MTG thread

Heylel

Heylel

Trakanon Raider
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Oh yeah, I remember seeing you. The same Merfolk player tried to sneak by your Engineered Plague with his True-Name Nemesis. I had just finished my match and was watching yours, and I caught him glancing at it beneath your Liliana before he played into it. He was hoping you wouldn't notice because of the Brainstorm mistake. I nearly got up to notify a judge but you noticed it at the last minute.

I ended up leaving before Top 8 but I'm not surprised you did well. You were really well positioned against that field. The matches I lost were winnable, but also against decks that I had very little experience with. It's given me some ideas where to tweak my list for next time.
 
Xalara

Xalara

Golden Squire
826
81
Managed to 4-0 a draft for the first time on Saturday doing UW heroic. Pack one was rough, there was a Bow of Nylea, but seven other really good green cards so I decided to take a Keepsake Gorgon since I figured even if I took the Bow of Nylea I would be cut off hard in green. Turns out I was right, then when I saw Wingsteed Riders being passed to me on the third and fourth picks I dove right into white.
 
Grabbit Allworth

Grabbit Allworth

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
1,806
7,463
Heylel_sl said:
Oh yeah, I remember seeing you. The same Merfolk player tried to sneak by your Engineered Plague with his True-Name Nemesis. I had just finished my match and was watching yours, and I caught him glancing at it beneath your Liliana before he played into it. He was hoping you wouldn't notice because of the Brainstorm mistake. I nearly got up to notify a judge but you noticed it at the last minute.

I ended up leaving before Top 8 but I'm not surprised you did well. You were really well positioned against that field. The matches I lost were winnable, but also against decks that I had very little experience with. It's given me some ideas where to tweak my list for next time.
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Ya, the Merfolk guy was very sketchy. He kept me off-balance our entire match because I was trying to focus on my game while trying to make sure he wasn't cheating me. And in the True-Name situation, he did get away with it. My Plague was 3/4 of the way under Liliana and I forgot it was in play so he resolved the True-Name and left it play a turn or two until I Deluged the True-Name away (when I shouldn't have had to). The Brainstorm situation was him just looking to freeroll me because he wasn't likely winning. There weren't any extra cards drawn or anything (just forgot to resolve the trigger first), he was just hoping I had received a warning previously so he get snag a game loss if I had a previous warning.

Merfolk is typically not a good match up for BUG. Islandwalk is rough. Post board I try to configure my deck to just be a B/G deck splashing U. May not be right, but it works for me.

You should PM or post a picture to help me remember who you were. I'm sure I saw you.
 
Heylel

Heylel

Trakanon Raider
3,602
430
I'm totally apathetic about standard right now, but supposed to head to FNM tonight. Honestly, if I drop quick and just play pick up eternal games or commander and get a little trading done I'll be happy.

I need to cobble something together quickly. My Thassas are on loan so mono-blue is out, and frankly I don't want to play devotion or esper at all. I'm thinking either GB aggro or UW control just for something novel.
 
Heylel

Heylel

Trakanon Raider
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430
For Standard? Yeah. I built one but it feels like it is missing something. Gaze of Granite is insufficient as a sweeper and it doesn't have the lifegain of Esper to stretch the game out. Prophet of Kruphix is pretty cool, but we don't have poweful ETB triggers to abuse anymore like Thragtusk and Resto Angel, so a creature based control strategy is harder.

I ended up playing green devotion last night. It was pretty fun, but I got stomped twice by mono-U. Neither one was much of a match and I had very bad hands, mulliganing to 6 and 5 almost every game in those two matches.
 
Enzee

Enzee

Trakanon Raider
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715
Where are you guys located exactly? I'm in NW arkansas, and you've been talking about going to tournaments that aren't too far away from me.
 
Burren

Burren

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
4,597
6,226
How do you stand playing against people who try to pull that bullshit? It's a god-damn game and they just blatantly cheat like that, multiple times? I'd do everything in my power to get them kicked out for that crap.
 
Heylel

Heylel

Trakanon Raider
3,602
430
They do it pretty subtly at times, and they usually know the rules better than the average player. For instance, I just realized earlier that the same Merfolk guy misused Umezawa's Jitte versus me. I'm new to Legacy, and while I've encountered Jitte in streams I've never actually played vs. it so I didn't have the best grasp on all 3 abilities. He had a Jitte attached to a TNN, and a Merfolk lord in play as well. When I specifically asked him "so you can pump any creature, not just the one its attached to?" he said yes, and we played it that way for several turns. It's my fault because I should have just read the card more carefully, but technically by the rules your opponent cannot mislead you on a card's effects or falsely answer a question about information that he has to provide (life total, for instance). I have no doubt he knew exactly how Jitte worked. This was the same guy giving me grief over having my graveyard disorganized once it was around 30 cards and I had been recurring several items over and over. He just allowed me to continue believing the card worked the way he said when in fact, the one ability Jitte cannot use on other targets is the +2/+2 for the turn.

I didn't even notice until I read Jitte more closely today while building out a buy order. Now I know.
 
Xalara

Xalara

Golden Squire
826
81
Unfortunately, because of the way the rules for Magic are written, there is almost zero leeway for judges to punish players based on that kind of crap. Whereas in other sports refs have tools for dealing with crap like that. I mean look how long it took Alex Bertoncini to get banned initially.
 
Chickenpants

Chickenpants

N00b
193
0
I know Grabbit is playing in the Invitational in Vegas (Good luck!). Is anyone else planning to be there this weekend? I've made plans with a friend to travel out for the Open assuming I70 is open through the mountains. I'm just wondering who I can grab a consolation drink with after 0-2 dropping both days!
 
Heylel

Heylel

Trakanon Raider
3,602
430
I'd love to go play in Vegas but it's out of my budget I'm afraid. I'll probably be sticking to local events until next year. Luckily, I think the Atlanta GP is fairly early in the schedule.

Gonna go play $5 modern tonight. I've had MeliraPod built for ages but I haven't played it in months. It's a truly excellent, fun deck but it also demands a lot of attention and I'm not sure I remember it well enough. That, and there's a pretty large number of Tron decks at the local shop. I'm thinking about trying out Mangara as an out to Karn, Emrakul etc.
 
Burren

Burren

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Heylel_sl said:
I'd love to go play in Vegas but it's out of my budget I'm afraid. I'll probably be sticking to local events until next year. Luckily, I think the Atlanta GP is fairly early in the schedule.

Gonna go play $5 modern tonight. I've had MeliraPod built for ages but I haven't played it in months. It's a truly excellent, fun deck but it also demands a lot of attention and I'm not sure I remember it well enough. That, and there's a pretty large number of Tron decks at the local shop. I'm thinking about trying out Mangara as an out to Karn, Emrakul etc.
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Is there, by chance, a list of what these deck names means? I'm not familiar with the titles you're giving them, but very curious about the makeup of them.
 
Arbitrary

Arbitrary

Tranny Chaser
30,816
87,046
Mangara is probably Death and Taxes, Emrakul is probably Sneak and Show, Pod is Pod with that elf chick that prevents counters from being put on stuff, and no idea on what Tron or Karn are exactly.
 
Budos

Budos

Golden Knight of the Realm
593
10
Burren_sl said:
Is there, by chance, a list of what these deck names means? I'm not familiar with the titles you're giving them, but very curious about the makeup of them.
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www.mtgtop8.com

Search the deck name and it will pop up. For the better decks you'll probably want to look at 3-Star and the big single star events.
 
Heylel

Heylel

Trakanon Raider
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430
Burren_sl said:
Is there, by chance, a list of what these deck names means? I'm not familiar with the titles you're giving them, but very curious about the makeup of them.
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MeliraPod is a Birthing Pod deck, of which there are a couple variations. It uses Melira, Sylvok Outcast alongside Kitchen Finks and a sac outlet to gain infinite life, or Murderous Redcap to deal infinite damage. That's the most boiled down combo in the deck, but there are several others (Spike Feeder/Archangel of Thune is another). It's a toolbox built around Birthing Pod, which is a "fixed" Survival of the Fittest. It's still borderline broken because it's a reusable tutor, so you build the deck to ensure that you have answers at every casting cost and can always find a way to help your board state. KikiPod is the other major Pod deck. It uses Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker alongside Deceiver Exarch to make infinite clones. The Pod is there to set up the combo quickly. It's arguably the more powerful deck, but is also less reliable and packs fewer answers.

Tron is any deck that tries to use the old Urza lands to gain a huge mana advantage and start casting giant creatures at you. Usually Emrakul, Sundering Titan or Wurmcoil Engine. Red/Green Tron is the most powerful version of that deck, but also the least interactive in that it's entire game plan revolves around building a ton of mana and then casting Karn, Liberated or Emrakul. It really doesn't care about what you're doing before that. There's also blue Tron, which delays with counters and bounce until it can kill you with a Wurmcoil Engine or just lock you out of your turns with Mindslaver and Academy Ruins, and other variants like white/blue Tron that play around with Gifts Ungiven.

The easiest way to learn the modern archetypes is go to a site like mtgsalvation.com and browse the Proven and Established sub-forums. There are primers for lots of different decks.

edit: I had no idea until today just how many FNM promos were available for Pod cards. Looks like I have a new goal to work towards.
 
Burren

Burren

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Heylel_sl said:
MeliraPod is a Birthing Pod deck, of which there are a couple variations. It uses Melira, Sylvok Outcast alongside Kitchen Finks and a sac outlet to gain infinite life, or Murderous Redcap to deal infinite damage. That's the most boiled down combo in the deck, but there are several others (Spike Feeder/Archangel of Thune is another). It's a toolbox built around Birthing Pod, which is a "fixed" Survival of the Fittest. It's still borderline broken because it's a reusable tutor, so you build the deck to ensure that you have answers at every casting cost and can always find a way to help your board state. KikiPod is the other major Pod deck. It uses Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker alongside Deceiver Exarch to make infinite clones. The Pod is there to set up the combo quickly. It's arguably the more powerful deck, but is also less reliable and packs fewer answers.

Tron is any deck that tries to use the old Urza lands to gain a huge mana advantage and start casting giant creatures at you. Usually Emrakul, Sundering Titan or Wurmcoil Engine. Red/Green Tron is the most powerful version of that deck, but also the least interactive in that it's entire game plan revolves around building a ton of mana and then casting Karn, Liberated or Emrakul. It really doesn't care about what you're doing before that. There's also blue Tron, which delays with counters and bounce until it can kill you with a Wurmcoil Engine or just lock you out of your turns with Mindslaver and Academy Ruins, and other variants like white/blue Tron that play around with Gifts Ungiven.

The easiest way to learn the modern archetypes is go to a site like mtgsalvation.com and browse the Proven and Established sub-forums. There are primers for lots of different decks.

edit: I had no idea until today just how many FNM promos were available for Pod cards. Looks like I have a new goal to work towards.
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Very hand info, thanks. Are these generally modern tournament decks, or legacy? You mentioned Urza lands and those are really old. Were they remade?
 
Sterling

Sterling

El Presidente
13,139
8,110
Burren_sl said:
Very hand info, thanks. Are these generally modern tournament decks, or legacy? You mentioned Urza lands and those are really old. Were they remade?
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Urza lands have been reprinted a bunch of times, most recently in 9th Edition.
 
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