than just buy one of the decks that wizards puts out. the green/white event deck from M13 is p good value and its only like $20
― Lamp, Wednesday, 26 September 2012 16:07 (eleven years ago) link
i mean if you just want lots of cards i have boxes of draft commons and uncommons you can have for free
let's play sometime. i need to learn more than just ipad-style
― EVERYONE COOKING SCMABLED EGGS,CHEESE WITH TOASTER!! (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 26 September 2012 16:09 (eleven years ago) link
those mixed lot auctions are okay but kind of a ripoff given that there are plenty of people out there like me or Lamp who draft a lot and will gladly dump off all their commons/uncommons on you for no charge. i don't even bring all my drafted cards home from the store anymore, i just leave the commons/uncommons lying around for other people to pick up, unless i specifically need them for a deck.
― ciderpress, Wednesday, 26 September 2012 16:10 (eleven years ago) link
forks I live in ny and will play w/ you
― iatee, Wednesday, 26 September 2012 16:11 (eleven years ago) link
yeah Wizards has a lot of products for those who want an okay Standard deck for cheap. if you're looking for bulk common/uncommons just head on down to a store where people draft and ask around. most drafters are more than happy to give away stacks of cards...hell when I draft I would say maybe 1 or 2 of the guys actually keeps what they draft. the rest just lies around. just getting a bunch of random uncommons really won't get you anywhere.
― frogbs, Wednesday, 26 September 2012 16:21 (eleven years ago) link
well afaik forks is pretty new to the game so getting a bunch of random uncommons could get him 'a good time', it's not like he's gonna be playing competitive constructed anytime soon
― iatee, Wednesday, 26 September 2012 16:25 (eleven years ago) link
well yeah but if you just want a bunch of random cards you shouldn't have to buy them on eBay. those M13 decks aren't really competitive but for someone just coming into the game I think they're good since the cards are meant to play together. if you're stringing together cards from random sets you'll definitely wind up with something unique but you miss the synergy between mechanics which is a big feature of pretty much any modern set
again it all really depends what exactly you're looking to do
― frogbs, Wednesday, 26 September 2012 16:28 (eleven years ago) link
i should probably steer clear entirely honestly, i have enough addictive issues as it is.But i will be down to try a few hands sometime.
― EVERYONE COOKING SCMABLED EGGS,CHEESE WITH TOASTER!! (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 26 September 2012 17:08 (eleven years ago) link
the duel decks are actually just awesome if all you want is to have 2 decks that are evenly matched to pick up and play with anyone else. i have knights vs dragons, which is probably one of the crappier ones, and yet it's still a lot of fun to pull out when you don't really feel like playing hardcore
― ciderpress, Wednesday, 26 September 2012 17:58 (eleven years ago) link
The more I look at the RtR cards, the more I'm thinking that Rakdos is the way to go for the prerelease as it looks like it would shine in Limited, although I think I prefer Golgari overall and might throw in some Scavenge creatures if the opportunity presents itself.
― Moodles, Wednesday, 26 September 2012 21:45 (eleven years ago) link
I'm digging this series of articles:
http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=10726
― Moodles, Wednesday, 26 September 2012 21:46 (eleven years ago) link
they're entertaining but it's weird to go back and see how inaccurate they wind up being; I think these sets are too complicated and have too many interactions for anyone to really definitively say what's great and what's not without playing the set (besides obvious cards like Talrand's Invocation)
― frogbs, Wednesday, 26 September 2012 22:22 (eleven years ago) link
well well well Cube draft is back
― frogbs, Thursday, 27 September 2012 00:44 (eleven years ago) link
i don't like cube, i'm more excited about tempest drafts next week
― ciderpress, Thursday, 27 September 2012 00:53 (eleven years ago) link
i've never drafted mirage or tempest. awesome this is happening but i'm kind of sad it's only going to last a week or so. either way this is exactly the kind of thing that makes me forgive MTGO for its many many flaws
― frogbs, Thursday, 27 September 2012 00:59 (eleven years ago) link
mirage was the last block with banding, make sure you know how it works before you play or you will find your creatures all inexplicably in the graveyard the first time a band attacks you
― ciderpress, Thursday, 27 September 2012 04:12 (eleven years ago) link
rip benalish hero
― iatee, Thursday, 27 September 2012 13:25 (eleven years ago) link
essentially it means the controller of the band gets to decide where damage goes, right?
