Magic: The Gathering: Megathread: Sorin & Sarkhan's Excellent Adventure

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mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

Does Bueler actually have an out here?

# ¿ Sep 28, 2014 01:06

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 20:24

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

Angry Grimace posted:

Cost aside, I would rather have Dig Through Time than Ancestral Recall.

wow

# ¿ Sep 29, 2014 18:43

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

Angry Grimace posted:

The only format where Recall is legal has restricted cards. When I say "cost" I'm referring to the casting cost.

It's because people legitimately believe card advantage is an actual rule of deck construction as opposed to a generic principle.

I just kind of glazed over the "cost" part because I was stunned with incredulity over anyone wanting another draw spell over Recall. You're right. If Dig were 1 mana, I'd rather have it over Recall.

# ¿ Sep 29, 2014 19:36

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

Can someone give me the rundown on what starting a new MODO account currently gives you?

# ¿ Oct 1, 2014 20:35

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

Bugsy posted:

Nathan Holliday is playing modern Jeskai Ascendency on stream right now if people want to see how crazy the deck is.

http://www.twitch.tv/channelfireball

This guy looks amazing.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2014 07:06

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

qbert posted:

Can the Ascendancy deck still win against Meddling Mage and/or Chalice of the Void?

Most versions I've seen have silver bullet sideboards to go with Glittering Wish so post sideboard you've got stuff like abrupt decay, simic charm, or wear/tear.

Also Meddling Mage if you want to name Meddling Mage.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2014 07:37

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

Samael posted:

So is Jeskai Ascendancy good in standard also? I mean there isn't as many 1 drop spells that cantrip in the deck as in modern, so I'm a little pessimistic on whether it would work.

In a world where Anger of the Gods is common and the quality of durdles is so low, I doubt it.

Plus I don't like a win condition of going off and pumping a bunch of dudes that can get chumped. Presumably you could cram in Nylea or Archetype of Anger, or maybe some Messenger Speed. Are there any better overrun type things that might actually fit in that deck?

# ¿ Oct 3, 2014 08:49

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

LordSaturn posted:

How can I do an either-or text search on magiccards.info? I'm trying to search for all the cards in my color identity that Mwonvuli Beast-Tracker can find.

Use parentheses and "or"
(deathtouch) or (reach) or (trample) or (hexproof)

# ¿ Oct 3, 2014 15:49

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

Cactrot posted:

No idea how it plays, but this showed up a few days ago.

http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/valuable-lessons-valuable-lessons-standard-has-a-real-combo-deck/

This is the version I was looking at and it seems really weak but apparently most people are running Retraction Helix to try and bounce the other dude's creatures to get in. Dunno how well this works.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2014 16:01

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

Cactrot posted:

It probably works very well, since otherwise your gigantor creature is likely to get chumped.

Well the issue is the card doesn't cantrip and also locks up one of your mana dorks bouncing stuff when you still have to go off X number of reps.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2014 16:13

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

Jabor posted:

Stratus Walk seems like the better answer to chump blockers, given that the only flying creature that would generally be staying back to block your guys is Mantis Rider (and you probably have more than one mana dork to attack with if you're actually going off).

Topping your pump off with Barrage of Boulders might be the correct answer. Still think it's a bad deck.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2014 17:15

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

I assume Glissa will be the green walker since who the gently caress are any of the other ones aside from Freyalise who's probably multicolor.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2014 22:15

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

I'm sure they're comfortable sitting on it longer.

I'd much rather see them ban Ascension and kill the deck rather than ban wish to try and make it "fair."

Glittering Wish is a fun and cool card and I would be sad to see it banned. That plus banning Wish might just kill the deck anyway so why not just ban Ascension in the first place?

EDIT: Ban Cerulian Wisps.

mango sentinel fucked around with this message at 04:48 on Oct 10, 2014

# ¿ Oct 10, 2014 04:45

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

Count Bleck posted:

Still sucks that 1) Anafenza is a Soldier, and 2) All the Tribal in Abzan is Warriors.

