[Magic: the Gathering] Uguu~~ The Spiwit Dwagon

RedDawn

After playing some online with my beginner points, I can say that the interfaces leaves quite a bit to be desired. Also the whole drafting thing is a little odd to me. I'll have to do some looking into how that all works.

KalTorak

yeah, MTGO has never been an example of good software or interface design.

What about the drafting is odd?

RedDawn

I guess drafting in general, I am just getting back into Magic. When I played before it was me and my buddies and our pre-made decks.

I just don't quite understand how everyone drafts at the same time, or do they? It may just be the interface being goofy again, or maybe I just need to see a draft in person to get it figured out.

iolo

Drafting is the best, @RedDawn, although there is a learning curve.

Basically, 8 people at a table sit down with three packs in front of them. Everyone opens Pack A, chooses one card, and passes the remaining 14 to their left. You take one card from the 14 you received from your right, and pass the remaining 13 to your left. Etc. Then everyone opens pack B and repeats, except passing to the right. Pack C goes to the left again.

At the end you have 45 cards from which to construct your 40 card deck. You can add any basic lands you want (usually 16-18 depending on the format and the specific deck's needs.) Then you play games against other people from the draft table. At a regular 8-4 or 4-3-2-2 it's single elimnation. Go 3-0 in matches to win the draft. Swiss drafting has a lower pack payout, but you get to play all three matches. This is probably a better value initially as you learn both drafting and the MTGO interface.

Watch a few of LSV's MTGO draft videos on Channel Fireball and you will quickly get your sea legs.

EDIT: I hope that's the sort of information you were looking for.

RedDawn

That does help, but it just seems odd in the online format. I've only seen Swiss in the beginner sections.

I'm trying to get better, but I don't want this to consume all of my free time so I'm willing to suck and lose a lot while I figure it out.

APODionysus

RedDawn wrote: »

That does help, but it just seems odd in the online format. I've only seen Swiss in the beginner sections.

I'm trying to get better, but I don't want this to consume all of my free time so I'm willing to suck and lose a lot while I figure it out.

Swiss is the place to be. You get to play more games (since it's not single elimination), which will get you more experience with the cards and the gameplay. The competition is less fierce too since the top end payout is less (swiss rewards prizes for 1, 2, and 3 match wins, while 8-4s only give them to the top 2.)

You also have New Player Points. They can be used to enter new player drafts (you don't get to keep the cards you draft, but there's no monetary investment on your end). It's a great place to start even if the flow of the draft is a little weird (there's only 4 players as opposed to 8, which means only 4 packs being passed around at each time.... You'll see fewer total cards to pick from).

DO NOT use your new player points on Constructed events. It's my experience that some people have no shame at running tier 1 decks in the new player events.

iolo

RedDawn wrote: »

That does help, but it just seems odd in the online format. I've only seen Swiss in the beginner sections.

I'm trying to get better, but I don't want this to consume all of my free time so I'm willing to suck and lose a lot while I figure it out.

Draft tips:

1) BRED - Pick bombs over removal over evasive creatures over dudes (ordinary creatures.)

2) Removal is really important. Sometimes removal is obviously removal (1B Terror: Destroy target non-black creature.) But sometimes it comes in other forms. A creature that can tap another creature each turn for one mana is functionally removal in many cases since it takes their best creature out of combat.

3) New players often overemphasize sorceries, instants and non-creature artifacts over creatures. It's very easy as a new player to end up short on creatures which for most deck strategies is bad. Sometimes having a couple extra grey ogres (3 mana 2/2 creatures with no abilities) is more important than a couple of extra spells that don't affect the battlefield.

4) When in doubt, cheaper is better. That eight mana 15/15 creature might look awesome, but chances are you'll be dead by the time you could cast it.

5) Related to 4, you want to try to have a mana curve with a few early plays, lots of two- and three- drops, some fours and then a handful of hopefully game-changing 5+ drops.

6) It usually helps to have a few instant speed combat tricks, like pump spells or damage prevention. They often act as removal (see #2 above). It's easy to get too many, though (see#3), and not have enough creatures out to cast them on.

7) Based on your first pick and especially the cards you get in the first 2-4 passed packs, try to settle on a main color or two sooner rather than later. While sometimes you have to abandon early picks when the signals tell you too, you don't want to wander across all five colors for too long and end up with too few playables and/or an unworkable manabase.

