Magic

[metroid composite]

Also today, clarification on Lightning Bolt being back.   tldr version: "it's just temporary, Shock is still the baseline, we just wanted to bring it back for a bit."

First, creatures have changed a bit since Lighting Bolt was king. Early Magic pushed the spells a little too aggressively while not pushing the creatures enough. For instance, there are numerous noncreature cards in Alpha that we would never reprint for power reasons. I don't believe there is a single creature in the set that couldn't come back for power reasons. (There are creatures that can't return for lots of other reasons—reserved list, complexity/confusion, rules issues, etc.) Since that time, R&D has been much more aggressive with creatures and, as such, this means that Lighting Bolt returns slightly weaker in contrast than it was when it left.

Second, and this is the more important one, Magic has a baseline for power. This is where the game needs to sit at in default. But as with any aspect of the game, the pendulum is allowed to swing. Lighting Bolt is not the new norm for one mana direct damage. Shock is the baseline, but the game is capable of having Lightning Bolt exist. R&D brought it back because they thought it would be nice to shake things up by pushing cheap direct damage for a little while.

The message we want it to send is this. There are many cards that are over the baseline but are acceptable to exist if controlled carefully by R&D. One of the things we want to play with in future core sets is what other seemingly verboten card can we bring back. Just remember that each of the things is temporary. Lightning Bolt being back is not (necessarily) a new staple. It's a variance that development carefully tested and is allowing for a limited duration. Enjoy!

MTGS has a pretty good track record.

They do, but they also had Giant Solifuge as a 4/3, reported a few rarities wrongly this time, and things like that.  I'll happily discuss cards they've reported in speculation-forums, but...well...the RPGDL tends to discuss magic once every six months if that, so in this topic I'll usually wait a week for confirmed information instead of reporting on rumors.

[Grefter]

That is actually pretty cool stuff yeah.  I should get into a habit of reading magic columns, but it is so hard to care about the minute details they go into when all I care about is more meta stuff at this point.

That said, the very thought of something like Ali from Cairo could come back into play though is a little scary (Sure he was very vulnerable, but still, the power scale for cost is pretty through the roof).  On the other hand, something like Ali Baba of course is patently weak >_>

[Taishyr]

I'm, uh, guessing from that comment that you haven't heard of Platinum Angel, Grefter?

I mean, yeah, Ali from Cairo's pretty good and what I'd consider high-end balanced. Platinum Angel is just absurdity (especially since there are combos to ensure that the Platinum Angel cannot be destroyed by most decks. Ever. See, for reference, Darksteel Forge, printed in the same block.

There -are- ways around Indestructible, but I'm not positive how well decks can be built around this?

</only knows about Magic from before this point>

[Grefter]

Mirrordin doesn't even register as anything even remotely close to being a photo copy that is read through the window of another another building 2 up the street from the one you are standing in of balance.

[metroid composite]

Mirrordin doesn't even register as anything even remotely close to being a photo copy that is read through the window of another another building 2 up the street from the one you are standing in of balance.

Some stuff from Mirrodin was ridiculous.  Platinum Angel, however, wasn't too extreme, and got reprinted a couple times.  (People still use it in some older formats where you can produce a gazillion mana; they haven't printed fast mana in a couple years, though, so it doesn't get used in Type II/Standard).

[Cmdr_King]

Platinum Angel is one of those funny cards.  In a vacuum (ie away from the stupidity that is Mirrodin) it's not too bad; destroying an Artifact Creature has at least two different breeds of 'destroy' spells, direct damage (albiet a significant investment worth at 4/4) and Lure-type effects which can deal with it permanently, and blue of course has its usual Remove->Counter antics.  And that supposing the person playing it never gets cocky and attacks with their 4/4 Flyer.  Backed up in a dedicated Artifact deck with some of the remnants of Mirrodin, though, and it's an insured victory becaues you can never lose and destroying it would require the opponent to work though layers upon layers of defense over it.

Granted, God knows I've built decks that lack Lure/Destroy/Direct Damage effects for which seeing Platinum Angel come into play was an immediate signal to forfeit, but that's my own deck building failing me there, not the card being overpowered.

[Grefter]

Like I said, Mirrordin itself is ridiculous.

[NotMiki]

I swear to god, every set that comes out makes Apocalypse a better idea.  (The card, not the set.  Oh god, not the set.)

[metroid composite]

I swear to god, every set that comes out makes Apocalypse a better idea.  (The card, not the set.  Oh god, not the set.)

Don't be ridiculous; Apocalypse was a much better idea two years ago when The Cheese Stands Alone and Oblivion Ring were both tournament legal.

[metroid composite]

I got into a discussion, which has ended up with me writing (or at leas creating the outline of) an article:

http://www.rpgdl.com/metroidcomposite/SeasonOfDoubling.html

Comments so far?  Suggestions?

[metroid composite]

The "biggest non-infinite combo ever?" has been getting bigger, and I wrote a php program to automatically provide card-links because I was tired of doing so manually....

http://www.rpgdl.com/metroidcomposite/phpconversion.php

[NotMiki]

any reason you're using Princess Lucrezia instead of Silver Myr, other than sheer style points?

[Taishyr]

I... think it's so it can't infinite? Unless I misunderstand (can't have more than one copy of Princess, but Silver Myr you can).

Also, holyshit you got me laughing. This is the sort of thing I always enjoy reading even if I don't follow the math as well in a text format.

[metroid composite]

any reason you're using Princess Lucrezia instead of Silver Myr, other than sheer style points?

Yes.  I can't use ANY tappers that can tap to pay their own mana cost (if, say, their mana output is getting multiplied by a bazillion due to lots of Mana Reflections).  If I have anything like that in there, then I can just bounce it, replay it, tap it for lots of mana, which lets us bounce it again: infinite combo.

Princess Lucrezia was chosen due to the black mana in her cost.  If she had been a monoblack creature that tapped for blue, that would have been fine too.  (Ironically, all the creatures that can tap ONLY for mana that can't pay their own mana cost happened to be multicolour.  Well...Elves of Deep Shadow were an option, but that would have involved adding life-gain).

Good question, though, I really should add a paragraph or two explaining that.

[Grefter]

This is begging for a combo that does involve life gain just so you can use the scrub mana elf.

It can be the emo version.  This will be glorious.  Make it so.

[metroid composite]

This is begging for a combo that does involve life gain just so you can use the scrub mana elf.

It can be the emo version.  This will be glorious.  Make it so.

There was a version of this deck with lifegain, (Soul Warden, to be precise) but the thing is there's Channel in the deck.  (Read Channel carefully--it's not "pay X life, get X mana", it's "for the rest of the turn you can pay life any time you feel like it to get mana").  Soul Warden means you can make damn near unlimited colourless mana.

Although...Æther Spellbomb requires blue to bounce, so I guess you can't bounce and replay artifacts forever with Soul Warden.  Hmm...yeah, maybe it does make sense to replace Apprentice Wizard with Soul Warden and Zombie Elf with EMO Elf.  Let me think about this....