Magic: The Gathering C/D

and in modern Hogaak put dredge back over the edge

also a bunch of decks have to play snow basics now because arcum's astrolabe is stupid efficient and combos with various stuff, which is a pain since now even your few basic lands are hard to come by

to be fair now that hogaak is banned there are a lot of cool new modern decks but its weird for such an established format to have changed so much overnight and some peoples decks theyve been playing for ages probably suck now

isn't Wrenn and Six banned in Legacy? Wasteland ain't modern legal is it?

Acrum's Astrolabe...that's super annoying

it is now, yeah. we're back to "normal" but modern is still pretty different than it was before

i am pretty tempted by the thopter foundry modern deck but the game has been so unstable the past couple years that i'm not at all willing to re-enter right now. if that deck's still there and decent in a year i might trade off the remainder of my collection for it

yeah I have pretty little desire to get back into organized paper play anytime soon - that's assuming paper events even happen again in the next 6 months. feel like coronaworld might be a catalyst for them moving pretty much all serious OP away from paper, can you imagine going to a GP right now? it's also hard to imagine wanting to go to a local draft again anytime soon, and that was most of my paper play w/ strangers in the last half year. still been playing a lot of sealed at home with my s/o (mystery boosters are fun) and MTGO still exists.

maybe for the best. when I was big into the game as a teenager I lived for those kind of events but at some point realized I pretty much never had fun at them. on the contrary I've had some pretty bad experiences. I did manage to finally live my dream of making a unique & funny combo deck that was actually very good, wound up dominating one of those tournaments until I got deck checked and DQ'd because I didn't shuffle my sleeves properly. made me feel like quitting the game for good. managed to do it again about a decade later with an even weirder combo deck based around Laboratory Maniac and a very bizarre rules interaction (which had to be confirmed by a judge in 4 separate matches) but after playing perfectly all day I messed up Game 3 of the semis in a pretty simple way

of course these things are poorly run slogs for a number of other reasons

I still enjoyed going to gps for the social aspect but in the last year I definitely turned into a side event player. Legacy had been my go-to format but competitive legacy went from hanging by a thread to dead this year. I really enjoyed my one pro tour a few years ago but have zero desire to qualify for the players tour or grind arena competitively. I still play a lot of magic but the high level competitive play has really lost any appeal.

Yeah basically same for a while now. The last tournament I went to was PT Dominaria, and though I had fun, I honestly regret the amount of testing I put into it. Constructed is always gonna feel like a chore to me, and you practice for PTs to get to other PTs, and the PT is always gonna have Constructed. The realization really made me rethink my relationship to competitive Magic. Now with a young son and COVID-19 around, even limited GPs are the last thing on my mind. I'll stick to Arena

MTG Flashback Stories:

First game I ever played was in late-December 1993. My friend and I each bought a starter deck (which was basically random 60 cards including land) and a booster or two. We each shuffled our cards into our own massive deck (no deckbuilding). My ante that first game was Craw Wurm, which at 6/4 was the biggest creature either of us had scene. I lost the game and my Craw Wurm, which seemed like a catastrophe at the time (lol).

In the next few months, the game was like the wild west: you would show up with friends, acquaintances, game nights with a deck or two and play for ante. The pressure of cutting for ante was intense! There were no card lists available so you only knew about cards that you had or had seen in games. There were no rules for deck construction, so people would be playing anything from 60 card to 200 card decks. I witnessed my friend use demonic attorney twice in two games to take four cards off some kid. I thought the kid was going to cry. I won six card in one massive multiplayer game.

Some of my fondest MTG stories are from Summer of 1994 (Legends Summer). Multicolor cards broke everyone's minds ("are they allowed to do that?").

