Magic:The Gathering

[ki_atsushi]

I called 3 card shops in Columbus today. Not a single one sells or plays L5R. Which is sad. It looks like a fun more adult oriented ccg. There's not even a shop in Ohio that plays from researching for places to play on the website. The cards do have nice art though. I may just buy some anyway and start a Facebook page to try and find some people.

Did any of you play Rage: Cult of the Wyrm growing up? That game was awesome.

I still enjoy Magic. It's just depressing that you have to invest so much to play competitive. And the sets I played growing up lime revised, Dark, Legends, Arabian Nights, Portal, etc.. Are so damn expensive. You're talking grands to get in the competitive scene. I looked back a few months ago and was pretty bummed to see some of the stuff I had is worth over a grand per card now. So I decided to look into Portal the 3 kingdoms cause I always enjoyed playing with that set and making horsemanship decks. They're ridiculous expensive. I mean I could sell my game collection and maybe get a power 9, maybe even a few duals. But I would still need a shit ton of money.

I wish they would just make a game that took off with no such thing as rares. It kills it fit people that could be good but don't live in their parents basement and throw down a whole full time paycheck on magic ever other week.

My Portal 3 Kingdoms collection is nearly complete! However I am still missing the most expensive cards (all the $200+), so as far as spending money goes, I'm a long way off. Only have ~30 cards to go out of 180 in the set though.

 

[greedostick]

I can't get into hearthstone, I tried. It's just not complex enough and the art kinda sucks.

 

[SonGohan]

All I play is control decks in MTG and I don't think there are any complexities to hearthstone only decision you have is do I go face or do I attack their creature that's it and top decks are out of control and the fact that you have no way to block their creatures unless you have taunt is just terrible

This is an extremely simplified view of the game. There's a lot of complexities involving what your opponent may have in his hand, how he will respond to your plays, and how you will respond to his. The game has more options than attack face or creatures as well --mill druids and rogues exist. The top decks in this game aren't any different than the top decks in other games, so I'm not sure how this is somehow a strike against it, but there's nothing really "out of control."

It's fine to not like it, but your comments make me wonder if you spent any time with the game at all.

 

[joecommando]

This is an extremely simplified view of the game. There's a lot of complexities involving what your opponent may have in his hand, how he will respond to your plays, and how you will respond to his. The game has more options than attack face or creatures as well --mill druids and rogues exist. The top decks in this game aren't any different than the top decks in other games, so I'm not sure how this is somehow a strike against it, but there's nothing really "out of control."

It's fine to not like it, but your comments make me wonder if you spent any time with the game at all.

Oh I played for about a week but as far as top decks being out of control let me explain what I meant by that. The game gives you mana as it progresses and the deck is all spells and no air so the likelyhood of being top decked against when your opponent has access to all their mana every turn is much much higher. There will always be bad beats and top decks I understand that but in the brief time I played hearthstone I got top decked against a few times a day it was absolutely ridiculous. When I play tournament magic I might get top decked against once or twice to lose the game over the course of the entire tourney but this was happening so much to me in hearthstone it was super frustrating.

 

[SonGohan]

Oh I played for about a week but as far as top decks being out of control let me explain what I meant by that. The game gives you mana as it progresses and the deck is all spells and no air so the likelyhood of being top decked against when your opponent has access to all their mana every turn is much much higher. There will always be bad beats and top decks I understand that but in the brief time I played hearthstone I got top decked against a few times a day it was absolutely ridiculous. When I play tournament magic I might get top decked against once or twice to lose the game over the course of the entire tourney but this was happening so much to me in hearthstone it was super frustrating.

The reality is that top decking doesn't happen in Hearthstone a lot. You don't want to run out of gas. If you find yourself top decking in many of your games, then you've created a bad deck, or you're playing arena (where top decking is inevitable). Magic is the same thing, except you've spent enough time with Magic to not put yourself in positions where you're forced to top deck. Having access to your mana doesn't make a person top deck --it's your card synergy (or lack thereof), and it certainly doesn't make the cards you draw "out of control" (just ask anybody who's topdecked a bloodfen raptor (3/2 vanilla creature) on turn 10).

