Magic: The Gathering C/D

awesome, i'm glad someone else out there is with me on the 'must try everything' plan for limited formats

you guys are crazy

while i'm at it, here's my 5 most-owned cards for the 3 limited formats i've played a lot on MTGO, they really betray my preferences a bit:

RTR
Voidwielder
Pursuit of Flight
Chemister's Trick
Sunspire Griffin
Viashino Racketeer

M13
Watercourser
Disentomb
Sign in Blood
Essence Scatter
Crippling Blight

ISD
Grave Bramble
Armored Skaab
Victim of Night
Rotting Fensnake
Mulch
Silent Departure (tied for 5th)

i def managed to draft/open every common and uncommon in M13 and avacyn although i doubt i actually cast all of them. M13 might have been close the only card i can think of offhand that i def didnt play was craterize. oh and serpent's gift. i have never played a serpent's gift.

the burgeoning goes with underworld connections I'd say

whoa awesome i didn't even think of that. doubt it'd be worth it with just that though.

presumably the land enchantment theme will continue through the block so there might be more relevant things to do with it later

I will say a Sphere of Safety deck can really be a lot of fun if you build it right. You need multiple spheres though since getting two of them out is ridiculous.

Today I did a real horrible Azorius deck and eeked out 2-1 anyway. My connection dropped at the end of pack 2 and didn't pick back up until pack 3 pick 7 which is to say I was forced to play multiple Downsizes and a Search Warrant because I did not want to run 18 lands and I literally had to play every card in color I had. It was actually quite good at locking opponents down, it had a bunch of 3 toughness flyers, 3 Voidweilders, lots of other dumb stuff, just no real way to win. Match 1 I took the guy down to like a minute because we were playing this dumb game where he'd play Trostani, I'd bounce it a bunch of times, then we'd race flyers and his infinite tokens + my Rogue's Passage, just a real stupid match that would have made me feel like a champ had I won. Match 3, Game 1 I play against another Azorius deck and we're at a total stalemate. I'm just waiting for Rogue's passage and I finally get it on turn 21 but he gets his Guildmage. He eventually kills me at 1 life but uses 22 minutes of his clock in the process. In retrospect this is really the only way I could have won this match.

this already got posted in the death grips thread but i dunno how much these threads intermingle. thought i'd xpost here for posterity

"We perceive that this record label is running a game, right?" says Hill. "The Control deck is the shit because, basically, you un-summon people's magic by using their own magic against them. It's totally control; you put yourself in the same place as the other person, so they have nothing on you, it's like an illusion. Redirection of power and putting yourself in the environments these other people are in — it creates a chaos element to it. We started thinking about that in the sense of where we were as a band."

8-)

Thinking about heading back into Standard. Someone upthread (maybe Cider?) had posted an interesting Devastation Tide deck that looked really neat so I was thinking about running something like that. Sphinx of the Chimes is one of my favorite build-around RTR cards since it doesn't seem too tough to just draw yourself out with it once you get rolling. And of course you can win with Lab Maniac, which would make this my 4th Lab Maniac deck. Here's the start:

4 Abundant Growth
4 Gatecreeper Vines
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Archeomancer
4 Devastation Tide

3 Sphinx of the Chimes
1 Labratory Maniac

And then a bunch of mana accel, probably Farseek and Ranger's Path.

Also thinking Cyclonic Rifts. Between those and devastation tides you can clear your opponents' board over and over again.

Easy to splash a color in this deck - White gives you Terminus while Black gives you Treasured Find.

No idea if this'll work, I haven't really played Standard since Dark Ascension, but it at least looks fun to try!

Standard seems pretty fun right now - good amount of variety, room for innovation, and no overwhelmingly popular deck. I'm tickled that there is a deck with Nightshade Peddler that has done decently. I'm mostly about Limited, but I played Standard a bit this summer during the height of UW Delver and it was miserable to play against that deck every other round. That Tide deck seems too fragile, but probably way fun to get the combo off.

Yeah I have a buddy who won $1250 (possibly more, I don't know if he split) with a 4c Peddler deck! There's definitely more variety than the Delver/Mana Leak/Vapor Snag/Geist days but from what I've seen the same few cards are showing up in every deck, particularly Thragtusk and Restoration Angel, which have no real good answer anywhere. Lots of Farseeks/Sphinx's Relevations too. Definitely preferable to a lot of Standard eras but I don't really like what winds up happening when there is so much good mana fixing available. Between Shocklands and buddylands (the M13/Innistrad ones) you don't need basics at all!

