Lurker > trdl23

Waluigi1 posted...

It's hard to keep all these names straight >_<

Oh man, you'll have a wonderful time with Lord of the Rings.

Anyway, we'll finish off A-O-D cards tomorrow, and get to exactly what you guys predicted:

#18: Kamigawa Block

Cool concept. Great story. Awful execution.
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E come vivo? Vivo!

Awesomest Mechanic: Spellshapers



Spellshapers kind of occupy the same area as Cycling in that you're trading a shitty card for a new effect. Unlike cycling, you know exactly what you're getting out of it -- as long as your spellshaper survives, anyway. Spellshapers are cool because they're notoriously difficult to play with and play around. Having access to so many on-board tricks means the threat of a spellshaper is often more valuable than the spellshaper actually activating.

That being said, spellshapers are still among the lowest tier of "awesomest mechanic" in a black, if only for their difficulty to apply in any Constructed format.

Obnoxiousest mechanic: Rhystic



This is the first time the Obnoxiousest mechanic is here not because it's overpowered but because it's so pitifully bad. You know what sort of spells I like? The sort that can get countered by my opponents paying even less mana than I paid for the spell without any other resource expenditure on their part. The effects of the spells weren't even that overpowered if you got away with them. This is probably the worst of the "opponent's choice" mechanics, and that's saying a LOT.

Look, I get that it was supposed to play into the "buff stuff by having no untapped land" thing in Prophecy, but as we already discussed, that was also a shitty mechanic. Two shitty mechanics playing off each other just makes each one even more shitty and uninteresting.

Disappointest mechanic: Depletion lands



Fast mana is often a problem, but these lands had just enough upside with a pretty large downside to be enticing. However, that downside ended up being too much. The kinds of decks that want the fast burst of mana from depletion lands are the kinds of decks that really can't afford to wait a turn to get it, especially with a certain other card in the meta that we'll get to in the A-O-D for specific cards. Plus, only getting two shots really meant you needed to go all-in -- which entering tapped precluded. It was a cool design but ultimately did nothing.
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The fight for ascension was absolutely brutal. Greven gotten taken out early by Volrath -- the shapeshifter still had mechanic control of Greven's artificial, Phyrexian spine from back when Greven served Volrath, and it completely disabled the Vec human. Quickly, it became a three-way. Ertai, the smartest man in the room, kept to himself to let the heavyweights duke it out, having no actual desire to become Evincar despite his corruption, though still open to sweeping up the pieces of whoever won.

Crovax had brutal, almost insurmountable strength, but Volrath had skill and technique. Time and again Volrath changed forms to parry and riposte against Crovax's savage assaults, wearing down the vampire... until Crovax started cheating by murdering the spectators and consuming their power to get a bunch of "second winds." Volrath couldn't hold out forever. He appeared to have an upper hand for a second -- and promptly collapsed. Ertai has stunned him with a spell (I should probably say Ertai was a pretty damn good wizard) to throw the match to Crovax, reasoning that there Crovax would win no matter what, and ending the fight early could save both his own hide as a favor to Crovax and the hides of the others because Crovax wouldn't have to keep murdering them to heal himself. The fight was over. Crovax was the new Evincar.

With the coronation, Crovax demanded to see the captured rebels so he could slaughter them and gian their strength. He and Greven fought to get into the sealed Dream Halls, but Belbe approached from the other side and simply entered so she could speak to the rebels. She wanted to understand why Eladmri had reacted to her. Eladmri explained that she was actually the twisted reflection of his daughter; her body taken to Phyrexia, dissected, and repurposed for Yawgmoth's will. Still, her mind was much her own, and her origin as well as her descent to disillusion finally convinced her to say "Fuck Phyrexia."

Belbe took the rebels to her own personal portal. It was meant to take her back to Phyrexia when she was done, but instead she reprogrammed it per Eladmri's request to travel to Dominaria. The new Evincar broke through the doors, and the portal's power waned. It could only support three people. Takara immediately dashed through, eager for freedom after years in prison. At Eladmri's insistence, Lin Sivvi jumped through next. Seeing his own opportunity, Ertai made a mad scramble to be the third through the portal, but he couldn't reach Eladmri in time. With a mournful look, Eladmri took out the vial of poison that originally killed his daughter and threw it at Belbe, finally laying her to rest before he ran through the closing portal. Ertai was trapped, and his only chance for survival was submission.

