With the news of MTGS dying, thought I would make one last comment here saying goodbye. Obviously this place has been dead for years, but I still remember it fondly. I hope you're all doing well. Other online communities I've been part of since, such as reddit, facebook, and twitter, have felt somewhat empty by comparison, with little to no opportunity for long form discussion or relationship building. Also, I have all but quit Magic and mostly play Hearthstone now, which I love from a game design POV, but it lacks the depth of community that Magic has. I will miss this place.
Wishing all of you the best, and here's to my past life as forum-obsessed teenager.
I come back after months to check how people feel about M15, and I find everyone talking about Hearthstone instead?! Must be a good game!
My thoughts on the Hearthstone discussion:
I have mostly stopped playing magic and play hearthstone exclusively now. Because
1) It's free
2) More of my friends play it
3) No physical items required (I'm trying to be more minimalistic lately)
I have found that it is very similar to magic in a lot of ways, and I think that magic players will tend to exaggerate the differences because they know magic so intimately. I'm sure a pro melee player could write essays about the differences between melee and brawl, but they have much more alike than different, and a lot of skills map over.
I can't say a lot about play mode, except that everyone seems to complain about "RNG" and how certain cards are "OP", meanwhile the same skilled players continue to dominate. Seems pretty skill based to me. I think the gaming community as a whole is used to high skill ceiling games like Starcraft and LoL, and not tactical games like Hearthstone.
As for the magic comparison, I believe that Hearthstone does incredibly well for such a small set. I am on Bateleur's side in terms of the game design; I think it's one of the best designed games I've ever played. Magic is a very inelegant game, just take a look at the comprehensive rules. The reason that Magic is great is because of its depth, but I don't think its depth is based as much in "skill" as much as in memory. There are vastly more cards and rules to keep track of. I suppose you could argue that ability to memorize cards and rules is a skill, but for me the skill element has more to do with decision making.
In brief, my thoughts about Hearthstone as a game is this;
It's vastly easier to learn and cheaper than Magic.
It has a similar skill ceiling if you discount card/rule memorization.
It has only been released for a year and is still on its first set of cards (we can expect improvement later, and at a faster pace than Magic since only patches are necessary).
It absolutely dominates MTGO, and I prefer online play right now.
I personally find it fun and engaging, and despite hundreds of hours of play time I do not feel I have reached a skill ceiling.
Some personal stats:
Past my first dozen or so arenas, I started logging all of my stats on hearthstats. Since then I have averaged 7-3 (70.56% wr) over 90 runs, and I try to play every class equally (average 8-3 with mage, 5-3 with warlock, but I play them both equally). I still make multiple play errors (which I document), and that doesn't count any non-explicit mistakes like poor picks, card evaluation, or meta evaluation. Top Arena players such as Trump tend to average 8ish wins. That's a win rate of about 72%. I think it is hypothetically possible to average 9 wins, or 75%. This seems similar to magic drafting win percentages to me, and is pretty good considering that we've been "drafting" with the same set of cards for a year now, which should level out the advantage of "better" players who adapt to new cards quicker.
Overall I think that arena is pretty balanced, skill testing, and fun to play. I do prefer magic draft, but it costs more time and money and must be either on MTGO or in a store. For those reasons I would only do it occasionally, while I do arenas all the time.
Thoughts on M15:
I really like it. It looks far more deep and "expert level" than any other core set, unless I am just being crazy. I'm actually pretty surprised at the level of complexity for a non-expert set. It definitely seems designed for limited and I hope it pays off. I just realized that the pre-release is this weekend - I might see if there are any slots left so I can play in an event!
Edit:
For your amusement, I have attached an arena run I did on April 1st. I tried to make an Angry Chicken deck. It went OKAY.
I was hanging out with a friend yesterday who had Hearthstone, and he taught me how to play. I ended up playing for 10 hours straight with him. Yeah... I don't think I should get that game. I will never stop playing.
