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Magic: the Gathering |OT| Guilds of Ravnica - We built this city on blocks of gold
- Thread starter SigmasonicX
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Uh, B/G Midrange is like one of the top ten decks in the format, and Jund is in the top fifteen. Tarmogoyf is doing better than Hollow One right now.
I'll give you $50 for the Temp Manipulation, no need for eBay. PM me if you're into it.
We don't have metrics saying how prevalent specific decks are anymore and Golgari doesn't seem great at all against most of the top decks to me.
Not to pry into business affairs, but if you want to sell the card it's a good deal - selling foils is a little tricky online and that's a shade above market price (which also can be hard to get as an individual seller).
Oh I think it's a great deal right now. Fair on both sides. I just have to decide how much I think it's likely to jump up in the future and how long it'll take to do that. Then I'll know if it's worth it now. I don't need the money from it now, but if it only jumps up to $70 in the future and I have to wait 6 months for that to happen, then I might as well sell now. If it jumps up to 90, that might be different.
Why is selling foils harder? I'll admit I've never actually sold a foil online, only bought them.
People who buy foils are much pickier about condition and accuracy of every possible flaw because they're buying a version of the card solely for it's physical appearance.
I don't think Temporal Manipulation is a target for a big increase. It's a card that's physically rare vs. being a competitive staple. I think the promo will stay steady, but I would be surprised if it moved a lot more than where it already has.
Honestly, "is this card going to go up" is mostly an inscrutable question because it really depends on a card-by-card basis.
They will all increase in price to some degree, though it's hard to say how much. I'd think Back to Basics is less likely to increase than the other two as it is simply kind of niche but was really rare. Then again, the foiling on it especially looks cool and that's the only foil available, so it definitely could go up.
Mana vault foil I think will drop long term, and settle at around 70 dollars before going up again barring reprints. Issues are number 1 is the box topper may be more desirable for some people who play foils. Second is the masterpiece I think has greater long term appeal for those that want to foil their decks. Masterpiece is also much more scarce long term I think.
The others I think long term are reasonably going to see a fair amount of long term price stability after their drop. The issue is as rares there is a ton of foils because of having a foil per pack. Back to basics I don't see being more than 30 or 40/ foil as a result of the limited appeal it has in the formats it is legal in. Limited to miracles in legacy and edh appeal is low I would say.
Magic Story - Children of the Nameless by Brandon Sanderson
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Well, the Sanderson novella went up soon after my earlier post. I've been reading it, but it's about 170 pages and I'm at work. It is divided into parts and I just finished the first one, so I'll summarize that.
CHILDREN OF THE NAMELESS
* The novella is set on Innistrad, after the Emrakul invasion, though that doesn't come up as far as I've read.
* Tacenda is a girl cursed by The Bog to be blind during the day. She fears this darkness far more than the natural darkness of the night. Her twin sister, Willis, has the opposite curse, blind during the night.
* However, she has been blessed with a magical song that repels demons and brings light, while her sister is skilled in combat.
* As the story starts, her sister and parents are dead, killed days ago by strange whispering ghouls that ignore her song.
* During the day, the ghouls strike again, killing everyone in her village, despite her desperate singing, and leaving her alone.
* The village makes sacrifices to The Bog, referring to a specific swampy area in the woods, so during the night, Tacenda makes her way to it to sacrifice herself.
* She is stopped by a priest who had stationed himself in the area to convert the villagers away from worshipping The Bog. After learning what happened at the village, he leaves to alert the Church, taking his weapons with him.
* Tacenda recalls that the Man in the Manor, their new lord, was seen murdering her parents, wearing his mask and cloak, and everyone believes he is behind the ghouls. She finds a rusty ice pick and charges toward his manor.
* She finds that the back entrance has some devils scrounging in the garbage. She uses her song to drive them away then goes inside.
* She hides inside a bathroom, avoiding some demons roaming the hallway. The lord of the manor enters, conversing with a demon, and she stabs him in the heart.
* The man, Davriel, uses a spell to freeze her in place, and talks to his attendant, a demon named Miss Highwater, complaining about the damage to his clothes and how these assassins keep bothering him.
* Though she expected to die, Tacenda is shocked by how little Davriel cares about what happened.
* Davriel is pretty similar in personality to Kelsier from Mistborn, with his snark, but much lazier. This is apparently a common archetype for Sanderson.
* Davriel has something in him, The Entity, that heals his wounds. He would prefer not to use it.
* Davriel calls for another demon, Crunchgnar, to tie her up and torture her to find out who sent a teen peasant girl to kill him. Usually it's monster hunters.
