MTG Salvation

I don't even like these for drafting

this set is such a lottery. I hope we get inquisition of kozilek and other good cards at uncommon/common to increase the value.

oh no, if I open Sunforger I am going to draft myself into a hole. Love that card.
Silly sword to reprint.

Quote from Shiroe The Enchanter »

This set is looking pretty bad at the rare slot. This is what happens when you design for draft.

They always design for draft.
These two cards are great in limited.

The two reflections suck at limited though, not sure why they are in the set...

At least they are amazing in limited. I really want this to be fun to draft at the least.

I can say that Brawl on Arena still has the monogreen deck and the 5 colors goodstuff deck, but there is also a ton of Nicol Bolas PW tribal, and an overwhelming amount of UGx decks... Yarok or Kinnan or Chulane (or one of the Temur options sometimes). The UGx decks are all the same - Ramp, snowball, steal all your things.

I would say that half my games are against UGx decks and that they basically have a 75% overlap with each other.

Format sucks. It needs a deeper card pool. It needs several bannings.

Just because reprints tank prices doesn't mean that they won't eventually go back up in price. Exploration (Urza's Saga) was 43$ before Conspiracy, went down to 11$, and is now up at 78$.

I am kind of confused by this argumentation, especially the reference to Garfield's Manifesto. He is taking a shot at games whose business model is to get huge amounts of money from a small percentage of players.

That is not the MTG business scheme. Everyone pays for products. They want less enfranchised players to become more enfranchised and spend more money. You are right that more recently they are targeting people who spend a lot on magic - because some people love getting alternate frames, full-art, etc. But you can get the same cards without spending large amounts of money. This is more akin to cosmetic microtransactions in video games and mobile games.

Of course, some people spend more than they should. FOMO and competitive play drive many to spend more than they should. There is also an inherent gambling issue - I have seen too many kids trading their rares for packs hoping to open a money card (probably so they can get more packs). But parents should not give kids freedom to spend money as they do not have the maturity to be smart investors. Magic is addicting for many reasons.

You should also remember that what you invest in a mobile game is not tangible and often gives you a short-term gain. It's like exclusively eating at the most expensive restaurant in your city - it's fun, but at the end of the day your ***** is still *****. You don't get anything of long-term value.

When you buy Magic products, you get something with resale value. I know that at any time I can sell my collection and recover most of what I have spent (or even make a profit).

I would like to think that whatever I spend on new product will, on average, be worth about 60% of what I spent should I resell/trade within a year. If I am willing to hold onto it long-term, the value eventually goes up and can be worth what I spent or even more.

Interesting.
How did you go about selecting multicolor cards?

I know I am thinking of something much lower budget, since I wanted to make 8 copies if possible. But the shell should still hold.

Do you think it is important for the lands to be balanced (like you have one of each shockland)?

Quote from migrena »

Quote from jamis »

If we see signs of long-term health issues resulting from high metagame share of companion decks, we're willing to take steps up to or including changing how the companion mechanic works.

I think it's interesting they would consider this as an option. It's not uncommon for something like this in a digital-only card game, but it seems unexpected for Magic to change a mechanic after set release.

edit: I guess they did sort of change a mechanic post-release with Lifelink, but still my interpretation is that the change would be bigger than something like changing a mechanic from a triggered ability to a static ability. But like more of a power-level errata.

Convoke was significantly changed when it was reprinted. Initially only generic mana could be paid with convoke and now colored mana can be paid as well with matching creature.

It's incredibly scummy behavior to not ban companions in other formats as well. It's obvious that the same problem is visible in all formats with varying degree depending on the availability of cards that fulfill companion restriction and decks that can leverage having free additional card in starting hand.
The argument that there was enough data to warrant banning Lurrus in vintage and not enough data to ban anything in modern/pioneer/standard is laughable considering comparison between the number of matches that is being played in those formats.

That is not correct. Convoke always allowed you to tap creatures for color.

