Magic: the GAFering |OT2|
- Thread starter The Technomancer
- Start date
Keru_Shiri
Member
Since we're posting lame cards, here's the ultimate "do nothing" card...
T
Transhuman
Unconfirmed Member
The guild packs aren't random. There's 8 different rares you can get, and he's listed 12. Also, the packs aren't randomised. If you pull Spark Trooper for instance, your 15 cards will be identical to someone else who pulls spark trooper. There's also no foils.
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
I think the chubby little arms is what does it for me.
I love both scientist guilds (Izzet and Simic). It's sad how weak Izzet have become after Wizards began to push back spell's power and made better creatures. My biggest issue is they are kinda incompatible with each other (Simic is all about creatures, whereas Izzet is very spell-focused), and the third guild in that wedge is Gruul.
At least, the Golgari/Simic combo appears to have better inter-guild synergy, since both of them like spreading +1/+1 counters around.
I got my hands on some Alchemist's Refuges, and I'm really hoping I can find a place for them before rotation, since I really like them.
At least, the Golgari/Simic combo appears to have better inter-guild synergy, since both of them like spreading +1/+1 counters around.
I got my hands on some Alchemist's Refuges, and I'm really hoping I can find a place for them before rotation, since I really like them.
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
Since we're posting lame cards, here's the ultimate "do nothing" card...
:lol It's 6 mana to cast. God damn.
I was really excited for that card before it came out. Then it didn't catch for me. I was sad.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
But...spell power is absolutely ridiculous right now.
Bonfire. Aurelia's Fury. Sphinx's Revelation. Tragic Slip. Abrupt Decay.
Deathrite Shaman. Messenger. Aristocrats. Uh...worldspine wurm? Craterhoof? I dunno. I think spells and creatures right now are both cranked up to 11.
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
I think the overall amount of crazy creatures are much higher than spells though, even if both are crazy. There's still thragtusk, geist, snapcaster, etc. There's plenty of insane creatures to go around.
Only Abrupt Decay is really relevant outside of Standard though. Lingering Souls is a very powerful spell that could be on the list but it's also sort of a creature. Snapcaster goes the other way.
Restoration Angel, Huntermaster, Olivia Voldaren, Griselbrand, Geist of St. Traft, Loxodon Smiter are all amazing value. And none of the recent spells have effected deckbuilding in general as Deathrite Shaman.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
True, but it's much more balanced than even a year or so ago. Whenever Zendikar was. 2 years ago?
Like I said though, the balance is reaching critical mass where everything has to do like, 4 awesome things to get a spot in a constructed deck.
So I've been thinking about trrying out some 3 colour decks, just to spice things up a bit. How viable would a Gruul/reanimator deck be. I only play with a small group of friends so I wouldn't know which cards to be on the lookout for (and it certainly doesn't need to be tournament worthy.) It just seems like such a waste to have perfectly good creature cards in a graveyard when I could splash a bit of black and get even more use out of them.
Keru_Shiri
Member
Can you imagine if something like Ash Zealot came out in Legends? Zendikar was crazy because even the Lands were cranked up to 11.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
R/W/G human reanimator is totally a thing. Using the flashback of Unburial Rites and Angel of Serenity as the basis, then throw down all the crazy humans like Huntmaster of the Fells that you can. It's a super fun casual and/or competitive deck.
It would've been format defining, for sure. Speaking of which, I can safely say that Lightning Bolt isn't as scary as it used to be. Doesn't take out Resto, doesn't fuck with Geist, doesn't bother Thraggy too much.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
I just looked that up and couldn't help but read the flavor text in the voice of the character from Friends.
Keru_Shiri
Member
Fragamemnon
Member
Old magic was crazy. You'd have stuff like Mishra's Workshop in the same set with Mishra's War Machine and Obelisk of Undoing. It was crazy.
Legacy and Vintage forever. I don't bother with anything else anymore. Explaining to people what mana drain really does is a like my own personal christmas.
Legacy and Vintage forever. I don't bother with anything else anymore. Explaining to people what mana drain really does is a like my own personal christmas.
FieryBalrog
Member
I feel like Purge the Profane is a great example of what's wrong with the set. I posted this on MTGS:
Mana cost is important to how the design feels. Now, the cost's not even close to everything- and this card still has a cool, elegant text box- but you feel like a chump because the card was shot in the back of the head for no reason.
We wouldn't be oohing and aahing over Vindicate this many years later if it cost 4WB because hey, Desert Twister costs 4GG!
