Board 8 > Magic the Gathering Topic: Zendikar (Almost) Rising

(+) Yeah! (+)

I've always liked Cleric tribal but I agree there's a big overlap with Vampires, particularly the Ixalan ones.

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Uh how do people play control?

It's fun enough if you match up against an aggro deck, but ending up in the mirror is torture. I feel like auto-conceding because I didn't sign up for playing a 30+ game of magic.

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pjbasis posted...

I didn't sign up for playing a 30+ game of magic.

if youre playing a control deck you absolutely did sign up for it

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Dammit!

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Control is fun to play, what are you playing?

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30+ control mirrors are exhilarating.

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I was trying the blue white list from cgb in 2021 standard.

But I immediately faced another blue white list.

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redrocket posted...

30+ control mirrors are exhilarating.

Eh when I just wanna get my daily wins in arena it feels like a waste of time.

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pjbasis posted...

Eh when I just wanna get my daily wins in arena it feels like a waste of time.

why are you playing control

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Because if you match up against non-control, the game should be over fast too!

But in this lucky clover meta it's hard to find aggro decks or anything that would scoop because you cleared the board and have a few cards more than them.

Not gonna do it again though trust me.

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Play control in historic instead, its better

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Lucky clover has been really coin flippy for me and my aggro deck. Half the time i run over them, but if they can manage to get more than one turn with multiple brazen borrower bounces, I'm finished.

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I think one turn with double borrower is enough to put away mono green. The creatures are just too expensive.

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The Mana Sword posted...

Play control in historic instead, its better

I've been building up my standard supply of cards so that I could make any nearly any deck I want. Don't really have the wildcard resources for historic.

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redrocket posted...

30+ control mirrors are exhilarating.

agreed!

control vs control is super fun. i feel like a villain when playing control against aggro/midrange decks, though, because i hate being on the other side of that matchup

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Conversely, pummeling a control deck in the face by being faster than they can handle is extremely cathartic.

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hey mooglekupo are you cube drafting against kenji right now

hes playing someone named pacmantis on mtgo

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Peace___Frog posted...

Conversely, pummeling a control deck in the face by being faster than they can handle is extremely cathartic.

This

When aggro is good enough it can still be fun against control. Even I feel bad top decking a Questing Beast into a Shifting Ceratops when they keep wiping me (not really)

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The Mana Sword posted...

hey mooglekupo are you cube drafting against kenji right now

hes playing someone named pacmantis on mtgo

Yeah that was me!

it didnt register with me until the end of the match when I realized hey wait that name seems familiar and then searched it and found him wrapping up his stream

then I went back and watched our match which was pretty interesting to do. Ive never seen a match through my opponents eyes before. Also he seems like a cool and nice dude.
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yeah hes great

I was still rooting for (who I thought was) you though!

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Zendikar is another really good cube set. A lot of the DFC are worth at least trying out.

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MoogleKupo141 posted...

Ive never seen a match through my opponents eyes before.

I too did so for the first time recently and it's awkward. I had a few days between the game and seeing the upload and I had to keep trying to remember what I had and what I was thinking because some of those plays seemed sketchy without that knowledge.

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Doing my first Zendikar draft. Enjoying the UR Wizards deck so far. Relic Amulet is kind of absurd in the deck, and so is the 4-drop guy that pings any time you play an Instant/Sorcery/Wizard.

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Did my first sealed for Zendi and went 7-1 with Red/Green. I actually thought it was a mostly weak deck due to no ways of getting multiple landfalls but the format is pretty slow in sealed. Relic Robber was a total MVP and played into three of those wins. It also doesn't hurt that he's a rogue with helped Grotag Bug-Catcher (quite good) and Veteran Adventurer. I wanted to play the kitesail for robber but didn't and I'm not going to second guess myself with results like 7-1, but the closest game I had my opponent had it on a Vet. Adventurer of their own on and I only won by going wider and dropping a finishing Inordinate Rage.

My one loss, dude had the 0/17. What a monster.

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Yeah, Rockslide Sorcerer is great.

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I got my M21 stats email. 140 packs opened and 511 games played. I actually didn't think I played that much.

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That looks like nearly playing every day

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Went 7-1 with a RW aggro then 7-2 with a RG party deck.

Just drafted a UB rogue deck but this one looks more questionable.

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I had a 7-0 this morning with a RB Aggro/Party deck. I kept getting passed really good black removal in the draft, had 3 Deadly Alliances and 2 Feed the swarms. Dunno what everyone else was doing but they certainly werent in black.

GW landfall is my only failed deck so far, Im a little dubious on how good most of the landfall critters actually are in this format.

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when the landfall works, it works, but its hard to do with so few ways to get multiple triggers in a turn. The 3 drop cat in green that gets a +1+1 can get out of hand if you let it and the Baloth that gets to attack as a 6/5 is also pretty dangerous.
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It seems like Cleansing Wildfire might actually be the best landfall enabler, at least at common. Or so I'm told.

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Did my second sealed and went 5-3. WBu party. Lindvala and Tazri made it seem obvious I'd go base UW party, but I needed a third color for a full party and not only did black give me rogues (and more clerics) it had decent removal package. A good deal of Blue got cut, but apparently the shuffler didn't get the message since I often saw opening hand with only Swamps or Plains but never once lacked for Islands. Flying is much more valuable in this set than most, so don't sleep on it.

Now, the reason for playing sealed right now is this - you're guaranteed to get your gems worth. Two sealed events and I'm down 200 gems and up 18 packs. If there was a one time store option of 18 packs for 200 gems we'd all get that.

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The entry cost is particularly low right now?

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Sealed is 2000 gems right now. You get 6 (full) packs to make your deck, and even if you go 0-3 you get 200 gems and 3 packs (and a full art land) as a reward. Every win is extra.

Is it particularly low? Probably not.

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Gotcha. Playing sealed right now and I'm up 4-0. Casting Inscription of Insight multiple times is just game breaking.

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Premier draft only life

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masterplum posted...

Premier draft only life

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https://twitter.com/wizards_magic/status/1308466504518623233?s=21

L
O
L

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So whats happening in standard?

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I've only done 1.5 drafts so far, what possibly happened to standard in less than a week?

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Same story as usual. Ramp continues to be amazing.

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The entire format is overrun by Omnath ramp decks. Like, it's the best deck and it's not even close.

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Is Omnath really the boogieman though? Or is it the snake

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I don't think Lotus Cobra is inherently a busted card on its own, but the way the three problem cards work together is back-breaking.

I suspect they're going to try and just ban Uro in order to leave their new shiny cards untouched, but I don't think that'll be enough.

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uro + lotus tho im okay with

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have no interest in playing standard at all while that deck is still so opressive

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I dont play standard but is Omnath really the problem over Uro? That's crazy to me if true.

I play Historic and Uro is extremely strong there, but the format is wacky enough for it to be okay. And also Historic hasn't banned cat so the oven decks are still strong.

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HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

And also Historic hasn't banned cat

a real travesty

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The Mana Sword posted...

a real travesty

Cat still being around is good because it makes Collected Company good and that's all that matters tbqh

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