There was that Magic online spoiler that came down a few pages back on Imgur. Was that not all the cards?
Edit: Right here here http://imgur.com/a/Hrv8n
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Magic: the GAFering |OT2|
- Thread starter The Technomancer
- Start date
There was that Magic online spoiler that came down a few pages back on Imgur. Was that not all the cards?
Edit: Right here here http://imgur.com/a/Hrv8n
That was all the cards. Commander previews next month. (Hint: If an uncommon is potentially legacy playable, get a set immediately)
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
The full set is also out officially, on the Visual Spoiler on DailyMTG
So much this. We've seen Baleful Strix, Shardless Agent, Flusterstorm, and Scavenging Ooze all go kinda crazy price-wise, so if something seems even decently good I'm snapping up a set.
divisionbyzorro
Member
Flusterstorm is such a sweet, sweet card. The design on that card is nigh perfect.
divisionbyzorro
Member
So the MTGO Sealed Release Event prize structure has been altered. And it's kind of a slap in the face to grinders:
M14: 24 ticket entry
(4-0) 13 packs
(3-1) 8 packs
(2-2) 3 packs
(24)(16) = 384 tickets put in
13 + (4)(8) + (6)(3) = 63 packs given out
0.164 packs given out for each ticket put in
If you're 50% to win each match, the EV is: (1/16)(13) + (1/4)(8) + (3/8)(3) = .815 + 2 + 1.125 = 3.94 packs
Theros: 20 ticket entry
(4-0) 8 packs
(3-1) 4 packs
(2-2) 2 packs
(20)(16) = 320 tickets put in
8 + (4)(4) + (6)(2) = 36 packs given out
0.113 packs given out for each ticket put in
If you're 50% to win each match, the EV is: (1/16)(8) + (1/4)(4) + (3/8)(2) = 0.5 + 1 + .75 = 2.25 packs
EDIT: But there is something I'm not considering. Technically, you're buying 6 packs from the store for the price of 5. So technically an additional 16 packs were given out, for a total of 0.163 packs given out per ticket. So the value is the same, except you essentially got forced to open a pack, and the value is flattened across all of the participants.
M14: 24 ticket entry
(4-0) 13 packs
(3-1) 8 packs
(2-2) 3 packs
(24)(16) = 384 tickets put in
13 + (4)(8) + (6)(3) = 63 packs given out
0.164 packs given out for each ticket put in
If you're 50% to win each match, the EV is: (1/16)(13) + (1/4)(8) + (3/8)(3) = .815 + 2 + 1.125 = 3.94 packs
Theros: 20 ticket entry
(4-0) 8 packs
(3-1) 4 packs
(2-2) 2 packs
(20)(16) = 320 tickets put in
8 + (4)(4) + (6)(2) = 36 packs given out
0.113 packs given out for each ticket put in
If you're 50% to win each match, the EV is: (1/16)(8) + (1/4)(4) + (3/8)(2) = 0.5 + 1 + .75 = 2.25 packs
EDIT: But there is something I'm not considering. Technically, you're buying 6 packs from the store for the price of 5. So technically an additional 16 packs were given out, for a total of 0.163 packs given out per ticket. So the value is the same, except you essentially got forced to open a pack, and the value is flattened across all of the participants.
divisionbyzorro
Member
Yeah, I edited it back into my post, but I realized on second inspection that the "value" is actually the same as before. Reducing the cost by tickets means that WotC basically sold you six packs for the price of five, whereas beforehand you had to buy six packs at retail value. That means that each player essentially got one guaranteed prize pack, but was forced to open it as part of their sealed pool.
So in the end, the prize pool is essentially the same, but flattened. And of course, to the MTGO grinder, a pack is far more valuable unopened than opened. So it still sucks for the grinders, but technically WotC is offering the same value to the players.
EDIT: What it really means is that if you were just playing the release sealed events on MTGO for fun, feel free to continue; the payout is slightly less, but it's not a huge dicking.
So in the end, the prize pool is essentially the same, but flattened. And of course, to the MTGO grinder, a pack is far more valuable unopened than opened. So it still sucks for the grinders, but technically WotC is offering the same value to the players.
EDIT: What it really means is that if you were just playing the release sealed events on MTGO for fun, feel free to continue; the payout is slightly less, but it's not a huge dicking.
divisionbyzorro
Member
The change is meant to level the playing field. It reduces the payouts for the higher skilled players and increases the payouts for the less skilled. They're trying to make release events less about rewarding grinders and more about enticing new players.
