Magic: The Gathering C/D

all the D14 cards that don't exist yet are presumably in M14, this is why they're starting to send out card previews already since the duels game comes out first and will spoil some of the set

I thought there were some duels only cards?

i have last year's duels and there are no duels-only cards in it

i was looking at thse recenttly wrt the D14 cards being spoiled. 2012 DOTP had 2 new planeswalkers in, one of whom was ral zarek, but it doesn't look like there have been any other new format-specific cards.

ral zarek had a deck in it but didn't actually have a card (dotp games don't have planeswalker cards)

if we are to believe that, then this is a card:

Enlarge 3GG
Sorcery (U)
Target creature gets +7/+7 and trample until end of turn, and must be blocked this turn if able.

which is exactly the kind of card I love

it has catsploitation art too

whoa. I hadn't even looked at the art. I dont like it as much as the original Might of Oaks (I think it's a lot funnier that the squirrel looks bewildered instead of aggressive) but that is pretty wild!!

Boros Battleshaper did a huge amount of work for me last night. That card is just nasty once you get rolling with it.

So far with DGR draft, I've been picking up a ridiculous amount of rare and mythic bombs. Last night it was Battleshaper, Teysa, Archon, Utvara Hellkite, plus Sacred Foundry. Is it a trap to be picking all of these up? My biggest downfall is not ramping quickly enough and getting outpaced, yet I feel like I could be making this work if I throw in 1 or 2 more cluestones. Should I let some of these go and focus on a tighter curve or just go nuts and play as many bombs as possible?

I feel that bombs play a big role in this format as well, as A) DGM has a lot of Limited bombs, B) a lot of the big Gatecrash creatures (like Ragebeast) are now more likely to hit the table thanks to the slower format + more accel, and C) with most decks being 3 color odds are that a lot of the big multicolor stuff is going to actually wind up in a deck

Moodles ramping into bombs is absolutely a fine strategy in this format, just make sure you still have ways to interact on turn 2-4. if you're just playing lands and cluestones your first 3 or 4 turns, a good tempo deck will just run you out of the game since even once you land a big blocker they'll have all their removal/bounce sitting ready in their hand still.

if you're finding yourself getting outpaced, consider valuing the good early blockers more highly. frostburn weird and frilled oculus in particular are very strong 2-drops since they scale into the midgame, and even something like azorius arrester often does good work slowing your opponent down a bit and then trading off with one of their guys. and if those aren't available you should be able to pick up defenders like the 0/5 wall or trestle troll pretty late in packs

basically anything with 4 toughness that comes down turn 2 or 3 is going to slow down your opponent significantly unless they burn off one of their removal spells on it in which case that makes your golgari longlegs or whatever other midgame creature you're setting up more likely to stick around

I feel like smart sideboarding is even more important in this format beceause there are so many different archetypes you can be playing against - the 0/5 wall can be a essential card against some decks and terrible against slower decks

maro's been dropping hints on his blog that there might be a futureshifted card in Theros, so i went through the FS spoiler and the best i could come up with was Daybreak Coronet or Storm Entity, the latter of which i think is a lot more likely. i really like the idea of printing the future cards 'for real' but so many of them have keyword mechanics or specific placenames/identifiers in the card names that it's not too surprising they haven't been able to fit them in anywhere lately.

ha, to me "might be" reads as "almost certainly will be". I was thinking of the Warriors/Cowards card but they already printed that one didn't they?

what are some examples of FS cards that were actually fs'd?

the most recent one was bloodshot trainee in scars of mirrodin

there were a bunch from lorwyn/shadowmoor but that was the next block so they actually just planted the cards that they already knew would exist, they don't have the luxury of doing that anymore

oh nimbus maze is the other possibility, i don't think we know the plane for that yet

boldwyr intimidator, graven cairns, mistmeadow skulk are a few off the top of my head. the craziest one was goldmeadow lookout, a card that didn't get reprinted itself but instead made token copies of goldmeadow harrier which was a card in lorwyn

also tarmogoyf was the first card to mention the tribal and planeswalker card types in its rules text, both of which debuted in lorwyn

err wait, there was a tribal card in future sight, never mind. but still, goyf spoiled the coming of planeswalker cards

that's interesting, I didn't know that. must have started a few riots.

Yes, but not nearly as many as the stupid Contraption card.

