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Post by Deleted on Feb 7, 2014 18:09:36 GMT -5
All of those cards are better than my cards and I don't even. Seriously, 2 mana for a creature that returns 2 mana? A creature that can constantly return creatures from the grave? That's insane. That's power creep out the wazoo if I've ever seen it; not that I'm complaining. No seriously, that's pretty cool.
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Dumien
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Post by Dumien on Feb 9, 2014 4:32:50 GMT -5
One of the things I definitely preferred about yu-gi-oh was that "standard" included ALL THE CARDS. This combined with the low relative cost of old cards actually made it far far more easy to build and win with budget decks.
"Surprise" was a bigger part of yugioh's competitive scene. with MTG you know what you usually know what are facing in standard simply by the looking at the land they play.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 9, 2014 11:12:20 GMT -5
I guess, but at least the color pie in MTG makes things more vibrant aesthetically, makes it easier to define playstyles.
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Post by jaedrik on Feb 9, 2014 14:27:33 GMT -5
Yeah what is this "standard" crap I keep hearing? Why can't I play my "Immortal" deck with 4 Darksteel Gargoyles and 4 Platinum Angels and tons of monks and walls and healers?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 9, 2014 18:30:22 GMT -5
Delete THIS from your card pool! AHAHAHAHA- AAAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!
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Post by volgon on Feb 9, 2014 23:02:52 GMT -5
Standard isn't the only format in Magic, it's just the most popular. Standard is cheaper to build and easier to get cards you need. Modern is blowing up in popularity: barring the banlist, it includes cards from 8th Edition (2003) to present day. There is also Legacy (which includes most cards in Magic) and Vintage (almost every card). I'd say the primary issue barring people from playing non-Standard formats is how expensive the decks are to put together. Just to build your land base is an astronomical price. Almost every deck will be multi-colored, meaning you need multiple playsets of Shocklands ($10-20 a piece) and Fetchlands (between $50-100 each). Then, if you're playing Legacy/Vintage, you'll need dual lands which are $85+ a piece.
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Post by volgon on Feb 10, 2014 23:03:59 GMT -5
Here is the EDH/Commander deck I've been looking at putting together. For people who don't know, EDH/Commander is a singleton format (1 of each card only, barring basic lands) of 99 cards + 1 Legendary creature (your general/commander). Your deck can only be made up of cards that fit your general's color identity, meaning if you have a general that only has black mana symbols on his card, you can only use black cards (barring colorless cards which can be used in any deck). Typically it's a multiplayer format, so cards that only affect one player/target are usually not as good as cards providing a wider effect (sweepers, all players, etc). EDH has a rule where, over the course of the game, if a Commander deals 21 combat damage to a player, that player loses. This strategy is typically called a Voltron strategy, where you stack equipment/auras onto your general to swing for 21 damage as quickly as possible. This deck is a variation of the theme. Because my general (Korlash, Heir to Blackblade) is a scaling general (his Power/Toughness is equal to the number of swamps you control, and Black has no ramp cards itself), he can't effectively go for general damage very quickly. Because of this, the plan is to control early/mid game as much as possible via repeatedly sweeping the board or playing destruction engines like Lethal Vapors/Call to the Grave which provide persistent creature destruction. Once Korlash is at a point where he can knock a target out in 1-2 turns (via the 21 general damage) or your opponents have exhausted hands/board states, you play him and swing in.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2014 14:25:50 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2014 19:04:21 GMT -5
Dumien wasn't kidding. Today I went down to a comic book shop to get a few Swamps so I can get a 60-card black deck going, but they had none. Zero. Zip. They had thousands of cards, a couple hundred basic lands and a few gates in there; everything but black basic lands. I even looked for gates that had black as one of their colours; nothing.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 18, 2014 0:20:53 GMT -5
The Steam version of MTG:DotPW is awkward to play. I can't mix and match cards from all the decks I own to make my own custom deck, and the 5th AI contender in the single player (pure black control) is a massive spike in difficulty. It's really tough picking off Liliana Vess; you're dealing with curses, regenerative creatures, and pick-off spells. When I finally won after 16 tries and a lot of strategy juggling I just stopped playing after realizing I couldn't use her deck. THAT is infuriating. Meanwhile I scroll down to the middle of the campaign and burn through 5 AI opponents with minimal resistance. Oh no, here comes Nicol Bolas, this is going to be one heck of a fi- never mind I beat him 17 to -2.
