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Magic: The Gathering is a collectible card game where you play as a planeswalker, a powerful wizard capable of travelling between planes, summoning fantastic creatures, and casting powerful spells. Each game of Magic represents a duel between two or more planeswalkers. Magic in the game is divded into five colors: White, the color of order and balance; blue, the color of knowledge and illusion; black, the color of death and corruption; red, the color of chaos and power; and green, the color of nature and life. Each color is balanced against the others, with their various strengths and weaknesses. First released in 1993, Magic's years of existence as the most popular collectible card game has attracted millions of players worldwide. Tournaments of varying levels are held all around the world, and the game is enjoyed just as much at the kitchen table as it is on the Pro Tour with thousands of dollars at stake. There is an organization called the DCI that sanctions and maintains these events, using tournament officials known as judges to keep the game fair and fun. Like any other collectible game, the components can be quite pricey. Older, out-of-print cards can be hundreds of dollars, but those aren't needed to play in the game's most popular formats. In-print and just-out-of-print cards very rarely break the $50 mark, and as there's a limit of four of any one card per deck, you won't need too many to compete. Booster packs cost roughly $4 US each, but most people will agree that buying the single cards you need is a better bang for your buck... though not as fun as the "lottery" game of opening packs. ============================================ OTHER THREADS The Magic: the Gathering Buying and Selling/Trading Thread Don't deal with eBay or some random third-party insecure site for your Magic card needs. This is a thread to post your haves/wants and see if any other Goon wants your poo poo or has the poo poo you really need for that big tournament coming up, you know the one. Deck Building Brewhaus Post and critique decklists for constructed formats here. The Magic: the Gathering Limited Thread Draft and sealed discussion goes in here. This is a really informative thread if you're looking for tips on draft especially, as it goes into the draft archetypes of the current format as well as a glossary of commonly used draft terms you might hear at the table. Modern: The "Cheaper" Eternal Format Talk about the Modern format here. Magic Card Generator Discuss your terrible card ideas here and make us all appreciate Wizards R&D and how hard it is to actually design solid cards. M:tG Cube: The Most Expensive Free Magic Money Can Buy Share your cubes with other people without the risk of strangers stealing your foil Russian Dark Confidant you've blinged out your cube with! ============================================ FORMATS Casual: Anything goes. Despite being the least talked-about format, mostly because it's not really a "format", casual play is probably the most popular form of Magic. We're talking kids buying precons and a couple of boosters and sitting around their kitchen tables here. There are other casual formats loved by players more into the game, such as Commander, Cube, Type 4, etc. More on those later. Standard: One of the easiest formats to get into. Since it consists of nothing but the last core set and the last two blocks to be published, finding cards is relatively as most cards are still in print. Each October when the first set of a new block is released, the oldest currently-legal block in Standard gets pushed out and the new one comes in. At the same time, the oldest core set rotates out, though the newer core set comes out around July so there is some overlap. Since many Standard decks rely on those older cards that have now rotated out of the format, the metagame can change drastically when this happens. Standard is the most popular sanctioned constructed format. Wizards has released "event decks" as a way for new players to get (somewhat) competitive decks for cheap. They contain 60 cards and a 15 card sideboard, and are competitive enough to stand a chance at FNM, but not much elsewhere. Currently legal sets: Return to Ravnica, Gatecrash, Dragon's Maze, Theros, Born of the Gods, Magic 2014 Extended: There is no longer an Extended format. This used to be a "super Standard" format, but Modern killed it. The end. Modern: Magic's newest format bridges the gap between Legacy and Extended. All sets from Eighth Edition on up are legal; the "Modern" name doesn't necessarily mean the modern Magic frame, as old cards reprinted in a special set with the new frame, such as judge promos, are not legal unless they've been reprinted in a set since Eighth Edition. Modern Banned List Legacy: Legacy is an Eternal format like Vintage, only without the Power 9 and many other overpowered cards. For the most part, everything restricted in Vintage is banned in Legacy. Legacy has skyrocketed in popularity lately, and so has the entry fee to play in this format. Legacy staples have doubled or tripled in price on the secondary market, so the barrier of entry is very high. Legacy Banned List Vintage: The most powerful decks that can be created reside here in "Type 1". The insanely high expense of cards that are in almost every good deck in the format - cards known as the Power 9 because