Are there any deck boxes that comfortably fit KMC + Pro Fit sleeved cards?
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Both Sunday and Monday I played with my 5-8 person playgroup for about 5 hours each day using the 7-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 With Scry, No Shuffle in between Rule-set and it did wonderful. We were all satisfied with our ability to find good opening hands and the starting games seemed faster. I personally was presented with the choices of having very powerful cards in my opening hand but 1 or 2 lands only and had to make the tough decision of let them go or rely on drawing mana. And I imagine other players had to make the same choices, which is a good thing.
After playing with it for 2 days I approve of the 7-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 With Scry, No Shuffle.
"Search your library for up to 3 lands that have no abilities except mana abilities that add no more than one mana of a no more than a single color to your mana pool. Then shuffle your library, and then draw cards until you have 7 cards in your hand."
Bam. I'm the genius. Not really. But now I wanna do a gatherer search to determine if any colorless lands even meet these criteria.
We tried this at the LGS except we went with "Search your library for up to three basic land cards, reveal them, put them into your hand then draw cards until you have 7 in hand."
Worked great, got us playable hands. We did not like the idea of Gis or Gis Exile as it basically seemed like a bomby combo enabler in the first case, and you became risk-averse when using the Exile version, so just didn't mull at all.
Please No. I dont want to play against any combo deck with 3 sculpted lands for color fixing. "Sculpting" your opening is what we want to Not Happen. and also this is very far away from the normal constructed rule set, almost to the point of a completely different procedure for starting a opening hand.
Math tells me the variance in land on the draw is a non-issue. Land is the #1 reason people mulligan, even myself. Every deck should have between 38 to 45 mana sources in it, which results in an actual higher % chance of drawing land then other constructed formats. Look at UR Delver playing 18-20 lands in a 60 card deck.
Every deck will at times give a bad opening draw, thats unavoidable and necessary for MTG. But I see no reason to have overly complicated mulligan rules to help "Sculpt" a winning hand beyond simple mana production. If thats the game you want to play, I suggest that person look into Legacy.
If Simplicity is defined as the least number of steps to produce a satisfactory result. The Result being: Have Lands and some usable action cards. Given this, somewhat replicating constructed magic is the most logical choice as it ports easily between all formats and does not produce any special rules other then the additional 7-Draw for multiplayer at the front.
DO NOTHING, with NO Shuffle in between (set current hand aside), is my vote. 7-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 with Scry 1. Keep then Shuffle.
Why No Shuffle? Well #1 it speeds up the game. Shuffling sucks to be blunt. #2, if we draw a opening 7 with 1 or no lands, statistically speaking, if we set those 6 non-land cards aside and draw 7 more, the % chance of now receiving lands has Increased by about 2-3%. Which is what we want. #3 setting those cards aside also removes them from your selection of future draws and reduces "Sculpting." If I REALLY REALLY want that Prophet of Kruphix, but its in my one land opener, I have some hard choices to make. Which is also what we want.
When you get to 6 + Scry1, you would have already viewed 21 cards from your deck. That seems Fair and Easy.
Ahh yes. You are right about only Theros and M15 going out this fall. However I think you are right about Ugin and the afetchlands not going down as they aee multiple format play. They are prolly at their bottom for now as origins and MM15 will be the two hot pack busters for supply now. Well when Origins releases next month.
Theros only had Brimez and Seigegang as multiformat cards.
The last few sets in Standard have braught several cards to the table for a commander collection. The sac lands, alot of Legends, Ugin, Nykthos, Brimez, Mana Confluence to name a few. Standard will be rotating soon.
What cards do we as commander players need to add to our collection and when should we buy? I am personally am looking for Ugin, lands and the gods.
While we are at it, what are the big players from MM 2015? I am watching the price on the Eldrazi and Karn. If Cryptic Command or Kozelik go under 30 from supply I will be picking them up.
I'm building Chainer and this is what I have so far. Any Suggestions??
