Magic: The Gathering C/D

Aaron Forsythe
‏@mtgaaron
The Eldrazi have left huge footprints on Modern, but we aren't issuing any "emergency" bans. We'll assess everything on the normal timeline.

Aaron Forsythe
‏@mtgaaron
@A22en The format currently doesn't match what we want it to be; that doesn't mean when should be altering the Banned List at random times.

that's about as he can get to just saying 'yes we plan on banning eldrazi w/ the next b/r announcement'

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-digital/waiting-hardest-part-2016-02-24

sealed leagues finally coming Mar 2

wow, it's about damn time!

my main issue with playing MTGO these days is the time constraint. 2-hour events are manageable but OOB drafts tend to take closer to 3, as the format seems to invite a lot of really long games.

quick calculation from an EV standpoint though says these things are not great, you average about 130 play points (assuming a 50/50 win rate) and I dunno what the average tix value is of the 6 boosters, assuming like 4-5 tix you're still paying $10 a pop for these. unless my math is all wrong.

been waiting like 5 years for sealed leagues, its about time

the 'rake' on these is lower than drafts, higher than release sealeds. seems reasonable

yeah either way I'll be doing them a lot, like being able to play in 40-minute chunks or whatever is super appealing to me, as is not having to wait for everyone else to finish. I've probably given up a ton of EV by just dropping out of events due to bad connection or other obligations - for example my 1-year-old wakes up and starts crying in between rounds

sealed leagues today! even though they're kinda worse than dailies in a lot of ways leagues really got me back into mtgo

in an inexplicable decision i booked a flight to barcelona to play in a grand prix :/

wow! and I was too lazy to make the 3 hour drive to Houston...

dope

i'm thinking about travelling to some GPs this summer if theres a standard deck i like, have never played one outside of new england before

thanks to a fairly insane work schedule i didnt play a gp last spring that was a thirty minute walk from my house so this is a little out of character for me. but i have some miles that im gonna lose soon and i really love barcelona so i figured why not. also would like q for sydeny if i could

also cider i am probably playing gp secaucus in the spring. maybe we can convince iatee to play standard and have a team ilx in the event

is that the 'GP new york city' in may?

yah - as i was typing my post the wrens 'secaucus' came up on the playlist im listening to so i used it as a placeholder for 'random play in northern new jersey' but it turns out the gp is, in fact, in secaucus. but yah its being billed as gp nyc for maximal confusion of gold-level euros attending the event

ok i'm busy that weekend unfortunately. looking at minneapolis and pittsburgh as possibilities, both are also standard

wow serious MTG players huh.

i just bought a bunch of rares to complete dark jeskai and hardened scales decks that are cycling out in like 6 weeks :/

yeah the combination of faster standard rotations and unusually expensive staple cards right now is kind of offputting but i am hopeful it will normalize again

the mistake they keep making over and over is jacking up the mana fixing for a multicolor-themed block while simultaneously jacking up the power of the multicolor spells as if they're harder to cast. it's really soured me on multicolor sets at this point, i think standard is more fun when there aren't any.

intersting. i just started playing again last year after 15 years break, and all i've been doing is drafting, so i don't have much of a nuanced view of standard. crazy how much stronger creatures have gotten. anyway i'm on a cold streak playing draft, so it'll be nice to finally have a standard deck to play even if it's just for a few weeks.

i find it really interesting how draft vs. standard as the predominant way to play seems to vary regionally

also cider i am probably playing gp secaucus in the spring. maybe we can convince iatee to play standard and have a team ilx in the event

I was actually just talking to one of my friends about how I would play this standard if I didn't have to actually buy any cards, it seems pretty fun. maybe I'll borrow someone's deck.

I t32d the scg event this weekend

never got on camera actually, despite being at top tables for a lot of rounds. like half of my friends were on camera at one point. my theory is they didn't want to have to pronounce my name.

the jersey GP will be the new standard format though

losing the 4 color mana bases should shake things up a lot

i'm mostly drafting because my ancient collection has nothing for standard or even modern, and it's too weak to use in vintage or legacy. drafting has grown on me quite a lot, though, because i hate to waste paper just opening packs and never using 90%+ of the cards in them xxp

yeah rotation will be very interesting. im skeptical it will be much cheaper though since jace will probably go up if madness and/or threshold cards are at all playable

I t32d the scg event this weekend

nice! whatd you play? also i you do want to play that gp msg if you want to borrow a deck

yeah I think it's likely I'll go, at the very least to hang out w/ people. but I'll probably play.

