Magic: The Gathering Discussion

Post by Hyperspacerebel

http://www.twitch.tv/magic

Community Cup today and tomorrow.

Post by Monday

WARNING: THEROS SPOILERS

Some sexy Theros stuff coming up. I can't say that I'm pleased at another Elspeth variation (she's one of my least favorite planeswalkers for flavor reasons), but I like the sound of two new ones (or so the rumor goes). I'm hoping that there will be a new Tibalt or Tezzeret, though neither really fit the flavor.

What I want to see the most is a new Vraska, but since she came out in RtR, I highly doubt she'll show up. Ah, well.

The enchantment stuff is looking really cool, and I'm liking the look of the Monstrous and Devotion to <color> keywords. For Monstrous <X>, if your creature isn't Monstrous, you pay the mana cost and add X +1/+1 counters to it and make it monstrous. They usually have an effect when they become so as well.

On the other hand, Devotion allows you to do special effects based on your Devotion to a color. Your Devotion to that color is based on how many times that color shows up in the mana costs of permanents you control. I think it's a rather interesting idea.

And, lastly, you have artifact and creature enchantments. For example, there's a White Enchantment-creature (Celestial archon) for 3WW that's a 4/4 with flying and first strike. If you pay the Bestow cost (5WW), it attaches to target creature and gives that creature +4/+4, flying and first strike. If you control no creatures, it becomes a creature again. It's a fascinating idea, but will lead to a LOT of hate from White and Green and all their destroy enchantment spells, imo.

Post by Nathanyal

Yeah, I have been a bit of a no show because I joined their forums and have been looking at all the awesome stuff.

A lot of the things look great and I really like the flavor of the cards. I'm really looking forward to the prerelease, to bad I'll only have enough money for one of the events though.

Post by Hyperspacerebel

Theros Visual Spoiler

Post by Monday

I really like how Scry and Tribals are making some comeback in this set. The Scry makes sense, for sure. I always thought it was an interesting mechanic and very underrated.

I also hate how there's another bloody pure white planeswalker, and an Elspeth of all things. I hear that she's supposedly hunting a hydra or some sort of thing, so it would have made perfect sense to have her splash green and finally make a green/white planeswalker. But no.

Hopefully we get a White/Green or Blue/Green by the end of the block, though. They're the only color combinations that don't have a dedicated walker, yet.

Edit: I have to admit, though, I'm glad they're still using dual color mechanics (even if it's only red/green and red/black). Dual colors add so much more to the game, imo. I'm hoping for a return to Alara and more tri-colored stuff, even if that's probably a fair ways away (if at all).

Post by Hyperspacerebel

Edit: I have to admit, though, I'm glad they're still using dual color mechanics (even if it's only red/green and red/black).

I don't think there's been a non-core set that hasn't had at least some dual-colored spells in several years. I don't think there is much need to worry about that going away.

I really like how Scry and Tribals are making some comeback in this set. The Scry makes sense, for sure. I always thought it was an interesting mechanic and very underrated.

Scry underrated? By whom? It's a staple ability in almost every competitive T1 blue control decks. Or at least it was a staple until Sphinx's Revelation became the card draw card of choice. But it's still considered one of the best additional benefits to have on a cantrip. I didn't know there was anybody who didn't think that.

Post by Monday

Because everybody totally plays competitive? I thought you would have learned after the fourth or so time that we've had this conversation: I don't play competitive and don't follow it. Any observations I make are about kitchen table Magic.

Post by Hyperspacerebel

Isn't value of a mechanic a competitive assessment? It seems to me that you can't undervalue something unless you're expected to know that it has a higher value. Maybe that's why I have a hard time every time we have this conversation. I don't understand where you draw the line between competitive and not. You talk the value of things like scavenge and scry, but then dislike it when I talk about those abilities in competitive play where their value is tried and tested and where a real metric for their value can be determined.

Keep in mind, I pretty much never comment on anything you say regarding flavor or what mechanics you find fun. I'm not trying to get in the way of your casual play. You can play fun, flavorful Magic all you want. But when you make statements about the value of cards and mechanics, that a competitive assessment, and that's an area I know a fair bit about and an area where there are right and wrong answers (or, more accurately, rightish and wrongish answers).

Post by Monday

Perhaps I'm doing a bad job of explaining myself, and I'm sorry about that. As I said earlier, I comment exclusively about kitchen table Magic, where some mechanics can be considered bad (even if they're pretty good) and vice versa. Many, many non-comp players I've played with think Scry isn't the greatest mechanic ever and would rather just draw cards instead of looking at them.

I disagree, hence why I am happy that Scry is making a return in Theros. I think it's an excellent mechanic. Heck, even if you weren't allowed to move your cards around, it'd still be an awesome mechanic. As it is, I think it's one of the better ones for almost any color (though I think that Blue benefits a bit more than most, but that's neither here nor there).

So, to wrap up, if I mention how useful/useless a mechanic is, I'm referring exclusively to casual, non-competitive Magic. I have no experience in competitive, and so I can't comment. I value your input in regards to the competitive side, but I don't like it when it's framed as a rebuttal when it's somewhat separate to what I'm talking about.

Post by Hyperspacerebel

I appreciate where you are coming from, but I can't really wrap my head around this:

So, to wrap up, if I mention how useful/useless a mechanic is, I'm referring exclusively to casual, non-competitive Magic.

