Disciple of the Cards

Last fall I had to give up writing for this blog regularly. When the summer came to a close and my duties as a graduate student became greater with the new school year, I simply didn’t have the time to write as often as I had gotten myself into. I continue to post to the blog occasionally, and these posts have gained me even more followers than previously. As much as followers have the ability to look back on the archives of those they follow, there’s a lot there, and I know they don’t really have time. I still don’t have a whole lot of time to write weekly articles with any regularity as I used to, but for now I’d like to provide something regular on here, even if it is a “Best of Disciple of the Cards.” There are some posts as well as card designs that I’m really proud of, and reposting them should make it easier for newer followers to check out my past work.  I started by reposting the details of Booster Cap Magic, a constructed format I created, to make it easier for my brother and his friends to find. From now until the summer, when I may have time to get back into writing more regularly, I would like to continue to repost some of my favorite work (with edits) during these Friday Flashbacks.

Friday Flashback this week and every other week until the summer are cards I designed using Magic Set Editor. They were previously posted along with the descriptions of 15-30 other cards I’ve designed, so it was easy to lose the gems amidst the chaff. Instead, I’d like to showcase the cards each week one at a time, where, standing alone, they can shine all the brighter. May I present to you…

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gatheringofmagic:

The games in my playgroup are going too damn long, haha.

Has anyone built with Ruhan or played against a good build. I’m obviously just gonna go aggro voltron with it.

Sounds like a great idea. I’ve never tried, but always wanted to. If I did, I would make sure he had vigilance (e.g., Serra’s Embrace), evasion (e.g., Whispersilk Cloak, Protective Bubble, Steel of the Godhead), ways to double the attack phase (e.g., Waves of Aggression), and maybe even ways to tap him down or otherwise prevent his damage if you didn’t want to attack the player you randomly chose (e.g., Reconnaissance). I’d definitely run Soverigns of Lost Alara if you run a lot of auras instead of just mostly equipment, and if you really want to go the aura route, run the rarely-played Winds of Rath. That’s tech right there.

If you build it, let us know how it goes. I think Ruhan gets less love than he should since he’s so random.

gatheringofmagic:

commandercast.com 

The home site for Commander Cast an EDH podcast. It’s fucking awesome.

Last one, I guess? I haven’t seen Days 28-30 from gatheringofmagic and the other guy who did this stopped around 12. So I guess it’s over? If you’ve seen 28-30, send me a message as I’d like to know what they are/were.

Anyway, comandercast.com for me as well. They have podcasts, some videos, articles, and links to off-site articles and videos related to Commander every week. They run contests such as Season 5’s build-a-4-color-legend-cycle contest I threw my hat into, and Andy started up the Gift’s Given charity auction of Magic cards for Child’s Play. The site is pretty awesome.

There are a lot of Magic sites, though, so I have a few runners-up:

mtgcast.com is fantastic since it gives you a bunch of other podcasts too (such as Off-Color Cast, which is a pretty good addition to Commander Cast).

Certainly dailymtg.com should be mentioned, as should gatherer.wizards.com for being the mothership and Wizard’s own card search engine. I know Gatherer has its issues, but it’s way better than the search engines I’ve seen for other trading card games. I also know a lot of people use magiccards.info, but frankly I like to be able to rate the cards and see other people’s comments and ratings as well. Whether it’s reading their cool beat (or beaten) stories, being pointed towards similar or better cards, or given tips on other cards it works with, the comments are often helpful to me in deckbuilding, and I don’t think you get that at magiccards.info.

And finally, there’s the newish cranialinsertion.com. They’re great to go to for all of your rules questions. I like that now I can check out Cranial Insertion’s cool rules questions without having to go to MtG Salvation anymore.

mee—shee:

themolepeopleconspiracy:

There’s other stuff in Scars block besides Poison.

Seriously.  Stop whining about it.

Infect isn’t even that good.  Stop being such whiny scrubs.

Skittles and Inkmoth Nexus — literally the only poison cards that matter. (And Inkmoth is only stupid because of Innistrad)

“Stop being such whiny scrubs.” Really? Way to demonstrate one of the worst aspects of Magic players. Seriously.

Really, Skithyrx and Inkmoth Nexus are the only infect cards that matter? Instead of calling you names like I’m in high school, I’ll actually propose the opposite argument through reason. Blightsteel Colossus is a one-hit kill (even in Commander) that is indestructible and better be exiled, not given x/-11 because otherwise it’ll come back to haunt you in its indestructible one-hit killness in the future. Grafted Exoskeleton can be added to any creature in any deck, and can make creatures like Brion Stoutarm better than simply having Commander damage. Tainted Strike can make plenty of creatures one-hit-kills. For 1 mana. And Triumph of the Hordes is way more of a blowout than I’ve ever felt that Overrun was. A lot of these cards aren’t played in competitive formats, but how many people complaining about infect do you really think are complaining about competitive formats, and not their kitchen table games being changed dramatically by these few cards? At least Blightsteel and the Exoskeleton see play in Commander, and I often hear the Exoskeleton thrown into decks as combo pieces by players thinking they’re being clever by using it. They’re common in Commander, and they’re troublesome there, too.

