Magic the Gathering

No doubt that mono will become the strong thing, but I like having options in multiple colors, especially when something has protection from a certain color. Also, the new format means I actually need to do damage as a win condition, lol. I've had too much fun with nearly creatureless Nephalia Drownyard decks.

I just like options in general. The current format, you could build literally anything you wanted because the mana was so good, and there were good options both in multicolor schemes, and more focused builds.

Have some form of internet just to share this to you guys.

Before I left Italy, I went to Prague for the GP. Got to say, it. was. a. BLAST!



Played in the GP, Full Ravnica Set Challenge, Modern, and Standard. Didn't do too well, but I still had fun. Pulled Dark Confidant from the Full Ravnica Set Challenge. So stoked about it. :D

Also won in a raffle for a set of Planechase.

Seems like a good time. And pulling a copy of Bob is sweet.

And I saw Flame Rift and Lashwrithe in the same pool. Dahell? Were you cubing, too?

Sorry, no cubing. The artist for Lashwrite was there and I got mine signed. Flame Rift and a few other cards were for my Gisela EDH Deck.

Oh, that's pretty cool.

You play much EDH while you were there?

Quite a few. Only EDH deck that I couldn't defeat was a Skittles (Skithiryx) EDH deck.

Three interesting Planeswalkers in Theros...
Elspeth
Ashiok
Xenagos

Huh, I've never actually played against a deck with Skithiryx as my opponent's commander (though it was in their 99). What kind of stuff was in that deck?



I already saw the Elspeth, but it's still pretty damn strong. Thankfully, it's six mana, so that balances out, but still. I think she might be a major player in new Standard.

OHHHHHHHH HOLY SHIT, another Blue-Black Planeswalker!!!!!!!!! It looks pretty awesome, too!
Okay, I'm going blue-black in the new format~

I like the new G/R planeswalker, too. Unless it's RUG, I typically don't like playing too much Red-Green aggresive decks, but I think I like this guy enough to get over that.

My friend's Standard BlueBlack mill just suddenly became more interesting... As the format becomes slower, the power of mill decks increases.

I believe that Xenagos combined with Nykthos will garner a player a lot of mana given the right circumstances.

Pretty much a lot of stuff to ramp up and cast Skittles early, and hit you for 10 Poison.

There's already a kind of mill deck in today's Standard. Any slow UBx control deck usually uses Nephalia Drownyard as it's main win condition.

Definitely. Mana creatures will probably get Xenagos out quicker, and of course, mana creatures will fuel green devotion to Nykthos.



Ahh, so it just kinda rushes him into play, and kills you ASAP.
Was it too quick out of the gates for you to stop it?

Pretty much. First game I played against that deck though and I :

1st time - Path to Exile Skittles when first casted
2nd time - Swords of Plowshares
3rd time - Jitte's -1 / -1 and then Lightning Bolted
4th time - Mizzium Mortared him

Of course, the player was aptly mad but laughing at the same time. Was rare for me to get so much of my removal cards like that. Still though, the player had just basic Snow-Covered Swamps, and Thran Dynamo to still cast him the 5th time and beat me after that.

So dual colored lands are still in the set. Although, it is slower but it scries.

A really interesting new card.
Prophet of Kruphix

S-s-searing spear... I mean Lightning Strike it!!! :P

That was annoying. My friends and I were raging about that, much to other players' amusements yesterday. Mostly, we were just complaining about the fact Lightning Bolt still isn't back, lol. "This could've been Incinerate, at least!"

I'm depressed, too, that those lands enter tapped under any circumstance. I had hoped for some kind of condition for it to enter untapped, since our other option besides the Shocklands are the Gates. As much as I like scry, I'd think the Gates would be better because there are ways to fetch them, like Gatecreeper Vine and Maze's End.

I was upset too. There a lot of creatures not that can regenerate (Lotleth Troll and Varolz just to name a few), and Incinerate would have been nice. That and now we can't even use our promo Searing Spears anymore. saidfaic.jpg

I actually like the changes. I prefer slower games.
Fast games usually results in a lot of people having pretty much the same decks.

They're waste of rares when they're that weak, though. Scry 1 simply isn't enough... In fact, we had cards like that in earlier sets that were COMMON. Granted, they were only mono-colored lands, but as a dual land, that's too weak to warrant an "ETB tapped always" penalty.
Scry 2, my friends and I think, would've been more of a reason to make it rare. But, at best, those bad dual lands really oughta be uncommon.



Yeah, the "can't regenerate" clause is actually relevant in this format. Without much that prevents regeneration, those guys are bothersome to deal with.

It wouldn't make much sense as they had snow duels in cold snap that did virtually the same thing, but were snow and didn't scry.

That and it likely had a lot to do with limited, in RTR limited you had a lot of multicolor cards and they wanted people to be able to play all the guilds, so they put the gates at common so there would be plenty of mana fixing, it's likely not the same in theros.

I think they are fine, in slower, more controlling decks, it allows them to filter out excess lands for gas, powers domri in R/G decks and isn't horrible late game to draw.

Actually, those scry lands are what I'm really wanting out of this set. They would work wonders in my bucket land destruction commander deck, as playing them over and over off of crucible after they get destoryed = value.

Like gurall said, they are good in control.