MTG thread

Heylel

Heylel

Trakanon Raider
3,602
430
Judged an IQ yesterday and now that the GW Devotion cat is out of the bag it is fucking miserable. It was a smallish turnout (28 i think) so 5 rounds. We kept it humming all day and had the top 8 started in under 5 hours. 3 Mastery of the Unseen decks made the semi-finals, which proceeded to take 3 hours on their own. It's awful.
 
zzeris

zzeris

The Real Benny Johnson
<Gold Donor>
21,258
93,025
Mastery of the Unseen is disgusting. As Craig Wescoe points out, it can fit into many different decks and just stomps a lot of strats. I'm using his Abzan variant(small changes) especially with ultimate price coming back.
 
Vaclav

Vaclav

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
12,650
877
Started screwing with MTGO again some after some time off - destroying people in Fate Reforged Sealed - up to 1789 limited now only really doing Sealed in like a week. Ridiculous rating for Sealed. [Feels like I'm doing much worse though - wonder if it's just me being harsh on myself for the losses or if the K-Rating is screwy]
 
Heylel

Heylel

Trakanon Raider
3,602
430
New judge foils are up. Ravages of War is getting a reprint and actually looks pretty nice in the new border.
 
T

Taloo_sl

shitlord
742
2
So how did folks do at the pre-release? We had five. I took down the midnight with 38 or so folks. Scrubbed out and took 5th Sat. Skipped the 4th to sleep and took 5th in 2HG. Pulled a Sarkhan and a few other decent cards. My 1st place paid for my other entries and store credit from my 5th places put me up $20 not counting what I opened. Ojutai so good in sealed.

Had never played 2HG before. Not a big fan. Really like the DTK limited format though.
 
Kuro

Kuro

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
9,415
25,388
Had a pretty off pre-release weekend, 4 64+ player events, didn't make prize in any of them. Played a total of 5 rares I opened over the events. Sat at the same pack-crackin' table as 6 Narset opens (1 foil). Still had some pretty solid pools despite frequent lack of bombs in what is supposedly a bomb-rich environment
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The black Rakshasha Zombie Spawner is an Elite Scaleguard level pain in the ass
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You win some, you lose some. Wasn't all bad-luck, I also severely underestimated the strength and speed of the Dash decks, and the silly advantage engines of Silumgar. Atarka jobbed all weekend, each of the tournaments was won by a Kologhan or Silumgar deck. So my Atarka and Dromoka pre-regs were digging my own grave
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Necrath Evilcraft

Necrath Evilcraft

Golden Knight of the Realm
576
146
I went 5-0 at a 24 person tourney saturday. Rakdos Dash was pretty obscene when you have a Warbringer and 7 other good dashers. I only played one rare and didn't even play my promo. Opened a Narset in my pool as well. All in all a good day for myself.

The highlight was in game two of the final round I attacked for 13 on turn 4. It was sickeningly awesome.
 
Arbitrary

Arbitrary

Tranny Chaser
30,819
87,058
The format was definitely faster than I was expecting it to be and I have a feeling that drafts are going to yield some pretty tooth-filled decks. The event I was at also saw Atarka do the J-O-B all night including a very hilarious Atarka versus Atarka match that ended in a draw. It couldn't even beat itself.

I picked Silumgar but the black was pathetic. The packs yielded the U/W elder dragon and Anafenza so I ended up U/W with some decent removal and fliers galore and had a really good time.
 
T

Taloo_sl

shitlord
742
2
W/X won most of our events. UW is what I won with. Ojutai, negates, pacifisms, and 1/3 and 1/4 flyers with a few meh midrangey creatures and a couple +2/+2 rebound and pro X rebound. Won a game off the monk enchantment as well since I ran 10 spells. Other winners were WG, WG, WB, and B/X and ?/? in 2HG. Didn't see what they played tbh. Little salty about 2HG losses. G3 we tapped out to draw last CIH counter. We were holding negate and knew they had Ugin AND Sorin but had cards to deal with either. Guy topdecks the board clone we didn't know about and gets 5 creatures. Stabilize the next turn and lost to double topdeck of the only cards in each deck that saved them from followup lethal a few turns later >.<. Lost G4 because I'm retarded and threw my creatures under the bus losing ferocious for followup biorythm and lethal. Completely forgot you needed ferocious to activate. Only true mistake I made all weekend though so not too bad. Only played because a newer player needed a partner so I ended up making both decks and making all the decisions since he didn't offer input for fear of making a mistake.