Those are mechanical tips. It also really helps to spend some time learning the cards in the set you'll be drafting, especially the commons. In some sets you want all the two mana 2/x's you can get your hands on. In other sets there are enough x/3 creatures at common that 2 power creatures end up sitting idle and are therefore less important. Pros often will put up their set reviews for drafting and indicate what they think the best commons in each color are. They don't always agree, but seeing what folks think is helpful for your own card valuation and to eventually understand what signals you are getting in the cards being passed to you.

Man alive this is making me want to fire up a draft!

KalTorak

Watching draft videos (like at channelfireball.com or other such sites) is a good way to get a feel for drafting; guys like LSV and Marshall do a good job of talking through their decisions and why they take certain cards over others.

It can also help to run practice drafts on something like http://draft.bestiaire.org/, if only to just get more familiar with the cards, what they do, and what they look like. It's a lot easier to pick a card out of a pack if you recognize most of the good ones by their art and don't have to read each one individually.

Papillon

Foolish Chaos wrote: »

4) When in doubt, cheaper is better. That eight mana 15/15 creature might look awesome, but chances are you'll be dead by the time you could cast it.

5) Related to 4, you want to try to have a mana curve with a few early plays, lots of two- and three- drops, some fours and then a handful of hopefully game-changing 5+ drops.

The flip side of 4) and 5) is 1-mana creatures are rarely worth drafting as they are usually outclassed too early in the game.

APODionysus

And it should be noted that as yet another flip side, 0 mana creatures like Ornithopter should always be picked highly. After all, they're free so there's no opportunity cost!

Im kidding. Don't ever draft Ornithopter

RedDawn

I still have yet to get any significant wins in any beginner events, but I've had a little bit of success in plainswalker.

I built a G/B Elf deck, and I have to admit it has been pretty fun. I know the concept isn't original, but I am pretty excited that it is something I built and I'm getting some wins.

WingedWeasel

General question: My wife is considering giving magic another try so I am looking for 2, preferably not overlapping budget minded competitive modern decks. To clarify "budget" in this sense is: $200 or so when my existing collection is from the dark through future sight. Unfortunately with a notable gap during onslaught block so i only have a few fetch lands.

My initial thought was burn and something. But i am not sure what the something should be. No real preference as to the type (control,combo,aggro,whatever). Any suggestions?

Terrendos

Storm is budget-friendly but difficult to pilot. Scapeshift might not be too bad except for Cryptic Command. Maybe WB tokens?

Modern's in flux right now since the banning of Birthing Pod, so it's tough to suggest a deck that's not just a bunch of efficient cards, and those tend to be the expensive ones.

Vyolynce

Burn vs. Infect.

You can also probably build a reasonable Storm deck. Alternately see if you can find the Modern Event deck from a while back (BW tokens); that retailed for $75 and is a good base.

KalTorak

The Modern Event deck is actually a halfway decent start for a BW tokens deck.

http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/299a

It needs some work to get competitive, but I think you're still gaining value at the sticker price.

WingedWeasel

I totally forgot about infect so o may go that route. I loved playing it in pauper. I may look into storm as I dont mind it being difficult to pilot. My bigger concern is the deck 100% folding in certain metas as I dont know what I am up against yet (in general not specific to storm).

If we go this route then I expect we will be playing the same exact decks nonstop for a long time so we will get familiar with them.

I'll have yo see if I can track down that BW tokens deck as well. Thanks for all the suggestions.

Terrendos

The thing about Storm is that it's tricky even for an experienced player to know exactly what spell to counter. You can still have a decent chance against control if they don't know Storm really well.

WingedWeasel

There was an interesting article on channel fireball about modern and the issue with unfair decks. I say interesting because it logically flowed but I have very little information about the format as a whole so I can't really comment about it in any intelligent way.

WingedWeasel

Has anyone tried the "tiny leaders" format? I ran across it in dear azami today over at starcitygames. Seems interesting.

In all honesty id still prefer tribal to get more attention but the rules need to be looked at. I think it is an interesting "design" question of how to keep the tribal identity while limiting the strength of certain tribes.

Redcoat-13

WingedWeasel wrote: »

Has anyone tried the "tiny leaders" format? I ran across it in dear azami today over at starcitygames. Seems interesting.

In all honesty id still prefer tribal to get more attention but the rules need to be looked at. I think it is an interesting "design" question of how to keep the tribal identity while limiting the strength of certain tribes.

I will be trying it in 2 weeks time and will attempt to remember to post how it all went.

Vyolynce

WingedWeasel wrote: »

There was an interesting article on channel fireball about modern and the issue with unfair decks. I say interesting because it logically flowed but I have very little information about the format as a whole so I can't really comment about it in any intelligent way.

