Magic: The Gathering,GO TEAM MS!

[GreyICE]

so me & FL & Shea were in scumchat and were like OH SHIT IT'D BE AWESOME TO GET ENOUGH SCUMMERS TO DO NETDRAFT

so yeah we should get enough scummers to do a netdraft, who's in?

/in

[GreyICE]

UW Skies, oh the classics never die.

In other news, is Kibler's WRR deck insane, or is it just me? Now to afford 4 Huntsmasters...

[GreyICE]

Blue white spirits is hella good in this format.

Also, honestly, I think huntsmaster is a very overrated card. I'll bet you can find 4 cards for that slot that are way less expensive and are equally if not more powerful.

It kind of does everything in WRR. Removal, life gain, and draws off mass removal, plus shuts Liliana off hard.

Plus it survives slagstorm flipped, and that's HUGE.

[GreyICE]

Only because people kept trying to make shitty control decks. Selesnya was the best.

[GreyICE]

Miracle actually seems fairly non-random as long as you're not counting on doing massive card draws.

It's tech as hell with think twice and forbidden alchemy, and is going to way power up those decks.

[GreyICE]

Miracle actually seems fairly non-random as long as you're not counting on doing massive card draws.

It's tech as hell with think twice and forbidden alchemy, and is going to way power up those decks.

how is it 'tech' with those

think twice wouldn't be the first draw of your turn (which is a requirement for miracle)

neither would forbidden alchemy

Think Twice is the first draw of the turn if you cast it in your opponent's turn. Doesn't have to be YOUR turn.

Alchemy lets you browse past miracle cards and get more Think Twice without actually drawing cards.


4 Ponder
4 Think Twice
2 forbidden alchemy

A good start to some under costed spells.

[GreyICE]

1UW: Put target permanent on the bottom of its owner's library.

2UU: take an extra turn after this one.

I'll jump through some hoops to get that, especially with flashback.

Traditional control decks are tier 2 right now, and this is the sort of boost they need.

[GreyICE]

Define major event.

[GreyICE]

@Glork: Then no dice. There'll be about 2 relevant ones this season, I wouldn't bet on basic Islands making it into either of those decks. And neither would you. Affinity didn't bother to win its own PT, IN MIRRODIN BLOCK CONSTRUCTED.

[GreyICE]

Sure, but it also ran skullclamp. And skullclamp, my friend? It covers a glorious multitude of sins.

I'll wait for the rest of the miracle cards to be spoiled, but right now I'd almost be willing to skew Snapcaster to include them, and that's without seeing more than 3.

The major problem I have is that right now Delver is just so insane, and it's so hard to challenge. Although delver will almost certainly use the time walk one.

[GreyICE]

Nah, you know what?

Miracle cards are going to appear in at least the top 2 spots of major events.

Time Walk + Planeswalkers is so stupid-good that it'd be ridiculous not to do that. TIME WALK. As in Time Walk, of the Power 9. As long as you can cast it during your opponent's turns, it'll be too stupid-good not to do.

[GreyICE]

First, it's not a mull to 6. It's a dead card. Very many decks have very many of those. Kibler's WRR has 4 Slagstorms and a Whipflare. You think those aren't dead against UB Planeswalkers?

It pitches to Vess, Faithless Looting, and any more looter effects they print. And, at the end of the day, it cycles for 0. Yes, it requires 7 lands, but it lets you do doubletime on all your walkers, your little vampire generation factory, or just get another swing in.

Also it synergizes VERY nicely with looter effects in two different ways.

Consistency is nice. Winning is nicer.

[GreyICE]

TSQ does realize that mana is this thing that is involved with MtG, and that the little numbers on the card tell you how much of it you need to pay to get an effect, right?

He does also realize that of the the ones that haven't seen play, one cost 8, one didn't untap your land, one existed next to Time Warp for 1 more, and one caused you to lose the game, right? And that it's an effect that people have been willing to spend 10 for to get, yes?

[GreyICE]

Well I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. Allow me to bookmark this so I can laugh in your face in 6 months.

Time Walk is really all that and a bag of chips, and the fact it sucks in the opening 7 is not a big deal. Many cards do that.

P.S. You realize if they reprinted brainstorm this card would be the nut high, right? While they're obviously never going to do that, anything that's one utility card away from being an auto-4 of should NEVER be dismissed lightly.

[GreyICE]

Not on the basis of a small number of event winners, no. If Affinity with skullclamp can't do it reliably, nothing can (except Tolarian Academy and Snap Hulk, dear gods).

Wanna open it to top 8s?

[GreyICE]

I loved RoE. Great draft set, good for constructed. Of course constructed sucked thanks to Jace, but c'est la vie.

[GreyICE]

In that case, if you have access to older zombies, things like Undead Warchief, Shepherd of Rot, Gempalm Polluter, and Unholy Grotto are amazing.

So, if you can, this should be potent without being a total weenie deck.

Lord, Zombies!
4 Gravecrawler
3 Festering Goblin
3 Shepherd of Rot
4 Withered Wretch
4 Lord of the Undead
3 Cemetary Reaper
2 Death Baron
4 Undead Warchief
1 Graveborn Muse
1 Infernal Caretaker

3 Call of the Grave
3 Oversold Cemetary

2 Unholy Grotto
21 Swamp

[GreyICE]

I hated RotE. The Eldrazi cards were poorly thought out, in my opinion. I don't mind Annihilator, so much as the additional abilities that come on them.

I hated Annihilator. No fun at all. Level up was ok, but I preferred it on Figure of Destiny because of the flavor.

Annihilator never mattered. By the point in the game an Eldrazi got down and could stick, it was an auto-scoop anyway. The only real problem was the "secondary" abilities, because you got them on cast, rather than on entering the battlefield, which was horribly unbalanced in favor of ramp.

No, it was not.

[GreyICE]

Oh man, Zombie bidding. And with Withered Wretch too!

