Magic: The Gathering

[Taskmage]

Re: Magic: The Gathering

Sphere of Safety, Detention Sphere etc...

That deck sounds like balls. No offense.

Thing with Vraska is she's basically guaranteed to at least two-for-one if you play her right, and it's hard to find a card in this Standard that says "destroy that" with no loopholes or caveats. I mean, "non-land" notwithstanding. If there was a Golgari deck doing well on the pro scene, you can bet she'd be in the list somewhere, but they'd almost certainly wish they could play Maelstrom Pulse instead.

[cidbahamut]

Re: Magic: The Gathering

What I took from all that:

Windows 8 is exactly what I thought it was going to be and I was right to hold off and let it run its buggy-ass course.

Really? I took away the fact that Mal didn't bother uploading his decks to the server.

[Malacite]

Re: Magic: The Gathering

That deck sounds like balls. No offense.

Thing with Vraska is she's basically guaranteed to at least two-for-one if you play her right, and it's hard to find a card in this Standard that says "destroy that" with no loopholes or caveats. I mean, "non-land" notwithstanding. If there was a Golgari deck doing well on the pro scene, you can bet she'd be in the list somewhere, but they'd almost certainly wish they could play Maelstrom Pulse instead.

Eh it worked pretty well in my play-testing, even against my super-aggressive decks (though not 100% obviously). Just needed to survive until I could establish the lock, usually right after a SV. The only major weaknesses I found were spells like Paraselen & Planar Cleansing, or super-efficient aggro. But that was just a kind of casual "FU" deck I made to troll with. Just basically stalls the game to a halt, stopping my opponent from being able to do anything while I sit back and rack up filibuster counters.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Magic: The Gathering

Really? I took away the fact that Mal didn't bother uploading his decks to the server.

To be fair, I don't, either. Should I?

[Malacite]

Re: Magic: The Gathering

What I took from all that:

Windows 8 is exactly what I thought it was going to be and I was right to hold off and let it run its buggy-ass course.

Pretty much. It's basically a tablet OS, which works fine for tablets or even a laptop. But it's a nightmare for desktops and I fucking hate a lot of the changes like removing the start menu & task manager. You can't boot to the desktop anymore either.

[Taskmage]

Re: Magic: The Gathering

I was just commenting on your spheres.

[Malacite]

Re: Magic: The Gathering

What's wrong with them?

One acts as a 2ndary O-Ring that can hit multiple copies (and also wipe out tokens permanently I think?) and the other basically just stops you from ever attacking me because I run so many annoying enchantment anyway that by the time it hits the field, your cost to attack is astronomical.

[Firewind]

Re: Magic: The Gathering

Problem with going for Vraska's Ultimate in multiplayer: It's painting a huge "Kill me now" target on your head and it is surprisingly easy to remove given the number of removal/bounce cards in the game that say "Non-land permanent". Plus it's not as if people are going to sit there and let her build counters. If you're gunning for the ultimate you bet people will be willing to bite the bullet and agree with each other to sacrifice a creature each to be rid of her.

The Deathtouch ability is actually the reason why you would play her in multiplayer for the reasons that TM said above. That said, it is 5 CMC to remove what? 2? 3 creatures? Wrath of God is 4CMC and wipes the board.

I'm saying she's a bad card but I'm with TM when saying in Multiplayer, it is only really the deathtouch ability you want but you cn get the exact same effect from Basilisk Collars (which are MUCH more devastating in Multiplayer), and multiplayer decks don't always pack dedicated Artifact removal purely due to most of them only being a one shot deal.

[Taskmage]

Re: Magic: The Gathering

It was a pun ... about your deck with two prominent spheres ... sounding like balls.

... Am I being trolled? <_<

[Firewind]

Re: Magic: The Gathering

That and TM actually did use the exact same deck you're describing in Multiplayer and he can tell you exactly how long he lasted when he played the Elocutors. Detention Sphere and O-Ring are pretty shit in Multiplayer since it is just a one shot deal, and freeing up an O-Ringed creature is a good way to gain an ally if you have Enchantment hate in your deck. Sure you can O-Ring a player's flyer but what about the other players in the game? They aren't going to let you sit there racking up the counters. Plus politics will screw you over for being the control guy if you aren't careful. Ask Cid how much hate he gets for playing his Black "Wipe the Board every turn for the evulz" deck and how long he lasts is he starts playing stuff too quickly.

Azorius is a bad choice for control in Multiplayer too. Black or Red, probably White tends to be what you want to do for due to them having far more global effects and cards that aren't just restricted to a single creature.

That and control decks tend to piss off the entire table and make games unfun to play if you use the decks too often. I think everyone has seen my Monoblack Pestilence deck for Multiplayer, and how the presence of that deck draws so much hate purely so people don't have to deal with it. Funnily enough my G/B Elf Deck for MP draws a ton of hate too even though I deliberately made it "unridiculous" so people can actually have fun playing against it.

Seriously, not enough people consider making decks interesting of fun to play against in Multiplayer, probably the most casual format of magic out there. When I see the decklistings online of Spike players, half the time I think "And this guy doesn't get punched in the face every time he plays this deck?". Everyone in the group has a deck that is very competitive but also gets torn apart by everyone else very quickly for that very reason.

[Taskmage]

Re: Magic: The Gathering

Fortunately, the Elocutors are only an alternate win-con for that deck, which also contains the Fencing Aces, Invisible Stalkers, Ethereal Armor, and Curiosity. The enchantments-as-removal do double synergy with the Sphere of Safety and Ethereal Armor. I consider that to be a pretty fun and effective UW deck. The deck with Conjured Currency and Hive Mind (with all the hexproof guys and Leyline of Sanctity) is also UW. Actually, those are probably my two funnest decks.

(Look at me opening Cockatrice for the first time in probably a month.)

[Firewind]

Re: Magic: The Gathering

There is a reason why that Hive Mind deck is so popular though. Any game involving that is always a hilarious one. And it is just a generally fun card to see in play because literally ANYTHING can happen. need I remind you of the Catsplosion?

Also this card is 1 CMC less than Vraska, has more use in multiplayer, and is actually a lot harder to remove than a Planeswalker due to Enchantment hate being less common in Multiplayer due to most only being a one shot deal:

[Malacite]

Re: Magic: The Gathering

Eh sorry, sarcasm is sometimes hard to pick up on via text-only. Plus as I said, I'm kinda dealing with Hell atm regarding my PC so yeah....


New Boros medic is f'ing crazy. 3/3 for 2W Battalion makes your critters indestructible for the turn. Can also sac him to counter any X spell unless opponent pays 3 - bai bai Bonfire/Entreat/Sphinx


T1: Champion of the Parish
T2: Lightning Mauler, Swing for 2
T3: Cleric, Bond with Mauler, Swing for 8
T4: Lots of ways to win the game right there... Thalia + Cloudshift, Silverblade Paladin + Cloudshift, Restoration Angel, Thatcher's Revolt, the new aggro goblin (though I'd rather not run him 'cause prefer humans) Hellrider...


This guy is nasty. Boros may yet have a chance of seeing constructed play.

[Taskmage]

Re: Magic: The Gathering

Ok, I thought you might have been pretending to not get it to force me to explain it to spoil the joke and make me look silly. So consider this battle of wits a draw due to insufficient material.

[Firewind]

Re: Magic: The Gathering

I'm hoping Boros gets more Goblin cards. I do love Boros Themed Goblin Decks even if traditional Goblin decks, or going for an Izzet Theme are better choices.