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[Jhriad]

Maybe someone can explain Pucatrade to me better, but the only cards I have that people even want are fetchlands

High volume/standard cards move through the system rather quickly. Pucatrade works great if you're looking for cards but if you're trying to send out cards it's pretty clunky. With a Page Monitor it works pretty well although that assumes you're spending any decent amount of time in front of a computer. The only 'wants' that remain unfulfilled for long are either things like Shocks/Fetches (cards with extremely high demand and that everyone knows are at their floor and will gain consistent value) or cards from sets that weren't opened as heavily, especially stuff in the lower value ranges. You'll find potential trades remain up longer for those cards as a lot of the power traders don't check the lower volume/value cards too often. For instance, you can find trades pretty easily for something like Jwari Shapeshifter because folks are trying to make bets that it'll see a reprint in one of the upcoming Zendikar sets. Individual cards at that price aren't attractive trades but you can click on someone's profile and check it to see if there's any additional value you can add to assemble a more desirable trade.

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";175199895]It's a skinner box.[/QUOTE]

Only if you're actually checking it yourself. I've got a page monitor setup to watch my 'Send a card' page (with auto-match turned on) and since I'm at my computer or laptop a lot in the evening I'll just alt-tab over and make a trade when it tells me one is available. I can't imagine actually attempting to do it manually, refreshing constantly in the hopes that a trade will pop up. If you're willing to install a simple Chrome extension it's a background process that you're not aware of until you need to be. At that point it's just a tool to grind out additional value from excess cards or bulk from a prerelease/recently released set.

From what they've said they're well aware of the issues that folks using scripts/page monitors create for newer users and are working on ways to address the problem. Who knows how well that'll work. Hopefully they address it before they implement MTGO trading since it's currently the largest impediment to growth outside of dealers, speculators, and power users. It would also be nice if MTGO wasn't total shit so that I can be happy trading pucapoints for Event Tickets when that's implemented.

 

[Hero]

Yeah, that card probably wouldn't be printed today. Removal was crazy in Invasion, one of the reasons I loved that format.

Invasion block anything was great! Draft, limited, constructed. Truly loved that format.

Some of my favorite cards of all time in that block too. FTK, Vindicate, Lightning Angel, Pernicious Deed. *fans self*

 

[kirblar]

Invasion block anything was great! Draft, limited, constructed. Truly loved that format.

Some of my favorite cards of all time in that block too. FTK, Vindicate, Lightning Angel, Pernicious Deed. *fans self*

Were you on Survivor Sucks?

 

["God's Beard!"]

Man, this Bearer of the Heavens deck is super fun. Feels like playing Upheaval in cube drafts when you're going off. And when you don't have the win button it's still a pile of resilient creatures that can win games.

 

[Hero]

Were you on Survivor Sucks?

I don't know what that means.

 

[charlequin]

We don't have any information on what Hearthstone cost to make, what MTGO cost to make, or how much money they make off of MTGO.

We do actually have information -- not details, but order-of-magnitude values -- about how much money they make on MTGO. I don't know why you keep saying this. MTGO is a ridiculously easy business to propose accurate and meaningful improvements to even though the answer isn't "just do exactly what Hearthstone does."

 

[red13th]

The last cards arrived and my cube is now complete. Yey. Took over 8 months and a lot of money!

 

[blindrocket]

The last cards arrived and my cube is now complete. Yey. Took over 8 months and a lot of money!

Do people "netdeck" cubes or what?
I'm really interested in building one and I have a pretty good collection but I am not sure if it's "cube standards" if you know what I mean.

 

[manipulate]

How much does MTGO make? It seems like it'd be absurdly high margin

 

[blindrocket]

Were you on Survivor Sucks?

Explain again how Magic relates so much to Survivor, please.

 

[red13th]

Do people "netdeck" cubes or what?
I'm really interested in building one and I have a pretty good collection but I am not sure if it's "cube standards" if you know what I mean.

Definitely, just check Cubetutor for several cubes to base your own on. I had to make mine from scratch because most "Modern" cubes around there are actually "Modern frame" cubes and use cards from non-Modern legal sets that were printed in Commander or whatever.
Depends on the power level you want and on your budget. Here are the most drafted cubes in the site for inspiration.

 

[divisionbyzorro]

My Common/Uncommon cube started out as a carbon copy of a popular list from MTGSalvation. I then added a bunch of pet cards, dropped a bunch of other cards, and kept tweaking until it felt like "my cube."

Of course, it's still just sitting in a box and has only been drafted a handful of times because it's hard to get enough people together to draft it. I've been thinking about building a Battle Box out of a subset of the cube to do 2-player games with, but haven't quite finished that build yet.

