Magic: The Gathering C/D

what the fuck is that???

oh that's an intro pack card i guess

yeah must be. probably ditto for the card you're referencing? its card number is 186/184 and it's worth a buck on MTGO.

speaking of, KLD Masterpieces are playable in limited if you get em, right? I have yet to see a single one on MTGO though I played this format a ton. bummer.

masterpieces aren't in packs on MTGO, they're in treasure chests

ahhh didn't know that

I did occasionally see the Zendikar Expeditions cards, I thought it was odd that I never saw any of these

guy from my local store is now the mortal enemy of twitch chat after winning a game off his opponent's rules flub

ha i saw that, that guy's local? awesome

ruling seemed a lil harsh

yeah the ruling was due to some really dumb new rule that judges decided on recently where you can't take priority in the start of combat step on your turn unless you're extremely explicit about it, just saying 'go to combat' means 'go to declare attackers'

i kinda hate playing paper magic above Regular REL because of stuff like that

I don't think this is a new rule, it's just getting more attention now due to vehicles and cards like Toolcraft Exemplar that require you to be very specific about what combat step you are in. I do agree that it's pretty dumb "go to combat" does not translate to beginning of combat.

yeah this rule has been in place at least since goblin rabblemaster. i got fucked in a random sealed pptq once by it a year ago

kinda happy to be vindicated in my opinion that vehicles was a really good choice for this wknd less happy that i argued against four fatal pushes. v v curious to see what the day two conversion rate was for various archetypes

AAK trophy #2: http://imgur.com/a/l5qFO

tusker just too good

how are you guys judging the cantrippy artifacts? feel like the green one seems pretty obviously good since boosting a creature w/o costing a card is a real thing. the black one seems too expensive to be playable and the blue one seems fine in a deck that wants divination. but the white and red ones - just playable when you have a ton of revolt? medium-high picks? only playable in all-in revolt? it's a hard effect to judge and also kinda makes land-calculations hard for me.

red and white i play as filler when i have revolt and/or improvise going on. i think the black one is playable too. blue is a divination as you said. green is actively good but you still cant play too many. they all take up the 'nonsense' slots in your deck which means you can't really value them that highly, i dont take any of them over playable creatures really.

oops I just looked it up - I confused the black one with the black puzzleknot

black one is pretty decent actually

as long as they are doing something more than just what's on the card i'll play them. the BR improvise/sac deck can be very strong and that will play as many of them as it can get, and can drop a land or two to accommodate if it gets enough. the 5cmc improvise black uncommon 2/2 will wheel all day and if you have that on board with one of the guys that eats artifacts, getting the sac effect plus drawing a card plus getting a servo is constant fuel.

had this earlier http://i.imgur.com/Ynsilk9.png. was p strong but lost in the finals vs guy who managed to pick up 3 self assemblers in pack 3. couldn't ever get past them without the basker, which won me one game, or the call of unity which i never saw. did manage to kill that fucking bomb flying whale with harpooner followed by acrobatic maneuver with return trigger on the stack, almost as good as winning the match.

i seem to be white a lot. probably i am doing something wrong but results have been ok. both my trophies were WB decks. love the black uncommon -3/-3 revolt guy.

hadn't seen Monstrous Onslaught before. that...looks really strong

I am enjoying this format a lot more than kaladesh and, related, winning a lot more

feels a lot more bread and butter, like reading a draft well and having a good curve will get you far

also keep getting passed p2 tusker, so I'm still getting some freebies

sealed deck - straight 2 colour 23 to the left or do you try to make room for the bestiary?

http://i.imgur.com/PVN1cW5.jpg

that deck looks fine without the Bestiary. think it would just gunk up the works a bit.

whoa I didn't know Revolt worked with self-bounce stuff, makes Greenbelt Ravager even better

went 6-2 in the mtgo ptq with the deck, no splash. bestiary is very strong i think and mitigates the worst failing of the deck, but not worth the disruption and i am sure i benefited from smoother mana more than the couple times i lost games on flood.

how good were your green cards? not sure that your red is all that strong and bestiary is really good

iatee are you going to be playing gp new jersey next month? im thinking abt going on my own if your playing

it was all fight spells - 2 each of preys and hunts and an onslaught. i looked at a green build but the only colours with enough creatures were red and white. a good amount of 3 power creatures at least.

