Playing a tri-color deck with the Core Duals has little to no mana issue, even with two colorless lands. You don't need any shocks, thought it's true that one game in thirty may be lost because of this. Still not a good argument to say money wins it all.
I disagree entirely. A two color deck has little mana issues with just the core duals (and gates, depending on the archetype). However, 3 colors gets pretty rough with only the core duals. I play a Bant deck right now (though I do splash black off two shocks) with the "real" manabase (26 lands total, 3 colorless, 2 basics, 9 shocks, 12 core-style duals, plus 4 Farseek s), and I likely get color screwed early in the game at least once in 30 games. Of course, it gets fixed really fast, but that's because almost every land I draw is fixing. So with my "real" manabase, getting screwed happens as often as you claim it would with a budget manabase, but I will actually get out of it within 1-2 land drops. A budget base is going to get screwed way more often and it will cause you to lose the game.
It may have been true before Ravnica existed that only having the core duals wouldn't hurt you too bad. However, the massive amounts of gold cards you have to be able to play makes that no longer true.
Plus, most of the shocks are as cheap as half of the core-style duals. The Innistrad duals are all about $10 a pop. It's not like the manabase is going to be cheaper by just sticking to that style of land. I'd much rather spend the same amount and build a two color deck with shocks than a 3 color deck with only the core-style duals.
Playing a tri-color deck with the Core Duals has little to no mana issue, even with two colorless lands. You don't need any shocks, thought it's true that one game in thirty may be lost because of this. Still not a good argument to say money wins it all.
I disagree entirely. A two color deck has little mana issues with just the core duals (and gates, depending on the archetype). However, 3 colors gets pretty rough with only the core duals. I play a Bant deck right now (though I do splash black off two shocks) with the "real" manabase (26 lands total, 3 colorless, 2 basics, 9 shocks, 12 core-style duals, plus 4 Farseek s), and I likely get color screwed early in the game at least once in 30 games. Of course, it gets fixed really fast, but that's because almost every land I draw is fixing. So with my "real" manabase, getting screwed happens as often as you claim it would with a budget manabase, but I will actually get out of it within 1-2 land drops. A budget base is going to get screwed way more often and it will cause you to lose the game.
It may have been true before Ravnica existed that only having the core duals wouldn't hurt you too bad. However, the massive amounts of gold cards you have to be able to play makes that no longer true.
Plus, most of the shocks are as cheap as half of the core-style duals. The Innistrad duals are all about $10 a pop. It's not like the manabase is going to be cheaper by just sticking to that style of land. I'd much rather spend the same amount and build a two color deck with shocks than a 3 color deck with only the core-style duals.
If you build an ally pair deck with only core set duals (In other words, the cheap ones) I think you gain more from being able to consistently get all your colors than from adding the options of a 3rd color. If budget is a serious issue you're probably better off using the money saved on the second set of core duals to grab a few better cards for your main build.
Besides, the trick is just getting your initial deck going. Once you accomplish that you can work on trading for the Shocklands and other cards you may need.
Playing a tri-color deck with the Core Duals has little to no mana issue, even with two colorless lands. You don't need any shocks, thought it's true that one game in thirty may be lost because of this. Still not a good argument to say money wins it all.
I disagree entirely. A two color deck has little mana issues with just the core duals (and gates, depending on the archetype). However, 3 colors gets pretty rough with only the core duals. I play a Bant deck right now (though I do splash black off two shocks) with the "real" manabase (26 lands total, 3 colorless, 2 basics, 9 shocks, 12 core-style duals, plus 4 Farseek s), and I likely get color screwed early in the game at least once in 30 games. Of course, it gets fixed really fast, but that's because almost every land I draw is fixing. So with my "real" manabase, getting screwed happens as often as you claim it would with a budget manabase, but I will actually get out of it within 1-2 land drops. A budget base is going to get screwed way more often and it will cause you to lose the game.
It may have been true before Ravnica existed that only having the core duals wouldn't hurt you too bad. However, the massive amounts of gold cards you have to be able to play makes that no longer true.
