Board 8 > Magic: The Gathering - New Capenna and Explorer incoming

(+) Yeah! (+)

also, i can't see elsewhere flask as anything else but a tiny penis with huge balls wearing a necktie

edit: welcome to page 6 everybody

Haven't had much time to really dive into limited, but I did play some Constructed with the new cards and managed to go 7-0 at my first attempt at the Standard Metagame Challenge on Arena. I was playing Mono-white midrange/control with the new card doing an impression of Swords to Plowshares. This archetype was already low-key pretty good in the last set and it feels incredibly strong now.

30th Anniversary sold out in about 30 minutes.

I'm seeing plenty of speculation that it actually sold horribly and Hasbro stopped selling it to save face.

https://cardboard-crack.com/post/702202299319271424/30th-anniversary-edition

I dunno guys, that feels an awful lot like the same energy behind, Disney was buying tickets to Captain Marvel to inflate the box office!

For the record I don't have anything resembling an informed guess as to how it actually did; I just think dunking on Wizards is funny especially with a product as obscenely bad as this one.

DeepsPraw posted...

I'm seeing plenty of speculation that it actually sold horribly and Hasbro stopped selling it to save face.

All the chances to save face, and they choose the option that prevents them from making money? Nah. It's just usual conspiracy theory stuff from people who want to see what they want to see.

Their weirdly worded statement, it going back in stock, and not being able to find a single person upset they couldn't buy it starts to paint a possibility of them pulling it.

And on the 'they wouldn't pull it because making money' reasoning, any timed sale like this that is expected to sell out is all about the initial spike when it first launches. People that were going to drop $1k on 4 packs of cards aren't going to be sitting there thinking it over for 30 minutes, they're going to be buying it the second it goes up. That amount of time is easily enough time for WotC to see if this was going to meet expectations or bomb hard.
Wouldn't be surprised if we see the stock given away at festivals.

Had a really great night at FNM draft. Went 3-0, and didn't even lose one game. Just 6 games, 6 wins. I drafted what I figured was a pretty basic Bant aggro list, but everything came together just right.

MVP of the night was Mask of the Jadecrafter, which came out in most of the games and frequently gave me a 6/6 or bigger. Also pulled off a fun combo with Battery Bearer (all your creatures are Powerstones) and Tocasia (all your creatures have vigilance), which let me swing with a bunch of big artifact creatures and then tap them to play more big artifact creatures.

I went to the eternal weekend legacy championship this weekend. It was my first real tournament since the start of the pandemic, and was nice to get out there again. I finished 8-2 and missed top 16 on breakers. I had no expectations going in, and had a lot of fun.

UltimaterializerX posted...

Hacked data suggests they only sold 2300 of those M30 boxes. Good.

I think the bottom is going to fall out at some point on singles of it.

Sure you can list a M30 black lotus for $10,000

is anyone actually paying that ever

I think they were banking on the fact that collectors edition cards, also not tournament legal, have real value. I mean, if you're wotc/hasbro and you're seeing CE Black Lotus going for 4-6k why wouldn't you think that some dope out there would pay for the chance to open an equally unusable m30 lotus? And if they sold 2300 units then some dopes did indeed pay it. Considering they profit $998 for each one sold, they're probably not even mad that they failed to sell out

Did you actually follow what they said in it? They said things like "we scaled back m30 to make it more collectable." It was 100% smoke up the asses of investors and when they did address player complaints it was always to say "that's actually not a problem that we're seeing." The whole thing was to say "customer complaints are just a very small, but very vocal minority that have no real impact on our overall sales." It was 100% "everything we've done is correct, just ignore what bank of America said the other day."

Nowhere, not once, did I notice them saying anything even as conciliatory as "we could improve on ____." They told investors everything was alright and they never make any mistakes and don't worry, we are not changing anything about our business model because it's nothing but upwards from here.

If that's noticing that people loathe them in your mind, god help us if they were to put out PR when they actually do something right. They'd probably take out every superbowl ad to say "Hasbro - people love us more than The Beatles, Jesus and Mohammed combined!"

https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/a-first-look-at-phyrexia-all-will-be-one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DR2gCSO7Lc

Scars of Mirrodin was my first real MTG set so I am so hyped.

Oh god, I just had one of the most glorious games I have ever played. Format - Explorer. Me - Selesnya Angels. Opponent - Mono G Aether Reservoir combo.

