Magic the Gathering is a Famous turn based card game also known as MTG.
This thread delves into the hobby, feel free to talk about your deck, publicize your favorite builds if you want to share with the world, or offer advice to both new comers and veterans on how to win and/or have a great time playing.
So I recently got back into MTG after about a 8 year break. I like the changes, including some of the new play styles. I applaud the game for creating a micro-economy that revolves around the latest fad in the game (and sometimes just the collections themselves.), while still maintaining hundreds, if not thousands of different play styles, non of which can win 100% of the time even under the most competitive circumstances. That said, and the fanfare aside, MTG is a medium to pricey game to play (although much cheaper than my usual 40k), with plenty of its own faults, one of which is the learning curb - steepened considerably in the 8 years I left it - and the sheer amount of choices in trying to build a deck can be daunting.
After playing a few games of 2 headed giant, however, most newcomers should be able to stand on their own and in the spirit of exploration, my FLGS has decided to adopt a new game style:
Two Handed Tryant
The rules are much the same as Two Headed Giant, only that there are two players using 2 Decks. Players begin with 30 life, cannot share mana between libraries, draw seven cards from each library on the first turn, friendly mulligan each hand separately, and draws their first turn.
The major difference is that players start their turn by playing with the deck of their dominant hand only, pass to their opponent who draws and plays in the same manner, then passes to the first player's other hand. So, if both of you are right handed, the play will literally make a zigg-zagging "X" across the table. In a metaphor, you are throwing your decks at each other in brutal strikes, preparing (or perhaps defending) with one side, as you unleash hell with another. Additionally, each side is making a turn independent of each other, and cannot untap until the beginning of its own upkeep. (You gotta reload son...)
Anyway, for someone who has established decks, I find this game style very rewarding, especially if I don't feel like choosing between them. I find that there are interesting combos possible when you know exactly what is in both decks, and can plan accordingly. Though I'm still play-testing, we've found that a mixture of an offensive and defensive decks work very well together (the name of the game really is synergy), and though that's my deck, I've been torn apart more than my share of times by Rakdos burn decks which are extremely fast and aggressive. It's fun getting revenge by throwing down a Worldfire and burning everything down to ash to land a killing blow - but to each their own.
Anyway, test out this style, see if you have any suggestions on how to improve / refine it or the rules as I have written them. Have fun, and please feel free to speak your mind about MTG here.
Two handed tyrant sounds like a pretty cool way to play, actually. I've done two headed giant, the star pattern (5 players, and to win you have to be the first to kill the two people across from you [not sitting next to you]), planechase (which is amazing in any game type), EDH (possibly my favorite format), and archenemy, although that one didn't go so well the one time I played it.
I'll have to try this one out!
And yeah I'm really looking forward to Dragon's Maze. I haven't had much time to read the lore of MtG, but it really makes me want to know the backstory of Ravnica!
Theros looks cool too, but I'd rather focus on one set at a time. But Greek and Roman mythology in MtG? Heck yeah!
I like aggro decks--I play a lot of green and green/white. But metagaming in general is annoying and I find meta players to be generally very annoying. I do have a standard deck; selesnya populate. It works well and is fun to play, but it would be slaughtered in a tournament. I play to have fun. Hence, EDH is my favorite format!
OH and I just learned a new play format today-- Monarchy. It is for 5-7 players, and there are different positions you play as and each has a different win clause. It was pretty fun. Basically, everyone gets their role randomly assigned (we wrote them out on basic lands and picked from the pile at random), but there is 1 king, 1 body guard, 1 traitor (2 if there are 7 players), and 2 assassins (3 if there are 6 or 7 players). Everyone is told who the king is but everyone else keeps their identity secret. the king starts with 30 life; everyone else starts with 20.
The king wins if he is the last player alive, or if he and the bodyguard are both alive at the end, the king wins. The king can attack anybody.
The bodyguard wins if the king wins, regardless of if the bodyguard is killed before the end of the game. The bodyguard cannot attack the king, but can attack anyone else.
The traitor wins when he and the king are the last players alive, and then he kills the king himself. He can attack anyone, but if the king dies before the assassins are all dead, the assassins win instead.
The assassins win when the king dies, but only if they are still alive. If there are 3 assassins in a game, and 1 assassin is dead, and then the king dies, the 2 remaining assassins both win. They can also attack anyone.
Its pretty fun and after a bit it becomes obvious who is what, but still its fun to play. We played both with EDH decks and 60-card decks.
I've been a big fan of Magic over the past year, enjoying the Innistrad and Ravnica blocks. I play Standard, and I love deckbuilding. However it was getting awfully pricey to start putting decks together, especially when you want those top tier cards I've since switched to the various LCG games FFG offers, but if I could justify my spending, I'd be back with my sexy tournament decks in a flash. As it stands they just gather dust, which is sad.
I'm looking for advice and I think this might be the place to get it!
I'm really curious about MTG. I've had a few beginner friendly games with friends (who let me win, the generous sods) and I'm quite taken with the game itself but I've no idea where to start given that I've no previous experience with collectible card games of this type.
Also, the cards that said friends use are about a decade old and they're as clueless as I am when it comes to looking at the newer stuff.
Anyways, we're all thinking of taking the plunge and giving the newer stuff a go but the range of sets is incredibly daunting!
Where would you guys suggest starting out?
Can you mix the 'Gatecrash' stuff with the 'Ravnica' themed cards? Probably a daft question!
They're releasing the third set of the Ravnica block called Dragon's Maze at the end of this month. I suggest you find a shop putting on an event and attend a session or two. You'll get some of the newest cards and meet the local gaming population. It's an ideal jumping on point.
Also, if you're looking for a deck that works, you can buy one of the pre-made set decks. It really depends on how you want to play & what your preferences are for which one you pick. Each color has its own general style, and especially with the current sets (return to ravnica, gatecrash, and soon dragon's maze), the guild have very specific play styles too. I'd say go somewhere that people play, ask them to let you borrow a deck or watch them, and see how it goes.
A warning for you, though-- don't play people who say they're playing standard. standard decks are generally very fast and competitive, and it won't help you learn to play if they just whip your ass without giving you a chance to do anything. If someone says they have a standard deck, just tell them you're still learning the rules and that if their deck is for tournaments that you'd rather not face that deck just yet.
The only way you will learn to PLAY magic is if people take it slow the first few times and you understand turn order and how combat works, etc. the only way you will get GOOD at magic is if people start whipping your butt and you have to figure out what to do to stay alive and take them out instead. So once you have the basics down and you understand how to play whatever deck you have, tell people not to take it too easy on you.
Don't get too discouraged if you can't win (especially if you have a store-bought starter deck--they generally work anf have a theme, but they're not that great). Try to change your deck a little, but don't be afraid to ask for help. Also, don't make the mistake of "this card is the right color, so it must belong in this deck!" that a lot of new players make. Read the cards, try to see what goes along with your deck and what doesn't, and ask others for advice. Oh, and if you change your deck, two things-- make sure you have enough lands/mana to work with the cards you have (usually starter decks come with 24, which might be a bit much. 20-22 is usually a good range for most decks), and don't have a deck of more than 70 cards. A typical deck has 60, and while its tempting to put things in but not take things out, it doesn't make for very effective decks.
Scrub wrote: I'm looking for advice and I think this might be the place to get it!
I'm really curious about MTG. I've had a few beginner friendly games with friends (who let me win, the generous sods) and I'm quite taken with the game itself but I've no idea where to start given that I've no previous experience with collectible card games of this type.
Bro, i have just the thing for you.
I just started playing MTG when I got to college 7 months ago because my roommate was a huge buff. I had a starter deck and 2 booster packs, which was nice... but for a while I really didn't buy anything. If you are starting, I would highly recommend this incredible deal that really got me started: http://www.toywiz.com/magiclot1000.html
There are duplicates, but not too many. The most I have of a single card is 8, and the runner up is 6, 6, 6, 5, 5, 4, 4, ... so its actually really good. You get 0 basic land as well! - although you might get gates and other non-basic land (which is ok).
It was the best deal I ever made, and I have made 2 great decks from it, and have the ability to make many more good decks from it.
Do note that this doesn't come with any rares, but still, its an incredible starting point. I would highly recommend getting this deal, as well as a starter deck maybe and a few booster packs. You'll also need to buy land, but it isn't expensive, so you'll be ok.
Here's my standard deck, I've tweaked it slightly in the last week, in particular putting Bonds of faith in the sideboard. It's probably a costly deck to buy from a trader, but I pulled all of these from packs or traded for them. I'm still meeting Thragtusks and it's one of the better ways to nullify them while having the alternative of making my things bigger. I've taken a long time to build this deck since first using red-white humans last summer, it's evolved many times over the months (It irritates me when people suggest I 'net-list', I don't look at deck lists online, this is all my own work). Now it's mostly green-white humans with a little red. It's capable of being very fast, and the potential damage surges at about turn four which tends to catch people out as prior to this everything looks quite small and manageable. The obvious strong cards are things like the Silverblade, who can attack turn three if the Lightning Mauler is out but often arrives turn three to pair with the Skyjek who attacks as a 3/1 double strike. Almost no one uses Thatcher's Revolt, I love it as alongside my Hamlet Captains and Mayors for three mana I have three fairly large hasty humans attacking. Another rarely used card is the Wild Beastmaster, but with the pump effect of other humans and the potential for Rancor, she can make everything huge. When she is on the table, the following turn is often Rancor and Thatcher's Revolt. It's handy that once I get to the mid-game there are so many cards that can win me games, a Thatcher's Revolt, a Rancor, a Mayor to pump everything, a silverblade to give something doublestrike or a Boros Charm to do damage or make my things indestructible. This I've found the hardest thing in deck building, trying to make something with combos but which doesn't frustrate you when you can't get specific cards you need. You have to fill the deck with a range stuff that you're always hoping to draw, that always has the potential to win you games or put your opponent under pressure, rather than cards that only satisfy specific clever combos or work under certain circumstances.
It's not perfect, it sometimes stumbles against control decks, and I have trouble containing some of the Thragtusk decks that involve flickering and gaining life and making tokens (I met a lot at the World Cup Qualifiers so I've settled on Bonds of Faith in the sideboard). I managed to get top 8 at the last gameday so I'm pleased with that performance, if I'd better known the local crowd that were at the WCQ then I probably could have done better there, alas.
Main
4x Avacyn's Pilgrim
4x Champion of the Parish
4x Hamlet Captain
4x Daring Skyjek
2x Lightning Mauler
4x Mayor of Avabruck
2x Fiend Hunter
4x Silverblade Paladin
2x Wild Beastmaster
4x Rancor
4x Thatcher's Revolt
2x Boros Charm
2x Cavern of Souls
2x Stomping Ground
4x Sacred Foundry
4x Temple Garden
4x Sunpetal Grove
2x Plains
2x Forest
Scrub wrote: I'm looking for advice and I think this might be the place to get it!
I'm really curious about MTG. I've had a few beginner friendly games with friends (who let me win, the generous sods) and I'm quite taken with the game itself but I've no idea where to start given that I've no previous experience with collectible card games of this type.
Bro, i have just the thing for you.
I just started playing MTG when I got to college 7 months ago because my roommate was a huge buff. I had a starter deck and 2 booster packs, which was nice... but for a while I really didn't buy anything. If you are starting, I would highly recommend this incredible deal that really got me started:
http://www.toywiz.com/magiclot1000.html
There are duplicates, but not too many. The most I have of a single card is 8, and the runner up is 6, 6, 6, 5, 5, 4, 4, ... so its actually really good. You get 0 basic land as well! - although you might get gates and other non-basic land (which is ok).
It was the best deal I ever made, and I have made 2 great decks from it, and have the ability to make many more good decks from it.
Do note that this doesn't come with any rares, but still, its an incredible starting point. I would highly recommend getting this deal, as well as a starter deck maybe and a few booster packs. You'll also need to buy land, but it isn't expensive, so you'll be ok.
Wow, that first one is a pretty good deal for a new player. the only problem is that they're all standard, aka from the current set, and so you don't get a mix of older cards which can be really helpful. But its entirely up to you! You can find some nice deals on ebay, too. Thats where I got the starter chunk of my collection!
Automatically Appended Next Post: One thing i will say is DONT BUY BOOSTERS TO CRACK (Open) THEM. Just dont buy them if all your going to do is open them.
The reason for this is its a really expensive way to get cards. Likely you will be looking for certain cards, in which case it is FAR cheaper to just buy them as singles instead of opening packs. Also that way you avoid getting tons of janks that you have no use for. What you SHOULD be doing with packs is drafting or running sealed events. And then the cards you have left over or win from drafts or sealed events you then trade for what you need.
Which is not to say that i havent done just that. But i now try to avoid it. It is hard though, its very addicting to crack boosters .
Also its a good idea to pool money with friends to get a booster box or even case. It will save you a great deal of cash
Who is/are your commander(s)? I have an Avacyn deck and a mono-green deck that I have a Yeva for (but want to swap out for an Omnath once I get a chance to get him)
I've been thinking about magic for a little while now . My and my brother used to play about 12 years ago or so .
We still have a bunch of cards but I have no idea of there use .
I don't have a clue how the game works and the magic website seems very overwhelming!
So If I was to start playing what should I pick up . I'm want to pick two deks up . One for me and my brother
I don't quite understand the ddifferences in decks
What is the core set ? And the gatecrasher set ?
Should I just pick you p two gatecrasher fat packs to start us off or is there a cheaper way have a rabble before spending more money on what I need ?
Buy two starter decks. The core set and/or gatecrash ones are good for learning how to play, and will be balanced (I would recommend getting either 2 core set or 2 gatecrash to start with), and obviously don't get two of the same deck. Two decks that share one color would be fine, though.
