I just picked up Skyrim last night ... probably a bad idea to play it directly after Uncharted 3 though ... it makes Skyrim's graphics and voice acting just terrible in comparison : (
Well, we already have a human legend, don´t we? Mikaeus is there for it. And if u look close, the green humans (non werewolves) don´t get along very weel with the white ones, they are almost another tribe.
I think the RG legendary werewolf will be on the third set, fixed on the werewolf side.
Sorin will be on his starting days, so i will place him on black too, but with more destroy powers, things like dark blade and alike.
And i think we are going to see another win the game card.
We "Know" Sorin is being printed a 3rd time time? If so I'm betting green black.
Also on Tarmo: I doubt it. It was a mistake (I concur with LE on this) the first time around and it was fine in its own set (because who played with Future sight back then anyway?). I suspect if anything there might be a slightly similar reprint with some fixes (cost vs power mainly with maybe a boost in terms of ability instead.)
Dark Confidant is more likely. Meddling Mage was reprinted so why not Bob? I still doubt it though. High power (maybe even broken with some card interactions?) deck manipulation card seems unlikely.
I'd also say nay to Deep Analysis. As much as I <3 that card it is not one you want to see in a standard meta. Talk about giving blue ridiculous draw power.
Quiet speculation could show up, though I suspect only within a set also with cards designed to neuter Burning Vengeance which is pretty hard to handle if you aren't prepared for it.
Also three nos to Deed, Vindicate and Spiritmonger all ridiculous cards that do not ever need to see the light of a reprint again imho.
I think that Tarmogoyf is nothing but a mistake for Wizards. Therefore I don't think that they will EVER print it in a normal set no matter how balanced it may look like for the set. Maybe we can have Tarmogoyf in the far future in a "From the Vaults: Mistakes" special set.
My predictions for the reprints are as follows:
1- Soul Snare & Scavenging Ooze: I wouldn't be surprised if they print these two. Especially Scavenging Ooze.
2- Decompose or Rats' Feast: Both are good cards to fight graveyard based strategies that cannot play Purify the Grave. And they're sorceries.
3- Tombfire: A perfect way to fight those Burning Vengeance decks.
4- Identity Crisis: Just put a new art on it showing a human turning into a werewolf with a "what the heck is happening to me?!" look in his eyes, and the card will be fine.
5- Syncopate: Fits well into the set with Dissipate. And it would also be good to have it in Modern.
6- Selfless Exorcist: Fits perfectly to the set both flavorwise and mechanics-wise.
7- Chainer's Edict: A man can dream, right?
8- Angel of Despair: This is "A man can dream, right?" Part II.
9- Spellweaver Volute: It's from Future Sight so it might be in the set.
10- Topple: It's a good card and helps fighting those Splinterfrights in Block and Wurmcoil Engines in Standard.
11- Bash to Bits: Why not?
12- Careful Consideration: Fits perfectly into that UG dredge deck. Fits perfectly into Burning Vengeance decks. Fits perfectly into Solar Flare. So yeah, it's a good candidate.
I also believe that we will get a Mind Control variant, a Black mass removal spell, some small to mid-sized Green creatures with Hexproof and one big vanilla Blue creature with hexproof (so that Solar Flare gets another target), a Black tutor, a Green removal spell for flyers, a Black Drain Life variant and a White Brave the Elements variant.
And my prediction for Sorin is that he will cost 3BB and he will be played in Standard and in Block as a 2-of in mainly Grixis decks. This is just a prediction of course which is based on nothing but just wild guessing.
Great articles. I loved Titan Forge from the moment I saw it. I tried to build a deck around it back when it first came out, but was never able to make it work. It was mainly built around Voltaic Key and Contagion Clasp/Engine. I did have luck with it in my Vorash Proliferate Commander deck (Titan Forge with a Doubling Season, Contagion Engine, and Voltaic Key really churns out the Titans!). I'll have to revisit the card using your decks as a template.
Great idea - we have a TON of boardgames at our home...here's the "must have" imo, I promise they're all amazing and you'll play them A LOT:
1) Polarity - Dexterity based strategy with magnets, (sometimes hard to find, thinkgeek has it)
2) Ascension - that's a good one, we love it.
