Cardgame Thread (guilds of ravnica mechanics spoiled!)

I haven't been in the mood to play Eternal much so I don't have the gold for Jekk's Bounty, FeelsBadMan.

Burn Queen has been the best ladder deck for a while imo. Fast, consistent, has reach. Perfect aggro deck.
 
Shadowverse update: rune and roach nerfs incoming
1. Piercing Rune (Runecraft spell): If an allied follower evolves, change the cost of this card to 2 (previously 1).
2. Goblin Mage (Neutral follower): Put a random follower that costs 2 play points or less (previously 2 play points) from your deck into your hand.
Other quality-of-life changes also coming in the impending February update, see notes here.
 

Acklow

I am always tired. Don't bother me.
The update is beautiful. Seriously happy with the direction Shadowverse is going. If you have had any reservations about playing the game. SERIOUSLY. PLAY. IT.
 

absdaddy

Banned deucer.
The nerfs that happened were a necessity (coming from Elf main, used to play Aggro Roach now Wolf Silverbolt which is imo even better, worth all the 36k vials)

Piercing rune nerf feels more like a slap on the wrist than a strong nerf, though Rune's turn 4 feels alot less explosive now so i guess it worked.
Miracle roach got rekt hard but Forest as a class is definitely far from being dead - I've tried both old Tempo Elf with Lizas, Cynthias, Windgods and whatnot and WolfBolt combo - Wolf deck is definitely better of the two, i actually feel like it's tier1 in terms of power.

Wolfbolt has way more reach than tempo forest (which loses steam about as quickly as aggrobat and gets owned by any control) and still keeps that 'combo' part so classic Roach players should get pretty familiar with it quickly.
Don't get discouraged, Forest mains! We still have solid options.
Expansion is coming soon anyway and I'm pretty hyped to see what is it gonna bring for my favourite class.

If there's interest, feel free to ask for my lists - got a deck or two for every class except Necro or Dragon. Loving the game!*


*except effing Albert, he's the new Daria
 

Omega-Xis

Mauville's Own
is a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Staff Alumnus
Just got Master in Shadowverse!



Aggro Sword got me a bit through the beginning of AA3 but Ramp Dragon got me through roughly the last two thirds; felt really good to get there without something disgusting like Daria Tempo, OTK Roach, or anything Haven (honestly hate that class so much).

Now that I'm here I'm probably going to try out a bunch of different Shadow decks since I haven't played it at all and work on crafting the legs for Control Blood. I don't plan to play much until Tempest of the Gods comes out.
 
tfw your favorite deck is tier 3 in the current metagame and then gets nerfed

FeelsDWDMan
 
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Got 67th place at Grand Prix Orlando. Rather tilted because that was three spots short of a money finish and my two losses on Day 2 were both due to severe variance. In general, unreasonable flood was responsible for my match losses, with the exception of my match against Ondrej Strasky, where though I did lose a game with 11 lands in play or in hand, he simply had a better and frankly much more interesting deck (4-color Renegade Rallier schenanigans). This is part of the reason I much prefer constructed to limited; Magic already has enough luck in it without adding a variable cardpool to the mix. I was fortunate in getting a very strong sealed pool to work with, and I will readily admit I could have easily been dead for Day 2 with something weaker. Even though I think I played better than the majority of my opponents (I beat a Staff of Domination without destroying it, for Christ's sake), if you have worse equipment than your enemy you're still going to be at a disadvantage. It's like showing up to an SPL match but you're not allowed to use all of your EVs.

Sealed Deck (7-2)

1 Aetherstream Leopard
1 Arborback Stomper
1 Druid of the Cowl
1 Embraal Gear-Smasher
1 Greenwheel Liberator
1 Kujar Seedsculptor
1 Lathnu Sailback
1 Narnam Renegade
1 Prakhata Pillar-Bug
1 Quicksmith Rebel
1 Ridgescale Tusker
2 Scrapper Champion
1 Sweatworks Brawler
1 Welder Automaton

1 Destructive Tampering
1 Firespinner's Puzzleknot
1 Highspire Infusion
1 Hungry Flames
1 Implement of Combustion
1 Release the Gremlins
1 Renegade Freighter
1 Renegade Tactics
1 Unbridled Growth

9 Forest
7 Mountain

Overall a very solid pool, only lacking in hard creature removal and good 3-drops. Even the addition of, say, a Chandra's Revolution and a Shock would be enough to push this deck to a 9/10. Fireforger's Puzzleknot mained was a mistake; it was frequently my worst draw. It should have been a Bastion Mastodon. A vanilla 4/5 is just a good body in this format and being an artifact is not irrelevant for Quicksmith Rebel, and hell, I could have conceivably given it vigilance once or twice with Unbridled Growth (on multiple occasions I used it to give my filler Pillar-Bug lifelink, which would have been amazing with Quicksmith Spy. God I wish I had had a Narnam Cobra in this pool). Renegade Tactics was also a mistake in retrospect and should have just been Precise Strike. Normally I play the first combat trick and none beyond that, because having access to a combat trick gives you more options, but multiples have diminishing returns. However, in this case, since I lacked creature interaction, Precise Strike could have given me ways to remove problematic blockers, especially given how aggressively I was skewed.


