• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Magic: the Gathering - Battle for Zendikar |OT| Lands matter (but nothing else does)

Status
Not open for further replies.
I

ironmang

Member
Matriox said:
4-2 so far with Uw Taking Turns, Lost to suicide Naya and Temur twin. Gotta win out >.<

Definately isn't very cool having hour and a half rounds... It's pretty abysmal.

Edit: some have been close to 2 hours long.
Click to expand...

Hey i tried looking for you but no luck. Hows the rest of your tournament going? I started 0-2 after my byes and won 5 straight including against jarvis yu. Pretty surprised i got there after the early tilt.

Edit: just saw your post. Still really good for not playing a whole lot of modern.
 
M

Matriox

Member
ironmang said:
Hey i tried looking for you but no luck. Hows the rest of your tournament going? I started 0-2 after my byes and won 5 straight including against jarvis yu. Pretty surprised i got there after the early tilt.

Edit: just saw your post. Still really good for not playing a whole lot of modern.
Click to expand...

It's cool, I'll try to hunt ya down tomorrow, I'll be back for a little while. Yeah not too bummed, the deck has some flaws but I have some ideas on what I can do to help with some matchups.
 
F

Firemind

Member
ironmang said:
Hey i tried looking for you but no luck. Hows the rest of your tournament going? I started 0-2 after my byes and won 5 straight including against jarvis yu. Pretty surprised i got there after the early tilt.

Edit: just saw your post. Still really good for not playing a whole lot of modern.
Click to expand...
Affinity? ;)
 
D

divisionbyzorro

Member
Finally found time to draft the Legendary cube. Drafted the usual multicolor mess, lost in the finals to some horrific draws. And yes; the cube is really flat. It's cool to cast crazy spells, but so many of the decks just feel the same.
 
D

divisionbyzorro

Member
The problem is that so many of the creatures are awful, so you take rocks and lands instead. Then you can just take whatever comes up that is good. And since so much of the cube is chaff, it comes down to who gets the really good stuff.
 
F

Firemind

Member
I thought dragons were good in limited. ( &#865;° &#860;&#662; &#865;°)

None of the legends are straight up unbeatable (unless you happen to have 15 mana to cast emrakul) but Traximundar has to be one of the tops. Sometimes he eats removal, but you're always going to get some value out of him. And he's so much easier to cast than someone like Reya.

But yeah, ít's pretty dull to draft. Aggro is dead, so basically the thought process is: Is there unconditional removal or All Sun's Dawn in the pack? No -> pick mana rock or card draw. Then lands. Then legends.
 
I

ironmang

Member
1-1 on the day. Lost to bloom again. 3rd time ive played it so far. Wasnt prepared at all for it outside of a couple prayer thoughtseizes. Definitely thinking on replacing the spell pierces with unified wills.

Other deck was knight retreat which wasnt that difficult even with 6 paths and 2 sunlances in 2 games lol.

Edit: lost to infect. Couldnt draw any action.
 
A

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Why do they have Zac Elsik doing a deck tech on a deck he's not even playing instead of the one he is playing (which is also a weirdo deck)?
 
A

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Speaking of Lantern, Sam Black just got his face melted by a Vandalblast
KuGsj.gif
 
G

"God's Beard!"

Member
divisionbyzorro said:
The problem is that so many of the creatures are awful, so you take rocks and lands instead. Then you can just take whatever comes up that is good. And since so much of the cube is chaff, it comes down to who gets the really good stuff.
Click to expand...

It's not even just the creatures, there's no archetype support. It's just a bunch of random spells. Why is Jeskai Ascendancy in the Cube? Where's the reanimator support? Aggro? Why are there half-assed Elf and Samurai archetypes?

And since such a huge percentage of the creatures are 2-3 colors and don't play well together, you spend the first pack picking up mana fixing almost exclusively until something pulls you away. It's very easy to not have enough playable creatures to be anything but durdle value midrange.

I feel like a huge amount of this problem could have been solved by adding more token generators. That way you'd at least have another archetype. 5c midrange vs Junk Tokens or whatever. Maybe push the domain archetype even further. Add better reanimation tech so you have an alternative lane to casting your off-color cards.

