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I imagine the answer to this is no but I'll ask anyway. Will these judge-like figure have power to fix mistakes. Like this example: My opponent an I are both at 7 life. He has enough creatures to kill me if I don't block. All his creatures are white and I have one green creature to block with and save myself. He casts Brave the Elements but accidentally names red when it was clear he meant to name green. Can the employee/spectator do anything? This happened to my opponent the other day and I felt bad

There are a lot of perks to MTGO, and I think they outweigh the downsides. As a tool, it's a fantastic way to brew and playtest. Nothing beats the convenience of throwing a deck together in a few minutes and immediately being able to see how it performs. And since some of the more abstract concepts like the stack and turn phases are automated and represented visually, it's a great way to learn how the game works. I would even wager that a player who cut their teeth on MTGO before transitioning into the paper world, might have a better grasp of the game flow/rules then your standard FNM player. Cards are also generally cheaper (as they should be) and easier to obtain. That being said, there are some significant downsides to playing online. The client is buggy as hell and just plain unstable. In the beta, crashes are common, and while WOTC update it regularly, they seem to break it as often as they fix it. The community is pretty bad too. A lot of sore losers and poor winners. I don't know that it's any worse than <insert name of another online community>, but the social aspect of paper magic which is such an important part of the game, just hasn't made the transition to MTGO. And that's the saddest part of the story I think.

Not sure if I've missed the bus here, but a plane of dreams. When you sleep at night, do you think that you're in a different place, or simply a different state of mind? You're on the plane of dreams, where nightmares and horrors run wild, yet at the same time, angels of hope and opportunity bring peace and balance to the plane. It would focus mainly around white and black, while beings of destruction and manipulation would fill in the gaps of red, green, and blue mana.

I didn't make it through the entire block (I quit in early '96), so I can't comment for the rest of it. This was my perspective: You start playing during Unlimited. There's Moxes and Time Walks and Force Fields floating around. Arabian Nights had Library of Alexandria and Bazaar of Baghdad, which were relatively easy to obtain. Legends came out and it was "holy crap, look at all this stuff!" The Dark had a few quirky things, and was cute. Fallen Empires had essentially nothing (aside form Hymn to Tourach - a common). So you wait from November until the following June for Ice Age. It's a gigantic set, even bigger than Legends. After a the novelty wore off you realize there really isn't anything that good in it. It reprinted some basics from previous sets, but there's no new powerful cards to put in your deck (maybe Necropotence). Then came Homelands. That was the final nail in the coffin. The game had a real Jump The Shark feel and I quit. A couple years later I came across people playing was surprised the game was still alive. Wizards got their act together eventually. As a sense of perspective, take something as simple as a Vampire Nighthawk. That could have never existed back then. It would have cost something like 4BBB, or been 1/1. The stat budget was just terrible during that period. And regarding Dark Depths, remember that came out 11 years after Ice Age. That grouping always struck me as odd. OK, I've rambled enough.

There really is not a better answer. Magic, like everything else in life requires practice. I suggest you and your group proxy up the top decks and play test. Then when you are done play test some more. And be sure to discuss strategy between games, sideboard choices, lines of play, and decisions so both you and your opponent made during the course of the games.

I'm sure I'll either be buried, or I'll be downvoted into oblivion. But here it goes... Firstly Wizards doesn't determine how many packs stores get, distributors do. I'll give you an example. I ran a core store, a tier 2 of 3 if you will, I was allowed to ask for 160 sets. That's 35 of each color. That should last me easily a midnight, noon, and 6pm event for Saturday and then whomever shoes for a last hurrah for Sunday. That's the optimal amount. But... I only received 90. That's 18 of each color...that's barely enough for 2 events let alone a third. To add to the decreased amount we were expecting, I received only 2 boxes for prize support. At a mandatory 2 packs per person that's 18 packs short. Meaning I would have to back the prize myself with another box, because you know they don't sell packs at distributors. Oh yeah did I mention we had to also buy a required amount of deck boxes and sleeves? Yeah. For a large store with extra capital, that's great. But when I'm expected to already dip into my coffers for prize support that was already promised, I was now also expected to buy deckboxes no one wanted to buy. (UltraPro is shit) For a small store with a large customer base, I couldn't keep product on the shelf and constantly got the "Well we're sorry, but you already bought all the product you can buy at this time" shpeel. Morale of the story, its not your LGS's fault. In fact its the distributors that WoTC deems suitable to sell their product. And yes to add on to the Promo problem. I'm more than happy to help a new player decide which color they should use based off their play style, that's just good customer service and I want to see them have the most fun. But, coming from a competitive background, WotC is making the promo the deciding factor on what to play. Which is bad for limited play, and this is why. First, regardless of what you get in your packs, you're now expected to use the "bomb" promo. Even if it is garbage and has no cohesion with the rest of the deck. This is just bad design, and it supports bad drafting habits for new players. Secondly, promos are supposed to be special, maybe not game changing, but good by themselves and it helped keep everyone on an EVEN playing field because they had the same promo.

Well, these events happen four times a year, so another one is coming round this fall for you. My own experience: Bought a couple intro packs almost exactly a year ago. Had fun with that, and eventually picked up an event pack and then the deckbuilder's kit. The person I was learning with (they started the same time I did) and I decided to try out the next cycle of "official" release-related events when Theros came out in the fall. That meant our first not-at-home event was a sealed deck prerelease. A week later we played in the release day limited draft event. Then on game day a little later we played in a constructed event. Now, I can tell you, we had close to NO idea what we were doing building our decks in the sealed event--but we had fun! Tons of it, in fact. And the next week, despite doing a lot of reading ahead of time, drafting was quite a challenge, since we had so little experience evaluating cards in that way. The constructed event I brought a deck that had started as the event deck I had bought, but then heavily tuned with cards picked up at the prerelease and the release. In all three events, I was out of my depth, and especially at the sealed and limited events. But (a) I had a huge amount of fun anyway, and (b) I learned very quickly at least the structural and social basics of those kinds of events. Yes, it felt like being thrown in the deep end from the start. But it was never so confusing as to not be fun. And a year later, having done a bunch of sealed, limited and constructed events, big and small, and doing some reading online and listening to podcasts (Limited Resources being especially helpful), I feel pretty competent now. (Or at least I now have a sense of what I'm still doing wrong.)

This is fantastic. Normally I see altars and people tell me they paid for it and its barely better than having the original. This is worth much much more than the original. You did an excellent job.

I strongly disagree with most of the posters here. Gitaxian Probe improves the consistency of the deck. Why? Because each Gitaxian Probe you have in your deck, you get to remove the worst burn spell in your deck. It effectively lets you run a 56 card deck . Which is a very powerful effect, IMO. For example, let's say you have 6 spells that do 2 damage. Replacing 4 of them with Probe means that you have 2 spells that do 2 damage and 4 spells which just become a better spell at the cost of 2 life. It fuels Treasure Cruise, which -- as other posters have said -- you really should be running (8 red fetches + 2 or 3 Steam Vents). And if you're running swiftspear, it's good with that. Finally, knowing what your opponent has in hand is a very powerful effect if you play around it.

it really depends but usually it is good to be black (all removal here is good): T1: Thoughtseize, Despise T2: Bile Blight T3: Hero's Downfall, Drown in Sorrows If you have a smart heroic player he will have god's willing to defend so you will often need to remove his creature in early turns. Later on stuff like Erase is still good. Most important card in Heroic is [[Ordeal of Thassa]] this is a gas card, if you can deny him draw you will usually have easy times. Heroic is bad in long run. Heroics have 3 types of hands: Full on dudes Full on spells and one dude 2 dudes, few spells First one is easy to beat, second is also easy to beat but last one can be a real issue. But if you have a removal and they tapped out to play 1-2 dude, you need to act fast. On the dude scale important dude is the "scry heroic" aka [[battlewise hoplite]] he smooths out his draws and hits like a truck.

Went to four prereleases last weekend, all at the same store. Normally I don't do very well at this game; my average Swiss draft on Magic Online goes 1-2 and my average prerelease goes either 2-1 or, more often than not, 1-2. Anyway, prerelease one (Atarka box) goes pretty much as normal, and I go 1-2. Number two rolls around on the Saturday afternoon and I get a pretty sweet Dromoka box. The deck doesn't have a lot of removal but has some pretty decent beaters. I go 3-0 for the first time ever in paper Magic, second time overall, taking second place in the prerelease, which has only ever happened at the Dragon's Maze prerelease (albeit at a totally different store on a totally different continent). Sunday comes and I head in for prerelease three. Get a Silumgar box and proceed to make the sweetest ever limited control deck I've ever seen. Something like ten cards are removal and ten or eleven cards give me two-for-ones or some other kind of value. I honest felt like I couldn't lose with that deck. I piloted it to another 3-0, without losing a single game, coming first overall for the first time ever at a prerelease. The Sunday evening I picked up an Ojutai box but the colours weren't with me. What I did have was a Tasigur and a Dragonlord Silumgar. How could I NOT play those two best buddies together? This deck was more mid-range than control but I still did well, going 3-0 again (though I did only win round two 1-0 and round three 2-1). I came in third overall. Of the 26 games I played last weekend, I won 19, lost 6, and drew 1. Somehow I managed to do really well despite history saying that I shouldn't have. A full write-up, including pools and decklists, will go up on the Limited Resources Sub shortly and linked to this post, as soon as I get around to finding out the names of all the cards I used. That's because I'm in Japan but can't read Japanese, so I was doing everything with the aid of my tablet set to Gatherer.

