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| Thread: 25 Years of Magic: The Gathering |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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Oddball13579
Supreme Hero
Grandmaster of the Hunt
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posted June 06, 2019 08:26 PM |
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Ooooooh yeah!! I forgot about colourless cards. I never really played with them so I would not know about them.
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"Just slide her down a bit farther. I could wear her like a hat." - Gnomes
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Gnomes2169
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Duke of the Glade
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posted June 09, 2019 07:25 AM |
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On the subject of Liliana being all sexy... well, there are background reasons for her being the most sexualized female character in MTG. The primary one being that she was a pre-Mending planeswalker, which means that she used to be a literal walking god, but the Mending stripped away her planeswalker spark, removed her immunity to aging, and without her magic she slowly withered until she was a powerless, hideous hag. This fact stung her vanity and her pride to the point that she became a reclusive hermit on Innistrad, and the moment Nicol Bolas came around to offer her a contract to sign to sell her soul to 4 demon lords in exchange for the restoration of her spark and youth eternal, she didn't even hesitate. She wanted her her power, she wanted her beauty, and she wanted to walk among the living and the dead as a picture of dark, unbridled majesty.
Until recently in the fluff (as in, until she joined the Gatewatch and began to actually form real connections with other living beings, specifically Jace and Gideon) she equated power with happiness, and her beauty was just one aspect of her power. Which, like her magic and dominion over death, she wanted to show off at every given opportunity. After having watched her body wither and fade into a hideous shell, the revitalized youth is something she reveled in.
It was also a purposeful way for her to influence the minds of other characters, particularly Jace. In most of their interactions, she's constantly flirting with him and yanking the poor boy around on a chain, literally seducing him to help her get what she wanted. While this eventually turned into genuine attraction to the telepathic nerd, an attraction that she refused to actually admit to anyone, especially herself, it doesn't change the fact that she very purposefully used her beauty as a way to get people to do what she wanted (which showed she viewed it as both a tool to employ while being a reward for her service to the contract.)
If this makes her seem a bit shallow then... well, she was. As she's been written more and more, we've discovered more about her past, and she's had some of the deepest, most genuine character growth of any character in MTG. Her obsession with control and power comes from having it ripped away from her at every point*, she lost her beauty and revels in its return, she uses others as everyone in any position of authority used her, and only when she's offered actual friendship and understanding does she finally begin to find redemption.
Also, she is absolutely the strongest member of the Gatewatch, full stop. Jace was only her equal on Ravnica, and that was only because of the authority and power being the living Guildpact on that plane gave him... a power that he has lost because Nivvy-Miz got sick and tired of the blue boy never being on Ravnica and so the dragon parun usurped that power for himself. As a necromancer, the more souls she has the more power she has at her fingertips, and the Chain Veil is filled with the souls of a literal plane, and only she can control the chain veil's power. It's why Bolas made her the general and controller of his entire plane's worth of metal-plated zombies, zombies that she was commanding and controlling against every single planeswalker who was trapped on Ravnica during War of the Spark.
Aka, she, by herself, battled an army of planeswalkers with an army she was solely in control of, and she battled the forces of the plane itself, and while she lost... she kinda went out of her way to try and lose, as an act of silent defiance against Bolas. While Bolas enacted the elder spell, she is the one that actually hunted down and killed the planeswalkers so that he could harvest their sparks. She also survived an instant-kill spell that activated the moment she betrayed Bolas (as shown in the WotS trailer) for long enough for another planeswalker to get batted down from the heavens to land beside her, stand up, realize what was going on (and Gideon is not a smart lad, so that took some time) and give her his invulnerability shield so that he could martyr himself in her stead. That's... at least 5 minutes of withstanding something that would have Thanos-snapped a normal person into dust.
