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This post is meant to help me (and you, be welcome) vent some frustration, as well as help this community grow.

To make it interesting, try to explain at least a little bit why something bothers you.


  • Noisy pets. I hate them.

I'm talking about the cackling goblin, the obnoxious horses, the dumb dogs, the intrusive mice and whatever repeatedly makes any sound.

I mean, it's a fun addition at first, but it gets old quickly. And whenever Someone gets some damage, or something else of minor importance happens, it gets commented by not more than 3 (?) sound reactions. I think I heard all of them a few thousand times by now. It's just annoying.

Sadly, the only way to mute them for good is to mute all opponent's text and image emotes, basically shutting off communication. Which has it's own merit, but it's a different thing. Why combine both in one control?

So sometimes I cruise on everything off to have more peace of mind. When I feel more open, I enable reactions again, but manually mute every opponent who has a pet which cannot behave. Sorry bros. If you want to be heard, make this useless thing shut up.


  • Decks which require you to react on dozens of triggers per round. Like 0-cost artifact spam, lifegain frenzy, foodcat sacrificers.

It's just so tedious. And some people seem to do it just for the fun of it, without any impact on the game.

Like when the Scurry Oak starts growing, I have a Ritual of Soot in Hand, but still want to use my remaining mana in their end step. I may have to click through hundreds of triggers just to wipe it all away whenever they feel they spammed enough.


  • One trick shows.

Talking about Dualcaster Mage, Minion of the Mighty, some decks around Colossal Hammer. I mean, it's nice you can make these decks which can kill you on round 2 or so (but fall apart instantly when they don't), just in principle. But in common play, it's just a boring waste of time. I know these decks exist, cool. I'm pretty sure you just copied it from someone else or the internet, wow. Okay, you won and the only thing good about it is that I don't have to shuffle physical cards afterwards. Now get lost.


  • Fast decks in general.

I'm aware they are necessary to keep the lategame horrors in check, but meh. Why do I put 60 cards together if I only get to see 10, and to play 2?

To me, it smells like bad game design that some strategies revolve around making your opponent unable to play (also looking at discard, counter and other locks). Again, in principle it is amazing that MTG has this flexibility and variety. But does it make for interesting and fun matches for both sides? I much prefer games which have some back and forth, not one steamrolling the other.


  • Uncreative decks.

Such wow, 4 copies of each elf/goblin/whatever, which everyone else plays too. Generic UR wizards, or Boros cats with Goblin Bombardment. Seen them a hundred times, mostly losing to them. I guess there's the crux; they are so strong you can hardly play anything else. Which ironically makes the aforementioned flexibility and variety of this originally amazing game self defeating, resulting in stale repetition.


  • Overpowered / too cheap cards

Did the reanimators really need an upgrade in the form of a 2-mana Persist? Or lifegain the Ocelot Pride? Both were already strong and popular before these were added. I also consider Sheoldred's Edict one such culprit. Just a few years ago, I (and many others) were playing Fleshbag Marauder, a creature which has "on enter: each player sacrifices a creature" or something. Now it's a 2-mana instant with more flexibility and precision. I think it just leads to a race to the bottom, where games are decided by whoever drew their winning solution first (we give you 3 turns to make that happen). Again, I very much like that something like this is possible, but it should not be so common that it displaces other strategies, which could make for more interesting and more fun games, for both sides.


This got longer than I anticipated. Feel free to add your own thoughts independent from mine, or cheese to my whine.

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It’s happening! Netflix’s MAGIC: THE GATHERING animated series is now in production from showrunner Terry Matalas in partnership with Hasbro Entertainment and Wizards of the Coast. #GeekedWeek

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For the unaware, there is a thing people do at Dragon Con (and possibly other conventions) called Swag and Seek where people make trinkets and leave them around the convention for people to take. This is probably the coolest one I found this year.

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A shower thought which applies not specifically to MTG, as it would obviously be a different game.

What problem does this idea try to solve?

Balancing. It is hard to balance every card during design phase (or even impossible, as can be shown), which results in some overpowered cards which make the game less fair.

How?

Supply and demand. A card which is played often (by many players, in many games) has it's mana cost increased slightly. A card which is played rarely becomes cheaper.

Implications

This is probably not feasible with most mana costs sitting in the 1-digit-range. We can't make a 2-cost card "slightly" cheaper. So we would either need a mana system which works with decimals (e.g. 3.1415 CMC), or raise the integer system to a higher plateau (e.g. 314 CMC)

It's also only contemplable in digital versions, where a server can monitor every card drop, and adjust costs accordingly.

A big drawback is that your deck's costs can change over night (or even between consecutive games), forcing players to edit their decks more frequently. A partial solution could be a notification system, and/or scheduling the recalculations to a slower frequency, like once per week or once per month.

A big advantage is that we now have an impartial Big Brother watching the balancing. Humans can err, crowds and echo chambers even more so. When people complain about an imbalanced card, is their cause justified or is it just a small but loud minority? Monitoring the cold hard data seems like a better way, and automated problem solving likewise.

What are your thoughts on this idea? Do you know another TCG which applies something similar?

