Magic: The Gathering C/D

the evidence I have of pack prices being affected by quality of set is AVR - don't think they still are, but when Bonfire blew up as this 30+ tix mythic, the price of AVR packs went to 3.99. can't say it's a direct coorelation but it did occur to me that this happened despite the fact that nobody really liked drafting it.

anyway - onto a different topic. what do you guys think of bluffing attacks early on? here's a situation I faced last night - opponent and I are both playing Selesnya. I play Drudge Beetle, he plays Call to get the 3/3 Centaur. If he attacks I'm not gonna chump the Beetle so I decide to just attack and bluff Swift Justice or Giant Growth or Common Bond...and he takes the damage. Of course, he doesn't want to potentially lose the Centaur. I realize that these bluffs actually have worked a lot - I do this fairly often. It wouldn't work on me however, since unless my hand is particularly dire, I tend to just make them play the trick. I don't know if this is a good idea or not. Basically my theory is that if you attack a 2/2 into a 3/3 and he takes it, not only did you get 2 damage in, but your opponent is going to be playing around a combat trick you don't have. Thoughts?

really depends on who you're playing, there's sorta a game theory element to it

If it works it works, but I think the correct move by the opponent would be to block in that situation. Wouldn't it be better to lose the centaur rather than a bunch of life and then leave drudge beetle on the board?

in that particular scenario even if he were 70% sure you were bluffing, it still might not be worth the risk, if populating is key to his deck working

I think this happens less than you'd think it might because, well, in the scenario above you end up trading 2 damage for 3 damage

I def always play into combat tricks unless I have something really important

well losing 2 life on turn 3 isn't really much, but essentially the idea is the opponent thinks the Beetle's staying no matter what, and that blocking gives a card like Swift Justice to become a reverse-Swords to Plowshares. I think it works alright on Centaurs since the presence of populate gives the G/W player extra incentive to leave them on the field

that was an xpost by the way

if I have populate cards and no other centaur generators in hand, I'm not going to block. then again I have yet to catch a 'bluff' like this. so I do assume they are going to have a combat trick the rest of the way.

I do play into combat tricks a lot - it's alright when it's something like Savage Surge since that one can really bite you later, but running into an obvious Swift Justice makes you feel stupid (since it's just one mana), and then there's Rootborn Defenses which can be the mother of all combat tricks if there's a lot of creatures on board.

right but in that above scenario these are the possibilities:

1. they block, you lose creature, lose 3 life next turn
2. they don't block, you're racing 3 life vs 2 life per turn or you block eventually
3. you don't attack, you chump block
4. you don't attack this turn and don't block, then race 3/2

I mean 2 isn't horrible but it's not so much better than 3 or 4 that it's worth risking 1

which is why it's rarely tempting to bluff - the gains aren't worth the risk

Wouldn't bluff in your situation, frog. The most likely situation for me to bluff is if I play a vanilla guy or two, my opponent plays a bomb creature and I have no way in hand to kill it or race it. I will probably lose this game unless I take risks. If I still have a chance to win the game based on my hand and the board, I almost never bluff. It's usually right for players to block and make you use the trick, and I've found it hard to gauge how opponents will react to a bluff.

I do the "attack my 3/3 into your 2/5" all the time, and the "suicide my team when I'm about to die", but those aren't really bluffs, huh?

Although if my opponent won't block my 3/3 with a 2/5, I am very likely to make more bluff attacks that round XD

iatee - I'd simplify it even further - I'm not chumping the Beetle to save 3 damage, and the next turn the board is going to look different, as 3-drop is usually the most common in most limited decks. If you succeed, you get 2 points in and your opponent thinks that you have a card you don't. If it doesn't, you lost your guy for nothing. So the question is, what are each of these sides worth, and how often do people actually block here? (I have nowhere near enough data) At my local store I kind of have a reputation for doing this which is why it never works for me anymore against some of those guys. Online you don't really have that problem.

if it doesn't you're also revealing that you don't have a trick! which is more significant than fooling them into thinking you do.

bout to go play sealed.

