Dies to Removal

[deck]RUG Combo[/deck]

Infinite mana combo into lockout combo; Ral Zarek plus Lotus; Peddler plus Staticaster/Huntmaster.

Thoughts:
- Cavern of Souls would be good
- Might want some way to smooth the draws out
- Farseek might just not be good (the deck will probably flood a lot)

EDIT. For anyone who isn't familiar with the lockout combo; Deadeye Blinks Conscripts who untap Lotus, giving net plus 1 mana. You do that an arbitrary number of times to have infinite mana, then blink Conscripts an unlimited number of times to steal all of their permanents until EOT. If you have 2 mana open at upkeep, you can do it on
their turn as well; winning from this position should be pretty easy

Damn Kaze that sounds like some serious crap. I've had heavy experience with drug addicts as well.

I'm also a pathologic liar. Those two statements probably have no connection....



The new rules seem like bullshit, at first glance


EDIT: Er... How does that produce infinte mana?

^ See above.

Ah, didn't see the Navigator.

I lost Round 1 to the greediest frickin Naya "blitz" (i'd say blitz but he had hellkites and hellriders too) I've ever seen. He then proceeded to go 1-3, complaining about hsi mana the ENTIRE rest of the night "i just couldnt get the right colors or hurrdurr" yeah no shit.

I went 3-1, got paired down for my final match, had shit breakers and got 4th.

FFFFFFFFFF

He has KESSIG WOLF RUNS and HELLKITES AND HELLRIDERS. in ADDITIOn to Champion of the horseshit into BTE+LM

like

the literal fuck was my luck tonight
(oh I mulled to 4 against him g2 np)

It's K boss, we still think you're totes the bee's knees.

Yep, totes.

Yep, tits.

Mmm tits.

you guys sure know how to cheer a fella up

What open Magic event would you guys suggest I go to as my first big tournament? I've never done anything larger than an FNM or Pre-Release.

What open Magic event would you guys suggest I go to as my first big tournament? I've never done anything larger than an FNM or Pre-Release.

Z would probably tell you to go to an SCG open. I'll second that.

What open Magic event would you guys suggest I go to as my first big tournament? I've never done anything larger than an FNM or Pre-Release.

Z would probably tell you to go to an SCG open. I'll second that.

I've seen streams of SCG. They always seem to have rather stupid players. Like, worse than my local LGS. Is it worth going to, really?

Nah, they do have stupid players, but so do every other non ProTour tournament. I've been recommended SCG opens for my first non-FNM style event multiple times, so I thought I would pass that on to you

Definitely an SCG.

Kaze, if you've learned literally ANYTHING from this clan when we DO talk about magic, you'll come to realize that a shitton of magi" players really are just that bad. I think the reason the pro players are "pro" and win so consistently is just based on how consistently bad the rest of the field is (I'm sure pro tours are a different story ofc)

I didn't realize how blessed I was until States.

Of all the games I have played at a decent level competitively (chess, Warhammer, Warcraft 3), magic players are by far the weakest and the dumbest.

What open Magic event would you guys suggest I go to as my first big tournament? I've never done anything larger than an FNM or Pre-Release.

I'd recommend a GPT.

I'm not very familiar with GPT. How many people attend/how expensive is it compared to SCG? I just needed to jog my memory, there.

There's an SCG by me in July. Hm.

GPTs are also a good call.

Of all the games I have played at a decent level competitively (chess, Warhammer, Warcraft 3), magic players are by far the weakest and the dumbest.

I'm not really sure why Magic has one of the dumbest/weakest player bases for it being such a complex and nuanced game (unless you play junk rites or jund midrange). It's something I've been trying to figure out for awhile. I've played several different games at a decent level and no community has been as bad about this as magic has. So many of them are so egotistical about it too. There's just something about magic that attracts the worst kinds of neckbeards and people that think they're the shit but aren't.

