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[charlequin]

This was an issue across the entire block, Walking Ballista being the most egregious example.

It's always funny to me when there's one of these major design lessons that I know they've learned before because they've talked about it, usually at length, but something about the current case makes them think that it doesn't count" the same way.

That said, Ballista is actually an interesting design for other formats so I'm more inclined to give it a pass.

Edit: on second thought this would kill paper sales for core sets

Would it?

I wonder if Scryfall will ever add non-English cards, I needed to look up a card in Portuguese and had to use magiccards.info and it feels so bad
Plus it's bugged right now like this Qasali Pridemage from C17.

It's on the roadmap, but importing the non-English text from Gatherer is a huge pain in the buttewski.

 

[Ashodin]

bro

BRO

This explore deck

holy fuck

for the next page

 

[Justin]

Wait? If you have the boat and Panharmonicon out you would get 4 counters for every explore creature played???

We aren't going to need a bigger boat.

 

[Angry Grimace]

I'm looking to put together a semi-casual Standard U/G Merfolk deck, and I was wondering if anyone had any pre-Ixalan recommendations for the list.

Right now I'm looking at Value Merfolk (Jade Guardian, Wayfinder, etc.) with Deeproot Waters, with the intent being to flip Growing Rites and use it to either make big beaters via Waker of the Wilds, Shapers of Nature, or big X U/G Nissa, or maybe to drop the 7 CMC U/G Legendary Merfolk or just some green stompy like Gearhulk.

Not really looking for something fully competitive, just to have a Standard deck I can mess around with when a few of our newer players (who are mostly running lightly modified prerelease/draft decks) need an opponent.

There's a UG list I was playing that won sometimes. It was basically 4 of every good Merfolk, 4 Shaper's Sanctuary and 4 Verdurous Gearhulk. Secret Stream made it so no one can block and sometimes I just valued people to death with the "can't be blocked" 2 drop guy lol

 

[ThLunarian]

bro

BRO

This explore deck

holy fuck

There are only 8 total cards with Explore in the deck. You might draw like 2 of them per game on average. The Shadowed Caravel is probably going to be terrible, every time you draw it. I don't see the point of this deck.

If you're building an Explore deck, you go full-bore. This looks like it took an existing deck and shoehorned some Caravels and two Explore creatures and called it a day

 

[Angry Grimace]

I still think Shaper's Sanctuary is a better card than LSV suggested. I should grab some for Dinos.

I mean, it's not ultra great against aggro, but every other deck in Standard always plays a lot of spot removal.

 

[Ashodin]

Bro it's amazing and fun just trust me

The best decks don't go full explore because a lot of the cards are terrible

 

[DrArchon]

There are only 8 total cards with Explore in the deck. You might draw like 2 of them per game on average. The Shadowed Caravel is probably going to be terrible, every time you draw it. I don't see the point of this deck.

If you're building an Explore deck, you go full-bore. This looks like it took an existing deck and shoehorned some Caravels and two Explore creatures and called it a day

This. Needs way more explore. For God's sake, there's no Deadeye Tracker!

And if you're making a purposefully janky explore deck, at least add the Chupacabra!

 

[vid]

My best guess: PAX West is 1-2 weeks after GenCon, and in their backyard.

They also had Hascon 2ish weeks after PAX West

For what it's worth, Wizards was a non-entity at PAX West this year, it seems like Hascon completely absorbed their presence. Hoping to see a strong presence at PAX Unplugged, especially since Day 1 of the event coincides with the release of Iconic Masters.

 

[OnPoint]

For what it's worth, Wizards was a non-entity at PAX West this year, it seems like Hascon completely absorbed their presence. Hoping to see a strong presence at PAX Unplugged, especially since Day 1 of the event coincides with the release of Iconic Masters.

That's such a letdown because the Kaladesh stuff at PAX two years ago was great.

 

[Imperfected]

From what I've been told by Wizards employees they wanted to be at PAX but the Hasbro mothership denied. They'll presumably be back at normal trade shows as time permits.

 

[kirblar]

It will be for the best if Hascon ends up being a money-loser and a one-time thing.

 

[charlequin]

SaffronOlive writing about Hearthstone is like one of those late-night infomercial Thanks Obama gifs.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

SaffronOlive writing about Hearthstone is like one of those late-night infomercial Thanks Obama gifs.