Draft Deck 1 (2-1)

1 Ambitious Aetherborn
1 Augmenting Automaton
2 Contraband Kingpin
1 Foundry Hornet
2 Gearseeker Serpent
2 Gifted Aetherborn
1 Scrap Trawler (taken over Fatal Push p1p1; mistake)
1 Skyship Plunderer
1 Watchful Automaton
1 Weaponcraft Enthusiast

1 Baral's Expertise
1 Cruel Finality
1 Ice Over
2 Leave in the Dust
1 Metallic Rebuke
1 Prophetic Prism
1 Renegade's Getaway
1 Subtle Strike
1 Tezzeret's Touch
1 Tidy Conclusion

7 Island
9 Swamp

I'll admit I punted in the match loss for this one by poorly timing a Tidy Conclusion, but even then I still had to whiff on land six for unblockable Gearseeker Serpent three turns in a row. This was probably a deck that should have been one of the rare 17-land AER-KLD decks, given that my primary wincon requires six mana and I have card draw to mitigate flood. The creaturebase for this deck is straight nutty. Doubles of Gifted Aetherborn and Contraband Kingpin make it basically impossible to lose to aggro under normal circumstances, and the deck's lategame is killer with double Gearseeker Serpent (which, in spite of already being arguably the best blue common in Kaladesh, somehow still got even better in this format). I had two Tezzeret's Touches at the end of Pack 1, so I had intended to go full cheese-mode and draft a bunch of 1-drop artifacts, but in the Kaladesh pack I just kept getting shipped absurdly strong UB cards and got to actually build a real deck. The 1-of main was alright, and symptomatic of my card pool running dry more than anything. It was frequently the first cut in sideboarding. Fen Hauler is a realistic consideration, but Touch filled out an important point on the curve; sometimes you just get to go T2 Prism into T3 Touch. Renegade's Getaway, while normally mediocre, was surprisingly good here. It's nightmarish with Gifted Aetherborn, provides a Servo for the artifact synergies, and can be held up with a discounted Gearseeker Serpent to protect it. I definitely made some draft mistakes here, such as taking P1P1 Scrap Trawler over Fatal Push (I wanted to stay open and assumed I could pick up a Renegade Map or two), but overall I was pretty pleased with this deck.

Draft Deck 2 (2-1)

1 Aether Poisoner
1 Aetherborn Marauder
1 Aetherstream Leopard
1 Ambitious Aetherborn
1 Druid of the Cowl
2 Foundry Screecher
1 Gifted Aetherborn
1 Foundry Hornet
1 Night Market Aeronaut
1 Noxious Gearhulk
1 Silkweaver Elite
1 Syndicate Trafficker
1 Thriving Rhino
1 Winding Constrictor

1 Cruel Finality
1 Daring Demolition
2 Implement of Ferocity
1 Lifecrafter's Bestiary
1 Perilous Predicament
1 Renegade's Getaway
1 Unbridled Growth
1 Untethered Express

7 Forest
9 Swamp

This deck was the stone nut and I'm still salty that I lost a match with it. Sometimes you just rip six lands in a row, twice in a row. Only actively subpar card in the entire deck is Renegade's Getaway, which still fills the important role of "first combat trick". Worth noting that around P2P5 I take my pack and find Tezzeret at the front. I'm quite pleased with this, as while I'm loosely G/B, I have some degree of fixing and can easily splash the planeswalker. Already resolved to taking it, I scan the pack to assess what I'm passing and what I can conceivably wheel, only to find Winding Constrictor as the last card. I take a few seconds to process this (because seriously, what the hell), then sigh and ship the mythic. Sometimes the correct decision is the worst-feeling one.

Overall I'm quite pleased with my performance, even if I don't feel my results were reciprocal. Going into Day 2 I was concerned I would draft poorly and punt away my shot at the Pro Tour. Considering I had only 3-0'd once in my week's preparation of spamming MTGO competitive draft leagues, I wasn't exactly optimistic of my chances of drafting well enough to 6-0. Turns out that wasn't an issue at all, and I put together two decks that could very easily have done just that in better circumstances, so that's a small victory in and of itself. As is always the case after a Grand Prix, I now have an itch to play a hell of a lot more Magic. As for the format itself, I was actually surprised at how much I liked Aether Revolt, considering my disdain for Kaladesh. The synergies are fun and make for interesting decisions as long as you don't have to deal with swingy bullshit, (Walking Ballista, Aethersphere Harvester, Heart of Kiran, Untethered Express, and Ridgescale Tusker are all ridiculously unfair cards and evidence that R&D isn't testing the sets as much as they should.), and a 16-land format is actually really nice since flood is less frequent. Crew 1 is still cancerous, but even the majority of Vehicles are fairly well-balanced. Masterpieces are just stupid though, especially with Trophy Mage in the format. Three horror stories I heard were Trophy Mage into Vedalken Shackles / Sword of Body and Mind, and T1 Sol Ring into Heart of Kiran. Frankly I think that limited would improve dramatically if rares were banned. They tend to be either overly swingy or a complete waste of a slot depending on the intended design, and opening shit like Aid from the Cowl and Madcap Experiment can really hamstring you when your opponent gets to throw around Gearhulks and Herald of Anguish. Sure, "mythic uncommons" will still probably slip through the cracks, but it would still do a hell of a lot for making gameplay more rewarding.
 
Congrats on going 11-4 at the GP. And I'm amazed that masterpieces are part of limited for pro tour events. The idea of cards like Sol Ring and Mana Crypt appearing in someone's GP sealed deck just seems crazy to me; hopefully this gets changed in the future.

