[siddx]

I looked at "Awesome Jace" you linked and went "Wizards lost their damn mind." How the hell do you give deck rebuilding properties like that to just one card? WTF. :/ I now need to see "Boring Jace" in comparison.

Boring Jace


also, this is one of my favorite planeswalkers, just cause he owns face in EDH

[The Technomancer]

Boring Jace also, this is one of my favorite planeswalkers, just cause he owns face in EDH

I've found Liliana to be really good in EDH as well. Discard is good for politics, repeatable tutor needs no explanation in a highlander format like that (she's probably going in the RSH I'm building as well), and the ultimate can be insane in a six way game.

The only problem is keeping her alive that long. Currently using Nath of the Guilt Leaf as my general, using elves to chump block to keep her alive until 8, considering switching to Savra.

[siddx]

I've found Liliana to be really good in EDH as well. Discard is good for politics, repeatable tutor needs no explanation in a highlander format like that (she's probably going in the RSH I'm building as well), and the ultimate can be insane in a six way game.

Yeah my next step is to put both a Liliana and Markov in my mono black EDH deck.

[TheSeks]

Boring Jace also, this is one of my favorite planeswalkers, just cause he owns face in EDH

Boring Jace isn't bad, just slow and giving the other player two cars while waiting to discard 20. Doesn't sit with me.

Sorin looks like he owns faces just from the fact you can control the other players next turn. How the hell does that happen? You see their hand?

Speaking of Liliana: I like her PS3 promo foil card.

PC promo Nissa Revane I don't have. ;___;

Have this 360 promo foil] of Garruk, though.

[noquarter]

I've found Liliana to be really good in EDH as well. Discard is good for politics, repeatable tutor needs no explanation in a highlander format like that (she's probably going in the RSH I'm building as well), and the ultimate can be insane in a six way game.

I play Red damage and really like Koth. I just enjoy pinging light guys or if it goes to late game being able to tap all my mountains and kill someone.

[The Technomancer]

Have this 360 promo foil] of Garruk, though.

Yeah, I've got that one as well. Friend of mine gave it to me as a going away present :lol

[siddx]

Boring Jace isn't bad, just slow and giving the other player two cars while waiting to discard 20. Doesn't sit with me. Sorin looks like he owns faces just from the fact you can control the other players next turn. How the hell does that happen? You see their hand? Speaking of Liliana: I like her PS3 promo foil card. PC promo Nissa Revane I don't have. ;___; Have this 360 promo foil] of Garruk, though.

I got DOTP waaaaay too late. I missed out on all those lovely promos :(

[George Claw M.D.]

Also, I may just be stupid but what does squadron hawk do that is so great for Jace?

I'm not familiar with current Type 2/Standard decks, but going by the descriptions on those cards, it looks like the Squadron Hawk's abilities combo nicely with Jace's 0-cost Brainstorm ability

1) Play Squadron Hawk.
2) Retrieve 3 other Squadron Hawks from your deck.
3) Activate Jace's 0 cost ability, drawing 3 cards, then put 2 Hawks from your hand back on top of your library.
4) Next turn, play another Squadron Hawk, retrieving the Hawks you just put back on top of library, then shuffle your library.
5) Activate Jace's 0 cost ability, drawing 3 new cards, then put the 2 least-useful cards(which may include 1 of the Hawks) from your hand back on top of your library.
6) Repeat for as long as you have Hawks to put/return to the battlefield.

It abuses the Brainstorm ability, by effectively allowing you to draw more cards than intended(using the Hawk's retrieval ability), and also allowing you to shuffle useless cards away from the top of your library, before you activate Jace's ability. It greatly increases the quality and quantity of your hand.

[The Technomancer]

I'm not familiar with current Type 2/Standard decks, but going by the descriptions on those cards, it looks like the Squadron Hawk's abilities combo nicely with Jace's 0-cost Brainstorm ability 1) Play Squadron Hawk. 2) Retrieve 3 other Squadron Hawks from your deck. 3) Activate Jace's 0 cost ability, drawing 3 cards, then put 2 Hawks from your hand back on top of your library. 4) Next turn, play another Squadron Hawk, retrieving the Hawks you just put back on top of library, then shuffle your library. 5) Activate Jace's 0 cost ability, drawing 3 new cards, then put the 2 least-useful cards(which may include 1 of the Hawks) from your hand back on top of your library. 6) Repeat for as long as you have Hawks to put/return to the battlefield. It abuses the Brainstorm ability, by effectively allowing you to draw more cards than intended(using the Hawk's retrieval ability), and also allowing you to shuffle useless cards away from the top of your library, before you activate Jace's ability. It greatly increases the quality and quantity of your hand.

