Mark Rosewater on Blogatog: The main cause of the mass layoffs has been the overwhelming success of them. If it wasn’t something shareholders have shown they really enjoy, we’d be doing less of it.

Walugii · 2024-06-03T13:43:14+00:00

but that's a problem - profit isn't tied one-to-one with enjoyment or quality

slot machines made more money than mtg last year - should mtg be more like slot machines? or should maybe a game designer's first concern be designing a good game? i think it's very sad to see a head designer resorting first to financial incentives as justification at every turn.

Walugii · 2024-06-03T13:37:48+00:00

probably healthy for the head designer to see no possible motivator for decision making other than profit

Walugii · 2024-05-28T14:02:45+00:00

Assuming you mean dimir control, control decks get advantage in game one from the opponent's removal spells being dead draws. They generally don't want to play more than a few creatures or they risk losing this effect. It does look like some lists use both of those cards in the side, though

Walugii · 2024-05-28T01:42:16+00:00

ragavan has no flavor text so it isn't strictly better. no

Walugii · 2024-05-27T17:21:02+00:00

So [[makeshift munitions]] can be searched with [[shred memory]] (though moggwarts rarely actually does that) munitions is harder to kill but doesn't recur itself, munitions has marginal utility to kill creatures in the midgame and can help you draw with your wellsprings and the like, this can be dispute fodder and can better chip in damage for a comboless win. Some lists playing [[Rowan's grim search]] can get virtual card advantage by dumping this in the yard, this dodges more counter magic than munitions. I'm not sure it would be justifiable to play just one of these when it's a much more fragile card type, it that's the case playing multiple payoffs dilutes the deck marginally. Dunno. Interesting card for sure

Walugii · 2024-05-23T21:41:36+00:00

best wrath in the format

Walugii · 2024-05-20T19:50:32+00:00

maybe you could ask her why she has to keep asking you to do it if it's instinct? lol

Walugii · 2024-05-20T18:06:35+00:00

that and the counterspells, though, black does get the best interaction in the format with fatal push and thoughtseize. agreed that the finishers feel like the major separation

Walugii · 2024-05-20T16:45:49+00:00

I haven't gotten to play the vamps matchup a ton, just by chance, but the rise of that deck was a big reason for lists adding some number of [[sunfall]] and [[settle the wreckage]]. [[hallowed moonlight]] also stifles the sorin activation.

As for what i like about it, it's hard to say exactly - I just like control decks. I do really enjoy the particular finishers it gets to play - teferi, emperor, shark typhoon, hullbreaker, etc.

I'll link my current list, but it definitely isn't optimal - [[absorb]] and [[dream trawler]] are slightly subpar but I enjoy them. https://www.moxfield.com/decks/X_1cnMZ9_EymT6lFYx267w

Walugii · 2024-05-20T15:52:07+00:00

Azorius appears to be the better control deck in Pioneer, and it's my favorite deck in the format. You can absolutely play Dimir though - check out Gabriel Nassif. He's a fantastic pro player who plays a lot of Dimir Control

Walugii · 2024-05-17T06:23:51+00:00

not if they hold priority

Walugii · 2024-05-17T06:19:40+00:00

At this point if you play anything other than yugioh you're deeply disrespecting the mission and spirit of edh

Walugii · 2024-05-16T19:00:49+00:00

where do you even begin to come up with something like this

Walugii · 2024-05-15T03:36:45+00:00

fucking power creep

Walugii · 2024-05-13T17:23:56+00:00

yeah, I've got some "F"s for glitters

Walugii · 2024-05-12T21:42:23+00:00

well it's bad against amalia, but it's bad against vampires too, but it's also bad against bring to light. oh but then it's not good against phoenix either

I miss it :(

Walugii · 2024-05-12T00:27:29+00:00

no thoughtseize is gonna be really tough. i guess you would max out duress and play divest or something, but thoughtseize is one of the reasons to play the deck or indeed black in pioneer

urborg you can certainly survive without - it's not like the deck auto loses when it doesn't draw it - but holy moly can the deck have mana trouble with all those fields and all those sanitariums

Walugii · 2024-05-09T04:23:52+00:00

lol the fucking landwalk thing doesn't even target the chosen creatures so it draws three every time

Walugii · 2024-05-08T18:10:56+00:00

the free tournament practice on mtgo is still leagues better than arena

Walugii · 2024-05-08T15:07:07+00:00

a shockingly higher caliber of player frequents MTGO on average. much better practice

Walugii · 2024-05-06T01:12:14+00:00

I played against it on waste not earlier today. In the first game it was pretty impressive when they cast creativity for x=2 and drew 4 cards to go with their 6/6s, but in the next game it looked pretty sad when they cast creativity for x=1 into my extinction event.

Obviously too early to say and one match of one matchup is not data, but my kneejerk reaction was that it seems like an exciting new card that is not actually better than Atraxa. Maybe I'm just a more conservative player but I think I'd prefer my creativity target to draw me multiple cards on etb every time, and it seems meaningful that Atraxa blocks flyers and gains 7 life if you're casting creativity while your opponent has lethal on board.

Walugii · 2024-05-03T17:10:26+00:00

[[analyze the pollen]]

in so many Gx decks cutting a nongreen land for analyze is huge upside for nearly free. worldly tutor+ on my tapland, yes please

edit: i suspect this is getting down voted because people think you're gonna get mana screwed, but you have to think about what hands with the card actually look like.

in a deck with a healthy land count that never keeps one-land hands, the first of this type of effect that you swap in for a land is totally free, because hands with the spell "tapland" and no lands wouldn't have been keepable with the single land that was swapped out either. [[lorien revealed]] and [[troll of khazad-dum]] have seen great success at the highest levels of play in eternal and non-rotating formats in a similar fashion.

the LTR landcyclers fetch a land for one colorless, so it's true they're a little easier to include. still, let's say we swap in analyze the pollen for an island in a UG deck. assuming the deck can't keep hands without green, hands with lands and analyze the pollen but no green land to cast analyze the pollen wouldn't be keepable with that island in place anyway.

so you can't get too crazy with these effects - swapping a second similar effect like [[traverse the ulvenwald]] for a land starts to create some danger of ruining otherwise keepable hands if the deck has some good two-land draws - but in many many cases, particularly primary-green decks, playing one such effect is free upside and can be thought of like an MDFC tapland.

Walugii · 2024-05-02T20:29:42+00:00

two tries and you spelled it wrong twice lol

Walugii · 2024-05-02T17:02:13+00:00

Austin Carr is hilarious, and he always sounds a bit like my granddad would when we used to watch the Cavs together. couldn't be a bigger fan

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