All B/R update speculation.

[Ingo]

Yeah and they have Manabond, Exploration, and Mox Diamonds which require time to rebuild hand size, even with Loam. Everything stops if Prelate hits the table be it by 3 mana or 3 counters on Vial. So now we're advocating holding opening-hand Gamble to not start the Exploration, P-Fire/Loam engine, or Depths/Stage combo? You're not winning that matchup if your holding your engine back to play around Prelate.

If the 1off Prelate hits on T3, D&T is about as lucky as me landing a T1 Vortex. I like my odds with the T1 Vortex better. You cannot compare the best possible scenario available to you to the worst sceanrio for lands.

[Fox]

If the 1off Prelate hits on T3, D&T is about as lucky as me landing a T1 Vortex. I like my odds with the T1 Vortex better. You cannot compare the best possible scenario available to you to the worst sceanrio for lands.

There's far too many possibilities in that matchup with questionable keeps (knowing there is no FoW), Port/Wastelands, taxes, protection from red until EoT, what exactly is being dredged over, etc to come up with a nice clean synopsis. What I can tell you though is that if Cursed Scroll's pace isn't going to win the game, Vortex generally wont either (and Vortex is colored, which is not irrelevant). We're identifying a line that removes a problem card, but R/G Lands is more like an unfair deck in that it doesn't win by removing things, it still has to assemble a kill (around yard hate if post-board). It's great to identify 'x' kills 'y,' but too much of that means you will lose the game b/c you're not a creature-based fair deck.

In this way Vortex here is like bringing in 1-drop spells to combat miracles (like Snare or Pyroblast); these are highly flawed answers based on the mechanical imbalance of the scenario. It's another example of bending over backwards to deal with a card so inane that it shouldn't have been printed. If we're going to have all these cards that don't let people play the game we may as well try and get DTT unbanned so OmniTell can return the favor. One thing that is certain is that Prelate risks making DnT vs R/G Lands not fit for broadcast, because it goes from one of the most nuanced, interactive matchups (albeit grindy) to mindless stupidity if Prelate on 2 hits the field. You could just focus on streaming legacy as a way to increase interest and playerbase, and you'll see why a card like Prelate is problematic.

[Dice_Box]

Meh, coverage I don't think counts. Bloodmoon can more or less do the same thing already. I know we have answers, but if they have a clock and a moon...

Non games are a part of the format. I am still on the "Wait and see" train. But I do not like the signals.

(Fuck you auto correct.)

[Ingo]

There's far too many possibilities in that matchup with questionable keeps (knowing there is no FoW), Port/Wastelands, taxes, protection from red until EoT, what exactly is being dredged over, etc to come up with a nice clean synopsis. What I can tell you though is that if Cursed Scroll's pace isn't going to win the game, Vortex generally wont either (and Vortex is colored, which is not irrelevant).

You are right that there are too much possibilities to discuss any line of play. And I don't like Prelate either, as I don't like noninteractive cards.
Just one last thing, Vortex easily deals 6 damage (3x2D) with loam, for R each, which is the whole point of including this in the deck. Quite different from a Cursed SCroll's pace ...

[Dice_Box]

You are right that there are too much possibilities to discuss any line of play. And I don't like Prelate either, as I don't like noninteractive cards.
Just one last thing, Vortex easily deals 6 damage (3x2D) with loam, for R each, which is the whole point of including this in the deck. Quite different from a Cursed SCroll's pace ...

Not if you can't cast Loam.

[Ingo]

Not if you can't cast Loam.

Casting loam is the whole point of this deck. And killing Prelate is only discarding 1 land with vortex before loams active again ...

[Dice_Box]

Casting loam is the whole point of this deck. And killing Prelate is only discarding 1 land with vortex before loams active again ...

And Mother does?

The worst part is I am not even pulling shit out of my ass, I am just talking about how the deck is built to work. DnT with this card will be hell. Add Revoker and you have up to 8 ways to just flat stop Vortex.

[Ingo]

And Mother does?

And just like Pfire deals with mother in two strikes (opp Eot and yours), vortex does too. That's not a world of difference.

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

I'm not sure that you quite understand what happens when R/G Lands plays DnT. That 20/20 is legendary and non-trampling. DnT has: 4x Swords, 4x Flickerwisp, 4x Mother of Runes, and a total of ~8x [or more] fliers that chump endlessly with active Mother of Runes. The only way that DnT really loses game 1 is a god hand (Manabond into very quick Marit Lage) or P-Fire outracing the ability to equip out of P-Fire range (too many board states to quickly sum up the Port/Wasteland, except that in the long run Lands will win it). That said P-Fire probably pushes Lands to being more favored in game 1.

