The Magic Venting Thread

A place to talk about standard, casual, limited and everything in between.
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Re: The Magic Venting Thread

Postby korvys » 10 Dec 2014, 17:24

Regarding the secondary markets, they don't make any money, but availability affects the popularity of the formats, which drives sales of various products. Singles prices are also important for collectors, so they can't just reprint everything, or the prices drop, pissing off collectors. This happened in the past with Chronicles, leading to the creation of the Reserved List.

I don't think it's accurate to say that they don't care about the secondary market.
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Re: The Magic Venting Thread

Postby Kapol » 10 Dec 2014, 17:31

That's my point. They increased the popularity (demand) for the format without increasing the supply. Like it or not, the cost to get in to a format (or even just perceived cost) effects popularity. With one of the most of the biggest staples of the format at $200, there are going to be a decent amount of people turned away. That's something that Wizards has to worry about. It feels to me like Standard is so popular is because it feels like it's the cheapest constructed format because it is so in the short-term.

I feel like Modern Masters was largely about increasing popularity. But I also feel like price control was a goal to some degree as well.
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Re: The Magic Venting Thread

Postby phlip » 10 Dec 2014, 17:42

I feel like they're trying to work their way up to it. The fallout from Chronicles has naturally made them (specifically, their business arm) skittish about large reprint sets like this, so they made MMA limited-run... and they saw that it was super popular (to the point of stores charging multiples of the MSRP), got a lot of people into Modern, and didn't have nearly the fallout that Chronicles did. So for the next one, they're being a bit more lenient with the run size now that they think it's safe, and increasing the MSRP in recognition of the fact that stores were never selling it for MSRP anyway.

It's a conservative approach, but that's what you'd expect from a business that's been around this long... once bitten, twice shy and all that.

As for the card prices going up after MMA... they went up because the number of people playing Modern went up, and by more than the supply did. It's hard to argue "MMA failed because the prices went up and that'll stop people wanting to play Modern" if the reason the prices went up is because people want to play Modern! If anything, the prices going up means it was more of a success than they intended.
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Re: The Magic Venting Thread

Postby Kapol » 10 Dec 2014, 17:58

I'm not saying that Modern Masters was a failure as a set. I'm saying that piece was a failure. I think that it was too successful at the first part that the second part was hurt by it due to the low-level of surprise. Yes, popularity for the format took a spike from Modern Masters. But the price in popularity from that spike could have long-term problems due to the increase of prices. And I feel like that's an issue that they do have to be concerned about.

I'd also argue that it kind of failed at being a draft set due to the whole price thing. Not because it was bad to draft, but because supplies became so low so fast while price jumped up so quickly that it wasn't viable to draft for long (at least for most people). The number of people buying only packs without drafting it was much higher from the norm, relatively speaking.
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Re: The Magic Venting Thread

Postby Kapol » 16 Dec 2014, 23:41

Long rant about chaos drafts and bad(?) decks.

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I really like my LGS. Most of the people there are cool, and it's very casual. But... I think I'm either going to have to start going to the other store, which is more competitive with a kind of dickish guy who runs it, or I'm just going to have to take a break from drafting.

Why? Cause all we do is chaos draft. For couple of weeks or so after it came out, we did straight Khans. And I loved it. But... I just do not enjoy chaos drafts. Normally more than half of the people there go Khans anyways. It's just a few who won't. And then those people complain that people pick Khans. :/

I don't think we only have to do straight Khans or whatever the recent set is. But I want an actual draft format. One that Wizards worked to balance and make interesting, with unique synergies that work because there's enough support. Not just a random hodge-podge of packs. Turns out, putting 3x Conspiracy, 3x Khans, 3x Gatecrash, 3x Journey Into Nyx, and 3x Saviors of Kamigawa (Because there's always at least one person who picks up a Saviors of Kamigawa pack at least) together makes for a just a random assortment of junk.

And yes, that was the draft I played in last week. Going back to Synergies, I finally opened Trail of Mystery pack 1. But I couldn't go for the morph deck because I was the only one with Khans. It was actually really frustrating, since that is the one limited deck I have wanted to build since the set came out.

