Anyone here play Magic: The Gathering?

[KindGrind]

Hallowed Burial, huh? I think you forgot to mention that one in your mass removal... It did surprise me a couple of times recently! Anyways.

So after getting 4x of everything playable in m10, I got the cards I like in the alara block and built some decks. Basically, I built a bant-aggro (with 4x rafiq, war monks, noble hierarchs, pridemages, etc, the works) and a jund deck -man these names make me cringe-, with 4x putrid leech (I like!), volcanic fallout, great sable stag (!), maelstrom pulse, bloodbraid elf (!!), etc. Basically, I tried to get cards I would get to play again post-October 2nd, and these decks fit perfectly the types of decks I always were playing before. I also picked up a playset of Elspeths for relatively cheap... don't know yet what I'll do with them, but they do fit my ww for now.

I have played against fairies with my 2 decks, and won very easily with jund, and lost miserably with bant. Main deck Stags had my opponent make disgusted faces, but volcanic fallout followed by a pulse on his bitterblossoms had him scoop quite a few times. Played jund against kithkin, too, and it went very well. I bloodbraid elfed/bituminous blasted into pulse killing honors of the pure so many times it was ridiculous.

Damn this game is fun. I'd been missing it I guess...

I'm thinking of building an extended zoo deck, too, but the idea of shelling 120$ for a playset of Goyfs makes me happier with what I have now...

[Cthulhu]

Fairies was a dominant deck for a really long time, so people who play it should be ready to deal with lots of hate cards. It was -the- dominant deck for a long time, rather. So even more so.

Jund cascade decks are pretty damn good right now. Lots of those at one of my local places. Bant I enjoy (I spent way too much money on my Bant deck ) but they're way too susceptible to destruction spells. When you get a great draw they usually win, but I find they run out of steam quickly. I'm convinced that can be fixed though - I just don't know how. I'm guessing both Bant and Jund decks will continue to be great when Lorwyn cycles. Fairies, obviously, will be gone.

[zaphod]

When they removed interrupts from the game and just upgraded instants to where interrupts were is when i lost my respect for the game.

Actually, instants always worked like that. They just modified interrupts to work within the rules for instants. I hated the change at first, but as I continued playing I realized that the game's rules are much cleaner and more manageable today.

No, no, NO!

People thinking the way you did is why they made the change.

I repeat. Although they were resolved last to first, from a game mechanics perspective, they were understood to happen from first to last.

Damage is delayed so this logic would work.

Old rules.

You cast lightning bolt on my Llanowar elves.
In response, I play Healing salve, preventing up to 3 damage.

From a game mechanics standpoint, the following happens.
The healing salve resolves first, preventing the 3 damage that is about to be applied by the lightning bolt.

However, what really happens is this.

The lightning bolt spell is cast. Lighting starts to streak towards the creature. It's damage is not instantaneous, but is delayed long enough that an instant can respond to it and prevent it before the damage strikes.

Repeat after me. Although spells are resolved from last to first from a game mechanics standpoint, they happen from first to last. UNless they are an interrupt. Interrupts are so fast that you can finish casting them before the other mage finishes their spell. SO they actually DO happen first, and that is how an interrupt can cancel a spell. A red Elemental blast under original rule was capable of killing a Tim before it tapped, because it actually happened first, and prevented the action, and only an interrupt can respond to an interrupt, and tapping Tim to deal damage was an instant..

Another case of first to last logic.

We are both at 3 life. You cast lightning bolt on me. In response, i cast lightning bolt on you.

Game mechanics standpoint, my bolt resolves first, but because the death check is delayed until the stack empties, your lightning bolt also resolves, zapping me too. The game is a draw. It doesn't matter who zaps first. Destroying the source of an effect doesn't counter the effect. It still happens.

Logically, your bolt happens first, but because my bolt is an instant, i am able to get it off before I die. It's actually you destroying ME that fails to counter my bolt, because youes is the one that happens first.

