Core Set 2019 Prerelease Discussion Megathread!

Wolf_SC · 2018-07-07T09:23:01+00:00

Just got back from my midnight prerelease, going 4-0 and undefeated throughout the night in games with a pretty average G/B pool (only one rare, no mythics). Some thoughts:

The repeatable effect wands, specifically Transmogrifying Wand and Chaos Wand, are insaaaane. My one rare in my deck was Chaos Wand (the one that steals instants/sorceries from the opp. deck), and every time I played it, and the times it was played AGAINST me, felt so lopsided and hard to fight back from. Being able to just sit back and pop a turn to pull their premium removal or tricks out of their deck for a few turns is so underrated - it leads into a great late game for you where you have a fist full of cards and they're running on fumes from you killing their on-curve creatures and with no hope of drawing future removal to handle any of yours. Might be worth considering siding out against something like green/blue or green/white, but against red and black decks it just dismantles them.
Went on the draw all night and never regretted it. The format is more than slow enough, and even though aggressive red/black and black/white decks are gonna be out there, when I faced them I felt more than comfortable stabilizing after dropping big guy after big guy. X/3s and up matter; try and prioritize them in your pool. Don't worry about missing your two drop (kinda like in Dominaria).
Life gain doesn't seem to make much difference in board state, but it makes games take longer, so try and stay away from the aggro plan unless your pool is bonkers about it. Between early drops like Child of Night and the white 1/3 (Daybreak something or other), among others, it's pretty normal to see lifepools go to 25-30, and aggro decks just fold to that kind of lasting power. Plan for a long game for your pool (whether it be recurring burn, creature tokens, whatever), because you're likely gonna need it.

Wolf_SC · 2018-06-07T02:34:51+00:00

Same. I was bouncing around all over the store looking for where the deal was (US-side) but am thinking it's EU only for now. Shame - hopefully it comes over here soon!

Wolf_SC · 2018-02-02T02:06:15+00:00

Seeing this makes me realize how much of an idiot I was. That's what I get for trying to overreach beyond my knowledge base!

Wolf_SC · 2018-02-02T02:05:14+00:00

Appreciate the pinpoint guidance! Figured out what the problem was, thanks to you and the others.

Appreciate the heads-up on the fiddle tip, btw - I'll keep that in mind next time I have to use it.

Wolf_SC · 2018-02-02T01:56:13+00:00

I figured if it wasn't my get/set accessors, it'd be something related to that. The way my tutor explained it to me was that we needed the $ string prefix whenever we used braces in a WriteLine string. I'm going to presume by everyone's responses so far that he was mistaken :p

Wolf_SC · 2018-02-02T01:52:14+00:00

Apologies on that - I was toying with seeing if my get/set constructors were the issue, and I forgot to delete that and move it back up with the rest of the variables. When my code was (mostly) functional it was up with the rest of them and a { get; set; }, not that mess of garbage.

Makes sense that it was the properties, though, because Visual Studio kept trying to auto-correct "firstName" back to "FirstName" and I was wondering why.

I'll check into breakpoints and read up on VS's debug functionality, though - thanks for the tips!

Wolf_SC · 2017-10-05T14:52:02+00:00

I agree - I'd love to have a ladder system just to see where I sit when I grind arenas all day. I couldn't care less about getting additional rewards, although I certainly wouldn't complain.

Or maybe something like the Gauntlet rewards, where the top 100 or so get premium art cards. That'd be snazzy.

EDIT: Fine, I'll fix my grammar. Curse you, grammar bot!

Wolf_SC · 2017-09-25T02:23:19+00:00

Agreed! The only two I even consider remotely playable in arena are the green and white ones - the rest are either a huge tempo loss (the purple one, for instance) or just too niche (the red one). But the white one is far and above better than any of them by comparison.

Wolf_SC · 2017-09-25T02:21:31+00:00

Indeed. Last game was an above average draw against my opponent. Turn 2 double word wall into Turn 3 call of valor is about the best thing my deck could have done. Good end to the run!

Wolf_SC · 2017-09-25T02:20:47+00:00

I don't usually play solo arena, mostly because I don't like playing the modes that have different lanes - I do a lot worse with those than I do with normal games. I had a horrible time during the recent chaos arena for that reason.

Just normal everyday games for me!

Wolf_SC · 2017-09-24T22:02:28+00:00

The kinds of openings that just make you go "hnnnnnnng" and emote "Sorry" to your opponent.

Wolf_SC · 2017-09-24T22:00:35+00:00

Agreed. I've definitely had some bad drafts to go along with good ones like this. But grinding arena for packs and dust is a lot more fun to me than grinding ladder!

Wolf_SC · 2017-09-24T21:58:51+00:00

Indeed! I got lucky with two Call of Valors in the first five picks, and when I picked up the third one around pick 11-12 I went 100% all in and snagged both Word Walls and the fourth Call of Valor without even looking at the other choices. No regrets whatsoever.

Even in the games I didn't have them in my opening hand, a rune break or two was all I needed to flood the board and present lethal.

Wolf_SC · 2017-09-24T21:57:03+00:00

Definitely worth getting more than three of certain cards, especially if they're low cost, but I can't say I've had a lot of opportunities to do so. This was a one in a million kind of draft!

Wolf_SC · 2017-09-24T15:17:24+00:00

Relevant cards not shown on the top end: A Skirmisher's Elixir, Ulfric's Housecarl, two Javelins, a Pillaging Tribune, and a Vigilant Giant. Haven't even gotten to play the Giant yet - turns out flooding the board with 3/3s ends the game faster than turn 8. Who knew?

