Ah you are correct, I apologize. It's just that there are so few items I didn't find any when searching and I know they removed other online game items a few years back, I thought these went too.
I just started playing recently and it is a little off putting to play standard because of the prices. I really want to play standard competively but with the price of Jace/Primevil Titan over half of the good decks are not playable since i dont have those cards. My strategy now is to slowly get the top SoM cards and wait until next year when Zen block rotates out to truly get into standard. I still got the fetch lands and Kargan's so I can play standard burn but most of my money is going into SoM right now.
I tend to agree. Looking at the list of card which are actually available for printing in ME4 (without reprinting things from previous MEs), it's hard to imagine them filling out 105 rares without any power.
I agree with stealthbadger about necropede.
I am a big fan of the Soliton/Heavy Arbalest combo but I just never seem to have the balls to go into blue for it when I love red and white so much in this format. Good to see that it can work. I will have to force myself to give it a try.
The 105 rares makes me think they are including at least some of the Power 9, and increasing the # of rares to make them essentially "Mythic" without the Mythic label.
Actually, they do allow MTGO-related auctions again. Magic Online has its own category on eBay, and as of this morning it has over 3,000 active listings.
Ebay doesn't allow auctions of mtgo cards or other virtual goods; they got out of that business a few years ago. There was no way to confirm delivery, unlike with mailed packages, and the ownership was always dubious in online games where the licensee owns the goods and you only have a license to play with them.
I love that idea, as I love the original urza's lands much better than the reprints. I'm actually kinda glad it got pushed back as I'd be at company training during the original prerelease week XD.
There is no real down side to these releases in my mind, so I am all for them, however...
I have already been playing Legacy Burn with Lavamancer. I go about 50% with it, which is fine for my purposes. I guess if this works for WOTC, Burn will be the flavor of the month, and that doesn't work to good for me. Right now I basically get no hate in game two or three. Likely that won't change much, but I guess all I'm saying is that a pre-packaged version similiar to what I am running cheapens my deck.
There aren't that many money cards here, but some really good mid rangers. I droped 22 TIX on my playset of Price of Progress. Fireblast and Pyroblast are both great Pauper cards, and thus weren't cheap. Come to think of it, I also just bought 3 Stoneforge Mystics to try Boros Landfall. Wow, woe is me.
So my point is...if WOTC is going to do these releases, I wish they would do more than two decks at a time. Maybe one theme for each color. Go big or don't go at all. Sure it's great if more people play Legacy, and can do so at a resonable price, but I don't want them all playing the same thing regardless of how effective or not those decks are.
And is this the same deck that is coming out in paper? That would be sweet, as a playset of Chain Lightnings will run you about 50-60 bucks right now.
That's not entirely true...they could avoid it by making terrible cards Mythic. That's not really in the spirit of being "mythic" though. When Time Spiral came out a form of mythics was introduced with the Time Shifted cards. I hit the jackpot when I opened Squire in my first booster.
I've (briefly) talked to AJ online and saw him in the casual room, but never got to actually play him. Since I'm actually dragging my ass out of bed at 9 tomorrow morning, I look forward to getting it sufficiently kicked in Tribal Apocalypse XD.
Big Jace's price is the only reason that I do not play standard right now. Honestly, when he was $50 it was the reason I did not play standard. That makes me sad. Mythic rare for the lose. I was a big proponent of Mythic rarity, but honestly I think I was wrong. It is impossible to keep mythic rares from becoming tournament staples.
Pack 3 Pick 6, you ignore a necropede, to pick a disperse. Necropede is fast becoming like, my favourite card in slow decks for this format. If they have a myr, smith or other random guys, he just shuts down attacking. I find it easiest to just look at him and see a perilous myr with defender.
Also P3P8 you picked up trigon of thought over wall of *blocks pretty much everything in this format*. Usually I'd think this was a fairly even pick, but your 5-slot is so clogged at this point, and your decks seems pretty slow, so I wonder if the wall would have been of more use.
Anyway, I just thought I'd share those observations while they were fresh in my mind. The rest of the draft, I agree on pretty much everything, and the deck looks strong (haven't read the game reports yet)
I smiled and literally laughed out loud when I witnessed AJ recently pull off an amazing combo with Constructs (discussed in the latest podcast). That was really a work of art. I couldn't fathom the amount of card knowledge and ability to apply that knowledge to come up with the combo pieces. It was impressive to say the least. Although it may be difficult to articulate something that's ostensibly innate, I think AJ should write an article about the processes he uses to deck build.
Part of your problem is that you passed Cystbearer and Untamed Might in pack 1, and Cystbearer in pack 2. So you should expect a poison drafter near to your left from that. Untamed Might is a top finisher in an infect deck btw, you shouldn't have passed the one you saw later. If you ever get a guy unblocked when you have Untamed Might in hand, it's just an instant "I win" card.
Taking Skittles pick 2 doesn't mean you have to go poison to make use of him, by the way, though it's certainly worth considering. You can do a black/X non-poison deck, since Skittles is basically a 3 turn clock all by himself. You can have all your other creatures dealing conventional damage, and if you stall or trade down to an empty board, topdecked Skittles still says "Find removal for me or you lose". And there's not much that removes him. Nor any creature that can block him for long.
You should never take mana myr for most infect decks, as you're supposed to just be swarming out poison guys, most of whom are too cheap to care whether you got mana accel.
You're exactly right about tainted strike. In a deck with a ton of infect creatures like yours, it's just a +1/+0 spell. You're much better off with Untamed Might or Trigon of Rage.
Re: Trigon only activating three times. That's 9 poison to the face. How many poison do you need? Also occasionally you can recharge the Trigon with your Contagion Clasp. But the real answer is, just never activate it except when one of your poison creatures is unblocked. Usually just two uses is enough, sometimes one.
Carrion Call is quite solid. Poison wants to get in some early hits before blockers are out, then get the rest by swarming in more attackers than they have blockers for (and/or flying in with pinions and plague stinger). Two creatures for one card improves your swarming chances greatly, and 1/1s are great when you have Axe too. I would have grabbed the second Axe, it's nuts in any deck and especially in infect! Back to Call though, you cast it at the end of their turn so you also mess up their decision about how many blockers they need to hold back, and catch them with their pants down. Or in the games where you're behind enough to have to block, you get two chump blockers (or chump with one and use one to attack), you can cast them after declare attackers to block someone they'd never want to trade with a 1/1, and even when just chumping they shrink the attacker or you can gang-block to take out a 3/2 for one card.
Withstand Death is also sometimes worth a slot, as usually infect creatures die when blocked (or blocking), but it lets them shrink the enemy creature and survive to infect again. Not sure you needed it in yours though. The wall isn't bad, but poison needs to be aggressive rather than defensive, and needs removal to let wimpy tiny guys get through for damage, so I like Instill Infection better. Plus it cantrips, and it has nice synergy with the proliferate on your Contagion Clasp.
Ah you are correct, I apologize. It's just that there are so few items I didn't find any when searching and I know they removed other online game items a few years back, I thought these went too.
I just started playing recently and it is a little off putting to play standard because of the prices. I really want to play standard competively but with the price of Jace/Primevil Titan over half of the good decks are not playable since i dont have those cards. My strategy now is to slowly get the top SoM cards and wait until next year when Zen block rotates out to truly get into standard. I still got the fetch lands and Kargan's so I can play standard burn but most of my money is going into SoM right now.
Very interesting article, I look forward to see who you have lined up next.
AJ's articles started me down the tribal lane when I was looking for something different to play along time ago.
Seems like further evidence of an Arabian Nights / Antiquities theme to the sets.
I tend to agree. Looking at the list of card which are actually available for printing in ME4 (without reprinting things from previous MEs), it's hard to imagine them filling out 105 rares without any power.
I agree with stealthbadger about necropede.
I am a big fan of the Soliton/Heavy Arbalest combo but I just never seem to have the balls to go into blue for it when I love red and white so much in this format. Good to see that it can work. I will have to force myself to give it a try.
I missed that one being announced, thanks.
Out of interest what sort of prize would you be interested in playing for in a special event?
The 105 rares makes me think they are including at least some of the Power 9, and increasing the # of rares to make them essentially "Mythic" without the Mythic label.
Hi,
to sell an acount is not ALLOWED.
For auctions on ebay: http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=p5197.m570.l1313&_nkw=mtgo&_saca...
Good read for me, because i`m not famillar with those topics.
But there is that "Fire and Lightning" or whatever it's called duel deck coming out that does have a reprint of Chain Lightning in it.
Actually, they do allow MTGO-related auctions again. Magic Online has its own category on eBay, and as of this morning it has over 3,000 active listings.
These are not being released on paper.
Ebay doesn't allow auctions of mtgo cards or other virtual goods; they got out of that business a few years ago. There was no way to confirm delivery, unlike with mailed packages, and the ownership was always dubious in online games where the licensee owns the goods and you only have a license to play with them.
I love that idea, as I love the original urza's lands much better than the reprints. I'm actually kinda glad it got pushed back as I'd be at company training during the original prerelease week XD.
There is no real down side to these releases in my mind, so I am all for them, however...
I have already been playing Legacy Burn with Lavamancer. I go about 50% with it, which is fine for my purposes. I guess if this works for WOTC, Burn will be the flavor of the month, and that doesn't work to good for me. Right now I basically get no hate in game two or three. Likely that won't change much, but I guess all I'm saying is that a pre-packaged version similiar to what I am running cheapens my deck.
There aren't that many money cards here, but some really good mid rangers. I droped 22 TIX on my playset of Price of Progress. Fireblast and Pyroblast are both great Pauper cards, and thus weren't cheap. Come to think of it, I also just bought 3 Stoneforge Mystics to try Boros Landfall. Wow, woe is me.
So my point is...if WOTC is going to do these releases, I wish they would do more than two decks at a time. Maybe one theme for each color. Go big or don't go at all. Sure it's great if more people play Legacy, and can do so at a resonable price, but I don't want them all playing the same thing regardless of how effective or not those decks are.
And is this the same deck that is coming out in paper? That would be sweet, as a playset of Chain Lightnings will run you about 50-60 bucks right now.
That's not entirely true...they could avoid it by making terrible cards Mythic. That's not really in the spirit of being "mythic" though. When Time Spiral came out a form of mythics was introduced with the Time Shifted cards. I hit the jackpot when I opened Squire in my first booster.
I've (briefly) talked to AJ online and saw him in the casual room, but never got to actually play him. Since I'm actually dragging my ass out of bed at 9 tomorrow morning, I look forward to getting it sufficiently kicked in Tribal Apocalypse XD.
Thank you for the awnsers, they really help!
Big Jace's price is the only reason that I do not play standard right now. Honestly, when he was $50 it was the reason I did not play standard. That makes me sad. Mythic rare for the lose. I was a big proponent of Mythic rarity, but honestly I think I was wrong. It is impossible to keep mythic rares from becoming tournament staples.
Pack 3 Pick 6, you ignore a necropede, to pick a disperse. Necropede is fast becoming like, my favourite card in slow decks for this format. If they have a myr, smith or other random guys, he just shuts down attacking. I find it easiest to just look at him and see a perilous myr with defender.
Also P3P8 you picked up trigon of thought over wall of *blocks pretty much everything in this format*. Usually I'd think this was a fairly even pick, but your 5-slot is so clogged at this point, and your decks seems pretty slow, so I wonder if the wall would have been of more use.
Anyway, I just thought I'd share those observations while they were fresh in my mind. The rest of the draft, I agree on pretty much everything, and the deck looks strong (haven't read the game reports yet)
I smiled and literally laughed out loud when I witnessed AJ recently pull off an amazing combo with Constructs (discussed in the latest podcast). That was really a work of art. I couldn't fathom the amount of card knowledge and ability to apply that knowledge to come up with the combo pieces. It was impressive to say the least. Although it may be difficult to articulate something that's ostensibly innate, I think AJ should write an article about the processes he uses to deck build.
Each pack comes with one of the urza lands wth? super high mana cost draft set ftwth?
Might be interesting-
Part of your problem is that you passed Cystbearer and Untamed Might in pack 1, and Cystbearer in pack 2. So you should expect a poison drafter near to your left from that. Untamed Might is a top finisher in an infect deck btw, you shouldn't have passed the one you saw later. If you ever get a guy unblocked when you have Untamed Might in hand, it's just an instant "I win" card.
Taking Skittles pick 2 doesn't mean you have to go poison to make use of him, by the way, though it's certainly worth considering. You can do a black/X non-poison deck, since Skittles is basically a 3 turn clock all by himself. You can have all your other creatures dealing conventional damage, and if you stall or trade down to an empty board, topdecked Skittles still says "Find removal for me or you lose". And there's not much that removes him. Nor any creature that can block him for long.
You should never take mana myr for most infect decks, as you're supposed to just be swarming out poison guys, most of whom are too cheap to care whether you got mana accel.
You're exactly right about tainted strike. In a deck with a ton of infect creatures like yours, it's just a +1/+0 spell. You're much better off with Untamed Might or Trigon of Rage.
Re: Trigon only activating three times. That's 9 poison to the face. How many poison do you need? Also occasionally you can recharge the Trigon with your Contagion Clasp. But the real answer is, just never activate it except when one of your poison creatures is unblocked. Usually just two uses is enough, sometimes one.
Carrion Call is quite solid. Poison wants to get in some early hits before blockers are out, then get the rest by swarming in more attackers than they have blockers for (and/or flying in with pinions and plague stinger). Two creatures for one card improves your swarming chances greatly, and 1/1s are great when you have Axe too. I would have grabbed the second Axe, it's nuts in any deck and especially in infect! Back to Call though, you cast it at the end of their turn so you also mess up their decision about how many blockers they need to hold back, and catch them with their pants down. Or in the games where you're behind enough to have to block, you get two chump blockers (or chump with one and use one to attack), you can cast them after declare attackers to block someone they'd never want to trade with a 1/1, and even when just chumping they shrink the attacker or you can gang-block to take out a 3/2 for one card.
Withstand Death is also sometimes worth a slot, as usually infect creatures die when blocked (or blocking), but it lets them shrink the enemy creature and survive to infect again. Not sure you needed it in yours though. The wall isn't bad, but poison needs to be aggressive rather than defensive, and needs removal to let wimpy tiny guys get through for damage, so I like Instill Infection better. Plus it cantrips, and it has nice synergy with the proliferate on your Contagion Clasp.