 

["God's Beard!"]

I just had a weird ORI draft. I first-picked Nissa into a 2nd-pick Supression Bonds and I'd be happy in either color or splashing either card, depending on how the signals went. But it was hard to figure out because I'd have alternating packs of stone nothing followed by packs with 2-3 uncommons in my colors. I was watching the other colors and nothing was pulling me away so I did wind up with GW but it was still weird. I could never tell if I was being cut or if I was completely open. I had to pass two of the WW First Strike uncommon and a flare in the first pack so I was sure I'd get cut.

I wound up 1-2 two-drops short of where I'm comfortable with for the format, but the power level of my deck was abnormal. Topan Freeblade into Alchemist's Vial is definitely one of the better places to be in ORI draft.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Are you trying to draft on a free program again? Because there's your problem right there.

 

[kirblar]

Explain again how Magic relates so much to Survivor, please.

It's that you're doing the same game over and over again, but each time there's enough differences to make it interesting. Themes, cards/cast, rules in play changing up keep them from being stale.

 

[divisionbyzorro]

Are you trying to draft on a free program again? Because there's your problem right there.

Magic is a lot closer to poker than most people care to admit. When there are no stakes, it's practically impossible to play a "real game."

"I paired my 6 on the flop? ALL IN!" is very similar to "I'm taking this card because it's sweet."

 

[Angry Grimace]

Even if you get 8 dudes to draft on Bestiare, you're still gonna get dummies who wanna off-color draft Talent of the Telepath.

 

["God's Beard!"]

Are you trying to draft on a free program again? Because there's your problem right there.

Yeah, but I can play Gatecrash drafts whenever I want on cockatrice

I got to play a GB-based 4c midrange deck today with 6 gates a shock and 2 prisms ^_^

 

[A Serious Man]

PSA: You can Whip flipwalkers back into play and if they flip that turn, they aren't exiled. I've been doing it with Jace in a Sultai brew I'm working on and it has led to some good times.

 

[Yeef]

PSA: You can Whip flipwalkers back into play and if they flip that turn, they aren't exiled. I've been doing it with Jace in a Sultai brew I'm working on and it has led to some good times.

They are exiled, then returned to the battlefield.

Just like Ghost Dad*.

*Card probably needs a new nickname, given the whole BIll Cosby thing.

 

[Angry Grimace]

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";175300086]Yeah, but I can play Gatecrash drafts whenever I want on cockatrice

I got to play a GB-based 4c midrange deck today with 6 gates a shock and 2 prisms ^_^[/QUOTE]

Translation: yes I was running free drafts with randoms

 

["God's Beard!"]

Translation: yes I was running free drafts with randoms

I was gonna say something sassy, but then I got passed Sol Ring 4th pick and Fastbond wheeled in my cube draft so I've got nothing.

PSA: You can Whip flipwalkers back into play and if they flip that turn, they aren't exiled. I've been doing it with Jace in a Sultai brew I'm working on and it has led to some good times.

Yeah I've been playing Jace and Nissa in my whip deck for a while.

 

[phazedplasma]

Catching up on this thread...after moving cross country

Not surprised at Hearthstone $$$$$ while I dont find it as deep or fun as magic, it is extremely easy to do everything in that application, from playing to purchasing. mtg will never have a system this good, which is sad.

Pucatrade is great, got rid of a foil jace there recently and now I can get any card I want.

Jeskai midrange is a thing again in standard? Awesome
Oh... I need 4 Jaces to play it...

 

[Jhriad]

What decks/colors do you guys think will hold up the best post-rotation? Looking to try to put together a new Standard deck but even though I like some of the doofy stuff like Abzan Constellation I'm relatively sure that deck will be unplayable after Theros block rotates out. I wasn't around for Zendikar stuff the first time around so I have no real idea what the deck archetypes looked like in order to make any guesses on what we might see.

 

[SigmasonicX]

What decks do you guys think will hold up the best post-rotation? Looking to try to put together a new Standard deck but even though I like some of the doofy stuff like Abzan Constellation I'm relatively sure that deck will be unplayable after Theros block rotates out.

Monored is almost always a sure bet during rotations.

 

[Firemind]

Mill.

I for one welcome our new milling overlords.

 

[Angry Grimace]

What decks/colors do you guys think will hold up the best post-rotation? Looking to try to put together a new Standard deck but even though I like some of the doofy stuff like Abzan Constellation I'm relatively sure that deck will be unplayable after Theros block rotates out. I wasn't around for Zendikar stuff the first time around so I have no real idea what the deck archetypes looked like in order to make any guesses on what we might see.

