Cardgame Thread (guilds of ravnica mechanics spoiled!)

I dont mean pokemon cards, I mean we "draft" on pokemon showdown. the things we are drafting are premade mons like the ones in "random battle"
 

BP

Beers and Steers
is a Contributor to Smogon
I'm assuming this is a thread about different card games like Pokémon, Magic the gathering, etc. But up here in Wisconsin we play different kinds of card games. Ones that most often involve a deck of playing cards.

Personally one of my favorite card games is Euchre. I played Euchre so much over the summer on a mission trip I went to. I have so many memories of staying up way past "lights out" and playing with my friends. I remember me and 3 of my best friends were up until 5:00 AM playing in the sanctuary of the church when we had to be up at 6:00 AM the same day and go to church at 8:00 AM. Those were some super fun times.

Another one of my favorite card games is Hearts. When my friends and I play Hearts we usually bet money to make things more high stakes. Usually we have the Loser of every round gets a White poker chip and the White Poker chip means he/she owes everyone else at the table the set amount of money at the beginning of the game. With 6 or less people the White Chip usually means that you owe the other 5 people at the table a dollar. With 7 or more we make it 50 cents. If you "Shoot the Moon" you get a red chip and everyone owes you a dollar. This makes things really interesting when you get farther into the game. One night on a double or nothing round I successfully shot the moon and when the game ended I had won $14.00.
 

internet

no longer getting paid to moderate
is an Artist Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnus


this line-up is great because it mostly treads proven ground while still having space to give us fun new stuff. Excited for the limited format, as there's very few ways they can fuck this up.
 
Wait we're going back to Ravnica? Hopefully it isn't as boring as the last time we tried that. I'll have to try and bully my game store into drafting this so i can check it out.

I think i would have preferred a bit more innovation in the mechanics but that's been true of MTG for most of the past 6 years now and individual card design is key anyway.

In other words, Netrunner is dying but I'll be at the last World Championships next week. If anyone's going for an FFG event let me know and we can chill.
 
Wait we're going back to Ravnica? Hopefully it isn't as boring as the last time we tried that. I'll have to try and bully my game store into drafting this so i can check it out.
Return to Ravnica, boring? INN-RTR standard was a bit of a drag (though technically the Thragtusk menace was from a core set, not RTR) but I have very fond memories of Return to Ravnica, both as a draft format, and as part of RTR-THS standard. RTR-THS standard was when I really got into competitive Magic (in the sense of going to competitive REL events), I played RW Burn and although a lot of people at the time complained about decks like mono black devotion and UW control, I enjoyed playing against them since games were often interactive, and a lot of interaction happened on the stack (as opposed to the "which of my 4 creatures is going to block each of your 5 attackers" kind of interaction that marked standard formats in the years that followed). I also liked RTR as a draft format. Games usually felt interactive, apart from the fact that Pack Rat led to some busted drafts (I was lucky enough to draft it once, and I did 3-0 that event). A format with lots of powerful gold cards and mana fixing at common led to a lot of powerful 3-color decks, which I enjoyed a lot.

That being said, I am nervously hopeful when it comes to Return to Return to Ravnica. If it's anything like RTR, I think I'll be really happy, but I just keeping about BFZ and how they took an idea that should have been a slam dunk (everyone was positively elated when they announced a return to Zendikar) and turned it into arguably the worst block in modern Magic history. Part of me wants to think, "Come on, there's no way that they could screw up Ravnica," but then I remember Dragon's Maze and shudder.

At a minimum, I hope they learned one lesson from BFZ and will be printing Shocklands in Return to Return to Ravnica, and I say this as someone who is holding a lot of shocklands (and thus stands to lose some collection equity if they're reprinted). It would be kind of ironic if all three printings of shock lands were in Ravnica blocks, since they intentionally gave the shocklands names such that they could be printed in any block (as opposed to cycles of dual lands that have names like "Yavimaya Coast" and "Caves of Koilos" that limit them from being printed in certain sets); they even managed to give the cards names that don't necessarily imply an urban location (with Steam Vents being a really clever version of this).

Honestly if new Ravnica just has dual lands at common and is reasonably balanced I will probably draft it at least a hundred times (not hyperbole) and be pretty happy about it.
 
Return to Ravnica, boring? INN-RTR standard was a bit of a drag (though technically the Thragtusk menace was from a core set, not RTR) but I have very fond memories of Return to Ravnica, both as a draft format, and as part of RTR-THS standard. RTR-THS standard was when I really got into competitive Magic (in the sense of going to competitive REL events), I played RW Burn and although a lot of people at the time complained about decks like mono black devotion and UW control, I enjoyed playing against them since games were often interactive, and a lot of interaction happened on the stack (as opposed to the "which of my 4 creatures is going to block each of your 5 attackers" kind of interaction that marked standard formats in the years that followed). I also liked RTR as a draft format. Games usually felt interactive, apart from the fact that Pack Rat led to some busted drafts (I was lucky enough to draft it once, and I did 3-0 that event). A format with lots of powerful gold cards and mana fixing at common led to a lot of powerful 3-color decks, which I enjoyed a lot.

