The General Magic: The Gathering Thread

[eostby]

As an EDH player, I'm just happy we got one. His abilities are mostly irrelevant, since Immerwolf is the real lynchpin to the deck anyway, imo.

[Lycodrake]

Bought a single pack of EMA just for kicks. Opened a foil Mishra's Factory and a Sylvan Library!

[Phi]

Can someone explain to me why the Remand effect is good? Maybe it is because I am new, but isn't it better to simply counter the spell than to bounce it and have them cast it again next turn?

[AdmiralMemo]

The Draw a Card part is good, and it's cheaper than an actual counterspell.

[Kapol]

Can someone explain to me why the Remand effect is good? Maybe it is because I am new, but isn't it better to simply counter the spell than to bounce it and have them cast it again next turn?

Do you mean the new one, or Remand itself? Remand itself is mostly used to Time Walk an opponent in the early game. They tap out, try to cast something, you put it back in their hand and replace Remand. If your opponent tries to counter something of yours, you can Remand your own spell to blow them out (assuming they don't have another counter). You get your original spell back, draw a card, and blank their counter.

For the new one, I don't think it's as good. I think a lot of people are just excited to actually have something like that in Standard, and hope it's good enough for beyond. The effect can be strong. The new one has the added benefit of 'countering' uncounterable spells. And being able to bounce a creature is relevant later in the game as well. The fact it doesn't replace itself makes it a step down from Remand. But the benefits it offers makes it questionable just how much of a step that is. For standard, it stills lets you blank kill spells and counter spells, as well as allowing for ETB value as well. Thinking about it like that, and the fact a lot of decks already play Reflector Mage... I think it's going to see a good deal of standard play.

[Phi]

Can someone explain to me why the Remand effect is good? Maybe it is because I am new, but isn't it better to simply counter the spell than to bounce it and have them cast it again next turn?

Do you mean the new one, or Remand itself? Remand itself is mostly used to Time Walk an opponent in the early game. They tap out, try to cast something, you put it back in their hand and replace Remand. If your opponent tries to counter something of yours, you can Remand your own spell to blow them out (assuming they don't have another counter). You get your original spell back, draw a card, and blank their counter.

For the new one, I don't think it's as good. I think a lot of people are just excited to actually have something like that in Standard, and hope it's good enough for beyond. The effect can be strong. The new one has the added benefit of 'countering' uncounterable spells. And being able to bounce a creature is relevant later in the game as well. The fact it doesn't replace itself makes it a step down from Remand. But the benefits it offers makes it questionable just how much of a step that is. For standard, it stills lets you blank kill spells and counter spells, as well as allowing for ETB value as well. Thinking about it like that, and the fact a lot of decks already play Reflector Mage... I think it's going to see a good deal of standard play.

Yes, I was referring to the new card. I can get that the extra card from Remand is good in some situations, but the new one just means you are down a card while your opponent just lost some tempo. It seems very situational to me, and I generally don't like it. I hope we get a solid counterspell this set. I miss Dissolve..

[Kapol]

You're trading card advantage for versatility in the end. From what I understand Remand could never really counter something unless they were trying to counter your spell, but you were never down a card (unless they countered it of course). The new one can 'counter' anything that targets a creature. Pump, removal, etc. It can help you with tempo later in the game by letting you bounce threats. Bye Ormandal. See you later, Incited Rabble when your owner uses a turn to flip you. And it can just be counter tempo. It's going to be strong when your opponent gets cocky and tries to blow you out with their CoCo or Avacyn.

In the end, I don't know if it'll be good enough for non-rotating formats. It does feel like it's being overhyped overall. And honestly, I don't know enough about standard to really say for sure it'll see play there. But it looks to me like a very versatile card. That's a pretty valuable trait in Magic. And I personally think I'll be playing it quite a bit in limited, at least.

[fantôme]

Unsubstantiate is a cheap and highly versatile instant, and very much the oil in a tempo machine. Even the lowly Disperse has been useful for me in Standard tempo decks. It sure ain't Remand, and goodness I miss Dissolve too, but I'm very much looking forward to playing with this new thing.

[phlip]

One of the main downsides of counterspells in general is drawing them too late... once your opponent has already resolved their big creature or whatever. Unsubstantiate's main upside is that its other mode, of bouncing a creature, is useful mostly in the cases where Remand would be bad, because you drew it too late, or had to drop shields for a turn, or somesuch. It's not just "it has extra options, therefore versatile" it's "it has extra options, and those options directly help with gaps in the original card".

The not-drawing-a-card thing is definitely also relevant, though... means this isn't going to be as useful in long-game control decks, for the same reason those decks don't play Unsummon... these decks don't want to trade cards for tempo. But it might be a potential alternative to Remand in get-ahead-stay-ahead decks that apply some quick pressure, and use cheap permission spells to stop you from doing anything to stop them. It doesn't need to deal with you forever, just for long enough. My instinct is that Remand is still probably better most of the time, but there could be some edge-case decks that are, perhaps, planning to play creatures for the first few turns, and potentially need to deal with things the opponent managed to play during those turns, as well as hold back the answers played later.

Also, it has a minor upside in combo decks that currently get destroyed by Abrupt Decay, as a "give me one more turn to go off, pls" button. I'unno how much that'll matter, but it's neat. (Since Remand says "counter a spell, if you do bounce it" while this just says "bounce a spell"... so being uncounterable doesn't matter.)

[fantôme]

Good luck to everyone attending an EMN pre-release this weekend, have fun out there!

[square1]

Good luck to everyone attending an EMN pre-release this weekend, have fun out there!

