Magic: The Gathering C/D

i decked an opponent with avacyn, that card causes really dumb stalemates when they have something that keeps it from attacking for the win

how are we liking m15

Drafted a fun G/R deck last week that included Chord, Hornet Queen, Siege Dragon, and a bunch of other heavy hitters, and ended up pulling a Nissa in my prize packs. One real breakout card in my deck was Kird Chieftain. Being able to give any creature +2/+2 and trample at instant speed was huge. Netcaster Spider was also a big help. The combination of the spider plus Shield of the Avatar allowed me to blank an opponent after they got me quickly down to 5 with turn 1 Ornithopter, turn 2 Ensoul Artifact. Looking forward to more draft tonight.

prerelease starts on mtgo today right?

yeah, & everyone gets 1 free prerelease entry as a 'sorry we screwed up mtgo' consolation prize

new client refuses to download on my (new) computer so I get to be one of those people who actually boycotts the new mtgo

what idiots they are

prerelease entry is a nice gesture but I really don't see why they couldn't leave v3 up until they have a halfway usable client ready to go.

its about as usable as v3 at this point honestly. 90% of the complaints are just from people who don't like it, not people like iatee who have actual technical issues

tbf theres a lot to dislike about v4. i do think with time people will probably appreciate that its a better piece of software than v3 was but it also wont work on my laptop so i havent played any mtgo since v3 went offline which is kind of a bummer.

having a ton of floating windows that are impossible to attach, gameplay that's weirdly unintuitive and difficult to follow, and a client with so many memory leaks that my computer slows to a crawl if I leave it open overnight isn't really what I had in mind

I mean, it is still playable, it's just disorienting in a way I assumed I'd get used to but haven't...v3 took a week or so to really get used to but it still felt kinda natural after that. I've played the new client for much longer and it's still irritating in so many little ways. There's so much functionality that's really unnecessary and my computer can't cleanly handle all the graphics going on at once. At least the life totals aren't a tiny number in the corner anymore like they used to be.

i am getting used to it. i have found myself making mistakes that i would never have made in v3 - esp accidentally clicking thru combat step, why do i keep doing that?? - but that kind of thing i hope i will get past quickly. there are things that i miss from v3 for sure and overall i think it is just less obvious what is going on paying on v4. it seems to be running okay on my laptop so i am at least thankful that i don't have any of the big problems others have experienced, esp since i don't play except online and it would suck to have to quit just as i was getting almost competent.

in other news, i am currently waiting for r1 to end in my freebie m15 sealed. i opened nissa and chandra so i guess i am awesome at m15

just started using the new client a bit last week, and yeah, too many text pop-ups and the like, but overall it looks decent, especially the cards, and I haven't had any computer performance issues.

Is there a thing with the timing of F6? At one point, my turn seemed to get completely skipped, and the same thing seemed to happen to an opponent too.

Morph!!!

so this is the wedge block

Looks like the draft structure I mentioned a couple months back was right. Should be cool.

figured I'd load up the new client again to try out the free M15 sealed, which was definitely a nice gesture on their part. still really irritated by it, especially when playing with a new set - I find the P/Ts and mana costs are too small to read easily and the preview pane just sits on top of everything so it's really impractical. Doesn't seem to be a good way to attach the chat window without it floating all over the place. More than anything I'm just irritated by how they managed to rehaul pretty much everything but the issues that actually needed fixing; it's still incredibly slow for me, I still get booted when logging in, the network still times out randomly even though every other connection works. I guess y'all are right, it's not exactly "unplayable", just kind of remarkable how they fixed a ton of stuff that didn't need fixing and managed to ignore all the real issues (IMO, of course). With a game like this simplicity really really matters!!

aaaand right on cue the disorienting client leads me to accidently punt a match (100% my fault, but still, this thing is so terrible)

made a poor showing at the GP, though i hadn't played modern in 6 months or melira pod in 9 months so i wasn't really expecting much

that sucks, sorry dude. was that the one in worcester? i saw that was coming up.

yeah it was worcester. i dropped at 3-3. i don't really mind though, it was a pretty fun weekend still

re: khans, i'm curious to see how morph fits in to what looks like just another Color-Based Factions block.

judging by the recent tumblr posts of Maro, it's going to be different than Alara or RTR - maybe not so overly multicolor for one, and each faction will have a "base color". also it sounds like the other two sets are not wedge-based so who knows?

pretty interesting that not a single pod or twin deck made t8 at boston

I didn't go because lazy / haven't been playing with anything but storm, which is not competitive in big tournaments atm

kinda want to switch it up to delver or something goofy for a while

there was a ton of pod and twin, and a ton of melira pod in particular at the top tables. kind of just a fluke that none of them made it in.

yeah I think they're still 'the best decks' but if you can have a tournament this large (where a disproportionate amount of players will be bringing pod) and still not have one t8, it's probably really safe from being banned?

2 infect in the t8 seems like even more of a fluke though, since it's a deck that just folds to so many things

also a kid who plays at my lgs was 9-0 after d1 w/ soul sisters

yeah i saw the soul sisters guy at the x-0 tables, thought that was amusing

he's not just some kid who got lucky, he's actually very good, won an scg open this year and I'm pretty sure he had 3 byes

but I guess you have to have a certain amount of luck to win 6 matches of competitive modern w/ that deck

also I really want to see wafo-tapa's esper deck

i didn't see what he was playing but he always had a huge crowd watching him play so i figured it was something out of the ordinary

it's interesting how wescoe and wafo-tapa seem to be able to build rogue decks that fit the colors/strategies they want to play with and still do consistently well in a format like this (kibler seems like a good counterexample as fair creature decks just seem bad in modern)

i walked by wescoe and he had a pack rat in play, not sure what he was playing

some sort of bw dead guy build apparently

https://www.facebook.com/raphael.levy.mtg/posts/308720935968791

wafo-tapa's list

becauser uwr control was just too fast

0 mana leak is interesting but does allow him to play 4 paths

and logic knot is a cool replacement, can eat some goyf food along the way

in retrospect it seems like post-dr ban, the jund shell is doing just fine but everyone (jund and uwr) can throw away their lightning bolts w/o really suffering much. (not that bolt is bad, just more optional)

jund will always be at the top as long as they continue to be more willing to ban 'unfair' cards than 'fair' ones

It must kill Wafo-Tapa that he can't play Wraths at instant speed like the rest of his deck

yeah reprinting bob and goyf really suggests that they will never be banned

and it is hard to imagine a deck with a set of bob/goyf/lili ever being that bad

its the point discard spells that make jund work, goyf/bob are not really that problematic

other than banning thoughtseize (eww) the way you make jund-likes worse is to add better synergy cards to the format so that decks have more redundancy vs all the attrition

yeah as a storm player I have actually found the matchup pretty okay because of that

'rock' decks are pretty much never above 50% winrate though, they're just the ultimate safe deck for risk-averse players

for what it's worth i think the jund family of decks are in a balanced spot right now where they're weak enough that choosing to play them is choosing to concede any deck selection advantage. that they keep showing up at the top of events doesn't really concern me given that they're generally a large portion of the field.

personally, i'll never play a deck that runs maindeck thoughtseize without a combo to protect

I kinda want to build a goofy waste not deck

yeah my first thought was how cool it would be with Wheel of Fortune-type effects but there don't seem to be a whole lot of those anymore

whispering madness

oh yeah. that. make it happen!!