There are some real differences between all those cards you've mentioned Prelate, first is build-around. Prelate on 1 would stop Vials and Swords, but that's kind of the extent of deckbuilding with it. Kind of like saying that a deck that goes for 2-mana T1 (Chalice decks) can't play one drops...if they're going for that much mana in the opener, they weren't really wanting 1-drops anyways (exceptions exist, i.e. Tezz would like Brainstorm, but that's about the extent of it). The bigger issue is that it's a 1-card combo that says "you can't win" rather than "you lose" thus absolving you from the need to end a game in a reasonable amount of time. This is a hallmark problem with in general as the timewaster-in-chief of magic; now at least DnT doubles down on with the weenie-beatdown plan, but Prelate is more firmly in the timewaster category.

Given I've played the deck for the better part of the year in a meta with loads of D&T (all of whom agree the MU isn't great for D&T I might add), I'm inclined I know more about it then you, but no matter. D&T game 1 (pre-prelate) had few ways of interacting with loam, it's gameplan of taxing you with waste+port+thalia and beating you down simply doesn't work when you have loam and can interact with Thalia and their lands, for that matter, the odds that they get Flickerwisp + Mother and the 3 mana neccesary to play it, and survive to land both (remember, Flicker does not infact have flash) isn't completely in their favor (if they don't simply have it in hand, they are relying purely on the odds of them drawing it, which aren't great if they are missing 2+ cards necessary). The scenario you're describing (Mother plus all the fliers and there isn't at least one punishing fire involved) sounds more like a god scenario then the other way around, Lands has Loam, 4 Gambles and 4 Punishing Fire (in addition to 4 crop rotations for grove of the burnwillows), D&T had no form of card manipulation in the deck, you cannot reasonably expect that scenario to happen incredibly often.

I guess, but the point was about how healthy or unhealthy the card was, it's not like it's straight up killing you turn 2/3, or just completely ignoring what you are doing by playing 20/20s and saying "interact with me". Prelate on 2 is no different from "Tendrils kill you" on turn 3, arguably, you could play through prelate and still feasibly win the game, you cannot do that with "tendrils kill you".

[Dice_Box]

And just like Pfire deals with mother in two strikes (opp Eot and yours), vortex does too. That's not a world of difference.

I agree. But while your drawing 2 or 3 cards to get those lands, your getting clocked or your not trying to hit the cards that are doing the lions share of the damage too you. This is the issue, it's not that you can't remove the fucker if you happen to have the perfect card on the table, it's that you have to now stop playing until you get rid of their card and hope you live long enough to do so.

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

The worst part is I am not even pulling shit out of my ass, I am just talking about how the deck is built to work. DnT with this card will be hell. Add Revoker and you have up to 8 ways to just flat stop Vortex.

If they're tutoring for Revoker, that means they aren't getting Prelate

[Dice_Box]

If they're tutoring for Revoker, that means they aren't getting Prelate

True that. Again, I will hold my fire until I view this thing on the other side of the table. Right now my plan is to add Trackers to the main. Because I can punch with them and they can draw me into my other options.

I am not against seeking an answer, I just don't believe Vortex is that answer.

[Crimhead]

So the Barbarian Ring problem was discussed at the top of the page your post is on, sufficed to say graveyard-centric answers to sideboard RiP decks is a poor life choice.

They have to play RIP first though, right? And their only tools to find it are the muligan plus whatever deck thinning they get from Recruiter and SFM?

Sure, Revoker and RIP protect Prelate from Vortex and BRing. But we also have Grips for those cards. Post-board only, but so is RIP.

Desperation Gambles are bad, more decks would use it if this were otherwise

That would sound reasoning if other decks:

• could reliably pump their hands full of cards to reduce the risk.
• were running over 40 cards that were cool to have in the graveyard.

If we want to actually"Gamble", we load out hand up with Loam, and almost always do we throw away a card that we can get back. If Painter or R/U Delver ran Gamble they would lose the card they tutor for a lot more, and regardless they'd always suffer the card disadvantage. Lands heavily pads your Gambles, even when it doesn't 100% protect them.

Read @Dice_Box's post about Vortex, it's primarily a tool against decks that go all-in on not trying to win (traditionally miracles). If Cursed Scroll (that is to say 2 dmg per turn) isn't going to single-handedly beat your opponent, then such a line is unlikely to succeed.