Really have no idea how the Sphinx deck will play out. Some of my ideas for Standard wind up working really well (such as Seance or my "fateful hour" deck that abused Hex Parasite), some really just can't win unless you draw a perfect hand (such as my really-stupid-in-retrospect Riddlesmith deck that would play 15 spells in three turns and lose, plus a Battle Hymn/Reforge the Soul deck that tried to win with Molten Psyche). The problem for me is they all seem good in my head!

frogbs i gave up on that deck when thragtusk took off, its essentially just another bant control variant and thragtusk control mirror matches are absolutely miserable to play. the guttersnipe deck i played at gameday which i posted upthread is pretty bad now too, though it was prescient in its use of thundermaw hellkite, which is nice because i picked them up at half their current price.

my default standard deck for now is GWB unburial rites, swinging back and forth between the midrange thragtusk/angel builds and the all-in craterhoof ones as necessary. have also been looking at naya humans, and worked a bit on an ethereal armor/spectral flight deck feat. geist of saint traft and invisible stalker. would like to revisit that one at some point since it seems uniquely powerful with the right build, but i'm focused on getting stuff for modern season right now.

haha i had an idea for a human sac deck that abused thatcher's revolt and blood artist this summer so i ended up picking up three falkenrath artistocrats for $16 total and hellriders for p much nothing. the deck was really terrible and i ended up playing rites as well but its amusing to see that a similar (if much better) decks has been getting some traction. the upside tho is that most of the cards i bought for it have like tripled in value

i like having good mana in standard because it makes stuff like the nightshade peddler deck viable that might not be otherwise. i don't mind restoration angel or thragtusk on their own as top tier standard cards but i dislike their interaction with each other and how many deck shells there are that support that combo in a way that makes not playing it seem foolish

haha i bought a ton of falkenrath aristocrats on MTGO for 4 tickets each when DKA came out because i thought they were going to be amazing, then sold them back a couple weeks later for the same price because i decided speculating was dumb and i wasn't playing them in anything. whoops

i had an idea for a human sac deck that abused thatcher's revolt and blood artist

I was thinking about doing something with Thatcher and Goldnight Commander. That combo was basically an auto-win in Limited so I have to think it's at least somewhat good in Standard?

yeah i tried that in boros tokens/humans w/champion of the parish and gather and stuff. i found that r/b was better but neither were really powerful enough and lol if golgari charm starts seeing significant play

whoa, a buddy of mine's Peddler deck just became a DailyMTG feature!

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/deck/1119

Nice. That deck is the best kind of janky deck.

standard seems really fluid right now, with almost every deck feeling like it exists on the same continuous spectrum with the red-black aggro deck at one end and the 4x sphinx's revelation decks at the other. also there's an interesting element to it where the most powerful individual cards tend to pull you toward the edges (revelation, falkenrath aristocrat) while the most powerful synergy cards pull you toward the middle (restoration angel, unburial rites, etc)

obviously there's always a few cards and interactions worth griping about but i think this is generally the model of a balanced format at the moment

sooo theres a gp here this weekend which i wont be playing in BUT that means that therell be a p dece standard tournament on sunday that i should be able to make. if this thread has any suggestions about what deck to play i will def play it (unless it requires a bunch of cards i dont have i guess) since im p bored of reanimator but i really want to play something

i 3-1ed a standard daily with naya humans last night, the deck runs 34 creatures and 3 selesnya charm so it's not for everyone but it seemed to match up well vs the R/B aggro decks while having some good nut draws vs midrange.

if you want something less 'fair' that's not reanimator you could play the ethereal armor/invis stalker deck but i was having trouble racing R/B with it so now might not be the time.

there's also this deck
http://mtgstats.com/Deck.aspx?DeckID=557724
which i am kind of terrified of but no one plays it because it's like $800. its basically a continuation of the deck that was 80% of the innistrad block metagame. if you somehow have all the cards it might be really good, i dunno, i have no way of testing it.

update: just found this in MTGO results, you should play it
http://mtgstats.com/Deck.aspx?DeckID=558781

so gravel and I have been discussing the possibility for an ilx draft of sorts

feel like we could get 8 people. I imagine we'd need to be flexible w/ matches and possibly even the draft itself? is there a way we could do something via email?

so I guess the first question is - who's interested?

I have a sealed league with a friend right now (he's West Coast USA, I'm UK, so there's an 8 hour gap) - it's super fun!

We started off opening one booster, built our 1-pack-sealed deck (kinda weirdly skill-testing in that you're having to weigh up for each card beyond like the 5th whether the dilution is worth the risk of decking yourself) and battled, then each week we open another pack and add it to the pool, with a 30-card min kicking in at 4 and 40 at 6. We're currently on 7.

My favourite aspect is the metagaming - the pools are public and you build to beat their rares and then sometimes they throw a crazy curveball and run something completely different, it's awesome.

Practicality wise we're cracking the "packs" on draft.bestiaire.org and posting them to a common thread so we have a record, then playing via Skype and tappedout.

