I had no idea what the twist was going to be, nor the extra restrictions, but I have indulged in a number of freeform thought experiments and played a few games, enough to know how ridiculous it could get. It took me quite a few seconds of frantic thought before settling on the 60 Chancellor deck, followed by several minutes of even more frantically trying to buy the other 56 Chancellors to make it a reality. It's more a case of knowing that the format was so ludicrously degenerate as to have multiple turn zero solutions and working from there the moment the word 'freeform' was typed.
I agree more with unbanning Lackey than Moat or Swords of XY. For Lackey, I like Miha's reasoning. For Moat, despite Control desperately needing some presence in the metagame, I hate some of the budget implications the unbanning allows (and I own four foil copies), with the rich getting richer in options. For Swords I think the ban reasons were more along the lines of redundancy and lazy deckbuilding (seeing them ad nauseam) rather than power level, but Kuma can of course correct me. When they hosed you, it felt kind of random sometimes.
I was not a fan of AJ's already having solved the finals format before it was announced, but that's definitely not his fault. He played it well.
Excellent interview. Totally agree on Moat and restricting Griselbrand to tribe (Maybe a couple other entomb targets as well), disagree on the swords. And yes, people seriously underestimated Freeform.
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Regarding Thought Lash: despite no official WotC notification of bug or fix, this appears to work correctly now, at least in my Solitaire games where I damaged myself with Ancient Tomb. Can someone help me confirm this tomorrow?
My floor is usually the price of a pack - money cards have to be worth more than $4. Knight was last week, and I just copied the money cards from then for Shards. NH is the only card worth over $4 in Conflux.
Pretty sure this is in reference only to cube for sorting purposes. I expect there is some internal algorithm that randomizes for each color a certain number of cards to be drafted in a particular pack and dismember now counts as a colorless card for that purpose because it is often played for 1+4 life, rather than 1 + BB, or 1 + B + 2 life.
Congrats on getting a spoiler card :D 6 to transform seems very expensive but mana producers are scarce in Standard at the moment and the G may be more relevant than the 4/6 sol ring. And eventually you will get to 6 mana and if you still need the Sol Ring effect here it is hidden behind an innocuous werewolf horror.
You bring this up and as soon as you did I realized the boss music I would want, The Battle for Everyone's Souls, from Persona 3 which I think would make me want to be Nyx, but that boss was kinda meh.
I used to stand up to defend the life of the unborn, but after years of reflection I discovered that there is no credible evidence that souls exist. Cells exist. Brains exist. Not souls. Sad but true.
And when those human embryonic cells are less than 3 weeks old, then those cells are not yet human persons in my personal opinion.
I wish there was such a thing as a "Cavern of Souls" where we could all dwell happily for all eternity as a blissful community of souls, however that exists only in fantasy games and fantasy novels (otherwise known as holy books). The only cavern of souls which exists, is the one where you choose your creature type, then you smile at your blue opponent and say "Try to counter THIS please!!"
Technically a single Backlash wouldn't necessarily kill you--you don't have to cast the third Bolt until after you're attacking. It does mean you'll draw though.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion. They are not subject to "right" or "wrong" the same way facts are. :D Also people are subject and susceptible to emotional fabrications. That does not make what they are seeing or hearing fact (cf the completely debunked and utterly deceitful videos of a year or so ago, regarding Planned Parenthood.) The stimuli do not need to be what they appear to be to invoke an involuntary and often illogical response. Man on the street style videos are notorious for that reason.
Invoking the vegan battlecry "beef is murder!" for instance is just as visceral to many if you follow it up with images of a slaughterhouse in operation. Doesn't actually mean they have the moral high ground.
I was disappointed with the opinion section (which is not a big deal because there is no expectation that I should be made "happy" with the opinion section!). I certainly have no problem with anyone sharing their opinion, however lets not obfuscate facts while trying to support your opinion.
Specifically I am talking about the statement "Maybe he was a terrorist". We don't have to wonder if "maybe" he might be, we have the killer himself letting us know the answer. There is no need to wonder about it.
Also, I'd like to state some facts regarding abortion (which is a shame in some way to be discussing this on a MTGO site...). I realize it is legal to kill an unborn baby (or fetus if you prefer) in the USA, and I know there are people who are just fine with it. Regardless of which side you are on or what you want to call it, the fact is the baby/fetus has arms, legs, eyes, nose, mouth, ears, fingerprints and a beating heart. It is also a fact that an abortion stops this beating heart.
For those that would like to claim abortions are OK, I suggest you find the video that shows random people on the street that are shown a video of what actually happens during an abortion. 95% of the people that were OK with abortion before they watched the video changed their minds and said "no", it is not OK. Just some food for thought.
