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Magic: the Gathering |OT13| Ixalan - Port to Sideboard
- Thread starter SigmasonicX
- Start date
SigmasonicX
Member
Standard Retrospective: HOU Edition
* They acknowledge it was an issue that cards would only destroy creatures but not planeswalkers, or only artifacts and not anything else. Versatile answers like Abrade will appear more in the future.
* Melissa brings up the blob problem with strong artifacts appearing in every deck, but Gideon was a nonartifact example of this problem too.
* Standard is in a good place, with a variety of decks, none of which are as mind melting as SOI Standard, yet even the most straightforward decks can have complex play patterns.
* It is an issue that energy decks won't change much as new cards come in.
* They acknowledge it was an issue that cards would only destroy creatures but not planeswalkers, or only artifacts and not anything else. Versatile answers like Abrade will appear more in the future.
* Melissa brings up the blob problem with strong artifacts appearing in every deck, but Gideon was a nonartifact example of this problem too.
* Standard is in a good place, with a variety of decks, none of which are as mind melting as SOI Standard, yet even the most straightforward decks can have complex play patterns.
* It is an issue that energy decks won't change much as new cards come in.
I mean, I doubt it, but I guess anything's possible. Depends on what you want your Jace to do. You want cheap aggro Jace that shits out bears? Pack Jace seems alright to me.
This Jace seems pretty expensive and he can only impact the board by using his (very expensive) ult or untapping your team, which in most cases is just giving your team vigilance. Maybe in a ramp deck with a lot of mana dorks, but we just lost the best stuff to ramp into.
I know a lot of people are down on the new 3cc Jace, but if there are enough cheap hard to block Merfolk I can see him doing work.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Maybe instead of apologetic answers Wizards should print Hero's Downfall
Simply Sarah
Member
He's basically a worse version PW Teferi.
ClayKavalier
Banned
Hey Magic-GAF, I haven't played in years, like over a decade, and I've been curious to check out the current state of the game.
I've been thinking about grabbing a couple of pre-made decks to mess around with, are there any currently available ones I should grab? Default is going to be to just base it off the rare card, just curious if there's any with particularly cool mechanics, that pair well together, or anything else like that.
I've been thinking about grabbing a couple of pre-made decks to mess around with, are there any currently available ones I should grab? Default is going to be to just base it off the rare card, just curious if there's any with particularly cool mechanics, that pair well together, or anything else like that.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
If you just want to casually play I'd suggest the new Commander decks.
I just started playing and am having fun with the Nissa pre-made standard and Vampire EDH deck.
Oh, Modern Masters boosters seem to be out today as they came in the shipment at my local card shop received this morning.
If you are looking at standard MTGGoldfish is a good site to look up the current top lists
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/standard#paper
That said, don't buy into standard right now. We are about 4 weeks from a big set rotation where around 1000 cards are leaving the format so some of the decks will be losing major pieces.
This is an old set. The new one is Iconic Masters and isn't out till November.
Ah, okay.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
Funny told a friend of mine he should go buy Scarab Gods because they were cheap at our LGS. Then went and got 2 for 22. By the time he wanted to buy some they were 15 each.
Exactly that.
They are printing an arguably better card for this environment.
Exile is very relevant with all the gods running around.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
Because they are additional land drops that don't count as land drops, and that's ignoring a ton of synergies. The faster your decks are the less other players can resist and you get to do all the degenerate stuff and the game is over.
So you get to create 2+ mana a turn. Makes sense. Thanks!
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
This isn't better than Hero's Downfall and they managed to not have Hero's Downfall the entire time Gideon Ally of Zendikar was legal.
Because Moxen are both blatantly overpowered and cost 1000 dollars and its dumb to have a 1000 card legal in commander
The last thing they want is for any of the Planeswalker pack cards to become constructed playable and have people start buying them up for standard and leave none of them behind for their intended audience. It's why 99% of them are just straight trash.
She's just a bit more trash.
SigmasonicX
Member
Didn't Flame Lash seeing some constructed play itself cause some issues?
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I really hope Vraska's card is good. Also, I hope the card is named "Captain Vraska" even though it will probably be something Magical like "Vraska, Sea-Lord" or something.
I dunno man, it'll be hard to top her last card.
I almost couldn't type that with a straight face.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I played Vraska the Unseen in Standard in a dominant deck. Really. She was the top end in the green variant of mono-black devotion.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
I'm a fairly negative person myself but you knock it out of the park.
Hero's Downfall is better but this variant gives nonwhite control decks a way to deal with gods and planeswalkers in one card instead of requiring multiple while also being a small life buffer.
Flashing this back with gearhulk will feel great.
