Magic: The Gathering (TCG) Catch-all

soonerjudd wrote:

Looks like I may be getting back into Magic!!! My new manager started last week, and he's just coming from a job at Wizards. For our first team meeting today, he brought in cards for everyone - everyone got a 2013 Intro Pack, Gatecrash Booster Battle Pack, and Return to Ravnica Battle Booster. We may start doing games over lunch or something! Glad I'll have someone to play with again.

Cool! Anyone we've heard of?

He just posted an introduction to the community!

Fedaykin98 wrote:

I have no love for milling, even if you can win with it, and I'm a total Spike.

Some people love it, though. I don't think I've ever been milled out except in a game of Commander, of all things, and there it wasn't even intentional - I had drawn more cards than the winning player during the game, and lots of mill that applied to everyone had been played.

It may sound strange but I've never tried to design a mill deck until recently. When I finally got a chance to test against my coworker's old school decks it was a bit of a giddy thrill, like a kid playing with a new toy.

I never did mill him out but the best thing was having those back door win conditions and using the graveyard cards against him. Hence my liking for Consuming Aberration, Wight of Precinct Six and other such nuggets.

I went to a local pre-release yesterday (I signed up as Boros) and managed to go 6 out of 8 battles and placed in the top 10 or so people there. My deck was a hodgepodge of Boros and Izzet mainly, with some Selesnya, Golgari and Azorius thrown in and it worked wonderfully. I won four boosters and opened a Tajic and Vorel, which I traded for another Tajic. This means that I now have at least one copy of each Boros guild champion/leader and that I must now build a complete Boros deck combining Radiance with Battalion... things will be getting interesting once Dragon's Maze is released. I also came across a Voice of Resurgence, which I traded for the Boros mythic.

Nicely done. I did a pre-release as well, yesterday. Picked Golgori, got paired with Orzhov. Ended up with high enough card quality (including Teysa out of the Dragon's Maze packs) that I ended up making a really slow, grindy deck in just those three colours. Punted a few times, kept a few sketchy hands that didn't work out, got crushed by a Boros-Rakdos aggro deck. But overall, I went 3-2-1, I won a pack, and had a lot of fun. So it was a success.

I went to one with TheWalt and another player we often draft with. TheWalt went 4-0 and then the 6 undefeated players all agreed to draw and split their prizes; he won 9 packs.

I got an Orzhov/Selesnya kit that ended up more Golgari than anything. I had a goodly number of powerful cards, but only went 2-2 and then dropped in order to make it home for the kids' bedtime. Also, it was raining hard and flooding in Houston, to the tune of cars being submerged.

I wonder how much DGM-GTC-RTR is going to be just multicolor insanity, versus regular archetypes emerging.

I played all 6 guildgates I opened as well as the BW shock land. I played guildgates that only contributed one color because I had 3 of the black gatekeepers who give -2/-2 when you have 2 gates.

The two cards I liked the most were:

The BGR (Jund) split card that lets you Scavenge any creature from any graveyard on one side and have a creature you control deal damage to target creature or player equal to its power; and

The Golgari maze-runner who gives Scavenge to all creatures in your graveyard.

I went to my first ever pre-release this weekend, the daytime portion of it anyway and played four rounds. Earned a pack for going 2-1-1, won an Italian version of Force of Will for the first raffle draw and got a nice mythic land on my way out the door.

As for my deck... it was pretty workman-like. I had registered for Orzhov but received an Azorius pack with Orzhov as the secret ally. Went heavy on the black and white and splashed some blue to use a couple gold cards. Focused almost entirely on building out a decent curve instead of going for combos or splashing too many colours.

Noticed the big focus on guildgates slowing down a couple of my opponents. Too much mana fixing and not enough playable cards as I ate away at them with lifelink and other grindy nonsense. All in all, a really good experience.

I did 2 pre-release events this weekend. My LGS is very small, we had like 15 people on Saturday and 8 on Sunday. The owner let us pick both guilds so it was pretty cool.

