The General Magic: The Gathering Thread

[Volafortis]

Actually, you're wrong: Stream of Life.

[Volafortis]

And I officially wash my hands of Magic Online. So sick of getting disconnected mid-tournament.

[phlip]

Actually, you're wrong: Stream of Life.

... Wow.

Sorceries: they're a card type that exists.

Somehow, I forgot that.

[guidance]

On topic with today's TTC my friend made a cube out of cards he had laying around as well as any donations the rest of us wanted to make. The catch is the cube is made to be played as pack wars. All the cards are sorted by rarity and packs are made by randomly putting in the correct amount of commons, uncommons and rares. Then without looking at the cards in your pile you put in 3 of each land and go ahead with pack wars. It is surprisingly fun and made for some really stupid games.

[Kapol]

I made a controll deck.

[ElFuzzy]

I feel like you wont live to drop a board wipe, other than that I love the idea.

[Kapol]

There aren't many decks besides heavy agro that'd kill me by turn 4. If I don't have my Haunted Plate Mail, any keyrune, or Supreme Verdict, then turn 6 is a bit more risky. But again, they'd have to be fairly agro to kill me by then.

[ElFuzzy]

Rakdos sends their regards

[tamaness]

I don't like to see a control deck in current standard not running Jace, Architect of Thought, or Detention Sphere. Jace helps you get to the cards you need, and Sphere is removal you can drop a turn earlier. Also remember that Cleansing hits your walkers and artifacts as well, so it's probably less than ideal in this build. I'd also like to see 26-28 lands here, instead of 24. Control tends to want to hit its first five or six land drops in order to start curving out.

Take my advice with a grain of salt here. I tend to play against control, rather than piloting it.

[Volafortis]

I'd certainly run 26 lands in that deck.

[Kapol]

To be fair, this is not a serious deck. This is a deck all about just messing with aggressive strategies by basically never giving them the chance to keep something on the board for multiple turns. That said, 26 lands seems like too much with at least 8 difference pieces of ramp in the deck already. There's not a huge use for extra mana. If I was to really build the deck, I'd likely put in Sphinx's Revelations and throw in some more mana to make that more effective and allow me to animate more things a turn. But I haven't had any issues with missing a land drop in missing a playtest with it.

I also don't feel like Detention Sphere would work in the main deck. I'm much rather get a keyrune for ramping into a board wipe or something similar that'll deal with all of their creatures, not just one or two. Having them in the sideboard against mono-black would be smart. But I don't think they'd be necessary beyond that.

Jace would be fine here, but not really that great. His +1 might be relevant, but I'd much rather play Supreme Verdict turn four than rely on his +1 to not die, which is why I have Divination in the deck for card draw. His -2 would be useful, but given the deck runs 12 different wipes, I don't worry much about not drawing one by the time I can use it.

I don't like Planar Clensing in the deck honestly. But it's a board wipe, and that's what the deck is all about. It can also help me deal with anything beyond creatures if it comes down to it (such as against the control matchup's planeswalkers)

Rakdos sends their regards

Let's look at 'Rakdos' perfect curve against the deck:

Turn 1: Cackler unleashed
Turn 2: Double Cackler, swing 2 (18)
Turn 3: Ash Zealot, Cackler, swing 8 (10)
Turn 4: Play anything, swing for 10+ (Dead)

Now, if I go first and hit supreme verdict, they lose all of their creatures up to turn 3, meaning that recovery is basically impossible. This also doesn't take into account potentially getting a Mutavault to block if necessary. All that said, any deck curving out that perfectly will be hard to beat. That's basically the most ideal hand the agro deck can have. They have to be able to play all 8 of the 10 cards in their hand, not miss a land drop, AND go first to win by turn four.

I'd honestly be more worried about Gruul. And even they won't be able to reliably hit someone for 20 by turn 4. It's just something that isn't easy to pull off. Possible, yes. But not reliably so.

[Volafortis]

At that point though, the issue is that you tap out for a wipe, and then they just bolt you in the face, since you don't have countermagic up. It doesn't require an ideal curve, just that they get you pretty close to dead.

Although a fast aggro deck is what balances out control, so that's actually a good thing.

[Kapol]

The thing is, if they don't have any creatures at turn four, I'd still be at 10 life at that point. That's pretty far to burn through, even if they play another guy with haste.

[Volafortis]

They can pretty easily have you down to 6 or 7.

T1: Rakdos Cackler
T2: Spike Jester (swing 5, down to 15)
T3: Spike Jester (swing 8, down to 7)

Rakdos Shred Freak, Stormbreath Dragon, Chandra's Phoeniox, and Ash Zealot all are haste bodies you need to continue to look out for. Once you're at 8 or under, you're in a pretty scary spot.

Beyond that, they can drop either Mogis or Purphoros to provide inevitability.

And that's just Rakdos. Gruul has Ghor-Clan Rampager for you to worry about.

I understand the concept behind wanting to run a ton of board wipes, but you need more to interact with your opponent at instant speed, because all of the aggro has plenty of haste, and plenty of ways to close games fast.

