Magic: the GAFering |OT2|

platypotamus said:
Hmmm, if you're doing a Winchester Draft, how would you use Cogwork Librarian? Seems way too OP to be able to take two stacks for it. Maybe a stack and a single card replacement for the second pick? Still could be pretty devastating.

(I ask only because my wife and I Winchester draft out of my cube with some frequency)
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I'd think just taking a single extra card would be the way to do it.

It will be interesting to see how they incorporate the rules for a card like that since it will presumably have to be in the Comprehensive Rules which have never included any rules about how drafts work.
 
narcosis219 said:
A cube wouldn't make financial sense for them because the casual market would only make a single purchase and be done, much like a board game.

Oh well, I'll just play with my own cube like I have for a while now
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Yes, that's exactly how it would be purchased (unless you want multiples of a card).
But I'd expect it to cost more than just a duel deck or something. I think that it would make financial sense.
 
blindrocket said:
Yes, that's exactly how it would be purchased (unless you want multiples of a card).
But I'd expect it to cost more than just a duel deck or something. I think that it would make financial sense.
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Nope, because instead of selling a cube for $79.99 you can sell boosters instead for $3.99.

Boosters are an endless stream of revenue. People irrationally buy boosters for more cards (the casual crowd does this more than the hardcore). Not only that, kids can make these incremental smaller purchases of $4 instead of $80 and their parents will let them. Makes way more business sense.
 
narcosis219 said:
Nope, because instead of selling a cube for $79.99 you can sell boosters instead for $3.99.

Boosters are an endless stream of revenue. People irrationally buy boosters for more cards (the casual crowd does this more than the hardcore). Makes way more business sense.
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I think they could reach a new audience with a boxed cube. It could reach the board game audience who buys stuff like Ascension and Dominion but doesn't want to get into Magic exactly because they don't want to get stuck into the chain of buying boosters forever. A self contained product that doesn't need anything else could get past that. But then the insidious thing would be that every booster becomes a potential "expansion pack" for the box they just bought.
 
ultron87 said:
I think they could reach a new audience with a boxed cube. It could reach the board game audience who buys stuff like Ascension and Dominion but doesn't want to get into Magic exactly because they don't want to get stuck into the chain of buying boosters forever. A self contained product that doesn't need anything else could get past it. But then the insidious thing would be that every booster becomes a potential "expansion pack" for the box they just bought.
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Something similar exists in the form of Living Card Games (a Fantasy Flight thing). It's a system that works, but it doesn't pull revenue as hard as Wizards is used to.

An LCG costs about $60 and expansions are $15 and there are usually about 3-6 of them available.

MTG however is used to selling booster packs like crazy. I'm not sure they'd like a smaller revenue stream in favor of a consumer friendly product =P

Drafts are a genius idea. Buy our sealed product so you can play once. As a person who likes draft, I easily spend (when I have time) $60 in drafts a month. A month. If I bought a nice cube, then it would be $80 one time, and maybe $15 for an expansion about 6 months later.
 
narcosis219 said:
Nope, because instead of selling a cube for $79.99 you can sell boosters instead for $3.99.

Boosters are an endless stream of revenue. People irrationally buy boosters for more cards (the casual crowd does this more than the hardcore). Not only that, kids can make these incremental smaller purchases of $4 instead of $80 and their parents will let them. Makes way more business sense.
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Financial sense as being profitable.

And a good cube could sell at some higher prices so there would be plenty of profit. It's just a supplemental item like Planechase, Commander, etc. so it's a limited thing anyway.
 
blindrocket said:
Financial sense as being profitable.

And a good cube could sell at some higher prices so there would be plenty of profit.
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Opportunity cost.

You can buy a PC game for $50.

You can play LoL for free. Guess who pulls in more profit? LoL doesn't even sell anything of gameplay value and they make BANK. Smaller purchases, and the income is over time rather than upfront. There's a reason why microtransactions are a thing. I'm not equating MTG to microtransactions, but there is a striking similarity. The difference is, in LoL once you buy your skins you're done spending (save for new skins), but with MTG you pay every draft or every time you want to score new cards. Didn't open that mythic? BUY ANOTHER BOOSTER.
 
narcosis219 said:
Opportunity cost.