The starter decks come with a "how to play" guide that is mildly helpful. I would say go find a game store near you and ask to watch a game or have someone teach you the basic rules (turn order etc). The best way to learn to play well is to READ THE CARDS and know what your deck is trying to do.
edit: And don't get fat packs at first, just get the starter decks. Once you get into the game, then you can spend all of your money on it
edit (again): OH also I forgot about this, but there are "learn to play duel decks" (NOT the regular duel decks, make sure its a core set and talks about learning how to play or whatever) that are relatively cheap. The decks are crap, but you'll learn how to play! (this thing: http://www.trollandtoad.com/p321403.html )
Thanks , I have ordered two 2013 core intro decks a white and a red I think
What are the differences between the core sets or editions and the other packs eg gate crashes . Return to ravinica and next week dragons maze all confusing haha . Are there any other forums you would recommend or any sites for beginners that I can check out so I now some basics before my decks come ?
stealthxstar wrote: edit (again): OH also I forgot about this, but there are "learn to play duel decks" (NOT the regular duel decks, make sure its a core set and talks about learning how to play or whatever) that are relatively cheap. The decks are crap, but you'll learn how to play! (this thing: http://www.trollandtoad.com/p321403.html )
Those are pretty amusing because they are basically the cost of 2 boosters plus some free cards.
What are the differences between the core sets or editions and the other packs eg gate crashes . Return to ravinica and next week dragons maze all confusing haha . Are there any other forums you would recommend or any sites for beginners that I can check out so I now some basics before my decks come ?
The "Core Sets" are released once every year, they are made up of a heavy amount of reprints and they exist to bring into "Standard" (the main competetive format) the cards that are needed to make it a fun and balanced Standard environment. After the yearly "Core Set", a "Block" is released E.G. Return To Ravnica. A "Block" is is made up of three "Sets" E.G Return to Ravnica, Gatecrash, Dragons Maze. These three sets will have a story running throughout them (Magic has a continuing storyline that is long and complicated). For MOST "Blocks", the First "Set" will be the Main set and is made up of roughly 250 cards. The last two will be called "Expert Sets". "Expert Sets" are about 120-150 cards. Note however that Main-Expert-Expert hasnt been the case for the most recent sets.
Wizards has how to play videos on youtube. For complex rules resolution, just ask google. Someone HAS asked it before you.
Any starter sets will work well. Get some decks to be your baseline and then modify those as you go, playing with each iteration constantly in order to both get a feel for the game and the deck.
Another good way to learn is playing Duels of the Planeswalkers, because the game walks you through it. If you have steam, you can get the game there (steam has good sales and its not a very expensive game anyway). You also can torrent the old/original version of the game. Its pretty oldschool but its still good for learning how to play (although it might be a little less user friendly than the new ones).
I played in a prerelease yesterday to get out of the house and hang out with a few friends who regularly play in Magic events. It's probably been ~ a decade since my last MTG event, and most of my owned cards are 10 or 15 (some 20) years old, but I remembered some of my basic principles for limited environment building:
Focus on cheap aggression
Go creature/removal heavy
Keep conscious of your mana curve
My friends recommended that I try Boros, but it was full, so I took Rakdos. Red/Black gave me good cheap aggressive creatures and a fair amount of removal. I got Demir as my allied pack, and got some nice blue stuff (a couple of evading creatures, Demir charm, Blast of Genius, Aetherize). I also got a few nice white or green cards, but really couldn't use them. I like how the Guildgates and mana artifacts make building three colors (or four if you get a bit lucky) reasonable without a high percentage chance of manascrewing yourself.
I had four fun matches; 2/0, 2/0, 0/2, 2/1, with the last two against fellow Rakdos players (first two were Golgari and Boros, the other two guilds I was interested in). At least two of my wins were games where I did JUST enough damage to kill my opponent the turn before they would have definitely killed me. Some really fun, tight games. Reminded me how much I enjoy limited Magic (sealed and draft). It also wasn't too expensive for a day's gaming. I already made back $17 of my $25 entry selling off some of of the packs I won and a couple of my rares. I'll probably recoup the rest of my costs Friday selling more rares back to the store, then keep my commons & uncommons for possible use in casual home play with friends. I get out to play home games with friends a couple of times a year, so a few dozen more cards for that don't go amiss.
I did appallingly at pre release. It's shameful, I lost all six matches which us the worst perfirmace I've ever had at an event.
I picked Boros and was paired with Izzet, but had no Izzet creatures and a couple of poor spells. I dropped it in favour of going white-red-black but it just didn't work.
Did you just not get enough creatures in general? I think I wound up running something like 16 lands, 2 mana-producing artifacts, 23 creatures, and 9 other spells (at least half of which were removal).
Also note that they probably played with a 40 card deck, so as to make it easier and more likely to get to the stuff they do need. It's totally optional the amount of cards you decide to run. There are untold factors that play in to how things could go bad. There are only 8-12 games in a 4-round prerelease, leaving not a ton of time for things to work themselves out.
I just made out like a bandit in my draft tournament.
We were doing a special draft tournament where you would play with teams of 3 people. Your team split a box, and each of you got 10 booster packs. The remaining 6 booster packs were added to the prize pool.
On my last booster pack, I got the foil of voice of resurgence ... which is worth $70.
I won every game with a golgari deck, but everyone else on my team lost every game so we placed last... but its ok because I totally got my moneys worth. I paid $35 for the tournament, and I made out with at least $120 worth of cards.
m14dude wrote: Good work my friend. Does anybody here play EDH? I'm curious as to what people do with that.
I want to do a mono-color of each color. I have white and green so far... but my next project is a blue-green EDH. I'm divided between experiment kraj and momir vig.
m14dude wrote: Good work my friend. Does anybody here play EDH? I'm curious as to what people do with that.
I want to do a mono-color of each color. I have white and green so far... but my next project is a blue-green EDH. I'm divided between experiment kraj and momir vig.
Momir Vig is better. Just have Kraj in your Momir deck and you should be able to get him out whenever you choose
Automatically Appended Next Post:
m14dude wrote: Good work my friend. Does anybody here play EDH? I'm curious as to what people do with that.
m14dude wrote:I'm currently running a Selesnya EDH with Trostani as general, and it's quite fun. The amount of creature tricks and such is really quite fantastic.
Rhys the Redeemed is a hilarious populate/token general.
m14dude wrote: Good work my friend. Does anybody here play EDH? I'm curious as to what people do with that.
I want to do a mono-color of each color. I have white and green so far... but my next project is a blue-green EDH. I'm divided between experiment kraj and momir vig.
Momir Vig is better. Just have Kraj in your Momir deck and you should be able to get him out whenever you choose
Good point. I'll probably try playing with both of them as generals and see how it goes.
But right now my favorite deck is my green EDH. When it goes off (which is fairly often, unless I get really mana screwed or other people blow up my field), its funny (at least I think it is!) My Avacyn deck is basically "lets put up defenses and make myself untouchable, get out avacyn, and BAM you're dead by general damage"
Wow, Rhys is quite the sexy beast. I'll have to look into trying to get her. Quite pricey though and not general worthy compared to Trostani, in my eyes. It's got lots of nice life gain and token making.
They bought a Deck Builder's Toolkit and we played a 3 man demo game (I chose green and played against red and black).
I won, one friend gave me his Selesnya deck which he didn't like using.
Then, I went out and bought my own Deck Builder's Toolkit, traded with them so I have the white and green from both toolkits on top of the 70 card Selesnya deck.
I'm excited to start getting into this a little more (which is ironic because I once swore I would never play M:TG...I did the same with 40k once as well...).
Dr. What wrote: My friends just got me into this last night.
They bought a Deck Builder's Toolkit and we played a 3 man demo game (I chose green and played against red and black).
I won, one friend gave me his Selesnya deck which he didn't like using.
Then, I went out and bought my own Deck Builder's Toolkit, traded with them so I have the white and green from both toolkits on top of the 70 card Selesnya deck.
I'm excited to start getting into this a little more (which is ironic because I once swore I would never play M:TG...I did the same with 40k once as well...).
So after some good games with my brother I'm really pleased with the intro decks , and pulling planes walkers out of the boosters .
My next question is about were to go next . If I'd like to play tournaments for fun . That's usually standard I think . I could be wrong .
Shal I just hold out until m14 is out or as dragons maze has just released shawl I buy some of that . But as dragons maze is the last in that block what will m14 go with ? All seems overwhelming still haha cheers guys
m14 is a core set, so it just goes as its own thing. Every year, Wizards releases a core set (m14) and a block of some sort (Return to Ravnica which contains Dragon's Maze for example). Most often, cards in the core sets remain the same for the commons and a few uncommons. Wizards knows from internal research some of the basic commons that people use most often from core sets and try to keep them in print. Hope this helps.
I'd play casually for a while before you try to do tournaments. If you want to do drafts, those are fun (and more balanced) then a typical standard tournament (where people pour hundreds of dollars into their decks). You can practice drafting on some deckbuilder sites, one I know of is tappedout.net
Casual play is just that, random games with whatever decks happen to be at hand. It's be easier for new players to build standard decks as opposed to other formats. M13 fits well with anything as a whole. Specific cards come down to how well they work with other specific cards. One of my decks has at least one card from every set since m13, so it really doesn't matter on the whole.
Cheers , I will pick some boosters up from different sets over the weekend maybe a dragons maze intro deck . I was just confused with dragons maze with the land cards
I feel almost bad, I've spent a good 100 bucks or so on the Return to Ravnica block (RtR, GC, DM), and I've played maybe 5 games D:
Also... not sure about how I feel about Dragon's Maze atm... the few cards I've picked up for my Rakdos and Gruul deck(s) seem lack luster to what I have. Granted I don't have massive choices for those decks, but I still feel that even as a compliment sent DM doesn't stack up to RtR and GC...
I played in the dragon's maze pre-release. I DQ'ed my first day because I had to go2 work 8 hours into the 8.5 hour tournament (I was expected to get 5th) and came in 8th out of 40 players on day 2. Not bad imo for my first tourney. I'm sticking with the guild I bought, which is Selesnya, but I'm still making changes with it. I only like a handful of DM cards so far.
Dragon's Maze is lackluster on its own, but put with the sets before it and it's a lot better. It fills in the gaps and adds new toys where needed. The guy that adds extort is quite silly.
They don't become useless, they just transfer to other formats for worth. True, standard is only good for so long, but EDH/Commander, modern, legacy, and vintage (for official formats) see newer cards keeping their value.
I really love magic, got into it about a year ago. I would probably class my self as a metagamer when it comes to MTG, cause I like winning and being competitive (but not win at all costs type of thing)
I run R/W Aggro (standard). Standard to me is the funnest format, because I get to make my own deck play with the cards I want to play with, and fill them into the deck to the max (four card maximum blah blah... should be six!) and kick ass with it. R/W aggro isn't that competitive but I have a goal to make it competitive dammit. Never really took to edh, I can only have one of a card which is really annoying, ONE boros charm... ONE boros reckoner... ONE SEARING SPEAR! Blah.
I mean standard can be causal if you want it to be, just play it at home with mates/family and practice for up coming tournaments or w/e.
Poppabear wrote: I really love magic, got into it about a year ago. I would probably class my self as a metagamer when it comes to MTG, cause I like winning and being competitive (but not win at all costs type of thing)
I run R/W Aggro (standard). Standard to me is the funnest format, because I get to make my own deck play with the cards I want to play with, and fill them into the deck to the max (four card maximum blah blah... should be six!) and kick ass with it. R/W aggro isn't that competitive but I have a goal to make it competitive dammit. Never really took to edh, I can only have one of a card which is really annoying, ONE boros charm... ONE boros reckoner... ONE SEARING SPEAR! Blah.
I mean standard can be causal if you want it to be, just play it at home with mates/family and practice for up coming tournaments or w/e.
You may only be able to have a single Reckoner (assuming correct collors of course), but you have 98 other cards to combo with that and then the general to make an overall deck that is greater than the sum of the reckoner. Having a duplicate limit at 4 as opposed to 6 creates balance within the deck. There is more room to make things combo within the deck. Look at this way: in a world where there's a limit of 6 of a card, you're losing out on 4 of a card, when looking at having 6 of 2 cards. In a clearer manner: you have Boros Reckoner, Boros Charm, and Searing Spear; in a world where the duplicate limit is 6, you're losing out on 4 Searing Spears by having 6 Reckoners and 6 Charms.
I run a mono-white creature token deck. I planned a new mono-white token deck that would supposedly be waaay better, but the one I have wins way more than I expected... so I guess its good for now.
I recently disbanded my red/green werewolf deck. It was fun, but it was too weak. To make it somewhat competitive I would have needed to put a lot more money into it.
I have a white/blue enchantment deck built around Sphere of Safety and Ethereal Armour. Its kind of funny when I can play Ethereal Armour for 1 white mana, and give someone +10/+10 and first strike.
My last deck is a Golgari Scavenge Deck, which I am making into my Jund commander deck. I made the scavenge deck for the Dragon's Maze pre-release, and it won every game there.
I'm currently running a Rakdos unleash deck, although I've built and occasionally use an Azorius lockdown deck (I arrest things, if I remember the way the deck works correctly), with a Return to Ravnica Jayce thrown in there for good measure. I've got a Selsyna Populate Deck (I enjoy this one, nothing like 5/5 worm tokens everywhere ), and a Gruul deck with Elementals... It's kind of my "weakest" deck as I don't really know what it does for certain and I've only played it once.
And I have a Boros deck that I've yet to play
I used to play fethloads of magic back during the Odyessy block all the way up to the first block of Ravnica (I have a dimir deck somewhere), quit and sold off my collection for a 100 bucks (just wanted to be rid of it), and then got back into it with Return to Ravnica. I would love to play the way I used to, but I find myself arguing with my friends who played with a simplified version of the stack. So I get into gameplay arguments when I resolve something and they try to counter it, even when I asked if it's resolved. So suffice it to say, I'm in this weird boat where I hate competitive magic (because I could never beat my friend who did a lot of competitive magic), and where I hate this "more casual than I like" sort of magic that a majority of my friends play, because they're a little loose with the rules, and it feels like abuse of the rules to me. Which sucks because I've got all these cards and I'd like to actually play more than once a month.