Plus, most of the shocks are as cheap as half of the core-style duals. The Innistrad duals are all about $10 a pop. It's not like the manabase is going to be cheaper by just sticking to that style of land. I'd much rather spend the same amount and build a two color deck with shocks than a 3 color deck with only the core-style duals.
Think about it. 12 lands on 24 produce white. It goes down to 11 for the other two colors. Unless you're playing Geralf's Messenger or such, paying for Detention Sphere , Sorin, Sever, Revelation or other such spells isn't very hard, expecially since there's four Azorius Keyrunes on top of it. Of all the games I played, my only screw was with Supreme Verdict , and only once.
Shocks are overrated. They're good, but not that much. And if I have the choice between Shocks and Core Duals in a two-color deck, you can be sure it won't be the shocks. how often do you have a bunch of the same land in your starting hand without a single basic?
Of course, an aggro deck such as Rakdos needs its shocks a lot more, since they can't skip a single turn without getting severely crippled.
Yeah... Until next game, where it'll be right back.
Seriously, there's no way to deal with Rancor in any format. It should be banned, except Gleemax is a lobbyist for the Rancor party, so that'll never happen.
You can't ban rancor, it just returns to your deck.
You might want to actually talk to the Flavor & Storyline Board people... since, you know, our whole reason for playing Magic is the flavor. I'm willing to bet you'll get a lot more interest there than in General.
Indeed, both posters down there would be thrilled.
When talks about banning Jace first started, I was thinking that I would see him banned come June 20th. But as I think more about it, I don't really think that Jace is the problem anymore. Sure his power level leaves very little to the imagination (opening Jace is like opening a refrigerator box with a naked girl on the inside), and sure his price does have a strong impact on what players choose to play (playing Jace is like being intimate with a woman and she doesn't charge you in the morning), but it is not the source of all the problems in Standard.
How do people think saving room to print more abilities on cards is dumbing down the game?
Do you really think, say, Akroma would ever be printed if she said, "Akroma can block by creatures with this ability and cannot be blocked by creatures without this ability. If a creature without this ability would deal combat damage by Akroma would be destroyed, prevent all combat damage that creature would deal to Akroma this combat. Attacking does not cause Akroma to tap. If Akroma is blocked and deals lethal damage, it deals the remainder of its damage to the defending player. Akroma may attack and use abilities that require tapping in the casting cost the turn it enters the battlefield. Akroma cannot be damaged, enchanted, equipped, blocked or targeted by black or red sources" rather than her "dumbed down" wording she has? No freaking way. Keywording and shorthand allows them to make complicated cards easy to play with, allowing them to be printed in the first place.
1. cast frankie peanuts 2. ask opponent "will you concede the game this turn"? if they say yes, you win; if they say no, play a staying power 3. subsequently ask "will you attack this turn"? and "will you cast a spell this turn"? (using a Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir for the second question if necessary) to ensure they can't disrupt the combo 4. donate them a platinum angel 5. play a mox lotus and braingeyser them for every card in their library. play an opalescence and donate them a glorious anthem and a blacker lotus , then play enchanted evening . play and activate a mindslaver and then donate them a fastbond and the mox lotus (returning one of the donates to your hand with eternal witness or whatever) 6. during their turn, play every permanent in their hand (playing lands with fastbond) then (as yourself) cast mirrorweave on the blacker lotus, so every permanent becomes a copy of it. proceed to tear up every card they control, and hopefully do it before they notice that they aren't bound by staying power's ability anymore and can concede
Dark Ritual being overpowered is determined more by what is done with it than the card itself.
True, but the fact that it enables so many ridiculous things is pretty telling. It's like, sure I can use a shotgun as a bludgeoning instrument, but that doesn't make it not a shotgun.
Shortly before Serra died, she transferred her spark into an angel whose full name was Asha Avacyn Bolas. Her dragon father groomed her for her positions in Alara and Innistrad, and she's also been getting help from her uncle Ugin in the form of Urza, who was resurrected as Marit Lage to be the avatar as which she projects herself into material realms. Grieslbrand is a split personality who sometimes wanders the planes disguised as a human woman named Liliana Vess.
