Magic: the Gathering: Faithless Posting

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Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

I know a lot of people have bounced off MM17 draft, either voluntarily or not, but I'm curious what BR is supposed to do as a color group. The theme seems to be sacrifice, but the payoffs just don't seem good. The only token enabler I remember is Dragon Fodder, the payoff is Mortician Beetle, and the sac outlets don't seem to affect the board like even a simple Penumbra Spider. I've only drafted it 3 times, but I have never seen anyone force it successfully, even when it seems open.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2017 17:52

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# ¿ May 4, 2024 03:57

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

Protean Hulk was 4 bucks yesterday and 25 today lol.
At least I got to snag 4 Tops for my EDH decks for 40 shipped!

# ¿ Apr 25, 2017 20:52

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

Veyrall posted:

There's a new magic story out from a day or so ago.

Basic rundown:

Nissa is wandering though Amonkhet checking how nice everything is as long as you don't check out how awfully hosed up the leylines and energy of the plane is. She wanders into Kefnet's temple and stumbles into the Trial! Of! Knowledge! trying to find answers about how Bolas hosed things up. Spoiler alert: It nearly loving kills her. It's filled with endless nightmare illusions, which she defeats by closing her eyes and telling them to gently caress off under her breath.

She finds herself in another room of illusions that tell the truth now, and she sees an allegory for how Bolas jacked up the plane and killed three gods leaving "just three dark rents in the fabric of the sky. Three dark holes, possessed of an energy and fury all their own, pulsing to a rhythm malevolent." So, maybe expect to see some evil corpse gods in Hour of Devastation. She also sees that Nicol Bolas' travels have left a literal trail of darkness behind him through the planes. Maybe. It's all in allegory, so who loving knows.

Anyway, she gets trapped in a revelation loop and an angel that "reminds her of Emrakul" (wink wink) tells her to stop being a pawn or a queen, and instead be a player. Then Kefnet jumps in out of nowhere, pissed that someone is interfering with his Trail. He gets good and ready to kill Nissa, until she uses leyline magic to open up Amonkhet's debug menu and sets Kefnet's murdervalue to false. Then he fucks off, saying she passed the trial, and she fucks off feeling pretty jazzed that she's not a complete punk anymore.

I really appreciate you posting recaps

:

I'm curious if the "three dark rents in the fabric of the sky" and the two suns are related. Maybe there are 5 more gods?

# ¿ Apr 27, 2017 19:23

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

Really dumb question that I've always had: is there priority at the end of either main phase? For instance, I know that you can do things at the end of an opponent's draw step. Can I do things at the end of the opponent's precombat main phase?

# ¿ May 9, 2017 17:18

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

Which Jace is the one that makes passionate love to Sorin by the fireplace

# ¿ May 16, 2017 21:27

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

Man I just do not understand limited.

For draft, I tried to rock a Nest of Scarabs deck. I ended up getting two of them, a Decimator Beetle, 4 Stingscorch whatever 4 drops, and random Approach of the Second Sun. I thought I had decent support for the -1/-1 counters archetype, but I didn't take a single game. I felt like other decks either had a flier or two that I couldn't deal with, went wider than me, or was quicker than I could get a Nest plus anything else out. Trying to build around enchantments seems really bad when you can be swinging for 8 or something on turn 4.

For the sealed league, I opened two Cascading Cataracts (one promo), Drake Haven, the white token doubler, the blue Sphinx than scrys when you cycle, Approach of the Second Suns, and something else that I don't remember. I tried to use the Approach, Sphinx, and Drake Haven, but I only had like 4 cycling cards in those colors. Ended up losing the match 2-1 because the guy was playing creatures while I'm digging for my enchantment, and his cycling pay off (Demon who puts -1/-1 counters everywhere) seemed much better than what I was doing.

I know that with practice comes skill or whatever, but It also feels really bad to pay 13 to practice. It's also hard to gauge how good combat tricks are. In my head, they're garbage because they are usually garbage in the formats I play (EDH and formerly Standard in Zend/Mirrodin era). Like obviously combat tricks are blow outs, but when I get to draft like once every 2 weeks or whatever, it's difficult to rewire my brain to evaluate things in a more realistic manner.

