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Magic: the Gathering |OT13| Ixalan - Port to Sideboard

Justin

Member
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Boogiepop

Member
Hmm... hoping that carefully reorganizing in my new cards instead of haphazardly doing it last minute because I wasn't expecting to play will make my Cat Commander do a bit better. Mainly... tonight just kind of reminded me of the biggest issue I've had with Magic in the past, and the thing I hate, which is... man, control can just run rampant, at least from the limited scope of what I've seen. Which is card games in general, but yeah... Magic always felt worse on that to me. And hell, wasn't even blue for everything getting countered, just Black.

But regardless, the whole "nope it's gone, dead, destroyed" playstyle of just preventing any momentum drives me nuts and is like, anti-fun to me.


Also, my darn legendary hammer has not lived a single turn yet. Insta-killed every game. To add insult to injury, the last game today it got hit with a card that exiled mine and made copies for the other two guys (it was 3 person)... which then lived for most of the game.

I dunno, getting kind of grumpy as getting back into Magic, I'm kind of constantly finding that I get stopped or nuked or etc forever, and just always stuck at "I can ALMOST do something, but nope. And even if I do play something cool, it instadies and I wasted a turn".

Again, partially down to needing to look at my deck some more, probably, but... Not exactly in love with my experience so far.

Edit: Also, rampant flying all over everybody else's field when I've got no flying or reach is... not great.
 
I don't know why, but these Twitter images keep getting resized to 1 x 1 pixels for me unless I change the URL to use small instead of large.
 
Hmm... hoping that carefully reorganizing in my new cards instead of haphazardly doing it last minute because I wasn't expecting to play will make my Cat Commander do a bit better. Mainly... tonight just kind of reminded me of the biggest issue I've had with Magic in the past, and the thing I hate, which is... man, control can just run rampant, at least from the limited scope of what I've seen. Which is card games in general, but yeah... Magic always felt worse on that to me. And hell, wasn't even blue for everything getting countered, just Black.

But regardless, the whole "nope it's gone, dead, destroyed" playstyle of just preventing any momentum drives me nuts and is like, anti-fun to me.


Also, my darn legendary hammer has not lived a single turn yet. Insta-killed every game. To add insult to injury, the last game today it got hit with a card that exiled mine and made copies for the other two guys (it was 3 person)... which then lived for most of the game.

I dunno, getting kind of grumpy as getting back into Magic, I'm kind of constantly finding that I get stopped or nuked or etc forever, and just always stuck at "I can ALMOST do something, but nope. And even if I do play something cool, it instadies and I wasted a turn".

Again, partially down to needing to look at my deck some more, probably, but... Not exactly in love with my experience so far.

Edit: Also, rampant flying all over everybody else's field when I've got no flying or reach is... not great.

that's rough and an issue when you're playing a deck that's all feast or famine. Arahbo in the command zone means no matter how little your board is it will be threatening.

If you're struggling with spot removal look towards having more creatures that do something on ETB or when they die. Green also gives you access to plenty of regrowth effects to return your hammer, not in the form of cats though. Dusk // Dawn from Amonkhet should be great for that.

Control is generally terrible in commander, the card disadvantage from trading 1 for 1 adds up in multiplayer free for all.
 

Pundere

Member
You could also look into using more creatures with built-in hexproof, indestructible, or protection from black/red/whatever.
 

Boogiepop

Member
Thanks, guys. I'll definitely look into things. I feel like part of the problem is also proooooobably that the Cat deck always has that potential for big stuff so it draws all the aggro.

But yeah... definitely finding a way to get one or both of the Skyhunter cats I have around in the deck, as I need SOMETHING with flying, too. As being the one guy without flying (or even reach) makes for an easy target of "oh, you can't defend yourself? Sure, have some damage, then!"
 

Bandini

Member
There's a lot of cool cards in Modern Cube I would probably never play anyway else. Also a few baffling inclusions.

My favorites:
Duskwatch Recruiter: vastly outperforming my expectations. It's so good in decks that are heavily green. Generates a ton of value and finds your finisher.
Jinxed Collar: Strong while playing aggressive strategies or when playing against slower ones. Damage adds up quick.
Craterhoof Behemoth: Winning with this feels so good.

Why is this in here?:
Lodestone Golem: Doesn't really fit any decks. No heavy artifact theme in this cube.
Body Double: It's a cool card but there aren't really any graveyard strategies going on.

Things I want:
Signets!
 