You can buy a PC game for $50.

You can play LoL for free. Guess who pulls in more profit? LoL doesn't even sell anything of gameplay value and they make BANK. Smaller purchases, and the income is over time rather than upfront. There's a reason why microtransactions are a thing. I'm not equating MTG to microtransactions, but there is a striking similarity. The difference is, in LoL once you buy your skins you're done spending (save for new skins), but with MTG you pay every draft or every time you want to score new cards. Didn't open that mythic? BUY ANOTHER BOOSTER.
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I'm not debating which method could create more revenue, if you think that's what I'm doing. :)
I know that I will not, and probably most people, will not own a cube until Wizards makes a box product of a cube.
 
I love that MTGO is shitting its pants again.

lrBv4Lr.jpg
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ultron87 said:
I think they could reach a new audience with a boxed cube. It could reach the board game audience who buys stuff like Ascension and Dominion but doesn't want to get into Magic exactly because they don't want to get stuck into the chain of buying boosters forever. A self contained product that doesn't need anything else could get past that. But then the insidious thing would be that every booster becomes a potential "expansion pack" for the box they just bought.
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The price for a non-tournament legal, 400 card cube plus 200 lands should be no less than 199.99.
 
Cubes were always a player-run, personal creations and Wizards seems to like it that way. The singles retailers (local stores, Wizards INternet Retailers) benefit and WOTC gets people playing more casual magic, which feeds into people playing at prereleases/FNM, which is what they really want.

I'm personally fine with the non-standard sets and their legacy/vintage agitator printings, and they have a lot of stuff in high demand that they can release.
 
Because of the weather here in the Northeast, SCG has just cancelled the Open this weekend in New Jersey.

https://www.facebook.com/StarCityGames/posts/10151973580522918

(Evan) Due to Winter Storm Pax, StarCityGames.com has decided to cancel both days of this weekend’s New Jersey Open Series.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, but the safety of both players and our employees is our main priority, and we do not believe it is safe to travel in hazardous conditions this winter storm has created for so much of the east coast.

Please make plans to join us when the StarCityGames.com Open series returns to New Jersey on May 24th-25th, and be safe everyone.
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I think this was actually a bad move, BUT I know the guys in Roanoke and there was zero way that the necessary staff was getting to NJ any time this weekend. Shoebox (the guy who does the video work) posted a picture of his survial kit on his FB, which was five boxes of thin mints in his freezer. None of them were expecting to be in town this weekend. Another friend of mine up there posted a pic from Roanoke and it looked like at least a foot and a half there, in a city completely unable to deal with a quarter of that amount.

Sucks tremendously for people with plans and hotels. SCG will do the right thing for those people one way or another, I'm sure of it.
 
Accidentally bought two Chinese Xenagos PW today off eBay. Whoops! Hopefully he gets expensive so I can unload them in the future haha
 
More information on Conspiracy:

Magic: The Gathering—Conspiracy will not be released on Magic Online, but certain cards from the set will be made available in Vintage Masters.

There are sixty-five new cards in Conspiracy. Fifty-two of the new cards will be legal in Legacy and Vintage; thirteen cards will not.
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"Thirteen cards will not"? That's unusual. I wonder what kind of weird rules headaches they cause. Theoretically, something like the librarian should be fine in Legacy; I mean, Command Tower is legal. Are these cards gonna go on the banned list or something?
 
There's no way mtgo can handle the 'draft face up' cards. I'd guess there are 13 cards with those kind of mechanics.
Surely all the Legacy legal ones need to be in Vintage Masters or they'll be a rift created between online and paper? I guess it depends how playable they are.
 
