Support NeoGAF

[WanderingWind]

It's pretty clear we're in a very conservative era of the game. Humans are pushed harder than any tribe, we just got done with one Return to block and we're going right back to another one. Theros was just "hey, let's take all the Greco-Roman crap and chuck it into a world." MM2 was the safest, high-end set you could possibly imagine and they're playing it super, super safe with their digital offerings.

I don't think any of that is bad though. They built up a fanbase with DotP and gave their alternative formats a shot in the arm with official Commander and Modern products. They needed to real them in. I think it's safe to say they've done that. Now, they have to start to explore out a bit, or they'll start bleeding off players who feel that they've seen all Magic has to offer. The next set after BFZ should do something different than what we've seen recently.

I'm also curious, are you making a Vintage artifact deck or something with Tinker and Blightsteel?

Hey, we'll take the rest of this to PMs. I imagine nobody else cares about our trades. But Tinker and Blightsteel are going into my Cube. Hopefully.

 

[Hero]

Not that they'd never do that for any reason, but that in a Zendikar set the needs of the land slots are different from other sets and they would definitely not include a common enabler version of an effect that was also in a full rare cycle.

I don't get this argument because RTR had guildgates at common in addition to the shocks and that wasn't even a land centric set.

 

[kirblar]

I don't get this argument because RTR had guildgates at common in addition to the shocks and that wasn't even a land centric set.

You need a lot of lands to sell "land matters" - there were 4 different cycles in Zen I - two of which were at rare.

 

[Hero]

You need a lot of lands to sell "land matters" - there were 4 different cycles in Zen I - two of which were at rare.

Right, which is why I'm saying I don't see why Evolving Wilds in means enemy fetches are out. I think enemy man lands are probably more likely though.

 

[charlequin]

I think its hard to argue that we're not in a conservative era of Magic design, I think the argument has to be around if that's a bad thing or not.

I mean, most of the best sets in Magic's history were more on the consolidation side than the innovation side of the spectrum. Ravnica is far and away the least weird set in Rosewater's first six-year plan. Innistrad is a way more sober and restrained version of Odyssey. Jesse even admits the best core set is probably M13 which is that way solely because of endless iteration. They need to do wacky sets to find stuff they can refine in the future much more than because those sets are actually better.

With that said, I'm still skeptical that Landfall is in. I bet its another mechanic that cares about land drops in some way, but I just can't imagine what "twist" they'd give landfall for a return

What could that be, though? Literally anything that happens when lands enter the battlefield falls under the Landfall umbrella.

Anyway, I agree, Landfall isn't actually a great mechanic and it's the single biggest reason that ZZZ lives up to its initialism as a draft format so I'd rather not see it back, but...

Right, which is why I'm saying I don't see why Evolving Wilds in means enemy fetches are out.

I think you're looking at this the wrong way. Looking at it from the perspective of a finished set, you could say "well, would Evolving Wilds be a problem in a set that also had rare fetchlands" and the answer is probably no. But that doesn't reflect the process behind the set.

Instead, the question should probably be "how would this end up in the set?" Typically, Evolving Wilds turns up as an easy way to improve color flexibility, as a single card that can make limited run more smoothly and help people run two-color decks while not doing anything to support more. A lot of the time it's in sets that don't even have any dual lands (ROE, DTK.) In sets that already have a bunch of fixing and a lot of other non-basic lands due to their structure (RTR, KTK, etc.) it doesn't turn up. In a set that needs to sell itself partially on a bunch of cool non-basic lands and already has identical functionality covered by cooler cards, it doesn't really merit a slot.

 

[Infinite Stars]

What about reverse landfall? Landfall as a mechanic was about Land changing the way creatures worked because Zendikar was turbulent. Why not a reverse of this, where creatures change the way land drops work(IE Knight of the White Orchid)? I have no idea how to balance it, but here's an idea:

Elvish Animist 2G
Animate(Whenever a land enters the battlefield underneath your control, you may pay X. That land gains a creature type with power and toughness equal to X.)

"Zendikar's creatures were not alone in their fight against the Eldrazi"
1/2

 

["God's Beard!"]

Pat Chapin 8-0 with BW origins sealed :-o

 

[Infinite Stars]

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";172986992]Pat Chapin 8-0 with BW origins sealed :-o[/QUOTE]

Holy frick. has his deck been posted at all? I know it's sealed so not a entirely great indicator but at the same time, 8-0 in sealed is nuts.

