The General Magic: The Gathering Thread

[Robert Merlow]

Personally, Ebay. Deals upon deals, and some sellers even throw in a little bonus if you pay promptly. I like that.

[Ottoman]

Since I've always been a bit wary of eBay, I shop at Card Kingdom. Their prices are perhaps a bit higher than others' on average, but more consistent. The only time I've run into out-of-stock items there was when looking for certain foils, but then again, I don't usually buy old or obscure cards. They always take care of orders well, and quickly, too.

I only buy online when I need specific singles, though. For packs and boxes and whatnot, I support my local hobby shop.

[Robert Merlow]

Oh, of course. There is nothing like actually getting help from a real human being that has aj idea about the game

[Icefall]

Is making a simic based control deck too complicated? I see a lot of cards that work well together but worry about being able to par it down well and get enough mana out for it in a reasonable amount of time. I'm still not familiar with all the options for getting mana set up.

[Lyinginbedmon]

Simic is Green/Blue, which leaves lots of room for mana ramping (Green's specialty) and card/field control (Blue's specialty). If you also add in Gilder Bairn (and Paradise Mantle if you're feeling especially villainous), it blends in perfectly with Simic's focus on +1/+1 counters.

[Ottoman]

So. . . how about that M12, eh?

Manalith looks cool:



(Although strictly worse than Darksteel Ingot.)

Also, this little bastard is getting a reprint:



Because an Elvish Piper in every colour is exactly what we need.

[Icefall]

Wow that is an interesting combo, Gilder Bairn and Paradise Mantle. Does the mana it makes go away when the card is untapped or does it stay on the field and allow you to then generate a new additional one next turn?

[Cybren]

4 mana 4 activation elvish piper is probably not going to be that bad

[HungryHungryHobo]

They use it in DOTP2012 quite effectively to make Karn one of the most annoying duels in the game.

[Robert Merlow]

@ Icefall: The mana disappears from the mana pool as soon as your turn ends. If the mana is not consumed by the end of the turn, then it just disappears unless you have Omnath, Locus of Mana and that just applies to green mana (which so happens to work with Glider Barin.

[Lyinginbedmon]

Wow that is an interesting combo, Gilder Bairn and Paradise Mantle. Does the mana it makes go away when the card is untapped or does it stay on the field and allow you to then generate a new additional one next turn?

The mana sticks around, and as long as you have (at least 2) mana you can keep tapping Bairn to double the counters on things. If you have Training Grounds (A one-mana blue enchantment) out, you can do it infinitely in a turn.

[MowDownJoe]

They use it in DOTP2012 quite effectively to make Karn one of the most annoying duels in the game.

Yeah? Well, he also used Moxen and Tinker. I'm pretty sure those two made me rage harder than the Amulet. (Although it might have been because when he tried the Amulet against me, I was playing the U/G deck and had both Yavimaya's Embrace and Mind Control in hand. Yay for stealing 11/11 tramplers!)

[aeric90]

A few posts back I mentioned that I was looking for something creative to do with 'Sword of War and Peace' now that the Stoneforge Mystic is banned and I'd like to get some card ideas. The deck is so far W/U and I'm still sticking with M11 and the Scars block. My strategy is to use the sword and self draw cards for life gain purposes. Load up my hand with as many cards as possible, put the sword on a double strike creature and get him through un-molested to hit twice for stupid life gains while whitling away at the opponent. Cards that seem attractive right now are:

Auriok Edgewright, Purestill Paladin, Oculus, Neurok Commando, Culling Dias, Flight Spellbomb, Infiltration Lens, Whispersilk Clock, Venser's Journal, Preordain

In addition I'd be looking to trow in some Memnites and Accorder's Shields to get to Metalcraft quickly and sacrifice to the dias.

This one is mostly for fun. I don't think it'd be in any way competitive. What's your thoughts? Any ideas?

[the_lone_bard]

So... Is Jace going out with the bosses daughter or something? He's the space marines of the mtg universe.
This has also just broken legacy...MORE SO than it already was. i know there's at least one card that does "Whenever opponents draw a card you gain a life." and one that deals them 1 damage when they draw a card.
Not to mention it's multiplayer instant mill.
Take a 400 card deck, manage to get jace out and that other card "Each time a player draws a card each other player draws a card." "You all draw 20, since 5 of you are drawing 20 you all draw an aditional 80 ontop of that 20 and i draw 80. whelp looks like i win again! Hahahah i'm so goo- Hey what's the knife for guys? guys... GUYS! ARGHWHARGARBLEGARBLE."

