Magic: The Gathering C/D

imo surveil, at least how it has been implemented in this set, is too strong and dimir is the clear strongest guild as a result. mostly i think the problem is that it doesn't have a cost - it's put on cards that could easily be, or that we've actually seen recently, at the same rate without it.

that's fair though...Dimir was super weak in Gatecrash, which was kinda nice since everyone knew it was weak so it was always open

I didn't even feel like 'dimir is always open' got you much, since the best dimir deck was at par with an okay boros deck

but yeah, surveil as an ability is just 'you get way better card selection' which is already pure upside, you don't have to do anything to make that good. but then they loaded a bunch of bonuses on top of that (and this creature gets bigger!)

so far the dimir decks I've played have weirdly felt like blue decks in legacy. half the deck is card selection so you never draw another land when you don't want to, and you have a massive amount of virtual card advantage (plus actual card advantage with that 2/3 common, disinformation campaign etc.) I haven't figured out whether that means you can cheat on lands and go down to 16 sometimes, since you can generally burn through your deck to find lands when you need to. but at the same time dimir removal is expensive and maybe you just want to ensure you hit your early land drops, and surveil is your flood insurance, so maybe you play even more lands. or maybe these things cancel out and you play 17 lands.

but yeah, surveil as an ability is just 'you get way better card selection' which is already pure upside, you don't have to do anything to make that good. but then they loaded a bunch of bonuses on top of that (and this creature gets bigger!)

yep, plus I think they have a high percentage of cards that surveil or get bonuses. seems like every Dimir deck will be a Surveil deck and will want the build-arounds, whereas Golgari can go Undergrowth or not, Izzet doesn't want every Jump-start card, etc. Dimir seems like the clear best guild, but I've also played this set zero times so far so my opinion is totally unqualified

yeah that's what i was getting at with my previous post, dimir is the only guild in this set where this iteration of it is more exciting than its versions in the previous 2 ravnicas and it feels like they've seriously overcompensated for gatecrash

like even just looking through the card file before playing anything gave the impression that this is The Dimir Set, their mechanic shows up way more than the 10-12ish cards guild mechanics usually get

just to back up my point, # of cards with mechanic word on them in large rav sets:

RAV
convoke - 15
radiance - 10
dredge - 12
transmute - 12

RTR
populate - 11
overload - 12
detain - 9
scavenge - 10
unleash - 11

GTC
battalion - 11
cipher - 11
bloodrush - 11
extort - 11
evolve - 11

GRN
convoke - 14
jump-start - 10
undergrowth - 12
mentor - 13
surveil - 28

real curious what their internal justification was for this big of a break with the rav formula for a single guild

Could be they see it as a replacement for cycling in standard, a plentiful way to smooth out draws, and reduce the luck factor a bit.

yeah I don't think it's fair to compare surveil - which is really just scry - to stuff like populate and cipher

the problem isn't that it's everywhere, the problem is that the payoffs seem a little too good and the cards are undercosted. you don't need a payoff for scrying.

yeah i think if there was one payoff card at each rarity it'd be fine but there's like 5 uncommon ones which is insane

just have the spybug and the enchantment that +2s your surveils, that's enough

convoke - 14
jump-start - 10
undergrowth - 12
mentor - 13
surveil - 28

Jeez, this is nuts

And I know that they intend for Izzet and Golgari decks to use Surveil cards too, but still that's so out of balance

can't believe they printed a red tarmogoyf this rules so much

Feeling really smart right now. I've been playing Deafening Clarion in all my standard decks since rotation and only just realized I can choose both modes.

Not really your fault, it's a very unintuitive card. Seems like one of those cards Maro would use as an example of poor card design

I only figured out Soul-Scar Mage allows you to kill Hazoret and Rhonas AFTER the PT, long after I had dismissed the card for being underpowered

There have been literally dozens of times when I've cast it lamented not be able to use both modes, especially with my jeskai drakes deck.

