MTG thread

Everything man. My group does Legacy and Commander for fun, but we draft between 10 or so people for fun. Across this board, I'd say everything is played equally.

Doing my first draft on Friday! I'm guessing you don't need 8 people? We have 4.

People draft with all kinds of numbers. It's not a huge deal.

4 is less than ideal but not terrible. 8 is the normal amount though 3 vs 3 team drafts is awesome as well. Used to do a lot of those in the past.

1987_sl said:

Just found this thread. What ruleset do most of you play Legacy, Vintage; Modern; Standard, etc...?

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I'm purely a competitive player (so whatever the tournament calls for). I can't remember the last time I played a game of Magic that wasn't in a tournament or play testing for one.

Would Blessing trigger Heroic?

Casting the enchantment on a creature triggers heroic. Activating it's ability is just that - an activated ability. Once it's in play it's no longer a spell and Heroic only triggers on spells.

So this is what I came up with as my first build for casual play with my buddies. Aggro/control I guess. Worked with the card I have.

Blue White Aggro Control (Standard MTG Deck)

I like the deck, only thing I would call out is you are going to bump into an issue with blue mana for counter-spelling until pretty deep in the game and you don't have a solution for opponents enchantments or artifacts if you don't counter them as they are coming in.

I have not played in a while but 'Disenchant' used to be a staple for that in white, I am sure someone on the board here can name a comparable card from the recent sets though to help out.

It's much less important to have an answer for everything than it used to be. A lot of the broken effects that might have once been stuck onto an artifact or enchantment end up being used for planeswalkers these days. Unless a card actively shuts off how you're trying to win, having a direct answer is usually less important than progressing your own game plan.

Grumpus_sl said:

So this is what I came up with as my first build for casual play with my buddies. Aggro/control I guess. Worked with the card I have.

Blue White Aggro Control (Standard MTG Deck)

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Yeah it's a bad deck but you said casual so I guess it's fine

A few tips:
1) Card Quantinties. 4 of each card you want in your opening hand. 3 of each card you want to cast at some point in the game. 2 of each card which will win you the game if it drags on. 1 of a card only if you can search it out with other cards. Cards can share slots so you could have two single cards you can't search for but which do pretty much the same thing and don't work well together (like the legendary rule).
2) Card Quality. Usegathererto look at the currently availiable cards in these colours. Why use Suntail Hawk when you have Judge's Familiar which is better in every way? Knowing the cards will help you trade for better ones.
3) Deck Focus. With those mana costs you have a midrange deck, these decks work because they can stall long enough to play a devestating spell which will win the game. You have no devestating spells like a really high quality creature (Aetherling) or a planeswalker (Elspeth). If you need a cheap deck because you just started, try real aggro and just have nothing over three mana (many things in your deck are great in an aggro deck).

Heylel_sl said:

It's much less important to have an answer for everything than it used to be. A lot of the broken effects that might have once been stuck onto an artifact or enchantment end up being used for planeswalkers these days. Unless a card actively shuts off how you're trying to win, having a direct answer is usually less important than progressing your own game plan.

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Hmm I kind of like that actually. I have been considering getting back into it after a LONG hiatus -- thus the lurking. This has me even more interested now...

Raign_sl said:

Hmm I kind of like that actually. I have been considering getting back into it after a LONG hiatus -- thus the lurking. This has me even more interested now...

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That's not to suggest that effects like Disenchant are bad, but artifacts and enchantments are generally at the periphery of a deck rather than the main focus. One of the best cards in the format is a removal spell (Hero's Downfall - Destroy target creature or planeswalker). It's really a matter of how often you'll get to use the card vs. how often it just sits in your hand. As often as possible, you want to minimize your "just in case" answers and play things you know will make an impact.

The only enchant/artifact hate you see in standard these days is Wear//Tear in burn decks because they get screwed over by life gain which typically comes from artifacts and enchantments.

Well, Detention Sphere. It's pretty much a catch-all.

True, but I just really consider Detention Sphere a removal spell and move on, similarly with Chained to the Rocks. You see all these mono-black decks splashing green for Abrupt Decay and Golgari Charm to kill those two enchantments but it really weakens the decks.

The burn decks don't really care about Chained to the Rocks and Detention Sphere since they run so few creatures and it's not their main game plan.

Grumpus_sl said:

So this is what I came up with as my first build for casual play with my buddies. Aggro/control I guess. Worked with the card I have.

