Magic: The Gathering C/D

those plus shocklands and thoughtseize. doesn't take much.

the other way they reduce their life total is you-trying-to-beat-them. I think the dynamic is pretty interesting overall, since whether or not you help them reduce their life total is rarely straightforward.

and most board hate vs dredge is also solid vs grixis shadow, and cages are okay vs the chord decks - so at this very moment it's not terrible to force peoples' hands and make them play it. during periods where there are a wider range of linear oppressive decks it can be more annoying.

RIP and cage great against storm too. possibly worth throwing in a cage vs any deck with snapcaster.

yep good point. what do you play in modern rs?

Reminds me of a Standard deck I had that abused the "Fateful Hour" mechanic that would give your dudes a special boost if you were at 5 or less life. I would use Hex Parasite to take myself down to 4 life and swing in with a massive army. It was pretty fun (mostly for the bewildered look on my opponents' faces) but most matches were over in like five minutes.

is modern burn playable right now? i'm in serious rdw withdrawal from it being gone from standard for so long

I don't think it's tier 1 after the printing of collected brutality and the fast lands but it's not unplayable or anything.

brutality is a beating for sure and blessed alliance is in a lot of sideboards now because of shadow.

i picked up eldrazi taxes (fun & relatively cheap) online after i decided i was done with amonkhet

Burn drops some creatures vs brutality as a response.

yeah im pretty sure you should only be playing goblin guide, swiftspear, and eidolon

Probably so, although I'm still stubbornly on Nacatls.

However, vs brutality at least Goblin Guide should be sided out, maybe more.

i think i disagree

yeah goblin guide is still your best turn 1 play and best shot at getting 6-8 damage out of one card. I think swiftspear would be a better thing to side out (especially on the draw) because a t1 swiftspear that gets brutalitied means you traded a card + a mana for 1 damage. dunno how burn usually boards though, I've never played it.

keldon marauders and hellspark elemental are old phased-out burn cards that don't care about collective brutality, i wonder if we'll ever see them again

hate to be the clueless dude here but what makes collective brutality so good

burn needs a critical mass of spells to deal 20 damage, and has no real defenses so its on a strict clock to put that together vs any non-control deck. all 3 modes on collective brutality can be worth a card vs burn, so it lets you 2 for 2 or 3 for 3 them for just 2 mana which slows the game down enough that they usually can't draw into the win in time.

meanwhile it fills up the graveyard for delve and snapcaster

wizards got back to me and is cool w/ me deferring the invite if need be which is great cause even if I didn't have the work stuff, this whole thing was a little too last minute. so I am actually more excited now than I was before since before it was like "wow this might be a huge pain in the ass / I might not get to go at all."

I'll probably try to get into standard now, not that it's thattt useful since it's going to be an unsolved format, but I have played literally 0 competitive REL games of standard in my life.

if you're doing the fall one in albuquerque, it'll actually be like a month and a half into the format since they're running worlds as the set release tournament instead of the PT

probably a lot more favorable to ppl without teams

oh that's great actually

http://i.imgur.com/rLEI9Yv.png

very...interesting cards.

announcements are up

Fall and Winter - Ixalan and Rivals of Ixalan - jungle world w/ pirates and dinosaurs, vraska is a main character for some reason
Spring 2018 - Dominaria - standalone large set, they brought back richard garfield for the design team
Summer 2018 is a core set as previously announced, no details yet
they finally let Maro make a 3rd Un-set, its called Unstable and is out in december
there's a 25th anniversary masters set out next spring that's not the same thing as 'iconic masters' - sounds like iconic masters is more of a casual set whereas this one will be more like a modern masters set

oh wow, as an old-school player I'm really excited for the Dominaria set

don't especially care for pirates and dinosaurs in particular but ixalan does sound like it is going to be a fun setting

there's also a from the vault: double faced cards, for all the people who were waiting for fancy delvers and such

I generally don't care about flavor but dominaria is pretty much the only plane that I'm ever gonna look forward to

I don't get un-sets. why do people buy them? what do you do with the pack when you open it? it's like paying $3.50 for a comic strip.

un-sets are really fun to draft, plus the lands inside are generally worth a buck or two

I agree they're a tough sell but I did think the last one was really funny

i don't like un-sets so i can't help you there. the only card from the last one i think is funny is http://magiccards.info/uh/en/29.html and i'm not even sure why

this one is totally stupid but I love it

http://magiccards.info/uh/en/43.html

I also dig how they use the opportunity to make all sorts of legitimately interesting cards that just couldn't be done in "real" Magic due to all the rules nightmares. Reminds me of the ol' "if you disagree on rules, just flip a coin" days

none of those gotcha type cards are actually fun though because the optimal thing to do is just not talk ever

yeah I think even Maro admitted those were a mistake

i didn't see that the Dominaria set is actually called Dominaria. that in itself is kind of interesting

I'm curious if it'll have a Time Spiral vibe to it

i wonder. that could've been a p cool alternative tack for a masters set

most really old cards suck so it'd be hard to make an exciting masters set out of just dominaria sets

that would for sure be an obstacle. there've got to be a few thousand cards tho.

i guess bad creatures alone might be enough to kill it

dinosaur set - cool
Dominaria - YES
Un-set - never expected this to happen, surprised it is buried at the end of the article

did a Unglued draft back in college and it wasn't that fun, actually. heard similar about Unhinged. some of the cards in both sets crack me up though. very curious what a modern Un-set would look like, after 13 years of lessons learned. I think they'll make it play a lot better than the last two, certainly

unsets are the sort of corny non-humor that makes me hate nerds so much. them existing makes magic a worse game

happy abt a return to dominaria

3rd Un-set already exists, it's called Future Sight

still pretty curious as to what an Un-walker will look like. can't believe Unhinged was really that long ago, wow

i had a couple akh packs sitting on my account so i decided to do a draft for the first time in weeks. looking at the first pack i just wanted to turn my computer off and go for a walk.

hehe i still like AKH fine but i don't love it like i thought i was going to at the start. i'm ready for the next thing.

they're doing a team pro tour next summer

I only did one sealed but that's mostly because I've gotten back into online poker. Feel like I'm too far behind to start drafting this now.

also someone leaked a photo of part of the Ixalan rare sheet on reddit. no keyword mechanics in sight but there's a pirate guy that makes Treasure tokens that are basically lotus petals, and Sunpetal Grove is on there so we're getting that land cycle back finally.

https://i.redd.it/r7yoylx9ht3z.jpg

also has the pithing needle people have been asking for, though you have to pay an extra mana for the privilege of looking at your opponent's hand

It seems like there are always too many people trying to force red white aggro, and the other colours are subsequently very open. Lay claim seems to go crazily late.