Does anybody else just not really like creature strategies? I don't like Theros because you really have no other option.
I agree. I haven't played standard in a long time because it's really just who can amass the largest army.
This is preposterous. You clearly haven't played standard in a long time because between doom blade thoughtseize supreme verdict banishing light mizzium mortars and all the rest, it's VERY rare that there's more than one non-manadork creature on the board at any given time.
Efficient removal has been the defining feature of the past year's meta.
My meta was nothing but R/G Monsters, there were no control decks to speak of. Monsters and blitz aggro.
Personally I have had a whole lot of fun and success with Clerics. A lot of life gain and damage prevention combined with enchantments with Vish Kal leading the team.
Clerics are deceptively powerful. People don't take them seriously because the highest power on a non-level up guy is 4 but he costs 7 mana. I took down three people over the course of 3 turns recently just using Pontiff of Blight, a bunch of clerics, cheap spells, and Sanguine Bond. My cleric deck is made to fly under the radar and then win seemingly from out of nowhere. If you sit down at a table and drop Azami, Ezuri, Krenko, etc. you are asking to be targeted immediately. When I sit down with Atheros, play a turn 1 Cavern of Souls naming Cleric, I usually get weird looks and laughs. People don't take the clerics seriously and thus they are able to steal many a game.
I run Thawing Glaciers in my main EDH deck with 12 basics it can search out. I also run Marsh Flats but that's generally used to grab a Godless Shrine or a Mistveil Plains. I can't help but think every time I see the Glaciers that it'd be better with either more basics in my deck or as a different utility land (Strip Mine/Tainted Field). Is there a correct number of basics to be running when using Thawing Glaciers?
Does anybody else just not really like creature strategies? I don't like Theros because you really have no other option.
I agree. I haven't played standard in a long time because it's really just who can amass the largest army. I like to have alternate wincons (poison was all right) and mill is my favorite but there's no support. They printed Phenax and then immediately print Deicide to completely hose it. They seem to think the only way to win is through damage which gets so boring after a while.
I just can't how believe they dropped the ball so hard in their attempt to make an enchantments matter set. If they truly wanted to make enchantments matter then Constellation would have been front and center. As it was, enchantments mattered in the way they always have, suiting a guy up for battle. Except this time around Heroic made him slightly better. The only thing they did with enchantments was slap it onto creatures and call it a day. It was really disappointing, especially in limited with the powered down removal.
What I want most is a more diverse metagame in standard,
I guess this is the fundamental difference. I see this - http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/ptm15/top8decks - and believe the game is healthy and diverse. You don't. I don't expect every archetype to be viable at all times. I spent a few months playing Izzet counter burn and had a ton of fun, but knew it would never win. I am OK with that. I will play something else as I enjoy the challenge of picking up new types of decks.
I would agree. That list seems pretty diverse to me. Azure hasn't been playing long enough to know any different though. I've only been playing for about 7 years but when I started it was Kithkin/Faeries, then it jumped to Jund, and then Caw Blade. Nothing like playing the same deck 3-4 times in a row at FNM (or worse at PTQs).
Basically Azure, if you want to win you'll build the best deck available to you. That's just how it is. Many of the pros and top level brewers create those lists and they usually identify the cards worth playing quickly. If you don't care about winning, you'll play what excites you. You could have easily played Izzet Counter-Burn for the last Standard season, you simply IDed it as being too weak and therefore not worth it. It's a balance you have to find for yourself. I play for the fun of it, not to win, so when I sit down at FNM with my janky Heroic-Enchantment deck, it's not to win but to see if I can swing with a 22/22 trample, lifelink, flyer on turn 4-5. Does it happen? Yeah sometimes. Does it happen often? Not really.
We were told that many of the issues (loading speed, memory leaks) would be fixed when V3 turned off. This has not happened.
To be fair, it's been like 3 business days since they shut down V3. Did you really think all that stuff was getting solved overnight?
Uh what? Haven't they been developing V4 for more than a year now? If it was a problem during the beta (and it was) it should have been fixed a long time ago. I can't even build a deck without getting fatal error messages now. I spend more time waiting to be logged in than I get in the actual program itself.
Anyway, we're veering off topic. Wizards is slowing the game down (compared to previous blocks), and I don't see that as an inherently bad thing. Longer games means more interactions between players and board state.
