Magic: The Gathering Thread XXV: 3 Vorthoses barely clinging to sanity and 45 Spikes

[Personification]

Witches being witches can be fun, so long as it's you know actual horror. If it ain't horrifying it isn't really horror. It's just an adventure story dressed in Goth. But I'll look into A Gae Blank and Pitiless. It certainly sounds promising.



This is one of those things that mentally I am aware that having a more diverse cast is beneficial to society and allows people to see themselves portrayed as heroic in a narrative. Which is good and should be encouraged.

But has never actually increased or decreased my enjoyment of a story. Who people are in a relationship with is pretty much the least interesting part of a character. We're reading about terrifying monsters ripping apart townsfolk, cursing people into madness, and the very depths of the blackest part of the human psyche. I just never get excited about who people are interested in romantically.

"Sisters" from the side story has some legitimate horror to it, and is the witchiest story so far. As to your later point, I think that's fine. The real problem is people who for some reason enjoy something less purely because it contains representation. Tell me what you think of the SOI story.

[Personification]

I used to play magic the gathering when I was younger, is this game still popular?

Yes. Very. It is, I believe, responsible for the plurality of Hasbro's profits. Welcome back. When did you play?

[Man_Over_Game]

But I don't really know how to comment on the set really. Most of the stuff I tend to think is fun and thematic tends to gets beat pretty easily by actually well crafted decks.

From my experience, with the current set and the last two (Shadows Over Innistrad, Eldritch Moon), the cards themselves are pretty darn weak, they just happen to use a lot of really fun and interesting mechanics to play with that set up excellent themes.

The best way to play the set is probably with drafts. Innistrad stuff seems to encourage interactivity and slow-building combos that are easy to predict and interfere with, which is terrible for competition but makes for an excellent time.

[Dienekes]

"Sisters" from the side story has some legitimate horror to it, and is the witchiest story so far. As to your later point, I think that's fine. The real problem is people who for some reason enjoy something less purely because it contains representation. Tell me what you think of the SOI story.

Not bad, some moments where you can feel a bit of terror when it switches to the perspective of the humans. There is some real horror in having one's mind corrupted that I don't think the author did as well a job with as they could have. But I enjoyed it.

From my experience, with the current set and the last two (Shadows Over Innistrad, Eldritch Moon), the cards themselves are pretty darn weak, they just happen to use a lot of really fun and interesting mechanics to play with that set up excellent themes.

The best way to play the set is probably with drafts. Innistrad stuff seems to encourage interactivity and slow-building combos that are easy to predict and interfere with, which is terrible for competition but makes for an excellent time.

I'm actually doing pretty well right now. Admittedly part of that is I decided early on to do werewolves, because Hell yeah. Werewolves. Turn into monsters and destroy things. And then I got lucky enough to crack two Tovolars with my packs.

And repeated card draw is incredibly powerful and strangely undercosted.

[noob]

Not bad, some moments where you can feel a bit of terror when it switches to the perspective of the humans. There is some real horror in having one's mind corrupted that I don't think the author did as well a job with as they could have. But I enjoyed it.



I'm actually doing pretty well right now. Admittedly part of that is I decided early on to do werewolves, because Hell yeah. Werewolves. Turn into monsters and destroy things. And then I got lucky enough to crack two Tovolars with my packs.

And repeated card draw is incredibly powerful and strangely undercosted.

The two costs for repeated card draw I remember(because those were repeated card draw the opponent could barely interact with) are 2 mana to set up then 2 mana per card drawn and 4 mana to set up then 1 mana per card drawn.(both of those were conditional but the conditions were quite trivial)
In the two cases before it starts becoming an advantage relatively to the paid mana you need to draw something like 3 cards.
Maybe imnistrad had cheaper than that repeated card draw like life loss card draw(such as "attack with this creature then lose 1 life and draw 1 card").

[Emmerlaus]

It was very interesting to see how this?

You wanna see the decklist?

https://scryfall.com/@emmerlaus/deck...2-5f509e8987a1

There is a few cards that are there because they fit the theme rather then have a beautiful card inside the art. For exemple, Saving Grace show someone using " the Princess hold ", fitting a charming Prince. Fighter Class is also there to simply give Jarred the warrior a DND class, The same way as equipements dont have to follow that rule because they are well, items. Alpha Autority fit the Prince CHarming theme as well, he IS an alpha male LOL

I think only Khalni Ambush dont fit the theme but there is a p.... cat in it so I give it a pass lol As for Reap The Past, yeah, its the only one who I cant really justify it but I love the art.

But still, every creature in the 99 is a girl.