On the subject of limited, I've recently been drafting Modern Masters 2017 every chance I get, and I love the format. The massive amount of mana fixing (guildgates at common, signets and trilands at uncommon) feels reminiscent of KTK (one of my favorite limited formats from recent history), where you get to play 4-5 color decks if you prioritize mana fixing in your picks. The power level of the commons and uncommons reduces a lot of variance in the sense that the impact of a single bomb rare/mythic matters less. There are a few archetypes/synergies, like bant blink and GW tokens, but most decks end up being 3-5 color "goodstuff" decks rather than relying on specific synergies, which also seems to reduce variance somewhat, and I personally like this (though I know that some people prefer to draft archetypes/synergies, rather than "good cards that fit my colors"). The format is also slower, and I personally enjoy longer games that involve more decision-making; I'll draft a fast aggressive deck in formats that call for it, but I really prefer to win with a slower, grindier deck.

One of the things I like about drafting reprint sets like modern masters is that it teaches you how context-specific card evaluation is. For example, in my first MM3 draft, I fell into the trap of picking every copy of Madcap Skills that fell into my lap, and wound up with a very aggressive Naya deck, which didn't do so well. Madcap Skills was a crazy powerful card when it first appeared in Gatecrash limited, largely because that was such an aggressive format (RG aggro and RW aggro were both crazy good), but in MM3, the format is slower, and access to cheap removal is much more abundant, which made Madcap Skills a real underperformer. (No wonder they kept getting passed to me.) I find the more that the more I draft a given limited format, the more I tend to rely on mental shortcuts (think about what the word "snap pick" means), so it's nice to have a drafting experience that forces me to question old habits and go back to the fundamentals of card evaluation and deck construction.
 
After much complaining by the plebs, Dire Wolf Digital changed the mulligan system in Eternal. I personally was of the feeling that most people were just netdecking decks with greedy power bases and was not a fan of the theory "run the absolute minimum amount of power and if you want more, run power fixers like Seek Power and the Favor cards of whatever faction you're in". Basically, people bet too much on their redraw when you could just make sure you ran enough power to not need the redraw. I'm fine with the change though. Removing the possibility of a 0 power or all power opening hand will make for less non-games. Changing the redraw to have an equal chance of getting 2-4 power is fine as well whereas before you would get 2-5 power but the chances for each possibility decreased on a scale. It's felt good in my games so far and I haven't needed to change anything. If anyone put the game down due to power screw/flood, I'd give it another shot.

SELLOUT TIME:
The season just ended and I hit Master again using a rotation of three decks. I finally decided to share my thoughts on the first deck I ever built in open beta and one I've been playing this whole time (so before it was cool :P):

Elysian Midrange

4 Initiate of the Sands (Set1 #74)
3 Permafrost (Set1 #193)
4 Seek Power (Set1 #408)
2 Lightning Storm (Set1 #206)
3 Storm Lynx (Set1 #353)
4 Whispering Wind (Set1 #202)
3 Ageless Mentor (Set1 #90)
4 Dawnwalker (Set1 #86)
4 False Prince (Set1 #356)
2 Polymorph (Set1 #211)
2 Champion of Wisdom (Set1 #358)
2 Praxis Displacer (Set1 #100)
4 Sandstorm Titan (Set1 #99)
4 Cirso, the Great Glutton (Set1 #362)
1 Crystallize (Set1 #232)
2 Mystic Ascendant (Set1 #116)
6 Primal Sigil (Set1 #187)
8 Time Sigil (Set1 #63)
2 Amber Monument (Set1 #420)
3 Diplomatic Seal (Set1 #425)
4 Elysian Banner (Set1 #421)
4 Seat of Wisdom (Set0 #63)

I wouldn't play this list. It's better to just watch the video I made and come up with your own.

 
They finally did it: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articl...banned-and-restricted-announcement-2017-04-24

rip_miracles.jpg


RIP

I was actually planning on taking this to Eternal Weekend (I'm in Pittsburgh so it's right here in my back yard) but I guess I need a new deck now. I just speculatively ordered a playset of Scroll Rack on the offchance that top-less miracles turns out to be good, but in the meantime I'm probably going to sleeve up my Stoneforge Mystics so I can keep casting JTMS and Snapcaster.



Shadowverse, more like SHADOWverse, amirite?

shadowverse.png


I've gotten really tired of playing ladder when Shadow is just so busted, I don't think I've ever seen the metagame so skewed, and I'm eagerly awaiting the day when it gets a much-deserved nerf.

In the meantime, I've been playing more Take Two, and I've actually been enjoying it quite a lot. I've seen my T2 winrate increase since the expansion, and I'm not sure whether this is due to an influx of new players or the fact that T2 has become a more skill-testing game mode; I'm guessing it's a combination of both, but I definitely feel like the T2 has gotten more skill-based. The new expansion added a bunch of new powerful golds and legendaries, and each deck now gets access to 6 (4 on-class, 2 neutral); when almost every deck gets access to some powerful cards, the outcome of games is decided much less often by someone playing a single overwhelming card like Olivia or Bahamut, and more often decided by who's able to curve out, make better use of their evolution points, and balance tempo plays with value plays. ("When everything's overpowered, nothing is.") The fact that having a good deck is more about having a good curve and less about lucking into individually-powerful cards means there are also more "traps" for less-experienced player to stumble into, and overall less variance and fewer "feelbads" for me as an experienced player.
 

Omega-Xis

Mauville's Own
is a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Staff Alumnus
They finally did it: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articl...banned-and-restricted-announcement-2017-04-24

View attachment 81215

RIP

I was actually planning on taking this to Eternal Weekend (I'm in Pittsburgh so it's right here in my back yard) but I guess I need a new deck now. I just speculatively ordered a playset of Scroll Rack on the offchance that top-less miracles turns out to be good, but in the meantime I'm probably going to sleeve up my Stoneforge Mystics so I can keep casting JTMS and Snapcaster.



