MTG Salvation

Fantastic, I had all but given up hope anyone would ever comment on this thread. I read everything posted and have had a few new thoughts (new to me at least). I like the idea of putting stickers on at "Morph speed" also the idea of what I've dubbed, for my cube, achievement packs that trigger upon certain things happening. I figure if you open an achievement pack you can look through it and add one card from the pack (unless specified otherwise) to your sideboard for the rest of the night. Then the pack gets put into the cube to be drafted the next time the cube is drafted.

I can't seem to find a list that I feel would be a good starting spot, anybody know of any cube lists that are mostly vanilla/french vanilla creatures and spells that is around 360 cards? Or is anybody willing to throw something together that is mostly just very generic boring spells/creatures. Like I said before, I am actually actively terrible at building my own cube lists, that's why I'm trying to just find something very bland and boring, kind of like the core set of cubes heh.

Edit: I found a list that looks pretty good. After not being able to find one for over a week of looking I stumbled upon one almost on accident heh. It is 360 cards, now I just need to finalize what I want my achievement packs I have and what they contain. I will update this thread when I get all that figured out.

So I had an idea for a cube I'm calling "The Battle Scars Cube". Basically the cube will change how cards work and those changes will be permanent. It will start with just your normal 540 card cube (I still need to find a list to start out with) and for each match win people get while playing the cube they will get a random sticker with rules text written on it. Stuff like "Defender", "Flying", "Flash", "+1/+1", etc. They can then use that sticker to change something in their deck or the deck of the opponent they just defeated, or they can hold onto the sticker and use it in any later game that night when they have priority. I need ideas for things to put onto the stickers, some of which make cards better, and some which make cards worse. There will also be some number of blank stickers which will be used to cover up existing changes to that card, either removing something that makes the card worse, or changing the card to make it less unfair. Each card will be capped at 2 stickers at a time in order to keep any one card from becoming truly oppressive when the same person drafts it all the time and just keeps making it better and better over time. So if anyone has any ideas of things I should put onto the stickers and/or cube lists to start with (I'm no good at building cubes on my own) I would really appreciate any ideas. Thanks in advance.

I've been trying to teach my nephew to play magic for the last few months, I've tried building simple 30 card decks to play against each other with our hand revealed and talking him through what happens during each phase and timing and what not. I've tried building decks for him and telling him what the deck wanted to accomplish (I.E. green mana dorks ramping into fatties). I've tried having him watch me play a game against a friend who also plays magic and explaining to him what I was doing and why I was doing it. He enjoys playing magic but he seems to struggle with some of the things people who already know how to play sometimes take for granted (nonbasic lands, keywords without reminder text, effects that alter power/toughness) and I know a lot of it is just trying to remember all of this new information all at once. I feel like he is starting to pull away from playing magic because he loses almost every game we play, but he is too smart to not realize when I let him beat me. Today I had an idea from when I was first learning to play magic when I was his age, the old starter decks that came with a pre-ordered pair of decks and a booklet that told you exactly what to do for the first few turns before setting you loose to play on your own. So basically my idea is to use a bunch of chaff I have laying around to create a few "Starter" sets for him and his brothers/dad to play complete with instructions from me on what to do for each player for the first 4 or 5 turns. So what suggestions would you have for certain creatures/spells to include in the decks? Some of the cards I was thinking of including were cards like Llanowar Elves, Raging Goblin, Giant Scorpion and other stuff that shows off not only evergreen keywords but also stuff that isn't keyworded but is something they do often enough. Then after I put the decks together and write up the instructions I'm going to include a list of what order to put the cards back in so they can play the decks over and over again, perhaps even changing out some of the cards that aren't used in the first few turns to let him practice building decks too. Anybody have any other ideas or perhaps cards to suggest that perfectly show a new player how something of a certain kinds works in any game of magic?

Me and my friends enjoy playing casual magic, but you can only do so many games of commander with planechase before even that format starts to become a tad bit stale. So we came up with a pretty neat idea, let's come up with our own custom cube with magic set editor. We came up with a whole bunch of ideas but we sort of hit a brick wall with about 50 cards left to go. Here are some of the stipulations we came up with for the cube.

We want it to be a smallish cube of only 120 cards or so.
Somewhat of a conspiracy theme, with very outside the box abilities on the cards.
Lots of cycles of cards with similar but on color effects.
The drafting portion is more or less a mechanic of the cube.
The games can function as both multiplayer or traditional one on one matches after the draft.

Here is a quick run down of a couple of the cycles we have come up with so far.

A cycle of cards that must be drafted when opened in a pack. They each have a miracle cost which gives a large bonus effect, they also have a somewhat bad effect if played from your hand (mostly bonuses to your opponent if played from your hand), an effect that happens if the card is in your hand at the end of the game (a quite negative effect for you that take effect at the beginning of your next game and lasts for the entire game.) EXAMPLE: If you cast the black card for it's miracle cost target creature gets -5/-5 until end of turn. If you cast it from your hand all creatures get -2/-2 until end of turn and you put a -1/-1 counter on two of your creatures. And if it still in your hand at the end of the game creatures you control enter the battlefield with a -1/-1 counter on them for your next game.

