Magic: The Gathering,GO TEAM MS!

[hitogoroshi]

this isn't about magic online specifically but a good read for anyone jumping in to magic: What I know About Magic: The Gathering.

[hitogoroshi]

[hitogoroshi]

I don't normally play MtG because I don't like the business model, but I had some cash after a garage sale so I picked up that 20 dollar kit with 100 lands, a couple hundred common/uncommons, and four boosters. I made a deck to mess around with my friends with, but I'm seeing the glimmerings of a R/G deck focused around Slumbering Dragon, +1/+1 counters, trample, and hexproof. Is that a thing that could be good? I have not really played magic in ages.

edit: turns out my buddies play MTGO so I paid the :tenbux: for that rather than buying any more people cards. flaminghito. down to play at some point when I have time and figure the damn thing out.

[hitogoroshi]

The new magic '13 cards were mostly what was in the box. Everything is that or a super recent set. I would want to play Standard.

The basic interaction I'm thinking of is things like Increasing Savagery, Hunger of the Howlpack, Bond Beetles to wake the dragons up, Sheltering Word/Rangers Guile to keep em alive, Rancor/Kessig Wolf Run to keep em unchumpable. After that basicially I just need to find the best thing Red can do to help with this (more creatures for when I don't draw the dragons?), which is where I'm drawing a blank.

[hitogoroshi]

Aww. Well, draft is the thing that interests me more anyway, guess I'll save my money and just play some MTGO. I get to do four newbie psuedodrafts before I use my two free real tickets.

[hitogoroshi]

So, spending my new player tickets and trying to learn MtG for real. First one was for a shadow draft (like normal draft, but only 4 people and you don't keep the cards), which went...poorly. It started when I tried to enlarge Ravenous Rats to read them and they ended up being my first pick. It never really got better. My deck had no real rhyme or reason to it and I lost every match. I also suspect having 4 people in draft may not be the best since it means there isn't too much pressure on any one color and whoever happens to have a color alone or with only one person gets more orbits, but who knows.

Then I did a shadow sealed - that is, 6 m13 boosters to make a 40 card deck as normal, again with only four people and no real prize. I built this abusive number:



and won all but one of my games. t's easier to win when you can fit four of your six rares comfortably into your deck. Hilariously enough, I actually had ANOTHER black Rare -Diabolic Revelation - but I decided to sub it out for kitesail. (and good thing too - kitesail was one of my two mvp cards. the other was gorgon but that's not hard to guess :p) The only sideboarding I did was swapping my Recluse for a Naturalize because my first game was almost ended when a Tormented Soul got Mark of the Vampire. It was 5 to 25 or something, but then my Gorgon decided to make his Tormented Soul a defender who can't block.

Overall, I'm really enjoying this. Staying just in M13 makes the info burden a lot more manageable and this feels a lot more like a battle of wits than constructed. Now I just need to decide if I use my last two Newbie tickets to practice Draft or Sealed before I enter the big bad real world of MTGO.

ps Titantic Growth --> Priest of Bolas is really funny.

[hitogoroshi]

No kidding man. Shame it was shadow sealed I'd love to expand that fucker to 60 cards.

What's the general event ticket cost for normal sealed or draft events? And is there a special time/day I can do specifically Magic 2013 events? Those are pretty much the only cards I have experience with since I just hopped back in to Magic a few days ago.

[hitogoroshi]

Yeah, I noticed that making it, but it work out when you gotta put shit ON your creatures. Like, who needs a 3 drop when turn 3 is equipping your turn 2 kitesail to your turn 1 creature, giving it Rancor, and sending your 5/2 flying tramplin angry robot into the world

My only lost game wasn't about not having 3 drops even it was just having all of my buffs and no one to give them to.

[hitogoroshi]

Cheers Shea, that helps a lot.

[hitogoroshi]

I'm going to link to an article that isn't actually about Magic the Gathering. It's about Android: Netrunner. Netrunner was an old CCG developed by Richard Garfield, who designed Magic. Garfield actually said he preferred Netrunner to Magic, but Netrunner came out in that dark time of Too Many God Damn CCGs and it bubbled into obscurity.

But now there's a living card game reboot of Netrunner called Android:Netrunner. Living card games are cool. They come out with set expansions of fixed cards instead of random booster packs, so it's way cheaper than Magic to get all the cards and play with all the cards. (Currently the core set you can find for around $25-30, expansions are $15 each, there are currently 2 of them.)

I'm probably gonna make a Netrunner thread and start running teaching games on OCTGN (which is free!) in the next few days. For now I'm just linking this article because it's specifically addressed to Magic players so this is a good place to leave it.

http://magiclampoon.com/blog/2012/09/16 ... c-players/

[hitogoroshi]

I bet the pairings will be totally random because money.

[hitogoroshi]

read a thing so you can recognize if your opponent is cheating

[hitogoroshi]

Isn't mill sort of a trap in Limited? It feels like it's really hard to pull off when you're just kind of taking what comes.

[hitogoroshi]

By the same token, this deck needs to mulligan almost every hand that doesn't contain a one drop. You can't win without one. I actually wish I could add 2 more, if I could find some that had a good enough power level.

Wasteland Viper maybe? It doesn't have flash/evolve, but it's a 1 drop, it's got a 2 on it to evolve stuff, and Bloodrush makes it a cool guy outside of it's place as a 1-drop.

[hitogoroshi]

Beck and Call is a way cool idea thematically but Call is just too expensive.

[hitogoroshi]

I'm going to a Dragon's Maze prerelease tomorrow. Was going to do Orzhov because they looked super fun in GTC, but DGM Orzhov looks...less fun. So probably Izzet or Rakdos for me.

[hitogoroshi]

A magic player complaining about something utterly meaningless and not nearly as bad as they think it is? Shocker. That never happens.

In other news, playing a PTQ in madison this weekend. Taking UR twin with MD blood moon and vedalken shackles. If you're in the area, stop into misty mountain games and say hello. If you need to borrow a deck, let me know, I can probably hook you up.

The new Netrunner cards are pretty sweet so I mostly want to focus on finally getting back in to that instead of playin' Magic, but I have a really comfortable couch if you wanna chill in Madison instead of driving home after the game.

[hitogoroshi]

Wanna catch Guardians of the Galaxy Saturday night after your game? Last showing is 9:25 pm and the movie theater is across the street from my apartment so you can just come whenever you're done and we can hang out until it's time to walk over?

[hitogoroshi]

He can come too if that'd work, I do have Mario Kart 8

[hitogoroshi]

She.

And then there's the matter of the other 3 people in my car. haha.

Ah mea culpa.

Well if it doesn't work it doesn't work, but shoot me a PM if y'all feel like coming around to my area. I'd drop in on you but it's an hour bike ride each way which is a little much just to say hi.

[hitogoroshi]

I haven't played Magic for a while but this prerelease looks cool so I'm doing it. What is a good clan to declare for? FWIW if there was a Blue, White, Black clan that's probably what I'd do.

[hitogoroshi]

Right that's what I'm saying. There isn't UWB, but if my dream clan is Orzhov flavored with blue trickery, what's closest? I'm thinking it's the endurance dudes but like I said I'm magic rusty.

[hitogoroshi]

Hey speaking of Wisconsin, Cow, you gonna be at the Saturday morning pre-release at I'm Board? I'll be there in my ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ shirt reppin' Azban.

[hitogoroshi]

MTGA has me actually playing for the first time in a while and B/W vampires is pretty fun y'all