 

[Jhriad]

What could that be, though? Literally anything that happens when lands enter the battlefield falls under the Landfall umbrella.

Instead of ETB it could be something along the lines of Nissa's flip trigger (Number of lands in play). We saw it on Nissa and it was literally the mechanic on Zendikar Incarnate. Not exactly interesting but that's along the lines of what I was expecting from whatever the land mechanic was if fetches were going to be in the set. Landfall + Fetches was an unreasonable expectation.

 

[blindrocket]

Hey, we'll take the rest of this to PMs. I imagine nobody else cares about our trades. But Tinker and Blightsteel are going into my Cube. Hopefully.

That's cool, how does one even get started on building a cube? I have a pretty good collection of cards.

So, you PM me or I PM you?

 

[Wulfric]

The close we get to BFZ, the less certain I am about fetchlands being in it. Like WanderingWind said, Wizards has been playing it pretty safe this year. Even Modern Masters didn't pack quite the punch as the first. I don't see the harm in having ten fetchlands in standard for six months, but Wizards may have already decided otherwise.

And they haven't announced their plans for Gamescom yet, have they? With Origins out of the way, it might be a good time to talk about FTV: Angels and Commander 2015.

 

[Jhriad]

And they haven't announced their plans for Gamescom yet, have they? With Origins out of the way, it might be a good time to talk about FTV: Angels and Commander 2015.

Do they normally do something for Gamescom?

 

[Wulfric]

I've only been playing for a little over a year, so I'm not sure if Gamescom is traditionally a big Magic news source. I figured they would have some sort of booth presence, being WotC and all. We should definitely hear something at PAX though.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Landfall is a dumb mechanic to begin with.

 

[charlequin]

Elvish Animist 2G
Animate(Whenever a land enters the battlefield underneath your control, you may pay X. That land gains a creature type with power and toughness equal to X.)

This is just landfall. Anything that triggers on a land ETB in your control is landfall.

Instead of ETB it could be something along the lines of Nissa's flip trigger (Number of lands in play).

That's a reasonable choice of mechanic to see in a new Zendikar set (like, we even saw it the first time around on Scute Mob and Dragonmaster Outcast) but fetches don't actually enable it.

Landfall is a dumb mechanic to begin with.

True.

 

[Angry Grimace]

The fact that a mechanic is "clean" doesn't mean it's good.

It's boring to begin with and obnoxious as fuck when it does basically anything in limited.

 

[WanderingWind]

Landfall and Kicker just eat up so much space.

 

[Jhriad]

That's a reasonable choice of mechanic to see in a new Zendikar set (like, we even saw it the first time around on Scute Mob and Dragonmaster Outcast) but fetches don't actually enable it.

Sure, that's why it was more along the lines of what I expected to see in BFZ. Fetches would enable it as much as any other land and thus wouldn't make the mechanic itself broken with so many fetches in Standard at one time. That's disregarding any balance issues 10 fetch lands in Standard at one time would create but with all the talk that the fetches would be in the set I expected to see something that fit flavor-wise but didn't get insane with a ton of fetching. If they wanted to make a mechanic that fetches enabled they'd just make a keyword that cared about lands in the graveyard.

 

[SigmasonicX]

Standard Donate

 

[divisionbyzorro]

Landfall is a dumb mechanic to begin with.

I wouldn't call it dumb, but I never understood why it was so revered.

 

[Yeef]

Do they normally do something for Gamescom?

Don't think so. I think the next big even for them is Pax Prime which is at the end of August.

 

[y2dvd]

Clint Cearley had a booth at GP DFW and his art was amazing. He did Synopate along with a bunch of other art pieces for mtg. There were like 5 different playmats that I wanted from him, but ended up with this one.

He also had a bunch of tokens. I wanted each one and he hooked it up with a deal. Cool guy.

 

[Jhriad]

Clint Cearley had a booth at GP DFW and his art was amazing. He did Synopate along with a bunch of other art pieces for mtg. There were like 5 different playmats that I wanted from him, but ended up with this one.

Nice pickup! Really dig the art on a lot of those and the playmat is pretty great.

 

[red13th]

He also had a bunch of tokens. I wanted each one and he hooked it up with a deal. Cool guy.

Those are amazing wow. He's the one who did the new Propaganda too right? Great artist.

 

["God's Beard!"]

So far my predictions of Abzan Aggro and Esper Dragons going away and Nissa and Jace being the best flipwalkers have been true.

