Magic The Gathering

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

I'm trying to build archelos stax without resorting to a basic-bitch landfall strategy. I'm still going to use his ability for untapped ravnica bounce lands etc, but I want it to be a more political, with post-erata winter orb shenanigans/trinisphere manipulation. Could use more staxxy recommendations (especially pieces i can turn off at will) View attachment 2701127
Edit: I'm cool with a bit of landfall (I've got wrenn and seven to support it) but the more pieces that interact with opponents board dynamically the better.

A little late, but those colors at least let you Run Opposition and Tendershoot Dryad/Force of Nature.

 

[Oddjob OTP]

Arena news, they are coming out with a new mode that applies online only balancing and new cards with online only mechanics to cards in standard, which is a terrible idea but I just won't play it. Historic fags are blown the fuck out though because the online only balancing is also being applied to their shittiest of the eternal formats format. Also the examples they used of buffs and nerfs were just nerfing all the decent cards in the format so you could pay two mana for a 2/2 like Richard intended.

MTG Arena Introduces Alchemy: A Digital-Only Rotating Format Including Rebalanced and All-New Cards • Alchemy, News • MTG Arena Zone

In this article: Wizards of the Coast has announced a new format coming to MTG Arena: Alchemy. Alchemy will be a separate format that contains all of the

mtgazone.com

 

[Thiletonomics]

Also the examples they used of buffs and nerfs were just nerfing all the decent cards in the format so you could pay two mana for a 2/2 like Richard intended.

MTG Arena Introduces Alchemy: A Digital-Only Rotating Format Including Rebalanced and All-New Cards • Alchemy, News • MTG Arena Zone

In this article: Wizards of the Coast has announced a new format coming to MTG Arena: Alchemy. Alchemy will be a separate format that contains all of the

mtgazone.com

So Watchwolf would get neutered, if it were in this format? Who even wanted this format in the first place?

 

[Oddjob OTP]

So Watchwolf would get neutered, if it were in this format? Who even wanted this format in the first place?

I was exaggerating, the examples they gave for cards to be nerfed were basically creatures from the most popular decks in standard (goldspan, lumarch aspirant, eskia's chariot) which would seem to make Alchemy lean towards being a better format for people playing jank and various tier 2 decks that don't run those. But what it probably actually means the tier 0 will be all control decks because control is powerful this standard and the only nerf relevant to them is epiphany and izzet turns could give a shit less about paying the extra mana or two because they already have powerful wincons like dragon egg and hullbreaker that they have been leaning towards anyway.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Arena news, they are coming out with a new mode that applies online only balancing and new cards with online only mechanics to cards in standard, which is a terrible idea but I just won't play it. Historic fags are blown the fuck out though because the online only balancing is also being applied to their shittiest of the eternal formats format. Also the examples they used of buffs and nerfs were just nerfing all the decent cards in the format so you could pay two mana for a 2/2 like Richard intended.

MTG Arena Introduces Alchemy: A Digital-Only Rotating Format Including Rebalanced and All-New Cards • Alchemy, News • MTG Arena Zone

In this article: Wizards of the Coast has announced a new format coming to MTG Arena: Alchemy. Alchemy will be a separate format that contains all of the

mtgazone.com

Maro still chasing Hearthstone I see.

 

[cuddle striker]

it's not even just that they nerfed what was popular, they've added a batch of more powerful stuff now to eat up the wild cards.

no refunds. the wotc way

 

[Maratus volans]

it's not even just that they nerfed what was popular, they've added a batch of more powerful stuff now to eat up the wild cards.

no refunds. the wotc way

Which is kind of nuts to me, because Arena was already incredibly F2P unfriendly without a dusting system.

I quit playing Arena when I ran out of rare wildcards trying to craft the manabase for a second Standard deck.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Which is kind of nuts to me, because Arena was already incredibly F2P unfriendly without a dusting system.

I quit playing Arena when I ran out of rare wildcards trying to craft the manabase for a second Standard deck.

Now I am not going to defend arena that much, I fucking hate that WOTC is chasing the Esports Fad..which has already passed.

HOWEVER.

