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Magic: the Gathering |OT13| Ixalan - Port to Sideboard

We both know that one of the strengths of shops is that it completely strands Mental Misstep, that's what disqualifies pithing needle not that shops wouldn't run more than 4 of these types of effects.

I just really don't get why you're bringing it up. I feel like it's like bringing up shocklands in talking about how to build a Vintage manabase. They're never going to be in consideration so it's confusing to mention, that's all.

Pithing Needle is a card that was bad a month ago and is still bad today and isn't actually part of any discussion about playing Spyglass in a deck. Revoker is a card that does (broadly) the same thing that does get played and the topic someone actually building a Shops list today is gonna have to look at is which of those two to run and how many of each. Compared to the card it actually competes with (or complements) it has a downside of not being a creature and not shutting off Moxen, but an upside of giving you a hand peek and shutting off fetchlands.
 

Dragoshi1

Member

Okay, gotcha. I think I understand.




And I inquired about the deck the person used was, and it was built around this card;

Image.ashx

So they were actually hitting for 50+ damage at one point, but not by the Commander itself, through the creatures.

Either way, that was my first experience with Commander.
 

ZealousD

Makes world leading predictions like "The sun will rise tomorrow"
So GAF, I bought a Booster Box (with Buy-A-Box promo pack) and a Bundle.

On a scale of 1 to "Fuck you Asshole", how lucky am I?

Dire Fleet Ravager (Foil Mythic)
Torrential Gearhulk
Vraska, Relic Seeker
Growing Rites of Itlimoc
Regisaur Alpha
Ripjaw Raptor

Star of Extinction
Rowdy Crew
Rishana, Voice of Thunder
Dire Fleet Ravager (not Foil)
Gishath, Sun's Avatar
Bloodcrazed Paladin (Foil)
Gonti, Lord of Luxry (Foil)
 
I counted 39, didn't mention any that seemed less than five dollars each.

a display is 36 boosters, a bundle is 10, buy a box booster has 4 rares or mythics + a specific promo. Foil rares are extra meaning you should have 51+ rares. Might be closer to a 4 depending on just how much those rares add up to.

There's an app called TCG Player for free that scans cards with your phone and gives you a price. Quite handy, you can also export the list from there.
 

Card Boy

Banned
I was disappointed when i opened up a Regisaur Alpha from my booster at FNM but turns out it is a $7 card! Score!

Also this set has quite a few Vampire cards that compliment the Edgar Makarov Commander deck pretty well. Opened up a Vola aswell.
 

11037

Banned
Hey guys, I have a question regarding this card.

Image.ashx


According to the gather you have control over the creatures "indefinitely" but what happens when the creatures die? Do they go to my graveyard or return to their original owner's graveyard?
 

Bandini

Member
Hey guys, I have a question regarding this card.

Image.ashx


According to the gather you have control over the creatures "indefinitely" but what happens when the creatures die? Do they go to my graveyard or return to their original owner's graveyard?

Owner's GY.
 

Ashodin

Member
I went 3-1 on a sick UB Pirates deck. Had almost everything you could want.

I opened lots of good stuff. I'll post what later.
 

Ondor

Banned
Thanks to this community for getting me into Magic and helping me through all the basics so I know what I'm doing. This was a blast!
 

Firemind

Member
I really don't know if you're joking or not. I hope you are.
Let's delve into the stats.

PVDDR has 12 PT top 8s and 19 GP top 8s. All of his PT top 8s are either constructed or mixed. Seven of those GP top 8s are limited, two being team limited.

Jon Finkel has less GP top 8s (he isn't known as a GP grinder). He only has 10 GP top 8s; 5 of those are limited. Of his PT top 8s though, 8 (!) of his 16 PT top 8s are limited. Yes, there were times when PTs were exclusively limited. It's not that long ago either, since Jon won PT Kuala Lumpur in 2008 which was just Lorwyn draft. And he was semi-retired! PVDRR for example finished 326th in Kuala Lumpur. His other limited PT finishes are: 55, 30, 42, 66, 91 which isn't bad honestly but not all-time great. If you compare it to Jon, Jon has three more limited PT top 16s.

Let's look at another player Paulo considers 6-9. Yuuya Watanabe only has 4 PT top 8s but has a whopping 26 GP top 8s; 16 (!) of those are limited, two being team limited. Discounting those two, it's still more than half individual limited GP top 8s! With seven GP wins, which is tied with Kai and Shuhei!

Now this is subjective of course, but I consider limited to be as much part of the game as constructed. Unfortunately, modern pro tours skew towards constructed, with only 6 draft rounds and top 8 being constructed. Which is weird? When any player wants to build a competitive constructed deck, he/she would likely either trade or buy from the secondary market, which doesn't really benefit Wizards. Sure, third parties open a lot of product to sell singles, but I assume it's only a fraction of product sold worldwide. Therefore it makes sense to promote limited as much as constructed. Personally, I know people who don't attend prereleases and FNM anymore but will buy boxes to draft with friends. I don't blame them. Limited is more casual friendly for kitchen table than constructed, which can be toxic at times. Even EDH isn't very friendly towards newer players considering all the mechanics.