Violet_0

Banned
Hmm... hoping that carefully reorganizing in my new cards instead of haphazardly doing it last minute because I wasn't expecting to play will make my Cat Commander do a bit better. Mainly... tonight just kind of reminded me of the biggest issue I've had with Magic in the past, and the thing I hate, which is... man, control can just run rampant, at least from the limited scope of what I've seen. Which is card games in general, but yeah... Magic always felt worse on that to me. And hell, wasn't even blue for everything getting countered, just Black.

okay, so you've reached the next stage of EDH
expect a sweeper or at least a few removals every turn, don't count on your high-impact creatures to live beyond the turn you played them, so they better have some sweet ETB triggers. That's the problem with the small creatures aggro decks, you build your board with some honestly pretty damn weak creatures, one of your opponents wipes the board, you may just be able to recover this time, they do it again, you're out of the game while they draw lots of cards and play their much more powerful creatures and spells. Tribal synergy won't do you much good if your board is getting cleaned every time the momentum seems to shift. One of the reasons the dragon deck is better, since a number of dragons can straight up run away with the game on their own

and honestly, black control isn't even that bad. You'll learn that UG is the worst enemy when they draw infinite cards (=infinite counterspells), have infinite mana and untap all their permanents on each player's turn. Let's not even talk about stax
 
Ryan Spain was on LR talking about Arena.

- Arena's been in development for at least 2 years.
- It still has a long way to go, what's been shown is a vertical slice.
- One of their core goals is to make sure beginners can play beginners, pros against pros.
- Pretty much confirms there will be a new Modern-esque format for sets in Arena that rotate out of standard.
- Says Arena won't rival MTGO "from a short term and close to launch perspective". Definitely sounds like if Arena is successful, it may eclipse MTGO eventually.
- Game sounds exactly like Hearthstone.
- In-game currency confirmed, used for draft formats and buying packs.
- Ranked matchmaking ladder with one-off games.
- Will have ranked seasons.
- Daily quests, can have up to three.
- No plans for multiplayer right now.
- Ranking will determine your draft options. There is one draft button but if you're a higher rank, you'll have options to draft more complex formats or older formats. Beginners will just be able to draft the latest format, they don't want to overwhelm new players.
- You draft with other players, there are draft queues.
- Plenty of vanity items, tied to ranks and season progression and such.
- No plans for legacy formats right now, but they're open to it if the fans want it. I take this to mean if Arena is a huge hit, they'll start working on it.
- When you drag a spell to cast it, it highlights the lands it will autotap and you can change which lands you want tapped if it's not to your liking.
- They may change mulligan rules for single matches.
- Streaming and esports is a high priority, to the surprise of no one.
- No Twitch integration on day one.
- No single player campaign right now.
- Still exploring being able to set up custom priority stops and other control options.
- You can 1v1 friends.
- The chess clock aspect of the game is still being adjusted and tweaked.
- Stresses the need for player feedback 800 times.
 

y2dvd

Member
Good bye outgoing life. Drafting is by far my favorite format and with in-game currency to draft with, I'm gonna be playing Arena all day. Would be amazing to have lobbies to phantom draft with friends. Yall reading that WotC?
 

siddx

Magnificent Eager Mighty Brilliantly Erect Registereduser
Yeah if they nail drafting I will be in heaven, sealed and booster are the only competitive format I play anymore and I don't have time to drive out to our only comicshop and go to anything except pre releases these days. If I can do it at home I'd be happy as fuck.
 

Shinjica

Member
Ryan Spain was on LR talking about Arena.

- Arena's been in development for at least 2 years.
- It still has a long way to go, what's been shown is a vertical slice.
- One of their core goals is to make sure beginners can play beginners, pros against pros.
- Pretty much confirms there will be a new Modern-esque format for sets in Arena that rotate out of standard.
- Says Arena won't rival MTGO "from a short term and close to launch perspective". Definitely sounds like if Arena is successful, it may eclipse MTGO eventually.
- Game sounds exactly like Hearthstone.
- In-game currency confirmed, used for draft formats and buying packs.
- Ranked matchmaking ladder with one-off games.
- Will have ranked seasons.
- Daily quests, can have up to three.
- No plans for multiplayer right now.
- Ranking will determine your draft options. There is one draft button but if you're a higher rank, you'll have options to draft more complex formats or older formats. Beginners will just be able to draft the latest format, they don't want to overwhelm new players.
- You draft with other players, there are draft queues.
- Plenty of vanity items, tied to ranks and season progression and such.
- No plans for legacy formats right now, but they're open to it if the fans want it. I take this to mean if Arena is a huge hit, they'll start working on it.
- When you drag a spell to cast it, it highlights the lands it will autotap and you can change which lands you want tapped if it's not to your liking.
- They may change mulligan rules for single matches.
- Streaming and esports is a high priority, to the surprise of no one.
- No Twitch integration on day one.
- No single player campaign right now.
- Still exploring being able to set up custom priority stops and other control options.
- You can 1v1 friends.
- The chess clock aspect of the game is still being adjusted and tweaked.
- Stresses the need for player feedback 800 times.

