So, who's attending the MLP CCG prerelease? The Dallas location is only a little bit further away from me than my normal LGS, so I plan to get up on Saturday, watch some pony, then head out and learn how to play pony.
Los Angeles: Gameology San Francisco: Black Diamond Games New York: Kings Games Boston: Pandemonium Books and Games Seattle: Blue Highway Games Washington DC: Dream Wizards Phoenix: Desert Sky Dallas: Generation X Comic, Cards, and Games Miami: Rock Game Shop Rochester: Hammergirl Anime Chicago: Chicagoland Games Dice Dojo Toronto: 401 Games Toys and Sportscards Atlanta: FCB Comics and Games Denver: Above and Beyond Games Montreal: Carta Magica Portland: Guardian Games
~$20 for the Rainbow Dash or Twilight Sparkle starter deck, 2 booster packs, and the foil Rainbow Dash promo, string bag, and poster, plus chances at swag like the foil Nightmare Moon promo, playmats, boosters, etc.
I'm unfortunately at college because one of them is being held at my hometown gaming store
I'm having a friend stop by and buy a set for me though. Gotta have that promo!
Plant a seed. Watch it grow.
Hire a snake to plant more trees. Watch them grow.
Blow up a bunch of trees, break a vase when someone tells you not to blow up your trees, surprise the trees are now volcanoes.
Modern- Grapeshot - 79% Legacy- Tendrils of Agony - 83% Vintage- Mind's Desire - 49%, 0/10 Power
Plant a seed. Watch it grow.
Hire a snake to plant more trees. Watch them grow.
Blow up a bunch of trees, break a vase when someone tells you not to blow up your trees, surprise the trees are now volcanoes.
Modern- Grapeshot - 79% Legacy- Tendrils of Agony - 83% Vintage- Mind's Desire - 49%, 0/10 Power
Rarity and Applejack seem much superior to Rainbow Dash and Twilight. Boosting Twilight depends on your opponents plays (you must win a faceoff) and Rainbow depends on drawing a Troublemaker card. Rarity, on the other hand, is almost trivial to boost on your second turn every game (move Rarity to your starting problem and drop a 1- or 2-cost friend onto the same problem: ta-da! 2 points), while AJ usually gets there a turn later (AJ needs to confront a problem using more power than required).
That said, AJ has the weakest boost ability out of the box: Stubborn only matters if your opponent is running stuff to exhaust your ponies, and her ability to recur dismissed friends doesn't matter when friends so rarely get dismissed. I can certainly see a build where you're dismissing your own friends for some effect (in one game, I used the effect of a problem to dismiss Granny Smith for an action point, and then re-played Granny for her ETB ability), but the other three have abilities which are much stronger on their own.
Honesty has a lot of discard, which seems kinda strange. Sweet Apple Acres is nutty for this. (Think: ":1mana:, :symtap:: Target opponent discards a card."
Laughter seems to have most of the removal. "Go to sleep~!" /em chokehold. Laughter also has almost all of the extra card draw (Zecora has some as a magic friend, though), to the extent that decking yourself out until all you've got left is Glimpse of the Future (or whatever the card is called), and you keep recycling that for +5 on faceoffs is a totally legit strategy. Ancestral Recall that can only be cast if your devotion to Laughter is 3+... this is an actual laughter card (Let's Get This Party Started). Oh, such a difficult restriction!
Magic is all about the faceoffs -- the cards have a lot of built-in spellslinger event support, and events tend to have very high power for faceoff flipping (3-5). The one problem is that you need friends in order to initiate said faceoffs, so you can't quite go pure spellslinger.
Kindness has a ton of synergy with critter cards -- understandable, considering every single critter card I've seen is a kindness card. Strangely, Celestia is a kindness friend... with both Studious (an ability found on magic friends) and Swift (an ability found on loyalty friends).
Generosity seems to be the control element, especially if paired with laughter. The generosity ability, Inspiration, in particular, is nuts: basically, at the start of your main phase, Fateseal X, where X is the number of characters with Inspiration you control. Boosted Rarity has Inspiration.
