The problem is false incentives. Imagine that every time a professional athlete did some flashy (but competitively useless) maneuver, we rewarded them monetarily. Like 10,000 for spinning a basketball on your finger. You really can't blame players for doing this, you should only blame the game itself for creating incentives other than simply *to win*.
PGO were completely correct when they said that it was bad drafting. Pascal didn't go for the win, which is disappointing, and instead went for immediate financial gain. That goes against the Magic mentality. I don't disagree that Pascal got out of it astonishingly well, but the concept of what he was doing was incorrect in a competitive sense.
He made the highest EV play. In magic especially; players don't really make much money. For a very large amount of them, a foil goyf could probably let them play a whole extra event. In that sense, the pick could be correct *even from a competitive sense*. And it's not like PGO was *throwing*, just sacrificing a small percentage on a single choice which gave him a guaranteed and immediate payoff.
Your opinion is in the minority and frankly is absurd.
As an exclusively limited and modern player, I could just as easily feel that modern masters is more "real" than any other set. But what would that even mean? What are you saying? What's the point of such a statement?
MM was amazing to draft, I expect this will be too (hopefully even more complex!). Would love to do some of this in paper; I don't really use MTGO so I guess cockatrice will have to suffice.
Ya'll are wrong, indonesia is amazing. If you're playing on archipelago, they have the the best UA in the game. One of the main advantages the computer has is happiness, so that in the early-mid your expansion is heavily restricted. Indonesia (again, assuming you can reliably get to new continents) can play a fundamentally different game, keeping up with the AI and able to go wide and tall earlier rather than playing catch up in the late game.
But, difficulty strongly effects how you can play the game. I play on immortal, trying to learn deity. The civs that seem to have a chance are, indonesia, netherlands (ridiculously strong UA as selling lux's is the only way to keep up with the AI's ridiculous bonus gold pre sea trade), poland (not as strong as it seems, but still good), babylon, and venice.
One of the main problems I have is that I can't make aggressive strategies work. The AI just has too much resource advantage to invade early, and in general the attrition of war means that you could knock out a few players over the course of the game but inevitably lose to a peaceful civ. Diplomacy is supposedly the best way to win at high difficulty, but I usually go for culture or science.
Doesn't work. First ability resolves, second ability will do nothing as the creature is already monstrous. Even if it did work, it would be way too clunky.
UG is so deep there's no reason for a splash. Fleecemane lion is great, sure, but not actually overwhelmingly so on a splash, turn 3-4, off nylea's presence and the unicorn you probably don't want to play anyways. If anything I'd splash black for read the bones and lash of the whip, but I don't think it's necessary.
Assuming both players play perfectly, and the hidden information in your hand isn't relevant, FoF is always worth more than 2.5 cards, and Steam Augury is worth less than 2.5 cards (the job of the splitter in any case is to make the piles as close to even in value as possible, but FoF is the max and SA the min of these).
So except in contrived information involving hidden information and bluffing, FoF should be strictly better than SA.
However in many situations cards are fungible and no single card is overwhelmingly worth more than another (land drops are good, removal is good, more card draw is good) and the choice is between the best card + land, or instant speed concentrate both of which are quite strong at 4.
I think it'll see standard play, modern seems doubtful. It is a really fun card so I hope to see it wherever possible.
It's a very weak pack. Right now with no experience it would be Mogsis's Maurader, Coastline Chimera, or Agent of Horizons. I also could see Fate Fortold being strong if a heroic trigger is valuable enough.
voyages end. resetting heroic/monsterous when theres so little removal in this format might be important
Leaving yourself down a card while they immediately replaying it, in a format that doesn't look heavily tempo oriented - not that unsummons are unplayable but really they are more 23rds, not first pickable.
Sacrifice ~: Add 4 to your mana pool. Spend this man only on activated abilities of creatures.
1/1
These are all effects that would almost certainly never see play in standard.
Monstrous is a powerful mechanic on a card that is playable on the front end, providing a mana-sink, late game effect. Fleecemane lion, for example: at least call of the conclave, and on any turn when you have 5 mana to spare or as a topdeck it has significant upside. The difference between a 7 drop and a 7 cost monstrosity is HUGE - one can clutter your hand and the other simply gives you the option of that late game power.
I'm kind of wondering, does hasbro actually think they are going to be able to stop people from using open source software? Or are they going to be satisfied with stopping the easily googled front page?
