Magic: the Gathering

[Death From Above]

Okay they are just making up silly shit now

[Raziel]

Yeah, but if you somehow manage to get 12 lands on the field, then go for it.

[Death From Above]

I can't really think of where I'd use it. Like, Ravnican Gates already has Hydroid Krasis for big draw, and I have found Krasis is way more dangerous with Reliquary Tower for the no hand limit size. In fact I'd say the basic version of it being listed on MTG Goldfish is significantly more dangerous with 2 Reliquary Towers over a couple of the basic land because it also frees you up to play multiple Guild Summits without worrying about discarding. 

I am just having a hard time thinking of a deck actually designed to get 12 land in play regularly, which runs blue (but not green for Circuitous Route to actually get to 12 land, not Hydroid Krasis, and not Reliquary Tower), where it gets played.

I am sure, given my extensive history of wrongness, it will instantly find some way to become ludicrous. But my initial reaction is that it will be this set's Mass Manipulation: It looks cool and no one plays it.

[Craig H]

This set has the best flavor of all time. The way they were to bring out the story with all of these cards is nothing short of remarkable. They did a very impressive job. This card in particular just makes me hear the YUB NUB song from Return of the Jedi:

Spoiler

 

Edited April 19, 2019 by Craig H

[Death From Above]

Honestly I don't think the art in general has ever been stronger than now. I have a lot of nostalgia for the really old school sets but most of the modern art just destroys that stuff.

[FireThunder]

I'd agree. If I played in paper, I'd want this on a playmat as soon as possible.

 

[Craig H]

2 hours ago, FireThunder said:

I'd agree. If I played in paper, I'd want this on a playmat as soon as possible.

 

Someone on Reddit previewed the playmat for that.

[Death From Above]

New set is live in Arena but a lot of people are getting an error trying to download right now.

"PlayWarSpark" is the new store code for 3 free packs.

[Death From Above]

A self-mill win condition is so dumb that I almost like Jace now.

[Death From Above]

 

This set is wild and it's great.

[FireThunder]

Any cool decks y'all are trying out? My friend finally got out of gold playing the Boros Feather Heroic deck. Dreadhorde Arcanist and Feather are pretty damn good, but the two of them together is just gross.

I built this but it feels like it's missing... something. Revitalize is sort of a placeholder for more removal spells. Maybe a copy of the white Finale or Commence the Endgame as another win con?

[Death From Above]

I think it's going to be a very aggro set. I was watching Day9 stream last night and we was running a Selesnya Tokens deck using the new Ajani planeswalker on top of your traditional stuff like March of the Multitudes, Venerated Loxodon etc. and it's incredibly nasty. Tokens can ramp up in power so hard that it's pretty wild. Obviously the big counter is going to be board clears. But if you don't have those good luck.

Boros is also very strong, and the only real problem is deciding which good cards to cut. I'm probably going to be playing a LOT of red/white in this set until the meta settles out because it's reliably dangerous.

But at the same time control decks have also somehow got even dumber. It really is a time where it's more of everything. I feel like the Ravnican Gates deck I ran through almost all of last set is kind of dead in the water right now. It's too slow to handle the range of aggro stuff, and too reliant on single big nukes to handle all the control options. It's still unbeatable when it comes off but I feel like it's losing too much without a reformat.

[FireThunder]

All hail Bolas! This deck is pretty fun to play.

 

Edited May 1, 2019 by FireThunder

[Raziel]

That just ain't right.

[FireThunder]

Meanwhile, at Mythic Championship London, hall of famer Yuuya Watanabe was DQ'd in the 15th round. Judges deck checked him and noticed a distinct pattern on the back of his Urza lands.

https://kotaku.com/here-are-the-magic-the-gathering-cards-that-caused-che-1834436801

Edited May 1, 2019 by FireThunder

[FireThunder]

Checking Twitter and SCG Richmond today, Teferi, Time Raveler is seeing a lot of play. Main deck in Esper Control, Hero of Precinct One decks, Bant midrange, Azorius Superfriends (and Pblthp!)... even getting splashed into mono-white aggro to shut off instants for your opponent and to reuse History of Benalia.

[Death From Above]

My one complaint at this stage of the set is that I'm not seeing very many commons that are getting played at all, outside of the odd person experimenting with the new Amass gimmick (which is a fun good idea they should continue with). It's a very top-heavy set.

The God-Eternal cards are fucking awful to play against. Other than that it's mostly been real fun.

[FireThunder]

I got five wins in the metagame challenge yesterday playing Gruul Aggro with planeswalkers. Sarkhan the Masterless is utterly ridiculous, and I won quite a few games playing Domri, Anarch of Bolas and following up next turn with Sarkhan and swinging for 5 with my new 5/4 Domri dragon.