Every hobby is going to be expensive eventually. Lets look at this in terms of tennis. One day you wake up and decide you feel like trying out tennis. First you drag out your old running shoes, buy a 10 dollar tennis racket and go join your friend for a few games. He teaches you the basics and you play a few games and lose spectacularly. Alright, you decide, hes been playing for longer than me its to be expected. This goes on for a few weeks, then your friend looks at your shoes and suggests another pair to you. You go out and buy it. Wow! Suddenly you run much easier and the games are so much closer. Then he looks at your racket and lends you his, and you play against his other friend. Its so much lighter and easier to swing, and you just hit harder. You get yourself a new racket. He decides to introduce you to his tennis friends, and you start taking part in different kinds of games with these guys. Doubles, small tournaments etc etc. You have finally started to get a lot better at the game. You start to notice all the things these guy bring to the games to make their lives easier. You buy them. Fast forward 6 months and you have a black lotus engraved on your 10k++ racket, everything you own is shiny and you just took out your second mortgage to pay for everything.

The mage paced back and forth in the damp chamber, anxiously awaiting the answer to his summons. Here, his estate's deep catacombs opened into a natural cave system, which was usually abuzz with tiny insects and the rippling underground stream that had always brought him a sense of calm. Not today however, as even as he strained his ears against the dark all he could hear was silence, and it sickened him. He paused, glancing expectantly out into the darkness, before cursing to himself and returning to his pacing. The cat demons were deceivers on levels he could not even yet imagine, and he dreaded whatever deal he had to meet after this. A sudden, unsettling feeling washed over him, and the mage let out a exasperated sigh as he turned to face the gigantic Rakshasa. For a moment they stood in silence, the demon seeming to materialize from the shadows as the mage steeled his nerves and kept his gaze low, praying his fear wouldn't betray him. "This... is a first." The demon drawled "My dear boy... you're not in trouble now, are you?" The mage glared at the demon for a moment, his patience already thin "Were you not aware of the fight upstairs?" he nearly spat, gesturing upwards at the jungle in chaos on the surface above them "I can't hear it, my lord, but I know you do." The demon regarded him with an almost bored expression, and the mage sighed and tried to collect himself "I... need... your power." The demon suddenly leaned in, it's face alight with malicious amusement "That's right, you do." The mage desperately tried not to flinch, and the demon began to circle around him "So, what kind of power, do you need?" "My enemy has reserves that will cause me to lose this battle. It's not enough that they be weakened, I need that strength for myself to secure this victory." The mage said carefully, and waited. "My dear boy, a search and rescue mission? And here I thought you believed in your precious spies." The demon chuckled to itself, but the mage bit his tongue and said nothing, staring straight ahead as the Rakshasa prowled. "Very well" the demon continued "But after all this, what will you give me, in return?" Of all things, the mage hadn't expected a choice "What... did you want, my lord?" The demon growled, it's voice quiet, but no less sinister "You will tell me everything." The mage's eyes widened in fear, but he slowly nodded, and the demon faded back into the shadows once more. He took a moment to compose himself before and striding out of the chamber. Giving a Rakshasa all your secrets is suicide, so his first order of business, after finishing the fight above, is to find another demon. .

I still hold that attacking with narset will often give you 2 free cards. Even if you're playing her untuned, you still probably get decent use for her. Just netting free repeated card advantage like that is very good. Yes sometimes you do whiff and get all lands/counter spells that you can't cast or even one of your few creatures but still, she's very uninteractive and hard to remove. This is why I hate narset (also why I dislike maelstrom wanderer but he's easier to get rid of)

I think all the cards you mention are good, but they're not as good as what's already in the deck. In order to put them in you have to take something out, and the deck is already very tight. I brewed a bit with SFGM and Ojutai's command, they do play very well together, and found myself with a nice Jeskai control list, but it simply wasn't as good as the Esper dragons deck.

Playing EDH with strangers at a big event is something I don't understand being interested in. EDH is only fun insofar as there's a relatively clear social contract among the players playing, and the only way I know to enforce that is by playing with friends. Without that, you get people making decks at wildly different power levels, with wildly different ideas of what's fun, and that's never going to turn out optimally. I don't want to play with the same few people my whole life, I just want to play with friends that I know, and whose decks I know will be in the right power/fun ballpark. My playgroup grows and changes over time. When new people show up with very underpowered decks, we help them improve over time. When people build decks that are unfun, we help them improve over time. This is the point of EDH, as far as I'm concerned. I guess not everyone has the good fortune to have a nice playgroup and lots of Magic playing friends around them, but I just don't understand the desire to go play competitive EDH with strangers at a GP. That sounds like the worst thing ever, and the RC's decisions can only be a small part of it. At an LGS, things are a little more tenuous. It's sort of a local playgroup, but there will likely be a bunch of strangers a lot of the time. I guess it's nice to have a common rule set for occasions like those, but I would rather each store have its own ban list, for example.

Quick summary: There is not a true "Second Wave" of MM15. This is a reallocation of unsold product. Some stores refused their MM15. The distributors are selling these to the LGSs for $30 or so more than before. There aren't many of these either. LGS owners can only get around 5. There are boxes being sold by WOTC for normal price, but LGSs are extremely limited in the number they can get a week (12) versus what they can get off normal sets where they get hundreds a week if they want. In addition they are extremely limited and their are a ton of people wanting it. He said that there are normally 2 people or so in queue for restocks, there were 12 in front of him in queue. The sales guy had to reserve it as soon as he called to make sure he'd actually get it. These new packs appear to be higher quality with less issues. This was last night (Thursday) and he's not sure there was any left when he put the video out. That being said, supply is low and demand is high. Since the LGS owners are paying more for additional boxes they have to increase the price to pay for their costs. As far as anyone knows, there will not be a second run off MM15 at this time.

You don't need 4 Lashwrithe's. I'd run 2, 3 tops. You're going to be very susceptible to control. The Crusaders are going to be your only saving grace vs red. Drop Doom Blade's and a Go for the Throat in favor of 4 [Tribute to Hunger]( Forcing your opponent to sacrifice means you don't have to concern yourself with things like hexproof or protection from black, and the life gain you'll receive will even out your use of Phryexian mana in cards like Mutagenic Growth I want to suggest an artifact proliferate engine, to keep you in a card advantage while still proliferating up those poison counters. Drop the clasps and the swords (maybe keep one sword, but it really doesn't do a lot for you) and probably a swamp or two. Add at least 2 [Throne of Geth]( 4 [Ichor Wellspring]( and 2 [Mycosynth Wellspring]( This should keep you at a land/card advantage, while you proliferate up that single poison counter that you dropped with your Inkmoth. If card price isn't a problem for you, or you have a good card pool to pull from, I'd suggest a couple [Liliana of the Veil]( You can proliferate up her counters, and force opponents playing control into discarding their counterspells. If nothing else, your opponent will get scared of her -6, and Liliana will end up tanking some damage for you.

So, my friend plays exclusively control decks, right... And whenever anybody ever shuts down any part of any one of his many numerous locks, he kicks his whining engine into overdrive and begins bitching endlessly about how "unfun" our decks are just because we run counters, kill cards, Thruns, Vexing Shushers, Guttural Responses, etc. Of course, if we ever try to play one of our 2nd rate decks just to make him shut up, he mercilessly slaughters us because we don't have any way to interrupt his counters. How do I explain to him that he's being ungodly annoying and that the game isn't just about who can deck out slower in solitaire?

Are you under the impression that all archetypes were represented equally and therefore the percentage of top 8 wins is meaningful?

I had a riku deck, and put a ton of money into it (like hundreds and hundreds of dollars) trying to get it to keep up with the Ghave, Sheoldred and Mimoplasm decks that I also have. My GF likes Riku the best, so I wanted so bad to make it as good as the other decks. I got fetches, duals and moneycards like tops and manavaults that the oher decks don't have. I just couldn't get it to work though so I changed the General to Maelstrom Wonderer and made Riku just a card in that deck. Now, it is almost too good and so fun, that general is just bonkers. 6th turn cascade into two hasted titans? yes please. Fill the board up with fattys every time you cast your general? sounds great!

I just recently started playing Magic (read: 3 weeks ago). A friend of mine had played a lot and was looking to get back in to it since he had a stable job. I like going to card shops and hanging out, but I hadn't played any card games since I played Yu-Gi-Oh when I was in middle school. While we were there, we played a few games with the decks he had and just had friendly conversations with people. When we left he asked if I wanted to comeback. I said sure. The next week, he disappeared in the shop for a while, I just played and talked to some people. When he came back, he handed me a deck and said, "You're going to play this game with me damn it. Learn this deck and you'll be hooked in a week." So, it's been about a week and... I'm pretty much hooked.

when thinking about the deck you are going to use, the best question one can ask themselves is not "is this deck good?" Rather, ask yourself "is this deck good in the context in which I will be using it?" So, if you are planning on bringing it to fnm, just pay attention to your local meta. That is why I can currently play a homebrew R/B sac deck at my FNM, that would probably not do well at a more competitive level.