Do you actually know what the software does? What exactly does it to that violates hasbro IP? The only thing I can think of involves the card set updater - it provides the URL to directly download MTG card information. But this is one line of text - removing this would decouple the entire program from explicitly referring to any copyrighted material.
Orzhov. Extort and removal. As long as you keep your curve low and extort as much as possible, it laughs at boros.
Just plain wrong.
The main problem is that the removal is too slow to keep them off battalion, and they have a gammut of insane commons at 2 and 3. The whole boros gameplan unfolds before you can possibly hope to extort more than a few times. Removal? All of the common and most of the uncommon removal is 4+ cmc which is really not going to cut it if they have a fast start. Obviously, I'm talking about the average boros deck against the average orzhov deck. Any guild can obviously win given draw/luck/card quality.
It's pretty damn certain that boros is, for now at least, the best of the guilds in limited. I've heard it noted before that early in a format the aggro decks do better (rakdos did in rtr iirc) because they are easy to build and pilot.
I've done 8 or 9 gtc drafts, and it seems boros is really well positioned, while dimir is very lackluster; it can win against orzhov but just gets smashed by aggressive decks. I'm by no means saying this format is bad or even unbalanced. I actually like it alot, but I think it's clear that boros is the best in a vacuum.
you miss my point entirely. It is not about any one day, it is about having the inability to set aside time for more than one event a week, so that means I get to pick up 3 packs a week because I have a life (for brevity's sake- no offense intended, just saying I am busy), and in order to do so I have to endure 4 hours of a play format I loath.
I think it's doubtful that you won't be able to get your hands on some product if you want.
But I actually think letting the product out only through limited is an excellent idea. Maybe they have done market research showing that the majority of people interested in modern (e.g., players with more experience) are also interested in limited. Regardless, the upside is clear: players wanting to get their hands on some staples can draft with friends as needed, but hoarders will be denied. The strategy seems directed at evenly dispersing playable modern staples without hurting secondary market prices too badly, which is exactly what wizards should be doing: making the format accessible without harming collector confidence.
Plus, economics still apply. The market will clear. Unless there is a massive underprinting/overprinting, the cost of packs and relative distribution of cards will equalize with the value of the cards. You can still buy/trade for staples; all you're missing out on is the joy of cracking product.
She's obviously not a terrible card as some people are saying.
And sure, running "monoblack 5c control" is a cute, interesting idea, what with fully powered mutilates and splashes for days. Rakdos's return is possibly even the X-spell needed to make her ult relevant.
Overall liliana has an extremely awkward combination of CMC and abilities. Caravan Vigil + Fog for 4 is going to happen too often, and as a lategame topdeck she doesn't have the ability to take over games as efficiently as most other pws.
In the end it seems to me that in almost any conceivable scenario, jace 4.0 is just plainly a better pw, and mutilate is unneeded with supreme verdict around. In short, I don't see this deck ever being anywhere near as good as something like bant control.
Mythic is supposed to be about big flavor cards, not staples. Ok, we all know that. But the main goal of MM is to drum up interest for modern, and to introduce more staples into the market. It's not a regular standard set; clearly the big daddy pull is tarmogoyf. That in itself absolutely warrants mythic rarity.
The thing that concerns me is how limited the print run will be. If there is enough product for everyone who wants to buy a box or two to do so at retail, it should be fine. If they offer too much secondary value per box (not just because of one card at one rarity but overall expected value), then one of two things must happen: either there is a shortage and MM product is gouged or the price of modern staples is lowered dramatically. The latter is probably something they will deliberately avoid above all else, and anyone expecting otherwise is unrealistic.
I've been tinkering with a WRx boat-brew/martyr-proc hybrid list using ranger of eos and friends. I came up with the idea after going to a new LGS whose meta was full of burn and aggro, don't think I can make it work against infect and combo unfortunately.
He made the highest EV play. In magic especially; players don't really make much money. For a very large amount of them, a foil goyf could probably let them play a whole extra event. In that sense, the pick could be correct *even from a competitive sense*. And it's not like PGO was *throwing*, just sacrificing a small percentage on a single choice which gave him a guaranteed and immediate payoff.
As an exclusively limited and modern player, I could just as easily feel that modern masters is more "real" than any other set. But what would that even mean? What are you saying? What's the point of such a statement?