Blue White Aggro Control (Standard MTG Deck)

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Ok, I realise you are just going with the cards you have but here is some constructive criticism.

1) You have jammed two approaches together and they get in each other's way. Control means stalling the opponent until you can drop something they can't deal with. You don't have enough control or a fatty that fits the bill. Aggro is high value, low casting cost cards and you just go all out to blow your opponent out as soon as possible. Pick one and cut the cards that don't fit the bill.
2) Generally speaking, enchantments that target one creature are a bad idea unless they can protect themselves. If the creature gets removed (and there are lots of ways to do that) then your opponent has got 2 of your cards for his one. Not good. You especially want to avoid giving your opponent card advantage if you are going for a more mid-range or control strategy.
3) Mana curve. Simply put you have to fit the the cards to the mana available. So, if you play 2 colors you want to avoid too many cards that cost 2 or more of one of the colors. For a newbie I wouldstronglysuggest sticking with a mono deck as the man curve is simpler to work with.

Consider the mono black devotion deck that is kicking your arse. The creatures and effects in it get stronger as the person plays more black permanents. It is a simple mechanic to keep in mind during the heat of a match. For new players this can be key to achieving success. Have a simple strategy and stick to it. You remove a variable from considering how you lose or win. It will be down to what your opponent is doing as you have minimised the risk of your own misplays.

I would suggest some form of the following aggro archetypes as a starter ..

1) Some form of Green ramp (using green creatures as mana generators to cast big green fatties well ahead of the land mana curve).
2) Red Deck Wins, my favourite archetype. Using tons of cheap red creatures and direct damage spells to blow your opponent out.
3) White token based aggro (splash in lifegain). White has a lot of cheap creatures and token generation plus 'pump all creatures' enchantments.

forums.mtgsalvation.com is a great resource. Look in the Standard section at the current tier 1 decks and you will see decks that use one of those three archetypes. It will also show you how control, mid-range and combo work (the other main meta types imo).

Lusiphur_sl said:

Ok, I realise you are just going with the cards you have but here is some constructive criticism.

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Yeah that's the problem. After all the research and study I have done in the last week I know my deck isn't optimized and it make the min/maxer in me want to scream out loud.

I will mostly likely construct a Red Deck Wins and a Green ramp deck for Saturday as well to the best of my ability. I have a couple Guttersnipes for the former and a couple Elvish Mystics for the latter.

I feel like with the decks that my buddies are playing midrange control type decks like what I tried to make would work best. I don't have any mass removal cards in my collection yet like Wrath of The Gods. The min/maxer just thought that was the best plan and I just tried to make it work.

Thanks in advance for all the advice btw, even though I don't have the cards right now i'm keeping all this info in the back of my head.

The metagame of MTG is seriously consuming my thoughts right now, shits addictive.

Grumpus_sl said:

Yeah that's the problem. After all the research and study I have done in the last week I know my deck isn't optimized and it make the min/maxer in me want to scream out loud.

I will mostly likely construct a Red Deck Wins and a Green ramp deck for Saturday as well to the best of my ability. I have a couple Guttersnipes for the former and a couple Elvish Mystics for the latter.

I feel like with the decks that my buddies are playing midrange control type decks like what I tried to make would work best. I don't have any mass removal cards in my collection yet like Wrath of The Gods. The min/maxer just thought that was the best plan and I just tried to make it work.

Thanks in advance for all the advice btw, even though I don't have the cards right now i'm keeping all this info in the back of my head.

The metagame of MTG is seriously consuming my thoughts right now, shits addictive.

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Is there a local gaming store near you? I know where I play, they give out packs to the players with their entry fees. Everyone opens their packs and leaves the commons and uncommons while taking just the rare. You may want to ask around your game store and see if people are opening packs, but not wanting the commons. I'm always glad to hand these off to newer players. We had a draft with an absolutely new guy (he sponsered my entry fee and got to redraft the rares in my spot). I made sure everyone knew that he wanted their commons since he was new and everyone was willing to donate these.

Yeah, there are usually stacks of that kind of that kind of thing lying around or in the garbage at the store I go to.

When I was still buying physical cards one of the things I did rather than buy packs was buy play sets of 4 of each common and uncommon for each new set. Looking at eBay right now I see I could buy a common/uncommon playset for Theros for 25 bucks. Combined with some frugal singles purchases I was able to at least have a good time playing FNM.