MTG Salvation

Dat Garruk! I want it!

This is a classic example of "If their ability is weak, then the card must be weak" fallacy. If this card were a 2/2 for 1U, it would be fine. As it is, its a powerhouse. If it were 4UU for a 6/6 with flying, I would draft that card. Until the card's mana cost is over 7, I can't discount it, and six mana is a perfect curve topper. If I land a 6/6 flyer, my opponent is in a tough situation. If I draw a card off that card (no matter the mana cost), my opponent is losing the game 9 times out of 10. This card is a powerhouse with or without its abilities. When you are top decking with ten lands in play, complain about that ability to me.

Two headed giant has specific rules on only being able to attack the opponent across from you. In archenemy and planechase and in free-for-all you are able to attack any opponent. I would like if you could choose to play against the decks you build. That would help you hone them by playing against them.

Arcana Announcement Link


Hunt Bigger Game this year with Magic 2015—Duels of the Planeswalkers and discover a number of cool new things:


1.Be at the heart of the story: Players will find themselves dropped into the wilderness at the heart of the story: You’re not just on Garruk’s list—you’re next. The Curse of the Chain Veil has corrupted Garruk’s body and soul. His skin has paled, his flesh struck through with blackened veins. His hunter’s instinct has turned away from beasts of the wild toward the ultimate quarry—Planeswalkers! You will have to confront the deadliest hunter in the Multiverse. But, how will you defeat Garruk before he finds you?
2.Full, Open-Ended Deck Building: Players can build their own collection of cards to create any style of deck they want.
3.Platforms: It will be available on Xbox One, Xbox LIVE Arcade, iPad, PC via Steam, Android tablet via Amazon App Store and Google Play.
4.New Content: Five planes to explore and exciting virtual booster packs.
5.Single and Multiplayer: Battle the AI or your friends with your fully customized decks.
6.New Cards:Magic 2015—Duels of the Planeswalkers will feature some of the hottest cards from Magic 2015.
7.Launch Date: Coming soon in 2014!


So, they are allowing full customizing of decks from all unlocked cards. I never thought they would do it! Looks like Sealed will be back as well. Thoughts?

Normally they announce the next Duels game in March. Well, March has come and gone and still no announcement. They stated there would be a new game in the announcement for Magic 2015. Has anyone seen any rumors for dotp 15's announcement?

This is definitely RW vs GU or Mono-R vs GU. I'd be surprised if it were anything else.

I would love to see a storyline of a new planeswalker learning the ropes from already established 'walkers. You start on Ravnica learning from Jace, then travel to Alara and recieve help from Ajani, and so forth and so on. I like the interface and really everything I wanted changed has been changed in that respect. A little more stability for the iPad would be nice. I wouldn't be opposed to the option of creature animated attacks, where each card has its own little animation, but it would only trigger a single time for each card with that name. Obviously it would need to be something that could be opted out of in Settings. I really want them to start using actual animation, even cgi would be fine, for ingame storyline. No more of this card's art being "motionized," I want real animation to pull me into the story and I'd like more story. I want to feel like the story andhe game are integrated and feed off each other, not that the story is there to provide the game with a reason to exist. Either make the story important or remove it altogether.

The biggest change I want is for the main deck to be on theme and you unlock both cards for that theme and to take the deck in another direction. Kind of think of the Commander decks last year that had two themes within them, except it would start with one and have branch off options with unlocks.

The decks I want to see:

Main game:
Garruk: Monogreen ramp, unlocks into monogreen swarm
Liliana: Monoblack zombies, unlocks into monoblack devotion
Kiora: Green/Blue draw+fatties, unlocks into green/blue evasion
Ral Zarek: Red/Blue hasty aggro, unlocks into red/blue draw/go
Elspeth: Monowhite angels, unlocks into monowhite blink
Tibalt: black/red suicide, unlocks into black/red demon/devil theme deck
Chandra: Monored burn, unlocks into monored tempo
Jace: Monoblue bounce control with curve topping finishers, unlocks into combo control w/isocron scepter
Sarkhan: Red/Green Sneak Attack deck, unlocks into dragon ramp
New Walker: Blue/White fliers, unlocks into blue/white enchantment lockdown

The expansions would be decks based around the tricolored invasion and planar chaos dragons. The twist is each unlocks into multiple dual color decks if you choose.