Shadowverse, more like SHADOWverse, amirite?

View attachment 81216

I've gotten really tired of playing ladder when Shadow is just so busted, I don't think I've ever seen the metagame so skewed, and I'm eagerly awaiting the day when it gets a much-deserved nerf.

In the meantime, I've been playing more Take Two, and I've actually been enjoying it quite a lot. I've seen my T2 winrate increase since the expansion, and I'm not sure whether this is due to an influx of new players or the fact that T2 has become a more skill-testing game mode; I'm guessing it's a combination of both, but I definitely feel like the T2 has gotten more skill-based. The new expansion added a bunch of new powerful golds and legendaries, and each deck now gets access to 6 (4 on-class, 2 neutral); when almost every deck gets access to some powerful cards, the outcome of games is decided much less often by someone playing a single overwhelming card like Olivia or Bahamut, and more often decided by who's able to curve out, make better use of their evolution points, and balance tempo plays with value plays. ("When everything's overpowered, nothing is.") The fact that having a good deck is more about having a good curve and less about lucking into individually-powerful cards means there are also more "traps" for less-experienced player to stumble into, and overall less variance and fewer "feelbads" for me as an experienced player.
Yeah when the meta became Luna dropping the most uninteractive win condition on turn 3 (Thanks for printing Prince Catacomb, Cygames! Zombie Party is totally not insane too!) I sort of lost a lot of interest in the game. When you're Shadow, to a slightly less extent Dragon (this coming from someone who pushed to Masters in RoB with Dragon) or "everything else" I really don't see a point to playing the game. RoB was a far superior meta and I'm really missing it right now.
 

Acklow

I am always tired. Don't bother me.
I quit after playing a couple games vs Havencraft when the expansion hit. Heavenly Aegis really killed interest in the game for me, especially since I was so excited to play ER Rune to its full potential. I honestly don't see myself getting back into the game until the right changes take place.
 

Oglemi

Borf
is a Top Contributoris a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Researcher Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis an Administrator Alumnusis a Top Dedicated Tournament Host Alumnus


So I've been having a blast with this motherfucker, Lost World and the main guy there are so fucking good holy.

Anybody else playing YGO? Any hype or dread for the upcoming generation change to Link cards?
 
I just played Android:Netrunner for the first time last week and it was really cool!

I ordered about $100 in cards which come in soon and I'm excited to try the game out in more depth. Does anyone on here play/keep up with the competitive scene? Does it hold up/is it worth getting into?
 
I have very mixed feelings about the new Shadowverse expansion.

First off, I love the flavor of the new cards. Wonderland Dreams is the first expansion that has felt like it had a real cohesive theme and identity. RoB I guess might have meant more to people who played Granblue, but I was never really clear on whether the theme was supposed to be dragons or a more general tie-in with the shared universe, and as far as I can tell ToG's theme was "high-powered legendaries," which led to a pretty lopsided meta when Shadow and Dragon ended up getting meta-defining cards while other crafts like poor rune got stuck with a couple of duds, and after awhile those cards just sort of blend into the mix and there's nothing really distinctive about them other than their power level and the fact that they're new. Wonderland Dreams' "fairytale" theme actually gives it an identity that makes it feel distinct from previous expansions (in a way that I think is really good). Also, because "neutral matters" is a big gameplay element, and a lot of the set's signature (flavorful) cards are neutral, you see a lot of them, so the game immediately feels different in a way that it didn't right after the release of the previous expansions. When it comes to the less tangible, more aesthetic things, I like Wonderland a lot.

However...

The fact that "neutral matters" is a big theme of the set means that you see a lot of the same cards across matches. Right now, my three decks are Neutral Sword, Neutral Shadow, and Neutral Storm Havencraft, and all of them play the same spread of x3 Alice, x3 Goblin Leader, x3 Actress Feria. What I described as "a cohesive identity" above could just as easily be described as a "lack of diversity" when it comes to card choice.

However...

While Alice is clearly one of the best cards in the set, she doesn't really feel "busted." She's certainly good, and she's a meta-defining card, but she doesn't feel "unfair." In Magic, we use the terms "fair" and "unfair" to describe decks not in terms of power level, but the axis on which a deck interacts. To put it in broad terms, a deck that wins through midrange creature combat is considered "fair," and anything with an alternate wincon would be considered "unfair." Examples of "unfair" decks would include d-shift and OTK roach. One of the things I have liked about Shadowverse historically is that it has a mix of fair and unfair strategies, but in recent expansions I feel like the balance has tilted too far away from midrange or control decks being viable. It's something I talked about earlier in this thread in this post, where I say that if you are going to define formats by their "best deck," Shadowverse's metagame was healthiest when the "best deck" was Midrange Sword or Tempo Forest (Darkness Evolved), whereas decks dominated by linear decks make for much less-interesting formats. So even if Alice might be a bit high on the power level scale, and the power of the neutral card package leads to a lot of decks looking similar, a lot of these cards fundamentally center on "fair" midrange gameplay, and pretty much all of them have effects that are limited to pumping each other's stats. Alice still feels like one of the "good guys."

Also...