I understood this.

Old rules. you block my 3-3 creature with your 3-3 creature. I cast giant growth on my creature. You respond with lightning bolt. Bolt resolves first, but it's damage is delayed until after my giant growth resolves. my creature is 3-6, both then take 3 damage and die.

New rules.

Same situation. Your bolt resolves first, taking my creature to 0/3, it dies, my giant growth fizzles, your creature lives, taking no damage.

I shock you for 2 points, takign yuu to 0 life i win.
In response, i shock you for 2 points taking you to 0 life. I win because you hit 0 life first.

In this scenario, why would the guy who responded simply not have used the shock earlier? This doesn't typically happen in a real game.

Under old rules, the situating of both players being able to shock the other is a stalemate. If you knew you weren't gonna win, you would zap and take the draw, because it was better than a loss. In fact you'd zap as soon as you knew a win was hopeless.

Under new rules, he who zaps first LOSES! Let me repeat. He who zaps first LOSES. Therefore, you MUST wait til you have an answer to his zap. This answer can be a SECOND ZAP, which of course doesn't work at all under old rules. That would have been a draw. The guy waited because he knew the other guy probably had some direct damage, but the other guy didn't know he had some ready, so he zapped first, and paid the price. Or perhaps he just got sick of waiting. Maybe he forgot that he who zaps first loses. The guy who zapped first was the one who made the mistake of zapping without a way to deal with a counterzap.

And honestly, there's just too damn much luck involved. If you don't make a mono colored deck, you have to worry about not only mana screw and mana gluts, but also color screw (where you get all your mana one color and all your cards another color). I've had every single one of these happen on a regular basis with the SAME DECK.

Two and three color decks that work consistently well are quite possible with the right mix of cards.

Then how the heck do you explain mana glut, mana screw, and color screw happening in the same deck?!?! I have never had ANY deck, no matter how well constructed, work consistently enough to guarantee a win against an inferior deck. At times no matter how much i shuffle, I suffer mana glut or mana screw after more than 50% of opening hands. And in a splash color deck, i've gotten all land of my splash color and all cards of my non splash in the opening hand. That mean i have too much of my splash color? when i've got 1/3rd one color and 2/3rds the other one?

[Ixmucane2]

I came back to buying significant numbers of Magic cards and playing at a local store with the Alara block and my first almost serious deck effort was an Esper one, for the nastiness potential of Master Transmuter, Esperzoa and other cards (e.g. turn 4 Master Transmuter, turn 5 Inkwell Leviathan and its Clone; turn 4 8/8 Arsenal Thresher; bouncing a Filigree Angel (usually worth 12 to 24 life) every turn, not to mention Parasitic Strix, Faerie Mechanist, Sanctum Gargoyle and Architects of Will).

However, I think the last three sets are too aligned to a few deck types; cards fit together too well to ensure diversity (for example, more cards that I'm able to field in my deck have obvious synergies with Master Transmuter).
Everybody plays one of the five shards (with modest variations), faeries, merfolk, unfocused "5cc" and little else.
Even the variations tend to be very uniform combos and single cards that appear wherever there are the right colours of mana (i.e. almost everywhere): Bloodbraid Elf and Bituminous Blast hoping to cascade into Maelstrom Pulse and Terminate, Kitchen Finks and Obelisk of Alara for their formidable efficiency, and so on.

Maybe I'll make a cascade-based deck (also obvious, but at least not a shard), but my main projects for when I find time are a standard update of my ten years old discard deck (Hypnotic Specter stays (!), sissy sorceries replace Hymn to Tourach, Nyxathid should be a good brutalizer) and a legacy (maybe extended) Teferi's Puzzle Box combo deck (Land Tax, Underworld Dreams & Kederekt Parasite, maybe Niv-Mizzet the Firemind and/or Hoofprints of the Stag, definitely a lot of counterspells).

