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Magic: The Gathering |OT|

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narcosis219 said:
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
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Oblivion Ring, you would be able to remove a threat and possibly save yourself from losing the game.[/QUOTE]

The thing with Fog in this deck is that one turn makes for a huge difference when you factor in the fact that I'm running fliers with Exalted. Especially when that exalted is coming from Angelic Benediction (tap an opponent's creature when I attack with only one creature). It prevents damage for a turn and I get in another shot.

Safe Passage, as previously mentioned allows my creatures and me to do damage while taking none (from anything, not just combat damage).

narcosis219 said:
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.
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As previously mentioned, neither's an aura. Serpent's Gift is an instant and Angelic Benediction is just an Enchantment (one that is vicious when stacked).

I appreciate both of your posts, thank you.
 
kirblar said:
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.
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THIS was the stupid part. (Rewinding is stupid too).

having to point out their opponent's errors
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THIS was the smart part. Honestly I hate the new trigger rules. I don't want rewinding or triggers jumping onto the stack, it just encourages gaming the system. I just want both players to be required to maintain the game state. Missing mandatory game actions = BOTH players get warnings = figure your shit out and help maintain the game state. (Obviously this would be at a high enough REL where we're not talking about people who don't know what's going on). Sure, you'll still get people strategically missing triggers and soaking up the occasional warning, but at least it can't become too much of a pattern, and it provides enough psychological incentive that most people would just operate on "help maintain game state" mode by default.

.
 
The thing with Fog in this deck is that one turn makes for a huge difference when you factor in the fact that I'm running fliers with Exalted.
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Fog kinda has anti-synergy with exalted. Exalted with fliers means you can leave behind a team on defense, and swing in with one pumped up evasive dude. Since you're not sending the whole team in flying over the heads of the enemies, you don't need to fog the counterattack- well, not nearly as much.

Also, you'll probably learn after playing for a while that Fog is mostly a bad card with a few very specific applications. Even when you do want a fog effect, you usually don't want Fog (the card). I would run Giant Growth all day before I would run Fog, in a casual GW swing-with-dudes deck. It's a better combat trick and works well with Exalted (pump flier to get enough to kill, or pump guy you left on defense to surprise and kill enemy attacker).
 
FieryBalrog said:
Fog kinda has anti-synergy with exalted. Exalted with fliers means you can leave behind a team on defense, and swing in with one pumped up evasive dude. Since you're not sending the whole team in flying over the heads of the enemies, you don't need to fog the counterattack- well, not nearly as much.

Also, you'll probably learn after playing for a while that Fog is mostly a bad card with a few very specific applications. Even when you do want a fog effect, you usually don't want Fog (the card). I would run Giant Growth all day before I would run Fog, in a casual GW swing-with-dudes deck. It's a better combat trick and works well with Exalted (pump flier to get enough to kill, or pump guy you left on defense to surprise and kill enemy attacker).
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Yeah, I can see that.

Someone also suggested Inquisitor's Flail which, I think, would work well with this deck, since I have no intention of the flyer I'm primarily swinging with being attacked.
 
Also, Ive been running this Knight deck with some pretty decent results. I still get pooped on by Blue, but that's always been the case with any deck I build (prolly why my least favorite color is blue)

4 Brave the Elelments
4 Hero of Bladehold
2 Honor of the Pure
4 Kinsbaile Cavalier
4 Knight Exemplar
3 Mirran Crusader
4 Oblivion Ring
3 Silver Knight
4 Student of Wafare
3 Sunlance (None of my friends ever play white, and if they do play white, it's usually an artifact white deck)
3 White Knight
2 Wilt-Leaf Cavalier
20 Plains

Thinking about replacing the Wilt Leafs for some disenchant, but dos anyone else got some good card ideas?
 
also, had about 4 people using storm modern decks today on MTGO

can I say that it's probably the worst and most broken mechanic ever created in magic?
 
Sinatar said:
Only the douchewhistles.
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I had only started to learn how to play around the time Chronicles came out, and most of my cards came from people GIVING THEIR COLLECTIONS away because they thought that Chronicles was the end of Magic, and it was going the way of Pogs (ie, worthless). People who say Chronicles almost killed Magic aren't exaggerating- people were furious that 30 dollar cards were being reprinted in a set that didn't even have rares!

