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Magic: The Gathering |OT|

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Finished 18th, out of 77 people. Went 4-2 to the last round, but had to drop out of the finals to take care of something. Managed to pull a Hallowed Fountain out of my prize pack, and my buddy who only occasionally plays Magic gave me his cards, which included a Detention Sphere!
 
Pretty bad pulls today, my only chance to play this weekend. Got Trostani and Hellkite as my mythics, and the rest were dollar rares. Pool was ass, went 1-3 and dropped.

Hoping for better luck this Friday.
 
Ugh, still missing so many uncommons after opening 50 packs. Never got an izzet charm or golari charm and got only 1 ofs for each guild mage except izzet. Got a million of the G/W uncommons...
 
Picked Selesnya yesterday at a prerelease with 81 people. Lost my first round to absolute silliness from a g/b deck. Game 1, he dropped the lifelink imp, got Deadbridge in the graveyard and then Corpsejack on the field, and scavenged counters on to the imp. Not much to do against a 11/11 lifelink flyer :P He pretty much did the same thing second game, just with a smaller scavenge. Second round was a loss because of an absolutely amateur misplay on my part. Won the next 5 rounds. I had a crazy efficient G/W deck, I just screwed up in game 1 and 2. Finished the night 5-2, and got 5 packs. These were my rare pulls for the night overall -

RqkUP.jpg
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Also, what is everyone brewing for standard? Have this mostly built minus the RTR cards, its been running super smoothly on Cockatrice -

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/rtr-gwu/
 
divisionbyzorro said:
The hype is all zombies, but Bant midrange looks absolutely nuts after rotation.
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The bant deck I linked to above has only lost me one match on cockatrice - against U/W Control. Fuck Entreat the Angels :(

That being said I have yet to face a zombie deck, so I'm not sure how I'll do in that match up.
 
Zerokku said:
The bant deck I linked to above has only lost me one match on cockatrice - against U/W Control. Fuck Entreat the Angels :(

That being said I have yet to face a zombie deck, so I'm not sure how I'll do in that match up.
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If I had to prepare for a tourney metagame, I would expect to run into the following decks:

Zombies (GB & Jund variants)
Bant Midrange (I think this is by far the strongest creature deck available)
Jund Midrange
UR Delver (people WILL be trying to make this work)
Raisin' 'Brand (and other Frites variants)
UW(r) Control

And if I was going to pick one to play, it would be U/W control. Jace + Tamiyo is sick. You get to run 4-8 excellent sweepers. Entreat is sick. Detention Sphere. Azorious Charm. On and on and on. I don't know if it's the best deck, but it's the one that most speaks to me.
 
Negator said:
The only addition I would make to that deck would make room for some Armada Wurms.
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Tried it out, but it a little too slow for my liking. Once they hit the field they tend to win the game, but so does wolfir honestly. Leave him unbound, swing with geist, bind the angel to wolfir, 8 in the air does the trick almost every time. That and with only 23 land I'm having a tendency to top out at around 5 land by the time I win.

divisionbyzorro said:
If I had to prepare for a tourney metagame, I would expect to run into the following decks:

Zombies (GB & Jund variants)
Click to expand...

Thats pretty much why Knight of Glory is in the sideboard. And Rest in Peace, though thats not purely a zombie hate card.

divisionbyzorro said:
On and on and on. I don't know if it's the best deck, but it's the one that most speaks to me.
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Thats pretty much how I feel about the Bant deck. Its my style more than anything else I'm seeing. Efficient creatures and silly little synergies? Perfect.
 
Went 2-2 with Selesnya, the two rounds I lost were 3 games, and happened to be against the top 2 finishers. One was Selesnya also with an Armada Wurm, the other was an Azorius. Did manage to pull 2 Loxodan Smiters out of the first 6 packs.

Then I went 3-0-1 in the second tourney playing Azorius. Had good pulls with a second Archon, detention sphere, supreme verdict, and a hallowed fountain. (Also got Niv-Mizzit and another shockland for 5th and 6th packs) So that tied me for 2nd out of 37. Pulled an Angel of Serenity out of prize pool. All in all 2 tourneys = 20 packs for 50 bucks. And had a lot of fun.
 
Hm, I might get the Golgari deck just for the rares. I'll need both of those for my eventual Selesnya/Bant deck.

EDIT: Or maybe not, wolfir silverheart is cheaper than I thought.
 
