Dies to Removal

you never ask me how I'm doing

that's my message to all of you

I’m actually kind of extremely upset about this, and it’s been on my mind since yesterday, but, well, breakup kinda pushed everything else out.

If you are my friend, or if you consider us friends, PLEASE initiate a conversation with me every once in a while. Because right now, I’m going to be honest, only one or two of you REGULARLY do that. And that’s ******* sad.

You wanna know the quickest way to stop being my friend? Don’t initiate a conversation with me. For awhile, I’ll be happy with initiating. Eventually, though, I’ll start feeling like I’m just bugging you, and so I’ll stop, and if you don’t initiate, that’s honestly gonna be the end of it right there.

Like, I’m not asking you to initiate every single conversation but just can we try and make this more even? I get that a lot of you have your own ****, or have social anxiety. I do too. And I don’t think it’s fair that I, who is super stressed, depressed, and has and has always had major social anxiety (something I think I’ve made pretty clear to most of you) am expected (or I feel like that.) to initiate every conversation we have.

I guess it just makes me feel like there’s no reciprocation. Like I’m putting all the effort into our friendship, and you just go “Oh, hey, it’s that person” whenever I initiate. And that’s a ****ing horrible feeling, honestly. I don’t want all my friends to just be acquaintances. Especially right now.

I’ve lost a LOT of friends this way. I’m SICK of losing friends this way. I’m sick of the friendship dying because I feel like you guys think of me as an annoyance. So to the friends that I still do have, if you honestly want to remain my friend, or if you enjoy talking to me, TAKE THE INITIATIVE SOMETIME. Just a simple “hi” on skype or in my inbox or texted, for those of you who have my number is FINE.

I feel like I’m being a total ***** here, but I also feel like it’s not fair that I’ve had to initiate 99% of the conversations in 99% of the friendships I’ve had.

There are a lot of you who I probably won’t initiate with again (at least, if you don’t initiate at all.), because I’ve reached this point, and I kinda feel like a lot of you don’t really give a **** about me anyway. Which is perfectly fine. But if you come to me a month down the road with some “We never talk, what happened to you” bull****, I’m going to link you to this post because this is probably why.

is talking about my life so strange that i must have been hacked?

I have a crush on a friend of mine, He's kind, good looking, similar personalities, Etc. Unfortunately, when I first met him and started to develop feelings for him, he was female. The same day I had gathered my courage to ask him out, he came out as a FtM Transexual. <class="overtlyLongHTMLJoke"><img src="Denied.img alt="Denied" style="width:400px;height:400px"></class>

I haven't really a developed sexual orientation, in case thats needed to be known. Due to several outstandingly amazing nonstandard psychological and social wirings (Aspergers, Genius IQ, Manic Depression, Anxiety Disorder, and PTSD), I have never really been in a situation to develop a coherent sexual orientation, or get into experimental relationships. The last time I came close to someone, I was openly manipulated, played with, and abandoned. It broke me for a long time...

Even if things work out with that, there are problems with the social side of things, with the entire Transexualism issue, and the fact that I still live with my RIGIDLY CATHOLIC PARENTS. I really care about this person, but there are lots of issues with it. I'm confused and scared and lonely. So who better to come to than a bunch of magic players, amirite?

yes, yes it does

can anyone help me

i'm a gay man wanting straight men's perspectives about friendship. i've been heartbroken over a failed friendship at school; i can see that i've been repressing the hurt which i can't access. it's all unclear and a muddle to me.

sometimes i tell myself that i should "just get over it", or i would tell myself many other typical things people would say. but it hasn't been helping; i feel more like i'm scolding myself or shaming myself, rather than touching a place that "rings true" or rings with clarity when i tell myself these things.

sexual attraction, for me, has always been kind of fluid and mixed in with feelings of platonic attraction, to the point where it's hard for me to completely see these things as separate non-related concepts.