That was probably PVDDR's column; Matt Sperling had a another take the next day.

Nullzone

Tiny Leaders is a conceptually neat "restriction" on Commander, but is basically just a steady stream of beatdown decks with the occasional turbo fog. It's not actually very interesting to play.

WingedWeasel

Awesome, looking forward to hearing about it. Looking at some stuff quickly in gatherer I could possibly build poison, including the old stuff (well except marsh viper). Mosquitos, suq'ata assassins, sabertooth cobras, all the awful stuff alongside the new (more effective) awful stuff.

WingedWeasel

@Vyolynce yea, that was the one I was referring to. Since I am looking into modern i have been trying to read up on it as much as possible. I dont really have an opinion either way on the format as I haven't actually played it. However in the abstract the question of "eternal" formats (or simply non-rotating) is very interesting to me. I love the idea as I have been playing card games for WAY too long, and I dont have any problem with seeing the same decks/cards over and over if things are still fun. I mean I play plenty of games I've had for years as well as things like chess and still find amusement so in principle there should be a way for it to work here.

Regarding tiny leaders: Thats unfortunate @Nullzone . There were some non aggro ideas in an article posted on the mothership about it that I came across while googling, but i wonder if everything just boils down to aggro-antiaggro. Since it sounds like it is geared towards 1v1 and competitive play (which sounded great to me) maybe thats how it'll end up shaking out.

Vyolynce

Yeah I like Modern even as I recognize its inherent shortcomings. But I rarely play any constructed format in an environment more competitive than FNM/Game Day* so I don't have quite the same perspective as the pros (or even grinders) do. Plus I like the fact that the matches are usually over quickly, as it helps keep the tournament moving. Although my preferred deck is the most trolling prison-style control deck I could devise so...


*And we usually keep our FLGS's FNMs pretty casual. I think the week before Fate Reforged's release a bunch of guys showed up rocking standard decks all featuring Temur Ascendancy and Meandering Towershell ("Temur Turtles"), just because they were getting bored with the format. Spoiler: they did not do well, but fun was had.

Redcoat-13

Well the Tiny Leader games I've got lined up, are against mates. I'm going with the idea that I'm going to play with cards I'd not normally play and are hopefully a bit of fun. Out of the 3 other friends I've got playing, 2 of them have that same policy. The 3rd guy just can't help but put together really competitive decks.

It's only meant as a bit of fun; it it turns out that the games just devolve into who can rush down the other fastest, I'm sure we'll abandon the format. Playing MtG together is just an excuse to meet / catch up with each other.

WingedWeasel

From the outside looking in modern seems like it just needs more attention, from WotC and players. On one hand there needs to be a way to infuse the format with new cards to isolate particular issues outside of messing up standard, so modern masters with brand new cards sort of thing. As well as more attention regarding bans/unbans. However I find it hard to believe that even professionals managed to 100% solve the format at the last PT after what 2-3 weeks post banning? Maybe things are very 100-0 or 90-10 based on sideboard cards (and of course drawing them), or things need more time to evolve. My own idea of the format would be you simply get to play and tweak your favorite standard era deck forever. You liked affinity from way back when? Great! Play it forever and just update it with new toys when sets release. Maybe carries was your thing? Have at it, and so on. Of course the giant pool would end up creating a few new things which is cool too, but it will require as much if not more testing than other formats and clearly an different outlook.

Pvddr made the format sound miserable with close to zero relevant decisions made in each game. I am not sure thats actually the case, but assuming it is I dont agree with some of the rebuttals of "this is the format, learn to like it". It just seems that there are too many competing priorities for what the format wants to do. Many have argued against homogenizing the colors, but I think that's a reasonable solution in this case. I dont think modern (or really any non-rotating format) is a great place to try and force color identity. In many cases you could easily play 3+ colors anyway so think spreading answers to places that might not traditionally ha r them should be an option on the table. Plus if this is done through something like modern masters you get to keep things in standard the way they want it.

Makes more sense to me than changing the sideboarding rules. I always hated trying to predict met as since games can be over before they start which I what seems to be the same complaint raised against modern in many cases, but again I dont know of that is actually the case.

The Betgirl

PVD came off as very whiny but he has a point in that matchups turn unwinnable sometimes depending on sideboard cards; it's what gave us an incredibly boring finals in PT FRF, because blood moon just turns off the amulet deck.

The thing about standard right now is that there are a lot of 'bad' matchups that are still winnable. When you get a bad matchup in modern, it's a very very long uphill battle to try and win those matchups.

