MTG Salvation

How is this an improved Melira?

I own a significant number of reserve list cards (a set of Underground Sea, Tundra, Volcanic Island, etc. (the only duals I don't have full sets of are Scrubland, Badlands)) with a pretty expensive collection ($30k~ approx). I wouldn't mind them abolishing the reserve list, and I doubt a promissory estoppel would matter considering the game, market, etc., has changed significantly from the time in which the promise was made. A lot of my collection was obtained before it became significantly expensive-- for example, I bought my Seas when they were $30, so maybe my input isn't as worthwhile as those who dropped for them at full price, but I wouldn't mind shaving some of the value off of my collection so that I can finally play my favorite formats with people again. I've only been to one Vintage tournament (it was 10 proxy) and Legacy has been harder and harder to find games in, and is easily the most fun I've ever had playing Magic. Legacy with Commander side games is the *greatest* time ever.

I especially wouldn't mind them re-opening the foil loophole so that duals, Moat, Tabernacle, Workshop, Bazaar, etc., could be reprinted again. These cards don't need a tremendous increase in supply in order to aid the market- there just need to be enough so that the formats in which those cards are playable can actually support the volume of players who would like to use them in decks. Duals would be absurdly popular due to Vintage/Legacy but also for Commander, as well, so I guess they'd need to be more careful about that since not everyone is as easygoing as I when it comes to this subject.

I really do think Wizards needs to do something, though. This game is probably my greatest addiction, but it's not worth a damn if I can't play with anybody (and no, I'm not going to play Modern. Wizards has been pretty ban-happy and I've lost integral pieces to my decks 3 separate times now as I was a UR Storm, Pod, and then Amulet Bloom player who was building Splinter Twin because it was only a matter of time before Bloom got banned, I thought. If I can't play good combo decks, I won't be in the format, no thank you).

I sincerely believe the strongest Partner, overall, is probably Thrasios, Triton Hero or Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix. One produces infinite mana while the other is an infinite mana sink that wins you the game if you have the capacity to cast Laboratory Maniac (or bring him out in any other way if the colors support it).

Thrasios and Tymna is probably among the best combinations available (white gives Enlightened Tutor, Angel's Grace to abuse Ad Nauseam, etc., while black gives the aforementioned and all of its great tutors). Thrasios is just really stupidly good, so if we're talking best combinations, here, I feel like Thrasios needs to be in the discussion in some fashion.

My wife (girlfriend at the time, roughly 8-9 years ago) wanted to get into Magic because she wanted to be in the activities in which I took part, so we built her an Elf tribal deck since Lorwyn was the most recent set at the time (I started in Time Spiral, she started within the year or so). She loved it and still has it to this day, though it has been heavily modified since that time and the only card that is probably the same is most likely Priest of Titania.

My wife tried doing events, but she cracks under pressure and her performance would suffer as a result (the last one she played in was a Legacy event where she 0-2 dropped, playing Aggro Loam while I played Enchantress). She likes going to events if I'm playing, even to this day, she just doesn't like playing in them any more. She plays kitchen table almost exclusively, which is where she can play her Elf deck and her Ezuri, Renegade Leader Commander deck that I built for her (we're probably switching the Commander to Yisan, the Wanderer Bard because the deck has consistency issues. Sometimes she can kill the whole table on her third or fourth turn, other times she sits there and does nothing until turn 7 or 8). Getting her into Magic was really no different from getting anyone else I've taught how to play, except she had more gusto and really just wanted to be a part of the activities with my friends and I, probably moreso than anyone else I've ever taught. I've been talking about doing the Commander nights at the local game store, but I'm unsure if she would feel like playing in those.



The most important thing to remember is: If the person doesn't want to play, then they don't want to play. Prodding and pushing the issue can just turn them off from the game entirely. Case in point, an old co-worker of mine recently got into Magic the Gathering on her own- and now loves it, despite the fact that she fervently hated the game before because one of her past boyfriends pushed and argued and pushed to try and get her to play, resulting in her loathing it. So, you know, don't be annoying and remember that no means no. If she wants to play at the kitchen table, then don't push the issue until she winds up hating Magic in its entirety.

Purphoros can win out of nowhere and through fair amounts of hate, while Krenko has a very hard time doing so because it needs to build up a board presence with the most easily-removed creature type. That's the only reason I can think of, anyway.

Her plus is absolutely a green ability, commonly both green and blue. Ohran Viper, etc., is a mono green card with this same ability, and things like Edric, Coastal Piracy, etc., also have it, but that doesn't mean it's not part of Green's color pie. I see a green and blue ability, a blue and white ability (blue gets it more now, but white is really big about tapping things, from Kismet to Loxodon Gatekeeper, to Kor Hookmaster), and a very blue ability. That seems fitting, to me.