The whole cube just feels like a fun idea the designer got bored with halfway through and left unfinished.
 
D

divisionbyzorro

Member
Jeskai Ascendency is in the cube to be an engine with Noyan Dar. It's kinda cool to see it do its thing, but that thing isn't very good. And you can't put reanimation or show and tell shenanigans in the cube because that ends up being the best thing to do. Of course, that just means that ramp becomes the best thing to do, so...

(Actually, it would have been cool to put Flash in the cube.)

Honestly, I think the problem is the obvious one: the restriction of "all creatures must be legendary" is just too restrictive.
 
G

"God's Beard!"

Member
divisionbyzorro said:
Jeskai Ascendency is in the cube to be an engine with Noyan Dar. It's kinda cool to see it do its thing, but that thing isn't very good. And you can't put reanimation or show and tell shenanigans in the cube because that ends up being the best thing to do. Of course, that just means that ramp becomes the best thing to do, so...

(Actually, it would have been cool to put Flash in the cube.)

Honestly, I think the problem is the obvious one: the restriction of "all creatures must be legendary" is just too restrictive.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying stick powered spells like reanimate or show in tell in the cube. Slower ways are fine, maybe stuff one step worse than whip. I'm just saying domain ramp is pushing everything else out because there's no support. Stuff like Sidisi are already basically unplayable because of the low creature-per-deck count as it is.

I feel like just going through the whole list and adding more archetypes lol
 
A

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";186383450]It's not even just the creatures, there's no archetype support. It's just a bunch of random spells. Why is Jeskai Ascendancy in the Cube? Where's the reanimator support? Aggro? Why are there half-assed Elf and Samurai archetypes?

And since such a huge percentage of the creatures are 2-3 colors and don't play well together, you spend the first pack picking up mana fixing almost exclusively until something pulls you away. It's very easy to not have enough playable creatures to be anything but durdle value midrange.

I feel like a huge amount of this problem could have been solved by adding more token generators. That way you'd at least have another archetype. 5c midrange vs Junk Tokens or whatever. Maybe push the domain archetype even further. Add better reanimation tech so you have an alternative lane to casting your off-color cards.

The whole cube just feels like a fun idea the designer got bored with halfway through and left unfinished.[/QUOTE]

There's no such thing as an archetype in a cube design to just have every playable Legend in it dude.
 
F

Familienoberhauptvogel

Banned
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";186389672]But it doesn't even have little Teysa![/QUOTE]

wouldn't it be a little difficult to get 3 white creatures together, or lose enough black creatures.

I just remembered a discussion a while ago on different colour Soulfire Grandmasters, a green one could give Infect.
 
A

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";186391433]Not if there was token support :)[/QUOTE]

the entire concept of the legends cube is legendary dudes turning sideways, they're not gonna put in a ton more support than that
 
F

Firemind

Member
There is a spells matter archetype with Sphinx's Bone Wand and Panoptic Mirror.

The only card I'm legit surprised it didn't make the cube is Umezawa's Jitte. You can't have Umezawa in the cube and then not Jitte.
 
A

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
0-1 drop in the Legendary Cube. Deck wasn't even bad, its just legit boring enough I didn't want to sit at the computer for another 2 hours playing it.

It's actually worse than Battle for Zendikar draft because at least in BFZ draft you can look for color pairs that vaguely do something together. This is just "draw big dudes and turn them sideways."
 
G

"God's Beard!"

Member
Angry Grimace said:
0-1 drop in the Legendary Cube. Deck wasn't even bad, its just legit boring enough I didn't want to sit at the computer for another 2 hours playing it.

It's actually worse than Battle for Zendikar draft because at least in BFZ draft you can look for color pairs that vaguely do something together. This is just "draw big dudes and turn them sideways."
Click to expand...
You can see the problem I'm having with the set. Even if it's supposed to be timmy fun times, it's just not fun without synergy or diversity. It's super flat.
 
D

divisionbyzorro

Member
I'm going to go back in one more time and see if I can get the Esper Fliers deck to work. But honestly the cube just doesn't do what I want.

