Another great article LE its hard to talk about potential ideas without giving your own deck ideas away.
I find that M10 is one of the better core sets as it seems to have a great selection of spot removal and the dual lands are very good as well.
6th Edition is my other core set of choice due to the Tutor's with Wrath and Armageddon in the same set.
I have questioned why we cant try older sets, I know they were not in the original format but do not know why. Portal is a complete set and would be ok with Imperial Seal banned. Revised and Fourth Ed seam ok even Beta as we have the banned list which includes power and other broken cards like Channel.
Then you have the other sets although small could be splashed Legends is big enough to support itself as a set with all the MED cards we have now and with MED4 comming in the near future.
It is strange that they created a banned list of cards that were not viable in the format. Could there be a mistake in the available sets for the format that got overlooked, or were they only allowed to choose certain blocks due to availability in paper for the special event but the complete format is more open but no one ever picked up on it.
Congratulation LE, your article are really enjoyable and always looks pretty nice.
Honestly, I am always curious, and I am trying to experience all the format, even if eternal formats Legacy/Classic/Vintage are my favorites. So BYOS seems interesting and I discovered it when I rade your articles. Without having tested it, it is difficult at the moment to estimate either how interesting is the format or what are the strategies in the format. So I wanna try it soon. Is there specific schedule/meeting dedicated to players of that format or something ?
About the article itself, I would only add something about the CHK bloc : I agree with you, it isnt a really sexy bloc. That said, some cards could be mentioned as they are either nice to build around or an interesting & unique effect card : first of all, Pithing Needle. It belongs to bombs of that bloc imo (i guess you didnt mention it as it is now a part of the core set, and it is btw in sb of one of your deck list). Kira the Great Glass-Spinner is also a very good card, still used nowadays in several legacy decks. I dont know its impact on this bloc, but it could be a nice addition to many decks running U & creatures. Lastly I think that Kataki is pretty useful card in some specific environement, especialy if Mirrodin bloc is in the mix ... a Tabernacle dedicated to artifacts on a 2/1 body is a pretty solid choice in a heavy artifact meta. Honorable mention also to Shoals (as potentialy free spells are enough rare in mtg).
Yeah you need to be careful of time zones 12:30pm EST is not correct as that time zone is currently in daylight saving time so if you are looking it up to see what it is in your part of the world look up EDT.
I wanted to start a tribal experience in that tournament this week-end but it seems that I arrived ... more than 1 hour after the tournament had started. I was a bit late as I told to Flipper... I should have mistaken about the schedule and will try to get a better time zone understanding...
I build a deck trying to be original but I didnt test it that much at the moment, but the few matches I made were enjoyable and tribal seems nice. I will try to be there next time, and going to train until then to better understand the format & its potential.
This whole chain of bots is scummy. Not only are they from the same people as the cbs bots, they are the worst bots running on mtgo. They are extremely glitchy, one of my accounts cant even trade with any mtgo library bot. They consistently have higher sell prices and lower buy prices than any other bots. Scummy, stay away from them.
Crazy bot stuff. Not too surprised that it happened with CBS. I look forward to trying to make a decent card for the ccc. One thing that annoys me is the MOPR cards seem to be very intermittent. Some months I get mine but others they just never show up.
While I'm getting some of the Eldrazi hate around here, I still think there is a sort of an "emotional reaction" to them. Like the Sneak Attack deck was a real nice and fair thing to play against before ROE, then came the Eldrazis and ruined all the fun of facing a turn 5 Nicol Bolas + Bogardan Hellkite + Hellkite Overlord.
I love running desolation with crystal shard (as you may already know) and Stonecloaker. Reusable sweeping ftw. Thundercloud has been elusive as a victory con to me, maybe because it tends to hit when things are already fairly clean and if my op has any removal at all they know to wait for him.
Excellent article as always. I have a couple of questions though.
