Magic: The Gathering C/D

i wasn't trying to insinuate anything! i just mean that you know, any neighborhood is gonna have its own particularities re: travel to other boroughs or neighborhoods, but that's no reason not to take a book on the train for 45 minutes imo.

also, iatee, i think i may have to bail on u tonight. i cannot find my cards anywhere & it is making me crazy. gonna keep looking and will let u know if i succeed. if NOT, i will 100% absolutely make sure to have found them by next week.

the real question i have, is: what is the possbility I accidentally threw them away while moving? idk. i DID find part of a "rebel" deck in a tote bag though, so that gives me hope. also wonder where my binder with raers is

if only it was 45 minutes. more like an hour to an hour and a half. and esp since a lot of these MTG events went until late at night it wasn't practical getting home so late

sux alright keep me updated

cards still not located.

really annoying!!! worried that i threw them out while moving??

but i also feel like they cld be in a tote bag somewhere buried within another bag or box or under a pile of stuff .

so i entered a deck in one of their weekly deck-making competitions

what competition? something on the website?

going to midnight prerelease tonight, because 3 months is just long enough for me to forget how awful it is to be at the game store until 6am

Anyone play in this thing? I did and went 2-2; suspected I got a pretty crappy card pool, as I didn't have any playable rares nor any of the real swingy uncommons that dominated me in the matches I lost. That's the impression I got from this set - lots of haymakers, possibly more degenerate things than I've ever seen in limited, and a surprisingly small amount of removal (believe it or not, blue seems like it'll have the easiest time dealing with creatures this time around)

It looks like Gx Soulbound, W/U flickering, and W/R aggro are all going to be the top limited decks, though Black has some very good aggro cards as well (and you can play Angels if you get the right stuff). IMO this set is pretty terrible for Sealed (as you will likely wind up with 15-16 cards towards all those decks and really have to stretch if you don't get the right card pool), but draft should be really fun.

yeah i went 4-1 with a U/R tempo deck that had good commons/uncommons but no 'haymakers', so i think i had the opposite impression of the set. Except for the one match I lost to Dark Impostor (had no way to deal with a card that wins the game outside of combat) I felt pretty invincible, since I think about 90% of the room completely misjudged the format as slow when it's actually very fast.

i played on sat. i was up 3-1 but i badly misplayed during my final match to finish 3-2. i had 4-5 really solid cards in each color but also lots of total jank so i had a hard time putting together a really solid deck, i ended up going W/R/u humans splashing blue for ghostly flicker, bruna and the 1U unblockable spell. flicker effects and all the excellent etb red cards is really powerful and i probably shouldve gone 3-0 with that deck. my first attempt was with W/U control ft. bruna, a bunch of enchantments and some really good UU cards but i just didnt have enough creatures/removal to make it work and switched after going 1-1.

idk i thought this was a really fun sealed environment - might try to play the actual release next sunday.

well Soulbond is by nature a very swingy mechanic. since my deck had virtually no removal (as I opened almost none) some of the green ones would just destroy me, especially the +4/+4 one which essentially added 12 extra power for five mana. in general I think this set is designed to do very powerful things in Limited. the flickering + 2/2 flying bounce guy gets out of hand quick (the four mana "bounce two creatures" sorcery is also insanely good), and R/W can deal a ton of damage quick as a big % of those commons and uncommons are designed to be played together. add to this the miracles and abundance of huge flying Angels and things get a bit unhinged.

just did my first AVN draft yesterday, as expected it was really fun, and maybe the most complex draft format yet.

first pick was Vexing Devil (which I thought kind of sucked in draft, but it's worth $15 so I'm not passing it) and was able to go mono-red. dunno how much detail I want to go into here but it really feels like there is so much synergy with the Red humans here. Thatcher Revolt is the deck's bread and butter - kind of terrible on its own, but it interacts with SO MUCH in this set. I managed a turn 4 kill with two of them, which I've never done in a draft before.

drafting a fast deck seems like a good strategy - flicker is slow and soulbound is very susceptible to removal. put a premium on 1 and 2 drops (trust me. there aren't many).

okay, here's another observation - this is one of the most removal-lite draft sets I've ever seen. very little "straight" removal at common. I sorted by commons and found everything that can deal with a creature - it's not pretty