Also, it should be mentioned that she held off Emrakul and her army by herself as the eldrazi titan actively tried to kill her, while the entire gatewatch and Tamayo (who is a telepath that's at least as strong as Jace) got insta-gibbed into unconscious, gibbering insanity for 30 minutes by Emrakul just showing up next to them. Which. Is. Damn. Impressive. Have you seen ding-dong-rakul swing in a normal game of Modern? It's a good reason to just scoop it up and go onto game 2, but Liliana decided, "Naw, I can handle this" and just kept playing until Emrakul got tired of dealing with her and just said, "Peace, I'm going to be part of the moon now." (Okay, so that was Emrakul's plan the entire time because 'the plane wasn't ready for her,' but still. Liliana survived until that happened, and is the only reason the gatewatch survived that encounter as well.)
Soooo... yeah. There's a lot of fluff behind this character. And her art shows her change, as she gradually becomes less sultry, promiscuous, and arrogant, and her expression, stance and clothing become more and more reserved. Culminating in the disgust at what she is being forced to do and literally enshrouding her entire body with the magic of the chain veil in her WotS card Liliana, Dreadhorde General.
Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo... yeah. I'm a giant nerd. I'm sorry.
*Examples: The Raven Man haunted her and caused her to murder her brother instead of saving him (which she taunts her about constantly), her original spark was ripped away by the actions of planeswalkers she didn't even know existed on a plane that she'd left behind, the demon lords put restrictions on her and feasted on her power, Bolas claimed her soul and life as his the moment she thought she had finally managed to claim her freedom, etc.
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blob2
Undefeatable Hero
Blob-Ohmos the Second
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posted June 09, 2019 10:37 AM |
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Cool summary Gnomes, I'm also a bit of MtG lore nerd. I wanted to write more about her (like the fact she's obsessed with keeping her youth) but I was too lazy 
It's also worth mentioning that one of her obsessions with Necromancy is a feeling of guilt for what happened to her brother Josu: she wanted to cure a curse he was afflicted with by their father enemies (they were a powerful house back on Dominaria) and used dark arts which ultimately made things even worse (later on, back on Dominaria when she finally confronts him, now a powerful Lich due to Belzenloks magic, he even states that their family fell into ruin because of her)... so yeah, sucks to be her
Also there was this Garruk episode, bout time they brought this character back (his revenge against her might be some other story arc).
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gnomes2169
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Duke of the Glade
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posted June 09, 2019 05:37 PM |
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I don’t think, if Garruk and Lilliana confront each other again, that we’ll see any plans for “revenge” from the green/black planeswalker. When last we saw him, Garruk was confronted first by Jace and later by a throw-away planeswalker named ‘Frosty.’ In both cases, he had been freed of the Chain Veil’s influence, and he went out of his way to prove that he was happy with the way he had been changed. With Jace, it was by considering how he would kill the telepath while allowing cloak boy to read his mind, hoping to force the blue planeswalker to run away before Jace could realize just how weak Garruk was at that moment. With Frosty, the planeswalker said he was there to bring Garruk back to Avacyn in order to have the archangel purify his mind. Garruk responded by murdering him.
Basically, Garuk has gone pretty much full psychopath, and he enjoys that fact because he was always at least a little bit psychotic. After all, even before the curse he was traveling to other planes for the express purpose of hunting and murdering the strongest things on it. And he already hated all people and social contact, so he had the anti-social qualities necessary to become a psychopath. The chain-veil’s curse simply gave him the final reason/ excuse necessary to take that full plunge into darkness.
If anything, given how Garruk told Jace to thank Liliana on his behalf for the transformation, I’d think that Garruk will be on Lili’s side when the two confront each other again. Heck, if she’s set as the villain of a set, he’d likely be her fell guardian.
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Yeah in the 18th century, two inventions suggested a method of measurement. One won and the other stayed in America.
-Ghost destroying Fred
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Oddball13579
Supreme Hero
Grandmaster of the Hunt
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posted June 09, 2019 08:25 PM |
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That was amazing to read. I really like how you made points to her character development via her attire.
She has always been my favourite Planeswalker and while I haven't played magic in a very very long time, I'm glad to see her getting the attention that she deserves.
Also about Jace being the Living Guildpact it's hilarious how as a Blue Mage, literally able to read minds, could not see how powerful he was on Ravnica. He could have ruled the entire plane, but instead he chose to wander around, weakening Ravnica as the guilds grew tired of Jace's constant absence.