A cycle of cards that are in essence reverse leylines. they are all enchantments and have a strong effect, but if they are on the battlefield when the game ends then you begin the next game with it in the battlefield and it gains a second negative ability. EXAMPLE: The blue one lets you draw two cards instead of one if you would draw a card, but if it is on the battlefield then the next game you put it onto the battlefield and it gains "Whenever an opponent draws a card you discard a card."

A cycle of six cards (Each color and an artifact) that when you draft them you write your name on them. And at any point during the draft you can reveal it and if your name is written on it you put it into that pack and you draft a total of 2 cards from that pack. When you reveal the card they each grant an effect that happens immediately during the draft. EXAMPLE: The artifact one when you reveal it you can draft any number of cards from that pack and put the artifact into that pack then you skip your next number of picks equal to the number of cards you drafted from that pack.

A cycle of draft fodder cards that you actually don't want to draft, when you draft them you have to reveal them and they give an effect during all of your games, the effects are very much in your opponent's favor but they have somewhat decent effects when you play the card. You don't have to put that card in your deck but the effect happens regardless of whether or not the card is in your deck. EXAMPLE: the black fodder is a sorcery that says target player loses 3 life and you gain three life. At the beginning of your first upkeep during each of your games you lose 2 life.

A cycle of cards that get a +1/+1 counter that is triggered by something that happens during every magic game (Think Cosi's Trickster) EXAMPLE: the green one has whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control it gets a +1/+1 counter on it, and it also has [T]: Add [G] to your mana pool equal to CARDNAME's power.

The final cycle is a cycle of lands that enter the battlefield tapped and tap for their basic land equivalent mana, or you can sacrifice it and add three of that mana to your mana pool. Essentially forfeiting a land drop to give yourself a dark ritual in a certain color. EXAMPLE: Shattered Plains taps for white mana or you can sacrifice it for WWW.

A couple of other cards we have come up with are not cycles but plays on existing magic cards. We have a Umezawa's Jitte that is an equipment that gets charge counters, but its abilities for removing a charge counter are plays on the original abilities.

We also have a strictly better Spitemare with increased power and toughness, the same ability and creature types, and a more difficult to pay mana cost.

We just need a couple more ideas for cycles or single cards to get us over that last hump before we can print these bad boys up and have some drafting insanity. Any and all ideas are appreciated, the less likely it is for wizards to actually print it the better heh. We really enjoy just playing games that get out of hand and everything takes forever to get right. Thanks in advance.

I went to two different prerelease events so far this weekend, I'm hoping to go to one more later tonight looking more for advice on cards I didn't use and why I should have used them rather then stuff I did use and why I shouldn't have.

My first deck I decided to build a slower deck based on what I saw from my pool. first I'll give you the pool then I'll show what I built out of it.



The Deck I built, Which I could only describe as Grixis Processors, ended up going 3-3 on the night, one of my round losses was due to the back to back misfortune of finding no red sources with a hand full of red cards in game one and game two finding nothing but lands after my first 7 cards.



My first thought about this deck after finishing up building it was "I sure hope this format is as slow as my deck wants it to be." I found myself siding in Vestige of Emrakul and Vile Aggregate quite often, usually taking out Ruin Processor and Tightening Coils.

My second event I went to I ended up building a drastically different deck but achieved quite similar results.



And the deck I built out of this pool ended up going 3-2 after starting 1-2. And yes I played an off color comes into play tapped land simply for allowing me to set up my next landfall. I felt with the amount of threats I had in the deck, shipping four of them to the bottom in order to pull out a timely Mountain for one of my double red cards a turn of two early was acceptable. It only backfired on me once where I had to bury 5 good threats and found no basic lands in the top 5, I then proceeded to draw lands until I died with a hand full of gas.



So what did I have in my pools that makes you facepalm and ask "How in the world did you not play this?" And what makes you feel like that card deserves to be in a maindeck?

We had not even considered changing the actual card texts and interactions they have, we were just basically looking for stories to attach to junk cards that without the graffiti were just boring old cards that nobody cared about, that it a really interesting idea though I will have to bring it up and see how everyone else feels about that, I personally would not have had that train of thought but I really dig that idea

So me and my friends quite often play limited formats (draft and sealed) but we also randomly buy boosters just to crack them open and see what we get. The issue we often run into is we all have boxes and boxes full of commons and uncommons (to a lesser extent rares) that we don't really do anything with and they aren't worth any real money. So we have been trying to come up with a fun casual format that uses all these "junk" cards. We came up with a format that we have talked about but we have yet to actually play at all. But i figured I would throw it up here and see what everyone thinks and if anybody has any fun ideas for us to add or something that you think would make the format less fun to play. I remind you, we still haven't played this at all this is just the rules we talked about over the last month or so.