Quick question from a semi-new MTG player. I'm currently putting together an Eldrazi-themed deck. What colours other than green (for mana ramp) would you guys recommend? I was thinging Green/Blue to get the control/card drawing power of blue. I won't be including Cloudpost as it's banned in both Vintage and Modern, which is what I mostly play.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: Quick question from a semi-new MTG player. I'm currently putting together an Eldrazi-themed deck. What colours other than green (for mana ramp) would you guys recommend? I was thinging Green/Blue to get the control/card drawing power of blue. I won't be including Cloudpost as it's banned in both Vintage and Modern, which is what I mostly play.
you can go the cheesy elf-drazi route, which is mainly green, or you can really do whatever you want-- I started in innistrad so I don't know the eldrazi set very well, but I think you can really go with whatever colors you want.
I picked up the Rakdos Revelry deck and I've been mixing and matching with my Return to Ravnica deck I had. Haven't gotten a chance to play it, but here is what I'm sitting on right now.
Creatures:
4x Rakdos Cacklers
3x Rix Maadi Guildmages
4x Splatter Thugs
2x Bloodfray Giants
2x Carnage Gladiator
1x Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch
1x Ashenmoor Liege (from the original Ravnica Block)
2x Rakdos, Lord of Riot
3x Spawn of the Rix Maadi
1x Master of Cruelties
1x Carnival Hellsteed
You might be able to go a little slimmer on mana, with all those keyrunes and cluestones. I've always leaned light mana with a speedy aggressive deck.
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Friday I decided to do FNM for the first time. Drafted the current block, with a hankering to try Orzhov, and got Teysa in my first pack. Score! Also got Angelic Skirmisher later as another bomb. Went almost straight black/white with a little bit of blue, focusing on a combination of defense/removal/evasion and hard to stop damage (drafted and ran three Hired Torturers), plus a few bombs and a little bit of Lifelink. I managed to go 3/0, straight wins, though a few of those games were very close, with Gruul giving me scary moments with big smashy monsters. I had a fantastic moment where my opponent tapped out to get Ruric Thar, the Onbowed, onto the table, and I had a Slum Reaper in hand. Won some packs and a foil Judge's Familiar (which was awesome as I had drafted one, and he was great).
I guess my problem with magic has always been crippling myself with lack of mana. I like the key runes simply because once I have enough mana, they're 3/1 creatures for a turn.
Like I said, haven't gotten a chance to play it yet... I've got no one to play with now that it's summer.
Alfndrate wrote: I guess my problem with magic has always been crippling myself with lack of mana. I like the key runes simply because once I have enough mana, they're 3/1 creatures for a turn.
Like I said, haven't gotten a chance to play it yet... I've got no one to play with now that it's summer.
No, I get it. I like that the Keyrunes can be creatures, and I like that you can cycle the Cluestones into a draw once you don't need them anymore. I just think you might be able to go with slightly fewer lands, maybe fit in a couple more fast/cheap creatures or combat tricks.
I usually aim to run 20 land in a deck, if you remove the expensive creatures like the Hellsteed and use things like the Spike Jester or Gore House Chainwalker you'll speed up the deck. You don't need 24 land and cluestones, put in some regular burn or kill spells to kill small early game creatures, use Pillar of Flame or Searing Spear if they need to be in standard.
Alfndrate wrote: I guess my problem with magic has always been crippling myself with lack of mana. I like the key runes simply because once I have enough mana, they're 3/1 creatures for a turn.
Like I said, haven't gotten a chance to play it yet... I've got no one to play with now that it's summer.
No, I get it. I like that the Keyrunes can be creatures, and I like that you can cycle the Cluestones into a draw once you don't need them anymore. I just think you might be able to go with slightly fewer lands, maybe fit in a couple more fast/cheap creatures or combat tricks.
Howard A Treesong wrote:I usually aim to run 20 land in a deck, if you remove the expensive creatures like the Hellsteed and use things like the Spike Jester or Gore House Chainwalker you'll speed up the deck. You don't need 24 land and cluestones, put in some regular burn or kill spells to kill small early game creatures, use Pillar of Flame or Searing Spear if they need to be in standard.
I'll take a look, the Hellsteed is there for some large punch, but at the moment I think I've got it covered with Rakdos, and a few others. I'll see about dropping out some lands. if I find myself deficient then they'll go back in until I can find a suitable balance.
I don't know if I have Pillars of Flame, I have 3 Searing Spears from my Boros Event Deck I could probably grab them from it. I'm not sure I like the Gore House Chainwalker, he's not bad and I certainly have enough of them to throw into my deck. I'll test it out.
I could drop the Hellsteed, and 4 lands, and throw in what... 3 Searing Spears and 2 of either the Spike Jester or the Chainwalker?
How much black mana do you generate? I'd also suggest Sign in Blood or Altar's Reap to draw cards. I'd take out a couple of lands, all the cluestones/keyrunes, Auger Spree, and the larger creatures like Hellsteed and put in card draw, Searing Spears, Pillars of Flame or even Brimstone Volley. These will slow your opponent down by burning his creatures or letting you finish him off when low on life, also it makes it easier to get things like the Rakdos Lord out. If you're hoping to use the Master of Cruelties then you want to clear the way for him and have a spell to do that last single damage directly.
When your deck is full of cheaper things and card draws, you won't need all that mana generation. Also having a deck full of cards that let you do stuff like kill things and draw cards every turn is more fun to play generally IMO.
Howard A Treesong wrote: How much black mana do you generate? I'd also suggest Sign in Blood or Altar's Reap to draw cards. I'd take out a couple of lands, all the cluestones/keyrunes, Auger Spree, and the larger creatures like Hellsteed and put in card draw, Searing Spears, Pillars of Flame or even Brimstone Volley. These will slow your opponent down by burning his creatures or letting you finish him off when low on life, also it makes it easier to get things like the Rakdos Lord out. If you're hoping to use the Master of Cruelties then you want to clear the way for him and have a spell to do that last single damage directly.
When your deck is full of cheaper things and card draws, you won't need all that mana generation. Also having a deck full of cards that let you do stuff like kill things and draw cards every turn is more fun to play generally IMO.
I can't determine how much black mana I generate I'm terrible at figuring out the odds of it. I've played maybe a dozen games with my deck before changing things around with the release of Dragon's Maze, I would say that on average I get maybe 5 lands a game, and 2 Keyrunes (this is before the inclusion of the Cluestones). Master of Cruelties is in there temporarily, I like the card and what it can do, and I'm not too worried about whether or not he has a clear path for him unless he's getting double blocked. First Strike and Deathtouch means that I can, for the most part choose who lives and who dies. I'm not going to worry too much about him dying. Again I have 1 in the deck and I know it's not worth it to have 1 of a card in a deck of magic. I'd rather trade him out for another Exava.
I'd like to play like 2 games with the deck how it is, something like 5 games with the deck with the changes I thought about in my last post, and some games with some other changes suggested in this thread. And the reason why I'm in the RTR block is because that is where I started with Magic after almost 7 years of not playing the game. I'll look at some of the suggestions... I would just need to play more than once a month :-\
edit: Does anyone know of a good way to play over the interwebz?
I was just asking what your land balance was, do you have dual lands or only basic lands, and how many of each? If you think you'll safely be able to generate two black, use Sign in Blood. If you're only likely to play five land in a game, that suggests you'll rarely get to play the larger creatures without the keyrunes. And instead of playing smaller creatures, you're spending the early game on those keyrunes, not creatures and kill spells.
Howard A Treesong wrote: I was just asking what your land balance was, do you have dual lands or only basic lands, and how many of each? If you think you'll safely be able to generate two black, use Sign in Blood. If you're only likely to play five land in a game, that suggests you'll rarely get to play the larger creatures without the keyrunes. And instead of playing smaller creatures, you're spending the early game on those keyrunes, not creatures and kill spells.
I've got 9 swamps and 9 mountains, the Blood Crypts and Guildgates are Black or Red Mana, but come into play tapped (the blood crypts can bypass the coming into play tapped if I pay 2 life).
Note: All this talk has me wanting to test my deck, but I don't have the available players to do so :-\
If you run out of life (starting at 20) or have to draw a card when there are no cards in your deck, you lose. You don't actually lose the game for running out of cards, you only lose when you have to draw and there isn't a card there to do so. There are a few specific cards that let you win or lose, Door into Nothingness for example, or Battle of Wits.
So turns out I have 3 Searing Spears, 4 PIllars of Flame, and 2 Sign in Blood. The first two spells came from the Boros Event Deck I bought, and the Sign in Blood was from an old Deckbuilder's toolkit I got as a gift during the Eldrazi block
I've played mtg over Twitter once. We built super fast decks that could win in two turns. Mine used Memnite and infernal Plunge to play Souleater on turn one, turn two was pay life to pump it to 10 damage and then fling or give it double strike to do 20 damage. Twitter still made for slow games even at three or four turns max.
Howard A Treesong wrote: If you run out of life (starting at 20) or have to draw a card when there are no cards in your deck, you lose. You don't actually lose the game for running out of cards, you only lose when you have to draw and there isn't a card there to do so. There are a few specific cards that let you win or lose, Door into Nothingness for example, or Battle of Wits.
Thank you.
It's been a long time since I've played. I don't even have those cards anymore. Was looking for them the other day.
The angel isn't all that bad. Force it to block, or have some sort of creature/artifact removal and win the game after that. It's both artifact and creature, so there's even more ways to kill him. The problem is killing multiple angels.
I just found a deal online that has 12 Innistrad and 12 Dragon's Maze booster packs for ~$50. Innistrad booster packs are going up in value since they Innistrad is now out of print. Do you think I should go for it? Or do you guys think they are Box Mapping?
Idk... I doubt he's box mapping (had to google that ), but at the same time you could probably find Dragon's Maze boosters cheaper than 50 bucks for 12 (I can get 12 for 40 at my flgs). The Innistrad ones might be worth it though.
Alfndrate wrote: Idk... I doubt he's box mapping (had to google that ), but at the same time you could probably find Dragon's Maze boosters cheaper than 50 bucks for 12 (I can get 12 for 40 at my flgs). The Innistrad ones might be worth it though.
Its the Innistrad and the Dragon's Maze together. Yeah, 24 booster packs.
I don't care about Dragon's Maze, I would re-sell those.
Alfndrate wrote: Idk... I doubt he's box mapping (had to google that ), but at the same time you could probably find Dragon's Maze boosters cheaper than 50 bucks for 12 (I can get 12 for 40 at my flgs). The Innistrad ones might be worth it though.
Its the Innistrad and the Dragon's Maze together. Yeah, 24 booster packs.
I don't care about Dragon's Maze, I would re-sell those.
OH! Haha my bad, that's not a bad deal regardless... Is it an ebay link? You could check to see what this guy has sold in the past, if it looks like he's selling the same thing and his feedback has some quirks to it, he could be box mapping.
Well, I went to my first FNM tonight and brought a slightly tweaked Golgari starter deck.
All in all, I wound up 32/37, having 3 wins in all (not bad for a new guy). I then got a lot of help from 2 fellow players who helped me slim the deck down to 60 in preparation for the Dragon's Maze tournament tomorrow).
Also, I won a promo Judge's Familiar, not that I can use it...
FNM at the store up the street from me hit a record for attendance tonight- 53 players.
I went 2/1 in drafting this week. Didn't get quite enough killer cards/bombs. The two biggest and scariest I got were a Risen Sanctuary and a Biomass Mutation. Went Azorius pretty hard, but if I'd have gone Rakdos or maybe Boros I'd have been better off. Kept seeing good red cards go by, and wound up taking a Showstopper as like the second to last card in a pack! Despite a fairly mediocre set of pulls, I won my first two matches on the backs of my swathe of medium/small flyers and other evaders, then got run over in the last round by a guy with Savageborn Hydra, Utvara Hellkite, Zhur-Taa Ancient, and a bunch of other reasonably beefy creatures and mana ramp, plus a few combat tricks. Those two mythic rares were just brutal. I did win one of those games, though, as he ramped up with the Ancient, had a bunch of big creatures out, and I spent 14-odd mana making all my creatures 11/11 with Biomass Mutation and whacked him with an 11/11 flyer and 11/11 Deathcult Rogue.
I'm going to Dragon's Maze Gameday later on, with my Naya Humans for the last time. They've been tweaked again since last time, this is probably their last outing because I use so many dual lands for them it makes it difficult to make anything else. They are probably the fastest deck I've built, with Burning-Tree Emissaries and Lightning Maulers, it's quite possible to have 3-4 creatures on turn two with several attacking.
Just got to play my Rakdos deck against a green/red deck (had some undying wolves, a 5/1 creature with haste that you sacrifice at the end of the turn, and some giant growths). I won after like 8 turns or so, there were a few turns where I was playing defensively waiting for 1 more land, got the land, and started playing aggressively, forcing him to either block and take 1 point of damage (thanks to my Carnage golem thing), or to be put down to 1 health by my master of cruelties.. He quit when he took 1 damage from blocking, and I brought out Rakdos, it was a nice game, we were both under 10 health by the end of the game.
So, how did the Dragon's Maze event go for everybody else?
I did horribly, losing every game and getting a by on the the last round. I ended up in 14th place out of 20 (my friend lost all 3 and got a by on the 3rd round and took 19th).
On the plus side, I finally got a Rubblebelt Raiders card!
I was playing a weird draft. It was teams of 3. I won every game, 6 total. My teammates lost every game. We placed last :(.
thaaaaaat sucks.
I pulled a watery grave the other day, from a gatecrash pack. I also revamped my naya lifeburn deck, but I need more shock lands for it. Its wayyyy faster now muhahahahahaha
I was playing a weird draft. It was teams of 3. I won every game, 6 total. My teammates lost every game. We placed last :(.
thaaaaaat sucks.
I pulled a watery grave the other day, from a gatecrash pack. I also revamped my naya lifeburn deck, but I need more shock lands for it. Its wayyyy faster now muhahahahahaha
Nice one ^^
In my first draft, Return to Ravinica, I pulled a deathrite shaaman. Totally didn't know its value.
My second draft, Dragon's Maze, I got a foil voice of resurgence ^^
To this day, I have spent about ~$100 on magic, and I have easily over $350 worth of cards. I just price my commander deck which I built for about $40, and it is worth $200 new
Slarg232 wrote: How good are Simic Decks? Particularily the Evolve ones.
evolve on its own kinda sucks. if you get your cards in the wrong order, you're screwed. however, you can mix it with a few other things... either azorius or selesnya would probably be good, and if you do it right it can be super handy. gyre sage is a favorite of mine.
