Magic: The Gathering C/D

ha

been reading some of Matt Tabak's tumblr, which drops some interesting hints - one, there's apparently something in Theros that'll cause some older cards to get errata, and two, there is some upcoming mechanic that's something along the lines of Miracle/double-sided cards/split cards that sort of 'breaks' the existing rules.

yeah i feel like there's been a lot of little hints dropped over the past year that theros has one of those game-changer mechanics in it

gonna keep posting my 3-0 draft decks just so everyone can see how unimportant it is to actually have a good or cohesive deck:

http://i.imgur.com/guSLhoy.jpg

thats a p sweet deck

'you too can easily 3-0 with tajic and a bunch of aggressive 2 and 3 drops plus some removal'

thanks for the encouragement there cider, will keep that one in mind next time a draft goes sour

I'm watching my friend stream 4p sealed and he's won 3 games w/ guild feud (I suggested adding it)

haha i guess its not that bad i just felt really gross about it when i ended up with only a few 2-drops and had to play a gatekeeper with 2 gates

2-drops seem barely existent in this format, no matter how high i move them up my pick order

i went 2-2 at fnm with two two drops in my otherwise fine deck, i lost to a bunch of 3/1 haste guys. i realized that i really need to prioritize two drops in this format regardless of how slow or controlling i think my deck is - i had mostly been staying p clean but that deck was a true three color mess. i was happy to start 2-0 with it but then mad to lose two in a row, even if it was a bad deck

biggest mistake was passing up a fifth pick tithe drinker pack one and not moving in on orzhov, ended up passing lots of really good white and black and i should've recognized that as a clear signal.

figuring out where to take the gates is the big one for me right now. because I'll wind up with like 9-10 good cards in DGM but they will almost all be gold ones, then try to pick up gates in the other two packs but straight up not seeing any or having to pick a bomby rare/uncommon over them. and then inevitably you'll lose at least one match to mana screw.

seems like BUG is really working for me. Drown in Filth is like this set's Death's Approach in that I always end up with 2-3 of them and they work very well. i'm still waiting for the time I use it and mill four good cards and whiff, then draw nothing but lands the rest of the way. It's interesting because you never quite know who to mill. The Golgari cards all want you to mill yourself but if you're using Drown, Grislies, the GTC mill effects, and now Pilfered Plans on yourself you can really get decked kinda easily.

There aren't a lot of gates in RTR and GTC comparatively, right? Kind of taunting to have to pick up Gatekeepers and most of your gates in the first pack.

I actually drafted BUG today in my very first draft of this format, top 8 of a GPT for Providence. I was reasonably happy with how it went - even though there were no bombs, I got good fixing, a few removal spells, good attackers like Rakdos Drake and Beetleform Mage. But my round 1 opponent had Teysa, Trostani, and Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage, so that was that.

yeah I agree about drown in filth. it's also kinda fun cause it adds a gambly element to your play.

I had a sweet jund deck tonight w/ deadbridge chant, desecration demon, 2 augers, putrefy etc etc. deadbridge is pretty fun to land.

I curved spike jester, dreg mangler, desecration demon one game

lamp, it's encouraging to hear you've continued to roll with that american shell. i think i might dip back into block constructed as a precursor to finally learning standard. gonna try and go for it.

i always thought the big problem with that deck was the 2-drop, and i'm wondering if electromancer might be the card there, just to speed things up a turn. shaving a turn off verdict is probably huge against those burning tree zoo decks that seem to be dominating. i was hoping it would reduce the turn/burn cost to 1UR but even at 2UR it's still pretty good. also considering running warleader's helix against zoo, too.

so i think i might add:

- skymark roc (which on second thought after looking at the tourney winner lists seems kinda dodgy... i need a 4-drop bad)
- turn/burn
- electromancer
- lavinia
- hellraiser goblin SB
- essence backlash SB

and take out:

- skyjek
- judge's
- hypersonic
- a bunch of charms

hopefully i'll get a chance to test that out this week... it's a toss up whether i get time or not. i'm working outside for the summer so i think about magic a fair bit during my toiling job, with precious little time to actually play

pretty disappointed that thundermaw hellkite isn't in m14, was banking on that one getting the two-time treatment that titans and baneslayer angel got

is that for sure? i checked the name/# crunch on mtgsalvation and theres space for it. a little disappointed cuz i still held onto a playset of that card

well there's another mythic dragon spoiled already, so unless there's 3 red mythics of which 2 are dragons then it's not in. i guess its possible

ok yeah i didnt see those four new cards :(. was hoping for a 3XX mythic cycle with thundermaw and the black and white cards already spoiled.

the angel is pretty insane and might show up in melira pod in modern even

another fun america deck tonight

2 nivix cyclops
2 stealer of secrets
daring skyjek
nivix guildmage
azorius justiciar
cinder elemental
deputy of acquittals
jelenn sphinx
bloodfray giant
ripscale predator
2 dramatic rescue
act of treason
traitorous instinct
pit fight
warleader's helix
swift justice
inaction injunction
last thoughts
boros/azorius/izzet gates, 2 cluestones, sacred foundry

best two wins involved: swift justicing an opponent's voidwielder to kill the 6/2 I stole, nivix guildmaging dramatic rescue then doubling act of treason next turn to win against collective blessing, would have had an even better deck if the other america - who I met in the finals - didn't take two nivix cyclops too.