Loyalty is, unsurprisingly, all about mobility. The Swift ability can save a ton on action points, not to mention boosted Rainbow Dash, the Rainbow Dash friends, and Holly Dash, all of which can take other friends along for the ride when they move. This is particularly nice if there's some nasty troublemaker out, as dumping a bunch of ponies on the problem at once is generally the safest way to fix it.
Dual-color is basically a requirement for decks. You will not get (m)any victory points playing mono-color (you won't be able to confront any cards in your own problem deck, leaving you wide open to a double faceoff from your opponent), and three+ colors will either stick you with a bunch of cards in hand you can't play, or you'll be playing weak vanilla friends that can't stand up in the late game.
I don't even care if she's good or not. Fluttershy is going to start for me every time! :3
I haven't built a Critter-forcused deck, but they seem to be designed to swarm. For example, the Forest Owl has 0 power, but gives +1 power to each other Critter at the same problem.
The Fluttershy Friend cards have a bunch of Critter synergy, so I wouldn't be surprised if the Mane Character Fluttershy does too, once it comes out.
So it turns out I was wrong about Pinkie/Flutters coming out next month. The Pinkie/Flutters decks (sold as a pair, like duel decks) are out NOW.
Go get your Fluttershy, Dakmor!
As expected, Boosted Flutterhsy has Caretaker and an ability that synergizes with critters (you may move a critter to the same problem as Fluttershy when she starts a faceoff), and Pinkie has Random; her extra ability is a bitt odd, making the opponent require +1 power to confront the same problem as her. (Then again, it's the same ability as Ol' Salt.)
Pinkie flips if she confronts a problem where the opponent has no Friends. She's going to take a little work to flip, especially against Rainbow (with a bunch of movement) and Fluttershy (critters tend to be cheap). Fluttershy flips when she confronts a problem with the help of a critter -- should be pretty easy, but not quite as easy as Rarity.
The Fluttershy precon is FlutterJack, and the Pinkie Pie precon is RariPie.
Note: Marvelous Chapeu (2x in the Pinkie deck) does NOT reflect its errata. Marvelous Chapeu reduces the power requirement of a faceoff by 1 of any element, it doesn't set the requirement to 1.
So it looks like from a playability standpoint, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Applejack are the strongest of the Mane Six, as they're the easiest to Boost. Rarity is slightly easier than Fluttershy, since you don't have to complete a faceoff using a specific friend type, but Fluttershy is pretty simple assuming you build the deck to leverage her ability. AJ is close behind, generally just requiring one more turn to flip than the other two girls.
Pinkie requires some maneuvering, and would probably pair well with a bunch of Loyalty cards for movement help, or else the Mayor (pay 3 action points to move an opponent's friend), who's Magic. Twilight needs a careful balance between friends and events, to leverage her Boosted ability and to get her Boosted in the first place. Rainbow is like Fluttershy in that she needs a certain density of a specific card type (troublemaker), and that fact will slow her Boosting by approximately 1 turn, like AJ.
Based on the cards I own, the answer to a Pinkie Pie deck seems to be Honesty cards (pack in discard to counteract the card draw), and a combination of Generosity and Laughter cards answers almost everything else. Heck, Ridiculous Outfit pretty much neuters an army of Critters placed at a single problem by Fluttershy. Downright Dangerous can dismiss any critter I can recall, and Here's Your Invitation! can dismiss of most of them. (On the other hand, Opalescence tears the Ridiculous Outfit to shreds, so Fluttershy still has answers.)
I've gotta say, the fact that Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy have a duel deck is pretty convenient for me. One of my friends and I are planning on dabbling a bit in the MLP CCG; since we both already have enough addictions in our lives already (like MtG), we were each planning on getting a single deck, and trading/selling/giving away any and all additional cards we might acquire. Fluttershy is my favorite character, and Pinkie is his, so we can just split the duel deck.
I suppose you could proxy the Mane Character cards until you find a precon.
