Magic: The Gathering C/D

full spoiler is up, a lot of cool artwork in this set

this set actually looks really fun to me on first glance. lots of good commons.

Megamorph is a bit strange to me. Maybe because I'm so used to 5 mana being the key point for powerful morphs. In this set, there are a lot of ones for over 5 that just seem too costly for the effect, while the under 5s seem really good.

Also, the Rebound effects look really powerful.

the exploit cards look really strong for limited to me, they let you draft a tighter curve without getting punished for it since you can cash in your early drops for more cards as they become irrelevant. the effects on the common ones are better than i was expecting.

hey iatee what's the status of that tasigur delver deck? you still happy with it? i'm looking to re-enter modern in the near future and i need to lock in on a deck

yeah very happy. it has a good game against every t1 deck and there are a lot of angles of attack - you can be the t1 delver deck or you can be the grindy snapcaster control deck, depending on what your opening hand looks like. I think the sb has yet to be 'solved' but the maindeck seems like it more or less has been (play deprives).

yeah i definitely like the deprives. do you run 18 land or 19?

or more? i think more is probably bad though

18. w/ 12 cantrips you still end up flooding more often than losing from screw ime.

(plus 3 electrolyze)

i kind of want 2 get into this but it seems deeply complicated in an unfun way?

― THE BATHYPELAGIC ZONE (Lamp), Thursday, 11 June 2009 01:03 (5 years ago) Permalink

haha

deej, have you been able to get some games in so far?

i went w/ iatee to a draft last night and got murdered, lol

i have no conception of what the valuable cards are at this point

i mean valuable in the functional sense not $$ sense

Not sure how much you want to nerd out on this, but there are tons of helpful videos online.

These aired at from the Dragons of Tarkir pro tour yesterday:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRcVIifqERg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9NQL6uGGto

ChannelFireball does a lot of magic online draft videos where they walk you through their picks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0LK_wiB6j4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dlUKRXZ2v0

If you really want to go deep, Limited Resources and The Magic Show do full set reviews where the discuss every last card in the most recent set to determine which are more or less valuable in draft.

xp the classic mnemonic for developing drafting priorities is BREAD

B = bombs, meaning cards that can win the game on their own like big flying creatures etc
R = removal, cards that kill creatures, the less restrictive the better
E = evasion, creatures with flying or unblockable or other abilities that let them get through blockers
A = aggressive cards; creatures with good stats and good pump spells/tricks
D = defensive cards; creatures that block well but don't attack well, counterspells, etc tend to be available late and aren't as important

obviously the lines get blurred when applying this to actual cards, like flying creatures with low power relative to their mana cost probably aren't actually that good compared to an efficient 3/3 or 4/4 ground creature but its a good place to start

MTGO just replaced all the Swiss and 4-3-2-2 drafts with Swiss 6-2-2-2 queues. I'm a fan.

anyway, I've done a few DTK drafts and I'm baffled by it...almost feels a bit like a core set to me, because I always wind up with a bunch of unremarkable 2- and 3-drops and low-level removal, and games sort of go real long sometimes, both players trying to draw their bombs while not being able to muster up much on the ground. I see the synergy all there, especially with Exploit and Bolster, I just never seem to be able to get a solid deck going...any tips?

its about ethics in mtg
http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/ptdtk/player-disqualified-pro-tour-dragons-tarkir-2015-04-11

Jeremy Dezani got DQed too

anyway, I've done a few DTK drafts and I'm baffled by it...almost feels a bit like a core set to me, because I always wind up with a bunch of unremarkable 2- and 3-drops and low-level removal, and games sort of go real long sometimes, both players trying to draw their bombs while not being able to muster up much on the ground. I see the synergy all there, especially with Exploit and Bolster, I just never seem to be able to get a solid deck going...any tips?

