Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer


Welcome to the Fourteenth Edition of the Magic Megathread!
A link to the last thread

Magic: The Gathering is a collectible card game where you play as a planeswalker, a powerful wizard capable of traveling 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 divided 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.

MtG Eternal Thread
Discussion on Eternal formats Legacy, Vintage, and honorary "Eternal" format Modern.

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!

Commander Thread
Argue about whose fun is most important in this thread about Magic's most popular casual format.

MTG Thunderdome
Play Magic with Goons online!

============================================

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.

Standard: One of the easiest formats to get into. Since it consists of nothing but the last two years worth of Standard-legal sets to be published, finding cards is relatively as most cards are still in print. Standard is the most popular sanctioned constructed format.

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. Almost nobody plays this anymore, sorry.

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

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. Using only commons and cards reprinted as commons on Magic Online, it is the cheapest constructed format available. Here's a good FAQ to get started.

============================================

DIGITAL VERSIONS

Magic Arena is the main and official online version. As of right now, you can draft with bots (but play those decks against real players) and play Standard, along with rotating wacky online formats. Unlike the paper version, there's no way to buy singles - you'll have to open the cards in packs or trade in wildcards to build your decks. Many times, especially prereleases, Wizards will release codes for the game that allow you to unlock new cards and/or cosmetics.

Magic Online is the old way to play the game online. Its upsides include the ability to play or draft twenty-four hours a day and being able to test deck brews against a variety of opponents without finding and sleeving physical cards, but its downsides are almost everything else. It's got a clunky and outdated UI, multiple bugs that persist for years, and a pricing model that isn't at all as generous as its competitors such as Hearthstone. Play on it if you want, but do some research and know what you're getting into.

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.

============================================

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. Competition is usually pretty lax at FNMs, with (hopefully) friendly players and a fun atmosphere. There's a special promo given out to some players at every FNM, and you can see the current month's here.

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.

Magic Fests: Giant celebrations of Magic that happen in and around large cities. If you feel like travelling or there's one near you, they're insanely large events full of Magic players, side events, and Grand Prix type events.

Competitive Level Play: To be honest this is in such a flux right now that I can't keep track of what the hell is going on. If you want to play competitively I'm sure there are many people in this thread that can tell you why it's actually a bad idea.

A full list of the official events types is here.

============================================

RESOURCES

USEFUL LINKS

DailyMTG.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.

DeckStats.net: Type in your decklist and get details on your curve, draw sample hands, etc.

EDHREC: A great tool for Commander/EDH players. Get suggestions based on whatever you want to play in the format!

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.

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.

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.

CranialInsertion.com: A weekly rules article with answers to questions submitted by players. This is the rules article that was previously on MTGSalvation.

Good Games Live: Live coverage of non-WotC big tournaments.

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.

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.

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.

MTG The Source: What The Mana Drain is to Vintage, this is to Legacy.

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.

TheManaDrain.com: One of the premier sources for Vintage information on the internet, TMD is a forum to discuss Vintage strategy and find events.

Wizards.com Event Coverage Archive: Archived coverage of WotC tournaments.

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.

LifeLynx fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Aug 28, 2019

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer

Elyv posted:

Now that I've actually read the OP for the first time, you should probably add Cockatrice and xmage over Apprentice(does anyone still use Apprentice?) in the "Digital Versions" subheading

I researched other programs and none of them seemed like they were still being actively worked on, so I didn't include them. The official Cockatrice site said they got a warning letter from WotC and decided it was better to shut it all down. But I guess if people are still using it, it's just the old engine with unofficial patches that's being passed around via torrents?

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer

mandatory lesbian posted:

i can't fathom the stupidity of people complaining about Amonkhet not having Bolas in it when he's the headliner of the next set

Is this a reference to me in the last thread? I was just observing that he wasn't in the set (because I forgot the Hour mock-up packaging), not complaining.

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer

Sampatrick posted:

Whatever happened to Ashiok? I feel like they were printed as a magic card and then we never learned anything else about them.