of their reputation for being the nine most powerful cards ever printed - leads players to shy away from the format. Most Vintage tournaments will be run without DCI sanctioning because they allow ten or fifteen proxies in order to make the tournament more accessable to players not willing to spend $3000 on a Black Lotus. A common misconception is that Vintage is a format of turn one kills - but in a format where turn one kills are possible, decks are fine-tuned not just to win, but to stop their opponents from going off on turn one or two as well. Vintage Banned & Restricted List Block Constructed: Block constructed uses only the cards from a particular block for deck construction. The smaller card pool available means that cards that would never see play in other formats get to see the light of day, simply because there isn't anything better available. Unfortunately block constructed suffers from one big flaw - because so few cards are available, the format quickly becomes set with a small number of dominating decks, and the theme of a particular block leads some players to feel like the decks are "pre-built" for them. Limited: There are two popular limited formats: Sealed Deck, and Booster Draft. High-level limited tournaments are usually run sealed deck, with booster drafts as their top 8 playoffs. In sealed deck, a player gets six packs. With those cards, and as many extra basic lands as they wish, they have to build a deck that's at least 40 cards. Sealed is part luck (what you open), and part skill (how you build and play with your deck). Booster drafting involves each player getting three booster packs and sitting around a table. At the same time, each player opens up their first pack, takes a card out, and passes the rest of the cards in the pack to their left. This continues until all the cards in each pack are gone, then the second pack is opened and passed to the right. The third and last pack goes left again. Skilled players can sense which colors are "open" and pick cards that are strong in those colors. Then players follow the same deck construction rules as sealed deck - a minimum 40-card deck using as much extra basic land as they want. Some players consider booster drafting to be the best test of a Magic player's skill. Two-Headed Giant: In 2HG, teams of two face off against each other. Each player has their own deck, hand, permanents, etc., but each team takes their turn at the same time. 2HG is usually sealed deck, with each team getting more product than a single person would usually get, but Standard 2HG isn't unheard of. Two-Headed Giant Rules Commander: Commander (previously known as EDH, or Elder Dragon Highlander) is one of the most popular casual formats. In Commander, you pick a legendary creature to serve as your "commander", and build a 100-card deck (99 plus your commander) using only one of each card, excluding basic lands. You can't use any cards which have mana symbols anywhere on them that don't match the ones on your commander's card, and the format uses the Vintage cardpool with some modifications. Your commander starts in the "command zone", and you can cast it any time you normally could cast them - but each time you cast it that way, it costs 2 more to cast. If a commander would be put into a graveyard or into exile, its owner can choose to put it back in the command zone instead, so it's hard to permanently get rid of a commander short of sending it into its owner's library. And lastly, if a player takes 21 or more damage over the course of the game from any one commander, they lose the game. The official rules can be found here. Official Commander Site Cube Drafting: Booster drafting is fun, but it can get expensive, and players lose interest in drafting a set when a new one's about to come out... and this is where cube drafting comes in. A cube contains 350-700 of the best cards in Magic, usually including the Power 9. The cube is shuffled, and random packs are dealt out to each player, which are then drafted like a normal booster draft. Cube draft owners take great pride in their cube, and will often try to foil out every card possible, making their cube cost more than the average Vintage deck. Pauper: While Pauper is most popular on Magic Online, it does see some interest in the real world as well. On Magic Online, the format is played with only commons, but in real life, "Pauper" is sometimes referred to as a constructed format where only commons and some uncommons are allowed as well. Here's a good FAQ to get started. ============================================ DIGITAL VERSIONS There have been many digital versions of the game in the past, on Dreamcast, Playstation, PC, and even arcades, but the current and most popular version is Magic Online. Magic Online players buy digital cards and play online against people all over the world, at any time they want. The only downside to the program is, of course, that you're buying digital objects and the social aspect of the game is non-existant. Wizards used to have a redemption program where players who collected every card in a newer set could redeem them for paper versions of those cards, but that's since been discontinued. Magic Online costs $9.99, but once you sign up, you get a bunch of random cards, including some gold-bordered cards you can only play with other people who have them. Also, new sets come out much slower than their