3) Blokus - this is one amazing strategic game.
4) Tsuro 'game of the path' - 20 seconds to learn...amazing game. Every person that sees it wants to buy it asap.
5) Khet (diflexion is original name) - lazer based geometric strategy supreme!
Wow to both the time commitment for writing and the fact that you can create quality decks with 3 to 4 hours of play testing. Not sure I could do that with anything close to that speed.
I almost don't want to say anything, but at the risk of no article versus shorter articles, this could have easily been spread over two or three weeks with the amount of content packed into it. It really is great stuff.
Although I have gotten no response about the "Thraximundar" shirts (T_T), he has a bunch of apparel and artwork for sale on his website for the holiday geek in you:
griffenvalentine.com
Justin, if you read this, I really want one of those shirts.
@ Temok- Affinity has the ability to go poison with Inkmoth Nexus. Other than that...i think it is die roll. Just race 'em with Platings and flying doods.
@ Scion- YES!!! The Updates are in effect today. good on Wizards for doing this. I think part of the problem last time is tha it took like a month for it to happen before. This is WAAAYYYY better.
Bye Nacatl and P_Fire!! You will be missed (not really)
I think New Phyrexia was my favorite release of the year because it had the largest effect on eternal formats. Mental Misstep specifically has redefined Vintage and arguably Classic as well, followed by Innistrad for much the same reason.
I've been thinking about picking up Dominion for my wife and I, or the official D&D board game... There's really no point... she's playing Skyrim... and I'm playing Skyrim...
after the banning of the fire engine and wild nactl I also thought about playing affinity, however the lame mono withe soul sisters is been heavily plaed and I cannot see how affinity can beat that consistenly enough, perhaps going the poison route? what do u guys think?
I have pretty much settled on that as my deck for this season. I need more card draw and am now testing Baby Jace. I love control decks (aggro-control if we want to split hairs)
Nice coverage. See you this Saturday.
Storm is wrecking the DEs. I would not play a deck with less than 3 Mindbreak Traps.
@Whiffy- Affinity is pretty good. Again, the offer is on the table to test if you are ever on at the same time as me.
All of the releases* this year have in my opinion been improvements. I was not fond at all of the Zen block art for instance, but the ones from NPH, M12, Commander and ISD have been mostly brilliant. I guess Id say I enjoyed playing the commander decks the most in the beta and after, but NPH was really a widely interesting set. So my vote is for NPH.
Id love to get some board games but Id have no one to play them with sadly. My gf plays when I force her but her interest only goes so far. Exceptions: She likes Scrabble and seemed to actually enjoy Kings & Things* tm.
When you say "affinity deck from PT Philly", I'm assuming you mean Chikara Nakajima's Atog/Fling Affinity, as it's the highest placed of the bunch. And I'm also not sure what you mean by positioned.
My two face-to-face encounters with R Affinity showed me that's a quick, sturdy deck. (The W(x) Tempered decks I've seen are just a hair "slower" than their R counterparts.) It has shown up a few times on the 3-1 lists, but I haven't seen it on the 4-0 lists. Yet. And with Zoo slowed down just a touch, and Jund losing the Grove/Fire combo, I would not hesitate to take it into an SE after the 12/20 bans take effect next year. Heck, I wouldn't hesitate today, either.
with recent bannings? how is the affinaty deck from pt philly positioned? i have most of that pile, if its honestly competitive mayhaps ill hop in the modern ques.
I just picked up Skyrim last night ... probably a bad idea to play it directly after Uncharted 3 though ... it makes Skyrim's graphics and voice acting just terrible in comparison : (
but def. give Dominion a try .. lots of fun
Well, we already have a human legend, don´t we? Mikaeus is there for it. And if u look close, the green humans (non werewolves) don´t get along very weel with the white ones, they are almost another tribe.
I think the RG legendary werewolf will be on the third set, fixed on the werewolf side.