I chose Rakdos/Dimir on Saturday. A very odd choice. Aggro/Control. I have some pretty good removal. I ended up going 2-2. My favorite new card on Saturday was Sinister Possesion

On Sunday I went Silesnya/Gruul. Much easier to build a deck around. Went 2-1. Sundays All-Star was Riot Control. I had 2 games end when my opponent though he was swinging for lethal and I cast that, realize I will be swinging for lethal on thier turn, scoop. Its just fog, but the life gain helped a couple other games too.

The MTGO Cube is live right now. I drafted it tonight - Swiss, even though I am in normal drafts strictly an 8-4 Spike.

I went 2-1. I drafted a BG deck that really had no identity beyond a turn one Dark Ritual/Entomb/Exhume combo, which I never got. I did get Turn 1 Entomb, Turn 2 Exhume for Visara the Dreadful once.

Most games I just battled it out honestly, with more powerful cards than usual. The one deck with blue in it that I faced (Force of Will, Jace) just ran me over.

Still, it's a fun diversion until Dragon's Maze hits.

Thoughts on Dragon's Maze? I' like some of the Fuse cards and there seem to be a high number of impressive legendary and rare creattures. Overall it's breathed some new life into my rakdos deck and i've trying my hand at a nice midrange B/R/G deck. I blinked and almost overlooked the ghor clan rampagers in my collection.

I haven't played with any DGM except for the pre-release, but I'm drafting it tomorrow night. My impressions are pretty positive.

Fuse is such a natural mechanic. The only problem is now I want ALL split cards to behave that way! I did another MTGO Cube draft on Friday, and I was expecting Fire & Ice to allow for Fusing. Doh!

Possibly part of the problem is that I've rarely played with split cards in the past.

I enjoy the MTGO Cube. I wish it were available more often, or possibly all the time. I understand the desire to limit the number of queues at any given time so that they will fill up and fire, though.

Drafted DGM-GTC-RTR for the first time tonight with TheWalt and two others. It was pretty cool. Very different from the previous sets. It will be really interesting to see how quick the format is after people have a while to figure it out.

I first picked Flesh & Blood over Putrefy. This is almost certainly wrong, but I was kind of hoping to open a gold split card and then draft around that, and I did. We actually had 3 of the gold split cards in just 4 packs, since one was a foil.

I never drew the card over 7 games, but that's how it goes sometimes. I did draw the cards I needed to only drop one game on the night.

I really had no idea how valuable old cards could be (except the obvious mox/ black lotus/ alpha edition cards). My brother bought a stack of cards at a garage sale and found some Revised edition dual lands that he flipped on eBay for $1200 o.o

If any of you are collectors, he still has some other revised and 4th edition uncommons and rares for sale. Let me know if you're interested and I can out you in touch.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

The MTGO Cube is live right now. I drafted it tonight - Swiss, even though I am in normal drafts strictly an 8-4 Spike.

I went 2-1. I drafted a BG deck that really had no identity beyond a turn one Dark Ritual/Entomb/Exhume combo, which I never got. I did get Turn 1 Entomb, Turn 2 Exhume for Visara the Dreadful once.

Most games I just battled it out honestly, with more powerful cards than usual. The one deck with blue in it that I faced (Force of Will, Jace) just ran me over.

Still, it's a fun diversion until Dragon's Maze hits.

Dark Ritual is back?

It's in the Cube. Cube is a draft format that is like a greatest hits of Magic cards.

People build their own set to draft using 360 or more existing Magic cards. Each Cube's design and possible decks is tailored by its creator. A few years ago, Wizards hired one of the leading people in the Cube community to design a Cube for MTGO.

Many Cubes have the Power Nine, often proxied rather than real. MTGO had a "powered" Cube last Christmas, but I didn't play it as that doesn't appeal to me.

Their Cube usually features a more traditional draft environment, but with extremely powerful cards. For example, my last draft deck had a Wrath, an Akroma's Vengenace, four Planeswalkers, Akroma, Elesh Norn...

Some people believe Cube is the most fun way to play Magic. Me, I've only drafted Cube three times, all online. I want to build one IRL one of these days. I believe there are a couple people in this thread who own Cubes.

Dragon's Maze is live on MTGO! Looking forward to drafting it tonight. I've really enjoyed the slower, less frantic environment the two times I've played with it.

I also think that the reverse order drafting is brilliant on many levels. For one thing, it lets you draft the set you're most interested in first (since it's newest).