Wow, I actually like all of these abilities. The draw being on the plus is probably my favorite part- I'm definitely grabbing at least one for Commander.

Quote from Slarg232 »

Quote from Bolas, the Mindsculptor »

Any general that has a tutor ability tends to be very boring.

But for players that play only once in a while, they find it fun. I would take their comments with a grain of salt.

I enjoy playing a commander with a tutor simply because I love the fact that I don't have to pray to the shimmying shuffle god to get the answer I need *now*. Just because someone somewhere down the line decided "You must play five copies of the same card or never see the card evar" doesn't mean that's the game I want to play.

Also, playing a six mana 6/5 Vanilla isn't exactly the greatest amount of fun anyone could be having.

As someone who has pretty much exclusively played Legacy and Commander for the last 3 years, I agree. Arcum Dagsson was my very first Commander (I had every card already lying around in my binder- including Mana Crypt), and I've built Zur and greatly enjoy even Sliver Overlord, as well.



My meta game also is moderately competitive though. Lots of our games are decided in the first 5-6 turns, because sometimes people like dropping turn 2 Land Equilibriums off of a turn 1 Sol Ring, Talisman of Progress, and an Island. It's nice to be able to get your Commander out, grab Rings of Brighthearth, and then the next turn grab Basalt Monolith and Staff of Domination off of one activation, draw the whole library, and then hard cast Clock of Omens, Nevinyrral's Disk, Mycosynth Lattice, and Darksteel Forge with all of your counter backup in hand- all while someone is trying to lock the game down. I find that fun.

As far as Commanders I just don't get... It'd be the ones used by hipsters that offer no practical benefit over anything else in their colors, that they play primarily because they want to be different and so they may condescend toward others who don't care about such a thing. My problem is less with the cards themselves, however, and more about a specific attitude accompanying them. Don't disparage me for playing Kemba, Kha Regent because she's, "A cookie-cutter Voltron Commander" (when she's not even that good lol) while I'm beating the ass off of your Kentaro, the Smiling Cat Voltron because you misplayed by casting an Armageddon as early as possible while I had both Marble Diamond and a Worn Powerstone, and you no mana rocks at all.


The guy who plays Barktooth Warbeard or Axelrod Gunnarson because their names are cool and they made a metal-themed deck for them or whatever is perfectly fine, in my book, and I'll bust out one of my weaker Commander decks to play against them so we can all have fun. The guys who purposefully play hard-to-function Commanders, or ones that are simply obsoleted by other cards in their colors in specific styles of play, and then complain, argue and insult other people are the bane of Commander, in my opinion, especially since I only seem to run into these people online or at shops.

So hasted Blightsteel Colossus can be a thing Nahiri enables with her ult. I like that. Probably more than I should.

The +2 is filtering that enables madness (which is kind of whatever outside of Standard), but her -2 is excellent. I dislike that the artifact has to be tapped in order to exile it, but that's whatever.

But + her twice and get a Blightsteel with haste isn't bad, especially considering you can adjust your plan on the fly and exile needed permanents an opponent controls while only setting your plan back a little bit.

I mean, Magic does seem more expensive to me than when I started.

I began around Time Spiral, if that tells you anything, and I played Pickles and Reveillark combo until Lorwyn/Morningtide, and then after that switched to Faeries. Bitterblossoms, Mutavaults, etc., were around $20 (which I thought expensive then. Though, on the other side of the spectrum, Garruk Wildspeaker was $20-25 too, and Tarmogoyf was nowhere near $150-200). Hell, I built my Extended deck, which was Confinement-Assault-Loam, for around the same price as a Standard deck today, and that ran 4 Stomping Ground, 4 Sacred Foundry, 4 Wooded Foothills and some number of Windswept Heath (which, before the reprints, I've had people call me a liar). I purchased an Underground Sea for $30, and traded for 3 at $50 to begin my first Legacy deck. When Sensei's Divining Top was banned and I basically switched my Extended deck to Legacy, I managed to deck 3 Plateaus for $16/each which began me picking up more duals for other deck ideas. Tundras for less than $30 each, etc.,

Honestly, it seems like the number of Magic players who want cards keeps increasing above and beyond the supply of cards that comes out. Let alone the fact that the secondary market prices for Magic cards is a lot higher now than it used to be 7-8 years ago when I started due to inflation. Also, Modern is totally a thing, and it more popular than Extended ever was, prompting more people to (seemingly) pay out the nose for really expensive cards. The Ensnaring Bridges and Azusas I bought for $1-2 a piece back then are $40~ today, and I could say the same for a whole bunch of really random cards I've obtained over the years (I got a Mana Crypt for $20 when I just started. That sort of thing. Wish I had the foresight to pick up those $50 Karakas or $80 Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale), but those kind of things just happen. Modern is becoming more comparable in price to Legacy by the month as more and more players make it a larger format around a shrinking supply of cards.

