Sure, but why does it have to be one or the other? Why not both?
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Magic: the Gathering |OT9| Kaladesh - Cruisin' Down the Street in my 6/4
- Thread starter SigmasonicX
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Sure, but why does it have to be one or the other? Why not both?
blindrocket
Member
Mr. Fayden
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
I can't find it but he did a long post on that as well and it comes down to Saheeli was their poster child and they didn't want to dilute that with another UR artificer. She's the poster child because she's a nonwhite PW yet funnily got next to zero story exposure.
Also something abojt limited and limited UR slots.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Tolarian Community College Professor
UR
Legendary Creature - Human Artificer
0/1
T: Add U or R in any combination to your mana pool for each artifact you control.
UR
Legendary Creature - Human Artificer
0/1
T: Add U or R in any combination to your mana pool for each artifact you control.
Oh man. Please do this.
Random, almost baseless theories about Aether Revolt:
It will have an equipment subtheme. What little art we've seen from the set seems to have equipment displayed prominently.
They'll finish the cycles of legendary creatures/planeswalkers.
There seems to potentially be a 2-color cycle of legends/walkers and a mono-color cycle of legends. Assuming they finish them in Aether Revolt, that means they need a mono-white character for the mono-color cycle and UB, BR, RG, GW and BG characters for the 2-color cycle. These are my best guesses at characters we'll see:
It will have an equipment subtheme. What little art we've seen from the set seems to have equipment displayed prominently.
In the key art you have one guy holding a warhammer (or something like it) and another what looks like an aether gun.
In this image, the woman has two pieces of equipment: the metal arms and her weapon.
They'll finish the cycles of legendary creatures/planeswalkers.
There seems to potentially be a 2-color cycle of legends/walkers and a mono-color cycle of legends. Assuming they finish them in Aether Revolt, that means they need a mono-white character for the mono-color cycle and UB, BR, RG, GW and BG characters for the 2-color cycle. These are my best guesses at characters we'll see:
- Ajani - GW or mono-white
- Tezzeret - Almost certainly Blue-black
- Baral - He seems to be blue, but doesn't fit into either cycle, so might just be outside of it.
- Vaati (aka Shadowblayde) - GW or RG; she makes lots of little constructs, which fits the GW go-wide strategy in limited, so I lean that way.
- Yaenni - BR or BG. As an Aetherborn, Yaenni would be black. The only context we see them in is a party, which makes BR seem more likely.
- Sram, Senior Edificer - Mono-white. This one I'm not convinced on. This person appears in a couple of flavor-texts and seems to be white-aligned, but could just be a tertiary character with no relation to the story. That said, Padeem was also barely in the story and got a card, so who knows.
charlequin
Banned
At least part of the problem is that nobody ever believes there isn't a card like this when they first hear it. They even printed a card for Jhoira the Artificer, correctly putting it in blue/red, and then made her not do anything with artifacts for some reason.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
The realistic solution is to decouple Pro Points away from Grand Prxs, change how the pro level works, and make it so that only Pro Tours award pro points. They "fixed" the PTQ grind by making it smaller PPTQs at stores (basically a higher level FNM in most cases) and then travel to one tournament where potentially the entire T8 qualifies, instead of the grueling former PTQ system where the guy who finishes second wants to kill themselves because they traveled 3 hours and played nearly flawlessly for 14 hours in a field of hundreds where a single loss could end your day, and now just have 2 boxes of Avacyn Restored to show for their efforts. Now, the idea of grinding GPs needs to go away. GPs are already too large, and draw massive crowds from the local area. Outside of GP Vegas, what percentage of people are flying to a GP? Less than 10%?
Make it so those people don't need to travel to GPs just to fight for that single Pro Point that means they make Silver/Gold. Keep it so that specific records get you PT invites, but otherwise there is nothing to gain by traveling for a GP except for the money. Get rid of grinding entirely.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
There's no way its 10%.
"They don't want to be told that even if they tried their hardest and did everything right, they simply aren't smart enough to succeed."
lol, this guy. It's not comp sci at MIT. Anybody can succeed if they have unlimited time and dedicate it to good playtesting with people with the same goals and traveling to tournaments.
This won't happen because the point is to draw "names" to GPs.
Bullshit. You need innate talent/smarts to have the opportunity to succeed available to you.
The random factor disguises that for people.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Smart is a nebulous term, but I don't know that I'd classify someone who tries to play Magic: the Gathering for a living as smart.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
Not sure whether that is sarcasm or not but that is bogus just in case.
Successful pros are either a) young college-age people or b) people who came back after making money elsewhere. The ones who try to make it FT fall off.
That pattern's not an accident.
It's not. I'm amazed people think this is even up for debate.
I think the smart ones are the older guys like Pikula, Finkel, etc. who have regular lives/jobs that allow them to play pro MTG on the side.
Ramao's an obvious recent example of a young guy who disappeared for a decade, and then returned, presumably with a more settled lifestyle that allows him to play again.
TheBlackMarvel
Member
Are we really taking that seriously? With the Fight Club quotes and all?
I mean, it's obviously a satire, but the GP grind (and associated costs) is obviously something that has a huge effect on players being able to reach the PT.