Everyone's life would be easier if players would, instead of coming to the 'net for help with a deck, just netdeck and be done with it. And I'm not talking about some Top 8 lists, for the Casualists, too, can benefit from netdecking. I've netdecked plenty of decks from the Casual Play forums from users such as Mown, Raedien, Floopfoot, and a few others. I snatched straight the heck out of my web browser. Yes, people, your original idea fell victim to a savage netdecker. You have been assimiliated.
Suppose I wanted a Zombie deck. Why on earth would I spend time searching Gatherer for a decent list of Zombie cards when Raedien already did it for me? Taking time to be creative or waiting on people on the forums to tell you why your deck sucks or 'go to Casual forums' is a disasterous waste of time (to me).
That being said, Magic was ruined back in Alpha when they added all that rules and cards [Debutantes avert your eyes]. My friends and I still like playing it the "pure" way (Basically we go into the woods and hit eachother with wiffle bats while shouting made up obscenities. You know, the way Garfield wanted it to be played).
Don't worry about it. I've come up with a list of changes to fix EDH.
-First off, there's no commander. -The minimum deck size is 60 cards, and each deck can have up to four of each card, save basic lands and relentless rats. Also decks have no color identity. -Starting life total is 20.
Here's a clever play you can try yourself: -Convince friend to run relentless rats.dec in legacy tournament -Get a deck with lots of mill, yixlid jailer, and humility -Drop humility and jailer, wait for him to dump his hand, mill him out -All his rats now have no abilities. Call a judge because he's playing an illegal deck with more than 4 of a single card. -Get him/her banned from competitive magic play
L, is for the leather gloves you weaaaar. O, is for the organs that guy could spaaaare. V, is very very, extraordinay. E, is for every vagrant i butchered in a wine cellar befooooore.
The outer layer of the Magic: the Gathering box, the carton, or crust, is fairly thin and light, and contains largely aluminosilcates.
Within that lies the middle layer, consisting of the familiar booster pack. Although solid, the booster packs' high temperatures allow them to acutally move around within the booster box. This flow, sometimes called convection, is cited by frustrated box mappers as one of WOTC's most genious uses of thermodynamics since the Ravnica block.
No one knows what lies at the core of the booster box, but scientists theorize that it must be especially dense in order to make up for the large amount of fluff distributed amongst the booster packs.
I imagine [Ajani 3's] second ability involves him hurling the creature at your opponent Brion Stoutarm style, then the guy is just like "Okay, that may have worked, but don't- GOD DAMN IT!" as he does it again because cats don't give a **** :33.
Its like that one time Elves broke out in a field of Jund. Elves became a resurgent hit, then died off again once Jund adapted to the rest of the field of G/W that it required mass removal that inherently pooped on Elves too.
Submit to the menace. Delver can, and will blot out the sun.
"I remember my days as a youth at Tolarian Academy ." "Wow, small multiverse, I actually went there too." "WAIT, DON'T- Well ****, there's $200,000 in student loans well spent."
And flavor goes out the window when you cast a second copy of a planeswalker right after the first one dies, so...
"Hey Nissa, I need a favor." "You just asked me for a 'favor' like thirty seconds ago, and it turned out to be having Sarkhan Transmogrify my only follower into a dragon like 5 times -which dickery aside also violates some laws of causality - and then you let me get beaten over the head by that hedron crab." "...I'll give you " "...Well all right then."
GM, I don't think Dill is better than you. I KNOW it. Even if he wakes up every morning, clubs a baby seal, steals all the TV remotes from within a block's radius of his house and then robs hungry orphans of their food he'd be better than you, for the simple reason that he learns from his mistakes.
What would they have to fight about? Like, all I can think of now is Gideon going "Hey, long-ears! I'm gathering a group of 'Walkers together to fight some tentacle monsters.....you want in?" and Tamiyo going "Ew! Hentai no bakka Gideon-desu desu!" and flying away.
I open 4 packs just to be on the safe side. Not only do I get more cards than everyone else, but I also get to spend the rest of the night off. Win Win.
