That's... man. Kind of boring.
Simic you had best step it up and at least have a few creatures that actually "evolve". Even if it's gaining an evergreen keyword when they have a certain number of +1/+1 counters on them.
I really want to like this set, but it's really not very interesting to me so far.

...I wonder how the triggers stack with Graft (the old Simic mechanic)? Let's say the largest power monster has graft a 6/6, when Zegana hits does it get 6 tokens from it's 1st ability, then you can add a token from the 6/6's graft ability, giving Zegana another token (and another card to draw with its second ability)?

>>168382
That's exactly how it works.
Zegana's first ability is a replacement ability that modifies how it enters the battlefield, so it gets the counters before the Graft trigger happens. Once Zegana actually enters the battlefield, its card draw ability and the Graft ability trigger, and since you control them both you can choose their order on the stack.

Confirmed for best art in the set.
Also it has flash and evolve, for anyone interested.

Boros is back bitches.

>>168540
The answer is maybe

>>168588

Man, these type of cards really mess with my head.

It's not what I'd call a really good card because a.) Enchantment, so it can't block/deal damage on its own b.) Five Mana, c.) needs to be out a long time to really start paying dividends on the mana spent, making it more susceptible to removal. Not to mention it's a rare, so you're only going to have at best one in your deck on prerelease day.

However, it's a guaranteed creature every turn at your upkeep, at no mana cost to you those later turns. So we have a downpayment that will promise to pay dividends. It's a threat level is medium because you don't have to get rid of it right away, but if you don't get rid of it eventually it will completely overwhelm you. Enchantment hate is sometimes a rarer form of removal during prereleases, it really depends on what the other cards in the set are. It's also really, really flavorful and I'm a sucker for that.

I'm just not sure about Boros. I love the guild and while their mechanic is kinda wonky, it reminds me a LOT of Banding which is an ability that has a near and dear place in my heart. Gruul and Simic right now have some really powerful common creatures that are very difficult to overlook. And Orzhov... Orzhov isn't even in the fucking game right now. Dimir has showcased a few cute repeatable and aggressive milling strategies to give them a niche appeal, particularly at the prerelease where decks are only 40 cards and more susceptible to the strategy, but Orzhov needs to display some SERIOUS defensive cards at the common level if it's going to hope to "bleed" the other guilds to death.

>>168589
>needs to be out a long time to really start paying dividends on the mana spent
It seems like it would shine best in a proliferate deck. A Doubling Season would also make it go out of control in a hurry.

Aggro decks? Fuck aggro decks.

Hurm... Kinda lack luster. But dat flying hate.

>>168639
>Only one really useful mode
Why wizards, why the hate boner? Gruul is cuul.

>>168676
You want hate boner?

>>168677
>hexproof hate
Wonderful, hexproof is a stupid mechanic anyway.

>>168683
Why do people treat hexproof like some new problem mechanic when it has been around forever? It just got a keyword, nothing more.

>>168686
WotC started to use it more when it got keyworded and they phased out shroud.

Hexproof is more problematic nowadays because WotC keeps making more powerful creatures with it.

>Return all attacking creatures to their owner's hand.
UUGGHHH, at uncommon this is just so incredibly atrocious for limited. I mean, sure, it's finally a limited bomb that isn't Gruul, but goddamn this is just disgusting. Looking forward to that prerelease less and less. The format seems more bomb-dependent than any other before it.

>>168686
Hexproof was already pretty good. Got a 2/2 hexproof bear or something? Just Voltron that shit and you're good. But 'pretty good' doesn't mean the mechanic is in and of itself a bad one, just a powerful ability that should be used cautiously. It's when WotC begin making great creatures and then stapling on hexproof as an after thought that people begin to complain.

>When this card in your possession is destroyed by your opponent's card (either by battle or by effect) and sent to your Graveyard: Shuffle this card into the Deck. You can target 1 monster in your Graveyard; banish that target, then Special Summon 1 "Madolche" monster from your Deck, except "Madolche Hootcake". You can only use this effect of "Madolche Hootcake" once per turn.

YOOOHOHOHO

>>168726
I'm telling you, there's some sort of wombo combo shit to be had here.
I'll figure out what it is later.