[Kapol]

That's true. I'd forgotten about Spike Jester. but again, that's spending 5 cards by turn 3 (not including a T3 land drop), and demands them to have both specific colors without using a scryland. A board wipe leaves them far behind. But at that point, you're pushing it.

Don't get me wrong, were this a serious deck, I'd likely agree with you. Though I'm not sure how much instant-speed stuff there'd be to help prevent any of it besides... Voyage's End, which isn't that useful against haste guys anyways? Though I'd forgotten it's Esper, so Hero's Downfall would likely be a better addition (with Doom Blade in the board) might be a good choice too.

That said, this isn't a deck I'm building. It's not really a deck I care about. It's a joke deck built around trolling any creature-based strategy by just board wiping all the time, made because I pulled a Haunted Plate mail. So that's why I'm not seriously worrying about adjusting it at all.

[korvys]

In the Rock/Paper/Scissors fashion, Control is suppose to have a hard time with aggro.

Classically, a heavy aggro presence would merit a move to a fast and uninteractive combo deck, to win before aggro can. These days, there aren't many of those, so you have to go with midrange. Make big guys that outclass aggro before they can get too far ahead.
Of course combo and midrange have a hard time with control...

So yeah, working as intended.

[chetoos]

Also, there is one more card from Beta that doesn't have oracle text: Time Walk.

[Volafortis]

Yep, I forgot that one, because of the one story it had about a wording change it had pre-alpha.

Originally it was going to be worded "Opponent loses next turn," or something to that effect, but because of the confusion that it caused, the wording was changed. I always think that the Alpha print said that, but the change was actually made before it ever was printed.

[Jenelmo]

It was the wording of the card in testing and at that point it was also red
(Mana cost was worded differently 2R means 2 mana one of them has to be red)

But when they changed the wording they also changed the colour

[Duckay]

Hey, so, this is a random thought that I had.

I remember that in one of the TTC podcasts (though I don't remember which one specifically) Graham said that he would be interested in a Magic: the Gathering event being held at a licensed venue, but that obviously this couldn't happen because the game is open to all ages.

I was thinking about it today because the Pop-A-Lot Super-Series (an ongoing series held in my state) is routinely held at an RSL. For those of you who don't know, the Pop-A-Lot Super-Series was developed to be a bridging point between FNM and a PTQ - a more competitive environment, held at competitive REL, with respectable prizes, designed for people to get practice for bigger events and learn the difference between casual and competitive play (so now you know what I'm saying every time I mention Pop-A-Lot, which is probably a lot, because I love those things).

My real question is, do you think it's a good or a bad thing (or just a thing)? The applicable laws about age are that you need to be 18 to drink, and if you are under 18 and in any room other than the function room, you need to be in the company of a responsible adult (and under 18s can't go into the gambling rooms at all). Is that a factor that makes it different in parts of the world where the drinking age is different?

(For that matter, do other communities have an equivalent event to the Pop-A-Lot Super-Series designed for the same goals?)

For the record, I don't know many people who drink during the tournament, but I will admit that it is nice to be able to just step into the next room and grab a beer with friends as soon as it's done.

[tamaness]

The official word on a sanctioned event at a bar or restaurant that serves alcohol is:

After talking to people in Organized Play, their official line is that as long as the event is open to the general public without limits except for space, then they don’t care whether it’s at a venue that can serve alcohol.

source

I'm not sure whether or not it's kosher to age-restrict sanctioned events, but there's nothing in the MTR about having an event at a bar or something.

[madman_oreo]

Okay, so the forums of Wizards of the Coast are kind of...lacking when it comes to criticism and suggestions for deck construction. So I'm looking for a forum to discuss my decks and look for help, does anyone know of any good sites where I can find that? Any help is welcomed.

[Dix]

I've always found the forums at MTGSalvation to be pretty helpful.

[Kapol]

So, I'm going to a Modern Masters draft tomorrow. It's only my second draft, and I don't know a ton about the set. Anyone have any advice on what cards to look out for for value? Either foil commons or uncommons, or rares. And what rares should I just avoid in terms of value?

[jkefka]

So, I'm going to a Modern Masters draft tomorrow. It's only my second draft, and I don't know a ton about the set. Anyone have any advice on what cards to look out for for value? Either foil commons or uncommons, or rares. And what rares should I just avoid in terms of value?

I think you mean money-wise rather than gameplay? Money-wise, Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant, and any mythic that has "Sword" in the name are moneytacular. Most of the mythics are worth some amount of money, though they aren't all playable in the draft itself. You can always check the price list for the set at CardKingdom: http://www.cardkingdom.com/catalog/view/2894

On that note I just learned that Cryptic Command is now worth sixty freaking dollars. Apparently one of my decks would be very expensive if I were building it today.

Value-wise in terms of gameplay, there are a handful of archetypes kind of built in, built around specific two-color pairs. There's blue/black fairies, green/black dredge, red/blue storm (always a good time but hard to pull off), etc. The thing about MMA is that there are very few outright BAD cards, but if it looks hard to get into play it's probably not worth the trouble.