Magic: The Gathering |OT3| Enchantment Under the Siege

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Holy crap.

Gamergate as I understand it is mostly just some misogynist idiots rebelling against feminism. It's fine to be annoyed by it, but that rancid pile of bile that Tait vomited onto Facebook is something else. Dude needs help.
 
kirblar said:
http://www.reddit.com/r/spikes/comments/2mkyl3/discussion_projected_attendance_for_every_rptq/ - list of estimated attendance at RPTQs.

GB: You're in NorCal, right? If you win a PPTQ, go to Portland if possible.
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Thanks for the heads up. Interesting post. There's only 11 people projected more for the channelfireball rptq than the Portland one, but theres also probably a higher average skill level considering the pros in the bay area. Its worth considering even though Santa Clara is super close.
 
SigmasonicX said:
Huh? In the just past few years, red has gotten card filtering and "temporary card draw". And besides, "direct damage" does cover a huge suite of abilities when "damage" is one of the main interactions in the game. What do you think red is lacking right now?
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Red should be the 2nd color for instant and sorceries but all its playable instant and sorceries are basically burn. Card drawing has seen 1 playable card exactly for now (Faithless looting) and it's mostly a dredge card, while its spell manipulation is basically non-existent outside of overcosted fork effects. Its creature are also worse than blue's ones, and chaos effects suck/are overcosted. LD is dead so it doesn't even have that form of disruption anymore, and the best LD spells isn't playable anymore anyway (Cryoclasm). The best red card of the last 10 years is Pyromancer and that's because it's abusable in blue decks, not red ones. The 2nd one is probably Lavamancer. I like a lot the artifact theme, but that's basically dead too, since outside commander decks, the last things that favored artifacts in red were in Urza block, with some semi-playable in Mirrodin.

Green has still more permanent removal, enchantment matters theme, ramp, and actually good LD (mnwovuli acid-moss), plus decent card drawing engines (lybrary, Glimpse, elves, courser etc...) and tutors (GSZ, Survival, Commune, Pod etc..). Its only flaw is the stack, but that's totally fine for a color that don't focus on spellcasting at all. If anything green could get more fight effects on creatures and playable spells because that's supposed to be green form of removal and perfectly in flavor with the color. It also could get more disruption effects for lands/artifact like Root Maze.
Red mages are literally book wizards but can't do anything but create fires. It's as if gandalf only did fireworks. Red should totally have spell blast variants effects, which feel way more red than flashback effects tbh (reminiscing is totally blue, blasting spells should be more red but whatever).

I think you can see the problem the most on PWs. Red one's feel all so similar, while blue and black have some pretty different planeswalkers, and white and green are inbetween.
 
I got to watch some matches of GPNJ. Though I'm aware of the format I don't really play it much. Watching people make plays I didn't understand but then get rewarded for like 10 turns down the line was kind of inspiring. The format REALLY rewards those who have put the time into it :)

kirblar said:
Amazing.
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Chapin just posted some cryptic tweets and I had no idea to what they referred to. Now I know. The number of dumbasses who have exposed themselves on Twitter is astonishing. Good Riddance!

kirblar said:
There are people for whom the actual originally intended use of the "SJW" label applies- he's one of them. But since that label's been muddied down to the point of irellevance- I suggest "self-aggrandizing asshole narcissist" instead- can be used for people on either side of identity-related issues who engage in terrible behavior.
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Pretty much. I've seen him pop up from time to time. I sincerely believe his heart is in the right place but his attitude and rhetoric is toxic. The rare "feminazi" who is actually a real person and not an imaginary strawman used in a sexism debate.

