Magic: the GAFering |OT2|

Won my second straight prerelease of the weekend. :P

1st out of 68 people. Went 6-1 but my tiebreakers were disgusting (my worst opponent was 4-3). Biggest bummer was the shop I was at has a pretty shitty prize structure for the people at the top. He paid to 34 places (lol I know) so I only got 12 packs.

Played orz again but didn't pull anything crazy like last night except for the 4/7 vig primoridal again. Deck was crazy tempo and I could tell my opponents were getting pretty frustrated when I'd cast the 3/1 for 2 and continue to kill a creature per turn while only doing 3-6 dmg. Definitely going back to the top heavy prize structure of the other local store for prereleases though. Getting not even 2x entry fee in msrp packs for finishing first takes a lot away from my win.
 
Took 2nd place out of 85 at my prerelease with a naya deck (boros splashing green specifically). 6-1. Great games, and got 20 packs, with some great pulls. But I am exhausted and going to sleep.
 
Went 3-0-1 with Dimir and a pretty underwhelming pool (although I had plenty of removal), split the last match for 9 packs.

1x High Priest of Penance
1x Orzhov Charm
1x One Thousand Lashes
1x Cloudfin Raptor
1x Gutter Skulk
1x Gateway Shade
1x Deathcult Rogue
2x Simic Fluxmage
1x Keymaster Rogue
2x Balustrade Spy
1x Millenial Gargoyle
1x Consuming Aberration
1x Dinrova Horror
2x Death's Approach
1x Spell Rupture
1x Psychic Strike
1x Last Thoughts
1x Grisly Spectacle
2x Aetherize

Managed to get the Last Thoughts cipher on an unblockable going every game. Balustrade Spy is super solid, Consuming Aberration is the Real Deal. Simic Fluxmage is really, really sweet when you have a bunch of evasive dudes.

All told, got Breeding Pool, Thespian Stage, High Priest of Penance, and Aurelia's Fury as value from my pool and prize packs. Not too shabby.
 
I placed 4th at my first pre-release here, out of ~40 people. Went 4-1.

Played Simic and cracked a Biomass Mutation and ran such a janky deck. No Scramblesharks, no Experiment One, and none of that green 1CC enchantment that ticks up a counter every turn. Instead I cracked Battlefront Medic, Auriella, Five-Alarm Fire, and Boros Reckoner. Maybe 6-8 Evolve creatures in total. Hydroform and Totally Lost were the strange VIPs of this deck - Hydroform was basically a lightning bolt that won me three or four games in a row.

Top three were all Boros, hah. Was pretty salty at my last loss too, the guy was such a bad player but his deck was out of control if I didn't draw any answers. Afterwards he let his girlfriend friendly me, and she only played for about a month, but she beat me too .____. Sigh.
 
There are just very few tournament playable cards at rare/mythic levels outside of a handful like Frontline Medic, Boros Reckoner and the shocklands of course.

Maybe some of the mechanics can shake up the meta but right now on paper it just seems to be all garbage.
 
I'm still fairly new to all this but when drafting a 40 card deck at an event like this is it limited to 40?

Also how do you know how many lands/creatures/spells to drop in?
 
JetBlackPanda said:
I'm still fairly new to all this but when drafting a 40 card deck at an event like this is it limited to 40?

Also how do you know how many lands/creatures/spells to drop in?
Click to expand...

40 is the minimum. You can go more cards, but you shouldn't. You want to run 16-18 lands (depending on your curve, but 17 is the right number for most decks). There is no magic number for creatures, but if your starting out, shoot for 15ish creatures.
 
JetBlackPanda said:
I'm still fairly new to all this but when drafting a 40 card deck at an event like this is it limited to 40?

Also how do you know how many lands/creatures/spells to drop in?
Click to expand...

The minimum (and typically optimum) is 40, but you can add more if you want, there is no maximum. For lands, typically you'll want 16-18, depending on curve, if you have any accelerants or mana fixing, or if you have any cards that utilize having more lands (like Landfall). The split between creatures and lands I'm less sure on, but probably 2:1 creatures to spells.
 
15 to 20 creatures, I've found is good. Usually slower, control decks can afford to have fewer creatures while more aggressive decks want more creatures.
 
Anyone got any suggestions as to what to add to a boros themed deck if I'm going to play casually but from innistrad forward? I'm thinking maybe boros creatures + low cost white/reds (fencing aces, maybe some unleashed reds) and for spells use mainly enchants and combat trick spells? Oh and Gideon just because I pulled him. I'm not sure what exactly would be a cool thing to go with battalion...

For example, for my Detain deck, i use a bunch of spells geared towards retriggering it (cloudshifts, ghostly flickers, the conjurer's closet). My populate deck is pretty simple but it uses some pretty cool stuff such as parallel lives and Garruk. I'm kind of drawing a blank on what Boros would benefit most from in terms of strategy
 
Oh, and Dragons Maze details- basic land in packs replaced by a non basic- can be a guild gate or a shock (with original set symbol). Prerelease card will not be useable, 10 guild packs to choose from.
 
