xkcd

by **Goldstein** » Sat Jan 21, 2012 12:09 pm UTC

I feel as though Innistrad is much less predictable than the sets of the previous block, probably due to the top-down design, but it's a lot of fun to draft. In limited events (draft and sealed), I find it hard to avoid going white because it just feels so powerful. The werewolves look good at a glance, but in practice I find my friends' attempts at werewolf decks to be pretty underwhelming. They're just not versatile enough in standard, and they're usually easy to control with good tempo in limited.

Double-sided cards shouldn't be any more apparent than any other - if you're using the cards in your deck, you're expected to have sleeves with opaque backs so that they can't be seen coming. If you don't want to buy sleeves, three quarters of all Innistrad packs are supposed to contain a checklist card rather than a land, which allows you to mark on what double-sided card it represents, and replace it with the appropriate creature when it hits the battlefield. It's a bit awkward, and I like to have sleeves instead.

In standard, where the current and previous block are both legal for play, it's very common to see a mix of cards from both sets. This is usually just to take advantage of the varying power levels of cards: Dismember is a great piece of removal from New Phyrexia and sees lots of play in all manner of decks, while the cycle of Titan creatures are from the core set and feature heavily in decks that want to win. In other cases, combo decks find powerful interactions between cards from different sets and use these to their advantage, such as last season's Splinter Twin/Deceiver Exarch combo that could win the game on turn four with just those two cards.

I'd advise building around a concept that you like, such as ramping up to big green creatures or sticking equipment on an Invisible Stalker, then adding supporting cards such as removal and alternate win conditions. Through playtesting, it's easy to see what cards are sitting dead in your hand most of the time, or what situations keep coming up that spoil your game plan, and then you can look for better cards for the situations that your play group throw at you.

by **mister k** » Sat Jan 21, 2012 1:26 pm UTC

The Utilitarian wrote:Bought my first new booster. It begins.

Innistrad looks like it's got some neat white options, and the whole werewolves thing would make for a neat Green/Red combination...

Two questions though: how the hell does the dual sided card mechanic work in terms of your deck (do you just get to know where those cards are?) (also I know I could normally look this up, but I'm on a limited internet access right now at work)

Secondly: Is it generally considered advantageous to build single expansion decks to take advantage of the included synergy, or is it always worth it to have the variety of options that comes from buying various expansion boosters?

God... I am such a newbie at this. It's kind of an interesting feeling to be re-entering such a complex and interesting gaming system. I have this reputation among my friends of being the strategist power game in any system I encounter, and I often am, but it's a really different feeling to be coming at this with only the basic grasp of the rules and no knowledge of the current meta and specifics.

I imagine it'd be like a 1st or 2nd ed D&D player tackling 4th.

Yes. Well it depends. The most efficienct thing you can do is buy singles of the 'best' cards for a strategy. So board sweepers like wrath of god are great in most control decks, as is mana leak. Similarly lightning bolt, etc. However, if you and your friends are just buying expansion packs... then I think it varies. When building casual decks based on random stuff you've got, the best thing one can do is build a synergistic deck. Now different sets won't necessarily go together very well, especially if they have very different themes, so you might find yourself with a bunch of commons who all work off artifacts if you end up getting scars of mirrodin, or, worse yet, poison, which won't blend terribly well with cards you get in innistrad.

by **The Utilitarian** » Sun Jan 22, 2012 8:47 am UTC

Green/White had an impressive showing in its first outing, but was made very sad by blue/black, which countered my big creatures and used black knights to attack which I couldn't shut down with my white defensive magic.

Still had a blast though. Refinement is necessary!

by **pollywog** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 4:14 am UTC

I think I might start MTGO properly now. I have an account, and I've spent about $100 on it so far, but I really would like to play more standard and there isn't that great a scene around here (that I can find in our one game shop). It seems like a good time to get in on the action, as WotC are bringing back power creep, and I now have the ability to save enough money to buy a good standard deck. I could even buy all the titans if I wanted to. I've played MTG for years now, but only ever uber-casually, so even if I start playing tournament standard, it would more be for fun and to see what I can achieve, not to win all the time and be the best player ever. I'm just not enough of a Spike.