Who thought that was a good idea?

Conscious balance decision.

# ¿ Oct 13, 2014 16:38

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

meanolmrcloud posted:

Really hard to believe thats not scripted. Opening a one in a million several thousand dollar card calls for more amazement than that.

Can you not see him literally shaking?

# ¿ Oct 13, 2014 23:03

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

homerlaw posted:

It's Heroscape. Like all but 100% a copy

IIRC Hasbro owns Heroscape so this should not be surprising.

# ¿ Oct 16, 2014 06:58

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

Veyrall posted:

Amen to that. Dreamblade looked awesome. Everything was so weird and cool.

How big are the figures? I'm always looking for inexpensive D&D minis and the boosters for Dreamblade seem like a pretty hot dollar for figure ratio. Basically prefer stuff that will fit in a Chessex map square.

Cernunnos posted:

Wizards' bottom line has nothing to do with Rarity. They sell packs. They, and other card games, use Rarity to make packs more lottery-like in order to scratch that gambling itch.

Since Magic has a successful/workable Limited format they use the preexisting Rarity system to adjust the power level of cards in Limited. More powerful stuff ends up in higher rarities. It's why we usually have at least 1 "disappointing" Mythic in each set. It was just a Rare but it became completely format warping for Limited so they pushed it up.

I'm sure Archangel's Light was backbreaking at Rare.

mango sentinel fucked around with this message at 01:43 on Oct 17, 2014

# ¿ Oct 17, 2014 01:41

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

Fingers McLongDong posted:

My local store is starting an ante league next week. Rules are you pick 6 boosters from any set that the store will have or attempt to order. All 6 boosters have to be from different sets, you make a sealed deck that you have to leave at the store, and each week you can buy a new booster from any set. At the start of any league match, you shuffle, flip the top, and that's your ante. So, what would be the most fun packs to pick? I was thinking about getting Lorwyn and Morningtide, maybe an m11, and then a few cheap recent ones because I'm not made of money. Any suggestions?

Mirrodin Block, Fallen Empires, Rise of the Eldrazi, Magic 2011.

# ¿ Oct 17, 2014 23:54

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

Zoness posted:

Assuming Modern Masters isn't allowed:

For Aggro:
Zendikar, Planar Chaos, Future Sight, Darksteel, Gatecrash, Alara Reborn

On the other hand, if durdling is more your thing:
Time Spiral, Guildpact, Darksteel, Rise of the Eldrazi, Shadowmoor, Future Sight

I think Future-Sight is a must-attempt because it has one of the most busted limited cards ever at common. Also worldwake is a pipe dream so for realists it would make sense to substitute that with Darksteel for old swords.

Keep in mind that Darksteel in particular is a small set with Vulshok Morningstar at common and two Swords at rare. With Alara Reborn the X-blades and Cascade are pretty absurd mechanics that can interplay with Gatecrash's aggressive themes. Shadowmoor and Time Spiral are large sets, which is unfortunate, but they have plenty of cards that are good value. I'm honestly not sure if Guildpact has aged well, since a lot of old Ravnica block suffer from combat damage being removed from the stack, so an alternative consideration could be Conflux or Scourge, since both sets have a common cycle of landcyclers.

This might be the wrong approach, but I figure looking at what the average pack in the set is likely to contain isn't a bad idea for pack selection.

Oh and if you really want to live the dream, you can always go with Betrayers of Kamigawa, in which case, good luck.

Also I guess Future Sight might be a hard set to get ahold of, in which case Shards might be worth consideration because it has a lot of solid removal at common. Also Legions is worth consideration because that's going to be 15 creatures in a pack.

On a side note: do you pick packs one at a time, like do you open one and pick your next, or do you pick 6 at once?

Because then I'd try to set aside a few to look at how much fixing you want and stuff like that.