Just looked up a full list of FS reprints, I completely forgot Mass of Ghouls and Phosphorescent Feast has been brought back too.

there's a few other cards that could be possible if the block has an enchantment theme, like the aura swap one or spellwild ouphe, but my money's on storm entity unless we have pre-existing info i haven't seen about what plane its flavor text refers to

storm entity also notably is pretty fun with burning-tree emissary, and not particularly stronger than the existing interaction with champion of the parish which will be gone by then

also whatever block Street Wraith is from is gonna be sweet if it ever happens

Just in terms of planning and design the whole Time Spiral block is one of the coolest things that any game has ever done. even the real subtle things like Malach of the Dawn being a male angel (because it's from the "alternate present" set and all other Angels were female) are incredibly clever even if few ever understood the significance

The story of Tarmogoyf is actually quite entertaining. The whole idea was that they wanted to spoil the Planeswalker type in reminder text and it originally was designed as a 2G */*. It then got deleted and some designer re-added it from memory, thought it was only 1G and did the toughness as *+1 because that's how all Llurgoyfs were. And bam...$100 card

Dryad Arbor feels a tiny bit Greek somehow? Love that card so much.

Didn't know Goyf was a mistake but it makes sense! I wonder how many other super-strong cards have that kind of backstory (I know that Clamp and Jitte do) versus Obzedat-style 'we know this card is nuts'

my favorite was that batterskull was an intentional "hey no one's playing this sweet stoneforge mystic card that's been around for months, let's make an equipment that's really good with it" and then the channelfireball guys broke stoneforge mystic at the pro tour before it came out and the R&D guys got to have a fun 3 months of sweating

oh nimbus maze is the other possibility, i don't think we know the plane for that yet

i like nimbus maze as the future sight plant - theres been lots of solid spec that the M10/ISD lands are leaving standard for a bit and i think that a cycle of nimbus maze lands would be a reasonable alternative to those

Dryad Arbor is one of the cards that Maro has specifically said likely won't be back because it caused too many rules issues

i really hope the days of skewed information aren't completely over now, i wasn't following the caw-blade pro tour at the time but the stories i've heard about it are great. apparently in the first several rounds opponents were consistently casting inquisition of kozilek, seeing a stoneforge in their hand, and ignoring it and choosing to take something like a spell pierce or mana leak instead. i'd love to see another pro tour where one team has a surprise stranglehold on the format.

i'm actually really excited by this pro tour since i don't really have a clear idea what the metagame will look like. mtgo is so skewed my red decks that it will be interesting to see a meta that exists with them almost entirely absent. i've been working a bit on a block deck for this weekend for the mocs prelim and keep thinking about all these silly midrange-y decks that dont have good enough matchups against red to even bother with

yeah i need a deck for this weekend too - will probably play a varolz deck but i'm not sure if the straight BG one is best or if there's room to add red and make it look more like my standard deck with domri, ghor-clan rampager, etc.

i had varloz in a draft and now kind of love that card - also have had aetherling twice and think it is basically the best limited card ever

varloz jund seems like something that doesnt quite match up w/the mtgo meta tho

i saw a list with boros reckoner, firemane avenger, lavinia that i liked too. basically i want something proactive that's a bit more robust than the mono-red deck

haha maybe thats my list - i've been playing those cards in a w/r/u kinda tempo list. its still a bit of mess but it has a really good match up against red

haha maybe, i still don't know your username

ca1945

little known fact that lamp is 68 years old

ok the one i was looking at wasn't yours then

basically i really want to play domri if at all possible because i've had really good results in standard with him, but obviously block is way different

there's a maze's end deck in the most recent block results...

i want to play a voice deck but i dont own any and dont want to buy them so i've been casting around for stuff that can beat sphinx ok and red ok and isnt g/w which is like obzedat

RBW midrange deck is pretty decent but i've never quite liked it for some reason

i dont have a lot of expectations for this mocs so i might just play one of the UB madness decks i've seen, i get to play aetherling which is p gd sweet and there dont seem to be that many g/w decks to really punish you

there don't seem to be many flying creatures in block, i wonder if you could just play skyjerk/skyknight/firemane avenger and kill people without having to worry too much about voice or advent of the wurm. desecration demon is a problem i guess but there's turn/burn for that

hey guys

this is my gp report

it's c/p'd from an email i sent so the format isn't all ilxy and lowercase etc

i hope you will enjoy

+++++++++++++++++

Round 4 (round 1 for me and my trusty byes) was against a former GP winner, Swedish dude. He had Infect and I had Tron - not a great matchup but something I could work with. I guess I wasn't so used to Infect, and how utterly mandatory it was to remove every threat on the board, 'cuz I lost Game 1 fast. I kept a 1 Urzaland, 1 Chromatic, 1 Ancient Stirrings hand, and it wasn't pretty when my Ancient Stirrings failed to hit a second land. I died on Turn 4 without putting up much of a fight. In hindsight I should have mulled that hand, especially since there was no Pyroclasm, but my Modern skills weren't that sharp at the time.

