Cardboard Intervention: TCG/CCG Thread Redux 2

[hyorinryu]

I randomly opened one of her in a box.

Also, I tried to play a pokemon game, and unfortunately, once my friend got a stage two on the field, I just couldn't recover.

[commandercool]

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/war-of-the-spark-spoilers-april-22-2019-japanese-alternate-art-planeswalkers

Well that's pretty wild! I wonder if these will be available in English. They're super cool (mostly, except for the kinda weird Bolas art) but I don't usually like playing with foreign cards, especially with this much text.

[Tamer Anode/Cathode]

Doesn't sound like they'll be available in English, but will at least be available for purchase in EN-speaking regions

I can't really complain about the Bolas art too much since I looked up the artists and the one who did his alternate art is pretty prominent, having worked on a lot of kaiju and mecha stuff since the 80's. The alternate Yanggu is by an artist who did a lot of FE stuff, mostly between 6-10. The majority of the artists are people who do art for JP card games, especially Duel Masters

[commandercool]

My first prerelease wasn't great, I opened a Gideon but got smashed first round by an opponent who went turn 5 Bontu-> turn 6 foil Liliana both games. Then I played against an eight-year-old second round who never cast a spell and lost the match in five minutes, then I somehow got a bye despite having a win so I may as well not have played and just sat there for almost all of the three-hour event.

A buddy and I decided to buy boxes and mine was looking pretty grim, with my only three mythics up to that point being the three bad finales, but then I had a pack with Bolas and a foil Niv which turned things right around. Going to another prerelease tomorrow, we'll see how everything shakes out I guess.

[Tamer Anode/Cathode]

I have not had a chance to do a physical prerelease yet. The one I tried to go to today was fully booked so the best I could do was pre-register for tomorrow,

I did have a chance to use a bunch of my stockpiled gems and try sealed on Arena twice. Dreadhorde Invasion is incredibly potent, especially if you get any of the lords that give your tokens evasion or a lot of other Amass/Proliferate effects to get to critical mass faster

[commandercool]

I have a really hard time evaluating Dreadhorde Invasion. I play a lot of Bitterblossom in Modern so it's easy to compare the two, but I still don't really know what to think. I mean, Dreadhorde is obviously worse, just not sure how much worse. I got one in my pool and splashed for it, but of my four shitty games the only one I got to cast it in was one where I got completely flattened by Liliana so I didn't get to see much of it.

Good luck at your first paper prerelease. If you've already played sealed online then I'm sure you know what to do. Prerelease promos are fun, they're my preferred version of a card if I can get them, so hopefully you get good ones.

[hyorinryu]

I decided to get a box for the heck of it. I'm surprised at who's in what rarity. I didn't expect the demon guy at uncommon, or Kiora. I guess when you have all these walkers, there are only so many mythic/rare slots.

[commandercool]

Yeah, and most of the rare and mythic slots are earmarked for Gatewatch characters and Ravnica characters. Everyone else kind of gets pushed aside, but not necessarily in power level. Many of the uncommons are very solid cards that I like a lot.

[Tamer Anode/Cathode]

Honestly I feel like a lot of the uncommon planeswalkers (Tibalt and Wanderer in particular) have good homes in sideboard matchups for competitive decks, but what I'm really impressed by is the fact that some of the regular rare planeswalkers like Narset and Karn are having a massive impact in older formats in Vintage right now.

[commandercool]

Meanwhile I don't anticipate the mythic ones being too too impactful outside Standard. Liliana seems great in Commander, Bolas might be good when his static ability matters, and some Death And Taxes list somewhere might test Gideon, but I don't expect any of them to see anywhere near as much play as Saheeli or Ashiok.

Meanwhile meanwhile, I don't know how to evaluate Tezzeret and he kind of scares me. His combo in Standard is gross and I feel like he's going to break something at some point and risk being the new Nexus of Fate. His design isn't necessarily pushed, but I feel like it's not conservative enough for a buy-a-box

[hyorinryu]

Meanwhile I don't anticipate the mythic ones being too too impactful outside Standard. Liliana seems great in Commander, Bolas might be good when his static ability matters, and some Death And Taxes list somewhere might test Gideon, but I don't expect any of them to see anywhere near as much play as Saheeli or Ashiok.

Meanwhile meanwhile, I don't know how to evaluate Tezzeret and he kind of scares me. His combo in Standard is gross and I feel like he's going to break something at some point and risk being the new Nexus of Fate. His design isn't necessarily pushed, but I feel like it's not conservative enough for a buy-a-box

I ended up getting 3 mythics and no planeswalkers among said mythics. Just two Zombie gods and an "Apex Hybrid", whatever that is. At least the last guy is shiny. I have a bunch of planeswalkers to play with though. That's nice.

[commandercool]

A three-mythic box is too bad, but a foil mythic is nice. Did you get the box promo? And which God Eternals did you get? Kefnet and Oketra are the expensive ones right now.

[commandercool]

We got our fixed Force of Will in Modern Horizons! This whole time I've been trying to figure out how you make a fixed Force that can be used to disrupt degenerate combos but can't be used to protect them. Making it only usable on the opponent's turn is an obvious and reasonable answer. I think this is a great design. The Negate element is a little harder to evaluate, but it probably means that Force of Negation doesn't want to be in main decks, which is probably a good thing. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure this card is very good and I'm pretty sure it's pretty balanced.

[PX]

Literally what Modern needed right now

[commandercool]

Almost bummed it can't get creatures since ideally what you want to counter against Storm is one of their creatures, but they'll always just topdeck a second one immediately anyway. Maybe that's a trap and hitting Gifts or Past in Flames is better, and I'm assuming Past in Flames is the reason this exiles.

[Tamer Anode/Cathode]

somebody try and convince me that Wing Shards does not exist solely to brick the Arclight Phoenix deck

[commandercool]

Wing Shards is an old card that predates that deck, game set match. 

I think the main argument against it for Phoenix is honestly just that it doesn't dumpster them hard enough. It's probably not maindeck playable, which means that if you're putting it in your sideboard you could be running something that prevents them from getting off the ground in the first place. Although the biggest upside is that it's not easy for them to disrupt. They can't practically counter it and they can't bounce or destroy it like they can with a lot of other hate options. So maybe that'll end up being good enough.