Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 1, 2016 19:12:51 GMT -5
Remember that tacky card game from the 90s where all the cards looked like this? Puberty hit it like a truck. Now Magic Duels is a thing, and I'd say it's one of the best card games on Steam. Did I mention it's free to play, and that it's regularly updated with all the newest sets? That's right, you have all the cards from Magic Origins, New Zendikar, Shadows over Innistrad, and now Kaladesh as of two days ago. It's great- I love it. Downsides? Well... there's a lot of minor things. You're grinding for enough shekels to get more card packs to get more shekels. But hey, free to play, and you're guaranteed to never get more than 4 copies of any card. No more smelting cards to get more cards to smelt. You can't play the campaign offline or matches against AIs if the servers are down. There's no drafting... yet, which is a bit of a bummer. Also, the single-player campaign has a weird difficulty curve. One minute you're blasting everything down with Gideon's pack of simpletons, and the next campaign you have an awful mill deck as your opponent puts up 7/7 rare fliers on the board. Beyond that, MTG's stepping up its game. Good on them. Have any bros tried this game out yet?
|
|
|
Post by blackbarney on Oct 2, 2016 8:01:45 GMT -5
This is the game I play the most. I absolutely love it, glad you like it too. With this week's expansion I have a couple dozen decks on the go. I desperately need the new Chandra but I'm out of gold
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2016 16:15:34 GMT -5
The new Chandras are alright, though every time I cast them I'd rather toss a Chandra's Outrage at my opponent's army. That being said I do like the new Nissa. Turning lands into 5/5 creatures for a bit is pretty useful.
I really like Crew- it can turn a squad of weenies into a battering ram in the late-game. That's great- you now have something to do while waiting to draw a combat trick.
Fabricate is probably the weakest mechanic. It makes for a flexible army, but it's also very boring. On top of that- Glint-Sleeve Artisan and Visionary Augmenter bleed the colours a bit. White has never made a vanilla 3 CMC 3/3 or 4 CMC 4/3 creature.
Energy decks are fun, but slightly annoying in the sense that you can only use Kaladesh cards to get it going. There's a lot of activating abilities that slow the game down, but once you have many outlets to spend/earn energy you can get some interesting games.
|
|
|
Post by blackbarney on Oct 3, 2016 8:27:09 GMT -5
Smugglers Copter is the nuts, btw. I know you can only put two in a deck but it’s crazy good.
Fleetwood Cruiser is very good too. That's it tho, the other vehicles are jank. Everyone is getting wet over Skysoverign flagship but I think those other two vehicles are far better
Very aggressive expansion. I like it
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 3, 2016 17:09:33 GMT -5
I'd be more surprised if the rare vehicles weren't good- hence being rare and thus desirable. I always figured that was done to get an idea of how powerful a certain mechanic is when R&D has no idea how it'll pan out- so they deliberately tinker with varying power levels to get a gradient going. In terms of power level vehicles seem okay.
Though I have to admit- I'm a fan of the new card limit. 4 for commons, 3 uncommons, 2 rares, 1 mythic rare- that's going to allow for more interesting decks and metas. It was annoying seeing most formats put loads of CC cards in a 3+ colour deck, or loading hundreds of dollars into a bunch of rare cards. It won't keep Standard from being mad expensive if it was implemented, but it'll help.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 1, 2016 3:54:25 GMT -5
Heh. That's neat. Prey Upon in the original Innistrad, and again in Eldritch Moon
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 20, 2016 5:16:30 GMT -5
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 28, 2016 6:27:34 GMT -5
Heh heh heh heh
|
|
|
Post by blackbarney on Dec 29, 2016 9:35:52 GMT -5
The next expansion has Oath of Ajani and it looks nuts. Reduces the cost of planeswalkers by one. T3 Gideon is going to be he'll to deal with
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2016 13:56:44 GMT -5
I mean a 5/5 indestructible creature for 4 mana is hard enough to deal with as is; aside from a few white spells and just firing back at Gideon it's hard to take him down. Oath of Ajani is pretty sweet, and as a support spell it'll probably be very useful with planewalkers like Elspeth. Having +1/+1 counters permanently on all your creatures can amount to a pretty sweet deal. EDIT: I love these pieces of art that transition one time period of Innistrad to another.