* Tacenda attempts to sing, but only gets out a hum. Still, this bothers the demons enough that Davriel decides to do something different.
* He brings out the head of a monster hunter who came recently to see if he knows anything about all this, reanimating it in front of Tacenda. He objects to being called a necromancer by Tacenda, getting far more upset about that than the stabbing. He is a diabolist, a demon scientist.
* Through the head and Tacenda, he learns about the attacks at the village. He is upset his main source of tea and clothing is gone. Tacenda is confused by him pretending not to know about the attacks.
* Davriel figures that someone must be framing him.
* Davriel is a planeswalker, who came to a backwater part of Innistrad specifically to avoid trouble. Here, people don't bat an eye if you use demons. He has the ability to steal spells from people, for a single use. Basically, his card would definitely have the "exile a card from your opponent's library, you may cast it" effect. He stole some spell that people are chasing him across planes for.
* He puts the head away and decides to let Tacenda go. She shatters the container to free the hunter's soul, but that was a bad idea, because it becomes a vengeful geist that attacks them.
* Davriel burns it, complaining that he wasted a spell he got from a powerful pyromancer.
* Tacenda describes the state the bodies in her village are in. Davriel concludes that they were struck by a reversible soul stealing spell.
* Tacenda asks for more information, but starts to get escorted out. She sings, which frightens the demons, but Davriel proves to be human after all and is immune.
* She demands he help them. If he doesn't, she'll tell every monster hunter out there about him and he'll never have a moment's rest. Even if he kills her she'll do this as a vengeful geist.
* He relents, and goes out himself to deal with the imposter and save the villagers.
CHILDREN OF THE NAMELESS
* The novella is set on Innistrad, after the Emrakul invasion, though that doesn't come up as far as I've read.
* Tacenda is a girl cursed by The Bog to be blind during the day. She fears this darkness far more than the natural darkness of the night. Her twin sister, Willis, has the opposite curse, blind during the night.
* However, she has been blessed with a magical song that repels demons and brings light, while her sister is skilled in combat.
* As the story starts, her sister and parents are dead, killed days ago by strange whispering ghouls that ignore her song.
* During the day, the ghouls strike again, killing everyone in her village, despite her desperate singing, and leaving her alone.
* The village makes sacrifices to The Bog, referring to a specific swampy area in the woods, so during the night, Tacenda makes her way to it to sacrifice herself.
* She is stopped by a priest who had stationed himself in the area to convert the villagers away from worshipping The Bog. After learning what happened at the village, he leaves to alert the Church, taking his weapons with him.
* Tacenda recalls that the Man in the Manor, their new lord, was seen murdering her parents, wearing his mask and cloak, and everyone believes he is behind the ghouls. She finds a rusty ice pick and charges toward his manor.
* She finds that the back entrance has some devils scrounging in the garbage. She uses her song to drive them away then goes inside.
* She hides inside a bathroom, avoiding some demons roaming the hallway. The lord of the manor enters, conversing with a demon, and she stabs him in the heart.
* The man, Davriel, uses a spell to freeze her in place, and talks to his attendant, a demon named Miss Highwater, complaining about the damage to his clothes and how these assassins keep bothering him.
* Though she expected to die, Tacenda is shocked by how little Davriel cares about what happened.
* Davriel is pretty similar in personality to Kelsier from Mistborn, with his snark, but much lazier. This is apparently a common archetype for Sanderson.
* Davriel has something in him, The Entity, that heals his wounds. He would prefer not to use it.
* Davriel calls for another demon, Crunchgnar, to tie her up and torture her to find out who sent a teen peasant girl to kill him. Usually it's monster hunters.
* Tacenda attempts to sing, but only gets out a hum. Still, this bothers the demons enough that Davriel decides to do something different.
* He brings out the head of a monster hunter who came recently to see if he knows anything about all this, reanimating it in front of Tacenda. He objects to being called a necromancer by Tacenda, getting far more upset about that than the stabbing. He is a diabolist, a demon scientist.
* Through the head and Tacenda, he learns about the attacks at the village. He is upset his main source of tea and clothing is gone. Tacenda is confused by him pretending not to know about the attacks.
* Davriel figures that someone must be framing him.
* Davriel is a planeswalker, who came to a backwater part of Innistrad specifically to avoid trouble. Here, people don't bat an eye if you use demons. He has the ability to steal spells from people, for a single use. Basically, his card would definitely have the "exile a card from your opponent's library, you may cast it" effect. He stole some spell that people are chasing him across planes for.
* He puts the head away and decides to let Tacenda go. She shatters the container to free the hunter's soul, but that was a bad idea, because it becomes a vengeful geist that attacks them.
