The General Magic: The Gathering Thread

[Volafortis]

Thought Scour is good because if you run Snapcaster Mage and/or cards with flashback, it can "draw" anywhere from 1 to 3 cards.

[Lord Hosk]

Index is incredible you all just dont know when to play it.

Go with me here, its the final round of the magic world cup, you and your opponent have each won one game. You have two cards in hand, and 5 cards in your library, and 7 untapped islands on the table. Your opponent has three Vedalken Entrancer tapped on the board. One card in your had is divination, one of the cards left in your library is an elixir of immortality. What do you want the second card in your hand to be?

Yeah index isnt so bad anymore is it.

[headband]

Is it me, or does blue seem like it's the ultimate color? (says the guy currently running a blue/red deck in standerd XD)

[Kapol]

The best thing I can see Index doing is setting up miracles. In fact, it's great at setting up miracles. Not only because you decide what order (and by extension what turn) you get the miracles, but you don't draw. Which means that you don't have to worry about drawing into a miracle (if your deck is THAT miracle heavy).

I'd play it in any miracle-heavy deck that has or already splashes blue. It's not enough to go into blue for on it's own though.

But yea, it is still pretty awful.

Blue is pretty strong right now due to Snapcaster, Runechanters, and Delver, but not to the point it's unbeatable. It's most known for being great at control. And to be honest, I dislike control with a passion. Mostly because control just isn't fun to play against. I think Magic works best when both players are having fun. And when the other play is just having "I counter that" or "When you declare attacks I bounce this back to your hand" happening EVERY GAME it becomes very frustrating for the other person.

[Lyinginbedmon]

Blue is clearly superior

[Lord Hosk]

I beg to differ, green white is far better than blue.

Turn one
they play any land
you play land Dryad militant.

turn two
your opponent bricks on land
You play out a land

repeat for 7 more turns

Turn 10
your opponent plays a second land
you play your 10th land and play a 10/10 ooze

turn 11
You play a 11th land and cast worldspine wurm.
your opponent scoops.

It cant fail!

[magicpokey]

The problem is, especially in eternal formats, Blue can do almost everything as well as the other colors can, as well as being the best at generating card advantage. Cards like delver make blue able to be aggro with the most powerful of red or green creatures, cards like boomerang (devastation tide in standard) combined with counters make blue 90% as good at effectively destroying stuff as the other colors. and there is something to be said for being the color of counterspells, mana leaks, and snapcasters.

Theres a reason RtR has a cycle of big, splashy, uncounterable rares. Blue has, objectively been the best color for a long time now, I'm not saying this is a good thing, but it can and will divide people, as blue mages whine and complain whenever their color drops in power and everybody else complains about things like delver and snapcaster.

If snapcaster had been 1R instead of 1U, it would have gone a ways towards making blue slightly less head and shoulders above the other colors.

Edit: \/\/\/\/ That is true, but the two cards that shook up legacy the most in recent years were Snapcaster and Mental Misstep, the latter of which was actually banned in legacy because it warped the format so much. So a case could be made for blue being even more powerful than colorless there...

[Yaxley]

Looking at the restricted list for Vintage tallies up this way:

White - 1
Blue - 13
Black - 7
Red - 2
Green - 3
Artifacts - 13
Land - 3

So yeah, blue is the most powerful color, but colorless is also pretty good.

[headband]

So, with Ravnica coming up, does everyone know what guild they're going to go with?

Izzet League for the win!

[Kapol]

I'm going with Selesnia, but I think for the Two-Headed Giant I'm going to try going Selesnia/Izzet.

[tanatoes]

It's my impression that Return is going to (at least in draft) be a much slower starting game than has been the norm since I came back in to the Magic fold (just before the release of Avacyn.) It's full of heavy hitters and expensive multi-color cards. As such I think that the Lantern will work to replace birds. It doesn't drop until turn 3 but it solves all your color problems in one fell swoop.



Combine with Arbor Elf for home-made Birds.

[Lord Hosk]

Is there a way to make artifacts hexproof?

I foresee every standard deck will have a couple of Smelt/ Naturalizes or equivalent.

[headband]

Is there a way to make artifacts hexproof?

I foresee every standard deck will have a couple of Smelt/ Naturalizes or equivalent.

Well, I recently got Avacyn, Angel of Hope, and her ability makes all permanents indestructable, so I'm good there. XD

[Kapol]

I like Avacyn a lot. It's so fun to get her out turn 4 or 5. But yea, with so many enchantments and artifacts, I'm guessing we're going to see a lot more main-decks enchantment/artifact removal.

[WickedBoy6]

Is there a way to make artifacts hexproof?

[vxicepickxv]

Is there a way to make artifacts hexproof?

Nope. I answer that with this guy.


Try this guy instead.

[Volafortis]

None of which will help you if I show you this:


or this:

[Jenelmo]

But those are only relevant if it is artifact creatures, if it is regular normal artifact neither black sun or mutilate does anything

[Volafortis]

Then have fun paying for this:


Or, if they aren't indestructible, then a simple card like this:

[Kapol]

Then have fun paying for this:

To which I respond with this:

[Lyinginbedmon]

This is a pretty funky deck you guys are working with

[Jenelmo]

You can always just play this, and don't care how protected it is with indestructible, hexproof and can't be sacrificed


or

[Kapol]

...I just realized that Hypersonic Dragon makes Worldfire much more viable.

[Lyinginbedmon]

Squirrels have always been OP

[Jenelmo]

There is a reason that we have not seen Squirrels since Torment and that is like a decade ago. R&D are afraid they will break the game