MTG Salvation

Grevax grabbed Nilt's extended hand, allowing him to help Grevax get back on his feet. He thanked him sincerely for his help, then turned to the bandit. "I think we can get him to talk." he murmured. Though Grevax had not been through a herculean ordeal, he felt... different. He couldn't quite put his finger on it yet, but he knew that the truth he had been hiding from his whole life was beginning to come undone.

They dragged the bandit back to the tent. The bandit snarled insults at the two, but his threats were ignored. Eventually he fell silent, eyes glaring at the two; eyes filled with anger but also a tinge of fear and uncertainty at his fate. They took him to the cages from the earlier performance and locked him inside. Grevax grabbed a wooden chair and set it outside of the cage. "Tell me everything you know" he stated. The bandit glared at him through the metal bars, but his gaze was the only message he was going to send. Grevax grabbed the bars and shook the cage, mirroring how the earlier events had shaken his mind's cage as well. "ANSWER ME!" he shouted. Grevax's anger blinded him for now, masking the fear he felt from the attack. He joined the circus to escape the fears he had felt all his life, yet they still managed to follow him. The bandit's eyes grew hard as granite as his brow furrowed and his eyes narrowed. He was the one locked in the cage, yet the circus freak was the one losing control? A small smile touched his lips. Grevax was infuriated. He reached deep inside to cast a spell on the thug, yet blue mana wasn't the only kind he found...

Grevax, the Haunted Mirror UB
Legendary Creature — Human Wizard [R]
Skulk
1UU: Return Grevax, the Haunted Mirror to its owner's hand, then create a token that's a copy of it.
1B: Target creature token gains deathtouch until end of turn.
2/2

(Experience Points post-level up: 1)

Unending Nightmare 1B
Enchantment — Aura [U]
Enchant creature
Whenever enchanted creature becomes tapped, its controller loses 2 life.
U: Tap enchanted creature.
Some nightmares cannot be awoken from.

If you're still short, put me on the list.

Reincarnate 1GG
Sorcery [R]
Return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield, except it's a land instead of its other types. It has "t: Add G to your mana pool" for as long as it's a land.

IIW: Small yet free effects

Grevax drew power from a nearby library, hoping to find the power necessary to finish casting his spell.

Apprentice's Study
Land [U]
t: Add C to your mana pool.
Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, you may pay 1. If you do, scry 1.
Every archmage has to start somewhere.

Paradoxical Soverign 3UB
Creature — Sphinx [M]
Flying
Each creature you control assigns combat damage equal to the absolute value of its power. (If your creature's power is negative, it assigns combat damage as though its power wasn't negative.)
1U: Another target creature gets -2/-0 until end of turn.
1B: Paradoxical Soverign gets -2/-0 until end of turn.
It is the night with no dawn, the tale with no end, the riddle with no answer.
-2/6

The rule is that your playmat cannot contain strategic information. If you asked a judge what the steps/phases in a turn were, they'd be happy to tell you, even in the middle of a match. This is no different.

Also, as long as you are not seeking to sell the playmat, I don't believe that there would be an issue with you producing such a playmat.

Sorry, I've been very busy with holiday ordeals. Brackets are up now.

Quote from Colt47 »

From my perspective I never really made a sweeping claim, but a statement that reflects the feelings of the time.

That sounds like you're shifting words around to change the connotation of what you're saying without really effecting its definition. Let me put it objectively: you believe that MTG is withering, and that the NWO is a primary source of that, no? Yet you've done nothing to convince anyone that you are correct about MTG dying, much less NWO being harmful to the game.

Quote from Colt47 »

A common complaint from store owners is that it's really hard to sell uncommon and common cards on the second hand market because of how they designed the sets right now and given the weakness of the market and the long term impact of mythic rarity on costs, it seems like a good a time as any to take a look at the design decisions that brought us to where we are today with magic.

My store owner says that it's super easy to sell ccmmons. He sells Smoldering Efreets for a hundred bucks each and people line up at the front door to buy them. Oh wait, I'm completely lying. Do you know what our statements have in common? They have no evidence. (Anecdotal Fallacy)

Quote from Colt47 »

My own feeling is that Wizards designers need to close the power gap between common and mythic as well as increase the number of mythics per box, even if it does increase the cost on rares.

This is a reasonable point. Now back it up with argument as to why this should be (why is it bad that mythics are so powerful? why is it bad that commons are so weak?).

Quote from Colt47 »

The last few sets have proven that the designers have a hard time avoiding printing a card that both shows what a set is about and acts as a means to encourage pack openings, and it took them adding inventions and expeditions to the boxes to get enough opened just to keep Gideon, Ally of Zendikar from rocking a price closer to Liliana, Heretical Healer. Right now with NWO they can boost the strength of commons and uncommons, but because they have to keep the cards mechanics limited to a subset of what is available, that also makes budget builds very linear in nature. Just about all budget aggro decks in standard over the last few years are made up of the strongest commons and uncommons, lead by a spritz of two or three leading rares, with the mana base being the most expensive component overall. Meanwhile, any other build like UW flash requires way deeper pockets because the only cards that support those mechanics are printed at rare and above. That and they really aren't helping new players out by simplifying the commons and uncommons in standard. Those new players are still going to butt heads with players that have more complex cards. Delirium is a pretty good example of a mechanic that just doesn't have the support it needs at the lower rung. Flash is also lacking good cards at those rarities as the best cards for that deck are basically Torrential Gearhulk, Archangel Avacyn, and the regular culprits of Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, Selfless Spirit, and the like.

