RB's Magic the Gathering Thread!

[Cheater Hater]

I know that, but the numbers still don't make any sense--remember, Innistrad only had one mythic (and Dark Ascension had two), so for there to be five mythics with a similar scale (and they don't have one or two commons in half the packs), something like half the set would have to DFC's (which clearly isn't a good idea). I think Wizards somehow figured out how to print DFC's without all the economic infeasibility, and draft is just going to have to deal with it

I don't think Arashin Foremost is that bad--Double Strike is a good ability, and it's even better with Chief of the Edge. The problem is that I have no clue what else goes in the BW Warriors shell--or if it isn't just better to get a critical mass of Double Strike creatures (Aven Sunstriker seems okay, for instance) and try to go off with Become Immense.

Hm, I don't know then. I don't actually know how all the printing stuff works; was just passing on what I'd heard.

I mostly just want Arashin Foremost for a casual Warriors deck. Even from my incredibly limited knowledge/experience of the current Standard, I don't think WB Warriors is a viable deck. It would need multiple new strong cards in Dragons for that (actually, it needs Theros block to rotate).

No, what Warriors needs is for block to become a relevant format again

I don't know; I feel like my BR warriors take is fine, even though it feels like it's really two decks: a BW warriors deck and a RWb tokens deck. I really should make that tokens deck, though--you have a bunch of insanely good token makers (Dragon Fodder, Raise the Alarm, Hordeling Outburst, and maybe even Triplicate Spirits), Goblin Rabblemaster and/or Monastery Mentor for more tokens, Soulfire Grandmaster to recur token-makers, a wealth of finishers (Purphoros, Brutal Hordechief, original Kolaghan, maybe even Harsh Sustenance), the best removal selection in the format, Outpost Siege (with a great second mode), and the ability to sideboard into the Mardu Midrange threats (Stormbreath Dragon, old Sarkhan, Elspeth, Butcher). Seriously, this deck seems really good!

[TheHumanHydra]

If you do make it, let us know how it does!

This might be the first set I buy a box of (though I'm sure I would have bought a box of Innistrad a few years ago if I had felt it a wise use of my then more limited funds, given how much I loved that set). Really liking it so far (obviously not from a purely competitive standpoint). (Fun fact: there was more text in parentheses in this post than there was not. )

[Cheater Hater]

My second article got published yesterday, I just forgot to post it here. It's a deep dive on Tempest Remastered's commons, and a look into the tough design decisions that can go into designing one of these sets. It's really design-heavy, and a bit narrow--as such, it's not getting as much attention as my last one (no debate on the mythics to worry about). Of course, next week's article is going to be on Modern Masters 2, and thus should get some more attention (and it's mostly done to boot--the main thing left is to cut it down a bit, since it's around 3000 words right now. It might get split into two parts as well).

As for normal sets, my new Standard love is a GWb +1/+1 counters aggro deck I love:

Code:

2 Inspiring Call
1 Den Protector
4 Avatar of the Resolute
2 Abzan Ascendancy
2 Abzan Charm
2 Ajani Steadfast
2 Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
2 Gleam of Authority
4 Dromoka's Command
4 Warden of the First Tree
4 Soldier of the Pantheon
2 High Sentinels of Arashin
4 Fleecemane Lion
4 Sandsteppe Citadel
4 Windswept Heath
5 Forest
3 Plains
2 Llanowar Wastes
2 Caves of Koilos
2 Temple of Plenty
2 Mana Confluence
1 Dragonlord Dromoka
SB: 2 Display of Dominance
SB: 3 Mastery of the Unseen
SB: 1 Ajani Steadfast
SB: 3 Ainok Survivalist
SB: 1 Gleam of Authority
SB: 2 Radiant Purge
SB: 1 Abzan Charm
SB: 1 Dragonlord Dromoka
SB: 1 Inspiring Call

Obviously Dromoka's Command is insane (Hunt the Weak for GW is probably good enough, and the other moods are great as well), but the card that's a surprise hit is Inspiring Call--tying Rootborn Defenses to a draw spell is great. The biggest problem with this deck is the mana unfortunately--it has W and G 1-drops, and WW, GG, and GW 2-drops, which is hard to balance, especially considering the main untapped duals (Windswept Heath) aren't good for going W->GG or vice-versa. I also don't like having Soldier of the Pantheon with Dromoka's Command, but it feels like that's the second-best 2-drop (other than Warden).

