Flagstones of Epic
Modern forum
Posted on Feb. 23, 2014, 5:57 a.m. by -MisterJ-
My question here is simple and to the point. I was looking up lands for my fiance's mono white deck and trying to make it as efficient as possible. She found Flagstones of Trokair and she wanted to use it as a SB against LD decks. Then I thought of this...
Turn one play Flagstones followed by one drop. Turn two tap the Flagstones floating a mana. Play a second Flagstones popping the first one. Thanks to the new legendary rules the tapped one resolves to the graveyard and you fetch any plains land.Be it a shock land.. or plains. Tap your second Flagstones you played. You now have two mana for use on turn two as normal with three lands in play.
This seems like an epic combo since the Flagstones don't come in tapped.. tap for white.. deck thin.. fetch for shocks or in legacy search for dual lands. Meanwhile the freaking card is only $10.
WHY IS THIS NOT A THING?!?!?!
I have never seen this combo used... Read about the combo being used... Nothing.
I dub this combo "Flagstoning" and from hence forth it shall be so.
I'm not quite sure where you got the "3 lands in play" thing, the first Flagstones of Trokair is in your graveyard so you have 2 mana and 2 lands on turn 2, which, far as I know, isn't anything spectacular unless you have some sort of Landfall trigger thing going.
I've definitely heard of the combo before, but it basically only provides some deck thinning and the weakness to Blood Moon makes it less than ideal.
February 23, 2014 6:05 a.m.
Yeah I'm tired and screwed up the land count in my head. I work 16's shhh.... >_>
That being said I still think its decent for cheap(er) deck thinning without shelling out for Zen lands and while yes, it only searches out plains there are still several viable shocks to snatch up in a two color deck. While no, it is not good in three color, all I'm saying is it is viable for average Joe player.
And that is all I am, average dude brewing decent average decks. My bad I got pretty excited that we can thin out my fiance's white deck. I suppose it doesn't really pay off in the long run and obviously its not tier 1 style. I just wondered why no one I see playing... Oh I dunno... Mono white weenies is doing it? What do they have to loose?
I may be wrong but I just think it could and or should be a little more well known.
February 23, 2014 6:16 a.m.
Epochalyptik says... #6
Close your tags. Nevermind. I got the tags for you.
You can still lose to Wasteland effects and Blood Moon . The possible benefit from deck thinning is nowhere near close to negating the possible deficit from being hit by those effects. Granted, Blood Moon is unlikely because you're playing a deck with mostly basics when you go mono-white, but it just doesn't seem worthwhile.
February 23, 2014 6:20 a.m.
And my parade has just officially been pooped on. As with all things in life I shall get up, and move on with my life and hope to cope with this.
If a Wasteland effect pops it we still get a plains out of the deal, that's a benefit. Of course if Crucible of Worlds is in play I'm probably just going to have a bad day all together. And Blood Moon is almost always used as a SB in my local meta since we have a lot of local brew stuff pop up and dual color decks where its not really needed.
It is still something that I will think about running, just to see how it goes, who knows. Might actually be awesome for a round.
February 23, 2014 6:29 a.m.
Epochalyptik says... #8
That's a fair point about LD effects. The ability triggers anyway. I guess just test it and report back.
Epochalyptik says... #2
It's not a combo. Not by the theoretically complicated definition, anyway. It's just an interaction between a card and a rule.
The problem is Flagstones of Trokair has no basic land types. That means you can't fetch it with fetch lands or BLT-based ramp spells, it's vulnerable to Blood Moon effects, and it doesn't interact with other things that check for BLTs (Wild Nacatl and Glacial Fortress , to name a few).
The bottom line is that the card is usable in W/X decks (usually GW), but outside of two-color, it becomes vastly less relevant. The fact that you can't fetch it means it's worse than a basic land in some situations, and you need two of them before the legend rule pays off. Even then, it doesn't ramp. It just color-fixes, and you could get color fixing by playing more fetches or duals (oh yeah, it only taps for white, too).
February 23, 2014 6:04 a.m.