[Ixmucane2]

I have never had ANY deck, no matter how well constructed, work consistently enough to guarantee a win against an inferior deck. At times no matter how much i shuffle, I suffer mana glut or mana screw after more than 50% of opening hands. And in a splash color deck, i've gotten all land of my splash color and all cards of my non splash in the opening hand. That mean i have too much of my splash color? when i've got 1/3rd one color and 2/3rds the other one?

This should never happen: a land that supports a splash colour must be multicoloured including one or more of the main colours to make sense, so that you cannot be screwed with "splash" mana and main colour spells but only, at worst, with the much rarer opposite case.

Good land choices include the Alara 3 colour lands that come into play tapped, the many differently crippled 5 colour lands, the "vivid" lands with a preferred colour and limited support for all others, the new M10 2 colour lands, and a lot of older stuff.
If you can afford to play a basic land instead of the above it is a major colour of your deck, not a splash; conversely, a splash colour is better served by nonland mana sources and mana fixing, such as Birds of Paradise, that help the minority colour without stealing from the main ones.

For example I once had a mostly green deck with 4 white and 2 red cards; it had only forests but 4 Quirion Elves, 4 Birds of Paradise and 4 Tinder Wall, and today it would also have 4 Rootbound Crag and 4 Sunpetal Grove (but probably not Jungle Shrine: too slow).

[KindGrind]

Basically, if your deck doesn't require you to play lots of 1-drops, the m10 duals and the SOA lands are the way to go. M10 lands with green in them tend to be a bit snobbed around here, but they ARE necessary if you play a 3 color balanced deck, especially post-rotation. Vivid lands are a must in 5CC or 5C Cascade, for example, as Ixmucane said.

[MR_Soren]

Repeat after me. Although spells are resolved from last to first from a game mechanics standpoint, they happen from first to last.

I'm sorry, but there is no way I am going to repeat that. I realize you are trying to say how things happen from a flavor perspective, but that has no bearing on how the game mechanics of interrupts were an unnecessary mess that I'm glad has been cleaned up.

I shock you for 2 points, takign yuu to 0 life i win.
In response, i shock you for 2 points taking you to 0 life. I win because you hit 0 life first.

In this scenario, why would the guy who responded simply not have used the shock earlier? This doesn't typically happen in a real game.

Under old rules, the situating of both players being able to shock the other is a stalemate. If you knew you weren't gonna win, you would zap and take the draw, because it was better than a loss. In fact you'd zap as soon as you knew a win was hopeless.

Under new rules, he who zaps first LOSES! Let me repeat. He who zaps first LOSES. Therefore, you MUST wait til you have an answer to his zap. This answer can be a SECOND ZAP, which of course doesn't work at all under old rules. That would have been a draw. The guy waited because he knew the other guy probably had some direct damage, but the other guy didn't know he had some ready, so he zapped first, and paid the price. Or perhaps he just got sick of waiting. Maybe he forgot that he who zaps first loses. The guy who zapped first was the one who made the mistake of zapping without a way to deal with a counterzap.

Once again, this is not a realistic scenario. If both players had burn spells that could kill the other player, one of them had a higher life total at some point and would have used the lethal spell then instead of waiting until his life total was low and getting into a game of chicken with his opponent.

There are some strange circumstances where this could happen like if both players had low life totals and an "everybody draws cards" effect made both players draw a burn spell at the same time. However, that isn't the sort of situation that comes up in even 1% of games played. It's certainly not worth ranting about.

Then how the heck do you explain mana glut, mana screw, and color screw happening in the same deck?!?! I have never had ANY deck, no matter how well constructed, work consistently enough to guarantee a win against an inferior deck. At times no matter how much i shuffle, I suffer mana glut or mana screw after more than 50% of opening hands. And in a splash color deck, i've gotten all land of my splash color and all cards of my non splash in the opening hand. That mean i have too much of my splash color? when i've got 1/3rd one color and 2/3rds the other one?

