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[charlequin]

"We want to make sure this deck sticks around"
REALLY bad stuff from Aaron

No, this is a good answer that proves that the people in R&D are actually interested in the long-term health of formats instead of just listening to the loudest assholes on Reddit. Banning cards always has a negative effect -- you're reducing the value of things that people paid money for and disrupting the utility of decks they've put effort into building. When you nuke them completely, people get mad -- as, indeed, they have about decks were gutted completely in the past.

Short of the type of existential threat there was at the end of combo winter or after the first failed round of Affinity bans, any time you can plausibly nerf a deck to solid Tier 2 status without destroying it completely, it's a better choice than blowing it up completely.

 

[The Technomancer]

okay yeah fair enough it's emrakul lol

Haha I hadn't even noticed this

 

[Toxi]

okay yeah fair enough it's emrakul lol

Huh, what am I missing here?

 

[Ashodin]

I don't see it

 

[Lucario]

Marit Lage confirmed

 

[Angry Grimace]

No, this is a good answer that proves that the people in R&D are actually interested in the long-term health of formats instead of just listening to the loudest assholes on Reddit. Banning cards always has a negative effect -- you're reducing the value of things that people paid money for and disrupting the utility of decks they've put effort into building. When you nuke them completely, people get mad -- as, indeed, they have about decks were gutted completely in the past.

Short of the type of existential threat there was at the end of combo winter or after the first failed round of Affinity bans, any time you can plausibly nerf a deck to solid Tier 2 status without destroying it completely, it's a better choice than blowing it up completely.

You only need to ban one of them to relegate it to Tier 2.

 

[Lucario]

Game loss in Bologna top 8

Apparently he looked at his opponent's decklist mid-match.

http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gpbol16/semifinals-reale-vs-patel-2016-06-03

"The standard procedure during the Top 8 of a Constructed Grand Prix is showing to each player their opponent's decklists before the start of the game. Then those decklists are hidden from the players and they are not allowed to access them until the game ends. During a game of the semifinals of Grand Prix Bologna, Giuseppe Reale took the face-down decklist of his opponent to read it. Referring to outside notes during the game is strictly forbidden by the rules and penalized with a Match Loss. The reason for this penalty is that tournaments test the skill of a player, and therefore it's not allowed to access external information."

Can't imagine how crushing it'd be to lose game 3 like that.

 

[charlequin]

Haha I hadn't even noticed this

Between that, and the interstitial shots of purple latticework, and the vampires with weird extra body parts, and the guy with the stringy face, and the cultists with purple outfits that have long tentacle-esque runners coming off of their hoods... seems pretty close to confirmed to me at this point.

You only need to ban one of them to relegate it to Tier 2.

Yes, I agree.

 

[ultron87]

Were people still expecting something else after Eldritch Moon was revealed?

 

[charlequin]

Were people still expecting something else after Eldritch Moon was revealed?

There are still plenty of people on Twitter saying that obviously two consecutive sets with Lovecraft references in the titles are referring to, like, a demon or something.

 

[blindrocket]

Why is Archangel of Thune spiking?

She's a Four-of in Angel Chord.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2YILEEexpY&feature=youtu.be


I own a play set from when she was in Standard, along with VoR. Lucky couple of cards to snag on to back then I guess.

 

[SigmasonicX]

Edited the SOI OT OP draft after looking at it in the morning light.

 

[Angry Grimace]

my favorite combat mechanic is the Shadowmage Infiltrator one, but it doesn't seem to show up on cheap creatures anymore

when we gonna get Arlene Chord of Calling's card?

 

[y2dvd]

My record in limited events is comically bad the last month. I think I have won maybe one match.

Actually, my record in general is comically bad, in constructed and limited

Haha I've been running good lately in limited, usually ending with a winning record.

Today in draft, I opened another Ulamog. That has to be some record - 5 in the last 7 or so limited events. Also opened Kozilek's Return. My 2 prize packs had Thought-Knot and Reality Smasher. Really amazing luck lately opening value! I hope it continues running through SOI lol.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Just for the love of Cosi don't make her a creature based walker. Or of you do make her spawn some tokens.

 

[charlequin]

Please use this one in the OT, should be readable on dark and light themes.

 

["God's Beard!"]

Marit Lage confirmed

Don't play with my heart.

 

[Etrian Oddity]

Why are you guys ignoring Standard

 

["God's Beard!"]

Why are you guys ignoring Standard

Cause it's both expensive and not very interesting at the moment. It's not like Khans standard where there was a new deck every week. If you don't care for Collected Company or Chandra there isn't a whole lot going for you this format right now.

I was one of the more active Standard players here, but then I realized that selling my standard deck for half a grand was better EV than playing in tournaments.

 

[charlequin]

Why are you guys ignoring Standard

Because it's shitty until SOI comes out.

 

[Pilgrimzero]

So I've been out of Magic for awhile and decided to dip my toe back in.

Picked up the 2015 origins box which seems a pretty good deal except one of the boosters is out of cycle now. Journey into Nyx.

