Magic: The Gathering C/D

a 3 mana 2/1 flyer was alright back then. plus the idea of cards "phasing out" kinda left us long ago - I always thought it was funny how every card with "phasing" was basically unplayable. we've come a long way

that was in a world champ deck iirc!

i think you're thinking of rainbow efreet

it placed second: https://www.wizards.com/sideboard/article.asp?x=results/ptworlds97_decks

rainbow efreet was rad too

that would be limited playable today for sure

those circles of protection even

imagine trying to play wildfire emissary in constructed today

well Frenetic Efreet got nerfed quite a bit with the changes to damage stacking. now it would just be a 2/1 that randomly dodges removal.

people didn't play a lot of lands in those days, did they? i guess if you're doing 4 thawing glaciers you can live off just two but still this seems pretty light

slam it imo

yeah I remember 20-22 being the accepted norm and was surprised when I came back to the game

lol the third place list is playing 16 lands? is that right? pre-modern competitive magic is kinda nuts

the pitch cards were quite good too which justifies a little less land

yeah playing enough lands is a relatively modern development in mtg strategy

lol @ people playing 46 land esper drownyard decks now though, maybe the pendulum has swung too far

though some of that is the switch from counterspell to mana leak as the baseline good counterspell, and then from mana leak to nothing that punishes playing higher cmc spells

when your deck is built around casting a 4-mana spell to stabilize, you need to play 27+ lands because you want to hit your 4th land drop on turn 4 every single game. those older control decks were better at trading 1 for 1 without losing too much tempo, so you could skimp on lands more

yeah the most expensive spell in that RUW deck is hammer of borgarden

also sphinx's revelation makes flooding out a complete non-worry

oh the U/W mythic is going to be pretty fun with that card

yeah i understand to an extent, like the 97 list also gets to play 4 swords to plowshares and 4 force of wills in it, it is doing something kinda different to current esper decks.

would be interested to know what the win % would be for that u/w/r 97 deck versus a 2013 competitive deck? like in theory it feels like the 97 deck is the favorite against p much any modern creature deck but maybe its too inconsistent, has too few answers? idk

this is exactly what cockatrice was so excellent at doing

Frenetic Efreet pre-dated stacked damage, the ability was used to dodge removal. I remember the days of playing 20-22 lands, but not exactly why people did that. The mulligan rules were a lot stupider (redraw only 0 or 7 lands, I think?) so maybe it was that the game had so much luck, you may as well press it to the limit.

yeah I feel like that was the general pov

well when *I* played Frenetic Efreet it was in the stacked damage era. that change came about in 6th edition so IIRC you wouldn't have Mirage-era cards legal then

I like my damage like I like my women

i am never, ever getting these last two QPs huh? so bitter w/mtgo rn

yeah i already gave up on this season, i have too a hard time motivating myself to play now-obsolete formats during the spoiler weeks + paper release period

am i correct in thinking that there is no statistical information available on mtgo? like, if i want to know how i did in tournaments or one off games over a period i need to be keeping track of that myself right?

they keep track of a few things like # of boosters won, which they send you in the monthly email you can opt into in your options. most useful things like winrate you need to track yourself though.

ok thx

boy I really hope the rumors of the G/U Mana Drain are true

if it's four mana would it even be playable?

i kinda doubt it but you better believe i'd base some stupid Zegana deck around it

I would love if it were 1GU

counter a spell and generate 7 mana on turn 4? that may be a little too good

I'm all for overpowered counterspells

like, if i want to know how i did in tournaments or one off games over a period i need to be keeping track of that myself right?

yeah an detailed or even not so detailed stats have to be kept yourself, i use a pretty basic spreadsheet to track my limited play mostly to keep a general sense of my profitability and also because i like knowing what colors/archetypes have done well for me vs. the general impression of the format

i am still on the hunt for those last two elusive QPs. apologies for the updates but no one i know in real life has any idea of what that means when i complain about it

i won a gtc sealed with a 5 colour deck. primarily simic, with domri rade. i had good fixing and my playable creatures were totally spread out. crowned ceratok was my mvp, i closed out 3 games with trample. it felt like a rite of passage.

haha roberto! i remember when i was starting out and didn't have much idea of what i was doing. i drafted a 4-color ISD deck with relatively little fixing. i think i took that thing two rounds, and really p'd my round 2 opponent off. he was french or something and got upset that he lost to a noob.

not trying to knock your deck or anything. 5-color green is a viable strategy in most limited formats i think, even though it's hard to pull off. it's a great timmy strategy cuz it's just a delight when it does go off.

lamp, you should grind phantom sealeds for those QPs. it's so low budg that you can multiqueue relatively efficiently (if that kind of thing turns your crank that is)

oh man i've played... i dont really want to admit how many phantom sealed events over the last two weeks and haven't managed to 3-0. genuinely not sure why but i almost always go 2-1, like yesterday i played four of them and went 2-1 in three. the fourth i went 1-2 mostly because i forgot to submit my deck so i autolost every game 1.

yep i lolled

and i now have a better picture of exactly why you are venting here. that is too much

so all those spoilers outside of the new Mana Drain have been confirmed. which implies that new Mana Drain is likely in the set.

kinda hate the Boros guild leader. not really playable in Constructed but he'll be such a nightmare in Limited. maybe even worse than Firemane Avenger,

is it really not playable in standard?

I think in standard you're only ever going to profitably attack with 3 guys if they're all down by turn 3 at the latest (and preferably 2) - that's why boros elite could be a card, but I'd be really surprised if this could. I guess he's marginally ok as a blocker against some sort of ashzealot.dec, but less so than like, alms beast or deadbridge goliath would be, and those haven't exactly been taking down GPs.

it would be rather interesting with Aurelia. in fact just now I realized that Aurelia allows you to activate Batallion twice. could be an interesting block deck at least!

the Cluestones seem like a good sign for the slowing down of limited. granted a lot of commons have yet to be spoiled but like 1-2 common slots are going to be taken up by these things in every pack.

i think it's gonna be really slow! like 2/2s for 2 being unplayable slow

in which case card evaluations for gatecrash change a ton, RTR not quite as much

yeah in GTC stuff like Gutter Skulk or Sage's Row Denizen were very maindeckable (even if Sage's Row ability didn't help you at all). this is gonna be a complicated format.