EDIT: And...I just took the last slot for a paper pre-release this weekend. Guess what? I'm finally going to get a DCI number. After all this time playing online and drafting with friends, I'm going to an actual sanctioned event. Kinda strange that it's taken me this long I suppose.
EDIT: And...I just took the last slot for a paper pre-release this weekend. Guess what? I'm finally going to get a DCI number. After all this time playing online and drafting with friends, I'm going to an actual sanctioned event. Kinda strange that it's taken me this long I suppose.
Gifts decks run: 2 SCM....and 4 DRS. It's ridiculous.
Keru_Shiri
Member
I'm pretty sure you guys are just making up nicknames at this point.
Then again, I got people at my shop calling Flinthoof Boar "Boof" so I'm just as bad.
Then again, I got people at my shop calling Flinthoof Boar "Boof" so I'm just as bad.
Talking about nicknames, at my LGS we refer to Knight of the Parish as "Parrilla" (which means "grill", from its english pronounciation) rather than its boring spanish name, Caballero de la Parroquia.
Then again, there's that slightly obnoxious guy who comes up with broken card designs, who uses "ramp" as a substitute for "pump", since he somehow thinks "ramping" came from Ghor-Clan Rampager or something along those lines...
Regarding Baconator, I'd guess it's a deck that takes advantage of the synergy between Curse of the Swine and Ratchet Bomb.
Then again, there's that slightly obnoxious guy who comes up with broken card designs, who uses "ramp" as a substitute for "pump", since he somehow thinks "ramping" came from Ghor-Clan Rampager or something along those lines...
Regarding Baconator, I'd guess it's a deck that takes advantage of the synergy between Curse of the Swine and Ratchet Bomb.
It'll go well in my red/blue PW control deck
I'm not sure how much it's played nowadays, but doesn't Pithing Needle hurt the deck quite a bit? Your only way to get it off the board if it hits T1 is with a Ratchet Bomb, and it can shut you out of each and every win condition you're running. I feel like the Curse of the Swine is kind of redundant given the sweepers you have available (unless the format slows down considerably, that is).
Personally, I'd go +2 Turn//Burn +2 Oportunity, +1 Anger of the Gods, +1 Izzet Charm, -1 Mizzium Mortars, -3 Counterflux, -2 Curse of the Swine.
Anger of the Gods is a cheaper and more reliable sweeper than Mortars (and even takes care of Voice of Resurgence), Counterflux is only good for starting counter wars (if you're protecting your stuff, they can just counter the original spell rather than the 'flux), and I've already talked about the Curse. Oportunity is a card that's great for this kind of deck as it's a sphinx's revelation in your colors, even if you don't get the ability to draw more than four cards at a time or gain any life off of it (plus, it's infinitely cheaper), Charm's really versatile and Turn//Burn also gives you some great value; you won't be using it as a combat trick since you have no blockers most of the time, but at least you can fuse it with two different targets and then burn the 0/1 with a PW for a 2-for-1.
Good call on turn/burn I forgot all about it. In terms of pithing needle, I suppose I could side in Annul or some kind of artifact hate.
It's redundant on sweepers because I anticipate a lot of creature heavy decks, though maybe there are too many. Plus that would be bad if it's up against control.
It's redundant on sweepers because I anticipate a lot of creature heavy decks, though maybe there are too many. Plus that would be bad if it's up against control.
Needs Turn // Burn or Lightning Strike over Magma Jet. Magma Jet is a little overrated. Card quality is nice and all, but I prefer card advantage like Opportunity. You already have Izzet Charm to deal with two toughness dudes and it's more versatile. Turn // Burn and Lightning Strike allow you to deal with Voice of Resurgence and Fleecemane Lion respectively. It's better to stay alive as a control player than get greedy and play Magma Jet.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
I don't think my playgroup uses any specific nicknames, aside perhaps from "oh fuck its Zur"
Your avatar leads me to believe you'd be a good judge of that.
I'm definitely going to try a few builds of this.
First of all, great list. Been wanting to see how straight-up izzet looks.
Second --
I'm going to agree with firemind in that you could diversify your removal and win conditions a little more, but strongly disagree with Jet being replaced. Still, you need to be able to take out midrange creatures when it's necessary.