Thanks! My two went OK, going 2-2 in the first one and 4-0 in the second. Really liking emerge. Didn't open anything super valuable, but had fun with geier reach sanitarium. Stitchers graft was pretty good too.

Hope yours went well too!

[BlueChloroplast]

So at my EMN pre-release I got EMRAKRUL as my promo. <3

I also got Triskaidekaphobia.
Match One:
Game one - lose due to a red combat trick and making bad attacks.
Game two - get out Triskaidekaphobia and win with it.
Game three - Have Triskaidekaphobia out, opponent is at 13 on my upkeep, in response to the Triskaidekaphobia he taps the red pinging creature, I go down to 13. We both lose. The game is a draw.

The match is a natural draw.

[chetoos]

If that's the case, you play again until one of you wins a game.

[unpronounceable]

I had a lot of fun at my prerelease. It was actually my first one, and in some ways, I found it harder than drafting. I think I just do better when I have less in front of me at a time, than trying to come up with something from 6 packs.

I went 2-2, but I'm not sure I could have gotten a more exciting pool. My promo was Liliana, and in my first EMN pack, I opened up Emrakul and Gisela. Better yet was that I went into black/white, and had all three of them in my deck. I could probably have made a better deck, but when I have such exciting rares, how could I not.

http://i.imgur.com/LzEExWK.jpg

[fantôme]

Opened a very mediocre pool, most exciting things were Tree of Perdition - which doesn't actually do all that much in limited, and Eldritch Evolution - but with no particular bombs or silver bullets to tutor for. Put together g/b sort-of delirium/tokens, went 2-1-1. Highlights include:

Having to use Tree to make my opponent gain life to avoid his Cryptolith Fragment transforming.

Seeing a game getting Permeating Mass'd out.

Awesome Emerge plays from both sides in almost every match - definitely a great mechanic for limited.

[chetoos]

I wanna try and figure out the most number of subtypes you can give a creature without changeling or just "This creature has all the subtypes". I'm thinking start with Xenografting, choosing saproling, the enchantment that makes all saprolings and forests 1/1 saproling forests, prismatic omen, for all land subtypes, but I'm lost at that point.

[phlip]

Xenograft plus Opalescence plus Progenitor Mimic. Every turn you get a new copy of Xenograft, which can name a different creature type.

It's fun how much can be broken by turning random things into creatures and Progenitoring them...

[AdmiralMemo]

Here's my attempt at that shenanigans: http://loadingreadyrun.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=716777#p716777

And, Phlip, you forgot from last time adding in our friends Doubling Season, Parallel Lives, and Primal Vigor. (Might as well throw Second Harvest in there too now.)

Now I want a deck that's just 4 Opalescence, 4 Progenitor Mimic, 4 Doubling Season, 4 Parallel Lives, 4 Primal Vigor, some amount of Second Harvest, 4 Giant Adephage, 4 Emmara Tandris, and then maybe some green Eldrazi Spawn/Scion generators for token ramp.

[phlip]

Well, I was just going for minimal proof-of-concept... if you want to really speed it up, you'd add Conjurer's Closet to blink the Mimic every turn, and have it copy the newly-created token, so that the number of "make a new copy every turn" triggers grows every turn... get yourself some quadratic token counts.

[Phi]

Looking to get into modern with a budget spirits deck. Any thoughts?
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/new-londo/

[fantôme]

Looking to get into modern with a budget spirits deck. Any thoughts?
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/new-londo/

Rad. I've been wanting to try out something similar as spirits is my jam. Was talking to a guy in my LGS who plays a variety of w/u control decks, he is a huge advocate of Azorius Charm. 21 lands might be pretty greedy, especially with Ojutai's Command at the top end. Utility lands to consider: Ghost Quarter versus Tron and Infect, Geier Reach Sanitarium forms a pretty hilarious lock with Spirit of the Labyrinth - though both these hurt the manabase. Essence Flux shenanigans could be considered. And maybe sideboard Trickbind versus Living Death (and many other things).

Would love to know how you get on.

[Phi]

Looking to get into modern with a budget spirits deck. Any thoughts?
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/new-londo/

Rad. I've been wanting to try out something similar as spirits is my jam. Was talking to a guy in my LGS who plays a variety of w/u control decks, he is a huge advocate of Azorius Charm. 21 lands might be pretty greedy, especially with Ojutai's Command at the top end. Utility lands to consider: Ghost Quarter versus Tron and Infect, Geier Reach Sanitarium forms a pretty hilarious lock with Spirit of the Labyrinth - though both these hurt the manabase. Essence Flux shenanigans could be considered. And maybe sideboard Trickbind versus Living Death (and many other things).

Would love to know how you get on.

Thanks, Ghost Quarter added. Any other side board suggestions? I am not super familiar with the format.

[Re'ozul]

Had to post this: (Because media apparently don't work it became a link)

Equipped creature gets +1/-1.
Whenever equipped creature dies, draw two cards.

[RadioshackRaider]

Okay, I'm starting to think the new Emrakul isn't actually all that great. I've cast it 4 times and had it in play 5 (The 5th was a complicated situation involving Hive Mind and Coax from the Blind Eternities) and I've lost every single time. The 4 casts were in one single game. And each time she was killed by the exact same card that I couldn't do anything about: In Garruk's Wake. I think she's most certainly the weakest of the new Titans.

[Phi]

I just moved into a new country, and I there is a small Magic community here. Being poor now, I can no longer afford drafts and Standard, so I was thinking of playing commander or the budget modern spirits deck I have been brewing. I feel rather tense about entering a new community and into formats I am not familiar with. Any advice?