Infinite Stars
Member
Especially not if the rumors about the SoI land cycle being the enemy colored fastlands is true.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Magic: the Gathering - Oath o/t Gatewatch |OT| Look again, the mana is now diamonds!
- Thread starter SigmasonicX
- Start date
- Status
charlequin
Banned
I think CoCo is still going to be a deck after rotation (because it's an insane card) but staying Bant seems unlikely.
I think it'd be cool to see the enemy fastlands in the next block (Kaladesh). Having both sets of fastlands on artifact-based planes would feel aesthetically pleasing to me.
Joe Molotov
Member
Sleeving up Hardened Scales for tonight.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I'm mean
holy fuck I'm dying
I'm sure Collected Company will be a good deck because the overall value is too good. But I don't expect the deck to be dumping Reflector Mage onto the battlefield either, which is the only real way Reflector Mage is more than annoying.
I'm mean
Holy shit, MTGO gold.
Jeff Hoogland playing legacy and i just discover that in MTGO undiscovered paradise don't return in ur hand at long as you have at least one undiscovered paradise already in ur hand.
LOL
All-in red with GODO is so good goddamn.
https://www.twitch.tv/jeffhoogland
LOL
All-in red with GODO is so good goddamn.
https://www.twitch.tv/jeffhoogland
I wish I could. I live like 30 mins away, but of course had to go out of town. Good luck!
divisionbyzorro
Member
I'm mean
You're the worst!! Bwahaha
charlequin
Banned
laughed legit out loud
yep
who would have thought that allowing decks to completely ignore the restrictions of color would produce surprise overpowered cards and unfun play patterns?!?!!?!!
I'm mean
Completely evil. I love it.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
For what it's worth, Maro says the reason Avacyn, the Purifier is mono-red on the flipside is basically because "it looks cool" even though he would agree she's basically R/W.
charlequin
Banned
I read that more as "Studies show people constantly misunderstood what color(s) Garruk, the Veil-Cursed was."
shrapnelmagnet
Member
If flanking was a theme in EMA, I would die. Basically my fave combat ability, lol
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Yeah I can see that.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
It's time for a native RW walker. Gideon should never get a RW version and Ajani has been White for so long and even veered into GW. Also his kit would be boring in RW.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Reprint Ajani Vengeant :-(
manipulate
Member
Holy shit @ "ill have to look into it"
Joe Molotov
Member
How much do I have to pay to get that feature in paper Magic? I'll pay it. ;(
SigmasonicX
Member
Next draft of Shadows over Innistrad OT. Going with the title
Magic: the Gathering - Shadows over Innistrad |OT| Blue's Clues
Trailer
Official page
Shadows over Innistrad information
Previous topic: Oath of the Gatewatch OT
Next set: Eldritch Moon
Welcome to the Multiverse! Multiple worlds exist side by side in different dimensions, known as planes, and each plane is as different as night is from the day. All of them, however, have a form of magical energy known as mana, generated from bonds to the land, that can be channeled into powerful spells. Residents of these planes are usually unaware of other worlds, but there are some special beings with the ability to safely travel between them, known as Planeswalkers.
Magic: the Gathering is a Trading Card Game, the first of its kind, developed by Richard Garfield and his playtesters for the gaming company Wizards of the Coast in 1993. The game quickly became a hit, and it is currently bigger than it has ever been. In the standard game, you and your opponent play the role of dueling Planeswalkers, using customized 60-card decks made up of your spells, the creatures you can summon, your mana bonds with lands, and even other Planeswalkers you can call in to help out. Whoever can get his or her opponent down to 0 life, from a start of 20, wins.
Shadows over Innistrad returns to the world of Innistrad, where the graveyard reigns and gothic horror is the name of the game. This set is also a milestone in Magic as a whole: the first block to start in spring as part of the two-block paradigm, where two different worlds are visited each year. The block's story, themes, and mechanics will be continued by Eldritch Moon in the summer.