I think I'd play a Godtoucher in this deck, probably in place of a Resounding Roar. It helps your attacking exalted creatures and is a pretty nasty combo with the Archangel.
I remember I used to somewhat like Guardians of Akrasa, too, as exalted is so good, so I'd probably try to maindeck it as well.
This comment is the silliest thing I have read in a while and that's in a month where Brexit,Amexit and Texit have been trending topics. (The silly parts of those trends should be obvious enough.)
If you go into any Barnes & Nobles you can throw a book at a shelf randomly and hit a good fantasy author's works. There are hundreds of new fantasy novels coming out every year and more than a few are good enough to be on my must read list. (Sadly I have hundreds of books to read right here at home and have gotten slower as I have aged in getting through them.)
The problem is that WOTC has a certain creative direction and not everyone agrees with that direction, which is normal. And maybe they were not correct in their choices (having gone with the cheese perhaps too often) which is less normal and more alarming but not the end of the world for them or us because lets face it.
As Pete says, if the game is good, we will play it regardless of the flavor. Well some of us will. Others may rage quit, sulk or otherwise eschew their own enjoyment because of past imagined or real gripes with the company.
=edit=
Also the relation of MTG to Tolkien is not direct or distinct.
The presence of some Tolkien like creatures in the game has much to do with Garfield's passion for RPGs (such as D&D which DOES owe a debt to JRR but which is its own vast body of work.)
MTG has as much relation to Tolkien as it does to Age of Wonder or Master of Magic or Kings & Things*. In other words, all these games descend from D&D and similar rpgs that came out decades before MTG was first published.
The Phyrexians are definitely there from close to the beginning. By Book 5 (Bloodlines) half of the plot takes place IN Phyrexia, and the books before that have references or incidents involving Phyrexian contact.
In case anyone had any doubts about the genius of this man. Case in point. A dangerous and lethal mind in any format. But Tribal is his forte.
I had no idea what the twist was going to be, nor the extra restrictions, but I have indulged in a number of freeform thought experiments and played a few games, enough to know how ridiculous it could get. It took me quite a few seconds of frantic thought before settling on the 60 Chancellor deck, followed by several minutes of even more frantically trying to buy the other 56 Chancellors to make it a reality. It's more a case of knowing that the format was so ludicrously degenerate as to have multiple turn zero solutions and working from there the moment the word 'freeform' was typed.
I agree more with unbanning Lackey than Moat or Swords of XY. For Lackey, I like Miha's reasoning. For Moat, despite Control desperately needing some presence in the metagame, I hate some of the budget implications the unbanning allows (and I own four foil copies), with the rich getting richer in options. For Swords I think the ban reasons were more along the lines of redundancy and lazy deckbuilding (seeing them ad nauseam) rather than power level, but Kuma can of course correct me. When they hosed you, it felt kind of random sometimes.
I was not a fan of AJ's already having solved the finals format before it was announced, but that's definitely not his fault. He played it well.
Excellent interview. Totally agree on Moat and restricting Griselbrand to tribe (Maybe a couple other entomb targets as well), disagree on the swords. And yes, people seriously underestimated Freeform.
Nice interview - Congrats as always to a great champion.
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Knight of the White Orchid is also in Shards of Alara, which is why it was listed with Shards, and Noble listed with Conflux.
Regarding Thought Lash: despite no official WotC notification of bug or fix, this appears to work correctly now, at least in my Solitaire games where I damaged myself with Ancient Tomb. Can someone help me confirm this tomorrow?
My floor is usually the price of a pack - money cards have to be worth more than $4. Knight was last week, and I just copied the money cards from then for Shards. NH is the only card worth over $4 in Conflux.
Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker and Knight of the Reliquary are worth more than K. of the White Orchid.
Also, CON has much higher EV due to ALA's money being in mythic planeswalkers and CON's money in Rare and Uncommon (Path to exile)
Pretty sure this is in reference only to cube for sorting purposes. I expect there is some internal algorithm that randomizes for each color a certain number of cards to be drafted in a particular pack and dismember now counts as a colorless card for that purpose because it is often played for 1+4 life, rather than 1 + BB, or 1 + B + 2 life.
Why is Dismember now considered colorless? Unless I'm misreading, it seems like the most recent rulings on Gatherer say it should be black. http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=397830
Congrats on getting a spoiler card :D 6 to transform seems very expensive but mana producers are scarce in Standard at the moment and the G may be more relevant than the 4/6 sol ring. And eventually you will get to 6 mana and if you still need the Sol Ring effect here it is hidden behind an innocuous werewolf horror.