Haha, you sold me right there. Flop the cemetaries for Biddings, that'd be awesome. I can't imagine, with that many lords, anyone would survive longer than a turn after a bidding.

[GreyICE]

Huh? It's terrible. It's a choice card, and not only that an awful one. In the early game doing 4 damage to your opponent is miserable, and in the late game your opponent can handle a 4/3. That stupid Arcane card that just did 3 damage to your opponent for R was better, and that card was terrible too.

Demon taskmaster could see some play, but I'm kinda on the fence. 4/3 for 3 isn't that under the curve, and there's so many good creatures.

[GreyICE]

No, it's MUCH worse than Lava Spike.

The thing is, on turn 1 you don't want to be playing Lava Spike. You want a friggin Jackal Pup more. Every turn your opponent can't deal with it, 2 damage. That can add up, especially if you're going first.

Therefore your opponent gives you the Lava Spike. Ooh, +1 damage. You're still not putting any pressure on him.

Later he realizes "Hey, I've got a real creature that can block that. Sure, throw out that 4/3." Or he just goes for its throat, or introduces it to Wrath, or sends it to Oblivion with a Ring, etc.

Same issue with Browbeat, only instead of more cards that can be more burn spells it's a creature that can't be anything other than a 4/3.

Interesting cards so far

Temporal Mastery - OBV
Thunderous Wrath - 5 damage is sexy. Very sexy. If UR Delver runs Temporal Mastery this will show up as at least a 2 of. Winning the game is nice.
Sigarda, Host of Herons - Awkward casting cost? Sure. But if there's decks that aren't running sweepers, this card becomes hax. Obviously miserable at the moment thanks to Black Sun's Zenith, but that card will rotate.
Arcane Melee - The interaction between this and flashback costs is kinda sexy. It needs something more to get going, and 5 is a lot, but obvious combo pieces should never be ignored.

That's literally it. Every other card except the white miracle card looks terrible. Angel of Jubilation might see some sideboard play in a mono white deck if a REALLY weird deck comes up. That's it.

[GreyICE]

Oh, so you think it's good in that deck, TSQ?

I haven't played legacy in ages. Still have a high tide deck, but I can't afford the dual lands, and without them the format kinda boils down to gobbos and not much else.

[GreyICE]

I really don't think it is. One of the advantages of burn combo is that it's resistant to StP - Hellspark Elemental has haste.

Trading a burn spell for a creature that dies to StP is not a winning strategy.

[GreyICE]

They should just get it over with and reprint counterspell.

Not going to happen.

[GreyICE]

I mean, game one you're taking a chance that they don't have STP, but I think the pay off is good enough, game 2-3 they probably side out stp since you literally only have one target. Also, I don't know what the number of decks that MD STP is anymore, but I suspect its not that high.

Really? I admit to paying no attention to legacy at this point, but it must really have been overrun by combo if StP isn't making it into maindecks. It's only the best piece of removal ever printed.

[GreyICE]

Now theres a good limited card.

It's a 1/1. For 2. That's only ever going to be a mediocre limited card, even if it's hell on wheels to attack past.

So far I actually haven't seen any windmill slam first picks on the level of Behomoth Sledge/Savage Twister/Pyrohemia. That's probably a good thing, tbh.

[GreyICE]

A 1/1 for 2 with deathtouch that gives another creature deathtouch. You don't think thats good? Do you even play limited. I didn't say it's a bomb, but its very very playable.

You are such a flaming asshole, TSQ.

Shall we go over the reasons why this isn't a great card?

1) It's a 1/1 for 2. Lets just consider a 1/1 for 2 with deathtouch. Is this a great card? No. Frankly I could end there.
2) It gives another creature deathtouch.

BUT

if either of them die the other loses death touch. So if you give a first striker deathtouch and are like 'muahahaha now I am untouchable!' and they hit the First Strike creature with, say, I dunno, removal, then, well, you've got a nice 1/1. For 2.
3) If your opponent has evasion then you're not blocking anyway.
4) Lets say everything goes right. You play this card. You give a 1/1 human token deathtouch. Your opponent attacks with a 5/5 and you block with your 1/1 human, who kills your opponent's big expensive creature. Cool. You traded one card and a token for... one card.

No, TSQ, that's a 6-8th pick at best, and I'd never run 2 in a green deck. Frankly I'd happily leave it in the board. Soulbound needs BOTH creatures in play to keep working, and that kills most shenanigans that you can do with 2 deathtouch creatures (Your opponent can use the terrifying tech of... attacking with one creature).

Now apparently you can keep grafting death touch onto new creatures, but this requires 2 things:

1) A stream of new creatures.
2) No bad luck.

Mostly I foresee blowouts where people discover mid-combat removal on a 1/1 (that's... everything. Everything kills a 1/1) suddenly made their blocking decisions immensely terrible.

[GreyICE]

Typhoid Rats looks really good. It costs B.

Also, yes, I did misunderstand how soulbond works the first time, but I still say that you're counting on a 1/1 living to make your blocking decisions not suck utter ass.

Could be fairly good in a token deck, I suppose.

[GreyICE]

Worth a look, sure. It's definitely not unplayable. But limited bomb, great card for limited? Nah. I'd be fine with having one in my 23, maaayyyyybeeee 2 if I had a lot of tokens.

[GreyICE]

Depends on what you're building. If you're going for green fat, it's clearly a high pick since it's going to help you live long enough to cast them. If you're not, then it's... really not.

It's a card for a deck that believes it has inevitability.

P.S. Did I just get told that there's no point in deciding what you're willing to take for limited? Why you're right! I'll just grab cards at random and try and make a deck out of them.

Are you fucking kidding me?

[GreyICE]

Like right now, I will flat out tell you:

Every Howlgeist after the first drops in value significantly.
You grab every copy of Thunderous Wrath you see if you're playing Red.
You want a maximum of one Cloudshift in your deck unless you have some sick 187 action

[GreyICE]

But that's what you do for limited. You definitely want to decide how your curve looks and what copies of cards, ESPECIALLY commons you want in your deck. Sure, sometimes you don't rip any and that's that, but you should have a very good grasp of where the commons stand in the pick order, and a good stance on multiple copies.

