Magic the Gathering fans?

[ParadoxicalZen]

I am looking forward to the stories, as the Gisuna/Brusela hybrid is pure horrifying so I'm eager to see if they get a card. I missed the first Innistrad block so this has been interesting and I like the Werewolves however, Ulrich I'm not certain about. I can see ways I can work with it with EDH (door of destinies/Obelisk of Urd/Equestrian skill/Rancor) although reading MTGSalv, everyone seems to be out of favour with it, blaming creative's 'reasoning' that nobody actually said what they wanted on a WW leg so *shrug*.

I'm interested to see Lili in this, among tamiyo and possibly someone else, along with the other legendaries. Thalia isn't really my playstyle atm so I'm not that interested. Hanweir looks funny as Storms and I'll be interested in the front side. I was a bit cautious with Eldrazi in this set due to BfZ burnout, but I'm warming up to them now

[ParadoxicalZen]

Sorry for double post, but can we all just appreciate how beautiful and stunning Kaladesh is? (Not to mention broken)

[Dunkum]

I am liking the look of Kaladesh so far.  seems like it should be an interesting set. 

I also have to revise my opinion on Eldritch moon: I was pretty pessimistic about it going in, but it won me over.  I didn't like the original implementation of Eldrazi, back in their first set, but I feel like they worked a lot better this time around (possibly because they had that sort of lovecraftian theme of corrupting things that I don't recall seeing as strongly in their original incarnations)

[ParadoxicalZen]

I very much want Rashmi, she would very fun with Momir Vig and/or Jori End in a Temur deck with Animar

[The Sovereign]

The new Chandra is really really good.

Edited September 12, 2016 by Iron Eyes
This one...

[Dunkum]

has anyone looked at the Kaladesh Inventions sort of psuedo set they are releasing with this one?  if not: apparently what they've decide is to release a sort of fancy reprint set (I think they referred to the general idea as masterpiece series or something like that, but it is just reprints with new card art and fancy frames.  I think they are all foil too, if memory serves)  basically 1 in 144 packs will have one of these cards (not sure what they replace), and the whole mini set will be thematically related to the main one.  so Kaladesh Inventions is all artifacts, for instance.

[ParadoxicalZen]

Yeah I saw; the artwork is purdy. The Swords are noice

[Dunkum]

friend of mine had sword of light and dark in a deck of his.  not sure I was ever able to beat that deck, though the sword was only a small part of why

[Lindel]

I'm thinking about getting back into Magic, cause it's been a while since I really played, and I want to see if I can get a decently competitive Modern deck up and running on a budget. What I have so far is a pretty straightforward Izzet Delver deck. Here's a link, if anyone has thoughts, they'd be greatly appreciated. 

Edited October 19, 2016 by Lindel
fixed link

[The Sovereign]

23 minutes ago, Lindel said:

I'm thinking about getting back into Magic, cause it's been a while since I really played, and I want to see if I can get a decently competitive Modern deck up and running on a budget. What I have so far is a pretty straightforward Izzet Delver deck. Here's a link, if anyone has thoughts, they'd be greatly appreciated. 

The link is broken, with that said, what format are you playing? Legacy? Modern? Casual? Are you looking for optimal or cheap, etc?

[Lindel]

Oh, that's fixed now, thanks. I've mostly played Casual in the past, but this will be Modern. Definitely not optimal, cause I don't have that kind of budget, but it doesn't have to be ultra-cheap either. Just don't want to break the bank on this. Ideally it'll hold its own in a semi-competitive setting, but I'm not expecting it to compete with top Modern decks. 

EDIT: "Hold its own" as in not dying a swift, pathetic death. 

Edited October 19, 2016 by Lindel
clarity

[Wyrmhero]

Just gonna leave this here...

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/january-9-2017-banned-and-restricted-announcement-2017-01-09

So yeah. Copter, Reflector Mage and Emrakul. Three standard-defining cards, axed. They've just given in the towel and admitted they cannot design a fair environment. The last cards banned in Standard were Jace the Mind Sculptor and Stoneforge Mystic, which were magnitudes above the first two cards.

There are two things I dislike about this. Not the cards themselves being banned, I don't play Standard so it has no effect on me. It's that they didn't say sorry, and they didn't state why things happened like this. There's nothing to state that they learned anything about them. Chiefly, there is no mention that the lack of removal meant there was no counterplay. They're not ducking the issue, but they're not properly acknowledging it.

The other two bans are less surprising, but GGT does not feel like the problem in the deck. I can't see Dredge 5/4 being hugely worse than 6. I guess we'll see though. Phyrexian Mana should just never have been printed though, in my opinion.

Edited January 9, 2017 by Wyrmhero

[Dunkum]

I never care too much about tournament type news, since I don't play those sorts of things anyway.  purely casual.  but quite frankly I'm of the opinion that "you control target player's turn" is a stupid ability that should never have been printed.  whoever suggested it should have been laughed out of the company.

[Exalted]

Went to the Aether Revolt prerelease last night, had a whole lot of fun, even if I didn't win anything. The new set looks cool, and Revolt looks like a fun mechanic so far.