Your choices for red-based spot removal, in (extremely rough) order, should probably be:
Magma Jet
V
V
V
V
V
V
Thunder Strike and Mizzium Mortars
(Shock, if RDW is to be a thing)
Turn // Burn -- very important for an instant speed "destroy target stormbreath"
Izzet Charm
But you should absolutely never replace jet, unless you think your meta is going to be smart enough to play around it. (IE, no red-based aggro whatsoever, everything is a midrange deck, only two toughness creature is voice. In this case, you should round out your sets of sweepers in Mizzium Mortars and Anger.
Third, Chandra is blank a little too often for my tastes here -- she'll hit lands and burn a lot, yes, but hitting a permission spell will feel awful. I kind of wonder how your list will look as an RUG control shell...
hm...
I can't tell you how much I like this idea. I don't even know if it'd be great -- I mean, it seems pretty good -- but I've been doing the same thing with Young Pyromancer in Grixis to great effect.
Go for it.
Second --
I'm going to agree with firemind in that you could diversify your removal and win conditions a little more, but strongly disagree with Jet being replaced. Still, you need to be able to take out midrange creatures when it's necessary.
Your choices for red-based spot removal, in (extremely rough) order, should probably be:
Magma Jet
V
V
V
V
V
V
Thunder Strike and Mizzium Mortars
(Shock, if RDW is to be a thing)
Turn // Burn -- very important for an instant speed "destroy target stormbreath"
Izzet Charm
But you should absolutely never replace jet, unless you think your meta is going to be smart enough to play around it. (IE, no red-based aggro whatsoever, everything is a midrange deck, only two toughness creature is voice. In this case, you should round out your sets of sweepers in Mizzium Mortars and Anger.
Third, Chandra is blank a little too often for my tastes here -- she'll hit lands and burn a lot, yes, but hitting a permission spell will feel awful. I kind of wonder how your list will look as an RUG control shell...
hm...
I can't tell you how much I like this idea. I don't even know if it'd be great -- I mean, it seems pretty good -- but I've been doing the same thing with Young Pyromancer in Grixis to great effect.
Go for it.
divisionbyzorro
Member
It's amazing to me how terrible WotC is at community management. They've screwed-up the MTGO Theros release event queue changes remarkably.
It's clear if you actually bother to crunch the numbers that they were trying to make Release Sealed events cheaper to enter, which obviously required a lower prize payout. And considering that the entry fee previously had been buying six packs at full price, with no additional event fee, lowering the cost of the event would actually have been the equivalent of buying packs from the store at a discount. The new prize structure is actually remarkably clever, in that they've come up with a way to "sell" exactly the same number of packs per dollar as they did before. It kills the value for the grinders, but it makes the entry fees more palatable for the layman.
There are certainly very valid concerns about the new event structure. But the argument that it's somehow a giant dicking on the part of WotC just doesn't hold water. And all WotC really had to do was present it openly and honestly, rather than just say "Look at how awesome our new event structure is!"
It's clear if you actually bother to crunch the numbers that they were trying to make Release Sealed events cheaper to enter, which obviously required a lower prize payout. And considering that the entry fee previously had been buying six packs at full price, with no additional event fee, lowering the cost of the event would actually have been the equivalent of buying packs from the store at a discount. The new prize structure is actually remarkably clever, in that they've come up with a way to "sell" exactly the same number of packs per dollar as they did before. It kills the value for the grinders, but it makes the entry fees more palatable for the layman.
There are certainly very valid concerns about the new event structure. But the argument that it's somehow a giant dicking on the part of WotC just doesn't hold water. And all WotC really had to do was present it openly and honestly, rather than just say "Look at how awesome our new event structure is!"
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
My thought on Chandra was how well she'll play with scry in the format.
Izzet players unite!
What about running Magma Jet in a deck that's meant to abuse Young Pyromancer and Guttersnipe? Would the scry help enough to curve and draw into more spell triggers enough to warrant running it over other forms of burn? So far my burn suite is 4 Mortars, 4 Izzet Charms, 4 Shocks (read: ex-Pillar of Flame), 2 Turn//Burn and two open slots that had Searing Spear in them (-->Lightning Strike, I guess?).
Why exactly? I haven't heard a convincing reason as to why it's irreplacable.
I would maybe agree if it was midrange, but it's a U/R control list, and I don't know how much the rest of you know about U/R control (I'm an expert), but counter and burn are huge parts of it.
