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Magic: the GAFering |OT2|

A

Azn_Boy

Neo Member
OnPoint said:
My thought on Chandra was how well she'll play with scry in the format.
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Chandra isn't effective unless your deck is filled with cheap permanents and spells. That's why she was so good in the Modern Jund deck. A deck full of reactive spells doesn't really want her.
 
E

Exokell

Banned
divisionbyzorro said:
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!"
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I think m13 release the entry fee was already 20, but anyway nobody is gonna play sealed coz the risk is too high and reward is Fucking low. Players would rather draft than make a deck from a bunch of shitty cards with sealed. This is just dumb move. I did like what they did with cube format, both 1st and second get bunch of boosters.

edit: also I don't think u need 2 or 3 Chandra with izzet or Grixis when u already have jace for card draw. and 10 planeswalkers that cost 4 mana each seems dumb
 
D

divisionbyzorro

Member
Exokell said:
I think m13 release the entry fee was already 20, but anyway nobody is gonna play sealed coz the risk is too high and reward is Fucking low. Players would rather draft than make a deck from a bunch of shitty cards with sealed. This is just dumb move. I did like what they did with cube format, both 1st and second get bunch of boosters.
Click to expand...

It was 24 tickets before; it's 20 tickets now. WotC is "selling" the same number of packs per ticket than they did before, but the ratio of unopened to opened packs is skewed drastically. Hence the community outrage, since unopened packs have more value to players than opened packs, even though WotC's continued existence essentially hinges on them continuing to deny the existence of a secondary market.

I think where WotC actually made a mistake is in thinking that this is going to make the events more appealing to casual players. In truth, do casual players really want to play a four-round sealed tournament online? I think the number of players who thought 24 tickets was too expensive, but 20 tickets is just fine, is very small. The primary blocker to doing a large tournament online is forcing yourself to be trapped in front of a computer screen for hours, in an environment where there's little to no social interaction.

Making MTGO more casual-friendly in terms of pricing isn't going to help; they need to make the interface and experience more "fun" before they start looking at financial incentives to try to get new players in the door.
 
A

acheron_xl

Member
Exokell said:
I think m13 release the entry fee was already 20, but anyway nobody is gonna play sealed coz the risk is too high and reward is Fucking low. Players would rather draft than make a deck from a bunch of shitty cards with sealed. This is just dumb move. I did like what they did with cube format, both 1st and second get bunch of boosters.

edit: also I don't think u need 2 or 3 Chandra with izzet or Grixis when u already have jace for card draw. and 10 planeswalkers that cost 4 mana each seems dumb
Click to expand...

Speak for yourself. I'd much rather play sealed than draft because I'm fucking garbage at draft, and if I get a shit sealed pool, at least it wasn't because I don't know the draft archetypes of whatever format I'm playing, and/or didn't pick up signals and whatnot.
 
E

Exokell

Banned
acheron_xl said:
Speak for yourself. I'd much rather play sealed than draft because I'm fucking garbage at draft, and if I get a shit sealed pool, at least it wasn't because I don't know the draft archetypes of whatever format I'm playing, and/or didn't pick up signals and whatnot.
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Theres tons of videos from sites like channel fireball where pros draft and they explain everything, sealed can be a huge huge money sink if youre pool has constantly bad cards.

divisionbyzorro said:
It was 24 tickets before; it's 20 tickets now. WotC is "selling" the same number of packs per ticket than they did before, but the ratio of unopened to opened packs is skewed drastically. Hence the community outrage, since unopened packs have more value to players than opened packs, even though WotC's continued existence essentially hinges on them continuing to deny the existence of a secondary market.

I think where WotC actually made a mistake is in thinking that this is going to make the events more appealing to casual players. In truth, do casual players really want to play a four-round sealed tournament online? I think the number of players who thought 24 tickets was too expensive, but 20 tickets is just fine, is very small. The primary blocker to doing a large tournament online is forcing yourself to be trapped in front of a computer screen for hours, in an environment where there's little to no social interaction.

Making MTGO more casual-friendly in terms of pricing isn't going to help; they need to make the interface and experience more "fun" before they start looking at financial incentives to try to get new players in the door.
Click to expand...
Who the fuck wants an opened pack full of worthless cards compared to a booster which I can sell for 3 dollars? MTGO players are playing to farm more packs or tix, having fun is secondary. Well the tix and boosters support the fun. Anyway I wouldnt recommend sealed to any casual, if your pool sucks and you lose or win 1 booster. That casual will feel like shit. He would feel ok with it if he had money cards but its so hard to get any money cards. And with like m13, most money cards cost fucking 10 tix or less.
 
B

blindrocket

Member
And that nets you how many booster packs?

I don't know if I'm convinced on going yet or not. I know that it could be fun, I'd almost rather put $25 into usable cards though. :p
 
L

Lucario

Member
Aw, my prerelease organizer rose his price to $25 :( Serves food now, though, so I'm happy.

