MTG thread

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Punko

Macho Ma'am
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I loved the older Duels of the Planeswalkers games and wanted to get into Duels as it seemed to be the online MTG of the future. But it wasn't compatible with my iPad air (despite being ~ 1 year old at the time) and development for the PS4 got cancelled, so I guess they didn't really want my money. Glad I dodged a bullet there.

Its actually a very nice client with a decent amount of cards. Good for casual fun.
 

Warr

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Its actually a very nice client with a decent amount of cards. Good for casual fun.

I know. That's what made me so pissed about their strict requirements and limited platform releases. I feel like a good lightweight MTGO like the Duels platform could have given Hearthstone a run for its money if done properly. And now it's getting killed off.

why don't they just make mtgo 2.0 client instead of 50 spinoffs?

Well technically they are on 4.0 now I think? Each one being one step forward and 2 steps back than the last.

It all boils down to $$. The original dev team was pretty competent but they were external to WotC. To save money, WotC moved development in-house but they suck at anything digital. Even their website has become less and less useful over the years. So they keep on building layer after layer of crap and bad design on top of a dated design, and you get what you have today. There's no incentive for them to go back and invest in doing it right because it continues to just make money and that's all the suits care about. That's all how I understand it at least.

Now to be fair, the game as it exists in paper is incredibly complex with tons of possible back and forth interactions and weird rules that can break the game and can be near impossible to code for if it wasn't designed in from the start. That's why Duels worked. It was a simplified card set and captured the priority system in a way that made it a great introduction to the game.
 

Rime

<Donor>
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Massive Ixlan (Two expansions from now?) leak.

Dinosaur, Pirate, and Merfolk heavy tribal themes. My inner Timmy is stoked.
 

Enzee

Trakanon Raider
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I'm dubious. The 2nd leak sheet has that UB2 pirate guy that is worded like shit and causes a draw if he hits an empty battlefield. WoTC has done some dumb shit, but they've been in this game too long to print a single card that draws a game like that.
I'm guessing there may be a rules rework coming out prior to his release that makes that specific wording operate the same way Fairgrounds Warden/Fiend hunter's current wording does. I.e. it creates a separate trigger on the stack and he's just exiled forever if you target himself. The normal way they write it is very wordy, so they may be streamlining that portion of the rules to allow for more complex effects like his. Generally, if a creature exiled something, that's basically all it could do, other then maybe some keyword abilities like flying/first strike/etc.. With a shorter wording, you can do more stuff with it, such as this one allowing you to 'Gonti' the card as well.

Alternatively, since it's still very early, this may have been a test print run that is intended to catch these exact type of problems and it'll be fixed before the final print run. Like, it may have said 'another target' in the playtest files, but someone left it out accidentally when sending it to the printer.

The rest of it is too well done for me to think it's fake. Especially since we only just got the news the set is pirates and dinosaurs recently, then this came out following that exact theme. If it's fake, then whoever made these should get hired immediately by Wizards. They cranked out a bunch of perfectly on-theme cards, none of which look too busted or worthless, and invented multiple on-theme mechanics in the span of a few days.
 

Kuro

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
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This art makes me feel unsafe, please ban it from tournament magic and remove its MTGO account.

HourofGlory.png
 

Enzee

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wtf is that in the background, right side, in the sky? It looks somewhat like an eldrazi similar to Emrakul, but clearly not Emrakul herself.
 

Warr

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The pre-existing Gods in Amonkhet all had monuments to them. Snek God is getting offed (or getting a sensual back massage, I can't tell) in front of his.

Image.ashx
 
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Derpa

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The pre-existing Gods in Amonkhet all had monuments to them. Snek God is getting offed (or getting a sensual back massage, I can't tell) in front of his.

Image.ashx
No, he is quite dead. They released the story part where he get wrecked.
 

Enzee

Trakanon Raider
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The pre-existing Gods in Amonkhet all had monuments to them. Snek God is getting offed (or getting a sensual back massage, I can't tell) in front of his.
Yea, I knew they had monuments, it just looked way different. Guess it was just a different artist's style and new angle, but it didn't look like rhona's monument in the other art.

edit: disregard below.. I found the story. They haven't updated the link from the main HOU story page, but it's up if you go from the main page.
also, Derpa Derpa , did you read the 3rd part of the story? I went to the page, click the link, and it keeps going to a dead link. Figured they messed up putting it live and would check again tomorrow, but your post made it sound like it's up.
 
