Board 8 > Magic the Gathering: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms

(+) Yeah! (+)

The Mana Sword posted...

We'll see what happens. I'd prefer the card stay in the format because I enjoy playing with it, but that's admittedly selfish and because I hate Thoughtseize. I do wish my 4 wildcards weren't going to held in limbo for a month before they decide to ban it proper. The suspension system is kinda dumb.

Honestly I wish it was fine too, I'm just pretty sure it's not. The main reason I didn't craft UR Phoenix was because after watching a little I was pretty sure either Brainstorm or Flooting would get the axe. And also because Archives using Rare wildcards is STUPID.

(incidentally I think these factors contribute significantly to the lower playrate on ladder)

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I've been playing some standard games with a blue green deck I hobbled together

I still haven't crafted a single card, just collecting resources and getting exposure to the meta and whatnot

I faced someone named mtg_punker who was running that green landfall bug that duplicates itself

They were clearly running away with tempo etc as my draw was awkward and I was having to deal with threats suboptimally just to survive

I played Stolen by the Fae for X=3 on 5 mana to last one more turn

During this turn mtg_punker amassed a board of 50 creatures against my board of four 1/1 flying creatures (I had a silver raven also)

But they had nothing to deal with flying and I won with exact lethal from Return of the Wildspeaker

'oops' I guess, fun stuff

While I'd love for Brainstorm to be the rare card to beat suspension, I do feel like some people (wotc) are underestimating its power and versatility. It's a utility card that just always keeps up with the power of whatever format it's in, as historic gets more powerful Brainstorm will too. There's no card that's going move Brainstorm out of its place in the large majority of Blue decks.

Also don't go counting your wildcard chickens - there's no rule that says they have to revisit this matter in a month. When they introduced the concept of suspending cards the idea was that future releases could evolve the format to a point that a suspended card could come back. Burning Tree Emissary spent three months suspended before they felt it was okay to return it to the format. Given that they seem to really not want to ban Brainstorm they could leave it in limbo for even longer, especially since there's nothing specifically for Historic on the horizon right now (Amonkhet Remastered came out one month after the BTE suspension and definitely impacted the meta).

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So it has leaked (via a article WotC accidentally posted early) that in August they're doing an Arena-only Jumpstart 2: Historic Horizons. And it's going to consist mostly of cards from both Modern Horizons sets, plus 31 completely new Arena-only cards.

I now understand why they were so hesitant to axe Brainstorm. They want to get fucking WILD, huh.

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Hmm. Given that historic is already an 'arena only' format, and the cards presumably won't be legal in standard, i don't think i have any issues with that

trying to think of how it'll bite us down the road

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Im really not excited about them doing Arena-only cards

If the cards are good, they should just be printed in paper as actual cards, and if theyre not good... then theyre not good.
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MoogleKupo141 posted...

Im really not excited about them doing Arena-only cards

If the cards are good, they should just be printed in paper as actual cards, and if theyre not good... then theyre not good.

Or the cards are good but they're TOO good and they definitely should not be printed! But I don't think it's too big of a problem - anything people really want they can throw into a supplemental set.

I'm kind of into the idea of Historic as an experimental digital format, although it's kind of a nightmare from a wildcard economy perspective and I'm not sure if WotC actually knows what they're doing wrt game balance...but it's exciting!!!

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I dont have any issue with it. There are certain things you can do in digital that are impossible in paper, like in the Eternal card game there is a keyword called echo where when you draw a card with echo you create two copies of that card, so for instance a faithless looting effect drawing that card becomes a draw three discard two instead of a draw two discard two

Seeing magic harnessing cool mechanics like that in digital only seems interesting.

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The really old PC version of MTG played with the idea of exclusive cards that can only realistically (or practically) function digitally. Who can forget Aswan Jaguar (which actually had a paper release, but only as a novelty oversized card).


I've no issue with them doing stuff like this if it's to take advantage of the things you can do digitally.

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Other than being a hilarious color pie break, that card is pretty cool. Realistically that should probably be UB

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I really don't want to see digital only cards. The difference between what Arena offers and what's going on in paper is already annoying, I don't want them to widen that gap. I guess this does put Brainstorm on a track to be killed or saved in 3 months, but I don't think it helps its case.

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masterplum posted...

Other than being a hilarious color pie break, that card is pretty cool. Realistically that should probably be UB

When that game was made the color pie was only a half-formed idea that was more about flavor than identity and it allowed for all kinds of shenanigans.

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Oh yeah, it's meme time

https://twitter.com/coL_noxious/status/1418982138226032642?s=19

(from blogatog)

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I mean historic is already a digital only format. I dont think digital only cards is any worse than digital only sets like Amonkhet remastered or vintage masters

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Today in what might be the most unfortunate play I've seen, I had an opponent attempt to use Valki, God of Lies to copy my Polukranos, Unchained. He scooped immediately after which is probably fair.

(Because Polukranos is worded to get counters as it enters and the Valki copy doesn't enter the battlefield, it just turns itself into a 0/0 and dies immediately)
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masterplum posted...

