Magic: The Gathering C/D

it seems like limited playtesting is a better use of their time, just in that you can get a pretty good sense of how a set plays in limited / what's broken after 20 drafts, but predicting the constructed meta when most of the cards aren't even being played at the moment...

they playtest limited and standard a ton but don't test block much and don't test eternal formats at all

you know Gatecreeper Vine may be a big card in RTR block

i'm thinking of a G/W/B deck with Deathrites/Abrupt Decay/Centaur Healers/Obzedat/Vraska

vine gets played in like bant control but in general the mana in the block is much better than in a typical block so that type of effect isn't as powerful in context. borderland ranger was an actual threat with wolf run, sacced to falkenrath aristocrat for a counter, etc. all while fixing your mana. gatecreeper vine just fixes and chumps once and that's not worth 1G unless you're a 3+ color control deck.

here's what a G/W/B block deck looks like at the moment
http://mtgstats.com/Deck.aspx?DeckID=581570

you don't really have much else to do on turn two tho, at its worst it's just deck thinning

yeah Alms Beast is something i'd definitely play with. just a deck of big honkers.

true that Borderland has its advantages but Vine can nip Gates, and it does tap for the Grove :)

gyre sage, call of the conclave, lotleth troll, abrupt decay their guy are all better things to do on 2 than play vine. i don't think it's terrible, i just don't think the mana in the block is bad enough that you need it

just want to fire off that Obzedat - but yeah Sage/Call are probably better. in fact I would imagine Call of the Conclave plays quite well?

it's okay, awkwardly not a creature for domri though so i don't play it in my naya decks

well a card I really want to dick around with is Rootborn Defenses. though it's no good vs. Auger Spree. do people play that?

everything just feels like speculation now - ultimately every block deck I've seen just plays like a really good draft deck. DGM should mix things up.

i wouldn't go that far, really good draft decks still don't have 4 sphinx's revelation and 4 wraths

it just depends how good a drafter you are

yeah but in general the idea is just to play the most powerful stuff within your color pairing, and from what I can see the guild mechanics do come into play

from the new Duels game

http://25.media.tumblr.com/5b5da31eb312ae3788455e4e0b96eac9/tumblr_mk2hlzS4aT1rp0rzso1_1280.jpg

could be a spoiler for M14? seems like a good way to either get Griselbrand out early or play your whole hand on turn 3 and lose

there was a demon shown in one of those promo videos too - 3BB for 5/6 flying, when it ETB destroy target non-Demon creature, sac it on upkeep if you don't have 6+ creatures in your graveyard. obviously meant to go together. not clear if they are M14 spoilers though or whether they're actually making special cards for duels now

there was also a reaper from the abyss-style demon spoiled in the duels video. although i'd be pretty interested in playing a demon tribal deck for a few months this summer

haha! i had 2 before. but i figured i had lots of options against burning-tree

i havent played a block daily since last year but mono-red was a huge part of that meta and i cant imagine its gone away so i figured it might be a good card against that match-up while still allowing you to be aggressive against the UWx decks. i really like that list though, i should be playing more standard but maybe ill try to put that list together, the only cards i need are reckoners i think

or maybe w/r/b is good? i feel like rakdos return has to be the best answer to sphinx's revelation decks, it can answer an obzedat a couple of ways although it may be too weak to aggro starts? idk

i wish block was interesting, because its fun to think about playing cards like high priest of penance in a constructed format but rtr only block was actually really narrow

Next block announced: Theros

Set two: Born of the Gods

Set three: Journey Into Nyx

could use a break from draft. after 0-3'ing a Swiss for the first time in my life (playing 5c green no less), i've gone no better than 1-2 in the last 8 or so events I've done. in the meantime my rating has tumbled nearly 200 points. daaaaamn, what happened

lamp and I were also having pretty shitty days on mtgo, something in the air

lost two matches due to misclicks + not realizing I needed to fix my settings w/ stops

yeah as of about 9 days ago i had my limited rating over 1900 for the first time and now i'm down at 1768 after going 1-2 in an M13 phantom sealed of all things. also cider my results with that geist list have been terrible. i lent it to a friend for a standard tournament and he went 5-0 with it, so i'm not sure i want to give up on it completely but i've yet to win a match on mtgo with it and went 1-3 at fnm. i'm also irritated because farseek has been one of the fnm promos i've most wanted to get a playset of and i'm stuck w/only one so far this month. i realize how lame this is but it doesn't stop me from being upset by it all the same.

i played a couple matches with your list and aggro matchups seemed unwinnable which is not where i want to be on MTGO where there's a higher % of aggro than irl events

lost two matches due to misclicks + not realizing I needed to fix my settings w/ stops

Were you trying to flash in a 4/4 elemental on your opponent's declare attackers phase?

its the phantom sealeds that are killing me. i havent won two matches in any of my last six. seems like if I play 3 colors that I'm destined to lose one game every match to just not drawing the color I need. I hate going R/G/W and having like one on-color gate but 4 Dimir ones. If I go two color it seems like I'm always playing cards I really don't want (like the 2RW double strike batallion 3/1 guy) and just losing to bomb-ass creatures every match.

not that exactly this time but the same thing more or less. I figured out what was wrong but it's dumb that the default settings prevent flash blocks etc

also lost one where I was trying for like a minute to figure out how to work Simic Charm's +3/+3 with trample to get past a Guardian of the Gateless and wound up getting Smited, not even realizing I could have just bounced the damn thing. i need a break

lol I recently double striked a 3/2 w/ boros charm leaving them at one life and losing on the next turn. gf was talking to me while I was playing so I blame her but...