Simic, because I like blue and green as a combo. It's very versatile, and messing about with creatures after they've been played is really fun. I hope they have more things that let you move/use +1/+1 counters in fun/interesting ways.

Truthfully? He got lucky. Deck is super inconstant with wacky curve and heavy reliance on having one of the 4 mana dorks in the deck. Sage is really bad with the low 1 toughness basically guaranteeing it gets removed and only being able to use the mana on creatures is very relevant when you are trying to overload mortars or wolf run making it a dead draw late instead of just bad like normal mana dorks in these kind of decks. Singleton hellrider makes no sense alongside the other cards. He is a card that is amazing when you are playing all out agro, but when you curve is 3 drop then him then thrag he does nothing. Sideboard is just terrible. Cloudshift is ok and has decent synergy with all the cards here I wouldn't choose to play it but its acceptable.

Oh, you actually called my bluff. Just that management really sucked, didn't know how to keep the lines moving so there was a lot of time spent waiting for this father/son to hurry up whatever little chore they were doing. I came before the event started and asked (we could only preregister for a slot in the event) when I would be able to pick our guilds. They said when the event started. I got in line, about middle of the line, some people didn't even get up. By the time my friends and I got there, all they had left was Dimir, and apparently they had started accepting guild choices about 20 minutes before the event. Then I pulled crappy rares, but hey that's sealed. Plus, I don't think either of them were qualified as a judge at a tournament with 45+ people.

I had a blast, it was my first prerelease. After playing some kitchen table magic as a kid (around 6th and 7th edition) I started drafting RTR this autumn. So I was excited to try a sealed tournament for the first time. The tournament had 78 participants, so we were doing 7 rounds! I was in Gruul (my LGS sold out of Simic and Boros, my first choices). I opened a Borborygmos in my guildpack, but almost no ramp, so I didn't field him. I did open two Stomping grounds, two rubblehulks (one promo), two simic guildgates and some decent simic commons, so I was about as much in blue as in red, with a core of green. My first opponent was at his first tournament ever. Our match was in fact his fifth game of magic ever. He did a lot of mistakes and tried to tap his plains for black mana in the first game. The match ended pretty quickly with 2-0 for me. I explained to him that maybe [Gutter Skulk]( with [Guildscorn Ward]( and [Gift of Orzhova]( wasn't the best gameplan. We spent the rest of the round until timeout rebuilding his deck from his sealed pool. I also flipped through the cards he had opened and adviced him that his [Sacred Foundry]( was a valuable card and he should be carefull about getting a good deal if someone offered to trade for it. I won my second match also, noting that rubblehulks are really good against slow opponents. My third match was against a really consistent and quick Boros deck. That guy later went on to 4th place in the tournament overall. Between rounds I stumbled across my opponent from my first round again. We talked a bit and he mentioned he was building a Chalice of Life In the end I went 5-2 in matches. The two decks I lost against was the 2nd and 4th place in the tournament so I didn't feel too bad about it. The winner went 7-0 with a full aggro Simic deck with a ton of one and two drops. The prizes were spread out a lot, as an effort to encourage new players. Anyone with 12 points or better (4-3) got 2 packs. My 5-2 landed me 5 booster packs. All in all I had a great time. Met some nice new people. Played a couple of the regulars from my LGS that I draft with regularly and did pretty good score- and prize-wise.

If this is FNM its not a friendly game, there is money on the line and you must follow the rules; whatever you prefer your opponent isn't breaking or stretching any rules. If its draft you can request that you aren't placed in the same pod as him but that may not be possible.

I typed a long reply to this, it was full of aggressive points about [how you should make sure you are aware of what a niche market is]( and how you missed the point about your hobby being a time and money sink that many looking in from an outside perspective cannot fathom and maybe extrapolating that to your own position on fans of MLP. It had points where i conceded that maybe i should have written a full response rather than quoting C.S Lewis, and how i didn't need to imply you were an arsehole. Apologizing that I simply did not spend the time required to fully articulate my opinions on the issues i felt your post addressed, and my reliance on the reader taking a perspective of charity rather than disclosing the meaning behind my statement. Then I realized the futility.

As "one of those types": If i have remembered a card or combo and what it does from 5+ years ago then explaining that card or interaction is a boon. The conversations that these come up in are only enhanced when someone asks you what your talking about because they lead to people saying things like "oh like card X in standard?" and that normally leads to discussions of how to revive an ancient combo, more reminiscing of old decks that people had and heated debates over things like the amount of removal in the newest set changing card viability or maybe how the local meta has changed recently (knowing your interested but lack experience of older sets i would be more inclined to steer the conversation to newer topics of interest or make sure any references made were clear and explained)

I was hoping he'd have a cool, unique ability... "Guys what if...guys seriously you remember Mind Funeral? What if, guys listen, what if we slapped it on a below average body? Guys, what if we made him completely original?"

The best advice I can give is stay open in the first pack. I just had a draft last night and at my table were plenty of experienced magic players, but all I heard people saying was "I'm passing so much good stuff not in my colors" or "I'm already locked in" before the first pack even finished! (p.s. the draft environment is very casual, so the whole 'not commenting on your picks' rule is very relaxed, as long as your not being blatant about it) I kept myself open to go many different color paths, and ended up drafting a really strong deck.

See my interpretation of this is that in the short term these prices will go down but will for sure sky rocket in value once wizards stops printing soon. Especially when a Modern season comes back around. I think modern masters is such a unique case as well as these cards will never rotate out AND with a premium in each pack it adds even more value to the set that you almost can't compare to normal ones. The general trend for out of print sets that contain high value cards is that they continually climb (just look at future sight, worldwake, ravnica, and ROE [here.)]( Even when when we speculate that wizards will print another modern masters set next year if this is considered a success to them, I doubt they will include many cards from the first generation as that defeats the goal they intended with this print. Anyway

Jace, The Mind Sculptor was going for less than 30 dollars presume for some time before people were like, 'oh, this card is ridiculous.' the card shot up to the ~$100 range very quickly. the Jace effect is every planeswalker coming out with very high ballpark prices in the secondary market, mainly because retailers were pissed they missed out on thousands of dollars.

I started playing magic a little over two years ago. I friend of mine was getting back into it and thought i would like it. The first time I went into my lgs to buy some cards was apparently the Scars of Mirrodin Prerelease. We started out just playing kitchen table casual decks that he had made. Most of them tribal (clerics and zombies i remember). He helped me put together my first deck, mono black zombies. Anyways, I was instantly hooked, and once i got the hang of the game, i started going to FNM. The first deck I made was birthing pod. My lgs has a minimum of 50 people every friday. After about a year I won my first FNM (mono green dungrove elder). It was awesome, and i ended up winning like 4 FNM's in a 2 month span with that deck and I loved it. Then rotation hit. I was sad my beloved mono green dungrove deck was gutted. I got into modern with melira pod, and I havent looked back. The initial cost of cards sucks, but with no rotation, it is cheaper in the long run. I've cycled through quite a few different modern decks via online trading through reddit/deckbox. Ive played melira pod, rug delver, aggro loam, storm, and scapeshift. After all of it I have settled on modern junk, and hatebears. It took me a while but I found my modern playstyle and i love it. I compete at almost every PTQ or GPT for modern they have here, and I competed in my first GP in Kansas City this summer and had a blast. I also play EDH/Commander now too. It is by far the most fun format to play with a couple beers, and a couple friends, playing a multiplayer game. I do enjoy playing standard, and might get back into with RDW on rotation or something. But I'm a spike, and the second I do, I'm going to want to drop a couple hundred bucks to make a tier 1 standard deck.

I think he will sit around 15. He is an awesome card in that any creature deck would love doing two damage any time a creature enters the battlefield, but until there's a resilient aggro/midrange deck in red, there isn't really a deck that wants him. If he is used, it won't be in combo, but in a slower aggro/midrange setting. Unfortunately, Heliod is seeing a lot of play in w/b weenies, because he is difficult to remove and can consistently produce threats. While purphuros makes topdecks better, Heliod lets your hand get larger via artificial card advantage. Also having access to black removal makes w/b much stronger than w/r especially after boarding. As a result, there's no real reason to run red without being hyperaggressive and that deck may get bogged down with a purphuros.

Celestial archon as a 4-of is far too slow, especially ignoring Phalanx Leader as the other guy mentioned. No Fiendslayer Paladins? Just curious why. You don't have very many enchantments; running Ethereal Armor seems weird to me, over the other options like Ordeal of Thassa or Aqueous Form. Bident of Thassa is slow, and the 2ndary ability doesn't do much for you does it? I think you'd be better off with more targeted card draw, like the blue Ordeal, maybe even Fate Foretold. They double as heroic triggers as well. The Spear is pretty slow too, Legendary, and while the 2nd ability is sorta useful, I still think you'd be better off playing to heroic and trying to trigger that for +1+1s, rather than play a game where you're required to leave 3 mana open and take damage before you can remove stuff. The other thing that stands out to me is how many Legendary cards you have. It's not uncommon to draw multiples, I'm not sure I'd want to be stuck with a bunch of useless stuff in hand because it's already on the board. A few's okay, but you've a lot for my preference. The UW aggro I was considering has a lot more focus on instants & targeted spells like Triton Tactics & Hidden Strings. Stuff that'll trip your opponents up, cheaply. The latter giving you 2 heroic triggers or blue mana ramp, although it's arguably weaker than some of your other options. I would probably mainboard Brave the Elements. Making all your dudes unblockable or letting them survive board wipes for 1 mana is p.strong. The white god is perhaps the weakest of all the gods, I dunno. Thassa would prove more useful I think. Your low blue devotion is good, as I'm p.sure an indestructible enchantment is harder to get rid of than an indestructible creature. It can hit play earlier too.