Only because she was a reusable Maelstrom Pulse (which, in the grand scheme of planeswalkers isn't all that bad). I'd just like for the new Vraska to at least have two abilities that actually impact the battlefield (and an ult that isn't garbage would be nice as well.
Is it too much to ask for her to be able to tick up and do literally anything?
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
4 mana removal is too expensive as a baseline and not something you can really afford to put a bunch of copies of in your deck when there's literally any aggro deck that's competitive. I mean Grasp kills Hazoret for half the cost.
Santiako said:You'll go back to Boros as soon as you see the RW planeswalker and you know it
Wait there's a...???????
in b4 ashodin going nuts over Boros walker on a dinosaur
also in b4 him salivating about good equipment that won't end up existing
Fffffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuccccccckkkkkkkkkkkk
Me!
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
We don't know what the "real" Boros walker does yet. I imagine since it was unspoiled they'll hold it for quite a while. I think it was shown on the sheet but we couldn't read it, right?
I had forgotten entirely! She was just RW, two cmc.
The pic was too blurry to tell for sure. I can't image her being just 2 mana.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Nah, you could see a symbol next to it it was just too far away to see what that number was. She only appeared to have 3 loyalty so I assume "2" although they've made a lot of pushes towards 3 mana walkers recently.
Would be interesting to see another shot at a 2cc walker, but I'd be afraid she'd end up as another Tibalt. Realistically, how strong can you make a walker that cheap without them being busted?
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
A 2 mana walker that does almost literally anything helpful is probably busted because it costs 2 mana. Which is why Tibalt sucks - because Tibalt is generally unhelpful.
I dunno why they're so stingy on RB walkers - Tibalt works just fine as a RB planeswalker but the only ones they've ever done in standard is Sarkhan from like 7 years ago.
Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. You either make a card that's busted by virtue of it doing anything or you have Tibalt.
The only thing I can think off is adding a risk to what they do (like they did with Tibalt), but just not making it as bad as Tibalt's risk. Like, "flip a coin: do something minor if it's heads". It's not good, but it's better than discarding at random.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Planeswalkers are overpowered to begin with because they have repeatable spell effects and indirectly gain life by forcing your opponent to attack them. I don't think a 2 mana walker makes sense unless it's as bad as Tibalt is.
Only other idea I can come up with is extra costs that aren't mana. But WotC doesn't seem to like putting extra text on PW cards that aren't their activated abilities so I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Not sure what they could be as that ship that was the size of an island was a boring uncommon.
I think they could do a 2-CMC PW that's better than Tibalt. And I think eventually they will try again.
BAH GAWD, BAH GAWD IT'S STONE COLD
BAH GAWD, BAH GAWD IT'S STONE COLD
ClayKavalier
Banned
I've been kind of curious to play Commander, it wasn't a thing the last time I was into Magic, as least not that I knew of. Odyssey/ Torment block was the last time I built a deck. I think I'd rather just start out with a standard-rules deck though.
Appreciate the advice, but I'm not planning on diving back in. I'll buy a couple of premade decks to mess around with this weekend with a friend, doubt I'll touch the game again for a long while. That's why I'm curious whether there's any particularly cool premade decks right now, assuming I'll only be playing with the cards it comes with are there any that have cooler mechanics or themes than others?
This is what I told myself in 2012 when I was becoming curious about the game after a decade-long hiatus. See you at the next GP.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Alternative suggestion: there is a prerelease for Ixalan in about 3 weeks. I'd consider showing up to play Sealed in that event. It's super casual - lots and lots of people play nothing but Prerelease at stores and it's totally legal to get help on deck construction at these events.
They don't really do preconstructed decks other than the Intro Packs anymore. They used to do a bunch of variants on "event decks" which were supposed to be higher power level than the Intro Decks, but they stopped doing those a while ago.
They do still do "Duel Decks" which are usually 2 themed decks designed to be played against each other - I think the last one was Mind vs. Might.
Oh I see. The only premade decks they have right now are the Hour of Devastation Planeswalker Decks. If you stop by a LGS you can probably find some of the older Duel Decks.
If you didnt need them right away Card Kingdom has a bunch of custom made "Battle Decks". I have read some good reviews of them.
http://www.cardkingdom.com/catalog/shop/battle-decks
ClayKavalier
Banned
Haha, I doubt it. It's always tempting, and I do really like the game, but the artificial rarity of essential cards and the element of luck always become frustrating quickly enough to keep me from going overboard.
That's about when I stopped originally, came back in around M12. It's a slippery slope! I had the same intentions and now I have a giant cabinet FILLED with cards. Be careful!
That's also what I told myself late 2015 when I wanted to check the game again after not playing for 11+ years
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
Agreed but grasp can't permanently remove a PW or most of the gods.
The question is whether removing any of those is worth 2.5 cards. I would say so at least to run a couple in the 75.