Bruna, Light of Alabaster: I can't wait to play her and before attacking cast three dreams/intuition for eldrazi conscription, Steal of the godhead, Angelic destiny. I can even imagining traumatizing myself to get good auras into the yard to one shot someone.
I think that some cards that were labled niche aren't niche at all.
A niche by definition is something that has specific appeal. In magic, most people would understand it as a card that as very specific uses and require a specific built around strategy to be good. So cards that you mentioned, tribal/combo peices falls into this category.
Infinite Reflection: The requirement for this card to be good is that you deck plays creatures and that your opponents play decent creatures. This should be the standard assumption when doing a review of EDH cards, of how good cards are in the average deck of the average player. And there are decent creatures in the decks of every average EDH player. It would make much more sense to lable this card as a role player.
Rain of Thorns: When does costing six mana make a card niche? Are we imagining the average EDH decks to have mana curves which stops at 5, in which case, you'd need to specially change your deck construction to support a spell that *gasp cost 6? Six mana is very easy to get to in green, couple that with the fact that this is a green removal that can 1 for 3, in a format filled with extremely powerful lands/artifacts/enchantments.
Vessel of the Endless Rest: Labeling this niche just makes no sense. This is a 3 mana ramp spell that can go in any deck unless you're telling me that most EDH decks don't want to ramp.
I'm pretty sure technical play is way more important than any of the above. No matter what deck you play or how much time you put in, how good you are at magic is almost entirely based on your play. At least 90% of games come down to decisions made by each player.
As for deck choice, just play the best deck, you'll be able to find the cards if you try hard enough.
Yep I agree, but in my opinion technical play account for at least 70% of a given player's success at a major tournament. This is because I think a player's ability to recognize the metagame and using this insight to gain leverage in MD and SB is also important. Of course there's always some luck involved in any magic tournament.
I rarely play in big tournaments. I only do so when my friends have a deck that I'd want to play, as most of my magic collection is invested in my foiled out cube. In any case, I've been to a 2k and a 5k in my magic career and in both instances, my friend gives me a deck on the day of the tournament and I'd play without prior preparations, but making 5-6 changes to the sb/md of my own choice. I've top 2 and top 4 in those tournaments and I'd call them 'big tournies' since theres at least 300-400 players.
So if I were to rate myself as a player, a much larger portion would be attributed to technical play and an understand of the game/meta rather than card pool, time investment, deck construction ability.
Honestly I think there comes a point when you stop chasing the dragon, and just keep a tightly tuned collection of decks and add cards and new decks as creativity hits. I've played for 15 years or so, and right now I have the smallest collection I've ever owned... but it's also the most decks I've ever had built and each of those decks have an emotional worth that outweights the physical value.
Now I just pick up playsets of staples from each new set and have MUCH more fun building decks and enjoying the game than I EVER did having 2-3 binders full of crap I'd never touch. Sure I'd love to turn those M-duals into "real" duals in some decks... but at the cost, it's just not nessessary. I wouldn't enjoy those decks ANY more than I do now.
Ya, thats where I am at too.
I used to have playsets of every legacy/extended staple, but that was when I was playing competitively and now I'm not. Things came up for me that pushed me to sell a major part of my collection, had to get a laptop for school, etc. With the things left over, I decided to just build a cube and pimp it out. I'm playing much more with a group of close friends than anything else so might as well enjoy a pimped out cube together.
I think I'd still look at future sets, but not to the extent of buying 4 of every staple or several boxes. Maybe I'd be a foil card for cube here and there and I think thats the plan for me in the future.
How much $ are you guy's collection and at what point do you think you'd be satisfied and not spend nearly as much money on this game as currently?
So, I'm in the process of finishing up my edh cube, foiling out the remaining cards. And for once I think I might be satisfied with my collection after thats finished. I currently only have 1 ofs, mostly foils and alters: original duals, shocks, every edh staples staple. I don't have power. But I don't think I'd want them anyways. Don't really need 4x of anything since friends can lend decks for modern/standard. So ~600$ to go b4 I stop spending; looking forward to it.
I am a competitive player, and when my friends and I play this format we change some of the rules to make it more competitive, such as unbanning recurring nightmare, upheaval, gifts, etc. And honestly we don't have a problem with it nor do other people who wish to play in our games; they understand our rules and they didn't like them, they'd find another play group. If I happen to want to sit down at a casual game, I'd take out all the spells that are banned or deem too powerful and replace them with casual versions.
I guess my point is that people seem to too many problems with 'the offical banlist' or the 'offical spirit of the format' because they pay too much heed to it. The format can be your own if you're willing to have a flexible mindset about the game and that goes for both competitive players and casual players alike.
The cards ability is amazing. It's cost is back breaking. I'm sure my opinion will change and I'll probably run it, but im just not seeing it is as great as everyone else is.
Its bad if your group is competitive. But its fine-very good if your play group is casual. Don't forget, sacrifice effect on a land is usually a decent resource to have.
