Magic: The Gathering C/D

yeah it's a really difficult deck to play, but i love these sorts of 'puzzle box' decks, where you have a bunch of restricted search abilities and have to figure out the optimal sequence of things to search up

wow, this is very cool

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=145090&d=1378005085

did really well at a paper modern event w/ gifts+loam, not sure that it really slots into mtgo's modern meta that well but i really enjoy the game. also i now officially have a playset of tarmogofys :D

i am really, really happy about thoughtseize. dont care much for elspeth but both the hound and the reanimation spell leave me hopeful i might still be able to play a deck based around the graveyard in standard

i now have 37 QPs on the season. i don't at all recommend playing enough mtgo to do this.

haha you should've waited until next month

'next month' is 4 weeks of no theros, i'm basically only going to be playing modern and hopefully 3x innistrad if that wins that vote thing for the retro format

so i'll be lucky to get to 15

also this card is great
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BTG_rWaCcAADytJ.jpg

pretty much every card I've seen so far from this set has been amazing

lol
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=145143&d=1378094606

hecatonchires! i am enjoying what they are doing with this set so far

i really like how different the set looks play-wise than any block they've done before. RTR block didn't really excite me that much because they've done 3 multicolor blocks before it and i'd already played with all of them and they don't all feel that different from each other in the end. innistrad succeeded by playing way differently than its closest precedent (odyssey), and this set doesn't seem to have much precedent at all.

man, some of these cards remind me of the really early Magic stuff where the concept came first

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=145237&d=1378180951

I agree that RTR wasn't really that exciting because a lot of it is well-worn territory. This looks totally different and already feels like it could be the best set they've done in a long time (though Innistrad was pretty astounding in its own right, it did give us Lily and Geist, the two cards I've hated playing against the most in the last few years)

Very excited by some of the recent spoilers, especially the gods and some of the more flavorful cards. Chroma did not appeal to me at all in Eventide, but looking at the awesome stuff they're doing with it here, I wonder if Eventide just didn't go far enough with it. Also the flavor of devotion is way better too. It looks like a mechanic that will make a lot of interesting deckbuilding and gameplay. Bestow cards still read very clunkily to me but I'll get used to them.

Chained From the Rocks seems like such an Alpha card - all flavor, seemingly no consideration for what decks can play it. I love it (and hope there are decks that want it)

Anything that garners comparisons to Swords to Plowshares will probably find a deck, yes :)

Yeah I was thinking "does Boros want a StP or just burn?" but you're right, that effect is too good to not get played. And I forgot about Modern, where it slots into some existing decks pretty well.

Modern was what I was thinking first off, but it'll definitely see some Standard play. I mean nobody really knows what the format will look like post-rotation but Boros will probably exist in some configuration. Plus it does get rid of the Gods, so there's that (as does Curse of the Swine!!)

Pyxis is one of my favorites so far, even though it's not really playable competitively, it's the kind of card I would have loved during the era of 250. Cool because there's really no investment beforehand, it only costs 1 and has no mana investment, and of course it's up to you if you want to crack it should you fall behind.

it's gonna be a long month until this set releases on modo :/

No kidding. I'm getting into M14 draft a bit (Red with Young Pyromancer and Molten Rebirth is fun) but it's getting very one-note, you just win by finding a way to create card advantage (Divination and Opportunity are very good) and not dying to auras like Mark of the Vampire, Trollhide, Lightning Talons, and Shiv's Embrace. Hell even Mind Rot is playable, which is nice because it's hard to get a solid deck that doesn't play marginal cards. The only thing left to happen is for White to go so underdrafted that cards like Pacifism are starting to wheel (I got a 14th pick Celestial Flare last draft which makes me feel like people are overadjusting).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tByoaeEjcuo

^ always thought that song was about getting digital copies of underground seas

yeahhh probably just going for the single copy this time, i crashed and burned pretty spectacularly during force of will month

that new planeswalker seems really good?

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/26846_Exclusive-Theros-Preview-Xenagos-The-Reveler.html

closest comparable is probably garruk wildspeaker, in that it makes mana and tokens? and that garruk was a standard staple.

damn. i'm back in school so no more mtgo, but i really like the prospect of my block deck migrating to theros standard. it has such a fun and simple gameplan, just going 1-1 (and occasionally 2-for-1 with reckoner) until you hit 5-6 mana at which point you just take over. something along the lines of:

creatures (18)
4 boros reckoner
2 chandra's phoenix
2 gideon, champion of justice
1 spark trooper
4 stormbreath dragon
2 archangel of thune
3 aurelia, the warleader

removal/utility (16)
4 chained to the rocks
4 magma jet
2 mizzium mortars
2 boros charm
4 warleader's helix

lands (26)
4 sacred foundry
11 mountain
10 plains
1 nykthos, shrine to nyx

also, i agree that nightveil specter could totally become a card. it's already seeing play in block control decks, and it pairs really well with the blue god (only decent one so far imo).