This topic will cover the two weeks before all cards in the Shadows over Innistrad set are fully revealed, known as the spoiler weeks, where cards are slowly unveiled every weekday, up through the set release itself. Some cards have already been revealed during events like Pro Tours (or leaks), but this is when they are rolled out at a consistent pace. The main website updates at 8 AM PST / 11 AM EST, but Wizards also provides card previews to other sites that will unveil them throughout the day, including non-English sites.
GETTING STARTED
If you're a beginner, feel free to come in--that's why this is in OT, after all. Spoiler season is one of the most exciting times for a Magic player, and it would be great for more to join in. Us regulars can get a bit technical with card evaluations and use a lot of jargon, and many of us will loudly proclaim that a cool-looking card is junk, or say that a lame-looking card is really powerful, but feel free to ask us if you want an explanation.
To see what a game is like, check out Geek and Sundry's Spellslinger series, where Day[9] battles various geek celebrities, often losing, using simple and easy to follow decks.
To get started, check out the official page. Basically:
* It's recommended that new players play Magic Duels (thread). It's a great way to learn the game on your own, and it's free!
* For your first deck, you can buy an Intro Pack, a simple prebuilt deck that comes with a few booster packs. For each new set, five Intro Packs are released. There are also Duel Decks that provide two decks for a game right out of the box, but are a bit more complicated.
* To get your physical collection started, buy a Deck Builder's Toolkit, which includes not just a starting collection of cards (including a lot of lands), but also has some booster packs and is a good place to store cards. You could also buy a Holiday Gift Box to get an even larger starting collection and better storage.
* To learn about the theories behind deckbuilding and gameplay, check out Level One.
* Once your skill advances, another popular way to play Magic casually is Commander. Each player chooses a legendary creature to act as commander and then chooses 99 additional cards, one of each card that isn't a basic land (of which you can have any number) and only of the colors of the commander, to make up the deck. In games, each player starts at 40 life and there are typically four or more players. Wizards provides prebuilt decks for this format too.
* While game stores will often hold Magic events at other times, every store that has Magic events will have Friday Night Magic. There, you will be able to find other players in your area to both have matches with and trade with. Find game stores here. And to get started participating in your local game store (LGS) scene, attend a prerelease!
PRERELEASE
While the set won't officially be sold until the release date, that isn't the first time you can get your hands on the new cards. Game stores hold prerelease events for every set, and in this set's event, every player is given a box with six booster packs and a random additional rare card. From this pool of cards, all of which you keep, each player builds a deck of 40 cards and participates in a Swiss-system tournament. This is a fun and casual event, where everyone is still trying to figure out the set, so don't worry about messing up. In addition to normal duels, there are also Two-Headed Giant events, where you pair up with another player and face off against another team.
Prerelease events will be held on April 2-3, 2016. Call your local game store a few days ahead of time to register, or they might just run out of room. Find local game stores here.
CHANGES
Shadows over Innistrad starting in spring demonstrates a major change to how Magic sets are handled, with an in-depth explanation for why here. In short, the two-set block model means:
* No more core sets.
* Blocks will have two sets instead of three. Yes, that means Shadows over Innistrad block will only have two sets.
* Without any core sets, there will now be two blocks a year. The next set of SOI block, Eldritch Moon, releases in the previous core set slot.
* Standard (a rotating format that only includes the latest sets) rotates with each block, so it will now rotate twice a year. Three blocks will be in Standard at a time. Sets will be in Standard for a max of 18 months. Note that Standard rotation is kind of odd this time. For the final three-set block, Khans of Tarkir, only the first two sets are rotating out. Dragons of Tarkir and the final core set, Magic Origins, will remain in Standard until fall.
