Magic: The Gathering

ilmaestro

State Alchemist
At the request of BW, here is a dedicated MTG thread.

I started reading up on MTG just over two months ago, not long before the M13 pre-release, but between work commitments and holidays I've only played in three events - the sealed deck pre-release, one M13 draft, and one Standard FNM this past week. As much reading up on cards and watching of other people's drafts as you can do, it's been pretty tough to pick up without being able to play much.

Overall though, I love every aspect of Magic. Card art, flavor (on this front I think I started playing at a great time - Innistrad followed up by Ravnica seems to be some of the flavoriest flavor that WotC have ever done), watching drafts, watching Modern, the decision making involved in actually playing (in this regard I guess the one thing I don't love is straight-up combo decks)... just one of the most robust games I've ever come across.

I've currently got/am working on getting three Standard decks:

"Mono"-Blue Mill (needs perfect draw to be fast enough for current Standard, but fun in theory)
UWr Delver Control (needs little explanation)
Mono-White Humans (am thinking about splashing Green here at some stage for Gavony Township and Rancor)

I think the Humans deck is theoretically strong atm thanks to running Thalia to slow down ramp or control for one or two key turns, and gum up Delver who wants to play few lands but still be able to play Mana Leak/"free" Phyrexian spells often.

I would also like to put together a BRw Vampire deck, but I a) only have a couple of the main cards I want, and only in singles b) am not sure this is even an idea I can put together "properly".

At heart I think UW Control is my favorite general strategy, so I will probably be looking to play Azorius when Ravnica returns, but roughly anything involving Blue can interest me, so Dimir and Izzet are definitely on the table too.
 
Oh, also should say if anyone plays on Cockatrice we might be able to get some games in, or even DotP2012 on Steam, or the 2013 version on PSN.

Also started adding links to deck lists on TappedOut in my first post.
 
For me, Izzet has my full support in the Return to Ravinca, though they have nerfed him (which was to be expected as his original version was horribly broken...)

My current decks for standard as of writing:

White/Black Phyrexian deck: Not terribly powerful, the two main cards in this are Sheoldred and Elesh Norn..and a couple of Serra Avengers for quick assault.

White/Blue Spirit deck: I tend to run themes instead of control and that...Don't know why just find them more fun :) Guess it's the Timmy in me.

In the past I did have a Black/Red Vampire deck but that was demolished when I resorted all my cards...Though now I need more folders -_-

I'm also building a blue mill deck, simply as I've got two sands of delirium to use :)
 
Haha, nice. Just one Sands for me, but it's such a cool looking card.

The thing that's really giving me the most trouble with that deck is how many lands to run. Everything in the deck except for the Planeswalkers and the Sands "can" be cost for 1 or 2 mana, but if you have Jace in your opening hand then you desperately need to hit that fifth land asap as having him out for two turns is key if you need to win via mill.

Playing with 25 lands was definitely too many - I was able to get Jace (or Tamiyo) out consistently, but a couple of times was one turn away from milling my opponent out when I had been drawing lands rather than Mind Sculpt or even Thought Scour. I didn't have the Dream Twists in the deck, though, so getting them in for a couple of Fog Banks and a couple of counterspells should make it easier to be doing "something" each turn.

For the Vamp deck, I have one copy each of Falkenrath Aristocrat, Stromkirk Noble, Olivia Voldaren, and Sorin, Lord of Innistrad - so the inspiration is there, but by no means all the cards. ^^; Hopefully going to start trading towards it later this week.
 
Hmm...See Sorin may be better in a human deck then a vampire deck...afterall the vampires that know the truth behind Avacyn hate him ;) Though the M12 Sorin may fit in that deck, along with a Sorin's Vengance to create a nice little win condition.

In a way I wish you could use a planeswalker as a commander in EDH, then I would have a nasty Black EDH deck...

With regards to land I use a mill deck sometimes on cockatrice based around what I would like (it's not standard though, Jace's Erasure is too nice a card to pass up on). Darn it not being in M13! But yeah in that deck I run 24 lands have found it quite good. Jace's Archivist is good for hand drawing...plus the aforementioned Jace's Erasure it gets quite nasty.

Have you been looking at the previews for RtR?
 
I was actually thinking "should I splash black in my humans deck to run a copy of Sorin", but at the end of the day the guy makes Vampires, so even if they hate him, they have no choice but to obey him. ^^; I do sort-of want to put Ajani in it but am sideboarding him atm since he makes cats, not humans... cats are man's best friend, though, right?

And I have been looking at the previews. New Jace seems really cool for control, most importantly is a 4-drop so I can play him rather than cards that are seeing lots of play already like Talrand or Restoration Angel, and still play some other 'walkers as my 5-drops.

I don't like Dreadbore, at all. I think it's a massive, massive error for WotC to print a card that is Murder for 'walkers too, even with a slightly awkward casting cost. Having "destroy target PW" on something like Sorin's ultimate is super cool, of course they should be able to take each other out, but putting it on a normal card makes it read something like "that 'walker that is fighting alongside you... he's about as tough as a Llanowar Elf, really". Biggest possible flavor mis-step I can imagine them making.