Evolve is meh. I ran renegade krasus in my Jund deck for a little, til I realized that even though all cards in my deck were high power and renegade krasus the best evolve card, it still didn't work.
There are far easier methods of getting counters on your creatures. Forced adaptions, for example, is a great way of getting butt-tons of counters on creatures early game.
1) If I have a Ring of Klonoa (Equipped Creature gains Trample. If that creature is Green, it gains +1/+1 at the beginning of your turn) and put it on a Shambleshark (Gold Creature, is a Blue/Green card), does it gain the +1/+1? Or does it have to be PURE green?
2) Does the "Only four cards of any card, except Land" rule apply to special lands like Guildgates, Spawning Pool, or Simic Growth Chamber?
As for Evolve, I think I have a pretty wicked combo, but I need to get the cards first. I have the basic combo, I just need the extensions. Also, Biovisionary just seems fun XD
Answers (Now I'm fairly certain these are correct):
1) If a spell (creature, sorcery, instant, artifact, etc...) is dual-colored, it is both of those colors. So if you have a creature that is blue/green it is both blue and green at the same time. So if something targets it and it says, "return target blue creature to it's owner's hand" it would qualify because it is both colors. This also works with Hybrid Mana cost spells (creature spells like the Rakdos Cackler are also both red and black, even if you only use red mana, or black mana to summon it).
2) If I remember correctly, it's no more than 4 of a single type but basic land cards. So Guildgates, spawning pools and the simic growth chamber would be limited to up to 4 of each. Edit: According to MTG Salvation, every card is limited to no more than 4 in a deck (and sideboard)
It's green if it has green in it's casting cost. A Shambleshark counts as both a green and blue card. Anything that refers to 'a green card' applies to Shambleshark.
Guildgates and shocklands are lands, so anything referring to 'lands' applies to them. The only time they are treated differently if is a card makes reference to a 'basic land' which only applies to swamps and forests, etc. Edited to add - I slighty misunderstood the question. You can only have four copies of any one non-basic land. Only basic lands are unlimited in your deck unless the card specifically says otherwise. Exceptions are very few, Relentless Rats for example.
Biovisionary can work but you need other ways to get four copies out on the table. You could use Clone or Cackling counterpart and then populate cards to multiply the tokens, or my preferred method is to use Infinite Reflection and turn everything into a Biovisionary. It still isn't competitive, but it is fun.
Sweet, thanks guys. I was going to go out and buy 20 Growth Chambers and just use them, glad I didn't yet XD Figured that was too good to be true.
As for the Biovisionary, I already have the Progenitor Mimic, so that's covered as of right now (Just trying to make it an option, to keep the other more important cards *Cough Cough* Primordial Hydra/Voralz of the Hull Clade *Cough Cough* safer for a few turns)
If you're going for Biovisionary, then go all out. He doesn't do anything for you aside from allowing you to win upon having four copies out during upkeep. Progenitor Mimic works, but is expensive.
Went to FNM last night, and entered the tournament like 5 minutes after it started. So I had to enter with a loss, went 1 and 2, coming in 4th place. I didn't get any prizes, but at least I did better than people that had been playing longer than I have . The guy who took first decimated me with his monoblue Tron deck. I couldn't keep up The first game I just couldn't do anything, and then he got a little mana screwed in the second game, and I managed to take him down to like 5 life, and then he got big things on the board.
After the tournament, he helped me tweak my deck, gave some advice, and helped me playtest it. I went 2 and 1 against his standard deck, and the two games I won were due to shock lands.
Alfndrate wrote: Went to FNM last night, and entered the tournament like 5 minutes after it started. So I had to enter with a loss, went 1 and 2, coming in 4th place. I didn't get any prizes, but at least I did better than people that had been playing longer than I have . The guy who took first decimated me with his monoblue Tron deck. I couldn't keep up The first game I just couldn't do anything, and then he got a little mana screwed in the second game, and I managed to take him down to like 5 life, and then he got big things on the board.
After the tournament, he helped me tweak my deck, gave some advice, and helped me playtest it. I went 2 and 1 against his standard deck, and the two games I won were due to shock lands.
Had fun... somewhat
Thats nice that he helped you out!! Plenty of people wouldn't've bothered, you got lucky
I haven't really played much lately, but I've been meaning to start working on my blue/green EDH... I should probably make a deck list...
Alfndrate wrote: Went to FNM last night, and entered the tournament like 5 minutes after it started. So I had to enter with a loss, went 1 and 2, coming in 4th place. I didn't get any prizes, but at least I did better than people that had been playing longer than I have . The guy who took first decimated me with his monoblue Tron deck. I couldn't keep up The first game I just couldn't do anything, and then he got a little mana screwed in the second game, and I managed to take him down to like 5 life, and then he got big things on the board.
After the tournament, he helped me tweak my deck, gave some advice, and helped me playtest it. I went 2 and 1 against his standard deck, and the two games I won were due to shock lands.
Had fun... somewhat
Thats nice that he helped you out!! Plenty of people wouldn't've bothered, you got lucky
I haven't really played much lately, but I've been meaning to start working on my blue/green EDH... I should probably make a deck list...
That was my experience as well . He was sitting at the table next to me in round 2, and saw me beat the girl I was playing, and made a comment about how he doesn't see too much Rakdos stuff. After my game he and I went through what I had, made suggestions, talked shop a bit, and in the end splashed in some white. Said I had a solid list (thanks to the input of great Dakkanauts in this thread), but it could had some glaring flaws. Now the deck is much faster (won in 5 turns the two times I beat him in our test game).
Alfndrate wrote: Went to FNM last night, and entered the tournament like 5 minutes after it started. So I had to enter with a loss, went 1 and 2, coming in 4th place. I didn't get any prizes, but at least I did better than people that had been playing longer than I have . The guy who took first decimated me with his monoblue Tron deck. I couldn't keep up The first game I just couldn't do anything, and then he got a little mana screwed in the second game, and I managed to take him down to like 5 life, and then he got big things on the board.
After the tournament, he helped me tweak my deck, gave some advice, and helped me playtest it. I went 2 and 1 against his standard deck, and the two games I won were due to shock lands.
Had fun... somewhat
I had a similar experience at my first FNM with how helpful people were with deckbuilding.
At the most recent FNM, I had 2 interesting discoveries:
1. The Golgari Rot Farms that my friend raved about and traded to me are illegal as heck (bounce lands) and I had no clue about this. Nasty surprise during my second game. Luckily, I hadn't drawn them in my first game.
2. My favorite card combo now consists of: Rubblebelt Raiders or Primordial Hydra (if only I could finde one!), 1+ Corpsejack Menace(s), 1 Jarad or Korozda Guildmage.
1. Using the Menace(s) awesome multiplying ability allows the Raiders to scale at a ridiculous rate.
2. Once they're up to a decent level (usually at least 19/19 for me), either use Jarad to detonate the raiders, stripping 19 life off of each opponent, or use the Guildmage to create 19 1/1 Saprolings.
Was your FNM standard or modern? The Golgari Rot Farm is still legal in modern from what I can tell... but I don't like bounce lands in general... I'd rather have the shock lands from the current block.
Alfndrate wrote: Was your FNM standard or modern? The Golgari Rot Farm is still legal in modern from what I can tell... but I don't like bounce lands in general... I'd rather have the shock lands from the current block.
No. Ravnica, City of Guilds had the bounce lands (i.e. golgari rot farm), and Return to Ravnica has the guildgates.
If you're going to go to a tournament and play standard, please please PLEASE make sure you know your deck IS standard. Maybe it sounds harsh, but if you don't know enough about Magic to check that your deck is legal, you shouldn't be playing in tournaments. Learn the game before you try to get competitive.
I'm lucky that the definition of standard hasn't changed much since I quit playing (ravnica's first block) and now. I have an Ashenmoore liege and was like oh crap I gotta take him out before the round starts and them the TO said it was a modern tournament.
Anyone else trying Modern Masters? It's bound to be short lives, grab 'em while they're hot! It's a bit expensive, both myself and a friend have bought a few boosters to do a draft tonight. Then we're attending a draft event tomorrow. That'll be our lot for this set...
The set is designed to be short lived so as to not completely ruin the value of some people's collections if they have cards that were reprinted in the set. I will not be taking part in the set.
If the set gets more people playing Modern it's likely to inflate values not diminish them. There's a YouTube video that ened up in my 'recommends' of someone moaning about the Ravnica Shock lands having been reprinted recently because he collected a full set of originals and they are going to be devalued when the market is flooded. Putting aside the fact that they haven't gone down much in value, the staggering sense of entitlement this person was showing is just sickening. Apparently because he's been playing for 10+ years and collected a full set of these valuable cards some years ago they shouldn't be reprinted for anyone else to have, newer players or those that missed out should pay people like him a heap of money. One big problem of course is that they are land cards, which aren't particularly interesting but almost essential in any competitive deck. So accessibility should be widened for these more so than any other. People like that are the worst in the game. The relative values of cards go up and down, live with it. It's a card game, not a financial investment.
Anyway I did the drafting for the Modern weekend. Two sessions, I played with white and green Thallids in the first one, and black blue faries in the second. I didn't do very well but I had a great time all the same. It was expensive, but for a one-off it was ok. I opened the equivalent of ten boosters over the weekend, between drafing and single packs, and had some pretty big pulls, two Summoner's Pact, two Knight of the Reliquary, a Maelstrom Pulse, two Extirpate (one foil), a Scion of Oona and an Oona Queen of the Fae. There were plenty of good commons and other things so I'm pretty happen with it.
'Creatures you control' only applies to those in play, on the battlefield. But yes, her power/toughness are always defined that way whether she's in your hand, library or graveyard.
Howard A Treesong wrote: 'Creatures you control' only applies to those in play, on the battlefield. But yes, her power/toughness are always defined that way whether she's in your hand, library or graveyard.
Ok, that makes sense and I don't see how I skipped over it. Thanks!
Modern Masters is not a good set to buy if you are looking for any profit. My buddy is really serious into making a profit off of MTG, and he was strongly considering Masters, but decided against it finally.
Just split a box of Gatecrash with 2 friends. I pulled one Mythic (Giant Adephage) and some decent rares, along with a foiled Clan Defiance. That, however, pales in comparison to my two friends; one of my mates pulled three mythics, one of which was Obzedat (he plays an Orzhov deck) and the other friend pulled lots of nice stuff for his Dimir deck, and here I am stuck with the "rest". :/
The Bringer wrote: Modern Masters is not a good set to buy if you are looking for any profit. My buddy is really serious into making a profit off of MTG, and he was strongly considering Masters, but decided against it finally.
Hold on to a box and you'll be able to sell it for a great deal in a few years
The Bringer wrote: Modern Masters is not a good set to buy if you are looking for any profit. My buddy is really serious into making a profit off of MTG, and he was strongly considering Masters, but decided against it finally.
Hold on to a box and you'll be able to sell it for a great deal in a few years
Do you think you have to have Cheaty Face in the deck in order to play him?
for the cards you are buying-- yeah, they look fine, but without decklists there isn't much feedback anyone can give you...
and no, you don't have to have cheatyface "in" the deck to cheat it in, although unless your friends are really laid back and/or also play with the Un sets, I don't think they'll let you get away with using them more than once before they get annoyed with it.
Cheatyface is a card from the old joke set Unhinged. He was a 2/2 with flying for 3 blue mana. If you paid the mana costs and managed to get him into play without your opponent noticing it, then he could remain in play. If your opponent caught you doing it, he could remove cheatyface from the game.
I managed to win my FNM draft again this week. We had a single 12-person pod, which was interesting. The deck I lost to two drafts ago was Gruul with two mythics, and Gruul decks have seemed to repeatedly be scary even when I've beaten them, due to big fast creatures, ramp and combat tricks. This time when I saw Ruric Thar first pack I figured I might try it, and then when I kept getting passed Rubblebelt Maaka and some good green aI knd red uncommons and creatures, it really fell together. My only real divergence was in the RTR pack, where I immediately opened Jace. Yay! Normally I just draft to play, not for cash value, but I thought that one was obligatory. Here's the deck I wound up with:
Burst of Strength
Savage Surge
Punish the Enemy
Experiment One
Disciple of the Old Ways
Kraul Warrior
Brushstrider
Gore-House Chainwalker
Gyre Sage
Zhur-Taa Druid
Ash Zealot
Bomber Corps
Drudge Beetle
Splatter Thug
Hellraiser Goblin
Ivy Lane Denizen
Rubblebelt Maaka (4)
Scab-Clan Giant
Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
Gruul Ragebeast
Both have been made with cards I already own, so those two are both fully up and running right now. Also, please note the Archeomancer/midnight recovery/simulacrum combo, as well as Duskmantle Guildmage and Mind Crank.
Limited (Draft, Sealed, etc) decks are 40 cards minimum. With all the 1-ofs, it seems that the deckbuilder put his draft/sealed deck up and called it "standard".
So with all the FNM drafts and watching some good draft vids online (LSV is definitely the best, although even more amusing when he's got Ben Stark and the crew in the room), I wound up also getting the itch for Standard.
Finally took the plunge, traded a few old cards (including three Revised dual lands) for some Standard stuff, and played a couple of events last weekend. Built a quick Red/Green agro deck and played in a 14 person thing at my FLGS (The Game Castle, in Londonderry) Saturday evening and wound up splitting for the win in the last round. Which was good, as I knew I would have to get lucky to beat his U/W/x control deck.
Then tried a TCG Games Silver cash event being held at the same store on Sunday. This one had 40-odd people and the caliber of competition was definitely steeper. I won round one against another RG Aggro deck which was a bit more diluted than mine. I then got paired against much the same U/W control deck as the night before, played by an experienced player, and lost 0-2. Then got paired against a fast Jund midrange deck piloted by Neal Sacks, who took the TCG series Massachusetts state championship a month or two ago with the same deck. Ouch. I gave him a decent couple of games but still lost convincingly. Fourth round played against the Blue/White control yet again, piloted by quite a nice kid, but one who also kept Miracleing Terminus off the top of his deck. Double ouch. Got smoked. Dropped after round 4 to go do family stuff, but I did a fair amount of trading before the tournament and between rounds.