MaRo has a thing for people opening boosters with bad cards. But since he can only get so many bad cards printed in each set, he has found a devious way of getting more bad cards into circulation: He makes entire print sheets with just bad rares, then puts them onto the assembly line. He proceeds to wring his hands and twirl his evil mustache that he grew for twirling purposes as a lightning bolt strikes in the background. Afterwards, he goes to make sure that the good cards are only opened by everyone's friends, and that we all only get to open bad cards. He does this by memorising each booster, than switching them around accordingly. Whenever someone complains about a card, he immediately jumps out from behind a chair to yell "WELL, IT'S NOT FOR YOU!" before merging back into the shadows in order to devise new ways in which he can screw over players, then claim that he has valid reasons for doing so.
Mark Rosewater is sitting in a seemingly innocuous cable TV van, outside of Bankaimastery's house. Sitting nearby are two hardened criminal hackers, fresh out of prison, and filled with resentment at their lack of physical fitness. "Have you managed to hack his brainwaves yet? The set deadline's coming up fast." "We're almost through. It should be coming up on the screen any second." The hacker presses a button, and Kevin's thoughts flash onto the screen. Mark and the hackers stare in amazement at the sheer beauty, the elegance, and the raw truth of what they see. It's like the ending to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Brilliant light shines across the screen, the truth of existence is made clear to them, and they despair at their own foolishness, their own ignorance, their own inadequacy. And then they steal his ideas. As they return back to R&D, Mark sneers at a haggard old man chained to a cast-iron sphere. The man looks up from his laborious task of breaking rocks in the dungeon of Wizards of the Coast headquarters, and asks a question: "Kevin, my greatest student. He - he's all right, isn't he? You didn't hurt him?" Mark deals him a weighty blow with his boot. "Know your place, Richard. Get back to work."
I'm only opposed to it because it bears so little relation to how people actually play the game. The example of Miracles is actually a much better one then the Clone example I was trying to use.
From the game's perspective, the card can move instantly from face down in the library to revealed in the hand and that's fine for the rules. But in real life, we can't actually do that, so the card spends a good bit of time in locations that are neither where that player's library is nor where that player's hand is. And that's fine for real life. What I don't want is the disconnect to be explicitly codified. Along the lines of
183664.697 A game of Magic as laid out by these rules exists only as a pure Platonic ideal, utterly unrealizable by fallible mortals limited by the confines of physicality and the ravages of evil and sin.
183664.698 The cake is a lie, too.
I know it's true, but I don't want the rules to actually straight-up tell me that.
Pfft this cant be serious can it? If it is please delete your account OP. Its not even close to ban worthy, considering what JTMS and stoneforge had to accomplish to get banned i see the WotC selling magic to aquire Pokemon before that ever happens.
I'm trying to imagine sorin markov as a gym leader in one of those pokemon games which you have to beat him to get his badge... somehow I imagine that he would stab you in the chest with his sword before giving you the badge, even if you beat his pokemon....
Personally, I'd be fine with tea time but then I'm not gonna waste the mana summoning Emrakul, the Aeons Torn . He always takes all the sugar, drinks the whole pot of Earl Grey and doesn't even say thank you. SO. RUDE.
Break the Card is a regular thread in the Cards and Combo Forum. Quite simply, the participants are given a Johnnystatic card (e.g. Xenograft ) and are asked to build a deck around it. The winner and honorable mentions are sigged below. Get brewing!
This week's Break the Card was based around Xenograft . Thread : http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/27681049/Break_the_card_:_Xenograft?pg=1
Winner : Axterix with his Vampdrazi deck. Finalist : Vektor480 with his Ally/Golem/Plant deck. Honorable mentions : Zammm for the Turntimber Ranger combo and TinGorilla for suggesting Sarkhan the Mad .
Here's the link to the Mindlock Orb contest : http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/27697565/Break_the_Card_:_Mindlock_Orb?sdb=1&pg=last#497536269
Here's the link to Break the Card : Bludgeon Brawl : http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/27715169/Break_the_Card_:_Bludgeon_Brawl?sdb=1&pg=last#498208797
Winner : Vektor and his Grab the World deck. Finalist : Crandor with his Awesome Aliteration deck. Honorable mentions : RP Jesus with his Wat deck and Zix200 with his Signet Renewal deck.
