Read up on Time Spiral... nownownow

[Johny Cee]

www.mtgsalvation.com

Has a bunch of good info on it.  This new set looks like a doozy.  Reprinting about 100 cards as "bonus" cards in packs.  Bringing back alot of very good mechanics (madness, flashback, buyback, an INTERRUPT mechanic....).

The rumors floating around are that the bonus reprints will be beloved power cards from year back.  Not sure if they'll be Type 2 legal.

Really too much info to go into.  If you've ever played the game,  go read up on the latest set now.

[schild]

Wow. jesus. Some of that shit is horribly powerful compared to what we've had. Seriously. Krosan Grip? Yea, I like that.

[Xilren's Twin]

A) The set sounds very interesting.
B) WotC is raising the MSRP on magic packs, which includes MTGo packs, from 3.69 to 3.99 in October.  Approx 8% price hike.

Raising the price on digital cards that cost nothing to create just so they don't undermine their paper product again..... RAGE!

Xilren

[Margalis]

Technically you can redeem a full set of digital cards for real ones, so it does make at least a little sense.

[Johny Cee]

Really, the only thing Wizards has to do for true price parity with cardboard is to give a significant discount to buying a "box" of product just like how it is with paper cards.

Paper boosters are $3.69 or whatever,  but I think I usually buy a box or two each set for....  $75 to $80.  That drops price for boosters down to a little over $2.

Generally, you get most of the commons and uncommons you need, and at least 1 of alot of the rares.

I don't buy into the whole "paying money for worthless virtual product" thing.  The cardboard cards are worthless virtual product with a cost for materials that's probably negligable.  Wizards has proven, with cardboard and online, that they won't do anything stupid to undermine the value of cards.

I think once Wizards made a reprint set....  the secondary market blew up and they had to promise to never do it again.  And they haven't.

Most of the people I know who quit either cardboard or online have managed to sell their collections for a significant amount of money, which tells you something about the actual value of imaginary pieces of cardboard or data.

[Johny Cee]

I really like the new "split second" (basically it's the old interrupt) mechanic....

A big problem with recent sets has been printing cards with good activated abilities that you could put on the stack over a solution. 

To illustrate:  Ravager and Disciple of the Vault.  Your opponent has a mess of artifacts (artifact lands, creatures), Ravager, Disciple in play.  You cast a Shock at the Disciple.  In response, your opponent can sac out all the artifacts using Ravager to pump the Ravager and cause you a ton of life loss.  Often the game winner for the Ravager player,  and one of the reasons Disciple caught a ban.  Same situation with Goblin Sharpshooter in a Goblin deck.

Basically,  the cards meant to be a solution were ineffective.

Split second means that your opponent can't abuse abilities in response to your solution.

The Storm mechanic is also back,  and the rumors floating around indicate that we'll probably see Akroma (the actual 6/6 bad ass legend) back.  Alot of rumors counterspell will get reprinted with Hinder leaving Type 2. 

The rumors of massive reprints would be inline with my theory that Wizards is trying to boost the cardpool online for Vintage/Classic players.

[eldaec]

Technically you can redeem a full set of digital cards for real ones, so it does make at least a little sense.

Actually only about 3.5 cards can ever be redeemed from a booster. Because you have to do it in sets, and each booster only introduces one rare to the world, so 2 uncommons and aprox 9.5 commons are trapped in the mtgo world forever.

Also, of course, MRSP != what people pay for offline boosters.

[Raging Turtle]

Official previews starting this week.   ***SPOILERS*** below if you avoid even the official previews, but the second card... wow.  Pretty amazing from a flavor perspective. 

[Johny Cee]

Fuck.

Teferi is insane.  The 4 backend is enough that he isn't fodder for most burn except Char.

There's almost guaranteed to be a decent mono-blue deck based around him.  Play with all snow islands,  throw in the Coldsnap legend that bounces things. 

[Strazos]

Wow, that totally blocks all kinds of crazy instant-speed spells, including stuff like Countermagic. Ouch.

[Margalis]

5 for a 3/4 in blue isn't that bad.

As far as stopping countermagic, getting down a 5CC card through counters will be tough, although the ability to play it as an instant will certainly help.

Sedge Sliver is pretty beastly too. A 3/3 for 3 that regenerates? Not bad for red/black.

[Johny Cee]

5 for a 3/4 in blue isn't that bad.

As far as stopping countermagic, getting down a 5CC card through counters will be tough, although the ability to play it as an instant will certainly help.

Sedge Sliver is pretty beastly too. A 3/3 for 3 that regenerates? Not bad for red/black.

Teferi is a house in blue.  Blue works best when it can get away with tricks at the end of it's opponents turn.   Against non-blue colors,  it retards your opponents play.  Forcing them to react only during their turn means they can't just hit it with targetted removal in response.  You have to committ to removing it during your regular main phase.

