Magic: The Gathering,GO TEAM MS!

Wed Jan 31, 2018 6:07 am

If you want to play blue black control, there is a shell already and its probably a lot better than anything you could be doing with pirates:

3 Torrential Gearhulk
4 Ravenous Chupacabra
2 The Scarab God
6 Island
6 Swamp
4 Drowned Catacomb
2 Evolving Wilds
4 Fetid Pools
2 Field of Ruin
1 Ipnu Rivulet
4 Censor
1 Consign // Oblivion
4 Disallow
3 Essence Scatter
4 Fatal Push
4 Hieroglyphic Illumination
2 Moment of Craving
2 Vraska's Contempt
2 Search for Azcanta

sb:
3 Glint-Sleeve Siphoner
1 Vizier of Many Faces
2 Moment of Craving
3 Negate
1 Tetzimoc, Primal Death
1 Arguel's Blood Fast
1 Bontu's Last Reckoning
3 Duress

Ghalta is seeing some amount of play, but very little and its answered by chupacabra, essence scatter and disallow in this list.

You should be more concerned with answering the scarab god, which is the defining card in standard right now. Along with hazoret and aggressive red/white/black creature decks, 5 mana is just too much. You'll be dead before you can cast it in a lot of matchups.

Wed Jan 31, 2018 6:32 am

If you want to win you should just play good cards. Most of the cards that make treasure aren't very good.

And unless you're doing something super rampy with the tokens to go way over the top, they're not much of a pay off either.

Wed Jan 31, 2018 6:39 am

3 Marionette Master
4 Tezzeret the Schemer
1 Vraska, Relic Seeker
1 Forest
1 Island
3 Plains
3 Swamp
1 Arch of Orazca
4 Concealed Courtyard
2 Drowned Catacomb
4 Evolving Wilds
2 Glacial Fortress
2 Irrigated Farmland
2 Orazca Relic
4 Renegade Map
4 Treasure Map
4 Hidden Stockpile
4 Ixalan's Binding
4 Fatal Push
4 Settle the Wreckage
2 Profane Procession
1 Fumigate

sb:
4 Regal Caracal
2 Cast Out
3 Moment of Craving
2 Negate
1 Vraska, Relic Seeker
3 Duress

Here's a list that top 16d the scg team event. Not sure how good it is.

Wed Jan 31, 2018 6:47 am

This deck is VERY strong against creatures. Hidden stockpile does work.

If anything this deck is mostly weak against counters I think.

Mon Mar 05, 2018 4:19 am

Heres my fool proof strategy:

1) Go to PPTQ.
2) Go 2-3.
3) Have teammate win PPTQ.
4) ????
5) Qualify for RPTQ.

Tue Mar 06, 2018 4:28 am

My main advice is to not play 8 rack. It's not a real deck, and its even worse when everyone is curving bloodbraid into k command.

Tue Mar 06, 2018 5:39 am

I also think affinity is pretty poorly positioned right now for what its worth.

Tue Mar 06, 2018 6:08 am

When was that?

Like the reason is probably simply because it doesn't use any cards that other decks want.

Tue Mar 06, 2018 1:20 pm

yes, its compelling for that reason, but 60 basics also doesnt take any cards away from anything else, if you get my point.

If the deck is poorly positioned it doesn't matter how much it constrains your other decks.

Tue Mar 06, 2018 1:21 pm

but at the same time I'm playing a modern 2.5k this weekend and I'm sleeving up lantern because I love it, despite the fact that jund is an atrocious matchup.

Mon Mar 19, 2018 2:13 pm

yes, in legacy.

though I saw your result. good job!

Tue Mar 20, 2018 4:28 am

I go to a lot of GPs. Chambers advice is good. GPs are much less fun without friends.

Here are two articles by Reid Duke that you might find helpful:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... 2015-05-18
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... 2015-05-26

In terms of baseline stuff, I would bring a water bottle and snacks with you. Grand Prix day 1s are 10 hour affairs, and they're held in convention centers that will probably not have good food or drink options. (I once spent 20$ on a salad and a jumbo pretzel at a GP.) Make sure you have all the things you will need to play the format. Dice, sleeves, etc.

If you've done a sealed pptq before, the process of building your deck wont be terribly different from what you're used to.

Fri Mar 23, 2018 3:15 am

I'll be in cinci this weekend.