Mono G is a new combo that's possible thanks to Nykthos Shrine of Nyx. It utilizes Kiora, Karn the Great Creator, and Pestilent Cauldron//Restorative Burst creating a repeatable loop that effectively gets you infinite mana and with Reservior it ends up getting you a ton of life for activations... and hoo boy did my opponent need a lot of activations. However, what made this so damn sweet was once he had enough life to do me in he gave the early GG. If we were playing in real life and he played exactly like that, the smile on my face would have told him he was giving the wrong GG. He activates reservoir one at a time, uses the final activation that he can afford and bam! Collected Company! I slap down Bishop of Wings #3 (gain 4 life when you play an angel) and Resplendent Angel. After leaving himself with just 5 life there was nothing to stop my army of Giada boosted Angels from flying over and killing him.

Moral of the story, never be the one to say GG first unless you're the one that lost. Otherwise you're being rude, and you never know when an opponent will punish you for it.

I haven't really played outside of Arena much but I thought the Pioneer Green Devotion deck (which now matches the Explorer version) had a true infinite with the Cauldron. Was this something else or did they just screw up by not realizing you had access to instant speed lifegain and not manually going through the loop enough times to account for that?

Edit: I stand a bit corrected because Arena is still missing Oath of Nissa, but I don't think that matters for this specific context

Actually though tbh I didn't realize exactly how Aetherflux Reservoir works. If you've got to go through the loop enough times to be able to pay 100 life (as opposed to just 50+12 or whatever) then maybe they get screwed over by the Arena timer even if there's no real card mechanics preventing them from doing it.

That's indeed the problem he ran into - the timer. I was well above 150 so he needed to push that infinite loop hard. Tbh if he had played faster and or better he would have won, but the real joy wasn't even the W, it was wiping the (imagined) grin off his face when he gave the early GG. I almost conceeded since I figured he probably had me regardless of life total, but I just will not abide bm like that.

Havent gotten a really good handle on the cube but entered the open just to support cube draft with stakes.

got an embercleave 4th pick but then red Aggro got cut hard which left me with a pretty mediocre UR spells deck.

Did not win 7 games

I've been playing Alchemy since that is the format for the Mythic Qualifier next month, and I'm here to report that running Displacer Kitten and Oracle of the Alpha is definitely a recipe for reasonable and honest games of Magic the Gathering.

I generally like the Arena Opens, but I'm already bad at Limited in general and the Arena Cube specifically I have no experience at all in, so I'd probably just be wasting resources.

pyresword posted...

I've been playing Alchemy since that is the format for the Mythic Qualifier next month, and I'm here to report that running Displacer Kitten and Oracle of the Alpha is definitely a recipe for reasonable and honest games of Magic the Gathering.

I generally like the Arena Opens, but I'm already bad at Limited in general and the Arena Cube specifically I have no experience at all in, so I'd probably just be wasting resources.

Is oracle of the alpha even good? I never end up picking it in drafts because half the power 9 isnt even a good top deck. Adding effectively 5 lands to my deck after my opening hand seems bad. Fast mana is good because in your opening hand it is busted as hell. Not on turn 4+

masterplum posted...

Is oracle of the alpha even good?

In a vacuum not really. The deck I had is a combo deck where most of the work is done by Displacer Kitten and Saiba Syphoner. Oracle of the Alpha just means that once you get everything set up you just absolutely go off, but I'm not convinced the deck even needs it. The combo of Kitten+Syphoner basically means that every time you cast a spell you can also blink the Syphoner, which means you can do things like repeatedly loop Fading Hope to bounce your opponent's entire board and lock them out of the game. Oracle of the Alpha helps because the Mox's also give you extra Kitten triggers which means every Mox basically draws you a card, so you're often just ending the game on the spot if you untap with Kitten and a sufficient density of power 9 cards in your deck. Looping Time Walk is also the most straightforward way to win.

This is nearly the deck I was using and Altheriax has more detailed explanations and a better understanding of the deck. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCt13DheKGs

I don't have a great sense for how strong the deck really is but I can at least say it's viable.

Oracle isnt necessarily good, but playing with that card is fun as hell and I will take it every time I see it.

