Magic: The Gathering,GO TEAM MS!

[Gammagooey]

obviously yes

[Thestatusquo]

Oh ok.

[hitogoroshi]

I don't normally play MtG because I don't like the business model, but I had some cash after a garage sale so I picked up that 20 dollar kit with 100 lands, a couple hundred common/uncommons, and four boosters. I made a deck to mess around with my friends with, but I'm seeing the glimmerings of a R/G deck focused around Slumbering Dragon, +1/+1 counters, trample, and hexproof. Is that a thing that could be good? I have not really played magic in ages.

edit: turns out my buddies play MTGO so I paid the :tenbux: for that rather than buying any more people cards. flaminghito. down to play at some point when I have time and figure the damn thing out.

[Thestatusquo]

So my question to you is what editions are these cards? What format are you trying to play?

[hitogoroshi]

The new magic '13 cards were mostly what was in the box. Everything is that or a super recent set. I would want to play Standard.

The basic interaction I'm thinking of is things like Increasing Savagery, Hunger of the Howlpack, Bond Beetles to wake the dragons up, Sheltering Word/Rangers Guile to keep em alive, Rancor/Kessig Wolf Run to keep em unchumpable. After that basicially I just need to find the best thing Red can do to help with this (more creatures for when I don't draw the dragons?), which is where I'm drawing a blank.

[Sudo_Nym]

I honestly don't think Slumbering Dragon's going to work while Vapor Snag is a thing. You have to protect the Dragon if you want to be able to swing with it, which means counterspells or hexproof. The other problem is that, even against decks that don't run a lot of bounce or kill, you're still looking at getting overrun by RG Ramp, Zombies, or Humans by the time it's online. You really have to stall the game out if you want it to work.

[hitogoroshi]

Aww. Well, draft is the thing that interests me more anyway, guess I'll save my money and just play some MTGO. I get to do four newbie psuedodrafts before I use my two free real tickets.

[bv310]

You can always join me/shea/UT/sometimesAGar for drafts.

[dramonic]

How much does this thing cost in the long run?

[bv310]

The game? Depends on the format you choose, how often you pkay, how competitive you want to be, etcc.

Online, it's easier to roll hrough a bunch of drafts on onne initial investment if you play well.

[Shadow1psc]

Aww. Well, draft is the thing that interests me more anyway, guess I'll save my money and just play some MTGO. I get to do four newbie psuedodrafts before I use my two free real tickets.

How many decks are running vapor snag? Jund? R/G aggro? Boros? I dunno about your meta, but Delver is on the decline for now. Not to say don't worry about it, but that's what sideboard is for.

[Shadow1psc]

How much does this thing cost in the long run?

M:tGO on the whole you can take a lot farther faster than paper M:tG for sure. If I had $100 in M:tGO, I'd probably be set for a year, depending on what you like to do, whereas $100 is like the intro cost for paper magic and would get you your first (competitive) deck and through a few FNMs/Standard tournaments. So it really just depends on your budget and what you want to play, but I think in M:tGO you can definitely fit it in to any budget with how many cards you can get for a penny and/or free.

[AGar]

Aww. Well, draft is the thing that interests me more anyway, guess I'll save my money and just play some MTGO. I get to do four newbie psuedodrafts before I use my two free real tickets.

How many decks are running vapor snag? Jund? R/G aggro? Boros? I dunno about your meta, but Delver is on the decline for now. Not to say don't worry about it, but that's what sideboard is for.

He said he wants to play Standard, where Delver is still king, and Vapor Snag is still a thing for 2 more months.

[Shadow1psc]

Aww. Well, draft is the thing that interests me more anyway, guess I'll save my money and just play some MTGO. I get to do four newbie psuedodrafts before I use my two free real tickets.

How many decks are running vapor snag? Jund? R/G aggro? Boros? I dunno about your meta, but Delver is on the decline for now. Not to say don't worry about it, but that's what sideboard is for.

He said he wants to play Standard, where Delver is still king, and Vapor Snag is still a thing for 2 more months.