But, difficulty strongly effects how you can play the game. I play on immortal, trying to learn deity. The civs that seem to have a chance are, indonesia, netherlands (ridiculously strong UA as selling lux's is the only way to keep up with the AI's ridiculous bonus gold pre sea trade), poland (not as strong as it seems, but still good), babylon, and venice.
One of the main problems I have is that I can't make aggressive strategies work. The AI just has too much resource advantage to invade early, and in general the attrition of war means that you could knock out a few players over the course of the game but inevitably lose to a peaceful civ. Diplomacy is supposedly the best way to win at high difficulty, but I usually go for culture or science.
So except in contrived information involving hidden information and bluffing, FoF should be strictly better than SA.
However in many situations cards are fungible and no single card is overwhelmingly worth more than another (land drops are good, removal is good, more card draw is good) and the choice is between the best card + land, or instant speed concentrate both of which are quite strong at 4.
I think it'll see standard play, modern seems doubtful. It is a really fun card so I hope to see it wherever possible.
Leaving yourself down a card while they immediately replaying it, in a format that doesn't look heavily tempo oriented - not that unsummons are unplayable but really they are more 23rds, not first pickable.
These are all effects that would almost certainly never see play in standard.
Monstrous is a powerful mechanic on a card that is playable on the front end, providing a mana-sink, late game effect. Fleecemane lion, for example: at least call of the conclave, and on any turn when you have 5 mana to spare or as a topdeck it has significant upside. The difference between a 7 drop and a 7 cost monstrosity is HUGE - one can clutter your hand and the other simply gives you the option of that late game power.
Do you actually know what the software does? What exactly does it to that violates hasbro IP? The only thing I can think of involves the card set updater - it provides the URL to directly download MTG card information. But this is one line of text - removing this would decouple the entire program from explicitly referring to any copyrighted material.
Just plain wrong.
The main problem is that the removal is too slow to keep them off battalion, and they have a gammut of insane commons at 2 and 3. The whole boros gameplan unfolds before you can possibly hope to extort more than a few times. Removal? All of the common and most of the uncommon removal is 4+ cmc which is really not going to cut it if they have a fast start. Obviously, I'm talking about the average boros deck against the average orzhov deck. Any guild can obviously win given draw/luck/card quality.
It's pretty damn certain that boros is, for now at least, the best of the guilds in limited. I've heard it noted before that early in a format the aggro decks do better (rakdos did in rtr iirc) because they are easy to build and pilot.
I've done 8 or 9 gtc drafts, and it seems boros is really well positioned, while dimir is very lackluster; it can win against orzhov but just gets smashed by aggressive decks. I'm by no means saying this format is bad or even unbalanced. I actually like it alot, but I think it's clear that boros is the best in a vacuum.
I think it's doubtful that you won't be able to get your hands on some product if you want.
But I actually think letting the product out only through limited is an excellent idea. Maybe they have done market research showing that the majority of people interested in modern (e.g., players with more experience) are also interested in limited. Regardless, the upside is clear: players wanting to get their hands on some staples can draft with friends as needed, but hoarders will be denied. The strategy seems directed at evenly dispersing playable modern staples without hurting secondary market prices too badly, which is exactly what wizards should be doing: making the format accessible without harming collector confidence.
Plus, economics still apply. The market will clear. Unless there is a massive underprinting/overprinting, the cost of packs and relative distribution of cards will equalize with the value of the cards. You can still buy/trade for staples; all you're missing out on is the joy of cracking product.
And sure, running "monoblack 5c control" is a cute, interesting idea, what with fully powered mutilates and splashes for days. Rakdos's return is possibly even the X-spell needed to make her ult relevant.
Overall liliana has an extremely awkward combination of CMC and abilities. Caravan Vigil + Fog for 4 is going to happen too often, and as a lategame topdeck she doesn't have the ability to take over games as efficiently as most other pws.
In the end it seems to me that in almost any conceivable scenario, jace 4.0 is just plainly a better pw, and mutilate is unneeded with supreme verdict around. In short, I don't see this deck ever being anywhere near as good as something like bant control.
The thing that concerns me is how limited the print run will be. If there is enough product for everyone who wants to buy a box or two to do so at retail, it should be fine. If they offer too much secondary value per box (not just because of one card at one rarity but overall expected value), then one of two things must happen: either there is a shortage and MM product is gouged or the price of modern staples is lowered dramatically. The latter is probably something they will deliberately avoid above all else, and anyone expecting otherwise is unrealistic.