But even in Commander, if by “Infect isn’t that good” you mean that “A dedicated Infect strategy isn’t that good,” then you’re correct. But these cards are good, because infect as a keyword is. You don’t know if the people complaining about infect are complaining because they think the mechanic itself is too powerful, which you rightfully say that it’s not, or because they see cards like the ones mentioned above played and those few cards make players hate the mechanic. The thing is, the cards mentioned above don’t need to be played in dedicated infect decks. Most players I hear complain about them do so because they seem them played all the time outside of dedicated infect decks. And that’s why they’re annoying as hell. Especially the colorless ones that any deck can run.

Source: gatheringofmagic

I don’t know much about the pro players, so I’ll have to stick with Luis Scott Vargas, thanks to his Magic TV’s Top 8 videos on Channel Fireball.

Generally, I don’t read or listen about Standard or other tournaments, so often the Top 8 videos get boring when they leave out stuff I’d think about as a multiplayer gamer.

2. You’ve ever lost the game because you forgot about something really obvious that would have saved you.

In Commander once I was playing my Rafiq of the Many Enchantments deck and was able to get down from the 4 or 5 of us to just myself and my friend over at CastfromExile. It looked like I was going to be able to come through with a win, but he was able to keep tapping down my best attacker with Azorious Guildmage. Eventually he was able to topdeck a card that helped him win, and it was a glorious victory and I laughed it off and shook his hand and congratulated him. I was honestly happy with his victory because it was a well-fought one.

Back then I wrote my After the Game reports. So that night I was writing the report to post on Tumblr, and realized that I had had Priviliged Position in play. I had many other enchantments in play, and it kind of had gotten covered up, and I forgot about it. But that enchantment would have prevented him from ever tapping down my guys, and I could have taken him out well before he would have pulled his topdeck for the win.

gatheringofmagic:

I can’t stand most magic players, I hate to sound like a nerd basher from a 90s sit-com but seriously, fuck off you smelly lame mouth breathing piece of shit. Magic is first and foremost a game, and even when you’re somewhere pretty laidback (i.e. a prerelease) you always have to play against some fucking asshat who get’s SUPER serious. I had someone call a judge because when we both decided to mulligan I suggested we both just draw seven again. Ugh.

In summation, no tournaments, ever.

Alright, two things.

First, response to gatheringofmagic: If you were at a prerelease and someone called a judge just because you suggested that, I agree with you. That’s a little too serious for me. He/she should have said “Actually, according to the rules you have to draw 6 when you mulligan” and only called the judge if you didn’t agree to stick to the rules. And while I am sure I know people who would get really, really serious when they just don’t need to, I think calling them “smelly lame mouth breathing piece[s] of shit” and “fucking asshat[s]” is really, really, really overboard for you. This tells me you’re getting too serious about your hatred for these people. There are rules, and when prizes are on the line it’s especially important to keep true to them to ensure everyone had a fair chance at getting them. You have to accept those rules when you go to those events. If you can’t, then just don’t go.

Secondly, my answer: (Pre)releases. Because that’s the only tournament I’d go to. Like gatheringofmagic, I don’t like how serious people get at tournaments, but for different reasons; I understand there are rules that I must follow, but I’m a crappy Magic player and will forget them and need a judge constantly. At casual events where I can just back up on my own, this is fine. At casual events prizes aren’t usually on the line, so losing doesn’t suck as much. So I tend to stick to casual events. The closest to “tournaments” I’ve gotten is (Pre)releases, and even there I sometimes feel uncomfortable because I know I suck and will be lucky enough to get in the top half.

That said, I’m really disappointed that Wizard’s is dropping support for Releases because I liked having the Release as the fall-back option if I couldn’t make it to the Prerelease, which happened often. Yes, a shop can still do Release events without Wizard’s support, but will they? And if they do, I don’t get the promo card, which I liked getting if only to put in my binder to show I was there.

But I guess it doesn’t matter much as I’ve since decided I can’t really afford to go anyway, and will refrain from attending any until a block covers Wedges and maybe when a block returns to Ravnica, Alara, or Zendikar.

mtgfan:

Tell your story!

From my After the Game report of that worst misplay:

I had Rafiq of the Many enchanted with Aspect of Mongoose with Finest Hour and Angelic Benediction in my hand, so I could attack someone who couldn’t block and take them out in one hit with general damage. I decided to attack Thraximundar, since if I took out Cromat in one hit Thraximundar would sharpen up and attack me to force me to sacrifice Rafiq. However, if I had just calmed down and waited a turn I could have cast Voice of All choosing Black and Commander Eesha as protection from Thraximundar and attacked Cromat.

Instead I attacked Thraximundar, he cast Darkness, and Cromat realized I was a threat and cast Magister Sphinx targeting me, knocking me from 40 to 10, and attacked me with Avatar of Woe and Gideon, killing me.

gatheringofmagic:

Once again, I’m broke as a joke so I haven’t had much new magic in my life. I actually haven’t played with any DKA cards but I’m VERY interested in 

You know how I feel about alt counters.