I wanna choose black, even though I think white's promo is better, and splash blue to repeatedly bounce my promo. Is it good?

Probably not.

Will it be fun?

Oh yes.

I'm really convinced that blue is going to be the strongest support color in this format. Vaporkin.dec has a lot of potential given how expensive most other fliers are, blue has the best bestow creature at common in 'look at how amazing this wind drake is', Prescient Chimera is this set's Messenger Drake, Mnemonic Wall can get you back the scarce removal you end up with, Griptide is one of the cheapest nearly-unconditional removal spells we have at common, Sea God's Revenge is absolutely legit in what looks like a slow sealed format -- kind of like an overcosted, overperforming Into the Void, and everyone who played AVRx3 knows how amazing that card was.

Finally, stuff like Sparkling Triton just gives you value throughout the game. We've even got Wavecrach Triton for some efficient stall and tempo, Omenreader to help us dig for bombs against whatever the format's aggro decks will be, Thassa's Emissary as an obscenely powerful uncommon, and Voyage's End as some of the cheapest tempo in the format with an added 'scry' bonus (remember: bestow is important, big creatures are very important, enchantments are important. This means bounce is very good).

And almost all of it is splashable. Yes, I'd love my Pharika's Cure back! Thanks Mnemonic Wall.

edit: The format isn't as slow as I thought, now that I'm looking over the spoiler again. It seems like the enchantment focus could make it incredibly awkward, though....

This'll be fun!
 
J

JulianImp

Member
The Technomancer said:
Raised to $25? You lucky bastard. The place by me was $28 when I started doing pre-releases back in Zendikar, and went up to $30 a couple years ago.
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Heh, that's nothing! I'll have to pay AR$330 to play in the prerelease, which is about US$57.

The only good thing here is that singles prices (except for tournament staples) have been in the same price range for years. Even if they're still slightly more expensive than their US counterparts, it's not nearly as bad as booster pack prices.
 
L

Lucario

Member
The Technomancer said:
Raised to $25? You lucky bastard. The place by me was $28 when I started doing pre-releases back in Zendikar, and went up to $30 a couple years ago.
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This place is ridiculously hard to find, used to have 5-6 person preleases, has a fridge full of beer, is usually 21+, etc.

I looooooooooove it. I'd never stop going even if the prereleases hit $50.

To contrast: the other place near me has no singles, and one of the regulars has jace superimposed on the twin towers falling on his binder.

yeah. not my crowd.
 
L

Lucario

Member
The Technomancer said:
...what?
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'wow so edgy lol omg you can't do that' was his expected reaction I think

...I sat as far away from him as possible the only time I've been to that shop this year. I think the 'regulars' are people who are banned from other stores. If I wanted to make a case in point for the magic community being poisonous, I'd just take some pictures and record some conversations at that store.
 
T

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
Lucario said:
'wow so edgy lol omg you can't do that' was his expected reaction I think

...I sat as far away from him as possible the only time I've been to that shop this year. I think the 'regulars' are people who are banned from other stores. If I wanted to make a case in point for the magic community being poisonous, I'd just take some pictures and record some conversations at that store.
Click to expand...

It...doesn't even make sense though. What is the connection between those two things? Did he literally just grab the first thing he thought people might be offended by to slap Magic imagery onto?
 
L

Lucario

Member
The Technomancer said:
It...doesn't even make sense though. What is the connection between those two things? Did he literally just grab the first thing he thought people might be offended by to slap Magic imagery onto?
Click to expand...

people who jump straight to that style of humor aren't the most creative to begin with

so probably
 
U

ultron87

Member
blindrocket said:
It was fun, definitely aimed at new or would-be players.

I'm more interested in the new Friday Nights.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfpKSAWO9jE
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Yeah, upon watching all of it I enjoyed it. Clearly I'm not the target audience but it did a good job of explaining the basics as well as just showing the dynamics of an average Magic game really well. Could easily see it bringing more players to the game since Day9 fans and Geek and Sundry fans should easily be in Magic's wheelhouse.

Friday Nights is quite enjoyable as well. With that and Walking The Planes I feel like Wizards' video stuff is doing a good job these days.
 
Z

zoukka

Member
Draft simulators have Theros now. Opened my first pack and wtf @ Horizon Chimera, nice limited card man shieeeeet.

Horizon_Chimera.jpg
 
J

JulianImp

Member
y2dvd said:
Definitely a nice uncommon. What is the list of promos per colors?
Click to expand...