Prophecy

Then we go to Prophecy, and seriously, fuck Prophecy. Something something the Kelds are at war with people, Teferi gets involved, who gives a shit. The only important part is that it distracts Dominaria and makes it difficult to form their Coalition before the real threat of Phyrexia's Invasion is about to occur.
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E come vivo? Vivo!

I forget how Sisay managed to get the artifact from Saprazzo, but it's actually Ramos's old Power Matrix that allowed him to function. It's enough to fix the Weatherlight, which the Cho-Arrim surrender to them. The two return to the inverted city with no intention of honoring their respective promises. They just need to get back to Dominaria, and they follow Takara's cue to overpower the Mercadian guards.

But Takara isn't as she seems. The problem with fighting a shapeshifter is that, well, he's a shapeshifter. Volrath reveals himself as "masquerading" as Takara (harhar), murdered Starke to shut him up, and attempted to steal the Weatherlight for Phyrexia, ending the Legacy's hope. Gerrard just barely managed to board the ship, and the two duked it out. However, Gerrard was probably the greatest non-planeswalker duelist in the multiverse at this point, and Volrath got his ass beat. Gerrard hastily gathered his crew again, but Volrath came back having stolen the Kyrens' skyship Recreant to try to blast them away. The Weatherlight managed to beat him back again for long enough to planeswalk back to Dominaria, and Volrath was left to slink back to Rath, where Nemesis comes into play.

Nemesis

Nemesis starts with the Evincar's throne in Rath deemed abandoned. There are, of course, rivals seeking to claim it for themselves. Among them are Crovax, the Weatherlight crewman turned vampire due to a fallen angel's curse (we'll talk about that in Tempest block); Ertai, another crewman abandoned as the Weatherlight escaped the first time; and Greven, the main foil to Gerrard in Rath.

The Phyrexian Belbe was selected to crown the new evincar, and her favor is initially with Crovax per the Phyrexians' will. It's not going to be handed to Crovax easily though -- he has to prove himself against his rivals. At first, Belbe acts as a perfect pawn of Phyrexia with an artifact, the Eye of Yawgmoth, literally allowing Yawgmoth to witness the coronation through her. After a short while, though, she slowly grows more and more independent. She deactivated the Eye, preferring to see the coronation through her own way. She grows closer to Ertai and delays the coronation on his behalf so she can help train his newfound, sinister power -- hoping she can get him powerful enough so that he can become Evincar instead of Crovax. She even slows the rate of Flowstone production to delay the Rathi Overlay until Ertai is ready to take Crovax down.

At first Crovax is having none of this bullshit and attacks her, but she beats his ass back with her Phyrexian enhancements and surprising natural combat skill. As Crovax harvests more souls from pretty much anyone he can get his hands on, she knows it's only a matter of time before she needs to formalize the ascension to keep herself safe and serving Phyrexia. Around this time, Eladmri, the lord of the elvish resistance in Rath and mourning for his recently murdered daughter, hatches a scheme with the human rebel Lin Sivvi to infiltrate the stronghold and destroy the Predator, Greven's airship meant to be the anti-Weatherlight. Eladmri feigns capture so his "captors" -- really his own double agents -- can get inside and sabotage.

All hell breaks loose during the coronation. Volrath himself returns and enters the fight for ascension to make it a Fatal Four-Way. Belbe imprisons and tortures Eladmri, but her appearance turns him berserk for some reason. Eladmri and Lin Sivvi's agents hunted for the Predator but were captured, where they were thrown into the stasis cells of the dream halls along with their leaders, though not before releasing the real Takara.
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E come vivo? Vivo!

Meanwhile, the Mercadian military comes to detain the rest of the intruders. The Mercadian humans are, frankly, jokes. They're cowardly, corrupt, and unskilled, but their sheer numbers convince the remaining crew not to put up a fight. Upon their arrival to the capital, Mercadia City perched on an inverted mountain, it becomes clear to the crew that to survive and get back home, they're going to need to navigate through the tangled political web of Mercadia -- the "Mercadian Masques," if you will. The Mercadian magistrate, a pompous buffoon, gives a proposal to Gerrard: If he trains the Mercadian soldiers and a gang of sinister Cateran mercenaries into a force that can stand against the Cho-Arrim rebels, then hunt down powerful artifacts to help Mercadia city stay powerful, he can appeal to get his ship back and get out of the plane. Gerrard doesn't have much of a choice but to take the offer, and the rest of the crew is held in the City.

