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[Keru_Shiri]

Blightsteel Colossus wont break the game but it's going to make Eldrazi ramp, which is already owning face in standard, that much more nasty. I have a simple ramp deck without primeval titans than can drop an emarkul or other eldrazi by turn 4. Which ends the game in the next turn or two. Now your opponent also has to deal with a potential 11/11 trample indestructible infect creature coming out that early.

Its nasty, but I still imagine it'd be easier to defend against as opposed to Eldrazi, which have rider effects when you hard cast them AND have annihilator.

How does you deck fare against u/b control? I'd imagine if any deck could stand up to green ramp, its that.

 

[Fragamemnon]

So you are at the other end of an Eldrazi Green matchup. What is the difference between the Eldrazi Green player attacking with a Blightsteel Colossus and a Primeval Titan? The answer is just about none, you almost certainly lose either way.

The new card is not a big deal. I'm not even sure he's better than Myr Battlesphere as a Tinker robot.

edit: ah indestructible, didn't see that.

 

[rexor0717]

Oh man, Blightsteel is going to be perfect in my Mayael EDH deck. It'll be a tough choice between it an Ulamog, but either way I'll be winning.

I had a Scion of the Ur-Dragon deck for EDH, but scrapped it. Now I'm working on a Jhoria of the Githu deck and just loading it down with wacky red and blue spells to mess with the other players. I'm going to combine this with stuff like blue Braids and universal card draw so the other players won't hate me too much. EDH is all about politics, I love it.

So true. Sometimes I come out with a really strong opening, then get punished for it.

 

[Ravager61]

The thing about Blightsteel Colossus that people are afraid of is that it kills in one hit because of infect. Even if you chump block for a few turns, you're dead anyway because it has trample. AND its indestructible so its a lot harder to get rid of.

Its pretty much a better card to ramp into than any of the eldrazi except for maybe Emrakul, which it is cheaper than. There is also no drawback from powering it out with cards like Shape Anew or Polymorph.

The card is REALLY powerful. Game breaking? Probably not, but its something that has the potential to be format changing.

 

[rexor0717]

I've seen Niv-Mizzet wreck face too as far as blue/red generals go. Just load up on burn, counter and draw.

I'm making a very budget Niv-Mizzet deck, only $50 for all the cards. I just start drawing cards like a mad man. Unfortunately, its very slow, so I use a lot of stalling tactics.

 

[siddx]

Its nasty, but I still imagine it'd be easier to defend against as opposed to Eldrazi, which have rider effects when you hard cast them AND have annihilator.

How does you deck fare against u/b control? I'd imagine if any deck could stand up to green ramp, its that.

Well the thing with the eldrazi is that I tend to put one out with summoning trap. Ideally I would:
turn 1: forest, joraga treespeaker
turn 2: forest, level up treespeaker, use him to drop an overgrown battlement or llanwar elves or nest invader with the eldrazi token
turn 3: forest, cast summoning trap, nab an eldrazi in the top 7 cards to put into play.

Because the eldrazi is being put into play by summoning trap, its come into play abilities like "destroy a permanent, draw 4 cards, take an extra turn" don't trigger. It's still game over if they can't do anything about it by the next turn though.
As long as I get a summoning trap in my opening hand or by the third turn, which isn't that uncommon since I run 4, it's fairly easy to get 6 mana by turn 3 to cast it.

U/B control can slow it down, but it only delays the inevitable. It becomes a race to see if they can get jace out and running before I drop something with annihilator on the board and force them to sack everything they own. It gets owned by turn 2 and 3 win legacy decks but I find it has a ridiculously good win-loss ratio against anything other than other ramp decks.

 

[dschalter]

Well the thing with the eldrazi is that I tend to put one out with summoning trap. Ideally I would:
turn 1: forest, joraga treespeaker
turn 2: forest, level up treespeaker, use him to drop an overgrown battlement or llanwar elves or nest invader with the eldrazi token
turn 3: forest, cast summoning trap, nab an eldrazi in the top 7 cards to put into play.

