Quote from DementedKirby »Interesting... I will probably just maintain my primers here just because they have some history and have been here for a while. There's lots of discussions and I believe that they'll still be useful if I'm still able to edit and maintain them. That being said, the staff here at MTGSalvation have made the experience and forums an amazing place and their dedication deserves way more merit and credit than can be given. I hope that, once MTGNexus is up and running, an announcement can be made and thus be able to create an account there (and hopefully no one takes my username ). It won't be easy juggling between being active in two different sites, but I will probably only be attentive here to my primers. If the exodus towards MTGNexus is a certain thing, then I will join that immigration.
If the people who make up the relevant parts of the community to you are moving, then going over there could be reasonable. If not, then, at least personally, the community is way more important than the staff. In my case, at this point in time, I'm almost exclusively focused on the Mafia side of things, with the occasional foray into EDH. The EDH section is losing a number of serious people to this schism, so I'm probably just forgoing the game altogether for the time being; I haven't played Magic since August of last year anyways, if I recall correctly. Both communities will probably change, but it's a question of convenience of staying here or loyalty to people who are moving, the primary group of which and force behind which is staff. Both sites are at an unstable state. This site needs a staff that is actively focused on it and appreciates the community, Nexus will need people who like the old staff of Salvation enough to want to be there, and doesn't have the funding or people to be as stable as Salvation potentially can be at this time.
That said, as a user, you probably won't even notice most of it. The staff are just people, just the same as users. Their authority is an artificial concept. So make sure that whatever you choose, it's based on your feelings about the community, not just following either the staff to Nexus or just staying here for the site structure itself, as either way, you'll likely end up disappointed if that's the reasoning for your choice.
It sounds like you're having a conflict in the balance of building around the commander versus using utility cards. Innocent Blood is a good inclusion for the latter reason, that happens to have some functionality in the former reason if you draw it late game. I don't think there has to be a ton of antagonizing over when to play it.
Falkenrath is just kinda inefficient for its cost; Blood Artist is much more worth it. I think the effect is nice, but it's not quite at the point where you need to have both.
I must politely disagree wholeheartedly; Innocent Blood does stuff on the first turn of the game, and Smallpox can also be incredibly powerful early on, especially if you get a hand with mana accel (of which he could certainly be running more). I mean, I hate to bring up the turn-1 Sol Ring play, but Swamp, Sol Ring, artifact (Jet Medallion/Skullclamp/Charcoal Diamond) on turn 1 into Swamp, Smallpox turn 2, especially going first and with a land or two in hand, would be devastating. Grave Betrayal also doesn't do anything for an entire round unless opponents play into it. The mana cost difference is also kinda absurd. I could see cutting Falkenrath Noble, or just adding it in straight (he's still under 99 cards), but I honestly feel it might just not make the cut due to cost-effect ratio.
More than 10 artifact spells... It's not unreasonable at all for a well-built artifact deck to be casting three artifacts a turn in mid-game, several turns before winning.
"You still get the artifact you cast via Mishra" implies that Mishra is always out while Possibility Storm is out.
At a quick glance, the artifact lands interact positively with about 15 cards. This is mostly minorly so, such as helping counts, or in an iffy manner, such as with Hurkyl's Recall. The cards of particular note include Mirrorworks, Tezzeret the Seeker, and Trading Post. They interact very negatively with one pivotal card. They also lose out to a ton of opponents' effects. With that sort of selection of pros and cons...
1 Mycosynth Lattice
1 Nevinyrral's Disk
1 Arcum Dagsson
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Master Transmuter
1 Memnarch
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Academy Ruins
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
The thing with a budget build is that you end up having to get rid of some of the more expensive staples. I think for budget, though, you might want to go with more of the thievery build, ala Silenciaco's list. Which albeit has a lot more money cards, but you can gain something from the cheap, thievery-based cards. Not to direct people away from LordRewind's list, which also has plenty of good budget ideas, but a thievery build may be a slightly better option for budget.
Karn has similar issues to Sorin, but has more uses. It is a reasonable anti-hate choice.
Ugin... I have not thought much about besides "8 mana is way too much."
Yes... I'm good at this... I find Lili of the dork realms to be underwhelming most of the time; her first ability, ultimate, and numbers feel bad for a 4-mana walker... Original lili is a little underwhelming at times too, but less so in my book. New lili is... Interesting. I have yet to really evaluate her, though I am not adding her to Xiahou Dun. Lili of the veil is fantastic but pricey. Sorin and Ob Nix are rather high cost, but Sorin can at least have uses.
Depends on your curve. They are both good, but on a low curve, Crypt Ghast is much better.
Sadistic Sacrament deals with a lot of things in the early-game and can cripple players in the late-game. I find the card amazing. If you can first turn Sadistic Sacrament off of Dark Ritual to get rid of someone's graveyard hate and/or Iona, this will smooth the way for your mono-black deck in the future.
No problem. Glad to be of help.
To be fair, I don't like Increasing Ambition either... Demonic Collusion is reasonable, though. Fairly Odd Parents are awesome, and I do also like the new Minion Reflector in red.
In fact I have... Imagine that... The issue being that it will end up being more than 1 trigger; it's at least 1 trigger per land, assuming that you literally never shuffle your deck.
1 Grixis Panorama
1 Lonely Sandbar
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Temple of the False God
1 Vault of Whispers
1 Vivid Crag
1 Vivid Creek
1 Vivid Marsh
The artifact lands nombo with another card in the deck (Possibility Storm).
In addition to Ice Cave, you could consider In the Eye of Chaos, though it would contrast with Nether Void (thankfully, you generally don't need both of them out at the same time, anyways). A cheaper suggestion that could also be good is Cephalid Shrine, given the uniformity of a lot of EDH metas. You could also try Counterbalance and/or Invoke Prejudice.
I definitely gained 15-30 pounds in Freshman year... I think over the course of High School + College I gained about 100 pounds... I didn't have very much gin, though. I much preferred other liquors (Vodka, Rum) and a variety of liqueurs (Bailey's, Amaretto (which I now don't like as much)). And not a ton of pizza either, though there was a great pizza place just south of campus.
What sort of dancing? I did ballet for about a decade, and have also done some swing.
Your wallet was thanking you for playing MtG? Weird... Mine tends to cry about it.
In terms of card-by-card suggestions:
Cut:
Dimir House Guard
Liliana of the Dark Realms
Add:
Innocent Blood
Sadistic Sacrament
Crypt Ghast
Pia and Kiran Nalaar
Flameshadow Conjuring
Again, I like the idea of using it with Myr Battlesphere. It may be win-more, but I honestly don't even think that it particularly is; you can stack triggers so it works out in your favor.
I think the one question here is whether or not we pay for it for Norin, the answer being that it depends on what other shenanigans we have available. Thankfully, it is a may ability, so you can just ignore it if you don't feel like using it. Worse comes to worse, you just sac the token to the legendary rule and still get the extra ETB triggers. I've considered Strionic Resonator before, but doing it for R for each trigger is pretty fantastic. I think it's definitely at least worth testing if not deserving of a serious spot.
In other news, with the addition of Imperial Recruiter, I'm updating my wishboard. I'm thinking:
1 Incendiary Command
1 Chain Reaction
1 Blasphemous Act
1 Trash for Treasure
1 Apocalypse
1 Hellion Eruption
1 Pillage
1 Vandalblast
1 Tempt with Vengeance
I did not go to very many, if any, parties in freshman year.