[aeric90]

That's seriously too broken to be real.

[Lyinginbedmon]

Sorry, for nothing he makes you mill 10? FOR NOTHING?!

Even putting aside the -7 multiplayer madness, that is absurd. But I guess it guarantees he's getting a bullseye painted onto his face the instant he comes out.

[MowDownJoe]

Meh... when has mill ever been competitive? Although he'll kill in 3 turns in limited, but he's not going to break any format, especially ones where the Mind Sculptor is legal. (Also, there's a big difference between 4 and 5 mana.)

That said, his up-ability is miles better than Baby-Jace and maybe a little better than Banned-Jace.

[Edit:] Better quality image:

[the_lone_bard]

Are you forgetting about proliferate?
The deck i'm currently running in standard is an "No, you wanna play infect? Well fuck you i'm gunna be a cheap bastard too" deck."
Blue/Green.
Green is mana spam and artifact removal.
Blue is counter with a few big nasty creatures, 4 magosi the waterveils and 4 contagion engines.
Turn 3 my contagion engine comes in.
turn 4 i skip a turn with magosi, taking a heap of damage and whatever else is thrown at me, as long as i survive, even on 1 life or with 9 poison counters, i instantly win.
Each turn i pay 4 and proliferate the magosi, 2 counters for 4 mana, i remove one and take an extra turn.

if i can throw 4 of these in my deck? (Unless i get 4 out of the sealed tourney event or whatever is run for this one i won't have any in my deck, ever.) it's gg instantly. each of my infinite turns i mill you for 10 cards.
Yeah my deck takes 5 turns to instant win, but it's made with whatever i had around, it's not even a normal "4 of everything and nothing that i don't have x4 of." deck.

[Lacerta]

Ugh, so it turns out Jace has anime hair?

Put the hood back on, please.

[the_lone_bard]

You never seen the alt art from lorwyn?

[theDreamer]

turn 4 i skip a turn with magosi, taking a heap of damage and whatever else is thrown at me, as long as i survive, even on 1 life or with 9 poison counters, i instantly win.
Each turn i pay 4 and proliferate the magosi, 2 counters for 4 mana, i remove one and take an extra turn.

This makes no sense.

Part of paying the cost for Magosi is returning it to your hand.

No infinite turns.

[Robert Merlow]

Wait, did you all see the cost of Jace? 3UU is going to make him even slower than Beleren and Mind Sculptor. That 0 ability is ridiculous, but I think at that cost it will be easy to legend snipe him out. It certainly isn't better than Mind Sculptor. Being able to Brainstorm for free is so much more effective than milling, stabilizing draws is much more important. I think mill decks will be that much more effective with him around, but he is no Jace, the Brainstormer.

[Lyinginbedmon]

Yeah, I think we've covered the Magosi loop flaws before, haven't we?

If you had an Amulet of Vigor out, you could eliminate Magosi being tapped when it came in.
With proliferate, you can keep the number of counters up.
With Fate Transfer and one of the Zendikons or something to make Magosi temporarily a creature, you can transfer Eon counters from another permanent similarly creature-fied to Magosi to tap it and get another turn.

But there's nothing else that uses Eon counters, just Magosi, so even with all this effort it's still not a viable loop.

[Cybren]

The new jace does not look good.


it costs 5. That's not good.
it can't protect itself. that's not good.
For the first month it's around it's going to be milling bloodghasts and vengevines. That's not what you want to do.
After that you probably still won't want to be milling things. Archive trap is leaving and that's the only card that makes mill viable. If you can say that.

[theDreamer]

The new jace does not look good.


it costs 5. That's not good.
it can't protect itself. that's not good.
For the first month it's around it's going to be milling bloodghasts and vengevines. That's not what you want to do.
After that you probably still won't want to be milling things. Archive trap is leaving and that's the only card that makes mill viable. If you can say that.

Lol.

Lololol.

The number of times I have lost to mill without ever having seen archive.