Anyone here play Magic: The Gathering?

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BryanM
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Re: Anyone here play Magic: The Gathering?

Post by BryanM »

It's still bullshit that Wizards has a patent on the idea of turning a card on its side, or the idea of a card game that can grow.

The 2010 rules changes.

Nice how they're trying to zazz things up. They're making a core set every year now, that'll be 50% old crap, and 50% new crap that's unfettered by a setting/theme. Some are annoyed at the idea of spending their cash to get more stuff they already have a mountain of. Like another money making scheme by a business. The entire point of the Mythic rarity was for them to squeeze the same rate of chase rates in a set that has a lower number of cards.

In the end, the only thing I could complain about is when they replaced a common in a booster with a land. In theory, this would raise the cost of my preferred format by 10%... but 10% of nothing is nothing.

tldr: They really need to add moar Sphinxeses to the game. There's about 2,684 elves and goblins, yet only ~12 Sphinx. And half of them are artifact digimon.
Last edited by BryanM on Tue Jun 30, 2009 9:21 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Anyone here play Magic: The Gathering?

Post by incognoscente »

Lordstar wrote:i don't see why the last topic was locked as that was about XBL ver and why its not as good as the PC or online version and not magic as a whole. Anyway
That thread is now merged with this one. Ah, the power of new forum software.
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Cthulhu
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Re: Anyone here play Magic: The Gathering?

Post by Cthulhu »

BryanM wrote:It's still bullshit that Wizards has a patent on the idea of turning a card on its side, or the idea of a card game that can grow.
At first I thought it was total BS too, but if you think about it, they did invent the mechanic. Much, much more ridiculous patents have been given.
BryanM wrote: Nice how they're trying to zazz things up. They're making a core set every year now, that'll be 50% old crap, and 50% new crap that's unfettered by a setting/theme. Some are annoyed at the idea of spending their cash to get more stuff they already have a mountain of. Like another money making scheme by a business. The entire point of the Mythic rarity was for them to squeeze the same rate of chase rates in a set that has a lower number of cards.
I think the annual core set with new cards idea is great. It doesn't really change the speed at which they've been releasing sets (around 4 a year, one core and the other three being the end of one block and the beginning of another). The core sets had been pretty much a joke since 6th or so, as it was nothing more than a release that determined what old cards would be legal for a while. Now they're actually relevant again.

If the mythic rares were crazy-powerful or something I'd be more upset about them, but other than the planeswalkers, a lot of them are actually pretty junky and go for less than many "regular" rares.
In the end, the only thing I could complain about is when they replaced a common in a booster with a land. In theory, this would raise the cost of my preferred format by 10%... but 10% of nothing is nothing.
I agree that the lands in the boosters are pretty much pointless.
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Re: Anyone here play Magic: The Gathering?

Post by KindGrind »

After seeing a list of everything that will be in m2010, I'm even considering buying some boxes of the thing (or even paying 500-600$ and getting everything x4 without hassle). They obviously target guys like me who've played the game and left and came back a couple of times. I mean, the ninja stuff (Kamigawa block) did disgust me to no end, which is why I stopped playing a couple of years ago. That and the fact that it's a truly terrible money sink... If only the game wasn't that much a blast to play...

The new duals, that, for example, come into play tapped if you don't have a swamp or an island already in play seem not too bad. Shocklands seem less and less interesting now that lightning bolt will be back with a vengeance, and ball lightning, too.

This set is definitely a good idea for the game in general. Many, many cards seem very good compared to previous sets and lots of people favourites were reprinted.
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Re: Anyone here play Magic: The Gathering?

Post by Cthulhu »

KindGrind wrote:After seeing a list of everything that will be in m2010, I'm even considering buying some boxes of the thing (or even paying 500-600$ and getting everything x4 without hassle). They obviously target guys like me who've played the game and left and came back a couple of times. I mean, the ninja stuff (Kamigawa block) did disgust me to no end, which is why I stopped playing a couple of years ago. That and the fact that it's a truly terrible money sink... If only the game wasn't that much a blast to play...

The new duals, that, for example, come into play tapped if you don't have a swamp or an island already in play seem not too bad. Shocklands seem less and less interesting now that lightning bolt will be back with a vengeance, and ball lightning, too.

