Magic: The Gathering C/D

what id really like to see is someone get a werewolf deck that works

problem is there are hardly any good werewolves after transformation. moonmist would slay if transformation got more powerful.

apparently the new werewolves in dark ascension are better

morphling was basically the most annoying creature ever, it just seemed unkillable, especially since decks that ran it usually played a lot of counterspells

geist isn't really a format breaker but it's so clearly powerful, a 3 mana creature that can end the game quick on its own and combos with a lot of stuff. like 3 mana creatures that need to be answered right away are so rare.

i haven't really figured out how to make werewolves work but i like reckless waif as a first turn drop given that cockatrice constructed players often don't cast anything on their first turn as their carefully laid trap decks come to fruition

http://www.cardshark.com/images/magic/Promotional%20DCI%20Judge/morphling.jpg

er idk what format that pic is but it was originally urza's saga

Mayor of Avabruck seems very very good on its own. I have a friend who tried the werewolf deck and it simply didn't work, it gives your opponent too much control over what's going to happen

i mean, if you're under pressure, you have to cast spells to deal with it, but if you do your guys remain shit humans. i would guess dark ascension has a few good ones that actually make the deck viable

haha yeah the one time i tried drafting werewolves it turned out p badly. the good cards are just so expensive to get out!

yeah mayor of averbruck is p good. i like kruin outlaws a lot too but yr curve on werewolf decks isnt great and moonmist is hard to time at least for me

vampires are quite good in limited btw - vampiric fury is everywhere and is pretty punchy, and creatures like interloper and markov patrician are strong too. i did one draft where i first-picked a bloodline keeper, then built a solid and super fast deck around it, with like 3 vampiric furies and 3 interlopers. i lost in round 2 though due to some crap pulls :(

don't think i drew the bloodline keeper once in that second round come to think of it

Moonmist is really the only great thing about the deck. Otherwise like I said it really gives your opponent too much power over everything. Kind of the anti-control

i mean i like a lot of the individual werewolf cards and im p into the flavour but its just so slow

w/ the stuff like 'huntmaster of the fells' it looks like setting up a combo/token deck for werewolves

xp - theres one guy at the store i play at that loooves vampires but i havent been so impressed. the group of friends i play casually w/ theres a dude that plays vampires that does well tho w/ olivia volderen and the nobles.

I think I am opposed to this creaturist stuff in principle, it feels un-mtg

but I guess it's been going on for years

the draft deck I was most proud of was a Curse of the Bloody Tome deck, I drafted 5 of those plus 3 dream twists and just tried to turbo mill. It only played 4 creatures, hands down the weirdest draft deck I ever made. It made it to the finals and got CRUSHED by an insanely fast and super-reckless vampire deck that suddenly had no drawbacks against me

I think I am opposed to this creaturist stuff in principle, it feels un-mtg

what do you mean?

the metagame being about creature types instead of that sorta just being an aside

i think outside of limited the metagame isnt really that much abt creatures? idk this is just from browsing forums

yeah i dont know if i agree with that iatee, creature type definitely matters a lot more now but I think that's just part of an overall plan to make more cards that play well with other cards

I think I am opposed eras where creature decks are the most poweful for aesthetic reasons. like there's something more appealing about the highest levels of the game being complicated mostly-spell decks w/ complicated interactions.

anyway just being a complainy oldtimer ignore me

opposed to*

as an old-timey counterspell douchebag i completely agree. arcane rules interactions are sort of aesthetically pleasing in their grotesque way. see match 2 game 2 video here: http://www.channelfireball.com/home/running-the-gauntlet-esper-vs-8-player-queues/

the problem is that "complicated mostly-spell decks w/ complicated interactions" don't allow for much interactivity from the opponent (whereas creatures can be dealt with/manipulated in many ways) so it kind of removes a lot of the skill component.

also, the creatures themselves (and the cards that interact with them) are getting much more sophisticated ; I have a deck that runs like 26 creatures that's probably the most complex and intricate type 2 deck I've ever made

I think the opposite is true actually - creatures are (eventually) on the board and so most of the time what you do with them is going to be fairly predictable, whereas your hand is hidden so there's a certain poker element

i guess id have to know what kind of decks youre talking about. its just when you say that I think about Trix (the Delusions/Donate deck) and ProsBloom, both decks that were just like "I'm going off now, gg"

yeah when i tried playing the new phyrexia set i feel like there was still a lot of like 6 creature cawblade decks that ran a bunch of complicated spells so ive really like how innistrad plays conceptually. theres something p satisfying abt getting to build a board w/o constantly having to worry abt counters

but ive enjoyed the sheer variety of possible deck builds this set and there are def like mill decks and burning vengeance that arent creature focused

nah I don't necessarily mean combo decks more just eras where the strongest decks are spell based vs. eras where the strongest decks are creature based

I think I just like the mindgame aspect, the 'I'm a wizard, you're a wizard, let's assume this will take a long time and there will be a lot of subtle moves and decisions'. but this is just taking things back to lamp's sandbox poll about why my favorite color is obv blue.

