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I had forgotten how fun KHM is. 7-2 (in gold mind you) with this pile lol at the random blue splash because I couldnt find enough playables
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# ? Jan 16, 2023 21:37 |
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# ? Jun 3, 2024 15:36 |
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AngryBooch posted:Sometimes it's good to think of Magic in its physical form with actual playing cards as a reasoning for why certain mechanics work the way they do. Tracking damage on every creature from turn to turn is a lot of bookkeeping. Why do some cards require to reveal things that are typically secret to your opponent? It's a measure against cheating in the physical game. I'd agree with this in general if you're brand new to the game. This will limit your exposure to mechanics (there are a lot of them, even just on Arena) and limit your exposure to the card pool. The jump in complexity - not to mention the cost - of trying to get into other formats goes up considerably. There are a lot of articles and videos out there about how to maximize your gold and whatnot to build a Constructed collection, but Limited (and Jump In, a Limited format) are the simplest. If and when you decide to pursue Constructed, I'd stick with Standard and ignore Historic/Explorer/Alchemy. Standard will have the smallest card pool, meaning you'll likely have less trouble keeping up with mechanics (and trying to acquire wildcards to build decks). Also, Jim Davis' Bronze to Mythic is a great call - he's an excellent player who is very good about talking through his thought process, and as was said, he goes into each set with basically zero prep. He just has years of experience as a high level/pro player, and has a much better grasp on the game than most streamers/Youtubers.
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# ? Jan 16, 2023 21:59 |
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It's worth noting that draft and constructed are very different play modes. Draft games tend towards creature combat, and you often win them by removing key creatures at important times, or using unexpected combat tricks, and you often stabilise them with a single creature with a gigantic rear end and/or reach. Constructed relatively rarely has major board stalls and almost never includes combat tricks (though sometimes instant speed removal accomplishes the same thing). The differences can feel pretty extreme.
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# ? Jan 16, 2023 22:17 |
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I actually liked omni draft, I played it a couple times before realizing that I didn't actually complete any of the other decathalon challenges so there was no way I could get 3 tokens. It was pretty funny watching my opponent play Song of Creation or Guardian Project and realize that those 100% win the game on the spot, but they put a lot less combo stuff in this Omni draft set, and much less haste, so losing on turn 1 is pretty infrequent and it is just about jamming stuff that draws cards. There are also almost no board wipes so no punishment for just dropping as many creatures as possible. its probably the best version of omni-draft yet
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# ? Jan 16, 2023 22:26 |
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Thanks everybody. I do think watching people talk through their decisions would be helpful. AngryBooch posted:Sometimes it's good to think of Magic in its physical form with actual playing cards as a reasoning for why certain mechanics work the way they do. Tracking damage on every creature from turn to turn is a lot of bookkeeping. Why do some cards require to reveal things that are typically secret to your opponent? It's a measure against cheating in the physical game. The damage thing makes sense. In Keyforge you end up putting damage tokens on cards but yeah it can get messy. One element of Magic that seems like it'd be fiddly with actual cards is token creatures but I figure people that use them come prepared with blank dry erase cards or printed token cards that match the cards in their deck.
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# ? Jan 16, 2023 22:34 |
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Hello thread! Any advice on Kaldheim draft deckbuilding? I ended up with this and have 1-0 so far... but it was close, I curved perfectly w goldvein into runed helm+rune of flight, winning with flyers w 1 life left, while opp had drawn 10 more cards than me and had all colors of mana. Here's the Kaldheim advice I absorbed from threads past (even tho this is my first draft of it so Idunnno personally): black is shallow, you could maybe cut snow hard to end up with snow deck but not many in the pod, green and snow deck compete w playables but are different decks, goldvein + equipment can be a good deck... I will endeavor to get a 17lands setup soon, so my draft skills can be roasted as well as my deckbuilding skills, but any advice appreciated!