...
Point in case I really appreciate playing with physical MTG cards; those are always nice to have.
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Dumien
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Post by Dumien on Feb 18, 2014 6:55:58 GMT -5
DOtP 2013 was awesomesauce. Twoheaded Giant was honestly the best way to learn the craft. It also had a BUNCH of super interesting decks to choose from...and you could use most of the main NPCs's decks as your own (except Nicol Bolas). 5 color "mana mastery" was just really awesome to play. Lots of ramp. Lots of draw. Lots of giant monsters (progenitus... costs 2 of each color mana to play. protection from everything 10/10) The monoblack/monoblue decks were fun. The golgari deck had this giant hilarious monster that could come out of nowhere and win the game. My favorite deck was probably the azorias enchantment deck...which had an autowin in it.Enchant one of your hexproof guys with "indestructability" which makes your guy indestructable... then enchant it with "pariah" which makes any damage that would be inficted to you inflicted to that monster instead...but it doesn't matter because that monster is indestructable... Then you win the game since your opponent simply can't kill you.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 20, 2014 0:40:49 GMT -5
I see; it would appear that I just suck at this game then =b. Also
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Post by Deleted on Feb 20, 2014 18:33:26 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Feb 24, 2014 1:13:35 GMT -5
Because players often put in so many clones of their cards into their decks to begin with; why not just scale down the size of the decks along with spells that discard cards?
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Post by volgon on Feb 24, 2014 2:04:04 GMT -5
Because players often put in so many clones of their cards into their decks to begin with; why not just scale down the size of the decks along with spells that discard cards? 60 cards has, AFAIK, always been the minimum number of cards required to build a deck. Altering a rule that is over 20 years old is simply changing for the sake of change. By dropping the minimum deck size, you would effectively homogenize a large number of decks. For example, say a player commits 12 slots to Counterspell cards in his 60 card deck. That means, at minimum, he has to use 3 different cards (4 copies of 3 different cards). If you scale the minimum deck size down (players would go with this, since smaller decks = more consistent draws), maybe that player now only dedicates 4 slots to Counterspells. And when you only have 4 slots, you'll probably just take the best Counterspell and use 4 of them. Or use 4 copies of the best kill spell, or best cantrip, etc. You don't often see "clones" (aka reprints) in the same deck lists. More often you will instead find slight variations of a card archetype (so 3 different 2 mana Counterspells, that all do slightly different things but all function similarly by allowing you to counter a spell: Remand, Mana Leak, Counterspell for example). You can kind of see this in Hearthstone, where the best Constructed decks in the meta generally run the same suite of cards (with some slight variations). The deck lists are always 30 cards (no higher or lower), and the resource system is not card based (aka, you don't have to spend deck slots on mana). 60 slots allows for much greater variety, be that in what combination or type of spells you run, or number of lands you have, etc.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 24, 2014 22:35:43 GMT -5
Obviously scaling duplicates with deck size would be necessary on smaller scales, but even then it seems pointless to have 60 when the game almost never comes to that. Most games and strategies almost never consume more than 30 cards from the decks of either player. While it's still possible to burn through all 60 even the most long-term strategies that don't involve blue discard never come close to that 60-card limit. You know, because I'm a MTG pro who knows everything and has every card =b[/sarcasm]. Even then, wouldn't smaller decks have less of that? The odds of being land-blocked/land-flooded would be a lot smaller knowing that either case would be easier to prevent when choosing your starter hand. In other words those 7 cards mean more in a 40-card deck over a 60-card one.
Wait, has there been a strategy that's heavily focused on the late late-game and didn't focus on blue discard strategy? I once tried a blue/white/green combo that focused on defenders, counter-burn, and creatures that cost X mana to summon. Even that rarely went beyond 40 cards.
