Wizard Squares: Magic the Gathering

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Sat Sep 26, 2015 10:32 am #121402

Hey look that shitbag An0n3 is starting another thread about card games in the videogames forum.
What the fuck is wrong with him? Old age is really getting to him. Senile old coot.

Battle for Zendikar pre-release event was tonight. Anyone else go?

I cracked a Kiora from my first packs, and my promocard was the U/G manland Lumbering Falls. So we ran U/G flying bullshit, stompy bullshit, and control bullshit.

I ended up going 1-1-1 and then splitting with someone who got paired down with me because I'm garbage. I played this guy for the extra pack and beat him so I got three and he got two.

Cracked an expedition land from those. Go me.

Incomptinence · Sat Sep 26, 2015 11:10 am

Been tempted but never played it outside octgn. Just too fucking spensive.

Love reading people calling every new set the worst ever though. I have just been sitting back and seeing that consistent gold.

Like these dolts don't know their homelands.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Sat Sep 26, 2015 11:27 pm #121481

Yeah I'm an oldfag when it comes to Magic. I started playing at Unlimited Edition, quit playing at Homelands, started playing again during Apocalypse block, quit again during Kamigawa.

This pre-release was the first official event I've been to and the second time I've touched cards to play a game in roughly a decade.
I'm finding Limited play to be really fun idea that allows you to experience all the fun of MTG while also costing comparatively fucking nothing. It also has its own unique meta and requires arguably more skill than regular Constructed play. Drafting is its own set of mental gymnastics and it becomes a lot harder to build an effective deck when you aren't only limited by how much money you have in your wallet.

It doesn't matter if you're a fucking millionaire if you're in a sealed league. This is your card pool, end of story.

Incomptinence · Sun Sep 27, 2015 12:09 am

Must have been intense fucking whiplash going from a set with literally all the power nine in it to homelands.
Moxen to mammoth harnesses in about 2 years god damn.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Sun Sep 27, 2015 12:36 am #121487

Yeah I bought in when I saw everyone playing with these fucking baller awesome cards.

It wasn't until Homelands that I realized none of the sets I have been playing with have any of these fucking awesome cards in them.
It was all complete garbage. People were shitting all over me constantly with cards they didn't print anymore and none of the new stuff I could buy held a candle to it.

Got out.

Years later I saw some friends playing with Apocalypse cards and was like "Oh man they are making GOOD cards again! I gotta get back in!"

Got back in. Played through to Kamigawa. Realized they were starting to print pure bullshit all over again and got the fuck back out.

10 years later I'm exposed to the game again and see they have mostly figured out how to stop being completely fucking retarded and printing mostly consistently decent sets of cards.
It's taken them literally fucking forever but it seems like they've finally gotten their shit together and someone at Wizards finally took a course in game design.

Modern is still a big fat clusterfuck with a barrier of entry in the $600 range for a single competitive deck. Fuck that.
Constructed Standard is a slightly smaller clusterfuck that is slightly cheaper to play but comes with the caveat that all the cards you buy will phase out after 18 months and become worthless to you (outside of the rare example where a card is potent in Modern/Legacy, in which case it probably already cost you an arm and a leg to get in the first place).
Limited Standard is cheap, fun, and immediate, but there are no big tournaments for it just tiny local stuff with whoever is in your local pool. Potentially a lot of fun. Potentially a complete nightmare depending on where you live and what the community is like there.

I still think Netrunner is the superior game because it doesn't have this bullshit economic model of milking the playerbase like a farm animal in addition to the two-decks = twice as much tech.

Incomptinence · Sun Sep 27, 2015 12:58 am

I'm pretty interested in commander/edh but eh never really got into local play groups or anything.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Sun Sep 27, 2015 2:11 am #121512

Commander is huge. It's also critically dependent on the people you play it with. It can be either:

A) A fun casual way to enjoy Magic without having to spend a fortune on playsets of expensive cards

-or-

B) Just as degenerate and expensive as any other format

It's not to my particular tastes so I haven't really looked into it for myself, but that's the word I get from the folks I know who claim it's the greatest game you can play using the cards. Wizards is obviously down with it, as there are two whole Commander sets with cards specifically designed or reprinted for that format.

If you're looking for cheap constructed fun hunt around for a Pauper league. It's basically Modern but you can only run cards that were (at least at some point) printed with the Common rarity.