It's like Bolas says in the intro to Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 "Jace Beleren's greatest strength is his greatest flaw. A supremely powerful mind incapable of perceiving how he could rule all. A keystone in an unfathomable plane."
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"Just slide her down a bit farther. I could wear her like a hat." - Gnomes
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gnomes2169
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Duke of the Glade
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posted June 09, 2019 08:39 PM |
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Jace also lacks the ambition and responsibility to actually rule anything. The entire time he was the living guildpact, he was doing his best to avoid all of his responsibilities, and basically left everything to his secretary, Lavinia, while he went off to explore and experience the multiverse. He actively disliked]/i] having the power and authority he did, because he doesn’t like actually controlling people with his telepathy. Hd just wants to be left alone, to choose his own fate, and to protect his friends.
He coped by drinking more coffee than a human can feasibly survive in a single day, and losing the guildpact was probably the best thing to ever happen to him. 
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Yeah in the 18th century, two inventions suggested a method of measurement. One won and the other stayed in America.
-Ghost destroying Fred
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Oddball13579
Supreme Hero
Grandmaster of the Hunt
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posted June 09, 2019 08:49 PM |
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True. Although losing the Guildpact meant that is was broken when
Dimir was exposed to the public I believe.
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"Just slide her down a bit farther. I could wear her like a hat." - Gnomes
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gnomes2169
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Duke of the Glade
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posted June 09, 2019 09:30 PM |
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In War of the Spark, the guild hall of the guildpact was destroyed by Nicol Bolas’s opening move, and it served as ground-zero for his interplanar portal, and thus was where the invasion and his citadel both came from. The loss of the hall immediately depowered Jace, as it was the source of the guild pact’s magic, and that power only returned once a representative of each guild came to Niv-Mizzet’s soul-vessel and pledged new loyalty.
Which was Niv’s plan all along, and which caused him to be reborn (because Dovin Bahn managed to get Niv killed before WotS even started). Niv-Mizzet Reborn is now the literal living guild pact, empowered by each guild of the plane and the most powerful mortal on all of Ravnica. Like Jace, he’s mostly benevolent. Unlike Jace, he is a dragon, and not a planeswalker, so he’s not going to shirk his responsibilities whenever he can, and will actually get sh*t done in order to maintain people’s faith in his office and power.
In other words, unlike Jace he’s going to be good at the job. Because he actually wants the job. And he’s a politically-minded dragon who can handle the BS the other guilds throw at him without coping through an unhealthy caffeine addiction.
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Yeah in the 18th century, two inventions suggested a method of measurement. One won and the other stayed in America.
-Ghost destroying Fred
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Oddball13579
Supreme Hero
Grandmaster of the Hunt
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posted June 10, 2019 02:17 AM |
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I always liked Niv. Although I read that House Dimir is no longer recognized as an official guild, much like what happened to the Gruul Clans when the Selesnya Conclave took over their jobs.
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"Just slide her down a bit farther. I could wear her like a hat." - Gnomes
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blob2
Undefeatable Hero
Blob-Ohmos the Second
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posted June 12, 2019 12:03 PM |
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Edited by blob2 at 12:10, 12 Jun 2019.
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I also like Niv (his a dragon, duh), and it's interesting how he turned from a plotting evil genius (at least that were the vibes he gave off in previous blocks) into a being that actually cares about Ravnica and became it's literal avatar.
Jace is like a powerful nerd who has the power to change reality but chooses to focus on himself (and crack riddles or mindgames).
It's interesting what direction they will take now: episodic tales, old story threads or a completely new meta-arc? We need to wait until "Archery" set is revealed...
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Oddball13579
Supreme Hero
Grandmaster of the Hunt
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posted June 12, 2019 05:41 PM |
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I agree. I always thought Niv was plotting the downfall of Ravnica or something. So now to see him actually caring about it, is quite a shock.