Your comment was silly. It would be like me saying Magic is all face (because your creatures can't target other creatures, unless they have a specific ability that allows them to do so). It's funny that you play control, because control warrior in Hearthstone draws cards like a mother fucker and never top decks. After turn 5, they're shitting out huge creature after huge creature from a full hand.

 

[joecommando]

The reality is that top decking doesn't happen in Hearthstone a lot. You don't want to run out of gas. If you find yourself top decking in many of your games, then you've created a bad deck, or you're playing arena (where top decking is inevitable). Magic is the same thing, except you've spent enough time with Magic to not put yourself in positions where you're forced to top deck. Having access to your mana doesn't make a person top deck --it's your card synergy (or lack thereof), and it certainly doesn't make the cards you draw "out of control" (just ask anybody who's topdecked a bloodfen raptor (3/2 vanilla creature) on turn 10).

Your comment was silly. It would be like me saying Magic is all face (because your creatures can't target other creatures, unless they have a specific ability that allows them to do so). It's funny that you play control, because control warrior in Hearthstone draws cards like a mother fucker and never top decks. After turn 5, they're shitting out huge creature after huge creature from a full hand.

You're probably right I'm just a bitter old man who has been playing magic for 17 years so I can't adjust. Not to toot my horn but I am a very good control player in MTG and maybe I was trying to play hearthstone with the same theories MTG has

 

[SonGohan]

You're probably right I'm just a bitter old man who has been playing magic for 17 years so I can't adjust. Not to toot my horn but I am a very good control player in MTG and maybe I was trying to play hearthstone with the same theories MTG has

I love both games. I actually fell out of Magic because the price was too much, the content was coming out too quick, and WOTC was trying really bad concepts that I didn't like. I still love pre-2000 MTG. Hearthstone is kind of a hard game to get into, because you need good cards to actually have fun and explore different play-styles, which you can't really get with only a week of play. That's one thing I really like over MTG. When I played MTG, there were very few decks that were competitive. If you wanted to seriously win and play for money, you didn't have a lot of options. In HS I can play 15 - 20 different types of decks that are competitive with each other, and that keeps me interested.

But anyway, I didn't mean to turn the topic to HS. greedostick mentioned that he wanted a card game that didn't require you to sink half your bank account into, so I suggested it.

Back on Magic --I really wish Origins was cross-platform. One thing that I really like is how you can't pull extra cards after you have the 4 max. That makes it to where you can gather a complete collection a lot quicker. They've done so many right things with this game, but the few issues it does have is so fucking glaring that I wonder why they even attempted it. I still haven't revisited it after finding all that out..

 

[greedostick]

My Portal 3 Kingdoms collection is nearly complete! However I am still missing the most expensive cards (all the $200+), so as far as spending money goes, I'm a long way off. Only have ~30 cards to go out of 180 in the set though.

It's such a cool set. I would love to have a lot of those cards again. I use to have a LOT of them. I know for a fact I use to have that empower seal card. The weird thing is I use to think that set was illegal I'm tournament play, because they were never sold in shops in my area. I use to buy them 5-10 packs ever week from a place called Jose Magic Online. I use to buy unglued from there also which was a major reason I thought they were illegal.

20 ish years ago the comic shop I use to play at was pretty booming with magic players from around central Ohio. I saw some pretty impressive collections back then thinking back on it. I mean this is when Fork and Vesuvian Doppelganger were near impossible to find I considered powerful cards. I remember I could have bought mox cards for less than $100.00, which was a lot then. Anyway, back on subject. There was this guy named Ernie. He was about 50 then, and judging from his health probably dead now. This guy never played magic... Ever. He just collected cards. He would drive to the shop maybe once a week with a huge trunk full of cards. He hd everything. I mean everything. He had I know for a fact at least 4 sets of every set from beta through revised. He also had a complete alpha set. Bit only one and some loose alpha cards. This guy probably died and his kids are probably sitting on a fortune of magic cards. I really need to contact the owner of that comic shop and try and reach that guy. I just found him on Facebook the other day.

