Magic: The Gathering (Spoiler-free)

AKA; "Davriel's Withering is getting fixed".

Apparently the Trickery decks were really obnoxious in Historic, and losing Memory Lapse should hit the Jeskai Control decks that seem so obnoxious.

Sorry to ask a basic question but how do midrange decks work? I've been trying to research them but I can't really wrap my head around it from the answers I find.

This [1] is a fairly concise explanation with a couple of examples. It is a natural result of much more powerful and reliable creatures, and more flexible cards in general, blending aggro and control by focusing on creatures and planeswalkers. It uses moderate sized, powerful creatures that can overpower typical aggro critters, while hitting the board much faster than the finishers in a combo or control deck. Cheaper cards are focused on early interaction, rarely counterspells. The combination of difficult to remove creatures, planeswalkers, and some mixture of removal and destruction allows midrange to pressure and either outrace or knock components out of combo, sandbag aggro long enough to run it out of gas, and force control onto the backfoot via pressure to prevent it from stabilizing. At least when built correctly.

I've recently analyzed various lorewise philosophies of the colors, and I came to an interesting inference that Green, through its focus on tradition, stability, and stubbornness, might quite possibly be the largest propagator of environmental threats in the entire MTG lore.

We've gotten some Magic stories that don't seem tied to any particular set yesterday and today.

Not for a Stranger, by Alison Lührs

A Garden of Flesh, by Lora Gray

Could you elaborate on that? It sounds interesting.

Well, it's not like the in-game lore addressed it at any point, but I believe it's entirely possible. When not a luddite, Green is a reactionary - it opposes change. And the primary reason why our modern world still hasn't put much effort into resolving environmental issues, is that the people fear they will lose their comfort, stability, and what they know by accepting these changes, which they deem unneccessary.

Edited by AoeAbility on May 3rd 2022 at 5:34:45 AM

Aren't interdependence and valuing nature also Green traits?

Also, to say that Green will destroy nature by being reactionary would require it to be reactionary in a very selective way- allowing for changes that create environmentally destructive systems, then becoming reactionary enough to want to preserve those systems.

I could see something like that as a result of being short-sighted or misinformed on what damages the environment more.

So, here's a random silly question. I was watching Oxventure's MTG D&D event (where the DM decides what will happen by drawing from a Commander deck, which frankly sounds like a really amazing way to play) and they made a pun about ones of the players being a "plains walker" (as in, a person who stomps across flat lands really well).

And I thought "there's no way Wizards hasn't made that pun before," especially given that Plains are a thing in the game. It sounds like exactly the sort of thing they would put on a Goblin card, for one. So, yeah, silly question, but has that pun come up in Magic before?

Edited by KnownUnknown on Jun 10th 2022 at 2:18:40 AM

Well, Plainswalk (can't be blocked if the defending player controls a plains) was an actual ability for a while, though it wasn't a pun. I was hoping that there'd be an Un-set card that goes there, but it seems that there isn't.

Edited by Durazno on Jun 10th 2022 at 4:33:37 AM

As a sort of related note I actually have a system for using Magic cards to come up with adventures that I got off a Tumblr post the better part of a decade ago that I cannot find.

What you do is, you divide your spare cards into four main groups: lands, creatures, artifacts and Everything Else. Then you shuffle each pile. You draw a land for the location of the adventure, a creature for a key character or monster, an artifact for the reward or other important item and one from the remaining pile to get a plot element.

Emulating this by hitting the random card button on Gatherer, using the first example of each type:

• Sonic Assault
• Butcher's Cleaver
• Baithook Angler/Hook-Haunt Drifter
• Jwar Isle Refuge

So, what we have here is an island village, a ghost, a cleaver and a deadly sound - which sounds to me like a murder mystery with more banshees!

I had a similar system, which would call for different combinations of types to resolve events. Honestly, it was a real mess - I could probably duck back into it sometime and make something workable...

I was thinking something similar. If you draw a land, you can put it aside and then "socket" creatures / enchantments / etc into them for future encounters / areas.

It might cut down on the inherent unpredictability of the idea, but I would probably end up treating a "hand" of cards like a tableau of options - with the caveat that you have to use all of the cards you have before being able to draw another tableau.

Watching Oxbox's adventure, I loved it but they just kind of jumped into it and didn't have a ready answer for how certain things might translate from one game to another.

Hey so, what do you guys think of Ancient Copper Dragon?

A couple MTG content creators were kind of freaking out about it during preview season.

Have any of you played with it / against it yet?

Strong, just like Old Gnawbone. Commander all-star, alongside the white and blue ones, but I'm not sure it'll actually see much play in Standard.

I feel like this whole plan unfolds differently depending on whether you're actually using a proper, theoretically playable deck, the way Johnny does, or just a selection of Magic cards.

Like, part of the problem with a proper deck is that the land density is quite high at 40%, which - even if you're careful to only pick lands that aesthetically match what you want to do, like filling it with Ravnica lands for Sharn - still means that you need to go for location shifts on a regular basis, which may not make sense (c.f. Johnny's "you open a door in this temple and find a swamp" incident). At minimum, I would supplement the rule about using everything in your hand with the option to discard and redraw when you're down to just lands.

That problem goes away if you use a cultivated but non-playable selection, which would also be more flexible in play because you don't need to worry about mana colours or synergies and can just put in the stuff you think is cool...but that also means it's a bastard to keep its size under control, because you're constantly going "famous elf swordmaster? yes please" (my adventure-building setup currently takes up two bundle boxes and that's after recent culling).

The Baldur's Gate cards don't ever enter Standard, fyi.

Oh yeah, forgot about that. Just a Commander all-star then.

Yeah this set is gonna be like 80% chaff

State of Design is up on the Mothership btw.

I've been calling that something like this would be in there since September last year.

Welcome to Esper control, where the win condition is your card, and you don't get to play the game after turn 4.

Lesson learned: don't cast Darien, King of Kjeldor when your opponent has a Rampaging Ferocidon on the field. You won't live to regret it.

Reminds me of dealing with a particularly staxy opponent in Commander. He had Notion Thief on board, and was preventing anyone from drawing into solutions to his boardstate.

So I resolved Consecrated Sphinx, and on the next player's turn, Staxy Boi decked out.

Curious question: how do ya'll usually build reach i.e the capability to finish the game after the initial burst of energy, into your decks?