MTG Salvation

Quote from ktkenshinx »

Quote from idSurge »

This is mic drop level analysis ktkenshinx, you should write something up and submit it to SCG or someone and get it posted.

Yeah, it was fun to write up! I'm not super interested in submitting something to a site or putting my name on it, but I'd be happy to help someone write it up if they're interested.

Superb work, should be published at once.

As expected.

A "full" standard, i.e. just before rotation, normally has 20 rare dual lands. Now there are 5 Fastlands, 5 Cycle-lands, and 10 checklands. As Amonkhet and Kaladesh leaves, that gives room for ten more duals after rotation, which will probably be split according to the guilds among the two first Ravnica sets (and might easily be the shocklands).

Black horse v. Tooth Collector? How often will you nib more than one idiot? Easier to cast, +1/+0. . .

So. A face down card is not necessarily automatically a 2/2 any longer? I wonder if this is something they might want to pursue with other types of mechanics..


And can you unmorph morphs put into play this way? Based on the ruling for manifest, that you can unmorph manifested morp-cards as normal, I guess it's the same here.

Clean answer to Wurmcoil.

I wonder if it will ever come up, but Fanatic forces you to name the spell you want to cast as you declare attackers. This gives your opponent information about how they might block or if they want to save a removal spell for what is coming after. It also gives you the chance to bluff. Naming Wildsize for example. Or naming a play that requires all of your mana and dare them to block into your sneaky combat trick. Could be fun.

I like Inner Demon as a card, but I wonder what decks want it. Normally I play Infest-effects in creature light decks, so there might be a chance that I have nothing to put the aura on. It also means that I don't tax my opponent's removal so hard, so there is a decent chance that they get to two-for-one you.

Having to wait a turn with your infest not to play into open mana also doesn't sound ideal if they are the beatdown.

I guess if you can put together midrange decks with few 1-2 toughness creatures. So you can slap the demon on the only small creature you control. And/or with creatures that replace themselves or already got their value such as Baleful Strix, Filigree Familiar or Reclamation Sage.

Regarding the popularity of Modern and Legacy as competitive/semi-competitive formats in terms of price and the reserved list:

I think the reserved list may have indirectly deflated the popularity of legacy even before the most absurd spikes. If you are an aspiring player of a non-rotating format in 2014(as an example), which do you choose? Do you choose Modern, where cards can and will be reprinted, and while prices will go up they will never get completely out of control?

Or do you choose Legacy, where, while some of your investment is "safe", the price of other staples is expected to keep growing? What if you want to get your friends to join after a while, will it be possible for them? What about a few years into the future, will there be enough cards around to support a local Legacy community? What if you want to have the option to branch out to more decks in the future? In Modern, you can expect the cost of your second deck to be on a similar level to your first, whereas for Legacy that second deck will be considerably more expensive, perhaps prohibitively so?

I also acknowledge that for a significant amount of players, the RL is a positive factor in choosing Legacy over Modern, since they can buy a deck, play it for a few years, and sell it without losing money (and perhaps gaining). But I think this group is smaller than the first.

These aren't the only factors in choosing a format to invest in, of course, but I definitely think that the reserved list has had an influence on the relative growth of Modern and Legacy. At least moreso than "people don't want to play with broken cards".

I don't think the idea is that it needs to be an entire archetype, but there are a decent amount of incidental warriors, and with a few lords here and there it could be made into a nice little sub-theme.

I vote for not posting every uncommon/common, but having a low bar is OK. Like for Blood Speaker, its cool to highlight the card, see what demons are available, and discuss what could make it a good card to run (if at all possible).

Mind Ravel was borderline I felt, as I guess most people are just not interested in it. I found it interesting to see and think about the comparison to Mind Rot and Divination, but even that is kinda ultimately fruitless since neither Mind Rot nor Divination are typically seen in cubes. (I could also swear there was a modern cantrip version of Mind Ravel that drew you the card immediately?)