I would explain your problems by saying that you do not have a well-crafted deck. You can never have a deck that will win 100% of the time, but a well-crafted deck should play okay off of a majority of your shuffles. Combined with the ability to take a mulligan when you get a weak hand, a well-crafted deck should work okay more than 90% of the time.

I typically run 0-3 basic lands in a splash color, and get the rest of the mana from multi-colored lands and other mana producers that also produce my primary color(s). Using land fetching cards also helps. Not only does it fix your colors, but it removes land from your deck, reducing the odds of drawing too much later. Terramorphic Expanse, Rampant Growth, Armillary Sphere, and Borderland Ranger are all easily-available common cards that do this well.

You also have to watch the mana costs. I almost never run cards with double-color mana costs in more than two colors. For example, running cards that cost 1RR, 2WW, and 1GG in the same deck is bound to cause problems with your colors.

[KindGrind]

This is out of the argument, but I've just browsed through Extended decks (my favourite format when I stopped playing around the first Kamigawa set, played Tog, Pirates -which Tog could never manage to beat- and the good old The Rock with Spiritmongers and Pernicious Deeds), and I see pretty much all the decks except Affinity running 4x Tarmogoyf. Hell, 95% of the Legacy decks run it, too. It even appears in Vintage...

What do you guys think of the card? Is it worth shelling out 130$ for a set?

[Cthulhu]

What do you guys think of the card? Is it worth shelling out 130$ for a set?

Make sure you have a decent amount of local extended events first. If you do, and you're planning on competing, then yes. Extended is rather sparse here in the Denver area, so I'm not investing in them myself. Too much money for too little chances to use them.

[MR_Soren]

This is out of the argument, but I've just browsed through Extended decks (my favourite format when I stopped playing around the first Kamigawa set, played Tog, Pirates -which Tog could never manage to beat- and the good old The Rock with Spiritmongers and Pernicious Deeds), and I see pretty much all the decks except Affinity running 4x Tarmogoyf. Hell, 95% of the Legacy decks run it, too. It even appears in Vintage...

What do you guys think of the card? Is it worth shelling out 130$ for a set?

They have a low mana cost and are easy to make big. It's certainly a good card, but I don't get to play enough extended to justify the expense. It's definitely good though.

[KindGrind]

Yeah, that's a good, cheap beatstick. It dies to almost everything and is "spellsnareable", but I think that's beside the point. Looks to me the guy's good with others, and if he's the target of anything, something's else going to survive. He might be tougher to splash after October 2nd, as the fetch lands rotate out, though.

So I bought some things from the Lorwyn and Ravnica block, mostly to play in a Rock-type deck or zoo in extended. Seems like the timing's not too bad, too, as these rotate out of Standard the prices are quite reasonable on many things. I snagged playsets of Thoughtseize, Figure of Destiny, Goyf and Dark Confidant for now. I'll wait a bit for the rest. I'm in for a couple of Umezawa's Jitte, too, a card that I liked a lot and was just out when I stopped playing. You guys wouldn't have spares of these, wouldn't you?

[Cthulhu]

Yeah, that's a good, cheap beatstick. It dies to almost everything and is "spellsnareable", but I think that's beside the point. Looks to me the guy's good with others, and if he's the target of anything, something's else going to survive. He might be tougher to splash after October 2nd, as the fetch lands rotate out, though.

So I bought some things from the Lorwyn and Ravnica block, mostly to play in a Rock-type deck or zoo in extended. Seems like the timing's not too bad, too, as these rotate out of Standard the prices are quite reasonable on many things. I snagged playsets of Thoughtseize, Figure of Destiny, Goyf and Dark Confidant for now. I'll wait a bit for the rest. I'm in for a couple of Umezawa's Jitte, too, a card that I liked a lot and was just out when I stopped playing. You guys wouldn't have spares of these, wouldn't you?

If I ever play extended I'm going for some Jittes myself. For now not with the money though, heh.