See the Dragonlords, obviously.

 

[JulianImp]

I've recently decided to go back to building a commander deck after playing with some fellow judges in a barbecue a couple weeks ago, and thought I'd post about it here to see if I can get some help for building the deck.

I wanted to use Sedris, Traitor King as my commander, and so far I've though about adding as many exile/blink effects as I can to abuse the loophole that lets me keep unearthed creatures around, such as Nephalia Smuggler, Deadeye Navigator, Aetherling, blue wormfang creatures and Faceless Butcher.

Since I intend it to be a deck for casual play, I want to keep the theme rather than playing just a goodstuff deck, and would like to avoid running tutors or things that lock the game down forever, but I guess a couple combos would be okay if I ever get around to assembling them. Also, Khans block and Origins cards are out since I stopped buying new cards starting with Khans.

Any help on general cards that would be good for that theme would be appreciated, since it feels like every commander deck I come up with ends up being a pile of cards that tends to get me stuck doing nothing for several turns at a time, while the decks I were lent and saw others play all had lots of stuff to do on every phase of the game, which made things really fun.

 

[Joe Molotov]

What decks/colors do you guys think will hold up the best post-rotation? Looking to try to put together a new Standard deck but even though I like some of the doofy stuff like Abzan Constellation I'm relatively sure that deck will be unplayable after Theros block rotates out. I wasn't around for Zendikar stuff the first time around so I have no real idea what the deck archetypes looked like in order to make any guesses on what we might see.

Siege Rhino

 

[Angry Grimace]

Siege Rhino

Den Protector. Deathmist Raptor.

Convienently, these form a nice curve.

 

[Firemind]

Any help on general cards that would be good for that theme would be appreciated, since it feels like every commander deck I come up with ends up being a pile of cards that tends to get me stuck doing nothing for several turns at a time, while the decks I were lent and saw others play all had lots of stuff to do on every phase of the game, which made things really fun.

Mirror-Mad Phantasm
Stinkweed Imp
Curse of the Bloody Tome
Whip of Erebos
And the usual ETB creatures like Grave Titan, Mulldrifter, Body Double, Shriekmaw, Sphinx of Uthuun.

 

[divisionbyzorro]

You'll want the inexpensive Entomb effects (Buried Alive, Corpse Connoisseur, and of course Entomb and/or Intuition if you have them already, but they're rather expensive).

Living Death and Balthor the Defiled seem good.

And Necrotic Ooze. It should be trivial to create a winning combo if you have a Necrotic Ooze and a Buried Alive, plus the right enablers in your deck.

 

[JulianImp]

Mirror-Mad Phantasm
Stinkweed Imp
Curse of the Bloody Tome
Whip of Erebos
And the usual ETB creatures like Grave Titan, Mulldrifter, Body Double, Shriekmaw, Sphinx of Uthuun.

God, I had forgotten all about Mirror-Mad Phantasm. I so wanted to make it work back when it was in Standard, but combat damage no longer using the stack has made it awfully bad.

It's good that I actually own the cards you listed, so I guess I'll add them to the list without delay!

You'll want the inexpensive Entomb effects (Buried Alive, Corpse Connoisseur, and of course Entomb and/or Intuition if you have them already, but they're rather expensive).

Living Death and Balthor the Defiled seem good.

And Necrotic Ooze. It should be trivial to create a winning combo if you have a Necrotic Ooze and a Buried Alive, plus the right enablers in your deck.

I don't own any Entomb, Intuition or Balthor, but the other cards I do have, thankfully.

Also, should I be running Judgement incarnations? I definitely own Wonder, and I think I might also have a copy of Anger lying around somewhere (even though it's kind of useless with Unearth).

 

[Jhriad]

Den Protector. Deathmist Raptor.

Convienently, these form a nice curve.

Do you think Temur will be given better options that make it competitive in BFZ? Playing Abzan just seems so boring.

 

[pelicansurf]

See the unwritten into eldrazi's seems good.

 

["God's Beard!"]

Do you think Temur will be given better options that make it competitive in BFZ? Playing Abzan just seems so boring.

No idea!

^_^

 

[Matriox]

Do you think Temur will be given better options that make it competitive in BFZ? Playing Abzan just seems so boring.

I mean, Abzan loses a lot of toys so it's possible. We won't know until BFZ, but I'm hopeful. Sarkhan isn't super easy to slot in a deck, but I really like him

Siege rhino is a hell of a card though.

