I'm hearing a lot of praise for Grant Morrison in this thread and I can't understand why. Batman R.I.P. was when I stopped reading Batman comics, just because a plot is convoluted doesn't make it good writing. Grant Morrison's section of 52 was great and the space-opera kind of stories are his strong-suit but he has no business writing Batman in my opinion.
I started watching TNA a long time ago because I wanted to see RVD and Jeff Hardy and it seems like I stopped watching just in time for them to actually get some ring time. AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels are two TNA talents I have gained a respect for over my time watching Impact and it's a shame that Daniels isn't really that prominent anymore.
There are a couple things I think TNA does better than WWE; the way they do their backstage segments I think is a lot better than WWE's in that it's more engaging and it kind of makes it seem less scripted, it's just two guys talking or the interviewer is off-screen so the focus is on the wrestler. I also liked the Knockout's division, women actually wrestling instead of models pushing each other for a minute and a half then the roll-up finish.
One of the things that kind of drove me away were the Bobby Roode segments that seemed to start every episode of Impact. I don't understand what TNA sees in him, he's not that great on the mic and he's an average-at-best in-ring performer. Another was the dreadful AJ Styles/Dixie Carter/Kaz+Daniels storyline. Ugh, nothing made me want to press fast-forward more than those awful segments. The open fight nights and the gut-check segments were cool at first but I stopped watching for the same reason I stopped watching Raw/Smackdown; I guess I got kinda burnt out and TNA wasn't giving me what I wanted so I didn't waste my time with it anymore.
Overall TNA is still Busch-league compared to WWE and they do some things right but it just doesn't measure up.
I don't know about anyone else but there is no way that Ryback beats Punk at Hell in a Cell. He's still not a main-eventer no matter how hard Vince pushes him. He needs a good upper-mid card feud to establish him as someone who can really have a match instead of squashing undercard nobodies.
I've got 4 that I carry around in my bag o magic:
1. Zendikar plains by Jung Park. This is probably the one I use the most, its also the one I've had the longest.
2. Custom Art playmat I posted in a pimp deck thread a while ago. Drawn for me by a friend of mine but I don't use it that often because the ink comes off after extended use.
3. Grave titan playmat, I thought the art and the layout was neat. This is the playmat I lend out the most because everyone else seems to like it.
4. Jace's Ingenuity, I saw it and the blue really struck me as cool looking so I picked it up.
I've been playing MtG for about 10 years and mana burn never EVER came up until the M10 rules change when it was eliminated with an outcry of heresy from few and a great shrug of indifference from many more. It seems to me like a lot of people want it back because it was "a skill tester" that old players can pat themselves on the back for playing around and that newer players never had to deal with because why would you tap more lands than you needed to do stuff? I agree with Wizards that it was a pretty unnecessary part of the game and the only cases I could see it applying in modern magic is the cases of infinite mana combos that fail to do anything and kill you instead. Or if you're one of the 0.05% of magic players who happens to have Mana Drains and you have nothing to spend the X on.
Anyways, while I have no real issues with the current rules, I might do something about the "creatures are still blocked even if the blocker is gone" thing.
And probably have the names of double-faced cards count as both sides' names.
Melira says that counters can't be placed on creatures you control, how does that stop creatures from coming into play with counters already on them? There is no point where the creature could be affected by Melira that it doesn't already have a counter on it if it persists or is undying. It's unintuitive
One of the only things I would change would be to invalidate Melira combo. The way the wording on the cards is doesn't make it seem like it works and it really bothers me.
Honestly I think Seismic Assault is a better win condition and is a bit more versatile than Zombie Infestation. Not only is ZI more card-intensive but it isn't as direct as SA, the only pro I can see is that it's easier to cast and can possibly buy you time with blockers but if you're discarding two lands for a blocker chances are you're F'ed anyway.
I think Luminarch Ascension is probably the best idea but getting it early enough so you can get the counters on it is crucial so a 1-of might not be ideal.
Bloodghast, Nether Traitor, Gravecrawler and Vengevine can usually get around the discard requirement. There is also a 3/1 that sees play in dredge decks that I can't remember the name of. Edit: it was Ichorid.
What do you mean seemless? In conclusion you liked it or not?
In conclusion I liked it. A lot of extended borders in my opinion don't really qualify as altered art, especially as most of them are not done as well as yours are.
I have to say that normally I roll my eyes at border extensions in an altered art thread but yours are easily the most seemless I have seen in some time. My only critique is the erasure of the top border of Isperia's name cell and the bottom edge could use some cleaning up.
In light of the recent debate about artifact/enchantment hate, does anyone think that running Abrupt Decay over Nature's Claim is a good idea? It seems to me that Abrupt Decay is better with few exceptions as it can generally hit all of the permanents we want to hit with Nature's Claim plus it doubles as removal for creatures that we might not want to waste our lands on. The biggest downside is that Abrupt Decay costs 2 mana whereas Nature's Claim costs 1. I don't know about any of you but most of the time I stop at 3 lands when I'm piloting this deck to A) avoid Tec Edge and B) to kill my opponent with them so that might hinder us a bit. Thoughts?
There are a couple things I think TNA does better than WWE; the way they do their backstage segments I think is a lot better than WWE's in that it's more engaging and it kind of makes it seem less scripted, it's just two guys talking or the interviewer is off-screen so the focus is on the wrestler. I also liked the Knockout's division, women actually wrestling instead of models pushing each other for a minute and a half then the roll-up finish.
One of the things that kind of drove me away were the Bobby Roode segments that seemed to start every episode of Impact. I don't understand what TNA sees in him, he's not that great on the mic and he's an average-at-best in-ring performer. Another was the dreadful AJ Styles/Dixie Carter/Kaz+Daniels storyline. Ugh, nothing made me want to press fast-forward more than those awful segments. The open fight nights and the gut-check segments were cool at first but I stopped watching for the same reason I stopped watching Raw/Smackdown; I guess I got kinda burnt out and TNA wasn't giving me what I wanted so I didn't waste my time with it anymore.
Overall TNA is still Busch-league compared to WWE and they do some things right but it just doesn't measure up.
Did you post on the internet thinking that no one would ever dare disagree with your opinion?
1. Zendikar plains by Jung Park. This is probably the one I use the most, its also the one I've had the longest.
2. Custom Art playmat I posted in a pimp deck thread a while ago. Drawn for me by a friend of mine but I don't use it that often because the ink comes off after extended use.
3. Grave titan playmat, I thought the art and the layout was neat. This is the playmat I lend out the most because everyone else seems to like it.
4. Jace's Ingenuity, I saw it and the blue really struck me as cool looking so I picked it up.
Melira says that counters can't be placed on creatures you control, how does that stop creatures from coming into play with counters already on them? There is no point where the creature could be affected by Melira that it doesn't already have a counter on it if it persists or is undying. It's unintuitive
In conclusion I liked it. A lot of extended borders in my opinion don't really qualify as altered art, especially as most of them are not done as well as yours are.
I have to say that normally I roll my eyes at border extensions in an altered art thread but yours are easily the most seemless I have seen in some time. My only critique is the erasure of the top border of Isperia's name cell and the bottom edge could use some cleaning up.
If I didn't realize he was 3 colors how could I have considered him a black/blue and a black/red planeswalker?