I would do a big prune job to the Reserved list- its ABSURD that they can't print a 1WW 2/2 Flying, First Striker ever again just because Thunder Spirit is on the list, or a 3/4 Flyer with Shroud at 4UU because Zephid is on, for example. And Aaron Forsythe has said that Tithe has been included in multiple core set designs, because they never remember that it's on the reserve list. And with half of the story characters from the Weatherlight Story being stuck on the Reserve list (Orim, Karn, Ertai, Crovax, Eldamari, Multani), they won't ever be able to do my dream FTV: Weatherlight Saga.

Keep the stuff that makes sense on the list, but if they cut the list down to something like 50-100 cards tomorrow morning, no one would cry.
 
It's been a long time since Chronicles, and it's not as if they hadn't learned a thing or two since then. The reserved list is garbage and is slowly killing the game.
 
Testuo Umezawa needs to be a plainswalker

Maybe theyr saving him for a return to kamigawa (how butthurt would people be at that)
 
Hero said:
Killing the game? Magic is more popular today than it has ever been.
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Short term fad, thanks to a video game version. The game has had spikes and lulls throughout it's history. Their continuous mishandling of every format that isn't standard will cause a massive leak of players when the INN block rotates out and a ton of their new players realize their cards are now pretty much worthless. I'll get more in depth with why this is going to cause an inevitable crash and how it's tied into eternal formats tomorrow. I am brain fried ATM. Hell of a day.
 
bigkrev said:
I had only started to learn how to play around the time Chronicles came out, and most of my cards came from people GIVING THEIR COLLECTIONS away because they thought that Chronicles was the end of Magic, and it was going the way of Pogs (ie, worthless). People who say Chronicles almost killed Magic aren't exaggerating- people were furious that 30 dollar cards were being reprinted in a set that didn't even have rares!

I would do a big prune job to the Reserved list- its ABSURD that they can't print a 1WW 2/2 Flying, First Striker ever again just because Thunder Spirit is on the list, or a 3/4 Flyer with Shroud at 4UU because Zephid is on, for example. And Aaron Forsythe has said that Tithe has been included in multiple core set designs, because they never remember that it's on the reserve list. And with half of the story characters from the Weatherlight Story being stuck on the Reserve list (Orim, Karn, Ertai, Crovax, Eldamari, Multani), they won't ever be able to do my dream FTV: Weatherlight Saga.

Keep the stuff that makes sense on the list, but if they cut the list down to something like 50-100 cards tomorrow morning, no one would cry.
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They actually can do it. They (unfortunately) have decided to honor the "spirit" of the list, so they haven't done versions with other creature types.

I bet Tithe gets a G/W hybrid version some day.
 
WanderingWind said:
It's been a long time since Chronicles, and it's not as if they hadn't learned a thing or two since then. The reserved list is garbage and is slowly killing the game.
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Sure they have learned- They learned that you can take a single dollar out of your moms purse (IE, reprint Loyal Retainers in a super limited product, stuff like Karakas and Survival of the Fittest as Judge Foils, and Berserk in FTV) without getting in trouble, but not take a 20 without someone noticing (Chronicles).

I'm going to invoke my (VERY LIMITED) Knowledge of YuGiOh right here. In a set of tins released this week that will be widely avalible at places like Target for a year plus, they reprinted a card called "Maxx C", which was a popular sideboard card that at the start of the year was in the 70 dollar plus range. How happy would you have been if you had dropped almost 200 dollars in a playset of cards, only to find out that 6 months later it was going to be reprinted, and now be worth a fraction (6-8 dollars each)? Personally, I'd be furious. I think Yugioh players are used to this though, as I don't think they are outraged as this has been happening for years now.

The argument that hardcore players make for Eternal Formats is that unlike standard (By FAR the most popular tournament constructed format), the cards never rotate out and maintain their value. Did you know that you can take 40-50 dollars and grab a playset of Isolated Chapels, that will probably drop down to 2-3 dollars each when they rotate in 10 months, or take that same amount of money and purchase a (played) Scrubland, which you will be able to play in Legacy/Vintage/EDH untill the end of time, and is likely to never loose any value? Instead of dropping 80 dollars on a playset of Aristocrats for your B/R Zombie deck you might play in FNM 4 or 5 times, why not purchase a playset of Tops and Counterbalances?

