Best posts made by H.

Old rule: No one gets a Jace!

New rule: Everyone get a Jace!

New New-Rule: Everyone get's all the Jaces!

I'm glad to see these are a success. I'm eyeballing May to try to make my way to one of these, hopefully dragging a few people from Louisiana with me.

@evouga said:

@Islandswamp Yes, I was a bit dismayed by the dismissiveness of some of the VSL commentators towards the deck. Oath is not optimally-positioned in every metagame, but it is a versatile and powerful strategy that always deserves respect.

Chris Pikula has regarded Oath as "not a real deck" for as long as I can remember. I can recall him saying it in earshot of me at an event in what was probably 2010, then I beat him a round or two later with Oath. Needless to say, he was not pleased.

I'm not really surprised to hear that his opinion is shared by other VSL commentators though.

Nice primer though, I'm sure Greg will weigh in at some point.

Well, if the B&R policy is really an issue (I honestly have no idea if it is, or isn't), at what point do we (paper players, at least) just decide to go the EDH route and come up with our own list?

Just what, besides one or two actually sanctioned events, are we stubbornly sticking to a (plausibly) flawed list? We aren't bound to Wizards in any real way. Most events aren't sanctioned already anyway, what would the harm be in trying?

At what point do we "put our money where our mouth is" and actually run real tournaments and gain real results to test our theories?

Of course, it's easy for me to say, because living in the middle of nowhere and with next to no free time I literally can't do anything. And with that, probably best to just set my status back to lurker...

I believe a couple of us will make the trip. Just waiting to hear back from the potential driver, since my wife need's our van. Might be three of us, but probably just two.

@thecravenone in a game where Birds can hold swords, where a Naga is not a snake, where you can have a vehicle drive another vehicle, or one of many other nonsensical situations, this one doesn't bother me all that much...

@Stuart your lack of appreciation is...unfortunate.

@Brass-Man while I agree with you, it's not anything unique to this update or this particular banning/restriction. Their "explanations" are almost always boarder-line nonsensical. I honestly quit reading them years ago, actions are much louder than words anyway.

If there was doubt before (and there really shouldn't have been) but Wizards does not ban or restrict things based on "hard data." I've said that for years, but it just becomes more apparent to me as time goes on.

Sorry I (unknowingly) brought a bunch of dirty Shops players. They even victimized me.

Hopefully we can find time to make another trip at some point.

I haven't played in quite a while now, but I felt pretty sure Abrupt Decay was underplayed 2 years ago and somehow people are less of it now. I think, in general, the more Decays you play, the better your Mentor matchup will be. It's not a silver bullet by any stretch of the imagination, but tagging their Mentor as soon as they play it giving them only minor value off of it is usually a big deal. I like that the above lists play 2, but I think even 3 might be better.

But like I said, I haven't played in a long while and who am I anyway?

@Khahan they changed how Convoke works to line it up with how Delve works, in that both count as "aternate ways to pay mana" but Phyrexian mana doesn't actually count as "mana payed" as far as Trinisphere is concerned. I hate the ruling but that is how it is.

@Lysandros said:

Haha, of course it's not a "job," my comment was tongue-in-cheek. Consider that my poorly worded attempt to see if anyone else had kids or if I'm the old man of the bunch.

I have 5 kids and one more coming in August.

I work a desk job at an oilfield services company right now.

@Islandswamp yeah, same here, the location was really not an issue (in fact, slightly more convenient for me, since my sister lives in Columbus) but the date killed it. Leaving 6 kids on a holiday weekend wasn't an option even if I wanted to (I didn't).

@prn "702.65b The delve ability isn’t an additional or alternative cost and applies only after the total cost of the spell with delve is determined."

"702.50b The convoke ability isn’t an additional or alternative cost and applies only after the total cost of the spell with convoke is determined."

The key here is that both apply after total cost is determined. Trinisphere usually functions to essentially be the final arbiter on what total cost can be at a minimum, but since both Delve and Convoke apply after total cost is determined, Trini has no power there.

Phyrixian mana, however, is a choice made before total cost and therefor is in the demesnes of Trinisphere.

@themonadnomad said:

Strange -- so they changed the text on Winter Orb to work the way that it used to, but the oracle text has not been updated. If they don't update it before the release, wouldn't we have to play the card according to the oracle text?

It should be updated tomorrow, I am pretty sure, once the whole new set gets loaded into Gatherer.

Not that it makes a big difference but I am pretty sure she is Legendary.

Looks like we have three of us making the trip. See you guys Sunday afternoon.

Awesome, I love this. So 2009 (yet not), it's great. I didn't realize that was you who posted the list over at TheSource (we talked a bit about it for Legacy).

I wouldn't mind any of those, although, not really a playmat, I have too many of those already, haha.

I really need to try to make it out to one of these sometime soon, might need a tune-up for the NYSE this year.