It depends highly on mana-cost because of the statistical time it takes to reach the number of lands needed. You must be one lucky man or green player to have 6 lands on turn 6. The average turn 6 land-count is slightly above 4 lands, to have out 8 lands you might need 12 turns. There was some statistic posted in this sub which I cant recall by name and didnt save... If someone would just dig that one up :) But back to topic: to pay one more for a spell makes a significant difference, the higher the mana cost goes the harder is the edge between two spells. What if you wanted to play multiple spells a turn, maybe for counterspell-backup? Then you know why every single control player is begging for each single turn to give him a land drop. For him land drops decide the speed of stabilisation besides pure card advantage to dig for answers. I might just be distracted by control, but other archetypes have other rules, like aggro has to hit an efficient curve of damage-dealers, where the 5-slot shouldnt be too big, since aggro aint aggro if it was stuck on creatures in hand it couldnt play for ages. Reducing the endgame-cards is reducing the number of mulligans you will take. Even if there are the traditonal rootbound-crag-mulls!

Are you sure? Once I draw most of my library, I can elect to either make zombies right now, or wait and do it at your EOT. Except if I do that, I can only discard at most 7, for a grand total of 3 zombies. The right move is of course to make as many zombies as you can whilst keeping your hand size 6 or 7, and then making 3 more EOT, but if you do have the wiper, all I get for my troubles is 3 zombie tokens, which is almost never enough to win any game. I'm not stuck waiting to topdeck another treasure hunt. except, if the deck is running a full 4 treasure hunt and at least 2 infestation, then the odds are very much not in your favour. With 6-out-of-60, a full 10%, non-land, the average run of your treasure hunt isn't actually all that impressive.

That cuts real deep, when I first started playing magic it was because of the duel of the planeswalkers 2011 game. I simply loved the exalted deck and fell in love with the mechanic, so I went out and bought the starter deck one IRL. After playing it at Friday night magic I was told that bant colours were the only way to go for exalted. So that night I went online, made my first ever deck from scratch and ordered it. I was happier than a pig in mud, it wasn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination but it was my deck. It did well but since then I have found myself playing modern less and less so it often sits around doing nothing. When I did find out this deck was in the 2014 game when I opened it up after buying the dlc I was so exited, and after looking at the deck list it turned out to contain pretty much every card I used in mine. I have been playing it religiously on there since and I have no idea why you wouldn't play it, but that might just be my rose tinted glasses talking.

I personally despise theros. IMHO the only good things to come out of it are Thoughtseize and the scry lands. I dislike monstrosity just because the sheer amount of investment you need to place on a single Creature. I dislike heroic because it rewards decks that don't interact with your opponents deck, and encourages auto-play decks. I hate Devotion because it's either too overpowered or underpowered, there is no balance. It literally has created 2 top tier decks that revolve around a single card; Mono-b and Mono-u while it is ridiculously underpowered for green and white, competitively speaking. Although it is a good theory, it further rewards Mono colored players, I think it wasn't the best time for it, not after a block that had so many 2 color cards.

You should listen to the recent Limited Resources on control, and understand the difference between limited and constructed control decks. If your opponent plays a 1/1 and a couple of pikers, and you play a wavecrash triton, you just 3-for1ed him. He has a trick? So do you. That's another 2-for-1 and a tempo play, thanks to Heroic. Consistent walls and time are so much better than a one-off kill spell.

Good point about Restore Balance. I did some research on why Ancestral Vision was banned in the first place, and I have a few rebuttals. Let's say that you're playing storm. You suspended Ancestral Vision on turn one and a Lotus Bloom on turn two. you're facing down Affinity with six life left. Gitaxian Probe and Grapeshot are in your hand, along with two other cards. Next turn, Lotus Bloom and Ancestral Vision come in. The turn after that, your opponent has lethal. Unless the next four cards that you draw via Ancestral Vision and your normal draw step are literally all lands, you're coming into turn five with a storm count already at two, Gitaxian Probe coming in to make it three, assuming you missed a land drop or two means that you have at least five or six mana available with Lotus Petal, with a full hand of gas and then some. Ancestral Vision is an INSANELY powerful draw effect. Every blue deck would run it. I'm absolutely certain that a few decks would even try to splash blue just for the card draw that AV offers. Spirit of the Labyrinth being introduced into the Modern card pool could precipitate an un-banning of Ancestral Vision, because that makes it a possible way of keeping the card in check. But then, if almost every deck is running AV, then every other deck needs to be running Spirit of the Labyrinth just to counteract that sheer card advantage. Which turns the Modern meta into literally two kinds of decks. Modern already has a problem with new, creative decks. We don't need it to be worse.

I agree I think the % based analysis is not the correct way to go about this. The most basic point of ancestral recall is not that it increases your hand size to some special number, but that it takes one card from your hand and turns it into three new cards. It may feel more useful when you go from 1 -> 3, but that's a psychological effect of how screwed you typically are with only one card in your hand. The card advantage remains the same when you go from 5 -> 7. When you play Ancestral should be dictated but a number of influencing factors such as the resources available to you, the board state, what your opponent is doing (and what his plan is), when you think the chances are best of actually resolving it etc etc. Sure it's fun to topdeck and get you back in the game when your hand is empty, but there's so much more to it. It's a card that can turn the game in a number of different ways. One of which is the presence of top-deck style tutors that he mentions later in the article. Others include reads on your opponent as well as how your manner and plays will be read by the opponent. If you run ancestral out on turn one on his turn it can mean a lot. Examples of the other guy's thought process: My opponent has some serious gas in his hand because he things he can make efficient use of 9 cards next turn. My opponent kept a hand that is really close to being amazing and is hoping to draw into something with the ancestral that will make what he has truly good. The more complex examples of what a really early Ancestral like that also come from specific matchups. Ancestral recall is a very cost effective threat (in the format, that kind of card advantage is indeed a threat). For that reason (and the fact that it needs some kind of response) it can be used to force through other threats. If your opponent lets the ancestral through, great. If he doesn't then maybe he's not going to Force the Yawgmoth's Will that comes after it (unless you've been telegraphing it). Assuming it's something you really want to resolve (and usually you would be happy to have it resolve) it may also make sense to wait and play it when your opponent is trying to protect something of his own and maybe can't afford to fight you over Ancestral. You could be using it to dig for a counterspell or just as bait your opponent doesn't know and denying information to your opponent can cause them to make poor judgement calls.

This is something I see intermediate players doing, and thats overvaluing the power of drawing a card. Card draw, card advantage, card quality and card filtering are all different things, and they all need to be understood to play the game as well as possible. I can draw all the cards in my deck, and if they all just draw a card and I can't actually kill my opponent, it doesn't matter. My cards actually need to do something. This is why dark confidant is such a strong card. Even if he only gets 1 or 2 triggers off (ignoring him being a creature, that's a discussion for another time) he is often very powerful because the decks that play him are so thick with high quality answers and threats that getting essentially a divination out of him is much more amazing than a divination would be in your average blue deck. Card advantage is easiest to see in sweepers a la wrath of god. If I kill 3 or your creatures for my 1 card (assuming I didn't hit any of my own creatures) then I traded 3 for 1 and therefore am up 2 cards. Your average brainstorm is actually not a card advantage card in this strict definition, because if I started the turn with 5 cards in hand I ended it with 5 cards in hand as well, so I'm up 0. Brainstorm crack fetch ( a very common play in legacy) is actually an extremely powerful card filtering tool. I end up with 5 cards in my hand, but before I cast my brainstorm only 2 cards from that hand remain. Many times filtering is all you're going to get, barring spells that draw more than 1 card. Thinking about thoughtsieze, even though it's a 1-for-1 exchange and is therefore card filtering if all cards are equal, all cards are not equal, and stripping their hand of card quality is often worth the 2 life. Sorry for the rant, I've been thinking a lot about fundamentals lately.

Rare lands are traditionally undervalued by newer players. Many a story goes where a 'useless' rare land is traded for a 10 cent rare. Lands will always trade and be just a bit more useful than not. Mana efficiency is also traditionally undervalued, though exactly what effect is undervalued depends on where the player is on the [life cycle of a new player]( It's always heartwarming when you meet a new player who's excited about putting 16+ [Fiend Hunter]( / [Oblivion Ring]( effects in a deck because they'll "just totally wreck every deck" ...he's not incorrect, but if a deck plays more than two threats a turn or can remove the exile effects, you're pretty much toast.

Toss it on a 1 toughness creature. Find cards that generate 1 toughness creatures. Generate those creatures. Toss it on those. Toss it on a creature that your opponent will have to remove. Have it removed. Get cards that your opponent will have to remove. Toss it on those. Toss it on creatures that benefit from dying and/or sacrifice themselves. Have them die. Get cards.

It can be or can not be, depending on your level of hate. For example, if I'm the only blue deck at legacy night, I may choose to sub out my red blasts because it just is completely useless. But if I trade out something like Council's Judgment for Smash to Smithereens because I see my round 1 is against MUD or I grab a bunch of Hydroblasts because there's a lot of burn (when I don't really need them), I consider that kind of greasy.