He mentioned some numbers in a recent podcast that sounded way off base wrt the costs of HS and even if his numbers are correct it does not take into account that Blizzard is often giving cards away to a much higher degree than wotc with FNM and other promos.

Like if he's correct and any legendary is $16 then Blizzard gave everyone 16 dollar with the relaese of Frozen Throne.

 

[bigkrev]

🤔
https://twitter.com/mtgaaron/status/915277244758507520

Aaron Forsythe
Is there a card database out there than can isolate "cards that debuted in M15"?

 

[charlequin]

He mentioned some numbers in a recent podcast that sounded way off base wrt the costs of HS and even if his numbers are correct it does not take into account that Blizzard is often giving cards away to a much higher degree than wotc with FNM and other promos.

He asked a very different question a while back (basically, what does it take to go from scratch to any one tier deck you want) and went with the worst-case math from that (i.e. buy packs, dust everything, buy the deck) to come to his conclusions here. A normal person who actually plays HS (instead of trying to find worst-case scenarios) is gonna get a much better rate out of their packs than that.

https://twitter.com/mtgaaron/status/915277244758507520

like all the responses are scryfall, lol

Aaron has always been kind of a gives-no-fucks type but he is like in extra no-fucksville lately.

 

[Jhriad]

For what it's worth, Wizards was a non-entity at PAX West this year, it seems like Hascon completely absorbed their presence. Hoping to see a strong presence at PAX Unplugged, especially since Day 1 of the event coincides with the release of Iconic Masters.

I've been secretly hoping they would do something at PAX South this year since it falls on the Rivals of Ixalan prerelease weekend. Of course, given how poor their support of the Magic events at PAX South has been outside of the first year I'm going in with low expectations. Last year they didn't even bother putting those welcome decks into the goodie bags like they had in previous years.

 

[bigkrev]

like all the responses are scryfall, lol

Aaron has always been kind of a gives-no-fucks type but he is like in extra no-fucksville lately.

It's really strange that Wizards never acknowlodges Frontier, then announces a new platform that theoretically provides a replacement to Frontier (MTG Arena starting with Kaladesh as the oldest set), and then asks a very Frontier- specific question

 

[Santiako]

It's really strange that Wizards never acknowlodges Frontier, then announces a new platform that theoretically provides a replacement to Frontier (MTG Arena starting with Kaladesh as the oldest set), and then asks a very Frontier- specific question

By the way he phrased it I'm guessing it's probably for an article.

 

[charlequin]

It's really strange that Wizards never acknowlodges Frontier, then announces a new platform that theoretically provides a replacement to Frontier (MTG Arena starting with Kaladesh as the oldest set), and then asks a very Frontier- specific question

They don't acknowledge Frontier because if they do something like it it'll be whatever the Arena format is (just like they didn't acknowledge "Overextended" before Modern was introduced) and I'm like 97% sure he's looking that particular thing up as part of something comparing whatever the Core 2019 model looks like to the last "traditional" core set.

 

[Hero]

🤔
https://twitter.com/mtgaaron/status/915277244758507520

I dunno, Aaron, why doesn't Wizards have one that can do that for you?

 

[Justin]

Hostage Taker still climbing. Up to $19 passing Hazoret to make it the 6th most expensive card in standard.

Chandra
Scarab God
Carnage Tyrant
Gideon
Torrential Gearhulk
Hostage Taker
Hazoret
Walking Balista

 

[charlequin]

I dunno, Aaron, why doesn't Wizards have one that can do that for you?

The really astonishing thing isn't that the public card database they provide can't hack this (it's kind of embarrassing, but also hardly the first company with this type of problem), it's that the internal card database they use also can't do this.

 

[Card Boy]

I can't belive how much Metallic Mimic has spiked. I got one from a booster and bought the rest at 3.50 each. Yesterday they spiked up to 20 a piece. Now they dropped down to 14 average a piece.

Also Gifted Aetherborn has tripled in price since Ixalan. It's one of the ways to get rid of Carnage Tyrant i guess outside a board wipe.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Also Gifted Aetherborn has tripled in price since Ixalan. It's one of the ways to get rid of Carnage Tyrant i guess outside a board wipe.

Why is that still a concern for people?

