[MTG] Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012

I had one "teammate" decide to wait until I had tapped out my mana pool casting a couple of rather large creatures before it cast evacuation.

Judge and I are hanging out playing 1 v 1 right now. Ping one of us and maybe we can try an archenemy game.

Just picked this up on XBL. I had forgotten how little I know about MTG and it is VERY little! I did the tutorial, went to the next mission and got totally smoked.

Very frustrating...

I decided not to get this game. But I did anyways. Could I get an invite to the steam group?

Yeah i WAS gonna hold out, but then just got it.

Trying so hard to get through the archenemy campaign. Stuck on second to last fight against Nissa. It could be the most frustrating thing I have ever tried to do.

Goddamn schemes that destroy target permanents are garbage, then a scheme that drops 5 1/1 tokens, followed by one that drops 7 0/1, followed by a spell that give +1/+1 for every creature.

This mode can shove itself up its own ass.

Cobble wrote:

Trying so hard to get through the archenemy campaign. Stuck on second to last fight against Nissa. It could be the most frustrating thing I have ever tried to do.

That one was a Female Doggo. Nissa's deck is built around getting A LOT of elves out, with some black spells to snipe her opponent's creatures. In 1v1, it runs out of steam when she runs out of cards in hand or can't get land quickly enough.

This never happens in Archenemy, since her scheme deck is built to provide exactly those two things. Swarms of elves EVERYWHERE, often by the second or third round if she gets the extra land from schemes. I won finally with the Blue/Green deck by getting lucky with a polymorph spell and putting out some creatures with shroud.

DanyBoy wrote:

I won finally with the Blue/Green deck by getting lucky with a polymorph spell and putting out some creatures with shroud.

That quote right there sums up the whole problem with archenemy mode. Its all luck. Might as well just make your win/loss a random number generator were you have 1-95 = lose and 96-100 be a win.

Hate to burst your bubble Cobble, but the one after that is WORSE!

The final battle is with Nicol Bolas and this jerk has so many scheme cards that wipe the board, return your creatures, steal and/or clone your creatures that it is VERY frustrating. If you could at least respond to them as if they were Instants it would be better. I would love to play a Cancel on some of them!

If you do manage to dodge the schemes for a while then he plays spells that do the same as the schemes along with enchantments that rob your health and give it to him. He runs very few creatures. It is mostly damage, removal and BS! I need a new plan to go after this prick.

Final Boss Battle indeed!

And again, in fitting with the concept of luck being the most important part of this mode, I smoked the final boss first try using Nissa's deck. Wasn't even close.

Gust-Skimmer also is flawed. For one blue mana, you can make it flying.
So I got attacked, wanted to activate that. Clicked on it: 'this creature has no flying'.
Duh, I want to make it fly. But a big no go there.

Also still get screwed at times by the auto mana tap.

Cobble wrote:

And again, in fitting with the concept of luck being the most important part of this mode, I smoked the final boss first try using Nissa's deck. Wasn't even close.

Grrr... Shaking fist at you!

Anyone else notice the "Imperious PERFECT"? I thought it must be a typo (clearly they meant "Prefect"), but I looked it up and as far as I can tell every version of that card from the paper game is spelled the same way.

You keep using that word... I do not think it means what you think it means.

Kozilek, Butcher of Truth is a ridiculous card.

muttonchop wrote:

Kozilek, Butcher of Truth is a ridiculous card.

There are lots of ridiculous cards in the game. I've been examining the deck lists, and there are lots of legendary creatures and mythic rares. The Ancient Depths deck, including unlocks, has three Legendaries, and 2 mythic rares in it. These decks also have loads of rares. One could almost make the observation that commons are rare, and rares are common.

Ulamog, which is in the same deck as Kozilek, costs 11 mana to cast, but that deck has 25 lands to start, and lots of land producers as well, so getting one of those cards out by mid-game doesn't seem unlikely.

