The General Magic: The Gathering Thread

[Lord Hosk]

Yea. The problems are that I desperately LOVE deckbuilding so I really WANT to play standard... and also that all the Draft players there seem to be really god damned good o_O I have yet to be in prizes at an FNM draft despite regularly doing so on MTGO

Might I suggest building something that is a direct attack on the decks that are popular?

Maybe it makes me a toll but the Deathtouch ping deck is awesome. I have a mono green deck I call "rawwwrrr" which is 1 and 2 drop creatures and blood rush with titanic and Giant growth, pytoburst, Burst of strenth... no one expects a nightshade peddler to run in with 10 damage turn three. I got a Experiment One with 3 counters on it, 2 a giant growth and two Slaughterhorns for 16. If they get to turn 6 im basicly dead but I can easily win by turn 4.

try to think about what they play and what wrecks it.

[Fantazme]

Had a great draft here. 3-0'd it, the pickups were nice and this was a blast to play. Just ridiculously fun.



It did pose me this though: After thoughtflaring, what do you discard here?



I think I discarded Plains/Runner's Bane but not sure about it.

[Kapol]

I'd discard Bane and Homing Lightning. Next turn Blast of Genius thanks to the plains you keep, directing damage directly at them and hoping to get a mountain. You'd discard the Voidweielder unless you got a bigger drop that's less useful. If you do, play the mountain, overload Mortars (with extort) and swing in. He's not playing blue, so countering the Mortors is unlikely.

That's how I'd play it.

EDIT: Actually, blast of genius the Maw. It's more of an issue in the long run.

[Yaxley]

THANKS OBAM... er, I mean, THANKS NEW LEGEND RULE!

[Kapol]

We all know that the legend rule was in response to Obama's economic policies. It's a metaphor. THANKS BAOMA!

[korvys]

Everyone knows were should be abandon fiat currency, and the gold standard is just too unreliable. We should obviously move to the Mox standard.

(Disclaimer: Results may vary. If economy collapses, or erection lasts more than 4 hours, please contact your economist/doctor.)

[Utilitarian]

Build myself a sweet DGM Orzhov deck with Teysa and the tiniest splash for Righteous Authority. Round 1. Opponent concedes the match. Sigh. Back to watching old Kenji drafts for the next half hour

*edit* Ironically in this draft Kenji is playing what looks like a near exact duplicate of my deck... except possibly stronger -_-

[ArchieO]

Ahhh I'm in love, purely platonicly of course, with my new commander deck, the premise, scapeshift into maze's end! Works great in multiplayer, not so great in 1 on 1.

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/mazes-endscapeshift-edh/ If you want to have a look

[Utilitarian]

DGM Draft Deck #2, with Teysa! Of course the only time in the entire draft I RESOLVED her my opponent used Rapid Hybridization and swung for lethal -_-

Orzhov with Righteous Authority

Still, went 2/1 which is apparently just my consistent ratio these days o_O

[Kapol]

Personally, I'd say a few things about the deck that seem off are:

-Death's Approach doesn't seem like a good card for the deck. You're not running a ton of removal, and you weren't running mill, so it seems like something that should have been replaced.
-Eyes in the Skies seems a bit useless in this deck. You're not populating anything better, and 2 1/1 fliers for 4 mana isn't that great in this format I think.
-The Abomination isn't bad, but I think there was likely something better than it. You didn't have enough multi-colored creatures to really get much use of it from the deck.
-You seemed to over-pick black in my opinion. You only have 4 cards that don't have black. So you were really going mono-color with a couple splashes. I personally think that makes the deck a bit... wonky, since you don't want to put TOO much of the other two colors in when you HAVE to have black, but not enough and you'll never see them.

[ZePancakes]

Eh, well my few boosters of Modern Masters were 'ok'. Could of done way worse but still not great.

These were the rares I pulled:

Foils:
Academy Ruins (F)
Aether Vial (F)

Spells:
Jhoira of the Ghitu
Maelstrom Pulse
Countryside Crusher
Glen Elendra Archmage
Auriok Salvagers (x2)
Skeletal Vampire
Squee, Goblin Nabob
Gifts Ungiven
Bridge from Below
Molten Disaster (x2)
Death Cloud
Jugan, the Rising Star (only bloodly MM mythic I've pulled)
Tooth and Nail
Cold-Eyed Selkie
Lotus Bloom
Meloku the Clouded Mirror
Ethersworn Canonist
Extirpate
Greater Gargadon

Land:
Glimmervoid (x2)
Blinkmoth Nexus
City of Brass

EDIT: More rares I've pulled

En low my stint of MM in paper magic has come to an end.

[Volafortis]

Not sure if I want to open my MM box or hold on to it and just draft at my LGS with other packs.