 

[shrapnelmagnet]

Is there an explanation (besides the obvious) why Gatherer comments haven't been active since 2014? Honestly. I must've missed something.

 

[kirblar]

Is there an explanation (besides the obvious) why Gatherer comments haven't been active since 2014? Honestly. I must've missed something.

They broke the functionality in the website upgrade and haven't devoted the resources to fix it.

Like Leagues, it's vaporware at this point.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Is there an explanation (besides the obvious) why Gatherer comments haven't been active since 2014? Honestly. I must've missed something.

The obvious

 

[divisionbyzorro]

They broke the functionality in the website upgrade and haven't devoted the resources to fix it.

Like Leagues, it's vaporware at this point.

To be fair, I've beta tested constructed and limited leagues this year.

 

[shrapnelmagnet]

They broke the functionality in the website upgrade and haven't devoted the resources to fix it.

Like Leagues, it's vaporware at this point.

The obvious

lol

I remember when the website was completely blasted - I just thought that maybe they had some sort of 'message' about it by now that I missed.

I mean, I imagine it's a non-trivial issue, but still. When I first started playing, I found the comments to be a wealth of knowledge: Cards leading me to cards leading me to cards, simply from people commenting on them with ideas / experiences. Gatherer's search functionality is actually quite powerful... I'm not aware of a better one, actually. Alas.

 

[divisionbyzorro]

lol

I remember when the website was completely blasted - I just thought that maybe they had some sort of 'message' about it by now that I missed.

I mean, I imagine it's a non-trivial issue, but still. When I first started playing, I found the comments to be a wealth of knowledge: Cards leading me to cards leading me to cards, simply from people commenting on them with ideas / experiences. Gatherer's search functionality is actually quite powerful... I'm not aware of a better one, actually. Alas.

Come to think of it, I don't know if magiccards.info has comments, but it's a much more powerful search than Gatherer.

 

[Infinite Stars]

Gideon and Archangel of Tithes work so well together in this White weenie deck I'm brewing. The issue is that I'm deciding(Rather stupidly) to not run any cards from Theros Block/M15 because by the time I'm able to assemble I'll be about a month away from Rotation and 90% of the cards I'd need aren't worth it in other formats(Though most are cheap)

 

["God's Beard!"]

Magic is a lot closer to poker than most people care to admit. When there are no stakes, it's practically impossible to play a "real game."

"I paired my 6 on the flop? ALL IN!" is very similar to "I'm taking this card because it's sweet."

I don't mind that people aren't that intense in Cockatrice drafts though. My only interest in MTGO was playing a bunch of drafts, and the entry fee is way too high without any real return for winning since the only thing I cared about was playing more drafts.

Today on Cockatrice I got to play several cube drafts, Gatecrash and ROE against live opponents and that diversity makes up for the lower level of competition. It's all about entertainment value for me.

The only other thing I'm even slightly interested in on MTGO are the online PPTQs but I'd rather play in paper.

 

[Yeef]

Come to think of it, I don't know if magiccards.info has comments, but it's a much more powerful search than Gatherer.

Yes and no. For most people, magiccards.info is going to have a far more robust search, but Gatherer actually allows for regular expressions while searching, which is super powerful if you know what you're doing.

 

[SigmasonicX]

Come to think of it, I don't know if magiccards.info has comments, but it's a much more powerful search than Gatherer.

But it doesn't have autocomplete, though

 

[charlequin]

Come to think of it, I don't know if magiccards.info has comments, but it's a much more powerful search than Gatherer.

I basically only use magiccards.info (not least because it doesn't have insultingly low-res images) but there are actually a number of potentially useful queries you can do in Gatherer but not there.

 

["God's Beard!"]

I managed to fight off an Ancient Grudge, two Qasali Pridemages and a Kataki with Lantern Control, but the 2nd Grudge killed my 2nd Spellskite and my needle on the Pridemages :-(

It's kind of hard to beat Noble Hierarch and Signal Pest with this deck lol


edit:
This everybody for the current cockatrice playgroup?

Current Cockatrice playgroup:

• Ultron87
• WWind
• HeebyGB
• phazedplasma
• G.ZZZ
• Jhriad
• Truman
• Roy_Burns
• Bandini
• duxstar
• SourShoes
• Onpoint
• Kirblar
• sinuosity

I never really see anybody on except dux.

 

[shrapnelmagnet]

I basically only use magiccards.info (not least because it doesn't have insultingly low-res images) but there are actually a number of potentially useful queries you can do in Gatherer but not there.

Yeah, I love their art - I guess I've never really used magiccards.info for search but now that I look at it, it does look very robust.