This set is definitely a good idea for the game in general. Many, many cards seem very good compared to previous sets and lots of people favourites were reprinted.
I concur. The new core set is top-notch (minus the fact that I feel they nerfed blue, but that's totally besides the point). Making the core set relevant again was one of the best things they could have done both for current, new players, and people who used to play but quit.
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Re: Anyone here play Magic: The Gathering?

Post by KindGrind »

Yeah, they totally nerfed blue... It was one of their clear goals, actually. I think black and red are strong, but green and while truly take the cake. Lots of bombs for draft in pretty much all the colors, too...and Serra Angel is uncommon... (!) Many surprises to come from little things like fog, giant growth and might of oaks in draft. People will definitely have stories to tell. Goblins get Siege Gang back, and the new Goblin King gives them haste... Quite scary. Silence looks promising, too. Green, that guy who gives +1/+1 to elves, and when tapped gives F for each elve in play is great. Piper's back, too. Not very strong, but quite fun.

Black gets lots of stuff: Sign in Blood -» lose 2 life, draw 2 cards for BB.
Duress.
An equivalent of Terror for 1B.
A Mind Twist for XBB.
Diabolic Tutor
Hypnotic Specter
Haunting Echoes (on the fun side)

Red, apart from the aforementioned Goblins: Bolt (I for one never thought they would bring it back)
Ball Lightning (with great new art to boot)
Earthquake and Fireball
Magma Phoenix 3RR 3/3 Flying Deals 3 to everything when he dies, 3RR, bring it back to your hand from the grave
Edit: Typos.
Last edited by KindGrind on Sat Jul 25, 2009 12:59 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Davey
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Re: Anyone here play Magic: The Gathering?

Post by Davey »

No more mana burn? Weird. Not that it affects most people, but Mana Drain just got even better. And I guess people won't be using Power Surge anymore. :)
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Re: Anyone here play Magic: The Gathering?

Post by Ixmucane2 »

Davey wrote:No more mana burn? Weird. Not that it affects most people, but Mana Drain just got even better. And I guess people won't be using Power Surge anymore. :)
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Re: Anyone here play Magic: The Gathering?

Post by MR_Soren »

I agree, the M10 set looks like a lot of fun and I'm already signed up for a pre-release tournament this weekend.

Regarding them nerfing blue... sure, but it was needed. They look like more of a support color in M10, but we just had 2 years of people running 4 copies of Cryptic Command in every deck. I won't mind seeing a little less blue for a while.
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Re: Anyone here play Magic: The Gathering?

Post by Cthulhu »

I'm heading to a pre-release tourney this weekend too. Should be fun.

White weenie decks, although an old standby, are probably going to be really popular again (as if they weren't now...) thanks to the replacement for Glorious Anthem. 2 mana for a +1/+1 for all your guys? Bringing back the 2/1 for 1? And White Knight? Sign me up.
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Re: Anyone here play Magic: The Gathering?

Post by Ixmucane2 »

I've been to a prerelease tournament today (finished 10th out of 16, but close to the top). Most played 3 colours including black and/or green, very few 2 or 4 colours.

Distinguished useful cards that I saw included Awakener Druid, Blinding Mage, Demon's Horn and its cycle, Disentomb, Divine Verdict, Drudge Skeletons and Wall of Bone, Enormous Baloth, Essence Scatter, Gargoyle Castle, Giant Growth and Might of Oaks, Gorgon Flail, Holy and Unholy Strength, Lava Axe, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Elemental, Magebane Armor, Merfolk Looter, Mind Rot, Mist Leopard, Mold Adder, Nature's Spiral, Pyroclasm, Rhox Pikemaster & Veteran Swordsmith, Snapping Drake and Wind Drake, Stampeding Rhino, Weakness.

Notably neglected: planeswalkers, Lifelink, Overrun, Time Warp, big angels, elves, blue in general.
Notably ineffective: vampires (all easily killed), flying creatures (too many enemy creatures to block).

In summary, nothing requiring more than 1 coloured mana or multiple card synergies to cast or use, as can be expected in a sealed deck format, and remarkably basic and mostly "slow" cards.
The Demon's horn cycle surprised me the most: the trickle of 1-2 life per turn from one of these things was often enough to buy several turns of time.
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Re: Anyone here play Magic: The Gathering?

Post by Cthulhu »

I did a prerelease today too. Since I had read the spoilers online, I kinda knew what to expect. The deck I opened would have been red and either black or green, the one I ended up playing (if you haven't done a prerelease, you generally open and register the cards in one deck, but then get passed another) was white and green. Final results were 3 wins 2 losses, don't know what position that was overall in my group.

Random observations:

1) The new equipment is really, really powerful in limited. I figured it would be good, but it turned around several games.

2) Blue really does seem to have been nerfed, even for limited - saw very few people playing it. Poor blue. :x

3) Awakener Druid was the only card that I got that really surprised me with its usefulness. I almost didn't use it (figured the druid would be too easy to kill), but it won me a few games.

I'll go ahead and say that my experience with flying in M10 limited was very different from Ixmucane's and that flying still totally controlled the outcome of several games - both ones I was in and ones I watched. Even with green having a couple reachers and most colors having more flying creatures than normal, a big flier still was usually all you needed to win if your opponent didn't have an immediate answer.

Overall I really like M10 and am looking forward to buying some next week. :D
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Re: Anyone here play Magic: The Gathering?

Post by MR_Soren »

Did my pre-release yesterday. 34 people, six rounds. At the end I was one of the four people tied for first with a 5-1 record. Tiebreakers placed me in second. Not bad.

I played mostly black. Cemetary Reaper, Nightmare, Consume Spirit, Duress, Wall of Bone, Tendrils of Corruption, Doom Blade, and Assassinate were notable. I ran green as a second color for two runeclaw bears, giant spider, 4/4 trample guy, borderland ranger, and sideboard access to Naturalize. I also ran one mountain (accessible with ranger or my two terramorphic expanses) so I could play my Fireball.

Deck was quite powerful. My one loss came to a green/white/blue deck running mana acceleration, flying creatures, and sleep. The set was quite fun to play in sealed deck. Going to draft on Friday.
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Re: Anyone here play Magic: The Gathering?

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MR_Soren wrote:Did my pre-release yesterday. 34 people, six rounds. At the end I was one of the four people tied for first with a 5-1 record. Tiebreakers placed me in second. Not bad.

I played mostly black. Cemetary Reaper, Nightmare, Consume Spirit, Duress, Wall of Bone, Tendrils of Corruption, Doom Blade, and Assassinate were notable. I ran green as a second color for two runeclaw bears, giant spider, 4/4 trample guy, borderland ranger, and sideboard access to Naturalize. I also ran one mountain (accessible with ranger or my two terramorphic expanses) so I could play my Fireball.

Deck was quite powerful. My one loss came to a green/white/blue deck running mana acceleration, flying creatures, and sleep. The set was quite fun to play in sealed deck. Going to draft on Friday.
Wow, sounds like you got a pretty strong set of cards. Nice.

I'm going to try playing in a draft of this the week after next (no Friday night draft for me this time, maybe the next one). Should be a nice change of pace from Shards block drafting, which is fun, but something different is just what the proverbial doctor ordered.
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Re: Anyone here play Magic: The Gathering?

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Played in another M10 tourney, this time a draft. Had a lot of fun, took 2nd place in my pod. I'm surprised at how much I like M10 - I normally go nuts for multicolor stuff, and M10 is definitely -not- about multicolor decks, but the set is full of solid cards and the "strong standard fantasy tropes" idea behind the set is more fun than I foresaw as well.

According to the guy who ran the tournament/owns the store M10 is selling really well and Wizards is already sold out until they do another print run in August. It seems to be in-stock online at most places though, so whether it really is or not, it's not hard to find right now.
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Re: Anyone here play Magic: The Gathering?

Post by MR_Soren »

Since the pre-release, I've played a booster draft and a sealed-deck release event. People seem to be enjoying M10 and buying plenty of it. Haven't done as well as at the pre-release, but definitely had fun.

Mono color or mono color with a splash seems strong when drafting. I think Black is the best color, but it's tough to draft black as a result.
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Re: Anyone here play Magic: The Gathering?

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MR_Soren wrote: Mono color or mono color with a splash seems strong when drafting. I think Black is the best color, but it's tough to draft black as a result.
Yeah, M10 definitely encourages mono-color. Most of the colors have some pretty good stuff - blue is often mentioned as the color that came out the worst in M10, and while I'm tempted to agree, there's some pretty strong stuff you can draft with it. The king of the blue draft heap is sleep. That card won me several games.

Been relatively pleased with the M10 packs I've bought. There's more meh rares in the set than I thought at first glance, but there's also enough really good stuff that odds are buying a box will get you well more than the $80-$100 it will cost.
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Re: Anyone here play Magic: The Gathering?