My other deck I've been trying is a Temur Assault Formation deck:

Code:

4 Prophetic Flamespeaker
4 Become Immense
3 Assault Formation
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Courser of Kruphix
1 Shape the Sands
3 Satyr Wayfinder
3 Commune with the Gods
1 Outpost Siege
1 Nylea, God of the Hunt
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Temple of Abandon
4 Forest
3 Mountain
4 Savage Knuckleblade
3 Treasure Cruise
2 Evolving Wilds
2 Island
1 Shivan Reef
2 Yavimaya Coast
3 Frontier Bivouac
1 Stormbreath Dragon
SB: 2 Outpost Siege
SB: 1 Shaman of the Great Hunt
SB: 1 Assault Formation
SB: 1 Dragon-Style Twins
SB: 2 Stormbreath Dragon
SB: 2 Rending Volley
SB: 3 Display of Dominance
SB: 2 Seismic Rupture
SB: 1 Nylea, God of the Hunt

This deck is weird, and kinda awkward. It's based on two synergies: Double Strike+Become Immense and Assault Formation+the Courser/Caryatid engine. The overlap comes in Assault Formation+Prophetic Flamespeaker, which feels like it has to be good enough, but I have no idea what the shell looks like.

[Cyneheard]

Cheater,

Wizards just posted the card list for Tempest Remastered. I'm curious to see how close you were and what decisions wereade differently.

[Cheater Hater]

Cheater,

Wizards just posted the card list for Tempest Remastered. I'm curious to see how close you were and what decisions wereade differently.

Yeah, that kinda blindsided me this morning--I wasn't expecting that for another week or two, but I guess they have to release the set list early so people can start playing the closed beta with it for a couple weeks. Still, I've gotten most of the article grading my predictions written--I hit on about 70% of the cards in the set, and still around 50% if you require them to have the right rarity. The color I did worst on was Red--I simply upgraded a bunch of the cards that were overpowered in the original sets, while Wizards removed a bunch of them. I did really well on Green though to make up for it, even if Wizards made the really weird decision to not include any fog effects (while printing Overrun in the set at uncommon ). They also included an extra five common artifacts, as well as the cycle of enemy-colored rares, which I didn't. My full article on the topic should be coming next week, but if there's anything else that caught your eye I could answer here before then.

As for this week, I'm doing Part 2 of my introduction to my Modern Masters 2015 design--I forgot to post Part 1 in the topic here, so here it is. I'd be interested if people have any thoughts on the set (since I haven't been getting any comments recently )

Part 2 should be live here tomorrow morning when it goes up, then next week I'll have my Tempest Remastered Report Card.

[Cheater Hater]

My full report card for Tempest Remastered is now up!

[TheHumanHydra]

Hey, seems like you did pretty well. Like you said, you can't really expect to get everything right when your time (in terms of span, individual man-hours, and collective man-hours) is so comparatively limited - that said, you got 50-70% right, depending on how you look at it! Seems pretty good to me.

[Cheater Hater]

Yeah, hitting 50% is pretty good, even though it isn't that good when the cardpool is so small. The real test will be how my Modern Masters 2015 design fares--I've been working on that a lot longer than the Tempest Remastered design, but the cardpool is a lot bigger. Honestly, if I hit 50% on that (even counting the stuff already spoiled), I'll be shocked.

On a smaller scale, I've also been starting a Mercadian Masques Remastered design--that will be an interesting test; assuming it comes out in a year, the timespan will be similar (though the Tempest Remastered article said that design ended about a year ago, which seems crazy even considering development).

[TheHumanHydra]

Hey guys, a friend's convinced me to put together a Standard deck for Game Day next weekend. I'm on a budget - I don't want to spend a lot, since I don't normally play Standard and this will probably be my only opportunity to play it before I leave for six months to a Magic-less place. I could put together a cheap red deck - this is what my friend's doing; he really enjoys it and says it's competitive - but I thought I'd try something different first. I was inspired by a Craig Wescoe deck (http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=12470), and decided to do my own take on it. What do you think of this list?

Black-Green Aggro/Ramp

4 Bloodsoaked Champion
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Rakshasa Deathdealer
4 Ultimate Price
1 Deathmist Raptor
4 Mardu Strike Leader (Master of the Feast)
4 Mogis’s Marauder
4 Pitiless Horde
4 Collected Company
3 Surrak, the Hunt Caller

As per Craig Wescoe, the ideal opening is t1 Elvish Mystic into t2 Pitiless Horde and t3 hasty Surrak, the Hunt Caller. I wish there were another CMC 1 mana-dork in Standard to make this more consistent. There is a second five-power three-drop in Master of the Feast I could use for consistency on that end, but I don't know if I want to spend on the mana-base necessary to cast that reliably t2 (I would if I were going to play the deck more than once). I put in Mardu Strike Leader instead. Bloodsoaked Champion - Rakshasa Deathdealer is the hoped-for 'backup' t1-t2 play, while Collected Company is the alternate t3/t4 play - it grabs precisely the creatures we're trying to ramp into anyway, and, like Surrak, can result in some hefty surprise damage if a Mogis's Marauder and another of those three-drops is pulled. Ultimate Price (or something else) gives a little removal, though I'm not sure if it shouldn't just be another creature (Avatar of the Resolute?) instead G1. I suck at sideboarding, and haven't given that much thought yet (though black does give us lots of answers). The one Deathmist Raptor is just because I happen to own one; otherwise it's out of my price range (I would love to play it otherwise).