This also isn't the kind of randomly bad card they throw into every set here and there. This is a classic good gold design, and they're screwing it up pointlessly.
Cards like Zealous Persecution, Angel of Despair, Voidslime, and so on and on. And they haven't run out of design space in this area as RTR clearly shows, because Sphinx's Revelation, Rakdos's Return, Detention Sphere, Dreadbore and so on are exactly the type of cards I'm looking for. I don't play Standard, but I appreciate the designs on them, and these core cards help me appreciate the more marginal gold designs and other cards that fill out a set for Limited and light casual play.
This set is supposed to be EDH heavy (which is by far my primary format at the moment) and I guess I care about a few cards for EDH, but I still don't feel excited about any of them. Cards like the Primordials do absolutely nothing for me since Wizards basically put flashing neon lights around them with giant glaring signs and arrows saying "PLAY ME IN MULTIPLAYER LOL I AM GOOD MULTIPLAYER CARD". If anything, I'm anti-excited about idiotic lazy cards like Enter the Infinite and some of these Primordials.
Except Illusionist's Bracers and Thespian's Stage.
Mana cost is important to how the design feels. Now, the cost's not even close to everything- and this card still has a cool, elegant text box- but you feel like a chump because the card was shot in the back of the head for no reason.
We wouldn't be oohing and aahing over Vindicate this many years later if it cost 4WB because hey, Desert Twister costs 4GG!
This also isn't the kind of randomly bad card they throw into every set here and there. This is a classic good gold design, and they're screwing it up pointlessly.
Cards like Zealous Persecution, Angel of Despair, Voidslime, and so on and on. And they haven't run out of design space in this area as RTR clearly shows, because Sphinx's Revelation, Rakdos's Return, Detention Sphere, Dreadbore and so on are exactly the type of cards I'm looking for. I don't play Standard, but I appreciate the designs on them, and these core cards help me appreciate the more marginal gold designs and other cards that fill out a set for Limited and light casual play.
This set is supposed to be EDH heavy (which is by far my primary format at the moment) and I guess I care about a few cards for EDH, but I still don't feel excited about any of them. Cards like the Primordials do absolutely nothing for me since Wizards basically put flashing neon lights around them with giant glaring signs and arrows saying "PLAY ME IN MULTIPLAYER LOL I AM GOOD MULTIPLAYER CARD". If anything, I'm anti-excited about idiotic lazy cards like Enter the Infinite and some of these Primordials.
Except Illusionist's Bracers and Thespian's Stage.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
haha, perfect final post in the old thread by Cyan
10, but then again I get excited for all prereleases. I kinda only play Limit now so I should be fine with this set seeming weaker than RtR.
There will always be some outstanding cards, but Izzet was quite bad on its own in RTR limited. I did enjoy playing it, though.
What I menat was that, as Wizards has stated, they've been gradually depowering spells slihgtly after 8th edition, and begun making stuff more creature-centric and interactive. That's the reason we don't see land destruction or catch-all countermagic too much nowadays, and that's certainly a good thing (read my post regarding the Second Sunrise deck on the last page of the previous thread), but the Izzet were hit the hardest with their specialty being spells, which became better at support but are, for the most part, no longer able to win by themselves. Overload was also a bit wonkier than Replicate, despite having a similar low power level except for a card or two (such as Shattering Spree, Gigadrowse or Mizzium Mortars).
During the prerelease, my "Izzet" deck consisted of the promo, a bunch of catapults and a fairly large B/G splash (thanks to 2 Transguild Promenade, two shocklands, three gates and one or two copies of the defender that added mana of any color). Playing Izzet meant I mostly had to borrow creatures from the other guilds to stand a chance, and I felt kind of silly.
Hopefully, I'll get more support for my guild this time, because I'd hate to end up playing some other guild with a splash of Simic in the end. I think Evolve will be a fun an interesting mechanic, despite not being as versatile as Graft. With Graft you could move counters onto your opponent's creatures to do some crazy stunts (such as making stuff untergetable or stealing it), and it would've been a great mechanic for playing in two-headed-giant. Evolve is a bit crazy in that it forces you to overextend and takes a while to get going after a sweeper (even more so because you'll probably have cast several larger creatures to buff your evolve guys). A cute interaction I hadn't spotted until recently was Evolve plus the 5/5 spirit that returns to your hand after dealing damage... I guess I'll make sure not to dismiss the card if I end up opening some.
