I think SOlive might have posted up something similar as well.
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Magic: the Gathering |OT8| Eldritch Moon - It's only a paper (and digital) moon
- Thread starter SigmasonicX
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Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I just saw it a lot online when I was playing Tron a bunch and did something similar.
blindrocket
Member
When MTGO turned into the Jund mirror or Dredge I knew it had taken over.
Decks seem to show up or adapt to different versions faster on MTGO than paper
Decks seem to show up or adapt to different versions faster on MTGO than paper
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
The can differ a bit since some decks are close to unplayable online.
TheBlackMarvel
Member
I mean, at least according to that link, Isobel is Flameblade Angel.
EDIT: Is there an alternate art Flameblade Angel I didn't know about?
This among other reasons, at least for me hahaha
Joe Molotov
Member
I mean, at least according to that link, Isobel is Flameblade Angel.
I know, I just wanted to post that again.
It's one of the Intro Pack foil promos.
TheBlackMarvel
Member
I know, I just wanted to post that again.
It's one of the Intro Pack foil promos.
Ah cool, the regular art is better tbh.
SigmasonicX
Member
Serious answer is that you probably have to reevaluate your draft skills.
Real answer is you're clearly powered by money cards.
money rares are money rares for that exact reason, so if you take them they're out of the pool
Tis why when I draft I also make sure to take bombs/removal I don't need to make the pack weaker. Get that 2/2 for 2W son, I got yo removal right here
Joe Molotov
Member
Draft 5c Removal, let God sort 'em out.
Opening a couple of boxes of Conspiracy 2 and I noticed something. Unlike the last Conspiracy where all of the Conspiracies and draft-matters were in the last slot of the pack, Conspiracy 2 only has Conspiracies in the last slot, the other draft-matters cards just show up like any other normal card of their rarity.
"God's Beard!"
Member
Version 1.2 of my EDH Cube is up!
Slimmed it down by 10% so that combos show up more often and got rid of some lower-impact cards along the way. Also had to strip some indefinite wrath recursion combos, I had one game go to the 2.5 hour mark which is the whole thing I was trying to avoid.
I think my next pass will involve redoing the colorless cards to make them more interesting and then adding some redundancy to the colors. I think the simic cards are a little too good if you're not fighting combo, so I might approach it from there.
Mostly I'm just waiting for the site to update so I can use CN2 cards.
Slimmed it down by 10% so that combos show up more often and got rid of some lower-impact cards along the way. Also had to strip some indefinite wrath recursion combos, I had one game go to the 2.5 hour mark which is the whole thing I was trying to avoid.
I think my next pass will involve redoing the colorless cards to make them more interesting and then adding some redundancy to the colors. I think the simic cards are a little too good if you're not fighting combo, so I might approach it from there.
Mostly I'm just waiting for the site to update so I can use CN2 cards.
TheBlackMarvel
Member
So my friends and I will be drafting a box of Shadows Over Innistrad this weekend (my first draft!) Any tips?
Make sure you draft enough creatures, both with low and high converted mana cost, so that you have a big bomb if the game comes to a grind. Also draft some removal, don't bother with spells or enchantments that are hard to pull off and are meant for constructed. Also keep an eye out on what colors are missing, especially if a color lacks strong cards, that means someone to the side of you is drafting that color and you should better pick another color.
They wouldn't replace Bob just add lili. I can see lili and snap being both mythics next mm set.
Why not? I feel like they could reset some of its equity and shelve it until like MM4 or MM5.
Joe Molotov
Member
tfw no one is drafting red in my pod
Get passed a Hanweir Garrison as a 3rd pick, 3 Borrowed Hostilities deep in the pack. Don't mind if I already did.
Get passed a Hanweir Garrison as a 3rd pick, 3 Borrowed Hostilities deep in the pack. Don't mind if I already did.
SigmasonicX
Member
Survey for Conspiracy 2
Days of Future Future - Eldritch Moon
* Werewolf decks were strong in testing. They haven't appeared in the real world due to Collected Company and Dromoka's Command being stronger than expected. Though the deck itself was running CoCo in testing.
* After Pro Tour Magic Origins, the takeaway was that Green-White Megamorph was going to be the big deck in Standard, so they tested with a lot of that instead of Green-White Tokens and CoCo.
* Coverage for that PT, by the way, which goes a long way in explaining things if that was the most recent information they were working off of. Note the dominance of red decks and the complete lack of CoCo, which doesn't appear at all in the top 8 or 24-27 point deck lists.
* They did hit pretty close with their test White-Black Control deck.
* They were expecting Mono-Red Aggro to be much stronger than it was. They failed to consider that it would be completely stymied by all the 2/3 creatures and Always Watching.
* Westvale Abbey originally had "pay 6 life" as part of its activation cost (for transforming?), so Green-White Tokens instead ran Foundry of the Consuls in testing.
* Heron's Grace Champion used to be a "hatebear" (granted, 4-mana 3/3), but they identified that Green-White was getting too strong and weakened it.
* They tested Cat Pact (Harmless Offering + Demonic Pact).
Days of Future Future - Eldritch Moon
* Werewolf decks were strong in testing. They haven't appeared in the real world due to Collected Company and Dromoka's Command being stronger than expected. Though the deck itself was running CoCo in testing.
* After Pro Tour Magic Origins, the takeaway was that Green-White Megamorph was going to be the big deck in Standard, so they tested with a lot of that instead of Green-White Tokens and CoCo.
* Coverage for that PT, by the way, which goes a long way in explaining things if that was the most recent information they were working off of. Note the dominance of red decks and the complete lack of CoCo, which doesn't appear at all in the top 8 or 24-27 point deck lists.
