Yeah, it's worth mentioning that said deck also had a number of copies of Orim's Chant in it. As well as other cute instants like the ever-popular Counterspell.
Yeah, it's worth mentioning that said deck also had a number of copies of Orim's Chant in it. As well as other cute instants like the ever-popular Counterspell.
When I played Magic (I'm starting to feel like I might fall off the wagon again), I always played blue because I loved having Counterspell, Unsummon, Boomerang, etc.
Counterspell was never so bad in the environment it was released in. MTG died of power creep, though, as far as I'm concerned.
Magic died? That's news to me. As far as I can tell, Magic is better and healthier than ever.
For me. It's dead for me. Except on XBLA where the constraints imposed by the pre-created decks prevents titanic power-users ($$$$) from overshadowing all the fun.
Power Creep? As far as I can tell, the cards are a lot less overpowered than they were before.
Unless something has changed recently, the formats where they're legal are still dominated by older cards. Creatures are a lot better than they used to be, though, so there's that.
You're right, pence. That's why the most prominent format is Standard, which cycles out all of those old, broken cards.
Problem with standard is that your entire collection of cards get cycled out of play every few years. I stopped playing MTG because I couldn't afford to keep up with it.
I can see that, which is why I reached a point where I can win tournaments to gain more card prizes, and not have to spend much (if anything) to actually play. I also sold the cards that cycle out to Legacy format players, anyway.
You can even participate in torneys where they just straight up GIVE you cards from the current sets to play with. You show up, get your boosters, assemble your deck, and away you go, then win or lose, you keep the cards at the end.
You can even participate in torneys where they just straight up GIVE you cards from the current sets to play with. You show up, get your boosters, assemble your deck, and away you go, then win or lose, you keep the cards at the end.
Yeah, drafts. I know a lot of people around here who do those, largely because Standard and Legacy tend to be filled with, for lack of a better word, "Try-hards".
You can even participate in torneys where they just straight up GIVE you cards from the current sets to play with. You show up, get your boosters, assemble your deck, and away you go, then win or lose, you keep the cards at the end.
Yeah, drafts. I know a lot of people around here who do those, largely because Standard and Legacy tend to be filled with, for lack of a better word, "Try-hards".
Drafts are a great way to get in some competition without having to have a collection, and they tend to separate skilled players from net-deckers with too much money.
I play drafts all the time. It cost about 12-15 dollars for a good 5-6 hour tournament experience, AND you get to keep the cards, which you can ultimately use to make a Standard deck in the future.
If you win enough, you can even get 4-8 prize packs, which makes the game a lot less expensive in the long run.
This is why I never played in any tournaments because I always got my enjoyment coming up with decks that were fun to play with instead of just ones that win. Rather play causal with my mates so I can experiement with ceature control based around based around Chamber of Multiplication and other cards that stole creatures then beat their own players up with them. Or sacrifice their 8/8 flying dragon of death to an Accursed Centaur.
Wow, Sissay. That's reaching back in to the MTG past. I only have two EDH decks: One based around Thromok: The Insatiable, and one that I'm working on based around Razia, Boros Archangel.
So there are a couple of things happening in the world of MTG which I think are worth talking about:
a) Modern Masters was released. Modern Masters is limited print run booster based set which is outside the regular release schedule. The set consists entirely of reprints and has basically all the best cards from several sets all of which are legal in the Modern Constructed format. However, the set itself was designed for limited play (where you get the cards you are going to play on site, rather than bringing them from home, e.g. Booster Draft) and its probably the most powerful officially sanctioned draft formats ever made. Since the cards in it are also very often very expensive, a booster however also costs double of what a normal booster usually costs when they are in print, and many retailers have even marked it up beyond that.
This is the video where Magic Head Honcho Aaron Forsythe first announced the set in October.
b) WOTC has made the wise decision of making a Grand Prix using the Modern Masters format. The Grand Prixes are is the largest non-invitation tournaments there are, and Grand Prix Las Vegas this weekend which is using Modern Masters, the only Grand Prix that will ever do so, will break all the records as they had to cap the number of participants at 4,500. The preregistration line on Friday was insane (though it doesn't vote well for WOTC as organizers).
There will also be live coverage of the event on the ggslive.com all weekend long.
c) There is also going to be a new Duels of the Planeswalkers that will come out in the near future. Just thought I should mention this since it is what this thread was originally about.
WOTC doesn't run or organize tournaments, not really. They might set the schedule, but they leave the ground-level organizing to other people; GP Vegas, for example, is being run by Cascade Games.
So I am building a Cube. A Cube is basically a pile of singletons which you curate so that there is a good bell curve for mana costs peaking at about 3 mana, every color has the same amount of cards and a good number of creatures, that there is enough color fixing available, etc.
A cube is used for cube drafting. You shuffle all the cards in the cube together. You then split all the cards into 15 card packs. Each player gets three packs and then you make a normal draft with those cards. You look at the cards in the pack, pick a card, then pass the remaining cards to the left, then do the same for the next pack of cards you just received from the right. For the second pack you pass to the right, for the third pack to the left again. In the end you have 45 cards. You have to build a 40 card deck out of it with lands, so usually you pick about 23 cards from the 45 you have and add 17 lands, either basic lands which are provided, or nonbasics you picked.
Drafting itself requires card evaluation and selection skills, and a Cube usually contains a lot more powerful cards than your regular booster draft. To learn more about cubes, you can watch this video by the LoadingReadyRun guys (at worst you should know them as the production crew from Strip Search).