I'll start off by saying that Gray Merchant of Asphodel *absolutely* deserves a spot in your deck. As mentioned somewhere earlier in this thread, Gary is much faster than Kokusho a good majority of the time. I'd recommend cutting Greel, Mind Raker to make room for Gary, since they both cost 3BB. I'd also add Mindslicer as anti-wrath tech when you need it. Between Baleful Force, Myojin of Night's Reach, Pestilence Demon, Sheoldred, Whispering One, Karn Liberated and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, as well as a handful of 6-drops, you have a pretty saturated top-end; maybe you can pick one of those to cut out to make room for Mindslicer. I know the plan is to get your fatties in the GY to reanimate with Chainer, but that plan doesn't always pan out. Chainer's got quite a reputation for graveyard shenanigans ;). Finally, Barter In Blood seems a bit underwhelming. You may be better off with Dictate of Erebos and/or Grave Pact instead, but if you add one or both of those you might need a couple more sacrifice outlets.
I think between Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Rune-Scarred Demon and Corpse Connoisseur you have enough tutoring capacity, and you could use those slots for more sac outlets, attrition cards, mana rocks, or land grabbers, perhaps from the following list of...
Awesome response. I was unsure of Gary in the list due to not being extremely high on the black creature and enchantment count, however after looking at it, He does seem quite strong and I feel like both KoKo and Gary should go in list. I do also like Attrition as both a sac and control source.
Greel, Mind Raker (LOL) is a pet card I have in there just to use something kind of obscure that looks fun to me, and you should hear the blue players moan when he resolves! So many tears... Aside from that, I think he is a more fair version of a Mind Twist, I ran Twist for a few months and it just shut people down, to the point of being un-fun. At least with Greel, you see it coming. I know Myojin of Night's Reach is in my deck for mass discard, but he also can serve other purposes. Usually I only nuke their hands if then mess with him or me. Mind Twist only does one thing or rots in your hand.
Dimir House Guard is something I am trying out as tech. He is a tutor and a sac outlet in one card, depending on mode I need it for. He fetches:
Beseech the Queen is surprisingly good! It acts just like a Demonic Tutor 90% of the time because it is foolish to tutor for anything you do not have the mana base for. I would definitely drop Diabolic Tutor before this one.
I'm building Chainer and this is what I have so far. Any Suggestions??
I'm happy to see you running more instants. It's definitely something I need to do to mine, but never seem to pull the trigger. My favorites are Tragic Slip, Sudden Death, Imp's Mischief and Undying Evil. Each of them provides insane value for their cost. I'm less of a fan of [c}Victim of Night[/c], but YMMV.
I'll reiterate what spentbullets said, and say as well that Gray Merchant of Asphodel is an insane powerhouse of a card. My deck is built around the combo loop at this time, but even if yours isn't it's hard to have a good reason to exclude merchant. He's often time a 9+ life drain, which can easily make him a 40+ life point swing alone, fueling reanimation all by himself.
I think Barther in Blood can be a fine board wipe, most often the field won't be too saturated with creatures, but it does tend to be rather ineffective against token hordes. For hard wraths for that spot, I would suggest either Kagemaro, First to Suffer. Nevy's Disk I've never liked so much simply because it takes forever to get online. It is tutorable with Dimir House Guard though... so... eh?
The biggest card I can recommend for any deck is Rings of Brighthearth. With fetches being 'cheaper' now, it makes it an even more potent investment.
Thanks for the reply.
I love Tragic Slip! It totally skipped my mind! Blightsteel Colossus? Banana Peel! Laughs ensue.. I like it! -GfTT +Slippage.
Rings of Brighthearth looks very powerful. I may have to get one. But am unsure if my meta is ready for 6 Gary triggers on the stack lol.
Also earlier someone mentioned Whip of Erebos. I really like that idea also. Whip + Pestilence Demon would be totally sweet.
