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

Santiako

Member
We don't actually know yet that Rivals will have DFCss. Unlike Innistrad, where the DFC's were integral to the set design, here they mostly play towards the flavor of searching for lost treasure. In Rivals, the treasure will likely already have been found, so I could see them cutting them from the set there.

I'd love to see the enemy checks, because they haven't been printed outside of the original Innistrad block (except Isolated Chapel in the Modern Event deck), but I'm not expecting it.

Fiar enough, I hadn't considered that there might be no DFCs in Rivals. I just hate that they keep printing half cycles in standard.

Isn't rivals a large set?

No?
 
Called Huey winning, I'm really not on the side of any control deck having all that favourable matchups against energy decks. Way too easy to stumble and get wrecked in short order.

RDW on the other hand is way favoured for RUG energy moreso than BUG.
 

Justin

Member
Just caught up on the finals and even if you are not a fan of those two decks you have to admit that those were some fantasic games of magic.
 

Boogiepop

Member
Aw yeah, modifying my Commander Cat deck seems to have done the trick, at least to some degree! Did a lot better playing it this time around (not exactly getting suoer frequent games with friends, though, so admittedly not a ton of proper testing on it yet). Got some fun stupid plays. In particular, got Kemba Kha Regent rolling alongside the Bloodforged Battle-Axe, so that was fun. I believe I failed to account for the tokens being able to spit out further copies themselves, though. Also had the sillyness of my friend and I staring each other down while both having an equipped Godsend, which left us wondering what would happen if they clashed... but then I drew the cat that removes an artifact from play while on the field, which dealt with that.

Actually, about the Bloodforged Battle-axe: I saw online that thanks to the wording, you should get tokens twice if you hit for damage with both halves of your doublestrike. Now, the question I have is, say I have the Hammer of Nazahn down. That lets you instantly equip an artifact when it comes into play. So... I'm guessing not, but any chance the copy would pop then insta equip to hit for more damage and an extra copy from the second part of the doublestrike hit?

(Also, still think I may need to look further at the flying problem a bit, as that's easily my deck's sorest spot. Like, it kind of sucks being the only one without fliers, prompting people to just continually go "oh, I can get a free hit on you right now? Sure, why not." Still, don't want to get too fixated on that and end up weakening the other elements too much, as I feel like things are working pretty darn well outside of that...)
 

Xis

Member
Oath of the Gatewatch had 7 rare/mythic lands, three of which were manlands and the rest of which were colorless Eldrazi themed lands. It's not a stretch to have a five card checkland cycle in Rivals

Oath (and BFZ) had a land theme. Greater than average number of lands.
 

y2dvd

Member
Went 3-0 with WB vamps again. Rallying Roar was mvp along with Duskbourne Skymarcher and Vampires Zeal. One creature wasn't a Vamp for a flavor fail lol, but Emmisary of Sunrise is too good.
 
I thought worlds was an absolutely superb demonstration of the health of standard, and also the incredible high level play that can come out of magic. Was a great tourney / show all around. Jensen seemed like the player of the tourney, so the results are fitting.
 

Boogiepop

Member
So... do Allies actually function halfway decently in Commander, or no? I really like the look of them, with all the synergy building between them as you build up your board... but I've seen soooo many nukes in my (limited, to be fair) experience with the format that I'd have to imagine it'd be real, real hard to get them actually rolling. Like... is that a particularly solvable issue, or is the deck inherently at a disadvantage thanks to the way it works? Aka I kind of want to build an Ally Commander deck, but I kind of get the feeling it'll just get nuked into oblivion and just lose constantly, rather than pulling off the kind of cool comboes you'd want the deck to manage.
 
Actually, about the Bloodforged Battle-axe: I saw online that thanks to the wording, you should get tokens twice if you hit for damage with both halves of your doublestrike. Now, the question I have is, say I have the Hammer of Nazahn down. That lets you instantly equip an artifact when it comes into play. So... I'm guessing not, but any chance the copy would pop then insta equip to hit for more damage and an extra copy from the second part of the doublestrike hit?

Hammer of Nazahn triggers whenever an equipment enters the battlefield, so yes, you would be able to immediately equip a copy of Bloodforged Battle-axe created during the First Strike phase, then hit with it during the normal damage phase if the creature you equipped it to has Double Strike. The two phases of damage are discrete events.
 

Boogiepop

Member
Hammer of Nazahn triggers whenever an equipment enters the battlefield, so yes, you would be able to immediately equip a copy of Bloodforged Battle-axe created during the First Strike phase, then hit with it during the normal damage phase if the creature you equipped it to has Double Strike. The two phases of damage are discrete events.
Oh, awesome! Learning crazy interactions like that has probably been my favorite part of getting back into Magic, as younger me definitely never thought too deeply on such interactions!
 

Wulfric

Member
Ugly ass new logo :/

bZms0YI.jpg

Dominaria will have this logo in the boosters ://

Honestly I would be fine with this logo on MTGO and Arena, but I can understand why they're rolling it out to the physical packaging and organized play as well. I think one of the main advantages MTG has over other games is age, and this new logo just doesn't reflect that. The marble texture on the old logos is a bit dated, but the mythic orange logo was perfectly serviceable. Their reasoning for getting rid of this one is kinda weird too.