Of note is that the Kyren goblins of Mercadia are unlike goblins of almost any other plane. They're smart, cowardly, sneaky, and savvy -- and they're well respected. They act as confidants and schemers throughout the political landscape, secretly pulling the strings to a nefarious end: Volrath's employment to keep the leadership from being capable whatsoever. The goblins keep track of the crew's efforts and try to stymie them from going off-course.

Meanwhile with the Cho-Arrim, Orim learns more about her captors. They worship a god called Ramos, a massive metal dragon from another world from whom they trace the origin of their people. They and the local dryads guard the Henge of Ramos, where their broken god's soul and "bones" still reside. To the Cho-Arrim, the Weatherlight's arrival heralds the return of Ramos and the end of Mercadian tyranny. Orim grows to sympathize with and eventually join the Cho-Arrim as she sees that they really are in the right. She also feels a connection to their charismatic leader, Cho-Manno.

Gerrard marches on the Cho-Arrim with his fighting force and starts to rout them easily, though he turns on his own force when he sees their indiscriminate slaughter beats them back. Meanwhile, Takara makes another offer to Mercadia -- for the crew's freedom, Sisay and Hanna will go to Mercadia's main rival city, merfolk-ruled and Cho-Arrim-sympathetic Saprazzo, and find a way to secure an artifact that can power the ship for the magistrate. The greedy magistrate accepts without hesitation.

Gerrard and Sisay take on their respective quests. The Cho-Arrim lead Orim and Gerrard to the Henge of Ramos, where they speak to the lingering soul of the sky dragon. Ramos confesses to them that he was actually a massive dragon engine built by Urza during the Brothers' War with his own soul. During the Sylex Blast, Ramos evacuated as many mortals near him and GTFO'd, the blast taking him to Phyrexia where he immediately found a portal to anywhere else -- the plane of Mercadia -- and jumped through. He was heavily damaged in the blast, and he tried to deposit as many survivors as he could throughout the plane before he crashed into the Henge. The Cho-Arrim, Saprazzans, and Rishadans (a pirate town on the coast close to Saprazzo) derived from those survivors. Seeing Gerrard as the heir to Urza's Legacy, Ramos gives up the five Bones that house his spirit -- Powerstones containing his essence he absorbed through his life and pieces of the Legacy themselves.
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E come vivo? Vivo!

UltimaterializerX posted...

"My double standard is wrong and easily called out so I'll resort to ad hominem instead."

When Scalise was shot you people were literally quoting lawmakers' beliefs that the second amendment exists to protect people from tyrannical governments. Lasa can check the tape. You're either for violence or against it, you don't get to pick and choose.

Ulti, bro, can you please stop for one fucking second and try not to be a jackass?

Noting the tragic irony of NRA-types staying mum on leftist gun violence is not the same as being "for" that asshole who tried to kill people practicing for a fucking charity game. I know you're eager to score points against Team Blue due to seeing the maggots that Team Red is in bed with this weekend, but chill the fuck out.
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E come vivo? Vivo!

Yes
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E come vivo? Vivo!

Yeah, Robit flying a bigger robit
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E come vivo? Vivo!

Lore

Masques block is really three separate stories -- two of which flow quite nicely together, one of which comes out of nowhere and is fucking useless, in that order.

Mercadian Masques sees the heroes of the Weatherlight crash-land the skyship in a desperate bid to flee Rath after rescuing their Captain, Sisay, from Volrath's Stronghold. Volrath is the shapeshfiting "evincar" and ruler of Rath, a plane that Yawgmoth created to slowly expand until it encroached on Dominaria's space in the Multiverse, thus giving Phyrexia's forces a huge incursion site into Dominaria. He also has some history with Gerrard, but we'll save that for Tempest block. Also on board the ship were Starke, a thrice-backstabbing triple agent who basically did anything he could to get his daughter out of Volrath's hands (including work both for and against him over decades), and said daughter Takara, the damsel seemingly free at last. Before they can assess their damage and figure out a plan, a guerrilla group called the Cho-Arrim attack the crew and seize the ship as well as the Weatherlight's healer, Orim. Not as bad as what they left in Rath, but still, it kinda sucked.

Shit I gotta go. I'll try to complete tomorrow.
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E come vivo? Vivo!

Limited

I drafted exactly one Masques draft in my life on MODO, but that's after mana burn was taken out, so it really isn't indicative of how the real deal was. I did some research though!