I just don't believe that banning is healthy for the format. Play groups should make their own decisions on how they want to play instead of waiting on the EDH board to make a decision for them.
Kokusho SUCKS, even as a commander. If he was unbanned, I wouldn't even play him.
You can combo with him. But it's a creature based combo, which means its more vulnerable. Its also a two+ card combo that doesn't auto win which means the combo sucks.
P.Titan and Sphinx are understandably powerful, but kokusho is so average in comparison. If you lose to kokusho, your deck is probably very under-powered and needs tuning.
It's funny that more people voted against kokusho than sphinx.
Trade Thread
Bruna, Light of Alabaster: I can't wait to play her and before attacking cast three dreams/intuition for eldrazi conscription, Steal of the godhead, Angelic destiny. I can even imagining traumatizing myself to get good auras into the yard to one shot someone.
Trade Thread
A niche by definition is something that has specific appeal. In magic, most people would understand it as a card that as very specific uses and require a specific built around strategy to be good. So cards that you mentioned, tribal/combo peices falls into this category.
Infinite Reflection: The requirement for this card to be good is that you deck plays creatures and that your opponents play decent creatures. This should be the standard assumption when doing a review of EDH cards, of how good cards are in the average deck of the average player. And there are decent creatures in the decks of every average EDH player. It would make much more sense to lable this card as a role player.
Rain of Thorns: When does costing six mana make a card niche? Are we imagining the average EDH decks to have mana curves which stops at 5, in which case, you'd need to specially change your deck construction to support a spell that *gasp cost 6? Six mana is very easy to get to in green, couple that with the fact that this is a green removal that can 1 for 3, in a format filled with extremely powerful lands/artifacts/enchantments.
Vessel of the Endless Rest: Labeling this niche just makes no sense. This is a 3 mana ramp spell that can go in any deck unless you're telling me that most EDH decks don't want to ramp.
Trade Thread
Trade Thread
Yep I agree, but in my opinion technical play account for at least 70% of a given player's success at a major tournament. This is because I think a player's ability to recognize the metagame and using this insight to gain leverage in MD and SB is also important. Of course there's always some luck involved in any magic tournament.
I rarely play in big tournaments. I only do so when my friends have a deck that I'd want to play, as most of my magic collection is invested in my foiled out cube. In any case, I've been to a 2k and a 5k in my magic career and in both instances, my friend gives me a deck on the day of the tournament and I'd play without prior preparations, but making 5-6 changes to the sb/md of my own choice. I've top 2 and top 4 in those tournaments and I'd call them 'big tournies' since theres at least 300-400 players.
So if I were to rate myself as a player, a much larger portion would be attributed to technical play and an understand of the game/meta rather than card pool, time investment, deck construction ability.
Trade Thread
Ya, thats where I am at too.
I used to have playsets of every legacy/extended staple, but that was when I was playing competitively and now I'm not. Things came up for me that pushed me to sell a major part of my collection, had to get a laptop for school, etc. With the things left over, I decided to just build a cube and pimp it out. I'm playing much more with a group of close friends than anything else so might as well enjoy a pimped out cube together.
I think I'd still look at future sets, but not to the extent of buying 4 of every staple or several boxes. Maybe I'd be a foil card for cube here and there and I think thats the plan for me in the future.
Trade Thread
So, I'm in the process of finishing up my edh cube, foiling out the remaining cards. And for once I think I might be satisfied with my collection after thats finished. I currently only have 1 ofs, mostly foils and alters: original duals, shocks, every edh staples staple. I don't have power. But I don't think I'd want them anyways. Don't really need 4x of anything since friends can lend decks for modern/standard. So ~600$ to go b4 I stop spending; looking forward to it.
Trade Thread
Otherwise, his abilities are very expensive and counter synergistic for a deck that wants to main phase a lot of spells.
That said, its a cool card and can be powerful in the right deck.
Trade Thread
I guess my point is that people seem to too many problems with 'the offical banlist' or the 'offical spirit of the format' because they pay too much heed to it. The format can be your own if you're willing to have a flexible mindset about the game and that goes for both competitive players and casual players alike.
Trade Thread
Trade Thread
Trade Thread
Mana Crypt
Mana Vault
Broken mana artifacts are broken. There's no room for them in a casual format.
Trade Thread
Its bad if your group is competitive. But its fine-very good if your play group is casual. Don't forget, sacrifice effect on a land is usually a decent resource to have.
Trade Thread
I just don't believe that banning is healthy for the format. Play groups should make their own decisions on how they want to play instead of waiting on the EDH board to make a decision for them.
Trade Thread
You can combo with him. But it's a creature based combo, which means its more vulnerable. Its also a two+ card combo that doesn't auto win which means the combo sucks.
P.Titan and Sphinx are understandably powerful, but kokusho is so average in comparison. If you lose to kokusho, your deck is probably very under-powered and needs tuning.
It's funny that more people voted against kokusho than sphinx.
Double post merged. -viper
Trade Thread