Aha, another easy one. Elbrus the Binding Blade / Withengar Unbound. I love the “Whenever a player loses” mechanic, and Withengar only requires you to play Black if you’re in Commander and doesn’t make you play any colors in other formats, whereas Blood Tyrant makes you play three colors. Plus, the story of Withengar’s release is really cool, even if it happened prior to Innistrad’s timeline.

gatheringofmagic:

I like Planeswalkers as much as the next guy but since their price is so exclusionary I haven’t had the chance to play with all of them. I don’t think I’ve played with any Planeswalker after Scars of Mirrodin. Though if I had to choose my favorite would be

My favorite planeswalker is either Sarkhan the Mad or Sarkhan Vol. Probably Sarkhan the Mad because he doesn’t have a + ability, which is really flavorful and cool with the character’s insanity at that time, and because dealing a ton of damage for 5 mana is super cool too. Sarkhan Vol is close because he still does cool Dragon stuff, and he’s Red/Green, which I prefer over Black/Red.

Although if they made a Planeswalker that did cool Angel stuff, that’d probably become my favorite unless they somehow screwed up the rest of the design.

Last fall I had to give up writing for this blog regularly. When the summer came to a close and my duties as a graduate student became greater with the new school year, I simply didn’t have the time to write as often as I had gotten myself into. I continue to post to the blog occasionally, and these posts have gained me even more followers than previously. As much as followers have the ability to look back on the archives of those they follow, there’s a lot there, and I know they don’t really have time. I still don’t have a whole lot of time to write weekly articles with any regularity as I used to, but for now I’d like to provide something regular on here, even if it is a “Best of Disciple of the Cards.” There are some posts as well as card designs that I’m really proud of, and reposting them should make it easier for newer followers to check out my past work.  I started by reposting the details of Booster Cap Magic, a constructed format I created, to make it easier for my brother and his friends to find. From now until the summer, when I may have time to get back into writing more regularly, I would like to continue to repost some of my favorite work (with edits) during these Friday Flashbacks.

This week’s Friday Flashback is the second Point/Counterpoint I did with CastfromExile. It was fun doing posts with him where we each took a side on an issue relevant to Commander. Of course, as it was difficult enough for one graduate student to write a blog, but getting another graduate student blogger to collaborate on something wasn’t always easy. It would have been nice to continue to do collaborations with CastfromExile or collaborations with other Magic writers. For now, I’ve only done two Point/Counterpoints, and I feel my second was the better of the two. Enjoy.

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gatheringofmagic:

My favorite thing in magic is probably Alt. Counters

See also:

and

My favorite instant when I first started playing Magic was Chastise, because, while it cost 4 mana, it was so often such a blowout for your opponent. They lost their 6/6 dragon and you gained 6 life, and then they didn’t want to risk attacking you if you had open mana up.

I think now it’s Path to Exile. Path’s amazing, amazing removal. And even though I’m a huge fan of White, I will admit it: It’s more powerful than White deserves. It deserves removal that is temporary, like Journey to Nowhere and Oblivion Ring, and effects like Chastise and Soul Snare that will only work when the creature is attacking.

And I guess I really like removal, because I’d also rank Turn to Frog, Snakeform, and Ovinize up there. I think I like Turn to Frog best because of the art and flavortext best, and Ovinize loses points for not actually turning the creature into a sheep. And because you’d think a sheep would be a 0/1. Just remember: Casting one of these in response to a creature’s ability does not counter the creature’s ability because that ability is already on the stack and will resolve regardless. That’s a mistake I saw a few too many times at the literal kitchen table before I stopped being the Learner and became the Master.

mtgathering:

It looks like a new rule will be in effect for all GPs and PTQs soon. In all Top 8 matches, the player with the higher seeding will choose to play or draw, rather than the winner of a die role. This may keep players away from intentional drawing or scooping other players in, which is a good thing for a tournament.

1) Source? Site your source. Always site your source.

2) This is a good idea. I’m not going to lie, I’ve always found the “oh, I made Top 8 because my buddy intentionally drawed against me” to be seriously lame. Groups of people at events already have the huge advantage of hours of playtesting with other knowledgeable individuals, a larger card pool for building decks, and perhaps even a larger cash pool for affording the cost of the trip and housing (buying tickets and rooms for several people at least makes it split among those several people). On top of that, if things happen to get really serious in standings, they can get a leg-up on everyone else because their buddy drew? It just doesn’t seem fair and I’m disappointed that people do this. Just play the game in good fun, and if you lose to your buddy, oh well. Shouldn’t the loss be less of a big deal because you know him or her?

Anyway, not sure if this will help, but since there can’t actually be an enforceable rule that says “Play just as well and try to win just as hard against your friends as you would against someone you didn’t know,” this is a nice way of kind of doing that.

Besides, once these things get more interesting (you know, like the Top 8s), it makes more sense for who-goes-first to be determined in a better way than usual. In the same vein I always hated that the NFL used the coin flip method of determining which football team received possession in overtime. When things get more interesting, let’s not have such an important thing be left up to chance, huh?