 

[ki_atsushi]

It's such a cool set. I would love to have a lot of those cards again. I use to have a LOT of them. I know for a fact I use to have that empower seal card. The weird thing is I use to think that set was illegal I'm tournament play, because they were never sold in shops in my area. I use to buy them 5-10 packs ever week from a place called Jose Magic Online. I use to buy unglued from there also which was a major reason I thought they were illegal.

You're right, they weren't tournament legal until 2004ish iirc. Now a lot of the cards are commander staples, which is why the value has continued to climb. I wish I would have plopped down the money for an imperial seal just 3 years ago when I first started collecting them... you could find them readily for ~$200, now they're $800.

 

[systmdfect]

I ended up getting a box of New Phyrexia last week. A buddy and I have been opening up 6 packs at a time and playing little draft tournaments. This was kind of a blind purchase. Since I was out of MTG for many years, I'm not too familiar with this set other than what made it into Modern Masters '15. I've got to say, this set is pretty damn fun to play around with. I love the Phyrexian mana concept. Also, the use of infect was pretty neat too. The set seems fairly balanced. Looking forward to finishing off the last 6 packs this weekend.

I think after that I'll finally end up picking up a box or two from the final Core Set.

 

[ki_atsushi]

New Phyrexia (and the rest of the block: Scars of Mirrodin & Mirrodin Besieged) is excellent. Lots of powerful cards. One of my favorite cards that caused people to scoop immediately the majority of the time on Magic Online was the Phyrexian Obliterator. Holy shit:

 

[systmdfect]

That's a pretty nice card. I imagine it was a staple for anybody playing mono black at the time. The rest of the sets in the block looked interesting as well. May pick up one of those in the future.

I'm really liking cards like Gitaxian Probe, Noxious Revival, and Mutagenic Growth remind of playing Force of Will back in the day.

 

[greedostick]

New Phyrexia (and the rest of the block: Scars of Mirrodin & Mirrodin Besieged) is excellent. Lots of powerful cards. One of my favorite cards that caused people to scoop immediately the majority of the time on Magic Online was the Phyrexian Obliterator. Holy shit:

View attachment 28056

That's a sweet card. I started making a black green deck last night and went through the entire standard library. I'm surprised I missed that one.

Ki do you have any suggestions for a black green deck?

It seems like they really want you to make a delve deck with that combo, it's not a type of deck I have ever made, and it's not on MTGO top 8 from what I see, so I think I want to do it. I hate making the best decks like the majority of players do.

I am still in the very early stages, and keep in mind this is for a fun deck, not competitive play. I am trying to figure out a way to defend my graveyard if someone plays one of those exile all cards from your graveyard cards. I found this card called soulflayer, that when you exile a card from your graveyard to cast it it gains that cards abilities, like hexproof, trample, flying, etc... I think I want to use that card for fun, and maybe add some other annoying creatures that have stuff like hexproof, protection from red and blue, can not be countered, etc... But I also plan on using green for the ability to get land out fast. I was thinking of throwing something in there like that 4 drop nightmare clone.

basically if possible I want to defend my graveyard and somehow work another win condition in there in case my graveyard gets exiled.

 

[tacoguy]

That's a pretty nice card. I imagine it was a staple for anybody playing mono black at the time. The rest of the sets in the block looked interesting as well. May pick up one of those in the future.

I'm really liking cards like Gitaxian Probe, Noxious Revival, and Mutagenic Growth remind of playing Force of Will back in the day.

The crazy thing is that mono black really wasnt that strong in standard for most of the duration of the phyrexian obliterator. The strongest deck for zendikar/mirrodin standard was caw blade. That thing was so bad that wizards had to give jace the ban hammer. And then when innistrad came into standard, it all bacame about snapcaster and delver. If they would have waited for M14 or M15, it would have been a powerhouse in mono black devotion.

 

[ki_atsushi]

The crazy thing is that mono black really wasnt that strong in standard for most of the duration of the phyrexian obliterator. The strongest deck for zendikar/mirrodin standard was caw blade. That thing was so bad that wizards had to give jace the ban hammer. And then when innistrad came into standard, it all bacame about snapcaster and delver. If they would have waited for M14 or M15, it would have been a powerhouse in mono black devotion.