You bring up some good points I had questions about:
My Main goal, other then winning, is to be controlish with enough punch to control 2 or 3 people and enough defense to defend against 2 or 3 people. While wrecking other blue based control strategies and Combo, hence the board sweepers and hand disruption. All pretty fair with looking to win around Mid/Late game. I do want my playgroup to actually PLAY magic for 10-15 rounds. Therefore, for me, No mass land disruption (AkA Contamination) and no Infinite Combos (Nim's Deathmantle + Grave Titan + Ashnod's Alter = Infinite Mana). It is intentional I left out those Peices as I feel Combo is bad for the Meta and No Fun. Pretty standard huh? SO...
Am I running too many sweepers? The deck has 8 Sweepers + 4 Tutors for them = 12? Should I cut 1 or 2 and run something more Proactive on the board?
Am I running too many Tutors? Really I have 9 Tutor sources with 2 being reusable. Same as Above...
Do I need more Silver Bullets?
How does my Mana Look? Am I land light with 35 (Maze and Stripmine are not lands lol)? I have 10 cards that fetch/ramp but should we consider things like Temple of the False God and Forbidden Tomb for ramp?
What do you guys think of the Balance between Control and Recursion? Should Recursion be a back up to Control/Good Stuff or should the Control just enable the Recursion Engine? Is this question too nebulous?? LOL..
I like the resiliency it has and the controlling feel. But I have a hard time with Combo. I would like to keep it Fair and Powerful. I don't like INFINITE Combos (extreme synergy is ok tho) and I will not mess with whole mana bases (a single target is ok tho).
The Professor at Tolarian Community College on youtube does full in-depth series on all MTG accessories. Deck Boxes for both Standard and EDH. Best Sleeves. Bags. Storage. Custom Boxes. The guy produces some great content.
Personally, the I bought a Ultra-Pro Pro-Tower Black for my 2 EDH decks based off this. I simply removed the bottom drawer and just slide in my 2nd deck easily. Lots of extra room for tokens + EDH deck on top. Use the front compartment for a pencil and notepad. Works great!
If you want to play casual, why limit yourself to a format?
Depending on how often you plan to play, and how much you want to spend on cards, Here are some suggestions from least expensive to most expensive (potentially)
1. Go to the pauper subforums, pick a deck each and buy the singles. The cost of these decks is low enough that you could refresh fairly often if you find yourself getting into the game.
2. Build commander decks (using lists and buying singles is my suggstion since u don't want to waste time with the actual building) and play those. These can go from dirt cheap to fairly expensive
4. Buy the Duel Deck anthologies for $100 and play the decks against each other at random.
5. Build a cube. Probably the most fun you can have in magic at all. As you crack more packs, and more great cards, your cube will evolve, and you can have so much fun ! Pauper (and peasant) cubes can cost very little, but if you enjoy yourselves you can gradually upgrade the cube. I realize you were looking to go precon, but the bad thing about precon is that no matter what you buy, you will begin to notice that one deck will trump the other. that's just the way it is. A cube mitigates that and allows for a truly casual and randomized experience.
Hope I helped,
Understand
Thanks for the response. Where as these are interesting ideas, it seems to go against what we are asking for.
We are not looking to build decks or card pools. We do not want to spend more then 5-10 minutes before we play. We want to simply quickly sit down and play a game over a beer or 3, a few times a month.
After some research and talking to some local players, the 2 options we are going for are either buy Precon Commander decks (most of the local players suggested that for an Instant game), or Buying 2 precon event/theme decks with 3 packs each and Rochester them all for some card selection between us.
So me and my buddy been on and off with MTG for like 14 years. Been about 2 years sense we have played any MTG as we sold our collection back then. We are looking for a fast and Fun set up to play with each other at the kitchen tables on the weekends at times.
Basically we are looking to play ASAP after purchase.
Have a good card selection for interesting board states and mechanics interactions.
Actually be able to play with a touch of skill Vs Slam Down Fatty and Win!
Have some replay-ability, not bored after 10 games and feel like I wasted 30 bucks.
Here is what we are considering:
1. The Commander Precons. I've heard they are pretty fun and we know all the mechanics. High variance with singletons each game could lead to some fun board states. However, I also here they are meant for multiplayer and have a lot of cards that are bad in 1v1 games. Opinions? Modifications to the decks??