`

um..

what i want to know is
if straight guys can feel
attachment, attraction, admiration, or a sense of "he /knows/ me" or "we /relate/ to each other" or "we /matter/ to each other" or "i'm not alone in this world" or "i'm made stronger because he is /okay/ with me"..
` to another guy

` to the point where
` if the friendship fails over him rejecting you, and no communication happens and you're cut off..
` that it can devastate you?

can straight men feel another guy to be that important to them? (even to the point of heartbreak many months later, upon rejection?)
can (platonic) friendships have that strong and essential a quality to them?

why would you admit something so shameful

Eleven dollars

I went there playing Jeskai and got wrecked. It wasn't even the deck behaving badly, it was just poor luck. I had to mulligan to 5 more times than I'd like to count and went up against several nut draws. For example, it's really hard to recover when, by turn 4, your opponent has casts ALL FOUR Monastery Swiftspears and an Eidolon of the Great Revel. Didn't get to see what the feature tables were doing, as I was muddling around the middle before finally going home after the 3rd loss. I had built the deck to deal with green decks in the main and side board plans for both control and red deck wins. Well, I played several Jeskai mirrors and favorable post-board matchups were muddled up by mulligans. Never saw a durdly green deck or control deck all day.

I posted a question a week or so ago regarding deck checks at high level tournaments (inquiry what judges check on when doing a deck check) a week or two ago. I posted that question after encountering some incredibly high quality "proxies" from China. I have now encountered even more of these "proxies" over the past week. The quality of the "proxies" is incredibly high and the only distinguishing feature between them and real cards is that the cards have a glossier finish to them and some (not all, SOME) of the cards show variations in color. In sleeves, however, the cards are indistinguishable from the real thing. They are so nice that some "proxies" were sleeved and mixed in with a deck, the deck was given to me to peruse (in the sleeves), and I was unable to distinguish the real cards from the "proxies". This coupled with watching some videos on YouTube of people making actual proxies (nothing that would ever pass for the real thing, not because the quality is bad, but because the art is different) got me to thinking the following....

There are people at home all across the world that can make their own Magic "proxies". You can easily buy "proxies" from China. These "proxies", especially when sleeved, are nearly identical to the real thing. At some point someone is going to perfect the art and real cards will be absolutely indistinguishable from "proxies". However, in the meantime, I have come to believe 100% that there are fakes, "proxies", and forgeries of one stripe or another being played with at FNMs, at local Legacy and Modern tournies, at SCG and other higher level events, and likely even on the Pro Tour.

How often have you shown up to an FNM on the day of a release only to find that one of your opponents already has every single copy in their deck of some highly sought after Mythic Rare from the new set? There is a finite number of real, old school dual lands, but how is it that more and more people are showing up to play Legacy with all the required duals and everything else necessary to play?

I have come to believe that fake cards are everywhere. They might not be traded and sold en masse yet, because the technology isn't quite there (at least of the ones that I've known have been proxies), but in sleeves where they are virtually indecipherable from the real thing?

So what do you think? Have you ever encountered someone in a tournament that you believe or suspect was playing with fakes? Has anyone ever been busted? How often have you had a deck check performed against you? Anyone care to admit ever having played with known fakes? Have you ever played or owned a card that you believed to be real and only later realized (perhaps when trading it or selling it to someone) that it was a fake?

In all my years of playing Magic I have only been deck checked one time. In the past I have played with (in black backed sleeves) Collector's and International Edition cards whose corners had been rounded- they weren't rebacked, they still had the gold CE/IE borders, but with the black sleeves no one had a clue. This was in a low level local tournament.

Every Vintage Magic tournament that I am aware of currently allows proxy cards. Proxies are used regularly and knowingly in EDH/Commander, 5-Color, and some of the other "casual", alternate formats. I know of local Legacy scenes that have now jumped on board and allow unlimited proxies.

In my view, WOTC has specifically facilitated this problem with the Reserved List, but we are now seeing cards that are not on the reserved list "proxied". Everything from Tarmogoyf and Jace the Mind Sculptor to Splinter Twin and Ugin the Spirit Dragon and all Mythics and Rares and a lot of uncommons and commons in between.

If a card reaches a high price, why wouldn't one look for a cheaper option?


What is more important? The game or one's collection value?

And I will leave you with one more thought....

If the "fake" is as good as the real thing... Is it really a "fake"?

So I have this awkward thing going on. As you can see my decks that I currently own are Jund, Abzan Company, Abzan Midrange and Grixis Control. Im also planning to invest into Standard again by building that sweet BG Demonic Pact deck.
Now here comes the thing. I actually hate what red and green stand for and what they value. I mean green is the enemy of my favorite color which is black yet I find myself gravitating to these kind of decks that are in BG/x colors and which are often reminiscent of the original "The Rock" deck.
Philosophically speaking my favorite colors are black then blue and lastly white so Im in the Esper realm but yet every time I play decks of that color combination I quit them soon after since I just don't find them as enjoyable. It's just really funny how that works for me.

Im interested if Im the only one with this "problem" or if there are others too who find themselves playing colors constantly which they actually don't like that much.

I can currently loop Thoughtseize with Den Protector and nobody is really bothered by that interaction besides some control players.
Last Standard season was dominated by a Mono-Black deck which discarded and killed everything you had and then beat you down it just played a Turn 2 Pack Rat against you which was potentially game over already.
In Innistrad-RTR Standard Im sure the most "unfun" card was Bonfire of the Damned. "I navigated the entire game carefully and eventually came out ahead and was about to win but then my opponent topdecked Bonfire of the Damned..." is a common story from that time.
You mention a card like Reap Intellect and yet UW got Sphinx's Revelation and BR got Rakdos's Return. When these spells resolved in big numbers you were guaranteed to not have any fun anymore.

Even leaving this topic alone there are also other things that just bother me.
What's for example up with Duskmantle Seer? Why is this card bad? Yeah we get it that Dark Confidant is far too powerful but having that text on a 4 mana mythic rare gold card is even too much to ask? Yeah but let's give Orzhov or Selesnya ridiculously good and pushed cards like Obzedat, Ghost Council, Blood Baron of Vizkopa or Voice of Resurgence.
What's up with Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker? Doesn't the title "Mind Drinker" imply that you gain something? Nope, just another card with some useless mill slapped on. At least he is a 5 mana 2/4 flyer. Still better than a rare sorcery that just mills like Mind Grind.
Dimir was terrible as a whole in the entire RTR block. I have trouble remembering even a single Dimir card that saw serious play. Cipher was completely unplayable.
I even played a pre-release event choosing Dimir and of course I got steamrolled because Dimir was full of bad cards while the people choosing Boros had an easy way to victory because their cards where so good they just crushed everyone.

Bah, it's just so annoying.

1) would ruin Death and Taxes, 2) would make it ridiculously good.

I think the legendary rule is fine, but I like the approach you took in your argument.

As a spike, I tend to resent anything in the design of the game that skews towards luck rather than skill, except when it's necessary. The upcoming rule change intended to alleviate mulligan luck makes me wonder whether the legend rule might change.

The thing about the legend rule that makes it more random is that there is a high penalty to drawing multiples, and whether you draw multiples is luck based. Of course, you can always just run one copy of a particular legend, and then you for sure won't draw any multiples. But inevitably there are legendary creatures that are good enough that you have to take the risk, and the correct deckbuilding decision is to go for the multiples. That deckbuilding decision is not the problem, the legend rule works great in the deckbuilding phase, deciding between 1, 2, 3, and 4 depends a lot on how good the legend is, whether you have Fling or other mitigating things in your deck to make drawing multiples more ok, and whether you think your opponents will kill your legend, and in which matchups they will kill it. That's all good stuff. But the deckbuilding phase of constructed is not the place where Magic is generally hurting for more strategic intensity (although that strategy gets crowdsourced, which is a huge dampening issue), it's the play phase that needs help, where decks vary in the number of meaningful sequencing choices and other decisions and don't always have enough. That's where the legend rule hurts. It's almost never hard to decide whether to cast a Legendary creature while you control a legendary creature with the same name: don't. So the rule is removing a choice, with no legendary rule, it is a meaningful choice to decide whether to cast Isamaru, Hound of Konda or Mother of Runes when you already control a hound and a mother. With the legendary rule, the choice is trivial.
Alongside that choice removal, a powerful luck factor is added, where a player who draws multiples of a legendary randomly faces a disadvantage against another player, possibly playing the exact same decklist, who drew creatures with a variety of names instead. It's an unnecessary addition of luck onto tournament playable cards that don't need it, as unsuitable as if Lightning Strike or Lightning Bolt was printed with a Mana Clash stapled onto the cards effect.
Surprisingly the legend rule isn't even something that is randomly good. Randomly good often divides players, with some finding it enjoyable and others arguing that the luck is too hurtful to skillful play. Cascade was an example of that, and it still might be reprinted because it does give the Timmy in you a good time. Randomly bad doesn't generally make anyone happy, so it's kind of surprising we still have the rule, really. An example of a randomly bad effect would be Gamble, and it's necessary to pick a card that old because Wizards knows players don't enjoy it when their own cards randomly fail them.