like counterspells might be annoying but I think they add a huge decision-making element to the game

yeah I like Innistrad too, just wish they never printed Nihil Spellbomb as that destroys like half the cool decks you can build with that set and it's only a one mana artifact. which sucks because as far as a "graveyard-based" set it's so much more complicated than stuff like "get 7 cards in your graveyard for +2/+2"

on the other side of that there's nothing more unpleasant than playing against a control deck that's absolutely destroying you because you mulliganned twice or got Wrathed pretty badly, only you don't actually lose until 10 turns down the road...

that said, those games were very awesome in the old 250-card 5-color format

I definitely get a rush playing Black Lotoses and Ancestral Recalls n shit on Cockatrice

yo i am excited for dark ascension. i'm getting really into G/W. i think mayor of avabruck is gonna be the block's sleeper, with all the human tokens coming out. my G/W deck is doing okay with just mild synergies - i am doing cheap token strategy with geist-honored monk, midnight haunting, and intangible virtue, but also cranking out wolves with the mayors. throw in some cheap werewolves and pump them all with gavony township. then parallel lives for fun. it's been going ok so far and i think when i can switch from spirits to humans i will be able to get the most out of those mayors.

blasphemous act kills my deck

erm... Darmok?

played the prerelease on saturday. got almost no sleep the night before and was super exhausted and everything took forever to happen so i left before they finished (went 1-2). the guy sitting across from me pulled the big DA planeswalker and an isolated chapel so i was stupidly kinda bummed from the start. wish i had more fun but i won some boosters so it paid for itself, mostly

planeswalkers seem like they'd be pretty broken in sealed play

well this was my first sealed tournament but the format seems too fast for them to really work.

I did the one locally and went 3-1. Won the first 3 and nearly won the 4th - I had 11 2/2 tokens out plus some flyers and couldn't imagine how I was going to lose, then my opponent plays a card that literally removed all my stuff from the game for one turn and swung in for the win. That thing is so nasty.

I haven't seen too much of the set yet but my first impression is that the "undying" creatures seem very nasty and possibly very good in standard. My pick for the sleeper of the set is "Increasing Savagery", which gives a creature 5 +1/+1 counters for 2GG and can be flashbacked to add 10 counters (for like 7-8 mana). Normally this would suck but green has a bunch of creatures now that are tough to kill right now.

I got the planeswalker too and am desperately trying to trade or sell it while it's $50+. Seems very good in a token-based deck but otherwise it's very underwhelming. W/B tokens looks really good (especially with the flashbacker that makes flyers) but it also seems like it's going to get absolutely stomped by cards like Ratchet Bomb.

are any of you guys interested in doing a draft/tournament online for one of the newer sets (maybe Innistrad)?

I got the planeswalker too

fuck you

dont feel too bad. it's going to tank hard.

haha i got one too, my first time pulling a money card at a prerelease

if the tokens deck is real it's not gonna tank too much, keep in mind that the next set is going to be a standalone, so this one's only going to be drafted/opened for a few months. this is what happened with Jace the Mind Sculptor in Worldwake, tho obv this one's not nearly as good.

the next set is a standalone? is it still part of Innistrad block?

IMO you can't really compare Jace, as the card's power level was so high that it was playable in basically every blue deck, and not just in Standard. I mean Lilliana's only $30 and she seems good enough to play in other formats. Whereas Sorin only looks good in one potential Standard deck. I just can't see a Black/White planeswalker getting enough play to justify a $25+ price tag.

yeah it's still part of the block story-wise, but it's a large set with new/different mechanics and will be drafted by itself. basically the same deal as Rise of the Eldrazi a couple years ago.

ahhh, cool. ever since Coldsnap I never had any idea what was going on with the block structure. crazy how much I was worried back in like Kamigawa block that they were running out of ideas, and they responded by printing way more new and well-designed cards every year

yeah i think it's sweet because i love triple-large-set draft formats and don't really like full block draft formats with the exception of Ravnica block

exactly - I loved the way Ravnica came together but stuff like the Scars block where you'd suddenly be pushed into doing blue/white infect knowing that there would be nothing for you in the next 2 packs was pretty awkward. but I do like 2/1 drafts with a large and a small

for me it's mostly that being able to consistently get certain cards esp. uncommons makes drafting various gimmicky archetypes a lot easier. like in 3x Innistrad draft, there's a real deck you can draft that plays out like this:

step 1: play out a bunch of defensive creatures to stall the game
step 2: mill your entire deck into your graveyard until you have no cards left
step 3: on your upkeep before you'd draw from an empty deck and lose, flash back Memory's Journey to put Runic Repetition into your deck and draw it.
step 4: use Runic Repetition to get back Memory's Journey

at this point you can use Memory's Journey and Runic Repetition to draw whatever card you want each turn. Now you can play Gnaw to the Bone to gain 20+ life if you're close to dead, then loop Spider Spawning to make enough tokens to kill them.

it sounds like someone's weirdo casual combo deck but you can actually draft this, and it actually works! and stuff like this is really only possible in a 3x large set format when you have the maximum number of chances at getting the important cards