That's true, I should have prefaced that I was never really much of a standard player, I prefer eternal formats. I think I had a classic (MTGO only format) deck That I ran at least 3 of those in. Loved that card.

greedo, what format are you wanting to do black/green in? Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think it's good in standard right now. Mono red burn and blue/red thopters seem to be popular from what Ive seen.

Now if you're going modern, there's tons of options...

 

[tacoguy]

If you stick to standard then going straight G/B is not so good right now. I would instead recommend to splash in blue and make a sultai deck. I haven't really checked the prices but it shouldn't really be that expensive to pick up most the staple cards for that deck. It is not a tier one deck at this time but it is still powerful. A bit of warning if you go this route is that a lot of the cards in sultai reanimator are from theros which is going to rotate out of standard in about a month or so.

If you want to stick to G/B and want to play other formats like modern or legacy then you get lots of options but most of them will be expensive. There are budget options, but i'm not too familiar with all of them.

 

[joecommando]

If you stick to standard then going straight G/B is not so good right now. I would instead recommend to splash in blue and make a sultai deck. I haven't really checked the prices but it shouldn't really be that expensive to pick up most the staple cards for that deck. It is not a tier one deck at this time but it is still powerful. A bit of warning if you go this route is that a lot of the cards in sultai reanimator are from theros which is going to rotate out of standard in about a month or so.

If you want to stick to G/B and want to play other formats like modern or legacy then you get lots of options but most of them will be expensive. There are budget options, but i'm not too familiar with all of them.

Yeah don't buy anything older than khans of tarkir right now for standard also if you don't have them already and you want to play green you should pick up a set of den protector. Also sultai is not a cheap deck cause it kind of needs jace vryns prodigy to work smoothly so unless you wanna spend 150 bucks on those I wouldn't build sultai.

 

[greedostick]

How do you know when cards are rotating out? It's shortly after a complete 2 blocks have been released isn't it? So it would technically be 3 blocks back.

I don't think I can bring myself to use blue. I hate blue with a burning passion. It makes games so slow and boring, you can't do shit cause it's overpowered, and everyone uses it. Pretty much every deck I make is designed specifically with an anti blue and red sideboard.

 

[tacoguy]

As of right now, everything from Theros-Origins is standard legal. Once Zendikar is released like in a month or so, standard will be Khans-Fate, Dragons-Origins, and Zendikar. Blocks will now consist of 2 sets and standard rotation will now be 18 months instead of two years. Heres the original article
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mm/metamorphosis
Blue in standard is far from over powered. In Sultai, you play more of a mid-range re-animator type of deck. Blue and green and black make really good use of the graveyard and library. You don’t even have to play counter spells or any sort of tempo cards. If you are going to be really incessant with going just g/b in standard then you are going to be hurting yourself by not splashing in blue since the color combination gives you access to stronger cards.
I almost forgot about mentioning abzan. That’s G/B/W probably a stronger color combination because they keep a bunch of cards after rotation. They could be the front runners for the top deck in standard after rotation. But I think they are even more expensive than what a typical sultai deck would cost you.
But with the new block just about a month away, it will be hard to predict if sultai or abzan will even be a power house. Your best bet is to pick up the stuff that’s cheap right now from the stuff that won’t rotate out. If you

 

[greedostick]

OK, I started working on a deck today. I'm actually 2 cards short. I did take note about adding blue or white, but I did notice a lot of things are rotating out. So I decided to make a deck without picking up expensive cards, except for the den protector. I actually do not see a planeswalker I feel fits well in this deck since it relies mostly on cards in my graveyard. Maybe after the next rotation starts I can get more serious, but for now this is just for fun till the new set comes out. So please offer me some suggestions on what to add or reduce for now. I actually am not sure about the reclaim cards I put in. Not sure if I really need them, I was just thinking if I have to discard a den protector with satyr it might be nice to have one handy.