disagree, red god seems quite playable too

I dont know why the blue god costs only 3, but IMO the mana costs aren't really super relevent (at least, the difference between 3 and 4) because you'll never get Thassa as a creature by turn 3 anyway. IMO they're all playable but a lot will depend on how many playable enchantments each color gets. Like Chained to the Rock seems extra good if you're playing the white god because you get more devotion that doesn't die to mass removal that way, ideally you want to be able to just drop a creature after a Verdict that can re-activate the God and swing for 5 or 6. Power level wise I imagine they'll all be quite similar though I do think blue's Scry 1 every turn seems the most useful now

the red god is the most interesting to me rn, the obvious application w/young pyromancer (and ogre battledriver?) mono-red already has a four mana echantment but if there are mostly two-color decks in the meta post-rotation this is obv better. i do think the blue one is the best rn though, also nice that there's a solid 1U creature to replace augur of bolas. (haha i just realized that the new creature is a kind of 'augur')

ha, never thought of how crazy that would be with Pyromancer

Wow, multiple playable r/x mythics. Looks like it's time to take out a second mortgage on the house.

the dragon is basically about as good as thundermaw, which i was not expecting at all

R/G seems like its getting an immediate full reload when it wasn't even losing a huge amount of stuff. at least there's no size on the low end with flinthoof boar gone, so it won't be unbeatable

'as good as thundemaw' seems about right, fwiw

people on mtgs are kinda freaking out over the new r/g 'walker and while i think its reasonably powerful i do wonder how good it will be. its interesting to think about different decks in the coming standard but i'm probably pretty bad it. one thing i have been thinking about is that scry makes duskmantle seer a lot better and i'm already v interested in a u/b tempo or control deck built around thassa and nightveil spectre. also far//away which is one of my favorite cards. i just wonder if that deck has enough game against real control decks given the current counter suite.

thoughtsieze definitely helps the u/b tempo deck but there also aren't enough aggressive plays to start with. cloudfin raptor feels like it rewards the wrong thing (e.g playing creatures) although thassa does trigger evolve iirc (i may not). the big problem is that seer doesn't get around counters/sweepers very well. still this feels like a deck i would like to play with, if it gets enough support from theros to be at all viable.

The R/G walker reminds me of Koth: one aggro mode, one ramp mode. Pretty strong. Be interested to see if there is a deck that can use both (not that a deck HAS to use both). The ultimate on Xenagos doesn't seem like it'll ever happen - you'll either win the game from the spells you ramp into, or you'll make a bunch of 2/2s if you can't use the mana.

Thassa triggers evolve if you have the devotion for her.

Oh and new Elspeth looks pretty nutty. I mean, she does cost six, but that's a super strong set of abilities.

just realized that Rescue from the Underworld exiles itself upon resolution. oh well, there goes all the shitty combo decks I was planning

Thassa triggers evolve if you have the devotion for her

only? i want to know how good cloudfin raptor is looking

Anyone else think the Shrine to Nyx land is going to get played a lot? I remember Temple of the False God being something of a staple and this feels a hell of a lot better.

it looks like the kinda card that would slot into decks outside of standard even

so Xenagos, +1, Domri, +1 is gonna be the turn 3/4 play du jour this upcoming standard, seems fun

i don't think xenagos and domri go in the same deck really. domri wants you to have ~30 creatures and xenagos is not a creature, so if you play them both you have 0 slots for removal. this seems exploitable.

^ yeah that's whats making me qn how good xenagos is. domri seems better to me, and i think domri works better in an aggressive creature deck. i will say the token being r/g makes me want to try him with the red good but that four-drop slot is getting supercrowded now in my imagination. i'm not sure r/g token burn is a thing but thats where im going with it. the satyr that rituals could be good here i guess for an explosive turn 4/5

i think whatever the requisite jund deck looks like after rotation, xenagos is most likely going in that

the best uses of his +1 i see so far are to overload mizzium mortars and to pay monstrosity costs, most notably so far the dragon

you dont want to go deep on clan defiance?

i don't think xenagos and domri go in the same deck really. domri wants you to have ~30 creatures and xenagos is not a creature, so if you play them both you have 0 slots for removal. this seems exploitable.

well Magma Jet works with Domri

only? i want to know how good cloudfin raptor is looking

Not good. Thassa won't be a creature as it ETB if you don't have the devotion, won't trigger Evolve.

Koth was pretty nice in Block Constructed to do damage early, and ramp into a big Red Sun's Zenith as a finisher. Could see Xenagos having a similar role.