White:
Defang - kinda crappy, essentially just reduces a creature's power to 0, but doesn't stop any abilities and can be flickered away
Righteous Blow - great card, but it only does 2 damage

Blue:
Mist Raven - great card but it only bounces
Crippling Chill - only stalls a creature for a turn
Peel from Reality - more bounce, kinda have to build around cards like this
Spectral Prison - this one actually seems okay, but would need to be sided out a lot

Black:
Bone Splinters - this is the ONLY common that actually says "destroy target creature" on it, so it's very good, even if it's card disadvantage
Death Wind - can kill anything, but you almost always pay more for it than the creature you're destroying
Ghoulflesh - sideboard at best
Undead Executioner - pseudo-removal, definitely good but -2/-2 doesn't take care of the good soulbounders, plus it takes some work

Red:
Guise of Fire - sideboard at best
Pillar of Flame - good, but only works on small guys
Thunderbolt - only kills flyers

Green:
nothing

So yeah, there are plenty of playables there, but few of the removal spells actually give you mana advantage or card advantage, and of the decent ones, only two are instants! (Righteous Blow and Death Wind)

i think you're really selling Mist Raven and Crippling Chill short, those seem like great cards. Chill stalls a creature for 2 turns, not 1, since you use it on your opponent's turn before they can attack with it, and it's a freeroll card-wise which is always more powerful than it looks/feels. it played very strong for me at the prerelease.

also, Ghoulflesh and Guise of Fire are perfectly maindeckable. -1/-1 removal has been playable in formats with far more removal options than this one

the lack of instant removal is obviously intentional to make sure that the soulbond guys are good and aren't just constantly setting you up to get blown out

err meant peel, not raven

raven is the best common in the set though i'm pretty sure

agreed, but that 2/4 lifelink angel is a very close second. Raven just has more synergy w/ everything.

Crippling Chill okay, the problem is it doesn't really help much vs. Soulbound (since there are usually two scary creatures out) nor Humans (as they will often have a bunch of critters). Feeling of Dread would be way better. But it does seem very good vs. Angels and the Black "loner" architype. And Peel is one of the best commons in the set, I know that - didn't mean to sell that one short, it's obviously great in this format. But I'm not convinced on the -1 toughness effects - Guise of Fire I like a little better since you can get a few other minor uses out of it, these cards *are* maindeckable but IMO they'd get cut fast if I had too many playables.

Basically it seems like the lack of instant removal is making the Soulbounders a little too good, especially the green +X/+X guys. I don't think this is a problem, just keep in mind that A) Druid's Familiar is really a windmill slam first pick, and B) instant removal is at a premium, and hell I think Peel from Reality may even be first pickable.

is human frailty an uncommon?

ive maindecked guise of fire in two sealed tournaments and not really regretted it, its good as early removal and really anything you can use to disrupt soulbond is v v worthwhile

it only disrupts Wingcrafter, the Lookout, and the Peddler though. IMO the +1/+1 guy is the one you have to worry about (in common at least)

Human Frality is uncommon, but super maindeckable

well i meant 'disrupt' in the sense of forcing them into bad trades or 2 for 1s that will break up bonded pairs and not just using it as straight removal

i feel like there are a lot of really good commons and uncommons in this set and a lot of kinda terrible rares (in limited). should be fun to draft

wait till you randomly lose to a Bonfire of the Damned, that'll change your mind

someone passed me Entreat the Angels at FNM last week, which is a $20 card on top of being an insane bomb. was pretty clear from the other good stuff he passed me that he was pretty much oblivious so i felt kinda bad but if you don't even know enough to know what the chase cards in the set are then i dunno

yeah i've had that happen with a Snapcaster, I had to tell the guy "hey uhhh, back up, this thing is worth money" (I'd feel like shit otherwise)
one of the great things about the first couple weeks of a set's release is that some people really just don't read all the cards, I got an Ulvenwald Tracker Pack 1 as a 7th pick, which is insane, the guy's even better than Daybreak Ranger

someone passed me Entreat the Angels at FNM last week

i would feel so bad but also so good about this

haha i pulled a vexing devil in my sealed pool last saturday and was really surprised to find out it was worth decent money for some reason i thought it was still like a $4 rare...