Mon Mar 26, 2018 3:24 am

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdat ... kID=119747

Was 8th going into rd at at 6-1 and had to play. Lost my win and in.

I had a blast and thought I played really well, plus I beat reid duke.

It was a fun weekend.

Mon Mar 26, 2018 3:25 am

Curse me losing rd 1.

Mon Mar 26, 2018 3:39 am

Also my car mate won the tournament so I had to stay til the end anyway for extra daggers.

Fri Mar 30, 2018 10:52 am

dont do it

Fri Mar 30, 2018 1:11 pm

dude it will be ok.

no matter what it'll be fine.

its not that different from any other tournament.

just try to sleep, its important.

Sat Mar 31, 2018 4:05 pm

Wed Nov 11, 2020 10:03 am

I am vintage cubing right now. But I miss traveling to GPs with the boys so much it hurts physically.

Wed Nov 11, 2020 10:44 am

If you're ever going to one I'm going to and need to borrow anything let me know.

Fri Nov 13, 2020 7:16 pm

Pretty much anything rebecca guay has ever done.

Fri Nov 13, 2020 7:18 pm

I also own these babies:

Sat Dec 05, 2020 9:40 pm

Including when I like an idiot decided to RPTQ in texas.

Mon Dec 07, 2020 10:32 am

In post 8011, Horsewoman wrote:
In post 8009, Thestatusquo wrote:Including when I like an idiot decided to RPTQ in texas.
Lol remember when pro tours were called 'Pro Tours' and qualifying for them made sense and didn't require playing hundreds of online games a month with a 65% winrate? I do (not that I was ever qualifying either way)

I mean just qualify on mtgo?

Wed Dec 09, 2020 6:36 pm

We brewed up legacy battle of wits in my home friends discord tonight.

It was horrifying.

Wed Dec 09, 2020 7:18 pm

AotSS is just "my control deck only has to run 2 cards as a win condition instead of an aetherling,"

It's definitely not an alt win condition any more than "Elixer of immortality my sphinx's rev until you lose the will to play the game." is

The win condition is countering all their shit and killing the rest of it, not AotSS

Fri Jan 08, 2021 11:52 pm

In post 8047, kdowns wrote:
In post 8009, Thestatusquo wrote:Including when I like an idiot decided to RPTQ in texas.

Didn't I meet you at an event like a week or two before that or was it at the RPTQ. Wait, I first met you at the invitational I think?

I think that might be true, but I don't remember if we interacted that much at the invi.

Fri Jan 08, 2021 11:53 pm

I think we have some crossover here, so I just wanted to throw this out here in case anyone is interested.

Sun Mar 21, 2021 12:13 pm

In post 8056, Isis wrote:I am a "take the Burst Lightning" person on a very very deep level

I get the reference.

Sat May 08, 2021 7:25 am

So you want to play vintage.

Thu May 13, 2021 9:22 am

Anyone who follows me on twitter will know how I feel about this.

Sun Jun 13, 2021 3:04 pm

I played a vax only prerelease and it was ok but playing paper magic again is incredible and then I went out for drinks with friends for the first time in a year and that was also incredible.

Sun Jun 13, 2021 3:16 pm

Did you know that no one is making you live in Texas?

Sun Jun 13, 2021 7:39 pm

Not sure if everyone knows this or not but one of the things I've spent the pandemic doing is building a gauntlet of old historical standard decks I loved from the past 20 or so years of magic to battle against each other.

Here is UB psychatog!

I've been toying around with the idea of printing little insert cards to go with them so people will have some idea about what the decks contain, so I did some fiddling around tonight and here is a first draft.

Images are super blurry since I just took a screenshot of the preview tool on the print company I was using.

The red line isn't in the design its to show where the print cut line is.

Any feedback would be most welcome.

Mon Jun 14, 2021 10:32 am

Yeah I think I'll just tell people the decklist is on the back if they want it so they don't have to look at it.

Also I've noticed that some people just prefer to grab a deck and shuffle up without even looking at what's in it and I respect that.

Wed Jun 16, 2021 10:17 am

I think I shall go play paper legacy tonight.

Wed Jun 16, 2021 5:16 pm

They did. World champs decks are a thing. They've been pretty handy for getting some of the more pricy cards in some of the other decks.

