Hordeling Outburst gives so much value for three mana, it's hard to leave it out. Maybe a mix between Monastery Mentors and Hordeling Outbursts? I also like a couple of Wild Slashes as it triggers Ascendancy for one mana and gives you a spell to cast on turn one.
3-1 with Silumgar (lost to Kolaghan dash/mana screw), 2-1-1 with Ojutai (lost to mana screw), 2-1-1 with Atarka (was out-Atarka'd round 3), 3-0-1 with Dromoka (Citadel Siege still a ridiculous bomb). Pools/builds.
Midnight release after FNM, Went 0-2 with B/R, then dropped because it was 3:00 am. Noon the next day, went 2-1 with R/G, it was good enough for 6th place.
2HG 1-2. I was R/G again, I paired up with a random guy who went W/G and we actually played pretty well together. Won the first game pretty handily thanks to impact tremors and dash, but the next two games we couldn't quite punch it through. Match 2 to got our opponents down to 1 life, 3rd match, got them down to 4 before we fell.
I didn't get any dragonlords unfortunately, and that i what I ended up dying to just about every time.
I went 7-1 overall, 4-0 on day 1 with Atarka (which ended up being a jund pool) and 3-1 with Kolaghan the next day where I misplayed into a loss in the finals.
2-1 in 2HG. Partner had double impact tremors and a pile of token making and the two cost dash imp. The first round he did 16 damage turn 4.
I tried doing a backup aggro with white blue. It went badly. He carried hard because holy shit impact tremors is dumb in the format.
Round three he couldn't find tremors, I had squat, they removed my stuff hard and fast and got a hit in with Atarka (I couldn't afford to Hidden Dragonslayer in one turn). In retrospect I should have been purely focused on controlling the board for the tremors deck, but I had underestimated the sheer dumbness of it.
So I just started into this with a group of friends. Me (only played the steam duels game), 2 completely new people, 1 lapsed player, and soon to be a second lapsed player, and one who is currently competitive.
We all started with a 2015 deck builder and a dragons fatpack but there's no rules past that besides staying standard so two of the guys already bought a whole booster box. I'm kinda not at that point yet but I am enjoying it.
I just went 6/0 against my friend testing my first deck! Apartment champion!
i know its a rabbit hole, but assuming I'm not going to go out and just buy a 2hundred dollar tournament winning deck, got any tips for someone jumping into this incredibly dense and frightening world?
(Also is there a best online site I can use to build decks/share them for advice? I ran into a couple, including a standalone application, but most of them looked shady or shoddy at a glance)
I use tapped out to post deck lists. Paying for the premium account stuff on there is silly but it's an easy way to post deck lists in order to share them.
But as a fellow relative newbie I can offer some advice for you... just know I'm not a wise veteran just yet. But learn from my mistakes!
1. Buying boosters, in general, is a poor investment. You are generally better off buying or trading for singles you want. The deck-builders toolkit is a very good way to start out, though!
2. Standard is the cheapest competitive constructed format. I usually play casual games with friends so I can't really speak to the subject beyond that. If Standard floats your boat though, have fun & go for it!
3. Play a lot! Play different decks against different players & other different decks! This will help you find the types of play & strategies you enjoy most.
4. Invest in quality card sleeves. Even ultra-pro brand are usually just "okay."
5. Don't be discouraged by jerks, elitists, etc. They are out there, IRL & online. Just have fun however you want to do so.
6. Consider trying other formats, like Commander!
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
edited April 2015
other than casually playing with friends, I hear the Duels games are a good way to get into the game without spending lots of money.
another option is booster drafting - when I started back up again a couple years ago, all I did for a long time was draft with a group of friends. It has the added price of the cost of the booster packs, but if you're looking to start up a collection and you don't have a specific deck in mind, drafting boosters (rather than just opening a bunch of them) really maximizes the fun value you get out of them.
edit: drafting (and limited in general) also has the added bonus of (mostly) removing the whole "more money = better cards = win all the time" element that can be annoying when a group of friends is starting out playing with each other.
Go back a year. 2015 was pretty horrible for a variety of reasons (and I'm not talking microtransactions here.)
