I'm a big fan of yu-gi-oh! on simulators, with a few decks IRL. My current deck is a Prediction Princess mill deck, because I love how tarotray can abuse flip effects, especially the MVP of the deck : Needle Worm. (http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Needle_Worm)That's just pure evil.
That's just pure evil.You wouldn't want to fight one of my friends who had literally over a hundred working-to-various degrees decks.
You wouldn't want to fight one of my friends who had literally over a hundred working-to-various degrees decks.Hello. (http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Prediction_Princess_Tarotrei)
One of them was a mill deck, and Needle Worm was much, much worse in his hands.
>has a couple, let's say 2, Needle Worms facedown
>flips em up, -10 cards right there.
>plays Book of Eclipse (http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Book_of_Eclipse)
Let's not get into how he also commonly had Gravekeeper's Servant (http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Gravekeeper's_Servant) on the field.
Hello. (http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Prediction_Princess_Tarotrei)Ah, we had stopped well before those came into being. I believe we stopped playing together before XYZ even, or only a little after they came out. I imagine the game has gotten absolutely riduculous by now.
How do other card games measure up in terms of versatility with OTK decks, or is this more of Yugioh's silliness?One-turn kills seem to be specifically YGO's thing; Pokemon needs a few turns for a round to get underway, and MtG is currently balanced to try and prevent wins before turn 3-4. Don't know how it works in Vanguard or WeissSchwarz.
Pokemon needs a few turns for a round to get underwayExcept Big Fan Shiftry.
Don't know how it works in Vanguard or WeissSchwarz.It never happens, it's just not possible to do enough damage on the first turns, and there are ways to prevent it anyway.
Ah, we had stopped well before those came into being. I believe we stopped playing together before XYZ even, or only a little after they came out. I imagine the game has gotten absolutely riduculous by now.Basically, everything is broken, and some things are more broken than others.
As for the actual set itself, I don't understand it at all. Much of the metagame seems to be "did you pull a couple of the allies that make allies actually matter?", but beyond that I can't figure out the archetypes. Ramp isn't really a thing, but maybe it's supposed to cap out at seven drops or something. Converge makes no sense to me in sealed, since there doesn't seem to be much support for it. This is a weird, weird set, but then again I didn't really understand Khans until someone explained it to me in context of the whole block like a year later.Allies seem to be split into multiple archetypes, focusing mainly on black/white lifegain and red/white Rally effects. Landfall is in all colors, but it's strongest in red/green aggro decks where you have tools to put multiple lands on the field in one turn. I can see what looks like black/green growth archetype where sacrificing a creature gets several bonuses at once. Even the Eldrazi seem to be split into archetypes, with green Scion ramp, blue evasion, red aggro, and black forced discards.
I played in a Magic: Battle For Zendikar sealed yesterday and it was... Crazyballs. I don't really care about this set, I just want a few copies of each Blighted land and a few copies of Greenwarden Of Murasa, but my roommate likes it a lot and had to work, so he paid for me to play.Good job (fuck youj, salty :(). My shop had 4 Expeditions in 180 kits.
Right out of the box I opened the prerelease Ulamog. So that alone was basically his money back. First pack, pulled an expedition (Blood Crypt). Next couple packs pulled some junk rares and two multilands, then last pack I pulled a second expedition (Breeding Pool). I genuinely did not know that was possible. Out of 18 players those were the only expeditions pulled, and I got both.
I did okay in the event. Placed just above half, got two more packs containing a third multiland. I made a kind of dumb blue/green mana ramp deck to try to play with the Ulamog I opened, but it only worked once for the whole event in a game I was winning anyway. Should have played blue/black, but I don't care, my pulls were incredible so if I had done much better it would have just been mean. Too bad I don't get to sell the cards myself, but I know roommate is buying a PS4 with the money from them, so that means I don't have to buy it when Persona 5 comes out.
As for the actual set itself, I don't understand it at all. Much of the metagame seems to be "did you pull a couple of the allies that make allies actually matter?", but beyond that I can't figure out the archetypes. Ramp isn't really a thing, but maybe it's supposed to cap out at seven drops or something. Converge makes no sense to me in sealed, since there doesn't seem to be much support for it. This is a weird, weird set, but then again I didn't really understand Khans until someone explained it to me in context of the whole block like a year later.
I'm in the process of learning both MtG and Force of Will. Not really sure where to start on either of them, they're both so complex. I kind of want to lean toward Force of Will since it's newer and thus less catch-up for me to have to do (20+ years of MtG is a lot of info to learn), but I don't want to invest in a game that no one plays, you know?Seconding Duels on Steam as a jumping-on point; it does a good job of slowly introducing the rules to you. Also, don't worry about having to learn 20+ years worth of cards and mechanics; the commonly played formats limit it to far less (usually only about the most recent year and a half).
What should I do?
mtg
I agree that events are more fun when you go with a group of friends. I don't usually play in any event, regardless of game, unless I have a posse with me. And if you're a shady motherfucker apparently colluding in Magic is considered acceptable. Going into the last round I was repeatedly told by the guy running the event that the "normal" thing to do in my situation would be to intentionally draw with my opponent to guarantee first and second and split the packs. That sounded sketchy to me so I didn't, won, and got three extra packs for my trouble, but the judge swore that it would have been legal and normal to agree to a draw. So there's that, I guess..? :V
Basically the guy who was teaching me was playing a deck with absolutely no creature cards whatsoever, just a red deck full of instants/enchantments/sorceries, with cards that doubled/tripled the effects of spells and he basically played an infinite stack and ended it with a Grapeshot that did like 20 damage rofl
That's exactly what I like about it-- it's a very intuitive game when you're playing it right. It's got everything I like about the concepts I like about other games like Etrian Odyssey and Puzzle and Dragons, and that is that there's nearly limitless team (in this case deck) building potential and just as much potential for creative, unique, personalized play styles.
Personally I don't really care for tournament play outside of sealed because I've found that most people tend to lean on the same few optimized deck skeletons that they copied off of the internet and I get tired of playing against the same three decks over and over.
*Edit: When ccool said the game was made by smart people who have the game's interest at heart, he wasn't kidding. Even the RNG can be mostly staved off depending on what kind of Sealed it is. In a Prerelease, you're deliberately given a choice of a box of some kind of faction, and the box more than likely has a LOT of cards in that faction's color, along with regular packs from standard sets, so you may get a little extra.They changed that so you no longer get the "set color" pack; since this fall all the prerelease kits are now "six packs and a random promo", which a lot of people like more since you're no longer forced to commit to a specific color even if what you pull doesn't necessarily support it.
And I was worried I'd need a deck for every type as well and that's not even a reasonable thought just because there's so much, and it's just not necessary. I'll likely look into building red, green, and black decks at some point, but I'm honestly pretty happy with my white and blue decks at this moment since I honestly am not interested in playing hyper-competitively, because I already know that I'm at a huge disadvantage there due to inexperience and lack of hyper-invested decks. It's kind of scary how much the most sought-after cards are.Honestly if you're already going into Modern or another format where cards aren't constantly rotating in and out it's fine to just put your focus into developing and learning the decks you already have, and what matchups they're good and bad in.
They changed that so you no longer get the "set color" pack; since this fall all the prerelease kits are now "six packs and a random promo", which a lot of people like more since you're no longer forced to commit to a specific color even if what you pull doesn't necessarily support it.
The original game was fun back in the day back when it was still decently balanced. I am guessing the point where any semblance of that went out the window was when Nintendo took over the game from Wizards. I stopped playing around that time, at least, and I had already thought the game was getting pretty ridiculous as it was, but looking at some current cards, it seems pretty ridiculously overpowered compared to how the game used to be.Pokemon TCG had some pretty bad powercreep later on; I'm not sure if it happened when they introduced Pokemon-EX or before that point but somewhere the power of the rarest monster cards just got ludicrous.
And doesn't it have twice the number of gyms too? I only played through it once but I loved it, definitely recommended. And the last boss is a king who winks at you every time you do something. It's pretty much the best.I didn't go that far, I was stuck at one gym that asks for Psy energies only and never managed to find how to grind them, unlike the first game...
there are a bunch of "instant win" conditions i've installed
soul sisters/suture priest/martyr of sands + felidar sovereign
- use sisters/priest/martyr of sands to get over 40 life
- felidar sovereign is instant win over 40 life
gift of orzhova + sunbond + martyr of sands = enchanted creature has +1/+1, flying, and lifelink, and sunbond gives +1/+1 for each life point you gain. sacrifice martyr of sands and reveal a bunch of white cards. so say i have 5 white cards in my hand and sacrifice her-- i gain 15 life. enchanted creature now has +16/+16. have them swing in the air, then not only do recover base power + 16 in life, but i then gain that in +1/+1s as well. so for example
aegis of the gods + rune tail, kitsune ascendant + martyr of sands
- sacrifice martyr of sands so i have over 30 life
- kitsune flips at 30+ life, becomes rune-tail's essence
- rune-tail's essence prevents ALL damage done to my creatures
- aegis of the gods gives hexproof
- opponent cannot target with me or spells or abilities, and cannot damage any of my creatures
- i am now invulnerable to pretty much everything i am aware of, and am free to bolster my team and swing away or win with felidar sovereign
and here i am researching other cards to mix it up; considering splashing black with white/black lands for more ridiculousness
Hmm, all right. I guess there are concepts I didn't understand.
Aegis of the Gods (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=380364) x4
Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=87600) x4
Victory's Herald (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=405435) x2
Gift of Orzhova (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=366339) x4
Sunbond (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=378400) x4
Chalice of Life//Chalice of Death (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=226735) (yet another life source that can become a damage source)
Cradle of Vitality (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=376284) (may be better overall than Sunbond?)
Grand Abolisher (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=389538) (seems useful?)
Spear of Heliod (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=373717) (since I choose to eat damage a lot (I mean, I can afford to with all this life, and sacrificing creatures means sacrificing recovery), I can use this to remove annoyances from the field)
Nyx-Fleece Ram (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=380463) (fast and defensive life source)
Vizkopa Guildmage (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=376577) (one of the reasons I want to splash black in the deck. Scary combo with Martyr of Sands.)
Orzhov Charm (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=366436) (seems cheap and versatile for removing enemies (if I can tank the damage) or bringing back Soul Sisters from the graveyard if they get destroyed.)
Proclamation of Rebirth (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=107341) (bringing the tiny white cards back from the dead. Don't really understand the Forecast bit.)
Boon Reflection (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=146751) (okay I admit this one is just there for me to be a jackass with. But it obviously pairs with other stuff! Double life recovery stacked with everything I have would amount to a lot...)
Harsh Sustenance (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=391851) (combine this with all of the token generators I have, and this could be nice)
And Platinum Angel: Why does this even exist? I want it.
Orzhov Basilica (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=405329) (kind of an annoying setup, but it counts as 2 mana, right?)
Path to Exile (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=382192) is probably the most efficient white removal I can think of but each copy costs around $8 so you might want to go with something else for now
Depending on how many burn decks you're up against in your local metagame, Kor Firewalker (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=194708) looks like an interesting possible sideboard option.
As far as matchups for the deck go, my main concern would be Infect deck since its win condition ignores your life total.
No, I dunno what card advantage is. Mind explaining?
- Auras really do blow, especially when you're facing a green/red land-generating deck that can get out 5-8 CMC cards out in less than three turns, especially when those cards have effects that can target creatures. Can't remember the card's name, but it was an 8/8 that once he got it on the field, the effect was 5 damage to creatures or a player-- and he nuked all of my 1/1s in one shot, clearing the field. He then swept me from there. No bueno.