The Utilitarian wrote:Green/White had an impressive showing in its first outing, but was made very sad by blue/black, which countered my big creatures and used black knights to attack which I couldn't shut down with my white defensive magic.

Still had a blast though. Refinement is necessary!

This is my favourite part of MTG ever. For ten years I only ever played against 3 other people, and the whole system of finding cards specifically to hose their decks, and answer their hosers to mine, got so intense that nowadays the decks are pretty much rock/paper/scissors with each other, and fail miserably against anything else. Also now I'm getting massive nostalgia for BW Clerics.

Also, I headed over to MTGSalvation to check out the spoilers for DKA, and wow they have a bad forum there. They seem to have no ability to demand at least semi accurate spelling and grammar. I know it's one of the biggest Magic related places on the net, but I think I need to keep looking for a better one.

by **rigwarl** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 2:26 pm UTC

Wizard's official website is actually a great resource (for stuff in general, but they also have a full DA image spoiler list).

by **pollywog** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 7:39 pm UTC

Yeah, I've been checking them out regularly, but I wanted something user generated. It's all good though, I just know what to steer clear of now.

by **The Utilitarian** » Tue Jan 31, 2012 11:31 pm UTC

I'm torn on whether reviewing Magic cards online is good or bad for my magic buying. Pro: I won't buy boosters just to "discover" new cards. Con: I'm more likely to see cards I want and be motivated to try to get them.

Hnng.... wallet screwed

by **Metaphysician** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 1:33 am UTC

I'm currently running a modern Goblins deck... there isn't a whole lot of Goblins in the format and I wondered if it might be because it's bad or because people just haven't started working it yet. It's a really fun deck and has some absurdly fast wins and pretty strong inevitability (I managed to win two games against a u/w control deck where he played three Wrath of Gods against me in each of them). The deck definitely needs some streamlining, and it might just be worse that R/b burn (which seems insanely strong right now due to people shocking themselves for 3-6 damage with lands every game). Goblins only cost me about 100 bucks to build, which is why I decided to go with it. I'll probably end up building the burn deck eventually if I ever have the money to.

by **headprogrammingczar** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 2:35 am UTC

Today I learned: it's possible to make a deck out of nothing but lands and still win a game.

by **The Utilitarian** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 6:32 am UTC

headprogrammingczar wrote:Today I learned: it's possible to make a deck out of nothing but lands and still win a game.

Buh?

by **phlip** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 7:28 am UTC

I know I've had my day ruined by Inkmoth Nexus and Kessig Wolf Run on many occasions... I don't think you'd be able to pull that off in a pure-land deck, though... you kinda need dudes in order to last long enough to do it.

by **mosc** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 5:53 pm UTC

pure land decks work fine if you are using an older format. There's all kinds of man-lands and effect based lands, lands that tutor other lands and lands that make tokens or any other somesuch. Do they work well? No. Not at all. But they can deal 20 damage in <10 turns.

by **Azrael001** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 6:51 pm UTC

Lost in the Woods, and 61 forests, mulligan for enchantment. Then wait them out.

Also, I've made a standard, mostly Innistrad block mono-white humans deck. It's quite fun, though I don't know how good it would be in standard. I've only played against one person, with a pretty crappy deck. The deck is here if anyone wants to take a look and or make a suggestion.

by **mosc** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 10:11 pm UTC

What's your budget? Some of the logical choices in that deck cost $10-$20 a copy, not sure what you have to work with. In general, I would recommend running more creatures. I'd target 25 creatures if you can rather than 18. If you have them/want to spend money, go with 4x champions and a least a couple hero of bladeholds. A copy or two of Elspeth can also give you a lot of options.

