MTG Salvation

Quote from Brutschlund

I have two questions regarding the M10-Rules. I am lost in the new rules with this case:

Player A attacks with a Ball Lightning (6/1, Trample etc.) as it's confirmed to be in M10.
Blauer B blocks with a Child of Night (2/1, Lifelink) and tries to bounce it with Unsummon before the combat damage step. (All cards confirmed to be in M10).

--> How many damage does Ball Lightning from Player A inflict on Player B?
--> What would happen if Player A then would play a Terror targeting Child of Night in responce to the Unsummon?
It's not fully explained in Wizards Rules Change statement so I have my problems figuring it out by myself...

As far as I understand, Ball lightning would deal 6 damage to player. It was blocked, but it has trample, and as there is no blocker where it would need to assign lethal damage, all damage goes straight to blocking player.

If someone tries to Unsummon a summon, but terror goes on top of that in stack, Terror then resolves, summon goes to graveyard and Unsummon fizzles as it has no target anymore? Edit: Ehh, Terror of course does nothing, as Child is black target.

And lifelink wouldn't work either, as no damage was dealt.

I'm not a rules guru though, so feel free to correct.

Edit2: How do you call it... Sarnathed?

Just have to make this one post about the changes. These are my comments from my point of view as long time casual magic player.

The Short:
I like them.

The Long:
I have been playing from 1993, when unlimited was available. I have almost always just played casually. We still have a group of 5-6 players that play multiplayer casual magic once in awhile.
Yesterday, i went through my decks with the new rules in mind. I have 3 x 100 card EDH/Highlander type decks and one 400 card vintage/highlander deck, plus about 600 card "side deck" for it.

Out of those 1300 cards that I went through, I found the following cards made useless by the rule change:
-- Piracy
-- (In smaller degree) Sands of Time

Now, there was bunch of cards that did change a bit in power level because of summons not dealing damage if they are removed from Battlefield ( namely master transmuter and Ghostway ). Some others became much better relatively ( Cauldron Haze ). However, even from those, Ghostway and Cauldron Haze are in my deck because of the board wipers. Dealing damage and then saving my summons was a cool bonus, but the main thing I do with those is either clear the board while saving my summons, or thwart someone elses board wiper. I like Ghostway and Upheaval combo especially.

Of the rule changes:
1)-Mulligans: We have always done them simultaneously

2)-Terminology: Well, Battlefield is bit long, but I survive. Exile is good and wohoo, they brought Cast back (not that we ever stopped using that though). The end step thing was awesome to make it clearer.

3)-Mana: Uh, we have always played so that mana empties between upkeep and draw... Maybe we missed the memo about floating mana back in 1993 ><. Mana burn, well, good riddance. We had it happen sometimes, like when we had few Mana flares and Miraris Wakes on board. Everyone needed to think how much to use and where and then use manlands or whatever to dump the mana. Now there is no need and that speeds up the game. I never felt that mana management brought anything special to our games. It just made them take more time.

4)-Tokens: Seems that we have played this wrong as well for the last 16 years.

5)-Combat: Changes almost nothing for us. In 5-way multiplayer without any attack or "area of power" zone rules, a puny 1/1 that sacs for 1 is useless (outside of flash-hulk combo). The minimum you want to see on board is at least Doran, 5/5 for 3 mana. Even that would be low on power end without his special ability that makes things interesting sometimes. In addition, you can't be using summons that you deliberately kill by yourself, unless they are very very good ( Dauntless escort is still awesome). You need staying power. Or combos, like Palinchron and Minion Reflector. Maybe Palinchron lost some power with the change, but its not in my deck to bounce after it deals damage. Its there to win the game with reflector.

The blocking order is something I look forward to.

All in all, the biggest change is that we must "show our cards" before the attacker deals damage, not after. That is the biggest thing for us in the combat rules change.

6)-Deathtouch: Ok
7)-Lifelink: Doesn't change much. Nobody was using any stacking lifelinks combo in our decks, so living after blocking with lifelink is a nice change.

I'm looking forward to try these new rules out with my friends :).

And for the love of all thats green and bouncy, could people just stop the idiotic pokemon and YGO comparisons. Its getting so old.

Doesn't that mean Vigilance creatures are quite good with multiple Finest Hours? They can attack each attack phase as they do not tap in the first place (well, a single vigilance creature can attack, until the last attack phase).

Edit:
In fact, outcluding the first attack phase, wouldn't all creatures be able to attack each attack phase (assuming vigilance or some other method of untapping)? Of course, the exalted bonuses wouldn't gather up then.

Quote from Stuve

Also, note that the card reads "an Aura that could enchant that creature." So, no Shroud shenanigans.