I mean historic is already a digital only format. I dont think digital only cards is any worse than digital only sets like Amonkhet remastered or vintage masters

Well, digital only sets are just cards that exist on paper right? That's just adding cards into Arena which is fine. Digital only cards can potentially get kinda weird, which is a bit more worrying.

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https://www.ign.com/articles/jumpstart-historic-horizons-spoilers-mtg-arena-digital-only-card-reveal-details

As I sort of suspected, the digital-only stuff is very Hearthstone-like, and it just injecting more randomization into the game, which I'm not really a big fan of.

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The Mana Sword posted...

https://www.ign.com/articles/jumpstart-historic-horizons-spoilers-mtg-arena-digital-only-card-reveal-details

As I sort of suspected, the digital-only stuff is very Hearthstone-like, and it just injecting more randomization into the game, which I'm not really a big fan of.

None of the cards seem that great. Randomnization of jank is fun for players who want to play jank.

As long as we don't get stuff like piloted shreder (which was probably one of the best cards in hearthstone for a while?) then I don't think its a big deal.

Like the moment we get a questing beast where one of the things it has it dies into a random effect then we can start panicking, but none of the cards revealed so far seem to fit into tier one decks (except maybe the 1/4 taxer in a blink deck, but that effect is minor enough that I don't think the randomness matters too much)

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I also want to point out this exact concern existed with the forgotten realms dice rolling, and they stated they purposefully avoided putting dice rolling on constructed level cards because they didn't want pro matches decided by a dice roll

I imagine this will be exactly the same

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Even if none of these cards specifically end up being that great (there are still like 22 more), the fact that they are going in this direction just isn't for me. I mean, it is what it is. It's just not how I really wanted Historic to go.

And I don't like the dice rolling either! Even if they aren't constructed playable.

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I want to see more digital exclusives in magic tbh. A remake of Shandalar would be amazing.

As long as they are cognizant that pro games being decided by pure chance is a really bad look, which so far they seem very aware of that, I am all for crazy online only formats like Momir.

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I think random formats like Momir are fine! Those kinds of things are cool in other modes that are removed from regular constructed queues.

Also I think it's pretty clear from the past few years that they don't actually care about pro-level games, so it's hard for me to trust them in that regard.

I don't want to come off as too negative here, I'm just sort of bummed because I was enjoying historic as a format (especially given the trash fire Standard has been for two years), and this is just...not what I want to see in the format at all.

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And just to further clarify, I'm not against digital-only cards in principle. I actually think the perpetual mechanic is fairly interesting and a fun space to play in.

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I'm not truly concerned about the random effects, I think this is a small test run for a reason and if there's anything that's problematic they'll ban it. If anything, I'm more concerned about the tutors!

I've seen more talk about Pioneer today than I have in a year and I think it's clear at this point they still need to just support Pioneer and add it to the client.

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Yeah, pioneer is pretty dead. I wouldn't mind arena moving to support it over time

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Anyone else on Arena running into constant matches where the other person runs down the timer in like every phase?

I can only handle like 1 or 2 matches a day when theyre taking upwards of 45 minutes

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Anyone else on Arena running into constant matches where the other person runs down the timer in like every phase?

I can only handle like 1 or 2 matches a day when theyre taking upwards of 45 minutes

That's reportable

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masterplum posted...

Yeah, pioneer is pretty dead. I wouldn't mind arena moving to support it over time

While I remember them saying they'd like to do this, I can't see it. There are I believe 16 sets missing from Arena that are part of Pioneer and that would take a long time to bring to Arena. Also, the way they handled Amonkhet and Kaladesh last year wasn't universally popular (to be kind). Unless they find a better way of bringing back those old cards/set I don't see how they get there. By the time they could do it the format will be too dead for anyone to care.

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ChichiriMuyo posted...

While I remember them saying they'd like to do this, I can't see it. There are I believe 16 sets missing from Arena that are part of Pioneer and that would take a long time to bring to Arena. Also, the way they handled Amonkhet and Kaladesh last year wasn't universally popular (to be kind). Unless they find a better way of bringing back those old cards/set I don't see how they get there. By the time they could do it the format will be too dead for anyone to care.

I mean, all formats are pretty much dead until they support them. Wizards could announce a new format called expedition and if its on arena people would play it

If they did want to move in that direction I would probably start with trying to get out khans of tarkir because thats a set people would want to draft. I think the issue with amonkhet and kaladesh is those were both meh draft formats

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Well they did have that Pioneer Masters set that was supposed to get staples into the format quickly without having to put entire real sets in. That's canceled now, but I have to wonder if this set is going to end up having at least some of the implemented cards. And yes, having GOOD draft sets would help. This is the problem. They don't have time to program in every jank limited card from each set, and making Remastered sets requires balancing a draft format (and so far has been worse - not to mention in comparison to new sets with much better limited formats than most older Pioneer sets do).

But the bottom line here is that Historic no longer fulfills its original purpose. And to be fair I think that's fine. It was meant to just be a place to play rotated cards, but the thing about "Standard+" formats like that is if that's all it is no one will play it. Historic wasn't progressing quickly enough to differentiate itself, and anyways was still dominated by tons of powerful Standard cards that people hated. It's GOOD that it has a unique identity now, but if you want a "normal" non-rotating format it basically has to be Pioneer because a "normal" Historic is still gonna be an Eldraine format for a long time.