But that's been the underlying problem for a long while now. The biggest recent issue is that I've not had any luck as of late. Out of all the games I've played in the last month or so, I'm pretty sure I've had to mulligan at least half of them. Not even the 'maybe I should keep this' type hands. The no-land or all-land hands. A good portion of those even go down to five. I've been running 17 lands and watching my curve too. But I usually get the flood or screw. When I don't, I tend to draw my high-drops early and my low-drops late.

Last week I went with a pretty aggressive deck with only... I want to say five cards with CMC 4+, and one of them was a morph. I ended up getting stuck with four lands and three five drops in my hand in two separate games. I had multiple times of getting color-screwed despite being in two colors with a 9/8 split. And all that is how the last few weeks have been.

Honestly, I don't know if the problem is just with variance, or if I'm messing up. I feel like the last few times I've built fairly solid decks. There were multiple times I've had multiple answers that would have won me the game and just never saw them throughout the night. Or have been color screwed out of dominant colors. Maybe I've just been drafting poorly. I'm not sure. But it still sucks.
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Re: The Magic Venting Thread

Postby LokiTheLiar » 23 Dec 2014, 03:36

Recently I'm playing in a Sealed League at my LGS. And while everybody plays with their Zurgos Helmsmashers, Savage Knuckleblades, Siege Rhinos, Wingmate Rocs and other bombs, supported by good commons and uncommons in their colours, I sit with my 4 colour durdle deck, because my pool was just horrible(I opened like a million clan banners and Smoke Tellers and Lenses of Clarity). I know that the cards in the boosters are random, but it is really frustrating when I have a really hard time playing against everyone since their decks look more like standard decks than decks builded from a sealed pool. Last tournament I lost against a new player, who just started playing MTG and was making a lot of mistakes, simply because he dropped an Anafenza on turn three, a Siege Rhino on turn four and a Wingmate Roc on turn five.
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Re: The Magic Venting Thread

Postby Kapol » 23 Dec 2014, 07:30

That's one of the reasons I dislike sealed compared to, say, draft honestly. If you open bad packs in sealed, you're boned. It happened to me in a recent online sealed thing (two fetches that ended up being off-color and 3 three-color rares in different colors in a phantom pool). At least in draft, you have access to other peoples' packs. And even if those are bad, everyone is in the same boat unless you're playing cross-pods.
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Re: The Magic Venting Thread

Postby BarcodeReader » 11 Jan 2015, 19:48

I went to my Very first Grand Prix over in Omaha, NE, and it was possibly one of the worst experiences in Magic I've ever had, and it's mostly my own danged fault. I signed up for the main event, which was not the smartest idea in the first place if I wasn't panning on winning anyway, but all of the side events I went to were, for the majority, complete wastes of time and money.

I am, predominantly, a Commander player. I had a janky mono-red burn deck for the main event, and was thinking I'd be lucky if I won a single game (which I did), and a Temur +1/+1 counter Standard deck. I had already written off the Main Event as a loss and just an experience of playing in a GP, but I was planning on making it up by playing as much commander as I could and squeezing in some limited or constructed events as desired. Turns out, if people pay *any* amount of money, even if its just 5$, even if the pay out is only a max of 4-6 prize tickets, they will be as competitive as if they were in the main event. I play decks that are slower, clunkier, and generally fun and non-competitive. I have no way to deal with decks that get infinite turns on turn 6.

I played in somewhere between 13-15 matches all weekend, I won exactly 1 of them. It was the first round of the Main Event, against an also mono-red agro deck. The problem is that I technically cheated. Before round 3, after sideboarding, I accidentally knocked some cards off the table. I picked up most of them, and thought I got all of them, but neither me or my opponent realized, or counted my deck, so I was playing the last round with something like a 54 card deck. I reported it to the judge after, if nothing else than to clear my conscience, and I didn't get a game loss, but it didn't end up mattering cause I then had 3 straight losses, 2 of which were against players who had Leyline of Sanctity. Again, less butt hurt about that, but still, losing sucks.