Mmmm Ravinca. Can't wait to see how Simic will turn out! UG has always been my favorite colors and color pairing, despite the two being supposed enemy colors of each other :P
 
I had a great time at the event, even if I was super tired at the end (it went 12 hours.) I opened up 3 Selensya packs and 1 Azorius, but I had a friend there and we agreed to split and swap with whatever rares we needed to build our hypothetical decks. So I got a bunch of Loxondon Smiters, 3 Selensya guild leaders, 1 Foil Rest in Peace, 2 Collective Blessing, 1 Armada Wurm, 1 Detention Sphere, and a Hallowed Fountain as my big gets. Basically I gave up all Golgari and Izzet stuff while he gave me Selenya and Azorius. At the end we both just decided to buy an extra prerelease pack because we had the a hankering to open more boosters. I gave him the Steam Vents, Overgrown Tomb, and Epic Experiment I opened. Several people just watching us were amazed that I was just giving up those things.
 
I just traded 188 rares for 3 Ajani's.
4 of the same rare for $1, I found 47 sets I didn't want.

Also traded things for 3 Liliana M13's. So now I have full sets of Ajani and Lili m13. Mind was buzzing on the way home.

Ajani Deck
Monowhite human weenies?
1 Drop:
Judge's Familiar
Champion of the Parish

2 Drop:
Gather the Townsfolk
Elite Vanguard
Precinct Captain
Fencing Ace

3 Drop:
Ajani
Oblivion Ring
Silverblade Paladin
2x Silver Inlaid Dagger?

22 Plains
(or 4 cathedral, 18 Plains?


Liliana Deck
aka Rat Deck
-Damage Dealer
Shrieking Affliction

-Draw Cards to feed Rats and Survive the Affliction
Sign in Blood
Underworld Connections
Liliana M13

-Rats are Rats
Drainpipe Vermin
Pack rats
Ravenous Rats
Typhoid Rats

-Control
Mutilate
Mind Rot

22 Swamps?
 
I traveled three hours to a shop out of town with plans to play in three of their events (midnight + 2 on Saturday). They ran of out guildpacks on Friday night so I ended up doing just one event. They canceled their other 5 events for the weekend. BIG BIG BUMMER.

I was disappointed in my pool and ended up going 1-2-1, although i probably could have played a little better and finished 3-0-1. I had gone 2-2 earlier in FNM, so maybe I was just a little dazed from that too (on top of the realization that Wizards pulled a major clusterf*ck not sending enough product after traveling so far).

Honestly, I'd rather they send a bunch of generic product and not bother with any special events ever again if it means that stores are able to honor their scheduled events.

I'm really, really disappointed and all of a sudden I'm not excited about Magic for a while. Though I wasn't excited with RTR to begin with, the negative pre-release experience just blew any chance for me to change my mind on this set.
 
Alcibiades said:
I traveled three hours to a shop out of town with plans to play in three of their events (midnight + 2 on Saturday). They ran of out guildpacks on Friday night so I ended up doing just one event. They canceled their other 5 events for the weekend. BIG BIG BUMMER.
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Let me guess: Gamelot?
 
After reading about what you guys are all saying and have experienced at the pre-release, not to mention watching lots of playtesting videos, I still think I want to do some sort of GW bounce build using Resto Angels and Cloudshifts with Thragtusk and Armada Wurm. We'll see how it shakes out, but it's calling to me.
 
I'm really thinking Selesnya is the best so far, after pretty extensive playtesting with what's available. The token base already available in white, plus with ratchet bomb being gone, make it too fast and too strong to deal with. Only a miracle Terminus or the Azorious board wipe have much of a chance to even slow it down.

Golgari...I hate to say it, but Golgari fucking sucks. It sucks. It's too slow and not powerful enough to overcome it's speed. That might change with the full set of tools, but right now B/R zombies or U/B zombies are simply much, much better.
 
WanderingWind said:
I'm really thinking Selesnya is the best so far, after pretty extensive playtesting with what's available. The token base already available in white, plus with ratchet bomb being gone, make it too fast and too strong to deal with. Only a miracle Terminus or the Azorious board wipe have much of a chance to even slow it down.

Golgari...I hate to say it, but Golgari fucking sucks. It sucks. It's too slow and not powerful enough to overcome it's speed. That might change with the full set of tools, but right now B/R zombies or U/B zombies are simply much, much better.
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Good, trade me your trolls and deathrite shamans sir
(I do agree that as a zombies deck I do not like it, now...as a reanimator core I am in my element)
 
Went to a pre-release friday night. Had a lot of fun. Didn't sign up before hand, but did a walk in thing. My friends had signed up earlier. Wanted Selesnya and got it. Seems like that was the least played guild.

