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Magic: The Gathering |OT| Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths - Teenage Mutant Dinosaur Turtles (w/ special guest Godzilla!)

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divisionbyzorro

divisionbyzorro

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Oct 25, 2017
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SmokeMaxX said:
Yeah, I mean that's fair that you are basing your opinion on your experiences. That's all we can really do. I've just basically won every time I've been able to pick up Obosh, even if I picked him up Pack 2 Pick 1 and had to scramble for playables. Someone did an analysis on winrates in limited with the companions (I know I saw it on Reddit, but not sure if it was posted in here) and Obosh was, I think, second highest as a companion at about 70% IIRC.

EDIT: Sorry, I was wrong. Obosh has a 75% winrate as a companion lol:
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Oh I love this chart! I had originally pegged Lutri as the best, with Jegantha behind, but I definitely had that backwards. Jegantha is so much lighter of a restriction and having a guaranteed 5-drop fatty (and thus getting to skimp on the dorky middle bit of your curve when drafting) really is better than just guaranteeing a curveout. I had originally unerestimated Lutri's restriction and overvalued the guaranteed curve out in a format where big plays are the norm.

The data I really want to see is the "first-pick-adjusted" rares. When you first pick a companion, how likely are you to meet it's restriction, how likely to play it at all, and what are the win rates for each.

Also I love that the numbers for Zirda basically just say "if you got the nuts cycling deck you're basically guaranteed to win."
 
Buttzerker

Buttzerker

Powerhouse Protector / Self-requested ban
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Oct 25, 2017
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My Simic deck is really tearing up platinum so far! Rather pleased how well it is standing up to all the companions and cycling.
 
Clay

Clay

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Oct 29, 2017
8,291
divisionbyzorro said:
Also I love that the numbers for Zirda basically just say "if you got the nuts cycling deck you're basically guaranteed to win."
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The cycling deck is something else. Not sure what they were thinking with that one. I haven't been playing limited for long, M19 was the first set I drafted, but I've never encountered a deck that feels this much like a constructed deck. The combination of multiple amazing payoffs and a ton of cards with colorless cycling costs (and a lot of cycling 1 cards at that!) is just ridiculous. I've cast Zenth Flare for double digits every time I've drafted it. Similar to companion, it's a little crazy it made it out the door.
 
GoutPatrol

GoutPatrol

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Oct 30, 2017
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Cycling 1 was really such a strange decision that I don't know if any pro commented on when they first announced the set. It may have just been quietly introduced because most of the cycling deck was just draft commons. I do love playing the cycling deck, but they've been doing cycling for 25 years, and they knew all the way back then that cycling for 2 generic mana was the right choice. And even then, the one "constructed" cycling card, the counterspell, was made 2 as well because they realized having that be 1 would be way too powerful.

The only time before Ikoria where you had 1 generic mana cycling cost was Ash Barrens, which only got you a basic. They made the choice in Amonkhet to have 2/3 generic or 1 colored mana, and you still had a pretty good constructed cycling deck then.
 
SmokeMaxX

SmokeMaxX

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Oct 25, 2017
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I recently drafted a deck with 4 Zenith Flares.
... I'm sure I pissed off a lot of opponents. I had one guy with a huge board vs me with maybe one creature. I was able to survive long enough from the life gain of Zenith Flare x3 to the face.
 
Claris

Claris

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Oct 29, 2017
146
There's nothing quite like playing Hunted Nightmare when your opponent's playing an Umori deck and their only creature is a Marauding Raptor.
 
Nacho

Nacho

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Oct 25, 2017
8,158
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Claris said:
There's nothing quite like playing Hunted Nightmare when your opponent's playing an Umori deck and their only creature is a Marauding Raptor.
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lmfao. I love marauding raptor starting to come back into a few standard decks. so many people have no idea how to play with it. I've had two people shame concede after having 2 raptors out and killing their questing beasts.
 
Uncivilized Elk

Uncivilized Elk

Banned
Jun 22, 2019
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Mono-black Umori deck with the 4/4 Nightmares that create tokens seems fairly friggin' good. Been having a lot of fun with it.
 
divisionbyzorro

divisionbyzorro

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Oct 25, 2017
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GoutPatrol said:
Cycling 1 was really such a strange decision that I don't know if any pro commented on when they first announced the set. It may have just been quietly introduced because most of the cycling deck was just draft commons. I do love playing the cycling deck, but they've been doing cycling for 25 years, and they knew all the way back then that cycling for 2 generic mana was the right choice. And even then, the one "constructed" cycling card, the counterspell, was made 2 as well because they realized having that be 1 would be way too powerful.