In a number of ways, it didn't zero in close enough to the brand's modern fantasy core. Magic's visuals draw inspiration from many cultures and wonders from our world, as well as from wild imagination, reaching well beyond the medieval high-fantasy aesthetic from which the original logo was drawn.


Here's the full article if someone wants to take a look.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/raising-new-banner-2017-10-08
 

kirblar

Member
It's for cross-branding with Arena. Full stop. The rest is a convoluted way to try and justify a decision made for that reason only.
 

Wulfric

Member
It's for cross-branding with Arena. Full stop. The rest is a convoluted way to try and justify a decision made for that reason only.

Oh, I have no doubt it was intended for Arena in the beginning.

It would be interesting to hear how the B&M retail team feels about this. The shape is about the same, but you lose the white outline on the inside and the shiny reflection effect. It looks plain unremarkable without the planeswalker symbol right next to it. Nothing about this says fantasy.

It looks like the title of a self published novel.

 

Ashodin

Member
why the fucking left adjustment on the gathering

it looks horrendous

I have a theory they want to drop "the gathering" in the future and are giving it the shaft. Previous logos have been "magic: the gathering (r)" now it's Magic (TM) The Gathering
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
In a number of ways, it didn't zero in close enough to the brand's modern fantasy core. Magic's visuals draw inspiration from many cultures and wonders from our world, as well as from wild imagination, reaching well beyond the medieval high-fantasy aesthetic from which the original logo was drawn.


....the logic here is fine

but the new logo also isn't that
 
In a number of ways, it didn't zero in close enough to the brand's modern fantasy core. Magic's visuals draw inspiration from many cultures and wonders from our world, as well as from wild imagination, reaching well beyond the medieval high-fantasy aesthetic from which the original logo was drawn. But no guns.
FTFY
 
MaRo's article includes an explanation for the original crew
At no time during design or development did the double-faced cards have anything but a land on back.

We did, however, go through a period early on where there was a land on front and back. Here's how it worked. You played the land and then you needed to claim it. Once you did, the land transformed into the more powerful version. To claim it, you had to tap a number of creatures equal to a certain combined power. You might say that it sounds a bit like Vehicles. Well, it was. You see, at the time, the way crew worked was that it had a number and you tapped that many creatures to crew a Vehicle.

This implementation was causing the Kaladesh design team problems. We had come up with our version trying to stay away from how Vehicles worked. Once I realized that our solution might work for Vehicles, I talked to Ian Duke and Erik Lauer, the co-lead developers of Kaladesh, and offered up our variant. They tried it out, and it worked wonderfully, so they changed Vehicles to that system. That meant we had to scrap our double-faced lands and find a new way to execute them, which led us to the current version.
 

DrArchon

Member

HK-47

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.
Either a lot of people are picking them up for Vamp decks or people are still worried about Carnage Tyrant.

Can't blame them, it's a great card, though I've always been a Vampire Nighthawk kind of player myself.
No it's because they are an excellent two drop when you have things that eternalize creatures.
 

DrArchon

Member
No it's because they are an excellent two drop when you have things that eternalize creatures.

I must not have been paying enough attention to standard decks. I haven't seen them anywhere outside of being requisite 2-drops for hopeful vampire decks. But I see your point. Eternalizing to get a 4/4 Lifelink, Deathtouch creature sounds really tough to deal with.

I keep forgetting that Scarab God is such a dominant force in the meta. That's what I get for not watching as many streams as I should.
 

Santiako

Member
It's also a really good sideboard card for UB control in the spot of the very embarrassing Contraband Kingpins in Wrapter's sideboard.
 

ZealousD

Makes world leading predictions like "The sun will rise tomorrow"
I'm not all that attached to the old logo, so I don't have much of an opinion, but I do kind of see their point. The old logo is kind of Comic Sansy. A little more cartoonish, like they want to lean a little harder into the hard fantasy. Make it more distinct from the softer touch of something like Warcraft/Hearthstone.
 

HK-47

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.
Hostage Taker doesn't make much sense flavorwise. Seems like Captivating Crew kinda makes more sense for a card permanently switching sides.
 
Oh boy I do think Wizards might've goofed making both Scarab God and Hostage Taker. Then again the prices will be so high that I can sit on mine and sell/trade them later for some modern cards.
 

Justin

Member
Looks like we will be getting the article MaRo has been hinting at for a few months soon
Is the planeswalker damage rule the big design change you've been alluding to?

No. That's a minor rules change. The big change is a behind the scenes how we create Magic. I've written the article. You'll see it in a few weeks.

Also lol

o, Maro, the Internet hates the new Magic logo. How long until you do a New Coke and bring the old logo back?

Historically, the Magic audience has shown it takes time to to warm up to changes (Standard, Sixth Edition rules changes, new frames, etc.) Patience is the best course of action.
 
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