RB's Magic the Gathering Thread!

[superdeath]

This set gave me a couple ideas for new commanders. Love the set so far.

[Mjmd]

If anyone is playing prerelease this weekend I highly recommend the first 4-5 escape cards in your deck. Mechanic seems silly in sealed.

[Cheater Hater]

If anyone is playing prerelease this weekend I highly recommend the first 4-5 escape cards in your deck. Mechanic seems silly in sealed.

Have you actually played it yet? Obviously you want some escape, but it's relatively hard to get cards in your graveyard (especially outside of green and especially black), so I don't think you want more than a couple (that you wouldn't want without Escape; you'd still play a lot of 4/4's for 4)--the first couple are worth a lot though.

[Mjmd]

I haven't although I did watch parts of the team finals which was team draft; plus I like to think I'm good at limited . There was a game where the 1/2 spider for 1 with escape came back a few times and basically defeated Finkel who had two wraths. The front half of that card would almost never make a limited deck, but with coming back over and over as a big spider. I do agree they have diminishing returns.

[superdeath]

Completed 3 new commanders to add to my collection to replace the 4-5 that i no longer like playing. Im using Iroas, God of Victory. Massacre Girl. Naban, Dean of Iteration. I have each deck in pdf form that i can email if anyone is interested in seeing my 50$ budget commander decks..

[Cheater Hater]

Week 1 of THB Standard has me looking at one of the obvious decks in the room, the mono-white lifegain deck:
Deck
4 Alseid of Life's Bounty (THB) 1
3 Faerie Guidemother (ELD) 11
3 Hunted Witness (GRN) 15
4 Ajani's Pridemate (M19) 5
2 Charming Prince (ELD) 8
4 Daxos, Blessed by the Sun (THB) 9
3 Tomik, Distinguished Advokist (WAR) 34
3 Gideon Blackblade (WAR) 13
4 Heliod, Sun-Crowned (THB) 18
1 Taranika, Akroan Veteran (THB) 39
2 Linden, the Steadfast Queen (ELD) 20
1 Ajani, Strength of the Pride (M20) 2
3 Conclave Tribunal (GRN) 6
1 Dawn of Hope (GRN) 8
14 Plains (ANA) 56
4 Castle Ardenvale (ELD) 238
4 Mobilized District (WAR) 249

This deck is harder to build than it seems though--all the white mana symbols negate a lot of the advantages of being mono-color (and even just four colorless lands seems to be pushing it slightly), and there are so many duplicate legends (that the Arena shuffler regularly keeps clumping together in my hand). Surprises are how bad Ajani was (it feels like a win-more in most situations, and even one might be too many) and how good Fairy Guidemother is (it started as the ninth one-drop I wanted since I wanted more fliers, and now I realized how well it fits with getting giant creatures to break through I even cut a Hunted Witness for the third after going up to ten one-drops). Taranika's also been surprisingly good, though again, it's another legend. I wish this deck wasn't so blatantly obvious (Linden being the most blatant). Maybe I should see if I can get an Aristocrats deck to work with Woe Strider--though the problem with that is it probably wants Cat food, and then it's worse than the normal sac deck.

[Cheater Hater]

I finally went over to the dark side and netdecked Seth Manfield's mono-red deck on Arena--I played it in the Worlds showcase and liked going a bit bigger of the choices (and Anax providing value made it feel a little less all-in), and wow, is Arena Standard a different experience with a good deck. It just reinforces the problem with Magic right now--everything is broken, but it makes you feel bad if you aren't playing the broken stuff (which hurts Johnny).

[Mjmd]

Companion: bigger mistake than Phyrexian mana. Discuss.

[El Grillo]

Yeah, this implementation where you get virtual card advantage that also dodges discard spells, for decently costed effects and bodies, was bound to cause issues in older formats with a large enough card pool to make the deckbuilding constraints trivial. I think being able to reveal your Companion and start the game by putting it on top of your library would've been a lot safer for older formats but insufficiently splashy for Standard. Perhaps it was too tall an order to make the mechanic balanced for all formats, but clearly Play Design didn't even try. Worse, imagine a metagame a month from now where Companions don't really see much play in Standard, but are dominating Legacy and Vintage... :S

[superdeath]

Companion: bigger mistake than Phyrexian mana. Discuss.

Eh, im not seeing most of them as all that impactful. To put them up against Phyrexian mana is a very VERY long stretch. But, i also strictly play Commander so im not at all concerned about standard ( let it rot in hell ) and i dont have the budget to play legacy/vintage with a decent deck.

Id rather they just banned Infinite combos tbh. Would make the game more fun for when i go to LGS's.