Clockwork Steed is just so bad on so many fronts that it becomes pointless to discuss in my opinion. The rate is bad by modern standards, it shrinks from there, you have to take a turn off attacking or blocking and spend mana to rewind it, and you even have to do it during your upkeep so you can't see your card for the turn to know whether it is the best use of your mana or not.

If you really want to keep the door open for bad cards to get some discussion, you could mention but not highlight the skipped cards. So you could post something like "I skipped Clockwork Steed and Coastal Hornclaw for Fireball". Then we discuss fireball, but it gives someone the opportunity to jump in with an "actually, Coastal Hornclaw can turn on Delirium and threshold at instant speed" or something if they feel that the skipped card(s) has some redeeming quality.

I very nearly spilled my tea when the guys at Limited Resources listed Bloodhunter Bat as one of the black commons to pay attention to in their Masters 25 set primer.

I'm alive! I'm clearly behind and I haven't played Magic in months, but I do want to add the last years of sets or however much I've missed. Had some other priorities for the beginning of the year, hopefully kickstart this by the end of the month.

How do yall recognize the text on them ?

It was Narcomoeba in Guilds of Ravnica.

Quote from Elostirion »

Does Maro have any credibility? I dont play very often anymore so I dont hear a lot of other opinions but every.single.thing he says is "Ooh, look, we did awesome". Nevermind the fact that what he says we like/dislike does not match anything I've heard, and nevermind that his ratings do not make any sense in context with the criteria he says adds up to them. example: Colored artifacts- these are good, there are no problems, theyre flexible, they can go anywhere and not dominate the meta: storm scale 2. Compared to: vehicles- these are problematic, if theyre good enough to use they dominate the meta. we had to ban some of these. they only work well part of the time, and story wise, theyre kinda pigeonholed. : storm scale 2. (wtf?)

TL:DR, does everyone else treat Maro like russian news tv? what he actually says is all BS but it gives hints as to the direction the government is moving whether we like it or not?

Maybe

Quote from JovianHomarid »

Disclaimer to start: I do not think that Wizards have anything cut in stone, and that they very likely do a wait and see approach with regards to Modern Horizons and how they follow it up.

So how wild is this theory?

honestly its pretty wild. there just isnt much substance and you are layering all these assumptions on top of one another. in fairness, ive seen similar theories thrown around

for instance you start with one thing we know for sure: some format will be created on arena because there has to be some way for players to still get use out of rotated cards. then suddenly we are 5 years out and wizards is crafting modern into legacy without the RL. any number of sequences of events are equally likely, or at least there is nothing saying your theory is more so.

what if standard plus isnt well received, or doesnt gain traction in paper. as you said at the start wizards is responsive to what the players/customers put their backing behind by showing up, spending money, and playing.

not to mention any number of things could come up. like what if pauper takes off in popularity and wizards puts work into it; where might it fit in. or if the already most popular casual format in edh is enormously favored by arena players as their paper outlet because it turns out playing standard on arena and buying cards that cost quite (relatively) all just to do more of the same thing isnt appealing. hell what if modern is seen as that outlet

also you highlight how wizards might be interested in maintaining these outlets of play showcasing a rich 25+ years of gameplay and design, but for some reason they are alright with destroying what modern offers, its uniqueness and identity, to recreate it in legacy's image. if we're thinking about 5 years what stopped wizards from just putting modern or whatever else on to arena

so yeah id say the theory is a little out there. im assuming there is some wishful thinking involved? i know its not uncommon for players wanting to play legacy but its just not a feasible option thanks to cost.

Quote from cfusionpm »

I don't know why anyone has any hope of Modern ever coming to Arena. They have repeatedly said it's not a priority and is not happening any time soon. It is a monumental coding and animating task. There is no good way to make the cards available and distribute them in the current model without massive wastes of resources. It's not happening, and hypothesizing about the ways they could do it is just an exercise in frustrating futility. We might as well go back to talking about Twin coming back if we're going to discuss things that should happen, but never will.