Even if you don't consider it greasy, I'd still say don't do it. It's bad habit. If you go to a more competitive event like a PTQ or SCG open, you can't count on having the time or option to scout out the event's metagame and modifying your sideboard accordingly. You should come to an event prepared with the knowledge and research you've done beforehand. edit: I should probably clarify a bit. Modifying your sideboard based on who attends an event is a-ok in my book. Snooping the individual decks just before the event starts is kinda greasy. For example, say you know Joe likes artifact decks and know that he'll be at the event. Go ahead and modify your sideboard. That's planning ahead based on past experience. Say that you spot newcomer Bob organizing his deck and you notice he's running elves. Modifying your sideboard to specifically give you the edge against Bob is greasy. You didn't plan ahead and up until a few moments ago, you had no idea who Bob was or what decks he liked.

Actually, the level of expectation is designated in the event. Pre-releases, releases and FNMs are typically Regular REL, in which penalties for misplay are heavily reduced, and judges are allowed to deviate even further from those penalties, in order to ensure a well-run and enjoyable tournament. ["Consistency is important to Competitive tournaments. What's important to Regular tournaments? Customer service. If both players are happy with a solution, it is, by definition at Regular REL, the correct solution. Use it."]( "There's a place for rules lawyering in the game of Magic. Somewhere. That place is definitely not at an FNM, where little Timmy is playing in his second event, and kind of has combat down now."

If the stack is empty on resolution of the counterspell, your opponent will get the chance to declare sorceries before you get to declare instants. If all that is played is the sorcery and the counterspell, then on resolution of counterspell the stack will be empty. There are two ways you can force the stack to not be empty on resolution of counterspell. First, if the resolution of counterspell causes any triggered abilities, those triggered abilities will go on the stack before your opponent gains priority. Second, any spell or non-manna ability can be in between the thoughtseize and your counterspell. This includes instants you cast without passing priority before your counterspell, activated abilities you play without passing priority before your counterspell, or triggered abilities that trigger on the casting of thoughtseize.

Just go to FNM. I'm just now getting back into the game, but people there were really nice there last I went. Just show up early and play someone. If you win then you win; if you lose then just ask for advice one making the deck better or at least pay attention to what your opponent is doing and watch how his/her deck works. Even when the event starts and you lose every game, just pay attention to how your opponents' decks work and the actions they take.

During my first 5-player free-for-all, I made the mistake of listening to an opponent. One of the opponents (call him Ishmael) had just gotten his board wiped of all creatures. I had a Priests Of Norn on the field with Inviolability on them and an Elesh Norn on the field to buff them. He had 7 poison on him, and I could have easily killed him. One of the other opponents (Captain Ahab, would be a suitable name) was the biggest threat, though, with a dragon and a red Akroma on the field. They were tapped out, though, and he was at 6 poison. I was worried about getting slammed with the flying damage if I attacked him. Ishmael showed me the two burn spells in his hand that could take down Akroma, and I could deal with just getting hit with the dragon. So he said he'd burn Ahab's creatures if I threw my priests that way. Stupid me believed him, especially since it seemed the only way to defeat Ahab. So instead of killing Ishmael then and there, I poisoned Ahab for 3, making it where I could kill him next turn. Instead of living up to his part of the bargain, though, Ishmael helped finish me off.

Well, first things first, you've got too much going on here. Lots of singletons in what I assume isn't an EDH deck (EDH is a format where you use a 100-card deck and only one copy of each card). Focus on what parts of the deck you think will be your win condition (how you plan to win). Angels attacking the opponent, for example, could be a win condition. You've got a few angels and other flying bits in there. I'm not sure what you're access to getting new cards (talking singles here) is, but try to get more copies of whatever your win condition requires. Using the "angels hit the other guy" method, AVR just came out and it's packed with the suckers, so take a look at those and see what works for you. As to your central question about balance, if you mean #-of-card-type, a very basic (and debatable) guideline for starting out is get 24 creatures, 24 lands, and 12 non-creature spells and put them together. Try to make sure the cards work well together when you can, and don't just do something cool independently (some of that is okay, but too much breaks the cohesion of the deck). Also, to hell with walls.

Actually, even if you knew exactly which cards will see reprints, DONT BUY THEM. They will be DROPPING in price! The only exception is powerful rares. Examples: Curiosity and Ghost Quarter were both 1 dollar+ uncommons from earlier sets. These are staples of casual and combo decks respectively and relatively unique cards in general and thus lots of people wanted them. Back when C and GQ were printed there were waaaaaay fewer magic players than now. They were then both reprinted as uncs in Innistrad, and their value is now 2 cents each. If you had bought a few playsets knowing they'd be reprinted, you just screwed yourself royally. Solemn Simulacrum is a similar staple card in casual. When it was reprinted in M12, it was both (A) rare and (B) had significant appeal for standard and saw a lot of play in fact, and even peaked as a many-of in a major tier 1 deck (Wolf Run Ramp), resulting in many, many players running around with their head on fire trying to get a playset together ASAP. Solemn used to be about 5 bucks, give or take, and peaked at 12 when this happened. So, if you had bought out a bunch of solemns beforehand, you'd have roughly doubled your money. BUT because the supply of solemn simulacrums roughly quadrupled because of M12, he's back down to $5 and I expect, post rotation, it'll drop further. So, it's only actually a good move IF he gets reprinted AND if you make hay while the sun shines: If you actually manage to sell them all when the prices peak, and more importantly that you KNOW when the price peaked. Also note that Solemn is a near perfect storm. Having ANY reprint of that caliber is exceedingly rare and I can't remember ANY reprint rare that underwent a serious price boost due to being reprinted, other than Solemn Simulacrum.

You can write down a decklist and consult it between games, I believe. You can also put your sideboard cards in the sleeve upside down, if your sleeves are opaque. (However, this is a gray area, I'm not 100% sure you can do this.) I suggest you just memorize your sideboard, it's only 15 cards.

CROWLEY: Governor Romney, pay equity for women? >ROMNEY: Thank you. And important topic, and one which I learned a great deal about, particularly as I was serving as governor of my state, because I had the chance to pull together a cabinet and all the applicants seemed to be men. >And I — and I went to my staff, and I said, "How come all the people for these jobs are — are all men." They said, "Well, these are the people that have the qualifications." And I said, "Well, gosh, can't we — can't we find some — some women that are also qualified?" >ROMNEY: And — and so we — we took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet. >I went to a number of women's groups and said, "Can you help us find folks," and they brought us whole binders full of women. >I was proud of the fact that after I staffed my Cabinet and my senior staff, that the University of New York in Albany did a survey of all 50 states, and concluded that mine had more women in senior leadership positions than any other state in America. >Now one of the reasons I was able to get so many good women to be part of that team was because of our recruiting effort. But number two, because I recognized that if you're going to have women in the workforce that sometimes you need to be more flexible. My chief of staff, for instance, had two kids that were still in school. >Read more: Unless you somehow know further and aren't sharing, your evaluation is disagreeable. They did not have any women in the cabinet, which is bad and something companies/organizations often get called out for, so they went recruiting and came back with many profiles of potential candidates for the position. He went on to talk about how some required more flexible hours, and him giving them that helped him allow them to be members of the cabinet. Which is an example of him meeting one of the needs of some women in the workplace.

No there is a problem core to the design of mtgo. You are on a chess clock encouraging faster play but at the same time no mechanical oversight to minimise the negative effects of the player feeling rushed. A smarter engine would solve this problem. 95% of the time I want to thoughtsieze my opponent, wizards knows this the game should know this. Destroy and deal dmg are both generally negative effects and should be generally directed at my opponents creatures. A simple conformation window that confirmed that you want to target something unorthidox would drastically improve the client. Also conformation whenever there are multiple viable targets. Of course like any good feature it should be able to be disabled if u feel it unnecessary.

We need good counterspells. (For standard/modern) Dissipate and Mana Leak just aren't going to cut it. Spot removal is not always good against combo, especially stuff like storm. Aggro is useless against a combo deck that wins on turn 2 or 3, or even 4. For a good example of an environment ruined by combo, look at Modern right now. Combo decks beat everything but Jund. Therefore, everyone plays Jund or Combo. And that's really not fun for anyone. In all honesty, and this would be impossible to have happen, but I wish Force of Will could somehow be legal in Modern. It really is a fair counterspell. It's card disadvantage unless you pay the high price of 5 mana. It's not good against creature decks because being down a card against an opponent beating down on you isn't where you want to be. FoW is played in Legacy to keep the combo decks in check, and that's why we see such a diverse metagame in Legacy.

Ordeal is such a risky card that I would honestly play 4 lands over em. If you like them then ignore this, but that's my 2 cents.

yeah, even the premier "untap my shit" Legacy deck, High Tide, dispensed with playing Mind Over Matter some time ago because, and I quote (some player, dunno), "it was overkill." Mind Over Matter isn't so much a combo engine as it is [JATO]( for combo. To further illustrate: Reasonable Magic Cards: The Line: Mind Over Matter: |here|..................................|..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................|someplace that way->| Or, another way to explain it is like, if you think of untapping a permanent as a sort of localized portion of an extra turn, and you can play any number of things that are good enough to make the game revolve around that card; that is, it is the most important thing in the game, then Mind Over Matter is a card that says, "{0}, discard a card: Time Walk" Whenever I catch myself wanting to add Mind Over Matter to a combo deck, there are two things that stop me. a little voice in my head saying, "On second thought, let's not go there. 'Tis a silly place" The understanding that, if the statement, "the only thing that could make this deck better is Mind Over Matter" is true, then it's good enough.