# ¿ May 25, 2017 16:31

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

Dehtraen posted:

Post your draft & sealed league decks / pools

Don't take this wrong but judging your from your above comments it sounds like you're sort of durdling around and trying to assemble a number of pieces while your opponents are just curving out and killing you. Ultimately for most drafters playing cards that affect the board state is where you want to be versus digging through your deck.

Amonkhet draft is a pretty aggressive format so messing around with enchantments / synergistic builds frequently will result in you getting rolled horribly unless you can mitigate the initial pressure. Some mtg pros are even prioritizing 2 drops and 3 drops and curving out over good 4 & 5 drops.

I'll try to remember the draft deck, and I'll post the sealed deck when I get a chance Friday.

2x Fan Bearer
2x Cartouche of Ambition
1x Those Who Serve
1x Approach of the Second Sun
1x Mighty Leap
1x Festering Mummy
4x Soulstinger
2x Nest of Scarabs
1x Final Reward
1x Doomed Dissenter
1x Dune Beetle
1x Stir the Sands
1x Splendid Agony
17 land

I can't remember the other 4 cards.

# ¿ May 25, 2017 17:02

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

Alright, I appreciate the feedback. I do have a question about the deck specifically: how many enablers do I need for a Nest of Scarabs deck to function? I'm never going to draft it again, but is 8 not enough? 4 Soulstingers, 1 Decimator Beetle, 2 Cartouches, 1 Splendid Agony, and I partially count the Festering Zombie? I could have picked up a BR Minotaur and 1-2 more festering zombies, but I snatched pretty much every other -1/-1 card that I saw. If that isn't enough enablers, what does the archetype realistically look like in draft?

# ¿ May 25, 2017 17:59

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

As someone who doesn't play Standard, I look forward to seeing Bolas Marvel decks and the fallout from them.

# ¿ Jun 1, 2017 15:21

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

ThePeavstenator posted:

Big Effortpost About Metagame Project Incoming:

Click here to go to the Google Drive folder with all the files from my metagame project. My report is in there as a .nb file if you happen to have Wolfram Mathematica and care enough to want to check it out or use my horrible spaghetti code. I also exported the notebook to a PDF because I have a feeling that most people aren't going to have a Mathematica license and/or may not want to download a mysterious file containing executable code from a random goon on the internet. Also there's a spreadsheet of the matchup matrix I used. I tried to get some realistic matchup numbers but after a while just went "gently caress it" and made some arbitrary guesses. So the results I have are for an imaginary modern metagame with 6 decks that matchup the way I say that they do.

So as for what the results were:

This was the matchup matrix I went with. Each decimal is the deviation from a 50% winrate, represented as 0. So for example, Burn (labeled in left column) has a 35% winrate against Abzan (labeled in top row). The reason the matrix is done this way instead of having .5 being the neutral matchup number is so that the game would be zero-sum (meaning all of the values in the matrix, called payoffs, sum to 0).

Modeling the game this way represents the metagame as a series of matches played between two players of equal skill, experience, financial situation, etc. The only thing that matters is the decks themselves. Cost, skill variance, personal preference, etc don't show up in this model. My model actually could accept "hedge" values that tweak the preferences players might have for certain decks based on those factors but for the sake of simplicity I made all the hedge values equal to 1.

The hedge values can be independently adjusted for each player, which means that you can model two different players making separate choices. For example, let's say you modeled yourself as player 1 and you have all of the cards for Valakut and also really like playing the deck, you could weight that deck with a higher hedge value. Let's also assume that since Burn is cheap and fairly easy, the general tournament-going population has a preference for it. To represent this you could put a higher hedge on player 2's preference for playing Burn (player 2 in this case is basically the most average tournament player you can imagine).

What this little snip of code does is calculate our mixed strategies. Each decimal is the percentage you should play each deck. A simpler example would be two people playing rock-paper-scissors. For rock-paper-scissors our mixed strategy would be {1/3, 1/3, 1/3} which means you should throw each choice (rock, paper, or scissors) 1/3 of the time. Now for our metagame here, we have 6 decks as our choices instead of 3 hands to throw. Also, our matchups aren't binary. Rock beats Scissors 100% of the time, but Abzan only beats Burn 65% of the time.

