The General Magic: The Gathering Thread

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AdmiralMemo
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Re: The General Magic: The Gathering Thread

Postby AdmiralMemo » 12 Feb 2015, 09:57

Well, it is 1000 years in the past, so I would expect them to be less developed.
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Re: The General Magic: The Gathering Thread

Postby Tinfish » 12 Feb 2015, 12:28

I meant developed in terms of characters, not in terms of technology.
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Re: The General Magic: The Gathering Thread

Postby AdmiralMemo » 12 Feb 2015, 13:30

Ah... Well, there is that... Maybe because it's a small set?
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Re: The General Magic: The Gathering Thread

Postby GamerZack87 » 13 Feb 2015, 03:17

I'm still new here, so I didn't know if there was a thread for discussion of unusual deck formats, or if I'm allowed to make new threads with such a (currently) low post count. Anyway, I've been having fun tinkering with what I call "Neowalker" decks, which are...well, the best way I can describe it is it's like a constructed take on Pack Wars. You build a 25-card deck using a specific set of rules:

-The deck must contain cards from a single core set or expansion, ideally a large expansion
-The rarity distribution in the deck is 1 rare or mythic rare, 3 uncommons, 1 wild card (either a premium card, common card, uncommon land card or purple-rarity Timeshifted card) and the rest commons and basic lands.
-Both players must have the same rarity of card for their rare/mythic and wild cards

I originally envisioned the format with one simple thought: Planeswalkers are powerful mages who can travel to any plane in the Multiverse and form bonds with the lands and creatures who dwell in them, but surely even a planeswalker has to start at the bottom of the ladder? So when you play a Neowalker deck, you are playing as a brand-new 'walker with little experience as a mage. Your starting life in the format is 15, and with a much smaller deck this allows for a format which can be played in short bursts with others when there's not even enough time for a full-length game.
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Re: The General Magic: The Gathering Thread

Postby chetoos » 14 Feb 2015, 08:02

How can you search for hybrid mana symbols in the text of a card?
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Re: The General Magic: The Gathering Thread

Postby fantôme » 14 Feb 2015, 08:13

chetoos wrote:How can you search for hybrid mana symbols in the text of a card?


"{x/y}"
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Re: The General Magic: The Gathering Thread

Postby ElFuzzy » 14 Feb 2015, 12:26

I was rewatching the, at time of writing, last MTG stream and James mentioned a Young Liliana? Couldn't find anything on it, can i get some halp?
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Re: The General Magic: The Gathering Thread

Postby fantôme » 14 Feb 2015, 12:34

ElFuzzy wrote:I was rewatching the, at time of writing, last MTG stream and James mentioned a Young Liliana? Couldn't find anything on it, can i get some halp?


MtG: Origins, maybe?

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Re: The General Magic: The Gathering Thread

Postby Kapol » 14 Feb 2015, 16:39

Is Torrent of Lava the only card that gives an ability only while it's on the stack?
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Re: The General Magic: The Gathering Thread

Postby phlip » 14 Feb 2015, 18:02

There are only four cards that explicitly mention the stack:
Grip of Chaos triggers when a spell is put on the stack (presumably so it also catches copies, which triggering when a spell is cast wouldn't do).
Kaervek's Torch has a static ability while it's on the stack.
Lightning Storm has an activated ability while it's on the stack.
Torrent of Lava grants creatures an activated ability while it's on the stack.

Ertai's Meddling also mentions the stack in its oracle wording, which is a roundabout way of trying to replicate what is printed on the card. I'm not sure if that counts, there are a lot of cards where the oracle text does a lot of complicated things to make an old card fit the stricter later-edition rules (I'm looking at you, Animate Dead).

Split second and "end the turn" also mention the stack in their reminder text.
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Re: The General Magic: The Gathering Thread

Postby Elaro » 14 Feb 2015, 22:46

what's the etiquette on asking deck advice?
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Re: The General Magic: The Gathering Thread

Postby ElFuzzy » 14 Feb 2015, 23:46

We charge by the letter.
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Re: The General Magic: The Gathering Thread

Postby hascow » 15 Feb 2015, 19:51

I went 3-0-1 and lost in the semis of Game Day with this fun brew
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Re: The General Magic: The Gathering Thread

Postby Tinfish » 17 Feb 2015, 03:56

So I really like Ojutai. He's pretty, he flies, he taps down the board, he's all the sorts of things I want to be doing. But he's also seven mana, so I'm not sure he's the right card to build a deck around. Which leads me back to my blue fliers deck, and then I start thinking blue-green because Icefeather Aven and Cloudform and Mistfire Djinn make colourless cards and Secret Plans would be useful and maybe shove some Ghostfire Blades in there ...

Anyway what do you think, is Ojutai worth building a deck around or should I focus on the lower end of the scale?
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Re: The General Magic: The Gathering Thread

Postby Keab42 » 17 Feb 2015, 14:32

Having used him, he's good in a pinch, but I don't know that he's a build-around, but he certainly gives you a good theme so that you can include him as a win condition.
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Re: The General Magic: The Gathering Thread

Postby Kapol » 19 Feb 2015, 02:00

I was a bit disappointed by the latest uncharted realms. Not because of quality, but due to the direction it's taking the clans.
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Re: The General Magic: The Gathering Thread

Postby Valkyrie-Lemons » 19 Feb 2015, 02:16

So a question about MTGO: are you only able to play hotseat matches, or are you able to arrange to play with a specific person?
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Re: The General Magic: The Gathering Thread

Postby phlip » 19 Feb 2015, 06:02

Valkyrie-Lemons wrote:So a question about MTGO: are you only able to play hotseat matches, or are you able to arrange to play with a specific person?