First tournament in 1994, I ran a UR control/ramp/burn deck: mana flares, high tides, candelabra of thawnos, lots of counterspells, lightning bolts, and disintegrate/fireball for finish. I don't think I had any creatures, which was radical at the time. I won one game by mana shorting my opponent's library of alexandria. I won another game by using mirror universe when I was at 4 and my opponent was at 17 or 18. I got knocked out later because I got land screwed in my opening hand two games in a row and didn't know that the formerly unofficial mulligan rule had been adopted for tournament play. This is pre-DCI days, pre-ban lists.

I think I started in '96, I was 10 years old and remember walking past the Magic displays in stores and being very curious about it. First pack was Fallen Empires and I pulled a Deep Spawn which I immediately thought was the coolest card ever (looking back...holy shit it sucks). Read the rules and was heartbroken to find out that not only could you not save mana from one turn to the next, but you actually got penalized for doing so.

Some random memories from the card shop in those times: lots and lots of group games, full of Mana Flares and Howling Mines, where no one wanted to attack each other because they didn't want to make enemies and eventually we'd either deck ourselves or get Fireballed for 30. My obsession with flying creatures, which I thought were severely underrated, and the endless U/G decks I built that would attempt to win by constantly casting Giant Growth on a Storm Crow. Discovering that Scaled Wurm was a common (holy shit!!!), spending 40 cents to get 4 copies of it, needing to play several games until I actually got to cast one, only to have it immediately Terrored (learned a hard lesson that day). All the crazy "wall-o-text" cards that were written in such a bizarre way that no one at the store could figure out what they actually did. Playing my first tournament and getting DQ'd because I had Hydroblast in the sideboard instead of Blue Elemental Blast (I think Ice Age had just rotated out). Getting all excited for Visions, buying 5 packs with my birthday money and pulling THREE Squandered Resources, a card which I immediately declared as the worst rare in the set. I still have a binder of cards from those days.

ikoria looks appealing enough - the creature stacking mechanic doesn't have as much built-in safety as bestow so games will probably be swingy. cycling is always welcome.

also how dare former you disrespect squandered resources, one of the extremely rare "hat trick" cards that has the complete package of good rules text, art, and flavor text

the endless U/G decks I built that would attempt to win by constantly casting Giant Growth on a Storm Crow.

This the realness. I had a friend who played a 200 card mono green deck with numerous Scryb Sprites, Llanowar Elves, and Gaea's Liege. Just a big pile of green blah.

I am now remembering one of my earliest very focused decks was a control deck with a bunch of Prodigal Sorcerers, Psychic Venoms, and Counterspells. It was very satisfying watching your opponent slowly kill themselves by tapping psychic-venomed lands only to counter whatever it was they were casting, then pinging their last few points of life away. I remember beating a guy whose entire deck was lightning bolts, other direct damage, and mountains that no one had been able to beat.

I didn't play much from 1997-2004 and then picked up again in Kamigawa and played pretty seriously through Time Spiral. Intermittently since and mostly just sealed.

that mutate mechanic is interesting but I suspect in paper Magic it's gonna lead to a ton of misplays. MTGO should at least make it very clear what a creature is or isn't

Companion is very cool, love outside the box mechanics like that though I will point out several TCGs were effectively ruined by including 'side deck' stuff like this. that said the fact that there's a deck building restriction is a good solution. really hoping for one that requires you to play a 250 card deck. also imagine some people are a bit scared they're gonna push the envelope and accidentally create some really consistent combo deck

also how dare former you disrespect squandered resources, one of the extremely rare "hat trick" cards that has the complete package of good rules text, art, and flavor text

I was still 10 when Visions came out (I guess I started playing at 9? damn). All I fucking wanted was a Shivan Dragon or Force of Nature but I kept pulling Fungusaurs. Anyway I could not for the life of me understand why someone would sacrifice a land just for one extra mana. Back then I thought of Magic as just a "build up your army" sort of game.