[GreyICE]

I didn't say I'd never take it. I said I'd want 1 for most decks, maybe 2 if I had some good token themes going on, and that I wouldn't prioritize it very highly.

[GreyICE]

By the way, TSQ, Sudo and Reck, I would LOVE to put together that netdraft with you guys sometime. If you're going to call me names, I'd love to watch you put your money where your mouth is. My bet is I'm gonna roll y'all like five dollar whores.

[GreyICE]

By the way, TSQ, Sudo and Reck, I would LOVE to put together that netdraft with you guys sometime. If you're going to call me names, I'd love to watch you put your money where your mouth is. My bet is I'm gonna roll y'all like five dollar whores.

seeing as how I just started playing 2-3 weeks ago, ok

Um, okay.

My first set was called Fallen Empires.

[GreyICE]

Thunderous Wrath is hax because unless you get two copies in your opening hand it doesn't really cost 6.

[GreyICE]

uh... coolstorybro?

You've been playing for 18 years, congratulations

I've been playing for 2 weeks

i fail to see your fucking point

My point is I think I'm getting lip from people who can't put their money where their mouth is.

[GreyICE]

That's awesome.

[GreyICE]

Bring it~

[GreyICE]

lol I haven't drafted since.... Shards?

Which was quite possibly the hardest format to draft ever

Shards was a pain in the ass. RGD was pretty tough once it got rolling too, there was about a thousand ways to run most drafts, and endless traps for you.

IIP was an awesome draft format too, but it gained a tad more of a 'now we roll the dice feel' in IPA.

The problem I had with Shards was that you could just get blown out by random dumbstuff even if you did everything correctly. Behomoth Sledge wasn't Jitte levels of broken (fun fact: no human on this planet has ever lost a game of Kamigawa Block Draft with a Jitte in play) but it was an uncommon, and that made that happen just often enough to really grind my gears. Also that stupid Lavalanch spell that just read 'blowout target player. Laugh.'

[GreyICE]

Whose available tonight?

Also, are we doing DII?

[GreyICE]

I think we can all agree that Besieged/SOM/SOM was the worst draft format of recent years.

I dunno. You gotta give some credit to the CBS draft. Grab shoddy creatures, try to get there. Literally the only coherent strategy.

[GreyICE]

http://netdraft.wikispaces.com/ - this explains it.

It's a real draft, sealed Innestrad looks physically painful.

[GreyICE]

New Spoilers!

Green Miracle is rare, which is good because it's a limited blowout. Constructed terrible though.
New Blue Planeswalker! Removal is its +1 ability! Sadly it's the 'tap forever' flavor. -2 is card draw, although questionable card draw. Overall, for 5, I want a little more.
Another Aura Enabler Creature! Because all of those have been good in the past.
6 mana 5/5 with deathtouch that's just worse than the titans! Ooh!

[GreyICE]

Ulamog and Emrakul don't need haste. They're death on wheels.

[GreyICE]

Like Emrakul ever doesn't resolve. What are they going to do, Mana Leak it?

Fun fact: I have had Emrakul mana leaked twice in rated games.

[GreyICE]

Nah, Type 2 and Titan-Ramp. Savage deck, and the entire thing was cheaper than 4 Jaces.

[GreyICE]

how does one beat a red burn deck without overloading their deck with counterspells?

I seem to beat all of my friends with my UW Fliers EXCEPT FOR GAMMA because he just blasts away everything I put on the field with instant cards

Hahaha.

Creatures > Removal because Removal just 1 for 1s with whatever you have down there. And if it's not instantaneous, it's in trouble. Good cards:

Moorland Haunt:


Burn THOSE out



So there's just no way to get card advantage against this monster. Ever. Splash black off anything, and go to town.



Hear this dude is tough to burn out.



Burn? Him? Hmmmm. Bet that has consequences.


But mainly I'd just do the following:

Don't overextend into Slagstorms. No, really. Don't overextend into slagstorms. They will wreck you, you will lose.
Activate Moorland Haunt if you have something relevant on the field. Only activate it at the end of his turn. Constant pressure.
Sword of War and Peace, Flashfreeze, both good sideboard answers. SoWP could probably make it main deck.

[GreyICE]

Yeah but that sacrifices every advantage UW Fliers has, that of being a fast aggro deck, in exchange for mediocre creatures that probably lose you the game anyway since you're not doing anything, and their deck is better suited for not doing anything than yours is.

It's the key of playing the beatdown wherever you are. Don't overextend, punish them every single time they do anything, keep up the pressure, and then sacrifice every resource you have to make them hit 0 life.

Or you can just opt out of the rat race:



SCOOP

[GreyICE]

There's the $0.50 version:

[GreyICE]

New spoilers!

Desolate Lighthouse is obv awesome. Lands with effects are sweet, and looting for 4 is a fine thing to do if you're running low on gas and drawing extra lands. Makes it MUCH safer to run 26 lands. Also the combo with Time Walk Miracle is simply excellent.
Bonfire of the Damned seems like it has potential, although unlike the time walk it's quite expensive, meaning you could draw it and not want to miracle, making it much worse.
Tibalt is, I dunno. For 2 mana, he's a decent upgrade on merfolk looter I suppose. Could be good, wouldn't want to see him on the other side turn 2 on the draw. Still seems like he's going to be awful way too often.

P.S. Green Removal has been here for ages, and is excellent, it's called Beast Within.

[GreyICE]

You can't race creatures with burn.

You: Galvanic Blast your face!
Me: Ghoulcrawler, 2/1
You: Burn your face!
Me: Swing for 2, drop a 2/2
You: Burn your face
Me: Creature, swing for 4
You: Burn your face?
Me: Swing for 7, yeahhhhh

Creatures are burn spells that never go away.

[GreyICE]

Someday I'll care my opponent has a 3/3 rather than Gideon Jura. Won't be soon.