I have been a fan of pauper Magic, and have never really cared too much for these uber cards that might as well have text that reads "the player that plays this card wins the game". I don't like working to produce a strong lead with good plays and then have it all negated by some god-card that comes in and thumbs it's nose at you and makes everything you did for nothing.

I had a 51-6 lead in a game the other night, and very nearly lost because of one of these god-cards that, when it played, entered the game at 22/22.

To be fair, if every deck has god cards, it's still a balanced game.

That said, Ulamog is unbalanced even by god card standards. "Indestructible"? Seriously? WTF?

The Annihilator effect in general is pretty bad. Even if the enemy blocks Ulamog or Kozilek, they're still going to eat 4 permanents every time they attack. Every time I've managed to get Kozilek on the table, the enemy quickly winds up with 0 lands, 0 creatures, and 0 health.

Jeff-66 wrote:

Ulamog, which is in the same deck as Kozilek, costs 11 mana to cast, but that deck has 25 lands to start, and lots of land producers as well, so getting one of those cards out by mid-game doesn't seem unlikely.

The deck also has at least one Elvish Piper in it. If you're lucky, you can get 4 lands down in 2-3 turns, summon a Piper, and start dropping any big creatures on the table for the low cost of one green mana. This actually happened for me one game, and I had Kozilek on the table by about turn 5.

hbi2k wrote:

"Indestructible"? Seriously? WTF?

I don't like the Indestructible effect, it seems weirdly specific. "Destroy" cards can't kill it, damage can't kill it, but "Sacrifice" cards can.

muttonchop wrote:
hbi2k wrote:

"Indestructible"? Seriously? WTF?

I don't like the Indestructible effect, it seems weirdly specific. "Destroy" cards can't kill it, damage can't kill it, but "Sacrifice" cards can.

Is there more to "Indestructible"? Thought you could still destroy and damage it. Instead of going to the graveyard though it gets shuffled back into your deck.

I still think of Type 1 and Type 2 when i play so playing these cards have been interesting trying to learn all the new effects terminology.

But is there a discard deck? Mono black discard is my favourite.

Creatures that get shuffled back into the deck just say that on the card. From what I understand, Indestructible works like this:

Can't be killed by:
-Damage
-Effects that "destroy" a card

Can be killed by:
-Non-damage effects that reduce the creature's toughness to 0
-"Sacrifice" and "Exile" effects.

They can also get hit with creature-gimping or -stealing enchantments like Pacify or Mind Control, or returned to their controller's hands, so there ARE ways to deal with them, but if you don't happen to be playing a deck that uses those specific methods of creature control, you're kind of S.O.L.

Sparhawk wrote:

Gust-Skimmer also is flawed. For one blue mana, you can make it flying.
So I got attacked, wanted to activate that. Clicked on it: 'this creature has no flying'.
Duh, I want to make it fly. But a big no go there.

Also still get screwed at times by the auto mana tap.

That's more a quirk in the rules. All you can do is assign attackers and defenders during those phases. In order to use an ability you either use it after blockers are assigned, which is useless in this situation, or anticipate that you need it and activate it during the first main phase.

Strewth wrote:
Sparhawk wrote:

Gust-Skimmer also is flawed. For one blue mana, you can make it flying.
So I got attacked, wanted to activate that. Clicked on it: 'this creature has no flying'.
Duh, I want to make it fly. But a big no go there.

Also still get screwed at times by the auto mana tap.

That's more a quirk in the rules. All you can do is assign attackers and defenders during those phases. In order to use an ability you either use it after blockers are assigned, which is useless in this situation, or anticipate that you need it and activate it during the first main phase.

You could be right about that. But the rules have been adjusted for the game then I think. Which is too bad.
Well, I will just keep it in mind now of course.

Ok, I just had the wackiest game. I was using the Ancient Depths deck against an AI who was using the same deck. My opponent got the first big creature on the board, so I stole it with that spell that also grants +2/+2. The AI immediately stole it back, so now this thing has +4/+4. I unsummoned it with an Aether Mutation. We beat on each other for a bit, then the AI summoned Ulamog. I figured I was screwed, but on my very next turn I also drew Ulamog. I summoned him, you can't have more than one on the board, so they both died and re-shuffled back into our decks.