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# ? Jan 16, 2023 22:53 |
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Jolo posted:The final matches for each challenge against people have all been really hard to understand. Played one earlier and the other player had a bunch of Werewolves that triggered a Day/Night status that buffed/debuffed his wolves. They ended up with a ton of creatures on their side and when my turn came, deciding whether to attack with my flyers, which he couldn't do anything about, was this very hard to parse math problem where I knew I needed to hold them back to block because they couldn't finish him off on that turn but deciding where to block and with what was just a nightmare. Welcome to MTGA! Since so many other players already answered your post I'll help you with these two issues. In order to flip day to night, a player must cast no spells during their turn. In order to flip night back to day, a player must cast 2 or more spells during their turn. There are a tiny handful of ways to brute-force day/night cycles. (Unnatural Moonrise, The Celestus, Tolovar+2 wolves/werewolves.) As for blocking, hold back your single weakest, most expendable thing. This is called 'chump-blocking.' Unless a (non-flying) creature has trample, the worst thing that 99-power creature can do to you is inflict 99 damage to literally anything else you put in its way. If it does have flying, chump block it with another flyer or something with reach. Which deck were you using, btw?
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# ? Jan 16, 2023 23:21 |
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Horace Kinch posted:Welcome to MTGA! I was Blue, so several flying creatures, some instants that put creatures back in my opponent's hand. It had a 5/5 genie with that ability too. In the penultimate turn I could do enough damage to him to almost kill him but he had enough damage on the board to finish me off so I didn't attack. Then on his turn his wolves all powered up from Night and there were probably 7 cards attacking and no way of preventing enough to survive. I had a few moments that felt clever and affirmed that my understanding of the stack was correct. I attacked with something, he blocked with a wolf that was too weak to survive the block but used an instant spell to buff that wolf to have enough to survive. I used a card to recall his wolf into his hand. So the recall took away the target of his buff spell and it went into his graveyard after the wolf went back into his hand. If I recall correctly, my creature didn't end up attacking him directly. A block occurs even though the creature is no longer there, right?
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# ? Jan 16, 2023 23:57 |
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Jolo posted:I was Blue, so several flying creatures, some instants that put creatures back in my opponent's hand. It had a 5/5 genie with that ability too. In the penultimate turn I could do enough damage to him to almost kill him but he had enough damage on the board to finish me off so I didn't attack. Then on his turn his wolves all powered up from Night and there were probably 7 cards attacking and no way of preventing enough to survive. Correct. Unless the attacking creature has trample, blocking and then taking the blocker away (by bouncing it, phasing it out, killing it, etc) stops the attack. If the attacker DOES Have trample, taking the blocker away just lets the attacker through. It's probably worth noting that the starter decks are (intentionally) really not very good, they're designed to be bad so you want to imprive them - figure out what aspects of the game you enjoy after you've tried all of them a bit, and refocus the decks as best you can around those things. In case you're not aware, the major archetypes are: Aggressive decks - aggro. Play a 1 drop (i.e. 1-mana value) creature, a 2 drop creature, a 3 drop creature, a 4 drop creature, and kill your opponent on turn 4 or 5. Usually runs some removal to kill their blockers, ideally burn (i.e. damage-based removal which can hit any target so you can put it on the opponent, usually called 'going face'), usually loses if the opponent gets down a big enough creature, or has enough counterspells or removal, and often finds it hard to avoid dying to board wipes. Current functional aggro lists: Blue/white soldiers, monored haste/burn. Midrange: plays bigger creatures with more evasion (i.e. ways to avoid or ignore blockers like Trample, Menace, Flying) and usually some amount of recursive threats - the Werewolves deck is usually kind of midrangey. Monoblack is probably the most common current midrange deck, though it's arguably some horribly hybrid of midrnge, aggro AND control, annoyingly. Combo: stall until you can put together one or two key cards and win on the spot. E.g. Chaotic Transformation, which aims to get a bunch of tokens in play of all the various nonland permanent types, then turn them all into giant things by casting Chaotic Transformation, usually including Portal to Phyrexia, Titan of Industry, etc. Ramp: play creatures which tap for mana and/or add extra lands to the board, use this to play big things ahead of curve - usually just big creatures with some form of protection, sometimes just ramp into a combo. Control: counter or kill everything your opponent does, and when they're empty handed and empty boarded, eventually play something that kills them, it might be an evasive creature, it might be a combo, it might just be some random dudes on the ground. Blue/x is usually the core of control decks, but they can be done in most if not all colour combos. Tempo: hybrid control/aggro - play some early threats and use cheap-but-limited control such as Make Disappear along with bounce spells (e.g. Fading Hope), and (usually) burn spells to finish the opponent early. Typically blue/red, or just plain blue. Best current tempo list is probably built around Haughty Djinn and Tolarian Terror. As for The Stack, it's first-in-first-out. So usually, whoever has the last instant speed effect will win any battle being fought on the stack, but not always - and it's worth noting that effects which have no specific timing and don't require tapping can usually be activated at instant speed, as many times as the cost can be paid. So, e.g., pointing a 2 damage removal spell at a 1 health creature that has 1: this gets +1/+1 until end of turn, when your opponent has 2 mana open, means they can pump it twice after you target it, and then it doesn't die. thespaceinvader fucked around with this message at 00:15 on Jan 17, 2023 |
# ? Jan 17, 2023 00:13 |
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Jolo posted:I was Blue, so several flying creatures, some instants that put creatures back in my opponent's hand. It had a 5/5 genie with that ability too. In the penultimate turn I could do enough damage to him to almost kill him but he had enough damage on the board to finish me off so I didn't attack. Then on his turn his wolves all powered up from Night and there were probably 7 cards attacking and no way of preventing enough to survive. These are combat tricks - any ability or spell that can be cast at instant speed to affect how combat actually plays out, vs. how it looks on the board. This is also why I strongly recommend you stick with Limited for now, and Standard if/when you move to Constructed. The number of combat tricks (and mechanics that can make things play out very differently) goes up dramatically the more sets you include.
