Magic: The Gathering C/D

rakdos also looks like the hardest guild to play in this set - the unleash mechanic forces you to make tough choices on turns 2-4 that could seriously backfire without a good read on your opponent's strategy. i think you're always going to want to unleash the 2-power guys to get them to 3 power when you're playing them early in the game, but the 1/1 regenerator and 1/2 deathtouch are a lot trickier since they have serious value as blockers if the game goes long.

btw, the full set is up on magiccards.info now for browsing/searching/etc:
http://magiccards.info/rtr/en.html

angel of serenity seems awfully expensive for a mythic rare 5/6 flyer w/ a 3x journey to nowhere effect

haha that card is p nuts, way better than just journey to nowhere effect

you have to believe there's a sick combo in there somewhere

yeah angel of serenity is the best 'fatty' in the set, since having the additional option to get your own guys back, especially a second angel, gives you an almost unbeatable endgame

its probably less playable than armada wurm tho, even if its better value

for limited or constructed?

both of those cards are huge limited bombs but i think the wurm is a lot better positioned for constructed or at least more obviously playable

are auctions like this a terrible idea?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1600-UNCOMMON-DECK-LOT-Magic-the-Gathering-MTG-CARD-/200823749761?pt=Trading_Card_Games_US&hash=item2ec2073c81

no that seems like a good way to get a lot of cards

for fun I mean

what exactly are you trying to accomplish by buying that

have a playable deck i guess

than just buy one of the decks that wizards puts out. the green/white event deck from M13 is p good value and its only like $20

i mean if you just want lots of cards i have boxes of draft commons and uncommons you can have for free

let's play sometime. i need to learn more than just ipad-style

those mixed lot auctions are okay but kind of a ripoff given that there are plenty of people out there like me or Lamp who draft a lot and will gladly dump off all their commons/uncommons on you for no charge. i don't even bring all my drafted cards home from the store anymore, i just leave the commons/uncommons lying around for other people to pick up, unless i specifically need them for a deck.

forks I live in ny and will play w/ you

yeah Wizards has a lot of products for those who want an okay Standard deck for cheap. if you're looking for bulk common/uncommons just head on down to a store where people draft and ask around. most drafters are more than happy to give away stacks of cards...hell when I draft I would say maybe 1 or 2 of the guys actually keeps what they draft. the rest just lies around. just getting a bunch of random uncommons really won't get you anywhere.

well afaik forks is pretty new to the game so getting a bunch of random uncommons could get him 'a good time', it's not like he's gonna be playing competitive constructed anytime soon

well yeah but if you just want a bunch of random cards you shouldn't have to buy them on eBay. those M13 decks aren't really competitive but for someone just coming into the game I think they're good since the cards are meant to play together. if you're stringing together cards from random sets you'll definitely wind up with something unique but you miss the synergy between mechanics which is a big feature of pretty much any modern set

again it all really depends what exactly you're looking to do

i should probably steer clear entirely honestly, i have enough addictive issues as it is.
But i will be down to try a few hands sometime.

the duel decks are actually just awesome if all you want is to have 2 decks that are evenly matched to pick up and play with anyone else. i have knights vs dragons, which is probably one of the crappier ones, and yet it's still a lot of fun to pull out when you don't really feel like playing hardcore

The more I look at the RtR cards, the more I'm thinking that Rakdos is the way to go for the prerelease as it looks like it would shine in Limited, although I think I prefer Golgari overall and might throw in some Scavenge creatures if the opportunity presents itself.

I'm digging this series of articles:

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=10726

they're entertaining but it's weird to go back and see how inaccurate they wind up being; I think these sets are too complicated and have too many interactions for anyone to really definitively say what's great and what's not without playing the set (besides obvious cards like Talrand's Invocation)

well well well Cube draft is back

i don't like cube, i'm more excited about tempest drafts next week

i've never drafted mirage or tempest. awesome this is happening but i'm kind of sad it's only going to last a week or so. either way this is exactly the kind of thing that makes me forgive MTGO for its many many flaws

mirage was the last block with banding, make sure you know how it works before you play or you will find your creatures all inexplicably in the graveyard the first time a band attacks you

rip benalish hero

essentially it means the controller of the band gets to decide where damage goes, right?

stuff like banding + flying/trample has always confused me but i'm willing to just wing it

did a cube draft last night for the first time. it's not as degenerate as a cube a buddy of mine has (with all the power 9 and dumb stuff like Tinker and Time Spiral) but it was still really fun. went 2-1 despite completely blowing the draft after realizing that the cards needed for a Necropotence deck weren't really there. seems like big accel/bomb-ass spells is the way to go. anyway it's really fun and with their new "Cube ticket" you can actually do a bunch for not much cost.

yeah black has been unplayable in the MTGO cube so far, to the point where they removed the 2 pro-black swords this time around, which seems ridiculous when they could just improve the black options instead

and in light of that i have no fucking clue why they removed vampire nighthawk

man you guys are really tempting me w/ mtgo

translated to human money how much does a draft online usually run you?

its about the same price as irl, like $13-14, but you can cycle all your winnings right back into the next draft so depending on how good you are you can potentially end up only spending a few bucks per draft on average.

That's a tough question b/c it depends on your skill level but I'll try to break it down. Anyway, tickets sell for $1 apiece. Drafts cost 3 packs and 2 tickets. Packs of M13 sell for ~ 3.2 tickets now, so the cost is 11.6 tix/draft. But if you do Swiss (for example) you win a pack for every match you win. So say you win two, then your next draft would be 5.2 tix, but you can also sell the cards you drafted. In AVR this was a big deal since some Mythics were worth a boatload of tickets. I'm guessing RTR will be easy to sustain because a whole lot of rares look to fall in the 2-4 tix range.

On average for me I'm looking at around $2-3/draft doing Swiss. Apparently some real top pros can "go infinite" doing it but it's very tough to do.

Also, 4-pack sealed has no ticket requirement, so you can bang out a bunch of those for even cheaper. It's less fun though.

oh yeah forgot to mention, you have to buy packs from the bots. Wizards online store will charge you 3.99 apiece no matter what, but the "market price" fluctuates a lot

this is what i've been waiting for http://puremtgo.com/articles/ars-arcanum-rtr-prerelease-primer

yeah black has been unplayable in the MTGO cube so far

based on what I could see during the draft, red looked pretty bad too. not sure I'd first pick any red card there. green seems really strong though.

xpost

dude is going hard for Selesnya, interesting...

I'm leaning toward Rakdos for the draft with either some overload or scavenge cards thrown in depending on what I open

my takeaways from that article (much better than the Conley Woods ones, by the way)

1) avoid drafting 3 drops because you're going to end up with a lot of them no matter what
2) may be a lot of stalemates due to a lack of lategame threats, which the guild mechanics should be able to break
3) creatures with 3 or more toughness are at a premium because there's an abundance of 2-power creatures
4) for Azorius, draft good offensive creatures high because there's a lot of good defensive ones
5) Izzet is probably the worst guild as it has lots of unplayables
6) Golgari has a glut of 4 drops
7) Selesnya has a lot of token generators, so don't worry about not being able to populate
8) Selesnya is probably the best guild (which was my hunch as well)

I think ciderpress said as much upthread, but will 'best guild' even matter after the prerelease? I'd imagine an 8 man draft will make drafting along guild-lines kinda difficult - like if you happen to be lucky enough to be the only one drafting that color combo, you are gonna be a good place regardless.

well remember, the multicolor cards are only in the 5 guild pairs, and those comprise most of the strong cards in the set. if you're in an 'off-pair' you're almost certainly going to have to splash the in-between color for multicolor cards or else your deck is going to be underpowered.

so like you don't have to be GW in draft, but if you're GR, you really want to be splashing black to get access to GB and BR spells

usually it takes a few weeks before drafters at large catch onto what the best color combinations are. basically it looks like both G/W and G/B are going to be good so I'm more likely to take a good green card over a good red one. you're right that draft "self-corrects" but unless one color is noticably weak (like black in AVR) I don't think casual players really catch on much to what the best/worst colors are

especially since each guild has a lot of support. I think a LOT of drafters are going to open a very good multicolored Uncommon or Rare and just go with it

i'm willing to believe that 1 in 10 drafts or whatever, you'll be able to get a focused deck with just an off-guild color pair but it's going to be the exception not the norm

I was more suggesting that 3 color becomes inevitable rather than people going off pair

and if you've got a solid 2 deck you're in a really good place / got slightly lucky