Cardboard rehab: TCG/CCG thread

[commandercool]

I tentatively hate the Partner mechanic. The things with it are almost all good enough to be playable commanders on their own, which just makes them way better than other options given that you also get the MASSIVE bonus of getting a second commander. Although depending on how it works (do the commanders count their death tax individually or together?) it may not be TOO bad.

Those landcycling cards are amazing though.

[commandercool]

Okay, so after the first few Partner cards were pretty great the rest of them are definitely not Commander material solo so far, so that does make me feel better about the mechanic.

-Cruel Entertainment is hilarious but shitty. Could have reeeeally used a "and can't attack or target you during that turn" clause because as-is people are just going to gang up on you for fucking with them.

-Crystalline Crawler is definitely interesting. Not sure if it's worth it in a two-color deck based on tokens, but it might be. I stopped playing Gemstone Array in Vorel but this is kind of better for the same mana.

-Selfless Squire seems great. Not really even close to as good as Moment's Peace or Arachnogenesis, but in a deck that needs a ton of fogs or doesn't have access to green it's pretty solid.

-Deepglow Skate is really good, but it's disgustingly good in Superfriends decks. Which are already among the trashiest of Commander decks. Lovely.

-Parting Thoughts is a strong contender for spot removal slots in black decks, but I really wish it could kill planeswalkers too.

[Tamer Anode/Cathode]

I like the idea of Partner mainly because of the mix-and-match potential for using them to make two-color or wedge/shard decks. Someone in the community suggested a game type where you make a partial deck with each partner commander and their color spells, with some room to add mana sources after two partial decks are combined.

-Atraxa is my personal favorite of the new four-color commanders, mainly for the idea of being able to run Ghave, Mazirek, and Ezuri in the same deck. On the other hand, that kind of ability seems oppressive with things like Superfriends decks/Infect
-Reyhan's ability seems pretty fun. I wonder if it stacks with Modular and/or Servant of the Scale
-am I the only one who's excited for a Bruse Tarl card
-I never expected to see a new card with Converge so soon
-and for the love of can we get consistent names for the four-color groups now

[MatsuriSakuragi]

Unsurprisingly, I'm squarely in Breya's field myself. Give me all the artifact interactions. (And her deck will supposedly be getting a reprint of Hanna, Ship's Navigator (with Nielsen art!) and the new Faerie Artisans too, both of which would be fantastic to have).

[commandercool]

I don't really especially love any of the commanders previewed so far. But that's okay, I have enough decks as it is and I still need to make vehicle and mummy decks upcoming. Plenty of other good miscellaneous support stuff though. Not sure if I'll buy any decks yet, but I'll definitely be dropping $20-30 on singles as always.

[commandercool]

-Boompile is scummy as hell. It's either unplayably bad or you're making it indestructible and ruining the game. Although if you do play it fair and win the flip at a crucial moment that's gotta be pretty gratifying.

-Armory Automaton seems interesting. Obviously fucks with your own ability to protect your guys, but you can plan around that by at least re-equipping post-combat. Not sure what kind of deck wants to make room for it though.

-Grip of Phyresis is really good. You'll pretty much always have a target and it's not an aura so it can't be knocked off. Basically more copies of Lightning Greaves is good.

-Seeds of Renewal is pretty horrible. I was a fan of Restock myself, but this stacks up very poorly against Wildest Dreams. Depends a bit on your group I guess and whether your deck cares about spell CMC.

-Magus Of The Will is... Yeah, probably not very reliable, but maybe with recursion helping get him back until he goes off he might be worth it? Definitely fun to read and great art.

-Curse Of Vengeance sucks but is hilarious.

-Treacherous Terrain is amazing. All of the landcycling cards are near-staple tier so far. But the green ones are the best and they're competing with other green mana fixing to some degree. Hmm...

 

[MatsuriSakuragi]

Dunno if I'll be buying one of the decks or not, but I'm certainly grabbing a single of Hanna. What a great card.

[MatsuriSakuragi]

It only just occurred to me that Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis are a gay couple, and not only that, they're the star of their particular deck. That's pretty cool.

edit: rofl

[commandercool]

It only just occurred to me that Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis are a gay couple, and not only that, they're the star of their particular deck. That's pretty cool.

edit: rofl

Oh shit, I didn't connect the dots as to who they were. That's cool!

[commandercool]

So the full lists are up. Highlights include Kalonian Hydra, Lightning Greaves, and Chromatic Lantern reprints, although I don't really see a reason to buy a deck just for singles. Those reprints should drive prices on some nice staples down though, so that's good news regardless.

And of course there are a few unrevealed new cards that could change everything. Most notably a card called Ash Barrens that's in every deck, which is presumably some kind of mana-fixing land.

[MatsuriSakuragi]

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.

[Tamer Anode/Cathode]

nnnnnnnngh all those reprints

seeing stuff like Mentor of the Meek, Nath, and Jor Kadeen getting new printings makes it really tempting to try and pick up all of the decks at some point

[commandercool]

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.

