MTG Salvation

I would like it if there was a dedicated sticky about how to improve pre-constructed intro decks from a Budget standpoint. It would be useful, since I bought pretty much one of each guild during RTR and GTC.

That being said, what do you want the deck to do? Do you want to go flat out with the Bloodrush mechanic or do you want it to be a more traditional green ramp deck? It seems to be a little of both currently.

Whenever cards say "X player chooses Y target at random", I can't understand how that's decided. By picking a target deliberately, it's no longer a random target but an intended one.

The only way I can see for it to be random would be to take all the possible targets on the field affected by the card, shuffle them together, then pick one without looking at it, then replace everything else on the field as it was.

Is there a simpler way to pick random targets?

I don't think Undying trumps a card that says "target creature can't be regenerated", because Undying is a form of regeneration. I'll need to find an official ruling on this, but it seems to me that if you have a creature and destroy it, the spell resolves before the wolf's ability does.

It's a shame that the design they had planned for the Simic didn't work out so well. Oh well, I'll disassemble my Simic intro deck and see about maybe trying to make a Gruul deck instead. Or even Selesnya, which looks like it can be made on the cheap.

I see a lot of decks for Izzet, and some for Azorius, and plenty for Gruul, but I was wondering if there's anything that can be done about the Simic?

The Evolve mechanic is a bit hard to play around, I can see that. It's not as straightforward as Rakdos' Unleash, but when you get some Simic pieces on the board, you can move your counters around, which is interesting. Somehow, I doubt that most budget decks would play Simic with this in mind. The Simic decks I've found on here all seem to run Pikes and run more like Delver variants.

Is it possible to build a Simic deck that's centered around Evolve? Or is Simic just too janky to play effectively?

Quote from Life Weaver

I want to know why Emmara Tandris, an Elf Shaman who is a 5/7 can pretty much punch Niv-Mizzet's lights out like a boss, go toe to toe with Rakdos (Lord of Riots) and Ruric Thar.

(Yes I know why they changed her stats but OTHER THAN THAT)

Would you prefer if she was like Melira, Sylvok Outcast instead? She's at a high enough cost that she deserves some staying power in addition to her ability.

Quote from Xcric

go dimir. you'll wreck face.

Dimir is the weakest guild right now. Every vital card to U/B is overcosted by a whole mana and thus means you'll need an extra turn to play it instead of when you need it, and in conjunction with the horrible Cipher mechanic, well, you get where I'm coming from. I'm just going off of the trend that's been set by RTR and GC, in no way referring to DGM cards at all.

I don't know why they gimped the whole guild instead of a few cards, but that's what they did. Rakdos and Orzhov both do a better job at control than Dimir right now, which is really quite sad.

All the guilds will need to be present at the center of the maze, which means that they must all 'win', and then something totally unexpected *coughcoughdeadlyexplosioncough* will happen.

Quote from CrazyCatPerson123

Prereleases are casual events. They're not intended for you to have the best deck. We have competitive events for that.

Yeah, I don't know where you play your prereleases, but I have never seen such a thing as a non-competitive prerelease. Nobody has fun losing, so if you want to have fun, you have to have a deck that can actually DO something.

If you pull it, just stick it in your binder or cardbox and 10 years from now sell it to a museum for enough change to buy a double cheeseburger.

Blue isn't really a color that was meant for aggro, with a few exceptions from older blocks. I mean, look at what blue creatures we have in this block - the best blue aggro creatures we have are all Azorius themed, fliers mainly.

Yes, hydra are supposed to be water-dwellers, but the choice to make them green also makes sense, since they're quite savage, and that definitely is Green's territory.

Waif requires a whole turn of either you or your opponent not playing anything to flip. That's a little too risky for my tastes. I prefer the solidness of the Cackler to that. A turn 1 2/2 is still a big threat.

You could also toss in a couple Bump in the Night while Innistrad block is still around. Never mind that it's a sorcery, it's (nearly) free damage.

Quote from LuciusWolfe

how would you determine the worth of a card when one site says its $8 and change while another barely marks it at 1$

Sorry I'm just kinda bothered because I just spent some time pricing my cards only to find out they might not be worth what I thought they were.

Does anyone know if cardkingdom is updated? or what is their deal ? same goes to tcg.
I'll check the site mentioned Himashi thank you.

I go by what my LGS says they're worth. Mind you, there's a difference between what they're worth to interested parties and what they're worth to your LGS owner/card broker.

The price of rares and mythics isn't set by WOTC. Every card they make costs the same for them to produce, which is something like ten cents per card. The value of desirable cards fluctuates wildly as they go in and out of vogue, and the wear and tear a card endures through play tends to lower the price of the card as well.

Fire Elemental isn't that bad, really. It's a vanilla creature, but that's its only setback. As it is, I could see it being used in a poor man's Boros or Rakdos deck. It might not be very good, but it's a solid body that won't die to cheap burn, isn't a prime target for exile effects, and probably won't get bad enchants thrown at it.

Why do cards like this have to exist? Because if they didn't, Blizzard wouldn't be able to charge $4-$5 a pack for boosters. They would just sell rares. The game is about getting the most out of the creatures you use, and some common and uncommon creatures are useful, even when they don't do much.