Obzedat Repost Council

MTG dedicated blog-- main blog is @morbidlyqueerious

[jacebeleren]

captain

[inventors-fair]

“Two Mechanics” Commentary: It All Comes Together

Well, this was a surprisingly popular contest. I know there was a fair bit of hype for it, but we got enough entries that I had to worry about shutting people out. That’s unusual to say the least, but quite pleasing to know that so many people are engaging.

I’m going to take a lesson and look at these from the lens of intention rather than explicit nit-pickiness. There will be a “nitpicks” part at the end, but that’s just for minor improvements if need be. I make small mistakes like that all the time, and if you wanna ignore that and focus on the commentary, feel free to do so. However, the nitpicks are reflections of polish. The extent to which something has nitpicks does affect judgement. 

Additionally! If you’re reading this, we’d like to know: do you read your own commentary, all the commentary, or do you skip it entirely? And if you’re skipping some or all of the commentary, what would help you engage with it? I would like to point out that reading the comments on everyone’s cards can potentially help with your own experimentation in the future and help with design choices. However, if that’s not what you’re after, we would like to know how to improve that experience.

Some cards are marked as “JUDGE PICKS,” which are cards that were close to being runners-up or winners but, for lack of space, are presented here as examples instead.

Let’s get to your wonderful blends.

Keep reading

[obzedat-repost-council]

(I submitted as MorbidlyQueerious since that’s my main)

I read primarily my own commentary, but I do try to look at everybody’s.  I don’t think there’s really something that could be changed to make me look at the other commentary more, so much as that sometimes I don’t bother.

Regarding the problems: When making my card, I legitimately thought “platoon” was the term for a group of army ants (it isn’t).  Also, I significantly hampered the flavor by trying to make everything 2 or a power of 2 (all of the words I used except “artifact”, “graft”, and “fabricate” are two syllables and most have an even number of letters, the flavor text is two pairs of four words with the second broken into two groups of two words by a comma, there’s 2 mechanics with the number 2 on them...) and I definitely could have made flavor that made much more sense rather than playing into that dumb, dumb gimmick.

[markrosewater]

What factors decide what order Keywords go on cards? Take Zepalta for instance; it's obviously not alphabetical, but what says Flying goes ahead of Double Strike and everything else. Doesn't matter any where they fall, just curious.

Editing has a order criteria, but I don’t know the reasoning behind all of it. I do know the things you need to know earlier, like flash, come first.

[obzedat-repost-council]

My best guess would be that flying goes before double strike because flying matters sooner (declaring attackers and blockers rather than calculating damage)... this doesn’t explain why defender goes after both, though.

[lizzy-frizzle]

Todays magic matches were my gwafa hazid deck vs rats. I bribed so many rats today...

[breya-etherium-shaper]

Government.

[pearly-plays-mtg]

*slips you a small tiny rat-sized hat*

How about you don’t attack this turn

[just-mtg-imagines]

[magicjudge]

Combo Time: Them Good Seas

[bace-jeleren]

A brief reminder that I cannot be stopped

[bace-jeleren]

Love the post format on Tumblr, but I will be honest that a lot of comedic value is lost because images aren't cropped

[prokopetz]

Some people look at my posts about the theory of game design and assume I must optimise the hell out of stuff when I actually play, but in reality, it just means I’ll try to construct a competitive Magic: The Gathering deck exclusively from cards that have a cat in the illustration with a full and nuanced understanding of why that’s a terrible idea.

[magicjudge]

Heya! I had a question regarding hexproof variants and Kathril, Aspect Warper. I know from the rules that Hexproof from Black can be found by effects that search for Hexproof, and that Odric, Lunarch Marshal finds Hexproof from Black, and grants it to your creatures. However with Kathril, is there such thing as a Hexproof from Black counter? Or would it just distribute a regular Hexproof counter? Thank you :D

You’ll put a “hexproof from ___” counter on a creature. The rules for keyword counters allow them to have variants of their keywords. However, if multiple creature cards in your graveyard have different hexproof abilities when Kathril’s trigger resolves, you’ll choose only one of them and put a counter of that kind on a creature you control.