 

[shrapnelmagnet]

I can't belive how much Metallic Mimic has spiked. I got one from a booster and bought the rest at 3.50 each. Yesterday they spiked up to 20 a piece. Now they dropped down to 14 average a piece.

Also Gifted Aetherborn has tripled in price since Ixalan. It's one of the ways to get rid of Carnage Tyrant i guess outside a board wipe.

I had been hoping Mimic would slowly fall from that $6 range and get down to $2 near rotation so I could pick some up. Alas.

 

[Farside]

Got another question: Crew turns an artifact into an artifact creature, which means it can attack and block, right? So the power/toughness, on say Fell Flagship, has no effect otherwise? Also, what effect does tapping more creatures have on the mechanic?

 

[blindrocket]

🤔
https://twitter.com/mtgaaron/status/915277244758507520

Hmmmmmmm. Interesting. charlequin and Santiako are probably right. We don't need our tin foil hats on yet. It's probably for an article.

 

[SigmasonicX]

Got another question: Crew turns an artifact into an artifact creature, which means it can attack and block, right? So the power/toughness, on say Fell Flagship, has no effect otherwise? Also, what effect does tapping more creatures have on the mechanic?

The power and toughness of a vehicle doesn't matter as long as it isn't a creature, right. Crew looks at the total power of the creatures you tap, so to pay for crew 3, you can tap a 3 power creature, or a 2 power and 1 power creature, or three 1 power creatures.

 

[Yeef]

Got another question: Crew turns an artifact into an artifact creature, which means it can attack and block, right? So the power/toughness, on say Fell Flagship, has no effect otherwise? Also, what effect does tapping more creatures have on the mechanic?

The power and toughness of non-crewed vehicles generally doesn't matter, but it is a property of vehicles that can be keyed off of, so in theory, they could print something like like an Essence Backlash for vehicles and it would work fine.

As for overtapping to crew, the benefit would primarily be for things that give a bonus for crewing, like Veteran Motorist (you can tap 2 of them to give the vehicle +2/+2) or things that care about tapping and/or untapping, like Vampire Envoy, Gilder Bairn or Disciple of Deceit.

 

[Royal_Flush]

Got another question: Crew turns an artifact into an artifact creature, which means it can attack and block, right? So the power/toughness, on say Fell Flagship, has no effect otherwise? Also, what effect does tapping more creatures have on the mechanic?

Correct. As long a vehicle is not a creature, the P/T is meaningless. One it is crewed, it behaves like any other creature.

You can tap any number of creatures with combined power X or greater to crew a vehicle with crew X. The vehicle doesn't care how many creatures you used to crew it. Tapping the creatures is a cost, so your opponent can not destroy one of the creatures you tap in response and say "oops, you don't have enough power to crew anymore".

Note that you also can crew a vehicle that already is a creature, but this has no effect other than that more of your creatures are tapped. However, you can not simply sit a 1/x into an already crewed vehicle with Crew 2 or greater, because each "crewing process" needs the necessary amount of power.

 

[ZealousD]

He mentioned some numbers in a recent podcast that sounded way off base wrt the costs of HS and even if his numbers are correct it does not take into account that Blizzard is often giving cards away to a much higher degree than wotc with FNM and other promos.

Like if he's correct and any legendary is $16 then Blizzard gave everyone 16 dollar with the relaese of Frozen Throne.

A legendary costs $16 worth of arcane dust. But that doesn't mean you have to spend $160 to get 10 legendaries.

If you want the full suite of playable cards for each expansion (ie you can play every net deck) without dusting cards rotated out of standard, you are looking at spending around $80 per expansion imo. That's 3 times per year. Hearthstone is substantially cheaper than paper Magic.

 

[charlequin]

If you want the full suite of playable cards for each expansion (ie you can play every net deck) without dusting cards rotated out of standard, you are looking at spending around $80 per expansion imo. That's 3 times per year. Hearthstone is substantially cheaper than paper Magic.

"Every" is maybe generous now that there's double the number of Legendary cards per expansion, but I've been a preorder-and-F2P-only player for quite some time and I always have a few Tier 1 or 2 decks to choose from.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

"Every" is maybe generous now that there's double the number of Legendary cards per expansion, but I've been a preorder-and-F2P-only player for quite some time and I always have a few Tier 1 or 2 decks to choose from.