Also, Magic slowly dying? They can't print enough product to supply demand anymore (see: RTR preorder box prices). They are selling more cards than ever before. Tournament attendance is up- we just saw witness the largest North American tournament of ALL TIME take place in Philadelphia- where fear of a Hurricane would keep most sane people away. Are there any indicators that magic is dying?

kirblar said:
They actually can do it. They (unfortunately) have decided to honor the "spirit" of the list, so they haven't done versions with other creature types.

I bet Tithe gets a G/W hybrid version some day.
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I'm pretty sure they have said that changing the creature type still makes a card a functional reprint- they have said the same about Arcane (No Ancestral Recal with Arcane) and Tribal (No Farie Instant version of Recall). The only thing I think they have even mentioned was Snow- Aaron Forsythe, when Commander was first announced, made some tweets about "Snow Duals" not being in this product, but that they could one day come. I think we could one day see "Snow-Covered Tundra" in a product at some point- it does have enough functional differences from a regular Tundra, I think
 
WanderingWind said:
Short term fad, thanks to a video game version. The game has had spikes and lulls throughout it's history. Their continuous mishandling of every format that isn't standard will cause a massive leak of players when the INN block rotates out and a ton of their new players realize their cards are now pretty much worthless. I'll get more in depth with why this is going to cause an inevitable crash and how it's tied into eternal formats tomorrow. I am brain fried ATM. Hell of a day.
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Considering INN's popularity and success was followed up with RTR, which has seen an unprecedented demand and return of older players, I don't see a crash coming next year when INN rotates out. Maybe two years now when RTR rotates out. You're also failing to take into account the popularity of non-competitive formats that Wizards is directly tapping into with Commander and to a lesser extent Planechase and Archenemy. These variant formats are the embodiment of kitchen table Magic which previously was a demographic that Wizards never appealed to because they didn't think the demand was there. With them making Commander a yearly product in addition to the summer variant I think they're going to be doing just fine.

Regardless, none of that has anything to do with the reserved list and the only format that I will agree is dead is Vintage. Legacy is healthier than it's ever been. Modern will take a few more years to really be popular. In fact, all those "fad" players you seem to insist on will have a format where they can still use their cards in competitive decks.
 
Hero said:
Considering INN's popularity and success was followed up with RTR, which has seen an unprecedented demand and return of older players, I don't see a crash coming next year when INN rotates out. Maybe two years now when RTR rotates out. You're also failing to take into account the popularity of non-competitive formats that Wizards is directly tapping into with Commander and to a lesser extent Planechase and Archenemy. These variant formats are the embodiment of kitchen table Magic which previously was a demographic that Wizards never appealed to because they didn't think the demand was there. With them making Commander a yearly product in addition to the summer variant I think they're going to be doing just fine.

Regardless, none of that has anything to do with the reserved list and the only format that I will agree is dead is Vintage. Legacy is healthier than it's ever been. Modern will take a few more years to really be popular.
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I expect to see MTG:MM2 become a bi-yearly product, alternating with the "Summer Fun!" multiplayer products. And I also expect/hope that they start including Legacy-legal reprints in the set, making them Modern-Legal with a new booster release. (Absorb, Undermine, Strix, etc, would all be fantastic to have around.)
 
Reserved list is, however, going to slowly kill the legacy formats. The problem isn't what happens when all the cards on the list are gradually lost or destroyed, the problem is what happens when you're almost there and a few dozen people have the powerful staples that dominate the format.
 
Reserved list is good and bad

Cards that arent really powerful and only expensive because they are rare are horrible.

Cards that are expensive because they are good and rare should not be reprinted to not screw over people.

Cards like rasputin are really cool cards, but should not be 16 dollars
 
kirblar said:
I expect to see MTG:MM2 become a bi-yearly product, alternating with the "Summer Fun!" multiplayer products. And I also expect/hope that they start including Legacy-legal reprints in the set, making them Modern-Legal with a new booster release. (Absorb, Undermine, Strix, etc, would all be fantastic to have around.)
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Yeah, if Wizards goes about it well they can definitely dip into Modern Masters every few years. I'm sure alternate art and stuff really helps sell it to a certain demographic.

I too would like to use Baleful Strix in Modern, Affinity sure could use it. Absorb and Undermine would be interesting, though I think MaRo recently said that those cards are too good for Magic today.

The Technomancer said:
Reserved list is, however, going to slowly kill the legacy formats. The problem isn't what happens when all the cards on the list are gradually lost or destroyed, the problem is what happens when you're almost there and a few dozen people have the powerful staples that dominate the format.
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Vintage is dead, there is nothing that can be done about it. I also question how popular of a format it would be, considering most tournaments allow 10-15 proxies to be used for it. Vintage is quite the broken format and more often than not will have the victor determined by who goes first and drew more broken cards in their opening hands. It can be exciting but I'd hardly call it a high level competitive playing field. It's just often not that fun to watch. Legacy is much more acceptable in terms of power and balance and the largest barrier to entry on these is the dual lands.
 
Jarate said:
Reserved list is good and bad

Cards that arent really powerful and only expensive because they are rare are horrible.

Cards that are expensive because they are good and rare should not be reprinted to not screw over people.

Cards like rasputin are really cool cards, but should not be 16 dollars
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Cards that are expensive because they are rare and good are exactly what needs to be reprinted. Those are the format staples, those are the key cards, those are what needs to be easier to acquire. They shouldn't be reprinted to oblivion, a $100 dual land shouldn't become dirt cheap, but what you want is to let the format slowly suffocate. Fuck the reserved list.
 
An-Det said:
Cards that are expensive because they are rare and good are exactly what needs to be reprinted. Those are the format staples, those are the key cards, those are what needs to be easier to acquire. They shouldn't be reprinted to oblivion, a $100 dual land shouldn't become dirt cheap, but what you want is to let the format slowly suffocate. Fuck the reserved list.
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You dont want to fuck over collectors though

Idk, there are a lot of cards I want as a casual player but cant get.

If i played competitive id probably agree with you
 
I too would like to use Baleful Strix in Modern, Affinity sure could use it. Absorb and Undermine would be interesting, though I think MaRo recently said that those cards are too good for Magic today.
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He actually misunderstood the question and answered about the Absorb Mechanic. :-P Apparently it's been very problematic when they've playtested it. (Not a shock, looking at how good Jace 4's +1 is.) He clarified and said Absorb (the card) is just fine. :)

If i played competitive id probably agree with you
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Super hard to acquire casual cards are probably a net positive for the game. The opposite is true for competitive staples.
 
Jarate said:
You dont want to fuck over collectors though

Idk, there are a lot of cards I want as a casual player but cant get.

If i played competitive id probably agree with you
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As someone with an expensive collection and a lot of monetary value to lose from reprints of expensive cards, I'm still in favor of it. Having cards that are harder to get/worth more is important for the CCG aspect of the game, but entire formats pricing themselves out of the game does no one any good.
 
Yeef said:
I'm really interested to see what they do with M14. I'm sure they'll do something special for the 20th anniversary.
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It's going to be the resolution to Nicol Bolas' big plan. I don't know if they'll do it in Sinker, the M14 core set, or the following block, but that's got to be what they're planning.
 
People just need to get over the reserved list and move the hell on.
Ignore legacy, ignore legacy events and the reserved list has no bearing on you.
Modern has a vast pool and is getting a needed boost. Standard gets a thousand plus new cards every year which also go to modern. Why are people so determined to undermine collections and investments that people have put years and great expense gathering?
Magic is stronger than ever.
The first duals game hit during Scars block if I not mistaken, so people already have their first rotation experience, and the numbers do not show people running away and with Wizards renewed focus on modern (for now) rotation no longer means value is gone for all but a few select cards.
The reserved list has no affect on this.
New players do not give a shit about a tundra or an underground sea or a sliver queen or an Ali from Cairo.
The reserved list means nothing and when they watch their first legacy event they will never want to touch it again.
 
kirblar said:
He actually misunderstood the question and answered about the Absorb Mechanic. :-P Apparently it's been very problematic when they've playtested it. (Not a shock, looking at how good Jace 4's +1 is.) He clarified and said Absorb (the card) is just fine. :)


Super hard to acquire casual cards are probably a net positive for the game. The opposite is true for competitive staples.
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Ah, is that so? That makes more sense and I would agree with that then. The mechanic absorb is very problematic though it's one that isn't so immediately apparent. Absorb the card is just a slightly better Cancel with a more restrictive mana cost.

kirblar said:
As a competitive player, it's very hard to ignore Legacy, since it's by far the highest EV tournament of the SCG series.
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Yeah, it's hard to ignore Legacy. At the same time, the immediate barrier to entry (duals + fetches, force, etc) is very high but people don't realize that once you acquire those cards the majority of them can be used in very different decks. I think they definitely need to do a Legacy Masters edition and reprint cards that are able to be reprinted to help bring that barrier down. Allied fetches, Force of Will and Wasteland would do a lot to make Legacy more affordable.
 