Soon after, the AI summons Kozilek. Next turn, I also draw Kozilek. Summon, both dead, reshuffle.

A couple turns pass, and I draw Kozilek again. My opponent has a ton of 1/1 Saprolings from Aether Mutations, so when I attack with Kozilek he sacrifices 12 of them to kill it.

A few more turns pass, and I draw Kozilek a third time. Next turn, the AI summons its Kozilek for the second time. Both dead, reshuffle.

I've got a few heavy-hitters on the table at this point, so I'm starting to wear down my opponent. I'm one round away from victory, and what do I draw? That's right, friggin Kozilek. I drew the same card 4 times in one match.

Sparhawk wrote:
Strewth wrote:
Sparhawk wrote:

Gust-Skimmer also is flawed. For one blue mana, you can make it flying.
So I got attacked, wanted to activate that. Clicked on it: 'this creature has no flying'.
Duh, I want to make it fly. But a big no go there.

Also still get screwed at times by the auto mana tap.

That's more a quirk in the rules. All you can do is assign attackers and defenders during those phases. In order to use an ability you either use it after blockers are assigned, which is useless in this situation, or anticipate that you need it and activate it during the first main phase.

You could be right about that. But the rules have been adjusted for the game then I think. Which is too bad.
Well, I will just keep it in mind now of course.

Naw its the latest changes from the 2010 ruleset. Before that you could've done what you were trying, but now you have to do any activations before combat.

For a game group that has so many members, why is it so difficult to find 3 of us on at the same time to play an Archenemy match (at least to finish that acheivement)?

To be honest, after that, I am probably done with Archenemy mode. The cheesy, cheating, BS has left the fun zone. I will happily continue with Free-For-All, or 2HG with you guys though.

Now, if I got to be the Archenemy for a match that might be different but even then I would still know it's no longer a game of skill. So even then, no.

The_Judge wrote:

For a game group that has so many members, why is it so difficult to find 3 of us on at the same time to play an Archenemy match (at least to finish that acheivement)?

To be honest, after that, I am probably done with Archenemy mode. The cheesy, cheating, BS has left the fun zone. I will happily continue with Free-For-All, or 2HG with you guys though.

Now, if I got to be the Archenemy for a match that might be different but even then I would still know it's no longer a game of skill. So even then, no.

New job so I've not been playing much of anything past couple of weeks, and the weekends have been busy.

The_Judge wrote:

For a game group that has so many members, why is it so difficult to find 3 of us on at the same time to play an Archenemy match (at least to finish that acheivement)?

To be honest, after that, I am probably done with Archenemy mode. The cheesy, cheating, BS has left the fun zone. I will happily continue with Free-For-All, or 2HG with you guys though.

Now, if I got to be the Archenemy for a match that might be different but even then I would still know it's no longer a game of skill. So even then, no.

The other night I was looking for Archenemy players, and my DOTP group list looked like this:

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player_name is in game Team Fortress 2
player_name is in game Team Fortress 2
player_name is in game Team Fortress 2
player_name is in game Beat Hazard
player_name is in game Team Fortress 2
player_name is in game Team Fortress 2
player_name is in game Champions Online
player_name is in game Team Fortress 2
player_name is in game Team Fortress 2[/size]

I also posted a request in this thread to organize some matches and no one responded. I guess people aren't really that interested in Archenemy, and from the description of it, I can understand why.

Does anyone know what "Revenge" mode is? I see that on the tab up next to Archenemy, but it's locked.

To be fair, we do have some established game nights around here. It says something about how good TF2 is that folks often eschew the new hawtness to play on Monday and Friday.

Revenge is just buffed versions of the SP campaign. I think you have to complete the normal SP campaign before Revenge unlocks.

If you see me in Steam online in any game other than L4D2 or Blood Bowl, hit me up for a match. Good chance I'll be down.