Most boring PT I can remember in a long time. I don't think the metagame is settled or anything, but there were very few times on camera where they featured a deck other than Mardu Vehicles or some flavor of BG. And very few interesting games in the top ́8.

having flying on all the pushed vehicles was just a format-ruining mistake imo

Did they ban copter to coerce players into opening more hearts of kiran?

lamp I haven't decided whether I'm playing or just bumming around at side events while my friends play, but I'll def be there. I am at like ~2000 pwp and want to hit 2 byes for the vegas gps, going to another gp would almost certainly get me there but I'm not sure I want to pay $80 to play a format I don't play at all just for pwps. but...I might.

heart of kiran is weaker than copter in the abstract, as crew 3 is way more than crew 1, but there's even fewer maindeckable things below 3cmc that answer it, and scrapheap scrounger does a ridiculous amount of work bridging the power difference

yes, heart is a weaker card. It's fetching $25 on SCG. Did wizards ban copter to juice sales of heart?

no

i think g/w revolt is kinda awful and am surprised by high many ppl seem to draft it

alright after drafting a bit I have to say no way, G/W revolt is arguably the most consistent deck in the format

the Improvise decks are definitely stronger if you get the right cards, but they also kinda lead you down a dead end a lot of the time. I've drafted a few B/R decks that just don't work if you don't get the right draw.

my strongest decks have generally been u/g 'good cards and tusker' and w/b 2-drops revolt. gw gives you access to a lot of good cards, but as far as payoff cards for the archetypes, rogue refiner is much better than the rallier since you get the value 100% of the time on curve. I have seen lots of pretty good gw decks but few insane ones. I def prefer to be u/g - all the +1/+1 counters / bandar work well with blue's common flyers too, and prey upon + the bounce spell give you enough removal. (if you're lucky maybe you pick up a hunt the weak too.)

w/ w/b if you see a hidden stockpile you can pretty easily draft a token engine (conviction or automaton as the pieces at common) which is just so strong in fair limited. loading up on alley stranglers helps support your 2 drops because once they've come close to stabilizing you still can get damage in with alpha strikes, and b/w token boards work well with eagle.

I've lost to grixis improvise a few times but never drafted it. I mostly seem to lose when they resolve ancestral recall, so I guess that, the ur dude and maybe barricade breaker are the cards that should guide you into the deck? 4/4 hexproof rarely felt relevant to me.

the only time I feel behind vs red-based decks seems to be when they have a scrapheap champion. red doesn't seem consistently fast enough in this format. aether chaser is a really pushed common in a vacuum, but it never seems to beat me, even when they play them t2 on the play.

I did have one pretty insane G/W deck - had two Maps, two Implements, the land enchantment, a ton of Revolt cards (including the Rallier), the Greenbelt Ravager (which triggers Revolt), plus two Ninth Bridge Patrols and two of the self-bounce Mechanics. And an Ajani and a Tusker too, of course. Had some really crazy starts where you'd develop a great board position and keep a nearly full hand by turn 5. Alley Evasion by the way is particularly great in this archetype.

the one card I've soured on is Caught in the Brights. not only is there a lot of self-bounce but leaving the dude out there to Crew vehicles kinda nerfs your advantage, if you can't trigger the removal clause. I'm not sure how good the vehicles are in this format. The 6/6 Crew 3 has been pretty good though, not quite as good as Freighter but it's a tough one to deal with once it gets moving.

Grixis improvise is definitely fun but I think it takes a ton of skill to draft properly. You need to prioritize Renegade Maps and get those 3rd pack Prisms and Serpents. U/R Thopter guy is insane, if it comes down turn 3 you pretty much win b/c you can improvise out everything from there.

BTW is it just me or does this seem like a 16-land format?

3x KLD was a 16 land format, this one has more mana sinks so you can go either way depending on whats in your deck

I think this is def a 16 land format for most decks, sometimes 15 because of maps, tons of cantrips etc

and yeah, pacifism effects are still removal so you play them, but lots of ways to get punished for them. lots of playable bounce and sac effects, even without considering vehicles.