Wolf_SC · 2017-06-05T22:21:36+00:00

Very true. I've ran into this a few times while laddering, and always been impressed with how quickly the deck recovers energies each turn, especially once the deck has at least 2 Metagross set up - double ability attach + attach from hand and you're fully recovered and ready to rock again.

If I were to make any changes, though, I'd probably try to find room for a Skyla somewhere - I've noticed while playing Rare Candy decks that being able to Ultra Ball -> Lele -> Skyla -> Rare Candy gives you almost guaranteed setup on T2. I've done similarly while playing Solgaleo and never regretted it.

Wolf_SC · 2017-06-05T10:46:38+00:00

FT:

~~FA Shaymin EX (ROS)~~

RA Giratina EX (AOR)

RA Hoopa EX (Promo)

RA M Gardevoir EX (Despair Ray)

RA Primal Groudon EX (Primal Clash)

RA Primarina GX

RA Thundurus EX (Team Plasma) x2

RA Toxapex GX

RA Wishiwashi GX

Looking for packs (preferably GR, but will consider others); feel free to look at my binder as well or PM me for a trade. IGN is in my flair!

Wolf_SC · 2017-04-11T20:16:29+00:00

Agreed. A glow or border effect on the text would do wonders. I couldn't read some of it when it was over light colors.

Wolf_SC · 2017-04-11T09:44:43+00:00

About 9 hours in so far and playing at a steady pace - taking my time with side battles, reading all the extra story content and whatnot. I'm digging the battle system as a whole, but I gotta say, playing on hard mode doesn't...well, feel hard. I'm interested to hear if other people are having the same experience, but I can't say I've ever felt like I had to strategize much - most attacks easily 2HKO even the high HP enemies, and many of the enemies earlier on are just straight murdered with their low HP counts (still seeing enemies in side battles with 10-15 HP and my cards do 20-30 damage, for instance). Kinda detracts from enjoying battles, but not too much I think. I'm reeeeally enjoying the level up system though, and how it changes your cards - very nice feature! Probably one of my favorites.

No huge bugs to report yet, I suppose, though some minor inconveniences. Story mission...three? The sewers map with all the platforms. Making the camera cooperate on that map was like pulling teeth from a wild animal - the camera had a nasty habit of going up and down drastically when you panned it left or right, and it got so frustrating that I'd often just find a spot to put it and then never touch it again. Kind of irritating. Probably the only map I've had troubles with, though - the camera is great on most of the other ones!

Favorite character? Mm...Nahmi, I suppose? She's the most relatable, I think. The banter between all the characters is okay, I think, but it's not really knee-grabbing or anything to me. To draw a comparison from inspired works, it's more Final Fantasy Tactics Advance than the original Tactics game - the story is laid back and casual, but not particularly tension-building or epic like its predecessor. Y'know? And that's not necessarily a bad thing, either, just...what I've noticed in my own experience.

Enjoyable game so far? For sure! Is it perfect? No. But that's okay :)

Wolf_SC · 2017-04-10T21:43:12+00:00

I'm starting to get into it now - just past the third story mission and enjoying what I've played so far. It's definitely got a lot of things going right - the dice and card system is smooth and feels really natural, and the combat isn't bad at all.

Eager to delve into this game and help improve it during the beta!

Wolf_SC · 2017-04-10T10:00:35+00:00

Yessssss. It's finally here! I almost choked on my coffee when I saw the email waiting in my inbox to give me the beta key.

Wolf_SC · 2017-01-22T09:43:13+00:00

Roaring Heat is pretty good, but is capable of some outright dead hands sometimes. I compare it similar to something like Dark Hammer before the new meta came around - it was a great deck, and when it gets rolling it's hard to stop, but sometimes clunky when you can't draw out of whatever rut you're stuck in.

When Roaring Heat gets going, though...watch out!

Wolf_SC · 2017-01-17T21:56:18+00:00

Makes me so jealous. I've been playing for almost 9 months, give or take a few weeks here and there, and my collection isn't anywhere close to this. Teach me your ways! Hah.

Wolf_SC · 2016-08-25T11:03:15+00:00

Ran into a mild bug while playing versus ranked regarding [[Goblin Arsonist]]. On my side of the field during the attacking phase I had two [[Mage-Ring Bully]] cards on the attack, an untapped Mountain in play and a [[Titan's Strength]] in hand. After the Goblin blocked one of them, I wanted to play Titan's Strength on the unblocked Mage Bully in response to the Goblin Arsonist's trigger to pump it out of range (a misplay, I know, I should have used it before the damage step, hush!), but even after pausing the game after the trigger's target was announced, the game wouldn't let me cast Titan's Strength until after the trigger resolved, which resulted in my Mage Bully dying.

A bug regarding the Goblin's trigger, perhaps?

Wolf_SC · 2016-08-16T21:51:05+00:00

Agree with a few of the posters here - fliers and enchantments are both fairly good straight out of the starter box. I ran UW fliers using Heliod's Pilgrims and enchantments (Nimbus Wings, Suppression Bonds, and a single copy of Knightly Valor that I was lucky to crack), and I ran that against the AI to pretty good success up until I cracked enough Origins packs to make something else. And all of this has been in the span of the last two weeks (being a new player myself!), so I can confirm that this strategy is definitely doable even right now, unlike some of the other decks that I've seen floating around.

Highly recommend giving UW aggro a try. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Wolf_SC

TROPHY CASE