Because the eldrazi is being put into play by summoning trap, its come into play abilities like "destroy a permanent, draw 4 cards, take an extra turn" don't trigger. It's still game over if they can't do anything about it by the next turn though.
As long as I get a summoning trap in my opening hand or by the third turn, which isn't that uncommon since I run 4, it's fairly easy to get 6 mana by turn 3 to cast it.

U/B control can slow it down, but it only delays the inevitable. It becomes a race to see if they can get jace out and running before I drop something with annihilator on the board and force them to sack everything they own. It gets owned by turn 2 and 3 win legacy decks but I find it has a ridiculously good win-loss ratio against anything other than other ramp decks.

inquisition of kozilek your treespeaker or other one drop. not so fast now, broheim!

 

[siddx]

inquisition of kozilek your treespeaker or other one drop. not so fast now, broheim!

Which just slows it down a turn. So death comes a round later. 4 treespeakers, 4 elves, 4 overgrown battlements, 4 nest invaders. Ramp is occurring whether my opponent wastes his turn making me discard or not. Also, its almost worse to drag it out because if I can get enough mana to start hard casting eldrazi, shit really hits the fan.
It's certainly not a perfect deck by any means, but there is a reason most of the decks winning standard tournies seems to be ramp decks. And mine is just a shitty imitation missing the titans.

 

[WanderingWind]

I...I have no idea what's going on up in here. What happened to just plinking people with a Prodigal Sorcerer or smashing fools with Lightning Bolts and Fireballs?

 

[The Technomancer]

I...I have no idea what's going on up in here. What happened to just plinking people with a Prodigal Sorcerer or smashing fools with Lightning Bolts and Fireballs?

Heh, the game was never that simple at a competitive level.
And its definitely still that simple at the casual level if you want it to be.

 

[TheSeks]

Drafts sound good for free cards. But driving across town on Fridays toward the mall doesn't sound appealing, esp. since every comic/card store I've been into around here is DEAD or really small/no one there whenever I go in. Creepy.

I think I'm only going to the store to get my PS3 Planeswalker promo card and GTFO. I would like to do FNM with semi-serious rules but casually, but I ain't gonna bother doing the drive since like I said: community around here is pretty dead any time I've checked.

 

[Totakeke]

You guys can still play "simulated" mtg based on the current constructed, draft, and sealed formats by using software like Magic Workstation, Apprentice, and Netdraft. I haven't played actual mtg in probably like 8 years and there's still a community using those on irc channels. Just search for magic-league.

Personally I find that mtg is too pricey to play casually and to play competitively, you need to spend a lot of time.

 

[bucklam66]

Does anyone else here play pauper, MTGO or paper (by the way, is MTGO acceptable in this thread?)

I played 94-96, but the game is completely different now.

To me it is just fun putting together decks and playing in the casual room on MTGO and the occasional PDCmagic.com tourney. I've only spent about 75 bucks for 10k cards, mostly commons. The virtual card thing does not bother me because I've spent 10x's that in Steam games alone.

Duels of the Planeswalkers sucked me back into the game and I am glad that it happened.

Also during an ice storm, MTGO till the lights go out (meeting in Mansfield canceled, wahoo!)

 

[Zaraki_Kenpachi]

Drafts sound good for free cards. But driving across town on Fridays toward the mall doesn't sound appealing, esp. since every comic/card store I've been into around here is DEAD or really small/no one there whenever I go in. Creepy.

I think I'm only going to the store to get my PS3 Planeswalker promo card and GTFO. I would like to do FNM with semi-serious rules but casually, but I ain't gonna bother doing the drive since like I said: community around here is pretty dead any time I've checked.

Have you tried during Friday Night magic? A lot of places are dead unless people are planning on getting together. You can always call and ask if there's any turnout usually.

Does anyone else here play pauper, MTGO or paper (by the way, is MTGO acceptable in this thread?)

I played 94-96, but the game is completely different now.

To me it is just fun putting together decks and playing in the casual room on MTGO and the occasional PDCmagic.com tourney. I've only spent about 75 bucks for 10k cards, mostly commons. The virtual card thing does not bother me because I've spent 10x's that in Steam games alone.

Duels of the Planeswalkers sucked me back into the game and I am glad that it happened.