STORY
Trailer
Lore introduction
Guide to Innistrad
Innistrad is a world where humanity beset on all sides by monsters: restless spirits, necromancers and skaab stitchers raising the dead, demons and their worshipers, aristocratic vampire families, and ferocious werewolves, among many more. Long ago, the vampire Planeswalker Sorin Markov realized that if things stayed the course, the humans would go extinct and the vampires would be left without food. Playing the long game, he created the archangel Avacyn to protect the humans, and thus ensure the survival of the vampires into the distant future, even if it meant many of his own would die in the process. Avacyn became the most holy figure on Innistrad, leading the angels in support of humanity, while the rest of the world remained ignorant of her true purpose.
In the present, the heroes of the Gatewatch faced ancient horrors known as the Eldrazi, and have defeated two of the three Eldrazi Titans on the plane of Zendikar. The last and most powerful, Emrakul, is unaccounted for. The telepathic Planeswalker Jace Beleran has come to Innistrad to track down Sorin, since he helped seal away the Eldrazi in the first place, but when he arrives, he discovers that things have gotten weird. Some sort of madness is spreading through the land, and not even the angels are spared. Their wings have become soaked in blood and they are slaughtering humans, forcing the humans to fight both monsters and their former protectors. Meanwhile, the stone-shaping lithomancer Planeswalker who also helped seal away the Eldrazi, Nahiri, has resurfaced with a mysterious vendetta against the Markov family of vampires. Jace must turn detective to understand just what happened, and what this could be a portent of.
Shadows over Innistrad story
Story archive - Scroll to the bottom for chronological order; the layout of this archive is trash.
SET THEMES
Cards (alternate, includes leaks)
Mechanics
Double-faced cards
Double-faced cards
The most popular mechanic of the original Innistrad is back! These cards don't have the usual card backs, and instead have a face on both sides. You can switch between sides using the transform mechanic. To put these cards in your deck, most players use opaque card sleeves to hide the back, but you can also use checklist cards that have the normal Magic card back and are included in some booster packs. You check off which double-faced card it represents and put the checklist card in your deck, leaving the actual double-faced card hidden somewhere until you cast that spell. A special subset of double-faced cards are the werewolves, which all transform in the same way, keeping track of how many spells were cast to reflect the activity of the day and inactivity of the night. On Innistrad, double-faced cards represent a dark transformation, and this time, not even the greatest of angels are immune.
The game is afoot
Investigate
Skulk
Players join in on figuring out what's happening to Innistrad with the investigate mechanic. Whenever you investigate, you get a Clue artifact, which you can pay (2) and sacrifice to draw a card, or keep around for cards that care about having Clues or artifacts in general. And who else to investigate but those sneaky creatures with the skulk mechanic, who can handily slip past creatures larger than them. Though it is unconfirmed, skulk is expected to become an evergreen mechanic for blue and black, meaning you'll potentially see it in every set from now on.
You know, Jace, we really are Odyssey Block 2: Jace in the Hood
Madness
Delirium
The world is going crazy, and so are the mechanics. Madness returns to make discarding a card not such a bad idea. Instead of going directly to the graveyard, you discard the card to exile, where you have the opportunity to cast it for its madness card or just send it to the graveyard. Delirium cares about having a lot of cards in your graveyard, similar to the threshold mechanic of yesteryear, but this mechanic only cares about having at least four card types. Once you reach that point, your opponent starts going loopy, letting him or herself get distracted by toppling candles and getting more frightened than appropriate. Suffice it to say, you should more highly value getting cards into your graveyard... and be wary that you may be helping your opponent when you make him or her discard or kill a creature.
RESOURCES
Official articles - Nicknamed the Mothership, these articles are the primary source of news. Recommended columns are Making Magic, written by the head designer, Mark Rosewater (aka MaRo);Uncharted Realms Magic Story, which tells the story, written by various authors; and Latest Developments, written by various Magic developers. The other articles generally discuss deck building. For older articles before the site changed, go here.
SOI official card list - Best way to see all of the spoiled cards together, but only updates once a day.
Blogatog - Tumblr ran by Mark Rosewater where he answers questions, updates very frequently.
Drive to Work - Mark Rosewater's weekly podcast about Magic that he literally records as he drives to work. Two episodes are released every Friday.