yeah its a very core set style format ime so just solid draft fundamentals. i went 22-2 in the mtgo release queues #braggin just curving out and using combat tricks and some removal. weirdly ive been enjoying how simple the set is to draft after khans

i rlly like this draft format. its core-set-like in that it doesn't really have an overarching mechanical theme and thus rewards fundamentals, but still feels like theres more interesting things to do than in most core sets

my favorite niche thing so far is the UG conifer strider + taigam's strike deck

my win rate on the dozen or so 8-4s i have played so far is like 50% right now, which i think is the result of drafting decks that do "fun" things without necessarily winning games, which there seems to be a lot of scope for in this format

i had a mastery of the unseen/4 x student of ojutai deck. mastery was also my win condition. i gained a lot of life.

just looking through the set again I think U/B is the strongest, especially since it's way underdrafted now. that deck just looks to get a ton of value and can wind up with a good board and 4-5 cards in hand by turn six pretty easily. that 'whenever you sac a creature, your opponent sacs a creatre' dragon is NUTS. G/W looks strong but there is a lot of removal for little creatures so IMO it has trouble getting off the ground.

I love how UB is looking. Really hoping I get a chance to draft this soon.

pretty sure RB dash is the strongest deck if you get a good one. have seen a handful of turn 5-6 kills already, mostly involving ambuscade shaman

yeah, that one plus the dash discount guy, so good

ime r/b then u/b then r/g then u/w then w/g

w/g is really the only clan (dragon?) that im avoiding and even then i managed to 2-1 a draft last night with a w/g deck that had all the inherent problems of that color combination

i have really enjoyed the five (!) mm2 drafts i've done so far. the set seems quite a bit looser than the first modern masters, with more cards slotting into multiple archetypes and less focus on forcing archetypes generally.

I opened noble/leyline/liege in my first and only draft. it was fun. getting the sense prices are gonna tank hard for all these cards.

my very first pack had endrek sahr, master breeder as the rare and foil raise the alarm. pretty much all my packs had been the same until i got an opal and foil splinter twin in my most recent draft.

just bought a bunch of standard cards so i can play gp providence, yuck. gonna run some sort of loose aspect of hydra / collected company GW deck i think.

haven't played new modern masters yet, but it looks more fun than the last one

shame about the packaging though, once again it's a "only buy from trusted dealers" situation

yeah so much about this seems poorly planned. the packaging, the printing process...

been on a pretty strong run IRL with R/G Dragons since DTK came out, am considering getting more focused on building a standard collection in MTGO, I'd like to get myself to a good place to battle online post-rotation. I'm not thrilled with the prospect of pouring a bunch of cash into MTGO, but I'm feeling like I don't get enough reps with paper magic. I could easily see this turning out to be a fool's errand.

Can't really afford MM15, but it looks fun. Have considered building a cheapo zoo deck to dip into Modern, but again, it may just be turn out to be a fantasy.

mono u tron is a pretty good intro to modern deck. good pilots can do really well with it / gonna teach you the format more than r/g zoo cause it's a reactive control deck. but still quite cheap.

this goyf scandal is a treat, absolutely hilarious

what's the scandal? haven't seen anything so far

pascal maynard raredrafted a foil goyf in one of the gp vegas top 8s and many ppl are going ballistic, in varying degrees of sincerity i think but there are def some pros who were shook

Reid Duke ‏@ReidDuke 2h2 hours ago
I've devoted my life to Magic. It's very disappointing to see that one of my peers would sell out for so little.

ha ha, these pros' complaints are ridiculous. I totally support him grabbing that card.

https://twitter.com/PascalMaynard/status/605246925361651713

I'd probably never forgive myself if I didn't take it

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MTG-Foil-Tarmogoyf-MM2-Stamped-GP-Vegas-Top-8-Pascal-Maynard-/261911963536

loooool

fact of the matter is Magic is a niche sport where only the best of the best can manage to turn a profit after travel expenses and tourney fees, it's nothing like poker where a decent player can make a good living just cuz he's better than most. the game is a money-losing proposition for nearly everyone and who cares because it's fun. I think you're nuts if you're legitimately upset with this guy.

well that also kinda makes the point that if you're only interested in 'making positive ev decisions' than you should never have been playing gp las vegas in the first place

Thought they removed foils for drafts at GPs? I've never seen a foil in a GP draft I've been in.

because every pack has a foil they left them in for the modern masters gps