stuff like banding + flying/trample has always confused me but i'm willing to just wing it
did a cube draft last night for the first time. it's not as degenerate as a cube a buddy of mine has (with all the power 9 and dumb stuff like Tinker and Time Spiral) but it was still really fun. went 2-1 despite completely blowing the draft after realizing that the cards needed for a Necropotence deck weren't really there. seems like big accel/bomb-ass spells is the way to go. anyway it's really fun and with their new "Cube ticket" you can actually do a bunch for not much cost.
― frogbs, Thursday, 27 September 2012 13:30 (eleven years ago) link
yeah black has been unplayable in the MTGO cube so far, to the point where they removed the 2 pro-black swords this time around, which seems ridiculous when they could just improve the black options instead
― ciderpress, Thursday, 27 September 2012 13:34 (eleven years ago) link
and in light of that i have no fucking clue why they removed vampire nighthawk
― ciderpress, Thursday, 27 September 2012 13:36 (eleven years ago) link
man you guys are really tempting me w/ mtgo
translated to human money how much does a draft online usually run you?
― iatee, Thursday, 27 September 2012 13:39 (eleven years ago) link
its about the same price as irl, like $13-14, but you can cycle all your winnings right back into the next draft so depending on how good you are you can potentially end up only spending a few bucks per draft on average.
― ciderpress, Thursday, 27 September 2012 13:44 (eleven years ago) link
That's a tough question b/c it depends on your skill level but I'll try to break it down. Anyway, tickets sell for $1 apiece. Drafts cost 3 packs and 2 tickets. Packs of M13 sell for ~ 3.2 tickets now, so the cost is 11.6 tix/draft. But if you do Swiss (for example) you win a pack for every match you win. So say you win two, then your next draft would be 5.2 tix, but you can also sell the cards you drafted. In AVR this was a big deal since some Mythics were worth a boatload of tickets. I'm guessing RTR will be easy to sustain because a whole lot of rares look to fall in the 2-4 tix range.
On average for me I'm looking at around $2-3/draft doing Swiss. Apparently some real top pros can "go infinite" doing it but it's very tough to do.
Also, 4-pack sealed has no ticket requirement, so you can bang out a bunch of those for even cheaper. It's less fun though.
― frogbs, Thursday, 27 September 2012 13:47 (eleven years ago) link
oh yeah forgot to mention, you have to buy packs from the bots. Wizards online store will charge you 3.99 apiece no matter what, but the "market price" fluctuates a lot
― frogbs, Thursday, 27 September 2012 13:48 (eleven years ago) link
this is what i've been waiting for http://puremtgo.com/articles/ars-arcanum-rtr-prerelease-primer
― ciderpress, Thursday, 27 September 2012 14:02 (eleven years ago) link
yeah black has been unplayable in the MTGO cube so far
based on what I could see during the draft, red looked pretty bad too. not sure I'd first pick any red card there. green seems really strong though.
― frogbs, Thursday, 27 September 2012 14:34 (eleven years ago) link
xpost
dude is going hard for Selesnya, interesting...
I'm leaning toward Rakdos for the draft with either some overload or scavenge cards thrown in depending on what I open
― Moodles, Thursday, 27 September 2012 14:37 (eleven years ago) link
my takeaways from that article (much better than the Conley Woods ones, by the way)
1) avoid drafting 3 drops because you're going to end up with a lot of them no matter what2) may be a lot of stalemates due to a lack of lategame threats, which the guild mechanics should be able to break3) creatures with 3 or more toughness are at a premium because there's an abundance of 2-power creatures4) for Azorius, draft good offensive creatures high because there's a lot of good defensive ones5) Izzet is probably the worst guild as it has lots of unplayables6) Golgari has a glut of 4 drops7) Selesnya has a lot of token generators, so don't worry about not being able to populate8) Selesnya is probably the best guild (which was my hunch as well)
― frogbs, Thursday, 27 September 2012 14:44 (eleven years ago) link
I think ciderpress said as much upthread, but will 'best guild' even matter after the prerelease? I'd imagine an 8 man draft will make drafting along guild-lines kinda difficult - like if you happen to be lucky enough to be the only one drafting that color combo, you are gonna be a good place regardless.