Originally, convoke was an additional cost that reduced the cost in mana. With the return of convoke in Magic 2015, the rules for convoke changed to their current form as an alternative way of paying a mana cost. This affects how it interacts with, for example, Eldrazi Spawn tokens' sacrifice-based mana ability (mana abilities must be activated before paying costs), and effects such as Trinisphere that care about total costs.

Duplicate sealed is a format where each player has an identical sealed pool. I thought I would post this in here since I think the design would overlap a lot with Cube principles.

Here are some basic structural rules:
1. 90 card pool, though I have seen people do 120 cards for more depth
2. Multiple builds need to be supported, across all 5 colors
3. The skill-testing aspect of Duplicate sealed isn't to make the best deck with the pool, but to figure out what kinds of decks others can make with the pool and to build a deck that does well against those strategies. For example, if the theme of the pool is ramp into big creatures, prioritize small efficient creatures and removal spells.

I have had a lot of trouble finding any recommendations for making such a 'cube'. I have seen articles about how specific duplicate sealed builds were put together, and the though process, but I have not found anything for someone building from scratch.

My thoughts, which I suppose are debatable:
4) The different archetypes need to overlap significantly
5) There should not be any auto-include cards

My questions:
A) Does anyone have experience building something like this?
B) How many archetypes would be needed?
C) How would you balance the colors? I don't want to just make 5 monocolor strategies and have people mix and match. I want a lot of multicolor too. But I can't exactly put enough for 10 guilds in a 90 card pool.

Thanks!

Quote from thatmarkguy »

Quote from Dunharrow »

Quote from Cranial_extraction »

I hope stuff like Arcane Signet being printed means the broken rocks (Sol Ring, Mana Vault, Mana Crypt) eat a ban soon.

Wizards is not responsible for the commander ban list, so no.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised if this became an every-commander-precon-inclusion taking over the slot that had, to date, been used on Sol Ring.


While they don't actually administrate either Commander banlist, it probably irks them that every commander deck they print is duelcommander-illegal out of the box and if they can conveniently change that (by no longer jamming Sol Ring in every deck, but replacing it with a card of comparable demand and utility), they might.

I do not think they care about Duel Commander. Duel Commander is a small portion of commander players.
Also, new players are excited to get their Sol Rings. People being excited trumps people who just don't need them and can sell them. It is not like people are showing up at Duel Commander events with precons.

That being said, I hope signet is printed in all commander decks the same way they have Command Tower.

Quote from Cranial_extraction »

I hope stuff like Arcane Signet being printed means the broken rocks (Sol Ring, Mana Vault, Mana Crypt) eat a ban soon.

Wizards is not responsible for the commander ban list, so no.

That mana rock though. I need 18 of them. So.... I guess I am buying this product?

Quote from Drain Life »

There are so many great replies in here that I am hesitant to even add my own.

I am a believer in using proxies if you own the card and it is an expensive staple. For example, I own one of each fetch land, especially thanks to Khans and Modern Masters 2 or what ever set it was. I keep them in a small binder with other powerful staples I proxy in multiple decks and can show them if needed. Having fetch lands changes the game. More so since check lands were printed. It took me a while I get my hands on them, but in my three and four color decks, the play line which involves a fetch land into a shock land and following that up with check lands is smooth. I cannot justify the cost of a full set of fetch lands for each deck, nor do I feel I should punish myself and only use them in one deck, nor do I want to swap them in and out between decks either, which I could and would just waste time. Especially for a kitchen table format without prizes.

Lands are the perfect example of where MtG is "pay to win". Sure, you can use cheap commons and slow play, or use a ton of basics and suffer color screw, or you can buy expensive singles from the secondary card market and have a fast and smooth experience.

So much of what I wanted to write was some variation of all the above, be it our holistic detective, Pokken the cat and others.

Thanks for this post
I personally dislike proxies and refuse to play with them. But that's just me. This is a good solution that I have seen by many people.