https://magic.wizards.com/en/articl...titive-standard-constructed-league-2019-01-21
first RNA standard deck lists.
first RNA standard deck lists.
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Magic: the Gathering |OT| Ravnica Allegiance - These 5 Lands Will SHOCK You!
- Thread starter SigmasonicX
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Seeing how effective are mono blue and frenzy red I should just build one of those and forget about jank 3 colour crap lmao
So, the way Electrodominance is currently worded is stupid. The "You may cast a card with CMC X or less" as it's written just specifies that you get to play the spell for free, not that you get to cast permanents/sorceries at instant speed. Was it really to hard to add "as if it had flash" on the end? I hope future printings fix the wording because taken at face value the card doesn't do what it's supposed to.
See Also/Precedent:
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=397389
See Also/Precedent:
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=397389
Early on in a new meta, players are more incentivized to keep playing their old cards, and also to be aggressive. Next weekend will give us a better picture of new Standard.
Aluren is an alternative method of casting spells. While Electrodominance is casting a spell as part of a a spell resolving. The former is as a result still affected by timing restrictions the latter is not.
Maybe there's no reason for that rule to exist if these effects all granted flash however. There's too many cards and rules to know if it would break anything.
That looks spicy, however I'd have to bring it down a couple of notches into my budget but still doable :3
EDIT:
Not bad. It's not as explosive without the Carnage Tyrants and the Phoenixes but it's still playable and I already own spare copies of the most expensive ones so I could pretty much get this done for ~90€
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Right, same thing. It's saying that you can cast them for free, not that you can cast them at instant speed.
I totally get how the cards work, it just seems weird that the "as though it/they have/had flash" is just assumed to be a part of the effect on some cards but is explicitly spelled out on others.
Like, why does Quicken use the flash wording instead saying "You may cast a sorcery card for its mana cost, draw a card"? Sure the former splits it into two separate resolutions but they accomplish the same thing.
I guess I'm just not seeing the loophole that the current wording prevents.
One card has an effect that uses those cards specifically as part of a trigger resolution, while Quicken has an effect that will change something later in the turn.
Saying "as though it had flash" wouldn't actually mean anything on those cards so they wouldn't put that on a card. You aren't casting it with flash, you're just casting it as part of this effect specifically. If they were going to do something for this it'd probably be something like reminder text that says that you can cast any type of spell this way, but I'm not sure there's a good concise way to do that. Like "(You may cast any type of spell with this effect.)" I guess?
As other people have pointed out, the different is between "you can cast this RIGHT NOW" and "You can cast this like it was an instant." In the case of the former, you're already casting a spell when you normally couldn't: while a spell is resolving (since no player has priority). In the case of the latter, you still have to wait until you have the ability to cast spells (you have priority).
OP
OP
Good review. Some nitpicks about the story description: Willia doesn't sing, but is gifted with enhanced physical attributes; and the village has worshiped the Bog for generations and has always rejected the church, even when it was run by Avacyn. But I can understand if you fudge that for a more concise synopsis.
Those are the ones they explicitly mention because they were also in KCI. Looting is definitely on their observation list
That's super disgusting, brb, counting the amount of Wildcards I have.
I've been running this exact build, and yeah. 2 minutes is about right.
I'm not sure if I should keep it "vanilla" or if I should use the Hydroid Krasis...
Vanilla Gates:
4 Open the Gates
4 Lava Coil
4 Growth Spiral
4 Gatebreaker Ram
2 District Guide
4 Guild Summit
4 Gates Ablaze
2 Rythm of the Wild
4 Circuitous Route
2 Ral, Izzet Viceroy
4 Gate Colossus
1 Island
2 Mountain
3 Forest
4 Izzet Guildgate
4 Simic Guildgate
4 Gruul Guildgate
4 Plaza of Harmony
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"My" version (Changes in bold)
3 Open the Gates
2 Hydroid Krasis
4 Lava Coil
4 Growth Spiral
4 Gatebreaker Ram
2 District Guide
4 Guild Summit
3 Gates Ablaze
2 Rythm of the Wild
4 Circuitous Route
2 Ral, Izzet Viceroy
4 Gate Colossus
1 Island
2 Mountain
3 Forest
4 Izzet Guildgate
4 Simic Guildgate
4 Gruul Guildgate
4 Plaza of Harmony
Basically, the Krasis allowes me mid game to gain some life and draw some cards, or late game to gain a lot of life, draw a lot of cards and totally annihilate the opponent if Rythm of the Wild is in play.
The only times I've lost with this deck is against a good aggro or full control.
Thanks to rythm of the wild, if I manage to play it early, the opponent can't counter the krasis.
Against burn/aggro, I can get some life early on until I hit my mana/gate goal.
What do you think ?