So Revitalize is essentially Cryptic Command printed at common for 1W, huh?

it's no runeboggle

I don't know 3 mana for force spike/draw seems pretty steep, lol

they're making some major organized play announcement tied in with the game awards tonight which i assume means a mtg arena based pro circuit

Intriguing, I've been playing a huge amount of arena, it's been a real game changer for me. I don't really play other video games, but I'm planning to get a cheap graphics card just to give it a bit of a boost. If there ends up being real competitive play on there, I may well need to step it up.

yeah pro-level arena tournaments seems inevitable, the question is how hard they're willing to go both in terms of $ and in terms of replacing the pro tour / gps as a focus point for the game.

it would honestly be good for spectators, the twitch overlay for arena that pops up all the card images seems like a big deal for getting the game watchable for lapsed or less invested players

Arena has been a boon for magic streamers, I think people will absolutely tune into high level Arena competitions.

Wow, shit ton of changes. I was gonna joke that MTGA tournaments will eventually spell the end of the PT as we know it, but they went way beyond what I thought they would, almost completely changing the pro structure. And back to 4 PTs, lol

how's MTGO been lately? should I think about selling out?

It has to be pretty jarring for pros the way they constantly go back and forth on these decisions.

xp yeah seems like the value of cards is dropping a lot, queues not firing, etc. I haven't been on it much, just reading what players are saying

wait does this undo the new 6 PT system they just made earlier this year?

that's some whiplash

just peeped some MTGO prices and wow

my account has a bunch of playpoints in it, what do you do with those? just sell the account and someone takes over? how could I do such a thing?

you could just enter a bunch of sealed leagues or drafts and convert the play points into cards & then sell. idk how much of a market there is for accounts

I have like 7000 of them, this might take a long time :)

Cardhoarder has apparently even stopped buying tickets or singles for cash (temporarily), so I don't know if you would get a lot for your acct

I've got like 100 tix left, and I'll probably try to just play a bunch of cube from here on out. If everyone's going to Arena for the new sets, they won't be able to justify keeping MTGO online for more than a year longer, I think. Not enough money flowing into the system

there's probably a nonzero chance they'll "buy out" old MTGO accounts if they really do intend on shutting it down

i have like a standard and a modern deck's worth of tix on there, just gonna wait it out i think since i dont think anyones gonna buy at a good price right now and if i can get a shitload of arena currency for it then thats fine with me

yeah pro-level arena tournaments seems inevitable, the question is how hard they're willing to go both in terms of $ and in terms of replacing the pro tour / gps as a focus point for the game.

prediction: serious rules overhaul in the next year which makes the game more arena-friendly

What kind of rules changes do you have in mind?

if it were up to me the two big ones would be to vastly simplify combat and to merge untap/upkeep/draw

magic has a lot of dumb rules but 'phases are too weird and complicated' are the most relevant to arena

yeah there's at least 3 priority

err priority passes per turn that you can just get rid of without really impacting the game much

Would love to merge untap/upkeep/draw, but I think that's basically saying Arena will never have older cards

End of combat seems like an easy one to eliminate though. Yes, it affects play but the times you need to do something end of combat are quite rare

Have been enjoying Arena. Haven't experienced any bugs personally since the beta opened and they're making incremental improvements the whole time. Meanwhile, I fired up mtgo for the first time in a while for UMA and filed for reimbursement on my first event.

start of combat can be eliminated too, it does affect gameplay in that you have to use tappers before the opponent's last chance to play things precombat but if we're already streamlining the game with major functional changes then i think it's fine. you could even get rid of the priority pass between declare attacks and declare blocks without changing the core gameplay of magic combat though it would have bigger ramifications than the others

birthing pod is back baby

WE'RE EXCITED WE GET TO MAKE THIS ANNOUNCEMENT! IN LEAGUE WITH DRAGONS: THE CURE FOR SUMMONING SICKNESS. 12 NEW SONGS FROM @mountain_goats, WHO PLEDGE THE OATH OF THE COWL PROWLER. RELEASED 4/26 AND AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW AT https://t.co/m9O2ZdSkx7. pic.twitter.com/FqrHtQFn3O

— Magic: The Gathering (@wizards_magic) January 28, 2019

that was a surprising ilx in real life moment for me