Next weekend there's a Pro Tour Theros qualifier right in my city, and despite my poor results I'm still sorely tempted. Especially with top prize including a flight to Dublin. Next weekend may be all-gaming; Friday night do some more trading to upgrade to a more competitive deck, Saturday there's an 1850 40k tournament at the Game Castle, and Sunday the PTQ. Why not? I just wish the PTQ was limited; Sealed/Draft. I'd be pretty darn comfortable playing DGR block.
I'm beginning to think you just like a good competition .
I'm debating about playing in w/e magic tournament is being held this friday with my red/white/black deck but I'm not sure what we're playing. If it's something good I'll play that, if not I might play in the tournament.
I was 2-0-2 in the tournament today, a personal best for a beginner like me... not sure how to make my red/white deck better... if anyone wants to trade mtg for warhammer do PM me lol My EDH deck is where all the love and hard work went into...all the home made tokens...all mlp themed
It doesn't because copying is not casting. Populating a token is not casting a creature, copying a spell doesn't mean it's cast twice, otherwise the Cyclops and similar would become massive in a Modern storm deck. It would work with flashback though, so if you cast a spell from your hand and then cast it in the graveyard using Flashback, the Cyclops would become a 7/4 that turn.
Also the Cyclops effect only triggers in response to the spell being cast, so doesn't trigger if sacrificed to the spell. This is important if you were to cast Fling upon it for example. Though Fling still works well in a deck as a finisher as the Cyclops can still be quite large in the right sort of deck, so if your Cyclops was a 7/4 as above and you cast fling on it, it would do 7 damage, not 10.
I took the dual color personality test, came up with White/Blue and put together a deck. Overall good results. Good mana generation and creature playing. Like any deck once in awhile I get bad draws that lose the game or a deck I just can't beat.
Alright so I've just started playing this with my mates. We pretty much only play near-pauper multiplayer (mostly commons with a few rares in each deck) and I'm wondering if anyone can point me in the direction of some decks or playstyles or whatever that are good fun?
Currently run some variation of a Red Goblin spam deck, generally with a bunch of "tap, 1 damage to target player / all opponents" type cards. Either bum rush them with heaps of boosted Goblins or sit back, build up a huge defense, and grind everyone down all at once with my tap/player damage cards.
I've always been a fan of green, and trample decks are my favorite go-to. Good ways to learn different deck types are either looking at decklists people have posted online, or by playing people and seeing how they make their decks. Challenge yourself- go look up a few deck lists, and see if you can piece together how they work (try playtesting them if the site supports that) just by reading through the card list!
I'm going to one on the thirteenth, but am not sure how to go about doing it. Since most of my decks aren't complete yet, I'm not sure how to go about it.
Slarg232 wrote: I'm going to one on the thirteenth, but am not sure how to go about doing it. Since most of my decks aren't complete yet, I'm not sure how to go about it.
What is "Standard" magic anyway? 60 cards?
For a Pre-release like the one on the 13th, you don't bring a deck (well, I guess you could, but you can't use it in the tournament).
You're given 6 booster packs of the new m14 cards and all the lands you want. Using these cards, you have to build a 40 card deck and play with that.
I think that they could be the most balanced magic event because nobody can spend $100 dollars to get the best cards for a deck. Instead, they could only have up to 6 rares/mythic rares.
My store is doing it Friday night at Midnight (so technically Saturday). I'm seriously tempted to do it, I'm not very good with deck construction, but I figured 6 boosters for 25 bucks isn't that bad of a deal, though normally my FLGS has a buy 3 packs for 10 bucks (instead of 3 packs for 12). I'm pretty terrible with deck construction though . Though obviously everyone is limited to what they get in their boosters
Edit: Standard Magic is the 2 current blocks in rotation and the latest year Core. So until July 19th, the current "standard" is 2013, Innistrad Block (Innistrad, Dark Ascension, Avacyn Restored), and Return to Ravnica block (Return to Ravnica, Gatecrash, Dragon's Maze). And then once 2014 comes out, 2013 drops out of Standard.
So anybody else going to play magic at Gencon? I was interested in the Modern Championship qualifier- is anyone else interested in the Modern format?
I've just recently gotten back into it from a hiatus(Started at Scourge/8th edition and stopped at Zendikar). Was also curious if anyone plays around middle or west Tennessee, north Mississippi, or northwest Alabama and know of a good shop or two.
So for my tournament play, I was thinking about a list that goes something like this: (Prepare your Donkey Caves). I'm also looking to improve this list lol.
DemetriDominov wrote: So for my tournament play, I was thinking about a list that goes something like this: (Prepare your Donkey Caves). I'm also looking to improve this list lol.
- Vault of the Archangel
4x Mountain
4x Plains
4x Swamp
9x Assorted Dual Lands
Why not drop the red? Focus more on discard, and add in more removal? Orzhov charm would be a straight swap for Boros charm- can kill a creature, bounce a rat(with a possible ethereal armor), or return a drainpipe vermin. Purge the profane seems a straight up better card than mental vapors- it guarantees 2 discarded cards and gains you two life.Duress stays in standard with M14, which would seem to be a good fit for your deck.
I'm keeping red because I want to keep Spark Trooper and Boros Charm. I can deal 10 damage and gain 6 life by turn 4.
I was thinking about putting in Infernal Plunge as well to accelerate this and pump out 12 damage and 12 life gain by turn 4. This damage is amplified to 16 and 16 if I can get out Blind Obedience, Contaminate Ground, Shrieking Affliction, and Ethereal Armor - putting them in range of instant death from a Boros Charm.
If I put in Vexing Devil until the change up, that's 20 damage and 16 lifegain by turn 4 with another 4 damage (or another Spark Trooper for between 6 and 10) for insurance on turn 5
Not even Thragtusk can do that.
I will definitely consider purge the profane and duress though - removing counters is a must for this deck.
What dual lands do you have? The way I count it- you have 13 red, 24 black, and 16 white symbols in your deck- depending in your duals you might shift your basics around to reflect that. Not to mention, most of your red and white come on during later turns. (Most of the red comes from spark trooper itself)
Yeah, with WotC being a big sponsor, they have a TON of magic goings on. You can draft for 90 hours straight if you have the stamina. While I'm there I might try a draft or two, if I'm not worn out or discouraged after the Modern tournament.
Here's my Modern deck I've been playing around with- I would appreciate any feedback on it.
Sideboard(15) 3 Seal of Fire
2 Elspeth, Knight Errant
2 Smash to Smithereens
2 Lightning Helix
4 Guerrilla Tactics
2 Figure of Destiny
My idea with my sideboard is not to change my overall strategy, but put in cards that would help my deck perform better against certain opponents- Such as siding in Smash against Affinity. It doesn't change the deck, but it adds more removal/burn against that archetype.
So far, I average a turn 4 "win" very consistently goldfishing. Dream hands can be a turn 3 win. The biggest concern is my sideboard- I'm not sure Figure of Destiny and Guerrilla Tactics are the best fit. Any ideas on something that might help against something like Jund or another creature heavy deck?
I've done some playtesting, and attrition and heavy creature based decks are trouble for me. I can easily race control/combo usually, but that could just be a flaw from playing against myself(most of my friends quit magic/moved away/ or aren't interested in Modern.
I think tonight is the night of a thousand losses .
We've got our pre-release going on tonight at midnight. So I'll play in that event (6 boosters plus unlimited lands), might pick up an intro pack because why not (depending on price), and I'll have to find something to do for 2 hours between when the store "closes" and my 40k buddies leave and when the event starts.
*drops to knees* NOOOOOO I thought I saw somewhere it was being reprinted... Now I have to find a decent replacement for my deck :-\
Edit: Might have to change it out for Wild Guess instead... which does almost the same effect but it's discarding a card instead of losing 2 life.
Edit: Is anyone planning on picking up an intro pack? I think just because of my old vampire deck that I had forever ago I'm going to pick up the Death Reaper intro pack.
It's basically replacing 2 cards in your hand for RR. Altar's Reap might work. 1B, Instant. Sacrifice a creature as an additional cost. Draw 2 cards. If you're about to lose a creature anyway, or use something like Spark Elemental it might be a fit
EDIT: I am. The Death Reaper as well. I really like the new rare zombie.
Sinful Hero wrote: It's basically replacing 2 cards in your hand for RR. Altar's Reap might work. 1B, Instant. Sacrifice a creature as an additional cost. Draw 2 cards. If you're about to lose a creature anyway, or use something like Spark Elemental it might be a fit
EDIT: I am. The Death Reaper as well. I really like the new rare zombie.
I'm unsure of how many creatures I could potentially afford to lose... There is the dual card from Gatecrash that has the effect for 1 more colorless... The only problem the added mana cost. I have some Toil//Trouble cards and I'd probably rarely use Trouble (as I hope to not have a need for 6 mana (i.e. the deck wants to win before it gets to that point).
Is it worth swapping out Sign in Blood to stay Standard compliant with a card that costs 1 more mana to do the same exact thing?
I think it would be worth it. Toil//Trouble has the added benefit of sometimes being a finisher if you need. You can use it as burn, or draw, or both. It's also easier to cast being 2B instead of BB.
Toil//Trouble was originally taken out of the deck because of what it could do but at sorcery speed rather than instant speed. Granted SiB is the same speed... just less mana...
If you want to keep it standard, and want to draw cards in black/red, I think toil//trouble would be better than wild guess, that is, unless you have a glut of cards at 3 mana already. Wild Guess just replaces 2 cards, while toil nets you one. Is the versatility of toil//trouble worth the extra mana?
I went W:2 and L:3. It was rough, my last opponent I'm fairly certain his dad helped him build his deck and it was a rough one. With that being said I pulled Chandra's Phoenix, Fiendslayer Paladin (I need more of these ), Ajani's Chosen, The blue sliver that gives slivers flying, the red sliver that gives "when this creature attacks, deal 1 damage..." and Jace, Memory Adept, which was from the first pack I opened . If I felt I could have done blue I would have totally done it simply because of Jace.
My first game was against this guy who was running a green white deck, I didn't get to see much because it was basically always the same few cards ,and he beat me 2 games to nothing. Second game was against another veteran player, who ran red, black, and splashed some green in for a bunch of spiders and the primordial bounty he pulled (the green mythic rare). I went into that round thinking, "If I can win 1 of the 3 games, I won't care and I'll consider the round a success." I stomped him both games >_< and won 2-0 thanks to that fantastic Fiendslayer Paladin with Lightning Talons. Third round I won against a green and white sliver deck It wasn't very good, he was looking for a reason to play the non-promo version of the promo card he pulled. I helped him out a few times and he said I was the best opponent of the night . I think after losing 3 straight rounds he left :-\. 4th round I played against a green and red beast deck that had some solid pieces, and it was rough... I had no chance against that deck, he literally had a response for everything I could do and then he brought out that dang scavenging ooze and I couldn't do anything but try an act of treason and used it against him. I was hoping I had my card that allows target player to sacrifice an attacking or blocking creature. I would have played that on his ooze and laughed as I couldn't regenerate it because I didn't have green mana (stupid trollhide enchantment). Round 5 was against a similar deck, although without the ooze. I lost that one 2-1. Walked upstairs, reported my game and bought the Chandra blue/red deck and pulled the megantic sliver and some other card that escapes me.
Not a bad evening, it was fun as hell but I'm fething tired now.
You know you can't regenerate a creature if you're forced to sacrifice it? Regenerate only works against destroy effects and damage. I'm guessing you went red/white using the Phoenix and Fiendslayer? Don't suppose you'd mind posting your card pool and what your deck used?
Yeah, sacrifice is a way to get away regeneration, hexproof, and even indestructible. Sorry hoss. Yeah, if you wouldn't mind I'd like to see what you used and pulled. It's always fun to brainstorm and theorycraft.
Alfndrate wrote: I was hoping I had my card that allows target player to sacrifice an attacking or blocking creature. I would have played that on his ooze and laughed as I couldn't regenerate it because I didn't have green mana (stupid trollhide enchantment).
Sacrifice is a cost that has to be paid. There's no cheating it to stop it going the graveyard. If you were to 'regenerate' a sacrificed creature then it wouldn't have died.
It works for both your and your opponents spells, sometimes you'll be forced to sacrifice a creature by an opponent's spell, but you have some free choice within that. Your opponent can't choose the creature you have to sacrifice for you, as it's your cost to meet. There are also spells that you own that require you to sacrifice a creature as an additional part of the casting cost, if you don't sacrifice something then you haven't met the cost of the spell, you may as well ask why you have to tap all the mana to cast a spell. Look at the 'cost' of creature sacrifice in that way.
The only possible cheat with sacrifice is creatures with the ability of Wither or Undying, which say that creatures going into the graveyard are returned to the battlefield with counters attached. In this case you can sacrifice a creature and potentially get it back. This is particularly potent in decks using things like Birthing Pod.
Here is what I ran last night: Sentinel Sliver x2 Thunder Strike x2 Show of Valor Divine Favor Celestial Flare Capashen Knight Goblin Shortcutter Griffin Sentinel x2 Lighting Talons x2 Act of Treason Blur Sliver Flames of the Firebrand Fiendslayer Paladin Chandra's Phoneix Chandra's Outrage Marauding Maulhorn Ajani's Chosen Dawnstrike Paladin Thorncaster Sliver Pitchburn Devils Mountain x 8 Plains x8
Tenacious Dead Duress Shadowborn Apostle Festering Newt x2 Dark Favor Child of Night Blood Bairn x2 Mark of the Vampire Diabolic Tutor Liturgy of Blood Sengir Vampire Minotaur Abomination
Red:
Spoiler:
Smelt Wild Guess Act of Treason (should have included this in my deck for a second one of those) Regathan Firecat Dragon Egg Demolish Lava Axe
Green:
Spoiler:
Lay of the Land Giant Growth Ranger's Guile x2 Manaweft Sliver Predatory Sliver Naturalize x2 Advocate of the Beast Megantic Sliver (this was the promo card, so I couldn't use it) Groundshaker Sliver Howl of the Night Pack x2
Artifacts Accorder's Shield Staff of the Flame Magus x2 Rod of Ruin
Edit: So if he regens the creature I never forced him to sacrifice something? I guess I'm confused... it was a "rare" occurrance...