G.ZZZ said:
Red should be the 2nd color for instant and sorceries but all its playable instant and sorceries are basically burn. Card drawing has seen 1 playable card exactly for now (Faithless looting) and it's mostly a dredge card, while its spell manipulation is basically non-existent outside of overcosted fork effects. Its creature are also worse than blue's ones, and chaos effects suck/are overcosted. LD is dead so it doesn't even have that form of disruption anymore, and the best LD spells isn't playable anymore anyway (Cryoclasm). The best red card of the last 10 years is Pyromancer and that's because it's abusable in blue decks, not red ones. The 2nd one is probably Lavamancer. I like a lot the artifact theme, but that's basically dead too, since outside commander decks, the last things that favored artifacts in red were in Urza block, with some semi-playable in Mirrodin.

Green has still more permanent removal, enchantment matters theme, ramp, and actually good LD (mnwovuli acid-moss), plus decent card drawing engines (lybrary, Glimpse, elves, courser etc...) and tutors (GSZ, Survival, Commune, Pod etc..). Its only flaw is the stack, but that's totally fine for a color that don't focus on spellcasting at all. If anything green could get more fight effects on creatures and playable spells because that's supposed to be green form of removal and perfectly in flavor with the color. It also could get more disruption effects for lands/artifact like Root Maze.
Red mages are literally book wizards but can't do anything but create fires. It's as if gandalf only did fireworks. Red should totally have spell blast variants effects, which feel way more red than flashback effects tbh (reminiscing is totally blue, blasting spells should be more red but whatever).

I think you can see the problem the most on PWs. Red one's feel all so similar, while blue and black have some pretty different planeswalkers, and white and green are inbetween.
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Red's continued competitive presence in basically EVERY format means WOTC probably doesn't feel a pressing need to revamp Red's pie. I feel there are a decent number of effects WOTC is afraid to push in Red because it might put them over the top in ways that wouldn't be as problematic in other colors. The same reasons why White could probably get Mana Leak per the color pie but it might cause huge problems since the color has such excellent weenies. I also think you underestimate how versatile burn is even if its boring. Also Red PWs >>>>>> Black PWs.
 
G.ZZZ said:
Red should be the 2nd color for instant and sorceries but all its playable instant and sorceries are basically burn. Card drawing has seen 1 playable card exactly for now (Faithless looting) and it's mostly a dredge card, while its spell manipulation is basically non-existent outside of overcosted fork effects. Its creature are also worse than blue's ones, and chaos effects suck/are overcosted. LD is dead so it doesn't even have that form of disruption anymore, and the best LD spells isn't playable anymore anyway (Cryoclasm). The best red card of the last 10 years is Pyromancer and that's because it's abusable in blue decks, not red ones. The 2nd one is probably Lavamancer. I like a lot the artifact theme, but that's basically dead too, since outside commander decks, the last things that favored artifacts in red were in Urza block, with some semi-playable in Mirrodin.
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Saying that red doesn't have enough non-burn effects that are playable in Legacy and Modern is different than saying they don't exist at all. Besides, even though we use the term "burn" for all of it, direct damage covers a huge variety of effects.
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All of these deal damage and nothing else (well, besides exiling), but would all be used under different circumstances and require different decks to use effectively.

Concerning planeswalkers, Chandra, Pyromaster and Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker are pretty different, to give two recent examples.
 
Liliana's still the 2nd best PW ever printed, then you have Tezzeret 2.0, Tezz 1.0, Elspeth, then probably Garruk Relentless. Chandra 4.0 is probably 6th or 7th so not really.


Also i'm still searching for people to playtest my legacy survival experiment, hit me a PM if you're interested to test over cockatrice.
 
Kirblar, the numbers guy said he had the Portland numbers off since he was putting Seattle area winners in Canada. So Portland will probably have similar numbers to Santa Clara after all.
 
Pretty much. I've seen him pop up from time to time. I sincerely believe his heart is in the right place but his attitude and rhetoric is toxic. The rare "feminazi" who is actually a real person and not an imaginary strawman used in a sexism debate.
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I'm pretty convinced narcissists are attracted to tribal identity groups (on both "sides" of issues) and end up as a toxic influence within them regardless of how "justified" the group is - it's a people problem and it's unfortunately not one that's really fixable.
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";139284814]Kirblar, the numbers guy said he had the Portland numbers off since he was putting Seattle area winners in Canada. So Portland will probably have similar numbers to Santa Clara after all.[/QUOTE]
Ah, less driving for you then, :)
 
Hmm, I would hope that the episode would be more than "lol collectors and tournament players", but I can't think of any other Magic comedy that non-players would connect to.
 
