Quote from XBM YoshoI certainly hope I don't get a vague ban one day because of it.
A badge of honor indeed XD.
Quote from XBM YoshoI certainly hope I don't get a vague ban one day because of it.
Quote from DX.ArcanaCan't you contest or anything? It seems very suspicious first that you get banned without infraction, yes, but also that you don't seem to be worried or care about it.
Quote from DX.ArcanaI would understand if you told us it was private, but these explanations are just... it seems to be missing something, am I wrong?
Quote from Priest of StoneOh, that kinda sucks. I do hope you return to forums as soon as the ban is over. But in the meantime you have more time to write to your blog and I would like to read about building a multiplayer cube as today we where talking in my group that we could build one.
Quote from soulbananawhat did you do to deserve a ban?
Quote from MiaouI would like to second the idea that if you have the time and desire to, writing about MP cube would be great.
Quote from Priest of StoneDeadbridge chant has seen some game in my meta and it has been good. Sometimes it is just too slow to make a difference. I still wouldn't recommend paying 5€/each.
Quote from Priest of StoneAbout the demon... I must confess that I have missread the card to say "At the beginning of each players end step, that player discards his or her hand." Now it seems to be made of pure chaos : D
Quote from GibletsI feel like it was just yesterday we were discussing Dragon's Maze, here we go again with more new cards.
Archangel of Thune was an immediate standout for me as well. I'm always helping my sister improve and tweak her Soul Sister's deck and I think this card is just great and she's even wearing real clothing/armor instead of a chain-mail bikini, go Wizards!
I will likely give a singleton Rise of the Dark Realms a go in my typical midrange black shell. For the CMC it feels like it fills the same niche as Decree of Pain which I commonly run as a singleton. I'm a huge fan of running these types of ridiculous game-ending black spells and can't wait to give this one a go.
Quote from mata666I personally would not mind if the blog was longer and even more in depth (as I could learn more).
Quote from varalI think the only "fair" thing is to have everyone play the best deck possible...
Quote from varalI think one utility of counterspells is to protect your own threats. Who cares about card disadvantage if you can protect Damia, Sage of Stone or Consecrated Sphinx?
Quote from varalRed has the crazy Wheel of Fortune.
Quote from CroatoanSolid primer Cz. I'm still reading through it all and making adjustments based on meta to my Infect and Gate decks; both of which are similar in construction but different in execution due to the different mechanics.
It's clear you put a ton of effort and time into this. Cheers on a job well done.
Quote from Canadian Guy of WrathSo you think Voice of Resurgence is a powerhouse card in multiplayer? I really don't see it: it so easy to play around. It's a good card for sure but I think the hoopla over it (20 bucks a pop?!) is completely unwarranted.
Quote from Giblets
I think one of the issues I have with multicolored sets is many color combinations are completely awkward for multiplayer decks. Boros for example while having a few great cards here and there suffers from the fundamental problem of pairing two colors that both have atrocious draw engines with white's options being barely playable and red's being frankly non-existent. Rakdos has a hard time justifying the inclusion of red because at the end of the day you're trading drain for burn and possibly opening yourself up to mass artifact removal which you could probably be accomplishing with Nevinyrral's Disk, etc. Due to the fact that green pairs so incredibly well with any color. Any guild paired with green just seems to have a major multiplayer advantage over other combinations because of the variety of tools inherit to the color. Perhaps a lot of my opinion is due to personal bias and desired playstyle but I don't feel particularly inclined to include red, white, or blue to my black decks because it's questionable what the colors are actually adding.
Quote from GibletsAn additional quick rant over an issue with dual colored decks and Wizard's persistence in printing mediocre dual colored lands and not truly opening the flood gates on shock lands. There is nothing enjoyable about shelling out tons of money just to get a working mana base, and this is where a lot of players having glaring weaknesses in their decks because it just feels a lot better to drop money on some amazing creature that is literally going to beat your opponents to death; while in reality what got you there in the first place was your lands. At least reprinting the shocks yet again is a step in the right direction, but two colored decks are just flat out always going to be less affordable but so desirable that I constantly see a lot of marginal land use at my table.
Quote from GibletsI likely got a little derailed from topic here, but let's cross our fingers and maybe we can squeeze a diamond or two out of this proverbial **** pile Dragon's Maze although their are few cards left to be spoiled.
Quote from GibletsGlad you've jumped on the complain train, next stop Dragon Maze's multiplayer mediocrity.
Another thing to consider is that Eldritch Evolution is often better than Neoform because of the turn 1 Arboreal Grazer, turn 2 Eldritch Evolution for Risen Reef, turn 3 Risen Reef lines.
4x Windswept Heath
4x Verdant Catacombs
4x Scattered Groves
3x Secluded Steppe
3x Tranquil Thicket
2x Barren Moor
2x Forest
2x Plains
1x Swamp
1x Temple Garden
1x Godless Shrine
1x Overgrown Tomb
This is roughly what your manabase should look like. Swap Black to Red or Blue as needed. Or just cut down to straight Selesnya. Cut your Burgeonings for actual lands. I usually play around 28 in these shells. It's imperative that you "flood" in this archetype because if you only draw 4 lands then you'll need them to cast your spells and you'll have nothing to cycle. So even though you have 28 lands it's more like 24 lands + 4 "spells" that you'll need for your engines.
