Magic: the Gathering - Have you been following the Eighth Edition Rollout?

Mr. President · June 26, 2003, 01:05

(I know, there's that spoiler thing going around. But I only skim-read it once.

)

They only returned one card from Fallen Empires! What a gyp.

But Urza's Mine, Urza's Tower, and Urza's Power Plant are back!

Another good thing is that the dual lands from Invasion (also known as "taplands") are coming back, and as uncommons unlike the Ice Age dual lands which were rare. I hate few things more than rare lands.

DinoDoc · June 26, 2003, 01:36

Do they have anything useful for my sliver and zombie decks?

SnowFire · June 26, 2003, 02:09

Well, 8th loses Duress & corrupt, which are fun for ANY black deck, but Last Laugh is in 8th edition (whenever a creature you control is put into the graveyard, each other player sacrifices a creature). So while you're merrily sacking Festering Goblins to your Nantuko Husks & bringing things back with gravedigger, yuor opponent sacrifices all his creatures.

Vicious Hunger isn't bad for clearing out Weenies, either.

Mr. President · June 26, 2003, 07:18

You guys seen the new art on Underworld Dreams? Wow!

Hey DinoDoc, maybe you'd like that for your Zombie deck. It doesn't really interact with a lot of zombie-related cards, but zombies are creatures of the underworld. Sort of.

DinoDoc · June 26, 2003, 10:32

Quote:

Originally posted by Mr. President
You guys seen the new art on Underworld Dreams? Wow!

It looks like a very evil card. I like it.

Quote:

but Last Laugh is in 8th edition

I don't see it. Persecute looks like it would be a good addition though to go with my graveyard clearing Carrion Wurm.

DinoDoc · June 26, 2003, 10:39

PS How does the Lord of the Undead compare to the Undead Warchief? I was thinking about mixing them in.

Ben Kenobi · June 26, 2003, 12:41

Quote:

I hate few things more than rare lands.

Why? Lands can be your most powerful cards.

Mr. President · June 27, 2003, 08:20

Well, you pretty much need lands to make a deck, so it feels sort of "wrong" for them to be rare. Plus I really like non-basic lands, and rare ones are hard to get.

Arabian Nights' Rukh Egg is confirmed as included, which raises an interesting question. What do you normally use for tokens when you play with token-creating cards? It doesn't come up very often for me because I only have two or three token-creating cards, but the last time I played away from home I had to use my driver's license as a Djinn token.

Unfortunately, a lot of the talk about the Rollout is what's been left out. Disenchant and Counterspell are not being reprinted in Eighth Edition. Frankly, I'm cool with this, but a few people are outraged.

Glen · July 1, 2003, 11:10

i mainly use cions, if im out then a piece of paper is always good, i rip of a bit and fold it into a square(ish) sort of a shape. er, anything thats lying about, hmmma driving lisance wouldnt that be a bit to big, mind you i live in the UK you DLs might be a different size.

Ben Kenobi · July 2, 2003, 19:34

Quote:

Well, you pretty much need lands to make a deck, so it feels sort of "wrong" for them to be rare. Plus I really like non-basic lands, and rare ones are hard to get.

I like them because they are so powerful and versatile. A rare you may build a deck around, but a rare land will fit in any deck.

Quote:

I had to use my driver's license as a Djinn token.

I use coins for the most part, since I have some token generating decks that require me to manipulate a fair number of tokens.

Pennies do just fine.

Vince278 · July 3, 2003, 01:10

8th Edition?!? Its been a while since I've followed the game. I think it went downhill after Unlimited/Legends and I pretty much stopped after 4th edition came out. Ice Age was cool (no pun intended

)

Mr. President · July 3, 2003, 03:53

My driver's license is about the size of a Magic card.

Some of the inclusions confuse me a little. For instance, why the choice of Looming Shade (this is for both Seventh and Eighth Editions) instead of Frozen Shade? They're almost identical . . .

Urban Ranger · July 3, 2003, 23:06

Quote:

Originally posted by Mr. President
What do you normally use for tokens when you play with token-creating cards?

Tokens, of course

There were (are?) these transparent plastic pebbles specially made just for this purpose.