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# ? Jan 17, 2023 00:25 |
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combat math is hard, just play combo
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# ? Jan 17, 2023 01:10 |
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Papa Was A Video Toaster posted:combat math is hard, just play combo Watched the CGB video on that Old Stickfingers HBrawl combo deck recently, and holy poo poo that looks hard to pilot.
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# ? Jan 17, 2023 01:23 |
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Shooting Blanks posted:Watched the CGB video on that Old Stickfingers HBrawl combo deck recently, and holy poo poo that looks hard to pilot. I watched CGB cast that Historic Brawl tournament the week before and I was really looking forward to seeing how that deck worked, then I saw it and was like "Hmmmm no thank you." I have been working on a Xanathar, Guild Kingpin Historic Brawl deck since pretty much Forgotten Realms came out. I was wondering if I could get any feed back on it: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/orfmE3Ko_EapGJW5o88i6A My idea is to play controlly early on and get a nice base of mana so that I can play the most cards from my opponents deck that I can. If there is a land on top I will play that for myself, then play as many spells as I can before I hit the next land, I keep letting the draw land, flood out, and win. Initially I had a more creature oriented version of this deck (and honestly I might put Thief of Sanity back in just so I can exile cards off the top so if I don't like what I see with Xanathar I can get rid of it) Anyways, I don't typically brew my own decks and I'm pretty proud of this one, but would like any feedback possible EDIT: I just had a shame scoop I thought I had Inquisition of Kozilak, I played it on Turn 1, it turned out to be a Dark Ritual and I had nothing to spend the mana on. I'm never recovering from that. SalTheBard fucked around with this message at 02:10 on Jan 17, 2023 |
# ? Jan 17, 2023 02:07 |
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SalTheBard posted:I watched CGB cast that Historic Brawl tournament the week before and I was really looking forward to seeing how that deck worked, then I saw it and was like "Hmmmm no thank you." Xanathar is an extremely greedy commander, but I haven't built a deck around it. That said, immediate comments: - Your artifacts are mostly ramp, as expected, but this isn't really an artifact deck like Oswald Fiddlebender or Emry. How effective is Gilded Lotus for you? Same question for Mightstone/Weakstone, I haven't run that much other than trying to meld. - Is Paradox Engine your build-around? You don't have the tutors I would expect to see for that to be your core wincon (Grim Tutor, Gix's Caress, Wishclaw Talisman) - how often do you rely on that to win? Or is it a win more card? - As a PW in general it's too expensive, but Ashiok Nightmare Muse fits into your "steal stuff" strategy. Worth a thought. Based on my experience, staying outside of hellqueue, a lot of the Alchemy commanders simply classed the non-Alchemy ones. It's not just Rusko, the Gruul (Jarsyl) and Rakdos (Crucias) ones are also extremely efficient. They can absolutely be beaten, but you need to have a very good draw - their abilities allow for a ton of flexibility that you don't see with most other commanders.
