RB's Magic the Gathering Thread!

[TheHumanHydra]

CH, I don't know if you read the MTGSalvation forums, but one of your set lists caused a bit of a stir there as some people believed it might have been a real spoiler:

http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic...-2?page=83

It starts at post no. 2095 and they figured out it was yours 54 posts later (there are a couple more posts a bit after that).

Just thought you might be interested to read that. I'm not sure which draft of the set it was they were going off of, but there you have it.

(Heh, you know you must be doing something right if so many people half-believe it's the real thing.)

[Cheater Hater]

CH, I don't know if you read the MTGSalvation forums, but one of your set lists caused a bit of a stir there as some people believed it might have been a real spoiler:

http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic...-2?page=83

It starts at post no. 2095 and they figured out it was yours 54 posts later (there are a couple more posts a bit after that).

Just thought you might be interested to read that. I'm not sure which draft of the set it was they were going off of, but there you have it.

(Heh, you know you must be doing something right if so many people half-believe it's the real thing.)

Wow, holy crap--I often read a bit of MTG Salvation during spoiler season, but not that deep into threads, and especially not a big thread like the MMA2 thread. Whomever took the list took Version 6.1, the version in my first MMA2 article. It's really weird watching people dissect my list like that, from the obvious missteps (Dragon Fodder), to stuff I didn't take into account (the colorless number-crunching--remember, I don't have many colorless rare slots, and I didn't feel like either All is Dust or Eldrazi Concription fit neatly into the set), to stuff I didn't even think of (no, I'm not going to count out numbers to see if Tarmogoyf ends up at the right number--though seeing the analysis they did do means I probably want more artifacts/lands/gold in the set if I wanted to do so).

Edit: And now a bunch of MTG financiers started tweeting about it--it got me to make my first tweets about it at least
Edit2: I just posted in that thread about it--I saw that you did too THH

[Cheater Hater]

New article! It's another MMA2 article, and covers my final version of the set--I did forget the link to the final spreadsheet, so it's in the comments there.

Speaking of my articles, my next article is on Masters Edition 1, and it's not a very good set--so much so that since I don't want to spend the whole article trashing it, and even with the introduction to my beta Masters Edition 5 design, I'm having trouble getting to 2000 words (my self-imposed minimum)--is there anything people want to see from it? Maybe I can turn in a short article (~1500 words) in prep for the mammoth articles I'll be writing around MMA2's release.

[Cheater Hater]

Well, MM2015 previews have started, and things are not off to a good start--13 cards have been revealed today, and I've only gotten 3 of them right. In addition, we know 4 archetypes (WU artifacts, BR Aggro/Bloodthirst, UR Elementals, BG tokens/sacrifice) and I'm 0/4. At this point the only good things about the spoiler for my design is that Daybreak Coronet points to a W/X Auras archetype of some kind (and it is almost certainly GW) and that Infect is confirmed out (even though forcing Exalted in the set fits perfectly with GU Infect).

What surprises me so far are the archetypes. To start with, WU artifacts again? In addition, I think someone flipped the archetype descriptions around, if you thought the Sanctum Gargoyle/Esperzoa archetype in MMA1 is going to be slower than the (common) Rusted Relic+Cranial Plating build in MMA2. Of course, the biggest surprise is that their UR archetype went the opposite direction as me: they started at spells matter, found that there weren't enough cards (even though I think it was fine if you move Wee Dragonauts to common, and I wasn't even using Rebound or Buyback), and moved to Elementals--I'm sad we don't have any cards for it yet, since I want to see how it looks. BG tokens is also interesting, since it still might be a partial hit for me--most of the non-rare green mass token makers in the range are Elves, Saprolings or Eldrazi Spawn, and I don't know how many Saprolings they'll use since they just did Thallids, so both Elves and Eldrazi Spawn are hits for me (even if I wasn't going so all-in that I wanted Endrek Sahr). Also, expect Devour in the set, and some more fun uncommons/rares (Nacatl War Pride! Mitotic Slime! Pawn of Ulamog! Sengir Autocrat!), as well as a reason to put in Bitterblossom at rare. BR Bloodthirst/Aggro is the last one, and it's the most boring--I'm surprised some aggressive Vampires are in though; I would have expected a lot of the Zendikar ones to be saved for a MMA3 BR Vampires theme.

Part of me wants to ditch my ME1 article and redo my design based on just the info we have today--I have so many ideas about where they're going, and could probably hit ~75% if I redesigned it today.