If only one deck shows up in the mixed strategy results, we could determine that deck likely needed to be banned. These are the types of bans that are usually fairly obvious. The most recent example would be the Felidar Guardian ban. I don't have actual data for it, but I would wager that if I ran the Standard metagame matchups from before the ban through the code I've got here, we would get one pure strategy of "Play Copycat Combo".

So according to the mixed strategy calculated here, we should play:

-Burn 0% of the time
-Bant Eldrazi 0% of the time
-Abzan 26.19% of the time
-UWx Control 45.24% of the time
-Valakut 0% of the time
-Ad Nauseum 28.57% of the time

You may notice that the zeros in the result are acutally displayed as "0." which means the number is incredibly small but not 0, but for the purposes of determining our mixed strategy they're close enough to 0.

In theory, if every player in the world followed this mixed strategy, the meta would never shift. But since that doesn't reflect what actually happens in reality we can model these strategies by perturbing the flow. What that means is we make one of the players not play the optimal mixed strategy, which causes their opponent's optimal mixed strategy to shift. Each player's mixed strategy shifts slightly in response to the other, creating a harmonic flow sort of like an electric current.

If you want a simpler example, take our earlier game of rock-paper-scissors. Let's say your opponent started throwing rock half the time, and only threw paper and scissors a quarter of the time. You'd want to compensate by throwing paper more often in order to beat the rock that they're showing a preference for. In response to that, they'd start throwing scissors more often once they picked up on the fact that you were showing a preference toward paper.

It works the same way when a certain deck is not played in proper proportion to the mixed strategy. Imagine if you watched a GP where everyone showed up with Jund. The next tournament would probably see a huge influx of Tron decks as a response. Essentially that's how the flow of the metagame works.

Those graphs are what happens when you perturb the flow from neutral. The top graph is the aggregated utility of each strategy over time, and the bottom graph is the utility at any given moment in time. Let's start with that bottom graph. You can see how certain decks will rise in utility, and then the decks that beat them will gain utility in response. This is how the ebb and flow of a metagame works, although this is a pretty extreme level of fluctuation. In reality the amplitude would likely be a much lower as most people can't afford to switch to a new deck every week and attend every tournament.

You can see how Abzan, UWx Control, and Ad Nauseum stay clustered at a higher utility. This would be how you could visualize tiers. Sometimes the lower tier decks can get very high in utility, even as high as a tier-1 deck. A real-world example could be when Skred Red took down a GP. It's not a deck you'd pick in a pure mixed strategy, but the flow of the metagame resulted in it getting all the right matchups at the event. Skred's bad matchups were at a point in the metagame flow where taking them was a poor choice, and the good matchups it had were at a higher point in the utility flow and it faced them. After winning that GP, enough people had Skred on their radar and dedicated a sideboard slot or two to it that it quickly fell back to its lower utility. The reality might just be that the Skred player just got lucky and dodged all the bad matchups that showed up but hopefully that example still illustrates the idea.

That top graph could be used to determine if certain things need to be banned. UWx Control aggregates far more utility over time than any other deck. A real-life example of this could be the Splinter Twin ban in Modern. It never really put up oppressive numbers and you could easily play a deck like Jund to beat it, but it just aggregated too much utility as time went on and so it was banned.

So that's a basic run through of what I did. Sorry if it reads like just a bunch of rambling, I did my best to explain the game theory concepts as simply as I could.

tl;dr: Ban Supreme Verdict in Modern

This is a really cool project.

Just to restate it in my terms (kind of), is the initial matrix your step 0 Markov Chain, and your final vector the marginal probability of said Markov Chain after x steps?

# ¿ Jun 2, 2017 20:12

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

I wonder, would it help or hurt sales of a core set if there were functional reprints of staples. Everyone has a million Llanowar Elves, but what about if everything was similar to Elvish Mystic?

I really like the idea of a LCG small box of answers that you rotate per year/'season'. You can still tweak the format and sell different boxes if you want players to play Shock over Lightning Bolt or Tormod's Crypt over Relic of Progenitus one year, and you entice the players to buy boxes after their first instead of letting them languish on your shelves.

# ¿ Jun 9, 2017 20:19

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

I feel like part of the point of the Masterpieces were missed. The reason the Amonket Invocations failed was because they were A. Ugly as Sin and B. Largely not valuable. Players aren't playing the Invocation lottery; they are playing the Force of Will lottery.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2017 16:07

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

I'll actually be a contrarian here for the sake of discussion.