The dumb ass reserve list ensures that they won't be reprinting a lot of those cards any time soon.

The price of duals alone is enough to keep me out of legacy.
 
spKnK.jpg
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Decided to do a swiss RTR draft on mtgo tonight. I decided to go 5 color to have some fun after a 4th pick lantern in pack 2 when the gw cards weren't really coming along. Ended up winning the draft, proving that mtgo really is unfair.
 
Hero said:
None of the cards I listed are on the reserved list.
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I'm aware but duals are on the reserved list which is the biggest barrier anyway. Fetches are pretty cheap. I agree it would be better for them to reprint some of those cards but its the super expensive ones that every deck needs that I'd rather they reprint.
 
Right. So let me elucidate.

Magic is at an unprecedented high at the moment. This is factual. What is equally factual is that this is not a permanent high. There will be a drop off moving forward, simply due to the natural ebb and flow of the game. This is baked into the design of Magic, with the conscious decision to increase and decrease power of sets, create small run, limited products and their decision to largely stay out of the retail space, instead handing the reigns of their product over to companies like StarCityGames.

Like any industry that counts on cyclical sales, they need to minimize the amount of players leaving the game, which is why there are eternal formats like Legacy and Modern. Legacy is directly tied into the reserve list. It's also the format most out of WotC control, due to their decision to keep the list and, again, stay out of the retail space directly. StarCityGames runs the legacy format. They've also garnered a huge interest in the format due to their streams - something WotC has done with their streams of modern, as well.

The problem with legacy as a format is twofold - first the initial buy in cost continues to increase. This will 100 percent lead to the death of the format as a whole because there is a decreasing supply of product due to inability or unwillingness to reprint cards that are simply essential to playing the format. Second, it's the format that is least impacted by newer cards. The deck archetypes will see some variance when major bombs hit, but it's not as often as modern. For all intents and purposes, legacy is living on borrowed time. And yet, it's a supremely popular format. The desire to play with the greatest cards ever made is strong and is a common thread between all player archetypes. Simply ignoring that desire of players wanting to enter the format at less than the cost of a car doesn't help grow the game or the format. Obviously, WotC is actively trying to kill the format for that very reason. Hence the creation of modern. They understand players want to continue playing after their cards are no longer standard legal. But is modern the answer?

In short, maybe. It's still a very new format. They're learning as they go along. They're printing cards that clearly have modern in mind (Deathrite Shaman) they're slow to ban cards in the format and they're even attempting new products that are designed specifically for that format (Modern Masters). The problem, is that modern is designed to funnel newer players into an eternal format, but they are actively discouraging that natural progression. Modern Masters was created and is being sold as "not for new players." They're creating an artificial barrier to the format at a time when they should be loosening the reigns on it, letting this hoard of new and returning players into the format. Instead, they're basically being told that modern is not for them. Goyf is still going to be 75-100 bucks, even after the product that isn't for anybody is released, due to mythic rarity and artificially small print run.

So, the format that should be the place for newer players to go after these couple of blocks rotate out is not really a viable option for them, is being turned into Legacy Pt 2. The same issues that are killing legacy will kill modern, if it's not managed better than it is now. So, the natural dip of players will be much, much more severe once they have no real place to go once their decks are worthless and unplayable in modern. They have to do a better job planning for the future of the game and not allow the temporary spike in popularity to go to their head. They need to answer the question "how do we make modern available to these players" instead of continuously fighting the game's own popularity with things like MM. When I said they reserve list is killing the game, I more or less meant the eternal formats. The issue is that eternal formats are very much the backbone of the entire game. You need to allow players a place to go if a block underwhelms, a massively successful block rotates out and players need to still feel validated in their purchases of the same and give the game some variety. Draft and standard are the exciting, sleek cars on the road of MTG, but eternal formats are the asphalt. How they're mismanaging both with the reserve list in legacy and turning modern into legacy because of it is going to lead to major issues in the long run. It's not unfixable and I'm not simply doom and gloom. I love the game, I want it to continue to be successful - that success leads to things like DFC, streams on Twitch, more GP's, more FTV's, etc, etc. I'm worried because they don't seem to understand how to handle major success and if they don't handle it right, it could be disastrous.


tl;dr: Marketing stuff about stuff.
 
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