Because instead of destroying both if two were in play between two players, both players are allowed to have a copy and when a player plays their second copy of a legendary permanent they get to chose which one to keep.

Guess I should mention this which explains why I'm so excited to get this. I'm currently in the middle of trying to do alters (extended art and 3D) and it hasn't been going so well. With the extended art my colors are wrong or something and they don't blend so well so it's been very difficullt. With 3D altering it's a lot easier to do these and I guess I was doing a more difficult version of this. With the picture I submitted all he used were spacers that are attached to the card.

I suggest picking one deck and format for awhile and focus 100% on that deck and format. Story Time: Last October I decided I wanted to make a Merfolk deck for modern. It took me about 3 months to collect the pieces for it but during that whole time I was reading every primer for the deck, watching every video on the internet of the deck in action, playtesting the deck on Tappedout.net and getting to know my worst matchups so I would already know what to do against them if I caught myself in a sticky situation. I even consulted other Merfolk players on /r/modernmagic about tips, tricks or insight that was incredibly helpful. Any chance I got to learn more about the deck and develop strategies, I would take full advantage of. By the time I had the deck completely assembled and in my hands I played my first modern tournament at my LGS I ended up going 3-1 even though I had never played it against a real opponent before that point. My victory was due to research, making educated plays and knowing the deck's strengths and weaknesses as well as those of my worst matchups. I was 100% prepared for anything people had to throw at me, only losing to a burn deck that I got some unlucky draws against.

Essentially this. Pack rat tokens, Lifebane Zombie, Hero's Downfall, Sin Collector, and Brimaz are all three drops (I feel like I'm missing one more). With that in mind, you don't need another 3 drop in Read the Bones because you will almost always be doing something else with that mana. Currently, I prefer running Underworld Connections and Sign in Blood, as they tend to give you a more flexible mana curve.

The difference between Bile Blight and Hero's Downfall in terms of their effect is much bigger than the difference between Read the Bones and Sign in Blood. If you want to better understand the argument read my posts in this thread, but this guy nailed the

Several planeswalkers show up to class, both prepared for the greatest day of the month in the day of Show and tell, as the teacher asked for all the children to show what they had brought to class that day. One planeswalking student, being the considerate child he was, brought his father's ancient weapon, the Jitte of Umezawa. Another more humble student brought his favourite pet to class, showing each other student his pet robotic owl, granting the child a little more knowledge after showing the class. Another, more ambitious mage, brought along his friend from the Pearl Trident, allowing him to show the other Merfolk of the class just how Masterful he was. Finally, there was the young Johnny at the back of the class. Johnny, being the arrogant child he was, pulled out the entire knowledge of the entire universe, becoming suddenly a god among his other students, then he began to cast a spell that granted him access to the infinite knowledge and possibilities of the universe. Then, with one cunning wish he cast one spell, releasing a small group of ants onto his classmates, showing all his fellow students the infinite he peered into. Over and over he released waves of ants onto his fellow students until they all dies horrible and terrible deaths as Ants ate their carcasses.

Get Duels of the Planeswalkers 2014 or 2015 on a steam sale so it`s really cheap, to be able to learn the game through the awesome tutorials that they have and also get Speed vs Cunning to teach a friend/significant other what you learned via the pc games. As the games will teach you the turn structure and the basic skeleton in something like an hour or so, soon enough you`ll both be rolling like pros with the duel decks.

I'd head back to the store tomorrow and ask for a pack. I understand a store wanting to wait until the end of the event to hand out all of the prizes together, but the packs are intended to be handed out to each player in the event, and you definitely fall under that category.

Also, you can blow up a cow but you can't blow up milk because its a liquid. An exploded cow won't give you any more milk except for that last drop you milked right before it exploded. The way you get rid of milk is to drain it away, lets say your dick brother pulls the plug on your sweet milky swimming pool. Opening the plug hole rarely happens in magic and if it does you can quickly scoop up the milk before hand, provided you have a recipe to use that milk in. Otherwise you're just holding milk in your hands and we all know that you're going to spill it eventually. At the end of the day you can always milk you're cows to relieve stress and no harm will come of it. Even if you can't use the all milk its not going to hurt you.

Commander rules state that when your commander is exiled you may return it to your command zone or let it be exiled. Mimic Vat and Journey to Nowhere work in the same way when you exile your commander. You can choose one way or the other. In some cases, you don't want your commanded in the vat because you want a "hard copy" of it on the field, so you would return it to the command zone. If someone journey's your commander, you may let them exile it so that you can use your Back to Nature next turn in order to destroy the Journey and get your commander back without having to pay its cost again.

2012, but the differences are small enough for you to pick up the original. There are quite a few fun decks on it.

If he was playing in the mid 90s, those are far from the biggest changes. Those are the biggest changes in the past 2 or 3 years, but the biggest changes since the mid 90s come from the huge 6th ed rule overhaul. In fact, if he doesn't know the result of that overhaul, some of the changes you mentioned won't even make sense to him. The combat damage on the stack rule for instance didn't even exist back then because... well, see below. To the OP : So, the biggest changes since the mid 90s? The introduction of the stack (which had the side effect of killing the interrupt card type. Now all interrupts are instants). If you do not know about the stack, I would really suggest you read on it. It's pretty central to how spells and abilities are played. There is no more "fast effects", "interrupts" and, if you played when they were introduced, no more "mana source" (as a card type). Compared to that, all other changes are minor. Some may catch you off guard at first. For instance, the legend rule changed (now called the legendary rule, because instead of being a creature type, "legend" has become a super type called "legendary" which can be applied to any permanent type), now if you play a legendary permanent with the same name as a legendary permanent already in play, both are put into the greaveyard. Another that confused some of my returning friends was that a blocking creature that becomes tapped still deals combat damage. A lot has changed since you started playing and I highly suggest you check the rules all over again. In many ways, it will feel like you are learning a new game. You still tap lands to make mana and play spells and you still attack with creatures, but the underlying mechanics have changed dramatically. In most cases, the changes were good, especially the ones that changed the game you were used to. I do not agree with some of the more recent changes, but those are changes to rules that probably didn't even exist when you played, so you won't be bothered by those. -=edit=- Oh, there was also a pretty huge creature type overhaul a few years back, so if you play with old cards, make sure you check if they kept their creature type.

Except for what razzliox said, no, you're not going to turn a profit. Even if you could sell cards at their value, all of the online stores that sell singles already do this, and can get a much better deal on a box than you can. Here's the question: Lets say you go to a vendor, like SCG. You've got two options, you can buy some singles, or you can buy a box. Now, if SCG can open 100 boxes, and get enough singles that it would be worth, say, 105 boxes, they're not going to sell any boxes at all. Instead they would open them, and just sell singles. So that means you could get lucky and open a box that has a value greater than the amount it cost you paid for it, but short of getting a foil Lilliana that probably isn't happening. Even if you did, your best bet to make a quick profit is to sell it to a reseller, which is going to take a good chunk of the profit to be made.

I don't have one, and it's just not worth the $20. For +4/+4, it's efficient, but Flying/First Strike aren't as important to me as say, getting through (Protection from Creatures and Trample) or staying alive (Lifelink and Vigilance). Flying obviously gives good evasion, but again, I prefer the above abilities.

I dunno. I guess RUG pod is more of an actual pod deck. its more about deceiver exarch to jump pod and borderland ranger for value and to get to the late game with six and seven drops. Naya is more of an aggro deck that just uses pod as a good card (maybe as a 2 of rather than 4) but typically ends the curve with 5 drops.

You mean "can I then tap my elf to untap a forest..." and yes, you can. His ability takes no mana, and the mana does not empty from your pool until you either spend it on something, a phase ends or an effect (like Power Sink) removes the mana from your pool.

The guy was a douche, acted unsportsman-like(IN FRONT OF A JUDGE? HOW DOES HE NOT EVEN GET A WARNING?) Basically, because your standard of unsportsman-like behavior is different than the DCI's. The Infraction Procedure Guide has a nice way of putting it: > Unsporting behavior is not the same as a lack of sporting behavior. There is a wide middle ground of "competitive" behavior that is certainly neither "nice" nor "sporting" but still doesn't qualify as "unsporting." As a caveat, it's very hard to figure out how people were acting from a second-hand account, and for all I know the other guy did get a USC-Minor penalty after the match. But my take is that the Douchebro's actions don't seem to fit that penalty from what the OP has told us, particularly as there appears to be no profanity or threats/aggression directly towards the OP.

I already posted in this in the other thread for the same topic, and it's fairly long. So here's a link ( ) and here's the

Yes and no, mythics can be very expensive, but looking at a standard deck you're gonna lose a LOT more money from buying your mana base (non-mythic), thragtusks (non-mythic), snapcasters (non-mythic), or many on non-mythic rares.