MTG Salvation's Rumor Mill - The best place to get new card information. The community sucks, though.
Mythic Spoiler - A good way to see what cards have been spoiled, updates throughout the day.
Gatherer - The official method of searching through released cards. Has an autocomplete.
magiccards.info - The better search engine for cards, with bigger pictures and more details. But it doesn't have an autocomplete.
Game store locator
PREVIOUS THREADS
Oath of the Gatewatch OT
Battle for Zendikar OT
OT4
OT3
OT2
OT1
Magic: the Gathering - Shadows over Innistrad |OT| Blue's Clues
Trailer
Official page
Shadows over Innistrad information
Previous topic: Oath of the Gatewatch OT
Next set: Eldritch Moon
Welcome to the Multiverse! Multiple worlds exist side by side in different dimensions, known as planes, and each plane is as different as night is from the day. All of them, however, have a form of magical energy known as mana, generated from bonds to the land, that can be channeled into powerful spells. Residents of these planes are usually unaware of other worlds, but there are some special beings with the ability to safely travel between them, known as Planeswalkers.
Magic: the Gathering is a Trading Card Game, the first of its kind, developed by Richard Garfield and his playtesters for the gaming company Wizards of the Coast in 1993. The game quickly became a hit, and it is currently bigger than it has ever been. In the standard game, you and your opponent play the role of dueling Planeswalkers, using customized 60-card decks made up of your spells, the creatures you can summon, your mana bonds with lands, and even other Planeswalkers you can call in to help out. Whoever can get his or her opponent down to 0 life, from a start of 20, wins.
Shadows over Innistrad returns to the world of Innistrad, where the graveyard reigns and gothic horror is the name of the game. This set is also a milestone in Magic as a whole: the first block to start in spring as part of the two-block paradigm, where two different worlds are visited each year. The block's story, themes, and mechanics will be continued by Eldritch Moon in the summer.
This topic will cover the two weeks before all cards in the Shadows over Innistrad set are fully revealed, known as the spoiler weeks, where cards are slowly unveiled every weekday, up through the set release itself. Some cards have already been revealed during events like Pro Tours (or leaks), but this is when they are rolled out at a consistent pace. The main website updates at 8 AM PST / 11 AM EST, but Wizards also provides card previews to other sites that will unveil them throughout the day, including non-English sites.
GETTING STARTED
If you're a beginner, feel free to come in--that's why this is in OT, after all. Spoiler season is one of the most exciting times for a Magic player, and it would be great for more to join in. Us regulars can get a bit technical with card evaluations and use a lot of jargon, and many of us will loudly proclaim that a cool-looking card is junk, or say that a lame-looking card is really powerful, but feel free to ask us if you want an explanation.
To see what a game is like, check out Geek and Sundry's Spellslinger series, where Day[9] battles various geek celebrities, often losing, using simple and easy to follow decks.
To get started, check out the official page. Basically:
* It's recommended that new players play Magic Duels (thread). It's a great way to learn the game on your own, and it's free!
* For your first deck, you can buy an Intro Pack, a simple prebuilt deck that comes with a few booster packs. For each new set, five Intro Packs are released. There are also Duel Decks that provide two decks for a game right out of the box, but are a bit more complicated.
* To get your physical collection started, buy a Deck Builder's Toolkit, which includes not just a starting collection of cards (including a lot of lands), but also has some booster packs and is a good place to store cards. You could also buy a Holiday Gift Box to get an even larger starting collection and better storage.
* To learn about the theories behind deckbuilding and gameplay, check out Level One.
* Once your skill advances, another popular way to play Magic casually is Commander. Each player chooses a legendary creature to act as commander and then chooses 99 additional cards, one of each card that isn't a basic land (of which you can have any number) and only of the colors of the commander, to make up the deck. In games, each player starts at 40 life and there are typically four or more players. Wizards provides prebuilt decks for this format too.
