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Justin

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,757
Seattle, Washington
Yeah, basically Surveil has a higher ceiling than Scry, but scrying lands to the bottom is better than binning them to the yard. Is there even a card that cares about lands in graveyards? It's not even a relevant ability on Moulderhulk.

Why is scrying a land better than putting it in the GY? I assume since you are not putting it on top of your deck that you don't need it so making it so don't redraw it seems much better.
 
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SigmasonicX

SigmasonicX

Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,474
M-FILES: GUILDS OF RAVNICA – MONOCOLOR
* Pegasus Courser effects seem like they'll permanently be uncommon now, since they've realized it's pretty strong in Limited.
* Wishcoin Crab was nicknamed Wisconsin Crab. That got complaints about the lack of cheese.
* Fling effects are a big problem in MTGO, since players keep targeting their own creatures by accident. I feel like there are easy solutions for that. Anyway, that's why Severed Strands targets creatures your opponents control.
* Lotleth Giant targeting each opponent was determined to be unfun in Commander, and presumably Two-Headed Giant.
* Goblin Cratermaker was designed for those who only had time for one game, instead of a best of three. I'm surprised they didn't see the need to explain how this fits into red's color pie.
* Nullhide Ferox originally had hexproof from artifacts and enchantments, no ability removal effect.
* The final version of that card was designed to combat Hollow One decks.
 

Firemind

Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,530
Less lands in lib = better draws
Why is scrying a land better than putting it in the GY? I assume since you are not putting it on top of your deck that you don't need it so making it so don't redraw it seems much better.
If you have shuffling effects, then I suppose you're right. In my experience they're pretty rare though. Enhanced Surveillance isn't really playable in my opinion.
 

Justin

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,757
Seattle, Washington
If you have shuffling effects, then I suppose you're right. In my experience they're pretty rare though. Enhanced Surveillance isn't really playable in my opinion.

But even if you don't have shuffling effects, if your plan is to put a land you don't need on the bottom planning to draw it as the last card in your library before you lose to decking then you have a bad (or awesome) plan.
 

Schreckstoff

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,606
Why is scrying a land better than putting it in the GY? I assume since you are not putting it on top of your deck that you don't need it so making it so don't redraw it seems much better.
if your deck is all removal and a limited amount of threats then you can easily deck yourself in limited, surveil feeds into that.

In constructed you might have silver bullet cards you can't use at the time you're surveiling that you will want to later have the option to shuffle and draw again.
 

ZealousD

Community Resettler
Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,303
At some point, if they are hellbent about not using Shroud, just use "Hexproof. You cannot target this creature" as 2 seperate lines. Sure it looks ugly, but no more ugly than "Hexproof from Artifacts and Enchantments"

"Hexproof from Artifacts and Enchantments" means your opponent can still point instants and sorceries at it.

Yeah, basically Surveil has a higher ceiling than Scry, but scrying lands to the bottom is better than binning them to the yard. Is there even a card that cares about lands in graveyards? It's not even a relevant ability on Moulderhulk.

It is relevant on Molderhulk because the land can come in untapped. Makes it easier to cast another spell that same turn. Also Glowspore Shaman is a thing.
 

ZealousD

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Oct 25, 2017
2,303
I think he means that if they're willing to print a hexproof ability that's that long, they could write out shroud too.

I was interpreting it as he was thinking that it had regular hexproof except you couldn't bogle it up with enchantments and thus that it effectively had Shroud. Which is why he brought up Shroud at all.
 
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SigmasonicX

SigmasonicX

Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,474
I was interpreting it as he was thinking that it had regular hexproof except you couldn't bogle it up with enchantments and thus that it effectively had Shroud. Which is why he brought up Shroud at all.
In that case, hexproof from enchantments wouldn't prevent you from loading it up with auras. It only stops your opponent from using Dead Weight and Pacifism and such.
 

Bigkrev

Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,307

They have MagicFest.co.uk and the @Magicfest twitter handle

Oh right, I guess that's true.

Then I have no idea how Shroud entered into the discussion.
The problem is that while Shroud is a great, balanced mechanic- The "cost" it adds to a card is between 0 and 1 mana. Meanwhile, Hexproof is easily the most powerful mechanic they currently support, and realisitcally should cost 3 mana (ie, a 1/1 with Hexproof should cost 3). They seem to slowly be discovering how powerful Hexproof is, and I think just going back to Shroud (or Shroud written out) would be better than "Hexproof only from Blue Instants" or "Hexproof only to cards with CMC 1 or less" or whatever other whacky bullshit they come up with because you can't put normal Hexproof on a constructed-quality card
 
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SigmasonicX

SigmasonicX

Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,474
The problem is that while Shroud is a great, balanced mechanic- The "cost" it adds to a card is between 0 and 1 mana. Meanwhile, Hexproof is easily the most powerful mechanic they currently support, and realisitcally should cost 3 mana (ie, a 1/1 with Hexproof should cost 3). They seem to slowly be discovering how powerful Hexproof is, and I think just going back to Shroud (or Shroud written out) would be better than "Hexproof only from Blue Instants" or "Hexproof only to cards with CMC 1 or less" or whatever other whacky bullshit they come up with because you can't put normal Hexproof on a constructed-quality card
I think shroud sucks, though.