Yeah I posted those up without really thinking through. My reasoning was you want a sold base of commons/uncommon to protect against ante taking a bomb and destroying your deck. Mirrodin has stuff like Bonesplitter at common, Loxidon Warhammer at uncommon but has a lot more chaff than I remember. Fifth Dawn probably a skip too since it looks like it's a mess outside Shackles, Magma Jet, and Cranial Plating. Zen/WW creatures with Mirrodin/Darksteel equip if you're lucky seems like it would crush though. FE pump knights and hymn are good but honestly whichever set has the best common removal+disruption is the way to go.

# ¿ Oct 18, 2014 08:01

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

Nehru the Damaja posted:

There's no correct time to link this so here's my favorite deck I've ever seen on an SCG stream:

http://blip.tv/scglive/scgdc-std-rnd3-steven-axtell-vs-carl-endres-5909750

Some loving weirdo BUG deck from Innistrad standard that just has filthy value everywhere. It's hilarious.

Sweet deck with it's turn 20 goldfish.

# ¿ Oct 18, 2014 22:55

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

BaronVonVaderham posted:

Who the gently caress doesn't know the movie "The Blob" but knows the obscure villain "The Blob" from The X-Men....

People who grew up in the 90s or later watching the X-men cartoons who don't watch movies from the 1950s and managed to avoid the awful 80s remake. I imagine that's a big demo.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2014 19:10

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

mcmagic posted:

Lol look at this rear end in a top hat on the GPLA stream with a SARS mask.

Maybe he's got a cold and is being courteous?

# ¿ Oct 19, 2014 22:35

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

BaronVonVaderham posted:

Given how incredibly ill I became after going to GP Orlando, I wish I had worn one. If you're sick, stay home, I always catch the plague from some idiot.

Those masks don't protect you from getting sick. They protect you from making other people sick. People don't understand how they work.

mango sentinel fucked around with this message at 00:17 on Oct 20, 2014

# ¿ Oct 20, 2014 00:14

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

Nah, that's all Nelson.

# ¿ Oct 20, 2014 06:41

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

Trying to watch this TWoo draft and jesus gently caress it just makes me want to punch him.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2014 08:57

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

xeose4 posted:

I actually don't understand this, sorry. It just feels unnecessary? If Dark Confidant lets me draw one extra card per turn at the cost of my life, surely Blue can do that better? I've seen so many Black and Red cards who sacrifice this permanent or themselves, or make you pay life for this effect that this other colour can do without resorting to that. White has a ton of removal that doesn't require you to also remove your own things in the process, but it seems nobody told Red and Black that you could do that.

I know everyone is dogpiling on this but it's really something you should try to understand. Life is just another resource like cards or mana. Drawing extra cards every turn is an incredibly powerful effect, especially when it starts early in the game. Blue doesn't get a similar creature until 5 mana. Compare to all of blue's 2 mana draw, it's either filtering+draw 1, or draw 2 with a drawback, like sacrifice a permanent or opponents draw cards. White's best removal does stuff like give the opponent a land, gain them life, or kills all your dudes too. Most aggressively costed, powerful cards tend to have drawbacks.

Also, gotta restate: your life is just another resource. Newer players in particular mis-value cards that involve paying life, but any time you can pay life instead of mana or a card, it's incredibly powerful because it lets you do "extra" things with those resources. You may think, "this puts me closer to my opponent killing me," when really it means you are putting yourself so far ahead of your opponent they won't get a chance to kill you.

Olothreutes posted:

I would have bothered to look at the cost of Emrakul, but I stopped playing in an era where Show and Tell was printed, so the idea of cheating things into play was nothing new. I don't think anyone actually hard casts Emrakul, do they? I guess maybe elves or tron of some variety generates enough mana but I think the former just plays craterhoof and the latter plays Karn and then mindslaver locks you or something.