Also, if you guys have physical cards and get a chance to play- try playing with 20-card decks; it's hilarious. It's as awkward as playing hockey were everyone is using a broomless broomstick and the puck is replaced by an anvil. In the end one guy gets screwed over royally because they're both out of cards but the other guy has one creature left on the field with nothing to stop it. The other guy is sitting there with a spell that destroys an artifact regretting his life choices as the game goes from 20-6 to 0-6.
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Dumien
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Post by Dumien on Feb 25, 2014 10:44:17 GMT -5
Turbo-fog Sweetwata. Turbofog. Pretty much a whole bunch of cards that say "you can't damage me this turn" then some sort of auto-win combo or card. gatherer.wizards.com/pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=253673There are a bunch of permutations of that effect...and you can run 4 of each of them. Also the Conley Woods style of land destruction can be seen as a "long-range" type of deck.
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Dumien
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Post by Dumien on Feb 25, 2014 11:30:21 GMT -5
Also Doublepost because I won another FNM. Here is the deck.
4 Elvish Mystic 4 Sylvan Carytid 4 Boon Satyr 4 Witchstalker 3 Fleecemane Lion 4 Etherial Armor 4 Unflinching Courage 4 Selesnya Charm (I was hesitant to include these, but they were absolute allstars) 4 Advent of the Wurm 1 Hunter's Prowess (got to draw 8 cards off of this in one game!) 1 Ajani, Caller of the Pride 1 Alpha Authority 4 Temple Garden 3 Temple of Plenty (yay new scrylands!) 1 Rouge's Passage 10 Forest 4 Plains
Side 4 Mistcutter Hydra 4 Skylasher 2 Gift of Orzhov 2 Glare of Heresy 2 Mending Touch 1 Ajani
I'm thinking about taking another direction with the deck. If I go Naya I can include Xenagos god of Revels to constantly double the power and toughness of my already buff creatures. I can add madcap skills to combo with alpha authories to make my creatures unblockable.
If I don't go this route I think I'm going to switch up to side deck to convert the main deck into Selesnya Aggro... ala
4 Call of Conclave 4 Rootborn Defenses 2 Growing Ranks 1 Druid's Deliverance 4 Fated Intervention (so pumped to use this card)
This sort of aggro tends to be fairly good against Esper Control, while my main deck seems to be especially good against the common aggro decks.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 25, 2014 16:51:22 GMT -5
I don't care about DPs; Selesnya is a baller setup. Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage + Slime Molding + Mana Ramp has vast potential for hilarity.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 26, 2014 19:50:19 GMT -5
Normally I'm not comfortable playing pure red, pure black, or Rakdos. At least I used to; I found one strategy hilariously fun and easy to use. I used Guttersnipes (or Exalted creatures in black-only) and a lot of spells that slap enemies right off the field. Things like murder or shock are good examples of this. This setup feels cheap, but it's fun and it gets results. I don't know how to counter this. Do I just aim for a composition that focuses heavily on putting out a lot of small and hexproof creatures?
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Dumien
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Post by Dumien on Feb 27, 2014 13:00:22 GMT -5
Planeswalkers in decks that don't rely heavily on creatures (like esper control) poop all over removal based decks... like.. quick example. In standard you have this planeswalker named Elspeth whose +1 just spits out 3 1/1 tokens every turn. Every time you use removal on that without dealing with Elspeth herself...you are only delaying the inevitable. Then there are planeswalkers like Garruk that just keep drawing you tons of creatures so that you end up outracing removal. Against red specifically anything with 4 toughness is difficult for red to take down early. red decks even side deck with 0/4 thing for the mirror because most common red removal deals only 3 damage and it forces them to trade 2 for 1. Against Black many decks have things that are just plain indestructable (the gods) or just don't mind being killed because they can produce more than you can kill (white weenie). In addition that kind of deck usually run things that "give protection from x" like brave the elements and gods willing. Orzhov specifically has a hard counter to removal based strategies gatherer.wizards.com/pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=368954 just to make things really bad for removal decks since he just straight up has protection from white and black and can tank a normal red removal. Green has hexproof like you mentioned. Most commonly used is fleecemane which only which when turned monsterous only has a couple things in the format that can deal with it (hexproof + indestructable). Voice of Resurgence the most expensive card in the format is a selesnya card (not buying it) that replaces itself with a badass token when you kill it AND whenever you activate spell on their turn...meaning using a doom blade on it when they try to attack you actually gives them 2 substantial creatures and you just lost your doom blade. And voice is only 2 cost... 1 white 1 green.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 27, 2014 17:22:43 GMT -5
True, but for red Chandra's outrage, Lava Axe, and the morbid effect on Brimstone Volley can handle creatures with 4/5 toughness in the mid-game without necessarily exhausting too many spells. I know at that point red probably has no use for 5+ mana at once and it kind of makes the build less efficient but it could be useful against builds involving larger creatures.
Also I came across a "Knight of Glory" creature that "...can't be blocked, targeted, dealt damage, or enchanted by anything black." which seems like an effective counter to black removal... and pretty much anything else black or is a multicolour spell including black.
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Dumien
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Post by Dumien on Feb 27, 2014 23:34:47 GMT -5
True, but for red Chandra's outrage, Lava Axe, and the morbid effect on Brimstone Volley can handle creatures with 4/5 toughness in the mid-game without necessarily exhausting too many spells. I know at that point red probably has no use for 5+ mana at once and it kind of makes the build less efficient but it could be useful against builds involving larger creatures. Also I came across a "Knight of Glory" creature that " ...can't be blocked, targeted, dealt damage, or enchanted by anything black." which seems like an effective counter to black removal... and pretty much anything else black or is a multicolour spell including black. Nice find. This phrase is exactly what "protection from black" means: "can't be blocked, targeted, dealt damage, or enchanted by anything black." They just shortened it. So because it has "pro-black" it is protected from any spell with black anywhere in its mana cost. At 5 Mana Red can do some pretty nasty things like Fanatic of Emogus, Emogus himself, Stormbreath dragon, or maybe even a god of the forge. Red always has something....cooking.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 28, 2014 0:58:27 GMT -5
Nice find. This phrase is exactly what "protection from black" means: "can't be blocked, targeted, dealt damage, or enchanted by anything black." They just shortened it. So because it has "pro-black" it is protected from any spell with black anywhere in its mana cost. At 5 Mana Red can do some pretty nasty things like Fanatic of Emogus, Emogus himself, Stormbreath dragon, or maybe even a god of the forge. Red always has something....cooking. There's also a Knight of Infamy that's the same thing stat-wise but can hard-counter anything white. This could be useful against builds that make heavy use of Pacification or heavy-tapping tactics. I'm not a fan of the 'exalted' part, but once you get a vigilance buff these guys make for a decent side-board choice. After playing with red long enough I can say red is not an elaborate coin toss. From 1-4 mountains on the field the red player's just looking at the his opponent going "CUT THAT **** OUT OR I'M COMING OVER THERE". Five mountains onward he just starts pulling out a sledgehammer, drags it along the asphalt to intimidate, and then finish everyone off with Dragons and other angry behemoths that can take the lunch money of most green creatures. Apparently dragon decks exist, and they all consist of very rare, high-mana creatures. This sounds like a job for Gruul more than anything.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 5, 2014 18:37:11 GMT -5
I'm currently toying around with another ruleset in MTG that sort of mimics what Hearthstone has done. I made it to completely eradicate being flooded or blocked by land, and it really prevents the long-haul from being a game of who draws lands and who draws something useful.
-Decks are now divided into their land cards and non-land cards. These decks are to always be kept separate throughout play, and both have to be shuffled between games with the exception of mono-colour land piles. -When drawing a card players can choose between drawing a card from their land pile or their non-land pile. -I'm not sure how many cards should be drawn on the first step to prevent aggressive setups from being too viable, but 6 seems to work.
