It's Friday and All ThatFollow

Yeah, I'm okay with that. If I gave a shit, I'd go buy the cards I needed for the decks. I mean, I own a credit card and have a job, I just don't see the value in dropping money on $20 cards to win $12 worth of booster packs. Likewise, I'm okay with using the ones I do have to try and make the best of them rather than buying someone else's deck so I can compete on their ideas. On the other hand, when I feel I've done competitively with my less-than-top-grade deck building, I think it's an evening well spent. When I rank high in a draft, I know why I did it. Certainly better than an evening spent using someone else's deck or winning video games by following YouTube walkthroughs or playing games of TF2 loaded with crutch weapons but I get that we have different goals for the night.


Heh, ok. Look, it's cool. Somehow you think that copying someone else's work and making a few tweaks is equivalent to doing it yourself or that no one except the guy who copies decks goes through all the usual decision making processes in the game. It's silly but it's not a big deal to me.

Heh, ok. Look, it's cool. Somehow you think that copying someone else's work and making a few tweaks is equivalent to doing it yourself or that no one except the guy who copies decks goes through all the usual decision making processes in the game. It's silly but it's not a big deal to me.

Sort of. It's probably sillier that you're playing Standard and emphasizing deck building. The reality is no one cares much about the deckbuilding formats, and play in constructed is pretty much universally accepted as the measure of skill at MtG. As the cards become known there's an exchange of information, it's fairly efficient, as they see play, decks get refined. Making the correct tactical play is something entirely different. Less complete information, it requires more skill. It's a different skill, definitely, but it's also quantitatively *harder*. People who win big tournaments don't just have more money for cards.

They'd better after twenty years.

I'd say it's better now than it was back in it's original heyday. Certainly better than it was around Ice Age (bleah). Can't speak for the intervening years since I know of them only through cheap bulk card lots for Commander decks.

The best deckbuilding format is pretty much block constructed anyway, especially at the tournaments right after a new set is released as everyone is starting from scratch at that point and deckbuilders get a serious advantage. It's the best chance for the good deckbuilders to find a way to break the format and find the best deck (and hope others haven't found the same).

Limited is an entirely different skillset, more about judging cards and people than being a good deckbuilder.

I had a girlfriend who would bring me pizza when I was playing M:tG then hang around for us to go home together. It's nice when you can blend your interests.

The best deckbuilding format is pretty much block constructed anyway, especially at the tournaments right after a new set is released as everyone is starting from scratch at that point and deckbuilders get a serious advantage. It's the best chance for the good deckbuilders to find a way to break the format and find the best deck (and hope others haven't found the same).

That's true. Still lightly played compared to Standard or Modern.

Was that when they were over-explaining the mechanics of the game or they were adding way too much flavor text? I remember at one point they were spending two or three sentences to explain how Flying worked, just not particularly sure if that was when.

Sigiled Starfish is awesome, as is Fleetfeather Cockatrice.

Just overly complicated cards, I think half the ice age cards has a full paragraph of text explaining what they do.

Congratulations!

The wife is away so I stayed home tonight. Played a hilariously terrible W/U deck against my kid. Bunch of low cost unblockables with low cost defenders and some extra dudes with extort. In the fever dream that made me think this was a good idea, I imagined the unblockables hitting with ciphered cards with extra extort damage off the cipher castings. It has huge weaknesses, too many parts and a big mana imbalance (blue heavy but needs extra plains for extort costs). But the 5% of the time it all comes together, it's a thing of beauty


Edited, Jun 27th 2014 11:06pm by Jophiel

Don't own one. And I'm certainly not about to try and get one for a deck I built for the lulz. See, I need the walls to stay safe while my unblockables do their measly damage! I made it mainly as joke with my son that I was going to make a W/U deck that wasn't the usual Permission/Denial or whatever.

Nice draft deck and nice snag on the Eidolon of the Great Revel.

Needs more goblins.