2014 is good and should be pretty cheap as well. The one big thing is that it has preconstructed decks so you can see what an actual deck can do instead of 2015 where there just isn't enough card pool to really put together anything with any kind plan.
Go back a year. 2015 was pretty horrible for a variety of reasons (and I'm not talking microtransactions here.)
2014 is good and should be pretty cheap as well. The one big thing is that it has preconstructed decks so you can see what an actual deck can do instead of 2015 where there just isn't enough card pool to really put together anything with any kind plan.
Seconded. Duels 2014 is universally considered better than 2015. It's a great no-pressure way to learn the rules of a game and basic strategies. And they are made to serve that purpose. They are the in-all-but-name MTG starter kit, replacing earlier products like Portal.
We were definitely talking about splitting a box and having a draft party for the upcoming set. That way we're not dropping all that money every release individually.
I've made a white/blue deck based around bolster on heals, bolster on bolsters and a decent amount of healing with blue mostly to counter spells/removals. (Ujutai's command is awesome here) some stuff to change now that I've seen how it plays but it's a fun deck.
I'm trying to make at least one other deck out of the starting cards I have so I can mix it up. The first deck scared me and took like three hours to make. I'm excited for this next one
Is it next week that modern masters starts its spoilers?
I don't believe so? Set ain't out till the end of may, right?
Comes out on May 22, which is why I'm thinking the spoilers will start next week. I mean if not oh well, it happens when it happens. Still looking forward to doing a couple of drafts when it does come out
One of the shops around me does booster drafts for fnm. Would it be frowned upon to use those as a way of building a collection for a guy who's now played all of twice?
Also I assume just taking the rares even if they suck for the deck is kind of a dick move?
One of the shops around me does booster drafts for fnm. Would it be frowned upon to use those as a way of building a collection for a guy who's now played all of twice?
Also I assume just taking the rares even if they suck for the deck is kind of a dick move?
No that's totally a legitimate way to draft. That's sort of how I started a few months ago and now I've been 3-0ing the occasional FNM Standard. My first draft pack had an Ugin in it! I lost terribly but man that was cool.
Remember, just because it's a rare doesn't mean it's good or even worth anything. As a newer player it can be tricky to determine if it is worth anything so the shininess aspect makes it appealing. If you take nothing but the rares though, chances are your deck is not going to be stellar, so it balances out. It's a good way to learn playing with new cards and against weird strategies too.
Some places do rare re-drafting (The rares are collected and the winners get to pick from the pile in order of who won) so make sure if you're trying to bolster your card collection you stick to normal drafts. Rare re-drafting seems more like a thing for friends who all bought a box together to do though.
Some places do rare re-drafting (The rares are collected and the winners get to pick from the pile in order of who won) so make sure if you're trying to bolster your card collection you stick to normal drafts. Rare re-drafting seems more like a thing for friends who all bought a box together to do though.
Rare re-drafting is primarily for cheap stores to fuck players out of prizes.
One of the shops around me does booster drafts for fnm. Would it be frowned upon to use those as a way of building a collection for a guy who's now played all of twice?
Also I assume just taking the rares even if they suck for the deck is kind of a dick move?
Not really. You shouldn't take every rare, because most aren't worth much and you'll just make your deck worse, but if you read up on the valuable cards beforehand and grab those if you open them that's pretty reasonable.
Some places do rare re-drafting (The rares are collected and the winners get to pick from the pile in order of who won) so make sure if you're trying to bolster your card collection you stick to normal drafts. Rare re-drafting seems more like a thing for friends who all bought a box together to do though.
Rare re-drafting is primarily for cheap stores to fuck players out of prizes.
Depends on what they charge. On the rare occasions when we redraft at my FLGS (usually due to limited product availability) the entry is only $10 instead of $15.
So, our group all got deck builders and a dragon fat pack (i forget if i explained how we all started or not).
This is my first attempt at a deck (i've reworked it a couple times so far). i realize it's more "work with what we got" than constructed and competitive but it did really well against one of my friends in the group when i tested it. It pretty much shut down whatever he tried to cast while I healed and grew stronger every turn.