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"Just slide her down a bit farther. I could wear her like a hat." - Gnomes
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kayna
Supreme Hero
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posted June 20, 2019 03:03 AM |
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Try Spellweaver, it's 10 times better than MtG and it doesn't cost thousands of dollars.
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blob2
Undefeatable Hero
Blob-Ohmos the Second
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posted June 20, 2019 12:47 PM |
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Edited by blob2 at 12:48, 20 Jun 2019.
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kayna said:
Try Spellweaver, it's 10 times better than MtG and it doesn't cost thousands of dollars.
Hmm looks like a cross between MtG and Lord of the Rings TCG.
Thanks for the tip, but I choose MtG for its familiarity. The game is very expensive to play, although MtG Arena gives you enough cards to enjoy the game to some extent, even if it's hard to build popular meta decks.
This and Heartshtone is enough to satisfy my TCG need for now.
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kayna
Supreme Hero
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posted June 26, 2019 04:14 AM |
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Spellweaver is better anyways, familiarity or not. Spellweaver is made in such a way that the luck factor is reduced ( thus more strategy ) by drawing a lot of cards and being sure of having 1 land every turn for the first 10 turns and it also has less junk cards in a deck ( junk being cards taking space in a deck because they enable other cards rather than having an effect themselves )
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Gnomes2169
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Duke of the Glade
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posted June 27, 2019 07:31 AM |
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kayna said:
Spellweaver is better anyways, familiarity or not. Spellweaver is made in such a way that the luck factor is reduced ( thus more strategy ) by drawing a lot of cards and being sure of having 1 land every turn for the first 10 turns and it also has less junk cards in a deck ( junk being cards taking space in a deck because they enable other cards rather than having an effect themselves )
I mean... you're mostly describing an MTG draft there instead of a constructed deck. Constructed decks that are well built don't really have pointless jank, everything in there either helps you win, is part of a combo or is a land. Decks also have sideboards to help you deal with the counters that pop up that should help you deal with bad match ups.
However, you can play MTG pretty much for free online, or at least for much cheaper, if you like the standard experience. Check out MTG Arena. It's taken the online TCG platform for a reason, offering more rewards than Hearthstone, far more balanced than a lot of the games out there, and making it much more easy and friendly to learn than paper or MTGO ever did. It doesn't support modern or legacy/ vintage, but modern is a turn 2 garbage fire anyway, and legacy/ vintage are absolutely not newb-friendly.
I mean, I love Modern because I like playing jank and not being good, but it's definitely not a good way to introduce players to the game. Standard, Draft and Commander are much better for that, imo. That last format is why I'm kinda hoping that the 2019 commander decks are released onto Arena, since the platform is meant to be noob-friendly and that format is an incredibly unique play style that has a lot of its own draw (namely, no rotation and singleton format ensuring that all but the most broken decks will have a different play experience each time you play).
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blob2
Undefeatable Hero
Blob-Ohmos the Second
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posted June 27, 2019 09:46 AM |
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Edited by blob2 at 09:47, 27 Jun 2019.
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Gnomes2169 said:
However, you can play MTG pretty much for free online, or at least for much cheaper, if you like the standard experience. Check out MTG Arena. It's taken the online TCG platform for a reason, offering more rewards than Hearthstone, far more balanced than a lot of the games out there, and making it much more easy and friendly to learn than paper or MTGO ever did.
They do a really good job in introducing new players to the game, because from the get go you're getting solid and varied decks that let you successfully complete dailies, even against custom decks. I also like the fact there are no "win X games" dailies which can be really frustrating, only those play X cards. Players new to Hearthstone struggle a lot more to complete dailies imo and 10 gold for 3 wins is too little (you need 100g to get a pack).