I originally came to the thread to say I had a good M14 prerelease. I don't really enjoy sealed and lost three matches in a row and then won three in a row meaning I just qualified for a prize booster.
I didn't get any big pulls from my packs, mostly decent utility rares and stuff that I will use but aren't money cards. Two of my packs had foil rares which is good going.
Thunder Strike
Molten Birth (I got to play this 4 times in a row at one point!)
Dragon Hatchling
Volcanic Geyser
Shock X2
Demolish X2
Flames of the Firebrand
Regenerating Firecat (never actually played it)
Pitchburn Devils
Blur Sliver
Marauding Maulhorn
8 Mountains
One of my opponents was also running a Red/Green deck.
He didn't nothing but riffle shuffle for the entire tournament.
When he showed me his deck, it was bent at least 25 degrees. When he showed me his Chandra (which was mangled), I almost wept.
I also got a Darksteel Forge, which is worth a bit and will make a great sale.
My prerelease wasn't too bad. I got through trades and pulls all but like 2 of the cards I was looking for out of the set. I was also able to get some cards through trades for a draconic-goblin EDH deck. My actual sealed deck went 1-4 with the win against slivers in what turned into a red/green control deck.
I wound up doing three of these. Two yesterday and then decided to go ahead and do the 5pm today because my friend Lorne was back from Maine in time, and my friend Phil (who hit the noon yesterday with me) was also coming out, so we had three strong for Team Bacon (we use bacon sleeves).
First event was only 8 people as so many local players were sleeping in from the night before. I got Shadowborn Demon and Tenacious Dead, as well as some other good black (two Accursed Spirit, Grim Return, a Syphon Sliver to go with a green Predatory, the artifact one, and the Trampling 5/5) and good green, a little bit of fixing and two Flames of the Firebrand which I splashed. Only had the 5 mana removal spell and a couple of Hunt the Weak for removal (and the two red spells). Also a Mutavault. Went 2/1, losing in the third round to a red/green/black deck with Shivan, the doublestrike equipment, Mark of the Vampire, and a bunch of generally good creatures.
Second event was 25-30 people, went the normal four rounds. This time my pool had a bunch of crap rares. Lots of direct damage (Chandra's Outrage, Shock, 2x Volcanic Geyser) and mana fixing, though, and a good number of slivers. I had the haste one, the first striker, two Predatory, a Battle, Trample, manaweft and Syphon again. I also had both Shiv's Embrace and Mark of the Vampire. Between my Manaweft, a Lay of the Land, Verdant Haven, Darksteel Ingot, a Shimmering Grotto and a Swamp I had no issues paying for my splashed Syphon Sliver and Mark of the Vampire. No black removal at all. This deck easily could have gone 3/1 and maybe 4/0, but I got utterly manaflooded in back to back games in round 3. I got most of my Slivers and Mark of the Vampire in game one against that opponent; got up to 38 life before he managed to kill my lifelinker and take over the game with a Shivan and another flyer. Argh. I drew lands for eight straight turns to lose that game. Second game I kept a land-heavy hand and again drew mostly land. Yuck.
This evening we had 30 players and my pool was a bit better, though contained no fixing (well, one Lay of the Land). I ran blue/red:
9 Mountain
8 Island
Fireshrieker (that's that doublestrike equipment)
Young Pyromancer
Chandra's Phoenix
Shiv's Embrace
Dragon Hatchling
Goblin Shortcutter
Pitchburn Devils
2x Canyon Minotaur
Thunder Strike
2x Shock
2x Volcanic Geyser
Archaeomancer
2x Messender Drake
Phantom Warrior
Trained Condor
Claustrophobia
Cancel
Essence Scatter
Disperse
I actually had a pretty good, deep Green pool again, and was tempted to run Green/Red again, but Blue had the evasive creatures, the archaeomancer, and more good instants with which to generate elementals with the young pyro. Black was also briefly tempting with a Lilliana's Reaver,Diabolic Tutor and some other decent creatures, but just one Quag Sickness for removal wasn't cutting it. Seriously, 28 packs with not a single Doom Blade? WTF? I think about half of my opponents had Shivan Dragon and I couldn't get one piece of efficient black removal? Yeesh.
I went 4/0 with extremely tight, competitive games in every round except maybe round 1. Round 2 I got payback against the young lady who beat me in the final yesterday. Round 4 I had a really epic 2/1 match against another local who I've been matched up with recently and is quite a good player and nice guy (his quite cute girlfriend is also nice and quite a respectable player too). Both of my teammates went 3/1, so a great showing for Team Bacon.
I managed to trade for a Chandra and pick up a second one in my prize packs tonight too, which was sweet. I also fulfilled both the Chandra and Garruk achievements on my achievement scorecard. Good times. I don't think this set's nearly as exciting as the Return block, of course, but I'm still looking forward to drafting it. I actually think I find the new Slivers much less annoying than the old ones.Oh, and a tip: If you're in green at all, take/run Naturalize. It's almost certainly worth maindecking, whereas in DGR block it was just a sideboard card. In this, some of the biggest game-swingers I've seen are Shiv's Embrace, Mark of the Vampire, Haunted Armor and Fireshrieker. Also, some of the best/available removal your opponents will be running are also enchantments- like Claustrophobia, Pacifism, and Domestication. Seriously, Naturalize is huge.
Ugh, I want to see how my red/white deck works with Chandra in it.
Forgot to mention, one of the guys at the event I went to bought a modern master's pack, asked the store owner and myself to touch it for good luck so he'd pull a foil Tarmogoyf. I touched it, and said, "You're not gonna pull a foil one since I touched it, sorry dude." He opens the pack and pulls a non-foil Tarmogoyf. He thought about trading it downstairs, but the store owner offered him a box of M14 cards for the Tarmogoyf. The kid tried to push his luck and get the extra 50 dollars the card had in store credit (apparently it's a 150 dollar card non foil). I looked at him and said, "I'd take that deal in a heartbeat, because you have to remember he has to sell that card to make 150 bucks. If he doesn't sell it, you've got a free box of cards."
Yeah, Tarmogoyf is quite the sought after card- I personally would have kept it. I unfortunately didn't get to attend a prerelease, but at least I get to think of decks using everyone else's cards. Is the standard release next weekend, or do they still do that? I assume it will be basic draft format if they do.
Yup, regular draft format. I most likely won't be partaking as I'm terrible at deck building. I might buy a few packs though, or see if I can get the cards I'm missing for my Red/White deck.
Here is my current Eldrazi Deck which I have been playing for fun
Spoiler:
Artifact (14)
4xExpedition Map
t4xQuicksilver Amulet
2xScroll Rack
4xSol Ring
Creature (20)
1xEmrakul, the Aeons Torn
4xIt That Betrays
1xKozilek, Butcher of Truth
4xPalladium Myr
2xPathrazer of Ulamog
1xUlamog, the Infinite Gyre
3xUlamog's Crusher
4xWalking Atlas
Ugh, that Eldrazi deck is mean. As for your swarm, first start would be lands. Land, lands, lands, lands. Overgrown Tomb would be ideal if you can get hold of a playset, and the innistrad b/g land I forget the name of.
After that, it depends on what you want to do. Are you wanting to be more aggressive, or take a more control approach? Black/green does attrition well, and you're in color for some of the best cards in the format. I'm quite partial to Abrupt Decay, and Dreg Mangler, but ymmv.
Sinful Hero wrote: Ugh, that Eldrazi deck is mean. As for your swarm, first start would be lands. Land, lands, lands, lands. Overgrown Tomb would be ideal if you can get hold of a playset, and the innistrad b/g land I forget the name of.
After that, it depends on what you want to do. Are you wanting to be more aggressive, or take a more control approach? Black/green does attrition well, and you're in color for some of the best cards in the format. I'm quite partial to Abrupt Decay, and Dreg Mangler, but ymmv.
Edit: grammar, useless text
The Eldrazi Deck is pretty fantastic, I can generally get an Eldrazi out by turn 4 at the latest, by then it's pretty hard for my oponnets to come back from. The Mana ramp up with Cloudposts is just insane.
Any ideas for modifications? I'm not sure if I'm a big fan of Vraska, and I most of those creatures would be better if I had 4 of each of them. I'm also thinking to throw abrubt decay in instead of tragic slip.
I'm a huge fan of Rubblebelt Raiders, Daggerdrome Imps, and Increasing Savagery (Give/Take works if you're on a budget).
Potential Combos:
Corpsejack Menace + Daggerdrome Imp + Increasing Savagery = an 11/11 with flying and lifelink.
Rubblebelt Raiders + some chaff (slitherheads!) + Corpsejack(s) = a ridiculous an extreme powerhouse. For extra lulls, use Jarad/a Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage (another card I suggest) to either do 10-20 points of auto-damage or spawn 10-20 saprolings.
What about Experiment One instead of Slitherhead? I'm not feeling the Vraska either, she seems a little tacked on. Strangleroot Geist looks like a great fit, but I'm not sure what you would cut.
All the three of's bother me a bit- maybe cut it down to the meat of the deck. If you're wanting to max out in he counters theme, maybe replace Slitherhead with Experiment One, and Gravecrawler with Rakdos Cackler, and maybe cut the nighthawk for filling out those three-of's. Or the fit for Stangleroot Geist? Would give you a pretty aggressive B/G deck.
Edit: I think Abrupt Decay instead of Tragic Slip would be a good move- a little more versatile, and putrefy can handle the big stuff.
Sinful Hero wrote: What about Experiment One instead of Slitherhead? I'm not feeling the Vraska either, she seems a little tacked on. Strangleroot Geist looks like a great fit, but I'm not sure what you would cut.
All the three of's bother me a bit- maybe cut it down to the meat of the deck. If you're wanting to max out in he counters theme, maybe replace Slitherhead with Experiment One, and Gravecrawler with Rakdos Cackler, and maybe cut the nighthawk for filling out those three-of's. Or the fit for Stangleroot Geist? Would give you a pretty aggressive B/G deck.
Edit: I think Abrupt Decay instead of Tragic Slip would be a good move- a little more versatile, and putrefy can handle the big stuff.
I think the Slitherhead is for the pretty much free 2/2 counters you can throw on a Lotleth troll. I'm going to drop Vraska for sure though. I also am a big fan of Strangleroot Gheist, throwing them in is a pretty good idea.
I much prefer the Gravecrawler to Rakdos cackler though, as he can give free stacks to Lotleth Troll, and is a pretty good card on it's own.
'm a huge fan of Rubblebelt Raiders, Daggerdrome Imps, and Increasing Savagery (Give/Take works if you're on a budget).
Potential Combos:
Corpsejack Menace + Daggerdrome Imp + Increasing Savagery = an 11/11 with flying and lifelink.
Rubblebelt Raiders + some chaff (slitherheads!) + Corpsejack(s) = a ridiculous an extreme powerhouse. For extra lulls, use Jarad/a Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage (another card I suggest) to either do 10-20 points of auto-damage or spawn 10-20 saprolings.
These are some ridiclous combos, that had not even crossed my mind!
So many choices!
I really apperciate the advice fellas, I'll probably post my Idea for a preliminary deck tomorrow, and pick up the rest of the cards I need this Thursday.
Have you tested it yet? It seems like the two wouldn't work quite well together, like Sentinel Sliver and Fiendslayer Paladin on the field, the sliver is just a generic 2/2 with vigilance. Imho, it seems like they don't build on each other like slivers should do. A hand full of slivers, or a hand full of non-slivers would be good, but if you draw a mix it's kinda meh. I would try to choose one or the other to focus on.
You should include something for card draw, Altar's Reap is ideal because it gels well with Slitherhead and Gravecrawler, either of which you are happy to send to the graveyard. Alternatively, Sign in Blood.
Howard A Treesong wrote: You should include something for card draw, Altar's Reap is ideal because it gels well with Slitherhead and Gravecrawler, either of which you are happy to send to the graveyard. Alternatively, Sign in Blood.
Howard A Treesong wrote: You should include something for card draw, Altar's Reap is ideal because it gels well with Slitherhead and Gravecrawler, either of which you are happy to send to the graveyard. Alternatively, Sign in Blood.
Is Jarad's Orders not enough for that?
Or are you saying I should add more in addition to it?
Also, here is what I"ve got so far after modifications
Jarad's Orders is good but costs four, by the time you can afford that you should be doing something better in your fourth turn rather than finding creatures for your fifth turn. Standard tends to be quite a fast game. Sign in Blood and Altar's Reap can both be played early to find early game land and gives card advantage. Grisly Salvage doesn't give card advantage because you spend a card to get a card, but does let you find land or a creature and full your graveyard, which is ideal if you're dumping scavenge creatures or Gravecrawlers.
Sign in blood is leaving standard with m14 though, so if you weren't going to use Jarad's Orders, it would have to be Altar's Reap. You might think about when you would play it also- with Desecration Demon and Corpsejack Menace, would you really be playing it on the fourth turn, or would it be more likely to be pushed back to five or later? When would be the best turn to play it?
Also, you might switch your basic land to 9 swamp, and 7 forest(or just take out a forest): you're a lot more black intensive than green.
Have you tested it yet? It seems like the two wouldn't work quite well together, like Sentinel Sliver and Fiendslayer Paladin on the field, the sliver is just a generic 2/2 with vigilance. Imho, it seems like they don't build on each other like slivers should do. A hand full of slivers, or a hand full of non-slivers would be good, but if you draw a mix it's kinda meh. I would try to choose one or the other to focus on.
The only testing I got was during the pre-release event, so I haven't gotten a chance to test it at it's "60 card strength". I would rather play it as one or the other, but I just can't figure out what do to. And I rarely got the Thorncaster Sliver, so he was almost a moot point in the deck. Most of the time I ended up basically running a sliver deck, or an everything else deck just based on my draws. If nothing else, I might run a GRW sliver deck.
Edit: Besides Sasori's deck, any ideas on an Eldrazi deck? I was listening to purplefood get crushed on m14 Duel of the Planeswalkers last night against an Eldrazi deck and it reminded me I have a few of them.
