We're all just here for the deep Urza lore - Talking about Magic: The Gathering!

[lincolnic]

Seeing those cards for the first time only makes me want to quit more after the next Tarkir set. That's just the end for me.

On a brighter note, tomorrow I get to draft the box of Dominaria United I've had sitting around for a year. I'm so excited it's finally happening! Should be a lot of fun.

 

[Kirin]

I totally understand folks not wanting standard Magic to turn into the all cameo crossovers all the time show, but at the same time I want every dang card in that FF set. Really don’t need to spend that money, though, argh.

 

[lincolnic]

Went 3-0 in my DMU draft, only dropped the first game of my final match. Feels nice to win, but I'm even happier that everyone enjoyed it. I hope I get to draft it again some day!

 

[shivam]

The ff set looks unbelievably cool

 

[Destil]

Aetherdrift is the best limited set in like 4 or 5 years. No contest.

 

[Destil]

I totally understand folks not wanting standard Magic to turn into the all cameo crossovers all the time show, but at the same time I want every dang card in that FF set. Really don’t need to spend that money, though, argh.

If it makes you feel any better the new rotation already turned standard to shit, anyway.

(I do like foundations long legality, but we needed one of that or 3 years rotations or 6 sets a year)

 

[lincolnic]

Aetherdrift is the best limited set in like 4 or 5 years. No contest.

If by "best" you mean "one of the least balanced", then sure. (The best limited sets in the past five years were NEO and DMU.)

 

[JBear]

It's almost as if that's a subjective measure.

*whispers sweet nothings into Kaldheim's ear in the corner*

 

[Destil]

DMU is excellent but I can only loose to Wingmate so many times. If the stupid wall tutor was uncommon I'd put it higher.

NEO is up there for sure, along with MOM and WOE. FDN would round out a top 6.

 

[YangusKhan]

I played in a Standard RCQ last night, running Gruul Mice. I went 3-2 and just barely missed top 8 by being in 9th place, lol. I lost to Golgari Obliterator and Dimir Midrange. I kinda felt lucky because I only had mana issues in 1 game out of all of them, and my matchups on the whole weren't too lopsided. I did kinda steamroll a guy playing UW Affinity... turns out if you can't do anything about the Manifold + Heartfire combo you die (lol).

Honestly I like where Standard is at in terms of diversity, but I am starting to worry about the sideboard having to bear all the weight for all the different kinds of decks out there. Like against the Obliterator deck I don't think it's possible to make room in my sideboard for anything that can answer it cleanly without giving up important answers to other decks, so I just have to hope I can roll over them by the time the Obliterator comes down I guess.

 

[Destil]

The diversity is cool. But I'm so fucking over Artaxa as a reainmator target. And the degree of power creep pushing forward more and more and more, we're not even at the full huge standard uet we"ll reach with Avatar.

That said, Cecil Dark Knight is fucking sweet (and pushed as fuck). Just give me a pushed G Rydia of Mist so I can build a sweet golgari deck.

 

[YangusKhan]

I am super looking forward to rotation mostly just to get rid of Domain Control (Atraxa will be a nice casualty also). Hopefully whatever replaces that deck won't be as annoying to play against.

 

[Destil]

Leyline, Zur and Beans don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Concerned about a standard without Sunfall, though. It keeps so much bullshit in check... (I still miss farewell every time I aee synthesiser).

 

[lincolnic]

Man, it's like the Professor plucked this video directly from my own head.

Editing to add: I know I'm often the negative one in this thread, but I want to say that I hope it's clear that my feelings about the way things are going come from a place of deep love for the game. There aren't many things in my life that I loved as a kid and I still love at almost 40, you know?

 

[Sarcasmorator]

I saw some teased Marvel cards yesterday and it is bothering me a LOT that Doctor Octopus is an 8/8 who costs 7 mana.

 

[Kirin]

Jesus, there's a Last Airbender set coming out too? ... god, given that and the "most expensive standard set ever" talk for FF, I may end up just contenting myself with looking at online spoilers.

As for the rest of the Prof's video, I totally get where he's coming from, but I hail from an era where Magic's over-arching plot was paper-thin, ongoing characters barely existed, and the house art style hadn't been remotely codified yet so stuff like Phil Foglio's cartoony monsters slotted right in with everything else, so a lot of the stuff that's bothering him wouldn't phase me much. But then, I barely play these days, so I don't really get a vote here.

 

[lincolnic]

Jesus, there's a Last Airbender set coming out too? ... god, given that and the "most expensive standard set ever" talk for FF, I may end up just contenting myself with looking at online spoilers.

I can't remember if he mentions it in that video, but it's been confirmed that all Universes Beyond sets will have premium pricing. Standard is now ~27% more expensive.

As for the rest of the Prof's video, I totally get where he's coming from, but I hail from an era where Magic's over-arching plot was paper-thin, ongoing characters barely existed, and the house art style hadn't been remotely codified yet so stuff like Phil Foglio's cartoony monsters slotted right in with everything else, so a lot of the stuff that's bothering him wouldn't phase me much. But then, I barely play these days, so I don't really get a vote here.

