Board 8 > Magic the Gathering Final Fantasy

(+) Yeah! (+)

Shattered posted...

Game 1 I got dropped into a game the second I walked through the door by a friend from our large group chat who I had talked to a lot but hadn't played yet. I guess he had been wanting to play with me for a while. He was playing Sisay Weatherlight Captain that was either Bracket 4/5 nonsense or he just absolutely drew the nuts. Although after he got her down he was basically just playing straight from his deck and had ridiculous amounts of mana. I was playing bracket 2 jank.

It's crazy to me that this happens. Does rule zero just not happen? I would never ever play a 2 willingly against a 4/5. You are playing two different games completely at this point.

Ok so I've only been playing for like 2 or so months? Whenever FF released. But I've yet to see rule zero happen at a table I've been at. However, myself and my wife were basically adopted into a group of regulars when we started learning how to play and we are in a group chat with 6 of them. All my games so far have involved a combination of 2-3 of them plus my wife. I do think there's some sort of understanding amongst the group as everyone has basically been playing bracket 2/3 level from what I can tell. Or they knew what myself/wife were playing and picked decks accordingly.

The 6th player is very active in the group chat and a cool guy but usually plays in different pods. And I've only seen him play with 2 from the 5 above (plus random others) who I would say are definitely the more experienced / serious players. The 6th guy is definitely the most hardcore into the hobby. Last night he told me he has 52 decks and when he flicked through then I recognized some of the commanders to be known as the more dickish competitive ones (He had 4 separate Atraxa decks for instance). I know he plays 3-4 times a week minimum.

When I walked through the door this week they told me they were splitting me and the wife up and I was gonna be with the 6th guy. By the time I sat down, the other 3 already had turn 1 played out and reset as I sat down so I don't know if there was a rule 0. I hadn't played with either of the other 2 before either but I did know at least 1 of them was known as a more serious player.

During the first game I said I only had unoptimized casual decks. So I assume they took that on board for the remaining 2 games. However from what I gather, even the 6th guys worst decks are still fairly highly optimized. I know others have commented on playing in pods with him and his decks.

For the most part I am not interested in cEDH. Expense aside, the games just don't sound fun. Secondly I know what my competitive personality is like and it's not a rabbit hole I should go down which the wife agrees with.

So I just try make quirky decks that I think will be funny. Or build around a theme rather than trying to min/max a competitive deck.

my thing about edh/cedh is that, while rule zero is nice, I don't really think it has a place at FNM. It's a conflict of interest to both make people pay money, for prizes, at FNM and then ask them to tailor their decks to ensure a fair pod. It makes more sense to me to say any paid event is cEDH and anything other than that, purely casual, play what you want, but not for prizes. If I'm paying money I want to win and I want to play whatever deck I want and I don't think it's on me to accommodate someone with a lesser deck. Edh is the only format this happens in, people don't try to split standard or modern or w/e into power levels. If you aren't good enough then you don't get to win in those formats, it should be the same for edh.

I think brackets are a step in the right direction but they aren't nearly tested enough to be able to say "okay tonight we're playing bracket 2 commander for FNM" because there's plenty of great cards that aren't game changers that will kick the crap out of a barely upgraded pre-con.

And to be clear, I do not play cedh. It's way too sweaty for me, both competitively and monetarily. But I'm not going to get upset if there's no rule 0 conversation during a paid event.

You don't gotta go too far into rule zero, but I have found at least just asking everyone "What kinda power are we looking at here?" is something that helps out a lot. You can prod a bit further if people are cagey, but I just know the experience will be miserable if I bring out my 20 ways to win precon and I'm against little jimmy and his turn 4 2-card infinite.

Zigzagoon posted...

You don't gotta go too far into rule zero, but I have found at least just asking everyone "What kinda power are we looking at here?" is something that helps out a lot. You can prod a bit further if people are cagey, but I just know the experience will be miserable if I bring out my 20 ways to win precon and I'm against little jimmy and his turn 4 2-card infinite.

If the entire table wants to do it, again purely talking paid fnm or such, hey go for it. But I also don't think there should be a burden on the higher power levels during those events. If i were playing cedh, and someone asked me what I was playing, I'm happy to tell them but that doesn't mean I'm changing my deck.

Emeraldegg posted...

my thing about edh/cedh is that, while rule zero is nice, I don't really think it has a place at FNM. It's a conflict of interest to both make people pay money, for prizes, at FNM and then ask them to tailor their decks to ensure a fair pod. It makes more sense to me to say any paid event is cEDH and anything other than that, purely casual, play what you want, but not for prizes. If I'm paying money I want to win and I want to play whatever deck I want and I don't think it's on me to accommodate someone with a lesser deck. Edh is the only format this happens in, people don't try to split standard or modern or w/e into power levels. If you aren't good enough then you don't get to win in those formats, it should be the same for edh.