Either make a dedicated mana ramp deck, or reanimation. It depends on your collection, what you have access to, and how fast you want it to be. On MTGO, my friend plays a pauper Eldrazi reanimator- a turn 3 Eldrazi sucks to play against(unless I'm holding that pacifism).
Edit: grammar
I think I need to branch out in M14 Currently I've been running my Red/White/Black Deck, which will probably inherit my shocks once Pillar of Flame disappears
I'd write out that decklist, but I don't remember it off-hand .
The rotation of Searing Spear and Pillar of Flame make me a sad panda, I need to find new burn spells .
Flames of the Firebrand seems like a semi-good replacement, but it's 3 mana. So Shock will most likely replace Pillar of Flame, and I'm thinking that unless I can find a better replacement, I'll try to pick up Turn//Burn for a 2 mana burn spell... Ugh... That 3 damage for 2 mana is too good to see disappear in Standard D:
Howard A Treesong wrote: Jarad's Orders is good but costs four, by the time you can afford that you should be doing something better in your fourth turn rather than finding creatures for your fifth turn. Standard tends to be quite a fast game. Sign in Blood and Altar's Reap can both be played early to find early game land and gives card advantage. Grisly Salvage doesn't give card advantage because you spend a card to get a card, but does let you find land or a creature and full your graveyard, which is ideal if you're dumping scavenge creatures or Gravecrawlers.
Sign in blood is leaving standard with m14 though, so if you weren't going to use Jarad's Orders, it would have to be Altar's Reap. You might think about when you would play it also- with Desecration Demon and Corpsejack Menace, would you really be playing it on the fourth turn, or would it be more likely to be pushed back to five or later? When would be the best turn to play it?
Also, you might switch your basic land to 9 swamp, and 7 forest(or just take out a forest): you're a lot more black intensive than green.
Alright, that makes very good sense, I'll swap the Jarad's orders with Altar's reap, as well as swapping out a forest for a swamp.
Alright, I've redone my deck a bit, and I think this is probably what I'm going to stick to, for the moment.
There are so many more cards I want to add, but I think at least the Main deck is done for now. The Sideboard probably needs a bit more tinkering though. Main Deck:
Well, what do you plan to use each card in you sideboard? Are you just siding in hate cards, or do you have a specific strategy against certain deck archetypes(control, zoo, burn, aggro, reanimator, etc) Let's say you have Deathrite Shaman and Scavenging Ooze for a match against a reanimator deck. what will you take out? is your deck already good against a reanimator? if it a bad matchup?
With each card, you need to have an idea what to take out, or your deck could end up weaker than just leaving it alone. You need to try to find out what your deck's weaknesses are, and try to have a sideboard to help mitigate that.
4 Pillar of Flame
4 Searing Spear
3 Brimstone Volley
4 Mutavault
18 Mountains
Unfortunately, Searing Spear will be rotating out with m14. Have you considered Rakdos Shred-Freak instead of Lightning Mauler?
Spear doesn't rotate until rotation - which happens when the new block is released. There's a 3 month overlap with 2 base sets legal in Standard.
Shred-Freak requires two colored mana - which isn't a big deal, but it does make it slightly more likely to be stuck in your hand. In addition, Mauler has the ability to drop on the third turn with Cackler or Noble or fourth turn with a Mutavault to give them both Haste - it's not a lot, but the pros do outweigh the cons of not having Haste as a static ability.
The Shred-freak requires a second colored mana, but with the way you have your lands set up, if you don't have a second mountain by turn 2 or by turn whenever then there might be something wrong with the mana distribution of your deck. Ideally you'd probably like to start the game with what 1 mutavault if you can get it and 2 mountains? That should pose no issue with getting the Shred-freak out. Though I do see why you'd want him atm over the shred-freak. Is there not a card with battalion that gives something haste?
As for the Searing Spear discussion, both Spear and Pillar of Flame are rotating out at the end of September, so while you're legal now, you're only legal for 3 more months.
Any idea on what you'll replace those cards with? I'm assuming that Pillar will be replaced by Shock.
Alfndrate wrote: The Shred-freak requires a second colored mana, but with the way you have your lands set up, if you don't have a second mountain by turn 2 or by turn whenever then there might be something wrong with the mana distribution of your deck. Ideally you'd probably like to start the game with what 1 mutavault if you can get it and 2 mountains? That should pose no issue with getting the Shred-freak out. Though I do see why you'd want him atm over the shred-freak. Is there not a card with battalion that gives something haste?
As for the Searing Spear discussion, both Spear and Pillar of Flame are rotating out at the end of September, so while you're legal now, you're only legal for 3 more months.
Any idea on what you'll replace those cards with? I'm assuming that Pillar will be replaced by Shock.
What should happen and what variance will inevitably throw in your face at the worst possible time are two different things - no point in playing something that you "shouldn't" have trouble casting when there's a viable (and in many situations, better) alternative that you should have even less trouble casting. The only situation that Mauler is worse than Shred-Freak in is when you have no other creatures on the board or your opponent plays instant speed removal on you Soulbound target - that's it. IMO, that's more than balanced by the fact that it can grant one of your 1-drops Haste if you happen to draw one after the first turn and gives you more keepable opening hands.
I wouldn't speculate on what I'll be playing post rotation until I have some idea what post rotation will look like - and that won't be until Theros is spoiled.
Alfndrate wrote: I guess I don't see how you can have trouble casting a 2 Red creature vs a 1C 1 Red creature when almost a third of your deck consists of red mana...
I'm not saying it's likely that I'd get screwed or that I'd have trouble casting it 95% of the time - I'm saying that however unlikely it is there's no reason to play something that cost RR over something that cost 1R that does basically the same thing with a bonus.
Alfndrate wrote: I guess I don't see how you can have trouble casting a 2 Red creature vs a 1C 1 Red creature when almost a third of your deck consists of red mana...
I'm not saying it's likely that I'd get screwed or that I'd have trouble casting it 95% of the time - I'm saying that however unlikely it is there's no reason to play something that cost RR over something that cost 1R that does basically the same thing with a bonus.
As it stands now, your Lightning Mauler is better than the Shred-freak, I realize that and I don't contest it. I'm just having a hard time trying to figure out why you don't want to speculate on what you'd replace it with, unless you don't play standard. If you don't play standard than it doesn't matter.
Though with that being said, the way your deck is constructed you'd need to make a handful of changes to get it standard legal again
Ah, I stand corrected. I was under the assumption when the new core set rotates in, the old one rotates out. I believe that's what they did back when I was playing heavily- when did it change, or am I just misremembering?
With the abundance of cards like Terminus, Mizzium Mortars, and Bonfire of the Damned, relying on having a creature on the field when you play your soul bound may not be such a good idea.
Edit: Although with Mutavault, and just holdin a creature back in case of a board wiper, I can see the reasoning for the Lightning Mauler. It's basically a question of risk versus reward. You CAN haste out two creature with the mauler, but does that outweigh the benefit of guaranteed haste?
Edit2: I've been giving advice on the idea of m13 rotating out. Sorry everybody. Sign in blood is usually better than Altar's Reap unless you need a sacrifice outlet. My bad.
Alfndrate wrote: I guess I don't see how you can have trouble casting a 2 Red creature vs a 1C 1 Red creature when almost a third of your deck consists of red mana...
I'm not saying it's likely that I'd get screwed or that I'd have trouble casting it 95% of the time - I'm saying that however unlikely it is there's no reason to play something that cost RR over something that cost 1R that does basically the same thing with a bonus.
As it stands now, your Lightning Mauler is better than the Shred-freak, I realize that and I don't contest it. I'm just having a hard time trying to figure out why you don't want to speculate on what you'd replace it with, unless you don't play standard. If you don't play standard than it doesn't matter.
Though with that being said, the way your deck is constructed you'd need to make a handful of changes to get it standard legal again
I don't speculate what I'll replace it with because I have no idea what the format will look like in 3 months when I'll need to change the deck. The only thing I could do at this point to make the deck "rotation legal" is take out all the m13 and Innistrad and replace them with worse alternatives... what's the point in that?
Why plan to replace Pillar with Shock when it's possible there'll be a better alternative in Theros? Ditto Lightning Mauler. In fact, why plan on playing RDW at all when it's possible Theros will make it completely unplayable.
I'll speculate on post rotation when I actually have some information about what the post rotation card pool will look like.
Yeah, you've got another three months for m13. I honestly thought it was rotating out with m14 rotating in. What kind of sideboard were you thinking about?
Sinful Hero wrote: Yeah, you've got another three months for m13. I honestly thought it was rotating out with m14 rotating in. What kind of sideboard were you thinking about?
I'll be playing the Rb version so the SB will be a bit different - this was just an example list since Alf wrote that he had what looked like a Sliver Aggro/Burn deck and wanted to go with "one or the other" so I posted up a list that went with the more competitive of those two.
Off the top of my head, though: Boros Reckoner would replace Phoenix against Aggro, some number of Chandra would come in for Pillar against Control, 4 Mortars against Midrange, and some number of Threaten effects to round it out.
Oh yeah, and I'd probably try and squeeze in about 3 of that new Enchantment that pings whenever a nonbasic land is tapped because it's bonkers vs 3-color decks.
Instant (3)
3xTribute to Hunger
Sorcery (6)
2xAppetite for Brains
2xDuress
2xGaze of Granite
It has been working out phenomenally well.
I found I didn't really need the Altar's reap that much, as everything tends to come out so quick. I got ride of the Slitherheads, as the Diregraf ends up being even better for Scavange with a 1 cost (With Varolz of course) and it's a 1 drop 2/2
I found the Lotleth Troll didn't really need four of them. I tended to get one of them, use any others in my hands for it's discard feature. Corpsejack was just too expensive, and I didn't feel I was getting my worth out of it. Got lots of removal, and Tragic Slip heps with some of those pesky 1/1 cards. I of course, have lots of Removal, as well!
This is the deck I'm planning to take to FNM here next week, as I wish I could attend it today, but can't.
Instant (3)
3xTribute to Hunger
Sorcery (6)
2xAppetite for Brains
2xDuress
2xGaze of Granite
It has been working out phenomenally well.
I found I didn't really need the Altar's reap that much, as everything tends to come out so quick. I got ride of the Slitherheads, as the Diregraf ends up being even better for Scavange with a 1 cost (With Varolz of course) and it's a 1 drop 2/2
I found the Lotleth Troll didn't really need four of them. I tended to get one of them, use any others in my hands for it's discard feature. Corpsejack was just too expensive, and I didn't feel I was getting my worth out of it. Got lots of removal, and Tragic Slip heps with some of those pesky 1/1 cards. I of course, have lots of Removal, as well!
This is the deck I'm planning to take to FNM here next week, as I wish I could attend it today, but can't.
I didn't buy a box (not sure I can justify spending that much on a box ) I did grab 2 Blur Slivers, 2 Sentinel Slivers, 4 Striking Slivers, and 4 Hive Stirrings.
Looking to go Red/White/Green with my Sliver burn deck. I need another Thorncaster Sliver.
I'll pick up 1 to 2 more of the mana slivers, and 3 more predatory slivers. Not sure if I want the 3 or 4 mana white sliver. He gives a decent bonus, but it's a little slow for what I want
I'll probably have the deck list edited and reposted. I'd like to try play testing it, but I don't really have anyone to play with.
Alfndrate wrote: I didn't buy a box (not sure I can justify spending that much on a box ) I did grab 2 Blur Slivers, 2 Sentinel Slivers, 4 Striking Slivers, and 4 Hive Stirrings.
Looking to go Red/White/Green with my Sliver burn deck. I need another Thorncaster Sliver.
I'll pick up 1 to 2 more of the mana slivers, and 3 more predatory slivers. Not sure if I want the 3 or 4 mana white sliver. He gives a decent bonus, but it's a little slow for what I want
I'll probably have the deck list edited and reposted. I'd like to try play testing it, but I don't really have anyone to play with.
Manaweft slivers are absolutely glorious, I think they'll be used in every sliver deck.
I really like the M14 core set a lot, I may pick up another box. I really enjoy opening booster packs though
It's ok the Pillar of Flame is rotating because it was best used to exile creatures with undying or similar, Gravecrawlers and Messengers, which are also rotating. Shock is 2 damage at instant speed, so ok for now, depending on what Theros does.
Picked up a few cards here and there last night at the release event. Trying to get my hands on a second Thorncaster Sliver. I'm going to try a R/G/W Budget Sliver Deck based on cards I picked up last night, and still need to pick up. Whenever you see a *, it means that I need 1 of that card. So if you see *** Then it means I need 3 of that card.
Spoiler:
Sorceries/Instants/Enchantments 3x Giant Growth (I have plenty of these, not sure if I need the 4th )
2x Heroes Reunion (for some life gain since I don't have the Black sliver that grants lifelink)
3x Thunder Strike
4x Hive Stirrings
2x Druid's Deliverance (not sure if I want 2 more based on the next card)
2x Sundering Growth (I felt populate was a nice added bonus over Naturalize)
Things I'm not sold on: 4 Striking Slivers are nice for quick, cheap creatures that give first Strike, but I wouldn't mind dropping them down by 1 and taking 2 Bonescythe Slivers (which I don't have :-\). The same goes with the Sentinel Slivers, I'd like drop them down by 1 and take 2 Steelform Slivers. Or I could take 2 steelforms and 3 Lay of the Lands.
Anyone have good ways to playtest this on my own? I've got a bit of a weird solitaire system that I do, but based on how good I am at this game, It's not a very good gauge
Is it just me, or does Witchstalker have one of the best, albeit insanely weird, arts ever? It looks like a friggin' dachshund/wolf hybrid!
Oh, and I got creamed at the prerelease; every one at my table got Planeswalkers, I got a (foiled) Rise of the Dark Realms. Managed to get a Ring of Three Wishes and a foiled Witchstalker in my one prize pack after the tournament though, so I'm fine with going 1/4.
I went magic crazy yesterday, I reorganized my magic cards, splitting them into their sets, organized by set number, and then for everything before Return to Ravnica, it just went into a box, sorted by color. It turns out I have 401 lands sitting around.