This has nothing to do with the NWO. The NWO is about reducing complexity for commons and uncommons. Complexity is not the same thing as power. Delver of Secrets is a card that was so powerful that it saw extensive play in literally every format it was legal in. It also was a simple common. What the NWO is trying to do is make the game easier to learn.

Quote from Legend »

I'd like to petition for a point here in light of Remand, Dissolve, Dismiss, and Swift Silence. I normally wouldn't do so, but in this case the point would advance me to the next round without bumping anyone out. So please consider it. Thanks.

Personally, I would have given you a balance score of 1/3. In most contexts, your card is a Remand for twice the mana cost, with the two exceptions being when they play two spells in one turn (generally speaking a corner case), and being able to return uncounterable spells (again, a corner case generally speaking). Also, if you double the mana cost of a reactive card such as a counterspell, you more than double the opportunity cost of such a card, meaning your card is many magnitudes weaker. This is just my input as a peer judge, and Moss's decision on the matter is final.

At risk of usurping the MCC's natural order, I decided to judge Necarg's bracket and put the second round of the MCC up. You can find my judgments in the thread for the first round of the MCC.

Quote from DudeFromDenmark »

Sorry for the stupid question but how does someone open a HOU booster pack and find lands from a future set? I´m not buying the whole "Wizards is doing it on purpose" thing but this just seems weird

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity...

First item of business: Judge Sign up for June is here. The first round will be up this afternoon.

Second: You all deserve an apology, and I'm sorry. Here's the short version of why I didn't finish my judging in april,

• My computer was having a lot of issues which have now been fixed (by getting a new computer.)
• I had one of my worst depressive episodes to date in late April and early May.
• Finals Month is hellish, like for many.

Still, it isn't much of an excuse, and I should have still finished my judging then, and I am deeply sorry.

June's MCC will begin today in about 8 hours, and it will have us exploring both Bolas's created plane and the multiverse wide battles of Commander!

Maybe the requirement could be changed from "only appeared" to "first appeared"?

FINALLY, after 11 years the mystery of Ixidron's home plane has been revealed!

Before the event, rest well, eat well, etc. and be there early. This way, you'll be mentally at your best. Also eat and drink something during the event to replenish your energy and remain sharp.

Familiarize yourself with the new cards beforehand (unless you want that all-fresh surprise feeling of opening and playing with the newest never-seen-before cards).

Bring your own basic lands. While the organizer will provide those for everyone, it saves time and trouble to have your own right at hand. And you won't have to sort them out of your pool after the event either.

Bring a fresh pack of sleeves. Some people prefer to play with unleeved cards, but in my personal experience, sleeved cards can be shuffled better, and you won't damage any valuable cards you may get.

During matches (after you've finished your own), visit other tables and watch other peple play. You get a better feeling of what cards are out there and what kind of decks are around. Check your pool for possible answers for matchups against those. And people love to talk about their cards, decks and games. Get involved. You may learn something.

Two-colored decks are the norm, sometimes a splash of a third color is possible if you happen to have the nessessary color fixing. Don't splash cards with heavy color commitments to that third color, even just a double colored cost of that color is most likely too much. Splash for bombs and powerful late game cards only.

Don't try to squeeze in every rare you get, you will never succeed. Accept the fact, that sometimes even bombs can only watch from the sidelines. Instead be happy if you can play about half of them.

Don't get too absorbed in reading every card you get. Just sort them by color (or some other mehtod to your liking) without looking first and the sizes of the piles will tell you which colors are not likely to make it. Except the rares, those are worth reading right away. As soon as you know which colors you won't play leave the rest of the cards in that pile, no reason to read them now, you can do that later when you have time. Focus on getting a good first draft of your deck, and if you have time, you can look for splashes. But having a solid first deck is more important than trying to get the best possible one and failing due to time restrains. Remember, you have a time limit for building your deck, and you need to sleeve and shuffle it, too.

Keep to 40 cards with about 17 lands. 16 or 18 can be fine as well, but 17 is usually the right number. And don't despair if your deck is slightly bigger than 40 cards. 41 or even 42 is perfectly fine unless you are super competitive. It just means, there is still room for improvement, and you can tune the deck later during the event. But you need a solid deck for your first match.

This guy should have been in theros...

Wow... I want the Aftermath mechanic to Never//Return.

"Tell me, Mr. Anderson. What good is a phone call if you are unable to speak?"

Yeah, the embalm token isn't creepy or anything...

I don't need a dozen announcements for the 25th anniversary, I need just one: "for this anniversary, we've decided to finally let go of the reserved list for the health and future of the game."

Wrong thread again? I swear this thing just keeps coming back to me, gotta lay of that tinfoil hat...