Yeah it's definitely worth picking one up if you like the theme. But there's no obvious "this is the super high-value one that's worth snatching up copies of for the extra Wurmcoil Engines" like two years ago.

Also, this is Ash Barrens: http://mythicspoiler.com/c16/cards/ashbarrens.html

Tap for colorless, Basic Landcycling 1

So yeah, a mana-fixing land.

Huh. I have no idea how to evaluate that. Just have to try it out I guess. I'm inclined to think it's much, much worse than Myriad Landscapes, but there are times being quicker definitely matters.

[MatsuriSakuragi]

It's basically Different Evolving Wilds-- you're just paying the cost up-front and right away instead of having the mana come in tapped.

[commandercool]

I also don't really know how to evaluate Evolving Wilds relative to Myriad Landscapes at this point. I think I would play like 6-8 Myriad Landscapes-es in most Commander decks if I could, but I can't so it'll be hard to figure out.

Edit: Oooh, the remaining unrevealed cards are up.

-Entrapment Maneuver seems okay, but I probably wouldn't play it over Wing Shards. Even in a token deck it seems a bit unreliable. Maybe in a soldier tribal deck.

-Curtain's Call being an instant makes it okay. Spot removal slots tend to be tight but I think this is a strong contender over like, Go For The Throat. Definitely beats Rend Flesh which does see some play.

-Frenzied Fugue is a much better Threaten for one more mana, but most decks that play Threaten tend to do so because they want to sacrifice opposing creatures anyway so it's a little self-defeating IMO.

-Benefactor's Draught is interesting as hell. Mono-green definitely plays that as a draw option, but I'm not sure if anything else does. I could legit see running that in any deck with green, even if it also has blue, because the potential for amazing amounts of draw is so good, but like a lot of green draw it's very situational so it might be much worse than it looks. Obviously great if for some reason you're running a lot of Lure effects (is there a Lure commander?).

-Evolutionary Escalation has great art but seems crappy. Fun if you like goofy political stuff, but not terribly efficient.

-How good Ancient Excavation is probably hinges on how much you care about the graveyard to some degree, but it clearly goes in a lot of decks that need mana fixing so it's probably going to see a ton of play.

-Migratory Route might be the worst of the new landcycling cards but the art is gorgeous (too bad there's no way to get a foil at the moment* and again it fills a niche in non-green decks that are just very hard-up for mana fixing.

So overall nothing in the remaining spoilers seems like it'll make a huge different in which decks are most popular, but it's all decent to good stuff that at least has a small niche.

*Does anyone remember how VS System did foils in fixed-rarity products? They would just randomly foil a handfull of cards in each deck (two I think?) so every card in the game did exist in foil, at least after the point where they started doing that, and you could get a really nice surprise if your precon deck happened to have a foil of a very popular exclusive card.

[MatsuriSakuragi]

pls giv foil sydri

[commandercool]

Wasn't going to buy one of these, but ended up trading in a handful of cards and miniatures for the Kynaios and Tiro deck. Decided to sidegrade my Derevi deck because I don't have many decks with red in them and Derevi seems to kind of be a generic common commander at this point.

I was honestly swayed to purchase in significant part due to the beautiful foil commanders... And I won't say Kynaios and Tiro's flavor text didn't hit me right in the post-election anxiety feels just a bit...

[MatsuriSakuragi]

An excellent choice.

I bought the Breya deck, myself. Once I get a few more core combo pieces for my Sydri deck like Mycosynth Lattice and Karn, Silver Golem, my Artifact Taxes EDH deck should be nearing completion. I'm excited!

[commandercool]

I hear there's been a Pokemon TCG free play night at my main game store that's been doing well (6-8 people with more showing interest). I was at a grocery store that had a good sale on those new legendary bird theme decks so I picked two of the Articuno one up.

I don't think they have quiiiite enough stuff to make a fringe-playable deck with two copies of the same theme deck, but it's fairly close. Hopefully two bucks worth of singles will get me there.

[PX]

Went out 2-2 at Weiss Nationals but my buddy got into the top 16

[yuyukos]

Went out 2-2 at Weiss Nationals but my buddy got into the top 16

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.

[PX]

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 and now I have to fly to New York in a month for Nationals

[yuyukos]

Are you implying that people read everything that gets posted in this thread?
(because I sure don't)

[PX]

Neither do I

[PX]

Wow the Final Fantasy TCG is fun as hell right now

[commandercool]

So it turns out KxT (Kynaios and Tiro) commander is a fucking blast to play once you fix the deck. Out of the box it's a total mess with too much symmetrical group hug and basically no win conditions, but once you turn it into a real politics deck it becomes great (or at least great fun).

The benefits from. KxT are subtle enough that they feel like group hug to opponents, but totally aren't. They'll feel great about you because they're getting free stuff without necessarily realizing how nuch more you're getting. Just watch out for Treacherous Terrain. I got slammed by three of them across two games and it hurt.

