The guild packs aren't random. There's 8 different rares you can get, and he's listed 12. Also, the packs aren't randomised. If you pull Spark Trooper for instance, your 15 cards will be identical to someone else who pulls spark trooper. There's also no foils.Originally Posted by Gaming Truth
That's it. Why do you say it's not very accurate? I didn't confirm the site's contents after I pre-released RtR, but that page was the page that led me to pick Selesnya and I went 4-0 with them!
At least, the Golgari/Simic combo appears to have better inter-guild synergy, since both of them like spreading +1/+1 counters around.
I got my hands on some Alchemist's Refuges, and I'm really hoping I can find a place for them before rotation, since I really like them.
I was really excited for that card before it came out. Then it didn't catch for me. I was sad.Originally Posted by JulianImp
I love both scientist guilds (Izzet and Simic). It's sad how weak Izzet have become after Wizards began to push back spell's power and made better creatures. My biggest issue is they are kinda incompatible with each other (Simic is all about creatures, whereas Izzet is very spell-focused), and the third guild in that wedge is Gruul.
At least, the Golgari/Simic combo appears to have better inter-guild synergy, since both of them like spreading +1/+1 counters around.
I got my hands on some Alchemist's Refuges, and I'm really hoping I can find a place for them before rotation, since I really like them.
But...spell power is absolutely ridiculous right now.Originally Posted by JulianImp
I love both scientist guilds (Izzet and Simic). It's sad how weak Izzet have become after Wizards began to push back spell's power and made better creatures. My biggest issue is they are kinda incompatible with each other (Simic is all about creatures, whereas Izzet is very spell-focused), and the third guild in that wedge is Gruul.
At least, the Golgari/Simic combo appears to have better inter-guild synergy, since both of them like spreading +1/+1 counters around.
I got my hands on some Alchemist's Refuges, and I'm really hoping I can find a place for them before rotation, since I really like them.
Bonfire. Aurelia's Fury. Sphinx's Revelation. Tragic Slip. Abrupt Decay.
Deathrite Shaman. Messenger. Aristocrats. Uh...worldspine wurm? Craterhoof? I dunno. I think spells and creatures right now are both cranked up to 11.
I think the overall amount of crazy creatures are much higher than spells though, even if both are crazy. There's still thragtusk, geist, snapcaster, etc. There's plenty of insane creatures to go around.Originally Posted by WanderingWind
But...spell power is absolutely ridiculous right now.
Bonfire. Aurelia's Fury. Sphinx's Revelation. Tragic Slip. Abrupt Decay.
Deathrite Shaman. Messenger. Aristocrats. Uh...worldspine wurm? Craterhoof? I dunno. I think spells and creatures right now are both cranked up to 11.
I haven't been playing as much lately, but I still love you magicGAF. OT2 <3
Only Abrupt Decay is really relevant outside of Standard though. Lingering Souls is a very powerful spell that could be on the list but it's also sort of a creature. Snapcaster goes the other way.Originally Posted by WanderingWind
But...spell power is absolutely ridiculous right now.
Bonfire. Aurelia's Fury. Sphinx's Revelation. Tragic Slip. Abrupt Decay.
Deathrite Shaman. Messenger. Aristocrats. Uh...worldspine wurm? Craterhoof? I dunno. I think spells and creatures right now are both cranked up to 11.
Restoration Angel, Huntermaster, Olivia Voldaren, Griselbrand, Geist of St. Traft, Loxodon Smiter are all amazing value. And none of the recent spells have effected deckbuilding in general as Deathrite Shaman.
True, but it's much more balanced than even a year or so ago. Whenever Zendikar was. 2 years ago?Originally Posted by Zaraki_Kenpachi
I think the overall amount of crazy creatures are much higher than spells though, even if both are crazy. There's still thragtusk, geist, snapcaster, etc. There's plenty of insane creatures to go around.
Like I said though, the balance is reaching critical mass where everything has to do like, 4 awesome things to get a spot in a constructed deck.