Tue Jun 29, 2021 4:05 pm

they came in!

Sun Sep 19, 2021 2:59 pm

I've been really enjoying this standard.

Sun Sep 19, 2021 3:23 pm

I brewed up a UR dragons deck right after rotation and it turns out I was not the only one with the idea lol.

This is what I've been playing. Almost up to Diamond in a few days:

Sun Sep 19, 2021 3:24 pm

Almost all of the miserable stuff has rotated!

Wed Sep 22, 2021 12:29 pm

I thought ub was the consensus best archetype?

Wed Sep 22, 2021 12:50 pm

My point was just like I wouldn't expect it to be open very often.

Thu Sep 23, 2021 6:13 am

Wait you get both things? As written kind of implies that you do. If that's true the card is insane. 4 mana 3/2 which cascades into another spell and gives you card selection?

Thu Sep 23, 2021 7:05 am

Oh I didnt even suss that out in my read through. Yeah I mean a 3/2 for 4 which draws the best card in your top 3 when cast is strong.

Thu Sep 23, 2021 9:48 am

We have been destroyed.

Mon Sep 27, 2021 4:46 am

I did a cursory look at building delver in standard: went right to look at the available two mana interaction... And then stopped trying to build delver. Pleased you have found success with it

Mon Sep 27, 2021 9:54 am

Is the format really in a place where we're playing THREE maindeck disdainful stroke?

Mon Sep 27, 2021 10:51 am

I think the surgical counter is super well positioned rn.

Tue Sep 28, 2021 6:45 am

I just got the cards I was missing for elementals in paper. $200 while ALREADY owning the whole manabase.

Magic is an absurd hobby.

Tue Sep 28, 2021 6:50 am

I tend to want to just own the whole format. I was mostly there with modern and legacy before covid. Then they released like 40000000$ worth of staples.

Tue Sep 28, 2021 7:00 am

I mean mostly what that means is having enough duals and other staples that you can play anything with borrowing a few cards from friends with the exception of very niche decks. I never owned cradles, for instance, or tabernacles.

Tue Sep 28, 2021 7:01 am

I've been playing magic for over 25 years now. I've picked up a few things.

Tue Sep 28, 2021 7:04 am

its frustrating because I used to be able to argue with a straight face that legacy was cheaper than standard, because once you make your initial buy/trade in, you're set. You have to pick up a few playsets of cards per year and then you don't have to buy more cards as opposed to standard where you have to make $2-300 investments every few months.

But like...That's just not true anymore. WotC has done a very good job of making every format just astronomically more expensive by printing more and more ridiculous $25-100 staples every few months to the point where its hard for me to keep up, even.

Tue Sep 28, 2021 7:14 am

I think the best strategy for eternal formats is just buy lands and then pick up random staples from time to time and borrow the rest.

Tue Sep 28, 2021 7:43 am

Yeah I feel that.

At least your cradles have likely tripled in value.

Tue Sep 28, 2021 9:26 am

I mean, it does speak to the formats being relatively diverse and not stagnant if nothing else.

Sat Oct 02, 2021 7:10 am

You have lions eye diamonds?

Hell yeah. I've played a ton of ruby storm

Sun Oct 10, 2021 3:51 pm

Anyone considering Vegas?

Sat Oct 23, 2021 4:35 pm

Played a modern 5k today and theres a legacy 5k tomorrow.

6-2'd the modern. Sucks to miss t8 by a loss but whatever.

I played this:
https://mtgmelee.com/Decklist/View/177109 (no idea why it says bant combo)

Sun Oct 24, 2021 6:12 pm

In post 8249, Isis wrote:there's other decks that demonstrate it better than this one but it's pretty funny that jtms was ever banned from a format he's not good enough for.

The deck looks fun. Playing 1+1 Chalice seems like a stressful amount of access to that effect to play but is pretty easy to imagine being correct

I mean I really only want it against a couple of decks. I am pretty sure its correct to cut it against burn, for instance.

Sun Oct 24, 2021 6:17 pm

I have just purchased the cards I am missing for DNT.

Sun Oct 24, 2021 6:33 pm

I think its a much better preboard card than postboard card against a ton of decks.

Mon Oct 25, 2021 5:04 am

Dredge isnt a real deck so I don't think it matters.

