Magic: The Gathering C/D

despite the low value payout

you wonder if their data tracking is sophisticated enough to notice that some people aren't gonna substitute $4 games w/ $12 games, they're just gonna play less / not at all

just getting rid of the 2 tix entry fee would help a lot. you shouldn't be able to win one of these events and not be able to enter another event with the prizes. if they were really worried about pack prices they could just make *that* the entry fee (take in 8 packs, give back 6, simple). or stop gouging people on redemptions. I have a hard time believing that they weren't making a healthy profit on redemptions anyway, unless they've really sank that much into the beta. I dunno, I'm just really hoping Hex or SolForge can at least drive enough MTGO players away to convince them to try maybe giving players what they want, for a change

I already wasn't playing a lot of mtgo but this is probably going to end it for me altogether

yeah i'm kind of hoping that one of these slick new online CCGs that are coming out catches on enough that WotC is forced to get their ass in gear with MTGO. it's a pretty absurd blind spot for a company that's otherwise the best at what they do.

though having 3 different ones all pop up around the same time (solforge, hex, hearthstone) might cause none of them to build a big enough playerbase to challenge magic, i dunno.

I am skeptical since the only people who seem to be interested in those games are the real hardcore Magic players who probably won't quit MTGO 100% anyway. But a digital CCG that's well-designed, cheap, and has a good interface really could have a lot going for it, especially if it takes full advantage of not having a paper equivalent.

some theros cards from the duel deck:

http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/daily/features/feat261_pwe_en_e2e8lkg145.jpg
http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/daily/features/feat261_aac_en_x9nkybjgmj.jpg

http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/daily/features/feat261a_cp_en_q7uyjjsteu.jpg
http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/daily/features/feat261a_oop_en_7vcz9xnf1s.jpg
http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/daily/features/feat261a_sh_en_5zcb5doli4.jpg
http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/daily/features/feat261a_dr_en_njemx72mgh.jpg

i like these, am pretty optimistic about this set

Polukarnos seems crazy good. Then again I was pretty excited about Deadbridge Goliath and nobody played it.

Not really crazy about the Heroic ability, seems kinda narrow, but it may get Fight effects played in standard. Either way the 3-spot for Boros seems to be spoken for. I guess we'll have to see what this combos with.

Ordeal of Purphorous seems like a really neat design, hope that it's a cycle.

i think the ordeal is probably part of a cycle yeah. also note that the spell effect is curiously detached from the other trigger, so if there are cards that let you sac enchantments, you can bypass the ordeal and just get the 3 damage right away

hadn't noticed that. definitely seems interesting.
the art in this set looks awesome. I'm usually quite cynical about M:TG's art lately but so far this looks incredible.

Hmm, not feeling much flavor through the mechanics of these cards yet. Maybe the ordeal one. The satyr - am I missing something about why he would sac for mana? Even the flavor text didn't help. Of course, this is just six cards, and I might be the only one who cares about this stuff.

you put a little fire under him and he parties so crazy that you get RRR worth of partying

yeah i doubt these cards are too representational of anything, they're just the ones that fit in the duel decks

Should have just called that dude YOLO xp

hedonist seems like a card for constructed but if they actually made a limited archetype that wants that effect then i'm all ears. i do like that putting Infernal Plunge on a creature now means one fewer unplayable card in draft, that was one of the very few cards in innistrad that was a consistent 14th-pick.

i kind of assume any ritual they'd be willing to print is terrible so i didn't spend any time thinking about that card

howd you end up doing in the premier event yesterday cider?

terrible ritual B

instant
add B to your mana pool

weve gotten a few hints that this set will have a theme of building up your heroes/monsters over time, so maybe it will wind up playable? less unplayable commons definitely = better drafting (something that the developers of M14 seem to have missed)

in other news i lost in the top4 of the standard premier event yesterday:
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Digital/MagicOnlineTourn.aspx?x=mtg/digital/magiconline/tourn/5832066 (smh in 4th place is me)

the deck was kind of inconsistent, but it's pretty fun and has some unreal nut draws

also the sideboard was terrible which i immediately fixed after the event (needed some red removal, i lost the semis match to blood baron which i had no outs for)

someone who plays my local fnm has been trying to make that b/g deck work since ravnica so i find it sort of charming that it's finally doing well.

i played some 8-mans yesterday with brad nelson's revamp of junk rites. i kind of really like the deck, it's the deck i've had the most standard success with but it still feels really fragile

i have a win-a-lotus standard tournament on saturday and i still don't really know what i should be playing

if you win the lotus you should only play vintage from now on

haha if i win the lotus i am going to sell it

I think it will be like lord of the rings and you will find it very difficult to give up that power

i have no recommendations for standard now, i started losing with hexproof which is why i swapped decks for the PE

gonna go back to just jamming red aggro until rotation i think and save my tickets

interesting to see that the r/g aggro deck with reckoner is still competing on mtgo while it's fallen out of favor in paper with the Kibler r/g build taking its place.

The new mega game store in Austin is putting up either boxes of Modern Masters or FTV: 20 as prizes for FNM standard this month, so I'm going to try to bag one of those with my version of the r/g deck.

yeah i'm still playing that deck in irl events since it's the only deck i own, and it's still fine. i put 2-3 burning earth in the sideboard and that's the only new change with M14. have considered chandra as a 1-of too.

I've been wondering about chandra in there too since I pulled one in the last draft I entered. It could play a similar role to Domri in terms of card advantage.

