Magic: The Gathering C/D

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.

xp you haven't experienced true Sphinx Hell until you've played the consecrated sphinx mirror match

they even put 2 overpowered clones in that standard so it happened way more often than it should have

dude to my left wondering how the heck he got passed prime time

http://i.imgur.com/62falmZ.png

#jesuispascal

wow

http://mythicspoiler.com/ori/cards/piaandkirannalaar.jpg

i kinda hate the 2 characters 1 card thing but ignoring that this is a sweet card

yeah that is p nice

lots of interesting spoliers today, but coolest of all is a Timetwister with just one caveat - maybe this time it'll see some play?

http://mythicspoiler.com/ori/cards/daysundoing.jpg

they've gotten really good at making these cards that excite people because they look similar to old broken cards but don't actually do anything. see: temporal mastery, reforge the soul, time reversal, etc

, treasure cruise

I think this card has potential to be busted. there has not been a 3 mana draw 7 in recent memory and I really doubt they tested it to potential across modern and legacy.

i like that there is more text describing what happens if someone quickens this in than actual text for the main effect

well it is a core set

into the existence of this timetwister though, wanna cast it with pyromancer's ascencion in play see what happens

on cue...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CINQw68VEAAhASq.png
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CINQw76UMAAWlsB.png

I really like the card, it's sort of an anti-Time Spiral in that it ensures your opponent gets to use all the new cards first. Don't know how good it is - you won't want to cast it turn 3 (in Standard, at least!) so how much better is it than Time Reversal really? I mean it almost seems too good to not get played but I have no idea how to evaluate the card

i think it could show up in critical mass type decks like burn as an option vs control

http://mythicspoiler.com/ori/cards/demonicpact.html

Wasn't this a You Make the Card? Either way, this is one of the coolest cards I've seen in a while, I love everything about it - it's powerful enough to be played I think, but very difficult to abuse

it sure was. I'm curious about how this is going to be used. It seems like the first 3 options are not quite powerful enough to give you a reasonable shot at winning in 3 turns, but I'm sure I'll be proven wrong.

I've been thinking about it for a while - if you're playing it on Turn 4 then you have until Turn 7 to win, which is around when most games end anyway. Looking at it again it's maybe not as powerful as it looks, the "gain 4" ability means little if you're going to lose soon anyway, and the discard is not really helpful, because at that point you make the game easier for your opponent (who only needs to prioritize living three more turns, and thus may have things that they can easily pitch) - plus, using up a turn to play an enchantment that gives no immediate benefit won't help you win quicker.

Most likely it'll get used in decks that can bounce it easily, or some kind of strange combo deck. Almost all Donate effects don't work on Enchantments so I don't think that's an option, though I'm curious to know what exactly "choose one that hasn't been chosen" means when it comes to playing multiples/bouncing/possibilty donating the card

pretty sure it's unplayable in every format

the choices are tied to the permanent and not the owner so donate effects work w/ it. bouncing/flickering it resets the choices (since its effectively a 'new' copy) and multiples will each have their own trigger.

its a neat card but like everything spoiled so far seems bad

Anyone been playing modern lately? Having trouble finding my new go-to deck ever since the birthing pod ban, the collected company builds feel like garbage to me, you no longer have reliable enough access to your silver bullets vs combo

that basically all ive been playing. i won a pptq with jund this season and have been having ok-ish success with it on mtgo. im like 60% since dragons. i think the company decks are garbage too but i didnt like anything so i just defaulted to the easiest to play deck i could think of. that said i dont think its really that good and you never get to just win against ppl and its also like two thousand dollars to build irl so ::shrugs::

I've been playing a ton of modern and legacy lately. Grixis delver is still doing well for me but everyone's on the kolaghan's command train by now, for better or worse. it seems like the t1/t1.5 for modern is as open as it's ever been actually, tons of playable options right now, format seems really far from solved.

