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Magic: the GAFering |OT2|

Yeef

Member
Damn, you even got boatloads of removal. How'd you do?

I agree with Kirblar btw, I basically avoid Red like the plague in drafts lately because it seems like 90% of the players are going Boros or Boruul. Groros? It's one of the reasons I've been preferring draft to Sealed lately. In drafts, only 90% of my opponent's decks are red...
I went 3-0 with all of my matches being 2-0. TOok first place. It was an FNM (also my first FNM), so not ultra competitive or anything, but I was still surprised by how much good stuff got passed to me.
 
How'd it go?

Apologies, I had stayed out with some friends late afterwards.
This was the list I wound up taking yesterday:

Lands (20)
4 Arid Mesa
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Blood Crypt
2 Gemstone Mines
1 Marsh Flats
3 Mountain
2 Sacred Foundry
4 Scalding Tarn

Creatures (8)
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Goblin Guide

Spells (32)
4 Boros Charm
4 Bump in the Night
4 Lava Spike
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix
2 Magma Jet
4 Rift Bolt
2 Searing Blaze
4 Skullcrack

Sideboard (15)
2 Flames of the Blood Hand
2 Molten Rain
3 Rakdos Charm
2 Searing Blaze
3 Torpor Orb
3 Volcanic Fallout

Round 1 - vs. UWR Control (2-1) All three games were pretty intense. I won the first game, but lost the 2nd due to Tectonic Edge keeping me off of Bump's flashback mana. Third game I bring in Molten Rains do deal with Tec Edge, but wound up nuking his Colannades instead, since I noticed he was short on mana. 1-0.

Round 2 - vs. GB Infect (2-0) I'm pretty experienced playing against Infect decks, since a buddy of mine ran a lot of them when they were in Standard. I knew this is one of the few decks Red has to play the control, and focused more on killing his creatures and bleeding him out with Deathrite Shaman. He ran Spider Umbra, which I thought was interesting. 2-0.

Round 3 - vs. UWR Control (2-1) This round started off good. I stomped him first game with a couple of Guides, he stomps me second game with a Batterskull. Third game, I keep a one-land hand after mulling to 5. He deals with my Deathrite Shaman handily, so I'm just throwing whatever burn I have in a desperate attempt to win. We are both down to single digits, and I finally make it to two mana, but he has me in range of his Celestial Colonnade. I'm holding a Bolt, a Rakdos Charm, and a Skullcrack, and I'm trying to figure out how to order my burn, since him countering anything would leave me vunerable. I take a couple minutes to ponder my move and he threatens to call a judge on me for slow play. I ask him how much time was left in the round (he had a timer) and he told me that was irrelevant. I ask him again how much time was left, and he said 20 minutes, but he was still about to call a judge. I look back at my cards and decide to Skullcrack him. Next round, I go for a lethal bolt, but he counters. He swings for lethal with his Collonade, but I Rakdos Charm for lethal (he's at 1), he Paths his Collonade to stop the damage. I topdeck a Guide, and he scoops, completely forgetting his Blind Obedience until a minute after (I forgot too), but too late. 3-0

Round 4 - vs. UWR Control (0-2) Not much to report other than Leyline of Sanctity rearing it's ugly head, and my deck refusing to give me anything around it. My opponent would go on to Top 8. 3-1

Round 5 - vs. Grixis Control (2-0) He said it was a Grixis deck, but he had splashed G/W. His deck was too slow, and I bleed him out both games with Deathrite. 4-1

Round 6 - vs. UW Control (1-2) Close games, but I lost the last round by getting greedy, tapping out to flashback Bump, rather than keeping Skullcrack mana open, and he punishes with Sphinx's Revelation. 4-2

Round 7 vs. Boros Landfall Aggro (2-1) Close games, as every round he seems to draw his playset of Lightning Helixes. The guy also kept saying YOLO, so I'm glad I beat him. 5-2

Overall, not a bad day. I came 13th out of 91 people, narrowly missing the Top 8, once again. I got 6 packs for my efforts, all of the jank, but I had a good time regardless. I have to meet some friends for lunch but I'll post more detailed impressions of the deck later on, if anyone is interested.
 

kirblar

Member
To be fair, I tried playing Brozek Boros again (Landfall) and it's one hell of a YOLO deck. You're either killing them on T3/4 with a double striking 7/1 Trample or are doing a whole lot of nothing.
 