The hexproof variants are more about replacing protection, so that is a bit disconnected from the shroud thing.
 

Metallix87

User Requested Self-Ban
Banned
Nov 1, 2017
10,533
The problem with Shroud is that it was extremely unintuitive for newer players. MaRo confirmed as much quite some time ago. Newer players believe it works the way Hexproof does.
 

Deleted member 29293

User requested account closure
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Nov 1, 2017
1,084
It's not about confusion, it's more about intuition. When they used shroud apparently a lot of people thought it works like hexproof so they made a new key word that works like people already thought shroud works.
 
Oct 28, 2017
6,119
How do you create something called "MagicFest" without checking to see if that's used already?

They're planning to just steamroll them in publicity I'd assume. The current "MagicFest" has an extremely weak trademark and Wizards is offering different services and "MagicFest" for them is actually a moderate strength trademark. They're probably not be likely to be confused.
 

y2dvd

Member
Nov 14, 2017
2,481
I sure do love that thing in Arena where it automatically attacks with the Warboss token, immediately removing the attack all option and if you click it you attack with one Goblin

I couldnt tell you how often Ive done this lol.

Put me in the Risk Factor camp. It goes in aggressive decks that are dumping their hands. Potentially 8 dmg or 6 card draw is a lot.
 

Yeef

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,439
New York
Players get confused because they think, "Why would my creature not want me to help them?"

That's a big part of why they largely retired protection too, I assume.
The issues with protection are:
  1. It's basically 4 abilities wrapped in 1 keyword.
  2. Random color hosers are annoying for limited.
Because of the first point, it didn't play intuitively (regeneration had a similar issue).
The second point is also the reason they did away with Intimidate and Landwalk. (Intimidate also has the issue of being worse on multicolor creatures which cuts off some design space).
 

Imperfected

Member
Nov 9, 2017
11,737
Protection was always my least favorite evergreen mechanic. It's always less of what you want it to be on the face and more of what you don't really expect it to be (ie, Progenitus having "protection from everything" doesn't actually protect it from being killed by all sorts of things, but does make it completely unblockable).
 

aidan

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,769
I couldnt tell you how often Ive done this lol.

Put me in the Risk Factor camp. It goes in aggressive decks that are dumping their hands. Potentially 8 dmg or 6 card draw is a lot.

I got wrecked by Risk Factor today. I still don't think it'll be played in any tournament-level decks a month from now.
 

Deleted member 16849

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Oct 27, 2017
1,167
I made a UW Control deck in MTG: Arena and i don't really like it. Thank fuck i wasted my wildcards rather than my real money. I think Jeskai control might be the funner deck, with 1 or 2 Rals.

This is the deck i made

4 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria (DAR) 207
2 Lyra Dawnbringer (DAR) 26
2 Cleansing Nova (M19) 9
1 Blink of an Eye (DAR) 46
2 Chemister's Insight (GRN) 32
3 Essence Scatter (M19) 54
1 Gideon's Reproach (DAR) 19
1 Negate (RIX) 44
3 Settle the Wreckage (XLN) 34
4 Sinister Sabotage (GRN) 54
2 Syncopate (DAR) 67
3 Seal Away (DAR) 31
2 Opt (DAR) 60
1 Ixalan's Binding (XLN) 17
2 Search for Azcanta (XLN) 74
1 Arch of Orazca (RIX) 185
2 Field of Ruin (XLN) 254
4 Glacial Fortress (XLN) 255
7 Island (XLN) 265
4 Meandering River (DAR) 274
2 Memorial to Genius (DAR) 243
7 Plains (XLN) 261
 
Oct 25, 2017
3,771
I got wrecked by Risk Factor today. I still don't think it'll be played in any tournament-level decks a month from now.

I saw it being played in the aggro Wizards deck, which seemed to be the perfect place for it if it's going to have a home. Adeliz kinda just wants you to play any spells period, and any set of three random cards from that deck is probably worth about 4 damage on average, so it probably comes out to all be the same. The deck ticks all of the boxes you would want to tick to reach the bare minimum of playability for that card.
 