Lands have always been the most expensive part of the game, I unironically wish they would do a Masters set that had Shocks and Fetches at Common.

 

[Oddjob OTP]

It was pretty F2P friendly... if you are good at going positive in drafts. Also because the new cards are undraftable you actually have to pay gold/wildcards/gems to play anything but current standard which is one of the things that's making people mad. Reading Mark's blog he's convinced that people will shut up and like Alchemy in time, but the problem is that they replaced an existing format with a new one that doesn't appeal to the folks who played the old one (who mostly just want to play pioneer on a better client then MTGO).

If you believe Reddit queue times for historic are way up, although it's hard to say if that's people quitting in droves or MtGA being a terrible client.

 

[cuddle striker]

It was pretty F2P friendly... if you are good at going positive in drafts. Also because the new cards are undraftable you actually have to pay gold/wildcards/gems to play anything but current standard which is one of the things that's making people mad. Reading Mark's blog he's convinced that people will shut up and like Alchemy in time, but the problem is that they replaced an existing format with a new one that doesn't appeal to the folks who played the old one (who mostly just want to play pioneer on a better client then MTGO).

If you believe Reddit queue times for historic are way up, although it's hard to say if that's people quitting in droves or MtGA being a terrible client.

I think they're just not willing to spend on alchemy, and historic is now alchemy so people who were playing it a lot stepped out.

standard looks fine, I only play best of 3 ranked on arena so I have no idea really about other. it's the only place I play standard.

 

[updoot farmer]

Arena was F2P friendly... if you were a dirty casual, and would grind up to play drafts.

Sometimes I miss playing mill decks in everything in Arena, but then I remember the complete crap advertising that I saw in the client one day that made me uninstall and never look back.

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

standard is just boring because alchemy is also somewhat clearly a way for them to try to stretch or get around having to ban cards in standard - and thus to avoid issuing wildcard refunds (and, I assume, their data shows that standards with lots of bannings tend to correlate with fewer packs moved). I haven't played as much lately, but every fucking match being an epiphany deck or a mono green deck is incredibly uninteresting and tedious to play through. You can't even tweak or brew a rogue deck without a match taking twenty fucking minutes as you sit through endless removal and extra turns in which you're pinged by tiny birds on the off-chance that they fizzle

 

[Barracuda Joe]

Now I am not going to defend arena that much, I fucking hate that WOTC is chasing the Esports Fad..which has already passed.

HOWEVER.

Lands have always been the most expensive part of the game, I unironically wish they would do a Masters set that had Shocks and Fetches at Common.

I honestly wouldn't mind a reprint of the original dual lands either, assuming they don't enter any formats they aren't in already. Assuming wotc bothered to actually meet demand for once, that'd be a nice boon to commander landbases.

I know it'd make collectors piss their shorts: I don't care. I'd nuke the reserved list too, it's not healthy to lock mechanically significant deckbuilding pieces behind thousands of dollars on the secondhand market. Despite what alot of those mtg "investor" wierdo's say, reprints of those card's with radically different appearances probably wouldn't cause a long term price drop. You can see it with white border reprints, there's a huge price differential due to the original print's being rarer and more visually appealing. (Also, people who want to play with those cards won't often shill out that money to actually play them in decks, many stores let you use proxies within reason). Also, the salt would be deeeelicious.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

I honestly wouldn't mind a reprint of the original dual lands either, assuming they don't enter any formats they aren't in already. Assuming wotc bothered to actually meet demand for once, that'd be a nice boon to commander landbases.

Listen, even as someone who owns a set of the Original Dual lands, and it being an active negative on my "investment" to say print them into the fucking dirt.


PRINT LANDS INTO THE GROUND, Print them until you can play at least Legacy because Magic The Gathering's strongest asset is the fact that there are multiple formats that all have different metas.

 

[Maratus volans]

I don't think Wizards will ever get rid of the Reserved List. The apparent success of Secret Lairs and the alternate IP crossover cards shows that they really don't need to reprint Reserved List staples when they can re-re-re-rerelease in demand Modern staples with a special art treatment plastered on top and make bank doing it. There's no need to risk a lawsuit from collectors for breaking their promise with the RL when you can just, I don't know, do an alternate art Ragavan as classic Han Solo or something and have infinite consoomers stampeding to your door to buy one.

