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[Crocodile]

This LRR pre-release stream is already amazing <3

The principle is the same- you're giving everyone the ability to play "green" without actually having to play green.

Green decks and decks that want to use mana rocks don't look the same and don't play the same (unless you're playing super ramp and trying to hardcast Eldrazi). This is a non-issue. Plus "color X doing thing Y it doesn't normally do" is the name of the game when you're using cards from all of Magic.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Anyone tried brewing a sphinx tutelage deck?

 

[Angry Grimace]

Those are some....interesting blocks there James

 

[Crocodile]

FFS how many rares does James have in his deck?

#rigged
#hax
#whitelist

 

[kirblar]

FFS how many rares does James have in his deck?

#rigged
#hax
#whitelist

Minimum of 7, probably 8+ in most pools.

 

[Crocodile]

Minimum of 7, probably 8+ in most pools.

I was talking about the rares in his deck, not his pool. It's not often you get so many on-color rares in a pool.

It doesn't matter though because he still lost

 

[Santiako]

FFS how many rares does James have in his deck?

#rigged
#hax
#whitelist

Still lost though lol

 

[kirblar]

I was talking about the rares in his deck, not his pool. It's not often you get so many on-color rares in a pool.

It doesn't matter though because he still lost

Oh, I'm not watching the stream- (SFV is on )

My best sealed ever was a mono-red Mirran deck for MBS w/ 14 maindeck removal spells.

 

[Santiako]

He had:

Burn from Within
Olivia
From Under the Floorboards
The 3/2 haste rare red werewolf
Markov Dread Knight

5 rares/mythics in his colours!

 

[Angry Grimace]

My best sealed pool just had 2 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar.

 

[Ashodin]

GB's black deck is sick yo

Mindwrack demon is gnarly as fuck

 

[Santiako]

Arlinn is pretty busted in sealed guys.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Oath of Jace is probably really good for possible Sphinx tutelage decks right now, it gets 3 triggers for 3, it protects the tutelage from Dromoka's Command and if needed helps enable delirium through discard of that's needed, 3CMC could get crowded like that though.

Haven't gone through SoI completely though.

 

[Santiako]

Six decks so far, all of them have red. Crazy.

 

[Angry Grimace]

wheee MTGO beta is back up for lots of SOI standard testing

Like if you guys really wanted to test for it, you can just play for free on the MTGO beta and they give you all of the cards in Standard.

 

[Toxi]

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";199260326]Speaking of Investigate, this card being sorcery messed me up because I'm so used to the effect being instant:

[/QUOTE]
I love this set's art so much. Even this piece, while not as incredible as Seb McKinnon's work, show's a level of humor that's been missing from the game's art for years.

 

[Ashodin]

oh fuuuuuuck foil avacyn

Kathleen just REKT graham

 

[Santiako]

Foil Avacyn is just unfair.

 

[Angry Grimace]

lol just won a game with Arlinn's Ultimate

 

[kirblar]

I suspect Arlinn is going to be mediocre when all is said and done. Having only one mode when your side of the board is empty is rough- she's very bad from behind.

 

[Angry Grimace]

I suspect Arlinn is going to be mediocre when all is said and done. Having only one mode when your side of the board is empty is rough- she's very bad from behind.

She's cool, but the flipping limitation definitely limits how powerful she is.

 

[kirblar]

She's cool, but the flipping limitation definitely limits how powerful she is.

The two comparisons are Flip Garruk and Huntmaster, and I think she's worse than both.

 

[charlequin]

Cube =/= Standard. If Green or Aggro or whatever is doing poorly in your Cube, its not because of mana rocks. It's because you designed Green poorly/don't have appropriate aggro support.

The way to design green correctly is to not include random mana rocks.

Plus "color X doing thing Y it doesn't normally do" is the name of the game when you're using cards from all of Magic.

The color pie you work with has to be more expansive in eternal formats for sure, but you still want what each color does to be as distinct as possible.