The GOOD thing about the legendary rule is that it's flavorful. I dig that, and I get that, and I like it, or liked it, back when it actually provided any flavor. But now we see Dragonlord Silumgar and Silumgar, the Drifting Death, in consecutive sets, with sufficiently similar uses that they end up on the battlefield at the same time. If letting each player have one legendary creature apiece didn't erode the idea of a legendary creature's unique identity enough, WotC's apparent need to print back to back versions of the same legendary identity destroys what's left of the flavor. The mechanical issues used to be an acceptable cost for the flavor benefits, but now there's little to no flavor benefits left.


Right now I see a few possibilities:

1.) Change the legendary rule to a singleton deck construction rule. This replaces one randomness problem with another randomness problem, but a much less severe one: a legendary might be really powerful for your deck, but you only inconsistently draw the singleton. But that's much less severe, drawing a second best creature instead your singleton legend might unexpectedly cause you to produce like 2 less damage of pressure, while drawing multiple legendaries can result in Mind Roting yourself, or at least an Unsummon's worth of tempo if you waste mana waiting around for your legendary creature to die so you can play another.

2.) Just remove the legendary rule. The shred of flavor benefit it was providing is gone, but now constructed is much more consistent and skillbased.

3.) Stop printing renames of the same legendary identity in back-to-back sets if you're going to keep the existing legendary rule. This can bring some of the legend flavor back at least for Standard. However WotC can only print one card for legend, so there is some loss of upside, the lore and cards from the Tarkir block went to a lot of effort to explain who Silumgar is, if they did all that effort only to put him on one mythic arguably that sucks a little bit.

sorry, everyone in the universe figured those decks out as well.

when RDW wins the pro tour and there's no fos celebration (matching fedoras and punch spiked with Mountain Dew) you know that DTR is dead

i meant this site

shut down the site

jsilv - is CFB really out of stock on Ensoul Artifact or did you guys pull your stock away in anticipation of a price increase?

I'm not asking to demonize, I just want to know if there is a buyout going on. You guys, TCGPlayer, eBay, and SCG are all out.

Sold out. TBF, it's not like we were sitting on a thousand of the things, we only had 80 at the start of the PT. People saw a sweet deck that they could put together on the cheap if they had Hangarbacks and bought us out*. We may put up more, but those will purely be from buys that we already received that we finished processing / store buys / already in the GP San Diego inventory.

*To clarify, no orders were placed for more than a playset of these.

Grixis can't lose to Affinity

Where was it referenced?

I meant they should have called Chandra's place something that doesn't sound so similar, not that they should have called it Kher Keep

not sure why they felt the need to name something keral keep when kher keep exists

um, okay

I'm in the mood for some sweet spoiler discussions and card the cards rumors. Let's go to the #1 place for the goods.

I need to know what to fap to

And what to not fap to

goodnight sweet dtr

why would that sound odd when this is a thread of people who say the same thing but about magic as a whole and not just modern

depends how old the accuser was and if it was consensual admiration

punnis

you have to take what LM says about Legacy with a grain of salt - he plays lands.dec

I've never played mono red competitively and never will

Amusing to me that it's prowess ability is anti-synergistic with its etb ability

Give us haste or give us death

everyone is a sucker for tribal. especially me.

for some reason i thought the elf one had a different name. probably never remembered it because ringleader saw so much more play

Didn't they remake the elf one? Could rename ringleader

it's more of a goblin chub atm

goblins sucks. but piledriver does not suck. this paradox will consume us all!