Can you imagine if something like Ash Zealot came out in Legends? Zendikar was crazy because even the Lands were cranked up to 11.Originally Posted by WanderingWind
True, but it's much more balanced than even a year or so ago. Whenever Zendikar was. 2 years ago?
Like I said though, the balance is reaching critical mass where everything has to do like, 4 awesome things to get a spot in a constructed deck.
R/W/G human reanimator is totally a thing. Using the flashback of Unburial Rites and Angel of Serenity as the basis, then throw down all the crazy humans like Huntmaster of the Fells that you can. It's a super fun casual and/or competitive deck.So I've been thinking about trrying out some 3 colour decks, just to spice things up a bit. How viable would a Gruul/reanimator deck be. I only play with a small group of friends so I wouldn't know which cards to be on the lookout for (and it certainly doesn't need to be tournament worthy.) It just seems like such a waste to have perfectly good creature cards in a graveyard when I could splash a bit of black and get even more use out of them.
It would've been format defining, for sure. Speaking of which, I can safely say that Lightning Bolt isn't as scary as it used to be. Doesn't take out Resto, doesn't fuck with Geist, doesn't bother Thraggy too much.Originally Posted by Keru_Shiri
Can you imagine if something like Ash Zealot came out in Legends? Zendikar was crazy because even the Lands were cranked up to 11.
Legacy and Vintage forever. I don't bother with anything else anymore. Explaining to people what mana drain really does is a like my own personal christmas.
Mana cost is important to how the design feels. Now, the cost's not even close to everything- and this card still has a cool, elegant text box- but you feel like a chump because the card was shot in the back of the head for no reason.Another example: Purge the Profane. This would have been marginally decent at 1WB. In fact, it's kind of insane that it's not 1WB, given that Mind Rot is already very weak at 2B, and gold color costs are supposed to upgrade the spell, not make them complete trash. Also see Blightning, a card that is both very good and quite fair without cascade (Bloodbraid Elf's cascade is the unfair part, obviously). This really feels like Development having a nervous breakdown and wetting the bed.
We wouldn't be oohing and aahing over Vindicate this many years later if it cost 4WB because hey, Desert Twister costs 4GG!
This also isn't the kind of randomly bad card they throw into every set here and there. This is a classic good gold design, and they're screwing it up pointlessly.
Cards like Zealous Persecution, Angel of Despair, Voidslime, and so on and on. And they haven't run out of design space in this area as RTR clearly shows, because Sphinx's Revelation, Rakdos's Return, Detention Sphere, Dreadbore and so on are exactly the type of cards I'm looking for. I don't play Standard, but I appreciate the designs on them, and these core cards help me appreciate the more marginal gold designs and other cards that fill out a set for Limited and light casual play.When I want to buy a gold set, I look for clean, reasonably powerful gold cards which beautifully reflect the color pair at work. Most of the clean stuff feels like it was randomly overcosted for no reason, like Purge the Profane and Spark Trooper, and the few things I think are reasonably powerful aren't the kind of iconic spell or effect that draws me in (Boros Charm, Dimir Charm...)
This set is supposed to be EDH heavy (which is by far my primary format at the moment) and I guess I care about a few cards for EDH, but I still don't feel excited about any of them. Cards like the Primordials do absolutely nothing for me since Wizards basically put flashing neon lights around them with giant glaring signs and arrows saying "PLAY ME IN MULTIPLAYER LOL I AM GOOD MULTIPLAYER CARD". If anything, I'm anti-excited about idiotic lazy cards like Enter the Infinite and some of these Primordials.
Except Illusionist's Bracers and Thespian's Stage.
10, but then again I get excited for all prereleases. I kinda only play Limit now so I should be fine with this set seeming weaker than RtR.Originally Posted by WanderingWind
I'm number 2, I'm number 2.
So...Gatecrash. On a scale of 1-10, 1 being how excited we were when RtR was announced and 10 being when they revealed Search the City, how excited are we?
There will always be some outstanding cards, but Izzet was quite bad on its own in RTR limited. I did enjoy playing it, though.Originally Posted by WanderingWind
But...spell power is absolutely ridiculous right now.
Bonfire. Aurelia's Fury. Sphinx's Revelation. Tragic Slip. Abrupt Decay.