 

[kirblar]

The idea that cube = "all the eternal bullshit" is really annoying. "Cube" = curated limited format.

 

[Crocodile]

LRR stream is a riot <3

The way to design green correctly is to not include random mana rocks.

The color pie you work with has to be more expansive in eternal formats for sure, but you still want what each color does to be as distinct as possible.

Putting together distinct archetypes, even just along color axes, is not difficult in a Cube (even one pulling from all of Magic's history). So odd you're willing to call out WOTC when they mess up their Modo Cube construction so readily but are willing to accept wholesale "mana rocks ruin Green/Aggro" nonsense.

 

[f0rk]

LRR stream is a riot <3

Making these two read the cards is pretty funny

 

[Crocodile]

The idea that cube = "all the eternal bullshit" is really annoying. "Cube" = curated limited format.

A) I'm clearly talking about a Standard Cube. Obviously you can design by what rules you want. There is a reason I have multiple Cubes with different goals and themes/restrictions. Some have a lot of rocks, some have very few. But I never include many/few based on fears on what it would do to Green/Aggro because if they are failing, then I've made mistakes elsewhere.

B) I've seen Green/Aggro do too well too often in my own and other Cubes to accept "mana rocks ruin Green" to be accurate. Standard =/= any Cube.

 

[SigmasonicX]

Hmm

magistermystax asked: How about Battle for Zendikar block DtWs?

A little too soon. I have a lot to say in my “State of Design” about the block and I’d rather say it there first.

Jace originally investigated

strymon asked: Hey Mark, it just occurred to me that Jace, Unraveler of Secrets is kind of strangely missing Investigate. Feels like a bit of a flavor fail when he is THE investigator in the set. Was there any reason for that?

For much of design and development, he did have Investigate. I’m not sure what caused him to lose it.

 

[f0rk]

hahaha doing the dumb stream memes in real life, Numot knows it's awkward

 

[Ashodin]

Hmm


Jace originally investigated

Yeah I thought it would be there too.

 

[Crocodile]

Hmm

Jace originally investigated

I listened to the recent DtW on "Lessons learned from Theros" and he said a lesson he learned is not to abandon mechanics sooner than necessary (talking about the Monstrosity > Tribute switch). He said the same also applies to Battle for Zendikar block and that he'd talk about it in his State of Design article later.

 

[kirblar]

I listened to the recent DtW on "Lessons learned from Theros" and he said a lesson he learned is not to abandon mechanics sooner than necessary (talking about the Monstrosity > Tribute switch). He said the same also applies to Battle for Zendikar block and that he'd talk about it in his State of Design article later.

Processing disappearing was a huge mistake.

 

[Hero]

Processing disappearing was a huge mistake.

Absolutely 100%

 

[Angry Grimace]

living the dream

 

[red13th]

I think rocks like Signet warp cube formats if you add the cycle, but adding the better 2 mana rocks like Coldsteel Heart and Mind Stone, plus Coalition Relic makes good high picks for control decks and allows you to push aggro decks a bit. Plus Wildfire decks basically require mana rocks. I wouldn't cut them altogether.

 

[Lucario]

living the dream

It's beautiful.

 

[Ashodin]

Working on a SOI Boros Equip deck

Thanks GB for the fights, I think this deck will be better than CoCo bullshit three color

+

= bah gawd

 

[ironmang]

Anybody want to do some soi standard cockatrice testing at some point? I'm trying to find the best midrange deck to take to scg baltimore on release weekend. So far Abzan and Jund look like the best since Advocate is the best 2 drop (that attacks) by miles.

I really want to play GDD and Thunderbreak so if they're close I'll be taking jund. Let me know what you guys think of this list and any potential weaknesses or card omissions.

