Magic: The Gathering C/D

My first instinct is also that it looks acceptable, but I don't have a great track record at spotting broken cards

well I can't break it offhand but it feels like one of those cards that may eat an emergency ban in like Commander or something

http://mythicspoiler.com/CAP/cards/lagrellathemagpie.html

God this takes me back to the old days where you’d have to read a card 5 times to figure out what it does

I’m pretty sure this was not intended to be a one-sided wrath so I’m wondering why they didn’t just write it as “for each player”

yeah that is a genuine disaster of templating. it exiles one creature per player

When I read it the first time I also thought "wow, all the creatures come back under your control?"

I remember when we did the first Apocalypse draft and people were half-jokingly suggesting that Dead Ringers should be banned until we figured out what the hell it was supposed to do

that card just seemed like a too-clever wording, this one almost seems designed to be as confusing as possible

Jewel Thief and Inspiring Overseer feel like two of the best commons we've seen in ages

this new set looks kind of fun, almost makes me want to get back in

getting gatecrash vibes. multicolor set but all the 2-drop commons are good and all the 4+ drop commons aren't

https://tappedout.net/mtg-card/tainted-indulgence/

another really weirdly worded one, it's very easy to interpret this in two ways and I think the most intuitive interpretation is actually the wrong one

What are the two ways? I only see one (and think I'm right?)

one way is "5 different mana values" and another is "5 cards WITH mana values"

the former is how I interpret it but the latter makes more sense b/c it's incredibly hard to trigger otherwise AND the set does have a "discard a non land" mechanic

anyway I bumped this because they did a Secret Lair: Pride release which includes this incredible Bearscape

A LGBT+ Pride secret lair, sold starting in May, with 8 cards, partly for charity! More previews at https://t.co/9ly5HdRCtG #MTGSLD

Source: https://t.co/EytCk3lOeX
🎨: @winonanelson,@rbessaaa pic.twitter.com/GCCr8viB91

— MTGGoldfish (@MTGGoldfish) May 2, 2022

Ah I see your point now about Tainted Indulgence, it is a little unclear. My interpreting it correctly is probably more a side effect of knowing how they'd word it if they wanted it the other way

Surprised I am able to read that article here in Vietnam - WotC is getting some heat for blocking the Secret Lair: Pride article in countries that are not... receptive to the concept

okay so it appears to be you actually do need 5 different mana values. that mechanic seems kinda bad then, though I wonder if lands count as CMC: 0? idk I've never actually gotten it to trigger.

not sure if I'm supposed to be playing focused 2 color decks or splashy 4 color ones. there's a lot of fixing - two land cycles, plus a bunch of treasure tokens. but there aren't quite enough commons/uncommons you'd necessarily want to splash for. in Sealed I'm just playing the greediest possible decks and generally doing okay, which is funny because that's what a lot of Limited formats turn into after a couple months. this one may wind up being the opposite.

lands definitely count as 0

after some practice I think splashy 4-5 color is the way to go. my best performing decks just shove as many sac/dual lands in as possible, plus whatever treasure stuff you got, and seeks to play 5-6 rares & whatever great uncommons you got. the unfortunate thing is other players are starting to realize this as well and so the format is quickly devolving into whoever's got the most bombs. a big part of the problem is there aren't really good aggressive decks, in Sealed you cant get enough good blitz cards to make B/R work and the format is really low on good 2 drops. in fact at common the 2/1 1W with connive is really the only one.

also appears to be a lot of sweepers in this set - be wary, don't overextend

I've been pretty busy lately and have only got in one draft so far, but the games did seem pretty slow, which makes sense when there's so many lands etb tapped. I tempo'd out one opponent but all the other games were grindy. Two came down to decking

anyone wanna explain why Ledger Shredder is currently trading at 48 tix on MTGO right now? what format is this good in?

