Showing off the new set was only one of the reasons they got rid of Modern pro tours. The other was that, because they didn't want the same decks showing up again and again, they felt the need to update the Modern ban list before every Modern pro tour in order to shake things up.
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Magic: the Gathering |OT12| Hour of Devastation - Hour of Jace getting dunked on
- Thread starter SigmasonicX
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divisionbyzorro
Member
Taking the pressure of the PT off of the format was one of the best things that ever happened to Modern.
Pro Player Club changes http://magic.wizards.com/en/article.../pro-club-transforms-after-2017-18-2017-07-19
-They are adding a "Bronze " tier, that gives you an invite to a RPTQ, invite to Nationals, and 1 Bye at all GPs This requires 10 Points.
-Pro levels happen in "Cycles" now. There are 4 cycles each year
-In each Cycle, you are capped at 3 finishes for points to be counted- 1 PT and 2 GPs, 3 GPs, 1 Nationals, 1 WMC and 1 PT, ect.
Stuff that confuses me: It looks like that your previous 4 cycles are "rolling" in counting points. So for Q1 2019, it would count your Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4 of 2018 to determine your level. For Q2 2019, it would be Q2,3 and 4 of 2018 and Q1 of 2019.
This seems like a good thing? No more GP Caps, All results are equally valuable (If you did really well at the last PT of a season, those points were essentially meaningless unless you had results the rest of the season, now, they are good for a year), and introducting a low level reward which is obtainable by someone who Day 2s a GP or 2
-They are adding a "Bronze " tier, that gives you an invite to a RPTQ, invite to Nationals, and 1 Bye at all GPs This requires 10 Points.
-Pro levels happen in "Cycles" now. There are 4 cycles each year
-In each Cycle, you are capped at 3 finishes for points to be counted- 1 PT and 2 GPs, 3 GPs, 1 Nationals, 1 WMC and 1 PT, ect.
Stuff that confuses me: It looks like that your previous 4 cycles are "rolling" in counting points. So for Q1 2019, it would count your Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4 of 2018 to determine your level. For Q2 2019, it would be Q2,3 and 4 of 2018 and Q1 of 2019.
This seems like a good thing? No more GP Caps, All results are equally valuable (If you did really well at the last PT of a season, those points were essentially meaningless unless you had results the rest of the season, now, they are good for a year), and introducting a low level reward which is obtainable by someone who Day 2s a GP or 2
Speaking of Modern... Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan is a Modern event.
http://magic.wizards.com/en/article...y/2018s-pro-tours-and-2017s-worlds-2017-07-19
http://magic.wizards.com/en/article...y/2018s-pro-tours-and-2017s-worlds-2017-07-19
There's a 5th Team Constructed PT.
It's Standard/Modern/Legacy.
I think SCG did an event like this a month or two ago and it was pretty great.
There's a non-zero chance I won the very first Standard/Modern/Legacy team tourney (Philly, Innistrad Release)
It's an amazing format.
Alpha Draft!
divisionbyzorro
Member
Right as I say how good it was for Modern to not be on the PT anymore, there it goes.
RIP Death's Shadow I guess. I bet I can predict exactly when it's going to be banned now.
RIP Death's Shadow I guess. I bet I can predict exactly when it's going to be banned now.
Yeah, you're probably right.
Well yeah, but that effectively makes the DS deck just not good enough anymore. It's gonna disappear like Infect.
In that case, that's fine, over time it'll likely be back anyway. Banning DS itself would just be ridiculous.
Street Wraith is such a dumb card. "Let's let people run 56 card decks at the cost of some life! What's the worst that can happen?"
I figure that if Gitaxian Probe can't be allowed, neither should Street Wraith (and yes I know they aren't 100% comparable, but they're pretty damn comparable all the same).
I figure that if Gitaxian Probe can't be allowed, neither should Street Wraith (and yes I know they aren't 100% comparable, but they're pretty damn comparable all the same).