If you're only doing a couple colors, the loss of the fetch lands isn't bad because the Ravnica shock lands are still in, as are the painlands. I keep wanting more of the Ravnica block lands, but I just can't bring myself to trade heavily for cards I can't really use. A pity, since they're pretty damn nice (and count as both types of basic they're subbing for, which can occasionally do quite a bit).

[Cthulhu]

I noticed that a Merfolk deck won a big national tournament in Switzerland, which made me want to tweak the one I made. His (I'm guessing it's a he, as 99% of Magic players are ) decklist wasn't all that different from the one I made, but mine sucked. I revamped it and will try it at a tourney tomorrow. Gotta get my blue fix in now before Lorwyn goes and leaves blue all but unplayable in standard.

[Ixmucane2]

I won an improvised M10 sealed deck mini-tournament with an extraordinarily straightforward creature and creature removal deck (half white soldiers and Pacifism, half assorted black). It was almost a different game from constructed formats; it's clear that the last core set was designed to support limited formats.

[KindGrind]

I've drafted m10 several times now, and the rares make a huge difference, a lot more than in the previous sets. What I mean is, there are lots of good ones. When you get a Siege Gang, Captain of the Watch or stuff like Kalonian Behemoth in your opening pack, it's pretty much a no brainer. There are lots of obvious picks, which makes drafting m10 pretty beginner-friendly. The fact that Serra is uncommon is rather stupid, too.

Still, that's a quite fun way of playing the game, even if I like constructed a lot better.

[Cthulhu]

I won an improvised M10 sealed deck mini-tournament with an extraordinarily straightforward creature and creature removal deck (half white soldiers and Pacifism, half assorted black). It was almost a different game from constructed formats; it's clear that the last core set was designed to support limited formats.

Yeah, they've officially tried to balance sets for limited format play for several sets now. Not sure of the exact number though. M10 is definitely fun to draft, as is the Alara block - many of the "ehh" cards that you might not play in a normal deck become incredibly good.

I haven't drafted in a while, but it is definitely fun. Good for a change of pace when you need a little variety.

[unsane]

For fans (or ex-fans) of Magic, i strongly recommend a card game i discovered which i consider vastly superior: Race for the Galaxy.

Differences:
-scifi theme instead of fantasy;
-not collectible, ~30$ and you can play it forever;
-can be played 2-4 players, or 1-5 with one expansion;
-no mana screw/mana flood/color screw - costs are paid by discarding other cards from hand;
-near infinite replayability;
-strategic depth is much more satisfying;
-complex decision rate is much much higher;
-high level psychological interaction when you and your opponents get good - prediction and other facets.

[KindGrind]

Very good suggestion and a great game, too. Still, the collectible aspect of MTG does attract me and lots of others, believe it or not. Do try this game out, people. Great 2-player game, and these are quite rare... I can play St-Petersburg and Lost Cities (basic) with two players and have fun, but this one definitely takes the cake.

About Jitte... I run some in my extended deck (Doran Rock), and they're ridiculously good. I played against a friend of mine that's pretty new to the game and he thought the thing was grossly overpowered. I read on mtg.com that the third ability (-1/-1) was added after the actual testing of the cards. It was supposed to be "Remove a counter: add BB to your mana pool", but they thought it would have been too complex with the emptyings of the pool etc. The actual article is named: How to sneak overpowered cards past development", if that interests anyone. It addresses the mess that was Skullclamp, too (amazingly fun to play with, imo!)

[MR_Soren]

Jitte is grossly overpowered. In fact, it's overwhelming presence in standard resulted in me mostly quitting standard for over a year. It just wasn't fun, IMO.


I attempted a Pro Tour Qualifier in Detroit this past weekend. I had to drive 500 miles (each way) to do this because I live in the middle of nowhere. This was my first major standard tournament since State Champs (also in Detroit) right after Ravnica came out. (Fall 2006?) (BTW, in that event, I ran 4 Suppression Fields main deck because I hated the Jitte so much.)