I've also put together a mono red deck and am playing with either doing a g/b or a black devotion one with the cards I have left in the the builder.
Thanks for all the encouragement and advice since I started checking this all out! I realize already that there's a side to the game with heavy cash requirements but it's good to know that there's still room for us just getting our feet wet.
Some places do rare re-drafting (The rares are collected and the winners get to pick from the pile in order of who won) so make sure if you're trying to bolster your card collection you stick to normal drafts. Rare re-drafting seems more like a thing for friends who all bought a box together to do though.
Rare re-drafting is primarily for cheap stores to fuck players out of prizes.
One of the shops around me does booster drafts for fnm. Would it be frowned upon to use those as a way of building a collection for a guy who's now played all of twice?
Also I assume just taking the rares even if they suck for the deck is kind of a dick move?
Not really. You shouldn't take every rare, because most aren't worth much and you'll just make your deck worse, but if you read up on the valuable cards beforehand and grab those if you open them that's pretty reasonable.
Protip: Rare dual lands are basically always worth something. Though the current set has fetches, which are about the cream of the crop - every single format wants them because they're amazing.
But yeah, first picking a money rare (they rarely get passed anyways, because they'll either be taken for the value or are strong in limited too) is fine. I also like drafts as a way to pick up less valuable rares for commander mid-pack (generally things are very Johnny). Bombs can win games... but you mainly need consistency, because only the most insane of bombs matter when your opponent has better stuff out and is ahead ten life.
If you see a mythic, chances are you should take it.
Maybe. If it's not going to help you win the game, a good number of those Mythics won't be worth the prize pool you are pushing yourself away from. And my data is the sell price (Card Kingdom), you probably won't get that for your cards. Also, (and IMO more importantly) by drafting a less good card, you are making your deck less fun to play.
Of course for rares, it's even harsher. As this histogram shows, more than 1/2 the Dragons Of Tarkir rares sell for less than $1.
The lesson I take from this: Know the most valuable cards (an easy task since there are so few). Those are of course also some of the best cards, so chances are good you'll want them anyway. You aren't playing Magic as an investment, only money draft if it makes sense.
Well if it's a planeswalker or has the word Dragon in it it's a great thing to snag for money or for limited, and will probably be good for both in this format.
Well if it's a planeswalker or has the word Dragon in it it's a great thing to snag for money or for limited, and will probably be good for both in this format.
If you are only talking about Mythics, maybe. Fate and DoT have 22 Dragon cards in rare, only 3 of them are $5 or more. Even for the mythics, several of the dragons aren't worth $10. Of course it really depends on what you paid to enter said draft, and the quality of the other cards in the pack.
You will open a pack with a mythic in approximately every 3rd draft. So this question will come up pretty often if you draft regularly. Magic is already a high variance game, and limited even more so. How much do you want to try to scrape back cash versus scraping out a win?
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
I think Ojutai has cracked $30 by now. So glad I didn't trade mine for an Atarka last week.
Dragonlords are always correct picks, value be damned. Make the mana work, it's not actually that hard.
yep. in limited, I think the worst Dragonlord is probably... Kolaghan? And she's still ridiculously good.
In a recent draft video, you can watch LSV open a pack 2 Dragonlord Dromoka, while in neither green nor white. He ends up splashing both colors for it... let's just say it's worth it.
That draft was just awesome to watch. Although he actually wound up black/green splashing white for Dromoka and red for Pyrotechnics (and blue for megamorphing the Negate guy and bringing in Gurmag Drowners out of the board).
So according to mythic spoiler noble hierarchy and iona Aee going to be re released in modern masters along with all the eldrazi lords. Which makes me haveto ask, what makes noble hierarchy so damn awesome? I just don't get it. Yeah exalted is nice and it's only a one drop I just don't get why it's so popular and expensive
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A list of things, should you be of the gifting persuasion
Emrakul is basically unplayable now and mono red is fringe playable. Vampires are a terribad substitution.
went top 8 at my lgs but lost round 1, all but 1 person wanted to split lol
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2HG 1-2. I was R/G again, I paired up with a random guy who went W/G and we actually played pretty well together. Won the first game pretty handily thanks to impact tremors and dash, but the next two games we couldn't quite punch it through. Match 2 to got our opponents down to 1 life, 3rd match, got them down to 4 before we fell.
