Messages

676

Commander Discussion / Re: Manascape Refractor Thouoghts

« on: May 03, 2020, 08:34:34 pm »

In casual circles, I think it depends on your meta.  My playgroup runs A LOT of lands that produce multiple mana - Gaea's Cradle, Cabal Coffers, Ancient Tomb, Temple of the False God, Ravnica bounce lands.  They are all over the place.  In my playgroup, it's almost a guarantee that this will be able to tap for 2 mana.

All in all: a trap card. Not useful. Casual tables don't usually run Cradles and competitive tables have already finished the game by T4.

Two posters I respect with opposing opinions on how much you see Cradles and the like at casual tables. Seems as though this is a difference in meta which will dictate how useful Refractor is.

edit- spelling is just not my friend today

Heh, I noticed. I just figured that Cradle isn't the first thing people usually upgrade to because it's so expensive. I feel like seeing a Cradle is rare because when you do start encountering it you're not necessarily that casual anymore.

The situation is completely different with long-time Magic players because they've had the chance to pick it up when it was still relatively cheap. Even casual Commander is getting really expensive these days!

EDIT: I still wouldn't play it because it's basically a Worn Powerstone with an added risk factor.

677

About Deckstats / Re: New: Specify the set of your cards!

« on: May 03, 2020, 08:31:45 pm »

Hi,
I’ve noticed the cards in my decklist now always appear with the expansion (even if I didn’t specify one).
The feature is not bad per se, but it becomes an issue when I want to copy the list to another application. Cockatrice, for instance, doesn’t like those tags.
Could it be possible to somehow specify the format, when exporting decklists?

I know this isn't a good solution but this is how I've overcome the problem: view card list, copy everything, paste into Excel and split columns using a custom delimiter (I think Deckstats uses #). Then I can just copy-paste the same list into a .txt-file but it has no comments, specified formats or any other additional data and it works.

678

Commander Deck Reviews / Re: [EDH/Commander] Scion Combo/Reanimator

« on: May 03, 2020, 05:48:41 pm »

Yes, i´m just searching for possible strategys to kill in turn 3.

This isn't a very likely event even for the best of decks.

679

Commander Discussion / Re: Manascape Refractor Thouoghts

« on: May 03, 2020, 05:45:46 pm »

Lands usually have really high activation costs for what they do. I think this is mostly intentional since they're essentially zero-drops. The Refractor isn't a zero-drop so that makes it really expensive to cast and use.

The Cradle and Coffers are probably the only lands that have the potential to provide more mana than a rock on T4.

All in all: a trap card. Not useful. Casual tables don't usually run Cradles and competitive tables have already finished the game by T4.

680

Deckstats Feedback / Re: Better "override" documentation

« on: May 03, 2020, 03:19:27 pm »

Sorry about that, looks like I didn't add it properly. Please try again now.

Works like a charm! Thank you, Nils!

681

Commander Discussion / Re: Companion deck-building challenge

« on: May 03, 2020, 11:15:33 am »

Do you know what my favourite thing about Deckstats is? Morganator 2.0.

A huge thank you for putting so much effort into this!

682

Deckstats Feedback / Re: Better "override" documentation

« on: May 02, 2020, 09:16:37 pm »

You can now override the effective cost for a card with effective_cost=X

This didn't seem to work, it just reverted the cost to the normal value and upon re-entering the editor the override changes were discarded.

683

Commander Deck Reviews / Re: death by zombie

« on: May 02, 2020, 03:36:59 pm »

On the artifact note, Expedition Map may be something to consider as it can help you find the Urborg/Cabal Coffers combo. It sucks having Cabal Coffers sit there doing nothing because you haven't drawn into Urborg. It can also help you find which ever land it is would benefit you the most atm be it color wise or effect wise.

Since you're in blue you should also almost always run Tolaria West if you have important lands you want to find. It can also hit the occasional Pact of Negation although transmute is as a sorcery only so you can't do that on someone else's turn and you can't do that in response to something. But for lands it's one of the best tutors you can have.

684

Commander Deck Reviews / Re: Nekusar EDH

« on: May 01, 2020, 12:13:28 pm »

Let's tackle the most obvious part first: lands.

You've got a lot of tapped lands that will slow you down. With your budget your should be able to do better. You could invest in some shocks and fetches. Alternative you could just add the shocks and pain lands and fill the rest of the slots with basic lands. You don't need an insane amount of colour fixing so you should optimize for some speed instead. Nekusar particularly is quite expensive and easily hated out.