It's a creature overrun aggro deck at it's heart, try to stay focused on that instead of mixing in a contradictory control element of board whiping.

Especially because that deck is close to the fairly commonly plaid standard humans type of effects, I think it would struggle in standard. You don't have as many of the broken white cards in there as a competitive standard deck would have and what you're doing won't surprise any serious opponent either.

by **Azrael001** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 11:11 pm UTC

That's good to know. I was looking to avoid digging through all of my other cards, or taking things from my EDH deck, but I just might.

I still like the Wrath effect interaction with both of the angels in the deck though.

by **RetSpline** » Thu Feb 02, 2012 4:53 am UTC

After making some pretty sweet trades over the last week, I am now the proud owner of a Flooded Strand and a Breeding Pool. Those are the two color pairs I am pretty much the absolute least interested in, but I am mainly looking towards increasing the value of my collection. The same guy I got those two from still has one more Breeding Pool I'm looking to get, but I exhausted most of my good trading material that he's interested in today, so I'm going to have to look for more cards to get. Unfortunately, he and I are already far and away the most prolific traders at the very small card shop we play at. I guess if I really want to get into the trading scene I should check out some other stores.

I just checked and the next closest regular FNM is about 40 minutes away, compared to the 5 minutes of my current commute

by **headprogrammingczar** » Fri Feb 03, 2012 1:29 pm UTC

phlip wrote:I know I've had my day ruined by Inkmoth Nexus and Kessig Wolf Run on many occasions... I don't think you'd be able to pull that off in a pure-land deck, though... you kinda need dudes in order to last long enough to do it.

My deck under the spoiler. It has plenty of dudes, but ironically, the main problem I have with it is getting enough colors to activate some of the better abilities.

Spoiler:

by **Azrael001** » Fri Feb 03, 2012 5:07 pm UTC

I have never liked rare land, with few exceptions. I've always found it boring. I mentioned before not wanting to mess around with my EDH deck. I have done so. I took out blue and replaced it with red. It's here if anyone wants to take a look. It's mostly dragons and angels, with lots of Wrath, and pseudo wrath effects.

by **++$_** » Fri Feb 03, 2012 5:48 pm UTC

headprogrammingczar wrote:
phlip wrote:I know I've had my day ruined by Inkmoth Nexus and Kessig Wolf Run on many occasions... I don't think you'd be able to pull that off in a pure-land deck, though... you kinda need dudes in order to last long enough to do it.

My deck under the spoiler. It has plenty of dudes, but ironically, the main problem I have with it is getting enough colors to activate some of the better abilities.

Seems to me that the biggest problem would be only being able to play 1 land per turn. For example, after 2 turns, you can get a Mutavault going, while in another deck you could get a Grizzly Bears. But the other deck could untap on the following turn and play a second creature, whereas you have to wait at least another 2 turns to get a second creature going.

It's not mono-land, but if you haven't seen it you should look at Legacy Lands (with videos too!). It's one of my favorite decks to play, though I haven't built it in paper (it's unavoidably expensive).

by **The Utilitarian** » Mon Feb 06, 2012 6:17 pm UTC

Gotta love card types that aren't as prolific as you might expect. Good luck making use of your Locus land types! Of which there are only two

by **Goldstein** » Mon Feb 06, 2012 6:30 pm UTC

They're still more prolific than my mate expected - "I looked at putting this in, but I don't have any Locus cards."

by **The Utilitarian** » Mon Feb 06, 2012 7:51 pm UTC

Goldstein wrote:They're still more prolific than my mate expected - "I looked at putting this in, but I don't have any Locus cards."

I suppose if you had four of each of them in a deck that used a lot of colorless mana it'd be alright, but I'd hate to be that starved for color.

by **Box Boy** » Mon Feb 06, 2012 8:02 pm UTC

I'd throw in a quad of Vesuva to bring up the Locus count to twelve, if you have the cash.
They can also copy any other land in play if you're mana screwed, too, which is pretty sweet (though I'd play a pure colourless deck with them, myself)

by **The Utilitarian** » Wed Feb 08, 2012 12:24 am UTC

Box Boy wrote:I'd throw in a quad of Vesuva to bring up the Locus count to twelve, if you have the cash.
They can also copy any other land in play if you're mana screwed, too, which is pretty sweet (though I'd play a pure colourless deck with them, myself)

I've been intrigued at the idea of a purely colorless deck, but I'd be worried about the general lack of instants

by **++$_** » Wed Feb 08, 2012 3:31 am UTC

The Utilitarian wrote:
Goldstein wrote:They're still more prolific than my mate expected - "I looked at putting this in, but I don't have any Locus cards."

I suppose if you had four of each of them in a deck that used a lot of colorless mana it'd be alright, but I'd hate to be that starved for color.

Cloudpost is actually an awesome Pauper (commons only) deck.

My current list, for anyone who's interested (from the wonderful world of Magic Online where Pauper is actually a thing and there are tons of players and tournaments):

Spoiler:

The deck is a ton of fun to play, and it's one of the tier 1 Pauper archetypes. I don't know if it would do well against an ordinary casual deck or not.

by **Chen** » Wed Feb 08, 2012 4:04 pm UTC

The Utilitarian wrote:
Goldstein wrote:They're still more prolific than my mate expected - "I looked at putting this in, but I don't have any Locus cards."

I suppose if you had four of each of them in a deck that used a lot of colorless mana it'd be alright, but I'd hate to be that starved for color.

12 post (when you include Vesuva) was fairly strong in Legacy for a while. 12 post, 4 tropical islands, some shocks and fetches lets you run a pretty tight green/blue deck which lets you throw out big things like Primeval Titans or Emrakul in fairly short order. Tends to have a bad time against combo but it demolishes Agro pretty well. Its pretty strong vs control too since there are lots of threats that come out fairly quick.

by **Plasma Man** » Fri Feb 10, 2012 12:04 pm UTC

My local game shop is going to start running events in different formats over the next few months. It's normally just standard & draft (and release events), but they're going to do a modern one and a pauper one. It'll be interesting to try something new.

Random MTG question: Why is Sorin so bishonen? I don't know why I don't like it, but it bugs me.

by **The Utilitarian** » Sun Feb 12, 2012 8:48 pm UTC

So. Dark Ascension. Opinions?

To me it just seems incoherent. Way too many cards invested in hyper situational mechanics. It feels like all the parts of Innistrad I looked at and went "well, that's kind of neat but has absolutely no place in any of my decks."

There's a couple nice cards of course but the vast majority of it seems too unreliable to build on.

by **mosc** » Sun Feb 12, 2012 9:02 pm UTC

I mostly agree. There are some nice additions to Innestrad cards that should make a couple of decks the designers intended more playable. Innestrad had a couple of just generally strong cards but most of the rest of it his highly situational. It seems we're going to have to wait for the whole block to be released to really understand if a lot of it will ever be useful. Where most blocks start with a strong set playable on it's own, Innestrad started with some complimentary type cards and a whole bunch of head scratchers. Dark Ascention seems to be similar. The whole block is nuanced in a way that most previous blocks have not been. Really does a number on newer players. I've seen some royally horrible deck constructions in standard lately...

by **FearoftheDomo-Kun** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 8:15 pm UTC

Innistrad.

I really like the theme of this block, and love the return of flashback, +1000 for that. Wish they'd go a bit more bananas with it though, like other costs (sacrificing, discarding, paying life etc) for the flashback cost.

by **Azrael001** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 8:27 pm UTC

I love the theme and art for this block, and while there are a lot of finicky cards, those are the kind of card that can end up being the linchpin in a lot of decks. I like all of the graveyard play, despite my standard deck more or less ignoring it.

