http://i.imgur.com/fuLrklE.png
tfw you accidentally play your land instead of cycling it. apparently.
― Roberto Spiralli, Saturday, 26 August 2017 23:47 (six years ago) link
The internet's a cool place
― Moodles, Sunday, 27 August 2017 00:28 (six years ago) link
So my gf and I bought one of those paired duel deck packs, Nissa v Ob Nixilis. It was really fun! Nice to know that it's basically the same game and the mechanics aren't inscrutable for someone who played in the mid '90s.
The black deck won 3 out of 3 though and feels way more interesting and powerful. It's too bad, because it doesn't seem like it would have been that difficult to make the green one a little less one-dimensional.
We don't want to go into the rabbit hole of actually buying packs and building decks, but would it be possible to buy a different duel set and then have four to choose from? Or are they at really different levels? I really like the idea of having some evenly-matched decks around where it could go either way. Since it's just the two of us playing, there's no point to one of us building the killer deck.
― change display name (Jordan), Sunday, 27 August 2017 23:23 (six years ago) link
most of the duel decks are around the same power level so you could probably mix and match a bit. If you can find "blessed vs cursed" that's a recent one that people seem to think is well balanced. the only one i would avoid is "mind vs. might" as it's got a higher power level and i don't think it would mix and match well.
― ciderpress, Sunday, 27 August 2017 23:55 (six years ago) link
Sometimes, even when we aren't looking for it, adventure manages to find us. Who's ready to brave the unknown with #MTGXLN? pic.twitter.com/MAfLW5FhL2— Magic: The Gathering (@wizards_magic) August 28, 2017
really like this special frame for the transformed land, nice bounceback after the gross amonkhet invocation ones
― ciderpress, Monday, 28 August 2017 14:22 (six years ago) link
yeah i like it a lot
― Roberto Spiralli, Monday, 28 August 2017 14:30 (six years ago) link
whoa that's a neat card
― frogbs, Monday, 28 August 2017 14:33 (six years ago) link
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/behind-scenes-alleged-ixalan-card-theft-2017-08-28
official reveal all of the cards that were spoiled in the leak
― Roberto Spiralli, Monday, 28 August 2017 14:54 (six years ago) link
http://media.wizards.com/2017/xln/en_gfDHwBBPHF.png
if this uncommon is anything to go by, they have really turned the dial way down on vehicles, for limited at any rate.
― Roberto Spiralli, Monday, 28 August 2017 15:04 (six years ago) link
lmao @ Star of Extinction, I love when they go all-out on a card like that
admittedly I've missed the last half-year or so but this set seems kinda like a retread of the last 2-3 years of Magic? I'm sure it'll play very well of course but it's starting to feel very mix n' match here
― frogbs, Monday, 28 August 2017 15:14 (six years ago) link
there are a couple recent mechanics reused and some other callbacks in the cards so far for sure but i think there's a good chance the flavour and the influence that has on the design will make it feel more unique. we'll get a better feel for that when we see some more commons and in particular uncommons.
― Roberto Spiralli, Monday, 28 August 2017 15:53 (six years ago) link
gotta say I do dig dinosaur world a lot, but they've really set the bar high for this sort of thing. they've really pushed some dragons and angels in the past and thus far idk if any of these big honkin dinos look good enough to play. I think dudes like Carnage Tyrant (the 6cc 7/6 trample hexproof) have been good in the past, but I don't see any chase cards there thus far. That said I'd be surprised if they didn't make at least one that was really pushed.
love "Walk the Plank" too, definitely got a chuckle out of me
bit confused on Hostage Taker - if you cast it, what happens if Hostage Taker dies? I assume the creature only comes back if you *don't* cast it, which I think makes this quite good?
― frogbs, Monday, 28 August 2017 16:01 (six years ago) link
yeah that's how it works. unfortunately, if you play on an empty board it creates an infinite loop so they've had to errata it already to say another creature. now it only infinite loops if there are 2 of them...