This is another problem with Magic story telling. They print a bunch of legendary creatures/Planeswalkers and then do absolutely nothing with a bunch of them.

The purpose of Ashiok was to be a character they could tell us was mysterious and nothing else about them and have us go "Wow, that is mysterious!" so mission accomplished.

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer
I started playing in 1994, but I didn't get a DCI number until I returned to the game in Coldsnap. No one really cared about the DCI back when I first started, we just met in comic shops and the mall food court and played in tournaments the store ran.

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer
When I think of "iconic" I think of basically Chronicles style stuff. To me, the cards that are iconic of Magic aren't necessarily the most powerful. Stuff like Ernham Djinn, Llanowar Elves, Hurloon Minotaur, Shivan Dragon, etc. There's stuff like Lightning Bolt and Demonic Tutor, too. What's iconic is probably different for different people depending on when they started playing.

The announcement likely doesn't matter because we have like a 1% chance of both being able to attend HasCon and being able to play in the prerelease.

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer

Sickening posted:

Is hascon really that hard to get into?

Don't most nerd cons sell out in under a half hour after they open registration at a random unannounced time?

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer
PAXes, SDCC, NYCC, even the smaller comic con they have in NYC sells out very quickly. I expect HasCon will be bombarded with MLP fans in the first thirty seconds after registration opens.

Angry Grimace posted:

Maro pointed out at one point that they had bigger plans than they did for the 25th Anniversary because fans got pissed off about the 20th having basically nothing.

Here it is. :lol: at them not celebrating the 20th anniversary because it would "scare new players away".

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer

whydirt posted:

This just reminds me of how dumb it was that the creative team made the dragons plane one where there were no baby or young dragons so there could only be C/U dragon cards through finding corner case drawbacks and other silliness.

No joke, this was one of the reasons I decided that pursuing a job with WotC making Magic wasn't something I wanted to do. (The Glassdoor reviews didn't help.)

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer

EatinCake posted:

I like the reserved list, as it ensures some cards from the past will always retain their value, and also isn't really a blocker on re-creating old cards. If they wanted to they can easily reprint any reserved list card with very, very minor tweaks. They've done this a handful of times already.

Iconic Masters seem's like a weird way to approach it. For me, iconic is frozen shade. ...which is not something I want to open in a booster pack that would cost $10. Are hydra's even that 'iconic' when you go back to older sets? Outside of the red one from Apha that GREW HEADS.

As fun as the master's sets have been, I'm still waiting for another Time Spiral-esque set to show up. There's so much fun references and clever cards that came out of that block.

I actually Googled this to see if it was from an MTGSalvation thread.

Lottery of Babylon posted:

In ten boxes of Kaladesh I did not get one copy of Nissa, only got one Chandra, and then got playsets of several of the mythic rares. There should be on average 3 copies of each mythic in ten boxes of a set with 15 mythics.

In previous sets the distribution was really even with a similar amount of boxes. In Eldritch Moon I got pretty much exactly three copies of each mythic with nine boxes of the set. With twelve boxes of Shadows I also got a very even distribution of everything.

But then in Kaladesh it seemed much more random. Have they taken new measures to mix up boosters within boxes and boxes within cases?

Oh yeah, that's the stuff. :350:

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer

Sickening posted:

So we are waiting until 10am cst to figure out if standard is saved or not right?

Because of the way they push out content, we'll probably know 10-15 minutes before that.

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer

Sickening posted:

"We have not seen the movement in the format we had hoped for with the Grand Prix in the latter half of the season, but we still believe we need to gather more data—particularly with an eye toward the effect of Amonkhet on the Pro Tour"

How much more evidence does anyone need that everyone in this process is out of touch?

We want to see what happens, we don't have enough data yet.

Okay, it's bad, but let's just see how this plays out. Dynavolt Tower!

Alright... We're still seeing the same problems, but wouldn't it be cool and good if we had the most unwatchable Pro Tour of all time?

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer
When I said I wished for infinite cats, I didn't mean like this. Sorry, Standard players. Another finger curls on the (cat) monkey's paw.