An-Det

Member
Wizards is finally doing another 'You Make the Card' (this is number 4)!

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/238

feat238a_3cards_tfqoapk8ie.jpg
 

Yeef

Member
I also voted land. Since I'd prefer no overlap with the past cards, it was either land or enchantment. The way development overcosts enchantments to keep things 'safe' made land the obvious choice.
 

Lucario

Member
I'M LATE I KNOW I DON'T CARE


CREATURE:


This is how Timmy does control: with a fat fucking 8cc creature.

It's also how Timmy/Johnny does combo -- he's surprisingly castable in Animar EDH (turn 3 animar, turn 4 sad robot, turn 5 artifact or land based acceleration -> this guy,) and he lets you go infinite (IF THAT'S YOUR THING) off of any two artifact creatures (or cheap artifacts like Sol Ring and Mana Crypt.)

It pains me to cut him from my EDH decks because of how good he is at douchebaggy combo, because he's probably my favorite creature ever.


PLANESWALKER:


A card that does a different thing in every format you play him in -- balanced (AKA kinda bad) in formats like Modern where he doesn't have much to work with, but crazy-fucking-bonkers in Vintage, where you have access to the best artifacts ever printed.

In Vintage he's an insane one-card combo enabler with Time Vault.

In EDH, he's the best ramp spell ever printed. Take a look:

-0: Seat of the Synod, Mana Crypt
-1: Sol Ring, Sensei's Divining Top, Mana Vault
-4: Birthing Pod

etc etc etc, if you untap with him he's pretty much guaranteed to effectively tap for 4 mana, and if you untap with him twice, eight or more. It's kind of silly that the blue planeswalker ramps better than the green one, but whatever.


ENCHANTMENT:


It's like the Reel Big Fish of cards -- mind-numbingly stupid, but way too fun to not love.

There's nothing to say about this card that hasn't been said a million times. I own nearly forty copies of the fucker for a reason. Omnibor everyday.

ARTIFACT:

Artifacts are dumb, but I guess if I have to choose, it'd be


It's strong while still being balanced. Equipment is a great mechanic, and the original darksteel swords were amazing designs.

INSTANT:


Worth the $40 -- it's one of my favorite skill testers, for both the person casting it and the opponent.

Not only does Intuition force you to make interesting deckbuilding decisions in highlander formats (to get the most out of your casts,) it can be a pretty devastating card with the proper recursion engines.

Need lands? Grab two fetches and a Life From the Loam. You'll never need land again.

Need to counter a spell? Hope there's three counterspells left in your deck! If not, you can search for SCM and two.

Need to remove a creature?.... etc, etc. Stop thinking of it as a tutor -- it's an engine, and one that will often nab you three or more cards if you name the proper targets.

SORCERY --


I usually only cast it for 4-5.


That's enough for Mind's Desire to cause the entire table to start fumbling around for answers, even though I'm not playing it as intended. This card is insanely strong -- even in highlander formats like EDH -- and it's a great finisher for a Johnny's deck. It has the added bonus of feeling like a 'combo' without actually going infinite, and unless your meta is full of whiners, should be fun for everyone.

LAND --


Iconic. Powerful. Overpriced.


Lands are exciting, but there isn't much to say about Cradle. It does exactly what it looks like it's going to do -- be shitnuts.
 

Casanova

Member
I am in the process of building a budget standard deck. I just got into MTG about 2 weeks ago but have been playing almost everyday since (very addicting game!) so here's what I have and it is actually performing very well so far, even in the competitive Friday night magic tournaments hosted weekly.

Let me know if you have any suggestions or tweaks that would make my budget deck stand out.

I am willing to spend another 10-15 dollars on this deck but would really prefer to keep it
lower..

Black/White Deck


Mana: Orzhov Guildgate - 3
Swamp - 10
Plains - 9

Creatures: Emancipation Angel - 3
Syndic of Tithes - 4
Serra Avenger - 3
Knight of Obligation - 2
Cathedral Sanctifier - 3
Basilica Screecher - 1
Desecration Demon - 2
Vampire Nighthawk- 3
Kingpin's Pet - 4
Vizkopa Guildmage - 3
Alms Beast - 1

Spells: Executioner's swing - 2
Murder - 2
Gift of Orzhova - 4
Blind Obedience - 1


Any suggestions are welcome

Thanks MTGafers!
 