― Roberto Spiralli, Monday, 28 August 2017 16:07 (six years ago) link
admittedly I've missed the last half-year or so but this set seems kinda like a retread of the last 2-3 years of Magic? I'm sure it'll play very well of course but it's starting to feel very mix n' match here― frogbs, Monday, August 28, 2017 11:14 AM (fifty-five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― frogbs, Monday, August 28, 2017 11:14 AM (fifty-five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― ciderpress, Monday, 28 August 2017 16:16 (six years ago) link
i think wotc would claim kaladesh was supposed to be that
― Roberto Spiralli, Monday, 28 August 2017 16:21 (six years ago) link
yeah agreed and it's probably true for casual play but i felt like it only got halfway there in competitive play, the contraption-y decks only came together every so often in KLD and even less so in AER draft. whereas a substantial amount of innistrad and DKA draft decks and almost 100% of ROE draft decks were Weird Magic.
― ciderpress, Monday, 28 August 2017 16:30 (six years ago) link
kind of funny thinking about that by contrast, i was just thinking recently about how many ppl are saying the current format is an all-time limited format, and it really is quite vanilla, just strong fundamentals, good balance and range of play options. if ixalan isn't quite as fine tuned, and is also essentially pretty ordinary, it will just suffer by comparison even if it is good on its own merits. a successful vanilla-ish formal actually increases the need for the 90 degree turn of a 'weird' set.
― Roberto Spiralli, Monday, 28 August 2017 17:27 (six years ago) link
thanks ciderpress!
― change display name (Jordan), Monday, 28 August 2017 17:43 (six years ago) link
my last 5 leagues with modern dredge: 4-1, 4-1, 4-1, 5-0, 4-1. I am pretty sure it is the best deck in modern and nobody realizes it. driven/despair patched up a lot of match-ups (valakut/combo).
― iatee, Tuesday, 29 August 2017 23:01 (six years ago) link
its probably been the best deck the whole time since prized amalgam/insolent neonate came out
― ciderpress, Tuesday, 29 August 2017 23:13 (six years ago) link
modern cube out next week, i think in the end i was p lukewarm on it, altho it's still cube. feel like they are forever putting things on mtgo like 2 days after a holiday weekend.
― Roberto Spiralli, Friday, 1 September 2017 16:40 (six years ago) link
ending up playing a reasonable amount of HOU draft and recently sealed but p much done with it now
― Roberto Spiralli, Friday, 1 September 2017 16:41 (six years ago) link
i didn't play much HOU but i do get why people liked it. i never seem to do much more than 10 drafts per set now that they're swiss drafts and i'm not constantly tilt-requeuing after a round 1 loss. my LGS changed from 8-4 to pack-per-win too so it happened on both fronts.
― ciderpress, Friday, 1 September 2017 17:23 (six years ago) link
lmao at the new Jace art. who knew he looked like a member of One Direction all along.
― frogbs, Friday, 1 September 2017 21:05 (six years ago) link
there is a lot of good material in this set for a very fun limited environment. all depends on how well they have put the various pieces together and balanced them but i am hopeful
― Roberto Spiralli, Friday, 8 September 2017 15:23 (six years ago) link
some of these blue cards are exciting
― ciderpress, Friday, 8 September 2017 16:19 (six years ago) link
set feels a little like a reboot of pre-eldrazi zendikar which is fine, that setting deserves a better limited format than we got the first time around
― ciderpress, Friday, 8 September 2017 16:23 (six years ago) link
also if you missed it they showed off an alpha build of their new digital game MTG Arena yesterday, it's basically a hearthstone style f2p MTG implementation that has the full rules engine and will have standard and limited but not older formats.
― ciderpress, Friday, 8 September 2017 16:33 (six years ago) link
MTG arena is very intriguing, I hope they can get it right
― Moodles, Friday, 8 September 2017 16:35 (six years ago) link
it looked fine. definitely curious how it will impact mtgo.
― Roberto Spiralli, Friday, 8 September 2017 16:38 (six years ago) link
a functioning standard with a ranked ladder is enough to get me on board tbh
― ciderpress, Friday, 8 September 2017 16:44 (six years ago) link
The main things I'd still like to know are whether it will support full booster drafts and what options you have for building your collection. To compete with hearthstone there needs to be F2P modes that allow you to grind out games to gain rewards.
