Magic: The Gathering C/D

can't believe they printed a red tarmogoyf this rules so much

Feeling really smart right now. I've been playing Deafening Clarion in all my standard decks since rotation and only just realized I can choose both modes.

Not really your fault, it's a very unintuitive card. Seems like one of those cards Maro would use as an example of poor card design

I only figured out Soul-Scar Mage allows you to kill Hazoret and Rhonas AFTER the PT, long after I had dismissed the card for being underpowered

There have been literally dozens of times when I've cast it lamented not be able to use both modes, especially with my jeskai drakes deck.

So Revitalize is essentially Cryptic Command printed at common for 1W, huh?

it's no runeboggle

I don't know 3 mana for force spike/draw seems pretty steep, lol

they're making some major organized play announcement tied in with the game awards tonight which i assume means a mtg arena based pro circuit

Intriguing, I've been playing a huge amount of arena, it's been a real game changer for me. I don't really play other video games, but I'm planning to get a cheap graphics card just to give it a bit of a boost. If there ends up being real competitive play on there, I may well need to step it up.

yeah pro-level arena tournaments seems inevitable, the question is how hard they're willing to go both in terms of $ and in terms of replacing the pro tour / gps as a focus point for the game.

it would honestly be good for spectators, the twitch overlay for arena that pops up all the card images seems like a big deal for getting the game watchable for lapsed or less invested players

Arena has been a boon for magic streamers, I think people will absolutely tune into high level Arena competitions.

Wow, shit ton of changes. I was gonna joke that MTGA tournaments will eventually spell the end of the PT as we know it, but they went way beyond what I thought they would, almost completely changing the pro structure. And back to 4 PTs, lol

how's MTGO been lately? should I think about selling out?

It has to be pretty jarring for pros the way they constantly go back and forth on these decisions.

xp yeah seems like the value of cards is dropping a lot, queues not firing, etc. I haven't been on it much, just reading what players are saying

wait does this undo the new 6 PT system they just made earlier this year?

that's some whiplash

just peeped some MTGO prices and wow

my account has a bunch of playpoints in it, what do you do with those? just sell the account and someone takes over? how could I do such a thing?

you could just enter a bunch of sealed leagues or drafts and convert the play points into cards & then sell. idk how much of a market there is for accounts

I have like 7000 of them, this might take a long time :)

Cardhoarder has apparently even stopped buying tickets or singles for cash (temporarily), so I don't know if you would get a lot for your acct

I've got like 100 tix left, and I'll probably try to just play a bunch of cube from here on out. If everyone's going to Arena for the new sets, they won't be able to justify keeping MTGO online for more than a year longer, I think. Not enough money flowing into the system

there's probably a nonzero chance they'll "buy out" old MTGO accounts if they really do intend on shutting it down

i have like a standard and a modern deck's worth of tix on there, just gonna wait it out i think since i dont think anyones gonna buy at a good price right now and if i can get a shitload of arena currency for it then thats fine with me

yeah pro-level arena tournaments seems inevitable, the question is how hard they're willing to go both in terms of $ and in terms of replacing the pro tour / gps as a focus point for the game.

prediction: serious rules overhaul in the next year which makes the game more arena-friendly

What kind of rules changes do you have in mind?

if it were up to me the two big ones would be to vastly simplify combat and to merge untap/upkeep/draw

magic has a lot of dumb rules but 'phases are too weird and complicated' are the most relevant to arena

yeah there's at least 3 priority

err priority passes per turn that you can just get rid of without really impacting the game much

Would love to merge untap/upkeep/draw, but I think that's basically saying Arena will never have older cards

End of combat seems like an easy one to eliminate though. Yes, it affects play but the times you need to do something end of combat are quite rare

Have been enjoying Arena. Haven't experienced any bugs personally since the beta opened and they're making incremental improvements the whole time. Meanwhile, I fired up mtgo for the first time in a while for UMA and filed for reimbursement on my first event.

start of combat can be eliminated too, it does affect gameplay in that you have to use tappers before the opponent's last chance to play things precombat but if we're already streamlining the game with major functional changes then i think it's fine. you could even get rid of the priority pass between declare attacks and declare blocks without changing the core gameplay of magic combat though it would have bigger ramifications than the others

birthing pod is back baby

WE'RE EXCITED WE GET TO MAKE THIS ANNOUNCEMENT! IN LEAGUE WITH DRAGONS: THE CURE FOR SUMMONING SICKNESS. 12 NEW SONGS FROM @mountain_goats, WHO PLEDGE THE OATH OF THE COWL PROWLER. RELEASED 4/26 AND AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW AT https://t.co/m9O2ZdSkx7. pic.twitter.com/FqrHtQFn3O

— Magic: The Gathering (@wizards_magic) January 28, 2019

that was a surprising ilx in real life moment for me

wotc investing in ilx instead of gp coverage

haha yeah I learned about this by stupid magic players complaining about just that

sweet album cover, wish magic art could still be that cool

there's been occasional arts in the past few sets that give me older magic vibes (see: Bedevil)

my LGS posted a pic of the card Snowfall on FB (for obvious reasons) and it made me really nostalgic, not just for the days of art like that but also the era of cards that featured a wall of text and were effectively useless. Ice Age was such a goldmine for that sort of thing.

This Soccer Mommy track was the last thing I cut from my ballot.

Oops, ignore

balduvian shaman is still the funniest wall of text card especially since it was a common

hahah I remember that card well, I got one in the first pack of Ice Age I ever bought and felt really intimidated by it since I didn't even know the rules of the game yet. it was really strange how early Magic was obsessed with stuff like that, cards that changed color words or landwalk abilities, given how few cards even had that sort of text to begin with. how many cards could you actually use the Shaman on, anyway? The COPs, Justice....anything else ???

another favorite was Ice Cauldron, I recall *no one* being able to figure out what the hell that thing did back in the day. not that the concept was hard to figure out, it's just the way they worded it was so convoluted (see also: Camouflage and Animate Dead). It's kind of a neat card though - I remember someone used to use it to "preload" counterspells so they could tap out during their turn. Wouldn't be surprised if there's some bizarre modern-day rules-abusing combo with that one today.

anyway, anyone have deep thoughts about deep thoughts about wizards slow strangle of gps? it feels like the business decision I would probably make if I were in charge of wizards, since nobody actually watches the coverage, but it sucks for me personally, as someone who enjoys going to gps and finds scg events pretty meh. I feel like there needs to be some sort of competitive arena circuit for the rest of the world and they haven't really planned that out yet.

oops -1 'deep thoughts about' or you can give meta-level thoughts I guess

xp yeah it was basically supposed to be an anti circle of protection card as far as i can tell, because blue is the color that needed that??

cutting gp coverage sucks but it seemed inevitable with their pivot to arena/esports model. definitely empathize with that post criticizing it on grounds of diversity - after spending years slowly trying to increase the visibility of women on the competitive side of the game, suddenly dropping that in favor of laser focusing on an elite group that afaik is going to be 100% men is shitty

also not posting the round by round standings publicly online is awful, that is the absolute minimum they should do. they'll probably just get the TO to do it though.