Cardboard Intervention: TCG/CCG Thread Redux 2

[PX]

Use this thread to discuss card games of any kind!

[Tamer Anode/Cathode]

personally I would have went with "CCG/TCG Thread Second Edition" but that's what I get for procrastinating on making the thread

so MTG Arena is apparently updated or going to be updated soon to include everything currently in Standard and add improved draft events with a best-of-three format so I think it's going to be out of beta by fall. I wasn't originally sold on it when I started but they've definitely managed to make improvements, although I think I prefer paper for the social experience and would rather stick with something like Eternal as far as digital card games go

[commandercool]

Ew, Kaladesh in Arena? Well, if it follows Standard rotation then at least it won't be in for long.

I've been putting off getting a beta account because I figured it would be silly with collections reseting, but if we're looking at third quarter or later for the full release I guess it might not hurt to start sooner.

[PX]

Arena has sorely needed full Standard to fix this meta, It's been quite disgusting

[MatsuriSakuragi]

Whoever thought making Soul-Scar Mage a 1/2 with Prowess and "all non-combat damage sources have either" a 1 CMC SPELL was a complete moron.

Can't wait for rotation.

[commandercool]

Soul-Scar Mage is very powerful (especially with fucking Chainwhirler) but at least without Bomat Courier in the format it's sort of possible to profitably interact with. I think Bomat Courier is the card that pushes the red deck over the edge because it means the deck doesn't ever have to one-for-one. It can trade two burns spells for one creature, recklessly swing into Settle The Wreckage, and completely dodge Fungal Infection blowouts that should be great against it just because Courier gives it such crazy card advantage.

Is Soul-Scar Mage good in other decks? I guess UR Wizards is probably a thing in Arena, huh? I know I've seen it played occasionally on streams but I never really got an impression of whether it was good or not.

[Mеа]

Sole yugi-representer here representing.
So a card that's been in my possession for about a year, Trickstar Reincarnation, just shot up from around 20$ to nearly 60$. I was planning on holding onto it since I like trading more than just getting money, but a friend talked me into selling it and buying a box of Dark Saviors. Which sounded like more fun so I decided to go put it up for sale along with another card (Linkuriboh for ~30$, though I don't know about this one selling since I think a common(?) reprint was just announced. But hey, it's shiny).
Dark Saviors is kinda ridiculous right now for containing Mobile - Engage!, currently at a little over a hundred $s. Which isn't my goal, since you should never buy a box aiming to make money off of a single (or even break even). But it does contain the Sky Strikers, probably the most waifu cards we've gotten in recent memory, which I'm excited to open up a box for. May post results later.

[commandercool]

Got my first event with Modern WB Tokens in and it went great. I went 3-1. Lost to Bogles in the last round and it went to game three, my opponent was at one life at the end, and I flooded out like absolutely crazy with 5 spells to 8 lands. So... pretty good. Would WB Tokens again.

[Mеа]

So, reporting back on about that box I said I ordered. I mentioned there was a money card, a lottery card in that set that's going for around  $100. Well yeah, I did it, I fuckin' did it, I pulled Sky Striker Mobilize - Engage!
Just made my money back. Pretty good way to cap off my day gotta say.

[hyorinryu]

So, reporting back on about that box I said I ordered. I mentioned there was a money card, a lottery card in that set that's going for around  $100. Well yeah, I did it, I fuckin' did it, I pulled Sky Striker Mobilize - Engage!
Just made my money back. Pretty good way to cap off my day gotta say.

Nice. I only got Beat and Widow Anchor.

[Tamer Anode/Cathode]

So who's looking at those Core 2019 previews?

those are some spicy reprints, I say

[commandercool]

Yeah, looks pretty neat. There are a handful of incredible Pauper cards in there. Skyscanner is going to be a total menace.

[Tamer Anode/Cathode]

Gitaxian Probe and Deathrite Shaman banned in Legacy as of July 6.

[commandercool]

Did an M19 prerelease earlier. Opened an Ajani and some other mid-to-low-value stuff, went 2-1. Basically broke even. Had that thing where I only drew Ajani a single time out of eight games and drew two-to-one land to spells in three of them, but that's just prereleases I guess...

I can't decide where I like doing prereleases locally. Every store either has events that are way too big (60 people at one last night) or way too small (the one I went to today had 10) or have a good number of people but pay out way less than normal.

[Tamer Anode/Cathode]

went to two prereleases this weekend, went 2-2 at both of them. Got a Resplendent Angel and an Arcades, nothing absolutely mindblowing in the rares/promos department this time around

[MatsuriSakuragi]

Went to the final Dominaria draft before the switch into M19. Pulled a Karn as my pack 1 pick 1. I could have gone home happy right there.

[commandercool]

So apparently we got confirmations for the 2018 Commander decks. Sounds like four decks again. Izzet artifacts, Bant enchantress, Jund lands, and Esper miracles I think? Pretty weird/interesting spread if that's the case.

[Tamer Anode/Cathode]

Not particularly any weirder than the spread we got for last year's set. Definitely interested in that lands deck if it being Jund means it's going to do what I hope it does

[commandercool]

I've seen people assume that "lands" means that it'll be like the Legacy deck, but I wonder if it might not be more of a landfall sort of thing. Still might be neat. And if it is 80 lands and 20 spells then that shouldn be very interesting.

[MatsuriSakuragi]

The Esper one isn't necessarily Miracles. They stated specifically on the stream it's just "top of the deck matters".

Either way I already preordered the whole set almost a month ago.

[Tamer Anode/Cathode]

meanwhile, from two prereleases, multiple drafts, and exchanging my store credit for a bundle I already have a full set of Dismissive Pyromancer and suddenly I have an urge to build mono-red in Standard (after rotation, mind you, since I am not shelling out for Hazoret and Glorybringer when they're three months from leaving)

[Tamer Anode/Cathode]

Full lists for the Commander 2018 decks are out.