Had a good time though. Wish 1H giant was a format. Really enjoyed building two terrible stand alone decks that were amazing when played together. Never trying to do five sealed in one weekend again though. Too old for that shit I need sleep these days.
 
Chickenpants

Chickenpants

N00b
193
0
I'm just over the seeded booster pack thing. Played 2 pre-release tournaments. First tournament, pick Kolaghan. Go BR finish 4-1. Second tournament, Kolaghan is sold out. End up with Atarka. BR is still the best combo, scrub out. The green support cards in the seeded pack were useless. I'd rather just have a regular booster pack and figure it out from there. If some people can't have the choice that they actually want, it's probably better just not to give choices and remove the feel bads from that. And before someone comes back with the "get preregistered earlier for a better choice;" if it wasn't me getting to select what I want it would've been someone else.

I also miss the pre-release being just straight up sealed 6 packs of the upcoming set. Do I really want another pack of Fate Reforged? The fun part of the prerelease is getting to play with new cards. And lastly the prize support for the tournaments I went to was pretty weak. The undefeated players (5 rounds and 4 rounds respectively) got 8 packs and 10 packs respectively. It's worthwhile if you do that well, but it drops WAY off after that. Back when I was your age (Urza's Legacy prerelease through Onslaught), the winner of a 32 player flight (so 5-0) would get a sealed box and the top 8 would all receive significant prize as well. I know that's all on the TOs here and I've seen several other attendees talk about better prize support. I'm not sure what support Wizards gives to TOs when you have a ton of people that want to play in every tournament.

Maybe I've just become disillusioned by the whole thing. I'm already annoyed that they've gone from 1 promo to 5 to 40. I've already ducked out of going to the midnight tournament because my brain turns to goo well before the last round of that. I may be done with it altogether though and just spend the tournament entry fees on another box or something.
 
Arbitrary

Arbitrary

Tranny Chaser
30,819
87,058
A box of Dragons is 93 dollars with free shipping or 2.59 per pack. If you are paying 30 (or more) for a prerelease event it's pretty easy to come out behind.
 
T

Taloo_sl

shitlord
742
2
Chickenpants_sl said:
I'm just over the seeded booster pack thing. Played 2 pre-release tournaments. First tournament, pick Kolaghan. Go BR finish 4-1. Second tournament, Kolaghan is sold out. End up with Atarka. BR is still the best combo, scrub out. The green support cards in the seeded pack were useless. I'd rather just have a regular booster pack and figure it out from there. If some people can't have the choice that they actually want, it's probably better just not to give choices and remove the feel bads from that. And before someone comes back with the "get preregistered earlier for a better choice;" if it wasn't me getting to select what I want it would've been someone else.

I also miss the pre-release being just straight up sealed 6 packs of the upcoming set. Do I really want another pack of Fate Reforged? The fun part of the prerelease is getting to play with new cards. And lastly the prize support for the tournaments I went to was pretty weak. The undefeated players (5 rounds and 4 rounds respectively) got 8 packs and 10 packs respectively. It's worthwhile if you do that well, but it drops WAY off after that. Back when I was your age (Urza's Legacy prerelease through Onslaught), the winner of a 32 player flight (so 5-0) would get a sealed box and the top 8 would all receive significant prize as well. I know that's all on the TOs here and I've seen several other attendees talk about better prize support. I'm not sure what support Wizards gives to TOs when you have a ton of people that want to play in every tournament.