paper versions, with a short delay between the paper release and the MTGO release due to Wizards not wanting people beta testing products that haven't been officially released yet. If you want to play for free/cheap, there are ways, though some are more difficult to set up than others. Apprentice is slightly old and outdated, but still very popular. Its features aren't as robust as Magic Workstation, but if you don't care about all the bells and whistles, it gets the job done. NetDraft is a way to draft online for free, but you'll usually only play one match each draft against whoever you're paired against. Good for testing your draft skills. You'll need to use Magic Workstation or another program to play though. Duels of the Planeswalkers is an Xbox Live, Playstation, and PC game with multiple expansions. Hardcore players were disappointed that there's no deckbuilding available, just a bunch of precons you can unlock and new cards you can unlock for them in turn, but it's a fun, arcade-y version of Magic. ============================================ WHERE TO PLAY Friday Night Magic (FNM): The most accessable tournaments for most players is FNM, which as its name suggests takes place on Friday nights at local hobby stores. FNM tournaments can range anywhere from eight to sixty-plus players, and usually pay out prizes in either packs or store credit. To make sure everyone who wants to play can play, FNM tournaments are only allowed to be Standard, Extended, Block, sealed, booster draft, or Two-Headed Giant Standard/sealed. That way, no one needs to worry about tracking down older, out-of-print cards. Competition is usually pretty lax at FNMs, with (hopefully) friendly players and a fun atmosphere. Each month, Wizards prins a special foil promo that is given out to FNM players at each event. Other local events can be run too, even if they're not FNM. Pro Tour Qualifiers (PTQs): PTQs are the first big step for players entering the professional Magic playing world. PTQs go in "seasons", blocks of two months or so where a single format is played all over the world, though never Legacy or Vintage. PTQs are staffed by highly qualified judges, who act as impartial ways to solve rules disputes, answer rules questions, and ensure the tournament is run smoothly and fairly. The grand prize at each PTQ is an invitation to play in the Pro Tour, and at least the top eight players will be rewarded with product. States/Champs: States, or Champs, depending on where in the world you live, is a big, fun tournament run on the same day in every state/province/what-have-you. Every participant gets a free promo card, and the top 8 players win boxes of product and a special foil promotional card. Since no huge prizes are on the line, the environment is close to a "big FNM". Prereleases: The week before a new set comes out, players get to experience it early in a Prerelease Event. Prereleases are always sealed deck events. Prizes are usually small, because the real prize is getting to see and play with the new cards for the first time. Prerelease Locator At prereleases, special promo cards are available that showcase an important card from the set. The only way to get these is to play in an event, and while they're not always tournament-quality cards, they're at least high on casual appeal. Game Day: One month after the release of a new set, stores run Game Day tournaments. These are Standard events, sometimes with special rewards given for building your deck a certain way. Everyone gets a full-art promo card, and the top 8 get foil full-frame promo cards. For many people, Game Day marks the time when players have gotten used to the new set and are ready to test out their new decks. Game Day Locator & Information Grand Prix (GPs): Grand Prix are open for everyone to play in, and are the largest public events, usually getting over a thousand players in attendance. While they don't feed any Pro Tours, the prizes are substantial and competition is fierce. Most GPs are two day events, with only the players with the best record being allowed to play in day two. There are usually side-events run at GPs as well, so even players who don't want to compete or players who don't make day two can get in on some fun. Grand Prix Schedule & Information Pro Tours: This is it - this is the big leagues. Pro Tours are by invitation only; by winning a Pro Tour, or having a rating high enough to compete. Wizards pays about $3 million U.S. divided among the players, some serious change for a card game. Players travel from all over the world to play at Pro Tours. Worlds is the biggest Magic tournament there is, held at the end of every year and drawing the biggest crowds. Even players not qualified to play in Worlds get to play in the numerous side events held by Wizards. Pro Tour Schedule & Information 1Ks, 5Ks, 10ks, etc.: Major tournament organizers often hold large tournament for big cash prizes. Though not affiliated directly with Wizards of the Coast, the prizes are huge, they often get attendance numbers close to a PTQ, and they're often staffed by certified judges. ============================================ RESOURCES USEFUL LINKS MagicTheGathering.com: The official page for Magic is updated every weekday with articles from some of the most well-known people related to the game, from rules managers to Pro players to the people who make the cards you play with. You can