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[Yeef]

I'm surprised there isn't a straight up clone from the GY yet, that I know of.

There's Lazav and other mixed blue cards but not mono black.

?

 

[GoutPatrol]

I can't believe Sigil of Distinction is still bugged on MTGO. Shards of Alara is almost 8 years old. Fix your shit, Wizards!

I actually won a match because my opponent played it on their Exper common lifelinker and instead of swinging for 8 it was 3. I didn't know it was bugged, so I looked up the bug report and told them.

 

[SigmasonicX]

Confirmation that Temur was strong in testing, leading to them weakening some cards, leading it to being a fringe deck in real life.

dysrope asked:
how often do you tweak and depower some deck that is dominant at the start of playtest, but ends up being fringe at best in actual standard, and was only a pillar of your version of the format because it had always been? (/is this a real concern?)

Yes, this can happen. I wouldn’t say it’s a dangerous or a bad thing, since we often work in terms of a deck’s probability to show up rather than an absolute, binary “this will or will not show up.” We like to aim for the border, so that if we miss high or low we’re not too far off. The same goes for individual cards.

And sometimes, yes, a deck that was strong in early playtesting gets some nerfs in order to bring it in line with other strategies, and the nerfs end up causing it not to show up in the real world. One recent example was Temur in Theros-Khans standard. At one point Temur was one of the stronger clans, but we dinged Savage Knuckleblade and Temur Charm a little bit and it ended up just being a fringe deck in standard. (Though I will add it wasn’t too far below the rest of the metagame - people still played it in Grand Prix and in unified standard at the World Magic Cup.)

The only thing that would be dangerous is planning lots of other elements of standard relying on the fact that a certain deck is strong, not realizing we over-nerfed it. But that doesn’t really happen with the way we work, because part of our process is to avoid putting all our eggs into one basket.

-Ian

 

[ultron87]

Oh for the world where everyone was sick of Big Knucks instead of Siege Rhino.

 

[charlequin]

 

[SigmasonicX]

I suppose that was inevitable once people realized the card market was small enough that buyouts by individuals were even possible.

EDIT: For those who didn't read the article posted earlier today, Magic cards as a stock market fails at a certain point because most people don't actually sell their cards. Most Reserved List cards are sitting in someone's deck or collection. Thus, there are very few Legacy-significant Reserved List cards that are actually on the market.

 

[OnPoint]

Does this effectively kill legacy?

 

[HK-47]

Does this effectively kill legacy?

Its either that or it kills the reserve list.

 

[charlequin]

Does this effectively kill legacy?

Legacy was alive?

 

[OnPoint]

Legacy was alive?

Sputtering, choking on its own blood. So I guess not.

Now the question is when do you move duals.

 

[red13th]

Duals being on the reserved list is the worst thing about Magic. Whenever I remember that they can't reprint duals I hate MtG a bit more, I honestly wouldn't hate the reserved list if it didn't have dual lands.

 

[Infinite Stars]

Temur being stronger in testing is something MaRo's mentioned before, considering I recall him saying that Trap Essence was originally any spell, not just creature. I mean, Khans overlapped with Theros, so even just UG Good stuff with Red as a splash would have been something. I mean, imagine Temur Ascendancy+Prophet of Kruphix+Deck full of fattiez sounds exactly like what R&D would fear(considering the Prism Array deck they thought would exist back when the WUBRG Ability was bouncing to hand.)

Also, the buyouts are stupid. Either the reserve list is going to die as a result of these morons or Legacy is, and both of them make these idiots hurt.

 

[Keru_Shiri]

At this stage I think Legacy will either be online only or fully phased out. I don't see how it can continue without either lifting the reserve list or allowing some form of proxying.

 

[y2dvd]

I just traded for a Tropical Island, but I still would love to see them drop the reserved list, even if it means heavily losing out on my trade. Proxy Legacy was fun tonight. It's so unfortunate they are making it so inaccessible when I think even players with several reserved cards wouldn't mind the reserved list being abolished.

 

[Infinite Stars]

And Serra's Sanctum has been bought lot, so yay yet again Scumsharks for continuing to be shitty investors and shitty magic fans.

 

[RuinerPrime]

Any word yet of an Innstrad art & world building book? The zendikar one was really well made.

 

[Ashodin]

Yep the Innistrad art book is out there and coming. People have gotten it early which spoiled some stuff.

 

[SigmasonicX]

It looks like art books are going to be a consistent thing, since they've already announced one for Kaladesh.