Keru_Shiri
Member
Hats off to Cyan for closing out the old thread with class.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
Hey, I feel your pain. I wanted to be Dimir, but I don't really relish the idea of having to try to play 6 mana to attach a cantrip to a creature so it can eat removal like cake.
For my casual play at home, we have decks for all the guilds, using only guild colors in standard. The Izzet came out pretty good in that format. Golgari still da best though
Keru_Shiri
Member
Excellent post. I wonder how much R&D was influenced by the power of those previous cards, or if things like different mana-bases factored into their decisions. It seems like between a full cycle of checklands, guildgates, and shocklands, multicolored Standard is as stable as ever, something that wasn't necessarily true for Alara-standard.
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
I didn't notice that at first, that's pretty cool.
Ya, I can't tell you the amount of 4th and 5th edition I bought and I never got a wrath of god. Like probably over 200 packs and never got one.
FieryBalrog
Member
I think it may be a design & dev team issue, simply put. I doubt they want to intentionally, mid-block, shift gears on power-level in a big way. Original Ravnica suffered an issue where some guilds felt somewhat overlooked in favor of others, but this was spread across sets; and for the most part, the sets themselves did not feel out of sync with one another.
I doubt it's the second reason you bring up. Alara-Lorwyn had one of the most ludicrously multi-color mana bases of any Standard environment. In fact they often bring it up as something they think went overboard. The poster child of this was 5 color control, which ran costs like 2WW, 2GGGG & UUBBBRR in the same deck.
There was a full cycle of filterlands, Vivid lands, Reflecting pool (insane with vivid lands), tribal duals, painlands, and tri-lands (which are like way better Gates).
Keru_Shiri
Member
Plus, you had stuff like the Laces clogging up the Rare slot. Ugh
This is true. I got back into Magic as Lorwyn was rotating out, so when I think of Jund, I think of how easy it was to hose it with something like Spreading Seas, and that being an indicator of how easy it was to disrupt their mana.
ChiTownBuffalo
Either I made up lies about the Boston Bomber or I fell for someone else's crap. Either way, I have absolutely no credibility and you should never pay any attention to anything I say, no matter what the context. Perm me if I claim to be an insider
Holy shit Magic Online if full of dicks. It's like Call of Duty.
Only playing with friends from now on.
Even going to game nights at local stores got bad.
Only playing with friends from now on.
Even going to game nights at local stores got bad.
ChiTownBuffalo
Either I made up lies about the Boston Bomber or I fell for someone else's crap. Either way, I have absolutely no credibility and you should never pay any attention to anything I say, no matter what the context. Perm me if I claim to be an insider
I think the hardercore MTG community looks down on the Duels of Planeswalker game, or that was the taunting I got when I said that's how I learned to play Magic at a LGS.
It's really funny how much your average card's power has progressed since the beginning of the game. Back then, Serra Angel and Sengir Vampire were bumped up to rare and then retired from several core sets because they were too powerful. During Ravnica, jaws were dropped when Watchwolf, a 3/3 vanilla creature for WG, was spoiled, and around the Zendikar block we had Jace & the Titans (tm), in a format where if a creature didn't give you a tremendous advantage simply by entering the battlefield, it wasn't considered viable.
Seriously, I judged during an argentine NQT and it was awful to see caw-blade mirrors everywhere. I've heard the deck even started weakening its game against other decks simply to add cards that could counter other Caw-blades better! I also used to play the Jund cascade deck during Alara block, and it was so good it almost played itself... it was kind of like playing flowchart Ken (always attack, cast all cascade cards as soon as possible to clear the way for attackers, keep pumping Putrid Leech and remove any blockers using Jund's sick removal suite until your opponent dies). I was really happy when the titans left standard, because their existance had been rendering most late-game fatties obsolete.
I'm kind of happy with the format the way it is now (at least at the casual level), because there might be a few really powerful cards and deck archetypes, but you can try out other stuff and stand a chance at winning a local FNM (or, at least, not lose every round to Ancestral ReCaws swinging for the kill with their overpowered swords).
Seriously, I judged during an argentine NQT and it was awful to see caw-blade mirrors everywhere. I've heard the deck even started weakening its game against other decks simply to add cards that could counter other Caw-blades better! I also used to play the Jund cascade deck during Alara block, and it was so good it almost played itself... it was kind of like playing flowchart Ken (always attack, cast all cascade cards as soon as possible to clear the way for attackers, keep pumping Putrid Leech and remove any blockers using Jund's sick removal suite until your opponent dies). I was really happy when the titans left standard, because their existance had been rendering most late-game fatties obsolete.