also find tournament locations near you and information about upcoming sets. MTGSalvation.com: MTGSalvation is widely known as the source for all new-set spoilers, keeping the most up-to-date source of new rumors and spoiled cards in the weeks leading up to a new set's release. YuGiOhDad.com: After the owner of MTGMom.com became an actual mom, she quit updating her event calendar. This one, despite the misleading name, is meant to replace it. StarCityGames.com: SCG is first and foremost a web store, selling not only cards but play knowledge as well. Their webpage hosts articles from the most prolific players involved in the metagame, with some articles being free and others requiring a paid membership to their site. Magic-League.com: If you want to play in online leagues without paying for Magic Online, this is the place to look. Magic-League has thousands of players, so finding a game should never be a problem. TheManaDrain.com: One of the premier sources for Vintage information on the internet, TMD is a forum to discuss Vintage strategy and find events. MTG The Source: What The Mana Drain is to Vintage, this is to Legacy. ChannelFireball.com: Luis Scott-Vargas, one of the most celebrated Magic players of all time, writes strategy articles for this blog/online store. Like StarCityGames or any of the other online stores/blogs, it hosts high prices and high-value strategy articles - though unlike SCG.com, the strategy is free. Good Games Live: Live coverage of non-WotC big tournaments. Wizards.com Event Coverage Archive: Archived coverage of WotC tournaments. Gatherer: The official online database of every card ever printed, with up to date Oracle text, rulings, etc. If you're playing eternal formats like Vintage, Legacy, or even EDH, this is the best resource to finding out what your old cards actually do. MagicCards.info: Faster than Gatherer, with a proxy printing feature, a search for prices on major online card stores, etc. If you're looking for accurate Oracle text and/or rulings, I'd still trust the official Gatherer over this, but many players use this for its other features. DeckStats.net: Type in your decklist and get details on your curve, draw sample hands, etc. CranialInsertion.com: A weekly rules article with answers to questions submitted by players. This is the rules article that was previously on MTGSalvation. MTGTop8.com: A listing of the top decks from various tournaments, broken down by format. A must-use if you want to follow the shifting metagame. IRC There's also a Goon IRC channel for Magic on SynIRC called #mtgoon where a bunch of us lurk and occasionally bullshit about Magic, draft, play EDH, etc. If you have an urgent rules question you need answered right away, there's the #mtgrules channel on EFNet where a lot of highly qualified judges hang out. iOS APPS GoldenDelicious posted:So here are some apps I've discovered for iOS that are for Magic: The Gathering:
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Feb 7, 2014 05:45
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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.
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Feb 7, 2014 05:59
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I'm surprised no one has posted this yet, but Magic action figures and these adorable looking "Pop! Vinyls" are coming in April and August!   Pop Ajani looks so cute. Read the press release here.
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Feb 17, 2014 06:14
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Some guy tried to buy two cases of Magic from a local Long Island store, but when they hadn't shipped out the product and avoided his phone calls and emails, he posted about it on Reddit. The store responded by creating an account to curse him out and posting his personal information on Facebook: In an ironic - and very sad - twist, a few years ago when BluPlanet first opened, I had gone in and promised to help him get his DCI sanctioning. Then I had three close relatives die over the span of three weeks, and completely forgot about him. Later on I found out that he resented me for not helping. So I found his "You'll understand when you have someone close to you die" spiel pretty interesting. So I sympathize with him on knowing how much a death in the family can mess up business practices, but this thing has exploded all over Facebook around here, and he's looking really bad.
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Feb 24, 2014 21:33
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The new Night's Whisper art is much better than the original. It's hard to tell from the small picture, but I think I like the new Remand art better also.
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Feb 25, 2014 23:49
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I had a reasonably well paying job, and I'm a judge who gets boxes of cards and store credit just for doing what I love, and I've still never even thought of building a Legacy or Modern deck due to the price. I don't know how college kids are throwing together these decks. I did just lose my job, and trying to think of what to sell is painful. Fetchlands need to go now, I'm sure, because those can possibly expect a reprint in about a year. But I'm hesitant to ever get rid of anything on the reserve list because I don't see an end point in sight for Underground Seas.