Despite the fact that Neutral Sword, Neutral Shadow, and Neutral Storm Havencraft have a lot of overlap in cards, they still are different enough from each other that I don't get bored playing with them. Sword plays Cinderella, Haven plays March Hare's Teatime, and Shadow has more in common with the old midrange shadow deck even if it is using a lot of the new neutral followers to fill out its curve. Additionally, there are other decks doing other things. Dragon is still dragon, forest is still forest, and dirt rune is finally viable three expansions after they introduced earthcraft.

However...

All that might not matter, because of how impossibly broken Spawn of the Abyss is. Seriously, every single time he comes down, it feels like my opponent is cheating, and the only times I win after seeing a Spawn come down are the games where I was winning so hard that I have a high enough life total to survive a hit and have the ability to win the next turn on the crackback. I compare him to Albert, because toward the end of ToG (after the dragon/shadow nerf) I laddered with Sword, and I won a lot of games by evolving Albert on turn 9 to do 10 face damage. Meanwhile, Spawn of the Abyss comes down on turn 8 (or turn 6 if you played baphomet on turn 5), and if you have an evolve point he hits face for 8 AND kills a follower the turn he comes down, and he also has the option to just wait until the next turn to attack when he either hits face for 12 unevolved or 16 evolved. And IF you manage to find a way to deal with him getting around Ambush (seriously why does he have Ambush), he punishes with you his death trigger. That's why you basically have to win the game the turn after he comes down: either you kill him and take a bunch of damage from the last words, or you leave him alone and then he gets to attack next turn. NOTHING about this card is fair, they could take away the last words ability or the ambush and he would still be busted.

I was actually planning on spending the time to ladder up to grand master when the expansion came out, but I'm looking at posts on other forums from people who are climbing toward grand master and people are posting screenshots of 6+ consecutive matches against blood. If that's what awaits me then I'm probably not going to bother. It's really unfortunate, because if it weren't for Spawn of the Abyss, this could possibly be a great time to be playing shadowverse. (Maybe a new dominant deck would emerge to take its place, but that one card is the only thing that really feels completely out of line.)

I think I might just go back to playing Take Two exclusively until Spawn gets nerfed. I actually got really good at Take Two during ToG and finally got my flair for going undefeated 20 times, right now I'm at 22 undefeated runs in T2 and 14 of them were during ToG, mostly from the days when wanted to avoid playing shadow and dragon on ladder. Actually I should probably just quit playing, but at this point Shadowverse has become enough of a habit that it would feel weird not to sign in every day to do my dailies (it's my go-to game when I just want something to occupy my attention while I listen to podcasts).
 
What program are you using to record wins and losses? I use shadownote but i'm not a huge fan of it since it's all manual.

So this isn't a complete 1-liner, I might as well post my thoughts on the WD meta atm.

First off, I can't wait for the end of the month balancing. I hope see changes to Alice, Tove, Spawn, and/or Baphomet. Alice's cost could be increased, it prevents (going first) 1 > 2 > 3 > alice from being so devastating since it gives the player going second a chance to clear w/ an evo. Tove is ridiculous lol I'm not sure why this was printed, hopefully they make change its effect so that it re-locks itself at the end of your turn like Rapunzel does.

There are numerous ways to change Spawn and Baphomet. I don't think baphomet is a problem, it's only become an issue because of Spawn. Cygames could go a lot of directions, like removing baphomet's enhance, changing spawn's attack to 4 (makes it unsearchable by baph), making spawn's ambush vengeance only, or simply removing one of its effects. What cygames will actually change I don't know, but I hope they have the balls to nerf a legendary.

Negative stuff (and going second vs blood) aside, the game is actually fun rn. Haven is pretty amazing, and although Seraph, Aegis, and Elanas are arguably better, Tempo Haven is the most fun deck I've played this expansion.

You could use Naoises > Hallowed Dogmas, 2 teenas and 1 cudgel, and a curate or something over dark jeanne. I know it's low on Spawn checks, but Iron Maiden is awkward in this deck and themis is more detrimental than beneficial unless you've bricked or something.



Ward.
Fanfare: Deal 3 damage to an enemy if you have at least 3 Neutral cards in your hand.

I think Hector is a great card that's being majorly overlooked for some reason. Having 3 neutral cards in your hand isn't difficult for decks that Hector works in (neutral rune, forest, maybe even lion haven) because they all have reliable draw power, and the ability to go face is great for aggressive variants.

Actual good Reddit post (not mine)

Other lists that i cba to write about





made by Eien

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:D
 
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Right now my two TCGs of choice are Magic (modern format, since nobody plays legacy) on the physical front, and Shadowverse on the digital front, and I think both are actually in pretty similar states right now.

Ever since the banning of Splinter Twin, Magic's modern format has been pretty rocky, with various linear decks clawing for the position of "best deck in format" and getting banned out one by one. Eldrazi (the version with eye of ugin), dredge, inefct, and suicide zoo were all hyper-linear aggro or combo decks that basically ended the game on turn 3 (sometimes even earlier!), and all were met with the ban hammer. (Maybe it would be more accurate to call it a "ban scalpel," rather than a hammer, as they managed to weaken most of these decks without completely removing them from the format.)

Now, the most powerful deck in the format is Grixis Death's Shadow, and I think I'm actually pretty okay with that. Snapcaster has always been a hallmark of decks that just want to play a fair, honest, grindy game of Magic, and this is the first time since the Splinter Twin ban that the best deck has been a Snapcaster deck. The deck is super interactive, dedicating a ton of its slots to discard spells and removal, and it plays a grindy midrange gameplan, eking out card advantage with cards like Snapcaster and K-command. It actually has a very Jund-like feel to it, and as with Jund, it's hard to complain that a deck is too good at playing fair Magic. (That's not to say that you can't make that argument; power level is always a consideration, but games that are lost due to variance and non-interactivity are often a greater source of the "feel-bads".) Even though Death's Shadow does get to "steal games" by just playing a bunch of cheap gigantic creatures, it's hard to complain when you're losing to a deck that plays so much interaction. I mean, the deck plays counterspells, which seems to be such a rare thing in modern. It honestly feels like the modern version of the legacy Grixis delver deck.