This week was Followed Footsteps : http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/27748677/Break_the_Card_:_Followed_Footsteps?pg=1
Winner : Tevish_Szat with his Exponential Growth deck. Honorable mentions : Zix with his Carbon Copies deck and Escef with his Fungus of Speed and Time deck.
This week's card was Jace's Archivist : http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/28063377/Break_the_Card_:_Jaces_Archivist.
Finalists : Jentaru with his "Consecration of the Draw" deck and HereticSmitty with his "ADHD: The deck" deck. Winner : JaxsonBateman with his "The Archives Are Endless!" deck.
I'd rather have the shocks. They're going to appreciate in value, they're about as cheap as they're ever going to be and they are simply better.
I'd much rather just play U/W with Hallowed Fountain s than Esper with Isolated Chapels and Catacombs. Hell, it would be cheaper to have the Fountains than the Chapels...
Sticking with just core duals is also pretty poor right now. Your choices are to play Naya, Esper, Grixis or Jund. Only Grixis and Jund have full multi-color support in RTR, so playing the other two would restrict your card choices. Restrictions such as that are especially bad when you're already restricted as is.
My point is that if you're on a budget, you shouldn't be trying to play 3 colors. Stay with two at the most. It allows you to be either super budget with just core duals and guild gates or more consistent with shocks for the same price as a three color manabase.
Unless all of your tools for getting out of whatever situation you are in are locked, e.g. the problem I had with the Red/White deck. Then it just makes you angry and wonder why you are stuck with an objectively inferior build of your deck. It wouldn't even be so bad if the decks were actually playable to start with and the cards that you unlock just expanded your card pool to give you more tools and options, but they actually just stick you mostly with a bunch of garbage and make you work for the real deck. Thanks, Wizards, it was kind of you to stick me with 12 overcosted creatures instead of a few essential removal and utility spells.
So basically you are agreeing that it isn't good to compair a trading card game to a video game? Which is what I said when you did it? I guess when I shot holes in your compairison by showing where you do unlock and don't have all the tools then it became a bad example for me to use?
Not all decks will be viable all the time. That is just the facts.
Funny, removal and utility spells are usually commons and uncommons. So you are complaining now they aren't handing you commons and uncommons? Also sorry you have to deal with those over costed common creatures like Delver of Secrets .
I think you should probably do something non-competative. There are other modes of magic other than trying to get to the pro-tour. Though if you want to be competative you will need to realize that it takes a lot of time, effort, and money no matter what you are competing against. There is always some better newer item in whatever you compete in.
Once you realize that you need to adapt to what you have and the tools you are given and can afford you will be a lot happier and be a lot better player. You have to adapt to the game, not have the game adapt to you. Well, I guess you could have it adapt to you if you were willing to buy and fund Wizards of the Coast. Though if you are complaining about having to purchase commons and rares I doubt you have the money to purchase and fund Wizards. That is no slight against you as very few people in the world would have that kind of money.
Unless all of your tools for getting out of whatever situation you are in are locked, e.g. the problem I had with the Red/White deck. Then it just makes you angry and wonder why you are stuck with an objectively inferior build of your deck. It wouldn't even be so bad if the decks were actually playable to start with and the cards that you unlock just expanded your card pool to give you more tools and options, but they actually just stick you mostly with a bunch of garbage and make you work for the real deck. Thanks, Wizards, it was kind of you to stick me with 12 overcosted creatures instead of a few essential removal and utility spells.
So basically you are agreeing that it isn't good to compair a trading card game to a video game? Which is what I said when you did it? I guess when I shot holes in your compairison by showing where you do unlock and don't have all the tools then it became a bad example for me to use?
Not all decks will be viable all the time. That is just the facts.
Funny, removal and utility spells are usually commons and uncommons. So you are complaining now they aren't handing you commons and uncommons? Also sorry you have to deal with those over costed common creatures like Delver of Secrets .
I think you should probably do something non-competative. There are other modes of magic other than trying to get to the pro-tour. Though if you want to be competative you will need to realize that it takes a lot of time, effort, and money no matter what you are competing against. There is always some better newer item in whatever you compete in.
