Magic The Gathering

[Polock]

making decks of cheap commons and rares roughly balanced around each other?

The previous suggestion of just grabbing budget lists from Archidekt, Moxfield, or EDHrec is the one I'd go for. Just buy a couple budget lists and if they suck or are overpowered you can easily fix that plus they're cheap lists so its no biggy if they aren't what you're looking for.

You may also want to look into making a cube to draft decks from. If you make your own its a bit more work, but it also has a lot more replayability.

You could even do something like homebrew Jumpstart packs so you don't have to draft every card - you just get preselected chunks of cards that you can mesh together, but this has more upkeep on the tail end of things since you have to separate the cards back into their packs after the game is done. Much more work than just putting the precon back in the deckbox.

Just some stuff to think about, I'm not sure how much effort you are willing to put into this.

 

[Flexo]

I really like it. It fits in aesthetically with the Legacy Eldrazi list (black decks too!) with all the tentacles and wiggly bits.

I'll admit I thought it was an alt art of Abhorrent Oculus at first.

 

[Whiskey]

The previous suggestion of just grabbing budget lists from Archidekt, Moxfield, or EDHrec is the one I'd go for. Just buy a couple budget lists and if they suck or are overpowered you can easily fix that plus they're cheap lists so its no biggy if they aren't what you're looking for.

You may also want to look into making a cube to draft decks from. If you make your own its a bit more work, but it also has a lot more replayability.

You could even do something like homebrew Jumpstart packs so you don't have to draft every card - you just get preselected chunks of cards that you can mesh together, but this has more upkeep on the tail end of things since you have to separate the cards back into their packs after the game is done. Much more work than just putting the precon back in the deckbox.

Just some stuff to think about, I'm not sure how much effort you are willing to put into this.

I sincerely appreciate the suggestions. I would rather not have a cube. While I played back in the dark steel days. The group only has experience playing from pre constructed decks. I don't think there would be interest in drafting it's much more casual.

I found a few different cheap decks. Trying to get a few gimmicks going like token, burn, mana rush, decks etc. Most blue seem out of budget but it's been a big help.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

The last game of This has the greatest Plot Twist I have seen in a Game of Modern in a while.


Edit : Yeah its Saffron Olive, I am sorry if you hate him. At least he is better than Professor.

 

[Cats]

I am sorry if you hate him

I don't really dislike that guy, just the way he talks I can't listen to him, he sounds like a cartoon dog. it's clearly intentional and ridiculous. MagicAIDS is another one whose voice is like nails on a chalkboard for me.

The only MTG content I watch online is either BoshNRoll or ThrabenU playing leagues because I like seeing their analytical approaches and watching how they come to the decisions that they do. I like to do this thing where I watch their game moves alone (like a chess recap) and pick the selections I would have personally done before they do, then watch the game in full. It really helps you learn to think further ahead in your own games down the road.

Oh yeah and Musagete. She is another really talented Elf player. Her videos are great, though she hasn't uploaded any in awhile. I would love to see her play Modern elves now that Zenith is unbanned.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

I don't really dislike that guy, just the way he talks I can't listen to him, he sounds like a cartoon dog. it's clearly intentional and ridiculous. MagicAIDS is another one whose voice is like nails on a chalkboard for me.

The only MTG content I watch online is either BoshNRoll or ThrabenU playing leagues because I like seeing their analytical approaches and watching how they come to the decisions that they do. I like to do this thing where I watch their game moves alone (like a chess recap) and pick the selections I would have personally done before they do, then watch the game in full. It really helps you learn to think further ahead in your own games down the road.

Oh yeah and Musagete. She is another really talented Elf player. Her videos are great, though she hasn't uploaded any in awhile. I would love to see her play Modern elves now that Zenith is unbanned.

Yeah I just know that most of the MTG creators are Lefties so I understand why people hate them.

I can tolerate that bullshit so long as it doesn't crop up..constantly.

 

[DootSkeleton]

I don't really dislike that guy, just the way he talks I can't listen to him, he sounds like a cartoon dog. it's clearly intentional and ridiculous. MagicAIDS is another one whose voice is like nails on a chalkboard for me.

