Magic: The Gathering: The Megathread: Tenth Edition

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Magic: The Gathering: The Megathread: Tenth Edition

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

BJPaskoff posted:

I don't even know what to name the next thread, we're all out of editions! "Magic: The Gathering: The Megathread: Magic 2011 Edition" sounds weird in 2014, doesn't it? And we can't use the naming scheme of the following year (like naming this one Magic 2015 edition) because there needs to be more than one thread per year.

Magic: The Gathering: The Megathread: Chronicles

# ¿ Feb 7, 2014 06:00

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 04:14

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

Anything sunburst is my jam. My first deck used a ton of it and it's probably my favorite mechanic.

# ¿ Feb 7, 2014 18:00

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

Korak posted:

The supposed reason is it was a limited run to find out if there's a market for it... but I don't understand what company they get to print cards that doesn't have the capacity to print more if the demand is there? Like you could even, shocking I know, attempt to develop relationships with another company for an exclusive new partnership. It seems like the people that run WotC and now Hasbro overlords don't really know what they're doing.

Mihara's deck is too fair for Modern Masters. Think he's going to be out 6-8th place. Praying someone in his pod grabbed the storm deck and destroys everyone. Curious if someone in the other pod could draft the artifacts deck, they might have an easy match up till the finals.

They would have done a second print run if they wanted to. They do more print runs for regular expansions and supplementary products all the time. The reason they're not doing another print run of MMA is because they decided not to, not because they couldn't find someone to print it.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2014 02:03

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

BizarroAzrael posted:

As I recalk, FTV Legends had Mikaeus the Lunarch before Innistrad was even out. Also Ulamog from RotE, which would have been more recent than Abrupt Decay now.

Most FTVs that can have a card from the fall set do as a preview of what's to come. Dragons had Hellkite Overlord, Relics had Sword of Body and Mind, and Legends had Mikaeus. The only exceptions are Exiled (because the requirement was the card had to have been banned at some point or another), Twenty (since the card had to be in a PT winning deck), and Realms since RTR didn't have any high-profile lands outside of the shocks.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2014 14:13

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

Madmarker posted:

Johnny

Timmy

Spike

Melvin

Vorthos

Learn your magic psychographic profile, and you can use these tools to understand what other people get out of the game. I am a Spike/Melvin primarily.

Melvin and Vorthos aren't game design psychographics. They're profiles for how people interpret card aesthetics, not profiles for how people enjoy playing magic.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2014 19:58

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

If you're interested in the psychographics, here's Maro's articles on them:

Timmy, Johnny, and Spike: http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr11b
Timmy, Johnny, and Spike revisited: http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr220b
Melvin and Vorthos: https://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr278

# ¿ Feb 10, 2014 20:11

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

UberJew posted:

This is probably because those people are crazy, but assuming you have ordinary chessex type dice the d20 is less random (at an incredibly marginal, statistical level irrelevant to rolling for going first in a game of magic) than ordinary chessex style d6s because the problematic manufacturing process is magnified more with more faces.

Unless your opponents were pulling out casino grade d6s as their response they're just crazy.

That said I have to include the unless since I ran into a guy with a 4 digit DCI number who pulled out a pair of casino grade d6s to determine who goes first at my prerelease.

This is a really awesome post about the randomness of Chessex and Game Science d20s:

https://www.awesomedice.com/blog/353/d20-dice-randomness-test-chessex-vs-gamescience/

Basically, a d20 from either company isn't truly random, but the margin from true randomness is so small that it doesn't matter for tabletop games or deciding who goes first in magic.

Also, anybody who won't trust a program because it's only pseudorandom doesn't understand why it matters that it's different from random.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2014 22:15

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

AgentSythe posted:

Most RNGs I've seen make their "calculation" based on the system time, so you can actually gain some information if you know that. That said, we're talking about responding to things on a per-millisecond basis so unless you're a beep boop robot (a RUG Delver player) it doesn't really matter and he is just being a big weirdo.