Went to PR today aiming to play Boros, ended up playing Orzhov because Boros was unsurprisingly booked up, and pulled the worst Orzhov cards outside my guild pack. I did have amazing Simic cards, but not quite enough to make a full deck and so I ended up playing very mediocre Orzhov deck.

My rares were almost cards for EDH decks, some of which I would want for my EDH decks, so that was OK I guess. They were almost entirely useless in Limited though.

Thespian's Stage
Glaring Spotlight
Diluvian Primordial
Whispering Madness
Gruul Ragebeast
Crypt Ghast

I ended up going 0-2 and dropping. I don't usually like playing more than three rounds anyway, but it did suck losing both matches. I'll probably try again next weekend, my limited skills aren't the best anyway even if I had opened decent cards.
 
Seriously - how out of touch is Wizards with the Modern format? It's supposed to be this fun, cool, eternal format that players can graduate to after Standard. It should have all of the pillars of magic: control, combo, aggro, midrange, etc. Modern has a bad reputation already; killing a fun deck that hasn't even been putting up good results sets a terrible precedent. It tells players that there's no reason to invest in the format, because the DCI will ban anything they want at any time.

The BBE ban is more understandable, although I still believe 100% \that DRS was the correct ban to deal with Jund.
 
From their explanation in the article, this part bothers me. Looking for a fight rather than trying to prevent one via unbanning is a poor choice in my opinion and sets an awful precedent.

"While the rest of the format is quite diverse, the dominance of Jund is making it less so overall. The DCI looked to ban a card. We wanted a card that top players consistently played four copies of in Jund, but ideally was less played in other top Modern decks. That would give the best chance of creating a more balanced metagame. The card that best fits our criteria is Bloodbraid Elf."
 
divisionbyzorro said:
Seriously - how out of touch is Wizards with the Modern format? It's supposed to be this fun, cool, eternal format that players can graduate to after Standard. It should have all of the pillars of magic: control, combo, aggro, midrange, etc. Modern has a bad reputation already; killing a fun deck that hasn't even been putting up good results sets a terrible precedent. It tells players that there's no reason to invest in the format, because the DCI will ban anything they want at any time.

The BBE ban is more understandable, although I still believe 100% \that DRS was the correct ban to deal with Jund.
Click to expand...

DRS is still a chase rare, they gotta sell them packs.
 
Banning anything is lame. The correct way to deal is start printing cards for other existing decks or ones for new decks that can compete with the Tier 1 in modern/standard.
 
BBE is very close to JTMS in power level. Even if it doesn't immediately look like it.

I would have banned DRS, but you could make the argument for either. The bans are good.
 
So if they have decided that turn 3 combos are bad and they are willing to ban cards from less than dominate decks, I wonder what from Infect will be banned in the next wave (cause 2 of its hard matchups just got neutered).

I guess the banning of BBE ends any silly talk of ever unbanning Jace. You can't unban him with the best anti-Jace weapon being banned!
 
I just don't understand why you kill the deck entirely. If it's gotten too good, nerf it back, don't kill it entirely. Ban Goblin Electromancer or Epic Experiment and let the deck go back to pre-RTR levels of power. But I don't understand why they felt the need to make it a completely unplayable thing.
 
During my two prereleases this weekend I played a bunch of Standard between rounds with folks. This has convinced me to get off my ass and actually get out to a FNM sometime soon.
 
Woah OT2! RAWK! Who's in the Gatecrash Beta? I am! Cept... Being married doesn't give me time :( I'm sorry guys, I'll be on more often I promise!
 
robotzombie said:
Anyone got any suggestions as to what to add to a boros themed deck if I'm going to play casually but from innistrad forward? I'm thinking maybe boros creatures + low cost white/reds (fencing aces, maybe some unleashed reds) and for spells use mainly enchants and combat trick spells? Oh and Gideon just because I pulled him. I'm not sure what exactly would be a cool thing to go with battalion...

For example, for my Detain deck, i use a bunch of spells geared towards retriggering it (cloudshifts, ghostly flickers, the conjurer's closet). My populate deck is pretty simple but it uses some pretty cool stuff such as parallel lives and Garruk. I'm kind of drawing a blank on what Boros would benefit most from in terms of strategy
Click to expand...

Without shelling out too much for a casual deck, I'd think of running Champion of the Parish, Silverblade Paladins, Lightning Mauler, and Madcap Skills.

If it's just Gatecrash Boros commons you'd want to play then I think add Boros Elite, Daring Skyjek/Wojek Halberdiers, Skyknight Legionnaires, and Madcap Skills.
T1 Boros Elite
T2 Daring Skyjek/Wojek Halberdier
T3 Skyknight Legionnaire, swing all 3 and trigger Battalion.

You could slap on Madcap Skills on an Elite Inquisitor and have a 5/2 first strike vigilance by turn 3. Two whites for Elite Inquisitor makes this combo hard though. Switch him out for Thalia maybe.
 