I'm in the same boat regarding Seth. I think he's genuinely dyslexic but plays it up for engagement. I like that he seems to genuinely enjoy talking about and playing the game. MagicAIDS used to be much better, then he decided he wanted to do the fast talking, quick cuts, zoomer editing style and it massively degraded the quality.

Yeah I just know that most of the MTG creators are Lefties so I understand why people hate them.

I can tolerate that bullshit so long as it doesn't crop up..constantly.

Hate to see it. It's why I stick with Seth even though his delivery can be cringe at times. I've never once seen him get political ever. I have no idea what his beliefs are and I love it.

 

[Oddjob OTP]

Saffron Olive (I refuse to call him Seth because Sseth exists) is fine, he keeps whatever the fuck his politics are out of the light and talks about A Children's Card Game which is all I want from him. He's the least cringe of the MTG Goldfish folks and better then 99% of M:tG content creators. And after you get out of his introduction he mostly calms down with his autism and talks like a more or less normal human. I also can stand MagicAIDS but unlike Saffron Olive he never really calms down with his schtick so you have to just tolerate Squidward makes 4chan sex jokes. I also kind of like Aspiringspike although I usually fuck off after the deck tech and Maldhound can be pretty funny but it depends on your tolerance for his bisexual autistic gymbro persona which is definitely a trait I assume not everyone has.

 

[Cats]

Aspiringspike

I feel like he is "social media streamer guy" first and "MTG player" second, which is why I prefer watching smaller (and often Legacy-oriented) players like ThrabenU, but Spike is pretty decent. He has some very strange opinions about the game though, he routinely fails to recognize bomb ass, format-changing cards in set spoilers which is odd for a "pro" player. Of course I am basically a beginner compared to any of these people, even though I have been playing since the dinosaurs walked the earth, I'd never claim to be anything more than average. Take anything I say with that in mind.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

I feel like he is "social media streamer guy" first and "MTG player" second, which is why I prefer watching smaller (and often Legacy-oriented) players like ThrabenU, but Spike is pretty decent. He has some very strange opinions about the game though, he routinely fails to recognize bomb ass, format-changing cards in set spoilers which is odd for a "pro" player. Of course I am basically a beginner compared to any of these people, even though I have been playing since the dinosaurs walked the earth, I'd never claim to be anything more than average. Take anything I say with that in mind.

The General Consensuses on about half the major players in any format are generally missed. Magic is such a complex game that some cards you really need to play with a card a few times to really see how it plays.

Fable of The Mirror breaker spent a couple of months unplayed.

 

[Cats]

Jesus christ. Oculus is up to 100 bux a pop.




Been playing some Maverick in modern and Depths in Legacy this week. It's fun but the tech is fairly challenging, you have to really know your deck and what to grab for each situation. The type of deck that benefits dramatically from experience playing it in the meta, but I've been doing alright with it. It requires a LOT more mathematics ability than most of the decks I usually play. One of the little pieces of spice in my version is the addition of the Argoth land + new Titania, because it can meld into a huge creature. It is not too often that you are able to pull it together but it's worth tossing in there anyway. The Saga version of this deck is arguably much better, at least it has another effective gameplan to fall back on that can be splashed for basically nothing but net gain, but I just prefer this version. I also built a Landfall/Chord version too.

Legacy Depths is a lot more straightforward and simple since it has the Depths plan to fall back on, or go straight for if the matchup is right. This can be built as a creature toolbox too, but this here is my favorite version so far. The Bowmasters are first to come out in response to the meta, and replaced with other similar disruptive value or Elvish Spirit Guides.

This is unfortunately a fairly weak deck in Legacy just because of how intensive and quick many of the top tier decks are, but I really like it. It's got an oldschool feel to it for sure, being one of the older Legacy archetypes that used to be broke as fuck but has slowly and surely gotten weaker as the format has been given more tools. When the Fallout set came out there was some talk about running Lumbering Megasloth in the Dark Depths list, but it just never really worked out for competitive play.

 

[Retink Retunk]

Jesus christ. Oculus is up to 100 bux a pop.

This is utterly retarded.