The only thing to worry about isn't that the number you're getting isn't really ~random~, it's that your opponent is using something that sets its RNG seed once and he or she knows the pattern. I could write a little app that sets its RNG based on a defined number and memorize that number pattern a certain distance out, but anything that sets its RNG again based on the system clock on each call for a random number (which I assume a dice-rolling app will do) is nigh-impossible to game. Besides, at some point you have to accept that your opponent isn't a weirdo creep out to eek a tiny advantage out of the dice roll and just wants to play some magic.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2014 22:41

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

UberJew posted:

Of course this is a game where people have stacked their deck or otherwise used magic tricks ( ) to win before so when the 4 digit DCI number guy broke out the casino dice I did not begrudge him.

Definitely, if someone prefers to roll 2d6 or whatever I'll go with it. It's faster to use their correct method of randomness than to try to explain to them why my method of randomness is, for all effective purposes, equally correct.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2014 22:46

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

So it looks like while my back was turned the online Theros block meta was solved:
http://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/block

87% of the metagame is RGW and it's the only deck to 4-0 dailies for the past two weeks :psyduck:

Hopefully Born of the Gods can make some of the cheaper decks more viable again.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2014 15:29

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

Bread Set Jettison posted:

The idea behind Clockwork Librarian is absolute insanity, and I hope they make more cards that interact with the actual process of draft. Drafting that card to exchange it for an extra spicy pack of cards later in the draft is just so cool.

Not sure how thats going to work on MODO though!

It might not! Notice that Vintage Masters comes out about a week and a half online after Conspiracy is released in paper.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2014 15:37

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

Literally The Worst posted:

There's no way in hell Force belongs at uncommon. I can't even fathom why you think this is a reasonable thing. Pay 1 life and exile a blue card from your hand to cast it for free is not an uncommon thing. Uncommon in 1996, when they still didn't really know what they were doing, is not the same thing as uncommon in 2014.

Seriously, free counterspells at uncommon would warp the hell out of a limited format. Besides, Wizards is interested in reducing the price of staples, not crashing them. There's a multitude of factors that's keeping FoW at rare or higher.

Wasteland could technically be an uncommon in a limited format like Theros since there's almost no targets for it to destroy, but once again it's a $100 card which they're not interested in crashing the price of.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2014 16:44

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

Fox of Stone posted:

It's not inherit to multiplayer formats that something is so strong you need free counterspells to answer it. In eternal multiplayer formats, like commander, FOW is "necessary" for the same reason it is in Legacy, because there are busted-rear end cards in it. In a limited format where Wizards has 100% control over which 210 cards people can play it's not needed.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2014 17:00

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

whydirt posted:

Force of Will isn't nearly as good in limited as it is in Legacy/Vintage and wouldn't hurt the Conspiracy format itself if printed at uncommon. That said, there's no way that they'd flood the market by reprinting it as an uncommon. Wasteland makes even less sense as there aren't many non-basics in limited.

Force of Will would absolutely warp a limited environment at uncommon. A good player is going to recognize the signs of a counterspell before playing a card that can win them the game. In Theros if you see your opponent has 1UU up you play around dissolve. You bait out an annul with a smaller enchantment spell before playing your god. The only way to play around Force of Will is to wait until your opponent has 1 card in hand and less than 5 mana up.

Chained to the Rocks was initially uncommon and said "enchant mountain" instead of "enchant mountain you control." It was so good that people wouldn't play red. Powerful removal will 100% warp a limited environment.

JerryLee posted:

I tend to think that reprinting something at its former rarity is the default and doesn't have any sort of burden of proof attached to it.

As I said, though, they can probably print it at rare and have the 'needed' effect on eternal formats as long as they ensure that your LGS's shelves remains stocked with shipments of the given product for a period of several months. If they decide to do it MMA style and test the waters then it probably wouldn't have any effect.

Maybe they try it out at that initial rarity, but do you really think they're going to just print it at that rarity without testing it?

# ¿ Feb 13, 2014 17:25

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

whydirt posted:

Force of Will doesn't see much use in peasant cubes, which is much closer to traditional limited than most other formats. It's just not that good unless you have lots of other good blue spells, especially instant speed card draw, around to back it up. For one thing, you can't splash it because you won't have other blue cards to pitch to it. Plus single target counters/removal are generally weaker in multiplayer. There are plenty of reasons not to print FoW at uncommon in Conspiracy, but breaking the format isn't really one of them.