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer

Count Bleck posted:

I mean more like when you select the creature to attack, a little popup prevents you from continuing because it has the Yes/No menu with "Do you want to Exert X Creature?"

Magic Online can't be coded to do that, because

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer
Commander Banned List Update:

quote:

BANNED
Leovold, Emissary of Trest

UNBANNED
Protean Hulk

RULES
No changes.

We had hopes for Leovold and gave him every opportunity to prove that he would be strong but safe in the format. He simply wasn’t. Leovold violates the tenet of creating undesirable game states by easily locking other players out of the game. We prefer to encourage situations in which everyone gets to play, and it’s too easy for Leovold to create the opposite, even unintentionally.

On the other hand, we feel as though it’s time to let Protean Hulk off the leash. A number of factors led to this decision. Support within the community has been tilting toward Protean Hulk for quite some time. Inside the Rules Committee, we have been leaning in that direction for a while as well, but didn’t have enough of a consensus. Now we do. We acknowledge that the card will be strong, but are of the opinion that it won’t be the centralizing factor it once would have been. Back when Protean Hulk was banned, both creatures and graveyard control were nowhere near as strong as they are today. We know combo possibilities exist with the card, but they need to be specifically built around, so to us it becomes a great value card instead of a dangerous combo piece in casual environments. We suspect that Protean Hulk will be much like Kokusho, the Evening Star when it was unbanned: powerful but not broken in the current Commander landscape.

I'm down with banning Leovold, and all UG commanders. Protean Hulk is just another combo piece, and it doesn't do anything Tooth and Nail doesn't already.

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer
Any Standard card being playable or valuable makes no sense to me because no one I know is playing anymore.

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer

Count Bleck posted:

More reasons why MTGSalvation is terrible. Man known for excellent Merfolk content posts a discussion video about Soul-Scar Mage and Harsh Mentor gets banned because someone flagged his post for solicitation followed up with some playful jabs at his tude.

He even mentions MTGS is a terrible shithole.

It looks like his post was a clickbaity Proper Case title and a link to a YouTube video and nothing else. That'd earn a mocking and probably a probation here as well.

Rap Record Hoarder posted:



From here: http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/159965784898/i-have-to-be-honest-after-the-coco-emrakul-and

Does Rosewater understand that sometimes it's better to just...not say anything? He cites a bunch of legitimate issues (complexity of design for multiple formats, time issues, balance and power level, etc) and yet still manages to just dig the hole deeper with a whiffed "perfect is the enemy of good" argument.

CoCo and Emrakul were such easy problems to identify though. Don't let cards put creatures into play for free anymore, don't print massive built-in cost reductions on game-ending cards anymore; these are lessons that R&D keeps ignoring time after time. Smuggler's Copter was obvious as well with comparisons to equipment, as was almost worse. I could almost give them a pass on missing the Cat combo because it's a little more nuanced by comparison. It needs two whole cards!

:tinfoil: : The reason it's not banned is probably because the suits don't want new players opening cards they're "not allowed" to play with. They'll never admit it. Watch it be banned when Amonkhet's release pushes Kaladesh further out of the range of packs a new player might buy.

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer

I remember reading that Shadows Over Innistrad was supposed to release closer to Halloween, but that may have been an early swap.

Magic design in general seems to be going through some ugly transitional period right now. I'm pretty confident they'll come out on the other side okay, and it might start with Hour of Devastation if what they said about noticing problems with the new Standard rotation (specifically regarding the Gatewatch planeswalkers) is true.

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer

mandatory lesbian posted:

for the record, this means that i draft better drunk then i do sober lol

Same! I overthink everything from drafting to playing unless I'm a little buzzed. My lifetime drink and draft record is like 80% higher than sober.

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer
I originally envisioned this thread as nothing but Amazon referral links to individual blog posts, so

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer

mcmagic posted:

Anyone buy cardboard storage boxes online without getting ripped off? Amazon is like 12 bucks for a 1600 count....