Also during an ice storm, MTGO till the lights go out (meeting in Mansfield canceled, wahoo!)

I was thinking about trying out MTGO and making a thread just for that but I got lazy and I've got no money.

 

[KO Traveling Hobo]

Damn, the art for this set is absolutely incredible. And the flavor is pretty kickass too.

 

[BlewHedgehog]

MtG is the one activity in existence that turns me into one of those "Get off my lawn!" types. Seeing what's happened to the game (all the keywords for shallow abilities that don't really deserve to be keyworded, the symmetrical cycles for each color/color combination in every set, and the shift toward creature dominant gameplay) makes me grimace. Yet, every 6 months or so, my friends will force me to sit down and draft with them and it ends up being a pretty damn good time. What a freaking fantastic game this is.

I'm past the point where that one draft or watching a couple standard matches will flare up the desire again, but hearing some of you guys talking EDH almost does it. Highlander single-handedly kept me going for long after the last honeymoon with the game had ended. There are just too many awesomely awkward things that can happen when people can't run 4 copies of the 9 most ridiculous spells.

My favorite EDH deck used Phelddagrif as the general and could win by, among other things, forcing a pile of hippo tokens under your opponent's control and then with Dueling Grounds in play would attack with Nacatl War Pride, dumping a shitload of copies into play attacking that the other guy couldn't block <3

Of course, all the competitive types got a hold of EDH too and wrung all the fun out of it before long as well. Never mind. Urge to play gone. I'ma go back to sulking.

 

[Nocebo]

Its nasty, but I still imagine it'd be easier to defend against as opposed to Eldrazi, which have rider effects when you hard cast them AND have annihilator.

How does you deck fare against u/b control? I'd imagine if any deck could stand up to green ramp, its that.

u/b control is pretty good against eldrazi I find. Not that my eldrazi deck is perfect but my friend's dreprives / oblivion rings / negates etc. sure throw a wrench into the whole thing.

Polymorph decks are also fun for getting emrakul out on turn 4. I also run Progenitus in there so I have something that can't be targeted by oblivion rings.

 

[hteng]

shit.. i've been out of the loop for so long, then when i look at the eldrazi stuff, what the fuck were the wizards thinking? that's pretty fucked up, not only is it 15/15 and it destroys shit whenever it attacks (doesnt need to hit defending player)? holy shit lol... so ridiculous.

 

[zoukka]

shit.. i've been out of the loop for so long, then when i look at the eldrazi stuff, what the fuck were the wizards thinking? that's pretty fucked up, not only is it 15/15 and it destroys shit whenever it attacks (doesnt need to hit defending player)? holy shit lol... so ridiculous.

There's always been ridiculous beefy creatures in Magic. What the old timers really should see are the cheaper units with ridiculous Spiritmonger-esque cost/efficiency rates.

And the erasure of "imba" spells that used to be in every deck back in the days... Counterspell

 

[Ryuukan]

Planeswalkers are what really blew me away when I came back to play with 2010, <3 Jace.

 

[zerokoolpsx]

Holyshit Blightsteel Colossus is a one turn kill.

Trample, Infect and indestructible. Gonna need some exile cards heh.
I started playing a few months ago again because a lot of my friends just started playing. It's good to play my R/B and mono B again.

 

[TheSeks]

Holyshit Blightsteel Colossus is a one turn kill.
http://s3.mananation.com/uploads/2011/01/blightsteel_colossus.jpg
Trample, Infect and indestructible. Gonna need some exile cards heh.

Or run Swamp/Black and land destroy (is that still even in the game?) like the Fist of the North Star.

"What good is your indestructible card... if you don't have mana?"

 

[The Technomancer]

Or run Swamp/Black and land destroy (is that still even in the game?) like the Fist of the North Star.

"What good is your indestructible card... if you don't have mana?"

Land destruction is still around, but its mostly red now. Goes great with burn.
"You can only play cheap creatures? Lightning bolt!"

 

[zerokoolpsx]

Or run Swamp/Black and land destroy (is that still even in the game?) like the Fist of the North Star.

"What good is your indestructible card... if you don't have mana?"