 

[bigkrev]

So, there is a Kickstarter for GGSLive to do video coverage of GP Minneapolis
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ggslive/mtg-grand-prix-minneapolis-live-streaming-coverage

I'm infuriated by this because WHY IS WIZARDS NOT STREAMING THEIR PRODUCT. The fact that the price is not that expensive (when you take out the 10% of Amazon/Kickstarter fees plus the cost of reward fulfillment) makes me think Wizards puts no value on their product.

 

[Ashodin]

hmu on trice (ashodin)

 

[kirblar]

So, there is a Kickstarter for GGSLive to do video coverage of GP Minneapolis
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ggslive/mtg-grand-prix-minneapolis-live-streaming-coverage

I'm infuriated by this because WHY IS WIZARDS NOT STREAMING THEIR PRODUCT. The fact that the price is not that expensive (when you take out the 10% of Amazon/Kickstarter fees plus the cost of reward fulfillment) makes me think Wizards puts no value on their product.

Budget. MTGNext, DeTora not getting hired, Escape Rooms at GPs, losing all their public-facing CM positions leaving Trick to do PR- you can see what's going on.

 

[Angry Grimace]

I'm testing like every possible deck I can think of. The only one that seems really good is the same BW Eldrazi deck I've been playing because it just gets better without 4c shit to deal with.

Strangely, Zombies seems better than I assume it was.

 

[charlequin]

Putting together distinct archetypes, even just along color axes, is not difficult in a Cube (even one pulling from all of Magic's history). So odd you're willing to call out WOTC when they mess up their Modo Cube construction so readily but are willing to accept wholesale "mana rocks ruin Green/Aggro" nonsense.

It's not that it's literally impossible to design a cube where there are cheap mana rocks and green aggro is good, it's that absent very specific design goals and execution the biggest effect cheap mana rocks have is to make green shittier.

 

[A Serious Man]

Are you from the future?

MTGO beta.

 

[Ashodin]

MTGO beta.

So you technically are!

 

[Angry Grimace]

Relentless Dead is a ridiculous fucking Magic card if you get the mana going for it. I think that deck is a few cards in Eldritch Moon away from being legit as fuck.

 

["God's Beard!"]

I'm testing like every possible deck I can think of. The only one that seems really good is the same BW Eldrazi deck I've been playing because it just gets better without 4c shit to deal with.

Strangely, Zombies seems better than I assume it was.

Yeah my mono black eldrazi deck is just stomping everything. Not having to worry about the mana is a huge deal in this format. and x/5s survive so much.

 

[Ashodin]

Relentless Dead is a ridiculous fucking Magic card if you get the mana going for it. I think that deck is a few cards in Eldritch Moon away from being legit as fuck.

relentless dead is gnarly

and in the matchup you can run erebos' titan

 

[Angry Grimace]

Board state:

I have 2 Relentless Dead out and my opponent goes to Languish. Everything dies. I put the triggers on the stack, targeting Relentless Dead No. 1 with Relentless Dead No. 2's reanimate ability and targetting Relentless Dead No. 2 with the other Relentless Dead's reanimate ability. The Prized Amalgam triggers out of the yard and returns to the battlefield. I have more guys than when he went for the play.

IDK why more people don't just sign up for the beta. It takes like 5 minutes and is free and you get to play with free cards and they have scheduled drafts too. Its the kind of testing function that would be utterly ridiculous if it was in the actual client.

 

[divisionbyzorro]

Board state:

I have 2 Relentless Dead out and my opponent goes to Languish. Everything dies. I put the triggers on the stack, targeting Relentless Dead No. 1 with Relentless Dead No. 2's reanimate ability and targetting Relentless Dead No. 2 with the other Relentless Dead's reanimate ability. The Prized Amalgam triggers out of the yard and returns to the battlefield. I have more guys than when he went for the play.

IDK why more people don't just sign up for the beta. It takes like 5 minutes and is free and you get to play with free cards and they have scheduled drafts too. Its the kind of testing function that would be utterly ridiculous if it was in the actual client.

I've been on it for years. Beta Sealed is the craziest format ever - I love it.