Baseless speculation?! Happening in this thread? Well, I'd never...

WotC can't even update Gatherer with Pauper legality, so I naturally assumed that adding 16 years worth of cards into Arena was just behind "Reserved List Masters" on WoTC's to-do list. However, part of me is still hopeful that MTGO will someday be natively supported on Mac, so I suppose I'm not completely free of delusional thoughts lol

Quote from shadow2000 »

I mean this is wizards we are talking about, they change their mind every three months at the flick of a hat. Whatever they decide to do modern wise for arena will probably be something completely different 6 months later

WotC often does a 180, but for Modern on Arena they didn't change their stance from the beginning. They again said it isn't coming.

Quote from JovianHomarid »

Is there a place to quickly get on top of the story, now that it is ending? I don't have the time to read the novels on the wizards.internet, but it'd be neat to have the slightest idead what the heck has been going on.

Quick precis:

Tarkir - Sarkhan does timey-wimey stuff to bring Ugin back to life, and therefore all the dragons with him. Only Ugin may have any part in the Bolas storyline (turns out he's Bolas's twin, who Bolas killed. He *may* still think he's dead. More on that later...)

Zendikar 2.0 - Gideon calls his mates, including Jace, to help him rid Zendikar of the Eldrazi titans Ulamog and Kozilek. Jace thinks it would be a good idea to kill them. Ugin thinks that might not be wise. Jace, Gideon, Chandra and Nissa do it anyway and decide to become The Gatewatch because 'look at us, aren't we bloody marvellous?'

Innistrad 2.0 - Jace goes to Innistrad to find Liliana, who he was having dinner with on Ravnica before Gideon interrupted them and dragged him off to Zendikar. Turns out Innistrad's in a mess due to some mysterious force that may or may not be Emrakul. Surprise! It *is* Emrakul. Cue 'Gatewatch Assemble!' Through no actual ability of their own, Emrakul ends up sealed in Innistrad's moon by her own volition. Liliana joins the Gatewatch for purely selfish reasons - so they can help her defeat the remaining 2 demons who contractually have a claim on her soul. As an aside to the main plot, turns out it was all due to Nahiri going mental after a squabble with Sorin. Sorin ends up stuck in a rock.

Kaladesh - The Gatewatch are chilling out on Ravnica wondering what to do now they're an awesome team of superheroes who've (kinda) defeated 3 Eldrazi titans. Dovin Baan turns up and asks them to help him sort out a rebellion problem on Kaladesh. Jace and Gideon says 'nah', but Chandra goes because it's her homeplane, closely followed by Liliana. The Gatewatch end up going after all and sorting things in precisely the way Dovin didn't want them to - by siding with the rebels who are led by Chandra's mum. The guy who really makes them pick a side though is Tezzeret, who's there under Bolas's instruction to see what delightful tricks the Kaladeshi inventors are coming up with. Turns out one is transplanar tech that can teleport non-living stuff through the Blind Eternities. Part one of Bolas's masterwork... The GW 'defeat' Tezz and destroy the Planar Bridge. Kinda. Actually, he just melds it into himself so he can reach through the Eternities and move stuff himself. Ajani was there too; not entirely sure why.

Amonkhet - Yeah! The Gatewatch think they're seriously kick-ass now and merrily launch themselves to another plane, mainly because it's where the 3rd of Lili's demons resides. Confident they can beat anyone, they lose emphatically to Bolas, who's been manipulating the whole plane to get himself an army of virtually indestructible undead soldiers called Eternals, coated in a substance called Lazotep that means they can pass through the Blind Eternities. Wonder what he wants with those...?