Adding Black for Stranglers and Rhino isn't 100% necessary but Strangler + Drift is a fantastic removal engine and Rhino means that you never have to enter the Red Zone in order to win. Both are solid additions. I've always played this as 3+ colors so I don't have any experience with straight Selesnya but I like what Black and Red offer in terms of removal.
Scattered Groves is mostly there to give you a solid turn 1 play that still has value later on. It's not a card that I'm looking to cycle, my goal is to play it as a land, but if/when I do see them later on I like how they fuel my engines. So think of it as a Selesnya Guildgate moreso than a Tranquil Thicket.
19x Swamp
4x Witch's Cottage
Creatures (20)
4x Basilica Screecher
4x Burglar Rat
4x Liliana's Specter
2x Crypt Rats
2x Thorn of the Black Rose
4x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
4x Defile
1x Unearth
1x Undying Evil
4x Sign in Blood
2x Chainer's Edict
2x Pestilence
2x Tendrils of Corruption
1x Moan of the Unhallowed
I recommend playing something closer to this if possible.
I could see myself cutting all of these cards.
I don't recommend playing any of those but Liliana's Specter and Pestilence are fantastic. I'd always play at least 2x Pestilence in Pauper Monoblack Devotion but realistically I tend to slot in 4 and never look back.
For generic threats I like Basilica Screecher, Burglar Rat, Crypt Rats, Phyrexian Rager and Thorn of the Black Rose. For card draw I like Sign in Blood and Night's Whisper. For removal I like Defile, Chainer's Edict and Tendrils of Corruption. For recursion I like Undying Evil and Unearth. Moan of the Unhallowed is a nice 1-2 of because it's 8/8 worth of stats for 1 card. Always play 4x Witch's Cottage since it's the best common utility land IMO. I personally play multiple Crypt Rats because it's A) the best thing to Unearth/Undying Evil and B) it makes Witch's Cottage an extremely relevant draw in the later stages of the game.
This this is exactly the mindset that people should have when they're fleshing out their initial EDH lists. The first changes that I make are "cut the cards that sucked, replace with lands and/or ramp." I never found myself wishing that I had more bombs and used to constantly find myself thinking "man if only I had made 2 more land drops this game" until I finally learned to stop being stubborn and play 38 lands. This is especially true for the 3 good colors (Black, Blue, Green) because your card draw and tutors are so bloody powerful that you don't run the risk of flooding out and/or running out of win conditions.
I started playing in 2001. I think Planeshift was my first official set.
Don't forget about Agent of Treachery either!
We don't need it for Gary but it's awesome when your deck has Yarok's Fenlurker, Gary, Grave Titan, Sepulchral Primordial, etc. For sac engines you have Viscera Seer, Witch's Oven, Ayara, First of Locthwain, Woe Strider, etc.
It's fairly costed. 1 to cast and activate is nice but 2 to equip means that you're not going crazy with it. Much like Umezawa's Jitte and Sword of Fire and Ice you can blindly jam 1 copy into any creature-based deck and it'll do fine.
"The card is too expensive" is always a reasonable excuse. I'm only trying to stop "the card isn't good enough" people :P.
4/15/2013 Effects that modify the power or toughness of an affected creature, such as the effects of Phytoburst or Legion’s Initiative, will apply to it no matter when they started to take effect. The same is true for counters that change the creature’s power or toughness (such as +1/+1 counters) and effects that switch its power and toughness.
Based on the Phytoburst comment it appears that they retain the +3/+0 even though I would guessed otherwise. I'd ask the rules forum though just in case.
Too expensive or...? The card reads "you win the game" for 9 mana since you also get a vote.
Wanted to quickly share a fun little combo that I've been toying around with in MP. Lotus Field has been doing a ton of work in Pioneer and Standard and it boasts powerful synergy with Surveyor's Scope in 4+ player games. The "God draw" is turn 2 Scope into turn 3 Field and the beauty here is that it works in any deck of any color. Green is king for cards like Crop Rotation and Sylvan Scrying but there's nothing wrong with Expedition Map so you always have access to colorless options. Blue has cantrips, Black has tutors, Red has rummaging, White sucks, you get the idea. You can also wait until post-Lotus Field to cast your Surveyor's Scope if removal is a concern and I'm clearly not advocating that you blindly run it out on turn 2 if you have reason to suspect that one or more players have Shatters in their decks. My point is that you have the option to curve turn 2 Scope into turn 3 Field for 7 mana on turn 4. Thespian's Stage is another huge payoff for Lotus Field which ensures that future copies of Expedition Map et al. are still live draws well into the lategame.
Note that this isn't the only way to abuse Surveyor's Scope but it's clearly one of the easiest. Karoos are also fantastic at enabling it, especially when paired with Fetchlands. The trick is to curve something like turn 1 basic, turn 2 Karoo, turn 3 fetch + Scope. You can then crack your fetch, hold priority and crack your Surveyor's Scope with the search trigger on the stack. At this point you still only have 1 land in play to (presumably) everyone else's 3 enabling the full combo. This is obviously more convoluted than the Lotus Field combo but it's still relatively easy to pull off. You can also do the same thing with multiple fetchlands or abuse things like Mox Diamond.