Everyone has been saying that Wizards is slowing down the format for YEARS now but are they really? I remember the days of Zendikar's landfall blitz decks, or Scars with its ridiculous Kuldotha Rebirth decks. People keep saying that there is a slow down in the format but I'm not seeing it. Before Theros came about, you could be certain that anyone playing Humans was going to have you dead to rights by turn 3-4. After Ghor-Clan Rampager was printed, you could bet that every deck running R/G was about to blow you out with their Burning-Tree Emissary fun on turn 2 into a the dreaded Ghor-Clan swing for anywhere from 8-16 on turn 3. If they want to slow the format down, they need to make early game removal a thing and they need to have a turn 4 wrath. If we don't see that in Khans, it'll be clear enough that they don't want control decks to be viable. We know they don't want combo decks to be viable (in standard). It's turning into smashy-smashy decks only which is just sad. Mass Calcify and Extinguish All Hope are both too slow and too narrow to see play.
So does this mean that if I use the 35 points and one of their 'hunt' chips, the remaining 4 will still be in my inventory and I'll only need to purchase the tickets to use them in a different event?
The only time I've really dealt with it is in retro-drafts. I remember the first time I ever drafted the original Ravnica set online, I built a bleed style deck based around things like Souls of the Faultless and Pillory of the Sleepless and random lifegain jank like Centaur Safeguard. I wasn't very experienced with Ravnica at the time and my first round opponent just went off on me when in both games we played, I put down a Souls of the Faultless on turn 3. He kept going on and on about how he couldn't believe he was going to lose to such jank and whatnot. I (probably shouldn't have) fed his trolling by instigating him a little bit. Aside from that one incident, I've never had anyone be too annoying outside of a lucky top deck or thanks mana screw comment.
Am I going to be able to order this in Europe without people screaming that I'm "entitled"? (people who say that deserve to shampoo Yawgmoth's crotch for eternity.)
Go cry on your full art mutavaults that no one outside of Europe was able to get. Or if you're Asian, your APAC lands.
Different regions of the world sometimes get different promos. That's life.
I'm sure you can buy them from someone on the secondary market afterwards anyway.
You do realize that APAC lands came out 15 years ago right? The only other Asia specific promo I can think of are the guild lands from the original Ravnica release. I guess you could count the original anime Japanese Jace v. Chandra but only slightly because those were available without huge markup. Mutavault was 6 years ago now. They don't seem to have a vested interest in pushing these kinds of things outside of the US anymore. You can always buy from the secondary market but paying 10x (or more) is a bit ridiculous.
So we are just assuming that they will lie about everything now? There is very little reason to believe that there will be a wedge block next.
No, the assumption is that their plans sometimes change and that no statement about their design philosophies should be taken as an eternal, unbreakable rule.
While this is true, they tried breaking this rule once with Alara and it didn't turn out well for them. Add that to there being very little reason to believe that there will be a wedge block next and I can't see this as being an indication for what the wedge that probably doesn't exist might do.
What didn't work out well with Alara? It's a fun set and I've never seen any complaints about it. I know all of my Magic playing friends (and the LGS regulars at the time) loved it immensely. It might not have been as popular as Innistrad/Dark Ascension but it wasn't horrible or anything.
Obviously they are both going to be rare, but if that create dragon tokens card has a casting cost that isn't insane is going to be an awesome combo with crucible of fire. (so it's probably going to be cost 8 or something crazy like that)
They've already spoiled that card, it's a red shaman that cost 4. You have to put an aura on it to get the dragon.
Hum... It might be because I started to play in Dark Ascension.... But why people disliked Innistrad Block? The story/plane/ambiance was good. There was thing for almost everyone (sacrifice mechanique, tribal, flashback, token, big faty). There where more standard deck, at my place, using Innistrad card than Scars. Infect deck where rare. Huntsman deck, Token deck, Delver/flashback guy deck and Zombie deck where all around. Sometime we could see try at Milling and Tribal deck.
The morbid mechanic was meh...
Some flashback were overcosted...
Tribal could have used more love....
The flip card mechanic was... ... ...
People loved Innistrad. I haven't met anyone yet who didn't like it. My personal opinion is that they dropped the ball with Avacyn Restored but that's not really a big deal. Innistrad limited is really fun because there are plenty of different deck types you can make. There are fun ways to win.
About this Maro quote, he's surely talking about that Orc looking thing that was in one of the main pieces of preview art. But Orcs aren't new to MtG and I don't know what else it could be.