[Death From Above]

4 Judith, the Scourge Diva 
7 Swamp 
6 Mountain
2 Bedevil 
2 Dreadhorde Butcher 
4 Bedeck // Bedazzle 
4 Hackrobat 
2 Captive Audience
4 Priest of Forgotten Gods 
4 Reassembling Skeleton

3 Doomed Dissenter
4 Shock 
2 Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin
2 Memorial to Folly 
2 Memorial to War 
1 Blood Crypt 
2 Dragonskull Summit
4 Rakdos Guildgate 
1 Liliana, Dreadhorde General

This is not an a-list deck, because it relies on your opponent not having board clears, and well good luck with that right now. But as far as "b-tier decks I spent exactly 0 wildcards" on... it's very good among the b's. And a lot of fun to play. When the Priest of Forgotten Gods gets to combo with either 2 Reassembling Skeletons or Krenko's fodder-goblins, it's *chef kisses fingers*. Also Judith, on top of being a wicked card, is maybe my favourite art in Magic right now.

[FireThunder]

I figured because of Magic Arena and Magic Online, this format would be solved by now because that's the way it works with Hearthstone. Within a few weeks, the best decks are developed and played on ladder non-stop.

But holy crap. The phrase "when everything is broken, nothing is broken" comes to mind. There's at least a dozen decks you can play with success on ladder and more are being tested out every day. The newest ones I've seen talked about the past few days are green ramp with Nissa, Who Shakes the World and Sultai with Command the Dreadhorde.

Grixis control is making a comeback thanks the the ubiquitous Teferi, Time Raveler. Rather than play a control deck with countermagic and possibly get locked out by Teferi, Grixis players are dropping Nicol Bolas, the Ravager and playing even more removal.

One pet deck that I've been playing off and on is Orzhov Knights, playing a bunch of cheap creatures like the white and black knights, History of Benalia, and backing them up with the new Gideon and Sorin. I think Sorin is really strong in these small creature decks and especially good with Hero of Precinct One.

EDIT: Oooh, I forgot the Bant Midrange/Flash deck that uses a bunch of creatures with ETB effects and the new Vivien and Teferi. That's a fun one, too.

Edited May 18, 2019 by FireThunder

[Death From Above]

The biggest shift I have noticed is that mono-blue feels weaker, because the new set basically added nothing to mono-blue, and everyone else took a step forward. It can still absolutely win games because it's a control deck, but it's not still top-drawer in my opinion. I haven't touched my own mono-blue in a while now.

I avoid ladder so in free play I am going to see more of a range but it feels like other than lazy people playing mono-red, the meta is incredibly spread out right now.

The other deck I fool around with just for fun is a mono-green deck that runs both Viviens (which you can play at once, BTW), and the other important new card is Challenger Troll which makes your opponent only able to block anything that has power 4 or more with 1 creature at a time... and that's hilarious in mono-green. Goreclaw, Ghalta Primal Hunger, you know the drill. The green God-Eternal that doubles everything's power for one turn is pretty nice too. It's another deck that is super-bad against board clear but I find my tolerance for playing control is very low these days. I really like going face, just not with mono-red because I need to do stuff the hard way. Nissa Who Shakes the World is fucking scary and I'm not even running it, I should probably rework.

[Death From Above]

Dude. The stained glass plainswalkers on Arena are almost all amazing.

 

[FireThunder]

They look incredible. I wish I didn't have to win 15 games of god forsaken Planeswalker Momir to get the Jace. 

[Death From Above]

No shit, that format is rough as hell.

1) Games are super-long by Arena standards because even if you know all the cards it is STILL hard to tell at times what the fuck is going on.

2) The format's randomness can turn almost all games into a virtual coin flip for lucky draw. So realistically you should be prepared to play a lot more than 15 games.

Having said that, I was able to grind out 15 wins over a couple days, on top of my normal dalies. Kinda think it was worth it in the end, even though I think this Momir's Madness format is sort of cancer to put that large a win requirement with it. I even figured out an Izzet Drakes variant that uses Jace and isn't complete nonsense (though I wouldn't say Izzet Drakes is super strong either). It has all the same weaknesses of classic Izzet Drakes, but it's playable at least. And Jace's self-mill is actually pretty nasty if you get out those drakes that gain power based on instants/sorceries in your graveyard.

What I threw together, could probably be improved with more thought:

 

4 Jace, Wielder of Mysteries (WAR) 54
11 Island (RIX) 193
3 Jace's Triumph (WAR) 55
4 Crackling Drake (GRN) 163
7 Mountain (RIX) 195
4 Enigma Drake (M19) 216
4 Pteramander (RNA) 47
3 Blink of an Eye (DAR) 46
2 Opt (XLN) 65
2 Opt (DAR) 60
2 Divination (M19) 51
1 Ugin, the Ineffable (WAR) 2
1 Chemister's Insight (GRN) 32
3 Kasmina, Enigmatic Mentor (WAR) 56
1 Niv-Mizzet, Parun (GRN) 192
2 Wizard's Retort (DAR) 75
1 Steam Vents (GRN) 257
2 Sulfur Falls (DAR) 247
3 Izzet Guildgate (GRN) 251

LOTS of card draw. Obviously if you have more rare lands than I, feel free to jettison the guildgates into the sun. Ulgin is also terrifying and if you want to work in more than one, be my guest.

[tbarrie]

So is anybody else stoked for Modern Horizons? I was initially inclined to ignore it, because I don't care about the Modern format, but in articles discussing the design of the set they keep making comparisons to Time Spiral block. And Time Spiral was peak Magic IMO.