- Rune-Tail's Essence is a fantastic card, but you're right, I don't need four, because getting it in action is difficult unless I have it and Martyr of Sands basically on turn 1. I did once though, and I won that round because it effectively turned all of my 1/1s into 1/∞ in terms of blocking power, which made the Soul Sisters that much more functional as life-generating walls.
What do you think of it now? I feel like the deck is too full, but I dunno what else to thin out, especially if I replace Felidar Sovereign and Victory's Herald with Sun Titan. I also really like Unmake and Phyrexian Arena, too. I dunno how heavily I want to push black though, since I only have the equivalent of 8 black mana in the deck via Basilica and Barrens. Grand Abolisher is definitely on my list as well. Sadistic Sacrament looks absolutely devious though, even though I don't think I could ever pull off the kicker-- but it would ruin the opponent if I could.
EDIT: At the card shop last night, someone had left a stack of cards on the table-- it was a bunch of packs they had opened, took the rares out of, and left the rest behind. The manager said I could take them, and it had a card called Touch of Moonglove (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=398600) in it. This looks like it could be very useful, too-- just attach it to a pawn and either deal extra direct damage or kill a blocking creature and still deal 2 direct damage.
And yeah, I have no idea how to manage Infect-- the best I can do is hope for a quick kill with my Chalices/Guildmages.
Alright, this is an extremely key concept to understanding what choices to make and what cards are good in Magic. I'll do my best to explain it. It's pretty simple but also kind of tricky to explain.
Card advantage is basically what happens when your cards and your opponent's cards cancel out. If you block their 2/2 with a 2/2 both die and nobody got card advantage. If they Doomblade your creature they traded one card for your one card and nobody got card advantage. But if they Doomblade your guy with a Sunbond on it they spend one of their cards to cancel out two or yours and they got +1 card advantage. If they have ten creatures in play, you have two, and you play Day Of Judgment you get +7 card advantage (+10 for killing 10 of their creatures, -2 for killing your own creatures, and -1 for playing Day Of Judgment). If they have 75 creature tokens in play that were all generated by the same Storm Herd (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=247287), there are no other creatures in play, and you kill them all with Pyroclasm nobody got card advantage because you still just cancelled their one card with your one card.
A card like Beacon Of Immortality that doesn't cancel out any of your opponent's cards directly is often just straight-up negative card advantage. However, in some situations, like if your opponent has spent three Lightning Bolts targeting your life total already, it can actually become card advantage because you've used it to cancel cards of their. If they're attacking with creatures every turn instead of hitting your life with one-time effects it usually isn't because it doesn't actually deal with the threats, it just slows them down.
So what does that mean practically? If you've ever gotten to a point in the game where you have few or no cards in hand and on the board and your opponent has a bunch more, it's probably because they've been getting better card advantage than you either throughout the game or at one key moment. This means they now have more options and you're at a serious disadvantage. So if you look for opportunities to squeeze out card advantage wherever possible you can have more cards, which means more options, which means you're probably going to win the game. Not definitely, but probably. This applies both to making choices in-game and choosing which cards to put in your deck. If you're playing a card with inherent card disadvantage you'd better have a good reason for it.
Card quality plays a big role too, so it's often worth it to put yourself at card disadvantage to trade several cards that for whatever reason aren't very important right now for one card that matters a lot. But be careful when you do this, because any situation where you're already putting yourself at card disadvantage can be a potential blowout. For example, if your opponent has a 4/4 creature that's about to kill you and you block it with 4 1/1s, they can use any number of different effects to throw off the math (killing one of your blockers, making their creature bigger, even Unsummon on one of your small guys) to keep their creature and make you lose all or most of yours, which puts you at even bigger disadvantage than the calculated trade you were trying to make.
Does my explanation make sense?
That sounds like Dragonlord Atarka (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=394546), who notably can't hit players with his comes-into-play effect (so if your opponent did that they cheated).
This guy illustrates a few points I've tried to make recently. For one thing, he's almost always inherently card advantageous. Since he can usually kill at least one thing when he comes into play, and often several things, and your opponent will probably have to spend at least one card to get rid of him, he can often put you at +1 or even more cards. Also, he does something immediately upon entering play, which is a near-requirement for an expensive creature. Unless he gets countered he's probably going to leave a mark on the game even if he gets removed at the earliest possible moment after he's cast. Unlike Victory's Herald there's little chance of casting him and getting nothing for it.
It's definitely a matchup-dependent card to some degree, and this sounds like a great matchup for it. A deck that relies on big creatures to win will probably have a very hard time dealing with Rune-Tail.
The deck is definitely too full. As a general rule in Magic you should never have more than 60 cards in your deck. There's always an optimal draw in a given situation, and having more than 60 cards dilutes your chance to get the card you need. Cutting down to 60 can be really hard though, especially when there are even more cards you want to try to squeeze into the deck. I'm not that familiar with Soul Sisters so I'm not sure I could really be helpful in figuring out which cards to cut, but you are ridiculously heavy on one-cost creatures, especially since you don't have many ways to help them hit for much damage. I know that's kind of the concept of the deck so maybe there's nothing to be done for it, but it's pretty weird on paper.
This is another great illustrative card for card advantage. Touch of Moonglove is a bad card for the most part, because it's usually card disadvantageous. Often it comes down to trading two cards (your small creature and Touch of Moonglove) for one opposing card and two life. Usually it would just be better to play a normal removal card because you don't have to also trade one of your creatures, and Touch of Moonglove has no chance of killing an opponent's creature that they keep out of combat. You could get some value out of Touch of Moonglove by targeting a creature that's big enough to survive combat but not big enough to kill the thing it's fighting (Nyxfleece Ram), but for the most part it's just a very inferior removal card with the small upside of two direct damage. How good you think it is will probably depend on how highly you value that damage, but I don't value it very highly.
Off the top of my head I want to say your best bet is probably just going nuts with very cheap removal. There are a few kinds of Infect deck, but when they were big the most common one wanted to kill extremely quickly by using Giant Growth-type cards to hit for a ton of poison with your tiny infect creatures in the first couple turns of the game. That kind of strategy is inherently risky because you can just Path To Exile or Dismember their guy in response to the casting of Giant Growth and trade your one removal card for their creature and their powerup spell. If you can pull that off two or so times in a game they'll probably just run out of cards. Slower Infect strategies involving Proliferate and Inkmoth Nexus might be harder to deal with, and are probably a pretty terrible matchup for your deck. I'm not sure those are very common though. Maybe they are.
Ultimately, I think I'm tailoring this deck to favor passive direct damage while bolstering my health rather than attacking directly, though it provides options for me to do so via using Pridemate/Cradle+Martyr on something for strong attacks, or Orzhov Charm/Spear of Heliod/Recumbent Bliss for crowd control, and even Elspeth in a pinch, since nothing in the deck has more than 4 power naturally-- so I can wipe the field and just attack directly-- and if I have any lifelink/spirit loop stuff going on, Vizkopa will bring that to a quick end. But the core damage would come from Vizkopa's passive damage (and I can activate it on both my turn and the opponent's, correct? This would help bolster the loss of Suture Priest) and Chalice damage.
Am I grasping this better?
Are you talking Commander? I like Ezuri a lot in Commander. U/G is very strong if you support it with the right colorless removal. The U/G Ezuri deck primarily wants to have as many utility creatures as possible, especially if they draw you cards. Mulldrifter and Elvish Visionary are perfect, and always lean toward playing your Acidic Slimes and Sakura-Tribe Elders over Naturalize or Rampant Growth and you should be good-ish.My Acidic Slime and Sakura-Tribe Elder are in my Mazirek/Meren deck since they synergize better with that, but I could probably put stuff like Wood Elves and Reclamation Sage in the Ezuri deck since they synergize with his ability. What I'm hoping for is a deck which uses utility creatures to accumulate power and then directs it into creatures that are hard to stop or get rid of.
Acidic Slime and Sakura-Tribe Elder are both sub-$1 cards, it's probably worth hunting down extra copies so you can run them in both.Would Managorger Hydra be good here? I have a bunch and that "gets a counter whenever a spell is cast" looks like it could get absolutely ludicrous in a multiplayer game
That's pretty much the game plan in every Ezuri deck I've ever seen. It also might be worth including some "counters matter" stuff like Novijen Sages, Arcbound Reclaimer, Lifeblood Hydra, etc etc etc. There are like a million cards that fit that theme, and many of them can start small enough to trigger Ezuri as well.
It's notable that those two cards they showed there are astronomically expensive right now, in the range of hundreds of dollars each (and terrifyingly they were both uncommons previously). It'll be interesting to see what this does to their prices.I wouldn't consider Force nor Wasteland "astronomically expensive right now," even compared to other "eternal" staples; Force of Will has been holding at ~$100 average and $60-70 low, and Wasteland has been in steady decline. These 2 were probably chosen because of iconic reasons relevant to the formats supported by this set. These are 2 cards that players think of as necessary for playing in Legacy and Vintage, and are also considered Cube staples.
I wouldn't consider Force nor Wasteland "astronomically expensive right now," even compared to other "eternal" staples; Force of Will has been holding at ~$100 average and $60-70 low, and Wasteland has been in steady decline. These 2 were probably chosen because of iconic reasons relevant to the formats supported by this set. These are 2 cards that players think of as necessary for playing in Legacy and Vintage, and are also considered Cube staples.
I wouldn't consider Force nor Wasteland "astronomically expensive right now," even compared to other "eternal" staples; Force of Will has been holding at ~$100 average and $60-70 low, and Wasteland has been in steady decline. These 2 were probably chosen because of iconic reasons relevant to the formats supported by this set. These are 2 cards that players think of as necessary for playing in Legacy and Vintage, and are also considered Cube staples.Wasteland has been helped by coming back via the Expedition lands in Oath, and I don't see Force of Will going down in price very much because a) it's a key card for Legacy/Vintage and b) it's a mythic rare card in a set with a limited print run. Considering Tarmogoyf's price wasn't really affected by either Modern Masters reprint, I don't have much hope.
Personally I think people who get mad at things dropping in value should grow up and find something ELSE to whine about since it's a game first and foremost, but alas.Well MTG speculators are also the people who indirectly popularized Bitcoin so uh
I'm starting to consider making an actual serious deck for once, and I'm thinking it's gonna be an angel deck.
But there's just so many and their CMC is so high. Maybe I could run Myr stuff as a mana ramp in early game???
But if there's no place for them in Modern, how should I go about making white control? (I'm fine with diversifying colors too.)
I can't comment on the deck too much. Combo decks are so outside of my purview (I prefer smashing dudes with a pile of Worldspine Wurms or something over combos), but to me it looks like you've got a severe lack of card draw. I don't know, I don't even really play Magic anymore, I only play sealed and Commander so maybe that's totally normal, but for a combo deck it seems like you'd want a lot of card filtering.
Commander has been really pissing me off lately. For quite a while my group was pretty stable, but we recently added two extra people and both of them are horrible at Magic, which can be a really bad thing in Commander. For both of them their first reflex every time they see anything that they think might threaten them at any point in the game is just to wipe the board.Blood Artist/Falkenrath Noble/Zulaport Cutthroat. If a lot of things are going to die, you should at least profit off of it.
If you have a Magic card on hand, flip it over and connect the five colored dots in the middle of the card. The lines will form a pentagram that explains the relationships between the colors. Adjacent colors on the pentagram are allies and tend to work well together and cover each-other's weaknesses. The colors that aren't adjacent which form the star of the pentagram are enemies and tend to have stranger (although still viable) results when combined.