[GreyICE]

I think it's a good deck... FOR ME TO POOP ON

[GreyICE]

Well the definition of too slow changes.

Like, personally, I will NEVER run a 6 in an aggro deck without an alternative casting cost. At 23 land, you're just not seeing a 6 drop before turn 8, and you want the game to have ended by then.

Draft, if you get a sweet 6, ya run it. Or even 2. In moderately to very aggressive decks.

Meanwhile, ironically, a lot of strong constructed cards drop in value. Watchwolf, for instance, is infinitely better than Selesnya Guildmage... in constructed. In limited, I'd probably take the 2 drop wayyyyy sooner than the Watchwolf, because 3/3s are replaceable, and a 2 drop that matters for the entire game isn't.

So I think he's making a good point, just in a bad way.

But yeah, if you've got 5 3 drop creatures and there's a 4 drop creature that's marginally better than some 3 drop, you take it, because you have something to do on turn 3 anyway.

[GreyICE]

They're very nearly the same card, vigilance isn't really worth 1 on a 2/2.

If it was a choice between spirit and a Moon Heron in a GU deck, I'd think your choice would probably be influenced by how many 3s and 4s you have.

[GreyICE]

Hmm, what sort of GU do you draft? Something with mill and stuff? Because Moon Heron seems pretty good most of the time. So does Orchard Spirit.

Anyway, new spoiler. Reforge the Soul, 3RR Timetwister, miracle for 1R. This seems highly playable in an aggressive red deck, because the miracle cost is fucking excellent, and the 3RR cost is fine too - draw 7s are so fucking hax. Not emptying the graveyard makes it a combo fucking engine for Pyromancer's Ascension Storm.

[GreyICE]

The 1/1 deathtoucher for 2? Well okay.

GW humans is kinda hax, so I could see it. But 3 power flyers for 4 are just sexy.

[GreyICE]

I'm around.

[GreyICE]

Yeah, those rares were sweet.

[GreyICE]

Yup. We need a communal meeting room that isn't scumchat, that would be a good start.

[GreyICE]

Actually I meant that there's too damn many messages in there for it to be easy to organize drafts.

But if you mean your internet posse, I just laugh at them.

[GreyICE]

Demonic Rising is awesome because of the synergy with Blinkmoth Nexus

1 Blinkmoth = 1 creature
Get 5/5 demon
Get another 5/5 demon

V. good.

[GreyICE]

I know. I agreed with fixing the mutavault trick, but the damage on the stack wasn't a change I loved. I mean I understand why, but it still kinda sucks.

[GreyICE]

They were fixed in the same rules update. Give mutavault -1/-1. Okay, cool. Opponent goes to give it another -1/-1. Reactivate mutavault. It rebecomes a 2/2, then gets -1/-1.

That was an example of a legitimately stupid rules hole that needed to be closed, unlike combat damage on stack, which had real uses.

[GreyICE]

No, you have a 5/5.

http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/a ... /20091105a

Layer 7B controls P/T setting effects, while layer 7C controls P/T modifying effects.

Previously they were both in the same layer, and thus applied in timestamp order.

[GreyICE]

Meh, layer rules are the hardest part of magic to remember, and that document rocks for remembering them.

Fortunately they come up incredibly rarely.

[GreyICE]

Considering the fact that that is the deck list that just won the pro tour, I think you are indeed missing something.

The decks game plan is to stall until it can take over the game with absurdly powerful spells, and the miracle action gives it a solid early game offensive as well. All it needs to do is resolve one of its entreats, and with its board control its probably gg.

Furthermore, when you miracle something, it allows you to ignore timing rules, meaning you can cast it when your opponents tap out by think twicing or thought scouring into it.

Also, the only viable counterspell in that format is dissipate anyway.

Hmmmm...

I think its a fringe-y keyword that people like you will think is awesome and will therefore complain about when it doesn't work as well as they expected. I am reminded of the card browbeat. When it first came out everyone was scrambling to add 4 to any deck they had that contained red, but the problem was it does exactly what you don't want like 90% of the time. You were almost always better up with a straight up burn spell in the slot. These cards seem similar in the sense that people think they're going to work awesome, but they forget that they're going to be playing them as ridiculously overcosted spells probably most of the time.

Shrug.

GreyIce DOES realize that timewalkish effects have been printed before, right?

Guess I definitely should have taken you up on the avatar bet. Still, I never count on the best cards/best deck actually WINNING the Pro Tour. So much is down to variance and player skill that it doesn't take home the bacon.

But I do owe you a nice fat plate of "I told you so"

[GreyICE]

Sure. Tooth and Nail, Bitterblossom, Jace TMS, Bloodbraid Elf, I can probably think of a few more.

Point is Temporal Mastery itself and the Miracle mechanic in general both have a hell of a lot of potential.

[GreyICE]

Oh, yeah, your logic is flawless. "These powerful cards that are clearly good in any format were good in block, this is good in block, therefore this is good."

Unfortunately, the reverse is my point. There are so many cards that were powerhouses in block that didn't even get a whiff in other formats.

I still maintain that bonfire of the damned and entreat will be the only miracle cards that see serious constructed play. Maybe terminus, but there are just way better options in the wrath catagory (and I suspect always will be, outside of such a limited format like block) Temporal mastery showed up as a bit player in one control deck (

hey, remember that time you said it would be the center of a combo deck, pretty much the opposite of what happened?

) that happened to do well at one tournament in a very very limited format. Get your knickers untwisted, please.

No actually, I don't.

Care to quote me saying that?

It's so much easier to win arguments when you argue with the voices in your head, eh TSQ?

And everything with you is an argument.

[GreyICE]

I'm just going to leave this quote here, TSQ.

GreyIce DOES realize that timewalkish effects have been printed before, right?

[GreyICE]

So you're running a 3UU 4/4 with no evasion in a world with titans.

Why would you do this thing?

[GreyICE]

So, I'm playing an M13 prerelease event.

