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Magic: the Gathering - Battle for Zendikar |OT| Lands matter (but nothing else does)
- Thread starter SigmasonicX
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That's why the limited format is stupid. There will always be a tension between the monetary value and playable value of the cards. It will never be a truly pure test of skills.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
Damn, we only have 4 rounds and while it's awesome it's also exhausting
You could say the same about constructed since you might play a deck because it's cheaper not necessarily better.
U/W Heroic would say otherwise, since that dominated a good part of Standard until KTK
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I found a LGS like 2 blocks from my hotel. Midnight prerelease here we come!
Ummm but there clearly is a choice you can make in constructed. Even if you wanted to spend more to open a better pool in limited, you can't.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
99% of the time there's no real conflict because you never open anything good
At least I don't
At least I don't
At the end of the day it comes down to correct deck building and knowing how to utilize your pulls, I've pulled out some pretty successful finishes with a pure garbage pool, but if the person who knows what theyre doing pulls mad bombs then youre SOL. In general I agree with you, but I don't play sealed competitively outside of prereleases so it doesn't bother me so much.
Lazy vs Crazy
Member
With cards being machine readable now there has to be an automated solution to registering sealed pools. It's just a question of Wizards investing in it and making it available.
"God's Beard!"
Member
5 rounds, cut to top 8, 1st gets a box at my old LGS. Was pretty awesome.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
I didn't say that cheaper decks aren't competitive I just meant that monetary reasons can apply to constructed too.
But you can make a choice in limited too, stay and lose your value card or play and get a new pool.
Sure the pool might suck but you might end up meeting opponents with similar bad pools.
In constructed you can't choose your opponents as well and might have bad matchups constantly too
SigmasonicX
Member
Random thought, would this see play?
Glancing Shot - R
Instant
Deal 2 damage to target creature with toughness 3 or more.
Draw a card.
Glancing Shot - R
Instant
Deal 2 damage to target creature with toughness 3 or more.
Draw a card.
divisionbyzorro
Member
Sick combo with Needle Drop.
Lazy vs Crazy
Member
Red can't draw cards it would have to be reverse looting.
For most sets it isn't really a problem because in most sets opening a tournament's entry worth of cards from 6 boosters doesn't actually happen that often. And even if you do one assumes that most people going to a PTQ or Grand Prix aren't willing to drop to just break even. There's got to be some value placed in actually playing in the tournament if you're willing to travel to it. It's only when random cards in the set have absurd value that the tension you mention comes to the forefront.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
Every colour has some amount of cantrips by now so why not red.
White just got an instant that gives +1/+0 and draws.
A Serious Man
Member
Red's form of cantrips is exiling the top card of your library and being able to play it for a turn. It has a little card draw but it always comes as the result of you sacrificing something, like Magmatic Insight or Tormenting Voice.
divisionbyzorro
Member
Any color can cantrip if the effect is sufficiently small. The most recent time we've seen this on a pure red card was Dragon Mantle in Theros.
A red spell replacing itself has precedent. It doesn't happen often, but they've done it. They just don't ever give red actual card advantage with card drawing.
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/129856695948/is-the-default-for-limited-design-to-have-10-two#notes
This is a mistake. Default should be 5 + 5 subthemes. 10 equal ones creates serious issues in most non-core/MM sets.
This is a mistake. Default should be 5 + 5 subthemes. 10 equal ones creates serious issues in most non-core/MM sets.
What issues?
I think that they generally don't have 10 "themes" in the sense of having deep mechanical support, they just want to make sure that there's a specific strategy for you to aim for in each two color combo.
divisionbyzorro
Member
I'm on record as not personally enjoying triple Khans of Tarkir, but I really respect how they got the design of the set so right. You had the obvious five clans, with their clan mechanics, but you had all sorts of weird little subthemes within there. RG Bear Punch, 5C Control, UGx Secret Plans, UR Tempo, WB Warriors, etc. That sort of design feels so much better than the Origins format of "check out these two-color uncommons that tell you what to do!"