Ikoria mechanics revealed. I understand that flavor partially dictates mechanics, but this feels like a year's worth of complexity in one set (felt similarly about War of the Spark). I thought Bestow was borderline too complex as a mechanic and Mutate is probably moreso. Despite that, the set looks fun so far

what the hell

http://mythicspoiler.com/iko/cards/zilorthastrengthincarnate.jpg

i guess those are special alt art versions like the weird heiroglyphic ones in amonkhet or whatever, the actual name of the card is under the fake name up top

not thrilled about companion, I really hope the restrictions are all significant enough that none of these see competitive play.

http://mythicspoiler.com/iko/cards/colossification.html

damnit this card makes me want to start playing again

it's no eldrazi conscription

so much for all the companion cards being too weak for constructed

Rielle seems really good

alternate art stuff looks amazing

This companion mechanic seems like a pain in the ass.

I feel bad for all the people who are gonna p1p1 those

the bw one is really good just as a card in your deck though

Would be interesting to see someone use one successfully in limited though. Allowing sideboard cards to break the companion rule just seems bad to me.

the "each card must be unique" one almost invites you to cheat in limited

in limited all the cards not in your deck are in your sideboard though so it has to work that way to be doable. not that its worth going for rather than just putting the rare creature in your normal deck

other than the highlander one yeah that seems very doable

there's some interesting deckbuilding challenges you could get around in Modern but idk if any of these cards are good enough to jump all the hoops for

of course I'm always wrong about stuff like this so I fully expect one of these to be banned by July

yeah the lifelinker is gonna be a stupid free roll in a lot of decks. I hope it’s banned quickly. stupid, stupid mechanic.

full spoiler is out. I think Zirda is the companion card that really needs to be watched. I can see some U/R artifact based deck doing some stupid things with this. idk how many Standard decks are gonna try these out but Modern with its huge cardpool seems like it'll have the pieces to do something broken with these

UW one is better than it looks in modern, i think playing a cantrip-heavy 80 card deck is worth it if you always start with a 4/5 mulldrifter in hand

as an 8th card in hand even

I feel like the popularity of edh has made them overrate how popular this will be among the very-not-edh. I have no desire to play any competitive format where one guy gets a commander.

I'm willing to give this a try, but highly skeptical that it will create an enjoyable experience.

Although the commanders themselves are not the primary reason I steer clear of edh.

Companion is one of those mechanics that on the surface seems fun and encourages interesting deckbuilding, but too many of them limit the card pool to the point where I think the ideal decklists will look very similar. The U/W one might be an exception if it's good enough, that one encourages more variety of cards played. For limited, I guess a couple of them are doable but it might be better to just put the card in your deck

I guess a couple of the ones that restrict permanents are freerolls in older formats, and could be played in any number of decks if they are good enough

yea the freeroll thing occurred to me too but I wonder if those decks will want to give up the sideboard spot

14 card sideboard is an easy trade for an 8 card hand

the U/W will not create variety of cards played, it will cause every deck to have 4 arcums astrolabe, 4 ice-fang coatl, 4 abundant growth, etc

Wow!

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new set's been pretty fun. idk if the Cycling decks are the strongest but it's definitely the architype I've seen (and played) the most. I've had several games where I've nearly decked myself which seems not ideal. Mutate seems to result in a lot of reverse 2-for-1s but when you start chaining creatures with Mutate abilities some crazy things happen

btw I've noticed that some of the companion cards are fetching high prices which is probably not good for the game

one of my friends suggested that lurrus was the strongest card ever printed (at least in the perspective of older formats) and I think that's certainly true for vintage and legacy. haven't been paying attention to what's being broken in modern and pioneer. I really, really hope they just ban the mechanic outside of standard, but I have to imagine at least one of these guys is gonna break standard too.

UG and GW ones basically already have standard decks and GB is easy to build around. and i don't think anything other than a combo deck is going to compete at 7 starting cards vs 8 in standard. lurrus won't be a problem though at least!

all the pushed cards they've made since WAR are so unsatisfying to look at & read too, its nightmare wall of text after wall of text. give me back smuggler's copter, i'll live with that now