Went 2-1 on my first BTT draft. The draft itself was very strange, and all of the experienced drafters at the table agreed. It was clear that nobody was quite sure how to value stuff just yet, and the signals were weird. I was unfortunately sitting to the right of one of the lesser skilled drafters at the table, and when I opened a Karametra and passed it to him, I knew he would force Green/White (which he did). But when I was passed Ornitharch, I knew I had to go White as well. I ended up getting Akroan Skyguard, Oreskos Sun Guide, Nyxborn Shieldmate, and Acolyte's Reward in the first pack in white, as well as a Fall of the Hammer. Unfortunately, most packs were really weak, so I didn't get a lot of playables outside of that.

I ended up playing a RWb aggro deck, which ended up performing really well. I opened an Underworld Cerberus in pack two, and that card performed as well as you'd think. My one loss was to Whip of Erebos, and my WIld Celebrants and Priest of Iroas never bothered to show up to the party.

A few thoughts:

  • As far as value-bears go, Oreskos Sun Guide is really good.
  • Nyxborn Shieldmate is quite powerful as well. I was surprised at how much of a difference he made in so many gamestates.
  • Ornitharch is insane. Do not pass this card unless you're taking a bomb rare.
 
Got the day off, decided to fit in a draft before picking Grakl up for Valentine's Day plans, aaand--


vY8Vm4M.png


Broke 1850 for the first time!!

edit: I won the draft, hit 1863, holy shit. I want to try for 1900....
 
Got a fat pack today for Valentine's. Opened 4 mythics. Can't complain about the Brimaz. Can complain about the two Flamewreath Phoenix and durdly skeleton guy. Ah well, I got a cat dude at least :) I like my Spirit of the Labyrinth, too, I suppose.

Lucario said:
Got the day off, decided to fit in a draft before picking Grakl up for Valentine's Day plans, aaand--


http://i.imgur.com/vY8Vm4M.png[/IG]

Broke 1850 for the first time!!

edit: I won the draft, hit 1863, holy shit. I want to try for 1900....[/QUOTE]

'grats man!
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So who all is planning on going to GP Richmond next month? I just ordered the rest of what I want for GW Hatebears so that's what I'll be playing. Seems like it's definitely gotten better with the ban changes since it has perhaps the best sideboard options of any modern deck. Even small things like people moving to firespout over pyroclasm actually helps me out a lot.

Anyways, here's the rough list I'm looking at:

MB:

4 noble hierarch
1 birds
2 spellskite
3 voice
3 qasali pridemage
3 scavenging ooze
2 thalia
4 leonin arbiter
4 loxodon smiter
3 aven mindcensor
1 linvala
2 wilt
1 baneslayer

4 path to exile

4 razorverge thicket
4 temple garden
3 forest
2 plains
1 gavony township
1 stirring wildwood
2 horizon canopy
4 ghost quarter
2 tectonic edge

SB:

2 grafdiggers
2 worship
2 stony silence
2 torpor orb
2 rest in peace
3 engineered explosives
1 thrun
1 thalia

Hoping to switch out a plains with a 3rd Horizon Canopy before or at the event.
 
I wound up opening the four packs I won from the draft the other day, and the 4th pack that I might not have otherwise won(since technically I got second even though I was 3-0) had a Brimaz in it :-)
 
So far I'm 1-1 in this release sealed event (I asked you to stop me from wasting my money!)

I'm 2-0 in games where I resolved Akroan Conscriptor.
I'm 0-2 in games where my opponent resolved Akroan Conscriptor.

That thing is super obnoxious for an uncommon. It is literally the most important spell in your deck. If your opponent cannot immediately remove it, you're so far ahead it's not even funny.

EDIT: 1-2. Sometimes I forget how much I hate sealed. I respect it (and I have a lot of respect for players who can consistently succeed at it). But I hate it.

EDIT2: Theros was already a format with a lot of haymakers. My gut reaction from the spoiler was that Born of the Gods upped the ante in that department, specifically in the uncommons (there are some insane uncommons in the new set). Looking back at the paper pre-release, the triple BTG draft, and now this online pre-release, I think (and this is a very early impression of the format), that BTG is best in very small doses. It does a great job of spicing up Theros and adding some new twists to the established formulas. I think it's not well-balanced at all when you open multiple packs of it in a limited setting. My opinion could (and almost certainly will) change as time goes on, but that's my initial assessment of the set after having played some with it.