Schreckstoff

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,606
I made a UW Control deck in MTG: Arena and i don't really like it. Thank fuck i wasted my wildcards rather than my real money. I think Jeskai control might be the funner deck, with 1 or 2 Rals.
I found a quite siilar deck to be quite potent and fun to play but every time I have to play out a mill kill over 40 turns cause my only win condition is teferi a little piece in me dies.
 

Deleted member 13560

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Oct 27, 2017
3,087
I've been gone from Magic since Mercadian Masques. I started collecting with The Dark. I had full sets of The Dark, Fallen Empires, Alliance, Homeworlds, Mirage, Tempest and Urza's Saga. Along with cards from various other sets even predating The Dark. My mother gave everything I had collected away to charity in 2012. I was super bummed out for a while after that. My coworkers recently started playing some during breaks and my urge to collect was rekindled. I actually want to try and obtain the complete sets I had before and start delving into the new sets. While I loved playing in the past I'm more focused on collecting now. Since I've been out of the loop so long I was wondering if there are any tips as to where to look for cards. I'm currently using Ebay to buy cheep sets. I was wondering what the top online stores are now.

There's a brick and mortar place here. 2 actually. But neither sells full sets of cards.
 

Deleted member 16849

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,167
As an aussie If my LGS doesn't have what I need I use TCG Player, Troll and Toad and eBay. As an Aussie Card Kingdom is a rip and they charge like $20 for postage or something ridiculous like that.
 

Trickster

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
6,533
Uhm, have there been any reports of GRN booster boxes not having a rare or mythic foil card? Because I just opened a sealed booster box and didn't get one.

Edit - Googled a bit around and I guess it's not a guarantee? I just thought it was. Oh well, can't really complain, other than no rare/mythic foil card the booster box was about as good as you could possibly get lol.
 
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Firemind

Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,530
modo105tvf1g.png


My first 3-0 Izzet draft. A tempo shell can work after all. It reminds me of U/R in Dominaria where you play early creatures and bounce their stuff. I don't know why people are sleeping on Selective Snare; I've picked them up pretty late. Against Boros, you almost can't lose because almost everything they have is either Human or Soldier. Resetting their Mentor counters is so backbreaking. Electromancer combos quite well with it, letting you bounce and play another threat on the same turn. Fire Urchin is also pretty decent. Rarely do people want to trade it so you can get some early damage in. Mid/late game you can tap/bounce their creatures or play Cosmotronic Wave for the kill. It also combos well with Wojek Bodyguard. Both are big enough to not die from Direct Current or Righteous Blow too.

Some notes:
1. Direct Current is by far the best common, maybe even uncommon. A lot of times you need to get rid of a creature on t3 which Beacon Bolt doesn't allow. Beacon Bolt is still very good though. You can easily set up turns to get rid of a x/3 or a x/4 creature especially with an Electromancer out. Then you can do it again the next turn. I'd rate them both higher than Hypothesizzle. As nice as drawing cards is, you don't want to have too many five drops.

2. Wojek Bodyguard is your second best common three mana spell, possibly even better than Hypothesizzle. You want to preserve your creatures as much as you can, which the bodyguard does by adding counters on your two drops. If they want to kill the two drop, that's perfectly fine. If they kill the bodyguard, it's still usually mana parity. If they Luminous Bond or Capture Sphere it, you can bounce it back at a later time. The worst removal spell against it is probably Dead Weight, making it a 1/1 and turning off Mentor. I compared it to Ember Beast in the past, but it's actually way better.

3. I think I'd rate Fresh-Faced Recruit the highest among two drops. I don't know why Kenji thinks the Ornery Goblin is better. It fights 1/3s better, but it still trades with 2/2s. They're both soft to Cosmotronic Wave. Mentoring the recruit is so much better than mentoring the goblin though. The goblin will still die to 2/2s whereas the recruit can just keep attacking. I think even Fire Urchin is better than Ornery Goblin in Izzet. Electromancer usually wheels and you don't want to have too many of them because of diminishing returns. A 2/2 also doesn't fight particularly well. League Guildmage is fine but not much better than Electromancer. Beamsplitter Mage is too narrow. Vedalken Mesmerist is playable.

4. Barging Sergeant is really good. A lot of removal spells are sorceries, so it's very easy to just hit for 7+ damage because most decks want to race. If they kill it the next turn, you still got value and damage out of it. If they play a creature, you can Sonic Assault or Hypothesizzle on your turn. You don't want to trade the sergeant unless it's absolutely necessary. That's why you don't want too many Hypothesizzles. I think 1-2 is the right amount depending on how many Barging Sergeants and Watcher of the Mists you have.

