I was inspecting some new beta islands I purchased and noticed that the printed part of the border differed from my other beta and alpha lands. The others have a colored dot pattern in the black, but the new islands do not. There does appear to be faint bluish dotting suggesting it is printed, not colored in. I suspect its legit due the rest of my inspection but I just wanted to double check. Does anyone know anything about this?
Edit: Advanced googling confirmed this is normal. Nothing to see here! (except some iPhone-to-loupe photos of some beta basics)
Jason, I'm having the same problem. The filter menu is aware of games I've played, but records everything as a draw and does not display them in the game history screen. This is true of free games as well as tournaments. I've submitted a bug report and I'll report back when I hear from them.
I'm sure most of us have drafted with Storm cards before, and you don't first pick Mind's Desire just because it's there. If you want to play Storm, you first pick Vampiric Tutor, Brainstorm, Faithless Looting, or Birds of Paradise, and move into the deck as you read the signals. It's fringe playable in the mtgo cube and with a much tighter list it should be solid. Especially combined with the power or Show and Tell list, there will be plenty of support for a sweet combo deck.
I have a 420 cube that is pretty close to complete, the link my sig is pretty close to what I'm running today. Looking for a new project to stimulate my cube-building addiction, I'm adding an annex to my cube, with 12 15-card packages to swap in and out of my cube, representing constructed-quality (or just plain fun) archetypes that normally don't have enough support in cube. I'm sure things like this have been done before, and I don't intend to take credit from those who did it first, but since I didn't consult any existing builds I figured it would be unique enough for its own thread. I chose the themes and numbers by looking for archetypes with enough redundancy and support within the cube proper such that a person could draft any 8-12 of the cards on the list, plus random good stuff from the cube, and end up with a sweet deck. This would be played by swapping out 15 card sets where desired (e.g. all red aggro, black aggro, etc) to maintain color balance and archetype support. The intent is not to play a larger cube or all of these at once, although there may be synergies between packages since some cards overlap (so if you say, "hey, this archetype needs card X", it may be in the main cube list or another package). Without further ado:
This card needs another look, guys. It's now the hottest card in the set, and there are still only 5 lists running it. I had this pegged as an obvious include when the spoiler came out, but I haven't been able to acquire one yet. Has anyone else been running this? I am going to snap replace Fireball with this guy when I can pick one up.
I rate this much higher than the rest of you, and I run it at 420. It's a 5 mana sorcery unmake? How? I love this card. Unconditional exile, which is rare enough, a 2 for 1, abusable with blink and reanimation, and works with all artifact mana accel. I prefer this to Triskelion, though narrowly.
Another big update on the heels of an even bigger one. Unfortunately I didn't record my changes last time, but I did this time:
Out:
Scepter of Dominance
Willbender
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
Daze
Vampire Hexmage
Bane of the Living
Tombstalker
Ob Nixilis, the Falen
Buried Alive
Flame Javelin
Harmonize
Phantom Centaur
Indrik Stomphowler
Gelectrode
Momentary Blink
Brion Stoutarm
Snakeform
Lavaclaw Reaches
Evolving Wilds
Isolated Chapel
Golgari Rot Farm
Darkslick Shores
In:
Kor Sanctifiers
Catastrophe
Merfolk Looter
Condescend
Impulse
Glen Elendra Archmage
Nezumi Graverobber
Recurring Nightmare
Necromancy
Snuff Out
Living Death
Volrath's Stronghold
Searing Spear
Ember Hauler
Farseek
Thragtusk
Terastodon
Wickerbough Elder
Thran Dynamo
Gilded Lotus
Erratic Portal
Sphinx of the Steel Wind
After deciding to take out a couple useless signets, I decided to sort by guild to give myself flexibility to fix each combination, removing useless spells like Snakeform and bad lands like Lavaclaw Reaches. This freed up 10 slots in colors and artifact. I've also decided to not include functional reprints, so Flames of the Firebrand will not be included (nor Ravages of War, if I ever were to acquire one) and Evolving Wilds is getting cut.
