MTG thread

Cracked the one box of MM I got, did a 4 man sealed with the box. Its a nice format.

Got a Kiki, Kokusho, and a Ryusei for the mythics. sucks cause I have all of them, but it could have been worse. In a few hours will hear if I can get any more boxes at $200 a piece.

Only one goyf has been opened at my LGS, and I think two Confidants and one Clique. Seen pretty much every dragon at this point. I think I'm up to 4 of em myself.

Annoyingly, I have yet to see a Blinkmoth or a Ravager.

Further to my last post this is what I used at FNM and won my first two games going 2-2. I'm not very experienced yet as I've been playing Standard for a month so I made lots of mistakes in the 2 games I lost, I also had some bad draws in the final game. I feel like I played well and got average draws on the two I won:

Lands (23):
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Clifftop Retreat
10 Plains
4 Mountain
1 Slayers Stronghold

One Mana (16):
4 Boros Elite
4 Champion of the Parish
4 Doomed Traveller
4 Dryad Militant

Two Mana (12):
3 Nearheath Pilgrim
3 Gather the Townsfolk
3 Boros Charm
3 Madcap Skills

Three Mana (9):
3 Silverblade Paladin
3 Boros Reckoner
3 Rally the Peasants

Click to expand...

The aim was to just be as quick and agressive as possible and use damage multipliers like double strike with pump abilities and spells to hit for unexpected massive damage early on. I think the power level of some of the cards could be better though. Nearheath Pilgrim and Gather the Townsfolk are a little too defensive for this strategy, I got some impressive lifetotals with pumped lifelinked doublestrikers but it didn't help me win the game, I've never really been happy with the 2 mana creatures. Champion of the Parish and Boros Elite are amazing but I don't think that any colour has more than 2 spectacular one mana creatures, is having creatures from two colours for a set of 4 great cheap creatures viable?

My current work is the following:

Lands (23):
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Clifftop Retreat
9 Plains
4 Mountain
2 Slayers Stronghold

One Mana (16):
4 Boros Elite
4 Champion of the Parish
4 Doomed Traveller
4 Dryad Militant

Two Mana (10):
4 Daring Skyjek
3 Boros Charm
3 Madcap Skills

Three Mana (9):
3 Silverblade Paladin
3 Boros Reckoner
3 Rally the Peasants

Four Mana (2):
2 Spark Trooper

Click to expand...

Daring SkyjekandSpark Trooperare the two I am not sure about as I haven't used them before. There are lots of other options in these positions so I would appreciate some advice! My next step is to have a look at the stats of how much damage each card can do and perhaps look at the distribution and playability of pump spells at two and three mana (am I really going to use Boros Charm on Turn 2?).

Nearheath is a sideboard card. You put it in vs. other aggro decks so that you can race them on life totals. I'd also consider Stromkirk Noble over Dryad Militant. Militant slightly hoses a few decks (mostly reanimator), but right now you HAVE to lead off with white on your first turn. A turn 1 Stromkirk is pretty brutal, especially if you Madcap it. Skyjek should really be Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, and then keep the number of non-creature spells to a minimum. Thalia will win games on her own by buying you that extra turn before they can sweep your creatures or get their big spells online. For a four drop, use Hellrider. There's nothing better in these colors at closing out a game.

Went to a Modern Masters draft this afternoon. I got nuked in the first round by a mirror strategy (faeries), but on the plus side I managed to draft a Dark Confidant and a Blinkmoth Nexus, more than doubling the value of my entry fee. Round 1 I got stuck at 2 lands until it was pretty much over, then round 2 I flooded. Meanwhile, a turn 3 Mind Grind vs. my opponent only succeeded in snagging 4 lands off the top, so it actually helped him. If he hadn't had that happen I might have actually managed to take that one.

I'll take my consolation Bob, though. No sweat on that one.

Decided against a box since I dithered too long to get one at $185. Used the credit I had at the shop I don't play at for a pack though. Feels odd to be sad when you crack a Blood Moon and two random three dollar cards in one pack.