For the young'uns in the crowd, "mana burn" was what happened when you had more mana than you could use in a given phase (now it empties by step, but don't worry about that). For each floating mana that emptied from your pool, you lost one life. This was to discourage people from... actually, I don't know the philosophy of it, but it was a thing for a very long time. You can see why this would be a problem with Prophecy's boneheaded mechanic of "get buffs for having no untapped lands," whereas today that mechanic is simply annoying.

Anyway, Masques draft ran into a common theme of most old draft formats: Spells were great, removal was good, creatures sucked. Mercenaries were actually fine in draft provided you could get a bunch of the good ones (sup Rathi Assassin), though Rebels of course were deeper. Other than that, each color did what each color does. Spellshapers were neat in that they could stop mana flood by turning any excess lands into a copy of a spell instead, and because some Prophecy cards wanted you to sacrifice lands, 18 lands was the norm. Anyway, it was "fine," from what I gathered. At least there wasn't a Pestilence of Rolling Thunder at common.
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E come vivo? Vivo!

It's not the lore (those are going to be one-post affairs now), it's that work got crazy irl.
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E come vivo? Vivo!

Tonight
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E come vivo? Vivo!

Too tired, sadly
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E come vivo? Vivo!

Corrik posted...

Go figure. A clickbait article.

What was actually was asked was this?

If Donald Trump were to say that the 2020 presidential election should be postponed until the country can make sure that only eligible American citizens can vote, would you support or oppose postponing the election?
What if both Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress were to say that the 2020 presidential election should be postponed until the country can make sure that only eligible American citizens can vote? Would you support or oppose postponing the election?



And the poll sample size was relatively small, as well as the questions a tad misleading in nature.

Go figure.

~1325 is actually a normal poll size representation of a large population. Your accuracy experiences vastly diminishing returns after that so it's pretty much pointless.

Source: I actually studied statistics in college.
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E come vivo? Vivo!

What do you mean by "reverted"? If you mean something like Unacceptable, then that's most certainly a failure to resolve fully. Anything that has "X% chance to fail" and hits that X% is also liable to get Lightning'd.

In this case, though, the target was legal, and the ability resolved. It just did nothing. If the ability did something in addition to the possession (such as boosting/lowering parameters) those would still apply.
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Lol BuzzFeed
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E come vivo? Vivo!

Does nothing =/= "cancelled/failed." It just does nothing.
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E come vivo? Vivo!

Limited and Lore pretty soon.
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E come vivo? Vivo!

Metal_DK posted...

Ive hated card game video games since pokemon card game on the game boy color. Fucking boring.

Pokémon TCG on the GBC was awesome. You shut your mouth.
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E come vivo? Vivo!

In
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A-slice-of-cake
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E come vivo? Vivo!

I still can't believe Anagram is such a blasphemous scoundrel as to not play Ace Attorney.
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E come vivo? Vivo!

banananor posted...

that's the tough part- hard to say why one set places directly above or below another

the write-ups definitely clarify why they're in the general regions

I think his comment was directed to Lorwyn being so low on the list since few others loathe it like I do.
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E come vivo? Vivo!

Jeff Zero posted...

Emeraldegg posted...

trdl23 posted...

Zylothewolf posted...

The Fire Emblem games are very fun.

FE:A sucked, and I've lost faith in the franchise since I saw the slop that was Fates' plot. Too bad since Conquest looks great in gameplay, but good lord everything else was bad.

They don't make 'em like they used to.

Do you say this because of gameplay issues you had with it or because waifu wars

I can't speak for trdl, but the newer Fire Emblem games look less appealing to me than the older ones. They seem to have abandoned even the simplest overtures of trying to tell a decent story; embarrassingly enough, I've watched a bit of Fates, and it's not even in my top 1,000 games ever.

This. FE:A was way too easy as well.

FE7 is definitely in my top 20 of all time, maybe even top 10. Everything just worked.
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E come vivo? Vivo!

Zylothewolf posted...

The Fire Emblem games are very fun.

FE:A sucked, and I've lost faith in the franchise since I saw the slop that was Fates' plot. Too bad since Conquest looks great in gameplay, but good lord everything else was bad.

They don't make 'em like they used to.
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E come vivo? Vivo!

Why do I even own this thing
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E come vivo? Vivo!

a-slice-of-cake
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E come vivo? Vivo!

A goof, but it actually fits Lin pretty well since she actually gets 3-drops for 3.
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E come vivo? Vivo!