2. 2 Precons from the sets. I know these are usually low power and are just to intro the set for the most part. But is there any that do work well 1v1? Maybe buy 3 boosters each and mod the decks some? Maybe 6 random boosters and Rochester them to build with? Any of the Precons actually mechanically sound?
3. Buy 2 Event Decks. I know these are assembled much better then the Intro Precons. However there is a fairly limited number of these to buy. And would the buying 3-6 boosters to mod the decks still be ok?
4. The Dual Decks and the Clash Packs. I know these decks are built to feed/play with each other, but don't they kind of get boring after a few games and you know what the strat/plays are going to be?
5. A Deckbuilders Box for each of us plus Booster packs. Is that any good? I think this may be more effort then we are willing to put into construction. I would like to open a box, maybe some boosters and be playing within 5 mins.
What solution do you think would bring the most entertainment to 2 retied MTG players? Also if ya'll have any ideas, please share.
I agree with stalling to intentionally take advantage of time. But what if that person just plays a little slow naturally. Do they warn someone for being natural? That does not seem within the spirit of the game state.
I havent experienced people rushing me, but i agree about people speaking up in the game, and then making a bad descision because they said something. What i get is people prompting me as to whether its their turn or not yet. Asking me "Are you done yet?" Results in my play mistakes. Shoot, forgot to +1 planeswalker and play a creature on my second main phase. As if there is turn end directly after battle. I hav lost many games because i am nice and go "yeah ok" before realizing no, im not done my turn yet. I know its all on me, but i dont feel people should be allowed to prompt you and rush you. Its just distracting. Like wait, what was i about to do? Sure go ahead.
Get in the habit of announcing Combat, Second Main and Pass. Those are when all the major actions happen as the active player. And it also tells your opponent that you notified him of steps and passing priorities. It will make you a better technical player also.
IMO, every tourney player should learn to announce those steps.
Reviews of every Deckbox in the MTG World. Tolarian Community College has awsome reviews over every MTG game accessory on the market. Looking for something to fit your need? He will have looked at it and graded it!
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Oh jezz. Think about starting against turn 2 or 3 Animar, Derevi or Shun Yun every game. Insane.
NO THANKS.
After playing with it for 2 days I approve of the 7-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 With Scry, No Shuffle.
Please No. I dont want to play against any combo deck with 3 sculpted lands for color fixing. "Sculpting" your opening is what we want to Not Happen. and also this is very far away from the normal constructed rule set, almost to the point of a completely different procedure for starting a opening hand.
Every deck will at times give a bad opening draw, thats unavoidable and necessary for MTG. But I see no reason to have overly complicated mulligan rules to help "Sculpt" a winning hand beyond simple mana production. If thats the game you want to play, I suggest that person look into Legacy.
If Simplicity is defined as the least number of steps to produce a satisfactory result. The Result being: Have Lands and some usable action cards. Given this, somewhat replicating constructed magic is the most logical choice as it ports easily between all formats and does not produce any special rules other then the additional 7-Draw for multiplayer at the front.
DO NOTHING, with NO Shuffle in between (set current hand aside), is my vote. 7-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 with Scry 1. Keep then Shuffle.
Why No Shuffle? Well #1 it speeds up the game. Shuffling sucks to be blunt. #2, if we draw a opening 7 with 1 or no lands, statistically speaking, if we set those 6 non-land cards aside and draw 7 more, the % chance of now receiving lands has Increased by about 2-3%. Which is what we want. #3 setting those cards aside also removes them from your selection of future draws and reduces "Sculpting." If I REALLY REALLY want that Prophet of Kruphix, but its in my one land opener, I have some hard choices to make. Which is also what we want.
When you get to 6 + Scry1, you would have already viewed 21 cards from your deck. That seems Fair and Easy.
Theros only had Brimez and Seigegang as multiformat cards.
What cards do we as commander players need to add to our collection and when should we buy? I am personally am looking for Ugin, lands and the gods.
While we are at it, what are the big players from MM 2015? I am watching the price on the Eldrazi and Karn. If Cryptic Command or Kozelik go under 30 from supply I will be picking them up.