* Davriel burns it, complaining that he wasted a spell he got from a powerful pyromancer.
* Tacenda describes the state the bodies in her village are in. Davriel concludes that they were struck by a reversible soul stealing spell.
* Tacenda asks for more information, but starts to get escorted out. She sings, which frightens the demons, but Davriel proves to be human after all and is immune.
* She demands he help them. If he doesn't, she'll tell every monster hunter out there about him and he'll never have a moment's rest. Even if he kills her she'll do this as a vengeful geist.
* He relents, and goes out himself to deal with the imposter and save the villagers.
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I like most of the announcements for Arena, I also don't have a problem with Bo1 ranked. I think this should switch to Bo3 when you are in Mythic Rank and I also think this should be completely independent from the tournament format.
I do not understand why they declare Bo1 as official Arena competitive format only because it's used for ranked. Any tournament should be Bo3. There are plenty of reasons why Bo1 is the go to casual format (ranked is also casual play) but there is no reason why to disregard the advantages of Bo3 for tournaments.
Lastly, I hate that Limited ranked (Bo1) uses the Rank for match making. When I'm in an event I want to play based on my current deck results. I also don't like that they are trying to regress win % to the mean. Bo3 limited is no alternative because it's too expensive.
I do not understand why they declare Bo1 as official Arena competitive format only because it's used for ranked. Any tournament should be Bo3. There are plenty of reasons why Bo1 is the go to casual format (ranked is also casual play) but there is no reason why to disregard the advantages of Bo3 for tournaments.
Lastly, I hate that Limited ranked (Bo1) uses the Rank for match making. When I'm in an event I want to play based on my current deck results. I also don't like that they are trying to regress win % to the mean. Bo3 limited is no alternative because it's too expensive.
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Most draft players are very bad. Without ranked matchmaking, you'd just steamroll people until the end. This way is more competitive throughout. At least that's the argument.
I understand why they do it I just don't like it for events. What especially concerns me is that how they described it, it goes by rank first and record second. They should at least match you first on record and then try to find a rank match.
Just FYI to everyone, until midnight PST you can enter code PLAYTIME15 on Ebay to get 15% off any Magic product(s), up to $100 off your cart. I used it to get a preorder for Ravnica Allegiance for $74.
State of MTGO
State of MTGO is up
The gist- they are going to continue to double down on stuff Arena can't do- more cubes, more chaos drafts, etc
The one thing of interest is that they talk about possibly removing the $10 account creation fee in the near future
The gist- they are going to continue to double down on stuff Arena can't do- more cubes, more chaos drafts, etc
The one thing of interest is that they talk about possibly removing the $10 account creation fee in the near future
Why not just make it easier and run Light of Day instead of Reclamation
If we want to make friends, just go with the classic Rath Block Constructed combo of Humility and Orim's Prayer
Pro players revealed
The list of the 32 Pro players was revieled on ESPN http://www.espn.com/esports/story/_/id/25534030/arena-premier-digital-card-game
Appears half USA/half rest of world
- Alexander Hayne - Canada
- Andrea Mengucci - Italy
- Andrew Cuneo - United States
- Ben Stark - United States
- Brad Nelson - United States
- Brian Braun-Duin - United States
- Carlos Romao - Brazil
- Christian Hauck - Germany
- Eric Froehlich - United States
- Gerry Thompson - United States
- Grzegorz Kowalski - Poland
- Javier Dominguez - Spain
- Jean-Emmanuel Depraz - France
- John Rolf - United States
- Ken Yukuhiro - Japan
- Lee Shi Tian - Hong Kong
- Lucas Esper Berthoud - Brazil
- Luis Salvatto - Argentina
- Marcio Carvalho - Portugal
- Martin Juza - Czech Republic
- Matthew Nass - United States
- Mike Sigrist - United States
- Owen Turtenwald - United States
- Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa - Brazil
- Piotr Glogowski - Poland
- Rei Sato - Japan
- Reid Duke - United States
- Seth Manfield - United States
- Shahar Shenhar - Israel
- Shota Yasooka - Japan
- William Jensen - United States
- Yuuya Watanabe - Japan
Appears half USA/half rest of world
Just played my first couple games of Commander at my LGS and had an absolute blast. One with 3 people that was rather fast (~40 min.) and another one with 4 that was totally bonkers with several board wipes, constant graveyard hate, one particular player that ended up milled out, me trying to do my best with the stock Saheeli deck (and making people internally scream every time my artifacts started triggering one another) and the whole thing lasted for more than 1:30h. 10/10 would play again.