....oh....that's evil

[Zaraki_Kenpachi]

Boring Jace isn't bad, just slow and giving the other player two cars while waiting to discard 20. Doesn't sit with me. Sorin looks like he owns faces just from the fact you can control the other players next turn. How the hell does that happen? You see their hand? Speaking of Liliana: I like her PS3 promo foil card. PC promo Nissa Revane I don't have. ;___; Have this 360 promo foil] of Garruk, though.

Are those what you got for registering? I didn't have a place to bring my registration to to do them. :(

[WanderingWind]

So I just opened a pack and got a colossus that costs 12 mana to cast.

12. Holy crap.

[suffah]

So I just opened a pack and got a colossus that costs 12 mana to cast. 12. Holy crap.

Cheat him into play ;)

Yea, hawk abuse with Jace is ridiculous.

[Zaraki_Kenpachi]

So I just opened a pack and got a colossus that costs 12 mana to cast. 12. Holy crap.

There's one I know of that costs 15.

And wow at the hawk explanation, never thought of it that way.

[WanderingWind]

Damn. 15? You have to being playing a deck with a lot of tap to add mana cards to play that.

[siddx]

So I just opened a pack and got a colossus that costs 12 mana to cast. 12. Holy crap.

Yup, blightsteel. 12 dollar card. It's getting some play, ramp into him, drop, win game next turn.

Still not the most expensive though. Emrakul costs 15, and Draco costs 16.

[siddx]

Damn. 15? You have to being playing a deck with a lot of tap to add mana cards to play that.

There are decks that can drop him turn 3.

[WanderingWind]

Hm. I never thought about the actual value of the cards. Honestly, I'm sort of thinking I may just buy a box off of eBay or something of random cards. I kind of miss my Ice Age and original cards. I suppose those are probably expensive nowadays?

[siddx]

Hm. I never thought about the actual value of the cards. Honestly, I'm sort of thinking I may just buy a box off of eBay or something of random cards. I kind of miss my Ice Age and original cards. I suppose those are probably expensive nowadays?

Ice Age? noooo, Ice Age was a pretty lackluster set and the cards are pretty cheap. Buying an actual booster box is even possible for not too much (we bought two and drafted with friends). Everything from the Dark to Alliances is mostly garbage with very few exceptions.

[WanderingWind]

Ice Age? noooo, Ice Age was a pretty lackluster set and the cards are pretty cheap. Buying an actual booster box is even possible for not too much (we bought two and drafted with friends). Everything from the Dark to Alliances is mostly garbage with very few exceptions.

Yes, but it's my garbage. Thanks. I'll start poking around the internets, see what I can get. Nostalgia!

[siddx]

Yes, but it's my garbage. Thanks. I'll start poking around the internets, see what I can get. Nostalgia!

haha true, can't argue with nostalgia. Just look for something like this

[WanderingWind]

haha true, can't argue with nostalgia. Just look for something like this

...that almost brought me to tears, yo. I was so poor growing up, that I would scrounge for a week to get one freaking card. I'd trade my free lunches for them, too. Now. Now, I can buy the entire freakin' set?

Fuck. Yes.

[The Technomancer]

...that almost brought me to tears, yo. I was so poor growing up, that I would scrounge for a week to get one freaking card. I'd trade my free lunches for them, too. Now. Now, I can buy the entire freakin' set? Fuck. Yes.

Welcome back friend. The game still rocks.

[WanderingWind]

Welcome back friend. The game still rocks.

Thanks!

The battle was epic, but I emerged triumphant. The score is now tied, 1-1 at the WanderingWind household. Will Mrs. WW draw her fireballs before I draw my negates? Who knows/cares!

[suffah]

Dude I have thousands of Ice Age cards just sitting in old boxes. If you live in NYC, I'd give them to you for free.

[An-Det]

T2 has always been expensive. *looks up Jace's price on blackborder* WHAT THE FUCK!?!?!? When does Worldwake rotate out of Standard? That's when I'll be getting back into competitive Magic.

That's what I am doing, waiting until Jace rotates before I return to Type 2. I love the card, but fuck getting laying down that much at this point. For now I'm sticking to drafting and picking up good shit from this block that will likely see play.