ThLunarian said:
Gamergate as I understand it is mostly just some misogynist idiots rebelling against feminism. It's fine to be annoyed by it, but that rancid pile of bile that Tait vomited onto Facebook is something else. Dude needs help.
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I have chosen to essentially completely ignore GamerGate at this point, because every time I read a tweet with "#GamerGate" in it, the author sounds like a huge jackass - regardless of which "side" they're on (and I honestly can't even figure out what the "sides" are).

Regarding the Hinkley thing, well, I suppose this sums it up best:

http://xkcd.com/1357/
 
G.ZZZ said:
Red should be the 2nd color for instant and sorceries but all its playable instant and sorceries are basically burn.
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Depends on what you mean by "playable" and what format you're talking about. In any case, red's thing, when it comes to spells, is burn and combat tricks.

When it comes down to it, in constructed formats, there are really only 3 things that non-creature spells can do to be playable: Answer a threat, act as a threat or grant card advantage (or be a combo piece, but that's really a subset of being a threat). The nice thing about burn is that it both is a threat and answers threats. Barring Planeswalkers and token-makers, Red is really the only color that consistently gets playable, non-creature threats, which is why burn is a deck is pretty much every format.

G.ZZZ said:
I like a lot the artifact theme, but that's basically dead too, since outside commander decks, the last things that favored artifacts in red were in Urza block, with some semi-playable in Mirrodin.
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It's clear you didn't play M15 limited. Red (and Blue) had cards that cared about artifacts there.

G.ZZZ said:
Green has still more permanent removal, enchantment matters theme, ramp, and actually good LD (mnwovuli acid-moss), plus decent card drawing engines (lybrary, Glimpse, elves, courser etc...) and tutors (GSZ, Survival, Commune, Pod etc..). Its only flaw is the stack, but that's totally fine for a color that don't focus on spellcasting at all. If anything green could get more fight effects on creatures and playable spells because that's supposed to be green form of removal and perfectly in flavor with the color. It also could get more disruption effects for lands/artifact like Root Maze.
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A lot of the cards you mention wouldn't see print today under the current design philosophy (in a standard-legal set at least). Green land destruction is about on par with red land destruction (Desecration Plague vs. Demolish). Red actually gets ramp, but only temporary ramp the upside being that you get to use it immediately and the downside being that you have to use it immediately. Sylvan Library is mechanically a black card, not a green card.

G.ZZZ said:
I think you can see the problem the most on PWs. Red one's feel all so similar, while blue and black have some pretty different planeswalkers, and white and green are inbetween.
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I'd disagree here. All of the Chandras feel similar, as they should, but the other mono-red walkers play very differently than the Chandras.
 
I think Koth and Sarkhan v3 play pretty similarly to each other. All the Chandras are the same. Tibalt is his own breed of awful. Daretti is completely different than any of them.
 
So here's a question: why have shard/wedge names caught on in competitive deck nomenclature but not the guild names? i.e its normal to refer to a deck as Grixis or Jeskai but never Boros or Azorious
 
The Technomancer said:
So here's a question: why have shard/wedge names caught on in competitive deck nomenclature but not the guild names? i.e its normal to refer to a deck as Grixis or Jeskai but never Boros or Azorious
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1. "Red-blue" is only two syllables. "Red-blue-white" is three syllables.
2. It's easy to map two colors to what sort of cards you can expect from it, but adding just one more creates a lot more mental processing. Plus, you have a much wider variety of orders that the colors could be listed in, alongside unofficial nicknames. Like if someone said "red-blue-white" and then another person said "white-red-blue" and another person said "American", you'd have to do a bit of thinking when those are spoken aloud to realize they are the same deck. Having a standard nomenclature for those decks, including for new players who wouldn't know lingo like "Whiterock", makes things easier for everyone.
 