Rarity // START: 1{G}
Home Limit 3
Flip when you earn more than 1 point from confronting a problem using Rarity
// BOOST: 3{G}
Home Limit 4, Inspired
You opponent must spend more to move characters to Rarity's problem
Applejack // START: 1{H}
Home Limit 3
Flip when you confront a problem with AJ using more power than you need to
// BOOST: 3{H}
Home Limit 4, Stubborn
When one of your friends is dismissed, you may put it into your hand instead
Pinkie Pie // START: 1{La}
Home Limit 3
Flip when you confront a problem with Pinkie that your opponent has no friends at
// BOOST: 3{La}
Home Limit 5, Random
Your opponent needs +1 power to confront Pinkie's problem
Fluttershy // START: 1{K}
Home Limit 3
Flip when you confront a problem with both Fluttershy and a Critter Friend
// BOOST: 3{K}
Home Limit 5, Caretaker
When Fluttershy confronts a problem, you can move a Critter Friend to the same problem
Rainbow Dash // START: 1{Lo}
Home Limit 3
Flip when you confront a problem with Rainbow where you have have a face-up Troublemaker
// BOOST: 3{Lo}
Home Limit 4, Swift
When you move Rainbow to a problem, you may spend and move a Friend from Home to the same problem
Twilight Sparkle // START: 1{M}
Home Limit 3
Flip when you win a faceoff with Twilight
// BOOST: 3{M}
Home Limit 4, Studious
When you flip an Event during a faceoff, you may put it in your hand instead of the bottom of your deck
Home Limit is the number of Friend cards you can have in your Home zone at the end of your turn (you dismiss any extras at the same time you discard down to 8 cards in hand). Your mane character doesn't count towards the limit, and Friends currently at problems don't count towards the limit (they're not at home).
A character with Caretaker gets +1 power if they're facing a problem with the help of at least 1 critter friend.
So Dakmor, I tried building an all-Kindness deck, despite the game practically forcing you to play multi-Element.
It actually worked decently well. My problem deck was full of vanilla Starting Problems, so my opponent was never getting more than 1 victory point per turn from them, and I amassed a huge army over on his problem. Even despite facing off against a Twilight Sparkle deck optimized for faceoffs, I managed to win thanks to the Caretaker ability, Forest Owl (+1 to all other characters at the same problem), and Celestia (same thing). And after a faceoff sending tons of characters back home, I was able to use the synergy with my Critter Friends to move them all back to the problem on the cheap, without dismissing any of them.
I definitely want a primarily Flutters deck, but I'm uncertain as to what my other color should be. I'm thinking either blue, because it can help with mobility, which I suspect could be an issue for yellow, or pink, because Screwy's type line amuses me.
I'm unfortunately at college because one of them is being held at my hometown gaming store
I'm having a friend stop by and buy a set for me though. Gotta have that promo!
Modern- Grapeshot - 79%
Legacy- Tendrils of Agony - 83%
Vintage- Mind's Desire - 49%, 0/10 Power
yus (also this, but I don't think that one will be at the prerelease)
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
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I'm sorry.
Maybe one of your LGSes will have stuff on the 13th?
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
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The only one within any reasonable distance closed at the end of last month.
Modern- Grapeshot - 79%
Legacy- Tendrils of Agony - 83%
Vintage- Mind's Desire - 49%, 0/10 Power
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
spellslingerevent support, and events tend to have very high power for faceoff flipping (3-5). The one problem is that you need friends in order to initiate said faceoffs, so you can't quite go pure spellslinger.Overall, I enjoyed the game enough to buy a box of packs, and I'll be on the lookout for the Pinkie/Fluttershy deck that ought to come out next month.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
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I haven't built a Critter-forcused deck, but they seem to be designed to swarm. For example, the Forest Owl has 0 power, but gives +1 power to each other Critter at the same problem.
The Fluttershy Friend cards have a bunch of Critter synergy, so I wouldn't be surprised if the Mane Character Fluttershy does too, once it comes out.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
Go get your Fluttershy, Dakmor!
As expected, Boosted Flutterhsy has Caretaker and an ability that synergizes with critters (you may move a critter to the same problem as Fluttershy when she starts a faceoff), and Pinkie has Random; her extra ability is a bitt odd, making the opponent require +1 power to confront the same problem as her. (Then again, it's the same ability as Ol' Salt.)
