Official MTG Thread!!

[Magmoormaster]

Oh, 10000000%. TMNT, Star Trek, Marvel, the Hobbit, will be wholly ignored by me. Maybe I'll get some of the Star Trek basics, if they're cool space lands like EOE or Unfinity. But otherwise, yeah it can all eff off.

I am excited but kinda hesitant about Lorwyn. The cards we've seen so far look good, and it's a cool set I always wanted them to go back to, but the fact that the story is basically a Strixhaven field trip makes me a tad skeptical. I'm curious to see what Reality Fracture is though.

[ThinRizzie]

Oh cool, an MTG thread. Now I don't really ever have to visit another website ever again lol

I've been playing semi-regularly with a fully obsessed buddy of mine for a few years, but MTG kind of lost its flavor since I feel like I can never keep up with standard changes and don't have a lot of time to make it to the game store. This guy just introduced me to a new format called 'value vintage' the other day (use any cards you want, but your deck can't cost more than $30) and it's honestly the most fun I've had with magic in at least 10 years. Every deck is a janky broken infinite-combo mess but it kind of balances out since the $30 limit keeps the playing field pretty level.

[warbosschoppa]

I like the pauper format myself

[ThinRizzie]

Yeah pauper is cool but the restriction to not use any rares / mythics really bogs it down. Lots of the really cool stuff happens with those cards lol

[Magmoormaster]

Man...... I hate to say it, but after playing the prerelease last night, I gotta admit..... The ATLA set is pretty good... As mentioned, I never watched the show, so I have no attachment to the property. But I think it might be my second favorite set of the year, after EOE.

[OpusX]

Going to get an old school Battle Box together for fun with my old cards. Got to love the classics.

[Magmoormaster]

Oooooh those white border Demonic Tutors and Sol Ring are cool!!!

[cfos00]

Had the wife and kiddo out of town so got to go in for most of a day and play a full day on Saturday. I was rotating through my decks, had a blast, and picked up some really good wins. My mono red Tannuk deck that goes big mana, big card draw, and throws out bombs left and right picked up a couple of wins including one against 3 decks that were tier 4's (it's a 2 intentionally). My Ur Dragon deck got a win against 3 other tier 4's (that deck is a straight 4 on it's own and I was archenemy after dropping an opening hand with a dual, mox diamond, arcane signet, and sol ring turn one---I didn't blame them. Got 3 lands all game and still won). And a super different Koll/Lotus Ring/Fervent Champion red/white win-from-nowhere deck I had pulled off a win that the table learned was a whole problem really quick with after I explained it. Also had a Hazezon deck go absolutely nuts in a game that ended in a draw, and got to see a few other people playing with commanders that I hadn't played against prior really get to do their thing and learn about them. Really fun day!

[Magmoormaster]

That's awesome!! Tannuk is a really fun deck, I play it on arena from time to time. Sounds like a blast. I pretty much just play with one group, and so I don't get to see as much variety as I'd prefer. That said, a few people in the goup have built some bew decks that are pretty fun. One guy (the tryhard of the group) built Jaws from one of the recent secret lairs, and it's pretty fun to play against. Another is working on Ardbert from Final Fantasy, which is not quite there yet but is an interesting idea with some varied play patterns. I took apart my Kotis deck (my group didn't like playing against it), and now I'm putting together Altair from the Assassin's Creed set. Just waiting for the cards to arrive in the mail. But yeah, I always like seeing different stuff, especially how other people approach deckbuilding. A few weeks ago most of my group wasn't able to meet so we went to a different store and played with a guy who had some pretty wacky stuff. Can't remember much of it besides one being a graveyard pillowfort deck. I need to make a conscious effort to get into more varied games.

TMNT prerelease is next week but I have a scheduling conflict and won't be able to make it. Not that I'm sad about it. I haven't really followed the set previews, but it's definitely not my vibe.