I know a ton of pro/semi-pro players. (and well, I guess I am one taking the "career" break, though not by choice.) Take it seriously.
"Play the game, see the inside of the convention center" is an unfortunately real thing.
Strongly disagree. Preparation is by far the most important aspect, not some invisible intelligence stat lol. Most people just don't have the time or access to serious testing groups. That's all I believe is the difference between PT regular and everybody else.
Ya the truly brilliant people aren't wasting their 20s and 30s for WOTC scraps.
These elite testing groups don't exist for the other 47 weekends of the year.
It's a bunch of learned, practiced skills, but there is very much an innate skill floor necessary to compete at the higher levels.
Very smart/intelligent people can make very dumb decisions for all sorts of reasons.
Do we count Hoogland as a pro? He's got a master's degree in Mathematics and a regular job.
I'm not talking about just the top PT testing groups, but any serious group. Even those SCG teams with the awful jerseys. Maybe you can't get the true dipshits on the PT but that Sperling quote suggests he's talking to the average player. Ever played in a RPTQ? It's mostly average players who probably don't even have good testing groups.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I don't think I've ever stopped and thought I was good enough to do jack-shit on any level. I simply don't think all that far ahead in gameplay, so I miss lines.
I've top 8ed two SCG opens, won a PTQ, top 8ed a bunch of those prior to the RPTQ system.
In these events, people's decks can carry them so far into an event. But that only goes so far. One thing that shocked me getting to 6-0/7-0 at an SCG event was how damn soft the player base was, even that deep into things. People who were clearly being carreid by their deck and missing all sorts of obvious lines and such.'
I'm not trying to hold myself up as some sort of Paragon, but I have an inherent skill ceiling without ADHD meds because I effectively "drop too many combos" without them- I'll miss stupid little things.
Nbbmmbvmnfnfgnhhnhnnnhhhhhhhh
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
The problem with an equipment subtheme is that they aren't very good at straddling the line between "busted equipment" and "crappy equipment."
Living Weapon worked pretty well, but you barely could call Living Weapons equipment.
Living Weapon worked pretty well, but you barely could call Living Weapons equipment.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
That can be trained, it's not something you're born with. With the myriad of skills and professions that are taught it's very clear that dedication and repetition are what's necessary for success in all fields over pretty much anything.
Wasn't trying to challenge your accomplishments or anything, just saying RPTQs are such an easier road to PTs than PTQs were. You basically win a FNM (PPTQ) and then need to get top 4 out of 40-60 people.
Testing isn't just finding the right deck, it's knowing how to play with and against that deck from both sides of every common matchup. The more familiar you are with whatever format you're playing, the less likely you are to miss things you may have seen dozens of times.
I feel like, when they want to, they can make equipment that is solid but not busted. The trick is to make the equipment situationally good based on the creatures you're running. Things like Ghostfire Blade and Civic Saber and even Hero's Blade are the way to do it. You can also approach it from the other end as well: having creatures that care about equipment in a high enough saturation to make otherwise middling equipment worth running.
blindrocket
Member
Energy powered equipment perhaps?
I could see them doing an equipment that uses energy, rather than mana, as an equip cost. I don't think they'd do more than one or two, though.
No, I didn't take it that way or take any of this personally.
It's just that you can't make a horse fly. You need some sort of innate talent to be capable of playing at the top level, otherwise, you're going to be putting in a lot of effort and not getting anywhere. Practice and such is obviously huge, but being able to work w/ constantly unknown info and such - there's stuff you need to be able to do where there is a threshold requirement.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
You don't work with unknown info, arguments like that just reinforce the importance of preparation and testing groups of Ironmang. You won't know what the field will look like beforehand but there's a limit of cards available and you're going to have a rough grasp of the opponent's deck a couple cards into a game. You won't know the whole deck but the better prepared you are the better you will fare with the limited information you have.
Yes.
And all that prep is pointless if you're not good enough to make good decisions reliably and consistently during the game itself. Decks do not go on auto-pilot. (Well, usually.)
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
That's training, conditioning and a great deal of experience. Talent isn't meaningless or nonexistent, it gives you an edge and a headstart but it's not the end all be all.
Sure, but the idea that anyone can do it? That's a fantasy, one designed to sell packs and prey on the RNG aspect of the game that allows people to easily write off lessons.
I thought that's how Jund players won tournaments.
Shade.
I won my PTQ largely off the back of blowing up Jund decks hard since they couldn't out-removal recursive Vengevines.
SigmasonicX
Member
If they do equipment with energy costs, they'll almost surely enter with just enough energy to equip it once.
Electro-Saw - 2
Artifact - Equipment
When Electro-Saw enters the battlefield, you get EE.
Equipped creature has +2/+0.
Equip EE
Electro-Saw - 2
Artifact - Equipment
When Electro-Saw enters the battlefield, you get EE.
Equipped creature has +2/+0.
Equip EE
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
That would be sick AF!
Here's my take on a card we made earlier in this thread
Aeon Flux uses a gun not a sword
I don't know, there's already lots of energy makers, I could see them getting half there or something. But you might be right.
The idea of "powered" equipment is very exciting. Visionary Augmenter gets almost there, so I expect a full Iron Man suit.
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