Anyway, PVDDR is a better constructed player than a limited player. I remember he admitted it himself. I guess he improved since he went 6-0 at PT HoD. If you want to be called one of the all-time greats, you have to be a master at both in my opinion. It's going to be tough to surpass Jon and Kai, but I guess PVDDR could cement himself as the third best player of all time. Needs to work more on his limited though. :p
 
Just out of curiosity... do other people find the lack of consistency on that matter to be something of a flaw of the design of the game, or no?

it is, especially in limited where you can't easily choose your own consistency level

in constructed you at least have some options (like trading speed/power for increased consistency or increased late-game utility)

i feel mtg is at its best when it takes steps to address this problem.

the new mulligan rule is awesome.

cycling from the previous block was great, especially on lands

explore from this new set kind of helps, but it doesn't really fix the situations where you can't even cast your explore cards

there are some hand or library filtering effects. these would normally help fix this, but wizards tends to make them really weak (because some decks specifically use them to get stuff into the graveyard ahead of schedule)

Actually, are there any actually functional (aka not super easy to break) alternate rulesets that people have come up with to make the whole "land-screwed" "non-land-screwed" thing less of an issue?

there has been some work on computer games to address this. unfortunately, those techniques don't translate to cardboard play

the basic idea is that your draws resemble something like a bell curve. most of the time (the middle of the curve) the game actually functions as envisioned by the designers. the extreme edge cases (both ends of the curve) are the undesirable outcomes. a computer can detect where the top slices of your deck sit on the probability curve (in terms of land/nonland ratio). and then it can just automatically reshuffle your deck until it is something reasonable.

it's kind of like letting you sample the 2 or 3 most interesting games from a best-of-5 or best-of-7 without having to actually go beyond the best-of-3 format
 

PsionBolt

Member
Just out of curiosity... do other people find the lack of consistency on that matter to be something of a flaw of the design of the game, or no?

Mana is one of Magic's best design choices, I'd say. It's central to the game's flow, and it allows for interesting and varied decision-making. That comes up first and foremost in deckbuilding, but it also creates space for things like tempo choices (land order, taplands/fetchlands, rituals, land destruction), ramp (dorks, rocks, rampant growths), and other interaction (retrace, molten vortex, spell lands/utility lands, etc.).

The one thing I did think, though... is what about something like make a seperate land deck that you could tinker as you will, and you always get a single, seperate, additional draw from that each turn? From there, I'd assume you'd end up decreasing your normal deck size, and probably tweak starting hand size or something, and you'd in turn have a quicker paced game, probably.
[...]
Actually, are there any actually functional (aka not super easy to break) alternate rulesets that people have come up with to make the whole "land-screwed" "non-land-screwed" thing less of an issue?

This solution has been tried at least twice, and I'm sure there are other similar implementations I'm forgetting.

There's the Magic variant format "Hermit Druid", named after the Tempest card. It's normal Magic with the addition that each upkeep, you get a free Hermit Druid activation: you find the topmost basic land card in your library and put it into play. (For balance reasons, I believe it's most often played with a shuffle afterwards rather than putting the nonland revealed cards into your yard like Hermit Druid should do.)
It's a fun variant, but it quickly becomes apparent how it warps the game; draw power is even stronger than usual, and interactive spells can pretty much never keep up with creatures, whether that's because they're too big or too wide. However, compared to the next option, it does have the advantage of the land cards still being in your deck, which allows some of normal Magic's decision-making to leak into this format.

Secondly, there's the TCG "Force of Will". It's more or less anime Magic, with a few differences. You build a 40-card main deck with no lands, and a 10-20 card deck that may only contain lands. You never draw from the land deck; instead, you start the game with a "Ruler" card in play (sort of like a Magic vanguard), and every Ruler has the ability to tap to put the top card of your land deck into play. Because your ruler has other abilities and can even flip to become a creature, each game eventually reaches a point where, depending on your curve, it becomes better to stop playing lands and start using your ruler in other ways.
Because there's very little randomness to your resource development (only the order your land deck ends up shuffled in), each game has much less variance, and things feel a bit more solitaire-like. As you expected, the starting hand size is reduced to compensate, but it inevitably leads to a faster-paced game in which control strategies are less viable. Still, the minor deckbuilding element of colour balance in your main and land decks is worth something, and the fact that land drops come at a tradeoff makes it more interesting than Hearthstone or similar guaranteed-development systems.

I love TCGs and go out of my way to try as many different games as possible. In each and every case, the resource system ends up being one of the factors that most strongly influences the game's staying power, its ability to remain fun for many matches. I personally have yet to find something that tops Magic, but that doesn't stop me from being interested in trying!
 