I have been out of the loop since return to ravnica, so please remember I am very rusty, and this is just for fun on the cheap for now, with possible intent to upgrade later. Deck basicall revolves around Grave Strength and Graveblade Marauder, or Nighthowler. I threw a couple hexproof instants in there to protect my important creatures, and added 2 Rouge Passages to hopefully get damage through. My main weakness when deck building is definitely adding the correct mana. That's one of the main reasons I am negating to do a 3 color deck right now, and the cost of duals.

Here is what I have so far. I wanted to add some thoughtseize and that card that plays your top card of your deck up to allow you to play land but they're rotating out.

Land:
forest x6
swamp x6
Llanowar Waste x4
Jungle Hollow x4
Rogue Passage x2
Evolving Wilds x4

Black:
Bloodsoaked Champion x4
Grave strength x3
Gravebalde Marauder x4
Hero's Downfall x4
Nighthowler x2

Green:
Elvish Mystic x3
Ranger's Guile x3
Reclaim x2
Den Protector x4
Satyr Wayfinder x3

 

[lolifoxgirl]

Get up on that doran siege tower...

 

[ki_atsushi]

OK, I started working on a deck today. I'm actually 2 cards short. I did take note about adding blue or white, but I did notice a lot of things are rotating out. So I decided to make a deck without picking up expensive cards, except for the den protector. I actually do not see a planeswalker I feel fits well in this deck since it relies mostly on cards in my graveyard. Maybe after the next rotation starts I can get more serious, but for now this is just for fun till the new set comes out. So please offer me some suggestions on what to add or reduce for now. I actually am not sure about the reclaim cards I put in. Not sure if I really need them, I was just thinking if I have to discard a den protector with satyr it might be nice to have one handy.

I have been out of the loop since return to ravnica, so please remember I am very rusty, and this is just for fun on the cheap for now, with possible intent to upgrade later. Deck basicall revolves around Grave Strength and Graveblade Marauder, or Nighthowler. I threw a couple hexproof instants in there to protect my important creatures, and added 2 Rouge Passages to hopefully get damage through. My main weakness when deck building is definitely adding the correct mana. That's one of the main reasons I am negating to do a 3 color deck right now, and the cost of duals.

Here is what I have so far. I wanted to add some thoughtseize and that card that plays your top card of your deck up to allow you to play land but they're rotating out.

Land:
forest x6
swamp x6
Llanowar Waste x4
Jungle Hollow x4
Rogue Passage x2
Evolving Wilds x4

Black:
Bloodsoaked Champion x4
Grave strength x3
Gravebalde Marauder x4
Hero's Downfall x4
Nighthowler x2

Green:
Elvish Mystic x3
Ranger's Guile x3
Reclaim x2
Den Protector x4
Satyr Wayfinder x3

Get some bigger bodies in that deck. You need bombs to drop!

 

[greedostick]

How big is a bomb? Like 5/5 or higher? I would like a big flying creature. I noticed there is a 5/5 demon for 3 marathon makes each person draw an extra card during draw step. And there a unable to be countered tyrannosaurus green card. He's an 8/8 I believe. But he's really expensive to cast.

 

[ki_atsushi]

How big is a bomb? Like 5/5 or higher? I would like a big flying creature. I noticed there is a 5/5 demon for 3 marathon makes each person draw an extra card during draw step. And there a unable to be countered tyrannosaurus green card. He's an 8/8 I believe. But he's really expensive to cast.

I know exactly what you're talking about, Master of the Feast is definitely a bomb. I don't like his downside, but having a 5/5 flier on turn 3 is excellent.

Can't remember the name of the green 8/8 you're talking about, but that is a good one. Just expensive for anything other than mono green unless you throw some mana elves in for ramp.

Only problem, again, is that Master of the Feast will be rotating out.

Maybe you could splash white and throw multiple siege rhinos in. They're one of the best.

 

[joecommando]

How do you know when cards are rotating out? It's shortly after a complete 2 blocks have been released isn't it? So it would technically be 3 blocks back.

I don't think I can bring myself to use blue. I hate blue with a burning passion. It makes games so slow and boring, you can't do shit cause it's overpowered, and everyone uses it. Pretty much every deck I make is designed specifically with an anti blue and red sideboard.

You clearly dont know much about standard right now as blue is by far the worst color in the current metagame.