I do kind of think they're boring, but that's a personal preference. If infinite combos are working correctly they don't really interact with your opponent that much, which means you're basically doing the same things every game regardless of what you're playing against, and I find that that becomes boring really quickly. But if you like doing it, fair enough. I know a lot of people do.
Every day that passes without Temple and Eye being banned is a surprise to me. Modern is usually relatively quick on the uptake with this stuff.
I can't tell if the people in my area just don't do the flicking thing or I've somehow tuned it out at this point. Probably the former because I am awful at tuning things out.
You wanna know how I keep my opponent from reading my hand? I fan 'em out while it's my turn, memorize what I have, and snap them shut when I'm done, so it looks like I'm holding one card. No annoying flippy snappy shit, no constant time wasting.
Every day that passes without Temple and Eye being banned is a surprise to me. Modern is usually relatively quick on the uptake with this stuff.It's a surprise to me too because the Eldrazi deck is capable of winning on turn 2 with a perfect opening hand and Modern generally bans anything capable of winning before turn 4
As a Commander-only player, these are the highlights from my perspective:Personally the cards that interest me the most from a Commander perspective are:
Personally the cards that interest me the most from a Commander perspective are:
-Eerie Interlude: Blink out of a boardwipe and/or repeat your enter the battlefield triggers.
-Odric, Lunarch Marshal: That ability is a lot of text but "give a keyword on one creature to all creatures" is great for a lot of white or white-green decks.
-Pious Evangel/Wayward Disciple: Soul Warden on one side and Blood Artist on the other. I see this going in every BW lifegain deck ever from now on (and I want to build a Karlov/Ayli one simply for this card)
-Second Harvest: It's a token doubler. That says it all.
-Sorin, Grim Nemesis: profit off your own lifegain or utterly destroy another lifegain player, sounds good to me
On another note, Bearer of Overwhelming Truths has one of my favorite pieces of art ever. I would love a playmat of that.
Looks like Wizards is in agreement with me to at least some degree. I popped in to a local store today and they had received their Innistrad promo kit, which had a bunch of pop-up cardboard lantern spider things from this piece in it. Playmat now pleeeeease!They've really stepped up their prerelease promotion lately, I wish I could have gotten my hands on one of those lifesize hedrons from the BFZ prerelease.
mfw odric doesn't work with myriadThis is probably to be expected since the official stance is "we don't refer to stuff from Commander sets in non-Commander sets"
So I've been playing Weiss Schwarz a bit lately. My roommate and I mostly play it with each other, but we ran into a guy at Shuto Con who runs games out of town and he taught us how to fix a few of our metagame mistakes that we had developed from having a weird insular community. Just ordered some cards for my blue/green Kill La Kill deck. It was a couple of copies of some of the key cards short of really quite working, so hopefully this will make it a lot more consistent. A few of the more expensive rares I needed have dropped a bit so finishing it won't cost me too much now.Speaking of Weiss, my Maki.dek is 90% complete now
I think it's less of a "don't refer to summer casual products" thing and more that he only cares about evergreen keywords. Same reason he can't grant Wither, Bushido, Renown etc. Would have been pretty weird if he listed a smattering of things that aren't in his set.
As for Myriad, the true horror of it is combined with EtB effects. Swing with an Eternal Witness, Mulldrifter, Acidic Slime, or similar holding a Blade of Selves and basically win on the spot.
Speaking of Weiss, my Maki.dek is 90% complete now
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ce59EJCVIAA6uTx.jpg:large)
EDIT: Also, if you want to play sometimes we should add each other on skype :D
The commander deck I was given for my birthday included Thundercloud Shaman, who I successfully equipped the blade onto and swung in a 5man. The realization came to everyone very quickly that anything with 20 or less Toughness they had was instantly evaporated every time I attacked.
I assume that means they killed it/you promptly then? Fortunately that's a pretty fragile setup, but you only have to do it once to get a huge boost.
whoa did you get the mythic/foil mythic situation on pack 4? At least it was sealed and not draft so you didn't have to pass one.
I don't have the energy for midnight prereleases so I'm going to afternoon ones this weekend
whoa did you get the mythic/foil mythic situation on pack 4? At least it was sealed and not draft so you didn't have to pass one.
I don't have the energy for midnight prereleases so I'm going to afternoon ones this weekend
So you didn't play in the actual event?
Flip cards take up their own slot that doesn't overlap with the rare/mythic slot, so you can pull a normal rare and a flip rare pretty easily. Two mythics is still pretty rare, but it's more common than a mythic and a foil mythic by quite a lot.
4-0 (8-2) the only flight I was able to play due to the store being busy, imgur (http://imgur.com/GoygCJL). Accursed Witch MVP, every game I played it I won, every game the opponent played it they won. Tamiyo's Journal most sideboarded out card, in exchange for a counterspell usually.
Also PX your deck needs more Pile SP please.
Weiss Schwarz chases are great for maling rubes pay for my cards for me. I think I'm still in the green by a few bucks from the ones I've sold and replaced with their non-chase versions.
And English card prices are stupidly inflated for no reason
My bigger worry is that you can just plop Thing in the Ice in a storm deck and have him flipped and attacking just a couple turns into the game, especially since storm is so saturated with card draw.I thought over this while I was getting ready this morning and while Thing in the Ice is more threatening than I originally evaluated it as, I don't think the biggest threat is its attacking. 4 toughness is a significant number since it means it won't get one-shotted by Lightning Bolt and I can not think of any same-cost creatures that can get past it. Killing off a Thing before it transforms is going to cost a lot of resources compared to how much it costs to summon it (unless you're in the colors for Doom Blade/Path to Exile)
That's the best way to do it, honestly, but I think new players should always expect to lose, because that's one of the best ways to learn. And if they know how to take it in stride and not get discouraged, there's no reason to feel bad for beating them, so long as you give advice after, if desired.
I only recently started MtG and the folks I play with know I'm new, so they're all too eager to show off their $500+ netdecks and beat me down with them. They can be pretty fucking arrogant at times, but I take it in stride because I go in intentionally expecting to lose, and I've learned a lot from their (sometimes very condescending) advice.
The worst part of all of this is that being arrogant about Magic is so fucking stupid, especially when you realize that a huge percentage of how well a deck works boils down to sheer luck. And when you talk up a huge arrogant game before a match and lose to bad luck, you look really stupid. But I've also noticed that these are some of the worst people to make theories and strategies with when it comes to cards too, because they're permanently stuck in netdecking mode where anything short of the best is bad.
By the way, did you know that goofuses call making their own decks "roguing" (or at least enough of them do on the internet that I've seen that term a few different places)? That might be the most ridiculous bit of terminology I've ever heard for anything. Like the concept of not netdecking is so foreign that you have to have a special word for it, and the implication is "I'm such a cool awesome rebel badass that I didn't even steal this decklist". :oThat's a bit oversimplifying it. Proper rogue-decking, which is really only something you can do on competitive, tournament-level play, means analyzing the top decks in a supposedly well-explored, stagnant meta, then in secret building a deck that is targetted specifically against (the most dominant of, or multiple of) the top tier decks. Then you bring it to the tournament where you (hopefully) destroy the competition through a combination of an anti-meta strategy and surprise factor.
The prebuilt Commander decks are actually something resembling playable and competitive (unlike every other prebuilt deck they print), plus they come with a lot of material for building future decks. There's a lot of places that still have the 2014 monocolor decks in stock, the Forged in Stone one is probably something you'd enjoy. If you want to keep going with lifegain strategies, the Call the Spirits deck from 2015 gives you a lot of room to build around that.
That said, I'm considering getting into commander for casual fun. I still haven't decided on who that commander should be, though. Elesh Norn seems really appealing, but it's so pricey and expensive mana-wise, too.
It's called "playing the game the right way". Magic is, at its base level, an okay game. What makes it stand out to me and what makes it fun is that there are endless ways to play, countless strategies, tons of combos, and the potential for the game to be as unique as the player.
That's why I'm taking off my training wheels and want to make my own ideas from now on. There's so much variety to explore in the game and do much fun to be had with it, and a game is only worth being called good if it is fun. And if you ruin the variety and make it more than a game, and you're not having fun, you will always, always be the true loser, because you're depriving yourself and others of a good time with your boring decks and shitty unbeatable attitudes.
That said, I'm considering getting into commander for casual fun. I still haven't decided on who that commander should be, though. Elesh Norn seems really appealing, but it's so pricey and expensive mana-wise, too.
It is much more than just "not using a netdeck". It is basically the holy grail of the Spikejohnny.
Now, if people say they are "rogueing" when they just mean "not using a netdeck", that is either presumptuous or uninformed. Or both.
The prebuilt Commander decks are actually something resembling playable and competitive (unlike every other prebuilt deck they print), plus they come with a lot of material for building future decks. There's a lot of places that still have the 2014 monocolor decks in stock, the Forged in Stone one is probably something you'd enjoy. If you want to keep going with lifegain strategies, the Call the Spirits deck from 2015 gives you a lot of room to build around that.
After a fair amount of testing I kind of have a handle now on how my Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest deck works. It's incredibly slow to get going and remains pretty fragile throughout, but it can really close out games once it gets rolling. I think my best bet for improving it might be embracing the slowness and focusing on staying power rather than trying to make it faster.The Mazirek deck I built relies on a lot of the BFZ Eldrazi for extra value since that's what I had when I was building the deck; I love Catacomb Sifter and Smothering Abomination in the deck since they give you a lot of card draw power. I'm also pretty fond of Fleshbag Marauder/Merciless Executioner and other stuff for forced sacrifice effects. I imagine once you have a Grave Pact and/or a Dictate of Erebos out you can clear out a board pretty fast (add Smokestacks if you don't care about losing friends)
I'm still having a lot of trouble with bad players just feeding people games in my group though. I won my first Mazirek game of last weekend from three life when everyone else at the table was above 30 because one of said terrible players tapped out to drop that global token and counter doubling enchantment right before my turn. Everyone warned her not to do it, she said she had a plan, then everyone died before she could enact her "plan". Turns out it was to gain four more life with Essence Warden than she would otherwise have on her next turn. :V
It's been a while since I've been subject to a cheap ass infinite combo. Sigh. There's no fun in it.
Nah, Starfield of Nyx is in the marshmallow tutelage deck, not the turbofog.
So that's what I mean by "for fun". I know it can't handle some decks, but what it does handle, it obliterates.
I finished breaking down and rebuilding my own Mazirek commander deck (http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/a-savage-circle/). I think I may be too fond of recurstion/graveyard shenanigans for my own good.
Alright, now that I'm home I can take a closer look at this.I might put Champion of Stray Souls on the chopping block if it's not working out. Hardened Scales is mostly there to try to speed things up, it could easily get dropped in favor of Primal Vigor or something.
-Does Champion of Stray Souls ever do anything? That seems really, really hard to pull off.
-Ooh, Gyre Sage is a cool include. Didn't even think about that.
-I normally think Hardened Scales is garage, and I still kind of do here, but it is awfully appealing. Being able to add an extra counter to many creatures at a time many times a turn is about as good as that card is ever going to get outside of infinites. Adding another piece to the slow, fragile Mazirek engine seems sketchy, but it could blow out games fast.