If he's playing somewhere where a number, or majority of people are playing delver, not much is going to help him anyway.

[dramonic]

Online, it's easier to roll hrough a bunch of drafts on onne initial investment if you play well.

I'd love to do that with you guys if someone can be nice and guide me through the procedure.
I've been eager to draft but I've nobody to draft with <.<

[Shadow1psc]

Online, it's easier to roll hrough a bunch of drafts on onne initial investment if you play well.

I'd love to do that with you guys if someone can be nice and guide me through the procedure.
I've been eager to draft but I've nobody to draft with <.<

Are you looking for more of 'what to draft then how to put it together' or do you just need practice?

[dramonic]

Neither, I need people I can draft with <.<
I mean, I have no drafting experience, but I have a decent grasp on deck-building >.>

[Sudo_Nym]

Neither, I need people I can draft with <.<
I mean, I have no drafting experience, but I have a decent grasp on deck-building >.>

http://draft.bestiaire.org/draft.php?d=16

[Shadow1psc]

Neither, I need people I can draft with <.<
I mean, I have no drafting experience, but I have a decent grasp on deck-building >.>

I would recommend watching some of the pros who do videos and actually explain what they're doing (I like Marshall from Limited Resources, and I watch just about everything on MTGOAcademy.com).

[bv310]

Online, it's easier to roll hrough a bunch of drafts on onne initial investment if you play well.

I'd love to do that with you guys if someone can be nice and guide me through the procedure.
I've been eager to draft but I've nobody to draft with <.<

It's a lot harder than I put it, but basically just sign up, and as you win drafts (8-4s offer the best return. 8 to 1st place, 4 to second with 8 players total), you can build up a collection of packs. You can also sell these packs to bots, and usually get a decent return on them. If you win an 8-4, you basically set up for 2 more drafts for free, not including if you open any money cards.

I kinda want to do an M13 Release one tonight, if you happen to be around.

[Thestatusquo]

UW Delver is on the decline sure, but other delver variants are on the upswing. The talrand mono U Wizards variants in particular have been doing well in dailies and ptqs.

Iunno.

[Shadow1psc]

Oh yes, I went there...

[hitogoroshi]

So, spending my new player tickets and trying to learn MtG for real. First one was for a shadow draft (like normal draft, but only 4 people and you don't keep the cards), which went...poorly. It started when I tried to enlarge Ravenous Rats to read them and they ended up being my first pick. It never really got better. My deck had no real rhyme or reason to it and I lost every match. I also suspect having 4 people in draft may not be the best since it means there isn't too much pressure on any one color and whoever happens to have a color alone or with only one person gets more orbits, but who knows.

Then I did a shadow sealed - that is, 6 m13 boosters to make a 40 card deck as normal, again with only four people and no real prize. I built this abusive number:



and won all but one of my games. t's easier to win when you can fit four of your six rares comfortably into your deck. Hilariously enough, I actually had ANOTHER black Rare -Diabolic Revelation - but I decided to sub it out for kitesail. (and good thing too - kitesail was one of my two mvp cards. the other was gorgon but that's not hard to guess :p) The only sideboarding I did was swapping my Recluse for a Naturalize because my first game was almost ended when a Tormented Soul got Mark of the Vampire. It was 5 to 25 or something, but then my Gorgon decided to make his Tormented Soul a defender who can't block.

Overall, I'm really enjoying this. Staying just in M13 makes the info burden a lot more manageable and this feels a lot more like a battle of wits than constructed. Now I just need to decide if I use my last two Newbie tickets to practice Draft or Sealed before I enter the big bad real world of MTGO.

ps Titantic Growth --> Priest of Bolas is really funny.

[Thestatusquo]

Thats a sweet sealed pool.

[hitogoroshi]

No kidding man. Shame it was shadow sealed I'd love to expand that fucker to 60 cards.

What's the general event ticket cost for normal sealed or draft events? And is there a special time/day I can do specifically Magic 2013 events? Those are pretty much the only cards I have experience with since I just hopped back in to Magic a few days ago.