MTG Salvation

The Gathering Dark was reissued in Coldsnap fat packs, so maybe that led to a legitimate eBook as WOTC was doing eBooks for new set novels at the time.

Quote from Formless_One »

It doesn't even make sense from the perspective of players not familiar with the story: you can put cards from two different planes in your deck in every format that exists, but in the story those two characters can never actually meet unless they are planeswalkers. In game, Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain can fight The Scarab God, but in story they cannot. How does that make sense? Plus, New Phyrexia is one of if not the most iconic villains in the minds of the players, but as long as Creative insists on planeswalkers being the only ones who can planeswalk then that plot is dead in the water. I don't understand why they do this to themselves.

MTG gameplay sometimes hasn't made storyline sense ever since the beginning, I'm not worried about it and I don't try to explain around it. From the original rulebook:

Q: Can my opponent do something that doesn't make sense, such as casting both Holy Strength and Unholy Strength on his Air Elemental?
A: Yes, these effects are magical, after all.

Quote from Sugarshark17 »

Endless Sands is an inexpensive card if your meta has no GodPharoahsGift and/or you don't want to pick up Scavengers
it's not really meant to be good; but it's something to do for longer games to help dodge all the 'remove a creature gain 2 life cards' as a 1 of
it's like a Bomat Courier

You mean Scrapheap Scrounger? I see how Endless Sands is an alternative for recursion. it doesn't impress me, but I might try it if I don't go down the Chainwhirler path.

I like the simplicity and consistency of not having a splash. Legacy Burn, feels like a similar deck to me and I don't splash in that either. So it's not a cost issue, though Scrounger and fixing like Dragonskull Summit are cheap.

I just copy/pasted draft.bestiaire.org into the URL bar and it worked fine.

Quote from The Decepticon »

Quote from KingAlanI »

Thanks for the ideas.
I am open to more Rekindling Phoenix and Earthshaker Khenra once I decide to spring for them and find where to put them.
Is triple red for Chainwhirler why you cut Sunscorched Desert? I like the idea of feeding it to Scavenging Grounds if I need to use that repeatedly.
Why put all the Chandras to sideboard?
Fight With Fire is interesting, whether it or Chandra's Defeat comes in depends on the matchup

Yes, Chainwhirler is why no Sunscorched. And its worth the trade off. A single activation of Scavenger Grounds should be all you ever need in a matchup where its relevant. But if youre that worried about graveyard strategies, cards like Crook of Condemnation & Silent Gravestone are SB options you could consider. Chandra is just a meta call. You could swap the 2 Glorybringer for 2 MD Chandra instead and move the former to the SB if you see less aggro. Fight with Fire is for beefy creatures like Lyra, Steal Leaf Champ, etc

I do have trouble with sideboarding, both what 15 to include and what to actually use in a match. I'll see if I need any more graveyard hate as I play the deck more.

I figured Fight with Fire was there mainly for its unkicked effect, but the kicker would be a nice bonus in a long and/or manaflooded game.

Quote from The Decepticon »

I'd try something like this:

DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Land (23) 22x Mountain 1x Scavenger Grounds Creatures (27) 3x Bomat Courier 4x Soul-Scar Mage 4x Earthshaker Khenra 2x Kari Zev, Skyship Raider 4x Goblin Chainwhirler 2x Ahn-Crop Crasher 3x Hazoret the Fervent 3x Rekindling Phoenix 2x Glorybringer	Instants (10) 4x Abrade 3x Lightning Strike 3x Shock	Sideboard (15) 1x Glorybringer 3x Chandra's Defeat 2x Aethersphere Harvester 3x Chandra, Torch of Defiance 3x Fight with Fire 1x Kari Zev's Expertise 1x Harsh Mentor 1x Siege-Gang Commander

Thanks for the ideas.
I am open to more Rekindling Phoenix and Earthshaker Khenra once I decide to spring for them and find where to put them.
Is triple red for Chainwhirler why you cut Sunscorched Desert? I like the idea of feeding it to Scavenging Grounds if I need to use that repeatedly.
Why put all the Chandras to sideboard?
Fight With Fire is interesting, whether it or Chandra's Defeat comes in depends on the matchup

Quote from KnickM »

Quote from KingAlanI »

My
Chandra, Torch of Defiance

His
Grothama, All-Devouring
Captain Lannery Storm foil
Botanical Sanctum foil
Kari Zev, Skyship Raider foil

I have more than enough Chandras for Standard mono red aggro, so I wanted to move my extras before rotation. I wanted the foils for my collection binder; dual land variants like Botanical Sanctum seem fairly stable and the other two are cheap cards to begin with. Grothama was a card I didn't have yet for my Battlebond set.

I think I'd probably try to get a little more - Grothama, Lannery, and Kari are pretty much $1ish throw-ins. I do like getting into foil Botanical Sanctum, but Chandra's more than just a Standard role-player. Sanctum is going to $9 at market, but LP copies are available all day at $7. I'd probably want two foil Sanctums for my Chandra.

$2 for the cheap rare foils did seem a bit generous when trading down, but valuing foils did seem difficult especially when nonfoils were also involved. Maybe I did overestimate how much Chandra's rotation drop would be.

