Magic: The Gathering C/D

i think xenagos does, and if brimaz, xenagos, and tamiyo are all >$10 and a few of the regular rares break out to the $5-10 range then we've got a pretty average small set value-wise. its the latter that i don't know if is going to happen.

the best chance is that these 3 temples are worth >$5 due to the small set effect

people thought dark ascension was shitty when it came out, similar to this, and then falkenrath aristocrat and hellrider broke out later in the year and it ended up being a fine set in retrospect, it just took a bit

to me the mythics here seem less promising than the mythics in dragonsmaze did (lots of which seemed to have potential, even though only voice and baron went anywhere) + there are no random shocklands in packs

Both Aristocrat and Hellrider seemed pushed upon release but there wasn't a deck for them until later. I don't really see that sort of card here. The Phoenix and Spirit of the Labyrinth are the two cards that seem real good but need the right deck or metagame, and they're 10 and 8 right now.

Maybe Herald of Torment?

Yeah I think Herald has a chance of getting play. Reminds me of Boon Satyr in terms of cost/power level.

I also think Kiora looks pretty sweet. Her abilities map to Jace, Architect of Thought's abilities somewhat, but the ultimate is more powerful, and it's quicker to go off. The tradeoff is smaller starting loyalty. We'll see if there is a deck for her.

I agree that the power level is similar but being 2 color limits the sort of decks that it gets played in. If a deck does get built around Prophet of Kruphix and Ephara I can see it working very well...

I could see UW Control decks splashing G for Kiora too. Though then it competes directly with Jace.

I'm looking forward to someone building a crazy mill deck around Mill God + Mnemonic Walls + Triton Tactics + Hidden Strings

As someone at my LGS noticed, Pheanx + Consuming Aberration are BFFs

current modern deck, since lamp was asking about modern the other day
http://i.imgur.com/0Zi1QE5.jpg

pretty happy with it so far, i think the cryptic command build is probably fine too but i want 4 valakut 3-4 omen in any version of the deck i play right now

Got in 380 pre-release kits (which is 100 more than I need, oops) and assorted goodies to go along with it. Kinda wish I could sleep at my office tonight, I suddenly don't trust the alarm.

the store i play at just sells off the extra kits afterwards, since they have 6 booster packs worth of cards in them and thus are presumably worth about that much. sometimes they do another event with extra ones the following weekend too.

there's inevitably one color that runs out before the others, but which one it is seems to vary not only from set to set but from store to store as well. around here it's usually blue.

yeah ime people tend to really like the guild packs and enjoy having events with them so it shouldn't be a problem to get rid of the extra 100. store here also sell them for what the charge for the prerelease

pretty weird shit going on here, someone found a promo from an unknown/not-yet-announced product in their prerelease kit
http://i.imgur.com/Byl2JQz.jpg

looks pretty real and rk post has confirmed that it's his art

its probably just the summer multiplayer supplemental product, but 210 cards is a lot for one of those and they haven't had prerelease-style promos for them before.

yeah the effect makes no sense if it's not multiplayer

maybe most of those cards are reprints?

cool ability though

further weirdness - the card had a phone number printed on the back, people called it and it was like a numbers station style thing with a ciphered message thats been decoded to:

Cogwork Librarian (4)
Artifact Creature - Construct
Draft Cogwork Librarian face up. As you draft a card you may draft an additional card from that booster pack. If you do, put Cogwork Librarian into that booster pack.
3/3

so looks like some sort of multiplayer draft format

ha

Haha that's awesome. I'm ready for regular Magic to absorb that card into the game, a la Barren Glory.

dial 1-425-204-2672 you can hear it yourself

kinda seems like the accidental spoiling of Rootborn Defenses last year wound up getting a lot of people excited and thus WoTC maybe thought "we should do something like that on purpose"

I could have sworn they did this before, a planned "accidental" spoiling

Man, there's some really cool things they could do in this vein. A card that lets you see or steal or restrict your opponent's draft picks, maybe

eh that actually gets into ante-zone 'no you don't get to pick the voice you just opened -> (quits magic)'

they did ARG marketing stuff leading up to Innistrad but that's the only time in the past they've done anything like this really.

xp Ah yeah, good point. Some people are suggesting it will be sold as more of a set to be cube drafted with rather than boosters, in which case it would be fine.

yeah it makes sense that a cube product would involve great-but-not-tournament-sanctioned cards, as any reprints of real-expensive-cards is gonna create some problems

like even a power cube w/ gold borders

Retraction Helix is surprisingly good in this format - not only because bounce is better in this format than average, but also because it triggers heroic and inspired at once

yeah highlight of the prerelease for me was doing all sorts of crazy tricks with that card

yep a pretty high % of my wins were due to having two in my first pre

the best one was in a situation where i knew my top card of deck was a helix from scrying and my opponent had one large guy holding off my team

went attack with team, flash in breaching hippocamp before blocks untapping pain seer, put the helix into my hand, helix pain seer to bounce the blocker

Finally made it to a prerelease this morning and went 3-0 with a BW deck with double Fate Unraveler, Eater of Hope, Ashen Rider, Sentry, Spiteful Returned, double Bile Blight, plus several other removal spells. Probably the best sealed deck I've ever had.

Deathrite Shaman now banned in Modern, Nactal and Bitterblossom unbanned

reasonable change imo. big picture result is that the format speeds up a bit, as nacatl likely brings back tier 1 zoo which pressures combo decks to build for speed again rather than resilience. gifts ungiven is probably the biggest winner on the control half of the spectrum. bitterblossom seems poorly positioned but i'm sure people will try to play it anyway.

i get to play a more combo-oriented melira pod deck again which is appealing to me, and i also enjoy zoo and gifts decks so this opens up a lot of strategies that i like but weren't good enough before. neat.

Went 3-0-1 with a very good Izzet deck at the prerelease this weekend. Tons of removal, solid creatures. Aerie Worshippers was nuts, it took a couple games on its own. I had double Retraction Helix and was hoping to get the combo with Worshippers to really annoy people, but it never happened *sulks*

omg

lol stupid dci.

Vinnie, those inspired cards seem very strong indeed. They need to be answered right away or they just get out of control very quickly.

The card that did the most heavy lifting for me overall was Revoke Existence. There was always a target for it, it came up in almost every game I played, and it exiled Gods in three different games.

4 of the people sitting around me (including myself) got Gods in the clear seeded pack. I thought everyone got one.

Good riddance to DRS. The thing I least liked about it was what cider touched on, that it invalidates certain strategies on its own. Cards that do that should be narrower SB cards.

my favorite modern deck is 4 color gifts so i have mixed feelings about the drs ban but i've been arguing with iatee about whether being so aggressive with bans is good for the formats health overall.

I used to think that constant bans/unbans were a bad thing for any format, but recently I have started thinking that having one format like that is a cool idea. Legacy bans can put you down a ton of money, while Standard bans are offputting to new players. Modern is in that sweet spot where it's mostly longtime players playing, players who are able to keep up with a changing metagame, but the cards aren't ridiculously expensive. Honestly, the willingness to play with the banned list makes me more interested in Modern.

But they better keep their damn government hands off my Arcbound Ravagers

the cards that are ridiculously expensive are kinda saved from being bannable by virtue of being ridiculously expensive