MTG Salvation

They should have switched the Montreal PT with Quebec City GP dates. That way, the GP would be during Quebec Winter Carnaval! That would have been awesome.

Well, I guess you can attend the Mtl GP, go to Quebec City for a week during the Carnaval, then do the GP.

Here's to hoping Quebec GP is sealed. I don't do constructed.

Quote from Maveric78f

The big mistake was not to choose with Spelltwine. Apart from this, it was very unfortunate not to be able to kill a single creature with that much removal and value in hand. I was already seeing myself twincast spelltwine with Chandra's -2 ability.

I'd describe it as the value bug. I've been bitten by it too. Even when we got great advantage and value, we still want more and make bad decision in the short term for the mirage of greater value down the road.

Since this is the PWND thread, not a play critic thread, here's my own version of the same bug.

I got Burn at the stake in hand and enough creatures to kill my opp now using it. But since this is the first game and my board presence means I will be able to kill my opp in two turns just by attacking, I choose not to play the stake to avoid revealing to my opp that I have that card and gain a slight advantage in game 2 and 3. He untaps, clear the board with terminus and then I don't draw other creatures before he ends up killing me.

Had the win, got greedy about information, of all things, got burned (ah!).

Quote from Phyrre56

These are the first good White cards we've seen since our first pick. Why do we feel committed to it?

Because two playable white cards, one of which is a great one, on pick #7 clearly signal white is open. I fail to see your reasoning that we'd end-up UB when there were so few U or B cards drafted so far and teh pack is devoid of anything good in those colors. I feel you're advocating jumping into colors that may very well be already closed by your neighbour while ignoring a clear signal.

I find your question infinitely interesting. Not for the question itself, but for it's revealing quality. If this thread had been started by KingPun I wouldn't have been surprised.

Maybe it's the nature of the kind of people who play magic, but I was both appalled and entertained by the flood of negative responses. Is Magic-playing really *that* correlated to being a friendless asocial? Is the correct response to a friend request to be mean, condescending and tell him or her to "man up or go"?!?!? So many ganged up on the rule side and ignored the friendship side. Oh! The humanity!

Wow. Until pack 3, your black was OK but not stellar then you get passed Nefarox and nighthawk back-to-back! Nice trick if you can pull it off.

I agree with the OP. Throwing a few curses, traps and tribal cards from time to time would keep the flame of old mechanics alive in older format and could even make them relevant. Instead of creating confusion, it might just pique the interest of new player and remind older ones to revesit the originals. I think the main reason why they would not do it is the extra burden of testing, where they might slip in a curse or a trap (say) that suddenly makes the mechanic too good in unforeseen ways. Also, commercially, Wizards has little interest in reviving interest in previous sets.

However I look at it, a MSRP of 75$ is terrible. Either the cards won't be reall worth it, in which case it might actually sells for around MSRP, but it won't interest me in the slightest, or it will contain cards that makes it worthwhile, meaning it will be sold for 200$. In either case, we lose. I wish they'd stick with the previous prices. The first batch of commander decks were nice, contained enough goodies for teh price and were purchasable for a reasonable price in a lot of places initially. For while, a LGS around here was even selling the WUR one for less than MSRP (around 25$)!

From what I've read about REL matches in the past months, I doubt *anyone* who is not a regular on the GP/PTQ/PT can ever win a tournament. The number of rules and regulations that you somehow have to magically know and can result in penalty means that someone without experience will surely not get through.

1. Shuffling technique, shuffling times, where you look while shuffling.

2. Sleeving, foiling of cards.

3. Rule lawyering and abusing.

4. Triggers, stops and how to signify that you want to do something in response to something else.

5. Opponent concedes, you pick up your cards? Nahahah, *you* just implicitly conceded to him!

6. All the rules when drafting (piling, passing cards, selection time, where you look).

These are just occurences that happened recently. I'm sure there are plenty of other rules that someone new will fall victim of. From the sound of it, the chances of getting through a dozen of rounds without meeting someone who will profit from one's inexperience seems slim to none.

Quote from King Pun

I have personally had many odd/rude opponents at my LGS. One of the more recent examples that I can think of was yesterday. I was playing EDH and this guy walks in that we are unfamilar with but it is cool because I like playing against new decks. I approach him and he tells me to sit first to "make sure it was safe" so I do and then he sits down but I can tell this guy is a nervous wreck (he keeps biting his finger nails and making sudden glancing movements with his head like he had magnets pulling on his face). We roll dice to see who goes first and he says something under his breath that I swore was like "The mongoose in the Man With The Golden gun always rolls a three" and then he rolls a three. His pupils widen and then he stares at me for 30 seconds and opens his mouth and screams that the LGS has asbestos in the ceiling, jumps on the table and then proceeds to jump across to other tables before exiting, leaving his deck behind. He left his deck and when we looked at it he had 93 sleevedprecursor golems.