Been in development forum 2 years? Killing magic duels was not a sudden move
 
Arena looks like exactly what I want out of digital Magic.

I want to be able to play on my tablet on the couch. I've come up with a way to play MTGO in tablet mode on my Surface, but it sucks ass and it's just not worth it.
 

Justin

Member
I was watching a video Kripp recently posted where he was showing his childhood CCG collections. He actually had a Lage collection of MTG cards from around Weatherlight time period. He talked about how he would draft at his LGS every week. Wizards would be dumb not to throw money at him for some sponsored Arena streams.
 

Justin

Member
so all matches are a single game? are there no sideboards? that's weird.

No, he said there will be a single game mode mostly aimed at new players. The reasoning is that when you are learning the game it is hard to wrap your head around side boarding.

MTGO has single game modes already so it isn't even a change for Magic digital products.
 
so all matches are a single game? are there no sideboards? that's weird.
I would have been surprised if it were anything else, Bo3 does not work great for a mobile game.
It should lead to a fairly different standard format requiring even more answers to RDW and cheese strats like Approach in the maindeck.
Arena looks like exactly what I want out of digital Magic.

I want to be able to play on my tablet on the couch. I've come up with a way to play MTGO in tablet mode on my Surface, but it sucks ass and it's just not worth it.
I found mtgo surprisingly compatible with my suface. I was so hooked on OGW drafts that I was drafting with a hotspot from my phone on the way to and from university.

OGW was my jam, favourite drafting format and also my best.
 

DrArchon

Member

Yo. Loving both of these. Vamp is good against anything that can't put a creature down on turn 1, and I love how the enchantment gives you something else to do with Treasure (plus tying into Kaladesh with Servo tokens and such).

Plus it's flavorful because sometimes pirates would stuff random crap into their cannons instead of traditional cannonballs, like silverware, wine bottles, weapons, etc.
 
Thanks, guys. I'll definitely look into things. I feel like part of the problem is also proooooobably that the Cat deck always has that potential for big stuff so it draws all the aggro.

But yeah... definitely finding a way to get one or both of the Skyhunter cats I have around in the deck, as I need SOMETHING with flying, too. As being the one guy without flying (or even reach) makes for an easy target of "oh, you can't defend yourself? Sure, have some damage, then!"

A good sneaky card that I like is Rebuff the Wicked. Not exactly a powerhouse, but still worth a look depending on how your stuff is getting blown up.

12.jpg


Also, if flying is really that prevalent in your meta, you can try giving Reach to your team:

273.jpg
 

Justin

Member
Seth sounds physically pained by the other mtggoldfish guys being excited and hopeful about Arena.

yeah he is shook

Saffron Olive
@SaffronOlive
Waiting for when everyone realize that keeping up with Standard in Hearthstone is quite a bit more expensive than on #MTGO.
Getting new cards in Hearthstone is about $800 a year. With $800 in #MTGO you could play Standard for a decade.
 

bigkrev

Member
Where is he getting the "Hearthstone is $800 a year" thing from? I've been playing Hearthstone since the beta, have not spent $800 combined (though I'm probably in the $500s), and have never had any issue playing standard and just picking whatever deck I want to play at any moment.
 

Copenap

Member
yeah he is shook
The calculation seems like bullshit. I was playing all top decks with pretty much one 50$ purchase each expansion that's more like 200$ a year and I didn't even disenchant other cards. With the rotation nowadays it should be even cheaper if you disenchant all Wild cards.
 

Butthorn

Neo Member
Arahbo deck problems.

I'm pretty new to EDH and started with the cat deck and have been having similar issues with removal and have a few suggestions. There's a few pretty good cats not in the deck that can be picked up on the cheap like Prowling Serpopard or Chameleon Colossus that have some protection built into them, and there's some lower cost cats with abilities on them that are useful like Adorned Pouncer (plz remove me, I eternalize and come in bigger) or Skyhunter Skirmisher.

I also try to only put one creature on the board at a time to minimize the damage of board wipes since they're so frequent in EDH. Let people remove a few creatures one at a time, hope you can get that third or forth one to stay down for a turn or two, trample someone for 30 damage. I think the deck has some serious problems and won't win you a ton of games but with a little investment you should be able to have some fun with it!
 
People need to realize that, although magic online is trash, the economy and money people have paid into it was of Wizards doing and they are the ones that bear the weight of transitioning correctly, if Arena becomes the primary platform (which, having played it, it should and will). Additionally, they have a balance with paper to keep. This means they cannot just give every card to everyone easily. Honestly I dont envy their position.
 
I found mtgo surprisingly compatible with my suface. I was so hooked on OGW drafts that I was drafting with a hotspot from my phone on the way to and from university.

OGW was my jam, favourite drafting format and also my best.