Urban Ranger · July 3, 2003, 23:13

Anybody got a link to the spoiler?

DinoDoc · July 3, 2003, 23:48

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/8e/coreset

Urban Ranger · July 4, 2003, 05:02

Thanks

Urban Ranger · July 4, 2003, 05:08

Oh no! Zur's Weirding!

Nasty! Both Millstone and Vexing Arcanix.

Mr. President · July 4, 2003, 05:33

This is going to be a fun edition.

Urban Ranger · July 5, 2003, 05:15

Defense Grid + Arcane Laboratory make a great lockdown deck.

Mr. President · July 8, 2003, 06:42

Mark Rosewater admitted on MagicTheGathering.com that they're hosing blue at the moment - which I think everybody figured out anyway.

No Counterspell, plus deadly hoser cards for green, plus Defense Grid (even if Counterspell was around, it'd cost 3UU to stop someone's Blaze

)! What do you make of it?

I say it's about time.

Urban Ranger · July 8, 2003, 11:50

I say Rosewater is a sore loser who got his arse kicked too many times by people playing blue.

Besides, who needs Counterspell when you can use Deflection?

Urban Ranger · July 8, 2003, 11:57

Also, Defense Grid screws other colours worse than Blue anyway, because Blue can counter artifect spells at normal cast, while other colours can only destroy it at +3.

Mr. President · July 8, 2003, 21:43

Actually, Rosewater is always talking about his favorite deck mechanic, namely Delusions of Grandeur + Donate.

Doesn't Defense Grid say that during each player's turn, other players' spells cost 3 more? Most land destruction happens at sorcery speed, so that isn't affected. The cards that like to be played during other people's turns are counter-magic, unsummonation (sic?), and creature destruction (Dark Banishing). Those strategies get evil-hosed by Defense Grid.

It is a rare card, though, which probably means I'll never see one. I suppose I could rob Andorra's treasury department and buy every box in Europe, but I won't. Yet.

SnowFire · July 8, 2003, 23:58

Yeah, precisely the reverse, UR. Rosewater was the guy who has, by his own admission, made the most number of broken cards. At least in the modern era (Perhaps you can fault Garfield more, but not all of them were broken initially). He's also quite the Blue Mage, hence many of the broken rule-shifting cards are in Blue. Randy Buehler, the current head of R&D, apperantly played almost exclusively blue back when he was a player. It's just that they've favored blue for so long, they figured they might as well give it a break. Something understandable, though I'll still miss Counterspell. It'll be back eventually.

Speaking of which, anyone else agree that one of the great artistic war crimes is the new Vexing Arcanix? The old one had a great picture. The new one is stunningly bland.

Az · July 9, 2003, 13:57

Is that art from MtG on your avatars, Mr. President, and Dino?

If it is, it's great for avatars.

Mr. President · July 9, 2003, 20:42

Quote:

Originally posted by Azazel
Is that art from MtG on your avatars, Mr. President, and Dino?

If it is, it's great for avatars.

Yep.

Mine is from Copper-Leaf Angel. There's tons of kick-ass art in Magic.

Urban Ranger · July 9, 2003, 22:18

Quote:

Originally posted by Mr. President
Doesn't Defense Grid say that during each player's turn, other players' spells cost 3 more? Most land destruction happens at sorcery speed, so that isn't affected.

As I see it, most people will try to get Defense Grid out because nobody wants to be the only one that gets screwed. So it balances out at the end.

Urban Ranger · July 9, 2003, 22:23

Quote:

Originally posted by SnowFire
It's just that they've favored blue for so long, they figured they might as well give it a break.

Not really, unless you are talking about Type I decks. For other sorts of play, Blue just doesn't have the offensive power and is usually tight on mana.

Ben Kenobi · July 9, 2003, 22:24

I would definitely use defense grid with blue in one of my decks..

Nothing stopping the adept wizard from locking the game down.

DinoDoc · July 9, 2003, 22:30

Quote:

Originally posted by obiwan18
I would definitely use defense grid with blue in one of my decks..

Would Decree of Silence be overkill with defense grid?