I can go to one of three different stores around me within a half hour and buy them for $2 each. I don't think you live in the middle of nowhere, IIRC, have you tried stores around you? Even sports card hobby shops could carry them.

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer
I'm very grateful for cycling in the 30-card sealed league that starts with three packs. It saved me from playing two of those life gain shrines.

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer
What if all obviously pushed-for-constructed cards weren't objectively good or bad and could mostly all conceivably be played in a constantly shifting metagame and we didn't have to resort to name calling and told-ya-so's if a card does or doesn't make the finals of the first major tournament after a set release?

Comedy answer: We wouldn't have a Magic thread.

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer

Entropic posted:

Apparently with the sealed leagues they're trying to get stores to do, they don't even have the foil token promo this time, just those dumb bolas horns D4s that everyone already has a couple of.

I mean, I get that they want to make it a casual thing where there isn't the incentive for people to stack their pools so that there doesn't have to be the hassle of decklists, but at least give people something for participating. I'm doing one just because it's fun to jam some sealed games every week, but you'd get a lot more people with even the most minimal effort to make some interesting participation prizes. The foil double-sided tokens were a cool idea, I thought. Or about dice with the sides labeled -1/-1, -2/-2, -3/-3 etc? That would actually be cool and useful.

The d4s sound cool, I haven't seen one in person yet. Everyone has fun with the league at my store. We gave out prizes to the top two with the most wins, the top two with the most games played, and two randoms who didn't win either of those prizes. I'm looking to do something like "play at least five games per week and get entered into a raffle" type of thing, because there are four people who seek out league players every week to grind out as many games as they can, and the people who can't reliably get to the store every Magic night are getting discouraged because there's no way for them to catch up.

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer

PJOmega posted:

Soft judging events reminds me why I don't go and renew my long lapsed judgeship. Little kids that don't fully understand are fine and will tend to listen, even if they immediately forget. 30 year olds that refuse to rtfc or respect that release notes when they're directly read to them are tiresome.

One guy wouldn't accept that Enigma Sphinx doesn't get +2/+0 from an Aftermath card in the discard. Myself and three other people took turns reading the release note entry to him. Then in a match he tried to convince his opponent that it worked to his advantage.

What was he trying to do? Enigma Sphinx isn't a card in Amonkhet.

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer
If someone's been told by a judge (and it doesn't have to be a certified judge, they just have to be someone judging the event which it sounds like you might have been) and they tried to pull one over on their opponent later, I'd DQ them. I've never had someone be that belligerent before about a ruling.

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer
There's the gotcha/cheats, but also a lot of people are just biased on how they want to understand cards depending on whether they or their opponent are casting them.

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer

Elyv posted:

good cards in fallen empires:
black pump knight
white pump knight
hymn to tourach
high tide(like 5 years later)

that said, I think Fallen Empires' and IA/AL flavor texts are both extremely underrated because they do a good job at portraying a world. I liked the Sorine Relicbane/Arcum Dagsson interaction, for instance

It'd never happen with today's writing, but I liked the documentary style storytelling of Fallen Empires.

Bugsy posted:

I would have never thought that you could not get two token from Kalitas with Anointed Procession of the field.

http://magicjudge.tumblr.com/post/160487215239/weird-card-interaction-alert-kalitas-anointed

Wow, they used the wrong wording and accidentally ruined a bunch of casual zombie decks.

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer

Hellsau posted:

He's not on the DCI suspended players list, but Fabrizio Anteri is. Apparently people noticed on Wizards of the Coast's official forum, Reddit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/674wkc/unsuspended_players/?st=j2jf99cj&sh=312f96c6

Allegedly the website got hosed up because of course it did.

The banned people have noticed also and are trying to figure out if this allows them to play again. I know this because three of them are New Yorkers like myself. I don't know if anything's come of it, but it does tell me those people are planning on playing again as soon as their suspensions are up.

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer

Hellsau posted:

I mean to a thief it's free money ready to be stolen, with nearly no consequences when they're eventually caught.

