Board 8 > Magic: the Gathering Topic: Beware the Chupacabra

(+) Yeah! (+)

No, not the Ixalan one, the new one that made Nekrataal its bitch. As LSV put it, "Black got the two best Limited rares in the set, except one of them is actually uncommon."

Anyway, I finally managed to play in a prerelease again, 4-0'ing with RW face-punch. I splashed Green for Regisaur Alpha, and man, giving haste to the dino that hits players for double is just filthy. Build your own Ground-Rorix, but somehow scarier. Format seems fun, though one Sealed event with a fantastic aggro deck didn't actually give me a sense of the speed of the format.

Great Designer Search 3 starts tomorrow. Who else is in? Make sure to post progress as the rounds continue.

New bans for Standard came out today: Attune with Aether, Rogue Refiner, Ramunap Ruins, and that 3/3 red raptor that prevents life-gain and pings anyone who plays a dude. I'm admittedly out of the loop with Standard, but I hope this opens up enough room and removes some of the consistency from energy. However, I still hate seeing cards get banned.
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lol standard
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Really, I'm mostly holding out hope that DeTora's team that they hired after The Great Gatewatch Clusterfuck (BFZ through HoD) will be able to get the Standard train back on the damn tracks. I actually miss playing Standard.
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The Mana Sword posted...

lol standard

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My pool for prerelease wasn't very good. None of my rares were playable so I ended up going Red/Green/White without a single rare and mythic. Didn't expect to do well.

Ended up 4:0ing. Got a Kumena in one of my prize packs.
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My pool was pretty mediocre, but went 3-0-1, split top 8, got a Blood Sun, Huatli, the extra turn guy and the red two drop guy, so not bad.
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Wow I haven't followed Magic since Amonkhet (outside of Unstable of course) but another card ban in Standard is completely nuts to me. And four cards!
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Weve had 9 cards banned in the past year. Its kind of nuts.
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https://twitter.com/SaffronOlive/status/952949782468812800
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Urzas was an enchantment block!!!
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In theory!
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Hey guys, I got the 6 drop Planeswalker Hate Artifact at my Prerelease. I love it.
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Those standard bannings, lolololol.

Gonna be a treat to see attendance at my regular FNM this Friday.
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...I'm pretty sure Play Design is led by Ian Duke.
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Anyways, speaking of Chupacabra,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=356ilzFF8BE
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Shadow Dino posted...

...I'm pretty sure Play Design is led by Ian Duke.

I think youre right, I just always call it DeToras team since shes the face of it.
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I havent gotten my GDS essay questions in my email yet and am getting nervous.
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I haven't either. I went in knowing Wizards would probably fuck something (else) up but I suppose we'll see. Maro said on twitter that they haven't actually been pushed yet, so who knows.
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I keep forgetting to go back 3 hours for Pacific time, so Ill start worrying if theres still nothing after I leave work.
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Got it.
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Just got mine too. I'm mostly just doing this for fun but I'll go as far as I get.
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Is anyone still talking about FF in here? Opus 4 is great, Dadaluma is my favorite card they've made so far.
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I fell off the FFTCG in the summer because I had no one IRL to play with.
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A friend of mine got me some FFTCG for Christmas, 2 packs from each Opus

I got the super rare Light Cloud with the two Limit Bursts from one of the two packs from the first set it was kinda cool

We haven't played since Christmas though
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Got mine too.
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I don't think these are scrutinized all that closely based on previous versions and the large number of participants, but it'll be interesting to come up with answers for these still. There are some tough questions. I have a few ideas already and I only glanced at the questions for a moment.

I don't think I'm one of the 8 best designers out of 7000+ most likely, but I plan to give it a good shot. I like game design and think about it a lot.
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Quick note: Make sure you dont violate the contest rules with anything you post here!
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hmm. is it against the rules to post or talk about the questions?
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Yeah, you can't discuss any of the assignments with others until the round passes, it seems. But that's only through this week at least.
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Oh shit I got into the MTG Arena beta in December and didn't even notice

Hype, maybe.
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Been playing some myself. Hostage taker is my new favorite card.

I know ravenous chupacabra is a guaranteed 2 for 1, but the allure of a four mana 3-for-1 is so great, even if it's riskier
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Make no mistake, Hostage Taker is absolutely insane.
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https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-digital/developing-mtg-arena-economy-2018-01-17

only notable tidbits:
- you'll keep the cards you draft, which implies drafting won't be free
- instead of dust, you'll get "wildcards" in a roundabout way, which you can trade in for any card of the same rarity.
- cannot break down or sell your cards in any way, you only start getting credit once you have 4x
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I haven't even thought about touching Arena yet. Digital Magic blegh.

Due date isn't until Sunday? Thought it was Friday for some reason, but that would be cruel during release weekend.
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So um... You gonna get back to the ranking by chance? <_<
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Definitely, but work is being work.
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don't worry I saw the rankings, Time Spiral was #1 and trdl had a change of heart and decided to put Lorwyn at #2, with original Ravnica at #3.
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The Mana Sword posted...

Lorwyn at #2

Like hell
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Time Spiral at 1 sounds good.
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So what you're saying is Trdl has a shadowmoor version of himself that likes lorwyn
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hybrid mana is the debil
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Emeraldegg posted...

So what you're saying is Trdl has a shadowmoor version of himself that likes lorwyn

Im spooked
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SCG's in my area this weekend so I'm taking that as a sign I should dust off my Modern deck I've played once in the past 6 months and get back into the habit of playing MTG again. Probably going to jump into the Classic tomorrow or at least a side event. Hopefully I can remember what cards do!
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Kickass! Let us know how it goes, man!
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The essays are a lot more time consuming than I expected. About done with them now but it took a few hours.
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I scrubbed out at 2-3. I think at least a few matches came down to bad sideboarding and greedy hands. I blame Hearthstone for the second one.

Side event I managed to get some tix but it wasn't much. I kinda threw the last match against Affinity because I was so fried. I had fun but man I'm exhausted.
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Essays are now complete. I hope WotC wanted honest answers, because that's what I gave them -- especially on the last question.
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