[magicjudge]

If my Commander is part of a mutate stack, and an opponent casts Leadership Vacuum, where do the non-Commander cards go? And if the other cards do go to the command zone, can I cast them?

They’ll wind up in the command zone and you won’t be able to do anything with them from there. This is unfortunate, but the command zone is a zone like any other and sometimes cards go there that aren’t supposed to be there.

Look on the bright side, though: If any of those creatures have abilities that work from the command zone, such as Yuriko or Derevi or Edgar Markov, those abilities will still work and be usable there even though the cards aren’t your commander.

[breya-etherium-shaper]

It’s times like these, I think we all need to remember Liliana Vess doesn’t know what a mango is.

[jacebeleren]

iconic

[roboco-san]

going to make a typeless permanent on arena later lmao

[roboco-san]

for the curious, in order to do this you just need to mutate on top of a theros god and then drop your devotion below the threshold

[roboco-san]

I think this is the simplest method for this we've ever had

[roboco-san]

@translesbianorchestra if you put the mutate creature on top, it overwrites the legendary enchantment part of the type line. the gods are all worded as "as long as your devotion is less than X, this card isn't a creature". so you have a creature that stops being a creature if your devotion is too low, and doesn't have anything else to be. so it's a typeless permanent

[roboco-san]

worth noting you can do this with a legendary mutate creature and get a legendary typeless permanent which is also sort of interesting

[goth-princess-gwennie]

What is the benefit of this?

[roboco-san]

must there be a benefit? is it not enough to twist the rules of the game beyond their intended limits and hear them groan under the weight of your hubris?

[roboco-san]

c:

[roboco-san]

legendary version c:

[roboco-san]

going to make a typeless permanent on arena later lmao

[roboco-san]

for the curious, in order to do this you just need to mutate on top of a theros god and then drop your devotion below the threshold

[roboco-san]

I think this is the simplest method for this we've ever had

[roboco-san]

@translesbianorchestra if you put the mutate creature on top, it overwrites the legendary enchantment part of the type line. the gods are all worded as "as long as your devotion is less than X, this card isn't a creature". so you have a creature that stops being a creature if your devotion is too low, and doesn't have anything else to be. so it's a typeless permanent

[gitblog-monster]

Somebody find the "It is. And it is blue" post for me

[breya-etherium-shaper]

[roboco-san]

[breya-etherium-shaper]

Stolen from the legacy discord

[pearly-plays-mtg]

so uh, confession time

I don’t get this meme nor the big ruckus around the other card

[breya-etherium-shaper]

Lurrus, Yorion, Zirda and Gyruda are breaking legacy atm.

Lurrus gets played in most delver variants with a simple trim of True Name Nemesis or Brazen Borrower. It’s always in your starting hand and cantrips on etb.

[foxgirlintestines]

In a format so tight where a single extra card can sometimes decide a game, players have decided to draw 8 card hands at the begining of every game. (Or in Gyruda’s case mulligan to a fast 6 mana no matter how low it takes them because they draw a guaranteed 6 drop that wins at the begining of each game and is not the easiest to interact with) This is also happeneing in every other format to lesser extents, but Legacy and Vintage are the ones who really can abuse them the most, and noone cares what happens in Vintage.

[breya-etherium-shaper]

Vintage has become Elder Otter Highlander

[breya-etherium-shaper]

“What’s that? Your best spells are restricted in the blue deck so you’re basically a singleton deck? I know what would really make you all happy”

[pearly-plays-mtg]

huh. I guess that’s just a strong effect? I still don’t really get what combines with these, is it just Fast Mana?

[breya-etherium-shaper]

Gyruda is a turn 1 mill deck, zirda turns grim monolith and basalt monolith into literal infinite mana to combine with walking ballista, lurrus grinds and recurs, and yorion gives you a wincon in a deck that now has enough room to run 4 of everything it wants to.

