Standard is the most popular format because it's the easiest to get into since all the product is still in print. You can't really get into other formats without going into the secondary market. Lots of eternal staples cost a descent chunk of change. Legacy and Vintage are even worse.
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Magic: The Gathering |OT|
- Thread starter The Technomancer
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Oh ok I see. Thanks for the response. I guess I was just frustrated that with standard, half of my elf deck and half of my knight deck would be unusable. I think they're at least pretty decent decks and they weren't expensive at all to build. All the cards in them use the modern frame and not the old style frame so I'm assuming they're somewhat new. Oh well.
narcosis219
Member
You'll have to keep in mind that Wizards of the Coast is a business. They don't see any money from people buying old cards from stores.
If Wizards wants to sell booster packs and not get fired by Hasbro, they're going to have to make Standard the de-facto format. Can't keep the game alive if no one is spending money that they will see.
I agree that "eternal" formats, especially modern, should be more popular. It will bring older players in and they won't be put off just like you by showing up to a store and being told that their awesome Sliver deck or Goblin burn deck they played back in '03 is completely useless. Modern is much more accessible than Legacy since the staples in that format aren't all on the Reserved list.
narcosis219
Member
In it to win it. You can understand that in a tournament, there are people that are going to take every small opportunity that they can get. Sure, it's scummy and against the spirit of the game (NO ONE wants to attack with Geist and skip the free angel token), but when there's money on the line, people get dirty
Dude earlier in the day also didn't get his 5 life from his Thragtusk. I'm not a huge fan of the "may" effects, and think most of if not all should be musts.
The issue is that players were being penalized for having to point out their opponent's errors, which was really, really ugly.
Your opponent could miss a trigger, notice, and it'd go on the stack the next turn no matter what else had happened. No rewinding or anything, which caused major issues.
Hell yeah, answered the question of what a Restricted Card is (Only one can be put in a DCI-sanctioned deck) and got three free cards from the MtGOAcademy Quiz bot. Granted, they're common cards but getting two Kavu's and a card that allows reach for a simple forest/G spell isn't too shabby... too bad Invasion isn't "tourney" legal to where I can't really use these cards, outside of the casual room I guess. 
robotzombie
Member
Quick question: if one of your creatures is encrusted, so it cant attack or untap or anything, is it still considered under your control?
I ask this because if you summon a creature whos power increases with the amount of creatures under your control, does that encrusted (or any other debilitating enchantment) creature get counted?
I ask this because if you summon a creature whos power increases with the amount of creatures under your control, does that encrusted (or any other debilitating enchantment) creature get counted?
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Yes, as long as its on your side of the board and in play its under your control.
robotzombie
Member
Thanks!
Okay now that my friends are slowly dragging me into magic, where do I start? Should I just buy the big $40 2013 set on amazon? Are there cheaper/better ways of getting started?
*sounds the WanderingWind alert!*
What kinda of gaming were you going to be doing with it? Casual play w/ friends?
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
Muhahahah
If you send me your address I got a big box of cards I can send you from M13 and RtR.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
The two best products for newcomers are probably the Deckbuilder's Toolkit and probably any of the various Duel Decks (this one came out recently)
robotzombie
Member
Just casual with friends
RTR is pretty insane for value/fun purposes. The deck "themes" in the set are pretty blunt because of each color combo having its own gameplan, which should make deck building easier. Might want to start with a Pre-Con.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
For some context: there are four new Magic releases every year, each one bringing several hundred new cards. One of those releases is just called the Core Set, the card you asked about, Encrust, is from M13, the core set for 2012-2013 and it just has a generic fantasy theme. If you look at the lower-right corner of the picture you can see the set logo, with the letters M13 in it.
The other three sets every year are united by a more specific theme. Last year those three sets were focused on gothic horror, werewolves and vampires and such. This year the three sets are about Ravnica, an enormous magical city ruled by ten powerful guilds. The first set of Ravnica just game out a month ago, called Return to Ravnica, or RTR. It features five of the guilds, represented by five two-color combinations.
robotzombie
Member
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Oh it is. Having new cards to play with every three months gives the game this incredibly dynamic, living quality.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
And a great outlet for those dollars you don't want!
divisionbyzorro
Member
Today was another Izzet day.
Took this screenshot before making a last-minute change; moving an Electrickery into the main for a Chemister's Trick. Not sure if that was good or not; Electrickery isn't all that good, but neither is Chemister's Trick in a lot of situations (I like it a lot better in Grixis decks with some beefier ground guys to force bad attacks).