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# ? Jan 17, 2023 02:45 |
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Those are such great suggestions, thank youShooting Blanks posted:- Your artifacts are mostly ramp, as expected, but this isn't really an artifact deck like Oswald Fiddlebender or Emry. How effective is Gilded Lotus for you? Same question for Mightstone/Weakstone, I haven't run that much other than trying to meld. Gilded lotus seems to be effective when I get it, and I just added Mightstone / Weakstone so I haven't really tested it out. Reading your post made me realize that Mighstone is pretty bad since the mana can only be spent on Artifacts or abilities. Thank you for pointing that out. Paradox Engine is something that I just recently put in an as well. I was thinking with all the mana rocks, that I can keep casting opponents spells. I don't know that I've had it go off playing with Xanathar before, but I have with Rusko so that could be affecting how I think about the deck. I had her in another build and I agree with you. If I hit a 2nd land being able to attack with her little 2/3 that exiles was really nice. I also had Thief of Sanity that does a similar theme in another build as well.
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# ? Jan 17, 2023 03:15 |
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SalTheBard posted:Those are such great suggestions, thank you I'd probably also get rid of Oracle of the Alpha - you don't really have enough card draw to offset how much it refills your deck. Mox Amber can probably go, you have all of 4 cards that make that work. More counterspells and cards that focus on denying your opponent's actions instead - it's effectively a prison deck, you're locking them into their turn if you want your commander to be effective.
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# ? Jan 17, 2023 03:39 |
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When does the next new set come out? Might come back if the draft format is any good
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# ? Jan 17, 2023 10:20 |
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fridge corn posted:When does the next new set come out? Might come back if the draft format is any good Less than a month out for the next set.
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# ? Jan 17, 2023 10:29 |
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Ultimatefire posted:Hello thread! Any advice on Kaldheim draft deckbuilding? I ended up with this and have 1-0 so far... but it was close, I curved perfectly w goldvein into runed helm+rune of flight, winning with flyers w 1 life left, while opp had drawn 10 more cards than me and had all colors of mana. Here's the Kaldheim advice I absorbed from threads past (even tho this is my first draft of it so Idunnno personally): black is shallow, you could maybe cut snow hard to end up with snow deck but not many in the pod, green and snow deck compete w playables but are different decks, goldvein + equipment can be a good deck... You could try a more aggressive approach: - Brinebarrow Intruder, Karfell Harbinger, Ravenform, Effigy and maybe 1 hawk + 2x Pup, Hulk, 1 or 2 Dwarven reinforcment You have some great green cards in the sideboard. Splashing bears of litjara might be worth it with +1 forest -1 island and relying on treasure from the axe? Unfortunately no chance for the troll.
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# ? Jan 17, 2023 12:02 |
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fridge corn posted:When does the next new set come out? Might come back if the draft format is any good According to when the Mastery Pass says it expires, three weeks from today.
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# ? Jan 17, 2023 13:39 |
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hello friends still relatively new to MtGA so far ive been having fun playing alchemy matches is there a way i can draft against bots? It seems i have a few tokens to enter drafts against other players but id like to practice first
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# ? Jan 17, 2023 17:01 |
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Kvlt! posted:hello friends still relatively new to MtGA so far ive been having fun playing alchemy matches is there a way i can draft against bots? It seems i have a few tokens to enter drafts against other players but id like to practice first Quick Draft is always against bots, right now the set is DMU. I'm not sure if you can spend draft tokens for those but you wouldn't really want to, they're half the cost of a premier draft at 5000 gold.
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# ? Jan 17, 2023 17:03 |
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Somberbrero posted:Quick Draft is always against bots, right now the set is DMU. I'm not sure if you can spend draft tokens for those but you wouldn't really want to, they're half the cost of a premier draft at 5000 gold. Thank you! So i assume since youre spending gold you get to keep the cards you draft?
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# ? Jan 17, 2023 17:07 |
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Kvlt! posted:Thank you! So i assume since youre spending gold you get to keep the cards you draft? QD is a great way to get into drafting, takes a lot of the initial anxiety off (no time limit, less investment). Save your tokens for a Premier once you feel up for it! Either way, hang out in the Discord and stream your drafts over it
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# ? Jan 17, 2023 17:11 |
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You draft against bots and then play against players. It's not a huge issue but expect to eventually run into other players putting together decks which abuse the blind spots in the bot's drafting preferences.
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# ? Jan 17, 2023 17:14 |
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Also alchemy is bad, play literally any other mode unless you're into walls of text and Yugioh levels of contrived horseshit.