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Derpa

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Yea, I knew they had monuments, it just looked way different. Guess it was just a different artist's style and new angle, but it didn't look like rhona's monument in the other art.

edit: disregard below.. I found the story. They haven't updated the link from the main HOU story page, but it's up if you go from the main page.
also, Derpa Derpa , did you read the 3rd part of the story? I went to the page, click the link, and it keeps going to a dead link. Figured they messed up putting it live and would check again tomorrow, but your post made it sound like it's up.

Yea I read the 3rd part the other day, also shows it being up right now for me.
 

Enzee

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Yea, I normally go from the story archive page, the one that has each episode listed separately. It's just they didn't have the right link from there, but it was up on the main article page with everything.

and while I think rhonas died.. it wouldn't be impossible to remake him it seems. I wouldn't be surprised if Nissa figures out how to unmake/remake all the gods the same way Nicol Bolas controls them (the leylines)
 

Chris

Potato del Grande
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Talking about the story...

I think Bolas is ging to try and destroy Dominaria and therefore the multiverse (as it's the central plane or whyever timespiral needed to be stopped), but I can't figure out how 60 years worth of really good zombies is going to acheive it. Maybe he just needs enough zombies to fend off any planeswalkers who come to stop him channeling his plane destroying spell?

Looks like his meddling with New Phyrexia was the same as the Kaladesh meddling, he was just looking for technological civilisations who may have portals and Old Phyrexia actually did have them. Eldrazi meddling could have been a backup plan to destroy Dominaria in a different way, or just to keep other planeswalkers busy?
 

Enzee

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Talking about the story...

I think Bolas is ging to try and destroy Dominaria and therefore the multiverse (as it's the central plane or whyever timespiral needed to be stopped), but I can't figure out how 60 years worth of really good zombies is going to acheive it. Maybe he just needs enough zombies to fend off any planeswalkers who come to stop him channeling his plane destroying spell?

Looks like his meddling with New Phyrexia was the same as the Kaladesh meddling, he was just looking for technological civilisations who may have portals and Old Phyrexia actually did have them. Eldrazi meddling could have been a backup plan to destroy Dominaria in a different way, or just to keep other planeswalkers busy?
Close, but Nicol Bolas is trying to re-achieve 'Godhood' status. He might destroy a plane to suck it's power, but he wouldn't want to destroy the entire multiverse unless he's remaking it in the process. He's not an anarchist that wants to burn it all down, he wants total control over everything. Needs to have people worshiping his magnificence.

The 'zombies' can all have magic too. You got your foot soldier cannon fodder to overwhelm any standing armies if he needs to invade. You got your dead mages that have minor magic still. The Eternals that are super powerful zombies. Then, at the top he's got his zombie gods like the Locust/Scorpion/Scarab gods. Etc.. he has many types of soldiers now, the zombie ones are completely under his control, and then he has 'allies' like Razaketh, Tezzeret, etc.. that he's coerced into doing his bidding.

If he needs to invade or takeover something, he doesn't want to spend his own magic and do it himself. He can just send his super friends army of zombies, gods, demons, etc.. to do it and only show up himself when he really has to. Without some planar portals, though, he couldn't send them from plane to plane so easily. Now, he could even potentially go to war with Phyrexia, depending if he's figured out an immunity to the plague. This army is potentially strong enough if Phyrexia isn't absorbing them into their ranks as they fight. Pretty sure the 3 gods of devastation are stronger then anything Phyrexia has put together so far, including the 5 praetors (?). With the exception of Karn, but he got freed from them.

Honestly, I'm guessing Nicol Bolas isn't going to be defeated any time soon, and it'll take someone like Karn showing back up before the gatewatch even has a chance. I'm also guessing the story is going to be Ajani finding Karn (and others) and he joins the gatewatch after helping them 'defeat' Bolas, weakening but not killing him. In any case, I bet we don't see too much more of Bolas until the Dominaria set. Ixalan is going to be some of the gatewatch members being scolded by Ajani ('told you so!') after their defeat and splitting up to search for more allies to take him on. They said they were going to step back from all the members being in every set, they felt they over did it on that for the last two years.

In any case, the story for amonkhet has been great imo. I really dig what they've done with Bolas, and the fact he punks the Gatewatch after they thought they were so untouchable beating the eldrazi is amazing.
 

Heylel

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It's probably an "undo the Mending, just for me" plot or something. They all got depowered becaused of the Mending on Dominaria, so I'm betting the theory is breaking Dominaria will undo it.
 

Kuro

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Urza's Decapitated Head Pops Up: "Nobody cataclysms Dominaria but me, Bolas!"