The Official Magic the Gathering card game Rules, Questions, and General Discussion Thread

[Space Lynx]

I can haz 3 combat phases nao?

View attachment 384084

wth Full Throttle does look overpowered a bit, that being said most red decks will end you before turn 6 anyway so eh, this may be weaker than it looks, but I am sure this might help a dual colored deck though. Red was so broken a couple months ago, like turn 2 kills with that flying haste prowess thingy, man those decks were annoying as hell. I have always disliked red decks, except for the Judgement expansion days, I had a firecat blitz deck that was a lot of fun (I can't remember the actual decklist sadly, original Magic Online client used NetDecks, and all mine were lost to time sadly) I remember I had a lot of fun decks though, really wish I had handwritten or typed them out and saved them, I just always thought NetDecks would be around, but they moved away from NetDecks in the original client and yeah its all just gone sadly

@the54thvoid never heard of Battletech before, but that is some really cool artwork and a neat card too, I like the contrast with the mech warfare stuff

 

[Space Lynx]

well new Aetherdrift expansion came out today, I went 2 wins 3 losses in my first draft, but in my second draft i almost made it to winner's circle. got 6 wins and 3 losses.

 

[Vayra86]

I'm back in MTGA @Space Lynx

So far I'm 100% winrate with this deck I just nabbed from the meta lists and then adapted it a little bit. The original has Enduring Curiosity and Kaito, Bane of Nightmares but I didn't quite see the point and they're 4 mana... Instead I'm doubling down on the enchantment synergy playline and found two perfect candidates, both being cheaper options. The land base needs improving (more duals without tap) but this works ok.

The game plan here is: lots of removal; discard for the opponents, and mucho card draw for yourself, while you keep making tokens with Prowess. The deck is enchantment heavy, a lot of them have flash, AND... with Fear of Isolation and This Town Aint Big Enough you can bounce them back to your hand for a recast. The real wincon here is not some Kaito or getting cards from combat damage... what's the synergy? I didn't understand a thing of that. The key here is Entity Tracker!

And then you play things like

And since we want to play more enchantments instead of some silly planeswalker... enter 2x Lord Skitter's Blessing: an extra bit of pump for our tokens... Oh... is that role token an enchantment entering, too? Gosh! And is that an extra card every turn on top of that? So that's +3 cards for two mana within the space of your next turn when Entity Tracker's out? I see. We're still playing Standard... right?

This shit is on fire! I haven't seen an opponent make a meaningful play against this. The lowest life I had so far was 15.

 

[Selaya]

imean, you can print this card

iwin 4RR
sorcery
you win the game.

and it would, essentially be unplayable so

 

[Vayra86]

Hmm I guess Kaito is back in because I can't bring this deck up against midrange at all Also experimenting with other things from Aetherdrift in this deck. Good fun

The meta game is nice these days. Discard seems to be back in full force. Lots of non creature oriented plays. Neat!

 

[Selaya]

why play type2 when you can play actual form-
oh wait its arena nvm

 

[Space Lynx]

why play type2 when you can play actual form-
oh wait its arena nvm

Arena is free, and I'd rather not give a penny to Wizards of the Coast, the way they treat people lately. I'm still having fun with Arena personally, I just take it for what it is. I have 17k gems, and 140k gold at the moment, and not spent a single penny on the game. Just win a lot + free draft tokens they give out sometimes. The collection of cards I have in Arena would probably cost me 2 grand irl, but again nothing on Arena, and I don't have to wait to try to find people to play, etc.

Arena is not the end all be all, I actually miss the old online original client to be honest, but that is also very expensive, but doesn't give free incentives like Arena does.

 

[Space Lynx]

why play type2 when you can play actual form-
oh wait its arena nvm

I have no idea what you are meaning... :/ Is everything ok?

 

[Selaya]

accidentally doubleposted lmfao

anyways, you can play something like ... timeless ... ig :|
or just keep on drafting

 

[Space Lynx]

I personally think all three of these will be fun, mostly Final Fantasy and Edge of Eternities. I will probably actually spend about 8000 gems on sealed deck tournaments for those two expansions, I hope I can win the gems back, will try my best, cause it takes me a long time to build them up, since I am a cheap ass.

I do enjoy drafts too, I will keep saving my gold to do a few drafts for each new expansion, and hope I keep winning to get more gems for the sealed deck tournaments. That's my plan anyway.

 

[Space Lynx]

won't let me edit my previous post:

for new players, don't underestimate Jump In mode, only costs 1000 gold, and you get to keep the cards you pick. I just picked two decks to match together that were from the new expansion (racing flag icon) and its basically the equivalent of what 2 1/2 packs? which run 1000 gold each, so basically double the cards for same amount of gold.

of course there aren't a ton of options. I think I have most at this point after only 5 Jump In's, still a fun little way to get some cards on the cheap, also I have had a lot of fun with the matches too, since they are fairly balanced unlike meta crap.

 

[Vayra86]

won't let me edit my previous post:

for new players, don't underestimate Jump In mode, only costs 1000 gold, and you get to keep the cards you pick. I just picked two decks to match together that were from the new expansion (racing flag icon) and its basically the equivalent of what 2 1/2 packs? which run 1000 gold each, so basically double the cards for same amount of gold.

of course there aren't a ton of options. I think I have most at this point after only 5 Jump In's, still a fun little way to get some cards on the cheap, also I have had a lot of fun with the matches too, since they are fairly balanced unlike meta crap.

View attachment 385247

Oh nice I'll check that out. Sorely needing cards here I had a lot... but that shit is no longer legal and I burned out all my wildcards now.

Did get to making three decks in the end. These two I hadn't posted yet; this one CAN be ran without the Screaming Nemesis and you'll have a deck with just 4 rares in it. Very easy to make; three mana can easily turn a 1/1 into a 6/6 or more and slap immediately

And this one... is now moving me from Silver to Gold tier. Constructs baby... Simulacrum Synthesizer. If you can get that artifact in play and trigger it once or twice, its GG. Most people concede once you get triggers going, as 8/8 or better Constructs start materializing All you need here is the 4 mythics, the rest is unc/com and Fabrication Foundry (+ 1 more land, probably, giving us just 22 lands total) still need to go out of this list for 2x Dollmaker's Shop (moar artifacts) but I'm waiting on the rares The deck is heavy on removal, card advantage and chump blockers to stall the enemies and find our cards in time. This one is the best performing of the three I've posted, with some distance, too. It almost always seems to give you good hands, too. Impulse was the latest addition and it has really improved the winrate, because now we can get a Synthesizer at some point almost every game.

The deck practically maxes out at 3 mana, so you can really run 22 lands just fine as Memory Guardian has affinity for artifacts (cast for 1 blue ) and so does Voyage Home

View attachment 385050

I personally think all three of these will be fun, mostly Final Fantasy and Edge of Eternities. I will probably actually spend about 8000 gems on sealed deck tournaments for those two expansions, I hope I can win the gems back, will try my best, cause it takes me a long time to build them up, since I am a cheap ass.

I do enjoy drafts too, I will keep saving my gold to do a few drafts for each new expansion, and hope I keep winning to get more gems for the sealed deck tournaments. That's my plan anyway.

Not holding my breath over these UB sets. Mostly because none of them really tickle me setting wise. I loved the Warhammer 40K UB though. The Lotro set was also, as a set to play, quite ok, card/art wise it was a bit meh to me.

That's really it. Is the set cohesive AND a cool match with the universe it wants to portray... then it can really go places thematically. But so many of them are just 'yet another set of cards' unfortunately. The Dr Who thing was... eh. Transformers Secret Lair (and numerous others...) similarly meh. From the art to the cards to the functionality of the cards... its really hit or miss imo.

These space sets aren't directly what I'm looking for in MTG either. Totally immersion breaking, it makes absolutely zero sense. Some step into future sure. But current day 'spacefaring' ? Difficult. Part of that is also that it tries too hard to be a funny pop culture reference everywhere with the depth of a millennial puddle. So all those Hollywood inspired sets are kinda lost on me to begin with, too. It was already generic before it reached magic, it ain't gonna get better.

 

[Space Lynx]

@Vayra86 I'm a pretty bad magic player when it comes to lore, honestly never really paid much attention to it. I know everyone is up in arms over the immersion breaking of the lore this causing, big names in the industry too are upset by it like Brandon Sanderson. I used to be in the lore somewhat, back in the Odyssey block days and a little after that. It never felt cohesive to me, I never felt invested in it though other than during Odyssey block. Multiverse as a concept has never interested me either, I just have a different interpretation of the infinite.

I'm 100% going to buy the FFX and FFXIV themed commander decks, not sure about VII and VI yet, probably not. I just want to have two of the commander decks because I don't play commander for one reason, so many decks are broken in that format, its just not fun. This is one reason I like Jump In on Arena, the decks are so balanced and meant to face each other that the matches end up really quite fun and require me to think more instead of meta where im just like a robot zombie doing a,b,c,d etc

So, these two commander decks I assume will be balanced and capable of playing each other for some good matches (that's my hope anyway). It's the only thing I plan to buy for several years though, I just would like to have at least two decks meant to face each other for Commander format, as that is the only way I am ever going to play that format. FFX and XIV happen to both be my two favorite games in the entire series, so yeah I just can't pass up on that chance. I would have got into VII, but it has so many damn iterations, I find it overhwhelming and gave up on it.

As far as the sci fi stuff later on, well I just haven't been able to find any good sci-fi content since Project Hail Mary book came out. I guess I can re-read the Hyperion cantos. So, I'm just hoping this expansion will just scratch that sci-fi itch for a weekend or two, not really expecting much more from it than that though.

fyi, I spent like 14k gold in total on Jump In games recently, was just having too much fun so couldn't stop. lol

 

[Solaris17]

I'm 100% going to buy the FFX and FFXIV themed commander decks,

yes must add it to my collection.

 

[Vayra86]

I think value wise you can't go wrong with those themed decks. Especially if there's no set to accompany them.

Those Warhammer 40K cards have already risen above the purchase price of a deck. If you can still sell the entire deck I reckon you'll grab 2x purchase price, and slightly more for the better couple of them (the tyranid one and the necrons).

As for commander and broken decks... eh. Commander's really meant for a table of people you know, or randoms, but then you just have to have a bunch of fun decks to play with and its all about establishing the spirit in which you want to play it. Rule zero really... its about having fun. Not about bringing the most competitive turn 3-4 wincon to the table.

In that sense though, Wizards having taken over Commander now... and them introducing these brackets... yikes. That ain't gonna go well I think, or perhaps I'm just past that and its really meant for new people to give some guidance to their discussion on what is fun and what isn't. IMHO the old 'EDH rules/principles' were just fine. Resource denial is generally frowned upon, infinite combos should win you the game (e.g. don't go infinite or ultra complex just to stall and take it nowhere... that ain't fun), don't drag the game on for no reason are the three guidelines I generally go by, and it tends to cover almost every nuisance in the game...

also... game changers and their definition is super problematic. Any card can literally be or turn into a game changer. It depends entirely what archetypes are being played... if you play recursion and I drop one hatebear like Rest in Peace, you're done. Game changer? It ain't on the Wizard's list... by a long shot

And then there is 'no mass land denial'... lol. OKAY. So what if I play something like this, because I want to be a control-oriented commander deck, or I run something like Veyran and a spellslinger archetype? I guess we must build a boring creature deck then?

/rant

 

[kilo]

Land destruction/denial is a completely fair mechanic. People only get upset when they lose their multi-hundred-dollar make-a-billion-mana land to a $0.25 card.

 

[Space Lynx]

I'm a bit disgusted with myself, but I haven't spent any actual money on Magic the Gathering in over a decade. I was tempted by the Final Fantasy Commander decks, I grabbed the Cloud and Tidus themed ones, $70 each, so $140 total... they sell out fast so I was lucky to even get my pre-order in. Not sure if I will end up regretting this or not, but I own no commander decks IRL, and this is the only way I am willing to play Commander (because its such a broken format) is two pre-made decks meant to face each other like this. That being said, I may play it like 3x in my entire life, cause none of my IRL friends play magic the gathering, but also if I don't get them now, I will probably never get them, as the value will probably only increase on these, so I don't know. bleh.

 

[Vayra86]

I'm a bit disgusted with myself, but I haven't spent any actual money on Magic the Gathering in over a decade. I was tempted by the Final Fantasy Commander decks, I grabbed the Cloud and Tidus themed ones, $70 each, so $140 total... they sell out fast so I was lucky to even get my pre-order in. Not sure if I will end up regretting this or not, but I own no commander decks IRL, and this is the only way I am willing to play Commander (because its such a broken format) is two pre-made decks meant to face each other like this. That being said, I may play it like 3x in my entire life, cause none of my IRL friends play magic the gathering, but also if I don't get them now, I will probably never get them, as the value will probably only increase on these, so I don't know. bleh.

Good investment. Do this every release and sell a few years down the line. If you do play with them, SLEEVE THEM

No lie, if I would sell everything I think Id make about 7k EUR now. And that hasnt gone into the hobby. Half at best.

 

[Space Lynx]

Good investment. Do this every release and sell a few years down the line. If you do play with them, SLEEVE THEM

No lie, if I would sell everything I think Id make about 7k EUR now. And that hasnt gone into the hobby. Half at best.

I'm not doing it ever again after this, unless there is a Wheel of Time or Mistborn crossover theme. It is nice to know these will probably increase in value though, hence why they sell out so fast. Yeah, if in five or ten years, if I am not using them or tired of them, I will sell.

Good investment. Do this every release and sell a few years down the line. If you do play with them, SLEEVE THEM

No lie, if I would sell everything I think Id make about 7k EUR now. And that hasnt gone into the hobby. Half at best.

i want to do the inner sleeve and outer sleeve thing, do you have any recommendations on brand or where to buy? i haven't bought sleeves since 2004... lmao

 

[Vayra86]

I'm not doing it ever again after this, unless there is a Wheel of Time or Mistborn crossover theme. It is nice to know these will probably increase in value though, hence why they sell out so fast. Yeah, if in five or ten years, if I am not using them or tired of them, I will sell.



i want to do the inner sleeve and outer sleeve thing, do you have any recommendations on brand or where to buy? i haven't bought sleeves since 2004... lmao

Yeah that's definitely recommended. Double sleeved does make a commander deck thiccc For inner sleeves, simply avoid UltraPro, its utter junk often with a cutoff edge on the top of the sleeve, factory inaccuracy. That goes for many things from that brand btw; poor material choices too. It all just breaks down faster than most other brands it seems; not just sleeves, but display maps as well.

Ultimate Guard, KMC, GameGenic and Dragon Shield all offer good stuff. For outer sleeve, make sure you don't get a transparent one... it seems obvious, but you know Double faced cards dont mix well with that. ALSO... consider just picking one color of sleeve for all your decks. They come in packs of 100... so if one of them tears for a commander deck, you're gonna be buying a whole other pack. Not so much if you just have one color for several decks. Imho, Dragon Shield has the best sleeves out there for just a single-color back; it has a fine texture to the back of the cards, which is much better than glossy. Cards never get vacuumed together.

Check out Cardmarket.com or something similar for sellers, they're bound to be cheaper than game stores.

Sparkling Amethyst card sleeves for TCG - Dragon Shield

www.dragonshield.com

^ This is the type I mean. Matte. Comes in all colors

There is also non-glare, but I'd avoid those too, they can actually make cards harder to read, depending on the light conditions. They're mostly to avoid camera reflection-type issues.

 

[Space Lynx]

Yeah that's definitely recommended. Double sleeved does make a commander deck thiccc For inner sleeves, simply avoid UltraPro, its utter junk often with a cutoff edge on the top of the sleeve, factory inaccuracy. That goes for many things from that brand btw; poor material choices too. It all just breaks down faster than most other brands it seems; not just sleeves, but display maps as well.

Ultimate Guard, KMC, GameGenic and Dragon Shield all offer good stuff. For outer sleeve, make sure you don't get a transparent one... it seems obvious, but you know Double faced cards dont mix well with that. ALSO... consider just picking one color of sleeve for all your decks. They come in packs of 100... so if one of them tears for a commander deck, you're gonna be buying a whole other pack. Not so much if you just have one color for several decks. Imho, Dragon Shield has the best sleeves out there for just a single-color back; it has a fine texture to the back of the cards, which is much better than glossy. Cards never get vacuumed together.

Check out Cardmarket.com or something similar for sellers, they're bound to be cheaper than game stores.

Sparkling Amethyst card sleeves for TCG - Dragon Shield

www.dragonshield.com

^ This is the type I mean. Matte. Comes in all colors

There is also non-glare, but I'd avoid those too, they can actually make cards harder to read, depending on the light conditions. They're mostly to avoid camera reflection-type issues.

I decided to get these:

 

[Vayra86]

I decided to get these:

View attachment 397676

Yeah thats the inner sleeve. Now you'll be needing a standard sleeve. These are transparent.

Just an fyi, in case you double sleeve with non sealable sleeves, you just put the card in top first, and then the regular sleeve will also 'seal' the card in.

 

[Space Lynx]

Yeah thats the inner sleeve. Now you'll be needing a standard sleeve. These are transparent.

Just an fyi, in case you double sleeve with non sealable sleeves, you just put the card in top first, and then the regular sleeve will also 'seal' the card in.

I really don't want my deck of cards to be super tall when stacked. Would these really be that bad just to leave on their own with no double sleeving?

 

[Vayra86]

I really don't want my deck of cards to be super tall when stacked. Would these really be that bad just to leave on their own with no double sleeving?

Yes because you cannot hide a double faced card this way. If you are dead certain the FF decks have no double faced cards, you can roll with this... but these sleeves will NOT protect your cards from chipping off corners either for example.

If you didnt want to double sleeve, just get a standard sleeve instead

 

[Space Lynx]

Yes because you cannot hide a double faced card this way. If you are dead certain the FF decks have no double faced cards, you can roll with this... but these sleeves will NOT protect your cards from chipping off corners either for example.

If you didnt want to double sleeve, just get a standard sleeve instead

I don't think these final fantasy commander decks will have any double faced cards, so I am not sure that will be an issue. but yeah i will just do traditional standard sleeve and dragon shield sleeve matte