And then I tweaked and worked on my Fire Surge pre-constructed deck, trying to add pieces to it. I kind of wish I had Chandra, but instead I've added my Jace cards since I feel more confident about him in this deck than in my Azorius deck.
Alfndrate wrote: I went magic crazy yesterday, I reorganized my magic cards, splitting them into their sets, organized by set number, and then for everything before Return to Ravnica, it just went into a box, sorted by color. It turns out I have 401 lands sitting around.
And then I tweaked and worked on my Fire Surge pre-constructed deck, trying to add pieces to it. I kind of wish I had Chandra, but instead I've added my Jace cards since I feel more confident about him in this deck than in my Azorius deck.
Nice!
My Golgari Swarm Deck has been working out really well so far. The only decks I've had a problem with, are really quick Boros Decks, when can get out of control really quickly. I generally have enough removal to deal with it though, but it depends a lot more on good hands and draws, and some of my other matchups have.
Some of the Theros art that has been spoiled looks pretty cool. Not to mention the Hydra and heads that seem to be in the set.
Greek mythology is best mythology (next to Norse)
Here is the deck I've been playing recently. It's been whooping my Rakdos' deck's butt, but it's got a few proxies so I try not to play it at magic on Fridays. I would appreciate ANY comments on the deck. It's probably the first deck where I stumbled through the deck building process and feel pretty good about it. Note: It might just be that Slivers are so synergistic that even an idiot (like me ) can play it. http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/nayas-sliver-brood/
For M14 gameday I'm bringing out my humans for a last go rather than making something new. Many are leaving standard so while I might make modern deck from them, I'll be focusing on something new in the future. There are so many great things leaving together, Silverblade Paladins and Champions of the Parish, Mayor of Avabruck, Hamlet Captain, and Thatcher Revolt.
I used to put all my cards into sleeves, but then I realized I could buy a pack, or I could buy fifty sleeves (this was when I was younger). Now, when I look at the deck of cards, I treat them almost like my armies. Did my deck do well? Okay, it has earned itself some sleeves .
I haven't made the jump to mats yet, mostly because I don't play enough to warrant them. Also, without a gallery of them, I wouldn't know which is the coolest looking
Edit: Also if anyone picked up Duel of the Planeswalkers 14, I might be interested in getting my butt kicked
Playmats are mostly decorative, although they can help keep your sleeves from getting scratched or dirtied, if the tables you're playing on aren't perfectly clean. Sometimes there might be a soda spill that gets wiped up by not properly washed, which might leave a little sticky residue on the table. I haven't gotten one yet, but probably will eventually.
Sasori was helping me work on a few of my decks tonight, catching some user error on tappedout (shoosh, no one can know about 6 Ash Zealots ). I think the biggest improvements came to my sliver deck which I could improve for almost no cost .
I'd appreciate any comments on it, as I bumbled most of it together on my own with Sasori helping me figure out a few of the bigger things. I'm still looking for 3 of the shock lands (got the guildgates in place atm) and I'm waiting on some things to come in from an online retailer.
Sasori wrote: Sleeves are a must. A lot of my cards are very expensive, and I don't want them getting torn up.
+1
Also, Dragon Shields can not only be a one-time expense if you don't mind dirty and scratched sleeves, but an investment. I've got a few hundred that I've been using for over a decade that have probably paid for themselves a dozen times over in damage they've prevented to my cards.
I've been thinking about Savage Summoning(s) to help ensure that slivers I need on the board get on the board and can't be countered. The additional +1/+1 helps it survive a single burn spell.
I wouldn't mind some low cost cards like lay of the land, except for creatures, or better yet cards that will put them on to the field.
I'm thinking of Signal the Clans...
Edit: I'm also thinking of Domri Rade, Garruk, or Descendant's Path, but that won't be standard legal for long.
Not sure I follow the question. Double strike means you deal first strike damage, and then regular damage. Which creatures you choose to deal that damage to is your decision, if all blocking creatures take full damage and there is excess it will hit the player if you have trample. You always deal damage to creatures first before the player with trample.
If you blocked a 2/2 doublestrike trample with three 1/1s, the first strike damage would kill two of the 1/1s, and the regular damage would kill the remaining 1/1 and the trample would do one damage to the defending player. The 2/2 doublestrike trample creature would only take one damage from combat and survive.
Nope. You'd kill 3(6 damage/2 defense +1 to a 4th) on the First Strike part of the Double Strike and another 4(6 damage/2+1 added to the previous 1) on the standard attack. In short, 7 2/2 creatures takes the total 14 damage.
A creature deals its damage to blockers in turn(chosen by the attacker), NOT full to every target simultaneously.
Platuan4th wrote: Nope. You'd kill 3(6 damage/2 defense +1 to a 4th) on the First Strike part of the Double Strike and another 4(6 damage/2+1 added to the previous 1) on the standard attack. In short, 7 2/2 creatures takes the total 14 damage.
A creature deals its damage to blockers in turn(chosen by the attacker), NOT full to every target simultaneously.
This is sad day.
Still 14 life.....
Quick question; Nemisis Mask and Dead-Iron Sledge is a Board Wipe, correct?
It only says "Both", but if everything blocks it, it still kicks in, correct?
Platuan4th wrote: Nope. You'd kill 3(6 damage/2 defense +1 to a 4th) on the First Strike part of the Double Strike and another 4(6 damage/2+1 added to the previous 1) on the standard attack. In short, 7 2/2 creatures takes the total 14 damage.
A creature deals its damage to blockers in turn(chosen by the attacker), NOT full to every target simultaneously.
This is sad day.
Still 14 life.....
Quick question; Nemisis Mask and Dead-Iron Sledge is a Board Wipe, correct?
It only says "Both", but if everything blocks it, it still kicks in, correct?
As long as your opponent has untapped creatures that he can block with yes. Like many of the cards in my Rakdos deck would laugh at that combo as Unleashed prevents them from blocking.
Alfndrate wrote: My rakdos deck went 2 and 2 tonight. Saw 2 sliver decks that look like mine but more annoying, so I feel like I'm on to something solid.
Bought a playmat and 9 boosters with store credit, pulled Ajani and Liliana amongst some nice cards.
I went 2-2 as well, which is a bit dissapointing!
I got a liliana as well, so it can't be all that bad.
I just need to modify my Sideboard again.
We have a PTQ here on the 10th, which I think will be a blast. I hope to break into the top 32!
Does Ghostly Prison act as a barrier to Goblin Diplomats, or do Goblin Diplomats force my opponent to pay for Ghostly Prison?
Must know, for Reasons:
Putting together a Red/Gate deck for multiplayer that punishes people for taking certain actions. Ash Zealot, Carnage Gladiator, Mindsparker, the like.
It would force you to attack, but it's unreliable since it requires a creature with no protections and 1 toughness to remain on the board. There are too many ways to get rid of him... shock, pillar, doomblade, negate, etc...
Edit: by multiplayer, do you mean like an edh deck?
Creatures must attack 'if able', but they also have to pay a cost to attack. If the player declines to pay, the creatures are unable to attack. You can't force the player to pay the cost. Simply, the game checks to see if the creatures are able to attack, and they are not.
Anyway, I think Norn's Annex is probably more fun than Ghostly Prison.
Howard A Treesong wrote: Creatures must attack 'if able', but they also have to pay a cost to attack. If the player declines to pay, the creatures are unable to attack. You can't force the player to pay the cost. Simply, the game checks to see if the creatures are able to attack, and they are not.
Anyway, I think Norn's Annex is probably more fun than Ghostly Prison.
Interesting, I just assumed that one could be forced to . You have an ability in play at all times that says controlled can't attack you unless their controller pays 2. You then make make every creature attack if they're able to (i.e. no tapped, etc...). To fulfill this, the controller must spend his unused mana to satisfy the thing that is making him attack. If this isn't the case, awesome!
Whelp, went 2-2 again today, one of the matches me getting beaten by my friend, with one of my own decks, lol.
However, I managed to pull an Archangel of Thrune. I seem to have better luck when I get less packs, as I pulled junk from from my 4-0 packs last Wed.
On other news, there is a PTQ this Saturday, but I'm not sure if I'm gong to go or not. I was pumped for it before, but now I'm not quite so sure. The top 32 will get about a boxs worth of booster packs though.
There is also Gamesday this Saturday and Sunday, so my Weekend is going to be pretty full, with Fri, Sat and Sunday magic!
This is the current version of the Deck I've been using
//Creature (18)
4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
2 Fiendslayer Paladin
4 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Invisible Stalker
4 Voice of Resurgence
//Enchantment (18)
4 Ethereal Armor
2 Gift of Orzhova
4 Rancor
4 Spectral Flight
4 Unflinching Courage
//Planeswalker (2)
2 Ajani, Caller of the Pride
//Land (22)
4 Breeding Pool
2 Glacial Fortress
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Hinterland Harbor
4 Sunpetal Grove
4 Temple Garden
SB: 4 Advent of the Wurm
SB: 3 Fog
SB: 2 Negate
SB: 2 Ray of Revelation
SB: 4 Spell Rupture
Man, my local area seems to be a deadzone of Magic activity... Everything is Friday Night Magic only... I walked into a store on Monday or Tuesday this week to find and there was 1 person in the store, an acne ridden kid... and he was working.
Called a place that's 20 minutes away that has Saturday magic at 4:30, but I will only be able to play it when my pathfinder group doesn't play.
Alfndrate wrote: Man, my local area seems to be a deadzone of Magic activity... Everything is Friday Night Magic only... I walked into a store on Monday or Tuesday this week to find and there was 1 person in the store, an acne ridden kid... and he was working.
Called a place that's 20 minutes away that has Saturday magic at 4:30, but I will only be able to play it when my pathfinder group doesn't play.
Yeah, this weekend should be pretty busy with Gamesday going on. Hope to win quite a few boosters!
Alfndrate wrote: Bought a bunch of packs, pulled a bunch of junk rares, and a mutavault
That sucks :(
I'm not a big fan of the Odds of pulling a card I want from M14.
The Cards that I want are pretty much Archangel, Ooze, Mutavault, Kalonian Hydra, and the Planeswalkers. The rest are pretty much junk for me. I don't even really *Want* the planeswalkers, but I'm ok with pulling them lol.
The ooze, you're talking scavenging ooze right? You know there is a cheap way to get a promo one right? If you buy 2014 duel of the planedwalkers via steam you get a code for a promo scavenging ooze. The game is 10 bucks, the promo ooze is worth like 25.
Also unable to make the games day(s) today and most likely tomorrow. I'm looking to get my hands on 2 of the full art hive stirrings which you get for participating. So... if anyone would like to hook a brother up, id love you long time.
m14dude wrote: I'm kinda excited for GameDay tomorrow. I plan on taking Orzhov Control to the event, or maybe Flipping Rigged for the hilarities.
I haven't heard of "Flipping rigged"
What's your Orzhov deck look like?
Flipping Rigged is B/W deck that uses all the coin flipping cards currently in Standard, save Molten Birth. It wins by loading up field and having Volatile Rig explode whilst having lifelink and whenever I gain life each opponent loses that much life. Volatile Rig does 4 damage to each creature and each player when it dies if you lose a coin flip. It gets those abilities from Vizkopa Guildmage. The deck also features some 8 creature return from grave, Tavern Swindler, Creepy Doll, and Cremate for card draw. It may also have Sign in Blood.
My Orzhov Deck looks like this:
Creature 3x Basilica Screecher
4x Crypt Ghast
4x Kingpin's Pet
2x Pontiff of Blight
2x Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts
Instant 4x Executioner's Swing
2x Smite
Sorcery 4x Debt to the Deathless
Enchantment 4x One Thousand Lashes
4x Stab Wound
2x Indestructibility
Went 2-2 Today, lost to a G Elf Ramp, that came down to one turn, and to Jund, who drew all the sac cards to combat me.
What really made me angry, was I got paired down in round 3, and I had 2-0'd both my opponents, and was going against someone who was 1-1. I ended up loosing the match, and for some reason my 3rd round opponent was in second place, despite the fact that I had the second highest win% (70something) next to the 3-0 individual, which dropped me to 6th place.
I then lost to a Jund deck. Overall, not a good day. I expected to hit top 4 for sure.
I at least got a Hive stirrings and Goblin Diplomat, but still. Very Very disappointing.
Games day part two tomrrow, going to change up a few things. I'm going to take the two Ray of Revelations out of my Sideboard for sure. I may take out the Advent of the Wurms, as well.
Overall, I need more Fogs, to deal with Aggro, which is my worst match up, and something like Selesnia charms to help with Sac outlets.
I may think about grabbing Sigarda as well, but generally he Sac outlets come online before i would have her out. She is still nice to have, and I can always suit her up, but the game has gone on for a while if she is out.
EDIT:
Going to Sideboard the Voices for sure, probably for 3x Gladecover scouts. May get rid of Fiendslayer as well, to have some counter spells like Negate Mainboard.
Really, the Voices almost seemed like a waste of 200$ to me. They have only come in handy once or twice, and really have not made back their playset cost at all.
I went up against a much better sliver deck in the first round and came out on top 2-1, I had side boarded my 2 siphon slivers in my deck and life link gave me the edge.
Second round I lost 2-0 against an orzhov token deck. I was mana screwed both games.
Third round I lost 2-1 against a green aggro deck. I could not get the right combination of lands to save my life. I mulliganed every hand.
Also traded a junk rare to my first round opponent for a hive stirring, and paid a guy's entrance fee for his Hive Stirring.
I ended up in 6th place out of 7 and a ringer. But I still got the Goblin Diplomat .
I went 1-3. Round 1 came down to just getting mana flooded after taking a 5 land hand, continued to draw land, land, and more land. Round 2 showed dragons which I just couldn't deal with. Round 3 was horrible. I played a R/G aggro who really wasn't much into chatting and made the match super boring to play. I started to hate MtG momentarily after that match. Round 4 was equally as boring, despite that being the round I won. It was worth the price of admission, seeing as it didn't cost anything to get in.
I've since switched to the various LCG games 
While I'm there I might try a draft or two, if I'm not worn out or discouraged after the Modern tournament.
Sign in blood is usually better than Altar's Reap unless you need a sacrifice outlet. My bad.