Sounds like a nice guy; in my opinion it is all player's responsibilities to maintain the board state. The cards represent spells and abilities : from a game standpoint you are a mage in another world dueling and dealing with "real' creatures, spells, etc. Something like "You forgot your guys have first strike.. haha" Is pretty lame. The creature being played is a token representing a unit on a battlefield that has an ability; not pointing this out, and failing to promote the game state, breaks the immersion, and the point, of the game (e.g. two mages dueling in a "real" fantasy setting). You can help the individual across the table by not pointing out their recognition of game-state abilities by pointing it out afterwards but still in time to preserve the state. For example : <Timmy> "Ok so i'm attacking for 4 damage .. both creatures die" <Bob> "Are you sure about that?" <Timmy> looks things over "I think so, yea" <BoB> "Your guy has first strike. Only my blocking creature dies. Be careful not to miss the details". Bob has just helped Timmy learn and preserved the game state at the same time; there is no reason to "punish" Timmy by letting both creatures die simply because it is an advantage for you. That being said , pointing things out like "Hey if you did X then you could totally win next turn" is advice that you are not required to point out. You are dueling : if they blunder then they blunder; if you're a nice person save it for the end-game tips after your win and point out their mis-step so they can learn.

I was in a similar situation just 2 weeks ago, but on the other end. I was drafting 6x Innistrad (sealed) and going blue white flyers. My opponent (Really nice guy) was also white blue and had a bunch of Avycinian priests in his deck. First game he wins, after I bring him down to 1 health with an invisible stalker eating away at him, though that game he had tapped my triggered delver 3 times with the priest. (I was unaware it was non-human creatures only on the priest) Second game, perfect opening hand for me, turn 4 win. At this point I realized I should have won both rounds, but didn't mention it. (Though at this point he also noticed triggered delver was human) Third game, relatively close, I swing in with a 9/1 Unflipped delver with lifelink (equipped), and he blocks with a guy who's equipped and given first strike. His creature covered up the part that said first strike, and although I was annoyed, I accepted it, my delver died, and I went on to lose the game. The guy himself was clearly feeling a bit bad, as he was aware I should have won, so I didnt rub it in. Instead I said good game, shook his hand, took a winner's photo with him, and actually ended up trading him the card he was hoping to open in his prize packs. His brother who had been watching the whole game ended up trading with me as well, and tossed in a few free Japanese versions of cards I used in my decks, guess he felt a bit sorry for me. :P

Things that go on the stack immediately after combat and the death of the Geist. A.) Geist's undying trigger B.) Reckoner's ability trigger Because of APNAP, the Geist's trigger goes onto the stack first and then the Reckoner's ability goes onto the stack. So the Reckoner's ability resolves first, dealing the 2 damage before the Geist comes back into play. At this point, if the E1 has toughness 2 or less, it will be put into the graveyard as a SBA. Then the Geist comes back as a 3/3 and if the E1 is alive at this point, its evolve trigger will be put on the stack.

You really need to remember BREAD when you draft - its a great way to do better at draft. B - Bombs - Cards that when they hit, you win the game R - Removal - Cards that remove things. Electrolyze, Lightning Helix, Bounce/Tempo Cards, etc. E - Evasion - Flying, First Strike, Xwalk, etc. - The bread and butter of decks. A - Abilities & Average - Interchangeably but average dudes and/or average creatures with average abilities. Plenty of draw spells and such go here. Role Players D - Dregs - The horrible stuff no one wants to play I would've taken the Helix #1, even if you never used it. It's that good. You pull the vivid too early - take more action stuff. The 0/4 1G dude is good because it clogs the ground for you. I would've taken a few. Even if it is unimpressive on its own, you already had the Sporesower and you ran into a few more thallids as you went. Aside: Frogmite is bonkers in an artifact deck. Its is eventually a free bear, and a great thing to bounce to the Esperzoa trigger. Thallid (G) is a good card, it's a 1/1 for 1 withan ability to pop out more bros. You were complaining about your lack of 1 and 2 drops - thats it. The landcycling & counterspell card (Tramuatic Visions) is a Dreg. Treat it as such - unless its the only think in your pack in your colors. I think you take a Torrent of Stone (in that pack) and realize that you haven't seen an artifact for 2/3 packs and go from there. I would play Echoing Truth over both Perilous Research and Petals of Insight. Petals is too costly IMO and Perlious Research is tempo-disadvantage. Aethersnipe is both a 1UU removal/tempo spell to push through a dude or a large guy at the end. Very good for stalling until you hit a critical mass. For the love of God you needed to pick up those Mothdust Changelings. They are also fungi. >_>

This just happened last night: My playgroup decided to wait until the new legend rule went official before we started using the new rules, and so last night was our last night of the old legend rules. It was my playing Zedruu group hug, my best friend playing Reaper King changelings, my nephew with riku, and my friend playing Kaalia tribal angels. The game progressed pretty well for a while, no player gaining an advantage partially thanks to my donating and Varchild's War Riders, when the kaalia player played aurelia and avacyn on the same turn, and he has been known to avacyn+worldslayer to end games before, and although the worldslayer was nowhere in sight, we knew it was coming. I played minds aglow to try to fill everybodies hands up so we could deal with kaalia as the game basically turned into a game of archenemy. My nephew was holding a counterspell, and kaalia suspected it, and I drew only some pillowfort cards that helped very little due to a heartbeat of spring. riki played artisan of kozilek, reanimating pathrazer of ulamog and hasted him up with a greaves hoping o be able to eat up some of kaalias resources with it but the plan fell through. turn then passed to reaper king who almost didn't realize she was holding a clone, and killed avacyn, i then donated kaalia a planar collapse before the end of his turn. He cast the white spell people use in eggs decks to return all his permanents in play only to get it countered. on his turn he played cauldron dance to try to get avaycn back in play only to have it twincasted by riku. What did riku get out of his graveyard? No-one but clone. The sullen look upon Kaalia's face caused the rest of the table to break out into raucous giggles, and Riku won soon after due to a copied tooth and nail.

Story One: Zedruu player has 50+ life, and Lightning Greaves on a Felidar Sovereign. I mention, "I can get rid of the Sovereign if someone can nail the Greaves. So the Greaves get Shattering Pulsed or something, and I hit Felidar Sovereign with Chaos Warp. Zedruu shuffles hands it to me to cut Transcendance ...and he loses the game on the spot. Story 2: My friend is playing my Ashling deck. Another friend has Rhys the Redeemed. I've got Ruhan of the Fomori. Ashling player plays Vicious Shadows. Rhys player has lots of elves. Ashling blows up for massive damage. In response, I Chaos Warp the Vicious Shadows. Ashling Shuffles hands it to me to cut Vicious Shadows (again) ...and we all take a million damage from the triggers.

You have lots of ways to mill them but not a lot of things to protect yourself. Grisly Spectacle is the only form of creature removal you have and you have no other forms of control. I would cut the amount from 4 to 2 and add in things like Murder and Death's Approach . They are cheaper on mana and can kill artifact creatures (and Death's Approach can handle indestructible creatures as well). The other thing is control, which you really lack. One card I think is really amazing is Cyclonic Rift . It allows you to bump back creatures, enchantments, artifacts, etc. to slow them down to give you more time to mill them. It can be used as creature destruction against tokens as well, which is nice. The overload ability is icing on the cake. You should definitely look into using Cipher and flyers. I personally would ditch relying on the Duskmantle Guildmage (though you can still make a deck around it for sure) and utilize amazing cards like Jace's Phantasm and Nightveil Specter (or you can use Vampire Nighthawk for the deathtouch and lifelink to keep you alive, though I think the Nightveil Specter is easier to cast in a UB deck). You already have other forms of milling, so paying 4 mana for a 2/3 flyer (the Balustrade Spy ) with only a basic mill ability with no comboing seems weak to me ( Peel from Reality would be good as it can be used to bounce a creature of theirs and either save a creature from dying from a spell/ability or to bring the Balustrade Spy back into the battlefield to mill some more). Mirko Vosk and Consuming Aberration are obviously great cards, no matter your focus. For Cipher cards, you should definitely take a look at Hands of Binding , Hidden Strings , and Paranoid Delusions . You can probably afford not taking Paranoid Delusions but the other two are some of my favorite blue cards out there, gives excellent control and flexibility, and best of all very efficient with the cipher ability. You have lots of heavy mill spells like Mind Grind and Psychic Spiral which are good to have but lack flexibility. If you can, try and get another Jace MA as he's very efficient for heavy milling or when you need more cards and always good to get him in around turn 6-8. Also you should check out using Thought Scour . It moves cards out of your library and helps Wight of Precinct , Psychic Spirlal (if you want to continue using it), and Jace's Phantasm. You could drop Pilfered Plans and replace Tome Scour with either Mind Sculpt or Breaking//Entering (though I prefer Mind Sculpt as it's easier on mana, though it does allow for a 2+8 combo with Thought Scour to make Jace's Phantasms get the +4/+4). You can still keep Tome Scour but for my decks the Mind Sculpt tends to fit my mana curve better. With Thought Scour, you can probably cut back on the Pilfered Plans . Some lands you can consider is the Nephalia Drownyard which I find very useful against other blue decks. Another land I like to bring only 1 of is Rogue's Passage . That land can help your ciphers but mainly your beefy Wights and Consuming Aberrations, often allowing you to 1-shot your opponent if they can't stop it. Having a 33/33 unblockable creature can end the game pretty quick. Another card I found useful for these kind of decks is Mutilate . It can basically clear the board but often can still keep your creatures alive. It doesn't work well with some creatures (like the guildmage) but if you can get your creatures to high toughness you can generally use mutilate without killing your own creatures, and that's partly due to the fact that you since you are a UB deck you won't have as many Swamps as a mono black (which will kill most things with 6 or more swamps out). It's also easy to have high toughness creatures with UB mill as cards like Wights of Precinct Six, Consuming Aberation, and the Jace's Phantasm get pretty strong once you start milling your opponent and therefore probably won't die from your Mutilate.