Most magic players barely even know how to play magic.
Seriously. They don't. It's not even that they're just bad at the game, it's that they're so bad at card evaluation, piloting, and deck building (three separate but related skills that few get to be decent at ONE, let alone GOOD at any of them) that they're not even playing the same game as the experts. I was talking to someone at my LGS about Modern, specifically RDW (what else?) and we talked about what few creatures were good enough for inclusion in burn oriented builds. I named off Goblin Guide, Deathrite Shaman, and Grim Lavamancer off the top of my head. Someone else chimes in and says 'what about Vexing Devil it's four damage for R'. I reply 'So is goblin guide, and he's much more reliable usually'. He didn't get it even after explaining to him for 5 minutes.

At least in my area, GPTs are much more competitive than your average SCGopen.

I find that the weakest players in magic are people who only play standard. It's easily the least skill intensive format.

I think that in magic, people fall too much into love with certain cards, archetypes and colours that 'define' how they see themselves, which is frankly idiotic. That's scrub behaviour. In other games, you play to win, doing whatever gives you the best possible chance of success. No competitive chess player will play a refuted opening; yet we see a non-zero number of players trying to force MBC every standard season, regardless of whether it has the necessary tools or not.

The online culture of magic is extremely toxic as well and not at all conducive to furthering discussion. I can't fathom why this is ~ the average age of a magic player runs noticeably higher than in other games; so you would expect more maturity.

...MBC?

I think that in magic, people fall too much into love with certain cards, archetypes and colours that 'define' how they see themselves, which is frankly idiotic. That's scrub behaviour. In other games, you play to win, doing whatever gives you the best possible chance of success. No competitive chess player will play a refuted opening; yet we see a non-zero number of players trying to force MBC every standard season, regardless of whether it has the necessary tools or not.

The online culture of magic is extremely toxic as well and not at all conducive to furthering discussion. I can't fathom why this is ~ the average age of a magic player runs noticeably higher than in other games; so you would expect more maturity.

I am guilty of
this. I refuse to play green and blue lol.

It's a lot less fun if you call yourself an idiot.

Seriously though, what's the meaning of MBC? :\

Seriously though, what's the meaning of MBC? :

Mono Black Control

Seriously though, what's the meaning of MBC? :

Mono Black Control

DUH
Thanks bro

I'd rate the 40k community when I played lower than M:tG both online and in real life.

At least the majority of the M:tG community doesn't insist on purposefully handicapping itself in a competitive enviroment with obviously sub-optimal choices in the name of "fluff" like they do (or did) in 40k.

I think that in magic, people fall too much into love with certain cards, archetypes and colours that 'define' how they see themselves, which is frankly idiotic. That's scrub behaviour. In other games, you play to win, doing whatever gives you the best possible chance of success. No competitive chess player will play a refuted opening; yet we see a non-zero number of players trying to force MBC every standard season, regardless of whether it has the necessary tools or not.

The online culture of magic is extremely toxic as well and not at all conducive to furthering discussion. I can't fathom why this is ~ the average age of a magic player runs noticeably higher than in other games; so you would expect more maturity.

Ouch, James...I feel like
you could have just posted my picture and saved yourself some time. I love and respect you deeply, man, but sometimes you really do a remarkably believable impression of an elitist prick.

In all seriousness, though...can't the same thing be said of many competitive activities? I mean, I'm 5'7", and out of shape; I've never had the raw skill nor commitment to be a competitive basketball player, but I still like to shoot around when the opportunity presents itself. Should I just chuck my ball into the corner of the garage and ignore it because I suck at the game? My thought is no, because I ENJOY IT.

Now, step back from your strongly competitive mentality for a moment and really LOOK at Magic. Wizards of the Coast spends outrageous amounts of time and money to court the top artists in fantasy art and illustration to turn out thousands of pieces of remarkable eye candy each year. This is no exaggeration...
I saw first-hand the love lavished upon the artists by Wizards just this past weekend through Jon Schindehette and more specifically Dawn Murin. They pour equally outrageous amounts of time and resources into designing cards that will interact in favorable but balanced manners with both past and future-planned cards in order to maintain a relatively level playing field. And how many hours do you imagine go into just developing the flavor text blurbs that grace the bottom of many cards?

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I don't get the impression that Wizards does all this in an attempt to emulate international-grade competitive chess.