Pinkie flips if she confronts a problem where the opponent has no Friends. She's going to take a little work to flip, especially against Rainbow (with a bunch of movement) and Fluttershy (critters tend to be cheap). Fluttershy flips when she confronts a problem with the help of a critter -- should be pretty easy, but not quite as easy as Rarity.
The Fluttershy precon is FlutterJack, and the Pinkie Pie precon is RariPie.
Note: Marvelous Chapeu (2x in the Pinkie deck) does NOT reflect its errata. Marvelous Chapeu reduces the power requirement of a faceoff by 1 of any element, it doesn't set the requirement to 1.
So it looks like from a playability standpoint, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Applejack are the strongest of the Mane Six, as they're the easiest to Boost. Rarity is slightly easier than Fluttershy, since you don't have to complete a faceoff using a specific friend type, but Fluttershy is pretty simple assuming you build the deck to leverage her ability. AJ is close behind, generally just requiring one more turn to flip than the other two girls.
Pinkie requires some maneuvering, and would probably pair well with a bunch of Loyalty cards for movement help, or else the Mayor (pay 3 action points to move an opponent's friend), who's Magic. Twilight needs a careful balance between friends and events, to leverage her Boosted ability and to get her Boosted in the first place. Rainbow is like Fluttershy in that she needs a certain density of a specific card type (troublemaker), and that fact will slow her Boosting by approximately 1 turn, like AJ.
Based on the cards I own, the answer to a Pinkie Pie deck seems to be Honesty cards (pack in discard to counteract the card draw), and a combination of Generosity and Laughter cards answers almost everything else. Heck, Ridiculous Outfit pretty much neuters an army of Critters placed at a single problem by Fluttershy. Downright Dangerous can dismiss any critter I can recall, and Here's Your Invitation! can dismiss of most of them. (On the other hand, Opalescence tears the Ridiculous Outfit to shreds, so Fluttershy still has answers.)
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
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I'm going to buy and customize it sooooo bad! :3
Yay!
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
Follow me on Twitter! @cryogen_mtg
Yeah, I saw.
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
Follow me on Twitter! @cryogen_mtg
Rarity // START: 1{G}
Home Limit 3
Flip when you earn more than 1 point from confronting a problem using Rarity
// BOOST: 3{G}
Home Limit 4, Inspired
You opponent must spend more to move characters to Rarity's problem
Applejack // START: 1{H}
Home Limit 3
Flip when you confront a problem with AJ using more power than you need to
// BOOST: 3{H}
Home Limit 4, Stubborn
When one of your friends is dismissed, you may put it into your hand instead
Pinkie Pie // START: 1{La}
Home Limit 3
Flip when you confront a problem with Pinkie that your opponent has no friends at
// BOOST: 3{La}
Home Limit 5, Random
Your opponent needs +1 power to confront Pinkie's problem
Fluttershy // START: 1{K}
Home Limit 3
Flip when you confront a problem with both Fluttershy and a Critter Friend
// BOOST: 3{K}
Home Limit 5, Caretaker
When Fluttershy confronts a problem, you can move a Critter Friend to the same problem
Rainbow Dash // START: 1{Lo}
Home Limit 3
Flip when you confront a problem with Rainbow where you have have a face-up Troublemaker
// BOOST: 3{Lo}
Home Limit 4, Swift
When you move Rainbow to a problem, you may spend and move a Friend from Home to the same problem
Twilight Sparkle // START: 1{M}
Home Limit 3
Flip when you win a faceoff with Twilight
// BOOST: 3{M}
Home Limit 4, Studious
When you flip an Event during a faceoff, you may put it in your hand instead of the bottom of your deck
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
A character with Caretaker gets +1 power if they're facing a problem with the help of at least 1 critter friend.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
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I do like swarm decks.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
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It actually worked decently well. My problem deck was full of vanilla Starting Problems, so my opponent was never getting more than 1 victory point per turn from them, and I amassed a huge army over on his problem. Even despite facing off against a Twilight Sparkle deck optimized for faceoffs, I managed to win thanks to the Caretaker ability, Forest Owl (+1 to all other characters at the same problem), and Celestia (same thing). And after a faceoff sending tons of characters back home, I was able to use the synergy with my Critter Friends to move them all back to the problem on the cheap, without dismissing any of them.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)