[Cheater Hater]

Day 2 of spoilers, and I'm honestly shocked by the quality of everything--they are being way more aggressive with the downgrades than I thought they'd be. However, it's not uncommon to common or rare to uncommon that is surprising (though uncommon Eldrazi Temple is relatively surprising), it's mythic to rare! So far we've had 5 mythics downgraded to rare:
All is Dust
Indomitable Archangel
Apocalypse Hydra
Etched Monstrosity
Eye of Ugin
I feel like a lot of these downgrades are bad for limited--especially Indomitable Archangel, which is a generic 4/4 flier for 4 first, with the Metalcraft stuff just gravy. I also feel like these downgrades are diminishing the quality of mythic overall--before this, the only mythic->rare downgrade I can think of is Protean Hydra, and that was early in the lifespan of mythics, and probably a mistake in the first place. All of these are decent mythics, especially All is Dust--Perilous Vault is a similar card, and it was printed at mythic in M15!

I also have no clue why they're doing Etched Oracle-style 5-color shenanigans again--I'll admit that my initial design of MMA2 probably pulled back a little too far in terms of color fixing, but I really don't want "5-color good stuff" to be a standard archetype of all Modern Masters formats (or Masters formats in general, considering VMA had landcyclers as well). Looking forward to MMA3 (which will show up in an article soonish from me), that was setting up to be a very five-color friendly format, if I wanted to support a bunch of off-color flashback splashes at minimum, and possibly a 4-color deck supporting both Spider Spawning and Burning Vengeance at best.

At least I'm hitting on a couple things: Eldrazi Spawn are a theme (even though it's unfortunately just ramp it appears, no Furnace Celebration shenanigans ), and I'm hitting on some important rares like Fulminator Mage and Leyline of Sanctity (and missing on others that were in one iteration of the set, like Hurkyl's Recall). Hopefully Marshall should reveal every archetype and the key cards tomorrow in Limited Information so I can start writing next week's article (though considering the full set will be released on Friday, I might just end up doing the full set comparison first if I'm not doing anything this weekend). Speaking of my article, I'm not sure what happened to this week's Masters Edition article--I did end up submitting it a little late, but I've submitted articles later than that before and had them posted, so I don't know what happened here--I did have to put some external links/pictures in there (since it talked about cards not on MTGO/not on MTGO Traders), so that might have stopped it

[TheHumanHydra]

I'm pretty dang impressed by this so far, too. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll actually be able to get/draft any of the set due to being away from civilization this summer, but hopefully it will have positive effects on secondary market prices (I'm actually loving the Apocalypse Hydra downgrade; I love it, but it's what I consider to be waaay too expensive for a casual card right now).

As for the accuracy of your predictions ... I guess you just made different design decisions. Nothing wrong with that; it's quite possible there simply was more than one valid way to approach this card pool.

[T-hawk]

I feel like a lot of these downgrades are bad for limited

I think it's fair to say that limited is less of a concern for Modern Masters. At $30-45 per draft on a small print run, most players will draft it maybe once or twice. It's not going to be weekly drafts for a full season like a regular set. It's worth letting limited have a few more bombs to keep up the power and excitement level that's needed to justify $10+ packs.

[Cheater Hater]

I feel like a lot of these downgrades are bad for limited

I think it's fair to say that limited is less of a concern for Modern Masters. At $30-45 per draft on a small print run, most players will draft it maybe once or twice. It's not going to be weekly drafts for a full season like a regular set. It's worth letting limited have a few more bombs to keep up the power and excitement level that's needed to justify $10+ packs.

Limited was the best part of MMA1 though. Also, don't forget it will still be on MTGO for $7 a pack still, so drafts are only $25 there.

As for today's previews, a big thumbs-down to WB Spirits. They even mentioned they tried it for MMA1, and not much has changed. At least Nest Invader and Changeling were confirmed? There's also enough room in the number crunch for the Worldwake manlands again.

[Cheater Hater]

T-12.5 hours until the full spoiler for MM2015 is released, and I'm liking this set less and less every day. Is it a rule that you don't have to care about mana in Modern Masters sets now? I don't know how much other mana fixing there will be besides bouncelands, but that is already a lot, especially if you pair them with Expedition Map (which was an expected reprint--then again, I didn't think Landfall would be completely absent up to this point (then again, the only important rare reprint that's been confirmed out is Bloodghast, Lotus Cobra could be downgraded to Rare if you really wanted to, and they've shown almost no commons and nothing from the RW archetype). It also means Molten Rain almost certainly won't get reprinted (even at uncommon, where I assumed it would be) and probably forced out Tectonic Edge.

Other than that, the most interesting part of today was the token reveal--Bestial Menace is a fun card, and maybe they're crazy enough to downgrade Master of the Wild Hunt? Myr Sire also seems like a lock and should be fun in both Artifacts and Token Sac.

[T-hawk]

Is it a rule that you don't have to care about mana in Modern Masters sets now?

Heck, it's a rule that you don't have to care about mana in Standard most of the time. They know that cramming any environment full of multi-lands makes both them and the mythic rare bombs you cast with them more demanded and expensive. But it degrades the experience as the decks all play the same best cards with less diversity. I guess Modern is varied enough that it won't really be hurt by any more mana fixing, though.