Deathrite Shaman. Messenger. Aristocrats. Uh...worldspine wurm? Craterhoof? I dunno. I think spells and creatures right now are both cranked up to 11.
What I menat was that, as Wizards has stated, they've been gradually depowering spells slihgtly after 8th edition, and begun making stuff more creature-centric and interactive. That's the reason we don't see land destruction or catch-all countermagic too much nowadays, and that's certainly a good thing (read my post regarding the Second Sunrise deck on the last page of the previous thread), but the Izzet were hit the hardest with their specialty being spells, which became better at support but are, for the most part, no longer able to win by themselves. Overload was also a bit wonkier than Replicate, despite having a similar low power level except for a card or two (such as Shattering Spree, Gigadrowse or Mizzium Mortars).
During the prerelease, my "Izzet" deck consisted of the promo, a bunch of catapults and a fairly large B/G splash (thanks to 2 Transguild Promenade, two shocklands, three gates and one or two copies of the defender that added mana of any color). Playing Izzet meant I mostly had to borrow creatures from the other guilds to stand a chance, and I felt kind of silly.
Hopefully, I'll get more support for my guild this time, because I'd hate to end up playing some other guild with a splash of Simic in the end. I think Evolve will be a fun an interesting mechanic, despite not being as versatile as Graft. With Graft you could move counters onto your opponent's creatures to do some crazy stunts (such as making stuff untergetable or stealing it), and it would've been a great mechanic for playing in two-headed-giant. Evolve is a bit crazy in that it forces you to overextend and takes a while to get going after a sweeper (even more so because you'll probably have cast several larger creatures to buff your evolve guys). A cute interaction I hadn't spotted until recently was Evolve plus the 5/5 spirit that returns to your hand after dealing damage... I guess I'll make sure not to dismiss the card if I end up opening some.
Hey, I feel your pain. I wanted to be Dimir, but I don't really relish the idea of having to try to play 6 mana to attach a cantrip to a creature so it can eat removal like cake.Originally Posted by JulianImp
There will always be some outstanding cards, but Izzet was quite bad on its own in RTR limited. I did enjoy playing it, though.
What I menat was that, as Wizards has stated, they've been gradually depowering spells slihgtly after 8th edition, and begun making stuff more creature-centric and interactive. That's the reason we don't see land destruction or catch-all countermagic too much nowadays, and that's certainly a good thing (read my post regarding the Second Sunrise deck on the last page of the previous thread), but the Izzet were hit the hardest with their specialty being spells, which became better at support but are, for the most part, no longer able to win by themselves. Overload was also a bit wonkier than Replicate, despite having a similar low power level except for a card or two (such as Shattering Spree, Gigadrowse or Mizzium Mortars).
During the prerelease, my "Izzet" deck consisted of the promo, a bunch of catapults and a fairly large B/G splash (thanks to 2 Transguild Promenade, two shocklands, three gates and one or two copies of the defender that added mana of any color). Playing Izzet meant I mostly had to borrow creatures from the other guilds to stand a chance, and I felt kind of silly.
Hopefully, I'll get more support for my guild this time, because I'd hate to end up playing some other guild with a splash of Simic in the end. I think Evolve will be a fun an interesting mechanic, despite not being as versatile as Graft. With Graft you could move counters onto your opponent's creatures to do some crazy stunts (such as making stuff untergetable or stealing it), and it would've been a great mechanic for playing in two-headed-giant. Evolve is a bit crazy in that it forces you to overextend and takes a while to get going after a sweeper (even more so because you'll probably have cast several larger creatures to buff your evolve guys). A cute interaction I hadn't spotted until recently was Evolve plus the 5/5 spirit that returns to your hand after dealing damage... I guess I'll make sure not to dismiss the card if I end up opening some.
For my casual play at home, we have decks for all the guilds, using only guild colors in standard. The Izzet came out pretty good in that format. Golgari still da best though
Excellent post. I wonder how much R&D was influenced by the power of those previous cards, or if things like different mana-bases factored into their decisions. It seems like between a full cycle of checklands, guildgates, and shocklands, multicolored Standard is as stable as ever, something that wasn't necessarily true for Alara-standard.Originally Posted by FieryBalrog
snip
Old magic was bullshit and even more of a rip-off. Just look at 4th edition:Originally Posted by Fragamemnon
Old magic was crazy. You'd have stuff like Mishra's Workshop in the same set with Mishra's War Machine and Obelisk of Undoing. It was crazy.
378 cards (121 commons, 121 uncommons, 121 rares, 15 basic lands)
Do you know how difficult it was to get your hands on a Wrath of God ? Not to mention the game was horribly unbalanced for a long time, with Blue (and Black) shitting on all others. Especially Blue. Fuck Draw-Go.
I didn't notice that at first, that's pretty cool.Originally Posted by Keru_Shiri
Hats off to Cyan for closing out the old thread with class.
Ya, I can't tell you the amount of 4th and 5th edition I bought and I never got a wrath of god. Like probably over 200 packs and never got one.Old magic was bullshit and even more of a rip-off. Just look at 4th edition:
378 cards (121 commons, 121 uncommons, 121 rares, 15 basic lands)
Do you know how difficult it was to get your hands on a Wrath of God ? Not to mention the game was horribly unbalanced for a long time, with Blue (and Black) shitting on all others. Especially Blue. Fuck Draw-Go.
I think it may be a design & dev team issue, simply put. I doubt they want to intentionally, mid-block, shift gears on power-level in a big way. Original Ravnica suffered an issue where some guilds felt somewhat overlooked in favor of others, but this was spread across sets; and for the most part, the sets themselves did not feel out of sync with one another.Originally Posted by Keru_Shiri
Excellent post. I wonder how much R&D was influenced by the power of those previous cards, or if things like different mana-bases factored into their decisions. It seems like between a full cycle of checklands, guildgates, and shocklands, multicolored Standard is as stable as ever, something that wasn't necessarily true for Alara-standard.
I doubt it's the second reason you bring up. Alara-Lorwyn had one of the most ludicrously multi-color mana bases of any Standard environment. In fact they often bring it up as something they think went overboard. The poster child of this was 5 color control, which ran costs like 2WW, 2GGGG & UUBBBRR in the same deck.
There was a full cycle of filterlands, Vivid lands, Reflecting pool (insane with vivid lands), tribal duals, painlands, and tri-lands (which are like way better Gates).
Plus, you had stuff like the Laces clogging up the Rare slot. UghOld magic was bullshit and even more of a rip-off. Just look at 4th edition:
378 cards (121 commons, 121 uncommons, 121 rares, 15 basic lands)
Do you know how difficult it was to get your hands on a Wrath of God ? Not to mention the game was horribly unbalanced for a long time, with Blue (and Black) shitting on all others. Especially Blue. Fuck Draw-Go.
This is true. I got back into Magic as Lorwyn was rotating out, so when I think of Jund, I think of how easy it was to hose it with something like Spreading Seas, and that being an indicator of how easy it was to disrupt their mana.Originally Posted by FieryBalrog
I think it may be a design & dev team issue, simply put. I doubt they want to intentionally, mid-block, shift gears on power-level in a big way. Original Ravnica suffered an issue where some guilds felt somewhat overlooked in favor of others, but this was spread across sets; and for the most part, the sets themselves did not feel out of sync with one another.
I doubt it's the second reason you bring up. Alara-Lorwyn had one of the most ludicrously multi-color mana bases of any Standard environment. In fact they often bring it up as something they think went overboard. The poster child of this was 5 color control, which ran costs like 2WW, 2GGGG & UUBBBRR in the same deck.
There was a full cycle of filterlands, Vivid lands, Reflecting pool (insane with vivid lands), tribal duals, painlands, and tri-lands (which are like way better Gates).
Only playing with friends from now on.
Even going to game nights at local stores got bad.
I think the hardercore MTG community looks down on the Duels of Planeswalker game, or that was the taunting I got when I said that's how I learned to play Magic at a LGS.Originally Posted by Willectro
Why is Wizards not updating MTGO? Seems like it has a lot of potential, but the interface is just too ugly for me to want to spend any time (or money) looking at. MTGO with Duels of the Planeswalkers' interface would be amazing.
Seriously, I judged during an argentine NQT and it was awful to see caw-blade mirrors everywhere. I've heard the deck even started weakening its game against other decks simply to add cards that could counter other Caw-blades better! I also used to play the Jund cascade deck during Alara block, and it was so good it almost played itself... it was kind of like playing flowchart Ken (always attack, cast all cascade cards as soon as possible to clear the way for attackers, keep pumping Putrid Leech and remove any blockers using Jund's sick removal suite until your opponent dies). I was really happy when the titans left standard, because their existance had been rendering most late-game fatties obsolete.
I'm kind of happy with the format the way it is now (at least at the casual level), because there might be a few really powerful cards and deck archetypes, but you can try out other stuff and stand a chance at winning a local FNM (or, at least, not lose every round to Ancestral ReCaws swinging for the kill with their overpowered swords).
I'm somewhat convinced they have like two programmers in the entire company.Originally Posted by Willectro
Why is Wizards not updating MTGO? Seems like it has a lot of potential, but the interface is just too ugly for me to want to spend any time (or money) looking at. MTGO with Duels of the Planeswalkers' interface would be amazing.
Geez, your LGS sounds like a bunch of dicks. They should be happy to get more people coming from DOTP, since that is one of the big reasons for Magic's current surge in popularity.Originally Posted by ChiTownBuffalo
I think the hardercore MTG community looks down on the Duels of Planeswalker game, or that was the taunting I got when I said that's how I learned to play Magic at a LGS.
Wish it were different.
Yeah, it was kinda jolting. My first night, this older guy gave me a death stare down when I put my deck out to cut, that made me wonder WTF was going on. I've fought MMA matches where there wasn't that amount of posturing.I'm somewhat convinced they have like two programmers in the entire company.
Geez, your LGS sounds like a bunch of dicks. They should be happy to get more people coming from DOTP, since that is one of the big reasons for Magic's current surge in popularity.
Sounds like that store just sucks. Like any community it's hit or miss. Some places I've played people act too serious and it's unbearable being there and other places are fine. There's a lot of better players that look down on duels of the planeswalker because it's not hard/good enough or whatever though.Originally Posted by ChiTownBuffalo
I think the hardercore MTG community looks down on the Duels of Planeswalker game, or that was the taunting I got when I said that's how I learned to play Magic at a LGS.
Edit: Woo's deck makes me want to play standard again. It's a cheap deck too that I think all I need is the mana base.
Yeah, annonimity tends to do that. I remember building a really janky rakdos hellbent deck and completely thrashing some user who wandered into the "casual play" room wielding a fully tuned solar flare deck (I was really happy even though he/she ended up conceding, because I loved playing with Jagged Poppet and other quirky hellbent cards). I don't get "no LD, no counters, no blue" games, but you can always look for another room.Originally Posted by ChiTownBuffalo
Holy shit Magic Online if full of dicks. It's like Call of Duty.
Only playing with friends from now on.
Even going to game nights at local stores got bad.
The one format I'd recommend is Momir Basic. For some reason I sold my Momir avatar away a long time ago, so I can't play anymore (and the Vig avatar was quite pricy the last time I checked). It was really fun despite being mostly luck-based, and wasn't as strange as Jhoira Basic. If you care to spend money on the Momir avatar, you'll be able to play a really cheap format that's fun and keeps adding cards as time goes on, making things even more random. I remember there being a few really bizarre cards that hadn't been widely released on MODO at the time, like Morphling and a guy who put lots of sand creature tokens when he entered the battlefield.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0hY...b3c/edit?pli=1
For the most part, I've felt that. Just had a run of 4 games where I got alot of "Really, you suck dick." "You suck." "Zzzzzzz. Hurry the fuck up so I can win and leave this shit game."Everyone in the New Players Room on MTG:O seems mostly pleasant. Slumming it down there with the Planeswalker-format cards is a pretty good time. I made the jankiest reanimator deck ever that is really fun.
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