[Spire]

Went and checked out the local shop that hosts the FNM games and I think I'm going to try and get back into the MtG scene. Does anyone know of a fairly concise summation of the current Standard scene, the popular decks, the metagame and all that? I was just going to read through all of the mtg.com articles for the past few months and look at the tournament deck lists but if I can find something that won't take me hours to read through that'd be great.

[Akim]

Went and checked out the local shop that hosts the FNM games and I think I'm going to try and get back into the MtG scene. Does anyone know of a fairly concise summation of the current Standard scene, the popular decks, the metagame and all that? I was just going to read through all of the mtg.com articles for the past few months and look at the tournament deck lists but if I can find something that won't take me hours to read through that'd be great.

Just check out the Paris top 8, that's pretty much the meta. Also, check out the Standard forums on mtgsalvation.com. That will give you a pretty good idea.

[hoverX]

Just got back from the mtgsalvation site wow is there a lot of stuff o know about this game. I've mostly only played the xbla at this point and the real game is a little intimidating.

[siddx]

Just blew way too much money on a bunch of cards for a captain sisay EDH deck. Hopefully I don't end up wasting my money with a completely shit deck.

[suffah]

Just got back from the mtgsalvation site wow is there a lot of stuff o know about this game. I've mostly only played the xbla at this point and the real game is a little intimidating.

You'll be fine. :)

There's actually quite a few "budget" decks that should do fine at a FNM. Kuldotha Red, WW Quest, Vamp. When I say "budget", I mean non-blue (aka no Jace), but I think you can get quite a bit of mileage out of them.

Or, find a FNM that drafts and skip the constructed scene.

[WanderingWind]

1-2.

Goddamn it.

[An-Det]

My main shop holds biweekly legacy on Wednesday nights, tonight I went and played the Forgemaster combo deck from Indy last weekend (slightly different sideboard due to our strange metagame). I went 2-1, playing Goblins, Pro Bant, and then a weird UWB artifact control deck. I kept shit hands vs Goblins and sideboarded badly, so I handily lost. Vs Pro Bant I finally got some good hands and won in 3 games (game 3 I dropped a Sundering Titan and Battlesphere in one turn, and then Welder'ed a Wurmcoil back on my opponents EOT, he promptly scooped); the two that I wont werent even close, game 2 was fairly even. Against my friend's artifact deck I dropped big dudes and pithing needles naming his Top and Tezzerent 2.0, leaving him with no way to win.

I freaking love this deck so far. It requires aggressive mulliganing, but it does such broken things.

[mattoz85]

Just blew way too much money on a bunch of cards for a captain sisay EDH deck. Hopefully I don't end up wasting my money with a completely shit deck.

I know someone who plays a Captain Sisay deck. Wrecks me every time. With a turn 1 Sol Ring, he gets Sisay out on turn 2, then tutors up that legendary soldier guy that gives all non-white creatures -1/-1. Since I play an Elves EDH deck, most of my dudes are 1/1, and then I lose unless I have a lord in play.

My deck was cheap to build, but I have proxies for Gaea's Cradle and Wasteland, since I didn't want to spend $80 on 2 lands for a casual deck. I just wish I had more people to play with.

[The Technomancer]

The only proxies I use right now are two Doubling Seasons for my Saproling deck. I still have a hard time dropping forty bucks on those.

It sucks, because I used to have two Doubling Seasons in my old sap deck, which I lost in its entirety.

[WanderingWind]

I fear that MTG will lead to divorce. Already, there has been a 20 percent increase in the use of the phrase "suck it" in our household.

...that's what I get for using my counter spells too early. "So...if I have something that gives all my creatures trample, can I attack with all of them still?"


Doh.

[Fragamemnon]

My main shop holds biweekly legacy on Wednesday nights, tonight I went and played the Forgemaster combo deck from Indy last weekend (slightly different sideboard due to our strange metagame). I went 2-1, playing Goblins, Pro Bant, and then a weird UWB artifact control deck. I kept shit hands vs Goblins and sideboarded badly, so I handily lost. Vs Pro Bant I finally got some good hands and won in 3 games (game 3 I dropped a Sundering Titan and Battlesphere in one turn, and then Welder'ed a Wurmcoil back on my opponents EOT, he promptly scooped); the two that I wont werent even close, game 2 was fairly even. Against my friend's artifact deck I dropped big dudes and pithing needles naming his Top and Tezzerent 2.0, leaving him with no way to win. I freaking love this deck so far. It requires aggressive mulliganing, but it does such broken things.