The set Emrakul showed up in was designed with the concept of "Battleship Magic" with big lumbering creatures smashing into each other so the limited format was full of high casting costs and various forms of mana acceleration. This, along with some other enablers spilled over into standard and hardcasting an Emrakul was far from unheard of. Most ramp decks though just settled on the "build your own Emrakul" strategy of ramping into the 6 mana Sovereigns of Lost Alara and putting Eldrazi Conscription on to an attacking Lotus Cobra.

mango sentinel fucked around with this message at 06:49 on Oct 22, 2014

# ¿ Oct 22, 2014 06:39

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

xeose4 posted:

I would disagree, especially with the removal of mana burn. Having too much mana won't kill you, and drawing all of your cards is very hard when there are 40 cards minimum per deck. However, spending too much life will most certainly kill you. I agree that you can use life as a resource, but that doesn't mean you always should.

You're failing to comprehend here. Not having enough mana will kill you. Not drawing the removal or creatures you need will kill you. An extra card per turn increases the odds you will be able to move ahead of your opponent on board. Using your life as a resource means on turn 3 you can cast another 2 drop AND keep mana up to Dismember your opponent's big creature instead of spending an entire turn casting. Paying life means you get to rip the opponent's best threat out of their hand instead of whatever else they've got. Spending life instead of mana means you get to do those things earlier AND do other stuff on top of that. Yes, you could spend more mana and dmake them discard or kill a creature, but then you're not getting ahead on board at the same time. The idea of using life is that it puts you so far ahead on board and cards in hand your opponent isn't going to be in a situation where they can ever finish you off.

You keep calling Dark Confidant "gambling." Every card choice is a gamble on how well it fills it role in winning you the game. Call it a gamble if you want, but players have run the odds and know it's a gamble they are heavily favored to win.

TheKingofSprings posted:

I would argue that Bob is no longer as good as it used to be in a lot of the formats it frequents; it's really only in one or two decks in Legacy, and one in Modern.

I wonder how much of this has to do with Goyf.

mango sentinel fucked around with this message at 08:14 on Oct 22, 2014

# ¿ Oct 22, 2014 08:10

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

xeose4 posted:

So late game decks aren't a thing at all anymore? Or delay/stall decks?

That's generally what people are talking about when referencing "durdling." Blue decks that do nothing but cast dumb cantrips and remove your stuff until they can cast a big spell. We recently came out a format dominated by a stupid blue/white do nothing deck dominated by these cards: Sphinx's Revelation and Supreme Verdict. The win condition was having this card in their deck effectively ensuring they can durdle until the end of time forcing the opponent to concede. I feel like you would love that deck.

xeose4 posted:

Desperate last-ditch card for when you run out of actual counterspells? Unless you can pay an island as "a blue card" in which case I don't understand why it's so expensive when the regular counterspell is UU and this doesn't do anything fancier. I would expect to see the life-paying and discarding mechanic on a counterspell that is cheaper than the standard counterspell, not more expensive.

You can pay 1 life and discard a blue card to make it "free," those aren't in addition to the mana cost. I'm assuming you misread that.
Islands aren't blue.

# ¿ Oct 22, 2014 08:24

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

xeose4 posted:

I don't get why it has a mana cost, or why it's so expensive. If it's a counterspell designed to let you cast it when you're tapped out so you are never paying its actual mana cost, why is it so expensive?

I admit I hadn't thought about the whole "Casting it during the first turn when they're playing first". That's definitely useful, but are there really that many 1-drops that are worth it?

It's expensive because the alternate cost is so good and that's the mode they want players to use. They don't want it to have the alternate cost AND be Counterspell. It's already the best counter, but that would even more crazy.

It's the best because it lets you stop turn 1 plays (which in legacy can be huge), and protect spells you tap out for. You tap all your mana to cast your game winning spell, they try to counter it, you can force of will to counter their counterspell.

It's way more easy to observe this card's power. Go watch LSV's legacy games on youtube and you will quickly understand why Force is so absurdly good.

# ¿ Oct 22, 2014 08:33

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

TheKingofSprings posted:

Actually Mana Drain fights it pretty loving hard for that position.

Dunno if there's a clear winner but one is banned in Legacy.