|
|
|
Post by blackbarney on Jan 3, 2017 11:48:40 GMT -5
That second card is soooo good
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 3, 2017 17:07:31 GMT -5
It took me a while to figure out that the only reason that the monster is grabbing that teddy bear is because that's the same little girl in Make a Wish. EDIT: It turns out someone else REALLY likes these continual cards as well.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2017 18:18:03 GMT -5
It finally happened. www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/5mzl6n/january_9_2017_banned_and_restricted_announcement/These are all now banned from Standard. Smuggler's Copter could basically be used in any deck. Aggro, madness combo, control- you name it. Also it's hard to get rid of. Red/black needed instant-speed removal to deal with it, and every other colour didn't really have an efficient answer. Aether Adept was a pretty good card that was a 1UU 2/2 human that could bounce any creature on the board. A Reflector Mage is that, but better. Emrakul was essentially a 13/13 for 8 mana that allowed you to control the other guy's turn. Gitaxian Probe is a surprise. It's used a lot in modern, but I don't really see how it can be broken.
|
|
|
Post by blackbarney on Jan 15, 2017 9:54:51 GMT -5
I'm glad we can still play the first two in Duels
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2017 23:36:39 GMT -5
I bet if Duels had Dragons of Tarkir in it Bant Collected Company decks would still work. Even with only two copies of Tireless Tracker, Duskwatch Recruiter, Spell Queller, and Sylvan Advocate it could still make for a potent deck. What else could you get? Elvish Visionary? Bounding Krasis? Thalia the pain-the-butt? Loads of options here. Sucks Duels never got Emrakul- that guy would have made Delirium decks a little sweeter.
|
|
|
Post by blackbarney on Jan 16, 2017 8:07:17 GMT -5
That card is crazy good
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 11, 2017 20:22:16 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by blackbarney on Feb 12, 2017 9:55:07 GMT -5
I'm about to start a tournament and I brought Bant tempo, maybe a bad meta call?
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 12, 2017 16:43:34 GMT -5
Ah. See, there's the problem. You gotta have everyone to draft three boosters of Dragon's Maze instead. "Dude, what drafting archetypes are you aiming for in this set?" "Cluestones" "Aw man, we need like... 5 more." "Alright. 5-color pray you don't get color screwed." "Perfect."
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 24, 2017 4:41:19 GMT -5
"Sir... 'evil grixis dragon guy'? Those monstrously large horns you commissioned finally arrived. Which way would you have them face?" "Yes."
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 15, 2017 4:46:27 GMT -5
-Paul Cheon sinks 10 mana into Quarantine Field, allowing him to exile 4 permanents an opponent controlls. If the enchantment somehow gets destroyed all 4 of those permanents immediately return to the battlefield. -The opponent fires off an Abrupt Decay at the worst possible time for him. It can only target nonland permanents that cost 3 or less, but any spell that costs "X" have to be treated like it costs 0 mana.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 21, 2017 4:18:34 GMT -5
At some point I started cataloging all my MTG cards into a spreadsheet. I could keep inventory, organize when building decks, and sort it based on what I was doing. I thought the 5-star rating system used by Gatherer would be a reliable barometer for measuring general card quality... it wasn't (sometimes). For example here's Slash Panther. gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=230065For what it costs and what it does, on paper it should be a very average card... and nobody uses it in most formats, not even limited (Average pick 10.65/14 in MTGO drafts). After reading the comments on why this mediocre card is rated so highly it turns out this card is only used in Vintage. Yeah- that Vintage. The one where the infamous Jace: The Mind Sculptor can roam free and wreak havoc on everyone. Someone won a vintage tournament main-boarding 4 Slash Panthers to counter him, which is why he's showered in glory with 3.9/5. That's top 5% material out of all the common cards I've logged. Well... what if we use the average pick of the pack to determine how good a card generally is? Bad idea. Drafting order generally goes: Pick 1-3: This creature can single-handedly win the game, or most likely wreck the card that'll let the opponent single-handedly win the game. Pick 4-6: These supporting creatures are good, these spells synergize well with a theme that's easy to find cards for. Pick 7-9: I guess I'll run this creature if I have to. Pick 10-12: Thank god it's in my colours! You'll look pretty on my sideboard. Pick 13+: Oh. A basic land, or it may as well be. Very high draft picks just point you to creatures or removal that is very versatile and can turn the tide of battle more often than not. Drafting in general focuses on how good a card is on its own, whereas community ratings tend to judge cards based on when they work the best. So Naturalize may get 4+/5 ratings on gatherer, but it's pick 13+ in MTGO. We're looking at effectiveness against how often the card can be cast, not pure efficiency between the cost and the effect of the card. In other words it's a good way to figure out where to start building a deck.