At the PTQ I ran a Naya deck that had good or great matchups against most of the popular decks. The worst matchup was against Kithkin. This was compounded by me only having access to 1 Still-Moon Cavalier in the sideboard. I figured it would be okay. I'd probably only play against 1 Kithkin deck, 2 if I was unlucky.

Round 1: I play against a jund deck using Makeshift Mannequin to bring back useful creatures. I made a dumb mistake in game 1 that took away my ability to finish off my opponent before his broodmate dragon ate me. Fortunately, I was able to recover from my mistake and won games 2 and 3.

Round 2: I get paired against a red/white Kithkin deck. My opponent put up a fight in both games, but I always had the answers in hand for everything he did.

At this point I was happpy, I was 2-0 having beaten Jund and Kithkin, and I looked forward to playing against some faeries, Elves, or merfolk which my deck was really good against. No such luck.

Rounds 3, 4, and 5 were all against kithkin and I went 1-2 in each of those matches. I dropped after round 5 with a 2-3 record. I couldn't believe my rotten luck to play 4 kithkin decks in a row. There weren't an overabundance of Kithkin decks. My four traveling companions played a combined total of 30 matches, and each of them only got paired against one kithkin deck.

So, I spent 1000 miles in a car to play against the same deck archetype four times in a row. It was rather disappointing, but I had fun with two Shards drafts I did after dropping.

I heard white/blue Reveillark decks were plentiful in the top 8.

[Cthulhu]

Yeah, Kithkin is going to be a staple until it cycles. The efficiency of the cards is just too damn good to ignore.

Despite the fact that Revillark decks have been a major archetype since... well, pretty much since the card came out, I still have yet to play against one. I've got a morbid curiosity to see one in action now.

[Cthulhu]

Time to resurrect this topic a bit.

First, Zendikar - the spoilers are starting to creep out and there's a lot of cool stuff. Take a look here for a pretty good list of spoilers so far:

http://www.gatheringmagic.com/?page_id=1523

They were 98% correct with their M10 spoilers, so I imagine these are mostly true. Several have been confirmed elsewhere or by Wizards. So anyways, yes, lots of new stuff. Most of it mono-color. White gets Wrath back under a new name. Black gets vampires galore. Red gets ... more burn. Green not sure yet, blue gets a mythic(?) counterspell that doesn't actually counter. It's main use will be in vintage & extended, where it will be huge, but in Standard, maybe not so much.

It's going to be a big set. I'm pretty excited - although I'm going to miss the multicolor-galore days of Lorwyn/Shards.

[KindGrind]

Yeah, I've watched the spoiler closely the past few weeks. The new Wrath of God (w/o the regeneration) is certainly a welcome addition to standard, and will probably see plentiful of play in control decks running Baneslayers. The new Goblin Lackey (Warren Instigator) 1/1 for RR with double strike is extremely good for Legacy goblins running Vial, and will certainly see some play in standard, too. Too bad they made it mythic... will definitely be a chase rare at 20+$. Hell, they're over 20$ each right now on Ebay. Don't dump these m10 Chieftains and Siege Gangs yet... they might see play! There's also a retarded artifact (Eternity Vessel) that costs 6 colorless, and lets you imprint your life total in it when you cast it. Everytime you play a land, your life total may come back to the life total imprinted in the card. Annoyiong, to say the least. Stax-type decks will embrace this with arms wide open.

I hope they make the enemy fetchlands just so most extended decks don't get into too much mana trouble. The timing would be perfect for these imo. I bought back into the game so I could play extended, but one thing led to another, and I did "have to" get lots of legacy staples, too. I attended a tournament (which is twice each month) and had great fun. 45 players, lots of nice people, and surprisingly old at that. I mean, most were my age.. around 30. I'm guessing MTG being more expensive than other CCGs, generally attracts older people. There's probably that and the nostalgia feeling of playing with the cards you played with when you were a teenager or something.

