Magic: The Gathering C/D

modern pro tours back already

i'm fine with them locking in standard for all large-set PTs but they should let small-set PTs be other formats at least some of the time

which seems to be what they're doing here so props

you guys are probably up to date on all this but
RWB clan mechanic: http://media-dominaria.cursecdn.com/attachments/130/837/635436027465518449.jpg
UWR clan mechanic: http://media-dominaria.cursecdn.com/attachments/130/914/635439531581439469.png

and the completely unsurprising tri-lands:
http://media-dominaria.cursecdn.com/attachments/130/915/635439535566463578.png
http://media-dominaria.cursecdn.com/attachments/130/916/635439535594972038.png

neither mechanic is particularly linear so my fears of getting a gatecrash style limited format are hopefully unfounded

had not seen those. the mechanics seem pretty mild but make for interesting play decisions, which sounds good to me tbh

Prowess seems like a rather dangerous mechanic should they push a card hard for Standard play

i think they're supposed to be mild, much like the ravnica guild mechanics. the block has morph in it already, which is one of the weirder mechanics that exist in this game, so you can't go too hard on the other ones

i really like how raid is the rare 'attacking matters' mechanic that doesn't actually scale in effectiveness with the aggressiveness of your deck; maybe we can finally get a limited format where RW aggro isn't capable of snowballing

ha yeah r/w has had quite the run hasn't it

my favourite reimbursement claim to date, a triple whammy of sorts:

During pack 1 of this draft, on two occasions the draft froze for an extended period with 0:00 on the clock for the pick and then jumped ahead, by one pick first time and two picks second time, adding random cards to my deck. I pressed ahead anyway and got to deck building. I tried to submit and was told I could not and had to log back in. When I did, several of my cards were missing, replaced by basic lands.

something similar happened to me once where it gave me a 70 card deck with a ton of extra basic lands but not the cards that I wasn't playing. I have no clue what happened but it was as if the submit didn't take and it just gave me the standard 80 (or whatever) card deck that's every card you drafted plus an "auto" assortment of lands, but then it took out every non-land I didn't submit. I don't even know how a glitch like that could happen.

new archetype discovered by draft opponent

http://i.imgur.com/m4K9oHU.png

that seems fine if his deck is full of like wall of mulch & hornet nest & red removal

that is fair. it did make me lol tho. and...it wasn't.

any thoughts on the maro bomb?

you'll have to explain

no more core sets, all blocks will be 2 sets

wow, that's nuts. I guess that solves the "3rd set problem" huh?

what's the release schedule for these going to be? it's not gonna be every 3 months now is it?

standard rotates spring and fall with each block, 18 month cycle instead of 24

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mm/metamorphosis

that's pretty big news, but as someone who plays 95% limited I do find it rather exciting, drafting one set for an entire year is boring and I always found full-block draft to be a little awkward

yeah I think it's pretty tricky to design in a way to ensure drafting both the first set and full block will create coherent/dynamic limited metas

it's pretty hard to ensure that full block 'does something' cause the variance between pools is always so high

yeah this is a pretty universally positive change imo. more 'expert-level' limited formats and more standard rotations is exactly what the game needs to stay fresh in the twitch.tv era

especially since people are figuring out very very quickly what the best decks are and fine-tuning them into oblivion, reducing the amount of time something like Caw-blade or Monoblack devotion would be in Standard is probably a good thing

I'm sure it's a good change, but I suspect it will end up making it that much more expensive to keep up with standard

my fuzzy logic suggests that it'll be around 10% more expensive to keep up with standard, which is worth it for a more dynamic format imo

http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/25/amazon-will-officially-acquire-twitch/?ncid=rss

It'll be interesting to see how that impacts Twitch. I hope it doesn't change too much. I've been loving watching live MTG tournaments every weekend on the big screen via Roku.

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/mechanics-khans-tarkir

bunch of preview cards up from the PAX event too, most notably reprints of the onslaught fetchlands, which i guess is a good way to guarantee that the set flies off the shelves

Thought we had a confirmation that fetches were NOT going to be in Khans. Not that I'm unhappy to see them. I guess the enemy fetches have to be in one of the next two sets now.

we had confirmation that the zendikar (enemy) ones were not in the block iirc

haha its been a rollercoast mtg ride today for me - i forgot that the mtgo ptq was today and that i was qualified and spent the afternoon playing paper sealed deck which is kinda w/e but i also have been pretty aggressively buying foil onslaught fetches under the assumption that they would get reprinted and thus be modern legal so i am happy to hear that this is in fact the case.

khans has me fairly excited for a new draft and standard format and its interesting to think about what decks the allied fetches open up in modern.

khans looks pretty promising to me so far, theres a ton of variety just in the handful of commons/uncommons we've seen

sultai charm seems modern playable? like how is that card ever bad

http://cdn.magicspoiler.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Ankle-Shanker-spoilers.jpg

this guy seems fun

Yeah, he seems like he'd be a good pal for Goblin Rabblemaster

first week of previews is in the books and this set's looking pretty low-key other than the fetchalnds, which is fine i guess. looks fun for drafting but there's no real constructed firestarters yet

yeah the fetch craze might have made them think they didn't have to include any other chase cards

though if nothing else explosive comes out it will be kinda funny how large the power gap is between ths/khans standard and some of the previous standards

Some of the 3-mana tricolor cards look great, though it depends on how the mana's gonna work. fetchlands are kind of an odd fit for a set based off wedges, aren't they? if anything the enemy color ones would've fit here.

I mean there's nothing that looks super broken the way Brimaz or Voice of Resurgence did, but a lot of these cards look very playable.

i think original ravnica block is still the lowest power level block they've made, people just liked it so much that they didn't notice that dryad sophisticate and ravenous rats were being played in top standard decks

i just saw Empty the Pits - surely someone is going to figure out something messed up with that.

I feel like the formats where it's easy to get delve-bait are not the formats that want to be paying BBBB (okay maybe edh)

oh wait lol fetches are coming back to standard

pretty happy about these common dual-lands, those are exactly what i like to see for limited

Siege Rhino looks pretty damn legit

the 4B delve removal seems potentially modern/legacy playable

yeah those were the 2 cards that jumped out at me today. given how removal has been shifting, a kindasorta doom blade at uncommon is not too shabby.

i think that card's too unreliable to see modern/legacy play in a world where go for the throat and doom blade no longer show up

it's a good card nonetheless