I'm kind of happy with the format the way it is now (at least at the casual level), because there might be a few really powerful cards and deck archetypes, but you can try out other stuff and stand a chance at winning a local FNM (or, at least, not lose every round to Ancestral ReCaws swinging for the kill with their overpowered swords).
T
Transhuman
Unconfirmed Member
I wonder what MTG would rank in a listing of how often players lose their shit if they lose.
I'm somewhat convinced they have like two programmers in the entire company.
Geez, your LGS sounds like a bunch of dicks. They should be happy to get more people coming from DOTP, since that is one of the big reasons for Magic's current surge in popularity.
T
Transhuman
Unconfirmed Member
Taunting, or friendly ribbing? Maybe American MTG players are just more dickish.
EsotericManiac
Banned
Don't think I'm going to this pre-release. Haven't touched standard in about 8 months. I did go to the last one and did well but I'm just not too motivated :/
Wish it were different.
Wish it were different.
ChiTownBuffalo
Either I made up lies about the Boston Bomber or I fell for someone else's crap. Either way, I have absolutely no credibility and you should never pay any attention to anything I say, no matter what the context. Perm me if I claim to be an insider
Yeah, it was kinda jolting. My first night, this older guy gave me a death stare down when I put my deck out to cut, that made me wonder WTF was going on. I've fought MMA matches where there wasn't that amount of posturing.
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
Sounds like that store just sucks. Like any community it's hit or miss. Some places I've played people act too serious and it's unbearable being there and other places are fine. There's a lot of better players that look down on duels of the planeswalker because it's not hard/good enough or whatever though.
Edit: Woo's deck makes me want to play standard again. It's a cheap deck too that I think all I need is the mana base.
Yeah, annonimity tends to do that. I remember building a really janky rakdos hellbent deck and completely thrashing some user who wandered into the "casual play" room wielding a fully tuned solar flare deck (I was really happy even though he/she ended up conceding, because I loved playing with Jagged Poppet and other quirky hellbent cards). I don't get "no LD, no counters, no blue" games, but you can always look for another room.
The one format I'd recommend is Momir Basic. For some reason I sold my Momir avatar away a long time ago, so I can't play anymore (and the Vig avatar was quite pricy the last time I checked). It was really fun despite being mostly luck-based, and wasn't as strange as Jhoira Basic. If you care to spend money on the Momir avatar, you'll be able to play a really cheap format that's fun and keeps adding cards as time goes on, making things even more random. I remember there being a few really bizarre cards that hadn't been widely released on MODO at the time, like Morphling and a guy who put lots of sand creature tokens when he entered the battlefield.
Everyone in the New Players Room on MTG:O seems mostly pleasant. Slumming it down there with the Planeswalker-format cards is a pretty good time. I made the jankiest reanimator deck ever that is really fun. With a perfect draw it can turn 2 Griselbrand, but it usually ends up Turn 5-ing a Wurmcoil Engine. Which is clearly a huge game.
FieryBalrog
Member
They suck at internet. Actual reason.
ChiTownBuffalo
Either I made up lies about the Boston Bomber or I fell for someone else's crap. Either way, I have absolutely no credibility and you should never pay any attention to anything I say, no matter what the context. Perm me if I claim to be an insider
I'm hoping to find a place where I can drop in and play Magic. I still have other store around to check out.
I love the Magic Internet. For example, this guy did a statistical analysis to find what the proper number of mountains to run in an all lighting bolt deck is
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0hYr80dZEepalM4dVBtMV8xb3c/edit?pli=1
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0hYr80dZEepalM4dVBtMV8xb3c/edit?pli=1
ChiTownBuffalo
Either I made up lies about the Boston Bomber or I fell for someone else's crap. Either way, I have absolutely no credibility and you should never pay any attention to anything I say, no matter what the context. Perm me if I claim to be an insider
For the most part, I've felt that. Just had a run of 4 games where I got alot of "Really, you suck dick." "You suck." "Zzzzzzz. Hurry the fuck up so I can win and leave this shit game."
This. They are kind of like the Nintendo in that sense. They just don't "get" the internet.
Keru_Shiri
Member
I hate so-called "pro" players who treat their victory like a forgone conclusion.
T
Transhuman
Unconfirmed Member
That's a good plan. You should definitely check out each store at least once.