That being said, I am nervously hopeful when it comes to Return to Return to Ravnica. If it's anything like RTR, I think I'll be really happy, but I just keeping about BFZ and how they took an idea that should have been a slam dunk (everyone was positively elated when they announced a return to Zendikar) and turned it into arguably the worst block in modern Magic history. Part of me wants to think, "Come on, there's no way that they could screw up Ravnica," but then I remember Dragon's Maze and shudder.

At a minimum, I hope they learned one lesson from BFZ and will be printing Shocklands in Return to Return to Ravnica, and I say this as someone who is holding a lot of shocklands (and thus stands to lose some collection equity if they're reprinted). It would be kind of ironic if all three printings of shock lands were in Ravnica blocks, since they intentionally gave the shocklands names such that they could be printed in any block (as opposed to cycles of dual lands that have names like "Yavimaya Coast" and "Caves of Koilos" that limit them from being printed in certain sets); they even managed to give the cards names that don't necessarily imply an urban location (with Steam Vents being a really clever version of this).

Honestly if new Ravnica just has dual lands at common and is reasonably balanced I will probably draft it at least a hundred times (not hyperbole) and be pretty happy about it.
RTR-Theros was a better standard format than the one with Avacyn restored in it, and now that you mention it I rememebr being able to play a few events and enjoying it.

I'm mostly talking about how the design of the set itself felt like more safe than I would have liked. Where the original ravnica defined what these two color combinations are and gave them character the new set and mechanocs did almost nothing to expand on the definitions that were solidified over the last 5 years. Couple that with the stupid maze story trying everything together (as opposed to the intersting new conflict in Scars which drove new mechanics) and the less interesting 10-5-5 guild draft format and i wasn't all that impressed.

But i know I'm in the minority now. Magic staff basically go around saying Time Spiral was a mistake and that was my favorite block of all time, so I'm trying to find weirder games to scratch my itch before that get killed lol.
 

theangryscientist

angry, not mad
is a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnus
Well, returning to Ravnica again after not-very-long is kinda boring.
Blocks between og ravnica and rtr: time spiral, lorwyn/shadowmoor, alara, og zendikar, scars of mirrodin, og innistrad (6 blocks, or 19 sets)
Blocks between rtr and rtrtr: theros, khans, bfz, shadows over innistrad, kaladesh, amonkhet, ixalan, dominaria (17 sets)

while it's not been as many sets as the previous return, it's pretty close to the same amount of time, so this complaint seems to be more the way you perceive the time rather than an actually early return

edit: also i forgot to count core sets; that might up the discrepancy a bit
 

Mr.E

unban me from Discord
is a Two-Time Past SPL Champion
Dissension (end of OG Ravnica block) May 5, 2006.
Return to Ravnica (start of Ravnica 2: Electric Boogaloo) October 5, 2012.

Dragon's Maze (end of Ravnica 2) May 3, 2013.
Guilds of Ravnica (start of Ravnica 3) set to be launched October 5, 2018.

It's a year earlier. I suppose that's not as large a difference as I thought before looking it up, but it is notable. Now where's my girl Teysa?

Couple that with the stupid maze story trying everything together (as opposed to the intersting new conflict in Scars which drove new mechanics) and the less interesting 10-5-5 guild draft format and i wasn't all that impressed.
Blegh, New Phyrexia ruined the SOM-SOM-SOM and MBS-SOM-SOM draft format.

Incidentally, the time between Fifth Dawn release and Scars of Mirrodin release was almost the same amount of time as Rav1-Rav2.
 
I'm not super excited myself because this is the third time we've done this dance. Shocklands are neat (again, its been done which takes some oomph out of it) and some cool cards have been spoiled. So on the fence for now, hopefully wizards can amp it up bit with a solid draft format.
 
I'm mostly talking about how the design of the set itself felt like more safe than I would have liked. Where the original ravnica defined what these two color combinations are and gave them character the new set and mechanocs did almost nothing to expand on the definitions that were solidified over the last 5 years.
Oh, I agree that RTR was the definition of "playing it safe" from a design standpoint, and GRN seems to be following the same pattern, but honestly I am totally okay with that, I feel like the time between RTR and GRN has been a series of "design experiments" that have all backfired drastically. BFZ was just garbage all around (a terrible set in a vacuum, and also the heralded in an era of 4-color manabases in standard as we had both fetchlands and fetchable duals in rotation at once, leading to every deck splashing for flip Jace and turning him into a $80 card). And Kaladesh was a nightmare from a design standpoint, requiring WotC to roll out the standard banlist for the first time since Zendikar's infamous JTMS + Stoneforge Mystic ban: when Aether Revolt dropped, a whopping three cards had to be banned right out the gate, followed immediately by an emergency banning of the Saheeli + Felidar Guardian combo after the set had been out for a day on MTGO, then a half year later Aetherworks Marvel got banned, and was followed again by another ban a year later to ban the cards that were making the energy archetype busted.