Repgnar

Member
Leaving for Tokyo tomorrow. Any recommendations on things to pick up or places to go? We're planning on picking up a Japanese fat pack and maybe a few singles. Gonna hit up some of the card stores in Akihabara and if we have time the MTG bar/shop in Shibuya and the Hareruya store.
 

An-Det

Member
Just finished deck construction for gp providence, a few minutes left until round 1. I'll post a picture later, but I've got a fun dinosaur deck.
 

Santiako

Member
UG Merfolk is fun. No Cocos but lots of confused faces.

Merfolk Branchwalker is the nuts. It's either a Silvergill Adept or a 3/2 Fish for 2 with Scry 1 attached.

Yeah, I think the correct way to do a green splash is just put 4 Branchwalkers and some artifact/enchantment removal in the sideboard. Branchwalker is really really good.
 
Yeah, I think the correct way to do a green splash is just put 4 Branchwalkers and some artifact/enchantment removal in the sideboard. Branchwalker is really really good.
Kumena's Speaker is pretty good as well, makes the deck way more aggro. 4 Natural State in the side.
Really excited for Rivals now, especially the commons and uncommons.
 

Santiako

Member
Let's delve into the stats.

I was talking about you dismissing him for playing monored in a PT that he won. Thanks for the stats though.

Kumena's Speaker is pretty good as well, makes the deck way more aggro. 4 Natural State in the side.
Really excited for Rivals now, especially the commons and uncommons.

Oh yeah I forgot about him. How many green sources are you running? 4 UG Fastland, 1-2 Breeding Pool and 2-3 U Fetches?
 

DrArchon

Member
Copied Ribbons is nice, though. Plus the tech of saving the last instant to transform Primal Amulet for a response to Abrade.

Copied ribbons is great (as shown by him hitting for 16 with it), I just think Primal Amulet is still a little expensive and it seems like every deck with Red in it runs a couple of Abrades. Flipping right before Abrade lands is a great trick, but that requires you to already have 3 counters on it before they Abrade it (or more than one instant to play).

I don't know. Maybe the deck runs enough counter spells to deal with the Abrades, but I do worry about really fast decks like Mono-Red.
 
Copied ribbons is great (as shown by him hitting for 16 with it), I just think Primal Amulet is still a little expensive and it seems like every deck with Red in it runs a couple of Abrades. Flipping right before Abrade lands is a great trick, but that requires you to already have 3 counters on it before they Abrade it (or more than one instant to play).

I don't know. Maybe the deck runs enough counter spells to deal with the Abrades, but I do worry about really fast decks like Mono-Red.

Oh believe me, I have no illusion about it lasting, but it's neat for now.
 
Oh yeah I forgot about him. How many green sources are you running? 4 UG Fastland, 1-2 Breeding Pool and 2-3 U Fetches?
I copied the list from r/fishmtg it's 2 Breeding Pools, 6 Fetches and 3 Botanical Sanctum

I only have each fetch once and in comments merfolk joe recommended adding a land so I went with 4 Fetches, 4 Botanical Sanctums a Cavern of Souls and a Gemstone Caverns.
 

y2dvd

Member
Went 2-2 last night with UW Approach losing to two aggro decks.

A few notes:
*Super impressed with Search for Azcanta. Scrying every upkeep is sweet and the flipped ability helps dig into Approach all the more faster.
*Super unimpressed by Gideon of the Trials. The fast decks simply went too wide for it. It's probably going into the sb if anything.
*Slash of Talons was a mixed bag. It hits almost all of Ramunap Red but boros tended to be 3/1s, dodging Talons. I was testing with only 2 Aether Meltdowns but 4 seems right.
*A hard counter like Disallow seems necessary. When it got to late game, Supreme Will just couldn't counter any threats, especially if they got a bunch of lands from my Settle the Wreckage.
*Field of Ruin was a mistake. With so much scrying, the last thing I wanted to do was pop this and reset all those cards I tucked to the bottom.
*Sunscrouge Champion may be too slow for aggro from the sb. Authority of Councils is probably the better call.

It feels like all the matches I lost were winnable.
 

Santiako

Member
Me too had to borrow one from a friend. I would go up with the land count though 3 Islands is 1 or 2 too few in a format with Path and Ghost Quarter.

I'd probably do 4 Sanctums, 4 Mutavault, 2 Breeding Pool, 4 Fetchlands, 4 Island, Oboro, Minamo.

Not a fan of cavern since it doesn't cast the sideboard cards, maybe cut oboro/minamo for another island and another fetch.
 

Justin

Member
Lol we are taking a possible marionette master kill on the SCG steam right now

Edit: could've had the marionette kill but misplayed by eternalizing it on endsep allowing the approach player to disallow it instead on doing it in his opponents turn making him tap mana he needed to cast the second approach.
 
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