I think all of the cuts you mentioned make sense except Elvish Visionary. I really, really like Elvish Visionary in Commander, and it pulls extra weight in this deck by being a free thing to sacrifice and/or a draw engine combined with graveyard recursion. It's not flashy, but I'm basically always happy to draw it at any point in a game. Helps if you have equipment and your deck really doesn't, but while your cutting things you might as well throw in Bonehoard. If Visionary isn't working for you fair enough, but if you're cutting it based on theory I'd say leave it in long enough to use it a few times and I think you'll be happy with it.I really wanted to put Visionary in the deck for precisely that reason but the person I showed the deck to suggested taking it out when I was making cuts. Other creatures I wanted to mess around with via recursion but put on the chopping block are Blisterpod (I like stuff that makes Scions) and Servant of the Scale (one time I had Meren out and kept raising the Servant when another player had Elesh Norn out)
I think I found my commander, should I ever get into EDH. (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=180607)
Esper colors? Check.
Decent cost for what it does? Check.
Debilitating effects? Check.
I can run all my favorite colors with it!
The price tag, though, especially if I want to snag a foil one.... sigh.
(Would I trade an Avacyn for that? Hmmm.)
I think I found my commander, should I ever get into EDH. (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=180607)I've heard good things about Sen Triplets, the main thing being that it gives you a lot of flexibility with the type of deck you want to build and doesn't pigeonhole you into a specific strategy like some other commanders do.
Esper colors? Check.
Decent cost for what it does? Check.
Debilitating effects? Check.
I can run all my favorite colors with it!
The price tag, though, especially if I want to snag a foil one.... sigh.
(Would I trade an Avacyn for that? Hmmm.)
Eldrazi Skyspawner and Blight Herder were actually in the Standard flicker deck idea I had! Of course, with the more expansive list of flicker capabilities I have in Modern, they'd work much better here. Sandsteppe Outcast has potential too.Yeah, Grave Titan probably isn't the ideal fit for this deck. I kind of forgot Blight Herder but it would probably be pretty impressive given how many exile effects you have to set it off.
Grave Titan, however... I'm not sure. I only have 5 black mana in the deck, and this deck already seems to be pretty consistent at meeting potential win conditions by turn 6-9-- so my chances of getting it out would be really super super steep-- certainly not one I'd keep in an opening hand unless I already pulled 2 black mana sources in my initial draw. It's an amazing card, but I don't think it would fit that well here.
For a relevant example, I had 2 Archangel Avacyn in this deck with 13 white sources, and I never once managed to cast her-- and she costs one less.
Grapeshot is banned, for what it's worth. Thank god.
EDIT:
Full Ban List
Cloud of Faeries
Cloudpost
Cranial Plating
Empty the Warrens
Frantic Search
Grapeshot
Invigorate
Temporal Fissure
Treasure Cruise
Empty the Warrens, Grapeshot, and Temporal Fissure are dead storm cards. Rest in pieces.
I haven't really seen a local pauper scene in the area where I live but if I learn there is one I can probably adjust my mono-green deck to use solely commons. Garruk's Companion interests me as a pauper substitute for Avatar of the Resolute and I have some copies of Young Wolf I can probably put in.
Due to the May FNM promo of Goblin Warchief I'm really interested in building some kind of goblin deck; thinking of either a commander deck utilizing Krenko, Mob Boss or some kind of mono-red aggro deck for casual Modern.
Picked up a few cards in what I hope will be one of my last "expensive" MtG purchases for a while. I decided that I'm spending way too much on this and it's just utterly absurd that I'm trying to compete with a bunch of $600+ decks in Modern that are copied from finely tuned GP winning decks and it's just... dumb.
So I think I'm going to drop out of the Modern running. I'll still play with my Flicker Control deck-- may as well, since it's more or less done, outside of the Fetch/Shock lands that could improve it, but I don't think I'll be investing in much more. I'd still really like to finish my Soul Sisters deck sometime too with some Serra Ascendants, Archangels of Thune, and Rangers of Eos, but I think I'll just be trading for those with cards I pull from packs/prereleases. (A pack here and there won't hurt, and my luck seems to be pretty decent for super rare stuff, so someday I may get something I don't want and is valuable that I can trade off.) But I'm tired of dumping enough money into a handful of cards that I could, you know, use to buy groceries and such. Not that I am spending above my means, mind, but it's still really unnecessary.
ANYWAY, all of that said, the few cards I bought were not necessarily for Modern, no-- it's for Standard, because with my nice draws from prerelease/random packs, I have a really solid setup for Game Day. Maybe. So I'm modifying my Flicker deck for Game Day play.
4x Hedron Crawler
4x Eldrazi Displacer
4x Reflector Mage
3x Hanweir Militia Captain
3x Eldrazi Skyspawner
3x Mist Intruder (may be dropped, they were originally there for card exiling as fuel for Blight Herder. who I dropped after I realized it's "when you cast" and therefore not flickerable)
2x Archangel Avacyn (the star of the deck, of course)
1x Thought-Knot Seer (not the most efficient thing, but works as a pinch flickerable hand breaker)
1x Linvala, the Preserver (because I don't have 3 Avacyn, and she's heavily flickerable, especially since this is a slower deck and the lifegain is more than welcome-- and the angel tokens would help too!)
1x Sorin, Grim Nemesis
2x Declaration in Stone
2x Anguished Unmaking
3x Eerie Interlude (super underrated card! Multiple flicker at instant speed; block attacks with your ETB cards and flicker them so the attacks miss AND a bunch of ETB triggers occur at endstep!)
4x Essence Flux
1x Invocation of Saint Traft (because I dunno. Might be nice. I have another if it works well.)
1x Westvale Abbey (there's a decent amount of creature generation, so if I can throw this down, Ormendahl is a solid wincon)
8x Plains
8x Island
4x Caves of Koilos
2x Shambling Vent
1x Warped Landscape
Sideboard:
2x Wall of Resurgence (huge flickerable wall that turns lands permanently into 3/3 elemental land creatures-- that I can keep dumping counters on when flickered? Yes please. May even play this in modern)
2x Mizzium Meddler (Kind of a pseudo-flickerable Spellskite? He can be flashed in!)
3x Enlightened Ascetic (More flickerbait that has ETB destroy enchantments. Because I'm predicting a lot of human token decks with Cryptolith Rite and FUCK THAT)
1x Eerie Interlude (may as well toss it in)
2x Spatial Contortion (could be a useful buff/kill spell)
1x Matter Reshaper (Unsure of this one, but it could work okay? I'm imagining using it to bring Displacer/Skyspawner/Reflector Mage back?)
1x Hanweir Militia Captain (in case 3 is not enough)
3x Stasis Snare (more removal. Flashable!)
Any inexpensive modification ideas would be greatly appreciated!
And finally, some bright pink sleeves and perfect fit sleeves for double-sleeving. This is the one deck I wanna go all-out for.Double-sleeving? They got to you too didn't they
I'm also considering a red variant that runs some burn spells, Purphoros, and Norin the Wary as well, for a ton of life/damage triggers. >:DYou might also want to look into Impact Tremors or Outpost Siege as other ways to stack up damage with flicker effects. Lightning Helix would also be a good fit, as it's a red-white dual-color spell that gives you a decent life swing in your favor.
Also, Killing Wave-- build up a ton of life and spend a lot of it to boardwipe and kill my opponent.
Yup, I've got a Weiss Schwarz deck in one of those. Very fitting for your deck though. :D
If you are so inclined, I'd mention the possibility of cashing her in. Her price just exploded since she's in a new tourney-winning deck in Standard and now she's worth more than Avacyn is right now.What I might do is cash it in, then if that deck I want to use it in comes together I'll buy one back after it loses value
I wonder how many people are raging over lack of Tarmogoyf?
Yeah, I was pretty surprised to see such staple cards omitted.Well, we're getting Conspiracy: Take the Throne later in the summer so we could be seeing a few reprints we didn't get here.
Well, we're getting Conspiracy: Take the Throne later in the summer so we could be seeing a few reprints we didn't get here.
Meanwhile, I'm suddenly excited for Standard again so I'm suddenly deckbrewing again.
The three ideas I have so far:
Obligatory Monowhite Human Deck (http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/obligatory-monowhite-human-deck/)
Scribe's Papermill (http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/scribes-papermill/)
Monored Mania (http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/monored-mania/)
Mazirek Commander is being slowly refined into something actually really scary. It's all down to the balance between all of the various requirements to activate his ability and ways to protect those fragile parts, but I think the balance is getting closer. It's always going to be volatile because a lot can go wrong, but I absolutely stomped the most tryhard five-color superfriends deck I've ever seen (the guy's mana base just during that game easily added up to far more value than my entire collection) earlier today, so I think I'm making progress.
Meanwhile, I was given a bunch of code cards for the online Pokemon TCG, so I downloaded that earlier and just played a few rounds. I've got a better-than-average win rate against randos, even despite the fact that I'm just playing with a couple of theme decks and the contents of a handful of packs. Played against a timer stalling shitbag in my last round though, so if that's ever a trend I seriously doubt I'm going to keep playing.
For the humans, can I suggest dropping some of the one-drop 2/1s for Hanweir Militia Captain? She's an astounding force in such a deck, flipping into something huge that only becomes huger. Especially if you run some Secure the Wastes for even more dudes on the field.Militia Captain is fairly solid but I'm not sure I want to use the conditional transformation effect. And given that just one Secure the Wastes is like $13 right now and going to probably stay expensive until it rotates out I'm probably going to look at other options. I like the 2/1s because a lot of the deck (Thalia's Lieutenant, Consul's Lieutenant, Always Watching) goes into pumping them up so midgame they could be easily 4/3s or better.
How is Pokemon these days? I stopped playing like 12 years ago. The cards today look so absurdly overpowered, but the art is so fucking nice looking that I kinda wanna dip my feet in the game again. Just a deck or two for funsies.There's an official free-to-play online client if you want to dabble in the game again, although if you want to unlock stuff beyond your starting decks without spending actual money it becomes a grindfest. The Pokemon themselves are more powerful (especially once you start going into the ridiculous EX stuff) but a lot of stuff like Trainer cards got adjusted so you can't do stuff like multiple Bills in a turn anymore
How is Pokemon these days? I stopped playing like 12 years ago. The cards today look so absurdly overpowered, but the art is so fucking nice looking that I kinda wanna dip my feet in the game again. Just a deck or two for funsies.
Playing against people who are actually into the game I always get completed stomped without being able to do almost anything.Haw... I was also interested in going back to Pok?mon, but I would also like not to spend 300$ to have a competent deck. I tend to be competitive when I play, so I do want to be viable.
Then, I tried Weiss Schwarz and the game traumatized me with how RNG it was. Controlling the board basically meant nothing at all, and I got quickly tired of it.
Are pokemon cards really that pricey? I've checked out the cards on sale at my LGSs and the highest I usually see is around $40 for a good old Charizard, who is probably wimp city in today's meta.
That's one thing I've noticed though: Magic is so widespread that I think I'd insist that it's simultaneously the cheapest and most expensive TCG out there right now. Great if you just wanna play casually, murder if you want to play competitively. But at least you'll never be without opponents.
Hmm, I'll have to keep that in mind. Rancor and Bonesplitter do essentially let me make my attackers disposable since Rancor always comes back to your hand from the graveyard, and Bonesplitter can simply be re-equipped, so that's good. Though I think I may keep Vines of Vastwood over Groundswell if not only because it makes the target effectively hexproof for the turn it is cast as well, though this costs 2 mana rather than one.
Silkbind Faerie is surprisingly a fucking nightmare for a lot of creature decks, and would be my go-to swinger, in fact. Swing on your turn for flying damage, then pay 2 on your opponent's turn to tap their biggest beater and block another with the faerie. It's amazingly cool disruption. Pestermite is a similar case, being flashable for a quick disruption tap or untap. I can effectively cast it for 2 as an emergency blocker and untap one of my lands, which could give me extra space for a quick pump spell for survival's sake or counterspell, or even Spellstutter Sprite. I'm a huge fan of Silkbind and Pestermite for that reason, and I'm half-tempted to find some way to sneak Silkbind into my Modern decks for how disgustingly disruptive it can be.
Faerie Miscreant is a tough choice for me because it's only ever worth anything if I manage to come across multiples of itself-- otherwise it's a boring 1/1 for 1. In fact, I used to run those until I realized that Delver of Secrets, despite not being a Faerie, is just straight-up better. I could see myself trying Dream Thief or Surveilling Sprite though.
And is my card advantage really that bad? I'm running 8 of the most useful cantrips in the whole meta-- though I could make an argument for running Halimar Depths for extra assurance.
As far as Moment's Peace goes, I'm actually considering running that in my own sideboard-- and that's something I can counter with Counterspell or Spellstutter-- which should be fine unless they're dead set on spending 5 mana to stop damage for a turn.
But I like your idea of dropping the pump instants and throwing in more permanent boosts. Rancor and Bonesplitter are permanent threats rather than one-turn threats, so that's always nice. Ancestral Mask could work nicely too, especially if Rancor is already on the field somewhere-- anything I attach it to would get +4/+4, which is really nice. Maybe I could run some Abundant Growth as a pseudo-cantrip that gives me an extra enchantment on the field-- or Utopia Sprawl could effectively give me more mana to work with and give an enchantment boost. It's all pretty messy though when not making a deck centered around that idea-- my friend runs a Bogle deck that uses assloads of enchantments for huge buffs, so I know how that works.
EDIT: I tweaked the deck somewhat. How does it look now? I'm suddenly getting the feeling I don't need this much green in the deck now that Mutagenic Growth and Groundswell are out.
I certainly understand the point of Silkbind Faerie, it's just pretty slow to get rolling and pretty vulnerable. I'm never a huge fan of disruption that's easily disruptable. That might just be a Commander habit though.
The Pokemon TCG sounds like the thing that would be a blast to play in sealed draft, but incredibly stupid in constructed, since what you're saying makes Modern in MtG look like a playground of diversity (hahahahahahahaaHAHAHAHAHAHA)Pokemon TCG was always stupid in constructed. Anybody other than me remember the Haymaker deck from the original era?
The Pokemon TCG sounds like the thing that would be a blast to play in sealed draft, but incredibly stupid in constructed, since what you're saying makes Modern in MtG look like a playground of diversity (hahahahahahahaaHAHAHAHAHAHA)
So I just went to a Force of Will AGP using a friend's deck and got 17th out of 117
I dont even have any cards of my own (well I do now after winning some from the tournament :V)
Railgun was top of the mountain years ago and Index has a niche deck that works well
Is there any way to make this card (http://www.heartofthecards.com/code/cardlist.html?card=WS_RG/W26-023) work? I've always kind of thought it was cool but it seems bad.I remember seeing a deck with 20 Sisters, 10 of this edition, and 10 of an other one. I don't think it will be "good" in a robust way, but it can definitely work as a gimmick with Accelerator Level 6.
What does "if you have four or more other Sisters" mean exactly? Have where? In play? Visible? Just in your deck? In your wallet? That translation doesn't seem very clear. What's the intent?If it doesn't clarify where, then it means on the board. It's somewhere in the rulebook
Wow, that is... Reeeeeally weak.
Pulled open my Eternal Masters packs. No money cards, bot a lot of stuff that looks like it'll be fun to slot into Commander decks. I feel like there's a lot of material coming together for a G/W deck.
You got a commander in mind? Green/white is one of those color combinations I've never been that impressed by, but I know there are some interesting options.I pulled Sigarda, Heron's Grace in a recent draft so I was thinking of building around Humans since there's a LOT of good options even if you just go with stuff from the Innistrad blocks.
Just bought one pack of Eternal Masters for goofs and it was basically empty. Watched somebody else buy two packs, crap and crap. Oh well.
Duuuuude new Emrakul could be fucking great in mono blue tronMy first thought is "well time for Nahiri to do to Standard what she did to Modern"
Ahahahahaha, it got even better! Eldritch Moon is already loving up on the neglected Mono-Blue Tron deck with not only new Emrakul, but a fucking 3-drop blue wish tutor that lets us pull any goddamn Eldrazi straight from our sideboard.The fun thing? It works with any Eldrazi spell, not just creatures. You can pull up All is Dust if you want to.
Absolutely. Stunning. I started running this deck at the perfect time.
The card that has me interested the most so far of what's been revealed is the new version of Thalia, that looks like a good addition to a control build.
Meld has spawned probably the most panicky idiots declaring that Magic has jumped the shark and everyone is going to quit of any mechanic I've ever seen. I think it's cool. Accusations that they're ripping off Yu Gi Oh, the lowliest card game there is, seem pretty unfounded too given that cool flip element. Looks fun.
Meld has spawned probably the most panicky idiots declaring that Magic has jumped the shark and everyone is going to quit of any mechanic I've ever seen. I think it's cool. Accusations that they're ripping off Yu Gi Oh, the lowliest card game there is, seem pretty unfounded too given that cool flip element. Looks fun.
Meld has spawned probably the most panicky idiots declaring that Magic has jumped the shark and everyone is going to quit of any mechanic I've ever seen. I think it's cool. Accusations that they're ripping off Yu Gi Oh, the lowliest card game there is, seem pretty unfounded too given that cool flip element. Looks fun.
Meld has spawned probably the most panicky idiots declaring that Magic has jumped the shark and everyone is going to quit of any mechanic I've ever seen. I think it's cool. Accusations that they're ripping off Yu Gi Oh, the lowliest card game there is, seem pretty unfounded too given that cool flip element. Looks fun.
Holy shit Eldritch Evolution is so fucking broken.I... it's a less costly Birthing Pod with wider range with the downside of "you can only use it once".
Keep in mind that there's a real theme in this set between this card and Emerge of playing high-CMC creatures for alternate costs (Madness, Haunted Dead reanimation) and then exploiting that. You can probably get a pretty enormous casting cost creature into play early given all of Modern.It doesn't even need to be an enormous creature, this lets you get any 4-drop with only green mana on turn 3, including huge beatsticks like Siege Rhino that are balanced around their multicolor casting cost. The Abzan Company deck that formerly used Birthing Pod is probably going to get a lot of mileage out of this one.
Well yeah, tutoring is tutoring, but there are lots of ways to use this card. You just have to be a little bit careful, because beatstick into bigger beatstick is just card disadvantage.The way I see it getting used is the way Birthing Pod was, using it as a sac outlet for something with Persist such as Kitchen Finks/Murderous Redcap to summon whatever.
With Eldritch Evolution and the new Tamiyo, I may be looking into running Bant colors in the future. Dang.Bant is probably the strongest color set in Standard right now, simply because of things like Collected Company/Reflector Mage. I'm probably sticking with mono-white because of stuff like Thalia and Lone Rider making the human deck better than it had any need to be and probably giving it a good shot post-rotation
Liliana finally spoiled, but people are already calling her garbage since she's not Lili of the Veil. Don't they understand that card is fucking broken and should be banned? We don't need more cards like her.I am not going to say no to an ult that is Endless Ranks of the Dead but better
I actually like the new one. I think she has the potential to make zombie meta a real thing.
Wow, only three Meld cards in the entire game, huh? Keeping a wacky mechanic like that special is cool, but that does worry me just a bit.I think the implied ending of Eldritch Moon suggests we're done with the Eldrazi for now and ready to move on to some other storylines that have kind of been on the backburner like all the Chain Veil stuff. I think while "hard colorless" was developed for the Eldrazi in Oath they suggested they might use it again to balance out certain artifacts.
The fact that Wizards introduced diamond mana as evergreen and reformatted the entire game for it while barely doing anything with it plus this crazy new mechanic that's virtually undeveloped has me pretty worried that every set is going to be all Eldrazi, all the time for a while. Not that I have anything particular against them, but they've only been in three recent sets and I'm already tired of them, so leaving the doors wide open for a bunch more when they've already shown a willingness to oversaturate them has me slightly concerned.
I doubt we'll see any of them in Kaladesh/Aether Revolt. If anything, since Kaladesh is very clearly an artifact-themed block, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw the return of Phyrexians.I think they're setting up for the return of Bolas more than anything else at this point.
I think the implied ending of Eldritch Moon suggests we're done with the Eldrazi for now and ready to move on to some other storylines that have kind of been on the backburner like all the Chain Veil stuff. I think while "hard colorless" was developed for the Eldrazi in Oath they suggested they might use it again to balance out certain artifacts.
I think they're setting up for the return of Bolas more than anything else at this point.
Emrakul isn't lame, it's just the Chtulhus make shitty villains. Maybe if the threat was presented as being much for from her cult than from her it could have been more layered, but as-is I think we're pretty much burned out forever on Emrakul shenanigans. I don't think "Eldritch Moon but on Tarkir" would be interesting.
Bolas is just "a dragon". He's super generic. Which in some ways is cool I guess, but again it doesn't seem like it presents that much story opportunity to me. Maybe they have some cool payoff lined up for his whole inscrutable plan thing.
The Phyrexians definitely have the most potential I think. They are aesthetically cool (although personally I don't dig the new Clive Barker style quite as much as the old, underdeveloped Order of Yawgmoth (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=209128)-style Phyrexia). It definitely helps that they're present in all colors now so it's harder to get oversaturated on them, although I kind of hate Infect and hope it doesn't come back but assume it will.
Well, he's also one of the oldest planeswalkers, and they could probably play that up? I wouldn't call him a generic dragon, he doesn't act like your typical dragon tbh.
The Emrakul still is done, but how long do you think it'l be before we hear from Nahiri again? Also, we still need to see why Ugin was upset that Jace and co. killed the smaller Eldrazis. Btw, what happened the the angel Eldrazi?
Well, he's also one of the oldest planeswalkers, and they could probably play that up? I wouldn't call him a generic dragon, he doesn't act like your typical dragon tbh.Bolas's angle is that he was a planeswalker from the old generation from when they were pretty much demigods, and he's trying to get back to the level of power he had before the multiverse shifted.
The Emrakul still is done, but how long do you think it'l be before we hear from Nahiri again? Also, we still need to see why Ugin was upset that Jace and co. killed the smaller Eldrazis. Btw, what happened the the angel Eldrazi?
Bolas's angle is that he was a planeswalker from the old generation from when they were pretty much demigods, and he's trying to get back to the level of power he had before the multiverse shifted.
Nahiri... I think there's room for her to come back, but maybe not for a bit. She fills the space for a R/W planeswalker that hasn't really been done in a long time, and she could tie into future story arcs involving Ob Nixilis since the two are known enemies.
My Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=389530) Elf Commander deck tends to underperform a bit, so I've been hunting for replacement mono-green commanders. I had an idea for a really cruel Jolrael, Empress of Beasts (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=24673) deck that runs a ton of board wipes, but I think it's too mean for my group, and if we're getting that dirty it's probably too fragile.Titania could be fun, especially if you have a lot of stuff to sacrifice and recycle lands, plus stuff to get additional value out of your land drops. Other monogreen commanders I see getting use are Ezuri, Renegade Leader if you want to stick with elves and Yisan, Wanderer Bard.
Omnath and Azusa seem like the only mono-green commanders who get a ton of love. I wonder if Titania, Protector of Argoth (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=389721) has much potential?
Figured out what I want to morph my mono-green Commander deck into. I'm going to use Trostani, Selesnya's Voice (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=253641). She's doubly build-around-able since I can use lifegain stuff and token stuff. Not sure I have enough of either, but the upgrade is only going to cost me $20 or so, so if it doesn't work continuing to tinker won't be too costly.It would be a bit costly but now I'm imagining Trostani with Voice of Resurgence
What really sold me on the deck is the interaction with Phyrexian Processor (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=207888). That seems... Really scary. :o
My recent pulls have me wanting to build some kind of blue-white control deck (although maybe with a splash of green)
Must-includes:
Mausoleum Wanderer: A good creature that can come in early and either start chipping away for damage or
Rattlechains: Protects other creatures and helps other spirits that don't already have Flash to get in.
Spell Queller: The entire reason I'm building this deck.
Reflector Mage: Not a spirit but a fairly crucial control piece.
Prairie Stream and Port Town: The optimal UW mana sources available in Standard right now.
Want to includes:
Always Watching: Vigilance and +1/+1 is a huge boost for fliers.
Bygone Bishop: Helps with card draw.
Collective Effort: Acts as a buff for creatures and can act as removal if needed.
Tamiyo, Field Researcher: Requires splashing a third color but all of those abilities are incredibly useful.
Thunderclap Wyvern: The deck is very flyer-heavy so could use another thing to help push it along.
Topplegeist: With being able to flash it in off Rattlechains it becomes useful for locking down an attacker and buying a turn.
Maybe look at:
Dragonlord Ojutai: Works really well with Always Watching, although will be rotating out and losing value soon.
Jace, Unraveler of Secrets: Good for drawing cards and bouncing creatures, both things the deck wants to do
Westvale Abbey: Pretty much every deck with a lot of creatures wants one of these.
Not considering:
Jace, Vryn's Prodigy/Telepath Unbound: Too much money for a card that's rotating out of Standard in 3 months.
Selfless Spirit: Everything's based around exile or debuff effects right now so indestructible really doesn't do much.
You literally just described UW Spirits! http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/standard-type-2/standard-new-card-discussion/726431-uw-spiritsI had Essence Flux in the must-includes but it somehow slipped my mind.
It's what I plan on running for sure, and it's so fucking versatile. There's a tempo version, a control version (championed by Hoogland), and a midrange version (what I plan on playing). That thread's a great resource.
Also, Selfless Spirit's been determined to be a pretty top tier card for the deck! It's a nice flying clock that can be used for combat tricks.
Hallowed Moonlight and Unsubstantiate are also core control pieces too - - the former fucks over Collected Company, tokens, and Nahiri strategies, and the latter is a beautiful pseudo-Remand/Unsummon. Essence Flux is a instant playset card too, for creature protection, combos, and combat tricks. It gives +1/+1 to spirits!
Always Watching > Thunderclap Wyvern imo. It affects non-fliers, gives Vigilance, and isn't as easily removed.
If you're considering running Topplegeist, definitely run a playset of Nebelgast Herald. So much tapping.
I'm really excited for this deck. I'm trying to figure out how to fit Thalia in, as well.
Game Day's coming up. How's your deck working out for you, TAC?I kind of decided to shift focus to a GW Collected Company/Humans deck to use what I already had. I'm not going to make it to Game Day because of work considerations, but there's some local standard I can still participate in outside of that.
...and honestly I feel my results justify it-- I rarely, if ever, lose once it hits the board.
But think of it this way-- it's 2 mana for a source of card draw that's nearly limitless, while Anticipate only gives you one card, Fortune's Favor and Epiphany at the Drownyard are HUGE gambles, and Pore Over the Pages costs too much to be worth it.
It's nice for it to be an easy decision, though-- but I think it's a good idea to keep Always Watching in, if possible.
You think there's any chance of ever profitably using the other effect? Some kind of land that can incidentally tap for green or a mana rock or something might be a huge boon against burn just as an oddball sideboard option. I guess your stuff does have to be dying for it to be relevant, but you don't seem to have any other use for your graveyard and it doesn't cost a slot.
FINALLY SERUM VISIONS REPRINTthe non-reprint cards are Vintage/Legacy only simply because they don't have time to balance-test
>uncommon
jfc wizards
I like that Sanctum Prelate too-- it's kind of like Chalice of the Void on a creature.
Are these non-reprints modern-legal?
Ha ha what? Really? Is that seriously not a joke?
Cool I guess. With movie stills for art presumably?
They got episodes 4-7 and nothing is sacred anymore in the Weiss community
Not sure what you mean by limiting cards making draws more random.
While Legacy and Vintage are more or less dead formats, Wizards would be stupid to not realize that Modern as an eternal format is absolutely massive-- and it doesn't take much to just stop and consider "hey, maybe this card we're making is completely busted in this format, maybe we should at least ban it in Modern so it doesn't get abused". Or something like that.I think new cards are taken into consideration on some level, as the explanation for Birthing Pod getting hit with the banstick was "it puts a hard limit on what kinds of creatures can be made", and they admitted they considered the potential interactions with Eye of Ugin when making OGW but had no idea it would become so degenerate
FINALLY MY FUCKING MUMMIES! Come to me mummies, I have waited so long for you. I don't care what the fuck a legendary mummy does, I will build a deck around it. So fucking excited.
Weird that Commander Anthology is four decks since a wave is five. The obvious contents are the first wave of commander decks and I guess just dropping out the least popular one, whichever that was?
I don't want to be a jerk about it, but preorders for our Touhou playmats end Sept 5th and I thought some people here might be interested. Commander Cool already ordered a bunch.
http://danmaku.mysteryparfait.com/preorder-playmats
(http://danmaku.mysteryparfait.com/wp-content/uploads/Playmat-1024x768.jpg)
(http://danmaku.mysteryparfait.com/preorder-playmats/)
I don't want to be a jerk about it, but preorders for our Touhou playmats end Sept 5th and I thought some people here might be interested. Commander Cool already ordered a bunch.I definitely was interested in them but then I saw the "shipping outside of US" fee and unfortunately had to decline
Unfortunately I keep making heavy thingsFair. If I had the $40 or so CDN to spare I WOULD do it but my life has been very expensive right now
Oh my fucking god, Kaladesh looks delightful.If the fandom has not made at least one Utena joke by the end of this block someone needs to take away their permission to do anime references during Amonkhet
I wanna make a Vehicle deck and run everyone over. >:D
If the fandom has not made at least one Utena joke by the end of this block someone needs to take away their permission to do anime references during Amonkhet
Meanwhile, I have put together a new Commander deck (http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/armies-of-humanity/) I've been meaning to do for a while with a lot of the GW stuff I've had sitting around
If the fandom has not made at least one Utena joke by the end of this block someone needs to take away their permission to do anime references during Amonkhet
holy shit new Chandra IS FUCKING BROKEN AS HELL OH MY GOD WIZARDS WHAT ARE YOU EVEN THINKINGI kind of want to guess it was "we haven't made a design mistake as profound as Jace the Mind Sculptor in a few years" but Torch of Defiance can't lock an opponent like JtMS can so maybe it'll work out?
Wait, why are there multiple cards for the same planeswalker in the same set now? And why are the extra ones numbered past the normal set numbers? And why are they so terrible? That Nissa is probably the worst planeswalker ever printed.They are for the Planeswalker decks, and they are deliberately meant to be underpowered. They're meant to be non-competitive so established players don't need to buy them, but splashy enough to be exciting for new players.
Actually these are probably for those new planeswalker-based theme decks, aren't they?
God I am so fucking tired of planeswalkers. Can we get over the obsession with them please?
Prerelease today! Who else is braving the midnight with me?I'm recovering from a cold, so any prerelease this weekend is probably out of the question for me. Also, the one store that does prereleases that fit with my work schedule got rid of any of the staff I could really put up with on a regular basis
There do seem to be some pretty.... unbearable personalities in the Magic community. I'm happy that while my main LGS has its insufferable bastards, the shopkeep is a well-to-do kind person.The main LGS I frequent is good but their prereleases run from noon onward which conflicts with my weekend shifts, there's one that starts a few hours earlier so if I wanted I can barely squeeze it in but their TO is kind of loud and brash and the store in general attracts some people whose type I generally can't stand
I played a one-on-one Commander game with a guy before the event yesterday who had a deck that was built entirely around cheating original Emrakul into play with Polymorph kinds of effects, and I NEARLY beat him (he was at three life, and I let him rewind a play or I would have won) before we scooped to start the event, but I was probably going to lose at that point. It just dawned on me... Emrakul, The Aeons Torn is fucking banned in Commander! :wat:Is this sort of thing a common occurrence in your local Commander group? I played against a guy with a RIDICULOUSLY expensive deck a couple weeks ago and my mind either broke from being destroyed so viciously or he had at least one mox in there (he definitely had a Time Twister)
As far as I know, P5 is coming out in English in February.
Meanwhile, on the MtG front: I'm really digging some of these Kaladesh budget deck ideas for Standard (https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/brewing-kaladesh-ii-madcap-reservoir-car-zoo-and-budget-options-for-week-one). Kaladesh has next to nothing to offer for my Spirits deck, so I may just leave it retired to Modern, since I'm switching my Death and Taxes deck from UW to BW once my Eldrazi Temples come in-- thus leaving my Modernized Spirits deck in place. So I think I may be running that "Car Zoo" deck because it seems... actually pretty fantastic? Though I think I'd use some Reckless Bushwhackers or something to pump everyone up.
So I think I may be running that "Car Zoo" deck because it seems... actually pretty fantastic? Though I think I'd use some Reckless Bushwhackers or something to pump everyone up.My ideas for building RW was more in the vein of using the 0-mana equipment like Bone Saw or Cathar's Shield with stuff like Weapons Trainer and Reckless Bushwhacker to get a bunch of big stuff fast
Oh wow, congratulations! How was that? I wish it was enough of a game for us to have something like that locally but nobody closer than Detroit plays it. How many people were at your regional? Do you know how many to expect for nationals?
It only just occurred to me that Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis (http://mythicspoiler.com/c16/cards/kynaiosandtiroofmeletis.html) are a gay couple, and not only that, they're the star of their particular deck. That's pretty cool.
edit: rofl (http://imgur.com/ViOxRbQ)
I'm probably going to get Breya's deck just because it has SO MANY of the singles I need-- especially the expensive ones in the deck. I may as well just buy the deck and get all the extra stuff since the singles I'd buy anyway would cost roughly the same. And this way, I get extra cards for my trade binder that I already have like Baleful Strix and so on (which I uh, just bought a couple days ago for the sake of building my Sydri deck. Oops.) And it will likely once again come with oversize foil cards, which is a nice novelty. Once I get Breya's deck, all I really need for Sydri is more expensive cards like Mycosynth Lattice, Karn, Silver Golem, and Sword of the Meek-- the rest is fairly cheap.
Also, this is Ash Barrens: http://mythicspoiler.com/c16/cards/ashbarrens.html
Tap for colorless, Basic Landcycling 1
So yeah, a mana-fixing land.
Went out 2-2 at Weiss Nationals but my buddy got into the top 16wat you went to Rochester this weekend
wat you went to Rochester this weekend
I definitely would've gone if I knew this was happening. About 10 locals went up but I passed this year.
Help I won my Weiss Regional (http://www.heartofthecards.com/ws/wgp2016/results/tzero.html) and now I have to fly to New York in a month for Nationals
I'm still not totally sure what kind of win conditions I want though. I want something powerful that doesn't just seem like an instant-win, because I know the more of those I'm packing the less people will trust me. So I'm not running Insurrection or Time Stretch or even Craterhoof Behemoth right now and am hoping less scary stuff like Molten Primordial will do the job. We'll see I guess.