The only time before Ikoria where you had 1 generic mana cycling cost was Ash Barrens, which only got you a basic. They made the choice in Amonkhet to have 2/3 generic or 1 colored mana, and you still had a pretty good constructed cycling deck then.
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I mean, freakin Censor was a commonly played Standard card. Cycling C is already sooooo good; we did not need Cycling 1.
 
i hate cheaters

i hate cheaters

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Feb 16, 2018
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the cycling 1 is not that egregious

the problem is they try to force everything to be some exciting buildaround, when cycling is not supposed to be exciting. it's just supposed to fix the shitty land system.

the colorless cycling makes it easier to dig for lands when you're missing colors. it's not a big problem, but someone thought we needed crap like fox and zenith flare when we just wanted to play the game and not die from screw and mulliganing to death

they also forgot to put cycling on lands because they were too busy making shitty buildaround decks instead of just repeating good designs
 
Clay

Clay

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Oct 29, 2017
8,291
i hate cheaters said:
actually they should have done hybrid cycling instead of cycling 1
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I still think it would have been better if every cycling cost were minimum two colorless or one color, but that's another cool workaround. Though if all the red/ white cycling cards just cost a Boros hybrid to cycle that deck would still be obnoxious.
 
Nacho

Nacho

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acheron_xl said:
Nothing is a clearer sign of power creep to me than a printing a bunch of cards with the minimum possible cycling cost.
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imo, cheap cycling is a healthy mechanic, printing cheap, or insane payoff cards that take advantage of the mechanic is some bullshit tho. like even cards that rely on basic mechanics like drawing are usually limited to just 'whenever you draw your second card a turn' or if it's for every draw it's usually a crazy cost like niv mizzet parun if it triggers for every draw. yet we have a bunch of 1-2 cmc cards that trigger for every 1 cmc cycle? it feels like a hugely inconsistent.
 
Carthago Delenda Est

Carthago Delenda Est

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Oct 28, 2017
6,119
Nacho said:
imo, cheap cycling is a healthy mechanic, printing cheap, or insane payoff cards that take advantage of the mechanic is some bullshit tho. like even cards that rely on basic mechanics like drawing are usually limited to just 'whenever you draw your second card a turn' or if it's for every draw it's usually a crazy cost like niv mizzet parun if it triggers for every draw. yet we have a bunch of 1-2 cmc cards that trigger for every 1 cmc cycle? it feels like a hugely inconsistent.
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It's strong in limited but it is not overall too strong. Card advantage doesn't win the game - it just gets you there. That's always been cycling's problem since the days of Odyssey/Onslaught Astral Slide.
 
Nacho

Nacho

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TheYanger said:
Yep, pay 1 mana to tap a dude, make. 1/1, do a damage, heal 1, all at no card loss. That's the issue
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yeah, even something super synergistic like a lifegain deck need to spend something to trigger everything. They need to play a card from their hand to trigger daxos, attack with something to lifegain, spend 2 mana for heliod's ability (and then a creature still needs to attack). Just feel like their idea of the power of cycling was way way way off. But that doesn't surprise me with the last few sets, that they're so off the mark with a bunch of stuff.
 
Firemind

Firemind

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Oct 25, 2017
15,626
This graveyard matters chaos draft format is surprisingly fun. Makes me want to build a similar cube myself.
 
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SigmasonicX

SigmasonicX

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Oct 25, 2017
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One week from today on 5/18 will be the next Banned & Restricted update, impacting the Vintage, Legacy, and Brawl formats. MTGO Leagues for those formats will end at that time and be restarted with the updates.

Sounds like companions (or at least Lurrus) getting the banhammer in eternal formats. Maybe giving Standard etc. more time to check the data, but if this is happening, I assume bans are happening there too.

Restricting companions doesn't really do anything, so this would be the first Vintage ban in ages.
 
Coyote Starrk

Coyote Starrk

The Fallen
Oct 30, 2017
53,894
SigmasonicX said:


One week from today on 5/18 will be the next Banned & Restricted update, impacting the Vintage, Legacy, and Brawl formats. MTGO Leagues for those formats will end at that time and be restarted with the updates.

Sounds like companions (or at least Lurrus) getting the banhammer in eternal formats. Maybe giving Standard etc. more time to check the data, but if this is happening, I assume bans are happening there too.