And the Piece de Resistance of bad times, I got art prints of Chandra, Pyromaster, with the original name for her "Chandra, Flamebringer," 3-moon "Ponder", a Sliver, and a non-magic piece, all signed by the artists. I was getting out of the hotel this morning, packed up all my things, magic bag in one had, clothes bag and art prints in the other. I put my prints all in the sleeve of the largest one, and put that on top of my car. I put in my bags, checked for my wallet, my phone, and my keys, got in the car, and just took off. About 70$ worth of art, half of them gifts, just left on the rain swept parkinglot and/or highway. Didn't even find out until after I traveled 150 miles and pulled up to my old LGS that I hadn't been to in nearly 6 months. And this was after travelling for an hour and a half *to* the GP before realizing I left my wallet at home.

This trip, more than anything else, has made me question my mental capacity to function in real life, let alone in a game that requires an extremely strong attention to detail. All in all, as much fun as LRR had at their GP's, whatever I played in was a completely different atmosphere, practically a different event. For me, it was almost a complete time and money sink, with only a Modern Masters booster and a Divining Top to show for it. Assuming that I don't stop playing magic outright due to my mental deficiencies, I don't think I'll be going to another GP any time soon. (Not that there will be any coming anywhere close to where I am in the next 6 months.)

EDIT: On the upside, I opened the modern masters Booster and opened a Vendilion Clique, and I was able to trade in the 4 prize tickets I got for a weatgerlight Booster that I plan on sending to the crew, so that's something.
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Re: The Magic Venting Thread

Postby Kapol » 27 Jan 2015, 20:20

I used to only have one LGS in the town I go to for FNM. They did standard on Fridays, Modern on Wednesdays, and on releases a Saturday prerelease, a Sunday 2HG prerelease, and a draft release FNM.

Then, another place opened up in town. They ended up doing a draft every Friday. They also did a midnight prerelease, but that was about it. I started going there. Apparently, attendance to the first place started to drop. These events don't seem to be related given that only one other person from the old shop went to the new one with any relative frequency. The new place only gets about 10 people on average.

So the old shop decided it'd start doing drafts. It was pretty obviously due to the fact the new place is doing it. Though they aren't really clear on what's going on either. They said they'd do standard and draft. But there was never enough people to do both. So they'd basically just wait until Friday night to decide which to do. And given it starts after the other place, you can't go to the other one if you don't like what the old shop decided to do.

Now they've decided to do midnight prereleases. Even though there was obviously demand for it before (most people from town would go to midnight prereleases in towns 30 minutes away), they only are going to start with the new coming up set. This seems to be because the new shop is doing well with it, with an average of about 40 people.

Why is this in the venting thread? Because it bothers me that the old place seems to be so against having competition. Every time I go to the old shop for anything, they ask how many people the new places are getting. They were so used to being the only shop in town that it feels like they're threatened by any competition. So they're trying to get into the same things to try to get rid of the new shop's customers. And, honestly, my area doesn't have enough players to support demand for the same thing in two different stores. One's always going to suffer.
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Re: The Magic Venting Thread

Postby Atifexe » 06 Feb 2015, 18:26

Due to not fully understanding what was on screen during an Archfiend of Depravity trigger on MTGO, I just threw my entire board in the bin instead of keeping two creatures, and promptly lost.
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Re: The Magic Venting Thread

Postby Kapol » 02 Mar 2015, 10:39

I think all of today's spoilers actually help kill my excitement for the next set. :(
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Re: The Magic Venting Thread

Postby fantôme » 02 Mar 2015, 13:10

I've been enjoying what I've seen so far: Stratus Dancer is nuts, the Elder Dragon creature type is back, "gain control of target planeswalker...", Exploit mechanic does my favourite build-a-deck-around kitchen table thing, and STAMPEDING ELK HERD!
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Re: The Magic Venting Thread

Postby Kapol » 02 Mar 2015, 13:44

Well, one of the bigger things was that I was actually really hoping that Narset wouldn't be a planeswalker in this set. Mostly because people on the subreddit would not shut up about her. Given the packaging they've revealed, I feel it's safe to say that it's all but confirmed.