EDIT: I posted that on the very first page on this thread, that was a long time ago. Trostiani didnt even made the final cut LOL

[Giggling Ghast]

I’ve been playing some Magic on my iPhone via the Arena app because I wanted to get in on that sweet Innistrad action and I’ve noticed that opponents tend to give up really easily? Like, I know I got some good draws, but we’re on turn 7 or 8. Put some faith in the Heart of the Cards, guy.

[Dienekes]

I’ve been playing some Magic on my iPhone via the Arena map because I wanted to get in on that sweet Innistrad action and I’ve noticed that opponents tend to give up really easily? Like, I know I got some good draws, but we’re on turn 7 or 8. Put some faith in the Heart of the Cards, guy.

I mean, sometimes I know I don't have any answers in my deck, so why delay the inevitable?

Or other times I'm playing against a control player and why would I keep playing a game that's not fun?

[Giggling Ghast]

I’m playing White Weenie. I know that Turn 1 Sanctuary Cat has devastated your whole strategy, but come on. Give it a couple minutes and I’m sure you’ll pull a Grizzly Bear.

[Dienekes]

I’m playing White Weenie. I know that Turn 1 Sanctuary Cat has devastated your whole strategy, but come on. Give it a few minutes and I’m sure you’ll pull a Grizzly Bear.

Alright, I got nothing for that.

[noob]

I’m playing White Weenie. I know that Turn 1 Sanctuary Cat has devastated your whole strategy, but come on. Give it a couple minutes and I’m sure you’ll pull a Grizzly Bear.

I can guarantee that turn 1 sanctuary cat is an absolutely terrifying prospect: a well made white deck can reliably put on the battlefield a stronger creature or use a cool mass boost/single target boost each turn until the opponent dies.
So if a white beatdown deck turn 1 already have a creature it is an huge danger worthy of surrendering immediately.
Unless you have a green deck but that is cheating.

[Tvtyrant]

I switched over to Premodern recently, I'm having a good time. I have brewed up a few decks, my latest one is shockingly good.

https://deckstats.net/deck-22909323-...dac1f5fce.html

Spoiler

Show

//Main
3 Abduction
4 Academy Researchers
4 Altar of Dementia
2 Armadillo Cloak
4 Counterspell
3 Frantic Search
4 Intuition
4 Iridescent Drake
17 Island
4 Mental Note
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Mythic Proportions
3 Portent

//Sideboard
4 Cursed Totem
3 Energy Flux
4 Overburden
4 Phyrexian Furnace

It can either be a very aggressive turn 3 10/10 trample deck or an infinite combo deck, and does decent as a control deck.

[Giggling Ghast]

Fun fact: did you know that if you equip Harvesttide Sentry with the Hedgewitch’s Mask and have at least two other creatures with abilities in play (thus triggering the Sentry’s Coven power), you have a 4/2 attacker that’s unblockable except by monsters with three power?

Certainly that’s of limited usefulness, but it did help me beat a Lifeline deck this afternoon. (Nearly everyone on Arena is playing pre-made Lifeline decks right now. It’s pretty strong.)

[Androgeus]

have at least two other creatures with abilities in play (thus triggering the Sentry’s Coven power)

You know Coven cares about power as in “power/toughness” power and not abilities right?

[Giggling Ghast]

Oh really? I guess I bumbled into that win, then.

[enderlord99]

Midrange Decks are, by some metrics, a subcategory of Control Deck.

For example...

Control Decks are (by some definition) ones that aim to deprive your opponents of a particular resource (which one depending on the style of Control Deck you're playing) and thus prevent them from taking proper advantage of their other resources. In the case of Taxes or Land Destruction or to some extent Traditional Control, that resource is mana. In the case of Discard or Hatebears or Lantern Control, that resource is cards. In the case of Midrange, that resource is their life total.

Does this seem accurate? It feels intuitively reasonable to me, but I'm not a good judge of such things.

[Androgeus]

Midrange Decks are, by some metrics, a subcategory of Control Deck.

For example...

Control Decks are (by some definition) ones that aim to deprive your opponents of a particular resource (which one depending on the style of Control Deck you're playing) and thus prevent them from taking proper advantage of their other resources. In the case of Taxes or Land Destruction or to some extent Traditional Control, that resource is mana. In the case of Discard or Hatebears or Lantern Control, that resource is cards. In the case of Midrange, that resource is their life total.

Does this seem accurate? It feels intuitively reasonable to me, but I'm not a good judge of such things.

I think that definition is to broad and would end up classifying any aggro deck as control (arguably an aggro deck is trying to control the opponent by depriving them of turns). What a midrange deck is is a deck that tries to switch from a early control game to aggro around turn 4-5

[enderlord99]

Ah. I suppose one that switches gears on turns 6-8 is "post-midrange" and one that switches over on 9-12 is "midrange-control" then?

Obviously, anything that changes gears later than that is just "a control deck with a win condition"

[Techwarrior]

You're missing the real difference between control and midrange decks.

Midrange as an archetype is looking to make valuable trades and then play a hyper efficient threat that kills their opponent while invalidating as many of their cards as possible. Think of this classic play pattern.

Thoghtseize you. Cast Tarmogoyf. Cast Liliana of the Veil.

When this was a relevant play pattern, Goyf invalidated all ground creatures, either holding the fort for Liliana to generate value, or putting your opponent under the gun while Liliana limited their resources. Either way, most of your opponents cards and resources don't do anything anymore.

Midrange cards generally include a lot of planeswalkers and EtB or value creatures like Bonecrusher Giant.

--

Control meanwhile, is looking to efficiently trade card for card while they look to get to a late game where they have a full grip of cards and their opponent has none. Control as an archetype typically doesn't need to play creatures or win conditions because by the time they're trying to win the game, nothing their opponent can do is relevant anymore. Control doesn't win because snapcaster chipped in for 2 for 10 turns. Control wins because Jace tMS has them brainstorming every turn.

Also, most control decks don't care how much mana their opponent has in play once they get online, so I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that they want to deny mana.

--

The third archetype you're describing is Prison. Prison decks look to lock your opponent from doing something. If the prison effect doesn't matter to the opponent (i.e. Codex Shredder vs Dredge), then the deck fails to function. Typically these archetypes play multiple methods of locking the opponent out and have ways to find them. Similar to control, once they get to their endgame they are difficult to beat. It's very important to differentiate the two styles though, as a prison deck looks to make every card in your opponent's deck not function, while a control deck looks to be able to counter or remove every card their opponent plays.

Hatebears, Taxes, Land Destruction, and Ensnaring Bridge decks are all prison decks.

--

Now, the reason I bring this up is because a lot of decks now do a bit of blending archetypes and even more than that players tend to throw archetype names around inappropriately. Most control decks need some amount of midrange cards to stabilize with and get to their endgame for instance. A lot of midrange and prison decks play efficient removal or counters to help them survive early turns or disrupt combo decks before their big thing hits the board.

[Amidus Drexel]

I think there are a lot of different ways to approach classifying decks (and what role a deck takes can depend on the matchup), but I tend to do it like this:

Aggro decks are mostly concerned with ending the game. If you're "the aggro deck" in a particular MU, your goal is to kill your opponent before they can get their primary gameplan online. Here you tend to see efficient creatures and tempo plays (ones that might be card-negative or card-neutral, but "trade up" on mana or make your opponent play inefficiently or slowly).

Control decks are mostly concerned with not dying. If you're "the control deck" in a particular MU, your goal is to stay alive long enough to bring your more powerful cards to bear against your opponent. Here you tend to see spells that generate lots of value (like planeswalkers, man-lands, sweepers, cantrips, etc.) and cards that trade at 2-for-1 or better.

Midrange decks are usually designed to hit a sweet spot between the two archetypes - against fast decks, they want to play a control game, trading 1-for-1 early so they can slow the game down and use their high-value cards against their fast opponent's (usually) individually weak cards. Against slow decks, they want to play an aggressive game, using disruptive cards to protect their efficient threats to apply pressure quickly, and land their high-value cards after their slower opponent has spent resources dealing with their early threats.

--
Decks can switch roles based on the MU, too. Burn is typically an aggro deck, but against very fast decks, it has to play more of a controlling role (e.g. vs. infect, hammer, elves, etc.). Old-school Mardu Pyromancers was usually a control/prison deck trying to grind out the long game, but there were MUs (especially vs. Tron and blue-based control decks) where it needed to land prison pieces and win quickly instead.

[Giggling Ghast]

So based on the ads I’m now seeing, Olivia Voldaren’s Big Fat Vampire Wedding is going ahead.

[Amechra]

So based on the ads I’m now seeing, Olivia Voldaren’s Big Fat Vampire Wedding is going ahead.

"If you go to vampire class, I'll let you marry anyone you want, OK?"

[Dienekes]

So how’s everyone liking the new standard?

Enjoying the lack of Eldraine. But gotta say, for The Werewolf set, I’m a bit disappointed that I seem to be the only one playing werewolves. Though looking at my win rate I can’t say I blame everyone else.

[Man_Over_Game]

So how’s everyone liking the new standard?

Enjoying the lack of Eldraine. But gotta say, for The Werewolf set, I’m a bit disappointed that I seem to be the only one playing werewolves. Though looking at my win rate I can’t say I blame everyone else.

I agree, the last set felt really weak.

I think WotC is taking a note from 5e and is trying to appeal to newer players, which means fewer good "competitive" effects. The shift from Hexproof to Ward, normal zombies to Decayed, Foretell instead of kickers, are all examples of that. The game feels like it's becoming more interactive, more predictable (and, personally, more fun). But that also means it's getting weaker.

It doesn't bode well for those of us who already have stacks of good cards, although that's less of a priority to me than most, I think.

[noob]

I agree, the last set felt really weak.

I think WotC is taking a note from 5e and is trying to appeal to newer players, which means fewer good "competitive" effects. The shift from Hexproof to Ward, normal zombies to Decayed, Foretell instead of kickers, are all examples of that. The game feels like it's becoming more interactive, more predictable (and, personally, more fun). But that also means it's getting weaker.

It doesn't bode well for those of us who already have stacks of good cards, although that's less of a priority to me than most, I think.

arguably stuff like "ward 10" is going to often be stronger than hexproof until we get cards that allows bypass ward efficiently and for cheap (as there is for hexproof)

[Binks]

I agree, the last set felt really weak.

I think WotC is taking a note from 5e and is trying to appeal to newer players, which means fewer good "competitive" effects. The shift from Hexproof to Ward, normal zombies to Decayed, Foretell instead of kickers, are all examples of that. The game feels like it's becoming more interactive, more predictable (and, personally, more fun). But that also means it's getting weaker.

It doesn't bode well for those of us who already have stacks of good cards, although that's less of a priority to me than most, I think.

Hexproof still exists, and is still regularly used. Midnight Hunt has a perfectly normal amount of Hexproof (2 creatures, 1 other card, which matches up with a random selection of sets going back to when it was introduced), it's always been a rare effect. Adding Ward just lets them print weaker (ish) Hexproof more frequently, but they're clearly not getting rid of the effect.

Rosewater has already confirmed that Decayed is a thing for right now, not a permanent change. It's a new tool they added, but they're clearly not afraid of printing standard zombie tokens since they literally did that last set.

Foretell and Kicker are completely unrelated mechanics. Did you mean a different keyword? Because they don't even have much to do with one another (no more than most mechanics have to do with Kicker)

[Amechra]

A bit of a weird question, but... what are people's favorite characters we haven't gotten a card for yet? I'm fond of Matoc the lavamancer and Cevraya the Golgari Shaman.

[Man_Over_Game]

arguably stuff like "ward 10" is going to often be stronger than hexproof until we get cards that allows bypass ward efficiently and for cheap (as there is for hexproof)

Counter-counters work. If you have an ability that says that "Spells can't be countered", it applies to warded creatures since that's how they get rid of those effects (as opposed to Hexproof's true avoidance).

Also, I'm not sure what works on Hexproof that doesn't work on Ward, since they both use similar "Target" language, and I doubt they'll scale things up to Ward 10 very often, most of what I see is Ward 2.

Hexproof still exists, and is still regularly used. Midnight Hunt has a perfectly normal amount of Hexproof (2 creatures, 1 other card, which matches up with a random selection of sets going back to when it was introduced), it's always been a rare effect. Adding Ward just lets them print weaker (ish) Hexproof more frequently, but they're clearly not getting rid of the effect.

Rosewater has already confirmed that Decayed is a thing for right now, not a permanent change. It's a new tool they added, but they're clearly not afraid of printing standard zombie tokens since they literally did that last set.

Foretell and Kicker are completely unrelated mechanics. Did you mean a different keyword? Because they don't even have much to do with one another (no more than most mechanics have to do with Kicker)

I don't necessarily mean that things are fully getting replaced, just a trend that seems very consistent. The vampires from this set, for instance, combo by dealing minor amounts of damage to you before playing cards, so it's incredibly telegraphed, even for newer players, and there are very few high damage combos you can pull off with abilities alone. You have to play around normal combat if you want to win, with most of your strategies laid bare, despite being a deck that leverages direct damage regularly.

Werewolves, too, utilize a mechanic that your opponent can directly interact with by transforming them back by changing the number of cards you play. Even Humans can be meddled with by removing one of their pieces in their Coven setup.

Given, that's all within the last set, but the previous sets have similar schemes that promote interactivity with weaker cards.

As for Foretell and Kicker, I was referring to the idea of "Casting a spell in a more expensive way". Kicker does it through mana, a hard-to-change mechanic and they're usually ETB, so it's not really anything your opponent can do anything about. Foretell, on the other hand, has you pay a cost sooner to cast a telegraphed spell later, like a better version of Suspend. Kicker spends mana, Foretell costs time and surprise, but both essentially fill a similar goal of "Do this thing at a higher cost for a better effect", one just happens to be easier for your opponent to play around.

[enderlord99]

Also, I'm not sure what works on Hexproof that doesn't work on Ward

These seven

[Man_Over_Game]

These seven

Ah, duh, for some reason I thought there was some kind of weird rules interaction that worked around it, but you're right. Thank you.