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Feb 28, 2014 04:14
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Call me cynical, but the prices of modern (and I mean "recent", but also in the sense of legal in Modern) cards seem to be based on this strange culture of fascination with high card value. We were all there for the great Legacy price spike, or at least the Modern one, and people are still trying to ride that high of "Whoa, look how much this card is worth now!" How many times have you been at FNM and heard someone excitedly tell someone else, "Snapcaster Mage is up to $50 now!"? They should know damned well that Snapcaster, or whatever card they're referencing, isn't that much money; that's the highest of the high retail price for the card, potentially even embellished a few dollars so they can enjoy the shocked look on the other person's face. I've actually gotten exhausted from arguments with people who refuse to believe that I can find cards $20 cheaper than they think, even when showing them current buy-it-now listings. A recent example, just last night, was when I was watching someone put cards into their binder and they were pumped to tell me how their Courser of Kruphix was up to $15. It's not $15, and never was. SCG had them at $12, but showing them evidence just had them shaking their head: "No, it's $15, I just checked last night." This is combined with people being upset they missed the boat on some high priced cards like fetchlands. It leads to hilarious price spikes in cards that appear as one-ofs in sideboards. As much as people moan about high card prices, they sure love talking about them. We just can't get enough, and all want to be in on the next Tarmogoyf.
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Feb 28, 2014 08:05
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Magic was sort of featured on The Daily Show last night, in a segment about bitcoins. You can watch the episode here: http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/thu-february-27-2014-kevin-roose It's the first segment.
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Feb 28, 2014 17:47
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Lunsku posted:One of the players was 13-0, the only one such after thirteen rounds, then lost the next two rounds for 13-2 and 13th place because tiebreakers. Salty. I'm just mad at him because I wanted my set of foil Scapeshifts to be worth a lot more.  What a Judas posted:I traded in random crap to SCG and got credit, so I picked up the Mox, Delta, and Drain. I get so much stuff in random trades it's actually profitable to do this. Teach me your ways! I want so badly to be able to trade for high value, but I'm a terrible salesman, so I never know how to get value out of a trade.
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Mar 10, 2014 14:29
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mcmagic posted:The guy got banned from future tournaments for this. Already? Or are you thinking of a similar situation from a while back?
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Mar 11, 2014 03:30
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En Fuego posted:Here's the updated list, which I liked better when they listed reasons: Me too, the only recent one I know on there is the guy from Massapequa, who was the store owner in this story. The lifetime bans are always interesting to wonder what they did to get a lifetime ban.
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Mar 14, 2014 20:48
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Gyshall posted:Caw Blade standard was degenerate as gently caress. I can't even remember a deck that you could play that wasn't blue/white with Jace and a bunch of swords/birds/etc. I had to table judge a top 8 Caw Blade mirror match at US Nationals one year. It took forever, and every game went through the same "phases". The Squadron Hawk phase, the Jace phase, the Celestial Colonnade phase, zzzz....
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Mar 14, 2014 20:51
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Stinky Pit posted:The point is that to this point TOs are not, and have not addressed the problem, and at some point it is the responsibility of the WPN to address it and other problems with the community. The hygiene problems probably need to be dealt with within the player community, because I don't think WotC's marketing department has the charisma needed to spin "Most of you smell bad, clean it up" into something that won't make them lose customers. I don't know if anyone would, this behavior has been tolerated for all of Magic's life. It's rare, but I've seen TOs kick people out of tournaments for smelling horrible, and the ironic thing is that maybe this whole ordeal will force TOs to take notice more. I also read a Tweet from Helene that was something along the lines of "Dress codes vary widely from country to country, so it's a tall order to write up policy."
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Mar 14, 2014 23:22
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Ramos posted:Speaking of EDH, I just got done running with the initial runs of Xenagod as my commander. Good lord, he does work. Due to the composition of people who I play EDH with, and most people who play EDH in general, there is very little enchantment and creature exiling, making Xenagod stick around for the most part. Is your list online? Mine's at http://deck.tk/1QM770SU The infect dudes really do work, I've surprise-killed many people with them. Some troubles with the deck itself I've had is that I need to run all these utility creatures, which are tiny and I can't really win with. Drawing a Vexing Shusher when there's no one countering spells, or a Scavenging Ooze when no one's reanimating anything, etc. really sucks.