You can play constructed matches with a specific person - you can challenge them directly, or you can create a game in one of the free-play rooms and get them to join you. How have a lot of control over the game when you do this... the format, the timer length, whether it's a single game or best-of-3, etc.

Alternatively, you can create a game in the free-play room and open it up for randos to join you.

All of that is all free to do, once you've bought the program and collected the cards for your deck... the same way that it would be free in paper, once you and a friend have built decks, you can just play each other forever.

It only starts costing entry fees once you start actually joining tournaments, which can be constructed or limited, scheduled or on-demand queues, which will have a number of people, play multiple rounds, and have prizes. The tournament then goes through the whole process of creating the individual games and inviting the players into them (which is why you'll see a brief flash of the "waiting for players" screen at the start of each match in a tournament).

All of these different options are only a thing for constructed, though... for limited, your only real option is to do a tournament. Well, you can sorta do Sealed if you just get everyone to open six packs, note down the contents, build a deck and then play it out in "Freeform" constructed matches (and trust everyone not to cheat)... you could theoretically even do a draft outside of MTGO and then build the decks on MTGO to play (this is how the Limited Resources cube works, for instance) but that's pretty cumbersome. If you want to play a draft on MTGO proper with specific people, then you need to do it like the LRR Fandrafts do - coordinate with your friends, wait for the queue to empty, and then all join at once... if you time it perfectly, and get lucky that no-one else joins the queue at the same time, you'll end up in a draft together.
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Re: The General Magic: The Gathering Thread

Postby Valkyrie-Lemons » 19 Feb 2015, 08:01

Thank for the info phlip.

I kind of just want to play friendly matches with people without a large cost. I'm just not all that interested in drafting.

Mainly because I'm new, but also I just don't really want to get that competitive with my play.
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Re: The General Magic: The Gathering Thread

Postby Tinfish » 20 Feb 2015, 05:55

Which is better, Force Away or Voyage's End? Obviously Force Away is worse unless you can activate Ferocious ... but if you can activate Ferocious, is drawing a card better than scrying for one? What if you can only sometimes activate Ferocious?
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Re: The General Magic: The Gathering Thread

Postby Kapol » 20 Feb 2015, 07:41

To be fair, you're never always going to be able to activate Ferocious. Your opponent can have instant-speed ways of dealing with larger powered creatures before it resolves. Remember that Ferocious checks on resolution, not activation, for additional or alternate effects.

Now, if we were to assume you could always get Ferocious, I would say Force Away is likely normally better. It allows you to actually draw the card, which can make a large difference. The only times it's actively worse is if you have only really good cards in hand and you would have preferred to just draw the coming card next turn, or when you don't have a hand.

As they stand, I'd likely choose the End in most decks though.
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Re: The General Magic: The Gathering Thread

Postby hascow » 20 Feb 2015, 12:23

Kapol wrote:I was a bit disappointed by the latest uncharted realms. Not because of quality, but due to the direction it's taking the clans.


I think it's really interesting. It's been clear from the start that we weren't going to get a full block of wedges, because they don't have the design space for it. This is a really cool story way to explain the reasons for it.
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Re: The General Magic: The Gathering Thread

Postby Kapol » 20 Feb 2015, 14:16

hascow wrote:I think it's really interesting. It's been clear from the start that we weren't going to get a full block of wedges, because they don't have the design space for it. This is a really cool story way to explain the reasons for it.


I think that it makes the clans themselves less interesting. Losing a full color doesn't seem like something that'll add depth to the clans. And I feel the actual conflict of the ancient clans against the dragons of the world wasn't really adequately explored either in the set of cards or the stories. All of the stories were more about the clans with the dragons as just kind of a thing that happened. We didn't get much of a taste of Tarkir without the dragons basically having won.

But for the clans itself, it feels like they're regressing into "Basically guilds." Guilds focused on the other color of their pair, but guilds none the less. Like Temur feels like they're losing an interesting part of themselves in the blue. They're no longer focused on the future, only survival. It sounds like they're going to become more like Gruul... basically savages. Just a more communal group than Gruul was.

And to be clear on one thing, I thought the story was interesting. I enjoyed it. I'm just disappointed in the direction it took things. I would have liked to see the clans explored a bit more. Maybe changed to be shards if they really didn't want to use wedges again. But I feel like there was enough design space for a full set could have used the wedge clans and allied colored broods in the same set.
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Re: The General Magic: The Gathering Thread

Postby RadioshackRaider » 21 Feb 2015, 05:55

okay, I'm gonna call it right here and now that the Dragons of Tarkir story will involve Ugin waking up to the Dragon-lords bitching the other sentient races of Tarkir around, pissing him off. He'll then work on trying to even the balance yet again by trying to sever his connection to his home plane somehow, causing the dragon storms to occur, but with a drastically smaller intensity. Sarkhan, Sorin and the other 2 Planeswalkers of the block will be involved, after which Sorin tells Ugin of Nahiri's disappearance and the Rise of the Eldrazi.
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Re: The General Magic: The Gathering Thread

Postby hascow » 27 Feb 2015, 20:10

I Head Judged my first event tonight, on the road to L1.

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