MTG thread

My buddy and I decided to get back into Magic a couple months ago. Bought Some RTR block stuff (mostly Dragonsmaze) and a bit of M14. Otherwise I haven't played since Mirage/Visions and he hasn't played since 9th edition-ish.

There were no such things as foil cards when I played, my info on foil cards comes from him and he told me there is one foily rare in each box. So far that has been true for us since our return to the game (though we haven't really opened many boxes). Tonight we just opened a box each of Theros. He got 3 foil rares and I got 2. Was he wrong about the 'one per box' thing? He seemed very surprised. I figured you all would know better than him though.

PS. That was a fun box for me: 3 planeswalkers, 1 God, 1 Thoughtseize, and 1 of each weapon sans the red one. I have to work in the morning but we'll build some limited decks later tomorrow.

Damn, bought a box earlier today, pretty good pull, 2x thoughtseize, couple gods, every weapon, mistcutter, stormbreath dragon. Only one of the dual lands though which, eh.

Went to play FNM tonight, 3 packs pulled a foil Elspeth, and another thoughtseize. Way better than my core 14 pull which was absolute garbage minus one Garruk. This loud mouth faggot clockwise to me mocked me for passing an ashen rider to him out of the same pack I got the foil. I really wanted to just smear it in his face. Definitely best I've gotten since my first ravnica box.

Going to wait a week and then flip them and get my hydra playset for gruul.

Had a good box as well that paid for itself with a foil Polurankos, World Eater, Thought seize, Stormbreath Dragon, and a few gods. Unfortunately my sealed is going terrible. Oh well.

Punko_sl said:

Last time I played Loam I was on D&T, 1st turn mom, 2nd turn phyrexian revoker on his mox and the game seemed to end for the loam deck at that point. We both had very low mana but D&T just destroyed it. Loam is expensive for what is a T1.5 deck at best, imo.

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It is, but nothing in it is especially pricey that I won't play elsewhere. All the value is in duals, Wastelands, Confidants, Karakas, etc. The closest to a one-deck card in it is Burning Wish. There's no one playing D&T at my local shop, so I haven't had that matchup yet. I could definitely see Revoker being a problem, but I also don't think I'd scoop to it right away. I'd at least try to Wish for a Massacre to stabilize, but that's a serious clock to deal with.

I've played a fair bit vs. RWU Delver, Painter, Merfolk and Shardless BUG so far and none of them felt unwinnable. I don't know if it's the person playing it or the way it interacts, but Painter has been an especially good match-up. I don't mind it nearly as much as fucking Charbelcher. RWU has been the most difficult "fair" deck what with all the Stifles and countermagic, but it's really only a major threat with a first turn Delver.

I won't pretend to know Legacy well enough to really state for certain what belongs in which tier, but it's a deck I've definitely enjoyed playing and seems to hold its own for me. I seriously considered building D&T myself, but I felt like the cards in it were a little more specific to that one deck (especially Rishadan Port and multiple Karakas). Loam let me snag some things I also use in Modern, like bob and burnwillows.

As for Dredge, I'm mostly just snagging cards here and there to put a second deck together. We're gradually getting a legacy group together at our local, which is only about a year old. It's nice to have extra decks that are wildly different from Standard to show people the format.

Sealed ended on a high note last night as my prize pack had a Thoughtseize in it. I then traded two Elspeth's for two Thoughtseizes to complete my play set. Yay

Elspeth is valued at $5 more than Thoughtseize but she is likely to go below Thoughtseize in the future so I figured it was a good trade. Plus the deck I am building will likely want Thoughtseize and I'm not planning on a white deck that uses Elspeth in the near term.

Most of the top tier decks will incorporate thoughtseizes. The card is just to good for controlling a game. Any person keeping a hand because they got one great card will be very disappointed with this block and quickly realize that they need to keep the average hands that play well to start.

Yeah, I preordered my Thoughtseizes and they aren't going anywhere. If I pull extras I'll swap em, but I am never planning to drop below 4. They're just too useful for every format.

I do with the Lorwyn ones would drop further to a comparable price point. I really dislike the new artwork compared to the original.

Any thoughts on which decks will be big with the new set?

I've just committed to a G/W Hexproof deck which didn't cost all that much and it's been doing well on Cockatrice, I figure that they will keep printing auras this year and Doom Blade will keep on killing them.

I know it's how things tend to always start in a fresh format but aggro strategies look very good. Green and White have some scary little dudes to turn sideways and I'm kinda scared that Jackal Pup has shown back up again with a bunch of playable burn spells.

Aggro is always strong to start because it's (generally) the most obvious strategy. It takes a little while for a format to stabilize enough that a control deck can tailor itself to win regularly. That being said, control and midrange look very powerful. RWB basically plays like the new Jund, swapping Blood Baron for Thragtusk and gaining even better hand disruption. Azorius and Esper both seem functional, and even Grixis might be a thing.

I'm leaning towards Domri Monsters because it's what I ended up trading into this week, but it's by no mean certain. If I can score a set of Ashiok I might go for Esper. I've got a couple weeks to figure it out. In the meantime, I managed to buy two of the duals for my legacy deck pretty cheap today. 2 down, 4 to go.

Punko_sl said:

I don't quite get how shardless keeps doing so well.

Just today I played in an 8 person legacy event, and of course I got matched against painter/grindstone in the last game. I had a shot with tin fins but lost the 3rd game to ensnaring bridge. That deck will destroy shardless bug, same as werewolf stompy would.

On the draw shardless can mull to a force, otherwise it is possible to see ancient tomb or city of traitors + simian spirit guide for first turn bloodmoon, and thats about when shardless scoops .. Lose the die roll and you pretty much lose the game. First turn chalice on 1 is bad also. Grixis delver has a good shot against the bloodmoon decks, but probably scoops to chalice on 1.

Guess I'll go back to bug control with at least a few basics, or D&T, unless I can come up with some other deck that doesn't just lose to that shit.

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In a word, match-ups.

That and some of those unfair decks are like 75-80% in Game 1, but get wrecked in 2 and 3 due to info and sideboard plans. And there are just some cards that Shardless loses to if they resolve. Bloodmoon happens to be one of those cards. Either I FoW, Thoughtseize, (going sketchy here) Liliana discard, or JTMS fate seal it. Beyond a completely unbalanced board state, it's gg. The good thing is, most days you won't see it much and the decks that have it, have to draw it, and then resolve it.

Legacy is a lot like rock, paper, scissors. I don't have nearly enough experience with it recently to be able to give you a run-down, but in the current meta it's pretty strong. The decks that appeal to me are Shardless BUG, Death and Taxes, and UWR Delver. I have almost all the cards for each and am still trying to decide which to play despite having spent $3,000 this week.

*Standard*

I'm sticking with G/B "Rock" control. It lost some HUGE cards in Liliana of the Veil, Thragtusk, and Mutilate (no replacement yet) but I am softening the blow somewhat with Thoughtseize and Gray Merchant. I have a feeling that card (Gray Merchant) is going to be ridiculous despite being undervalued in everything but limited. I played 3 main deck in FNM yesterday and wrecked people with it all night.

I'm trying to put together a reanimator style deck for standard, see this for the current deck list:http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/discardination-1/. This is my first time doing something like this rather than net decking so it's fun. I'm not the most satisfied with some of my choices, so if any of you have suggestions/feedback it'd be appreciated

A lot of people are trying to force reanimator, but I'm not sure if it can survive as a true archetype. Whip is very powerful, but it's more of a value thing than an engine of it's own. It's pretty backbreaking with Obzedat, I know that.

I thought about trying to go with a Rock deck too, but scry lands are honestly pretty strong and not having access to one hurts it relative to other controlling strategies. It does have Dese Demon, Lifebane Zombie and Thoughtseize though, which goddamn...

Grabbit Allworth_sl said:

Legacy is a lot like rock, paper, scissors. I don't have nearly enough experience with it recently to be able to give you a run-down, but in the current meta it's pretty strong. The decks that appeal to me are Shardless BUG, Death and Taxes, and UWR Delver. I have almost all the cards for each and am still trying to decide which to play despite having spent $3,000 this week.

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Of the three, I think D&T is the most reliable. I don't really care for the game plan of Shardless, and while RWU Delver is very powerful it's also incredibly straightforward. Stick a Delver turn 1, back it with counters and Stifles to stall until you ride him to victory. It's kinda boring, honestly.

I still need a playset of Karakas to finish D&T.

There aren't a whole lot of cards in standard that scare me as a B/G player, but Blood Baron is effectively an autoloss when he resolves. He worries me enough that I am considering running 2x Boon Saytr in the board just to answer him. It's not a bad card for a couple other match ups as well.

Blood Baron is going to be *everywhere*. BRW midrange is very powerful, and it hinges a lot on Baron as a stabilizer. One of the big reasons I like Domri Monsters right now is because Ember Swallower stacks up so well vs. Blood Baron, Mortars and Helix, while also running Mortars itself.

If I had my way I'd be playing Esper, but tracking down Ashiok is going to be difficult.

Heylel_sl said:

A lot of people are trying to force reanimator, but I'm not sure if it can survive as a true archetype. Whip is very powerful, but it's more of a value thing than an engine of it's own. It's pretty backbreaking with Obzedat, I know that.

I thought about trying to go with a Rock deck too, but scry lands are honestly pretty strong and not having access to one hurts it relative to other controlling strategies. It does have Dese Demon, Lifebane Zombie and Thoughtseize though, which goddamn...

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Well one of the key things about the deck is that I'm trying to make it so that even if the whip isn't out on the field I can still get value from the graveyard. We'll see what happens. Some kind of BUG or BU flash deck could be fun, too.