Unfortunately, this deck can't beat Archon of the Triumvirate very easily, so it only went 2-1, but damn if this wasn't the most fun deck I've drafted so far. It's not incredibly powerful (no Izzet deck in this format really is), but it does have a couple of bombs, and I have yet to lose a game of RtR draft where I get to untap with Mercurial Chemister.
I also got to live the dream and have all three Lobber Crews out at once, and even got to untap them with an Izzet Staticaster for extra surprise damage.
Took this screenshot before making a last-minute change; moving an Electrickery into the main for a Chemister's Trick. Not sure if that was good or not; Electrickery isn't all that good, but neither is Chemister's Trick in a lot of situations (I like it a lot better in Grixis decks with some beefier ground guys to force bad attacks).
Unfortunately, this deck can't beat Archon of the Triumvirate very easily, so it only went 2-1, but damn if this wasn't the most fun deck I've drafted so far. It's not incredibly powerful (no Izzet deck in this format really is), but it does have a couple of bombs, and I have yet to lose a game of RtR draft where I get to untap with Mercurial Chemister.
I also got to live the dream and have all three Lobber Crews out at once, and even got to untap them with an Izzet Staticaster for extra surprise damage.
divisionbyzorro
Member
I haven't really been impressed by the Izzet Keyrune. The creature almost never seems to be able to profitably attack or block, so it's just a mana rock in my book. That said, it would probably have been better than my current 23rd, but I wanted to play with some cards I hadn't played with before (and I didn't really need the fixing), so I left it in the side.
divisionbyzorro
Member
Genuine question: why do you say that? When I looked at it, I felt like the deck had a good curve to it. In practice it felt that way as well, and although 3 matches certainly isn't enough sample size to say so definitively, I felt like I was making relevant plays each turn. Is it worth including just for the opportunity of hitting those 6-drops on turn 5? Or do I just want it to guarantee that I hit all my drops, and if that's the case, is it better than an 18th land?
I know you've got a lot more experience with this game than I do, so I'm genuinely looking to understand: what am I missing that makes you look at the Keyrune and see it as an obvious include? Because it's not that obvious to me; 3 mana feels like a lot to me to invest in a ramp spell, and the incidental upside on the Izzet key just doesn't excite me.
Because you have so many 4/5/6-mana spells, you're in a position where most turns you're just tapping out each turn for one spell at a time. Playing the ramp spell allows you to start trying to get in a position where you can start either ramping into your best spells or getting multiple spells out of your hand in the same turn. (Like say, Injunction + a 4 drop.)
Scumbags who do whatever they can to win are why I'll never get into magic at more than a FNM level. Unless I ever got really into MTGO.
You can't expect sportsmanship out of MTG players sadly.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
Especially when thousands of bucks are on the line.
I would gladly lose if the other option was to be a fucking pathetic pile of shame
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
I would gladly lose if the other option was to be a fucking pathetic pile of shame
lol...a little overboard there, bud.
They need to implement MTGO or a similar client as the lan standard. The way the game is setup and played just begs for sneaky players to try and win on technicalities or lies.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
Technicalities definitely suck, but you know, rules are rules. I've lost to missing triggers before and it sucks, but it made me a better player. These new trigger rules though are too squirrelly and seem to heavily favor people who are getting their asses kicked. It'll even out eventually, but I'm still not sure what the deal was that caused the change. I don't recall seeing many people being confused that when you tap a geist, an angel shows up. In this instance, the guy even grabbed a token, but since he didn't verbally say "I AM ACTIVATING THE ONLY THING THIS CARD DOES" he couldn't play it. Fucking stupid.
Ya, I know rules are rules but also scumbags are still scumbags. I've heard enough bad experiences to know MTG isn't a tournament game I'll ever take seriously until they makes some changes. I don't think things like the geist issue are any good for the image of competitive MTG. I've personally turned down invites from other players at my store to go to tournaments as I knew the likelihood that I'd run into someone doing whatever they can to get the win. Not worth arguing my case to a judge against someone who is willing to say whatever they can to get their way.
Grab your deck box and chuck it on the table every time.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
Every standard deck ran Thrag, except the one that won.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
Anybody know of any Ravnica guild deck boxes? Or shard deck boxes?
Just drafted this, pretty excited
is that the new client?
There is a deckbox with each of the guildmages I believe.
Yea.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
Would much appreciate an opinion on this deck.
