Magic: The Gathering C/D

I'm looking over the Cumulative Upkeep cards now and nearly all of them either power up over time or give you "change" when they die. I really loved the design of the Sphinx. I'm kind of surprised looking back at how many subtle references there were to old Ice Age era cards, and how many truly out there designs there were (the Wurm you could play from your library, or the Knight that could only be played from the graveyard). Ripple was a really cool mechanic. Recover I never really got.

the black recover spell is pretty busted in pauper

speaking of which, we should get some info on the fall set this week. i went to their panel at pax last year and it was kind of cool though in retrospect it's funny that restoration angel got the least enthusiastic response of any of the cards they previewed there. gonna try to make it again this year, though waiting in line for an hour for the chance to see like 5 preview cards that will be on the internet in minutes feels kind of dumb.

i hope we go to this place it seems pretty rad http://magiccards.info/extra/plane/planechase-2012-edition/trail-of-the-mage-rings.html

the planechase cards are all pretty cool looking though i've never actually played with them

planechase is pretty cool, it reminds me of that old e-league thing "Chaos Magic" which was one of the most fun things ever

i like planechase despite having never played it (although i won the baleful strix set as a door prize at a release event so i do own some of them) because i really like land cards

I'm gonna be at PAX this weekend too, cider - if you see an Indian dude in a shirt that says Overclocked Remix, say hi! (We're doing a panel for that website on Sunday.) I went last year but ended up getting in line for the Wizards panel too late, so this year gonna make it a priority. Though like you said, it barely matters whether you go to the panel or not, the spoilers get posted online basically mid-panel.

And as far as Coldsnap goes, I thought the design was decent but it was a very "careful what you wish for" moment for me. I'd previously thought a small set designed to be triple-drafted would be awesome, but the strategies in that set were so boringly linear. Feel like I should have predicted that.

oh cool you're an OCR person? i was part of that community way back in high school like 9-10 years ago but i've mostly drifted away from it now. i only have a saturday pass though so i can only do so much stuff, last year i didn't even have time to play any mtg events, just the panel.

i've never drafted coldsnap but the ripple cards seem like they could be pretty degenerate in draft

Yep! I do a bunch of various stuff for the site, cool that you've heard of it. Yeah PAX has way too many things going on, it's crazy. The only mtg I've played there was teaching my non-mtg friends using the 30-card beginner decks they give away.

you'd really need 5 before they got real crazy but yeah I always had the dream of getting like 5-6 Surging Dementias and basically winning the game on turn 2

getting 5+ of a common in a 3x small set draft seems within the realm of possibility though. ari lax drafted 8 ethereal armors at one of the RTR limited GPs, and that's in a large set.

we figured this out, didn't we? the average common should appear about 2.5 times per draft. in Coldsnap, there are 60 commons, 10 per pack (the 15th slot was a snow land, right?), so a 1-in-6 chance of it showing up in any particular pack. so out of 24 packs drafted, there should be 4. so you'd need A) some good variance and B) to pick up every one of said common, should you go that route. with Surging Dementia I believe it's possible since I remember nobody ever wanting that card - with the red burn one and the 2/1 creature I think a lot more people wanted to try it out.

does anyone know how to get new player tickets?

they come with new accounts, don't think they're tradable

why do you want them?

I have a handful but I guess that doesn't help if they're untradeable

a friend i wanted to see how far we could get with the original magic stuff e.g. two tickets + four new player tickets. you can win packs in the new player events so you can presumably get enough to play an M13 draft or sealed, at which point if you won you can then roll into more tickets/packs &c &c. but i only have one new player ticket left on my account so i wanted to buy/trade for some more

my guess would be that playing constructed would be more reliable than sealed if you're trying to do the rags to riches thing. you can probably build a viable mono-green standard deck with 5 tix or so, and standard dailies obviously have better ROI than limited events.

I'm actually looking to build a standard deck in MTGO but don't wanna spend a lot and I want it to be somewhat competitive if possible. I have access to the shocklands and a lot of the good RTR/GTC cards that aren't big money rares (as I've sold them off already)...what do you think? I'd love to do a B/G thing with Corpsejack/Hydra/Strangleroot/Experiment One...is that viable?

cider - its less about the rags-to-riches or cheapest way to get into mtgo than the challenge of maxing out the value of the original $10. it basically started as an argument about how far you can get with that or whether it was kindof a scam to charge new players. anyway i made a new mtgo account and going to see how long i can run this $10 for

hydra and corpsejack are just unplayable i think - theres a monogreen revenge of the hunted deck that has 4-0'd pretty often and i think the only kinda valuable card is primal hunter.