looks like UR spell decks in both modern and pioneer

https://mtgtop8.com/event?e=36304&d=473111&f=MO
https://mtgtop8.com/event?e=36305&d=473115&f=PI

oooh wow, a lotta cards in those decks I had missed. those decks look like a lotta fun.

anyway I've been having fun w/ this format and generally getting good results but I'll probably be sick of it soon...since the format is so 4-5 color friendly you wind up seeing the same cards over and over and over again. always a turn 3 Jewel Thief or Overseer. way too much time spent figuring out if you tapped your lands right. I do dig getting 6 of the sac lands and gradually thinning your deck of lands though

i havent played it but it looks like the exact sort of gold soup format i hate. due to the new release schedule apparently this is the draft format until september which, i get why they did it to give these cards more time in standard but for limited it's ???

presumably on arena they will run back some older format over the summer to change it up?

Whoa I forgot there wouldn't be another Standard set till Sept. I think I've complained a bit about the window between sets sometimes being too short, but five months seems like an eternity. Any chance we get a remastered set? They usually announce those well in advance, right?

i consulted with my friends who are paying more attention and apparently they're putting up an arena-specific variation of the baldurs gate commander set this summer so that'll be the draft format for a couple months

Been having good success with two-color decks that curve out. Had BR two times and an aggro deck is def viable there - so many of my opponents spent their early turns with taplands and so a well-placed removal spell or Plasma Jockey on their big blocker was enough to win. UW fliers also worked well

Disclipined Duelist and Illuminator Virtuoso pretty much ruined what was otherwise an enjoyable format for me. One of those plus Majestic Metamorphosis or Revelation of Power is often game, and you run into that combo all the time. I lethaled someone out of nowhere with a double trick on a Virtuoso the other day

the Virtuoso isn't that big a deal IMO - 2 mana double strikers are annoying but it's not too difficult to kill and the fact that you have to discard nonlands makes it hard to just run away with it. Duelist on the other hand is just stupid, if you don't have Call in a Professional or the -3/-3 instant then you have to 2-for-1 yourself and pray they don't have a combat trick. giving a 3 mana double striker a shield counter seems like a development mistake

IMO the real problem is that WUG Ascendancy which gives your creatures a +1/+1 counter every turn. even if you have enchantment removal you still wind up behind because it triggers end of turn instead of upkeep as these cards usually do. I guess the fact that it's rare makes it much less of a format ruiner but I still seem to see it constantly

Ascendancy is probably worse, I'll agree - I've never beaten it but I've also only played against it twice. Once I hit Diamond, it felt like I was playing against Brokers or UW nearly half the time, which would explain why I ran into that combo so much - I'm not sure if that's a function of players solving the format over time or the higher-ranked players figuring out that Brokers is the best tribe

I also ended up in Brokers about half the time myself, and often had no removal for either creature. The other tribes have an easier time removing Virtuoso, you're right

a big part of that is the Jewel Thief & Inspiring Overseer are so good, being able to play both is a big advantage. for that matter I think cards like Brokers Initiate and High-Rise Skyjack (?) are better than they look because they can stymie them.

one weird thing about this format is there are a bunch of Connive cards, but no cards you really want to discard to them? the 1/1 fishy dude is pretty much it

the connive guys are pretty aggressively costed for creatures that come with a loot so i don't think thats an oversight the loot is just supposed to be good enough without synergy

like 2/1 that loots on etb has not been printed for 2 mana prior to this set as far as i know, even without the chance of being a 3/2

has not been printed at common i meant. theres probably higher rarity ones

Raffine's Guidance is also synergistic with Connive. it plays better than I thought it would in Brokers, I usually include one copy

High-Rise Sawjack is also better than it looks, for exactly the reason you mentioned, frogbs. not just Overseer (which is a stupid common), but Sky Crier, Obscura Initiate, Celestial Regulator, or unkicked Echo Inspector, all of which get play

oh right, I'd completely forgotten about that card. always thought that looked good enough to play.

