Magic: The Gathering C/D

its kind of like saying, football is boring because it always comes down to who scores the most touchdowns and field goals

this works and doesn't work, i guess

i went to the nerd store yesterday. no one was playing magic: the gathering, though there was an ad for midnight d&d sessions.

Do it! I have drafted twice since coming back to magic, coming 2nd and 3rd, and you're at least as good as I am. Seriously you'll be at a table with 8 dudes and three will be pretty bad, you might seriously be surprised how well you do.

Read this before drafting M13, it's amazing:
http://legitmtg.com/competitive/of-limited-interest-your-complete-guide-to-drafting-m13/

Kind of obsessed with this game right now.

haha me too! i was super proud because i finally got my rating above 1800 and then was filled with shame, disappointment

i dont think that legitmtg article is v otm tho, triple AVR was a really good draft format for one and her card rankings arent great

OK so I tried out this Magic Online thing a bit. I've got a dilemma though, because while MtGO has an advantage in terms of actually getting to play without having to go to a game store and hang out with creepy teens, the prospect of paying $4 a booster for non-real cards doesn't really entice me from an ownership perspective. Also the app is so terrible building decks for constructed (as if) seems like it'd be a shitshow.

Also if it's digital why are the old expansions out of print? Does Hasbro take a cut of the digital secondary market?

theres no real defense for mtgo pricing it just is although i havent had to deposit since i first started drafting seriously

don't ever buy boosters from the store; buy tix then get boosters from a bot.

Also if it's digital why are the old expansions out of print?

because of people who think this:

the prospect of paying $4 a booster for non-real cards doesn't really entice me

for me, I do a lot of 4-pack sealed, which have no entry fee in tix, just the 4 boosters. prizes are 5 packs for 3-0, 3 for 2-1, and 1 for 1-2. I win about 65-70% of my matches so I average three packs per event, therefore each booster (which are like 3.2 tix right now) is really about four, which makes it a lot better.

the cards ARE backed by something physical (if you collect the whole set, they will allow you to trade in the digital cards for real ones), and outside of the money mythics, the prices of MTGO cards are about 50% less than in real life. for AVR, I would venture that 3 tickets can buy you like, 85% of the entire set. basically; if you're not doing sealed or draft, just buy individual cards from bots.

i dont think that legitmtg article is v otm tho, triple AVR was a really good draft format for one and her card rankings arent great

yeah I think there's a lot of hyperbole on her criticisms of AVR; you can reduce every format to dumb stuff like that

I think a lot of her advice is good, but saying Elderscale Wurm (a huge bomb that many decks simply won't be able to win against) is anything like Omniscience (a 10-mana "do nothing" in Limited) is truly bizarre. I skimmed over the pick orders and think some of it is out of whack (I really do think Goblin Battle Jester is trash - you don't get to "controlling your opponent’s ability to block" unless you have a bunch of red spells queued up), but pick orders are dumb to begin with. Also Switcharoo over Sleep is ridiculous.

1800 is pretty impressive to me!

Yeah I don't think that list is perfect or anything but if you haven't drafted in a million years / ever it's a really good read and a lot better than going in blind!

I think Battle Jester is pretty playable? Like, the ability seems a lot better than haste, which it's costed comparable to.

What do you guys make of Sands of Delirium?

I've seen Battle Jester do okay, the problem is it costs four for a 2/2 creature which is just not going to keep up with any other color, and it doesn't do anything unless you cast another spell. If you've curved out you may not have many red cards left to play. If you haven't, "target creature cannot block" isn't going to help you much. I'd get behind this card as a 2R 2/1, but as is I'm not a fan.

As for Sands; very few cards in any color that I'd pick over it, it's this set's Moonsilver Spear, as in it's an artifact that sucks up a lot of mana but basically says if you can't deal with it in 2 or 3 turns you lose. I look forward to losing a lot of games against that in 4-pack Sealed!

I do visit Mt Gox at times

worryingly tempted to start playing mtg online

it's like an online poker addiction you can't kid yourself you'll ever get rich from!

hard to blow a thousand tix in two hours though

As for Sands; very few cards in any color that I'd pick over it, it's this set's Moonsilver Spear

haha this sets moonsilver spear is staff of nin! idk there are quite a few more outs to sands including one that just stone kills it so i dont think its quite as strong although its p good in sealed, yeah.