There seem to be a lot of ways to create an army in the wings, which pop out after a board wipe, I've been playing with that idea a bit. It might make World Slayer and Helvault work together beautifully.

by **++$_** » Tue Feb 14, 2012 6:11 am UTC

Azrael001 wrote:There seem to be a lot of ways to create an army in the wings, which pop out after a board wipe, I've been playing with that idea a bit. It might make World Slayer and Helvault work together beautifully.

Woooorldslayer!

by **Azrael001** » Tue Feb 14, 2012 6:38 am UTC

I find those comics far too enjoyable. Also I have edited the deck that I posted earlier. I think that it is better. It is here.

by **Woopate** » Tue Feb 14, 2012 9:29 am UTC

When M11 and M12 were both legal I toyed around with a Phylactry lich Argent Sphix worldslayer deck, the idea being make the worldslayer or a darksteel something the phylactry and bounce the sphinxes before they got slain. Was very expensive, and I rarely got an opportunity to equip the slayer.

by **Plasma Man** » Tue Feb 14, 2012 1:50 pm UTC

Dark Ascension hasn't grabbed me as much as Innistrad did, but I think it works OK as a development of Innistrad. If DA has a theme, it seems to be creature tokens, which is OK, but not really exciting.

Had an exciting draft game on Saturday, I'd gone red-green aggro and my opponent had gone for a practically creatureless blue-red-black milling Burning Vengeance flashback control deck. In the first game, he managed to mill most of my library, while I got him down to 2 life. He thought he'd got me beat when he played his Geralf's Mindcrusher, as I only had one weak creature in play, but next turn I used a Traitorous Blood I'd had in my hand for ages to steal the Mindcrusher and kill him with just 2 cards left in my library.

by **Jessica** » Tue Feb 14, 2012 4:58 pm UTC

undying looks good, and really nice to add to a number of decks.

But, I don't play much so I'm just happy with the art.

by **The Utilitarian** » Tue Feb 14, 2012 5:44 pm UTC

Uhg.... had my opponent come back against my red/white "Kill my own troops for fun and profit" deck by using Midnight Haunting and Lingering Souls. Nothing like having your opponent at 1 health and you at 20 only to have day of judgement come out and then next turn your opponent has like 10 1/1 spirits -_-

by **Armadillo Al** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 5:54 pm UTC

The Utilitarian wrote:Gotta love card types that aren't as prolific as you might expect. Good luck making use of your Locus land types! Of which there are only two

It's good enough that Cloudpost was banned in Modern about five months after that format (everything from 8th Edition on, basically) was created. Apparently, Wizards didn't like the fact that everyone was dropping fifteen-mana creatures on turn three.

The Utilitarian wrote:Uhg.... had my opponent come back against my red/white "Kill my own troops for fun and profit" deck by using Midnight Haunting and Lingering Souls. Nothing like having your opponent at 1 health and you at 20 only to have day of judgement come out and then next turn your opponent has like 10 1/1 spirits -_-

Yep. Lingering Souls + Drogskol Captain (1UW, 2/2 flying, other Spirits you control get +1/+1 and hexproof) was one of the cores behind the deck that Jon Finkel almost won last weekend's Pro Tour with. The Spirits have gotten alarmingly good lately, especially considering blue/white was already the best aggro color combo in the format.

by **The Utilitarian** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 8:14 pm UTC

Armadillo Al wrote:It's good enough that Cloudpost was banned in Modern about five months after that format (everything from 8th Edition on, basically) was created. Apparently, Wizards didn't like the fact that everyone was dropping fifteen-mana creatures on turn three.

Making Glimmerpost even less useful, yay

by **Xeio** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 8:16 pm UTC

The Utilitarian wrote:
Armadillo Al wrote:It's good enough that Cloudpost was banned in Modern about five months after that format (everything from 8th Edition on, basically) was created. Apparently, Wizards didn't like the fact that everyone was dropping fifteen-mana creatures on turn three.
Making Glimmerpost even less useful, yay

There's still Vesuva.

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