Magic: The Gathering C/D

i'd kinda like to play that format again now that i'm thinking about it, but im pretty sure i'm the only one who a) likes that block for draft and b) likes specifically MSS best of the 3 iterations so i probably missed my only chance with the flashbacks last year

Living Weapon was a really cool mechanic. too bad Batterskull pretty much overshadowed everything though

what were the great full, 3-set block draft formats? off hand it's hard to think of any that were clearly better than simply doing 3x the large set, though I tend to like the wackier formats like full Time Spiral block and RTR/GTC/Dragon's Maze.

most 3rd sets have sucked unfortunately so there's no obvious answer to this. invasion block is probably the best but it's a little antiquated when you hold it up against good modern limited sets.

time spiral block was very close but sprout swarm ruined it

journey into nyx is a good 3rd set but it's in a pretty mediocre block. still probably a runner-up.

i've never bought into the hype for either ravnica block, they both had big structural issues in draft. return to ravnica full block was my favorite sealed format ever though.

my favorite draft formats:

invasion block: IPA
kamigawa block: CCC and CCB
time spiral block: TTT and 'fixed' TPF (replace all Sprout Swarms after the draft with Scatter the Seeds from ravnica)
zendikar block: ROE x3
innistrad block: III and DII
M13 x3
ORI x3
shadows block: EES

haven't really cared for any of the masters sets so far but i think a great one is possible. ROE only pulled off the 'bunch of non-intersecting tracks' thing by having most of its archetypes be unusual and new to limited. in a fully retrospective set it works against the experience imo.

please not Infect again. Scars block was fun but that block really was defined by infect and I don't think we need another block like that. I wouldn't mind poison counters coming back in another form, but hard to imagine what that would be if not infect

I'm dipping my toe into modern with burn. It seems that naya isn't really the way to go right now, so will probably be focusing on pretty much straight up R/W with a small splash for Destructive Revelry. I tried my first event last night with more or less this build. Although I didn't do amazing, it felt like every match was very close and often came down to whether I top decked the right thing on the final turn. I think a few tweaks to the deck will help swing this more in my favor. I definitely learned a lot about some of the decks and tricky interactions in the format. My opponents were very nice and helpful, which I appreciated.

oh man i love modern burn

i havent played it in quite a while though so i don't know what the good build is now - last time i played it it had deathrite shaman in it

This type of RW build seems to be doing best right now:

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/573714#paper

The more creature-heavy builds aren't great because of cards like Fatal Push and Collective Brutality. It's also nice to have maindeck Lightning Helix to help mitigate all the damage you do to yourself. Against all the other aggressive decks out there, Helix can buy you that one extra turn to close things out.

One intriguing variation I've been seeing this past week is RB burn with Gonti's Machinations and Bump In The Night:

http://www.channelfireball.com/videos/channel-pmayne-modern-gonti-burn/

yeah bump in the night was in deathrite burn

invasion block is probably the best but it's a little antiquated when you hold it up against good modern limited sets.

It was fun but it had its own 3rd set problem - it pushed hard for allied pairs and 3-color combos in Invasion and Planeshift, then by the time you got to Apocalypse where all the real good stuff was, you suddenly were shifted into enemy pairs, of which you'd only have one. Cards like Lightning Angel were basically unplayable for that reason. As I recall full block Rav had a similar problem.

full block rav the problems were more that the common duals were way too strong to the point where it was correct to take off-color ones over most spells, so everyone ended up with sketchy manabases since the lands didn't fall to the right people. also there were weird color balance issues where e.g. the GW deck in pack 1 was really strong but also a trap, you needed to get like 2/3rds of your deck from pack 1 or you got screwed because it didn't lead into 3 color decks like the others.