Jarate

Banned
Been thinking of making a custom magic set using the magic set editor based around the three kingdoms era

Should the plainswalkers of the set be the leaders (liu bei, cao cao, sun quan) or should I make them the mystics of the time (Zuo Ci for instance)
 

CommonWriter

UncommonlyGoodListener
Been thinking of making a custom magic set using the magic set editor based around the three kingdoms era

Should the plainswalkers of the set be the leaders (liu bei, cao cao, sun quan) or should I make them the mystics of the time (Zuo Ci for instance)

Zuo Ci, Sun Wukong, and Lu Bu as planeswalkers.
 

Wichu

Member
Been thinking of making a custom magic set using the magic set editor based around the three kingdoms era

Should the plainswalkers of the set be the leaders (liu bei, cao cao, sun quan) or should I make them the mystics of the time (Zuo Ci for instance)

But they're already legendary creatures!

11.jpg
68.jpg
56.jpg
165.jpg
115.jpg


There can be only one Three Kingdoms plainswalker anyway:

163.jpg
 

ultron87

Member
Alright, who from Magic-GAF is going to be at PAX.

I will be there.

I'll be there all 3 days. Definitely going to play in a few of the Magic events and go to the panel to get that hot DM info and to see what next block is.

The "standard sealed" thing they are running a few times sounds like an enjoyably goofy format (1 booster from each set in standard as your pool).
 

rCIZZLE

Member
Man, i remember when I sold my foil promo cradle for $40 many moons ago...


Can't imagine how much it's worth now

Not as extreme but I remember selling my zendikar treasures revised Tropical Island for $40 on ebay a few years ago. Seriously the grading would have been nearly perfect if I sent it in. Haven't seen any dual in that good of shape since either.

Then again we all passed up on a lot of great deals including ~$8 fetches when they had just rotated.
 

ultron87

Member
Restrictions breed creativity

But picking land just puts too many restrictions on it for this exercise. When we get to the fun part, sending in mechanics, we'll have to do it with hard built in limits that it is uncounterable, relatively difficult to destroy, doesn't have an upfront mana cost and can be played in any deck. And it probably has to tap for mana.

I'm sure these are fun restrictions to try and work around when you make Magic cards everyday, but I'd rather go with something provides a bit more freedom for this rather rare occurrence.

Land with a mana cost.

This is the future.

Come at me.

That would be the worst thing evOh wait it exists.

Transguild Promenade. Rupture Spire.

I suppose there's always that.
 

y2dvd

Member
Creature:
Image.ashx

I mean look at what he does. Pro R/W, First Strike, Infect. Had a 3 power guy? I will First Strike you for 2 and put counters on you to prevent lethal dmg to him. Yeah, you're not attacking into him.

Instant:
Image.ashx

Yeah, it's boring but it's the most consistent pump spell for my infect deck.

Sorcery:
Image.ashx

Another somewhat boring card but gimme dat removal spell!


Enchantment:
Image.ashx

It's just too resilient of an enchantment.

Artifact:
Image.ashx

It's also a creature but whatever. Attach a Rancor on him and see if you want to block would now become a 5/3 trampler.

Planeswalker:
Image.ashx

I don't know what compliments infect so I'll just go with my 2nd favorite deck, white weenies. Gideon goes well with them.

Land:
Image.ashx
 

Lucario

Member
http://tappedout.net/mtg-articles/2013/mar/2/krazycaley-miinor_threat-present-how-be-worst-edh-/

I'm conflicted.


Cookie-cutter decks aren't fun to play with or against. Extra turns effects and Sensei's Divining Top can turn a one-hour game into a four-hour ordeal. Nobody wants to lose to an aggressive combo on turn 4 and not have a chance to play the game.

These opinions are common enough that most playgroups you'll find will prohibit at least one of the above strategies.

But constant whining -- combined with the ever-expanding list of rules on "how to be fun" -- is worse for the format than any tryhard with a mana reflection slamming down Enter the Infinite on turn 4 could ever hope to be.

Everyone has different definitions of what's "fun" and what's "competitive." For some people, turn 1 fetchland -> tapped shockland will result in groans. For others, any interactions whatsoever are deemed as combo, and therefore are frowned upon -- I found this out the hard way when I attempted to play Utvara Hellkite with Dragon Broodmother in a Karrthus dragon tribal deck at my current playgroup. This is an interaction that, back in the pre-Commander days of EDH, would've had two tables giggling at the absurdity of a fistful of dragon tokens coming into play, only to be inevitably wiped out by Akroma's Vengeance the next turn.


