MTG Salvation

Pikachu, you nailed them all.

Quote from Lasersharp »

Aw, I did think about that one too... because I wasn't sure if you were trying to trick us or not with that one (I knew you didn't like green, but I wasn't sure about white).


I kinda wish to do a second round of this (if Bur approves)...

I'm pretty sure Bur will approve.

OK. Decided: we'll do another round of 4 Truths and a Lie.

Ready, go!

"Ayu" is a new account, then?

Anyways, second guess: the fishing thing. Because seriously, who actually likes going fishing? (And if you do like fishing, you should play more MtG instead XD)

I'm going to say the member since 2007... underneath your avatar, it says your join date is 5/2/2013.

Quote from PegasusBishop »

Quote from Ayu »

And umm, it just depends on the format I suppose . I love the color blue so I tend to lean towards tempo or control but I do like aggro if it involves red .

Well, we'll just stick you with Hatter and you can sit in the corner and control us to death.

jkjkjk

Welcome to our little group

Who gave you permission to speak?! Pay 2, or you can't have your Words of Waste! (See what I did there? ;P)

jkjkjk...

Quote from JediSolo »

With the tuck rule being changed do you think this weakens the hinder/ spin into myth plan to win?

Sorry! I missed your post.

If you plan to win by tucking and Tunnel Visioning, then it doesnt matter what you tuck. It can be their Mystic Elf for all you care, so long as you remember the card that youre tucking.

If you dont want to spend a lot of money on Maze of Ith, its little brother, Mystifying Maze should do. (You can always just use Misty Maze until you are comfortable dropping cash for Maze of Ith.)

Sorry fr my tardy welcome. I tried to respond twice, actually, but "non-Latin unicode characters are temporarily not allowed," and I was too tired to try to correct my posts.

Anyways! WELCOME to [The Spirit of EDH}!

What kinds of decks do you usually like to play? (i.e., aggro, control, or combo? some combination of those?)

Quote from valoopy »

I'm not sure if I simply missed it or not, but why don't you run Sphere of Safety? With as many enchantments as you run, it can easily get to 5-6 mana, not counting Ghostly Prison and Propaganda's additional 2. On a slightly related note, what is your thought on Norn's Annex?

Sphere of Safety costs too much. Even at 4CMC (because of GAA4's discounts), it isn't worth it to me for attack-prevention. Enchantments are already pretty slow to put out, and Sphere of Safety is underwhelming when you can be dropping Ghostly Prison/Propaganda 1-2 turns ahead. If I were more concerned about protecting PWs, I might consider it *maaaaaaybe*, but I never expect 'walkers to last more than a turn anyways. And, if someone is killing all your enchantments, or you haven't dropped one yet, you've paid 4-5 mana for basically nothing. At least Ghostly/Prop will always tax, regardless of the board state. (I learned this "don't depend too heavily on dropping enchantments" the hard way when I was testing out Serra's Sanctum... it produced *nothing* for the entire game, which didn't last long...)

I don't like Norn's Annex because opponents can always pay 2 life to attack. So, it doesn't actually stop attacks, especially given that life points in this format are rather abundant. 2 life per creature per attack can, of course, add up; however, if I'm going to control how and when my opponents attack, I'm going to hard-line them into paying mana.

Why make them pay mana rather than life? Because mana is how they pay for spells. If you pay 2 to attack me with your Craw Wurm, that's 2 less you have for using in your Second Main Phase or during the rest of the round (on other people's turns).

This 2-mana-tax already hampers the spell-power of opponents. Now think about how much more they'll be limited should they attack with more than one creature. (Also, you should remind your opponents of this when they're thinking of paying the tax...)

Also what is your opinion on Angelic Arbiter? The way I see her, she deals damage and heavily cripples the threat power of opponents.

Too expensive. There are 3 basic types of decks, right?: aggro, combo, and control. While aggro decks *can* cast spells and combo/control decks *can* attack, they usually specialize in one or the other, so you're not actually limiting anything. You're just confining deck to doing what it already does best -- either attack or cast. (And by turn 6-7, that aggro deck has enough power on the board that casting more creatures isn't terribly necessary. Combo/control decks won't have cared about attacking from the start.)