Exegis: the many odd/rude opponents represents the uncertainty and natural hardship of ones existence. The willingness to play new deck stands for man's curiosity toward nature, while the man suspicion and fear are a symbol of nature shyness toward man. The dice are an allegory of the randomness of man's destiny. Then the story delves into an oracle-like divination that spurs a frenzy, an illustration of man's feverish extasy in when confronted with the wonders and discoveries of the laws of nature. The golem and number 93 are obvious cabalistic references.

Yu Wuan Gao koan: the man failed to see the mongoose in the other.

Han Chan reply to Wuan Gao: one fails to see a mongoose, one fails to see a golem.

Quote from Itsar, the Laughing One

I counted value on supernova sell prices and, if you do things right, it is possible to sell cards at that value - I do it all the time.

You must have much better than me then. I've found it next to impossible to sell cards at bots' sell prices. For one thing, the prices almost always include fractional tix, and I doubt you offer to keep a record of fractional tix you owe. In my experience, people prefer to buy from bots for that reason: they keep proper credit. There is also the fact that bots will have full stock so you don't have to run around finding this card here and that card there.

The only times I've been able to sell cards is during pre-release seasons where availability is low. Otherwise, you need to undercut bots and round to lowest tix and sell bundle.

Quote from Meritocracy

White now gets cloning effects.

It's a card that creates a single token creature in a very round-about way. It creates a token creature of the same type as a creature token you already control. Every color has had the ability to create creature tokens. This one is just a lot more narrow (you need to already have a token) and wider (it can create any token).

Quote from urzassedatives

He pulled it out of an M13 booster.
He already contacted WoTC about it and supplied the numbers on the back of the booster so they could track down how this (i guess) error occured.

This is an outrage and I hope WotC correct their mistake by sending him the missing M13 common he deserves. I'd be up in arms if I had gotten cheated out of a common in a booster for an unplayable non-standard legal card!

I've redeemed 2x DKA and I'm trying to redeem an AVR (still missing entreat and bonfire !$!$%^!). I did it to repay, but I didn't expect the set to lose value so fast, so it's not paying out as I thought it would. DKA really tanked. I have better hope for AVR as it has more potentially good cards and undercosted efficient angels.

My take is that it's real (for all arguments already presented) and actually a viral marketing for RtR. The fact that:

1. Bruce is a new guy.

2. Yet he knows hwo to contact MaRo in Tumblr, has a MaRo avatar in Tumblr, and MaRo responds to him fast.

3. He's got fuzzy, but actual cardboard in hand so many months in advance.

4. Wizards is not going ballistic about point #3.

5. He needs to go home to make a video, but clearly (to me) the pic was taking in an office.

All that points to a setup.

Quote from pizzap

I don't think it is a myth. I play the Swiss queues and usually go 2-1 (my rating is usually ±1800). So, I pay 3 packs + 2 tix and win 2 packs + cards. Usually I rebuy at bots the lost pack for 3.5 tix, so my loss is ±5.5 tix per draft. However, I usually can sell my rares for about ±4 tix, so I am bleeding only ±1.5 tix per draft. In a Swiss draft you always play all matches, so I am having a lot of play time for my 1.5 tix.
Last year September I stopped buying tix/packs from the WotC store and to "eat" my rares and mythics first. I played ±100 drafts since then and I don't expect to need to buy packs/tix soon.
I just play Swiss. In a 8-4 you can win a lot more, (but also lose a lot more, both queues have the same payout). If you do well in a 8-4 you should be able to go infinite. To go infinite in a 4-3-2-2 seems practically impossible to me, since this queue has the worst total payout (11 packs instead of 12 packs in Swiss or 8-4).

I'll bite. First, I don't know what set you're playing, but getting back 4 tix off (on average) 3 rares is hard to believe. Non-chase rares sell for something like 0.005 - 0.01 tix each. You'd need to pull something like a Sigarda, Host of Herons or better in every draft.

Two, I don't know why everyone focuses on drafting. I used to swiss draft, but now I'm exclusively on 4-packs sealed instead. If you're swiss-drafting, I'd urge you to consider that option. The advantages are:

1. You still always play all 3 rounds.

2. 3-0 is 5 packs, 2-1 is 3 packs. Both of these are better-than-swiss-draft. 1-2 pays 1 and 0-3 nothing, which is par with swiss.

3. No tix necessary to enter. Only 4 packs. That really helps going nearly infinite.

4. Opening 4 packs means one more chances at getting a valuable rare.

The main downside is that decks are more diversely powered. Some will get the nut pool. On the other hand, The nuts is less good that the equivalent in a draft. You can 3-0 with what may seem like an average pool. I did yesterday where my only bomb was (the arguably very good when going long) cathars' crusade. Never despair, the less color-focused nature means that a lot of people go three color, so you can get wins against superior deck due to mana fixing problems.