Got our guild packs, open it up and i got 6 boosters in there and no guild booster pack. Was confused as to what to do.. should i keep it or ask for another guild pack. Got another guild pack instead that had everything correctly. Got a Torstani in it which helped, carnival hellstead, martial law, foil red/black dude i think it was that's power is as much as the damage done i think.

Either way. I went 1-2. Should have been 2-1 at a minimum and a chance at 3-0. I misplayed terribly. Really really terribly. I had 4 options, 3 of which would have helped me win, and i chose(created) a 4th that was utterly stupid. Ah well. You learn.

The other weird thing was(more stupid), was that one of the judges overseeing one of my games due to being over the time limit, commented that i shouldn't be playing with foil lands as its a giveaway that its a foil land. I'm like WTF. My friend was right beside me(who plays and knows the people at the store well) thought he was joking. Apparently he was not. He said he could tell which cards are foils just by feeling them through the sleeves. This was through the Ultrapro sleeves that i use. I was going to call him out on his BS, but it was already 3 Am and there was another round to go, so i just said F it and swapped them out. Plus other than pre-releases i don't play there and i didn't want to cause my friends grief because he was being a douche nozzle.

Was a really really fun night though. Had more fun at this one than the Avacyn one. I think they should do stuff like this more often. Gets you more involved and invested in your guild than just picking colours. Even if its not guilds after this block, they should think of something else to tie colours together.
 
WanderingWind said:
I'm really thinking Selesnya is the best so far, after pretty extensive playtesting with what's available. The token base already available in white, plus with ratchet bomb being gone, make it too fast and too strong to deal with. Only a miracle Terminus or the Azorious board wipe have much of a chance to even slow it down.

Golgari...I hate to say it, but Golgari fucking sucks. It sucks. It's too slow and not powerful enough to overcome it's speed. That might change with the full set of tools, but right now B/R zombies or U/B zombies are simply much, much better.
Click to expand...

Selesnya is definitely a deck but I really don't think it will be based on tokens, probably just the really efficient creatures in those colours. Thragtusk is such a ridiculous card.

If you think U/B is better than B/G zombies I think your list must be just straight bad. Lotleth Troll and Dreg Mangler are both great, and Rancor gives some reach. Abrupt Decay doesn't really do anything for the deck though.
B/R might be better but it's close.
 
Alcibiades said:
Yes. Yeah they offered to do the schedule they promised the next week, but borrowing a vehicle and getting that weekend off took a lot of planning and I can't postpone my plans at that point. Oh well :/
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Ahh, that sucks. I was actually at that pre-release too!

There were more pre-releases in San Antonio on Saturday and Sunday at other venues, wish I had known someone from GAF was going to be there.
 
Negator said:
Ahh, that sucks. I was actually at that pre-release too!

There were more pre-releases in San Antonio on Saturday and Sunday at other venues, wish I had known someone from GAF was going to be there.
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I was the one that asked two questions to the owner LOL and he's like "another question". I had a Batman cap on.

I thought about doing another pre-release elsewhere, but I was really hoping to get that third "free" event in by playing in two of them. I figured I'd cut my losses since I didn't have the best time anyway. I also thought maybe everywhere else would be sold out or canceled since the guy implied that all stores weren't getting enough product.
 
f0rk said:
Selesnya is definitely a deck but I really don't think it will be based on tokens, probably just the really efficient creatures in those colours. Thragtusk is such a ridiculous card.

If you think U/B is better than B/G zombies I think your list must be just straight bad. Lotleth Troll and Dreg Mangler are both great, and Rancor gives some reach. Abrupt Decay doesn't really do anything for the deck though.
B/R might be better but it's close.
Click to expand...

Rancor is great, no doubt. It's why I forced a B/G zombies before RtR. But looking at my frame for U/B zombies is losing mortarpod and Geth's verdict, but nothing else. Stab wounds will take Geth's place. Not sure if mortarpod can be replaced though.
 
WanderingWind said:
Rancor is great, no doubt. It's why I forced a B/G zombies before RtR. But looking at my frame for U/B zombies is losing mortarpod and Geth's verdict, but nothing else. Stab wounds will take Geth's place. Not sure if mortarpod can be replaced though.
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Bloodthrone Vampire.

You're welcome.

(I think B/R is the way to go atm though- Pillar is too important for the mirror.)
 
kirblar said:
Bloodthrone Vampire.

You're welcome.