Having your opponent think you have a trick isn't really that valuable, IMO. Most players, most good ones anyway, try to figure out what their opponents could have based on their attacks and what mana they leave up. I try to play as if my opponent could have any trick. So that just leaves the 2 extra damage, which is usually not at all worth the loss of your 2/2. Even if your opponent will not block 4 out of 5 times, the 2 damage will rarely make the difference, while the 2/2 can often make the difference.

Question about extort:

When I cast a card with extort does it trigger extort on itself?

In other words, if I have 3 lands open, no cards on the battlefield and I cast Syndic of Tithes, can I use the last land to extort off of Syndic?

nope

the creature is a creature spell not a permanent when you cast it so its abilities are meaningless, once it resolves and enters the battlefield and has those abilities it's not a spell anymore, so you can't extort it

thanks!

So I went 2-1 at draft last night playing Simic for the first time. I beat a Gruul deck and a Boros deck, but then got killed by another Simic deck. His Sapphire Drake + Evolve guys was just too much for me to deal with.

Still, it was nice to see that Simic can actually be viable.

hey frog, i'm thinking of making a boros aggro standard deck. it's gonna be pretty cheap. no hellriders, maybe no reckoners. most $$ card is thalia - the finishers are firemane and odric.

what's your mtgo username? mine is kennebec. if you have spare cards kicking around i would be happy to buy them from you.

Jopkeloops is my name - don't have anything but RTR cards at the moment though

i'm doing some Gatecrash drafts, went 2-1 with Boros and 2-0-split with Orzhov (had to eat dinner), was not really satisfied with my deck either time.

For Boros I know this sounds obvious but you really just need a lot of creatures. I had 14 + a Keyrune and it didnt' feel like near enough. Also cheap removal is really, really key because you just need to get a few attacks through.

As for Orzhov, holy cow is Extort a powerful mechanic, at the expense of nearly all your creatures being tiny. So again, removal is real key, as is stuff like Smite (which is awful vs. Dimir by the way). If you have the Guildmage, know that you can activate his second ability twice and deal double damage when you gain life. Also, Syndic of Tithes is definitely my favorite common, because 1) it's really powerful, 2) the name sounds like "Syndic of Titties", and 3) the art makes looks like he's delivering a pizza. A+ card all around/

that 1/4 extort wall also key

no kidding...I had a dude drop 5 extort dudes by turn 4 (Thrull Parasite, the 1/2 flyer, then the wall, then on turn 4 a Syndic and another flyer) - either the most insane deck I've seen thus far or the most insane draw. either way it's neat to see a limited deck that wins while doing almost no combat damage

oh yeah and Hands of Binding is really, really good. even better than it looks.

haven't drafted much yet but release sealeds are up today so i'm gonna start playing lots of those

i 4-0ed a standard daily last night with this obscene deck:

4 champion of the parish
4 boros elite
4 experiment one
4 ash zealot
4 burning-tree emissary
4 flinthoof boar
4 lightning mauler
1 skarrg guildmage
2 frontline medic

4 ghor-clan rampager
4 boros charm

4 cavern of souls
4 temple garden
4 sacred foundry
4 stomping ground
3 rootbound crag
2 clifftop retreat

this deck is super fun and any game where you get a good draw you will feel like you are cheating. burning-tree emissary is way way way stronger than it looks, it's actually the best card in beatdown decks right now. the first time you chain it into a lightning mauler on turn 2 is a pretty 'holy shit' moment.

boros reckoner is also incredibly good and seems enough better than frontline medic to play despite the anti-synergy with champion and cavern, so i'm going to try to fit those in on my next run with the deck.

damn - it's been a while since i've seen a deck that stacked with creatures. guess you gotta fear the miracle Terminus but I'm glad decks like this exist given how many people are playing ridiculous 5-c Thragtusk decks. This looks a lot like Modern Zoo really (at least, from what I know of it). I'm sure that the Emmissary is nuts - I loved Priest of Gix in its day but the deck never quite fit.

