|
5 months ago ::
Jan 03, 2013 - 3:53PM
#1
|
Date Joined:
Mar 17, 2012
|
This thread is for discussion of this week's From the Lab, which goes live Monday morning on magicthegathering.com.
|
|
|
|
5 months ago ::
Jan 06, 2013 - 9:50PM
#2
|
|
|
What? No going for Omniscience to put Enter the Infinite into play? If you do that, it doesn't matter how much more mana you need to get your win condition. (See the Omnidoor Thragfire decks floating around.)
|
|
|
|
5 months ago ::
Jan 06, 2013 - 9:50PM
#3
|
Date Joined:
Aug 20, 2008
|
No doubt experienced Magic players will be able to find ways to make effective use of this card, just as they can make use of cards like Final Fortune  or Lion's Eye Diamond  . But to a naive player, this card has the obvious defect that even with all your cards in your hand, what can you do when you've used up all your mana? Now, if you put two cards from your hand back in to the library, then it would be something. Otherwise, a card like Stormtide Leviathan  is a much more obvious (almost) guaranteed game-winner. I certainly can understand why the card has this limitation; insanely unbalanced cards have no place in Magic. And, of course, one can always wait until one has a few more lands out to play it... it guarantees you can play any combo you have in your deck, no matter how complicated, and presumably one can work out some means of mana accel. As for Omniscience  , given its mana cost, one would almost have to cheat it into play. Oh, wait a moment. It cures all the problems with this card: not only does it cheat the card into play, but now all those cards (well, not the lands, but you won't have time to use them) one has added to one's hand with it can be cheated out too, so one can really do a wild combo. No wonder he didn't want to give that combo away in the article; it's a good argument for not releasing this card!
Coming up with weird ideas to make everyone happy since 2008! I have now started a blog as an appropriate place to put my crazy ideas.
|
|
|
|
5 months ago ::
Jan 06, 2013 - 10:18PM
#4
|
Date Joined:
Jan 13, 2012
|
No mention of Laboratory Maniac  ? It would be incredibly cool to win with it after casting this.
Quotes
Show
Okay, here is the clincher. I've been waiting to say this.
The "cam girl" this was inspired by was just a girl from a social networking website, Stickam. Her name was TinyTerror and she was just a regular girl who was on her webcam, totally unrelated to any type of adult content.
I hope you all feel really smart now. 
This is like someone coming into class with a bloody nose and everyone's like "Jeez what happened to you" and they're like "I ran into a wall" and everyone laughs at them for being an idiot but then at the end of the class they say "HAHA JUST KIDDING I PUNCHED MYSELF IN THE FACE!!!!!! TALK ABOUT OWNED HAHAHAHAHA"
I really enjoy imagining this from Kevin's perspective. Because in Kevin's world, Rosewater actually reads everything he types. Mark is sitting there right now, reading this, and thinking "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled. . ." Or some such. He chuckles low, then clicks on "The Best Of KEVINSET" and says "Yes, this'll do just fine. A busty lady with banding who deals direct damage to Zones!? Why this will be the star of my next set, and no one will ever believe you Kevin." Then he closes his Macbook, so his servant may move it out of the way, while another servant puts a Fetal Richard Garfield Clone lathered in Steak Sauce in front of him. Then Mark Feasts.
Sorin walked into the chamber where his newly wed bride, Vampy, awaited. A beam of moonlight illuminated his brilliant silver hair as he strode with confidence towards the bed. His shirtless body showcased his powerful abdominal muscles and he was wearing jeans with holes in the knees.
I wish more girls play magic cards...
Have you considered assassinating Kevin?
|
|
|
|
5 months ago ::
Jan 06, 2013 - 10:47PM
#5
|
Date Joined:
Oct 13, 2012
|
Psychic spiral....
|
|
|
|
5 months ago ::
Jan 06, 2013 - 11:28PM
#6
|
Date Joined:
Feb 10, 2010
|
What? No going for Omniscience to put Enter the Infinite into play? If you do that, it doesn't matter how much more mana you need to get your win condition. (See the Omnidoor Thragfire decks floating around.)
No mention of Laboratory Maniac ? It would be incredibly cool to win with it after casting this.
Psychic spiral....
All of these were considered, but there were far too many options to cover in one article, and I wanted to go with some of the more obscure ones this time.
|
|
|
|
5 months ago ::
Jan 06, 2013 - 11:44PM
#7
|
|
|
While I like the design of Enter the Infinite, the specific implementation of that design makes it feel like a lot of lost opportunities and disappointments melded into one.
Specifically, the templating geek in me mourns the lost opportunity to have it actually say "Draw your library", which is far cooler than "Draw cards equal to the number of cards in your library", the design geek in me is disappointed that you put a card back instead of just making you immune to decking until the end of your next turn, and the rules geek in me mourns that the existence of maximum hand size necessitates the ugly final clause.
But hey, still a cool card. It just could have been cooler.
And so people say to me, "How do I know if a word is real?" You know, anyone who's read a children's book knows that love makes things real. If you love a word, use it! That makes it real. Being in the dictionary is an artificial distinction; it doesn't make the word any more real than any other word. If you love a word, it becomes real.
--Erin McKean, Redefining the Dictionary
|
|
|
|
5 months ago ::
Jan 06, 2013 - 11:54PM
#8
|
Date Joined:
Oct 16, 2007
|
Enjoying your writing a lot so far Mike, but I'm a bit skeptical of your habit of playtesting your two builds against each other. If I were going to build an Enter the Infinite deck to play in an actual game, my main concern would be making sure the deck isn't too fragile. By playing a pseudo-mirror match like this you're mostly testing which variant is faster, which isn't really a consideration in a casual environment.
|
|
|
|
5 months ago ::
Jan 07, 2013 - 1:10AM
#9
|
|
|
I was was suspecting an One with Nothing  in the last deck for style points. Anyway, countering your own spells, drawing your library and using Entomb  for a sorcery instead of craetures seems like a lot of fun. Nice article!
|
|
|
|
5 months ago ::
Jan 07, 2013 - 1:12AM
#10
|
|
|
I am so glad to have From the Lab back. Daily M:TG was a much more boring place without it.
I'm also a big fan of the match mini-reports. None of these off-the-wall, hyper-Johnny decks are really meant to be competitive in a tournament sense, so why not just do fun matches against other bizarre combo decks? Having the little match reports is fun and gives us a glimpse into how the decks actually play rather than just leaving them as thought experiments under ideal, imagined conditions.
Once we leave the themed preview weeks and Mr. Cannon doesn't have to labor under the need to include a specific card in all his decks, they'll probably diversify a bit anyway and thus feel less mirrored.
Great work so far.
|
|
|
~ 
~ 
~ 
~ 