It was a good T8 for me though. As nice a bloke as Rietzl seems to be - I loved his Amsterdam article - I never want StarCity to win anything. They're the source of the toxic over-competitive attitude that pervades Magic. Also, I have very little respect for their decision to introduce Premium. Very harmful to the community on multiple levels.
Team Channelfireball forever. It's possible that I'm biased because I played at the CFB store for years, but I really do love the guys on the team and they seem to just have a great time in general, even when they are playing competitively, which is the most important part about magic.
The top 8 decks are pretty funny. Devotion, devotion, devotion, devotion, devotion, devotion................... and Guillaume Wafo Tapa with Esper Control.
It looks pretty good to me. As others have noted, the God's Willing needs to be in there; I don't think I would ever cut it if I were playing white (unless I had like 5 of them or something). It's particularly perfect in your deck, where if you have a hero you need to protect it at all costs.
I would probably cut Fleetfeather Sandals and Stoneshock Giant for God's Willing and the second Two-Headed Cerberus. The Giant has a nice body, but 5 mana is way more than 4 when you are scrying away every land you see, and the Cerberus can just randomly win with Titan's Strength. I have a hard time evaluating Sandals so maybe you have to keep them in; 4 mana seems like a high initial investment when that typically buys you a creature and a pump spell.
I could also see cutting the 17th land there, even despite all the scry; you can do just fine with 2 mana, and you probably don't want more than 4 (maybe topping out at 5 for the bestowers).
Did a prerelease event tonight. It went pretty well, I think my pool was pretty solid overall. 3-1, lost in round one because I couldn't hit a single swamp with Voyager in play and Agent of the Fates, Gray Merchant, Boon of Erebos, and Cutthroat Maneuvers in hand.
A resolved Agent of the Fates with 1 mana targets is really insane. I wasn't sure how strong that card would be as it's just a 3/2 on it's own, but in a deck like this, it's very impressive.
Wow, your black looks insane there. Any thought to going mono-black splashing blue? Your green is good too, but with so many black playables in your sideboard and the Merchants/Overlord I would have been very tempted to just run all black and splash for Sea God's Revenge and maybe some other blue cards (Griptide, Triton Tactics, Thassa's Emissary). In fact your blue just looks really strong in general, I would say stronger than green. Your green has fatties but the blue has a bit more play to it, with strong tempo in the Wavecrash Tritons and the bounce spells, and some nice evasion. I think a strong argument could be made for Bu or BU there.
Played probably my last cube draft for this week tonight. I really enjoyed my first exposure to cube drafting. My record in Swiss was 3-0, then 4x 2-1, and in Single Elim was 3-0, 1-1, 1-1. Unfortunately the prize payout made it such that even with this somewhat decent showing, I used up all the tix and phantom tix I had before plus paid $19, thus ending my dream of "going infinite" which I had kept up since my first sealed event in July. But it was totally worth it. I definitely had more interesting in-game decisions than I ever had before on MTGO, and luckily I didn't straight lose to anything like Crucible + Strip Mine or turn 1 Animate Dead on Myr Battlesphere or something. I wish they just did cube drafts all the time. Why don't they? Isn't it extremely profitable for them? Cube queues were just firing constantly. I guess they probably have the numbers worked out better than I do.
I would have picked the Powerstone (from my masterful experience base of 3 cube drafts). It seems like ramp of that calibur is really powerful no matter what sort of deck you decide to play; it's just such a huge tempo swing, it's good for aggro, midrange, and control strategies.
I drafted mono-red again today (this time in a single-elimination cube; first two I did were swiss) and went 3-0 again. This time it was a bit more interesting though. My deck was more like big red, with Worn Powerstone and Ancient Tomb for ramp, and Urabrask, Siege Gang Commander, Chandra, and Koth at the high end.
