Magic: The Gathering C/D

Ok so on my second attempt I natural ordered for a progenitus on turn 3 which was kind of fun (for me anyway). 1-2 again, but I thought my deck had a bit more going for it this time.

I drafted a pretty horrible deck and went 3-0 with it, then turned around and 0-3'd what I thought was a pretty good Esper control deck, though in my defense I was constantly playing against opponents with 2-3 power 9 cards who drew them every single game. Though there's a ton of skill involved in this the variance is off the charts.

yeah the 'lose to fast power / channel / snt' openings are unfortunately just losses you have to suck up. one year the last cube I did involved me losing to black lotus -> tnn on the draw, so for a second there was nothing but a huge TNN on the battlefield. I was like 'I think I'm done with this for a while'. incidentally, I actually had those two cards in my deck last night but never got that start.

TNN is slightly underrated in cube, the least fair fair card. not really a p1 or p2 or worth forcing your draft around, but I don't think it should ever wheel.

yeah "protection from target player" has got to be the most obnoxious ability ever printed on a creature

thus far my favorite match came vs. a reanimator deck, where both games I used Puppeteer Clique to kill him with his own creatures, and one game I cast Necromancy in response to his own in other to prevent him from getting his Grieselbrand

my legacy deck (death and taxes) is notoriously weak to the card and I think it's one of the dumbest things to ever be printed. I think the protection should have been templated as an ETB trigger...that would allow your opponent exactly one moment to deal with it, similar to mother of runes.

my favorite match was me playing storm, opponent plays lotus t2 tamiyo and keeps upticking. he vamps (presumably for force of will) and yawg wills his lotus back the turn after. I have a frozen magus of the will that I dark ritualed onto the table. he's tapped out with a lotus. I cast wheel of fortune with two mana untapped. he begrudingly force of wills (turn away from having infinite fows) - I force spike - he's not willing to crack his lotus again to pay, since he at least wants infinite lotuses next turn. I draw into a land and time walk, get an extra turn and now have magus of the will unfrozen, yawg will my yard up and win.

also had a wildfire/upheaval deck where this was my t2:

http://i.imgur.com/xiXyTqF.jpg

I too often get starts like that where my one PW/creature gets killed or countered and then I topdeck lands forever. Hopefully you topdecked some 13cc artifact on turn 3

yeah I drew into Batterskull and Upheavaled after he Treacheried my germ, then playing 2 Batterskulls to an empty board

these new legendary artifacts seem busted, would like them both to be put in the holiday cube immediately.

Paradox Engine doesn't seem quite as ridiculous as Jeskai Ascendancy, but could do some interesting stuff. Planar Bridge is very expensive, but we definitely needed more ways to cheat Emrakuls into play.

Planar Bridge seems like it would fit in Tron pretty well.

does replacing 1 or more of your threats with a card that lets you find specific threats really improve the deck? You still have to find your Planar Bridge to make this work. Does Tron even really care which threat you have, pretty much any big card ends the game quickly. Planar Bridge takes 2 turns to be effective, 1 to cast and 1 to activate. I'd rather just have my Karn or Ugin in hand.

that planar bridge can find and dump a new threat every turn is the thing that makes it interesting. maybe overkill but an interesting wrinkle all the same.

the fact that paradox engine untaps everything but lands is surely going to give it way more application/potential then jeskai ascendancy.

5 mana is a lot for a combo card

planar bridge is at the very least *playable* in tron, though I think what the deck plays as finishers doesn't 'really matter'

also - I hate tron so much

fetch Omniscience, go to town

really happy with AER previews so far, looks like an impactful set for constructed

New mechanics seem like they'll make the Puzzleknots a lot better in Limited, at least

Inspirational Monuments seems potentially broken, considering it functions as a mana rock itself it seems better than it looks. Guessing they won't let themselves get burned like they did with Affinity but at least we got Ornothopter!

ooh I like this card a lot

http://mythicspoiler.com/aer/cards/rishkarsexpertise.html

Mechanized Production seems really cool - I missed at first that the "8 copies" condition could apply to any artifact, not just the one enchanted. So it could be Servos or Clues or Eldrazi Spawn or whatever.

seems totally broken w/ servos. i guess blue not a servo colour and card is not really a splash.

spawn/scions are not artifacts tho

idk about 'totally broken' but that seems like the most easily doable alternate win in limited since Azor's Elocutors

well i was initially just surprised that they would put it in a set with servos but on the one hand it's blue like i said and on the other it actually isn't really in a super heavy servo set because AER looks to have far fewer kicking about. in triple KLD tho it would be p trivial to build around this to get 8 servos in play.

you can just remove the servo its on though, plenty of 'counterplay'

no talk about black lighting bolt? will it revolutionize modern / see some play / basically change nothing?

1 mana instant kill for goyf thru tks seems like it will have some application?

for this limited otoh it could really be a common

xp if you mean fatal push, then yeah it's clearly a constructed staple in all formats. seems like it has the biggest potential impact on modern.

in the current race-to-the-bottom modern metagame it's really close to a path to exile without the downside

2 more days worth of previews and they're still all great wtf is going on

wow @ Gifted Aetherborn, that's a pretty powerful uncommon

the cards seem strong in general and also kind of all over the place. lots going on

yeah the part i like is they're all narrow effects, theres no smugglers copter here that's obviously going to step on the toes of everything else

the blue Expertise is worrying though, that's the sort of card that could invalidate a lot of stuff if it ends up being good in standard

dunno if it's in the same league as Copter but Aethersphere Harvester seems really good

I could see that Expertise being pretty sweet in my Panharmonicon deck

yeah harvester is quite good

I dig the "you may play a card costing X or less from your hand" mechanic a lot, seems like a fixed version of the Urza's Saga "free" spells

i think about half of the currently previewed cards ought to see standard play, which is an incredible rate.

severely disappointed in them reprinting Atog but not calling it Atog

on the other hand, a legendary pirate that produces a monkey token

geist of saint traft has fallen on hard times

that whole legendary creature cycle is going straight into my cube, they're all fantastic

anyone else gonna be at gp louisville?

Man I love that 3/4 green elephant for G. I get nostalgic for Rogue Elephant every time they print a 3 power creature for G, but this one actually seems good. I love that you can beat down or do some energy shenanigans, with some restrictions (I know you can't go above 2 energy with it)

full set is up: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/card-image-gallery/aether-revolt

man, that was fast

"Caught in the Brights", looooool

http://media.wizards.com/2016/c1lRLirbrl_AER/en_50506d5iUZ.png
this guy can one-shot people if you have a wandering fumarole

whoa, that is a strange ability to put on a card

interesting! am i crazy to think this is one of the best build arounds we have seen for a while:
http://media.wizards.com/2016/c1lRLirbrl_AER/en_T6xS2dXGa4.png

did you miss the part where you sac it? i wouldn't call it a build-around, it's more of a niche tool for black energy & revolt decks.

oh lol. i knew something didn't add up. that would be ridiculous.