ThLunarian said:
I think Koth and Sarkhan v3 play pretty similarly to each other. All the Chandras are the same. Tibalt is his own breed of awful. Daretti is completely different than any of them.
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I'd disagree. Koth has no removal options outright, which makes deciding when to throw down a lot different. Sometimes the correct play is just to use Sarkhan as an expensive flame slash that saves you a bit of life when it takes a hit afterward. Koth's +1 ability also doesn't give you an evasive, hard-to-kill threat. It's much less likely to swing a game since it can't get through ground stalls.
 
kirblar said:
So is the idiot whose DOTP review they pulled today after he got exposed as a GG twitter harasser.
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That guy got permed from GAF like a year ago after he had a ridiculous meltdown over the discussion of a terrible article he wrote about developer salaries.

Firemind said:
Turns out I was wrong and Young Pyromancer is insane. :P
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I keep hoping that now that people are coming around to this viewpoint that I never have to hear any nonsense about "completing the two-drop cycle" ever again. :P

G.ZZZ said:
Red should be the 2nd color for instant and sorceries but all its playable instant and sorceries are basically burn.
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This is where I think the "burn is actually a lot of things" point is really salient. "Burn" as a category covers at least four categories that would each be sorted separately when talking about other colors: spot creature removal, sweepers, planeswalker removal, and direct player life loss.

In terms of the other mechanics, I think you're undervaluing the card draw stuff (which they just recently gave to red, and which already saw one useful example on Chandra 4) and you're forgetting a lot of the most important ones, like how red is the #2 token color.

I think you can see the problem the most on PWs. Red one's feel all so similar
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You think Chandra, Koth, and Daretti feel similar?

The Technomancer said:
So here's a question: why have shard/wedge names caught on in competitive deck nomenclature but not the guild names? i.e its normal to refer to a deck as Grixis or Jeskai but never Boros or Azorious
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That's... not really that true.

Now, the shard/wedge names are certainly used more, but there's a pretty obvious reason for that: a color combo that takes three syllables to say (and has three words to remember) calls for an abbreviation much more than two. People definitely still do it though.
 
Man, for a slow day at the LGS I got to play a lot of great Magic today.

3rd in the Standard daily only losing against a great matchup because I thoughtseized two End Hostilities and he rips a third lol. Well, that's why you play four.

Great casuals in Legacy and Modern against Delver decks. Miracles is the best, the games are so complicated and interesting. I never get tired of playing this deck.

Modern was a little more one-sided as my Rainbow Bogles deck steamrolled the Treasure Cruise decks, but everybody seemed to enjoy playing my weird brew.
 
Yeef said:
I'd disagree. Koth has no removal options outright, which makes deciding when to throw down a lot different. Sometimes the correct play is just to use Sarkhan as an expensive flame slash that saves you a bit of life when it takes a hit afterward. Koth's +1 ability also doesn't give you an evasive, hard-to-kill threat. It's much less likely to swing a game since it can't get through ground stalls.
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Koth's +1 is so versatile though! You can untap the mountain to attack or cast a bolt. Or you can use the -2 to gain a board advantage. I'm also more inclined to play Koth in an aggro deck than Sarkhan who is more of a midrange card. He has competition in the five slot. Stormbreath in its own colour, End Hostilities in white, Prognostic Sphinx in blue, Nissa in green and soon to be Dragon Wrath in black. I want to play Sarkhan but the shell is just not there for a set of Sarkhans, especially with Siege Rhinos everywhere. :(

charlequin said:
I keep hoping that now that people are coming around to this viewpoint that I never have to hear any nonsense about "completing the two-drop cycle" ever again. :P
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Haha, you'll never hear the end of it from us red mages!
 