The last two updates are about pushing big effect decks. A lot of black and green aggro support (e.g. wild dogs, dauthi slayer) have been reduced to make room for big green and blue/black reanimator strategies. Earlier updates have really pushed aggro decks, so perhaps it is time for the pendulum to swing the other direction. On the other side, as white token makers have gotten better, I'm giving Honor of the Pure another chance. Thanks for your input!
I'll definitely be including him at 420. I'd rate him as the top 5 drop, (block has already shown he's much better than vorapede), and better than Chameleon Colossus (compare pro black to the huge mana advantage of Silverheart and the haste damage) and Precursor Golem (12 > 9). He is just so good with mana creatures, and green needs more ways to take advantage of its early creature ramp.
And I hardly think its a dumb creature that leads to uninteresting gameplay, vanilla creatures actually create a lot of interesting board states where chump blocking and tempo can decide the game.
The terminate test is fine, but it can't be all or nothing. You have to weigh what you get when they don't have the terminate, and 12 power for 5 is so far beyond any other card we've seen yet.
I'm actually surprised that this isn't consensus. In my mind, Consecrated Sphinx is a much better card than Keiga, and I don't even see how its close. I would rate them like this:
Vexing Devil should not be thought of as a 1-drop creature, but a 4 damage lava spike with a significant drawback. And I do mean significant. Even mono red decks in cube don't usually bolt their opponent on turn one, so you probably don't want to be casting this then. You expect a 4 damage spell to kill your opponent when they are on 4 life, and this one never does that. Once you are in "burn mode" (your opponent has board control), this becomes close to a blank, and that is not where you want a lava spike to be. Fireblast is amazing because it allows you to win games as they are becoming unwinnable, and this card doesn't do that.
I'm definitely cutting Galepowder Mage for Restoration Angel, but I don't see the hype on the paladin. To me he is much worse than Mirran Crusader, since the double strike is going to be unreliable in combat and he is very easy to kill. But if the effect of playing him and giving a creature double strike is better than I expect, I could see changing my mind.
I don't think cube has enough manipulation effects to play Thunderous Wrath or Temporal Mastery. Playing Time Walk on a random turn during my draw step is not even that exciting to me.
I'll have to test Sigarda. It is better than Sphinx of Jwar Isle, but Sphinx of Jwar Isle is not usually what I'm looking for in my GW decks.
edit: I do think Vexing Devil is a really strong card, just not for cube. Any deck where you want to be bolting your opponent on turn 1, this is an amazing card.
I originally thought I would argue that things are fine the way they are, but after thinking about it, I quite like the original proposal. However, I think it's important that the card evaluation forum is structured in such away that allows for the most active conversations to be the most visible, rather than too rigidly structured (i.e. card threads sorted by section). I check in mainly because I know there will be something I'm interested in happening in the card eval thread, and I wouldn't want to lose that.
I believe this should be a sorcery. I think it groks better that way, and the strategic gains from making it an instant are really minimal. Cards that can be sorceries and still accomplish their purpose should be sorceries, and I think this is an example of that.
basking rootwalla makes vengevine SO MUCH better in this deck. Strangleroot Geist would be awesome with Nightmare and powering out Vengevine at the end of a survival.
GSZ is a little awkward in this deck since the card is at its best when you have targets at a wide range of casting costs. All your best creatures are black. Acidic slime would make a really good target, maybe replacing Baloth. Personally I would make this deck as an aggro-disruption deck with lower casting costs, with Dark Confidant and Tarmogoyf.
Edit: Advanced googling confirmed this is normal. Nothing to see here! (except some iPhone-to-loupe photos of some beta basics)
Power
Storm
Extra Ramp
Goblins
Elves
MBC
Dream, Sneak, and Show
Life
Reanimator/Dredge
Kiki-Jiki Combo
Enchantress
Affinity
Thanks for your input. I threw this together in a couple hours so there will be lots of improvements, not to mention years spent acquiring the cards
Out:
Scepter of Dominance
Willbender
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
Daze
Vampire Hexmage
Bane of the Living
Tombstalker
Ob Nixilis, the Falen
Buried Alive
Flame Javelin
Harmonize
Phantom Centaur
Indrik Stomphowler
Gelectrode
Momentary Blink
Brion Stoutarm
Snakeform
Lavaclaw Reaches
Evolving Wilds
Isolated Chapel
Golgari Rot Farm
Darkslick Shores
In:
Kor Sanctifiers
Catastrophe
Merfolk Looter
Condescend
Impulse
Glen Elendra Archmage
Nezumi Graverobber
Recurring Nightmare
Necromancy
Snuff Out
Living Death
Volrath's Stronghold
Searing Spear
Ember Hauler
Farseek
Thragtusk
Terastodon
Wickerbough Elder
Thran Dynamo
Gilded Lotus
Erratic Portal
Sphinx of the Steel Wind
After deciding to take out a couple useless signets, I decided to sort by guild to give myself flexibility to fix each combination, removing useless spells like Snakeform and bad lands like Lavaclaw Reaches. This freed up 10 slots in colors and artifact. I've also decided to not include functional reprints, so Flames of the Firebrand will not be included (nor Ravages of War, if I ever were to acquire one) and Evolving Wilds is getting cut.
The last two updates are about pushing big effect decks. A lot of black and green aggro support (e.g. wild dogs, dauthi slayer) have been reduced to make room for big green and blue/black reanimator strategies. Earlier updates have really pushed aggro decks, so perhaps it is time for the pendulum to swing the other direction. On the other side, as white token makers have gotten better, I'm giving Honor of the Pure another chance. Thanks for your input!
I'll definitely be including him at 420. I'd rate him as the top 5 drop, (block has already shown he's much better than vorapede), and better than Chameleon Colossus (compare pro black to the huge mana advantage of Silverheart and the haste damage) and Precursor Golem (12 > 9). He is just so good with mana creatures, and green needs more ways to take advantage of its early creature ramp.
And I hardly think its a dumb creature that leads to uninteresting gameplay, vanilla creatures actually create a lot of interesting board states where chump blocking and tempo can decide the game.
The terminate test is fine, but it can't be all or nothing. You have to weigh what you get when they don't have the terminate, and 12 power for 5 is so far beyond any other card we've seen yet.
1 Consecrated Sphinx
2 Meloku
3 Sphinx of Jwar Isle
4 Keiga
I do love me some Keiga, don't get me wrong. I think all these cards are fantastic. All four easily make my 420.
I'm definitely cutting Galepowder Mage for Restoration Angel, but I don't see the hype on the paladin. To me he is much worse than Mirran Crusader, since the double strike is going to be unreliable in combat and he is very easy to kill. But if the effect of playing him and giving a creature double strike is better than I expect, I could see changing my mind.
I don't think cube has enough manipulation effects to play Thunderous Wrath or Temporal Mastery. Playing Time Walk on a random turn during my draw step is not even that exciting to me.
I'll have to test Sigarda. It is better than Sphinx of Jwar Isle, but Sphinx of Jwar Isle is not usually what I'm looking for in my GW decks.
edit: I do think Vexing Devil is a really strong card, just not for cube. Any deck where you want to be bolting your opponent on turn 1, this is an amazing card.
GSZ is a little awkward in this deck since the card is at its best when you have targets at a wide range of casting costs. All your best creatures are black. Acidic slime would make a really good target, maybe replacing Baloth. Personally I would make this deck as an aggro-disruption deck with lower casting costs, with Dark Confidant and Tarmogoyf.
Plow Under is always insane in ramp decks.