Restricting companions doesn't really do anything, so this would be the first Vintage ban in ages.
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This makes no sense to me. Some of the companion cards like Lurrus are obviously broken. There is no more data needed to prove that. By waiting to ban it they are purposely allowing Standard to continue to be horribly unbalanced.
 
Bigkrev

Bigkrev

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Oct 25, 2017
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Mezentine said:
Boy there's a lot of focus on "How have your play habits changed?" and "When will you feel safe going back into stores?" in there
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Im glad that when you say "I'm not buying any Ikoria", they actually had a good list of reasons why, such as "The Mechanics Seem Broken", "I Don't like the Godzilla Cards", etc.
 
Nacho

Nacho

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Oct 25, 2017
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It's truly fucking hilarious how broken UGx is when 80+ card decks still play out the same every game.
 
TheYanger

TheYanger

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Oct 25, 2017
10,188
Nacho said:
It's truly fucking hilarious how broken UGx is when 80+ card decks still play out the same every game.
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The good 80 card decks aren't even UG. It's not so much that 80 card decks are consistent - they're definitely less consistent, it's that there are enough good cards in the format that adding 20 more of them to your deck doesn't feel like bloat compared to the upside of a fucking 5 mana 4/5 flier with insane interactivity.
 
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SigmasonicX

SigmasonicX

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Oct 25, 2017
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magic.wizards.com

Secret Lair: Ultimate Edition Release Delayed until June 12

Because of a delay in manufacturing due to COVID-19, Secret Lair: Ultimate Edition's release date has shifted to June 12.
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This is the fetch land Secret Lair, which was meant to be sold through LGSs.

magic.wizards.com

Monsters of Ikoria Art Descriptions

Let's take a closer look at the monsters of Ikoria, a plane filled with creatures ranging from small, winged squirrels to giant dinosaur turtles.
magic.wizards.com magic.wizards.com

Art descriptions for creatures. Interestingly, it looks like the art description for Helica Glider didn't call for it to be a squirrel.
 
TheYanger

TheYanger

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
10,188
Ok picked up my Ikoria box from the LGS. not too shabby, my box topper was the green godzilla which is a dud, but got a foil alt Illuna and a foil obosh, can't be mad about it. No lurrus and no lukka sucks though.
 
Coyote Starrk

Coyote Starrk

The Fallen
Oct 30, 2017
53,894
TheYanger said:
I would bet money it is in the older formats, at least.
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The only bans I care about are in Standard. And the longer they let the game sit in it's current state the less interested I am in the game as a whole. My friends and I have been playing Arena together since Theros launched and we were having a blast until Ikoria came out and ruined the Meta with companions and cycling. One of those friends has pretty much set the game down entirely at this point after the deck he made kept getting destroyed in ranked and the other is sick of Lurrus.


And I don't wanna play the game by myself. I need WOTC to wake up and ban the worst offenders already. We have more than enough evidence that cards like Winota, Lurrus, and Yorion need to go. But it seems like they are too worried about selling packs instead of maintaining a proper balance and that is annoying.
 
GoutPatrol

GoutPatrol

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Oct 30, 2017
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I would expect by the time Zendikar comes out they're just gonna errata Companion rules to make you start with 1 less card.
 
TheYanger

TheYanger

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Oct 25, 2017
10,188
Coyote Starrk said:
The only bans I care about are in Standard. And the longer they let the game sit in it's current state the less interested I am in the game as a whole. My friends and I have been playing Arena together since Theros launched and we were having a blast until Ikoria came out and ruined the Meta with companions and cycling. One of those friends has pretty much set the game down entirely at this point after the deck he made kept getting destroyed in ranked and the other is sick of Lurrus.


And I don't wanna play the game by myself. I need WOTC to wake up and ban the worst offenders already. We have more than enough evidence that cards like Winota, Lurrus, and Yorion need to go. But it seems like they are too worried about selling packs instead of maintaining a proper balance and that is annoying.
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I mean, they're doing a banning next week, we'll see what happens.
 
SmokeMaxX

SmokeMaxX

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Oct 25, 2017
2,339
I always see everywhere about people getting reimbursed whenever they encounter a game-breaking bug, but everytime I've submitted bug reports to WotC, nothing ever happens.
 
Coyote Starrk

Coyote Starrk

The Fallen
Oct 30, 2017
53,894
Edit: Apologies for the late night rant. I'm just sick of being land flooded in ranked and it costing me games.
 
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