Magic: The Gathering C/D

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

currently 9,600...

how is it i am only now discovering that rs is into mtg

we started to have a conversation one time...

lol that makes it sound so illicit. apologies for not remembering, i will assume it was getting on in the evening when we talked about it.

anyway we should play sometime

sounds good to me

$13.7K and climbing. This whole situation is so hilarious. I guess he's proven beyond any doubt which pick would provide the most value.

Looks like we get some info about Magic Origins:

Landwalk, Protection, and Intimidate are all gone (well Protection will remain, but it's not going to get used often). New evasion mechanic will be called Menace, which is the "Goblin War Drums" ability (must be blocked by 2 or more creatures). Scry and Prowess are now evergreen, meaning they can get used anywhere, as Scry was just too useful and Prowess fills a hole for a blue combat mechanic and something to overlap Blue and Red.

there's also a bunch of preview cards in http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/arcana/magic-origins-sample-decks-2015-06-08

lots of nice limited cards there, im really looking forward to a core set style draft format right now for some reason

also apparently jace's home plane is that dope planechase card with the steampunk stargates http://magiccards.info/extras/plane/planechase-2012-edition/trail-of-the-mage-rings.jpg

v cool. dragon is pretty sweet. lol @ 4 cmc sorcery speed lightening bolt with scry 1 tho.

I'm glad scry is getting more love. When the scry lands were first announced, there were a lot of complaints because they came into play tapped with minimal upside. Of course, pretty much every standard game now starts with turn 1 scry land. Smoothing out draws just makes the game more enjoyable because it reduces the frustrating level of variance that is one of the game's biggest weaknesses.

Hopefully Origins will be fun and have some cool stuff beyond the two-sided planeswalkers, but I can't say I'm going to miss core sets after this.

looking forward to a new set. feel like i liked DTK just fine but even so i had gone back to Fate/Khans queues before MM came out and then MM has been a godsend. mixed feelings about that disappearing in a week or so, but i guess it will have run its course. also i have been str8 killing it which i will certainly miss. looking back over last few sets my win% for draft is around about 10% higher on MM and M15 than across the khans block formats. those two are super linear sets so i guess a hole in my game is getting a synergistic deck together when it isn't put on a plate.

I never got the initial hate for the scry lands. I thought they were clearly very good and only paled next to the shocklands which were about as good as they were willing to make 'em. I do think it's nice that they're going to use it more, it really does a lot of good things for the game in a subtle way.

I too am looking forward to drafting something new - KTK is still really fun, it's a bit on the complex side but IMO it's one of the best draft formats they've ever done. DTK feels a bit flat to me. When Khans came out everyone was remarking about how slow the format was, but Dragons is the one that seems to go into frequent stalemates. Still feels a lot like a core set to me, particularly in the number of bad/undraftable commons there are, I've had plenty of decks that really struggled to get to 23 playables; that's something that's not very fun

Scry is awesome and great for evergreen when they stick to Scry 1, which I think they've learned to do for most cards. Quick, easy, alleviates some of the worst aspects of Magic. It can be annoying to have your opponent spend 30 seconds thinking over Scry 3 turn after turn on that damn Sphinx.

yeah that Sphinx was a special kind of obnoxious though to be fair it's a combination of repeated Scry + activated hexproof + evasion. I loved opening him, at least!

I love the design of this new Dragon, but I feel like it gives your opponent too big an opportunity to catch you with your pants down. Definitely like that they're pushing this direction though.

DL Ojutai isn't much less obnoxious and it sees a lot more play than Sphinx.

I'm skeptical about the dragon. I can't see wanting to run this over Thunderbreak. Of course, I'm wondering what (if anything) is going to fill the very large Stormbreath hole that will open post rotation.

yeah I think he's just too high risk, at best you're maybe getting to play 2 or 3 extra cards over 3 or 4 turns (and do you want the game to last that long?), at worst you're getting blown out since the dream scenario of playing him on turn 4 with an empty or one-card hand probably just isn't going to happen too much. while Thunderbreak is low risk since even if he dies you still get a Bolt out of it.