Thoughts?
Awesome response. I was unsure of Gary in the list due to not being extremely high on the black creature and enchantment count, however after looking at it, He does seem quite strong and I feel like both KoKo and Gary should go in list. I do also like Attrition as both a sac and control source.
Greel, Mind Raker (LOL) is a pet card I have in there just to use something kind of obscure that looks fun to me, and you should hear the blue players moan when he resolves! So many tears... Aside from that, I think he is a more fair version of a Mind Twist, I ran Twist for a few months and it just shut people down, to the point of being un-fun. At least with Greel, you see it coming. I know Myojin of Night's Reach is in my deck for mass discard, but he also can serve other purposes. Usually I only nuke their hands if then mess with him or me. Mind Twist only does one thing or rots in your hand.
Dimir House Guard is something I am trying out as tech. He is a tutor and a sac outlet in one card, depending on mode I need it for. He fetches:
Also if I add in Gravepact or Phyrexian Oblitorator, which I do in Heavyer Aggro metas. Also I can get him back with Volrth's Stronghold in a pinch.
Beseech the Queen is surprisingly good! It acts just like a Demonic Tutor 90% of the time because it is foolish to tutor for anything you do not have the mana base for. I would definitely drop Diabolic Tutor before this one.
Thanks for the reply.
I love Tragic Slip! It totally skipped my mind! Blightsteel Colossus? Banana Peel! Laughs ensue.. I like it! -GfTT +Slippage.
Rings of Brighthearth looks very powerful. I may have to get one. But am unsure if my meta is ready for 6 Gary triggers on the stack lol.
Also earlier someone mentioned Whip of Erebos. I really like that idea also. Whip + Pestilence Demon would be totally sweet.
You bring up some good points I had questions about:
My Main goal, other then winning, is to be controlish with enough punch to control 2 or 3 people and enough defense to defend against 2 or 3 people. While wrecking other blue based control strategies and Combo, hence the board sweepers and hand disruption. All pretty fair with looking to win around Mid/Late game. I do want my playgroup to actually PLAY magic for 10-15 rounds. Therefore, for me, No mass land disruption (AkA Contamination) and no Infinite Combos (Nim's Deathmantle + Grave Titan + Ashnod's Alter = Infinite Mana). It is intentional I left out those Peices as I feel Combo is bad for the Meta and No Fun. Pretty standard huh? SO...
Am I running too many sweepers? The deck has 8 Sweepers + 4 Tutors for them = 12? Should I cut 1 or 2 and run something more Proactive on the board?
Am I running too many Tutors? Really I have 9 Tutor sources with 2 being reusable. Same as Above...
Do I need more Silver Bullets?
How does my Mana Look? Am I land light with 35 (Maze and Stripmine are not lands lol)? I have 10 cards that fetch/ramp but should we consider things like Temple of the False God and Forbidden Tomb for ramp?
What do you guys think of the Balance between Control and Recursion? Should Recursion be a back up to Control/Good Stuff or should the Control just enable the Recursion Engine? Is this question too nebulous?? LOL..