I was under the impression that all cards banned in their respective block constructed format was subject to a ban in BYOS. You claim that the only banned cards in Mirrodin are Cranial Plating, Disciple of the Vault, Atog and Skullclamp, even though all the artifact lands, Aether Vial and Arcbound Ravager is banned in Mirrodin Block Constructed! (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/TCG/Resources.aspx?x=judge/resources/sfrblock) Is there a particular reason for this? And if there is, how come Atog gets the ban while its OP brother Arcbound Ravager doesn't?
It is even more true because the one solution card you mention isn't even in your proposed deck or sideboard (not that it's the only solution, Black and Decker Black and Decker Parts
I can see two points against Flash fo Defiance. First, it costs two mana and that means that often you won't be casting other spells the turn you play it. Second, and more important, is WW really played that much that you want SB cards for it? I only play against it in the queues every once in a while so I think I don't.
well we know how I feel on Kiln :) I have been dying to run a variant of those Giants for awhile... 4x Desolation, 4x Thoundercloud, and all my non-creature spells were pretty much removal... it's really kind of over powered to have THAT much removal in a format for creature decks.. the thing was I knew how powerful they were and I knew they hadn't yet made an appearance in the event so it was time to bring them to head though I wanted to make some changes... from Blinds to Maulers and move out the hamlet as well, but oh well it still worked :P
you know wizards really isnt some big bad malignant trying to screw you out of everything you own if you play online. which is kinda what you make them seem like
"It, in other words, killed the fun for me that to compete you needed to do something unhealthy - playing far too much or paying to get an edge (which really meant that you reached the "normal" level)."
You hit the nail on the head with that statement Wyrath. Now if one could investigate, journalistic like, about the pros and cons of real life MTG experiences and MOL ones, I think we all could be better informed about what it is we are getting ourselves into. What I would like to know is how much of that "doing something unhealthy" is urged and influenced strongly by WOTC in relation to it's online product, Magic The Gathering Online. I suspect much of that has to do with the process behind the distribution rates, or print run, being hidden from the community with MOL. A while back Maro wrote an article about rarity distribution just prior to the release of the Shards of Alara block. In that he too revealed what the print run expectations were regarding Mythics, Rares, Uncommons and Commons. This however, is absent in the MOL design, are they hiding something by not sharing some level of insight with the consumer other than the "take our word for it" attitude I am faced with each time I inquire about such things.
I'm not really going to argue the merit of your opinions since they are more the most part well laid out and explained. The only thing is, you don't have to spend money on MTGO. I am not a big tourney player but love building random decks. However even I understand the fact that sometimes I just cant afford cards...maybe it's because I'm not a "spike" but rather more of a "johnny" but I just shrug my shoulders and move on as I'm sure the majority of mtgo does as well. We leave the 30-70 dollar cards for those that somehow deem them necessary enough to pay those fees. I dont think you can really complain on the prices though. It's a market system. As long as people can make the tickets in the numbers they are charging, what incentive do they have to lower?
It has nothing to do with being paranoid, though - I hardly fear to lose my collection. Actually, in many ways that would probably not be that bad a thing. For me the worst part is that I know my love of Magic is "unhealthy". The fact that I have spent 100s or even 1000s of $ on Magic cards scare me. The fact that I have spent those money on virtual Magic cards that I in many cases can't redeem is just sad and pathetic.
To return to the WoW analogy, you have people that want to play the game. They care about some aspect of it: roleplaying, PvP, PvE, the auction house, questing, standing in capitals et al. These people understand that Blizzard are douchebags, greedy bastards and a big international company, and thus accept that they have to pay a certain amount each month to and cyber their female friends (who are really males of course). You also have people that buy gold outside of the game, who pay real money for a spectral tiger, getting boosted in arena, PvE or whatever. These are the sad people that care too much about the game. I am of the first group - or rather I used to be since I no longer play. I loved the PvP aspect in the "classic" and TBC-eras, as I could survive by being better than other players, even in TBC where I didn't have the best gear (which I admittedly did have in "classic"). It, in other words, killed the fun for me that to compete you needed to do something unhealthy - playing far too much or paying to get an edge (which really meant that you reached the "normal" level).
In Magic the same thing exists. We have people that play the game for fun. They build bad decks, copy bad decks and generally just waste their time - in a good way as they're having fun. Then you have professional magic players that use MTGO as a testing platform. They can get easy access to any card, find people they can test against and keep a steady income if they are good enough. Then you have guys like me. I care a lot about the game. I build and tinker with lists of my own, modify decklists and try to build "meta decks". I am in other words a "Tuner Spike" (if we go by the ridiculous player demographics invented by MaRo and his cronies). Being a "Spike", I have a hard time playing subpar decks or cards, but being a sensible person, I get this odd feeling when I look at card prices...
Wasteland... 26 tickets.
Tarmogoyf... 44 tickets.
Force of Will... 105 tickets.
I can't accept paying that amount to "rent" a virtual card - or I could if it was one playset or two perhaps. It is simply absurd and incredibly to me that someone who is not a pro would defend this, and I find this very sad that once again, it is the players that do the unhealthy thing - in this case paying 100s of $s that are rewarded - irregardless of their skills. I'd love to compete in the formats that I like, but that is only possible if you go to some huge compromise. One compromise would be playing a deck you dislike, which would ruin the fun. Another would be to play with subpar cards, which would be wrong to me, as I care about picking optimal card choices or the unhealthy option: fork out the 100s of $s and feel bad about doing something you know is inherently silly.
Magic, paper Magic that is, is a collectible hobby - MTGO isn't. It's part of the fun, as you said, to browse through your cards, to crack boosters and see what you get. The reason for this is that it's real - the cards exists and mean something to you (even the bad ones). On MTGO it isn't so. I've owned tons of card (like everyone else), but since cards are so easily aquired they mean almost nothing to me. Going to my local card shops to pick up a playset of Countryside Crushers could result in me only getting two or three perhaps, but online, the same issue could never take place. There it would only be a question of how much I am willing to pay. If I have enough I could probably buy up almost every copy of a certain card.
I agree with you that the fun in WoW or on MTGO is real (if you are having fun you are obviously having fun), but the people really mean nothing to me, so there I disagree with you. Relationships, to me, are made face to face - not online and not because you happen to like the same nerdy thing. That is the reason why I never even considered meeting guild members in WoW, and the reason why I have very few "friends" on MTGO - even the notion is silly to me. To me, MTGO is a substitute for the fact that I only know one decent Magic player, and I'd sell my account the second I met real people with a decent grasp of the game.
To sum this lovely rant up, that meant I didn't have to do any work for 90 minutes, I think you are right when you say people shouldn't worry about virtual products. Sure, technically we own nothing and can lose all our cards at the snap of a few, fat, grease-stained fingers. Still, that's not going to happen. What I wonder, though, is how we are willing to pay real money for virtual product. I am obviously mostly on my own here, but it just saddens me that my love of a cardgame means I have to spend amounts of real money on it that could be used so much wiser.
I like your article and I think we need more articles like this. This MOL version has it's pros and cons, but it's for fun. However, the fun quickly runs dry when the "Game Service" starts to portray the viability that, "You can too" attitude with the inclusion of PTQ's and Qualifiers. When we players get down to drafts that make the biggest difference or sealed events, we are not informed by the company just how "similar" the experience is to real magic drafts or sealed events. My case in point is booster sales vs. online booster sales and the probability factor involved. Say you buy the equivalent of a booster box online, 36 packs and again purchase a box of real magic cards, sealed, of booster packs, the differences in probability are enormous compared to the real deal sealed booster box and those 36 digital packs. Reason being, but they won't tell us exactly why, the card pool online that these packs are opened up within do not compare to the probability involved with a sealed booster box. Now, I think this is unfair and would like to know if any "Gaming Commissions" in the State that MOL operates from has ever done a review of this "Gaming Service", and if they ever did would there be similarities to other concerns of online gambling or fixing probabilities for customers to operated within that may be in violation of certain state or federal laws.
Someone needs to unravel this, the game proposes a similarity but yet remains "Mom" about those details, while players around the world are left wondering what are my rights and why aren't they being protected?
"I can understand why people are getting tired of the Eldrazi, they are big, mean and something different. People generally don't take to things as different as the Eldrazi's quickly. They need time to adjust and get comfortable with them."
This is wrong on so many levels. What bothers people about Eldrazi is Annihilator. It is an unfair mechanic similar in some ways to Cascade but different. Cascade isn't game ending/locking in itself. It does actually (or did before Jund) require some skill to build correctly with it. All Eldrazi need are well proven Johnny/Timmy tricks to get the fats guy in play and then bombs away. I don't think they are at all unbeatable but I can totally get why people don't care to play against them. The same way some people hate discard and ld as being essentially unfair tactics.
Now if you were talking tournaments then well nothing is unfair and I expect at least one Eldrazi deck to do well once they find their niche. Which of course will make them even more populous (in casual) and thus more hated. It is also the fact that someone comes up with a way to use them and everyone quickly cookie cutters the list and plays it until they can't find any opponents. Why not? It is an ego shot to have people concede turn 4 to your "amazing" tech. But Eldrazi aren't tech. They are basically Timmy Toys flipped on their heads.
Some of them suck and I am happy to see them across the board because I can usually play past them but some not only don't suck but just end games. Endrakul for example coming down turn 4/5 is just gg unless there is some already waiting colorless destruction.
What they aren't is different. We have had months to get used to them and really it is a matter of degree. Sure ROE is a new set but the really different cards in it have level up not annihilator. We already knew about fatty clocks like Progenitus, etc. Level up is different and interesting and I think will be gaining popularity as the good ones become apparent as the way to beat Eldrazi.
Another great article LE its hard to talk about potential ideas without giving your own deck ideas away.
I find that M10 is one of the better core sets as it seems to have a great selection of spot removal and the dual lands are very good as well.
6th Edition is my other core set of choice due to the Tutor's with Wrath and Armageddon in the same set.
I have questioned why we cant try older sets, I know they were not in the original format but do not know why. Portal is a complete set and would be ok with Imperial Seal banned. Revised and Fourth Ed seam ok even Beta as we have the banned list which includes power and other broken cards like Channel.
Then you have the other sets although small could be splashed Legends is big enough to support itself as a set with all the MED cards we have now and with MED4 comming in the near future.
It is strange that they created a banned list of cards that were not viable in the format. Could there be a mistake in the available sets for the format that got overlooked, or were they only allowed to choose certain blocks due to availability in paper for the special event but the complete format is more open but no one ever picked up on it.
Congratulation LE, your article are really enjoyable and always looks pretty nice.
Honestly, I am always curious, and I am trying to experience all the format, even if eternal formats Legacy/Classic/Vintage are my favorites. So BYOS seems interesting and I discovered it when I rade your articles. Without having tested it, it is difficult at the moment to estimate either how interesting is the format or what are the strategies in the format. So I wanna try it soon. Is there specific schedule/meeting dedicated to players of that format or something ?
About the article itself, I would only add something about the CHK bloc : I agree with you, it isnt a really sexy bloc. That said, some cards could be mentioned as they are either nice to build around or an interesting & unique effect card : first of all, Pithing Needle. It belongs to bombs of that bloc imo (i guess you didnt mention it as it is now a part of the core set, and it is btw in sb of one of your deck list). Kira the Great Glass-Spinner is also a very good card, still used nowadays in several legacy decks. I dont know its impact on this bloc, but it could be a nice addition to many decks running U & creatures. Lastly I think that Kataki is pretty useful card in some specific environement, especialy if Mirrodin bloc is in the mix ... a Tabernacle dedicated to artifacts on a 2/1 body is a pretty solid choice in a heavy artifact meta. Honorable mention also to Shoals (as potentialy free spells are enough rare in mtg).
Go on with this really nice series.
Yeah you need to be careful of time zones 12:30pm EST is not correct as that time zone is currently in daylight saving time so if you are looking it up to see what it is in your part of the world look up EDT.
That should give you the correct time.
I wanted to start a tribal experience in that tournament this week-end but it seems that I arrived ... more than 1 hour after the tournament had started. I was a bit late as I told to Flipper... I should have mistaken about the schedule and will try to get a better time zone understanding...
I build a deck trying to be original but I didnt test it that much at the moment, but the few matches I made were enjoyable and tribal seems nice. I will try to be there next time, and going to train until then to better understand the format & its potential.
good article & seeya
This whole chain of bots is scummy. Not only are they from the same people as the cbs bots, they are the worst bots running on mtgo. They are extremely glitchy, one of my accounts cant even trade with any mtgo library bot. They consistently have higher sell prices and lower buy prices than any other bots. Scummy, stay away from them.
Crazy bot stuff. Not too surprised that it happened with CBS. I look forward to trying to make a decent card for the ccc. One thing that annoys me is the MOPR cards seem to be very intermittent. Some months I get mine but others they just never show up.
While I'm getting some of the Eldrazi hate around here, I still think there is a sort of an "emotional reaction" to them. Like the Sneak Attack deck was a real nice and fair thing to play against before ROE, then came the Eldrazis and ruined all the fun of facing a turn 5 Nicol Bolas + Bogardan Hellkite + Hellkite Overlord.
I love running desolation with crystal shard (as you may already know) and Stonecloaker. Reusable sweeping ftw. Thundercloud has been elusive as a victory con to me, maybe because it tends to hit when things are already fairly clean and if my op has any removal at all they know to wait for him.
Grats to everyone.
Excellent article as always. I have a couple of questions though.
I was under the impression that all cards banned in their respective block constructed format was subject to a ban in BYOS. You claim that the only banned cards in Mirrodin are Cranial Plating, Disciple of the Vault, Atog and Skullclamp, even though all the artifact lands, Aether Vial and Arcbound Ravager is banned in Mirrodin Block Constructed! (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/TCG/Resources.aspx?x=judge/resources/sfrblock) Is there a particular reason for this? And if there is, how come Atog gets the ban while its OP brother Arcbound Ravager doesn't?
Best of regards, Roman.
It is even more true because the one solution card you mention isn't even in your proposed deck or sideboard (not that it's the only solution,
Black and Decker
Black and Decker Parts
I can see two points against Flash fo Defiance. First, it costs two mana and that means that often you won't be casting other spells the turn you play it. Second, and more important, is WW really played that much that you want SB cards for it? I only play against it in the queues every once in a while so I think I don't.
Ouch, you're right, lesson learned.
well we know how I feel on Kiln :) I have been dying to run a variant of those Giants for awhile... 4x Desolation, 4x Thoundercloud, and all my non-creature spells were pretty much removal... it's really kind of over powered to have THAT much removal in a format for creature decks.. the thing was I knew how powerful they were and I knew they hadn't yet made an appearance in the event so it was time to bring them to head though I wanted to make some changes... from Blinds to Maulers and move out the hamlet as well, but oh well it still worked :P
agreed. the kokusho deck looks fun and gave me an idea of Kokusho plus a kicked rite of replication...
you know wizards really isnt some big bad malignant trying to screw you out of everything you own if you play online. which is kinda what you make them seem like
That's a lot of decks! I particularly liked the one using Manabarbs, and will probably put that one together in my free time. Good stuff.
"It, in other words, killed the fun for me that to compete you needed to do something unhealthy - playing far too much or paying to get an edge (which really meant that you reached the "normal" level)."
You hit the nail on the head with that statement Wyrath. Now if one could investigate, journalistic like, about the pros and cons of real life MTG experiences and MOL ones, I think we all could be better informed about what it is we are getting ourselves into. What I would like to know is how much of that "doing something unhealthy" is urged and influenced strongly by WOTC in relation to it's online product, Magic The Gathering Online. I suspect much of that has to do with the process behind the distribution rates, or print run, being hidden from the community with MOL. A while back Maro wrote an article about rarity distribution just prior to the release of the Shards of Alara block. In that he too revealed what the print run expectations were regarding Mythics, Rares, Uncommons and Commons. This however, is absent in the MOL design, are they hiding something by not sharing some level of insight with the consumer other than the "take our word for it" attitude I am faced with each time I inquire about such things.
I'm not really going to argue the merit of your opinions since they are more the most part well laid out and explained. The only thing is, you don't have to spend money on MTGO. I am not a big tourney player but love building random decks. However even I understand the fact that sometimes I just cant afford cards...maybe it's because I'm not a "spike" but rather more of a "johnny" but I just shrug my shoulders and move on as I'm sure the majority of mtgo does as well. We leave the 30-70 dollar cards for those that somehow deem them necessary enough to pay those fees. I dont think you can really complain on the prices though. It's a market system. As long as people can make the tickets in the numbers they are charging, what incentive do they have to lower?
I'm one of those "paranoid" people.
It has nothing to do with being paranoid, though - I hardly fear to lose my collection. Actually, in many ways that would probably not be that bad a thing. For me the worst part is that I know my love of Magic is "unhealthy". The fact that I have spent 100s or even 1000s of $ on Magic cards scare me. The fact that I have spent those money on virtual Magic cards that I in many cases can't redeem is just sad and pathetic.
To return to the WoW analogy, you have people that want to play the game. They care about some aspect of it: roleplaying, PvP, PvE, the auction house, questing, standing in capitals et al. These people understand that Blizzard are douchebags, greedy bastards and a big international company, and thus accept that they have to pay a certain amount each month to and cyber their female friends (who are really males of course). You also have people that buy gold outside of the game, who pay real money for a spectral tiger, getting boosted in arena, PvE or whatever. These are the sad people that care too much about the game. I am of the first group - or rather I used to be since I no longer play. I loved the PvP aspect in the "classic" and TBC-eras, as I could survive by being better than other players, even in TBC where I didn't have the best gear (which I admittedly did have in "classic"). It, in other words, killed the fun for me that to compete you needed to do something unhealthy - playing far too much or paying to get an edge (which really meant that you reached the "normal" level).
In Magic the same thing exists. We have people that play the game for fun. They build bad decks, copy bad decks and generally just waste their time - in a good way as they're having fun. Then you have professional magic players that use MTGO as a testing platform. They can get easy access to any card, find people they can test against and keep a steady income if they are good enough. Then you have guys like me. I care a lot about the game. I build and tinker with lists of my own, modify decklists and try to build "meta decks". I am in other words a "Tuner Spike" (if we go by the ridiculous player demographics invented by MaRo and his cronies). Being a "Spike", I have a hard time playing subpar decks or cards, but being a sensible person, I get this odd feeling when I look at card prices...
Wasteland... 26 tickets.
Tarmogoyf... 44 tickets.
Force of Will... 105 tickets.
I can't accept paying that amount to "rent" a virtual card - or I could if it was one playset or two perhaps. It is simply absurd and incredibly to me that someone who is not a pro would defend this, and I find this very sad that once again, it is the players that do the unhealthy thing - in this case paying 100s of $s that are rewarded - irregardless of their skills. I'd love to compete in the formats that I like, but that is only possible if you go to some huge compromise. One compromise would be playing a deck you dislike, which would ruin the fun. Another would be to play with subpar cards, which would be wrong to me, as I care about picking optimal card choices or the unhealthy option: fork out the 100s of $s and feel bad about doing something you know is inherently silly.
Magic, paper Magic that is, is a collectible hobby - MTGO isn't. It's part of the fun, as you said, to browse through your cards, to crack boosters and see what you get. The reason for this is that it's real - the cards exists and mean something to you (even the bad ones). On MTGO it isn't so. I've owned tons of card (like everyone else), but since cards are so easily aquired they mean almost nothing to me. Going to my local card shops to pick up a playset of Countryside Crushers could result in me only getting two or three perhaps, but online, the same issue could never take place. There it would only be a question of how much I am willing to pay. If I have enough I could probably buy up almost every copy of a certain card.
I agree with you that the fun in WoW or on MTGO is real (if you are having fun you are obviously having fun), but the people really mean nothing to me, so there I disagree with you. Relationships, to me, are made face to face - not online and not because you happen to like the same nerdy thing. That is the reason why I never even considered meeting guild members in WoW, and the reason why I have very few "friends" on MTGO - even the notion is silly to me. To me, MTGO is a substitute for the fact that I only know one decent Magic player, and I'd sell my account the second I met real people with a decent grasp of the game.
To sum this lovely rant up, that meant I didn't have to do any work for 90 minutes, I think you are right when you say people shouldn't worry about virtual products. Sure, technically we own nothing and can lose all our cards at the snap of a few, fat, grease-stained fingers. Still, that's not going to happen. What I wonder, though, is how we are willing to pay real money for virtual product. I am obviously mostly on my own here, but it just saddens me that my love of a cardgame means I have to spend amounts of real money on it that could be used so much wiser.
*emoface*
I like your article and I think we need more articles like this. This MOL version has it's pros and cons, but it's for fun. However, the fun quickly runs dry when the "Game Service" starts to portray the viability that, "You can too" attitude with the inclusion of PTQ's and Qualifiers. When we players get down to drafts that make the biggest difference or sealed events, we are not informed by the company just how "similar" the experience is to real magic drafts or sealed events. My case in point is booster sales vs. online booster sales and the probability factor involved. Say you buy the equivalent of a booster box online, 36 packs and again purchase a box of real magic cards, sealed, of booster packs, the differences in probability are enormous compared to the real deal sealed booster box and those 36 digital packs. Reason being, but they won't tell us exactly why, the card pool online that these packs are opened up within do not compare to the probability involved with a sealed booster box. Now, I think this is unfair and would like to know if any "Gaming Commissions" in the State that MOL operates from has ever done a review of this "Gaming Service", and if they ever did would there be similarities to other concerns of online gambling or fixing probabilities for customers to operated within that may be in violation of certain state or federal laws.
Someone needs to unravel this, the game proposes a similarity but yet remains "Mom" about those details, while players around the world are left wondering what are my rights and why aren't they being protected?
"I can understand why people are getting tired of the Eldrazi, they are big, mean and something different. People generally don't take to things as different as the Eldrazi's quickly. They need time to adjust and get comfortable with them."
This is wrong on so many levels. What bothers people about Eldrazi is Annihilator. It is an unfair mechanic similar in some ways to Cascade but different. Cascade isn't game ending/locking in itself. It does actually (or did before Jund) require some skill to build correctly with it. All Eldrazi need are well proven Johnny/Timmy tricks to get the fats guy in play and then bombs away. I don't think they are at all unbeatable but I can totally get why people don't care to play against them. The same way some people hate discard and ld as being essentially unfair tactics.
Now if you were talking tournaments then well nothing is unfair and I expect at least one Eldrazi deck to do well once they find their niche. Which of course will make them even more populous (in casual) and thus more hated. It is also the fact that someone comes up with a way to use them and everyone quickly cookie cutters the list and plays it until they can't find any opponents. Why not? It is an ego shot to have people concede turn 4 to your "amazing" tech. But Eldrazi aren't tech. They are basically Timmy Toys flipped on their heads.
Some of them suck and I am happy to see them across the board because I can usually play past them but some not only don't suck but just end games. Endrakul for example coming down turn 4/5 is just gg unless there is some already waiting colorless destruction.
What they aren't is different. We have had months to get used to them and really it is a matter of degree. Sure ROE is a new set but the really different cards in it have level up not annihilator. We already knew about fatty clocks like Progenitus, etc. Level up is different and interesting and I think will be gaining popularity as the good ones become apparent as the way to beat Eldrazi.
Blade of the bloodchief can be absurd with thoctar or your sac deck me thinks....
That is true he could make things a little easier when trying to break stalemates
Well, I like Flagstaff just fine :D My only complaint is that the nearest card shop is is in Phoenix, and I'm unable to drive.
As a photographer, I would love to live in Flagstaff... just a drive down the mountain to thge red rocks of Sedona, signh me up.