• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Magic: the Gathering |OT12| Hour of Devastation - Hour of Jace getting dunked on

Status
Not open for further replies.

Yeef

Member
I much prefer Conspiracy to an un-set, but on the other side, I don't play EDH. The way some people are complaining about Unstable would be like if I complained that the yearly Commander decks shouldn't exist, because it's not for me. Beyond reading the spoiler, I don't really have too much interest in Unstable. Who knows, there may even be a few solid, cube-friendly cards like Booster Tutor.

That said, I'll probably draft Unstable once or twice, since I know enough people looking to try it out.
 

red13th

Member
I doubt people who don't play Magic would even care about Unstable, the jokes are usually for people who know the game, they aren't funny and everything related to Unsets is trash.
 

traveler

Not Wario
The one redeeming aspect of Unsets was the lands, which are now far more commenplace. They need to really step up their frame game and cash out for Terese Nielsen or Rebecca Guay if they want this round of unlands to stand out now that we get full art lands more frequently. (A good thing, on the whole; this is only an issue because of how little unsets matter to a collection after a draft)

I would play cube with my husband but he would complain there's not enough Jaces even though there are three, or that I don't play Telepathy, Cowardice or Tibor and Lumia (his favourite cards) so I don't. :(

Charisma.jpg
 

red13th

Member
I would play cube with my husband but he would complain there's not enough Jaces even though there are three, or that I don't play Telepathy, Cowardice or Tibor and Lumia (his favourite cards) so I don't. :(
 

Santiako

Member
We know John Avon did a cycle of lands that he said would make quite a splash. I assume those are in Unstable. He did an amazing job with the Unhinged ones, so I can't wait to see the new ones.
 

Yeef

Member
I don't know that it's been mentioned, but Unstable is only 24-packs per box like the recent Masters sets. According to Rosewater, it's also designed to be a solid draft environment, but he's probably the most biased person there is on that issue.
 

red13th

Member
I don't know that it's been mentioned, but Unstable is only 24-packs per box like the recent Masters sets. According to Rosewater, it's also designed to be a solid draft environment, but he's probably the most biased person there is on that issue.

lol sure
 
The Un-sets made more sense before you could just go to a subreddit to see funny in-jokes people mocked up as cards.

There's honestly no reason for them to exist if they're going to be similar to the previous offerings, so this one better be something remarkably new and different, or random internet user with his Gideon, Ally of Gideons mock-up is going to eat its lunch.
 

Repgnar

Member
Wife and I bought a mix of Kaladesh/Aether Revolt boosters for a box price and plan on just doing sealed constructed with just us two up until Hour of Destruction. Since we only really have Amonkhet cards it lets us build the collection and I can help her with constructed prior to pre-release. Of the 12 packs we've opened so far we got the staff master piece, Ajani planeswalker, G/B land, and Metallic mimic. LGS was super cool and threw in two showdown boosters as well and opened up Chandra Flamecaller. Today was a good day.

Also thoroughly enjoying the GP this weekend. Dunno why but watching these decks is much more enjoyable to me than Modern/Standard streams.
 
I've seen many people say that drafts of the first two Un-sets were fun, though I've never played any myself.

I made a cube full of silver bordered cards that had ante as a major theme, and let you add cards to your deck (that you won from ante) between rounds. I also tried as hard as I could to make a coinflip deck a viable strategy.

I even errata'd a ton of cards but went to the length of keeping the original text visible, because R&D's Secret Lair is also in the cube.

I only got to play it a few times and it was rough around the edges, but I think with some more work, it would be a lot of fun. I might revisit it when Unstable comes out
 
It's funny. The un-sets seem to be super-polarizing. People either love them or hate them and think they shouldn't exist. I don't get it.

If I'm being generous, some people are still resentful about the situation in 2004 where there wasn't anything outside regular expansions for anyone else so Unhinged meaningfully took up a time and a product slot that was otherwise valuable.