Vanilla Gates:
4 Open the Gates
4 Lava Coil
4 Growth Spiral
4 Gatebreaker Ram
2 District Guide
4 Guild Summit
4 Gates Ablaze
2 Rythm of the Wild
4 Circuitous Route
2 Ral, Izzet Viceroy
4 Gate Colossus
1 Island
2 Mountain
3 Forest
4 Izzet Guildgate
4 Simic Guildgate
4 Gruul Guildgate
4 Plaza of Harmony
------------------------------------------
"My" version (Changes in bold)
3 Open the Gates
2 Hydroid Krasis
4 Lava Coil
4 Growth Spiral
4 Gatebreaker Ram
2 District Guide
4 Guild Summit
3 Gates Ablaze
2 Rythm of the Wild
4 Circuitous Route
2 Ral, Izzet Viceroy
4 Gate Colossus
1 Island
2 Mountain
3 Forest
4 Izzet Guildgate
4 Simic Guildgate
4 Gruul Guildgate
4 Plaza of Harmony
Basically, the Krasis allowes me mid game to gain some life and draw some cards, or late game to gain a lot of life, draw a lot of cards and totally annihilate the opponent if Rythm of the Wild is in play.
The only times I've lost with this deck is against a good aggro or full control.
Thanks to rythm of the wild, if I manage to play it early, the opponent can't counter the krasis.
Against burn/aggro, I can get some life early on until I hit my mana/gate goal.
What do you think ?
I think I like triple GoR more than triple Allegiance. At least against Boros, there were usually lines available to you to eventually gain the upper hand. Against Gruul, there are so many things that can go wrong. You can't double block to trade because of pump spells or the 5/5 that can't be double blocked. You can't chump block because they have trample. You can't tap out because they have fight spells. One of them is a pump and fight spell at common. You can't race because they can give creatures haste. You can't fly over them because they have a massive 3/5 spider. About the only thing that counters them is to play removal, which is difficult to find because there's no Surveil in this format. Azorius doesn't quite cut it as a control guild. Which leaves Orzhov, but 1/1 flying tokens doesn't do a whole lot either.
gruul is definitely going to be harder to defend against than boros was. the threats are much scarier, so it's much harder to block without double-blocking and you can't easily set up a turn where you have instant-speed interaction because you can't let that many attacks through
i don't know whether i'll like guilds more than allegiance, but i feel that allegiance will have a lot of games where you basically lose because you didn't draw land 4 on turn 4 or land 5 on turn 5. guilds wasn't as punishing, which lets you be a lot more ambitious/creative in deckbuilding
but i expect that the in-person drafts will have increased competition for the limited amount of gruul cards. the online drafts are always a bit of a crap chute because the way they're set up removes a lot of safeguards that protect against wotc's balance mistakes. all the processes around drafting and sideboarding contribute substantially towards fixing the game.
the same is true for constructed. the sideboards let people collectively fight back against overpowered or unpopular things. even random things that might seem unrelated (eg. the prices of cards) have a corrective influence on the overall representation of decks
i don't know whether i'll like guilds more than allegiance, but i feel that allegiance will have a lot of games where you basically lose because you didn't draw land 4 on turn 4 or land 5 on turn 5. guilds wasn't as punishing, which lets you be a lot more ambitious/creative in deckbuilding
but i expect that the in-person drafts will have increased competition for the limited amount of gruul cards. the online drafts are always a bit of a crap chute because the way they're set up removes a lot of safeguards that protect against wotc's balance mistakes. all the processes around drafting and sideboarding contribute substantially towards fixing the game.
the same is true for constructed. the sideboards let people collectively fight back against overpowered or unpopular things. even random things that might seem unrelated (eg. the prices of cards) have a corrective influence on the overall representation of decks
Ok, just finished ordering all the pieces I need for the Temur Drakes jank. Worst case scenario, if it doesn't work or ends up being extremely out of meta I can spin-off the Drakes to Modern following a mtggoldfish budget build I saw some days ago (especially since faithless looting did survive!) and re-purpose the Rhythms and GR lands into a proper Gruul Smash deck like the one I posted last night.
Edit: the Growth-Chamber Guardian seems to be on fire. Not sure if I should pick 4 ASAP just in case.
Edit: the Growth-Chamber Guardian seems to be on fire. Not sure if I should pick 4 ASAP just in case.
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Yeah the format is slow enough that I could see myself maining 2. Orzhov just brickwalls most stuff.
Anybody remember how weirdly playable Vampire Neonate was in M19 limited? You'd never take a 0/3 for 1 in most cases. Give it the ability to start draining for 1 health for 2 mana every turn and suddenly it turned into a clock. Ill-Gotten costs more up front but it doesn't have that upkeep cost later!
