MTG thread

I think people are bitching because this is the same pile of a dozen or whatever commander reprint staples that always get printed instead of anything interesting. The new cards all look fine, but how many copies of fucking Serra Avatar can people really be excited about.

I mean maybe they could have jammed Mishra's Bauble in one of the decks, but they aren't going to reprint Goyf or Bob or something in one of these decks. Also, a lot of the new cards are really, really powerful in the format even if there doesn't seem to be a whole lot that will be good in Legacy/Vintage.

I wish the decks were a little better because Commander is the containment format for all of the game's undesirables. I want their horrible dumpster fire of a format supported well enough to keep them all in their stinky little corner of the play area of the store and away from the general population.

It's fine, they're just kinda dull. People had the exact same reaction to the previous set of planeswalker EDH decks. Walkers just aren't a very good idea for marquee cards. If they're not perfectly balanced to be pointless in constructed you end up with an immediate True-Name Nemesis situation where people chase one specific deck.

I wonder why they ended up on the text formatting of Lavalanch that they did. Seems clunkier than "Deal X damage to all creatures target player controls and to either that player or to target planeswalker they control."

That seems much clunkier then their version, and mechanically I believe it's different. In your example, if the player has hexproof it stops it from casting, but in the official version you could target the planeswalker instead.

Plus, it's just the original wording with planeswalker targeting added in.

fair enough.

Man.. anyone else slightly mad the story article didnt get posted this week due to commander crap?

I feel like they are just getting to the good parts. Delving into some of how bolas and ugin both got their powers, and what role ugin is gonna play in the upcoming "battle for ravnica".

Looking forward to that whole plot. Some big names on each side now. Niv mizzet, ugin, karn, jace n gatewatch, teferi, etc.. against bolas, tezz, lilliana and bolas' army/corrupted gods.

Im also curious where they will go with the story afterwards. If jace and friends defeat bolas, the only big bad right now is the phyrexians. Maybe they help karn with that problem for awhile. Im half expecting them to ressurect yawgmoth using venser's body. Maybw not exactly yawg, but at least the essence of him. I.e. 'father of the machines' and he gets venser's spark working. Doesnt have specific memories of yawg, but same goals/personality.

Enzee said:

Man.. anyone else slightly mad the story article didnt get posted this week due to commander crap?

I feel like they are just getting to the good parts. Delving into some of how bolas and ugin both got their powers, and what role ugin is gonna play in the upcoming "battle for ravnica".

Looking forward to that whole plot. Some big names on each side now. Niv mizzet, ugin, karn, jace n gatewatch, teferi, etc.. against bolas, tezz, lilliana and bolas' army/corrupted gods.

Im also curious where they will go with the story afterwards. If jace and friends defeat bolas, the only big bad right now is the phyrexians. Maybe they help karn with that problem for awhile. Im half expecting them to ressurect yawgmoth using venser's body. Maybw not exactly yawg, but at least the essence of him. I.e. 'father of the machines' and he gets venser's spark working. Doesnt have specific memories of yawg, but same goals/personality.

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I think they could use the Raven Man as a possible future villain.

They could also bring out some older stuff to like Baron Sengir, slivers, Mad Ith, Marit Lage, Gix and quite a few others.

I definitely assume we're getting some kind of Zombie Venser to fuck with Karn when he goes to New Phyrexia.

They're not gonna kill off Bolas. It'll be a scooby doo win.

If we go back to Mirrodin/New Phyrexia I wonder if they will complete the hat trick of broken shit to come from the plane lol.

Derpa said:

I think they could use the Raven Man as a possible future villain.

They could also bring out some older stuff to like Baron Sengir, slivers, Mad Ith, Marit Lage, Gix and quite a few others.

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Yea, I'm not saying they don't have potential villains. I'm saying they haven't set any of them up to be one right now. If they 'defeat' bolas and then suddenly the next story arc is 'Gatewatch vs Baron Sengir!' it'll feel ham fisted.

Raven Man is a possibility, but I'm still waiting for that to just be an agent of Bolas in some way.

Also, regarding 'beating' Bolas. I wouldn't be surprised if that is what unleashes some new villain. Like, he has deadman switch triggers in place to release something pretty bad when he dies or gets locked away. They won't eliminate a great character like that completely. They will lock him away in some way, in case they ever want to use him again. Probably using Azor and Ugin's magic prison plan.

KeyForge: Call of the Archons

New Richard Garfield card game. You buy preconstructed decks with unique contents, labeled and numbered. No two decks printed with the same contents. You can't make alterations to the decks (enforced by the labeling and numbering). Apparently they have 100 Quadrillion deck lists prepared (although obviously they didn't print that many). Enjoy your procedurally generated deck that you can't customize. Hope you randomly got a good one.

I am much confuse.

Time to buy 1000 starters so that you can get the one good one and win worlds baybee. That's right, they want tournament play.

This feels like some weird attempt to court the masses of "FUCKING NETDECKERS MAN I'D WIN ALL THE TIME IF IT WEREN'T FOR NETDECKEEEEERS" kids.

Yea... that concept sounds cool for about 5 seconds, until you think of the practical applications. Not sure how that made it all the way to print, unless it's just super fun somehow. Sounds like 'Sealed Deck: the Game'.

Like, I think on some level it's an honest attempt to recapture Garfield's original concept for magic play, the "You have a starter and a smattering of booster packs and you play within your limitations, encountering new cards through playing other people who opened them."

But on FFG's end, I sense the desperate smell of money-grubbing because they need to up their value for the Asmodee sale.

Kuro said:

Like, I think on some level it's an honest attempt to recapture Garfield's original concept for magic play, the "You have a starter and a smattering of booster packs and you play within your limitations, encountering new cards through playing other people who opened them."

But on FFG's end, I sense the desperate smell of money-grubbing because they need to up their value for the Asmodee sale.

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I haven't played many of Garfield's games but I've liked the ones that I have. If this one happened to be very good and very popular people would just buy piles of decks and you would be playing against the upper end of the bell curve all the time. There would be HearthArena style calculations you could run on your pool to see how strong it was. Collecting decks versus individual cards is not an uninteresting idea but it's going to have problems.

Yes, I didn't say it was a successful attempt. I specifically call it out as money grubbing in that quote The way people function is going to fuck over any noble intentions they had, just as it did in Magic.

The included app is kind of interesting, though. If we assume for a moment, that they have somehow balanced the cards almost perfectly, so that no random collection of cards is inherently stronger than others. Then, using the app to watch for meta shifts (oh, most people are playing decks with shadow or dis factions, so I'll bring my untamed faction) could keep things in check. In theory, it's a bit intriguing.

However, again, in practical terms I think you two are right on the money. Whoever buys the most decks will have an advantage, as they are more likely to have found the one 'broken' deck. Likewise, sites will sell individual decks instead of card singles. If there is a 'power 9' of decks out there, it'll sell for hundreds of dollars right away.

It's unlikely they achieved perfect balance among the cards, especially since they are trying to work in combos and synergy between the cards.

Enzee said:

If we assume for a moment, that they have somehow balanced the cards almost perfectly, so that no random collection of cards is inherently stronger than others. Then, using the app to watch for meta shifts (oh, most people are playing decks with shadow or dis factions, so I'll bring my untamed faction) could keep things in check. In theory, it's a bit intriguing.

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Kuro said:

Apparently they have 100 Quadrillion deck lists prepared (although obviously they didn't print that many)

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Boy you really have to think some of those 100 quadrillion decks are going to be better than others.