White -
Angelic Benediction x 4
Safe Passage x 3
Eyes in the Skies x 2
Pacifism x 2
Battleflight Eagle x3
Sunspire Griffin x1
Guardians of Akrasa x 1
Concordia Pegasus x 1
Seller of Songbirds x 4
Serra Angel x2
Griffin Protector x 1
Green -
Fog x 3
Serpent's Gift x 3
Deadly Recluse x 3
Prey Upon x 3
Acidic Slime x 1
Black -
Duskmantle Prowler x1
Giant Scorpion x2
Dual Color
Sluiceway Scorpion (G/Bla) x1
Archon of the Triumvirate (W/Blu) x1
Land
Plains x 10
Forest x5
Swamps x 3
Selesnya Guildgate x1
Transguild Promenade x1
___
Win Conditions: Overwhelm with flyers OR pump a single flyer with exalted and make it impossible to block due to Angelic Benedictions, Pacifisms, and forcing defenders to engage creatures with deathtouch. Defend own life with creatures with deathtouch as well as damage prevention.
The deck as is has proven to be almost impervious to stab wound stalling if you know it's coming due to being full of creatures with 2 toughness.
Figure I should drop the heavier and more expensive flyers (ESPECIALLY Archon of the Triumverate, who costs blue mana) and add in some more land, Pacifisms, and Prowlers.
EDIT: Bah! Left out my Forests while typing this, sorry
White -
Angelic Benediction x 4
Safe Passage x 3
Eyes in the Skies x 2
Pacifism x 2
Battleflight Eagle x3
Sunspire Griffin x1
Guardians of Akrasa x 1
Concordia Pegasus x 1
Seller of Songbirds x 4
Serra Angel x2
Griffin Protector x 1
Green -
Fog x 3
Serpent's Gift x 3
Deadly Recluse x 3
Prey Upon x 3
Acidic Slime x 1
Black -
Duskmantle Prowler x1
Giant Scorpion x2
Dual Color
Sluiceway Scorpion (G/Bla) x1
Archon of the Triumvirate (W/Blu) x1
Land
Plains x 10
Forest x5
Swamps x 3
Selesnya Guildgate x1
Transguild Promenade x1
___
Win Conditions: Overwhelm with flyers OR pump a single flyer with exalted and make it impossible to block due to Angelic Benedictions, Pacifisms, and forcing defenders to engage creatures with deathtouch. Defend own life with creatures with deathtouch as well as damage prevention.
The deck as is has proven to be almost impervious to stab wound stalling if you know it's coming due to being full of creatures with 2 toughness.
Figure I should drop the heavier and more expensive flyers (ESPECIALLY Archon of the Triumverate, who costs blue mana) and add in some more land, Pacifisms, and Prowlers.
EDIT: Bah! Left out my Forests while typing this, sorry
narcosis219
Member
Well, that's one way of looking at it. The other side means you're easy to sweep with almost any sweeping spell.
Is this for casual or are you planning to bring this to an FNM? One place I'd start improving on would be the mana base. You seem to have only 15 lands in a 57 (?) card deck. You need to have 60 cards in a deck bare minimum.
With any deck in general, you'd want 40% of your deck to consist of lands. In this case, a 60 card deck would need around 24 lands. You can cut down the number of lands if you're running super cheap stuff, but it isn't the case here in your deck.
Another thing you want to consider is the balance of colour. I noticed that you're playing a lot of green cards but you have only 2 sources of green mana. Not only that, but the sources of green mana are really slow as well. What you should do is count the number of mana color symbols on all your cards (I.E. Archon of Triumvirate has 1 White and 1 Blue) and split your mana base accordingly. As an example, if your deck consists of 25 White mana symbols and 15 Green mana symbols, you'll want a 25:15 ratio of white : green sources. Using only basic lands, this would be roughly 15 Plains and 9 Forests. This general guideline will make it so that you'll be able to have the correct colors of mana during your games.
After you've cleaned that up, you'll want to look at your "mana curve". A mana curve is a way to measure how expensive your deck is in terms of mana cost. A deck with a high mana curve is one that has a lot of stuff that costs 4+ mana. A deck with a low mana curve is one that has lots of stuff that costs below 3 mana. The point of finding your mana curve is to have a general idea of how playable your deck is. If you curve is too high, it might be too inconsistent to play since you'll rarely have enough mana to actually play your cards.
One starting point is to make sure that you have lots of cards of 1, 2, 3 and 4 mana cost. A card's mana cost is the absolute number of mana you need to cast it (Archon of Triumvirate is 7 mana). Having lots of cards at a low cost means you'll be able to play stuff more often. You'll want to put a limit on your high costing stuff, maybe have no more than 6 cards that cost more than 5 mana.