I understand the idea of a casual environment, but the rules of the game and the card interactions are still essentially the same whether you're playing on your kitchen table or at a Grand Prix. So, what is objectively useful in one is most likely useful in the other (barring meta-game considerations, but I would consider that beyond the scope of the Scry mechanic, since it operates mostly in a vacuum). So I don't understand the appeal of two people sitting in a casual environment and disagreeing whether a mechanic is useful or not when there is ample evidence provided by thousands of competitive players that, when put to the test, that mechanic is useful. If you're just playing mechanics you like or want to, that's great. Makes perfect sense that you'd play the game the way you'd want to. If you're playing mechanics you think they are useful but don't actually care to know if they are actually useful, that's confusing to me.

Post by Monday

I'm referring to the original context: I really like how Scry and Tribals are making some comeback in this set. The Scry makes sense, for sure. I always thought it was an interesting mechanic and very underrated.

Scry underrated? By whom? It's a staple ability in almost every competitive T1 blue control decks. Or at least it was a staple until Sphinx's Revelation became the card draw card of choice. But it's still considered one of the best additional benefits to have on a cantrip. I didn't know there was anybody who didn't think that.

This is what I meant when I was referring to casual Magic. It's very underrated by a lot of casual players. However, you framed a response where you directly rebutted my statement in a direct referral to competitive, which you know I don't play.

Post by Hyperspacerebel

Oh, so that's where the problem is.

I don't consider casual to mean bad.

Not playing scry because you don't consider it to be useful = bad (or at the very least uninformed).
Not wanting to play scry because you don't like it and don't care about the competitive advantages is gives = casual

When you're talking about your casual play and casual friends, I'm not assuming they are bad players. I just assume they choose to play casually. I know plenty of casual players, and they play what they want. But what they don't do is go around disagreeing about the usefulness of cards, because they are fine players and they know how to accurately judge the usefulness of a card or at least where to look for that information. They just don't generally care about that. That's what I consider casual.

So, of course not knowing much else it's hard to say this for sure, but any of your casual buddies who claim scry isn't useful are are bad or uninformed at magic (again, obviously that's only based off one statement and I can't really judge that). I brought up the competitive use of Scry because any good, informed player, whether he's casual or not, would not make blanket statements of mechanic or card usefulness that are contrary to what is done competitively.

I guess what I'm saying is that I don't think being a casual player is a defense for maintaining bad assessments of cards. Play casually, play what you want, but if I hear any "wrongish" assessment come out I'm going to point out that it's wrong and why it's wrong.

Post by Monday

When you're talking about your casual play and casual friends, I'm not assuming they are bad players. I just assume they choose to play casually.

Aye. They're all actually pretty good (especially two of them). We just like to play casual as none of us have the time/money to play in tournaments.

but any of your casual buddies who claim scry isn't useful

None of them are my friends. They're just people I meet at the gaming shop.
I guess what I'm saying is that I don't think being a casual player is a defense for maintaining bad assessments of cards.

I agree.

Edit: And my fat pack is late. =/ Ordered a Dark Ascension one. I'm hoping to get some nice double sided cards (I think it's a fun mechanic).

And second edit: Have any of you played EDH or Planechase? I kind of want to try both...

Post by Hyperspacerebel

I do play EDH on occasion. I actually ~~hate~~ am not a big fan of playing it because it takes so damn long and the games get kinda silly, but I love deck building for it. You get to do so many crazy thing. Want to build a snake tribal deck? Go for it! You can't do stuff like that viably in any other format.

I've played the Duels of the Planeswalkers version of Planechase. It's kind of interesting, but I don't know that I would go out and build decks to play it regularly or anything.

Post by Monday

Hmm. I was considering just getting the plane cards and dice, then using it in conjunction with my regular decks. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch, as my regular group of about five others have a house rule where, in multiplayer games, you roll a dice to see who you attack or cast spells on. It looks like the same principle applies with the planar dice (rolling a dice for different effects).

Post by Hyperspacerebel

Yeah, it's entirely possible. Different plane cards will have different synergies with different decks though, so I don't think you'd want to play just any deck with any planes cards. Also, I dislike how varied in usefulness the planes cards are. You have complete bombs and then ones that just do something meh.

Post by Monday

Bought one of the repack boxes.

Drew a Green/White enchantment deck from the Planechase series. I might hang onto it until Theros rolls around and then improve it. I also got a Red/White human deck from Avacyn Restored. It's interesting, but not my favorite.

Then, the last one I got, I drew a black/blue zombie deck from Dark Ascension! I love Dark Ascension a ton, so this was awesome. I'm hoping to get some nice cards in my fatpack to add to the collection (Mikaeus the Unhallowed would be my #1 choice, but there's definitely some nice cards). I already have a fair number of skaabs that I might throw in. I always felt that blue was lacking in affordable beatsticks, and the skaabs definitely hit the spot.

Post by Sparkbolt

I'm really excited about the new cards coming out in Theos. I can change up my Blue/Red deck and make it more aggro/control instead of burn/control.

Also really disappointed with this new plainswalker. Was kinda hoping for a swamp to be opposite Elspeth but I still got two more sets to hope for.

Post by Hyperspacerebel

Also really disappointed with this new plainswalker.

Which one, Ashiok or Xenagos?

Post by Sparkbolt

Xenagos is the one I'm disappointed with. I didn't know there was another one what is Ashiok?

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