EDIT3: Finished 2-2. I'm not an expert at Sealed, but I'm pretty sure I played the best deck in my pool, and it was a WR aggro deck that had some really powerful and really awkward draws.

Stars of the event: Akroan Conscriptor, Akroan Phalanx.
 
I'm in a creative mood and feel like designing something to work on and sculpt over time, even if it's not anywhere close to tier 1.

Thinking about trying out a 5-color control list for Legacy. I'd like to test the interaction between Tendo Ice Bridge and Reflecting Pool (plus a few Vivid Lands, and Coalition Relic) to see if it's consistent enough.

Has anyone tried out something like this?

And assuming for a minute that I can get the mana to work (this is still up in the air), anyone have any thoughts on the best game plan? I'm thinking about trying a white base (Path to Exile, Wall of Omens, and Supreme Verdicts) with Sphinx's Rev, Mana Leak, spot removal, and planeswalkers.
 
Been watching some BTG streams in preparation for regular drafts starting up in a few days.

The more I watch, the more I have this feeling that putting Akroan Conscriptor at uncommon might have been a mistake. It's only in one pack, fortunately.
 
Is there really this much demand for Ports right now? I had a couple for trade from the first pre-spike price (~30) until they were 70 and very few people asked for them. Never was that sold on any of the main decks that use it.

divisionbyzorro said:
Been watching some BTG streams in preparation for regular drafts starting up in a few days.

The more I watch, the more I have this feeling that putting Akroan Conscriptor at uncommon might have been a mistake. It's only in one pack, fortunately.
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Any time I cast him during the prerelease I won that game. Didn't hurt having 2 Fall of the Hammer which makes for some absurd swings.
 
Masques is like Kamigawa- highly underprinted set because the game lost a ton of players with the previous block. Foil ports are completely absurd. Price is real- they don't exist.
 
ThLunarian said:
IThinking about trying out a 5-color control list for Legacy. I'd like to test the interaction between Tendo Ice Bridge and Reflecting Pool (plus a few Vivid Lands, and Coalition Relic) to see if it's consistent enough.

Has anyone tried out something like this?

And assuming for a minute that I can get the mana to work (this is still up in the air), anyone have any thoughts on the best game plan? I'm thinking about trying a white base (Path to Exile, Wall of Omens, and Supreme Verdicts) with Sphinx's Rev, Mana Leak, spot removal, and planeswalkers.
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Legacy control decks are notoriously hard to get work, which is why the ones that are currently successful either cheat on their mana costs (Miracles) or simply don't have a high curve at all (Lands). The challenge is due to the very high power nature of lower casting cost cards plus the mana-compression of Wasteland and Daze/Spell Pierce makes it hard to deploy efficient trump cards to those fast threats in a reasonable timeframe.

I wholeheartedly do not recommend more than three colors in Legacy control decks. If you want to run something different, play Standstill-it might be bad in control decks but a huge majority legacy players make up for it by being so terrible in playing against it. The card can buy you a ton of time to make your land drops. Standstill is kind of fringe control strategy in Legacy but it's not all that bad in a threat-light format like we have now.
 
People who bitch about "control not being viable" in Modern are fucking idiots. It's an eternal format. Control decks are near-impossible to make Tier 1 because of how many angles they have to try and cover to play that reactive of a game. It's why Tempo decks usually play that role instead.
 
I know that UWR isn't favored going forward in Modern but it's still fun to play. I have never been a fan of blue and never saw myself playing any 'control' deck but I have enjoyed myself (which is more of the midrange version).
The money I have spent on it was probably dumb considering it may not be tier 1 anymore though.