These are some really basic tips that should point you in the right directions. Quick notes about some cards specifically:
Fog/Safe Passage - You'll want to think about what this card is actually doing. At best, you are buying yourself a turn. It will do nothing to help you in terms of your state in the game. If you're being outnumbered in creature count, a Fog/Safe Passage will only let you live for a single turn and nothing will have changed in that extra turn besides that 1 card. Consider what it might do to your game state if you had instead drawn a creature or spell that could have done something to help you out. For example, if you replace Fog/Safe Passage with something like Oblivion Ring, you would be able to remove a threat and possibly save yourself from losing the game.
Angelic Benediction/Serpent's Gift - You'll want to consider that Enchantment-Auras are a risky type of card. If you have an enchanted creature and your opponent kills it, you will have lost 2 cards. Enchantment-Auras are different than Equipment in that they die when your creature dies, so it's a very risky investment to have enchantments because you are allowing your opponent to get 2 birds with 1 stone.
Owlowiscious
Member
For a start, I go with 24 lands. You're at 15. When everything costs 1 or 2 mana, even then the lowest I've seen is 18 lands. Personally I'd go with 24 lands and never really change that.
You have 14 things that use green, one thing that needs two green, and two green sources of mana.
One thing you can do is count all the colored circles on your cards to find a ratio. Quick count shows you have 28 white dots, 15 green dots, and 4 black dots. Maybe you can do 2 evolving wilds, 2 swamps, 6 forests, 2 golgari guild gates, 2 selesnya guildagtes, and 10 plains.
And on that note, it looks like you don't have any dual lands. It's really hard to play 3 colors, and even harder to play it without the rare dual lands. I would go with two colors. Green white sounds good, since you're only playing with 4 cards using black.
So to tweak your numbers and thinking about your strategy:
White -
Doomed Traveler x 4 (Good 1 mana card, turns into a flyer when it dies)
Concordia Pegasus x 0 (Cut out to make room for ranger's guile. But it's a cheap Flyer, so it's your 2 drop.)
Seller of Songbirds x 4 (3 Drop)
Eyes in the Skies x 4 (Your 4 drop. You want flyers, this makes flyers)
Angelic Benediction x 3
Intangible Virtue x 4 (You have a lot of tokens. This will improve them)
Serra Angel x 1
Pacifism x
Battleflight Eagle x 0 (5 mana for a 2/2 flyer isn't that great)
Sunspire Griffin x 0 (pretty good, but I don't like that WW part of the cost)
Safe Passage x 0
Griffin Protector x 0 (Too expensive for what it does)
Green -
Rancor x 4 (Improves Creature. Great on flyers. Great on your deathtouch creatures. Great Card all around)
Deadly Recluse x 4
Ranger's Guile x 4 (I'm worried about detention sphere and sever the bloodline killing all your spirits. Might replace with Rootborn Defesnes if your place uses supreme verdict more often)
Acidic Slime x 0 (Costs too much, had to make room for ranger's guile)
Fog x 0
Serpent's Gift x 0 (When you use this on your weak creatures, you're basically using 2 cards to kill their 1 card. Not good.)
Prey Upon x 0 (When you use this on your weak creatures, you're basically using 2 cards to kill their 1 card. Not good. This is a great card sometimes, but not for your deck.)
Dual Color -
Selesnya Charm x 4 (Good g/w card. replaces the prey upon for removal, or can save your weak creatuers, or can give you a new creature)
Sluiceway Scorpion (G/Bla) x 0 (Cut Black)
Archon of the Triumvirate (W/Blu) x 0 (Cut Blue)
Black -
Duskmantle Prowler x0 (Cut Black)
Giant Scorpion x0 (Cut Black)
Land -
Plains x 14
Forest x 6
Selesnya Guildgate x 4
Swamps x 0
Transguild Promenade x 0 (Too Slow)
Looking at my own suggestions, I don't have much removal. So that might be a problem
Owlowiscious
Member
One thing to note about Safe Passage [and Rootborn Defenses] is that they prevent damage to you, but not to the enemy. So you can use these two cards, then block or gang block things to kill them, keeping your own things alive.
These aren't auras. Still the same point with serpent's gift. With your weak creatuers, it will mostly be a two for one loss for you.
narcosis219
Member
Yeah, you're right. I remembered those cards incorrectly. =P.
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