Probably my favorite game of any platform. This thread spins off of a short tangent from an RP discussion, in which we were talking about all the fun ways to abuse Progenitus and its "Protection from Everything" ability. Come to think of it, is Protection from Everything a trope?

Anyways, this threa dis for stories, ideas, and general banter. Feel free to go on and on about absurd casual ideas, standard, extended, EDH, Vintage, whatever format you want. Perhaps discuss the latest Duel Deck announcement, Lilliana vs. Garruk (which I am very excited about).

As for me, since EDH is one of my favorite formats, I'm going to offer up my Uril, the Miststalker deck as a prime example of how to build an EDH deck around a general. Running about 15 mana ramp spells and close to 40 aura enchantments, it plays the super-shroud 5/5 on turn three, then proceeds to pump it to obscene levels and attack with it on turn 4. The deck's surprising consistency and speed caught most of my playgroup completely off-guard, as EDH is typically a very slow format. Uril can, with the right enchantments, become lethal on turn 4, dealing 22 points of damage. It's fairly impressive.

I only recently got into the game (like, in the last year or so), so I've mostly confined myself to the Alara block* for the time being. So basically, I'm a complete newbie. still, I have managed to beat a few people who've been playing at tournament level for years, so I'm not too terrible.

Our group's personal favorite was Emperor. It was always nice, because it meant that those of us with comparatively weak/unbroken decks could still do something, assuming that our emperor was nice enough to buff us with a few good enchantments.

• Used to be pretty underpowered. the Alara Reborn set helped mitigate that. I can win far more reliably now than I ever could before.

edited 2nd Jun '09 4:27:01 PM by Theoneknownasme

Believe me, I went through the same thing a little over a year ago. I started playing during Morningtide, only three blocks before Alara. It takes a while to begin to understand the game, and even longer to be able to recognize powerful cards at a glance.

Best card in standard right now? Windbrisk Heights. A land. Go figure.

Also notable is that for the first time in a while a deck running 40 lands in 60 cards is tier 1. It's absurd, but Seismic Swans Cascade could become a dangerous deck with a little more tweaking. I think it's a little too slow to beat B/W tokens, though.

As for casual, my favorite deck is scarecrow tribal. Reaper King is my favorite card, and the deck is shockingly powerful in multiplayer. With mass artifact recursion and a devastating mid-range control game that can handle any targetable permeation and even token swarm decks, it's often an early target for everyone else because of its ability to lock down games.

I never blow up land, though, because land destruction is no fun for anyone. That is, unless the deck explodes into its game-ending Finishing Move (which it rarely uses any more). My record is vindicating 64 permanents by playing a single card. (Reaper King's triggered ability gives you a vindicate whenever a scarecrow comes into play under your control.) Think Roar of Reclamation.

I had a little better start than most. I played a little bit in high school, but never owned a deck of my own. Then once I got to college, all the people there that played were passing-decent to "you are banned from playing with that deck again*" good. Also, most of them played stuff from as far back as Onslaught, and quite a few of them played from before even that, so I started out with a good grounding in the rules and at least some experience with higher levels of play**.

.*True story. I will never again play or play against anything that can create Saprolings or Thopters.

.**I also got back into the game with an expert level deck, so it was basically trial-by-fire, which helps.

edited 2nd Jun '09 5:48:37 PM by Theoneknownasme

Why no Saproling decks? My roommate has a fungus deck that he's very proud of, and it is quite dangerous. Alara-block Jund decks are also pretty decent, and the dragons love to eat saprolings just as much as goblins.

As for my early experience, It would be an understatement to say I play with some strong players. Most of them consistently play standard and extended, several are judges. I'm actually planning on becoming a judge myself at the end of the summer so I can judge our club's weekly events.

No saproling decks because the guy who did play a saproling deck had broken it to the point where he could have a turn going for ten minutes or more. Legitimately. And then he'd have enough creatures to zergling rush you to death the turn afterward. Same with thopter-guy, except his turns were generally far shorter.

Play Infest. If he can't give his hordes haste, cheap dumpy black and red wraths like that will punish him for wasting your time. If he's got a non-infinite combo that takes that long to execute, disrupting it shouldn't be too difficult. Can you tell me what he's using?

Oh, jeez, I can't even remember. I think he only played the deck once or twice before our group collectively said "you can't use that deck any more". Not just two or three of us, either. All twelve or so of us said "No, no more".

The fact that he accepted our terms without an argument probably says a lot, actually. Just that seemingly-innocent grin.

EDIT: And Infest or Volcanic Fallout didn't really accomplish much. I think he was using a lot of artifacts and enchantments to pull it off. And nobody had a Shatterspree or any sort of dispel/destroy enchantment at hand.

edited 2nd Jun '09 6:53:06 PM by Theoneknownasme

My play group constantly talks about the need for people to run disenchant effects main-deck. Most decks use at least a few artifacts, so it's not a bad idea. The only decks that our playgroup really can't stand are Stasis decks, because we love multiplayer and stasis in multiplayer is absolutely stupid. Games can take hours. Other than that we really don't bar decks from being played.

Naturalize is your friend. Cheap, efficient, multi-purpose removal. Especially in Alara block where a third of the cards are artifacts anyways. I know a lot of people that main-deck Naturalize in limited events featuring Reborn because they know it will hit something. If nothing else, it hits a boarderpost.

I have a deck the produces infinite saprolings and gives them haste. It also puts infinite counters on Jace Beleren, deals infinite damage with triskelion, and dumps infinite charge counters onto Darksteel reactor. Gilder Bairne FTW!

I've always been a bit leery about infinite combos, personally. I've seen one go wrong before. Like, say, if it requires sending a creature to the graveyard, then returning him to play repeatedly. If one of your opponents has an Extractor Demon in play and you don't realize it, congratulations, you've just milled everyone to death.

. . . The only reason that didn't end in a win for me was because one of the players had a Guile in his deck. Just by the by.

All this talk about Magic makes me want to try it, but

A) TCGs are a moneysink

and

B) I wouldn't have anybody to play with.

They're not too terrible of a moneysink so long as you set limits for yourself. I can definitely sympathize with the second point, though; My friends have been busy for the last couple weeks, so my cards have just been sitting around collecting dust.

Combos being disruptable is a major part of the game. If they weren't everyone would play combo and nobody would have fun. Any number of things can ruin a particular deck. Sanity Grinding deck hates Pithing Needle. Almost all combos hate Thought Hemorrhage. Quillspike combo hates cheap removal. Swans hates 5-color control.

Everyone hates Affinity.

Part of playing combo is trying to make it go off correctly even with your opponents trying to hinder you in every way possible.

As for the price, it can be expensive to play competitively, but building a few casual decks really is not too tough or expensive. Finding a play group can be hard. If you want to get into it, try using the Magic website to find a local store that holds FN Ms. Don't play in any FN Ms until you've learned more about the game, but play casual games with the people who show up for them.

I haven't collected actual cardboard since Onslaught, but I still dabble in the game, mainly via Magic Workstation.

Any tropers want to ring me up for a game? GG Crono 4 on AIM, mellowcorks(at)hotmail(dot)com on MSN.

edited 2nd Jun '09 11:22:43 PM by GG Crono

The new core set, as it turns out, isn't going to be called "11th edition." It's going to be called Magic 2010 and, unlike previous core sets, will introduce entirely new cards in addition to reprinted cards. That's right, this will be the first core set with original cards since alpha!

...

Now don't go saying They Changed It, Now It Sucks just yet, 'cause the new core set comes with some major rule changes, specifically the terminology used in cards. "Battlefield" for example, is the new terminology for the play area, and "when X comes into play" effects now read "when X enters the battlefield." "Remove target X from the game" now becomes "Exile target x, " which means that anything that is removed from the game is put into the "exile zone, " and "At end of turn" effects now become "at the beginning of your end phase." There are also some some changes to mechanics of play, like the way deathtouch works.

But by far the most major change in gameplay is the way mana works. From the release of the set onward, mana in your mana pool disappears after each phase of play, instead of at the end of your turn. Sounds pretty major, right? Well, that is nothing compared to the new rule change that's also coming.

Okay, are you ready?

...

You sure? This might upset you, you know.

...

Are you sure that you're sure?

...

You know, this is probably the biggest change to the game since the removal of interrupts, and I know for a fact that you're still kinda angry about that.

...

Alright, you asked for it... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Mana burn is no longer a gameplay mechanic.

That's right, folks. Instead of losing life equal to the amount of mana still in your mana pool at the end of your turn, the mana simply disappears without any effect at all.

*CUE MOB OF ANGRY FANS*

edited 26th Jun '09 7:23:40 PM by itsmeyouidiot

Aww, mana burn was fun. I had a deck that incorporated that. Just as the opponent's turn ends, I "donate" one or two points. Don't know what to do with it? Too bad for you then, mana burn!

Not very efficient or reliable (sometimes it ends up helping them after all) when it comes to dealing damage. But who cares, it's fun!

Mana burn being changed is almost nothing. What really gets me is that they changed combat damage going on the stack, which was one of the most fun mechanics to play with. "Damage on the stack and...*plays a card* fuck you."

But apparently it didn't work that way when Mogg Fanatic was actually printed, so, I guess I will content myself with that knowledge. Also I haven't played Magic in some time and probably won't again for a while either? I still have all my old cards, but every time I go searching through them I can't find any of them from my decks, which is odd.

Those decks were:

—a fun little White Weenie deck with a bunch of Shadow creatures (foil Soltari Priest! Soltari Visionary! Soltari CHAMPION! Oshi-)
—a ridiculous Red/Blue deck whose centerpiece was Bosium Strip (an obscure old artifact that let you replay the top card in your graveyard as long as it's an instant or sorcery)
—a very bizarre White/Green/Red/Blue deck made of mostly Planeshift cards, for some reason

We've known most of that stuff for like a year now. I think Wizards are a Magnificent Bastard, really. They told us about mana burn going away long enough before 2010 actually came out that by the time it does the fanboy rage will have subsided.

In general, I find most of these changes to be stupid (especially the likelink and deathtouch ones), but only combat damage not going on the stack actually pisses me off. This is the first time I've ever agreed with the "they're dumbing down the game" crowd.

They're also making it so mana empties at the end of every step instead of every phase (apparently because new players don't know the difference between steps and phases). This makes Radha very, very sad.

edited 27th Jun '09 4:52:52 AM by Nyktos

I think the new rule changes are a bit weird, but I'm sure we'll get used to them soon enough.

Anyway, I'd like to discuss deck-building strategy.

I managed to find a few decent cards in my old stash, and I was able to put together a red, white, and blue (this is where I would make a "USA-themed" joke if I could think of one) burn/control deck that centers around the card Flame Burst.

Here's the layout of the deck:

7x Plains

6x Island

8x Mountain

2x Mirrodin's Core

1x Calciform Pools

3x Flame Burst

3x Pardic Firecat

2x Grab the Reins

1x Sulfurous Blast

1x Hell's Thunder

2x Akrasan Squire

3x Sighted-Caste Sorceror

2x Cancel

2x Dizzy Spell

1x Cumber Stone

1x Scepter of Insight

2x Fieldmist Borderpost

3x Boros Recruit

1x Rise of the Hobgoblins

2x Intimidation Bolt

1x Ardent Plea

1x Wall of Denial

1x Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer

2x Offering to Asha

2x Crystallization

So, what do you think? I've played it a couple of times before, and so far, I think it's pretty decent. I'm open to suggestions if you like.

edited 27th Jun '09 1:03:39 PM by itsmeyouidiot

I've read MaRo's column for a long time and I can tell you the reason they probably did that was because play was both a verb (I played this spell) and a noun (This creature is in play) that were rather unrelated.

As for your deck, what's Dizzy Spell in there for? It's a pretty bad spell unless you have something to search for.

Dizzy spell's there mainly 'cause I ran out of counterspell cards, and it's useful for weakening creature cards. I could put in something better, if I actually had any potentially useful blue cards.

I have a deck where being at 0 life is a win condition...

Platinum angel

Magus of the Mirror

My brother refuses to play gainst me anymore.

plus Fact or Fiction + Holistic Wisdom + Radiate Can kill just about anything in a good combo deck.

edited 30th Jun '09 6:28:58 AM by Lanceleoghauni

Okay, here's my favorite deck. It's highlander (only one of each card besides basic land), and every card name begins with S. And I have green in there without any forests.

Black

Sadistic Glee
Sengir Autocrat
Sengir Nosferatu
Shade’s Form
Skeletal Vampire
Stronghold Assassin
Shriveling Rot
Silent Specter
Spirit of the Night

Green

Saproling Symbiosis
Savage Thallid
Scion of the Wild
Seedborn Muse
Sekki, Season’s Guide
Selesnya Guildmage
Spitting Image
Spowersower Thallid
Sporoloth Ancient
Sprout Swarm
Squirrel Nest
Symbiotic Wurm

Green/Black

Savra, Queen of the Golgari
Shambling Shell

Artifacts

Sarpadian Empires, Vol VII
Sculpting Steel
Smokestack
Skull Catapult
Serpent Generator
Spawning Pit
Soul Foundry
Summoning Station
Sword of Kaldra
Sword of Ice and Fire
Sword of Light and Shadow
Stuffy Doll
Staff of Domination

Lands

8x Swamp
Spawning Pool
Snow-Covered Swamp
Sungrass Prairie
Selesnya Sanctuary
Selesnya Signet
Shimmering Grotto
Shivan Oasis
Simic Growth Chamber
Simic Signet
Skyshroud Forest
Slippery Karst
Snow-Covered Forest
Springjack Pasture
Spectral Searchlight
Saltcrusted Steppe
Sapseep Forest

My favorite part is how well the deck works with so many token generators and cards that work well with them.

edited 30th Jun '09 10:49:07 PM by JohnADreams

Ah, magic. My first tabletop game.

I'm a sadistic bastard with a quasi-competitive leaning, who likes to winning (the Spike archetype, although not to the Stop having Fun Guys level) as well as making interesting synergies go off.

edited 13th May '13 9:30:52 PM by Sneeb

Sounds like a timmy spike on the last one :P