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masterplum posted...

That's reportable

yeah but will they get punished?

I decided to do Forgotten Realms constructed, running blue black with lots of venture cards, lets see how much it sucks.

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So two of the new digital only cards are already banned in Historic Brawl. The new Davriel and Davriel's Withering are pre-booted for reasons that seem obvious once you think about it. The possibility to permanently give a commander 0 toughness sucks.

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ChichiriMuyo posted...

So two of the new digital only cards are already banned in Historic Brawl. The new Davriel and Davriel's Withering are pre-booted for reasons that seem obvious once you think about it. The possibility to permanently give a commander 0 toughness sucks.

I saw discussions of people talking about how they are going to print some of these cards off (and they mentioned those 2 cards specifically) because they wanted to use them in paper EDH, and were mad that they didn't exist in paper form. This is exactly why they aren't in paper form.

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ChichiriMuyo posted...

So two of the new digital only cards are already banned in Historic Brawl. The new Davriel and Davriel's Withering are pre-booted for reasons that seem obvious once you think about it. The possibility to permanently give a commander 0 toughness sucks.

why cant they just make the new permanent effects not permanent on Commanders? Seems like a pretty reasonable rule to me, Commanders are treated specially already.

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

why cant they just make the new permanent effects not permanent on Commanders? Seems like a pretty reasonable rule to me, Commanders are treated specially already.

In addition to being errata'd text not on the "card" it's probably difficult for the rules to handle. Commanders do have special rules attached to them, but while they are in play there are no different rules to handle them. That means they'd also have to change the game's rules in a very specific and weird way. That change would also result in more fun permanent effects from being applied to Commanders, so they'd be changing the game rules to decrease new, fun ways of playing because two cards are unfun.

And let's be honest, these guys break their game code with nearly every set they add to the game. The last thing they need is to add a bunch of potentially game breaking code just to accommodate two cards.

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Qualified for day 2 of the Arena Open despite making a few mis-plays but I guess I'll take it.

Winota is a scam and I love that it's apparently the deck of choice right now.
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Also I killed 6 of my opponent's creatures with a Suffocating Fumes that was fun. (half of those were tokens but still)
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pyresword posted...

Winota is a scam and I love that it's apparently the deck of choice right now.

I have been absolutely mollywopped by Winona multiple times and can confirm she is a scam.

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I actually meant that in the opposite way than I think you thought haha, but yes sometimes they curve out into Winota and you just get blown off the board. It's a silly card like that also.

Where I'm coming from though is that the only threatening thing in the Winota deck is Winota--a 4 mana 4/4 that needs to survive until combat--which means you just win if you play Heartless Act. Or Power Word Kill. Or Redcap Melee, or whatever. The deck is too fragile.
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Yeah, Winona is the exact type of luck based deck that makes me wonder why we bothered to play magic when we could have just rolled dice

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Welp, lost pretty quickly in day 2, but I don't think there was a whole lot I could have done other than perhaps deck selection, but I think my deck was reasonable also. I just didn't see any of the key cards when it mattered. In particular I was against all creature decks and don't think I saw a board wipe all event despite running 3 of them (2 main 1 side) plus card draw to find them.

I did make one pretty big misplay in terms of how dumb it was, but given how the game went after that I'm pretty sure it didn't end up mattering. (I attacked with a Thieves-Guild Enforcer to trade with a Selfless Savior when I really shouldn't have been happy with that trade, but my opponent drew pretty aggressively and I'd have been forced to make the same trade defensively in 2-3 turns anyways, and given that I was not even close to winning I don't see that as likely to have changed the outcome)
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This was the first Arena Open where I didn't even try, I think. Standard is a crap shoot right now and I'm really looking forward to rotation.

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People really underestimated AFR. Its going to be huge post rotation (barring new Innistrad being another Throne).

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I'm definitely having a lot of trouble figuring out Standard right now. Don't know what I'm playing this weekend for the qualifier either. Feels like no matter what you're doing you have to make sacrifices against a particular popular deck and just hope you don't get matched against it.
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Wow these look cool.

https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/oyt2tt/mid_eternal_night_basic_lands/

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I don't like them, but not everything has to be for every person. Seems like a lot of people do


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Yeah I dont really like the look of them either, but thats fine.

The cards they did show are at least somewhat enticing to me. Im glad flashback is back. Anything to look forward to is nice because Im just completely out on AFR. I havent even wanted to draft since the first weekend.

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pyresword posted...

I'm definitely having a lot of trouble figuring out Standard right now. Don't know what I'm playing this weekend for the qualifier either. Feels like no matter what you're doing you have to make sacrifices against a particular popular deck and just hope you don't get matched against it.

That's the problem I'm seeing. Even if you're playing Bo3 you're still praying that you don't auto-lose game one too often or you're fucked. Pre-AFR was pretty boring, but it was better than the luck of the draw that standard is right now.

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