FRIDAY NIGHTS: Friday

[Lord Hosk]

OK, I think Wizards is watching me and feeding me packs. In 5 packs Innistrad and 1 pack Dark Ascension I have pulled: Geralf's Messenger (Foil), Geist of Saint Traft, Angelic Overseer,Clifftop Retreat,Delver of Secrets(foil),Garruk Relentless, Ludevic's Test Subject, and to top it off, a foil shit dogs. I have 4 wooden stakes but have pulled 0 Bumps.


I am convinced they are stacking my packs to make me think its always going to be profitable to buy packs. One guy paid me 14 Bump in the nights 1 of which was foil to pick his fnm draft packs.

[Cho_J]

I liked this one a lot! Especially Kathleen and James and the whole sad routine! XD Still, I agree with the others who have said it wasn't quite as funny as the other episodes because there was, I felt, less character gags and more Magic gags.

[Nekkoru]

So, how do you draft anyway?

You open a pack, put lands and tokens in the middle, pick the card you want most, pass the rest to your left (or right, depending on which direction people decided to start with). You grab the pack that was passed on to you and repeat until you're passed a single card, that you keep.
Then you open the second pack, pass in the opposite direction, and then do the same with a third card.

You end up with 45 cards (give or take if there was a foil land, which gets passed instead of being put in the middle), from these you make a deck of 40 cards or more. These 40 include lands while your 45 do not, so you end up using something like 25 of your cards and 15 lands, although some people prefer playing with more land (around 17) or less land (around 13).

And then you play one another.

So, hang on, how many boosters do you need for this?

[Graham]

Three. He meant "third pack" not third card.

[Nekkoru]

For each player?

[Graham]

Yes everyone needs three packs, so that after all the passing around, everyone ends up with three packs worth of cards.
45 total from three 15-card boosters.

Check out http://twitch.tv/loadingreadyrun and watch some of the replays of James and I drafting on Magic Online. That'll help you get the idea.

[Nekkoru]

Oh, awesome, thanks

[Geoff_B]

Yes. Then it goes in three stages. Everyone opens their first pack then takes a card from it, then passes it to the next person who takes a card. Then the second stage everyone takes their second pack and takes a card from it then passes in the other direction. Third stage the packs get passed round the original direction.

Or so I'm led to believe.

[Igloomaker]

When the Inferno Titan is sent on his JOURNEY TO NOWHERE, he would be exiled. Wouldn't that make him ineligible for use for Fling? Great joke just wondering if it would actually work.

[Geoff_B]

I could be wrong but it looks to me like Adam cast Fling on the Titan in response to Journey to Nowhere. Seems legit to me.

[Igloomaker]

But wouldn't Inferno Titan be exiled before fling would be able to be cast.

[Geoff_B]

I'm sure one of our eminent judges will be able to correct me if I'm wrong (casts Summon Silpho) but as I see it Journey to Nowhere is cast on Titan and enters the stack, then priority passes to Adam, who responds by casting Fling on the Titan and that enters the stack. Graham does not or cannot respond to it so now the stack begins to resolve. Fling resolves first because it was the last one on the stack, and since the target is valid (Titan) the ability activates, flinging the Titan into Graham's face, destroying the Titan in the process. Now Journey to Nowhere resolves, except its target (Titan) has just been destroyed, meaning it no longer has a valid target and is ineffective.

I don't think WoTC would have allowed a scene like that if it didn't make sense within the game.

[Igloomaker]

Seems legit, Rule Logic > Actual Logic :p

[SilPho]

<< Geoff_B casts "Summon SilPho" >>

Sorry it's taken me a while to see this (I blame summoning sickness).

Journey to Nowhere is a slightly strange card from a communication perspective since players tend to announce the target for the ability when they cast the spell. What you should do is announce and resolve the spell before choosing a target. Fling will actually be on the stack above the ability of the Journey, not the spell itself.

If someone says "Cast Journey to Nowhere, targeting your Inferno Titan" what they actually mean (from a technical point of view) is "I want to cast Journey to Nowhere and then, if you don't respond, when it resolves I chose the Inferno Titan as the target for the activated ability". We hold them to their choice of target unless the opponent says "Actually, I will not pass priority, instead I shall do X". You can't say "Target this, do you respond? No, then haha now I chose my real target".

TL-DR: No jedi mind tricks. The scene is fine.

[Graham]

Even if I hadn't announced a target, the Titan was Adams only creature, and a safe bet for the Journey target. So he could've just cast Fling in response to the casting.

He didn't, but rules are fun.

[Geoff_B]

So in that case does announcing your target when you cast your spell become more of a convenience to speed up gameplay, like how (iirc) you're actually supposed to tap lands to add mana to a pool before you cast spells, rather than (as what seems to happen) you tap lands for mana as you cast a spell?

[Graham]

Basically.
Yeah, and mana tapping gets hand-waved too. Sometimes people show the spell before tapping, even.

[SilPho]

If you want to get technical, you can tap lands for mana before or during the casting of a spell.

The game gives you a small window during the casting process to activate mana abilities. This doesn't mean you can cast instants or do anything fancy, but it does mean it's not wrong to show the card then tap your lands. The other way around is fine too, and it's the one I usually use out of habit.

[phlip]

The discussion of whether you have to declare the Journey's target when you cast it is moot in this case anyway, because you could always cast the Fling in response to Journey's ability, instead of the spell actually being cast, right? At which point you would definitely know what it's targeting. The distinction matters more against counter magic... if you're playing a control deck, and your opponent plays Journey to Nowhere or Oblivion Ring or Fiend Hunter or any of that spectrum of cards, you technically have to decide whether to counter it before they reveal the target they intend for the exile ability.

[FritzLang]

Been sucked into magic ever since the "It's Magic!" episode. Loved the series and I hope we see more.

[Kapol]

Watching this video has made me want to get into Magic. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing... likely bad given the cost.

[tamaness]

It's not too bad for cost; there's some initial outlay, but depending on who you play with, there's minimal upkeep cost (unless you want to play competitive constructed).

[Kapol]

It's not too bad for cost; there's some initial outlay, but depending on who you play with, there's minimal upkeep cost (unless you want to play competitive constructed).

That's the problem for me. I live in the middle of nowhere, and the nearet place I might be able to find someplace who plays is a good 45 minute drive away. Lot of gas money there, plus getting packs and such. Unfortunantly, I live in the middle of nowhere

[Geoff_B]

MTGO and Duels of the Planeswalkers are your friends

[Lord Hosk]

I have been playing MTGO for about 45 minutes a day using only the planeswalker stuff (free/ubercheep) in the new player area to try to get used to it before I drop real money on a draft, I am really enjoying it and really pissing people off with my agro control vamp deck. They see swamp they dont expect so much removal.