It's just so many taps to pass priority. F8'ing at the start helps a ton, but it's definitely not perfect. And the games take forever - the interface just isn't made for a touchscreen.

I found OGW dull, but Triple Theros is one of my personal top 5 draft formats, so don't take my opinion too seriously. :lol

People need to realize that, although magic online is trash, the economy and money people have paid into it was of Wizards doing and they are the ones that bear the weight of transitioning correctly, if Arena becomes the primary platform (which, having played it, it should and will). Additionally, they have a balance with paper to keep. This means they cannot just give every card to everyone easily. Honestly I dont envy their position.

I agree that they bear a certain amount of corporate responsibility for the digital economy that's come up around MTGO. At the same time, the writing is on the wall. If I was an MTGO broker right now, I would be aggressively shifting my position to have as little inventory as possible. There's still money to be made there, but it's time to start cashing out now.
 
Where is he getting the "Hearthstone is $800 a year" thing from? I've been playing Hearthstone since the beta, have not spent $800 combined (though I'm probably in the $500s), and have never had any issue playing standard and just picking whatever deck I want to play at any moment.

Probably some calculation of how many packs you'd have to buy to collect and dust a full playset of each set. I'm sure that number doesn't take into account how many cards you get just from playing and using gold to buy packs or draft. It's a bullshit number, although not as bullshit as his "$800 will let you play standard for a decade" statement. The fuck is he smoking?
 
Probably some calculation of how many packs you'd have to buy to collect and dust a full playset of each set. I'm sure that number doesn't take into account how many cards you get just from playing and using gold to buy packs or draft. It's a bullshit number, although not as bullshit as his "$800 will let you play standard for a decade" statement. The fuck is he smoking?

He's comparing buying a full playset of each set in Hearthstone to buying a single Tier 2 budget deck each year and playing the same deck all year in Standard.

I like Seth's content a lot, but he's so far off the reservation here.

He said because you can buy a standard deck for $200 and when you get bored you can sell it for $180 and buy a new one.

In HS do you get to keep the cards you get in draft or do you only get the currency at the end?

To be fair, that's more reasonable than I was giving him credit for.
 

Justin

Member
Probably some calculation of how many packs you'd have to buy to collect and dust a full playset of each set. I'm sure that number doesn't take into account how many cards you get just from playing and using gold to buy packs or draft. It's a bullshit number, although not as bullshit as his "$800 will let you play standard for a decade" statement. The fuck is he smoking?

He said because you can buy a standard deck for $200 and when you get bored you can sell it for $180 and buy a new one.

In HS do you get to keep the cards you get in draft or do you only get the currency at the end?
 
These are nice new details, grindable currency for draft sounds awesome. If IRL packs don't have codes that give said currency WotC done goofed.

Seth freaking out about the pay structure before he knows the pay structure is pretty comical. He's pretty comically against all this. The professor came out a believer after playing it, so most fears just seem super unfounded right now.

This means they cannot just give every card to everyone easily.

Depends, but I think Duels (and Hearthstone) has really shifted their view on what they feel ok with offering digitally. MTGO was the result of being supremely afraid of giving cards to everyone easily. I remember a lot of concern about it cannibalizing paper when it launched. Obviously their stance on this has completely changed.
 
I've paid €10 total playing Hearthstone for all but 2 years combined and I have a sizeable collection that lets me play multiple tier 1 decks in standard and extended sized eternal (wild). The downside is that all those cards are worth shit but that's another story.

Scrubbing out at a single draft is more expensive than playing Hearthstone for me, heck I paid that much just to sign up to modo.

Seth can be full of shit when it comes to MTGO.
He said because you can buy a standard deck for $200 and when you get bored you can sell it for $180 and buy a new one.

In HS do you get to keep the cards you get in draft or do you only get the currency at the end?
Arena is 150g a pack is 100g at the worst going 0-3 in arena earns you a pack.
 

bigkrev

Member
You can't just apply the Hearthstone business model to Magic 1-to-1. Hearthstone sells 3 sets of 130ish cards each year, Magic sells 4 250 card sets each year. You only need 2 of any given card in Hearthstone (1 of each Legendary), while in Magic you need 4 of everything.

The only conceivable way i can see them ripping off Hearthstone's model is make all commons each set free/earned through quests, and having only Uncommons, Rares, and Mythics appear in booster packs. You can keep the 5 card system and do 1 guaranteed rare or better card and 4 Uncommon/Rare/mythics, but even then you still would need to open an absurd amount of packs to build a competitive deck
 
You're only selling your deck for $180 if you sell it way before rotation and the value of all your rare/mythic cards holds, which pretty much never happens over the course of a format. I've been through this process many times, getting 90% of your money back during rotation is basically unheard of.
 
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