After some discussions and quite a bit of Legacy play, I think that the format is very balanced and quite healthy. Sure a great percentage of decks run blue with Force of Wills/Brainstorm/Daze, and among these most run Counterbalance/Sensei's Divining Top, but the other decks out there know that and are geared to play against these. I was quite disgusted when I saw the going rate of duals, so I had to get only Tropicals and Volcanics. The rest of the highly played cards in Legacy aren't much more expensive than the standard/extended staples (the likes of Maelstrom Pulse, Baneslayer Angel, Reflecting Pool (!) and stuff that saw lots of play like Mutavault and Bitterblossom) and will hold their value and most likely rise in the future... a fact that isn't true for most Standard rares. Quite fun to see that archetypes that were around 10 years ago are still going srong, stuff like (Geddon)Stax or Landstill, for example. They're much stronger now with the new additions. Anyways.

What a great game.

[Ixmucane2]

There's also a retarded artifact (Eternity Vessel) that costs 6 colorless, and lets you imprint your life total in it when you cast it. Everytime you play a land, your life total may come back to the life total imprinted in the card. Annoyiong, to say the least. Stax-type decks will embrace this with arms wide open.

Off the top of my head, Master Transmuter will have a new exponential toy and Storm Cauldron will come back to haunt Legacy decks. Then there are Borderposts, Fastbond and other ways to play or replay a limited number of extra lands.

Given the precedent of Tarmogoyf (which is officially deemed ***ing strong and underpriced, but easy to kill) I don't think it will be restricted unless there is some easy infinite combo.

[Cthulhu]

Off the top of my head, Master Transmuter will have a new exponential toy and Storm Cauldron will come back to haunt Legacy decks. Then there are Borderposts, Fastbond and other ways to play or replay a limited number of extra lands.

Master Transmuter is just too damn easy to kill. For a little while you saw people trying, but it just never caught on. If you can pull it off though - hell yes, you're set.

I'd love to try extended out some more, but in Denver, there's simply no extended scene I can find. One place on the edge of town did an extended tournament once a month but canceled that due to a lack of interest. I tried Googling for other places, but haven't been able to find any. *sigh* Ahh well. I suppose standard sucks up enough of my cash as it is. There's one place not to far from me that does weekly vintage tournaments, but I don't really want to get involved. Partially due to money and partially because if that place went under (which I sure hope they don't but...), then I'd have spent a LOT of money on things I can't use.

Oh, and did anyone see the new fetch lands? So while we aren't getting the new "tap duals" from M10 in the enemy colors, we are getting fetch lands (pay 1 life, sack it, get a basic land of one of two types) for the enemy colors. Which is totally awesome. And that leads me to... holy crap, Zendikar is about 1/5 revealed and there's already tons of cards that are destined to fetch a high price. Maybe I need to splurge on another box...

[BryanM]

That's some serious power creep there.

1BB 2/3 black creature with flying, deathtouch, lifelink - is this above the curve y/n?

They're moving the curve up forever aren't they?

[Cthulhu]

That's some serious power creep there.

1BB 2/3 black creature with flying, deathtouch, lifelink - is this above the curve y/n?

They're moving the curve up forever aren't they?

It depends on where you want the curve to start. For the last several sets (probably Time Spiral onwards?) they've been trying to severely push up the power of creatures. In the early, early sets (say... up through The Dark perhaps), most of the creatures were rather weak. Hence things like the Juzam Djinn - a 5/5 for four mana that had a drawback - were about as good as it got. The spells were way more powerful - although many of the ones that were extremely powerful were only that way by accident, as they didn't playtest as much (or have the resources to, really).

Now the tables are largely but not entirely turned - the creatures are where the power is, and the spells are mostly less impressive. There are still some real standouts in spells - Cryptic Command is probably the biggest one from the last few sets, but there are a few others, like Volcanic Fallout and Hallowed Burial (which is only really noteworthy because Wrath of God left for a while). Go ahead and stick Maelstrom Pulse in there too.