In fact, I think the release of serialized cards kind of shows that they're moving in the opposite direction: they realize the power of the secondary market and big collector whales from the frenzy surrounding Pokemon (among other games) and are now pandering directly to that group with artificially scarce cards. Sure, their first foray into that was Viscera Seer, a cheap common, but there's only 100 of the special reverse treatment printed and there's probably at least an order of magnitude more Alpha Black Lotuses still floating around (just think about how much the #69 out of 100 Seer is going to be worth on auction in five or ten years).

I would not be surprised at all if Wizards decides that the best way to drive player growth is to do what Lego did and make most of your product line just your toy version of someone else's IP, with the occasional Modern Horizons-style set to up the game's power level and obsolesce old cards in the non-rotating formats, or the occasional big Commander set.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

I don't think Wizards will ever get rid of the Reserved List. The apparent success of Secret Lairs and the alternate IP crossover cards shows that they really don't need to reprint Reserved List staples when they can re-re-re-rerelease in demand Modern staples with a special art treatment plastered on top and make bank doing it. There's no need to risk a lawsuit from collectors for breaking their promise with the RL when you can just, I don't know, do an alternate art Ragavan as classic Han Solo or something and have infinite consoomers stampeding to your door to buy one.

In fact, I think the release of serialized cards kind of shows that they're moving in the opposite direction: they realize the power of the secondary market and big collector whales from the frenzy surrounding Pokemon (among other games) and are now pandering directly to that group with artificially scarce cards. Sure, their first foray into that was Viscera Seer, a cheap common, but there's only 100 of the special reverse treatment printed and there's probably at least an order of magnitude more Alpha Black Lotuses still floating around (just think about how much the #69 out of 100 Seer is going to be worth on auction in five or ten years).

I would not be surprised at all if Wizards decides that the best way to drive player growth is to do what Lego did and make most of your product line just your toy version of someone else's IP, with the occasional Modern Horizons-style set to up the game's power level and obsolesce old cards in the non-rotating formats, or the occasional big Commander set.

Oh I agree that Maro is just going to completely sell out the brand and make "Magic the Gathering" into an IP horse, but honestly I don't mind. I kind of hated it when I first saw the Walking Dead stuff..but then I thought about War of the Spark and Liliana getting no justice for what she did, and that made me think of the ((BRANDING)) tm in general.

Its all garbage, there is nothing unique to Magic aside from the planeswalkers themselves anymore.

We have unironically not visited a new plane that isn't just "X but MAGIC THE GATHERING" since we went to the first Zendikar.

Innistrad is just Horror Movie Tropes
Theros is not Greece
Tarkir is not China
Kaladesh is not India
Ixalan is not South America
Amonkhet is Not Egypt
Eldraine is just Story Book Tropes
Ikoria is just a Godzilla movie

The Pro-Scene is dead because Maro constantly fucked with how it worked every other year for the past decade, Arena ignores Vintage, Modern and Legacy to jerk off over hearthstone shit.
Pioneer was actively allowed to die because WOTC left the Inverter combo shit fester forever.
Standard is in a shit place because the new block format added 50% more cards to the format so the power level is impossible to actually constrain.

Fuck it, the Brand is dead..IP whore it up. Give me my One Piece universes beyond so I can make a Kaido deck and bully the shit out of every faggot harry potter deck I can find.

PS : The Reserve list excuse is bullshit, reprints only crash the value of a card if it is something that is utterly unplayed. If you make Vintage and Legacy playable in paper I bet the original printings go up in value.

 

[Anonymus Fluhre]

New lands for Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty look nice.

 

[nekrataal]

Oh I agree that Maro is just going to completely sell out the brand and make "Magic the Gathering" into an IP horse, but honestly I don't mind. I kind of hated it when I first saw the Walking Dead stuff..but then I thought about War of the Spark and Liliana getting no justice for what she did, and that made me think of the ((BRANDING)) tm in general.

Its all garbage, there is nothing unique to Magic aside from the planeswalkers themselves anymore.