As far as I understand, that clause only makes clear that you cant seach for Enchant Land or Enchant enchantment or whatever and use it on your creature. It must be a creature enchantment.

You should be able to put enchantments on shrouds guys without problems as the effect does not target.

(Originally posted in wrong thread)

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I bought a Fatpack when Conflux came out.
The eight boosters in that fatpack provided me with:

1 Maelstrom Archangel
1 Thornling
1 Progenitus
2 Knights of the Reliquary
Rakka Mar, that devouring dragon and black scepter
2 Path to Exiles

Only foil was Fusion Elemental.

I used 3 of these for a 5-way draft with my friends. One of the boosters I opened had Reliquary, and 3 other boosters had one as well. In total of 2 fatpacks and 10 extra boosters, we got the ones above + 3 more reliquaries + 2 ethersworn adjucators + Conflux + few other fun things. We also had total of 5 Path to Exiles as far as I recall.

So, distributions here and there, I was satisfied.

Quote from ArcanePie

So you're saying that playing stuff on the legacy ban list is casual...but being competitive isn't casual? I'm confused? Your play group enjoys complete and utter trash like Reliquary Tower, but also plays absolute broken stuff like Academy, and Bazaar?

My casual card deck includes full power-9 including Black Lotus, 40 original double lands, 20 shocklands, Academy, Time vault, Library of alexandria, tinker+colossus and about every other card with great power from alpha on. Bazaar Of Baghdad is in my extra cards that I have ready as I have every wish spell in the deck as well.

On the other hand, I do have things like Invincible hymn and a lot of other stuff that is usually laughed at.

There are probably infinite amount of "casual" play in magic. Some play different that you.

Edit: I.e. my casual deck is based on the premise that each card that I get from the deck is so powerful on its own, that I don't need to specifically rely on combos, even though I have few in there.

Why are we seeing absolute garbage like Kitchen Finks or any faeries (except Oona)?

This Reliquary Tower, on the other hand, is definitely going to my deck. Its easier to fit there than Anvil of Bogardan, and it does not give the bonus to anyone else at the table. Most important is that it also gives me a mana to use, and land destruction is not so rampant than every other area destruction in our games.

Now, what I'm playing with my friends (from about 1994 onwards):
Take Vintage card base with few changes:
1) Minimum 250 cards, preferably rainbow.
2) Highlander (only one of each, except see 3) )
3) Lands with type Swamp, Plains, Island, Forest and/or Mountain are considered basic lands and can be 4 each in a deck (bascially all original double lands, shocklands and murmuring bosk are allowed 4-of. Nobody uses real basic lands in our decks).

The games are usually all-vs-all between 3 to 5 persons, without any rules about attacking or such. Its all about diplomacy and balance of power. Someone puts Legacy weapon on table, and suddenly he has to face 4 others that somehow like him much less until the threat has been neutralized.

Now, 1/1 faeries don't really cut it in those games, and even stuff like kitchen finks are kinda useless when you draw them on the 15th turn when people are doing niv-mizzet, the firemind+swans of bryn argoll+eureka or Twilight's call+prince of thralls+jokulhaups or other such shenanigans :). Kitchen Finks are not really cutting it when the rest are using Invincible Hymns (sometimes stealing them from the other decks with Knowledge exploitation).
Yes, some (not all) of the mythics are very very good in our decks as well.

These kind of cards as this land, as well as the mythic-type cards and bunch of others that are not main-stream, are what keeps me buying MtG cards (although I don't like the mythic rarity either, could have just done them as normal rares). This is what R&D wants and how it makes cards. To cater to as many people as they can, while still giving the necessary competitive formats enough cards to chew on.

Now, to my initial (trollish, my apologies) comment at the top.
I don't mind seeing Type2 stuff in expansions. Those faeries and kitchen finks. Thats what keeps the game going in the 'real world'. I applause the guys and gals who can make incredible decks for T2 and other competitions. Expansions also need to cater to other "known" formats, even EDH and 2HG, to appease more people than just the die-hard T2 fans.
However, then there are the minorities as well, like my gaming friends.

There are very very few T2 cards that work in the "meta" where we old farts are playing with each other. When I see new 2/2 with 1 mana, the boards are "oooh" and "aah", and I couldn't care less. On the other hand, in our games, even if there are turn 2 dorans or so with luck sometimes, we are also consistently hardcasting stuff that costs over 8 or even 10. With 4 guys on the table, someone usually has some kind of answer whenever something happens. Thats what makes the winning interesting :).

One can definitely say that a card is "Bad for constructed" (i.e. GILBICGIK) or similar. But saying card is generally "Bad" and especially the clause "Waste of cardboard" is just wrong and probably never holds water.

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Dth

PS: Yes, I had to register after 3-4 years of lurking, just to write this post.