Post by MR_Soren »

Cthulhu wrote:
MR_Soren wrote: Mono color or mono color with a splash seems strong when drafting. I think Black is the best color, but it's tough to draft black as a result.
Yeah, M10 definitely encourages mono-color. Most of the colors have some pretty good stuff - blue is often mentioned as the color that came out the worst in M10, and while I'm tempted to agree, there's some pretty strong stuff you can draft with it. The king of the blue draft heap is sleep. That card won me several games.
Sleep is a very strong "I win" spell for blue. Sometimes better or worse than Overrun, but on the same level, IMO. Blue/Green seemed to be a popular combination. Green beasties, blue fliers, Overrun, Sleep. Epic beatings. In fact, the presence of sleep and overrun makes me think that a fog effect is worth having main deck if you don't have much spot removal.

The rarity of allied-specific mana fixers means it's just as feasible to draft enemy colors as allied colors, so you have a lot of options for your second color or splash.

Been relatively pleased with the M10 packs I've bought. There's more meh rares in the set than I thought at first glance, but there's also enough really good stuff that odds are buying a box will get you well more than the $80-$100 it will cost.
When I started playing Magic, I never thought I'd say this, but two Shivan Dragons have been my most disappointing rare pulls so far. The rare lands are all good, the mythic rares are all good, reprints like twincast and pithing needle are good, and new cards like Silence, And Queen, and new crusade are good. I'd say that I've been happy with 2/3 of the rares I've gotten.
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Re: Anyone here play Magic: The Gathering?

Post by Cthulhu »

MR_Soren wrote:When I started playing Magic, I never thought I'd say this, but two Shivan Dragons have been my most disappointing rare pulls so far. The rare lands are all good, the mythic rares are all good, reprints like twincast and pithing needle are good, and new cards like Silence, And Queen, and new crusade are good. I'd say that I've been happy with 2/3 of the rares I've gotten.
Agreed about the Shivan Dragons. Most older creatures aren't very good any more - the power level of creatures has been pretty much increasing since the Urza's sets. Take, for example, the once revered and once hundreds of dollars Juzam Djinn... which was reprinted as the not even worth $5 Plague Sliver. That's gotta hurt. :lol:
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Re: Anyone here play Magic: The Gathering?

Post by KindGrind »

So I did buy 3+ boxes of the thing, and indeed, the number of good rares is very impressive. I think the mythic rare thing is yet another gimmic to sell more singles though...

I live near a place that sells lots of singles, so basically I traded in all my extra bolts, elite vanguards and harm's way (amazing) for 1$ a pop, and some duresses and doom blades for 0.50$. When you pull like 15 of each, not including the playset I kept for myself, that's quite good. Basically, these, coupled with crap rares they took from me, I took from them a playset of Baneslayer Angel quite early on and pretty much all the duals except 1 Dragonskull Summit and 1 Glacial Fortress.

Yeah, getting Royal Assassins and Shivan Dragons is a bummer. Even stuff like Open the Vaults will see some play with a deck not doing too bad at recent Nats with Time Sieve. I think Ant Queen is not bad at all for a 1$ rare. I mean, green can generate mana (I look at you, Elvish Archdruid) and it's still a 5/5 for 3GG. Lurking Predators, while costing one or two more than I'd like, looks crappy but really isn't all that bad. It won't probably see play in constructed, but it disemboweled me in limited, and so did a guy who had drafted Siege Gang AND Captain of the Watch as first picks. I mean, what are the odds? There are only a handful of rares I hate getting in packs:

Indestructibility
Clone
Capricious Efreet
Manabarbs
Shivan D.
Royal Ass.
Warp World (!)
Sphinx Ambassador :(
Kalonian Behemoth
Mesa Enchantress
Lightweilder Paladin
Magebane Armor
Mirror of Fate
Hive Mind

Some stats, after opening roughly 3 1/2 boxes... I pulled

0 Baneslayer Angel, Garruk, Master of the Wild Hunt (yay), Vampire Nocturnus (yay), Cemetary Reaper
1 Bird, Ball Lightning

The rest is pretty standard. After an absense of 4 years or so (since the kamigawa block), it's quite fun to play the game again. I wanted to get some singles from the Lorwynn(sp?) block, but then they rotate out in 3 months. Oh and I'm guessing the Stag won't be worth squat in 3 months when Faeries rotates, so don't get them now :) I'll probably be getting a set of Maelstrom Pulses as my first non-m10 cards... oh and Path to Exile...

If you don't get a thing of what I'm saying, maybe this post isn't meant for you.. :wink:
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Re: Anyone here play Magic: The Gathering?

Post by Cthulhu »

KindGrind wrote: The rest is pretty standard. After an absense of 4 years or so (since the kamigawa block), it's quite fun to play the game again. I wanted to get some singles from the Lorwynn(sp?) block, but then they rotate out in 3 months. Oh and I'm guessing the Stag won't be worth squat in 3 months when Faeries rotates, so don't get them now :) I'll probably be getting a set of Maelstrom Pulses as my first non-m10 cards... oh and Path to Exile...

If you don't get a thing of what I'm saying, maybe this post isn't meant for you.. :wink:
Sorry to hear you didn't get some of the ones you wanted... but yeah, I had some box mediocrity too. I got one really good box and the rest were mediocre. One of my friends did a lot better than me... but ahh well.

The 4 sets in the Lorwyn block rotate out Oct. 2nd, so less than three months. If you're planning on playing competitively, you pretty much need to buy a lot from those sets, as at least 75% of the competitive decks out there rely heavily on cards from them. If you're just playing for fun, I'd wait. I love the Shards block thematically, but there's a _lot_ of junk in there. The most powerful of the three there is probably Alara Reborn, but there are some stand-outs in Shards and Conflux. Volcanic Fallout, Path to Exile, and Maelstrom Pulse are -amazing-, and the planeswalkers in Shards are all pretty strong as well.

We'll see what happens come Zendikar, but yes, the Stag will probably drop quite a bit in value. Fairies is the only competitive largely-blue deck left, and while the Stag hurts Jund decks, it doesn't quite gut them like it does Fairies. It will probably become a $6 to $7 rather than the $11 it goes for now.

I'm really curious about Zendikar... just gotta wait for now I guess.
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Re: Anyone here play Magic: The Gathering?

Post by KindGrind »

I know waiting a bit for the block to rotate will save me hundreds of $, and trading for cards in the Alara block instead is the wisest long-term decision for me. Besides, quite a few people I know do have all the cards of the block they can lend me for future nats.
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Re: Anyone here play Magic: The Gathering?

Post by Davey »

KindGrind wrote:Yeah, getting Royal Assassins and Shivan Dragons is a bummer.
I remember thinking those cards were really good back in the day. What's changed? I've read that creatures have gotten a lot more powerful since the early days, so I can see Shivan Dragon not being so great anymore. Any reason why Royal Assassin isn't good anymore? Or was it just never that good in the first place? My friends and I thought it was a pretty good card but we never had tournament quality decks.

I still haven't broken down and started playing again, just the XBLA version. I might start playing pauper Magic on MTGO, that's relatively cheap, right?
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Re: Anyone here play Magic: The Gathering?

Post by BryanM »

Yeah, plain 2/2's for 2 mana are pretty much crap. Add Flying or Fear or First Strike or something to that poor guy. The power creep is such that players want creatures that cost six mana or more to approach the level of "deal with this guy or you lose" kind of power.

Pauper Magic will leave you enough money to pay tolls and buy food and water. You've been using the freebots right?
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Re: Anyone here play Magic: The Gathering?

Post by Cthulhu »

Basically, creatures have become more powerful overall. They have more abilities and cost less mana. The guideline used to be 1 mana per point of power/toughness and one for each ability. Grizzly Bears being a 2/2 for 2 was about right. Things like White / Black knight were a huge bargain because they were 2/2 with two abilities for just 2. Hence you saw them all the time.

Now, you need at least one good ability and 1/1 per mana to be considered a good card. Grizzly Bears? Yeah, not in tournament decks. White Knight and Black Knight only just came back, so we'll see if they're back in.