(I think B/R is the way to go atm though- Pillar is too important for the mirror.)
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Tried it. It's good, but not as great a fit. It'll likely have to do. And yeah, B/R is great, but my U/B have done just fine against it. Again, prior to losing my favorite toys. Lolteth Troll and rancor are definitely great for B/G, but...I don't know. It's missing something still in my mind.
 
WanderingWind said:
Rancor is great, no doubt. It's why I forced a B/G zombies before RtR. But looking at my frame for U/B zombies is losing mortarpod and Geth's verdict, but nothing else. Stab wounds will take Geth's place. Not sure if mortarpod can be replaced though.
Click to expand...

Uhh, if anything, U/B lost the most.

The deck wasn't even better than B/R, and now it has lost Phantasmal Image, Phyrexian Obliterator, and four duals.
 
Alright guys, for my game design class I'm putting together two decks designed to serve as a decent introduction to the game (to be taught the bare basics in about 20 minutes). I'll be testing them against each other tonight but I want to know what you guys think of these. Do they seem reasonably balanced against each other, or are there some glaring flaws?

Deck 1:
3 Nibilis of the Mist
2 Assault Griffin
2 Cathedral Sanctifier
1 Geist Honored Monk
1 Archangel
1 Deathless Angel
2 Pitchburn Devils
2 Rage Thrower
2 Flamekin Brawler

2 Moment of Heroism
2 Whitesun's Passage
2 Pacifism
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Safe Passage
2 Arc Trail
2 Lava Axe
1 Chandra's Outrage
1 Pyroclasm
1 Seismic Shudder
1 Fling

Deck 2:
4 Llanowar Elves
2 Greenweaver Druid
2 Sylvan Ranger
2 Stomper Cub
2 Yamivaya Wurm
1 Duskdale Wurm
2 Coral Merfolk
1 Neurok Invisimancer
1 Scrapskin Drake
1 Sturmgeist
1 Lorthos, the Tidemaker

3 Naturalize
2 Leaf Arrow
1 Rancor
2 Rampant Growth
2 Divination
2 Unsummon
2 Hysterical Blindness


The archtypes are fairly clear, although I blurred them a bit and made sub-optimal decks for complexity reasons. I wanted to keep the number of keywords to a minimum, and to easily understood abilities like Flying and Trample. Each one is meant to have answers to the other (Naturalizes against Pacisifism and O-Ring, and its no coincidence that Stomper Cub's 3 toughness is in range of Pitchburn Devils). And finally I wanted each deck to have a couple of really splashy one-ofs, for excitement reasons. Hence Lorthos, Sturmgeist, Geist Honored Monk and Deathless Angel

Let me know what you think
 
f0rk said:
Yeah I'm struggling to think why you would want to be in blue with zombies at all.
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I'll post up my deck if I can remember to after work. Captain is one reason. I know people said it shouldn't work, but it did. Often. No real matchup issues, either. Not a perfect deck, but one that had me winning enough that I would pull it out when sick of playing around.
 
I think both decks look fine, although it does feel that the second deck was made specifically to combat the first (naturalize, leaf arrow).

I'm also not too sure about Pyroclasm in the first. It takes a lot of insight to know when you should use pyroclasm or similar effects and when you shouldn't and a new player might just be unwilling to kill their own creatures, making it a dead card in their eyes.
 
Haly said:
I think both decks look fine, although it does feel that the second deck was made specifically to combat the first (naturalize, leaf arrow).

I'm also not too sure about Pyroclasm in the first. It takes a lot of insight to know when you should use pyroclasm or similar effects and when you shouldn't and a new player might just be unwilling to kill their own creatures, making it a dead card in their eyes.
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Yeah, I'm thinking the first deck might need a bit more potency. It is designed specifically to counter the second one as well with the Pacifisms and the O-Rings to deal with large creatures, but maybe taking out Pyroclasm for another more specific answer would be a good idea.
 
divisionbyzorro said:
Carrie Oliver wrote a good article about UB zombies on CF a couple months ago:

http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/carrie-on-–-eating-humble-pie/
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Obviously, I agree with that article. Want to know my secret weapon, btw? Bump In The Night. That little shocker has won me more games than I can count. Zombies (at least how I play them) are super fast and really only semi-big. Those last few points of damage tend to get hung up, and you can see this in a lot of the streams of pro games. If zombies don't win quick, they can force a bit of a semi-stalemate that they can't win against, especially against delver. That last few points off have really helped out a few times. And the rage when you burn them with black when they don't expect it? Delicious.
 
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