 

[Supast4r]

Wait GAF actually thinks the new Liliana is bad? It slots into the gb delirium deck in standard nicely, it's a good card in modern (sideboard in grixis control and maindeck in UB faeries. The fact that her plus ability kills creatures is a very rare thing as only the Chandra's have had something like that at 4 mana. She will see a good amount of play but she is more of a sideboard card and there is nothing wrong with that.

 

[kirblar]

She's really bad in Standard (literally does nothing against G/W), and is a niche roleplayer in Modern.

 

[twobear]

eldritch moon feels a bit of a flavour lose to me, there's some lovecraftian gothic horror, but also some BFZ 'everyone vs the eldrazi' stuff. innistrad's flavour has certainly been diluted if not lost. i still think they should just have gone for 'emrakul is passing by the plane and fucking shit up but she never actually arrives' theme.

 

[kirblar]

There's too much direct Eldrazi stuff, where instead of it being corrupted Innistrad native stuff, its just rando Eldrazi w/ no connection.

 

[HK-47]

Eldrazi are too colorful for Innistrad.

 

[Supast4r]

She's really bad in Standard (literally does nothing against G/W), and is a niche roleplayer in Modern.

Being able to stop aggro decks well isn't something that I would consider a niche. I also find it interesting that she compliments Liliana of the veil well since she excels in match ups that veil is bad in while veil is good in match ups that the last hope is bad in.

 

[Supast4r]

eldritch moon feels a bit of a flavour lose to me, there's some lovecraftian gothic horror, but also some BFZ 'everyone vs the eldrazi' stuff. innistrad's flavour has certainly been diluted if not lost. i still think they should just have gone for 'emrakul is passing by the plane and fucking shit up but she never actually arrives' theme.

I agree since this set doesn't feel like innistrad. There are barely any tribal creatures from innistrad (one normal werewolf for some reason). I'm also not a fan of the merge eldrazi whatsoever. They seem like they they are from oath of the gatewatch and they threw it in here randomly. The next time we do a return set I really hope we don't see the eldrazi in them (I hope we don't see the eldrazi for 10 years tbh)

 

[kirblar]

Being able to stop aggro decks well isn't something that I would consider a niche. I also find it interesting that she compliments Liliana of the veil well since she excels in match ups that veil is bad in while veil is good in match ups that the last hope is bad in.

What aggro decks.

The formats full of go-wide stuff that doesn't care about Tooth Collector.

 

[Ozigizo]

Buyout appears to attempting to grab City of Traitors. I guess it's rumored that they'll get Cradle soon, too.

 

[Firemind]

I actually won a match because my opponent played it on their Exper common lifelinker and instead of swinging for 8 it was 3. I didn't know it was bugged, so I looked up the bug report and told them.

Yeah, it ignores the counters and only gives +1/+1. I filed for reimbursement, but it's still annoying because I remember it was a legit bomb precisely because you can make big lifelinking flyers with it, get it back with Sanctum Gargoyle etc. That this is still happening with old sets...

Buyout appears to attempting to grab City of Traitors. I guess it's rumored that they'll get Cradle soon, too.

I'm glad I don't live in the Americas. People have way WAY too much time and money to spend.

 

[Imperfected]

I think they could have had a flavor win if they had committed to Merge for the Eldrazi-corrupted monsters instead of Transform-on-payment DFCs.

Like, I can see a lot of fun shenanigans you could do with that to really sell the idea of this progression of horror happening, but the way they're doing it doesn't work for me outside of the big marquee angel-fusion, which is, of course, a Merge and not Transform.

The designs for the Eldrazi-wolf and company are perfectly fine, the mechanics just don't deliver.

 

[Daedardus]

Is there some kind of organised buyout going on? Or is it something like a run on the banks, once people start to buy, even more people want to buy before it's sold out, resulting in a feedback loop.

 

[HK-47]

Its not like Wizards has been doing a bang up job in formats without the reserve list either in regards to price or reprints.

 

[Angry Grimace]

I don't get why anyone would pay the money to get into Legacy to begin with. It's a niche format that costs a ton of money and which barely has anyone to play with.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Wait GAF actually thinks the new Liliana is bad? It slots into the gb delirium deck in standard nicely, it's a good card in modern (sideboard in grixis control and maindeck in UB faeries. The fact that her plus ability kills creatures is a very rare thing as only the Chandra's have had something like that at 4 mana. She will see a good amount of play but she is more of a sideboard card and there is nothing wrong with that.

She isn't very good. Even in delirium she is pretty bad. I don't know if they just misjudged what the format would look like or what.

 

[Haines]

Super duper excited to see what we get for spoilers today.