|
|
|
Post by blackbarney on Mar 21, 2017 8:55:25 GMT -5
i don't like that drafting order of yours. Why aren't you valuing Removal? It's the 2nd best thing you can draft.
Bombs first, as you say. Cards that single-handedly win the game (they're not always creatures, Fireball works here). Removal second. Super important. Evasion third. Flying, Initimidate, unblockable... Advantage fourth - anything that gives card or board advantage. Dregs - the rest.
I'm sure you've seen this drafting order before?
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 21, 2017 17:27:23 GMT -5
BREAD's a good starting point for noobs, but many versions I've read are fairly general. Bombs and removal are straightforward, but everything else is completely off the cuff and set up to spell "Bread" over actual drafting advice. For one evasion is invaluable if your board state is stalled or racing, but too much evasion or high-utility evasion means nothing against a good opposing ground army. More to the point, is a 7/7 for 7 trampler a bomb? Is a shock better than a 2/2 flier because R before E? The Bread method doesn't talk about any of this.
When drafting I generally find that my priorities change as things go on: Pack 1 Pick 1: What's the best card in this pack? Pack 1 Pick 4: What colours/archetypes am I planning on? What is my second colour going to be? Pack 1 Pick 9+: What colours are left over, and should I be shifting my focus to another colour/archetype? The best archetype with second-rate cards can easily be trumped by a weaker archetype with less contested cards. Pack 2 Pick 1: What's the best card in this pack in my colours? It may not be the rare, but don't be afraid to splash. Pack 2 Pick 5: Get as many cards that fit your synergy. Make sure you get a decent amount of 2/3 drops on the way. Pack 3: Pick 1: Hey... I should hate-draft this rare. IDGAF if it's a Battle of Wits or a foil Tarmagoyf, we're stealing that shit. Pack 3: Pick 2+ I'll take what I can get. Is my curve doing alright? Do I need more removal? More creatures? More combat tricks?
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 26, 2017 23:35:46 GMT -5
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 8, 2017 17:00:04 GMT -5
"Da mnation, 2BB. Sorcery. Destroy all creatures, they cannot be regenerated."
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 14, 2017 16:54:34 GMT -5
Hm. Felidar Guardian has been banned, which has literally zero impact on Duels. 4-color Saheeli overtook the meta alongside Mardu vehicles. Amonkhet is pretty neat. White zombies are pretty interesting, cycling is great, and I'm 90% sure Weaver of Currents is attempting to dab. So when does Nicol Bolas lay waste to the Gatewatch? If Legenvd somehow didn't exist I'd easiy stick to Scum for my magic duels fix.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 18, 2017 16:40:44 GMT -5
"Wrath of God" alter.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 26, 2017 2:49:13 GMT -5
If you feel like your game isn't getting enough competitive scene support, remember that it took Magic the Gathering TWENTY-FOUR years to incorporate a team of developers dedicated to ensuring nothing awful happens in comp MTG. markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/160771962008/play-design
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 16, 2017 3:25:50 GMT -5
|
|