Wyzack · Post by **Wyzack** » Sun Sep 27, 2015 4:14 am #121525

I literally just played magic with whatever cards I could bum off my friends or got as gifts. My first deck was a pure red burn deck and kicked ass against anything but blue. Also made a fun red/black burn and zombies commander deck around Karavek the Merciless. Haven't touched the game in a long time, had too many bad experiences with creepy/douchy people when my buddy dragged me to Friday night magic

Takeguru · Post by **Takeguru** » Sun Sep 27, 2015 4:34 am #121528

I got in during RtR so I'm basically a child compared to a lot of players.

My first stuff was a RtR fatpack, a mishmash of 2013 booster packs and 2000 random cards from the FLGS I had back in NY

I cracked Selesnya and Rakdos and I still have the decks with them in it
Even if the Selesnya deck became a weird monster that only works in casual play.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Sun Sep 27, 2015 11:20 pm #121665

I don't want to shill for Magic because there is a lot of shit wrong with it but it's a fairly decent time to get back into it. There's a lot of insanely valuable stuff floating around in the new set. People are cracking open $400 cards. Even the goddamn basic lands are expected to shoot up in value after the set cycles out because they're full-arts.

Like look at this shit:

http://shop.tcgplayer.com/magic/zendika ... 8-full-art

Just as an example, the full-art forests from the last set go for over a buck a piece.
That's stuuuuuuupid. When fat packs for this set hit people are going to go apeshit buying them up because each one contains like 80 basic lands.

I repeat.

People are going to be snatching up boxes of cards

because they contain basic lands.

Speaking of lands, I just spent about $80 to buy up roughly 50 copies of the "Ally Encampment" land earlier today because they're only going for $1.66 right now. You bet your ass those things will at least double that once the set see's more play, and might even break $5 a pop once the second set in the block comes out.

There's money pouring out of these boosters. And of course the mechanics are interesting and it's fun to play

But seriously there's money all over this fucking set.

LIKE SERIOUSLY ONE OF MY COWORKERS CRACKED ONE OF THESE EARLIER TODAY

Takeguru · Post by **Takeguru** » Tue Sep 29, 2015 11:42 am #121969

Bought a booster box.

Will maybe take some pictures when it arrives maybe.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Tue Sep 29, 2015 6:11 pm #122041

Sick dude. You should separate the rares and mythics and a take a picture of your haul.

It's fucking bonkers though. You crack open a pack of this set and it's like "oh hey a bulk rare...BUT CHECK OUT THIS FOIL BASIC LAND. GOT THERE!"

Also if you want to snap up some stuff that will likely increase in value and you have the time/money to participate in some more events check this shit out:

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/ar ... 2015-09-07

Takeguru · Post by **Takeguru** » Tue Sep 29, 2015 9:24 pm #122066

It's estimated to arrive on the 7th, but considering it's in a USPS office just outside LA, I doubt that.

Shipping times are always so inconsistent here

Probably tomorrow or the day after, and then I can see how much money I lost because I'm not a lucky man.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Tue Sep 29, 2015 9:30 pm #122067

The official release for the set is Friday. I'm not sure how many places will ship you the cards before then.

Takeguru · Post by **Takeguru** » Tue Sep 29, 2015 9:51 pm #122068

Well, the package is at the post office and I doubt they plastered a "do not ship until Oct 2nd" sticker on it

We'll see

Takeguru · Post by **Takeguru** » Fri Oct 02, 2015 2:44 am #122618

I was mistaken and it turns out that despite Amazon saying it was shipped, the USPS tracking just says a shipping label was made. I'm expecting it by Monday, then.

tuypo1 · Post by **tuypo1** » Fri Oct 02, 2015 5:48 am #122629

I dident end up going to prerelease but i have a feeling i will do well at game day

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Sat Oct 03, 2015 1:18 am #122752

Went to a draft tonight. Was a fucking degenerate scrub and just picked stuff I wanted to use later in constructed. I worked and was tired, mostly just there to say hey to my friends and see what I might pull.

Ended up building a bread and butter R/W creature beats. I went 1-1 with my first opponent, a guy I knew, and decided to just let him have the match so I could go home because I was feeling too malaise-y.
I had gotten my hands on a fat pack earlier today that I wanted to go home and crack. I did. It was mostly full of disappointment but I did pull a couple random interesting uncommons and two rares I think are semi-money right now.