6-7CMC for a creature that sits there and hits people isn't worth it to me. (Hell, I even took it out of my angel-tribal deck because I found it so undershelming... though I admit I have pretty high standards) I'd rather have Elesh Norn in that slot because dead tokens and mana dorks can't attack at all. And the slight boost to your own creatures is big enough that you can start doing damage that seriously adds up.

If you really want to use Angelic Arbiter, please do. Everyone's meta is different, so if she's the answer to the problems your facing, you should take my advice with a grain of salt. The primer is, after all, built with a "take-all-comers" attitude in mind, so it doesn't address specific meta-problems. (I'll consider writing a section about meta-problems and solutions, though. It seems like a good idea.)

I'm playing a deck absed on guidlines you showed in here, and I am absolutely loving it so far.

I'm glad you're enjoying it! Control tends to be very underrepresented in the EDH community, in general, so I'm glad this thread is helping to spread the misery -- I mean, joy!

Quote from cryogen »

Quote from Slarg232 »

That seems more like a problem with the playgroup than anything else.

Unless of course, that happens to be the only counterspell you're holding in your hand at the time.

Right, but the point that Slarg is trying to make (assuming I'm understanding correctly) is that no one is forcing a player to respond to/counter the new player's general. Just because you're holding a Spell Crumple doesn't mean you have to use it.

If everyone in the playgroup all has Spell Crumple and Hinder, I can see how that would feel oppressive. But it would take a real jerk to use one against a need player without first ascertaining the level of his deck and the general's necessity to the game-plan. If a new player's deck warrants tuck, then that's probably a good thing. It means the deck is built well and that the general is an actual threat. But if the more experienced players are throwing around their tuck-removal all willy-nilly or "just because they have it," I must question their ability to assess threats AND be good sports in this *social* format.

Cryogen, you did raise the point about mass-tuck-removal earlier, which I can see as a bit of a kill-joy for new players.

Quote from cryogen »

Quote from madhatter00o »

There are lots of reasons that I disagree with the rule change, most of which have been stated, so I'm not going to rehash them.

The thing that gets me the most, however, and one that might be worth discussing (if it hasn't been already) is this generic "new player" who gets put out when his/her general gets tucked. To my mind, most new players or players who build thematic/casual (i.e. not cut-throat) decks don't typically use generals that warrant a Spell Crumple/Chaos Warp/Condemn. They *tend* to (obviously they don't always) choose a general that's relatively low-powered, but fun for them nonetheless. Honestly, unless they netdeck a top-tier general (and deck) for their first build, I just fail to see how anyone would waste tuck removal on it.

For example, my very first general was Jenara, Asura of War. It wasn't a good deck by any means, but I loved my general and probably would have felt hurt if someone *did* tuck her. But! She's not inherently a threat. She can be empowered to do some serious damage, sure, but no decent player is going to see Jenara and think, "Holy crap! I have to make sure that thing never sees the light of day!" (And if they do, that's a problem with the person, not the power-level of the general.)

And if a new EDH player *did* choose a top-tier deck for their first, they are probably already familiar with tuck-removal as a threat to their game-plan because 1) it's probably *in* their deck, or 2) they've been warned about it from outside (online) resources.

So, for example, has I chosen Zur, the Enchanter as my first general, it would be foolish of me to get sour when someone does tuck it. In fact, I should be expecting someone to tuck it somehow at some point in the course of the game.

While understand that the RC is trying to use the kid-gloves to help new players, I have trouble accepting that "new players don't like getting their generals tucked/always want access to their generals" argument because, frankly, they usually *do* have steady access to their generals.

Here's the thing though, the new player also won't know that there is a meta of powerful generals. I've seen many players online who run some jank deck they just built with their meager collection and can't understand why they are getting targeted. Mass tuck is also a thing, so you really can't even say they won't get targeted. Sometimes they're not but still get hit with collateral damage.