They're not... bad, but they're not as exciting as the previous year's sets. These feel more like toolkits for building future decks more than fully realized decks on their own, honestly. Still want to get that Windgrace deck regardless

[commandercool]

I'll definitely be buying the Esper one, that ninja commander seems super cool. There are a lot of singles I'll probably be picking up overall. I'm not sure if Geode Golem is good but I definitely want to try it.

[MatsuriSakuragi]

Full lists for the Commander 2018 decks are out.

They're not... bad, but they're not as exciting as the previous year's sets. These feel more like toolkits for building future decks more than fully realized decks on their own, honestly. Still want to get that Windgrace deck regardless

They're bad when you consider they raised the price and lowered the quality of reprints pretty substantially. That, and they all feel overall like collections of cheap bulk with low synergy. These decks used to be playable right out of the box and now it's just a weird jumbled mess.


That said I pre-ordered the whole set a long time ago and while I like the Esper and Bant decks enough too keep them (the commander ideas are great and I like the new cards in them), I have zero interest in the other two beyond one card from each of them (Tawnos in the Izzet deck and Xantcha in the Jund one).

I'm probably going to sell them and cut my losses.

Aminatou is probably the one I'm most excited for due to being able to maintain Stasis indefinitely and combos with a lot of different cards, especially Felidar Guardian and Altar of the Brood.

Yennett is also very exciting as a Zur alternative. Fun combo: Isochron Scepter + Mystical Tutor to set up the top card to Nexus of Fate. Attack with Yennett, it casts for free and gets shuffled into your deck. Infinite turns with a bulky flier with vigilance and menace. She's really cool.

Varina will be a great zombie tribal commander and she covers the 3 main colors of zombies for the first time and synergizes really well with them. I like.

Yuriko seems pretty cool if not only because she bypasses commander tax.

Estrid seems really interesting as a potential but less efficient alternative to blue Teferi. She has some pretty cool synergies with Chain Veil.

Kestia feels kind of like Tymna but with a bit more protection if you bestow her. Also just play Enchanted Evening and draw all the cards. A little disappointed she's not a God with indestructible though. I think bestow bypasses commander tax too though, so that's pretty neat.

Tuvasa is an enchantress commander for an enchantress deck. Not the most exciting design but still cool that that option exists.

[Tamer Anode/Cathode]

Thinking about it a bit more, and wondering if I should use the money I'd spend on the C18 deck to try and buy one of the other C17 decks or try and track down one of the C13 decks that are still in circulation (I've been meaning to try and do something with Nekusar for a while)

[MatsuriSakuragi]

Thinking about it a bit more, and wondering if I should use the money I'd spend on the C18 deck to try and buy one of the other C17 decks or try and track down one of the C13 decks that are still in circulation (I've been meaning to try and do something with Nekusar for a while)

Make sure you check the value of what's in those decks since you'll likely be spending over MSRP on those. C17 wasn't as bad as this year on value, but the cat and wizard decks were are pretty rough when it comes to getting value out of them. As for the Nekusar deck, it's pretty expensive if all you really want from it is Nekusar. It's fine if you want to buy them to have them, but if you're trying to build a more focused deck you're better off getting singles.

[commandercool]

I keep trying to put lists for Yuriko Commander together and I'm finding it surprisingly tough. She clearly wants comes-into-play creatures to bounce, preferably with evasion, and then sacrifice outlets to get her back in the command zone, but none of the ratios I've come up with feel great on paper. I guess it's just one of those weird decks where I'm going to need to have her in-hand to playtest lists and the deck is probably going to be pretty bad for a while.

Some kind of scry theme with cards with high natural CMCs (Curtain's Call is the main one that comes to mind) seems like it's worth fitting in too in order to burn people out with her ninja tribal ability. Although outside of a few of the weaker ninjas it seems like there probably isn't much she wants to run that isn't common in Commander already so hopefully I won't need to buy much new stuff to make her work.

Edit: Maybe some of the better Delve cards would be good for her CMC-based burn ability, but UB decks tend to want to recycle most of the things in their graveyards so Delve is a little painful and I don't think I'll have the real-estate to go full-on graveyard stocking. Same with Affinity, I guess I could lean toward an artifact-based mana base to fuel big Affinity spells but that might be stretching the themes a little thin and artifact mana bases are always a little on the vulnerable side. Hmm...

[commandercool]

I just put together five-color Zuberas for Pauper and did a few dry runs with it, and it's the weirdest deck I've ever played. Five-color mana in Pauper is very difficult to plan out and it has so much redundancy in sacrifice outlets, Zuberas, and Unearth effects that there's no room for any utility that doesn't come from the Zuberas themselves. I have no idea if that makes for a playable deck, but it can theoretically do strong things. This is probably never going to be a "real" deck, but I'd like to get it to the point that I can actually bring it to events without going 0-5. We'll see if that's possible I guess.

[Tamer Anode/Cathode]

well they came straight out of the gate and revealed we're getting shockland reprints for Guilds

Narcomoeba reprint I did not expect, however

[commandercool]

New art for shocks! Always always happy for shockland reprints. They're cheap enough that I don't feel bad about picking them up for Modern right now but nowhere near cheap enough for me to want to put them in all of my Commander decks, so reprints should keep them from going up in price for another few years at worst and will hopefully drop their prices overall once they rotate out of Standard. Plus, great new art!

Narcomeba reprint at rare even. Huh. It wasn't especially expensive, but it's cute with Surveil so I guess it's interesting for Standard maybe.

Mentor looks very powerful on paper. I'm curious to see how it plays in practice.