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# ? Jan 17, 2023 17:29 |
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Horace Kinch posted:Also alchemy is bad, play literally any other mode unless you're into walls of text and Yugioh levels of contrived horseshit. that has been my experience with alchemy so far I either bulldoze through someone easily (and i am AWFUL at magic, that's not a brag) or have to wait for eternity as some dude who took a 4 year university course in magic plays does that ultra "I do this, which triggers this, which causes this, which I will then apply to this, then do this...." bullshit
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# ? Jan 17, 2023 17:37 |
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Alchemy has the clock guy deck though and that is fun
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# ? Jan 17, 2023 17:37 |
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Kvlt! posted:that has been my experience with alchemy so far I either bulldoze through someone easily (and i am AWFUL at magic, that's not a brag) or have to wait for eternity as some dude who took a 4 year university course in magic plays does that ultra "I do this, which triggers this, which causes this, which I will then apply to this, then do this...." bullshit Alchemy is fine. I like it
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# ? Jan 17, 2023 17:48 |
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Simply Simon posted:That's just Magic tho. It's literally the best part of the game I get that but it does suck as a newer player its tough to break into the game bc i havent figured out how to build those decks with novel length combos and chains yet but im working on it!
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# ? Jan 17, 2023 17:54 |
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Lone Goat posted:According to when the Mastery Pass says it expires, three weeks from today. It feels like this set has lasted forever. I havent played in like three weeks at least and still another three weeks to go. Was DMU around for this long cuz it sure didnt feel like it
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# ? Jan 17, 2023 18:01 |
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fridge corn posted:It feels like this set has lasted forever. I havent played in like three weeks at least and still another three weeks to go. Was DMU around for this long cuz it sure didnt feel like it It was not, no. 2022 had a weird schedule. I drafted the hell out of BRO, but played relatively little of its stuff in Standard. I built a mono-b Prototype thing and only recently started messing with UW Soldiers. I'm excited for ONE mostly because the pool should be big enough that things will start getting weird.
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# ? Jan 17, 2023 18:16 |
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Kvlt! posted:that has been my experience with alchemy so far I either bulldoze through someone easily (and i am AWFUL at magic, that's not a brag) or have to wait for eternity as some dude who took a 4 year university course in magic plays does that ultra "I do this, which triggers this, which causes this, which I will then apply to this, then do this...." bullshit Pro tip: when someone's resolving an age long combo that will probably kill you: resign. Just concede. You're under no obligation to let the game go to the bitter end.
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# ? Jan 17, 2023 18:16 |
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Oh man, remember Dungeon cards? Hated those until I was the dude triggering the dungeon delving a bunch of times in the turn. Will the Junji Ito Elesh Norn make it to Arena? Theyre gonna get so many gems for that stuff
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# ? Jan 17, 2023 18:33 |
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I didn't hate venture, the problem was you had to super lean into it and Lost Mine of Phandelver was so far ahead of the other two dungeons in value it was the only one worth taking.
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# ? Jan 17, 2023 21:41 |
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thespaceinvader posted:Pro tip: when someone's resolving an age long combo that will probably kill you: resign. Just concede. You're under no obligation to let the game go to the bitter end. The only time I don't in this situation (outside of sheer boredom with little to no stakes) is that it's pretty uncommon to get a combo that can't be hosed up, and having misclicked a LOT myself, maybe they'll be the ones making an oops.
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# ? Jan 17, 2023 22:06 |
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rickiep00h posted:The only time I don't in this situation (outside of sheer boredom with little to no stakes) is that it's pretty uncommon to get a combo that can't be hosed up, and having misclicked a LOT myself, maybe they'll be the ones making an oops. Fair enough. My policy is if I’d scoop to it after a loop in paper I just scoop to it in arena. If I was pushing for top 1K or whatever you better believe I’ll wait for them to play it out.
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# ? Jan 17, 2023 22:13 |
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For this midweek magic quick draft event, if you draft like poo poo (which I will), can you draft again for a new deck, or are you stuck with the first one you make?
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# ? Jan 17, 2023 23:13 |
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Node posted:For this midweek magic quick draft event, if you draft like poo poo (which I will), can you draft again for a new deck, or are you stuck with the first one you make? Nope you're stuck with the first one. Competition is way softer than in the ranked queues tho.
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# ? Jan 17, 2023 23:16 |
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# ? Jun 3, 2024 15:36 |
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Node posted:For this midweek magic quick draft event, if you draft like poo poo (which I will), can you draft again for a new deck, or are you stuck with the first one you make? You are stuck
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# ? Jan 17, 2023 23:17 |