MTG Salvation

Quote from Colt47 »

So, all facts considering... after seeing the challenger decks I want to go find some fireworks to celebrate the first honestly good MtG product that has been released since the Magic Origins Duel Deck. Heck, these strait up blow that duel deck out of the water. Please tell me this means Wizards finally started to listen to people.

Is the only thing Wizards of the Coast has to do to make a "good" product put a bunch of powerful rares in a cheap product? Good business model right there. :|

Quote from killercore007 »

I wonder if the power creep existing was because of all the spoiled elitists preaching the whole "bad because dies to removal"? Just a random thought really?

Personally, I think this is exactly what happened. They stapled every keyword they could think of to Baneslayer Angel because of people saying that about older cards, and some people still even say it about her.

Quote from Colt47 »

a walker that actually has a somewhat relate-able personality.

There's a joke out there somewhere about the guy who was ham-fistedly written as screaming "SEE YOU NEVER!" at a group of people being relatable to tournament players, but I'm not sure I'm going to make it. Damn, I think I just did.

Quote from Colt47 »

We weren't going to get bored if the sorcerous spyglass was pithing needle.

You might not have gotten bored. You might have been excited to get more versions of a Modern staple with different art (though to be honest, it sounds like you would be more excited that its price would have fallen below $3). But how can you be sure that nobody else would have been bored?

Oh, and while we're talking about people who supposedly don't exist, I'm one of the players who the LGS-forever faction has been deriding in this thread and others. I've spent thousands of dollars on the game over the last ten years, and own enough rare cards, including fetchlands, that you would probably say I'm part of the problem because they're not in circulation for effectively communal use by rising tournament stars. And I haven't been to a tournament since the Worldwake pre-release. I fulfill my interest in Magic by playing with friends and family, and I have no need for organized play.

Of course, you can all say that I'm doing it wrong, I'm not representative, or maybe I'm just outright lying. After all, it's not like anyone could point those last two accusations at anybody else.

Quote from Colt47 »

To be frank a lot of modern cards require insurance against theft due to the price tag on them.

And then people like Card Slinger J wonder why people wouldn't want to go to game stores, and how you could ever play Magic anywhere else.

Quote from RabidVacin »

The 2/12/18 random card of the day is Reviving Melody. If you have any comments, combos or a decklist involving this card, feel free to share.

In the right deck - or, y'know, Theros block - this is a double Regrowth for the cost of Recollect. That's pretty good.

Also, it's a portrayal of Orpheus and Eurydice, and we would all do well to remember stories like that. (I've gotten blank stares when I point out that the Rebecca Guay Path to Exile is Tristan and Isolde.)

I really like Copperhorn Scout, I guess largely for its art, but I never quite figured out what I think its best deck is. Obviously it resets all your creatures with tap abilities whenever it attacks, hence lots of mana with Priest of Titania or lots of damage with Cunning Sparkmage, but a 1/1 for one mana is pretty fragile.

The Fifth Edition version of Icatian Scout is almost unbearable to me. I basically tear up every time I see it when I'm going through a pile of old cards.

I'll also mention Unfulfilled Desires, from Mirage.
Like Day from Night,
I'll live my life apart from you, just glimpsing you across the sky,
because you cannot change, my dear,
and nor can I.

And the Fifth Edition version of Primal Order: "My sorrow: to dream of simple times, and wake in mine . . ."

(I often think of that one when there's some new Magic-related internet scandal or circlejerk.)

There was a lot of heavy flavor text around that time, wasn't there?

Quote from Colt47 »

On the contrary no one complains about mana in pauper. Why would they complain? The rule for lands in pauper is that if it is a dual land it comes into play tapped, and only basics come into play untapped. If anything the manabase is better in pauper than in standard or modern. There is no finagling to figure out how to get the most untapped dual lands into the deck or being pigeonholed into having to play the worlds most expensive lands just to compete. The best lands for fixing arguably are the Rav bounce lands and the kahn's gain lands: both are pennies and come in every color pair.

Also, I think the only deck that really runs the Ash Barrens is delver. I may be wrong, but that is the one that runs a lot of cycling lands off the top of my head. That card is odd because it's more of a rare disguised as a common.