― iatee, Thursday, 27 September 2012 18:09 (eleven years ago) link
well remember, the multicolor cards are only in the 5 guild pairs, and those comprise most of the strong cards in the set. if you're in an 'off-pair' you're almost certainly going to have to splash the in-between color for multicolor cards or else your deck is going to be underpowered.
so like you don't have to be GW in draft, but if you're GR, you really want to be splashing black to get access to GB and BR spells
― ciderpress, Thursday, 27 September 2012 18:20 (eleven years ago) link
usually it takes a few weeks before drafters at large catch onto what the best color combinations are. basically it looks like both G/W and G/B are going to be good so I'm more likely to take a good green card over a good red one. you're right that draft "self-corrects" but unless one color is noticably weak (like black in AVR) I don't think casual players really catch on much to what the best/worst colors are
― frogbs, Thursday, 27 September 2012 18:20 (eleven years ago) link
especially since each guild has a lot of support. I think a LOT of drafters are going to open a very good multicolored Uncommon or Rare and just go with it
― frogbs, Thursday, 27 September 2012 18:21 (eleven years ago) link
i'm willing to believe that 1 in 10 drafts or whatever, you'll be able to get a focused deck with just an off-guild color pair but it's going to be the exception not the norm
― ciderpress, Thursday, 27 September 2012 18:22 (eleven years ago) link
I was more suggesting that 3 color becomes inevitable rather than people going off pair
― iatee, Thursday, 27 September 2012 18:22 (eleven years ago) link
and if you've got a solid 2 deck you're in a really good place / got slightly lucky
yeah that sounds about right to me, with the caveat being that i don't think the mana fixing is quite good enough or the format quite slow enough to do pure 3-color like you could in the old ravnica block. you'll want one of your 3 colors to only have things that are relevant late-game so that you can run fewer mana sources of it.
― ciderpress, Thursday, 27 September 2012 18:28 (eleven years ago) link
for example, imagine having a RWU deck where you have your early plays in red and white, and your blue is Isperia's Skywatch, Detention Sphere, Teleportal, Voidwielder, New Prahv Guildmage. That's the type of 3-color that will work here I think.
― ciderpress, Thursday, 27 September 2012 18:33 (eleven years ago) link
maybe I don't remember the original Rav block very well but I don't think two color decks that weren't a guild pairing ever really worked. going G/R or U/B in RTR seems like it's going to cut you off from a lot of synergy and all the gold cards, which are among the best commons and uncommons in the set.=
― frogbs, Thursday, 27 September 2012 18:34 (eleven years ago) link
I'm really interested to see how the colour fixing goes in this set. It seems to have a lot less at common (bouncelands and signets being replaced by just the gates and no manadorks that i've seen), but people have pointed out that things like the gates and the uncommon man-artifacts (whatever they're called) are A LOT less appealing to people not in those colours, so they are more likely to come later.
― webber, Friday, 28 September 2012 00:40 (eleven years ago) link
this set is a lot of fun! i've never wanted to go back for a second prerelease before but i've now done 2. some things:
-The guilds are quite well balanced. Selesnya seems like the strongest if you get enough of the cheaper token makers to get your engine rolling but that's far from a given.-Rakdos is pretty polarized - it's super powerful when you're curving out decently, but if you stumble and lose the initiative and have to stop unleashing, your guys are all trading down and you probably can't win.-The format is faster than I expected - it seems faster than M13 but still slower than Innistrad due to the stretchier manabases and less efficient tempo tricks-3-color decks are way more doable than I thought they'd be. My first pool was light on fixing, but my 2nd pool had 6 guildgates and 2 keyrunes, plus some green fixing that i didn't use. i could probably have played 4-5 colors with that pool and been fine, and this is in sealed.