They can mana ramp with eldrazi spawns and primeval titans.
My land destruction deck has a really hard time against mana ramp. It barely slows them down. I have to try a different strategy.

 

[traveler]

Love the game in general, but not a big fan of the current state of standard. The mechanics in the latest block are just so dependent on playing other cards with a similar focus (be it Metalcraft demanding more artifacts or infect demanding, well, all in infect) that the block as a whole feels like it's lacking in impact when it comes to formats including other sets, much like how Kamigawa's arcane/spirit stuff felt. It doesn't help that, as mechanics, metalcraft, infect, and battle cry are all pretty boring anyhow. One is a quicker clock + wither stuck on overcosted (by today's standards) bodies and the other two are ideas that have been done before, just without keywords. Hope the next block is much better.

All that said, I'm still really enjoying Limited and EDH. Probably my favorite formats around. And I have to admit that MBS did bring us some nice cards for the latter:

 

[victreeb3l]

Holyshit Blightsteel Colossus is a one turn kill.

Trample, Infect and indestructible. Gonna need some exile cards heh.
I started playing a few months ago again because a lot of my friends just started playing. It's good to play my R/B and mono B again.

do competitive games even go as long as 12 turns?

what would be the quickest way to get this monster out?

 

[The Technomancer]

do competitive games even go as long as 12 turns?

what would be the quickest way to get this monster out?

As someone above pointed out, if you can ramp into a summoning trap with four of this guy and four of some other large guys in your deck, you can drop one as early as turn four or so. The problem is IMO more with Summoning Trap, its easy to abuse.

 

[victreeb3l]

thats fucking crazy. how is this not banned.. like you said it seems way to easy to abuse. this post (which im sure all you pro players have seen already) also shows some ways to get this guy out too. man, i love this game <3

 

[TheSeks]

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/cards/18199.jpg
They can mana ramp with eldrazi spawns and primeval titans.
My land destruction deck has a really hard time against mana ramp. It barely slows them down. I have to try a different strategy.

WTF. Can't you counter spell, bounce them back?

And land destruction being red now. WTF. Stop changing the game I played in 1999-2005 Wizards.

 

[Takuan]

I really want a bunch of MBS cards, but drafting gets me extra SoM stuff I don't need at all, and I'm iffy about packs just 'cause of the randomness. Singles are out of the question right now, since they're mostly gonna be highest value. I may wait until the third set comes out and just draft then.

Re: Blightsteel
Such a dirty-strong card. Wish the art was better, though; Rahn did a better job on Platinum Emperion from the last set, this doesn't look like it's a finished work.

 

[The Technomancer]

Yeah, I do feel that Infect is pretty degenerate, especially with proliferate and no recovery. Both at the Scars and Besieged prerelease I played THG, and going from 30 life to effectively 10 was ridiculous.
I'm enjoying Scars, but honestly the Alara-Scars period just hasn't been as much fun for me as the Ravnica-Shadowmoor period. Curious as to what the next block will be though.

I don't follow competitive standard that much, but I hear there haven't been a lot of infect decks, which surprises me.

 

[Ravager61]

do competitive games even go as long as 12 turns?

what would be the quickest way to get this monster out?

Inkmoth Nexus + Shape Anew = Blightsteel Colossus

I don't follow competitive standard that much, but I hear there haven't been a lot of infect decks, which surprises me.

With just Scars, infect really isn't very powerful at all in standard. Most creatures are average and any infect/proliferate strategy is just too slow to beat other archetypes in the format. Its not even a very good draft strategy drafting Scars/Scars/Scars. With MBS, this may change, especially in draft but I dont forsee any infect decks making the top tables at standard tournaments.

 

[Takuan]

Yeah, I do feel that Infect is pretty degenerate, especially with proliferate and no recovery. Both at the Scars and Besieged prerelease I played THG, and going from 30 life to effectively 10 was ridiculous.

I don't follow competitive standard that much, but I hear there haven't been a lot of infect decks, which surprises me.

Infect is made more viable with the addition of Besieged cards, so I think we'll start to see more competitive decks built around that mechanic soon. Don't know how successful they'll be, but I'm sure we'll see one or two go far in competitive play. I'm a total casual - more of a collector than I am a player. Always loved the art for these cards, and when I came back to the game late last year, it seemed the art had improved overall. Some great "new" artists out there.