I've been running a main-deck 3-2 PF/Vortex split, and it's pretty smooth. That's anecdotal, but Ingo already cited evidence that over half the winning RGCL lists are already running it, the (slim) majority of which are running it main. It's a good card, and it's going to get better if we see more D&T. Vortex work nicely with Tracker too; another card which incidentally helps diversify our cmc spread.

So we modify our lists to include Vortex and BRing main. This isn't such a big setback - some of our matches will even be improved. If they draw early Revoker, RIP, and Prelate we'll probably lose. Otherwise we should have plenty of game vs D&T. Note that the adjustments I'm discussing would have helped our D&T match anyway (as does our recently acquired Tireless Tracker).

Maybe our D&T match will suffer. But if we are getting more D&T and less Miracles, as we!l as more Elves and less Storm, are we going to be that far behind?

[Barook]

Maybe our D&T match will suffer. But if we are getting more D&T and less Miracles, as we!l as more Elves and less Storm, are we going to be that far behind?

I fail to see why Miracles' meta penetration would fall. Eldrazi preys on Miracles and it didn't dent its meta penetration one bit after the initial hype around Eldrazi died down.

While more people are going to pick up D&T, I doubt the rise is going to be a long-term thing. There are just too many 3-drops.

Miracles picking up Prelate (as Lemnear said) is a real possibility, though, which could push the deck even further.

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

Eh, other than for combo, I don't think it will change much for miracles, what number are you going to put it at? You can't put it at 1 or 2 (and even if you could somehow, countertop takes care of those just fine), leaving the option of setting it to 3 or 4, but in the MUs you were going to put it at 3 or 4, usually it's a specific card you don't want them casting (Show & Tell, Sneak Attack, etc), if Miracles hasn't started bringing in meddling mage for those MUs by now, I doubt prelate is going to be so much better that they are going to start playing it.

Even for the fair MUs, you rely on terminus and Swords to get the job done, meaning your creatures need to have good ETB effects so as to profit off of replaying them.

[Fox]

It's not really on topic for the B/R, but focus on how often Loam can be fired off before DnT hits either 3 mana or Vial on 3; pay especial attention to R/G Lands self-hand destruction vs how many lands it gets back from those opening 2 Loam casts. There has to be a lot going right for Vortex to be a reliable answer. Keep in mind Gamble is [correctly] being fired off to find combo/engine pieces, not Vortex.

Getting back on topic, it's important to point out that Prelate is one card capable of totally preventing an opponent from winning. There is an additive problem with printing 1-card "I can't lose to that anymore" let's call them 'combos.' These cards are generally white, and what's very strange is people can't stand losing to a combo but that solitary white card that ends the game except that it drags on for turn after turn, that one is fine? I don't care what you play in legacy, if you're up against a deck like ANT you get to play magic at all points, yes you will die on the spot in the first few turns but then you go right back to playing magic again in g2/3. All that's being done here is printing what are effectively Strip Mines except that you get to keep lands that do nothing on the battlefield.

Naming off convoluted lines of play with all these moving pieces doesn't make the card it was meant to combat acceptable; it indicates strongly that the opposite is true.

[Dice_Box]

I don't like the card, but to say this is new is fudging it a bit. Decks have been falling to single cards for ages. Fastest game I ever won was against Hypergenisis, I was playing burn. His first turn he cascades, I drop a Bridge. Game over.

Think about Painter. Maindeck Moon, Bridge and tutors. Think of Eldrazi and by extension MUD. Your not playing in this game, therefore I win. Think about decks of old, Stax (A deck I still play) or Stasis. The idea is the same, even if now we are talking about two cards.

3Ball, Chalice, Moon, Bridge, fuck even Kiki Goblin Settler for a while. We have these kinds of lock outs already. I have dumped a Moon turn one against Elves and just won before. It happens.

Now is it good to add another card to the list? No. But am I going to say this is new? Well no, it just happens to effect me more. But fuck, if I can say with a straight face that Chalice is fine and mean it, I guess I can eat the pie too.

Prelate is one card that stops people winning yes, but hey, we have been here before.

[dte]

Getting back on topic, it's important to point out that Prelate is one card capable of totally preventing an opponent from winning. There is an additive problem with printing 1-card "I can't lose to that anymore" let's call them 'combos.' These cards are generally white, and what's very strange is people can't stand losing to a combo but that solitary white card that ends the game except that it drags on for turn after turn, that one is fine? I don't care what you play in legacy, if you're up against a deck like ANT you get to play magic at all points, yes you will die on the spot in the first few turns but then you go right back to playing magic again in g2/3. All that's being done here is printing what are effectively Strip Mines except that you get to keep lands that do nothing on the battlefield.