But the creatures - Broodmate Dragon, Bloodbraid Elf, all the Kithkin, Mulldrifter, the Fairies - are amazingly good. Oh, and we can't forget Baneslayer Angel now, which is among the best creatures ever printed.

As long as they keep the creatures interesting and balanced among the colors, I'm totally fine with them keeping them powerful. They've done a pretty good job so far (overall, not necessarily per-set), so they've still got my interest.

Yay MtG.

[KindGrind]

The enemy fetchlands! I'm speechless.
Best timing to release them, really. Extended land problems for all decks are now solved. It seems they found the right way of selling more boxes of Zendikar... Listening to the players!

[Davey]

In the early, early sets (say... up through The Dark perhaps), most of the creatures were rather weak. Hence things like the Juzam Djinn - a 5/5 for four mana that had a drawback - were about as good as it got. The spells were way more powerful - although many of the ones that were extremely powerful were only that way by accident, as they didn't playtest as much (or have the resources to, really).

Past The Dark, actually. The Dark was a little before my time, but when I started playing, Fallen Empires was the newest expansion. No good creatures in that set IIRC. Then came Ice Age, which was obviously much better, but I don't remember it having any powerful creatures. Then came Homelands.

Looking back, it's easy to see why my circle of friends all quit. At the time, it looked like the long-term trend was to make everything weaker. Actually, the way things were going, we didn't think there would even be a long-term trend. It looked like Magic had run its course and would die out altogether within a few years, if not months (keep in mind the game itself wasn't even 3 years old at the time). I was surprised when I started college in '99 and saw people playing. I thought to myself, "Magic cards? They still make those?"

[BryanM]

See, that's why they're gonna embrace inflation and adjust the starting life total as needed.

...GG bears for 2 / 2 lul, how boring. Eye-laser shooting bears are way more interesting.

I think it's obvious all the wackiness is in response from the steady decline in the game. Google Trends and Alexa claim it's working a bit, and hey, we're talking about it again aren't we?

[KindGrind]

Don't forget that the game was never advertised as much as it is now, too. I mean the X360 game is a huge publicitary stunt -they do give you a free foil Garruk, too!- obviously meant to attract new people (new rules help) as well as others who left the game in the past. The game designers are truly aiming to please the players, giving them power stuff: lightning bolt is back after 10 years of absence, they print the enemy fetchlands which people have been waiting for for 5 years, they give us undercosted beaters / crowd pleasers like Baneslayer Angel, they invite players to play goblins again with Warren Instigator.... People had enough of the damn ninjas (I know I did anyway) and all the wackiness. They came back with Vampires, Goblins, Elves, Angels and Dragons and what do you know, the booster boxes are sold out pretty much everywhere. Sure the game doesn't have the following that it once had, but I don't think it's going anywhere. Didn't GP Boston this summer have the biggest attendency ever? People will keep wanting to play with powerful cards... My best friend sold his 40 mint beta duals and mint beta power 9 for 10,000$ 5 years ago. He can't believe his eyes when he sees a beta Underground Sea going for 300-350$. Anyways.

Homelands did have its fair load of weak/garbage cards, but it introduced us to Autumn Willow and the untargetable ability at least. Tempest/Strongold/Exodus had very nice and balanced cards. It all led to the Urza Block, (mostly Saga) in which all hell broke loose. Everything in block constructed had to be banned. Talk about power creep there. What did they do after? Release really crappy sets. Prophecy? Invasion? Yeah Avatar of Woe was fun, but there are 15 cards that are equivalent if not better in m10. Hell, we know of 50 cards from the next set (Zendikar), and all creatures are equal if not better. As long as the cards are fun to play with, I think that the game will remain popular. I don't think brokenness (when accessible to all) turns people away. Good thing blue was nerfed, too.