My impressions from the other night are that one should start by grabbing the most powerful cards available for the first couple picks, and quickly prioritize Guildgates for color fixing. For me, I'm looking to grab some powerful multicolor cards first, and possibly the better Gatekeepers, and then lots of fixing in DGM. Most of the monocolor cards seem kind of weak to me.

As I mentioned before, I started my one draft by opening Flesh & Blood and taking that over Putrefy (which is a poor choice, but I knew it). This put me in Jund (GRB). Then I started taking on-color Guildgates highly, and whatever good on-color cards I could find.

In the GTC pack I opened Prime Speaker Zegana, and decided that drawing 5-7 cards was worth insanely splashing double blue. I grabbed two Verdant Havens to help with that.

I ended up with 4 Guildgates (one having blue) two Verdant Havens, and one of the guys who untaps gates as my mana fixing. I had grabbed some Cluestones and Keyrunes, but didn't run them. I stuck with my usual 17 lands, so 13 were basic. I ran a few more green sources than anything else to enable that untapper guy and the Verdant Havens, which would help with everything else. Of course, I tried to Verdant Haven a Gate whenever possible.

Because the format is slower, and because I was a little light on creatures, I ended up running a lot of 6-drop guys. This turned out fine, and comboed well with Morgue Burst, which was better than expected all night. It also combos with Balustrade Spy - one of my friends was was surprised to see me mill myself, but with Morgue Burst and a few Scavenge guys, this was certainly the right call.

I like how different card strengths and strategies change in DGM. No one ever milled themselves in GTC, and the gate-untapping guy has a lot more targets in a 3+ color world. Mana acceleration that costs 3 is much more playable when Boros isn't playing a guy every turn and pressuring you early.

Really enjoying watching the Pro Tour this weekend. They've been streaming over twitch.tv for years, and the coverage has just been getting better and better.

I'm streaming from my iPad using the HDMI adapter, btw.

Yeah, coverage has improved dramatically, both in the commentators and the technology to 'ESPN'-ize the coverage.

The pro coverage still goes over my head lot but it helps so much when the graphical callouts can keep up with what the commentators are saying.

You guys mind a little deck tech advice? I was thinking of a deck to put my poor lil' Slum Reapers into and quickly banged together a very simple sacrifice themed deck. It's using mostly current cards but I ended up plumbing some goodies from the Sorin Vs. Tibalt duel decks to round it out.

I'd like to try to get this thing Standard-compliant. Any tips on card substitutes or general construction advice? Thanks!

Sackrilicious - Decklist

Lands:
1 Godless Shrine
14 Swamp
4 Plains
2 Tainted Field

Creatures:
4 High Priest of Penance
3 Desecration Demon
1 Butcher of Malakir
4 Slum Reaper
3 Crypt Ghast
4 Gatekeeper of Malakir
3 Rakdos Cackler
2 Blood Artist
1 Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts
2 Doomed Traveler

Other Spells:
3 Orzhov Charm
4 Lingering Souls
1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
3 Ring of Xathrid
1 Immortal Servitude

I don't think Tainted Field is Standard legal, but Orzhov Guildgates are easy to find.

Lord help me, but it looks like I will e getting into MtG with a bunch of teachers at my wife's school. Before I start going out and buying stuff, what should I be asking them?

Note - I know only a very little about MtG, but not enough to actually know what questions to ask.

mudbunny wrote:

Lord help me, but it looks like I will e getting into MtG with a bunch of teachers at my wife's school. Before I start going out and buying stuff, what should I be asking them?

Note - I know only a very little about MtG, but not enough to actually know what questions to ask.

I'm guessing the other teachers are already into MtG and have some cards already? You may want to ask to borrow their decks to play for the first couple meetups.

You may also want to ask if they're interested in limited formats such as draft and sealed. Good way to keep costs down, compete on a relatively even playing field and build up a modest card collection.

Maclintok wrote:
mudbunny wrote:

Lord help me, but it looks like I will e getting into MtG with a bunch of teachers at my wife's school. Before I start going out and buying stuff, what should I be asking them?

Note - I know only a very little about MtG, but not enough to actually know what questions to ask.

I'm guessing the other teachers are already into MtG and have some cards already? You may want to ask to borrow their decks to play for the first couple meetups.

