Magic: The Gathering C/D

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.

drafted the deck i've like the best tonight at a local shop, had the supreme skill and foresight to open and not pass aetherling, but even outside that there's a bunch of really cool interactions:

faerie imposter
basilica screecher
basilica screecher
grim roustabout
corpse blockade
undercity informer
notion thief
ogre jailbreaker
ogre jailbreaker
ubul sar gatekeepers
saruli gatekeepers
runewing
voidwielder
aetherling
dinrova horror
maze abomination

arrest
devour flesh
call of the nightwing
launch party
midnight recovery
psychic strike
urban evolution

azorius guildgate
dimir guildgate
dimir guidgate
simic guildgate
simic guildgate
watery grave

its not even that good a deck really i just got to do a bunch of fun stuff including casting notion thief in response to both izzet charm and blast of genius in different matches. i also got to mill someone by using undercity informer to sacrifice my board when we were both stalled out and i couldn't dry into aetherling. call of the nightwing also a fun interaction with maze abomination.

also worth noting that lamp lost to the nivix cyclops deck

I am the johnny appleseed of that card

DGR 3-0 deck #3:
http://i.imgur.com/akdeQGV.jpg

deputy is in the board because i was afraid i didn't have enough blue sources to play it but i ended up boarding it in for bane alley blackguard every time

oops meant to link that not embed it

thats a well and good but i dont see an aetherling

try harder next draft and you can be as good as me

have not opened one yet

i had pontiff of blight earlier though and that card is absurd too

Pretty solid DGR draft strategy from Ben Stark.

I find that more confusing than helpful

everyone who seems to have a strategy for drafting dgm seems to be doing pretty well despite these strategies often contradicting each other so I think there is a multiple equilibria thing going on here. if you have a good knowledge of the format and have a plan for your draft there are a lot of successful approachs.

i have yet to meet anyone with a better plan than mine: 'open aetherling'

you can thank with a cut off all the sweet gatecrash packs this simple advice is gonna win you

somebody out there has drafted the aetherling-pack rat draft already, I wonder if people beat him up outside the store afterwards

ps what happened at the end of that lol dyzl draft last night

i beat a pack rat deck last night with the one i posted up there

i think i have a winning record overall vs pack rat in limited, i've been very lucky

also a losing record with pack rat in my deck

wait no that part isn't true nevermind

yeah i beat a really bad pat rack deck this week in an 8-4 with a mediocre gruul beat down deck

i don't think i've lost yet with an aetherling in play though #skillgame

do you guys still disagree w/ me that aetherling is better than pack rat

i would be willing to believe aetherling is a better card in limited, the rat does get significantly worse the later you draw it in the game

well i have lost a few games with aetherling in my hand so it kinda balances out

i think the biggest advantage aetherling his in full block draft is that you get to open it pack one rather than pack three. like my opponent had a bad pack rat deck because he was probably some combination of bant colors before pack three and had a really hard time casting it on turn two, or developing a real board presence to try for the turn five play. also pack rat doesnt block that well at first

so lets say dgm packs were fucked up and instead of a shock there was an aetherling and a pack rat. how long does it take you to make a decision.

yeah i have already passed pack rat at least once and i would do it again - i think it is actually a poor splash because it's often mediocre late and if you draw it late you want multiple black sources to double up and catch it up with the rest of the board

i would take aetherling since it's worth a few bucks and i have the whole draft to pick up anti-pack-rat cards