So far this format seems to favour aggressive setups more, but I've only played a few rounds of it so far. I have noticed that mid-late game tends to be a lot shorter because of how both players can draw a non-and each turn. If anyone wants to try this out themselves feel free to join in, or throw in your own modded rulesets for this game. I kind of want to see what would happen if we got rid of mana colours; will the game be any less functional for it?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 8, 2014 22:59:05 GMT -5
Green deathtouch with buffs is a fun build to play around with. If the opponent brings out defenders and large creatures; they're doneforth.
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Dumien
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Post by Dumien on Mar 9, 2014 14:40:19 GMT -5
I went to the Providence 5K yesterday to compete with my buddies in the main event. It was a much better and much smoother experience than the pokemon regionals for sure. I broke even-ish 3-4-1...which didn't surprise me since I was running a rouge deck vs the best players in the region. I got to meet some pro-tour players (my friend got whooped by one of them...she was running naya-midrange). I made some awesome trades... including trading a top-tables guy one of his rare cards for one of my 5-hour energies (he didn't have enough time between rounds to get one). I was there from 10 AM to 6 PM. Lots of fun was had.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 10, 2014 0:52:36 GMT -5
Sounds like fun.
Currently I'm trying my hand at a Raka build because I just can't seem to get a good Boros build going. Now White has a lot of things designed to tap creatures, Blue has a lot of spells to tap creatures and a counterburns for good measure, and Red has a few tricks that temporarily prevent targeted creatures from blocking or control an opponent's creature for a turn. "Cloudshift" can be used to push a trade engagement into a win, OR it can be used to steal an opponent's creature for just 4 mana. That's not a bad trade if the creature's important enough.
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Post by Dumien on Mar 10, 2014 1:37:45 GMT -5
yeah cloudshift + act of treason sounds fun. I like act of treason + bazaar trader. Target yourself as the player that receivers target permanent you control. Therefore you steal their monster permanently in the same way. Oh and with the sweet trades I got here is the deck I'm making. www.mtgdeckbuilder.net/Decks/ViewDeck/naya-hexproof-1158949The deck is actually capable of a few 4-5 turn wins. What is hilarious is how consistent it is in testing. I heavily modified the deck from a naya list I saw a while back, but I didn't like the excruciatingly low land count with the 4-5 drops. The biggest things in the deck costs 3 to bring out and that cost can be decreased by hero of iroas (from the latest pack). The quick-kill combo is as follows. Give your guys an alpha authority and a madcap skills and your creature becomes unblockable. Alpha makes them able to block with more than one. Madcap forces them to block with at least two. The conditions cannot be met so the creature becomes "unblockable." Then its a matter of loading your monster up with big equips and netting an easy win. The turn 4-5 kills rely on boros charm and the double strike it gives. Typically a fast game like that would go: Turn 1 play temple Land Turn 2 play temple land Turn 3 play shock land or basic land -> play Hero of Iroas -> play Alpha Authority -> activate Iroas -> iroas is at 3/3 and hexproof (relatively unthreatening) ->pass Turn 4 play shock land or basic land -> play Etherial Armor (or madcapskills)-> activate Iroas -> play madcap skills -> activate iroas -> play boros charm ->activate iroas Attack with iroas for game. Iroas is a 12/12 unblockable hexproof doublestrike (first strike too but it doesn't matter). This gets moved back a few turns if you don't have the pieces yet or if the lands were slow. Because this is a combo deck I decided to use a playset of commune with the gods which lets me deck-dive to get enchantments in addition to creatures... To solve land problems and counter black decks I added Carytid. Carytid gives me something else to sacrifice when they try to devour flesh me. Also it is a great early game play that simultaneously buys me time and smooths mana. Also commune can search it out to solve foreseeable mana issues. Boros charm is ridiculous. You gonna supreme verdict me to get around my hexproof? Naw...indestructable. You think you have one more turn to kill me guy? Double strike. gg.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 10, 2014 3:06:49 GMT -5
Link's broken on my end; if you can get it fixed or get a roster list out that'd be great. Also funny you should mention Naya; apparently XboxAhoy fancies it from his time with MTG. Any idea what deck he's talking about? I didn't get that far in that game. Also, while looking up what Etherial Armor I came across this: An Easter Egg? In a card game of all places?
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