MTG Salvation

Yeah, I agree with the trap. Valakut doesn't win off of Valakut, it wins off of surviving long enough to either use Valakut, Rampaging Baloths, Zendikar Avenger, etc. The only way it can survive that long is through burning everything in its path.

I'm currently having the most problems vs. UW control, so I'm trying out a heavily slanted sideboard which includes Luminarch Ascension, Kor Sanctifiers, and a new addition, Vampire Hexmage. I haven't tried it out yet, but apart from being a 2-power creature in itself, it kills Jace on the spot as well as their Chalices. I'll see how that goes.

I've been testing a similar deck out in the tournament room as well - with great results. One point though - I'm not sure I agree with the above sideboard. I don't see any real uses for Nemesis Trap or even Hideous End. As has been said, this deck shouldn't rely too much on creature removal at the cost of allies, so having Hideous End in SB when I already have Journey in MD seems unnecessary (I usually always want Journey instead of Hideous, so I wouldn't swap the two during sideboarding). Are they in the SB for a specific purpose?

Also, Nemesis Trap isn't my cup of tea. Too specific imo, since I don't come up against Ally decks too often and usually win anyway when I do.

I agree with Refraction Trap vs. Valakut, Luminarch Ascension vs. control and Sanctifiers vs... well, control as well. But have you guys considered:

- Marsh Casualties? Like above poster, I've been having problems with Stoneforge and other blazing fast decks, but this gem takes out stuff like Steppe Lynx, Geopede, Sparkmage and Battlesingers without the kicker. WITH kicker, it can even ruin a vampire or ally deck (although obviously not all vampires/allies).
- Devout Lightcaster? Not entirely keen on the casting cost, but I assume it's a pretty good card against Vampires.

Any further experience with the deck and its SB is very welcome. I'm 100% dedicated to the deck atm and winning over 66% of games in the tournament room so far, so I think we're on to something really good here.

It says 12 points for 10 boosters, so that means you'll have to win all 4 rounds. 3-1 nets you 4 boosters.

EDIT: Ah, sorry, I thought you meant the pre-releases.

I keep hearing about it, but I don't see it advertised on the MTGO page calendar, the MTGO splash screen or the MTGO public messages, which kind of defeats the purpose of all three. So what's going on?

- and I guess it's time for a lot of people from the other thread to come out, hang their head in shame and apologize to the OP.

I wonder how this will affect Magic Online. On one hand, I guess a lot of these cards haven't been programmed into the card database yet (but that might be possible to overcome) - on the other hand, it would suck to not have some sort of equivalent in the online Zendikar.

(Speaking of which, does anyone know when the pre-release for Zendikar is on MTGO?)

Khalni Heart Expedition- The cool thing is that it triggers for more counters of the lands it searches for meaning that after every search you just need to play 1 more land to search again.

If that was really the case, this would be an amazing card. Sadly, though...

As far as the seemingly female bias, I believe that JayC is giving the idea that he sees it proportionally happening more to females than to males. I wouldn't be too surprised either. I find it far more likely for someone to get worked up over a loss against a female than a male.

And as I mentioned, that would have been a fair point and keeping with the point of the article. That's not the problem.

I have to second Billythefridge, and ask: Why on earth do you feel the need to mention that your female opponent is not only female (which might actually be relevant to article from a social viewpoint; ie. females are probably easier to pick on since they're outnumbered in the Magic arena), but also a 'hideous' one??

This, to me, reeks. The gender bias in full flower here - you would never feel the need to mention the attractiveness of a male opponent you lost to. It indicates that one of the defining things about a female opponent is how she looks, no matter if that's what you intended to convey or not. That's not class, that's saying "not only did I lose, I also lost to a woman, *and* she was ugly". Is it of *any* relevance to the weight of your loss how she looked? The way it's included, it gives the impression that it somehow hurt you even more in the situation than if you had played a swimsuit model.

I could understand the inclusion of this detail if you had meant to convey that that's how you thought at the time, but that you've since become wiser. However, it's apparent to me that it's the 'present you' that chooses to include the detail without realising that it's actually extremely class-less. It suggests that you have learned on an intellectual level that guys and girls should both be treated with respect, but that on the intuitive level, which comes out through your choice of words, it's still defining for you that the woman wasn't good-looking.

That severely detracted from my enjoyment of the well-meaning article, because it seems you have learned certain lessons about class and want to pass them on, but there are still others yet to be learned.

Solution: Move to Europe. Here, we celebrate diversity, encourage faith but discourage imposing your faith on others, and don't flaunt our superiority in the media every day.


Well, sometimes.

Well - looks like the Mirri, Vampire Cat rumor was true.

In custom-card contests and the like on the Net, I've seen some pretty much accurate looking custom cards, where font and layout, etc. was authentic. How did people achieve that? Specifically, I'm looking for:

- The fonts - are they downloadable?
- Textless card faces - are they downloadable?

- in terms of getting money value rares, would you rather open TTT or RGD? On one hand, TTT gets you 3 timeshifted cards on top. On the other, RGD has all the new dual lands.

EW - I think your perception of Rhaegar will change, maybe upon a re-read. Rhaegar is not B/R, he's every bit as W/R as Dany, but you sometimes have to read between the lines to realise that.