There's another thing that happens when you have a deck like Grixis Shadow at the top of the format: more people try to go over the top of it. You see fewer linear combo decks that try to outrace them (since those are exactly the kind of decks that Grixis Shadow tends to prey on), and you see more decks that are trying to "outgrind" shadow, either by committing to the late game (as you see decks like UW control) or go completely over the top (as Eldrazi Tron does). There are also some decks that just try to be better than Grixis at playing fair and honest Magic, and these tend to come in the form of Collected Company decks (either Humans or the Vizier combo) or Hatebears/Death&Taxes.

In short, if your format is going to have a "boogieman," you could do a whole lot worse than having it be Grixis Shadow. Grixis Shadow is the kind of deck that punishes you for running a hyper-linear combo deck and rewards you for playing fair.



I think Shadowverse is in a similar spot. Blood is the "best deck" that makes and shapse the format, but it's also the kind of matchup where you tend to win by playing a grindy midrange or control deck, whereas older tier 0 decks like Dragon tended to punish you for trying to play fair.

Somewhere around the time of RoB I feel like we went from a world where an evolve point meant "you get to trade up" to a world where an evolve point meant "you get to rush in for 2 extra damage," and I think it was around the time of the Piercing Rune nerf that being on the draw (and having the extra evolve point) went from being an advantage to a disadvantage. Now, being on the draw is still a disadvantage, but it feels like we're back to a world where evolve points are something that you use to interact with your opponent's board as opposed to just SMOrc-ing faster.

I actually have been climbing ladder by playing "classic" control decks like Seraph and D-shift, and I've encountered people playing decks like Elana on ladder, so it certainly takes me back to the period when I enjoyed playing Shadowverse the most. (Or as my pal Levi would say, "It's just like back in the old days!")

I think the metagame as a whole is in a good spot, even if a few adjustments are needed. Some part of the neutral package probably needs a nerf (it just feels impossible to win against a perfect neutral curve into Alice). Blood is just too powerful. Apart from the obvious Spawn/Baphomet package, Tove might actually be the best part of the curve despite being the most unassuming as a "mere" 2-drop. And while he might not be OP, Knuckle is just annoyingly better than his "peers." (Imagine if you took Banisher Priest/Dragon Warrior, and buffed it that so evolving into a 4/5, it evolved into a 5/6. AND then you made its evolve effect a fanfare effect instead, i.e. it can kill something turn 4 even if you're on the play. That's Big Knuckle Bodyguard.)

My main deck lists:

20170717230049_1.jpg 20170717232043_1.jpg :


What program are you using to record wins and losses? I use shadownote but i'm not a huge fan of it since it's all manual.
I save all of my 5-0 decklists in take two (when I remember to export the decklist before going to the rewards screen), and I use the crude method of just putting a link to the decklist and some notes into a spreadsheet. I don't track my stats apart from that, though I probably should, given the amount of time I put into the game.
 
Right now my two TCGs of choice are Magic (modern format, since nobody plays legacy) on the physical front, and Shadowverse on the digital front, and I think both are actually in pretty similar states right now.

Ever since the banning of Splinter Twin, Magic's modern format has been pretty rocky, with various linear decks clawing for the position of "best deck in format" and getting banned out one by one. Eldrazi (the version with eye of ugin), dredge, inefct, and suicide zoo were all hyper-linear aggro or combo decks that basically ended the game on turn 3 (sometimes even earlier!), and all were met with the ban hammer. (Maybe it would be more accurate to call it a "ban scalpel," rather than a hammer, as they managed to weaken most of these decks without completely removing them from the format.)

Now, the most powerful deck in the format is Grixis Death's Shadow, and I think I'm actually pretty okay with that. Snapcaster has always been a hallmark of decks that just want to play a fair, honest, grindy game of Magic, and this is the first time since the Splinter Twin ban that the best deck has been a Snapcaster deck. The deck is super interactive, dedicating a ton of its slots to discard spells and removal, and it plays a grindy midrange gameplan, eking out card advantage with cards like Snapcaster and K-command. It actually has a very Jund-like feel to it, and as with Jund, it's hard to complain that a deck is too good at playing fair Magic. (That's not to say that you can't make that argument; power level is always a consideration, but games that are lost due to variance and non-interactivity are often a greater source of the "feel-bads".) Even though Death's Shadow does get to "steal games" by just playing a bunch of cheap gigantic creatures, it's hard to complain when you're losing to a deck that plays so much interaction. I mean, the deck plays counterspells, which seems to be such a rare thing in modern. It honestly feels like the modern version of the legacy Grixis delver deck.

There's another thing that happens when you have a deck like Grixis Shadow at the top of the format: more people try to go over the top of it. You see fewer linear combo decks that try to outrace them (since those are exactly the kind of decks that Grixis Shadow tends to prey on), and you see more decks that are trying to "outgrind" shadow, either by committing to the late game (as you see decks like UW control) or go completely over the top (as Eldrazi Tron does). There are also some decks that just try to be better than Grixis at playing fair and honest Magic, and these tend to come in the form of Collected Company decks (either Humans or the Vizier combo) or Hatebears/Death&Taxes.