Having said that, drafted a blink deck and took oracle of alpha for kicks

Mull drifter + blink kitten + oracle of alpha + temeshi reality architect was the dumbest sequences of turns I ever took

Ended up with 30 cards in hand digging for my alrunds epiphany

Ended up 6-3 with that blink deck

I have moved oracle of the alpha from unplyable to "Playable but you really really need good card selection"

If you can dig through your library then spending your entire turn casting card draw spells is fine if you also end up playing time walk

I saw people in Historic getting decent value out of Oracle of the Alpha by using it in conjunction with Narset, Parter of Veils and Wandering Mind. So yeah I would say that's pretty much a fair analysis.

I don't think it's a card you just use though and I don't see it as being that strong on it's own. Even in the constructed deck I was talking about Displacer Kitten is the real engine.

Man I've been having fun looping Time Walks but it feels so bad to do it when the matchmaker for some reason decides to pair me as a high mythic player against someone in bronze 3 using one of the Arena starter decks

Wow, they need to fix that. I've never gotten paired with someone that low. I did play someone last night who was using gates in explorer and I felt bad, but at least they were past bronze.

Bump.

I fucking hate Arena so much. I've been tracking my play/draw numbers for awhile and I've been going first less than 40% of the time. This is over a long enough period to know that going second that much is fucked. They need to fix the penalty that occurs from going second. Even getting the first draw still puts you at a virtual 45/55 in favor of the opponent when you go second. This would not be the case if they would slow the game down, you know, stop power creeping like fucking morons. But hey, creatures that were borderline broken 10 years ago have to be unplayable for some fucking reason, right?

Massive leak for some of the ONE cards.

https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/104jnw3/phyrexia_all_will_be_one_massive_leak/
https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/104k5xn/phyrexia_all_will_be_one_leaks_part_2/

Some interesting stuff. Also confirms some compleated/uncompleated planeswalkers.

tbh I'm kind of underwhelmed with most of these

The scale of the leak is pretty insane. Almost all the rares have been spoiled now. It seems like they must have inadvertently gotten some ONE rare sheets mixed into the Dominaria Remastered packs.

phyrexia sets and massive leaks, name a more iconic duo

Does anyone actually play Alchemy? Really struggling with what deck to run for the qualifier event this weekend. If in doubt I'll just play Rakdos Anvil, but it feels wrong and you just know that everyone is going to come prepared for it. Kind of want to run some deck using Divine Purge and Farewell but any deck I've tried just feels too weak.

The last time I played Alchemy was when it was the format for the open. While I do believe there is some audience for it, it has got to be very small. Like standard in paper, it's only really popular when it's forced as a tournament format.

I had two of those decathalon tokens and was like, it's omniscience draft for the last event, I could just get a final one there right?

Spent like half the day yesterday just grinding drafts. Made it to 5 or 6 wins a couple times but it's so RNG. Decided it just wasn't worth it.

Yeah. I know it's the practical way of doing things, but "win seven, best of one" instead of a proper tournament often just feels dumb. I entered the Pauper tournament day one multiple times and literally went first just twice the entire time. If you saw the meta for that pauper tournament (easily looked like 75%+ mono white aggro, 100% mono X aggro fwiw) you'd know that being on the draw was almost an auto loss.

Then add in the fact that you had to draft, play with special rules, and your opponents weren't even from your draft pod and you have what must be an absolute mess of a format. I'm kind of glad I gave up after rounds 3-4 because that omniscience draft probably would have ended with me throwing my computer out a window.

Yea the omniscience draft was so dependent on cards that you got. I had one opponent that had a turn one win with an Approach of the Second Sun. Just played it and then card drawn themselves to victory.

There's also the people that get a Peer into the Abyss, also just an instant win if you resolve it.

*nods* IIRC the first time I played Omniscience I had Peer into the Abyss turn one and it's just broken af. Who cares about losing half your life when you can cast half your deck on turn one? If you grab a few hard counterspells during the draft (better than in a regular draft) maybe the Approach turn one is still beatable, but if you don't open with a counterspell there's nothing you can really do about turn one PitA.

Kaldheim draft is up right now, probably because of the Arena Open, and I forgot how much I liked this limited format.

Well then. I had all kinds of gold and gems saved up for the Arena Open and then I ended up going 7-1 on my first attempt. ...guess I've already got a lot for next time then?

Used a Red/Green deck sort-of built around Waking the Trolls and then ended up only drawing the card in 2 of my games, 1 of which my opponent was already dead on-board that turn anyways. Turns out just getting strong red removal options and haste creatures was enough.