Haha yes it is. My store has a lot of pretty hardcore players, and quite a few of em give me shit (half-jokingly mind you) for running my RDW week after week. I don't understand how some of the people there have 3-4+ standard decks they can and do play. I actually have other standard legal decks, but they wouldn't survive the onslaught of decks I see at my FNM.
And I get top 8 pretty much every other FNM with my RDW. Haters gonna hate
If you really enjoy the game, you don't have to "keep up with it". You could always play Legacy. Otherwise, you can play EDH / Commander. A lot of ex-MtG players I know came back to Magic, exclusively for EDH / Commander format. Standard is really too expensive to keep up with.
That's what me and my friends do now. We just play EDH/ Commander and Cube. I never thought that was ALL I would do, I figured I'd always have some standard decks, but man it actually feels like a weight lifted from you when you don't have to worry about getting 4x a card haha. I just recently dismantled all but two of my decks (My babies, Green/White tokens and a silly Manabarbs deck.) My other friend sold all his cards, but he still plays every week when we cube draft. It doesn't HAVE to be expensive if you don't want it to be, well maybe a little expensive to build up the initial base to make commander decks/ a cube.
At least with DotP, I think it's like rigged or something. I've had it give me 0 lands to mulligan down to 4 cards at least 3 or 4 times and I don't even play that often. The hands it gives you is shit so often.
Haha yes it is. My store has a lot of pretty hardcore players, and quite a few of em give me shit (half-jokingly mind you) for running my RDW week after week. I don't understand how some of the people there have 3-4+ standard decks they can and do play. I actually have other standard legal decks, but they wouldn't survive the onslaught of decks I see at my FNM.
And I get top 8 pretty much every other FNM with my RDW. Haters gonna hate
They could fix mana screw by splitting the library into 2 piles, mana and spells. When you draw you choose which pile you take from. You get to control mana income while still maintaining the random element. Would eliminate screw/flood and ensure each match was a real match.
Way too radical, the backlash would be enormous! And also entertaining.
Toward the end of my time with the paper game, I used to use the 7 pile shuffling technique. It's pretty good at ensuring a decent distribution of spells and mana.
They could fix mana screw by splitting the library into 2 piles, mana and spells. When you draw you choose which pile you take from. You get to control mana income while still maintaining the random element. Would eliminate screw/flood and ensure each match was a real match.
Part of the skill involved in deckbuilding is finding the right spell/land ratio. Doing what you suggest would make deckbuilding much easier, thus removing a way for more skilled players to rise to the top.
I think the mana system is extremely good as a gameplay mechanic when the shuffling is truly random: you tend to have fairly consistent mana but there's still enough chance of variance that matches can be interesting when a player gets too little or too much. The problem is when those situations happen too frequently.
Way too radical, the backlash would be enormous! And also entertaining.
Toward the end of my time with the paper game, I used to use the 7 pile shuffling technique. It's pretty good at ensuring a decent distribution of spells and mana.
There was a really good article someone posted a while back in this thread about what sort of frequency of land clumping you should expect even in a truly random shuffle. It was a really good read - I just can't find it right now.
They could fix mana screw by splitting the library into 2 piles, mana and spells. When you draw you choose which pile you take from. You get to control mana income while still maintaining the random element. Would eliminate screw/flood and ensure each match was a real match.
Randomization makes the game a little more fun and mana flood/screw is just part of the game. No reason to change that.
Plus doing what you said would make cards like Ponder or Goblin Ringleader a lot stronger.
They could fix mana screw by splitting the library into 2 piles, mana and spells. When you draw you choose which pile you take from. You get to control mana income while still maintaining the random element. Would eliminate screw/flood and ensure each match was a real match.
I think the problem with your idea is that everyone's decks would be like 40 mana and 20 spells so they get godlike draws every time. You'd have to reduce the minimum deck size and make mana a side deck.
If you really enjoy the game, you don't have to "keep up with it". You could always play Legacy. Otherwise, you can play EDH / Commander. A lot of ex-MtG players I know came back to Magic, exclusively for EDH / Commander format. Standard is really too expensive to keep up with.
Help me out here. I haven't played in a decade, and you just used a whole ton of terms I don't know anything about. I tend to be a perfectionist in deck making, so that contributes a lot to the issue.
