Because we need a Magic: the Gathering thread.Follow

If I was to guess, I'd say people weren't used to it and built slower decks that would stalemate against the other guy's slow deck. I was walking around after my matches and would see games with five or six creatures up against five or six creatures on the other side and neither one willing or able to make the first move. My second two matches I dominated by having a faster moving deck. Also, very few people seemed to be playing red. Some heat rays and lightning strikes could have broken up those stalemates in a hurry. But everyone was all about either B/G or B/U.

A good number of cards did seem to have ridiculous casting costs but I haven't really compared to see if it's worse than 2014. The sealed format tends to make you use stuff that you wouldn't ordinarily use in standard play and every set had cards that are basically trash due to their cost.

Philistines.

It's a 7 mana cost weenie clearer.

Resolute Angel is a seven mana cost situational heal but still got more love than Siege Dragon. You'd think with that many people, you'd still have enough of the "Oh cool, big creatures" types who'd go for it. Heck, your Siege Dragon could lock down their Phytotitan!

Plus just the general lack of */R decks was puzzling. Not that I surveyed everyone or anything, just my observations from having a half hour between matches to mill around and see what was going on.

Can be too early to the party to be useful (for the cost) though. I mean, it's great if you're healing for 15 points off it or something but healing for two points and a 4/4 for seven mana isn't quite as impressive. In any event, I'm not saying it's useless or trying to really get into a debate about the relative value of each, I just found it odd. Yeah, there's some people who no doubt studied the spoiler lists and had it all planned out in their heads but you also have a lot (I'd almost guess most) who go into it on a gut feeling. I was talking to my son about it yesterday and he had completely misunderstood what Siege Dragon's effect was (he thought it was something like destroy one wall per attack) so I wonder if that played into it at all.

Edit: I'll make the point that I'm only referring to the sealed tournament where you're not sure what you'll be getting and, while you may have a concept in mind, you don't know what cards you'll be pulling for that concept. Siege Dragon seemed, to me, to have more overall utility than Resolute Angel. The life gain is situational and nothing you can rely on (as I learned the hard way) but a 5/5 flier who torches weenies seems more often useful.

Edited, Jul 16th 2014 10:59am by Jophiel

Mana burn!

Buying a box of 2015 boosters tomorrow to split with the kid. Also getting my 2015 Duel of the Planeswalkers promo pack (I pre-purchased when it was 50% off). Not that I really have a home for Soul of Zendikar in a deck but they owe me, damn it.

Well, I suppose I do have a Commander deck built around Animar that could use it.

Edited, Jul 17th 2014 9:21am by Jophiel

Commander is a special case. You pick one Legendary critter as your "Commander" and then you can only select cards from the Commander's casting cost. So, in this case, Red Blue and/or Green cards. Then you get a 99 card deck but can only have one of each card in there (except basic lands). Without explaining all the rules, you can look up Commander or EDH (Elder Dragon Highlander) for them, the dynamics allow for more variation than you see in a standard deck game.

I only play it against my son for a change of pace. We have a big box of older cards from buying cheap eBay lots and go through it to make the decks. My Animar deck is creature heavy with a mix of low cost guys to pump up Animar's counters and high cost critters you'd ordinarily never use to take advantage of the reduced casting cost. That's the fun of it for us, using cards you'd usually never touch for whatever reason.

When I played, true two color lands were not readily available. There were the fake ones that cost mana to produce other types.

Freaking SJWs.

Gonna teach him to draft with that box, or just crack em?

If you find any Nissa's, sell em now while they're at their high.

Nissa is about $50 now, you can probably sell it and get 2 or 3 for the same money in a few months, not sure what Garruk's price is but he's probably at a high point too as neither of them is going to be a vintage, legacy or modern staple and all planeswalkers suffer from The Mind Sculptor syndrome.

Not sure what else is valuable at the moment but you can get your money back with selling those walkers.

Edit: looks like Garruk is $20-25 and Nissa has fallen back to $35 already. Still, neither of them is going to hold this value for long. Jace, Chord of Calling, Sliver Hivelord and Ajani are the other $10+ cards in the set. Urborg has some staying power as well as it sees some play in older formats.

Edited, Jul 19th 2014 4:31am by Aethien

I should learn M:TG.