That's a fair point, but it ultimately emphasizes the social nature of the format. While I understand the convenience of online play, especially for those who are "geographically challenged" (like yours truly), playing with actual people with actual cards would give the new player who just built a pile around Narset, Enlightened Master because she's "sooooo cool" a chance to say, "Hey, I'm just getting into EDH. Please don't kill me first." So, I take any anecdotes from online game-play with a grain of salt..

As you mentioned also, mass tuck effects do cause collateral damage, as you put it, but that's merely part of the learning curve for EDH. A vast many play this format for the sheer amount of options there are. The banlist is relatively short when compared to the thousands of cards players can select. Players can use some of Magic's most powerful spells, even ones that are banned in other formats. Now, the new tuck rules don't make those effects entirely worthless; they're still perfectly good removal. However, by hamstringing the efficacy of tuck-removal spells, the RC has alienated the players who seek freedom of options as well as those who seek to play optimized decks. And all to protect the feelings of "sensitive" new players? That's a little fishy. Magic players are by and large (though certainly not always) mature human beings and can learn and adapt as we get accustomed to new environments (in this case, the format of EDH).

Let me provide my own anecdote. I was introducing a friend who already played Magic to EDH. He had a general grasp ofthe deckbuilding rules, so there wasn't any real problem there. When it came time to play, I picked out my least miserable-to-play-against deck (I play a lot of control, so I chose my mono-White angels aggro). Well, as the game gets on, my friend has built up a sizeable board and decided to bring out his general. When he eventually swings with it, I used Condemn, which I'd held on to for just such an occasion. Was my friend bummed that his general just got tucked? Maybe a little bit. But it didn't stop him from playing and finishing the game. (Afterwards, I gave him one of my extra Hinders to help build his burgeoning EDH collection. Because that's what you do.)

Anyways, the point I'm trying to make is that the RC is underestimating the emotional maturity of the player base. We are not 6-year-olds who will cry if someone breaks our favourite toy. (In writing that, I do realize the irony...)

I had him in Derevi, Empyrial Tactician because he was an awesome Captain Sisay target that made Derevi's job even easier. I eventually dismantled the deck, though, because I'm bad at Green. XP

There are lots of reasons that I disagree with the rule change, most of which have been stated, so I'm not going to rehash them.

The thing that gets me the most, however, and one that might be worth discussing (if it hasn't been already) is this generic "new player" who gets put out when his/her general gets tucked. To my mind, most new players or players who build thematic/casual (i.e. not cut-throat) decks don't typically use generals that warrant a Spell Crumple/Chaos Warp/Condemn. They *tend* to (obviously they don't always) choose a general that's relatively low-powered, but fun for them nonetheless. Honestly, unless they netdeck a top-tier general (and deck) for their first build, I just fail to see how anyone would waste tuck removal on it.

For example, my very first general was Jenara, Asura of War. It wasn't a good deck by any means, but I loved my general and probably would have felt hurt if someone *did* tuck her. But! She's not inherently a threat. She can be empowered to do some serious damage, sure, but no decent player is going to see Jenara and think, "Holy crap! I have to make sure that thing never sees the light of day!" (And if they do, that's a problem with the person, not the power-level of the general.)

And if a new EDH player *did* choose a top-tier deck for their first, they are probably already familiar with tuck-removal as a threat to their game-plan because 1) it's probably *in* their deck, or 2) they've been warned about it from outside (online) resources.

So, for example, has I chosen Zur, the Enchanter as my first general, it would be foolish of me to get sour when someone does tuck it. In fact, I should be expecting someone to tuck it somehow at some point in the course of the game.

While understand that the RC is trying to use the kid-gloves to help new players, I have trouble accepting that "new players don't like getting their generals tucked/always want access to their generals" argument because, frankly, they usually *do* have steady access to their generals.

I'm still slowly building that UB pirate deck. It's a far cry from how I build my other deck in that it's basically a pile of cards that are loosely thrown together around the theme of "ocean-faring," "pirating," and "treasure." It's nice to build around a theme and not really worry too much about how the deck will play out. Because when it sucks - and it will - I can just say, "It's my *for-fun* deck!"

Okay, so you can still respond to the ability, though, right? That's really what I wanted to double-check.

Thanks!