 

[Cats]

around the month of September, The One Ring got up to nearly 100 bucks, too. I think 97 was the highest I saw it at. They are 8 dollars now lmfao. I actually prefer pre-Duskmourn Dimir Murktide, so I don't even play with Oculus anymore. I was right about it being a busted card, but I had no idea it was actually going to be Tier 1 in modern. It's even seeing play in Legacy Stiflenought now, which I find retarded as fuck to be honest...I much prefer the more control/tempo oriented list with Nulldrifter. The Oculus list runs Curie, Emergent Intelligence as well which I don't care for. Legacy Dreadnought is one of my fav lists I refuse to put Oculus in it and would never spend 100 dollars on a single card. I'll just play around it, it can be done easily. Normal modern Frogtide is still competitive without running unearths+oculi

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

This is utterly retarded.

At least it isn't 200 like Jace and Goyf were back in the day.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Double post because I am catching up on the stories so its a different topic than what we were talking about.

Murders at Karlov Manor.

This is kind of the worst plot since the End of the Phyrexian shit.

The Mystery itself is fucking trash, the entire framing is a bunch of stupid shit. The Dryads are a fusion but two of them didn't know that one was the killer, and the method of causing the murders was absolutely stupid "Mind Control Pollen that wipes the person's mind, that the Dryad just happened to be able to create out of nowhere"

There are kind of too many characters playing the same roles, and the Detective office being "Not a part of the Azorious" is pointless and silly. Proft is a Completely pointless character given his magical skills are legitimately the exact same thing that Amalia (The Vampire Love interest for Kellen)

Teysa becoming the guild leader of the Orzhov is dumb, they could have had that be the reveal at the end of the story as part of her coming back. The Ghost Council Rules The Orzhov, Kaya killed them so she became guild leader and then gave it to a dude called Tomik. Having Teysa reform it is the absolute perfect end of her overall storyline and they legitimately stub their toe pulling it off.

The biggest bullshit part of it all is that The Living Guildpact knew that there was a Serial Killer on Ravnica and just did NOTHING, because "Muh Omenpaths" as if the most intelligent being on Ravnica can't Multi Task.

Thunder Junction.

It's much less Terrible.

The worst part of it is the various Major names from other Planes, like Rakdos being in the gang that is trying to get to the vault is complete nonsensical and seems to only exist so they can do the "NOBODY WILL RIDE ON ME AGAIN" joke (because fuck keeping Gideon's actions during War of the Spark remotely serious)

Oko being a terrible father is on point and Kellen's current ending makes sense for his character, he retired to a farm with Amalia until he is needed for the plot again, which will give us a real nifty scene of someone showing up at his farm..very western.

Vraska losing her spark in the same plot where she and Jace get a Map of the Multiverse is still nonsensical though.

 

[Retink Retunk]

At least he is better than Professor.

That's not saying much as being torn limb from limb by angry baboons would be better than that pretentious soy blob.

 

[Flexo]

Thunder Junction.

So... does ANY lore about the plane make any sense?

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

So... does ANY lore about the plane make any sense?

In a complete Vacuum of Post Mending Plots, with mortal Planeswalkers...the basic concept is fine..especially because Magic the Gathering's plot timeskip's fast.

Wilds of Eldraine takes place a year after the Phyrexian Invasion, Murders of Karlov manor takes place months after that...and Thunder Junction takes place presumably months after that because the end of Murders has Niv-Mizzet and Proft discussing that Niv wants to control travel through the Omenpaths and wants Ravnica to be the big bosses of the Multiverse by controlling the Omenpaths.

Thunder Junction begins with Kellen helping to build a Relay Tower that will allow communication through the Omenpaths so not only has Niv-Mizzet brought the rest of the Guilds into it..The Izzet have managed to research and build a working communication technology so I would say at minimum 2 years have passed since the Phyrexian Invasion so people settling down and building up a wild west makes sense.

The big thing that utterly fucks Thunder Junction is that Nicol Bolas, Ugin, Sorin and Liliana exist and we know that two of those are old enough to have run into Thunder Junction before..and would have found the vault so the fact that it is intact at all is kind of silly. Like they are trying to portray the "Coin Empire" as something so old that it predates anything in Magic the Gathering..but we have two major characters that had to have been alive and active during the Coin Empires height.

 

[Flexo]

In a complete Vacuum of Post Mending Plots, with mortal Planeswalkers...the basic concept is fine..especially because Magic the Gathering's plot timeskip's fast.

Wilds of Eldraine takes place a year after the Phyrexian Invasion, Murders of Karlov manor takes place months after that...and Thunder Junction takes place presumably months after that because the end of Murders has Niv-Mizzet and Proft discussing that Niv wants to control travel through the Omenpaths and wants Ravnica to be the big bosses of the Multiverse by controlling the Omenpaths.

Thunder Junction begins with Kellen helping to build a Relay Tower that will allow communication through the Omenpaths so not only has Niv-Mizzet brought the rest of the Guilds into it..The Izzet have managed to research and build a working communication technology so I would say at minimum 2 years have passed since the Phyrexian Invasion so people settling down and building up a wild west makes sense.

The big thing that utterly fucks Thunder Junction is that Nicol Bolas, Ugin, Sorin and Liliana exist and we know that two of those are old enough to have run into Thunder Junction before..and would have found the vault so the fact that it is intact at all is kind of silly. Like they are trying to portray the "Coin Empire" as something so old that it predates anything in Magic the Gathering..but we have two major characters that had to have been alive and active during the Coin Empires height.

The wild west "settler" town I don't mind - I'm curious about how the "no people were here before" yet there are vaults? One with Loot in them? And there are graves on the plane for Gissa to raise up their contents?

Obviously over the course of 2 years of people coming there people are going to die there, I get that but the number of them would be like... dozens unless we're talking about a migration of millions upon millions. The omenpaths would have be clogged with migrant caravans to have the number of dead in 2 years the story would need. (Also the plant people?)

WTF is the "Coin Empire"?

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

I'm curious about how the "no people were here before" yet there are vaults?

It is conceivable..IF it is an Oldwalker Created Plane (there were some weird rules with that, ONLY the Oldwalker that made it could find it without help) and they made it specifically to build the Vault on. However there are some other issues with it if The People who Built it are as old as are implied...the Plane would have collapsed without the Planeswalker visiting it to maintain it's balance and existence (See Mirrodin Pre-mending).

It's a weird plane..but you COULD explain it in the setting.

And there are graves on the plane for Gissa to raise up their contents?

She only Necromancied once in the entire story, Her and Geralf could have just not been in the plot at all, Geralf did exactly zero. The "Random Outlaw Crew" was the worst part of the Plot to be honest. Oko and Satoru basically carried the rest of the crew (Tinybones did some minor Larceny). Gissa, Geralf and Rakdos were completely valueless, and Vraska is only there to Tard Wrangle Oko.

(Also the plant people?)

Literally did not show up in the story at all.

WTF is the "Coin Empire"?

They are the folks who made the vault

In Ixalan 2, Quintorius's plot is that he is researching a forgotten empire he Dubbed the "Coin" Empire because the most common relic he found were ancient coins, The Flavor Text in Ixalan refered to their race as Fomori, they are the ones who imprisoned the Inner sun of Ixalan, but Vanished..at some point near or before the Original Phyrexia was created.

And apparently double checking the exact details, they were a race of Giants from the plane Ir.



Edit : I forgot, Today I listened to BloomBurrow and Duskmourne at Work.

Bloomburrow is just filler with Ral looking for Jace and Vraska and getting side tracked by the fact that someone stole one of Maha's Eggs and fucking with one of the Elemental Incarnations of Darkness has consequences.

Duskmourne is probably my favorite of the plots thus far..because its a very simple rescue mission. The lore for why the entire Plane is a house actually made sense in context (Valgavoth got fused to the house as a way to seal him so as he expands his power the house expands), and he has just enough power to bait someone into the house through an Omenpath and since he controls the house once you are in you are in.

There are two big issues though...THEY DON'T FUCKING KILL VALGAVOTH so he is still going to be an absurd problem going forewards becuase eventually enough people will accidently fall into Duskmourne that he will be able to fully expand the house through an omen path...and it just proves that Elesh Norn's plans to take over the multiverse were fucking doomed because Phyrexians had no way to stop Valgavoth and Duskmourne from eating enough Phyrexian Souls to overpower Phyrexia.