The slots I'm least sure of are the Ultimate Price and Bloodsoaked Champion. I'd love to hear your guys' feedback (I have no Standard experience, so it might be that it's total trash ). Remember the goal is not so much to build a metagame-smashing deck, just something that'll maybe (at best) go even on games won at the Game Day. That's probably about the highest I could hope for from budget brew in a format I have no experience of.

Thanks for reading - Cheater Hater, remember to link us your Modern Masters 2 articles!

[Cheater Hater]

Hey guys, a friend's convinced me to put together a Standard deck for Game Day next weekend. I'm on a budget - I don't want to spend a lot, since I don't normally play Standard and this will probably be my only opportunity to play it before I leave for six months to a Magic-less place. I could put together a cheap red deck - this is what my friend's doing; he really enjoys it and says it's competitive - but I thought I'd try something different first. I was inspired by a Craig Wescoe deck (http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=12470), and decided to do my own take on it. What do you think of this list?

Black-Green Aggro/Ramp

4 Bloodsoaked Champion
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Rakshasa Deathdealer
4 Ultimate Price
1 Deathmist Raptor
4 Mardu Strike Leader (Master of the Feast)
4 Mogis’s Marauder
4 Pitiless Horde
4 Collected Company
3 Surrak, the Hunt Caller

As per Craig Wescoe, the ideal opening is t1 Elvish Mystic into t2 Pitiless Horde and t3 hasty Surrak, the Hunt Caller. I wish there were another CMC 1 mana-dork in Standard to make this more consistent. There is a second five-power three-drop in Master of the Feast I could use for consistency on that end, but I don't know if I want to spend on the mana-base necessary to cast that reliably t2 (I would if I were going to play the deck more than once). I put in Mardu Strike Leader instead. Bloodsoaked Champion - Rakshasa Deathdealer is the hoped-for 'backup' t1-t2 play, while Collected Company is the alternate t3/t4 play - it grabs precisely the creatures we're trying to ramp into anyway, and, like Surrak, can result in some hefty surprise damage if a Mogis's Marauder and another of those three-drops is pulled. Ultimate Price (or something else) gives a little removal, though I'm not sure if it shouldn't just be another creature (Avatar of the Resolute?) instead G1. I suck at sideboarding, and haven't given that much thought yet (though black does give us lots of answers). The one Deathmist Raptor is just because I happen to own one; otherwise it's out of my price range (I would love to play it otherwise).

The slots I'm least sure of are the Ultimate Price and Bloodsoaked Champion. I'd love to hear your guys' feedback (I have no Standard experience, so it might be that it's total trash ). Remember the goal is not so much to build a metagame-smashing deck, just something that'll maybe (at best) go even on games won at the Game Day. That's probably about the highest I could hope for from budget brew in a format I have no experience of.

Thanks for reading - Cheater Hater, remember to link us your Modern Masters 2 articles!

That looks like a decent deck, though I don't know how cheap it is--a lot of the power of these two-color aggro decks is the ability to constantly get your colors early, and I feel like you would need 8 painlands (though I don't know why even Wescoe isn't running Mana Confluence; I guess it's too painful with Rakshasa Deathdealer?) I honestly don't think the Deathmist Raptor is that good by itself assuming you don't have the Den Protectors--then again, I haven't been paying that much attention to Standard (stupid PT mostly happening while I slept ) and don't know all the ins and outs of Deathmist Raptor decks (which reminds me, I should check out the PT Standard decks 6-4 and better just to get an idea).

As for my articles, this Tuesday's article will be my Version 7 update to MMA2; it should be here once it goes up. Until then, here are the links to the set:
Set List
Design Spreadsheet
The changelog is in the Extra tab if you're interested in what changed, or you could just ask
I'll answer any questions obviously, even ones not in the article

After this, I'm going to take a bit of a break from MMA2 (but not too long--my self-imposed deadline is the start of MMA2 previews, which is May 4th). My next immediate project is Mercadian Masques Remastered--that's an interesting thing to make. After that, my big long-term project is writing articles analyzing all the Masters Edition sets, leading up to me making Masters Edition V (a set meant primarily to get old cards on MTGO, using only cards from Alliances back+Portal/Starter; I might add Conspiracy as well). I've started the preliminary work on that (mainly going through the sets in the range and seeing what's available) and it's really weird--the unavailable cards fall into two categories: Vanilla creatures/functional reprints of core set cards and the really weird stuff from Magic's past. This set's certainly going to take a while