Let's say you could choose between Magma Jet and Lightning Bolt. They both kill weenies, but Jet has the added Scry. Would I choose Jet? Hell no. Lightning Bolt can kill a higher number of creatures. Since Lightning Strike is the next best thing, but adds an extra mana, I'd still choose Strike over Jet because of aforementioned reason. Another example. Let's say it's the midgame and you've both exhausted your hands. You only have one burn spell in hand and your opponent topdecks a Fleecemace Lion and has seven mana. Can Magma Jet kill it? No. Can Anger of the Gods kill it? Not without Quicken. Ral can only hopelessly watch. Lightning Strike kills it.
Izzet Charm lets you fight Sphinx Revelation decks. Against control, Magma Jet is a much worse Preordain. Lightning Strike, Anger of the Gods and Turn // Burn are also dead cards. So having another dead card would be most unwise. I'd actually add Burning Earth to the SB in the hopes of burning them out.
Magma Jet might make your early removal plan better against weenies, but anything with higher than three toughness and you'd wish you had something else.
It's possible I'd play both Jet and Strike and remove Mortars. The only thing then is Smiter becomes an issue lol
I thought about using Azorious police cards and that in a Bacon deck.
Also thought about using it with that Dragon Egg for the obvious joke.
Exactly. Midrange will more than often beat aggro. It's best to have removal that can cover both.
In such a deck, Magma Jet is more than fine. The difference between an aggro control deck and a control deck is that at some point, aggro control doesn't want lands anymore. Scry will help with that. True control never has enough of lands. That is why you usually don't see Ponder and Preordain in control lists. They'd rather have cards that generate value, like Mulldrifter or Compulsive Research. At some point, you're going to have to win the game and scrying doesn't do that better than simply drawing cards.
Are we getting any cheap card-drawers I could be using instead of my beloved Faithless Looting? I've been eyeing Steam Augury, but I'm not sure how good it'd be, since I'd have to cut burn spells I could be drawing instead; I've also been thinking about running at least some counterspells besides teh Charms either in the MD or SB, but I'm not sure if I should be pursuing that kind of gameplan.
So far, my deck performs kind-of like a midrange deck, playing a Pyromancer or Guttersnipe plus spells for value, with enough removal to keep most creatures off of the board. Most of my games have lasted long enough to the point where I've been casting Opportunity or overloaded Mortars. Still, I'm not sure if I should be running that many burn spells that don't hit players (4-point Pillars used to be amazing), or if I should try running Goblin Electromancer to both act as removal bait and give me more explosive turns once a Pyromancer or Snipe hits the board (the downside is it'd almost always make for an awful topdeck).
Noted. I have a single phoenix, but getting more shouldn't bee too hard, right? I'll have to change the burn suite a bit so that I have more burn spells that can target players rather than just creatures.
Also, should I dedicate some card slots to protecting my Snipes and Pyromancers? I've been thinking about running Mizzium Skin or Dispel in the sideboard, at the very least.
Mizzium Skin is nice because it draws out a burn/removal spell from your opponent, protects your Guttersnipe/YP, and triggers them. Nothing is more satisfying than hitting your opponent for two while his/her useless removal spell hits the graveyard.
FieryBalrog
Member
So the pre-release special packs are mono- of that color, or can have off-color cards?
That's what I like about it, but I'm not sure if that plus the +0/+1 bonus is enough to make it a better choice than Dispel. The latter trades the ability to hit sorcery-speed removal and/or creature abilities, but it can hose much more than that, such as counterspells aimed at my creatures or even Sphinx's Revelation.
That won't be necessary. Chandra and Ral will also return it. Add Lightning Strike and Magma Jet and you should have no problem.
With the phoenix in the mix, you have some inevitability. Just remember not to overextend the board.
has some monocolor and a couple other cards with colors that 'support' the one you picked for the pack
Think I might start playing some standard on mtgo for the first time after the new set roles in.
I only started playing with the M13 core set, just limited though. I didn't play any of the RTR sets but paid some attention to it and got back into playing limited with the M14 core set.
I think with both the steam game and their social media shows like walking the planes, twitch streaming etc. magic are doing a decent job introducing new players to all formats.
I only started playing with the M13 core set, just limited though. I didn't play any of the RTR sets but paid some attention to it and got back into playing limited with the M14 core set.
I think with both the steam game and their social media shows like walking the planes, twitch streaming etc. magic are doing a decent job introducing new players to all formats.
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