1x Arcbound Reclaimer
1x Baleful Force
1x Burnished Hart
1x Chainer, Dementia Master
1x Corpse Connoisseur
1x Crypt Ghast
1x Dimir House Guard
1x Duplicant
1x Fleshbag Marauder
1x Grave Titan
1x Graveborn Muse
1x Greel, Mind Raker
1x Kokusho, the Evening Star
1x Myojin of Night's Reach
1x Nezumi Graverobber
1x Nirkana Revenant
1x Pestilence Demon
1x Rune-Scarred Demon
1x Sheoldred, Whispering One
1x Shriekmaw
1x Solemn Simulacrum
1x Steel Hellkite
1x Wurmcoil Engine
Planeswalker (4)
1x Karn Liberated
1x Liliana of the Dark Realms
1x Liliana Vess
1x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
1x Armillary Sphere
1x Expedition Map
1x Gauntlet of Power
1x Helm of Possession
1x Jet Medallion
1x Lightning Greaves
1x Mind Stone
1x Nevinyrral's Disk
1x Oblivion Stone
1x Perilous Vault
1x Phyrexian Altar
1x Sol Ring
1x Venser's Journal
1x Worn Powerstone
Enchantment (5)
1x Exquisite Blood
1x Necropotence
1x No Mercy
1x Phyrexian Arena
1x Underworld Connections
Instant (4)
1x Go for the Throat
1x Hero's Downfall
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Victim of Night
Sorcery (13)
1x Ashes to Ashes
1x Barter in Blood
1x Beseech the Queen
1x Buried Alive
1x Damnation
1x Decree of Pain
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Diabolic Tutor
1x Exsanguinate
1x Life's Finale
1x Mutilate
1x Promise of Power
1x Yawgmoth's Will
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Cabal Coffers
1x Deserted Temple
1x Dust Bowl
1x High Market
1x Maze of Ith
1x Phyrexian Tower
1x Strip Mine
25x Swamp
1x Thawing Glaciers
1x Thespian's Stage
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Volrath's Stronghold
I like the resiliency it has and the controlling feel. But I have a hard time with Combo. I would like to keep it Fair and Powerful. I don't like INFINITE Combos (extreme synergy is ok tho) and I will not mess with whole mana bases (a single target is ok tho).
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Sleeves
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bu1h0gtu2U
General Channel
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ALOT of information here.
Personally, the I bought a Ultra-Pro Pro-Tower Black for my 2 EDH decks based off this. I simply removed the bottom drawer and just slide in my 2nd deck easily. Lots of extra room for tokens + EDH deck on top. Use the front compartment for a pencil and notepad. Works great!
Thanks for the response. Where as these are interesting ideas, it seems to go against what we are asking for.
We are not looking to build decks or card pools. We do not want to spend more then 5-10 minutes before we play. We want to simply quickly sit down and play a game over a beer or 3, a few times a month.
After some research and talking to some local players, the 2 options we are going for are either buy Precon Commander decks (most of the local players suggested that for an Instant game), or Buying 2 precon event/theme decks with 3 packs each and Rochester them all for some card selection between us.
Basically we are looking to play ASAP after purchase.
Have a good card selection for interesting board states and mechanics interactions.
Actually be able to play with a touch of skill Vs Slam Down Fatty and Win!
Have some replay-ability, not bored after 10 games and feel like I wasted 30 bucks.
Here is what we are considering:
1. The Commander Precons. I've heard they are pretty fun and we know all the mechanics. High variance with singletons each game could lead to some fun board states. However, I also here they are meant for multiplayer and have a lot of cards that are bad in 1v1 games. Opinions? Modifications to the decks??
2. 2 Precons from the sets. I know these are usually low power and are just to intro the set for the most part. But is there any that do work well 1v1? Maybe buy 3 boosters each and mod the decks some? Maybe 6 random boosters and Rochester them to build with? Any of the Precons actually mechanically sound?
3. Buy 2 Event Decks. I know these are assembled much better then the Intro Precons. However there is a fairly limited number of these to buy. And would the buying 3-6 boosters to mod the decks still be ok?
4. The Dual Decks and the Clash Packs. I know these decks are built to feed/play with each other, but don't they kind of get boring after a few games and you know what the strat/plays are going to be?
5. A Deckbuilders Box for each of us plus Booster packs. Is that any good? I think this may be more effort then we are willing to put into construction. I would like to open a box, maybe some boosters and be playing within 5 mins.
What solution do you think would bring the most entertainment to 2 retied MTG players? Also if ya'll have any ideas, please share.
I agree with stalling to intentionally take advantage of time. But what if that person just plays a little slow naturally. Do they warn someone for being natural? That does not seem within the spirit of the game state.
A little better definition is in order IMO.
Get in the habit of announcing Combat, Second Main and Pass. Those are when all the major actions happen as the active player. And it also tells your opponent that you notified him of steps and passing priorities. It will make you a better technical player also.
IMO, every tourney player should learn to announce those steps.