i was really bummed though cuz i left the cards i wasnt playing with behind on the table after a match and by the time i realized what had happened someone had scooped them up :// nothing supervaluable but it sucked nonetheless

xp yeah i love the few weeks between the set release and when the top players start putting up their draft videos, at which point everyone suddenly starts drafting much better

I haven't played since Ice Age, but downloaded the Magic 2013 Duel of the Planeswalkers for ipad and it's slowly coming back to me, even though the cards are all new. Has anyone else tried the app? Or are you all physical cards only? I haven't paid to unlock it yet but would do so if there were people that played.

wow there is an ipad app? how much is it

I would be into that and also would play with you 4 sure

Free to try out and I think $10 to unlock all the decks, campaign and multiplayer stuff.

I am currently dl'ing it, taking forever but I imagine it's huge. how many decks are all the decks? is there single player?

there is a single player campaign, and you can play against any of the decks you've unlocked. I think there are 15 or do decks.

that's interesting. how well does the computer play?

I've only played the intro section and I win most of the time. They seem to play their cards well, but the shuffle can be cruel.

I like this.

I'd prob prefer a version w/ less sparkles but I think the 'unlock cards/decks/etc' actually seems like a pretty good way to go about an ipad game. I'll def drop 10 bucks on it. you can hit me up whenever. do you know if you can play with internet randos too?

no idea. I haven't dropped the $10 yet. My next couple of days are crazy, but I'll pick it up the beginning of the week. Game Center ID is EZSnappin.

alright this is the first time I've given money to wotc since uh....1998

the AI is far from perfect, I'd prefer the game w/ fewer sparkly flourishes + if they kept all the turn phases + more decks, obvs. but this is def wayyy beyond yr average ipad game and well worth $10.

how's multiplayer?

I just played one w/ a stranger (won, obv). it's pretty good, I think. it allows you to connect to a random person or someone you know. no chat feature but the game played well and quickly.

overall I think this is a great app. the not-insignificant drawback is the limited supply of decks / the limits to deckbuilding and the fact that most of the decks are pretty straightforward and creature heavy. some of the more interesting dynamics of the game aren't around w/ the cards available...makes it easier for the app to do most of the gameplay work for you (w/r/t tapping, life, drawing, etc.). sometimes the fact that it's so automatic can make it hard to do something more nuanced, tho.

as far as playing a random game of magic w/ a stranger or decent-AI, it def works well and looks good.

maybe i'll get this. how does it feel re: touch interaction? do you tap cards w/ finger to tap them, or do you actually do turning motion on screen? also, is it a stress to read the cards or does stuff look pretty big (w/out cluttering screen)? cause that program we used (i forget what it's called) was such a pain to try and read what every card did.

you can easily make a card bigger by clicking on it. you rarely tap stuff yourself, it taps mana for you, you're mostly just dragging stuff across or onto the playing field. I've never been in a situation where it'd matter what lands get tapped (almost all the decks are single color) but I'm curious if it knows enough to give you options.

one problem is there's no 'go back' feature if you accidentally tap the wrong thing, which can happen w/ a pretty fastpaced game. but as far as ipad-ness goes, the game works really well.

tell me how it works when you unlock a dual mana deck! i think i'd be really frustrated if it chose for you which color mana u wanna tap for uncolored costs

iirc there is only one. but you can dl the free version and play around to get a feel for what the $10 game is. I think they have constructed the game sorta-purposely so that the frustrating moments are less likely to arrive to begin with.

in the PC version you can hold ctrl or something to bring up a list of options for how to tap mana. not sure if/how that's replicated on the ipad but the option might be in there somewhere

I actually unlocked the dual color deck and it seemed to sorta assume the obvious choice when the situation came up. but w/ only one dual color deck it's not really a big issue.

like did it take into account what cards you had in your hand? or did a situation not come up where you had an instant u may have wanted to save mana for?

didn't come up

but again I think they've sorta done that on purpose w/ the card selection

I just really wish they'd remake Shandalar but that seems like such a longshot

the thing that's come closest to scratching my shandalar itch is magarena - the AI is *really good* and with the right cube there's an amazing feeling of "all bombs all the time" and every card is joyously unfamiliar if you haven't played since 2001 or whatever.

but still shandalar o man that game was just so amazing. let's quit our jobs and remake shandalar guys.