I can't wait for the pro tour, it'd be more exciting if I was completely wrong and all the teams have super secret tech. I was telling my teammates that my plan for GPSD was that if an Abzan Control-style deck wins the tour, I'm going to bring Sultai, but if something like pure control or aggro wins and destroys that style of deck then I'm going to bring elves.

That said I need to find a cheap way to travel down there, I didn't expect in-state flights to be so expensive.

 

[Jhriad]

Okay, I'm seriously tired of the repeated interstitial programming. You'd think that they could have two guys make some more for these between round breaks during the few weeks before a GP. At this point I just want to slap Marshall whenever the two-color interstitial plays. Fuck, I'd rather watch some b-roll footage of Day One.

 

["God's Beard!"]

Turn 3 Managorger Hydra makes me sad :-(

 

[SigmasonicX]

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";173063564]Turn 3 Managorger Hydra makes me sad :-([/QUOTE]

Disappointed that with no Elvish Mystic in the format, you can't bring it out turn 2? >_>

 

[Jhriad]

Was hoping Shuhei would take it. Very cool.

 

["God's Beard!"]

Disappointed that with no Elvish Mystic in the format, you can't bring it out turn 2? >_>

Nah I lost to it both games in the finals of the last draft I entered lol

 

[y2dvd]

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";173063564]Turn 3 Managorger Hydra makes me sad :-([/QUOTE]

Pfft, that's nothing. My opponent turn 3 and t4 the damn card. Why isn't it whenever opponent cast a spell? That card is bonkers lol.

 

[SigmasonicX]

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";173067335]Nah I lost to it both games in the finals of the last draft I entered lol[/QUOTE]

I figured that's what you meant, hence the >_>

Anyway, seeing the Penny Arcade Magic community start a new thread reminded me of my plans to create an OT for Battle for Zendikar, which I talked about earlier. (In short, it seems like a good time to start bringing in new people, a topic on OT would be best for that, charlequin seems to be OK with a trial run). They use this link for returning players, and of course, there's our link for new players, but it occurs to me that it might be good to also have a FAQ right in the post, preferably a short one.

On a quick thought, I'm thinking covering, based on what I've seen in OT topics where Magic is brought up:
* Best thing for new players? Magic Duels (as eh as it is)
* Is this Yu-Gi-Oh? (quick write-up on Magic's advantages)
* Does anyone even play this anymore? The game is played more than ever.
* What is this planeswalker thing? (quick write-up)
* What about power creep? (explanation for how Magic handles it)

Any other suggestions? And yes, I realize I'm three months out from when I should be worrying about this, but eh, this thought just came to mind.

 

[CeruleanSilver]

He also had a bunch of tokens. I wanted each one and he hooked it up with a deal. Cool guy.

Whoa, those are some sweet tokens. Very nice pick-up.

 

["God's Beard!"]

I wish more MTG commentators were like Justin Wong and Dogface during the Clockw0rk/Neo money match.

 

[Transhuman]

I wish they'd make a film with Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughan and Ben Stiller. I'm sure we can all agree that Wedding Crashers, Starsky and Hutch, and Zoolander are the three greatest contributions to humanity so far.

 

[OnPoint]

I wish they'd make a film with Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughan and Ben Stiller. I'm sure we can all agree that Wedding Crashers, Starsky and Hutch, and Zoolander are the three greatest contributions to humanity so far.

Like a Magic film?

Owen WIlson as Gideon
Vince Vaughn as Ajani
Ben Stiller as Jace (Zoolander + mysteriousness)
Amy Adams as Chandra
John C Reilly as Garruk
Rashida Jones as Liliana
Will Ferrell as Sarkhan
Benedict Cumberpatch as the voice of Nicol Bolas

 

[SigmasonicX]

Q:Are Ravnica tabloids abuzz about the dinner between the brooding mysterious Guildpact and his beautiful but dangerous woman companion, only to have this probate rendezvous broken up by a hunky Boros busting in to the dinner by force, starting an argument and leading the mysterious woman to storm off and the now spurned Guldpact to lead the Boros back to his private Sanctum? Seems like the sort of scandal the tabloids would eat up.