* While game stores will often hold Magic events at other times, every store that has Magic events will have Friday Night Magic. There, you will be able to find other players in your area to both have matches with and trade with. Find game stores here. And to get started participating in your local game store (LGS) scene, attend a prerelease!
PRERELEASE
While the set won't officially be sold until the release date, that isn't the first time you can get your hands on the new cards. Game stores hold prerelease events for every set, and in this set's event, every player is given a box with six booster packs and a random additional rare card. From this pool of cards, all of which you keep, each player builds a deck of 40 cards and participates in a Swiss-system tournament. This is a fun and casual event, where everyone is still trying to figure out the set, so don't worry about messing up. In addition to normal duels, there are also Two-Headed Giant events, where you pair up with another player and face off against another team.
Prerelease events will be held on April 2-3, 2016. Call your local game store a few days ahead of time to register, or they might just run out of room. Find local game stores here.
CHANGES
Shadows over Innistrad starting in spring demonstrates a major change to how Magic sets are handled, with an in-depth explanation for why here. In short, the two-set block model means:
* No more core sets.
* Blocks will have two sets instead of three. Yes, that means Shadows over Innistrad block will only have two sets.
* Without any core sets, there will now be two blocks a year. The next set of SOI block, Eldritch Moon, releases in the previous core set slot.
* Standard (a rotating format that only includes the latest sets) rotates with each block, so it will now rotate twice a year. Three blocks will be in Standard at a time. Sets will be in Standard for a max of 18 months. Note that Standard rotation is kind of odd this time. For the final three-set block, Khans of Tarkir, only the first two sets are rotating out. Dragons of Tarkir and the final core set, Magic Origins, will remain in Standard until fall.
STORY
Trailer
Lore introduction
Guide to Innistrad
Innistrad is a world where humanity beset on all sides by monsters: restless spirits, necromancers and skaab stitchers raising the dead, demons and their worshipers, aristocratic vampire families, and ferocious werewolves, among many more. Long ago, the vampire Planeswalker Sorin Markov realized that if things stayed the course, the humans would go extinct and the vampires would be left without food. Playing the long game, he created the archangel Avacyn to protect the humans, and thus ensure the survival of the vampires into the distant future, even if it meant many of his own would die in the process. Avacyn became the most holy figure on Innistrad, leading the angels in support of humanity, while the rest of the world remained ignorant of her true purpose.
In the present, the heroes of the Gatewatch faced ancient horrors known as the Eldrazi, and have defeated two of the three Eldrazi Titans on the plane of Zendikar. The last and most powerful, Emrakul, is unaccounted for. The telepathic Planeswalker Jace Beleran has come to Innistrad to track down Sorin, since he helped seal away the Eldrazi in the first place, but when he arrives, he discovers that things have gotten weird. Some sort of madness is spreading through the land, and not even the angels are spared. Their wings have become soaked in blood and they are slaughtering humans, forcing the humans to fight both monsters and their former protectors. Meanwhile, the stone-shaping lithomancer Planeswalker who also helped seal away the Eldrazi, Nahiri, has resurfaced with a mysterious vendetta against the Markov family of vampires. Jace must turn detective to understand just what happened, and what this could be a portent of.
Shadows over Innistrad story
Story archive - Scroll to the bottom for chronological order; the layout of this archive is trash.
SET THEMES
Cards (alternate, includes leaks)
Mechanics
Double-faced cards
Double-faced cards
The most popular mechanic of the original Innistrad is back! These cards don't have the usual card backs, and instead have a face on both sides. You can switch between sides using the transform mechanic. To put these cards in your deck, most players use opaque card sleeves to hide the back, but you can also use checklist cards that have the normal Magic card back and are included in some booster packs. You check off which double-faced card it represents and put the checklist card in your deck, leaving the actual double-faced card hidden somewhere until you cast that spell. A special subset of double-faced cards are the werewolves, which all transform in the same way, keeping track of how many spells were cast to reflect the activity of the day and inactivity of the night. On Innistrad, double-faced cards represent a dark transformation, and this time, not even the greatest of angels are immune.
