Magic: The Gathering C/D

i think it's gonna be really slow! like 2/2s for 2 being unplayable slow

in which case card evaluations for gatecrash change a ton, RTR not quite as much

yeah in GTC stuff like Gutter Skulk or Sage's Row Denizen were very maindeckable (even if Sage's Row ability didn't help you at all). this is gonna be a complicated format.

in fact just now I realized that Aurelia allows you to activate Batallion twice

Heh, one of the best parts of Magic is little realizations like that. When I figured out that Harrow gave two instant-speed Landfall activations, I was very happy.

the ridiculous synergy between Ooze Flux and Evolve creatures is another good one

wow, the Boros mythic is yet another anti-Wrath card. doesn't feel like a Mythic at all. the Gruul one does however and is probably my favorite card spoiled so far.

sheesh I thought the card was good before I read 'double strike'

i'm a little confused as to why the Boros one exiles itself - unless there's a degenerate combo there it doesn't seem to do anything but confuse people as to whether or not the enchantment itself comes back (I'm pretty sure it doesn't, but it's kinda ambiguous)

it doesn't, it would be too strong if it did. I think it does mostly for flavor reasons.

like it's 'replacing' the exiled creatures

if it replaced itself it would be kinda unbeatable i think.

Yeah it would be worded differently if they wanted that effect. Seems worse than a Boros Charm to me honestly.

i think that depends on how many people start running terminus again.

boros card looks kind of like a bad boros charm at first and then you start thinking about it and it gets more and more ridiculous

it seems like getting the timing right on it could be tricky

i think you want to play it in a deck that can use it aggressively, not just reactively. rebuy your thragtusk and angel triggers, give your lategame play haste to get in for lethal, even blink your guys out EoT to wrath your opponent's board during your first main before they come back. plus it's a mediocre anthem until you want to use it, which is okay for 2 mana.

it also lets you attack 3 times in a turn with aurelia heh

that thing is disgusting with Thragtusk

rebuy your thragtusk and angel triggers

s0 boring though

yeah i mean i'm not gonna be playing it but i think it has a lot of potential in midrange decks

Eh, it's possible, but flicker effects have tended not to get used unless they do something good on their own (like Resto). Ghostway saw almost no play, for a slightly higher cost. Even pw Venser was barely played. The anthem effect doesn't really help the midrange decks that would want to blink their own creatures. Though I do think the environment for a mass flicker effect is better now than it was during Ghostway's time, with ridiculous shit like Thragtusk.

I like the card best in an aggro deck to dodge Wrath, but Boros Charm does that and more. If Terminus or Merciful Eviction raise in popularity, it looks better, and I guess if the aggro decks start adding more creatures with ETB effects, it gets even better.

boros charm also doesn't have to be in play annoucing that it's dodging the next wrath

announcment or no there's still no real substitute for a wrath effect

i really like the golgari mythic

Seance was my favorite card in Innistrad block so maybe this'll pull me back into Standard. I love how the "mill 10" effect both enables it and prevents it from being too degenerate.

Yeah Chant is my kind of card, love it. Has the possibility of getting broken, but it's just a really cool card on its own.

It definitely has the feeling of something that could be degenerate but I think in R&D's world if it costs 6 mana then it's not really a concern. In general cards like that have a clause like "whenever a card is put into your graveyard, exile it", but since this doesn't, something like Harvest Pyre + Time Warp would be an infinite combo. Oh wow I just realized that Harvest Pyre and Boros Reckoner are both legal in Standard right now.

did you not watch the last pro tour? in the very first standard feature match someone busted that combo out on camera and no one had seen it yet and there was a pretty great 'WTF' reaction

i don't think chant can get broken at 6cmc. i do think there's slight combo potential but a combo with a 6cmc piece isn't going to be 'broken' even in standard

spoiler season really brings home that there are so many magic cards i will never, ever cast

that's true for me for constructed, but i've cast almost every card released in the past 2 years in limited

yeah i meant it more re: standard although there are a lot of GTC cards i never cast. i got bored of GTC too fast and kinda gave up on it before i started exploring. i cast something like 85% of all cards in M13 and RTR though at least once. i think i still have a list of RTR cards i never cast on my computer at home and most of what i was missing were mythics i never managed to open

yeah i stopped keeping those lists, but i think i ended up hitting everything in rtr except armada wurm which i never opened. plus a few really trashy cards like racecourse fury and urban burgeoning

gatecrash i've probably played all the non-terrible commons/uncommons and most of the rares, but yeah i drafted it like half as much as the previous few formats

for some reason i'm more excited than usual about the retro draft week before new set release even though they haven't announced what set it is yet. i'm just praying it isn't old ravnica or onslaught again, they seem to love bringing back those two

notion thief is alright. still feel like this set is short one big chase card but maybe that's because i'm not used to small sets since it's been so long since the last one. i have absolutely no clue what to expect for the last remaining mythic (dimir) but i kind of hope it's a good card and not some sort of 7 mana giant milling monster so that people will shut up about dimir getting shafted.

we've also seen almost zero use of the guild mechanics so i guess that's all on commons/uncommons

well Notion Thief and Whispering Madness seems rather degenerate. not sure how sustainable that is but it's quite a hilarious combo.

i've really liked all the limited cards spoiled so far and have found all the constructed cards super underwhelming

totally agreed, I was expecting a lot of ridiculous "good thing this is only legal for 16 months" cards like the G/W mythic; instead it looks like we're getting a ton of 'build-around' cards based on the types of things that are generally bad constructed strategies

*not that I mind this kind of set at all

MTGO update notes are up. we get shadowmoor drafts this week! and lorwyn during the cube/new-set-not-out-yet period. this is sweet, that's the one remaining block i've never drafted before.

also 4-pack sealed is back

So, they collect 16 extra tix and give out one additional pack? Did they miss the reason why 4-pack was so popular in the first place?

excited for the lorwyn block actually

no, that's probably why they got rid of it in the first place, because it wasn't actually producing any revenue on its own by not consuming tickets

Lorwyn's one of my all-time favorite draft sets, gotta remember to get on mtgo during that time.

yeah i've heard lorwyn was kinda a jam and while i am certainly sick of all current limited formats i dont like cube enough to want to waste my money on it

what did the 4 pack sealed cost previously?

the old 4-pack queue just cost 4 packs, no tickets. this one adds the typical 2 ticket entry fee

o i c

i caved and put more money on my account and have been playing ISD drafts to get my last two (now one!) QPs. now i want to find a way to use angelic overseer as a finisher in a constructed deck even though i realize how terrible that is.

i played it back in december! it was okay until people started playing bonfire again and mizzium mortars which both kill it, awkwardly