Anyway magic is the best, was the point here.

I am also for this kinda thing ftr and it might work out better pragmatically, because then we really only need a fixed # of people who start and people can play whomever is available w/ their deck that week. instead of obligations.

my only preference, no matter what we do, is to use as many random sets as possible.

What do y'all think about Fall of the Gavel in draft? I've had some success with it for two reasons - 1) 5-mana counterspells actually don't hinder you too much since Azorius kinda tops out there, and 2) both Rakdos and Izzet can have major problems having to deal that extra 5 damage. essentially it can be a big two-for-one since it counters a spell (usually a big one at that point AND it can cancel out an Explosive Impact or something). I'm not saying it's ideal but for a 23rd card I've been having some success. I found a similar thing with Lost in the Mist in Innistrad, it's been oddly effective for a card that most serious drafters wouldn't read twice.

another thing is I wanted to point out this crazy deck that apparently is having some success. it actually doesn't seem too expensive to build since a lot of the big money mythics are 1x or 2x's. of course that land base is a real bitch but I'm lucky enough to own a lot of the shocklands from the last Rav set. this is the first time I can think of where I've been tempted to just rip someone else's deck wholesale.

2 Glacial Fortress
3 Hallowed Fountain
4 Sunpetal Grove
4 Temple Garden
2 Overgrown Tomb
4 Hinterland Harbor
1 Steam Vents
1 Plains
1 Island
1 Forest
1 Alchemist's Refuge
1 Kessig Wolf Run
2 Fog
4 Farseek
3 Chromatic Lantern
4 Ranger's Path
4 Supreme Verdict
1 Door to Nothingness
2 Gilded Lotus
4 Increasing Ambition
1 Thragtusk
2 Terminus
2 Sphinx's Revelation
2 Temporal Mastery
1 Angel of Serenity
1 Nicol Bolas, planeswalker
1 Griselbrand
1 Omniscience
Sideboard
4 Centaur Healer
1 Thoughtflare
3 Thragtusk
1 Planar Cleansing
2 Terminus
1 Temporal Mastery
1 Worldfire
2 Sphinx's Revelation

yeah that looks like a travis woo deck. i wouldn't run it right now since its a bit too slow to beat the BR aggro deck which is the most popular deck at the moment from what i've seen. he's got a sphere of safety prison deck up today that doesn't look as powerful but is goofier and probably better vs aggro.

Yeah I watched the videos of Luis Scott-Vargas playing that deck to 4-0 in a Daily Event, it was a joy to watch. He actually beat BR aggro twice! I suspect the deck would do better without Omniscience and Door (and probably Nicol Bolas too) but it certainly makes the deck more fun.

meanwhile, i'm hoping i can get the cards for the burn at the stake deck so i can play it at FNM before the secret's out and people know how to play against it. not looking good for this week though unless someone has a trade binder full of the bulk rares i need like Reforge the Soul and Increasing Vengeance

you guys aren't interested in our ilx game :(

i'll play if its sealed, i dunno if i can keep up w/ a draft reliably

I think sealed w/ weekly increases in our card pool is a great idea. no time commitments, can work on your deck whenever but there's still an element of stability?

i did a bunch of sealed leagues in the past on another site using increasing card pools (i think we started at 4 or 5 packs, adding 1 each week) which worked out nicely. there was also some sort of mechanism for the people with bad pools to catch up, like the people with losing records got to choose a common from the set to add to their pools each week, or something like that.

how did you pick the packs?

ciderpress whats yr mtgo account i can ship you the stuff for the storm/burn tokens deck

lamp you are playing in our league I have decided for you

lamp i meant irl, i have everything on mtgo

that league just went block by block so like one season was just lorwyn/morningtide packs alternating or whatever. if we wanted to mix it up more we could but you can't just let people decide what their 5 packs are going to be because some of the older sets are really imbalanced for limited.

I want to mix things up

but same sets for everyone

ie one week everyone gets a visions pack

i think this has been discussed a lot in various places but if you could do a sealed with 6 packs of your choice the correct ones to choose are weird. i think darksteel was one of the best options just because it's a small set with fireball in it. i'd probably consider going all lorwyn because of extreme synergy and 5 planeswalkers at regular rare

what if we started w/ 6 first sets and just added chronologically?

everyone getting the same pack type every week works fine though yeah. just don't throw in a set like champions of kamigawa that has a lot of mechanics that don't do anything outside of that block.

for chronological i would consider starting at mirage since that was the first set that was designed for limited play, everything before that is kind of miserable to work with in limited. though maybe thats what you want

though that would mean our additional packs each week would be from masques block which is super underpowered and wouldn't help much. hmmm

err wait they'd be from urza block nevermind. that seems okay as an option