Yup, they already have cards.

You may also want to ask if they're interested in limited formats such as draft and sealed. Good way to keep costs down, compete on a relatively even playing field and build up a modest card collection.

Thanks!

Fedaykin98 wrote:

I don't think Tainted Field is Standard legal, but Orzhov Guildgates are easy to find.

Thanks Fedaykin98. Yeah, the Tainted Fields, while great, are not Standard legal and neither are:

Sorin
Butcher of Malakir
Gatekeeper of Malakir

Hmm, actually thought the Gatekeepers were from Innistrad but they're not!
Even if I stick to the Modern/Extended format I think I can live without the Butcher. Teysa's a much bigger bomb as a 7-drop. However if I'm cutting Butcher there's not as much need to have 3 Crypt Ghasts to ramp up the mana mid-game.

Guildgates are plentiful now but I'm not keen on the slowness so probably find someone to trade in for a couple more Godless Shrines or even better, Isolated Chapel.

First step: Learn to play with borrowed decks.

Second: Sealed deck

Third: Build own decks or Draft

I'm a "Limited" player myself, which means draft and sealed.

I think the Duels is a pretty decent way to learn how the game works, but it's missing a bunch of features that really make it compelling - deck building, other game formats like draft, etc. That said, if you get just the base game, and maybe an expansion/deck pack or two, it's a really cheap way to get in.

Alright. So a friend of mine came to visit this weekend. We headed to the LCS since I needed some bags and boards for my comics, and he grabbed a box of Magic cards. Using that box, we played a few games over the weekend to teach me how to play.

First was a blind thing, where we threw in some land, and then each opened a pack without looking, and shuffled them in with the land. Surprise.

Was a good way to play I guess and teach me the basic rules and turn order, etc.

Then we did a draft thing with the other 4 packs he had. I had little idea what was a "good" card or not, although I did notice when I had a foil creature, and kept that one. It turned out that that card got into play and I actually crushed him my 2nd game.

Then he thrashed me pretty hard in the 3rd match after we shuffled.

So anyway... it seems like a fun enough game. Wouldn't mind playing some more. But I watched him drop $40 on a box of cards, and after we played he probably only took a small sample (40 maybe?) of the cards home with him, that were uncommon or better. The rest he just left and said he had plenty and I could trash them or keep them or whatever...

So I don't really think I want to get too deep into this hobby that could be quite expensive. That said, MtG 2013 is the daily deal on Steam. Looks like for $12 I could get the "complete bundle" and have some fun playing with some of you people, assuming any of you have the Steam version and not just real cards.

He did mention that the 2014 Steam game is probably coming out in June, so I shouldn't buy the 2013 one. But for that cheap it seems tempting. And a whole lot cheaper than getting cards to play with. No one else I know really in the area plays it, although apparently there are lots of game nights at the LCS that I could try to go to. But the Steam version seems like the cheaper, easier way to play at this point.

So... buy the complete bundle on Steam? Yay or nay? 21 hours to answer.

EDIT: Oh, my friend says maybe just the gold bundle for $6? Since it comes with expansion sets. But the complete has the "foil" stuff added in, but do you really need foil for virtual cards?

First off, there is a Duels of the Planeswalkers thread, so you may want to check in there, as well.

My wife is currently learning how to play Magic (for like, the third timd) using the iPad version. My brother loves the puzzle mode, where you are presented with a particular in-game situation and have to figure out how to win. He knows how to play, but isn't a regular player of Magic.

I'm pretty hardcore, and I can't really enjoy Duels, but I think it's supposed to be more of an evangelistic game, so that's fine.

Regarding 2014, it will have at least one great feature that is brand new: You can build your own deck from a provided, *random* pool of cards - what we call Sealed Deck. I might play that.

So give Duels a go, definitely, but you'll have to decide whether to buy now or wait.

Stele wrote:

So... buy the complete bundle on Steam? Yay or nay? 21 hours to answer.

I'd go Gold. It has all the scenarios and decks, which is where the fun I believe is (checking out how to play all the weird and various types of decks). The foil stuff isn't that useful.

While it doesn't have deck-building, you can really learn the tactics from the game, especially with the challenges.