Very interesting.

I think that the new "take another turn" spell is fairly solid too.  With a beater on the board,  getting an extra turn means another turn to swing away (plus further mana development and card drawing.)

I used Beacon of Tomorrows (and Decree of Silence, snicker..) pretty effectively in a monoblue deck around the Ravager timeperiod.  Not a great deck,  but not terrible.  When I lost, it was close.

[Raging Turtle]

[Johny Cee]

Looks like Gating is back.

A 2/1 white creature for W1;  Tap, pay 4, put a rebel card with casting cost of 3 or less into play from your library.

Gating can be absolutely broken.  I did pretty well in extended tourneys a couple years ago with a White Weenie deck featuring Ramosian Sergeant (W; 1/1; T, pay 3, put rebel with casting cost 2 or less into play from your library).  Of course,  I also had Armageddon and Parallax Wave.....

Ahhh, Parallax Wave.

Been deriving much amusement from the mtgsalvation forums.  Those people are idiots.

[eldaec]

Jaya Ballard    1RR

Legendary Creature - Human Spellshaper

Rt, discard a card : Destroy target blue permanent.

1Rt, discard a card : Incinerate

5RRt, discard a card : 6 to each player & creature

2/2

[Johny Cee]

That new Angel is nuts.

WW; 3/3; Flying; Vigilance; You can't cast it on your turn 1, 2 or 3.

Ummmm.....   So I can drop a massively efficient flying beater with good power and toughness, and have enough mana to counter?  Or after turn 6,  I can Wrath and immediately get a threat out?  Or turn 4,  drop two evading 3/3's?

Jaya is a pretty good card as well.  Not as much of a factor because of the sheer amount of removal, though.

[Margalis]

That angel may have the worst mechanic I've ever seen.

I've never liked things that spoke too much to the game rules rather than the game itself. For example things based on hand size. Those types of cards seem to break the 4th wall too much and call attention to the rules.

This is far worse. It seems to stupid and contrived.

"Hmm guys, this card is way too good."
"I know...how about you can't play it for the first 3 turns!"
"You mean, like it costs more or something? Requires 3 colors? Requires other permanents in play first?"
"NOPE!"

This mechanic is dreadful. In a way it is interesting in that one of the main purposes of a low cost card is that you can play it early but it seems way too forced.

[Raging Turtle]

Shadow!



 

[Strazos]

Totally unrelated, but I love cards that impose -whocares/-something - cheesey removal FTW.

[Margalis]

Even when the -something is zero?

I give you -zero, three times!!!

[Strazos]

Har.

[eldaec]

Image from an ebay auction....


http://cgi.ebay.com/MTG-Magic-the-Gathering-Time-Spiral-Lot-Live-71-Cards_W0QQitemZ200025274507QQihZ010QQcategoryZ19113QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

It shows a bunch of cards being printed at 'B' rarity (it was the revelation of the new rarity that pissed wotc off enough to sue Rancored Elf earlier this year). Key points...

There are 121 B rarity cards in TS.
They are reprints.
They use the old frames, old art, new purple expansion symbol.
They are numbered x/121, separate from the other 301 cards.

I'm image leeching there - so expect to see a red cross when wotc ask ebay to take the auction down.

Also, note Memory Jar throwback...

Magus of the Jar   3UU

t, Sacrifice Magus of the Jar : Each player removes his or her hand from the game face down, and draws seven cards. At end of turn, each player discards his or her hand and returns to his or her hand each card he or she removed from the game this way.

3/3

[schild]

Is it just me or is this set just ridiculous? I mean, I see what they're trying to do, and I like it. But it just seems so, so...."Hey we're running out of steam. Time to press the reset button." And boom, we have a set like this.

[Johny Cee]

That angel may have the worst mechanic I've ever seen.

I've never liked things that spoke too much to the game rules rather than the game itself. For example things based on hand size. Those types of cards seem to break the 4th wall too much and call attention to the rules.

This is far worse. It seems to stupid and contrived.

"Hmm guys, this card is way too good."
"I know...how about you can't play it for the first 3 turns!"
"You mean, like it costs more or something? Requires 3 colors? Requires other permanents in play first?"
"NOPE!"

This mechanic is dreadful. In a way it is interesting in that one of the main purposes of a low cost card is that you can play it early but it seems way too forced.

I disagree.

Alot of people have been hammering Wizards for not doing more experimentation with new mechanics,  i.e. reprinting beloved old mechanics (cycling),  reworking or tweaking old mechanics (rampage to flanking to bushido),  or using them to make predesigned decks (affinity).

If you want some innovation,  you have to step outside of what is considered the normal design and offer some real differences.  At first, they will be particularly jarring (especially for MODO players,  where the rules of play are enforced by the computer and can't be ignored like they can in real play) because we are so used to how play behaves.