What do you guys think of the emerge mechanic?
I think I'll be happy to play those cards.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Maybe it was a next level plot to buy out about half of the supply, announce a buyout and sell the existing stash to MTGFINANCE rubes at the rising "bargain" price that's still way above the price you bought your initial supply at but well below the artificial high price point.

I dunno how you could so that without these morons noticing that the suoply keeps increasing.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Super duper excited to see what we get for spoilers today.

What do you guys think of the emerge mechanic?
I think I'll be happy to play those cards.

Said it before the emerge card are creatively bankrupt.

 

[Jhriad]

Is there some kind of organised buyout going on? Or is it something like a run on the banks, once people start to buy, even more people want to buy before it's sold out, resulting in a feedback loop.

Both. Some douche named Craig Berry bought out Moat and Lion's Eye Diamond and basically announced his plans to do the same to a number of other Legacy Reserved List cards. Whether or not he actually intended to buy them or not, his announcement had the same result as other folk jumped onto anything that sees a healthy amount of play so they could either try the same schtick or they "got their copies before the buyout." Regardless of whether or not he actually had the cash on hand to continue buyouts valued in the tens of thousands of dollars his announcement had the same effect and I wouldn't be surprised if that wasn't the intention all along. He probably already had a stash of said cards and was looking to push the price without actually leveraging his assets to do so.

 

[ultron87]

I just assume Legacy will continue to exist as local unsanctioned proxy tournaments where anyone with a printer can play and then big tournaments where only rich people and people who had the cards since the early days play.

Like, are there really people realistically trying to get into Legacy right now that'll be stopped by a couple hundred dollars?

 

[Angry Grimace]

He basically claims he legitimately bought them all in the hopes he will slowly sell them all at the higher price. It's a legitimately terrible use of liquid assets because the demand clearly didn't exist to push the price higher in the first place.

 

[LuciusAxelrod]

Any word yet of an Innstrad art & world building book? The zendikar one was really well made.

I just got my Innistrad art book from Amazon yesterday. It's very nice.

 

[cuc]

I need help recalling an old set. Which set from the 1998-2000 era featured a smoke-like monster in its promotional art? The monster is black and humanoid in general shape, with memorably wavy outlines. I think it's moving its arm to smash its opponent in the art.

 

[ultron87]

"Chaos Reveler costs 1 Mana less to play for each instant or sorcery card in your graveyard.

Prowess

When Chaos Reveler enters the battlefield discard your hand and draw three cards."

If you can dump your hand that seems pretty good.

 

[Yeef]

"Chaos Reveler costs 1 Mana less to play for each instant or sorcery card in your graveyard.

Prowess

When Chaos Reveler enters the battlefield discard your hand and draw three cards."

If you can dump your hand that seems pretty good.

It's a fairly crazy top deck late in the game. 2 mana for a 3/4 with prowess that draws you 3 cards.

 

[Santiako]

"Chaos Reveler costs 1 Mana less to play for each instant or sorcery card in your graveyard.

Prowess

When Chaos Reveler enters the battlefield discard your hand and draw three cards."

If you can dump your hand that seems pretty good.

Seems insanely good. I love this card.

 

[OnPoint]

I need help recalling an old set. Which set from the 1998-2000 era featured a smoke-like monster in its promotional art? The monster is black and humanoid in general shape, with memorably wavy outlines. I think it's moving its arm to smash its opponent in the art.

Torment?

 

[Keru_Shiri]

New devil seems awesome. Shouldn't be too difficult to get those burn spells in the yard, and Dragon Fodder is still in the format also. Might even push Sin Prodder into viability.

 

[Angry Grimace]

so the new set kind of sucks, but hey, Vintage Cube is back on MTGO!

 

[Joe Molotov]

"Chaos Reveler costs 1 Mana less to play for each instant or sorcery card in your graveyard.

Prowess

When Chaos Reveler enters the battlefield discard your hand and draw three cards."

If you can dump your hand that seems pretty good.

Probably a 1-of in my Lupine Prototype deck.

 

[DrArchon]

That devil seems decent. I kinda wish it had one more power, just so it could kill a pumped Sylvan Advocate with one Prowess trigger, but at least it's potentially cheap, and grabbing 3 cards after you've burned through your whole hand should be really good.

 

[FreedomFrisbee]

Legacy was alive?

Depends on where you live honestly. My area regularly has 10 man + legacy FNMs at multiple locations, but they all allow a handful of proxies. I know most places don't have it tho. I'm under the impression that it's mostly east coast big cities that still do it.

Mass price increases on RL stuff was the obvious outcome of printing Eternal Masters, so if Wizards doesn't have some kind of game plan for this eventuality I'll be honestly shocked. Easiest most obvious option being a no-RL format.