I played death and taxes w/ red for imperial recruiters and magus of the moon, which I've played for a while now. magus of the moon through aether vial is pretty fun. I feel like someone could probably brew up a variant that would work in modern now that nobody plays basic lands or lightning bolts.

is anyone going to gp dc next weekend?

xpost

I don't know that jace will drop in price post-rotation, but I wouldn't be surprised if it sees less play in standard because it will be much harder to flip reliably without fetch lands

i am playing neither detroit (despite doing a dece amount of testing and having what i think is an insane deck) nor dc since i have to work both wknds. probably not playing much magic until soi release/barcelona really

pro tour's in honolulu later this year, which is my hometown. wish i could qualify, haha

Upset that I'm gonna miss GP DC (my hometown) cause team events make Magic ten times more fun for me. My favorite tournament experience ever was GP Providence a few years ago, despite my team having an awful pool and scrubbing out day 1. But I am making plans to attend GP Beijing (Innistrad sealed) next month. Will be interesting dealing with a new format where I can't read most of my opponents' cards

http://mythicspoiler.com/soi/cards/declarationinstone.jpg

that art is wonderfully fucked up

very powerful too, will have a pretty big impact on go-wide strategies, you can sweep up Nissa or Gideon tokens with no downside

"investigates"?

new mechanic for the set. get an artifact that you can sac for 2 generic mana to draw a card

looking for to losing a lot of games to nu-Avacyn

ugh sealed leagues have been out for like a week and they have cleaned me out. OOB draft was going just great too. so much regret.

Dc was a lot of fun even though we flamed out after we lost to larsson / mueller / deng in an early round. Our pool was only okay and I was playing a deck with no rares but this format seems to be so consistently good for certain teams that I feel like we have no one to blame but ourselves.

otoh the friends we went with finished 30th

yeah i couldn't make it but one of my friends got 8th which apparently is not good enough for a pt invite at a team gp

man this set looks so wild, game is definitely more interesting when they don't keep falling back on multicolor and endless +1/+1 counter mechanics

i am very curious to see how it all plays. basically outside of maybe transform none of the mechanics are "safe" or a slam dunk, they could all fall totally flat. i like that madness/delirium give you choices that are contrary to ABC magic, i think that bodes well. i am starting to get the impression that these clue tokens are going to be all over the place which i suppose makes sense because the mechanic needs to be very visible to have any chance of not failing. the extra card draw synergies nicely with incentives to discard, and that plus self mill makes me think decking might be a legit wincon to build for. the cool transform mythic is the first card that springs to mind but that uncommon 0/3 that mills 3 each turn with delirium could get nasty.

this is the 3rd block with madness and it played well the first 2 times imo

'choices that are contrary to ABC magic' are why people liked the last innistrad too, you occasionally ran into games where you were e.g. racing to mill your own deck away before your opponent could sacrifice all their creatures. insanity via game mechanics

yeah exactly - people complained a lot about Odyssey block because it encouraged people to pitch their hand but I love that style of Magic. the Delirium mechanic is very interesting, we'll definitely have to see more of the commons to see how well it plays. Spell Mastery I didn't like b/c it sometimes led you to stuff your deck with garbage but I feel like they'll handle it much better this time around

also the art/concepts of all the flip cards are great

OTJ is such an amazing, skill-testing format that im really excited to see madness and quasi-threshold come back. i cant imagine that theyll allow the format to be as skill-favoring as OTJ but it would nice to have a limited format that felt very decision-based after the run of sets since dragons

I just don't see delirium turning on regularly in limited

depends if there's a bunch of token making instant and sorcery at common, otherwise your creature count is going to bottleneck it even with all the support cards we've seen

If Delirium can't be regularly achieved in limited, it seems like the set will be a failure. There's so many Delirium cards. I thought in OTJ they set Threshold at the right number - easy to achieve if you build around, not that easy otherwise - so I have faith that they will do this right