5. Cosmotronic Wave shines against Selesnya, but don't play too many of them; 1-2 is fine. It's still worse than Direct Current, Beacon Bolt and Hypothesizzle. Selective Snare is more flexible so I'd rate it higher.

6. Invert // Invent is fine if you have a lot of Muse Drakes; you can pump them to 3/1. There are also a few defenders you can kill and 1/4s you can ambush with a Fresh-Faced Recruit. I'd only play it if you have spells that can close the game with Invent though. I played a variety of instants and sorceries that I could fetch. If you don't I would not play it.

7. Piston-Fist Cyclops is probably bad in this deck. You'd need to play things like Maximize Altitude/Velocity to trigger it consistently. Wee Dragonauts is the better spells payoff.

8. Three Guildgates is probably too much. I think 1-2 is the right amount. More is fine if you have Crackling Drake or ol' Nivvy obviously. Play more mountains if you can't divide by 2 because of Direct Current's double red cost. 17 lands is the correct amount because of Jump-Start.

9. I had Ionize in my sideboard, but it was mostly clunky even with Electromancer out. Sonic Assault is better in most matchups I think.
 
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BabyMurloc

Member
Oct 29, 2017
1,890
Hey BabyMurloc
Someone posted 5-0 in Standard League with an interesting twist to the Izzet Drake build I've been toying with. Looks fun. Ordered my playset of Phoenix to try out at FNM.

I made a copy on MTGgoldfish

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1373432#paper

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articl...titive-standard-constructed-league-2018-10-04

That's pretty cool, going all in on one mana cantrips. The trample/first strike synergy is nice, it's annoying when there's some flying 1/1 blocking your huge drake, or sometimes the Dimir deathtoucher.
 

ZealousD

Community Resettler
Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,303
I can imagine a lot of formats where Direct Current would be bad, but this feels like a more aggressive format where everybody is playing a lot of 2-drop creatures like the guild mages so there are a lot of targets for it.
 

Chronos

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,204
That's pretty cool, going all in on one mana cantrips. The trample/first strike synergy is nice, it's annoying when there's some flying 1/1 blocking your huge drake, or sometimes the Dimir deathtoucher.

I'm still doing Drake's for my main deck, but this is a cheap alternative to mix things up at my LGS. Should be fun.
 
Jul 14, 2018
430
Wild drafts on Arena tonight. Deck was aimless halfway through P2 when I started picking Circuitous Routes and guildgates. Rewarded in P3 by Find Finality, March X spell, Deafening Clarion, and Doom Whisperer. Everything into the deck.

Killed a guy with double strike sergeant with 2 counters on him from Finality.

Used Doom Whisperer to dig to the Finality I had scryed to the bottom after mull and got through a hexproof deathtoucher for the last 2 points.

Also got laid out by a Niv-Mizzet for the first time.

Really fun stuff. I know people have their qualms with Arena, but I played more drafts with better prize support on my day off today than I usually get to do in two months. My paper collection is as good as gone.
 
Nov 2, 2017
2,996
It is brutal. Thief of Sanity indeed.

3 of my 7 wins in my last Arena sealed ended with the other player timing out to concession after being hit 2-3 times with Thief of Sanity. I've never seen that happen with anything else on there. I have to imagine it's some sour grapes shit.

I'm glad my boy Nightveil Specter is back.
 

Angry Grimace

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
11,539
Been playing Golgari Undergrowth all day. Ended up trying out one of Gerry's lists and it's pretty good if you understand what you're supposed to be doing, which seems to be looping stuff through Memorial to Folly and recurring Memorial through Molderhulk and Glowspore (and finding it with Rejuvenator). It's just super grindy. Izomi is pretty good there too. Sometimes they kill her but you usually win if you untap with her plus the bugs.

It's too bad because in theory I love Undergrowth Lich or whatever it's called. It's just not high enough impact.
 

Firemind

Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,530
Twice now I got blown out by Deafening Clarion fffffuuuuuuuu

On the other hand I got hit by Thief of Sanity twice and I still won. Just bounce back your own creatures.
 

Deleted member 16849

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,167
Plz Help with with this brew. I need to cut 4 cards at least.

Creature (7)

4x Crackling Drake
3x Niv-Mizzet, Parun

Instant (25)

3x Chemister's Insight
3x Essence Scatter
4x Ionize
4x Lightning Strike
2x Negate
2x Opt
2x Risk Factor
3x Shock
2x Sinister Sabotage

Sorcery (3)

3x Lava Coil

Enchantment (2)

2x Search for Azcanta

Planeswalker (4)

4x Ral, Izzet Viceroy

Land (23)

4x Island
3x Izzet Guildgate
8x Mountain
4x Steam Vents
4x Sulfur Falls
 
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