So I guess they had a poll to decide the next promo card. I forget what I voted for, but this won.

>>168748
>gimmicky-ass gimmick shit
>not Chicken
My fury.
Also I guess Dark Desertapir would miss the timing, and there's no wombo combo to be had. Dang.

Weaponized health gain.

Anybody remember the Sanguine Bond + Exquisite Blood combo? Now you can pull it off in standard.

>>168767
And the price of that card went up almost inmediatly

>>168750
Who doesn't love an instant-win effect?

I'm really disappointed by Simic. I was expecting a gimmicky ass Clone Card for a gimmicky ass biovisionary deck.

>>168936
I was expecting a lot more creativity with them than we ended up with. Gatecrash overall is pretty lack luster in my opinion. I might try and build a Simic deck with their old Graft mechanic thrown in but... man evolution sure as shit doesn't feel evolution-y enough and there aren't many cards that capitalize on it and with proliferate gone, it's not too fast unless you're using a lot of fog and counters to keep your weak critters around even though a strategy involving mana ramping into fatties would be twice as quick and effective.
Gruul and Boros manage to be a shimmering light though.

>>168936
I was expecting a lot more creativity with them than we ended up with. Gatecrash overall is pretty lack luster in my opinion. I might try and build a Simic deck with their old Graft mechanic thrown in but... man evolution sure as shit doesn't feel evolution-y enough and there aren't many cards that capitalize on it and with proliferate gone, it's not too fast unless you're using a lot of fog and counters to keep your weak critters around even though a strategy involving mana ramping into fatties would be twice as quick and effective.
Gruul and Boros manage to be a shimmering light though.

>>168938
Evolution seems really powerful to some extent. There are miracles that add counters cheaply and Simic cards that take advantage of this. In fact the three mana simic manipulator seems like a fun card to take advantage of this by using it to control other monsters. Especially when combined with Bioshift the one mana sorcery that moves counters from one monster to another. I think that evolution's saving grace is the fact that counters get added when there are other creatures with both higher toughness power. Meaning that things 0/4's and 3/1
s both boost and get boosted by similarly weaker monsters. That said, not sure it works competitively but it's very powerful in casual, drafts, EDH and possibly other formats.

>>168943
I don't know, most things with Evolution start out extremely weak toughness-wise wich makes them extremely easy to get rid of. This combined with the fact that most of them aren't exactly cheap manawise and depend of other creatures with the same defects in order to improve... and are a "time" investment to boot to get them to a respectable level make me really cautious about the validity of the mechanic in any format save Casual, EDH, and maybe Modern.

Slightly unrelated, but one of my least favorite arguments for a lackluster mechanic is "it's good in limited". It's the equivalent of saying a card's good in EDH when it's horrible just about everywhere else.

I am already so pumped for the Prerelease. But I know that there will be 120 people attending. That just seems like way too many fucking people. Well, at least the prizes will be appropriately beefy, I guess. We were 83 people for RtR and I got 6 boosters just for placing 11th. Still. Way too many people. I can already feel the headache from the noise and bad air.

>>168949
Make sure to sign up early! I'll be doing that today, we have a small shop but every prerelease is still pretty packed.

>LIMITED TIER LIST
>BOROS TOO STRONK
>Gruul
>Simic
>Orzhov
>lolDimir

>>168954
I signed up two weeks ago. That's how I know we'll be 120 people. Because the last seat has been taken about a week ago.

>>168954
That list is about the gist of it. Boros interestingly enough has the most variety and use for its mechanic even if it is a variation on several other pre-existing ones, while the Gruul give green and red additional combat tricks at the cost of having an 'endgame'. The Simic take forever to wind up and pitch, the Dimir appear to have lost their teeth and seem to be generic black and blue now and the Orzhov... well WotC never really has been too kind to BW.

>>168948
Usually the mechanic isn't what's lackluster it's the cards that have it. Fucking evoke is a great mechanic but if it didn't have good cards and everything was overpriced or completely niche it'd be considered lackluster.

>>168972
Eh, true enough I guess. If Extort and Evolve had anything that played off the mechanics they'd be a lot more engaging. For example something that would trigger every time you paid to extort, or like one anon suggested, getting an evergreen keyword when a creature with Evolve has a certain number of +1/+1 counters on it.

>>168972
Eh, true enough I guess. If Extort and Evolve had anything that played off the mechanics they'd be a lot more engaging. For example something that would trigger every time you paid to extort, or like one anon suggested, getting an evergreen keyword when a creature with Evolve has a certain number of +1/+1 counters on it.

>>168972
Eh, true enough I guess. If Extort and Evolve had anything that played off the mechanics they'd be a lot more engaging. For example something that would trigger every time you paid to extort, or like one anon suggested, getting an evergreen keyword when a creature with Evolve has a certain number of +1/+1 counters on it.

>>169023
evoke would have been better if Omnithopter and Memnite were in standard so you could set up extort and then just keep spending mana to just kill them directly.

Evolve needed better cards to take advantage of it's counters like the 2 drop elf. I can actually see the two drop elf being really really useful with counter miracles to be honest so on turn four you have a shit load of mana.

Goddamn I'm already hype as fuck. My sealed pool will probably be utter shit, like always, but at this point I have the skill to still make the most out of it. I'll beat those fuckers with a 4-color all-common deck if need be. I just wish the Orzhov promo could have been a little more powerful. It kinda stinks compared to the others.

before you start bitching, at least give it a look:
http://www.reddit.com/r/CasualMTG/comments/16phbr/buildaplane_the_format/

http://wiki.internationalmagicjudges.net/index.php?title=Reminders_and_suggestions_for_players_at_Prereleases

Always always always have your deck at 40 cards. Almost always have 17 lands and 23 cards. I like to run 15-17 creatures, but more people will disagree on that last point.
You want maybe 3 2 drop creatures, 4 3 drops, 5 4 drops, and 4 creatures of 5+ cost. This is a very rough curve, don't adhere too strictly to it.
In Sealed, removal and bombs are the more important than a strictly correct curve. You want to kill the other guy, and have a way to get yourself out of a mess.
When evaluating a card, instead of thinking how awesome it could be, consider how good it would be when you're losing the game, or a more average case, not the best possible scenario.

Keep in mind the guild mechanics, be careful when defending against a Gruul, Boros or Simic player with creatures you want to keep alive, all three can easily run Gruul cards and you don't want to get caught off-guard by Bloodrush. If you're playing against Dimir knock them out early, once they can get out their expensive cipher cards you're going to have a bad time. Against Orzhov don't expect them to lay around Extorting you all game, and be ready to take them out early.

Back from about 10 hours straight of Magic. Wizards did a piss-poor job at balancing the guilds. Among the Top 8 of 120 players all 8 players played Boros. It was a fucking joke.

>>169180
I don't know why you should be surprised, Boros has been a power combination since the original Ravnica. Of course they're going to cater to those colors.

>>169232
To be fair, it's REALLY hard to make RW suck and still have it be in flavor. The two colors just pair outstandingly well together.

And yes, Gatecrash was pretty lame by comparison when you stack it against RtR.

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1156

Yes this block is confirmed for having the best prerelease events in Magic history to date.

>Bloodbraid Elf and Seething Song banned in Modern
Lol. Knew that BBE was going to get it, though SS was a surprise.
>All these mad Jund players furious about their $1,000 deck being dismantled in a night

>>169250

>Reprinting shocklands twice in one set

...huh.

>>169269
You'll not see me complaining. If it means anyone we'll be able to pick up a shockland for $3 or so once they rotate out, I'm all for it. Now they'll only need to do it with fetches, as well. Though, not directly in the next block. Poor Standard probably wouldn't be able to hold itself together...

>>169245
Well, in fairness, Mark Rosewater openly admits that Gatecrash was designed for a totally different player demographic than RtR.

>>169180
It's weird because my friend said half of the top players at his store and a store he plays at was simic. He said it's a bit hard to build the deck but if you have the cards Evolution is an insane mechanic in limited.

138 people registered on the first day of open registration for our next local Prerelease. Jesus Christ, this getting fucking ridiculous!!

Also, Fuse. Looks neat. I'm excited for it. Crime//Punishment is still one of my favorite cards.

>>172189
>WotC fixing my biggest gripe with split cards
All is right in this world.

Guys, pls try populate in constructed. Pls. We worked hard on it.

>>172215
Nah dude, nah...

If they just make a 3CMC or less instant that just reads "Populate" everything would be gravy

>>172222
You do know that almost all populate spells are all already better than that, right?

>>172224
I've never seen that card... weird. That seems pretty good. Maybe a 3CMC Instant with Populate Populate?
Hell just reprint something similar to Doubling Season, but only have it affect tokens or a card that lets you populate once for each creature token you control (although that last one would be unplayably expensive)

>>172225
>or a card that lets you populate once for each creature token you control

>>172225
Parallel Lives is the one that acts like a Doubling Season for tokens only.

>>169269
>huh
Wizards has been pushing Modern hard and one of the ways to eliminate a barrier to entry would be reducing the price of the lands. Expect the fetchlands to be reprinted in the next year or so.

HA HA HA! This is sooo going ing my Kalia EDH.

Boooo-urns Wizard! Boooooooooooo-urns! This is shit!
Teysa is a crafty, conniving bitch and her old card managed to capture that perfectly. This is just another fucking bigdumb HEY GUIS COMMANDER AMIRITE COMMANDER GUYZE card. It would be fine as any card. BUT NOT FUCKING TEYSA! Such a letdown. I'm kinda mad now.
That said, I still want to pull her at the prerelease so badly. This is approaching Elesh Norn tier of limited bomb.

>>172285

Who gets the 1/1 Spirit Creature?

>>172293
Noticed that as well, does it allow for minor group hug shenanigans?

>>172293
If it doesn't say who gets it, you get it. Always.

I like this dude.

Ohohohohohohohohohoho! Gadzooks Wizards!
Looks like I've been on the silly end of your clever ruse!

My favorite guild mythic so far.

>>172606
>there will never be a card that rearranges the stack

So far Goblin Test Pilot is my favorite card in the set for some reason.

Went to the prerelease
went 3-0-2 with all of my victories being 2-0
Of course I didn't win any packs because the store I went to is shitty. (fuck Gainesville)

Managed to get a Rel which I'm going to either try and put in an Izzet deck or a "chaos" themed deck. Haven't decided, but I am bored as hell of the usual aggro/ control fare.

Also in the 2013 iPad MtG game the Bolas revenge mission is utterly bullshit on any difficulty setting.

>>172608
I will make you one day, biovisonary deck.

>>173332
after 30+ different tries nd Bolas's constant top decking 7 mana turn 3 always has the answer counterspells don't register bullshit I beat him using the shitty Mill deck I only had 2 cards unlocked for because fuck your constant card draw and tutoring asshat.

Now to order some old fashioned bulk rares and make some jank decks,

I did horribly. Chose Selesnya and ended up with Boros as secret ally, ended up splashing blue and black as well, which was surprisingly easy and consistent. Went 3-4. Most of my losses were due to bad mulligan decisions. Except the one where some insanely fast Boros/Rakdos deck just completely shat on me in the least amount of turns possible. No reason to complain, though. I pulled Reckoner and Teysa. It really was just down to me being a shitty player.

>>173364
Happens to everyone.
Get any good pulls at least?

>>173383
Reckoner, as said. That is all. I got Teysa, Trait Doctoring and Vorel of the Hull Clade x2 in my DGM packs and I got Mana Bloom in my Selesnya pack. So really, I payed for the Reckoner with all of the other packs.

>go 3-1
>hell yes reward time
>sorry anon your planeswalker points aren't aren't high enough for us to give you a prize despite qualifying for it as our store rules say, but here's a foil dated land for sticking around until 4 AM lol, thanks for the $35
I fucking hate this place

>>173387
>sorry anon your planeswalker points aren't aren't high enough for us to give you a prize
The fuck? That seems like straight-up fraud. You were ripped off. You should report that shit to Wizards. Oh, and avoid that store forever and ever.

>>173419
While that store is uber shit-tier, they did nothing wrong. The way Wizards officially handles prerelease events at retail locations is they allow 2 booster packs (outside the 6 you get to build with) per player. It's up to the store to decide how they want to distribute them.

In short; if you play and you don't get at least one booster if you win one round your store is horse shit.

>>173425
I'd say they have to at least make something like that known beforehand.

>>173387
>$35
Really? Ours cost $25 per person.