RTR fixed those problems by going 5-5-10 instead of 4-3-3 but then they fucked that up by putting most of the linear mechanics in the same set

really hope the saheeli combo gets banned in standard asap

play mardu vehicles and watch them fold

the 4 color build does fine vs mardu (and everything else)

i'm getting completely wrecked in this limited format after crushing 3x KLD

funnily enough i am the exact reverse. i think in KLD i was distracted by drafting decks that were appealing to me to play but only sometimes effective, whereas there are almost no viable options in this format that do not involve smashing face. also, your uncommon run breakout has been a delight.

it's mostly just let me know that green is never open, which i already knew. i think it'd be more valuable in a non-artifact format

knowing that revolutionary and tusker are in the same pack has saved from a bunch of frustrating pack ones

enemy fetches are a go in new Modern Masters

funnily enough i am the exact reverse. i think in KLD i was distracted by drafting decks that were appealing to me to play but only sometimes effective, whereas there are almost no viable options in this format that do not involve smashing face. also, your uncommon run breakout has been a delight.

ditto here. never quite got ahold of KLD, I'd often draft myself into a brick wall and wind up with decks that just didn't work. this format feels a bit more fluid to me. I love that wacky limited decks are suddenly in vogue since that's usually my strong suit. I've been dominating with U/R which is a color combination that's pretty much never Tier 1. IDK if it is here but I've been doing really well with decks that have 2-3x of each Sweatworks Brawler and Aether Swooper. Gear-Smasher is also somewhat vital in that deck.

just from the day 1 info i already suspect that this is going to be a better limited set than the last MM

yeah i like the sound of this so far

goblin guide in, though without the original art sadly

original goblin guide is one of the rare triple threat cards (good card, good art, good flavor text)

my exposure to the idea that the goblin guide art might be beloved for some reason comes from just reading someone speculating that the new art might be on purpose to maintain the price of the original, and now here.

i wish the damnation reprint had really terrible new art, that would've been hilarious.

meanwhile, if i had a deck with terminates, i would go out of my way to get this exact version, in japanese:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C5uHAz5U0AA35PJ.png

i dont understand that art but i like it anyway. the original with the volcano is good too tho

Snapcaster Mage in at mythic

xp both the other versions (that i know anyway) are good actually, but i do really like this one. also the flavour text is apparently 'the sun always sets' in a p cool riposte to sun titan text.

the one thing i know about shards of alara was that the fixing sucked in limited, so it is going to be pretty sweet actually being able to cast those 3/4 mana shard uncommons.

i think i have managed to not put any money on mtgo so far this year so i am v excited to use that as an excuse to piss away a small fortune on this set.

yeah shards was weird, they made a big deal about doing a 3 color set and then just way undershot on the amount of fixing you need to play 3 colors in limited. full block fixed it with landcycling and borderposts and armillary sphere and such but in the first set you had to just play 2 colors with a small splash

new stony silence art also v good imo
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C5xj9aTWYAA-rt0.png

that reminds me of this plains art http://media.wizards.com/2016/images/daily/V9pr1xWOgp_KW_Plains.jpg

ok, im doing my part to get this shit banned http://imgur.com/a/ursDc

so the new modern masters is looking pretty absurd. I've seen some speculation that this is wotc's move to cash out of modern, don't know if there's any truth to that.

this seems like a rare case where buying boxes might actually be good value. is $225 per box worth it or just crazy?

what does "cash out of modern" mean?

basically dump out all the high demand cards in this set and then stop or ramp down their support for modern as a format going forward

interesting. i don't even know what kind of resources they actually commit to modern anymore outside of the masters sets.

LOTV. they really have put everything in this.

modern is popular and not going anywhere. they took it off of the pro tour because it doesn't hype/advertise the current set in the same way as standard does. it will continue to be a GP and PTQ format.

craterhoof too, that card was quietly getting pretty pricey. can finally pick one up for my cube maybe.

don't forget Liliana!

that's what LOTV is

oops missed that post

burning tree emissary at common, look out pauper

also def makes me want to draft this set even more

I don't think wizards will 'cash out of modern' but they're going to run out of exciting modern cards to reprint pretty soon. and by pretty soon I mean 'right now'. not really sure what their plan is for keeping these sets popular.

theres always more modern cards to reprint, next one will go thru khans block which has plenty of stuff to hit. and by then they can start hitting some of the ones from the first MM and they'll be exciting again.

like chalice of the void and engineered explosives could be pushing $80 if theyre not in this one