On that note you should definitely add all the signets and talismans in the appropriate colours. That's now 3+3 ramp pieces. Add in Arcane signet, Fellwar Stone and Sol Ring and you're up to a more healthy 9 pieces of ramp. You should consider some more in the form of Worn Powerstone, Star Compass I meant Coldsteel Heart and Wayfarer's Bauble.

685

Off-Topic / Re: How's life?

« on: April 30, 2020, 06:53:44 pm »

I do have stories about this.

Well, story time! We are waiting.

Very well. I agree to make all of you super suspicious of me.

I've relatively cautious about what I put out on the internet, because I know just how easy it is to stalk someone. It's why I avoid saying anything that can tie me to a location (like my job). I know it's easy to stalk someone because I'm really good at stalking people. Sketchy right? Fortunately because I have a strong moral fiber I don't use my skill without good reason. Hence the stories...

A few years back my youngest brother went missing. He was about 12 years old at the time. He was visiting a new friend's house and was supposed to call our parents when he got there to arrange a pickup time. Him not calling in worried my parents a bit, so they asked if I could find him. All they new for sure was that his friend's name was "Jake". Not a lot to work with.

I started by browsing my brother's Facebook friends looking for a "Jake". No luck there. I checked his Instagram instead, and found that he was following someone named "Jacob" with a freakishly long last name. Probably Eastern European. Anyway, I looked up that family name in the phone book and managed to find their address. Went to that house and sure enough, my brother was there. He just forgot to call in.

To this day I still haven't told him how I found him, I only ever said "You can't hide from me." This story should show how easy it is to find someone in the age of information. I managed to find a person, in a city, just based on someone's first name. 

On a separate occasion, I found a lost phone. The picture on the lock screen was a young woman posing for the picture in some suburban area. I figured she was likely the girlfriend to whoever owned this phone. In the picture I could make out two important pieces of information; a street sign and a large maple tree in a front lawn. I went on Google maps, searched the street name, and then went into street view, looking for a maple tree. Once I found it, I could see which house the picture was taken from. I called that house (fortunately it still had a landline) and the woman in the picture picked up. The phone belonged to her step-brother. I didn't ask any more questions about this, I just arranged a meet-up at the local mall to hand over the phone. Not my business why her step-brother has a picture of her.

I later found out that this was a little excessive. A lot of phones have the "emergency dial" option which can bring up their most frequent contact and you can just call them. It's used in emergency situations if you need to know things like allergies and underlying medical conditions.

I have similar experiences. I'm just not as cautious as Morganator. Maybe I should...

686

Commander Deck Reviews / Re: Emmara Needs Help

« on: April 29, 2020, 09:27:42 pm »

In general with combos you might want to stick to one, two or three combos. They should, if possible, have some redundancy in terms of pieces i.e. several cards can fill a role. Just in case one gets removed. I can't decide which of the combos are best for you but I would focus on just a few rather than many.

687

General Magic / Re: April 13th banned & restricted list update

« on: April 28, 2020, 12:15:53 am »

Mind's Desire - drop some Moxen, Brainstorm to set the top of your library, surprise!

The card makes you shuffle.

I feel like you need a hug.

Well Doomsday then!

688

Commander Discussion / Re: Dowsing Dagger as mana ramp

« on: April 27, 2020, 01:07:14 pm »

I tend to shy away from anything that requires connecting because I find it really hard to pull off. I keep cutting the dagger in the early stages of deckbuilding because I can't ensure connecting. This would work in a deck that is built around unblockables, landwalking or shadow or some other obscure mechanic (horsemanship) that lets you connect for sure. I could also see this as a tool for a big trampler deck but certainly not early game ramp.

689

Commander Deck Reviews / Re: Trying Out Spellslinger Again with Kalamax - Suggestions Requested

« on: April 26, 2020, 01:48:08 pm »

Oh no. I misread the instant part.

Still, I think land ramp would be better than rock ramp. Why not take advantage of being in green?

690

Commander Deck Reviews / Re: Trying Out Spellslinger Again with Kalamax - Suggestions Requested

« on: April 26, 2020, 01:29:38 am »

I, uhhhhhh...

Ok, once upon a time I brewed an "instant speed tribal" Surrak, Dragonclaw deck. It has the same colours and so forth...
https://deckstats.net/decks/93006/1568847-surrak-swiftclaw-surrak-dragon/en

But what got me really thinking is if you want trinkets and baubles at all. Wouldn't Rampant Growth be a lot stronger than a signet in your deck? There's a chance it might get copied so I would take that instead of rocks that will never get copied. Same logic for Kodama's Reach, Cultivate & co. I understand you're sacrificing the instant speed nature of your deck but I think it could work better than trying to select instant-only spells. (Like I did and you can definitely tell it's not a strong deck.)