>>173474
Mine was $30
>>173332

Old shop was $25, usually had over 100 players per event, if you won at least a match you got a pack, and if you went to the midnight event you got a pre-re promo crd 100% of the time alone with a can of soda and a slice of pizza.
THAT'S how you do a prerelease.

And ya, I'm going to be making a 2 hour drive come the next set because I hate the raised prices and prize skimping here.

So a week ago I told /tg/ I was getting bored of always playing the same handfull of deck archtypes more or less (aggro, control, tribal) and I was getting sick of MtG....
So that night I shelled out $10 for 40 random bulk rares and got them in the mail:

>Red
Twist Allegiance
Mindblaze
Risky Move
Rite of Ruin
Chancellor of the Forge
Dragon Mage

>Green
Nantuko Cultivator
Unyaro Bees
Phyrexian Hydra
Quagnoth
Fresh Meat
Hidden Herd

>Black
Infernal Genesis
Gloom Surgeon
Fiend of the Shadows

>White
Oblation
Graven DominatorGlobal Ruin
March of Souls
Atalya, Samite Master
Eight-and-a-half-Tails

>Blue
Rising Waters
Possessed Aven
Riptide Entrancer
Kederekt Leviathan
Ice Cave
Captain of the Mists
Moonlace
Sand Squid
Psionic Sliver

>Artifact
Sigil of Distinction
Knowledge Pool
Myr Welder
Jar of Eyeballs
Mimic Vat

>Multicolored
Dread Slag
Clarion Ultimatum
Titanic Ultimatum
Tibor and Lumia
Yavimaya's Embrace
Reckless Assault

Am I immediately inspired? No, but there is some fun janky stuff here like I was hoping for that I can use in some DotP2013 style decks for casual play like I was hoping for.

Went to the shop and picked up 6 Dragon Maze boosters
Unloaded the following:

>Pack 1
Ruric Thar, the Unbowed

>Pack 2
Advent of the Wurm

>Pack 3
AEtherling and Maze's End

>Pack 4
Voice of Resurgence, Steam Vents, and Foil Legion's Initiative

>Pack 5
Trait Doctoring

>Pack 6
Emmara Tandris


HELL
YES

>>173618
The more I play MtG, the more and more I love jank shit. You can only play so many tourney-tier decks before you grow bored with the sheer efficiency of it all, jank is a good change of pace.

>>173753
If you get enough friends together who have a reasonable Magic collection, I definitely recommend doing a crap rare draft. Nothing better than barrelling down on an opponent with a Denizen of the Deep enchanted with Glistening Oil and a Flying Carpet activation. It really makes for the greatest and strangest games.

...WAT

>>173802
I think WotC has officially jumped the shark. This could very well be their ME3.

>>173806
>Bring back classic creature archetype
>As colossal a fuck up as ME3
How so

>>173810
Have you seen Slivers? Do you know how they're supposed to work?
Because WotC sure didn't.

>Bring back beloved property
>piss all over it
Seems like ME3 to me

Wake me when they bring back Homarids, Dwarfs, and Orcs

>>173810
Slivers look like this. They are kind of like giant blade headed snakes with one arm.

Try to figure out what might be the problem.

Does anyone in this thread play Netrunner? I've been playing both IRL and online and I like it a lot.

>>173815

Oh and of course I forget to actually SAY what the game is. It's a two player game where one person plays a corporation and one person plays a hacker. Hacker builds rigs, Corps build servers. It's really fun!

Here's a video on it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAslVfZ9p-Y

>>173814
Don't forget the fact that they have sufficiently dumbed down the design so that there's no downside in a mirror match.

fucking hexproof vs shroud all over again.

And they're all so horribly overcosted thanks to the "you control" bit, that I wouldn't even consider putting any of the revealed new ones in sliver deck. I mean compare >>173802 to Muscle or Sinew Sliver, hell even Plated Sliver.

/tg/ is the best.

>>173817
Wizards montra over the past few years seems to be "if it doesn't just tap sideways to win, we don't want it". They've been dumbing down the game for a LONG time now. Hell when was the last time we actually saw a true combo deck in standard?

>>173826
>when was the last time we actually saw a true combo deck in standard?
Errrmm.......
You do play Standard, right?