ThLunarian
Member
In Standard/Modern/Legacy, can you use more than 4 of a card between formats? So like, in Standard could you use 4 Giden AoZ as well as 4 more in a Modern deck and 4 more in a Legacy deck, or is the entire cardpool for all 9 decks (or whatever) limited to just 4 Gideons in total?
Evolution of Metal
Member
I built some fan-art!
While I don't know the story of Amonkhet (because reading it from the book is more interesting than the promotional material), it would be interesting if the dragon rushed in to aid Gatewatch. I think at some point we will see more and more crossover between planes, especially if either Phyrexians or Kaladesh bridge is hinted again.
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/qw44L
While I don't know the story of Amonkhet (because reading it from the book is more interesting than the promotional material), it would be interesting if the dragon rushed in to aid Gatewatch. I think at some point we will see more and more crossover between planes, especially if either Phyrexians or Kaladesh bridge is hinted again.
Yes, obviously Probe is a much better card because of the free info it gives you, plus upping your storm count for decks that care about it, they're still pretty comparable. They both reduce your deck size at the cost of some life and I guarantee that if Probe wasn't banned, DS would be running it with even less lands.
I just feel that zero mana cycling is inherently dumb and makes the game dumb.
Yes, it's independent.
Apparently (can't verify the accuracy but they are talking about it on the MTG Finance Reddit), Starcitygames jacked up their buylist price for Dual lands yesterday. They raised the price of cards like Candelabra and Moat yesterday as well
Sounds like someone heard there was going to be a Legacy Pro Tour a little early!
Sounds like someone heard there was going to be a Legacy Pro Tour a little early!
Modern pro tour is back! I really hope this doesn't mean banning cards just to "shake up" the meta every time. Modern is great now.
Wraith is unplayable in anything that doesn't take advantage of the life loss or the free creature in the graveyard. It's only a "problem" in conjunction with Death's Shadow (which makes it an easy ban target), but I really don't think anything should be banned.
Wraith is unplayable in anything that doesn't take advantage of the life loss or the free creature in the graveyard. It's only a "problem" in conjunction with Death's Shadow (which makes it an easy ban target), but I really don't think anything should be banned.
Of course they did, w/ the PT links. 1 day notice is fine lol
divisionbyzorro
Member
There have been tons of powerful combo decks in numerous formats that would love to have smaller decks. They don't play Street Wraith and never will. Why?
1) While we all recognize that your life total is a resource to be spent just like any other, the life loss is not irrelevant.
2) A Street Wraith in your opening hand creates challenging mulligan decisions because it represents a card of unknown quality.
So the only reason you put Street Wraith in your deck is if you actually care about one of the effects the card has:
1) Cycling it lowers your life total (Death's Shadow cares about this).
2) Cycling it puts a creature in your graveyard (Living End and some other graveyard decks might care about this).
There's nothing particularly broken about Street Wraith. It's just another situationally useful effect available to deckbuilders. If you ban Street Wraith, you take a tool out of Modern that is used by at least one other deck and could potentially be useful in the future. If you ban Death's Shadow, you nuke an entire archetype. The question is if you want to slightly hurt multiple decks or dumpster one deck entirely.
1) Pros have been complaining about Death's Shadow.
2) There is a Modern PT coming up.
3) Modern PTs have historically been preceded by bannings.
1) While we all recognize that your life total is a resource to be spent just like any other, the life loss is not irrelevant.
2) A Street Wraith in your opening hand creates challenging mulligan decisions because it represents a card of unknown quality.
So the only reason you put Street Wraith in your deck is if you actually care about one of the effects the card has:
1) Cycling it lowers your life total (Death's Shadow cares about this).
2) Cycling it puts a creature in your graveyard (Living End and some other graveyard decks might care about this).
There's nothing particularly broken about Street Wraith. It's just another situationally useful effect available to deckbuilders. If you ban Street Wraith, you take a tool out of Modern that is used by at least one other deck and could potentially be useful in the future. If you ban Death's Shadow, you nuke an entire archetype. The question is if you want to slightly hurt multiple decks or dumpster one deck entirely.
1) Pros have been complaining about Death's Shadow.
2) There is a Modern PT coming up.