* They did hit pretty close with their test White-Black Control deck.
* They were expecting Mono-Red Aggro to be much stronger than it was. They failed to consider that it would be completely stymied by all the 2/3 creatures and Always Watching.
* Westvale Abbey originally had "pay 6 life" as part of its activation cost (for transforming?), so Green-White Tokens instead ran Foundry of the Consuls in testing.
* Heron's Grace Champion used to be a "hatebear" (granted, 4-mana 3/3), but they identified that Green-White was getting too strong and weakened it.
* They tested Cat Pact (Harmless Offering + Demonic Pact).
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I dunno. Dark Confidant is a shitty draft card to begin with and while there's not a ton of great options for mono black mythics, you could replace it pretty easily. Bitterblossom doesn't see that much play, but its not a feel bad to draft at least because its busted.
"God's Beard!"
Member
I dunno if I would call Dark Confidant a shitty draft card. It's a liability for sure, but it's way above the Dakmor Scorpions of the world. It's not a card I'd be jumping out of my chair to put in my deck, but it's a solid 7 or 8 in most draft decks. You'd only really cut it in a deck that plays more than one 6+ mana spell. Paying 2 or 3 life a turn on average to draw an extra card is going to win a ton of limited games.
Most likely. Bant Eldrazi, the new hotness, uses 3-4 in the SB, and most modern decks use at least 1-2 in the SB.
I just don't understand how they didn't think CoCo was busted in testing or that all the stupid 2/3's in the format stop any type of aggro deck from existing.
Sometimes it feels like they just aren't very good at the game?
SigmasonicX
Member
Pro Tour Magic Origins really does explain a lot. Note how there were zero CoCos in any deck with 24 or more points and how the tournament was won by a mono-red deck. And without CoCo or Reflector Mage, which they didn't think was good enough for tournament play (and may not be without CoCo), there wouldn't be enough 2/3s popping out in time to stop aggro.
A Serious Man
Member
Reflector Mage got changed at the last minute to boost a limited archetype and that is what really tipped things over the line. CoCo's been in Standard a long time, it really didn't blow up until this year.
A lot of people in development are former pro players, so i don't think that's it. I think it's more a case of lots of things being in flux (cards are constantly changing during testing) and and inbred meta during testing. Sort of how sometimes a random Standard deck can beat a modern or legacy deck simply because the decks in older formats aren't designed to answer things that wouldn't show up in those formats.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I just Hedron Crabbed a man to death.
I don't understand why on earth this would be allowed. It's an insane value pack? Great! Your neighbor will be super happy too!
It hoses Suicide Zoo.
Giant Panda
Member
It can make two creatures if at least one was already an artifact.
I'm warming up to create too.
I'm warming up to create too.
Correct, it lets you ignore one, it's a simpler execution.
charlequin
Banned
blogatog said:
Hmmmmmm.
If you follow the development postmortems for a while it becomes pretty clear how they wind up with these kind of mistakes. They by definition can't have a metagame as refined as the real-world one because they're six people with limited time instead of thousands of people grinding away at all hours of the day, so they have to rely on a judgment of card power with a margin of error attached. Normally this works out fine -- if they assume a card is great they nerf it a little, if they assume it's good it might be great or underperform and be just okay. When they apply this principle to everything in the format it usually produces several different archetypes that average out to Tier-1-ish level, even if they're not exactly what they expected.
Normally part of why this works is that they rely on natural variance: if they're pretty good overall at power estimation, cards will equally often be better or worse than their guess. Generally across a format that variance evens out and the overall power level comes in around expectations. However, because that variance is random, sometimes it's going to line up such that multiple cards that go together are all stronger than expected, and other archetypes have multiple cards all worse than expected.
If you look at this specific case, they never had any question that CoCo would be a tournament card, but their expectation was that you'd see different types of decks that ran it as a value booster. In order for it to become dominant as its own archetype the quality of creatures it turns up has to be high enough, and they have to all support the same type of strategy -- which, as others have noted, is why CoCo only became an environmental problem when multiple creatures that perfectly fit the shell all turned out better than expected. And then some natural predators of the deck wound up having several components lower than expected at the same time.
(And then of course add to all this the fact that cards are in flux throughout the process and they can't retest the final versions to the same extent as all the pre-final testing.)
This card is awesome, and yet tells us absolutely nothing new about the set, lol.
I assume this is from a retailer poster, so where's the rest of it?
SigmasonicX
Member
Yeah, the way it looks enlarged definitely points to it being a poster. The card under it appears to be Rise from the Tides.
The card is nice. I like how the "create" term works flavorwise here.
Joe Molotov
Member
That is pretty insane value to somehow pull an Imperial Recruiter out of a Conspiracy 2 pack.
I hope I pull an Imperial Seal.
charlequin
Banned
I think this is probably the single most positive I've ever been in one of these surveys. This set is so great.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I was playing with this UW Spirits deck I found that has 4 Always Watching in it, and I couldn't figure out why they didn't have Ojutai in the board rather than Avacyn.
The combo just wins you the game, especially against slower decks. It's not great against Ishkanah, but neither is Avacyn (which I was playing as main and Ojutai in the board).
The combo just wins you the game, especially against slower decks. It's not great against Ishkanah, but neither is Avacyn (which I was playing as main and Ojutai in the board).
I mean, I know how their FFL department works but last minute development tweaks are always problematic. They always err on the wrong side of caution with colors that are already pushed. It was a miracle that someone realized that Liliana of the Veil reprint in that one core set would've pushed Monoblack deck way over the top. Their push for green to be too good combined with easily splashable value creatures like Reflector Mage and Spell Queller is just dumb dumb dumb.
A Serious Man
Member
Damn, we're in for some incredible art.
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