[Kapol]

I'd say wait and draft for added value.

[JQuill]

In case anyone hasn't heard the news, the normal Modern Masters drafts on MTGO have had their prices reduced by 5 tickets (from 30 or 9 and product to 25 or 4 and product). The Premier draft price will stay the same. Also of note is the Phantom drafts will start on the 14th instead of the 21st.

I'm now much more excited for the release, it really seems like an interesting and fun format to draft and now it also is, in my opinion, reasonably priced.

[Lord Hosk]

Tonight at FNM I went 1-2-2 with this deck, and I still dont know how, in fact when I showed my opponents what I was running after the games they were all shocked.
9 Mountains
3 Plains
2 Boros Gates
2 Azorious Gates
1 Izzet Gate
1 Azorious Keyrune

(P1)
1 red Gatekeepers
2 White gatekeepers
2 Makka
2 punish the enemy
1 Warleaders helix
1 Riot Piker

(p2)
1 Spark Trooper
1 Firemane Avenger
1 Madcap Skills
1 Skyknight
1 ember beasts
1 Fortress cyclops

(P3)
1 Archon of the Triumvirate
2 Gore-House chainwalkers
1 explosive impact
1 swift Justice
2 Annihilating Fire

I had 4 games with over 10 land on the table, 1 had 15.

I made one misplay that I can think of, I was at 2 life my opponent was at 6 he had a Jelenn Sphinx with Madcap skills, void wielder and a Nivix Cyclops . I had Firemane Avenger and riot piker up. I swung with both, impacted in response to his block of the avenger he ate the piker, the avanger lived. He swung with his 1/4 and passed and then I realized that the Nivix Cyclops had defender, I thought I was just dead to his two 1/4's on the ground and was trying to trick him into not blocking the piker since I had showed him both makkas in game 1.

(sigh)

[Lemegeton]

DOTP 2014 is available for pre-order on steam now. game is out 26th june. personally i am gonna get the android version

[Lurkon]

I just ordered it on Steam for myself and my brother. Real excited, but it releases on my first day of summer classes.

[Carl_Miller]

THANKS OBAM... er, I mean, THANKS NEW LEGEND RULE!

What program/website is that?

[korvys]

http://ark42.com/mtg/pricehistory.php

http://ark42.com/mtg/ has various MTG utilities. The author is a judge (level 2 or 3) I've seen on the judge forums a couple of times, named Ryan... something?

[ArchieO]

Ok I have a question: my main EDH deck wins by playing scapeshift into all the gates and Maze's End, and I seem to be getting two reactions, either people like the combo or get very annoyed, the worst being someone who told me to *expletive* not join his games with my Bull**** auto-wins. I'm still fairly new to magic, so my question is am I breaking any etiquette here?

[Lurkon]

It's generally considered bad form to play a deck like that very often. My brother has a commander deck that can loop into infinite damage relatively easy, but he has to get two specific cards out to do it, which means it doesn't actually happen very often. If it happened every game, we'd probably not let him play the deck anywhere near as often. It isn't very fun to be locked into an infinite combo or an auto-win every game (it helps that his infinite combo is actually a trap where he can mill himself out, haha).

Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't play that deck, it sounds like it's fun, but maybe play it less, and only with people who actually enjoy that kind of gameplay.
Personally, the one person seems to have overreacted, but a lot of multiplayer magic is tailoring your deck to your playgroup so that everyone can have fun.

[Jenelmo]

Ok I have a question: my main EDH deck wins by playing scapeshift into all the gates and Maze's End, and I seem to be getting two reactions, either people like the combo or get very annoyed, the worst being someone who told me to *expletive* not join his games with my Bull**** auto-wins. I'm still fairly new to magic, so my question is am I breaking any etiquette here?

You do know that you don't win right away with that.
You only win when you activate maze's end and as i is tapped they have 1 turn each to destroy one of your lands, not easy but it is a possibility

[AdmiralMemo]

The way I'm reading Maze's End is that after you activate the ability and get your gate out, you win right then if you meet the conditions. "Win the game" seems to be part of the resolution of the ability.

[Kapol]

Pretty much what Memo said. The main way I could see it working would be to float 3 mana and keep Maze's end open. Then Scapeshift into 9 guildgates. Then use the 3 floating mana to activate Maze's End. Get the last gate and, upon the resolution of the ability, you win. Considering you'd need ten land (one of which being Maze's End) anyways, it's not that unlikely.

[Duckay]

Commander is played in a lot of playgroups as a strictly casual, fun, silly format. Others play it more competitively.

In a playgroup where people play more for fun, an instant-win combo which no one can stop is frowned upon. Especially if it happens reliably when you play the deck. In a more competitive environment, that's less of a problem.