I also got heavy into the Temur clan. I like U/G a lot. So I'm still a bit salty about them losing their blue. It feels like it makes them a less interesting clan. And vorthos-wise, the R/G dragon is boring. "She eats." "And?" "That's it." R/G already has mindless brutes. We didn't need more.

I also think the new Temur mechanic is awful. It feels like a very win-more mechanic. Having 8 power at any one time without the opponent just killing a bigger creature isn't going to happen much in constructed. It seems like it's going to be rough in limited too unless the games are fairly grindy. At least with Ferocious, if you had two 4 power creatures, they'd have to kill both to stop the extra effect.

Dash was just kind of a dull mechanic for limited to me. It helped be aggressive. but the only really good card was Heelcutter. And that goblin would have been good without dash.

I never played with Rebound. A lot of people seem to like it. But from what I've seen, it's going to end up being overcosted spells besides a few pushed rares. Which really frustrates me with mechanics. If it's not the case, I could just see them being overpowered. And honestly, I just find it boring compared to Prowess. But I'm actually willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.

Exploit is interesting. But I foresee it being really lackluster in limited. Saccing creatures for effects that don't do a lot aren't that great. Sidisi 2 feels like it'll be the only good one to me. The other example seems... pretty bad.

All of this has lead to me being really underwhelmed. And still being salty about what happened with the clan doesn't help. But, to be fair, I feel I'm being fair on the mechanics beyond that.
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Re: The Magic Venting Thread

Postby Duckay » 02 Mar 2015, 14:43

I hope you don't mind, but I'm settling in to disagree with you at length.

In constructed, no, perhaps the Temur mechanic is not going to be particularly relevant. Consider it in limited, though - the ability to have 8 power in board in limited is not that farfetched.

Dash was a lot better than I think you're giving it credit for, because it allowed cultivation of board states (another attacker that your opponent can't kill at sorcery speed) and pretty much all dash guys were perfectly solid when hardcast as well as when dashed.

"Overcosted" is a difficult call to make when you're considering the fact that you get the ability twice. Will of the Naga costs twice as much as Crippling Chill, but you get twice the effect. Why would that be any different with rebound?

As for exploit, I feel like you're going to know if you want the black common or not in deckbuilding. There's not going to be any middleground, really, because the difference between a vanilla 3/3 for 5 mana and a 3/3 for 5 mana that trades one of your irrelevant creatures for one of their relevant ones is enormous.
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Re: The Magic Venting Thread

Postby Kapol » 02 Mar 2015, 15:30

Keeping 8 power on the board is going to heavily depend on the removal in the set. FRF had a decent removal at common that'll make it harder to keep the strength up Honestly, I just think it's kind of dull as a mechanic. It feels like they just took Ferocious, double the power cost, and made it across your board state.

Honestly, I was being a little harsh on dash. It's not awful. But I don't think it's that good either. It works in aggressive decks as a way to just surprise attack. But I feel the only really solid ones were those that had another effect. That's why I mentioned heelcutter. It's effect really helps with the surprise kill due to getting rid of a blocker.

I don't think Will Of The Naga is a fair comparison, as it has a way to reduce the cost. If you took off the delve from that card, I don't think it'd be as playable. Waterwhirl I feel is a better example, being more like two Force Aways. And it wasn't that great from my experience.

But going by the two we've seen, I'm not too impressed with it. I feel like it's going to have the widest gap between the really good and awful. The really good ones will be nuts. The awful ones will be last picks.

That said, part of the problem I have with some of the mechanics is that I find the boring more than anything. I was hoping to see something I could get excited about. Especially since I loved KTK and FRF limited. But there's nothing that screams build around me like prowess, or that can help you later in the game like Delve. Ferocious wasn't great, but I felt it will be easier to consistantly get online than it's big brother. I think outlast was interesting and fun with the counter lords. And Raid rewarded you for attacking as well as helped teach newer players about the second main phase.

