Magic: The Gathering C/D

yeah that guy stood out to me too

here's a couple really strong ZZW decks i drafted today

http://i.imgur.com/ZLgTgQX.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/h6PLbs9.jpg

honestly ZZW is probably one of the worst draft formats of the modern era but i'm so tired of 3x theros that i was excited to do something else

yeah seems like everyone is done with theros at this point

just realized that heroic ability being instant-speedable means you can do it during their attack. surely that's better than most rares in this set.

yeah instant-speed variants of that effect have historically been first-pickable since it's not too hard to kill 2 guys with them (see: blind with anger, act of aggression)

is zzw really that bad? its been interesting so far, maybe not that deep but its p sweet to have good instant speed removal at common

its not horrible, its just the defensive/control cards mostly suck and the mechanics are used the same way in every color so there's no real archetypes or different feel to each of the various color pairs. it doesn't have that much depth, basically.

ZZZ was worse, because it had even less variety. Both formats were basically aggro or nothing, but Worldwake introduced a couple good creatures that could at least block (notably Calcite Snapper). Little desire to play those formats again.

yeah I don't really have much desire to get run over by Plated Geopedes again. I dug Alara block way more.

still the flashback thing is nice, because for one it's the sort of thing that can only really exist on MTGO, and for two it's fun to see how much the game has changed. I was playing during Saga block (in middle school!) and it's incredible how it's really a totally different game now

http://cdn.magicspoiler.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Scourge-of-Skola-Vale-Born-of-the-Gods-Spoiler.jpg

i like this guy for limited, turns your yoked ox into a 6/6 trampler attacking on turn 4. or ox+chosen by heliod = 8/8 and still only one card down.

turn 5 i guess. ok, i hate it now.

Yeah the fact that it taps kind of sucks.

yeah but then you'd be playing Yoked Ox

if i have 2+ ordeals vs a black or red deck i like yoked ok. i think i would be okay including a copy just for this guy as well.

i think that hydra is pretty good actually

next week flashback format is MD5, another of my least favorite formats :/
but then IPA after that which is always good

full set is up fyi
http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/bornofthegods/cig#

uncommons continue to seem better than the rares

lotsa big flyers

sanguimancy seems like it could be black devotion's sphinx's rev

sooo tempted...

i told a friend that i would play the prerelease w/o having looked at any of the spoilers but now i really want to. also does anyone know what format the prerelease is taking? are you picking a faction or a color or some other garbage like that again?

yeah you def pick a color. I think it's 3 theros 3 born and a seeded pack in your color? something like that

yeah its same format as theros prerelease was, pick a color, playable promos

you get 3 theros, 2 regular born packs, then a seeded born pack that has extra cards of your color

catbomb really seems like the only $ card here this set might be kinda dgmsy as far as value goes

limited format looks like its going to get even more combo-ish but now with other ways to 'combo off' besides stacking auras which is more depth i guess

power level looks very high for limited at uncommon and the top 50% of the commons, with a big dropoff to the bad commons, which would be a big warning sign for a large set but i think it's less of an issue in a 2nd set

so legacy gets the 3/1 and modern gets nothing really

i'm sure this set will put a few cards into modern, there's just nothing that's obviously targeted for that format

maybe some inspired card will lead to some infinite combo or something one day who knows

blue rares really make me :( blue seems kinda bad

except for the 2/4 woman who pumps out wind drakes

and archetype of imagination

cider what are you feeling for modern ptq season? i am getting kind of bored with jund and gifts is no longer competitive

yeah I guess it's just the rares

man so many dumb rares

obv you should play uwr lamp

haha i would rather play u/r delver

that's a fun deck too you should play that

anything but jund

anyway my predictions for this set are 'more fun than drafting 3x theros, people end up bitter about what a terrible value the set is cause of all the crap rares'

some observations:

-there's tons of ways to tap your inspired creatures outside of combat, but only Crypsis, Kiora's Follower, and Akroan Conscriptor can untap creatures for extra inspired triggers. Theros adds Breaching Hippocamp (maybe no longer crappy?), Savage Surge, Portent of Betrayal, and Triton Tactics. note that conscriptor/portent can get you your opponent's inspired effects if you steal a tapped inspired guy.
-the tribute guys are really hard to evaluate but in general i think they're a lot better when you're ahead than behind so i'd probably look at them as curve-toppers in aggressive decks and leave them on the sidelines in slow/defensive ones. this theory makes the green common lifegain one look pretty bad. meanwhile, the white uncommon one looks insane and i think its better than all the rare ones.
-i don't remember if eternity snare was playable in time spiral limited where its from, but it's notable for being one of two cards in the set that completely shuts down a bestow totem rather than just knocking off the bottom layer like normal removal. the other is the lyre equipment. theros didn't have cards that do this at all so i don't know how clunky they can be and still be blowouts.

lamp modern PTQ season isn't until june, there's another sealed season first. if i had to play a modern event today i'd play some sort of scapeshift deck with prismatic omens, but i think with no important new cards for the format in the past couple sets they're going to be doing a B&R change soon.

should've gotten in front of that drs banning *makes all the saddest faces*

the ptq seasons dont make any sense it was just sealed

maybe they will just finally unban dark depths i just bought a playset

don't think dark depths is on their radar at all, nor should it be with some of the other cards they've got on the list right now. i'm expecting a wild nacatl unban or a deathrite shaman ban if anything

having the PT be a repeat of the last one where half the field just brought jund seems like a nightmare scenario for WotC. its hard for them to promote the format accessibility-wise when all the top players are just playing the $1800 deck year in year out

really though I think fetches are a bigger accessibility problem than jund, which clearly sits on the t1 deck perch but is not like unbeatable or anything

i think any talk about banning fetches is dumb and they need to just bite the bullet and put them in a large print run product to 'save' the format

as someone who just finished acquiring his I am also opposed to banning fetches but yeah that seems inevitable

I mean printing them not banning obv

i was entirely joking about dark depths. well i mean i did pick up a playset but its never coming off the modern ban list. bitterblossom and nacatl seem to be the two likely contenders for an unbanning on the internet.

oing by both mtgo and gp results the bloodbraid banning does seem to have opened up enough space for other decks. like i dont think jund is good enough now to be 40%+ of the meta at the pt? i've been playing jund in paper since the summer and while its still probably the 'best' deck its weak enough to some of the pillars that it can't be so clearly the 'right' deck in a field as big as the pt. like, the legend rule change improved affinity enough to make jund less of sound choice? idk

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/tournament/14340

it's hard to see this and think that jund is some unstoppable monster

I think risk averse people play it because it's clearly not-bad

i am still banking on fetchland reprints starting in fall of 2015. this is also how i am justifying picking up foil onslaught fetches since having them be modern legal seems like it will push the value of the original printings even higher

xp - in my xp jund is severely underrepresented on mtgo because of the cost of the deck, it was about a third of the decks that made day 2 at the most recent modern gp

I think gp players are more likely to be risk averse than people experimenting on modo

well theres also the sheer number of affinity decks in that list to consider as well :/