[cfos00]

Another good game day. I won the first 5 games in a row today to the point that I kinda felt bad, but none of the decks were overpowered. I got an ideal draw a couple of times and also had a a game that I kind of just floated until I was out of hand and just hammered it home. Then got to play with another pod that was a bit stronger and more of a challenge. I was happy to get to test my homebrew CEDH and got one win outta that in three and I'll take that. Was a fun day!

[cfos00]

Anyone else go in hard on Secrets of Strixhaven? I got a couple collector's boxes and a play box and landed most of what I was hoping for. No Emeritus of Ideations, but got a few of EoWoe, which is on I'll use and is my vote for best of the group. I also got all three of what I consider the best Elder Dragons, and two Witherblooms, who I wanted to build. Still want a Lorehold, but did pretty well there. And I got a regular JP and Foil English Jeska's Will, a card I use all the time, so I was happy about that. Now I just gotta figure out how I wanted to build out those three dragons...

[Magmoormaster]

Dang yeah you got some good stuff! Two Jeska's Will's is pretty solid. Also curious which of the 3 dragons you consider the best. I think I like the blue/red one the best, but I'm also just partial to that color. One guy in my play group (who doesn'y play that much) pulled Vamp Tutor from his prerelease kit and just casually left it sitting on top of his pile. We each had a "WTF" moment when we saw it.

SoS is a great set. The prerelease last night was a ton of fun. Probably the best playing prerelease I've done. As I've mentioned previously, the place we go to does Two-Headed Giant. We went 2-1, and if we matched up against literally anyone else we probably would have went 3-0. But the guys who beat us had the black paradigm card, the green/black planeswalker, and the red/blue elder dragon. We had nothing to compete with that much value. But yea, I played black/white, and it was a blast. I might even build a standard deck on arena, which I never do.

The place we play at usually hands out 2 packs for participation and 1 for each win, but they upped it to 3 participation packs this time. So we got 5 packs, which was cool. From those, I think my best pull was a foil Petrified Hamlet. I also got the blue paradigm card as my promo.

I bought 1/3 of a play booster box from a friend (10 packs), and I got insane pulls from that. FIrst pack had Lorehold, a foil Ral Zarek, Deathcap Glade, and a Dualcaster Mage. Biggest pull was Force of Will, which was my #1 chase card. Also pulled EoWoe (and I agree, it's the best of the 5), Resonating Lute, and most of the cheaper bulk cards I wanted.

My friend pulled Jeska's WIll, Akroma's Will, Pyretic Ritual, EoWoe, Ral, and Witherbloom. So I didn't steall all the heat from the box lol.

So yeah, really good set. The bonus sheet is fantastic and getting 1 in each play booster is a lot of fun, even if it's usually blah commons/uncommons. I think I'm most interested in building Blech, actually haha. Lorehold might be fun to build as well.

[cfos00]

Good lord you guys landed some good ones! I would say Witherbloom is the strongest. He's not hard to get in fast and can make any deck cheap. I was thinking build him with dorks and then basically go spellslinger and card draw.

[cfos00]

Played again a bunch today at a couple LGS's and had fun. First time I've run into a really toxic player. One guy in the pod was a slower player, but thought stuff through and was a little off on his deck assessment. He said one was a three and had like a half dozen game changers I saw, but wasn't that big of a deal. Anyway, I was just being mostly a bi-standard with a blightsteel and a platinum emprium but purposely holding back until I had a kill shot to not be an absolute dick. Meanwhile, another player had built up a massive board state (That said, I was likely killing the entire table, but they didn't know that). The guy who takes awhile to play blew up his commander and kills him because he was definitely the biggest threat at the table---and the other guy just loses it on him. Kills one of his creatures out of spite and then yells at him and storms off. All the slower player really did is correctly assess what he saw as the threat. Hadn't run into it before and was absolutely ridiculous. Felt bad for the guy that he yelled at and told him multiple times he did nothing wrong. Angry wasn't getting targeted most of the game---I was---and threw a tantrum like my 8 year old might.