Core Sets, in my eyes, had a few issues.

1. There wasn't a lot of time to 'absorb' the set. There was maybe like 2 months between Core Sets and the next Big Sets. It felt like it was just jammed into the summer space for the sake of printing a product there.
2. Related to the first point, the set wasn't opened. I suspect this was partially because there were a large number of reprints and bland cards, since few new mechanics were used. Who wants to open Llanowar Elves for the 20th time? We want to play with them in Standard, but do we actually want to pay for them again?
3. Because the set wasn't opened a lot, the new, powerful cards that were printed were much higher than they should have been. I wasn't playing at the time, but I remember hearing rumblings of Stoke the Flames, which was a $5 uncommon. Jace VP was $70-$80. Goblin Rabblemaster was $15-$20. I'm not saying that these cards shouldn't cost more if they are played a lot, but if the 3 were printed in say RTR (size/popularity wise not the actual environment), I doubt we would see those prices.

I think that you can get away without Core Sets if you commit to printing functional reprints of cheap answers that aren't tied to story or mechanics, but you lose the ability to 'forecast' decks a la Maro's Goblin Lord example. With the Modern/Eternal Masters sets, we likely won't see the reprints we want such as Noble Hierarch. This is going to be a place where you dump your Shocks, Elvish Visionaries, Disenchants, Murders, and idk Unsummons. In a few years, Wizards will realize that the Core Sets aren't selling again, and we will have an interesting situation since we know the consequences of not having answers.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2017 17:49

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

I really want to make a Spellslinger EDH The Locust God deck that copies a lot of spells with that 7 mana enchantment.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2017 18:26

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

I was thinking about this, but Magic was originally designed/thought of as something closer to a LCG than a CCG. How did you old timers get the lands to play your spells? I get that if you wanted to play with a Grey Ogre or a Black Lotus you had to crack it, but how did you get 20 or whatever basic lands? The game was in its infancy, so I'm assuming the creators didn't think far enough ahead to send land packs or whatever to the stores that carried Magic.Surely you didn't crack enough packs to get the right number of the lands you needed either.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2017 21:40

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

Ehhh, I don't think that's foreshadowing, nor do I think that the Scorpion God will be the one to kill all 5 gods, if all 5 are even killed. I can see how you read that into it, but I think it's a way to say that scorpions hurt.

# ¿ Jun 21, 2017 22:19

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

Todd Stevens is playing a sweet looking Mono Red Eldrazi deck submitted by one of his viewers right now.

4 Aether Hub
2 Crumbling Vestige
4 Hanweir Battlements
15 Mountain
2 Magma Spray
4 Incendiary Flow
4 Harnessed Lightning
1 Collective Defiance
1 Sweltering Suns
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Hanweir Garrison
4 TKS
4 Chandra Torch of Defiance
4 Glotybringer
3 Reality Smasher

Sideboard:

2 Magma Spray
2 Dragonmaster Outcast
3 Hope of Ghirapur
1 Warping Wail
1 Eldrazi Obligator
1 Mirrorwing Dragon
2 By Force
1 Sweltering Suns
1 Chandra, Flamecaller
1 Skysovereign, Consul Flagship

It looks cool to me, someone with no interest or ability to play standard. Also, the Eldrazi package is absurdly powerful and WOTC is dumb for making the package powerful enough to be played in every format.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2017 05:23

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

80s James Hetfield posted:

May throw this into XMage to try tonight. I really liked Conley Woods Mono Bluedrazi from a few days ago.

Todd Stevens 5-0'd with it, playing against 3 Mardu Vehicles, 1 GB Energy, and I have no clue what the other match was.

After the league, he suggested making a Mountain (it should have been a Westvale Abbey, but I misread the screen) a Sea Gate Wreckage for Control, and maybe swap out the Dragonmaster Outcasts (I can't believe this junk Mythic from the first Zendikar is actually seeing play) and Mirrorwing Dragon for some other cards.