Mon Oct 25, 2021 5:23 am

imo it hasn't been for quite some time.

but I think we might be in a good place rn. I had a lot of fun saturday. I feel like the "small creature combo go brrrr" deck in the format being hammer time instead of infect or hexproof is huge since that deck is actually interesting and fun to play against.

Mon Oct 25, 2021 5:48 am

yeah I mean I generally push back on the idea that diverse == good. I think there have been a lot of formats that were diverse and bad and a lot of formats that were not that diverse but still good.

I think that they've printed a whole bunch of toxic cards in the last two years and some of those cards are still around (t3feri comes to mind, for instance.) but overall the gameplay is pretty enjoyable.

Mon Oct 25, 2021 6:42 am

I don't mind diverse formats, and I think they can be a sign of health, but I also look at the game play. Theros Beyond Death standard is an example of a diverse format that was fricken miserable, though, as the play patters of the format were toxic.

Mon Oct 25, 2021 11:49 am

I'm not dunking on you... I was dunking on dredge, which is a deck that is among my least favorite parts of magic of all time.

Mon Nov 15, 2021 7:06 pm

nah pioneer is a dumpster fire that no one plays.

Also UWU is great.

Tue Nov 16, 2021 8:54 am

I hate that card so much.

Tue Nov 16, 2021 8:54 am

Like, that it exists. I'm still gunna register 4 though.

Wed Feb 16, 2022 7:49 am

Modern NRG 10k in milwaukee this weekend. I'm joining the bad guys.

Wed Feb 16, 2022 7:57 am

There's also a sealed 5k which I'll be playing but I'm less enthused about that. I like building sealed pools but I don't love limited game play.

Wed Feb 16, 2022 8:17 am

yeah I wish the game play aspect was as fun as the deck construction aspect of limited.

Sat Feb 19, 2022 5:14 pm

5-3 which I'm actually pretty pleased with given that i only picked the deck up at the beginning of the week and had no reps with it prior.

Now to open a broken sealed pool

Mon Feb 21, 2022 6:43 pm

https://articles.starcitygames.com/sele ... -strategy/

I know this site doesn't lean super competitive, but this is one of the better theory articles I've ever read, and it comes from a (long inactive) member, Armlx.

Thu Feb 24, 2022 6:52 am

We out here.

Thu Feb 24, 2022 7:22 am

I need to do more manatee crafting.

Tue Mar 01, 2022 6:23 am

Thu Mar 17, 2022 10:43 am

Anyone going to indy?

Thu Mar 31, 2022 6:06 am

I am broad strokes very happy about the OP announcement today. Returning to the pro tour branding, clear path to qualifications, regional championship feeds pro tour feeds worlds seems very good.

Only two things are missing for me and those are somewhat related which is the chaining together decent finishes to chain together invites seems like a little stingier than I would like, and there is no announced grand prix/large open event system that is in any way related to the PT.

Other than that everything is great.

ESPORTS BRANDING IS DEAD. LONG LIVE ESPORTS BRANDING.

Thu Apr 07, 2022 6:41 am

I'm pretty unhappy about what SCG is doing honestly. Basically killing their series and just running conventions where they're doing all the coverage for flesh and blood and none for magic.

I'll probably be in pitt simply because I have a couple friends who live there who I havent seen in a while but ehhhh.

Fri Apr 08, 2022 6:27 am

Hot take: ragavan is actively good for modern.

Fri Apr 08, 2022 6:28 am

Also, modern is the most wide open, interesting and fun it's been in 5 years right now.

Fri Apr 08, 2022 6:30 am

I have a list of like 10 cards that i would ban in modern right now if i had a magic wand (not because of power level but because of toxic play patterns. Looking at you, teferi.) and ragavan is not on that list.

Thu Apr 21, 2022 6:06 am

My friend wrote the script for this.

Thu Apr 21, 2022 7:13 am

Sun Apr 24, 2022 4:26 am

Why would you ever pay attention to Adrian Sullivan

Sun Apr 24, 2022 2:16 pm

Fair enough.

Wed Apr 27, 2022 10:33 am

His music actually has a really cool story behind it too, where his reaction to twitch cracking down on copyrighted music was to go on a music finding binge for tons of indie artists who he then messaged directly and asked for permission to use their music on his stream.

Its super dope.

Sun Dec 18, 2022 7:37 pm