The game is afoot
Investigate
Skulk
Players join in on figuring out what's happening to Innistrad with the investigate mechanic. Whenever you investigate, you get a Clue artifact, which you can pay (2) and sacrifice to draw a card, or keep around for cards that care about having Clues or artifacts in general. And who else to investigate but those sneaky creatures with the skulk mechanic, who can handily slip past creatures larger than them. Though it is unconfirmed, skulk is expected to become an evergreen mechanic for blue and black, meaning you'll potentially see it in every set from now on.
You know, Jace, we really are Odyssey Block 2: Jace in the Hood
Madness
Delirium
The world is going crazy, and so are the mechanics. Madness returns to make discarding a card not such a bad idea. Instead of going directly to the graveyard, you discard the card to exile, where you have the opportunity to cast it for its madness card or just send it to the graveyard. Delirium cares about having a lot of cards in your graveyard, similar to the threshold mechanic of yesteryear, but this mechanic only cares about having at least four card types. Once you reach that point, your opponent starts going loopy, letting him or herself get distracted by toppling candles and getting more frightened than appropriate. Suffice it to say, you should more highly value getting cards into your graveyard... and be wary that you may be helping your opponent when you make him or her discard or kill a creature.
RESOURCES
Official articles - Nicknamed the Mothership, these articles are the primary source of news. Recommended columns are Making Magic, written by the head designer, Mark Rosewater (aka MaRo);
SOI official card list - Best way to see all of the spoiled cards together, but only updates once a day.
Blogatog - Tumblr ran by Mark Rosewater where he answers questions, updates very frequently.
Drive to Work - Mark Rosewater's weekly podcast about Magic that he literally records as he drives to work. Two episodes are released every Friday.
MTG Salvation's Rumor Mill - The best place to get new card information. The community sucks, though.
Mythic Spoiler - A good way to see what cards have been spoiled, updates throughout the day.
Gatherer - The official method of searching through released cards. Has an autocomplete.
magiccards.info - The better search engine for cards, with bigger pictures and more details. But it doesn't have an autocomplete.
Game store locator
PREVIOUS THREADS
Oath of the Gatewatch OT
Battle for Zendikar OT
OT4
OT3
OT2
OT1
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Played GU in OOB draft and had the grindiest deck in the universe. I had Zendikar Resurgent and like 20 creatures, 4 of which were ramp. I had a board stall with 12 guys out until I finally hit a second Wave Wing to swing through his Cyclone Sire and clear the way for all my fliers.
Also got another Tectonic Edge muahaha. Pulled 5 Expeditions so far. I should stop opening product.
Also got another Tectonic Edge muahaha. Pulled 5 Expeditions so far. I should stop opening product.
divisionbyzorro
Member
I'm legit disappointed that there's no coverage for GPDC. I love, love watching Team Sealed.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
I drafted twice a week for more than a month and only ever opened the least valuable expedition in OGW, at prerelease though.
Dang I'm up to 3 expeditions myself. I'm satisfied with that tho lol.
The other day, I had a funny mini combo going with Essences Depleter and Kozilek's Translator. Game got hella grindy, and I was able to pay 11 life and tap 11 lands to drain at the end of turn, and then did it again to close the match. Was so unfair lol.
I wonder how bad self mill will be in SOI. Or how good Delirium will be. Could be right to go pass 40 cards deck!
The other day, I had a funny mini combo going with Essences Depleter and Kozilek's Translator. Game got hella grindy, and I was able to pay 11 life and tap 11 lands to drain at the end of turn, and then did it again to close the match. Was so unfair lol.
I wonder how bad self mill will be in SOI. Or how good Delirium will be. Could be right to go pass 40 cards deck!
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
You can only use Kozilek's translator's ability once per turn.
I like that combo myself but it just makes Essence depleter into a pinger.