The simple fact is that Magic was not designed exclusively for the 0.001% of people that make up the the top echelon of the competitive play; it was--and is--designed to capture the attention and imagination of the millions who value it for the sake of entertainment. The eye candy, the literary themes, the outrageous attention to detail in design--all targeted at the folks who
are going to check in at Sally every midnight during spoiler season to see what new and wondrous eye-candy or creative mechanic is going to come out next. Magic is targeted at the person who gets a thrill from opening a pack and peeling back to see what rare resides at the bottom of the stack.

This ain't chess, James; you can't drop $10 on a plastic and chipboard playset at WalMart and fight your way through practice and dedication to the top of the game. Yes, you can conceivably build a single Eternal format deck and go a long way with it...but if everyone did that, there wouldn't be a game to play as Magic would cease to be viable. Magic needs all of us "scrubs" with our pet decks and wildly uncompetitive ideas out there staying excited and buying cards. Otherwise, the magic goes away and all that's left are overpriced boxes of cardboard. Personally, I hope to see my skill continue to develop over the years, but I'm vastly more invested in having fun,
challenging myself and enjoying the game.

Just a bit of perspective from this end of the pool...

So I need a little bit of advice from my fellow flames.

TCG 5k coming up this Saturday. I was planning on bringing the household favorite, Dos Rakis, but my buddy can't go and lent me his Naya Blitz deck. It's pretty tempting to use Blitz since it has been doing well recently and just has some hands that can't be beaten. That said, I won a lot of FNM with my Dos Rakis deck, but I am a little unsure after a week of inconsistent playtesting.

If all you cared about was winning, not the style or anything else like that, which deck would you choose for this weekend?

EDIT: Also have the Steve Kaufmann-type G/R aggro deck available.

Play a deck you're comfortable playing. The biggest folly anybody can commit is showing up to an event with a deck they aren't familiar with.

I'm biased towards Dos Rakis, so I'd choose that over any deck X, but I can honestly say that if I was going to play a competitive event then Naya Blitz is the last deck I'd take.

It's too inconsistent and any draw besides "The Nutz" is very meh.

Naya's raw potential power impressed me too, but after playtesting against it a bit I'd never try and play it competitively.

I like how Alex's advice was so good that non Clan members had to jump into the thread immediately just to thank his post.

I like how Alex's advice was so good that non Clan members had to jump into the thread immediately just to thank his post.

Behold the POWER!!!!

I think that in magic, people fall too much into love with certain cards, archetypes and colours that 'define' how they see themselves, which is frankly idiotic. That's scrub behaviour. In other games, you play to win, doing whatever gives you the best possible chance of success. No competitive chess player will play a refuted opening; yet we see a non-zero number of players trying to force MBC every standard season, regardless of whether it has the necessary tools or not.

The online culture of magic is extremely toxic as well and not at all conducive to furthering discussion. I can't fathom why this is ~ the average age of a magic player runs noticeably higher than in other games; so you would expect more maturity.

Because it's a game with
fantastic elements that appeals to a wide range of people.

It's part of the same reason why people play RPGs: it is an escape from the ordinary. A lot of people play Magic and other games like Warhammer or WoW for the ability to be someone else and for the social interaction. That is part of the casual appeal of the game.

The problem that you're seeing occurs when these players bring that same casual mentality into a competitive event. There is a huge difference in mindset between a casual game vs. a competitive game. Someone who brings a casual mindset into a competitive game is going to lose and make bad decisions based on the context of the game, potentially alienating the competitive players. Similarly, a competitive player who brings that mindset into a casual game risks alienating the casual players because of that context.

Think of the leap between casual and FNM level. The best guy at the casual table brings with him habits learned at the casual table and loses horribly the first few
times at FNM because those habits don't belong there. After a while, he develops new habits that enable him to thrive in that new environment.**

Jumping from FNM to more competive events requires a similar learning curve. Some people adapt, but most don't. Those who don't adapt usually don't care as much because that's not why they got into the game in the first place. Those who do like the challenges presented and keep working to improve their skills, having developed a new appreciation for the game.

There are those rare few who truly understand the game. They grok what's going on because they understand it at an intuitive level. Most people take years to develop that level of skill. Some develop it more quickly. Very few seem to be born with it.

That type of skill breakdown happens with almost everything. Take math or writing. I'm absolutely horrible at math. I can do it by laboriously slogging through a problem, but I really have to work at it. I can appreciate
it for what it is. It doesn't mean I'll ever truly understand it. And that's ok. I know enough to get by.

I understand writing. I can look at an essay and immediately understand where it needs to be modified to be more effective. I don't struggle with grammar. I can tell you what a comma splice is, why it's important to recognize it, and how to fix it. Not everyone gets to that level, and that's ok. We need editors and proofreaders. (Ask Alex. )

You have a competitive mindset, and you love details, especially how things interact with each other. Part of it's intuitive, and part of it comes from your professional training and experience. It makes you kinda nuts when others don't behave in that same way.

As for me, I play Magic because it's fun for me to interact with others. I love Dos Rakis, just like I loved my Heartless Lich deck last season. They are fun decks to play. If I ever lose that fun feeling
with this game, then I'd probably stop playing.

** semi-autobiographical descriptions may or may not be true to life.

At least in my area, GPTs are much more competitive than your average SCGopen.

I find that the weakest players in magic are people who only play standard. It's easily the least skill intensive format.

this is sad but true.

In my case its just that the risk/reward level for other formats is waaaaaay too high. Modern looks fun as SICK and brewing looks infinitely more rewarding/nuanced, but the barrier is at LEAST $600+ for JUST the fetch lands, plus the intellectual level of learning 1000s+ cards (when I realized that modern stretched all the way back to the set that came out when I was freakin like 12, I began to grasp how huge it was).

Draft is fun and getting better at it is important, but $15+ to open really shitty packs (I HATE
my pack cracking luck. I should've stopped when I first cracked a Domri in my first ever Gatecrash draft, I was way too ahead with the karma gods. I proceeded to open a five alarm fire in every single draft/reward pack since) and to not even be guaranteed to win (because I'm bad) is a lot less appealing then $5 for standard with the upside of knowing I'll probably place well because I can stomp people, and thus get store credit and thus stomp MOAR or buy better singles.

Hopefully if I get my license soon (status update today!) I can start having a more reasonable and reliable income and then can start other formats more seriously. Hell I might get into MODO first, that way I can practice standard/draft at home and not have to leave my girl to go play standard. Plus the appeal of getting good enough to be able to free-roll my way through events with ticket rewards is pretty sexy.


Quick question: Is Modern masters going to have fetchlands? (please say no. Please dont let me get addicted to that
format)

I think that in magic, people fall too much into love with certain cards, archetypes and colours that 'define' how they see themselves, which is frankly idiotic. That's scrub behaviour. In other games, you play to win, doing whatever gives you the best possible chance of success. No competitive chess player will play a refuted opening; yet we see a non-zero number of players trying to force MBC every standard season, regardless of whether it has the necessary tools or not.

The online culture of magic is extremely toxic as well and not at all conducive to furthering discussion. I can't fathom why this is ~ the average age of a magic player runs noticeably higher than in other games; so you would expect more maturity.

WHAT IS GRUUL
MAY NEVER DIE



(I'd probably just take a break from magic if one of RDW, R/g, or Aggro Zoo stopped being viable. With Chandra's phoenix coming out hopefully that isn't for a very long time. I'm not at the competitive level where I can sellout to play Blue just to win outside of draft)

Its lonely at the top but its the only place for James (and redthirt'
s cock)


Edit: I should really read everything before I multi-post, CONTENT EXPLOSION. *hides*

Magic players are the worst at Competitive games because magic appeals to a broader audience. Wizards has data saying people go to GPs just to meet people and have fun, the pro points and cash are last on the list by far according to Aaron Forsythe.

As far as what I would play at a competitive even if I could play anything?

Gruul agro/Naya Blitz/Jund Midrange. Any of those three, I would be happy playing confident in my skill to crush the tournament. Jund's the most powerful, gruul and blitz are the most punishing with gruul being slightly more consistent and less powerful.