I also agree that decks can be built in a way to limit the "junk" although MtG decks still suffer from the "draws another land when desperately needs board" syndrome. Hearthstone at least handles such "dead draws" to an extent with it's auto-mana system. MtG seems to be more rewarding then Hearthstone (gives you free stuff more often), but the problem is they still need to work on the economy. The crafting system gets on my nerves cus I'm getting so many duplicates it's not even funny (this week only I got a third Tamiyo, second and third Ajani and a third Mizzium Tank) and I can't do nothing with them. In a game which has 250 cards per set, this is ridiculous. Maybe it's not so bad if you use those cards, MtG has 60 card decks afterall so you're bound to play few copies of the same cards. But seeing so many fun cards, yet getting nothing but duplicates is depressing. In Hearthstone some Legendaries are impactful and can be played in many decks. The fact that you can only use one makes them that much more meaningful. Some treat it as a downside, but I like when Rare/Legendary cards are one of a kind.
Hearthstone devs made some changes to make opening packs less frustrating, so I hope MtG devs will too. Like lowering the chance you get a duplicate of a Rare card, cus when you need more copies of a card you can simply craft it.
And regarding the formats: I enjoy Commander, but it's a bit tricky, especially when played between 2 players because the power level can shift even more then in standard formats, the decks can snowball really hard.
In summary: I play both games cause each has it's strengths, you shouldn't limit yourself with the fun
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kayna
Supreme Hero
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posted June 29, 2019 11:54 PM |
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Edited by kayna at 00:01, 30 Jun 2019.
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I tried Arena and I still consider Spellweaver better.
Let me develop my junk card argument better.
What is a junk card? It's a card that doesn't really do an effect directly. A standard land is a junk card. A land that you can tap and activate for an effect is not a junk card.
Let's talk strictly about lands for now. Spellweaver and MtG both have 60 cards in a deck minimum. Let's pretend both decks have 60 cards.
In MtG, depending on the deck you make, you will need between 20 and 30 lands. The average land in a deck is about 23. In spellweaver, because of the DO mechanic, you need less than that, about 19. Also, in spellweaver, most lands will make you draw a card where as MtG doesn't make you draw a card.
Within the MtG 23 lands, you will usually have about 5 lands that are actually useful, thus not junk cards. That means an average of 18 junk lands and 5 useful ones. In spellweaver, you will have to use an average of 2-6 lands in a way that will not allow you to draw a card and will not provide any other benefit. The usual number of that will be 4.
In MtG, you have 18 junk cards out of 60, just counting the lands alone. That's 30 % of junk cards in a deck. By the way, there are other cards that are junk cards that aren't lands, and in MtG, the number of junk cards in a deck can sometimes exceed 50 % of the total deck, which is completely ridiculous.
In Spellweaver, since lands makes you draw a card most of the time, it's as if they weren't in the deck at all. the amount of junk cards is thus calculated as 4 out of 45, or 8.8 % of the deck being junk cards.
Of course my argument can be "countered" by providing examples of different decks that works differently but since I know both games well, I'm just providing you with 2 examples of 2 decks I consider similar. Spellweaver was created by someone that used to play MtG and he simply made a better version of it.
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Oddball13579
Supreme Hero
Grandmaster of the Hunt
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posted June 30, 2019 12:56 AM |
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You really pulling hard to try and convince people that Spellweaver is better. 
____________
"Just slide her down a bit farther. I could wear her like a hat." - Gnomes
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kayna
Supreme Hero
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posted June 30, 2019 02:09 AM |
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I think spellweaver is better but there are also other card games that came up with card mechanics that are simply better than MtG.
One such example is a game where there are no lands at all ; once per turn, you can take any card from your hand and put it face down. It becomes a land of the color of the card.
MtG is simply a really old game with an outdated design MtG doesn't have the balls to fix because that would mean it's base with already thousands of dollars worth of cards would become super angry by their cards becoming obsolete due to a rule change.
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blob2
Undefeatable Hero
Blob-Ohmos the Second
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posted June 30, 2019 10:56 PM |
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Edited by blob2 at 23:02, 30 Jun 2019.
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kayna said:
MtG is simply a really old game with an outdated design MtG doesn't have the balls to fix because that would mean it's base with already thousands of dollars worth of cards would become super angry by their cards becoming obsolete due to a rule change.
Yet it is still one of the most popular. Like with every card game, if you get bored you can turn in to another one and get back to it as time passes. What's the point of changing something that works ok?
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