I think brackets are a step in the right direction but they aren't nearly tested enough to be able to say "okay tonight we're playing bracket 2 commander for FNM" because there's plenty of great cards that aren't game changers that will kick the crap out of a barely upgraded pre-con.

And to be clear, I do not play cedh. It's way too sweaty for me, both competitively and monetarily. But I'm not going to get upset if there's no rule 0 conversation during a paid event.

Yeaaaaaah, there's a reason I don't want to ever go to a FNM. I'm so much more interested in just casual commander days. I have no interest in cedh and don't want to feel the pressure to always play my strongest deck when money is on the line.

I don't mind losing a few bucks, but I also don't want to be in a more stressful scenario where the sweats come out and things get socially awkward.

Yeah if it's just casual commander, just you and some people showing up and throwing down, rule 0 should be happening every single time, no excuses. And if people are trying to gotcha, or be like "ohhhhh no this infinite turn 2 combo never happens in this deck teehee" during casual? Gtfo

None of the nights I've played at have been paid fwiw.

The store owner actually got a little annoyed at our group because we all played commander at his EoE pre release (it was on our normal Monday night commander night). Like I literally don't even know how to play the pre release event so I'm not spending money to enter something I don't understand. Plus they were still going at like midnight when I left that night and were starting up new games.

I do always buy at least something every time we play at the store even though he's overpriced to hell. It was 2x $6 Bloomburrow packs and 2x $8 EoE packs last night. I did not realize EoE was $8 when I bought them, figured it would be like $6, they weren't priced up.

pre-releases are simple enough, you get 6 packs adn build a deck of 40 cards, then play a few rounds against other people doing the same. The hard part is getting decision paralysis about what to play but the actual format itself is just regular best of 3 magic.

I would instead be annoyed at the store owner for putting a pre-release on a monday, like who does that? You do it on friday so that people don't have to go to work the next day after staying up till 11 pm.

And yeah if these are just sit down casual events, the group not having rule 0 is inexcusable. I don't know this group like you do, but if they're just here to go seal clubbing then it's time to find a diff group/store. The owner himself seems like kind of a douche between this and the incredible FF markup I remember you talking about.

His FF stuff is still overpriced. I've seen the Terra precon for $35-40 recently and I've seen him go off TCG prices before for precons. Asked him about it last night and it was $50. I'd have paid $45 for the convenience but not paying $15 over.

The store is just a convenient location. It's about 1 mile from my house. The next nearest card store to me (10-15 mins) actually marks up worse than he does. The ones that have reasonable prices are a 35-45 minute drive.

the shop next to me has $5 packs for everything except FF which is $7

Zigzagoon posted...

Does rule zero just not happen?

Rule 0 is functionally worthless because nobody knows how to gauge their own decks. Brackets have helped make it semi-useful, but it's still not the panacea people treat it as.

it's a guideline, more than an actual rule. Tell me how many game changers you have and if the deck can go infinite, and I'm fine

https://www.samsclub.com/ip/17217658571

If anyone was after Endless Punishment like me but didn't want to pay the obscene prices, you can get it for $50 with 3 boosters on Sam's Club right now.

It was a $120-150 deck last week when I was searching for it. They must have released a fresh batch this week as it seems to be about $70 on TCG and eBay now.

Emeraldegg posted...

it's a guideline, more than an actual rule. Tell me how many game changers you have and if the deck can go infinite, and I'm fine

Pretty much this, yeah

UltimaterializerX posted...

People know. They just want to pubstomp, lie, and win at any cost.

Also this.

How people get enjoyment about tutoring for their 2 card infinite and winning on turn 4-5 blows my mind.

What, do you think you are skilled for winning that way? That you are better than anyone? No. You are trash and you always will be.

Not that 2 card infinites or tutoring for them is taboo, but that shit belongs in brackets 4+.

Thankfully at my LGS this very rarely happens.

yeah let me play my zellgamesh deck without you getting all sweaty about it

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/4/404cdcff.jpg

Ulti embracing the Haru Urara philosophy

So I jokily threw out to that guy that he was playing bracket 4 stuff. He said he doesn't play anything above bracket 2 because he doesn't run game changers, extra turns or loops.

He's technically right but feels like it goes against the spirit by skirting the rules. My expectations of bracket 2 is essentially upgraded precon level. And even some upgraded precons would sneak into bracket 3

Shattered posted...

He's technically right but feels like it goes against the spirit by skirting the rules.

People will absolutely do this, intentionally so.

I played against a guy's "Bracket 1" Etali deck that gets Etali out on turn 3.

Technically it is a bracket 1 or 2 or whatever, but fuck off, you absolutely know it's not.

It is the intent of the deck and if you are smugly claiming your turn 3 Etali deck is a bracket 1, then I'm sorry, but you can promptly get out of my pod and never come back.