I think cards like the Angel may help break out of the rut Constructed has fallen into,  with Control (few creatures and board control) and Aggro (many fast creatures/burn plus stall and cards to mess tempo)  perpetually switching off who's the top dog.  We really haven't had many decent aggro-control (mix of creatures of all sizes and "controlish" cards) or beats-style (play out a range of creatures, pump them) style decks.

The Angel is not a great choice for aggro, beyond a couple slots.  Their strategy is faster,  and the earliest the angel can get swinging is round 5.  (Still might be worth a couple slots as a finisher).  Aggro likes efficiency (Isamaru, Watchwolf, Kird Ape, hasty 2 power creatures, etc),  but needs speed/fast tempo.

The Angel is not a great choice for control.  Control wants to stabilize,  control the play surface,  then play out a finisher. (Still might be worth some slots as a blocker/delay card that consumes few resources).  Control,  if it plays a creatures,  expects the creature to "... Win".

The Angel is a great choice for an aggro-control strategy,  because aggro-control likes efficiency and versatility and can afford to pay the drawback.  Aggro-control only really works as a Sealed/League strategy now.

I'm biased,  since my first favorite deck was blue/white aggro-control.  Spot removal, board sweeping, some limited counter to stop bombs,  and bunches of efficient creatures (White Knight, Serendib Efreet, Serra Angel, Mesa Pegasus)

Combo....  combo needs a complete rethink.  Right now,  Combo sucks to play against and isn't much fun to play.  To be good,  it needs to consistently win very early through disruption,  which leads to a felling of helplessness from your opponent.  Literally, the last few "good" combo decks your opponent rarely if ever even has to pay attention to what you play....  (Krak Clan, Mind's Desire,  Heartbeat to an extent, and the bizarro Extended "inifinite life" decks)

The problem is some of these mechanics are going to be complete stinkers,  or just cause detachment from the play and flow of a game,  or be stupidly overpowered.

I'll be willing to trade a little of that risk for some changes and more revolutionary thinking.

[Margalis]

Mike Flores in his article on the angel said that it would be good in a pure aggro deck, and I tend to agree.

The idea is that an aggro deck has a whole bunch of one or two drops already, a lot of redundancy, so you are rarely going to be stuck with an unplayable angel in hand.

For example, say you start with:

Land, Land, Land, Angel, Isamaru, S. Lions, Leonin Skyhunter.

In that case you already have a couple of turns worth of plays and will draw into some more, so the angel doesn't just sit in your hand doing nothing. When you do get around to playing it it will be huge for the CC, and flying to boot.

It seems to me the basic analysis of angel is that it is good when you want to play it later, because you have other things to do in the first few turns. Developing the board and playing control for a few turns is one example of that, but playing other threats is another example.

In a deck with 12 creatures 4 angels is probably a pretty bad idea, but in a deck of 20 creatures 3 or 4 angels could be a really good idea as it increases your overall power without affecting your pace.

[Johny Cee]

Mike Flores in his article on the angel said that it would be good in a pure aggro deck, and I tend to agree.

The idea is that an aggro deck has a whole bunch of one or two drops already, a lot of redundancy, so you are rarely going to be stuck with an unplayable angel in hand.

For example, say you start with:

Land, Land, Land, Angel, Isamaru, S. Lions, Leonin Skyhunter.

In that case you already have a couple of turns worth of plays and will draw into some more, so the angel doesn't just sit in your hand doing nothing. When you do get around to playing it it will be huge for the CC, and flying to boot.

It seems to me the basic analysis of angel is that it is good when you want to play it later, because you have other things to do in the first few turns. Developing the board and playing control for a few turns is one example of that, but playing other threats is another example.

In a deck with 12 creatures 4 angels is probably a pretty bad idea, but in a deck of 20 creatures 3 or 4 angels could be a really good idea as it increases your overall power without affecting your pace.

I think there is some potential for the angel in an aggroish deck,  but not pure aggro.

Turn 4 is generally the death knell turn for pure aggro:  either you have your opponent beat,  or they board wipe/stabilize.  You don't want to continue developing your critter base past turn 4,  but you do want to hoard a couple of cards for the coup de grace after wipe.

The problem with running 4 angels,  is that it's a deadish card in an opening hand for an aggro deck.  And it takes the slot of a another 2 cc card you could drop out for fun and games.

Basically, for aggro, vigilance is a wasted ability.  Flying is better, but not great.  At the two mana slot,  why not run something like Watchwolf that has the same damage potential without screwy side effects?

This is the same reason, I think, for the general failure of quite a few great creatures to not see Constructed play.  Moroii, for instance.  Efficient 4/4 with evasion and a laughable drawback.  Not played,  even though there have been various flavors of aggroish black (from W/B to Suicide Black to those black Hand decks) because it is not a great aggro card,  and a poorish control card as well.