SHOCKING ‘DATECRASH’ SPARKS INTER-GUILD FEUD
‘It’s Nothing, Forget About It,’ Insists Guildpact

BLOODY BRUTE SLAMS J-BEL, WRECKS SEX WITH VEXING EX
Trouble in the Sanctum, Sources Say

12 DROP-DEAD BEAUTY SECRETS OF LGP’S INTRIGUING GAL PAL
You Won’t Believe #7 – Details Inside!

'Datecrash' got me

 

[bigkrev]

Happy 1 year anniversary to the tournament where they seriously tried to rebrand Junk as "Whiterock"

 

[Joe Molotov]

Like a Magic film?

Owen WIlson as Gideon
Vince Vaughn as Ajani
Ben Stiller as Jace (Zoolander + mysteriousness)
Amy Adams as Chandra
John C Reilly as Garruk
Rashida Jones as Liliana
Will Ferrell as Sarkhan
Benedict Cumberpatch as the voice of Nicol Bolas

Sean Connery as Ugin

 

[WanderingWind]

Sean Connery as Ugin

I AM THE LASHT ONE

 

[divisionbyzorro]

An interesting question posed by Ari Lax; one that only he would have thought of and also posed on Twitter. Is it ever okay to trash your own draft during a tournament in order to trash your neighbor's draft, thus giving a teammate a better shot of winning?

https://storify.com/DynamiteToast/ari-lax

 

[Shrennin]

I'm thinking about possibly trying Magic again when the core sets are phased out. Is there a timeframe of when that'll be? I usually try to find jumping on points whenever I get back into Magic, and I figure that's probably a good point to jump in again.

 

["God's Beard!"]

An interesting question posed by Ari Lax; one that only he would have thought of and also posed on Twitter. Is it ever okay to trash your own draft during a tournament in order to trash your neighbor's draft, thus giving a teammate a better shot of winning?

https://storify.com/DynamiteToast/ari-lax

The whole tournament structure for magic is fucked up, I've been harping on that a lot. It creates poor incentives for players while ruining the spectator experience at the end of tournaments by forcing the narrative to be about tiebreaker math instead of players.

That said, in a team draft situation I'm all for fucking over your neighbor's draft.

 

[bigkrev]

An interesting question posed by Ari Lax; one that only he would have thought of and also posed on Twitter. Is it ever okay to trash your own draft during a tournament in order to trash your neighbor's draft, thus giving a teammate a better shot of winning?

https://storify.com/DynamiteToast/ari-lax

Assuming it wasn't in a Top 8 or something, there is nothing wrong with that.
I mean, if having a shitty draft was a crime, ban 90% of FNM players

 

[WanderingWind]

Assuming it wasn't in a Top 8 or something, there is nothing wrong with that.
I mean, if having a shitty draft was a crime, ban 90% of FNM players

I'd be banned for life, yo.

 

[ultron87]

I'm thinking about possibly trying Magic again when the core sets are phased out. Is there a timeframe of when that'll be? I usually try to find jumping on points whenever I get back into Magic, and I figure that's probably a good point to jump in again.

The last core set just came out. The first set in the new 2 block a year style comes out at the end of September. Probably as good a time as any to hop back in.

 

[divisionbyzorro]

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";173122901]The whole tournament structure for magic is fucked up, I've been harping on that a lot. It creates poor incentives for players while ruining the spectator experience at the end of tournaments by forcing the narrative to be about tiebreaker math instead of players.

That said, in a team draft situation I'm all for fucking over your neighbor's draft.[/QUOTE]

It's not a team draft; just a regular-old Limited GP Day 2. Theoretically, Ari should be playing to win, since "teams" are an artificial construct that sits outside of the tournament structure. His motivation here is to held a teammate qualify for Worlds because he knows he can't Top 8, and a non-Top-8 result doesn't help him.

(I agree that the system is broken. Not sure how to fix it though.)

 

[SigmasonicX]

I'm thinking about possibly trying Magic again when the core sets are phased out. Is there a timeframe of when that'll be? I usually try to find jumping on points whenever I get back into Magic, and I figure that's probably a good point to jump in again.

The next non-core set is Battle for Zendikar, which will come out toward the end of September.

Now see, this is why I think creating block topics in OT from that point on is a good idea; it's a good jumping on point.

EDIT: By the way, where did you leave off? We can help catch you up.

 

[bigkrev]

BTW, how do you fuck over someone elses draft? Just take all the good cards? Isn't that what drafting is all about?

 

[SigmasonicX]

BTW, how do you fuck over someone elses draft? Just take all the good cards? Isn't that what drafting is all about?

You specifically take cards that aren't in your colors and appear to be in the colors of one of the other drafters.