My meta was nothing but R/G Monsters, there were no control decks to speak of. Monsters and blitz aggro.
Clerics are deceptively powerful. People don't take them seriously because the highest power on a non-level up guy is 4 but he costs 7 mana. I took down three people over the course of 3 turns recently just using Pontiff of Blight, a bunch of clerics, cheap spells, and Sanguine Bond. My cleric deck is made to fly under the radar and then win seemingly from out of nowhere. If you sit down at a table and drop Azami, Ezuri, Krenko, etc. you are asking to be targeted immediately. When I sit down with Atheros, play a turn 1 Cavern of Souls naming Cleric, I usually get weird looks and laughs. People don't take the clerics seriously and thus they are able to steal many a game.
I agree. I haven't played standard in a long time because it's really just who can amass the largest army. I like to have alternate wincons (poison was all right) and mill is my favorite but there's no support. They printed Phenax and then immediately print Deicide to completely hose it. They seem to think the only way to win is through damage which gets so boring after a while.
I would agree. That list seems pretty diverse to me. Azure hasn't been playing long enough to know any different though. I've only been playing for about 7 years but when I started it was Kithkin/Faeries, then it jumped to Jund, and then Caw Blade. Nothing like playing the same deck 3-4 times in a row at FNM (or worse at PTQs).
Basically Azure, if you want to win you'll build the best deck available to you. That's just how it is. Many of the pros and top level brewers create those lists and they usually identify the cards worth playing quickly. If you don't care about winning, you'll play what excites you. You could have easily played Izzet Counter-Burn for the last Standard season, you simply IDed it as being too weak and therefore not worth it. It's a balance you have to find for yourself. I play for the fun of it, not to win, so when I sit down at FNM with my janky Heroic-Enchantment deck, it's not to win but to see if I can swing with a 22/22 trample, lifelink, flyer on turn 4-5. Does it happen? Yeah sometimes. Does it happen often? Not really.
Is he still mad in this set? Or did he move beyond that? It certainly seems like he fits in with the RWB clan in that picture.
Uh what? Haven't they been developing V4 for more than a year now? If it was a problem during the beta (and it was) it should have been fixed a long time ago. I can't even build a deck without getting fatal error messages now. I spend more time waiting to be logged in than I get in the actual program itself.
Everyone has been saying that Wizards is slowing down the format for YEARS now but are they really? I remember the days of Zendikar's landfall blitz decks, or Scars with its ridiculous Kuldotha Rebirth decks. People keep saying that there is a slow down in the format but I'm not seeing it. Before Theros came about, you could be certain that anyone playing Humans was going to have you dead to rights by turn 3-4. After Ghor-Clan Rampager was printed, you could bet that every deck running R/G was about to blow you out with their Burning-Tree Emissary fun on turn 2 into a the dreaded Ghor-Clan swing for anywhere from 8-16 on turn 3. If they want to slow the format down, they need to make early game removal a thing and they need to have a turn 4 wrath. If we don't see that in Khans, it'll be clear enough that they don't want control decks to be viable. We know they don't want combo decks to be viable (in standard). It's turning into smashy-smashy decks only which is just sad. Mass Calcify and Extinguish All Hope are both too slow and too narrow to see play.
You do realize that APAC lands came out 15 years ago right? The only other Asia specific promo I can think of are the guild lands from the original Ravnica release. I guess you could count the original anime Japanese Jace v. Chandra but only slightly because those were available without huge markup. Mutavault was 6 years ago now. They don't seem to have a vested interest in pushing these kinds of things outside of the US anymore. You can always buy from the secondary market but paying 10x (or more) is a bit ridiculous.
What didn't work out well with Alara? It's a fun set and I've never seen any complaints about it. I know all of my Magic playing friends (and the LGS regulars at the time) loved it immensely. It might not have been as popular as Innistrad/Dark Ascension but it wasn't horrible or anything.
They've already spoiled that card, it's a red shaman that cost 4. You have to put an aura on it to get the dragon.
People loved Innistrad. I haven't met anyone yet who didn't like it. My personal opinion is that they dropped the ball with Avacyn Restored but that's not really a big deal. Innistrad limited is really fun because there are plenty of different deck types you can make. There are fun ways to win.
About this Maro quote, he's surely talking about that Orc looking thing that was in one of the main pieces of preview art. But Orcs aren't new to MtG and I don't know what else it could be.