EDIT: Nope. One $5 rare and the rest is sub $5 shit.

Takeguru · Post by **Takeguru** » Sun Oct 04, 2015 3:01 am #122952

Okay, it arrived today, which is pretty bueno.

http://imgur.com/a/UcbLm

The mythics alone bring me to 84 dollars, roughly, so I think I made back my investment with all the rares.

For now, anyway.

Happy to get Gideon.

Included my foils and the 2 emblems just because

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Sun Oct 04, 2015 3:34 am #122958

Gideon is the most expensive (non-expedition) card you can crack. Good get.
Drana is 2nd, I think.

I bought a single Drana off a coworker for $15 the other night. I only half intend to use her (that B/W allies deck is going to cost more than I like to spend on standard) and might just flip her when the set really gets some momentum behind it and she's up over $20 again.

Them manlands are good picks too. Shambling Vents, Lumbering Falls, whatever. The 3/3 with Lifelink that alternates between being a source of B/W mana or punching people in the face for life gain is great. Similarly, having a U/G mana source that sometimes is a 3/3 hexproof creature is great as well.

EDIT: You know why Drana is so good, right?

She has first strike, so her ability potentially triggers first, giving all your other creatures +1/+1 before they deal/take damage. It totally fucks with whatever math your opponent might be doing when they declare blockers and such.

Takeguru · Post by **Takeguru** » Sun Oct 04, 2015 3:48 am #122962

PWs like Gideon are always gonna be expensive while in standard.

White weenies is both easy and good, and he enables that so well.
Plus, you can pop him for his emblem the turn he comes out and it's not bad for 4 CMC

And Drana is pretty fucking good too, but I don't trend towards black that often so she might go underused with me

The Phoenix kind of blows, 6cmc to bring him back isn't really worth it in a red heavy deck, and I can think of better uses for 4 mana to start him off.

The Eldrazi are alright, I guess.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Sun Oct 04, 2015 4:18 am #122967

Eldrazi are decent if you force them. Super creature heavy with just some removal/counter support. Get some cheap ingest guys in there early to swing in early and get the exiled cards going. A lot of your spells don't fire or your creature's comes-into-play abilities don't do shit if you can't return an exiled card.

...but when they do it's pretty fucking rad. And you can get some half-decent ramp with cards like Eldrazi Temple and Herald of Kozilek.

I want more of this fucking guy right here

He gets along GREAT with every other Eldrazi and IMO is like the cornerstone of any Eldrazi deck. He bulks up off other creatures and any kind of Scion token generation you get going. He tramples over defenders to make sure he gets that ingest trigger, which in turn feeds all your other Eldrazi spells and comes-into-play abilities. Even just palling around with this fucker works fine for him.

Or this guy

And he works great with this

I could go on. Use Ulamog's Reclaimer to scoop your Call the Scions back up and do it again. Whatever.

Incomptinence · Sun Oct 04, 2015 5:04 am

Processors look like good cards to my layman's eyes but they probably work better with other exiling mill since ingest is one card at a time for a usually game winning action anyway.

Or just plain exile because being able to make white exile enchantments not bring things back when removed as a COST (for those that do so) seems nasty and it breaks enemy flicker like play and several cards that depend on a pretty exile pile to even work. Only way it could be cooler is if you could mess with your own exile zone.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Sun Oct 04, 2015 5:09 am #122978

By Processor do you mean Ruin Processor?

He gets you 5 life when he comes into play if you put something back in their graveyard, in addition to being a big body (but also pricey at 7). He's okay. I played with one or two of them during a draft. He appeared late game to piss my opponent off a lot and win games for me. Fun in limited, probably wont see any play in constructed.

Beyond ingest though you have some basic utility shit like these guys

So you're exiling shit as well as doing something you wanted to do anyway.

I really like Spell Shrivel outside of standard because

1) 4 point powersink for 3 is fine. It's not as economic as the classic Counterspell but it's more easily splashed
2) It's devoid, so you can't Red Elemental Blast it
3) It exiles whatever you countered so they can't try to Snapcaster it or other shenanigans

You want to talk about a real asshole card, though?

This guy for all star eat a dick and choke on it 2015. His comes into play ability seems pretty decent. Exile the top four cards of your opponents library. Then steal any exiled lands you want.