Hasty Hanweir Garrisons are really good, btw. You generally have enough removal to clear the way, and he makes clocks tick really fast.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2017 15:19

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

If there is a UBx control deck in standard, I think this guy is a decent finisher. As far as I can tell, there isn't a lot in the format that can kill him outright, and he grinds you out of the game with a bunch of 4/4s. I don't know if the support for that type of control deck exists because I don't play the format, but if a theoretical deck that is filled with spot removal, ways to refill your hand, and this guy I think would do well.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2017 15:53

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

So uh, how did Bolas get so powerful, anyway?

# ¿ Jun 23, 2017 17:56

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

Thanks for the answers about Nicol Bolas. I have a passing interest in the overall Magic Story, but not enough to actually trudge through the individual pieces'makul.

Unrelated question: are there any green creatures that can repeatedly freely sac things? Creature can also be green/black. I'm trying to such a solid sac outlet with Green Suns' Zenith.

# ¿ Jun 23, 2017 20:07

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

I saw this question posed to Gaby Spartz in a stream, and thought it could lead to an interesting discussion.

If an opponent assembles an infinite combo (Cat Lady or Splinter Twin while they were legal for example) on MODO, do you scoop or make them play it out? Same question, but they assemble the combo with less than a minute on their clock. Why/why not?

I'll withhold my answer for a few posts.

# ¿ Jun 24, 2017 18:37

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

What spells are worth copying in Standard? U/R Part the Waterveil?

# ¿ Jun 26, 2017 17:52

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

That is allowed. You can also exile and choose not to replace it in the mind slaver.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2017 23:12

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

If Disposable Income wasn't an inherent tournament advantage, Magic would be an LCG rather than a CCG.

I would enjoy Magic more if it weren't a CCG, but a player plays what a player's dealt.

# ¿ Jul 14, 2017 21:05

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

Jenx posted:

"The implication is that the player community as a whole will attend more FNMs if the promos are better. Except it's not true."

And then WotC provided stats that back up such an outrageously stupid claim....oh wait no, they didn't, because of course better promos bring more people to FNM, what the actual gently caress is this poo poo?

Oh also, this? "Ultimately, we don't want players showing up just because they want the promo�we hope they're there because they enjoy playing Magic, hanging out with their friends, and having a good time. And if they get something cool out of it, well�bonus."

gently caress this. I go to FNM to play in a tournament and win a promo. Sure, the tournament is laid back and that's nice (at least at the store I frequent). But it's still a tournament, you are still there to win. When I do want to just hang out with friends and play some Magic, you know what I do?....I hang out with friends and play some Magic. Also, I don't do it on Friday nights, because apparently WotC were idiots way back when they decided that this is the perfect time to hold a tournament.

Jesus gently caress, with every other thing this past year, I just keep wondering - how the gently caress did a game as good as MTG get produced by these people?

I agree that Friday nights aren't ideal for nerd things because they conflict with not nerd things, but your options are kind of limited when running a single tournament of any type takes 3+ hours.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2017 22:10

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

Yeah, Magic is a bad multiplayer game because it rewards king making/chip taking. The guy probably wasn't bullying you so much as you were an easy enough target due to board state. Just don't play EDH competitively unless you're okay with being a target.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2017 17:33

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

I like the idea of Unsets but playing a CCG with cards that aren't worth anything and can't play anywhere else feels bad. Love the non green factions he described though.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2017 22:24

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

The issue with Magic as a spectator sport is that so much information is obscured. In any given game, you are unable to see the player's hands, any deck manipulation, and unless you are already experienced, any cards on the table. You have to take the announcer's word for what cards are on the table and what they do. They don't even have reliable information as they are frequently wrong about cards that players drew. Compare this to League of Legends where you can see where every player and ward is located along with the items in said inventory. Dota has an interface where you can literally follow your favorite player around in the client itself. You can see what is happening to the player and adapt it to your own play in terms of tactics and item builds. You have no clue how to apply what you see on a Magic stream to your play because so much information is hidden from you.

I think that feature matches should be played online tbh. VSL takes a lot of good steps toward being a spectator sport; I just don't care about Vintage. If online isn't an option, give me like, Yugioh Duel Discs to upload all of the information real time. Put ships in the cards so that they can be read by special sensors. I don't know, but just give me information.

# ¿ Aug 3, 2017 15:58

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

You mean the most played and probably watched games in the world/esports community?

# ¿ Aug 3, 2017 17:16

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

TheDemon posted:

This MTGO 5-0 list change really is awful for tracking changes in the metagame.