obv kicking myself for not holding onto lilianas on modo, that's locking me out from the midrange decks now

the choices are tied to the permanent and not the owner so donate effects work w/ it. bouncing/flickering it resets the choices (since its effectively a 'new' copy) and multiples will each have their own trigger.

yeah that's what I figured because that's generally how cards work in this game, but they've never used that particular wording before

agreed that the card isn't all that good, it's got a lot of baggage and sorta gets in its own way. but I still think it's awesome - I get way more excited about cards like this than stuff that's obviously overpowered and destined to be $20+ on release

im more excited about knight of the white orchid reprint, that's a great card

its a neat card but like everything spoiled so far seems bad

I don't know how you can say this, there's been plenty thus far that's definitely going to get played, it seems better than most core sets, and a lot of the cards spoiled seem somewhat pushed, even if nothing's obviously broken

also Goblin Piledriver reprint, that's a surprise

yeah there are lots of cool cards spoiled, piledrive pushes modern goblins into at least tier 'you can play it', new thalia's horse, timetwister...more interesting stuff in this set already than all of m15

I kinda wonder if Faerie Miscreant is any good, or what kind of deck it might go in.

i don't think its playable in 60 card land but will obviously be a limited gimmick

unless there is also faerie tribal in the set i would be v bummed to play that in limited, and actually more bummed if i had the multiples it rewards.

just draft u/r with the enchantment that tutors for itself

basically unbeatable imo

I was thinking more in constructed with ways to repeatedly bounce your own stuff or whatever. Even if I got 3 in Limited I dunno if I'd want to stuff my deck full of one-drops. If I could get 4 or 5 I'd try it. I thought going for the Timberpack Wolf deck was pretty fun so I'm glad there's a lot more of that.

Very much liking magic origins, it looks pretty powerful. The merfolk that got spoiled at GP Singapore (where I was this weekend) is extremely good, huge card for modern merfolk.

Just had my worst GP finish ever here, 1-3 drop. And my deck was almost card for card the same as the tournament winner, heh. Lost to Jund, Grixis Twin, and Elves.

Apparently PT:Origins is going to test out a new rule where mulligans come with a free Scry 1 - I like it

pulls a bit of equity away from the risk averse jund-like deck choices which is nice for variety

origins up. my initial impression is that red jumps out as strong. BR aggro looks like it will be v good.

to me this looks like the highest power level set in a while, especially at lower rarities. my main worry for limited is that if the elf or thopter deck all goes to one person at a table they are going to steamroll, kinda like the venerated teacher deck in ROE. elves in particular has a lot of strong cards that the non-elf decks don't want.

anyone prerelease?

also, anyone played Magic Duels, free for iPhone and iPad?

I did a couple prereleases, looks like a promising set. Renown is super powerful, so many creatures need to be killed immediately before you take a hit or you just fall way behind.

Some cards that impressed me:

Rhox Maulers - with trample it's very easy to get this up to a 6/6, which pretty much ends the game

Fetid Imp - evasion lets you get some attacks in without having to trade with your opponents early drops, you can then pivot to defense when a juicy target hits the board

Boggart Brute - the chances of getting in for 3 or 2-for-1ing your opponent with this guy are very high

Prickleboar - 5/3 first strike for 5cc seems very good in this format

Foundry of the Consuls - if you can grab one of these, a 1-of is going to be good in just about any deck, not just Thopters. It's very nice to have in the late game when both players are short on resources, you can sink some mana into it and then start chipping away the last few life points.

this set seems fine, i will certainly draft it but am glad it's a 2 month format since it doesn't seem too deep

good 2-drops and having a smooth curve in general are more important than usual

breaking open stalled games is harder than usual

my intuition from looking at the spoiler was that 2 drops would be important but also decent 2 drops would be thin on the ground, so even the meh commons will be fought over and the nice uncommon 2s that most colours have will probably be premium picks.

can't wait for this to pop up on mtgo.