Less generously, Magic is full of people who are embarrassed of playing a children's card game and so feel like it's very important it be Very Serious so everyone can see what a mature activity it is.

Who knows, there may even be a few solid, cube-friendly cards like Booster Tutor.

One of the things about this one is that they actually designed and developed it for the things people actually do when playing Magic in 2017 so I would be pretty surprised if there weren't a cube-ready card like this.

The one redeeming aspect of Unsets was the lands, which are now far more commenplace. They need to really step up their frame game and cash out for Terese Nielsen or Rebecca Guay if they want this round of unlands to stand out now that we get full art lands more frequently.

Called shot time: since we've seen they can do it with the Invocations, they'll do borderless full-art lands:


I don't know that it's been mentioned, but Unstable is only 24-packs per box like the recent Masters sets. According to Rosewater, it's also designed to be a solid draft environment, but he's probably the most biased person there is on that issue.

It's like ten times easier to make an Un-set draft well than make it useful anywhere else, lol.
 

Ashodin

Member
The Un-sets made more sense before you could just go to a subreddit to see funny in-jokes people mocked up as cards.

There's honestly no reason for them to exist if they're going to be similar to the previous offerings, so this one better be something remarkably new and different, or random internet user with his Gideon, Ally of Gideons mock-up is going to eat its lunch.

I'm sure there will be cards that make you go

black-wrestler-gif-smiling.gif


or

giphy.webp
 

Zocano

Member
Speaking of weird cards in cube sets, what do you guys think of putting some of the conspiracy "draft" cards into a cube? My friends and I did it with our proxy cube but that's 450 currently. The 360 cube I'm constructing probably doesn't have the space.
 

red13th

Member
Speaking of weird cards in cube sets, what do you guys think of putting some of the conspiracy "draft" cards into a cube? My friends and I did it with our proxy cube but that's 450 currently. The 360 cube I'm constructing probably doesn't have the space.

Some are arguably more powerful than Power 9 and a few like Hymn completely warp drafts. I wouldn't add them.
 
You know one extremely simple and instantly eye-catching gimmick that's never been done with basic lands?

Bird's eye view. Directly overhead.
 
Speaking of weird cards in cube sets, what do you guys think of putting some of the conspiracy "draft" cards into a cube? My friends and I did it with our proxy cube but that's 450 currently. The 360 cube I'm constructing probably doesn't have the space.

The actual conspiracies can be fun, just be aware that many of them are extremely good. Because they don't require deck space and many don't even commit you to a color, they're very easy early picks with powerful effects, so you'll be seeing a lot of them.

The artifacts from the first set and creatures from the second have a bit more play to them since they require effort to get benefits from. Something like Arcane Savant can be pretty interesting without throwing everything off around it.

You know one extremely simple and instantly eye-catching gimmick that's never been done with basic lands?

Bird's eye view. Directly overhead.

 

Card Boy

Banned
I need to give a shout out to TCG Player as a international buyer. Site was cheap as fuck to buy from and some of the LP cards i got looked almost NM. Certainly beats the prices from Card Kingdom and Troll and Toad for me. Good thing about the site is you can 'optimize' your cart to find the cheapest sellers and cards and so it comes in one package. Some of the commons from the recent set cost me like 2 cents each, which beats the 0.50 AUD my LGS is charging.

Yeah i wish was been paid by them.
 

Supast4r

Junior Member
Some people think they're funny and some people would rather just have cards you can actually play with.
I don't get the hype of the unset. You are buying cards that aren't playable in any format. Can you even draft with unset? Probably not. To each their own.
 

red13th

Member

lol Brazilian translators put Nimble Obstructionist's "when you cycle" ability as flavour text.
I don't know about other translations but Portuguese cards seem to have a mistake like that every set, it's so bad.
 

Maledict

Member
As much as I personally dislike upsets, and find the humor annoying and the entire thing a waste of time, they have been and are useful tools for design. Quite a few interesting abilities and cards have come out of the previous unsets, and I think sometimes the designers need the space to be able to think completely outside of the box. If that means an unset every decade it's probably a good trade off considering the help it gives design.
 

hermit7

Member
What's the best control deck in Legacy now that Miracles is gone? Is there even a Tier 1 control deck in Legacy now?