Match 1, game 1, I had to mull to 4 to get a land in my hand, then was stuck at one land all game and lost.

Match 1, game 2, I had to mull to 4 to get a land in my hand, then was stuck at one land all game and lost.

Match 2, game 1, I had to mull to 4 to get a land in my hand, then was stuck at one land all game and lost.

Match 2, game 2, I had to mull to 4 to get a land in my hand, then was stuck at one land all game and lost.

Whoever says 17 lands in a 40 card deck is right is a horrible person.

16-18 lands in your 40 card draft deck is right in 95% of all formats.

Shuffle better

If you're getting statistically highly unlikely results chances are that your shuffling is at fault. At least 13 good riffles for randomization, remember? Pile shuffling does jack, remember?

[GreyICE]

oh.

Well the shuffler on MTGO is well known to be broken.

[GreyICE]

nah bro, it's busted~

[GreyICE]

Demonic taskmaster is awful in limited.

Do you really think a 4/3 flyer on turn 3 is going to win you the game? If it's not, what are your options?


1) Play 4/3 flyer. Swing every turn. Win on turn 9, assuming no blockers/removal. Yay? Every time you drop a blocker to stall opponent it immediately dies
2) Play 4/3 flyer. Swing minimally. Leave back to block. Opponent gets to build board while you do nothing. Yay? Fail.

lets not even mention what happens if Defang or Spectral Prison is played on it.

[GreyICE]

Oh, it's hard to beat ST4K$ (aka the four thousand dollar solution) for nutty deck costs

[GreyICE]

Also, was that a miracle deck played in Legacy?

Anything to say about that, TSQ?

[GreyICE]

I never said decks would be '46 miracles, 24 land.' I said that they'd see play. And miracle cards were fairly essential to that deck's success.

[GreyICE]

I never said decks would be '46 miracles, 24 land.' I said that they'd see play. And miracle cards were fairly essential to that deck's success.

I don't think anyone argued Miracles wouldn't see play. It was argued that they were gimmicky and wouldn't be widespread/core to multiple deckbuilding strategies/archetypes.

Pretty sure you're wrong, so go back and look at what TSQ was arguing.

Also, 4 cards in a deck can define the entire deck. Am I wrong?

[GreyICE]

I think its a fringe-y keyword that people like you will think is awesome and will therefore complain about when it doesn't work as well as they expected. I am reminded of the card browbeat. When it first came out everyone was scrambling to add 4 to any deck they had that contained red, but the problem was it does exactly what you don't want like 90% of the time. You were almost always better up with a straight up burn spell in the slot. These cards seem similar in the sense that people think they're going to work awesome, but they forget that they're going to be playing them as ridiculously overcosted spells probably most of the time.

Shrug.

[GreyICE]

Am I wrong for thinking Curse of Stalked Prey is good as hell and worth building a deck around

Yes. The combat damage restriction ruins all its combo potential, and the ability to build up your creatures slowly isn't worth the loss of a card.

For 1G I'd probably skip an enchantment that put a +1/+1 counter on each of your creatures at end of turn if you controlled that creature at start of turn. And that's not conditional on being able to attack profitably.

[GreyICE]

Look, Fate, here's the question you have to ask yourself when making a deck and you actually intend to win.

"Am I doing this because I'm making a deck that will win the game, or am I doing this because 'I want to be different.'"

If at any point you find yourself putting in a card that is worse because 'everyone uses card X' then you're not playing to win. You can be doing all sorts of things, but you're not playing to win.

Look, you play League of Legends. You can build ADC LeBlanc, right? Berserker Greaves, Infinity Edge, Phantom Dancer, etc. ADC LeBlanc. It's different. It's unique. It's not like all the other things that other people play. Of course you could be playing a real ADC like Caitlyn, Ezreal, or Vayne, but hey, you've got ADC LeBlanc.

Now MtG, to be fair, is not a team game, and you can only have your own goals when playing. So play for what you want. If you want to play your own decks to be different, go for it. But if you're avoiding cards because everyone uses them, you're playing the MtG version of ADC LeBlanc.

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ignore bitches have fun

also a 1G enchantment for delayed get a counter on all your dudes every turn would be super broken, people play cathar's crusade and something that similar for 2 mana would have the shit played out of it with stuff like champion of lambholt or regenerating creatures plus rancor

Meh, it'd be okay. I doubt it would be played much, the fundamental costs, a card, your second turn, and a turn per incremental growth, are very fair for the reward (your creatures gradually get big).

I can't imagine standard has become so weak that cards THAT fair are actually any good. Eldrazi Monument, Umezawa's Jitte, Jace the Mind Sculptor, Disciple of the Vault, now THOSE were unfair cards. Unfair cards are always what are broken, not fair cards.

Guildmage seems solid, the net effect is really sweet. Depends on the quality of lifelinkers in the format (I have no idea) as you don't want to be spending six to get the effect very often (you could in a pinch, but meh)

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it's worth noting that Disciple of the vault would have been an entirely fair card if printed in LITERALLY ANY OTHER ENVIRONMENT.

Basically the whole block was Borked.

Disciple of the Vault would have been a BAD card if it was printed in most other environments (it would have been borked in Urza block too, but so very much was borked then).

But the fundamental nature of Disciple is that it damages your opponent for free with no restriction for 1 mana.

It's like Sword of the Meek. It's inherently unfair, since it's literally a limitless artifact return from the graveyard with no cooldown (squee) and no cost. It takes the right card to break it, and without it it's trash, but it's inherently breaking the rules of the game (1 use of mana sources per turn, 1 land per turn, 1 card per turn, 1 card per card, 1 attack per creature, ~1 P/T per mana cost plus 1 for the card cost (modern only) cost of breaking these rules ~2-4 mana or other resources depending on the rule and how you're breaking it). And not like "being a little more efficient than the rules" but "ignoring the rules of design."

Dredge - inherently unfair
Zoo - inherently fair

Doesn't mean that Dredge is better than zoo, but you'll get a lot of 'omgwtfbbq' out of dredge.

[GreyICE]

what

Urza saga "untap X lands when you cast this"

Was downright worst mechanic ever. Ever. Ever. Ever. There is no card printed with that mechanic that does NOT make me want to rip the damn card apart and pee on it.

Gave us winners like Frantic Search (best example of a card that is fundamentally unfair even though it's weak ever, maybe except Lotus Petal), Treachery, Time Spiral, Palinchron, etc.

[GreyICE]

Gradual advantages are almost always fair. I have a tough time thinking of a comes-into-play mechanic that was inherently broken except Palinchron (even Worldeater dragon wasn't about what happened when it came into play). Chunking out the game with expensive incremental advantages is usually fun.

Now on-cast mechanics can be absurd. Bloodbraid elf?

[GreyICE]

Gradual advantages are almost always fair. I have a tough time thinking of a comes-into-play mechanic that was inherently broken except Palinchron (even Worldeater dragon wasn't about what happened when it came into play). Chunking out the game with expensive incremental advantages is usually fun.

Now on-cast mechanics can be absurd. Bloodbraid elf?

Primeval titan, in the context of valakut, had a pretty unfair citp ability, it was really close to just being 'I win the game'.

Edit: I think Planeswalkers kind of ruined that subset of creature that was very powerful, kind of expensive, but did nothing right away. Planeswalkers tend to be comparably difficult to answer, but can all do something the turn they come down. Thats why most creatures these days either cost 1-2 mana, or have some immediate effect on the board in the 3+ spot (be that through haste or a citp ability).

Fair enough, but 6 mana cards follow different rules, thanks to the 5/6 dichotomy.

Anyway, I don't think the category of 'expensive creatures that take a while to work' was never one that was truly tournament viable. The closest I remember was Akroma, and she was mostly just to seal the game up (and did something when she came down anyway). Other than that, most expensive things have always needed to do things immediately at the tournament level.

It's one of the reasons planeswalkers were made, beyond the marketing/theme. The design space for incremental advantages were artifacts/enchantments, and those really lacked counterplay (playing W/G or W/G/R? No? Have a counter? No? Sucks to be you).

[GreyICE]

Actually it's gone up then down. Used to be any win condition that cost more than 3, or maybe 4, was practically pointless.

Rose to Akroma, and the rise of the hyper expensive cards, and then dropped down again.

[GreyICE]

Well, how expensive a card should be to be balanced always depends on the surrounding environment. My main issue with the game is the speed of it- it feels very much like games either end quickly, or stretch to eternity, with little in the way of middle ground.

Well it's also balanced around the math of the game (7 card starting hand, 1 card per turn (yes p/d). With this math, at 24 cards, you can expect to reach ~5 mana on turn 5 without acceleration.

6 mana cards have a higher threshold because 6 mana basically requires acceleration or card draw (resources invested) to come out before around turn 8, and because turn 6-8 is way late. Due to this you'll notice a HUGE threshold between what makes a playable 5 and what makes a playable 6.

[GreyICE]

Well, how expensive a card should be to be balanced always depends on the surrounding environment. My main issue with the game is the speed of it- it feels very much like games either end quickly, or stretch to eternity, with little in the way of middle ground.

Well it's also balanced around the math of the game (7 card starting hand, 1 card per turn (yes p/d). With this math, at 24 cards, you can expect to reach ~5 mana on turn 5 without acceleration.

6 mana cards have a higher threshold because 6 mana basically requires acceleration or card draw (resources invested) to come out before around turn 8, and because turn 6-8 is way late. Due to this you'll notice a HUGE threshold between what makes a playable 5 and what makes a playable 6.

I haven't done the math right now (and don't care to) But based in my memory of an article I read on this, 5 drops don't typically hit until turn 6 with 24 mana sources out of a 60 card deck, with 1 draw a turn. (math that's too simplistic has needing 5/24ths your decks mana, which should work out to 12.5 cards proportionally, which is turn 5.5 on the draw, and turn 6.5 on the play

Sure, but the good part is that if you don't have 5 mana, you probably have something that's not a 5 drop to play. It's why most standard aggro decks top out with ~3-5 5 drops.

Very rarely does an aggro deck run a 6. Only ones I can think of are mono-red things, or ones where they're cheating a bit on mana/curve/draws. Even midrange decks don't like them much.

[GreyICE]

Nah, got rid of my Xbox years ago like an idiot because moving across bodies of water is teh suck.

NEXT UP FOR WHO WANTS TO BE A RULES JUDGE:

"Aurelia's Fury deals X damage divided as you choose among any number of target creatures and/or players. Tap each creature dealt damage this way. Players dealt damage this way can't cast noncreature spells this turn."

This is an instant spell.

If I place this on the stack in RESPONSE to an instant cast that I don't want to be cast, it resolves....

What happens to the noncreature spell they just played?

Is it now invalid to have played it and fizzled? Or does it count as "casting" when you put it on the stack in the first place?

They already CAST the spell. When the spell goes on the stack it is cast.

[GreyICE]

Why isn't tarmogoyf banned yet? Is it because a 5/6 for two is fair, or because wizards doesn't want to loss of people who spent $300 for a playset?

Tarmogoyf is a fair card.

It's a powerful card, but inherently fair.

It's really hard to make it a 5/6 on turn 3, at least without some SERIOUS nonsense-bad cards in your deck (Turn 1 Careful Study not possible), meaning it's more like a 2/3 or 3/4 for 2, and that's really not too far above power curve.

Later in the game it's obviously a lot better, but later in the game is later.

[GreyICE]

Well 3-set blocks have sucked for drafting for a long time. I figured this was coming back when I quit buying in M12, am shocked to discover it's only now happening.

On a side note, I'd hope they'd look at evergreening certain cards reliably, so people have a set of basics they can build on. Maybe just pick a "corest of the core set" and turn them into eternal cards that are always available.