That being said, I want them to keep experimenting. I like the idea of them putting out weird cubes, and I hope they keep doing it even if they don't all stick. Tribal Cube, Gold Cube, Peasant Cube, Modern Cube, Anti-Modern Cube, etc... There are a lot of things they could try.
 
O

OnPoint

Member
Familienoberhauptvogel said:
What'd you think of a U/R manland with

2UR NAME becomes a 3/1 blue and red Elemental creature with Haste untap it. It's still a land.
Click to expand...

Nope. It'll be Prowess.

This is what I suggested in October.

Palisade Falls

T: Add U or R to your mana pool

1UR: Palisade Falls becomes a 2/1 creature
with Prowess until the end of the turn.​

I still agree with myself.
 
C

Crocodile

Member
divisionbyzorro said:
I'm going to go back in one more time and see if I can get the Esper Fliers deck to work. But honestly the cube just doesn't do what I want.

That being said, I want them to keep experimenting. I like the idea of them putting out weird cubes, and I hope they keep doing it even if they don't all stick. Tribal Cube, Gold Cube, Peasant Cube, Modern Cube, Anti-Modern Cube, etc... There are a lot of things they could try.
Click to expand...

What does Anti-Modern Cube mean?
 
F

Firemind

Member
I just got blown the fuck out by Mizzy's Mastery, clearing my board, a 9/9 flying Mimeoplasm, exiling my now dead Sharuum, and Time Stop.

I ain't even mad.
well maybe a little
 
T

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
piaco asked: Rules-wise, is there a practical difference between colorless mana and generic mana, or is "generic mana" just a slang for "mana of any kind"?

Colorless mana is mana that has no color. It is a type of mana.
Generic mana is a cost which can be paid for using any mana including both colorless mana and colored mana. It is a type of cost.
The two get confused because we use a number in a mana circle to represent both.
Take the Sol Ring that’s been printed in Commander decks. The 1 in the mana circle in the upper right corner is the mana cost of the card and it is a generic mana cost in that you can spend any color or colorless to pay for it.
The 2 in the mana circle in the rules text is a type of mana it produces which happens to be two colorless mana.
Click to expand...

Well that clears that up
 
K

kirblar

Member
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";186437984]So is someone going to have to update Gatherer to change all the (2) to <><>, etc after Oath comes out?[/QUOTE]
Yup. lol
 
S

SigmasonicX

Member
Well, now that MaRo has said that there is confusion about "Add (2) to your mana pool" being colorless and a cost of (2) being payable with any color, I'm much more willing to accept the idea that <> is (1).

The fact that they're doing this now is still unusual, but storywise, it could be justified as an indication of just how much of a Great Distortion that Kozilek is.
 
G

"God's Beard!"

Member
Kozilek's Channeler is really going to fuck with new players in OGW/OGW/BFZ draft. They should reprint it into the new set with the updated formatting for maximum confusion.
 
F

Familienoberhauptvogel

Banned
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";186441377]Kozilek's Channeler is really going to fuck with new players in OGW/OGW/BFZ draft. They should reprint it into the new set with the updated formatting for maximum confusion.[/QUOTE]

Only if people forget to ask if that's the first time they draft in general or this set before starting.
 
M

Matriox

Member
ironmang said:
Ended up 10-5. 3-3 on the day. Got my first pro point. :)
Click to expand...

Very nice man. I stopped back in and meant to ask where I should be looking but got sucked into a draft pod, then played some edh and left around 2. Grats on the finish man, I'll try to be more prepared next time and remember to ask who you are... I could have atleast found what table you were playing at but I was being a goob and forgot :(
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Land Of The Dead: Road To Fiddler's Green |OT| Diddy Riddlers Are Mean
4
382
Red Crayon Aristocrat replied
Japanese indie dev announces 'Witch The Showdown', a parry-action and deck-building roguelike game
Game Dev
5
1K
lughnasadh123 replied
Sand Land | Review Thread
Opinion Analysis Review
16
3K
adamsapple replied
Japan Travel |OT| starting out a new journey
Community
12
647
Robot Carnival replied
[Windows Central] Activision decides Call of Duty Black Ops 6 players don't spend enough money, introduces a second concurrent battle pass
2
99
6K
Men_in_Boxes replied
Top Bottom