Magic: The Gathering C/D

ah v good point, ghost quarter alternate mode is definitely relevant, hadn't considered that

This seems straight up better than Decay in Modern. How relevant is can't be countered at this point?

in modern, vs death's shadow + stubborn denial (but this also has the upside of hitting angler) or maybe like, goblin electromancer + remand type situations. it's pretty low-relevance, there aren't any real delver decks at the moment. the get-a-basic drawback matters a little more, since your opponent is probably doing something stupid and you're ramping them.

in legacy counterbalance is still around (and was the reason abrupt decay was printed) and daze is never going away, so it matters more, but the card is also more powerful in legacy.

death's shadow seems to be rapidly dying out in Modern

yeah I thought it was overrated even when it was good

a deck like jund in particular, with a resource denial element, suffers from giving the opponent a land

the can't be countered text on abrupt decay was a pretty big deal vs delver, before RTR uwr delver was a major modern deck and it pretty much vanished because that card swung the midrange matchups away from it too hard

well that card plus deathrite shaman i should say

i forgot how cringey izzet spell names are

guild aesthetics tier list

A tier: selesnya, orzhov, rakdos
B tier: golgari, simic, azorius, dimir, gruul
C tier: izzet, boros

Trophy currently getting snapped up at $20 a pop

it's a large set rare cmon

2 color too

this isn't a bigger deal than abrupt decay which was like 5-8 bucks during its standard run iirc

stil sad about Mt. Gox

http://mythicspoiler.com/grn/cards/guildsummit.jpg

i hope this is a fun card to build around in draft, but it looks like it might be a clunky trap. maybe a sideboard card for a control match up when your deck already wants gates.

ionize is clean

district guide is a candidate for my favorite card in the set

art in this set is standing out a little more than usual too

3u draw 2 instant with jump-start - better than hiero illumination? is amonkhet even in standard anymore? probably overall better than glimmer was too, esp in a world without gearhulk

amonkhet was never in standard

but yeah that's obv the glimmer equivalent going forward

still hilarious to me that after rotation the standard ban list is going to consist of "the second best red 3/3 for 3"

based on the 2 spoiled so far, the new guildmages are a little sad compared to their predecessors

they're more old-school guildmages

gates instead of basics in every booster and an explosive vegetation that also gets gates. this set is going to be so good for both draft and sealed.

knight of autumn is unreal

i still had harmonic sliver in my modern deck a few years ago, how far we've come

this cycle of AABB uncommons all seem very good, the tension between getting those out on 4/5 lands vs ppl wanting to play 4/5 colour decks is going to be really interesting i think. everyone is going to want gates, which will slow the format by at least a turn on its own. will also be very interesting to see the common 1-3 drops in red and white, figure out how strong a gateless aggro deck might be.

yeah i assume the idea behind those is to have a payoff for playing a 2 color deck that's not accessible to the guildgate abusers

glad they acknowledged the issue i had with the last ravnica go around esp gatecrash where with 5 guilds and 8 drafters, 2 people would always come away with much tighter decks, the solution being to push more people into 3+ colors

I'm really enjoying the pvd/sam black/mike sigrist podcasts, I'm not a podcast person at all and it's def the first magic podcast where I feel like it's worth it to listen to every episode

gerry t's podcast is the only one i feel like that about

it's obv not as relevant if you don't play a lot of constructed though

yeah I like gerry t but don't play enough standard to care

i've caught pro points once or twice and it is good, PV and sam in particular are smart, articulate, interesting dudes. i listen to the first couple of episodes of lord of limited after a new set comes out, those guys are very good at quickly nailing down a few key things about a new draft format in a way pre-LSV LR used to be.

I'll check that one out. LR has always been kind of wack, they have a pretty narrow minded approach to the point where in certain formats it's been easy to identify the LR listeners just by how they draft and play

man these spoilers are really making me wanna get back into Magic Online

i went on my account the other day and bought playsets of glacial fortress and friends...

i was playing a lot of live poker this summer and came to really enjoy both pro points and gam podcasts, as a person who previously never listened to podcasts

most standard stuff is really cheap rn on mtgo

I've been playing standard on arena and enjoying it, it's not super competitive compared to mtgo but I've grown to like the arena software and I think that mtgo straight up won't exist in 3 years

online poker pretty much took over all my MTGO time

is now a good time to sell off ? my account has a ton of play points and a decent collection worth maybe 500-600 tix or so

I don't think there's an immediate urgency, but who knows

I took the introduction of Brawl to be an acknowledgement that older cards wouldn't be making it on to Arena anytime soon, so I would guess mtgo has a little longer horizon than that, but they can't keep them running in parallel for too long. I wouldn't be surprised if by the fall set next year new limited formats aren't available on mtgo anymore. I think it's very likely to die in stages.

mtgo is a necessary practice tool for competitive play and i wld be very surprised if it phased out anytime w/in the next three years in any way. its also p much the only way i play magic so i wld be sad to lose it, although its probably not going to be around forever

yeah i don't think mtgo is going anywhere soon

they will condense event offerings long before they discontinue so that'll be the early indicator

So what's the best prerelease guild from a value perspective?

I think Dimir will get me the most cards I need if I want to continue playing standard control decks, but Golgari might have the most raw card value because of Trophy and Vraska.

Thoughts?

they all seem roughly even to me. but yeah golgari if you want to fish for the overpriced card and then rip off some kid in a trade if you hit on it

Lol, ok, wasn't looking to rip off any kids

like all ravnica sets once people actually start playing the dual lands will become the most valuable cards other than a couple mythics that are hard to predict

True, that's also been a consideration of mine as I imagine some guild pacts would have shocks. I have playsets of Temple Garden and Sacred Foundry, but need the other 3, especially Watery Grave.

mtg arena open beta starts today, with the final account wipe

I'll probably mess around a bit but save all my resources for a future standard deck