Right now, the standard ban list contains a whopping seven cards, five of which are from Kaladesh block, and the Kaladesh bans came in three waves and four separate ban announcements to deal with four different problem decks that popped up as a result of cards that were fundamentally flawed in their design. (I hate, hate, hate energy and it baffles me that MaRo continues to defend this parasitic mechanic by saying that energy's issue was just that it wasn't properly costed.) And mind you, that's not even in the rear view mirror yet, that seven-card banlist is the standard environment right now and having just endured two years of the utter nonsense that was Kaladesh block I am more than okay with it if design wants to "play things safe" and stick to the fundamentals as they did with RTR. (And I can definitely see why WotC would want to move in that direction, too.)

I remember TCC predicting that the 2018 fall set would be Return to Return to Ravnica because Hasbro wanted something that was "corporate safe" after what had been several bumpy years (it's also a popular plane making it a easy sell from a marketing standpoint) so I think going back to Ravnica was a pretty sensible decision all around. Much like MrE I also kinda had the reaction of "it's kinda soon to be going back to Ravnica" combined with the realization of "wait, RTR was 2012, and it's 2018...so I guess it's been longer than I thought," and I'm pretty sure this is mostly because even though six years have passed, BFZ and Kaladesh both feel like these "blurs" of time, like how Kaladesh block was only "six months" but really it felt like it defined two years of standard and in standard it just feels like certain blocks have been swallowed up by the black hole that was BFZ and Kaladesh's design failures.

Going back to Ravnica again (when RTR-THS was the last standard format that I think a lot of players felt really good about) combined with the recent Dominaria and the return of Core sets with Core 19 actually feels like hitting the "reset" button on what has kind of been a 5-year nightmare of standard formats, so all in all I feel pretty happy to be going back to Ravnica!
 

Acklow

I am always tired. Don't bother me.
Chilling at the last world's championship for Netrunner at FFG. If you're here hit me up.
 
Since no one else has brought it up -- Artifact (Valve's trading card game, featuring the lore/characters of Dota and designed by Richard Garfield of MTG and Netrunner fame) was playable last weekend at PAX West, along with four days of streamed coverage for the viewers at home, so all the mechanics and most (all?) of the starting card pool are now public knowledge for anyone who wants to go look them up or go through the footage. Someone on Reddit helpfully compiled a list of all of the Artifact coverage (both articles/write-ups and direct footage) to come out of PAX.

Artifact is coming out on November 28 as a $20 Steam game. No F2P model or "daily rewards" or anything like that, the economy is based entirely on people paying $20 to get into the game, paying $2 for packs subsequently, and buying/selling cards on the Steam marketplace where Valve gets to take a cut of all transactions. (Maybe trading too?) People who attended the Dota tournament TI8 or played the game at PAX last weekend received beta codes for a closed beta that's rolling out some time in October.
 
Last edited:

Acklow

I am always tired. Don't bother me.
Totally related to my prior post but at the same time not, General Spoon and I hang out on Fridays at Fantasy Flight Games in Roseville, Minnesota. If you are ever in the area and are interested in hanging out, let us know. We play a wide variety of tabletop games.
 
Magic Arena is now public and they did the final collection wipe with the release of GRN (so any cards you collect from this point forward are for keeps).

I've been jamming sealed events pretty much non-stop since GRN dropped and I'm not sure if it's just the fact that sealed tends to be a slower format with more bombs, but blue feels really, really strong. Izzet and Dimir have some of the best common removal spells in Hypothesizzle and Artful Takedown. I've been very impressed with Capture Sphere, it's not hard removal but it's about as close as blue ever gets, and I've been really impressed with Sinster Sabotage, not only because it's the most powerful Cancel effect printed in recent memory, but because of the degree to which Capture Sphere and the Jump-start card draw spells let you play at instant speed. Surveil is powerful even when you don't have payoff cards like Dimir Spybug and Disinformation Campaign, Jump-start ensures that you never flood out, and somehow these colors also get access to a suite of powerful creatures as well.

