Offtopic but me and a team of friends at MIT are developing an online cardgame mmo that draws inspiration from games like Magic (and Chess, Dominion, Starcraft, and League of Legends.) If you have suggestions for how games of this nature can be amazing and/or think games today could be a lot better, feel free to message me at alexwice (AIM or skype) with your thoughts. Thanks.

Pod with Undying is an awesome idea. I played Bant Pod right before Innistrad came out and was sad that it didn't work as well after the rotation. Mentor of the Meek worked really well in it as a replacecment for Seagate Oracle, though I was running two Vensers. He isn't quite as fast, but there isn't a ton of removal in the format at the moment so he should be able to draw you tons of cards a good amount of the time. And Sun Titan with Phantasmal Images is just gross.

Here is a GB version that I threw together this last hour or so. The mana is lol bad right now and I've got to figure out who I want as my main 2-drop, but it seems decent. Mikeaus makes all of our guys insane and the Perilous Myr + Glissa combo is good right now. (Sac Perilous Myr to Pod and get Glissa, the Traitor. Myrs ability resolves killing a creature bring back Myr to recast and B Pod again.) It also has some solid SB options, but I don't have a good plan right now vs ramp. A piece of equipment or two could be solid in this deck. Maybe Bonehoard lol? Kessig Cagebreakers isn't terrible either, though I'm looking for more utility/card advantage.

4 BoP
3 L. Elves
4 Strangleroot Geist
2 Viridian Emissary
1 Perilous Myr
1 Glissa, the Traitor
1 Phyrexian Rager
1 Viridian Corrupter
1 Skinrender
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Acidic Slime
1 Morkrut Banshee
1 Vorapede
1 Primeval Titan
1 Mikeaus, the Unhallowed
1 Massacre Wurm
1 Sheoldred

4 Birthing Pod
2 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Go for the Throat
1 Doom Blade

4 Woodland Cemetery
10 Forest
8 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Kessig Wolf Run

SB:
2 Sylvok Replica
2 Skinrender
2 Ratchet Bomb
1 Tree of Redemption
2 Acidic Slime
2-3 Curse of Death's Hold
2-3 Discard Effects? What's good vs ramp?

Grafdiggers cage is pretty lame. I undestand the need to put in hosers for mechanics that might get out of hand but this completely shuts down flashback for 1 mana with an artifact that is hard for non white control to deal with. The thing that is supposed to keep flashback in line is the flashback casting cost and it's sad to see that wizards has little faith in their ability to properly control the flashback mechanic. Having said that it's hard to see this being too out of control since you would never play 4 of them but trinket mage plus cage seems pretty good now.

Other than that has anyone else been completely underwhelmed but what's been spoiled so far, at least for constructed.

New sets often seem underwhelming IMO.

The "problem" is that we have decades of sets to compare to, and anything that doesn't crush the broken sets like Urza's get filed under 'meh'.

Personally, I really like the new set. Besides, it takes time to realize things like Delver and the crazy Phantasmal Bear(!) are awesome.

I wish every draft would look like this. So fun to play.

There was lots of cool stuff in innistrad. Snapcaster and Lilliana were two that immediately jumped out at me. I am comparing the power level of dark ascension to older more powerful sets but to INN and SOM. having said that there has been some cool reveals since I last posted but nothing that seems like it fits anywhere yet, other than the possible b/w or u/b/w token stuff

Looking to buy some constructed decks via paypal. pm me if you can help

lol awesome. I love that 1/3 of your creatures are Riot Devils.

+1

is it considered cheating/angling/unethical if u watch ur opponents stream? he streamed wo delay FWIW

I don't think so personally. They are publishing it online - I don't see a substantive difference between this and them telling you directly what they have and what they are thinking. That's the risk you take when you stream imo.

The difference would be that one is done fully knowing that the opponent can hear you. There are risks to streaming, but there are also choices to be made by the opponent.

If you can see their hand and they aren't aware that, then yes, it is unethical/cheating in my opinion. It's close to the poker player that flashes you his cards without realizing it. While the streamer makes it possible, the player makes a choice to utilize the information or not. The 'ethical' choice would be to not use it.

However, when streamers (or other players) actively involve others in the thought process and play choices that they are making - that's also not exactly an ethical decision. I watched a guy win a PTQ while streaming and discussing plays with a friend. Would he have done it without the involvement of the friend? maybe, maybe not. I don't recall the extent it went to in the grind. One player to a hand.

GP Boston coming up in August. Anyone going?

How could this possibly be unethical? He's showing his hand to the world, and you're part of the world. Frankly, I'd be fascinated as you can experiment with bluffing ideas among other things to see if they work in a real world environment.

I don't think that's the difference, because if you are streaming you should know that people, potentially including your opponent, can hear you. That's the point of streaming.

lol what of course that's unethical you guys have got to be kidding

No one here wants to sell a constructed deck?I dont feel like putting in the time to research what is good. Just want to buy one and play

You can go to magic.tcgplayer.com, click on the "decks" link, click on the "Standard" link and take a look at decks that have placed in standard tournaments lately. Check out the 4-0 decks from Standard Daily Events and top 8 decks from other tournaments around the world. Illusions/UW Delver/Haunted Humans are pretty good atm and quite popular, fairly cheap to build too, especially if you don't include Geist of Saint Traft or Sword of War and Peace (those are a bit expensive). Red Deck Wins is also pretty cheap.

Then just go to the classifieds on mtgo, search for a card in the deck like Snapcaster Mage, you'll find tons of bots selling them, right click the classified add and choose "trade". A trade window will open and the bot will give you automated instructions for buying from them. There is a search bar in the upper left hand corner of the trade binder so just search for the cards you want, most bots should have just about all of the stuff you want, or you can buy from 2 or more bots. Try to find a bot with competitive prices, add it to your "buddys" list, and just always buy/sell to that one particular bot if possible to get full value for your tickets. You will rarely be able to pay the exact price since most cards don't go for an even amount of tickets (eg. mana leaks usually go for .25 tickets) so a partial ticket after the bot has calculated the total will be rounded up into a full ticket in favor of the bot. But most bots also have a database remembering you and what your credit is with them (eg. after the purchase if the price were 89.45 you'll pay 90 tickets, and it will tell you that you have .55 credit with it).

I know how to trade. Been modo'ing since the original beta test. How much would it run me for a standard deck and a modern deck? Also how often does modern run

I'm thinking about leaving pauper too and try my luck with a non-pauper deck... let's see

Red Deck Wins should run you about 60 I think (two Koths, three or four Phoenixes, four Nobles and a bunch of commons and uncommons) unless I am forgetting a rare. UW Delver/Illusions will be about 100 if you don't run Sword of War and Peace, a little more if you want a couple of those. Modern depends on what you want to play. You can probably get Martyr Proc for like 60 but something like Jund could be like 500. There's stuff everywhere in between. Modern fires frequently.

Modern is the format to play if I want to play early 2000's extended?

Early 2k extended was Revised-7th, Ice Age-Odysseyish IIRC. So no, all that stuff is gone.