That does look like a fun deck with tons of tricks. I really don't like playing Legacy decks that don't run either Force of Will or Duress/Thoughtseize in game 1 though, it's just personal preference mixed with the fact that people love Tendrils of Agony too much at my shop. Did you find that the deck ran smoothly? I would think (as you mentioned) inconsistent draws would be a serious problem in that kind of deck (as they often are in MUD-style shells such as Stax or Stompy variants that use a similar manabase).

I'll be playing Eric English's Next Level Threshold list this weekend at my tournament. New Horizons is very good but with the kind of crap people are playing I'm willing to trade undercosted beef for additional disruption against combo and (most importantly) maindeck Firespout.

edit: Green Sun's Zenith probant sounds silly good. I really like the T1 Zenith for Dryad Arbor play.

[Akim]

Welp, came in 2nd in the draft tonight. Didn't really pull anything worth a damn though.

[An-Det]

That does look like a fun deck with tons of tricks. I really don't like playing Legacy decks that don't run either Force of Will or Duress/Thoughtseize in game 1 though, it's just personal preference mixed with the fact that people love Tendrils of Agony too much at my shop. Did you find that the deck ran smoothly? I would think (as you mentioned) inconsistent draws would be a serious problem in that kind of deck (as they often are in MUD-style shells such as Stax or Stompy variants that use a similar manabase). I'll be playing Eric English's Next Level Threshold list this weekend at my tournament. New Horizons is very good but with the kind of crap people are playing I'm willing to trade undercosted beef for additional disruption against combo and (most importantly) maindeck Firespout. edit: Green Sun's Zenith probant sounds silly good. I really like the T1 Zenith for Dryad Arbor play.

I am the same way, I typically prefer running something with duress/thoughtsieze or Force, but at these events there is almost no combo so I'm willing to risk it. I'm not sure I would bring it to an Open, but it's a solid choice. I had the most problems in my first matches vs goblins since I kept horrible hands (I didnt start playing around wasteland/rishadan port until too late) and didnt sideboard properly (I brought in 2 duplicant, 2 pithing needle, 2 razormane, should have been the dupes and 4 needles). The other two matches I got mostly solid draws and didnt have much trouble; the game I lost to Pro Bant was from him dropping an early Progenitus when I didnt have the board to race it.

I'm going to keep playing it for now. I've been keeping up with it's development on The Source since Indy, and even if the deck as a real contender doesnt pan out, dropping big robots is always fun.

[rayner]

I'm not familiar with current Type 2/Standard decks, but going by the descriptions on those cards, it looks like the Squadron Hawk's abilities combo nicely with Jace's 0-cost Brainstorm ability 1) Play Squadron Hawk. 2) Retrieve 3 other Squadron Hawks from your deck. 3) Activate Jace's 0 cost ability, drawing 3 cards, then put 2 Hawks from your hand back on top of your library. 4) Next turn, play another Squadron Hawk, retrieving the Hawks you just put back on top of library, then shuffle your library. 5) Activate Jace's 0 cost ability, drawing 3 new cards, then put the 2 least-useful cards(which may include 1 of the Hawks) from your hand back on top of your library. 6) Repeat for as long as you have Hawks to put/return to the battlefield. It abuses the Brainstorm ability, by effectively allowing you to draw more cards than intended(using the Hawk's retrieval ability), and also allowing you to shuffle useless cards away from the top of your library, before you activate Jace's ability. It greatly increases the quality and quantity of your hand.

I was wondering how this works... seeing a deck-list on paper doesn't do it. I wonder how they came to a 0 cost for Brainstorm on a Plansewalker? I mean Jace 1.0 it costs 1 for 1 card and Brainstorm is better so it should at least cost 1.

[Takuan]

Split 24 packs between a friend over the last two weeks and played sealed format (6 boosters each). Out of the 24 packs, we got 1 mythic - buddy pulled a Glissa.

HISSSSSSSSS

Edit: I did manage to pull another Mirran Crusader and Inkmoth Nexus last night, though. Yay!

[noquarter]

Anybody playing any of the prerelease stuff on MTGO?

I played a match yesterday as Mirran, get nothing but Mana screwed. Just started one today as Phyrexian. Looks like I'm getting Mana screwed again.