Ixalan - In losing to Bolas, Jace's mind was being destroyed and it triggered a failsafe Ugin had put there to keep knowledge of his resurrection from Bolas (see? Told you we'd get back to that.) Jace is whisked off to Ixalan - a plane Ugin knows because it's where he and Azor - the sphinx oldwalker who founded the Azorius - had planned to trap Bolas a long time ago using a piece of tech called the Immortal Sun that stops walkers from walking. It cost Azor his spark to make it, but Bolas knew what they were up to, never fell for the trap, and Azor's been stuck there ever since. Jace arrives with virtually no memories, ends up getting on rather well with Vraska who's been sent to Ixalan by Bolas to locate the Immortal Sun, then eventually gets *all* his memories back, making him probably more powerful than he's ever been. He and Vraska realise Bolas is up to something and it involves Ravnica, and agree to find a way to stop him, which means Jace locking away all Vraska's memories of him ever being there until some future time when it might be useful to unlock them again. They find the Sun; Vraska send a signal to Tezz who reaches through the Eternities and pulls the Sun away from Ixalan for Bolas to use somewhere else in the future (*cough* Ravnica *cough*), and Jace walks away to...

Dominaria - to find what the rest of the Gatewatch have been up to while he's been plane-wrecked on Ixalan. Turns out Nissa has quit, Chandra has gone back to Regatha (for a bit - she returns later, finding Jaya), but Gideon and Lili have been finding Karn, Jhoira and Teferi and helping defeat Belzenlok - the last of Lili's demons. Jace flashes in, says Lili can't be trusted, and flashes out again. Gideon is grumpy because he and Lili have been getting on rather nicely ifyouknowwhatImean. But Jace is right. With the end of all Lili's demon contracts, Bolas appears and informs her that the contracts therefore default to him, so he basically owns her now. She reluctantly goes with him, leaving Gideon saaad. Ajani was also here as well; equally not sure why.

Which brings us back to Ravnica, where we've had 2 sets of going, 'Hey look! Ravnica! Just how you remember it.' Except 5 of the Guilds are now run by Bolas's lackeys - Dovin, Domri, Kaya, Vraska and Ral Zarek. But all that is just a prelude to War of the Spark, where Bolas will use Tezz's Planar Bridge capacity to bring in his army of Amonkhet Eternals controlled by Liliana. He's also set a Planeswalker beacon of some kind that looks like it'll cause a whole bunch of walkers to go 'Hmm. That's odd. I must go to Ravnica and see what this is all about' just at the saem time as he brings the Immortal Sun to trap them all there. Whatever could he want them all for...

And that's where we are, via the last 16 expansions.

I still want to see a gate fetch land

Quote from cfusionpm »

Quote from Colt47 »

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/wizards-data-insanity

Long story short, I think people often forget that the "percent" numbers we have today in no way reflect the same thing as "percentages" from before the artificial diversity data. And that wildly popular decks are greatly underrepresented and random brews are greatly overrepresented. A "5% deck" could be 12%+ or less than 2%. And nobody knows for sure but Wizards!

yeah its reflected that way in the liminted data dumps skewing those arbitrary numbers on sites like mtgogoldfish. however i would say that to an extent its the exact opposite. when people dont have reliable data to work with the meta becomes an extension of player perception instead of reality. some times they might be the same thing, but not always; and especially so for mtgo where deck switching easily is possible.. so some amount of time the format is cycling, causing decks to shuffle around, because of this illusory 'meta' that isnt even there. this results in an environment that is driven by what people think is good rather than what is actually good.

i mean its intended, and i understand why wizards did it. people are sheep. the data, even when it was free flowing, was often subject to inaccurate analysis, misrepresentation, and misinterpretation. yet players took it as gospel, making some deck choice because some graph or spreadsheet told them to. however the situation we are at now isnt much better there are still cases of something/someone telling people what to do, but its less likely to be grounded in reality. pros tell you to play linear garbage because its the only thing that can compete, and people show up with linear garbage; its self fullfilling. just jumping from one hype train to the next.

so wizards loses either way. might as well hide information because its self serving. more fluctuations means more cards changing hands. also if anything does end up being something they need to address they dont have the public breathing down their necks. they know they cant design perfectly, WE know they cant design perfectly (and just are unwilling to admit it) and if people are basically crowd sourcing the 'solution' it shortens the longevity of the experience.