And I'll admit, this is a knee-jerk reaction. I didn't like Prowess at first either, but now I feel it was pretty interesting. I dislike them right now. But I am willing to let myself be surprised. But at the moment, I'm disappointed.

Also... I just realized the sac effect would have been better for new mardu in my opinion. They have more threaten effects, and are generally in the 'just throw guys at other guys' colors.

EDIT: Also, despite the silly name, I like megamorph. I love morph. I'm looking forward to seeing more of it.

And part of my disappointment, as I mentioned before, is likely due to the vorthos perspective.
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Re: The Magic Venting Thread

Postby phlip » 02 Mar 2015, 16:52

Rebound as a mechanic is pretty hard to evaluate before you've played with the actual cards... A spell that has twice the effect is more than twice as good, because it only costs a single card... but then doubling the mana cost would be pretty severe, too, as that's not linear either... the difference between say 1 and 2 mana is a lot less than the difference between say 6 and 7 mana... And then the fact that one hits now and one hits later can be relevant. So, for instance, Staggershock could be 4 damage to the face, for relatively cheap... but it can't kill a 4-toughness creature... but it can kill a pair of 2/2s... does that make it a good card? Turns out, yes, but I'm not sure I could've told you that with confidence if I hadn't actually played with it.

So, from the new set, Ojutai's Summons seems like a worse Talrand's Invocation... but the Invocation was a very good card and would probably still be playable at 5, and getting one of the two flyers a turn later is relevant but not backbreaking... and Prowess is still in the format (though only in one pack) and getting two triggers of that could be good... so I think on balance it'll be playable? But without playing it I really have no idea.

But, in general, looking at the cards we had last time Rebound was around, many of them were playable...

Kapol wrote:Also... I just realized the sac effect would have been better for new mardu in my opinion. They have more threaten effects, and are generally in the 'just throw guys at other guys' colors.

It wouldn't synergise well with the other Mardu mechanic, though... all the pairs go well together:
Bolster gives +1/+1 counters, which play nice with the Outlast lords.
Rebound gives two triggers of Prowess from a single spell.
Exploit puts creatures into your graveyard for value (the two we've seen so far don't actually have you down a card) which can power Delve.
Dash comes with haste, which can give you surprise Raid.
Ferocious and Formidable are both enabled by the same creatures.

Kapol wrote:That said, part of the problem I have with some of the mechanics is that I find the boring more than anything.

To be fair, when the mechanics for KTK were announced, I thought the same thing... those mechanics are super simple and boring, because Morph takes up so much of the complexity space in the set. But the set was well built around the different mechanics, and actually playing the game had a lot of interesting decisions built from those very basic mechanics. Whether they'll pull of the same thing in DTK, only time will tell, but I don't think it's fair to assume they won't just yet.
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Re: The Magic Venting Thread

Postby Kapol » 02 Mar 2015, 17:33

phlip wrote:Rebound as a mechanic is pretty hard to evaluate before you've played with the actual cards...


That's part of the reason I wanted to make it clear I'm willing to try that mechanic specifically. A lot of people think it's a good mechanic. And I'm willing to see more spoilers and how they interact before I make a final judgement. The prowess thing will still be somewhat relevant too. But it's hard to make a call for how much that'll effect it in the long run.

As for Staggershock, I think that card would be good depending on the format from someone who hasn't played it. Like if that is in DTK, it'll be nuts due to being able to kill two morphs. Similarly, Ojutai's Summons will likely be at least playable. But I think this is going to be a set with significantly more fliers than M13 was, and therefore they'll be somewhat less effective. I think it's going to fall between Talrand's and Rise of Eagles in terms of power level.

It wouldn't synergise well with the other Mardu mechanic, though... all the pairs go well together:


I under stand why they did it with Sultai rather than Mardu. I meant I think I would have liked it more there. If it was in a set with a decent number of threaten effects, it could be a really strong mechanic. As it stands, I don't really see blue using the effect by itself.

I think part of my problem is that all of the mechanics are so similar. Which, from a flavor perspective, I appreciate. But I feel like it's making the secondary ones less interesting.