Quote from sealteamfive »

Quote from drakeavril »

Might as well join with a trade i made to a store

I traded with the following:

4 ripjaw raptor
2 carnage tyrant
2 rhonas the indomitable
1 scavenger grounds (foil)
1 vraska, relic seeker
4 regisaur alpha
plus $120 store credit

for

1 tropical island (MP revised)

I gave up on dinosaurs after realizing it just falls apart to control and I have UW auras deck that I won a pptq with that I will use for the rptq.

This looks more like a humble brag post than a trade. As far as long term value goes this is a no brainer on which one I would prefer to have. In 18 months this will be the equivalent of trading $130 or $140 (mostly store credit - not cash) for an MP trop.

Even now that seems like a steal. TCG mid on the cards you traded in is about $100, $220 even if you value the store credit as much as cash. Trop listings on TCG start at nearly $300. Maybe the store owner wanted to unload some slow moving inventory?

I got into Standard by combining 4 copies of the Hazoret Aggro challenger deck, as that's the most valuable one and I like playing that kind of strategy. I am open to other cards like Scavenger Grounds, Rekindling Phoenix or Earthshaker Khenra, though I didn't have them to start with. Phoenix isn't rotating until next year, Khenra and Grounds are only a few bucks. I'd want one of each for my collection binder anyway.

Grounds provides graveyard hate main without taking up a nonland card slot. Similarly, Magma Spray does double duty as ordinary removal.

24 lands led to manaflooding, as I'd expected. I often got manascrewed at 22. 23 it is.

I avoid running 4-of's of legendaries, so I'm not stuck with dead cards in hand. Hazoret is worth it for consistency but even 3 Kari Zev or Chandra almost feels like too much, so I might take those down to 2. Likewise, Glorybringer is powerful but brings up the curve.

Harsh Mentor does not do much mainboard. Abrade is useful, but I'm leaning towards less than 4 main and more sideboard.

Harsh Mentor, Magma Spray and Abrade seem more like sideboard cards, or do they affect things common enough to worry about maindeck?

Pia Nalaar doesn't make sense since I didn't go in an artifact heavy direction.
The other cards from Hazoret Aggro seem too low powered.

This is the list I'm about to try:

I don't need him for Standard, but want one for my Dominaria complete set - so I could sell now and buy later after rotation or other price drop. Yet I wonder if the drop would be enough to beat bid/ask spread and other transaction costs. It's in my trade pile, as it does seem worthwhile to exchange it for something else I want.

Just opened the land pack from my Dominaria bundle, found nothing special - a few slightly darkened but nothing dramatic.
I might get more Dominaria bundles if I see them below MSRP but wouldn't buy at full retail just to check for this

Always been happy with them, this sounds like an issue with that particular game, not sure how it carries over to the site in general

My
Chandra, Torch of Defiance

His
Grothama, All-Devouring
Captain Lannery Storm foil
Botanical Sanctum foil
Kari Zev, Skyship Raider foil

I have more than enough Chandras for Standard mono red aggro, so I wanted to move my extras before rotation. I wanted the foils for my collection binder; dual land variants like Botanical Sanctum seem fairly stable and the other two are cheap cards to begin with. Grothama was a card I didn't have yet for my Battlebond set.

Quote from rowanalpha »

I'm disappointed only in the fact that the cards aren't visible when opened like the FTVs were. I've got all the FTVs on display on a shelf, and I was hoping to collect and display the spell books similarly, but with the cards sealed in a booster pack, there are no card faces to show.

When I open a box set, I put the cards into 9 pocket pages anyway, saving the packaging separately if it's something cool, so this is a moot point for me.

Quote from Ratrek »

My only actual irritation with the product is that it's insanely over packed. A huge box to have another box with gobs of room around it to hold a single booster pack. A pack I might add is glued to the 2nd interior box so if you're not super careful pulling the pack off, it's crazy easy to bend all your new cards.

I love the cards and I love the cool foil logo on the front. But boy howdy, there's so much wasted material here.

Now excuse me. I need to go take my old man hippy boots off.

Many products are overpackaged, MTG or not

I like the frames, Negate is the only art I can't stand, though some of the others are meh. Love the trash talk of Jaya on Blue Elemental Blast.

Would love to know if each foil is a 1/8th chance or if WOTC felt like being difficult.

Will need to find it around MSRP, but my completist collector self will very likely get 1, and I'll probably be interested in multiple copies looking for foils.

I thought of getting into Standard or at least trying the format by modifying one of the Challenger Decks. My idea for modification was to get multiple copies and concentrate the good cards that weren't already 4-of's. I am open to a few other singles.
I went with Hazoret Aggro since it's the msot valuable one and that's the kind of strategy I like playing anyway.


I avoid running 4-of's of legendaries, so I'm not stuck with dead cards in hand. So I'd go with 3 of those.
Harsh Mentor, Magma Spray and Abrade seem more like sideboard cards, or do they affect things common enough to worry about maindeck?
Ahn-Crop Crasher and Pia Nalaar both make creatures unblockable, whereas this deck seems focused on burning them away, and a 4th Soul-Scar Mage seems like it would help with that. Is sideboard Key to the City enough for creatures I can't just burn away?
Is Glorybringer too high a mana cost? Fanatical Firebrand seems too dinky, but is the low manacost worthwhile?

Not sure what to change but here's my first attempt