In short, if your format is going to have a "boogieman," you could do a whole lot worse than having it be Grixis Shadow. Grixis Shadow is the kind of deck that punishes you for running a hyper-linear combo deck and rewards you for playing fair.



I think Shadowverse is in a similar spot. Blood is the "best deck" that makes and shapse the format, but it's also the kind of matchup where you tend to win by playing a grindy midrange or control deck, whereas older tier 0 decks like Dragon tended to punish you for trying to play fair.

Somewhere around the time of RoB I feel like we went from a world where an evolve point meant "you get to trade up" to a world where an evolve point meant "you get to rush in for 2 extra damage," and I think it was around the time of the Piercing Rune nerf that being on the draw (and having the extra evolve point) went from being an advantage to a disadvantage. Now, being on the draw is still a disadvantage, but it feels like we're back to a world where evolve points are something that you use to interact with your opponent's board as opposed to just SMOrc-ing faster.

I actually have been climbing ladder by playing "classic" control decks like Seraph and D-shift, and I've encountered people playing decks like Elana on ladder, so it certainly takes me back to the period when I enjoyed playing Shadowverse the most. (Or as my pal Levi would say, "It's just like back in the old days!")

I think the metagame as a whole is in a good spot, even if a few adjustments are needed. Some part of the neutral package probably needs a nerf (it just feels impossible to win against a perfect neutral curve into Alice). Blood is just too powerful. Apart from the obvious Spawn/Baphomet package, Tove might actually be the best part of the curve despite being the most unassuming as a "mere" 2-drop. And while he might not be OP, Knuckle is just annoyingly better than his "peers." (Imagine if you took Banisher Priest/Dragon Warrior, and buffed it that so evolving into a 4/5, it evolved into a 5/6. AND then you made its evolve effect a fanfare effect instead, i.e. it can kill something turn 4 even if you're on the play. That's Big Knuckle Bodyguard.)

My main deck lists:

View attachment 85490 View attachment 85491 :



I save all of my 5-0 decklists in take two (when I remember to export the decklist before going to the rewards screen), and I use the crude method of just putting a link to the decklist and some notes into a spreadsheet. I don't track my stats apart from that, though I probably should, given the amount of time I put into the game.

what is this
 
I recently started playing Faeria, which is a digital CCG/tactics game. (Plays like a mix of card game and board game with a hex-based board.) I've played about 10 hours of it so far and I've really enjoyed my time with it so far; it really feels like learning to play a new kind of game, whereas games like Hearthstone, Shadowverse, and Eternal can all sort of be explained in terms of MTG. (Obviously they've got some differences, but Faeria feels like a completely distinct category of game.)

I really like the "board game" aspect. A huge part of the game is jockeying for control of important hexes, and you can get pretty punished for allowing an open that lets your opponent drop lands at critical points on your side of the board. It actually has a "chess-like" feel to it, where the first several turns are about each player deciding which "opener" they're going to use to develop their board. Despite board position and control mattering so much, it feels like the game still has a good balance where creatures that have special movement abilities (like the ability to move extra spaces, or the ability to jump over opposing units) are powerful in certain situations without being so powerful that you can ignore combat. Actually, combat is so important that just having a big vanilla beater is sometimes enough for a card to be constructed playable.

In addition to the obvious difference of there being a game board and lands being things that are physically placed and affect the flow of the game, one of the things setting Faeria apart is the fact that mana pools don't empty at the end of your turn. You get 3 mana each turn (in addition to any mana you harvest from controlling the mana wells at the edges of the board), and you can "save up" to cast larger spells, so you can forgo playing a spell on turn 1 to play a big 6-drop on turn 2, for example. It feels like a very different style of resource management, and you have to watch for situations where your opponent looks like they're banking mana to make a big play.

Faeria, perhaps more than any other card game I've tried, really makes it feel like I'm always playing against my opponent rather than my own deck. Your draws are always random and a source of variance, but there's no random element to where you choose to place your lands each turn. (Unlike in MTG, lands aren't cards; you get one "action" per turn which you can use to spawn a colored land, or 2 colorless lands, or draw an extra card. So if you don't need to place lands, you can turn that into extra cards, but you don't ever get "flooded" or "screwed" by not having lands.)

Weirdly enough, I think my biggest gripe with Faeria so far is the draft format, or rather, the fact that the draft format ("Pandora") and the constructed format play by different rules. One of the core mechanics of Faeria is that you get 3 mana every turn and can harvest extra mana each turn from any of the 4 mana wells on the board. However, in Pandora, each deck is seeded with "shards of pandora," and once both players have collectively drawn 5 shards of pandora, all the mana wells are permanently destroyed, players receive 6 mana per turn instead of 3, and both decks get seeded with the powerful "gift" cards that they picked during the draft. This leads to the draft game mode being much more aggressive than the constructed game mode; in constructed, you're rewarded for controlling the edges of the board due to the advantage mana wells provide, but that advantage is moot in the late game of any Pandora match, meaning that you tend to get rewarded for playing your lands more aggressively rather than trying to control the edges of the board. I don't have a "problem" with either game mode, but I wish the two formats had a more unified rule set. I've mostly been playing draft (as I tend to enjoy draft formats the most in most CCGs I play), but I have this feeling that once I decide to get serious about constructed ranked play, I'm going to have to re-learn some very basic things about the game, like what a "good" land formation looks like.