Atraxa is intriguing and I'm partially tempted to build a super budget deck with her that revolves solely around smacking the opponent with a poison counter and Proliferating them to death.
I have similar worries with my Sydri deck. There's a lot of really dirty tricks in the deck like:
Whoah! I expected the Emrakul ban, but I'm really surprised to see Relfector Mage and Smuggler's Copter go. Dang. I admittedly don't follow standard closely.
Interesting.
I've been wanting to start playing Pauper (the Magic format where you can only play commons) lately, although no place around here runs it regularly that I'm aware of. Does anyone have much experience with it?Monored has a lot of options going for it, especially since Thermo-Alchemist got printed in the summer. Apparently the main advantage Pestilence can get over burn is a lot of incidental lifegain to last into the long game. If you're doing the W/B build, you get access to Prismatic Strands which lets you nullify damage for a turn.
I kind of want to try a Pestilence deck but I'm not clear on how it matches up against most of the metagame. Burn seems like it would be very common given the high-quality burn spells and lack of Kor Firewalkers and I can't really easily envision how Pestilence beats burn. I guess most of the sideboard could probably be dedicated to that matchup.
Modern Masters 2017 is a bit different from previous Masters sets. Modern Masters, Modern Masters 2015, and Eternal Masters were set up with ten color pairs, with archetypes (Black-Green Elves and White-Blue Artifacts, for example) built into those color pairs.
The biggest difference with Modern Masters 2017 is that it's a heavily multicolor set. Specifically, the set is built around the five ally color pairs, each with their own strategy:
White-Blue Blink?Use creatures with enter-the-battlefield abilities and ways to reuse these abilities
Blue-Black Instant Control?Use lots of instants and counterspells to control the board
Black-Red Unearth?An aggressive deck that uses creatures with unearth to keep attacking
Red-Green Go Wide?Make tokens and use cards that make them all bigger
Green-White Populate?Take advantage of the populate mechanic from Return to Ravnica
I'm kind of pondering if it's possible to make Miracles a thing in Modern. Sure, it's super hard because we don't have Sensei's Divining Top or Brainstorm to work with, but surely there has to be some way to make it work, right?
Goyf hasn't been dominant in a long time, has it? I watch quite a bit of Modern gameplay and it's been a long time since I've seen much of it at all.
I've heard people theorize that it's only expensive because "investors" are price fixing it because they paid a lot to stockpile copies back when it was a big deal. Based on actual usage and number of reprints it should, by all accounts, cost considerably less.
Goyf's already dipping below triple digits on tcgplayer right now.Honestly my dream would be for Masters sets to get the same kind of print run a Conspiracy set does but that's kind of a lofty dream
I'm currently watching Rogue Deckbuilder's analysis on the set right now and he's saying that it's rumored that WotC is printing this 5x more than they did MM15-- and honestly, I'm very okay with that. I know it causes a lot of alarm for people who don't want the price of their cards to tank (kind of how I mentioned the same for Aether Vial), but honestly at this point? Fuck it. I want everything to tank so Modern is accessible. I mean for god's sake we're talking pieces of cardboard here. There's no reason why cards should cost so damn much.
This is virtually off-topic, but as someone whi plays Mazirek a lot I don't think he gives a shit about Mortician Beetle. If you have some kind of engine going you should have enormous power and toughness across the board, and if not then you should be putting one together, which Mortician Beetle doesn't help with at all. Run Reassembling Skeleton sorts of effects, token generators, or sacrifice outlets in that slot instead.I'm honestly thinking of moving away from Mazirek because one of the Commander groups I play with runs Meren and our lists are 50% the same. Thinking of building a Ghave deck around exploiting Undying/Persist to build some sort of perpetual motion machine.
That said, really interested to try it alongside Carrion Feeder and friends in Pauper.
I hate way the cards look. Like yeah, they're super flavorful and that's cool, but they're fucking hard to read. And yeah, none of these are cards that sorely need reprints either, except possibly Pact of Negation or Cryptic Command. The rest of them are pretty cheap. (Legalize Counterspell in Modern, dammit.)aaaaand then they show Counterbalance and Force of Will
Cycling dual lands? Interesting.I was about to get excited because I thought this and Groundskeeper basically worked as a green Azure Mage then I realized Groundskeeper only lets you recover basics. There's still a lot of utility for a land you can trade in for an additional draw when you've hit the top of your curve, though
When we started with the Gatewatch storyline, we began with the assumption that the Gatewatch, the core five, at least, should always be represented on planeswalker cards in Standard. (And remember Standard was 18 months at the time.) As we started to roll this plan out, we got feedback from many of you that this was problematic.
Yes, you wanted Gatewatch planeswalkers but we didn?t need to do them so often. You wanted the opportunity to see other favorites return or have new planeswalkers in some of those slots.
We heard you, but we work far ahead so there?s always a gap before you can see us react to feedback. Hours of Devastation was the first set that we could revamp how we did this. So starting with Hour, we?ve pulled back significantly on how often Gatewatch planeswalkers appear. They?ll appear when it?s important but at a much slower rate. We will use those slots instead to do more returning and new planeswalkers.
So apparently people hate Aftermath, and I guess I kind of see why, but am I the only one who thinks Cut//Ribbons looks incredible in a control deck? Apparently I am, but that seems like a ton of value and neither side is THAT inefficient (although obviously neither is on curve).
Dang, Rhonas seems like the best god by far. Too bad he can't grant Trample to himself to take advantage of that Deathtouch though.Rhonas looks like it'll get a lot of mileage working alongside stuff like Lambholt Pacifist and Lupine Prototype in terms of "undercosted creatures which require you to meet a condition to use". I can actually see him being playable in Modern mono-green decks since you can pretty feasibly get a 4-power creature with stuff like Scavenging Ooze and Avatar of the Resolute
...three planeswalkers now. Five, counting the bad ones from the precon decks.
This is reaching excess. On the other hand, with standard being as painfully stagnant as it is, maybe this will bring forth new archetypes.
Huh, so it seems that Wizards did an unprecedented second pass on their banlist and added Felidar Guardian in retroactively. Weird... Well, good I guess.Apparently Amonkhet was added to MTGO before widespread retail release and going by Standard stats from there apparently the Copycat deck increased in usage so that was pretty much all the information they needed to drop the hammer.
Still can't really work up the desire to play Modern or Standard lately. I haven't played since October.
Meanwhile, I'm considering building a Nicol Bolas commander deck. He seems fun to play and I like Grixis colors, so it could be fun...
Going by the theme of C17, I'm doubting Angels will be in simply because they really don't lend themselves to making a five-color deck. I'm expecting stuff like Slivers, Allies, Elementals, or something off the beaten path like artifact creatures or Atogs.
So Announcement Week begins today and they are leading with quite the shakeup. (http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/metamorphosis-2-0-2017-06-12)
-"Blocks" are being eliminated entirely; fall, winter, and spring sets will now be independent large sets designed to be drafted on their own, starting with Spring 2018
-Core sets are coming back starting next year
-The Gatewatch will appear less often in story and in sets
-Masterpieces will no longer be in every set; Ixalan won't have them
-WoTC is getting a new team called Play Design to more thoroughly test Standard and Limited and keep things like Felidar Sovereign from happening again
-Aetherworks Marvel is getting hit with the banstick in Standard
I wonder what the new FTV will have. Delver of Secrets and some of the flipwalkers for sure... Westvale Abbey? Archangel Avacyn?I can see some of the other popular double-sided cards of the time like Huntmaster of the Fells and Bloodline Keeper getting in, and Civilized Scholar and Thing in the Ice are really neat thematically.
yooooo so while I wait for all the pieces of my Ayli deck to get here I'm changing my Sydri combo/hate deck into a Breya deck that's faster, more active, and more aggressive. Can I get some advice on what to take out and what to put in?
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/15-06-17-breya-wip/
I'm just not sure at all of what to do with this hot mess.
I'm not super up on my lore, but are the new gods good or bad? They look super sinister but some of the art and flavor text seems to imply they're fighting against Bolas.The monocolor gods were originally part of the plane but destroyed and remade by Bolas, forgetting their original role and becoming part of his trials. We don't know a lot yet but the implication seems to be that the plane and its inhabitants, gods included, have outlived their usefulness.
Keep in mind a 5 color deck can run all the mana dorks too!
Is it bad that I just don't get all that excited about un-stuff? Like yeah, it's cool from a novelty standpoint, but when I buy cards, I want cards that I can actually use in constructed formats. Un-cards are only legal in un-block draft/constructed.Yeah, that's the main thing I hear against Un-sets, I'm mostly interested to see what mechanics possibly get worked into mainline sets in the future (like BFM providing the inspiration for Meld or Rocket Powered Turbo Slug's super haste being the basis for the Pact spells)
Still, cool to see that the meme is finally coming to fruition.
It's more weird to see a legendary creature as an uncommon. If they keep that up, it could be interesting to make some kind of no-rares EDH format or something.I recall Pauper Commander being something that exists, although it lets you use a nonlegendary creature as your commander due to how limited you'd be for choices otherwise
Do you have a super-competitive Commander group? I'm not saying you shouldn't do that, but I've seen a lot of people locally try to build stuff like that and then be unable to find anyone to play with. Competitive Commander, at least around here, doesn't seem to last long. Although I know it is popular elsewhere.
I don't peak my head in to the mtg community often, but they seem to be doing a lot of reprints lately and it's gotten the investors kinda antsy. It made me want to ask you guys what you thought about the Reserved List?The Reserved List is kind of a bad idea but an idea that the community pushed them into at the time due to the massive backlash over the release of Chronicles. As it is, any cards that are on the Reserved List will probably stay there until WoTC/Hasbro legal can figure out a way to get out of it and nothing new is going on there. If anything I'd like to see some of the investors lose out because their speculation on competitive staples heavily hurts the game by raising the barrier to entry for constructed formats.
I remember hearing about that list before but I've forgotten it since and so I'm able to enjoy the same reaction I probably had when I heard of it the first time which was, wow that sounds totally silly! Would never work in ygo, but also owing to entirely different contexts and circumstances I'm sure. Really, legal trouble? Because they'd be robbing value from collections or something?
this this Links stuffs is eh to me. I get that they needed to slow the game downthere existed a moment in time when I thought that was the intended purpose for links too. You know, slowing down the game. So you'll be delighted to hear that they do not, in fact, slow down the game, the game's still as fast as it was if not even faster somehow. Or at least, it will definitely be, like starting next March or so.
YGO makes no fucking sense to me anymore. I liked it more in its early days. Now it looks more like Force of Will to me-- complicated for the sake of being complicated, or at the very least trying way too hard to cram tiny text onto cards.never played force of will, but as someone who plays this one at least I can tell you it's not trying to be complicated for the sake of being complicated, which I'm sure you don't seriously tend to imply, but I felt it was worth refuting anyway. For the most part. There are definitely cards around that do more stuff than they have any reason to, but those are likely from the #anime and overall are probably fewer than you'd imagine. I do get the point though. Pretty much every card has 2 or 3 effects on it now, and the (~verbose) language of ygo necessitates that each of these are precisely worded to ease understanding.