ahhh....do post decklist

i noticed this deck with hydra in the DE results today:
http://mtgstats.com/Deck.aspx?DeckID=581415

it's not black though. just about everything is viable in standard right now as long as you're aware of what you're going to be facing and are prepared to face it - just make sure you have plans against burning-tree emissary chains, unburial rites, olivia voldaren, and supreme verdict+sphinx's revelation

this is the most budget-y list i've seen that can apparently still win:
https://twitter.com/jjflipped/status/312018067863502849

http://wizards.com/Magic/Digital/MagicOnlineTourn.aspx?x=mtg/digital/magiconline/tourn/5125554

Willioufouf's list doesnt even run garruks (which are like 20 tix!)

predator ooze is surprisingly like 6 tix though

i like that one. Green-based midrange creature clusterfuck decks are generally my wheelhouse.

yeah i like that list too. i think i'm finally starting to appreciate threat diversity in aggro decks, i used to always want to just play 4-ofs across the board, since that's what we did back in the day when there weren't nearly as many constructed-quality creatures.

one card that i've been trying to find a home for in standard is Essence Harvest, it seems like an incredibly brutal effect in the right deck

also is there any way to ship my new account tickets from old account w/o being logged into both at the same time?

so my roguish RTR block deck is currently 3-0 in a daily after facing 3 consecutive esper obzedat decks, not to jinx anything. this is my first real constructed success so i'm pretty excited. foil skyknight c/o ciderpress.

http://imgur.com/ArnOizN

notes:

- mizzium mortars is underwhelming, but that's probably due to my matchups. i've played a bunch in practice room though and it also is underwhelming vs. the other dominant archetype (burning-tree aggro)
- hypersonic dragon packs quite the punch. i was iffy on it before inclusion, but it's really quite strong.
- i've yet to be disappointed to draw a civic saber. it has a rancor-like effect on this deck.
- the charms have been great so far, particularly boros and its burn ability (or DS on a big flyer). i still have yet to pull off the reckoner infinite life combo though.

no frostburn weird :((

haha! i had 2 before. but i figured i had lots of options against burning-tree. daring skyjek is really nice and versatile, love trading that thing. in the meantime, i just mug the 2 toughness attackers and that usually slows burning-tree decks down enough.

lost in r4 to jund, which is a brutal matchup for me. i'm just glad he didn't drop any golgari charms against all my tiny dorks. still took it to 3 games though.

think i might grind block constructed for s4. i think i have a decent chance of getting 15 QPs with this thing

i don't really like this block format right now, it's kind of warped by sphinx's revelation and is also short a pyroclasm or infest effect to let other colors than UW sweep the burning-tree decks. if dragon's maze has one of those plus a duress effect i think it could shape up a bit.

yeah i havent enjoyed block since AVR came out and made my sweet R/G undying deck bad

yeah innistrad block constructed was actually sweet with just ISD which is unusual. DKA was fine too after they banned lingering souls, but AVR ruined the format because of Borderland Ranger of all cards (it let green decks play 4 colors and get access to all the powerful cards while every other color combo was stuck with bad mana)

do you think they playtest block constructed at all, or is it a total afterthought?

I'm sure they do a little. But I'd imagine their testing is like 90% Standard

I'm under the impression that a big portion of their testing is Limited rather than Constructed

that's definitely true. I mean, out of their constructed testing, it's probably overwhelmingly Standard, plus a little Modern and Block. they've certainly released cards that seemed like they weren't properly tested so maybe I'm overstating this

it seems like limited playtesting is a better use of their time, just in that you can get a pretty good sense of how a set plays in limited / what's broken after 20 drafts, but predicting the constructed meta when most of the cards aren't even being played at the moment...

they playtest limited and standard a ton but don't test block much and don't test eternal formats at all

you know Gatecreeper Vine may be a big card in RTR block

i'm thinking of a G/W/B deck with Deathrites/Abrupt Decay/Centaur Healers/Obzedat/Vraska

vine gets played in like bant control but in general the mana in the block is much better than in a typical block so that type of effect isn't as powerful in context. borderland ranger was an actual threat with wolf run, sacced to falkenrath aristocrat for a counter, etc. all while fixing your mana. gatecreeper vine just fixes and chumps once and that's not worth 1G unless you're a 3+ color control deck.

here's what a G/W/B block deck looks like at the moment
http://mtgstats.com/Deck.aspx?DeckID=581570

you don't really have much else to do on turn two tho, at its worst it's just deck thinning

yeah Alms Beast is something i'd definitely play with. just a deck of big honkers.

true that Borderland has its advantages but Vine can nip Gates, and it does tap for the Grove :)