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Mar 16, 2014 17:37
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Ramos posted:Nah, I don't have a list online, but I will say my group is a lot lower power than your group. In particular, no one really runs with infect, nor do I. As far as my deck is concerned, I have very few non-ramp utility creatures. Everything is either big, a land, find lands, or draw more cards, with a few exceptions like one blasphemous act. It is purely aggro as a deck. This is my low power deck compared to my others. All my others involve blue and a solid amount of control (not a shitload of counters), so I wanted a more aggro-y deck. Sometimes while playing it I'll feel kind of open, because there's no disruption really. No one seems to mind the infect plan, because it's something they're not used to losing to. It gets a big laugh when it happens, actually, because no one expects sudden poisoning from a red/green deck.
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Mar 16, 2014 20:13
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Korak posted:Yeah but they definitely seem flavorful for JOU, the human especially so. They certainly don't feel very Warlords of Khanar-y. Are you baselessly speculating on an art style for a set we know nothing about, where even the name is just an educated guess based on a trademark filing? In other news, the Commander tournaments at my LGS keep getting weirder and weirder. It's based on a ~*Sheldon Points*~-like system, and now there's a new rule where if the organizer thinks you're purposefully not winning the game just to accrue more points, he can come over and force you to attack or whatever to win the game. I'm never playing a Commander game with more rules than the official ones (except for a first friendly partial-mulligan, which is just great). LifeLynx fucked around with this message at 15:59 on Mar 31, 2014 |
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Mar 31, 2014 15:56
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Korak posted:It will be a shocker if Huey isn't Warlords. It's possible that it's "Khans of Tarkir" now, and the assumption is that Wizards didn't want confusion with the new WoW expansion, "Warlords of Draenor". But still, speculation on art styles we know nothing about is pointless.
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Mar 31, 2014 16:02
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I don't know how many people are aware of this, but there was a recent price spike on... Autumn Willow. It seems that mtgstocks.com got their price data from a source that had a random fluctuation, and suddenly, Autumn Willow jumped up to $15 for a very short amount of time. Prices fixed themselves temporarily, but speculators had already gone into high gear. The card was instantly out of stock everywhere, and Autumn Willows were going on eBay for $4 a card. And they still are, though they're not actually selling for anywhere near that. eBay aside, it's caused some crazy panic amongst traders on other sites, where, unlike eBay, there isn't a massive market to price correct mistakes like this. The store owner of my LGS was talking about this, and just as he finished, like right on time, someone walked in and tried to stealthily ask the employee how many Autumn Willows they had. When he had like twelve of them in his hand for the dollar and change each that they were marked, he was ecstatic, and caught the store owner's eye and panic set in. The owner laughed and said "Go ahead, I've got like thirty more, you better get those on eBay fast!" There's been a pretty big problem with the huge price spikes lately and people coming in and taking advantage of low prices on poo poo like Ancient Tomb, so the customer was just happy he "got away with it". (The owner says he doesn't care, since he made his money on them anyway; it's when people don't tell him that he gets a little annoyed.) I love that Magic speculation culture caused a mass freak-out over Autumn Willow, of all cards. Partially because it was the first card I ever remember being considered overpriced, even when Moxen were $25; but also because it proves that price spikes are literally based on nothing but the people who missed out on the Legacy/Modern price booms being terrified they might miss out on the "next big thing".
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Apr 1, 2014 07:53
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mango sentinel posted:I'm really, really tempted to cash out my collection right now to pay for a vacation. I have so many of these dumb cards, but not enough to make any eternal decks except legacy burn. I don't even play anymore, and I'm guessing the bubble won't get thaaaaaaaat much higher. The Legacy bubble probably does stand to go higher, but the Modern one probably has a short time left. People are getting their Modern staples now for the PTQ season, and once everyone has what they want, they're going to sit on them until Modern season is over. Literally all it's going to take is for one high-priced Modern staple to get reprinted in a Standard-legal set before people panic and realize that there's no card in Modern on the reserve list.
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Apr 1, 2014 08:22
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JerryLee posted:Why would the next staple do it when the shocks and Thoughtseize didn't? Not trying to be antagonistic, I'm curious what you think is going to be different this time around. Ah, I guess you're right. The Shocks hit before the Modern price boom, and Thoughtseize shortly after/during it, but still. I guess what I should say is: when the fetches get reprinted, I'm sure that will shake people up. That's a lot of cards suddenly being devalued.
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Apr 1, 2014 08:38
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Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:I have never been so loving sick of Craterhoof Behemoth and Avenger of Zendikar high-fiving all over my life total before my brother picked up Karametra as a Commander. Chain Reaction and Blasphemous Act are two of my favorite lesser-known Wrath effects in mono-red. You also have Cinder Cloud and Fissure from a time when the color pie didn't matter and red could get unconditional creature removal.
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Apr 2, 2014 20:06
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Mike Flores's article starts with:quote:Why would I possibly want to blow up all my own creatures? ...and then talks about various Wrath effects for a few hundred words, and finally previews... a lovely one-drop Merfolk that looks best at home in a Group Hug Commander deck. Did he think he was getting Extinguish All Hope while writing the first 3/4ths of his article? If I didn't read the Extinguish All Hope article first, I would've been really disappointed that he didn't preview a playable Wrath*. * Okay, I don't actually read Flores articles, but there were still all the pictures of Wraths!
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Apr 7, 2014 05:10
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A big flaming stink posted:Is Keranos worded such that if you draw a card during your opponent's turn you get the reveal trigger? Or is the "your turn" precluding that? You answered your own question - it's not your turn, so it doesn't trigger. I'm sure I'll get this question a bunch of times at the prerelease anyway.
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Apr 8, 2014 05:43
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Ramos posted:
Yeah, sorry. My Roon deck, which durdles so much that it scares people into killing me even when I keep drawing dead every single game, is becoming Kruphix. I was debating over turning it into UW Blink or UG Card Advantage already, and this decided it for me. Every card with Kruphix's name in it is insane in Commander. Zorak posted:
I think this is replacing Sever the Bloodline in my mono-black Oloro deck. I'm not sure though, because Sever has more protection from counterspells.
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Apr 10, 2014 05:22
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Entropic posted:But you can't talk about gross art without mentioning Living Wall:
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Apr 10, 2014 15:27
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Zorak posted:
I'm definitely curious about all of these, especially if they're all loosely based on what the designer is known for, unless the Plants vs. Zombies guy's card being a plant is just a happy coincidence. Edmund McMillen's card must be crazy.
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Apr 13, 2014 04:47
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Northjayhawk posted:Yeah, it would make no sense to announce it now, let Journey into Nyx get revealed and released first, or they'll be stepping on that. The problem is that if this wasn't the official line, it's what people have been reporting: that the reveal would be "Sunday, at the Pro Tour." The Pro Tour isn't for another few weeks, but they said that on a Saturday, so of course everyone blanked out the "at the Pro Tour" in their heads. Everyone also expected more Magic-related announcements today, adding to the confusion.
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Apr 13, 2014 22:54
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Pharika is the only demigod to have an activated ability. It makes me wonder if something got switched around in design/development again. She's great in limited, turning your dead creatures into efficient blockers, but the "its owner" clause makes her suck for constructed.Count Bleck posted:THAT IS A REALLY GOOD 3 DROP THAT IS GOING IN MY NEKUSAR DECK! That deck is so boring to build.
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Apr 14, 2014 05:23
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Crackatastic posted:So in the span of six weeks, the price of legacy duals has continued to Skyrocket. Tundra's grown to 250, Bayou is pushing 200 and, Underground Sea has ballooned to 350. On SCG, Sneak Attack also jumped to $100. This is good though, soon I'll be able to trade my Revised duals almost straight-up for Moxen. Wizards is much less likely to reprint Moxen than the original duals (which I really believe will happen some day, even in the far future).
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Apr 16, 2014 15:55
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bhsman posted:What's this? WotC portraying a significant plot point on a card again?? The new O-Ring is sweet. I called it coming when I saw Banisher Priest, but for some reason I didn't think about it logically being in the enchantment block. I hope it's a Core Set staple for years to come. I also like how they mostly fixed the "the game's a draw if there are three of these and no other non-land permanents" also.
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Apr 17, 2014 05:35
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Wow, yeah! I wonder if that was a mistake. Anyway, Thassa's Ire looks painful in limited. That's one of the swingiest uncommons I've seen in a long time.
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Apr 18, 2014 05:14
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LordSaturn posted:Vintage's biggest peculiarity is some of its powerhouses fold to aggressive creature strategies. Other major Vintage decks keep the aggressive strategies from becoming dominant, but basically, sticking a 4-power beater and not needing to resolve anything else might just be enough, sometimes. Slash Panther was a silly experiment like two years ago. No one plays it anymore, and that's partly due to the rise of more creature decks. You don't want to run a Slash Panther into a Snapcaster, especially because Slash Panther doesn't actually do anything to slow your opponent down. The only somewhat vanilla dude that's played is Porcelain Legionnaire, because it blocks all those 2/1s, Lodestone Golems, and Mishra's Factories. Entropic posted:Wasn't Juggernaut still a thing in Vintage recently just because it beats a Mindslaver lock? Not since Lodestone Golem was printed. I also haven't seen Mindslaver in a long time.
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Apr 23, 2014 17:12
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Dungeon Ecology posted:I like that dude. I would just be all I play much better while drunk. When I'm sober I overthink my plays.
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Apr 25, 2014 01:38
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, but he's all 
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The Magic Tournament Rules posted:7.4 Abnormal Product Edit: Actually, if these exist, they're probably only in the prerelease kits.
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Apr 25, 2014 19:52
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GreyPowerVan posted:(Recommended prize pack stuff) Anyway, full block sealed is much more enjoyable than the last two sets. I still hate the seeded pack because it takes away so many decisions from deckbuilding, but WotC's market research must tell them to keep with it. All my attempts to draft the full block with our prize packs failed, but I'm eager to see if it's more interactive than Born/Theros drafts.
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Apr 28, 2014 04:08
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Fuzzy Mammal posted:- I saw a sick match where Marshalle Sutcliffe won in time with like, 5 Mnemonic Wall tokens on the battlefield somehow. That was a sweet rear end game. Fated Infatuation! Someone had that combo along with Nykthos and Curse of the Swine in a draft the other week. He made 80+ Mnemonic Walls, then used Nykthos to generate a lot of mana and turn them into 2/2s. Someone told me he must've added one or more of those cards to his deck, though of course that's nearly impossible to prove in a draft.
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Apr 28, 2014 04:39
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BXCX posted:I would quite enjoy WotC being able to include the correct token with a token producing card if it shows up in a pack since there's nothing that annoys me more irrationally than players representing token creatures with dice. No you just turn the spell that made them face-down and put it on the battlefield, it's not like there are a dozen playable bounce spells in this limited format 
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May 5, 2014 20:33
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Zorak posted:As a reminder, there's apparently Vintage Masters and/or Conspiracy spoilers in a couple hours on the Mothership. Mark Rosewater posted:Join me next week, when a third of what I say will be a lie.
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May 12, 2014 03:08
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MaRo's article doesn't have any Conspiracy spoilers as far as I can see from a quick glance.  Mark Rosewater posted:Magic debuted in July of 1993. It was not until February of 1999, in the set Urza's Legacy, that either the rarity color indicator or the collector numbers first appeared. Before that time, how was someone to know the rarity or the set size? Well, in the early days, the set size was announced when the set went on sale, but the cards' rarity was purposefully kept a mystery. In fact, in the early days, Wizards purposefully didn't tell anyone which cards were in the set. LifeLynx fucked around with this message at 05:32 on May 12, 2014 |
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May 12, 2014 05:10
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Kabanaw posted:I think my favorite part of Maro's article was this, re: blockers not dealing damage while tapped: The reactions to the stack are pretty much the same way. People were outraged that some interrupts didn't work the way they used to, that you could respond to Counterspell with instants, etc. JerryLee posted:Maro is too busy trying to ruin Magic to worry about facts. MaRo's really enthusiastic about Magic and doesn't always fact-check his articles. I'm 100% certain that: 1. The "third of what I say will be lies" line was about his Conspiracy preview article, which he didn't realize would be two weeks from when he said it, not the following week. 2. He's turned the decision to put color-coded rarity/collector numbers on Exodus cards and the decision to put foils in Urza's Legacy into a big muddled mess in his head. When you're thinking about Magic sets three years into the future, who can keep track of what happened over fifteen years ago? 3. Magic was loving weird twenty years ago. I never thought about it all until I saw all of it in one place, but big respect for the card templating team for being able to accurately convey every bit of information about a card on a card these days.
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May 12, 2014 05:30
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