1. Each player builds a deck consisting of 100 cards. And must have a marker of some kind (Sharpie, felt pen, etc.)
2. Singleton deck construction rules (not counting basic lands)
3. Each deck must contain at least 5 of each basic land type (or snow land equivalent)
4. Each deck must contain at least one card from every color, each card can only count 1 of it's colors for this rule (for example a RG card counts as either a red card or as a green card not both)
5. Card sleeves are never allowed to be used on your cards
6. At any time during the game any player may make a motion to alter a card that is important to the currant game state (for instance making check marks every time cancel successfully counters a spell or marking a creature with an updated power/toughness instead of merely placing +1/+1 counters on the card as is normally done.)
7. The other players in the game have to agree to these changes before they can actually be made, even if the player is trying to mark their own card.
8. During a one-on-one the winner of the game is allowed to make one alteration to one card in their opponent's deck. (For instance writing the CMC of a card on the back of that card, changing the artwork to something else, etc.)
9. During a multiplayer match whenever a player eliminates another player they get to alter a card in the player's deck whom they eliminated.
10. After the game is over all cards are shuffled back into their owner's deck in preparation for the next game.

The whole point of this format is simply to have a fun thing to do with the thousands of cards that we all have that have no real value to be sold online or anything, and everyone else has the same number of these junk cards so they will never ever be traded for so they just sit in boxes gathering dust. We are of the thinking that when playing this format, someone will notice something on a card and there will be a story behind it that can be told for the pure enjoyment of it. It just seems like a real fun way to use cards that i don't really have any other use for and me being the type of person who isn't the kind of guy who is going to throw away cards I payed money for, even if they are pretty much worthless.
So let me know what you guys think of this way to play, any ideas are greatly appreciated. I think it will be pretty fun but we are still just kinda spitballing it at this point, so if someone suggests something we didn't think of we will gladly think about it before we actually get around to building these decks and giving it a whirl.

Here is what my ladder looks like right now




any suggestions would be welcomed because my friend is currently running a really aggressive BR deck and he always seems to just outrace me

Me and my friends play standard magic only as a casual thing, we never go to standard constructed tournaments because we never win anything and losing every single time is not a whole lot of fun. My question is...What do you guys think the best option for a 3-drop is in a Birthing Pod deck when my colors are WGu? Right now I have Daggerback Basilisk in there but it seems very underwhelming and I always find myself killing it ASAP to get to either Solemn Simulacrum or Hero of Bladehold. And before anybody says anything I do realize that the Deceiver Exarch + Splinter Twin combo is much better suited, but like I said this is just for casual play on the kitchen table and I want to just build it with cards I have or can eventually end up with through drafting/sealed tournaments and what not.

So I'm playing against someone that has their commander, Numot, the Devestator in play, and I play my own copy of Numot, the Devestator, while my spell is on the stack my opponent activates Safe Haven, chosing to leave their Numot in exile attached to the Safe Haven instead of putting it into their command zone. I then equip my Numot with Lightning Greaves and hit a different opponent. Then I activate Numot's ability and destroy the Safe Haven. My question is, because they left their Numot in exile and they now have no way to bring him out of exile without getting the land back into play, does their Numot stay in exile forever? Or does it go into the command zone?

Does the ability on Dimir Aqueduct use the stack? More specifically does anyone have an opportunity to respond to it. I got into an argument earlier over whether or not someone could play it and bounce his Terramorphic Expanse then before it went to his hand he could sacrifice it to find a basic land and put it into play countering the ability because it's target was illegal. The way I read the card is that it doesn't target anything and something has to be returned to it's owner's hand, even if the only thing that can be is the Dimir Aqueduct itself.

Quote from zturchan

No - the spell itself is copied a number of times for each spell cast previously this turn. Quite different.

Yeah that's what I meant, I just typed it wrong.

Thanks for the answers everyone you guys just won me a $5 bet from my friend and I bet he stops trying to build that storm EDH deck now haha.

If a player plays a card with Storm it copies every spell that was played before it that turn. But what if someone plays a second spell with storm on the same turn, does the storm ability count all the copies from the spell that was played before it? Or does it only count the actual card that was played?

So say my opponent has a Darksteel Axe in play, and I play Artifact Mutation on it. Even though nothing will happen to the axe, do I still get my saproling? Or am I not even allowed to target the axe because of it being indestructible?

I'm not trying to sound ungrateful or anything like that, but I made the thread to hopefully get ideas on how to make the deck viable rather than just posting it so people could tell me everything that's wrong with it. I've been coming up with ideas and trying them out but, nothing I seem to come up with is getting me any closer to my goal of making a deck that is consistent and can be a whole lot of fun to play. Sometimes when I build a deck I can get so focused on it that I miss something obvious screaming in my face that the deck should be running. I am hoping that someone can find and suggest something that I am blind to at the moment.