Well, that’s disappointing. Guess I have to just keep on conceding every Brawl game that has an opposing Omnath until I get a fair matchup. And there’s no way I’m even dipping a toe into Standard right now.
Yeah. I was planning on jumping back in after taking M21 off, but from what I’ve seen of this standard so far, no thanks. Omnath and that snake that crashes Arena. Blech.
I’ve been learning how to use Magic Online and playing a lot of cheap Penny Dreadful matches. That’s a pretty fun format, turns out. A lot more fun than Standard lately.
This video is, sadly, spot on.
For those of you who enjoy limited play, I highly recommend the recent Limited Resources vs Lords of Limited podcast showdown. They did a team draft of Zendikar Rising which i found highly entertaining. Here’s Marshall’s recording of it:
If you really want to dig into all that was going on, you can find stream recordings from the other participants on their Twitch streams under the handles you see in that video.
I really liked it. Easily the most enjoyable Magic event I’ve watched in ages. All the big money constructed stuff is at best mildly interesting, but I really got pulled into this one.
I think limited is why I’ve stuck with Magic for so many years. Nostalgia brought me back, but player drafts kept me here. I dabble in tons of other CCG/LCGs, but nothing can really keep up with the amount of fresh ideas MTG gets in its limited formats. WOTC breaks constructed constantly these days, but who cares. Limited is where it’s at.
No doubt. I can’t stand constructed in any CCG game these days. Limited is vastly fresher and more interesting.
I’ve recently discovered Eternal’s month-long sealed leagues, and they’re delightful. Crack eight packs, build a 75(!) card deck. Play up to 10 ranking matches and 20 tiebreaker matches a week. Each week, crack two more packs and add them to your pool. Edit deck at any time.
It’s really, really fun. Ended September at 24-6 and I think in the top 100 rankings-wise (I was for a while, anyway, idk if I got bumped right at the end of the month), had a blast. Thought I bricked October, but it’s working out like September where I just didn’t realize what I needed to build and how to pilot it effectively until losing a couple games. Ended up 7-3 in the first week here and I’ll play a bunch of tiebreakers to grind out dailies and practice with the deck, I imagine. October’s deck isn’t as good as September’s, I don’t think, even if the bombs are bombier. If I average 7 wins a week I’ll be shocked. I think anything over 17-18 wins with this is going to feel pretty okay, further packs pending of course.
Eternal also has the benefit of a client that isn’t complete dogshit, so it’s got that going for it over Magic, heh.
I generally agree, with the exception that my local play group has always approached deckbuilding as a bit of a roguelike blended with commander, years before commander was even a thing. We have around 90-110 cards in our decks, we rarely have more than one copy of something (it happens, we don’t worry too much unless someone is taking the piss, hopefully I used that right) and in general we have some “unspoken” agreements to not, say, put four cyclonic rifts in our decks, or something like that. Most power cards we consider Restricted, even when they aren’t actually.
We have decks full of dragons, zombies, powerful spells, and we try to keep the decks working very well in the usual ways (good mana curves, lots of ways to draw cards and ramp, etc.). In fact, without the 40 life total or the commander, we are basically playing commander decks. I like our play group style, no one has a 60 card blister deck designed to win on turn 5 and each game is just a rogu-like esque “what the hell could happen this time!” or “Oh man, I have a cool synergy here I didn’t realize until just now” moments happening frequently. It’s a blast.
Limited is still a ton of fun for us though, and it’s been a bummer that we had to put the Limited games on hold this year in our group.
Oh man. I don’t know Eternal at all but I love sealed leagues. Low stress, deck progression is really satisfying. Might have to give that a shot.
If you know Magic, Eternal is so similar it’s harder to unlearn things like how to evaluate card strength and board position than anything else.
It’s really well done. Constructed is still silly, but I really enjoy their Limited options.
In a sealed league you start with unopened card packs and accumulate cards each time you win? (I know little about the game, but the possibility of “whales” collecting cards over decades always seemed like something potentially ripe for abuse.)
:D
I actually meant collecting/acquiring cards from losing opponents. I’m still not clear on that.
Nope, you don’t collect cards from opponents or anything like that.
Okay. I could imagine fights breaking out or the court system getting flooded with small claims. (How would you enforce it? Geralt at least carries his own sword.)
Yep, you’ve got it more or less. In CCG sealed formats you open a set amount of packs (usually six), build a deck from just those cards and play a small tournament. Sealed leagues add the twist that the tournament gets spread out over a few weeks and all players in the league add a new pack to their pool at set intervals. Low stress because you can’t lose at the drafting stage (because there’s no draft) and the new packs you add let you make counterplays and improve a so-so pool over time.
I started playing Magic when the official rules called for players to ante up a random card before the game. Talk about stressful.
I guess in this day and age someone might pull out a gun.
I imagine more than one person lost a Black Lotus that way. They probably still get angry thinking about it.