I was gonna say that in both a vacuum and in the context of current Legacy FoW was better than Mana Drain, but then I remembered Treasure Cruise is now a thing. I still think FoW is generally a better card since countering stuff when tapped out is so good. Mana Drain is real good though.

kizudarake posted:

Why did they ban the ancient den/seat of the synod cycle in modern? Was it artifact shenanigans?

Affinity is bullshit with artifact lands.

# ¿ Oct 22, 2014 08:49

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

Ableist Kinkshamer posted:

Spergy rant: Something that really bugs me about Khans is how they insisted on making a new creature type, Naga, for the snake people instead of just saying they're snakes like every other time Magic has had snake people

Kamigawa snake people aren't really naga since they don't have snake bodies. Coiling Oracle is specifically a Simic experiment and not part of a race.

That leaves Serpent Warrior and Serpent Assassin as the only existing naga that are snakes instead. I think I can live with that.

# ¿ Oct 23, 2014 06:58

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

Hell yeah terrible 4 card combos.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2014 19:18

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

C-Euro posted:

I didn't know Freyalise had an eyepatch. That's rad.

That's been around

What's weird is, looks like she has faun legs for no reason. I mean, I guess if you're a planeswalker you can just do that kind of thing if you want I guess.

mango sentinel fucked around with this message at 20:01 on Oct 27, 2014

# ¿ Oct 27, 2014 19:59

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

Veyrall posted:

Well, she is a half-elf, so maybe the elf half of her comes from Lorwyn?

Nah, half human from Dominaria.

TheKingofSprings posted:

Actually, it owns that a card like that got printed.

People may bitch about stuff like breaking formats and power creep, but I'd much rather live in a world where the occasional pushed design card slips through than one where things are consistently underpowered and boring. I've lived through Affinity and Caw-blade. I've also lived through Fallen Empires. I'm much more comfortable with the former happening occasionally than the latter.

mango sentinel fucked around with this message at 20:14 on Oct 27, 2014

# ¿ Oct 27, 2014 20:06

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

Elyv posted:

It's the obligatory red enchantment with 10 lines of rules text that doesn't do a whole lot!

My immediate thoughts when I saw the cardname, casting cost, and art, before I even scrolled down.

# ¿ Oct 27, 2014 22:28

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

C-Euro posted:

I think so, with one reprint legend to round out each deck's eligible commanders, if I remember the black deck correctly.

Yeah. New Planeswalker, new Legend, reprtint Legend. Black gets Drana, Red gets Tuktuk.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2014 18:09

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

Minority Deport posted:

EDH rules committee's card:

Is this not very good? It seems not very good. On the plus side, he's from that plane in Conspiracy, which is neat. And it doesn't say "do damage" anywhere on it, the first red planeswalker to do that.

4 mana for a horribad faithless looting and worse goblin welder. :toot:

# ¿ Oct 29, 2014 09:41

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

Niton posted:

I dunno, they're pretty drat similar looking, right down to the shape of their hair:

If these are meant to be different, distinct characters, i'm really not seeing it.

Called it

# ¿ Oct 29, 2014 20:46

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

Angry Grimace posted:

I think WOTC is just giving a very obvious nod to the fan-theory that Stoneforge Mystic was the Lithomancer. Whether Stoneforge Mystics in general look like the Lithomancer is kind of irrelevant. They're just recasting the person in Stoneforge Mystic as Nahiri. Basically, the person in Stoneforge Mystic is Nahiri, but the Stoneforge Mystic you summon isn't Nahiri. Despite the fact that this makes no sense.

It's clearly a retcon, but they literally copied the entire character design from one to the other.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2014 20:53

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 20:24

mango sentinel: Jan 5, 2001; by sebmojo

Angry Grimace posted:

None of this, of course, explains why Stoneforge Mystic is more powerful than Nahiri, the Lithomancer.

Kayfabe explanation is when a planeswalker (player) summons another planeswalker (card) to their aid, the summoned planeswalker is only compelled to help as much as they feel like. Summoned creatures are at the full command of the player. Planeswalker Nahiri could still fetch that Batterskull for you, she just doesn't like you enough to do so.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2014 21:10

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