3) Modern PTs have historically been preceded by bannings.
A while back I posted about a "Battle of the Planes" 10 pack sealed event I was planning. Well, last night was the moment of truth, and I said that I'd post about how it went.
I'll say that I was really pleased that most of the people participating actually bought in, and didn't just grab a bundle of HOD packs.
We had:
-2 people do Ravnica (one did 2 packs from each set in the original Ravnica block, and filler from RTR sets, the other person did 2 original Ravnica packs and then filler from RTR, which were mostly Dragon's Maze packs),
-1 person did Innistrad (3 Innistrad, 2 Dark Ascension, 3 Shadows, 2 Eldrich Moon),
-2 people did Theros (though one just did a Fat Pack of Born of the Gods and the other did 10 packs of Theros),
-1 person just did HOD (I bought the bundle and let them participate with it, it was their first time playing MTG ever),
-and I did 2 Mirrodin, 2 Darksteel, 2 Fifth Dawn, 1 Scars, 1 Beseiged and 2 New Phyrexia.
We all majorly whiffed in terms of pulling value. My best pull was a foil Serum Visions...and I think the other best value cards were a RAV Godless Shrine and something else. Really not great.
I was pretty happy with my deck. BW artifacts, with a splash of R for Jor Kadeen. I think I should have more aggressively added more color splashes for better cards, I had good fixing (Wayfarers Bauble, Paradise Mantle and Alloy Myr) so supporting more colors would not have cost me that much. I did not have enough removal, and my deck was a bit too slow. The best performing deck was a 4 color Ravnica deck (the person that had more original Ravnica block packs). They had really good fixing and managed to curve out and steamroll anyone they played against.
All in all, I would do it again, but not for another 6 months or so. It was really hard to manage and sort though so many cards from different sets and blocks. Fat Pack Sealed my be the top end of card total with less complexity that hits an interesting sweet spot. I can't imagine trying to do Booster Box Sealed (though I will do that at some point too).
I'll say that I was really pleased that most of the people participating actually bought in, and didn't just grab a bundle of HOD packs.
We had:
-2 people do Ravnica (one did 2 packs from each set in the original Ravnica block, and filler from RTR sets, the other person did 2 original Ravnica packs and then filler from RTR, which were mostly Dragon's Maze packs),
-1 person did Innistrad (3 Innistrad, 2 Dark Ascension, 3 Shadows, 2 Eldrich Moon),
-2 people did Theros (though one just did a Fat Pack of Born of the Gods and the other did 10 packs of Theros),
-1 person just did HOD (I bought the bundle and let them participate with it, it was their first time playing MTG ever),
-and I did 2 Mirrodin, 2 Darksteel, 2 Fifth Dawn, 1 Scars, 1 Beseiged and 2 New Phyrexia.
We all majorly whiffed in terms of pulling value. My best pull was a foil Serum Visions...and I think the other best value cards were a RAV Godless Shrine and something else. Really not great.
I was pretty happy with my deck. BW artifacts, with a splash of R for Jor Kadeen. I think I should have more aggressively added more color splashes for better cards, I had good fixing (Wayfarers Bauble, Paradise Mantle and Alloy Myr) so supporting more colors would not have cost me that much. I did not have enough removal, and my deck was a bit too slow. The best performing deck was a 4 color Ravnica deck (the person that had more original Ravnica block packs). They had really good fixing and managed to curve out and steamroll anyone they played against.
All in all, I would do it again, but not for another 6 months or so. It was really hard to manage and sort though so many cards from different sets and blocks. Fat Pack Sealed my be the top end of card total with less complexity that hits an interesting sweet spot. I can't imagine trying to do Booster Box Sealed (though I will do that at some point too).
Well if they're going to make changes I hope they do it before the SCG event in Syracuse in a few weeks. I wouldn't mind a nerfed Shadow build floating around there.
As someone with only secondhand knowledge of the Modern metagame, all of these explanations of why Street Wraith isn't too good are really enlightening. I still think that zero mana cycling is dumb, and I'm glad that WotC does it very sparingly, but right now I'll concede that Street Wraith doesn't deserve a ban quite yet.
DS might be powerful, but if you want to hit DS, might as well hit DS. No reason to hurt Living End as well.
DS might be powerful, but if you want to hit DS, might as well hit DS. No reason to hurt Living End as well.
I wonder, which block would have the highest power level for commons and uncommons and a wide range of good bombs? I'd say Khans block would be one of the best bets
So kill one deck entirely to save one tiny piece of another deck?
I would prefer if both decks got slightly worse.
They both survive a Wraith ban.
Shadow dies with a Shadow ban.
I'm saying that with the assumption that WotC REALLY wants DS to die. I don't think this is the case right now, and I don't want to see it banned right now myself.
It was also just a dumb offhand comment. I have an unhealthy love of Living End for using a bunch of common cards that should be draft garbage.
Gotcha. I personally would hate to see any bannings right now, but if the pros are complaining, is it possible they've figured out some tech to push the deck into oppressive territory at the next GP?
MAGIC STORY: ENDURE
People kill the Scorpion God, Samut sparks, planeswalkes to Theros (I think) and back, the people of Naktamun start the exodus into the desert, protected by Hazoret.
I don't usually read these, but today I did since I have nothing to do and this passage was badass:
That random unnamed Khenra is baller as fuck.
People kill the Scorpion God, Samut sparks, planeswalkes to Theros (I think) and back, the people of Naktamun start the exodus into the desert, protected by Hazoret.
I don't usually read these, but today I did since I have nothing to do and this passage was badass:
From behind her, Samut heard a clear voice ring out.
"Dark god! For Rhonas, I will strike you down."
She turned, and the sight took Samut's breath away.
A lone khenra stood, hoisting Rhonas's staff into the air, the weapon magically reforged into one. Her hands glowed with golden power, some last vestige of the god's strength coursing through her body, and she ran forward with the staff held high overhead. Samut and the other survivors dove out of the way as the khenra passed. With a mighty roar, the khenra swung the staff at the scorpion god.
The god raised its arms to block the blow, but the force of the strike knocked it careening back. Fragments of carapace fell from its arms, shattered into pieces.
That random unnamed Khenra is baller as fuck.
It is fun, but really different. 10 pack sealed was hard enough when we did the Fat Pack Sealed event originally. The added twist of opening it up to Planes made it even more complex. A fun (and expensive) challenge, I'd certainly recommend either variation for enfranchised players looking for something different.
I did a Khans Fat Pack for our original Fat Pack Sealed event 4 or so months ago, so I wanted to mix it up. I had strongly considered doing something like 5 Khans, 3 Fate and 2 Dragons packs though. The fixing would be great, and it would have decent removal as well. The issue I had with Khans in Fat Pack Sealed was that it was too slow (even for sealed), I was playing against a ton of Kaladesh and Aether Revolt decks that went too wide too quickly. The other deck that stomped me in that event was a RTR deck that had Angel of Serenity. I could delay the game long enough to drop my late-game bombs...that would just get swept away by the Angel. It was brutal.
charlequin
Banned
Let me do some quick fake math. Let's say packs cost $4 and there are 10 possible things you can open. That means there's a max of $40 value that can get distributed here. The chase cards will tend to cost what they cost, so the value of everything else will tend to just soak up the remainder.
If there are a bunch of solid chase rares, we might get something like this:
[ 8 - 8 - 6 - 5 - 4 | 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 - 1 ] -- median value $4
If there's just one huge value card, it might shake out more like this:
[ 20 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 | 2 - 2 - 1 - 1 - 0 ] -- median value $2
The first category means that the value of one pack to an individual customer is pretty similar to its value as part of a retailer opening a whole case. In the latter case, getting a single pack is usually a bad deal but opening a bunch lets you average out to the higher value.
Probably not. They have been complaining for the last few tournaments and the deck hasn't really changed
FreedomFrisbee
Member
People were rabbling about banning something for a while before this but now when they walk out a Street Wraith and Chalice ban y'all are gonna blame the pro tour.
SigmasonicX
Member
Some other details.
* They encounter Neheb as an eternal. He won the trials when they were children, so he died before the events of this story. Gideon blocks him and Samut deals the remaining two damage to kill him.
* That's the only time the Gatewatch appear in this story. They go off to fight Bolas.
* Samut and the others help Hazoret fight the Scorpion God, and impale him on a spire. This doesn't kill him, but he can't get up. Hazoret incinerates him until he's exiled.
It appears this will be the last time the actual natives of Amonkhet will appear for a while. The next story is the finale, and will be Bolas's Slam Jam. After that, we have four podcasts about the Commander deck tribes and one podcast previewing Ixalan.
Yeah, but something like 9 - 9 - 7 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 2 - 2 - 1 - 1 is equally possible. There's no reason why that one chase rare or the rare cycle would change the valuation of the same crap rare. It's making the assumption that valuation of a card completely depends on the valuation of the rest of the cards, while a card that wouldn't sell would still get a bad value. There might be a number bias letting you believe that if the top gradually declines, this might hold on for the rest of series, but that's hard to judge without knowing the other factors. The reasoning is only to hold true if the amount of chase rares comes close to over half of the total of the cards. Maybe I'll have to take a look at the amount of bulk rares from set to set to see what happens to the median value, but I fear that the metric alone is too dependent on too many parameters to make useful observations out of it.
charlequin
Banned
It's mostly not the awful bargain bin rares here, it's the decent and marginal stuff. Like I said, the values of the highest-demand cards tend to be set to maximize return on demand, and everything else cascades down from there. If you can get a $100 rare, everything else is gonna get crushed because people will open boxes until there's far more than demand available for all those cards. If there's a bunch of different rares that are all desirable, they'll collectively be held down in price by the same factor, and that gives average cards more room to avoid becoming bulk.
I mean, this isn't a hypothetical idea, this is a model intended to explain the actual things we've seen in the market over the last X years of sets.
Hmm, I think I understand most of it now, but not quite all of it. Best to let it rest, though. Don't think I'll get anywhere with further discussion
.can someone link me to a place that has a list of all the readable cards texts from the Ixalan spoiler?
oh, I didn't expect that Kaladesh outraces Khans. I might be a little biased torwards Khans block as Outlast and Bolster are among my favorite limited mechanics
I think Fate or Dragons may fare better than Khans did. I ended up playing 4 color good stuff with pretty good fixing, but by the time I was plopping down 3 CMC 2/2 morph creatures my opponents typically were on 2 or more creatures on board. I could usually last long enough to land some bigger creatures (I don't remember exactly what I was running), but by that time I'd be too far behind on life to win a race. I played one Aether Revolt Winding Constrictor deck that had a few vehicles and combat was a nightmare. I had anticipated being able to just play all my good stuff with good fixing for the win, but it just didn't come together. My mana was fine, just not enough low curve plays.
I'm ok with a DS ban. Getting pretty tired of losing to 1 mana 8/8s. Especially now with Claim / Fame making them recursive and hasty.
It feels like every other deck on MTGO is DS. Wizards is definitely fudging the numbers a bit by "curating" the 5-0 lists. It's gotta be at least 25% of the meta.
It feels like every other deck on MTGO is DS. Wizards is definitely fudging the numbers a bit by "curating" the 5-0 lists. It's gotta be at least 25% of the meta.
Check Mythic Spoiler. They have a bunch of Ixalan spoilers.
thanks
I love the tribal theme
tough, explore, raid all seem great. Lots of card advantage generators. Lots of life gain, too. Crested Sunmare's time to shine might still come
it looks very promising thus far
SigmasonicX
Member
The HasCon silver bordered card franchises are revealed, toward the bottom: DnD, Transformers, and Nerf. Ugh, maybe next year I'll get my MLP card.
The DnD card is Sword of Dungeons and Dragons. It comes with a Gold Dragon token from Unstable, though it's unclear if the Sword is from that set too.
The DnD card is Sword of Dungeons and Dragons. It comes with a Gold Dragon token from Unstable, though it's unclear if the Sword is from that set too.
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