― Moodles, Friday, 8 September 2017 16:45 (six years ago) link
it is supposed to have drafts available on launch
― Roberto Spiralli, Friday, 8 September 2017 16:47 (six years ago) link
I'm still trying to figure out the best option for two pre-constructed decks that are balanced and fun. These look interesting?
http://www.cardkingdom.com/catalog/shop/battle-decks
― change display name (Jordan), Friday, 8 September 2017 16:48 (six years ago) link
iconic masters cards are starting to get shared. new resto and kamigawa dragons art looks super nice
― Roberto Spiralli, Friday, 8 September 2017 16:49 (six years ago) link
xxp
I'm under the impression that it is still an open question whether that means full drafts or something closer to HS arena mode
― Moodles, Friday, 8 September 2017 16:51 (six years ago) link
oh i see what you mean. would be a hell of a bait and switch if they said draft and then it wasn't real booster draft.
actually think several of those sound like a blast jordan but impossible to tell how balanced they'd be. tho for the price you could get 3 or 4 and see which played best.
― Roberto Spiralli, Friday, 8 September 2017 16:53 (six years ago) link
I've never seen these 3rd party precons before - curious if they actually put anywhere close to $10 worth of cards in them or if it's just a way to move bulk. Card kingdom has enough of a reputation that id be surprised if they were complete ripoffs.
I guess being 3rd party gives them latitude to include a bunch of cheap rares and get more powerful decks out of it whereas wotc can't acknowledge that some rares are in lower demand than others.
― ciderpress, Friday, 8 September 2017 17:28 (six years ago) link
arena seems more fun to play than mtgo already - I don't care if it looks exactly like HS and the similar games. from the preview, I saw a number of things that seemed well thought-out, like having the buttons say things appropriate to their context rather than just "ok" or "yes", and showing the suggested mana payment if you drag the card out but don't cast, in addition to the many visual tricks they are borrowing from other games. I am dubious that this will co-exist nicely alongside mtgo like they say - if they implement std and draft well enough, seems like that would essentially kill mtgo
I wonder whether arena would be better with booster draft against other players or Hearthstone-style draft. I mean, implemented right, they could work almost the same, and the advantage of HS-style is that you can go as fast as you want. I'm assuming the games would be league-style anyway so that it doesn't matter who you draft against
― Vinnie, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 17:13 (six years ago) link
sounds like they are committed to having regular booster draft on arena so the possibility of exploring alternative draft approaches would presumably depend on numbers. if a HS-style option doesn't threaten the reliability of booster drafts firing i can imagine them trying it. i just listened to the latest LR episode with the ex-host who is now on the digital team and they seem to be p openly exploring the intersection of traditional magic and the innovations of the digital only ccg world.
― Roberto Spiralli, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 17:55 (six years ago) link
i don't usually like tribal sets but Ixalan looks very tight so far
― ciderpress, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 18:56 (six years ago) link
as long as it feels like there are sufficient directions to take a draft. the development article yesterday was interesting in explaining how they tried to give the 2 color pairs within the 3 colour tribes their own identity but we'll see how well that was realized
― Roberto Spiralli, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 19:56 (six years ago) link
yeah i was reassured by stoddard's claim that they were intentionally trying to fall well short of lorwyn style critical mass tribal
― ciderpress, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 21:38 (six years ago) link
yes I was also glad to see that (though I think Lorwyn was fun to play with, if not very interesting to draft)
― Vinnie, Thursday, 14 September 2017 17:35 (six years ago) link
my first impression is that this is going to be a weird set for limited
― Roberto Spiralli, Friday, 15 September 2017 16:00 (six years ago) link
the treasure tokens are interesting since it enables 5c blue instead of green's usual monopoly on being the base color for that archetype
― ciderpress, Friday, 15 September 2017 17:38 (six years ago) link
blue also has better aggro cards than it usually gets. good set for blue all around
― ciderpress, Friday, 15 September 2017 17:42 (six years ago) link
aggressively costed fliers and tons of tempo plays in blue. looks like that will be what 'aggro' is in this format. hard to tell how reliable treasure will be to support 5c or even just 2/3 card splashes, there is scant other fixing.
― Roberto Spiralli, Friday, 15 September 2017 17:55 (six years ago) link
control-ish decks probably want to start in white or black for the abundant lifegain. white preferably because you have some dino payoff built in. black looks like kind of a mess, may only be a supporting color for one of its two tribal types.
― Roberto Spiralli, Friday, 15 September 2017 18:00 (six years ago) link
there sure are a lot of 2-drops in this set
― ciderpress, Friday, 15 September 2017 21:36 (six years ago) link