Magic: The Gathering C/D

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.

wait by shandalar you mean the 1997 microprose game right?

that would be pretty ipadable come to think of it

the AI in that game was really weird - it generally understood how to attack and block and when to play instants, but it would also randomly Giant Growth your creatures so it would die faster.

yeah I remember that. the AI in this isn't perfect, but it's pretty good all things considered. like it sometimes misses the higher level thinking moves but doesn't do anything completely inexplicable.

i guess i'll have to give this thing a try then. i'm already getting big into Magic Online - the "draft anytime" thing really is neat, and I'm doing well enough in AVR that I don't have to redeposit, so to speak

yeah i play on Magic Online a bit - my favorite thing about it is that they can randomly bring back old draft formats that are long out of print in paper. they've got Invasion block drafts up right now which was a great format that i would never have gotten to play again otherwise

what's your name on there?

i dig MTGO (its easy once you get past the state-of-1998 interface they got), and yes that is exactly what i love about it. plus the cube randomly coming and going is pretty nice. also it's so easy to unload everything you don't need; you don't really get taken advantage of the way you do in real life

my name on there is 'smh'

also i hope you've discovered the momir basic format, the real #1 reason to own a mtgo account

the avatar is ridiculously expensive (like 15 tix!), but yes it's definitely the second coolest thing (after the drafting). I don't have one yet but my buddy has it so I'm pretty familiar with it. Sucks getting Phage at 7 though :(

theres a momir event deck in the actual store for 10 tix, unless they took it out? anyway its well worth 10 bucks, the format is great and its something that can't really be replicated in paper magic

once you spend $10 for MTG Online, can you play it and enjoy it w/out dropping an additional $300?

depends what you want to do. I started w/ 50 tix which seemed steep but I've managed to wring some 20+ drafts out of that, and I still have like 20 tickets, 6 packs, and a bunch of cards to unload. if you want to do Standard it's fine, most cards are like 30-50% of their paper value, so it's not a huge investment. of course chase mythics are worth about the same as they are in real life (sadly)

i would play the fuck out of an MTG LCG

but fuck CCG's tbh

yeah MTGO is not for folks who don't want to spend much $. there's Cockatrice for that

I really love playing the white lifegain deck in this

I just lost to the computer despite having 120 life because they were able to make 5 32/32 creatures

Battle of Wits confirmed for M13

so far there's nothing too exciting in there otherwise (Thragtusk seems really good in this meta, and that mythic dragon is probably the best tournament-level dragon ever printed, at least among ones you actually want to attack with), except A) they seem to strongly hint that duals will be back next set in some capacity and B) so far, no Mana Leak

im holding out hope for timely reinforcements since i just bought a playset two weeks ago. but w/e cards are in m13 im just excited not to be drafting avacyn much longer

i bought duels because i wanted the promo cards (:/) but havent played it yet.

Yeah I'm getting a little tired of AVR draft though I've been doing so well with it online that it's kind of hard to quit

yeah i went 4-0 last night at a local draft and have won the last couple of 8-4s i played. it seems like an easier format than DII because there are fewer decks or potential lines of play? i mean im also probably just better at magic atp too but thats how it feels rn

Well DII was definitely very interesting because certain cards' values were completely different depending on what kind of deck you got - the 1B 2/1 flying can't block guy (Interloper?) was incredible in R/B vampires and almost unplayable in U/B zombies. I haven't really seen that in a draft format before. AVR is more about exploiting synergy between specific cards; Thatcher Revolt and Flowering Lumberknot are the two big examples, but really there are a lot of 2-card combos with just commons and the occassional uncommon. Soulbound obviously influences this a lot. I still think it's skill-intensive (every draft format is) but there are a lot of bomby plays with no real answer (Goldnight Commander + Thatcher Revolt comes to mind)

My son and I played a bunch of MTG this weekend. We are both neophytes with a biggish collection of random grab bag cards. I'd like to add something fun and not too expensive to our collection but am bewildered by the options. What should I get?

I think there are a lot of "beginner" sets out there. Core sets are usually good for this as they can be fun w/o much complexity. If you're just looking for cards, most stores will have bulk commons that you can get for cheap, especially if you're at a place where people draft a lot.

On a related note, all of M13 has been spoiled, and it seems intentionally weaker than the last few sets - Ponder, Mana Leak, and Cancel are all gone (nerfing Delver), BoP is gone (huh?), and there seem to only be a couple of chase rares (Thragtusk, the new Ajani, and the 5/5 haste dragon). Actually I'm kind of excited to see what this does to Standard in 3 months.

xp pick up some of the duel decks! they have some very cool mechanics, neat interactions, and when you're bored w/ the deal makeup, you can pull out the powerful cards (generally some planeswalkers + other interesting pieces) and put them in new decks. i particularly like the Ajani Vs Nicol Bolas decks if u can find them.

barring a reprint in Return to Ravnica it looks like Birds of Paradise is finally gone...thoughts??

one of my fave alltime cards since i was a grade school student. RIP.

it would be like serra angel going out of print

serra angel was actually gone from 5th and 6th editions, I sorta left around 6th so at that point serra angel felt like it was done

duels app is doing thing thing where it crashes at the startup screen - already did this to me once and I reinstalled and lost my progress. prob gonna reinstall again. annoying, tho considering how quick the progress is it's kinda w/e.

i was a big fan of the card too, but it is kind of out of flavor for green and IMO the 'flying' part of it has always been awkward, so I understand why "it's super popular" isn't keeping it around anymore

Just bought the 2013 version of the Deck Builder's Toolkit and am very happy with it. My son and I have been playing around with it for most of the weekend. Would definitely like to pick up some more of the Innistrad-style cards as I really like the gothic/colonial designs.

M13 is pretty great to draft, it has a lot of breadth of strategy which is unusual for a core set

i have high hopes for the new Ravnica block, though they're treading on dangerous ground since the original Ravnica was their most popular set ever. the block structure and prerelease gimmick seem brilliant though

Agreed on M13 draft. It's actually quite fun and has the kind of inter-card synergy that the other core sets lacked. Alas, it seems like every time I draft it I get my ass kicked by either Krenko (who I never seem to have removal for) or Sands of Delirium (which is one of the dumbest cards for Limited, ever)

RtR is probably going to be amazing. But I would really love to see the Magic community go apeshit if the duals don't get reprinted XD

I have been watching a lot of MTG streaming lately, it's in the air I guess! Pumped for M13.

Also also I had an idea! I wonder if anyone here might go for it? It's based on:

1) Magic is the best u guys.
2) Magic is the best when you're 12 and can't just look up the best decks on the internet, that basically ruins everything.
3) Magic costs way too much money.

What if we all got MTGO accounts and made decks and vowed to only spend exactly $1 a week on cards? You could spend it or save it or whatever - most cards outside the top playables are like $0.05 on there so we'd start with complete rubbish and slowly develop this weird metagame of our own. I am totally on for this, magic is the best.

I've been saying that the internet ruined Magic for years

if enough ppl are interested, i'll participate. $1 a week definitely reasonable, esp if there's a bunch of ilxors to play w/

M13 is pretty great to draft, it has a lot of breadth of strategy which is unusual for a core set

haha the funniest thing is that after drafting AVR so heavily my first few M13 drafts i had to stop myself from going on autopilot after like 5 picks because i gotten so used to there not being any playables after that point.

every time I draft it I get my ass kicked by either Krenko

haha on sunday during i draft i opened krenko P1P1 and then got passed an arms dealer pack 2. i ended up with two arms dealers and a bunch of other goblins incl two krenko's command and went monored. of course i lost 1-2 in the finals to a dude w/ a super efficient U/w fliers deck :/

Yeah the lack of playables really makes 4-pack sealed a dumb format in AVR. And yet it's by far the best value on MTGO. Go figure.

My first M13 draft, someone got Krenko's Command, Arms Dealer, Krenko by turn 4 both games while I just stared at my hand full of Pacifisms and Divine Verdicts and silently wept

My wife recently confident to me that she wanted to play Magic real bad in the late 90s, and even went so far as to buy a few decks, but couldn't convince anyone to play with her.

confided

I've been saying that the internet ruined Magic for years

So much yes :( Totally want that schoolyard 'there's an archetype that does what?' atmosphere back again, where we are all somehow maindecking 4 flashfire to deal with rev's kithkin control deck that we can't beat any other way.

haha well you could always just play limited

I played limited today! It was funnnnn.

what did you play? I keep getting tempted but wimping out.

And it has the most absurdly complex rules for anything I have ever seen.

Ha, the thread starter really hasn't delved too much into the world of nerdy fantasy games. I've always thought Magic is pretty simple.