To be fair M19 had ridiculous life gain synergies, here the biggest synergy is spectacle enabling at 4 mana (while rakdos wants to be low curve in the first place)
Orzhov also wins with incremental advantage most of the time. It's not a beater strategy, it's a strategy of winning through lots of little stuff happening. So Ill Gotten fits in with that.
Yeah it fits best in orzhov, although it's still a good safety measure in rakdos. Just not nearly as busted as neonate was (neonate was also a great blocker btw)
Regal bloodlord was a complete fucking beating
Oracle text updates
OP
OP
Oracle official card updates, the most significant being Ajani's Pridemates.
Note the Challenger Deck mention. That likely means we're getting a deck like this.
Note the Challenger Deck mention. That likely means we're getting a deck like this.
Oracle official card updates, the most significant being Ajani's Pridemates.
Note the Challenger Deck mention. That likely means we're getting a deck like this.
I doubt we'll be getting the full playset of Benalias, Shocks and Checks though :P maybe a couple of checks since they're rotating out of standard but that's all.
Thanks!
Like you suspected, the bit about worshiping the Bog/Avacyn was intentional to keep the synopsis easier to grok for new readers—the Willia bit was an honest mistake because it'd been a couple weeks since I read the novella. I've updated the review accordingly.
Prof did a Q&A with Gavin Verhey, and Gavin said that their turnaround on Challenger Decks is about five months and they look at the Pro Tour results. So we may get Boros Aggro, Izzet Phoenix, and/or Jeski Control looking at the Top 8. I would think we'll get a Golgari deck as well for color balance.
Magic Arena has re-kindled my interest in MtG. I've bought starter packs and boosters in the past, but never had anyone to play with (and didn't care for the idea of MTGO) so I never dove too deeply in to the game. To give you an idea of how little I've dabbled, I still don't have enough basic lands to go mono red, blue, or white. I've got enough special lands that I could probably go mono blue, but probably not white and red is right out.
So with that background, I've got some questions, and there is so much jargon that even when I find the answers, I'm not quite sure what the implication is.
Full-art Lands
First off, I love the idea and look of full art lands, I'd go out right now and buy a deck of 100 (20 each color) of the Unhinged set's full-art lands. I'd kind of like to build a library of full-art lands (yes, I know that's kind of dumb considering how I don't play IRL, some of them are stupid expensive, and it's just land.) It looks like the sets with full-art lands are Zendikar (4 variants of each color,) Battle for Zendikar (4,) Amonkhet (1,) Hour of Devestation (1,) and the Un-sets (1.) Did I miss any? Since they're all functional re-prints, they're legal, right? Including the Un-sets' versions?
Arena Sets
As I understand it, the older sets on Arena will not be legal after a while, is there any point to buying packs from those older sets that should be cycling out soon? Are there any formats where I could still use them? Would I still be able to open them? Could I still buy them to fulfill my collector OCD-ness?
I've got all the intro reward decks, so I should be safe to buy packs without duplicating cards I would have been given in the reward decks, right?
Collecting/Selling
I have some cards and packs that seem to be going for significantly more than I would suspect, if they're even available:
The sealed Zendikar pack came from an intro pack that I opened thinking I would get a bunch of full-art lands, what's the liklihood that pack has a full-art land? I see that pack is going for $40 on Amazon right now, and I'm kind of kicking myself. Can a regular person get those kinds of prices? Should I crack those sealed packs and play with/admire those cards or should I try to sell them somehow? All of the cards have never been played with, just carefully handled a few times trying to imagine how the game plays and how they'd be useful.
So with that background, I've got some questions, and there is so much jargon that even when I find the answers, I'm not quite sure what the implication is.
Full-art Lands
First off, I love the idea and look of full art lands, I'd go out right now and buy a deck of 100 (20 each color) of the Unhinged set's full-art lands. I'd kind of like to build a library of full-art lands (yes, I know that's kind of dumb considering how I don't play IRL, some of them are stupid expensive, and it's just land.) It looks like the sets with full-art lands are Zendikar (4 variants of each color,) Battle for Zendikar (4,) Amonkhet (1,) Hour of Devestation (1,) and the Un-sets (1.) Did I miss any? Since they're all functional re-prints, they're legal, right? Including the Un-sets' versions?
Arena Sets
As I understand it, the older sets on Arena will not be legal after a while, is there any point to buying packs from those older sets that should be cycling out soon? Are there any formats where I could still use them? Would I still be able to open them? Could I still buy them to fulfill my collector OCD-ness?
I've got all the intro reward decks, so I should be safe to buy packs without duplicating cards I would have been given in the reward decks, right?