[ParadoxicalZen]

Ohhhh that necro....

Buuuuuut...i hath a query if anyone can hazard some help, other boards aren't offering much in the way of help that i can gather from searching.

Both Anointed Procession and Parallel Lives double the number of tokens produced by a card's effect, but I can't quite wrap my had around if one or both trigger the each other? As each effect doubles the amount, they're practically the same card but the differing wording is sending me for a little loop. Am I being stupid and just over-thinking this and that Create and Put essentially mean the same thing?

Basically my question is this; I have both enchantments out and then I cast a token producing card; I resolve PL first, then AP; but the newly doubled token wouldn't trigger

For reference;

Anointed Procession 3W

If an effect would create one or more tokens under your control, it creates twice that many tokens instead

Parallel Lives 3G

If an effect would put one or more tokens onto the battlefield under your control, it puts twice that many tokens onto the battlefield inst

Ignore my ramblings, I think I figured it out. How's everyone liking Ixalan?

Edited October 15, 2017 by ParadoxicalZen

[Dunkum]

they both apply and you end up with a quadrupled amount of tokens.

Haven't had a chance to play any Ixalan yet, but i like the look of it.  tentatively plannign a draft with some friends in the next few weeks, btu everyone is busy, so its hard to get schedules all worked out.

[Wyrmhero]

'Create' is a new shorthand term that they introduced in Kaladesh, long after Parallel Lives was created. It means 'put [a token] onto the battlefield', so you're right that they're kind of the same thing, but 'Create' specifically refers to tokens; it's still templated as 'put onto the battlefield' for cards. So actually, Parallel Lives and Anointed Procession are the exact same card, just in different colours. You can see the Oracle text on the above links to confirm this. The good news about this is that if you are playing Green and White in Commander, you can have an extra copy of the effect, or even gain access to it even if you're not running Green :D.

 

I've been to an Ixalan prerelease, where I won at 2HG with a random stranger I met there :D. Hopefully going out later to play EDH, first time I get to try the C17 Vampire deck, which has a number of fun cards from Ixalan included. I'm really glad we finally have Vampires in White, I've always said that their cruel authoritarianism would be a perfect fit for the colour. Overall, it looks like a fun and level set, if a bit on the lower end of the power scale. I'm hoping to build a cube for it for my friends and I to play online, but it looks like it really needs Rivals to make it work between all the tribes, sad to say.

Edited October 16, 2017 by Wyrmhero

[Mulk]

sheesh I haven't played this in so long I didn't know MTG was still a thing...

Seriously. The bulk of my cards are from the unlimited printing and some of the xpacs that came out around it.

[Wyrmhero]

27 minutes ago, Mulk said:

sheesh I haven't played this in so long I didn't know MTG was still a thing...

Seriously. The bulk of my cards are from the unlimited printing and some of the xpacs that came out around it.

It's actually growing more and more popular every year. The print run size now dwarfs that of ten years ago, and that in turn is huge compared to Unlimited (and that's even if we ignore cards obtained on MTGO, the official online client to play the game). MtG's entering into its 25th year of release this year, and keeps getting more and more players, despite the admittedly shakey year it's had.

If there are some cards from unlimited, might be worth having a look at this site, see if there's anything in there that might be worth selling if they're in good condition. I'd definitely sleeve anything you find along these lines even if you don't sell them.

[Mulk]

nice link, thanks.  I know I have all of the lands referenced and I recognize several others from decks I used to run.  None of them have been out of a box in...10 years or more I think.  I...may be sitting on a lot of value there. I'll have to have a look at it.

[Wyrmhero]

2 minutes ago, Mulk said:

nice link, thanks.  I know I have all of the lands referenced and I recognize several others from decks I used to run.  None of them have been out of a box in...10 years or more I think.  I...may be sitting on a lot of value there. I'll have to have a look at it.

Certainly worth spending some time over, when there's a potential like that!

[ParadoxicalZen]

Yeah, now that my mind has stopped going Izuku Midoriya, I can actually phrase what I meant say. Whichever one you give priority to, I wasn't sure if the trigger from the first would somehow trigger the second for the first time, and then when priority moves to the second, it would activate for the second time (don't ask my why I thought this a possibility, I have no idea why I thought either enchantment would trigger each other, unless I was thinking they were a little similar to Panharmicon) but yeah, i realised the tokens would double before this question even occurred, I guess i just misunderstood the typing in an incomprehensibly complex way. My mind is a baffling place haha

I didn't get much synergy with my pre-release, as is my usual case (although I may just need to sharpen my skills more as I've played very little competitive magic) and now that I'm back home for a little bit, with all that I've learned, I'm just wincing a lot at how I've built my old decks (hence why I was asking about Anointed Procession, as figured it was a White Parallel Lives) but seeing as I've already got 2/3 PL already, there isn't much point really spending £6.99 on one (apart from making a Selesnya token Comm deck). Speaking of, I really want the C17 Dragon deck (Cats too) despite how ungreat the manabase is. I agree on the White Vampires, especially as they're often portrayed as Aristocratic, Noble-birth "respec'-m-'authoritah", self-entitled  etc.