One game I played turn 1 goblin guide, attack; opponent path to exiles it. Turn 2 I play Worn Powerstone from the extra land. Turn 3 I play Urabrask (I actually have 6 mana at this point) and attack (opponent at 16), then turn 4 I play chain lightning to the face (13), Reckless Charge on the Urabrask, play Empty the Warrens for 6 tokens, and attack for exactly lethal with Seige Gang Commander still in my hand. Yeah mono red!
Fun fact; in 3 cube drafts I have yet to see an island get played. I played against some bant opponents who had duals and other fixing, but no actual islands yet. Everyone seems to be playing naya. Is this normal?
I probably would have cut your 5 white cards and added the 5 black cards from the sideboard, going mono-black. Or at most splashing for the Divine Verdict. It will ensure that you never get mana-screwed and it will make your merchants and disciples that much better. The archon is amazing but is . I'm not 100% convinced this is correct, but I think your black devotion is so strong that it's worth it to try. It also just makes for a more consistent deck overall.
I started out in green ramp but then realized mono-red was open halfway through the first pack and moved in. Kind of boring, but I got an insane deck at the end and went 3-0, 6-0 pretty handily. Hopefully my next cube draft is a bit more interesting - I'd really like to play the wildfire deck, for instance.
I played 2HG today. Won 3 matches with Grey Merchant of Asphodel. Lost in the finals to Grey Merchant of Asphodel. Fun card eh?
2HG was fun anyways, as it always is, but that card is just silly. Also had 2 Abhorrent Overlords in the deck, but I would have traded them for 2 more Merchants in a heartbeat. Never faced a single card all day that was better than it.
Wishing all of you the best, and here's to my past life as forum-obsessed teenager.
My thoughts on the Hearthstone discussion:
I have mostly stopped playing magic and play hearthstone exclusively now. Because
1) It's free
2) More of my friends play it
3) No physical items required (I'm trying to be more minimalistic lately)
I have found that it is very similar to magic in a lot of ways, and I think that magic players will tend to exaggerate the differences because they know magic so intimately. I'm sure a pro melee player could write essays about the differences between melee and brawl, but they have much more alike than different, and a lot of skills map over.
I can't say a lot about play mode, except that everyone seems to complain about "RNG" and how certain cards are "OP", meanwhile the same skilled players continue to dominate. Seems pretty skill based to me. I think the gaming community as a whole is used to high skill ceiling games like Starcraft and LoL, and not tactical games like Hearthstone.
As for the magic comparison, I believe that Hearthstone does incredibly well for such a small set. I am on Bateleur's side in terms of the game design; I think it's one of the best designed games I've ever played. Magic is a very inelegant game, just take a look at the comprehensive rules. The reason that Magic is great is because of its depth, but I don't think its depth is based as much in "skill" as much as in memory. There are vastly more cards and rules to keep track of. I suppose you could argue that ability to memorize cards and rules is a skill, but for me the skill element has more to do with decision making.
In brief, my thoughts about Hearthstone as a game is this;
It's vastly easier to learn and cheaper than Magic.
It has a similar skill ceiling if you discount card/rule memorization.
It has only been released for a year and is still on its first set of cards (we can expect improvement later, and at a faster pace than Magic since only patches are necessary).
It absolutely dominates MTGO, and I prefer online play right now.
I personally find it fun and engaging, and despite hundreds of hours of play time I do not feel I have reached a skill ceiling.
Some personal stats:
Past my first dozen or so arenas, I started logging all of my stats on hearthstats. Since then I have averaged 7-3 (70.56% wr) over 90 runs, and I try to play every class equally (average 8-3 with mage, 5-3 with warlock, but I play them both equally). I still make multiple play errors (which I document), and that doesn't count any non-explicit mistakes like poor picks, card evaluation, or meta evaluation. Top Arena players such as Trump tend to average 8ish wins. That's a win rate of about 72%. I think it is hypothetically possible to average 9 wins, or 75%. This seems similar to magic drafting win percentages to me, and is pretty good considering that we've been "drafting" with the same set of cards for a year now, which should level out the advantage of "better" players who adapt to new cards quicker.