I didn't get any dragonlords unfortunately, and that i what I ended up dying to just about every time.
ineedmayo.com Eidolon Journal Updated
I tried doing a backup aggro with white blue. It went badly. He carried hard because holy shit impact tremors is dumb in the format.
Round three he couldn't find tremors, I had squat, they removed my stuff hard and fast and got a hit in with Atarka (I couldn't afford to Hidden Dragonslayer in one turn). In retrospect I should have been purely focused on controlling the board for the tremors deck, but I had underestimated the sheer dumbness of it.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
what would you guys change here?
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edit: or Shu Yun
We all started with a 2015 deck builder and a dragons fatpack but there's no rules past that besides staying standard so two of the guys already bought a whole booster box. I'm kinda not at that point yet but I am enjoying it.
I just went 6/0 against my friend testing my first deck! Apartment champion!
i know its a rabbit hole, but assuming I'm not going to go out and just buy a 2hundred dollar tournament winning deck, got any tips for someone jumping into this incredibly dense and frightening world?
(Also is there a best online site I can use to build decks/share them for advice? I ran into a couple, including a standalone application, but most of them looked shady or shoddy at a glance)
But as a fellow relative newbie I can offer some advice for you... just know I'm not a wise veteran just yet. But learn from my mistakes!
1. Buying boosters, in general, is a poor investment. You are generally better off buying or trading for singles you want. The deck-builders toolkit is a very good way to start out, though!
2. Standard is the cheapest competitive constructed format. I usually play casual games with friends so I can't really speak to the subject beyond that. If Standard floats your boat though, have fun & go for it!
3. Play a lot! Play different decks against different players & other different decks! This will help you find the types of play & strategies you enjoy most.
4. Invest in quality card sleeves. Even ultra-pro brand are usually just "okay."
5. Don't be discouraged by jerks, elitists, etc. They are out there, IRL & online. Just have fun however you want to do so.
6. Consider trying other formats, like Commander!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic:_The_Gathering_–_Duels_of_the_Planeswalkers_2015
another option is booster drafting - when I started back up again a couple years ago, all I did for a long time was draft with a group of friends. It has the added price of the cost of the booster packs, but if you're looking to start up a collection and you don't have a specific deck in mind, drafting boosters (rather than just opening a bunch of them) really maximizes the fun value you get out of them.
edit: drafting (and limited in general) also has the added bonus of (mostly) removing the whole "more money = better cards = win all the time" element that can be annoying when a group of friends is starting out playing with each other.
I don't believe so? Set ain't out till the end of may, right?
ineedmayo.com Eidolon Journal Updated
Go back a year. 2015 was pretty horrible for a variety of reasons (and I'm not talking microtransactions here.)
2014 is good and should be pretty cheap as well. The one big thing is that it has preconstructed decks so you can see what an actual deck can do instead of 2015 where there just isn't enough card pool to really put together anything with any kind plan.
Seconded. Duels 2014 is universally considered better than 2015. It's a great no-pressure way to learn the rules of a game and basic strategies. And they are made to serve that purpose. They are the in-all-but-name MTG starter kit, replacing earlier products like Portal.
I've made a white/blue deck based around bolster on heals, bolster on bolsters and a decent amount of healing with blue mostly to counter spells/removals. (Ujutai's command is awesome here) some stuff to change now that I've seen how it plays but it's a fun deck.
I'm trying to make at least one other deck out of the starting cards I have so I can mix it up. The first deck scared me and took like three hours to make. I'm excited for this next one
Comes out on May 22, which is why I'm thinking the spoilers will start next week. I mean if not oh well, it happens when it happens. Still looking forward to doing a couple of drafts when it does come out
edit: Just read Gavin Verhey's article for this week, and he mentions that spoilers start on the 4th.
ineedmayo.com Eidolon Journal Updated
Also I assume just taking the rares even if they suck for the deck is kind of a dick move?
and, well, if you're gonna get a rare that's worth something, that's not really frowned upon. You can rare-draft all you want.
ineedmayo.com Eidolon Journal Updated
No that's totally a legitimate way to draft. That's sort of how I started a few months ago and now I've been 3-0ing the occasional FNM Standard. My first draft pack had an Ugin in it! I lost terribly but man that was cool.
Remember, just because it's a rare doesn't mean it's good or even worth anything. As a newer player it can be tricky to determine if it is worth anything so the shininess aspect makes it appealing. If you take nothing but the rares though, chances are your deck is not going to be stellar, so it balances out. It's a good way to learn playing with new cards and against weird strategies too.
Some places do rare re-drafting (The rares are collected and the winners get to pick from the pile in order of who won) so make sure if you're trying to bolster your card collection you stick to normal drafts. Rare re-drafting seems more like a thing for friends who all bought a box together to do though.
In this case "help" also usually includes happily letting you have all of their excess commons (and maybe uncommons too) once the event is done.
Rare re-drafting is primarily for cheap stores to fuck players out of prizes.
Not really. You shouldn't take every rare, because most aren't worth much and you'll just make your deck worse, but if you read up on the valuable cards beforehand and grab those if you open them that's pretty reasonable.
Depends on what they charge. On the rare occasions when we redraft at my FLGS (usually due to limited product availability) the entry is only $10 instead of $15.
This is my first attempt at a deck (i've reworked it a couple times so far). i realize it's more "work with what we got" than constructed and competitive but it did really well against one of my friends in the group when i tested it. It pretty much shut down whatever he tried to cast while I healed and grew stronger every turn.
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/first-deck-starting-standard-wfriends/
I've also put together a mono red deck and am playing with either doing a g/b or a black devotion one with the cards I have left in the the builder.
Thanks for all the encouragement and advice since I started checking this all out! I realize already that there's a side to the game with heavy cash requirements but it's good to know that there's still room for us just getting our feet wet.
Protip: Rare dual lands are basically always worth something. Though the current set has fetches, which are about the cream of the crop - every single format wants them because they're amazing.
But yeah, first picking a money rare (they rarely get passed anyways, because they'll either be taken for the value or are strong in limited too) is fine. I also like drafts as a way to pick up less valuable rares for commander mid-pack (generally things are very Johnny). Bombs can win games... but you mainly need consistency, because only the most insane of bombs matter when your opponent has better stuff out and is ahead ten life.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
ineedmayo.com Eidolon Journal Updated
Except for that one mythic in every set... your Ghastly Conscription, Clone Legion, Ugin's Nexus...
The only mythic I've gotten so far is descent of dragons which seems fun
Maybe. If it's not going to help you win the game, a good number of those Mythics won't be worth the prize pool you are pushing yourself away from. And my data is the sell price (Card Kingdom), you probably won't get that for your cards. Also, (and IMO more importantly) by drafting a less good card, you are making your deck less fun to play.
Of course for rares, it's even harsher. As this histogram shows, more than 1/2 the Dragons Of Tarkir rares sell for less than $1.
The lesson I take from this: Know the most valuable cards (an easy task since there are so few). Those are of course also some of the best cards, so chances are good you'll want them anyway. You aren't playing Magic as an investment, only money draft if it makes sense.
If you are only talking about Mythics, maybe. Fate and DoT have 22 Dragon cards in rare, only 3 of them are $5 or more. Even for the mythics, several of the dragons aren't worth $10. Of course it really depends on what you paid to enter said draft, and the quality of the other cards in the pack.
You will open a pack with a mythic in approximately every 3rd draft. So this question will come up pretty often if you draft regularly. Magic is already a high variance game, and limited even more so. How much do you want to try to scrape back cash versus scraping out a win?
It was a ton of fun though and now I have a ton of the dragons commons/uncommon a from people
yep. in limited, I think the worst Dragonlord is probably... Kolaghan? And she's still ridiculously good.
In a recent draft video, you can watch LSV open a pack 2 Dragonlord Dromoka, while in neither green nor white. He ends up splashing both colors for it... let's just say it's worth it.