The problem isn't just if people have the card, it's that the threat of the card exists. People talk playing Stymied hopes as your original 23rd, using it to counter any card to show you have it, then board it out and hope your opponent plays around it for the next game. When players stayed out of red in a draft to play around chained to the rocks they didn't know their opponent would be playing white, let alone that they would have the card. Its existence in a format by itself means that if one of your opponents is playing blue the correct decision is to wait to play your powerful cards until it's not possible your opponent has it.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2014 17:46

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

TicalStal posted:

Force of Will was released on MTGO as a rare in a Masters Edition set and as others have mentioned, fotw inspired cards have been at rare in the modern sets (disrupting shoal, pact of negation, etc). I think if it gets reprinted, it'll likely be a ftv or judge promo release.

And we've kind of forgotten Vintage Masters in this whole thing. Is there any chance Force ISN'T printed in that set?

# ¿ Feb 13, 2014 20:17

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

Star Man posted:

Besides being on the pseudo MTGO reserved list.

I doubt they're that worried about the prices of it at this point. Modern Masters showed that people will open an insane amount of product and rares, like Arcbound Ravager, will still maintain a decent price.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2014 20:33

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

ScarletBrother posted:

Fixed that for you.

...Yeah, that! I forgot Cryptic Command was in the set. It's worth more than it's ever been now.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2014 20:49

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

Official announcement of Conspiracy

Important: Conspiracy will not be available online, but certain cards from the set will be in Vintage Masters.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2014 06:04

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

Korak posted:

This is really pathetic and another reason why they need to sack the current MTGO team and hire some competent programmers.

Yep, I'm sure it's that their programmers are unable to handle it and not that they would have to rebuild entire sections of the base infrastructure in order to get it to function. We don't know all the cards in Conspiracy, but so far we know that one card requires 1) cards being revealed during a draft and 2) requires putting cards back into packs. The original code likely wasn't designed for either of those things, which means to make it work they would need to redo how drafting works, which means digging into code that probably hasn't been touched for years. I'm positive that we're going to see cards in Conspiracy that do weirder things too, and at some point they probably decided that their online team, which is currently likely already overworked between maintaining and updating the rules engine and trying to build a new client, doesn't need the added stress of 'redo everything about drafting.'

# ¿ Feb 14, 2014 08:17

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

RubberJohnny posted:

Legacy programs are more likely to be a piece of buggy junk than something made recently.

Especially when the department is kept to the barebones necessary to keep it running and pays their software devs like garbage for the Seattle area. I'm hoping the biggest change that comes from Hearthstone and Hex is Wizards is forced to finally invest in a real software development department.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2014 14:15

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

Entropic posted:

"Eternal" really sounds like it should mean "non-rotating".

Which is why most magic players call Modern an eternal format. And why I will continue to refer to it as an eternal format.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2014 23:45

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

I like the new frames better and honestly dislike the old frames because of how entrenched they are in wizard-with-pointy-hat fantasy flavor. The new frames are much more agnostic to their setting than the old frames were, which means that the frame makes sense in a regular fantasy world or Mirrodin or Theros.

Also I really hate wizard-with-pointy-hat Ye Olde Fantasy and I'm very happy with how far Magic has distanced itself from it.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2014 23:05

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

I also like that the new frame is so much easier to change for stylistic reasons than the old one was. They can meld the day/night symbol into DFCs so that it looks natural in the design instead of something like the tombstone on Odyssey cards that kind of just floats there. They can easily give enchantment creatures a new border because they don't need to worry about making sure the background's new color doesn't make the name unreadable. The new border is much, much more functional than the old.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2014 23:52

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

People treat the style guide like the boogeyman of magic art, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the actual style that the art is created in:

Matt Cavotta, Magic Man posted:

When Style does not Mean Style

First of all, it seems as though there was a little uproar that I believe was caused by the words �Style Guide� themselves. The word �Style� seems to be tricking people into thinking this document addresses, and somehow limits, the style in which artists work their wonders. Understandable. It's called the �Style Guide.� But! Not true. Artists are commissioned to work on Magic cards because of the talent and style they have already shown in their work. Nowhere in the style guide does it say, �Paint this way� or �You must draw like Reginald T. Artnerd.� Once Magic artists are given their assignments, they are cut loose to work in whatever art style(s) they have used in the work that earned them the job in the first place. Speaking from experience, I can tell you that never have I been stifled in the style I chose to illustrate a Magic card.

