Onslaught

[Shadow_Hawk]

Show of Isimir  
And thanks for the advice i'll keep it in mind Prometheus  

[Prometheus]

Have you guys looked into the MTG articles on wizard's site about the Legions evolution in Morph? It seems rather than make it a 'comes into play' lookalike, they're going for a less repeatable but also less predictable approach for Morph. They aren't supporting rapid succession as Planeshift and others did for comes into play, but the Morph 'at flip-over' abilities are intended to work more like landmines. I'm not entirely certain that's enough to make it feel a lot different yet, myself. It'll be interesting to play against.

[Lord_of_Me]

i think they're a big improvement but very mana-intensive

[Prometheus]

I'm glad that they clarified the rules to state that a flip-trigger morph creature doesn't automatically trigger its ability on going to the graveyard or leaving the game. While it makes flip-triggers less powerful, (and me less likely to use them) it'd be depressing to know that you couldn't stop a Morphling from using its ability any way other than a counterspell.

If you haven't read the rules clarification article yet, it's at:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/feature/119

[Prometheus]

Is anyone local thinking of going to the Legions prerelease? It's nominally scheduled for the weekend of January 25 at University of Utah somewhere. I'd like to go, but as is common for me, I have transportation issues.

[Prometheus]

I don't know if he'll see this, but welcome back EUOL.

[Prometheus]

Undead Gladiator did actually make it into consideration in my Coffin Leapers deck. As Fell pointed out in the article, the Gladiator would work well in the deck. Eventually I decided against it, however. The reasons why were fairly simple. With Oversold Cemetery running the deck's cycling engine, I simply didn't need the built-in recursion the Gladiator provides. Additionally, I decided that I would rather be cycling Gempalm Avenger or Krosan Tusker anyway.

Despite those factors, would Undead Gladiator have been a good choice for the deck? Yes. I ended going up with additional black birds for flying defense and Aven Warhawking instead though. Sometimes I make some weird choices for my decks. It helps to keep it fun.

[Prometheus]

Fell, do you want me to start putting in the autocard code on my MTG reviews before I send them to you? We've missed the last two now. I'm lazy and would rather have you do it, but without autocard, the reviews are much harder to read.

Aside from that, one thing I noticed today about the recent block formats is that the heavily themed blocks we've had lately: Odyssey and Onslaught in particular and Invasion to a lesser extent, create a problem when trying to design a deck across the blocks, particularly when it's with cards you actually own. The problem is that it's difficult to include very good cards from one set...let's say a Wirewood Channeler, at the same time as cards from other sets, such as a Chlorophant. The problem sounds pretty minor at the outset, but it creates real difficulties in the long run. Time after time I found myself throwing out Crookclaw and Shieldmage Elders because what I was doing with the deck (I was trying out a domain spell deck) didn't allow for sufficient Clerics, Wizards, or Birds to have any confidence in using their impressive abilities. It's also difficult to convince myself to include Power Armor in a two or three color Onslaught deck, as its ability would be seriously underutilized.

In some ways this is a good thing. The vast variety of deck types available with the increasing count of deck mechanics allows for the breadth and depth of strategies that make Magic the Gathering such a good game. When it comes to the realities of a person's actual card collection (particularly if it is not a very expansive collection), however, the opposite can happen as a large number of cards can become obsolete by requiring too much support from their own block. Catapault Master just isn't going to work in a gating deck. The result *can* be that only generically useful mechanics (kicker, flashback, morph, ect.) end up being used in a person's card collection.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to say that this is really serious or that MTG is driving itself into the grave. It's an  interesting issue though, and I was wondering if anyone else had noticed the same thing.

[Fellfrosch]

So mechanics that don't have any synergy are hard to use together? I'm glad we have you around to point this out

[Lord_of_Me]

I've noticed this sa well, new cards often completely destroy old deck types from previous blocks - i.e withered wretch vs. flashback and threshold

[Prometheus]

That's hardly all there is to say about the subject, Fell.

Withered Wretch isn't actually a good example of the effect I was talking about. Withered Wretch is a counter to flashback and threshhold decks from a different block, and it also counters more standard mechanics such as reanimator decks. The Odyssey block also had counters to itself such as Morningtide and Guiltfeeder.

I was actually guessing that you wouldn't be able to see the effect that well, Isimir, since you just started playing in the Onslaught block. If you buy Mirrodin after that releases, you'll understand better I expect. While the basic fact of domain and tribal not working well together is obvious, as Fell pointed out, the effect it has on a player's card collection isn't quite so blatant.

That is what I was pointing out. The semi-incompatibility of MTG blocks directly links to how a player builds their collection and the dynamics of casual play.

[Fellfrosch]

I know there's more to it, but I can't bear to pass up the opportunity for a trenchant comment.

[Prometheus]

Fair enough.  

I'm not out of ideas for articles yet or anything like that, but is there a type of deck or a MTG research topic someone would like me to hit?

[Lord_of_Me]

fun Multiplayer Variants

[Prometheus]

I'm actually going to pass that one up Isimir. I've bumped into a few rules variations on the web meant for multiplayer formats, but quite often the rules aren't well explained and it'd take me forever to research and explain the ones on the web. You might be able to get Fell to take a crack at it, however. He and EUOL are far better at making rules variants than I am. Most of all, I don't really find rules variants all that interesting. (100/3 isn't really a variant. We didn't change any rules except the deck parameters.)

TWG already has an old article up on 100/3, we've played 10-card Magic here before, and Fell and EUOL came up with a strange win-condition variant of the game. I thought we had an article on that last one, but I can't find it, so probably not.