with battle jester i think the biggest problem is where he fits on the curve - the deck that wants him the most needs him to come down earlier or have an immediate impact on the board the turn hes cast. thats why haste is so much better - you get to immediately push through damage or at least effect the board on turn four instead of just doing nothing. like if you're curving into arsonist - flunkies - brute than youd much rather have canyon minatour to help block or even two drop + spear or w/e. combined with the fact that its very easy to have a decent board presence on turn five against an aggro red deck and what the red deck really wants to do is use stuff like trumpet blast or chandra's fury to trade UP against the other decks better creatures his ability just seems fairly anti-synergistic to me and a waste of a card slot

I find what Lamp just posted pretty convincing! (re: Jester). I have definitely seen high-ranked players praise him (on streams etc) but I'll think more about it.

thomp u live in london right? (i have asked you this like 8 times I think). Come along to dark sphere or something!

this sets moonsilver spear is staff of nin! idk there are quite a few more outs to sands including one that just stone kills it so i dont think its quite as strong although its p good in sealed, yeah.

Anything that kills Spear will kill the Staff too, though I kind of see where you're coming from, Staff also has that feeling of "if this is out for a few turns, you're going to lose", though Sands and Spear were win conditions in themselves

And agreed on Battle Jester, I don't think he's a bad 23rd card in a quick red deck, especially as it allows you to do stuff like turn 5 a Trumpet Blast/Searing Spear massive blowout. I just am not sure if this is the set for this, with so many good defensive creatures/big boppers (in green) a "cannot block" effect needs to be more repeatable than this, again, really wish this thing cost 3 or at least triggered when entering play

I have definitely seen high-ranked players praise him (on streams etc)

yeah i heard sam black claim battle jester was 'really good' but then i have yet to see him actually play w/it in his deck. i might be underrating it because of how much worse it is than fervent cathar in an aggro red deck. the aggro red decks are my fave deck to play online because i think people in general undervalue the cards and i end up getting like 10th pick chandra's fury and stuff so i'll try him out again, but he hasnt been that successful for me

Anything that kills Spear will kill the Staff too

haha i was mostly thinking of elixir

oh, I didn't even know Elixir was in the set

Chandra's Fury was a card I always wondered about; I liked Aggravate in AVR but soon realized it's really not so good, is Fury a slam dunk maindeckable card?

the biggest reason its good is because its instant speed so you can use it on offense or defense and it's really good against other red decks and black and white but even against blue and green decks i've found its easy to maneuver myself into a situation where i can trade up by blocking w/cheap creatures like arsonist and krenko tokens. it can clear the way for reckless brute and/or dragon whelp or at least force much more desirable trades. and getting the four direct damage just means i'm never really down a card even if the primary use is as a combat trick/removal and goes a long way in allowing me to stay ahead in a race

Gotcha; I always played it in the M13 events I did but I can also see why, in a draft, it wouldn't be a card people are actively looking to play. I've always been confused on Lava Axe-type effects in general, I realize now they really aren't so good, but the fact that Fury is never really wasted since it still lops off 20% of their life total seems important.

Either way I don't know, I'm still stuck with AVR on MTGO because the mythics you can crack are enough to sustain you for a while. 4-pack Sealed w/ AVR is pretty high variance but I have not had to deposit in a long while and I think over like 20 or so of the things I've wound up ahead 10 or so tix thanks to Bonfire being worth so damn much. It doesn't sound like M13 really has any high dollar cards on MTGO right now.

card prices are always rock bottom around the end of the release period (ie now)

also holy shit @ bonfire's price. kind of wish i hadn't cashed mine in at $30 per already

Mtgo price is $42.59, above SCG's $39.99 price for the paper version...I've never heard of a card that was worth more online than IRL! (though maybe Force of Will is one)

there are lots actually! in standard it only really happens with mythic rares because of how set redemption affects their supply disproportionately to regular rares. Falkenrath Aristocrat is another example of this (plus its value gets bumped up by Block Constructed, a format that isn't played much IRL). and then there are the legacy staples that never had a 'real' print run online and thus have very limited supply, like Force of Will and Lions Eye Diamond.

I see the set redemption pushing foil mythics to ridiculous values. I think $10 is the base price for a foil mythic, compared to, say, 40 cents for your typical foil rare. Never really thought about the Block thing but that makes sense.

either way, is there a way to calculate the average value of a pack on MTGO? (okay, I know there is a way, but has anyone done it?)