Once you realize that you need to adapt to what you have and the tools you are given and can afford you will be a lot happier and be a lot better player. You have to adapt to the game, not have the game adapt to you. Well, I guess you could have it adapt to you if you were willing to buy and fund Wizards of the Coast. Though if you are complaining about having to purchase commons and rares I doubt you have the money to purchase and fund Wizards. That is no slight against you as very few people in the world would have that kind of money.
That was from a discussion about why it's awful to limit players arbitrarily by making them unlock things in competitive games. It had nothing to do with buying cards. Are you feeling okay?
At any rate I guess real life Magic isn't limited in such stupid ways, so at least there's that. If you can obtain a card there's nothing stopping you from playing it as long as it is legal in your format(that format for most of us being casual, so no problems there.)
And for the record, Magic isn't a competitive game because people play it in tournaments for money and prizes. It's a competitive game because players compete against one another. There is no way to play magic that does not involve competing against an opponent. It's a TYPE of game, like SHOOTER or ADVENTURE or MUD is a type of game. Solitaire is not competitive, for example, but Rummy is. Stop overthinking it and extrapolating Spike nonsense from the term.
That was from a discussion about why it's awful to limit players arbitrarily by making them unlock things in competitive games. It had nothing to do with buying cards. Are you feeling okay?
And for the record, Magic isn't a competitive game because people play it in tournaments for money and prizes. It's a competitive game because players compete against one another. There is no way to play magic that does not involve competing against an opponent. It's a TYPE of game, like SHOOTER or ADVENTURE or MUD is a type of game. Solitaire is not competitive, for example, but Rummy is. Stop overthinking it and extrapolating Spike nonsense from the term.
I just figured you were continuing the comparison the other poster made between playing magic and playing street fighter. If you weren't doing that then I am sorry.
I just figured you were continuing the comparison the other poster made between playing magic and playing street fighter. If you weren't doing that then I am sorry.
I don't know who it was or what they said but there's a possibility that I align with him.
Just want to say a few things after reading pages and pages of rants:
1) If you didn't realize playing Magic was going to cost you money to be competetive than you probably lack the cognative abilities to play the game competetively in the first place. Look at the basic model for pete's sake. It just so happens that it is addictive and it is fun. Both of those being requirements for it to succeed.
2) You don't have to play competetively to play Magic! When I first started, I played with a group of roomates and close friends whom were all on about the same budget. We didn't care about formats, we were that damn poor. If you got your hands on a card, you played it. It was damn fun and noone dominated, because we were all withing the same bracket of income. If you want to COMPETE vs anyone who shows up at the card shop or online, well then, you better be ready to match their level of income!
Be creative! For example, I might have a group of friends over and simulate a draft. We can all pick from my box of commons x times, my box of uncommons x times, and my box of rares x times. We then build a deck, drink a beer, talk about girls, and play the game. It is fun.
Play pauper! That's why it is there! to make a common income bracket playable. Look into heirloom! Share cards with friends! Make up your own format!
3) I have built 5 or 6 standard decks on MTGO so far that win 75% of the time or more in the casual play rooms. All of them cost me less than $40. My best deck cost me $25. I've logged more than 200 hours in the last few months putting them together and experimenting. It ends up, none of them are on the net. Coincidently, the value of the cards went up. I guess what I did naturally, was find valuable cards that weren't yet popular, just using my own creativity and trial and error. It was dern fun too. I have yet to buy a single Thragtusk, Thundermaw, Restoration Angel, or Rancor, yet I continually beat those decks down. I know to expect them and put the proper cards in my sideboard to handle it. Just look at "Nevermore" for example. 50 cents online and will really tear a new butt in any green/white netdeck, because you know what they are going to play on you.
I just figured you were continuing the comparison the other poster made between playing magic and playing street fighter. If you weren't doing that then I am sorry.
I'm guessing you've missed it, but from what I can tell Iam_Ironman's primary counterargument is "You misunderstood, I didn't say [thing] I said [thing that is closely related but slightly different], [derogatory remark]'
: Regenerate.