I asked this in the HS thread and it turns out there isn't a single class legendary minion that's actually seeing play from KotFT

I've been almost entirely f2p, only ever buying an adventure with an amazon coin promotion for €5, the welcome bundle for €5, 1 aren run for €1,30 and preordering KotFT (which I canceled and got refunded but got to keep for some reason) and I still have access to every tier 1 and tier 2 deck right now and that's w/o butchering my collection.

That's less than I paid for 2 Gearhulks for my standard deck.

 

[Ashodin]

This is what I'll be sleeving up after I get all the cards:

But I've already modified my RW Equipment deck back into RW Exert:

I still can't decide on 3 Lannery Storm or 3 Lightning Strike.

 

[Farside]

So the whole point of Crew is to give the artifact creature abilities and protect creatures from dying. Oh, and be able to use "summoning sickness" creatures as crew.

Thanks for the explanation.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

I just don't understand why you want 3 Mavren Fein Ashodin and I absolutely adore the card, so much so I want to make a terrible EDH deck with him at the helm.

It's not good enough a legendary to want 3 of imo.

 

[Ashodin]

I just don't understand why you want 3 Mavren Fein Ashodin and I absolutely adore the card, so much so I want to make a terrible EDH deck with him at the helm.

It's not good enough a legendary to want 3 of imo.

I feel like if you can even gain 3 tokens off him when you drop him it's good. I mean I'll let you know how things go when I try out the deck in my local meta.

 

[Santiako]

I feel like if you can even gain 3 tokens off him when you drop him it's good. I mean I'll let you know how things go when I try out the deck in my local meta.

You know you only get one token per attack right? Not one per creature attacking.

 

[Ashodin]

You know you only get one token per attack right? Not one per creature attacking.

I uh, well

hm.

That seems to be less good than I thought it was.

I guess two is fine?

 

[Angry Grimace]

So the whole point of Crew is to give the artifact creature abilities and protect creatures from dying. Oh, and be able to use "summoning sickness" creatures as crew.

Thanks for the explanation.

Generally speaking yes, the idea is that ordinarily, the good vehicles are better for the cost than an equivalent creature would be since you have to give up a creature's ability to attack or block to crew the vehicle.

This can range from totally fucking broken (Smuggler's Copter) to not even very good (most of the Ixalan vehicles).

 

[Supast4r]

I'm so salty right now that I forgot to preorder Hostage Takers It ballooned up so fast

 

[Ashodin]

We've been selling the ones we opened for $20. One already sold.

 

[Imperfected]

What if someone's buying up all the Hostage Takers to hold them ransom?

 

[FreedomFrisbee]

Oh oh, the new format will be called ARENA instead of FRONTIER! Slam dunk, job done.

 

[blindrocket]

With Metallic Mimic going up so high, what's THE Tribal deck that will feature the card?

Merfolk? Vampires? Dinosaurs?

 

[Hackworth]

Hostage Taker still climbing. Up to $19 passing Hazoret to make it the 6th most expensive card in standard.

Chandra
Scarab God
Carnage Tyrant
Gideon
Torrential Gearhulk
Hostage Taker
Hazoret
Walking Balista

Dammit, looks like I'm not building Scarab EDH until it rotates.

When does it rotate anyway?

What if someone's buying up all the Hostage Takers to hold them ransom?

Ayyyy

 

[Ashodin]

With Metallic Mimic going up so high, what's THE Tribal deck that will feature the card?

Merfolk? Vampires? Dinosaurs?

When I went to Atomic Empire in Durham, NC the other day, they were all out of everything Vampire. Pissed me off.

 

[Justin]

Dammit, looks like I'm not building Scarab EDH until it rotates.

When does it rotate anyway?

Ayyyy

October next year


Ashodin, build a deck with Panharmonicon, Verdant Suns Avatar and Aetherflux Reservoir

 

[ZealousD]

"Every" is maybe generous now that there's double the number of Legendary cards per expansion, but I've been a preorder-and-F2P-only player for quite some time and I always have a few Tier 1 or 2 decks to choose from.

They didn't increase the number of legendaries in each expansion. They just moved a bunch of neutral legendaries into class legendaries.

Anyway, the point is that if you have competitive players spending more than $200-$250 a year on MTG:Arena, it will not competitively priced compared to Hearthstone.This is something they need to nail. Be generous with digital rewards for paper players and make sure people aren't spending more on Arena than they would in Hearthstone.