You guys who play on here limited, what mix do you use? I'm playing 26/14 and today I even have 3 Myr's and still aren't getting enough (not just for bombs, but for anything)

[suffah]

Anybody playing any of the prerelease stuff on MTGO? I played a match yesterday as Mirran, get nothing but Mana screwed. Just started one today as Phyrexian. Looks like I'm getting Mana screwed again. You guys who play on here limited, what mix do you use? I'm playing 26/14 and today I even have 3 Myr's and still aren't getting enough (not just for bombs, but for anything)

30 Tix for a pre-release is just too expensive for my tastes. The prize payout is just bleh.

With 3 mana myr, I would run 16 lands, MAYBE 15 if I had a horizon spellbomb or something or a really low curve.

Also Frag, that's for pointing out that NLT deck. Looks great, I'm gonna start testing it.

[An-Det]

Anybody playing any of the prerelease stuff on MTGO? I played a match yesterday as Mirran, get nothing but Mana screwed. Just started one today as Phyrexian. Looks like I'm getting Mana screwed again. You guys who play on here limited, what mix do you use? I'm playing 26/14 and today I even have 3 Myr's and still aren't getting enough (not just for bombs, but for anything)

14 lands is not enough, unless you are maybe running nothing over 2 CC. I typically do 16-18 (depending on curve), and the mana Myrs I count as half a land. Having enough good cards is great, but consistently having the lands to play them is critical.

[TheSeks]

Are those what you got for registering? I didn't have a place to bring my registration to to do them. :(

Those are what you got (360 gave me two pack of starter decks for "learning" from a card store) if you used the code to register for a voucher at Wizards.com during the promo period.

In fact, the PS3 version's promo ends next month IIRC.

>>Mana<<

Not enough of it.

Unless you're running 1-3 cheap-o spells and creatures, you should at least have 15-30 mana. Half the deck should be devoted to mana "engine" running. The other half dedicated to spells and creatures. After that point, start tweaking the "engine" until you find a good balance of mana being there for the cards you want when you want.

[dschalter]

in most limited formats, 23/17 is what you should go with (sometimes more, landfall meant that you could play 19 in an aggressive deck in Zendikar). in mirrodin, however, it is often right to go 16/24 (because of myr); 14/15 is still not something you want to be doing however.

[TheSeks]

in most limited formats, 23/17 is what you should go with (sometimes more, landfall meant that you could play 19 in an aggressive deck in Zendikar). in mirrodin, however, it is often right to go 16/24 (because of myr); 14/15 is still not something you want to be doing however.

Ah, well, I'm going by the "good rule of thumb of deckbuilding." In tournaments lower/more aggressive counts work. But for casual deckbuilding or just starting to build decks, half the deck being mana is a good jumping point to trying to find out how much you can stuff in without breaking it.

[noquarter]

Yeah, 30 is a little expensive, especially with the weak payouts.

Appreciate the tips on mana. Next time I'll try 24/16. I was running a cheap infect deck, with Spread the Sickness as my most expensive (5 cmc), but a couple games I went 7/8 turns just seeing the two mana I'd been dealt and of course 3/4 cmc was the majority of my deck. Really pissed me off when I got dealt a Memnite and Sword of Body and Mind and he had no removal or flying.

Did ok playing phyrexian 2-2, but my two wins both came by time, they were just playing really conservative, and I was waiting to attack with my infectlings.

[The Technomancer]

Argghhh! Playing casual constructed, I had four Mycoloths out with 8, 16, 32 and 64 counters respectively. But I got killed the turn before they all put out by another guy with two Vigors and a bunch of tramplers.

[Zaraki_Kenpachi]

I placed third in the draft tonight. Almost beat the guy to get into second too. :( Still happy on my second time playing to end 3rd with a booster. I'm starting to understand the cards much better but still had to ask questions in my semi final matches. :P

Edit: Also, is there some additional pack right now if you buy a box of beseiged? The comic shop I've been playing at had something but I haven't seen it with ordering online.

[noquarter]

I placed third in the draft tonight. Almost beat the guy to get into second too. :( Still happy on my second time playing to end 3rd with a booster. I'm starting to understand the cards much better but still had to ask questions in my semi final matches. :P Edit: Also, is there some additional pack right now if you buy a box of beseiged? The comic shop I've been playing at had something but I haven't seen it with ordering online.

The FatPacks now come with 9 packs instead of 8 and 80 lands instead of 40, but other than that I don't know of any other boxes coming with extra packs