The General Magic: The Gathering Thread

[phlip]

Fun fact: outside of a commander game or draft game, the text of Command Tower or Paliano effectively reads, in its entirety:

Click to Expand

{T}: .

[Firbozz]

Secret Tech against Blood Moon.
"I'm sorry, you want to upgrade my nonbasics to mountains?"

[Volafortis]

Actually, Playing a game of modern against Storm, I won because my opponent cast Blood Moon. I had 4 lands, 1 of which was a basic Plains, 2 UW lands, and a Steam Vents. My hand was basically all lightning bolts and snapcaster mages, so I was on the beatdown plan. I was faking a cryptic command, but to bait it, he cast a blood moon which I let resolve, just to bolt, snapcaster (floated blue before blood moon resolved) flashback bolt. Then on my turn, swing with my two snapcasters, Bolt, Lightning Helix for the win. Something I couldn't have done if he hadn't given me all those extra red sources

[Phosphatide]

I miggght be missing something in the story, but just to confirm... how did you cast Lightning Helix? Did the Blood Moon vanish at some point or did you have some other way to generate that white mana?

[AdmiralMemo]

The basic Plains? Blood Moon only affects non-basic lands. I don't see him casting another spell that needed the plains mana.

[Phosphatide]

Excuse me while I punish myself for perhaps the 3rd time for somehow forgetting that basic lands do not care about Blood Moon.

[Utilitarian]

It's easy to forget when it gets most of its play in formats where 80% of lands on the field are non-basic

[NamelessSteve]

So my LGS occasionally runs fun modern 5+ player melees where the buy-in is to just ante up a couple of rares. At the end of the match the ante is drafted, with the winner getting first pick, second place gets second pick, etc. I joined it this week using my current standard deck, a GB midranger that uses Corpsejack Menace and Kalonian Hydra to make sickeningly huge multi-headed monstrosities, trampling its enemies under foot beneath the watchful gaze of Nylea. It did ok despite being flooded, but you only get one swing with a 64/64 trample creature before people start paying more attention to you. Anyway it was a lot of fun and made me want to make a more multiplayer suited modern deck, which I have included below - feel free to critique and/or make suggestions.

Click to Expand

An important thing to note is that since the order of elimination is relevant, if a player does something that basically says "I win" (for example having 40 life and Felidar Sovereign, or some kind of shenanigans that would leave you the only player still alive) you instead call win condition and leave the table so that the other players can continue fighting over second place and so on. This is relevant because the deck is based on an infinite combo that would immediately eliminate all opponents.

Any hue, the decklist:

4 Dimir Infiltrator
4 Disciple of Deceit
4 Duskmantle Guildmage
4 Fog Bank
4 Ghoulcaller's Bell
4 Mindcrank
4 Muddle the Mixture
4 Negate
4 Rotting Rats

The combo is two part: Duskmantle Guildmage's first ability (1UB: whenever a card is put into an opponent's graveyard from anywhere this turn, that player loses 1 life) and Mindcrank, which mills an opponent any time the take damage. Once both are out the sequence can be triggered by either Ghoulcaller's Bell or Rotting Rats making all players put a card in the graveyard.Both pieces of the combo have CMC 2 as well as Rotting Rats, which means they can be transmuted for by Dimir Infiltrator or Muddle the Mixture if necessary, while Disciple of Deceit can turn any doubles (or a rat) into whatever I am missing. Another benefit of the Disciple is that if she ships away a Rotting Rats it is left in my graveyard waiting to unearth once the combo is set up.

[Volafortis]

Bloodchief Ascension works as a combo piece with Mindcrank as well. It was a known combo in standard.

[WickedBoy6]

Well, I did it. I pulled all the Conspiracies I wanted, and worked it to where Marchesa's Emissary was 1 cheaper to cast, came in with an extra +1/+1, had haste, and could fetch for the other 3 I had in the deck. Top it off with built-in hexproof and dethrone, and I was unstoppable...

...until, once again, I go in for the kill on the last guy, and he simply fogs. -_- I really have to stop flunging in Conspiracy drafts.

[tamaness]

oh god, I never play around fog. it's suck a non-card in my mind unless I know someone's running turbo-fog in constructed.

[ArchieO]

You clearly haven't come up against a Karametra deck that runs constant mists AKA ha ha if you don't have a counterspell you are never damaging me again.