In other news, getting back into drafting, so far so good. Second draft I remembered Red is a bro, and just proceeded to rock faces.

TLDR: Draft Red in core sets.

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Doubt they're abolishing them, they said they'd be looking for other ways to serve newer players. My thought is an evergreen core, similar to the original intent of Portal.

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I want the neofires that gives my creatures haste and lets me draw a card when a 4+ power one comes into play.

I friggin loved fires. Loved it to death. Such a great deck (Burst your face for 14, GG!). This one doesn't have quite the same enabler as Saprorling Burst, but I think it's gonna be damn good just the same.

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I'm less on the fence. Morph has always been a table-flippingly bad mechanic IMHO. I really don't understand the return. I wonder how many people are getting game losses this time around. It also slows the format down.

That and the fact there's a number of enormous bombs in the format leads me to believe this will be an exercise in throwing bombs.

[GreyICE]

I'm building Temur Ascension deck. I really need the tree and World Eater, but then the deck should be rolling.

Drawing a card off playing fatties with haste is fairly silly.

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Careful Study seems like it would combo well, knocking it down pretty quickly. Giving Madness a free way to restock seems fairly solid.

Pauper High Tide can probably also use it nicely.

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Yeah... and Dig Through Time is just worse than Treasure Cruise.

The power level on Delve cards is terribly balanced. There's utter crap for infinity mana, then two of the best draw spells in the past 10 years.

[GreyICE]

3 CC Plow under? Yes please (even if it's brutally hard to ever charge it again)

[GreyICE]

Brutally hard is an understatement. It can't charge itself ever.

Contagion Engine go!

[GreyICE]

Well presumably in any format that card was legal in, you'd be able to Fastbond your lands back into play.

[GreyICE]

Well... vintage, so yes.

Actually its probably not even good in vintage. Maybe EDH?

[GreyICE]

Any of youse located in seattle? Whats the best store around there?

I'm an enormous fan of Meeple Games, but Card Kingdom is the best bet for M:tG specifically. I personally HATE playing there, because their stupid cinder block walls bounce the noise so when it gets loud it gets intolerably loud ridiculously quickly, but the competition is definitely at its high point there. They have 30-50 person drafts every weekend (see intolerable noise levels).

By the by, we totally should meet up sometime. I'll introduce you to Mage Wars You free on Thursdays? Meeple Games has an open gaming night then.

[GreyICE]

50 person draft night sounds insane and I want to be a part of it. That many draft pods firing at once would just be silly.

They were up to like 7-8 tables last time I was there.

They're shameless about table mixing though, which turned me off, and, as I said, the noise level is truly absurd.

[GreyICE]

Noise levels? Heehee not a problem- im deaf.

Ill check out both of those, and meet you sometime. Maybe even this thursday. Ill talk to you more, when im done settling in. The 4 1/2 day 3,200 mile drive is quite taxing lol


Also, what formats are availble at those 2 stores? I play standard/legacy/edh/limited.

Oh good god, I skipped doing that one when I moved.

Meeple games has Standard, casual freeplay on Tuesdays, and draft. Card Kingdom has Modern, Draft, and Standard that I know of. Probably someone does an EDH league, I don't have an EDH deck, and Legacy... Legacy is a special fish.

Anyway, yeah, shoot me a PM! I go to a bunch of board game meetups and stuff around here.

[GreyICE]

I haven't gone, so I have no idea. I've gradually fallen out of playing a ton of magic. Card kingdom on Leahy Avenue is the one I've been to: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Card+ ... f198776515

Meeple Games is worth the extra 10 minutes, their café is so much nicer than Café Mox.

[GreyICE]

I dunno, I feel like the direction for R&D has been set by market research and sales figures for a while now. MaRo is often handed the task of justifying marketing decisions, like making the magic frames more similar to Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon, to the drop in complexity, to the shift from combo-engine type decks to creature-midrange type decks. MaRo's sets were Urza block and Odyssey Block, and neither of them resemble modern magic.

[GreyICE]

See, I don't think the frames were particularly a response to Yu-Gi-Oh and I think a large, understated part of Magic's continued success in the market is because the cards themselves actually look professional. The recent updates were more to combat the increasing quality of fakes than anything imo.

Professional, and its synonym sterile, are so overrated. I don't play games because I want to look professional. I'm a fucking engineer, if I want professional I'll do it at my job. I play games for fun, and the new frames have always been less magical. It's funny because Planeshift really had great frames that were done amazingly in the new style (if less sterile).

It's also funny because Jeskai Ascendancy demonstrates that when they take a risk nowadays, they have no idea how to balance it. I'll take a 3 mana card that is an engine enabler, mana producer, and win condition please!

[GreyICE]

Meh, I started playing with Fallen Empires, I'll shake my old man cane at things whenever I want to.

Also weren't the Planar Chaos cards with the alternate frame called "Planeshifted"? I seem to recall they were.

[GreyICE]

Old school players use Feldon's Cane. Curse your modern cards

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Does anyone else remember when the white mana symbol was an 8 pointed star? DO YOU MOTHERFUCKERS?

[GreyICE]

Not quite THAT oldschool.

I do remember when Demonic Consultation was a junk rare and Squandered Resources and Cadaverous Bloom were junk too (contrary to popular belief, Necropotence was NEVER considered weak. All you had to do was cast the card to realize what you had. Although in a land of stasis and Winter Orb it's far less powerful than it should be)

[GreyICE]

Pay a blue. Pay a blue. Pay a blue. Pay a blue. Pay a blue.

[GreyICE]

When people find a way to stick a 2GR card in a deck with a 1UUU card because it's that good.

[GreyICE]

Klazam! Come to game night with me on Thursday!

[GreyICE]

Excellent!

[GreyICE]

Yeah, that was settled as NOT being the case back during the arcbound ravager era, where people would try and claim they could Magma Jet a ravager after someone sacced like 8 artifacts, leading to "Trigger on the stack, does it resolve" bullshit that would waste 3 minutes and lead to the WotC ruling.