 

[Keru_Shiri]

WTF. Can't you counter spell, bounce them back?

Well, the problem is Summoning Trap. An instant that is free to cast if one of your spells was countered earlier in the turn. So even if your big beast is zapped with a Mana Leak, the ramp guy can just follow up with a potentially free Eldrazi, and you're even worse off. Jace the Mind Sculptor can bounce most of these guys back though, but he's an $80 card.

My strategy is to try to outrace them with mono red, blasting their mana dorks and trying to secure a victory before a Titan hits the board, but even that plan is inconsistent.

And land destruction being red now. WTF. Stop changing the game I played in 1999-2005 Wizards.

Stone Rain has been around since Alpha.

 

[orion434]

I remember back around the time that Weatherlight came out I made a deck with only cards by the artist Richard Kane-Fugerson. It was Red / Blue... he had done the art on many counterspells from that time, Arcane Denial, Dissipate, Destertion... it was quite fun to play

 

[MotherFan]

My strategy is to try to outrace them with mono red, blasting their mana dorks and trying to secure a victory before a Titan hits the board, but even that plan is inconsistent.

This is the best way to keep the ramp decks in check. Enough decks are playing red atm to keep it in check. R/B vamps have bolts/gatekeeper, u/b can play doomblades and go for the throat, RDW burns alot, boros has burn. These decks (minus control) also win very quickly, so if you can disrupt a dork or two then you win before they hit 6 mana.

The colossus will not be any more broken then emrakul because he is as hard to get out, and ramp decks have an inherent weakness to cheap disruption which is always around.

 

[Cyan]

They can mana ramp with eldrazi spawns and primeval titans.
My land destruction deck has a really hard time against mana ramp. It barely slows them down. I have to try a different strategy.

Wow, there's been massive power creep since I played. Holy shit.

For comparison:

 

[dschalter]

Wow, there's been massive power creep since I played. Holy shit.

For comparison:

massive creature power creep. spells, not so much.

 

[Empty]

god i used to play this all the time with my friends when i was at school, around mirrodin block. every break and lunch and sleepover. we were only really casual about it (though you wouldn't know from the cost), but boy was it fun. reading this thread has me nostaligic, so i bought the xbla game which is nice but i liked building different decks out of my collection most so it's a bit lacking. might try and rope a few friends into buying some new block packs and doing a little friendly competition between us.

 

[BobTheFork]

Wow, there's been massive power creep since I played. Holy shit.

For comparison:

Ah, I had an army of those little beauties :' )

 

[TheSeks]

Ah, I had an army of those little beauties :' )

Useful in the PSN/XBLA/PC DotP game, but until you get Roughshod Mentor, anyway.

Once you have one of those, 6/6 can't be destroyed. Put Blanchwood Armor on it (and if the enemy hasn't mana destroyed) you get a 12-20/10-18 creature. Deadly.

Also DotP is M10, that power creep card is M11, WTF new edition within a year? DotP should be updated or something for the new mechanics. :/

 

[Takuan]

Craw Wurm was my favorite card back when I bought my first revised starter. I didn't care as much for the Shivan that happened to come in that starter, because the art was offensively bad to me.

It's funny that a Shivan is pretty much a jank rare nowadays.

 

[siddx]

As big and powerful as creatures have gotten, there are always things to easily and effectively deal with them. As creatures got more powerful, exile abilities (removing something from the game) became more common. So creatures that are indestructible can now just be exiled instead. There are also cards like arrest and pacifism that lock down creatures so they can't do a damn thing. And counterspells have become more prolific, with sets often having multiple types of counterspells.

The two most valuable modern MTG cards aren't big beefy creatures, they are Jace (the good one, not the gimped one) which is used for control, and Tarmogoyf which is a 0/1 that gets bigger with each card type put in the graveyard, but never gets beyond 5 or 6 power in most games. It's just used to drop an early creature that can get big quickly. Personally I think it's the most over rated card in magic right now but what do I know.
The closest "big creature" in value is Primeval Titan which was shown earlier on this page. And it's value isn't in it's size, it's in it's ability.