Overall I think that arena is pretty balanced, skill testing, and fun to play. I do prefer magic draft, but it costs more time and money and must be either on MTGO or in a store. For those reasons I would only do it occasionally, while I do arenas all the time.
Thoughts on M15:
I really like it. It looks far more deep and "expert level" than any other core set, unless I am just being crazy. I'm actually pretty surprised at the level of complexity for a non-expert set. It definitely seems designed for limited and I hope it pays off. I just realized that the pre-release is this weekend - I might see if there are any slots left so I can play in an event!
Edit:
For your amusement, I have attached an arena run I did on April 1st. I tried to make an Angry Chicken deck. It went OKAY.
Team Channelfireball forever. It's possible that I'm biased because I played at the CFB store for years, but I really do love the guys on the team and they seem to just have a great time in general, even when they are playing competitively, which is the most important part about magic.
It looks pretty good to me. As others have noted, the God's Willing needs to be in there; I don't think I would ever cut it if I were playing white (unless I had like 5 of them or something). It's particularly perfect in your deck, where if you have a hero you need to protect it at all costs.
I would probably cut Fleetfeather Sandals and Stoneshock Giant for God's Willing and the second Two-Headed Cerberus. The Giant has a nice body, but 5 mana is way more than 4 when you are scrying away every land you see, and the Cerberus can just randomly win with Titan's Strength. I have a hard time evaluating Sandals so maybe you have to keep them in; 4 mana seems like a high initial investment when that typically buys you a creature and a pump spell.
I could also see cutting the 17th land there, even despite all the scry; you can do just fine with 2 mana, and you probably don't want more than 4 (maybe topping out at 5 for the bestowers).
Wow, your black looks insane there. Any thought to going mono-black splashing blue? Your green is good too, but with so many black playables in your sideboard and the Merchants/Overlord I would have been very tempted to just run all black and splash for Sea God's Revenge and maybe some other blue cards (Griptide, Triton Tactics, Thassa's Emissary). In fact your blue just looks really strong in general, I would say stronger than green. Your green has fatties but the blue has a bit more play to it, with strong tempo in the Wavecrash Tritons and the bounce spells, and some nice evasion. I think a strong argument could be made for Bu or BU there.
I drafted mono-red again today (this time in a single-elimination cube; first two I did were swiss) and went 3-0 again. This time it was a bit more interesting though. My deck was more like big red, with Worn Powerstone and Ancient Tomb for ramp, and Urabrask, Siege Gang Commander, Chandra, and Koth at the high end.
One game I played turn 1 goblin guide, attack; opponent path to exiles it. Turn 2 I play Worn Powerstone from the extra land. Turn 3 I play Urabrask (I actually have 6 mana at this point) and attack (opponent at 16), then turn 4 I play chain lightning to the face (13), Reckless Charge on the Urabrask, play Empty the Warrens for 6 tokens, and attack for exactly lethal with Seige Gang Commander still in my hand. Yeah mono red!
Fun fact; in 3 cube drafts I have yet to see an island get played. I played against some bant opponents who had duals and other fixing, but no actual islands yet. Everyone seems to be playing naya. Is this normal?
I started out in green ramp but then realized mono-red was open halfway through the first pack and moved in. Kind of boring, but I got an insane deck at the end and went 3-0, 6-0 pretty handily. Hopefully my next cube draft is a bit more interesting - I'd really like to play the wildfire deck, for instance.
Hopeful Eidolon is REALLY good. First pick that guy always.
2HG was fun anyways, as it always is, but that card is just silly. Also had 2 Abhorrent Overlords in the deck, but I would have traded them for 2 more Merchants in a heartbeat. Never faced a single card all day that was better than it.