MTG?

[shapenaji]

Actually, let me organize it this way, because the color combinations in there are going to force a lot of colors to my left. I'm just going to put a range for each pick.

Kuldotha Flamefiend (1-3)
Spine of Ish Sah (3-5)
Viridian Corrupter (1-3, but I hate being in green, the pack needs to be terrible otherwise)
Piston Sledge (1-3, amazing card, sac engine of choice)
Fangren Marauder (2-5, great card, and I grab them all the time, but I wouldn't go to green for it)
Spread the Sickness (2-4)
Phyrexian Rager (meh, 4-6, it's good, but it's in perfect removal range)
Blightwidow (2-4, I avoid blightwidows, they're great, but usually you're fighting like 3-4 people for infect)
Burn the Impure (1-2, this forces me red in a lot of games, short of an amazing rare)
Blisterstick Shaman (4-6, great, but it won't force the person to my left red, so I can usually let it go for a bit)
Morbid Plunder (5-9, good card, but almost always better ways to get into black)
Divine Offering (5-9, I splash these)
Leonin Skyhunter (4-8, eh, if there's room)
Ichor Wellspring (2-6, disclaimer: I will pick these up on 2 if the pack otherwise sucks, usually I get them 4-5)

[Violence]

Rager's a dude, AND a card. Ichor Wellspring sits around until you draw a card to make it into something other than a 2:cycle this piece of garbage.

Rager blocks a Contagious Nim, and you draw off of it. It's NUTS.

Does your Ichor Wellspring block an infect creatures? Naw, didn't think so.

2/2 + card > Silly burn spell.

Also, I've ran 3 colors, and still splashed for Fangren. It's just too good.

Blightwidows don't need to be in an infect deck, just by themselves, they shut down the flier aggro deck. No more 2/2's or 3/3's hitting you each turn. It's like how Giant Spider was insane in M11, Blightwidow is insane in this format.



Also, Solch, I've only been playing for a year, and as such, I've only been collecting for a year. I barely recognize Lotus and Tormod's Crypt.

[jts]

To those of you with old cards which are Legacy staples, like Wasteland, it's definitely a good time to get rid of them. Legacy Tournaments are getting more and more popular, and the prices for cards are skyrocketing.

What are the logistics of selling cards? (As in, do you know how people mail them?)

[Jordus]

I played forever ago... had a plains oriented deck... I lost it when when I moved a couple years back though... I barely remember anything about the game now.

[shapenaji]

Rager's a dude, AND a card. Ichor Wellspring sits around until you draw a card to make it into something other than a 2:cycle this piece of garbage.

Rager blocks a Contagious Nim, and you draw off of it. It's NUTS.

Does your Ichor Wellspring block an infect creatures? Naw, didn't think so.

2/2 + card > Silly burn spell.

Also, I've ran 3 colors, and still splashed for Fangren. It's just too good.

Blightwidows don't need to be in an infect deck, just by themselves, they shut down the flier aggro deck. No more 2/2's or 3/3's hitting you each turn. It's like how Giant Spider was insane in M11, Blightwidow is insane in this format.



Also, Solch, I've only been playing for a year, and as such, I've only been collecting for a year. I barely recognize Lotus and Tormod's Crypt.

Blightwidows don't NEED to be in infect, but if I'm just grabbing them as a blocker, I'd really rather pick something else. (Had an amazing infect deck, brutally fast, got me to the finals of the 8-4, only to lose to certarchs and tumbles, it's kind've turned me off to these guys, and pushed me in a removal-heavy techy direction)

(2/2 + card) / (3 mana) vs ((Lightning bolt to a creature) + 0.5*(lightning bolt to a player))/(2 mana)

I'd say the latter wins hands down

My wellspring re-equips my sledge, cycles, regenerates my slasher, proliferates, grabs me another card through a glint hawk, gives me goblin tokens, nets me card draw when I have artifact removal and I'm facing a deck sans artifacts, gives me a solid, difficult to remove artifact for metalcraft.... vs your puny little 2/2 beatstick

And strictly speaking, there's nothing wrong with a 2-cycle in draft... I've never missed the finals though with a sledge, at least 1 wellspring and a burn the impure (and a mortarpod, god those are amazing)

[rubin427]

Did the bulk of my playing in 3rd and 4th edition. When was that? 1994?

At the comic shop I played at, you were required to HATE Atogs (because of the infinite combo). If you opened a shiny new pack of cards and got an Atog, the owner would let you use his staple gun so you crucify this abomination of a card on the "wall of Atogs". There must have been 400 or so Atogs stapled into directly to the drywall.

Oh man. Memories.

[voice1]

Wow, that's ridiculous.

I've played semi-competitively for about a year now(I still don't have a playset of Jace, and I don't think I ever will).

And really, being a Go player makes Magic a lot easier. I make less mistakes, I can see mistakes more easily, and the path to improvement is really quite straightforward, imo.

I also just stare blankly whenever people tell me how hard Magic can be and how there are so many different possible plays at many different junctures.

Because I know better.

I love it when people say that magic is really hard, it's mostly luck of the draw. How is that hard?

[shapenaji]

Wow, that's ridiculous.

I've played semi-competitively for about a year now(I still don't have a playset of Jace, and I don't think I ever will).

And really, being a Go player makes Magic a lot easier. I make less mistakes, I can see mistakes more easily, and the path to improvement is really quite straightforward, imo.

I also just stare blankly whenever people tell me how hard Magic can be and how there are so many different possible plays at many different junctures.

Because I know better.

I love it when people say that magic is really hard, it's mostly luck of the draw. How is that hard?

Well, no, not really, magic is still a skill game. For one, you can adjust the luck of the draw to your heart's content. Backgammon is a skill game too, and that's even more random.

[Marcus]

The skill part of the game makes it interesting ... How to manage the resources you have under the constraints of the general rules and the more specific format being played.

I resurrected my old MTGO account last night (CullingTheMarcus) and gave a few drafts a try. I need to get a bit better. I lost in the 2nd round of an 8-4 draft because I suck at making picks (though using Forgemaster to fetch Blightsteel Colossus really goes a long way with a poor pool). I ended the night winning a 4-3-2-2 draft (admittedly not as competitive) on the back of a strong blue pool (Consecrated Sphinx is insane!) with decent red removal. I still think my picks were probably well below par compared to any decently competitive regular drafter.

[Violence]

Consecrated Sphinx, and Blightsteel Colossus, AND Forgemaster?

Jeez... That's pretty awesome.

And all you need blightwidow to do is just buy time. For Dinos, once you hit 6, you slam Fangren Marauder, and good luck to anyone who can kill you through it(except infect). Once you hit 7, you slam a Quilled or Engulfing Slagwurm, and just bring more beats.

The name of the game is stall and removal. While Burn the Impure is a decent removal spell, snapping up a Phyrexian Rager for the card advantage is usually just what you need in dinos, a 2/2 dude to buy time and replaces itself.

Considering that 2 for 1's are hard to come by in this format, and Burn the Impure is a 1 for 1 removal, albeit a decent one, I usually grab the Rager.

[shapenaji]

Ripped a Tezzy the other day, didn't know what to do with it, people to my left and right were in black and blue respectively, I couldn't hold the colors and get the artifacts I needed...

Tezzy alone covered my next two drafts, so I wasn't that worried, but it's an interesting question, how do you draft with that kind of a bomb?

You need solid artifacts to make him useful, but you also need to fight for blue-black

[Violence]

I saw someone draft Tezz and take it to the top. Basically, pick blue/black picks as you normally would, and when you can't, just pick an artifact. It doesn't matter if it's an Auriok Replica, a Vector Asp, or a Golden Urn, as long as it's an artifact. Don't value artifacts higher just because you need them, you need to clamp down on the signals, or abandon the Tezz ship.

You then go blue black good stuff, with a slew of the least janky artifacts you can find.

I lost to that deck with a White/Black card advantage brew.




So Jhirad, I drafted UW Fliers recently, and I'm far from impressed with the archetype. I know you prefer WR Metal Aggro, so have you tried UW Fliers? I had 3 Glint Hawks, 3 Leonin Skyhunters, 2 Glint Hawk Idols, a Serum Raker, 2 Sky Eel Schools, and a Gust Skimmer.

I just couldn't get there. Strandwalkers, Acid Web Spiders, Walls of Tanglecord, and Blightwidows are just the bane of my existence. I won on the back of Scrappy Serpent, but when I don't draw him, I just get wrecked by a Tyrannax.

Why didn't I just draft Dinos... All I need is like, a Culling Dais and things like Volition Reins and Corrupted Conscience don't even do much.

[shapenaji]

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of the fliers, usually I prefer to just get glint hawks, glint hawk idols and bladed pinions. And then figure I'm covered if they have fliers/

Though, I have played stuff like that as long as I had a number of "wrenches" to throw. Quicksilver Geyser, Certarch, Neurok Replica, Rust Tick, etc...

grabbing a red trigon doesn't hurt either

[MountainGo]

I played in endless limited tournaments and online drafts for the Mirrodin, Kamigawa and Ravnica blocks, and finally Time Spiral (just the first set). Then I discovered go, and it was hard not to choose KGS for free over Magic for hundreds of dollars and counting.

fun fact: My username is a reference to Magic red decks.

[Violence]

Really@MountainGo?

I always wondered about that...

So I lost to a Tezz deck the other day, with a pretty dece poison deck.

Soo many 5/5's... He just turtled up behind 5/5's and then ultimated me a few times.