Also saw a Duels box with black vs white. Good deal for 2 decks of colors I like.... Except it seem this Cursed vs Blesses thing is made out of cards long out of cycle. Why is this a product? Sure great for home play if you have someone I guess but worthless if you plan to go to a store and play. Or am I missing something about this box of cards?

Thanks!

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

I need to save some money right now for rotation.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Haha I've been running good lately in limited, usually ending with a winning record.

Today in draft, I opened another Ulamog. That has to be some record - 5 in the last 7 or so limited events. Also opened Kozilek's Return. My 2 prize packs had Thought-Knot and Reality Smasher. Really amazing luck lately opening value! I hope it continues running through SOI lol.

I do well at in-store drafts but that's because in-paper drafters are pretty casual. I play a lot worse online than I do in paper though as a general proposition. It's legitimately just an issue with distractions. I tend to be listening to a podcast or something while I play, which means I lose a lot of games online I should have won due to errors adding up (e.g. tapped the wrong land and didn't have the right color available later, things like that).

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";197739711]Cause it's both expensive and not very interesting at the moment. It's not like Khans standard where there was a new deck every week. If you don't care for Collected Company or Chandra there isn't a whole lot going for you this format right now.

I was one of the more active Standard players here, but then I realized that selling my standard deck for half a grand was better EV than playing in tournaments.[/QUOTE]
It's because every single competitive deck is basically 4-color goodstuff. I would extend that even to Rally (which is the best deck in the format) because it has a particular strategy and plays every card which is even vaguely reasonable towards that strategy because there's no real restriction on what it can play.

I haven't been playing in paper and the only deck I even have online is BR dragons because its an easy low-attention deck that's reasonably competitive against the Tier 1 and very rarely just punts to itself against weird online brews.

Price is a big issue too. Jace is really expensive and honestly not that good in Modern or Legacy. I don't think his price is supply and demand - I think its undeserved hype + price memory refusing to let the card go down. He is a good card. He should be a 35 dollar card.

 

[blindrocket]

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";197739711]Cause it's both expensive and not very interesting at the moment. It's not like Khans standard where there was a new deck every week. If you don't care for Collected Company or Chandra there isn't a whole lot going for you this format right now.

I was one of the more active Standard players here, but then I realized that selling my standard deck for half a grand was better EV than playing in tournaments.[/QUOTE]

How'd you actually sell it? I wouldn't mind selling mine actually... even though I think Gideon is pretty low right now comparatively.

 

[traveler]

Out of all the constructed formats I've been playing recently, Legacy is straight up the most fun. I'm almost willing to call it my favorite constructed format of all time, but I haven't gotten enough vintage experience and my opinion is certainly colored by the current state of standard and modern. Real shame that legacy is unsupportable in a mass market way going forward though.

 

[Infinite Stars]

Because it's shitty until SOI comes out.

^

Why should I give a crap about a format where the only big decks are all the 4 Colour Good Stuff Decks(Which rotate), Rally( which rotates), Ramp(Loses quite a bit of stuff), Atarka Red(Loses Fetches, Outburst, and delve stuff).

Standard is just bland right now, with the majority of the decks being built around stuff that rotates. It's basically "Build 4 Colours, Build Ramp, or GTFO." Shadows over Innistrad has me excited for all the cards that been have been spoiled, even stuff like Topplegiest.

 

[Angry Grimace]

The new rotation schedule is a godsend for WOTC though. If Standard were just this for another 6 months I think you'd end up with a ton of players leaving the game because Standard is sort of miserable and while I enjoy drafting Oath, honestly I think its kind of a mediocre draft format by modern standards. I played a FRF-KTK block draft earlier today (my deck was actually pretty good, but I lost to a guy with a really great tokens + Brutal Hordechief deck in the first round) and it was way more fun than Oath is, really.

 

[charlequin]

The new rotation schedule is a godsend for WOTC though. If Standard were just this for another 6 months I think you'd end up with a ton of players leaving the game.

Yeah, this is basically what I said when they announced this rotation and it seems to be coming true already. R&D has more room to try risky stuff because when they fuck up something like the tangolands it's that much sooner that the format moves on.

 

["God's Beard!"]

Man, Wasteland Strangler is waaaaay better than I thought. I thought his ability was a cast trigger, but being ETB he can just machinegun down whatever you want with Eldrazi Displacer.

How'd you actually sell it? I wouldn't mind selling mine actually... even though I think Gideon is pretty low right now comparatively.

Piece by piece on reddit and facebook over a few weeks.

 

[SigmasonicX]

Please use this one in the OT, should be readable on dark and light themes.

Done.

So I've been out of Magic for awhile and decided to dip my toe back in.

Picked up the 2015 origins box which seems a pretty good deal except one of the boosters is out of cycle now. Journey into Nyx.

Also saw a Duels box with black vs white. Good deal for 2 decks of colors I like.... Except it seem this Cursed vs Blesses thing is made out of cards long out of cycle. Why is this a product? Sure great for home play if you have someone I guess but worthless if you plan to go to a store and play. Or am I missing something about this box of cards?