The other "issue" I have with Faeria is that the card pool is pretty small (only 274 cards currently), but the game is very young and it will be addressed over time as the game gets more content updates. The game is supposed to get its first expansion "early summer 2017" so I'm looking forward to that.


Anyway, the game is fun, I'd recommend that people give it a try if they want a change of pace. It's pretty F2P friendly from what I understand, especially if you play a lot of the draft game mode like I do.
 

Tera Melos

Banned deucer.
Hey! Anyone here a fan of Gwent?

I'm a little upset how the Devs seemed to have kind of forgot what makes the game fun...
 
I can't just sit here while no one talks about Eternal. They finally dropped the new set...y'know, the thing that everyone wanted? And no one here is talking about it?

So two weeks ago, Omens of the Past released. Metagame is pretty crazy right now, even though a bunch of the top players are playing Praxis Midrange (and some plebs are starting to follow). Reddit doesn't think it's that good. Some people are laughing at that notion, but I am inclined to agree with Reddit on this one. It doesn't "feel" like a Tier 1 deck even though that's where the community is placing it. There's nothing the deck does that is unfair or considered OP. Even the deck's marquee card, Heart of the Vault, as good as it is, doesn't have this huge game swinging effect. It's only game swinging if you're at parity with lower health units or slightly behind (the cost reduction on the card you draw is super nice though). It's just a good, solid midrange deck. I doubt it will stay "Tier 1" because of this and people will figure out how to beat it, dropping it to a strong Tier 2 deck where it belongs IMO. It just feels too much like Elysian Midrange which was never a Tier 1 deck in the history of the game IIRC. In almost every card game I've played, the first deck that gets figured out always starts as the "best" deck but is almost never Tier 1 by the end of the meta for that expansion/block. Some people say that Omens of the Past in general feels underpowered when compared to Set 1, but even if they're right (it's WAY too early to definitively say that), the set is a little more than half the size of Set 1 soooo...idk? I'm just glad the other 5 factions finally got some supporting cards and there are quite a few good ones. You can still basically play what you want right now, though, and you will run into everything under the sun on ladder.

And, before anyone tells you, no, Skycrag Aggro is not cancer. Deck isn't that scary tbh.

They also made a slight tweak to the reward system that benefits the more casual players and hurts the tryhards a bit. Now, instead of always getting a silver chest every 3rd win in Ranked, they basically frontloaded the rewards to earning a pack from the latest set for your first win of the day, but after your 10th ranked win, you will only earn bronze chests. The chests can still upgrade, but of course the chances of upgrading to a diamond chest are lower if the chest starts out as a bronze one than from silver (chest upgrades are the best feeling in Eternal, bar none). Of course the tryhards are kinda mad ("I can't play for silver chests as much as I want anymore REEEEEE") but everyone else seems pretty happy.

Been having a ton of fun lately. Still a blast for me to play, though it's probably because it fills that "MTG itch" that I didn't even know I still had (stopped playing MTG over a decade ago).
 
I can't just sit here while no one talks about Eternal. They finally dropped the new set...y'know, the thing that everyone wanted? And no one here is talking about it?

So two weeks ago, Omens of the Past released. Metagame is pretty crazy right now, even though a bunch of the top players are playing Praxis Midrange (and some plebs are starting to follow). Reddit doesn't think it's that good. Some people are laughing at that notion, but I am inclined to agree with Reddit on this one. It doesn't "feel" like a Tier 1 deck even though that's where the community is placing it. There's nothing the deck does that is unfair or considered OP. Even the deck's marquee card, Heart of the Vault, as good as it is, doesn't have this huge game swinging effect. It's only game swinging if you're at parity with lower health units or slightly behind (the cost reduction on the card you draw is super nice though). It's just a good, solid midrange deck. I doubt it will stay "Tier 1" because of this and people will figure out how to beat it, dropping it to a strong Tier 2 deck where it belongs IMO. It just feels too much like Elysian Midrange which was never a Tier 1 deck in the history of the game IIRC. In almost every card game I've played, the first deck that gets figured out always starts as the "best" deck but is almost never Tier 1 by the end of the meta for that expansion/block. Some people say that Omens of the Past in general feels underpowered when compared to Set 1, but even if they're right (it's WAY too early to definitively say that), the set is a little more than half the size of Set 1 soooo...idk? I'm just glad the other 5 factions finally got some supporting cards and there are quite a few good ones. You can still basically play what you want right now, though, and you will run into everything under the sun on ladder.

And, before anyone tells you, no, Skycrag Aggro is not cancer. Deck isn't that scary tbh.

They also made a slight tweak to the reward system that benefits the more casual players and hurts the tryhards a bit. Now, instead of always getting a silver chest every 3rd win in Ranked, they basically frontloaded the rewards to earning a pack from the latest set for your first win of the day, but after your 10th ranked win, you will only earn bronze chests. The chests can still upgrade, but of course the chances of upgrading to a diamond chest are lower if the chest starts out as a bronze one than from silver (chest upgrades are the best feeling in Eternal, bar none). Of course the tryhards are kinda mad ("I can't play for silver chests as much as I want anymore REEEEEE") but everyone else seems pretty happy.

Been having a ton of fun lately. Still a blast for me to play, though it's probably because it fills that "MTG itch" that I didn't even know I still had (stopped playing MTG over a decade ago).
Maybe I'll come back to this in a couple weeks since the new set's out. I've not been following it much lately but there isn't really a reason for that outside of Netrunner distracting me. I couldn't care less about community opinion or tier lists though i just want them to keep making interesting cards and keep making S Rank with what I want.
 

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