Finished Children of the Nameless
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Finished reading Children of the Nameless. Future card relevant stuff:
As for the quality of the story, it was pretty straightforward, but enjoyable. Lots of good banter between Davriel and his demons, and some good combat that incorporates things like equipment summoning and Unsummon spells well. The mystery comes together well in a logical (but magical) and efficient way.
Tacenda becomes a planeswalker at the end (probably green), the Nameless Angel is just a normal angel who went crazy with the rest of them and was killed, and Tacenda's sister Willia is the villain. I also expect the demons Lady Highwater and Crunchgnar to get cards at some point.
Davriel sums up Willia's motivation.
Davriel sums up Willia's motivation.
As for the quality of the story, it was pretty straightforward, but enjoyable. Lots of good banter between Davriel and his demons, and some good combat that incorporates things like equipment summoning and Unsummon spells well. The mystery comes together well in a logical (but magical) and efficient way.
Commander games in my playgroup go 3+ hours regularly. Quite awful. 40 minutes sounds perfect haha.
This list is basically the current top 32 Pro point totals, with a few adjustments as a couple players declined the contract. Also PVDDR confirmed on reddit that there are two contracts, one for participating in Pro events (the league and Mythic Champs) and one for streaming. Not everyone in the Top 32 has necessarily signed the streaming contract.
I have to say I'm pretty excited for this. A relegation league is great for creating narratives and exciting moments. Watching players fight to survive or rooting for someone to make it to the Pros next year is a fantastic way to get viewers invested and raise the stakes. I can't say I follow a lot of the current ongoing competitions, does anyone know the Constructed Master standings? I didn't think so. People watch the PTs, root for the names they know and that's about it. I could see this league changing that.
3 hours feels like a bit too much, but still, in my case it was the best fun I've ever had playing Magic, way better than the usual "get roflstomped by the flavour of the month Standard/Block deck(s) unless you spend a small fortune buying singles to have it yourself as well" that plagued my early MTG years when I was a student with very little purchasing power. It was specially bad during Mirrodin, since it was almost literally "Affinity with Skullclamp or bust" to the point of eventually getting it banned.
Our commander games usually take between 20 minutes and 1 hours. 2+ hours are a rare occurence as our powerlevel while not fully competitive is very high.
As with all Magic, the only time I've had Commander games go excessively long is when someone gets it into their head to play Hard Control and then durdles around for an interminable period unable to produce a win condition.
That's why we just thunder-fuck anyone playing hard control as hard as humanly possible, now.
That's why we just thunder-fuck anyone playing hard control as hard as humanly possible, now.
I think it's mainly because we have a few people who are searching their libraries multiple times per turn.
Yep, my long match was exactly like this. He only managed to win when only both of us remained alive because he copied 5 times my 5/5 fly/haste creature. Otherwise he didn't have jack shit of his own and would have had to nip me to death.
RNA - Promo cards, including Mortify
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Mortify reprint is big.
The Haunt of the High Tower appears to be a Buy a Box Promo, which is how it's a legendary monocolor card.
Why would the fact that it's a legendary monocolor card indicate it's a Buy a Box promo?
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A Ravnica set has to include two legendary cards for each guild. With the focus on cycles, one monocolored legend means there has to be four more, and in a set designed before Dominaria's response, they try to limit the number of legends they have. And Guilds of Ravnica didn't have any monocolor legends; Ravnica Allegiance was designed to have the same cycles.
Besides, it says Buy a Box on the bottom of the card.
I tried to zoom in and it's super blurry, so I couldn't be sure. Maybe you can see the camel casing enough that you could see it say Buy a Box?
Seems pretty bad in standard but could be alright in certain low power commander archetypes.
Simic Ascendency confirms yet another counter focus for Simic, which is expected but disappointing. I wonder if they'll do an Ascendency cycle.
I ordered a box off eBay. I wonder if I'll get one.
Simic Ascendency confirms yet another counter focus for Simic, which is expected but disappointing. I wonder if they'll do an Ascendency cycle.
I ordered a box off eBay. I wonder if I'll get one.
From what Sanderson's said, it likely won't appear on Kindle/Kobo/Nook/etc. due to it being a free book and those platforms often requiring a minimum price of $0.99.
The Epub from Wizards' site should open fine in any non-Kindle eReader app. Odd that it keeps redownloading. Are you trying to read it in a browser?
I really like the subtle allusion to Nicol Bolas in the RNA set symbol. The set after RNA is gonna be nuts!
FWIW you can put epubs on Kindle, I think. There's an email account associated with every device you can email it to.
I am really excited for a new Rakdos card. Lord of Riots was one of my first commander decks and I'm hoping the new one is fun and different in the way he is.
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