I'm talking about a deck that, along with all of my other decks currently in-use at my school's playgroup:

-- Runs no 'extra turn' effects
-- Contains zero ways to go infinite, and very few 'interactions'
-- Has no win conditions that don't allow opponents a chance to interact -- all of them use the combat step as well, except for my old and insanely slow Darksteel Reactor deck
-- Runs no cards that slow down the game excessively (I'm looking at you, Top)
-- Doesn't 'combo off'
-- Has a useless (or near-useless) general
-- Embraces randomness

That's a fucking lot of restrictions, especially for a Johnny who plays combo -- and loses happily -- in every format imaginable.

I put a lot of effort into my Commander decks, trying to make sure every single card choice works in the build. From dragon tribal to animar wizards, which I happily disassembled when I noticed the newer EDH players were hesitant to play against combo, every deck has been tested again and again to make sure it fits a theme while still embracing the 'random, do something crazy with your giant stack of cards' spirit of EDH.

.... except, of course, if you happen to 'do something crazy', you're a filthy tryhard combo player.


I suppose if I have a tl;dr here, it's that, if you're going to speak out against ridiculous 4+ card combos that require the combat step to win, you cannot accuse people of playing "goodstuff" or "boring decks" if they revert to playing staples. At that point, you're telling Johnnies they can't play with you, and you're telling everyone else they're not allowed to win against you. Ever. (The people who make these complaints nearly always, surprise surprise, run uninteractive decks full of ramp and fat.)






I'm building a commander cube. It supports multiple combo strategies, but hopefully the "everyone has access to everything" nature of cube will encourage people to try new things.
 

kirblar

Member
I thought about turning my 5 color cube into a commander cube- it's got enough legends to make it doable. Probably just do it as an "alternate play" method.
 

rCIZZLE

Member
Top isn't that bad as long as the game isn't full of wannabe spikes who wait until the last end step to activate. It's kind of an unspoken rule in our group that if someone is playing in a way to speed up the game (like topping or vampiric tutoring before last end step) then nobody should try to be cute and punish them for not being "spike" enough. If someone does decide to be a dick then either everybody scoops or everybody quickly knocks that person out of the game.

Regarding combo.. I usually find myself much more annoyed at the player who is getting comboed on but insists on playing it out. If they're going to take infinite turns, completely lock you out of the game, draw their deck, or any other obvious loss then just quit so we can start up another game.

And LOL@those guys who wrote the... whatever that is... in the link. Funny reading what they count as being a "douchebag" then seeing they play Kaalia and Jhoira.
 
I have three Commander decks that all play way differently:

My Black/White Teysa deck is attrition-based, and focuses on keeping everything at manageable levels with tons of "everyone sacrifice" effects. Notable cards in that category are Spelltithe Enforcer, Chancellor of the Annex, Braids, Curse of the Cabal, Gravepact, Death Cloud, Smokestack, and Possessed Portal.

My red/green Thromok deck focuses on crapping out as many tokens as possible, then devouring them all to make an absurdly large Thromok, ideally with Haste and/or Trample. The largest I've gotten him to date is 2,117/2,117 by devouring 46 creatures (the extra pump was from Sarkhan Vol). The backup plan is to just lay down huge monsters, play Genesis Wave, and attack; this deck has very few answers to problem permanents though.

My most recent deck is Blue/White/Green Angus Mackenzie, which makes a point to ONLY win through cards that say "You win the game", like Felidar Sovereign, Test of Endurance, Biovisionary, and Laboratory Maniac. This deck aims to build a fortress around itself and encourage everyone else to attack each other, because if they attack me they'll have to pay a bunch of mana (three Propaganda effects) and then just get Fogged anyway by my general. Other than board-sweepers and a very light helping of counterspells though, the deck mostly just lets everyone else do whatever they want (unless what they want is to kill me). I like this one a lot and am still trying to tweak it.

Out of the three, I think my black/white deck would be considered the most "douche-y", but at its best, it keeps ramp decks in check by limiting their ability to push ahead of everyone else in permanent count.

Not sure why I decided to write this mini-article; inspiration struck by all the EDH discussion.
 