xpost

I like this! Now you have me wondering if I should swap out Arbor Elf and Strangleroot Geist in my deck for Burning-Tree Emissary and Lightning Mauler. How are you finding Experiment One in this deck? I like how it interacts with the Geist.

i dunno if I'd cut Geist for anything - that's gotta be one of the top 3 green cards in the format. do you find the Zealot's abilities to be relevant?

yeah i have the deck saved as 'human zoo' which is basically what it is

i also have a domri rade list ready to go as soon as the release sealeds drop his price down to reasonable levels. saw some people playing him yesterday and the interaction between him and boros reckoner is really sick.

my deck can't play strangleroot because it's not a human and green is the tertiary color in the deck, so i'd never be able to cast it. i have boros charm as my wrath protection instead.

experiment one is the weakest of the one-drops but you really need more than 8 in a deck like this, and it's usually a 2/2 for G which is fine.

good point, i hadn't worked out what colors go where

is Boros Charm playing as well as I think it is?

well i don't know how good you think it is but it's played fine. not the best card in the deck and sometimes i have a cavern hand and can't cast it but it's important to have.

what decks did you play against?

i mean, how often did you not use it at a source of 4 damage

i think i only used it for damage in that daily but the indestructible mode is super powerful, it just didn't come up.

i played vs 2 blue control decks (both esper i think?), jund midrange, and GWB reanimator. bad matchups for this deck are any deck that can turn 3 a huntmaster, that's about it really. UWR snapcaster decks might be tough too, haven't played one yet.

Thragtusk seems pretty bad too

it's too slow unless they have a huntmaster or centaur healer on the way up to it

i'll take your word for it. may build this deck since most of the cards are cheap outside of Caverns, and I think I already have most of the shocks already from the last Rav block. I'm really not much of an aggro player but this format really makes me want to give it a shot.

What do you think about Skullcrack in the SB? It's sort of a 1R deal 8 vs. Tusk but I'm not sure how useful it is otherwise

blunts Sphinx's Revelation too

Just noticed Experiment One's creature type this weekend. Damn that's creepy.

as far as design that's one of my favorites in the set. I really like the way they did Evolve.

if you want something non-aggro i've got a reanimator deck with griselbrand and borborygmos that seems pretty good. if you stick a griselbrand and aren't in immediate danger of dying you can draw into the borby kill pretty easily. plus borby is fine on his own as a 7/6 trample that mulches and turns half your deck into free lightning bolts and doesn't die to ultimate price or damage based removal

i don't think i like skullcrack, the decks it's good against are mostly ones where you want boros charms already and i don't want to dilute the deck with a bunch of non-creature spells. frontline medic handles revelations and thragtusks well enough. i might try it at some point anyway because i like playing a different sideboard every event just to get experience/knowledge

I'm extremely tempted to try out this strategy at my next draft:

http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/woo-brews-drafting-5c-control/

Unfortunately, my LGS is determined to do chaos drafts instead of GTC, so it may be a while before I can make this happen.

idk his deck requires getting lucky w/ the amount of green fixing stuff you see and the 'bombs' aren't even that good

like I have played 2c decks w/ a better selection of bombs and spells

maybe I'm not good at drafting this set right now but I wasn't really happy with any of the 3 draft decks I got. both had 18-19 solid cards and some real filler. Boros and Simic really want a LOT of creatures but I just wasn't getting them. what I can say about this strategy is that only one of the five guilds is really aggressive so you do have time to build, that said I'm not sure the big drops in this set are going to help when you're staring down three extort dudes on turn 7 or getting slowly milled out

i keep getting sealed pools with no good 2-drops or 3-drops

i don't even know what to do in that situation, do i play all the bad ones just to have a real curve or do i play mono-4-drops and hope i don't get tempoed out

play all the bad ones

esp since you see a lot of boros in sealed