Magic: The Gathering C/D

evoke and convoke are definitely the most robust mechanics that they haven't brought back a 2nd time yet

i don't think they're going to do monocolor-matters while a ravnica block is in standard.

So after complaining endlessly that I never get to draft GTC, I finally did a GTC draft last night and got absolutely crushed. My mediocre Gruul deck plus general state of exhaustion didn't get me very far. Noted for next time: drafting multiple copies of Foundry Street Denizen, Bomber Corps, and Scorchwalker = bad idea.

On the plus side, I completed my playsets of Stomping Ground, Temple Garden, and Hallowed Fountain. So I got that going for me, which is nice.

all in one draft?

Noooo.... I pulled a stomping ground in draft and finished off the others through trades and whatnot.

so i didn't technically win the gpt i played in today. but i got the byes anyways. it helps being actually willing to go to these things. now i have to learn modern for gp portland. pretty excited.

well I just botched hardcore against KARL THE MAILMAN MALONE by playing Immortal Servitude for 5 with a full graveyard and returning NOTHING - turns out it just gets X, not "X or less", what the hell kind of shit card is that

yeah I had assumed the same thing when I first saw it

yeah servitude is p garbage esp in limited

also cider if yr reading this gl w/the ptq - solid start at least :D

Huh pretty sure I played Immortal Servitude wrong at the prerelease.

haha thanks lamp but i am dead - started 4-0 then lost the next 2, number of entrants was 1 less than the 10 round cutoff so x-2 was dead

i've had that card in 3 limited decks now (mostly out of necessity) and I guess I've never actually played it for any more than 0 (as an extort trigger). holy cow is it awful

i think you can play it in orzhov decks with lots of 2-drops. but yeah - a luxury card tho

Anyone playing in F.O.O.L.S today/tonight? So upset if this is a joke.

yeah I totally hope it's not a joke - if it's a joke it's not remotely funny

what is this you speak of??

btw fennel...how many GTC packs you got?

ahhh ok. I see what this is. very cool and the prize payout is really good for 6 tickets. i doubt this is just a joke

the 10 packs are obviously going to be Apocalypse Planeshift Ravnica Invasion Lorwyn Futuresight Odyssey Onslaught Legions Scourge

ie the era of magic I have 0 familiarity with

let's say I wanted to prepare for this a little bit, with that in mind. suggestions?

i hope this becomes an actual format someday. MTGO's big advantage over paper is that you can do stuff like this, but off-the-wall formats like this seem to come along so rarely.

to prepare yourself - I really don't know what to say. I've done formats like this before. there's a reason you're getting 10 packs.

good removal was a lot more common in that era, but on-board 2-for-1s (i.e. flametongue kavu, nekrataal, shriekmaw, etc) were still insane in limited so those are what i'd look for. not knowing exactly what sets are going to be in makes it hard to give specific advice

I guess we'll find out 3pm east coast?

obviously linear set mechanics become much worse with mixed sets. all the threshold cards and discard outlets in odyssey block are probably not great

same with the tribal synergies in onslaught block

i'll probably play the one at 9pm est i guess

yeah that's the only time that works for me too

maybe I'm reading it wrong but it feels like everyone just gets 10 random sets from MTGO's history? Maybe even including Masters Edition?

the old adage of Bombs, Removal, Evasion...etc is probably best here

at my store we used to do drafts and odd events like this all the time. all I remember is that Kamigawa is really, really awful for this.

I played a format like this once irl and it was a lot less interesting than I was expecting. With so many packs, the decks were all about the same power level and there was rarely any synergy. A lot of cards that could normally be good were unplayable because of lack of support, which made deckbuilding straightforward. I think you'll do best if you focus on power/card advantage and ignore synergy, as boring as that is.

feel like w/ 10 packs there will def be decks that have synergies

there'll be card-to-card level synergies but like if you get a timberwatch elf you're not going to be able to crush people with it like you could in onslaught

Right, Timberwatch Elf is exactly the kind of card I'm thinking about. There's a lot of build-around cards like that that aren't worth it in a random pack format. You might even get 6-7 other Elfs, but unless the power level of those Elves match your best cards on their own (very unlikely in 10 packs), you will want to cut the Timberwatch.

The event I played was 7 pack sealed, using one of all the standard legal sets at the time (Zendikar-New Phyrexia). I shouldn't say there was no synergy; some people were lucky enough to make an infect deck out of 3 packs and do ok with it. But most of the people at the top had very bland decks.

frogbs you're the one who wanted to play corpsejack menace in standard, right? well here is the deck for you:
https://twitter.com/Grapplingfarang/status/318720849354035200

I'm a fan!!

btw Maro's article today is really good. because it seems very plausible at first, but just gets slightly odder with each paragraph. I was like halfway through before I realized "oh yeah, this may not be for real"

i thought it was dumb and obvious!

yeah maybe my april fools vision is on a little too strong but there was no way I was gonna read a maro article today and take it seriously

Didn't they announce one of the Un-sets on April 1st? Maro's article was pretty strange, those changes are really not implausible at all. Yeah, I know that that's the joke, but I guess I don't see the point of April Fools without being a little outlandish. I was skeptical throughout, realizing what day it was, but at the end I wondered if I would actually care about these changes. For all I know, it might improve the game! The challenge flags thing was way funnier.

In fact, for one set I would like them to try the max 11 words of rules text for commons.

the 10 packs are obviously going to be Apocalypse Planeshift Ravnica Invasion Lorwyn Futuresight Odyssey Onslaught Legions Scourge

― ciderpress, Monday, April 1, 2013 9:13 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

apparently it actually is this except P is Planar Chaos and S is Saviors of Kamigawa

pretty happy they got the saviors pack in there, that's an excellent addition to any unworkable sealed pool

okay...commons of note? any abilities I can't learn in 5 seconds?

for some reason I thought Maro had already done his April Fool's thing. I had my suspicions but the "plan" was so detailed that I let my guard down a bit - a lot of the things mentioned are mechanics that new players really do have problems with

well you can probably safely ignore the saviors pack for starters

Shaper Parasite from Planar Chaos is a really good common. can't think of any other 187 effects at common in these sets but there's probably some i'm forgetting. Dead Ringers from Apocalypse actually gets better in this format, and also no one knows what it does because it's worded so horribly.

Mulldrifter from Lorwyn is really good obviously

i am work what all is going on now?

april fools sealed queues

yeah found it - is anyone else actually playing them? as someone p new to magic how feasible will playing this be? idk why i'm being so cheap about 6 tickets but i suspect i will be compelled to play this when i get home and have almost no fun playing this. lol @ me

as someone p new to magic how feasible will playing this be?

It'll be a lot of reading. I don't know how fun it would be unless you know the cards.

Sprout Swarm from Future Sight is another insane common, way better than it looks. Like Pack Rat, it can quickly win the game on its own.

this would have been so much better if they gave you an hour to make your deck

I just went GB cause I had nasty removal in B and decent elfy creatures in G. splash red for one removal spell. probably had a pretty viable 4 color deck w/ all my elfy fixing but I didn't even look at my blue or white.

my best card is 4BB aura - you put it on their creature or land and they have to sac it eot and put it on another creature or land