I agree that the Connive cards are generally pretty good but the way sets are designed nowadays made me think they'd have more cards you'd want to chuck. they're pretty tricky later in the game.

I routinely cut a land in my decks with a few Connive cards unless they have a high curve or difficult mana requirements. Which is nice because in addition to cheating on lands you end up getting the counter more often

Same.

I don't love this set, nor do I hate it. Was more of a fan of neo

if you get several of the 1W 2/1 that's not a bad idea, but everything else is 3+

personally I like just getting 4-5 of those sac lands in my pool and running a splashy 18 land deck. it's nice to be able to just thin your deck out that way.

agreed that NEO was better. kind of obnoxious that this is the current Limited format for nearly twice as long. same thing happened with those Innistrad sets, where the 1st was way more dynamic and fun than the 2nd.

Yeah pretty average format. It's funny that I thought it was a slow format two weeks; I think people figured out quickly that the tempo decks are not just viable but actively good so the whole format speed increased. I end up in straight 2-color decks about the half the time, and I seem to win most with BR and UW, which to me is kind of a design failure for a tri-color set but *shrug*

Two weeks ago*

new format is giving me some flashbacks to Invasion block. dunno how it'll play in draft but in Sealed this domain stuff looks like it may be a wee bit too powerful. maybe having 10 common duals wasn't a great idea.

even in sets without domain the 10 common duals thing tends to make draft smoother at the expense of sealed turning into 5 color mush, it's unfortunate but you have to balance for one format or the other and sealed is kind of fundamentally skewed towards certain strategies no matter what you do so balancing for draft is better

true but it's a particular issue in this format since not only can you splash all your off-color rares and Tier 1 uncommons but also just having those things in play makes the cards in your deck better. in some decks its worth it to play them just to get more land types out there even if you don't have anything of that color

I'm having a hell of a time drafting this set. I played a lot of the Arena-only Baldur's Gate set and found it really fun, especially after the rebalancing; but Dominaria United just feels like every draft I'm getting rolled by domain decks. My last draft, I was trying to do a URw spells thing, and I thought I was in great shape when I got passed a Temporal Firestorm (the rare red sorcery that does 5 damage to everything, but lets you phase out your creatures first). But every time I drew it, I was facing some sick domain deck full of 4/6 treefolk and 8/8 or 10/10 Maros.

So ultimately I decided to shift my focus to Standard for the time being. I built a B/U/g Titan reanimator deck that just goes over the top of a lot of the obnoxious midrange planeswalker stuff, and it's been a lot of fun. I'm also trying to make some form of Suicide Black aggro work, using Stronghold Arena for card draw, and a neat little engine of Cult Conscript + Mukotai Soulripper + Jadar, Ghoulcaller to keep the pressure on.

I've been pretty busy lately but I did get in 8-10 Dom United drafts and didn't find the set very fun. Like Bernard, I also mostly lost to Domain decks, except when I drafted Domain, in which case I lost to aggro decks. seems a very stupid thing to complain about - one of the fundamental principles of gameplay - so probably the set is fine and I'm just losing interest in the game

I've never paid much attention to the collectible aspect of the game but it seems WotC is very much in a capitalize-on-whoever's-left-of-the-whales phase (the idea of the $250 proxy boosters astounds me) and it doesn't give me much faith in the company. so maybe it feels like things are winding down in general. even here it's been almost two months since the last post!

suspect that their ROI on Arena is pretty immense though

Oh, no doubt, they've said as much. By all metrics, they're doing better than ever. Writing this out, I realize I don't have much of a case for things winding down except for a vaguely negative vibe in the mtg subreddit

the MTG 30 thing sounds insane but I suspect those cards will be worth a fortune in a decade

feel like they should just bite the bullet and get rid of the restricted list. the game's expensive cards are so entrenched where they are right now and just leaving open the possibility might drive prices down to a more reasonable level. just let me sell off my collection first :)