I like that combo myself but it just makes Essence depleter into a pinger.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
Avacyn 2.0 is
The funny thing is the Team Sealed GP isn't getting streamed but also killed all popular MTG streams over the weekend by getting the streamers to go there...
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
They didn't want to cover a limited event at the end of the set's lifespan and they didn't want to contract it to SCGLive. That's all they've said.
If the whole point of organized play is marketing (which is something they have said), why even run the tournament if you aren't going to actually show it to people?
This isn't 1999 where you have Dullest magazine, this isn't 2002 where you have Sideboard.com, and this isn't 2004 where you are trying to build Magicthegathering.com. It's 2016.
Nobody wants to remember.
I legit didn't know this was a card.
charlequin
Banned
Because Team Sealed events attract extremely low viewership but are a very big draw for reasonably invested players to actually play in. It's kind of like the whole question of why even support formats like Modern: it's not to directly make money off of, it's to keep the long-term playerbase happy.
I agree that it's bad to not cover an event like this given the star power and the enthusiasm of the people playing in it, but it makes sense with their current setup. If we assume that the budget cuts from skipping events like this are funding stuff like the SOI reveal at last week's GPs then it's almost certainly a much better ROI for them.
There's also been a long discussion amongst a lot of the pros on Twitter about how to actually make Limited enjoyable to watch. (I know I always tune out during the Draft portion of the PT and come back for the constructed portions.) When people watch Magic events, typically the biggest items of interest are the gameplay storylines -- what decks are new, what cards are breaking out, what crazy plays happened, what metagame shifts are going to happen after the event. Limited by default doesn't provide any of that and human storylines about individual pros aren't enough to keep people's interest on top of that.
The top suggestion people have offered is to get people invested by showing one player's/team's draft/sealed build and then follow them through the entire pod, but the downside of getting scouted out makes that super undesirable. So now you've got people talking about things like deck swaps (players on a team getting covered automatically getting to see decklists for every opponent) and appearance fees, or pre-scheduling coverage players/teams so people can get sponsorship in advance.
divisionbyzorro
Member
She was a great Limited card...
Oh shit you're right. I unintentionally chested. D:
SigmasonicX
Member
If this weekend's tournaments aren't being streamed, that probably means no preview cards, right? In that case, I'll wait until tomorrow before making the new OT.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Yeah, I think part of the problem is that draft and sealed deck construction are just things that the average player doesn't understand very well (because they're actually pretty hard) and the interesting part is watching the draft and how their decks develop, but that takes 10 minutes and the rest of it is players hitting each other with commons.
Draft is a lot of fun, but I would say that MOST of the people at my store are limited OR constructed players. I lose a LOT on MTGO at draft, but I go 2-1, 3-0 all the time in the store because the skill level is just way lower.
A Serious Man
Member
I enjoy watching limited but then again, I draft a ton on MTGO whenever a new set is released and use PT/GP coverage to get a read on the format.
Previews start on Monday so yeah, I doubt we're getting anything new this weekend.
Previews start on Monday so yeah, I doubt we're getting anything new this weekend.
SigmasonicX
Member
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I mean, there's a lot of completely legit reasons why this was probably the first thing they cut when it came to GP coverage. And yes, some people asked "well why can't SCG do it?" and then answer is obvious: because SCG doesn't do things for free. I tend to doubt its actually cheaper to contract out streaming services than it is to do it yourself when you're already set up to do it yourself.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
I'm gonna wait for page 2 to post again.
charlequin
Banned
Yeah. I don't have any doubts that limited will stay extremely popular to play, but there's a skill shelf that most people can't get over. Unfortunately if there was anything that was gonna change it, it would be that hypothetical all-the-way-through coverage of specific players/teams that we're not gonna see happen.
Yeah, I feel very confident that the overall Magic budget went up significantly with the launch of MTGO Next development and the two-block model, but they probably did a "well do we really NEED this" review of everything and coverage of random GPs was definitely a place they could cut.
Keep it out of the OP proper please.
- Status