EDIT:

Spoiler:

Wow! I get to exile four cards and if there are any lands in there, I can take 'em?

Yes. But also, any lands that you've managed to ingest out the entire time you've been picking away at your opponent's library can be yours. It's not just from those four, it's from all cards you've exiled so far. Steal those fuckers, and on the next turn unleash a gigantic fucking Endless One or other gigantic Eldrazi asshole you've been eyeing and wondering "how the hell does anyone ever get the mana for this?"

Incomptinence · Sun Oct 04, 2015 5:16 am

It is a creature type in this block all of them mess with the exile zone either etb or as an ability cost. They may not be all great cards but that is pretty special utility.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Sun Oct 04, 2015 5:26 am #122982

Oooooh I see what you mean. Yeah, processors are cool but you need some ingest to really get anything out of them or else they're complete wastes of space. Thankfully there are a lot of cheap ingest guys with evasion abilities to hopefully get some early digs in.

Get this guy in early enough and you can eat a few cards before they have anyone with reach or another flyer to do anything about it.

Get this guy in and they might just decide it's worth taking the 1 damage ding and the ingest vs trading for whatever they have to block it with. Late game he turns into a card draw/ingest engine anyway.

You're right that fuel for your processors becomes another resource you need to manage if you're going hard on processor abilities. You just have to build your creature curve accordingly so your cheap weenies can do the early work of building up a few ingested cards for your other guys to come in and process. Blue and Black both seem to have the most/best options on the cheap end. The guys above and more stuff like

Blah blah blah anyway I just really like these guys.

They put Cthulhu horrors in Magic that span four colors but are somehow all still colorless and work by eating up your opponents deck and then digesting it for cool effects. That's fucking rad.

Incomptinence · Sun Oct 04, 2015 5:49 am

Can't help but wonder how funny this cutie can get outside of standard where exile mill will probably be too small or overpriced the set him off.

There are also the stupidly synergistic kind of graveyard hosers that basically exile a whole zone at the price of piss.

tuypo1 · Post by **tuypo1** » Sun Oct 04, 2015 8:41 am #123001

im not really very excited by much in this set

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Sun Oct 04, 2015 11:25 pm #123170

RIP IN PIEACE

Goddamn that's actually really good synergy. Gotta go get a playset of those before people figure that out fuck.

tuypo1 wrote:im not really very excited by much in this set

If you're looking at it from the perspective of a tournament-level Modern player I can understand your "meh" level of enthusiasm. There's not a lot of super technical play going on. The synergy is really fucking obvious: pick a side between Allies or Eldrazi and fight it out. Especially coming off of the Tarkir block we just had which had a ton of bombs and awesome shit going on in it this set is pretty straightforward.

I think it's more fun to play in a limited format. If I want insanity and big boom and doom I have my modern affinity deck to go shrek people's buttholes and sop up scrub tears with (for ~$400 some odd dollars though).
For something that is cheap magic fun to be had at drafts and sealed events it's cool. And there are still some cards you can pull that are just explosively valuable (them expeditions, gideons, etc.)

Incomptinence · Mon Oct 05, 2015 12:35 am

Probably not very synergistic with rip itself because you still need a way to get shit into the graveyard and land destruction has been shit for a long time. Leyline of the void can cheat itself into play from your opening hand though and is black one of the big discard colours. Really this sort of card is good enough the be sided as a counter to reanimator so even if a deck depending on exiling the graveyard isn't great you still have that type of deck hard countered.

Things like sowing salt are probably better actually exiles an in play non basic land then hunts down every copy that isn't in play.
Oh wait they printed a near copy of it.

Or if they are monocoloured you could animate one of their lands then eradicate it to hunt down every copy of a basic land.

Those cards at least affect board state before going to town on their library.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Mon Oct 05, 2015 1:42 am #123200

Yeah we've been chatting about Crumble to Dust at work quite a bit for a while now.

It's hilarious with Sower because you shit all over their manlands or completely annex a portion of their 'Tron setup and then claim it for your own.
Someone was laughing today over the possible scenario where you are stealing your opponents fetch lands to dig through your own library.

Even outside of standard it's a strictly better version of Sowing Salt. It's easier to splash with only a single red cost.

Incomptinence · Wed Oct 07, 2015 6:05 am

Oh wait outside of modern there is a semi cycle that this exile touching can break over its knee.