[Phosphatide]

A post in the venting thread reminded me of something a friend said while we were playing with a bunch of proxied modern decks. Supposedly someone at Wizards said that Zendikar fetches will be seeing a reprint because they never intended for their prices to go this high. Anyone know about this statement and if there's a source to it? All I can find is the Aaron Forsythe quote about them not showing up until after 2015 (maybe).

[Jenelmo]

I think what he was talking about was an interview from late april here is the relevant quotes:

Gatheringmagic: Big question is - Fetchlands. People are complaining about these in Modern and you did such a great job with the shocklands reprints that the availability is everywhere. People can't complain about getting their shocklands; if you don't have your shocklands, you're not prepare for the format. But fetchlands? People didn't quite see that. Is it the same thing for you guys? Did you not see this happening? The demand of Modern? And eventually I'm sure that we are going to get one, if you don't want to say when, is this a concern for you guys?

Aaron Forsythe: Yeah. I mean, they did take off kind of out of the blue it felt like. Pretty recently. And obviously our turnaround time on doing anything is not instantaneous. So any plans that we have to put more fetchlands out there will take some time to execute on. But we are definitely aware of, you know, what cards people need to build decks to play Modern and what cards they're after. So we are going to do what we can.

[tamaness]

Their minimum turnaround for anything last-minute is about a year (I think I read something to that extent on MaRo's blog), too, and I'm sure they don't want to have fetches and shocks in the same standard. "Let's make this heavily mono-colored set with bad fixing, and print fecthlands in it," doesn't seem like something they'd say, either.

My fervent hope: Onslaught fetches reprint in the next year (Khans block or M16)

Evidence that that's going to happen: ......

[korvys]

Khans seems reasonable. Or the block after. Not in standard with shocks, and will be heavily opened (core sets don't seem to be as much).

[Utilitarian]

My money is on Khans

[Kapol]

Honestly, at this point, I don't think Khans is going to have the fetches unless it actually is a wedge set or something. I get the feeling we're going to be waiting until the next block is released to get them.

[Prospero101]

I've finally taken the plunge! Getting into Magic Online!

...and the only New Player drafts are M14? Seriously?

[Lurkon]

I've finally taken the plunge! Getting into Magic Online!

...and the only New Player drafts are M14? Seriously?

Yes. That's how New Player drafts work. The idea is that it keeps your first MtGO drafts, while you learn how MtGO works, from having complicated block mechanics in it. If you wait a little while, I'm pretty sure they upgrade to 2015 as soon as 2015 is released. What is that, about a month away, so 5 or 6 weeks before it's on MtGO?

[WickedBoy6]

I have MtGO, as well, but I barely use it. Mainly because, I blow enough money on real Magic as is, last thing I need is another outlet to go broke with. Literally broke, as I'm spending way too much than I should on Magic lately.

[Jenelmo]

When you are talking about fetchlands you have to remember that they have said multiply times that they do not like shuffle effects in standard quoting Mark Rosewater talking about Satyr Wayfinder

It's a Satyr, so it's flavored to belong on Theros, but the really important detail of the design is how it's fetching the land. As time progresses, R&D has become less and less fond of shuffling. It takes a significant amount of time (especially in a tournament, where both players usually have to ensure the deck is properly shuffled) and skill (a good number of players have trouble shuffling, particularly with sleeved cards). As such, R&D has tried to lessen how much shuffling is in the game.

For most effects, we've been able to remove or replace them with other non-shuffling effects. Land fetching, though, has proven more problematic because it's an effect we do want in the game and often need at common. Satyr Wayfinder is us exploring land fetching without shuffling

[phlip]

Sure, but in the same block, they still printed a number of shuffle effects, including 6 separate card that tutor for land, 2 at common. They may be experimenting with scaling it back, but they're not just getting rid of it outright... I think the game can survive a cycle of fetchlands at rare, even in this world of reduced shuffling.

[Jenelmo]

There is a big difference between 2 maybe 3 cards seeing play as a few copies in some decks to 5/10 cards where a lot/most decks will play at least 8-12 copies when you are talking about the time it will take in tournaments especially in the the type of tournaments where coverage is relevant as those are on a REL where you MUST shuffle your opponents deck

[AdmiralMemo]

I wonder if they're more concerned with shuffling in Standard, where rarity only factors into price, vs. Limited, where rarity actually affects deck construction.