Anyway, rest of the day was fun and picked up a few wins in there and got to see some fun decks do their thing, which is honestly something I love. Also got to use my Prismari deck and holy crap is he a problem. Got killed off twice and still ripped the table apart one I got to have him resolve and play one more turn. He just needs one shot and the table dies when he storms off. Really, ridiculously fun. And someone I now see as a Kill one Sight.

[cfos00]

Got to play again this weekend and ran the Primari again with zero game changers but wasn't sure where it should lot in. After it absolutely slaughtered again and talking to the pod, even with no game changers w all agreed I should just add in the game changers and call it a 4 because it's going to just roll anything lower than that. Basically, it showed that once Primari resolves, it's just game. And I built a Witherbloom, made zero changes from build to trying it against tuned 4's, and it held it's own. Tuned it up today and just did a bunch of test hands and it seems to go off as early as turn two, or if you have a bad run of draws, turn 5/6. These Elder Dragons are incredibly fun and just massively cracked. Love em.

Also traded in like 3 inches thick of bulk rares to get my first Gaea's Cradle!

[cfos00]

Yeah, just confirmed my Witherbloom is a really, really strong 4, borderline cedh deck. Wins consistently turn 4, and I misplayed one today or it would have been turn 3. Just a vicious deck.

[Magmoormaster]

Sounds insane. Do you have a decklist?

I keep going back and forth on wanting to take apart my assassin's creed deck and build something else. It's fun when it works, but it's too reliant on the commander and thus too fragile. The problem is, I don't know what I want to build. I looked at extort, which would be fun but it's very removal heavy, feels like it would be not fun to play against. Similar with a grixis goad deck I've been looking at. A Muldrotha toolbox deck would be kinda cool, but also kinda generic. I'd love to do some sort of Marit Lage token deck but that would be pretty tough for edh. Problem is I have too many ideas and none that I like enough to commit to lol.

Also where are you trading bulk in and getting enough to get reserved list stuff? Somewhere local?

[Magmoormaster]

Had a really fun FNM this week. I took apart my Assassin's Creed deck and temporarily built a 5 color Myr deck using Urtet as commander. I'm planning on replacing it soon so I played it all night. Despite it being a bracket 3 deck, I had one really insane game where I won on turn 5. Turn 1 was Ancient Tomb into Sol Ring into Commander. I was able to cast My Battlesphere on turn 3, turn 5 played Akroma's Will. Last game of the night, we had a borderline cEDH Yuriko lose to a slightly-upgraded Nekron precon. It was wild.

[Magmoormaster]

Spent the evening teaching my wife to play. We did a couple games with the Foundations Beginner's Box. Honestly it's a great product for teaching people how to play.

[Magmoormaster]

After all, why not? Why shouldn't I triple post?

Next year's sets (at least the in-universe ones) have been announced at MagicCon Amsterdam. They look pretty exciting!! Zhalfir will be interesting story-wise (with it returning in the place of Mirrodin), though honestly I'm more hyped about Kamigawa: Titanbreach. It sounds like a really fun concept, and one that seems hard to mess up. The art looks fantastic. Nauctis also looks really cool.

Spoilers for the Hobbit are coming out now, it's looking ok. I'm not planning on buying anything, but I'll do the prerelease. It'll be the first, and possibly only, UB prerelease I'll do this year. I'll likely pass on Star Trek.

I was really hoping to get the Amsterdam Festival in a Box, but unfortunately I was not able to. Still kinda bummed about that. I was really looking forward to cracking a Mystery Booster box. So instead I bought all the cards I needed for my newest deck, which is the EOE World Shaper precon. I wanted something with interesting combos and nontraditional play patterns that doesn't rely on the commander. Far too many of my recent decks have been so dependent on the commander that targeted removal basically kills the deck. I've only played a few games [in paper] so far, I'm hoping it'll stick around for a lot longer than most of my recent decks. Admittedly my bracket 3 deck was always intended to rotate in and out, but I'm running out of paintball stuff to sell to fund my cardboard addiction.