Even if they've turned over a new leaf, I don't see why they'd want to play again with everyone scrutinizing their every move and never getting the benefit of the doubt from a judge ever again. So maybe you're right that it's free money and there are no repercussions from ever getting caught, legally speaking. The worst that can happen is the money they tried to steal gets donated to charity.

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer

Star Man posted:

I'd love to get into zombies but I'm not dropping $80 on a playset of cards that's going to dive in six months. I'm also really hesitant to pay $35 for Liliana, the Last Hope while she's still in Standard.

We got out of oppressive terrible Standard via bans and emergency bans just in time for Lame Duck Standard where no one wants to invest because their cards will be worthless in a few short months.

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer

Lone Goat posted:

5 months is short? That's pretty funny if 40-50% of every year is Lame Duck Standard.

I meant to edit an "almost" in there. I always hated getting stuck with formerly valuable cards at the end of a season, so I sold out earlier and earlier until I didn't play Standard anymore, and so my timeframe is all messed up.

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer
I made top 4 at a PPTQ today, which is my biggest Magic accomplishment besides winning a Game Day a few years ago (beating Trevor Humphries), going 4-0 at a prerelease, and being randomly selected for an FNM promo.

I got anxious during the draft and tanked it a bit. My first pick was between the Red Trial, Cut//Ribbons, and the BG Beetle. I took the trial. My logic was that if I was cut from black, then Cut was just a removal spell, and the Trial was reusable (I ended up with two Cartouches). Then I passed an Enigma Drake for something I don't even remember, which put the guy to my left into UR Spells. I ended up in Jund with the green god and lost to a super fast RG exert deck.

Fun time though!

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer
I got two Approaches last night and had to mull to five in the first game and six in the second, getting horribly mana screwed in both. I had to use both my Nagas in the second game to dig to find lands instead of using them to find an Approach. This is the second time I've had two and gotten mana screwed like that, maybe it's a sign that I wasn't meant to have fun. :(

Elyv posted:



(Ramos was a robot dragon on Mercadia and there was a cycle of mana rocks in Masques referring to him)

That's an incredible commander in general, Dragon theme aside.

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer
No one wants to talk about how GBS had a thread about the Ariana Grande concert attack immediately after it happened where some of these same jokes were made, but yeah they were semi-anonymous and not tied to a verified Twitter account of someone trying to be some kind of media personality.

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer

Mezzanon posted:

Jesus Christ


Deck: U/R emerge


I had this built after someone posted the list weeks ago, but it was soooo frustrating. Not getting the dream start of a Cathartic Reunion or Tormenting Voice plus a zombie is awful.

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer
I got my Aladdin's Lamps autographed today.



Princess Jasmine said she plays blue/red, but Abu would love red, because he's a HASTY little monkey. My girlfriend's five year old thought it was cool.

Edit: Better picture so you can see both signatures. I'm exhausted after nearly twelve hours of watching a hyper five year old running around high off of meeting her favorite princesses for the first time.

LifeLynx fucked around with this message at 01:18 on Jun 1, 2017

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer
I'd unironically like to planeswalk in a game and check out Dominaria, Ravnica, Lorwyn, etc. in glorious 3D. I don't have high hopes for it being a good game.

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer

Tainen posted:

Announcement week

Monday: Rosewater's article on standard and announcement on changes to sets going forward

Tuesday: Magic Digital and B&R announcements

Wednesday: Announcement of new products

Thursday: Organized play announcement for 2018

Friday: HoD preview stream from Vegas

This is going to be good. :allears: I'm excited to see what they believe is going to fix Standard.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer
My guess to someone being upset over passing the green god was it was a younger, spending half their allowance to draft once a week type of player. But I can't see that same stereotype also knowing specifically how to gently caress up everyone else's draft.

On a related note, I used to love sitting downstream from inexperienced players. I'd get all the best cards! But these days, as mana fixing has gotten worse and formats are generally faster so I can't durdle around, I'd much rather be passed twice from someone who can give clear signals. Amonkhet draft is a special kind of hell if someone's loving you up from your right with their inexperience.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply