• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Magic: the Gathering |OT9| Kaladesh - Cruisin' Down the Street in my 6/4

Status
Not open for further replies.

kirblar

Member
It's not even like Gideon is the stupidest pushed card they've made in White. Avacyn straight up wins on that front because she's just stupidly busted.

Imagine a world where Gideon wasn't just an Elspeth knockoff(or had his ultimate changed to -5 so he wasn't an auto 4 of in any white deck), Avacyn didn't wrath the board when she flips, Emrakul wasn't able to be cheated out on Turn 4/ cast on Turn 8, Spell Queller was Exile Spell CMC 3 or less, Copter had a crew cost of 2 instead of one.

Just like, there's a bunch of little stuff that changed cards from good to pushed.
Avacyn's not as bad imo. It's a dumb card, but at least it's telegraphed in a LOT of situations.

edit: Realized that Frontier is likely popping up in large part because people hate Standard right now.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Avacyn is dumb because the entire reverse side is comically unnecessary.
 
Avacyn's not as bad imo. It's a dumb card, but at least it's telegraphed in a LOT of situations.

edit: Realized that Frontier is likely popping up in large part because people hate Standard right now.

Grimace basically nails it. Archangel Avacyn at 5 Mana Flash is absurd value. The flip side is the really stupid part, especially since you can respond to the Trigger by flashing in a second Avacyn.

Gideon's obnoxious, but he's still relatively manageable. Of the current cards in Standard(That are rarely going to see play in Modern), he's probably the weakest one. Queller eats him, Avacyn can block him, Copter can knock him out of Anthem Range,etc. Avacyn might be telegraphed, but it's still a stupidly powerful card that is under-costed with the flip side.

Frontier popping up is definitely a reaction to Standard sucking. Haruyeya was pushing it early this year IIRC but it started blowing up around a month or two ago.
 
Yesterday, I posted that red should destroy creatures with high toughness, but after thinking about it, it isn't a good idea.

But I've been thinking, the main source of randomness in the game is the library. Red is the king of randomness in the game, but that's been dialed back due to it being unpopular. Maybe red can manipulate the randomness of the opponent's library, without going into fateseal feelbad territory. Red's biggest intentional weakness is that it has a hard time getting back in the late game, but maybe it can have a way to slow down the opponent stabilizing.

One area of interest is replacing the unknown danger of your opponent's card with a known quantity. Something like:

Goblin Festival - 1R
Instant
If an opponent would draw one or more cards this turn, that player instead creates that many 2/2 red Goblin creature tokens.
Draw a card.

Red could get milling, but with exiling instead of putting in the graveyard, so you can't use it to your own benefit. But I don't think it makes sense for red to mill with a mill win in mind, so red's milling needs another goal in mind.

Lava Landslide - 1R
Sorcery
Exile the top five cards of target opponent's library. For each land card exiled this way, deal 1 damage to that player.

Steal Thoughts - 2R
Sorcery
Exile the top five cards of target opponent's library. For each nonland card exiled this way, exile the top card of your library. You play cards exiled this way until end of turn.
 
All red needs to win the lategame is mothereffin
banefire.jpg
I love this art so much.
 

bigkrev

Member
edit: Realized that Frontier is likely popping up in large part because people hate Standard right now.

Frontier popping up is definitely a reaction to Standard sucking. Haruyeya was pushing it early this year IIRC but it started blowing up around a month or two ago.

I don't have the means to research Japanese price history or tournament attendance, but the creation of Frontier was done for one or both of 2 reasons- a lack of Standard attendance, and a desire to make more money by creating demand for cards that lacked demand before. Starcity has had 2 major efforts- one such a big success that in may end up being a negative (Legacy SCG opens were so popular that too many people bought in, making the cards too expensive, and now leading to no growth in the format, and the fact that the SCG tour is apparently a money pit because they expanded too much), and a failure in Tiny Leaders.

I'm still of the mindset that Frontier is the next Tiny Leaders- I feel that the things people like about the format go away as soon as there is something with a prize pool that makes figuring out the format worth the time of the best players, and that Standard will be good again at some point.
 

kirblar

Member
I don't have the means to research Japanese price history or tournament attendance, but the creation of Frontier was done for one or both of 2 reasons- a lack of Standard attendance, and a desire to make more money by creating demand for cards that lacked demand before. Starcity has had 2 major efforts- one such a big success that in may end up being a negative (Legacy SCG opens were so popular that too many people bought in, making the cards too expensive, and now leading to no growth in the format, and the fact that the SCG tour is apparently a money pit because they expanded too much), and a failure in Tiny Leaders.

I'm still of the mindset that Frontier is the next Tiny Leaders- I feel that the things people like about the format go away as soon as there is something with a prize pool that makes figuring out the format worth the time of the best players, and that Standard will be good again at some point.
Modern's apparently very price-inaccessible for the Japanese right now.
 

Korgill

Member
Yesterday, I posted that red should destroy creatures with high toughness, but after thinking about it, it isn't a good idea.

But I've been thinking, the main source of randomness in the game is the library. Red is the king of randomness in the game, but that's been dialed back due to it being unpopular. Maybe red can manipulate the randomness of the opponent's library, without going into fateseal feelbad territory. Red's biggest intentional weakness is that it has a hard time getting back in the late game, but maybe it can have a way to slow down the opponent stabilizing.

One area of interest is replacing the unknown danger of your opponent's card with a known quantity. Something like:

Goblin Festival - 1R
Instant
If an opponent would draw one or more cards this turn, that player instead creates that many 2/2 red Goblin creature tokens.
Draw a card.

Red could get milling, but with exiling instead of putting in the graveyard, so you can't use it to your own benefit. But I don't think it makes sense for red to mill with a mill win in mind, so red's milling needs another goal in mind.

Lava Landslide - 1R
Sorcery
Exile the top five cards of target opponent's library. For each land card exiled this way, deal 1 damage to that player.

Steal Thoughts - 2R
Sorcery
Exile the top five cards of target opponent's library. For each nonland card exiled this way, exile the top card of your library. You play cards exiled this way until end of turn.

Just give red opponent scrying.

Tripmine - 1R
Instant
Exile the top card of target opponent's library. You may return that card to the top of opponent's library. If you do, Tripmine deals 3 damage to them.
 

Firemind

Member
Not like anyone is playing vintage cube here, but I have had a high win rate with Esper control. Higher than mono red at least. All my 3-0 decks have been Esper. It's just such a versatile shard. Would draft again.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Not like anyone is playing vintage cube here, but I have had a high win rate with Esper control. Higher than mono red at least. All my 3-0 decks have been Esper. It's just such a versatile shard. Would draft again.
I drafted white green because white was open with a bunch of angels.

And then I keep casting Moat and people get pissed.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
it is highly unfun, yet there is still a deck in modern that effectively does that on steroids in lantern.
It's awesome a deck like that can exist though
It's only awesome because nobody plays it because it's not fun to play or play against unless you're the type of player who gets off on not playing Magic.
 

Crocodile

Member
I haven't been following Standard, or even Magic really, for a couple weeks. Didn't realize the Standard format had become so hated. I guess we'll see how things change up soon. Does spoiler season for Aether Revolt start next week?

The fact that they went with the pastiest planeswalkers is definitely marketing driven. In no world is introducing a bunch of nonwhite nonmale major characters, including characters that don't conform that traditional genders, and the inclusion of characters with atypical mental states a safer marketing decision than remaining pasty. The decision not to make Kaladesh full-Indian was marketing based, but the decision to go there in the first place was driven by creative desires. Regardless of the quality, the creative crew of Magic is clearly interested in being more inclusive.

It obviously depends on your target market and there are multiple ways to go about it but even in the era of Trump, I'm a firm believer that being more inclusive makes sense not just morally but also economically. Expand your consumer base yo and make that money!
 

Ashodin

Member
EDH FNM Tournament game.

Vela the Night-Clad Ninjutsu shenanigans

Attack with Baleful Strix + Mulldrifter.

Mulldrifter gets blocks, Strix gets in

NINJUTSU TRIGGER

Silent-Blade Oni into the battlefield.

Reveal player's hand.

Find: BLIGHTSTEEL COLOSSUS.

o31hDX3.png
 

Yeef

Member
Ugh really? I could have sworn I read it was starting next week or the week after. I guess Aether Revolt is launching later in January than I thought it was.
It's not; it looks like there's just less time for spoilers. Likely because of the way the holidays lined up this year (in terms of days of the week). We'll likely get a small tease on the 26th or maybe even spoilers each day that week with no articles.
 
Was Origins considered a success? I wouldn't mind a block that was split across a couple of the more niche planes. WOTC could spread some of the risk then and wouldn't need to worry about Kamigawa, Lorwyn, etc carrying a block on their own.
 

bigkrev

Member
LOL

So I bought one of those new mystery boxes from Walmart that were posted about last page- they have 1 of each standard booster, plus 1 from a "mystery modern set", with mine being Return to Ravnica. There was also a Kaladesh spindown in there.

I have never opened an expedition or masterpiece before, so OF FUCKING COURSE I would open 2 in the same damn box!

Cz2mezOXEAAACUw.jpg
 

Ashodin

Member
I got one and I pulled Chandra, Flamecaller, Botanical Sanctum and a bunch of foils

Return to Ravnica was the extra Modern pack
 
am I crazy for considering running 2 spark of creativity over 4 galvanic bombardements?
I know I should just go for 2 Lightning Axe instead but a man can dream crazy, the average cmc is ~3 for my deck anyways.
 

Yeef

Member
am I crazy for considering running 2 spark of creativity over 4 galvanic bombardements?
I know I should just go for 2 Lightning Axe instead but a man can dream crazy, the average cmc is ~3 for my deck anyways.
You have to include lands in that average if you want to be accurate for Spark. Also, Spark is a sorcery, so it's going to be bad against vehicles.
 
You have to include lands in that average if you want to be accurate for Spark. Also, Spark is a sorcery, so it's going to be bad against vehicles.
Oh yeah meaning about 40% off so ~1.8, that's pretty unplayable. I'm just in this odd spot with the deck that I'm sometimes hurting for removal and sometimes with draw so spark would be somewhere in the middle of that. I guess I'll go with a 2/2 split of lightning axe / fiery temper instead.
 

norm9

Member
To those that do Friday Night Magic, how serious are the players in y'all experiences? There are two shops near me but it says they only do standard on FNM. It was too cold to go last night, but I might stop by next week to one of them just to scope the scene.

Would it be better to just wait until the prerelease event in January and show up then instead when it's a sealed deck event and therefore everyone's even ground?
 

Ashodin

Member
2-0-1 at the final standard showdown. I got a pack!

haven't opened it yet, letting wife do that.

Went up against Jeskai Control, GB Delirium, and UW Spirits.

Jeskai Control easily beaten, GB Delirium was playing dumb (not using Ishkanah all the time? Wryyyyyyyyyy) and UW Spirits was REAL close.

Turns out 3 Thalia in the sideboard super wreck both GB Delirium and UW Spirits.
 

Yeef

Member
Standard Showdown today I won round 1 on turn 3 of time, Game 1. I was on RG Aetherworks and my opponent was on Jeskai Control. He kept shutting me down, but his only real win conditions were Torrential Gearhulk, Wandering Fumaroles and some walkers. World Breaker + Drownyard Temple on my end kept his threats from being real threats.

Eventually, we get to turns. On turn 1 I hard-cast Emrakul which gets Void Shattered. On turn 2 (his turn), he's only got 6 cards left in his library after the draw. I play the Chandra from his hand, chucking 4 cards and drawing 5, then use his Nahiri to chuck another and draw the last card and pass the turn.

The other rounds weren't nearly as odd. I didn't expect to do super-well since about 80% of the field was playing control, but I ended up not dropping any games and splitting in the final round.
 

Wulfric

Member
Standard showdown went out not with a bang, but with a whimper. We had 7 players show up, so the store manager had an employee join in.

My pack:
Lost Legacy
Foil full art BFZ Swamp
Scatter to the Winds

All in all, this was a pretty weak promotion locally. Our biggest showdown event was 12 players, and I didn't hear of anyone opening something crazy good. For a store that doesn't actually give out prizes on FNM, the fact that a chance at 3 rares managed to have bring out less players than on Friday is kind of surprising.

To those that do Friday Night Magic, how serious are the players in y'all experiences? There are two shops near me but it says they only do standard on FNM. It was too cold to go last night, but I might stop by next week to one of them just to scope the scene.

Would it be better to just wait until the prerelease event in January and show up then instead when it's a sealed deck event and therefore everyone's even ground?

There should be a mix of casual and more competitive players. It wouldn't hurt to call the store or visit the store in advance to get a feel for it. Although I wouldn't want to dissuade you from going, December is usually the low point for FNM attendance due to college students heading back home and people just not wanting to brave the weather. Not to mention next Friday is the 23rd, so that will definitely impact attendance at most stores. However January prerelease is usually poppin despite the weather. :)

The best part about prerelease is all the casual players coming out of the woodwork. Personally I know a few people who will only go to a prerelease event. It's a usually a very low stakes day, and "take backs" are frequent during rounds thanks to the cards being new and unfamiliar.
 

red13th

Member
I kind of wish they replaced Modern with Overextended and Frontier, this way we'd have two very different formats, one with shitty answers for Modern players into that, and a Legacy-lite with Counterspell, Daze, Brainstorm and shit.
 

HK-47

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.
I kind of wish they replaced Modern with Overextended and Frontier, this way we'd have two very different formats, one with shitty answers for Modern players into that, and a Legacy-lite with Counterspell, Daze, Brainstorm and shit.

Blue can stay losing in Modern.
 

Wulfric

Member
Reid Duke's posted the first article in his intro to legacy series. The first deck featured is show and tell, which I think is possibly the worst deck to showcase the format. It's not particularly well positioned and relies on pretty aggressive mulligans.

The fact is, Legacy’s game play is worlds apart from that of Standard, or of other formats you remember from the past. Games are often won—or otherwise decided—on the very first turn.

This is flat out wrong barring a few decks with perfect hands (i.e. Oops All Spells, Reanimator). Turn 3 or 4 seems to be sweet spot for most games. After that the loser is just stalling for time by countering as many spells/abilities as possible. Overall I'm looking forward to reading Reid's insight on the format.
 

OnPoint

Member
While I'm not supporting SCG any more, I had to look to see how Joe Lossett did and he won! So good for him. Also GB Tron in Modern? Interesting...
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom