Evu

joined 2 years ago
[–] Evu@mtgzone.com 5 points 5 months ago

I have mixed feelings about stuff like this. On the one hand, Magic has intricate rules, and thousands of different cards, and as someone familiar with those rules and cards, it's always cool to see them come together to do something impressive.

On the other hand, this is a big part of why I don't play Timeless, or other high-powered formats. They're too fast to be fun. You might say "this almost never happens", but IMO it should literally never happen. Zero point zero zero percent of games should ever end on turn 1. I play Standard and I don't even like that games sometimes end on turn 3. Anytime a game ends and one player didn't get to do anything fun in it, it's a symptom of a design failure. If there were a board game where that happened, you wouldn't be able to get anybody to play it with you. Why we tolerate it in Magic is beyond me.

[–] Evu@mtgzone.com 9 points 5 months ago

As if I needed another reason not to buy them.

[–] Evu@mtgzone.com 9 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

Any number of artifact creatures dealing combat damage to a player will generate a total of 2 energy. You're right that the "one or more" text puts a cap on it.

However -- say you have three artifact creatures, and one of them has first strike, but the other two don't. When the first-striker deals combat damage to the opponent, Pia's ability will trigger, and you'll get two energy. Then when the non-first-strikers deal combat damage to the opponent, her ability will trigger again, and you'll get two more energy.

Another way to get more than 2 energy out of her in a turn is to use "additional combat" effects.

[–] Evu@mtgzone.com 3 points 5 months ago

Three Overlords decks in the T8 and two in the finals. If this leads to a rash of people playing Overlords in your metagame, allow me to note that Poison Burn (updated list in the comments) has like a 90%+ win rate against it. Terrible against red aggro, though.

[–] Evu@mtgzone.com 2 points 5 months ago

I saw someone playing that Golgari deck on Arena last night, guess this is where it came from. Always exciting to see a rogue deck doing well.

[–] Evu@mtgzone.com 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Was getting ready to post this myself. Thanks for doing it!

Direct link to the donation page, in case anybody prefers to bypass Bluesky: https://give.translifeline.org/tolarian

[–] Evu@mtgzone.com 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I think this system has the potential to achieve its objective, if it doesn't end up causing more confusion. Five brackets might be kind of a lot, although I hear what Gavin's saying about why they went up from three, and 40 "game-changers" is definitely a lot. Nobody will or should try to memorize what's a game-changer, especially if the list can fluctuate the same as a ban list. It might be better to try to use categories that explain why the game-changing cards are a problem... except that Gavin did exactly that in the article, and it's still a fairly long list.

All of my Commander decks would be in bracket 1 or 2 and my main question is how to decide which. Most don't have sub-optimal card choices to fit a theme, but all have sub-optimal card choices for budget reasons, and I'm not sure whether any of them are really a fair match for a precon. Should I say "bracket 1.5"?

[–] Evu@mtgzone.com 4 points 6 months ago

I wondered the same thing. Looks like they have a Patreon account and also accept donations directly.

FAQ: How can I support Scryfall?

[–] Evu@mtgzone.com 2 points 6 months ago

Oh absolutely! I'm glad I got to see someone play this deck, I'm just also glad it didn't have to be me. :)

[–] Evu@mtgzone.com 3 points 6 months ago (2 children)

This deck is expensive and bad. Thank goodness we have Seth to play it for us, so the rest of us don't have to.

[–] Evu@mtgzone.com 3 points 6 months ago (3 children)

I was rolling my eyes about how Speed is yet another effect that isn't represented by a permanent and can't be interacted with, and then as I read on I discovered it's even more confusing than that. Gaining the first speed level happens instantaneously, but if I'm reading right, gaining levels 2 through 4 is a triggered ability (albeit one with no source, not even an emblem?) and could be Stifled.

[–] Evu@mtgzone.com 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

A lot of what he's saying here matches my own experience playing ranked games on Arena. I made it to Mythic (playing Standard) a few days before the end of December. When I finally broke in, my rank was 92%. That's a pretty high number, and it's actually even better than it sounds: I'm not just in the 92nd percentile of all Magic players worldwide, I'm in the 92nd percentile among people who take Magic seriously enough to play ranked matches on Arena.

Surely an accomplishment one could be proud of, right? But the whole time I was getting there, I felt mediocre, because I kept losing about as much as I was winning. I also wasn't experimenting. I wanted to get to Mythic, so I stuck to decks that I knew were good and that I was experienced with.

As soon as I reached my competitive goal, I switched to playing more offbeat or experimental decks. And honestly, I started having more fun, if only from the change of pace, even though my rating dropped into the 80s. And then something interesting happened: I got more comfortable with those decks, and/or started facing lower-ranked opponents, and my rating climbed back into the 90s.

So I think Richard is right about ladders' capacity to suppress one's enjoyment of the game. However -- I'm still not sure I would want to play without one. From time to time I play unranked games with decks that I think are fun, but pretty far (even intentionally far) from Tier 1. But I can never put up with it for very long: the caliber of the decks that I face varies too widely. I'll stomp someone's precon in one game and then get stomped in turn by a tournament deck in the next. I keep coming back to the ladder because, as unfair as the cards and decks I see there may be, at least both players agree at the start on what power level we're aiming for. (Having separate lobbies for "unranked play with tournament decks" and "unranked play with casual decks" might sound like a solution, but some players would still join the wrong ones.)

As for tournaments: I've been on Arena for two or three years now and I've never joined a constructed tournament. The prize structure makes them effectively single-elimination, and I'm not sure I've ever won five matches in a row on the ladder, so what would make me think I could do it when there was even more on the line? My gold and gems are much more wisely spent doing drafts so I can build my collection.

But that may not be a refutation of Richard's point so much as a criticism of Arena's tournament structure. If Arena had Swiss-style tournaments, with flatter prize structures, I would be more likely to join them.

view more: ‹ prev next ›