So I've been pouring over the new MTGO cube, mostly because I'm super excited by all of the changes and I'm just not into Khans right now. There are a few decks that I really want to try that are bringing out my inner Johnny.

1) Red/Blue Opposition. Red is absolutely loaded up with tokens in this set, and I think that those cards are going to go late. Dragon Fodder, Krenko's Command, Hordeling Outburst, and Tempt With Vengeance, plus Beetleback Chief, Siege-Gang Commander, and Mogg War Marshall. Obviously Opposition is really sick here, but you also get to play with cards like Bident of Thassa and Tradewind Rider in blue, and Purphoros, Goblin Bombardment, Hellrider, and Goblin Bushwhacker.

2) Rainbow Kiki-Jiki. If I open a Kiki-Jiki, I'm forcing this. Your goal is to open the Kiki-Jiki and find the Pestermite and/or Deceiver Exarch later in the draft. From here, you're just trying to assemble these two in the most durdly way possible. Reveillark can pull both of them back from the yard, as can Karmic Guide. So clearly you also want Gifts Ungiven and Intuition, which means you probably want Unburial Rites too. With Gifts/Rites, you probably throw a small reanimator package in there too; Griselbrand would be fine. From here Mystical Teachings seems like an obvious windmill slam, and there's probably a lot of value in Forbidden Alchemy as well. Don't forget the Pact of Negation and/or Force of Will to protect the combo. I'm not sure how you keep yourself from getting run over while doing so much nothing, but if you stay alive long enough, you get to just win.

3) Modern Dredge. It looks like reanimator in this cube wants to be more of a GB self-mill deck than anything else, with Mulch, Grisly Salvage, Tracker's Instincts, Satyr Wayfinder, etc. The lack of Life From the Loam makes me sad, but there's so much other support for this it seems just too obvious. Both of the reanimation spells that Flashback are in the cube, so you'll want both of these. You can also get value from Vengevine if you've got mana dorks, and Soul of Innistrad is going to go super late and be another source of card advantage from the graveyard.

Ultimately, I'm wondering if White Weenie and/or Red/White Tokens is just the best deck in the cube. There are an absurd number of anthems in the cube, and I think that's the deck that's going to have the unbeatable curve.
 
I'm going to do what I always do in Cube. Force U/B reanimator if at all possible, barring any action on that front, go with the dumbest combo cards I can get my hands on.
 
U/R Opposition sounds interesting, I'm usually drawn to U/G for that archetype cos they you are ramping into big bombs as a plan B, you're mana dorks are useful later on and you that the elf legedary guy as another Bident of Thassa
 
Opposition always felt like a trap to me. There are numerous ways to deal with it. I've had much more success with Tangle Wire, which doesn't require multiple creatures to lock an opponent out and it can be played in non-blue decks.

T3 hordeling outburst t4 opposition does sound tempting though.
 
G.ZZZ said:
Red should be the 2nd color for instant and sorceries but all its playable instant and sorceries are basically burn. Card drawing has seen 1 playable card exactly for now (Faithless looting) and it's mostly a dredge card, while its spell manipulation is basically non-existent outside of overcosted fork effects. Its creature are also worse than blue's ones, and chaos effects suck/are overcosted. LD is dead so it doesn't even have that form of disruption anymore, and the best LD spells isn't playable anymore anyway (Cryoclasm). The best red card of the last 10 years is Pyromancer and that's because it's abusable in blue decks, not red ones. The 2nd one is probably Lavamancer. I like a lot the artifact theme, but that's basically dead too, since outside commander decks, the last things that favored artifacts in red were in Urza block, with some semi-playable in Mirrodin.

Green has still more permanent removal, enchantment matters theme, ramp, and actually good LD (mnwovuli acid-moss), plus decent card drawing engines (lybrary, Glimpse, elves, courser etc...) and tutors (GSZ, Survival, Commune, Pod etc..). Its only flaw is the stack, but that's totally fine for a color that don't focus on spellcasting at all. If anything green could get more fight effects on creatures and playable spells because that's supposed to be green form of removal and perfectly in flavor with the color. It also could get more disruption effects for lands/artifact like Root Maze.
Red mages are literally book wizards but can't do anything but create fires. It's as if gandalf only did fireworks. Red should totally have spell blast variants effects, which feel way more red than flashback effects tbh (reminiscing is totally blue, blasting spells should be more red but whatever).