Haha yes it is. My store has a lot of pretty hardcore players, and quite a few of em give me shit (half-jokingly mind you) for running my RDW week after week. I don't understand how some of the people there have 3-4+ standard decks they can and do play. I actually have other standard legal decks, but they wouldn't survive the onslaught of decks I see at my FNM.
And I get top 8 pretty much every other FNM with my RDW. Haters gonna hate
I never had the cards for it, unfortunately. I also played mostly during the Ursa period, and I don't think there were a lot of demon cards then.
My best deck (undefeated) was a counter-burn deck with 4 Palinchrons. I also had 4 Morphlings, but never really liked them. I felt they were a bit overrated. I'm all about control, though! It's my theme in anything I do.
Other decks were:
White/Black Pestilence deck (lots of white creatures with Protection from Black + Pestilence to clear the field)
THE SQUIRRELS! (4 Derranged Hermits, Elven Poachers, Mercenaries to get to the Poachers and then the Hermits, and then Lifeline (IIRC) to regurgigate the Hermits for 16 5/5 tokens each turn, and 4 Masticores to clear the field)
A green beatdown deck (these were really popular beck then)
Some variation of the Wildfire deck. I don't even recall the specifics, just 4 Rings of Rix and all the turbines to make big stuff happen, haha.
The deck I always WANTED to make, but lacked the cards for, was a black resurrection deck. Something about getting huge creatures out on turn 3 is just so exciting. If I had the money now, I'd do a white/black deck around the theme of Undead Angels.
Help me out here. I haven't played in a decade, and you just used a whole ton of terms I don't know anything about. I tend to be a perfectionist in deck making, so that contributes a lot to the issue.
I used to have so many decks...what do all those acronyms mean?
I never had the cards for it, unfortunately. I also played mostly during the Ursa period, and I don't think there were a lot of demon cards then.
My best deck (undefeated) was a counter-burn deck with 4 Palinchrons. I also had 4 Morphlings, but never really liked them. I felt they were a bit overrated. I'm all about control, though! It's my theme in anything I do.
Other decks were:
White/Black Pestilence deck (lots of white creatures with Protection from Black + Pestilence to clear the field)
THE SQUIRRELS! (4 Derranged Hermits, Elven Poachers, Mercenaries to get to the Poachers and then the Hermits, and then Lifeline (IIRC) to regurgigate the Hermits for 16 5/5 tokens each turn, and 4 Masticores to clear the field)
A green beatdown deck (these were really popular beck then)
Some variation of the Wildfire deck. I don't even recall the specifics, just 4 Rings of Rix and all the turbines to make big stuff happen, haha.
The deck I always WANTED to make, but lacked the cards for, was a black resurrection deck. Something about getting huge creatures out on turn 3 is just so exciting. If I had the money now, I'd do a white/black deck around the theme of Undead Angels.
FNM: Friday Night Magic (traditional night to get together at your LGS to play magic IRL).
LGS: Local game store
RDW: Red Deck Wins. Usually refers to a mono-red burn deck.
EDH: A variant of multiplayer magic: http://mtgcommander.net/rules.php
I love demons and the undead, but I like lots of other stuff too. Angels are pretty awesome, and I'm a bit of a pyro, so I love burning stuff down. There's also something really satisfying about playing blue, and just being able to say "no" to anything your opponent does when you want. Mono-color decks almost never happen with me just because the multi-color theorycraft gets me going.
FNM: Friday Night Magic (traditional night to get together at your LGS to play magic IRL).
LGS: Local game store
RDW: Red Deck Wins. Usually refers to a mono-red burn deck.
EDH: A variant of multiplayer magic: http://mtgcommander.net/rules.php
Red Deck Wins is a fair bit more aggro than just straight burn.
@Karsticles
RDW is always pretty common regardless of the sets, because the concept is pretty much always viable. Cheap burn spells mixed with incredibly fast and efficient creatures.
Edit: Burn by itself though (like Sinitar and Pandaman below said) is usually pretty awful. I'd honestly say RDW is more of an aggro deck than a burn deck.
burn is like land destruction or discard; bad in theory but sometimes brutally hardcounter decks not prepared for them. [because why would you prepare for something bad and thus unlikely to happen?]
Another problem with land destruction (LD) is that it's Anti-Fun™. A few land destruction cards always get printed every core set or expansion, but never enough to make a LD deck viable because WotC knows no one wants to play against an LD deck.