Topless is quite good.

Things like predict and portent. Deck is still really quite good considering the entire engine of top//counterbalance is gone.

Also brainstorm is a hell of a card still and 1 mana wraths are apparently good.
 

Supast4r

Junior Member
What's the best control deck in Legacy now that Miracles is gone? Is there even a Tier 1 control deck in Legacy now?
Leovold control (4 color) and UW miracles are tier 1 decks. Miracles is still really good. The best deck in legacy is grixis delver.
 
Topless is quite good.

Things like predict and portent. Deck is still really quite good considering the entire engine of top//counterbalance is gone.

Also brainstorm is a hell of a card still and 1 mana wraths are apparently good.

Speaking of Portent I picked up a small stack of them out of the 10 cent box at my LGS.

I sold off Counterbalance and Top nearly a year ago anticipating a ban.
 
It's weird that they're using a promo from a previous year here, and also that there's still one from last year (the Grindstone) that hasn't come out.

okay, I know some people that would kill for this

Exactly! Best way I can think of to make something new that's more special than full-art lands.

I don't get the hype of the unset. You are buying cards that aren't playable in any format. Can you even draft with unset? Probably not. To each their own.

You can draft them just fine, sure. Unstable will probably have a decent draft environment for what it is.

If you play casual formats (like, for example, Commander in many groups) there's a few different categories of effects that people would play with: game rule-breakers like ______ or the Double cycle, stuff that was wacky in a gameplay way but still basically works like a normal card like Blast From The Past or Giant Fan, and stuff that just keys off things you can't in regular games like the artist-matters cards or Rare-B-Gone. Similarly, there's probably 5-10 silver-bordered cards that are plausible cube inclusions.

New Judge Exemplar promos, Gaddock Teeg with great new art and the phyrexian text Elesh Norn:

This is gonna tank the value on those Elesh Norns, I hope people who wanted to move theirs have sold out at this point.

I hope they reprint Teeg in one of the upcoming masters/commander sets with that art.

Typical window on Judge promos is 2-4 years before they consider it okay to reprint the card with the same art, so keep your eyes out on Commander 2020.
 

Repgnar

Member
Don't know if this has been asked here before but what is your guys' opinions on Draft/Sealed at a GP level? As a viewer I find it really entertaining to watch the decks that get built and whenever the streams get a chance to follow a player's decisions throughout a draft. On the other hand I can see how some people may feel jaded when their pool/draft leaves them with sub-par choices and then you face someone with bomb after bomb and then they're not going on to day 2.

Really enjoying the stream and casters this weekend though.
 

Firemind

Member
Don't know if this has been asked here before but what is your guys' opinions on Draft/Sealed at a GP level? As a viewer I find it really entertaining to watch the decks that get built and whenever the streams get a chance to follow a player's decisions throughout a draft. On the other hand I can see how some people may feel jaded when their pool/draft leaves them with sub-par choices and then you face someone with bomb after bomb and then they're not going on to day 2.

Really enjoying the stream and casters this weekend though.
Sealed sucks at a GP. Going 7-2 is a tall order with an average pool. They should bring back Two-Headed Sealed.
 
Having watched a bit of Seatstory cup from Hearthstone over the last couple days, Magic really has nothing like it. A well produced unofficial invitational tournament with a familial and laid back feeling and tons of messing around.

In terms of competition WotC and the magic community feels like it's still in its infancy or already in senility.
 

Murder

Member
I'm torn. I so want the lands in Unstable to be those full text no art lands but I also kind of want a new full-art style. I'm not a huge fan of those no-boarder kind that someone posted earlier, but I wouldn't be pissed at them.

tumblr_inline_olqi1aRReb1roawb9_400.jpg
tumblr_inline_olr205hPv51roawb9_400.jpg
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom