Magic: The Gathering

[BaneTheBrawler]

Try to keep your deck between 60-70 cards (I prefer 60 exactly). Anything bigger than that and you're unlikely to see any given card in a single match. For a 60 card deck, I typically run with 24 mana. I tweak that based on what type of cards are in it, but to start with, that's a good ratio. Don't try to do too many things with your deck, as this will make it difficult to keep your card count down.

[kisada]

Anyone still playing? Wouldn't mind testing online a bit with cockatrice.

i've been playing and messing with some decks. i think dgm has some really awesome cards.

would definitely like to play if you or anyone else is interested. just send me a pm!

[Afrohatch]

Anyone in the San Diego area know of any places that hold EDH events? They're the only decks I have lol, I'm working on a modern but I want something to do until then!

[Tricen]

The prerelease was cute. Went boros, got rakdos as my second one. Went 3-0-2 into top 8 and split. Was neat I guess.

[BaneTheBrawler]

Went Azorius, got Orzhov as my assist. Pulled the dimir legendary and Obzedat, so I built a deck around them. It was pretty good, I thought, but not good enough, because I lost 3/4 rounds decisively, and only won the second one because my opponent was really new to the game, and hadn't included enough mana in her deck. Our first game she only had 2 mana, our second she only had 3. I still got 2 boosters, though, for some reason. Which was doubly confusing when I was waiting for my friend to hopefully get a pity pack (He won none), and somehow won one myself. So I gave it to him.

My very first game was VERY close, though. I had 17 life, my opponent had 5, and we both had 2 cards left in our libraries (We both had milling). He did some creative blocking to prevent me from making him kill obzedat (Which had Dying Wish on it) and then milled me to death.

[Xerlic]

I did 3 prereleases.

First: Orzhov + Golgari ally. My pool was busted. I had Obzedat in my Orzhov guildpack, opened Blood Baron of Vizkopa and foil Deadbridge Chant in the same pack (first double Mythic pack), Scion of Vitu-Ghazi, the Golgari Champion and like 4+ pieces of removal. I was extremely happy with my pool. The problem with running Obzedat in a 3 color deck is he can become hard to cast, so I got greedy with my mana and tried to minimize my forests. This came back to bite me in the ass, and I lost a round due to being screwed off of green with a bunch of Selesnya and Golgari cards in my hand. After that, I sided into an 18th land every round. I won every other round pretty easily going 3-1, but it could have gone 4-0 if I had made the proper adjustments to my landbase. The guy who won the prerelease was some kid that was using Deputy of Acquittals to bounce his opponent's creatures. After the final match, he told me about this "combo" with the 6/6 Simic guy that forces you to bounce one of your own creatures every turn and I point out that Deputy can only target your own creatures and his opponent overheard me. Things got pretty awkward. Apparently this kid got through 4 rounds doing this and nobody called him on it. Read the fucking card people.

Second: Selesnya + Gruul ally. I got the Beastmaster in my Selesnya pack and Wrecking Ogre in my Gruul pack. I had several ways to get +1/+1 counters onto my Beastmaster so that was my gameplan to win. I also opened a Ral Zarek and got greedy and tried to splash him. This was a mistake and I got ran over by Rakdos + Boros round 1. I sided out the blue and just went straight Naya afterwards winning round 2. Round 3 came down really close. It's game 3 and I was at 3 and opponent had 3 power in fliers and 0 cards in hand. I had him dead on board if he didn't top deck a creature, and of course he top decks the 1/4 that taps guys down when he attacks. I whiff on the draw step and attack. Wrecking Ogre bloodrush puts him down to 1 and I extend the hand. Round 4 I lost to Trostani + the 1/1 that makes the 3 tokens when it comes into play.

Third: Rakdos + Gruul. I wanted to leave after the second flight, but was convinced to stay. I open a downright shit pool and throw together my awful deck. Pairings are called and apparently my round 1 opponent had left after opening his pool. Round 2 I get crushed by Rakdos + Boros again after being mana screwed game 1 and mulling down to 5 game 2. Round 3 I find out that this opponent had also left so I won 2 packs by losing 1 round and it honestly felt kind of shitty.

Honestly, I'm glad that the block prereleases are over. Sealed is already pretty swingy since there's the luck factor, but the guild packs can skew this even more imo. I'm looking forward to just going back to 6 boosters in Theros.

[zoobernut]

I went Rakdos/Boros at my pre-release only was able to run 2 gates and the rest basics. Went 3-1 and drew the last round to get into top 8 which we all split so I walked away with 12 packs sitting in 4th place. It was really fun. I enjoyed my deck even though I thought it was going to suck. My favorite moment was getting to play blood scrivener and sire of insanity at the same time. My second favorite moment was getting Desecration Demon out on turn 4 on game one and getting it out turn 5 on game 2 both times my opponent only had 1 or 2 creatures out so the demon beat face pretty quickly.

[Chrius]

First world problems, I know. I'm out of the country on vacation and no shops around so I am missing prerelease. Looking forward to playset of nonmythics arriving and trying to snipe a ptq. Maybe a game day play mat finally.

[Tomiko]

Went 4-0 at my Sunday night PR.

Selesnya with Gruul sub-pack. I thought I had a crap pool, but it ended up working out. The highlight for me was round 4 vs Esper:

Game 1: He's has Azorious Guildmage to fly his creatures over me while I have a Bronzebeak Moa out. He's tapped out with no blockers and I drop Tristoni's Summoner and swing for 14. Dropped Gleam of Battle next turn to end it.

Game 2: He Detention Sphered my Moa (had Summoner in hand too ). I got Summoner out with Wild Beastmaster. Next turn I swing with all then Bloodrush the Beastmaster with the trigger on the stack.

Oddly enough I ended up getting a lot of the same cards in my prize packs compared to my Sealed Dragon's Maze packs. One of the duplicates was even foil from both (crappy Red Guildgate guy). Also pulled 2 foil Orzhov Guildgates that day which was nice (1 from Intro pack, 1 from prize packs).

[zoobernut]

I got on the list at my local game store to purchase a box of modern masters woot! He is actually getting a fair amount of boxes in so he is able to sell some of them and save some for events.

Oh yeah and he is selling them at or slightly below MSRP instead of the already inflated price I have been seeing.

[Nama]

Modern Masters is getting a higher production then the initial knee jerk reactions forcast. Stores are getting more boxes then they first though albeit not a ton more I was lucky enough to get on a LGS list for one at MSRP. There is gonna be a high demand for these so I wonder how many stores are gonna actually attempt to draft the set. Also if you have any local hobby stores that happen to stock magic but not really their main thing I would suggest checking them out. There was a model store here that got a few boxes and pre-sold them for 120$ each because they they arn't really into magic much and didn't understand the value that is going to be in the set.

[Xerlic]

I go to 3 different stores and all of them are saying that they only have enough MM product to run drafts.

[zoobernut]

Modern Masters is getting a higher production then the initial knee jerk reactions forcast. Stores are getting more boxes then they first though albeit not a ton more I was lucky enough to get on a LGS list for one at MSRP. There is gonna be a high demand for these so I wonder how many stores are gonna actually attempt to draft the set. Also if you have any local hobby stores that happen to stock magic but not really their main thing I would suggest checking them out. There was a model store here that got a few boxes and pre-sold them for 120$ each because they they arn't really into magic much and didn't understand the value that is going to be in the set.

I think my store is getting enough to run a GPT of MMs and a couple drafts and sell like 10 or 15 boxes to customers. But my store owner is busting his butt to get his max allotment from Wizards as well as get some from his other distributors. He is selling boxes at $160 I think. They are going for $250+ already on ebay.

But you are right the print run is larger than everyone thought it would be when it was first announced.

[Xerlic]

A store in my area broke the street date and ran a DGR draft last night. It brought back a lot of memories of RGD drafting. I drafted a BRW deck with Sire of Insanity which was pretty bonkers. I won several games off of a lot of 2 drops into Cluestones into Sire making the opponent discard 4+ cards and then popping my Cluestones to refill my hand.

[Syntex]

Went 4-1 at midnight. Lost to a really good player who drafted orzho and got a desecration demon and ghost dad as his rares(fuckin bullshit I know) and pulled 3rd. Went 4-1 and got 5th or so next day(round 2 loss) due to hexproof fliers with enchants that make them 7 power vs naya. I picked selesnya both times got simic the night I got 3rd and gruul the next day.

I like the set so far, not too many big cards but w/e...

I think esper is falling out of style and some other colors will rise to the top. I also think American flash will see a lotta play as it got 3 cards it needed that it lacked before. Turn//burn for control, Aetherling for a finisher and a good planeswalker Ral Zarek.

[Darkruler]

hey guys, sorry to just barge in with nubby questions, but i used to play back in the late 90s and have been thinking of starting up again.., which set(s) should i invest in to start playin again? i was thinking of maybe waiting til the next core set in july but i'd like some input from current players. thank you.

[Nama]

If you can find them Innistrad is currently the most valuable set still on shelves. Theres been several rule changes since the 90's that will probally vastly affect how you play so you might wanna brush up on somet things. I came back to magic after quiting in the 90's as well and big change that threw off how i completely play was that damage no longer uses the stack. Few major changes to look up - Damage removed from stack, Legend rule change, Manaburn removed, New card types(Planeswalker-Equipment-Double sided). Starting back up with clean slate with M14 in July might be a good idea as well instead of jumping in at the end of Ravnica block. Also depends what you intend to play namely standard or draft.
I would suggest you pick up one of the duels of the planeswalker videogames before you start cracking packs. They are an excellent introduction to magic, will bring you up to speed on some rules and story setting/characters and will save you alot of money incase you end up not wanting to sink money into cardboard again. Think they all run about $5-10 on Steam/XboxLive/PSnetwork.

[Correction]

Getting back into the game so I pulled out my old collection, which is largely a mishmash of stuff from The Dark through to Homelands (which is when I quit because it was the worst fucking set of all time). Unfortunately it's all stored in separate longboxes of non-uniform size because I was buying these when I was just out of college and the only place that sold the boxes was a mediocre comic shop in Sunnyvale.

Perhaps the loose card storage/organization question has been broached before but how is everyone else keeping track of their cards? How do you sort them and what kind of box do you keep it in? I'm in the market for something low-profile that I can tuck under a futon when not in use. I have too many cards in binders at present, which makes it a hassle to take individual cards out for play or move cards around as I get dupes. Do people keep their super-valuable cards in separate boxes or is everything thrown into a big flat box like this?

http://i.minus.com/ibhJQRKkJVc1hL.jpg

Do folks also bother with cataloging their cards online? Most of the solutions I've seen revolve around trading and sharing and all I'm really interested in is maintaining a database so I can build and playtest a deck in tappedout's deckbuilder.

[Xerlic]

I have two boxes like the one that you posted with cards separated by set and color. This is for bulk commons and uncommons.

I have one long boxes that I keep playets of playable commons and uncommons in penny sleeves. I also keep my extra uncommons like Lingering Souls, Boros Charm, Experiment One etc for trades as well as bulk rares in another long box.

I have two binders. One has my trade fodder and extras of the staples that I wouldn't mind trading away. Finally I have my staples+good stuff binder. This is where I store my playsets of stuff that I don't really want to trade away, but I will if the deal is right. Playsets of shock lands, check lands, Snapcasters, Lilianas, etc.

[Correction]

Do you separate cards by set as an absolute rule? i.e. revised from 4th ed from 7th ed, etc or just core from expansion?