[GreyICE]

Seven years ago that was the rule, as I recall, hence the rule change, as it was utter bullshit. It made an important skill in playing the top deck in the format to speak slowly and clearly and waste tons of time.

Then the Jitte era added a whole new level to the BS.

[GreyICE]

Treasure Cruise and Delver are some of the laziest forms of "strong card" imaginable. Delver is a 3/2 flyer for U that requires you to run cards you were already running in blue. That's not in any way interesting design. It's like Tarmogoyf. "Do what you're doing already and I'll reward you with ridiculously off-curve power". Same with Treasure Cruise - we know "U - Draw 3" is broken, this is the oldest rule in magic. In vintage people ran a 1U sorcery primarily to go fetch the U - Draw 3 card, to the point where it got restricted. They printed "U - Draw 3". What did they think would happen? The card was absurdly strong when you had to wait infinity turns to get your cards.

Here, let me design a great card: "U - Draw 3 cards". Ooh, it needs a drawback. "U - Draw 3 cards, then return a land you control to your hand." Witness the design.

Huh, that card is at once totally broken and might actually be weaker than Treasure Cruise.

[GreyICE]

You don't set up a better story by having an origin story. You set up better stories by having strong characters, coherent motivations, and compelling events.

So far magic lore has lacked that for... um... kinda a long time. Since Weatherlight really.

[GreyICE]

Weatherlight was pretty awful actually, imo. It veered too much in the opposite direction and became kinda self-servicing.

The best two stories in Magic were prob Kamigawa and Lorwyn. How much of that is due to being self-contained, though, who knows(also I have a special attachment to Lorwyn so I'm not the best judge). OG Ravnica was a very serviceable political thriller, too(part of why LOLMAZE is so absolutely abominable). Mirrodin sucked soooo much though. Those books had no thought put into them and were such a mess. A somewhat hot mess though--it was so fucked up and plot thread-crashing that the third novel literally began with Glissa falling asleep for 2 years and completely retconning the first two books. I was like ten at the time and even I could tell that this wasn't how it should be. It's telling that when we returned to Mirrodin, Slobad(the other protagonist) was killed offscreen by goblins--we only knew he died at all because Brady Dommermouth used to post WoG on the WotC forums! And that's not even going into the hot mess that was

Quest for Karn

!

I actually think the Mirrodin novels are why I love consuming dramatically poor media.

I don't have much hope for Origins, although I can't wait to see the walkers. I actually don't think the overarching storyline is too bad. I mean, it's schlock, but that's okay. You can make good schlock(ISD is a good example of that!). It's when the schlock is also stupid(RTR) or boring(THS) that you have problems.

IMHO, the best stories were actually Fallen Empires (Tevesh Szat, the Doom of Fools...) and Ice Ages. Although brothers war belongs in there. The stories were unique, the characters were strange, good didn't always win, and evil was hard to quantify. Sure, Lim-Dul was evil, but Katarina, ostensibly of a "good" color, was very isolationist/dangerous, and Freylise was awesome (Nissa is a pale shadow). There was a time where there were actual interesting, weird, experimental novels based on the worlds of magic being produced. You can almost tell when Hasbro's PR department stepped in and started regulating them - no more plane with a 10,000 year war between two walkers simply because one realized that there was a threat he couldn't take, and used the war to create a walker so monstrously powerful that he himself could be defeated. No more brothers war, no Ashnod. Do you realize how weird it was to read Xantcha's story next to Urza's? A monster learning to become human, traveling with a human that had learned to become a monster? The monster being the one hope against Yawgmoth, a being beyond the concept of evil?

The low point was either Mercadian Masques (utterly irrelevant side story) or fucking Onslaught Block (seriously... the story was just SO BAD and the writing was TERRIFYINGLY bad). Ravnica was serviceable, but I'd never really choose to buy it if I was purchasing fantasy novels, minus the logo. The rest have generally been some flavor of horseshit.

Really, it's a shame. Marketing departments have become so slick nowadays, especially with the "nerd stuff". Used to be in the 90s that companies would throw shit at the wall and see what happened. I mean I don't miss the colossal fuckups and giant failures, irregular schedules, incomprehensible decisions, but maybe my love of Kickstarter is that I remember what I missed about the hobby.

[GreyICE]

for a "keep" hand, yeah, but for hands that could go either way, it is now better to mull because you get 6.5 cards?

It raised the threshold of "what is a keepable hand" certainly. How much? Not as much as you'd think, imho.

I think it mostly cuts down on the mull to 5s, which is good, because it's quite difficult to come back from mulligan to 5.

[GreyICE]

Wait, they're reprinting Donate and Natural Order?

[GreyICE]

Donate is red and target opponent, not player, I believe.

New Natural Order is 1GG, sac a dude. Can grab any creature with CMC X, X being sac'd CMC plus 2. So Pod-like. Self exiles so you can't go Bird into this into Witness.

In Standard, Goblin Dark Dwellers, flashback into Atarka, seems dece.

Also new uncommon - 1B opponent discards at random, Delirium = discard 2.

Oh, so no turn 2 Natural Order>Progenitus then.

Well that's a much worse card. Still good, but lacks a certain punch that a turn 2 10/10 pro-everything brings.

[GreyICE]

Well I played sealed magic with gamma. And he was a good partner and all, but it kind of reinforces why I'm done with Magic. There's just better games out there.

[GreyICE]

Also P.S if anyone has any magic rules questions just send me a message I am a L1

So I control Opalescence, Confusion in the Ranks, and Day of the Dragons. I use Planar Guide to exile them until end of turn, but my opponent flashed in Humility using Vedalken Orrery. What happens at end of turn?

[GreyICE]

Oh JK Opalascence never leaves the Battlefield. So Humality is the newest "Effect" on the field. So Day of the Dragons and Confusion enter the battlefield as 1/1 with no abilities because of static abilities.

That's how I see it.

So humility would be newer even though they all re-enter at the same time?

Also humility questions are best questions~