I think you can see the problem the most on PWs. Red one's feel all so similar, while blue and black have some pretty different planeswalkers, and white and green are inbetween.
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Both looting and acting on impulse are viable red instants, but they don't seem to print them very often even though those should be the Red Divination.
 
I'm thinking about adding a single Mortal Obstinacy somewhere in the 75 of my Bogles deck. It's as efficient in power/cost to an Umbra, but it lets me have an out to topdecked Blood Moons while staying proactive without diluting my ratio of auras.
 
Angry Grimace said:
Both looting and acting on impulse are viable red instants, but they don't seem to print them very often even though those should be the Red Divination.
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Well, Theros block was full of scry cards, which could explain why that block didn't have much red looting or "impulsing", but even so, that had Epiphany Storm at common. Return to Ravnica block had a lot of red/blue loot effects, and in mono-red at common, there was Tin Street Market and Viashino Racketeer.

After Innistrad, every core set has had either Wild Guess or Rummaging Goblin, with the latest core set having Act on Impulse at uncommon, of course.

And this set has Tormenting Voice at common.

It seems to be getting a decent amount of representation.

EDIT: Whoops, I missed that you were talking about instants. I think the idea behind that is that they prefer for red to not play reactively, so most of its non-permanent spells are sorceries.
 
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";139444480]I'm thinking about adding a single Mortal Obstinacy somewhere in the 75 of my Bogles deck. It's as efficient in power/cost to an Umbra, but it lets me have an out to topdecked Blood Moons while staying proactive without diluting my ratio of auras.[/QUOTE]
Also lets you beat Worship.
 
Went 1-2 with my Miracles in the grinder today. Won against Goblins round one, then lost to Ivan Jen playing Death and Taxes. final round I lost to Combo Elves despite getting five blind flips in a row off of counterbalance lol

I don't think the deck is necessarily weak to anything I fought, but my inexperience made for a few minor errors here and there that cost me in the long run. I'm actually happy about that, there's a ton of play to the deck and it's a bunch of fun learning.

I actually think I'm gonna run a second enlightened tutor though, it took me too long to win once I stabilized which is a bit of a weakness.

kirblar said:
Also lets you beat Worship.
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Good call.
 
A few random people at my lgs randomly decided to do a Conspiracy draft using two Conspiracy packs along with a random pack from other sets. The random pack ended up being Innistrad, M15, Khans, Mirridon, and another old set that's escaping me now. I forget how fun Conspiracy can be, especially playing with strangers and a random pack. I ended up winning it with Esper; I had a bunch of kill spells and fliers lol.
 
So did anyone else watch the VSL Finals yesterday?

Menendian plays like a master all night. Randy and the other commentators take turns questioning his lines and being confused by his decisions. He fairly easily defeats LSV to take the title.
 
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";139439551]Would Lotus Petal be too strong in Modern?[/QUOTE]

Lotus Petal is bullshit, so yes.
 
divisionbyzorro said:
Yep. Ever wonder why you don't see him play Magic anymore?

Hearthstone is real. A lot of us (myself included) don't think it's as "good" as Magic, but it's a real thing that is a very real threat to the health of Magic.
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Spending money on something that already makes basically free money isn't something WOTC is interested in, apparently even when greater profits exist.
 
divisionbyzorro said:
Yep. Ever wonder why you don't see him play Magic anymore?

Hearthstone is real. A lot of us (myself included) don't think it's as "good" as Magic, but it's a real thing that is a very real threat to the health of Magic.
Click to expand...

I tried to get into Hearthstone 3 times by now but I never manage to care. I really wanted to like it too.
 
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