Hmm, my brother plays with his GY in front of him, mainly because he plays control and gets no board presence till late game, and that way is GY is really public.
I always play with it beside my library but the week I was running Burning Vengeance I did spread it out with one pile of lands and other non-flashbackable things and then like 8 piles of different spells.
It intimidated the hell out of at least one of my opponents who was a newish player and was somewhat baffled to see me sifting through my graveyard like it was a second hand.
Not that good of a deck but oh so very much fun to run.
Back in the day (old geezer wheeze) when I'd play my thrull deck, I used to put two tapped swamps under my breeding pits, and keep them there, so I'd never forget to pay the upkeep cost. The only real "alternative" layout I use now is occasionally putting Inaction Injunction in front of the detained creature instead of directly in the graveyard, because my opponents have a tendancy to forget it's been detained. (It goes to the graveyard at the start of my next turn.) I've got a neat little card holder for my deck, and my graveyard goes to the left of it... arranged so I can see the card names of each, as I've got either flashback or scavenge cards to access. Exiled cards go to the right, turned sideways. My life counter goes in front of it, closer to my opponent. (It's a massive 20-sided die.) dice and tap stones (now mostly unused) go to the left of the play area. Oh, and I leave tapped lands on the same pile as untapped lands, but do turn them sideways. Makes more sense to put lands closer than creatures, since you usually go to tap lands more frequently than you tap creatures.
Though I guess, since I'm left handed, I could put all my lands to my left and all my creatures on my right. Hmm. Maybe I'll try that just to be unique.
You are both rational and emotional. You value creation and discovery, and feel strongly about what I create. At best, you're innovative and intuitive. At worst, you're scattered and unpredictable.
So, while watching Magic on Twitch.tv today I stumbled accross a magic match that was a bit odd:
This led me to wonder why people play this way and a place for people to share odd stories about the stuff. I'm interested to hear why.
Because they're freaks. The guy with his stuff turned upside down, I'd just be like, "Dude your stuff is upside down. What's that supposed to mean? Like I'm a ******* moron or something? I need you to turn your cards toward me because I'm a ******* moron who doesn't know what the cards are? Oh I see, you're the smart one here huh? Mr. Smarty McBrain over here huh? Hey everyone come check out the guy with the big brain over here! He's so smart he goes ahead and turns his cards upside down so his backwards-dumb-***-****-of-a-moron opponent can read them and understand them a little better!" Then I'd throw the table over.
The only time I turn my card facing the opponent is if they gain control of my card. Then I turn it and say, "Now we know that you control it" because prior to this Chumlee is reaching his pizza stained fingers at my Elspeth with a goofy smile on his pizza soaked chin like he thinks he's just going to grap hold my Elspeth and that's when I say (from under my hooded cloak- I wear a hooded cloak) "You reach that chubby hand any nearer my Elspeth and you'll be drawing back a bloody nub. And God help you if you get blood on my cards. Jesus Christ himself can walk through that door he ain't going to help you if you get blood on my cards."
As for the "put the lands in front of the other permanents" freaks, they're still living in the past. They're like the Flat Earth Society of MTG. Plus they make me feel like they're up to something. Something sinister. Like they're trying to hide something from me. "here let me put my lands up front so it'll be more difficult for you to notice..." Hello? You're going to be tapping your lands way more consistently than anything else- just put them closer to you and it'll be easier for everyone. But oh no, we can't do that. Got to go with the way-back machine. These people still use faxes and VHS machines, and drive around with 8-track cassette players in their VW Rabbits. Besides overturning the table there's only one thing we can do. Wait for them to die off.
I love this post, this is sort of how I feel about this topic(maybe less vitriolic).
1) You want to help me? You think I need any help? YOU'RE BEING NICE? HELL DO I LOOK LIKE SOMEONE YOU HAVE TO BE NICE WITH?
2) All Magic players are eating pizza and will drip goddamn grease all over my unsleeved cards, to hell I'll let them put it on their side of the battlefield I prefer an unclear gamestate to risking my precious cards.
3) My way of arranging my battlefield is the only right way. People with other methods are freaks. Why? Because it's clearer when you put it my way for the other player (which means I consider that all player should think their opponent is a moron (see paragraph 1) and I'm the only one who can create an unclear gamestate when I want to (see paragraph 2)).
I mean, it was a funny read, but hardly anything substantive that makes sense.
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.
My friends mostly started playing a long time ago(I started more recently - Time Spiral), and one of them does the lands-in-front thing because (as stated several times in this thread) that's how it was done then.
But "because it's how I've always done it" is a stupid reason to continue a practice, regardless of anyone's personal feelings on the matter.
The U.S. Army: The best job in the world, working with some of the best people in the world, for one of the worst employers you could ever imagine.
Here's a shout out for Scholars' Books & Games in Bridgewater, MA, and for Paladin's Place in Darmstadt, Hessen, Germany where I was stationed for two years. Support your FLGS!
Attacking the darkness since 1987, turning creatures sideways since 1994.
I've always played with my lands in front. The guys at my local shop always give me grief for it, so I'm glad I'm not the only one who does this. Also, when people tell me to do it differently, I tell them to shove it. Too many people have OCD in this hobby.
And "everyone else does it it differently" is an equally stupid reason to change.
I don't disagree with that, same as I didn't suggest it. If we set aside our personal preferences for a moment we could probably come to a consensus on what would be the best board layout to enforce.
Maybe:
Creatures and other nonland permanents shall be placed closer to the opponent than the player relative the lands. They're the ones that mostly interact with opponents' cards (attacking/blocking/enchanting , etc.), so it makes sense to keep them closer to those cards. They also generally contribute more to the complexity of the game state than the lands, so having them all close together eases board comprehension and speeds up gameplay. Creatures especially will more often be moving around, entering the 'red zone' etc., and should be kept close to it so as not to require them to be picked up or otherwise physically moved through the lands.
The library should be positioned opposite the player's dominant arm (right-handed players have their library to their left). The dominant arm is the one most used to manipulate cards in play and is the one most likely to accidentally come into contact with cards in other zones(such as the library), and knock them together or something. This is actually a problem in tournaments, and positioning the library opposite the dominant arm serves to minimize the risk.
The graveyard should be positioned adjacent to the library, further away from the dominant arm relative to the library. It should not be positioned adjacent to the library closer to the player than his/her opponent as that may cause the library to visually obscure cards in the graveyard(a public zone). Nor should it be placed closer to the opponent than the player as that may cause the graveyard to mingle with the battlefield and increase board state complexity.
And "everyone else does it it differently" is an equally stupid reason to change.
I don't disagree with that, same as I didn't suggest it. If we set aside our personal preferences for a moment we could probably come to a consensus on what would be the best board layout to enforce.
I think the best board layout to enforce is none. There has never been any enforcement of board layout, nor do I think there should be. If someone wants to have their library in the center with their various zones and permanents forming concentric circles around it, that's their choice. (It'd probably look both weird and awesome, and be a total bitch to keep track of, but that isn't the point.)
The U.S. Army: The best job in the world, working with some of the best people in the world, for one of the worst employers you could ever imagine.
Here's a shout out for Scholars' Books & Games in Bridgewater, MA, and for Paladin's Place in Darmstadt, Hessen, Germany where I was stationed for two years. Support your FLGS!
Attacking the darkness since 1987, turning creatures sideways since 1994.
: Regenerate.