There's a Sultai Reanimator list going around that I can't find a reliable list for anywhere. I've played against it a fair number of times but have never seen it mentioned anywhere; I'm stuck searching for user-submitted decklists on popular sites, which doesn't really tell me much useful.

SaffronOlive played a Sultai reanimator list on stream two nights ago. Check out past broadcasts by MTGGoldfish and you should be able to find it. It was in the last hour of the stream. I don't play standard, so I may get the card names and definitely the card counts wrong, but it looked something like:

Liliana Death's Majesty
Ever After
Rak-whatever the tutor demon is
Ishkanah
Strategic Planning
Champion of Wits
Greenwarden of Murasa
Pulse of Murasa
Yahneni's Expertise
Noxious Gearhulk
Angel of Salvation (sideboard tech I think)

The perfect end game is basically using the demon to tutor for Ever After every turn. It looked pretty cool.

# ¿ Aug 3, 2017 19:32

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

TheDemon posted:

Ahah.

Yes, that does fit the decks I've faced. Big stall-y midgame cards, a little lifegain, and then big threat after big threat. Unfortunately neither twitch nor their stream replay youtube channel has this up yet. As for playing against it, hm, just gotta go fast I guess.

It also had Traverse the Ulvenwald.

I would say going fast is the way to deal with it. I does have Expertise on turn 5 and Noxious Gearhulk on turn 6 which gives aggro headaches. Crook of Condemnation isn't even the best option because the deck eventually starts just hardcasting the threats. I would start by dealing with the Demon, as he enables a lot of dumb stuff. Beyond that, idk. Maybe Lost Legacy for the Gearhulks? They do A LOT of work as well.

# ¿ Aug 3, 2017 20:31

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

I've complained about limited/my skill deficiency in limited before. I was encouraged to post decklists. Well, I'm starting an HOU sealed league tomorrow with a pretty sick initial pool, and would like input on where you would go with this pool: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/hou-sealed-league-1/

I was originally Grixis, but a short convo in the Discord convinced me to just go UB and splash for the two gods. I liked the high end of my green, but the intermediate stuff in both it and white felt weak. In the end, I wanted to play around my two bombs instead of Rhonas.

What would you do?

# ¿ Aug 4, 2017 03:17

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

I guess that confirms that the Dragon spoilers months ago were legit. The dragon deck, especially Ramos, will probably be busted if it doesn't lose to its own mana.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2017 15:38

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

I hate curses so much in multiplayer products. The white curse is especially bad.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2017 16:03

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

Count Bleck posted:

This curse cycle clearly favors the two colors that really, really don't need it.

Green and Blue, because of course it does.

My problem with curses isn't that the effects are usually bad, it's that they are very bad for any format with more than 2 players. I don't want to give my opponents cards, tokens, or mana. I have only seen one explicitly political card (Cruel Entertainment, the Vows, Curses, etc) played, and it was played in a politically themed deck. Those slots could be used for interesting new cards, reprints, or even mana rocks, sweepers, or decent card advantage.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2017 16:17

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

Wizard commander looks like the best one by far.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2017 22:11

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

Count Bleck posted:

Of the ones with Eminence or in general?

Because Mathas also looks Really Good.

I'll say in general, though I meant Eminence.

Mathas doesn't strike me as great. 3/3 with Menace that provides some political action. What good is the bounty if the creature isn't going to be killed anyway? Even if you are the one who killed it, you trade a card for a card...while going down in card advantage at a 4 person table. I'd rather play Queen Marchesa.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2017 22:20

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

Sickening posted:

Its a solid deck for sure. Decks like this are also a solid reason for getting a cavern of souls reprint or a new one without the uncountable clause. Pet tribal decks in modern should get more land/spell support.

Isn't Ancient Ziggurat the neutered Cavern of Souls? Only big downside is that it's useless for casting Coco.

# ¿ Aug 10, 2017 17:12

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# ¿ May 4, 2024 03:57

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

Spiderdrake posted:

I wonder if there's a clear winner that will sell out and be hard to find in this set. Feels really balanced, unlike most of the commander runs.

In addition to being Dragons, it also has Ramos. I think Ramos is the most powerful new commander by far, so keep an eye on it.

Otherwise, I would very much like it if we didn't run into another Atraxa situation.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2017 15:43

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