The only thing that could help is if they start printing enchantments and such that can also be applied to Planeswalkers. Mechanically they're some of the most fun cards to play, and they are in no way dominantly powerful after WotC learnt their lesson with JTMS, so it would suck hard if it was "playing against R or B? Shame you can't use your 'walkers any more".

edit: Added my human deck to TappedOut
 
Actually, taking the role of Devil's Advocate, I can understand slightly where WotC are coming from. Till now, there was only a few ways to deal with planeswalkers: White had Oblivion, Blue could counter them as they were cast and I think they may have some cards that could return them to their owner's hand (as they were permanent afterall). Red had direct damage spells that the caster could just redirect to a planeswalker to get rid of them. Green had trample and in it's past super trample which was a way to get to planeswalkers you wanted gone. Black though, it had undirected sacrifice which was never going to work all the time. Of course the Black White Sorin has a way now to bring them over to his side but that wasn't enough. I mean basically this is so Red and Black can be competitive against the nasty blue planeswalkers (seriously what is it with Blue and planeswalkers? Even Venser was nasty in the right deck).

To make sense of it flavourwise, I would hedge a bet that instead of killing the planeswalker, it would annoy them enough to just leave, after all that's what supposed to happen when they run out of loyalty. Still it's possible that WotC wanted to make a card that could get rid of a planeswalker and rid of a creature, they could of made new wording up to get rid of the planeswalker but the simplest solution would just be to put destroy on there.

Personally I don't think it would see much play anyway, i'm putting more money on populate being incredibly broken in this current enirovment. tons of creature tokens and sublime archangel? Erm no thank you.

Last comment on Dreadbore, it's just a slower Terminate (god I love that card) that allows regenerate and can hit an annoying planeswalker (be it Sorin, Jace, Ajani or Gideon...I hate Gideon)
 
Heh, yes, you could pretend that it just reduced their loyalty... but it says "destroy", and hence sucks. :p Everyone can deal with PWs by simply attacking them, they never stay on the board for more than a couple of turns in serious play.

But rather than beating that horse to death, I've preordered quite a lot of RtR sealed product now. Don't want to preorder any singles before I see what I get out of boosters, and I see Jace is sitting at $25, the shocklands at $10-15, and Dreadbore at $8 on SCG. Jace will surely come down to at most $18 after a few weeks, hopefully, just in case I can't pull or trade for him.

edit: Well, I thought Golgari would be the last thing I would look to play, but the new BG 'walker, Vraska the Unseen, might just be too hot to leave alone.

edit2: Ordered a second Devastation Tide for the U deck I linked in the top post... pulled two of them in the AVR boosters I bought at the same >_>
 
:p see? Destroy is far more simple and elgant then adding stuff that may confuse some people.

Hmm that new PW is nice, though I can imagine a lot of fans complaining as it's not the B/R PW they wanted (a character that got introduced through recent fiction. I forget his name). Although when I heard her name I was hoping that she may be a phyrexian PW...(as evil as it sounds, it would of been a blast to play I bet)

She definitely looks evil enough, her +1 will help her out and luckily that green does get a nice bit of enchantment removal so Oblivion Ring won't stop her for long. Better get a few of those Dreadbores ;) Her -7 is very nice, now if only there was a way to make them hexproof and/ or unblockable...

I reckon the prices on the shocklands will actually go up. Lands always seem to go up in value while everything else falls...unless it's Black Lotus.

On the topic of Goglari, they have a few nice cards this time around. A few cards I would happily put into other green decks. Worldspine Wurm is very nasty indeed, makes me wonder if that's why Quicksilver amulet didn't get put into M13. Pulling a 15/15 out on turn five that can get shuffled back into it's owners deck? and have that in a non-green deck? ...

I may have to make a very evil casual deck now...
 
Yeah the more Golgari cards that have been revealed, the more they look like the guild that has had the most effort put into them and actually has me wanting to play them. I love the idea of discarding some Slitherheads to bulk up the troll, instantly scavenging them and swinging with a 4/3 or even 6/5 trample on turn 3. And if that 4/4 for 3 Rhino is there to block? Just regen the troll for 1, lolololol. Overall power level of the set looks high though, not just ass cards with a few bombs like AVR, or overall pretty middling one or two really nice cards like M13.

I agree with the dual lands, they will be in total demand across the full life of the set, and even amongst new players who come along after the next, next rotation.

--

As mentioned on chat, I won my FNM last week with the updated humans deck I have linked in the OP. Ran a BR Vampire Control deck (link should be in the OP soon) this week and didn't do so well - lost to Infect + Titanic Growth, and Wandering Wolf + Titanic Growth. :lol: I still need to learn how and what to play around in Standard.
 
Nice work :) Though I've not had a game of magic in a while now, with my friend going full speed into Cardfight Vanguard, it's mainly been that which we've been playing.

See the thing about standard is that you could write a series of books on how to metagame it before you even start playing in it. Most of the time it seems that when you play in standard if you want to do really well you've got three choices (possibly four) 1) Find out what is doing really well on the pro level and just play that. 2) Find out what is doing really well at pro level and build a deck to beat that 3) Build a deck that you want to play and just sideboard cards that can help, (e.g. dreadbore in a R/B deck to deal with aggressive blue decks that will run Jace, or naturlize in a green deck).

3) may seem like the choice everyone goes with but 1 or 2 have won many tournaments before.

Though we all wish to do 3 and build the deck everyone else will want to copy...or learn how to tear apart.*

I think playing limited with RtR may be a fun challenge, Sealed moreso then draft, especially the prerelease which I'll make sure I can get to. I want my shiny Hypersonic dragon...

My friend who is going to all of the pre-release events is going Azroinus first, then Rakados and either Selensya or Gologri.

Speaking of Rakados though I'm expecting a very evil updated card for him. Though the rakados cards that have been shown are answers to prayers when I was playing my other mates angel life gain deck months ago.

*Though it sucks if you do well and someone copies you and then does it even better
 
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