Collecting/Selling
I have some cards and packs that seem to be going for significantly more than I would suspect, if they're even available:
- sealed Zendikar pack - ~$18 online
- sealed Mirrodin Besieged packs - $7
- sealed New Phyrexia packs - ~$12
- Overgrown Tomb - ~$8
- Crystal Quarry - ~$9
- Windswept Heath - ~$25
- Blackcleave Cliffs - ~$40
- foil 8th edition Urza's Tower - ~$80
The sealed Zendikar pack came from an intro pack that I opened thinking I would get a bunch of full-art lands, what's the liklihood that pack has a full-art land? I see that pack is going for $40 on Amazon right now, and I'm kind of kicking myself. Can a regular person get those kinds of prices? Should I crack those sealed packs and play with/admire those cards or should I try to sell them somehow? All of the cards have never been played with, just carefully handled a few times trying to imagine how the game plays and how they'd be useful.
OP
OP
Yes, they can be used in place of normal lands. Card legality cares about names.
It's very likely that Arena will have a format where those older sets remain legal, but there has been no formal announcement yet. Regardless, it's still many months before the older sets would rotate, so go ahead if you want.
Duplicates stop if you have four of a card. I'm not sure if the intro reward decks total up to four of a copy of each card in them.
Overgrown Tomb and the other shocklands are always in high demand, because they're the best dual lands besides the originals (that won't be reprinted).
New Phyrexia has a larger number of in-demand cards than Mirrodin Besieged, which is why it's more expensive despite coming later.
You won't get as good a deal as a specialty store, but you can still get a decent amount as an individual. This isn't my area of expertise, though. Personally, I don't think $40 is worth the effort of setting up an account, dealing with buyers, and mailing, but it could make sense for your situation.
Thanks for the reply! I think this is the best approach - just looking for good white control cards to substitute for some Dimir staples. I've been tuning my deck against the Bo1 meta and sideboarding for Bo3, and so far your suggestions line up with the cards I've found that work well. It's not as fun as Dimir, but definitely has some success against the agro/midrage from Allegiance that can be a pain.
Thanks SigmasonicX !
Oh, one other question... Is there some core canon to read? I see that there's a ton of MtG novels and years of a Magic Story column on WotC's site, but is there something like the Star Wars OT, LotR, or the Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy to get an overall sense of the setting?
Oh, one other question... Is there some core canon to read? I see that there's a ton of MtG novels and years of a Magic Story column on WotC's site, but is there something like the Star Wars OT, LotR, or the Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy to get an overall sense of the setting?
I've already got a fair number of cards that I have four copies of, and I've haven't opened very many boosters yet (just started playing in the last week or so.) My thought process was if I open a booster with CardX that I was scheduled to get a playset of in the reward decks, would I get the dupe credit? (Obviously, I would get the dupe credit if I opened the booster after I got the playset from the reward decks.) Does that make sense?
I think I agree, the $40 (I assume you mean from the Urza Tower at ~50% of retail) isn't much of a carrot to go to the effort of offloading it. Plus the idea of having a valuable card to just casually play with is kind of cool. I think I'll go ahead and crack those other packs to see what they hold.
OP
OP
To be blunt, Magic fiction is a mess. In the early days, there was a mix of novels and comics, but they were often written before the set they were meant to adapt was finalized. And all of it is quite hard to find now regardless. (If you're still interested in the old stuff, look here).
I'd more strongly recommend sticking to the newer web stories. If you go to the story archive section, the modern Gatewatch story starts in the Zendikar section. There are some really bad parts (watch out for Kimberly J. Kreines), but it's otherwise enjoyable enough. The story quality improves for Innistrad, dips for Kaladesh, then goes back up for Amonkhet on. Dominaria is when they start bringing in actual prolific fantasy writers, in this case Martha Wells.
Unfortunately, for the current Ravnica story, they've switched back to a format of the web stories being side stories and the main story being in novel form, which is out in April. That will be written by Greg Weisman.
Is there anywhere online I can find the story summary of Guilds of Ravnica and Ravnica Allegiance?
Got into the game with MTG Arena and am interested in the lore of the war between the Guilds and Bolas, but couldn't find any summaries of it.
Or do I have to wait for the next set in April and the entire story will be told then?
Got into the game with MTG Arena and am interested in the lore of the war between the Guilds and Bolas, but couldn't find any summaries of it.
Or do I have to wait for the next set in April and the entire story will be told then?
Oath of the Gatewatch had the BfZ full-art lands and you can still get the bundle/fat pack of that set with the basic land pack of 80 full art lands and nine boosters (with a full art land in each) for around $35-$40usd.
Grabbing one of those or even just someone reselling the land pack seems like it'd be the easiest way to get a decent batch of full art lands
I don't follow the lore but I happened to see this fan-made summary of the entire history of Magic posted on reddit recently: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12qmuqerdOobxBn266m2MmIoupxOdLUH9MPrXNenSbGw
It is the whole story from the beginning but you could just scroll to the bottom I suppose if only Ravnica interests you. I don't think Ravnica Allegiance has been added yet. It's only like a paragraph detailing Guilds though so it might not be that helpful.
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