Red Deck Wins is a fair bit more aggro than just straight burn.
@Karsticles
RDW is always pretty common regardless of the sets, because the concept is pretty much always viable. Cheap burn spells mixed with incredibly fast and efficient creatures.
Edit: Burn by itself though (like Sinitar and Pandaman below said) is usually pretty awful. I'd honestly say RDW is more of an aggro deck than a burn deck.
burn is like land destruction or discard; bad in theory but sometimes brutally hardcounter decks not prepared for them. [because why would you prepare for something bad and thus unlikely to happen?]
Another problem with land destruction (LD) is that it's Anti-Fun. A few land destruction cards always get printed every core set or expansion, but never enough to make a LD deck viable because WotC knows no one wants to play against an LD deck.
Another problem with land destruction (LD) is that it's Anti-Fun. A few land destruction cards always get printed every core set or expansion, but never enough to make a LD deck viable because WotC knows no one wants to play against an LD deck.
I wish they would make it viable. It's no worse than the other stale meta game they've had lately. Only playing caw blade, only playing delver, etc. Playing against blue control being the strongest every time isn't exactly the most fun either.
Yes! I finally won my first ever draft. Had a black white deck with Mikaeus the Lunarch and Bloodline keeper.
Won my last round in pretty crazy fashion. Had 2 gavony ironwrights out, let my opponent beat me down to 5 HP giving all my guys +2/+8, cast sudden disappearance and shipped all my dudes in for a full 20 damage in 1 turn.
I wish they would make it viable. It's no worse than the other stale meta game they've had lately. Only playing caw blade, only playing delver, etc. Playing against blue control being the strongest every time isn't exactly the most fun either.
Yes! I finally won my first ever draft. Had a black white deck with Mikaeus the Lunarch and Bloodline keeper.
Won my last round in pretty crazy fashion. Had 2 gavony ironwrights out, let my opponent beat me down to 5 HP giving all my guys +2/+8, cast sudden disappearance and shipped all my dudes in for a full 20 damage in 1 turn.
Ya, but not by much. The only other I really see is hunts master. Blue black control is ok but can't hold up to the others from what I've seen at all and unless the person has not sideboard for it B/U zombies can't do shit. As long as you have grafdigger's it's crap. At least in my experience it just hasn't been fun lately, it's been all delvers.
Ya, but not by much. The only other I really see is hunts master. Blue black control is ok but can't hold up to the others from what I've seen at all and unless the person has not sideboard for it B/U zombies can't do shit. As long as you have grafdigger's it's crap. At least in my experience it just hasn't been fun lately, it's been all delvers.
To start there are at least 2 Delver variations that play quite differently.
Huntmaster fits in 2 different R/G decks, Wolf Run Ramp and aggro with Strangleroot Geist (on the stream right now).
It also goes in Naya Pod (G/W/R) which is seeing a fair amount of play at the moment.
Ramp has G/W and G/B variations that can do well.
Control has U/B which is highly metagame dependent so usually needs the meta to stay stagnant for more than a week to react and post results. Esper Superfriends / Tapout control is still a contender as well.
Haunted Humans are still strong.
W/b tokens got 2nd at a SCG Open a week or two ago.
Zombies is still viable (nobody seriously plays Grafdigger's Cage in Standard as it's counter productive to most) with B/u and B/r.
Frites (4/5 colour reanimator) seems to have died down but I'm sure you could still do well at FNM with it).
I don't think anything has been spoiled from AVR yet to create a new archetype except perhaps the U/R land could push U/R/x Control or U/R Delver over the edge. Humans well definitely get a lot of stuff.
Channel Fireball has a bunch of pro players recording their drafts on MTGO, it's a real good way to learn since they talk you through all their decisions.
Ever just had an incredible run? I just won like, 7 games in a row. Nobody got pissed off, everybody was congenial, the mana pockets were spaced perfectly...
Ever just had an incredible run? I just won like, 7 games in a row. Nobody got pissed off, everybody was congenial, the mana pockets were spaced perfectly...
You'd be better off playing Standard. Budget decks will be closer in power to the competitive ones and you should get better much quicker as no one with much of a clue will be playing whatever format power 9 cards are legal in.
You'd be better off playing Standard. Budget decks will be closer in power to the competitive ones and you should get better much quicker as no one with much of a clue will be playing whatever format power 9 cards are legal in.