We have unironically not visited a new plane that isn't just "X but MAGIC THE GATHERING" since we went to the first Zendikar.

Innistrad is just Horror Movie Tropes
Theros is not Greece
Tarkir is not China
Kaladesh is not India
Ixalan is not South America
Amonkhet is Not Egypt
Eldraine is just Story Book Tropes
Ikoria is just a Godzilla movie

The Pro-Scene is dead because Maro constantly fucked with how it worked every other year for the past decade, Arena ignores Vintage, Modern and Legacy to jerk off over hearthstone shit.
Pioneer was actively allowed to die because WOTC left the Inverter combo shit fester forever.
Standard is in a shit place because the new block format added 50% more cards to the format so the power level is impossible to actually constrain.

Fuck it, the Brand is dead..IP whore it up. Give me my One Piece universes beyond so I can make a Kaido deck and bully the shit out of every faggot harry potter deck I can find.

PS : The Reserve list excuse is bullshit, reprints only crash the value of a card if it is something that is utterly unplayed. If you make Vintage and Legacy playable in paper I bet the original printings go up in value.

They’re doing everything they can to try to stay afloat besides what’d be best for the game. The modern horizons sets have been disastrous for eternal formats by power creeping them. At this point the reserve list isn’t ever going to be abolished since it means WotC can just print out various other dual lands and use them to fill rare slots.

I didn’t like AFR and after playing it sealed after not playing sealed since before the pandemic I felt like they really weren’t trying anymore. There’s a few interesting cards, but the majority were just unimpressive and I don’t think will see any play outside of draft.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

They’re doing everything they can to try to stay afloat besides what’d be best for the game. The modern horizons sets have been disastrous for eternal formats by power creeping them

Well, it isn't just eternal formats that have been power creeped big time. Even Discounting the shitshow that was Eldraine, removal in standard has gotten to the point where Hero's Downfall was printed at uncommon, and isn't powerful enough to be used.

Removal in eternal formats is equally insane. Swords to Plowshares and Lightning Bolt are no longer the strongest removal spells in the game. That is outright absurd.

At this point the reserve list isn’t ever going to be abolished since it means WotC can just print out various other dual lands and use them to fill rare slots.

Honestly..they could stop printing new dual land cycles and just start reprinting old ones and never really run out of cycles to reprint every couple of years.

Once we get the next set of "Triomes" from New Caprica..My 5 color EDH deck won't have room for shocks lands in the mana-base (Fetches, Triomes and ABU Duals with one of each basic, a Prismatic Vista, Command Tower, Cavern of Souls)

Like Unironically unless they start pushing Dual Land power hard I don't see any new Land cycles that are remotely usable outside of bad standard mana showing up.

 

[nekrataal]

Well, it isn't just eternal formats that have been power creeped big time. Even Discounting the shitshow that was Eldraine, removal in standard has gotten to the point where Hero's Downfall was printed at uncommon, and isn't powerful enough to be used.

Removal in eternal formats is equally insane. Swords to Plowshares and Lightning Bolt are no longer the strongest removal spells in the game. That is outright absurd.


Honestly..they could stop printing new dual land cycles and just start reprinting old ones and never really run out of cycles to reprint every couple of years.

Once we get the next set of "Triomes" from New Caprica..My 5 color EDH deck won't have room for shocks lands in the mana-base (Fetches, Triomes and ABU Duals with one of each basic, a Prismatic Vista, Command Tower, Cavern of Souls)

Like Unironically unless they start pushing Dual Land power hard I don't see any new Land cycles that are remotely usable outside of bad standard mana showing up.

Constantly printing new dual lands and multicolor lands just makes manabases lazier. It’s a shame they’re trying to bin shock lands the same way they did refuges, but that’s the only way to sell sealed product and make money. I spent a little bit of time updating my Yuriko deck the other day and after all of the nonbasic lands were totaled up there wasn’t a lot of room for basics.

I’m not fond of the idea that swords isn’t as powerful as it used to be, but that doesn’t surprise me since zoo pretty much died completely once stoneblade variants started getting other options that’d allow them to essentially play 4 colors. It makes me miss the days when RUG delver, shardless BUG and esper stoneblade were the way they were prior to 2015.