I kinda suspect that it isn't something so binary as is/is not, similar to how people aren't simply gay or straight, most fall in a more complex position. There's probably a spectrum of sexual attraction to that sort of thing. Hell, one of the most common sexual positions is named "doggy" style, that's a little suggestive...

White had a problem back in the old days. It tended to use Disenchant as a real swiss army knife. White was the best color at artifact/enchantment destruction for a long time. It wasn't until Naturalize was printed in Onslaught, that either red or green got a spell as good as Disenchant; [Shatter]( was pretty poor in comparison. So, for the first nine years of the game, White had Disenchant and Swords to Plowshares, some of the most efficient removal in the game. Keep in mind that creatures tended to be weaker then than they are now (Ravenous Baloth, a 4/4 with a modest lifegain ability and no evasion for 4 was a champ in Odyssey/Onslaught Standard) and that a lot of competitive decks relied on Artifacts and Artifact creatures to win, and Disenchant gets really, really good. It was decided that taking "Best artifact/enchantment removal" from the color with "third-best creature removal" and giving it to the color with "worst creature removal" would promote a better balance between the colors (for those who weren't playing back then, green was noticeably the worst color. It wasn't a huge gap, but most people could spot that blue was slightly better than black, white, or red, and those in turn were better than green. Part of the problem was that blue had Counterspell and Boomerang, two cards cmc2 that could deal with pretty much any problem, at least for long enough to get what you were doing done. Green, on the other hand, had a real lack of reactive cards). And it worked. The decision to give green flexible cards like Naturalize and its descendants like Beast Within has made it much more viable; for several years, green was arguably the most powerful color. And, if it's any consolation, Disenchant has never been printed in the Modern card frame, but it is Modern legal courtesy of Time Spiral .

rtb is faster. underworld connections is slower, but better long term for devotion, or just good ol draw. for example; if you are gonna end the game turns from now, underworld connections is 5 mana, lose two life, and draw two cards. rtb is three mana, lose two life, scry two, and draw two cards. now if the game is going to last five more turns, rtb only got you two draw, and underworld will get you six.

THAT NOT LIKE GRUUL! DIS LIKE GRUUL. RAWR. OPPONENT HAVE MANY CREATURES. GRUUL WANT SMASH CREATURE. GRUUL USE SPELL TO KILL CREATURE. ESPER HAVE MORE SPELL THAN AZORIUS. DIS MEAN ESPER MORE DIRECT LIKE GRUUL. GRUUL RESPECT ESPER MORE. BUT ESPER HAVE MANA PROBLEM. NOT GET RIGHT LAND ON TIME. GRUUL HATE MANA SCREW. GRUUL WANT TO SMASH DECK FOR MANA SCREW. AZORIUS PREVENT THIS. GRUUL LIKE AZORIUS, BUT THEY TAKE OUR WILDS AWAY, SO WE HATE THEM AS MUCH AS LIKE.

Through the haze of battle I saw the glint of sun on golden mane, the sheen of glory clad in mail, and I dropped my sword and wept at the idiocy of war." —Dravin, Gruul deserter "The old gods awoke and sent fingers of fire to see what was left of the old ways under the endless city." —Daiva, Gruul storyteller "The other guilds think they're untouchable. It's time we brought them back down to earth." —Ghut Rak, Gruul guildmage "They think they tamed him, but he will always be a wild titan, a force of nature." —Nedja, Gruul shaman "Izzet contraptions pollute our lands. Burn them down, kill the makers, cleanse the earth." —Nedja, Gruul shaman "The Simic come from the cold slow depths. How could they understand the fire in a wild heart?" —Kroshkar, Gruul shaman "We are the heart of the wild, the fire in its eyes, and the howl in its throat. Come, join the battle to which you were born." —Kroshkar, Gruul shaman "Other guilds say the Gruul are savages, no better than the beasts we live with. I say we've found friends who won't stab us in the back." —Domri Rade "The maaka remain loyal to us in this time of strife. We don't even have to feed them—our enemies do." —Nedja, Gruul shaman "This city will perish, and the Gruul will cheer as the boar-god crushes the last bricks into dust." —Nikya of the Old Ways "Our fight is not about territory or revenge. It is about freedom, plain and simple." —Ruric Thar, Ghor-Clan chieftain "If the other guilds want a war, they should know we've been ready the whole time." —Ruric Thar, Ghor-Clan chieftain "Why do guards always look surprised when we bash them?" asked Ruric. "I think they expect a bribe," said Thar.

It's odd, because if its shopped it is really really well done in some ways, but very poorly in other ways. The angles, clearness, and lighting looks really good in general. But then there would be some random smears, the edges were poorly done (which wouldn't make sense because you have no reason to touch the edges, just put it inside the black border). Whatever is going on behind the THS gods doesn't fit anything. If they wanted to fake this, they are in a shop so surely they have access to one of each god so they could just use those to fake it...

Short answer: none. Long answer: we want her in pod because exalted is a solid way to make our dudes tougher, no dorks do that; hence the price tag. The most reasonable sub is wall of roots IMO, for his bulk. Pilgrims and elvish mystics are a waste of time because they're just shittier birds, and you already have four of those. Wall offers excellent podding options and survives most burn spells at full health (most importantly he can often tank a goyf after an anger). Caryatids are reasonable in the deck but still die to anger and are just as vulnerable on their way into the game. People in modern have better things to do than worry about an 0/5 defender, let alone a 0/3 one. Sylvan dies to lilli, would never be targeted by removal anyway, and can't defend worth much of anything.

I didn't say the Innistrad draft format was bad. Just that I don't understand the draw of cracking hundreds of dollars in packs to play it, when after a box or two you could easily build an Innistrad "cube" and draft that as many times as you like. Clearly you missed my

I can never understand why people like cracking packs for limited so much. Why not just build a "bad" card cube and enjoy low power formats without spending sooo much money on pounds of cardboard like this?

Yes, and no. Hercules did go into the underworld, but that was to get Cerberus. As mention by fatandpround in this very page, Herc did also Theseus, but Theseus was not in the underworld because he had died. Theseus was a mortal who went down to the underworld to try and help another dude try and rescue Persephone. that didn't work out too well and both trapped on chairs they couldn't get out of. Herc persuades hades to let Theseus go, but the other dude remained trapped, supposedly forever.

Nice, over 100 downvotes for having the only adult point of view on the thread. Stay classy, /r/MagicTCG. Y'know, for someone who has the "only adult opinion" you certainly sound like a goddamn child throwing a tantrum! You didn't get all of these down votes because your opinion was just too right (a few certainly were, reddit is pretty cancerous as a society). You got this because you came in hurling insults and proclaiming yourself to have the only valid opinion. Someone disagrees? Shout at them! Insult them! Surely that just makes you more right, and people will gather around singing your praises!

I am so confused as to why this is even an issue. Bottom line as a consumer you have the option to use a service/product or not to. It should not be an expectation to receive compensation. Like any business that you have ever been, if you don't "like" the experience or do not "feel" like a valued customer, then it is your right to stop using that service/product. Sure it is great if the company compensates you, but they are not obligated to, nor should you expect it. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Having problems repeatedly doesn't solve any issues by demanding compensation. You are the one making the choice to spend your time and money into their service/product. No one is forcing you. If you have to play then you have problem. As far as the analogies go, they are both weak and express an attitude of entitlement. If you eat half your meal and then decide you don't like it and complain, you get comped not because you deserve it, but because the Restaurant wants you to be happy and come back to spend more money later. The movie analogy is one of the worst examples in this argument, as again, it is partially the customers fault for missing 1/3rd of the movie experience for going to a knowingly faulty movie. Again, the business may compensate you for your "loss" but they are not obligated to do so, as you have the right to not come again as well as spread your negative experience with others to impede further customers. The fact that this guy actually won prizes, even after continuing with the faulty draft, and THEN wants to be compensated is literally the most scummy thing you can do. You wouldn't buy a bike with 1-wheel, then get top 3 in a race, then go back and demand a refund because you didn't win with the faulty bike AFTER the race was over.

Your last paragraph captures my experience exactly. I would have to restart my computer before even opening MTGO to try to make sure the maximum system resources were available to it because I knew it would burn through whatever it could. I would even make a point to not open the trading room before a draft because just doing that had a measurable effect on how long it would take for Modo to crash. Here was my routine: 1) Close all open windows and programs 2) Open Modo to go to the trading room and trade for whatever boosters I need and or go to the shop for tix. 3) Restart computer 4) Open Modo, go directly to draft room making sure to not go anywhere unnecessary along the way 5) Draft 6) If I want to draft again decide on whether to push my luck and just do it, or be safer and restart again. If I decide to push my luck and I also win round one with lots of time left, go ahead and restart while I am waiting. Note that this was all during V3 (and V2). I have not played V4, although I understand the memory problems are even worse now.