I'm also trying to plan out where the deck is going post-rotation. I don't see a good finisher that can step in for Hellrider at the moment.

dunno if you've experienced a standard rotation before, but basically throw everything you know out the window and start over. the go-to aggro deck next season could be white weenie for all we know

I suppose, but I still expect some r/x aggro variation to be competitive since very few cards in the deck are going away and the only crucial one is Hellrider. Compare to something like Jund Midrange where the deck is pretty much going out of existence.

yeah i agree with that, its just important to realize that environments change a lot at rotation. at this time last year, thragtusk, huntmaster, olivia, garruk primal hunter, farseek, and bonfire were all standard-legal an d yet jund midrange was unplayable. this year it's been one of the top decks with that exact same set of cards.

I'm toying with a few potential changes to the r/g deck. Let me know what you think.

• Moving 2 Domri from sideboard to main deck in place of 2 burn spells
• Upping count of Burning Earth in sideboard from 2 to 3
• Adding 1 copy of Mutavault to main deck in place of a spell, would put me at 22 land
• Adding 2 Scavenging Oozes to main deck in place of a couple spells or to the sideboard to swap with Firefist Striker

are you playing a burning-tree version of r/g?

yes

This is what I'm considering:
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Stromkirk Noble
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Firefist Striker
4 Flinthoof Boar
4 Ghor-Clan Rampager
3 Boros Reckoner
3 Hellrider

2 Pillar of Flame
2 Madcap Skills
2 Searing Spear

2 Domri Rade

1 Mutavault
4 Stomping Ground
4 Rootbound Crag
3 Temple Garden
10 Mountain

Sideboard
3 Skullcrack
3 Burning Earth
2 Electrickery
1 Mark of Mutiny
1 Traitorous Blood
2 Volcanic Strength
3 Mizzium Mortars

i had absolutely no success w/that deck but my thinking would be that ooze is probably not good for you - you're really a red deck so you wont have much green to activate/cast him and you typically want to be curving out anyway and not leaving mana up. you also already have good match-ups against the decks that ooze is good against and you don't care much about you're own life total. i like domri a lot right now but you probably want removal more but i can see why he'd be better than spear. burning earth seems good, although the meta has definitely started to adjust to it on mtgo. i had an oddly large # of mana problems with that deck but i think it can probably support a mutavault. ::shrug::

ooze is bad, not enough green mana and too mana-hungry anyway

1 or 2 mutavaults might be doable

domri should stay in the board, he's not great in this deck except as card advantage vs control

just as a point of reference my current deck looks like the one above except for:

-2 Scavenging Ooze, -2 Domri Rade, -1 Mutavault, -1 Temple Garden, +1 Pyrewild Shaman, +2 Searing Spear, +1 Pillar of Flame, +1 Madcap Skills, +1 Mountain

and in the sideboard
-1 Burning Earth, -1 Mizzium Mortars, -1 Skullcrack, +2 Domri Rade, +1 Electrickery

So the main change would be to sub out some spells for a couple more creatures. I haven't had problems with mana since the curve is so low. Adding Mutavault would bump up the land count by 1. I'm interested in the ooze because it could be a nice midgame mana sink against a removal-heavy deck.

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/other/08142013c

lol I'm not tripping am I? they revised these numbers without mentioning it

"Phantom Points come with a new graphic, and they can be used as entry fees to events. Phantom Points open up additional possibilities for future events and prizes. On August 21, Phantom AVR Sealed, Phantom M14 Sealed, and Phantom RTR Block Sealed will all have an entry fee of 6 Event Tickets OR 10 Phantom Points."

haha yep, nice catch. still think 4 or 5 tix is fair price, not 6

And the other option was 10 phantom points + 2 tix.

Still the most irksome element to me is that the prize payout isn't either packs or at least something that can get you in to other types of events.

at least now they're kinda okay for grinding out the last few QP you need. making them tradeable would almost make it worthwhile. (I still doubt many people are going to play these but it is nice to see them respond to the massive backlash at least)

Nice job iatee!

Kinda bummed by the theros art tbh - wanted something more http://jaddeyekabir.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/sarpedon-vase.jpg

https://twitter.com/MagicOnline/status/369601413141508096

so happy I wrote an angry email

prob still not gonna play

i'm still getting crushed in m14 drafts, it's probably mostly variance but it's kind of discouraging. i've had a lot of cool decks that looked powerful but haven't panned out.

I feel like the colors are so disproportionately powerful and the alternate strategies (slivers, act etc.) so linear that you're less likely to end up with an 'okay' deck that you can carefully pilot to wins if you didn't end up w/ blue or green or enough acts or w/e

yeah that's spot-on i think - you want your deck to be as fast as possible or as slow as possible since if you end up in the middle then you need to be packed full of the good green and/or blue cards to win

i get mad at the set every time i look at the white commons in my sideboard and there's an angelic wall, griffin sentinel, pillarfield ox, dawnstrike paladin, siege mastodon, and suntail hawk

white had started to be ridiculously open lately, although that wasn't as true last night as it had been for about a week or so prior, that i've been consistently X/w. i like the gimmick decks in this so i've been happiest moving into B/w enchantments and B/r sacrifice if they look at all open. my record for this format is much worse than it was for M13 though, partly because i don't think it fits my playstyle very well, i tend to like aggressive tempo decks in limited, i have had a hard time playing both against and with the slow blue and black decks that seem strongest in this format. i hate disperse btw, which makes me sad because unsummon was my most drafted common in M13