Expansion 1:
Crosis: Grixis slow drain, unlocks into dimir mill or rakdos haste
Darigaaz: Jund midrange, unlocks into Gruul bloodrush or Golgari deck based around parallel lives.
Dromar: Esper artifacts, unlocks into Dimir artifact combo w/thoctar factory or Azorious draw based deck with Psycosis Crawler.
Rith: Naya token swarm, unlocks into Selesnya convoke or boros aggro
Treva: Bant Goodstuff, unlocks into simic deck centered around birthing pod or Selesyna human tribal

Expansion 2:
Oros: Black/white/red wrath deck with creatures able to be played from the graveyard, unlocks into black/white spirit deck or black red morbid deck
Intet: blue/red/green tempo creature deck with animar as well, unlocks into izzet creature copy or simic merfolk
Teneb: black/green/white dredge animate, unlocks into Golgari pure dredge combo or orzhov deck that uses the opponent's graveyard as fuel.
Numot: blue/white/red instant/sorcery deck, unlocks into izzet overload deck or boros burn
Vorosh: Green/blue/black evasion deck (heavy intimidate, flying, and trample), unlocks into Dimir discard/draw or simic graft/evolve combo deck

Deck Packs:
Green/red trample theme deck
Black/white spot removal deckwith clunky finishers
Red/Green eldrazi deck centering around edrazi spawn
Monowhite soldier deck
Monoblue Quest for Ula's Temple deck
Monoblack infect deck w/phyrexian mana main-stage.

The idea is to create a feel to the expansion that makes it feel like a different game from the main game but still play well together. Deck packs should highlight decks from the past and decks you otherwise wouldn't play off the kitchen table. I feel the mix I've hit hasomething for everyone. There are decks I wouldn't find fun but I know people who would.

I like fast mana because it protects from mana screw. If I grab a hand with three lands and a Sol Ring or a Mana Crypt and never draw another land, I can still play 5 CMC spells in color. With a mana rock in hand I even feel safe playing 2 land hands. This makes game set up time a lot faster on the kitchen table. I build decks using what I call gentlemen's causal rules. Standard ban list, but you choose not to play Power 9, mass land kill, and other unfun goodies. HOWEVER, if they are essential to your deck, you can of course play them. If I play Armageddon or Mox Jet, no one will say, "Dude, that's banned." But if the game is just unfun after that, no one will play against the deck. It's a style that only works if everyone is there to have fun. It let's people who want to play fast, play fast, but it pushes out their unfun decks. When I am revelaed to be playing Kaalia of the Vast deck, no one complains because I will not be killing everyone quickly, but will be enjoying getting my cool, 7-9 cmc demons into play.

In WRG, this doubles up your chances of having a Dueling Grounds on the field. I love these type cards in Anima, when you want to swing with your big tramply, but don't like their tokens gang blocking your guy. Also, very strong in voltron.

Quote from Son of Skullfer

I think we will at least see non-mana bestow costs, likely non-symmetrical bestow effects and even a possibility of a return of Quests (like a cycle or two).

Non-mana bestow costs is a possibility, but will probably also have mana cost attached. Non-symmetrical bestow costs are a NWO no go. MAYBE at rare or mythic, but most likely not. Quests have returned in the form of ordeals. More ordeal style is definitely a possibility but its too soon for more quests.

I think they are going to prefer enchantment matters to be more vague because enchantment matters is typically a very specific deck. What makes enchantment matters different from artifact matters is what they will be looking at. Do not expect colorless enchantments for that very reason.

I think this set feels like Zendikar for me. It feels like they learned a lot from ZEN and incorporated that here. They wanted to make the [type]-matters theme more loose. Heroic does that phenomenally. It plays well with or without enchantments and is interesting to play with. Bestow is a very licid-y way to make auras work better. Scry has always bored me as it takes a lot of the randomness away, but i play with top so who am I to complain. From a causal perspective, I love the set and can't wait for the next two. EDH-wise, its pretty bland. Most of the legends would make boring generals, though I am going to try and grab a god or two and build an EDH deck with one of them as a commander.

WIth Wizards love of 3 mana cards costing 1CC this set, I wouldn't be surprised if there were more heroes fitting that cost. Looking at the card list there are 3 1WW, 1 1UU, 3 1BB, 4 1RR, and 2 1GG. That just feels like a lot.

Quote from Istreddify

Isn't the text reffering to a single Champion?

I misread. You are correct. I was more excited about the first possibility...

So The Champions is a group of representatives of the gods of which Elspeth represents Helios (or the sun god). Correct? And if so, does this mean we will see the other god's champions? Have I missed them among the legends?

I was expecting a altered Hero's Demise, not Murder. Weird that all the paralells are there but they chose to choose creature and not legendary creature. I'm still hoping for a WB or GB "Destroy target legendary permanent." card.