My Bello, Bard of the Brambles is TECHNICALLY a bracket 2 deck, but I would never play it in a bracket 2 pod. It usually wins the game or is so overwhelmingly ahead by turn 6-7.

I know how fast it goes and how safe it is because enchantments and artifacts are safer than creatures. The intent makes it a bracket 3.

Zigzagoon posted...

People will absolutely do this, intentionally so.

I played against a guy's "Bracket 1" Etali deck that gets Etali out on turn 3.

Technically it is a bracket 1 or 2 or whatever, but fuck off, you absolutely know it's not.

It is the intent of the deck and if you are smugly claiming your turn 3 Etali deck is a bracket 1, then I'm sorry, but you can promptly get out of my pod and never come back.

Yeah, the official article introducing the bracket system specifically called out this kind of behavior and essentially made the spirit of the rules the actual rules, but people are gonna do it anyway.

I bought a Final Fantasy MTG booster box when it released, but I split it with my brother and I had to wait until he visited to open it. The most valuable card we got by far was me getting the Rhystic Study 'Stay With Me' art card with Tidus and Yuna on it. It's the first time I'm actually debating trading in a card somewhere because damn is this card ever worth a lot.

I really want that card but can't justify the price for it.

BlackDra90n posted...

I really want that card but can't justify the price for it.

I have one I'm looking to get rid of!

I'm counting this as beating another FF:

https://bsky.app/profile/tarvouldsquest.bsky.social/post/3lwju4mkuh22a

Also still working on my complete collection, but damn the last few cards I need are just too insane to pay for. And the prices do not seem to be dropping at all.

Don't expect them to. A lot less is being opened both due to terrible printing priorities from wotc and due to it not being a draft format anymore.

Any fun commander decks around Cactuar? Been trying to think of a small art project and thinking I might go with a quick proxy card deck.
Edit: Just realized Jumbo isn't legendary. Hmm, time to blindly pick a commander to build around without looking at what their card does.

Welp it took about 2 months but I think I give up on Magic.

It's probably my fault for only playing Standard but even farming my daily 4 wins to get gold to play limited feels like a chore lately.

I mean I can basically only play aggro decks because of my limited card pool as a new player. And even playing aggro sometimes it takes me up to an hour just to get my 4 wins which feels ridiculous. But there's hardly any midrange in Standard to actually win with aggro. You either draw the complete nuts and win by turn 3-4 or your opponent has a million counters and board wipes.

I get that commander is cool and there's more creativity in MTG but Standard is really miserable here. Maybe if I could actually build a control deck it would feel different but I never feel like I'm actually making any decisions playing aggro decks. Just go face and hope they don't have answers so every game is a coin flip simulator.

So I'm not sure I'm motivated to keep spending $60+ on new expansions every 1.5 months just to be able to build an actual deck a year from now and actually play the game.

Standard is a bit annoying to play, you should just try other formats. If you're on Arena you can play Historic or Pioneer or something.

Maybe I'll try those but I feel like I would have even less cards to actually play those formats than I do for Standard.

Started sketching up some proxies with the added twist that they're all also skeletons!

Still working out the style a bit and how cartoony I want to get with the skulls, will probably end up with something that's still pretty sketchy as I want to be able to get through cards pretty quickly though. Might also stick with the grid paper background, helps sell/excuse the sketchy-vibe a bit
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/9/99c9e445.jpg

Yo, these are sick

Those are awesome

Thanks! Didn't realize how much I missed drawing non-digitally and kind of having a blast with these.

Anyone have any requests? Thinking I'm going to go through commanders first and if I haven't lost interest yet might try to proxy the entire set.

Those are pretty cool

Though it took me longer than it should have to figure out what "Lard Text" was

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/b/b8bdd90c.jpg

lmao perfect, know who says that? Kind of want to use it for a flavor text.

I had been putting it off but I finally bought a pack at GameStop yesterday. (I had intended to buy Pokmon cards but they had none for whatever reason.) It was the last pack they had too.

Im not opening it right away though. Last time I saw my psychiatrist I promised her wed open a pack of cards together, so Im going to open it next time I see her.

Im hoping Ill pull at least one FFVIII card.

xenosaga posted...

lmao perfect, know who says that? Kind of want to use it for a flavor text.

that's palmer I believe

_Keeby posted...

I had been putting it off but I finally bought a pack at GameStop yesterday. (I had intended to buy Pokmon cards but they had none for whatever reason.) It was the last pack they had too.

Im not opening it right away though. Last time I saw my psychiatrist I promised her wed open a pack of cards together, so Im going to open it next time I see her.

Im hoping Ill pull at least one FFVIII card.

The "whatever reason" is that pokemon has been surging again and it's become really really hard if not impossible to get your hands on product. Get used to it.