Shadowmoor goes for hybrid mana theme

[eldaec]

Booster pack spoiled by wotc...

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=magic/preview/shmpack

That's a lot of hybrid.

Note the uncommon with hybrid cost 2/b 2/b 2/b

[Thrawn]

Note the uncommon with hybrid cost 2/b 2/b 2/b

Thats going to create a lot of rules questions I'm sure. 

[Raging Turtle]

Seems obvious to me: Pay 2 colorless or a single black mana.

I like the direction of this block - taking the happy fantasy world to a darker place. 

[Thrawn]

Seems obvious to me: Pay 2 colorless or a single black mana.

I mean stuff like, "If I reveal that card with Riddle of Lightning, whats the converted mana cost?"

Is it 3,4,5 or 6?

[Raging Turtle]

Ah.  That is a harder question.  Knowing wizards, they'll make it whichever possiblity is highest. 

[eldaec]

It's 6.

[Margalis]

Turtle was correct.

[eldaec]

Shadowmoor is on mtgo as of today.

There are no release leagues, because (as previously documented) wotc are retarded. However, they have invented a type of PE which is a bit like a league, where you play five consecutive matches and get prizes according to your record (prizes are based on number of wins, not position). The downside is you have to play all 5 consecutively. That said, even on v2, if you wanted to avoid matches against tiebreaker whores, then you pretty much had to play your 5 release league matches consecutively anyhow

[eldaec]

So...

I finally decided to give shadowmoor a go before the release events end.

I log on, that takes longer than starting fucking steam in its shitty period, but nvm, because after logging in you find....

Due to continued issues with server performance will not be turning on queues at this time. We are doing everything we can to correct the problems we are all experiencing on MtGO.

We do not have an eta at this time for the return of drafts or PE's.

We will keep you updated as much as we can as we continue to work toward resolution.

We are very sorry for the frustration and inconvenience this has on our entire player base.

 

I gather drafts and PEs started getting really flaky last week, and they finally pulled the plug earlier this week.

[Johny Cee]

So...

I finally decided to give shadowmoor a go before the release events end.

I log on, that takes longer than starting fucking steam in its shitty period, but nvm, because after logging in you find....

Due to continued issues with server performance will not be turning on queues at this time. We are doing everything we can to correct the problems we are all experiencing on MtGO.

We do not have an eta at this time for the return of drafts or PE's.

We will keep you updated as much as we can as we continue to work toward resolution.

We are very sorry for the frustration and inconvenience this has on our entire player base.

 

I gather drafts and PEs started getting really flaky last week, and they finally pulled the plug earlier this week.

I drafted for the first time in ages last weekend:

The client fucking drops me right after card selection,  but doesn't actually tell me it drops me until a number of  minutes later when I start going "Why haven't we moved to deckbuilding??"

I log back in,  to find that I have 54 seconds to build a deck.  Of course,  no deck gets built in that time and I get shitty autodeck of all my drafted cards, plus random land.

Get beat game 1,  going to fucking sideboarding THE CLIENT DROPS ME FOR THE SECOND TIME.  So I don't even get to "sideboard" in a real deck to have a chance.

I still almost won game 2.

[Margalis]

Welcome to new MTGO, same as the old MTGO.

[eldaec]

I finally got to play some Shadowmoor the other day. Observations:

It's fantastic for limited, the interaction of hybrid and colour matters works really well, it asks new questions about mana curve and support for cards with double/triple/quad hybrid mana needs. The -1/-1 thing is neat - though as most removal seems to be -1/-1 counters, it does mean creatures are slow/hard to remove, the untap mechanic is interesting in the small doses it comes in limited. White, black, and blue seem strongest. Card choice is interesting, almost everything is playable, but there are a lot of cards that look like bombs but are in fact rather average - and vice versa.

Seems a bit meh for constructed, I came out of my PE, thinking 'what cool casual stuff can I build'. Well, there's untap.dec, and there's -1-1.dec which build themselves, but not that much else really jumped out at me.

Talking of my release PE, I managed to win the damn thing, meaning I now have 25 boosters to use up drafting. In v3 (where drafts seem to be down half the damn time) that might be easier said than done.