The problem isn't balance really. It's cost. There are plenty of different legacy decks that are competitive, however they all cost absurd amounts of money. Which is why I usually stuck to standard. However with jace and the titans, now standard costs way too much as well. Hell you are looking at a 400 dollar minimum investment to run a competitive blue control deck with jace. And between Titans and Fauna Shamans and Eldrazi you are looking at at least 200 or so for a strong eldrazi ramp deck. But unfortunately it's part of a double edged sword. The game is getting more and more popular so the prices for highly sought after cards are going up as well.

Speaking of cost, the Type 4 deck we play with was built by the obsessive collector of our group. All in all, it's probably worth $5000...at least. It's got almost every rare ever printed that would work in type 4 (no power 9 obviously) and each card is either a foil or the earliest version of the card available. For those of you who are sick of magic, this is another format that can spark some interest since it is far more casual and you can come play without owning a single card. The deck obviously doesn't have to be a $5000 monster filled with foils, I made a simple one that was probably 100 bucks at most. Plus you can make it a group effort, having everyone contribute to the deck.

 

[Ravager61]

Thank mythic rares for raising costs. I hate mythics so much.

 

[Keru_Shiri]

Thank mythic rares for raising costs. I hate mythics so much.

Same here. It's not only the mythics being expensive, but there's also a greater disparity between the prices normal rares too. They're either $15-$20 or less than $2, which makes it harder to amass store credit. :/

 

[Dyno]

I played for years and had a decent collection. Had a red, blue, black Tradewind Rider deck that was always fun... for me.

When I moved though I gave away all my cheap cards and only kept the box that held rares and the latest crop of decks I cooked up. It on my shelf mostly for nostalgia.

 

[Mofobolous]

I just recently started to get back into Magic since Mirrodin as a local shop opened recently. I went to my first prerelease Sunday and I pulled the new Tezzeret turning my mediocre boring BG infect deck into a playable UBG deck. I did decently and I now I have regained the spark that I once had for the game.

 

[MotherFan]

Same here. It's not only the mythics being expensive, but there's also a greater disparity between the prices normal rares too. They're either $15-$20 or less than $2, which makes it harder to amass store credit. :/

I think this is the true issue with the mythics, not that "good mythics are too expensive." Before mythics, the rares you would need for decks would be 20-30 dollars a pop including dual lands (not talking revised ones here), which any deck that was not mono colored needed 4 of. Now days, dual lands are 3 bucks a pop. Overall, a good standard deck is about the same now as then (fairies cost 700 and that was before mythics).

The real problem is that you cannot easily trade up for a jace or amass that store credit to get one. Past sets would let you pull a dual land for other colors, a rare that was good in another deck you didn't need and you could spin it off for what you needed.

 

[ZZMitch]

I played this a bunch until around the Kamigawa series I think?

Some of my friends have actually started to get back into it. They invited me to something last week but I couldnt go... I love playing with totally different decks, I must have almost fifteen different decks for totally different playstyles. I think I remember Slivers and Archbound decks being fun. My friend had this deck filled with a bunch of 1/2 creatures that always pissed me off, cant remember what they were though!

I have so many extra cards, I should probably think about selling all the ones I dont need.

 

[Takuan]

I just recently started to get back into Magic since Mirrodin as a local shop opened recently. I went to my first prerelease Sunday and I pulled the new Tezzeret turning my mediocre boring BG infect deck into a playable UBG deck. I did decently and I now I have regained the spark that I once had for the game.

Lucky! I badly wanted a Tezz, but no luck. I didn't open any money cards, but many of my pulls were fairly synergistic (contagion engine, decimator web, phryexian vatmother being my bombs). I stupidly went blue/black my first three games before tweaking to black/green, though, and wound up losing 2 of the 3 rounds. Lost my next round because of horrible draws/lack of mana and dropped afterward.

Some bastard opened Tezz, Skithiryx and another mythic at the pre-release... AND he got great rares. I still don't have a Skittles.

I'll wait for Tezz's value to drop before buying one if I don't manage to get one via drafting.