The store I play at now is running some goofy shit later this month. Sealed using leftover Dragon's Maze guild packs from the pre-release event plus one pack of MM for $40. More than 16 entrants will put first place winning a full box of MM so gonna give that a shot. Then I can open my 24 Auriok Salvagers and be sad.

After winning FNM and getting more packs, I opened a Ryusei.

Friend and I opened up 3 boxes we got at MSRP, splitting the middle one. 1 box (the one we split) was super lucky, with goyf, foil ravager, elspeth, cryptic command, doubling season, and a solid amount of the ~10 dollar rares. 1 box was fairly average, with a sword, kokusho, clique, and decent amount of 10$ rares. 3rd box (his) felt a bit worse than average with a dark confidant and a shit dragon and only a couple of the good rares. Overall, I think opening these at MSRP is a no brainer. I wouldn't pay more than 200 though, as the odds are so heavily against you at that point. People paying 250+ for them and then cracking packs are crazy imo, as its just giving money away.

Just did a draft and was kinda forced into almost Mono Black Control (with some White Control) which was a bit shit. 3rd pack had a Tarmogoyf though! Amazingly I had enough Vivid Plains/Swamp and paradise Mantle to cast it when I drew it every other game. Won 1, Lost 2.

What is the best thing to do with it?
eBay UK has a "buy it now" for ?75 ($115) as the cheapest.

Tarmogoyf is pretty weak in limited. I had one in the draft I did and only sided it in against the Dampen Thought deck I played against where I had sided in like all my creatures and some extra lands instead of my removal.

Yeah it was OK, especially since I had discard so there was always a Land etc in the GY - it got pretty big and turned a few games in my favour but nothing spectacular.

Of the three Modern Masters drafts I did, I went giants twice and thallid/suspend once. For whatever reason giants didn't work out at all but thalkid/suspend was fairly effective. That said in all three drafts it was rebels that were winning everything.

Kind of sucks that unless I buy a box I won't be able to draft anymore since most stores just want to sell them/crack for singles instead of run events with them.

Oh yeah I also managed to get milled on turn six once yesterday. That hurt a lot.

I'd love to find a place that would sell boxes for less than 250per

My thallids deck went 2-2, losing twice to rebels. Basically I'd win each game I drew Engineered explosives and lose the other 2. I think with more practice, rebels would be more heavily drafted, but the guys I was playing against had sick cards. 2-3 of the relevant rebels, with 3 of the "fetch a rebel card" and 1-2 of the rebel can't attack/block enchantment were tough to push through. I feel like I know what I'm doing a LOT better now that I understand how the various archetypes function and what are super good cards for are each. Unfortunately, not sure how many more drafts I'll have.. a couple private with tiny stakes and maybe 1 more at a game store.

While some game stores did get a LOT of product, right now the ones that were smart about tracking down a bunch don't seem eager to come down below 250 which is absurd.

Prices will come down, especially as the prices of the cards themselves devalue and the initial frenzy is over. I wouldn't be surprised to see a box sitting around $225-$240 in the next few months.

The boxes will rise again before next Modern season. Keep in mind that this is the lowest Modern demand we get all year, and even so a couple of the new art cards are fetching prices above the originals (Dark Confidant in particular). You'll see a drop in prices short term, but if MM does its job and spurs demand in the Modern format, which is appears to be doing quite well, then the number of people after those cards will push demand back up despite any increase in availability. Price memory should take care of the rest as far as keeping values high. I am not at all worried about any of the packs I've opened. I just hope there are still some left for me to win next week.

Yay 2-1-1 at FNM, about 8th out of 32. I'm getting better!

Are the rules different on MTG Online? The guy I drew to kept casting instants during all parts of combat. I assign blockers, he casts Advent of the Wurm or that angel with Flash and blocks. I assign combat damage and he flashes the angle in which flickers a creature to save the one I put the damage onto. I knew he was doing this and specifically checked he was done during each phase so it's not like he was saying "before you assign attackers I'll...". I'm sure this was not possible on MTG Online, you could only block with things on the board before attackers were declared, you could only cast instants to save or kill creatures before combat damage was assigned. The local judge apparently said it was fine.

That is all possible on MTGO when you have stops from passing priority during each phase of the combat step.