It feels so strange not tapping any mana on my own turn. hah
(unless I need to cast Geist)

I've bought the cards to make the deck into the 4C Gifts version which looks fun. I should have enough cards to switch between 4C Gifts, UWR Control and UWR Midrange. Should be some good variety.
 
kirblar said:
People who bitch about "control not being viable" in Modern are fucking idiots. It's an eternal format. Control decks are near-impossible to make Tier 1 because of how many angles they have to try and cover to play that reactive of a game. It's why Tempo decks usually play that role instead.
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Control decks in legacy are basically fair decks that have proactive cards against combo. This is why BUG is defined more as control and RUG as tempo. Combo can usually bruteforce past one FoW. Death & Taxes is a control deck as it tries to disrupt the combo. Correct me if I'm wrong.
 
Firemind said:
Control decks in legacy are basically fair decks that have proactive cards against combo. This is why BUG is defined more as control and RUG as tempo. Combo can usually bruteforce past one FoW. Death & Taxes is a control deck as it tries to disrupt the combo. Correct me if I'm wrong.
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They're still proactive decks. The BUG deck that was heavy control (with Deed and Jace and such) hasn't been seen in a long time. Shardless is Midrange, and BUG Delver is tempo. DnT is midrange.
 
Er.... I actually meant Modern when I posted that thing about 5 color control. No wonder it got so few replies. The mana denial is way too strong in Legacy to make something like that work. Oops.

Anyway, after talking it over with some friends, I've decided to go the Gifts package route, with 4 goyf for the hell of it.
 
ThLunarian said:
Er.... I actually meant Modern when I posted that thing about 5 color control. No wonder it got so few replies. The mana denial is way too strong in Legacy to make something like that work. Oops.

Anyway, after talking it over with some friends, I've decided to go the Gifts package route, with 4 goyf for the hell of it.
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Sylvan Caryatid is way better in Gifts than random Tarmogoyfs
 
kirblar said:
They're still proactive decks. The BUG deck that was heavy control (with Deed and Jace and such) hasn't been seen in a long time. Shardless is Midrange, and BUG Delver is tempo. DnT is midrange.
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Midrange is such a dumb classification. Just call it aggro/control, since it actually aptly describes the different types of roles it can play depending on the matchup.
 
Firemind said:
Midrange is such a dumb classification. Just call it aggro/control, since it actually aptly describes the different types of roles it can play depending on the matchup.
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It's not a dumb classifcation at all. Aggro-Control = Tempo. (Essentially, aggressive deck but with heavy interactive elements.) Midrange = my threats are fatter and more resilient and outclass yours, and I'm sacrificing speed for that.
 
Firemind said:
Midrange is such a dumb classification. Just call it aggro/control, since it actually aptly describes the different types of roles it can play depending on the matchup.
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No. They play different roles.

Midrange is about getting to three mana and dropping bigger threats that your opponent can't handle. Tempo is about running aggro with low cost control factors.

That is the reason. Both fall into aggro/control area but play totally different. Hell, midrange plays with a bit of ramp as well.
 
Firemind said:
Then call it ramp. Just not a fan of the word midrange I suppose.
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Midrange isn't ramp either.

That is the point. The name "midrange" refers to the playstyle of, drop ramper, control the next turn or so, drop your big fatty. Execute and win.

Tempo called tempo cause drops your OP low drop, then counter/burn/bounce/kill and let them win.
 
Sorry, I can get annoyed by the most simple things like naming conventions haha.

To me, aggro, control and combo are the three pillars. Tempo would fall under aggro while midrange falls under control.
 
A friend from my local store just qualified for the PT and the UK GP is two weeks after and is also Block so I'll probably look into the format as well. THS looks like it was just 100% Naya bombs but obviously it's hard to know how much to take from that when you're short two sets.
 
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";100983821]If you counter a spell and they counterflux you, can you respond by countering the spell again?[/QUOTE]

Yes, and interestingly you can also use a counter spell on an uncounterable spell. The uncounterable spell is a valid target for the counter. The counter spell doesn't fizzle, it just doesn't effect the resolution of the spell in question. This matters in such instances where you would want a secondary effect for your counter spell. Render Silent is one such case, it won't counter an uncounterable spell but will prevent your opponent from casting additional spells that turn. Lost in the Mist is another example where you might want the secondary effect. There are many others.
 
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