White: 4/4 flying first strike Archon for 3WW with bestow 5WW
Blue: Huge Kraken for 4UU that goes monstrous and taps three creatures down permanently for 6UU
Black: 6/6 flying Demon that makes 1/1 flying harpies equal to your devotion to black and asks for a sacrifice every turn
Red: Vanilla 4/5 monstrosity for 2RR that forces players to sacrifice three lands when it goes monstrous for 5RR
Green: 4/5 heroic thing for 2GG that animates up to three lands as 2/2 for a turn with its trigger
 
K

Keru_Shiri

Member
The Technomancer said:
It...doesn't even make sense though. What is the connection between those two things? Did he literally just grab the first thing he thought people might be offended by to slap Magic imagery onto?
Click to expand...

I dunno, from my experience working at a card shop, you soon realize just how low some people will set the bar for humor. The upside is you tend to pick up some pretty interesting snippets of conversation from time to time.
 
L

Lucario

Member
heh, even the draft pros are really confused about this format.


http://puremtgo.com/articles/ars-arcanum-theros-spoiler-analysis

I'm going to agree on the three 'crucial' commons for black/green/blue, especially Naiad. Putting an overcosted Griffin Guide that's resistant to bounce and can be cast as a regular ol' wind drake at COMMON? Whatever you say, WoTC.

Voyage's End seems really good. It gets something off the board, helps you deal with combat-based heroic effects..... Card will be damn good regardless of if the format is fast or slow. You can also use it to get value out of some heroic effects (bounce Wavecrash Triton in response to removal, tap your creature), but this seems rare -- I mainly like it as a way to make sure your opponent's creatures don't get too huge with bestow. You can recast your dude and keep your Nimbus Naiad on the board, sure!
 
Y

y2dvd

Member
I'm really liking how U/R is looking for limited. Early beats with cheap creatures in R, late game flying fatties in U. There's not a lot of cards that can deal with fliers in this set. Plenty of removals and you have Gripttide. M14 limited players should know how good Time Epp was. Putting a player behind a turn is huge.
 
L

Lucario

Member
mono black splash the bit of blue I can get for tempo/naiad/griptide
black = Gray Merchant, a little bit of removal in Pharika's Cure, CA in Read the Bones, permanents all over the place.

I still like blue most, but I wanna play a Gray Merchant deck pretty bad.

kirblar said:
Sea God's Wrath has to be the best uncommon in the set, right?
Click to expand...

sealed = yes yes yes yes yes
draft = probably not, combat tricks and enchantments could easily make this format too fast for it to be HOLY SHIT BROKEN.
 
G

Grakl

Member
Lucario said:
mono black splash the bit of blue I can get for tempo/naiad/griptide
black = Gray Merchant, a little bit of removal in Pharika's Cure, CA in Read the Bones, permanents all over the place.

I still like blue most, but I wanna play a Gray Merchant deck pretty bad.



sealed = yes yes yes yes yes
draft = probably not, combat tricks and enchantments could easily make this format too fast for it to be HOLY SHIT BROKEN.
Click to expand...

it's still my fave in draft because I'm not willing to believe the format is that fast, blue has way too many ways to slow it down even if it's only a support color

red emissary is a great uncommon too though, I like almost everything with bestow
 
K

kirblar

Member
Oh, good, I was right. "Warlords of Khanaar" appears to be the 2014 fall expansion. Return/Reign of the Eldrazi - 2015. Fetchland countdown: 2 years or less.
 
O

OnPoint

Member
kirblar said:
Oh, good, I was right. "Warlords of Khanaar" appears to be the 2014 fall expansion. Return/Reign of the Eldrazi - 2015. Fetchland countdown: 2 years or less.
Click to expand...
Hm. Will they return to the power level in the original block or will we be getting Nerfakul.
 
K

kirblar

Member
OnPoint said:
Hm. Will they return to the power level in the original block or will we be getting Nerfakul.
Click to expand...
I think reprinting the originals in this block is a much better move than doing them in a MM2/3/etc..

Annhilator isn't a "fun" mechanic to play with - the problematic part is that when it's turned so high (4/6) it becomes miserable to play against due to the bros getting cheated out quickly.
 
Y

y2dvd

Member
These are limited playable cards to me for mono-white:

Battlewise Valor
Celestial Archon
Chained to the Rocks
Dauntless Onslaught
Divine Verdict
Elspeth
Ephara's Warden (sideboard)
Fabled Hero
Favored Hoplite
Gift of Immortality
Glare of Heresy (sideboard)
Gods Willing
Heliod's Emissary
Heliod, God
Hopeful Eidolon
Hundred-Handed One
Lagonna-Band
Last Breath (sideboard)
Leonin Snarecaster
Observant Alseid
Phalanx Leader
Ray of Dissolution (sideboard)
Scholar of Athreos
Setessan Battle
Setessan Griffin
Soldier of the Pantheon
Spear of Heliod
Traveling Philosopher
Vanguish the Foul
Wingsteed Rider

Feels like white is lacking in bombs compared to the other colors which is troubling in limited games. Lot of white weenies with combat tricks. It needs help from other colors to do well imo.
 
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