Sorin will be on his starting days, so i will place him on black too, but with more destroy powers, things like dark blade and alike.
And i think we are going to see another win the game card.
We "Know" Sorin is being printed a 3rd time time? If so I'm betting green black.
Also on Tarmo: I doubt it. It was a mistake (I concur with LE on this) the first time around and it was fine in its own set (because who played with Future sight back then anyway?). I suspect if anything there might be a slightly similar reprint with some fixes (cost vs power mainly with maybe a boost in terms of ability instead.)
Dark Confidant is more likely. Meddling Mage was reprinted so why not Bob? I still doubt it though. High power (maybe even broken with some card interactions?) deck manipulation card seems unlikely.
I'd also say nay to Deep Analysis. As much as I <3 that card it is not one you want to see in a standard meta. Talk about giving blue ridiculous draw power.
Quiet speculation could show up, though I suspect only within a set also with cards designed to neuter Burning Vengeance which is pretty hard to handle if you aren't prepared for it.
Also three nos to Deed, Vindicate and Spiritmonger all ridiculous cards that do not ever need to see the light of a reprint again imho.
I think that Tarmogoyf is nothing but a mistake for Wizards. Therefore I don't think that they will EVER print it in a normal set no matter how balanced it may look like for the set. Maybe we can have Tarmogoyf in the far future in a "From the Vaults: Mistakes" special set.
My predictions for the reprints are as follows:
1- Soul Snare & Scavenging Ooze: I wouldn't be surprised if they print these two. Especially Scavenging Ooze.
2- Decompose or Rats' Feast: Both are good cards to fight graveyard based strategies that cannot play Purify the Grave. And they're sorceries.
3- Tombfire: A perfect way to fight those Burning Vengeance decks.
4- Identity Crisis: Just put a new art on it showing a human turning into a werewolf with a "what the heck is happening to me?!" look in his eyes, and the card will be fine.
5- Syncopate: Fits well into the set with Dissipate. And it would also be good to have it in Modern.
6- Selfless Exorcist: Fits perfectly to the set both flavorwise and mechanics-wise.
7- Chainer's Edict: A man can dream, right?
8- Angel of Despair: This is "A man can dream, right?" Part II.
9- Spellweaver Volute: It's from Future Sight so it might be in the set.
10- Topple: It's a good card and helps fighting those Splinterfrights in Block and Wurmcoil Engines in Standard.
11- Bash to Bits: Why not?
12- Careful Consideration: Fits perfectly into that UG dredge deck. Fits perfectly into Burning Vengeance decks. Fits perfectly into Solar Flare. So yeah, it's a good candidate.
I also believe that we will get a Mind Control variant, a Black mass removal spell, some small to mid-sized Green creatures with Hexproof and one big vanilla Blue creature with hexproof (so that Solar Flare gets another target), a Black tutor, a Green removal spell for flyers, a Black Drain Life variant and a White Brave the Elements variant.
And my prediction for Sorin is that he will cost 3BB and he will be played in Standard and in Block as a 2-of in mainly Grixis decks. This is just a prediction of course which is based on nothing but just wild guessing.
But NO TARMO!!!
LE
Great articles. I loved Titan Forge from the moment I saw it. I tried to build a deck around it back when it first came out, but was never able to make it work. It was mainly built around Voltaic Key and Contagion Clasp/Engine. I did have luck with it in my Vorash Proliferate Commander deck (Titan Forge with a Doubling Season, Contagion Engine, and Voltaic Key really churns out the Titans!). I'll have to revisit the card using your decks as a template.
A great read as always. Thank you!
Great idea - we have a TON of boardgames at our home...here's the "must have" imo, I promise they're all amazing and you'll play them A LOT:
1) Polarity - Dexterity based strategy with magnets, (sometimes hard to find, thinkgeek has it)
2) Ascension - that's a good one, we love it.
3) Blokus - this is one amazing strategic game.
4) Tsuro 'game of the path' - 20 seconds to learn...amazing game. Every person that sees it wants to buy it asap.
5) Khet (diflexion is original name) - lazer based geometric strategy supreme!
Wow to both the time commitment for writing and the fact that you can create quality decks with 3 to 4 hours of play testing. Not sure I could do that with anything close to that speed.
I almost don't want to say anything, but at the risk of no article versus shorter articles, this could have easily been spread over two or three weeks with the amount of content packed into it. It really is great stuff.
Thanks!
Guess that'll teach me to read fully before opening my mouth! (Yeah, right!)
Although I have gotten no response about the "Thraximundar" shirts (T_T), he has a bunch of apparel and artwork for sale on his website for the holiday geek in you:
griffenvalentine.com
Justin, if you read this, I really want one of those shirts.
@ Temok- Affinity has the ability to go poison with Inkmoth Nexus. Other than that...i think it is die roll. Just race 'em with Platings and flying doods.
@ Scion- YES!!! The Updates are in effect today. good on Wizards for doing this. I think part of the problem last time is tha it took like a month for it to happen before. This is WAAAYYYY better.
Bye Nacatl and P_Fire!! You will be missed (not really)
I think New Phyrexia was my favorite release of the year because it had the largest effect on eternal formats. Mental Misstep specifically has redefined Vintage and arguably Classic as well, followed by Innistrad for much the same reason.
Umm Blippy buddy the bannings went into effect online TODAY. Only paper goes into effect January 1st.
3rd line from the top.
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/174a
I've been thinking about picking up Dominion for my wife and I, or the official D&D board game... There's really no point... she's playing Skyrim... and I'm playing Skyrim...
after the banning of the fire engine and wild nactl I also thought about playing affinity, however the lame mono withe soul sisters is been heavily plaed and I cannot see how affinity can beat that consistenly enough, perhaps going the poison route? what do u guys think?
I can't wait to see what new decks emerge with the recent bannings. Will the bannings be effective on mtgo with today's update?
I think there's probably some deep philosophical / Human Factors stuff at work here, might do some "light reading" at work today. :-)
It is great for my Caw Blade deck.
I have pretty much settled on that as my deck for this season. I need more card draw and am now testing Baby Jace. I love control decks (aggro-control if we want to split hairs)
Nice coverage. See you this Saturday.
Storm is wrecking the DEs. I would not play a deck with less than 3 Mindbreak Traps.
@Whiffy- Affinity is pretty good. Again, the offer is on the table to test if you are ever on at the same time as me.
I wasn't here at MBS, liked NPH, disliked MED4, loved ISD, haven't tried the others.
My favourite release this year was definately Innistrad. I had the same feelings when Ravnica came around.
All of the releases* this year have in my opinion been improvements. I was not fond at all of the Zen block art for instance, but the ones from NPH, M12, Commander and ISD have been mostly brilliant. I guess Id say I enjoyed playing the commander decks the most in the beta and after, but NPH was really a widely interesting set. So my vote is for NPH.
*(except FTV: Legends, duh?)
Id love to get some board games but Id have no one to play them with sadly. My gf plays when I force her but her interest only goes so far. Exceptions: She likes Scrabble and seemed to actually enjoy Kings & Things* tm.
When you say "affinity deck from PT Philly", I'm assuming you mean Chikara Nakajima's Atog/Fling Affinity, as it's the highest placed of the bunch. And I'm also not sure what you mean by positioned.
My two face-to-face encounters with R Affinity showed me that's a quick, sturdy deck. (The W(x) Tempered decks I've seen are just a hair "slower" than their R counterparts.) It has shown up a few times on the 3-1 lists, but I haven't seen it on the 4-0 lists. Yet. And with Zoo slowed down just a touch, and Jund losing the Grove/Fire combo, I would not hesitate to take it into an SE after the 12/20 bans take effect next year. Heck, I wouldn't hesitate today, either.
with recent bannings? how is the affinaty deck from pt philly positioned? i have most of that pile, if its honestly competitive mayhaps ill hop in the modern ques.
You're much calmer about it than I am.
MTGO asks: “Do you want to mulligan?”
I ask myself: “Do I want to keep this hand?”
I have done that before. I don't know why... the question is always the same, yet sometimes your brain turns it around.