The issue is that they're making them equal. Innistrad (the modern gold standard) did not do that. The themes for off-color play were there, but they were supported by uncommons and wouldn't normally show up in sealed play- you'd have to dive into a deck to get it during draft. This is much better than trying to do what they're doing now, in which there are 10 viable/different 2-color strats in draft supported at common w/ uncommon guideposts. You just don't have that room in a set like BFZ with so many other things competing for airspace.
Exactly, there's subthemes hidden in there that aren't immediately obvious and which you won't see in sealed play. This is good and gives formats longevity.
Joe Molotov
Member
When you show up at pre-release tonight, they'll be like "Nah, we were just dicking with you, here's the real cards!"
pvddr, trust R&D.
The issue isn't the set working within a confined limited environment, it's the way it fails to interact with the rest of the game's history and constructed formats (standard aside) in any meaningful way.
divisionbyzorro
Member
It's obviously a terrible, terrible thing to do.
But how sweet would it be if there were "real" Eldrazi in the set they never showed you because they wanted them to just randomly show up in a terrifying way when you started opening packs.
I mean, it would be sick if you opened a new Emrakul they never showed us.
EDIT: By the way, if you're a fan of LSV drafts, this is one of them, in classic LSV-style:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTFblZjPHwo&index=1&list=PL04lbfeNAaS846_M-7pnttOAHadfNfPxR
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
Triple khans is weird I like drafting origins much more.
Anyways Kolaghans command sell now or wait? I heard it's getting popular in modern.
been popular for a while. dunno if we are gonna see much motion now
http://www.mtgstocks.com/cards/27706
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
What's MSRP on the Fat Packs? Is it $50 or is everyone gouging?
Walmart has them for $42 now I think. When they raised the price per booster pack they raised the Fat pack price by a few bucks.
Take that as you will.
At this rate, it's an average 1 expedition every 2 boxes.
$40 is MSRP. 50 is a rip off, the full art lands aren't worth $10.
edit: Whoops, there are 80 full-art lands in a fat pack, not 40. Still, it's unlikely they'll be worth much more than 10-15 cents each, and normal fat packs at MSRP offer terrible value anyway.
Gouging. It's $40 I believe. The whole situation is ridiculous. Then again, you see people complaining there aren't enough fatpacks, but "they and their friends each ordered 50". No wonder there's a shortage if the scalpers are on it.
pvddr, trust R&D.
Not that I can't revise my opinion upwards after playing with the set (and I have in the past) but given this is what WOTC ALWAYS says (because they have to) even in the face of obvious stinkers (see Born of the Gods as a recent example and other mistakes with Theros block) it doesn't mean as much :/
If you're paying more than $35/40 you are being taken for a ride
They outright said it's about 1 expedition in every 200 packs. So, 1 in every 5.5 boxes or so.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I think you're overstating it. The themes of the color combos in this set are not nearly as defined as they are in MM or MM2. There was pretty much no room to fuck around in MM; you would just lose if you didn't force a specific archetype.
It's easy to win at MM though, just force the archetype LSV says sucks. I had people passing me Sunforgers and shit all the time.
That seems overly scarce in my opinion. I feel like at the very least the battlelands should be a little more common.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Yeah one thing I was actually picking up on listening to the Limited Resources review was how many pieces fit nicely into multiple strategies. Not with the non-obviousness of Innistrad, but it definitely feels less linear (at least in most of them) than Origins did.
I mean, U/B processors and R/W Allies seem pretty on rails, but everything else looks interesting
ShadowKingpin
Member
So excited for the Midnight launch tonight. We have a few tournaments before the launch.
I wonder if they ratchet up the Expedition rate a bit for the prerelease. I've suspected that in the past based on seeing how many mythics get opened at prereleases (but that is entirely anecdotal).
Joe Molotov
Member
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I open junk mythics all the time at prereleases.That's certainly not my experience at prereleases.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
My THG partner and I somehow managed to open up three copies of Mikaeus the Lunarch across our two entries in the INN and DKA prereleases. No idea how that happened.
I mean, he's not junk but that was sort of ridiculous
There was a guy at my Theros pre-release who opened two copies of Xenagos, the Reveler. Still didn't play R/G.
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