you're way higher on the cyclops than anyone here i know. i'd like to be but i have yet to get them in the same deck as actual playable instants/sorceries despite trying several times already

that deck is straight fire though, i like it a lot

you sorta gotta force spells hard as soon as you realize it's there. and take act of treason / traitorous instinct / pit fight over basically anything, because having a combination of those and nivix allows you to blowout the early game / regularly swing for 18.

oh yeah pit fight is clever there, i usually glaze over it if i'm not in green.

yeah act + pit fight is pretty fun trick on its own, did it all the time in gtc, in this build all 5 of those cards work well together

tho swift justice was actually the mvp of the deck, the lifelink was v. relevant

young pyromancer is the m14 card for me so far. was thinking if standard storm could be a thing and yep. add it to this list and i think you can pretty much go off

http://legitmtg.com/competitive/standard-with-a-chance-of-storm/

that deck already existed and was pretty good pre-gatecrash, the guys over at goodgamery designed it originally. it couldn't race fast aggro though so blitz and better mono-red kind of killed it, not sure just how much the pyromancer will help there but it's possible.

hey there's a standard deck I can build without having to buy anything (except for past in flames)

I played a similar deck with some Scars-era cards (like the sac and artifact to make 3 Goblins thing). Basically you needed to Miracle a Reforge or else you'd get crushed early. But the addition of blue looks interesting...

yeah i played burn at the stake combo deck in a couple of dailies after rtr came out but even then it wasn't great, but it was a lot of fun

it got great opponent reactions from people who hadn't seen it, especially when you actually went off storm-style with past in flames/reforge/etc

big rules change just announced for M14 - the legend rule and planeswalker uniqueness rule now apply separately to each player's side of the board.

http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/248e

plus a few smaller things

realllllly not a fan of these changes, not sure if im developing the serious magic players sheer dislike of change or if this seems like a really stupid change but either way

i'm in favor of sacrificing flavor for better gameplay which i believe is what this essentially is. the initial awkwardness will wear off especially as future sets are designed more towards it

i dont care about the flavor - im not sure how much flavor the current rule has tbrr. and it opens up some interesting play space particularly with planeswalkers but i think it limits what they can do w/legends - really i'd be fine with them changing the planeswalker rule but keeping the legends one. i feel like initially it really fucks over non-standard formats?

i dont really but that the current rule was a problem, or that being able to use a copy of a legend as a terror was that unfun or limiting versus having an additional out to powerful or hard to deal with legends.

also iatee as the resident nivix cyclops expert is furious resistance a real card in a deck w/two of them?

i think it's more fun to be able to play your cool cards than not. wizards seems to be pushing the complex, cluttered boardstate and i like it. the game gets so much more challenging when you have to consider both board and hand.

I'm definitely a fan of having your JTMS replace your JAOS when he comes down, rather than engage in some sort of mutual suicide pact; that just feels more sensible to me, and I guess this rule is necessary otherwise you could replace your opponent's Legends which would be super brutal.

I'm glad they waited until Geist went away though.

also iatee as the resident nivix cyclops expert is furious resistance a real card in a deck w/two of them?

I mean I use nivix as an aggro card so it wouldn't be ideal in the spell-heavy build because you want the option to play your hand and surprise swing with a 10/4.

if your deck is slower otoh it's just like adding a smite. but it already kinda was. so I guess the answer is 'depends on how the rest of your deck looks'

I will say that using Phantasmal Image as a 2-mana kill spell for Hexproof dudes like Geist and Thrun felt a little odd. If nothing else they at least got that weird bit out of the system. Also I imagine this needs we will get more legendary lands because the #1 downside (randomly turning cards into Strip Mines) is now gone. Also if I'm not mistaken this makes Mox Opal a little better. I'm primarily a Limited player though so I doubt this'll mean much to me - but I can only imagine how outraged some of the more serious players must be (first...you came for MY SLIVERS...and now...)

BTW total thumbs up on the sideboarding rule. I always wondered why you couldn't do that.

I like all these changes, especially the Planeswalker one. Always thought it was dumb that in a mirror whoever got their Jace down first got to use theirs, while the other player couldn't. Or that your Liliana on 1 prevents you from playing your Liliana in hand.

the latter feels like an intentional drawback on some planeswalkers but its not like planeswalkers have taken over formats recently other than JTMS so its not a big deal if they get a bit better.

Intentional? I'm sure they noticed how Lili and others play and decided they didn't mind that one prevented you from playing another, dunno if I'd go as far as intentional. I'm sure many will argue that strategy is lost yada yada, but this adds just as much strategy, maybe more even, while getting rid of the feel bads.

yeah this change is definitely variance-reducing which is something competitive players should like but still won't because they resist all change

also thespian's stage now combos with dark depths so grab some of those if people haven't figured it out yet

Either I'm dumb or you're making a joke, and I could go 50/50 on which it is.

dark depths starts with ten and activates at zero instead of starting at zero and activating at ten. wonder if they regret that one.

Oh geez, forgot it wouldn't have the counters. Yeah that's a very hard-to-stop combo, but at least it's already banned in Modern.