Ex yugioh players have described these play styles as why they left yugioh

[foxgirlintestines]

Well, it is not only that, these cards would be unplayable without Companion. The problem is that in addition to havign a relevand effect there is no opportunity cost to these cards. If you drew one of these, then there is a card in your deck that you didn’t draw, and in most cases these cards actively make your deck worse and are part of dime a dozen janky combos or costly value cards that belong in Commander not a format like Legacy or Modern. But here is the thing, they do not cost you a card in your hand, you get these cards and have a full grip of less situational cards. It gets even worse with the fact that they start in the sideboard and you have access to them from turn 1. Since you are guaranteed to have these cards, your deck can be entirely built around them. Gigan/Gyruda for example is a clunky 6 cost, there are a ton of clunky 6 costs that could win you the game but it would be magical Christmas land to try and do so with them, but Gyruda being guaranteed means that your deck doesn’t have to just randomly fall into place to win against the odds, the randomness of the game is completely gone because of the fact that this card is right there and can’t even be taken away by discard. Any time you generate enough mana to cast it you win with it win with it, which means your deck can be completely all in on that card. It is the thing that held back decks like Goblin Charbelcher, Oops All Spells and other turn 1 win decks in Legacy, you need mana and the actual kill, now you only need mana which can coem from redundant cards. It is so rediculously consistent that it regularly goes of turn 1 or 2 with 0 cantrips in the deck, this is a deck in legacy running a pile of 4-6 cost clone/flicker cards that is can not reasonably cast and no Brainstorms and is more consistent than other decks could ever try to be with all of the blue 1 cost spells in the format. That is a new deck, but these cards actually slot into old decks as well. As mentioned, Zirda when slotted into a MUD deck changes the function of the deck from just big ramp to havign a strong combo outlet that it can easily pull together taking a lot of the best parts of MUD and Painter’s Servant together. Lurrus Is an option to grind out games after wearing away opponent’s resources. any deck like Delver of a variation of The Rock can 1 for 1 opponents or tempo them down and then have a guaranteed way to seal the game or to recover if the trades left you at a worse position. In other words you as a fair deck cannot reasonably compete with another fair deck that has Lurrus as they have a whole different line of play they can utilize than you can. Lurrus can evel slot into decks like Lands if it doesn;t run Oko or a Crucible/Ramunap Excavator in order to mill silver bullet cards like Magmatic Vortex or Grafdiggers Cage or just have a line to replay an Exploration or Mox Diamond so they are always ahead on resources.

So yeah, they are busted because of that line of text that says Companion. The effects on them are situational and clunky, but when you make them a 8th card in your opening hand and a guaranteed card to build around they absolutely break the game. By the way, I was not just a player, I was a  judge for Yugioh, I left that game because it was turning into insanity like this. The game was heavily pushed and it felt like the game was just trying to sell hype instead of actually care about the health of the game. Each new pack made something break and resulted in immediate bans. Things are not as bad, but we have seem heavy problems in every set since Modern Horizons which have caused multiple formats to see heavy changes which inclluded very liberal bannings. We got to the point a while back that noone wanted to play Standard becaue you had to play Oko or lose and we new mhe was going to be banned. That is what happened in Yugioh, a deck (or some times a few but usually one big boogeyman) was so opressive that you had to play it or lose and you had to grab those secret rares and spend a lot of money even though the next ban list would gut your deck. That is not fun. We are not at that point yet, but hell, Companion is the exact kind of thing that could lead to it. The game needs to progress, power creep is inevitable, but that doesn’t mean that you put out a chainsaw in a game of tag because it is an innovative way of catching people if they don’t have legs.

Ok, ok, I wrote too much and rambled on. I’m blaming the vodka on this outburst (I think I am developing a drinking problem again). I’ll try to not do this again for a while but fuck man, it is so hard to have fun when it just seems like WotC is trying to milk out every last drop it can get because it knows people will stay no matter what they do. Yugioh became a shitshow and it is still the most popular card game in Aisian countries and the 2nd most popular in the world... I think, that might have changed but that is how it was a while ago and the stuff that made me leave was well before that. I’m still rambling, sorry again!

[magicjudge]

And here it is! My brand new hot and fresh free preview from Commander 2020! This is a spicy one for sure. Thanks to @wizardsmagic for the ability to bring this card to you. You can see me discuss the card at the start of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeiOCXMB-kk