This Card is Not Modern Playable (Literally)
Modern forum
Posted on Oct. 9, 2017, 1:02 a.m. by Cipher001
A friend of mine, who is an older player of magic, is insistent that he could "turn all the modern decks on their heads" if Triassic Egg were legal. He's a bit arrogant and frankly knows just about nothing about how actual competitive magic works now, if ever. Help me find a way to break it to him that might work the 14th time that Triassic Egg is downright useless in a format dominated by decks that could probably kill him twice over by the time he got triassic egg to work if Kolaghan's Command or something didn't get to it first. I like the guy, but there's only so many times I can hear about the 'super-powerful' Triassic Egg .
Ask him what he is cheating in and how is it better than existing decks?
October 9, 2017 1:57 a.m.
Triassic Egg Would be bad and see no play, simple as that. There is so much better ways to cheat creatures in the table.(Through the Breach, Nahiri, the Harbinger for example.)
And egg is so easy to destroy, every deck plays artifact hate in the sideboard.
October 9, 2017 3:56 a.m.
Weakness of the triassic egg-deck is taht it needs 10 mana just for the egg to hatch, as well as tapping the egg 2 times. You can't really play the egg until turn 3 in modern, but you could make it turn 2 (manadork turn 1, Simian Spirit Guide turn 2. No mana to spare at any point here, and you've spent 5 cards out of your opening hand just playing the d*mn thing. That means very little defense - no protection against discard (in modern...), no protection against "destroy target egg", no way to get out of Pithing Needle-effects. Oh, and any counterspell, anywhere along the way, and it will take much longer.
But if it succeeds: Turn 3, tap. turn 4, tap, crack. Somewhere along the way, a creature tutor of some sort is needed. And you'd still need to not be disrupted by all of the above. Then you get your creature, and then you have this one turn for winning. Griselbrand? Not a good creature when you are low on life (which you would be). eldrazi titan? Not optimal either, leave the graveyard as soon as they get there, they lack haste and their abilities are triggered on casting, not on ETB. Darksteel Colossus seems better. But that can still be handled in a pile of ways, and it still lacks haste. So, all in all, if you go for as fast an egg as possible, you'll end up giving your opponent 4 or 5 turns to hit you as hard as they can, and you get to pretend being a goldfish trying to hatch a dinosaur egg while they do so. Good luck, goldfish, both with the egg and your survival.
Of course you could go with a longer-running plan - like building a control-shell and using the egg to hurry up your win condition. That would put the egg in comparison to Nahiri, the Harbinger. Also at a mana cost of 4. Also taking a couple of turns to work. But doesn't eat your mana while doing so. Also, and this is important for combofinishing, finding a threat in your library and giving it haste.
And then there is modern, where discard spells are almost as common as Force of Will in legacy, and sideboards always have good hatecards against artifacts (because affinity and lantern control) and graveyards (because grishoalbrand and dredge) and sometimes just randomly against combo. Plenty of good removal, and plenty of removal that circumvents the simple keyword protections.
There has to be a really good reason for playing this egg, rather than any other way of cheating creatures in.
October 9, 2017 4:11 a.m.
SwaggyMcSwagglepants says... #7
Yeah quicksilver amulet is strictly better and sees sideboard play in amulet and some titan decks at best
October 9, 2017 10:38 a.m.
I'd love to play your friend with his egg modern brew though I have four different modern decks I'm 100% sure that would beat it. Tell him to go on Untap.in and let's play :P
October 9, 2017 10:58 a.m.
In modern, Clone Shell is better (and that is not a very good card).
October 9, 2017 12:09 p.m.
Quicksilver Amulet, Elvish Piper, Champion of Rhonas, Aetherworks Marvel are all better than the egg yet theyre all still so bad (minus marvel)
October 9, 2017 4:26 p.m.
Play Griselshoal vs. his Triassic Egg deck and even allow him to proxy whatever he wants. He's basically dead before he even casts Triassic Egg. Hell, even Infect would probably kill him on turn 2 or 3.
Also, I must commend you for using "literally" in a non-hyperbolic way.
October 10, 2017 5:51 a.m.
solarPULSAR
I wouldn't say that they are "bad" - there are just better options.
Through the Breach is really the same as a summoning sick t4 creature (that can put something in play at t5), with the added benefit of being playable at instant speed, thus dodging a lot of distruption.
Madcap Experiment can also be pretty crazy - as its faster, and acts as a tutor, without crippling the deck with its buildaround requirements.
There is also Dramatic Entrance & Eldritch Evolution
Tl;Dr if you plan to "put in play" card via the use of permanants, they need to be damn good, to be worth playing them over spells - that due their nature dodge removal.
October 10, 2017 10:21 a.m.
Thanks for the suggestions, guys. I think the next time it will inevitably come up, I'll go through the meta, average number of turns in a competitive game, and the sheer amount of artifact hate. I'll bring up the points about there being better "Triassic Eggs" as well. If that doesn't work, I may just proxy something like Griselshoal and infect and go ham on him. Somehow, he can tell that Shivan Dragon is too slow, but the egg is different. But I digress. Thanks again, guys.
icehit6 says... #2
Triassic Egg is definitely broken in modern if it were legal. I don't know what you don't see.
On a serious note, you should tell your friend to take a look at modern meta... or even just challenge him to make a "modern legal" Triassic egg deck and show him it sucks. Obviously Triassic egg being the only non-modern card in the deck. Then we will see how well it goes over for him!
October 9, 2017 1:28 a.m.