Ugh I hate the design of these cards..

This is different. Proliferate only let you choose one counter on permanents/players and put another one on them. This bandit put one of each of a kind on them. Suppose you have a energy counter and a poison counter on you, you trigger the bandit's ability on yourself, you will get one of both counter.

This card is trash, no way to get card advantage apart from his minus 2 which is a situational removal spell, that more often then not wouldn't deal with the legitimate turn 4 or 5 threats in the format. And that is arguably the worst emblem given by a planeswalker ultimate that I have ever seen, thoroughly dissapointed, expected so much better.

Eh, I'm still on the fence regarding the actual value of the card.

Does it generate card advantage? Totally. As you said, you get a net +3. Compared with a similar spell like Dragonlord's Prerogative, the slight reductiom in price doesn't (to me) seem worth sorcery speed, three colors, and the ease with which some of that value can be lost. The fact that this card advantage fails to kill or dig in an effective manner also makes me question how "good" it is.

In the current standard, I have a hard time thinking of anything that can match this in terms of raw advantage. If nothing else, people will try to make this work and it will make tournament appearances. Further, this card sounds pretty entertaining for use against control decks that try to win off of one or two torrential gearhulks. Even so, the value doesn't feel... useful.

Eh... mixed on this card. Not great value and seems like a junker at first view. On the other hand, this card isn't awful as bad rares go. Maybe if a self-mill strategy with these cards allows a new Bolas to ultimate right away...

Serra Angel goes goth. Love it.

Quote from Bolas, the Mindsculptor »

Any general that has a tutor ability tends to be very boring.

But for players that play only once in a while, they find it fun. I would take their comments with a grain of salt.

I enjoy playing a commander with a tutor simply because I love the fact that I don't have to pray to the shimmying shuffle god to get the answer I need *now*. Just because someone somewhere down the line decided "You must play five copies of the same card or never see the card evar" doesn't mean that's the game I want to play.

Also, playing a six mana 6/5 Vanilla isn't exactly the greatest amount of fun anyone could be having.

Are we just going to ignore the fact that this card might be picturing Sorin's death...

I have no idea what your budget is, but is it really that hard to keep up? I have 5 fully foiled decks (Kaalia, Kruphix, Kozilek, Krenko (for some reason I'm stuck on "K's"), and Ezuri). They are foiled to the fullest extent they can be, IE about 4-7 cards per deck don't exist in foil. Today each of those decks are worth between $2000 (Krenko) and $4700 (Kozilek), TCGP low, although I paid far less than that since I got in before some price spikes. Even with FIVE decks to maintain, if you're only talking about upgrading as a result of new card releases (IE, not upgrading with old foil cards), I find the cost to maintain them to be quite reasonable. Pretty much each expansion only costs me between $25-$100 to acquire the new foils, and that's for ALL five decks. Having a Kozilek deck made things a bit more expensive than usual, having to get Newlamog and the new Kozilek.

Plus your upkeep is for a mono-colored deck, so the new manabase you need to keep up with should be relatively cheap. If you're worried about a "new piece of tech you want to try", for Pete's sake use a non-foil until you determine it makes the cut and it's time to upgrade. This is especially true if you're looking to add old cards. I realize it may not look as pretty, but there's zero point to test a new strategy with the most expensive version of a card. Would any of your opponents think less of you, b/c your deck has 3-4 cards unfoiled that could be foiled? Doubtful. And if so, just explain you're making changes to the deck.

Again, I have no idea of your budget/income, but I think the cost of maintenance is a small price to pay, in relation to the initial creation of the deck, which you already seem to have accomplished. If you're tired of the deck, then yeah, it doesn't make sense to pump more money into it. But for as long as you enjoy playing the deck, keep maintaining it. I currenly have 19 decks, and I only chose to foil my five favorites (although there are 2-3 others I wouldn't mind attempting to foil, but I've chosen to stop foiling more decks). If Omnath is one of your favorites, and it sounds like it is, don't bail on it.

Elesh Norn has a wonderful lord effect. She's definitely a fierce presence on the board that needs an answer. If you're looking to use her for a pseudo-board wipe, however, that may have limited effectiveness depending on what you're doing.

Also, if you're running Caged Sun and Extraplanar Lens, why not go all the way and toss in Gauntlet of Power, too? It /is/ symmetrical, but it's redundancy and costs one less.

And...I forgot to ask this before. Why no Sword of Body and Mind? Are the protection/abilities, just not relevant?