Magic: The Gathering,GO TEAM MS!

[xRECKONERx]

got 2x loxodon smiters and 1x advent btw reck


damn I wish I hadnt traded your deathrites now

I already have a playset of Smiters.

[Fate]

advent for that overgrown tomb back

<_<b

[xRECKONERx]

what.

[kdowns]

Advent is only 4ish bucks last I checked while Overgrown is 10 at least

[Fate]

why are you guys feeding him lies

[xRECKONERx]

SCG has Advent for 8 and OT for 10

but still a shitty fucking trade

[PJ.]

I've been thinking about getting back into to Magic, If i were to play standard, what should I expect to play against, and what should I play?

Is Drafting still the best way to get cards for standard?

[InflatablePie]

Advent is $4ish, Tomb is $8-$9.

@panzer: Standard, at the moment, has about over a dozen popular deck archetypes, including but not limited to: Mono Red Aggro, R/G Aggro, B/W/G Midrange, B/W/G Tokens/Death Triggers, R/W/G Midrange, U/W/R Control, G/B Control, R/W/B Midrange, R/W/B Tokens/Death Triggers, U/W/G Midrange, U/W/G Hexproof, R/B/G Midrange, U/W/B Control, G/W Aggro, U/W Control, R/B Aggro, G/R Midrange... someone tell me if I missed a popular Tier 1/2 deck type. (And I'm playing U/W/B Aggro.)

Drafting is the best way if you're coming back, yeah, or doing research and straight buying singles if you just want to jump into Standard.

[PJ.]

So, everything is a deck?

[Fate]

U/W/G Control+Flash, G/B Control+Midrange, 4-color Reanimator, R/W/G Humans, R/W/G Aggro

yeah but pretty much every archetype has placed highly as some point. Except RUG, nobody loves RUG.

[xRECKONERx]

If you want to be a dick just play Junk Reanimator... although the key pieces of Reanimator are rotating out in October (Unburial Rites + Thragtusk + Restoration Angel) so we've yet to see how that will affect the archetype.

[Thestatusquo]

Standard right now is absolutely horrendous.

[PJ.]

But no one plays modern in my area, and Legacy is too expensive and I haven't played the format with real cards since before Goyf(2006ish), so my decks consist of Goblins and Solidarity, neither of which are very good.

[Natirasha]

Standard right now is absolutely horrendous.

+1

absolutely terrible format right now, hate it.

[Thestatusquo]

Legacy is not expensive. In the long run legacy is far far far far cheaper than standard.

[Fate]

http://sales.starcitygames.com/search.p ... D=1&auto=Y

http://sales.starcitygames.com/search.p ... D=1&auto=Y

http://sales.starcitygames.com/search.p ... D=1&auto=Y

hmmmmmmmm

[Fate]

What's so bad about standard exactly? Pie just listed over a dozen archetypes that are viable, when's the last time that happened? What's the last standard format you enjoyed and why?

[Sudo_Nym]

Personally, I just feel like Power Creep has gotten way out of control. I liked Standard back in the Rav/TSP era, just because it felt a lot more like a game with long term consequences. Now a lot of it comes down to who rips the better bomb off the top at the right time.

[Natirasha]

What's so bad about standard exactly?

Infinite mana fixing lets decks do bullshit like going Strangelroot Geist->Geralf's Messenger on curve. While there are a ton of archtypes, they all play rather similarly. Like(I know I'm simplifying a little here, but bear with me). There are really four types of decks--Sphinx's Revelation decks, Thragtusk decks, Blood Artist decks, and Burning-Tree Emissary decks. Revelation decks want to draw millions of cards, counter their opponent's threats and with with Aetherling(Esper/UWR/Bant/UW/Grixis control, Omnidoor), Thragtusk decks win by just playing a bunch of great cards and win by having better cards(all the Green based midrange decks-Jund, Junk, Naya, Prime Speaker Bant, GB Mutilate, even if they don't run Thragtusk like some of the newer Naya shells, the Advent of the Wurm-based flash deck, as well as Rites). Blood Artist decks are the only ones that have any synergy, really, with tons of sacrifice triggers and overwhelming the opponent with 1/1s and 2/2s(RWB Aristocrats, GWB Aristocrats, Zombies), and Burning-Tree Emissary decks are all about flooding the board early and going under the other deck's heads, winning on like turn four/five(All the aggro decks, from RG to Naya Blitz to Jund Aggro, some of these don't run BTE, but it's similar in principle). All the decks win the same fucking way. There are a couple of decks that are outliers, I admit--the UGx tempo and WG token shells beings the most prominent, but they are decidedly, like tier 3 at best.

Pie just listed over a dozen archetypes that are viable, when's the last time that happened? What's the last standard format you enjoyed and why?