So far I think the real sleeper all-star of the deck has been Sleep. Once everyone's loaded with tons of resources and KxT is safely protected by a Collective Restraint or whatever it basically becomes "2UU Sorcery: Destroy target player". Leaving the strongest player on the table completely open generally means they'll get dogpiled, and then you can either try to pit the remaining weaker players against each other or try to clean up.

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.

[Tamer Anode/Cathode]

My LGS already sold out of the Atraxa deck for a variety of reasons. The money I was going to put to that instead wound up going to an original Innistrad draft happening tonight because the owner's been getting some stuff from suppliers.

I loved drafting during Shadows/Moon so this should be a wild ride

[MatsuriSakuragi]

Ooh, an Innistrad draft. Some big prizes to net out of that one.


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'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.

I have similar worries with my Sydri deck. There's a lot of really dirty tricks in the deck like:

Grand Architect + Pili-Pala = Infinite Mana
Sydri + Mycosynth Lattice = I can kill anyone's lands by turning them into 0/0s
Sydri + Mycosynth Lattice + Infinite Mana = Infinite Land Destruction
Mycosynth Lattice + Darksteel Forge + boardwipe = Destroy EVERYTHING but my stuff
Sydri + Caltrops = Anything that attacks me dies and I gain life for each attacker
Sword of the Meek + Thopter Foundry = TONS of thopters and lifegain
Sword of the Meek + Thopter Foundry + Infinite Mana = Unlimited Thopters and Lifegain
Thopter Assembly (or any other mass Thopter generator) + Time Sieve = Infinite extra turns
Academy Ruins = ALL THE RECURSION
Academy Ruins + Mindslaver (+ infinite mana) = Unlimited turn stealing
Sydri + Staff of Nin = Lethal pinger
Sydri + Salvaging Station + Seat of the Synod + Disciple of the Vault = ping everyone to death
Infinite Mana + Blue Sun's Zenith = completely empty someone's deck
Dovin Baan = Static Orb for everyone but me.

And that's just naming a few. I can still fight well too, especially with Cranial Plating or Loxodon Warhammer-- and I have Padeem and Leonin Abunas and Darksteel Forge to give all my artifacts Hexproof and Indestructible as well as Orbs of Warding and Witchbane Orb to give ME hexproof as well. With all of my lifegain and inability to be targeted, I feel I will have lots of staying power.

Oh, and there's a Tax element to the deck too. Norn's Annex, Ghostly Prison, Propaganda, Blind Obedience, Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker and more-- You wanna attack me? You're gonna have to pay the price.

[commandercool]

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.

That might be really interesting. Probably much more so than the usual "duh duh Superfriends dur" fare. The problem I see with that is that Atraxa is so freakishly pushed that it's kind of hard to let one exist on the table. She can just run games by herself with out a ton of support so she tends to be a huge removal magnet. But I gotta admit I'm really intrigued by that idea. I wonder if there's enough small infect stuff and enough Proliferate to make it work.

I have similar worries with my Sydri deck. There's a lot of really dirty tricks in the deck like:

Yeah, good luck with that. Unless you have the most cutthroat group ever expect to have a HUGE target on your forehead all game every game. The second time the game just abruptly ends to a random infinite or slowly gets ground down by all of your stuff being indestructible and hexproof people are going to start ganging up on you. Not to say that you won't find groups where everyone is playing hardball to the extent that your deck will fit in, but many groups won't be getting that hardcore and it'll get you ganged up on.

[MatsuriSakuragi]

Well, the deck is held back by the fact that my tutors are very limited, and the combos are very easy to break if you don't let them go unchecked. Sydri is such a relevant piece of almost every combo that I wouldn't be surprised that she gets knocked out quickly and often. What is nice about the deck is that very few cards are threatening enough to cause alarm on their own, so people may prioritize things over them until it's too late. Keep in mind that most of those combos aren't possible unless I get both Grand Architect and Pili-Pala on the board-- and that is the easiest combo to break because Padeem/Leonin Abunas and Darksteel Forge don't protect Grand Architect, as he isn't an artifact creature. That is, as long as I don't turn him into an artifact.

Mycosynth Lattice is one of the most horrifying cards to land on the board. If I can get it to resolve and stay on the board, my chances of winning skyrocket. So that's probably a really dangerous piece too.


But that's kind of my curse in Magic: I do enjoy playing quite a bit, but my competitive nature turns me into a cutthroat monster who doesn't pull punches. (I blame my introduction to Magic being Modern for this, because it took me from "oh hey this game's kind of neat" to "okay you know what? if you're gonna grind my face into the table, I'm gonna do it right back" in a few months flat). Maybe I need to build an extra deck that has fewer game-breaking combos and more cute and annoying tricks. Maybe something with lots of flash and flicker tricks.