Boros has also been pretty good, when it comes together, mainly because it's just so much faster than anything else in the format; this is not the "go wide midrange" WR deck from M19, this is classic aggro deck that goes straight for the jugular. Dimir is powerful, but most of the times when I've seen Dimir lose it's when it was paired against Boros and couldn't keep up with the pressure. (That being said, Dimir can quite handily beat the aggro deck if it has the right tools; cards like Dead Weight and Dimir Informant go a long way toward helping it survive the early turns.)

Pretty much all of my winning decks have been some combination of Grixis (either Izzet splashing black, or Dimir splashing red), Jeskai (Boros splashing blue or Izzet splashing white), or straight Boros. Both of the green clans feel very underpowered, sometimes Selesnya gets an explosive draw where you get to go wide to apply pressure with weenies and then convoke a big payoff card, but so many things have to go right for it to work, and even when you're firing on all cylinders the power level of Selesnya just feels underwhelming compared to everything else happening in the format. Golgari just feels like a low-powered midrange deck, and it's not even the best midrange deck because if your game plan is "play a combination of strong creatures and strong removal" you'd want to play a non-green clan so you can actually play the good removal while still having access to good creatures.
 
Been playing quite some GRN Sealed as well (only 3 leagues since I only have the starter pack and my third pool absolutely crapped out on me).

My opinion on the guilds:
-Boros plays out quite a bit better than it looks in the first place. The Mentor creatures give the mechanic the push it needs to become very dangerous very quickly.
-Dimir has the best mechanic in Surveil, but overall I'm a tad lower on the guild in total than Kikuichimonji. They do have some very good cards in Artful Takedown and the guild's Uncommon (who the heck thought Flying, Deathtouch AND hexproof would make a fair Magic card?), but overall they lack the power of the green creature base to be efficient at playing midrange.
-Golgari is quite strong IMO. Green provides the masses of good creatures the deck wants and some value, Black provides removal and some Surveil for the Undergrowth mechanic. There's not too many Undergrowth cards, but those that are there are very good (I've definitely been positively impressed by the 6 mana 6/4 that gives +X/+X and Vigilance on ETB)
-Both Izzet and Selesniya have mechanics that are potentially broken, but no cards to really make use of it.
IMO Chemister's Insight is the only great Jump-Start card, some of the others are playable (Direct Current), but none of them are very exciting. The "spells matter" subtheme is fairly eh, and I found the overall card quality not that great (Hypothesizzle is good and the Guildmage is probably the best of the cycle, but otherwise I haven't been impressed).
Selesniya gets Convoke with WAY too few ways to make tokens to have the explosive starts. They do still have a solid creature base and White provides some removal, but overall Selesniya and Izzet are probably the weakest guilds in Ravnica rn.
 

Pilo

uses walther
is a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnus
do any experts have any opinions on how the tcg/economy aspects of artifact will affect the game and its success relative to online ccg's like heartstone, gwent, etc. which lack such features?
 

Mr.E

unban me from Discord
is a Two-Time Past SPL Champion
Considering the popularity of the Steam Marketplace, at the very least I doubt Artifact is doomed to failure from the start. Marketplace integration should make it relatively easy to cash out or even jump into the game and Steam is a lot more user-friendly than MTGO.
 

Pilo

uses walther
is a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnus
Considering the popularity of the Steam Marketplace, at the very least I doubt Artifact is doomed to failure from the start. Marketplace integration should make it relatively easy to cash out or even jump into the game and Steam is a lot more user-friendly than MTGO.
the $20 entry fee almost seems like acknowledgement of the fact that there will be people jumping on board to try and make a quick buck off of trading/the steam market but i don't really know if its justified when you still need to pay for cards which i guess is my primary worry.
 
172400


The new Magic The Gathering set, War of the Spark, is now out on Magic Arena. (Sealed events now playable for 2000 gems, drafts will start in 4 days. I'd like to be playing in the sealed event right now, but I need to run shortly to catch a 7 PM showtime for Avengers Endgame.)

It might be the most ambitious crossover event in Magic's history, as it unites 36 different planeswalkers (with 1 planeswalker appearing in every pack, including lower-rarity planeswalkers that can occupy an uncommon slot). I have no idea what to expect from this one; I predict it will either be a spectacular success or a spectacular disaster, and whatever the outcome, I'm eager to find out which.
 
arena has pretty much resulted in me playing pokemon almost 0% of the time :(

Its super sweet, but I'm hoping for a nice pokemon shot in the arm with some S&S spoilers
 

Mr.E

unban me from Discord
is a Two-Time Past SPL Champion
I found out my local game store does midnight drafts, so I played Magic for the first time since Origins prelease and went to it since I took the day off work anyway. Went 0-2 and given the odd-man-out bye for Round 3, not much fun. :( Didn't realize I was being sniped out of my chosen color from both sides until it was too late. Highlight of my night was seeing multiple people from my work there, heh.
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)

Top