Ravnica-Time Spiral is my answer for both, and it was because there were about a thousand archtypes AND they all did different things. There were legit combo decks in Dredge and Dragonstorm, hardcore control shells in Teachings Control & WU(won with Teferi lockdown and Skeletal Vampire), control with a combo finish(Pickles), the OG soul sisters with Martyr-Proc, along with early Death and Taxes variants(Mangara of Corondor+Momentary Blink!), about six variation of red aggro ranging from RDW to Sligh to RG to Land-destruction based, suicide black was a deck with Bob. The thing is, that format had just as much mana fixing(shocks, painlands, storagelands, future sight duals, and farseek were all in the format), but due to Blood Moon/Magus of the Moon and the painland's natural clock made running these 3/4/5 color abominations much more difficult and costly. I mean, they still existed, but it was much more balanced. All these decks also were just very different, had hugely variant gameplans, and won in hugely different ways.

[Klazam]

What's so bad about standard exactly?

Infinite mana fixing lets decks do bullshit like going Strangelroot Geist->Geralf's Messenger on curve. While there are a ton of archtypes, they all play rather similarly. Like(I know I'm simplifying a little here, but bear with me). There are really four types of decks--Sphinx's Revelation decks, Thragtusk decks, Blood Artist decks, and Burning-Tree Emissary decks. Revelation decks want to draw millions of cards, counter their opponent's threats and with with Aetherling(Esper/UWR/Bant/UW/Grixis control, Omnidoor), Thragtusk decks win by just playing a bunch of great cards and win by having better cards(all the Green based midrange decks-Jund, Junk, Naya, Prime Speaker Bant, GB Mutilate, even if they don't run Thragtusk like some of the newer Naya shells, the Advent of the Wurm-based flash deck, as well as Rites). Blood Artist decks are the only ones that have any synergy, really, with tons of sacrifice triggers and overwhelming the opponent with 1/1s and 2/2s(RWB Aristocrats, GWB Aristocrats, Zombies), and Burning-Tree Emissary decks are all about flooding the board early and going under the other deck's heads, winning on like turn four/five(All the aggro decks, from RG to Naya Blitz to Jund Aggro, some of these don't run BTE, but it's similar in principle). All the decks win the same fucking way. There are a couple of decks that are outliers, I admit--the UGx tempo and WG token shells beings the most prominent, but they are decidedly, like tier 3 at best.

Pie just listed over a dozen archetypes that are viable, when's the last time that happened? What's the last standard format you enjoyed and why?

Ravnica-Time Spiral is my answer for both, and it was because there were about a thousand archtypes AND they all did different things. There were legit combo decks in Dredge and Dragonstorm, hardcore control shells in Teachings Control & WU(won with Teferi lockdown and Skeletal Vampire), control with a combo finish(Pickles), the OG soul sisters with Martyr-Proc, along with early Death and Taxes variants(Mangara of Corondor+Momentary Blink!), about six variation of red aggro ranging from RDW to Sligh to RG to Land-destruction based, suicide black was a deck with Bob. The thing is, that format had just as much mana fixing(shocks, painlands, storagelands, future sight duals, and farseek were all in the format), but due to Blood Moon/Magus of the Moon and the painland's natural clock made running these 3/4/5 color abominations much more difficult and costly. I mean, they still existed, but it was much more balanced. All these decks also were just very different, had hugely variant gameplans, and won in hugely different ways.

AMEN

[Fate]

Thanks for the well-reasoned post.

[PJ.]

Legacy is not expensive. In the long run legacy is far far far far cheaper than standard.

As Fate alluded to, i'd need to buy playsets of dual lands to compete. That's multiple playsets of 150 dollar cards. Also If I'm playing blue, I need Force AND Jace. Green needs Goyf. It would literally take me 4-5 months to build any competitive legacy deck, and while I understand the format doesn't rotate and your cards don't necessarily lose their value very fast but it's still an expensive format to get started in.

[Thestatusquo]

If you buy those cards, you never have to buy cards ever again. Like, literally, the keep my legacy decks competitive I have to buy approximately 1 playset every block or so. For standard, you're generally dropping 300-500$ each block. Over the long run its not close. If you intend to play magic for a long time, legacy is much much much cheaper.

[Fate]

me and nuwen both completed our standard deck through just drafting and trades, spent literally $20 for two stomping grounds when gatecrash first came out and traded for everything.
I mean the money spent on drafting probably adds up, but we'd be doing that anyway for fun right?

Granted, aggro decks are cheaper than the resto/snapcaster decks or the other decks, but if you're smart about your trades I still think Standard is a lot more manageable than saving up for a legacy land base and then still having to buy all the other cards. At least if you're starting from scratch like panzer

[AGar]

I mean the money spent on drafting probably adds up, but we'd be doing that anyway for fun right?

Yes, but it appears as if Shea is talking straight costs for solely maintaining a standard competitive deck, a la buying singles. Not to mention you can't always guarantee you're going to get the right product for your decks via drafting. You guys have had good breaks that way, but I know I've had shit luck for drafting netting me anything worthwhile for constructed.