#20: Masquerade Block



(Masques didn't have an official guide, so this is the best I have.)

Overview

Masques actually came out right after Urza block, and the experience had left Wizards gun-shy. It showed. There was only one new keyword/ability word in the entire block, though there were quite a few relevant creature types that we'll get into. Overall, Masquerade felt like a complete kitchen-sink approach to design, where WotC just threw a bunch of stuff at the wall and wanted to see what might stick.

They had a bit of a problem with this, namely that there wasn't much in the way of QC about what was reprinted. They reprinted Dark Ritual and Brainstorm -- two of the most powerful cards ever printed -- at common. Common! This, of course, limited exactly what they could print elsewhere in the block, leading to a block that managed to feel both criminally overpowered and horribly underpowered. It was a bizarre dichotomy.

Oh, right. Rebels. Rebels (in White) and Mercenaries (in Black) were the main Tribes pushed in the block. They each had a mirror gimmick. Rebels could tap and tutor for any Rebel up to one mana cost higher than the searcher, for the cost of one mana beyond that (for example, a 1-drop could tutor for a 2-drop at the cost of 3 mana). But the cards would go right into play, not into hand. That means you only had to actually cast the 1-drop and eventually drop an army into play. Cool countermagic, bro. Mercenaries were the opposite where they could spend less mana to get a smaller guy into play, but that means you needed to start the chain at the top at first, so it was hilariously bad. Anyway, that meant Rebels were an aggro deck that could rush down, AND tutor, AND grind for card advantage with little opportunity cost. The problem didn't appear at first because of lolUrza Block, but once the winter had passed, this was a chilly spring.

What really pushed Rebels over the top was Lin Sivvi. I'll just link her since there's exactly one other card that beats her as Obnoxiousest.



Here are the problems with Lin:

1. She's a 3-drop. So in a Rebel deck, she's guaranteed coming out turn 4, no matter what.
2. She bypasses the "one more mana" restriction. (The smallest offense)
3. She recycles any Rebel in the graveyard, so loltoolbox
3. She's legendary.

The legendary rule has changed a lot since Masques, but at the time, the rule was as follows: If there's a legendary permanent out, any other legendary permanent that comes in afterward gets automatically sent to the graveyard. On either side of the board. So in a Rebels mirror match, the first one to land Lin Sivvi was pretty much guaranteed to win. And because of how Rebels work, she is ALWAYS dropping turn 4. The game was literally decided on the coin flip.

And that's what led to the first banned creature in Magic history.

Anyway, the block structure was a mess. Masques had no new mechanics, instead just going for cycles of certain cards, Rebels, Mercenaries, and random garbage. It was inoffensive, at least, and the alternate cost "free" spells were powerful but not horribly so. Nemesis was fairly solid, and while the Fading mechanic was a headache for a lot of cards (looking at you Parallax Wave), it led to some cool designs you'll still see in Cube or even Vintage.

Then there was Prophecy. Mark Rosewater has described Prophecy as "the second-worst set ever designed." And as a stand-alone set, he's right. There was no mechanical continuity, no innovation, and its main gimmick -- "Rhystic" magic that could be nerfed if your opponent paid mana into it -- just sucked. "Opponent choice" mechanic strikes again. The Avatars were cool, but Prophecy remains the lowest EV pack to open for a reason. Fuck Prophecy. Even the lore was bad.
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E come vivo? Vivo!

Yep
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E come vivo? Vivo!

*Posts bait warning*

*Sees 10 more people take the bait*
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E come vivo? Vivo!

What people need to realize is that the TPP was a trade deal second. It was first and foremost a check on China's dominance in the region.
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E come vivo? Vivo!

Minnesota mosque got bombed this weekend.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/08/06/minnesota-mosque-bombing-reaction/543794001/
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E come vivo? Vivo!

Why the fuck are you taking a Vlado topic seriously


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Tonight I think
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Some family, unless your actual family seems to be more abusive than us.

Anyway, this gimmick is new but still sucks.
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E come vivo? Vivo!

Ah, there we are.
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E come vivo? Vivo!

Iona absolutely deserved to die, bitch wouldn't let me cast my Red spells.
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E come vivo? Vivo!

Paranoia Agent isn't so much "horror" as "thriller" but it is absolutely incredible. My favorite anime period.
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E come vivo? Vivo!

The super PC term is "Romani" but I've heard it used something like 3 times in my life.
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E come vivo? Vivo!