Also, there's a _lot_ more creature removal. In standard right now here's the removal spells that come to mind:

Destroy/Exile (rather than damage):
- Doom Blade
- Maelstrom Pulse
- Path to Exile
- Unmake
- Crib Swap
- Terminate

Damage:
- Lightning Bolt
- Flame Javelin
- Puncturing Blast

Mass Damage
- Volcanic Fallout
- Pyroclasm
- Crater Hellion
- Earthquake
- Lavalanche

A bit more specialized, but still mass damage:
- Windstorm
- Cloudthresher

Big minus to toughness:
- Nameless Inversion
- Sangrite Backlash

Mass minus to toughness:
- Infest

Sure, let's add a little color-screwing too:
- Deathmark
- Celestial Purge

With this kind of stuff flying around, you need creatures that are -really- efficient to be useful. Anything that's expensive had better be really, really good, as there are plenty of cards that cost very little that can deal with them. Usually creatures that cost more than 4 are treated with caution - 5 is pricey, 6 is -really- pricey. 7 and up are only played in very specific deck types.

Also, the creatures that make more creatures (especially instantly) are at a premium. Hence things like Cloudgoat Ranger and Broodmate Dragon being popular. Captain of the Watch is a new face that will probably see a reasonable amount of tournament play despite the cost.
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Re: Anyone here play Magic: The Gathering?

Post by Ixmucane2 »

To elaborate on Cthulhu's analysis:
  • Creatures with shroud (and its approximations) have become more popular. I remember that when Autumn Willow appeared, probably the first creature with this ability, not being able to buff her with enchantments and instants was a significant drawback; nowadays creatures like Progenitus or Inkwell Leviathan are considered more likely than other big shots to deal significant damage before leaving the battlefield.
  • For related reasons, trample is popular (and more common in new creatures): during its shortening lifetime a trampling creature is guaranteed to deal some damage to the opponent and/or to kill big creatures, rather than wasting turns on chump blockers like a nontrampling attacker. Killing off the opponent's creatures in combat is now a somewhat slow way to exploit creature advantage.
  • A lot of creature removal consists of sorceries (Slave of Bolas, Fireball...) and enchantments (Oblivion Ring, Weakness...), meaning that haste is also more valuable than it once was. Consider the popularity of Bloodbraid Elf.
  • I agree that a casting cost of 5 is already in the high zone for a creature, but cheating big creatures into play (Tinker, Master Transmuter, Elvish Piper...) is a growing trend, supported by card choices in recent sets.
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Cthulhu
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Re: Anyone here play Magic: The Gathering?

Post by Cthulhu »

Played in a standard tourney tonight at a new place. It was nice to meet new players (although some of them frequent my usual gaming coffee shop, so it wasn't entirely new people). Loooooots of white weenie / Kithkin decks. And I had foolishly moved my anti-white sideboard stuff to another deck. Doh. Still went 2-1-1 (yes, had a draw round) and took 4th though. Good times.

I think the only enchantment I consistently see played anymore is Honor of the Pure. Planeswalkers are the new enchantments. :lol:

I'm not entirely serious here, but I somewhat am. With the number of creatures that have static abilities that are relevant being rather high now and the number of really useful enchantments somewhat low (there's a lot of almost-good-enough-but-not-quite-strong-enough-for-tournament-play enchantments) and creature enchantments being as worthless as always... there's just not a lot of them around.
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Davey
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Re: Anyone here play Magic: The Gathering?

Post by Davey »

I just started playing online matches on the XBLA version the other day, and it's hard to win games because a lot of people quit when the match isn't going their way. :? Just one more reason to play a "real" version, I guess.

If I start playing MTGO, what's the best way to stock up on commons?
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Cthulhu
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Re: Anyone here play Magic: The Gathering?

Post by Cthulhu »

Davey wrote:I just started playing online matches on the XBLA version the other day, and it's hard to win games because a lot of people quit when the match isn't going their way. :? Just one more reason to play a "real" version, I guess.

If I start playing MTGO, what's the best way to stock up on commons?
If you want to play a real version, how about looking into the actual card game and not just a different electronic one?
"Am I the only one who thinks it's funny that people start declaring a game is overrated before it's even out? "
"You're at shmups.com. We're all psychics full of righteous indignation!"
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Re: Anyone here play Magic: The Gathering?

Post by Davey »

I don't have any friends that play it or that would be interested in getting started. Plus it's convenient to be able to play at any time on a whim and not have to get a bunch of people together.

EDIT: Also, I just read in other forums that quitting a match is the same as losing - you get the loss and the other person gets the win. In that case, I guess quitting immediately is better than wasting time playing out the game when you know you're going to lose.

DOUBLE EDIT: Apparently not everybody agrees about what happens to your rank after a quit, and there are possibly some bugs regarding wins and losses. The only gameplay bug I've noticed is that Dread kills Underworld Dreams.
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