people have certainly done it, it comes out to far less than the $4 retail value of course. i think it's under $2 and maybe even under $1 for some sets

last i saw avr was about $3.10 for mtgo which is by far higher than any other currently drafted set

i honestly don't care about nickel-and-diming my way into value from card transactions though - i'm constantly buying/selling in and out of various standard and modern decks and taking the 10% loss or so every time and it doesn't really bother me since i'm playing purely for fun and practice, and not for sustainability

like, if playing 'for free' is your goal then you're best off just fronting $200 on a top tier standard deck and jamming daily events with it until you're loaded with packs, but who wants to actually do that every day? i guess some people do since i see the same names in those tournaments day in day out, but i feel like if you have that mentality you should just be playing poker

for me it's all about limited, which IMO is fun enough to even cancel out the grindy mentality of it. also poker is not really an option in America anymore :S

i weirdly care about value but not enough not to do stupid stuff like buying 4x desolate lighthouse and promo silverblade paladins and stuff. its more that i like knowing what the cost of the stupid stuff i do is? i mean im happy that i havent had to deposit money on modo since early may and one of my goals is definitely being able to make drafting self-sustaining but ill also 'waste' money on stuff like 12-6s for fun or buying foil lands or w/e

the only constructed deck i have on modo is a block jund deck that would probably win me more packs than drafting does but i like the challenge of drafting a lot more plus block has been p stale since avr came out.

i think the best value on modo might be like building a u/g infect deck for $35 and grinding two-mans/dailies which, yeah, that seems p dull

u guys are making me want to start playing mtgo

do we have enough people for an ilxor clan on mtgo

maybeeeee

What do clans even do, they seem like a yoga flame pointless invention for the ages.

Help request: a friend is learning the game, he likes it when I give him stack-based rules questions (e.g. "How does Kiki-Jiki interact with Phyrexian Dreadnought"). Can anyone think of any more puzzles like this? I'm looking interesting stack-based interactions, not layer-based ones (so no Opalescence-on-Humility stuff).

Okay - both players have four of these puppies on the board:

http://static.starcitygames.com/sales/cardscans/MAGPRO/rhystic_cave.jpg

One of them tries to tap one for mana and the other player tries to stop him, who gets what?

(alright, maybe it's not that hardest rules question I can think of, but it may be the most obnoxious)

neither player gets anything.

first player taps for 1, second player taps for 1 to block it.
(end of first round = no net gain for anyone.)

first player taps to block second player's response, but second player taps to block that, too.
(end of second round = no net gain for anyone.)

etc...
(every round ends in stalemate with no gain, so long as both players have the same number of caves.)

if the first player had four and the second only three, then s/he'd be able to break the chain and get 1 manna.

yeah. it's not hard if you don't think of it as 8 triggers going on the stack at once. its just an obnoxious question.

if you really want to give your buddy a fun puzzle to talk about, how about telling him how you can stack Fiend Hunter and Cloudshift to permanently exile something (I have a deck that does this and I hate having to explain this to newer players...I feel like they think I am making up rules)

maybeeeee

What do clans even do, they seem like a yoga flame pointless invention for the ages.

― Gravel Puzzleworth, Tuesday, August 14, 2012 10:19 AM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

xp using Redirect (or any similar redirection spell) to counter a counterspell is an interesting one - because of the wording of Redirect you don't need to choose the new target for the spell until Redirect resolves, but Redirect is still on the stack when it resolves so you can change the counterspell to target Redirect even though Redirect is in the process of resolving already and thus can't be countered anymore (the net effect being that their counterspell is countered due to illegal targets)

I remember seeing people use Misdirection as a counterspell to counter other counterspells and always thought they were Misdirecting the Counterspells to counter itself because the alternative didn't make sense. I've had this conversation many times.."wait, if the Misdirection is countered, then how did the.....whatever"

Another weird one is Caged Sun which has the "if a land would add a mana to your mana pool, add an additional mana" wording, which means that if you can somehow turn Caged Sun into a land and tapped it, it would literally add infinity mana to your mana pool.

wouldn't that create an infinite loop and draw the game though? it's not a 'may' ability and doesn't use the stack, so you can never stop it.

I think the solution is to try to set this up on Magic Online and see what happens. Perhaps it could crash MTGO's servers.

i've seen the triple oblivion ring loop happen on mtgo and it's pretty hilarious - if both players F6, then after about 100 iterations, the game crashes, and then it attempts to reconstruct the game by playing it out again from the start, reaches the loop again, crashes again, then declares a draw

another one i can think of is if you somehow make a token copy of Garruk Relentless, then get it to 1 or 2 loyalty, its triggered ability will just happen infinitely because it can't transform

i'm not actually sure whether there's any sequence of plays that can make a token Garruk though

yeah im trying to think of noncreature token permanents and cant think of any

well the issue is more how to copy it without the original garruk being on the battlefield, because they'd die from the planeswalker uniqueness rule. if not for that you could just liquimetal coating + phyrexian metamorph it

the most insane MTG puzzle i've figured out without help was the turn 1 kill on the play in Scars of Mirrodin Block Constructed