Also, Pariah's Shield and Phytohydra, or even Sprouting Phytohydra; interesting combo? (for argument's sake, it has Hexproof etc.)

[Dunkum]

3 hours ago, ParadoxicalZen said:

Also, Pariah's Shield and Phytohydra, or even Sprouting Phytohydra; interesting combo? (for argument's sake, it has Hexproof etc.)

I always preferred pariah's shield and stuffy doll, but it would work reasonably well with either of those too.

[Wyrmhero]

4 hours ago, ParadoxicalZen said:

Yeah, now that my mind has stopped going Izuku Midoriya, I can actually phrase what I meant say. Whichever one you give priority to, I wasn't sure if the trigger from the first would somehow trigger the second for the first time, and then when priority moves to the second, it would activate for the second time (don't ask my why I thought this a possibility, I have no idea why I thought either enchantment would trigger each other, unless I was thinking they were a little similar to Panharmicon) but yeah, i realised the tokens would double before this question even occurred, I guess i just misunderstood the typing in an incomprehensibly complex way. My mind is a baffling place haha

I didn't get much synergy with my pre-release, as is my usual case (although I may just need to sharpen my skills more as I've played very little competitive magic) and now that I'm back home for a little bit, with all that I've learned, I'm just wincing a lot at how I've built my old decks (hence why I was asking about Anointed Procession, as figured it was a White Parallel Lives) but seeing as I've already got 2/3 PL already, there isn't much point really spending £6.99 on one (apart from making a Selesnya token Comm deck). Speaking of, I really want the C17 Dragon deck (Cats too) despite how ungreat the manabase is. I agree on the White Vampires, especially as they're often portrayed as Aristocratic, Noble-birth "respec'-m-'authoritah", self-entitled  etc.

Also, Pariah's Shield and Phytohydra, or even Sprouting Phytohydra; interesting combo? (for argument's sake, it has Hexproof etc.)

So the way that Parallel Lives and Anointed Procession work is that they are both replacement effects, that is, something which says 'if X would happen, do Y instead', where Y in this instance is '2*X', basically. Therefore what really happens is Parallel Lives sees the event X and replaces it with 2*X, and then Anointed Procession sees 2*X and replaces it with 2*(2*X), or 4*X. Replacement effects have a rule which states that each spell or ability can only modified once by a single replacement effect, so it doesn't loop to 2*2*2*2....*X though. It's the same reason as to why 'Thought Reflection' doesn't infinitely draw cards for you, but the fact that it's a single effect makes it more obvious.

 

As for these two, Dunkum has stated the more common combo you see. Sprouting Phytohydra doesn't really do anything, since it has Defender, and it being a 0/2 means it would only take 2 damage before it dies, since it still takes the damage. You also need to figure out what the tokens even do for you in this deck other than exist. Phytohydra is by far the better of the two to combo with, since it won't die from the damage and instead has a replacement effect (oh look! :P) which changes the damage for counters. Generally speaking though, the combo is fairly slow, and you're better off with something like Blasphemous Act instead to do 13 to someone's face with Stuffy Doll, Spitemare and/or Boros Reckoner. There is a general 'Enrage' style deck though, which is quite fun to play in casual. For example, this is one I have on Cockatrice:

 

// 60 Maindeck

// 1 Artifact
1 Chromatic Lantern

// 22 Creature
2 Phytohydra
2 Protean Hydra
2 Bellowing Aegisaur
4 Hornet Nest
4 Ranging Raptors
4 Ripjaw Raptor
2 Sun-Crowned Hunters
2 Walking Ballista

// 4 Enchantment
2 Pyrohemia
2 Rite of Passage

// 10 Instant
2 Arcbond
4 Dual Shot
4 Lightning Helix

// 23 Land
4 Sunpetal Grove
4 Rootbound Crag
4 Clifftop Retreat
2 Plains
4 Mountain
5 Forest

The idea here is fairly obvious - Drop a load of creatures, then Pyrohemia to trigger them all. Dual Shot can be used as removal or as enrage triggers - Landing one on a Ripjaw Raptor or Ranging Raptor (which is a card I really like) is very strong in casual games. I haven't got Boros Reckoner or Spitemare in this deck, but I might replace the Sun-Crowned Hunters with a Reckoner at some point.

Edited October 16, 2017 by Wyrmhero

[ParadoxicalZen]

Aye I figured. I'm typically trying to think up annoyingly fun combos to annoy my friends with whenever we do play magic (however rarely) as my token deck 0.1 (back when I bought the RTR Selesnya event deck) originally had 2 Parallel lives in (and i figured the effect stacked then) so if they were playing the wrong deck and had no board wipes, the tokens got out of control quite quickly. (My friend's mono black zombie deck is the same, although much more annoying). (Sprouting I was only thinking really if I had any of the token doublers in conjunction with the above combo).

Currently working on my mill deck...and damnation do I hate being a bit more well informed about the nuances of how to play Mana curve, Spell timing, Creatures vs Spells vs Static BF permanents, Spell/Mana allocation percentage. I mean, they tell you about it at the start, but knowing something and actually understanding it (even beginning to) are two different things