As things stand now, I believe you. But we've all undoubtedly seen the articles recently about how formats "need" to have lots of options and the mana available to play those. This is why everyone has been gushing over Innistrad-Ravnica Standard (and conveniently forgetting how everyone complained incessantly about Thragtusk, and about how Cavern of Souls let it beat Mana Leak, and how fast Naya Blitz was). People raised on that might well find Pauper's mana base too slow and too fiddly. If they're used to looking at Modern's fetch-shock nonsense as some sort of pinnacle, are they really going to look favorably on Rugged Highlands and Evolving Wilds?

And the price issues are a good point. I've seen discussions where people got angry that someone suggested they add Boros Guildmage to their deck, because they can't justify spending $1.00 on a playset of an uncommon. There are people out there who don't feel they can afford $100 for a Pauper deck, and I imagine we'll be hearing from them soon.

But I guess we'll find out.

I wonder if and when people will start complaining about the mana in Pauper. They already feel that a lot of formats that allow rares don't have good enough mana; how will they react to having to use cards like Tranquil Cove?

Ash Barrens is a good card, of course, but it's expensive right now because it's only been in Commander supplements.

All of the Lorwyn commands are very good cards. Primal provides a lot of midgame value for green creature decks - I prefer running it over something like Green Sun's Zenith because it can do more than one thing if you need to.

I've always been confused why the first ability is "Target player gains 7 life", but I suppose it adds utility in multiplayer settings.

Quote from SavannahLion »

The competitive edge is too high and it tends to run too late.

I hear you on both of those points. That's exactly why I stopped going to pre-releases. Too much time investment, and not enough in return.

They really need to invent some kind of event that's structured differently, and as such addresses both of those - the first is partly on who's playing, but the time problem is an absolute killer. Do any of you remember the Open Dueling thing they used to do at pre-releases with intro packs?

Quote from sbfinley »

I don't particularly play standard that often but my quick opinions:

1) I agree with Rosewater's statement that a complete lack of bans means they aren't pushing the envelope and improving the game.

2) The only recent "mistake" was the copy-cat combo. Energy and vehicles have been at the heart of the majority of recent bannings and both are interesting new additions to the game. History shows that interesting new additions are often riddled with issues at the beginning. Vehicles are very reminiscent of equipment and there were serious power level issues with equipment in the beginning. Energy is an excellent concept that is also very dependent on building a shell that harnesses it. When cards are built for a particular archetype they make the whole much more powerful than the individual cards and in this case they dedicated a chunk of two sets to the archetype.

That would all be fine if there hadn't also been times when they introduced a radical new concept which didn't break Standard in half.

Double-faced cards look insane, but there have never been any power level issues with them. The most powerful werewolf was Huntmaster of the Fells, and he (or she, if you use the From the Vault version) is just fine.

I do not believe for a second that broken Standard seasons are the result of simply "pushing the envelope". If that's what Rosewater really said, he needs to take a break from design for a couple of sets. They do not seem to know how to playtest.

Quote from Etherium Sage »

Are you saying that you're surprised nobody speculated that they made Guardian in such a way that it could go infinite with Saheeli on purpose?

Not quite. What I had in mind was more speculation that given a format-breaking interaction, they chose to ban the uncommon as opposed to the planeswalker that could potentially be a "face card" for the set, and a chase mythic more generally. I am agnostic about that idea myself, but I couldn't recall whether anyone else had mentioned it.

Of course, it turns out that Saheeli Rai is not as good not as part of the combo.

Have they specifically stated whether they missed the interaction? Or that they didn't but thought it would be okay?

I don't think there have been such innocuous cards banned since the day of Kird Ape and Serendib Efreet. Rogue Refiner at least brings a disproportionate number of advantages and bonuses for its cost, but Felidar Guardian does almost nothing by itself*. Even Smuggler's Copter reads like something that's "just good", and it's at least as easy to deal with as Umezawa's Jitte was. Oh, wait, it was in an artifact block without a Shatter variant.

*I'm surprised nobody has tried yet to make a conspiracy theory about this one, involving Felidar Guardian being an uncommon and Saheeli Rai being a mythic planeswalker.