Here is the cream of the crop.

2 card combo for near guaranteed annex 4 (5 if you can sower the same turn) seems pretty good no? I mean it probably isn't legacy or vintage viable but a nasty trick for commander or casual Zur can just tutor parallax nexus into play for crushing souls if you draw the sower or have processors.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Wed Oct 07, 2015 8:22 pm #124089

Yeah the only format I see that being viable in is Commander.

If you just want to shit on someone and get some processor fodder (non-lands) you have this.

I used to run B/U that did that with Traumatize. Top-fucking-kek. With a little bit of ramp from something like high-tide or sol rings you'd rip their library to a bunch of useless basic lands by turn 5/6.

While fun though none of this is even remotely competitive.

Takeguru · Post by **Takeguru** » Wed Oct 07, 2015 9:28 pm #124109

Actually taking time to sift through my stuff I got a few decent allies as well.

White/Red seems to be the most viable thing I could build around with allies due to Gideon and those red guys that give allies the "can't be blocked by fewer than 2" thing that I forgot the word for

Maccus · Post by **Maccus** » Wed Oct 07, 2015 9:39 pm #124112

My friend gave me a huge surplus of cards a month ago I've yet to sort through.

Spoiler:

I don't really even play

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Wed Oct 07, 2015 10:37 pm #124131

Takeguru wrote:Actually taking time to sift through my stuff I got a few decent allies as well.

White/Red seems to be the most viable thing I could build around with allies due to Gideon and those red guys that give allies the "can't be blocked by fewer than 2" thing that I forgot the word for

They call it "Menace" I think? It's new to me as well.

Maccus wrote:My friend gave me a huge surplus of cards a month ago I've yet to sort through.

Spoiler:

I don't really even play

You can ship that garbage right up here to me. It's cool you don't want it cluttering up your house. I'll do you a favor and cover the shipping charges.

Qbopper · Post by **Qbopper** » Wed Oct 07, 2015 11:07 pm #124136

I started playing MTG last month

Sucks that my store isn't a proper official Wizards store, but on the other hand I bought a BFZ fatpack 2 days before release and pulled an Ob Nix, holo mountain, that one red 1/1 that makes dragons, shit like that, was p great

I'm thinking of making a blue deck, I've got a buddy who has a lot of commons I can mooch and I have a fair amount on me at the moment - anyone got any good gimmicks I should go for other than control or mill?

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Wed Oct 07, 2015 11:24 pm #124141

Delver

He's a total asshole.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 11:27 pm #130094

Avert yourself and face to Waifu Wars. These cards are ridiculous and this game is savage as fuck. Look at this shit

And then pair it with this shit

tuypo1 · Post by **tuypo1** » Tue Nov 03, 2015 1:25 pm #131389

An0n3 wrote:
tuypo1 wrote:im not really very excited by much in this set
If you're looking at it from the perspective of a tournament-level Modern player I can understand your "meh" level of enthusiasm. There's not a lot of super technical play going on. The synergy is really fucking obvious: pick a side between Allies or Eldrazi and fight it out. Especially coming off of the Tarkir block we just had which had a ton of bombs and awesome shit going on in it this set is pretty straightforward.

I think it's more fun to play in a limited format. If I want insanity and big boom and doom I have my modern affinity deck to go shrek people's buttholes and sop up scrub tears with (for ~$400 some odd dollars though).
For something that is cheap magic fun to be had at drafts and sealed events it's cool. And there are still some cards you can pull that are just explosively valuable (them expeditions, gideons, etc.)

I think I have worked out why this set did not excite me much at first the mechanics just did not excite me much especially coming out of origins which had renown, menace and evergreen prowess while the mechanics of battle for zendikar excited me a lot less only one I really found interesting was devoid, I would only use an awaken card if it was strictly better then a non awaken card and I just plain think landfall always was a bad mechanic.

still im starting to warm to the set, the mechanics still don't interest me and im sad that things cut into prowess so much but some of the cards are pretty cool.

Takeguru · Post by **Takeguru** » Mon Jun 06, 2016 10:14 pm #184359

Necroing this thread because I just placed an order for more cards

Went back a bit to Battle for Zendikar and grabbed 2 fat packs of that because more full art lands is nice, might grab a booster box for Shadows of Innistrad as well