How is YGO right now anyway? I kinda wanted to get back in to it, but it feels too different. I quit early Zexal. Pendulums sound confusing but niche, but this this Links stuffs is eh to me. I get that they needed to slow the game down, but I don't like how complicated the game seems now. I already find it difficult to explain YGO as it is (harder than mtg honestly.)Links look like they should add depth.
never played force of will, but as someone who plays this one at least I can tell you it's not trying to be complicated for the sake of being complicated, which I'm sure you don't seriously tend to imply, but I felt it was worth refuting anyway. For the most part. There are definitely cards around that do more stuff than they have any reason to, but those are likely from the #anime and overall are probably fewer than you'd imagine. I do get the point though. Pretty much every card has 2 or 3 effects on it now, and the (~verbose) language of ygo necessitates that each of these are precisely worded to ease understanding.
That, and the fact that YGO cards tend to fit a huge amount of text into a very tiny space, which makes it look more verbose than it actually is.well let's see about that, just for fun I decided to take ccool's Scarab God and change to ygo text:
ccool picked a weird one though, yugioh has no cards with effects that uses tokens like that. Tokens in yugioh strictly have no effects of their own, and are defined really simply where the only parameters that change for them are atk/def values at most. There might be a better comparison if another one was given as an example that didn't use tokens. But in general it looks like mtg's usage of keywords really saves up on space.
e: fixed some capitalization and wording
Good luck translating Flying. :Dchallenge accepted >:D
Konami is clearly designing their game with the explicit intent to make things extremely dominant and then ban them after a year to force people into buying new decks, which is frankly abusive of their players. No. healthy, well-made game plans to have a massive yearly banlist update. If Magic ever has to ban anything, at least in Standard, it's considered shameful.
Went 0-2 But now it's time to have fun :Vfree fight and promos. :V
I wonder what the ratio on these will be? 50/50, or will the all-art ones be "mythics" or something? Either way that seems like a lot of added value in a pack, and adding value means the lands get a little cheaper.The tokens are double-sided, so the regular token will be on the front and the full-art version of the same token will be on the back.
I just hope they take it a little easy on the "watermark matters" stuff. It's giving me flashbacks to the heinously boring "artist matters" stuff from Unhinged. This is definitely integrated into the set a bit better than that, but it's still a little lame and I don't want to see 15 different support cards for it.Apparently all the "watermark matters" cards have already been shown. As for Curious Killbot, I can kind of let it slide as a vanilla because it exists partially as an enabler for Mary O'Kill and partially as a generic curve-filler?
Meanwhile, how weird is it that there's a vanilla creature with almost nothing special about it in the set? The creature type is a bit silly, but it still feels a little wrong.
Ooh, neat! Waiting warmly. I wonder if it has triple digit or infinite power and toughness. I've been wondering for years what the cheapest a creature with effectively infinite power could be printed at is. Probably 1GGGG or 2GGGG or something.
The downside was that the physical playing field gets way too crowded. Two decks, two discard piles, a bunch of contraptions and tokens everywhere, and other weirdness like face-up programmed hands and stuff going on made it a little tricky to follow what was happening. I had one opponent who kept making bad plays because he just couldn't parse my board. Definitely not an environment for the inexperienced.Add split screen and that card all the opponents permanents had to be touching and yeah table could get damn stupid.
-Giving herself protection abilities. Do we know how permanent "permanently stealing" a text box is? Does it stop if she leaves play? If not then Aetherling is a good thing for her to copy.It says on the card, the creature gains them. So will stop if she leaves play, same for the victim leaving play for regaining their text.
I think you're thinking of Sundial Of The Infinite.Thanks. This'll help me greatly with token spam...Assuming I don't play any legendary creatures. ^^;; I learned the hard way that a player can only have one of those on their side of the field at a time.
You should still play SOME legends. And by "some" I really mean "Azami, Lady Of Scrolls"...Ah yeah. Drawing power is critical in a Commander Deck, as is mana control and _maybe_ healing? I'm not sure how to shape my deck yet.
There are plenty of legendary creatures you could put in, you just can't copy them and get them to stick around. You can, however, abuse their ETBs by copying them and instantly letting the copy kill itself to the legend rule. (Or get that card that says the legend rule doesn't apply). Also, Panharmonicon gives you 6 ETB triggers for a creature if you have Inalla on the battlefield and activate her Eminence ability twice in response to casting a Wizard.Oh my. I wish I had seen this sooner, my friend and I settled on trying to get a sacrifice-recycle deck going. But that sounds good too, I'll look into those. ;)
So I don't know that much about Yu Gi Oh, but I know the basic rules I think. Why is it getting banned? I looked it up and I dunno, it seems good I guess. Is searching for field spells super important or something? Aren't there a bunch of other ways to do it? I guess it destroys your opponent's if they have one, and if you destroy theirs and you don't have one then you get card advantage even though you lose advantage to make it. Is the other effect good? Do you want to skip combat to get a monster?
Field Spells in YGO tend to vary from bad to busted. While I never had much experience with the Synchro stuff, there are a lot of FS that care about getting blown up. Ordinarily, this was meant to get some value out of it if your opponent played one of many spell removers, but AFD can blow these spells up of your own volition, and you get LP for it.
also summoning additional monsters just seems to keep becoming a stupidly powerful effect
Searching it up, SPYRAL Resort is a field spell that lets you search cards once per turn and when it died.
No, the searching of another Resort(or any field spell) is AFD's effect.
I looked it up and I dunno, it seems good I guess. Is searching for field spells super important or something? Aren't there a bunch of other ways to do it? I guess it destroys your opponent's if they have one, and if you destroy theirs and you don't have one then you get card advantage even though you lose advantage to make it. Is the other effect good? Do you want to skip combat to get a monster?First turn there isn't any battle so it doesn't matter, and the way the game is now you don't even need battle to get anything you need off the board. Battle destruction is usually the least reliable way of trying to get something off the field. The way of searching for field spells is by using Terraforming (search 1 field spell from your deck), and that's about it. There was another way (Set Rotation) but that got hit recently, and the other other method (Metaverse) is way too slow (it's a trap). The life gain and removing the opponent's field spell is only a bonus, if at all. Life points don't mean jack. You're alive until you're dead and that's about all there is to say about life points lol.
The rule in Magic is that dedicated lifegain is usually bad, but incidental lifegain tacked onto other effects is great. It can really give you some slack to get off to a slow start or cushion big opposing plays, so if you can gain life then you might as well do it. It's just usually not worth losing a card on unless your opponent is spending cards just to direct damage you and you can gain significantly more life with one card than they can deal in damage.
That said, there's a solid tier-two deck in Modern Magic that's built around gaining tons of life off of Martyr of Sands, which is almost certainly the best lifegain card ever printed.
(http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=121263&type=card)
One activation puts you out of reach, and the deck is built around bringing her back over and over and searching out more copies to activate her as many times as possible. If you can get a Martyr of Sands engine online with any card that lets your revive one consistently then you basically can't lose to conventional win conditions, and the deck wins by taking advantage of cards that need you to be at a high life total. I think Matsuri used to play the deck, it's kind of good.
You don't need Quickling to make Spellstutter Sprite work. People play Spellstutter and Fairie Miscreant in Delver and they're more than fine. Countering 1-3-mana plays is more than acceptable and you can recycle with Ninja and Vapor Snag.
That said, a WU Delver deck that runs the usual Spellstutter, Miscreant, Ninja package and also Kor Skyfisher and maybe even Whitemane Lion seems pretty decent.
I've been obsessed with the idea of UG Delver with Rancors and pump spells lately, so while we're going down the wrong-colored Delver rabbit hole already WU Delver seems interesting. UB, UR, and mono-U Delvers are all things already...
I'm slowly but surely attempting to make something resembling a sacrifice-and-recycle Commander deckI'd say track down the Commander 2015 green/black precon if you can find it for a decent price because that gives you a solid framework to build on for this sort of deck.
I expect to see hotheads losing their goddamn minds and threatening to quit over the reprints aaaany second now...Honestly I'm okay with it because one of them had to be reprinted to make a draft strategy work and two of them are vanilla creatures that exist to fill the power curve so I imagine even the more easily aggravated players won't be inclined to care.
I was anxiously awaiting the UG flip enchantment and it did not disappoint. There's a lot of real solid stuff in this set. I'm definitely more interested in it than I was in Ixilan.
-Return to Dust, Swords, and Path can go in. I don't have Hero's Downfall but I do have Vraska's Contempt and Ruinous Path which I consider "close enough", plus Utter End is reasonably obtainable.
-Meren is mostly there because I wanted the reanimation engine, although it can be replaced with something more stable like Baloth Null
-Lifeblood Hydra can go in although I'll have to buy it first. Is Genesis Hydra worth bothering with for this sort of deck?
-I have Temple of the False God and Path of Ancestry, I don't have Exotic Orchard but I imagine Reflecting Pool is close enough.
-Cabal Coffers and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth are right out unless I can straight-up trade for them. Sylvan Scrying can go in.
Been pawing through my Pokemon card collection and wondering...Is the Pokemon TCG still played these days? I barely played the actual game (aside from its digital counterparts), and was wondering if anyone still cared about it.
I dropped a little money into PTCGO to get myself some Tapu Lele GXs and some vital cards for Gardevoir-GX deck. It's a blast to play and I kiiiiiiiiiiinda want to build it IRL?
I also pulled 2 Dusk Mane Necrozma-GX from consecutive packs of Ultra Prism in the game too, and pulled a third today. The DM Necrozma and Magnezone deck is real.
InB4 Modern banlist update.well the fools did it
What do you think, will we see the predicted "Ban Lantern piece, unban Jace, unban Bloodbraid"?
quotesHuh, what's your username on that game? I wouldn't mind dueling you! :D
Why did I just buy NightroseBecause Granblue and the other water clans are awesome?
So what do you think of the Firesong And Sunsinger controversy? They're a card that's part of Dominaria but isn't in the set. It's only available as a Buy A Box promo. This seems like a dangerous precedent to set to me, and to a lot of people. This particular card doesn't seem especially good, but I'm not sure I trust Wizards not to get greedy and eventually make the next Scarab God an exclusive promo eventually, given their rough track record lately. And this card does some unique and powerful stuff, so there's always an outside chance it's going to end up being good despite being expensive and slow, and that could do some weird things to the secondary market.That seems to be the general consensus among people I'm following. I've heard people calling it "preorder DLC for cardboard" and I can't say I disagree. They must really want to make their sales look good after the last two Masters sets, huh.
That seems to be the general consensus among people I'm following. I've heard people calling it "preorder DLC for cardboard" and I can't say I disagree. They must really want to make their sales look good after the last two Masters sets, huh.
Has anyone else been playing MTG Arena? I've been having fun with it, threw all my resources at a Dino deck but been doing well with a UB deck featuring 1 Nicoh Bolas and Locust GodI've been trying to get into the beta, no response yet
Goddamn, Dominaria prices just keep rising. I think I gotta grab my fourth History Of Benalia today. I can't imagine it rising any more but this is like the third time I've said that...
Goddamn, Dominaria prices just keep rising. I think I gotta grab my fourth History Of Benalia today. I can't imagine it rising any more but this is like the third time I've said that...I'm hearing from my LGS that part of the reason for the Dominaria price increase is that demand for the set massively outstripped supply and WoTC simply isn't able to ship print runs to retailers fast enough to keep up in the US
It would be better worded as "must be blocked by 2 or more creatures, and must be blocked if able".Although this makes it sound like it wouldn't be blockable if you only have 1 creature, whereas the original text sounds to me like you can block it with just 1 creature if that's all you have available to block with.
Although this makes it sound like it wouldn't be blockable if you only have 1 creature, whereas the original text sounds to me like you can block it with just 1 creature if that's all you have available to block with.