I mean, I started playing in 1994 or 1995 too, and I think it's silly to judge the game now by what it was then; it's apples and oranges. Magic's had a continuing story, characters, and general lore for decades. His whole point is that even in the Universes Within sets, all that stuff they've spent decades building is getting underused or swept aside. Or that Final Fantasy and Spider-Man have already been more heavily hyped than Tarkir Dragonstorm, which is coming out in a month! It's hard not to feel like Wizards is purposely underbaking the actual in-universe Magic sets and putting those development resources into UB instead.

 

[YangusKhan]

Magic is falling prey to the same epidemic that every other popular game/world/IP has now: homogenization of pop culture and nerd culture. Everything big now is either a cross-over, a very well-established IP sequel/reboot/requel, or it's based on a popular IP from another medium.

When you've got Clive from FF16 being a DLC character in Tekken 8, all the shit that happens in Fortnight, and "comic cons" in meatspace that are essentially just anything with a remotely sizeable fandom, it's pretty much inevitable that Hasbro would jump on that train in earnest too.

It wasn't completely like this when Millenials and GenXers were growing up, but now it is. How do young kids and teenagers feel about all of these "hat sets' and crossovers? I have no idea. But it seems to me they are the target audience now for WotC.

 

[Kirin]

When you've got Clive from FF16 being a DLC character in Tekken 8

Sorry, just failing my roll against nitpicking here - Tekken had Gon the dinosaur in it almost 30 years ago, and Soul Calibur had Link and Spawn a few years later. This kinda stuff is not new. But I’m not trying to deny it’s ramped up, and *certainly* not faulting any fans of the core Magic world building for feeling sidelined right now.

 

[YangusKhan]

That's all true, but I guess my point was coming at it from the FF angle: Square Enix mostly kept its cross-overs either in-house or in fairly low-profile avenues. Clive in Tekken feels like a much higher profile cross-company thing compared to anything else SE has done like that. Heck, there still hasn't been an FF Musou made yet. So IMO it's kind of huge that another high profile FF crossover is coming through MtG. I feel like both IPs have had somewhat similar histories in the cross-over space.

 

[Kirin]

Noctis was in Soul Calibur too, but still, I get what you’re saying. I was pretty surprised when the FF MtG set was announced as a real thing in the first place.

 

[Torzelbaum]

 

[Destil]

God I despise playing against the cycling deck in Aetherdrift.

Opponent needs to spend 3 hours on every turn and the game just kinda ends because suddenly they have a 9/9 and a 8/8 out of nowhere.

Not as bad as the Ikoria cycling deck, it at least plays cards, but still pretty wrenched.

 

[lincolnic]

What's the Aetherdrift cycling deck? I don't think I've run into that yet, but I also more or less stopped drafting after ~20 entries.

 

[Destil]

It's built around discarding. Here's an example.

17Lands.com

www.17lands.com

The lower-rarities only have like 3 payoffs but discarding is absurdly easy and when you get enough of those or some of the rares the deck just becomes inscrutable to play against.

 

[lincolnic]

I know how cycling works, I was thinking you meant there was a deck with a specific payoff like how Ikoria had Zenith Flare. I'm not seeing anything remotely as powerful in that deck you linked, though I guess those Makos could do some work if your opponent never interacts. I know UR has a lot of looting effects and plenty of cards in the set have cycling, but I dunno if I'd call it a "cycling deck" in the same way that Ikoria rewarded you just for doing the thing -- there's no equivalent win condition, you know? Kenji Egashira was forcing Push the Limit decks for the first couple of days when the set released, with every cycling vehicle he could draft, but even he admits that they were more fun than good.

 

[shivam]

You missed the Magmakin Artillerist, which is the pure wincon here. https://scryfall.com/card/dft/137/magmakin-artillerist

Magmakin Artillerist {2}{R}​

Creature — Elemental Pirate


Whenever you discard one or more cards, this creature deals that much damage to each opponent.
Cycling {1}{R} ({1}{R}, Discard this card: Draw a card.)
When you cycle this card, it deals 1 damage to each opponent.

1/4

 

[lincolnic]

I'm aware of the card, but I guess a single copy doesn't register as "win con" to me. Again, I'm comparing it to Zenith Flare, which actually just won you the game when you'd play it. Like, Magmakin Artillerist isn't even as good as Drannith Stinger, you know? Maybe I'm just scarred from Ikoria limited, but none of the UR decks I've faced in Aetherdrift have felt remotely as threatening. I think it's explicitly because there's no payoff like Zenith Flare, and a cycling cost of 2 is a lot more cumbersome than cycling for 1.

Having checked out the actual draft that led to the deck Destil linked, it seems like the drafter found the open lane and was rewarded for identifying the deck that no one else wanted. The amount of removal they ended up with is nuts! It'd be hard for most decks to get through three Flood the Engines, two Outpace Oblivions, and a Lightning Strike. It reminds me a lot of how UB Rats was "the worst deck" in Bloomburrow limited, but because everyone knew that, one person would get passed all of the synergy cards for it and end up running the table. I've definitely been guilty of passing up a good deck in "bad" colors several times because I know some other color pair has a higher winrate percentage. I'll have to work on that for Tarkir.

 

[Destil]

Yeah, I think UR cycling won't come together every pod.

Honestly once you cur back the first few weeks of data color balance in Atherdrift is pretty good on win rate. Boros is bad and that's about it, green is getting fought over enugh to lower GX win-rates now.

 

[lincolnic]

Boros is bad and that's about it

For what it's worth, Izzet and Azorius are also sub-55% winrate on 17 Lands. White and red are in bad shape this set.