To be fair, when the mechanics for KTK were announced, I thought the same thing... those mechanics are super simple and boring, because Morph takes up so much of the complexity space in the set. But the set was well built around the different mechanics, and actually playing the game had a lot of interesting decisions built from those very basic mechanics. Whether they'll pull of the same thing in DTK, only time will tell, but I don't think it's fair to assume they won't just yet.


You see, one thing I like (and think I appreciated when it was coming out, but I'm not sure) is that most of the clan abilities fit into their own strategies. Delve rewarded self-mill strategies that the other clans wouldn't use. Outlast was better the more lords you got. Prowess felt like it was only good in a very specific deck, but at least it had a specific deck to build around it. Raid helped reward the aggressive decks. Ferocious is the only one I feel was kind of lackluster. But I felt like Temur was the big 'morph' clan, so it worked out for me. But they all were strong enough that they could go into any deck so people weren't pidgeon-holed.

The only one that really feels like it allows for building around is maybe Dash for the same agro rewarding reasons as Raid. Exploit feels like it's in the wrong colors for the deck it'd want to be in... though thinking about it, I suppose we could see some mind control effects beyond the clan leader. But if you get semi-permanent control, then sacking them isn't the best value either. Formidable is just 'play big creatures, or many creatures.' Which most limited decks want to do anyways. Bolster works with anything. That makes it versatile, but not build around. Though it's entire possible we'll see more lords come up. And it'll be very difficult to build a prowess-rebound deck given there'll be only one pack with prowess.
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Re: The Magic Venting Thread

Postby Omega Lairon » 12 Mar 2015, 18:51

I had some spare packs lying around, so I figured it'd be kinda fun to jump on a draft with Graham during the regular MTG streams...

The entire affair was beyond miserable, and much tilting was had.

Let's start with the cards:

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Could be better, but definitely picked up some value. Now I know my track record, so going 0-3... again... wasn't going to be the end of the world as long as I could at least put up a good fight. But of course, that wasn't going to happen.

Round 1 was a complete train wreck - a hand full of mediocre white spells and not a single plains to be found. I was able to field a single critter as desperate resistance, but NOPE... opponent couldn't even let me have that faint glimmer of hope. Jeskai Runemark... thanks, yeah I didn't wanna block or anything anyway. They pulled the same lrrEFF -ing trick in game 2 too. Dreams crushed in just over 5 or so minutes... and the last game of the round dragged out to the last minute too, so that was a fun wait.

Round 2 was worse - opponent had at least 4 or so removal spells in hand - never even got to have anything out on the field for more than a turn or so. Or if it wasn't removal, it was extremely badly timed creature buffs, followed by a completely necessary Arrow Storm, because my one pathetic POS morph and maybe 3 total (tapped, naturally) lands were REALLY such a huge threat

The only small upside is that someone dropped out early, so I at least got the pity bye in round 3... which was good, 'cause I got to watch Graham utterly humiliate my round 1 opponent on stream. I took far too much pleasure in seeing that beatdown than is perhaps healthy, but screw it, I've had a bad day.

1/10 - lrrEFF that. Didn't even get to play Graham, which was pretty much the sole reason I jumped in (although admittedly that was kind of a long shot). Would not draft again...

...except every week with you guys, because generally the matches are even remotely fair, plus I can put a "friendly face" on the usernames to help soften the blows a little.
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Re: The Magic Venting Thread

Postby Duckay » 27 Apr 2015, 18:37

Look, I tend to play online quite quickly. And some people like to take some more time to think about their plays, or aren't as quick at the interface as I am, or have connection issues.

It still drives me insane when my opponent is down to 8 minutes (so, has used 17) and we're on turn 6 of game 1. >.<
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Re: The Magic Venting Thread

Postby AdmiralMemo » 28 Apr 2015, 13:01

I have a slow computer, and even I'm not that slow.
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Duckay
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Re: The Magic Venting Thread

Postby Duckay » 28 Apr 2015, 18:20

It's an entirely unreasonable usage of time unless you're losing connection and having to reload. The only other explanation is that they're disrespecting their opponent's time by taking a really long time because they're doing other stuff at the same time (multiqueuing, or something similar). It's not even a comfort that it's easy to win that game because they time out, because I find it so frustrating. :/
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Re: The Magic Venting Thread

Postby korvys » 30 Apr 2015, 03:42

SO I came home from work thinking "I think I've got my head around this format, I know what's going on".