Aggro-control, on the other hand, will run 20 creatures.  But the creatures will be played for either their efficiency or their other abilities and fill a role.  Court Hussar is being played in alot of controlish decks now because of the card drawing and it's ability to slow down the aggro rush until enough mana comes online for defence.

Mind linking to the Flores article, by the way, so I can take a glance?

[Margalis]

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/mf110

From article:

The deck is basically 20 2/2 creatures (okay, Savannah Lions is 2/1) for one, two, or three mana, 20 lands, and 20 “stuff” (mostly burn spells). In the offensive abstract, there is no difference between Savannah Lions, Isamaru, Kami of Ancient Law, Hand of Honor, Leonin Skyhunter, or Paladin en-Vec. In fact, you can make the argument that Savannah Lions is often a better card than the nigh invincible Paladin en-Vec when Boros is on the attack. It is only in specific matchups where the differences come into play. Paladin en-Vec may be Dominaria's best speed bump, but Hand of Honor is better at fighting other Paladins and trading with Watchwolf. Kami of Ancient Law is kind of a slow-witted Hound of Konda… unless you are up against Eminent Domain, Heartbeat of Spring, or some other enchantment-reliant Blue deck. Unless the opponent has relevant creatures to block, Leonin Skyhunter (a minority inclusion in the archetype) is just a Grizzly Bears. The deck basically does the same thing with essentially the same cards from turn 1, spending free mana to clear a path or send burn cards to the opponent's dome.

Serra Avenger fits in perfectly in a deck like this for two reasons: 1) Because of the extreme redundancy built into the deck, it doesn't matter that she can't show up on the first turns because some sort of Spirit, or Lion, or some other kind of Cat will cover for her until she is good and ripe, and 2) Boros with 20 lands doesn't have a lot of spare mana anyway, so tapping for her mid-game instead of some 2/2 might actually be a call for celebration: Don't be surprised if the rotation of Umezawa's Jitte obsoletes Paladin en-Vec to some degree, making this creature the preferred drop in Standard Boros.

I guess it really depends on the decks that evolve, but I can see his point. And if your opponent does wipe the board playing two 3/3 flyers the next turn is a pretty good response.

I can see this being especially useful in an aggro mirror match, where you are going to be trading off a lot and playing a 3/3 for 2 is a pretty big deal there. In those types of matches you just keep playing creatures and trading until someone finally wins.

[Raging Turtle]

I totally forgot the Jitte is rotating.  Maybe I'll spend a few tix to get back into standard finally. 

[eldaec]

I totally forgot the Jitte is rotating.  Maybe I'll spend a few tix to get back into standard finally. 

Remember, the shocklands are *not* rotating. So it's only worthwhile if you have deep pockets.

[hal]

There are other ways. Mono green speed (mana accell) is still viable and mono black while not as competitive can still win. Two colors is more affordable. You can ease into the 3..4 color scene at least.

[Strazos]

Good riddance to the Jitte.

[Johny Cee]

There are other ways. Mono green speed (mana accell) is still viable and mono black while not as competitive can still win. Two colors is more affordable. You can ease into the 3..4 color scene at least.

Green land fixing lets you play 5 colors without using the shock or pain lands, though it's hurt by rotation of elder and kodama's reach.  I played a couple of competitive 5 color decks back in the Mirrodin/Kami block.

Monoblack isn't good.  I tried building something with the cardpool available....  and generally I would say "why the hell aren't I splashing white/green?"  The only decent board clearers are white.  The only decent targeted removal are W/B or G/B or straight W (Fetters and Condemn)

Monowhite is rougish and can win some games,  but very vulnerable to Persecute and "target one color" effects.

[eldaec]

TS release : October 30th.

Also, token art preview...
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/arcana/1160

That is all.

[schild]

I see a homarid token!

[Johny Cee]

People are going apeshit on mtgspeculation....

Supposedly,  one of Adult Swim's bumps last night for MtG was a reprinted Akroma,  with the new purple rarity symbol, confirming her appearance in the new set as a reprint.

Right now,  the rumors seem to be focusing around the distribution of the purple rarity cards.  Purple rarity taking one slot in a booster, and boosters staying at 15 cards.  Either:

1. Purple usurps 1 common slot.  Seems most likely to me,  as the purple reprints aren't all rares.  Some commons/uncommons mixed in.

2.  One purple per pack,  but takes the place of the rarity the reprint is;  i.e. Akroma takes the place of a regular Timespiral rare.  Seems really unlikely,  as it would make the purple reprint rares virtually impossible to find.


I'm not really surprised much by the reprints.  Wizard's has show that their trying to really push MODO,  and this is another good way to increase the card pool online to the benefit of casual/classic/open players.