Naming off convoluted lines of play with all these moving pieces doesn't make the card it was meant to combat acceptable; it indicates strongly that the opposite is true.

You'll note that your one card that wins the game does so only if you are playing a combo deck with no way of interacting with a ccm3 creature.
Find a single legacy deck that just lose to this "one card".
The card is good, enough to be legacy material. That's great, we got a new toy. We can think of how to include it, or how to battle it. Food for thought.

[Ingo]

It's not really on topic for the B/R, but focus on how often Loam can be fired off before DnT hits either 3 mana or Vial on 3; pay especial attention to R/G Lands self-hand destruction vs how many lands it gets back from those opening 2 Loam casts. There has to be a lot going right for Vortex to be a reliable answer. Keep in mind Gamble is [correctly] being fired off to find combo/engine pieces, not Vortex.

Vortex costs one, after that we have 35 lands turned into shocks (besides all the nasty stuff they still do), thats even more shocks than D&T runs creatures. That's not a bad scenario even without loam to reload. Granted Revoker spoils the party, but then again, 3 Fires and 4 gambles should deal with it too.

The above is ofcourse Lands' dreamscenario versus D&T, just as a T3 Prelate is quite the punchout for Lands as well. These are just scenario's, we should calculate how probable they are, and then make the comparison again. But as long as Prelate is a 1-off, with only 2 recruiters to find it, I'm not nervous. Keep in mind that the Lands / D&T matchup is mostly about recasting Punishing Fire for Lands (more than loaming), that Lands is the best deck to assemble it (crop gamble lotl), and once there's Fire/Grove established you can draw each turn into additional gambles and Vortices.

Miracles picking up Prelate (as Lemnear said) is a real possibility, though, which could push the deck even further.

I am not so worried though that Miracles adopts the card though. They already have a comparable effect in counterbalance, and I think adding Prelate to beat maindecked Abrupt Decays is just worse than just entreating, flashing cards back with Snapcaster or generating an army with Mentor/top. Miracles is probably too tight to squeeze Prelate in as well.

[Crimhead]

Keep in mind Gamble is [correctly] being fired off to find combo/engine pieces, not Vortex.

Against D&T we rarely Gamble for combo pieces unless we already have the game locked down. Gamble is typically for Grove or PF in this match.

So now we're advocating holding opening-hand Gamble to not start the Exploration, P-Fire/Loam engine, or Depths/Stage combo?

Again, we don't want to Gamble for combo pieces early in this match - they set us back too far when Marit Lage gets flickered. Exploration is as risky to Gamble for as Vortex, but having Vortex live is probably better than Exploration in this match.

We can also Gamble (or CR) for our Bring; especially game one. We can do this in response to Wasteland too. The match gets tougher, but not a blow-out against us! We have multiple answers for Prelate. They have answers for our answers, and we have answers for their answers. As far as I'm concerned, the game's afoot!

Gambling for an enchantment is not nearly as uncommon as you'd think. Gambling for Exploration or Manabond is something we do regualrly if that's the effect we need to get a huge advantage. We just prefer to fill out hand up first. I have personally gambled for Vortex when I have believed it to be the card the board-state calls for. I can see making a habit of this vs D&T, especially those games where I already have Punishing Fire.

It will take time to see the effect of Prelate, but it shouldn't be hard to imagine the disgust a pilot R/G Lands or storm deck would have with such card design, just in the hypothetical.

I'm honestly not worried as a Lands player (of course I play RUG Lands more often than R/G, and RUG is much less bothered by Prelate).

But this sort of design does disgust me a little. Besides Miracles, Lands, and most combo decks, the rest of the format is fair creature decks. Why make a card that hoses non-creature strategies? These are less than half of the format. I wouldn't mind if we also got more creature hosers. The last card printed that taxes your opponent's creatures was Lodestone Golem, and that was seven years ago.

Like, what do they have to print hypothetically to get something banned out of DnT for making DnT oppressive?

...Current design philosophy isn't going to break DnT to banworthy either, as they are simply printing good creatures for it that could never hold a candle to the likes of lion's eye diamond and co. that legacy allows as 4 ofs.

It wasn't long ago that Maverick's dominance bordered on oppressive. Combo decks seemed to be at an all time low and the biggest three decks were fair, creature based agro/control (Maverick, Blade, and Thresh). I wouldn't underestimate the ability of WotC to warp a format in favour of creature strategies.