I think almost everyone wants to prioritize renegade maps. is that just the best common? it has to be right?

one reason I really like the automaton cycle is because it gives you late game potential w/o having to play 5/6 drops, so you can keep your land count low but still not be punished as much when you still flood w/ your 16 land deck. esp the black and green ones, which transform into legitimate threats.

i've been taking the good removal and the mana elf over maps but its pretty high among the commons yeah

IDK I only played 16 land in KLD if I got Attunes or a low curve. feel like "curving out" in that format and this format are a bit different.

think you're right about the Map. I'm not unhappy P1P1'ing it. I don't think other drafters have caught up either since I still see them going around as late as Pick 7, probably because the card feels so fillerish. BTW the argument I'd make for Rallier over the Refiner is that bringing back a map or Implement or the land enchantment allows you to hit Revolt on another card the turn after. you can just generate so much incidental value if you get enough of that stuff.

sure, best case scenarios with rallier are great. but it's impossible to ever get an implement with it on curve, and even getting land or draw + double revolt isn't stronger than draw + 2 energy. you never wouldn't play that card, but there are just gonna be plenty of games where you don't have something in your yard t3 + forcing your own revolt often requires mana.

well most of the relevant cards are common. think you're right that Refiner is probably better overall but they're both cards you want passed to you. meanwhile U/R Improvise Thopterman and B/G Constrictor are the sort of cards I would first pick in a weak pack because they can just dominate. a couple days ago I went Constrictor/Bandar/Bandar which was a lot of fun, they both went from 2/2 to 4/4 to 9/9 to 25/25. actually almost lost the game too because I got cute.

g/w is bad because its plan is bad, you have all these creatures that want you to attack but half the format blanks your attackers and triggering revolt on the defensive requires you to play a bunch of shitty cards that arent creatures. g/w cant use vehicles effectively and has awkward removal. most of the time g/w decks are good is because they have good green cards or ajani. also its very easy to just never block against g/w and force them to lose value on their revolt cards. i think the set is pretty balanced and everything is playable given the right combination of cards but g/w is probably the most overvalued combination imo

also fwiw all of my 3-0s on mtgo are with b/g decks with constrictor in them. i have also yet to go worse than 2-1

@iatee cool. i have to figure out if i can stay w/a friend + how difficult getting from manhattan to the venue is but if i go ill msg you my number and maybe we can hang out.

the "shitty cards that aren't creatures" are things like Maps, Implements and Unbridled Growth, all one-mana stuff which cycles. you can load your deck up with them and cut lands if you need to. the difference between that and the Improvise strategy is that the fail case on G/W is that you play a bunch of unexciting Bears n' Baloths, whereas Improvise you need both the artifacts and the big dudes or else the deck stalls. think both G/B and G/W rely a lot on good uncommons. Black's commons are pretty weak, the "destroy target creautre or vehicle" sorcery is good but not exactly a great value card, otherwise I think your best common is the 1/1 Deathtouch. White at least gives you a finisher with the Eagle and I think the 3/1 slots in rather nicely. Also think Alley Evasion + Conviction are pretty underrated.

i know the conventional wisdom is that blue sucks in this limited format but i've found i really want to be blue every draft (except for UW which is boring even when its good)

it's the same place gp nyc was last year they just stopped pretending it was in nyc - still very easy to get there from manhattan. I took the nj transit bus w/ a friend from port authority and it was like 3 bucks and 15 minutes. it's probably no more than a $20 uber from midtown.

I agree w/ lamp on the everything seems playable, if I see a rallier midpack I might consider moving into GW, but more because it's open than because that card is reliably good. I really like sets w/ one pushed gold uncommon per set and what that does for signaling.

yeah I like blue too, the 1u 1/2 flyer has been reliably good for me, and I get them late, and the uncommon 2/1 flyer is very pushed

'one pushed gold uncommon per set' = 'one pushed gold uncommon per color pairing'

yeah the gold 'signpost uncommons' thing that they started in theros has been a huge success for limited formats imo