You bring this up and as soon as you did I realized the boss music I would want, The Battle for Everyone's Souls, from Persona 3 which I think would make me want to be Nyx, but that boss was kinda meh.
I used to stand up to defend the life of the unborn, but after years of reflection I discovered that there is no credible evidence that souls exist. Cells exist. Brains exist. Not souls. Sad but true.
And when those human embryonic cells are less than 3 weeks old, then those cells are not yet human persons in my personal opinion.
I wish there was such a thing as a "Cavern of Souls" where we could all dwell happily for all eternity as a blissful community of souls, however that exists only in fantasy games and fantasy novels (otherwise known as holy books). The only cavern of souls which exists, is the one where you choose your creature type, then you smile at your blue opponent and say "Try to counter THIS please!!"
Technically a single Backlash wouldn't necessarily kill you--you don't have to cast the third Bolt until after you're attacking. It does mean you'll draw though.
Godtoucher targets and Archangel has shroud.
Magus' theme is better then any of those other end bosses. If you wanted cool theme music, you should have been Magus. :)
I ended up siding in Guardians over the two drops.
I have a weird thing about having at least one pump spell in my decks if I am green, it might be a bad habit.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion. They are not subject to "right" or "wrong" the same way facts are. :D Also people are subject and susceptible to emotional fabrications. That does not make what they are seeing or hearing fact (cf the completely debunked and utterly deceitful videos of a year or so ago, regarding Planned Parenthood.) The stimuli do not need to be what they appear to be to invoke an involuntary and often illogical response. Man on the street style videos are notorious for that reason.
Invoking the vegan battlecry "beef is murder!" for instance is just as visceral to many if you follow it up with images of a slaughterhouse in operation. Doesn't actually mean they have the moral high ground.
I was disappointed with the opinion section (which is not a big deal because there is no expectation that I should be made "happy" with the opinion section!). I certainly have no problem with anyone sharing their opinion, however lets not obfuscate facts while trying to support your opinion.
Specifically I am talking about the statement "Maybe he was a terrorist". We don't have to wonder if "maybe" he might be, we have the killer himself letting us know the answer. There is no need to wonder about it.
Also, I'd like to state some facts regarding abortion (which is a shame in some way to be discussing this on a MTGO site...). I realize it is legal to kill an unborn baby (or fetus if you prefer) in the USA, and I know there are people who are just fine with it. Regardless of which side you are on or what you want to call it, the fact is the baby/fetus has arms, legs, eyes, nose, mouth, ears, fingerprints and a beating heart. It is also a fact that an abortion stops this beating heart.
For those that would like to claim abortions are OK, I suggest you find the video that shows random people on the street that are shown a video of what actually happens during an abortion. 95% of the people that were OK with abortion before they watched the video changed their minds and said "no", it is not OK. Just some food for thought.
I think I'd play a Godtoucher in this deck, probably in place of a Resounding Roar. It helps your attacking exalted creatures and is a pretty nasty combo with the Archangel.
I remember I used to somewhat like Guardians of Akrasa, too, as exalted is so good, so I'd probably try to maindeck it as well.
This comment is the silliest thing I have read in a while and that's in a month where Brexit,Amexit and Texit have been trending topics. (The silly parts of those trends should be obvious enough.)
If you go into any Barnes & Nobles you can throw a book at a shelf randomly and hit a good fantasy author's works. There are hundreds of new fantasy novels coming out every year and more than a few are good enough to be on my must read list. (Sadly I have hundreds of books to read right here at home and have gotten slower as I have aged in getting through them.)
The problem is that WOTC has a certain creative direction and not everyone agrees with that direction, which is normal. And maybe they were not correct in their choices (having gone with the cheese perhaps too often) which is less normal and more alarming but not the end of the world for them or us because lets face it.
As Pete says, if the game is good, we will play it regardless of the flavor. Well some of us will. Others may rage quit, sulk or otherwise eschew their own enjoyment because of past imagined or real gripes with the company.
=edit=
Also the relation of MTG to Tolkien is not direct or distinct.
The presence of some Tolkien like creatures in the game has much to do with Garfield's passion for RPGs (such as D&D which DOES owe a debt to JRR but which is its own vast body of work.)
MTG has as much relation to Tolkien as it does to Age of Wonder or Master of Magic or Kings & Things*. In other words, all these games descend from D&D and similar rpgs that came out decades before MTG was first published.
The Phyrexians are definitely there from close to the beginning. By Book 5 (Bloodlines) half of the plot takes place IN Phyrexia, and the books before that have references or incidents involving Phyrexian contact.