The word 'Style' seems to be tricking people�

There is a real issue here, that of which art styles are a fit for Magic, but its relevance is only that it is specifically not part of the Style Guide. I am not going to discuss it at length here, as it's a 2 to 2-and-a-half part article of its own. But, I will mention it because it is one of Magic's more polarizing issues. The Style Guide does convey information on art tone and content, but not art style. Now that I think about it, this makes �Style Guide� sound really dumb. But, it's a juggernaut now with a lot of years of momentum, so we'll just have to remember this article and its lesson that sometimes �Style� does not mean style.

All the style guide does is define the tone and subject of the art. Artists are still free to go hog wild and do whatever, they just have to be grounded in Magic's world. Chances are if you don't like something (say, the occasional sameness of art or overuse of dutch angles) it's just because that's how artists do nowadays.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2014 00:46

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

Terese Nielsen and Nils Hamm are two great examples of current Magic artists that put out unique, interesing work.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2014 01:47

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

The Wonder Weapon posted:

Terese Nielsen is one of the only people still creating for MTG that falls outside of their typical style choices, and that's because she's grandfathered in.

No she's not. See: Steam Augery. Wizards likes to keep most of the art grounded in the world - which is why, regardless of style (and if you actually look at high-res versions of a lot of the art you'll see a good amount of it has a traditional style) a lot of the art is "samey", but they recognize that there are people that are fans of the more abstract, artistic pieces, which is why they'll send Terese art descriptions like:

quote:

ART DESCRIPTION:

Color: Blue spell (unguilded)
Location: Unimportant
Action: Show a close up of a face that has just received all the knowledge in the universe. The expression is that of seeing the immensity of the infinite that both awes and terrifies. It is agony and ecstasy at the same time. At the edges, the face is beginning to fracture into geometric pieces, and the further out from the face that we go, the pieces are turning into all manner of birds, beasts and creatures that wriggle and crawl, flowers, trees, vines and symbolic script. The pieces are spaced more and more apart the further they are from the face as if the face is exploding apart revealing the infinite void.
Focus: The fracturing face.
Mood: Identity dissolved in infinite knowledge.
Notes: Terese, this is a powerful card that lets you draw your entire deck... you can cast anything! Please make it appropriately impressive and dramatic!

For Enter the Infinite. It's actually stunning how much detail is missing in the 2 inch version of so many of these pieces, I would recommend anybody that feels 90% of the modern magic art is boring garbage to actually take a look through some of the artist's galleries.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2014 06:22

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

whydirt posted:

You shouldn't have to see Magic art in high res or full size for it to look good. If the art looks bad at the scale used on a Magic card, then it's not doing its job.

But it doesn't look BAD at scale. It looks fine at scale, at least not any worse than most old magic art at scale. Phalanx Leader is a good looking piece of art on a card, but if you look at a high res version of it you can see the paint strokes. My point was that if you look closely at the art it's not just some homogenized mediocre art slapped onto cards so that they have cohesiveness, there's still a lot of quality compositions on Magic cards.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2014 07:20

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

GoutPatrol posted:

Gild looks bad at whatever scale you can think of.

edit: until someone makes their own card alter and calls in "Geld" for the puns

Well, yeah, there are always going to be pieces of art that come out bad. There's no stopping that.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2014 17:55

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

Count Bleck posted:

We're completely forgetting it's done by Richard Wright, who is destroying art one horrid render at a time.

His stuff is so hit or miss. Elderscale Wurm and Merciless Eviction are great, but so much of his stuff is subpar.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2014 18:05

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

Has storm been winning on turn 2 or 3? If it's winning too early then yeah, they're going to ban another piece.

Also amulet of vigor deck is running hive mind combo just in case they need to win without a 8 power double-striking prime time. This deck is great.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2014 18:47

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

Stinky Pit posted:

Finkel says Turn 3 is 20% of the time.