Vyolynce

WingedWeasel wrote: »

From the outside looking in modern seems like it just needs more attention, from WotC and players. On one hand there needs to be a way to infuse the format with new cards to isolate particular issues outside of messing up standard, so modern masters with brand new cards sort of thing. As well as more attention regarding bans/unbans.

They really can't pay attention to Modern they way they do Standard. There are simply too many cards, and too many potential combinations.

That said, I do like the idea of giving Modern cards without giving them to Standard. They started doing that for Legacy/Vintage with the yearly multiplayer releases. I don't think it would be breaking things too much to fold Modern into that as well. Imagine what a card like Containment Priest would have done to Pod decks, for instance.

WingedWeasel

@Vyolynce i agree, the resources required would be immense and likely never enough. however i think more could be done or they need to invest those resources anyway* if the intent is to keep modern rolling. there is of course the option to tell the pro's to just suck it up, but eventually bad press repeatedly about the format would sour people's opinions (aside from obviously it actually having problems too). i almost feel as though they need to SOLELY introduce cards to the format via dedicated releases, even if they are simply "reprints" of whatever the sets in standard are. obviously this would never happen as it would piss off tons of people but it would let you introduce cards at a more controlled rate. so let's say for example right now modern actually is fine and it turns out that things just haven't been discovered. the format stabilizes into tier 1 with 5-7 decks and tier 2 with a few more (or whatever quantity), then wotc can more carefully introduce cards via these other releases. you still have a monstrous cardpool to manage but if your 5-10 decks are consistent pillars you can ban around them. if people want the ever changing landscape you have standard, modern would be so you can play your old standby. this is all just random thoughts as potential solutions to a problem that may not even exist

* this is all under the assumption that there IS a problem. however i don't know either way

as another random thought experiment that i had a while ago and was reminded of when i saw the "tiny leaders" format. as i've mentioned before i like tribal, but my biggest complaints are that the rules can be complicated (going by the rotating format of tribal apocalypse), some tribes are way stronger than others (elves, goblins, humans, etc), and that it can be relatively simple to end up creating a deck that is "incidentally" tribal since the format is based on legacy and as such you have a pretty high power level and potentially opposition that can't really fight fire with fire. '

the first 2 are my bigger concerns as i think you could address the 3rd with bannings. so my suggestion/question is this: what's the most broken legacy deck you can build that is 30 deck minimum, 2 cards each, and has to contain at least 10 creatures (so 5 distinct cards) from a given tribe? if it seems familiar it is because of the hearthstone deck building, although the idea i had predates that (not that it matters). basically, would you end up with a ban list a mile long with those criteria? i am assuming the default would look like:

11-12 land
2 x tribe creature 1
2 x tribe creature 2
2 x tribe creature 3
2 x tribe creature 4
2 x tribe creature 5
8 x other cards

as mentioned i was trying to limit the power of the "primary" tribes (this may or may not address that), and keep the deckbuilding rules simple. i don't like the idea of "pure" tribal with only creatures of the tribe allowed since that limits some creativity and also stops some of the "lord" cards in decks that may want them or things like lord of the pit type effects with thrulls or or silly/fun things

edit: i remembered some of the issues i had with my own idea (probably obvious to others). things like glimpse the unthinkable may be really absurd. opening hand + 2 x glimpse = you only have 3 cards left in your deck. not an instant win but still kinda absurd.

an alternative i had was rather than 2 of each card keep 60 card decks (or whatever) and instead all non basic land non-tribe cards are singleton. unfortunately this allows the larger and more robust tribes to have more versatility since they likely have members that can function as spells. however it does have certain thematic/vorthos bonuses that i like

Feral

Yay rebound is back! I love rebound!

(Megamorph is dumb and boring. But who cares because yay rebound!)

The Betgirl

I hope they print good cards with Formidable. I just wanna smash face.

Feral

Formidable has an intervening if clause, which makes me a sad panda.

I want to stack my triggers for shenanigans.

slappybag

Glad rebound is back, exploit seems great too.

tehjester

Exploit and Dictate of Erobos are a hilarious combo

Vyolynce

Man Silumgar really mellowed out after 1280 years.

Feral

Stealing a planeswalker is no joke, tho.

Vyolynce

But at least now he can be targeted. Imagine if instead of picking up deathtouch he retained hexproof (and his two extra points of toughness).

Feral

I agree.

Hexproof + mind control would lead to a lot of feel-bad moments. They'd have to inflate his mana cost to something unplayable.

Vyolynce

Holy crap new cycle of Commands!