Ran into a weird problem trying to cast biomass mutation today. I tapped for 6 mana, but it only applied 5 to the spell. I think it has something to do with the choice of which colors I chose for the hybrid portion and then the order in which I tapped, but I'm not really sure.

Do you know how that works? Does the order in which you tap lands impact hybrid spells, X spells, or both?

MTGO has a weird way of trying to figure out what mana you're tapping for the spell and which you're not. I'm not sure of a better way to do it but you really have to watch your pool in these cases. To cast a hybrid spell, I think it works like this:

1) Select "how" you cast it (like...XGG, XGU, XUU...)
2) Tap the necessary colored mana
3) Tap mana for X

If you do, say, XGG, then tap an island BEFORE you tap the two green, the blue mana just goes to your pool, not to the X. So if the cost was XGG and you tapped Forest, Island, Forest, Island, then the rest, you'd have one regenade blue.

Yeah, that's basically what happened with me. Is the same applicable to all X spells?

i played a couple matches with your list and aggro matchups seemed unwinnable which is not where i want to be on MTGO where there's a higher % of aggro than irl events

yeah at fnm i played nothing but aggro decks and did terribly. i also played like garbage but that was partly just getting bored/frustrated with my deck in the last two rounds and not focusing on the matches at all.

i tried playing with it again and it's just not good enough rn. not sure what deck i should pick up next so if you have any suggestions i'm still looking for a deck i really like. might try rug flash next if nothing else fun pops up

i'm currently 5-1 in the ptq with naya humans but i dunno if that's your type of thing

list is almost identical to the one i was playing a month ago
http://mtgstats.com/Deck.aspx?DeckID=575291

maindeck: -1 wolfbitten captive -1 fiend hunter +1 garruk relentless +1 geistflame
sideboard: -1 oblivion ring -2 zealous conscripts +2 rest in peace +1 garruk relentless

yeah i saw you were in that. gl btw

i dont mind naya humans but i only have two sacred foundries irl and i may need garruks on mtgo

garruk has been unimpressive every time i try it but xMiMx, the mtgo grinder guy i get my aggro lists from, insists it's good and he wins a ton with the deck so i dunno. i think you can play it without garruk for sure, i did for a long time.

yeah, i'll give it a try. as much as i want to try rug flash my feeling is that its probably not that great. how'd you do in the ptq?

i crashed and burned after that post, finished 6-4. still think the deck is fine though.

welp I just drafted a deck with 5 kingpin's pet, wish me luck

how is that possible? It's usually a pretty high pick

I uploaded it here:
http://www.raredraft.com/watch?d=47d36

Getting one p1p1 is kind of dodgy, but I'm not big on the Hellkite (only seems good in Gruul and I never go Gruul)
Looking back I do have some tough choices - Screecher > Killing Glare is one I kinda wish I hadn't done in retrospect, but I had no idea how the rest would shake out

well i just got pwnz0red pretty hard by that Homing Lightning. guess I was kinda asking for it.

I had 4 kingpens once, my deck was only okay-good iirc

5 syndics would probably be a lot better

i drafted an unexpected results deck the other night and unexpectedly beat a 5 kingpin's pet deck in the first round.

frog, did you actually pick syndicate enforcer over corpse blockade? yuuuuuuuuuck

and why the random biomass mutation/experiment one when there were totally esper playables?

nvm. i'm looking at one of your other drafts and true to your website allegiance you are such a raredrafter!! i just saw you pick an epic experiment in selesnya (with possible blue splash) over gatecreeper vine.

didnt like either enforcer nor blockade, but I already had a blockade...agreed that pick was a bit dodgy. I'm not really a big fan of multiple Blockades.

why the Biomass Mutation? I don't really consider any of those playable, even if I'm going Esper - Psychic Strike would just never get played, especially if I'm splashing, Horror comes around so often and I hate it, and Shadow Slice is definitely not something I'd play..that was a pure rare draft/insurance I don't lose to random Biomass Mutation

I really disliked taking Epic Experiment all the time, but they do sell easy for 2 tix apeice and I can't justify taking any non-money card over it. it sucks but it prevents me from having to pour a zillion $$$ into drafting.

One of the most annoying game losses I had at that last GP was playing my 2nd Ember Beast to the board rather than Hellraiser Goblin after seeing Homing Lightning game 1. The second I played it I knew I was gonna get blown out, and my opponent wasted no time getting his 2-for-1 on his turn.