Game 2 I sided in my Spellskite. I was supposed to have 2 but mysteriously lost the second. Luckily, I drew it opening hand. On his T1, he Nature's Claimed my Chromatic Star and I tried to suppress glee. After the Spellskite hit, he hung out, lacklustre, with a Blighted Agent on board and a handful of miserable pump spells. He scooped as soon as I hit Karn, which didn't take long.

Game 3 I kept a decent looking hand. As in, it had Grove and Pyroclasm. T2, he Blighted Agent. My T2, I Pyroclasmed. All tapped out, he Mutagenic Growthed the Agent to keep it alive, and killed me two turns later. Backbreaking play.

So I'm X-1 heading into R5. I play a hatebear beatdown deck - the matchup is super even. Games 1 and 2 are nice and tight and we split the pair. The difference is, of course, Game 1, I don't really hit sweepers, Game 2 I hit a few. Game 3 he assembles a nice little board and starts swinging. Geist is on there so you know it's scary. I'm exactly one turn behind and lose the match.

After the match my friend informs me that I missed a land drop. I'm like "seriously?" but I know it's true cuz I can get absentminded playing Magic sometimes. Turns out, the missed land drop was Eye of Ugin, which I guess I overlooked 'cuz it doesn't tap for mana. I realize I was one mana short of casting All is Dust the turn before he lethal'd me. Magic has a funny way of punishing misplays - it kind of drives home "don't make any, no matter how inconsequential!"

So now I'm X-2, and I receive an interesting reward for my misplay. My R6 opponent has no idea what Tron is. He's also just a plain old terrible player. There's a point in G1 where I have 2 Power Plants and a Mine out and he's like "ohhhh, damn, does that mean you have your combo?" with a total straight face and I'm just like

I was feeling pretty good about the matchup early on. He drops a T1 Mountain and doesn't play anything. I wait for the Bolt at the end of my turn. Doesn't come. I can't believe my luck. Turn 2 he drops a Tunnel Ignus, which is unplayable in pretty much all format with no combo potential or anything. I continue to gawk.

There's always a catch. The catch here is that he was playing probably 16-24 land destruction spells in his deck. A baby could have beat me with that deck, and I go down in flames to his Tunnel Ignus. Both matches adjacent to mine can't help but gawk and crack up. It's brutally funny - perfect irony. I can't help but laugh myself.

Since I lost R6 so fast I actually have time to head back to the hotel and change. I do so, come back, and now that I'm officially out of Day 2, sweep my remaining 3 matches handily against some pretty good players. So it goes!

It was a pretty great experience overall. I had a bit of a consolation victory in the Super Sunday Sealed where I had a nice showing with a questionable pool and scored 11 packs. Plus, I'm feeling more confident that I can compete with the top players. Obviously I have stuff to work on but I'm not that far off. I'm still proud of a play I made where, with an Expedition Map untapped and 2 Tron lands out, I notice he suspiciously has 3 untapped mana, with a white in there. I decline to pop the Map and cast my Oblivion Stone instead, and right as rain, he ends my turn by flashing in the Aven Mindcensor he had brought in from the SB specifically to hose my Maps. Felt pretty darn good.

also cider, i did well with a block deck that went judge's familiar/skyjek/reckoner/skyknight/hypersonic dragon/aurelia. you should try it out. DGM offers lots of new goodies for that deck. i ran civic saber to great effect but for sure with DGM you can cut a lot of the borderline cards (judge's, skyjek, saber) and throw in heat. maybe legion's initiative and tajic, and for sure lavinia.

fennel i used your civic saber deck as the basis for my block deck i went bigger and cut the saber package and instead focused on etb triggers and tempo

i decided to just throw together the varolz deck since i was only missing 1 card from it (varolz) and it seems to fit my criteria. will probably play it for the first time in the actual mocs event which is awkward but i honestly don't care too much about the mocs anyway