Most cubes have 360 cards in it without counting lands, which is the minimum for an 8 person cube. Since I am crazy however, I went ahead and designed a cube fit for 16 people, so 720 cards it is.
I am almost done with it, except two problems. a) I ordered 1,000 sleeves from a retailer, in 10 packs of 100 sleeves each. It's 1,000 sleeves to fit the 720 cards, plus 36 basic lands per color which makes a nice round 900 total, with 100 spares for breaking sleeves. Got a decent price. Except the company I ordered from screwed up the order and sent me 10 packs of 50 sleeves. So now I need to sort that out.
b) I order most of my cards from MagicCardMarket.eu, which is a peer-to-peer selling platform. There's also a couple of commercial enterprises on there, but it's mostly one person selling to another. This makes the market pretty competitive and lowers the prices, which is good. Unfortunately, I've been waiting for two weeks on two letters with cards for my cube now, and they have not arrived yet and are probably lost, which sucks. Another thing to sort out.
Hasbro and 20th Century Fox are teaming up to make "a series of films" based on Magic: The Gathering. This could be either awesome or terrible. Not sure there is a middle ground. One of the key people involved will be Simon Kinberg. He wrote Mr. & Mrs. Smith and produced X-Men: First Class among other things. However, he also wrote and produced Jumper (which I haven't seen but heard was horrendous) and wrote X-Men: The Last Stand (which was just horrendous), so I'm not sure what to think. I guess I'll wait for X-Men: Days of Future Past, for which he is writer and producer.
The Epic Fantasy thing is kind of an "in" thing at the moment in Hollywood. Superhero films are that to a certain extent (particularly more cosmic heroes, like Thor) and Lord of the Rings as well as the Hobbit are just smash hits. And since Hollywood is too lazy or too dumb to think of original properties, I guess it's MTGs turn.
Is this a thing that is actually happening at this point, or just one of these tentative deals that studios make every day, where they buy the rights to something and attach someone to work up a draft, but 90% of them never pan out?
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If you win enough, you can even get 4-8 prize packs, which makes the game a lot less expensive in the long run.
a) Modern Masters was released. Modern Masters is limited print run booster based set which is outside the regular release schedule. The set consists entirely of reprints and has basically all the best cards from several sets all of which are legal in the Modern Constructed format. However, the set itself was designed for limited play (where you get the cards you are going to play on site, rather than bringing them from home, e.g. Booster Draft) and its probably the most powerful officially sanctioned draft formats ever made. Since the cards in it are also very often very expensive, a booster however also costs double of what a normal booster usually costs when they are in print, and many retailers have even marked it up beyond that.
This is the video where Magic Head Honcho Aaron Forsythe first announced the set in October.
b) WOTC has made the wise decision of making a Grand Prix using the Modern Masters format. The Grand Prixes are is the largest non-invitation tournaments there are, and Grand Prix Las Vegas this weekend which is using Modern Masters, the only Grand Prix that will ever do so, will break all the records as they had to cap the number of participants at 4,500. The preregistration line on Friday was insane (though it doesn't vote well for WOTC as organizers).
There will also be live coverage of the event on the ggslive.com all weekend long.
c) There is also going to be a new Duels of the Planeswalkers that will come out in the near future. Just thought I should mention this since it is what this thread was originally about.
A cube is used for cube drafting. You shuffle all the cards in the cube together. You then split all the cards into 15 card packs. Each player gets three packs and then you make a normal draft with those cards. You look at the cards in the pack, pick a card, then pass the remaining cards to the left, then do the same for the next pack of cards you just received from the right. For the second pack you pass to the right, for the third pack to the left again. In the end you have 45 cards. You have to build a 40 card deck out of it with lands, so usually you pick about 23 cards from the 45 you have and add 17 lands, either basic lands which are provided, or nonbasics you picked.
Drafting itself requires card evaluation and selection skills, and a Cube usually contains a lot more powerful cards than your regular booster draft. To learn more about cubes, you can watch this video by the LoadingReadyRun guys (at worst you should know them as the production crew from Strip Search).
Most cubes have 360 cards in it without counting lands, which is the minimum for an 8 person cube. Since I am crazy however, I went ahead and designed a cube fit for 16 people, so 720 cards it is.
I am almost done with it, except two problems.
a) I ordered 1,000 sleeves from a retailer, in 10 packs of 100 sleeves each. It's 1,000 sleeves to fit the 720 cards, plus 36 basic lands per color which makes a nice round 900 total, with 100 spares for breaking sleeves. Got a decent price. Except the company I ordered from screwed up the order and sent me 10 packs of 50 sleeves. So now I need to sort that out.
b) I order most of my cards from MagicCardMarket.eu, which is a peer-to-peer selling platform. There's also a couple of commercial enterprises on there, but it's mostly one person selling to another. This makes the market pretty competitive and lowers the prices, which is good. Unfortunately, I've been waiting for two weeks on two letters with cards for my cube now, and they have not arrived yet and are probably lost, which sucks. Another thing to sort out.
The Epic Fantasy thing is kind of an "in" thing at the moment in Hollywood. Superhero films are that to a certain extent (particularly more cosmic heroes, like Thor) and Lord of the Rings as well as the Hobbit are just smash hits. And since Hollywood is too lazy or too dumb to think of original properties, I guess it's MTGs turn.