― ciderpress, Sunday, 30 September 2012 06:28 (eleven years ago) link
I originally thought the "guildpack" + promo was kind of a gimmick that would give people powerful sealed pools, but seeing this in action I realize that pretty much everyone would have to go 3 colors if they didn't have it. I played like 12 out of the 15 cards in there.
I picked Selesnya and it really did work well - starting as early as turn 2 you can just pump out 3/3's nonstop. Also they have a lot of combat tricks that can turn your opponent's attacks into blowouts. But it really is more balanced than I thought.
― frogbs, Sunday, 30 September 2012 06:38 (eleven years ago) link
also Radkos having a 1/4 reach and a 3/3 lifelink is kinda weird isn't it
― frogbs, Sunday, 30 September 2012 06:39 (eleven years ago) link
the 1/4 reach is BG isn't it?
and the lifelinker has haste so that's fine. helps race vs other aggro decks when you can't block
― ciderpress, Sunday, 30 September 2012 06:39 (eleven years ago) link
i won so many games with Stab Wound, its got to be the best common in the set
― ciderpress, Sunday, 30 September 2012 06:43 (eleven years ago) link
i guess you're right. guy I was playing was mostly Rakdos but now I remember he splashed some green. I remember that card well b/c I kept a sketchy hand because it had all 3 Eyes in the Skies I got and he didn't seem to have much vs. fliers. that card = ouch
as for the other guilds, Azorious looked actually pretty decent, but you really need to get the right dudes out. someone speculated that it really wasn't going to be a good draft strategy since a lot of the good commons/uncommons will just get taken by other guilds (whereas, say, the Populate cards are not very good in non-Selesnya decks). Izzet did not look good but the 2/2 for 2R that zaps your opponent for 2 on every instant/sorcery seems really good. I expected a lot of people to go Izzet but it seemed to be the least popular by far.
― frogbs, Sunday, 30 September 2012 06:45 (eleven years ago) link
Had lots of fun at the prerelease. I chose Rakdos and ended up going 2-2. The store I went to was very generous with prizes, so I went home with a couple extra boosters and a $5 gift certificate.
The highlight for me was pulling Vraska, my first planeswalker! I didn't come up with too many creatures in Rakdos colors, so splashing green was a no brainer. I agree that color fixing is very easy with cards like Transguild Promenade. I think going with more than 3 is absolutely workable. Playing Vraska was excellent and completely demoralizing for my opponents and won me several games.
My biggest challenge was getting off to a fast enough start because I didn't have enough 1 and 2 drops. I also had a tendency to stall out mid-game.
Deviant Glee was probably the biggest surprise all star for me. You get a ton of value for one swamp and a bonus mountain. Slitherhead (aka Tony Harrison's corpse) also played a surprise role in support of Launch Party.
― Moodles, Monday, 1 October 2012 04:42 (eleven years ago) link
Here's my final deck list:
SlitherheadDeviant GleeGrim RoustaboutOgre Jailbreaker2x Stab WoundDead RevelerDark RevenantLaunch PartyBrushstriderTowering IndrikRakdos Shred-Freak2x Gore-House Chainealker2x Splatter ThugLobber CrewAnnihilating FireAuger SpreeSkull RendRakdos Ringleader Carnival HellsteedVraska the Unseen2x Transguild Promenade Rakdos GuildgateGolgari Guildgate 5 Swamps6 Mountains2 Forests
― Moodles, Monday, 1 October 2012 04:51 (eleven years ago) link
cool, looks good except that i'm not sure you want to be playing a 2-drop (brushstrider) off of a splash. you want splashed cards to have some late-game value because you won't always have access to your green right away, and i think a 3/1 fails the late-game test.
― ciderpress, Monday, 1 October 2012 05:49 (eleven years ago) link
Yeah, it definitely wasn't my ideal choice, but I was starved for cheap creatures in black or red. Brushstrider ended up seeing a fair amount of play and I always seemed to have green available. Being able to hit for 3 in the early game fit well with the Rakdos theme, but then the vigilance gave me a blocker when I needed it, which was lacking due to unleash.
― Moodles, Monday, 1 October 2012 13:38 (eleven years ago) link