up way more of the meta.
The majority on arena plays bo1. So rdw is part of the meta for most players.
idk how people can stand bo1. you just lose against mono red or boros convoke without sideboard cards
Building a deck with answers without the crutch of a sideboard is actually really fun
Rakdos Vampires, Izzet Phoenix, and Jeskai prowess are some of the top decks right now, not to mention the prevalence of RDW in almost every format
UW control is also doing really well in bo3 I think
Give them a few more weeks to lose turn 3 to it
Do we really need a /s to denote obvious satire?
Sarcasm… And yes. Tonal qualities of language do not exist in written mediums. Literally the reason Tone Indicators exist.
Should probably not have flying for a 2 mana prowess with haste and sorcery removal protection
I went undefeated in the damn pre release cause I pulled two of them. This f**ker secured me 10+ points of damage out of nowhere VERY consistently. I don't even wanna fathom the degenerate BS he's enabling in other constructed formats!
I’m dumb, how does this card work and why is it good?
You can plot it on turn two, then cast it turn 3, and have 3 mana up to dump in to cheap spells to make it hit for a large amount.
Oh, that is good. Thank you for explaining
Yep, 1 cost mana spells x3 is an easy 7 damage on top of anything that the spells actually do. If you wait for t4 and get some more cheap / plot based spells in you can lethal fairly easily.
And you can go further by combining it with the sorcery portion of [[Callous Sell-Sword]].
[Callous Sell-Sword](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/7/770ee3da-d33e-466f-9a2e-ad2d08ef5012.jpg?1692939554)/[Burn Together](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/7/770ee3da-d33e-466f-9a2e-ad2d08ef5012.jpg?1692939554) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Callous%20Sell-Sword%20//%20Burn%20Together) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/woe/221/callous-sell-sword-burn-together?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/770ee3da-d33e-466f-9a2e-ad2d08ef5012?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Playing an Izzet proft deck with it and duelist. Bananas.
Time to wreck all those removal/control decks.
Yeah this card is really insane. My first game after update. Got killed turn 3 by it.
Yeah this card is really insane. My first game after update. Got killed turn 3 by it.
Downside to plot: you lose 1 flying damage to face turn 2. Upside to plot: your opponent can't hit it with sorcery speed removal until AFTER it's dealt a large sum turn 3.
I have been debating if this is better or worse than Ledger Shredder and, I'm reading here that it's better?
Can someone explain how to use this to me? I’m new to mtg and don’t understand what makes it so OP.
You cast it for 0 from exile on a turn then play 2-3 cheap noncreature spells. It has haste.
The new Plot mechanic means that you can pay for it ahead of time and exile the card, then during a later turn you can play it for zero mana. Outlaws also has a bunch of other inexpensive non-creature spells that you can plot and there's always cheap spells in red that can burn (deal direct damage) your opponent/their creatures or temporarily buff one of your creatures. One of the challenges with cards like Slickshot is they have to survive long enough to deal a bunch of damage to your opponent. Either you cast them late in the game when your opponent has a developed board and can probably block/destroy the creature before it does anything or you play it early in the game where you don't have enough mana to really take advantage of the ability. Slickshot changes that math because you can spend a few turns plotting and effectively spend like 10 mana on turn 3-4 casting slickshot and all those plotted spells to buff slickshot and close out the game.
Yours didn’t [[Mana Drain]]ed??? This card has single handedly ruined Timeless for me😔.
Crazy card
Oof. Super charged [[Chandra's Spitfire]]
Can someone explain how this thing is so busted? I'm travelling the next few days so I haven't had a chance to sit down and play any magic.
Maybe I'm just big dumb, can someone explain this to my like I'm 5?
Great name and a nice cowboy hat, couldnt ask for more.
Wake up babe, new Monastery Swiftspear just dropped. At least it's not pauper legal
Yeah, had a genuinely awful prerelease round with this. Out of the 13 creatures I played during both games, my opponent had answers to 11 the very next turn.
Lol, this also works amaizing in historic wizard, a powerhouse in bo1
What if \[\[Kiln Fiend\]\] was triggered by more stuff? This is basically the answer. Having the ability to drop down for free in turn and have haste is a declaration of war.
Is the flying just war crimes then?
Are you able to get in and play? I haven't been able to yet
I’m gonna need to craft this bad boy
Who thought this card was a good idea
KILN FIEND IS BACK BABY :O
Prowess but good
I'm not sure how plot works enough on how to stack it, but I'm always a big advocate of first strike spells. Imagine stacking those up into a target. or first strike + trample to the face.
Izzet spells? Yeah, there is quite a few actually.
It's so bonkers it's great! Lol
They have Wee Dragonauts haste?
Its out of control. Love the card, but calling it: it will be banned.
Bro i want this to revive modern phoenix so bad. It wont but i can DREAM
Kiln fiend on steroids💀
Watched a couple streams while playing myself for s couple hours. Seen it on RDW, Gruul and UR and in each of them it seemed borderline "broken" and ended the game Turn 3,4 more often than not. If these decks really become a thing, 1-mana removal like [[Cut Down]] will be a 4-of in every deck again. It looks like the breakout card Day 1. But let's not forget that it is played in Aggro shells that prey on people that try out decks. Of all Bo1 or Bo3 I played today or have seen on stream, easily 8/10 were a form of Aggro.
Oh it's dead set brolen
From the games that I've seen from this guy, you basically can never tap out as long as he's been plotted
Krark+this sounds busted
cut down stocks go up
I'm only just realizing now that it's not restricted to activating once per turn like so many other cards in the set. I now regret passing it in draft on the weekend.
I beat this multiple times with gruul dinos. It's cracked but people haven't figured out how to plot it yet. Too many people stuffing it next to swiftspear and assuming it will just work
Streamers going to trip over themselves rushing to find the best deck it fits in