Storm wasn't winning Turn 2 and only occasionally turn 3 with Rite of Flame and they still banned it.

I think they would have probably banned another part of storm if they were afraid of its speed last year. Has anything in the deck list changed since PT Gatecrash?

# ¿ Feb 21, 2014 18:57

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

Korak posted:

Is there any reason you would want threads vs shackles if you plan to go long? Shackles seems more resilient and flexible, at the cost of costing a little bit more mana to use properly.

Two of the cards that you'd like to threads of disloyalty - tarmogoyf and scavenging ooze - can get a pretty sizable power and UWR only runs 6 islands. In the finals McLaren wouldn't have been able to take Jacob's scavenging ooze if he had shackles instead of threads.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2014 22:39

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

Ableist Kinkshamer posted:

Still, only one person gets to be the winner. If you get to the finals of a large tournament and feel entitled to win just by getting there, and act like a baby if you don't win after doing better than all but one other entrant, you have kind of a poo poo attitude, sorry to say it.

Did you watch the awards ceremony? He put on a brave face, took his trophy, smiled for the pictures, mentioned that he feels sick and that once the shock of losing wears off he'll be proud of how far he got, then promptly leaves. He acts extremely professionally when I imagine he probably feels like he got kicked in the gut. For an 18 year old he handled that with a surprising amount of grace.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2014 18:16

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

Hollismason posted:

I haven't played MTG in like 14 years, but I am really interested in playing again as I enjoyed it and just stopped. Anyway I am thinking I'll play some sealed tournaments and booster drafts as I always found those fun, plus I am now in Chicago so there are a good number of stores dedicated to MTG etc..

Where could I go to catch up on all the rule changes? I stopped playing I think at Mirage.

If the last time you played Magic was when it still had a batch system instead of a stack then a lot has changed. I would recommend getting Duels of the Planeswalkers as it teaches the rules of modern Magic fairly well.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2014 15:08

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

Entropic posted:

I can't get over how bad that Jace looks.

Jace had his hair done up by his mother for church.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2014 06:06

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

There's an extremely small amount of design space for set symbols so Wizards will often create all three symbols as a variation on a theme or as a combination of previous symbols. Mirrodin Beseiged's symbol was the phyrexian symbol overlayed on the mirran symbol. Going forward I would expect to see more set symbols like those in Theros block; they all share a similar shape and Journey Into Nyx's symbol takes elements from the Theros and Born of the Gods symbols.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2014 16:49

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

50 pounds of bread posted:

I am soooooo dumb, I just realized the next block is going to be Sarkhan Vol's home plane.

It would be interesting if it is, since that's a plane that's been confirmed to have no dragons.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2014 19:34

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

Mortimer posted:

Now that Hearthstone is a thing do you think that'll push Wizards to update their decade old MTGO client?

Well, they're in the process of updating their MTGO client. It's the beta and most people don't like it.

But really, I think if they want Magic Online to stay relevant in the long term I think they need to start investing serious money into their digital division. MTGO has skated by because it was the best card game to play online, period. Magic is one of the best (if not the best) TCGs which meant if you couldn't find a group to play with in person you could play online. Now there's actual competition sprouting up (Hearthstone, Hex, Stoneforge) that all have way better UIs and pricing models, which means if somebody can't play Magic in person they could play hearthstone online instead. MTGO will probably do fine with its current budget for the next few years, but once other games can establish themselves I think they're going to start having some real problems. Unless they can start beefing up their staff (which means paying out the big bucks it takes to get a backend software dev with 8-10 years of experience instead of the rumored 70k a year) they're going to fall behind.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2014 22:46

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 04:14

Kabanaw: Jan 27, 2012; The real Pokemon begins here

Veyrall posted:

History shows, Wizards will put dragons everywhere, with no rhyme or reason. They were on Innistrad, for gently caress's sake. It's because casuals love both angels and dragons, the bigger and sillier the better.

Yep, they put dragons and angels in every set because it sells packs. Turns out they need to make money to keep making magic. The only exception to the rule is when angels or dragons make very little to sense. For example, no angels on theros.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2014 03:34

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