Magic: The Gathering C/D

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.

so i did the math on these new constructed payouts on MTGO, assuming 1 booster pack = 40 play points which would be MSRP; in actuality it'll probably still be less but since the payouts are no longer 100% in packs now they have more stability relative to pack prices.

Daily Event - 1920 points in, 1800 points out per 16 players for a rake of 6.25%
8-man - 480 points in, 440 points out for a rake of 8.33%
2-man - 40 points in, 35 points out for a rake of 12.5%

-DEs will still be the best value event but not by nearly as big a margin over queues as before, you'll likely now need a ~55% winrate to break even rather than 50%
-Queues will be a better option than before unless packs rebound all the way up to store value in which case they'll be slightly worse

Wizards confirmed that there will be no Fetchlands in Battle for Zendikar, but there will be full-art lands, plus a new cycle of rare duals.

this was interesting i thought. 27 cards (17 creatures) what do you cut?

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

lost r1 obv

if you had 1 or 2 more husks that deck would be A+, as is it's still good

easy cuts:
Dark Petition - this card is just too slow for the format, there are fringe spots it might work but this is far from being one of them
Avaricious Dragon - i don't think this card is playable except in a hyper-aggro deck, there's too many ways for it to lose you the game
Mage Ring Bully - not a good card

last cut is probably Firefiend Elemental but i'd have to see the curve laid out to be sure

having never played with or against avaricious dragon i decided that was going in regardless and i tried to make the deck faster to accommodate, cutting skyraker, petition, unholy hunger and ignition. i never really got a chance to play so i can't say how that would've worked out. if i was playing it 100% straight i wouldn't have put dragon in, the way the curve ended up. i wasn't sure about ignition, most of the creatures are so small. it seems wrong to not play it if you can but i bailed on the decision in the end. i guess sac your board to husk and then ignition is going to be a sick blowout one way or the other.

BFZ mechanics are

Eldrazi side:
Devoid (this card has no color)
Ingest (whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, exile the top card of that player's library)
plus stuff that interacts with colorlessness and exiled opponents cards

Zendikar side:
Awaken X - an alternate cost on spells that adds turning one of your lands into an X/X creature to the spell
Landfall - same as it ever was
plus Allies but probably with a different main mechanic this time rather than ETB triggered ability hell

actual cards are in this article http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/arcana/duel-decks-zendikar-vs-eldrazi-2015-08-17

hmm ingest sounds kind of cool, depending on what the associated shenanigans are. i am sure maro had a tantrum about building a mechanic around using cards from exile. also, ingest and awaken feel quite 'new' in a way recent mechanics haven't.

maro is the lead designer of the set so i think he's probably ok with this implementation of it - eldrazi are supposed to break the 'rules' of the game anyway

other news: Constructed leagues are apparently going to release on modo alongside BFZ. should be nice, as long as the entry/prizes are consistent with the current queues

Do people generally like landfall? It's always seemed pretty miserable to me - a mechanic that makes missing your land drops feel even worse than it already does.

Really like the other mechanics though.

Yeah but it makes drawing lands late in the game that you don't need a lot better, so it's a horse apiece. You usually play 18 land in Limited so that isn't as much of a problem - my issue with it was that there was a lot of creatures that got a boost with landfall which created a very aggro-oriented game, since the attackers were almost always better than the defenders.

yeah i assume they've learned from their mistakes and aren't going to make more Plated Geopedes. the landfall creatures that were on curve stats-wise and just got a keyword ability or non-combat bonus from the landfall (e.g. Surrakar Marauder, Grazing Gladeheart, Geyser Glider) actually played pretty well since if you were stuck on lands they could still block on curve - the mistakes were the cards like the Plated Geopede cycle which were well below curve without landfall and well above curve with it