No. I don't.

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Kapol
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Re: The Magic Venting Thread

Postby Kapol » 09 Jun 2015, 15:44

Why is it that every time I like my deck, it ends up losing? And every time I think the deck is mediocre at best, it ends up winning? I drafted one of the best decks I think I've drafted in a while last Friday. Four different burn spells to act as removal, three different bounce spells, a solid curve, strong creatures. Overall I was really happy with how it turned out.

Game 1 I kept a five land hand with a burn spell and an early creature. I ended up drawing three more non-land cards in about 8 turns. Game 2, I kept a pretty strong three-land hand. I was able to keep up, and threatened to overwhelm my opponent pretty quickly. That is until he had a 7/7 lifelink flier that I couldn't deal with (Goblin War Paint and the +2/+2 flying bestow on the lifelink white dragon). I ended up losing the 3/4 megamorph reach, a 3/3 flier, and a burn spell to it before I could effectively stop it. He ended up gaining 14 life total from it, and I had a bunch of smaller guys left on the field as well as a 4/4 FS.

I then proceded to draw 8 lands in a row. My opponent got down the Sprinting Warbrute with a +1/+1 counter on it. I spent about 6 turns either chumping the Warbrute or taking 6 (I was at 20 at the point it came down, as my opponent hadn't hit me). I couldn't just alpha strike through because he had multiple low-power/high-toughness guys and would chump my 4/4 and kill off my two toughness guys if I did.

Still ended up getting my opponent down to 5. I swung in for game with my 4/4, a 2/2, and a morphed 2/1 megamorph, and my opponent had the single white instant that prevents 7 damage when I swung in for the game. I had misread it as being an Apostle's Blessing due to an earlier comment and would have been dead either way. The next four cards of my deck were land, Voyage's End, Land, land. Voyage's End would have won me the game. I counted and found I still had 4 answers left in a deck of 14 cards. Griptide, Roast, Voyage's End, and one other I can't remember off the top of my head.

I was so frustrated at drawing nothing but lands that I almost dropped. I didn't though... but I might as well have. Ended up getting the bye round 2, and round 3 was two really easy games against a newer player. My tiebreakers were poor and top 2 split, so I got fourth. Which was out of prizes.
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Re: The Magic Venting Thread

Postby Duckay » 12 Jul 2015, 15:28

I know that I have a reputation for being a spike and that prereleases are supposed to be casual events. However, that's no excuse for the judge to flat-out lie about rules.

I might be exaggerating a little; maybe it was a genuine misunderstanding and not a lie. It seemed very suspect, though. I was playing against him in a game of two-headed giant. He made the statement "in two-headed giant, each team counts as one player for effects that say "target player", but as two opponents". I wasn't sure how to handle this as I am not a judge at this store but he was playing in the event so I figured it was okay to question it and I said that wasn't correct and asked if we could confirm using the comprehensive rules. He said yes and when I checked the rules, he looked over my shoulder and said "fine, if we're going to play that way, it works that way". A little bit later there was an "each player loses life" effect and he said "well that definitely only happens once because of the shared life total". 810.9 says otherwise but I can't bring this up because he says "well I'm this store's judge so that's how it works".

I'm fucking salty about it. Maybe this should be a lesson in me being less competitive but that shouldn't come at the cost of the actual rules.
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Re: The Magic Venting Thread

Postby Lord Hosk » 12 Jul 2015, 17:47

First of all I quote Serge "I hate two headed giant its so hard to judge"

On the other hand, if a judge is wrong they shouldn't blame the player. If you are going to judge a specific event you should familiarize yourself with some of the specific interactions. With Two headed giant the situation you describe is the number one rules issue, he should have been familiar with it.
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