I'm fine with the bannings honestly. Not surprised to see DRS not get it since it's probably helping sell packs right now. Maybe eventually it will, but not yet. I'm sad about Seething Song for my own personal reasons, but eh, it happens. I was more disappointed there were no unbannings.
 
They have an interesting problem with Modern, it's supposed to be good to invest in but you might find a key card banned whenever that fucks you out of £100.
 
I had lots of fun at the prerelease. My local store made sure every player got at least one booster pack as a prize, so the top players didn't get too many packs. I think I ended up in third place on both the Sunday midnight and 4 PM events.

On the first one, I ran a Simic deck, and on the second one I cose Orzhov. Both times I was uncomfortable with my lack of removal and bomby cards. My Simic deck had very few evolve creatures, three fliers, and the only creature with more than 3 power was a single 6/2 evolve guy, and my orzhov deck had a crazy lack of 2-drops, fliers and extort creatures. However, both decks often managed to "curve out" for some reason, often forcing my opponents to play conservatively (unless they drew their bombs) while my creatures gnawed at their life total. I ended up going 3-1 on both events and got a shockland from each of them, luckily, but I didn'y open much else aside from that.

Now I'm trying to build a Simic deck, but I'm not sure whether I should mix in red (Izzet and Gruul) or black (Golgari and Dimir). So far, my RUG test deck has proven awfully unreliable, so I might stick with BUG for some more +1/+1 counter interactions and more control-ish elements.

I'm also thinking about building a Heartless Summoning deck if I manage to get my hands on a few more copies of the card, since it'd probably be fun to play powerful bombs way faster than usual (I might get stuck with them in hand if the Summoning gets removed, though).
 
f0rk said:
They have an interesting problem with Modern, it's supposed to be good to invest in but you might find a key card banned whenever that fucks you out of £100.
Click to expand...

Yeah, you never know when it's going to hit, or what, for that matter. This time around it was a couple of relatively cheap cards, but it could be the 'Goyf, or Bob next time (probably not though). I'd be pissed if I bought playset of Dark Confidant and it got banned shortly after. I'd be pissed if it got banned at all and I bought one, honestly.
 
I haven't played (outside of a bit of MTGO and DotP) for years. What's my best bet if I want to jump back in for Gatecrash? Ideally I'd like to get a standard deck together and also draft a bit. I think I want to play blue/?, but I still have to look into that a bit.
 
Willectro said:
I haven't played (outside of a bit of MTGO and DotP) for years. What's my best bet if I want to jump back in for Gatecrash? Ideally I'd like to get a standard deck together and also draft a bit. I think I want to play blue/?, but I still have to look into that a bit.
Click to expand...

You could get your hands on an Event Deck, which most of the time are fairly well-built. Return to Ravnica doesn't have a blue deck, but Gatecrash has a Simic (blue-green) one, although it hasn't been released yet.

If you haven't played for a long while, I'd advise against playing in drafts, since it takes a while to get used to it. Sealed would be a better option, but since the prerelease events are over, I'm not sure if you'll find any events to play in (since I don't flollow the GP/PT schedule, I'm not sure if there's a sealed one coming up).

Most of the time, blue works as a support color nowadays. Luckily, Ravnica gives you four blue-aligned guilds you can choose (the spell-oriented Izzet, the milling Dimir, the creature-based Simic or the control-tempo Azorius), so you'll proably be able to build a deck that suits your preferred playstyle.
 
Willectro said:
I haven't played (outside of a bit of MTGO and DotP) for years. What's my best bet if I want to jump back in for Gatecrash? Ideally I'd like to get a standard deck together and also draft a bit. I think I want to play blue/?, but I still have to look into that a bit.
Click to expand...

What's that? You need some cards to get started?

Hit me up. Posting this public for anybody else looking to get started.
 
If you are getting back into the game I would ask you how competitive do you want to be? How much are you looking to sink into standard? The "best deck" is often a meta-game call. Unless you want to just build a good deck and stick with it, you'd be investing in standard staples that have gotten very expensive in the past few years.

Personally, I'd start with the duel lands (reprints). They are used in every deck and also used in modern.
 
Anybody have suggestions for a really cheap cube list I could get?

Even the pauper cubes I looked at were over 100 dollars, is that something im just going to have to accept
 
I'm anxious to see how the Implicit Maze works. I enjoyed cracking seals on the Helvault, and filling out achievement cards is one of my favorite things to do at PRs, so I hope this turns out to be similar.

I foresee a lot of folks complaining about the prize being a premium basic land, though.
 
ultron87 said:
If they make some sweet foil full art lands as the prize (and they have all 5 lands available) I'd be cool with it. Love me some cool looking lands.
Click to expand...

Ooooh, definitely! I snapped up as many Zendikar full-arts as I could when they first came out. A decision I do not regret.
 
WanderingWind said:
What's that? You need some cards to get started?

Hit me up. Posting this public for anybody else looking to get started.
Click to expand...

WanderingWind is a magic saint! The stuff he sent me helped me get started. I did a mock draft with some friends built a few decks and now I am hooked again after years and years of not playing. I went to the Gatecrash pre-release and now its in my veins!

thanks again WW!
 
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