Thanks!

The Duel Decks are intended for casual play with your friends, and potentially provide reprints for older cards that are in demand.

Currently, the only pre-built decks that are created for Standard are the Intro Packs, which are weak but come with booster packs. There used to be slightly more competitive Event Decks and Clash Packs, but those have been discontinued due to low sales. They were beyond what a beginner player would want, but were still too weak for someone who wanted to be competitive in Standad.

 

[Infinite Stars]

If I had to rank the drafts since I started with Khans:

Triple Khans
FRF-KtKx2
Oathx2-BFZ
DtKx2-FRF
Origins
BFZ

Origins and BFZ had the opposite problem in Draft playwise: Origins was "Just rush in everything" where BFZ was "Oh, you don't get this card? Too bad, have fun losing". Oath Beats BFZ, but it still feels wrong going from from Oath to BFZ in the packs.

 

[Angry Grimace]

I guess if I was ranking the formats I have played, its probably,

MM1x3 then INNx3, then ROEx3, then MM2x3, followed a lot farther down by a bunch of other formats. I'm guessing KTKx3 is at the top of that list unless I'm forgetting something. Honestly I would say OOB is probably worse than triple Theros for me, but not by that much.

I've played so many formats I kind of forget. Some of them were straight up forgettable though, like the Tempest Remastered crap, or Triple Eighth Edition. i did a CBS Kamigawa full block draft the other day and it was better than Triple Eighth Edition. That's what I can say about it. VMA was a format that in theory had a lot of good cards in it, but was very much hamstrung by the refusal to put modern legal cards in the format.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

I love going from 2nd Oath to BFZ. So much about the first set makes sense once it all comes together in OOB.

 

[Dysun]

Khans cycling out is great for Standard.

Stupid fetch land prices/4-Color is a giant hindrance to the format

 

[twobear]

Huh, what am I missing here?

I don't see it

the clouds

that whole webbed/knitted thing is trés emrakul

[edit] it transforms into that from normal clouds as the VO is talking about the dark evil presence too

[edit2] tho i'm not losing hope that it's a big fakeout

 

[divisionbyzorro]

I always feel like M13 doesn't get enough love when we start talking about best draft formats.

 

[Ashodin]

Fetchlands need to get the fuck outta here

 

[Yeef]

I always feel like M13 doesn't get enough love when we start talking about best draft formats.

M13 is easily my favorite core set draft format. It was super-solid.

 

[Ashodin]

This is pretty funny

(SFW version)

 

[charlequin]

I always feel like M13 doesn't get enough love when we start talking about best draft formats.

M13 is the best ever core set draft format, by a big margin. It's as much a tribute to Zac Hill's skill as a developer as M12 is a monument to Tom LaPille's lack thereof.

 

[bigkrev]

M13 is the best ever core set draft format, by a big margin. It's as much a tribute to Zac Hill's skill as a developer as M12 is a monument to Tom LaPille's lack thereof.

Every color got premium removal at common, and it contrasts Exaulted very well.
It's my most drafted format on MTGO- I was able to redeem a set based almost entirely on drafting it.

 

[Etrian Oddity]

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";197739711]Cause it's both expensive and not very interesting at the moment. It's not like Khans standard where there was a new deck every week. If you don't care for Collected Company or Chandra there isn't a whole lot going for you this format right now.

I was one of the more active Standard players here, but then I realized that selling my standard deck for half a grand was better EV than playing in tournaments.[/QUOTE]
Yet you guys are dominating the discussion over a format where it's literally just Eldrazi or Affinity... :\

 

[Jhriad]

Pauper didn't make shops go broke in case u are actually answering seriously.

Uhh... Pauper is only a sanctioned format on MTGO and not in paper. People occasionally play it in paper but it has only recently really started to catch on in the paper world so the impact it would historically have had on paper finance is minimal.

 

[OnPoint]

Just a heads up for everyone in the thread, I bought an expedition from Guill and it was a smooth transaction. Good trading/buying/selling partner.

Anyway, I hope they ban Eye and not Temple and see how it goes from there.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Yet you guys are dominating the discussion over a format where it's literally just Eldrazi or Affinity... :

It's not like anyone likes it being that way.

 

[TalesFromHoth]

Every color got premium removal at common, and it contrasts Exaulted very well.
It's my most drafted format on MTGO- I was able to redeem a set based almost entirely on drafting it.

I drafted it like crazy as well, I wish I could see those statistics on MTGO. The set did a great job of balancing bombs, removal, and just cool things to do in each color.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Guesses on preorder price for Archangel Avacyn?

 

[Ashodin]

15-17

 

[charlequin]

Guesses on preorder price for Archangel Avacyn?

About twenty bucks on eBay, which sounds about right to me.

 

[OnPoint]

Tempted to preorder Avacyn at that price.

But with Neo Kozilek seeing no play and my preorder of that. Man... I probably just should, this seems better in every way.