Maybe I've just become disillusioned by the whole thing. I'm already annoyed that they've gone from 1 promo to 5 to 40. I've already ducked out of going to the midnight tournament because my brain turns to goo well before the last round of that. I may be done with it altogether though and just spend the tournament entry fees on another box or something.
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Sounds like an issue with your LGS on the payout. I do agree on seeded boosters however. I'm absolutely not a fan. The UW seeded booster was fucking insane.

The midnight I won was 24 packs 1st 16 2nd and payed out down to half the field. I always take credit myself but they pay out so much by their last pre-release folks who want boosters get rain checks for the following week because they never have enough product even with max allotment. This time around they held five total events starting at $30 and going down $5 for every event after that. So $20 per if you played in all 5. I won't pay more than $25 for a sealed event unless there is absolutely MASSIVE prize support. $30 for the prizes you describe would have me telling a store to go fuck themselves.
 
Chickenpants

Chickenpants

N00b
193
0
The first tournament was $30. Had 3 packs added to the prize pool per player. We had 54 players, so a total of 162 packs. It was 5 rounds total with round 4 being a pack round. Everyone who won that round got a pack. At the end of the tournament, anyone who was 5-0 got 8 packs and then they paid out 4 packs to each other finisher until they ran out. Ended up 4-1 (won the pack round) so get the sealed deck plus 5 booster packs. Roughly break even. It's easy to be salty about coming in 6ht and not walking away with much but the person in 30somethingth place that walked away with the same prize was probably pretty stoked.

Second tournament was $25 with 2 packs per player. Tournament was 21 players (last one at that LGS) with 2 packs in the pool per player. Half the packs were split by the 4-0s (ended up being 2 at 4-0). The other half were split by the 3-1s. And this place had a stipulation where each winner had to take at least 1 FRF pack as part of their prize (rain checks??? HA!).

I don't think there were really any better choices of prize support around town and there were at least 10 LGS in the greater Denver area running tournaments. My tournament choices were based on convenience anyway. Saturday morning started early. Never thought there would be over 50 nerds that want to play tournament starting at 9am. Most of the time I hear complaints of tournaments starting at noon. Why so early?!?! Sunday was the LGS closer to a buddy and that was the only one he was able to play.

So it is what it is. I feel like I've lost enthusiasm with each one and I'm pretty sure I tell myself that I won't do another prerelease after each one. Sooo let's look forward to the Magic Origins prerelease together!
 
Kuro

Kuro

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
9,415
25,388
Seeded packs are garbage and increase the ease of getting away with cheating at pre-release, because it becomes considerably more "plausible" for you to have 3-4 of key cards for your color, because of the seeded pack. Beyond that, color-imbalance bullshit, and the fact that if you open stronger cards in your non-seeded colors, your seeded pack is just dead pulls.

Much prefered straight booster packs, and a guaranteed promo you couldn't play in your deck, but that wasn't some $0.10 Bulk Rare. Hell, I prefered Starter Decks for sealed, since they reduced the amount of duplicate cards significantly, with only having 1 potential common dupe in the whole starter. None of this "I opened 4 Aven Skirmisher, ugh" VS "I opened 4 Aerie Bowman wheeee" bullshit.

But apparently focus groups lurv seeded packs, so they aren't going anywhere.
 
Grabbit Allworth

Grabbit Allworth

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
1,806
7,463
Leaving for the Invitational in the morning and sticking with Abzan control. I still feel like the deck is well positioned with the upgrades of Duress, Dromoka's Command, Ultimate Price, and Dragonlord Dromoka. The first three cards are obvious. The Dragonlord is definitely spicy but I think it's good enough.
 
drtyrm

drtyrm

Lord Nagafen Raider
1,991
155
I think Abzan is a good pick for this first week as you are playing a deck full of known, strong spells. Post your list if you get some time, I need something for FNM this week.
 
drtyrm

drtyrm

Lord Nagafen Raider
1,991
155
It's straight value, fits perfectly into Abzan lists. My Rhino fights your guy + sac your Courser or Outpost Siege. Sounds awesome.
 
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