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The deck (60 cards, Historic) is based around the 'perpetually' keyword. It also involves [[Rusko, Clockmaker]], because I simply love that guy.

Here's an overview of the most important general cards:

  • [[Three Steps Ahead]] as a counterspell and to make copies of creatures or [[Midnight Clock]].
  • [[Test of Talents]] to thin the forest.
  • [[Saw It Coming]] because it stays when [[Midnight Clock]] cycles.
  • [[Sheoldred's Assimilator]] to recast own spells, to exile or steal cards.
  • [[Sheoldred's Edict]], because it's too good.
  • [[Tear Asunder]], same reason.
  • [[Ritual of Soot]], because why do so many people play with soot? :(
  • [[The End]] is there still forest?
  • [[Casualties of War]] to reduce biodiversity.
  • [[Druid Class]] for life and ramp. Also a sweet target to make copies.
  • [[Glarb, Calamity's Augur]] ramp and "draw", plus emergency deathtouch blocker.
  • [[Primeval Titan]] for ramp, also helps fetch enhanced lands from [[Vigorous Farming]] which were shuffled.
  • [[Doppelgang]] because we need a sink for our 50 mana.

And here are the perpetual stars:

  • [[Antique Collector]] as a cheap drop for round 2, or to enhance creatures. Note, casting it twice does nothing extra.
  • [[Absorb Energy]], another counterspell. Though I feel this is one of the weakest here.
  • [[Smogbelcher Chariot]] because giving creatures lifelink, deathtouch and menace perpetually is pretty sweet! Love to use it on [[Hall of Giants]] or [[Primeval Titan]].
  • [[Vigorous Farming]] this is a tough one. It needs some time, but boy can the rewards pile up! Today I had a single land producing 12 mana. Also a nice clone target.
  • [[Nashi, Illusion Gadgeteer]] you need to have a nice creature or sorcery in grave, then Nashi conjures a copy to your hand and gives that copy flash! When using Doppelgang on Nashi, you can conjure a copy of DG back to your hand, lol.
  • [[Blooming Cactusfolk]] we do have plenty of mana, now we need cheaper spells. It's nice to copy the cactus, and to have spells with X cost.
  • [[Discover the Formula]] for the lulz.

The idea is to play defensively, build up manabase and reduce cost on spells, enhance spells with flash and creatures with extra abilities. Worst enemy is having things exiled. [[Farewell]] or [[Ugin, Spirit Dragon]] are the absolute worst to encounter.

I think the synergy between Rusko and 'perpetually' is pretty nice. Enhance stuff, drop it in grave, draw it again to enhance it further.

It's a bit sad players have only 20 health. This setup starts to shine when the game is already over.

I was happy to find a working deck (currently around 85% ladder) which uses Glarb and Nashi. Haven't seen them played by anyone else yet. Same for [[Vigorous Farming]] and [[Blooming Cactusfolk]], underrated cards imo.

So, what are your thoughts? Have you played something similar? Have we met online? What would you change?

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Sorry if this isn't the right community, and if it isn't hopefully someone can point me in the right direction!

I am looking for some input on an EDH deck I am working on. This is the deck and it revolves around [[Gandalf the Grey]] as the commander. So lots of instants, sorceries, and prowess. Mostly aiming for Gandalf commander damage as the win condition by combining the 3 damage to each player and then putting Gandalf back on the top of the library. I played this for the first time last night and while it has a ton of potential, I definitely feel that things are missing.

Things I am looking for are:

  1. More card draw. This was without a doubt the biggest issue and I'll take any input on how to improve this!
  2. More counters. Less of an issue than card draw, but definitely was struggling against my buddy's Balen/Token deck.
  3. Any sort of board wipe. This was definitely an issue but by the time I could've really used the board wipe, I had fizzled out due to no card draw.

Hopefully folk have some input! I would definitely love to keep this on the cheaper side as this deck so far has cost me $15 for a couple boosters. Most of the deck was inherited from someone in college years ago lol.

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Magic Untapped takes a look back at Oath of the Gatewatch, the second half of the two-set BFZ block.

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What's the worst deck to ever win a Pro Tour?

While I'm pretty sure it's still this one I think Magic Pro Tour Legend Olle Rade doesn't get nearly enough credit for how innovative his deck really was.

While sure, it's an absolute pile that no one would be caught with in 2024 back in 1996 for how much Olle was doing wrong there's a lot right about this deck.

At the heart of the first win of one of the greatest Magic players to ever play and a first class Hall of Famer this deck spoke at length about how good Olle was at playing his style, metagaming and honestly outplaying everyone back in the early days.

Looks like Block Constructed got broken again and you won't believe the creatures that get it done.

Move over Bloomburrow, there are some old school monsters ready to take you back to the third ever MTG Pro Tour.

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So I went ahead and converted it into a much more janky izzet deck that gifts my playgroup symmetrical damage triggers so that even when I die, the game continues its downward spiral.

I'm still looking for cards to help me cast stuff both from not my hand, and not on my turn to maximize my commanders potential. Any suggestions are welcome.

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Wizards rebalanced 3 cards in Historic effective tomorrow, all in RW energy and related decks:

  • Galvanic Discharge now only gives you 2 energy
  • Guide of Souls now requires 4 energy to get the counters/flying
  • Ocelot Pride now costs 1W

In response to the last Arena Champs: "Making up 58% of the field at the most recent Arena Championship 6, Boros Energy demonstrated its power at one of the highest levels of competitive play."

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Personally I found Farewell and The Wandering Emperor to be some of the most un-fun cards to play against. Farewell, in my opinion, should never have been printed. Losing Farewell is a huge gift to Standard and I think that kind of card is just miserable for so many decks.

Anyone excited for the new rotation? Any older decks that are now competitive again? Any new brew ideas? I'd love to hear them!

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How did you all get on at your prereleases?

Looks to be a synergy set as despite opening Lumara, Maha, and almost one of each of the reanination spells in the set I went 2:1. =ł ah well.

Matched up against a fun deck blinking Head of the Homestead with the token class enchantment. Luckily it doesn't do well against Vren the Relentless.
On the other hand it turns out that Azure Beastbinder is a top tier threat, and synergy can beat power.

Still I can't complain about opening chase cards. What about all of you? Any fun interactions or moments from your prerelease?

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cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/15163039

Every time I think I’ve seen Magic: The Gathering’s most unexpected crossover yet – be that Hatsune Miku or the board game Clue – Wizards of the Coast figures out some way to surprise me yet again. This time it’s with a selection of cards set in the world of the Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Split across two Secret Lair drops, the latest Universes Beyond tie-in will have eight reprints and one token reskinned with references and jokes from the classic 1975 film. One drop will have five cards total, one of which is double-faced so you can choose if it’s either an African or European swallow, while the other will have three cards and a token.

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submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by Coskii@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/mtg@mtgzone.com
 
 

Of the 11 new printings of planeswalkers, 4 are in the Commander precons, 1 is normally collectible from the set, and the other 6 have the commander set symbol but aren't in the decks.

This means that if you wanted a chance to pull them yourself from packs, you must be opening collectors boosters as they are the only ones with a slot for commander cards.

It feels so scummy of them to not use special guest slot for cards like this. It's not the first time, and it doesn't only affect the planeswalkers. There are some rather pricy rats (marrow gnawer and Ink eyes) also secluded from standard pull tables this way.

Anyone know when this started? I noticed it a year or so back when there was a green commander set card, but no green commander deck, but I cannot recall the card or set.

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I've been taking a break from Magic since the beginning of Caves of Ixalan for a number of reasons, but am wanting to check out Bloomburrow. Since part of the reason I stepped away was the Play Booster changeup for drafting, I was wondering how people are feeling about it. I'd be particularly interested in reading your thoughts on it if you were a hater that has ultimately come around to the change.

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It looks like we have the official release of the limited run token set.

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I have a sales question. LOTR, I believe, is the best selling set of all time, right? And if I recall, the best selling commander set of all time is Fallout, behind that being Warhammer. Goes to imply the Marvel sets will likely be the next highest selling sets of all time, if not just behind LOTR. My question is, doesn't this show WOTC should mostly just pivot to UB as the new 'standard' with old planes as the less visited product?

While will continue to do Universes Beyond as there is an obvious audience, but the Magic in-universe sets (which we call “MIP sets”) also serve an important function. There are a lot of fans who love Magic’s IP, and having sets that we have don’t have to interface with outside partners has a lot of advantages.

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At select retailers, you may see a new kind of booster available. While Collector Boosters are perfect for fans who want all the coolest cards, and Play Boosters are built to bolster collections by being opened to play Magic, Value Boosters are a smaller, lighter booster that contain a handful of new cards any fan can enjoy—a budget-friendly way to experience Bloomburrow. Each Value Booster contains 3 commons, 2 uncommons, 1 wildcard of any rarity, and 1 card that may be a land, a traditional foil, or a Special Guests card.

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Is there any possibility that wotc could make universes beyond-free format variants to formats that currently allow them, such as commander and such? My friends and I do not wish to take part in games that ruin our immersion in such a way, when it was the mild role play and "you are a planeswalker" theming that got us into the game, and it's becoming increasingly harder to avoid universes beyond cards. As it stands there isn't a way we can really avoid them at our local gaming stores, and we're getting frustrated only being able to play amongst ourselves in a game that we used to be able to play with others. Can you please give us some hope?

We did some market research to see if there was an audience for Universe Beyond-less formats. Only 7% of respondents were interested. That’s too small a group for a format we’d officially create, but many formats (Commander being the most famous) have begun as things created by the players. Something having a groundswell of support will eventually get noticed.___

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Hi everyone,

yesterday was the release of the new Universes Beyond set and my preorder of the Starter Kit arrived today.

According to the wiki, the kit should contain codes to unlock the decks in MTG Arena. However, I couldn't find any codes and there is no mention of Assassin's Creed in Arena itself.

Is the wiki mistaken here? Will the new set be available digitally or is this a pure print set?

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Good discussion from Seth and Richard about the state of Modern in general. Talk about Nadu and The One Ring, affordability, and the future of the format.

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