Hero

Member
http://tappedout.net/mtg-articles/2013/mar/2/krazycaley-miinor_threat-present-how-be-worst-edh-/

I'm conflicted.


Cookie-cutter decks aren't fun to play with or against. Extra turns effects and Sensei's Divining Top can turn a one-hour game into a four-hour ordeal. Nobody wants to lose to an aggressive combo on turn 4 and not have a chance to play the game.

These opinions are common enough that most playgroups you'll find will prohibit at least one of the above strategies.

But constant whining -- combined with the ever-expanding list of rules on "how to be fun" -- is worse for the format than any tryhard with a mana reflection slamming down Enter the Infinite on turn 4 could ever hope to be.

Everyone has different definitions of what's "fun" and what's "competitive." For some people, turn 1 fetchland -> tapped shockland will result in groans. For others, any interactions whatsoever are deemed as combo, and therefore are frowned upon -- I found this out the hard way when I attempted to play Utvara Hellkite with Dragon Broodmother in a Karrthus dragon tribal deck at my current playgroup. This is an interaction that, back in the pre-Commander days of EDH, would've had two tables giggling at the absurdity of a fistful of dragon tokens coming into play, only to be inevitably wiped out by Akroma's Vengeance the next turn.


I'm talking about a deck that, along with all of my other decks currently in-use at my school's playgroup:

-- Runs no 'extra turn' effects
-- Contains zero ways to go infinite, and very few 'interactions'
-- Has no win conditions that don't allow opponents a chance to interact -- all of them use the combat step as well, except for my old and insanely slow Darksteel Reactor deck
-- Runs no cards that slow down the game excessively (I'm looking at you, Top)
-- Doesn't 'combo off'
-- Has a useless (or near-useless) general
-- Embraces randomness

That's a fucking lot of restrictions, especially for a Johnny who plays combo -- and loses happily -- in every format imaginable.

I put a lot of effort into my Commander decks, trying to make sure every single card choice works in the build. From dragon tribal to animar wizards, which I happily disassembled when I noticed the newer EDH players were hesitant to play against combo, every deck has been tested again and again to make sure it fits a theme while still embracing the 'random, do something crazy with your giant stack of cards' spirit of EDH.

.... except, of course, if you happen to 'do something crazy', you're a filthy tryhard combo player.


I suppose if I have a tl;dr here, it's that, if you're going to speak out against ridiculous 4+ card combos that require the combat step to win, you cannot accuse people of playing "goodstuff" or "boring decks" if they revert to playing staples. At that point, you're telling Johnnies they can't play with you, and you're telling everyone else they're not allowed to win against you. Ever. (The people who make these complaints nearly always, surprise surprise, run uninteractive decks full of ramp and fat.)






I'm building a commander cube. It supports multiple combo strategies, but hopefully the "everyone has access to everything" nature of cube will encourage people to try new things.

Yeah I hate articles like that. Commander is supposed to be a fun format and everyone's definition of fun inevitably varies. If people you play with are running dumb combos then run cards that can interact or make their life difficult. You can't just ignore what they're doing and then complain when their strategy beats yours.

I mean I had a Sharuum deck that was kind of cutthroat but then I took out some of the nastier combos and made it more good artifacts.dec but it was still good. Now I just play Maelstrom Wanderer because I love cascade and it's just a bunch of ramp spells and big stupid creatures/spells.
 

OnPoint

Member
We should get a game together for us few PAX-bound MTG GAFers. I mean it.

http://tappedout.net/mtg-articles/2013/mar/2/krazycaley-miinor_threat-present-how-be-worst-edh-/
...

I'm talking about a deck that, along with all of my other decks currently in-use at my school's playgroup:

-- Runs no 'extra turn' effects
-- Contains zero ways to go infinite, and very few 'interactions'
-- Has no win conditions that don't allow opponents a chance to interact -- all of them use the combat step as well, except for my old and insanely slow Darksteel Reactor deck
-- Runs no cards that slow down the game excessively (I'm looking at you, Top)
-- Doesn't 'combo off'
-- Has a useless (or near-useless) general
-- Embraces randomness

That's a fucking lot of restrictions, especially for a Johnny who plays combo -- and loses happily -- in every format imaginable.

I really gotta shoot you my list for the one I just built. It's the most random deck ever. Group Hug to the max, but it has a few really strange win cons that are inconsistent to pull off.
 
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