MTG thread

Heylel

Heylel

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Ashiok is very hard to judge in a vacuum, so I'm withholding until I have a chance to play with it a couple of times. His -X is very powerful, so I understand why it takes some setup. Permanently stealing resources and denying them to your opponent is pretty strong stuff, and it isn't like Olivia where removing Ashiok will give it back to them. Besides, a -5 will get you a lot of great stuff.
 
Mist

Mist

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You're not really stealing resources since you're stealing cards they never got to draw. You might as well be stealing cards off the bottom of their deck.

That said, I still think this card could be good. It's a win condition on it's own, which is good for a 3 mana planeswalker. You have to defend the shit out of it though.

I see this as being best in like a BUG control deck that can defend it and ramp into Vraska to remove problem threats.
 
Enzee

Enzee

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Ashiok, in a vacuum, is horrible compared to other planeswalkers. The rule of thumb for how good they are on their own has been 'can it protect itself?'. Either by bouncing creatures, removing them or making dudes. It gets a little leeway for being cheaper than most at 3 mana, but not much.

That said, in the right deck, it could be a very powerful card. It desperately wants mill to be a real thing, but as Mist stated, in a control deck shell it's a win condition on it's own and cheap enough to be relevant.

Do I see it being a chase rare card that commands a high price? No. It'll be a $7-12 card since it's a mythic and a planeswalker, but it won't be much more than that barring some cards spoiled that make that kind of deck powerful.
 
Enzee

Enzee

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Oh.. I was going to say before I got sidetracked on the ashiok discussion. Fleecemane lion looks pretty ridiculous. I feel like that is, currently, going to be the highest value rare card in the set. It's a watchwolf on steroids, and W/G is already a thing.

I don't know, maybe I haven't been playing current standard enough and am missing some interaction. But, a 3/3 for 2 with upside just seems like it'll slot right into those W/G aggro decks. Simply playing and immediately turning it into a indestructible 4/4 with hexproof when drawn later is extremely relevant, even if it costs you a total of 7 mana to do so.

Interested in hearing from people who are good at limited, from what is spoiled so far, what looks the strongest in limited? I haven't been playing much since before Ravnica block, but my plan is to hit up the pre-release and release events for Theros and then drafting 2-3 times a week at the local game stores. I was very good at drafts when I played before, getting top 4 at the very least each week in 16+ person tournaments, often splitting finals with a friend, especially during Innistrad and Avacyn. So, I'm looking to rebuild my card pool through drafts for a few weeks.

My initial response is that mono color, with a smallish splash into a 2nd color, decks are going to be pretty strong, especially if you open a God (obviously). Green and blue seem strong so far, but a W/R aggro deck could steal a bunch of games from people. I'm not impressed with black yet, but they haven't spoiled too many commons and uncommons really. Normally, it's black's common removal that makes or breaks it in draft so thats up in the air.
 
Xalara

Xalara

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Mist_sl said:
Depends on the season. When sets are new, the sealed queues are filled with terribles.

Oh, yeah, the BEST EV EVENTS on MTGO are Release Event Sealed. Not Prerelease Sealed, those are awful, but the two weeks AFTER the prerelease are the best events. For 24 tix you get to play sealed with the new set, and you get 13 packs for 4-0, 8 packs for 3-1 and 3 packs for 2-2.

It's pretty easy to accumulate almost an entire playset of a set for free in the 2 weeks if you grind hardcore every night.
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Thank you for the advice. After playing a bunch of games and doing research it seems that, for my skill level, the limited queues that have the highest expected value for me are 4-pack sealed swiss and 4-3-2-2 draft. I want to move up to 8-4 drafts but I think I need to get much better at reading signals first. I will definitely be doing the release events when Theros comes out.

As for modern, my friend who lets me use his paper magic decks is trying to convince me to put together a Kiki Pod list for modern that we will share. Leaning towards no simply because it's $650 before the Tarmogoyfs, $400 of which is lands. So right now I'm not sure how I want to break into modern. You guys mentioned modern burn decks, got any sample deck lists for me to look at?

While going infinity would be nice, I'm mostly looking to minimize my costs while I work on getting better at magic.
 
Grabbit Allworth

Grabbit Allworth

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Had a really good Magic week. I won a Star City Open Trial on Thursday, a Star City Invitational Qualifier on Saturday, and a Star City Super Invitational Qualifier on Sunday. Guess I'll be going to both the Indy and Vegas.
 
Elerion

Elerion

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Grats! What formats were they? If constructed, what did you play?

I miss reading tournament reports. Loved that back when I played.
 
Heylel

Heylel

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Xalara_sl said:
As for modern, my friend who lets me use his paper magic decks is trying to convince me to put together a Kiki Pod list for modern that we will share. Leaning towards no simply because it's $650 before the Tarmogoyfs, $400 of which is lands. So right now I'm not sure how I want to break into modern. You guys mentioned modern burn decks, got any sample deck lists for me to look at?

While going infinity would be nice, I'm mostly looking to minimize my costs while I work on getting better at magic.
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Modern burn is inexpensive. Most of the Tron variations are fairly affordable, certainly moreso than KikiPod. I build MeliraPod to break into Modern, and while it wasn't cheap the biggest expense was the fetchlands, and those are basically a format staple. If you're going to play Modern any time in the next year or two, you'll have to suck it up and buy fetches for most decks. They won't see a reprint for at least a year, and that's if we're lucky.

Check out Tron. Urza lands are very easy to find because they were reprinted a ton of times, and there are mono-color variations that keep the land base in check.
 
Heylel

Heylel

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Btw, does anyone know if SCG accepts bulk sales at Opens? I'm headed to Atlanta this weekend and need to dump some commons.

edit: Damn, Grabbit! Well done! Sorry for not getting in touch when we were both at DragonCon. I was busy working the drinking horn booth in the dealer's all pretty much the whole weekend. Never even got to set foot in the gaming hall.
 
M

McShrimp

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Hello anybody! I haven't been on these forums for a long time, and its been even longer since I played Magic, but I'm looking to change both of those things. I'd frankly be a little surprised if anyone does remember me, but thats not really the point, just looking for a little advice.

Small background - me and my friends used to play Magic way back when, all the way from Revised through Kamigawa, with a few gaps. We used to do a draft/sealed when a new set came out, and for whatever reason after our Betrayers of Kamigawa draft, everyone just completely lost interest...right up until a couple months ago. Now we've been talking about running a small weekly draft or something. Nothing serious, and just like 4ish people, and really just looking to play by ourselves, not go join a local FNM or anything. But, I've only kept a passing interest in MtG the last 8+ years, so I'm very out of the loop, and have some questions if ya'll would be so kind.

1) What format would you guys recommend? Its probably just going to be 4 people the first time, and I was thinking a 3 pack draft, with 1 each of the last block, or 3 of the latest core set. I'm just nervous that 12 packs isnt a big enough card pool to make decent decks. And we dont really care about a set with good rares to chase or anything like that, just to put up some competitive decks against each other.

2) Can anyone give me a crash course or link on major rules changes? I get the gist of how Planeswalkers work, and I saw the recent change with Legendaries, but I know there were some rather big combat changes that I'm not up on. Combat damage no longer goes on the stack, but I thought there were other changes for assigning blockers and attacks in multi-player. Any other major functional changes?

3) One of the last things I bought was some boxes of Unhinged, and still have a few sealed ones left. Holy crap are those way more expensive than I thought, hooray for pretty lands I guess. What I'm looking to do is trade one box for current sets, and use those cards for drafts. Do you think I'd be out of line asking a card shop/website for 4 boxes of new product? I figure if they sell boxes for ~$100, and the Unhinged box is more like $400, so why not?

So yea, if anyone reads this and feels like taking the time, I'd appreciate it. Thanks!
 
Heylel

Heylel

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You won't sell Unhinged boxes to any shop for $400. Troll and Toad is buying them for $200, for instance. The value you get when you sell to a shop is generally around 40-60% of the value of what you're selling. In the case of Unhinged, the only thing of note are the lands, which happen to be around $5 each in trade value.

For the time period you say you played, you need to go through your old cards and find the money, then flip that into modern stuff if that's what you're interested in playing. Go digging around for Force of Will (Alliances), Wasteland (Tempest), and Sensei's Divining Top (Champions of Kamigawa). They're all uncommons, so if you bought a lot of product it's very likely you have them lying around in a box unless you sold a bunch of stuff when you first quit. NM Force of Wills can fetch $70-80 in trade value, Wastelands are around $60, and Tops are $18ish. And obviously dual lands are incredibly valuable now if you have any of them left.

If you ever intend to try playing Legacy format, don't sell ANY of that. You'll regret having to rebuy it at today's prices. However, if you have even a handful of the cards I listed above, you can trade them to other players for considerable profit, or sell them to a shop for about half of the values listed above.
 
B

businesscats_sl

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Thinking about rotation, would a deck based around this work?

  • 4xAdvent of the Wurm- 5/5 trample
  • 4xLoxodon Smiter- 4/4 uncounterable
  • 4xCelestial Archon- bestow, enchanted creature gets 4/4 flying first strike
  • 4xObservant Alseid- bestow, enchanted creature gets 2/2 vigilance
  • ??Phalanx Leader(maybe) - heroic, cast spells targeting Phalanx Leader, put 1/1 counter on each creature you control
  • 4xHeliod's Emissary- bestow, it/enchanted creature attack you tap creature opponent controls, enchanted creature gets 3/3
  • Spear of Heliod- creatures you control get 1/1
  • 2xDomri Rade- ultimate for emblem with creatures you control have double strike, trample, hexproof and haste
 
Mist

Mist

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The bestow cards look awful for constructed. Just play better 2 and 3 drops.
 
Mist

Mist

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McShrimp_sl said:
Hello anybody! I haven't been on these forums for a long time, and its been even longer since I played Magic, but I'm looking to change both of those things. I'd frankly be a little surprised if anyone does remember me, but thats not really the point, just looking for a little advice.

Small background - me and my friends used to play Magic way back when, all the way from Revised through Kamigawa, with a few gaps. We used to do a draft/sealed when a new set came out, and for whatever reason after our Betrayers of Kamigawa draft, everyone just completely lost interest...right up until a couple months ago. Now we've been talking about running a small weekly draft or something. Nothing serious, and just like 4ish people, and really just looking to play by ourselves, not go join a local FNM or anything. But, I've only kept a passing interest in MtG the last 8+ years, so I'm very out of the loop, and have some questions if ya'll would be so kind.

1) What format would you guys recommend? Its probably just going to be 4 people the first time, and I was thinking a 3 pack draft, with 1 each of the last block, or 3 of the latest core set. I'm just nervous that 12 packs isnt a big enough card pool to make decent decks. And we dont really care about a set with good rares to chase or anything like that, just to put up some competitive decks against each other.

2) Can anyone give me a crash course or link on major rules changes? I get the gist of how Planeswalkers work, and I saw the recent change with Legendaries, but I know there were some rather big combat changes that I'm not up on. Combat damage no longer goes on the stack, but I thought there were other changes for assigning blockers and attacks in multi-player. Any other major functional changes?

3) One of the last things I bought was some boxes of Unhinged, and still have a few sealed ones left. Holy crap are those way more expensive than I thought, hooray for pretty lands I guess. What I'm looking to do is trade one box for current sets, and use those cards for drafts. Do you think I'd be out of line asking a card shop/website for 4 boxes of new product? I figure if they sell boxes for ~$100, and the Unhinged box is more like $400, so why not?

So yea, if anyone reads this and feels like taking the time, I'd appreciate it. Thanks!
Click to expand...
You may be able to trade a box of out of print product to a store for in-print sets, similar value. This is because they get that in-print product for like $75 a box. So it's like them paying 300 for a box of Unhinged, which they can then sell out as packs or sell as a box or sell on ebay for 400.

They might not take the deal but you can always try. Trading with local stores is usually way more in your benefit than selling for cash.
 
Heylel

Heylel

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Even trading with someone like SCG has it's benefits if you take store credit. They usually give a significant bonus, something like 25% for credit. So you end up getting about 75% value.
 
Enzee

Enzee

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Heylel_sl said:
You won't sell Unhinged boxes to any shop for $400.
Click to expand...
Correct, but many vendors/stores give a bonus fortradewhich is what he wants to do. If they buy a fair amount of boxes for a new set, they are getting them as low as $50 and can always order more. They can't order more unhinged. It's entirely possible to find someone who would trade 4 boxes of dragon's maze for one unhinged. Alternatively, McShrimp, you want to ask for 1 ravnica, 1gatecrash, 1 dragon's maze and 1 m14 which would give you guys better drafts, as the current formats are either 1 of each pack from the recent block or 3 m14 packs. The m14 drafts get boring quick if you are relatively good/experienced. From the fact you guys used to draft, I'd recommend just doing a few m14 drafts to remind yourselves (1 box should be enough for just 4 of you. You'd get 3 drafts out of it.) Then, go to ravnica block, which is drafted in reverse order btw. So, you open dragon's maze first, then gatecrash, then return to ravnica. You'd get 9 drafts of that format in, and likely have better cards in the end.

If you wait a few more weeks, Theros will be out and it'd be even easier to get multiple boxes of that from a vendor. Especially if you do the trade now, which effectively pre-orders your boxes of Theros (online vendors love giving discounts for pre-orders, since they have time to just make their order bigger). I'd recommend checking with capefeargames.com. The owner, Heath, posts on mtgsalvation alot and is just a nice guy in general. Their prices are generally competitive, or better, then most other online sites. He also runs the largest bot network on MTGO and will swap credits/cards between real and online if you ever choose to do that. He doesn't do it from online to real cards, though.
 
Heylel

Heylel

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It's also worth pointing out that neither Gatecrash nor Dragon's Maze are very good packs to open. You might not care about value *now*, but MTG has a way of making people give a shit about that sort of thing the longer they play. They're fun sets, but competitively speaking they weren't well received and most of the cards in them are very cheap (shocklands and Voice of Resurgence notwithstanding).

Theros at least appears to have a more even spread of rare value, especially compared to Dragon's Maze where the only rare worth a damn is a mythic.
 
Enzee

Enzee

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Really? I thought DGM was the highest of the 3, considering it's a smaller set. RTR has 'more' higher dollar cards, but ratio-wise it has more junk rares versus $1+ rares, since it's a bigger set. At least, that's what I thought I read on the market forums on mtgsalvation a month or so ago. I.e. you get more +EV opening DGM then RTR or GTC.
 
Heylel

Heylel

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It's getting a tad better since Blood Baron is rising in popularity, but the only card to break $10 is Voice of Resurgence, which holds the vast amount of the set's value. Ral Zarek and Blood Baron hover just beneath $10, and then nothing else even breaks $5. It's a small set, but given that all 3 of those are mythics and there are no regular rares worth money, you basically have 4 packs per box that stand a chance of any value. The only non-mythic rares to even break $1 are Aetherling, Varolz and Advent of the Wurm.

Ravnica has shocks, Abrupt Decay and Deathrite Shaman all at rare and very good long term investments, plus a host of standard rares that are $5+. The money mythics are worth less (Jace and Revelation basically), but the rares overall are much better. It's a more balanced set.

There's kind of an amorphous ceiling to what any given set can be worth in totality, so generally a box from a set where the most expensive cards are lower, but there are more of them will give you better value. This is particularly true when there are legacy and modern staples in it. Shocks will be $20 again before too long.
 
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